Mod focus by teecee
Darthmod

Our reporter teecee recently caught up with Darth Vader of Darthmod infamy. For ease of reading, all of teecee's comments/questions are in red and Darth's responses are left in black - enjoy. Carousel.
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Interview

Darth, allow me to thank you for making this interview possible. There seems to be a growing number of RTW players that are playing your 4.5 version of DarthMod and would be interested in some more specifics about you and your mod. On behalf of them, I would like to say that we appreciate the time and effort that you have put in on DarthMod for the community.

1. What is your gaming background? Does it predate PC’s?


My gaming experience started with the plain ATARI game machine. I remember with nostalgia those days I was 5 & 6 and I saw those ancient but still addictive games as a hope for the future of my gaming lust. Later I played at a friend's houses with Amstrad and Spectrum games although I did not own those machines. My first pc was a 200MHZ IBM and since then I am always on the run trying to enhance my available machines to the latest possible versions so that I can play the latest games and also have the best compatibility with various programs I use.

2. What are some of your favorite PC or console games?

My favorite and almost exclusive game I play is Rome Total War! (How typical!). I also play Chessmaster, 10th edition and every now and then I try some new strategy games which I quickly uninstall as I find them simple compared to RTW. I also play many Star Wars games of which I am a TOTAL fan. (My name is not chosen by luck!) I also play Playstation, exclusively the ISS football with my group of friends.

3. Is the 4x strategy game your favorite or is there a different genre that you prefer?

I prefer almost exclusively the strategy game genre.

4. Are you interested in history or is PC gaming more of an interest to you?

My interest in military history began before I had the ability to use a joystick. I was at the age of 3 or 4 when I began looking at many military books with pictures of knights and castles and demanded that my mother read them for me. I am very fond of history and computer gaming gives me the ability to have a virtual tour of it.

5. Is DarthMod, your first attempt at modding PC games?

I have modded before for Medieval Total War. My mod was well appreciated and it was mainly focused on gameplay. I have made very good balances to unit stats and muskets, etc. and also building queues. It was a simple mod that was used by many but not a very well known one. I did not continue to enhance it as I do now for RTW and it remained a mini-mod.

6. How many people worked on DarthMod?

I am the only single soul who works on this mod. I do it in my free time and I add small things gradually to make it even better as time passes. If I had contributors or beta-testers, I think Darthmod would be a separate game of its own. In Darthmod 5.0, I use the work of other people (mostly skinners) and I mention them in my text. I am really grateful for their permission and it is obvious that as more people join a quest, the outcome is far larger and more impressive.

I want people to join my mod especially for skins and map makers (non-crashy). This is the function of Internet. It is spectacular to see this as an idea...to find a place different from your job, working with others and sharing common benefits as a result of the outcome of the cooperation. Even without money. Production rate is far larger when working like this. If we had the tools that the producers have in their hands, the community could create things we can only imagine.

7. How long has it taken you to get to this point in the DarthMod life cycle?

As I can remember I started in November of 2004 until now.

8. What did you find to be the most difficult aspect of modding?

The most difficult and boring aspect of modding is inserting graphics into the game. Without proper tools you have to manage to place by hand every texture for about 370 new ones I used in my mod. That means careful and thorough text editing, renaming, beta-testing...I do not want to remember it. But the results are paying off. I enjoyed, by the way, modding of the gameplay and the AI. It needed creativity and experimenting and every change you do is shown in the game like it is alive.

9. DarthMod doesn’t currently have it’s own sub-forum here at TWC. Do you think that it should?

I began with mini-mods. My first successful mini-mod was the corrected arrow bug fix that neutralized the bug that occurred with projectiles, especially fire-arrows. Since that time no one on the internet has accomplished anything like it and, like a storm, everybody was sending me posts and e-mails thanking me. By becoming known I introduced my mod that contained small, general fixes with very good gameplay and this has become a success as well. I hadn't, until that time, advertised my mod anywhere (no extra posts, no site other than TWCenter, no links, etc.) and I saw that many people were talking about me. It was this satisfaction that pushed me to continue even further so as to please more of the community. Right now, many thousands are expecting my new mod and I believe that by releasing it, there will be a lot of downloading. So I think that I deserve a personal sub-forum so as to help all these people track my mod. There is demand...

10. The main focus of DarthMod 4.5 was on the tactical battles and the battlefield AI. Is DarthMod 5.0 a continuation of this effort?

It is a continuation or better yet, an enhancement. I have created 60+ new units (non-fantasy units), there is a big enhancement in battles, as I state in the readme file, and even I (who created it) could not believe my eyes when I saw it in action. If you give this game the correct data it becomes a new one.

11. Is DarthMod complete or will we be seeing a version 6.0 in the future?

The Darthmod will continue to be upgraded as long as people want it and support me. Many people have proposed ideas to me that I have made a reality so a small portion of the credit deserves to go to them.

12. With the upcoming release of the expansion for RTW, are you considering modifications for it as well?

Certainly. I fear that despite the efforts of the community, CA will not address all the known bugs and misbalances.

13. There is a small but vocal group of folks that want you to release a “battlefield AI fix only” version of DarthMod. Are you considering this?

The only thing I can do is make a separate mini-mod that addresses the formation-ai and will work with all mods. But that will not create the guaranteed gameplay enhancement of playing with the whole mod. This is because there are so many changes made that co-operate with each other to create the balance.

14. There is rumor of a second expansion for RTW by CA. If this is true, what time period do you think they should focus on?

I would propose the Greek period until Alexander the great-Era.

15. What is your favorite historical time period from a wargaming perspective?

Classic period, Hellenistic-period, Rome, and Medieval.

16. Playing version 4.5 of your mod, I got the impression that you value gameplay over realism. Would that be a correct assessment?

Hmm, I would not agree with this. The settings in my battle system are made so that it improves realism. For example you can watch the new mod and will understand how cavalry actually did work. I have played other mods that made cavalry like a storm of gods, or static idiots that take 10 hits before they fall down.

I have created the default map to be as historical as possible and the battles to last as long as they should. That is realism with small sacrifices for gameplay. Even archers work realistically. When armoured opponents raise their shields and wait for them, they get minimum casualties. Before, the archers simply shot them down despite your efforts to defend....I could talk for hours!

17. I have noticed that in version 5.0, you have decided to change Egypt to a Ptolemaic faction and have given it Greek units. Could you explain your reasoning behind this change?

The reason I did that is because it is historically correct. It was Ptolemaic Egypt in that era and the Greek successors held these lands.

18. In version 5.0, some of the new units do not have sprites. Do you intend to add them at a later date?

At the time that I write this answer I have finished importing the new sprites. 65MB of sprites have been created to fit into the game. The frame rate of battles is as smooth as water now.

19. Playing a battle using your mod is so much better than the original version of the game. What would you consider to be the main change that accomplishes this?

The greatest changes are the balance of unit stats and the formation AI.

20. Ballistas and scorpions have 3 artillery pieces now. Was this done for game balance?

Yes. Now they inflict the correct number of casualties and are now worth having in battle compared to onagers.

21. Is there any aspect of RTW that is hardcoded that you wished were moddable?

I would like the AI to be less hard-coded. I would like to create new strategies for the computer. I think it would be possible. CA is just lazy. They create a super game and are too bored to perfect it.

22. The centerpiece of DarthMod 4.5 was the player and AI formations and the AI tactics. How long did it take you to get this aspect of your mod working properly?

Hundreds of hours of actual playing, not for fun but for testing, using specific settings of battles so that I could compare variances and decide on better adjustments.

23. Was there anything that you wanted to do with your mod package that you couldn’t because of “hardcoding” in RTW?

I would like to make boiling oil that gets poured correctly and not like Niagara Falls. It can exterminate an AI's good effort because it pours endlessly and destroys gameplay. Does anybody know anything?

24. There hasn’t been much focus in your mod package on the campaign. Are you considering making some improvements in that area?

Right now I can guarantee that the map I use is 100% bug free! You can play a campaign from the start to the end with no bugs (at least mine). I have played good mods that had giant maps that every now and then would kick you to the desktop because of bugs. That is annoying and I do not want it in my mod. I would like to create a map with not so many towns as in other mods because it destroys the gameplay. There is no reason to think in these maps because you can create many large armies in no time. You have supply from near conquered towns and so each expedition is decided by some metres advance to the next town.

A good map must maintain the town distances so that you can really understand what the cost is of moving your precious army away from your lands through infested lands and be ambushed by healthy and supported enemy armies.

25. Reading the “readme” file that you have released for version 5.0, I notice that you have changed the formations and that they are now more complicated. Is there a short learning curve to grasp the new system?

As I write in my text, they are very complicated and the main aspect is that they have a center infantry core with general at the back and cavalry supporting the flanks. That formation is maintained during the battle and not just at the start. You can watch the computer make coordinated attacks and advances like you’ve never seen before.

26. Why did you think it was important to change this?

"Change" is not the word I would use. "Enhance" is more appropriate and that means every good aspect of the previous mod is maintained but there are new improvements included. (Also Sieges and bridge battles are more challenging, as requested by many).

27. What do you think about some of the other mod packages that are out there or are in production right now?

I find every mod an extraordinary effort of single men, that for a hobby can create so many things with so few tools in hands. That is romantic and I respect them and also gain knowledge from them as they take from me, I guess.

28. Can you describe DarthMod 5.0 in 5 words or less?

Spectacular, eye-candy, difficult to master, clever, self-arrogant (lol)!

Sorry for any bad english but I am Greek and so not my mother-tongue. Hope I manage to upload the mod soon. (It will be very big, unzipped=120MB+)

Darth, let me restate my appreciation to you for allowing me to interview you. I’m glad you were able to take the time to give your fanbase a little extra inside information on you and your newest creation.

Author’s note : While I found Darth’s command of the English language to be quite good despite it not being his native tongue, I have edited a few of his responses for syntax. Any confusion or inaccuracies as a result are my fault, not his. Given that I phrased my questions assuming that Darth’s first language was English, I would say that he has a wonderful command of the language.

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A huge thank you to teecee and Darth for thier time and effort