EB 0.8 Roman GUI Released

**Teleklos Archelaou** · September 01, 2006, 10:20 AM

Greetings Europa Barbarorum fans. Today we have something a little different. A download for you to enjoy!

While EB 0.8 is still in development, and while we have been and still will be releasing previews of 0.8, we decided to give you more of a taste of it that you can actually put into 0.74 and play with: the 0.8 Roman culture GUI (Graphical User Interface) for EB.

In EB 0.8 the Romani will have their own culture group. They will also have their own GUI for their culture group. The Roman GUI is visible below in screenshots and is based on Roman wall paintings for the most part. Now here is the catch: in 0.74 the Romans share a culture with the Western Greeks. So if you are playing as Makedonia, the Koinon Hellenon, or Epeiros, you might not want to download this immediately, because if you do you would wind up playing as a Greek faction with this Roman interface. But if you are playing as the Romani, you can try out our new GUI for them and it will seem appropriate.

The GUI is still a work in progress, but it's pretty close to being completed. It is also quite different in its look and style from the 0.74 build's GUI for this culture group, so it could be a bit of a shock for you. But it is easy to install and uninstall, so you can try it out or put the Greek one back if you like. And you can see the screenshots here, so if in viewing them it looks like something you won't like, then just don't download it.

Europa Barbarorum 0.8 Roman Culture GUI

General Strat/Campaign Map View (my build has Prom's Res Gestae cities in it - so ignore those in the screenshot)

Strat/Campaign Map View of Construction Menu

Diplomatic View on Strat/Campaign Map

Strat/Campaign Map View of Announcement Messages

Battle Map View (my build also has Prom's Res Gestae grass currently, so ignore that)

Instructions (probably more complicated than they need to be - this can be boiled down to a single drag and drop step if you don't want to back up your old GUI, but I warned you to back it up first!):

1. Download the ROMAN08GUI.rar file onto your desktop. Download it here: ftp://europabarbarorum.org/ROMAN08GUI.rar (about 3 megabytes in size)
2. Open up the Program Files\Activision\Rome Total War\data\UI\Greek\ directory (on your hard-drive).
3. There will be a file there called INTERFACE. Rename it INTERFACE_Greek and then leave it alone as a backup.
3b (optional). Rename your advisor portraits too if you want to back them up, but they are in the general GREEK folder, not the GREEK\INTERFACE folder, so you'll need to "back up" one folder first to do that.
4. Open the ROMAN08GUI.rar file and inside it you will find a folder that is called GREEK. When you open that folder up, you will find three things: the INTERFACE folder and the two advisor portraits. Drag those three things into your build's data\UI\Greek\ directory and then drop it there. If you didn't choose to rename your old Greek interface files or back them up, then it will ask you if you wish to replace the current ones. Say yes if you want to install these new ones.
5. That is it. Start EB back up again and you should have the new GUI there for that culture group.
6. If you want to switch back, just rename the current INTERFACE folder (the one with the Roman GUI) INTERFACE_Roman and take your INTERFACE_Greek folder and rename it just plain old INTERFACE again and you should go back to your old one then.

Any advice about these steps would be appreciated, but we've tested it on a couple of pre 1.5 builds and it seems to work well on them. Enjoy this little bit of 0.8 now, and we hope to have good news about 0.8 development before much longer too (though I'm not saying you should expect the actual release, just hopefully more progress announcements, and maybe even another mini-preview too).

edit: Possible future (minor) changes:
-Advisor's shoulders poke out from behind the circle
-Battlemap "kill ratio bar" needs a darker bar behind it to contrast it better (reds bleed over)
-Left and right selection buttons (to different cities or generals) need more contrasting edges
-Mini-advisor button needs to match big advisor
-Faction icons/buttons may need filtering to match GUI (may leave them as-is though)
-Battlemap middle panel has one pixel tall "bar" on top that is only visible on half the panel
-Battlemap map may look better with a border
-Battlemap timer probably will have colors removed

As always, if you have questions or comments, the best place to post them is here, where the EB team is most active:

Europa Barbarorum ORG forum

Europa Barbarorum TWC forum

We give special thanks to Imageshack that provides us with a simple, foolproof, and free way to show you all these pictures each week.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

The Europa Barbarorum team.

**tco** · September 01, 2006, 10:40 AM

Cool, I mostly play as Romani anyways. So I will give it a try.

**Zenith Darksea** · September 01, 2006, 12:12 PM

Ah, so Canusium has been replaced by Arpi, has it?

**Teleklos Archelaou** · September 01, 2006, 12:17 PM

Well, as for the map we have a few other map tweaks we are making now, but nothing huge. Some variant language spelling changes, a switch from Nikomedia to Nikaia in Bithynia, the Blemmyes province has been moved to the coast and will be Ptolemais Theron. Those are the only big ones. But yes, the city for that province is Arpi in our current version.

**Elminster** · September 01, 2006, 12:25 PM

Looks great. I'll definitely download this later and start playing that Roman campaign I have now. Great work EB team!

**Zenith Darksea** · September 01, 2006, 12:26 PM

Nikaia is an interesting choice, though I think that ultimately I agree with it. If I'm right, Nikomedia wasn't of any significant until rather later, was it?

**Elminster** · September 01, 2006, 07:23 PM

I must say...I've played with the Roman GUI, and it looks great! Can't wait for the EB music, it's gonna be a great atmosphere. On an unrelated note....the Iberians are doing great in my campaign(but the Carthaginians lost one of their cities there and actually landed troops there and took it back!), Armenia and Pahlava are at war with the Seleukids, the Yuezhi have 4 provinces and Baktria expanded into India. And it's only 248 or so. Must be something in the drinking water that's making the AI frisky...

**The Border Reiver** · September 01, 2006, 10:41 PM

GUI looks great in game guys.

Quite a while ago I read a topic saying that the Greek faces will be replaced by Roman ones again in 0.8, is this still the case, as i can't bear playing as Rome and seeing Greek faces?

**Teleklos Archelaou** · September 02, 2006, 11:42 AM

Good catch Border Reiver. We hadn't deleted our old greek portait set yet from the roman UI folder (leftover from 074, when the "roman" culture needed them) - but it's a piece of cake to do. Thanks for reminding us - we just had gotten used to the greek ones and forgot them!

**The Border Reiver** · September 03, 2006, 10:44 PM

Hi Teleklos

good to hear, what I've done in the interum is basically taken the roman portraits folder from pack 1 and added it to the UI folder in the data folder. Basically I get a mix of Roman and Greek faces.....bring on 0.8.

**Slim_Madness** · September 04, 2006, 02:42 PM

Hi EB Team! I don`t mean to be rude here now..but.. U need to speed this mod up a bit if anyone is going to play it. I mean MTW2 is out soon then RTW is history. MTW2 release date around Nov 14 here in Europa. I`m a big fan of this great mod! EB Team u r doing a GREAT work! Have a nice day all!

**Foot** · September 04, 2006, 03:05 PM

Slim, if you are a great fan then I see no reason why you would stop playing EB once MTW2 is released. Please understand that we are working as fast as we can. The only way we can work harder is for more people to offer their services in completing it.

Foot

**Teleklos Archelaou** · September 04, 2006, 03:07 PM

Sorry Slim, but it does come across as rude. We are working as hard as we can on it, but one or possibly two big things are holding us all up. There are some things only a few of us can do, so the rest of us have to just try to pour more content in (I've been writing almost every night this past week new special text messages), though honestly some people are just sitting on their hands and waiting for the update - I can't fault them much, but it ain't my style. We are even more impatient than you are to get the new updates internally, so we don't need to be reminded that more and more time passes.

**Slim_Madness** · September 05, 2006, 03:00 PM

I`m sorry EB Team (Teleklos). Didn`t mean to upset u all

.. Keep up the good work because this mod is going to be the greatest of them all out there!

**Leão magno** · September 05, 2006, 06:11 PM

Good Work... keep it up

**TigerSS** · September 09, 2006, 05:44 PM

When released 0.8 ??

**Marcus Aurelius Antoninus** · September 10, 2006, 09:04 PM

Hi everyone, I am making a hybrid RTR and EB mod and I just downloaded the Roman GUI. Have got it working on the strat map, but have been unable to make it work on the battle map and, as a result have been using minimal GUI. Is there something I can do to make the GUI work with an install of RTW Platinum Edition?

P.S. The mod is for personal use.

**King_Azzole** · October 29, 2006, 11:22 AM

Is it possible to install this with RTR? Do I simply drop it in the Roman folder instead of the Greek? Will that work?

**Lusted** · October 29, 2006, 11:25 AM

No. The roman interface files are packed. The reason it works for the greek file is because that the greek culture in RTw does not have its own interface, and so defaults to the roman one, but if you put one in the UI folder it uses that.