Discussion and Announcements

[Epirote]

Suggestion

Remove Corinthians
Remove new naval units
Remove Thessalian. In their place add Greek Companions. Just rename them and make the recruitable anywhere
Remove hypaspist.
Add Sword hoplite with abilities close to Roman ones. Not neccesarry
Don't add new unique troops (Athenians)
If the new Greek Generals cause problem just fix them. It would be a big minus to have the old general troops.
Enrich the Macedonians. Don`t remove troops from them.
The "all factions playable" stuff must remain. I want to have some Macedonian campaigns. I didn`t finished any yet.

[Epirote]

If you have time do something about the Seleucid. Anything.
I am starting to forget them.

[DimeBagHo]

I have been thinking about how to fix the problem with the generals for a while, and I haven't found any suitable way of doing it. I can do one of three things.

(1) Modify the vanilla units, but leave the UI stuff unchanged. The downside is that the unit cards will not match the way that the general units look on the battlefield.
(2) Modify the vanilla units, and the UI stuff, but this requires unpacking the .pak data files. The downside is that the install process would be much longer, and more complicated, and require a lot more hard drive space.
(3) Make new general units (this is what I have done for MGM and XGM). The downside is that this breaks compatibility with vanilla saved games.

I don't like (1) and (2). (3) is fine, but it means I have to drop the idea of making the new version of MGM compatible with old vanilla saves.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

I have a couple of ideas concerning naval units. Firstly, Greek biremes/triremes should go (older ones can’t be upgraded) but if you want to retain the advantage of Greek crews you can always make Greek ports train them with +1 exp (it’s very easy to do in the export_buildings file, and I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it when we were first considering these new naval units). Secondly, should temples of Neptune be adoptable by Greek factions (still a minimal thing), perhaps they could train hepteres and deceres.

The ‘all factions playable’ is a very minor detail that that anyone can alter themselves. If there are no other changes in the descr_strat file there is no reason to incorporate that change. If, however, the new general units are retained, some users may install ‘all factions’ mods that overwrite that file, thus messing up MGM.

I also think the more minor changes to the Macedonians should be included (hypaspists for instance), or at least available in a Minimal Macedonian Mod (or something of that sort), that includes all new units, without making the leap into XGM territory.

The first time I witnessed any incompatibility with vanilla saves was when drama contests were incorporated, and even then it was only when I loaded a Roman saved game. So, barring the new generals, I don’t see any other aspects of MGM causing any evident incompatibilities (at least in my experience).

As to the generals, why not just upgrade their stats a little, without altering their appearance? It’s a more modest 4th option, that strays even less from the ‘look and feel’ of vanilla RTW.

[DimeBagHo]

Here is how things are shaping up for the new version of MGM:

1. All Greek factions will be playable.
2. The new naval units are dropped, but Greek ports give +1 exp.
3. Naval temple is adoptable by all Roman and Greek factions.
4. Corvus and Deceres are recruitable by all Greek factions with a naval temple.
5. Thessalians are dropped, but GCS get Companions, recruitable anywhere.
6. New general units are dropped, but existing ones will be improved slightly.
7. Otherwise the unit line-up is the same as XGM.

[Epirote]

Will the Greek Generals have the old Greek Cavalry skin?

[Sergei]

Hey guys,
It still occurs when I turn down the settings for the strategy map. I've only played your mod with the greek cities so far, so I'll try reinstalling the game and the mod and playing with Macedon. It hasn't occured on one single date with any regularity. It happens arbitrarily the second I press the end turn button. It seems like it happens right after the game makes an autosave because I can always resume my progress from the second it crashes. Could it be a problem with the autosaving? If so, is there any way to turn that off?

It would seem unusual if that were the problem because, like I said earlier, it wasn't an issue with the unmodified version of Rome. I have a pretty high-end desktop PC, which is why I don't think overloading is the issue.

[DimeBagHo]

Epirote - the generals will look the way they do in vanilla - but it will be very easy to change their appearance on the battlefield if you want to.

Sergei - I think auto-saving can be turned off. Edit preferences.txt, and change AUTO_SAVE:TRUE to AUTO_SAVE:FALSE. But I also doubt this is the problem. If the crash happens right after you hit end turn then there is a good chance that it is a problem with character traits (or maybe ancillaries, but that is also less likely). Check your PM's I will send you an e-mail address where you can send a saved game.

[DimeBagHo]

The new version of the Minimal Greek Mod is out.

You can download it here.

1. All Greek factions will be playable.
2. The new naval units are dropped, but Greek ports give +1 exp.
3. Naval temple is adoptable by all Roman and Greek factions.
4. Corvus and Deceres are recruitable by all Greek factions with a naval temple.
5. Thessalians are dropped, but GCS get Companions, recruitable anywhere.
6. New general units are dropped, but vanilla units will be improved slightly.
7. Otherwise the unit line-up is the same as XGM.
8. More community bug fixes are included.

[Epirote]

I noticed an error

When you go costumize battles.
When putting the pointer over the Illyrians it says <<unlocalised placement>>

naval temple&#33;&#33;&#33;

I didn`t see any Poseidon temple

[DimeBagHo]

Thanks for spotting the Illyrian problem Epirote. I have uploaded a corrected version (the version number is still the same). There is no temple of Poseidon, but Greek factions can upgrade a temple of Neptune if they capture one.

[Epirote]

Will there be any new XGM soon?

[DimeBagHo]

Soonish. AnastasioTheGreat and meh_cd are both working on new skins and models. When they are done I will put together a new version of XGM. But it may take a while for them to finish their work.

[Leonidas123]

Cant wait for the new XGM Dimebag it just keeps getting better.

[Leonidas123]

Hey can someone help me out?

I want to replace the armoured hoplite skin with one of hades&#39; skins. is there a certain file i can replace to just change the skin or do i have to replace everything?

[Epirote]

Some ideas about hypaspist.

Macedonian Hypaspist

The hypaspist in my opinion should act exactly like the Roman triari and not like phalanx.
For skin the old one is just fine. But here is one better.
http://photobucket.com/albums/y112/Epiriot...acedonian07.jpg
The helmet it woul be nice to have the Thracean one who cover the face also.
http://photobucket.com/albums/y112/Epiriot...acianHelmet.jpg

Greek Hypaspist

For skin the armored hoplite skin would be the base but will cause confusion cause they will look alike just like in MGM_0_9.
So there has to be some modification in colors.
Adding more red or blue is the best option for me.
For helmet i propose the Illyrian one.It look just like the Corinthian but the face is uncovered.
http://photobucket.com/albums/y112/Epiriot...rianHelmet2.jpg

[Epirote]

The idea of Hypaspist throwing javellins should be dropped

[DimeBagHo]

Leonidas123 - Replacing skins for vanilla units types is more complicated than replacing skins for new units. The reason is that the game will keep using the skin and UI stuff that is in the .pak folders even if you put new files in the right place. You can solve this several ways: (1) Make a new unit to replace the old unit (this is what I did with Spartans for example); (2) Just change the entry in descr_model_battle.txt to use the new skin (the UI stuff will not match); (3) Unpack the .pak files, then rename or delete them, then replace the skins.

Epirote - The javelins will probably stay but I have been thinking about making the hypaspists more like a heavy infantry unit - which would mostly mean heavier armour.

[meh_cd]

Heh - ATG and I were going to work on an Athenian hoplite just like the one in the picture posted.

[Leonidas123]

Thanx DimebagHo.

Epirote- you are suggesting to make the hypaspists look and fight like phalangites. this makes zero sense considering the macedonians already have phalangites. the purpose of hypaspists was to have a lighter and faster unit to protect the flanks of a phalanx. I agree with dimebag that they should have heavier armour but they already fight like triarii so why should he change them?