Preview Scroll Four: Tibetan Kingdoms

[koultouras]

GOD the units are allmost real.....i even tried to touch them...LOL
One of the greatest works i ve seen around.....
Certainly one to keep an eye on!

[loukas]

Brilliant preview!!!

[Kavhan Isbul]

Brilliant! I thought the exhibit on Tibetan Warriors in the Met a few years ago was fantastic, but this is even cooler.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Nice going guys, now how the hell is CA going to give us modding tools when they see this?

The Half-Life engine produced Counter Strike, the Unreal engine has produced who knows how many games. CA should be looking at the fact that they're ahead of the game in terms of engines that can render as many models and in the fashion they do. I don't think the quality of TW mods has ever entered into the equation, they simply haven't built recent games with a moddable philosophy in mind(ie. Valve) and haven't diverted the time to craft non-proprietary tool sets(ie. Bethesda). That's their prerogative, but it's unfortunate. People still play Starcraft now though, from 1996, and some users still don't have computers than can run M2 well, so this platform has plenty of life left in it even if CA does change their approach with their new game.

Some questions and suggestions:
1) do buddhist monks have two-handed weapon animation?
2) iss tibetan mountainous terrain well playable in battles? In BC (as well as vanilla M2TW) the battlemap were usually very hard to play due to sheer distances and heights which units had to move through. Sometimes, contact with enemy was impossible due to uncorssable terrain.
3) Tibetan mounted archers all have peacock feathers on their helmets, while tibetan heavy cavalrymen are frequently seen without them. As the feathers signify the elite status of the unit- IMHO heavy cavalry units are much more elite than mounted archers., who should wear helmets with feathers less frequently.

1) Yelu will have to answer that.

2) I'm fairly certain this is a problem due to the geography_db file. There have been posted ways to regenerate and modify that file in relatively recent times, and I seem to recall that people found once they regenerated it the heights problem was fixed. I haven't played around with that file as yet since we're still a ways away from fielding units in fluid scenarios on the campaign map(in terms of units to produce, battle map textures, battle map structures, etc). We'll do our best to make the battle map playable.

3) That's an interesting point. I'm not sure if this was intentional or if there were simply a lot of head variations and not all of them were given feathers.

Must confess I have been ignoring this mod for a while now - but these units are beautiful! The background research is also fantastic - if this mod mod could be like my favorite RTW mods (EB & RTR) in it's supplying of information about the cultures of the time it would be incredible.
One minor quibble I would have is that the horse textures do not stand up to the quality of the riders themselves - they simply do not mesh terribly well. Are these the stock M2 horses?

They're new horses, or at least they're based on another horse model we have which is new. Since they represent a specific breed and the model is weighted to fit the skeleton of that breed, it may be that the specific breed looks strange to you. Is it the shape of the horse or the texture being referred to?

[intel]

thx for answer

As for horses:

They're new horses, or at least they're based on another horse model we have which is new. Since they represent a specific breed and the model is weighted to fit the skeleton of that breed, it may be that the specific breed looks strange to you. Is it the shape of the horse or the texture being referred to?

I think that he refers to the horses' head texture, which is quite low res apparently.

[Yelü Dashi]

One minor quibble I would have is that the horse textures do not stand up to the quality of the riders themselves - they simply do not mesh terribly well. Are these the stock M2 horses?

I was always like minor quibbles, and I take full responsibiliy for the horse textures. There were meant to be created by another modder, but I stepped in to create them - they are nothing to do with daNova. The textures are based on the 2048x2048 Rusichi textures, and follow their layout.

This texture squeezes a lot into a small space, the horse bodies are relatively small, thus went stretched over a large model of the horse's body they will appear quite low res. However, I could double the size of each of these textures though it may result less variation. There is a separate issue with some texture stretching around forehead of the horse. I will endeavour to improve on things for next time around.

I appreciate the constructive criticism though I have say you might want to take another look at the M2 vanilla mounts; I'd hope at the very least mine were a vast improvement on them

[Emperor BLUBBS VII]

how many more factions to go?

[IVIarkI2I]

awesome preview +rep

[JonathanB]

Now that is another amazing preview! This mod is nothing but first class! This is now my most anticipated mod. Thanks to the whole team for all your hard work and dedication!!!!

[Killerbee]

still no frontpage announcment ?

[intel]

still no frontpage announcment ?

There was, but Helios stole it

[Yelü Dashi]

the bastards !

[MCM]

As a practicing Tibetan Buddhist (Nyingma) for the last 20+ years, I must say, wow.
I wonder what the current Karmapa would think?

Rep for your efforts!

[YiShuiHan]

terrific

[Earl of Memory]

This work is just awesome! Very good indeed. Thanks for all your dedication and work, I'm sure this will be one of the best mods for M2TW

[toluas]

Simply awesome and amazing!
+rep to all involved (over the coming days, that is)

[gustave]

Great work guys

[Jaguar Paw]

Extremely beautiful and professional work AUH team! Well done. I love your units, and your strat map models.

[frontier-auxilia]

Just an observation guys.

The Tibetans need a badass heavy infantry unit in head to toe chain mail (think cataphracts) with big nasty sword and a shield.

During the Tang Dynasty, the Tibetans were often credited for their high quality chain mail. Even Arab sources acknowledge their superiority over their own. Just to cite from a book

The men and horses all wear chain armour. It's worksmanship is extremely fine. It envelops them completely, leaving openings only for the two eyes. Thus strong bows and sharp swords cannot harm them. When they do battle, they must dismount and array themselves in ranks. When one dies another takes his place. To the end, they are not willing to retreat. Their lances are longer and thinner than those in China. Their archery is weak but their armour is strong. The men always use swords, when they are not at war they still go about carrying swords." "Army of Tang China" by Karl Heinz Ranitzsch

Also they have proven badassery status by locking down a Tang/ Uighur turk coalition force before reinforcement arrives.

"The uighurs considered themselves more of a match for the cumbersome Tibetan cavalry,the chinese infantry was equipped with crossbows with leather flighted arrows.and with longbows whose steel tipped arrows could peirce the tibetan armour.The tibetan infantry were the man threat ,Heavily armed encassed in armour they were known for their bravery under attack.But the tibetan army was also reinforced by turkic soldiers who were exellent cavalrymen.The tibetan army was waiting for the allied army under Beshbaliq.The chinese and uighurs could make no headay agaisnt the tibetans and as the battle progressed they became weak and dispirited,then at last the tibetan lines begun to advance a grey ironclad mass of tibetan infantry rolled foward relentlessly routing the enemy" 801ad by Du YU from
life along the silk road" written by susan whitfeild


On the professional warrior side of the spectrum, the Tibetans need atleast one more heavy infantry unit that can do more then holding their ranks against enemy heavy cavalry.The bodyguard look monstrous, monks are cool, so are the armored spearman, peacock feather medium archers in chain mail--wicked but from the current roaster the Tibetan lacks general purpose heavy infantry men if they want to expand their territories. Fierce as the tribesmen may be its gonna be damn hard to expand when you need to capture fortresses with light troops. Its gonna be difficut contending with army down souththat are big on fire powers (chinese) or cataphracts/medium horse archers tag team of doom from Jin, Karakhitai, Western Xia or the mongols. Or you guys can simply fit them in as dismounted bodyguards. Cavalry is an imported tactic and its common at times for heavy cavalrymen to fight dismounted when they wanted to. Given how little Tibetan tactics have changed, it seems fitting for them to retain the tradition of fighting on foot as armored infantrymen. Plus you guys get full creative license to do so. First its a game and source materials are limited after all. Or there can be a reform to get these guys after you unite the himalayas. That will be sick too

[Boztorgai_Khan]

Very Nice Preview..
Everything is Awesome..

+REP Yelü Dashi