Impressive units and UI modding!
Impressive units and UI modding!
I was suddenly inspired to work on the Papal States, whose roster is kind of a blanket of the various Italian republics since obviously there's only one Italian faction in the mod. Just as the other European unique professional units have faction-specific 15th century headgear, the Papal soldiers will wear barbutes.
Just like Milan in vanilla, they'll generally dominate skirmish battles with their Genoese crossbowmen due to their good missile attack and high defence, but there's more to the faction than just that; they have very solid infantry choices as well as a few unique cavalry units, though cavalry isn't exactly meant to be a strength of theirs and their non-crossbow missile options are subpar. Campaign-wise, I finally enabled the player to call crusades if they are playing as the Papal States (vanilla and most mods don't allow this since the Papacy wasn't meant to be playable), and while there isn't much to do in Europe once Italy is conquered, the Papacy will be in one of the better positions to muck about in the Middle East due to their geographical location and the fact that they probably won't get backstabbed by any of their Catholic neighbours as often.
There's "only" three Catholic factions left now: Portugal (will be a clone of Castile with one or two unique units), Poland, and Denmark.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Last edited by Metal.Pigeon; August 17, 2019 at 05:47 PM. Reason: New units: Fanti da Mar & Bande Nere
I like it! Will all the unit cards be there when the submod comes?
Eventually, yes. For early releases, probably not; using placeholder vanilla icons will be quicker and should be good enough for unit identification. Plus, all I really know in terms of modding is editing models, textures, and text files.
Unless you're volunteering to make them, in which case I would be very grateful and that would speed things up quite a bit.
Hey everyone, it's been a while. I've decided to put together a beta release for this mod, even though there's still a lot of work to do, as you'll likely be able to tell from the fact that only a third of the factions are complete.
So what will you be able to do? Custom and multiplayer battles are fully functional using the units and factions that I've left unlocked, although balance is still a work in progress. The campaign won't crash immediately upon starting it, but it is most certainly not in any real playable state. I'm hoping to accomplish two things with this release: 1.) to get some feedback on the unit rosters and 2.) to have some battle map playtesting so when the final release does come, it'll be reasonably balanced. Do note that everything is subject to change; not all the rosters are 100% complete (the Mongol roster is currently lacking Chinese and Middle Eastern units, for instance) and there are a few placeholder models and unit names. The unit cards are also definitely a work in progress.
Here's a small list of what to expect:
Here's a download link. To install, just download, unzip, and place it into "Medieval II Total War\mods". Just a heads up; it's a big download because I didn't optimize it by deleting all the unused files yet. Still, I hope you enjoy what's done so far. If you have suggestions or questions, the best way to contact me is probably through Discord because I have it on my phone and can respond a lot quicker.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
If you don't mind me, I'm going to disappear for another month.
Last edited by Metal.Pigeon; September 09, 2019 at 01:42 PM. Reason: Added "Known Issues" section
So the team may have the release done by the beginning of October at the earliest? Just curious!?
Attempted to play with the Dai Viet roster; crashes.
Last few lines of the log
21:20:57.930 [system.io] [warning] open: data/descr_oil_effect.txt is missing
21:20:57.930 [system.io] [warning] open: data/descr_fire_texture_list.txt is missing
21:20:58.359 [system.io] [warning] open: data/textures/#al_outline.tga.dds is missing
21:21:00.998 [system.io] [warning] open: data/unit_models/_Units/song/viet_highlander_lod0.mesh is missing
21:21:00.998 [system.rpt] [error] Uh oh. This isn't good. No idea why, but exiting now. Sorry pal.
Bayonets for FoTS: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=538081
@sullivanclan1: October of this year, probably not. But I have a LOT more free time now than I used to, so I would say a 2020 release is likely.
@IGdood: Oops, that's the Nguoi Thuong unit that's making it crash; it's the one Viet unit model that I didn't make yet and I forgot to disable it before zipping up (I was going to wait for AUH permissions and model them off the Khmers). There's also the French Garde Ecossaise unit that has a placeholder model, and I don't actually remember if I finished the Aventuriers unit or not...everything else should work, though.
I'm modding using a Steam copy of the game, so rest assured that it will work with Steam. I probably should've mentioned that this is a standalone download rather than something to be added on top of a pre-existing Falcom download (one of the download links seems broken which is why I decided to make it a standalone download), but I'll walk through it here:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That is why I am waiting for the submod to come out before I play this mod again. It gave me too many problems.
The campaign isn't functional yet, sadly. Only late-period custom battles are stable (apparently early and high periods as Japan are having some issues, so I'm looking into it and will have it fixed for the next build; there's no way to avoid crashes when you select all periods though because of hardcoded MTW2 limits).
The campaign will get pretty much a complete overhaul (new map, settlements, factions, start/end dates, etc.) but none of it has been implemented yet since it's still a WiP. It's being worked on by other people while I focus on the models, so this won't really slow down development. In fact, it'll speed it up since I won't have to worry about the campaign myself and making models takes so long anyway.
We're making every effort to stabilize this mod, hence why so much is being reworked from scratch. Unfortunately, that's also one of the reasons it'll take a while before it's fully playable. I am cutting some corners from my original plans though to speed things up for an initial full release; there's some extra units, models, etc. that can be added later.
Last edited by Metal.Pigeon; September 13, 2019 at 03:21 PM.
One of my team members uses a Steam version and had this to say:
"First, I took the medieval2 file, copied it to my desktop and renamed it to "kingdoms." I placed this renamed copy in my medieval 2 folder (This is to get mods to work). I took the british_isles campaign that comes in this mod folder (ORoE) and replaced the original british_isles folder that comes with M2's standard mod folder. Lastly, I launch the game through steam, it will bring up a list of editions of the game, and I click off the Britannia Campaign. This launches the mod."
I'm not sure if Falcom is still compatible with Steam, since I downloaded it before we got the Definitive Edition update. That update is why newer owners have to do some finnicky things to get mods to work. I'm a veteran Steam owner, so I don't think I have the same issues.
EDIT: To make up for the fact that I made 6 posts in a row without any peeks at progress being made, here's a preview of the Ayyubid Caliphate. Their roster will be geared more towards infantry and heavy cavalry than other Middle Eastern factions. I'm all up for name suggestions since I don't speak Arabic.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Last edited by Metal.Pigeon; September 19, 2019 at 09:52 AM.
Any news or previews about this mod ?
Sorry for the long hiatus; I've actually not done much for this mod as of late aside from deleting unused files. Here's the new Japanese captain model to prove that it isn't dead:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
OWA MEN AH RUNNING FROM DA BATTLEFIELD
A SHAMEFUR DISPRAY!
Bayonets for FoTS: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=538081
Yikes, it's been a while. While the Chinese faction isn't quite finished yet, all their Song-era models are done. The Chinese have the largest roster of the East Asian factions and solid infantry and missile options, but have lackluster cavalry. Here's a small preview.
Thanks to againster and the Shaoding team for being generous with their assets.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Last edited by Metal.Pigeon; December 28, 2019 at 06:26 PM. Reason: Added pictures