Changes from the last version:
There's a huge number of changes in this version, too much to list them all in full detail. I will give you a run-through of the new features and then you should just try to find out the specifics by playing - it's the most fun!
Manpower: This is the main new feature in version 0.2; a full-blown manpower system was implemented that enables/disables your recruitment capabilities in a theatre depending on how many soldiers you recruit there. The ratio is 1 soldier = 1 manpower (I can guarantee this on Medium settings, it should work like that on different unit scales, too).
Generally speaking, the more population a region has the more manpower it yields but there are some additional factors involved (like resistance). If your manpower pool is depleted, don't worry too much as it's going to regrow over time (and will be fully refilled after a maximum of 25 turns) - again, the more quickly your population grows the more quickly your manpower will grow, too.
When you select one of your settlements, the advisor will pop up telling you how much manpower you have for the three theatres and how much the region you selected is contributing.
Pop Growth: The food bonuses from all sources have been lowered (except for the base growth). This gives you a much more realistic pop growth rate of between 0 and 1% per turn (immigration notwithstanding)
Economic Rebalancing: A lot of building bonuses have been changed to make high-tier buildings actually worthwhile. You have a bit more money in TI than in vanilla 1.2 but not on the higher difficulty settings. Government buildings now add town wealth growth instead of a tax rate bonus (so build them early if you can).
Education upkeep: Education buildings now have an upkeep. This is subtracted from town wealth but if town wealth is too low for the player it's directly taken from your treasury at the end of the turn. The actual effect of this upkeep is obviously modified by the tax rate in the region so it may make sense to use low-tax regions for schools (this is something to be fixed later). The values are: School - 5000, College - 7500, Classic University - 10000, Modern University - 15000
The modern university is now much more worthwhile, though, giving you 40 research instead of the 20 of a classic university (you can only build it in your capital). In addition, the schoolmaster trait that lowers your research efficiency if you have multiple schools is still in place.
Peaceful Occupation: Peaceful occupation of a province will give you a lower resistance
Population Matters: Population now has some direct effects. It will boost your manpower and supply as well as your tax rate. It also adds some resistance though so you need more happiness to keep some regions in check than others.
House rules:
Terra Incognita is meant to be played with a certain set of house rules. For the best gameplay experience these should be seen as compulsory rather than a proposition but of course I can't and don't want to force you to use them.
1. Don't replenish units if they aren't in a region where you could recruit them at the moment (i.e. don't replenish if your manpower is low, your supply is overstretched or you couldn't recruit the unit anyways)
2. Don't claim more than two trade spots per trade theatre
3. Don't exploit the fact that you can circumvent resistance by gifting a conquered province to a protectorate (giving it to them to create a buffer zone is acceptable, I'll fix the problem in a future version).
4. Don't exploit the one turn delay for manpower disabling your recruitment (i.e. don't recruit units if that would drop your manpower below 0)
Changes in version 0.2.1:
- Cost for education facilities is now displayed properly when selecting a school
- Manpower now works for emergent factions
Installation Instructions:
First of all, please go to your ETW main campaign directory (usually C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\empire total war\data\campaigns\main) and rename or backup scripting.lua (to scripting.lua_vanilla) and startpos.esf (to startpos.esf_vanilla). Then go to your data directory and rename any localisation mod files (called "something_en.pack" usually, don't meddle with patch_en.pack though) by changing their file extension from .pack to .pack_backup
Now you're ready to download TerraIncognita_0_2.rar from the link below and extract the contents into your ETW directory (C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\empire total war). If it asks you to overwrite any files click on yes (again, make sure you have a backup of the script and startpos files). Then download TerraIncognita-0_2-to-0_2_1.rar and likewise extract it into your ETW directory.
Run the mod by double-clicking on TerraIncognita.bat in your empire total war directory
Advanced User Instructions:
Instead of using the batch file you can create a shortcut in steam, right-click on it, click on properties and add "mod TerraIncognita.pack" to the command line. You can also edit your user.empire_script.txt to run other mods together with Terra Incognita
The preferences file:
Terra Incognita comes with a preferences file that allows you to easily tweak the scripted sections of the mod to your liking. It can be found in the "empire total war/TerraIncognita" directory and is called TI_prefs.lua - you can open this file with any text file editor such as notepad. Double-click it, choose "select program from list" when queried by windows, then choose notepad.
The settings within this file should be fairly self-explanatory (except for those which you shouldn't use) so just play around with them or look into the script files to see what they do exactly.
Download
Compatibility:
Terra Incognita requires the official version 1.2; it should be more or less compatible with a lot of mods but there will be some problems. Use LtChambers' mod launcher to check for conflicts.
Make sure that you have no other mod installed that uses its own localisation (usually a pack named something_en.pack) and if you have, rename that package.
License:
Terra Incognita is in public domain. This means you are allowed to change and redistribute any files in this release without any restrictions whatsoever.