Consilium Belli Commentary Thread

[Publius]

This thread is designed for the Total War Community to make suggestions and provide input to the Consilium Belli.

So please post any comments, suggestions, or questions you have for the Council here and make your voice heard!

[makanyane]

Just a note on some of the stuff being raised about the Wiki:

Also, you didn't mention the Wiki in your first post (at the Tier 1 section), but it is my opinion that all written tutorials at the forums (even at the Org), should be copied (with credits), to the Wiki. The Wiki is the best way to find tutorials.

well, they are all (or at least a lot of them) linked to from the wiki. The only reason to copy them would be so other people can edit and add to them, in which case (as with all wiki articles) it would not make sense to add credits...

...however, we should make sure that all forum tutorials are linked to from the wiki

Issue of what can be copied onto Wiki from where had quite a long running discussion. Terms of posting on TWC include fact that TWC reserves right to move / edit posts etc, etc.... so copying from TWC forums would technically be OK, and is being used in case of Scriptorium articles, but they were being given credit and link back to original article.

As drak is pointing out that gets to be a bit more of a problem when you want things to be edited later by other people - moved around - chopped into different articles etc. It's probably still useful to give credit in form of "original content based on <link to thread> by..." if you're adding someone else's stuff so you're not inadvertently getting credit by appearing on history as the article contributor.
Thread might also still be useful reference anyway. However it is likely that content and credit could get separated, or content ends up being changed substancially. For that reason I think it would be better to get permission from writer to copy TWC based tutorials onto Wiki and warn them that things are likely to be edited. (or even try to persuade them to add the articles themselves) I did make a start asking people for permission and had good responses, will check list and how much I warned them about editing and pass on info.

Copying from the Org or any other site without authors permission I think is both technically and morally wrong. I know its unlikely that anyone would actually take action against TWC, but there is no point in annoying members of community you're trying to serve!

There are a lot of useful things the Wiki can do first as well, short of spending time re-formatting already existing info (which does take time to get right anyway). Breaking things up into most frequently looked for topics, like adding new units, new regions, new maps etc. and making articles with a bit of an overview of topic but then mainly links to the already existing forum resources would be probably fastest and most helpful for new modders. Redundancy on that sort of thing shouldn't hurt - so you have chance of finding info from main tutorial list or from "adding new units page" etc.
Most ways of dividing tutorials into categories still leaves some topics hard to find, like recently looking for info on Formations, would that be unit editing, text editing, or misc? (actually found to be in mod sub-forum and none of above!)


Working out how to divide up M2TW and RTW info clearly is also something Wiki urgently needs. Problem is much of info is so similar it doesn't seem worth duplicating things, but having bits of references to the 'wrong' game could confuse newer modders!

[Publius]

Good points all Mak - thanks for your comments.

[MasterOfNone]

Makanyane & MasterOfNone
PRESENT
The Multi-Mod Sampler (MMS)

Now supported by Europa Barbarorum, Napoleonic Total War II, End of Days, Terrae Expugnandae, Arthurian Total War, Rome Total Realism (Platinum)*, The Lord of the Rings: Total War*, Chivalry Total War and Fourth Age Total War...

The MMS fulfils a simple purpose - a means for RTW/BI/Alexander mods to showcase their units, mod links & mod information from within the context of a small downloadable modfoldered "minimod" for RTW 1.5.

With no overwrite, and with a small file size, it is the perfect way for people to quickly find out about your mod by experiencing one of your units directly and having some information about your mod right there in the game.

How does it work?

Your chosen unit will be coded as a mercenary unit in a specific area of the RTW Imperial Campaign. The campaign will be otherwise vanilla except that all previously locked factions will be playable (so that mercenaries can be accessed more easily by the players as well as adding a little extra for those who are new to mods). Your units' info text will contain - in addition to the unit's description - any information you want about your mod (such as your web-site address).

MMS mercenary units will also be coded so as to be available through the custom-battle screen, replacing the duplicated Roman units for the Scipii and Brutii factions.

What do you have to do?

1. You must identify a unit you think represents your mod well

2. You may also wish to specify or suggest an area of the vanilla map or vanilla faction you feel that the merc may be appropriately associated with

3. You will have to change the unit information text to include information about your mod

4. You will have to alter the stats of the unit to fit into the context of the vanilla stats. You will also need to remove any officers and BI-specific attributes

5. You will have to submit the code from the EU, EDU, DM and DMB files as excerpts (not the full file please).

6. You will need to submit sprite, cas, texture, and card files relevant to the chosen unit

Limitations

1. Only 2 units per mod may be accepted (due to limited DMB slots). One may be mounted if you choose. There must be handler or chariot units and no modded projectiles

2. All submitted units must use, or be able to use, vanilla animations and skeletons

3. Custom unit voices cannot be included at this time

4. Fantasy units are not excluded but should conform to point 2 of the Limitations above

5. Inclusion in the MMS project is by invitation only

Terms

MMS shall of course inform those who download it that they may not distribute your units outside of the MMS.


Submission checklist:

1. export_units.txt excerpt (for unit and mod promotion)
2. export_descr_unit.txt excerpt
3. descr_model_battle.txt excerpt (remember to include mount model if any)
4. all unit cas, texture, sprite and card files
5. descr_mount.txt

Screenshots:


New mercenaries are available in the East...


The unit description for a very scary mercenary unit indeed!


A promotion of the mod goes here


Some of the interesting scenes you might see in MMS! Gauls routed by musket balls!


Image depicts Advisor display for show-cased mods, their mercenaries and where they can be recruited; a piece of text also has been added to the Army Details scroll to point players to the Advisor help button

* Units not yet in current MMS.

==================================

Makanyane & MasterOfNone
PRESENT
The Multi-Mod Sampler (MMS)
(Requires Rome Total War 1.5)

Now supported by Europa Barbarorum, Napoleonic Total War II, End of Days, Terrae Expugnandae, Arthurian Total War, Rome Total Realism (Platinum)*, The Lord of the Rings: Total War*, Chivalry Total War and Fourth Age Total War...

What Is A Mod?

Rome Total War has spawned many private modifications (or mods), from realism to the age of muskets - even into the realm of fantasy! Many of these mods fall by the wayside, but some go on to be considered as good as or even better than the original game...

In an effort to bring these successful mods more into the public eye, MMS has been created.

Why MMS?

Mods often have long download times, they may be incomplete or very unstable. MMS hand picks mods based on their reputation, stability and quality as well as trying to include a wide range of genres or time periods.

MMS allows you, the player, to experience selected units from top-of-the-range RTW/BI/Alexander mods. It also gives you information about the mod, its reputation/success and its web site or forums.

MMS:

• has a file size of less than 20 Megsa and so takes only a few minutes to download on the average connection speed
• works from within its own "mod folder" so will not overwrite any of your original game files

How Does It Work?

MMS introduces sample units from quality mods in the form of hireable mercenary units across the campaign map.

MMS mercenary units will also be available through the custom-battle screen, replacing the duplicated Roman units for the Scipii and Brutii factions, should you wish to pit them against one another or other RTW units!

The screenshots below will explain more...


Here you see that new mercenaries for hire are available in the East...


Here is a unit description of one of the more sinister mercenary units!


Here you find text that will give you more information about the mod should you wish to know more


Here we can see a defeated army of Gauls routed by the musket balls of the Old French Guard from the Napoleonic Total War II mod!


For your convenience, the Advisor now lists show-cased mods, their mercenaries and where they can be recruited; a piece of text also has been added to the Army Details scroll to remind you to use the Advisor help button to access this information.

Installation & Play

Before running the MMS installer make sure you have a clean (unmodded) copy of RTW 1.5 installed on your PC. In the menu of RTW you can click on OPTIONS and you should then see the version number in the top right of the screen. If it is not 1.5 then you will need to grab the relevant patch from SEGA. If you have BI installed as well then you can use patch 1.6 as this will also upgrade your RTW to 1.5 (as well as BI to 1.6). Visit SEGA's support page to obtain these free patches here: http://www.sega.com/support/support....upport_patches or visit the http://www.totalwar.com site's forums if you have any technical problems with patching.

Running the installer is simple, the only thing you need to do is to make sure the path to which you install it is correct. In most cases it will the default path (C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War) bu do check your PC to make sure that is where you RomeTW.exe file is located.

You can download MMS here: http://files.filefront.com/mms+v1+0e.../fileinfo.html

Play proceeds largely as normal, but note that in custom battles the Scipii and Brutii units have been replaced with MMS units (this will not affect your campaign) so that you can have MMS unit armies.

Terms of Use

You may not distribute MMS units outside of MMS. All such units and associated work remain the property of their respective mods and/or creators.

Other Information

MMS units are only basically balanced and their performance in battle should not be viewed relative to other units; clearly they are intended for use in their parent mod. Also, it should be borne in mind, that some units may have attributes unavailable or impractical for MMS to include such as BI features, officers, etc.

More Screenshots...(click images for larger version)




For even more screenshots of MMS please visit this link: http://www.chamber-of-records.com/fo...ead.php?t=1940


* Units not yet in current MMS.

[drak10687]

Hey, thats quite a good idea IMO, though its too bad that each mod can only put one unit in... Of course, if there are not enough submissions, we could always let all the mods put 2 units in, there would still be 20 mods showcased; and they could each have 2 skins for each unit to have 2 different factions (if applicable) so that people can have a mini-battle between the two...

[MasterOfNone]

Notification: MMS private project now launched (version 1.0). Thanks to Makanyane for her effort in supporting this.

[roy34543]

I hope its allowed to bring this to your attention on this post .
Frankly speaking, The wiki doesnt get much attention, Some dont know it exists, some find it worthless in comparison to just searching forum posts. and it doesnt get edited enough.
Id like to suggest that a article is put up on the front of the webpage (perhaps based on a voting system as mankanyane suggests) with rotating subjects such as modding/factions/games/campaigns etc, perhaps instead of the weekly poll which ive in fact, Seen around for some months.. Maybe the recent history should be put up too if theres enough space so people can see who edited it. Maybe it could lure people to write more over there in the hope of getting their article put up.

[makanyane]

*bumps* to say, did anyone have any feedback on the above ^^ original thread was here in Wiki forum. Also if the CB has any plans / plots for the wiki suggest you drop into the Wiki Think Tank and see if you can drum up any volunteers - its been a bit quiet in there lately (think everyone has exam-itis at the moment!)


P.S. the re-org of the hosted mods is looking much better now - nice job

[Elrond]

Firstly I would like to say that I like the RTW mod forum changes - merging the two sections is long over due. However I think there is one problem with the current organisation - knowing which mods have released work for RTW or BI. When the changes were originally implemented this was dealt with by separating the RTW and BI mods as separate catorgies with one after the other (ie with Roman era mods for RTW then Roman era mods for BI). There were two obvious problems with this - it looked a mess and several mods have released work for both RTW and BI. The current system were both are put together and BI mods are indicated is less messy and a bit clearer but doesn't indicate RTW mods which can run on BI or have full versions running on BI - it just indicates ones that run soley on BI.

My suggestion is to add some kind of symbol or lettering after each mods name or description to indicate which platforms they run on. For instance RTR (which is designed for RTW but the platinium version can run on BI and use all of its features) would have the synbol or lettering for both RTW and BI. Invasio Barbarorum (which runs only on BI) would have the symbol or lettering just for BI and a mod which runs only on RTW would have just the RTW symbol or lettering.

The obvious problem with this suggestion is that any RTW 1.5 mod can be made to run using BI. Therefore for the idea to work only mods which have suggested the using BI and have changed there mod in some way to make it work better using BI would have the BI symbol in addition to the RTW symbol.

My idea might be way off but I thought it was worth making as I personally prefer to play BI versions of RTW mods because the engine is better and I love fighting night battles. Perhaps other people might like the clarification of which mods run / are designed to run on which platforms.

[Halie Satanus]

Mod teams need to put a bit of effort in here as well, having a sticky in their forum which is clear as to which platform it uses is the best way to do this.

Alternatively a jump link could be stuck at the top of every hosted forum leading to a page on the wiki, mod teams would have to fill them out themselves and keep them up dated, but having all the release/platform/current versions/link to mod folder table ect ect in one place would be one way to make things as easy as possible.

This should be merged with the Cb sticky, I think.

Oh and for the CB, 'Other' is not Fantasy..Leave us be...

[MasterOfNone]

Yes, we at the Fourth Age have found that placing "A Mod for BI 1.6" in big font and bold capitals underneath the main title in the release announcement post increases the chances of readers knowing which platform it is for by..ooh..about 0.000001%

[Halie Satanus]

We at the 'End of days' never really had a problem with this, I think that proves that 'devil worshippers' are more intelligent than 'hobbit fanciers'.

The jump links to the wiki could work, if every mod had them. *Shrugs..

[MasterOfNone]

My original idea for categorising the mod wips - but applicable here - was to have a prefix for the platform. I think it is confusing/untidy to have the platform after the mod name because many mods use that part to display their acronyms...

BI: Fourth Age Total War (FATW) is much better than

Fourth Age Total War (FATW) (BI)

Prefixes might include:

RTW:
BI:
R/BI:
ALX:
ALL:

Or symbols if practical.

[Professor420]

I am going to be taking the twc.robg3d.com subdomain offline on June 1st. I still get about 80-90 MB/day downloads, so you may want to keep the repository going. Or not. I just want to clean up my subdomains and FTP sites/users some, as I've embarking on some bigger and better things.

Any questions, email me robg at robg3d dot com, as I can't guarantee I'll log in and check my PM's between now and then.

[y2day]

I've have just started modding a while back and the tutorials found on TWC are great. Well not all of them are great but most are. The problem is anyone can create one. Well that isnt the real problem. Its just that there is no consistant structure to them. In one tut someone will explain how to reskin a unit, but will not tell you where to find the texture files or how to identify what files to change. So you have to search around trying to link up a couple different threads just to change a skin, or faction symbol. If a set structure was in place i think it would be better.
Something like:

Name of Tutorial:

Title of Game Modding:

Purpose:

Files used and location:

Programs used if any:

Tutorial:

Just an example. I don't know if a template can be uploaded or people would actually follow it or not, It would help out people that want to learn how to mod.

Just a suggestion.

y

[Aradan]

May I suggest we use the old .Org-style headers? A couple of examples:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=111344
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=131861

[MasterOfNone]

Make announcements, discuss modding, post general modding info and Mod round ups. Home of the modding registry, unit repository, The Consilium Belli and Rookie's Nook. This is not a forum for asking specific modding questions, please go to the workshops.

Why do people continue to ask modding questions in this forum? Answer: they do not read. Which is probably why they have a question in the first place.

These should be MOVED before replied to so as to not encourage it.

Also, I have never understood why the Rookie's Nook is in this forum rather than the workshop ones. A fact that conflicts with the above quotation too I might add.

[Halie Satanus]

Also, I have never understood why the Rookie's Nook is in this forum rather than the workshop ones. A fact that conflicts with the above quotation too I might add.

Initially the nook was an open house project with a core team, rather than plonk it in the workshop where people might have confused it as free for all questions forum I stuck it in here. Unfortunately the core team didn't last, it didn't help that a rivalry started with members of the 'mod squad' and 'RN' originals jumped ship, tbh it probably needs to be reviewed, moved or disbanded.

[Aradan]

The purpose of it is to create a "newbie's mod" or to generally help aspiring modders with questions? Or sth else that escapes me?

[Halie Satanus]

"newbie's mod"

Initially yeh I think that was the intended direction, attempts were made to revive it but nothing much worked out, I proposed closing it at one stage but was promised things were going to happen, same old story.

I think the initial idea was good, but the original team didn't drive it hard enough, or simply weren't focused enough, what it really needed was an experienced leader who wanted to make a mod and was willing to take on noobs to work on specific tasks, it also needed to be de-constructed as it was built so people could see the process, a bit like a working tutorial.

Thinking about it now I should have put it in the university as a working project. I can't think of everything.