Mod focus by Garbarsardar
Roma Mod
Disclaimer: This interview and its out-with material are entirely the work of Garbarsardar (yes, even the jokes) – all credit in his direction please.
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Ecstatic fans and Avid readers behold! For I give you Bouis, the man!
In a less pompous tone now, the Eagle Standard and its trustworthy hacks are happy are proud to obtain a rare interview with the secretive and mysterious…
(Edit: the reporter has now been sacked. A cohort of less pompous arctic mice has been hired to conclude this interview. Thank you. Carousel)
Bouis is the author of Roma mod, now being in the last iteration before RTR 6.0, and Hannibal’s War mod. Both are faction-specific mods and come with a set of recommendations or house rules for better game play experience.
In this issue we’ll focus on Roma 5.5.
The cohort of less pompous arctic mice conducting this interview are biased fans of Roma 5.5, so do not expect even a resemblance of journalistic integrity or impartiality in the following transcripts.
Firstly, some notes on the mod by the author:
“Roma mod is a faction specific mod for RTR 5.4.1, intended to be played only as the Romans.Roma mod features: an all new map to RTR based on my WesternMap; two new building sets; 129 sprites; 16 new auxilia units; 28 skins and 18 models. It features some very elaborate coding not seen (to my knowledge) in any other mod. Special attention has been paid to the way the AI behaves.
Roma Mod is optimized for the Roman player. Roman buildings and units are now dependent on the "citizenship" level as represented by colony buildings. Higher level citizenship buildings allow better buildings and units, but reduce trade income in the province and can ruin potential barbarian auxilia recruiting areas. To survive you must balance the need to keep cities functioning with the need to keep the income coming in. The early game feels much more like running a city state than an empire.
The unit stats are based on RTR, with much tweaking intended to give non-Roman units a morale and upkeep advantage that the AI needs to make the game pleasurable. Non-Roman generals will now have better command stats. Roman units have their stats lowered with an expectation of "default experience" which varies depending on what buildings are built. Generally it is harder to get "elite" units, and when you have them they aren't excessively better than regular ones. All non-Roman factions share the same recruitment buildings, but to recruit Roman units requires Roman-faction specific buildings. The expense and limited population of Rome forces the player to make extensive use of foreign auxiliaries - as was historically the case.
A new building, called the "Subjugation Campaign" has been introduced. Barbarian lands such as Gaul, Germany, Iberia, Numidia, Dacia, etc. now have very restive populations, and will not be easy to conquer nor easy to hold onto after conquest. These buildings, over time and with great cost, remove this dissent hit, and allow for the eventual Romanization of these "barbarian" peoples.
New AI formations have been added and old ones modified to give the AI a fighting chance, and the AI is more likely to recruit better and more experienced units than previously. A new combat model increases the fighting strength of cavalry against sword-armed infantry. Disciplined infantry can and will prevail against heavy cavalry, but it will not be a short or easy battle.
Roma Mod is hard. It is supposed to be. Money will always be tight, and your enemies will not be nearly as inept as you may be used to. It is not excessive, however, and you will in fact find that single large battles can make a difference.
Pay careful attention to the upkeep cost of units. If you train more units than you can pay for, you will find yourself unable to build any buildings or new units! Generally, auxilia units are cheaper to maintain. All cavalry are very expensive."
And now the interview….
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-Ave Bouis! The E.S.O. is happy to have you here in our studios. To begin with, could you tell us something about your gaming background?
Not much to tell. I started playing games back with the Atari and as the games got more complicated, I grew up; and all was well, until the games started getting dumber and I didn't.
-And that made you start modding?
Once I had a feel for a game, any game, I've always tried to make my own rules even if I never touched the code. It was the only way to keep from getting bored.
-What was the inspiration for ROMA apart from the quest for personal pleasure?
My inspiration was tommh's Ptolemaic mod. I don't know if it was the first faction-specific mod for RTW, but it was the first one I was exposed to. I liked his ideas and techniques, but I wanted to do more. You can also blame him for the name.
- Are you aware that Roma is perhaps the most challenging mod combined with the ‘house rules’? Could you elaborate on this and… any tips?
RTW [Vanilla] is just too easy. Roma Mod is supposed to be challenging - my goal was to make a mod where you can play a long game and never get bored with it. So I had to preserve that initial feeling of scarcity and danger, structure the game so that later foes would be tougher than early ones, delay the development of the player's empire, thin out the map and make many regions poorer and so forth.
A lot of things, like default command stars for AI generals, slower gaining of positive traits for generals, weaker unit stats and higher upkeep costs, etc. have been done just to make the game more difficult for the player. It was a lot of work but I'm pleased with what I've accomplished.
I also wanted to avoid house rules wherever I could, but they're used when there's just no way to accomplish something within the confines of the game engine. Controlling the player's inputs and actions is an incredibly powerful and flexible tool, and can really add to the game experience, assuming the player is willing to go along with it.
-There is a whole new set of government/citizenship buildings in Roma - I think that is a first - and some have a potentially negative impact on the status of the player meaning a departure from the “build: it’s good” mentality and also bringing the player in front of some interesting choices. Can you tell us more about that?
There's two separate sets of buildings: those intended to represent levels of Roman alliance, citizenship, and colonization; and those intended to represent the subjugation of "uncivilized" peoples. In Roma mod there's a distinction made between civilized and uncivilized people: those who are civilized are easier to conquer and administer and have lower levels of unrest; those who are uncivilized are tougher in all respects. To compensate for this, the Subjugation Campaign buildings are introduced. These provide order, but at the cost of money and population. Aside from being more realistic, this helps to steer the player away from barbarian lands until the later game. To subject Gaul and Germany will require a massive investment in men, material, and, most importantly, leadership in the form of capable generals and administrators.
The Socii buildings represent the development of a province from occupation all the way to full Roman citizenship. As the city becomes more Romanized, more buildings and units become available. There is a trade off, however, in that the province provides less income and in many cases poorer quality auxilia units.
It's tough to get people to shake their conception that every advance in buildings has nothing but positive effects. In Roma Mod, as in history, it's best to keep provinces in the first Socii level whenever possible. While there will be many pressures to advance cities through the levels of citizenship, they should be resisted; those who push all settlements to citizenship will find themselves with a decadent empire hurting for money and good troops.
-So that is also expressing your perception of Historic realism, right?
Like many people here, my initial understanding of Rome was based on the history of the Empire and Hollywood movies. Many elements in the vanilla game (and indeed in just about very mod) reinforce this misconception.
Many of the concepts I used initially in early versions of Roma Mod were more historically suited to the Roman Empire than the Republic; but in the last few versions (and in the next version, 5.6) I'm trying to move away from this bad history and into a more realistic setting for the development of the Roman Republic. People tend to resist the removal of the professional auxilia, the Gallic helmets and squared shields, the lorica segmenta and the praetorians, and so forth, but it is historical and I believe that I can build a better and more accurate game without them.
- Is there any Historical period that you favor over all others with regard to strategy games?
Probably the second World War. It was a modern war, but still personal; it had balanced and interesting battles; dynamic theatres of operations and many "what ifs"; and it had a constant evolution of tactics and technology. Everything you could want for a war-game is there.
- Back to our time frame now. Roma is based, to my understanding, on RTR. Is there a possibility we’ll see a departure from that for the next iteration?
RTR is the foundation for Roma Mod - standing on the shoulders of giants, if you will - but in the latest versions of Roma it's starting to become as different from RTR as RTR is from vanilla.
That said, I have no plans to make it an independent mod. It'll always require RTR and it will always be possible to switch between them on the same RTW install.
RTR 6.0 is a huge step forward and it will use a lot of media, concepts, and techniques first featured in Roma Mod. It'll be nice to have all the resources of RTR 6.0 available, and the file size for Roma Mod will be much smaller, but I don't think that I'll be using the map or the ZOR+ for the player or the AI, as it's just a weaker version of Roma Mod's. In Roma Mod 6.0, expect a lot more beautiful skins and polish for non-Roman factions, plus the Illyrian faction that'll make the game much more interesting.
It'll be quite a task to adapt a mod as huge as Roma to RTR 6.0. But, since I'm building RTR 6.0, I'll be making sure that it'll be easier to adapt mods to future RTR versions.
- What’s in the works? Are you planning any faction specific mod apart from Roma?
I have another project, Hannibal's War that actually took more time and effort to develop than Roma Mod, but has gotten something of a cooler reception. This is a shame, because it’s a blast.
There are a lot of possibilities: the Mithridatic Wars, various minor factions in the Punic Wars, the Gallic or Numantian rebellions, the Numidians post-Carthage, the Helvetti or the Teutones or the second Brennus in Greece or the Galatians in Asia Minor. The possibilities are endless: just find a civilization or a people in peril, facing hopeless odds or incredible challenges, and try to build their world.
- You are probably aware that there is a mounting expectation - for a variety of reasons - about the expansion pack. What would you like to see in the Barbarian Invasion from a modders perspective?
Aside from the standard list: bug squashing; bringing back civil wars and resurrected factions; removing the arbitrary limits on buildings, units, models, factions, scripting and so forth; and fixing diplomacy, there's three things I'd really love to see:
1) Customizable campaign map AI: I want to be able to give each faction specific goals, specific attitudes toward other factions, specific general aggressiveness and willingness to make peace, etc.; and I'd like to be able to change these mid-game with game-triggered events.
2) Goal-oriented AI for characters: I'd like to be able to script a character to start or to appear with a specific set of goals to accomplish, like Hamilcar Barca conquering Spain or Caesar going after Gaul.
3) More flexible building code. As it is, only one of the negative building "bonuses" actually works, and complicated code like Roma Mod's requires working around many bugs and only works for a single faction.
I'm not holding my breath on any of this, though.
- Any advice for new modelers? Your pearls of wisdom?
The future of RTW modding is faction specific mods. This is where the potential for truly enjoyable gaming is.
When working on your mod, listen to people. Talk to people. Ask for ideas and for input and value every suggestion and give it serious consideration. Welcome criticisms, but don't be discouraged if someone doesn't like your ideas.
- How do you feel with regard to the reaction of TWC posters towards your mod?
The people here have been nothing but wonderful. I could try to thank everyone by name but I'm afraid I'd leave too many people out. Let me take this opportunity to give a big thank you to all the folks who have contributed to my mod!
Input from users and other modders is so valuable that both Roma and RTR 6.0 are actively seeking and using input from the community at every stage of development. We see no benefit in a closed development model; we use the many eyes approach on everything we do. But this works both ways: we are happy to share any and all of our work or experience and make it available to users and other modders. In fact much of the W.I.P. stuff for RTR 6.0 has been made available for download seperately.
- So Bouis, have you played any interesting mods lately?
Lately it's been the mod of life for me. I don't get to play too much.
I just finished a BS in mathematics with honors and I'm headed off to the Ole Miss Law School this fall.
- I guess a congrats is in order then…and the best of luck. If you debate anything like the way you mod I wouldn’t like to face you in court…
-Thank you for you time and your effort Bouis and thank you for this interview too.
My pleasure…
<Leaves studio-enters limo-crowds cheering>
This concludes the interview. The really intrigued arctic mice are on their way now to try the Hannibal’s War mod and will be back later. Much much later…
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A huge thank you to Garbarsardar and Bouis.
