[Released] AAA: Roman Generals (v1.0.1)

[Benjin]

Okay, the pressure is finally off (for now) - I can continue to do work on the mod for the rest of this week. I will get a demo video done and continue with the rest of the generals. So far, from when I last worked on it a few weeks ago, I got the vanilla heads I wanted (some Roman Gladiator heads, some Roman heads from Attila etc) separated from their bodies to fit on the Rome II Roman body, and 8 more general sets done which you may briefly see in the video.

Whenever I have time I will still try and aim for the release to be as soon as possible. It will definitely, 100% arrive before Father's Day (16th June).

[Tenerife_Boy]

Great news indeed.

[Gyrosmeister]

Very interesting modification! Could you upload some Hellenic previews once they are finished?

[Benjin]

Just to let people know, I'll be uploading some previews for the mod tomorrow (images of the mod in action). It's 100% not dead - it's very close to finishing and I've just been quietly working on it (packaged all VMDs + fixing any obvious bugs + replacing a few placeholder assets).

EDIT: Sorry, something came up - it'll be up tomorrow (29th May) instead.

Could you upload some Hellenic previews once they are finished?

Yes, I will when I start working on them after the Romans - it might be in a separate thread since it'll be a separate mod. When I do the Hellenics, I want them to be unique for each faction rather than just making one, big, generic Hellenic character art set.

Even though I said that I'd want to do them next starting with the Egyptians, I can't really find many good references for Greek commanders to base them on. Even though I don't strive for 100% historical accuracy, I do strive for a degree of authenticity by trying to mimic the appearances I've seen from the more accurate artistic depictions - giving the less impressive kit to low-ranked generals (starting out as a junior commander recently promoted) and the more ceremonial / expensive stuff to high-ranked generals to more closely match their status. I may be forced to go for a faction which I've found more references for first (e.g. Carthage). If anyone's got a massive library of good artistic reference that they could share with me, that'd be really helpful.

[Tenerife_Boy]

Edit this thread's title and add the hellenics here.

[Benjin]

Sorry about the delay, I meant to post this on Sunday but something came up.

The first ingame preview will be images only - my microphone wasn't working properly so wasn't able to do a video with some commentary (I can probably do one for Scipio Africanus or the Grand Campaign next week). This will show off the mod in action, mimicking a typical playthrough a player may have with it enabled.

As I said before, the mod will come with two art sets for Roman generals - "Polybian" and "Marian" general variations (you can see an example of them on the first few posts on this thread). Since this preview is set in the Imperator Augustus campaign, the Roman generals only use the Marian versions for that time period. For campaigns set during Rome's earlier days (e.g. Prologue, Hannibal at the Gates), they will exclusively use the "Polybian" art sets. For the Grand Campaign, they will use a mixture of both art sets (Polybian from ranks 1 - 4, Marian from ranks 5 to 10), which I hope tries to more accurately capture the evolution of a Roman commander's appearance rather than just staying the same all the way throughout like in vanilla.

Gaius Octavius (Augustus)

#1 - Beginning - You're playing as Octavian's Rome in the Imperator Augustus campaign. It is 41BC - the start of a new campaign. All of the characters in Octavian's Rome are young and inexperienced. You can tell from their visual appearances that none of the characters wear helmets - clearly signalling to you that they are all rank 1 and have never fought any battles. It's time to change this, and actually make a few stand out from the rest! You've decided that Gaius Octavius, the faction leader, will be the first to see some action. You move him to attack Syracuse, where he wins his first victory.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#2 - Ranking Up - As a consequence of fighting and winning his first battle, he has now ranked up! His appearance has immediately changed to match his new status, as he now wears a proper Roman commander's helmet, fit to his visual style (black + gold + white + eagle symbols). This now clearly identifies him as a higher rank when compared to the other characters in the faction. The change in appearance shifts to all panels (diplomacy, politics, battles etc). You can also see the ranks of other faction leaders in the world on the diplomacy screen just by glancing at them, rather than having to find and click them (in the Grand Campaign, usually the highest ranked member of an AI faction becomes the faction leader - it will now tell you, visually, what their highest ranked general looks like, if he / she is faction leader).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#3 - Winter Has Come - The season has now shifted over to winter. Gaius Octavius and other important characters, whose culture is Roman, now use winter variations of their art_set_ID. All Roman characters at rank 1 wear longer-sleeves to cover their arms, and some short trousers. Gaius Octavius has been through a few more battles which has earned him extra layers of warmth as his rank has increased (e.g. a basic cloak, a mantle etc). Pompey has also ranked up since, giving him his own helmet, matching his art style (black + silver + symbols of Neptune). Agrippa is moving into the cold wastes of Germania, hoping to gain some glory. Antony has also ranked up as well, presumably by fighting a battle in Thrace.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#4 - Old Age - Every character in the mod now visually gets older once they turn 50. This has happened to the party leader of the "Patricii Council", Lucius Cornificius. The colour on his face has shifted to a grey-ish, purple-ish colour. His face also has more wrinkles and now has coarse skin - very detailed when you zoom in on it during a battle (the porthole graphics don't do the character art justice to notice the subtle bits of detail, I'm afraid). This happens to every character who has been altered by the mod, including women. However, since Roman women can't generals therefore cannot rank up by fighting battles, only age affects their appearance - they go through one extra phase of age variation; Young (15) -> Middle (30)-> Old (60).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#5 - Enemy Generals - Pompey's Rome is making a comeback - they have a general who has made it to rank 3. Auto-resolving is harder against higher ranked generals, and more experience is rewarded in defeating them. Octavius, your highest ranking general, wins against him and nets a massive reward of experience points, boosting his rank yet again to rank 5, replacing his old cloak + mantle with a stylish sagum and a wolf pelt to keep him extra warm in winter (takes off the pelt in non-winter seasons, of course). While this is happening, other generals across Octavian's Rome are getting more experienced as well, wearing their own helmet styles to make them stand out from the others.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#6 - Upstarts - Agrippa, your general in the north, is winning more and more battles, ranking up and - as a consequence - gaining more gravitas, shifting the balance of power since he is a party leader of the "Libertini Collegium" political party. Since a character's gravitas value usually matches their rank, his appearance can also provide a visual hint to the player as to how powerful they are in the political system when not viewing the politics menu. I decide to leave him as a general, simply because he looks damn cool as one.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#7 - What Is The World Up To? - Sextus Pompey is dead, replaced with his less experienced heir. Antony has increased his rank to 4 fighting more battles, and Lepidus has finally found the courage to fight a battle somewhere. Octavian in comparison seems to be unstoppable - his sagum is now replaced with a bright, red, triumphant commander's cloak. Octavian's heir eventually stupidly decides to form his own party, and then immediately secedes from the faction. He thinks that his ambition level 3 political skills can save him in battle, when he's merely a rank 2 commander?!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#8 - Death of Antony - More years have passed, and Lepidus is getting more courageous, fighting yet another battle and ranking up - as long as he stays on your side, it doesn't matter, right? But, wait... what is this? Antony, what the hell did Cleopatra do to you? Oh, you've just gotten older. His part of Rome soon after falls to your legions and is now but a shadow of his former self. Octavius decides to end his pain, and lands the killing blow, ending the feud between them which has lasted a lot longer than was supposed to be.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#9 Rome Sweet Rome - After years focusing on battles with your legions, you have completely neglected the politics system, causing the other parties to overtake the ruling party and threaten Civil War. After wiping out the last remnants of Antony's Romans, you decide to send Octavius back home to Rome to be a politician, leaving an inexperienced general in command of his personal legion. Due to his high rank and experience as a commander, he does not wear his tunic along with the toga. Instead, he decides to keep his ceremonial armour on along with his toga drooped over his left shoulder. After a few political incidents / actions governing some parts of his empire, he ranks up again to rank 9, giving his politician variant a green leafed loral wreath. New, younger politicians are recruited to help maintain the balance of power with the other parties, until it eventually reaches equilibrium. So, yes, politicians' appearances change based on rank as well - visually becoming more dictatorial over time.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

#10 - End of Augustus - Many years have passed. Lepidus is dead. Cleopatra is dead (killed herself after Antony died? Who knows). Agrippa is dead. Many of your original generals are dead, except for Augustus and a few others. Augustus has reached old age, now leading a gigantic empire sprawling across the world. You imagine that he's had enough playing politics in Rome, and order him to take command of his personal legion one last time before he dies.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That's the end of this preview, thanks for reading!

Like I said before, I aim to release this on Father's Day (17th June). Some of it is still WIP (e.g. a few placeholder assets I want to replace), but as you can see it is mostly finished. For final release I want to finish off a few old-age face retextures, edit some of the existing Roman hair styles to fit some of the new heads from Attila (and maybe make some new ones), add some more female character face variations, and finish off another, entirely new custom head I've been working on recently (hint: it's for the younger version of Rom_General_32).

Edit this thread's title and add the hellenics here.

Nah, I'll do it as a separate mod in a separate thread.

[Jake Armitage]

That's a great work of art, benjin!

[Tenerife_Boy]

Holy moly!!! what a nice preview! O.O

[Clint_Eastwood]

Top notch Benjin!

[skillfultree]

Incredible. I'm always amazed at what people can do with Rome 2.

[FrontierWolf]

Outstanding work.

[bobbyr]

Amazing Benjin!

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Keeping fingers crossed for dat Fathers Day release!Either way, thank for this amazing new content. It's the kind of stuff that lived in lots of our imagination but didn't think was possible. Hats off to you, Benjin!

[Benjin]

Keeping fingers crossed for dat Fathers Day release!Either way, thank for this amazing new content. It's the kind of stuff that lived in lots of our imagination but didn't think was possible. Hats off to you, Benjin!

Yes, it's definitely coming on Sunday - everythings working as intended. I just need to replace a few more textures for the old heads and it's done. However, I probably won't get the second custom head done in time as I've been pretty busy lately - it'll come in an update a week afterwards.

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Sweet! Thanks for the update. Sorry for this oft-asked question, but will this be compatible with overhaul mods like DeI & Radious? I'm assuming it would since it's graphical in nature and doesn't appear to conflict with these mods on the surface of things.

[Benjin]

Sweet! Thanks for the update. Sorry for this oft-asked question, but will this be compatible with overhaul mods like DeI & Radious? I'm assuming it would since it's graphical in nature and doesn't appear to conflict with these mods on the surface of things.

No problem .

Yes, it'll be compatible with whatever mod overhaul you're using - no need for separate versions. As long as a faction's commander VMDs are using the default Roman ones (e.g. rom_rome (Rome in Grand Campaign), emp_antony (Antony's Rome) etc) and the mod is loaded above whatever other mods you're using, which also affect the Roman commander VMDs (e.g. DeI changes the Roman commander appearances, so they'll need to be overwritten), then the mod will work.

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Awesome, thanks for the quick replies. Between the DeI beta w/new Roman appearances and this, I've been holding off on starting an IA campaign. Looks like the time has come

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Happy fathers day!

[Benjin]

Happy fathers day!

Happy Father's Day! The mod will (hopefully) be uploaded in a few hours, just trying to upload it to Steam Workshop.

[Benjin]

Sorry about the delay - Steam Workshop just refused to upload the mod despite the file size being fine (200mb). I tried everything, but gave up and decided to upload it to TWC instead (download link below). I'll try Steam Workshop again at a later time.

Enjoy!

Download
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=4357