RS 1.6 Release Thread

[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 a Graphic Overhaul...
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 dvk and the RS Team Gave It One
dvk, Gotthard, tone and other members of the RS team worked feverishly to 'crack' 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 RS - Full Install 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/14736459/Ro...ectum-1.6.exe/


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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
• LORDZ and the NTW2 team: kindly contributed their excellent trees
• tone: keeping the entire Roma Surrectum team on track and productive
• apple: new victory conditions and loading screens
• Brusilov: capturing the epicness of RS1.6 in photographic form
• cherryfunk: map improvements, testing, release thread

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A final thought:

"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!"

[cherryfunk]

To Do List:

1. Edit and upload screenshots for release thread

2. Release thread content

3. Make final edits to map climates

4. Change main loading screen*

5. Change menu screen*

6. Replace existing loading screens

Done!

[Squid]

To Do List:

1. Edit and upload screenshots for release thread

2. Release thread content

3. Make final edits to map climates

4. Change main loading screen*

5. Change menu screen*

6. [OPTIONAL] replace existing loading screens*

*We need volunteers who can: A) create these screens and B) get them into the game (or alternatively explain how it's done so Squid and I can do it).

This leaves us with 5 & 6. Is someone going to create a new menu screen or are we sticking with the current one. Is someone going to change the text at the top from Rome: Total War to Roma Surrectum 1.6? Are there any new loading screen that I can put in the game.

[Squid]

At least 4 and 5 I can probably do without instruction and I think 6 as well if we get that done.

[cherryfunk]

I've got dozens of excellent screenshots at 1900x1200. If you let me know what size you need for loading screens I can crop them and upload for you.

[Squid]

Should the in game loading screens keep the top and bottom black bars (I think they should)? If so then the images should be cropped to 1024x428 to fit into the center.

The main loading screen (with gold borders) the center is 1024x578, and again I think we should keep the current bars.

The backdrop is 1024x768.

EDIT: If you want to change the title to Roma Surrectum or something someone would need to edit the "Rome Total War" text part in data/menu/textures/FE_texture1.tga

[cherryfunk]

Are those resolutions hard coded or can we increase them to get a sharper image on big monitors?

[Squid]

No idea, and easy way to test would be to crop an image down to 1280x1024 rename it spalsh.tga and drop it in the data\menu folder and see what happens you load the game.

[cherryfunk]

I'll try it.

Squid, would there be any way to globally decrease income or increase unrest by a bit across all factions? I'm testing some campaigns and noting the comments in the forum about too much money -- I think a slight tightening might improve the mod overall.

[Squid]

I think dvk did that already, but I can take a look at it.

[Roman_Man#3]

I've already tried getting higher resolutions with splash images, isn't possible. It will only display 1024x768 of the total image. You can make loading screens and such hi-def, but that requires changing every size and location in rome.lnt accordingly. A major pain in the ass and something I won't be trying for a while.

[cherryfunk]

Which of the two title images is better, the top or bottom?

[Brusilov]

I'd say the second one - there is more light so you can see more detail. However, there's nothing wrong with the first one either - the light is good.

[cherryfunk]

I tend to agree. That's a great picture btw Brusilov -- I spent hours trying to get something better for the title image but you nailed it.

[Brusilov]

Thanks - with the movie cam it's just a matter of knowing where to look and beig patient. It's way too easy to loose that shot - but it's easier than trying to get the in-game ones right.

[cherryfunk]

tone and Squid, is this a fair statement or is it going too far?

Featuring Realistic Battle Environments Never Before Seen In the RTW Engine

Have other mods made improvements similar to 1.6?

[Squid]

Not that I've seen, but this is pretty well the only mod I play, and certainly I think we'd have heard of any other major changes to the environment that have been done now.

[cherryfunk]

I know that RTR has been touting some advances, though I haven't played The Iberian Conflict so I'm not sure what they've actually done. From the screenshots it doesn't seem they've done too much though. tone, any thoughts on what we can claim here without stepping on other mod's toes?

[Squid]

I think we can make the claim that it's never been seen before.

[Brusilov]

Well, it's been 'seen' in any recent RSII screen leak.....

Edited: In the comparison shot I think it should either be the same battlefield and view or a similar view. The RS1.5 screen cuts off the horizon while the RS1.6 one does not.