ES Vol. V|Iss. II: The Rookies' Nook, M2TW Graphics Card Tweaking, AAR

[therussian]

The Eagle Standard


Editor's Welcome

Hi there all. Welcome once again to the SS Eagle Standard. I apologise for not releasing an ES issue last week, but I was gone for the weekend, which took me by surprise, and it could not be helped. However, I'm hoping to make up for it by bringing you all a great issue today! With the return of many former Eagle Standard writers, including Hex Khan, selenius4tsd, and Ippius, as well as the recruitment of Leonidas the Lion, the Eagle Standard has never been busier. The personal subforum is a vibrant contrast to the stagnant subforum of a month ago. But still, if you want to join the Eagle Standard crew, don't hesitate. We'll take all the help we can get.


Anyway. Let's move on to the issue. Today we're bringing you an interview with the Rookies' Nook leaders, bubka and tommo_312, an article from the Org's Gahzette, about maximising your graphics card for M2TW, the continuation of my Sons of Drest AAR (by the way, are the MTW AARs getting boring? I want an honest answer), and the Picture of the Week, which has finally begun to pick up the steam a bit

Bulgaroctonus interviewing bubka and tommo_312, co-founders of the Rookies' Nook

What is the Rookies' Nook? A nook for rookies' perhaps?

The Rookies' Nook, as you have brilliantly concluded, is a nook for the rookies - somewhere to retire to and do some modding without fear of getting told off by the team leaders for being clumsy (I am not saying the team leader always does tell off people for being clumsy, but in the Nook he definitely won't).

Are you yourself a rookie?

Well, if somebody refuses to call me a rookie, it must be from the other side (ie thinking that even a rookie is expected to know something) for I came to know what a descr_strat was only three days ago! But since then I've been rather busy, and I have done a small tutorial. Now I have a fairly good idea of how the descr_strat works, and thus for many other files. (On another note, how was the tutorial?)

Hehe, no idea. Anyway.....ehem.....moving on. What projects do you have in mind for the Rookies' Nook?

Work on our first mod - a Romano-Egyptian campaign mod, where a wronged Roman family flees to Africa, is adopted by the Pharaoh, and come back with Egyptian armies to avenge itself on Rome - is well under way, and we are looking for interested new modders to join us. This is a small mod - it may or may not have a new map (tommo likes the Mundus Magna map), it will have one new unit (a Romano-Egyptian general unit on chariots), and one new faction - the Romano-Egyptians.

Our second will be a fantasy mod. It is the idea of the other co founder, tommo_312, and he says he has drawn up 13 elaborate factions, with all new units and maps, making me a bit apprehensive. He has kept the plans secret till now. I think you should ask him about it.

And with that, we momentarily switch gears and question tommo_312 about this secretive project. What are these top secret plans that bubka speaks of?

Bubka has said top secret, to be honest they aren't at all, I just haven't elaborated to him yet because we are busy on another mod right now. The plans entail new factions, a map, all new units, new cultures and buildings: it will be a total conversion with little of vanilla RTW left. I will release the faction previews when mine and bubka's Romano-Egyptian mod is done and we move on.

But anyway, the fantasy mod takes place in a world called Tarakur, previous to the events of the mod was a period called the Migration. The Kurksian Empire (a playable faction) enter the map not unlike the Parthians and drive the nations from their homeland in a domino-like fashion. The Kurksians are a strong military empire with a colonization policy like Rome. Their are horsefaring nations such as the Ruvanii with horse archers and lancers. The Verdana, a tribal confederacy with a brutal history. A northern tribe called the Fimbolc, savage warriors who must raid and fight to survive. A desert tribe called the Dunell who raid their neighbours' trade routes to live plentifully.

As you can see there is a diverse selection of factions and their units will be reflected in this. The Kurksians have a prototype legionary, the Ruvanii have composite bowmen on horseback, the Verdana heavy shock units of axemen armoured in spiky armour to inflict as much damage as possible (scythed chariot-like).

There will be two religions and only two cultures - East and West. The religions will be Paganism of the south-west and shamanism of north-east.

Anyway the storyline. As I mentioned the Migration shuffled the factions around the map forcing them to adapt to the new climates and warfare, thus diversifying the units even more. Every faction must destroy another faction to win even in a long campaign. All the factions have their own story which forces them to war for example: princes spurned, king murdered or trade cut.

I will post a faction preview of the Ruvanii in the Rookie's Nook.

What is the basis of this mod? What inspired you to make it?

I suppose the success of LOTR FA was a good inspiration but it does go deeper than that. When I was about 12, I'm 15 now, I set my heart on writing fantasy novels and this is one of the worlds I created. I already have a really good storyline for another so I thought there'd be no harm in using this as a basis for a mod. I like the idea of having a RTW style game but without the restrictions of historical correctness, liike the unit armoured in platemail that has chains attached to it with blades on the end, causing as much damage as possible just by spinning.

That's awesome. I wish I had the perseverance to write a book...well, you heard (or rather, saw) it from tommo_312 himself. Now we return to bubka, who has impatiently waiting the next question.

So, back to the concept of the Rookies' Nook: do you allow anyone to join, from no modding experience to mod-master? How does that work?

Theoretically, we allow anyone to join - we are not barring anyone of course. But mod masters, if they do join, will not directly take part in the modding (that will be against the whole purpose of this, see?), rather they'll constitute something like an advisory board for the Nook.

Besides modding, do you also have learning sessions that help teach those in your ranks how to mod? I think that the University would be a great opportunity to expand your ranks and expertise.

We can be a bit more organized once we have a good strength. I am planning to provide something like certificates in various aspects of modding, so that Nook graduates can easily get to important positions in large mod projects without having to prove themselves or something. Once some of us get enough experience, we do plan to have learning sessions, and the University will be a great idea, thank you. But our first target will be to successfully complete our first mod: Aegyptus: Total War (name courtesy tommo )

And in closing, if you could describe the Rookies' Nook in 10 words, how would you describe it?

I am not much into describing things in 10 words, but I'll try, only I'll be a bit liberal about the bounds:

God said, let there be innovation, and there was The Rookies' Nook!

Haha, well, good enough, I suppose.


Here is a new preview of Aegyptus Total War, just released by the Rookies' Nook, made by Caligula I.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Anyway folks, that's it for this interview. A big thanks to bubka and tommo_312 for the interview, and make sure to check out, or even JOIN!, the Rookies' Nook, because we all know that there are rookies out there, yearning to mod and be part of a mod team.

Don't forget to check out the Rookies' Nook's very own FORUM, where you'll find threads like the Rookies' Nook FAQ and General Discussion, the Mod Suggestion Thread, and most importantly, the SIGN UP THREAD!

Farewell, for now!

Medieval 2: Total War – How to get the most from your graphics card

by BlackAxe, of the Gahzette

Nothing ruins a good battle in a total war game more than when you zoom out to move your troops and you get a massive drop in your fps. Such is life in the world of total war with all the fancy shading effects and high texture options turned on. Sometimes, though, you just don’t have a choice; after all, that MX 440 just isn’t as good as it used to be. The following guide will go over just how to get the most out of your graphics card without sacrificing performance.

I will be using a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 at stock speeds. Why this card? Well, it’s all I have on hand right now and it represents a mid-low range card and it isn’t one of the new generation cards either.
First things first, start up Medieval 2, open the options page and open the video settings. Now the basics are right in front of you, but this just isn’t good enough, after all, we are looking for the best looking graphics with acceptable performance. Hit the “advanced options” check box and a whole slew of options will appear before your eyes. Now, at first it may seem overwhelming and you may not even know what some of the options do but I will explain what each one does and what to set them to, not only for a mid-low range card, such as the 6800, but also for low end cards and high end cards.

*Note, this guide will not go into the highly technical and complicated details of each option but rather describe each one in an easy to understand way and what I think is the best way to set each option to based on the graphics card alone.

The “Show Advanced Video Options” allows you can tweak many of the graphics options to your liking.

The first option you will see is “Shader Version”. There are currently three different shader versions. Each version builds upon the other by adding new and improved lighting and shading effects. It is always better to use the latest and greatest shader version if you seek the best looking graphics, but many times this puts quite a stain on the graphics card and you sometime have to sacrifice looks for gameplay. Any “modern” card will be able to run with Shader Model Version 2, but if your card is under the minimum system requirements, version 1 is highly recommended. I could go into the really technical details of the different shader models, but in-game screenshots get the point across much easier.

Here you can see that shader model version 1 has no shadows at all. This doesn’t look as nice, but definitely doubles my frame rate, which is a plus. Personally, I like to have shadows as seen below.

Here you can see that shader model version 2 adds shadows and shading to the units and trees. There is a large performance hit when using shader model 2, but the shadows add so much more realism to the game.

The next two options are battle map resolution and campaign resolution. These two options are pretty self explanatory, as they adjust the size of your screen on the battle map and on the campaign map. I prefer to run both on the same resolution, but lower resolutions on the battle map will increase performance the smaller you go, ex: 800x600 would run much better than 1280x1024 on a medium-low end card. Resolution changes on the campaign map don’t make much difference as the campaign map is not that graphically intensive as the battle map.

Next we have Anti-Aliasing. Anti-Aliasing(AA) is one of the more noticeable options you can tweak. You can go from having lots of “jaggies” to everything looking smooth as silk. Anti-aliasing basically takes rough “pixilated” edges and “smoothes” them out to look more realistic. Ideally no one needs anything above 4x AA, especially at high resolutions (above 1280x1024) unless you have a really beefy graphics card, such as an 8800GTX. But to increase performance and have fewer “jaggies” I recommend running at least 2x, especially if you are running resolutions below 1280x1024. If you have a really low end card, you probably should turn anti-aliasing off to get the max performance out of your card. Again, I can go into lots more detail about anti-aliasing, but screenshots will do much more justice.

As you can see, there are lots of “jaggies” on the walls, buildings to the right and on the units defending the walls. In the distance the siege equipment is kind of garbled due to all the “jaggies”. This is no AA.


Here you can see that there are minimal “jaggies” on the walls, buildings to the right and on the units defending the wall. In the distance the siege equipment is much easier to see. This is with 4x AA.

Next we have another very noticeable item: antistrophic filtering (AF). This is another big graphics tweak that makes a huge difference when it comes to textures, such as the brick on a wall. Basically textures are enhanced to look sharp and clear when AF is turned on. The difference between, per say, 2x and 16x is how far in the distance the texture is enhanced. Obviously, 16x is ideal, but this will provide a large performance hit than 4x would. I recommend using 4x with a mid-low range card and if you have a really low end card to use either 2x or none at all. Again, screenshots to show the difference much better than mere words.

Here you can see that the cobblestone paved wall blurs out real quick the closer it gets to the tower. You can’t see much detail past the first few men on the wall. This is 0x AF


Here you can see a little bit farther, almost double what you could see before. This is 4x AF.

Here you can see all the way to the tower, detail and sharpness the whole way. This is optimum since it gives the best graphics but it comes at a large performance hit. This is 16x AF.

The next two options are V-sync and widescreen. All v-sync does is limit your frames per second (fps – how many times per second the picture is redrawn by the graphics card on the screen) to the same as your monitors refresh rate. Ex: 60hz refresh rate would limit your fps to 60fps. Now you may ask, what if I can’t achieve 60fps in m2tw with my 6800? Well, v-sync will go down to the next refresh rate that coincides with your monitor, such as 30fps or 15fps. The point of v-sync is to eliminate tearing when scrolling across the screen. It is very hard to get a screenshot of this, but basically its like chunks of the screen get left behind for a split second and you can see part of the new frame between the tear. It’s quite annoying personally, so I always have v-sync on, but v-sync may shave off a few much needed fps if you are using a low end card. 3-5 fps makes a big difference with you are only running at 10fps to begin with. It’s mostly personal preference on v-sync.

As for widescreen, basically, if you have a widescreen monitor you have to have the widescreen box check otherwise your units and such will look squished or stretched, which is highly undesirable. If you don’t have a widescreen monitor, leave this option unchecked. This option does not affect performance in any way.

Next we have unit, building, vegetation, effects and grass detail. Most of these options are personal preference as to how nice you want one to look and how not so nice the others will look. It’s really a balancing act because if you turn unit detail to highest that takes lots of performance and so you might have to turn the grass detail down. Unit detail only affects what your units look like in the game. The higher the setting the better your units will look. I set my unit detail to high. Building detail affects how nice your buildings look. Personally I set building detail to low on my 6800 because I am focusing more on the units that I am on the buildings and buildings seem to really take away from performance. Vegetation detail is trees and bushes you see on the battle map. I set mine to high because there seems to be little effect on performance with it either on high or on low, and the trees look much better on high than they do on low. Effects details are dust, dirt, arrows, fire, and smoke in the game. The higher the setting the more dust and smoke you will see in the air and the better it will look. Grass detail is how much grass you can see on the battle map. The higher the setting the more grass you will see but also how far into the distance you can see the grass. Grass seems to affect performance in a moderate way. I have my grass on low, but if you have a low end card you may want to set it to off.

Campaign shadows is the next option. Unless you have a really low end card, leave this option turned on otherwise you won’t have shadows on the campaign map.

Next we have Texture quality and shadow quality. Texture quality is how high of resolution the textures in the game are. The higher the quality the better everything in the game will look. I use medium texture quality for my 6800. Shadow quality is how nice the shadows in the game look. Shadows have a huge impact on performance. The higher the shadow quality the worse your performance will be. I use low quality shadows. If you have a low end card it would be best to turn shadows off. One note: If you are using shader model 1 then these two options will be grayed out and you cannot adjust them.

The next option is brightness. The slider bar adjusts the brightness in-game only. If you are having trouble seeing things or everything seems a bit dark and dingy, slide the bar to the right. For most people default should be fine.

Lastly we have bloom and reflections. Bloom is a controversial issue as to how much it really adds to the game. Some people can tell the difference and others can’t. It’s mostly a personal preference. I have bloom turned on because I think it adds to the game’s realism. Basically bloom adds some advanced lighting effects to the game. Such as early morning or late afternoon the sun will give a bright glare off of your units instead of the units just absorbing the light that is shined onto them if bloom was off. Bloom tends to put a small dent in performance but depending on how many units are on the field and what time of day it is will also have a large effect. If you have a low end card, leave bloom off. Below you can see the difference between bloom on and bloom off.

Here you can see how there is a bright glow from the morning sun off of the knights and the surrounding landscape. This is bloom on.

Here you can see that the knights don’t have a bright glow on them and the landscape isn’t as bright. This is bloom off.

Reflections are glints off the armor and swords and off water. This seems to have no affect on performance from what I can tell, so you might as well leave it on, unless you have a very low end card, then you may notice a difference in fps with reflections off.

Congratulations! You have officially “tweaked” your graphics for Medieval 2: Total War to give the best looking graphics while still having an acceptable level of performance. Good luck with the pillaging!
--------------------------------------------------------

Bulgaroctonus here. I just want to thank sapi of the Gahzette for letting us use this article for the Eagle Standard.

Moving on...

After Action Report



Presents:

Sons of Drest
by Bulgaroctonus

Parts I, II, and III of "Sons of Drest" found HERE,HERE and HERE
Part IV

King Alpin

The sudden death of King Constantine momentarily jarred the Kingdom. His eldest son was a mere 17 years old, and had little experience in both politics and warfare. Still railing from the civil war that had gripped the highlands during his father’s reign, the newly crowned King Alpin II had a long agenda.

His first military order was to send Lord Giric with an army of 7,000 into Laigin, in Eire, to crush the Irish army. It was a great victory for the Scots, who killed more than 13,000 enemy troops, while losing 4,500 themselves. With the defeat of the Irish in Laigin, it seemed that Eire was finally unified. However, in 930 there was a large Irish rebellion in Connacht, and the garrison in that province was totally annihilated. It was not until 936 that Lord Bethoc of Ulster was able to pacify the rest of Eire, and then go to Connacht and put an end to the rebellion. In the year 936, Eire was officially unified, and it would stay unified for centuries to come.

Meanwhile, the situation with the Picts in the north was getting dire. Raids into the Dal Riatan Kingdom were growing more frequent, and Alpin decided to put an end to them. Once things in Eire were all well, Lord Bethoc crossed into Scotland with an army of 5,000, accompanied by Prince Angus, who commanded 4,000 men, and prepared for confrontation. In 945, Lord Bethoc’s and Prince Angus’s combined armies marched into Pict-controlled Cait and confronted King Talroc V. There was a small skirmish, but instead of committing all his forces, Talroc decided to retreat.

The following year Lord Bethoc invaded Orcades, the last stronghold province of the Pictish kingdom, with an army of 8,000 men. King Talroc V commanded around 10,000 men. The two armies met at the foot of a mountain on the shore of the North Sea.

The fighting was intense, and after several hours of fighting, the enemy left flank broke. With the enemy left broken, the Scottish right flank was able to come down the mountain and charge into the backs of the enemy Picts.

The main body of the enemy army began to flee, but the royal family, who had been fighting in the centre for the whole battle, were encircled, and fought to the very last with their bodyguard. At the end of the day, the land between the mountain and the sea was scattered with bodies. Of the original 10,000 strong Pictish army, 6,600 were killed, and 1,500 were taken prisoner. Lord Bethoc lost approximately 2,000 men in all. With this stunning victory, the North was finally unified.

Alpin could finally turn his sights towards the rich grasslands of the South. But his time on the throne was over. In 949, his 40 year reign came to an end when he fell sick and died. During his reign he was able to finally unify Eire and the North, and pave the road to expedition and conquest of the Southern lands. He was succeeded by King Artgal III. A year later, Alpin’s finest general, Lord Bethoc of Ulster, also passed away.

King Artgal III

Artgal had a plan, and that was to follow in his father’s footsteps. With this in mind, he sent Lorth Girig on an invasion of Mercian controlled Lothene and Beornice in 955. At first all seemed well: the Mercians fled the provinces, and the Scots had relative control of them. However, in 957, a large force, numbering 20,000 strong, commanded by the Mercian king Leofric I, marched into Beornice for a counterattack. Lord Girig was outnumbered by more than 10,000 men, but he decided to meet King Leofric.

The two armies met to the south of a small village; Lord Girig had set his army up on a hill to take offset King Leofric’s advantage in numbers. The two armies collided into a swirling mass of men

The Scottish left flank began to waver under the furious Mercian onslaught, and eventually broke and fled. At the same time, the Mercian centre was defeated, and the Scotsmen in the centre of the line were able to quickly turn and face the Mercian right head on, avoiding being flanked

Meanwhile, the Mercian left flank had been able to push through the weakening Scottish right flank, but the sudden death of King Leofric in the centre disorganised them, and the Scots were able to put them to flight. The fighting had gone on for several hours, and Lord Girig had lost many men, but over the horizon, Lord Girig saw a large contingent of Mercian reinforcement, apparently left behind by King Leofric as a rearguard.

So, with his severely depleted army, Lord Girig once again took on a defensive position to meet the oncoming enemy. After a short period of fighting, the Scots were able to rout the enemy Mercians. They did not pursue the too far, since they were exhausted after hours and hours of fighting

The battle had been long and hard fought. The Scots under Lord Girig had killed around 14,000 enemy Mercians, captured 3,000, and lost 7,500 of their own men. The Scottish army, which had numbered around 10,000 men, was reduced to a mere 2,000 men. It was a great victory, but it came with a great price

This horrible defeat broke the Mercians’ spirits. The following year a ceasefire was brokered, and there was peace in the Kingdom of Dal Riata. During this period, Artgal began a military buildup with the next greatest power in the Isles: Wales. They had control over much of Western Angleland, and Artgal eyed this land greedily. In 971 there was war between the Saxons and the Welsh, and Artgal used this opportunity to break ties with Wales and become allies with the Saxons (which would come back to bite the Scots later). Artgal’s dreams of invading Wales did not come to fruition. In 972 he died, and the crown was inherited by King Constantine II, who would begin the invasion of Welsh territory in 991.

Picture of the Week

Lately the PotW has become Picture of the Fortnight, but a new victor has been found, and the winner of the long awaited Potw 61 is [user=mortain]mortain[/user], with his pic "One on One".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A great picture, devoid of any marring editing. Congratulations, and I hope we see more great stuff from him in the future.

Also, the vote for PIcture of the Week champion of POTW 62 is going on now. It's a tough race between yaelthecruel, Prof, and Kalos, so get in there and VOTE!

PotW 62 Vote, Here

That's all for this week's issue of Eagle Standard. Make sure to tune in next week for awesome interviews with Lusted, and Professor420!

[Hex Khan]

you forgot to mention the destruction of the wretched AAR cage, which is cause enough to rejoyce, either way nice issue

[Leonidas The Lion]

great issue.
Great work.
BTW when will the next one be published.

[therussian]

Next sunday

[deRougemont]

Ahhh, MTW. *pines*

[Atterdag]

Amazing work!

Keep it up!

[Yuri]

Is that a picture of M2TW Kingdoms? Looks amazing.

[therussian]

Yuri: which picture? the Picture of the Week? I'm pretty sure it's not, since it's user submitted.

[Yuri]

Yes i meant that picture of the week. Didn't recognized the unit to the left and thought it could be a new unit.

But now it looks like a polish noblemen to me. I should really fight the polish more often, to familiarize myself with those units.