Discussion and Announcements

[DimeBagHo]

hzh: There are a couple of things in XGM that could cause added lag. Some of the newer or more recently changed units do not have sprites, and there are more large units around (thureophoroi, phalangites, etc). But I don't think that would cause the kind of problem you are having. How much memory do you have? I have seen similar problems in other games that were caused by a lack of memory.

Zarax: I still don't like the way short pikes work, so they will probably go in the next version, but there are some other possibilities for the units that currently have short pikes.

(1) I can shorten the base phalanx pike so that regular pikes and long pikes will both be shorter. Short pikes could be replaced with shortend regular pikes, regular pikes could be replaced with shortened long pikes. The downside to this is that I have not figured out a way to do it without changing the original game files. That is a killer for me, but you could do it for the BI exe version (let me know if you want to do it, I will supply the files you need).

(2) Non-phalanx Spear/Sword and Sword/Spear combos work fine now, and you can use both weapons with attack/alt-attack. The only problem with this is that units with this sort of setup will still switch to the secondary weapon when attacked - which is not good.

(3) Javelin/Sword combo, like hypaspists used to have.

(4) Spear only with the over-hand animation.

In the interests of unit diversity I think I will switch the hypaspists back to Javelin/Sword, and switch the Carthaginian Sacred Band, Corinthian hypaspists, and Greek mercs, to over-hand spear. The Corinthians will probably be renamed to Sacred Band or Corinthian Hoplites.

[Zarax]

Well, did you try if shield wall works on 1.5? it would give you some extra room, anyways I would give overhand spear to sacred band and corinthian, give a spear/sword combo to hoplites and javelin/sword to hypaspists (that will keep them running with the seleucids legionaries).

If you're still working on immortals put the prec attribute on their bow, it will give them fairly realistic tactics...
Other than that the only cosmethic change I would do is giving the samnites hoplite style spear so that they don't look like pushovers anymore...

I don't have any other suggestions for now, just looking forward to the next version.


Oh, btw... I asked Archer if he could make a subforum for XGM, hope you don't mind...

[DimeBagHo]

I did try out shield wall, but had no luck. It was ignored. If you know of anyone who has it working (without the BI exe) let me know.

[Zarax]

ok, it will stay an "hidden" feature...

[DimeBagHo]

Here's a couple of screenshots of new units and skins. The first one shows the new Carthaginian Sacred Band going up against the Spartan Royal Guard. The Royal Guard is going to be a hoplite unit, spear only with over-hand animation, like the Sacred Band units. The GCS will start with one unit and, assuming the script works, recieve a few new members each year. Otherwise it will not be possible to recruit or train them.

The second shot shows the new Immortals unit. Their equipment is similar to Eastern Heavy Infantry, but they carry bows and somewhat smaller shields strapped to their forearms. These will be recruitable by Parthia with an army barracks and an archery range.

[Zarax]

Cool stuff DBH, but what did you do with the script exactly?

[DimeBagHo]

The script spawns a small number of Royal Guards at Sparta every few years. It appears to work, but I have decided to take another approach to achieve much the same effect.

What I want to do is make it so that the player will never have a huge number of Guards (preferably just one unit), and will have reason to use them sparingly. But on the other hand I don't want them to just die off slowly.

I figured that the best way to achieve that effect would be a slow trickle of new recruits. But I now think a better way would be to make them trainable but only over an impractical length of time (so it will not really be worthwhile to train a whole new unit) and at considerable up front expense (so retraining will hurt).

[Zarax]

Sounds like an interesting approach to me... BTW, have you added any of the things i sent/posted before? If not it's fine, they will stay in the BI version...

[bestantreas]

The next version seems that is going to be better than the other. Why don't you add a script that allows you to recruit some units of the qunquered provinces? It would be really nice. Also the idea with the Spartan Royal Guard looks nice! But overall, I can't wait to play your mod with the new SigniferOne's Animatons!

[Zarax]

Well, the idea is more to allow recruitment of local mercenaries to some factions more than others, after all by the time you conquer an enemy it means that the existing military system collapsed so that only units less dependant from the local recruitment system (IE mercenaries and the like) could be recruited...

[saxonhero]

Have you taken any classes at modeling and/or skinning and if not, can you link some of the most valuable online lessons you have read?

[Empedocles]

Hi DimeBagHo!First I will thank you for your efforts in this mod and everyone who worked on it.
I want to ask if the other factions are being skinned and balanced so I don't face vanilla skins.
Thanks!

Diego, from ARgentina
PS: You should have your own subforum

[DimeBagHo]

saxonhero: I haven't taken any classes. Most of what I have learned has been from: (1) The guides over at the .org, (2) Looking at other people's work to get ideas, (3) Trial and error.

Empedocles: I don't plan to do any whole faction reskins. In fact I try to keep even the new units and reskins as close to the vanilla style as I can. The reason for that is that I'm not much of an artist, and I'm more interested in improving game play. Staying close to the vanilla style allows me to add new units that look OK without having to wait for other people to make skins for me .

That said, there are lots of skin packs around, and some of them look great.

Zarax: Most (if not all) of your changes will be in the next version.

bestantreas: At some point I want to have basic local units that can be recruited by anyone in all regions. I agree with Zarax when it comes to elite units though - in most cases it would be unrealistic to make them recruitable after conquest.

[Zarax]

One thing DBH: please leave BI formations in as they will make my work much easier and are ignored by 1.5 anyways, if you can add shield wall to the elites you're changing or adding it will be even better...

That said, what would you guys like in a separated BI version of XGM? Formations and swimming are already in and you just need to use the BI exe, other stuff might be harder to implement but I'll give a try...


Please do not double post!!! - Trajan


A long term crazy idea that might make things interesting...
You might want to try killing one faction (numidia or the brutii are excellent candidates) and use the new superfaction settings to give a senate (the oracle of Delphi? in some unreachable place like domus dulcis domus it wouldn't hurt anyone) to one or more greek factions (macedon and seleucids or GCS and ptolemies might be a good choice, you could also put carthage in the first pair as they were allies anyway) to give them a better balance to roman factions and make gameplay more interesting...
Imagine having spartan royal guards or some elite unit as reward for a mission instead of having to build them, you could also make hellenistic elites available to other hellenes this way and other interesting possibilites.

EDIT: SORRY TRAJAN

[DimeBagHo]

Zarax: I have included the BI formation stuff, and added shield_wall to the "hoplite" units. I haven't included the price changes. I tried out the senate/oracle thing a long time ago. Giving senate missions to non-roman factions causes a CTD. I think the only way to make that work would be to convert the Roman factions into Greek factions, and visa versa - which would be a lot of work . The other option is to use showme scripts to implement missions - which is on my "to do" list.

[Zarax]

DBH, did you try with 1.5 too?
The whole superfaction thing should be working from what I heard, I might give it a try after the exams...

BTW, I think you should do at least some price changes to upkeep, the game starts to be a little boring when there are 3 or 4 major players in the map spewing stack after stack of just elites... Some units are meant to be rare, even with a big empire you shouldn't be able to maintain more than 1 or 2 stacks of elites...

[DimeBagHo]

Yes, the superfaction/subfaction tags can be added to non-Roman factions, but as far as I know the only effect is that they share thier view of the map. It might make some difference to diplomacy as well, but I don't think it allows senate missions.

I might take a look at unit prices again - I think it would make sense to increase prices for cavalry and elite units.

Here's a quick run-down on what I have done for the next version so far:

1. MM-XGM: Implemented sub-factions for the GCS, added Pergamum to starting cities, modified some scripts to work correctly. Still no victory conditions - something is screwing up the unique victory conditions and I haven't figured out what it is yet.
2. Added Spartan Royal guard. Recruitment costs 8000, and takes 30 turns. You start with one unit. The idea is to keep availability limited to one unit that is expensive to retrain.
3. Re-skinned Carthaginian Sacred band, converted Corinthian Hypaspists to Greek Sacred Band. Both units will be over-hand, spear only, "hoplite" units. Greek mercenaries are also "hoplite" units now.
4. Hypaspists reverted to javelin/spear.
5. Corinth now starts out as Macedonian, but the GCS still start with a subfaction leader for Corinth. (This seems to make a huge difference to the ability of the Macedonians to survive in the early game, and it is historically accurate).
6. Romans: Early Legionaries, and Early First Cohort are gone. Late Legionaries are now recruitable with city barracks. Urbans are now an improved garrison unit (look like Early Legionaries, stats are somewhat worse than Early Legionaries, size 60). Pratorians are Italy only, First Cohort are still Rome only.
7. Samnites renamed to Italians, recruitable in Italy by Carthage.
8. "Spartan" trait is limited to Spartan sub-faction. It now boosts hit points and troop morale, but also adds risk of gaining vertain vices.
9. Added Immortals.

I think that's about it.

BTW - SignifierOne's new animation pack is out, so I will have a beta of the new version ready quite soon. Release will be in a day or two (if not sooner).

[saxonhero]

The only "vice" for being "Spartan" I can think of is "Bloody".

[Zarax]

Bloody, stubborn, full of pride and xenophobic... Hmm, quite like romans lol

BTW, if you are going to use urbans like city militia (would be a nice post marian one) call them Vigiles, give them chain mail, spear and large shield (equipped more or less like triarii, just less elaborated).

Stat wise they should have good armor but low attack, defence skill and discipline (no shield wall) to reflect their militia status and should have and higher upkeep than town militia... would like nice for as post marian replacement.

BTW, if you want to go on the historical side I'd replace the standard legionary with early legionary stats and skin, keeping the normal stats for first cohorts (who should be set at the same number as standard cohorts) and the lorica segmenta skin for praetorians only.

Other than that, if you're already looking for further updates just let me know, I'm scraping around for historical data and I think there are ways to make the post marian game a little more interesting for the post marian scenario...

[hzh]

First, thx for the reply, well, yes, my memory seems to be a little low for the game guess. lack of sprites? yes, i got a "feeling" that the official 1.5 is a tiny bit smoother, but did not see a whole lot of difference. As for the change of prices..., I already did to my own. I increased the prices for cav considerably, lowered barbarian upkeep, increased cav attack and charge dis for some, increased infantry charge bonus a LOT to make the game more fun, overall i increased units' defence skill a little to avoid super fast battle, and changed some amor and arrow status to show that arrows are weak against armed units but deadly against skirmishers(changed some def skill to balance out melee combat)

increase cav speed relative to infantry-seems impossible without re-naming the skeletons.

SignifierOne's new animation pack-yes, of course, why not.

shield wall formation-i REALLY love it, but little confused here, will you add it to 1.5 or only bi gets it? if the later,then i need to consider to work some extra hours to get the money for that one.

your next version-i always like to play that song-"right here waiting"