Ancient TW2: Eastern Empires

[macsen rufus]

Yes, this project is going forwards again!

When complete it will have the three campaigns listed above, namely:

• Rise of Persia (Early)
• Conquests of Alexander (High)
• Wars of the Diadochi (Late)

The current Alexander campaign in Ancient v2.53 will be updated and improved; I'm now working on the Rise of Persia and laying the groundwork for the Diadochi.

I plan to release a beta install soon, with RoP and Alex scenarios - when Diadochi is finished there will be a full release.

Some tasters for Rise of Persia:

Faction list:

• Macedonians
• Athenians
• Gandharans
• Spartans
• Illyrians
• Persians
• Egyptians (26th Dynasty)
• Ionian Greeks
• Thracians
• Argives
• Scythians
• Medes
• Lydians
• Neo-Babylonians

Troop types and recruitment tidied up considerably from the original Alex campaign. Elite troops and bodyguards in particular will be severely restricted (usually to the historical capital province only)

And now for the eye-candy:

Starting faction locations





A quick preview of Lydia





If I get really ambitious I'll do a new front-end, too, to distinguish it from ATW1 (Bronze Age) and ATW3 (Roman)

[macsen rufus]

Busy day today, trying to remember all the old graphics tricks needed for unit icons and so on... anyway, successfully created three new units, so I think I have the hang of things again.

Here you can see some Median Heavy Cavalry (Medes' 'royal' unit) along with some Parthian Cavalry giving a bunch of Hyrcanian Hillmen very sore heads:



There have also been some other minor changes: I decided Carmania should remain with the Medes, and not go straight to the Persians from the beginning. So the Persians now begin the campaign as a one-province wonder. I think I need to turn down the economy a bit - the factions don't seem to be 'hungry' enough at the moment...

[dimitrios the samian]

Mac ! ... Good to hear & see you succeeded .
Those figs & shields look great .
I look forward to trying out the Persians especially beginning with one province .
re; the other factions not being ''hungry enough'' maybe you can have a separate startpos just for the Persians
I enjoyed my campaigns with them in HTW ....... im all for play testing them & helping out with the balancing required .
cheers

[macsen rufus]

A quick in and out today, only got a few minutes....

Been working on the Gandharans today, as I thought their unit roster was a bit sparse (1 chariot, 1 archer unit, 1 spear unit, 1 horse archer and war-elephants, as well as the slingers and miners that every faction gets....)

I've now added some more

A quick taster here:




Ratheza: Indian chariots - royal unit
Isvasa: basic archer, but can hide in the open - short bow (** new **)
Paramesvasa: now made more elite (means 'excellent archer' in Sanskrit) - longbow
Zaktika: spears
Zaktigraha: light lancer cavalry, fast but fragile (** new **)
Azviya: horse archers
Khadgadhara: swordsmen (** new **)

Not shown:
Kalpita: war-elephants

also in planning are: Prasika (javelins), Parzava (axes), Zula (pikes) and Yuddhanauka (faction-unique warship)

They've also had a few offices added. Whilst play-testing I had a chance to watch the other factions... Persia got the idea and attacked the Medes; Babylon, Lydia and Egypt have all expanded; and Illyria and the Scyths are slugging it out. Athens has taken the lead in Greece. Most imprerssive was that the Egyptians have worked out how to sail around Arabia to attack the Persians in the back

Still got lots of ideas I need to enact, so will be busy for a while yet. I should have a beta sorted before too long, Dimitrios, I'll let you know as soon as

[dimitrios the samian]

Well done Mac ! ...great research .
I'll get a file of Indian names ready if need be , as I noticed a deadly duo the Yuvaraj's showed up !
Will the Kadgadhara Unit have only 25 ?
Take yr time & when ready , i'll be onto the beta pronto .
cheers for now
D

[macsen rufus]

Hi Dimitrios,

This army had a few beat-up units from previous battles, though some are fresh. For the record, unit sizes which are reduced here are: Khadgadhara (100), Ratheza (80) and Azviya (96)

I think the two Yuvaraj's just like to hang out together - they don't meet a lot of people with the same name - my Indian name list is over 620 for the males...

Anyway, last night I got the Prasika javelin unit working, and accidentally conquered three more provinces by chasing the Scyths around in attempt to test them in battle! They are a very weak unit, basically young boys and peasants. They have less ammo than most jav units, low morale and unit size of 80. They are faction-unique, and like the Isvasa, can hide in the open.

In the process of testing the Prasika I discovered that both the Takabara and Persian Archer animations were fighting with no melee weapons visible, so that got fixed too

The research isn't really rigourous, I'm using the principle that if there is a word for it in Sanskrit, it's fair game to make the unit

I'm going to try and put the last two units together now, the pikes and the axes - I think these will make up for the weakness of the skirmishers... I'm thinking I might have Varmavat Zula (roughly 'armoured pikes') to make up for lack of shields.... anyway, more later

[macsen rufus]

And here they are:

Armoured pike and axemen, the Varmavat Zula and Varmavat Parsava




Some battle stats (I was just beating up some rebels to try out the new unit icons...):




And finally, the complete Gandharan roster, as available in the capital province:

[dimitrios the samian]

In the process of testing .......... I discovered that both the Takabara and Persian Archer animations were fighting with no melee weapons visible, so that got fixed too
....... >> I'm using the principle that if there is a word for it in Sanskrit, it's fair game to make the unit

Great news & good work all round Macsen !
In the past i also noticed many "Hellenic glitches" .
A few days ago whilst playing HTW , I also noted the Skythian Light Cavalry on the battlefield .
They are in the HTW (Bowmen) folder & have vanishing shields & weapons & the bow animations are out of sinc .
I have noticed in your screenies that popular bif ? Textures/Men/PlateS bif will once again be heavily used .
In that bif , the Archer firing has a glitch in plate 11 .....check it out please .
Im currently putting sandals on them & thickening up the bow & i would like to redraw 11 being the mid motion between 10 & 12 ofcourse .
cheers for now