Suggestion and Feature Request

[parthian shot]

Hi I haven't posted in a while but I just played a few playthroughs on the mod.

Have you considered trying different eras for the mod? A barbarian invasion one for instance where you have the Amazons on the margins of the Roman Empire, or perhaps in substitution for some factions like the Sassanids/huns, or perhaps even largely doing what they were doing before with the Gorgons once again rushing out of the desert to reclaim their homeland. You could still essentially have the same current map since IMO most of the cities that were important then were important in that period as well. Basically, Amazons causing the fall of the roman empire would be pretty cool IMO. In fact you could present a united roman faction as a sort of ultimate challenge for the player to overcome, whilst obviously the solid rebellion mechanics and the challenge of the hoard would still remain for the roman player; with the others caught in the middle as they are in vanilla BI. I don't know, THE RETURN OF THE GEOTHE or something to that effect.

This is quoting Totalwar14's recommendation for Amazon Total War from the other site.

[bibi]

This is quoting Totalwar14's recommendation for Amazon Total War from the other site.

So you want to do the 450BC thingy?

[parthian shot]

Right! Both Thyssa (now Albanian Amazon) and Geothe by the Caucasus Gates. With massive Hunnish invasion.

Now that we have the multi-campaign capability.

[bibi]

What would the Seleucid be?

[parthian shot]

Don't know! Achaemenid?

Or may be

Parthia -> Massagetae
Seleucid -> Achaemenid
Macedon -> Sparta
Greek Cities -> Delian League w/Athen
Rome -> Rome
Egypt -> Thessaly or Pherae
Scythian -> Scythia
Sarmatian -> Huns
Carthage -> Carthage
Iberia -> ?

[Drakarys1402]

Hi, just moved to the new site. Used to be called totalwar1402 on Total war center forums.

Anyway, Parthian mentioned that you were thinking of moving to another system, either med 2 or Rome 2. Has there been any info about the modibility of Rome 2? Shogun took forever from what I remember. Plus, has there been any hint that female units will be in the vanilla game? This, basically made modding Amazons into the game a lot easier. On the one hand they did this on a pretty thin pretext in Shogun 2 with the Onna Bushi but I don't know if we'll see Screeching Women and pseudo Amazons like the Head Hunting Maidens for any Scythian dlc factions. The Themiskyra easter egg would be cool if they did that again.

About the above mentioned thing I suggested. I get the impression you want to try moving the factions you have in Amazon 8.0 around rather than importing the Amzon factions and map into BI?

It would be difficult to directly transfer a lot of the factions over to 280-350ADish.

Broadly speaking I would guess

-Parthia=Sassanids (or make them Massagatae as you say and replace Sas with an Amazon factions regards territory in Persia)
Armenia=Armenia (they still exist)
Egypt=Palmyra (although technically a third century crisis thing you could still use them to represent the border regions)
Greek Cities- Possibly as a protectorate of Rome, maybe on Rhodes for instance
Seleucids= I am not 100% on this. But, I believe that there was a Greek Kingdom in India and possibly still in Bactra. At any rate, I think the Saka armies from Europa had a fair amount of Hellenic influence. So relocating them there to India could work.
Macedon- The Kingdom of the Bospheros in the Crimea
Carthage-Possibly as the "Berbers" or the people in modern day Morrocco who even in Vanilla BI are not part of Rome. Similar enough for it to stand.
Numidia/Yuezhi- These people were chasing the Saka? Forced them into India? Well, put the Numidians roughly in Saka territory possibly down to Bactra.
The Barbarians are tricky ones- But for the sake of argument, they can suffice to represent the very broad number of german tribes that exist in that period. Some of which were better equipped so the Spanish could stand in whilst those further east would be more barbaric still.
Scythia and Sarmatia-The same, although perhaps the scythians could represent the Vandals?
Rome-Controls a united roman empire. Have to check the year when this was last the case. I think it was 362.


As for the Amazons

-Personally I would have the Geothe as a hoard take the place of the Huns historically. Unless you want to have the Sarmatians with a huge hoarde fill in for the Huns.

-The Thermadon (reds) Amazons I would have take the place of the Goths in Dacia. Basically explain that their homelands in Asia Minor were overran but Trajan failed to conquer them.

-The Gorgons can pretty much remain where they are, threatening Rome in North Africa.

The Thyssa (blues), I am unsure about. That depends on what you would like to do with Parthia and the Sassanids. They could remain where they are. Or, they could also start off as a hoard and replace the Vandals who would start roughly in Poland/Belarus.

In fact I quite like that since those are the big three Barbarian tribes which took down Rome. So Thermadon replace the goths, Geothe replace the huns, Thyssa replace the Vandals. Gorgons stay the same. Just a slight twist on the history and you would just have to move the factions around. Just brainstorming here. :D

[parthian shot]

Welcome to tworg! And thank you for the wonderful ideas.

S2TW is not really moddable, rumor has that CA is continuing that trend, i.e. coming out with an excuse there will be no officially supported mod tools etc. IMO, if that is what they end up doing, it is a big mistake in the long run. Another possibility is that they won't be publishing usable modding tools until 24 months into the Rome II. Because first they need the manpower to stabilize the game, second, it give CA the windows of profit, when the revenue is going low, they would turn to the modding to keep the revenue flowing.
But these are just rumors.

I want to mention that the current 8.0 is already running in BI, it looks like an original RTW, but in reality it is using the BI engine and vanilla models, so the Sassanid are already available.

The reason for the 450BC is because the mod's storyline is based on a book I am writing. Sort of a prequel to the current start campaign at 270BC.

What you suggested looks very interesting, if there is a story too, please feel free to share. You would be credited with it of course.

[Drakarys1402]

450BC? That's, I am just trying to think what was going on back then. So would that be around the time of Darius and the Greek-Persian wars or a little before that? If it was back then then you would have to check that factions like Gaul were repositioned and such since they arrive a bit later I think in their regions. Personally I would use the Parthians to represent the Persians and just put the Greek/Hellenic factions in Greece to represent the city states. I am not even sure if Macedon could be considered a faction back then since I think its before Philip 2. If that's before the Persians conquer Egypt then keeping the Ptolomy would work pretty fine. In fact it might even be before they conquer the greek colonies on Asia Minor so you could put the Seleucids there to explain their general easterness.

According to Wikipedia this was going on in 450BC and it answers some of those questions-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/450BC

Although the bit about Egypt seems at odds with this map

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Expanision.jpg

Bit more context here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...amis-in-Cyprus



I guess I was just suggesting a what if scenario. I think the idea is that in vanilla 8.0 it is canon that the Geothe get all this technology and conquer the world? What I was suggesting as a possible campaign is if, actually, they lost, the Amazons were driven back and history more or less followed the lines it did up until around 363ADish when vanilla barbarian invasion begins with the arrival of the huns. At this point the Geothe are believed to have been exterminated, the Gorgons driven back into the desert and the Thyssa still far to the north of the Sassanids in Persia and the Yuezhi in India. However, just as Rome reels from its stunning defeats against the Sassanids and Goths word reaches the Romans (either united or not) that the Geothe have returned from the far east stronger and more powerful than ever. They have spent hundreds of years in bitterness preparing for the return and now they feel there moment has come to get revenge on the Romans. At the same time, the Gorgons sweep out of the North African deserts in force for the first time in decades and even the Thyssa begin sterring to the North of the Sassanids. For the Thermadon amazons, I am not so sure what role they could play. Technically all their territory lies inside the roman empire. Actually, you could say that like the Sarmatians, the Thermadon were enslaved and partially integrated as auxillia across the Roman Empire. In fact, you would expect them to be deliberately removed from their homeland. However, as the empire weakens, these bands, rebels and traitor auxillia rise up in the Western Roman Empire. So they could be another hoard in Gaul or Spain to represent this rebellion. Taken together these things cause a cascade of barbarian invasions and the Roman Empire is forced to fight for its life on every front as the Geothe deliberately drive these tribes into the empire before moving in for the killing blow.

As well as that I think it would present a very different type of scenario in which two or three large factions control a huge extent of the map and are attacked from all directions. So, if the 450BC thing would be a prequel then a 350AD mod would be a sequel to the main campaign.

[parthian shot]

Parthia -> Massagetae
Seleucid -> Achaemenid
Macedon -> Sparta
Greek Cities -> Delian League w/Athen
Rome -> Rome
Egypt -> Thessaly or Pherae
Scythian -> Scythia
Sarmatian -> Huns
Carthage -> Carthage
Iberia -> ?

This is why I had this posted earlier. Because it has to do with the book, so it is not as much as the history that is written by men but the anthropological story to show what was it like in pockets of matriarchal societies.

Because the book is not out yet, it may not be what you have suggested as far as the mod's prequel is concerned.

But what you have said could be your own sub-mod, or your own campaign. We have now made it much easier to add a new campaign to the current one. So once the campaign is created, it is easy to integrate or add the new campaign separately.

[Drakarys1402]

I am just downloading the latest version of the mod atm. When I checked the export desc on a previous version it didn't seem to have any units or factions from barbarian invasion. Is there a campaign custoimiser on the campaign menu to help with this or do you have a tutorial to explain how your editor works?

I know how to mod starting positions for factions, buildings on the strat map, starting armies and such; so that's no problem. It would mainly be a question of getting the W+E Roman Empires, the Sassanids and a few others into the game; with all their units. Do you mean that if I type in that there is a Western Roman Empire faction in the desc_strat in the custom campaign folder the mod will automatically get the relevant data files from the barbarian invasion folder to add units, banners, skins, etc?

Incidently, do you have a note of the co-ordinates of all the towns I could borrow?

[Drakarys1402]

BTW I think the wiki mentioned that there was an Egyptian revolt around 450BC. So you could just have Egypt as Egypt.

[parthian shot]

I am just downloading the latest version of the mod atm. When I checked the export desc on a previous version it didn't seem to have any units or factions from barbarian invasion. Is there a campaign custoimiser on the campaign menu to help with this or do you have a tutorial to explain how your editor works?

I know how to mod starting positions for factions, buildings on the strat map, starting armies and such; so that's no problem. It would mainly be a question of getting the W+E Roman Empires, the Sassanids and a few others into the game; with all their units. Do you mean that if I type in that there is a Western Roman Empire faction in the desc_strat in the custom campaign folder the mod will automatically get the relevant data files from the barbarian invasion folder to add units, banners, skins, etc?

Incidently, do you have a note of the co-ordinates of all the towns I could borrow?

The units are still there because it is a mod-switch folder, it is not active in export_descr because most of the BI units are kept out to accommodate the Amazons mod for the time period of 270BC. If you look closer, many horde unit from German, Parthian, as well as Armenian factions are actually the units from BI.

Th towns have different names in the time frame you are talking about, so you have rename them yourself. The coordinates are in the descr_strat.txt.

[parthian shot]

BTW I think the wiki mentioned that there was an Egyptian revolt around 450BC. So you could just have Egypt as Egypt.

The Eqypt in Amazons Total War are Ptolemaic Egypt, so it would not work verbatim in 450BC.

[Drakarys1402]

Right, I've managed to set up a custom campaign which works. I've moved Rome and "Parthia" to their relevant positions around 360AD. When I tried adding Sassanids as a playable faction in desc_strat (replacing Parthia for faction count) just to check if the faction logo would change to show a Sassanid one. However, it didn't and it actually didn't show any factions in the list below the Sassanids. Is there some way of solving this? Do I have to give them a full entry on the desc_strat in order for it to register as a faction? Just type as if I am modding the vanilla BI desc_strat and it'll do the rest to add Sassanids and W/R romans?

edit- Had a go trying to add the Goths into the game. Deleted macedon. Copied and pasted the strat entry from vanilla BI, added as a playable faction, made sure armies put in correct place on the strat map and deleted any rebel armies or other versions of the settlement (its the same entry at any rate). Didn't come up as a playable option and the mod won't start. Do you have any ideas what the issue might be?

[parthian shot]

Right, I've managed to set up a custom campaign which works. I've moved Rome and "Parthia" to their relevant positions around 360AD. When I tried adding Sassanids as a playable faction in desc_strat (replacing Parthia for faction count) just to check if the faction logo would change to show a Sassanid one. However, it didn't and it actually didn't show any factions in the list below the Sassanids. Is there some way of solving this? Do I have to give them a full entry on the desc_strat in order for it to register as a faction? Just type as if I am modding the vanilla BI desc_strat and it'll do the rest to add Sassanids and W/R romans?

The BI faction along with West and Eastern Empires were disabled to accommodate the RTW factions. Enable them back probably won't help because of the limitation of number of factions the game engine can allow.
You probably already aware that Sassanid is just a screen name, yo could grab any faction, and say Britons and display it as Sassanid.

[Drakarys1402]

Even if I've removed Macedonia on the desc_strat? I guess I could just rename them. I wasn't sure if you were suggesting it was possible to literally put the BI factions and units into the game. So in order to add BI units I would have to go and mod the desc_buildings to make it so that Parthia could train Sughdian warrior or the germans Saxon units?

I guess I'll put all the barbarians to represent the Germanic tribes. Have the Yuezhi be the Kushan Empire and just delete a lot of the Hellenic factions. BTW is renaming a faction just a case of adding a semi colon after the playable faction in the desc_strat and writing the new name?

I've finished up for the day. But, planning wise my thoughts are...

SPQR-Roman Empire
Egypt-Meroe/Ethiopia. I noticed that you added those new female african units to the egyptian army so it would make kind of sense.
Yuezhi-Kushan Empire (which acc to wikipedia the second is just a continuation of the first)
Parthia-Sassanids
Germans-Saxons
Britons-Celts
Gauls-Franks
Spain-Alemmani
scythia-vandals
sarmatia-sarmatia
seleucids- Palmyra
armenia-Not in the best of places atm...

Still toying with what to do with the Amazon factions in my head. Ideally they would start off as hoardes to get them to grips with Rome early on. I want to have them to be facing threats on all sides just like in vanilla BI.

edit-Oh got the thing working again.

[parthian shot]

Even if I've removed Macedonia on the desc_strat? I guess I could just rename them. I wasn't sure if you were suggesting it was possible to literally put the BI factions and units into the game. So in order to add BI units I would have to go and mod the desc_buildings to make it so that Parthia could train Sughdian warrior or the germans Saxon units?

I guess I'll put all the barbarians to represent the Germanic tribes. Have the Yuezhi be the Kushan Empire and just delete a lot of the Hellenic factions. BTW is renaming a faction just a case of adding a semi colon after the playable faction in the desc_strat and writing the new name?

I've finished up for the day. But, planning wise my thoughts are...

SPQR-Roman Empire
Egypt-Meroe/Ethiopia. I noticed that you added those new female african units to the egyptian army so it would make kind of sense.
Yuezhi-Kushan Empire (which acc to wikipedia the second is just a continuation of the first)
Parthia-Sassanids
Germans-Saxons
Britons-Celts
Gauls-Franks
Spain-Alemmani
scythia-vandals
sarmatia-sarmatia
seleucids- Palmyra
armenia-Not in the best of places atm...

Still toying with what to do with the Amazon factions in my head. Ideally they would start off as hoardes to get them to grips with Rome early on. I want to have them to be facing threats on all sides just like in vanilla BI.

edit-Oh got the thing working again.

Relating the Sughdian warriors, there are many limitations on units, you can not have all the units, unless like you said the change is to modify the base files like EDU and DMB which would makes this project of yours a sub-mod.

If that is the case, you should start a sub-forum and discuss over that sub-forum because this forum is for the currently planned changes and features.

[-Nietzsche-]

Well, there is no special thread for congratulating you on developing this really impressive mod - so let me do it here :-)
Great Job!

Some cents to the topic:
Generally spoken, the further you go backwards in Time, the closer you get to the Matriarchies whom all the ancient Sagas revolve around. Most of these Cultures flourished in the late Stone / early Copperage (yupp, that's wayyy backwards LoL)... and that is a problem, because we simply haven't got enough archeological data for drawing a precise picture of the life there. Even in Iliad times we would have some issues, cash for example LOL
Money hasn't been invented, so, how you gonna "pay" an army?
The Era you are talking about currently is a lot better for Playability and with more than enough historical data - but it can only be played on a "what if" scenario, because all of the great Matriarchies had arleady vanished a long time ago.
The Thermodon-Iris-Delta-Cultures packed their bags and went east (this is a loose hypothesis of mine. They propably ended up in Mazandaran, a Province of Iran, where they are still today. According to historical data, they kept their way of life until ca. 1500 a.d. (!), and a lot of Battles were recorded in that time, either with or against these "Amazons". Mazandaran means, loosely translated, "Land of the Female Devils") and the Libyans simply faded away.
By the way:
Personally I doubt that the Libyans can be identified as Gorgons. I have a thesis that the early Minoan Culture is the basis of the ancient sagas of the Gorgons. If you take a look at all the Findings of the Minoan Culture, things become quite creepy...
It once has been a Matriarchy with a weird fetish for Snakes and it is archeologically evident that they ritually slaughtered captured young men of other cultures.

Again, congratulations on this fantastic mod. Don't forget to post where one can order your Book when it's finished.

Yours,
Nietzsche

[parthian shot]

Thank you for your encouragement! And welcome to TWorg.

Just so happened that two of the team mates (myself included) are involved in the archaeology and anthropology, so we do have a list of problems using the current game infrastructure for 450BC.

The current mods are based on the theses I have developed, and they are based on digging and developmental information from these digging in Russia, China, Mediterranean, Central Asia. But since I am not an expert of Masandarani, I am not aware that is the translation of the region. Traditionally, it was held that Masandaran means "valley demarcated by mountains", some would state more specifically that Masandaran means "Land of the mountain Mawz". So if you can provide your source, that would be very helpful. Of course, I ran into the Red Sonja comic character when I did research for this mod, and the character is supposedly from Hyrcania, the larger geographical area that includes the Masandarani territory. So you are not alone in thinking she-devil is from that region.

The interesting part is that Masandaran is rather famous for its axes and lumber business, the entire district within Masandaran was named Tabaristan, or land of lumber jacks. And Amazons do favor axes more than sword.

The part where the Amazon and Masandaran did not quite match is the lack of equestrian activities in that region, like the whitepaper I wrote and recorded first in rtw.gameheaven and later in TWC (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forum...azon-Total-War), Greeks were impressed with the Amazons because the Amazons are all equestrians, and their names, whether these are nom de guerre or not, are mostly associated with horses. To a patriarchal infantry based military, a matriarchal cavalry with mobility and stand-off capability must be shocking and left a lasting impression. As one of my theses stated since the ancient horses are mostly 12 hands high, most men can not ride such war mount, which are really glorified ponies, and made the force as mobile and agile as women can.

I do agree that Greek, being often incorporating other culture's themes without naming sources, would add the Minoan goddess culture as part of their own collection of legends. So Gorgon is quite easily an adaptation of the Minoan Goddess Cults.

Please help us by provide us rating on ModDB, we are under attack by pirates who once tried to hijack our mod, and also by Muslim group who dislike the mod.

[-Nietzsche-]

Nice to read that you really know what you are talking about :-)
Muslims? So sad, the Zoroarstrism wasn't that succesful. We would have a lot less Problems, I think. I'll have a look at ModDB the next days. How can someone hijack a mod everybody already knows that it is yours? Well, jealousy is the most honest form of admiration ;-)
To Mazandaran:
I've had a chat with some Iranians about the Mazandaran-Article in National Geographic some time ago. I just repeated what they told me, so it ain't rock hard evidence. They also told me that "Hamazan" does only mean "Woman" in Iranian Language (as far as I remember) - not "Female Warrior" or something like that.
Generally, greek writings are a nice source, but I do have my problems with them, though...
The earliest Time most of the Sagas & Legends were written down was somewere around 600 or 500 b.c. - a time, all these Amazons were long gone. And, to be frank, the findings in Russia from that period are just the sad, few Remains of a once glorious Civilisation. So, within the greek writings one can find a lot of details that are, let's say, not overly historically correct. Best example is the "Cutting-off-one-breast-Thesis": The Greeks (and ONLY the Greeks) had a ridiculous way to shoot a bow. They pulled the String to the middle of their chest. A woman can't do that - so they thought, they had to cut off one Breast for shooting a bow. This technique is complete rubbish, let that be told to you by someone with years of Historical-Bow-Shooting-Experience ;-)
Another thing is, that most people think that bow-shooting wasn't that effective unless you've got a giant heap of archers on the field. If you are interested, look out for "Lars Andersen" and "Fast Archery" in youtube. You really won't belive what you see - but it's real

P.S.:
Do you know if someone is digging around in Poliochni right now?
Most people say that it was a matriachial Society, also - but noone said, why they think so...

[parthian shot]

Nice to read that you really know what you are talking about :-)
Muslims? So sad, the Zoroarstrism wasn't that succesful. We would have a lot less Problems, I think. I'll have a look at ModDB the next days. How can someone hijack a mod everybody already knows that it is yours? Well, jealousy is the most honest form of admiration ;-)
To Mazandaran:
I've had a chat with some Iranians about the Mazandaran-Article in National Geographic some time ago. I just repeated what they told me, so it ain't rock hard evidence. They also told me that "Hamazan" does only mean "Woman" in Iranian Language (as far as I remember) - not "Female Warrior" or something like that.
Generally, greek writings are a nice source, but I do have my problems with them, though...
The earliest Time most of the Sagas & Legends were written down was somewere around 600 or 500 b.c. - a time, all these Amazons were long gone. And, to be frank, the findings in Russia from that period are just the sad, few Remains of a once glorious Civilisation. So, within the greek writings one can find a lot of details that are, let's say, not overly historically correct. Best example is the "Cutting-off-one-breast-Thesis": The Greeks (and ONLY the Greeks) had a ridiculous way to shoot a bow. They pulled the String to the middle of their chest. A woman can't do that - so they thought, they had to cut off one Breast for shooting a bow. This technique is complete rubbish, let that be told to you by someone with years of Historical-Bow-Shooting-Experience ;-)
Another thing is, that most people think that bow-shooting wasn't that effective unless you've got a giant heap of archers on the field. If you are interested, look out for "Lars Andersen" and "Fast Archery" in youtube. You really won't belive what you see - but it's real

P.S.:
Do you know if someone is digging around in Poliochni right now?
Most people say that it was a matriachial Society, also - but noone said, why they think so...

Poliochni? I was on the Island of Lemnos back in 2006, the hypothesis is that the society is so egalitarian, and the warrior's stature so petite, including equipment used are for people with slim wrist, it got to be a matriarchal society.

[Balgeron]

Hello

I posted at the download in Moddb of new version, if you will be making Barbarian Invasion Campaign - i actually thought you are already set for it, and its gonna happen. But i now see it was just suggestions here.

I also read that you would try it, but it seems like its in the original game - with Parthia , Armens, Carthage ? What about Barbarian Invasion campaign? (is the BI campaign using the same template just with some new things? that factions are also replacements, like Burgundians or Saramatians instead of Averns and Scythians?)

If i may put out some brainstorming - hopefully it will help.

First of all, the campaign even though it would be alternate timeline, due to Amazon involvement during Rise of the Empire time - i think that it should still focused a lot on religions and nation migration like the BI campaign did.

So the Amazons should have all Camilla religion (i think this cult is pretty much strongest across all of the factions) as opposition to Christiansy and Paganism (Thus it could take Zorastriam place? Or maybe a new type of religion, if such thing is possible to make instead of replacement)

However not all of the Amazons should follow it as well - we should definitely have at least one Pagan Amazons and maybe even Christian one.

So one of the scenarios could be (i don't write all of the factions, as there are many minor ones like Burgundians, Roxolany, Visigoths, etc... that can be replaced for something new)-

*Civilized Factions(Cannot HORDE)*

Rome still expands, screw the Gauls, but Caesar still gets owned and all the chance of expanding to the north east dies with him. Rome conquers pretty much the same thing like in actual history, but with different enemies. It eventually turns to Christianism and split up on eastern and western part.

Here could come some changes - Eastern Empire could be change into Amazon like faction or mixed one(after absorbing Thermodan Amazons/maybe even Lybian amazons). With Empress instead of Emperor. They would still be Orthodox christiansy(in BI, they had some other faiths as well - greek/egypt gods? - so maybe Ares or Artemis as options to it? or maybe replace the Orthodox faith with Camilla sect), but their unit roster would contain both amazons (Female Knights now?) and some man units as well. Their units should also use Thermite (or now Byzantium fire? - just like later Bizantium empire did)

Western Empire would stay pretty much the same with Catholic Christiansy and utilizing many advanced tech units - such as War Wagons, Carriages, Mobile Siege Towers draw by Elephants, or Balistas on Elephants (Something like Timurid has in ME2, but not with Cannons), Auxilery units, super heavy Decree Ships and mercaneries.

Romano-British - should be a separate faction - led by Witches of Avalon instead - they would be something like Teutonic Order from Teutonic Campaign of ME2, so that they don't have regular family tree and patricians, but instead are Sisterhood (Geothe are like that, though i am not sure if it can be made to a Teutonic Order degree). They would be Pagan faction of Amazons (still with some few male units, but no Gral Knights and such, as they are not Christians anymore) - Morgana could be the first High Priestess to start with! ;-D

Sasands - should probably still stay the same, though if Zorastriam is replaced, maybe some other faction could replace them as well - like Far East Celts that would survive till this time (maybe not Pagan, but some other faith as well - Orthodox one).


*Barbarian factions(Can HORDE)*

Alemari, Saxons and Franks should remain same, as they held back empire spread through out middle Europe. But with some new units (both female and non female, as women were more equal in this societies then in Rome for instance - the Screaching Women should be brought back, and some bloodthirsty amazons/barbarians as well) - all of them Pagan factions.
Alemari and Franks are mainly enemies with Rome, and Saxons are still poised to strike again Romano-British (now Witches of Avalon).

Thyssagate Alliance - would replace Saramatians, and held the north eastern parts of Europe. They would be dedicated Orthodox religion (with some pagan options for Kybelee and Demeter?). They would be more 'Vikking girls' this time around, with more focus on ground units - heavy spearwomen, Agema axewomen, Billwomen, and still had naked;-) Finnic Amazons , with no mounted archers(THIS should be very unique thing, and not everyone should have it, not even some amazon factions) or elephants.(Its cold, brrrrr)


*Horde starting Factions*

Huns should be mixed with Geothe Amazons, and come like some heavy-nuking shit. Geothe priestesses, being defeated by the alliance of Scythians, Saramatians and Thyssians run to the east and swore revenge upon them and all of the world. There Geothe would killed Attila during his march to the east and usurped his power. Then replaced his paganism worship with bloody Camilla sect, that would allows you to sacrifice prisoners of war and population to improve the happiness of people (Some units should require certain amount of religion in the region to be buildable) - This would be similar to Native Americans in ME2 Kingdoms campaigns. They should also get a new name (don't know yet - or maybe just Geothe) - they would start as Horde faction at the eastern borders of Europe. Their units should be some advance things of what the Geothe Amazons have now (Priestess Guard, Cathaparact Archers, Pathfinders, Balista Elephants), still with the heavy focus on horses and cavalry that comes from Huns.

Can't think of more right now (Something with Vandals damn!), and have to go back to work... That's just some ideas that came to mind.

BTW - NO need to create 200 units for each faction, even few 10-15 is enough, just make each more unique and special.

[-Nietzsche-]

@partian shot:
You begin to impress me a little bit LoL
I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.

One thing I never bothered in modding tw beforehands:
Bow-Shooting-Speed.
As I already mentioned, bows in ancient times could be shot much faster than we are all used to in tw. Is it possible to swap the "set the arrows on fire"-Button with a "Shoot as fast as you can"-Option?
This might change the way to use Archers in the game dramatically. If we could drop the time used to shoot one arrow down to a second (that's fast, but not not even near something like a world record), this would instantly stop even the thoughest armoured unit from doing anything else than taking cover.
If we do the math, it becomes pretty obvious: A bunch of just 50 Archers can spill out 500 Arrows within 10 seconds...

[parthian shot]

That looks like a very interesting plan. Thank You Balgeron!

The only problems I see right now are two slight issues

1. Each campaign folder can only change the map, the troop locations and who are leading them.
Campaign can not change religion, for example, when this mod was created in 2008, it disabled Christianity
Campaign can not add new types of troops, so to bring back Saxons, Huns, and Franks can be done but it will impact other campaigns

2. Since Christianity is already taking foothold in Europe, what we need is the story line to make the new campaign believable. I really like the Viking girl part, but the whole thing needs to be refined.

Hello

I posted at the download in Moddb of new version, if you will be making Barbarian Invasion Campaign - i actually thought you are already set for it, and its gonna happen. But i now see it was just suggestions here.

I also read that you would try it, but it seems like its in the original game - with Parthia , Armens, Carthage ? What about Barbarian Invasion campaign? (is the BI campaign using the same template just with some new things? that factions are also replacements, like Burgundians or Saramatians instead of Averns and Scythians?)

If i may put out some brainstorming - hopefully it will help.

First of all, the campaign even though it would be alternate timeline, due to Amazon involvement during Rise of the Empire time - i think that it should still focused a lot on religions and nation migration like the BI campaign did.

So the Amazons should have all Camilla religion (i think this cult is pretty much strongest across all of the factions) as opposition to Christiansy and Paganism (Thus it could take Zorastriam place? Or maybe a new type of religion, if such thing is possible to make instead of replacement)

However not all of the Amazons should follow it as well - we should definitely have at least one Pagan Amazons and maybe even Christian one.

So one of the scenarios could be (i don't write all of the factions, as there are many minor ones like Burgundians, Roxolany, Visigoths, etc... that can be replaced for something new)-

*Civilized Factions(Cannot HORDE)*

Rome still expands, screw the Gauls, but Caesar still gets owned and all the chance of expanding to the north east dies with him. Rome conquers pretty much the same thing like in actual history, but with different enemies. It eventually turns to Christianism and split up on eastern and western part.

Here could come some changes - Eastern Empire could be change into Amazon like faction or mixed one(after absorbing Thermodan Amazons/maybe even Lybian amazons). With Empress instead of Emperor. They would still be Orthodox christiansy(in BI, they had some other faiths as well - greek/egypt gods? - so maybe Ares or Artemis as options to it? or maybe replace the Orthodox faith with Camilla sect), but their unit roster would contain both amazons (Female Knights now?) and some man units as well. Their units should also use Thermite (or now Byzantium fire? - just like later Bizantium empire did)

Western Empire would stay pretty much the same with Catholic Christiansy and utilizing many advanced tech units - such as War Wagons, Carriages, Mobile Siege Towers draw by Elephants, or Balistas on Elephants (Something like Timurid has in ME2, but not with Cannons), Auxilery units, super heavy Decree Ships and mercaneries.

Romano-British - should be a separate faction - led by Witches of Avalon instead - they would be something like Teutonic Order from Teutonic Campaign of ME2, so that they don't have regular family tree and patricians, but instead are Sisterhood (Geothe are like that, though i am not sure if it can be made to a Teutonic Order degree). They would be Pagan faction of Amazons (still with some few male units, but no Gral Knights and such, as they are not Christians anymore) - Morgana could be the first High Priestess to start with! ;-D

Sasands - should probably still stay the same, though if Zorastriam is replaced, maybe some other faction could replace them as well - like Far East Celts that would survive till this time (maybe not Pagan, but some other faith as well - Orthodox one).


*Barbarian factions(Can HORDE)*

Alemari, Saxons and Franks should remain same, as they held back empire spread through out middle Europe. But with some new units (both female and non female, as women were more equal in this societies then in Rome for instance - the Screaching Women should be brought back, and some bloodthirsty amazons/barbarians as well) - all of them Pagan factions.
Alemari and Franks are mainly enemies with Rome, and Saxons are still poised to strike again Romano-British (now Witches of Avalon).

Thyssagate Alliance - would replace Saramatians, and held the north eastern parts of Europe. They would be dedicated Orthodox religion (with some pagan options for Kybelee and Demeter?). They would be more 'Vikking girls' this time around, with more focus on ground units - heavy spearwomen, Agema axewomen, Billwomen, and still had naked;-) Finnic Amazons , with no mounted archers(THIS should be very unique thing, and not everyone should have it, not even some amazon factions) or elephants.(Its cold, brrrrr)


*Horde starting Factions*

Huns should be mixed with Geothe Amazons, and come like some heavy-nuking shit. Geothe priestesses, being defeated by the alliance of Scythians, Saramatians and Thyssians run to the east and swore revenge upon them and all of the world. There Geothe would killed Attila during his march to the east and usurped his power. Then replaced his paganism worship with bloody Camilla sect, that would allows you to sacrifice prisoners of war and population to improve the happiness of people (Some units should require certain amount of religion in the region to be buildable) - This would be similar to Native Americans in ME2 Kingdoms campaigns. They should also get a new name (don't know yet - or maybe just Geothe) - they would start as Horde faction at the eastern borders of Europe. Their units should be some advance things of what the Geothe Amazons have now (Priestess Guard, Cathaparact Archers, Pathfinders, Balista Elephants), still with the heavy focus on horses and cavalry that comes from Huns.

Can't think of more right now (Something with Vandals damn!), and have to go back to work... That's just some ideas that came to mind.

BTW - NO need to create 200 units for each faction, even few 10-15 is enough, just make each more unique and special.

[parthian shot]

@partian shot:
You begin to impress me a little bit LoL
I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.

One thing I never bothered in modding tw beforehands:
Bow-Shooting-Speed.
As I already mentioned, bows in ancient times could be shot much faster than we are all used to in tw. Is it possible to swap the "set the arrows on fire"-Button with a "Shoot as fast as you can"-Option?
This might change the way to use Archers in the game dramatically. If we could drop the time used to shoot one arrow down to a second (that's fast, but not not even near something like a world record), this would instantly stop even the thoughest armoured unit from doing anything else than taking cover.
If we do the math, it becomes pretty obvious: A bunch of just 50 Archers can spill out 500 Arrows within 10 seconds...

Or have each archer shoot more than one missile per volley?

Like you touched on a bit, the issue I see is the AI, AI would not let the troop to "take cover", to start, that animation sequence is not part of the skeleton hierarchy. Nor will AI have the knowledge to use it.

So more destructive fire power will only make the enemy to be "eaten away" faster, a point many comments are already noting, it is too "one sided".

Our current balance is not trying to make the game one way or another, I simply timed the cycle for each type of missile to load the weapon. So unless there is a bug, the reload speed is as realistic as we can get it.

I have asked BB to look into open source game engine which can replace Rome Total War, we have made some progress, with help from the Darthmod people. But we are waiting for Rome II to come out to decide if we should go with

1. Rome II
2. M2TW
3. Open source

With open source, we can definitely have the AI equipped with the intelligence of taking cover, among other maneuvers to make the game more complete.

[-Nietzsche-]

Jupp, you are right - the AI has had some issues, always. A "Fast-Shooting-Option" in the Game would be like an "Erase-this-unit"-Button... and the amount of work requried to include fast shooting is way too much for just optimizing a little detail in the game.

[Balgeron]

I understand now. Thanks for explaining the limitations to me, parthian_shot. That means that you cannot make a new religion(will have to use existing - Christians Catholic/Orthodox, Zorastrian and Pagan). What about those things like Sacrifices (Like Aztecs from ME2) and having both male and female leaders (i am not sure if that is even possible). Ill try to come up with something within those limitations, and also if it would impact other campaigns - then maybe it would be better if it has its own folder?

As the same units from the Rise of Empire time shouldn't appear again during its fall - some evolution-progress should happen.

[parthian shot]

I have been circulating your idea with our section leaders, so it really got me thinking.

What if we create a separate BI folder? which would have all the new BI units plus the Amazons?
To run the new BI-Amazons, the player would have to change the property field and re-start the game.

Looking at your last comment, for RTW and BI, no it is not possible to have the opposite gender leaders in the same faction at the same time, the same faction can have two shadows images, an event would come along and load different shadow image to make the faction all males, or all females, but not the same time.

I understand now. Thanks for explaining the limitations to me, parthian_shot. That means that you cannot make a new religion(will have to use existing - Christians Catholic/Orthodox, Zorastrian and Pagan). What about those things like Sacrifices (Like Aztecs from ME2) and having both male and female leaders (i am not sure if that is even possible). Ill try to come up with something within those limitations, and also if it would impact other campaigns - then maybe it would be better if it has its own folder?

As the same units from the Rise of Empire time shouldn't appear again during its fall - some evolution-progress should happen.

[Drakarys1402]

Hi Parthian.

Apparently there have been a few Creative Assembly statements about Rome 2 being moddable on its release (I think). If this is the case do you think your team would be attempting a version of the mod on the new engine?

I haven't heard anything about them putting female quasi-amazon units in the game like vanilla total war. Although there is that odd bit of promo art with the woman on the galley (I think its Cleopatra but not sure). Would you still be able to deal with things like audio and creating new skins if they weren't in the game. If they were anywhere I would expect them to be in the nomadic culture pack dlc which will include the Royal Scythians, Roxolani and Massagatae. Obviously with Shogun it was relatively easy to add lots of variations of Onna Bushi into the game once the base unit was in as I understand it.

So hyped up for that game being released. Nearly died when the Seleucid DLC was announced. Fav faction is playable :D!

Anyway I was just wondering where your teams thoughts were on the mod and if you intend to replicate the factions, units and weapons on this version. Or if you intend to try things differently. At a broad guess you could replace some of the factions with amazons pretty easily such as Pontus-Amazons, Roxolani- Geothe, Thyssa-Massagetae. With horde being gone I am not sure what you could do with the Gorgons. I suppose if they add a numidian playable DLC later they could be put on the map that way.


ps I am amazed how many aspects of the game seem to have been directly inspired by Europa Barbarorum. Especially with the individual tribes and the map scope.

[parthian shot]

Hi Parthian.

Apparently there have been a few Creative Assembly statements about Rome 2 being moddable on its release (I think). If this is the case do you think your team would be attempting a version of the mod on the new engine?

I haven't heard anything about them putting female quasi-amazon units in the game like vanilla total war. Although there is that odd bit of promo art with the woman on the galley (I think its Cleopatra but not sure). Would you still be able to deal with things like audio and creating new skins if they weren't in the game. If they were anywhere I would expect them to be in the nomadic culture pack dlc which will include the Royal Scythians, Roxolani and Massagatae. Obviously with Shogun it was relatively easy to add lots of variations of Onna Bushi into the game once the base unit was in as I understand it.

So hyped up for that game being released. Nearly died when the Seleucid DLC was announced. Fav faction is playable :D!

Anyway I was just wondering where your teams thoughts were on the mod and if you intend to replicate the factions, units and weapons on this version. Or if you intend to try things differently. At a broad guess you could replace some of the factions with amazons pretty easily such as Pontus-Amazons, Roxolani- Geothe, Thyssa-Massagetae. With horde being gone I am not sure what you could do with the Gorgons. I suppose if they add a numidian playable DLC later they could be put on the map that way.


ps I am amazed how many aspects of the game seem to have been directly inspired by Europa Barbarorum. Especially with the individual tribes and the map scope.

That is exactly what we are waiting for, that is, to evaluate the Rome II as a whole as see how suitable it is to migrate the Amazons Total War over to that platform.

Our inside source says, they have women admiral (Admiral Artemisia of Caria? as in naval battle of Salamis, but that is not time period correct), which means that we don't need the idiotic gender flip we have to do in Rome I, also, the same source said something about female units as every single TW titles released except Napoleonic Total War all had female units.

We have quite a few R&D units and features which were not feasible in Rome I, also Gorgons had their own territory in the non-BI version of the game (3.0 and 5.0), so it is fairly easy to add Libyan Amazons to the new platform.

Never played EB before, so I can not compare the two myself. I do feel the Rome II map was very very similar to what we have.