RRR - Real Roman Reforms - Beta 0.15 Update

[mziegler]

Can't wait until you release this!

[ravendar30]

Looks awesome, can not wait for this to be out.

[TheFunnyOne1125]

Hope this will be compatible with Radious Battle mod. Considering his Spearmen changes.

Love Lavrentivs work. I'm currently using his units.

[IGdood]

Absolutely amazing.


Any chance you will release the Italic Allies as a separate unit pack?

+rep!

[Aodh Mor]

i can do that, atm nothing is balanced, waiting to see which battle mechanics mod is most popular when im near to release, there are some newer projects that could conceivably supplant Radious'

[ravendar30]

Any chance of a beta being up soon?

[Jean-Claude]

Very nice; definitely looking forward to it.

Curious about the spear armed Principes... not sure the basis of this.

Which also brings up the recent changes made by Radious: Evocatii and Legionaries armed with spears is game unbalancing, ahistorical, and defeats or renders mute how Rome fielded its troops- which your present mod illustrates quite wonderfully; Rome utilized Italic allies and Auxillia as the missing components in their field force. I as many, have stayed with an older version of Raidious' Battle Mod (or whichever adds the new spear armed units) and will no longer use any of his newer works (wonderful job he has done, don't get me wrong, but a wrong turn in the road was taken unfortunately). Would dearly love to see your work as true to historical form as possible; and once that is released if at your leisure you can always do a separate pack that includes the two units that Radious has added. Bear in mind that the flood gates of new mods has just begun; Radious was just the first out of the gate.

Much success with your wonderful mod. Thank you.

[agent 47]

Very nice; definitely looking forward to it.

Curious about the spear armed Principes... not sure the basis of this.

Which also brings up the recent changes made by Radious: Evocatii and Legionaries armed with spears is game unbalancing, ahistorical, and defeats or renders mute how Rome fielded its troops- which your present mod illustrates quite wonderfully; Rome utilized Italic allies and Auxillia as the missing components in their field force. I as many, have stayed with an older version of Raidious' Battle Mod (or whichever adds the new spear armed units) and will no longer use any of his newer works (wonderful job he has done, don't get me wrong, but a wrong turn in the road was taken unfortunately). Would dearly love to see your work as true to historical form as possible; and once that is released if at your leisure you can always do a separate pack that includes the two units that Radious has added. Bear in mind that the flood gates of new mods has just begun; Radious was just the first out of the gate.

Much success with your wonderful mod. Thank you.

Well..princepes had spears in EB during the Camillian era.

DO YOU DARE TO QUESTION EB!!?

I'm pretty sure its historically accurate, i never read up on it myself but i trust EB.

[agent 47]

i can do that, atm nothing is balanced, waiting to see which battle mechanics mod is most popular when im near to release, there are some newer projects that could conceivably supplant Radious'

Just my personal opinion but i think Magnar mod is the most promising at the minute. He is planning on using the EB stats as a base and the changes he has made so far are great. As a Roman player the changes he made so far are great, ranging from the amount of abilities (experimental at the minute) to the fire at will for javelin armed infantry. (Romans only currently). It opens up a lot of options to play defensively.

Take a look.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?619472-Magnar-Mod-v1-06-(Updated-14-9-13)-Added-blood-(kinda)-removed-dust-more

[HighOnTea]

Aodh Mor, you keep surprising us!! Socii units look absolutely great! In fact so great, that Roman citizen army is fading...now that we see more variety can be added, Romans themselves could get even more love with tunic and shield colours !

[Aodh Mor]

Very nice; definitely looking forward to it.

Curious about the spear armed Principes... not sure the basis of this.

Which also brings up the recent changes made by Radious: Evocatii and Legionaries armed with spears is game unbalancing, ahistorical, and defeats or renders mute how Rome fielded its troops- which your present mod illustrates quite wonderfully; Rome utilized Italic allies and Auxillia as the missing components in their field force. I as many, have stayed with an older version of Raidious' Battle Mod (or whichever adds the new spear armed units) and will no longer use any of his newer works (wonderful job he has done, don't get me wrong, but a wrong turn in the road was taken unfortunately). Would dearly love to see your work as true to historical form as possible; and once that is released if at your leisure you can always do a separate pack that includes the two units that Radious has added. Bear in mind that the flood gates of new mods has just begun; Radious was just the first out of the gate.

Much success with your wonderful mod. Thank you.

I haven't actually updated Radious' mod for a while, so I didn't even know he'd done that, well that might be a good reason to play this mod with his, my changes would overwrite his ones.

As for Principes with spears, i found that info in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, according to which the Camillan Princeps were armed with the hasta - and so were the hastati actually, but because this is a game, no sword armed units in the roman roster was something i didn't want to do

There's no agreement about this, but there are arguments about when exactly the Romans left the hellenic tactics behind, because of the fact there are references to princeps armed with spears - a phalanx makes the most sense in that case, though im not sure if i should include that.

And to be honest, i like giving them spears, to create a stark contrast between polybian and camillan armies - lets be frank, in reality they probably could switch between gladius and spear - but obviously that would be OP.

[Aodh Mor]

actually - here's a quote from one of the EB devs on totalwar.org
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/archiv.../t-132951.html

A slightly more detailed version of the post anubis88 liked to:

To be frank, it's not possible to be sure what hastati of the late Camillan period used as a primary weapon, but the the balance of the evidence (such as it is) favors a sword.

In the Servian army, the third class (precursors of the hastati) were armed with a spear, which is where the word "hastati" probably originated. In the Polybian period, the hastati used a sword as their primary weapon, so the issue is when this change occurred.

Three pieces of evidence in the ancient sources tend to indicate that in the first fifty years of the EB time period, the hastati used a sword as their primary weapon. First, Plutarch (Life of Pyrrhus, 21.6) describes Roman troops at Asculum engaging Macedonian spearmen with swords. Second, Dionysios of Halikarnassos (20.11, dealing with the Pyrrhic War) explicitly states that principes were spearmen, indicating that the hastati were Plutarch's swordsmen. Finally, Polybios 2.33 describes a battle with the gauls in 223 BC (which we contend belongs to the Camillan period) at which the triarii passed the foremost ranks of the hastati their spears. This was evidently intended to prevent the gauls from engaging the hastati in close combat until their initial onslaught had dissipated, and also indicates that the hastati were swordsmen.

This admittedly sparse evidence allows other interpretations, but we contend that the simplest is that late Camillan hastati used a sword as their primary weapon.

[Aodh Mor]

Been toying around with shield patterns, managed to make two new ones, gonna give principes different pattern than the triarii, to differentiate them better, the shared shields from vanilla are a little lazy

[Beowulf1990]

Looking spot on so far monkehh, looking forward to see the rest of it!

-SirRoderick

[Whistler118]

Awesome stuff!! keep up the gd work. Really looking forward to this one coming out

[Gaius Octavian]

Really looking forward to this keep up the good work !

[Aodh Mor]

updated OP with Polybian units, will be moving onto marian roster now

[Gaius Octavian]

Awesome work there Aodh. I cant wait to use these units in game.

[TITINIVS]

I can't wait for this so I can once again play as the Romans.....after seeing your work I can't accept anything else!

[Aodh Mor]

Just a quick update on what I've been busy doing - I haven't moved onto the marian roster yet, because I was worried that it might not be possible to script reforms in the warscape engine. I've managed to create a rough reform script, that uses the recruitment restriction from the prologue campaign.

Ignore the conditions, they're just for testing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Polybian_Unit_Records = {
"Rom_Velites",
"Rom_Hastati_Late",
"Rom_Equites_Late",
"Rom_Principes_Late",
"Rom_Triarii_Late"
};


Camillan_Unit_Records = {
"Rom_Hastati",
"Rom_Principes",
"Rom_Triarii",
"Rom_Leves",
"Rom_Accensi",
"Rom_Equites"
};


function Restrict_Unit_Records(context)
if conditions.TurnNumber(context) == 1 and conditions.FactionName("rom_rome", context) then
for i = 1, #Polybian_Unit_Records do
local current_rec = Polybian_Unit_Records[i]
scripting.game_interface:add_event_restricted_unit_record_for_faction(current_rec, "rom_rome")
end
end
end


function Unrestrict_Polybian_Units(context)
if conditions.TurnNumber(context) == 4 and conditions.FactionName("rom_rome", context) then
for i = 1, #Polybian_Unit_Records do
local unrestrict_rec = Polybian_Unit_Records[i]
scripting.game_interface:remove_event_restricted_unit_record_for_faction(unrestrict_rec, "rom_rome")
roman_reform_counter = 1
end
end
end

function Restrict_Camillan_Records(context)
if (roman_reform_counter == 1) and conditions.FactionName("rom_rome", context) then
for i = 1, #Camillan_Unit_Records do
local camillan_rec = Camillan_Unit_Records[i]
scripting.game_interface:add_event_restricted_unit_record_for_faction(camillan_rec, "rom_rome")
roman_reform_counter = 2
end
end
end

This is a piece of script that defines two tables of unit names, then restricts the polybian units. The 4 Turn Polybian reform is there to test retraining (more about that in a sec). Then it sets a counter i defined at the top of scripting.lua to 1, which is the trigger for the restriction of Camillan Records, which fires on turn end (I originally set it to fire on settlement selection, but realised this wouldn't work if Rome was AI)

There are a few issues with this script atm:
Firstly, the Unit Cards are still displayed in the recruitment tab - so all units will be viewable in the tab, which means it will be pretty long by late game - though removing references to lower level units in higher tier barracks would cut down on this.
Secondly, the Reform takes one turn - Both rosters are recruitable in the turn when the reform happens.
Thirdly, I have to add a historical event for each reform, so the player is told that it is happening, and I also will issue a custom mission at the start of the game that gives the player a visual reference for what they have to do to get the reform.
Finally - The restriction of records does not affect the ability to retrain one unit to be the next step up the tech ladder - meaning that it is necessary to make each unit completely separate which will force the entire retraining of armies on reforms - I have an idea of how to fix this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's possible to lock down almost any part of the UI - so what I might do is lock down the retraining button on the UI until the turn of the reform, and then set a counter the will lock it again on the end of the next turn, giving the player 2 turns to retrain their armies, this however will not affect the AI, so I'm not sure if i'll go with it (thought it may be possible to use the campaign ai options to block it retraining until it gets those events, will need to look into it)

Just wanted to give a quick update on what's going on with the mod, and an update on the progress i'm making