Originally Posted by
Turnus
Esteemed Councillors of the Consilium de Civitate,
In October of 2004, just prior to the release of Rome: Total War, I was directed to a discussion of an early playing of the game held on a message board apparently called Total War Center. I had long been a fan of the Total War games, and greatly anticipated the release of Rome, but I had strangely not yet taken the time to see what kind of fan sites were arising around this franchise. For some weeks I watched the activity on TWC during the early stages of Rome’s release, not yet signing up. I can recall quite vividly the original thread calling to mod the game for greater realism, which I believe was conducted primarily by Gaius Julius and Zappa. This topic had in fact served as a microcosm for what I had seen so far on TWC. To me it seemed a community interested of course in the Total War franchise, but even more so in history in general and in improving certain faults of the franchise through research and modification. This appealed to me. I had long been an avid history lover, with a particular focus on ancient, medieval, and Renaissance Europe, and had personally modified MTW for this historical purpose.
And so, I signed up to this new message board that appeared a worthwhile place to be (and of course this was in time proven). My primary focus initially was seeing what kind of modifications were being made for RTW (and there wasn’t a great deal considering the game had just come out). But I soon began to think of something that I would like to work on myself, and so I started to form an idea of a mod revolving around the Italian Peninsula before Roman conquest. There seemed to be, at that time, three main modding groups at TWC: those working on Rome Total Realism (as it became to be called), the RTW Design Bureau II (founded, I believe, by Burebista), and the Trivium (the latter two eventually merging to become The Trivium Organisation). I quickly signed up to the second, and proposed an idea for such a mod. Fortunately, another TWC member, Acutulus (Civitates) had in fact had a similar idea for a RTW modification, and so we teamed up with a few others to start the project.
So we tried our hands at a total conversion mod. But such projects become difficult with so few people working on the team, especially as we didn’t have everything covered (myself working on research and coding and Acutulus on skinning), and it was difficult to find people who had the skills we needed to join. We plugged on with the mod for quite a long time, but we never really got past preliminary stages, as we were missing vital components of a team. However, I had many ideas for such a mod already formulated, and when we had to call it quits, I always kept them in the back of my mind.
During all of this, of course, I was drawn more and more into the TWC Community, and found what a welcoming place it is. I discovered, particularly from the Thema Devia and the Vestigia Vetustasis (as these boards are now called) that there are many members here of great wit and intellect and of course many well read in history, something that I can certainly appreciate. I grew quite attached to this community, and so when I drifted away for a short time at the end of ’05 and beginning of ’06, I knew that I would be back. On deciding to return to the boards, I saw a new little mod that was really coming along, called ‘Paeninsula Italica’. On further examination, this was a project very similar to the idea that I had for a mod in late ’04, and so I couldn’t help but have a desire to return to modding. I saw that a member that I was familiar with, SignifierOne, was already on the team, and so I contacted them with my details and that is where I am now. I am primarily focusing on implementing historical gameplay, in terms of units, buildings, settlements, and scripts (the latter which I am particularly excited about). The project is indeed coming along nicely, and will certainly see a release, but for me it has been a long journey. Of course, I returned also to the Thema Devia and Vestigia Vetustasis, as they were also my favourite part of the site, and I find that they are still filled with great people and discussions, despite the criticism of certain members. In fact I have recently posted my first article in the VV, and I will certainly keep them coming on various aspects of history (being an undergraduate history major myself).
I have always wished to become a Civitate of the TWC forums. Obviously it gives access to such great institutions as the Curia and Symposium, the latter which has always appeared an interesting place that I had been unable to participate. It would certainly be an honour to become a Civitate of a forum that has proven its great worth over the past year and a half, and one that I have found no equal across the internet. I would of course post according to all rules set down in the Syntagma, and contribute to the smooth running of the site.
I greatly thank the Councillors for considering my application and Asterix for sticking by his proposal to patronize for over a year,
Turnus
PASSED 08.06.06: Turnus for Civitates (Patron: Asterix)
- It's my smilie and I'll use it if I want to...... 
