Stainless Steel 3.2 Released!

[King Kong]

Stainless Steel 3.2 is based on the Medieval II patch 1.2.
The Mod won't work when patch 1.2 isn't installed!

DOWNLOAD 3.0 FULL VERSION
http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=8MPG9LIG


DOWNLOAD 3.2 PATCH
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=96999


DOWNLOAD SS 3.2 Stand-Alone Version
(includes SS 3.0 & 3.2)
http://files.filefront.com/Stainless.../fileinfo.html



3.0 FEATURES


CAMPAIGN MAP

New Faction: Order of the Knights Templar
- 7 totally Unique Units with new cool Descriptions
- All other units have specific Templar Knight Designs
- Historical Characters and new Templar Knights Events
- New Unique Titles which represent the Templar Hirarchy
- Very different campaign from all others
see more here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=86534

Campaign Map
- 30 New Provinces, well spreaded and historically correct:
(Exeter, Bari, Oporto, Arta, Barcelona, Belgrade, Balearic Isles, Bryansk, Lyon, Athens, Munster, Ancona, Isle of Lesvos, Warsaw, Diyarbakir, Salzburg, Kirov, Melilla, Salamanca, Groningen, Clermont, Thebes, Mecca, Palmyra, Astrakhan, Tortosa, El-Oued, Sinop, Norrköping, Benghazi...)
- More Resources on campaign map, including new valuable resources in the "outbacks" of the map.
Some Small Map Tweaks: trees on isles, sligthly changed borders, new passage in Africa

AI Armies much more improved
- Proper Mix of Infantry, Missiles, Cavalry and Artillery.
- AI produces more Elite and Heavy units.
This was done without changing any unit costs

Mercenaries
- New mercenaries for the Early and High Medieval Period:
Macemen
English Huscarls
Light Swordsmen
Swabian Swordsmen
Andalusian Infantry
Mercenary Saracens
Axemen.
- Greater mercenary variety
- Mercenaries can have experience
- Less mercenary missile units
- Regions have more of mercenary special units

Titles/Traits/Ancillaries
- Titles for all Cities and Castles and for both Islamic and Catholic/Orthodox factions and with important bonuses in various settlements.
- Much new Traits, Transferable Titles and Ancillaries (Blood, Broads, & Bastards v1.9 or 2.0)
- New Patriarchats for Orthodox Factions available
- Many broken Character Traits and Ancillaries fixed
- Knights Templar Titles

Much more interesting Historical Events
- Events for Orders, Inquisitions, Cultur, Battles, ...
- Including a New Era (High Period) Event which affects unit & mercenary recruitment
- Triggered Events for Falls of Important Cities and Regions. This can also give bonuses for the victorious faction.

Agents and Characters
- Merchants income increased, movement increased
- Inquisitors less effective
- Spy's chances to open gate decreased, movement increased
- Princesses movement increased
- Diplomats movement increased
- Priests movement increased
- Captains are less likely to rebel
- Assasins slightly improved, movement increased
- Imam's required Piety to call a Jihad raised
- Slightly less Heretics and Rebels
- Little more Witches

Settlement Changes
- Unit recruitment depends on barracks
- More logical recruitment, for example cities can build more ships & artillery than castles.
- Fortesses/Citadels & Large/Huge Cities have 4-5 recruitment slots
- Castles-Citadels have 1-2 free upkeep
- City growth slightly reduced
- Slightly lowered law bonus in cities
- Mine Income slightly increased
- Tax Income slightly decreased
- Early/Late Generals rarely recruitable in castles/citadels
- Byzantium can build Highways
à Therefore, Title bonuses for settlements get more important

Other Changes
- Historically more accurate Faction Names
- 18 Factions Playable
- Win Conditions distended to 55 regions
- Show Date as Years
- Conquering the Aztecs is much harder
- Mongol/Timurid armies slightly weakened
- Money Script to support AI Factions
- more logical faction standings
- Worse relations Papal States - Islamic factions
- Better relations Turks - Egypt

BATTLE MAP

- Unlimited men on battlefield allowed
- Longer Lasting Battles due to slightly higher morale
- Added Missing Units
- Dismounted Gothic Knights
- English Armored Sergeants
- Dismounted Broken Lances
- Added Mounted Longbowmen for custom battles
- Added Additional Units
- Dismounted Order Knights
- Dismounted Armored Clergy
- All Longbowmen ranges increased
- More realistic battle map movement
- Artillery Morale lowered
- (Great) Bombards, Serpentins can deploy Stakes
- Strenght of Gates slightly increased
- Venetian HI/Archers armour bug fix
- Ballista/Cannon Tower Fix (zxiang)
- Ballista Tower Fire Rate reduced
- Cannon Tower Range reduced
- Light/Heavy Cavalry Charge slightly reduced
- Janissary HI & D. Gothic Knights improved
- (temporary) Cavalry Charge Fix
- Some unit stats balanced


GRAPHICS

- Completely new Faction Symbols & Menu Design by Alletun
- New Splash & New Loading Screens by Alletun
- New textures & Symbols for Campiagn Map Interface by Alletun, KK
- Campaign Map Banners for Scotland and France historically accurate
- New unique Unit Textures for all European Early & High units (Burrek)
- New unique Unit Textures for all Feudal & Mailed Knights (Burreks Knights&Knaves)
- New unique Shield Textures for: Scotland, Spain, Poland, Denmark, France
- New unique and much better Unit Textures & Banners for Byzantium (Whitewolf)
- More spectacular Sky variations and little more blood (improved Horsearcher's skymod)
- Improved Captain textures (plasticfigurine)
- Improved Musket & Artillery Smoke (Headlock)



The default game length is 225 turns (2 years per turn).
However, you can also activate a long campaign with 450 turns (1year per turn) and with increased building times and costs:
1. Backup the original export_descr_buildings.txt (in Stainless_Steel/data folder) and delete it.
Rename the export_descr_buildings (for 1turn=1year).txt to export_descr_buildings.txt.
Now you have increased building times and costs.
2. Go to the Stainless_Steel/data/world/map/campaign/imperial_campaign folder and open the descr_strat.txt file.
Look for the line that says: timescale 2.00 and change it to timescale 1.00.
Now you have 1 year per turn.


I hope you'll like it!


Some important Notes:
- 3.0 is no longer save game compatible with previous versions.
- 3.0 has an installer and uses its own mod folder. However, two folder (models_strat and banners) are in the Medieval II Total War/data folder, because they still don't work in the mod folder.
- The mods Ultimate AI and Darth's Formations are both deleted, since the AI is pretty accepatble now and also it will take some time until these 2 mods will be fully compatible with the official patch 1.2.
- You need a graphics card with shader 2 in order to see the new skies properly.


A big thanks goes to:

- Alletun for making beautiful symbols and designs for my mod
- Student for his help and research on the Knights Templar
- Burrek and Whitewolf for their outstanding new unit textures
- Horsearcher, ziher, Plasticfigurine, Headlock for their graphical improvements
- All others who patiently answered my questions in the mod Workshop.
- All other who helped with their suggestions and ideas.
- EDIT: I forgot: A very big thanks to Dearmad and Pnutmaster for BBB!



Appendix:

Possible Problems & Solutions

1. When you have wrong character sounds or when you have other sound problems, delete events.dat and events.idx from the Stainless_Steel /data/sounds folder. Copy events.dat and events.idx from your main Medieval II Total War/data/sounds folder and paste them into the Stainless_Steel /data/sounds folder.

2. If you get back to the main menu when you want to start the campaign, delete the map.rwm file in the Stainless_Steel/data/world/maps/base folder.

3. If you have any other crash to desktop, please look into your system.log file (In Medieval II Total War folder) and paste the last 2 lines into the bug thread. This will help me to find the problem more quickly.

4. If you have a crash and the last 2 lines of the system.log reads like this (or sth. similar with "arrows" or "kazaks"):
"01:17:38.750 [script.err] [error] Script Error in Stainless_Steel/data/export_descr_unit.txt, at line 3065, column 24
failed to read statistic for unit type 'Kazaks'
01:17:38.750 [data.invalid] [error] DATABASE_TABLE error found : error reading record from file Stainless_Steel/data/export_descr_unit.txt.."
then this does indicate that the patch 1.2 isn't correctly installed.

[Giorgos]

Thanks..+
Downloading now.

[numerosdecimus]

Many thanks and congratulations.

Once the stable 1.2 patch appears I shall start bug hunting for the possible corrections in 3.1.

By the way, since marble is more "famous" in Portugal than possibly iron, I'm still trying to find a map with the accurate location of the deposits, even today there's still one of the largest mines in europe there, as wel as cooper.

However, I do not know if iron is more abundant than marble, that's what I'm trying to find out, but if marble existed in much greater quantity there than in most other places in europe then that's something to consider, after all they did put marble there in the vanila version.

[King Kong]

Thank you!

[Toy]

Downloading now
Thx

[Rockstone]

Downloading it now. Funny though. The modification is quicker that the patch.

[Angryspartan]

Awesome work dude, downloading now!

[King Kong]

Many thanks and congratulations.

Once the stable 1.2 patch appears I shall start bug hunting for the possible corrections in 3.1.

Hopefully you won't find much!

[King Kong]

Hi Rockstone,

Downloading it now. Funny though. The modification is quicker that the patch.

CA makes it possible..

Hi Angry Spartan,

Awesome work dude, downloading now!

Thanks

[Methoz]

nice... and permission of your mod? (for other makers ...)

[Toy]

Hi Kong I had to point installer to my Program Files/Sega/Mediveval II Total War

installer go's to Program Files/Mediveval II Total War

[Alletun]

Yay! now i know what i'll be doing next weekend

downloading

[Mikey78]

Sounds good - was on here this morning looking for tips on how to mod the game to be tougher and was about to download 2.2 when saw 3.0 out today - very happy

BUT where do i get a working copy of v1.2 patch from as you recommend this?

[numerosdecimus]

The 1.2 patch appeared recently but it's a buggy version. The stable version will appear "relatively shortly".

But if you want to go ahead using with the bugy version feel free to.

[Sosobra]

From the torrent my friend.

[Giorgos]

I knew i'd like the Templar faction! Finally, something different for a change!

[Mikey78]

sorry - i know this is a bit naive but what's torrent? can anyone link me to where i can get the 1.2 patch?

[Boudicca]

Those new unit cards you used in 3.2. for some of the templar units really look very beautiful (at least they only show of now). I really thought I was in another game.

Furthermore, the Templar faction is excellently set up. A second holy land faction would not do any good, as it would essentially be making things easier for the templars. So I think you did a very good balancing there. That faction is hard to play - I like it.

[CelphTitled]

@kong, neway you can provide a zip version of the mod? so i can just manually move/install the mod into the MTW2 Directory? this seems to have solved my problem for another mod that showed me a similar error.

[Giorgos]

@Kong: The installation does not work properly. Although pointed at the right direction, the installer creates it's own medieval 2 total war folder in programme files and dumps all the files there. Of course, all one needs to do is copy the whole folder into the game's proper head folder, but for the newbs it maybe more than they can handle. Just letting you know.