EOD2 Improvement pack - Immortal

[Narakir]

EOD2 Improvement pack - Immortal

Immortal is an (un)official ? add-on made to enhance EOD2 experience. It's aim is to add several cosmetic improvements where they're needed, to fix/rebalance the game to make it run through the alexander.exe, and to improve the "immortal" feature for vampires by adding new traits to make their immortality more interesting to play.

The first version of the pack was made by combining several elements found on the forum, it's basis is mostly made on Lanjane's, who has kindly accepted their inclusion. You can find them separately here : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=221984 and here : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=223626

Features for of1.0 version are : - Mostly cosmetics
- Immortal vampires for both factions, using Alexander .exe (Lanjane, fixed by makanyane extended by Narakir)
- Additional musics for all factions. (Narakir)
- New family pictures for all factions. (Narakir)
- New Events pictures for vampires. (Lanjane & Narakir)

Features for of 1.1 : - Very few gameplay changes
- Druids Filatei are recruitable earlier and they got 2 experience points with the last barracks level, they remain uber-expensive though.
- Final Black Veil temple now gives +1 to amour bonus and +1 to all weapons, instead of +2 in amour. Now Severins can actually have +3 with amour & weapons with proper forge instead of wasting an amour bonus.
- Swineherd barbarians now have warcry ability.

Further versions will feature : - It is very unsure I'll ever update this mod again, as I'm put into different projects for the moment.
- Improved traits systems for vampires in a kind of "RPG" scope (player-oriented and AI friendly)
- New traits for other races in order to not favour vampires too much.
- New ancillaries and perhaps improved/magic items very hard to acquire.
- Rebalanced unit stats, due to the loss of shieldwalls, longer battles to make the mod even harder and nerfed Yagrazils.
- Reworked/fixed formations to make them efficient with alexander.exe
- Perhaps few improvements for neutrals : Druids/Zombies/Soul Eaters.
- Fixed custom battles.

DOWNLOAD LINK : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=2728

How to install :
- Make sure you've already followed EOD2 install instructions and patched it.
- Install Alexander (it should not overwrite anything)
- Unrar the addon into your Rome Total folder
- Create a shortcut for RomeTW-ALX.exe
- Open it with proprieties, the current path should look like this : "C:\Rome - Total War\RomeTW-ALX.exe"
- Add : -show_err -nm -mod:bi\eod2 -enable_editor to the current path. It should now look like this : "D:\Rome - Total War\RomeTW-ALX.exe" -show_err -nm -mod:bi\eod2 -enable_editor
- You're done and can launch the game with the shortcut.

Warning : For the moment you can't play custom battles with the Alexander.exe, If you want to do so, I recommend you to backup your un-immortalized EOD2 mod folder.

[Halie Satanus]

Very cool..I never really thought someone would pick up on this mod and create further expansions, happy to see I was wrong.

[Aradan]

Just noticed this, very nice, downloading!

EDIT: Download link not woking atm. Could you re-upload to filefront, for example, for convenience?

[Narakir]

File front alternate download link added, do you still have problem with filedropper ?

[makanyane]

nerfed Yagrazils

but seriously, thanks for doing this and Filedropper worked for me

[Aradan]

Yep, filedropper still takes me to an error page, but filefront link works fine, thx!

[Narakir]

I just intended to drop a little of their impact power to give them better punch in melee. Their impact strength works well with the current system but It may make them to strong with longer battles system.

[Narakir]

I’m just curious, has anybody already tested something like this ? I replaced the standard age setting with it, with proper triggers it seems to be a better implementation than the immortal trait, that could be used as a kind of reward for vampires characters that are able to satisfy some conditions. However I suspect that the death age is hardcoded, perhaps more experimented people around here can confirm it ?

; AGE SETTING - LYCANS 
Trait AgeSetLycan
    Characters all
    ExcludeCultures nomad, eastern, hun, carthaginian, roman
    Hidden
    NoGoingBackLevel  1

    Level YoungLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_desc
        Threshold  1

    Level MediumLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  80

    Level OldLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  120

; AGE SETTING – Humans (longer than in vanilla) 
Trait AgeSetHuman
    Characters all
    ExcludeCultures eastern, roman, barbarian
    Hidden
    NoGoingBackLevel  1

    Level YoungHuman
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_desc
        Threshold  1

    Level MediumHuman
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  40

    Level OldHuman
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  80

; AGE SETTING – Vampires 
Trait AgeSetVampire
    Characters all
    ExcludeCultures nomad, hun, carthaginian, barbarian
    Hidden
    NoGoingBackLevel  1

    Level YoungVampire
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_desc
        Threshold  1

    Level MediumVampire
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  400

    Level OldVampire
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  800

[makanyane]

However I suspect that the death age is hardcoded, perhaps more experimented people around here can confirm it ?

Death age is hardcoded-ish, without immortal trait generals will start tending to die from natural causes at a certain point and will get increasingly likely to die until they are all gone by say 90? I can't remember how old I've seen normally generals get to. If you start a general really old in descr_strat, older than the average age, he won't die instantly next turn but won't last long... and there is definitely a hardcoded limit to what age you can put in strat - I know I experimented with that a while ago but unless I posted result somewhere won't be able to find what it was.

If you use a turn incremented trait and threshold as in your example, you can make 'come of age' characters get other appropriate traits for their 'age category' based on how far up the age based trait they've got - eg 'brave young warrior' 'grumpy old man' etc.. I think there is already some stuff on that lines in EoD2, but am sure there is plenty more depth could be added.

Hitch is if you don't make characters immortal via Alex you can't make sure they'll get beyond normal age - and if you give your humans immortal trait, you can't kill them off at the appropriate point unless you know their name.

[Narakir]

Thanks, I expected that... perhaps I could try my "B plan" : everybody starts with the immortal trait and they actually loose it when they go "past old age" let's say 150+ for Lycans this means a fourth level of ageing that will remove at the end of the turn the immortality trait.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

; AGE SETTING - LYCANS 
Trait AgeSetLycan
    Characters all
    ExcludeCultures nomad, eastern, hun, carthaginian, roman
    Hidden
    NoGoingBackLevel  1

    Level YoungLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_desc
        Threshold  1

    Level MediumLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  80

    Level OldLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  120

    Level CloseDeathLycan
        Description None_desc
        EffectsDescription None_effects_desc
        Threshold  150

[Halie Satanus]

I can't remember how old I've seen normally generals get to.

I seem to recall 120 in a mod, I think it was a Britannia mod, maybe 'Pax Britannia.' What I'm pretty sure of was that any general that lived that long started to get a string of bad traits, ie; senile, mad with age ect...

Can you sticky this Mak. I'm not a local mod here..

[makanyane]

thread is stuck

Trait Immortal
    Characters family
    Hidden

    Level Immortal
        Description Immortal_desc
        EffectsDescription Immortal_effects_desc
        Threshold  1

must be working via hard code as it has no effects line.... if you want to do something that removes it you need to check you really can remove it, both the anti-trait system and attempting to give -trait points can be a bit buggy anyway... alternative way of getting rid of a trait with effect, via upgrading to 2nd level that doesn't have effect is unlikely to work eg. 2nd Level of 'not_Immortal', may not get rid of hard coded effect as it would still count as trait Immortal > 1

[Narakir]

Well then, I'll try to make them age a bit longer, perhaps Lycans should keep in good shape longer than humans before going senile at least Then I may find perhaps a workout to make both human and Lycans immortal on certain circumstances . 4 turns per year may also be a good way to balance things out. It realy bugs me that Lucian is so "limited" compared to the vampires when it seems he has a destiny full of potential and so few time to accomplish it...

In my Severin Campaign, Valefore has become a mighty authoritarian and dark ruler than fights his battles and make his ennemies tremble with a full set of good traits that improve over years as his potential ennemies (except Rahlalas) fade in the darkness of death as time passes. They should have at least more potential.

[Halie Satanus]

It realy bugs me that Lucian is so "limited" compared to the vampires when it seems he has a destiny full of potential and so few time to accomplish it...

Lycans are not immortal in this mod. In underworld they lived a long time, but this was perhaps due to their healing capabilities.

I don't think we really reflected that in the mod, tbh it wasn't something we thought about to deeply (I don't think Alex was out when we were finishing up EoD II)

This site might give you a few ideas for expanding the Lycan traits/culture.

As for the humans, iirc, not all humans are totally human (I'd actually have to go back and read the chronicles to be sure) .. I think 'Kerin' son of Etrigan would have had certain mystical qualities.

[Lanjane]

Nice work, but it's grievous you put for severins the same eventpictures as for Rahala. When I'd started creating Rahala eventpictures pack that you used, my purpose was to reflect unique look of their culture (mostly 'eastern-like'). But it seems you watered down culture borders between Rahala and Severin...
Heh, I hope I'll release Severin eventpictures pack later.
Cheers!

[makanyane]

@ Lanjane - would be nice to see Severin pics

@ all - does anyone think its funny that we're getting close to having 'historical accuracy' type arguments over an invented fantasy mod?

[Aradan]

I'm just glad people are still playing this gem.

[Lanjane]

makanyane
I didn't mean historical accuracy, I've just talked about keeping up difference between factions, keeping up their unique look in campaign. Your and Halie's mod is so impressive partly due to charming originality of all ingame factions.)

Aradan
Heh, what about me, I don't like Medieval 2 TW or Empire TW. And, for RTW, I've played so much mods that my heart is reaching for something really exotic) Every Halie's mod promises a lot of "atmospheric" and exotic features, that's for sure ^_^

[Halie Satanus]

Every Halie's mod promises a lot of "atmospheric" and exotic features, that's for sure ^_^

I just have wacky ideas, Mak (and Aradan) actually make them reality.

Wait until you see what we've come up with for 300', I think we may have gone tooo far this time

[Narakir]

But it seems you watered down culture borders between Rahala and Severin...
Heh, I hope I'll release Severin event pictures pack later.

It was mostly because I didn't had the time to make a Severin pack (even if I prefer Severins ). As for cultural matters, I felt that they shared pretty much the same roots since they where united long ago, one begin servants of the others. For future improvements for the mod... I'm in exams period at the moment, no need to explain what it means .

@ all - does anyone think its funny that we're getting close to having 'historical accuracy' type arguments over an invented fantasy mod?

Pretty normal IMHO when any fantasy universe comes to have an actual and original background and some "practice". I can't remember of much countless discussions I had about the pen & paper game : Vampires the Masquerade for example.