Rome Total War Vanilla Mod

[Roy974]

So it returnes to the menu screen when you try to play RTW vanilla campaign?

I don't know if Roma Surrectum overwrites any of the vanilla files but i would guess its one of the files for the imperial campaign thats been changed when you installed Roma Surrectum. Sounds like you'll have to uninstall RTW and reinstall it. If you do this you could make a folder called games and have say one folder called RTW Mod Switchers (uses a modded folder). And another called RTW Vanilla which could be used for say my mod which overwrites the vanilla files. All you would have to do is after installing RTW again is copy the game folder Rome Total War over to the newly created directory and install the mods you played.

The better way would be make a folder on the desktop called games or something like that, now create a new folder instide it called Mod Switcher or something and then copy your current Rome Total War folder from the game directory into this one and then uninstall Rome Total War. This way you get to keep your current mods and get your vanilla files back from the fresh install.

I never overwrite the stock files, i have a filder on my desktop called modified games and inside that is all the games i play that have been modded, i have also a backup of the RTW vanilla data folder in their as well. Just in case i make a mistake one day and forget which file is which when editing it. I use the show side by side feature so i can say view one units stats whilest changing them on another unit rather than going back and forth all the time or minimising one text window to view another.

Here is the pictures i said i wanted to upload of a night battle.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And a couple of pictures from my old campaign.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And finally some pictures of new units for RTW Vanilla Mod Beta V6.0 which i will work on when ever i get free time. All unit cards have been fixed since taking these pictures.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hope this helps.
Roy.

[Roy974]

Wow didn't realise how long it had been since i last posted here. So while i have had a lot of things going on in real life i have spent time improving the next update, things like unit stats, barbarian buildings etc. I would love to increase the barbarians structure plans so they can build higher tier buildings but the thing thats stopping me is new units for those factions, i can't seem to find any that people are willing to let others use for the mods. I can't do graphical stuff like textures, make units etc etc so thats out of the question for me to do my own units. If anyone knows or is willing to allow me to use some of there barbarian units please send me a private message and i will get back to you, and thanks in advance.

This update will now allow you to play as the Juli faction only because the Bruti, Scipi and Senete have been removed from campaign games, they can still be used in custom battles though. Like i said from the start i do not have any intentions of removing things from the game and i have stuck to that. Units i have removed from the game like the war hounds, pigs, peasents etc can be used in custom battles so they are still in the game just not active in campaign games.

This update will as already said allow you to play as the Juli who take all of Italy and other towns originally owned by their respective families. To add to this change the Rebel faction is now playable in campaign games as well, you can recruit units in towns just like any other faction, however there is a catch. The units available depends upon who's culture it is owned by and not by which faction owns the town when captured. So for example you could capture a town in the UK and have Roman units available (thats a example and doesn't mean its like that, haven't looked into cutlures yet). The sad thing is the units for the Rebels use the same textures as there respective factions. So if you can recriut Gauls then your units will have the same textures as the Gaulsm makes things a little complicated when watching a battle against the faction your units belong to but i can't retexture units sorry. If anyone is willing to retexture them then let me know and i will speak with you.

So Rebels now playable and Romans reduced to a single faction, what else has changed, to be honest those are the big changes. But the Barbarian factions can now build roads (note not highway's), the second level for the mines, the forum and foundries. Since the British faction is more for trading this made sence and because the Barbarians are a weak unit compared to the super factions such as Roman's, Macidons, Greeks etc it made sence to allow the Barbarians to get that extra weapon bonus and give them a smaller increased chance of fighting off the super factions.

Some small changes to unit stats, the archers are more deadly now, trying to balance the missile units out over the changes made to the units health has been harder than expected but it is getting there. This is much better than it was and gives you reason to have archers in your army now. Bellow is the full change log for this new update, injoy and post your thourghts bellow. If you wish to help out in any kind of way PM me.

* New unit Mauryan Armoured Elephants for parthia.
* New unit Eastern Armoured Pikemen for parthia, seleucid, armenia.
* Unit card fix for Mauryan Armoured Elephants.
* Unit card fix for Eastern Armoured Pikemen.
* Trade value's lowered to increase game difficulty and balance the game out a little more for all factions.
* New unit Heavy Spearmen for parthia.
* Unit card fix for Heavy Spearmen.
* Some of the new units for both Macedon and Greek_Cities have had their stats lowered to balance things out more.
* Roman faction unified (Juli the only Roman faction)
* Rome changed to Juli's capital.
* Barbarian factions can now contruct paved roads.
* Barbarian factions can now contruct forums.
* Barbarian factions can now construct foundries.
* Barbrain factions can now construct the mine+1.
* Factions relations updated in descr_strat.
* Factions attitudes updated in descr_strat.
* Missile units updated so missiles etc do more damage.
* Rebel faction made playable in campaign game.
* Rebel faction have the ability to recruit units from the given faction the town is set as owned by.

Download
RTW Vanilla Mod Beta V6.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?godaxz98jmoth0b

[Roy974]

Over 40 downloads for beta v5.0 and now 8 downloads for beta v6.0, now comments from anyone who has tried this mod. I don't know if anyone actually likes this mod or not. Maybe i should just put this mod to one side and focus all my attention of another game i have been working on for a very long time. I'm not trying to be funny but without knowing how you guy's feel about this mod i am not sure if i'm doing the right things or not. At the moment it just feels like all the changes i'm making are for my own benifits and that isn't why i started this mod. I wanted to give everyone who likes RTW a chance to play with a more balanced AIfor each faction. The most important thing is i don't know if anyone has found any bugs, i expect there to be bugs but without been informed of them i might never find them. I don't play as all the factions so i don't know how well they play or if there is any problems with any of them.

The only bug i have found so far is when playing with the rebels i attacked a Macedon stack and the game crashed, luckily i had saved the game just before the battle. I loaded the save and split each of the different unit types i had into sperate armies to see which one coursed the crash and found out it was the black legionaires for Macedone that had done it. Now i have played with Macedone and had no problems in the past with them so i expect its a typo or something which i need to find and fix, but without comments made by you guy's i have no idea how things are going for you.

I don't expect people to turn there campaign into a diary or anything, but it would be nice to hear how things are going from time to time and fi any problems have been found, hope no one takes this post in the wrong context but i'm sure you can understand why i have made this post for.

Best wishes
Roy.

[kingofeurope]

to problem with going back to the main screen,it has happened to me 2.its because(maybe) the data file(s) are changed incorrectly and there is a missing letter or something,atleast thats what happened to me .found the problem and fixed it so now its working,also when the data is incorrect when you are choosing a faction for a campaign my starting year was 1AD ,so i guess that shows if your game is broken .but about the mod even though i dont frickin now how to get it playing,help plz? i love it ,what do i have to do with the mod folder?? im a newbie in computer stuff .i have ther mod folder in creative assembly folder and a copy in rtw folder.plz help.
roy,go full on this mod ,i love it even thoguh i havent played it
i need big help,the redme sais to put the my-mod map into rtw directory but i cant seem to find it anywhere,i extracted the .exe file,what to do

[Roy974]

Hey kingofeurope

To install the mod, locate the game directory. For wndows 7 this is. The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War, if you can't find your game directory then on the exe the game installed on your desktop you can right click on it and in select propaties, here you can see exactly where the game is located. Because this mod overwrite vanilla files i would strongly recomend that you make a folder on the desktop called modified games or what ever you want. Now after locating the game directory for RTW, copy everything in there and paste it into the new folder. Then extract thje RTW Vanilla Beta 6.0 and copy and past everything into the new folder you created, when it asks to overwrite files and folders say yes. After its finished start the game, this mod is not compatable with any other mods and does require that your game is fully up to date, to see if your game is fully up to date go into options and it will tell you their. It should be 1.5, if it is not then this mod will not work till you install the patches.

Thanks for your kind words, i do have a 7.0 in the making which will introduce many new units as long as i get permission to use them, and any bug fixes that are found. At the moment i have yet to fix the problem with the black legionaires for Macdons but i will get around to it when i have finished testing a little more.

[Roy974]

After playing as the Rebels i noticed how hard it was for you to get a general so i have introduced recruitable generals for all factions. This fixes the problem with no generals for Rebels and also give all factions the ability to have a general in each of their stacks (more realistic as well).

To add to this i have yet to get permission on some units but bellow are some new units for the Greeks. A special thanks to spartan_warrior for allowing me to use them in this mod.

I have yet to test a few other little things out, but i am also thinking of reducing the unit hit points to 3 from 4 because although it is more realistic it doesn't feel as realistic as it could. This will also make all missile units a little more usefull which is a bonus.

If i get permission to use the other units then it will add a little more depth to some factions, the problem is the main factions i want to improve (Barbarians) is not so easy to find units for. If push comes to shove though i will have to accept their are none available and use some units from other factions and hope someone can retexture them for me one day. What i will have to do before hand though is figure out exactly what type of units i want and go from there, right now i have not looked deeply enough into this area due to working on other things. Anyway the new Greek units are bellow for you to look at.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Skull]

Looks nice,well done.
I reped.

[kingofeurope]

the game works fine i just didnt realise that you had to start the game from the shortcut in the folder,lol. i thought that you can play it by rtw shortcut
but i cant play the battles because there are unit files missing(greek cavalry something and stuff)

[Roy974]

Looks nice,well done.
I reped.

Thanks Skull.

the game works fine i just didnt realise that you had to start the game from the shortcut in the folder,lol. i thought that you can play it by rtw shortcut
but i cant play the battles because there are unit files missing(greek cavalry something and stuff)

Huh, missing units?

Are you playing custom battles?

If so tell me which factions you play as and against which coursed this problem and i will look into it.

[Roy974]

Well i know i did say i wouldn't remove anything from the vanilla game but i figured the slaves been added was ok but it would be much more fun if you was able to actually play as a faction (similar to the slaves) but without the constant problems of slaves been generated all over the place and to be honest the slaves campaign was a lot easier than i thourght it would have been. So i have changed the Brutii (since they no longer feature in campaign mode) to Rebels. This means that Brutti can't be played in campaign mode although the faction replacing them Rebels can, they will have the same units as the Brutti for. I might leave it like this since you only get 1 town at the start and you need to take at least 1 town to start braking even or you will be in debt.

Expanding some of your units can pospone the enevitable debt problems but if you focus on building your trade up in your capital like market, harbour etc you can improve drastically your expanditure. Again another town will be required to start making a profit, in less you dispand most of your army, but with only one town to your name that might not be such a good idea. To make matters worse you start on Irland where there is 1 town you can capture but will need to go over to the England if you want to really start expanding. I will get some screens up soon.

[knight who says nee]

I have a soft spot for vanilla and love the idea of your mod

[Roy974]

Thanks knight who says. Its slowly getting there, and i'm hopping to have the next beta version ready some time next month. I want to try and get a lot done in the new version because that could be the last version for a while and i want people to have a lot of fun. I also need to get some screenshots and put them up so eberyone can get a better idea of whats going on.

After a few little problems everything seems to be fixed again, i'm thinking of changing the location of the Rebels from Ireland, because the Britons are way to easy to take out and you are free to expand very easily with little threat of loosing a town. So i think since the Rebels use the Roman units and are based on the Roman culture they should be in Italy. So i will give 1 town to them and they can play as the Rebel Romans which is after all what they are.

I then need to change the relations to Rebels so that every faction (including Slaves) are at war with them. Also i have left the Slaves playable in campaign mode because i know some people like to play as the under dogs which was why the Slaves was unlocked in the first place. The bad news for now is the Rebels (aka Brutii) most likely will not be playable in custom battles (i need to test them out). If they are not then i will have to look into this and fix it because i want to keep all aspects of gameplay playable.

I'm now thinking the Senet and Scipii should be replaced by new factions. The problem is who because i can't build models or texture things, so i would need to know if there are any people wiling to allow me to use there faction and units for this. That i will have to look into as and when i cross that bridge, for now i want to make sure the Rebels play correctly with no problems before i think about replacing another faction.

[knight who says nee]

okay after playing it for awhile I have a few suggestions

the stack spam is amusing at first but gets tired quickly

missile units are worthless

settlements become depopulated within a handful of turns, they could do with a much higher population
to support the huge amount of soldiers being churned out

DARK myrmidons sounds kind of lame, perhaps shorten it to myrmidons, they also need a better description

spartan hoplites have a peasant unit card

[Roy974]

Thanks knight who says nee, i will look into these.

Update 1:
Just changed the DARK myrmidons to Myrmidons and given them a new discription. Also looked at farm levels and made a few changes there which will lower the amount of troops been created which will reduce the amount of stacks on the map. I just need to find a balance between income vs population groth, once thats found i can start to balance the regions out giving some regions a more idea area to exapnd to for the extra income etc.

Update 2:
The Spartan Hoplites have unite cards so i can't understand why they are not working for you?

Just finished reorganising the Rebels so that they start at the bottom of Itally. Changed the factions relationships with the Rebels and tested it all out, it works fine. The changes to the farm levels seem to be ok, still a lot of stacks around but not as many as there was. The Rebels starting location is challanging, with the Romans constanly attacking you. This leave you 3 choices, attack the Romans and take Itally, Take the Roman town on the island next to Itally, the problem is the Greeks and Catharnigan's also have a town each there. The other choice is to take a town from the Macedonians and hope you can defend it while you try to expand. I took the 2nd option and then took the Greek town several turns later. Here is 2 screenshots of the new starting location for the Rebels.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Cesarz]

I finally got around to fixing my vanilla and downloading this and I have to say, this is a great mod.

[knight who says nee]

they have a peasant image with black clothes

[Roy974]

@ Cesarz
Glad you like the mod bud.

@ knight who says nee
Can you take a screenshot because they work for me.

[Roy974]

With the Roman factions unitaed i was unsure of what to do with the Scipii, Brutii and Senet since they was no longer playable in the campaign they was using up valuable faction space that could be better used for a new faction. The Slaves was made playable but i felt wasn't exactly what i was looking for so the Rebels was brought in to replace the Brutii and give some land in Itally. They was given access to all of Romes units and buildings since they are Roman rebels it made sence for them to be given the same culture and units, after all with every faction seeing you as enemy you/they will need all the strength they can get.

But stis still didn't seem like it was enough, there was something missing. Although they don't steam roll through Europe in any of my games i figured why not give the Britons there own problems, but making it closer to home for them. Like on the same region. So the Celts was brought in to replace the Scipii, this felt more confortable but still somethings was missing. The Scipii was using the Roman usints and culture, so i gave the Britons the Roman culture too and removed the ability for Scipii to recruit most of Romans units and ported a few units over from BI. Now the game feels much more where i wanted it to be.

The problem i found was i had hit the maximum amount of units so i removed the warhounds, pigs, basically all animal handlers since they was already deactivated in campaign mode. This gave me the right amount of space for the new units with maybe 1 or 2 slots still free. So the Julii have the Rebels to worry about now as well as Gauls, Dacian's, Catharnigans and to some extent Macedonions and Greeks. The Britons have the Celts to worry about mostly, but the Gauls could be a problem for them should the Celts get a good foot hold in the UK.

Here's some pictures of new units and the new faction Celts. Also some pictures of a battle between me (the Britons) and the Celts.

Spoiler for Britons New Units: 

Spoiler for Battle With The Celts: 

Thed Celts units have been based around the Britons, so the Warband Spearmen of Briton are weaker than the Run Away Steep Spearmen of Celts. This was to give Celts a better chance and to balance the two factions out against each other. The reason for the Celts spearmen been better than the Britons spearmen is because the Britons have more units to use and so i had to make a happy medium between the units for the Celts. If you look closely at the first few pictures you can clearly see the Celts have the upperhand till the Chosen Swordsmen of the Britons get to the front of the action. But you can see that Britons spearmen are heavily depleated in the final pictures as the Celts route. I'm still working on balancing these factions but i think in the end i will be rebalancing all the factions in this way to give a much more effective and enjoyable campaign, this could see all new units been removed and then added again as i get the stock units balanced better. I might even leave some units out so i can add some new units to other factions. Like the Woad Cavalry for the Britons and a few other units that are to be honest pointless.

That does mean a lot of work and most likely will not be started till after the release of Beta V7.0 which is almost ready, just testing things out and making little changes here and there. Overall though beta v7.0 is almost ready for release, so keep an eye out in this topic over the next week or two.

[Roy974]

I have spent a lot of hours working on this next installment of RTW vanilla and some of the changes are a lot more effective in that they was needed. The Brutti and Scippi was removed from RTW Vanilla campaign mode because i unified Rome and was alway's left thinking the Brutii and Scipii are pointless factions now and if i replaced them they could add a whole new elliment to the game. The problem was who could i replace them with, i thourght maybe adding another Greek faction or barbarian faction would be the better idea. Mean while i changed the Britons culture to Roman because i had ported 4 units from BI over to them and needed it to make it so they wouldn't be available for a little longer and rather than add some more levels of buildings it would be better to just give them a new culture.

With Britons now able to to build all cuildings Julii could build i started adding the 4 new units to there rosta. 2 infantry and 2 cavalry units, i'm looking to add a missile unit there rosta as well. With that said though i figured the Slaves faction which i had made playable in the campaign in RTW Vanilla 6.0, was a little to easy and i wanted a more challanging faction. Not saying its not challanging to play as the Slaves, its just not as hard as it could be. So i replaced the Brutii faction with the Rebels and gave them 2 towns at the bottom of Itally. I changed all factions relationships and attitudes towards them to enemy, this added a much more challanging position for the Rebels and made sence since they are rebels of Rome and so have access to all buildings and units the Julii can build and train.

This added a little more flavour to the mod but it still wasn't everything i wanted so i looked around the map and thourght the Britons would normally steam roll through the Gauls, Spanish and Germans in some games so why not give them something to do in the UK. So i replaced the Scipii with the Celts and ported some units from BI over for them and gave them access to some of the Roman units, they also have Roman set as there culture tag as to give them a better chance again the Britons. The next thing was to make the Celts units a little better than the Britons because the Britons have more settlements thus can recruit more units early on.

After rebalancing the Celts to the Britons i tested the game out and found the Woad Warriors was much weaker than the Celts Spearmen which is what i wanted. But since the Britons start off with 4 units of Chosen Swordsmen in each army this gave the Britons the advantage because the Spearmen was much much weaker than them, a little more rebalancing and although the Chosen Swordsmen can still kick the Celts Spearmens asses they are not as easily defeated.

The next thing to be changed was farm levels, it had already been brought up how stack after stack of enemy forces would attack you and the towns you would capture was alway's low on population. This was because the enemy would recruit till they couldn't recruit no more, so i lowered the farm levels for all regons but of course this doesn't fix the problem with over recruiting, this just reduces the farm bonus thus reducing population increase per turn. To reduce over recruitment i had to increase all units upkeep or reduce the amount of tax per turn you would recieve. I figured why not reduce the taxes and see how that effects the game, if the Ai is still over recruiting a lot then start to increase the upkeep for all units a little at a time till a balance was found.

The next change was units health, originally i had changed all units health from 1/2 to 4, this increased battle lengths a lot but had some negative side effects like missile units been pointless, so i reduced the health for all units to 3 which reduced battle times and gave a little more power to the missile units. However i didn't change it just to allow the missile units to have a role in a army, i wanted to reduce battle lengths anyway because i wanted the game to be fun and battles to last but not to long. To get the missile units to be more appealing i increased there stats a little and tested and increased a little more and tested till i found a balance and then based all other missile units around them. Now the missile units all have a important role in your army.

So the overall feeling is, its getting close now to the final beta version. I know there are still some things that need fixing but i need pictures of the problems people have had and more imput on what everyone thinks of the mod. After i have finished with RTW 1.5 i will most likely start on the expansion pack BI, where i will rebalance things out and add a more complete feeling to the gameplay. For now though i need to focus on getting RTW 1.5 finished and all bugs fixed. Hope you all have fun with this new and very improved version of RTW Vanilla mod. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I normally play as either Julii or Greece but i figured lets see how the new changes to the Britons stand out, i'm not one of these guy's who rushes and takes everything as and when they can. I take my time so i can see how the AI play out because that gives me a better understanding of the changes i have made, normally i do take towns much faster than i have in this test game.
For the first 12 or so turns i was just holding my own in the UK while defending against the Celts (who still need some work done to them). After a while i got bored of making money and building the towns up so i attacked the Celts and took all there towns off them in a matter of 2 to 3 turns after they broke the ceasefire.

I was keeping a close eye on the Julii because they was expanding fast hitting the Gauls hard, at the sametime Spain was also taking the Gauls towns. The Julii's exansion plans was short lived though as Macedonia was on the move after taking Greece, they soon started to push the Julii faction back into Itally where they eventually destroyed them. Mean while Spain was taking weak defended towns from the Macedonian's and still taking the last of the Gauls.

After the Gauls had been wipped out Spain turned there attentions to the Germans but the Germans was having none of it and would retake what ever towns they lost to them, that was till the Macedons started taking them. While the Macedons was still taking out the last of the Julii's towns i had moved 5 armies into Spain where i took all of Spain, i then started to expand through the Catharnigans as i started to put a plan together to take the Macedons down. Here are some pictures of how thinge stand at the moment.



As you can see the Macedons are now the largest faction in the game with Seleucids been the second largest. Here are some pictures of my position on the map from stragical positions.





And finally here is my plan to take the Macedons down and become the largest faction in the game.



In the above plan the idea isn't to hit Macedon in all directions all at once, its to devide there armies up making them think i will hit from all directions and then hit from there weakest points first. As they start to reinforce there weakest points i will then hit from what was there strongest points because by this point those will now be there weakest points. The problem with this plan is i need to move fast before i loose the chance to take a key location like the German Islands where i can strike from above the Macedons or the East where i can strike them from the right. It all depends on how fast the Madedons can take the Seleucids out compared to me moving up through them. It also depends on how the other factions react to me expanding because it does seem that the AI responds more to the players actions than the other AI factions actions.

Example of that was in my previous test game where i played as Greece, as i sat and watched defending against all that the Macedons threw at me i noticed that Julii was been owned by the Gauls. So as i expanded over towards the Julii's via the islands the Julii's sudenly came to life and took all there towns back and started expanding fast. I tried this out again and it was the same story the next time i tried it but this time i plated as the Macedons. So it seems the AI is watching the player just as much as the player is watching the AI, and both the player and AI responding to each other rather than the AI responding to what other AI factions are doing.

Anyway i am happy to report no bugs so fasr after several hours of playing without a single CTD or bug like texture problem. Well thats a lie, i did notice one problem. When the AI attack you and the battle card loads up sometimes the AI for the Celts would show a building as a pose to a character or flag if no character was present, not sure how to fix this one either because i have no idea where the problem lies. Please feel free to point out how to fix this if anyone knows. When it happens again i will take a screenshot. Also if you right click on the building you get to see the enemy forces army, when you go back to the battle card the building changes to a unit, flag or character.

RTW Vanilla Mod Beta V7.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?8srtxixd3lm45l8

[Legio X Gemina]

nvm edit: