Hyrule Total War: Classic Ultimate has been steadily updated for the past couple of months over at MODDB.com, I just didn't bother to post here - as is always the case you'd think a mod is finished until you play it and find things to fix or change!
Now I can say that the mod is 100% finished finally. I had planed one release and had polished it a lot thinking that was it - still I've had to update it five to six times since the release during the summer of 2019. Certain things needed fixing, and other things I just learnt how to implement and of course decided to implement into the mod.
Here is the final info even though I will probably create a final article on MODDB about the latest release later:
Original Hyrule Historia "General Rutela" found!
Thanks to TWC user "TheMercerus" i have just been able to download Hyrule: Total War Version 3.5 released in december 2013.
It included different loading screens, the original General Rutela with an un-glitched texture - and the Hyrule Historia Missions of the Ancient Arc (Sulkaris/Gohma VS Ancient Hylians, Ancient Hylians VS Darknut Legion and Ikana/Majora VS Ikana,) and the "Rise of Ganon" Arc (Ganon/Bongo/Moblins/Sheikah VS Hyrule/Sheikah and Hyrule/Zora VS Fairies, Gerudo and Sheikah.)
These missions had all their videos in HD resolution and working. Only the Twili missions are lost out of the old ones.
Ancient Age to be restored!
Thanks to TWC user "TheMercerus" i have just been able to download Hyrule: Total War Version 3.5 released in december 2013.
It included different loading screens, the original General Rutela with an un-glitched texture - and the Hyrule Historia Missions of the Ancient Arc (Sulkaris/Gohma VS Ancient Hylians, Ancient Hylians VS Darknut Legion and Ikana/Majora VS Ikana,) and the "Rise of Ganon" Arc (Ganon/Bongo/Moblins/Sheikah VS Hyrule/Sheikah and Hyrule/Zora VS Fairies, Gerudo and Sheikah.)
These missions had all their videos in HD resolution and working. Only the Twili missions are lost out of the old ones.
In order for certain missions to work again I will need to remove a few of the 4.6 units, and instead re-add the Moblin Kids, the Ikana Civilians and the Wind Tribe Civilians.
Also, I will most likely need to remove a few mounts for Hyrule Historia mounts needed for certain missions. I'm thinking of removing some of the added 4.6 units, and the first mount to be removed will be the horse in use by the Mounted Recruits. They'll use the Epona mount unique to malon instead.
Limit of mounts in Medieval 2 is 49.. So I will have no other option than to remove something, seeing as how i deleted the Hyrule Historia mounts thiking I would never get the actual missions.
I do have the Twili Missions, but they unlike all the other missions had been edited to work with 4.6 although unfinished. I have tried restoring the files but the missions won't start. They also will need the videos to be remade in .BIK-format. I could easily remake the videos in said format and add to the game.
Unfortunately i can't get the missions to start and will get forced back to the main menu. So the Twili missions will be included for anybody to try and fix the coding for them. All the other arcs of the Hyrule Historia will work perfectly.
The Rise of Ganon arc to be restored.
- 75 Loading Screens instead of the old 21 - Hyrule: Total War V 3.5 had a bunch of loading screens that I've re-implemented to this version.
Gerudo Wars Missions Package for V. 3.8 (Fixed 3 missions in 2020!)
I've re-uploaded the Gerudo Wars Add-On fixing three missions in it.
Also, the Hyrule Historia Edition of the sub-mod has been updated with these fixes just now.
Death Mountain Defence Hyrule Historia Mission Fixed!
Update: The "Gerudo Wars" Hyrule Historia Missions had three non-working or glitched missions - has been fixed!
Death Mountain Defence - Used the wrong Dodongo's cavern Custom Settlement, has been replaced with the correct Gor Forgaru Custom Settlement. King Farkos has been added as the general of the main Zora army as well as he were missing from the battlefield.
The "Agahnim's Descent" Hyrule Historia Mission has been fixed!
Update: The "Gerudo Wars" Hyrule Historia Missions had three non-working or glitched missions - has been fixed!
Agahnim's Descent - Used a vanilla Medieval2 settlement due to my mistake when i moved the HyrulePrimeFrame custom settlement in use by this mission, to the unused-folder- has been restored and is now working properly.
The Crime of Idols Hyrule Historia Mission has been fixed!
Update: The "Gerudo Wars" Hyrule Historia Missions had three non-working or glitched missions - has been fixed!
The Crime of Idols - Crashed the game when trying to start the misison, and this were due to a faulty Vaati_Wrath-entry. Has been corrected into the proper "Vaati Wrath" and is now working as intended. I've also added Vorday as the general of the Zuna army, and his model is from 4.6 as the original didn't have a Vorday-model.
Majora units have their old stats back!
- Majora Units have their old stats back, otherwise the Final Battle Mission in Majora Prime would be impossible.
Phantom Ganon spawns in the campaign! (All 4 of them)
I managed to add Phantom Ganon by replacing Mercenary Tsume - I've reached a hardcoded limit in the descr_scripts-file. I cannot add anymore heroes or the script will not work properly. So Phantom Ganon is Ganondorf on a horse, it's the boss-battle in the Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time. He has a "Mounted Marauders"-bodyguard. And he has the Skeletal Helmet. He will spawn one turn after the Gerudo conquers "Sacred_Forest_Meadow" - also known as the Forest Temple.
Ordinary Ganondorf will still spawn as usual in the campaign - but has a Vagrudanon bodyguard now as Neph originally intended - and also is without the helmet.
I've added the civilian animations to most militia units!
I've also added the civilian animations to all the militia units - units such as the Glaive Grunts, Town Guards, Acolytes, Kokiri Detachment, Pioneers, Conscripts, Majora Desciples, Moblin Civilians, Horon Civilians, Drafted, Raiders, Ordona Militiamen etc - they will patrol in settlements now.
The AI will use them as a normal unit. As the player you can place them somewhere in a city and they'll spread out from there if you let them be.
Ashinon Generals!
So, I did add the Ashinon Generals (the original bodyguard of Twinrova herself) as their own unit in the previous release that I thought were final. However, when I played the mod I ran into some issues and bugs and decided to fix these the best that I could - so I've been updating the mod yet again.
Actually I'd thought it would be a minor update with some fixing but I've spent the previous week working on the mod and playtesting all my awaken time. So you could say it's a lot of fixing, new gameplay and improvements to the mod overall.
Most of the time was playtesting but I've managed to beat quite a few annoying issues that I only found out existed after actually playing the game as certain factions - or against certain factions.
Arms of Deadhand!
Wallfloormasters!
Stalfos roster has been updated!
So I've added the "Wallfloormasters" as a new regular unit to the Stalfos in both the custom battles and in the campaign, and this unit is Undead Akazoo's bodyguard.
Also, the Stalfos did not have access to the mercenary Stalchilds, or the siege engines in most of the custom battle ERA:s. I've added these units to them in all the ERA:s.
Kovalians, Silent Stalkers, Silent Guards and Armos recruitable!
I've added the Kovalians, Silent Stalkers, Silent Guards and the merc Gibdos - in essence the units of the Goddesses of Hyrule, to the Gerudo, Hylians, Ordona, the Sheikah etc depending on the faction if they conquer the Sky City. They will only be available from the Sky City itself.
Most other factions get access to Death Mountain Armos or the Armos Beamos - if they conquer the Sky City - the Labrynna Regime will get Twili Armos, as will the River Zora - due thanks to their alliance with King Zant.
Alright, and the Oocca Walker Cannons and Oocca Commandants are also available for the Kingdom of Hyrule, the Sheikah, the Ordona Province and the Gerudo - the believers in the Goddesses - should they conquer the Sky City.
Ft_Olnacht and Meesiam custom settlements in battle have been fixed!
So the rebel Ikanian areas of Meesiam and Ft_Olnacht used a Twilight custom settlement in battle - it's been fixed into a proper cursed Kingdom of Ikana custom settlement.
If you attack these cities as the River Zora or anyone else now - you'd be fighting in an Ikanian settlement and not in a Twili one.
Malkariko Hylian generic custom settlement has a new plaza!
If you also got bored defending Malkariko, or it's actual custom settlement in use by the towns and cities of the said one, Naldoriko, Sorkariko and Audorn - then you might be pleased to hear that I've moved the plaza of this city to the actual castle.
It's a pure coincidence that this was done you see. During a battle I saw the AI move in Princess Zelda into the castle, and it has two doors on each side repsectively - so units could actually enter the castle and defend it from the inside with only two ways into the castle that were easily defended.
The issue had been that the settlement had no defensive positions, or working walls/rampants - so it would be easily lost - and the plaza was a big square outside of the castle that could easily be surrounded by enemy armies. I realized that the plaza needed to change or the enemy could just take the plaza outside the castle even if all the troops were inside of it.
Said and done - the plaza is now in the castle and defenders will defend the entrances on both sides respectively. It will be easier for a defender to hold these cities now, and harder for an invader to conquer them.
Mounted Recruits silver surfer horse for Majora fixed!
It would seem that the updated Epona-horse for the Mounted Recruits didn't have a correct line in the BMDB-file for the Church of Majora - causing a silver surfer horse to show up in battles. This has now been fixed!
Majora now has Assassins!
I've added an assassin agent to the Church of Majora - this is because they need religious levels for their recruitment of Majora Demons.
Unfortunately it's very annoying to kill enemy priests by surrounding them with nine units and then moving another one to their location - I decided to add assassins to them to make the killing of enemy priests easier.
Edit:
Deku Chanters are now only recruitable from Deku-lands - they could be recruited everywhere due to a mistake in the current release. Will upload a new version tonight.
The Oocca now has Assassins!
I've added an assassin agent to the Oocca - this is because they need religious levels for their recruitment of all of their units.
Unfortunately it's very annoying to kill enemy priests by surrounding them with nine units and then moving another one to their location - I decided to add assassins to them to make the killing of enemy priests easier.
The Oocca used to need 100 in their religion to recruit any unit, but this proved too much for the AI to handle as even one enemy priest in a region will cause the level of your religion to go down a few percent. I tried playing as the Oocca and it was impossible without having an easy way to deal with the enemy priests. And the assassin has been added to allow for the swift execution of the enemy's priests in your regions.
Also, for their basic armos unit they now only need 75 in religion, for their Oocca Emmissaries they do need 80, for the Oocca Scouts/Surveyors they now need 85, for the different units of the Goddesses they now need 90 and for their best units the Oocca Commandants, Walker Cannons and the Minish Golem - they now need 95.
The Oocca will be a better faction as the AI now and more of a challenge, while as the player you have a way of dealing with foreign priests.
Arms of Deadhand and Wallfloormasters added as new units to the Stalfos!
Arms of Deadhand and Wallfloormasters added as new units to the Stalfos recruitment in all of their regions.
Undead Akazoo finally added as his own general!
When I did change Undead Akazoo from an officer to an actual general I managed to mess up by adding "Alive Akazoo" or "General Akazoo" as the general model - this lead to a silver surfer alive Akazoo in battles.
I've since fixed this and Undead Akazoo now shows up as he should in the coming update!
All the giant heroes have ranged missiles or the Biggoron Punch!
I've added ranged missiles or the Biggoron Punch (a close-range missile attack) to all the giant heroes of the mod!
If a giant/elephant unit has no missile attack and has the text "no" in the primary weapon line then the game still thinks it can attack gates as elephants in Rome: Total War could indeed attack gates in melee - but this would always cause a CTD (crash to desktop) in Medieval 2: Total War: Kingdoms which is why Fi and Ghirahim would crash in battle if you had them selected and moved your cursor onto a wall/city/gate.
By adding the projectile in use by Vaati and Vaati Wrath, named Fi Projectile, I've solved this issue. Also, there were many heroes in the mod who had the "no pro"-projectile by Undying Nephalim - this projectile prevented the CTD but still made the units such as Ganon or Demise unable to attack gates. The issue then became that a battle would never end as Ganon or whoever had the "no pro"-projectile would just stand outside of the city doing nothing. The unit clearly couldn't fire, and defensive siege battles can only be won if the attacker is out of ammo - but he counted as having 1 or 2 in ammo - which he couldn't use against the gate. This issue forced the player to sally out to meet the enemy which wasn't intended.
I've added the Biggoron Punch, a short distance projectile in use by units like Biggoron, to solve this - so units like Biggoron and Demise will now be able to waste their ammo on a gate and the defender won't need to sally out anymore!
They can sometimes kick a gate open if they have enough ammo, the stats of the punch differs depending on the giant hero unit - I've kept their oridinary attack damage so they aren't as strong as Biggoron. Certain heroes got ranged projectiles instead - such as Dark Onox, Stallord, Dezaia, Ghirahim, Fi as I've mentioned and even Ganon. The projectiles are those seen in lore or in Neph's Hyrule Historia mission videos.
This means that the giant generals work better now.
Campaign heroes spawn for the AI now!
There was an issue in the mod that I didn't know about which caused the AI to never get the later heroes of the campaign, so the AI would get the heroes that counts as starting heroes - but it wouldn't get any of the later ones. This I found out by watching about two campaigns and replaying many times certain parts of the campaign. In essence the Kingdom of Hyrule never got the "Great Sea"-units that are supposed to arrive at turn 151 when Tetralyna Zelda Nohansen 5 spawns. But she didn't spawn and as such the event never triggered which meant no Great Sea-units for the AI - but as the player it worked fine.
I had a look at the descr_script-files (four, one per campaign) and it would seem that the reason was that the text "and not IsFactionAIControlled" - so I did remove this line from every entry with the exception of Agitha (because she is now a starting hero) and Voice of Odolwa (cause he is lacking his event text which caused a gamebreaking CTD) and now the heroes do spawn for the AI as well.
When you play as for example the Kingdom of Hyrule, then you'll get a welcome message welcoming you the player as the new leader of the Kingdom of Hyrule - and you'd also get a warning that the Tokay is about to conquer the known world. At the second turn you'll be getting all the other welcome-messages for every other main faction of the mod - because removing that line caused this side-effect. Just exit these unless you wanna read them as they will only show on the second turn, and remember that the event-messages in the Freeform Campaign will also show during this turn - you might miss out on them if you click "Esc" to get rid of the welcome-messages. I do believe that Neph had planned to add the AI spawns for the heroes as their own separate entries, and this is possible - but not in this submod as I've reached the limit of the descr_scripts-file. As such I've had no choice but to do it this way - so you'll be getting welcome messages for AI heroes when they spawn.
King Zant Invasion script flawed - 3 armies invade now!
I've found out during my playtesting that the King Zant invasion happens no matter if you spare his forces or not - the only difference is that if you condemn his forces then he won't be able to recruit the Midna-troops.
I tried to solve this issue as I did really want an optional invasion, but I failed in this and had to give up - instead I opted to remove the armies of Olg, Argorok the Dragon and that of Dark Onox - so you'll be facing three armies instead of six under King Zant, Lady Middee and the generic general - while Olg, Argorok and Dark Onox spawn alone as giant generals only.
As the player you can easily kill the giant generals in a real-time-battle - even though they will land a punch on any army attacking them. And the three remaining armies are two Zant-oriented armies and one Midna-oriented one - the armies with lots of CTD-friendly units like the Shadow Bloats were the ones deleted.
Originally I had wanted the option to either have an invasion, or not - giving Labrynna a chance against six armies. But when this didn't work I had no choice but to remove three out of the six armies. Now Labrynna can stand a chance if they spawn early.
- Fixed event movies!
EDIT 2020-10-19 - If you did download the campaign videos (intro, death, defeat and win) then only the intro videos would play when starting a campaign, this has now been fixed and required the line event_movies = 1 in the .cfg-file of the Hyrule-folder - now when you win the campaign, are destroyed or when you are defeated because you didn't reach the goals before turn 179 - then you will have videos playing.
- Defeat and death videos are the same for the factions, and the death-videos will only play for the faction you the player are currently playing. Certain factions like the Twili and the River Zora can never be destroyed or die - but they can still lose the game by failing to reach the goals in time.
If you fail to achieve the goals within the time-limit then the campaign is technically lost and you will have the defeat-video play - but you'll still be able to continue the campaign and you can then turn defeat into victory by winning the campaign and achieving the victory conditions - unless another faction manages to do this first.
If your faction is destroyed the video will also play - but not if the AI-controlled factions are destroyed. This was disappointing but the videos will only play for the players faction.
If you achieve the victory conditions and win the game the videos will play - and I believe they will play when the AI wins as well but for the AI faction their videos will play. This is not certain though.
And that's it- the submod is completed.