Big Map for Darthmod 7.5 **open Beta**updated 13/6/2005

[Shaggy1973]

Here is the download link for the latest big map for Darthmod 7.5 16/6/06

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R8BMNR08

http://www.sendspace.com/file/y1gaon offered by Repman (Tks!)--Darth

FINAL VERSION BEFORE DARTHMOD 8.0

Directions for first time installation:
1) Unzip the download to whichever RTW directory Darthmod is installed in.
2) Play RTW and instead of chooing the imperial campaign, select the provincial campaign.

Directions for reinstallation:
1) Go to RTW/Data/wolrd/maps/campaign and delete the file called "europa_270bc.
2) Follow directions for a fresh install above.

NB this mod doesnt alter Darthmod in any way so you can play both standard map darthmod and big map darthmod without switching files around.

Thanks go to IceTorque for creating the map, and also Webbird for his amendments to the tgas before I got my grubby mits on it.

Features:
Huge map (as wide as is possible)
198 Provinces so even smaller factions start resonably strong and dont get wiped out quickly
A more historical starting position for each faction (although some creativity has been utilised)

Couldnt fix issue with Carthaginian armies getting stuck around Massilia, as it wasnt a path finding bug. I watched many Gallic armies walk straight passed them down the valleys created, so decided that the Carthaginian armies were trying to walk to Sicily, and therefore getting stuck at Massilia. They were never trying to get to Italy!


Any mistakes/comments please report them in this thread so I can try to rectify.

And enjoy.

[The Border Reiver]

Hi Shaggy

I have never used this map before but this is amazing! Couple of bugs you need to get sorted out such as unit cards displaying incorrectly for rebels. For instance below, because ownership of these units is briton and gaul they display placeholder unit cards, and will also display Vanilla skins on the battle map.


shaggy I have removed the rest of this topic, as you have corrected the initial problems.


cheers Border Reiver

[jester7707]

Thanks Shaggy the map turned out great.

[Shaggy1973]

I knew they were placeholders for rebel armies, but I just accepted it as they are only there briefly in the campaign. Stuck the chariots in as a little suprise

I thought that putting in gallic units into a sub-factioned slave army would just give the correct unit cards and skins.... perhaps darth can shed some light on the matter as he knows the mod much better than I do.

I was planning on just leaving them as is :/

Didnt see the textiles in the sea off Liguria tho

Will have to start making a list again......

[Husserl]

downloading!

[The Border Reiver]

Fair enough about the place holders, although it looks unfinished .......but the chariots, my God I have tears in my eyes.

I've had another surprise, what's the theory behind allying the jullii to only to the greeks, and making enemies of all Roman factions? I've ust been attacked by the Brutii in the 3rd turn? Was this a mistake, or was it a joke, considering the Senate still issues me missions ?

Also do you intend to fill out the campaign map resources a bit, so that it worthwhile getting trade rights? If you are and you would like to split the job let me know, as I have finished a complete resource rework for the 7.5 Vanilla Map, which Darth wants me to send through. If you do it'll be a huge job on a map this size!

Anyway apart from the above this map is awesome for DarthMod, and I look forward to your updates.

[Shaggy1973]

The thing about the resources is there are so many provinces that you have to think about gameplay over reality sometimes. I have researched trade but didnt find too much in the way of easily usable info (namely maps over written resources) but I think I got the main gist of where valuable trade resources could be found. However, if you go overboard with too many resources on a map with 198 provinces = 1,000,000s of denarii for every faction after 50 turns. Best to keep cash down i thought although i am always open to other solutions. You will notice also that population growth should also be much lower, again controlling cash from farming and tax.

What I actually wanted to keep was some traditionally resource rich areas remaining desriable for empires to conquer, like spain which carthage and rome fought over.

[The Border Reiver]

Good ideas shaggy but having many resources spread over all provinces actually has the opposite effect.

I have been researching this for weeks and like you find that the information about "actual historical resource" is very limited. The secret is making each regions resources different from the next region, therefore enforcing trade rights and balancing the books. The RTW engine is designed based on capitalism and the need for variety for the settlement to live and prosper

Settlements actually get greedy and want as many different resources as money can buy, therefore running down the treasury. The secret is what cost you associate with each resourceand the placement on the map. If I may put it simpler, every time someone buys grain, someone is selling it, and therefore money is going both ways. Seriously mate....I am not making this up, what I have created to my knowledge has never been done before, and that's why it doesn't sound right.

Please test this and you'll see. I have attached my resource list for Darth Mod 7.5 Vanilla Map, all you have to do is copy and paste over the existing resources for this to work.

I guarantee within 5 turns (MTW 2 :original: ) you will see that increased trading between cities actually keeps money from coming too fast, because money is also lost just as quick. :original:

I have emailed my whole mod to Darth to check out, maybe check in with him.

[Shaggy1973]

Ok I will test it out, thank you. I guess therefore that obtaining trade rights may have a detrimental effect on your economy then? It does sound counter intuitive.

PS I will also check out the faction relationships. I have moved onto creating a faction specific campaign for darthmod in which I have changed around some of the faction slots etc.... I have many installs of rtw on my HD and think im starting to get confused

Maybe it is time for a clean up.

Anyway if I have messed up the alliances will be a quick fix to produce so should get it done today

[Theragon]

This map have bigger distance between cities and capital,this causing too high unhappines in distatnt areas like spain.Is possible modding roads to have bigger impact to happines (ie less "wheels" in city info) ?

[Shaggy1973]

Well the distance to capital is kind of by design to make large empire difficult to manage. I am also very constricted by the fact that I cant really change any files that are shared with darthmod imperial campaign. So for bigmap for darthmod i dont think anything can be done.

Perhaps I will release a standalone download which alters some text files which you can decide to install if you decide you dont want to play the vanilla map anymore, or you know a little about modding and can backup your relevant text files so you can revert back when you want.

PS - there is another hotfix coming out today, so dont get too far into your campaigns.

Sorry everyone but there is a problem with diplomacy... im so disorganised

[Theragon]

Ok,i understand...Then i need little advice :-)...In export_descriptive_buildings.txt,where is specific parameter which has impact to this "wheels"?I trying change road_level but this not working.Is somewhere way to reduce this specific unhappines,or is only way add to roads some law or hapinness bonuses?Thx...(Sorry for crappy english)

[DARTH VADER]

I call all people that find things needed to be added as hot fix to state it here than not write it. I want to include this map to DarthMod_8.0 fully debugged.
Tks again all for the support.

[Shaggy1973]

Just testing the fix now before the england game

Does anybody think the wonders would go back in? I find them a little unbalancing but am open to suggestions.

PS problem with diplomacy solved.

[Persian Horseman]

i havent tried the map but i think the wonders r a good bonus to the gameplay. factions fighting over them.

questions:
1. how many cities r in this map.
2. would u plz b able to post a full picture of just the map so we can see it with more detail. wanna see exactly how big it is.
3. is there more distance between each city?
4. i think i would also have difficulty with the distance from capital affecting happiness. a fix would b great.
5. r there more cities given to parthians? but u cant choose them cuz of CTD?
6. every faction has more cities or there r just more rebel cities?

thanx

[Shaggy1973]

1. about 198 i think, maybe 199
2. there are pictures in the unified romans thread
3. there is enough distance between each city so that you cant travel between them in one turn
4. i will perhaps make a standalone fix, but bear in mind that each faction only needs 50 provinces to win at the moment and i really like that fact that it makes it harder for large factions to stay together for a better challenge. perhaps if people want longer campaigns it may become necessary, as the win conditions would have to be increased.
5. there are 3 cities given to the parthians, they were not a large faction, but they do have hidden bonuses over the seleucids as they have an eastern culture rather than a greek one, so they can control the provinces better. in every test i have run parthia becomes strong
6. there are very few rebel cities, and some very large unconquerable provinces in the sahara and into russia.

[wipeout140]

Nice Work

[DARTH VADER]

Thanks for fix shaggy. It seems that this map will make the ultimate addition to DarthMod. But we have to make it fully CTD free before including.
It would be good also to add documentation to factions. I believe if some fans could write smthg for their most favourite faction it would be nice and would add it there. I think I should open a thread for this.


---------edit---------

The usage of non-slave factions to be used as slaves makes the annoying black peasant unit icon effect for them.
Since DarthMod uses specific slave units if you put for slaves a briton unit it will have no unit icon for it.

I suggest you change all the slave starting units to their DarthMod defaults availables.

Or else we should create unit icons for all slave units that are to be included.
This is not an option I could carry right now.


Also have to check diplomacy settings...have you romans united or independed?

[Shaggy1973]

I copy and pasted the existing ones across for now - changed the faction portraits etc.

Just tweaking the start location still further. At the moment im doing ai campaigns as the britons so i dont get wiped out. Scipii always does well and has captured carthage by 210BC (im happy with that - although I would rather they sometimes lost too, but they always get very concerned with spain after losing sicily).

However, Julii and Brutii dont expand much. Julii evetually take the Po Valley, and Brutii take Illyria or sometimes Apollonia, and then stop. Macedon is always stabbed in the back by the Greeks when they lose Syracuse, and are sandwiched between GC and the barbarians to the north. Germania is also too powerful.

I guess we could go on tweaking this forever. PS the map is CTD free. There are random CTDs when running the ai campaign, but when you reload and carry on it is possible to get past the CTDs. I think they are the usual 1.5 CTDs. Do you get CTDs running ai campaign in standard DM?

Documentation etc is all easily changable for 8.0 anyways.

EDIT:

OK gonna take a couple of rebel provinces in Gaul away anyway. Maybe one in Spain.

If we changed the rebel skins for standard skins we could use the standard unit pics. I dont think it would be that bad an option. Why not make a rebel gallic warband look like the standard one for gaul.... after all it is still a warband.

EDIT:

No unified roman campaign as of yet, will do if required. Will be different to KKs though. Will give Rome to Romans, remove the senate faction but still allow senate missions and office i think. Easily done I think, you just remove the senates last province and leave them allied and the missions still come (im fairly sure).

Would also want to mess around the the family tree and maybe diplomacy.

Diplomacy is fixed but not uploaded yet.

[DARTH VADER]

I also suggest to use my diplomacy settings I use for my map (copy/paste) to see how things go.

For documentation it would be nice to include more DarthMod oriented texts ..just an idea .
Ctds can happen from 1.5 patch yes...do not worry for this. But I never use quicksaves and never have Ctds in plain DarthMod ...but do not play often nowadays so cannot be much of a beta tester.

It would be nice to show gallic but the game engine must see them as gallic to give them UI, so unless we do not want new slave units, we revert to the old to have their special UI. Kaweh K. has finished so much work for them and it is a pitty to see black peasants.