Mod Media

[General George S. Patton]

This is where we will post all official mod media

Please also use this thread to post all of your videos and screenshots of the mod. Remember to always use spoilers (any posts that have pictures not in spoilers will be deleted).

Preview Videos - v.6

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[bobbyr]

Congrats to the whole team regarding the new Roman Shield Pattern, they look absolutely stunning and the new model for the Scutum is spot on from a historical pov, it's probably the most realistic I have seen in any computer game.

Battle mechanics look good too, I liked the battle you've fought General - it had a nice dynamic. Of course, battles will only get better given the fact that this is V 0.6 so I think we as fans/players don't need to worry about battle mechanics in this mod, which is no less than I expected (they were excellent in Magnar Mod too).

One thing that looks to be rather out of place now though (it's not a critique, just an observation ) is the vanilla armour. It's just ugly and unrealistic imo especially in combination with the glorious new shields and helmet decorations.
There are many skins around for various pectoral armour, loricae hamatae etc. maybe you could get one or two of them and incorporate them into the mod - or just do your own ones.

Also from a historical standpoint - (I know, there are endless discussions about it and with a lack of evidence from that period nobody is really right or wrong) - I would represent early Roman troops like this:

Camillian Principes: Probably used to be the frontline during the Camillian Period, beeing a kind of crossover from the late hoplite/phalanx units and the more flexible maniple units from the Samnite Wars. Armed with a Roman Scutum and a Hasta Spear. Armour should be a mixture of pectoral plates, lorica hamata and linothorax. Greaves on the left leg for most men. Secondary weapon should be a sword, but not the Gladius Hispaniensis (it wasn't 'discovered' yet).

Camillian astati: A controversial one, some say they fought with swords as primary weapons during this time, some say they still used the Hasta Spear as their primary weapon and didn't fight with swords primarily until after the First Punic War. I tend to agree with the second oppinion, I think it makes more sense, both historically and from a military pov. If we agree that the Principes fought as the first line during this time, as kind of a modernized and revised version of the late Roman Phalanx, it only makes sense, that the Hastati still formed the second line while using the weapon which their name originates from, the Hasta Spear. Also from a military pov it makes sense that the Romani 'discovered' the Gladius Hispaniensis during the First Punic War, fighting Iberian Mercenaries in Carthages Army. Armament should be: Roman Scutum and the Hasta Spear. Greaves only for about half the unit, armour should be pectoral protectors for most men, linothorax for very few and bare tunics for a recognizable number of soldiers.

Camillian Triarii: Used to be full greek during this peroid, basically an italic/greek hoplite unit, nothing more, nothing less. Spot on in the mod, maybe think about more 'colourful' shield patterns as the greeks and their descendents (aka most of the italic tribes) really loved colorful motives on their hoplon.

Leves: Are good as they are.

Accensi: Probably integrate them into the mod as an additional skirmishing unit for the Romans. Historically most, if not all of them seem to have used slings as their weapon and they were a reserve unit, made up of the poorest class.



Polybian Hastati: Now primarily armed with the Gladius Hispaniensis, forming the front line in battle (taking over from the Principes). A tactical evolvement of the samnite and especially the First Punic War. Most of them would be wearing greaves on their left leg, a complete mixture of armour, some wearing bare tunics, some wearing pectoracl discs, some wearing larger pectoral protectors in the 'Samnite style', some even wearing lorica hamata.

Polybian Principes: They used to be the second line now, becoming somewhat the core of the army and the origin of the later professional legionaries used by Gaius Marius, Sulla, Gaius Iulius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Armed with a Roman Scutum and the Gladius Hispaniensis. Almost all men should be wearing greaves on their left leg, very few even on both legs. Most of them used the lorica hamata, some might have used cheaper pectoral protectors (maybe newly 'promoted' Hastati).

Polybian Triarii: Still using the spear as their primary weapon, the rest of their battle gear has changed completely though. Now using the Roman Scutum and Lorica Hamata, all of them wearing greaves on both legs, some still using 'greek inspired helmets'.

Velites: Light infantry/skirmishers. I've read about a good number of discussions about their true purpose. Most claim they were skirmishers, but in recent times some claim they weren't skirmishers in the classic sense, but more of a light infantry, skirmishing at the beginning of a battle and then proving their worth by joining the Hastati in melee. Personally I think this was dependent on the Praetor/Consul leading the army and his 'values'. Some might have challenged them to prove their bravery in melee, others might have used them as skirmishers only. I would represent them with light javelins (hastae velitares) as skirmishers, wearing simple tunics, most of them undyed (because it was cheaper), using the small round shield and most of them wearing the wolf skin on top of their helmets to identify them in battle. Their secondary weapon was a short gladius, probably of the Hispaniensis type. Almost all of them wore no armour at all (apart from the helmet of course), some probably picked up pectoral protectors from fallen Hastati and kept them.

That's my two cents guys and how I would depict the early Roman troops to represent them as accurate as possible. Of course, it's very subjective, but I think it makes sense. Also, I'm not demanding anything, this is just an oppinion I provide. I'm very well aware that this is 100% your mod and only you decide what is depicted in which way. I'm loving the mod as it is and I'm sure I'll continue to love it in the future. But regardless of my comment, please upgrade roman armour, the vanilla pieces are just ugly, typical CA stuff, technically correct but lacking any sort of 'love'

[Kaziel]

Nice work on the early scutum mesh

Emblem/Patterns need improvement though. Are you guys using CA's system of masks
or painting straight onto the diffuse files?

[Magnar]

@bobby, Firstly, thank you for your write up on the early Roman army. You will find that what you have outlined is very similar to what we have created. A few minor differences I have outlined below and our reasons for those differences. Our rosters are always open to change based on new information and many of them are not 100% complete, the Romans included. Future updates will see further refinement of our Roman roster as well as many other rosters currently released.

re: hamata, we are using about 15 various hamata textures from Hloeric, Kaziel and some other mods as well as the vanilla hamata. I dont see any evidence for giving Romans linothorax especially considering the debate as to whether it even existed at all. We know from Polybius that they used bronze pectorals and the very wealthy had hamata. The pectorals however are only rectangular as circular pectorals were not really used by 272bc anymore, though a few hundred years earlier they were used in Italy.

re: Camillian Principes, yes thats correct, they were the front line of the formation and we have them with hasta and a side arm (which they never use due to glitchy animations)

re:Camillian Hastati, There is records of the romans using pointed stabbing swords prior to their adoption of the Gladius Hispaniensis. Unfortunately i've forgotten which writer and which book its from. It's a passage which describes a battle with Italian Celts and compares the slashing purpose of Celtic swords vs the stabbing nature of Roman swords.

re: Camillia Triarii, yeah some nice italic hoplon shield patterns would be great to get in. They were not added for this release because I was doing all the Roman shield patterns as well as ... way too much other stuff for the mod so left the Triarii patterns as is for now so we could meet our release date target. If we get some 2D artists to join then that is something we would definitely want to add.

Polybian units: The type of unit is not directly linked to unit wealth but rather unit experience / age which indirectly correlates with wealth. Therefore the more experienced the troop, the greater % of hamta/greave/2 greaves on the units though all units will have these pieces to some degree or other.

Polybian Hastati: The 'Polybian' era resulted in both the reduced wealth requirement for military service and partial state subsidy for military equipment. The Hastati were still well off enough to afford the most basic of panalopy including a pectoral. We have a mix of 1 greave, 2 greave and no greaves on these units as well as hamata and pectorals as a minimum.

Triarii: There is nothing to suggest that they are completely in lorica hamata. They share the same equipment as the hastati and principes but that due to be older and more experienced would on average have more wealth and therefore be able to afford better equipment on average but not every single man. A triarii with the minimum 3000 Denarii (or is it Drachmae/Asses?) would not be able to afford hamata though he may have served in enough campaigns to warrant a place in the Triarii.

Veletes: As a light unit, picking up armour would be fairly low on your list of things to do on the battlefield as it would slow you down.

All in all your description of the early Roman army is very similar to the way we have created it with only a few small differences, the reasons for which I have posted above.

[bobbyr]

Thanks for the asnwer Magnar, your depiction makes complete sense.
It's basically like I wrote in my original post: There are no complete right or wrongs for this early period (Camillian era). There is some evidence, but all in all very few compared to the later periods of Polybios and especially Caesar onwards.

We mostly have to follow by what makes sense, your depiction makes sense so I'm 100% happy with it

Regarding textures, the stuff you guys did for the shields is 2-3 classes above the vanilla stuff, that's why it's a bit irritating to spot vanilla textures in between, they look rather out of place now.

Good to hear you plan to retexture the Camillian Triarii shields sometime in the future.

I think the most important features are campaign features, battle mechanics, campaign AI, historical accuracy, visual appearance - in that order.

Magnar Mod was great in all of those categories and probably the best for this game in the first three categories.

BTW: Is there actually a log where it is documented which modules come from which mod, to be precise which things in Vae Victis will be from Magnar Mod and which will be from Imperium Aquilarum?

Cheers

[Magnar]

Thanks for the asnwer Magnar, your depiction makes complete sense.
It's basically like I wrote in my original post: There are no complete right or wrongs for this early period (Camillian era). There is some evidence, but all in all very few compared to the later periods of Polybios and especially Caesar onwards.

We mostly have to follow by what makes sense, your depiction makes sense so I'm 100% happy with it

Regarding textures, the stuff you guys did for the shields is 2-3 classes above the vanilla stuff, that's why it's a bit irritating to spot vanilla textures in between, they look rather out of place now.

Good to hear you plan to retexture the Camillian Triarii shields sometime in the future.

I think the most important features are campaign features, battle mechanics, campaign AI, historical accuracy, visual appearance - in that order.

Magnar Mod was great in all of those categories and probably the best for this game in the first three categories.

BTW: Is there actually a log where it is documented which modules come from which mod, to be precise which things in Vae Victis will be from Magnar Mod and which will be from Imperium Aquilarum?

Cheers

There is no log of what each team has contributed but roughly speaking, IA or members that were formerly part of IA contributed to the Roman units, a lot of the new models, some spacings stuff, a vfx pack and some other things I can't remember.

As both mods shared the same vision prior to the merger, we've not had to compromise on our goals at all. We are still striving for extreme realism and historical accuracy as well as the most in depth experience both on the battlefield and in campaign mode.

[Lannes1]

I noticed that people are writing and saying 'Camillian' instead of 'CAMILLAN'. The latter is correct. Furius Camillus was the man who introduced the reforms, I believe.

[Roach]

Yup, Marcus Furius Camillus was the man and he would be furious if he knew that people aren't spelling his legacy right. It was during his exile that the Gauls led by Brennus sacked Rome and it was after he returned and was made dictator that the negotiations were made in which in Brennus uttering the fateful words: "Vae Victis"

[Magnar]

I noticed that people are writing and saying 'Camillian' instead of 'CAMILLAN'. The latter is correct. Furius Camillus was the man who introduced the reforms, I believe.

You are absolutely correct. I didn't even notice I was doing it.

I'll fix all the text for the Camillan units in the first hotfix after release.

Thanks for pointing it out

[General George S. Patton]

Updated with a new video talking about the battle mechanics.

[General George S. Patton]

Another video showing the romans fighting some barbarians with some nice graphics

[General George S. Patton]

Launch Trailer (more like a show off shield patterns trailer, but oh well )

[Legatus21]

Excellent trailer general !!! Can't w8 to get my hands on this

[Magnar]

No need to wait, the non steam version is up on sourceforge already

Link is in the downloads thread.

[General George S. Patton]

Check out this amazing new cinematic by the wolfman and kaissa88

[The Wolfman]

our pleasure, George!

[MattyCakes]

Installed another mod after testing a campaign of VV. Saw video. Re-installed. Talk about getting you pumped!

[General George S. Patton]

Installed another mod after testing a campaign of VV. Saw video. Re-installed. Talk about getting you pumped!

Nice lol, remember you don't have to reinstall each time, just activate/deactivate

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[General George S. Patton]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Nice screens, thanks for sharing!!!

PS, please remember spoilers otherwise some internet connections have heart attacks xD