The Royal Road - Our development journal

[Kasetuh]

I like your text wery much Rez, good written. Please use my new name in next posts of Royal road - Kasetuh, Ive already renamed everywhere from Octavius, cuz its too popular name unfortunately. And here you can post link to our web version, no? If not just erase last sentense.

[rez]

Well fans i think its time for some more news!

We have recently released a brand spanking new beta for all of you to try out and comment on. I want to take the time now to thank every single one of you who responded with criticisms and pointed out the things that needed fixing. Without your help we would be nowhere near our goal. Of course all the kind praise didnt go unwanted either

With the holidays and exams n a lot of the team's plate we have had to take a slower approach to our work for a short period. But we are just emerging from that phase now and boy do we have some beautiful results for you! With that in mind i should say that this will be a short but meaningful update.

Our long awaited Indian Faction has been fully completed, this faction is one of the few Indian mods available for RTW and believe me it is as gorgeous as it is rare!

Nero is presently coding the units and making the unit cards whilst i handle the stats balancing. Vikrant, the creator of this faction along wth FliegerAD, is making the preview renders for all to see soon.

However keep an eye on the Eagle Standard as Rise of Persia features a brand new interview and a sneak peek at the Indian faction.

Other than this the usual work goes on, Media will resume development under myself and Vikrant on Tuesday and with them finished we will have all four major empires completed for the mod.

It should also be noted that the scythians have been in ongoing development under FliegerAD and Herkus for quite some time. Although hampered by delays they are on the prodution line.

Nero is also coding in the faction specific barracks this week, so look forward to more unique features there!

Stay Tuned!

- The Rise of Persia Team

[rez]

Well guys its been a long road and a very long time since this thread was updated. Things moved on a lot faster in those days when we had a huge team battling away at our creation. But even though people have had to move on they have left behind some spectacular work.

I want to ressurrect this thread because I want people to know that work is stil ongoing for the mod and we want to bring you a version 3 release as soon as we can. But I ask you to please be patient with us as it is just myself and Nero working on the mod at present.

As for what we are actually doing I'm very happy to announce that I've got into 3d and 2d art as well as coding so that the team won't be reliant on freelance artists helping us out. I feel like I'm getting the hang of the work and since most of my jobs currently involves mixing around pre-modelled stuff its coming along fairly quickly.

So far I have been re-working the Persian army (again!) to ensure that when you boot up RoP you will be commanding the most accurate, most awesome Persians the world has ever seen!

To this end I have re-worked the immortals and split them up into two units, one spearmen and one archers with swords as melee weapons. This is a much more accurate portrayal of the Anusyia and it also makes the game a little more balanced and fun since we no longer have full stacks of one super unit. They have been given a new headress to make them more accurate but I believe they look far better now as well. The Anusyia also carry a Spara shield now rather than the Diplyon (violin) shield as this is more accurate.

Those of you who wanted more units will be pleased to note I am adding a new unit of elite spearmen for the Persians who will carry the Diplyon shield as well as longer spears and scale armour. They are the commoner counterpart to the Arstibara, promoted by merit rather than rank.

I tossed and turned over whether or not to keep the original Arstibara in the game as they are technically completely inaccurate to have on the field in those robes. However the model and skin is so amazing that I can't bring myself to delete them. So what I propose is instead to give them 0 movement on the campaign map. That way they can only be used defensively in sieges, like a palace guard should be.

Lastly, all Persian infantry units have been bumped up to 100 men as this is more accurate and will possibly give the Persians a boost in conquering the world if you are playing as another faction.

Next on my list is rigging the Bactrian faction. Its been a source of great misery for us in that we haven't been able to preview these spectacular units for you but rest assured I will get on the case as soon as I am capable. When they are rigged Nero will code them into the game fully and we will be very close to our release. We will need to code in some of the other features we've been looking at as well as more traits and ancillaries for your family members.


But thats pretty much the to do list (as far as I remember) for Rise of Persia 3.0

As always we really appreciate how loyal and helpful the Rise of Persia fans have been over the years and we're so happy you guys have stuck with us. Hopefully this will be a new era of prosperity for the mod and with the lack of modification support in CA's newer ventures people might just start coming back to Rome for some mod fun!

- Rez

[Amphaneos]

Great news Rez. Been following the mod for years. Actually, it is the first mod I've ever played. Being a historian myself, I love the effort you are putting into it and the [precious] time you've spent vying for historical accuracy. Keep up with the good work 2 thumbs up!!! No wonder why RoP is one of the best mods and people are so fond of it! BTW could you please PM me from which university have you graduated from? You are living in England, aren't you?
P.S. Version 3 will surely be a wicked game, you never let us down !!!

[Xerrop]

I tossed and turned over whether or not to keep the original Arstibara in the game as they are technically completely inaccurate to have on the field in those robes. However the model and skin is so amazing that I can't bring myself to delete them. So what I propose is instead to give them 0 movement on the campaign map. That way they can only be used defensively in sieges, like a palace guard should be.

Lastly, all Persian infantry units have been bumped up to 100 men as this is more accurate and will possibly give the Persians a boost in conquering the world if you are playing as another faction.[/B]

Well I hope that the Arstibara will not be deleted. They are too beautiful. And it is an interesting idea to use them only as guards.

The second change about the unit size looks promising. Maybe we will see a glorious Achaemenid AI-empire finally.

[Joar]

Good news! Keep up the good work!

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Sweet news rez!

[UnderTheEagle]

Sounds awesome! I would still like the Arstibara to be availible for field battles, but I do like the idea of a dedicated Palace Guard. You will have to make sure that their no movement is stressed or you will get so many people complaining about the "Arstibara movement bug".

Also - can't wait for the next release of one of the best mods!

[Spike]

GREAT!!!!! ROP will be coming back....

BTW, what about seeingly unbalanced unit costs and statistics? will you balance the unit costs per performance using linear ratio, or probing historical costs of recruiting and maintaining such units?

[The10thLegion]

Good luck! Im a newer fan but Ive had lots of fun playing this!

[pons]

I love this Mod. Great news that it is still being worked on.

One thing that I have never figured out is where is the script? Every other Mod, once you turn the corner there is a steady progress to invincibility. This one, I always think I am doing OK but eventually the AI (on VH) outguns me and brings me down. Is it doing that without a script or help for the AI (apart from what it always gets on VH)? Hard to believe, but the ROP script looks to be just 4 turns a year.

My other favourite things about the Mod are that the AI actually seems to understand the map, the turns are quick and the play is dynamic. The world doesn't just rely on the human player to make things happen. I hope those characteristics carry through to 3.0

[rez]

Well I hope that the Arstibara will not be deleted. They are too beautiful. And it is an interesting idea to use them only as guards.

I hope its possible but if not we could attach a set of house rules like they do in Roma Surrectum. I'll probably do this anyway since I think it adds a hell of a lot to the Persian campaign experience if you only field one army of anusyia and keep your cavalry at a fair minimum.

Sounds awesome! I would still like the Arstibara to be availible for field battles, but I do like the idea of a dedicated Palace Guard. You will have to make sure that their no movement is stressed or you will get so many people complaining about the "Arstibara movement bug".

Heh, will do! I still think we'll keep them in for custom battles.

BTW, what about seeingly unbalanced unit costs and statistics? will you balance the unit costs per performance using linear ratio, or probing historical costs of recruiting and maintaining such units?

I want to stick with historical costs and for the most part I'm happy with our unit pricing. But a lot of people have found issues with the Greek factions unit pricing and we'll look at that. Personally I'm going to experiment with very expensive cavalry to try and make the armies that the ai fields a lot more accurate.

One thing that I have never figured out is where is the script? Every other Mod, once you turn the corner there is a steady progress to invincibility. This one, I always think I am doing OK but eventually the AI (on VH) outguns me and brings me down. Is it doing that without a script or help for the AI (apart from what it always gets on VH)? Hard to believe, but the ROP script looks to be just 4 turns a year.

To the best of my knowledge the only script we use is the 4tpy one. We just tried to put together the most accurate portrayal of the 6th century the world had ever seen and it turns out it lends itself very much to RTW gameplay!

My other favourite things about the Mod are that the AI actually seems to understand the map, the turns are quick and the play is dynamic. The world doesn't just rely on the human player to make things happen. I hope those characteristics carry through to 3.0

We don't plan on changing the fundamentals because we too are very happy with them. Versions 3, 4 and however many more it takes will probably center on cosmetic changes, more playable factions and more historical text for the history minded players to read.

[Cinuz]

Very good news indeed!!

Also, if you're reviewing all of the units, remember to "fix" the aspidatai: when they were standing they were not holding their spears good... It has never been a prob to me, but oh well, since you're working on the units.....

[rez]

Ah yes I forgot to mention I have been going through All of RoP's units making sure they have the right skeletons. By the next version those bugs should be entirely eliminated.

[Cinuz]

Really nice

Thank you for your work!

[Delysid]

Great news
As a rather new fan to this mod I wish you both the best of luck for the next release, your hard word is hugely appreciated.

[clone]

great news .will you change something for the greeks in 3.0

[rez]

I want to get to adding in some new hoplites for the regional areas of recruitment. But don't hold your breath for full faction overhauls, there's not too much we really can add to the Greeks since they didn't have much unit variety at this time.

[clone]

I want to get to adding in some new hoplites for the regional areas of recruitment. But don't hold your breath for full faction overhauls, there's not too much we really can add to the Greeks since they didn't have much unit variety at this time.

thanks for the reply but i didnt say sommething about more units but i asked if they are going to be more buildings more 2d art

[rez]

Sorry I must have missed that.

We currently don't have a 2d artist working for us so we're going to be using the same loading screens and interface. As for the buildings that is certainly something we want to get around to but our first priority is to get all the factions completed.