12 replies to this topic

[total1402]

Me and some friends are working on an Essos focused mod for Rome Total War: Alexander that will begin just after the events of A Dance with Dragons. I've currently made the map and I'am just grinding through the files and text for spawned armies. Time consuming and don't expect anything for a while. But the plan is...

*Campaign map which covers from Qaarth and Vaes Dothrak to Braavos and Tyrosh. With ninty territories to conquer.

*Playable factions
Targaryen (inc Vics Ironborn)
Yunkai
New Ghis
Volantis
Qaarth
Myr
Tyrosh
Pentos
Braavos
Khal Pono
Khal Jhaoqo

*Unique skins for several units such as Brazen Beasts, Unsullied and Red Priests in due time.

*The modders who did a Lord of the Rings mod and got it working will allow me to use the flying Fell Beast and so Drogon will be in the mod. Breathable fire is unlikely; unless I can persuade somebody to take on the work.

If anyone has any suggestions or questions you can ask away here.

[TheTizer]

Love it, would be cool to see the 'Peasants' from TW being the Dany's freed slaves, just something small. Also, if you could somehow include troops of Knights and maybe evendifferent mercenary bands (golden company etc) that you can buy.
Go for it, keep us updated!

[total1402]

TheTizer, on 16 October 2012 - 05:01 AM, said:

Love it, would be cool to see the 'Peasants' from TW being the Dany's freed slaves, just something small. Also, if you could somehow include troops of Knights and maybe evendifferent mercenary bands (golden company etc) that you can buy.
Go for it, keep us updated!

Well, the golden company are a bit pre-occupied at the minute. lol

Knights i can borrow from the Rome Medieval mod and I'll probably also take crossbows and Italian militia for the free city armies.

[Werthead]

Why Rome: Total War? It would seem a lot less work to use and adapt the Westeros: Total War mod for Medieval II and adapt the units there. It would save you a lot of work.

[total1402]

Werthead, on 16 October 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

Why Rome: Total War? It would seem a lot less work to use and adapt the Westeros: Total War mod for Medieval II and adapt the units there. It would save you a lot of work.

Not really. Essos is an oriental world Martin based more thoroughly on the classical world and renaisance italy than Medieval Westeros. Rome has classical Carthaginian cities and other eastern units which unlike in Med aren't clearly arabic and islamic like with medieval. In order to truly do an essos mod I would have to reskin the cities, almost all the units, change up the factions to make regular Western factions into islamic ones and this actually amounts to a lot more work than the better graphics justify. Having an existing Westeros Total War mod isn't really a help in this regard. I can already get the italian medieval units from an existing mod so I don't really lose anything.

Plus, I have never been a fan of the battle system developed in medieval. Battles just turn into a meatgrinder or an unfair shooting match in which anything other than armoured spearmen and bows is a waste of money. As a result they become very stale, mathmatical, very slow and very boring. Rome had a better system, it was fun to play, you could cause a massive rout if you did the right things and it was much better at representing elite units. It says a lot about basic medieval where I can have one full gilded knight for every two unarmoured peasent levies and still take massive casualties even if I'am able to flank them; because the morale system is broken. When it comes to medieval all you need is thin wall of armoured spears and twice as many elite bowmen behind. Nothing short of an elite Mongol or Ti,urid army can break that.

The way I see it, slightly worse graphics, but with battles and less work.Even Med 2 is an ancient game when you think about it; so I'am not really lsoing that much. Adding the roma surrectum battle map would also counter balance this.

Edited by total1402, 16 October 2012 - 01:30 PM.

[total1402]

Wow.

http://i.imgur.com/sZP5j.jpg

I thought unsullied looked like hoplites. Not the immortals from 300.

[total1402]

A little heads up

I've sorted the region files and mercenary pools following. Now I'am moving on to the climate files and terrain.

Edited by total1402, 17 October 2012 - 09:27 AM.

[The Tall Talker]

total1402, on 16 October 2012 - 04:01 PM, said:

Wow.

http://i.imgur.com/sZP5j.jpg

I thought unsullied looked like hoplites. Not the immortals from 300.

Is that a production still? I thought the Unsullied wore a golden spiked helm?

[The Tall Talker]

Like your MoD idea as well btw! Sounds good!
Have you thought about having the Dothraki start as a Hoarde faction like the Huns in BI? That would be cool and maybe Vic's Ironborn aswell, make them a stand alone faction instead of part of the Targs? Also you could do a weather penalty against a unit that is fighting out of its region; Ironborn are from a stormy, cold, coastal group of islands they're not gona find it easy going in the deserts and hot weather of slavers bay.

How would you do the Targaryen faction? Rulers/family tree wise, it would only be Dany lol

[total1402]

The Tall Talker, on 17 October 2012 - 12:37 PM, said:

Like your MoD idea as well btw! Sounds good!
Have you thought about having the Dothraki start as a Hoarde faction like the Huns in BI? That would be cool and maybe Vic's Ironborn aswell, make them a stand alone faction instead of part of the Targs? Also you could do a weather penalty against a unit that is fighting out of its region; Ironborn are from a stormy, cold, coastal group of islands they're not gona find it easy going in the deserts and hot weather of slavers bay.

How would you do the Targaryen faction? Rulers/family tree wise, it would only be Dany lol

I'am not sure how to do hordes TBH. I made Vaes Dothrak and about ten "Camps" to represent their tempory encampments. Provided that I disable the ability to build walls this should come fairly close. It is possible, but I think hordes require a level of scripting behaviour to get them to go in the right direction. A horde not controlled by the player would just lie down and then expand like an ordinary faction. Also, it can become very annoying in my personal experience that its near impossible to annialate a horde; they keep spawning armies as you take their last settlement. Even if you've killed every last soldier and this is simply unrealistic. Giving them big starting armies and having a huge mercenary pool is a better way of representing the horde. Plus they'll have cheap units.

Vic could go either way. I'am of the view that Moqorro has Vic under his influence and Moq would never let AA suffer and I can't presume that Euron will do something. Plus I don't think Martin kept mentioning that Vic is a natural follower and had him half convert to the religion which thinks Dany is a divine savior for no reason.  If Vics ironborn are a seperate faction, an alliance really doesn't represent how they would end up linking with her forces. All alliances in TW are barely more than a ceasefire TBH. If I was more certain that Vic=enemy then I'd have no issue making them a seperate faction joining the long line of people trying to rape Dany.  

This is already in the game. The Ironborn will be barbarian (Saxon and Frank units from BI) that have bonuses in woods. Whilst Qaartheen will have advantages in deserts and such.

Yeah, the family tree isn't really the family tree. Its Dany and her generals. To prevent Dany having children I'll have her count as a man (bear with me okay ) and list Khal Drogo as her dead "wife". That way she can be a general and faction leader. No way Hidzar coming out of this alive. He tried to kill Danys children and Danys already killed one husband; whats another puny Ghiscari?

Yeah its a production thing for season 3 from this site. Black dragon, black banner, tyrannical forbears, elite guards like the immortals in their faceless black armour; Dany really needs to work on sending the right message. More "I'am saviour". Not, "I'am Sauron". lol

Edited by total1402, 17 October 2012 - 01:46 PM.

[TheTizer]

Sweet. Have far away from completion is it? And is it this mod for BI just?
Ohhh and are you going to do a hidden faction like the 'Amazonians' in BI for the White walkers? +++++ battle improvments for them in snow and have only one unit who is in anyway effective against them like skirmishers with dragonglass weopons that can change from long range to hand to hand etc. Also the Wildlings have shit loads of weak armored but powerful men just in outposts and settlements up north. That could be your objective as a the NW faction ( if you have one) to conquer the true north! Also, the NW being in few numbers and shit all start gold and resources but have very strong, versitle units. Just a few thoughts

[total1402]

TheTizer, on 09 November 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

Sweet. Have far away from completion is it? And is it this mod for BI just?
Ohhh and are you going to do a hidden faction like the 'Amazonians' in BI for the White walkers? +++++ battle improvments for them in snow and have only one unit who is in anyway effective against them like skirmishers with dragonglass weopons that can change from long range to hand to hand etc. Also the Wildlings have shit loads of weak armored but powerful men just in outposts and settlements up north. That could be your objective as a the NW faction ( if you have one) to conquer the true north! Also, the NW being in few numbers and shit all start gold and resources but have very strong, versitle units. Just a few thoughts

Oh, lord, I've no idea how long it might take. I want to get a bare bones version before I start messing around with the units. I thought I had the map done but made a horrible mistake which forced me to scrap big chunks of it . Plus, I still have to add the 3D aspect to the map which I think is beyond my abilities with photoshop; you would not believe how detailed the vanilla one is. Plus Halo 4 and jobseeking has me a bit preoccupied; lol. I might try seeing if I can get the basic map working with all the factions without adding things like trees and hills to the map. Once I have a basic working copy it should be a lot quicker. But since this is my first time and I'am pretty much doing it by myself I can't really say when it will be done.  

Theres already a Westeros Total War which is about the War of Five Kings; not sure if it has Nights Watch. This will only be Essos post ADWD but I added Dragonstone and Sunspear to the map just as a little bonus. If it turns out to be easy I might be able to make a rebel sub faction like the Amazons in vanilla so that their are usurper knights on dragonstone I suppose. It should just be a case of adding it to the unit pool.

BTW I changed the faction list to add Qohor in. That way there isn't a massive chunk of rebel territories bordered by all the factions.

Edited by total1402, 09 November 2012 - 06:25 PM.

[total1402]

Been doing a lot of work on the mod these last few days so I figured I'd do a little update. Playing Westeros Total War seems to have given me an appetite for getting on with it. Still finding errors in the map and trying to get this to work; although I've corrected a lot of these problems. I've also begun to add and edited the unit rosters to more better represent the various armies; as well as write the text descriptions of them. I've even drawn some (admittedly bad ) faction symbols which I've yet to start implimenting. This includes cult troops for Rhollor temples. I've also transferred the Francisca Heeberum from Barbarian Invasion into the Targaryen army as Ironborn warriors. I may add other units from BI and Alex to the other faction like Kardakes and Sughdians.

Given that I had a lot of spare factions and partly inspired by me re-reading Areo Hotahs POV (he is good for something!) I decided to add two extra factions. The current list is.

Targaryen-(Carthage)
Yunkai-(Pontus)
New Ghis-(Greek Cities)
Mantarys-(Macedon) This faction includes Elyria and Tolos as a broad coalition allied agaisnt Daenerys as in the books
Qaarth-(Egypt)
Volantis-(Parthia)
Lys-(Armenia)
Khal Jhaoqo-(Scythia)
Khal Pono-(germans)
Qohor-(Seleucids)
Norvos-(Thrace)
Tyrosh-(Brutii)
Pentos-(Romans_senate)
Myr- (Scipii)
Braavos-(Julii)

These have been added as they are into the desc_strat map but will require lots of editing before they are up to standard. I don't want Parthians using Persian Horse Archers for instance. Whilst the Germans and Scythians should have most of their infantry cut except for one unit of impressed slaves (essentially cannon fodder they throw at the walls).

IMO thats a pretty comprehensive list and although there are a few unused slots I can't think of any others. Most of them were barbarian factions I couldn't see a use for. Two Dothraki factions is more than enough.



On a minor note. Somebody on Westeros Total War has made a submod which has the name of this mod. I'am not sure if that means I should change the name to something else. His game is for Med Total War 2 whilst mine is for Rome. I could call it Drakarys Total War instead?

Edited by total1402, 30 November 2012 - 05:22 AM.