RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

[z3n]

I know that Hegemonia should get a lot more recognition than it does. Poor Jarlaxe has done so much work on it, and his stuff is top-notch. When I asked for permission to use his buildings, I had it mind to give him a bit more 'exposure' for his work. He deserves it.

Indeed^, when I first played his mod I was astounded by the level of detail and care that had gone into everything especially considering that he actually lost a lot of his work due to a harddrive failure and then had to recreate it from scratch.

However you too deserve recognition for your work thus far, it's looking really good!

[tungri_centurio]

is it possible for a next update from rs2... to give the antesignanii the spear as secondary weapon instead of the sword?

[tone]

Did you get Germanicu5 scripts implemented? I did get them in myself with modifications of my own to make them work with rtw's more basic scripting but never released as some things came up irl which caused me to drift away from modding. Plus he only gave me permission for release in the mod I was working on at the time.

(Heard you were trying it from someone awhile back)

No we never got them working. He was going to do some work on them himself, but got bogged down with other things

[Nicov55]

OMG, didn't notice this thread before... That's just pure genius.
Just a slight thing: i use to play Ptolemaioi on different mods, do you plan to modify the map and go a bit farther south?
I find having not even the half of Egypt on it quite frustrating, i think it was a bit more important than Scandinavia at the time.
I am looking forward to see your custom Alexandria settlement!!!

[dvk901]

Wow, wow and further wow.
Just seen the amazing settlement work you've been doing dvk my friend. This is absolutely stunning!

Thank you, Tone. Good to hear from you.

I hate to be that guy, but since nobody has asked this question for some time (and I'm following this thread on a regular basis) - I might aswell ask the question of all questions:

When can the next update - 2.7 or whatever it's going to be called (probably including the new settlements) be expected?

Sorry for beeing a nag

I have to be honest...it's going to be a while. Working on these settlements is very time consuming, and I'm determined to do a very precise and excellent job on them. So it takes a lot of work, and I have only the Romans and Greeks finished.

Did you get Germanicu5 scripts implemented? I did get them in myself with modifications of my own to make them work with rtw's more basic scripting but never released as some things came up irl which caused me to drift away from modding. Plus he only gave me permission for release in the mod I was working on at the time.

(Heard you were trying it from someone awhile back)

We had permission to use it, but have not found a way to make it work. It would be nice if someone 'could' find a way to make it work with RS2.

OMG, didn't notice this thread before... That's just pure genius.
Just a slight thing: i use to play Ptolemaioi on different mods, do you plan to modify the map and go a bit farther south?
I find having not even the half of Egypt on it quite frustrating, i think it was a bit more important than Scandinavia at the time.
I am looking forward to see your custom Alexandria settlement!!!

The map won't be changed....it is just too much (incredibly so) work. But I hear you, and understand that some things were sacrificed in order to fairly represent the world at this time.

In answer to questions about factions...or new one's....that may happen at some time, but not for a while. I have so many ideas for this mod, and so little time to do them that it's a bit disheartening as it is.

[Quintillius]

Guys, thanks for creating this modification! I am sure it's one of the best mods in history.
It's way better than Rome II if you look at the gameplay, buildings, unit cards and depth. Sometimes even the graphics are better since
Rome II doesn't have AA and correct faces for soldiers.

However I do like to see enhancements for the GUI + building carts. Well since I have a lot of experience with Photoshop and modding I'd start modding the GUI myself. Stay tuned, a new submod is coming:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The plan is to edit the Hellenic and barbarian GUI styles as well in future. Let's also cross fingers for this being in Roma Surrectum 2.7. The funny thing is: it's savegame compatible (it's only editing textures).

[ferike_2007]

Too many black lines and dark, gloomy nuances in your sample pic Quintillius, howewer the scroll-like info window is fine, also the citizenship buildingcard...
Just start to play with colours, man.
An empire like Rome and a game like Roma Surrectum deserve a golden shine!

[bobbyr]

I think the GUI is perfect Quintilius.

I would use it immediately.

[Davidos]

So, any news Dvk ?

[neofrage]

Hi guyz....
I know that it is very old story in RTW... but... IS there any way ("cheating" way i mean), how to make walls and palaces destructable???? OR! is there any way how to make culture effects out of the game?? Today, I did few-hours research and I have found that in vanilla RTW there is the way how to make farms, roads and mines destructable - simply deleting prefix "hinterland" from descr_strat.txt and export_descr_buildings.txt..... i have looked into RS files and found that this prefix is in some places like - region economic/fortified or wealth....It works very well as intended. But in RS are still effects of silly cultural system. I know that probably nobody knows how to make walls and palaces truly destructable, but i am wondering if there is any "cheat" for this?? like replacing old "hardcoded" walls with new ones, old walls ban every nation from building that, and new walls which could be destructable totally create from zero?

Also another idea of mine is that if it is possible to make only one culture for every nation. This would cancel cultural penalties when conquering... IS this possible? And another idea - which is taken mainly from Europa Barbarorum 2 - Is it possible to use religion from BI and "simulate" spread of cultures via that?
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EDITED:
Ok, I spent several hours of reading 0-13 and 34-40 pages of this thread about "brainstorming" and future of RS... i think it was the reason why this thread basically was created. So let me write few of my humble opinions about what things can be done, what I would like to personally see in next versions of the mode and other things... I hope that at least some of these things will be considered in mind by dvk901. Anyway you are doing really good work out here, RS is the best mod i have ever played in TW (my opinion).

1) New "building models" and cities for battle maps
-It is really awesome, really great work, it will be very nice I am sure.

2) "Inflation"
As posted on the first page and then talked in several posts by people, I was thinking about this and Personally I am sure that some sort of that should be done. It could add more "balance" and also "challenge" to the game, but it would definitely needs MUCH testing, because it could be great in some circumstances in some compaigns, but also it could make several campaigns totally unplayable...
What I mean, is just create some algorythm or formula, that would count many different things like "number of settlements", if faction is AI or player controlled, avarage population in settlements, "ammount of money earned from taxes/trade", army upkeep, or many other "parameters" and depending on these parameters at the end of every turn add or take some $$$...
I know that in the script, there is already a function that, if i hit a point above 170k or something like that, will lower my income in that turn by 20k. It works pretty good, but it would be better if it would be sometimes more or less, depending on many other things - if I have rebellion as Rome or If I am fighting too much, or if I am Booming my cities (High POP) e.t.c....
There is not any way how to make increasing upkeeps in the Late campaign or Increasing building costs, cause nearly everything is constant in RTW engine, so scripting is the only way how to simulate this I believe... It would take some research, mathematics and counting with excel or something like that and also some testers which would try how new "betascripts" would work, because probably nobody would be happy if after few turns would be losing tons of cash ... But if you want to change some things like this or some other economic aspects and If you dont have enough of testers, or If i can help by any other way, please call me. Unfortunatelly I know little about modding and programming

3) Marian Reforms .... or any other Reforms which can be done in Future RS
I think many people see that the way how the Marian Reforms and Imperial ones works in RSII is not ideal. The main problem is that it is know mainly FULLY in the players hands. Do you want fast reforms? => Population Growth measures, recruite greek slingers/biremes/whatever in nearby settlements and then.... abracadabra Huge city in Akragas and Marian Reforms are immediately.
Many have talked about what did change in the time of the Reforms? Population? Strenght of the empire? number of provinces? or was it thanks to genuin general? Probably it was the mixture of everything... I will try to add several "brainstorming ideas" into discussion...
IF (Rome population is over 16000 + Aquaduct or another building level X in Rome + barracks level X in Y cities, number of settlements > 35, also owned settlemets X,Y,Z.........) THEN (create (by script) building Marian Reforms)
OR...
player can build a building in "Wonder tree", only in Rome...Marian Reforms, costs 200k gold, building time 10 turns, "prerequisitions" or "needs to be built before building Reforms" - Curia, Level X of temple, Level X of barracks etc....
OR
tie that to number of battles fought by human player like in EB1 + number of regions... player will simply have to fight certain ammount of time with polybian legions... but this would certainly hit the sentiment of players who hates polybian units because the mod will force them to fight with them before having access to Marian legions

4) Roads, Dirty roads in every territory
Somebody noted that AI tends to not build roads at all and that some areas should have the basic dirt roads basicly from the start or after certain ammount of time.... I think this is interesting idea, and I dont think this would need a lot of work, but I disagree that EVERY single region of the game should have Dirt roads... In current map there are some regions which wouldnt have in real history some kind of roads till the medieval age or maybe till even later times - like places in Numidia, Lybia, British isles(Scotland maybe) or many parts of the sarmatian steppes or deserts...
What would be good how to change how roads can be built is that first level of roads is made by script - "If population of settlement > 6000 or whatever number" then create dirt roads... and then player and also AI would have the avaiability to upgrade them. I mean that player or AI CANT build dirt roads ON THEIR OWN, but they will suddenly appear when the population in that region hit some point. If it is not doable to ban nations from building first level of a building - in this case roads and on the other way let them upgrade that building, then there is still an option to make first level of dirt roads cost something like 8465446513131343$$$
OR...
If it is just too complicated and you feel that it is useless to do this, then let things be like they are, only make script which will create them at some point. But please dont let every single steppe,mountainous province or desert to be with "automathic" roads. In my point of view it is not very accurate.....

5) Slave trader + Population growth buildings
RTW has really silly and odd engine that population has very limiting effect on players and AI, but they have only few solutions how to deal with population problems. I think we all know that there were many problems with population in vanilla and RS made the big portion of these problems obsolete. But population is still very limitating for gaming. I personally like to work with Population growth buildings sometimes, cause it can solve many problems. I really support the idea with slave trader as the big part of economic system and I hope that slave trader will have some effects also on population, either positive and negative and also with introducing of slave trader that population growth buildings will be a changed a little. Also one question: IS there any way, how to make some building increasing or lowering the population in a region not by % but by constant value??

6) More SWAP Factions
I think that most of us would like to see more faction in RS with new units and play more unique campaigns, including myself. I think even that RS hits the number of slots for nations, it could be done with SWAP modfoldering and even in some cases there could be 2 or more SWAPS in one campaigns like creating a campaign with adding PALMYRA + NABATEA, and get rid of SPARTA and something else like BELGAE or SCYTHIA...
Also Thrace (Odrysans), Illyrians, Aedui, Numidians, Lusitanians, Any other Germanic Tribes, Cappadocians, Picts, Cyrene, Aetolians... whoever would be nice to play with I believe...
BUT!
I think that if ONLY dvk901 alone would be creating models for new units, then i would say definitely NO. It would take fking tons of time and I think that dvk901 is doing another big masterpiece in this great MOD that nobody should even think about this that HE SHOULD ADD more factions. I hope that I am not only one who would like to play more deeply and more accurately with factions which are already made instead of new ones...
IF there is another modder which is interested in creating new models for new units for new factions... Then i say go for it! Then if it will be need i can contribute on writing some descriptions for units (IF somebody else would like to correct my crappy english ) or testing or whatever will be needed and whatever I am able to do. But I dont even thing that it should be a priority to make new factions in this stage.

For Another modded campaign from Later Roman History with several Roman Factions, like the Principate, or the Year of 4 Emperors - I say YES YES YES!!! Do that please. I think it wouldnt need to even make any new unit, so it could be a lot faster than creating new Factions.

This is all from me at this point, i will write several other ideas if I can think of it.
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edit2
7) Balancing factions
As many people said before me on this issue - some factions need some look for, but its definitely better than in previous versions of RS. I am in the last 10% of my Rome 0 turn campaign H/H and i saw definitely the same things as few people mentioned.

- Gallaeci vs Carthage and Carthagian Issue - Gallaeci nearly always win the battle for Iberian Peninsula, in nearly every campaign I have played. But that doesnt mean that Carthage is weak. AI is simply weak when it must do naval invasions and move troops from different locations to form strong armies. Yes, there should be some scripting which will help Carthage in the future to fight back lost provincies in the south of Iberian peninsula if Gallaeci conquer them, and also there should be some help for Carthage when fighting Roman Players - like dvk901 mentioned many posts before that "AI" should think that they have already owned some regions in the past - sicily, corsica, sardinia etc... Also Hannibal should be stronger maybe. But when fighting Carthagians in africa, they are pretty strong. I was fighting with them for about 15 years with 4 legions and I still wasnt able to siege the Carthage, Sacred Band of Baal and Late Lybian Spearmen are REAL PAIN...

- Boii - They were quite weak in previous versions of RS, in Rome 0 turn campaign if nobody conquer them fast, they are also very strong. Somebody mentioned that armies where are Boii CHampions are strong. I agree. Its nice to see them stronger than before. I have understimated them, and they have nearly 8 times destroyed my III Gallica and X Gemina. Boii Champions are now really awesome unit vs Romans....

Macedonians, Greeks, Spartans - on the other hand these factions are quite weak when facing a player. In my opinion they spam too many weak armies. Macedonians are strong vs Pergamon and Dacians and sometimes they beat them hardly, Greeks are expanding in many different places, and Spartans... do nothing I would appreciate a small help to Spartan AI... for them being able not to expand... but just to survive a little more. But the problem is that a human player can sometimes get a half of Greece with even half stack of Auxiliary Army

[cajuero]

this mod is really good but the battles.. i just dont have the patience to wait 2 minutes for 200 soldies kill the last man alive

[Alavaria]

- Gallaeci vs Carthage and Carthagian Issue - Gallaeci nearly always win the battle for Iberian Peninsula, in nearly every campaign I have played. But that doesnt mean that Carthage is weak. AI is simply weak when it must do naval invasions and move troops from different locations to form strong armies. Yes, there should be some scripting which will help Carthage in the future to fight back lost provincies in the south of Iberian peninsula if Gallaeci conquer them, and also there should be some help for Carthage when fighting Roman Players - like dvk901 mentioned many posts before that "AI" should think that they have already owned some regions in the past - sicily, corsica, sardinia etc... Also Hannibal should be stronger maybe. But when fighting Carthagians in africa, they are pretty strong. I was fighting with them for about 15 years with 4 legions and I still wasnt able to siege the Carthage, Sacred Band of Baal and Late Lybian Spearmen are REAL PAIN...

Interesting. If you take Carthago really early on, the AI will do better in Iberia, probably because it then is not dividing its efforts (sometimes, to the extent that it won't attack Carthago). Plus, Carthago is a nice city to have... and the ones south of it.

[Architect of Doom]

6) More SWAP Factions

I totally support this. And I feel this is the perfect moment to say: I want to play as Athens. Not a decentralized alliance of city-states led by Athens, but an actual solid Athenian Empire, like Rome.

[tone]

I totally support this. And I feel this is the perfect moment to say: I want to play as Athens. Not a decentralized alliance of city-states led by Athens, but an actual solid Athenian Empire, like Rome.

There are probably enough models and skins to be able to do this reasonably easily. Might be needed to add just one or two more.
The main challenge though would be creating the new campaign and all the required effort. Needs someone like DVK or someone well acquainted with the text files to be able to do this.

[Tordenskjold]

this mod is really good but the battles.. i just dont have the patience to wait 2 minutes for 200 soldies kill the last man alive

I think you have a very good point there. It would help if the enemy routs as they would have done in real life when everyone can see that this battle is lost. One can perhaps make an exeption for the bravest elite troops, but a part from them the last men fighting is just annoying and rather unrealistic. Humans give in and are taken prisoners when met by overwhelming forces in hope of survival.

[Alavaria]

I think you have a very good point there. It would help if the enemy routs as they would have done in real life when everyone can see that this battle is lost. One can perhaps make an exeption for the bravest elite troops, but a part from them the last men fighting is just annoying and rather unrealistic. Humans give in and are taken prisoners when met by overwhelming forces in hope of survival.

The only real situation where I see this consistently is in the magical town/city square.

However, in the field frequently people are dying en masse to my slingers, so perhaps if you are killing them with little swords instead, they will fight to the death.

[Architect of Doom]

Sorry if someone already asked this - are there any plans of using BI's religion mechanic to introduce cultures in the next update of RS2?

[neep]

I think you have a very good point there. It would help if the enemy routs as they would have done in real life when everyone can see that this battle is lost. One can perhaps make an exeption for the bravest elite troops, but a part from them the last men fighting is just annoying and rather unrealistic. Humans give in and are taken prisoners when met by overwhelming forces in hope of survival.

Hmm, in open field battles I don't see this too often.

Some units will get surrounded and fight to the death (fair enough)
I then make sure to draw my men back to give the enemy some space. Then, they change from static Fighting to The Death to running away Routing/Broken.
Any left over pila or arrows can take care of them as they run away (or try to).
Or my cavalry can run them down.

Most units will get worn down and then break and route - depending on the context it could be a relatively high percentage of the original unit's numbers if morale is low and things aren't going well. In other cases, I would have to reduce their numbers to 10-20% before they break.

If there's only a few enemy units left, it usually doesn't take too long to mop them up - setting the speed to 2X or 3X helps with that.

As Alavaria points out, the city square is a little pesky since enemy units can route (Huzzah !), run back to the city square and be revitalized, then come back at you
But again, that doesn't seem to difficult to deal with.

[neofrage]

Interesting. If you take Carthago really early on, the AI will do better in Iberia, probably because it then is not dividing its efforts (sometimes, to the extent that it won't attack Carthago). Plus, Carthago is a nice city to have... and the ones south of it.

I think that you misunderstood me... I was playing different campaigns for different nations, and still there was nearly the same scenario.. Doesnt matter if I was Sarmatia, Armenia, Boii or Rome... Still Carthagians were overrun in Iberian peninsula by Gallaeci. I mean that Carthage should be stronger when defending southern Iberia.

Sorry if someone already asked this - are there any plans of using BI's religion mechanic to introduce cultures in the next update of RS2?

Actually I was talking about this few posts earlier in this page... Probably we both tried to play EB2

For routing units... I sawthis issue many times that enemy elite units couldn't route and fought for hours till their death... But I don't think it's bad... I would let it be as it is now, maybe with small possibility of creating "switch" for people which want "faster battles".

[ur-Lord Tedric]

The only real situation where I see this consistently is in the magical town/city square.

However, in the field frequently people are dying en masse to my slingers, so perhaps if you are killing them with little swords instead, they will fight to the death.

The issue is much more that players seem to want to mass-swarm enemy units and attack them on all sides - and thus give them nowhere to retreat to. As the enemy troops have nowhere to go, they then fight to the death.

If an enemy unit is surrounded and exhausted - then move your troops away. Ensure that no one is fighting and the enemy will often break; sometimes a tiny extra attack is needed.

If players stopped 'playing games' and 'wiping out mobs' and wielded their armies as real generals would, then this sort of silly situation would hardly ever occur. Give troops somewhere to run to and they will often run - following which your light cavalry go chase them down - hence why so many battles (particularly Roman ones we know of) have so few casualties to the Romans, but the enemy suffer loads - hint: they were not battlefield casualties!