Meneros’ Overhaul Mod (Greeks, Thracians & Illyrians) [08-11-2013]
Meneros’ Overhaul Mod (Greeks, Thracians & Illyrians) [08-11-2013]
This mod aims to add a unique flavour to many of the new factions, primarily Greek ones but also the hellenic barbarians (i.e. the Illyrians and Thracians). The changes are primarily visual, but some have also been aimed at the gameplay. So far the factions that have received major expansions are Sparta, Massalia, Syracuse, The Illyrians and The Thracians with both Athens and the minor Greek factions (Knossos, Rhodos and Trapezos) having received slightly less substantial expansions. For those factions that have received major expansions all units, new and old, have been modified visually and using the new unique armours that have been created for this mod. This mod also adds the new Greek armours to all Greek factions (including Macedon, The Seleucids and so on) where it is suitable. For example every single Greek mail-wearing unit (Thorax Swordsmen etc.) now use the new Greek mail armour as opposed to the celtic ones, the only exceptions being Massalia and Syracuse that borrow some from the celts and italians respectively. The expanded factions have also received new unique buildings, with the Illyrians and Thracians getting all new religious buildings. The ultimate goal of this mod is to expand on the vanilla game by adding a more unique feel to many of the factions as well as improving on the gameplay.
Completely new buildings, including new religious building chains for Thracians and Illyrians as well as a new type of building for all factions.
Sparta, Massalia, Syracuse, Athens and minor Greek factions (Knossos, Rhodos & Trapezos) as well as the Illyrian and the Thracians have been expanded upon with new units and new buildings.
New Armours and Tunics
New Greek Armours
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The mod features three new sets of Greek Armours: Scale Linothoraxes, 2 Additional Linothorax Variations and Greek Mail Armour. All Greek mail-wearing units except for Massalia no longer uses the same mail armour as the celtic factions, but rather the new ones I’ve made. Most Greek units that wear the normal Linothoraxes in the vanilla game have also received the new Additional Linothorax Variations.
The changes mentioned above apply to ALL Greek factions, not just Sparta, Massalia and Athens.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
New Illyrian Armours
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Illyrians have received two new kinds of Leather Armour as well as a unique Disk Armour. All these new armours are used only by the Illyrian factions.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
New Thracian Armours and Tunics
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
A new set of Scale Armour has been made for the thracians, along with 3 new sets of tunics, 2 of which are patterned while the last one is a plain tunic. Please check the screenshots under the Thracian faction overview for pictures of these additions (don't want to make the thread -too- picture heavy.
New Buildings
New Building Type: Tradeposts
Tradeposts are intended to be a rough equivalent of city centres for minor settlements, but also as a way of procuring small amounts of trade resources (but they are also constructable at major settlements). As it stands now the building type is divided into 6 different categories: Food, Slavery, Timber, Olive Oil, Wine and Iron. Each category of buildings give different bonuses as well as different edicts at tier IV. All cultures are able to construct these buildings.
New Illyrian Religious Building Chain
The Illyrians has been given a whole new religious building chain that contains 4 different deities.
New Thracian Religious Building Chain
The Thracians have been given a whole new religious building chain that contains 4 different deities.
New Greek Religious Building: Artemis
This mod adds the ability to build temples in the honour of Artemis, the Greek god of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth and virginity. The archetypical bonuses for this chain are food, increase XP for spear units and public happiness. The first two are meant to reflect the aspect of the hunt, whilst the latter relates to the fact that Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of Greek gods. Apart from the typical levels that you have with the other temple chains, Sparta and Massalia also get unique temples of Artemis.
Expanded Factions
Sparta One thing that I didn’t like about the Spartan faction was that the true Spartan warriors (Spartan hoplites and so on) were reasonably common and mediocre. During the timeframe of Rome 2 true Spartans made up a very small part of the Spartan army, and so I have made some changes to the faction to better reflect this. The Spartan hoplites have been rebalanced as an elite unit lightly less powerful than the Royal Spartans, with an increased cost. To replace them as the “run-in-the-mill” hoplites are the Metoikoi Hoplites (idea shamelessly borrowed from Rome Surrectum), that is to say mercenaries that have chosen to settle down in Sparta. The Heroes of Sparta have received a slight increase in their stats as well as an increase of men per unit to 160. Many of the Spartan units have also been recoloured, and only the true Spartan units have kept the iconic blood-red colour. Several new units have also been added as well in order to round out their army. Lastly Sparta has been given an additional unique building: Artemis Orthia which is part of the new temple chain for the god Artemis and can be built in Sparta.
Features New Units:
Perioikoi Swordsmen
Marines
Ekdromoi Hoplites
Metoikoi Hoplites
Spartan Lancers
All units have been visually remade to improve upon the look of the Spartan units. New buildings for Sparta:
Artemis Orthia, a sanctuary that was historically located in the vicinity of Sparta.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Massalia There is already an excellent Massalia mod out by krazysigmarite, but as I’ve been working on this one for some time I figured I might as well release it too. Unlike Sparta there aren’t a lot of changes to the Massalian units. Mostly it uses the same stock units as the other Greek factions, but they have all been visually changed to show the Celtic influence on massalian culture. A number of new units have also been added to the faction. Massalia very much keeps to the Greek tradition of hoplite combat in this mod, though also has a wider array of sword units compared to other Greek factions. In addition Massalia also gets two unique buildings: Lacydon, the city’s historical harbour and the Ephesium, its temple complex. The Ephesium is accessed through the Artemis building chain, whilst Lacydon can be built through any of the port chains.
Features New units:
Marines
Armoured Swordsmen
Armoured Hoplites
Royal Guard
Sarissa Lancers
Royal Cavalry
All units have been remade visually to give them a unique celto-hellenic feel.
New buildings for Massalia:
Lacydon, its historical harbour.
The Ephesium, Massalia's temple complex.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Syracuse
Much like Massalia, Syracuse has been altered to show more italian-influence in its units as well a receiving a large amount of new units. Syracuse also gets a unique religious building.
Features New units:
Sicilian Levies
Sicilian Footmen
Armoured Marines
Royal Guard
Heavy Peltasts
Sarissa Lancers
Royal Cavalry
Sicilian Horsemen
New buildings:
Fountain of Arethusa, the petrified body of the mythical nymph of the same name.
All of the Syracusan units, including the vanilla ones, have been visually remade to give their culture a unique look.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Illyrians
The Illyrian factions have been thoroughly expanded upon. They’ve received 10 new land units, as well as additional naval units. Several completely new retextured armours have also been made for them to give their culture a more distinctive look beside the Greeks. Historically Illyria was a poor land and because of their Illyrian warriors tended to wear little to no armour and unexceptional weaponry. Although new armoured units have been added these have all been made difficult to get a hold of and quite expensive in relation to their prowess in combat. In general the Illyrian units are more lightly armed and less disciplined than their Greek counterparts. Of all the Illyrian units the Royal Guard unit is the only one that uses bronze armour, with most other armoured units being limited to leather armour. Because of these limitations to the Illyrian army, they are more of a challenge to play now and are intended to be the most difficult factions.
The Illyrian factions to not currently feature any unique buildings, as I’m still trying to come up with ideas for them. From what I’ve found in historical sources there isn’t a lot to go on.
Features New units:
Illyrian Raiders
Illyrian Footmen
Illyrian Corsairs
Illyrian Heavy Swordsmen
Illyrian Heavy Spearmen
Illyrian Royal Guard
Illyrian Archers
Illyrian Peltasts
Illyrian Heavy Cavalry
Illyrian Skirmisher Cavalry
New buildings:
Royal Tombs, magnificent burial sites devoted to past rulers.
Corsair Haven, a unique building for minor settlements that is geared towards piracy and slavery.
All of the Illyrian units, including the vanilla ones, have been visually remade to give their culture a unique look.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Thracians
The Odrysian Kingdom has been expanded with additional units as well as with new retextured tunics and armours to give the Thracian culture a more unique feel. 9 nine land units and several naval units has been added to the faction, along with substantial changes to the appearance of the vanilla units. The design philosophy for the Thracians is similar to that of the Illyrians, in other words their army is unarmoured for the most part (which is historically accurate), but the more elite units to wear bronze and scale armour. Most of the thracian units are offensively capable, but are lacking when it comes to defense. The strength of the Thracian army now lies with it's capable peltasts, fearsome rhomphaia-wielding warriors and mobile, hard-hitting cavalry. The Thracian navy has been changed from using barbarian ships to using greek ships, and even though they historically didn't even have a navy they have been given access to the same naval units as the greek factions. The reason for this is simply so that the player has the choice to create a competitive navy.
The Thracians currently have not received any unique buildings, but that will be changed in an upcoming patch that will give both the Thracians and Illyrians unique buildings.
Features New units:
Thracian Levies
Thracian Axemen
Thracian Footmen
Thracian Light Spearmen
Thracian Spearmen
Thracian Armoured Spearmen
Thracian Heavy Peltasts
Thracian Lancers
Thracian Spear Cavalry
New buildings:
Tomb of Sveshtari, a burial site where the tribe's wealthy and powerful would be placed to rest.
All of the Thracian units, including the vanilla ones, have been visually remade to give their culture a unique look.
Screenshots
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Athens & Minor Greek Factions (Rhodos, Knossos & Trapexos)
These factions have not received expansions to the same degree as the ones above, rather a number of new units have been collectively added to these so that their rosters are now equally diverse as the major Greek factions. Not much have been done with the Athenians yet. They’ve been given the same marine unit that Sparta has in addition to access to some of the larger Hellenic ships. Athens also gets a new unique building: its port of Piraeus, which can be built through any of the port building chains.
Features New units:
Marines
Armoured Hoplites
Shield Bearers
Polis Guard
New buildings for Athens:
Piraeus, the Athenian harbour.
Installation
The pack is of a mod type, so just pop it into your data folder and activate it through CA’s new built-in mod manager.
Required mods
In order to play as the Massalians some sort of faction unlocker is required. I would recommend izanagi11’s Playable Factions and Custom Battle mod.
The mod has been made with Mitch’s Uniform Re-colour Mod, so all the shown screenshots were taken with that on.
Mod Compatibility
This mod should be compatible with most other mods, aside from those that also alter the Spartan and Massalian units. The new units have been balanced around the vanilla game, so if used alongside mods such as Radious’ mods the stats would need to be altered for these units.
Change notes
1.0: Initial Release
1.1: New Greek Armours
All-new Greek armours added to all Greek factions.
Assault Hexeres, Marines can now be built from Piraeus as well as the tier 4 shipwright building.
Added a new shield pattern for the Marines.
1.2: Illyrian Expansion
The three Illyrian factions have now been expanded with 10 new land units and 4 new naval units.
The Illyrian units feature all-new unique skins, which helps them stand out from the Greek factions.
Added so that all Greek factions have access to the Marine unit and its associated naval units.
Added a new naval unit: Assault Tetreres, Marines.
Rhodes can now recruit Rhodian Slingers and Knossos can recruit Cretan Archers.
Added a new elite unit: Armoured Hoplites for Athens and the minor Greek factions that didn’t previously have any elite units.
1.3: Thracian Expansion
The Odrysian Kingdom has been expanded with 9 new land units and 5 new naval units.
Many of the vanilla naval units have been modified to use greek ships as opposed to barbarian.
A new set of Thracian Scale Armour has been added, along with 3 sets of new tunics.
The rhomphaia and falx weapons have been retextured to no longer appear very dark.
The thracian phyrgian helmet has been retextured.
1.4: Syracuse, Minor Greek & Building Expansion
Added descriptions to the Thracian units.
Improved the Greek Scale Armour.
Added a new cloak.
Added a new scale linothorax armour.
Minor Greek factions including Athens have received new units.
Minor Greek factions have been given access to the same naval units as the major ones.
Syracuse as received 8 new land units as well as 2 new naval units.
Syracuse has received a unique building.
The Thracian and Illyrian factions have received unique temple building chains.
The Thracian and Illyrian factions have received unique buildings.
A completely new type of building has been added to the game: Tradeposts.
Last edited by Meneros; January 22, 2014 at 04:46 AM.
Re: Meneros’ Greek Expansion Mod (reskins, new units, new buildings) [20/10/13]
WIP Update
The stock Linothoraxes for the Greek factions need more variety, so that's what I'm working on next. Here's the first example of the Alternative Linothoraxes that I'm working on:
Screenshot
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I'm planning on making a full set (4 varieties) of these alternative Linothoraxes, then a set of Celto-Hellenic linothoraxes for Massalia. After that I'll update the mod with the new skins as well as some minor adjustments.
Re: Meneros’ Greek Expansion Mod (new units, new buildings) [Previews: WIP reskins]
looking great mate! Can you please release them as separate faction packs please, as it's too hard to pick and chose between the myriad faction packs now. I'm already using packs which specifically change each of these factions, but I really like where you're going with them - especially the Massalian citizen hoplites and the spartans
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Re: Meneros’ Greek Expansion Mod (new units, new buildings) [Previews: WIP reskins]
Originally Posted by VladimirTW
I love the celtic influence on the massalia, very creative. I suggest you do cimmeria or the illyrians next.
Looking forward to your work. Please upload to steam if you can.
Thanks! I've been thinking about moving on to the illyrians after I finish the new textures I'm working on.
Originally Posted by ♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠
looking great mate! Can you please release them as separate faction packs please, as it's too hard to pick and chose between the myriad faction packs now. I'm already using packs which specifically change each of these factions, but I really like where you're going with them - especially the Massalian citizen hoplites and the spartans
My original intention was to split them up, but I had some difficulty doing that successfully due to the new building chain they share. I might give it another shoot eventually though.
I just finished the new greek mail armours. I'll probably be able to get around to releasing all the new armours tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a preview of the Greek Mail Armour (the unit used for the pictures is the Massalian Thorax Swordsmen, hence the celtic helmets and shields):
Re: Meneros’ Greek Mod (Sparta, Massalia & Athens) [All new skins!]
I like the looks of the mod very much. However why should I use more diversity in armours and helmets when all my Greek soldiers wear Roman caligae? Kills immersion. Variety seems to be a rather restricted concept in R2TW.
Re: Meneros’ Greek Expansion Mod (new units, new buildings) [Previews: WIP reskins]
Originally Posted by Dav the Hun
Very good job!
Later will you make Knossos, Rhodos, Syracusa, Pergamon, Trapezos, and Cimmeria?
I think they need some new units, too.
Yeah, you're right. The minor Greek factions do seem to lack some units in the game. I won't be going through all of those factions and expand them to the same extent as Sparta or Massalia anytime soon, but I have been thinking about adding some new general units to these factions in areas where they are currently lacking. Currently I'm working on revamping the Illyrian factions, but along with it I'm also going to be releasing a new elite Hoplite unit that can be built by Athens and all minor Greek factions that currently lack elite units. I'm also going make changes that allow Knossos to recruit Cretan Archers and Rhodes to recruit Rhodian Slingers. The new hoplite unit will be called Armoured Hoplites, and here's a screenshot of them (the cuirasses are unique to this unit):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Granted it's only one completely new unit for now, but I believe having an elite hoplite unit will make the lesser Greek factions considerably more playable.
Preview of Revamped Illyria
As I mentioned the major next release of this mod will feature a revamp of the Illyrian factions. It's really a bit away from being completed, as I'm currently figuring out exactly what to include. I'm thinking about giving them their own set of religious buildings based on Illyrian deities. In addition the Illyrians will also get new units featuring all-new reskins that will be unique to them. Regarding gameplay my idea for the Illyrians is to make them generally very lightly armoured, with their mainstay units hardly using any armour at all. Their units will also be less disciplined than the Greek counterparts, but will have resonable morale and good offensive qualities. The Illyrian units will primarily use either cloth or leather armour, with only the Royal Guard wearing bronze cuirasses. Below are some pictures showing the general look for the Illyrians that I'm shooting for. These units are in the higher tier, however. The more common Illyrian units will have no armour.
Re: Meneros’ Greek Mod (Sparta, Massalia & Athens) [All new skins!]
Hi Meneros, is there a possibility to have only new units and buildings in a separate pack (retextures excluded)? thanks for your reply and congrats, this is a fine work
Re: Meneros’ Greek Mod (Sparta, Massalia & Athens) [All new skins!]
Originally Posted by DramaBelli
Hi Meneros, is there a possibility to have only new units and buildings in a separate pack (retextures excluded)? thanks for your reply and congrats, this is a fine work
Indeed! I was thinking of splitting the next release up just as you say, so you have all the units in one pack and all the buildings in another.
Re: Meneros’ Greek Mod (Sparta, Massalia & Athens) [All new skins!]
Thank'u sir! my one "fear" is the vanilla retexturing, I'm already using a specified retexturing-mod for many factions but at the same time I would not renouce to your new buildings (something similar is also made for Epirus and Nomadic faction by other two modders) and more to your new units with new unique skins! have a nice day, DB
Re: Meneros’ Greek Mod (Sparta, Massalia & Athens) [All new skins!]
Originally Posted by DramaBelli
Thank'u sir! my one "fear" is the vanilla retexturing, I'm already using a specified retexturing-mod for many factions but at the same time I would not renouce to your new buildings (something similar is also made for Epirus and Nomadic faction by other two modders) and more to your new units with new unique skins! have a nice day, DB
If you load those mods after mine they should automatically overwrite the changed vanilla units. At least that's what you could do with the old mod manager. I'm not sure how it works with the one CA released though.
Meneros’ Overhaul Mod (Greeks, Thracians & Illyrians) [08-11-2013]
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Originally Posted by Aguirre
