Can't get the idea of this mod off my mind...

[caravel]

Well, just a couple of questions at the moment...

1) How modifiable are religions? I mean, I'm aware that it is possible to relogo and rename Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Islam and Paganism - but what about Judaism and Heretical Cults? Can they be used at all? I'd assume that this is possible, but any factions that use relogoed and renamed versions of those two religions would have to use building and unit review panel graphics, for example, from the Catholic, Orthodox, Islam and Pagan folders - or something like that?

While Heretic and Judaism exists as relgious type I don't think you can have Heretic or Jewish factions. Agents can be made to propogate heresies. I modded spies to do this as a side effect to their usual loyalty boosting abilities. I also pondered on rebel only jewish rabbis to add flavour but never got around to doing them.

I'm not sure about extending the map. @YLC: Is your map within the scale of the vanilla map or is it actually larger in terms of x and y?

[Kaidonni]

YLC>The map for that mod looks just about right. Very similar area to RTW. Of course, I was hoping myself to extend the map southwards so I could get in Numidia, but since as this is MTW, not RTW, that would be for me a) a waste of provinces and b) create too vulnerable a faction. But then again, it might not do those things, as looking at the map for your mod there is room at the bottom for Numidia, without extra extension southwards.

I was, of course, looking to add the Baelaric Islands into my mod, and make the campaign map a little more colourful. But thanks for telling me about the map, I'll ponder on it.

The number of factions I'd want for my mod are something to consider, especially in light of the 107 province limit. I'd have to locate provinces properly...you don't mind if I save a jpg of the 800x600 map from DATW (from the link in the thread where it shows a zoomed out map), do you? I was thinking of calculating roughly where the provinces could be added, and how it might affect the province limit, in Photoshop.

EDIT: Nevermind...just checked an old thread in the RTW forums here at the .org - vanilla RTW had 101 provinces, and with swapping some provinces around because of room and adding extra ones in, that's more than enough. I'll have to ask the team of RTR if I could take a peek at their map and if I can base part of mine off of it, amalgamating it with the vanilla RTW province layout. Should be fine, though. Of course, still want the Baelaric Islands present, but going southwards...not certain about that. Omitting Numidia might be wise, I dunno.

I also reconsidered culture. Here is my preference as follows if there are only 4 slots:
1) Catholicsm > Roman
2) Orthodoxy > Hellenic
3) Islam > Barbarian
4) Paganism > Middle Eastern (amalgamation of Carthaginian, Egyptian and Eastern)

The reasoning behind the swapping of Islam and Paganism in terms of what culture they'd be renamed and relogoed as is simple - I will include the Papacy as the Roman Senate, and have Crusades as special Senate Missions. This means agents to increase zeal in Roman provinces is to be a feature. AND since as Islam allows Jihads, converting it to represent the Barbarian factions will allow me to use the Jihad function as a sort of 'Horde' or 'United Battlefront' option, where the barbarians all join together to fight a common enemy for a short time, to reconquer annexed lands (a bit like Boudicca (sp?) or Vercingetorix (sp?)).

PS: I hope I didn't offend anyone by stating my intention to relogo and rename the Islam religion as the Barbarian culture set. I only did so because I can now use the Jihad function of the game and rename it to allow the barbarian factions to band together against their enemies. If I did offend anyone...sorry, but tough luck, if I implement the use of this feature, this is the only way it can be done - unless there's a way to allow the converted Paganism religion to use such a feature (in that case, Islam would be converted to the Middle Eastern culture, and Paganism would be used for the Barbarian culture).

[ULC]

You can use Judaism and Heretical Cults for a religion, as I am in DATW (I'm the script writer). The problem is both lack cultures, which can be a problem. You can work around this by setting them up with any other culture, you just have to remember what you assigned them. For example, the Steppe factions in Dark Age are heretics (Steppe Culture Type) with a pagan culture, and they work fine. They properly spread their own religion, through time, agents and buildings, but EVERYONE hates them, thus they at least appear to be on the move. Just a note, Judaism is not as hated.

When using said religions coupled with a different culture, remember how this can effect unit recruitment, and also remember to add the lines "Place Culture Here"_CULTURE after the end of every unit you give them in the Startpos file. It works for me, but ask Macsen, he did with his Israelites in Ancient Total War, which you may be able to get a few ideas from.

[Kaidonni]

Technically, by culture, I was referring to what I'd rename and re-logo the religions as. Sorry if I confused anyone. But thanks for the tips on the other use of culture in MTW. :)

At the moment, I'm still considering whether or not to go ahead with the mod, while working out certain features. It's the investment of time that concerns me, what with trying to get out of laziness and procrastination where my animation is concered. Of course, I could work on the mod at times when I'm not animating...

I've so far formulated the way 'Religion,' converted to 'Culture,' would work:
-There'd be 6 'Cultures' - 1) Roman, 2) Hellenic, 3) Barbarian, 4) Egyptian, 5) Eastern, and 6) Carthaginian;
-Agents and buildings (possibly will allow temples and other special buildings if they can be destroyed whenever a rival Culture takes a province) will not spread Culture - only by owning a province can it be spread;
-The Roman Culture will be converted from Catholicism so I can use the Papacy, renamed, to have some sort of reign over another faction, a playable Roman faction, in the form of Senate Missions, replacing Crusades (but working exactly the same);
-This playable Roman faction will be able to request such Senate Missions on non-Roman territory - so, for example, if you hate those pesky Carthaginians, and want to show them what's what with a nasty army, the Senate might 'endorse' a special mission to invade;
-The Islamic religion will be converted to the Barbarian Culture so the Jihad system can be used in the form of 'Horde' missions in which barbarian peoples join together against a common enemy and try to retake annexed land;
-Zeal is no longer useless under this system, so special agents will be used to increase zeal in provinces.

As for the factions...here is a possible list I've been working on (generic placeholder names only at this point), along with the culture set (R=Roman H=Hellenic B=Barbarian Eg=Egyptian Ea=Eastern C=Carthaginian):
1) Roman Senate (SPQR) R
2) Army of Rome R
3) Epirus H
4) Greek City States H
5) Kingdom of Macedonia H
6) Seleucid Empire H
7) Ptolemaic Empire Eg
8) Pontus Ea
9) Armenia Ea
10) Parthia Ea
11) Illyria B
12) Scythia/Sarmatia B
13) Galatia B
14) Tribe to represent Gaul B
15) Tribe to represent Germania B
16) Tribe to represent Brittania B
17) Tribe to represent Iberia B
18) Picts B
19) Carthage C
20) Numidia C
21) Etruria H (if they were Roman, they'd also be tied to SPQR, which I don't want)
22) Kingdom of Pergamum H
23) Rebels

The above list is along the lines of what I'd prefer...

As for time span, preferred beginning is 280BC, preferred ends would have been either 79AD (when Vesuvius erupted) or 117AD (when the Roman Empire was at it's greatest extent). However, I am considering RTW's 14AD, as I don't like the idea of too many turns. 359 or 397 just seems far too many turns. 294 is a more comfortable number. Oh, and 280AD is a preferred start date because of Pyrrhus of Epirus - gotta have him. 295BC, another preferred start date, deprives me of adding him in just the way I want him - ready to either get a butt whupping off of Rome, or to, well...not make his name in history how he did...

[caravel]

You can use Judaism and Heretical Cults for a religion, as I am in DATW (I'm the script writer). The problem is both lack cultures, which can be a problem. You can work around this by setting them up with any other culture, you just have to remember what you assigned them. For example, the Steppe factions in Dark Age are heretics (Steppe Culture Type) with a pagan culture, and they work fine. They properly spread their own religion, through time, agents and buildings, but EVERYONE hates them, thus they at least appear to be on the move. Just a note, Judaism is not as hated.

When using said religions coupled with a different culture, remember how this can effect unit recruitment, and also remember to add the lines "Place Culture Here"_CULTURE after the end of every unit you give them in the Startpos file. It works for me, but ask Macsen, he did with his Israelites in Ancient Total War, which you may be able to get a few ideas from.

That's good to know. So do your heretic Steppe factions have their heretic piety showing on their generals' info parchments in the correct form?

And this brings me to the next part. If religion were to be used as "culture" then how would piety still be viable? Perhaps piety could be seen as how much of a true Roman your general is as well as loyalty to the people/faction? Currently a pious general is the best choice of governor for a pious province. This could work as for example a "true Greek" being a better governor to "true Greeks" but a poor governor to non Greeks? Yes I think that would work well.

On the subject of jihads it's a doable idea but you might have a problem with them being spammed if they're too easily available. Also they'd be rather ahistorical as they were in MTW anyway. I'd also keep the Muslim relgion and culture as the Cathaginian/Eastern/Egyptian culture and not use it for the barbarians. They would be better as the Pagans. I'm not sure but I think you can probably mod Jihads to be used by other religions anyway, as they're not linked to a papacy like entity in the same way crusades are.

[ULC]

Yes they do. Although they no longer refer to piety but ethnicity (best I can come up with, if anyone else has any Ideas...back on subject!) and I have changed the wording so it makes sense, always thought it was funny to have a pious heretic for some reason, and I have changed the icon as well.

I PM you some links Kaidonni, hope their helpful. I would love to see this mod, I really hope you get it done. If you need anything just ask.

[Kaidonni]

Thanks for the links, YLC.

At the moment, for provinces, I'm considering a balance between vanilla RTW province layout and a little from one of the realism mods (primarily for extra regions here and there).

I really have six provinces spare to use in this mod, but if I use DATW's map, it might be wise to omit one of the Egpytian provinces on the south of the map, Thebais, from RTW. That way, I have seven provinces to play about with - gonna remove Malta and replace it with Baelaric Islands, and one of these seven provinces goes to become Corsica. One for the north of the British Isles. Leaves me with five...perhaps one to Norway/Sweden, leaves me with four... I could then proceed to split two of the provinces in Asia Minor, perhaps one in the Steppes, and add Ancona on to the Italian Peninsula, between Umbria and Apulia.

Now whether or not I can split Sicily into three provinces is something else. If only two, it again gives me another province to play about with and relocate. AHHH! Remembered, I have to decide between Sparta or Corinth as a settlement on the Peloponnesus - so that definitely means I relocate one province in that case (I'd rather have Sparta). Athens definitely remains, and hopefully I can add most of the other Greek provinces from RTW in, with the exception of perhaps the province of Thessalia (might need to relocate it as another province).

All comments on this are welcome.

[caravel]

To split Sicily you'd need to use a magnified sub map, otherwise it'll get too tight and crowded. You need to be able to fit several army stacks, several agents, titles and the fortress into the available space. The Pocket Mod map has a problem with Tripoli being too small. To fix this I would probably have to either increase it's size or use a modified maptex.tga with a sub map - which I'd rather avoid.