EB Preview :: Resources

[eadingas]

Greetings Europa Barbarorum fans. Today we have another download for you to enjoy!

The 0.8 is getting ever nearer to release (now that holidays are over for most of us :), but in the meantime more and more additions are ready to be given to the fans before that glorious moment comes.

We have decided to release the Resources addon to the 0.74 build. This is almost finished work, though we reserve ourselves the right to change some things come 0.8.

We have seriously reworked Resources for EB, to get that extra "historical immersion" factor. The process was twofold: on one side, we have added new models, ui icons and tooltips. On the other, we have added plenty of resource locations to the campaign map. As a result, we got the map more crowded and full of interesting issues than any other mod :)

You will no doubt be most interested in the graphical side of this update. The man almost singlehandedly responsible for this amazing work is one of our prime modellers, Alin, whose other work includes our siege icon and fleet models that you know already. Several other models are also work of our new modellers, Shifty and Palissa. The idea behind these models (and the tooltips) was to represent the resources in a most realistic way possible (given the game limitations and the fact that it's still, for what it's worth, a game) instead of symbolic fantasy graphics. This is a direction that we would like to move in with all our campaign map models, if engine allows it.

Here are some screenshots to explain what we mean (screenshots quality may vary):



Arabia Felix!



Island of Tin... and some more tin... :)



Egypt, the Granary of Rome



Central Europe ain't that shabby, either



A thriving greek colony of Massalia



Fertile volcanic soil of Sicilia

TOOLTIP CONTEST
You will notice that we have new expanded tooltips for the resources in this upgrade. This is where some of you can give us a hand. I have filled some of the tooltips myself, and I'm not very glad of the results - some of these are just copied from wiki, etc. I thought that instead of overworking our staff, I could make a small fan contest: write your own tooltips for resources! The best ones - if they are good enough, and up to our standards - will be included in next build. A tooltip text should not be longer than 150 signs, and should provide historical information about uses of a resource in antiquity.

The resources are:
Small Precious Metal Mine, Large Precious Metal Mine, Iron, Olive Oil, Wine, Grain, Specialized Crafts, Timber, Stone Quarry, Textiles, Exotic Clothes & Dye, Luxury Goods, Wild Animals, Livestock, Slaves, Tin, Copper, Lead, Amber, Precious Stones, Fish, Salt, Mounts (Camels & Horses), Elephants & Ivory

Also in this preview, we have devised a way to show where on the map are our Unique Buildings:

Short FAQ:

Q: These resources are great, but won't they put a too heavy load on my graphic card?
A: They might, although we haven't experienced a significant change in testing. We have tried to keep a low amount of polygons in our models, while still keeping the "realistic" look. This is why you should backup your models_strat directory, if things go wrong you can always revert to the vanilla models.

Q: Some of the resource icons appear distorted, hidden in the ground or stuck in a mountainside. Am I doing something wrong?
A: No, you're not. It's RTW engine that's doing things wrong - unfortunately, resources form the lowest underlay of campaign map, and it was either this, or have them all floating above the ground.

Q: I've installed it all, but the resources are still in the old locations
A: The new locations only show up when starting a new campaign. Deleting map.rwm doesn't help, the old coordinates are kept in savegame.

Q: Some of the resources and/or wonder icons are in the water!
A: For wonders, this is intended, as some of them represent straits or other watery features. For resources - please report them, and I'll correct the locations. This is just a graphic glitch and does not affect gameplay in any way.

Q: The installation is causing various bugs, what do I do?
A: Report them here, and I'll see if I can fix them. Make sure you have ALL the files installed, not just models or just txt.

Q: Why do you have little stone circles all over the place?
A: Those are the new unique building markers. From now on, you will know where unique buildings are located in your province, and for the ones we have on the battlemap (the Pyramids, some of the cairn circles, the remains of Babylon, the Colossos of Rhodos, etc.) you can try (though you might not always be successful) fighting your battles close to those markers so that you can have those monuments show up on the battlefield. Before, you had little idea where the monuments were located.

Q: Well, why didn't you make them vary so that they aren't all one thing, and why did you pick that one thing (stone circle) anyway?
A: The engine won't allow it, unless we use up all our resource graphics for them. We decided to basically throw out the effects of one resource and use it as a generic place marker for these unique buildings. We chose the stone circle because it is a type of monument found across our map, from Scotland to Iberia to Armenia to the steppe. If it seems out of place in some locales (Greece, for instance), we understand this too, but for now this is our best option for marking them.

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Installation Instructions:

SIMPLE VERSION:
- Download the pack here
- Unpack it to your RTW directory

COMPLICATED VERSION (w/ backup)
- Download the pack here
- Backup the following files in your RTW directory:
Data/descr_sm_resources.txt
Data/text/strat.txt
Data/text/tooltips.txt
Data/world/maps/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt
- Backup this entire folder:
Data/models_strat
- Unpack the zip to your RTW directory

ADVANCED INSTALL (for modders):
- If you have made any modifications to your campaign map, and want to keep it, there is a file called "just_resources.txt" which holds just the resources locations code. Copy it into your descr_strat, overwriting everything between "Start of Landmarks Section" and "Start of Factions Section"

Stir, cool and serve. Enjoy!

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As always, if you have questions or comments, the best place to post them is here, where the EB team is most active:

Europa Barbarorum ORG forum

Europa Barbarorum TWC forum

We give special thanks to Imageshack that provides us with a simple, foolproof, and free way to show you all these pictures each week.

Have a great day!


Sincerely,

The Europa Barbarorum team.

(PS: Sticky, please :)

[CountArach]

This is brilliant! I'll download it ASAP!

[Simmons]

Looks good I'll check it out after I have my new system together.

[vizigothe]

Looks neat. Can't wait for .8

[paullus]

anyone else having problems with the download?

[Obelics]

hallo i noticed in the sicily pic that lilibeo and messana have some resources now, while in my test install there aren't, how do i upgrade to this official relase from my test installement?

thanks and great work!

[eadingas]

You'll have to start a new campaign for the resources to appear in proper places.

[Obelics]

ah ok... so my test installement was identical to this? and if i continue my actual campaigns there wont be problems (even if Messana and lilibeo have not resoruces?) thanks.

[eadingas]

IIRC, the only thing that was added since the test was new fish icon for UI and some corrections to tooltips :) It shouldn't interfere with saved games in any way, except you don't get the new locations.

[Obelics]

ok i will keep the whole think as it is until 0.8, thanks :)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I've been playing a saved game (0.8 build) and they aren't showing up everywhere, but I still had no problems with it. But when I did start a new campaign, they did show up everywhere.

We certainly will have tweaking to do with exact placement of the resources though, so don't worry too much about that yet, this is mainly to show you what they look like and to get placement closer to the final goal.

[Obelics]

thanks TA the problem seems to be only in Messana and Lilibeo from what i sayd, while in seems they are resources in the rest of the map, so it is just a small think i can live with...
and as i already sayd, even if just a work in progress think, it is a really great think waiting for 0.8...

[Dram]

this is a really nice touch, improves the immersion factor-esp the tooltips.

just one thing i noticed, when i closed the game after using them, i got a popup error which read: "Generic error- Building level specified does not exist: level 1 of hinterland_precursor2" which i have never seen before.

[Radier]

Very nice! Gives much more life to the map, and now I know where to put my armies so I can see the wonders!

[Oleo]

They look great!!! Makes the map far more interesting.

[keravnos]

All are less than 150 characters, all are historically sound, other than lead, not really sure if there is lead there.

Thank you EB for a fantastic mod. Hopefully I can help a tiny bit for 0.8 to be released.

Here goes

a- Descriptions for EB


Small precious metal mine. Phillip wouldn't be able to fund his conquests if not for gold mines in Macedonia. Bigger is better but every coin counts.

Large precious metal mine. Acropolis was built on proceeds of the silver mine in Lavrio. Precious metals often were a city's main income.

Olive oil is still is one of the best products of the meditteranean, but even more so in the ancient world. Athens built a trade empire on olive oil.

Grain was an imperative need for any would be empire. Rome couldn't survive without Egypt for grain. Without it starvation loomed.

Technically this is the late iron era. Sparta wasn't just brave. It had develloped steel and used it to dominate ancient greece keeping Persians out.

Wine 6 parts and 1 part sea water is how the ancient greeks favored their favorite drink. Pottery was develloped to carry wine and oil around.

Every nook and crany of the Ancient world was a master of specialised crafts, some much more than others. Stone masons of Athens made Acropolis.

In an era of wooden ships and non existent roads, timber became a non sequitur for sea borne expansion and trade. Phoenicia's timber was the best.

To build stone monuments you need stone quarries. Stonehedge was built 385 Km's from its own and every stone had to be carried there.

Egyptian textiles, especially linen to make togas and sails, were very valuable in the ancient world since it had to be handwoven.

Exotic clothes & dye were sought after by women of the ancient world. Porfyra dye, off the coasts of Phoenicia was especially valuable at the time.

Wild animals were the single most dangerous trade item of all, since technically it could bite back. That never stopped Romans, though.

Livestock and meat was scarce in ancient times. That is the reason why Sicily became so higly contested. It had available space for Livestock.

Slaves were something in between tools and domesticated animals. Rome's rise and fall was carried literally on the backs of those people.

Tin was the most obvious reason why Roman legions invaded Brittain. While replaced by Iron, Tin never stopped being used in the era.

Copper weapons were a thing of the past, but not copper use. The best copper mines on that period were located in the island of Cyprus.

Lead was one of the few items that the Barbarians of the North could provide the Roman empire. Many towns were built near lead mines.

Amber could be found in the Baltic sea coast and its trade route towards the Mediterranean was second in imporance only to the Silk Road.

Precious stones, were and are luxurious sought after items. Nubia, India, Scandinavia, and people beyond the steppes traded them.

Fish were and are the basic food source of islands, mostly those of the Aegean, where erosion and farming stripped the land bare.

Salt, be it from salt mines in Germany, or a present from the Mediterranean sun, was invaluable for mainland people and their animals.

Mounts, either horses from Thessaly or camels from Egypt made possible all of the ancient empires. War and trade without them is lost.

Elephants and ivory. Pyrrhus and Seleukus won seemingly lost battles only because of their Elephants. They were found in Africa and India.

Posted also at twcenter.

[Dooz]

See, now, this is why there can be no doubt in anyone's mind, ever, that EB is the superior mod of all mods. Of course you all know what an amazing thing this is EB team, and so does everyone reading this preview, but I will throw in my arbitrary appreciation in there anyway. I love you guys. Seriously. The final version of EB is already guaranteed to be my favorite game of all time.

[Djurre]

Does this effect gameplay? or is this an esthetical add-on?

[eadingas]

Does this effect gameplay? or is this an esthetical add-on?

The new resource locations affect the gameplay significantly. Trade is much more important part of the game now.
Models and graphics are just esthetical.

[CountArach]

Are the gameplay changes in this patch?

I think that we should change EB's motto:
"No source unread, no file unmodded!"

[Foot]

The resources not only represent what can be traded but also how much can be traded. The more resources in the province the more money you make from trade.

Foot

[CountArach]

Woah then Arabia is incredible!

[eadingas]

Indeed. If you're able to get your hands on southern Arabia and control its trade, you can say pretty much goodbye to any financial troubles.

[Zastrow]

Europa Barbarorum never ceases to impress me. If only the games we paid for could have so much attention to detail and care put into them.

Superb work, I shall have to try a Ptolemaic game and go for Arabia!

[Birka Viking]

Realy nice preview EB...Keep up the good work

[Tellos Athenaios]

Looking good! A quick question: will the control or loss of a certain resource trigger something? Like: if I have a hughe city near a region which is mainly responsible for the food exports towards this hughe city and the trade route is broken because I lose the exporting region, this will make me see the population of this hughe city collapse too.

[Foot]

Looking good! A quick question: will the control or loss of a certain resource trigger something? Like: if I have a hughe city near a region which is mainly responsible for the food exports towards this hughe city and the trade route is broken because I lose the exporting region, this will make me see the population of this hughe city collapse too.

No, RTW does not work out trade like that. The only thing you will lose is money.

Foot

[Tellos Athenaios]

In the particular case of grain, RTW did work trade out like that. The resource contributes both to trade income and population growth, (called Food Imports, even in the grain exporting region ), of an area around the resource (generally a few regions). So maybe you could maintain that possibility with the grain resource?

[paullus]

really? i had no idea it could do that, sounds pretty cool. i gotta pay more attention to the trade scroll.

ps--i love the new stuff, it looks real nice (sure there's a few that need to be replaced so they aren't sitting on rivers etc, but for the most part i like em). i wanna start a new campaign to enjoy the resources, but if we'll have .8 in a couple of weeks, i wouldn't wanna bother with a new .74 campaign...

...any help, eb devs?

[Trithemius]

Europa Barbarorum never ceases to impress me. If only the games we paid for could have so much attention to detail and care put into them.

If CA was to produce something like this then they'd need to pay everyone involved for their time. That kind of proposition is pretty unattractive to whoever controls the pursestrings - sadly the "extremely picky military historical geek" is still a fairly small component of their target market and I suspect that the suits have all sorts of statistics that say that spending to increase the level of detail will cost more than the increase in profit brought by a relatively small increase in sales.

We should all just be thankful that folks like the EB Team are committed enough to "give it away for free" and turn commercial released engines into precisely what our small market wants.