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Thread: Extended Realism Mod v4.0 Documentation

  1. #1
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    Icon1 Extended Realism Mod v4.0 Documentation

    Ave, Rome: Total War player!

    The Extended Realism Mod is based on Rome Total Realism (both 6.0 Platinum Edition and RTR VII), but is a completely new gaming experience (downloads available here). ExRM 4.0 includes a number of major changes from previous versions, including hundreds of new units, a new map, and a new economic system. Even veteran R:TW players may find these a bit unusual, so here's a short explanation of how everything works.


    All the best,
    Quinn Inuit, Carados, and the ExRM team


    Table of Contents:
    Economics
    Scripts and CTD Prevention
    Heavy Cavalry and Combat Changes
    The Strategic Map
    Government and Reforms
    Roman Army Recruitment (i.e., how to play as a true Roman)
    Other Features
    Special Abilities and Gameplay
    Credits
    Installing and Running the ExRM with Steam

    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; May 07, 2016 at 03:21 PM. Reason: Clarified Roman gameplay
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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    Default Economics

    Farming and Growth:
    Income from farms was historically the major source of income for most states, yet the RTW engine heavily privileges trade (especially sea trade). As a result of this, in a well-balanced mod, you won't be able to recruit and sustain a major army from inland regions. If you could, then you'd have to be able to recruit huge armies from the coastal regions.

    We've fixed this by leveraging the game's "tax income" feature into a farm-based income system. Regions are given tax income multipliers based on both their base fertility and the level of farming improvements there. Many improvements also give minor income tax penalties to represent maintenance and/or pollution costs, but they always make up for it in other ways. This forces players to be careful to build infrastructure only where they actually need it.


    This ensures that farming (in most regions) is a more important source of wealth than trade, but that trade remains important to your overall income stream. To make this as transparent as possible, each region has 1, 2, or 3 village resource icons in it, usually near the capital so you can spot them quickly. These correspond to the base fertility level of the region, and allow players to immediately identify how wealthy a region's farmland is. This system allows inland regions to support troops just as well as coastal ones, or at least nearly as well. (A new "river ports" system that increases trade bonuses in regions with great rivers also helps.)


    As you can imagine, this system required us to tackle growth, as well. Astute players will have noticed that growth in most RTW mods (to say nothing of the unmodded game) is heavily weighted toward the early game, since a base fertility level of 6 is equivalent to L2 farms + L2 sewers + L2 trader. We thought this made games too quick while simultaneously deprecating the importance of proper region management. So we set up a system of slow, balanced growth that relies more on buildings and less on base fertility. As you can see below, the player needs to get working on Rome’s public health system if he wants the city to keep growing.



    (In case you’re wondering why Babylon has such a small population, that’s because it was recently depopulated by the Seleucids for their new capital across the river. With its infrastructure and fertility, though, it’ll be back in no time.)

    This allows for the measured growth of regions, and rewards careful management by players. It should also reduce the occurrence of population-growth-induced rioting, since such growth cannot get out of control now. Your people may still have reasons to riot, but displeasure at ahistoric population growth rates will no longer be one of them.

    As of Beta 5, we've also added a Herding building tree for nomadic cultures that they can choose instead of the agricultural tree. This allows them to develop their populations in a more realistic fashion.



    Trade:

    You'll see a few new trade resources in the game, such as salt and fish. We thought these were more important than some of the existing ones, and allowed us to more accurately portray the strategic significance of some cities.

    Much more has changed "under the hood" with the trading system. Fewer buildings provide trade bonuses now, and many of those that do provide such bonuses only boost land trade. This allows us to keep trade income from become the main source of income for almost all factions, like it is in the unmodified game, and it also prevents the income from sea trade from completely overshadowing land trade income. Trade is still very important, of course, but it's now just one part of a balanced budget.


    Money:
    As of Beta 5, we've added a much more aggressive money script to help the AI stay out of too much trouble. For the record, it doesn't get them too far in the black, not enough to buy >1 weak unit per turn, but it'll keep them from ending up in a hole they'll never be able to get out of. The superfactions in particular tend to get in massive debt very quickly, and we want them to be more aggressive.

    There's also a modest small empire money boost to keep small factions in the game. It's not much at the moment, but the script infrastructure is in place for easy modification.
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; July 01, 2016 at 08:47 PM.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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    Default Scripts and CTD prevention

    Crash-to-desktop fixes:

    The ExRM makes use of a number of modding tricks to reduce the likelihood of crashes while playing. The following crashes will not occur:
    Building browser CTD
    New building for the Carthaginian culture CTD
    Port experience CTD

    The following crashes have been reduced and possibly eliminated:
    Reinforcement CTD (may still occur due to hard-coded game issues, but no trait checks will increase the likelihood of a crash now)
    Rebellion CTD (should not occur due to mercenary and building recruitment options--see here for more detail)
    Unit drag CTD (all size 42 units resized)


    Special Scripts:
    We have a number of scripts that add important effects to the game, though not so many that users will notice any performance hit from them.

    First, we use House Of Ham's streamlined 4tpy script with autostart. (So no more clicking on things to make sure the script initiates.) This gives us four campaigning seasons per year, all labeled as such in game. Hand in hand with this, we have Marcus Camillus's winter warrior script, slowing down almost everyone except the cold-weather factions during the winter campaign season. Along with this change, you’ll notice that armies led by characters get more movement points. This is to reflect the increased organizational resources and abilities a nobleman would have compared to a simple army officer.




    As with any background script, it can cause problems with the game if you start a game, then close it and attempt to start/load another game. Fortunately, we have a solution, also coded by HoH. Just hit “escape” from the main strat map screen and then hit the question mark in the upper right corner of the menu scroll. That automatically terminates the script.


    We also use Marcus Camillus's Cursus Honorum script, as modified by Greno Zee. All civilized factions get a student period for their young men, and the Romans can gradually move through the various positions of the Cursus Honorum, all the way up to Consul.



    Students get a bonus to the acquisition of useful traits for "studying" in any city with an academy (or higher). They can't be in charge of an army or be the governor of that region to get these bonuses.

    The Cursus Honorem is a little complicated, so the mod includes documentation explaining it in detail, as well as its historical basis. However, EightDeer wrote up this excellent summary for the forum:




    Alongside this, we use Greno Zee's "potentially disinherited" script to prevent a character from accumulating disinheritance penalties if he is removed as heir within one turn of receiving that honor.



    We've also partially implemented Aradan's Regional Lordship System. Doing so for every province would have required more building trees than we could afford to devote, so instead we focused on just 27 provinces that we felt were key to their entire region. If a character is not a faction leader/heir and a member of any faction but the barbarian and nomad superfactions or Rome (which has the Cursus Honorem) and is made governor of one of these regions, he'll earn the faction's lordship trait and some bonuses that reflect that region. If you lose control of this region while he is still its lord, though, he'll take a prestige hit. Also, he'll gain additional bonuses when he's in charge of that particular province. Here's a list of the regions with regional lordships attached:


    • Cappadocia
    • Bactria
    • Parthia
    • Arachosia
    • Gandhara
    • Mesopotamia
    • Britain
    • Media
    • Greater Armenia
    • Ionia
    • Macedon
    • Hellas
    • Dacia
    • Pannonia
    • Germania
    • Gaul
    • The Basque Region
    • Iberia
    • Bosporia
    • Africa
    • Sicily
    • Cisalpine Gaul
    • Italy
    • Magna Graecia
    • Egypt
    • The Levant
    • Mauretania


    From PatricianS, we have the wonderful Peace With the Dead script, which circumvents a bug in which the destruction of a faction freezes all factional relations with it, potentially preventing future peace deals.


    We also make use of the Spoils of War script by V.T. Marvin. If you solidly win a battle against a large army, you’ll receive a monetary bonus that represents the loot you got from raiding their camp afterward. So try extra-hard for those victories, because you’ll see serious rewards from them.

    DimeBagHo was kind enough to let us use his renowned ForceDiplomacy script. It lets you make the AI an offer it can’t refuse. This is useful when you’re pummeling the AI and/or want to help it, but it’s so consumed with aggression toward you that it doesn’t recognize a good deal when it sees it.

    To use this script, follow these steps:

    1. Press Esc
    2. Go to Game Options
    3. Check the "Reset Advisor" box
    4. Return to the campaign map.
    5. Use a diplomat to engage in diplomatic relations with another faction (that sounds a little dirty...)
    6. Click the "?" in the top right hand corner of the diplomacy window
    7. The advisor pops up. Follow the instructions by clicking "show me"
    8. Click the advisor's face to make it go away.
    9. Select the offers/demands you wish to make.
    10. Make the offer/demand. The AI will (grudgingly) accept them...if it has the ability to do so.

    This only works for one offer or set of offers, so you must repeat this process every time that you would like to force the AI to accept an offer/demand. Once you’re done, click on a city to re-initialize the game background script.
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; July 01, 2016 at 09:51 PM.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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    My writing-related Twitter feed.

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    Default Heavy Cavalry and Combat changes

    Heavy Cavalry:

    Heavy shock cavalry are well-known to us now, but at the time this game takes place they were still a relative novelty in the world. These men and their trained mounts were a valuable resource, warriors more grown than made. A key factor in the decline of the Seleucid Empire’s dominance was its access to the great cavalrymen of Media, Bactria, Cappadocia, and Syria, and its gradual loss of those possessions rapidly accelerated the decline in its military fortunes. However, the basic game gives us no way to replicate the strategic significance of such major sources of cavalrymen.


    As a result, we’ve added a “horses” resource to the map. Wherever this resource is visible, you’ll be able to train heavy cavalry. Elsewhere, you’ll only have access to your generals’ bodyguards, to represent the relatively few nobles in these regions that could be called upon to act as heavy cavalry.


    Combat:

    Carados has carefully rebalanced both the unit relative quality (on as near an objective scale as is possible with such things, and also redone the morale system. If you read about ancient battles, you’ll note that the winning side generally suffered relatively few casualties. This is because most casualties occurred during the rout, not the battle itself. With higher morale levels, units will fight each other nearly to the death. By rebalancing morale, we believe we have effectively balanced long, fun battles with replicating the catastrophic collapses of morale that often occurred in ancient combat.

    We’ve also made a few changes to the unit abilities in order to promote better in-game combat. For example, lancer cataphracts have lost their bows. We know they had bows in real life, but in-game the presence of bows tended to confuse the AI and cause it to hold off on attacking till the ammunition was exhausted. This made cataphracts a sitting duck for enemy cavalry charges (both human- and AI-controlled). So, the end result was that the best way to have a realistic battle was to remove the bow, which didn’t add that much to their combat ability anyway. In real life, the bowshots from the cataphracts in particular might have made some difference, but in-game the same effect can be achieved by covering your cataphracts’ charge with other archers.
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    Default The Strategic Map

    The map in Rome: Total War is a marvelously complex beast, with many layers of data coming together to create what you see on screen. We know this because we’ve messed with all of those layers.

    First, we thought the best map available for an Iberia-to-India game like the ExRM was Caligula Caesar’s new Fortuna Orbis map, and he gave his generous permission for us to use it. We mixed in the Roma Surrectum II environments, adding an amazing variety of plant life to the battle maps and a richer climate set to the strat map.



    Second, we went through and carefully documented the major trade routes and centers of the time, then added them to the game with an eye to making in-game trading behaviors map as closely as possible to real-life ones. For instance, the amber resource is placed in-game such that the Amber Road will replicate itself as you play. If you’d like to learn more, I encourage you to check out our descr_strat.txt file. The resource entries are usually individually cited, and where possible we’ve tried to provide an online source for the entry.


    Third, we’ve paid careful attention to sea lanes and the strategic significance of certain islands. Our map has been carefully optimized so that islands like Rhodes and Sardinia become not only major trade centers, but strategically significant ports that are vital to a faction’s control of the seas. Ships couldn’t travel far from land for extended periods at the time, so these islands were critical waypoints on long trips. (We also made all of the lakes into “deep ocean” water type so no pirates would pop up on them. It doesn’t really matter much, but it always struck us as a bit silly when it happened.)


    Fourth, some incarnation of the Great Wall of Gorgan seems to have been present at this time, so we've added a string of fortification to that portion of Seleucid territory. The player will have to decide whether they're worth the effort to maintain.



    The fifth and final entry I’ve placed last because it will require the most space to explain. As I stated above, the map in Rome: Total War is a complex creation, but it’s fundamentally static. Every time you play, the map is the same. It starts the game the same, and it ends the same.


    We decided to change that. Through a complicated manipulation of our government buildings, we’ve created a system where the colonization of one region by some factions allows other factions to, if they conquer that region, raise the colonized troops there.


    This means that no two games will ever played on quite the same map. Not only that, but the map will dynamically evolve as the game progresses, so your world in 150 B.C. may look very different than the world did in 280 B.C., and in ways that you won’t necessarily have anything to do with. This system also avoids triggering the building browser crash that plagues most building-dependent recruitment systems, so we can make this possible without compromising the stability of the game.
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; July 01, 2016 at 09:01 PM.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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    Default Government and Reforms

    Governmental Buildings:

    The governmental system has been entirely revised for the ExRM v4.0, and is now broadly similar to that used by RTR VII. When a region is conquered, you will have the choice of how you want to develop it. Installing a client state will be the quickest and easiest method of securing the support of the population, but will limit you to recruiting some local units and reduce your tax income from the area.

    Colonizing the area will give you access to its full potential income and allow you to recruit your faction units there, but takes a great deal of time and greatly upsets the natives. Only colonize regions that are extremely important to the development of your empire.

    As part of the dynamic game environment discussed above, some factions (Carthage, Pontus, Armenia, and Parthia) will also have access to special client kingdom buildings if they take over an area colonized by Greeks. This allows them access to certain Greek infantry units that they historically used without limiting that recruitment based on hidden resources. Since there are several Gallic factions, they’ll get a similar bonus in that they’ll be able to skip the long and difficult first level of colonization if there’s another Gallic colony in the area (or if it’s an area to which Gauls are native).


    Reforms:

    ExRM v4.0 takes place over roughly two centuries of chronological time. Things might not have changed as rapidly then as they do now, but neither were they in stasis. We've tried to replicate that with a set of reforms that change the availability of units to some factions. (Europa Barbarorum’s scripts were invaluable inspirations here.)


    Artillery:

    The simplest reform is that of artillery. No region can produce artillery without a foundry (this is a reform, not a building dependency, and thus does not trigger the building browser CTD), and no region can build a foundry without iron. This iron can be obtained locally (if there's an iron resource) or via the trade infrastructure represented by a market.


    Thorakitai:

    Though the Romans thought of these men as merely imitation legionaries, they were more likely a simple response to the issue of thureophoroi being repeatedly beaten by heavy infantry in melee. Give them some armour, a stout sword, and they're good to go. Since this happened piecemeal throughout the Greek world, we've chosen to have this changeover occur as cities grow larger.



    German Reforms:

    The Germans have a related set of reforms. They begin the game in an area with little available iron. As a result, armoured troops are rare there, and can only be built once the Germans have sufficient trade infrastructure to import armour and weapons from the Celts and distant Romans.


    Later, though, once they've begun to capture Celtic lands (and smiths), they'll be able to craft their own arms and armour.



    Roman Reforms:

    Romans didn't always wear the lorica hamata and fight as swordsmen, and we believe the preponderance of the evidence indicates that they weren't equipped as such even through the first Punic War. As a result, Rome has three different sets of soldiers, which we've termed (after the fashion of De Bellis Multitudinis) Camillan, Polybian, and Marian.

    Camillan soldiers are still armed and armoured in a mixture of Italian and Greek styles. The aspis is still in some use, and most men have either a cuirass or a cardiophylax (heart-guard, or a circular piece of metal guarding the front and back of the upper chest). Principes fight primarily as spearmen, rather than swordsmen. The velites have not been introduced as a unit class yet, and their skirmisher function is served by the lower classes as Leves.

    After Rome conquers Celtic regions (including Cisalpine Gaul), this starts to change. Exposure to Gallic armour encourages them to switch to chainmail, and the army moves decisively away from the spear wall and toward the flexible array of swordsmen that will characterize it for the next several centuries.


    The Roman Army was a formidable force, but the socio-economic system that created its citizen soldiers changed over time, forcing the army to do likewise. As the farms of citizen soldiers were gobbled up by the great latifundia of the senatorial class, the army began to look to men who couldn't provide their own equipment. Following the lead of Gaius Marius, generals and/or the state (it varied) equipped these men at their own expense. With training and experience, these soldiers were nearly unstoppable. When inexperienced and poorly led, though, whole armies of them occasionally collapsed and were lost. This is reflected by the relatively poor quality of new recruits (though they are still well-equipped) compared to the skills of the evocati (or recalled) legionary units.



    Carthaginian Reforms:

    The Romans liked to take credit for what we would call the Carthaginian Reforms, but once again the Celts seem to bear more responsibility. Our research turned up no evidence that Carthaginians fought as spearmen by the time of the First Punic War, but rather as looser order troops much like Greek thureophoroi. That’s not to say they had no spearmen (they appear to have used hoplite mercenaries), just that their Libyan infantry and citizen militia weren’t armed as such. (There also appear to have been no such thing as Liby-Phoenician infantry. Those men, when they did serve, served exclusively in the cavalry.)


    The gradual Carthaginian absorption of the Iberian Peninsula brought them the same close contact with Celts as the Romans got in Northern Italy, with similar results. They took advantage of the better equipment to improve their troops, and by the time of the Second Punic War they fought in much the same way as their Roman adversaries.



    Seleucid Reforms:

    When Antiochus III the Great came back from his trip to subdue his rebellious eastern provinces, he brought with him a new style of horseman: the cataphract. (The fact that one might've been responsible for knocking out some of his teeth potentially influenced him.) Within a few years of his return, most of the Empire's heavy cavalry had been converted to the cataphract style. If one of your generals has a similar unfortunate encounter with a cataphract faction in a large battle, your Seleucid Empire will likely develop along the same lines.

    Early Hetaroi and Median Cavalry:


    Late Hetairoi and Median Agema:



    Machimoi Reforms:

    The Ptolemies didn't have the same system of military recruitment as the Seleucids did, and had too few Macedonians/Greeks to make it work in any case. As their recruitment base gradually dwindled, they were eventually forced to rely on native Egyptians to fill out the phalanx. Arming the natives helped in the short run, but produced long-term problems with native uprisings. We decided to model this by forcing the creation of buildings in upper Egypt that allow the recruitment of Machimoi phalangites if the Egyptians suffer a serious battlefield defeat. These buildings will make those regions much more difficult to control but increase your ability to recruit phalangites.



    Pontic and Armenian Infantry Reforms

    O.K., this one Rome actually does deserve some credit for. Perhaps not as much as Plutarch would like you to believe, but some nonetheless. Armenia and Pontus were in the hill country, and as such deployed a number of men who fought as loose-order melee soldiers. After meeting Rome in battle, Mithridates VI and Tigranes II both saw the potential of such soldiers. They rearmoured such of their men as they could and drilled them all into more disciplined, closer order troops.

    Early Pontic and Armenian light infantry:


    Reformed Pontic and Armenian light infantry:



    Armenian Cataphract Reforms

    Armenian cataphracts also grew heavier over our time period, evolving from mounted archers to shock cavalry. At no point during our time period were they as heavily armoured as the full-metal tanks we see depicted in some later art (this is clear from descriptions of the Battle of Tigranocerta, after our time period), but we do try to capture the earlier stages of their development. Unfortunately, coding limitations prevent us from having a proper swap (because of the previously mentioned reforms), but we've developed what we believe is a suitable substitute. Armenia normally has 8 levels of its governmental buildings. Outside its homeland, the eighth and highest will allow the recruitment of lancers. Inside its homeland, the eighth will allow the recruitment of cataphract archers, and a ninth level allowing lancer recruitment will be available. Given the time required to build up to the ninth level at home or the eighth level abroad (due to the colonization system, see above), this should provide the functional equivalent of a reform to the user.

    Pontic Hellenization Reforms

    These aren’t reforms in the same coding sense as most of the others listed here, but do still involve changing the available units. As Pontus grew into formerly Greek-held areas, the kingdom Hellenized. Little is known about their early armies, so we’ve given them an army list much like that possessed by the late Achaemenid satrap of Cappadocia.


    As they conquer Greek areas, they start to get the ability to create troops more like those of the Seleucid Empire. The cavalry moved from the Persian style to the Macedonian lancer style, and in some regions freed slaves were drilled into a Macedonian-style phalanx.



    Sarmatian and Parthian Cataphract Reforms

    The Parthians and Sarmatians also developed heavier cataphracts during this period, likely as a gradual one-upsmanship with neighboring tribes. Unfortunately, a gradual transition is beyond the powers of the game engine, so these reforms initiate after a battle with another faction that relies primarily on horse archers.

    Early Sarmatian and Parthian Cataphracts:


    Late Sarmatian and Parthian Cataphracts:

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    Default Other Features

    The ExRM also includes a large number of stand-alone contributions from a variety of talented modders who’ve graciously allowed the community to make use of their work. Here’s a list of what we’ve included:

    Code additions, mini-mods, and micro-mods:

    - Includes Stuie's AI Command Bonus trait.

    - Includes the Cognomen Mod (better Roman names)

    - Includes Marcus Camillus' Player Formation Mod (with Typhoon's and my manipular formation tweaks).

    - Included Florin80 and Sleepysmoo's tower and wall settings to eliminate the "siege tower bug".

    - Added recruitable Generals for all factions. Generals are very expensive and take two turns to recruit. New Roman generals are military tribunes.

    - Includes more realistic Roman fort by lt1956.

    -Added dharos's temple mod (with Vequor's Parthian temples) (fixed by Jamey)

    -New Eighth Wonder of the World: Stonehenge, by Suppanut

    -Davide.Cool's Kyrenia Ship and Roman Watchtower from original period designs

    -Riczu74’s new strategy map figures, warships, siege and blockade icons, and wagons

    -Includes the incredible RS2 environments from the RS2 team (with a shout-out to Hannibal Smith for his help with getting them mod-foldered)

    -Includes LDC’s historical battles

    -All cultures now have their own battering rams (thanks to Seasoned Alcoholic for the instructions)

    -New ancillary images and faction symbol from Marcus Quintilius

    -Kaweh K’s faction symbols mod (used in part)


    Units:

    - Added Promethean Roman Legions skin pack.

    - Includes new 3rd Century BC Spartan Hoplite, Hellenic Officer, pre-Marius General, and Italian Skirmisher models and skins by Caius Brittanicus.

    - Added Pinarius' Horse Mod, which includes new highly detailed horse models and skins for all factions.

    -Attila Reloaded’s Kurdish Javelinmen

    -Lithuania horses from M2TW Lithuania mod

    -Lots of hoplites by Spirit of Rob

    -Lots of units by King Louise Asshurbanipal (with some model modifications by Bladerunner900 and texture modifications by Carados)

    -African and Levantine units by LaCa

    -Dacian units from Arbaces

    -Tulius Hostilius’s spearmen

    -Several barbarian units by Halie Satanus

    -Huge numbers of units and horses from the RTR VII team, the Variag team, and Ferres

    -Custom unit design by Carados

    -Custom unit and model work by BladeRunner900

    -New weapons: Ferres' pike and A6n1t6i2-O6o1p6s2's arrows


    Unit stat changes:

    -Carados systematized all unit stats based on their equipment and skill level. It’s sort of like the DBM unit grading system, except much more intricate.

    -Horse archer range has been reduced a lot to reflect the fact that, although their bows had range, they weren't really effective at long ranges. Oh, and speaking of mounted units, no more recruiting camels in Africa! There weren't any there yet.

    -Standardized unit mass, hopefully made it more relevant. (Work done by Caldarium.)

    -We've also (on V.T. Marvin's suggestion) incorporated the newest work on the stat_health unit statistic, hopefully making auto-resolve battles work better. (See here:http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88859 ) This change will be especially noticeable for cavalry units.

    -Stat_heat values have been systematized, so units will behave in a more realistic manner in hot conditions.

    -Carados did yeoman’s work in systematizing unit sizes as discussed in this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=422442

    -Phalanx recruitment for the Diadochi was changed substantially in consultation with Wien1938, and those changes remain. Phalanx units are now divided into younger units that must be trained and older, recalled units. The latter don't take as long to train, but cost vastly more in upkeep because you're taking highly productive kleroi away from their farms. This change has the side effect of forcing phalanx factions to make more realistic army stacks.
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  8. #8
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    Default Special Abilities and Gameplay

    As a result of our playtesting, we’ve decided to remove several special abilities. You may have come to expect these in the game, so we’d like to take a moment to explain why we chose to remove them. We'd also like to discuss what we've done with fatigue.

    Warcry has the problem of simultaneously making units in some situations overpowered, and in the hands of the AI, leading to disastrous defeats. First, a barbarian unit with warcry defending a wall is invincible. Locally outnumbering the enemy and having +10 attack makes them almost impossible to defeat.

    On the other hand, in field battles, having both warcry and the javelin attack makes the barbarian factions far too susceptible to missile fire and it makes a mockery of their charge. The AI will always warcry, then throw their missiles, and by then the warcry only benefits them in melee combat for a few seconds. Meanwhile, your ranged units are pounding them.

    So, what we have is an ability that can unbalance the game in a player’s hands and screw up the AI otherwise. I think you can see why we felt it had to go.

    Shield wall is one of those things that seems like a good idea, but can have some bizarre results in-game. The bonuses that it gives units can be unbalancing, especially in the hand of human players. I realized a few years ago that I had to stop using it when I beat a full stack of Carthaginians in a city fight with three of the old RTRPE hoplite militia units blocking the street. That was a great fight, but that kind of victory just shouldn’t be possible. It also has an unfortunate bug that causes troops to immediately switch to their secondary weapons once they enter any form of melee combat (this switching system works better in phalanx mode, but that mode is unsuitable to represent hoplite combat).

    Berserk simply doesn’t do what it should. A berserk unit doesn't act as an out of control unit would do in real life. Also, it's a temporary condition. A unit typically goes berserk when it reaches combat, but then the unit can lose the status and then it acts like any other unit - except they'll randomly go berserk again.

    There are too many things wrong with it, especially with our new lethality mechanics. Vanilla lethality values did kind of work with berserk units because they would plow through a unit (or die) before they lost their berserk status. With our lethality values being a lot lower now (to emphasize the importance of morale, see below), a unit will typically lose its berserk status before the conclusion of the combat.

    Testudo has been left out due to its poor implementation in the game engine. Although there is some evidence that it was in use during the heart of our time period, the AI’s inability to use it properly will make battles too easy for human players. A detailed discussion of this issue can be found here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=534699

    Fatigue is a vital part of battles, but is handled poorly by the AI. Specifically:
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...?46353-Fatigue

    Quote Originally Posted by DimeBagHo View Post
    Another common problem that affects the AI is its tendancy to run units around until they are exhausted. There are two possible ways to alleviate this problem: (1) Switch off fatigue, (2) give all units the very_hardy attribute.

    The downside of (1) is that it makes combat less realistic in some ways, and allows the player to run his men around without concern for fatigue as well. Still I think it would help the AI a lot more than the player. The downside with (2) is that it doesn't completely solve the problem. Units with the very_hardy attribute will recover from exhaustion more quickly, but if the AI runs his men all over the place and then straight into a fight (which is not unusual) it won't help because they won't get a chance to recover.
    Therefore, we've decided to handle fatigue as follows:
    All units get "hardy" at minimum. Only the professional soldiers (Tiers 4–5) of civilized factions get "very_hardy" to represent their constant drilling. For barbarians, we represent their tougher existences by giving "very_hardy" to all units Tier 3 and up. For desert units, it's everyone Tier 2 and up, regardless of whether they're civilized.

    We know it's not perfect, but please think of this as a compromise between reality and the game engine.
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; June 07, 2014 at 11:43 AM. Reason: fatigue update
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  9. #9
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    Default Credits

    Extended Realism Mod “Thank you”s

    v4.0 Credits:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Thanks to:
    Attila Reloaded for his Kurdish Javelinmen
    Lithuania horses from M2TW Lithuania mod
    House of Ham for running our SVN repo
    Spirit of Rob for his hoplites
    Clearchus of Sparta for planning assistance
    Caesar Augustus for PR assistance
    Tulius Hostilius for the Caramanian Spearmen (?)
    RTR, for the horse resource and lots of units
    Variag, for lots of horses and units
    Ferres for lots of units
    BladeRunner900 for awesome unit work
    New weapons: Ferres' pike and A6n1t6i2-O6o1p6s2's arrows
    Greno Zee's Disinherited Script
    Davide.Cool's Kyrenia Ship and Roman Watchtower
    Riczu74 for his strategy map figures, warships, new siege and blockade icons, and new wagons
    The RS2 team for the RS2 environments
    Hannibal Smith for help with the RS2 environments
    LDC for his historical battles
    Suppanut for the Stonehenge Wonder

    Additional thanks from the v4.0 beta:
    Caldarium: beta testing
    Caesar Augustus: beta testing
    Heinz Guderian: beta testing
    TheBromgrev: beta testing and map contributions
    Wien1938: beta testing and unit descriptions
    Pannonian: beta testing and code contributions
    NASA and the Visible Earth Project for the image of the Earth
    Marcus Quintilius: Loading screens and opening screens, ancillary pictures, and building art
    Julianus Heraclius: New age-related traits
    Aqd's water surface texture
    Tiberius the Conqueror: new faction starting maps
    Sere: beta testing, map contributions, and faction evaluations


    v3.5 Credits:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Carac Caratacus--for his British Isles changes and bug hunting
    aqd and Spirit of Rob--I'm not using any of their units yet, but they said I could and I do appreciate that
    The RTR VII team for assistance and advice. And units, which I'm going to be stealing in ridiculous numbers shortly.
    KLA--non-stop unit awesomeness
    The Variagmod Team--awesome Thracians and Dacians, of which I'm using many
    Arbaces--Dacian units and info
    LaCa--some great units
    Seasoned Alcoholic--instructions on how to do different battering rams for everyone
    Iskandar--Not only showing me what I should be doing, but doing it himself while I was gone
    Caligula Caesar--mapping, units, and general good modding advice
    Antonov--hard work and good modding advice
    Pannonian--for helping with some tech support issues in an expert manner and convincing me that the Levantine economy was seriously overpowered
    Forum regulars--good discussion
    Everyone who helped people in the ExRM forum with their bugs and questions--this community wouldn't be much of anything without you


    v3.3 Credits:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    We'd like to thank...
    -V.T. Marvin for the Spoils of War Micromod. It's a great addition to the ExRM.
    -Caldarium for his text editing in general and the the Greek Colonies Micromod in particular. Now Greeks can properly colonize stuff.
    -Arnold Legion, V.T. Marvin, Solaris, Caldarium, Grythius Avalorius, and Emperor Domitianus for beta testing.
    -DimeBagHo (of the XGM) for his forced diplomacy script
    -the EB Team for letting us steal their "Unit Size Script" idea.
    -Marcus Camillus (and, indirectly, the RTR Dev Team) for the new strat map tiles
    -BladeRunner900 for the great new loading screens and the Tarentine cavalry info pic
    -King Louise Asshurbannibal for even more really cool units
    -Florin80 and Salvor Hardin for the new revolt CTD fix
    -Monkwarrior, MMF, and the ITW team, for the Tarentine Leukaspides.
    -HouseofHam, for streamlining the 4tpy script
    -Everyone in the forum thread for great discussion and ideas
    And, of course:
    Thank you to the RTR-PE 1.9 team for the excellent new release.


    v3.2 Credits:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    -Wien1938, whose work on phalanx units was the backbone of the phalanx updates in this release.
    -Sinhuet contributed his excellent formations.
    -Thanks to the people who worked on a now-lost RTR Forum thread about the behavior of General's cavalry with varying numbers of HP...I'd cite you if I could find you, guys.


    v3.0 Credits:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    -This update was a team effort start to finish.
    -Quinn Inuit organized it and replaced the Senate faction with Epirus, refusing to let his complete lack of modding ability get in the way of finally getting to play as Epirus.
    -Iamphet stepped up and did most of the actual hard modding work, integrating the ExRM Promethean edition with RTR-PE v1.8 and consistently meeting any problem with skillful coding and clear thought.
    -AndarielHalo, Goddess of Absolute Physical Perfection, channeled the ancients of Epirus to do a lot of great unit R&D. The Epirote Faction is much more well-developed for her work, and any weakness in it should be laid solely at the feet of Quinn (who wasn't always able to implement her unit ideas).
    -Sheep came in and did stand-out beta testing (which mostly consisted of chasing down Quinn's screwups), and then went above and beyond in his impressive rewrites of several key files, notably Export_Units. He also slightly altered the 4tpy mod to allow Romans to continure building military experience while consul.



    Special Thanks:
    To CA for making a great game.
    To the RTR team, for making a great mod. They did and continue to do truly trailblazing work.
    To the RTR-PE team, for taking that mod to the next level.
    To the RTR VII team, for carrying on the awesome.
    To Candelarius (Yakaspat), for making the Extended Realism mod. It really fulfills the promise of RTRE.
    To tQst, for making Epirus a possibility.
    To everyone who pitched in advice and suggestions, or who wrote great modding guides (too many to list)
    To Quinn’s wife, for being awesome


    Original thanks, by Candel:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Immitation legionary models and skins are by Prometheus. The shield designs of the Armenian, Pontic, and Numidian units are by the RTR Team. All skins are used with permission. Thanks to Prometheus for making the Promethean Legions pack available for this mod.

    Thanks to Quintus Sertorius and DaVinci for their excellent gameplay guides and historical research. Thanks to Crymson for brainstorming ideas and suggestions. Special thanks to Marcus Camillus for his 4tpyr Mod. Also, thanks to the RTR Team for the unit models and skins. Thanks to Dark89 for his permission to use the RTR files for this mod. Additional thanks to Dominus for his historical advice on early Republican army compositions. And thanks to Cheexsta, Ryman, Macedonn, and Stuie for all their modding advice. Thanks to Darth for his AI formations mod. Thanks also to lt1956 for his Roman fort. Additional credit to Caius Britannicus and Warspite for the new Spartan and eastern officer unit models and skins. Thank you very much to Prometheus for his Promethean Roman Legion skins pack, which is used here with permission. Thanks to Pinarius for his excellent horse models and skins. Also thank you to AngryTitusPullo and Salvor Hardin for their help with the "add money script". And finally thank you to the rest of the fan community, and those I forgot, that have made this mod possible.[/quote]
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; June 07, 2014 at 11:46 AM.
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

    The ExRM forum: come for the mod, stay for the Classical History discussions. Or vice versa.

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  10. #10
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    Default Re: Extended Realism Mod v4.0 Documentation

    If anyone would like to discuss this thread, please post your questions and comments here:
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=488748
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

    The ExRM forum: come for the mod, stay for the Classical History discussions. Or vice versa.

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    Default Installing and Running the ExRM with Steam

    Quote Originally Posted by Princereaper View Post
    The first thing you need.
    1. A clean updated Rome Total War Gold Vanilla
    2. Put all contents of 4.0 into a folder and call it "ExRM"
    3. Paste "ExRM" into your Rome Total War Gold main DIR which is "SteamApps\common\Rome Total War Gold"
    4. Go to Rome Total War, right click on Rome Total War, click properties on steam. Under launch options paste "-mod:ExRm"
    5. Launch Barbarian invasion.
    6. Enjoy
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

    The ExRM forum: come for the mod, stay for the Classical History discussions. Or vice versa.

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    Default Roman Army Recruitment

    This mod contains a number of changes to Roman Army recruitment based on the discussion regarding Candelarius's Ultimate Guide to Playing RTR Historically as the Romans thread at the RTR forums. Historically, during the time of the Middle Republic (prior to 95 BC), only Romans (re: citizens of Rome) were eligible for service in the legions. The Romans would conscript soldiers into their armies from their Latin allies, but these military contributions initially waged war in their native fashion (Italic Swordsmen and Spearmen). Later, as the Latin allies became more integrated into the Roman methodologies and gained greater access to Roman arms and armor, the Latin allies began to closer and closer resemble their Roman counterparts. However, there was a very distinct difference between Romans and Italian allies. This modification of RTRPE simulates that difference and more historically represents the composition of a Republican Army.


    - Three additional Mid-Republic units available for recruitment: Italic Hastati, Italian Principes, and Italian Triarii. These represent the later Romanized Italic legions that were levied from the Latin allies. The Italic Infantry will be recruitable only in Italy and only once they have Civitas Sine Suffragio (a.k.a., full Civitas Sociorum). Until then, your allies will submit native Italic levies (see next point).


    - All Italic units are broken into Areas of Recruitment (AOR) for the Oscans, Campanians, Etruscans, and other east coast Italic peoples. There are also the Veneti and Gauls in the north and the Greeks in the south, though it's unclear which are more troublesome


    - Roman Infantry (Camillan and Polybian Hastati, Principes, and Triarii) are only recruitable in Roma. Historically, the Roman Infantry were only recruitable in Rome (levies from the landed citizenship of the city). As a concession to gameplay and to represent the immense manpower of ancient Rome, they are zero-turn recruitment units.

    - Italic versions of Roman Infantry are only recruitable in Italy. It wasn't until all of Italy received the Roman citizenship that Romans began to recruit for their legions outside Rome. Italic Infantry are obviously not recruitable outside Italy. You will need to maintain careful lines of supply and be careful with your expansion, as you will have to ship Roman and Italic troops from Italy to your front lines. You're going to become very dependent on mercenaries and diplomats when far from home, as was historically true at this time.

    - The standard version of this mod does not effect the Marius event and does not effect post-Marius legions or recruitment, with the exception of the Roman First Cohort. I increased the unit size as was historical and increased the unit's cost accordingly. For info on the new Marius and Augustan units in the optional Promethean addon pack, see below.

    - The Mid-Republican Italic Infantry have the same costs and stats as their Roman counterparts, but, suffer from slightly less morale (since they are fighting as conscripts and not for the glory of Rome!).

    - This mod includes the correct triarii unit size (half from vanilla RTR). See Quintus' Guide to Conduct Becoming of a True Roman or my {i.e., Candelarius's} own guide for details on historical Republican army formations and unit compositions.

    Please review this chart for more information about how to move your Roman character through the Cursus Honorem:
    Last edited by Quinn Inuit; May 07, 2016 at 03:31 PM. Reason: Added some info from the documentation
    RTR Platinum Team Apprentice, RTR VII Team Member, and Extended Realism Mod Team Coordinator. Proud member of House Wilpuri under the patronage of Pannonian

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