Suggestion and Feature Request

[-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I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.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]

@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I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.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.