MOS v1.41 Expanded Map & Enhanced Ancillaries for MOS & MOS Expanded Map

[MIKE GOLF]

Expanded Map Mod for MOS v1.41

THIS MOD IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED. THE FILES ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO PLAY THIS OLDER VERSION OF MOS AND THE EXPANDED MAP.

THE LATEST EDITION OF MOS HAS AN "EXPANDED MAP" ALREADY INCLUDED SO THIS MOD IS NOT NEEDED.

THE LINK FOR THE LATEST RELEASE OF MOS IS HERE: MOS, the ultimate TATW experience.. version 1.6.2 for Third Age 3.2

THE LINK FOR THE LATEST VERSION OF THE MOS ENHANCED ANCILLARIES IS LOCATED HERE: Enhanced Ancillary UIs for MOS 1.62 RK Edition


Here at last. This is my first attempt at modding anything other than a few lines of script. My hope in presenting this is that the player face increased challenges, have an even more of an EPIC Middle Earth experience and to add to the players overall enjoyment of the game that TATW is. I want to thank Hero of the West, and the entire MOS Team for their support of this project. Also want to thank King Kong for re-creating Middle Earth using MTW to do it in. My biggest debt of thanks goes to Il Ducce, who blessed off on my project here. Il Ducce's previous expanded maps kept me playing earlier versions of TATW for a much longer time than I otherwise would have. This current expanded map for MOS is roughly 80% or so based on Il Ducce's previous work. I will leave a rep button for him so if you decide to download this mod add-on, please rep Il Ducce.

There are a few changes I made from previous versions, most of which you will have to play to find out. Some additional thoughts are listed below.

Note: On releases of MOS and the MOS Expanded Map 1.3 and above included with the download is a text file entitled Script Descriptions, please take the time to read it if not print a copy to have on hand as you play. There are so many features included it is difficult to remember them all. That includes myself as well.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Notes on province/settlement names. It is unfortunate that Tolkien did not leave us a fully detailed map of all the settlements of Middle Earth. I have put this map together as Il Ducce also did, knowing that some locations are not exactly where they are supposed to be. For example, the city of Lest should be located just off the Sea of Rhun. However owing to the sheer fact that so much is unknown and will always remain unknown concerning the geography of Middle Earth, some license was taken in order to balance the map and factions as much as possible.

This current map adds a total of 55 new provinces, balance and playability were foremost in my thoughts when creating this map. The only changes to the basic game that I made were to add 1000gp to Dale's Start money, to raise Dale's kings purse by 200gp and to reduce Rhun's kings purse by 200. In every game I played while creating this Rhun always turned into a steam roller, crushing both the Dwarves and Dale very early in the game. So hopefully the above changes will balance gameplay for both the AI and the player. Just to make clear, I don't mind if Dale and the Dwarves are utterly destroyed, I just don't want it to happen in every game or so early in the game.

In the next release, Rhun and Harad will not start the game with any highways. This should also slow down their movement initially across the map as well as force them to build their economies up as well. Also the next release will feature the 4 tier road system which will allow (when built) your armies to move across Middle Earth at a more realistic pace. In combination with MOS 12 turns per year this will make movement rates very comparable to actual movement rates of armies in antiquity and the medieval period.

There is no more room to add any more provinces, there are 198 provinces with one sea province. Currently, the only settlements under possible consideration are to add West Moria (Now Added under rebel Orc control) where the current fort is located, and a possible settlement east of Dol Gulder (No more room currently unless another province is dropped). Of course, if there is a great demand for a province change up by players of this mod than it will certainly be taken into consideration. The final arbiter though of any additional provinces will lay with the MOS Team and of the Team Leader; Hero of the West.

Notes on installation:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have loaded the expanded map into an installer.

PLEASE verify the target of where you are installing it into. It should install directly into the Third_age_3 folder wherever you may have it on your hard drive.

Once installed you MUST run the cleaner.bat

Failure to do the above and you will have a ctd on startup. (Best to run the cleaner).

+Rep to smitty for catching an error in the road textures. Follow the directions below and the highway textures should finally appear normally.

Changelog:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MOS 1.42 (Future)
ALL factions will have starting "fiefs", all possible fiefs will now be obtainable. (10-15+ total fiefs per faction)
Many balancing issues fixed

MOS Expanded Map v1.41
All human factions now have starting fiefdoms
Many new names added for most human factions and the Dwarves
Many, many bugs fixed
Minor improvements made in game play balance

MOS Expanded Map v1.4
Taro M's Lossarnach units added (Beautiful)
South Dunland will be made smaller to allow for trade between Lond Angren and Ostirion.
Updated mercenaries - Ngugi (Very nice!)
Updated Nazgul script.
Changed the name of Firienburg to Grimslade (+rep to Highland Kelt for pointing that out.)
Updated region description for North Lebennin.
Port added to East Osgiliath.
New Ancillaries added for all factions.
Part of the Aragorn Mod by Killic Ali added
EDU and EDB updated
New Ancillary UI's will be made available
Game should be more balanced now
Many other positive changes I can't remember
Should be a very enjoyable gameplay experience IMO
Portions of Killic Ali's RotK Mod added

MOS Expanded Map v1.3
Ammon Hen unreachable. Fixed
Most all roads will start at tier 1 (dirt road) as Rhun and Harad still seemed a bit overpowered.
Will look into hobbits not being able to build gravel roads and the North-South Roads. Fixed
Barad Wath will have Mordor texture, not Gondor's. Fixed
Diplomacy and many other fixes that are available.
Black Numenorien Barracks unavailable (building limit reached). The Black Numenoriens will be recruitable at the 3rd tier barracks in all regions that have "black" as a hidden resource.
descr_regions_and_settlement_name_lookup, 5 missing regions added. Fixed
All changes to MOS 1.3 standards. Game should be much more stable overall now.
Landbridge removed near Ramlond and Has Yayb, and ford removed between Erindol and Derwaith
Many of Taro M's units added as in the basic MOS.
Hobbits retrainable in Bree
DCI compatible

MOS Expanded Map v1.25
All previous fixes included
West Moria added
Roads buildable in N. Ithilein Province
4 Tier Road System included
North-South & West Roads buildable by Rohan after the Arnor Union event
Snow no longer falls in Lorien

NOTE: This submod add-on is now comes with the MOS DCI . (I have been wanting to play with this addition myself!)

Be advised that installing this that you may add anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to your turn time, more provinces, more armies = more time per turn. So if your computer is old or incredibly slow than you may not wish to install this mod add-on. But if you don't mind a little wait, then I think it will be worth it.

I will try my best to keep up to date with any MOS related updates. My goal is to be no more than a day or two behind. As others continue to report bugs I will compile everything again with all the fixes, back into a single installer. I will also included all updates from the MOS Team. Please continue with the feedback so that I may be able to make playing this add-on a positive experience.

I want to thank everyone who have downloaded this submod add on to the basic MOS submod. It has been a grand labor to put this together along with all the MOS Team Members, IMO it does nothing but get better with every release. That is in large part due to all the feedback received by players (who get to play more than myself!). I would ask for continued feedback not only on the map but on every aspect of the game so that it can be made that much better in the future in this thread as well as in the main MOS Thread.

Enhanced Ancillaries for MOS and MOS Expanded Map

The first time I saw Kavipannu's TATW thread (located here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=378633 ) on his enhanced ancillaries I was very impressed, with my eyesight not being what it was 20 years ago I found his ui's much easier to see than the vanilla ones. I downloaded both the large and normal size (vanilla ui size is 33 x 41, enhanced normal ui size is 41 x 41, the large size is 64 x 64). They also IMO look very nice, and they are better looking actually in the game then on the web. So having a taste of these new ui's I took it on myself to add to what Kahvipannu had already started and have pretty much redone all the ancillary ui's in the game. If I have missed any please let me know and I will make an update. I want to thank Kavipannu profusely for allowing me to add onto his very good work and ask any who wish to see what they look like to check out the above link and to please give him plenty of rep for his fine work.

If there are any that players feel need to be redone let me know and I'll see what I can do. I will on a limited basis, make other ui's for other mods provided enough details can be found to make a good visual representation of what is desired.

Note on installation of the enhanced ancillaries. I have put them into an installer which will install them into the Third_Age_3/data/ui/ancillaries folder. This applies to both Regular MOS and the Expanded Map version. Best of all it is save game compatible and there is no need to do anything else after installing except to start the game and start playing.

NOTE: I will post a folder that has all potential fiefs broken down by faction using the new (large) ancillaries, as time permits I will do an excel spreadsheet outlining the starting "fiefs" and the settlements needed to obtain the other potential fiefs for each faction for both vanilla and expanded map versions. I did try to keep the fiefs limited to vanilla provinces but this was not entirely possible (mostly to limit the pain I subjected myself to .) SEE POST #3