Roman family skins and more...

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 02:34 PM

Well, I haven't downloaded SPQR and probably never will because my copy of R:TW has some major screw-ups and can't be played whatsoever, and I don't want to risk reformatting my computer as I don't wan't to loose all I have and still don't really know if it will help.

Anyway; after looking at all the screenshots in the screenshots-section in this thread, I became aware that all the Romans wore crimson uniforms courtesy of the Julii in vanilla. In vanilla I'm sure you all know that the different families were displaying different colours; green, blue, purple and red, and I was wondering if this have been removed here. I mean, was it unhistorical in some way?

And secondly, are you adding new maps for Custom Battle? I'm hoping for some plain ones for a change. All the crappy vanilla maps were so overloaded with features it made the hair on my back stand. Forests, hills, slopes, dead-ends... lots of tactical features are fine and dandy indeed, but being rather featureless is a feature in itself! (I especially hate forests. They hide half the enemy army and the battle looks smaller than it is. And your own men sort of kneel where they stand if they're "Hidden" in this fashion which also looks ugly!).

No good old plain, fair maps with a sort of empty space in the middle for two armies to collide head-on. Unless you count the desert maps, but Romans fighting Gauls or Germanians fighting Greeks in the middle of Africa or something looks rather funky.

So... yeah. Please answer...

**Revan The Great** · January 02, 2006, 03:57 PM

Well, lets face it, Romans didn't walk around in bright green togas lol.

For custom battles play "Syrian Flats" or "Grassy Flatland" for just a level map with no terrain what-so-ever.

-Revan B)

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 04:16 PM

"Well, lets face it, Romans didn't walk around in bright green togas."

Ah, so it was unhistorical, then.

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 04:17 PM

Three roman families period is ahistorical.

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 04:24 PM

So there is only one family in the SPQR-mod? Or are there several, but they all look identical?

**Lord Agelmar** · January 02, 2006, 04:30 PM

There are the 3 families still with the Senate as well. They all just look similar, cept i think each faction has a tinge of its orginal color in the skins. Or maybe its just the banners are the original, its been a while since ive played SPQR.

**Revan The Great** · January 02, 2006, 05:11 PM

They're different shades of red, Julli is brightest (probably orginal colors), Brutti is slightly darker then Julli, and Scippi is darker still. They also still have different banners.

-Revan

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by Revan The Great

They're different shades of red, Julli is brightest (probably orginal colors), Brutti is slightly darker then Julli, and Scippi is darker still. They also still have different banners.

-Revan

Not on the battlefield, only on the strategic map. The banners applies to the battlefield though.

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 06:32 PM

That's good to hear. I was a little worried about how to distinguish between the Julii, Brutii, Scipii and SPQR-guys. While I'm at it, I would also like to know if you have reduced the pause between the attacks of the men while fighting? In vanilla R:TW, the soldiers would pause for an eternity after having attacked with their weapons, just looking at each other, perhaps sidestepping a bit, only actually fighting every 4-8 seconds. It looked so anticlimatic after they had charged each other with fury, and got plain depressing to watch.

Apparently a selection of other mods have done the this, (At least DarthMod, I think...

), and it's only a matter of skewering a number or two in a text file...

I think.

Of course if you have better things to do, I understand, but, well, still...!

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 07:14 PM

Ought to be a real pain distinguishing between the different factions then... Why haven't you done this in the battle maps?

It's not that perversely ahistorical to shade some of the uniforms a little, is it?

Especially when it can still make the gameplay so much easier!

I'm sure the banners are enough until they rout and turn entirely white, but what if one prefers to play with the banners off? And finally, why did you do this on the campaign map where the banners are quite enough to see who they belong to anyway?

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 07:18 PM

The civil war won't occur for quite a long while in SPQR. You're going to be having enough trouble with the non-romans before you should even THINK about challenging the other roman factions. Just keep the banners on during battle if you have any trouble distinguishing.

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 07:21 PM

Well yeah, but I'm more of a Custom Battle -kind of player, you see.

And the barbarians are so boring to play against as they rout on the slightest sign of trouble.

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by InferiorBeing

Well yeah, but I'm more of a Custom Battle -kind of player, you see. :p And the barbarians are so boring to play against as they rout on the slightest sign of trouble...

O.o;;

Not in SPQR!
They come in hordes!
Hordes with unit sizes as big as TWICE the size of your romans!
Hordes with better stats than your romans (pre-marian, anyhow)!
Hordes that take quite a bit of strategy to defeat!

SPQR is not easy.

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 07:51 PM

Of course you have thought of hardware-limitations when you cooked that one up, right?

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 07:58 PM

Originally Posted by InferiorBeing

Of course you have thought of hardware-limitations when you cooked that one up, right?

What are you getting at? SPQR is hard because it doesn't suck up for the Romans like unmodded RTW does. Romans are weaker than the Gauls and Germans, and quite frankly, the carthaginians will butcher you (as the scipii) if you aren't careful.

Once, Lt set up a game as the macedonians, and used a function that allows the game to be controlled entirely by AI. What happened was the Gauls conquered all of Italy except Latium, simply because the Praetorians are incredible super-soldiers (...in this mod anyhow)

**InferiorBeing** · January 02, 2006, 08:10 PM

No, I think you misunderstood. I aplaud you highly that the game doesn't "Suck up to the Romans

" like vanilla. I meant that armies four times as big as what was usual should surely kill most computers? I don't want to have to specifically select the smallest of the barbarian units only so that I can play the game with medium graphics!

**John I Tzimisces** · January 02, 2006, 08:13 PM

its a combination of unit sizes being lowered for Romans and Raised a bit for everyone else. He modified unit sizes for large, as well as huge, so people with less than Godly comp's (cough most of us cough) can play as well. In previous versions, he told everyone to play on huge, because large was easy economically. Now, not so much. 5.0 (i think that is the most recent version) is pretty well optimized for everyone. So i hear.