IB2 VANDALORVM II DISCUSSION/FEEDBACK

[Riothamus]

The IB2 beta has been released and available in the Download thread.

Post all discussion topics here... Enjoy

[Templar Knight]

hot damn i am downloading now

[trent]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOt this will hold till 8.0 my compis kinda slow for mtw

[julianus heraclius]

Hi Guys,

I've had a chance to look at the BETA version. Firstly good job. But I do have a few reservations.

i) I don't understand why the roman units have mixed armoured and unarmoured as well as helmeted and bareheaded troops. Is this because by this time things had gotten so bad equipment wise that they were armed with whatever they could get?

My underdstanding of the late period was that a Legio or Auxilia unit would have some troops lightly armed but these would act as skirmishers. The main body of troops were still heavily armed, though with different armour and helmets. These guys just look like a motley bunch.

I could understand this more for the limitanei but even then, they would try to arm, at least the front ranks with armour.

ii) They all seem to be just so dirty. I feel like giving them all a bath. I know we are after realism here but this all just seems to add to the motley crew feel.

Of where are my elite Herculianii Legio, all so bright and clean.

Sorry guys, but I thought I should at least mention this for discussion.

Cheers

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I can see JH's point here. At the moment I love looking at the varied equipment and roughed-up feel each ordo and legio brings into the field and also - given this late date - see it as representative of the collapse of the infrastructure of the Roman Army. When I first saw the units I thought that was exactly how the worn-out men would have looked like in a long campaign of barbarian incurions and invasions - some armoured others making do with pannonian caps, etc.

But JH has brought up an interesting point in that while such troops would be uneven in their armour, the mail and helmet wearers would have been stationed at the front with the lighter troops to the rear or flanks or in ambush (at least according to Vegetius, for example). I have no idea how MTW2 develops the armour of troops once certain buildings have been contructed? Do troops upgrade visually, etc?

Still, all in all great work and a different feel to the troops in IBFD 7.03!

[Draco Borealis]

It's the MTW2 engine limitation and it's not ETW. Maybe I'm wrong but troops in dessert/arid batlefields are more dusty than mudy Ayway can't wait to use my favorites the Secunda Bitanannica.

[midnite]

I

I have no idea how MTW2 develops the armour of troops once certain buildings have been contructed? Do troops upgrade visually, etc?

Still, all in all great work and a different feel to the troops in IBFD 7.03!

In MTWII you can upgrade troops once certain bldgs such as blacksmiths and armorers are built. The troops will change visually assuming you have created textures for them. Right now the team is working on creating new textures for the upgrades among other things.

[Riothamus]

Hi Guys,

I've had a chance to look at the BETA version. Firstly good job. But I do have a few reservations.

i) I don't understand why the roman units have mixed armoured and unarmoured as well as helmeted and bareheaded troops. Is this because by this time things had gotten so bad equipment wise that they were armed with whatever they could get?

We are encouraging this sort of discussion JH

I think it works very well with the Germanic factions but with the Romans its not so digestible ... Maybe we can look at this and change it a bit.

Ok, having played the Beta, here are my first impressions. I'm not having a go here, this is just some constructive criticism.

The Romans are MASSIVELY overpowered. Within around 10 turns I was able to get income of around 50000 per turn. I tried to spend all this away, but even so, it could do with some tweaking. Perhaps making Roman units more expensive to upkeep? Not sure...
Also, the game CTDs on battles when I play it. I'd post the log, but it's massive, and I don't know how to do spoilers.
And finally, why is the city information bar thing on the campaign map hidden? I don't like it personally, but I assume it can be toggled back on? How do I do that...

Sorry if this appears to be rude, congratulations on the release anyway!

Not rude at all Giorgios, we are looking for this type of feed back.

-Agree about the Romans being over powering. We need to adjust this. Are you getting fatal ctds during battles? whereby if you loaded up the game could you replay that battle and finish it?

Posted how to change preferences above..(.my vista windows though gives me issues changing things)

Alright, for a beta, this is good. You guys work fast and that is impressive. This is a good way to garner a bit more of a fan base from people who didn't play your initial RTW mods.

Thank You Ashley J. Williams for your input and feed back. We do feel it important to carry on sort of speak to transition from RTW to ensure Ib can exist and stay popular or to become even more popular in the future.

Areas to buff up:
Factions need a bit more diversity, overlay is nice especially in this era but each faction needs a unique feature, strength, and weakness. This goes from buildings, to navy and land units.

Units need to be less varied, more uniform, especially among the romans.

Agree How would you like to see this done?

I recommend making a new animation for the throw and charge, it doesn't work well in Medieval II, so if you want that feature like it was in Rome, you gotta make a new animation. Also, for disciplined units I recommend using Shield Wall and schiltrom on both sides. They make for a bit of unique variation among units. Shield-Wall I think is slightly bugged but animations need to be altered. Stakes, Cavalry Formations and the like can be well taken advantage of.

Troops: I recommend having units designed with specific uses and variations between professional, semi-professional, full time, militia, and rabble. That way peasant armies don't go around crushing crack teams. Its rare that'd happen, unless it was like a 1:100 ratio.


Faction Voices - I recommend giving the Romans an Italian voice, the Germanic factions, German voices. Not a must but it'd be nice. If you can get people to record "Native Languages" for you to use, that'd be nice. I'd help. Or maybe all new accents.

Religion needs to be refined. In Kingdoms, you can make it so after a while factions can "capture technology" and convert to other religions, I would recommend this for all of the factions, having a perhaps Pagan<Roman Christianity<Arian Christianity sort of conversion method. In an Eastern Mod or Full Map, including some eastern factions add Zoaraster in the mix and maybe Buddhism.

Less big cities, more small cities. This will allow for factions to have dominat culture and archetecture. If you can include little villages and the like to build up, that would be a triple plus.

This could also work for Germanization/Romanization of factions.

Building trees need to be refined a bit.


I'd make use of the forts feature in Kingdoms, if you don't like the vanilla forts, I'd say use a wood castle model to represent established forts. Perhaps with the buildings inside replaced with tents.

An event in the 600s for a development of Greek Fire. Would be nice in later functions.

Also, I'd make use of the agents in the Medieval Total War system, its one the better features from Rome. Merchants, Princesses and the like are nice.


I hope this has been helpful for you.

Many good insights here

-Animations for throwing and charging: I'm sure Ramon may look at that.
-Religion needs to be refined: Not sure how far to go with this..The ages and religion between mtw2 and the late Roman era where different
-Less big cities, more small cities: Yes. Will be tweaked
-I'd make use of the forts feature in Kingdoms: Interesting
-An event in the 600s for a development of Greek Fire: Very interesting
-Also, I'd make use of the agents in the Medieval Total War system: Maybe can be done in a late Roman way

Very helpful thanks

[persianfan247]

Hi Guys,

I've had a chance to look at the BETA version. Firstly good job. But I do have a few reservations.

i) I don't understand why the roman units have mixed armored and unarmored as well as helmeted and bareheaded troops. Is this because by this time things had gotten so bad equipment wise that they were armed with whatever they could get?

My understanding of the late period was that a Legio or Auxilia unit would have some troops lightly armed but these would act as skirmishers. The main body of troops were still heavily armed, though with different armour and helmets. These guys just look like a motley bunch.

I could understand this more for the limitanei but even then, they would try to arm, at least the front ranks with armour.

ii) They all seem to be just so dirty. I feel like giving them all a bath. I know we are after realism here but this all just seems to add to the motley crew feel.

Of where are my elite Herculianii Legio, all so bright and clean.

Sorry guys, but I thought I should at least mention this for discussion.

Cheers

To add to this in my new(as in first published recently, but have now had it for a while) it states that its a myth that the Roman army was less armored and badly off compared to previous periods if I had the book with me now I could quote the section, but im at Uni now and will not have acess to it for about a month, it also says that this myth was created partly by the fact that as an artistic style soldiers were increasingly depicted without armour(a picture of a tomb stone was its example)

Edit: This is the book http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Roman...7357541&sr=1-1

[Riothamus]

Great Topic

I've come across passages where it was stated sometimes late Roman armies were discarding some of their heavier armour. I'm not sure how true or if possibly due to sometimes poor command.

Theres no doubt that the Roman army's mystic was gone during this time and the barbarians were at least now seeing the Romans as now their equals on the battlefield.

[JOHANNES]

congrats for the mod

[Theodotos I]

Downloading. Looks great.

[Giorgios]

Ok, having played the Beta, here are my first impressions. I'm not having a go here, this is just some constructive criticism.

The Romans are MASSIVELY overpowered. Within around 10 turns I was able to get income of around 50000 per turn. I tried to spend all this away, but even so, it could do with some tweaking. Perhaps making Roman units more expensive to upkeep? Not sure...
Also, the game CTDs on battles when I play it. I'd post the log, but it's massive, and I don't know how to do spoilers.
And finally, why is the city information bar thing on the campaign map hidden? I don't like it personally, but I assume it can be toggled back on? How do I do that...

Sorry if this appears to be rude, congratulations on the release anyway!

[Stephan]

i played the prebeta what is new in this one?

[dajarvi]

I don't know if this helps out, but concerning the financial situation of the Roman's at the time (I am a historian in this field), inflation was sky rocket. Bread was extraordinarily expensive. The fine armor that the Romans had during the beginning of the pax romana was too expensive for the armies, and they had resorted to german fashions. Most of the roman army at this time consisted of germans anyway. military discipline had dwindled as past-Roman values changed with catholicism. With inflation so high, there was nothing fancy or great about the roman army. its previous glory was no more. On the basis of chainmail, that was not a roman military fashion, but celtic. metal was too expensive, and failing roman economics rendered troops to be armored in leather plate links. I forget the word for it right now, but metal was not common in the army. Shields were wood. Helmets would be metal, as of course, swords and spear points. But i don't suppose the MTW2 engine isn't designed to handle separate kingdom economics?

[Riothamus]

I don't know if this helps out, but concerning the financial situation of the Roman's at the time (I am a historian in this field), inflation was sky rocket. Bread was extraordinarily expensive. The fine armor that the Romans had during the beginning of the pax romana was too expensive for the armies, and they had resorted to german fashions. Most of the roman army at this time consisted of germans anyway. military discipline had dwindled as past-Roman values changed with catholicism. With inflation so high, there was nothing fancy or great about the roman army. its previous glory was no more. On the basis of chainmail, that was not a roman military fashion, but celtic. metal was too expensive, and failing roman economics rendered troops to be armored in leather plate links. I forget the word for it right now, but metal was not common in the army. Shields were wood. Helmets would be metal, as of course, swords and spear points. But i don't suppose the MTW2 engine isn't designed to handle separate kingdom economics?

This is very much how we want the Wesern Roman Empire to feel like. We are working on it so armour upgrades, costs for units and especially upkeep would be extremely expensive. But on a few other points.
I'm not totally sold on the idea that the Roman Army was now consisting of mostly German troops or that it had lost its military discipline, Under a good commander as Aetius, the Army could be disciplined as shown at the Battle of Châlons in 451 AD. The Roman army though certainly was no longer feared or respected as it once was. Germanic tribes learned there tactics and had better equipped themselves and as you say the WRE may have been less better equipped than inthe past. The Visigoths were seriously concerned by how small Aetius Roman army that came for battle as Gaul was invaded by the Huns. The Roman army in the west relied on the foederati, the foederati that consistent of the now whole German migrated factions such as the Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Burgundians. This was now the bulk of the army to fight battles.
The strain though in sustaining a large Roman army and equipping it and the large Germanic factions within the Roman economic and recruiting grounds now made things even more difficult then the previous centuries. This we would like the player playing this campaign to feel but I think we also want the player to have the chance to restore what once was a glorious Empire in the west.

[HIC SVNT LEONES]

Alright, for a beta, this is good. You guys work fast and that is impressive. This is a good way to garner a bit more of a fan base from people who didn't play your initial RTW mods.

Some of the things I've encountered:

Battle CTDS in the Main Campaign.
No Cities Have Names Until Clicked On


Areas to buff up:
Factions need a bit more diversity, overlay is nice especially in this era but each faction needs a unique feature, strength, and weakness. This goes from buildings, to navy and land units.

Units need to be less varied, more uniform, especially among the romans.

I recommend making a new animation for the throw and charge, it doesn't work well in Medieval II, so if you want that feature like it was in Rome, you gotta make a new animation. Also, for disciplined units I recommend using Shield Wall and schiltrom on both sides. They make for a bit of unique variation among units. Shield-Wall I think is slightly bugged but animations need to be altered. Stakes, Cavalry Formations and the like can be well taken advantage of.

Troops: I recommend having units designed with specific uses and variations between professional, semi-professional, full time, militia, and rabble. That way peasant armies don't go around crushing crack teams. Its rare that'd happen, unless it was like a 1:100 ratio.


Faction Voices - I recommend giving the Romans an Italian voice, the Germanic factions, German voices. Not a must but it'd be nice. If you can get people to record "Native Languages" for you to use, that'd be nice. I'd help. Or maybe all new accents.

Religion needs to be refined. In Kingdoms, you can make it so after a while factions can "capture technology" and convert to other religions, I would recommend this for all of the factions, having a perhaps Pagan<Roman Christianity<Arian Christianity sort of conversion method. In an Eastern Mod or Full Map, including some eastern factions add Zoaraster in the mix and maybe Buddhism.

Less big cities, more small cities. This will allow for factions to have dominat culture and archetecture. If you can include little villages and the like to build up, that would be a triple plus.

This could also work for Germanization/Romanization of factions.

Building trees need to be refined a bit.


I'd make use of the forts feature in Kingdoms, if you don't like the vanilla forts, I'd say use a wood castle model to represent established forts. Perhaps with the buildings inside replaced with tents.

An event in the 600s for a development of Greek Fire. Would be nice in later functions.

Also, I'd make use of the agents in the Medieval Total War system, its one the better features from Rome. Merchants, Princesses and the like are nice.


I hope this has been helpful for you.

[Nevada]

For all those complaining about missing city names:

Go to:

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\IB2\data\world\maps\base

And destroy the map.rwm file.

Then restart the mod. The start of the campaign will take a bit longer now (only this time) but after that, you should be able to see the city names.

[Riothamus]

First of all I want to congratulate Ramon Gonzales y Garcia our IB2 team leader and our IB2 team and people such as Nakharar
who gave additional input from other modding projects...and
for all the hard and great work for the creation of the IB2 public release. I shall add links soon in the credits

Here are some M2TW Config File How To's. There is an IB2Config File also

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=70942


Disabling City/Castle Info on the Strat Map

To disable the settlement info on strat map:


Quote:
Change "label_settlements =1" to "label_settlements =0"

So change this way
Change "label_settlements =0" to "label_settlements =1"

[gaunty14]

For all those complaining about missing city names:

Go to:

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\IB2\data\world\maps\base

And destroy the map.rwm file.

Then restart the mod. The start of the campaign will take a bit longer now (only this time) but after that, you should be able to see the city names.

alternativley press ctrl-n or t. N shows the characters names, T shows settlement names