Get your kicks with Beta 6!

[Quinn Inuit]

We've made enough changes by now that a patch is probably inappropriate, so there's a new full beta on the download page: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...lism-Downloads

Major upgrades this time:
I just spent the last two days normalizing every single infantry unit's defense skill. That should improve gameplay and AI army creation.
Sarmatia is now a Henry rather than a Genghis. That should get more heavy cavalry on the board from them.
Various map tweaks for better AI pathfinding.
Improved some of the AOR units around the Black Sea. It's now a little more in line with DBM.
Reorganized some unit skins and types to optimize DMB slot usage. It's not perfect yet, but I think it's a little better. This beta is also the first one to feature unit skins by GaivsSejanvs, so a big thanks to him!
We also did some general code cleanup.
Thanks to a suggestion from Gen.JamesWolfe, I also normalized infantry mass and reduced hoplite unit radius. I don't think the mass is quite where I want it yet, so as you play let me know what you think. My inclination is to double it across the board while leaving cavalry the same.

[romanius24]

Nice work! Always great to see RTW mods still alive and kicking.

[Quinn Inuit]

Nice work! Always great to see RTW mods still alive and kicking.

Thanks! Yeah, we're not quite dead yet.

[mathieu57700]

Hello lads,
glad to see that this amazing mod is still evolving, in progress.
I'm playing an epic pontic campaign (in beta 4) where in 150 bc i control all asia minor, most of all seleucid territories from mediterranean to their heartland (babylon), the ptolemaic land and the north of black sea shore and i'm now crossing aegian see to invade greece controlled by macedon.I've already attack them by crossing propontid. I have just a question about pontic units and reforms, why pontus doesn't have chalkispides (amazing unit isnt it?) and can pontus have thorakitai when they meet galatians instead of waiting having a bad encounter with romans? If you look at pontic thorakitai in EB it Says that this unit already exists (in few number) before pontus meets rome. However this mod is amazing and my pontic army consists of a solid line of freed slaves and macedonian settlers phalangites, covered in flanks by thorakitai and kardakes hoplites and behînd these first line pontic peltasts and some other auxilary (galatians, scythiàns, thureophoroi )and some archers. To complete my army composition pontic lancers with thorakismenoi or hippakontistai and scythed chariots. All of this cleverly lead by a great pontic general !!


Thanks for your coming responses and keep up the good work.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hello lads,
glad to see that this amazing mod is still evolving, in progress.
I'm playing an epic pontic campaign (in beta 4) where in 150 bc i control all asia minor, most of all seleucid territories from mediterranean to their heartland (babylon), the ptolemaic land and the north of black sea shore and i'm now crossing aegian see to invade greece controlled by macedon.I've already attack them by crossing propontid. I have just a question about pontic units and reforms, why pontus doesn't have chalkispides (amazing unit isnt it?) and can pontus have thorakitai when they meet galatians instead of waiting having a bad encounter with romans? If you look at pontic thorakitai in EB it Says that this unit already exists (in few number) before pontus meets rome. However this mod is amazing and my pontic army consists of a solid line of freed slaves and macedonian settlers phalangites, covered in flanks by thorakitai and kardakes hoplites and behînd these first line pontic peltasts and some other auxilary (galatians, scythiàns, thureophoroi )and some archers. To complete my army composition pontic lancers with thorakismenoi or hippakontistai and scythed chariots. All of this cleverly lead by a great pontic general !!


Thanks for your coming responses and keep up the good work.

You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

That's a great army. Very historically accurate. Don't forget to conquer the Cimmerian Bosporus and head a little westward from there, though. It's a good source of income that Pontus made use of IRL, and Mithradates got some serious use out of his Bastarnae mercenaries (who are accordingly quite good in-game). After a great deal of research, Carados and I managed to place them firmly in that area just north of Olbia at this time period, so that's where they start. That region is part of the barb superfaction, though, so they can expand westward like they did IRL if the AI is so inclined.


Regarding your questions:
I've read as many battle narratives from the Mithraditic Wars as I could find, and I didn't see any evidence of a "chalkaspides"-type Pontic unit. The only phalangites I could find were the freed slaves and what appeared to be veterans from Seleucid katoikiai in places like Phrygia and Lydia.

I respect EB's position, but we've tried to follow De Bellis Multitudinis unless we had good evidence to the contrary, and they don't give Ariararthid Kappadokia any heavy foot at all. The Pontic list proper only covers the Mithraditic (and immediately after) period, so I'm assuming they're lumping Kappadokia and Kappadokia Pontica together through 110 B.C. TBH, we had a serious debate about giving them any native heavy infantry at all, but finally came down in favor of some very expensive native hoplites based on both their proximity to Greek colonies and on the theory that Darius's late reforms might've stuck. Now, if you have any evidence that the local kingdoms used heavy infantry, that's a different matter. We just couldn't find any evidence for it ourselves.

[mathieu57700]

After looking for some narratives about pontic battles i've found all what you said. They're talking about brazen Shields phalangites for pontus. Except this detail i'm agree with you. I just started a pontic campaign in beta 6 and when i look at my treasury i see i gain 20 000 per turn with diplomacy and tributes. I have trade rights with factions and and regular tributes with some factions (just 100 per turn). Where does this money come from? And i have this bonus during some turns then nothing and it comes back.

[Marcus Quintilius]

Installed v6 on Linux, Ubuntu MATE 16.10 with standard WINE package from Software Boutique.

Observations:

• Install is a bit easier since we are no longer using the old 3.5.x patches!
• On Linux the .lnk launchers will not launch the mod correctly even with the modification flags (they will load the vanilla variants ok). The command required is: cd /home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/The\ Creative\ Assembly/Rome\ -\ Total\ War/
  wine RomeTW-BI.exe -show_err -nm -mod:ExRM
• A default preferences file needs to be included in the ExRM folder. Without one on a brand new install, my game screen was some 3000+ px wide; impossible to set with the in-game GUI. Setting all resolution items to 1920x1080 in the vanilla preferences to my monitor/tv size in the preferences.txt file and then copying that file into the same directory within the ExRM folder solved the HDMI scaling issue.
• Static splash screens (I contributed them in v4) need to be updated to reflect current versions. Sadly I do not have the working files for these any longer. Q and/or modders; contact me.
• Loading screens/progress bars are now syncing properly with audio and transitions. Wine updates since v4 update probably fixed this.
  
  Here is a simple bash script for Linux, just change your username in it to launch: RTR: ExRM.sh.zip

Will be investigating further...

[Marcus Quintilius]

Does Beta 6 require a new game only or can existing beta games (beta 4 or beta 5) be imported as normal? I imported a long-standing beta IV save and it worked just fine until two turns later in beta 6 and error crash. Is it mandatory to restart a new game with beta 6? I think so since I see some strange factions colors within my existing game territories that should not exist since I destroyed them years ago...

[ahowl11]

More than likely I would install from scratch if I were you.