beermug's Expanded Americas Renovation Project 1.5 07/11/2012

[beermugcarl]

I decided to play Expanded Americas essentially because I find that stainless steel isn't great for hotseat games. I then noticed quite a few comments saying 'can you import stainless steel onto this map?' obviously this is impossible in a literal sense but I thought to myself why not make Expanded Americas rival stainless steel in content! why not?

so I've started compiling together bits here and there to 'update' this mod. give it a new shiny feel to it whilst maintaining fast turn times and maintaining the feeling of Expanded Americas

current contents

1. AI that is very nearly self aware im quite proud of my ai work for this sub mod, the alliances and war all happen for reasons. allies will bail you out but allies of enemies will help them as well.... (there is still the occasionally random blockade and for that i apologise)
2. Near Perfect Balancing! every faction has a unique feel and the whole map has been balanced so as to try to make none be above the rest! perfect for hotseat as none have a real advantage, also adds for different ending each time you play rather than the same old 'england takes scotland blah'
3. New Map and Battle textures such as better horses
4. Princesses for all! small tweaks make a large difference to me, making princesses available to muslims is a small must have just for playablity reasons as is the hundreds of other decisions i have made (most if not all for playabilty)
5. a heavily changed map, very little is the same, that means resources , city placement, region placement, everything moved and shuffled for ai compatibilty and for realistic feels to areas. plan a long journey across anatolia only to swept away by horse archers and equip your infantry for a brawl through northern italy...
6. an economy that is challenging for the player and comforting to the ai, the ai will not bankrupt itself AND it will not have stupid amounts of money while you must choose your buildings wisely and plan campaigns ahead
7. Difficulty settings change little except how the ai reacts, on very hard they will attack the moment they spy a weakness, on hard they will be fairly balanced, medium they are a little shy and easy they are essentially tame, waiting to be attacked. but dont worry! troop caps means you will not see portugal with twelve stacks by lisbon on lower difficulties
8. Includes Antioch, Jerusalem and Timurids as starting factions

photographic proof still to come. cant get an upload site to work for me. my own fault im sure..

my main future focus is - an AOR recruitment system and only one playable crusader faction. also frees up a faction slot.

installation

unzip and then copy and paste into the data file overwriting everything and deleting map rwm! if you need help just ask

link

the link is currently from gamefront or mediafire. if you wish for a different download site then mention it and i will try my best.

http://www.gamefront.com/files/22600134/data_7z

alternate link

http://www.mediafire.com/?pyu3k16gyofoxd8

also i would highly recommend 'really bad ai' and the settlement pack because they change the game so much (the settlement pack in particular is fantastic and underrated)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=453503

please please please give me information on how campaigns are going. screenshots and what you like/dont like/want to see in a future release

[Gaul]

Thanks for all the work. I haven't been to TWcenter since like January.

[Eothese]

If you try this don't delete the text .bin files as one or two of them were directly edited and so won't regenerate.

[beermugcarl]

if anyones interested. i put allot of campaign map textures in and looks quite nice now but for some reason every second manual battle crashes which is not good at all....just an update.

[beermugcarl]

fixed a few more bugs. included 'better horses' few polished out balancing issues. going to include better skys and water as well..

going to go for a new release in about a week or so. that will be my 'official' version 1.

new long term goals = will involve definitely only one crusader faction. playable from the start. a small garrison script for major cities and hopefully area of recruitment for a fair few units...also with the freed up faction slot i will think about that. also i suppose considering my goals and all i will start to work on a new map using the same scale as stainless steel only i will twist geography a bit...bringing the americas a little closer than what is realistic. we shall what the future holds

[beermugcarl]

ok so download link updated

[Gaul]

It all sounds good, keep in contact with Eothese.

[beermugcarl]

a few minor balance changes
can anybody implement antioch and jerusalem as starting with one city and playable for me? i cant seem to get it to work even though its fairly simple and my log isn't firing so i dont know what im doing wrong...

anyway, if anybody out there is playing this then please post screenies here

[beermugcarl]

more changes, basically its at 1.2 version because I've polished everything out nicely, the economy is now less punishing should you need to recruit fast and more punishing for actually marching to your enemy.

morale has been tweaked around a bit and some more map changes

[Sar1n]

Gonna give this a shot...

Oh, just checking, is Settlement Tweaks are compatible with this submod?

[beermugcarl]

yup its compatible just copy it in

I just uploaded another new link *sigh* you can use the old package if you want but the new one stops the early hordes of troops that i seemed to have accidentally given several factions...

but yeah all the G5ai stuff is compatible, just select misc mods on the menu.

sorry for all the links recently. but the one now is the real one and there wont be another for about a month or so as im going to do AOR that i kept promising...

[Sar1n]

So, I installed this over Expanded Americas 3.3 with slightly modified EDU (removed fire_by_rank from gunpowder troops), deleted map.rwm (from world\maps\base\ right?), and I get crash to main menu when starting campaign. Also, I looked quickly over custom game and some units got the placeholder peasant icon....in battle itself the troops of these units have glass, untextured look.

Edit: forgot. Affected units seem to be european bombard, mongol/timurid cannon, marshalls of templars/hospitallers, and maybe more...

[beermugcarl]

yeah its because i made a few last minute changes so in strat marseille and i think 'jedda' have buildings wrong which is what is causing the ctd, apologies i rushed it because i got annoyed at myself.

the missing textures is for bombard and...something else....its because i made them mercenaries without moving the textures, stupid yeah but i dont really know what im doing with textures.

you can fix the ctd yourself if you know how but a new upload will be on tonight. sigh. im sorry, this is the first time ive done a mod this big and its not even that big


EDIT: the new link is now though its an easy fix if you know how and don't want to download it again

[Sar1n]

My modding skills are nearly non-existent. But with the new version, it works.

Nice map btw, some things seem weird, but I guess that reflects different starting year. Speaking about that, if I may suggest, adjust family trees and faction descriptions accordingly? It seems weird when English got William the Conqueror in 14th century, and such out of time people.

[beermugcarl]

ok that's a actually a good idea they are the default families but considering this meant to 'fix and upgrade' everything then that does seem good.

I recommend playing hard or medium btw. on very hard everybody will just kick the out of you

and there are some odd choices such as naming your and Nottingham 'Liverpool and Birmingham' but that's just because i'm English and considering this was really at first just Modding for myself

anyway! 2 questions
1) are archers overpowered (i've been considering slightly dropping their power)
2) how is the campaign ai treating you?

if there is anything off in balance then give me a shout as that was the first thing I concentrated on but a lack of feed back means I'm my only tester its catered to my skill level

anywho thanks for downloading

[Sar1n]

I don't have much time for sustained campaign playthrough, so the feedback will be a little slow...

I started campaign as Spain on M/M (I am casual player and I don't like AI bonuses on higher difficulties). AI plays definitely very aggressive...they seem to go after rebel settlements very fast and hard, I managed to get Pamplona and Toulouse before everything around was captured by others. AI apparently goes to great lengths in securing rebel cities, Portugese stormed Bordeaux while Ireland took Rennes. Also, the moment I lost majority of troops in battle (on purpose, I got a lot of Feudal Knights from missions and couldn't sustain them), Moors were at my doorstep. Apparently Pope didn't like it as well (or was it coincidence) cause the same turn he declared Crusade on Cordoba. So my army is mostly composed of mercenaries now, as recruitment is really slow. Cordoba is swamped now with crusading armies from HRE, England, Poland, Milan, and France and Ireland are closing. This all happened within first 20 turns BTW. Seems like stuff is moving very fast in campaign.

Now the strange things. First, map...I don't know the reasoning behind choosing the settlements, but it's odd...Granada is missing, while at that time it was Moorish capital at Iberian Peninsula, while Cordoba was already under Spanish rule. I haven't looked much through rest of the map, I know Marseille is Milanese which seems strange too.

AI also seem obsessed with alliances. I was really surprised seeing English forge over half a dozen alliances with various nations, from Ireland (!) to Moors. Same for most of other nations.

I've noticed one obvious bug, I could recruit Native Mercenaries in one of Iberian territories (southwest of peninsula, I forgot how is it called...something with S, close to Gibraltar castle).

So far, I didn't get to try out archers much. Peasant archers seem to handle okay against unarmored targets, I tried longbowmen in one custom battle and they seemed to work about as well as in vanilla.

[beermugcarl]

haha thats fantastic!

yes i made it for a fast paced campaign as most people seem to get bored and dont make it turn 100 but optimum gameplay seems to be between turn 60-180ish

yes the settlements will be odd as i chose gameplay over strict accuracy. so moving granada further south so that it is a choke point (the ai handles choke points very well and it makes for tough fighting to finally push the moors off of the peninsula)

milan starting with marseille was to essentially force mid game conflict with france and possibly even whoever comes on top of iberia

so with that in mind i hope you understand why i moved things around and why there are fewer islands

On the issue of recruitment i will say that it gets better the further you get into it, i dont like rush tactics as i feel the ruin the game a bit and plus i give you adequate starting armies so i have it so the building system is very rewarding in upkeep slots and troop replenishment/

and on the bug, thank you very much - it seems my major modding flaw is rushing.

thanks again, i hope your enjoying it

[beermugcarl]

i have finished adding Antioch, Jerusalem and timurids as playable
other minor tweaks - ai slightly less agressive
- ai finance script tweaked
- reshuffling of the middle east

it will be up sometime tommorow, i will start dating the releases

[Ser Chris]

i have finished adding Antioch, Jerusalem and timurids as playable
other minor tweaks - ai slightly less agressive
- ai finance script tweaked
- reshuffling of the middle east

it will be up sometime tommorow, i will start dating the releases

Great thing. On Wednesday I'm free to play it

[beermugcarl]

new link is up
Antioch, Jerusalem and Timurids are just ports so they are a little rough around the edges, only a little (such as UI for priests, merchants, etc.)
but my mentality is i would rather get the product out then polish (but don't be scared they aren't so rough! just a couple missing UI's )
Could somebody post a campaign screenshot of the starting positions if they know how? because I just don't seem to be receiving love from any photo upload sites (personally I blame Irfanview)

EDIT: if you want to keep playing the older version then please do as the script changes and gameplay mechanics while they have been changed have not undergone complete rewrites