Age of Discovery: Total War (completed!)

[General Malaise]

If anyone was paying much attention over here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...35#post7818235 where I announced this mod, I said I'd finish it soon and I have. [Also, doing an AAR over here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7901694 for anyone interested.]

To reiterate, this mod is set in the "Age of Discovery" starting after the Ottomans conquered Byzantium in 1454 and closed off trade to the east in Europe, pushing europeans to sail west in search of new trade opportunities. It ends in 1604 after various foreign trading companies had been established and the discovery had basically switched to colonialism. (Timescale is 2 turns per year for 300 turns total). The above link has some battlefield screenshots for the curious (just scroll down a bit).

Gameplay wise, this is essentially a combination of the Expanded Americas mod with the Renaissance Total War one, and combines features from each as well as my own design ideas. My own contribution is particularly to make the game less about "teching up" and more about deciding things on the battlefield as was more the case in STW and MTW1 and also to make the game more open-ended. DarthMod battle and campaign AI has also been thrown in to enhance the challenge some more.

I have tested the major scripts and each faction for some turns, even though I haven't played through a whole campaign yet. So. this first release can be considered a bit of testing, although (hopefully) only tweaking will really be needed, if anything, as I'm pretty certain there aren't any bugs. Let me know what you think and I hope some people are interested. If so, I'll probably do an AAR based on it in a few days or so. (If an admin happens to see this and wouldn't mind telling me how to go about getting this announced and/or hosted that'd be great too.)
__________



FACTIONS
-Old World (European/Christian):
[Northern European] Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of France, Kalmar Union (Denmark/Norway), Holy Roman Empire, [Southern European] Papal States, Republic of Genoa, Republic of Venice, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Portugal, [Eastern European] Kingdom of Hungary, Polish-Lithuanian Union (Poland/Lithuania), Teutonic Order, Tsardom of Muscovy (Orthodox faction)
-Old World (Middle-Eastern/Islamic):
Maghreb Sultanate (north african union), Mamluk Sultanate, Ottoman Empire, Golden Horde
-New World:
[Sun God/pagan] Aztec Empire, Inca Empire, [Great Spirit] Apachean Tribes, Caribbean Tribes

Features/Fixes:
- Two-Handed animations fixed
- Pikemen fixed (no dropping pikes) and increased/improved (i.e. gave long_pike units spearwall)
- Gunners improved (no reforming or rotating) and granted stakes
- Shield infantry given shield wall ability
-Permanent stone forts added
-Tech events for apaches and caribbeans (i.e., guns and horses too for former)
-New buildings and units added for Incas
-Actual Inca names given to Inca characters, generals, units, etc.
-All new caribbean faction with all new units and actual carib/garifuna/arawak, etc. names
-All cities start off as large and castles as fortresses
-All units can be accessed at start, higher level buildings instead grant experience bonuses
-DarthMod battle and campaign AI added
-(Largely) Historically accurate starting lands, capitals, royal families, and diplomatic stances
-Outdated units removed from rosters, re-balanced all faction rosters and many units
-Reworked/balanced rebels and mercenaries to be more even
-Improved guilds, particularly explorer's guild (now grants morale bonus)
-Increased frequency and power of pirate ships
-Guaranteed attempted invasion of New World as in Expanded Americas
-Can invade Europe with New World factions, also as in Expanded Americas
-OwnRen Renaissance: Total War economic fixes to deal with late era unit upkeep
-Slightly higher starting treasure and kings purse for all factions, related to above issue
-Various improvements to building times, costs, etc.
-Scaling and open-ended victory conditions based on starting faction power
-Grapeshot now functional
-Switching capital now costs money (5k)
-A few new units that fit the period
-Lots more I'm forgetting probably

Credits:
Ethoese for making the base campaign map
Darth for DarthMod AI
Condottiere Giovanni d´Medici for economic fixes and some unit changes
Octavius for creating the GeoMod tool
Gigantus for helping me out on the forums
and anyone who wrote a tutorial online that I likely read in order to make this

Download:
AoD Download, Part 1: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/m...mod/37294.html
AoD Download, Part 2: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/medievaliitotalwarkingdoms/mod/37295.html
Optional! Archer+ Patch:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/attac...9&d=1325285688

Install Info:
To install, download and extract files to Sega\Medieval II Total War\mods folder (should look like mods\Age_of_Discovery) and click on age_of_discovery shortcut.

Optional Patch Info:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

After reading about the era of my mod more, and looking back over a few earlier comments, I decided to release a small patch which adds an archer unit to every faction lacking one presently, before this mod goes fully down the memory hole. However, archers are only available at castles, unlike gunners and crossbowmen, to represent the increased difficulty of training them and thus also their comparitive rarity in the period.

List of Units added
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

ENGLAND: Retinue Longbowmen
FRANCE: (Dismounted) French Archers
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: Peasant Archers
SPAIN: Peasant Archers
VENICE: Venetian Archers
GENOA: Peasant Archers
SCOTLAND: (Noble) Highland Archers
MUSCOVY: Archer Militia
MAGHREBS: Desert Archers
OTTOMANS: Ottoman Infantry
MAMLUKS: Desert Archers
KALMAR UNION: Norse Archers
PORTUGAL: Peasant Archers
POLAND-LITHUANIA: Lithuanian Archers
HUNGARY: Bosnian Archers
PAPAL STATES: Peasant Archers
IRELAND: Saighdeoir (Gaelic Archers)
TEUTONIC ORDER: Prussian Archers





Copy over the files contained in the patch into your mod's install folder directory (check the mod's folders if you are unsure, they are likely to be the same). Make a backup of the old files if you're unsure you want to use archers. This version also makes a minor change to start of campaign to (hopefully) prevent the Mamluks from too often winning the short campaign. Use only the "descr_strat" file, or do not use it, if you are interested/not intested in that change only.

Of course, anyone can do whatever they want with this mod, although it'd be nice if you let me know about it and gave credit.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Very ncie Malaise!

I think a little rep is in order

[squatlover]

Very interesting - downloading now - I want to see what the battles are like!

[MathiasOfAthens]

Nice work,

With that said I dont think you need so many regions in the holy land or ME. Allowing you to add those region spaces to the Americas where your game is sorta focused on.

[amadee]

can you please put those files in WinRAR to? i cant open the files even tough i have 7zip. i dont understand and its driving me crazy!!

[General Malaise]

Doing an AAR over here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7901694 for anyone interested. Also, there is a very small and simple quickfix, as I realized while doing it I forgot to change some faction leader titles (like Doge and Tsar) for the mod. Download that here: http://www.zshare.net/download/794507562789c482/ and overwrite your normal expanded.txt in data\text for the mod folder.

[General Malaise]

can you please put those files in WinRAR to? i cant open the files even tough i have 7zip. i dont understand and its driving me crazy!!

Did you try right-clicking on .001 and selecting "Extract Here" in the 7-zip> submenu when you right-click (near the top)?

[Peteriscoolz]

Kinda looks like Expanded americas mod?

[General Malaise]

Another Quickfix: Also realized sieges were bugged. Thought I had fixed it before uploading it but must have goofed. Here is another quick fix for that: http://www.zshare.net/download/7946357384bbffe1/ (copy it into modfolder's data folder overwriting old version)

[amadee]

Did you try right-clicking on .001 and selecting "Extract Here" in the 7-zip> submenu when you right-click (near the top)?

this is what happens:
7Zip:diagnostic messages
cannot open file "D:\age_of_discovery_M2TW-K_7z.001" as archive

[General Malaise]

Things to try:
Make sure you downloaded both parts and they are in the same place in your computer (e.g. your desktop).

Try downloading the latest version of 7zip if you happen to be using an old one.

Try redownloading the file using a download manager such as FlashGet.

Try renaming it to something simpler (for both parts) like aod.7z.001 and aod.7z.002

If none of those still work I will upload a WinRar version (although it will be larger). It's hard for me to say what the problem is though as I've extracted mine a bunch of times without a problem. Is yours not extracting at all or stopping partway through?

EDIT: I've noticed Zshare often disconnects. Make sure the file size for part 001 is 501,760KB and part 2 72,975 KB. If they aren't, zshare cut out on you. Hopefully I can get this hosted here so this won't happen *cough nudge*...

[achwell]

Hi,

Is it modfoldered? do you have any screenshots

[General Malaise]

It is modfoldered, yes. Check the links to the AAR thread and the preview thread in the original post for screenshots.


Update: Unrelated, but I've just found out irish wardogs are bugged and cause crashes. I'm working on getting it fixed and will update when I've done so.

[General Malaise]

Fixed the wardog animations. Should finally be the last of the problems. Download here and overwrite mods\age_of_discovery\data animations after extracting : http://www.zshare.net/download/79495827d8cb38a4/

[Baddersanta]

Do you think you could upload the files to a better site like Megaupload? I get ridiculously slow download times with zshare, like maybe 80kb a second, when I can get up to 2.0mb when I do it from MU.

[amadee]

i cant get a complete download:490Mb instead of 501MB on the first part and 68.83MB instead of the 72.975 on the second. I get that each time.

[General Malaise]

I'll try uploading a .rar or .zip to megaupload or rapidshare today as people have been having problems with 7zip and zshare. I was told both were good. The new file will have all the fixes though, so anyone who downloads that won't need to download the quickfixes above.

[General Malaise]

New upload, .rar format, and from rapidshare (contains all fixes)
http://rapidshare.com/files/41397708...very.part1.rar -pt1
http://rapidshare.com/files/41399569...very.part2.rar -pt2
http://rapidshare.com/files/41400359...very.part3.rar -pt3

[fatty the fat]

Looks good! Btw i can see on the map that Greenland is rebel... Thought it was danish but it doesnt matter much

[General Malaise]

The settlements, such as Brattahlið, thrived for centuries but disappeared some time in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age.[11] Interpretation of ice core and clam shell data suggests that between 800 and 1300 CE the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a relatively mild climate several degrees Celsius higher than usual in the North Atlantic[12], with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th degree [13] What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.[14] Similarly the Norse Book of Settlements records famines during the winters in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs". (Arnold 2010)

The last written records of the Norse Greenlanders are of a marriage in 1408 in the church of Hvalsey — today the best-preserved Norse ruins in Greenland.


These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and 15th centuries, probably as a result of famine and increasing conflicts with the Inuit.[15] The condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, probably because of

Kalmar Union (i.e. Denmark/Norway) does attempt to settle Godshavn and later (in all likelihood assuming they take the former) Greenland later on in the campaign though.

Also, hopefully (final) patch here. Was playing through a long campaign and came across some things that are now, I'm pretty sure, are all fixed, but let me know.

Patch: http://rapidshare.com/files/414152830/AoDPatch.rar
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Extract "export_descr_ancillaries" and "export_descr_buildings" and "descr_sm_factions" to Medieval II Total War\mods\Age_of_Discovery\data folder, overwriting old versions.
2.Extract "descr_win_conditions" and "descr_strat" and "campaign_script" to Medieval II Total War\mods\Age_of_Discovery\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial campaign folder, overwriting old versions.
3. Go to Medieval II Total War\mods\Age_of_Discovery\data\world\maps\base and delete map.rwm file.
4. Load old campaign save or start new campaign.