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Thread: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

  1. #1

    Default *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    *Jerusalem Rising*

    Jerusalem Rising is an ambitious project based around overhauling and improving the Kingdom of Jerusalem. I am currently mulling expanding it into a bigger Crusades mod after this is done. So far I have readied for you an Alpha release. The mod is far from done, but you can get a little taste of it with this Alpha.

    Alpha Features

    Superficial Changes

    • Changes to unit voices. The faction's voice "accent" has been adjusted to the "Antioch" accent from the vanilla Crusades campaign. The main French accent that was assigned to KOJ in BC was inappropriate, it was kind of weird to see KOJ units making references to France every time they talked. So that is why the "Antioch" accent has been implemented. This only works during battles however, I'm trying to adjust it for the strat-map too.
    • New campaign strat map music. I felt a lot of the current tracks that played on the strat map were rather stale and so I have already implemented some new tracks. These include some great Latin/Gregorian chants and instrumental tracks.
    • New models and textures for all KOJ Templar units. A new model for Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem.



    Gameplay Changes

    • Templar Order stations are now available in every town/city. However, you can only build either a Templar Order station or a Hospitaller one.
    • Templars no longer get liquidated in 1307. So yes you can use them throughout the campaign.
    • Cleaned up Jerusalem recruitment lines in EDB. Before unit lines looked messy with duplicate entries, now they look clean.
    • Got rid of AOR for this release. I plan on making a separate EDB file with AOR as a separate download for players interested in that.
    • Turns per year on the strat map have been increased to four in order to make the campaign longer.
    • Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem have been converted to mace-armed infantry. They also have a shield-wall ability. Templar Sergeants and Dismounted Templar Knights have swords as secondary weapons.
    • Crusader Sergeants are now available at forts instead of cities, you do not need Mediterranean Trader anymore to get access to them.
    • The campaign starts with a Templar Grand master complete with his own unique strat-map and battle model. This first Grand master will be Odo de St. Amand, historically he was the Grand master in existence at the time the BC campaign starts. If he is killed the next Grand master who historically came after him, will spawn and so on and so forth. You will receive an event notification when a spawn occurs and you can get up to 17 of these Grand masters. They are basically the last 17 Grand masters of the Order.
    • 2 New units: "Templar Veterans" and Bodyguards of the "Templar Grand Master". These are very powerful OP units. You will only have access to these units with the spawning of a Grand master, so use them carefully.



    Some Screenshots:


    new and improved Dismounted Early Templars


    Templar Grand master with Bodyguard


    new and improved Templar-Brothers


    the Templar Grand master on the strat map

    Proposed Changes/Additions/WIPs

    • Complete overhaul of all of the faction's 2D visuals.
    • Bow-string animations will be implemented for KOJ archers. Taking inspiration and know-how from here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...nimations-Pack.
    • Unique models for iconic KOJ generals such Baldwin IV or Guy de Luisignan.
    • More Crusader/Outremer units.
    • A revamping of the Hospitaller and Teutonic Orders - look forward to changes to units, changes to recruitment and Grand masters.
    • New models for cities and towns?
    • A new map and work on other factions; this might be far down the road.


    Some Important Notes

    • Jerusalem is hugely important and it is critical that you control it. If it is captured you will lose access to the next Templar Grand Master and his powerful veteran troops that will spawn. If used properly these troops can change the course of entire battles for you so ensure you have access to them by holding Jerusalem at all costs.
    • Again each year now takes four turns, however character aging has not been calibrated for this yet. This will be fixed in a later release.
    • The installer for this mod will overwrite your BC installation. If you want to restore BC, just backup your data folder.


    Credits

    -The Rusichi team for their beautiful horse models.
    -The BC team for their awesome mod which is the foundation of this mod.
    -MikeGolf and Withwnar, two cool dudes who helped me immensely with scripting and coding for this mod.
    -Anyone else I forget .

    Download Link:

    http://www.mediafire.com/download/kt...sing_Alpha.zip

    Feedback

    Please share your ideas. What changes/additions would you like to see? And are there any among you who would like to contribute to this effort? Any kind of help will always be welcome because I have a lot of great things planned.
    Last edited by 0TheLastTemplar0; January 05, 2014 at 12:25 PM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Yeah, no deadlines or promises, but whatever we release or preview, you'll find here =)

    "To achieve everything that is possible, we must try to do the impossible." (H. Hesse)

  3. #3

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Another preview today guys. We are moving along with our additions/modifications to the Templars. We are happy to announce that we are ready to unveil the new and improved Templar Dismounted Knight. Basically, to add more realism to this beast, we decided to also equip him with a sword in addition to his two-handed axe.



    We recognize that there are some issues with units using secondary weapons, the most pressing issue being that they utilize their secondaries very inefficiently because they attempt to switch weapons a second or two before they clash with an enemy during a charge. This is especially frustrating at times because enemy troops, if they are close enough, will usually make contact as the switch is being made and will thus land a few blows before the switch is complete. This can lead to a few soldiers already being killed. In the case of the Dismounted Templar Knights, we decided to try and remedy this issue. Through exhaustive testing we were able to find a potential solution to this problem: we basically disabled the charge capability for this unit by adjusting the value of the "stat_charge_dist" field in EDU. So when one double-clicks an enemy the unit will still "charge", but they will no longer raise their weapons in the air before they smash into the enemy nor will they do any charge damage. This for some reason ensures that they don't do the annoying weapon switching seconds before they make contact with the enemy troops. When they do make contact they will all initially fight with swords, but some of them will subtly switch out their swords for the axe - this is very nice to watch and very realistic. So in the end, secondary weapons are being used efficiently and not the detriment of the unit, but the trade-off is that the unit has an ineffective charge. For these Templars, it doesn't really matter that they lose their charge because they are still very powerful, but if we were to implement this setup for other units with secondary weapons who are weaker, we wonder if we might be sacrificing performance? It remains to be seen, we still want to give some sergeant units secondaries too, so we have our fingers crossed that things will work out.

    Here's some images of the DTKs in action:



    Last edited by 0TheLastTemplar0; May 19, 2013 at 02:36 PM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    The next thing we are going to try to work on is a new and improved Templar sergeant and a Grandmaster unit.

  5. #5

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    This is some really awesome looking work guys! Great job and keep up the good work!

  6. #6

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Thanks!

  7. #7
    Visarion's Avatar Alexandros
    Artifex

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    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    very nice

  8. #8

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Thank you sir!

  9. #9

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    This sounds pretty great.

  10. #10

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Thanks DaysBefore.

    Well I have another breakthrough today guys. I messed with descr_skeleton and figured out how to retain the DTK's charge and how to eliminate the annoying weapon switching glitch.

    Observe:

    This is before I made changes to descr_skeleton, notice the weapon switching during the middle of the charge.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFUCu7sPXrw

    This is after. Notice how they don't switch weapons in the middle of the charge and how some of they subtly switch to axe after they make contact.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCQiEPZzw9s
    Last edited by 0TheLastTemplar0; May 22, 2013 at 05:12 PM.

  11. #11
    Miles
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    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Looking forward to this one. A LOT!

    Esp like the inclusion of the Teutonic Order

  12. #12

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    I like this mod Idea, question though, I noticed you got rid of AOR, which mean I won't be able to recruit units like Azat Archers if I'm playing as the ERE since the their toxotai are not that good. Is their anyway you can add a decent archer unit permanently to ERE from AOR, I know this mod is based around Jerusalem and it would probably be a lot of work but I thought I would enquire about this part anyways.

  13. #13

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    hey dude, your work with the duel weapons is VERY impressive, can you go into the details so I can do that with my knights submod?

    EDIT: Do you still need my help regarding the animations?

  14. #14

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Hey Warman! First of all the solution was very simple. I noticed that the weapon switching glitch occurred during the unit's charge. So I thought, what if I removed the charge animations for this unit's secondary weapon? His secondary weapon animations are in "MTW2_2H_Axe", in descr_skeleton I found the entries for MTW2_2H_Axe and deleted all the entries associated with charging and running, basically all these:



    This somehow did the trick!

    Now with all that said, the issue for me is that I am running the vanilla descr_skeleton file and the vanilla animation pack that was released by CA. I was unable to unpack/repack BC's animation files so any changes I made to BC's descr_skeleton file did not have any effect. This is a serious problem, because all of BC's custom animations will be lost if I am forced to use the vanilla descr_skeleton file/animation pack. So it is crucial that I be able to successfully unpack/repack BC's animations. I PM'ed Alpha Delta and asked him if he could release BC's animation files, but I haven't gotten a response. So that is where I need your help. Just how do you unpack/repack a mod's animation files...??
    Last edited by 0TheLastTemplar0; May 26, 2013 at 04:55 PM.

  15. #15

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Akmatov View Post
    Looking forward to this one. A LOT!

    Esp like the inclusion of the Teutonic Order
    Yup, expect new content for the TK's!

  16. #16

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Quote Originally Posted by b257 View Post
    I like this mod Idea, question though, I noticed you got rid of AOR, which mean I won't be able to recruit units like Azat Archers if I'm playing as the ERE since the their toxotai are not that good. Is their anyway you can add a decent archer unit permanently to ERE from AOR, I know this mod is based around Jerusalem and it would probably be a lot of work but I thought I would enquire about this part anyways.

    Well what I meant by that was that the core units of each faction could be recruited in any region, I didn't get rid of area specific auxiliary units....they are still there and they can be recruited in their native areas. I noticed that ERE's missing decent archer units as well, hopefully when I finish this little Jerusalem project, I can expand this submod to be a revamp of BC altogether. I always wanted to give ERE some kind of a greek fire unit too, stay tuned!

  17. #17

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Quote Originally Posted by 0TheLastTemplar0 View Post
    Hey Warman! First of all the solution was very simple. I noticed that the weapon switching glitch occurred during the unit's charge. So I thought, what if I removed the charge animations for this unit's secondary weapon? His secondary weapon animations are in "MTW2_2H_Axe", in descr_skeleton I found the entries for MTW2_2H_Axe and deleted all the entries associated with charging and running, basically all these:



    This somehow did the trick!

    Now with all that said, the issue for me is that I am running the vanilla descr_skeleton file and the vanilla animation pack that was released by CA. I was unable to unpack/repack BC's animation files so any changes I made to BC's descr_skeleton file did not have any effect. This is a serious problem, because all of BC's custom animations will be lost if I am forced to use the vanilla descr_skeleton file/animation pack. So it is crucial that I be able to successfully unpack/repack BC's animations. I PM'ed Alpha Delta and asked him if he could release BC's animation files, but I haven't gotten a response. So that is where I need your help. Just how do you unpack/repack a mod's animation files...??

    I would wait for a response dude because there is no working way to get animations unpacked. What custom animations are there, can you upload the descr-skeleton for me to see? Because depending on what's there, you could replicate what's in the pack. Many custom animations in mods I have access to. So I could help you find those animations and make it work. To pack animations, you just need to do 2 things.

    1. You have to move your vanilla pack idx skeleton idx and their respective dat files somewhere else. Otherwise it will go to vanilla regardless of you having the right files.

    2. Run the game.(assuming you have everything when we're done) the game will rebuild the files automatically.


    I hope that helps. Also I noticed you deleted those files from the default 2H-Axe slot in descr-skeleton. If I were you, I would put those back and make another entry called something like MTW2_Secondary_2H_Axe Just copy over all the files from the 2H-Axe slot except those you've highlighted. Then in your battlemodels, change the secondary entry to this new one. If all goes to plan, you have done your breakthough with out screwing up any soldiers that just use the 2H_Axe. Let me know what your results are.

  18. #18

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Quote Originally Posted by 0TheLastTemplar0 View Post
    Well what I meant by that was that the core units of each faction could be recruited in any region, I didn't get rid of area specific auxiliary units....they are still there and they can be recruited in their native areas. I noticed that ERE's missing decent archer units as well, hopefully when I finish this little Jerusalem project, I can expand this submod to be a revamp of BC altogether. I always wanted to give ERE some kind of a greek fire unit too, stay tuned!
    Thanks for clearing that up, great idea on the revamp once you get this done, good luck.

  19. #19

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    @Warman

    Hmm, ok so I was directed to the IDX tools the EB team uses by another forum member. They were basically an updated version of vercingetorix's idx tools. Anyways, I used them to unpack the animations for BC. I basically got all .CAS files out of the "pack" files,...I think. Although, when I tried to extract the "skeleton" files there was no effect. None of those "event" files seem to have been extracted either. Just to test, I deleted the BC animations file and replaced it with CA's released animations and pasted in all the .CAS files that were extracted into their appropriate directories. Then I loaded up the game to see if it would rebuild the animation packs, but all I got was a CTD. This is very depressing.


    Anyways, I have uploaded here the extracted BC animation files and the BC descr_skeleton file, maybe you can take a look here:
    http://www.mediafire.com/?2cyrgyzvd1fb02t
    http://www.mediafire.com/?kslbo4d2frhjj3j

    Regarding the weapon switching thing, yeah you are right. Best to make an entire new entry. I have now done that. Thanks for all your help Warman.
    Last edited by 0TheLastTemplar0; May 28, 2013 at 04:47 PM.

  20. #20

    Default Re: *Jerusalem Rising* - A Submod for BC 2.3.2

    Okay, so I have some good news and bad news.

    The bad news is your animation files you extracted aren't working. Something with directly unpacking animations corrupts the files. BUT I do have some good news, your descr-skeleton is mostly vanilla files, just arranged different and edited. The was some stuff not vanilla though.... but I had what was missing....

    http://www.mediafire.com/?cig3mpovuvp78s9

    Tell me if this solves your problems. I have the unpacked and packed files. Just place this animation folder in your data folder and replace all. Now you'll be find for now and whatever future edits. Also have you been having problems with the guys going to all 2hand weapons when they are getting charged upon by another unit.?

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