097 version experience

[Hoplite of Ilis]

New version finally! Complete re-texture for Carthage, much re-texture for the Romans, aaaaand one new unit for the Greeks. Hmmm... - and lots of other stuff!
The following is my experience so far with the Romans and Carthage. This was short campaign on easy difficulty and medium battle difficulty.

a) The units:

The new models look great. More solid and realistic than the ones used before, and this time with variety among models. The complete re-textured Carthage really rules! However, the new models are of bigger scale and when new and old units colide, I get the impression that the old ones are fighting giants. The new models have been changed so that there's no finishing move for spearmen, BUT every Hoplite/Triarii unit now has spear-wall! It's more for looks than actual use. Still, I prefer having it that not having it.
Sometimes - depending on the lighting - the new spears and some armor may look pinkish - nothing photoshop can't fix. Carthage seems to have it all in this version - playing as them and liking it is a first for me. Anyway, these new models seem to be the future of Medieval 2 ancient era modding. Great work! - Good thing Graeci Italiotai now have recruitable archers.


b) The buildings:

New temples - just like old Rome. That was something I was looking forward to. And new pictures too. Temples for everything: money, experience, order, growth. Why is the armory a trading building? And some buildings take 32 turns to build! 32!!!!??? The economics seem better in this version. Money's pouring in. Good job on the buildings too!


c) The issues:

As the Romans I lost the campaign to the Etruscans at -331 without warning. Right after I got the "lose" message, I got the imminent defeat warning. Bug?
Another thing is retraining. Some units seem to appear constantly in the retraing tab, even after retrained. They don't get their experience in the given turn, and they should.
The funditores/peltasts do not seem to throw javelins all at once, but very sporadic - same as previous versions. Also, the recruitment cost and upkeep cost of many units is the same. Shouldn't the upkeep be reduced? As they get more experience the upkeep cost increases.
There's also a Roman cavalry unit which actually recruits a general. Very nice addition. Maybe a different icon or name for them?
Still no archers for Romans.
Some new units don't speak their names unless carrying siege equipment.
The mod seems to forget sound and UI preferences every time you launch it.
Still, no mercenaries outside cities.
Only Carthage can recruit mercenaries?
CTD when Carthage besieges Gela (no CTD when defending), Syracuse, Leontini, Murgantia. Auto-resolved to avoid CTD.
At -328, as Carthage, I lose to the Cenomani with both "imminent defeat" and "campaign lost" messages in the same turn.
Carthaginian elephants (both of them) completely destroyed by Triarii?
Elephant stride looks as if the animals are trying to cross a pit.
Why should naked Gauls have so much defense?
Sometimes speech on the campaign map is barely heard - even if set at full.

d) My opinion: New version is great and that's THAT! This is still beta so bugs will be bugs, but I believe there are more than 096. AI seems better. I really hoped to see a makedonian phalanx. Maybe next version? I think the mod could do with some antique style music where the medieval 2 music is used. Great work everyone!

[Hoplite of Ilis]

Picture 1 - battling giants (you can see the difference of new and old models).
Picture 2 - Carthaginian elephant general surfing the beast.
Picture 3 - the new phalanx in all its glory.

[Jupiter93]

Very realistic summary of the new version! +rep for that

But I have to disagree to one thing: the unit cost were allways the same for the upkeep cost. The IB2 team also discussed this thing in their forum so PI2 team was historically correct when deciding the ecpenditures for the units

[Hoplite of Ilis]

But I have to disagree to one thing: the unit cost were allways the same for the upkeep cost. The IB2 team also discussed this thing in their forum so PI2 team was historically correct when deciding the ecpenditures for the units

All right... It just made more sense to me that preserving should be less expensive than creating. Guess we'll live with that!

[Jupiter93]

Don't just take my word for it Hear with the others, they'll probably have more logic explanation to that anyway. Maybe I could be wrong too :S

[Hoplite of Ilis]

Yeah, no worries. And thanks for the reputation point!

[KEA]

To explain the new unit costs in PI2:

Militia units
- free_upkeep
- low recruitment but high upkeep costs
- start with 0 experience
- low replenish but higher maximum numbers

Professional units
- high recruitment costs but lower upkeep
- start with up to 9 experience (depending on unit's class)
- high replenish but very low maximum numbers

some buildings take 32 turns to build! 32!!!!???

This also has a pattern: each level of a building takes more turns to build and on each level the built costs per turn become higher (to counter the better economy on higher settlement levels).

As the Romans I lost the campaign to the Etruscans at -331 without warning. Right after I got the "lose" message, I got the imminent defeat warning. Bug?
At -328, as Carthage, I lose to the Cenomani with both "imminent defeat" and "campaign lost" messages in the same turn.

In this case said factions have reached their win conditions. These need to be reviewed when the AI can reach them rather easily.

Another thing is retraining. Some units seem to appear constantly in the retraing tab, even after retrained. They don't get their experience in the given turn, and they should.

A common M2TW bug, not related to PI2: when you retrain too many units in different towns at a time not all will gain experience.

There's also a Roman cavalry unit which actually recruits a general. Very nice addition

Generals should now be recruitable for all factions.

Still no archers for Romans.

Not factional, no. But the Italian archers are now available to the Romans (depending on selected government).

Some new units don't speak their names unless carrying siege equipment. Sometimes speech on the campaign map is barely heard - even if set at full.

The entire voice system is based on EB's voice mods and completely wip. The Roman diplomats for example say something like "towers ready" when moving around. I am not happy with it either.

Still, no mercenaries outside cities.

to do

Only Carthage can recruit mercenaries?

Some units are called "mercenary ...." and are recruitable to a couple of faction. This has nothing to do with the mercs from the map.

Why should naked Gauls have so much defense?

Defense is based on the units armor (the lesser the higher the defense) and its training/experience

I really hoped to see a makedonian phalanx.

May be.....

[Hoplite of Ilis]

May be.....

[HighOnTea]

The new version is epic!
I love the models and textures ( doing a mod of my own for ETW and I know how hard it is).

As I understood, Carthaginian libi- phoenician infantry and the new hoplite share the same model but with the beautiful textures it's quite hard to notice.
Love the shield emblems.

I may be mistaken, but red dye was one of the cheapest (along with woolen grey) and blue was one of the more expensive(purple being the most expensive(Sign of privileged in Rome etc.) I've seen you took it into account when making Roman cavalry and infantry setting them apart from more "posh" looking Carthaginians. Keep it up!

Some small things I've encountered while playing as Carthage:

1) The light infantry unit (model with an oval shield and javelins which can't be thrown) is assigned Heavy infantry class.

2) The shield wall ability of The Sacred band has wrong UI icon( horn to toggle "on"
. and drop siege equipment to toggle "off")


I hope that now,when quite a few base models are done, the progress will speed up.

[Yayattasa]

The scale of the units can be corrected in one of the .txt's, I'm pretty sure.

[Jupiter93]

The scale of the units can be corrected in one of the .txt's, I'm pretty sure.

That's good news! Could you do it for us if you would?

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

Is the AI still passive? Last time I played, my campaign was too 'peaceful'. So much for Total War though.

Also, have people here see the potential of using Germanicu5's ReallyBadAI for this mod?

[ToonTotalWar]

Some of he new looking units have there spears inverted so they are attacking with the end of the spear?

Easy to rectify using Milkshape as I did this today!

[VINC.XXIII]

Probably this have been already reported, though: some heavy italian spearmen have javelins in their left hand, but do not use it. It is intentional? Or an animation lack? Or simply a coding mistake?
I'm very interested in considerations about mixing spear attack(secondary weapons, melee) and javelins(as for preliminar attack).
Do some animations from Rome 1 exist and could be eventually work here to feature as well an hoplite using javelins?

[Yayattasa]

Probably this have been already reported, though: some heavy italian spearmen have javelins in their left hand, but do not use it. It is intentional? Or an animation lack? Or simply a coding mistake?
I'm very interested in considerations about mixing spear attack(secondary weapons, melee) and javelins(as for preliminar attack).
Do some animations from Rome 1 exist and could be eventually work here to feature as well an hoplite using javelins?

The javeling throwing animation is the easy part. The problem is that the RTW pila-before-charge function does not work (well, it kind of work, but you get some strange thing, like every soldier get's paralized if they are charged during it and some other glitches that I've heard of).
Ancient-Era mods circumvent this by issuing the pilum as the first weapon and the gladii as the secondary weapon (so the AI may actually use the units in melee after they throw all their javelins).
The PI team was still deciding what to do about the issue.
IB2, on the other hand, issues the javelins as primary weapons. They could be probably set as secundary weapons, but this way the AI would barely use them.

[KEA]

Soldiers standing around "reloading" while being slaughtered already was a problem in RTW, albeit not that obvious because the animation is faster with the old enigne. The PI team decided to entirely drop javelins long ago, save for missle troops, what is a quite radical approach. I am personally not happy with it because javelins for heavy infantry played such a vital role in Ancient western European combat that they shouldn't be completly omitted because of an animation glitch.

NB that this cannot be fixed by text editing but requires to rework the model. The javelins some units hold in their hands have no purpose for the function of the unit as long as it is missing a proper throwing animation.

@ ToonTotalWar

Could you please share that fix?

[VINC.XXIII]

Well, it is what I've experienced with my own units when I tried to mix spear and javelins...even the incredible number of heavy javelins is acceptable(minimum in MTW2 is about 5/6, under you've CTD=hardcode), but the glitch/freezing before charge is really weird, and would need an entirely reworked animation.

[ToonTotalWar]

@ ToonTotalWar

Could you please share that fix?

Of course, have attached the two files below

You may also want to change the shield sizes as Tenerife_Boy states they are too small for the units!

This is easy to do as follows:

1. Open Milkshape and open the lod (you need to use GOM or GOAT to convert the mesh file to a lod)
2. Choose the shields ONLY in "groups"
3. Then go to the "models" tab and choose "scale"
4. enter 1.1 1.1 1.1 then press "scale"
5. save the changes

You will see that the shields are bigger and more inkeeping with the era!

[ToonTotalWar]

here is a sample of the shield sizes I have in my own personal project:

[Hoplite of Ilis]

here is a sample of the shield sizes I have in my own personal project:

Some shields look a bit flat. Is it the angle?...