Post by Collie on May 14, 2005 4:46:12 GMT
ROME TOTAL WAR: SPATULA EDITION
============= V2 ==============
RTW: SE is a mod by the Internet's Professor Spatula. Originally, it was designed to open up new dynamic campaign possibilities, with the introduction of full-scale regional recruitment as well as building requirements that change depending on the region in question and the existing buildings that may have belonged to other cultures. This was back in the early part of 2005 where no such mod existed. After many setbacks and much hard work, the mod took a back seat to other things. After playing the RTW expansion, Barbarian Invasion, I restarted the mod from the ground up, going back to basics after being humbled by the campaign experiences I found in the addon. Rather than go for big goals, the mod sets about improving the vanilla campaign. It won't be a total conversion, it won't have hundreds of new units, but it will (hopefully) offer a much more interesting game than the out-of-the-box edition of RTW. Oh and by the way, it's designed entirely to look and play good on my computer, and not yours!
Basic Goal:
To expand upon the original RTW campaign, but to make it more tactical, and add some dynamics to keep it from getting samey after just a short time.
Some basic features:
New Skins:
Dozens of redone skins, mostly modifications of existing CA skins as opposed to completely new, but improvements over the vanilla skins in general. Many skins I'll probably not upload, but quite a few will be available as a separate download if anyone is interested.
New Units:
A few new unit variations here and there, including many more mercs, and some regional troops. Previously I had about 50 new units, this has been limited somewhat. Now features a few new edited models.
Regional Dynamic Recruitment:
A limited amount of regional based recruitment is in the mod, whereby auxiliaries can be recruited in regions outside your own culture's homelands. For the Romans and Cathaginians in particular, their supporting troops changes across the map, and for everyone else, a few region based mercs can be recruited with the right barracks.
New emphasis on important cities:
There will be more restrictions on trade and growth in most settlements, as well as the size of defensive walls that can be built. A select few settlements will have increased benefits to whomever owns them, thus making them more desirable to capture. These 'Places of Power' will generally be limited to one per region - region being something like Gaul, or Italia.
Totally redone unit stat system and battle speed:
I've developed a new system to determine a unit's attack and defensive skills, as well as morale, armour and shield values. It's currently been redone 3-4 times, and along with slowed down kill rates and movement speed, makes for more tense battles. Spear units now have increased defensive and anti-cavalry capabilities, cavalry has been toned down, and archers are no longer destroyers of the known world.
Unit size changes:
The mod is designed to be played at a custom 120 man unit setting (as opposed to the Large unit setting of 80 man). Elite units, archers and most Roman infantry units are limited to 100 men per unit, whereas the standard unit size is 120, with large warbands and pike formations having 180 soldiers in them. Professional soldiers will therefore be swarmed by hordes of warbands! Cavalry is also reduced to about 60 men per unit, but Romans more so, to about 48. Elite cavalry is lower still, especially for the Romans. Only factions where horsemanship is their forte, do they have more riders per unit. Thus the Romans are much more reliant on their heavy infantry, which is much more historically accurate.
Designed to play with custom rules:
I'm designing the campaign to go with my own custom 'rules', although the player can still play how they wish. These rules include limiting army types, and retraining, putting more emphasis on leading structured armies into battle.
Bug Fixes:
There's always a few bug fixes and tweaks to include in any mod.
Crazy Scripts Ahoy:
I'll be implementing lots of fancy scripts that totally transform the RTW gameplay dynamics, thus making you feel like you're playing a completely new game, and not just yet another RTW mod. I'm also going to lie quite a bit for this feature, and in fact, probably not bother with scripts at all.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Thoughts:
After playing BI, I found the limited regions and troop types quite refreshing after being obsessed with having larger and larger maps and more troops than I could shake a stick at. I had more fun with limited resources and having to commit more of my total army into every attack, than I did with the standard campaign where after a few cities are safe, I was 'home and dry' and secure. I'd like to get a bit of that into the standard RTW campaign.
By the way, this mod is really just for me, and something I mod and work on as the mood takes me. Should it be finished before an apocalypse destroys all of mankind, I'll hopefully make it public, just in case someone out there is interested in it too. Some of the skins and new units I'll offer as downloads in the meantime. I'll be posting updates and screenshots and some miscellaneous tutorials also.
If you have any comments you'd like to make, get in touch (spatula AT disko.co.uk) or post them in this forum.
Cheers.
============= V2 ==============
RTW: SE is a mod by the Internet's Professor Spatula. Originally, it was designed to open up new dynamic campaign possibilities, with the introduction of full-scale regional recruitment as well as building requirements that change depending on the region in question and the existing buildings that may have belonged to other cultures. This was back in the early part of 2005 where no such mod existed. After many setbacks and much hard work, the mod took a back seat to other things. After playing the RTW expansion, Barbarian Invasion, I restarted the mod from the ground up, going back to basics after being humbled by the campaign experiences I found in the addon. Rather than go for big goals, the mod sets about improving the vanilla campaign. It won't be a total conversion, it won't have hundreds of new units, but it will (hopefully) offer a much more interesting game than the out-of-the-box edition of RTW. Oh and by the way, it's designed entirely to look and play good on my computer, and not yours!
Basic Goal:
To expand upon the original RTW campaign, but to make it more tactical, and add some dynamics to keep it from getting samey after just a short time.
Some basic features:
New Skins:
Dozens of redone skins, mostly modifications of existing CA skins as opposed to completely new, but improvements over the vanilla skins in general. Many skins I'll probably not upload, but quite a few will be available as a separate download if anyone is interested.
New Units:
A few new unit variations here and there, including many more mercs, and some regional troops. Previously I had about 50 new units, this has been limited somewhat. Now features a few new edited models.
Regional Dynamic Recruitment:
A limited amount of regional based recruitment is in the mod, whereby auxiliaries can be recruited in regions outside your own culture's homelands. For the Romans and Cathaginians in particular, their supporting troops changes across the map, and for everyone else, a few region based mercs can be recruited with the right barracks.
New emphasis on important cities:
There will be more restrictions on trade and growth in most settlements, as well as the size of defensive walls that can be built. A select few settlements will have increased benefits to whomever owns them, thus making them more desirable to capture. These 'Places of Power' will generally be limited to one per region - region being something like Gaul, or Italia.
Totally redone unit stat system and battle speed:
I've developed a new system to determine a unit's attack and defensive skills, as well as morale, armour and shield values. It's currently been redone 3-4 times, and along with slowed down kill rates and movement speed, makes for more tense battles. Spear units now have increased defensive and anti-cavalry capabilities, cavalry has been toned down, and archers are no longer destroyers of the known world.
Unit size changes:
The mod is designed to be played at a custom 120 man unit setting (as opposed to the Large unit setting of 80 man). Elite units, archers and most Roman infantry units are limited to 100 men per unit, whereas the standard unit size is 120, with large warbands and pike formations having 180 soldiers in them. Professional soldiers will therefore be swarmed by hordes of warbands! Cavalry is also reduced to about 60 men per unit, but Romans more so, to about 48. Elite cavalry is lower still, especially for the Romans. Only factions where horsemanship is their forte, do they have more riders per unit. Thus the Romans are much more reliant on their heavy infantry, which is much more historically accurate.
Designed to play with custom rules:
I'm designing the campaign to go with my own custom 'rules', although the player can still play how they wish. These rules include limiting army types, and retraining, putting more emphasis on leading structured armies into battle.
Bug Fixes:
There's always a few bug fixes and tweaks to include in any mod.
Crazy Scripts Ahoy:
I'll be implementing lots of fancy scripts that totally transform the RTW gameplay dynamics, thus making you feel like you're playing a completely new game, and not just yet another RTW mod. I'm also going to lie quite a bit for this feature, and in fact, probably not bother with scripts at all.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Thoughts:
After playing BI, I found the limited regions and troop types quite refreshing after being obsessed with having larger and larger maps and more troops than I could shake a stick at. I had more fun with limited resources and having to commit more of my total army into every attack, than I did with the standard campaign where after a few cities are safe, I was 'home and dry' and secure. I'd like to get a bit of that into the standard RTW campaign.
By the way, this mod is really just for me, and something I mod and work on as the mood takes me. Should it be finished before an apocalypse destroys all of mankind, I'll hopefully make it public, just in case someone out there is interested in it too. Some of the skins and new units I'll offer as downloads in the meantime. I'll be posting updates and screenshots and some miscellaneous tutorials also.
If you have any comments you'd like to make, get in touch (spatula AT disko.co.uk) or post them in this forum.
Cheers.