Amazon: Total War 7.0 Release

[Balgeron]

I found some bugs, not sure now if there was some update lately - but:

I got missing textures when fighting against Horde Armens: D:\RTW Anthology\AmazonsTW-Recalesced\data\models_unit\textures\4a_mount_horse_chariot_easterling.tga

and D:\RTW Anthology\AmazonsTW-Recalesced\data\models_unit\textures\amazon_archer_regular.tga.png

It gives error and crash to desktop. I got over it, by using different textures for now (copy+rename) The

Far East Celts are retardly OP - their wagons are almost unkillable. I think the only unit that works against them is Noble Maidens, because they got fire arrows, the things like Pathfinders, Longbow Horse Archers or even any kind of spearmen gets terribly slaughtered (they steamrolled Thysian Amazons without any chance, because Thysians doesn't have any kind of fire attack - which is also needed against linked cavalery, to make them run amok)

Linked Cavlery charge is instantly killing elephants - is this a joke?

Also few things which i being wondering about - Why doesn't Thysians have a Temple to Aphropdite, when the whole faction is one big cult to her?

And why does none of the Amazons have temple to Ares (The god of war)?

Sorry i can't edit my post and it got messed up.

[parthian shot]

Balgeron,

Thank you for a very informative post as usual.

"...missing textures when fighting against Horde Armens..."
We will be looking into the Armen Horde feature and see if we can fix the problem ASAP.

"...The Far East Celts are retardly OP - their wagons are almost unkillable..."

The Noble Maidens actually have less fire power than Pathfinder. The Noble Maiden only has better all around protections.

In general, the best weapon to destroy any vehicular units are using thermite fire weapons. The force opposing the wagon army must try to use stand-off weapons to destroy as many wagons as possible. Because in close-in fighting the wagon are nearly indestructible.

BTW, the Far East Celt is not the only faction who can field wagon units.

"...they steamrolled Thysian Amazons without any chance, because Thysians doesn't have any kind of fire attack..."

Thyssa does have thermite fire capability. If the player is playing Thyssa faction, the Far Eastern Celt can be a real menace, the more reason Thyssa must go high tech and obtain the thermite weapon units early in the campaign. Even an Amazon militia unit that can throw thermite fire bombs is better than any of the standard units.

"... the things like Pathfinders, Longbow Horse Archers or even any kind of spearmen gets terribly slaughtered..."
Not all spear units, phalanx will stop both Linked Armor-Clad Cavalry and the Wagons.

"...Linked Cavlery charge is instantly killing elephants - is this a joke?..."

No, the Linked Armor-Clad Cavalry can kill elephant, not necessarily instantly, but it is not a joke. Used correctly the elephant can also kill Linked Armor-Clad Cavalry. The depiction of the LACC is showing a rank (team) of 4 horses. But in reality, the horses can be linked up to 20 in a rank which makes the horses far "heavier" than the elephant. Because the battle formation for elephant is too loose, so if you watch closely, the Linked Armor-Clad Cavalry is actually picking up elephant one by one, but in rapid motion. Against the aromored cataphract elephant, it may not be so easy.

"...Why doesn't Thysians have a Temple to Aphropdite, when the whole faction is one big cult to her? ..."

If you read the factional background description, Thyssa Amazons were NO LONGER Aphrodite worshipers. They used to be the Albanian Amazons and as such they WERE Aphropdite worshipers, but then there is the feud with the Geothe (an eBook called the Quarrels of the Guardians which is coming out) and they got thrown out of Caucasian Albania and started wandering in the Northern Steppe. During the migration, they have become shamanistic and also became a monarchy instead of a theocracy. This is all described in the factional background.

"...And why does none of the Amazons have temple to Ares (The god of war)..."

Amazon to Ares relationship is only from Revised Greek Myth (almost all of them were edited in or around 2nd century AD). The mentioning of Ares is really anti-climatic, because in Greek Poems, Ares (along with his numerous children) are used to illustrate a military menace which is always and forever losing to Athena.

The mentioning of Areas and Athena are not dissimilar to modern drama's or cinema's music effect. I.E. a good guy or superhero would enter the stage with uplifting and triumphant music (same effect as a Greek Poet mentioning Athena in a story) and the bad guys would be often associated with creepy or suspenseful music (similar to mentioning of Ares or any lineage to Ares). In the Greek Poem, Ares is forever on the losing side and, however martial he and his "children" may be, Athena is always triumphant and victorious.

In the Amazon Total War, we are depicting the Amazon from the Anthropology stand point of view, not from Greek Theatrics. And yes, Greeks mentioned them in their poems, and depicted Amazons on their vases and water jars. But that is a men-society's view on an actually very hateful topic of their time.

So to suggest that Amazons should have Temples of Ares is like saying Japanese Samurais and warriors in Shogun Total War II should be all wearing eye glasses because the American cartoons in and before WWII were showing Japanese soldiers all wearing eye glasses (and implying that they can not shoot straight and therefore they are inferior soldiers and so on).

I found some bugs, not sure now if there was some update lately - but: I got missing textures when fighting against Horde Armens: D:\RTW Anthology\AmazonsTW-Recalesced\data\models_unit\textures\4a_mount_horse_chariot_easterling.tga and D:\RTW Anthology\AmazonsTW-Recalesced\data\models_unit\textures\amazon_archer_regular.tga.png It gives error and crash to desktop. I got over it, by using different textures for now (copy+rename) The Far East Celts are retardly OP - their wagons are almost unkillable. I think the only unit that works against them is Noble Maidens, because they got fire arrows, the things like Pathfinders, Longbow Horse Archers or even any kind of spearmen gets terribly slaughtered (they steamrolled Thysian Amazons without any chance, because Thysians doesn't have any kind of fire attack - which is also needed against linked cavalery, to make them run amok) Linked Cavlery charge is instantly killing elephants - is this a joke? Also few things which i being wondering about - Why doesn't Thysians have a Temple to Aphropdite, when the whole faction is one big cult to her? And why does none of the Amazons have temple to Ares (The god of war)?

[parthian shot]

Latest Beta has been uploaded and the OP has the latest download locations. Based on naftykid's suggestion, instead of mediaFire (which restricts file size to 200MB) we are now using FileSwap as our primary download site.

- Corrected Armenia Horde issue as reported by Balgeron
- Corrected property description in read-me file stating -mod:AmazonsTW- Recalesced -show_err where as it should be -mod:AmazonsTW-Recalesced -show_err
i.e. no space, as reported by Allypup
- corrected City Map problems as reported by naftykid.
- re-arranged load screen to removed redundant pictures to save memory.
- changed recruit time for advanced units to make longer to recruit certain units.
- corrected missing unit card issues for horde wagons.
- new Roman Carriage Ballista animation to use faster horses.
- corrected script issue which was auto-generated but has serious problem with quests for Libyans and Carthage.
- removed "halo" from many named character pictures.
- added real-time double quest award check, not just at the beginning of the script.

Problems identified but still being worked on.

- Linked Armor-Cald Cavalry has incorrect audio effect.

[allypup]

Just had an unusual experience in downloading new version.

When I clicked on the second link, I went to Strategy Informer, and my Norton poped up with a "Web Attack Blocked".

It was identified as Web Attack: Expolit Toolkit Website 4.

Attacker URL: adserver.strategyinformer.com.

Norton 360 is aggressive in its blocking, one other program I have to over-ride because it says a cloud app is a virus, so it may be nothing... or it may be something...I don't know.

I did get the new version from game front.

[parthian shot]

Just had an unusual experience in downloading new version.

When I clicked on the second link, I went to Strategy Informer, and my Norton poped up with a "Web Attack Blocked".

It was identified as Web Attack: Expolit Toolkit Website 4.

Attacker URL: adserver.strategyinformer.com.

Norton 360 is aggressive in its blocking, one other program I have to over-ride because it says a cloud app is a virus, so it may be nothing... or it may be something...I don't know.

I did get the new version from game front.

Thanks for the post.

Pesonally, I think it might also have something to do with the ads SI is carrying on its web site.

Please feel free to send a feedback message to SI to let them know. At the least they should be aware that perhaps one of their ads is tripping up Norton360.

[parthian shot]

We have updated 7.0 beta again, please visit OP for the latest download.

Corrections made:

1. corrected FE Celt's spearmen tga file issue, thanks Uthril for the bug report.
2. re-touched spearmen units skins to be Balanced Unit Model (B.U.M) compliant.

[parthian shot]

Although these sources are not what our new eBooks or the Amazons Total War mod is based on.

They share some important common assessment.

1. "Caucasian" and Origin of Modern Europeans

This is a BBC article about the ties of Ossetian and modern European places.

[BBC Article]

[Simplified Background of Ossetia]

This is just to try to help European readers who sometimes wonder where their ancestors came from two or three millenniums ago.

2. Celtic People in China

And how in the world the Celtic people were discovered in Northwestern Frontier of China.

[PBS Article]

[Wikipedia on Tarim Mummies]

[Celt in China]

[archaeology of mummies]

[Who Are the Celts]

3. Trade, Wagon and Women's Status in Celtic Culture

[Wagon Burial of A Celtic Princess]

This post is mainly for anthropological references, the post does not try to make any political statement of certain ethnicity over others, nor does the author of this post condones/agrees with any potential political overtones contained in any of the articles.

[parthian shot]

This is to post on latest Rev7 updata. Beta 8 download URLs are posted at OP, except with Strategy Informer download site, which is experiencing some file upload issues with pictures.

[wumpus]

Noble Parthian Shot-
Unloaded and unpacked the latest ver 7.0 ATWR & tested it. So far, it's a great improvement except for that bug [?], a text script, which says a general is at a wrong place [Dacia]. It's still the same bug as I've encountered before in several sub-versions of ATWR 6.0, but I believe this question has been mentioned and well-discussed before, someplace above in this thread--I think--so I'll address the problem at a later--more convenient--time this week. But it's a great game, really. Thank you so much, and maybe the game gets out of its BETA status very soon. Congratulations. I'll inform you, like the others do, if I find a not-encountered-before bug. Hawooh.

[parthian shot]

Noble Parthian Shot-
Unloaded and unpacked the latest ver 7.0 ATWR & tested it. So far, it's a great improvement except for that bug [?], a text script, which says a general is at a wrong place [Dacia]. It's still the same bug as I've encountered before in several sub-versions of ATWR 6.0, but I believe this question has been mentioned and well-discussed before, someplace above in this thread--I think--so I'll address the problem at a later--more convenient--time this week. But it's a great game, really. Thank you so much, and maybe the game gets out of its BETA status very soon. Congratulations. I'll inform you, like the others do, if I find a not-encountered-before bug. Hawooh.

Thank you for your kind words.

As discussed before, the bug has to do with the AI not able to differentiate a general is on the water at the start of a campaign, or a general is on the water on board of a fleet at the start of the campaign.

We decided from quite a few releases ago, that we should leave the general on board with the fleet, which makes the game far more interesting. But the error message will be displayed if you exit the game on first turn.

[wumpus]

Oh, BTW, when I installed ATWRecalesced, it's in the same folder as Subrosa's last version of ATW, together with vanilla RTW, Rome-BI, Alex, and one of the XGM versions--I encountered no problem with this somewhat populated folder so far. The other ATWR [ver 6.0K], of course, is in another folder, together with that new Lord of the Rings TW mod. ...Just so a few others who are a little nuts like me would know if it can be done. Hawooh.

[parthian shot]

Latest Release description (for Beta8) has been updated in OP.

[parthian shot]

This is to update everyone on the Release for 7.0A, our first official Amazons Total War 7.0 release.

Celestial Shuttle Buddy is working on text, lots of them.
She is also converting texture for Celt and Gaul faction units from what she calls "Prison Stripe Pants" to something more realistic.
My partner is experimenting with new area denial weapon.
Our testing coordinator is hard pressed with work on what she called "twenty men's job done by one woman".
We have two animation volunteers converting animation files to mesh3D.
I am working on Uthril's recommendation to allow the generals to be awarded with a title when a quest is fulfilled.

No time table as to when the 7.0A release will be, but we are hoping it would be soon.

[parthian shot]

Celestial Shuttle Buddy has volunteered to clean up the Sarmatian faction for the 7.0's larger strat map.

The correction and changes she has made are

1. Sarmatian's Quest for the new map was accidentally disabled, so the first quest was not possible. This has been corrected.
2. AI's play of Geothe Amazons were supposed to be powerless but the part of the script was not generated by the script auto-generator. This has been corrected.
3. At the start of the campaign, Sarmatian army is made more powerful and with some power-units added. But will soon run out of money.
4. Sarmatian map has been changed and one more province has been added at the beginning of the campaign.
5. Sarmatian spy is now at more critical location.
6. Due to the new map, Sarmatian armies are re-distributed to allow the Sarmatians better concentration of their field forces.

Also for the future, we plan to add real Sarmatian names to the name roster, the current names are still shared Scythian and Sarmatian from 3.0.
As I have been working on the Sarmatian Amazon mod since 2005 with real Sarmatian names, CSB is going to incorporate that into the mod.

[Celestial shuttle buddy]

This is to add what Parthian Shot described on Sarmatian changes.

A new functionality is a Marian Reform component for all the pseudo-Amazon factions. Once the player's faction can recruit advanced units, their major regions can also recruit similar units if the region is almost ready to recruit the units.

Parthian Shot asked me to add this functionality, and I tried to test the new logic as much as I could, but we all know beforehand because the versatility of the new logic, we can not be one hundred percent sure if it is working.

So if you find any errors about this, please report them to Parthian Shot.

[parthian shot]

The OP has been updated with the latest download link, but the SI link is still 2 revisions old due to the issue with the picture inclusion problem.

[parthian shot]

- Celestial Shuttle Buddy has also finished re-balancing the Seleucid and Parthia factions.

Allowing both factions to have more elephant units at the start of the campaign.

There are also new locations to make the elephant resources available.

Seleucid is much stronger militarily, and it also retains the road system of the old Achaemenid empire.

- Western Celts is also re-configured, with more horde wagons units in the armies wondering in eastern Europe. On the British Isle, the strength has been reduced to minimize the cost of maintaining the military.

- The Celtic/Gaul/German "Prison Stripe Pant"s (Per Celestial Shuttle Buddy) have been swapped out for something more leathery and utilitarian. The Woad/Gestae warriors still retain their tatoos and color.

- German unit color has been adjusted to be all dark red. While Amazonia is bright red, and Armenian pinkish
red.

- Heavy Peltast units are re-textured and re-animated to be lighter and faster moving.

Whereas, Illyrian Mercenary and Greek Marines are in the same class, being lighter in class than hoplite, but slower moving than the heavy peltasts.

- Renegade Greek standards are re-done and since Celtic/Gaulic/German Prison Stripe Pants have been swapped out, their unit standards have been re-done as well to be more recognizable in the battlefield.

Once again, Amazon Total War deliberately turns off the artificial banners for the sake of realism, so the unit standard is very important for unit identification on the battlefield.

- Thermodon Amazon has a new captain for strat-map animation.

[parthian shot]

This is to update everyone that Uthril's recommended change to add titles to Amazon General (when a quest is accomplished) is done.

We will be testing the feature and if everything is OK, the feature will be included in the 7.0A release.

[parthian shot]

This is to announce that 7.0A The first post beta release is now available online, the OP has the URL link for the latest download.

[Celestial shuttle buddy]

Sorry, I was not able to check in the new Celtic and Sarmatian name roster with the test group.