ES Vol. V|Iss. IV: Road to Jerusalem, and Renaissance TW

[selenius4tsd]

The Eagle Standard


Editor's Welcome
This week Bulgaroctonus has been overthrown by revolution in the Eagle Standard, leaving myself Selenius ("The secret and dark hand in the shadows that enforces the ‘Iron Will and Cold Discipline’ of Fuhrer Bulgar") and Hex Khan (The infamous cage-creeping prodigal son and dartboard target of note) in charge! But beware, for absolute power corrupts absolutely, and indeed, the Eagle Standard has not been the same since. We're not completely sure, but theres an eerie smell of revolution that can only be coming from the direction of Hex's socks...

This week we have interviews with two Medieval 2 mods - the first with Rammstein, the leader of Road to Jerusalem, and the second with the team from Renaissance: Total War, by our very own Leonidas the Lion. And lets not forget the Picture of the Week as always! So read on, and enjoy the successes of the revolution!

selenius4tsd interviewing Rammstein, leader of Road to Jerusalem, a mod for Medieval 2: Total War

Road to Jerusalem - whats this mod about?

Road to Jerusalem focuses on more realistic and a map with more regions + much longer battles. All the numbers of units have been redone (Infantry 150 men dismounted knights 110 some elite inf 120 archer 120 musket 150 Knights 80 heavy cav 95 light cav 95 + 1 officer to every unit).
All the unit stats have been redone as well to make the battles longer and let battles take minutes and not seconds like in vanilla.
There are 6 new factions that are included now: Flanders, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Novgorod, Aragon, Saxons and a fourth Arabic faction.
And then of course there is other work, such as the new skins (burrek+ whitewolf), 2.0 BBB, Darth OS26, UAI 1.5, new units, etc.

How did you decide on beginning modding?

I decided to start modding after playing a lot of RTW mods cause I wanted to do my part for M2TW to make the game better, so that myself and others would have more fun playing it. I started with a little mod and changes, but as I saw how good some users reacted to it, I started RTJ.

Why did you choose to focus on the same period of time as vanilla? Why not a different time period?

The period I like the most is Rome era, but I played a lot of mods like that before.
I was a beginner at the start so to begin with some changes to vanilla instead of a total conversion seemed the best for me.
I like Medieval era nearly as much as the Rome one so the decision was made quickly.

Who is in the RTJ team? And are you guys all in charge of specific areas?

Well we had a lot of members but in the end I have to say 3 are there from the start and are still on it.
Cymera does the forum, research some testing and puts up with new ideas.
Valor does the map and traits, but he also took in a lot of new ideas.
I do the rest EDU, EBD, model DB, etc.

What sort of player will RTJ work best for? What would they enjoy most?

I cant decide for you what you will like the best, but people who like more realism with long battles (more strategy) will like it.

What tips would you give to someone who wants to make their own mod? What would you suggest for them to start off?

I search and play other Mods constantly (also RTJ) to get ideas from or help. I’m also asking a lot my team member what could be good to insert and how they like it.

What about future releases? Any chance of an expansion?

For now we are planning to release the 3.0 version, since is not even finished we didn’t plan anything after it until now.
But there is always need for patching and tweaking and maybe insert new mods into RTJ.

Last question: What slogan would you use for RTJ?

"Dominate Europe and conquer the holy land from the heretic, or defend our countries from the Christian hordes."

Screenshots:

Click to view content: 

Thanks again Rammstein!

Leonidas The Lion interviewing [user]justme[/user] and [user]DrIstvaan[/user] leaders of Renaissance Total War, a mod for Medieval 2:Total War

First we have DrIstvaan

What do you think of Renaissance: Total war?
I feel a special affection towards Renaissance TW. I've seen it when it was in its first, basic form, I saw it being formed and polished, and now I see the amount of progress made by diligent team members. And, in the meantime, I got always more involved in the project.
I'm proud of our mod.

What would you tell fans of this mod?
First of all: don't give up hope, version 3.0 will be released, even if "somewhat" later than we originally planned .
Seriously though, I'd tell them that I'm pleased by the fact that our product pleases them. And I'd like to encourage them to participate in discussions on our forums, and give us suggestions. Having more people discussing about various topics regarding a project is (almost) always beneficial.

What is the most exiting aspect of this mod?
First and foremost, the ability to play with an altered set of units, different from that of the vanilla game, and in an other era.
Also, there is an AOR system in progress that will be quite fun to use; unfortunately, fans of the mod cannot enjoy this yet, as the public version (2.75) doesn't yet contain it.

What do you think of your co-leader?
I find Justme to be a very talented and useful person. He has a vast knowledge on history, and even knows how to tamper with files to achieve the effect he expected.
Furthermore, he even makes time for doing highly time-consuming things for the good of the project, for example he wrote all our project plan in details, sacrificing his precious time to create a clearly understandable, detailed plan for our progress.
All in all, I think he is a very, very valuable asset.

Where do you see this mod in the future?
I see Renaissance TW in the future as a good, solid late-era mod for M2TW, one that can satisfy players who would like to play in an era set later than that of the vanilla game.
After we release 3.0, we'll most probably go on to create more campaigns, thus players will even have a choice regarding the era they wish to play.

Now we have justme

Who is on the team and what do they do?

right now there's... (scratches head) Serious Samurai - the only one who's trying to do unit meshing, plus some coding (especially in the battle formations+tactics department), Sabre657 - coding (AOR) and historian plus some model editing, Afrisco - all-around historian/historical advice, Yggdrasil - who has joined lately and brings with him the faction research he'd done for the now defunct citadel:total war, Hamish - our Scottish historian, Cadmium - our "artistic" advisor and... (scratches head again) and there's a good deal of others that I don't remember right now and I have to apologize for that. You see, the thing is that we got offers and signed up many talents which have yet to become active (eg skinning), since we're still in an early phase of the mod's development... Oh... there's Dristvaan and me of course... I'll leave it to Dristvaan to describe his role in the mod, but as for me, I got the title of "Campaign Designer" (loyalty +2 )... i.e. lots of campaign-related coding, after I had also done some historic research for the mod. And if it comes down to it - in the worst of cases - I fear that I'll also get the title "Campaign Scripter" (loyalty -10 ) for the mod (did I ever mention that we really need an experienced scripter? )


What do you think of the co-leadership of this mod?

Good question... my answer would simply be: "I don't" - think about it Since we lost our leader - RTR Fan/Agronak - to some minority clause in the law governing the function of community forums (hey, I always thought that RTR Fan was about my age!!!), the issue of who would be leader of the mod never came up - until we were asked by Bulgaroctonus for the interview that is So, to quote again from my fave film (Monty Pythons and the Quest for the Holy Grail): we just became an "an anarcho-syndicalist commune" that coordinates itself through these forums - and it seems to be working so far! (also Dristvaan is doing a great job as a coordination "hub" - so to speak - when necessary)... in any case, I see Renaissance:TW as an open-community project where everybody is welcome to make his/her contribution, be it with advice, suggestions or implementation work (hey... did I mention that we'd love to have an experienced scripter joining our anarcho-syndicalist commune? ) Even so, there have been some cases in the past when I at least felt I had to put my foot down eg. the notorious "Burgundy vs timeframe" issue... I suppose at times like that it's nice to be - or at least "considered to be" - (co-)leader ... it's a good argument to use when you see you're losing the debate (j/k of course)


What new features does this mod bring to M2TW?

Personally, I don't see our mod as the definitive "ground-breaking" conversion of vanilla M2TW... yes, I would like it to be - as much as possible - a total conversion of the original, but it's not so much an attempt to bring all new and never seen before features to the vanilla game as it is a two-fold effort to "focus" the vanilla campaign on the early modern era (barely touched on by the over-extended vanilla campaign). And I say two-fold because that's the approach we've taken in re-designing the campaign: Ramtha (formerly leader of the mod, without whom there wouldn't have been a Renaissance:TW) was the first to shift the timeframe of the campaign to the last years of the 15th century, after which we've been mainly occupied with building the campaign basics and "setting the stage" (ie making every aspect of the vanilla game compatible with the late start date) in a way that will immediately convey the feeling of that "brave new age"... the second step - that's to follow - is to complete the "tapestry" of the first 50something years of the turbulent 16th century, by expanding on the "refocused vanilla" base that we've already achieved (in the latest beta) - this means introducing in our campaign features that have already been seen in other mods (especially for Rome and BI - don't forget, I'm a huge fan of EB), which will enrich our high Renaissance setting. Among these features, we've already discussed (and to a certain point implemented) an AOR, army reforms triggered by historic events, advanced formations and tactics (in accordance to the "pike and shot" era we cover in the mod), new factions (eg Swiss) and new units for all factions (well, mostly for the Europeans, but I've tried to clean-up the Muslim factions' rosters too). To all these I must add our effort to enhance and encourage the use of mercenary forces by both players and the AI, as was the case historically (hopefully we'll have a few proper landsknechts and swiss mercs), and add a bit of "extra historicity" to spice up the campaign - eg cannon foundries aren't available anywhere on the map, nor is high quality plate and Gothic armor, great shipyards are limited to only a handful of regions and so are most guilds, etc. We've also set "historical" goals to drive the expansion of the factions, historical family trees and I hope that the atmosphere will be enhanced by using period art (thanks to Cadmium) in the GUI. But our biggest challenge will certainly be the implementation of the Reformation... and we'll need both coding and scripting expertise if we're to pull this one off. This will probably be the "make-or-break" feature for our mod (the way I see it) and since we have rather limited scripting knowledge (if any at all), I'd like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask experienced scripter(s) to join our mod - work on the campaign script has sort-of-begun already (by yours truly) but it'll be a gigantic task (for me at least) to get everything in place (there's more to the campaign script than the Reformation in any case)


Any advice to any new modders leading mods?

Actually I'll be the one needing advice I've never led a mod before - and I'm not sure I'm leading one right now - but I can tell you this... I've found out that modding needs a lot of time (off your free time of course), a lot of patience (to learn by trial and error), a lot of persistence (try not to lose your interest) and a lot of realism (don't go overboard with too optimistic targets) - if you lack any of these better don't try to "lead" anything, and if you still want to mod... better join an ongoing mod (hey... you could join our mod you know! did I mention that we still lack a .... oh... wait.... I'm sure I've seen this one before - I'm having a deja vu... or there's a glitch in the matrix! )


Describe your mod with ten words?

Age of Exploration, Age of Reformation, Age of Pike, Shot and Cannon (it's more than 10 words, but what the heck... it gives the message)


Where do you see Renaissance:Total War in the future?

Finished and on the hard drive of every MTW2 fan who's worth his salt. No really... I do hope that the final "product" will provide an enjoyable experience to any MTW2 gamer who would like to try his mettle in early modern warfare. I know I'm one of them

And now some screenshots for your enjoyment

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Thats it for now.
For any Renaissance era lovers this is the mod for you so stay tuned and wait for it's release.

A big thank you to justme and DrIstvaan for the interview.
Leonidas The Lion reporting out.

Picture of the Week

It's been a tight race this week, with many submissions, 11 to be exact. However, it seems that once again, for the second week in a row, the winning picture is taken from R:TW! This time the winner is Garnier, with his picture "A Flank Attack".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Be sure to head over to the PotW forum and submit your screenshots (click on link below) - who knows, maybe next week's PotW is your picture!
PotW 65 Submission Thread

Thanks for joining us this week! Until next time, when Fuhrer Bulgar returns...

[Tankbuster]

Very interesting read selenius

[Hex Khan]

ye sure its me socks and nae me trews? I may have stepped on a huggis or three...

... I forget...

its an excellent edition if I may say so myself, even if I had absolutely nothing to do with it



must me return the fuhrer to power your doing a stirling job, personally I dont think he spend enough time in the brig, er, contribution centre's re-education halls...

[selenius4tsd]

Sorry Hex, the cheapshot (or should it be dart? ) was in my plans as soon as I found out Bulgar was leaving...

[Hex Khan]

Sorry Hex, the cheapshot (or should it be dart? ) was in my plans as soon as I found out Bulgar was leaving...

Wait! What? Why!? what have I ever done to suffer your ire?

....

Ah right...

I remember

It was the conspirancies isnt it?

[selenius4tsd]

Wait! What? Why!? what have I ever done to suffer your ire?

....

Ah right...

I remember

It was the conspirancies isnt it?

Just a little bit of revenge then...

Maybe we should keep these jabs to the subforum...

[Hex Khan]

Its amazing how we have time to do anyting else past the bickering isnt it? Then again all work and no play makes Selenius and Hex, ... erh, something something...

I forgot the rest...