A new map and a new SPQR experience

[ovidiu]

Salve !
Hello everyone,


After more than half a year of hard work, it is finally ready.

This project started because:

- firstly, I am an huge fan of SPQR and basically this mode is the only one I play, when I play RTW;

- secondly, I always felt that SPQR 9.0 is not so well refined as it should have.


To detail the changes better, I will put them in two categories:

1. Visuals

A couple of them you can find in this tread https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...e-campaign-map

The others down bellow:

a. A complete removal of all the water triangles, on the shores, on the entire map (I may have missed a few).

b. Removed a glitch with the disappearing shores that I have encountered.

before

after


c. The edge ...

before

after


d. Reworked the Peloponnesus region.

before

after


e. Reworked the Carpathian mountains region.

before

after


before

after



And many other changes here and there that I hope you will discover for yourself.



2. Campaign map

The new map is an enhanced version of the SPQR 9.0 old map.

The map has 32 new regions.

The other mainly visual, but not exclusively visual changes to the map are:

- renaming of some regions and towns;

- replacing of some towns;

- redrawing of some regions and borders;

- redrawing of some river courses;

- reworking of resources, this includes adding, removing and replacing of resources on the map.

The other changes that I made are:

- corrected the victory conditions and triggers (it is now displayed correctly under the faction summary window button and it will trigger);

- a new map in the background on the select faction menu (at the beginning of the imperial campaign);

- the UI will show now all the buildings under the "show building browser" button;

- the buildings are not all roman anymore (the already build buildings in the towns, from the beginning of the game);

- reworked all the temples (the bonusses are now, as much as possible, in accordance with the description of the temple);

- the temples will give bonuses only to the faction which built them, except the roman temple of Jupiter. For example if one faction will worship the god Ares in one particular town and if that town will be conquered by another faction who worships completely different gods, it will not receive any bonuses, which makes sense;

- brought back the temple of Athena for the greek_cities, and added slightly better bonuses for the city of Athens if the temple is built there;

- repositioned a lot of ports for better trade routes;

- created some land bridges between Scandinavian lands and the main land Europe, because the faction Germania is deprived of the ability to build ships, it can not move troops between the two landmasses and in late game it has the tendency to mass troops in Scandinavia and leave main land Europe not so well defended;

- all the factions are now aggressive, no more passive nations except romans_senate. Using hidden resources and some modifications in the export_descr_buildings file I managed to achieve something interesting (a different approach on the super factions fix, but not entirely a fix). I created for each faction (except the romans faction) an realm, if the AI conquers new regions outside of this realm it will receive a lot of negative bonuses in the new regions and that will always lead to riots and rebellion. So... like this all the factions will be aggressive but they can not become superpowers. Some regions are FREE_FOR_ALL. For this playing with the 4turns/year script (SPQR script) is mandatory. This effect will be greater between factions with different cultures and/or if you will play the game (campaign map difficulty) on H/VH settings. On H/VH population boom bonus will be smaller;

- every region has now recruitable mercenaries, I also changed the recruitment pools (playing on H or VH campaign map difficulty will make the AI recruit mercenaries);

- new rebel factions names and new rebel army compositions;

- corrected some mistakes in the SPQR script related with the towns mainly named "Locus", there was a coordinate inversion between many towns (Locus_Picti comes in to my mind now). The coordinates from Locus_Picti were allocated to another town and if the generate unit command was trigger through the script near the town Locus_Picti it would have generated the unit in a different location and not in the Locus_Picti town;

- the Marian reforms will now take place in the 5 regions that surrounds Latium (Roma) when you build the imperial palace. I changed it in this way because in one of my simulations the Senate had actually triggered the reforms, before I managed to conquer it. Maybe you, as a player, would like to be in control, when to trigger the reforms. In this way the Senate will not be able to trigger the reforms anymore;

- after the Marian reforms are triggered you will receive a small law bonus in the towns where you can recruit the legionary first cohorts (the 28 legionary first cohorts) to reflect the fact that better trained and better organized troops will lead to more control over the local population and more submission from them. Also after the Marian reforms are triggered all the other factions will receive a +1 to recruits_exp_bonus to balance a little the fact that you will get access to far better troops;

- the AI factions will not be able to recruit elite units from anywhere, anymore. The barbarian factions will be able to recruit elite units only from the regions where the barbarians live, the same for greek, egyptian, carthaginian and eastern factions;

- in the towns Sparta, Hierosolyma, Susa and Babylon you will be able to build large_stone_walls, to reflect their importance from that period of history;

- corrected some small mistakes in the export_descr_buildings.txt file like the fact that the amphitheater was not available to be built on the 4th tier level of the town, only on the 5th tier level;

- some small adjustments to the buildings bonuses to make it all more coherent;

- and other changes that I can not remember right now, but when I will, I will write them down.

The changes related to towns, regions or rebel tribes manes were made using some ancient maps and a lot of wikipedia. I always tried to be as accurate as possible and I tried to keep their latin names.


The battlemap gameplay is left untouched !!!


I really hove you will enjoy this and do not get disappointed because I dedicated a lot of my free time in to this and I worked with passions and love on it.



This is not an official patch and it has not been yet approved by Lt1956. This is just a new coat of paint for SPQR that I'm anxious to share with you all. Everything that do not fits the mod correctly, can be changed or scraped.
I have not created this modifications for personal glory or gain and I do not intend to offend the creator of this mod, Lt1956, by adding submods to the forum. I just want to share some ideas.


The files needed you can download from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ded...ew?usp=sharing

https://filetransfer.io/data-package/BGXQHeXq#link

From here you can download the extra ancient maps pack (not needed for the game):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pux...ew?usp=sharing

https://filetransfer.io/data-package/EA6NLm0G#link

Just override the files from the archive in to the game folder. Enjoy !!!

[isa0005]

Wow this is great!

[Victory or Valhalla]

No way it's released! Good thing I checked the forum today! Here's the deal, I am already a few hundred turns into an existing campaign...but this looks so good I am debating ending that campaign and restarting a long haul campaign on this new map and with the new configuration.

I do have some questions first though...you said that you made all of the factions no longer passive like the Senate is. Could you elaborate further?

For example, tell me if I'm wrong but you know how Dacia will just sit there with a ton of stacks on your border when you take Patavium in the early game? Now with your changes, Dacia will no longer stay just across the border and wait for you to attack? They will begin invading you as soon as your borders touch? If so wow that does sound awesome and like a real challenge. Was this change in order to increase the difficulty of maintaining borders with hostile factions?

Either way, Great work man it's awesome to see people come back and put work into something they love. I really like the increased region density in the Balkans and the touch ups in Greece! I am excited to see Lt's take on the add-on as well

[Victory or Valhalla]

Just installed it and looked it over man and I just wanted to say WOW! The new regions are awesome and really add a more populated feel to parts of the map. Also the map terrain looks great, a lot smoother and natural looking! No more crazy battles around those giant pointy mountains in the middle of nowhere haha! I am going to restart my campaign for this as it looks great I am disappointed that I will have to re-do all my legion records and re-fight Hannibal but whatever, I am just pumped to try this new updated version! Thank you very much Ovidiu this is really a great contribution Very professional work!

[ovidiu]

Yes, Dacia will attack you as every other factions you touch borders with. So prepare yourself for an invasions. Dacia will no longer wait for you to take it's regions one by one and always retreats after losing the town. This change was made because I don't like to play against passive AI. I do like to be challenged.
About "those giant pointy mountains", I managed to fix some of them, but there are still a couple of them out there which I didn't managed to adjust (this process is excruciating - maybe someday I will manage to rework all the mountains).
I am really glad that you like it so far.

[Victory or Valhalla]

Just an update! I am really impressed so far, I've played about 50 turns and I have already noticed a lot of nice little details in Italy such as the new region boundaries and small touch ups to the peninsula Also it's great having another city like Ravenna to help with the early game economy, also a buffer against the Gauls! The best thing though is I noticed that the AI do not fight and all of their regions stay the same, whenever they declare war they go right back to peace. I am not sure if this was how it already was or if it is a new feature? It's neat because they immediately make peace if any declare war. But either way they seem to be holding their boundaries which is good so far. Thank you again for this cool update, I am having a blast so far! I look forward to playing more over the coming weeks, I will report any things I notice!

[ovidiu]

How it was.
Before, the factions Macedon, Seleucid, Pontus, Armenia, Dacia, Scythia, Thrace and Romans_senate were passive, and they were used mainly as a buffer against the other aggressive AI factions. That is why, for example, the faction Armenia was stretched from south to north so that it would keep the faction Parthia in check. For the faction Parthia, the faction Armenia was declared a superfaction, in this way Parthia does not attack Armenia. At the end of the Slave's faction turn peace was forced trough the script. When peace is forced all sieges will be lifted. This was part of the super factions fix.

Changes I made.
What I did, was to change all the factions, except Romans_senate , in to aggressive factions. Now the AI factions will fight each other all the time and they will besiege each others towns and sometimes manage to capture them, through the use of spies which can manage to open the town gates or sometimes the besieged town will sally forth and lose the battle and the town in the process. Now at the beginning of each factions turn peace is forced trough the script. When peace is forced all sieges will be lifted. Because that will not prevent the development of superfactions I created those realms for each faction, using the hidden resources. If the AI conquers new regions outside of this realm it will receive a lot of negative bonuses in the new regions and that will always lead to rebellion. Sometimes it will take place the next turn, sometimes it will take a while. Because of that playing with the SPQR is mandatory. The SPQR script will prevent the blitzkrieg.

[Victory or Valhalla]

Ah thank you for the greater clarification, I haven't seen the AI take each others towns yet, but I am sure later in the game it's bound to happen a few times. I am happy as long as all of the major factions survive until I can actually fight them properly as intended I will update if I see anything out of the ordinary!

[ovidiu]

Normally all the factions should survive.
In one of my simulations, here is how the map looks like after 450 turns. This is not the longest simulation I ran, the longest one was for around 600 turns, but I have no screenshot from that sadly. After around 600 turns the map remained the same.


Yes, please send feedback. It always helps a lot.

[Victory or Valhalla]

Update:

I am about 300 turns into my campaign and man, the difficulty has definitely increased! All factions set to aggressive behavior is really a grind and you must fight off hordes from Germany, Dacia and Gaul throughout the whole early game. Eventually though I pushed North of the Alps and secured a better frontier. Honestly I like the challenge but sometimes the sheer number of battles can be exhausting! You really feel like the Germans are a huge threat the whole time kind of like what actual Rome had to deal with historically.

Definitely these changes wouldn't be for the faint of heart or someone who wants an easier campaign. Once again as I see more of the map I am very impressed with the tweaks to various regions. Things feel more populated and the borders match nicely to rivers and mountains. Overall it's still good old SPQR TW but honestly it feels like and even more difficult version where the AI offers very little to no respite. You want to conquer them to end your suffering! LOL

Anyways I am enjoying things so far, thank you again for your hard work!

[ovidiu]

You are right, Victory or Valhalla, the game difficulty has definitely increased, as it was intended. I intentionally made the Germans a bit stronger to reflect the fact that they were a huge threat to the Roman Empire, throughout its existence. And yes, the sheer number of battles can be exhausting at times, but still fun. The Romans fought almost countless battles throughout their existence.

The number of units a faction will recruit in its cities is related to its economy. More precisely with its profits and not with how much gold it has in the coffer. From what I have noticed, if the total expenses will result in a loss (profits "-xxx"), the AI will stop recruiting more units, despite the fact that it may have a lot of gold in its coffers. So tweaking the overall economy, to be less productive - will lead to less profits and that will lead to less armies raised. Or another way is to increase the units upkeep. So if AI factions raise to many armies on the map, this can be adjusted.

I am about 100 turns into my new campaign (VH campaign difficulty / M battle difficulty ), and I managed to conquer the western part of the world except Britannia.


Through my play I have noticed some things that I would like to change or adjust, so in the future I will update this patch.

There is one other thing that I have noticed that is not so coherent. This thing is the units stats. Some units have a shield in their hands, but no shield is added to the unit stats. Same thing I have noticed with the armor. But for this we need Lt1956's opinion. Because these changes will affect the battlemap gameplay.

I am glad, you are enjoying it so far

[xxsmxx]

hey man. appreciated for all you have done. i just wanna ask you for something very important to me. Will you make diplomacy more realistic ? i mean when i start with romans i don't want all the factions are my enemies. it really annoys me and i think it makes game very unrealistic.
if you don't wanna deal with it, ca you at least tell me how can i do ?
thank you again

[ovidiu]

hey man. appreciated for all you have done. i just wanna ask you for something very important to me. Will you make diplomacy more realistic ? i mean when i start with romans i don't want all the factions are my enemies. it really annoys me and i think it makes game very unrealistic.
if you don't wanna deal with it, ca you at least tell me how can i do ?
thank you again

There you go, all the factions are neutral now.
Use these files from the archive. Override them in the game folder.
https://filetransfer.io/data-package/7riPbaBH#link

If you want to make more modifications, after your own liking, read this article.
https://rtw.heavengames.com/rtw/mods...s/descr_strat/

If you don't know already the diplomacy in RTW is broken and you can not make it more realistic. The diplomacy is there, but it is useless. So in the long run the core_attitudes and the faction_relationships which you can edit in the descr_strat file won't matter anyhow.
The way the factions relationships are at the beginning of the game now is the same as they were in the original SPQR 9.0. I did not changed them.

In the current state the game is almost unplayable for the other factions, because of the heavy modifications. Also this mod is intended to be played as the romans !

Cheers!

[xxsmxx]

omg ! what a helpful man you are ! thank you man i am so so appreciated

[ovidiu]

My pleasure.

There is something which I have forgotten to mention.

You must delete the map.rwm file before you start a new campaign for the changes to take full effect.

[Kaelikk]

It's been awhile- so forgive me the basic questions. I try to play a campaign once every year or so and always play SPQR.

Is default SPQR M/M? What do you recommend playing your version at?

Some friendly forum user showed me how to modify SPQR to allow me to play with the pre Marian units for the entire campaign. I enjoy the units and it was harder to win. Will these changes erase these modifications?

Thank you for making the effort! I am looking forward to trying this out!

[ovidiu]

That depends on your style of play.
If you want harder battles go for H or VH on battle difficulty.
On the campaign difficulty if you want the Ai to be able to recruit mercenaries, go for H or VH (there are also other things that will change, for example: population boom bonus, overall income, etc.).
About those modifications you are talking about, I do not know really. It depends on what you will modify. Can you be more explicit.
I hope you will enjoy it.
At the moment I am working on a new patch which will include many changes. It will be available in the near future.

[Kaelikk]

I extracted to Steam- Steam Apps- Common- Rome Total War Gold- SPQR and it didn't work. It didn't overwrite any files and the map is the same. Can someone please help?

[lt1956]

Hello, I would suggest not messing with the shield and armor of units, doing so will mess up the AI behavior.

Also on the new locations and cities, did you adjust the garrison script to reflect the new towns? Otherwise there will be no spawn of units there for defense.

I have no problem with the changes, and I am curious on the new change to prevent super factions. When I get time I think I would like to try and see what happens.

For others that want to slow the level attacks, a really simple way is to increase unit upkeep costs, doing a 50% increase can make a huge difference on difficulty.

P.S. If this turns out to be good and work, and doesn't have any new bugs, I will be willing to make this an official patch.

[ovidiu]

Hello Lt1956,

glad that you are back.

I could use some constructive criticism

I have added the new locations on the script. The units will be spawned.

If you will have time for it give it a try.

At the moment I'm testing some new stuff that I have added to the gameplay. When I'm done with it I will add it to the forum.
The new patch will include many changes or adjustments.