Rome Total War Vanilla Mod

[Roy974]

heavengames.com, they have a lot of amazing things. I have other units i wish to add but i'm still waiting for the guy's who made them to get back to me.

[Arbitrary Crusader]

I see. Here some REP+, for the beta.

[Roy974]

Thanks bud.

[Roy974]

I will again start working on this when i get time, i'm currently still working on the long term project Age Of Pirates 2 City Of Abandened Ships and have been for almost 2 years now. But when everything i'm working on now i will start work on RTW Vanilla. Sorry for those who was waiting for this mod. There will be two versions of this i think, one with no new units just some edits to make the game more fun and challanging and one with a new map and units as planned. Due to formatting the cop i'm having to get back up to speed with what i had ready to be installed and what i was working on already. The vanilla with no new units etc shouldn't take long to get up and running so i will work on that first.

[Roy974]

Here's a preview of a campaign on easy for this test, the next test will be on VH/VH. I think its going very well in 233BC with 4 turns per year there hadn't been many factions wipped out and then by 217BC only 3 more factions had been wipped out and that was because they only had 1 city each so not its going well. This will never be the same again i know that next time it could the the Greek's who steam roll over everyone and the Thracans who are wipped out quickly but the changes have obviously improved the stregths of some factions although Macadonia i was not to happy about because they had been given a few new units. Perhaps rather than give them more i should increase the attacking abilities and see how it goes then. Suggestions for the Macadonians?

The Greek's Armoured Spartans have had there attack abilities lowered drastically, my intentions was that no units was stronger than the strongest unit in the Roman rosta but some factions have there stronger units earlier than the more dominant factions because of them been too weak early on anyhow and that looks to have worked although more testing is required there. If i don't bump into any bugs i most likely will upload this as beta V2.0.

The work on the Modified Vanilla version is going well, with a 4 turn per year script in place and many years passed you can see not many factions have been wipped out. The Gauls was wipped out only a few turns before taking these pictures. The Spanish expanded fast very early on and that resaulted in the Brits been trapped on Britan, however the Brits started taking the rebals out and was able to get a foothold in Europe and then began to take the Gaul cities but the Spanish was too much for the Brits who was unable to capture any of the Spanish cities. For around 30 turns the Brits and Spanish was at a stall, the Brits and Spanish was allied to me and signed a ceasefire with each other. The Brits announced war on the Spanish and asked me to aid them, at this point i was looking for a excuse to attack either the Brits or the Spanish and now i had that reason so obviously i agreed and began my expantion into Spain.
As you can see i have captured one city off them because of this the Brits was able to capture 2 cities from Spain aswell but are once again at a stand still. Mean while the Dacians have started to crumble as the Germans begin there expantion. For most of the game Germany looked to be too weak and soon to be wipped out as the Brits moved ever closer to them but this expantion by the Brits seemed to wake the Germans up who then expanded taking almost all the Dacian cities.
The Dacians was able to hold off many attacks from the Brutti who had taken all of Macadonia's cities and Greek's while they was at it. But The Dacians seemed to be to hard to break and was forced to hold position till the Germans came along. The Dacian and Macdonian's are now down to a single city each, Macadoia have been like that for many turns while Dacia have only just lost many of there cities.
This game has been getting very interesting, i'm playing as the Julli and rather than play the game as i normally do expand like crazy i decided to hold off and watch to see how the other factions expanded. I captured only the cities that was constantly sending attacks at me and as you can see from the pictures the AI have done well not to wipe each other out to fast and there isn't really a dominant faction. The Spanish was strong as was the Dacians but both have been pushed back, the Germans have taken up the position as one of the strongest factions with Brutti holding ferm in Greece. The Scippi have been at a stall all game, they have done very little to expand although they have tried to capture the towns closest to them they just seem to be to weak at the moment or are sending in the wrong troop types.
When i have finished this campaign i will try it on VH/VH to see what changes, this campaign is on easy/easy. I wanted to see the difference with the new units and map effects aswell as many changes else where.
UPDATE:


With the Dacian and Macadonian factions now gone thanks to the Germans who later on lost the city that was once the last city of Macadons to the Brits who have now started to expand like crazy although the Thracans have some what stopped the Brits in there tracks. Mean while the Thracans them selves have expanded too taking most of Greece from the Brutti, because of this threat i have decided to send a legion over and recapture some of those towns and slow Brutti before they can get started on there quest for expantion. This plan will also enable some much needed money for a military action against the Brits who if not stopped soon will expand too much and be a pain later on. Because the Thracans have held the Brits back there is no big rush for this just yet so i will focus on getting at least 3 to 4 towns in Greece before looking to attack the Brits.
The Germans who have been under heavy attacks from the Brits have lost control of many cities now and look to be the next faction who could be elliminated in less i can draw the Brits attention when i'm ready to attack them. Seleciud (spelling) has done well and made its position in the game more stronger with the Egyptians now looking to be too weak to poss any real threat to them. However they could still bounce back as seen before.
For ourselves, we have taken some spanish cities and called the remaining legion to the sgore ready for the expedtion into Greece. The Brits look to be a future target once much needed money is secured from Greece and the Cathargans with there 2 cities remaining will be on the recieving end of our expantion as we will want to secure the town near the Scippi for the expedition into Greece and the final city for the Cathargans will be near the Spanish twons i captured on the small island which i will want to secure at some point. I didn't want to wipe them out i was hopping they would attack the Nemidians and retake some of there cities back but they never even tried (guess thats down to the naval invations been so bad).

[Roy974]

Sorry i have been gone for so long, i haven't forgotten about this mod. I have been so busy working on Age Of Pirates 2 City Of Abandened Ships aka COAS. The current mod we are working on is still in testing which is called Gentalmen Of Furtune aka GOF. Anyway back to RTW, i have made some changes and added maps to the factions which was missing its maps and discription text at the select faction screen. I can't remember everything i have changed because most of it was done a long time ago. I had made a huge update but my motherboard blew and i lost everything because i couldn't get the hard drive to run as a slave on another computer. The data i lost increased the barbarian factions unit types like Germans, Gauls to make them a little tougher but not to much that they would dominate the map. The Brits was given a calvalry unit and the Spanish was given a few units to help them keep the Gauls and Brits at bay. Basically a lot of things had changed to balance the game out better so all factions had a better chance of surviving for a longer period of time, that of course is now in the paste. This update fixes some bugs and adds some more units, the problem is some units need cards making for them which i will have to learn how to do but this is only a beta version so its early day's. Once GOF has been released for COAS i can look into learning more things for RTW and hopefully offer much more in a future update. For now here is the new update. This link is also included on page 1 of this topic.

RTW Vanilla Mod Beta V2.0
http://www.mediafire.com/file/fysezg...Beta%20V2.0.7z

[Cesarz]

Have you considered uniting Rome into a single faction? It makes the game more historically accurate and harder for the Romans (yes, it makes the game harder).

And Spain could use a spearman unit. It's not a priority, but it would help.

[Spartan198]

Yeah, uniting Rome into one faction would also free up a few faction slots that you could do whatever with.

[Roy974]

Well i don't really know how to go about that, because of spending so long working on another game i have to relearn the for RTW, if you know how to do that or even where i can find information on how to do it then that would be very helpfull.

Your right Spain does need a spearmen unit, i will see what i can do for them.

[Cesarz]

Unfortunately, I don't know how to do it. You could probably find out by posting a question in the Mod Workshop.

And if you are going to do any new factions if you unite Rome then I recommend The Sarmatian Tribes and/or Massalia.

[Roy974]

I will look into uniting the Rome factions and adding 3 new factions to replace the 3 Rome factions that will be removed. The Julli will be the Romans faction since they are more historically correct. I also need to learn how to make a mod switch so the Vanilla mod can be played without changing the stock files from the base game. I am sure i saw a walkthrough for how to do that some where.

[Roy974]

Ok here's how things stand now, i have worked on RTW Vanilla Mod some more and added some more units and a new campaign map. Fixed a couple of bugs and improved the game balance a lot from what i have seen in testing, there are alway's room for improvements though and i am by far not ready to accept this mod as finished. So here's what has changed.

Britons generals will no use cavalry as a pose to chariots, you can also recruit a cavalry unit and archer's.

Spain can now recruit archer's, i am still looking for a spearman unit for them and that should then balance them out more.

Numidia was the weakest faction in the several campaign games i started when testing factions balance which i played as the Brits and watched the Ai while i got richer and richer without trying to expand. Anyway because they was alway's the first faction to fall i have added some units to there rosta which has improved there chances but still work on them needs doing.

So here is a list of every unit added to RTW Vanilla mod beta V3.
* Chosen archers == Britons
* carthaginian archer == carthage
* woad cavalry briton == Britons
* barb cavalry briton == Britons
* dac comati scythe == dacia
* gaul cavalry == gauls
* barb night raiders german == gauls
* Iberian Infantry == Numidian
* Numidian Spearmen == Numidian
* Poeni Infantry == Numidian
* Spanish Archers == Spain
* Spartan Armoured Infantry == greek_cities

Basically the way i tested was each campaign i played or should i say used the Brits (since i didn't do anything apart from get rich) i sat and watched the AI looking for factions that was weak and getting a idea of which factions are strong enough now with the changes. I would go to around turn 50 to 70 and then start again repeating this process several times before finally taking what i had learned and improving what ever factions need improving and everytime i watched it was the Numidian faction that was first to go and many times it didn't take long for that to happen. The Roman factions was held on Italy which was nice to see, the Butti couldn't break through the Macedons and Greeks and the Scippi couldn't push through the carthaginians while Julii was stuck with the Gauls and Germans. The Julii most of the time did manage to take 2 to 3 towns but then got bogged down, the Scipii would take a town but most of the time was stuck with the towns they started with and the same for Brutii who would expand over near the Macedons and Greeks but would most of the time get there but handed to them. Of course this is all early gameplay where the Roman factions are still using weak units which is why now i will release Beta V3.0 and start a new campaign with the intentions of actually playing through to the end.

I do not have any screenshots sorry but i will upload some as and when i get chance. The new map will increase the amount of territories and the barbarians towns will now reflect the stone walls when on the campaign map which they didn't do in Beta V2.0. Have fun and hope to hear your thourghts on this update and also hear about how your campaign is going. The more info i have the more i can learn. I have now included a fully up to date change log with all credits going to those who made the map and units included in this mod. Have fun. First page updated to also include new link bellow.

Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?8qypzfhcye8skj2


Update:
Link reupdated because i forgot to add the file to make the walls for barabarians appear on the campaign map view, this has now been fixed in this new link. Sorry to those who already downloaded V3.0. Its not a game breaking thing so you do not have to download this new update all it will do is make the barbarian settlements on the campaign map view look better when they build stone walls if you do not download this then the barbarian settlements that build stone walls will look as if they have no walls to defend them selves with, and thats all this new updated link changes.

[Roy974]

Hi guy's the next update is almost ready, this update will improved water textures, some new unit skins, sky textures, weather improvements, some new units, night effects in battles, improved AI which has increased the game difficulty. When i test i play with the difficulty on easy and easy, my main game i play on hard and very hard. After this update has been released it will be some weeks before a new update is released in less some game breaking bug shows up. I alway's said i didn't have any intentions of removing vanilla aspects apart from the imperial map of course but after hours of battles i decided the wardogs and pigs was a waste of space and although they can be selected in custom and quick battles they are no longer recruitable in campaign games. This has made the factions who could recruit them like Gauls, more difficult because they will bring in more cavalry and infantry units. In one such battle where i played as the Julii the Gauls attacked with two full stacks which had a combined force of 11 units including generals, 7 Chosen Swordsmen, 2 or 3 units of skermishers and a mass amount of Spearmen. The one thing i have yet to see is the Gauls use archers.

At the moment i am still testing and compiling the changes as and when each new addition is tested, but here are some pictures from a battle with the Gauls on easy, easy which will give you a slight insight to the improvements made to the AI.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And finally here is a picture of the new sky effects for night battles.


More pictures will be added as and when i have taken them, i want to take some pics of the new skins but for the last 4 nights i have had around 3 to 4 hours of sleep each night so i am starting to feel the effects now of such little sleep. I am aiming to get the new update released sometime this week ready for the weekend where i can spend a long time just playing the game and not changing a single thing (like i will not find something that needs tweaking lol).

I am still thinking if i should unit all of Rome or keep the seperate families, i am not sure just yet. I will perhaps make the changes once i figure out everything i need to do and test it to see how it changes the game balance which is drastically improved now. The Romans no longer wipe Dacia and Macedonia out, Scipii no longer advance through Carthage forces as if they wasn't there and Julii have there hands full just trying to hold off the Gauls. Britons no longer move from the UK and wipe the Germans, Gauls and Spanish out (they are normally stuck with there starting town) but sometimes capture a town before getting blocked in by the Germans and Gauls. Seleucid are not as dominating as they was although they can still be a force to watchout for if they manage to get the Egyptians advancements under control.

In short the game balance is far better now, no one faction has ever dominated in any of my tests yet, there have obviously been moments when one faction looked to be a force ready to expand and become a major problem later in the game but there dreams for power cut short sooner or later by another faction who has the same desire. For the first 15 or so turns every faction is at what can only be discribed as, as a stalemate like situation sometimes this can be up to 20 to 30 turns in (the mod uses a 4 turns per year script but you do not have to use it if you don't want to). If anyone knows of some skins or units they would like to see added please feel free to post links to them so i can see them and hopefully get permision to use them.

Thanks and hope you like what you have seen so far.

[Skull]

Wow,looks awsome,rep

[Roy974]

Thanks Skull, everything seems to be coming together now. I found out why the factions was all at what seemed like a stalemate, the factions deplomacies needed some tweaking. Now the factions do attack each other and Brutii does manage to get a foothold in Greece but for how long. The Greeks have the Spartan infantry units which can be deverstating against the weak Roman units. The Spanish faction now have a spear unit which fills there rosta for now. The Britons now have Chosen Archer's and a few other units and to help the Britons general does not use the chariots like in the stock settings. Now he uses a cavalry unit.

A new map has increased the difficulty of the campaign, the Barbarians building stone walls, most of the factions have a new unit or two. All the factions able to load ships up and invade other lands, The night and weather effects. Slowly things are changing for the better and to add to that the Romans now have a new skin set which makes them look much more realistic compared to there vanilla skins. Now its time for me to shut up and let you guy's see some pictures.

First the map


Skins

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spanish Spearmen


Britons Archers


AI Loaded Ships Ready For To Invade






Random Pictures








So with that all done there is only one last thing to do and thats the link, but before the link i would like to thank everyone who uses this mod and hope you have as much fun playing it as i have and continue to have making it, the mod updates will now be put on hold till some intensive testing has been done, i am looking forward to playing the campaign and hopefully finishing it so i can see what can be done to improve the balance for later in the game. So here it is the fininal update for a while, have fun and look forward to hearing your views and experiences. (First post updated to include the Roman skins, map and new units also link added as well).

RTW Vanilla Beta V4.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?qj7liidsdft4uai

[Roy974]

To update you all, i have been playing the mod since its release of V4.0 and i am having a lot of fun, the Gauls attacked me with stack after stack of armies while the Brutii tried to hold off the Macedon's and Greeks from taking there newly aquired town. I wasn't paying to much attention to Macedon at this time although i did keep trying to get the map updated by asking to trade maps which they turned down in less over 1000+ gold, but even then they would sometimes turn it down. It wasn't till a message came up saying Dacia had been wipped out that i started to look at what was what and way's to slow the Macedon's down since we (the Roman Julii) was there next target.
After capturing a Gaul town i was seiged by a Gaul and Macedon stack, the Macedon's captured the town killing one of my best generals and a full army of Pincipines (my most experienced army). I attacked them on the battlefield a nice open grassland with few tree's and no real advantage to either side. The battle started well, The Macedon's though was the stronger side. I had only brough in Principines and a general because i hadn't unlocked the Roman Cavalry only the equalites which i don't like. A few hours later and i had to withdraw my army, the Macedon's was just to strong in open combat. There Macedon Legionaries was slaughtering my men. Their Cavalry wasn't to hard but those Legionaries are much tougher, my only hope to hold the Macedon's back was to either unlock more advanced units, fight them on a field with hills for my units to hold and fight on for the hill advantage or in smaller combined space where the Macedon Legionaries can't open out their army like they had done on the battlefield.
Finally the Macedons attacked a town, after lossing all men in a pitched battle i knew it was going to be tough holding them back and this battles was going to be a blood bath. So rather than puching forward i found myself once again defending looking to try and increase my armies units and flank any enemy units i could. My idea was to let the enemy come into the town since it still had the city plan for a large town barbarian town i had the jill in the centre of town for a hill advantage and open space to flank them. Mt aim surround the Macedon Legionaries and wipe them out because they had brought more than they had in the battle on the open battlefeild where we lost so i knew as soon as we saw them this wasn't going to be as easy as it sounded but we needed to win and thats exactl;y what we aimed to do. Show the Macedon's are not invisible and show them they are not going to take Itally or any Roman roman towns as easily as they had the Dacian's.
The Fall Of Dacia:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Macedon's army:
2x Cavalry units
2X Levy Pikemen
1X Peasents (this unit type most likely needs to be mad so you can't recrute them in RTW Vanilla Beta V5.0)
13X Macedon Legionaries

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My Army:
1X General
19X Principines

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see those pictures includes my battle layout. The idea was simple hold the flanks and crush the centre then hit the Macedon's flanks from behind, sounded so easy when i was putting this plan together in my mind a few turns before they attacked the town, but once seeing all those Macedon Legionaries i felt it was never going to be that simple. At least they had wasted a slot for peasents and not brought in as many Levy Pikemen. So as you will see in the next pictures i let the Macedon's enter the town and come up to my central army before trying to flank them, leaving my men on the left and right flanks as buffers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

To my suprise i was able to take advantage on the flanks and start pushing them Legionaries back, the right flank had two units of the Legionaries and i don't know how many on the left, a lot as a guess i would say 3 to 4 units of them. Everything else was in the centre. The Cavalry (which i didn't take pictures of) attacked first but was cut down by the pila's from all the Pincipines before the remaining Cavalry was slaughtered by the men on the hill. Then when the rest of the Macedon's army had managed to enter the central zone i sent all my units in for the kill. The battle lasted for around 2 hours but for 1 hour it was not looking like either side really had a big advantage. I was cutting them down on the right flank but the left flank was out numbered and could collapse if the Legionaries was able to surround or push the 2 units of Principines back far enough to open up space for more of there men to get into the thick of things.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was looking good for the left flank and the ventral battle, my aim was to crush the centre and hit the flanks from behind but it was looking more like the left flank woulod be the one hitting the centre from behind. I was happy to see the right flank had held out although a unit of Principines was sent in to help push the Legionaries back and reinforce the now heavily depleated units of Principines there. Here are the final pictures of the battle enjoy and look forward to hearing your battle staories or anythimg you have to say about this mod.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

To download please see first post or post above, This is RTW Vanilla Beta V4.0, i hope you liked it. Changes to be made for V5.0 are few at the moment, i am looking at stability and bugs that i have missed. Also i am testing the new feature that will be included in V5.0, true night battles. Again thank you for reading and i wish you all the best of luck.

Best wishes
Roy.

Update:
After trying a new thing out i found a problem with the previous update which might have provented some of you from starting the game. So i have now fixed this and re-uploaded it. Sorry about that. The new link is.

RTW Vanilla Modifications Beta V4.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?eb2wb77d008hm8m

[Roy974]

I know i said it would be a while before i would update this but after implmenting the more realistic night battles and making some important bug fixes i felt it should be updated, not only because of them but also because i will not be working on RTW for a little while due to the project i started before RTW. The other project is bug fixes before release, but the mod has been in the works for several moths now and needs to be finished. Of course the mod isn't for RTW are any TW games, its for Age Of Pirates 2 City Of Abandened Ships. nyway back to this mod, the bug fixes and changes are all included in the readme and change log text documents. Here are some pictures that will show some of the new units and the new Spartan Hoplite texture including unit card and of course the night battles aswell as a idea on what kind of scal a battle can be. In the battle picture there was over 8000 units on screen, 4 armies, 2v2 and it was in a campaign game.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

RTW Vanilla Mod Beta V5.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?ff1caq08nq83di8

[Cesarz]

I don't have the mod yet as my Vanilla doesn't work but, if it did work, this would be my favorite mod I think.
rep+

[Roy974]

Thank you Cesarz.

Why doesn't your vanilla game work?

Justto update everyone on how the campaign play's out, first of all the Britons since they was most annoying wipping out all the barbarian factions. In my latest game the Britons have managed to get a hold of many settlements on Europe and was responsible for the Gauls been wipped out but it was the Julii who finished the Gauls off. Spain does not get owned by the Gauls so easily any more and the Romans find it hard to expand (i have yet to see how this changes when they have the better troops from the reform, Scipii is back on forth trying to take and keep settlements on the small island bellow Itally. Brutii are also back and forth trying to expand into Greece and the Julii have problems with the Gaul's, so none of the Roman factions can expand as easily as they could.

The Carthage no longer own the Numidian's as they are more balanced towards each other, so they are in a statlemate like situation. Selecuid have a tough time with the Egyptions. The Greeks and Macedons are balanced towards each other although the Greeks gain access to there more ellit units earlier so they have the better chance to expand. The main faction to really make any impact on the map was the Britons. I think a few little changes as and when i get chance will stop this from been so easy for the Britons and help keep the Gauls in play. The Britons from the looks of it can't own Spain because of their new Spearman unit but thats not to say they will not do so later on in the game. This is the furthest i have played since playing the stock game to the end only to have it crash on me when i tried to take Rome.

Hopefully that doesn't happen in this mod, i can honestly say though the gameplay is far more balanced now. Some little tweaks here and there but i think its looking about finished. I do think the Macedons and Greeks will have to have there ellit units stats reduced a little though because they was set as high as the Roman Urban Cohort. Perhaps lowering them to the same or similar stats of a earlier Roman legion would be a better idea. I will be able to get a better idea of this after the Romans have had the reform happen and they start throwing out their motr eqiped troops.

I have some more pictures to upload which i will do tomorrow, they are mostly of the night battles in action. But i want to collect a few more pictures if i can before i upload them.

Best wishes
Roy.

[Cesarz]

Thank you Cesarz.

Why doesn't your vanilla game work?

I'm not sure why it doesn't work. I can't start battles or a campaign. I think it may be because I botched the uninstalling of Roma Surrectum. Though I can play any mod which is foldered.