[New Release!] Roma Surrectum 1.6

[cherryfunk]

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Introducing Roma Surrectum 1.6
A new and improved Roma Surrectum, featuring realistic battle environments that breathe new life into the Rome: Total War engine.

The Roma Surrectum team is pleased to announce the release of Roma Surrectum 1.6, a radical improvement of the Rome: Total War engine. RS 1.6 is based on the RS 1.5 mod that thousands of players have enjoyed over the past two years, and features a total overhaul of the game's battlefield environments -- providing a more immersive, atmospheric and realistic battle experience.

This battle environment overhaul is based on the ground-breaking work done by dvk901, tone and Gotthard, and offers players a preview of the type of battlefield improvements that RS2.0 will offer (although RS2's environments will be far more impressive even than RS 1.6, as you can see from our previews).

Rome: Total War Needed Better Battle Environments...
The genesis of these improvements occurred more than a year ago when RS team leader dvk realized that the battle experience in RTW was beginning to look rather "old-fashioned" when compared to the battles of Medieval 2: Total War. Too often, the RTW engine generated battlefields that were flat and uninspiring:







So We Gave It Better Battle Environments!
dvk, Gotthard, tone and other members of the RS team worked feverishly to learn the secrets of RTW battlefield creation, and after many months of hard work they managed to coax the RTW engine to generate battlefields of much greater realism and variety:






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New Features in RS 1.6

RS 1.6 is based on the popular RS 1.5 mod for R:TW. If you're unfamiliar with Roma Surrectum 1.5 and its features, you can read up on it here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=137604

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65725

You can also find a number of gameplay guides for RS here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=207210

RS 1.6 adds the following new features to Roma Surrectum:

1. New Battlefield Environments
RS 1.6 features a complete battlefield environment overhaul, with new ground textures, trees, grasses, and a revised geography generator that produces more realistic topography.

This more realistic terrain makes each battle a unique experience. No longer does battle after battle take place on a flat plain -- now the varied topography will force the player to study the map carefully and use the terrain to his advantage. The high ground will often be the key to victory or loss, for here your men will be better able to defend themselves, their missiles will carry farther, and the enemy will be forced to fight uphill. Historically, battlefield terrain was a tremendously important factor, as Caesar often noted in his Commentaries:

"But though our men were superior to the enemy in courage, the latter nevertheless defended themselves so well by the advantage of the higher ground, and the shouts were so loud, and the discharge of darts on both sides so great, that we almost began to despair of victory." -- Caesar, the Battle of Munda

Now, with RS 1.6, the Rome: Total War engine finally recreates this essential aspect of ancient warfare.

2. Senate Campaign Added
A new Provincial Campaign has been added which includes the Senate for gamers who enjoy playing with the Senate in the game.

3. New Greek Generals
New Greek generals created by Spirit_of_Rob have been added.

4. New Victory Conditions
RS 1.6 features new Victory Conditions for each faction to increase the challenge and direct the AI factions into specific routes for expansion.

5. Fine Tuning for Campaign Balance
Based on player feedback, a number of economic and other balance improvements have been made to perfect the Roma Surrectum experience:

• Population growth has been decreased by lowering the farming base, which improves the effectiveness of the population control buildings.

• Cavalry stats have been adjusted so that horse cultures perform better in auto-resolve battles.

• Economic adjustments have been made that reduce the amount of money available.

• Happiness penalties have been lessened so that revolts won't be as common.

• Blacksmith buildings are now available if there is an iron, lead, tin, or copper resource in the region.

• All Barbarian Invasion buildings have been added to the battle map.

• All known bugs/ctds have been fixed.

• Spartan hoplites have been made available to all factions (similar to the other unique city hoplites).

• Unit recruitment has been fixed to remove all duplicate and missing units.

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Screenshot Gallery

The variety and detail of the RS 1.6 battle environments breath new life into Rome: Total War:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

At times, you may even feel the urge to pause the battle and just look out over the countryside:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Download & Installation

WARNING: This mod will break Vanilla and BI and is not compatible with any other mod!

Roma Surrectum Build 1.6 is a full conversion of RTW built to run on RTW version 1.5. (Barbarian Invasion is not necessary for this mod to work). To install Roma Surrectum 1.6 you need:

1. Install of Rome Total War
2. (Optional) Install Barbarian Invasions
3. Check your version of RTW by running Rome Total War (not BI if installed) and looking in the top right of the Options menu
4. If your version is NOT 1.5, patch to 1.5 (or 1.6 if you installed BI)
   NOTE: If the version you see is 1.0, 1.1, or 1.2 this will require you to install patch 1.3 first
5. (Optional) Install Alexander
6. Install Roma Surrectum 1.6.exe into your ‘RTW’ folder with the exe(s) (NOT THE DATA FOLDER)

Note: the original descr_geography.db file is included in RS 1.6 and named descr_geography.db.RTW. If you find the terrain changes are not your cup of tea, you can restore the original RTW terrain by renaming descr_geography.db something else, and changing descr_geography.db.RTW to the 'proper' name of descr_geography.db. This simple swap will restore the terrain.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:

FileFront: http://www.filefront.com/14753671/Roma-Surrectum-1.6.exe/
MegaUpload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SVEUDXMN


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Credits

• dvk901: gameplay improvements; new ground textures, tree textures and grass; the original idea and implementation of this update to Roma Surrectum
• Gotthard:cracking RTW's geography database and creating a whole new paradigm in battlefield generation
• Squid: gameplay improvements; bug hunting; compiling the mod and shepherding it to final release
• Gennosucke: new models and textures that allow M2TW trees to be added; all new palm trees
• spirit_of_rob: new Hellenistic generals
• apple: new victory conditions and loading screens
• tone: keeping the entire Roma Surrectum team on track and productive
• The_Lordz and the NTW2 team: kindly contributed their excellent trees
• Brusilov: capturing the epicness of RS1.6 in photographic form
• cherryfunk: map improvements, testing, release thread

Finally, some screenshots of the new terrain in Germania:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[QUOTE=stanley86;6146890]
There are now more open spaces among the trees, which helps with visibility and maneuvering your troops:







But still plenty of woods to spring your ambushes from:



As well as hills you can use for defensive positions:




But of course the most fearsome thing about Germania's forests are the natives!

And, a final thought:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"Brothers! Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you're playing Roma Surrectum 1.6!"