The Darth Ages Feedback Thread

[Thorn]

Download Latest Version

After my disappointment with ETW i have came back to keep improving my little M2TW mod a bit more, but first lets take a look of what you will find in The Darth Ages:

-The Darth Ages is a stand alone mod for Medieval 2 Total War: Kingdoms. It is based on The Long Road mod from where i have taken the map, most of the units and buildings. Its battle balance is based on Darth Vader's work in his own mod. At last but not the less this game has integrated the XAI to enhance the campaign performance and gameplay.

Features:

-New economic/develpment system

• Buildings take less time to be finished
• Buildings are more expensive to slow dow the game
• New buildings added (mines, markets..)
• New capabilities added to buildings to make them more valuable
• Reworked the trade/resource system to help the AI (which doesnt know how to use merchants properly)
• There are too few diferences between cities and casttles because the AI cant switch from one to another

-New Map/factions

• The map and factions are the same as The Long Road mod (I have plans to add 1 or 2 more)
• The map has been tweaked to allow the AI to move through it without getting stucked too often

-Diplomacy

• Diplomacy has been tweaked to make it more valuable
• All your actions will have an direct and indirect impact on how your neighbourgs see you (The faction standings file has 5 times the size of vanilla one and i'm planning to enhance it even more)
• The AI will try to have an actively diplomacy prior going to war, when fighting a hard war or when fighting multiple wars at a time
• Religion effects will be stronger and not only for catholics

-AI

• This mod uses XAI (XCAI and XBAI)
• You will find the AI making alliance blocks
• The AI will call and fight crusades and jihads
• The AI will gather its trops to make decissive assaults on enemy territory
• The AI will switch from defense to offense depending on its current status
• The AI could offer peace if it has too many wars
• The AI will seek for help if it feels it cant win alone
• The AI will not backstab you for no reason
• The AI will try to use its troops better than in vanilla (more maneuvers, less pasive)

-Battles/Units

• There are some new units not included in TLR
• The maintenance cost has been reduced to allow bigger armies
• The combat system has been totally reworked
  
  • New projectile file with several new projectiles adding more variety to missile units
  • New unit stats rebalance to make battles harder and a bit slower than vanilla
  • Changed cavalry to have a great impact during charges, but weak during melee (if surrounded)
  • Improved the AI to give us a better challenge during battles
• Created a priority system to help the AI training stronger armies
• Tweaked the autocalc to make it more realistic

at last I would aslo like to thank all the forum mates that have helped me during this 2 years of development:

Darth Vader (who show me this game could be fun)
Tornight (for his amazing work with The Long Road mod)
Xeryx (with his amazing AI show me it could be really challenge us)
Averröes (who help with the resources and the first name fix)
Phil Stanbridge (who help with the latest name fix and a lot of good feedback)
There are, of course, a lot more who have helped me through the process with updates, fixes and mos of all good feedback to improve the mod, its a shame i cant remember his names..


You can see the work process and detailed features here

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have been "away" of modding issues for a while, first helping Darth to get a really nice "last" mod and later due lack of time..., but now i'm here to try something i have been thinking for a long time..

I will try to combine Darth Mod with The Long Road giving them my personal touch and making them playable on Kingdoms (Thanks to retrofit mod)

I don't know how long could it take as i have not too much time to work on it, but i will post here any update of my work..

Status: Working on Step 5 (90% done)

Step 0: (100% done) (I hade some problems with Xenophonia.., too many mods at once XD)
Understanding how to use Retrofit to create the mod.

Step 1: (99%)
*Using Darth Combat and Diplomacy over TLR
*Total rework of the EDU file
+More men per unit (max 250)
+More siege engines per unit (3-5)
+Rebalance for all units (Skills, cost and battle performance):
-More diference between kinds of units (swords, spears, heavy, light..)
-Light units attack faster, but are less lethal.
-Medium units, good performance speed/damage.
-Heavy units, slower but mortal. (this get worst with heavy polearms).
-Cavalry can no longer hold versus a spear unit unless disorganized or being Heavy cavalry.
-Light Cavalry could be beaten by common infantry in some situations.
-Light cavalry can no longer stand vs heavy cavalry
+Changes on combat system.
-100% hit ratio for melee combat.
-Rework on projectiles (range/accuracy and ammunition)
*Included XAI

Step 2: (99%)
*Improving and adapting campaign gameplay.
+Rework merchan TLR system towards Darth's values
+Rework of Building system
-Building Cost
-Unit roosters
+Rework unit pools
+Rework unit costs
+Rework of settlement variables
-pop Growth
-Pop happines
-Pop and farm income

Step 3: (99%)
Campaign Testing
Reports from campaign (no more than 20 turns into it)
-Slow city upgrades
-Cheaper units, but you cannot train units every turn due new replenish factors (sometimes you could be forced to train low level units)
-Well rounded AI armies
-Cavalry is strong, but not a key factor as before (I have lost an even battle with more cavalry units and with 2:1 kill ratio to my side)
-Cavlary vs Cavalry battles have 2 phases. At first there will be lots of casualties on both sides, but as the momentum has lost and soldiers get more stacionary battles could last for a while..
-Back charges are deadly, I've lost half my bodyguards plus my general cos i was hit by an archer's charge from the back while fighting enemy general's unit. I was forced to disengage to safe the unit..
-AI is training lots of troops and merging into nice armies. You will notice diference between factions depending on their tresaury.
-AI is training Merchants and chasing others faction merchants.
-AI is training Priests and sending them to convert population.
-New Faction Standings (99%)
-Xeryx's AI (99%)
-Diplomacy (99%)
-Campaign DB (99%)

Step 4: (90%)
Battle system
-New unit stats (99%)
-Faction specific stats (Removed)
-Improved Battle AI (90%)
-New Formations (50%)

Step 5: Test Phase (75%)
Improving Agent training priorities (50%)
Improving AI army composition (90%)
Testing Overal Diplomacy and FS effects (85%)
...

Version 0.75:
New Features:
Added new skins models from TLR.
Added new textures for cities in campaign map.
Added new artillery and dust effects.
New settlemen mechanics.
Xeryx's Campaign AI.
Initial faction standings adjustments.
Fixed minor AI errors concerning Portugal.
New catholic-papacy diplomacy rules.
New Diplomacy rules to avoid easy treaties. Faction standings have a higher weight than before.
Less rebel spawn armies, but bigger ones.
+10% to base defense during merchant acquisition attempts.
Some tweaks into the auto-calc.
Removed starting wars and alliances and replaced them with Bad or Good relations (all factions will have the same chances).
Reduced some rebel garrisons and lowered their exp.
Events and actions not affect only the pope, all factions are somehow affected by crusades, jihads, buildings, etc (no more "plain" FS file).
Religion will be a key factor during the campaign.


Current Changes:
New Combat system fully functional.
New Building cost.
New Units pools.
Pop Growth.
Merchant System.
Siege weapons accuracy.
Increased (a bit) resource's values.
unlock special ability for ribaults.
modded siege engines to almost same Darth's values.
Fixed "shield Bug" on campaign during AI turns.
Reworked unit's cost and pools
Units are cheaper than before, so you could have bigger armies. (this should help the AI building better armies)
Buildings are more expesive to keep the balance.
Lots of new rules into Faction standing file(3x size of vanilla file).
More weigh for religion.
Stronger effects to diplomatic actions.
Jihads added.
Removed duplicated rules.
Faction Specific rules.
New Religious conversion rules.
New Mounted accuracy/range values.
Shield Wall formation added to several shielded units.
Improved Ballistae accuracy vs units.
Removed all aztecks units.
Fixed bad accents.
Tweaked Turkish starting gold and population.

To install, unpack the Darth Ages into the Medieval II Total War/mods folder. This is the same folder where the Kingdoms campaigns such as the Crusades are located.

Complete mod (Version 0.84) It upgrades any previous version: Darth Ages 0.84 (auto exec)

Battle Fix
Fixed bad behaviour of units during sieges.

UI files
Do NOT download them unless you are getting graphics issues with city names or white screens
Installation:
UI.zip file goes into Medieval\data\ui folder
DAUi.zip file goes into Medieval\Mods\DarthAges\data\ui folder

Those are the files i'm using without any trouble..

Update 8.1 it upgrades the mod with fixed unit files and new rules for Faction Standings and Script files.

Update 8.4:

Some of the current changes

+Rebalance of the EDU file

All units have 1 HP but elephants

Tweaked some stats for infantry and cavalry units

Greatly increased Ship offsets to help the AI

+Rebalance of the EDB

New values for religion buildings

Some Tweaks on troops availability

+New Money and development Scripts
+Reworked the FS file

A few new rules

Rebalanced Jihads/Crusade events

Religion wars have less effect

Battles are less relevant for allies/foes

+New land bridges on Ireland and Gibraltar
+Added Real Horses skins from Argent Usher
+Added XBAI


Update 8.6:
+Small tweaks to the EDU

Revised Camel units

Revised Papal and Swiss Guard stats

Fixed Hospitaler Knights bug

+Latest XAI version
+New Campaign script

Instead of building the upgrades it will give pop, because some settlements werent growing

+Less pirates (I hope)
+Less heretics and witches
+No ships available on Lakes
+5 New mines, with diferent bonus and income

Tin

Iron

Coal

Marble

Sulfur

+1st try to help the AI training Agents.
+Ports couldnt build ships on "Lakes"
+Pirates should not spawn on "Lakes"
+Removed TLR Leader Ancillaries (Temporaly, I hope)

Update 0.88

Changes into EDB to help the AI training more Agents

Tweaks on names files to fix CTD issues

Less pirates

Latest XAI files

Version 0.9

-New XAI and XBAI
-Tweaked Faction standings file
-Some minor fixed
-Reduced the chances of CTDs when destroying a faction
-Tweaked some units stats
-Tweaked economic system
-Added new city graphics
-Tweaked Unit priorities

Download Files
http://rapidshare.com/files/43468550...0.9.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/43470471...0.9.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/43469466...0.9.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/43470422...0.9.part04.rar


Other Available files:
Retrofit Mod:
Enables the vanilla campaign to be playable on Kingdoms.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=118680

UI files
Do NOT download them unless you are getting graphics issues with city names or white screens
Installation:
UI.zip file goes into Medieval\data\ui folder
DAUi.zip file goes into Medieval\Mods\DarthAges\data\ui folder

Those are the files i'm using without any trouble..

[PeteSKTemplar]

Those 250 units in battalion is for many of players too much I think if I want to look at those units with keen eyes. With the rest of plan I am pleased. It just makes me to ask if heavy infantry (polearms) will hit once a time while taking hits from a spearman I think those hits are quite often distrupting attack of that heavy infantry unit. So he will struck really once for long time. This is happening now what I dont like in darthmod and the result is that twohanded units unable to block spear hits with shield has im my opininon too heavy cassualties for his kill takes a lot o time what only his armor as defence cant withstand easily.
So if it is possible to make twohanded units "immune" against those hits and he will be albe to finish his attack it will be fine, otherwise they are cost ineffetive against cheap allaround spearmen IMO.

[Thorn]

If you set Normal size you will get almost same numbers than now.. i will test and post exact numbers..

Did you tried my battlefix for 1.4B i don´t remember that problem there.., i will lower the attack ratio for any unit.. a spearmen could attack maybe something between 4-6 times faster than a heavy polearm, but it will resist no more than 2-3 hits..

Edit:
Huge size = 250 men then Normal size = 125 and large will be around 186

[PeteSKTemplar]

I havent tried your fix for 1.4b for when I came back we started 1.4C but I read a thread and to my surprise some really nice improvements were described there. I expected it will continue for 1.4 c but than it got "forgotten".

[Thorn]

I was focusing my eforts to help on 1.4C, but now i will try to retake the work where i left it..

[Thorn]

Anyone knows how to make wedge formations works with infantry units?

[Tiberiu_R]

Anyone knows how to make wedge formations works with infantry units?

You could try adding the "wedge" word at the abilities.
Open the EDU and:
Look at a cav unit at the abilitiy line(or attributes i think) and copy the wedge keyword and paste it to the attribute line of the desired infantry.
I didn't try it myself, so i don't know if it works or not.
Good luck

[Thorn]

Into abilities? uhm.. i added it into formations.. like cavalry units..

[Tiberiu_R]

Actually the wedge thing is here:
formation 1.6, 3.4, 3.5, -6, 2, square, wedge
at formations...I fought it was at attributes.
Just add the wedge keyword for the infantry at the formations line.
I will try it myself.

[Thorn]

it doesn't work.. infantry units are ignoring wedge formation..

[Tiberiu_R]

Welll i tried it and it does not work.

[Tiberiu_R]

it doesn't work.. infantry units are ignoring wedge formation..

Yep...I think this cannot be done..I think it is hardcoded.

[Thorn]

Arg... i wanted to have 2 hand weapon's units with that formation to break enemy lines.. i could try a trick.., but then the AI should turn crazy..

[Thorn]

First version available to download.

Known issues:
unable to play custom city/casttle assault maps.

[Borluc]

Is it possible to use your mod without Kingdoms?

I'd like to try it out. Any idea when 0.2 will be ready?

[Thorn]

My internet connection crashed at 60%.. i must start uploading again... about 4 hours..

You could use it without kingdoms, but with a little modding..

you have to delete all oil files from Kingdoms, replace engine files with Medieval ones and then EDIT the EDU file to change size of units.. if you overwrite the EDU with the one from TLR i can't assure, well i'm most than sure, than it won't work as good as it should be..

[Thorn]

Sorry for delay. Version 0.2 Now available.

As i had more time to test i will add Patch 0.22

Better siege engines accuracy
Some tweaks on movements
Some twaks on merchant exp

[DARTH VADER]

Good Work Naimad.

I hope it plays well and evolves.

I cannot help you with testing etc. but you have my acknowledgment.

[Thorn]

Thanks..

My first goal is making it works withour CTD, later on i will try to get the best merge between both mods with little personal touchs (siege engines, projectiles and combat performance)

And don't worry about being "unable to help", because your work is the best help you could give.. it's a reference to me, something that keeps me working because you have showed us that this game could be playabe..

regards.

[Thorn]

Updated to version 0.23

Some minor bugs related to defense towers dont shoting and mountedLongbow unable to fire at max range.