Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/RFRE.gif


“FOR YOU TO LEAD THE MASSES, ROMAN, THAT YOU SHOULD REMEMBER – FOR THAT WILL BE YOUR MISSION – AND TO GIVE ITS RULES TO PEACE: RESPECT THE DEFEATED, DISARM THE SPLENDID”

Virgil


“FOR THE ROMAN OF THAT TIME, WHO WERE ACQUAINTED WITH THE GOLD OF A GLORIOUS KINGDOM, THE DISGRACE WAS TO RETURN TO THE AGE OF IRON AND RUST – AND SO IT WENT OF OUR HISTORY”

Dion Cassius


Welcome to this ... proposal!

Through this mod to be, I have wished for long to create a scenario including the whole long history of the Roman Empire (excluding offtime prolongations though Byzantium for the most); from the rise of the roman republic and the Punic Wars, through the roman expansion and the eventual Imperial domination of the Mediterranean world, to the collapse of the thousand years old Rome under the combined pressure of barbarians and a complete loss of its values.

I have tried to carry-out the mod by myself a couple of times. A lack of skills with the editor, limited time, and ever changing ideas have made these exercises somewhat fruitless. I resort to this forum, hopeful it will attract some, with interest in retracing the whole roman history in a somewhat accurate way, to help on it.

I have recently discovered The Ancient Mediterranean MOD, and although not yet asked these brave men and women, I wish we could use both their map and graphics for some of the work ahead. I will progressively post what I have developed up to now, to encourage discussion. Let me know what you think of these.

GAME OVERVIEW

Here is an overview that hopefully will give you a better idea of what I want to come out with. It is based on the timeline posted below.

A note about leaders and armies: I dislike armies in CIV3 very much. I rarely saw the AI getting one on its own and never did it use them efficiently. Please correct me if you think otherwise. In order to keep the game in balance and save the challenge, I wish to remove armies (and thus leaders) from the game. As an alternative, short lived wonders (e.g. Barca’s leadership, Scipio’s leadership, Caesar’s leadership, etc.) should generate special units generically called here leader-units, which are better off than their contemporary units and upgradeable like normal troops when new military technologies are found.

CIVILIZATIONS

EDITED on 17 AUG 04

1. Roma
2. Greek City States
3. Achaïan League
4. Etolian League
5. Antigonids' Macedonia
6. Pergamum
7. Carthage
8. Seleucides' Syria
9. Ptolemies' Egypt
10. Numidia
11. Pontus (including Regnum Bosphori and its ally Armenia)
12. Bithynia
13. ‘Persia’ (first Parthian, then Sassanid)
14. Celt tribes (North of Italy, France, Britain)
15. Iberic tribes (Spain and Portugal)
16. Germanic tribes (Germany and Danmark)
17. Steppe nomads (includes Scythes, Sarmates, and Huns; cover all area east of Germany)
18. Desert nomads (Sahara, Arabia)
19. Illyrians
20. Pirates (Crete, Cilicia)

GAME CONCEPTS - Where I start to confuse all of you :crazyeye:

Although the game does not allow scripted events, I have ideas of introducing these through civilization advances (wonders/units). Important examples are the migration and great invasion advances which allow the barbarian civilizations to build (upgrade) cheap strong offensive units which will flood the Empire. More subtle examples includes the roman civil war which introduce a wonder allowing larger armies that can only be built under a inauspicious government type, forcing the roman into revolutions (and troubles) for some turns. Another example is the Christian persecution during the III century, which introduce a building with negative impact on culture and happiness (more trouble) but which is necessary for building Christian improvements such as Church and Basilica.

The advances will be mostly for Rome, the other civilized nations will be mostly on a status quo, lured to research a tech which will take forever to discover. They are given an initial advantage in the relevant fields, such as an advanced Navy for Carthage. Some civilized nations (‘Persia’ come to mind) will be able to research a few progresses which represent events (disappearance of the Parthes kingdom in favor of the Sassanids, which should attack Rome, encouraged with cheap and strong cavalry). Barbarian civs also possess a couple of progress reflecting the migrations and eventually the great invasion throughout the Empire. All these tech cost must be finely tuned to be discovered at reasonable dates. Meanwhile Rome will have serious research work to carry out. I wish to strongly limit trade of technology, through use of flavors etc. Beside, also limit damage from tech trade on gameplay by restricting most units and building to its proper civ.

Settlers should be extremely rare (only generated through a wonder?) since all major cities will be already on the map. This will help to avoid seeing Macedonian cities in Kazakhstan. Workers will be only available to civilized nations. None for the barbarian’s civs: These will have to be adapted: low cost for units (since no mining, no building rising shield production) with no strategic resource needed. Thus, when Roman enters Gaul or Germany, they will find forest, forest and games. Forest… they will be hard to chop down, keeping the forested areas wild until the fall of Rome (mostly deforestation of northern Europe took place during the late dark age). This will also help having a good demographic balance with populated Rome, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt.

RESOURCES

Strategic

Iron (shield)
Ore (shield)
Wheat (trade & food)
Timber (shield)
Petrol (trade)
Slaves (trade)
Elephants (trade)
Horse (shield)
Jerusalem (anchor)
Rome (anchor)
Byzantium (anchor)

Luxury

Gaul produces (trade)
African produces (trade)
Egyptian produces (trade)
Arabian produces (trade)
Persian produces (trade)
Greek produces (trade)
German produces (trade)

Bonus

Wine (trade)
Fish (food)
Fruits (food)
Livestock (food & shield)
Wool (trade)
Textiles (trade)
Precious Ore (trade)
Salt (trade & food)
Dye & Purple (trade)
Marble (trade)
Pottery (trade & shield)
Glassware (trade & shield)
Olives (trade & food)

By anchor, I intend to give these resources to their respective city, so that to allow important wonders to be built at the proper spot (e.g. Coliseum, 2nd Capital, Jesus of Nazareth).

I also propose a somewhat different approach to luxury produces, regionally focused, without clearly identifying their nature since these regions exported many luxuries to Rome. I wish keeping the number of these low, here 7 different resources, in order to keep 'mood' improvements useful, while the cities will remain of relatively small size throughout the game (except cases like Rome or Antochia).

Do you see any missing, or just too many of them?
Concerning strategic resource, actually all units but archers would need iron, thus iron might have to be considered as already readily accessible (although it was not) and remove it from the strategic list? Ore, slaves, wheat are 'strategic' as a prerequisite to some important buildings (respectively the forge, the slave market and the estate).

That will be it for today, let me know what you think and be sure I am very much open to suggestions, I wish not keep this as my mod :rolleyes:

It will be a good scenario and i think the pirates shoul be renamed to The Illyrians or Illyria. More Later...

There's plenty of leaderheads knocking about that you could use - I'm about to release a set that would cover the fall of Rome era and have done the Illyrians.

The Celts in Italy need to be an indipendent nation; in real life they were a cultural mix between native italliot cultures, and that of the celtic homeland

also, why is Jerusalem given the importance of Rome or Byzantium? sure, it may be the holy site for three religions today; but for the Romans it was the ass end of no where

Xen, my opinion is that there are already enough civs here, never mind adding more.

The impression you're giving is that Cisalpine Gauls had adapted to native conditions, and the transalpine Gauls hadn't. Well, I don't buy it, and don't think it matters either; one could split both groups further, and split every other civ in the game which didn't have historical political unity. In reality, civ3 is a crude game which cannot simulate the niceties of political history to any acceptable degree of accuracy. You might as well leave the game playable, and accept civ3 reality!

Too many people go onto scenario threads, complain about the absence of one civ or another, pressurizing the maker into creating a scenario which no-one can play; that's OK if everyone has 10Ghz computers...otherwise, move the thread to the history forum and forget about playable scenarios!

Or maybe it's just me...I admit that I don't like waiting more than 1 mintue between turns...I can't tolerate it. Maybe others can. In which case, interprete this post as an individual plea on behalf of myself and those like me. :)

also, why is Jerusalem given the importance of Rome or Byzantium? sure, it may be the holy site for three religions today; but for the Romans it was the ass end of no where


:confused: What's wrong with having it for a strategic resource to ensure that Jesus the Nazarene is built in Jerusalem rather than somewhere else?

Hi folks,

Thanks for your posts. Since I live the other side of the world, I guess it will be hard to have a dialogue in real time… Never mind.

Let me first pick the remarks:

Pirates: I do not love the name either, but Illyrian would be only covering a part of them (those under King Teuta), which would mean we split those into different civs, and makes Calgacus and players who like it quick unhappy. We have pirates in Crete and Cilicia as well (although, I forgot to draw the later on the map :mischief: ). At second thoughts, we may wish to have the pirates as barbarians so that they may attack everyone without having to be at war…

R8XFT, I am looking forward seeing some of your leaderheads in our mod! A first step would be to identify the name of each civ’s leaders. The pity would be not to be able to use your nice pirate if we get this civ to be barbarians instead :sad:

Concerning the Celts, I feel like since it is a union of tribes, these could be split indefinitely (my personal wish would be to see the bravest people of Gaul, aka Belgians, separated from the Celts! ;) ) The Aquitani were also very different from the other Celts, and the so called Germanic tribes are a atrocious mix up of Franks, Saxons, Alamans, Burgondes, Quades, Vandales, Wisigoths, Gepides, Ostrogoths and so on!. Hardly a unified civ… For the sake a gameplay, since these groups fought together versus Rome, we have to see them as unified civ. But in some instance, I agree with Xen, since the Roman conquered Cisalpine Gaul without being at war with the whole Celt group. A separation could be good to get an historical feel… Thus I would agree with a split (although hard to justify since we keep the so diversified Germans as a one group). But in any case, we should agree to keep the number of civ below a certain level, say, 20?

Jerusalem might be a provincial colony, yet I also would like to see Jesus being crucified there rather than Roman Britain!

More later today.

Xen, my opinion is that there are already enough civs here, never mind adding more.

The impression you're giving is that Cisalpine Gauls had adapted to native conditions, and the transalpine Gauls hadn't. Well, I don't buy it, and don't think it matters either; one could split both groups further, and split every other civ in the game which didn't have historical political unity. In reality, civ3 is a crude game which cannot simulate the niceties of political history to any acceptable degree of accuracy. You might as well leave the game playable, and accept civ3 reality!

Too many people go onto scenario threads, complain about the absence of one civ or another, pressurizing the maker into creating a scenario which no-one can play; that's OK if everyone has 10Ghz computers...otherwise, move the thread to the history forum and forget about playable scenarios!

Or maybe it's just me...I admit that I don't like waiting more than 1 mintue between turns...I can't tolerate it. Maybe others can. In which case, interprete this post as an individual plea on behalf of myself and those like me. :)


well, fact that the cisalpine gauls formed basically the same social and cultural elite that the Romans would in gaul proper, mainlyl over the natvie itallic peoples, like the etruscans who had dominated the region before the gauls, I odnt belive that the state of war ROme was at fairlly often with the cis-apline gauls existed with the trans-alpine gauls; reason enough IMO to make them seperate nations

also, it dosent matter how many civs ar eon a map; turn legth is determine dby map size apperntlly

:confused: What's wrong with having it for a strategic resource to ensure that Jesus the Nazarene is built in Jerusalem rather than somewhere else?

whats the point fo adding a resource for jesus in the first place?

In my scenrio, thatm admitiantlly, is still in the planning stages, i plan to represent religion with three different optional techs that have wonders that represent that religion; to ensure that the player only reserches one, each tech will cancel out the other religious-techs wonders

As I see it, the 'Wonder-Jesus' would reflect was it was, the dawn of christianism. Christianism will play a critical importance for the future of the Empire, becoming a state religion after vagues of persecution. My idea was to make polytheist improvements such as the shrine and temple, as well as buidlings like courthouse, progressivly obscelete after a special tech (say decadence) has been researched. A lot of trouble will follow for the player, reflecting (as we can, considering the game limitations) the degardation of the situation. The only way to address the issue would be to build church (shrine) and basilica (temple), requiring this Jesus 'wonder' built first.

TIMELINE

Here follows a timeline focused on war and troubles (that's the easy part!). I have done that lengthy work hoping it will help to build a tech tree which can reflect the main events that should happen during the game. Obviously, we will need some more on the economy, art, religion and so on.

The Rise [272BC-27BC]

272BC – Game starts with the peace treaty between Rome and Phyrrus of Epire, following his defeat. Rome possesses all southern and central Italy.

264BC-227 BC – 1st Punic War. Rome gets Sicilia (but Syracuse, which remain Greek) and then Sardinia and Corsica

229BC-228BC – Defeat of Illyrian pirates, the Illyrian coast is roman (219BC)

222BC – Cisalpine Celts attack and are defeated, the region become roman

237BC-219BC – Great Leaders (Barcas) in Carthage, who conquer the eastern Spanish coast, leading to

218BC-202BC – The 2nd Punic War, with hard fight accross Italy between Carthage allied with the Celts and then Macedonia (Phillip V) versus Rome. Mutliple roman defeats first. Then come some naval success for Rome, followed by a victory in Spain. Rome gets an ally with Numidia (212 BC). Syracuse joins Carthage but is conquered by Rome (212BC), while Hannibal devastates the south of Italy. Greeks states allied with Rome attack Macedonia. By 211BC, Roman success in southern Italy versus Hannibal and great leader (Scipio) takes Spain and defeat the Carthaginian in Italy. In 204BC, war passes in Africa, and Carthage is finally defeated at Zama in 202BC. Spanish coast is Roman (and the rest will be progressively conquered in the next century). Consequences of the war: increased use of slaves in large estates, devastation of the land of Southern Italy, and disappearance of the Italian farmers.

200BC-190BC – Stabilization and colonization of Northern Italy

200BC -197BC – War with Macedonia-Seleucids, Rome is allied with the Greeks and Egypt. Phillip V’s power is broken

192BC- 188BC – Rome at war versus the Seleucids (Antiochos III) allied with some Greeks (Etolia) against Egypt. Etolia is conquered; the Seleucids are split apart at the advantage of roman allies (Pergame and Rhodes), only remaining in Syria.

171BC-168BC – Another war against Macedonia which is defeated and annexed in 148BC, together with Achaia (146BC).

136-132BC – First revolt of the slaves in Sicilia, who are defeated

133BC – Pergame becomes Roman pacifically

149BC-146BC – 3rd Punic War initiated by the roman ally, Numidia. Carthage is destroyed.

111BC-105BC – War with Numidia (Jugurtha), which is defeated and becomes Roman

113BC-101BC – Roman defeats against Germanic invasions, leading to a reform of the army (real apparition of professional legions, using cavalry). The Roman finally defeat the invaders.

133BC-89BC –Social unrests concerning the agrarian law

88BC-81BC – Two wars versus Pontus (Mithridate VI) who attack Rome, but is defeated.

88BC-82BC – Civil war at Rome between Sylla and Marius/Cinna

74BC-64BC – Bithynia also becomes Roman. Last war versus Mithridate VI, with roman defeat first, but Pontus is finally annexed. Galatia, Cappadocia, Armenia and Judaea are under roman influence.

73BC-71BC – Revolt of slaves (Spartacus), they are defeated.

53BC – Wars with Parthes

58BC-51BC – Caesar defeat the Gauls and invade Germania and Britannia, before turning back and conquering the Gauls, after defeating Vercingetorix.

52BC-45 BC – Civil war between Caesar and Pompee and his successors, who are defeated in several campaigns. Caesar is assassinated in 44BC

44BC-27BC – ‘Civil war’ continue between Octave, Antoine, Sextus Pompee. War with the Parthes. Octave wins, annex Egypt, and is proclaimed Augustus in 27BC.

The Apogee [27BC-235AC]

27BC-25BC – Galatia becomes Roman

12BC-9BC and 14AC-16AC – Successful wars in western Germania.

14AC-41AC – Weak Emperors

43AC – Conquest of Southern Britannia

46AC – Colonization of Thracia

62AC-69AC – Trouble related to Nero

66AC-70AC – Troubles in Palestine and conquest of Jerusalem

74AC – Coliseum built and eruption of Vesuvius later on

78AC – Britain conquered up to Scotland and protected by a wall

98AC-117AC – Golden Age under Trajan, who conquer Dacia, Northern Arabia and Sinai, and defeat the Parthes (conquers Armenia, Assyria and Mesopotamia).

117AC-138AC – Hadrien (still Golden Age?). Rome comes back to the Euphrates border, and limes are built in Britannia, on the Rhine, Danube and Euphrates. New Jewish revolt.

138-161AC – Antonin. Limes and further reinforced. Army is strengthened by the recruitment of auxiliaries (from local populations).

161AC-180AC – Marcus Aurelius. Fight the Parthes and occupy Mesopotamia but Steppes tribes cross the Danube (Marcomans, Sarmates, Quades) who are defeated

180AC-192AC – Commodus, mad. Another Marcoman invasion succeed. Followed by troubles in Italy, Britannia and Africa.

193AC-211AC – Septimus Severus. Defeat the Parthes, develop Syria and Africa. Decadence of the Senate. Defeat in Britannia.

212 AC – Antonine Constitution. All free people get Roman nationality. Unity of the Empire. Beside, fight on the Rhine (Alamans) and the Euphrates (Parthes).

231AC-232AC – Another invasion by Parthes and Marcomans, plus revolt of legions.

The Migrations [235AC-375AC]

Continuous attacks from Germanic tribes, Sarmates, Persians, Berbers, Maures, etc. Progressive implantation of Germans into roman territory.

227 AC – New Sassanid Empire taking over the old Parthes

235 AC-244 AC – Fight with Alamans and Persians. Germans mercenaries take more and more importance.

250AC – First Christian persecutions

253AC-271AC – Massive attacks from the Rhine to the Danube, while Africa is under siege by the Maure tribes. Abandon of the limes in Rhetia and Higher Rhine. Dacia is lost.

270AC-275 AC – Aurelius put back some order by defeating Germans and revolting provinces turned into empires (Gallia, Palmyra).

284AC-305AC – Diocletian. Division of the Empire into dioceses. Internal strengthening.

324AC-337AC – Constantin the Great, who proclames Byzantium as the capital of the Empire. Great strengthening of the army (75 legions) and division of the Empire into 4 prefectures.

357AC-375AC – His successors defeats Germans along the Rhine but Armenia is lost to Persia. Limes in Britannia and Rhine are consolidated.

375AC – Huns invasions start

The Great Invasions [375AC-568AC]

375AC-382AC – Wisigoths defeat the Romans at Andrinople. Goths established in the Empire.

380AC-391AC – Catholicism become state religion

394AC-395AC – Theodose the Great. Division of the Empire in two. End of the Imperial unity. (Occident, capital Ravenna; Orient, capital Constantinople)

401-415 AC – The Wisigoths invades Italy, are defeated but nonetheless ransom then plunder Rome, before moving to Africa then a kingdom around Toulouse.

406AC-429AC – The Vandals cross the Rhine, go through the Gauls and Spain before crossing to Africa where to build their kingdom.

441AC-453AC – Attila attacks Byzantium, before moving west where he is defeated at the Battle of the Catalaunic Fields by an alliance of Romans, Gauls and Germans.

450AC-486AC – The Franks invade northern Gaul, and under Clovis, defeat the Kingdom of Syagrius.

451AC – The Ostrogoths establish themselves in Pannonia, plunder the Balkans.

476AC – The last Roman emperor for the Occident (Romulus Augustus) is deposed by Odoacre.

488AC – The Ostrogoths enter Italy, defeat Odoacre and build their kingdom

That's it, although we may want to include an additional few decades to have a chance to play Constantinople :) I did that quickly, so it is very prone to contain gross mistakes. Now, what main events do we keep in mind and how could we implement them?

I get back to work, I mean real work :sad:

As I see it, the 'Wonder-Jesus' would reflect was it was, the dawn of christianism. Christianism will play a critical importance for the future of the Empire, becoming a state religion after vagues of persecution. My idea was to make polytheist improvements such as the shrine and temple, as well as buidlings like courthouse, progressivly obscelete after a special tech (say decadence) has been researched. A lot of trouble will follow for the player, reflecting (as we can, considering the game limitations) the degardation of the situation. The only way to address the issue would be to build church (shrine) and basilica (temple), requiring this Jesus 'wonder' built first.

A)why limit the state religion to chrsitianity; Mithraism, the CUlt of isis, and perhaps even Zoroastranism could all have been effective state religions; if your scenario is truelly about the the "waht if", and letting people follow through on an alternate hsitory, you should let such a choice be there.

B)as a polytheist myself, i can assure you the thougth that my religion being over bearing, decadent, and evil is not onyl wrong, but its casting as such in the modern opionion is getting rather old; my religion fell out as it wasnt centrilized enough to offer the people in charge enough control of the population, and that seems to be about it.

C)If Jesus s there to relect christianities adoption as a state religion, then it comes well after the crucifiction fo the man jesus; a wonder more appropraiet for constatine however, would be- it would therefore be just as easy to, include my set up for optional, but inter connected cancelations of relgious techs, and wonders, so that the player can gain the benifit of a "state cult", but only has the option to gain one; or none at all if they feel like it. and because the techs in question are optional, the player can safelly progress to the next era without them, and thier benifits if he wishes.

also, it dosent matter how many civs ar eon a map; turn legth is determine dby map size apperntlly

Yes it does. Turn length is determined by how much the AI has to do, which is related to map size and civ numbers. In my experience, civ numbers are more important. I've noticed that turn-length speeds up when I conquer a civ.


Also, Rome's wars with the Cisalpine calls frequently brought Transalpine Gauls over to help. There was no isolation.

My experience corroborates calgacus' - the number of civs is a more important factor than the map size. I've seen turn times fall from over 30 minutes to less than 5 in situations were the numbers of civs and units has fallen but map size and number of cities remained constant.

A)why limit the state religion to chrsitianity; Mithraism, the CUlt of isis, and perhaps even Zoroastranism could all have been effective state religions; if your scenario is truelly about the the "waht if", and letting people follow through on an alternate hsitory, you should let such a choice be there..

Well now :) My original thought was to keep the player in a historical frame, not so much a what if but more an attempt to get a replay of history, which at best finish by 476AC if the player is good enough, well before otherwise. Now, if we can work out a set of 'religion' for the mod, we can set up several scenarios: one (close to my heart) trying to stick to historical main events, one giving the player a choice at the main crossroads. Tell us more about your religion system based on wonders and tech tree.

B)as a polytheist myself, i can assure you the thougth that my religion being over bearing, decadent, and evil is not onyl wrong, but its casting as such in the modern opionion is getting rather old; my religion fell out as it wasnt centrilized enough to offer the people in charge enough control of the population, and that seems to be about it..

Arr Xen... did I ever suggest that? :confused: I am very much an atheist myself, so none of these religions mean much to me. I was just talking history. Catholicism did replace polytheism, mostly due to a couple of Emperors, for whatever the reasons they had. When I want the 'polytheist' mood improvements to become useless, it is to stimulate some trouble in the cities (that's about the only way I can see to do so, beside a change of government) and forcing the player to look into a new religion.

C)If Jesus s there to relect christianities adoption as a state religion, then it comes well after the crucifiction fo the man jesus; a wonder more appropraiet for constatine however, would be- it would therefore be just as easy to, include my set up for optional, but inter connected cancelations of relgious techs, and wonders, so that the player can gain the benifit of a "state cult", but only has the option to gain one; or none at all if they feel like it. and because the techs in question are optional, the player can safelly progress to the next era without them, and thier benifits if he wishes.

I am open to suggestion concerning the list of events we will consider, together with their associated buildings/wonder/units/etc. :rolleyes: I think the Crucifixion should appear nonetheless in the game, its impact was quite...hum... significant. We can yet discuss its effects!

My experience corroborates calgacus' - the number of civs is a more important factor than the map size. I've seen turn times fall from over 30 minutes to less than 5 in situations were the numbers of civs and units has fallen but map size and number of cities remained constant.

So how many civ should we have, and what map size? 20 civ (or 19 if we keep our Celts together) on a large map (139 x 139, if we use the map from Ancient Mediterranean)? I hope that would fast enough on most computers... Anyone having a nice Mediterranean map we could use (that should include at least a large part of Persia and the upper Nile valley)?

A LIST OF POTENTIAL WONDERS

The Colossus - Vanilla - Built in Rhodes
The Pharos - Vanilla (Great Lighthouse) - Built in Alexandria
The Great Library of Alexandria - + research - Built in Alexandria
The Great Library of Pergamum - + research - Built in Pergamum
Phoenician Trade Empire - ? - Built in Carthage?
Hellenistic Academy - + research and culture - Built in Athenae
The Oracle - Vanilla - Built in Delphus
The Olympic Games - ? - Built? in Corinthus
The Royal Palace of Persepolis - +5% treasury per turn - Built in Persepolis
The Pyramids - Vanilla - Built in Memphis
Stonehenge - Increase effect of Cult Sites/Menhirs? - Built in ?
The Temple of Salomon - ? - Built in Jerusalem
The Temple of Zeus - Temple in every city - Open for Roman
Dictator - + apparition of leaders - Open for Roman
The Colosseum - + happiness in city - Only in Rome for Roman
Circus Maximus - ? - Only in Rome for Roman
Constantinople - 2nd Capital - Only in Byzantium for Roman
The Parthenon - ? - Built in Athenae
The Bible - Effect of Basilica x2 - Open for Roman
The Crucifixion of the Christ - ? - Only in Jerusalem for Roman
Conversion of Constantin - Allow building of Basilica - Open for Roman
Colonization - Generate settlers - Open for Roman
Limes - + city defense in Empire - Open for Roman

More, I want more :eek:

What about Marius Reforms: gives a new 'legion' every x turns (ressembling the higher effectiveness of the roman army after his reforms), gets useless after a time.

Archimedes Workshop in Syracuse? It's the same as Leo's in the normal game.

And why didn't you include the Mausoleum of Mausollos (6 cp, nothing else), the Temple of Artemis (happiness in just that city), the Hanging Gardens (already out of use when game begins) and the Temple of Zeus (acting like Persepolis...), which are all of the seven wonders of the world?

mfg mitsho

So how many civ should we have, and what map size? 20 civ (or 19 if we keep our Celts together) on a large map (139 x 139, if we use the map from Ancient Mediterranean)? I hope that would fast enough on most computers... Anyone having a nice Mediterranean map we could use (that should include at least a large part of Persia and the upper Nile valley)?
On my system, a 2.0GHz Celeron, I've found that sixteen civ on a Huge map is about the max I can have without turn times becoming ridiculous in the later game. A smaller map may help a bit, but since that map has extra land, city and unit numbers aren't really going to be lower than on a huge map.

So, I'd suggest capping the civs at 16. Even that will pretty much make it inaccessible for people on low-end systems.

On my system, a 2.0GHz Celeron, I've found that sixteen civ on a Huge map is about the max I can have without turn times becoming ridiculous in the later game. A smaller map may help a bit, but since that map has extra land, city and unit numbers aren't really going to be lower than on a huge map.

So, I'd suggest capping the civs at 16. Even that will pretty much make it inaccessible for people on low-end systems.

16! And now I have this great map from Red Threat which is way bigger... It will be hard to satisfy smaller configurations. I might have to stick to smaller maps but reducing the number of civ is out of question. Yet, since Rome is to conquer wide and bring all under pax romana, the number of civ should be going down throughout the game as the number of units increases. Maybe, the game will get faster as the game goes!

(those under King Teuta) :lol: :lol: :lol:

What about Marius Reforms: gives a new 'legion' every x turns (ressembling the higher effectiveness of the roman army after his reforms), gets useless after a time.

Archimedes Workshop in Syracuse? It's the same as Leo's in the normal game.

And why didn't you include the Mausoleum of Mausollos (6 cp, nothing else), the Temple of Artemis (happiness in just that city), the Hanging Gardens (already out of use when game begins) and the Temple of Zeus (acting like Persepolis...), which are all of the seven wonders of the world?

mfg mitsho

Thanks, :goodjob: Marius Reform is exactly the kind of events I would love to see appearing in the game. I will keep it as a wonder, although I am unsure its effect should to generate a unit (legion, cavalry?) or allow the roman to built armies.

The workshop would be a defensive improvement? Give coastal fortress in each city? :devil2:
I didn't include some of C3C original wonders... It is a long time since I played, I wasn't impressed... Where exactly was built the Mausoleum (somewhere in Persia?), I eagerly add the Temple of Artemis and the Hanging Gardens while the Temple of Zeus is already there lost in the list.

Another event I would like to add in the game: should the Constitution adopted under the Emperor Antonine in 212AC, which givescitizenship to all free people of the empire, be a wonder or a new government type?

:lol: :lol: :lol:
:hmm: Something... fishy?

BUILDINGS planned a long time ago, I might have to post the tech trees as well, but they are a mess. Let me think a bit longer on these

BUILDINGS planned a long time ago, I might have to post the tech trees as well, but they are a mess. Let me think a bit longer on these

If you need you can check my library I have added and add regularly new techs ( some for the romans like Olive tree working or mosaic creation .. )

@pinktilapia it depends on how many governments you plan to include?

When exactly do you want to start the game? Perhaps you could include the 'defeat of the Etruscans' as a wonder which gives the romans a boost at the beginning? But that's gameplay issues.

perhaps you want to split the Limes wonder in 2 or 3. ressembling that they are far far away from each other, the german limes could defend the cities in Europe. The Syrian Limes the ones in the Middle East. The same with the wall in Britain (argh, what was it's name?) and the african one. This can be done by giving them the tag 'continential'. But I'm not sure if we could seperate the other three this way, hmm ?

The mausolleum of Mausollos was built in Halikarnassos. It can simply produce culture and perhaps one happy face.

More wonders, hmm. Not only for the Romans? What about the holy hain of the celts (I'll look up the name later on...). Then why only have one Great Lighthouse (Pharos)? Why not have more lighthouses (small building)? Or you could make the Lighthouses small wonders and Pharos stays one big?

More ideas coming later on, I hope.

mitsho

@pinktilapia it depends on how many governments you plan to include?

When exactly do you want to start the game? Perhaps you could include the 'defeat of the Etruscans' as a wonder which gives the romans a boost at the beginning? But that's gameplay issues.

perhaps you want to split the Limes wonder in 2 or 3. ressembling that they are far far away from each other, the german limes could defend the cities in Europe. The Syrian Limes the ones in the Middle East. The same with the wall in Britain (argh, what was it's name?) and the african one. This can be done by giving them the tag 'continential'. But I'm not sure if we could seperate the other three this way, hmm ?

The mausolleum of Mausollos was built in Halikarnassos. It can simply produce culture and perhaps one happy face.

More wonders, hmm. Not only for the Romans? What about the holy hain of the celts (I'll look up the name later on...). Then why only have one Great Lighthouse (Pharos)? Why not have more lighthouses (small building)? Or you could make the Lighthouses small wonders and Pharos stays one big?

More ideas coming later on, I hope.

mitsho

Hadrian's wall ?

yes, exactly ;) thanks

:hmm: Something... fishy?

Teuta was a woman. She was Queen Teuta.

Teuta was a woman. She was Queen Teuta.

:mischief:

Limes

Hadrian's Wall, Rhine lime, Euphrates’s lime, and even the Wale's one. I love it. But how can I implement the limitation of the effect to each regional area. Ok, I can (and will!) do that for the continent and Britain in a separate way (gain of limes/walls? in every city of the continent), yet I can't divide the Rhine from the Euphrates, right?

Governments

I had a few in mind: (sorry for the names, have to think of better ones :rolleyes: )

-Monarchy (starting gov for Rome)
-Republic (good but not much militaristic)
-Triumvirate Republic (more militaristic, but cities should riot more often)
-Imperialism (good, militaristic)
-Antonine Imperialism (help to manage a real large size empire, but less militaristic)
not for Rome:
-City states (~ republic for the Greeks)
-Tribal council (for all barbarians)
-Oriental Autocraty (for Persia, Seleucids, Ptolemean's Egypt, Carthage)

I would really need help for the last one. Were these nations sharing similar type of governance. I have especially doubts concerning Carthage... :confused:

Keep thinking for Wonder built by non-Roman! What was the holy hain? I had another in mind, Carnac: Frenchman, are you familiar with it (you should be! :p ) ?

Lighthouses as small wonders... With what effect? +1 move, I don't like it...
Safe sea travel... that could be it! The map should then be designed with it in mind. I could add that, but only if someome can confirm that lighthouses were indeed playing an important role in navigation by this time

Keep thinking for Wonder built by non-Roman! What was the holy hain? I had another in mind, Carnac: Frenchman, are you familiar with it (you should be! :p ) ?

Lighthouses as small wonders... With what effect? +1 move, I don't like it...
Safe sea travel... that could be it! The map should then be designed with it in mind. I could add that, but only if someome can confirm that lighthouses were indeed playing an important role in navigation by this time

Carnac is a field with lines of big stones .. Built very far in the past ... I can try to do one wonder with it ...

Unless you destroy the caucasus region, we can't have a syrian and a rhine limes with the effect of the great wall. And I doubt you want to make Suez a water tile for an african limes, do you? And I have no idea how to include this without having three different wonders (one gives walls, etc.)

The holy hain, sorry, I forgot to translate the last word, it's german :blush: Hain just means a forest, usually a holy one. Just think of LoTR, Galadriels forest is a Hain. And I thought that there were some druid 'schools' where these holy sites were. And that there was a special one, the one of Carnute, or something like that.

And Carnac was built by the celts, haven't you read Asterix? :) (that could be an easteregg).

Lighthouses could provide save sea travel, that's perfect. And the only source I can give you is a german 'scientific magazine'. But I have to search the article under a mountain of those, so give me some time please, and I'll serve you with that. (you then could allow this small wonder only for some civs, so no celtic light house...)

more wonders? Ishtar gate in Babylon, Port of Tyros (or the city itself), the tomb of Kyros*, the Oracle of Siwa, then some abstract like The Silk Road or Indian trade! perhaps you want to include the Uprising of Palmyra by a wonder (short-lived wonder, makes citizen unhappy but gives them an advantage?), Petra has to be included, but I doubt in a wonder(?). Ovids work (giving culture), Vergil's books (comes with a nationalism like tech and boosts it, don't know how), then why not include some of the hills of Rome as wonders (the Capitol hill, the Palatin or the Vatican field); For Carthage you have to include something with elephants, I don't know what. For the moment I have no ideas left.

mfG mitsho

PS: *on which was written: [...]I'm Cyros, [...] the founder of the persian Empire which once ruled Asia. So therefore leave me this little piece of Earth which has my skeleton[...]. Impressing I think, not? this isn't accurately translated!

PSS: @pinktilapia You are from Thailand, right?

@ mitsho Wow, you are useful! Lots of idea there, I will come back on these a bit later today, together with an attempt of game overview (to be found in the 2nd post soon). BTW, I live in Thailand but I am no Thai, rather a belgo-italian cross-over ;)

EDITED
And yes, I have read all old 'Asterix et Obelix', as it is from Belgium. It actually must have been a large part of my childhood's literature :lol:

Perhaps more important than the crucifixion (in this context) was the advent of the New Testament/Gospels, indicating the spread of the religion rather than its inciting story. The creation of the aggragate Gospels would more directly correspond with the rapid opening of various church/basilica improvements, acting as a marker for the proselytizing movment's delay some time after the actual "passion".

Just a suggestion.

- Redking

Hi folks,

Overview completed in the 2nd post! Sorry if it is arduous and lengthy to read!

@redking

I do get your idea in a positive way, as you may have notice in the overview :) So, it will be (maybe, it will make other happy as well!):

1) Crucifixion, which makes local people in Jerusalem unhappy (reflecting Jewish troubles, in the same period)

2) Holy Christian Scriptures (when was the Bible written?), needing the Crucifixion as a prerequisite and increasing the effect of basilica (since we can't make it a prerequisite for Christian buildings throughout the map)

Beside to build Christian improvements, the sequence will be the following:

1. Build a Christian persecution in the city (need an adequate advance like something of the same name)
2. Build a Church (prerequisite: Christian persecution)
3. Build a Basilica (need a church and an advance like Constantin's Conversion)

Built - effect -city (nation)

The Colossus - Vanilla - Built in Rhodes (Pergamum)
The Pharos - Vanilla (Great Lighthouse) - Built in Alexandria (Egypt)
The Great Library of Alexandria - + research - Built in Alexandria (Egypt)
The Great Library of Pergamum - + research - Built in Pergamum (Pergamum)
Phoenician Trade Empire - +1 trade - Built in Carthage (Carthage)
Hellenistic Academy - + research and culture - Built in Athenae (Greece city states)
The Oracle of Delphus - Vanilla - Built in Delphus (Greece city states)
The Pan-isthmic Games - +50% tax, +1 happy in each city - Built in Corinthus (Greece city states)
The Royal Palace of Persepolis - +5% treasury per turn - Built in Persepolis (Persia)
The Pyramids - Vanilla - Built in Memphis (Egypt)
Stonehenge - Increase effect of Cult Sites/Menhirs? - Built in ? (Celts)
The Temple of Salomon - ? - Built in Jerusalem (Egypt)
The Parthenon - ? - Built in Athenae (Greece city states)
Archimedes’ Workshop – Coastal Fortress in every city – Syracuse (Greece city states)
Mausoleum of Mausollos – Just culture – Halikarnassos (where is that?!)
Hanging Gardens – Obsolete – Babylon (Persia)
The Tomb of Kyros – ? – ? (Persia)
Carnac – ? – ? (Celts)
Ishtar Gate – ? – Babylon (Persia)
The Oracle of Siwa – ? – Uh…? (?)
Port of Tyros – trade port in every city – Tyros (Seleucids)
Holy Hain – ? – ? (Germanic tribes)

To be build by non-Roman – effect – nation

Barcas’ Leadership – Generate leader-unit – Carthage
Attila’s Leadership – Generate leader-unit – Steppes Nomads

WE NEED MORE OF THESE!

To be build by Roman – effect – nation

Scipio’s Leadership – Generate leader-unit
Marius’ Leadership – Generate leader-unit
Caesar’s Leadership – Generate leader-unit
Trajan’s Leadership – Generate leader-unit
Agrarian Law – Citizen unhappy in each city for a while, build improvement (limited citizenship) in each city which increase resistance to propaganda and war weariness
Dictator Perpertuus – two free tech (actually leading to imperialism)
Diocletian’s Reform – reduce war weariness, build barrack and corruption-control building (diocese) in each city
The Temple of Zeus - +5% treasury per turn (should it be built already?)
The Colosseum - + happiness in city, doubles sacrifice - Rome
Circus Maximus - + happiness in every city - Rome
Constantinople - 2nd Capital, generates Grand Legions - Byzantium
The Holy Scriptures – Effect of Basilica x2
The Crucifixion – Unhappiness in the city - Jerusalem
Colonization (better name wanted) – generate settlers
Limes – + city defense on continent
Hadrian’s wall – ?
Temple of Artemis – happiness in city (should it be built already?)
The Oriental Trade Road – +50% luxury and tax/trade
Ovids’ Work – Culture
Vergil's Books –Culture or?

Extra-Wonders-if-you-want-more-but-we-have-a-lot-already :)
The Capitol Hill (Rome)
The Palatin (Rome)
The Vatican Field (Rome)
Uprising of Palmyra/Gauls (short-lived wonder that makes citizen unhappy but gives them an advantage?)

Small wonder:
Lighthouse – safe sea travel – all civilized nations

Give your comments guys!

Siwa is actually spelt Siwah ;) it's an oasis of the western desert in Egypt, in Greek called Amonium. It was barely under control of the Ptolemies, IIRC one of the Ptolemaic emperors died in a war with Amonium. Cyrus' tomb was in Pasargadae, the religious capital of the ancient Persian Empire. IIRC the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was already built. You also might want to rename the Colosseum to the Flavian Amphitheatre. Halicarnassus was in modern Turkey, opposite Rhodes. Persepolis was destroyed in 330BC. Also I hold reservations of the name 'Hellenistic Academy' in Athens. It would either have to be 'Hellenic Academy' (which would mean a less great effect) or to be moved to another city IMO.

I just do what I can :) and asterix is the best comic ever drawn... :) (hmm, I think I have many (or nearly all?) of them somewhere in the house. :)

bbtt (but back to topic)

If you want to have to persone cult in, you could also rename the hellenistic academy into Aristoteles Academy, or simply Academy of Athens. :)

Then a small idea, greece and the phoenician states should both be able to produce a thing like colonisation, shouldn't they? And you won't allow settler, am I right?

mfG mitsho

I am just back from a extra day of holiday. Queen's Birthday that's it. But it was wisely spent working on this mod. Thanks Mongoloid Cow (damn, with pinktilapias, we have some seriously challenged animals around here) and thanks again mitsho, I think we have now all the wonders we need although we shall confirm their names and effects. Some questions:

Renaming the Colosseum to the Flavian Amphitheatre. Ok I see the point, after we speak about the whole buidling, not just the statue, right? But, was it an amphitheater? Isn't the coliseum round? I thought amphitheater were half a circle :confused:
For Persepolis, I had in mind Big Alex has passed through and the riches of the palace had been gently redistributed, but still Persepolis continued ahead into history and Persia was to remain rich, maybe should we get another wonder to reflect that?

Ok, now the big part
That folks, is a full day of work. I will post pictures of it in the next post.
Without comments, all of it is useless, I won't start modding unless I feel people are willing to play it (and helping in the assembling, BTW)

The file in Word format:

EDITED 19/08/04
Pictures are now posted below

Map on page 1 has been updated

That's weekend coming up now :) . I won't have a chance to come online before Monday in my piece of jungle, so keep the comments flowing all along and tell me what you think about all that stuff above.

And if someone want to help in selecting/creating/assembling graphics for all these units/buildings/tech/etc., oh you are so much welcome !!! :love:

:ack: No feedback folks?
Lack of interest or just that nobody read these pages?
Last WE, I have spent some time putting all these stats and techs into the mod's rules. Actually, what remain is to put the civ on the map (that's the nice part, that I would eagerly do) and the graphics collection work. But it is not worth the work if it just for myself. Let's see :)

Hi.

My own pet-project scenario features 31 civilizations cramped on an Indus-to-Europe map, making it an epic game and God-awful indeed. I’m never content with just a few civs, because I simply can’t stop adding things… so I’m perfecting it into infinity.

But I make shake & bake scenarios. For this I use a pre-built template map with cities and a large selection of unit sets, each ‘set’ providing the receiving civ some strengths and weaknesses. But the typical unit set usually includes a primary foot unit, be it a type of legion, warband, or hoplite, usually with a 4- or 5-attack value. Then an auxilla unit with 1a2d, then a psiloi with 1a1d perhaps 1-no-range-bombard. Horsemen 2a1d, Cavalry 3a2d, some also have Heavy Cavalry or 'knights' 4 or 5a2d. Some sets, like Scythians, Sarmatians and Parthians have an emphasis on cheap and easily available horseback units, while the early Roman set focuses on infantry.



To avoid an overcrowded map, I initially decided that no one could build new settlers, but I realized that this is not the best solution. Besides it is fun to set up new colonies. So I took a different approach and made a sacrifice.

All forest has been renamed city-site and the graphics have been replaced with a little “vacant spot sign”. This means that my scenario does not feature pine forest (sadly) or jungle (which I turned into forest). But it also means that I could make city sites on both grassland and plains, pure eye-candy.


Civilization also have 'templates', for instance the Numidians. They start with these two techs: Tribal kingdom (grants them the government of the same name, thus they stick to this government throughout the game) and Tribal Civilization (grants them several tribal improvements, like Tribal Tavern, Tribal Market, etc), they are also flavoured Tribal & Nomad, causing them to favour more nomad improvements in the tribal category.

But this whole template of mine, not to mention the changes in gameplay is only really a good solution for short scenarios perhaps focusing on a single conflict.

But if you need any help, you just let me know.


Oh, and I can give you everything I have. You can then dissect it at your pleasure and use it for whatever you like. I have city lists for most tribes, by the way, I name my tribes for instance ‘The Cherusci’ instead of just ‘Cherusci’, and I’ve change it so the military advisor says ‘conquered’ instead of ‘captured’. I thought it sounded silly when he claimed we had ‘captured the Boii’, now whenever we nick the Celtic city of ‘the Boii’ he says we have ‘conquered the Boii’. Atheistically pleasing. :crazyeye:







...If only Civ 3 featured ‘Events’... :cry:

I'm sorrry, I have looked at it, and read it, and I have some things I want to say, but honestly, this weekend I hadn't had a minute for myself. And So it is now. I'll respond to you when I have time later on this day or tomorrow.

mitsho

@ Cimbri

Thanks for passing by! I had read some of your ideas in a post I dug out on the forum. I would be glad to take a look at your mod :) ! Since I want to come out with a playable alpha of the game quickly to stimulate the crowd, I bet lot of it could help, with proper credit of course. I do not have such a rich variety of units and your project could come handy!

I do not think I will let any civ build settlers, I want to keep the map relatively wild in some areas. At least the Roman, maybe others, would get a settler-spawning wonder. On the other hand, I could follow your lead and make foundation of cities on forests/hills impossible. Since the map outside the Mediterranean bassin will be mostly forested, that could somewhat control the number and location of cities. Also, to keep the game playable, no way to have as many civ, although I have already seen many change to carry on on the list I posted before.

Let me know where I can find your project :yeah:

I'm sorrry, I have looked at it, and read it, and I have some things I want to say, but honestly, this weekend I hadn't had a minute for myself. And So it is now. I'll respond to you when I have time later on this day or tomorrow.

mitsho

Arrr, I am too impatient, I know :mischief:

I will be adding in the units next weekend and then start working on the map itself. Meanwhile I would greatly appreciate comments on the tech trees and units. Ach, come, you lazy pumpkins

Otherwise, I guess, at least this thread will have been useful completing the wonders and especially forcing me to put my ideas down on paper... groucho

Tech Trees for Non-Roman Civilizations

Note: In these trees, grey advances are classified as belonging to no era (thus non researchable, non-tradable) and are given to the relevant civilization as the game start. A civilization can only research advances branching from the gray prerequisites it knows. The Forever Advance is researchable by all, mostly for the IA once one civilization knows all its possible advances. It is a kind of 'future tech' (see good old civ2) which no one is likely to complete.

Tech Tree for Rome

Note: This tree is actually divided into 4 ages, since it can fit in a window as such.

Age 1 = The Rise of the Republic
Age 2 = The Imperial Apogee
Age 3 = The Fall of the Empire
Age 4 = The Byzantine Legacy

Great and Small Wonders

Note: The assumption for the wonders is that small wonders can’t be captured since they disappear when the city is taken: am I right?

Improvements

Units

Note: There are few unit lines
Infantry (good attack)
Defender (useless in attack, can be immobile)
Cavalry (strong and fast attacker with low HP and usually expensive)
Archer (weak and cheap attacker with defensive bombard)
Artillery (only Roman, since anyway, the IA won't know what to do with them)

Move (1) = immobile
HN = hidden nationality

Hey Pink, I love your idea. It seems to me that something like this has been needed for a while. Please let me know if i can help with anything. Ive never created units, but i could find them if you need and city placement, maps, etc. i can do for you. Anyway, great idea! :goodjob:

Thanks for reviving my old thread and glad you like it :) It is still well alive but work is going slowly since I am working on my own with lot of real work to manage as well. Well, I am in the process to finalize the rules (still have a few units to enter) and ... yes :) you could help. I would be glad of any help and feedback :D I don't think we need to create units or ask for someone to do so, there is a lot already exisiting around. If you are interested, I can mail you the mod-in-progress and you could start looking for some good graphics for the different buildings/wonders/techs/etc. and post them here!

I will start working on the map soon :)

Yeah Pink, that would be great. Like I said, i love this idea and i would be glad to help.

Here is a list of the Roman units which need proper graphics, we may as well start with them. The number following the unit name is the epoch during which it is used

1 = early republic,
2 = middle republic
3 = late republic
4 = early imperial
5 = middle imperial
6 = late imperial
7 = byzantine

Heavy Infantry Line
Legion (1) - lightly armored, not much legion alike
Republican Legion (2) (worker animation) - first legion-looking unit
Consular Legion (3) (worker animation) - similar, maybe abit more of an 'imperial look'
Imperial Legion (4) (worker animation) - heavy equipement
Grand Legion (5) (worker animation) - the apogee of the legions
Mercenary Legion (6) - barbarian like legion
Stratriots (7) - byzantine militia recruited in each theme (large province), light to medium armor

Leader's Unit Line
Scipio’s Legion (1) (worker animation) - legion+leader?
Caesar’s Legion (3) (worker animation) - consular legion+leader?
Trojan’s Legion (4) (worker animation) - Imperial legion+leader?

Defender Line
Garrison (1) - Basic defender that will be shared with most other civilized nations
Republican Garrison (2-3) - more legion-like
Imperial Garrison (4+) - more heavy equipment
Praetorian Guards (5+) - elite defenders in dark clothes/armor

Light Infantry Line
Allied Hoplites (1) - greek hoplites look (actually they are allied latins)
Allied Warriors (2) - allied barbarians with basic armor and weaponry
Aux. Infantry (3-4) - legion like, light equipement
Imperial Aux. Infantry (5+) - a more imperial look?

Archer Line
Militia (1) - basic archers composed of allied latins
Allied Archers (2) - mercenaries and allied barbarians and islanders (slings could be ok)
Aux. Archers (3-4) - more regular archers
Imperial Aux. Archers (5+) - regular looking archers with good equipement
Cavalry Line
Allied Horsemen (2) - allied barbarians, no armor
Aux. Cavalry (3-4) - regular looking, light armor
Imperial Aux. Cavalry (5-6) - heavier
Cataphracts (7) - elite cavalry with heavy armor and weaponry

Artillery Line
Ballista (2-3)
Catapults (4+)
Greek Fire (7) - just a oil urn graphic (it is a "cruise-missile" unit)

As far as possible, we should try to have some homogeneity between units of the same epoch, as well as a certain logic in the progress of the appearance of the units though a line. Worker animation for so many units are unlikely to exist so never mind about it. Concerning the so-called 'leader-unit', my wish would have to have army-like graphics (a leader, plus the legion of the proper epoch beside him). Again, I am not sure how far we can find that.

First priority, finding some acceptable graphics to make the mod more or less playable so that we can go to testing the alpha soon! We can always change to better graphics or even, if the crowd like the mod, request some tailor-made ones later.

Thanks for any help :)

OK, i have compiled a bunch of units that i feel would work for the units you requested. I still dont have a few, ie the Leader units but i think we can use a multi unit with the "roman army" and each kind of legion we want, though i think we need to request that one. By the way, i just noticed that you spelled it Trojan, im almost certain its Trajan (just an observation). Anyway, here's what i have.

Actually its not working now, but ill upload the files within a few hours.

Any editorial comment is greeted, i.e. most of the sources I use are in French and I am afraid my own English has itself an dreadful French flavour ;)

Upload these graphics ASAP, I can't wait to see that :) It will save a lot of time!!!

Coltrane, you are still having upload problems?

Another weekend, and some progress! I have finished heavy work on the rules (yeepee!), modified the map (based on the one from Ancient Mediterranean, due credit will be paid), placed the resources, and... set up most of the civ!

Still to do for completing a first map setting: three civ to place (germans, steppe nomads, desert nomads) plus the Celts to complete (in Scotland and Irland, and dividing the Celts in Northern Italy into a different faction since otherwise it will be impossible for Rome to have an early conquest there). I will post details of each region for comments on city names and placement soon. Numids and pirates are actually in black color, so they are not very much visible on the preview.

Preview of the minimap:

SOME REGIONAL PREVIEW

Do not mind the units and cities' graphics, since I am still looking for proper ones.

1. Italy

2. Carthago and Sicilia

3. Greece and Aegan Sea

4. Upper Egypt

and a last one for now...

5. Mesopotamia

It looks nice, it certainly could be done this way :). But I'd certainly split the Celts up, at the moment, they are huge.... And huge means in civ3-terms, unbeatable (if you have no solution against this!). But you've already said this. And it looks for me that the celts have either many many cities (which makes them hard to beat) or much culture (more than Rome) which makes them hard to conquer. Isn't it this way?

That's everything I can say at the moment.

mitsho

EDIT: One more idea: the Nabateans. When does the game exactly start? 300 BC or later? (too lazy to look it up) Why not add them in? And make them (incredibly) rich by giving them a small wonder (requires middle east resource...), that after Petra is destroyed can be built by Palmyra? (and btw. Is this city included, that's my favourite.... :))

About the Celtic Civilisation I suggest to let them start with Democracy goverment. This is historicly acurate since The Celts pratised Democracy long before the Greek "invented" democracy. That also the reason why greek historians "liked" the celts because they had a democracy similar to theirs.

For gameplay this means celtic leaders will be eager to make peace after a few months just like 2000 years ago. Later on, allow the celts to discover a more warlike goverment allowing them to wage war agains rome indefently.

If I recall rightly, that's not totally correct. (Remember, the following is straight from my head... :))

The Celts had the patrimony, I think. Meaning, there were the nobles which had shared many people around themselves. Under these nobles, there was a democracy-like government. And the voice of a noble relied on his might, meaning how many people followed him.
You could call this a Aristocracy-Democracy.

mfG mitsho

Palmyra is there... although I am afraid I made it just a small provincial colony stuck between the rich lands of Antioch and the desert... Game start in 272BC, just look at the snapshots :D

I still have to measure how far the game is balanced (stay close, for an alpha will be out soon). Just know that all barbarians (includes the Celts) share the same basic buildings (which generate very limited culture) and their cities are most of the time limited at a maximum size of 4. Concerning their government, currently I have only implemented a 'tribal council' for all barbarians, which is has a kind of communist approach to corruption. Now, Fanatic Demon is giving me an idea, maybe I will make this government prone to war weariness so that conflicts between barbarians and Romans are short (but bloody)!

Anyone with suggestions on the kind of government ruling Egypt and Carthage by this time?

I let my books at home, Nabateans... arrrr?.... Petra...sounds familiar...

and the World Overview

Although I fear most people with normal eyes (or without an abundant imagination) will never make out the name of the cities. Beware, it is about 2MB large.

Overview (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/RFRE-Overview.jpg)

Well, about Palmyra, I wrote something about Palmyra, so I can say that I know the thing quite well, and therefore I like it, although it's not too correct in the screenshot, for gameplay issues, that's ok :) . My Idea with the trade still stands, you haven't have commented on it. ..:)

About the Nabateans:
A quick google gave this pic. (btw. You have to insert two words, only petra will you give just pics of women .... )
Petra (http://www.art-service.de/pics/artikel/6096A.jpg)
I can't tell you much more but what I know from my head. This is cause I don't have books ready to cite... :)

But around that time (Scenario) the nabateans were the merchants of the world. They controlled the trade route from the meditterannean to South Arabia (and from there to India). They were competing with the Ptolemeans above that monopol (the way through Mesopotamia wasn't the best choice at that time). The Ptolemeans tried to conquer them a few times, as well as they are thought to establish trade ports at the red sea and more south. But the Nabateans had to fight the Ptolemeans hard because the trade was their base of life. They lived in your map in the southeast corner. At the eastern shore of the red sea and in the deserts around that region. They actually were a desert people. (the picture above shows their capital Petra).

I hope I've helped a bit...

mfG mitsho

EDIT: didn't see your question: Egypt was Ptolemean. --> a Monarchy with some aristocracial inputs. :) Carthage, I THINK, was under a senate. Meaning they had a sort of republic of the aristocats. I have to look at the first page to be able to tell you exactly what governments (because I don't know which exist in this mod...)

the map looks great pink, im going to find out how to do the tech tree stuff and ill find the city graphics. thats all for now.

-Coltrane

(the picture above shows their capital Petra).

Indiana Jones! :crazyeye:

So we got a new civ, the Nabateans that will fill a deserted and hilly corner of the map with a few oases. Had they enough territory to justify more than just one city, and had they had any naval capacity? How were they doing their trade?

Following Mitsho, I will modify the current wonder Oriental Trade Road into a small wonder which requires Eastern's goods (i.e. silk and spices) as a prerequisite (in the city perimeter) and boost trade and tax. The only cities which can build this wonder should be Petra, Palmyra (and Damascus?).

Concerning Palmyra, I have been too gentle, it will be in the desert and no longer at the border of it! A few oases will help.

Besides Cisalpine Celts, the Picts are coming back and will occupy Scotland and (inaccurately) Ireland. Their main UU will be unarmored warriors & raiders while the Celts later units will be well armored.

Carthage will then be a republic. I will rename autocracy (Antigonids, Ptolemean, Seleucids, 'Persia') as Monarchy. Germans, Celts, Picts, Nomads would surely deserve a government with a better name than Tribal Council.

This text is from a internet site and gives you a good overlook at them :) But it's not necessary to read it :)
The Mysterious Nabateans

Before Alexander’s conquest, a thriving new civilization had emerged in southern Jordan. It appears that a nomadic tribe known as the Nabateans began migrating gradually from Arabia during the sixth century BCE. Over time, they abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in a number of places in southern Jordan, the Naqab desert in Palestine, and in northern Arabia. Their capital city was the legendary Petra, Jordan’s most famous tourist attraction. Although Petra was inhabited by the Edomites before the arrival of the Nabateans, the latter carved grandiose buildings, temples and tombs out of solid sandstone rock. They also constructed a wall to fortify the city, although Petra was almost naturally defended by the surrounding sandstone mountains. Building an empire in the arid desert also forced the Nabateans to excel in water conservation. They were highly skilled water engineers, and irrigated their land with an extensive system of dams, canals and reservoirs.

The Nabateans were exceptionally skilled traders, facilitating commerce between China, India, the Far East, Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. They dealt in such goods as spices, incense, gold, animals, iron, copper, sugar, medicines, ivory, perfumes and fabrics, just to name a few. From its origins as a fortress city, Petra became a wealthy commercial crossroads between the Arabian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures. Control of this crucial trade route between the upland areas of Jordan, the Red Sea, Damascus and southern Arabia was the lifeblood of the Nabatean Empire.
We still know comparatively little about Nabatean society. However, we do know that they spoke a dialect of Arabic and later on adopted Aramaic. Much of what is now known about Nabatean culture comes from the writings of the Roman scholar Strabo. He recorded that their community was governed by a royal family, although a strong spirit of democracy prevailed. According to him there were no slaves in Nabatean society, and all members shared in work duties. The Nabateans worshipped a pantheon of deities, chief among which were the sun god Dushara and the goddess Allat.

As the Nabateans grew in power and wealth, they attracted the attention of their neighbors to the north. The Seleucid King Antigonus, who had come to power when Alexander’s empire was divided, attacked Petra in 312 BCE. His army met with relatively little resistance, and was able to sack the city. The quantity of booty was so great, however, that it slowed their return journey north and the Nabateans were able to annihilate them in the desert. Records indicate that the Nabateans were eager to remain on good terms with the Seleucids in order to perpetuate their trading ambitions. Throughout much of the third century BCE, the Ptolemies and Seleucids warred over control of Jordan, with the Seleucids emerging victorious in 198 BCE. Nabatea remained essentially untouched and independent throughout this period.

Although the Nabateans resisted military conquest, the Hellenistic culture of their neighbors influenced them greatly. Hellenistic influences can be seen in Nabatean art and architecture, especially at the time that their empire was expanding northward into Syria, around 150 BCE. However, the growing economic and political power of the Nabateans began to worry the Romans. In 65 BCE, the Romans arrived in Damascus and ordered the Nabateans to withdraw their forces. Two years later, Pompey dispatched a force to cripple Petra. The Nabatean King Aretas III either defeated the Roman legions or paid a tribute to keep peace with them.

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE augured a period of relative anarchy for the Romans in Jordan, and the Parthian kings of Persia and Mesopotamia took advantage of the chaotic situation to attack. The Nabateans made a mistake by siding with the Parthians in their war with the Romans, and after the Parthians’ defeat, Petra had to pay tribute to Rome. When they fell behind in paying this tribute, they were invaded twice by the Roman vassal King Herod the Great. The second attack, in 31 BCE, saw him take control of a large swath of Nabatean territory, including the lucrative northern trading routes into Syria.

Nonetheless, the Nabateans continued to prosper for a while. King Aretas IV, who ruled from 9 BCE to 40 CE, built a chain of settlements along the caravan routes to develop the prosperous incense trade. The Nabateans realized the power of Rome, and subsequently allied themselves with the Romans to quell the Jewish uprising of 70 CE. However, it was only a matter of time before Nabatea would fall under direct Roman rule. The last Nabatean monarch, Rabbel II, struck a deal with the Romans that as long as they did not attack during his lifetime, they would be allowed to move in after he died. Upon his death in 106 CE, the Romans claimed the Nabatean Kingdom and renamed it Arabia Petrea. The city of Petra was redesigned according to traditional Roman architectural designs, and a period of relative prosperity ensued under the Pax Romana.


The Nabateans profited for a while from their incorporation into the trade routes of the Roman Near East, and Petra may have grown to house 20,000-30,000 people during its heyday. However, commerce became less profitable to the Nabateans with the shift of trade routes to Palmyra in Syria and the expansion of seaborne trade around the Arabian peninsula. Sometime probably during the fourth century CE, the Nabateans left their capital at Petra. No one really knows why. It seems that the withdrawal was an unhurried and organized process, as very few silver coins or valuable possessions have been unearthed at Petra.


As for your questions: Give them at least two cities (depending on map size), and as much naval power in the red sea as you give to the Ptolomeans (not more or less... :)). That's my advice... (they should be easy to sack but so rich that they could buy anyone in against the enemy)

mfG mitsho

Google is so good :) I have little time to work on this mod outside weekends, but Petra and another city (an harbor on the red sea) will be added, even if only for the flavor.

While placing the Germanic tribes, I realized that I need to add even one more civ to keep their size in match. That should be the Thracians (which includes Dacia). I am afraid I am progressively making the mod implayable for the smaller configurations.

Although I (have come to) know one has to carry his mod by himself, I put a task list down there. It is "check and pick", anyone willing to help, PM me! Once these are done, we have the alpha!

- Graphics and pediaicons (I will start working on that next WE)
- Civilopedia entries (someone!)
- Design of tech tree with proper position and arrows on the scientific advisor's screen (Coltrane? Anyone with experience doing that?)

Hello.

This scenario seems to start very well.
Just a fews comments:

1) Don't give the Celt any Settlers units, this will prevent them settling on scotland and germany.

2) The Nabateans do not have any naval activivties (thus they owned a port near gaza for a short time). I'm not sure they owned a port on red sea.

3) If you have a good dsl connexion I suggest you to download my old Great Lost Civilizations mod (Thread Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=67926) ) for ptw, it's focused on the ancient times and it has many wonders (like Ishtar's Gate, Trajan's Column, Caracalla's Terms,...) as well as specialy made city graphics for Egyptian, Hellenistic, Phoenicians and units. You might find some stuffs or ideas there. Beware it's 104Mb...

4) If you're in needs of something, ask me.

It looks nice, it certainly could be done this way :). But I'd certainly split the Celts up, at the moment, they are huge.... And huge means in civ3-terms, unbeatable (if you have no solution against this!). But you've already said this. And it looks for me that the celts have either many many cities (which makes them hard to beat) or much culture (more than Rome) which makes them hard to conquer. Isn't it this way?

That's everything I can say at the moment.

mitsho

EDIT: One more idea: the Nabateans. When does the game exactly start? 300 BC or later? (too lazy to look it up) Why not add them in? And make them (incredibly) rich by giving them a small wonder (requires middle east resource...), that after Petra is destroyed can be built by Palmyra? (and btw. Is this city included, that's my favourite.... :))

I have to agree on this. Historicly Ceasar conquered the celt not by slowly invading celtic teritory but by systematicly conquering trybes they did not cooperate with roman law and by buying allies in rivaling celtic tribes like the Remi.

While placing the Germanic tribes, I realized that I need to add even one more civ to keep their size in match. That should be the Thracians (which includes Dacia). I am afraid I am progressively making the mod implayable for the smaller configurations.

:lol:

I know how that ends. My scenarios got out of hand. It is a map based on the world just at the start of the First Punic War. Suddenly I began adding civs, lots of civs.

To increase the difficulty:

Rome only have a few cities, most Italian cities belong to the civ “Socii Populi Romani” in locked alliance with Rome. Syracuse was also represented in the beginning, but she was eventually removed as an independent state and converted into another civ.

Carthage also has such an ally state. Numidia, like in your map, she is represented as an independent nation, though in locked alliance with Carthage.

Then there are a ton of Greek fractions, everything from Epirus, Sparta, the Achaean League, the Aetolian League, Aegean Greeks (the Greek islands in the Aegean sea), Western Greeks (Italy and southern France), Black Sea Greeks (Guess where), Bosphoran Kingdom, then three Successor Kingdoms, and a bunch of independent Anatolian states.

Then we have the barbarians, Thracians, the Getae (who also occupies Dacia at this point), Sarmatians, Germanics, three Celtic factions, Celt-Iberians, Iberians, Illyrians… ack… no Britons, though.

In the end I had to remove most of northern Gaul, then I removed the Germans (they weren’t really as important back then) and converted them to a new Celtic faction.

A shame you cant do the same, eh? :p

If you see at the end that it's not playable you can always kick the nabataeans out, they don't need much work to be done, do they?

mfG mitsho

LBPB! Your city graphics are simply amazing! Pink, there is no way we can do without these graphics, Rome/carthage and the middle east can have new graphics (sadly there arent enough spots for city graphics for egypt i think, though who knows how it will end.) so i say, rome/carthage is covered, middle east is covered, hellenistic is covered i think, so its just the barbarians and nomads that need graphics.

Hi,

No one has settler but Rome, and that's just a few generated by a wonder (currently poorly called Capitol) to replace cities which have been razed or possibly colonize a few empty lands. The maps posted above are unfinished work yet, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the Steppes and the Deserts will be populated. Actually, they were be little scope for new cities. I still can load the game in about 5 min, and it is nearly as complex as it will be, so hopefully, it is not (yet) out of hand :)

I have finally found a map showing the approximate position of Nabateans, something like the pic below. Having no timber, they will only be able to build biremes and coracles from their southern harbor. They will have few land units to build (garrison, archers, and camel riders). I won't kick them out, not unless the game crawls like a frozen sick snail on a glued surface.

@LBPB, I would download your mod, it looks great and I wonder how I miss it, but my connection is not that good. Is there any thread having the graphics (pedia entries!) downloadable separately? Otherwise, I will stay overnight and download the whole pack ;)

If you're in needs of something, ask me.

I do, I do!!! Check the list above and pick one! But surely your mod will be of great help anyway, if only for some pedia data, so thanks.

@Cimbri

A shame you cant do the same, eh?

:eek: No! Don't give me this kind of ideas or I will follow you into damnation and embark into a never finished mod forever. From now on, no more civ, it is a promise :D ! Locked alliance... this is a perpetual (and static) state of war, I feel not suitable for a mod spread over 700 years... I rather have peace periods there and there. I am not afraid about the challenge (it won't be easy at all for our poor Roman friend, especially at start and at the end of the campaing), although I am doubtful how far I will be able to simulate the great invasions and the Fall of Rome quickly enough (I will mostly use HN units, with great stats and small costs, hoping this will push the invaders across Roman lands like plague)

@Fanatic Demon

Historicly Ceasar conquered the celt not by slowly invading celtic teritory but by systematicly conquering trybes they did not cooperate with roman law and by buying allies in rivaling celtic tribes like the Remi.

Ok, let's wait for the alpha and see. If the Celts/others have too many cities for a relatively quick conquest (which nonetheless will never be as quick as it has been in the reality, unless we limit the Gauls at 2-3 cities :ack: ), then I will remove some. For now, I prefer having enough cities to give a complete 'cultural cover' to the territory the tribes historically occupied.

@ Coltrane

LBPB! Your city graphics are simply amazing!

Aye! I must find these graphics and think again on the cultural group we will have!!

EDITED

@ LBPB

Just looked at your thread. I can't stand waiting. I download, even it is must block the internet access to all my colleagues for a whole working day. Feeling guilty... ;)

LBPB! Your city graphics are simply amazing!
Thanks :xmas:


I would download your mod, it looks great and I wonder how I miss it, but my connection is not that good. Is there any thread having the graphics (pedia entries!) downloadable separately? Otherwise, I will stay overnight and download the whole pack
I'm affraid only the cities graphics are available to download in a separated thread, just browse the graphic forum :crazyeye:
ps: Check out my sign, there's a link to the GLC threads presenting large parts of my own graphic work on this mod (look at the previews sub forum).


Just looked at your thread. I can't stand waiting. I download, even it is must block the internet access to all my colleagues for a whole working day. Feeling guilty...
:lol: No, I'm not feeling this guilty...

hey i downloaded it, i can send you what you need

PS, i love the element in your mod, LBPB, of the wonders as resources... thats brilliant!

Back to the office report after this short weekend:

- I have downloaded LBPB's mod. Lots of good things there :goodjob:
- map finished :); loading time about 6 min. on P4-2.4 Ghz 256RAM
- unit's graphics 33% finished
- a problem, but I expect I have found the solution, although I still have to test it. Most of the units do not appear in the build list of the cities, although all requirements have been fullfilled. I hope the cause to this is that the related advances are set as 'no era' and that units linked to such advance can't be built (at least by the human player).

EDITED

Yes, that was the cause to my trouble. Things works now :)

Anyone to write/collect civilopedia entries for buildings & units? Contact me to get the latest listings!

i love the element in your mod, LBPB, of the wonders as resources... thats brilliant!
Thx


- I have downloaded LBPB's mod. Lots of good things there :goodjob:
Thanks, I'm currently working on the next version of my mod :crazyeye:


- map finished :); loading time about 6 min. on P4-2.4 Ghz 256RAM
Could you post a preview of the minimap ? :mischief:

Pinktilapia, I just want to let you know, that this seems to be a very ambitious project. Keep up your good work, even if you have to rely on yourself for the biggest part of it. I'm not good in doing anything like graphics, but I could help playtesting.

Thanks :) Be sure I will need lot of testers (with a lot of patience, likely)!
I will post an overview of the 'final map' later today.

This mod seems like it'll be a good one. I'm a sucker for anything to do with rome.

Wish I could help but I really don't know how to do anything mod-like. Maybe I could help a little with writing civpedia entries, not the programming stuff though.

Good luck on the development!

Hi Gunner,

Sure go ahead if you want to! As soon as you confirm, I can send you some updated listings for buidlings/units. Anyway, I will post these anytime soon. It would be great if you could write entries and share them in this thread!

Attached, the minimap as it is now, with all cities appearing. It is a bit confused around Greece, where many 1 city nations coexists...

That weekend was :suicide:
Never, oh never, I want to do that again, I PRTO_dream_of_it

Here we go, units finished, they just miss the civopedia entries :)


Preview 1
LAND UNITS

Preview 2
Naval Units

UNITS REFERENCE SHEETS
ILLUSTRATED!
CONTRIBUTE! WRITE CIVOPEDIA ENTRIES!

UPDATED

Simply beautiful! Pinktilapia, you've done a great job! My English isn't very good, but I will see, what I can do with the civilopedia entries ...

Alright, I'll see about doing some civilopedia entries. It might take me a while depending upon school work.

Thanks to two of you! Credit of course goes to those who spent such a time creating these beautiful units! I wait for your entries, and don't worry about the English, just post them on this thread for all to see and comments.
Next on my check list are the building's graphics. Those in SPQR are so great... hu... guess I have another PM to send :)
Coltrane, sorry for being late sending the tech trees, I have to revise them first. If you are still eager to help, consider looking for proper graphics and possible splash scene and pedia text for the wonders listed somewhere earlier in this thread. I do not wish rely on new art for now, not before we have a playable version.

Cheers all!

ok, ill compile a list of wonder splashes and tech graphics, but ill do them in that order (i dont have infinite time after all lol)

O.K., I would like to do the Roman Units first, so perhaps Gunner could specialize on the other units. Is that o.k. for you, Gunner?

Yeah, I'll see about doing a few maybe.

Um, as I was looking through the units, they are kinda hard to identify completely based on their names. Do you have any ideas of about when some of them are meant to be from.

Thats fine if you don't, but it would make it so that the entries follow the game more closely.

Mae Culpa; some clues below! I have passed the obvious ones such as praetorian guards and cataphracts. Refer to the two word files posted before for complete stat and capabilities of units

Roman

Legion: republican legion used during the Punic wars and in the campaigns in Greece, of usually 4200 legionnaries.

Allied hoplites: represent the troops of the allied italian cities to the roman cause. Might also be allied hoplites raised to the cause of the Barcas and Mithridates.

Scipio's Legion: give a brief summary on Scipio Africanus

Allied Warriors: Barbarian (mostly Celts) warriors raised as auxiliaries/mercenaries to the cause of Rome, can also be raised by later barbarians infantry

Allied Archers: Diverse kind of archers (such as Balearic slingers) raised as auxiliaries/mercenaries to the cause of Rome

Allied Horsemen: As Rome as serious defiency in raising a good cavalry, they had to recruit barbarians auxiliaries/mercenaries to their cause

Consular Legion: Legion reorganized under Marius, with enlarged size to 6000 legionnaries.

Caesar's Legion: Give a brief summary on Julius Caesar

Imperial Legion: Legion as they were during the early imperial period, up to shortly after the reign of Trajan

Auxiliary Infantry/Archers: Standards recruits from the provinces to assist the Legion in imposing the Pax Romana.

Auxiliary Cavalry: With time Romans started having a good cavalry, which are reflected by this unit, which utlitmately will be used as the main offensive force of the army while the legions (in game then: mercenary legions) will be limited to a defensive and static role at the borders.

Grand Legion: The Apogee of the legion, reflecting the middle period of the empire, between Trajan and the barbarian migrations

Mercenary Legion: From the migration to the Fall, reflecting the recruitement of barbarians from outside the empire in the legions, these units are mostly defensive, in opposition the the earlier legions.

Stratiots: Paysant militia raised over the 'themes' of the Byzantine Empire (historically this is a bit outside the time frame of the game), which were the core of the military success of Byzance.

Non-Romans

Warriors: standard fighters for most of the barbarians tribes (mostly Celts and Germanics). A generic description should be used, maybe from Civ?

Bowmen: defensive units for most of the barbarians tribes. A generic description should be used, maybe from Civ?

Tribals: 'the' defensive unit of the barbarians, with lot of HP, reflecting the local barbarian populations, which often fighted besides the warriors.

Horsemen: mostly used by Celts and Germans, a generic description should be used, maybe from Civ?

Raiders: Hit and run units, which will raid the empire without being at war in the first half of the game. Only testing will tell us if the AI do not abuse of these units.

Armored Warriors: Reflect later german/celt warriors, once having a better mastery in weapon and armor crafting

Woadraiders: Pict warriors with advanced raider capabilities

Maurauders: Different germanic tribes (such as The Marcomani) which raided and migrated into roman territory by 250+ AC (migration period)

Invaders: Different germanic tribes (such as Franks, Vandals, Goths, and so on) which invaded in mass theroman territory and utlimately destroyed the Empire. These units possess a tremendous amount of HP representing the large number of barbarians moving into roman territory in several waves.

Germanic garrison: Early dark age defensive unit for the germanic invaders that replace tribals

Egyptian Infantry: Ptolemean period, graphic will be changed soon :)

Antoine's Legion: Basically a roman consular legion, give a brief summary on Antoine and Cleopatra

Light cavalry: generic cavalry for some civilized nations, in opposition with heavier greek cavalry

Barcas' Mercenaries: give a brief summary on Hannibal and other important leaders of the Barca family

Heavy Cavalry: mostly the companion cavalry, armored riders and unarmored horses for some of the greek states

Parthian Horsemen and Horsearchers: They might share the same entry, both are the core (and unique) offesnive units of this kingdom, with the later reflecting the golden age of the Parthes.

Sassanid Cavalry and Garrison: The two units of the new Sassanid Empire which replace the Parthes. The cavalry is its core and unique offensive unit.

Armenian Warrior: Infantry of the kindoms of Pontus/Armenia, a mixed up of barbarian, parthes and greek cultures. Mostly mountaineers.

Mithridates' Warriors: give a brief summary on Mithridates IV

Nomads: Different tribes populating the steppes of Ukraine and Russia. Generic entry would do fine

Sarmathian Horsemen: Riders from the Sarmathe tribe which raided the Danube area during the early migrations.

Hun Horse Archers: The HUNS!

Attila's Horse Archers: the BANE OF GOD!

Camel Riders: Desert tribes living the diverse oasis of the Sahara and Arabia

Maure Raiders: Raiders from the desert tribes which will invade the province of Africa during the migations

Sailboat: Unique germanic naval unit (transport) of the great invasion period given them the ability to invade Britain and oversea territories (Vandals into Africa, if that ever happen)

Thanks, that clears things up.

Well, on my part the work on the civilopedia entries will have to stop till monday, but sometime next week you'll get them. Should I post them right here?

:) Sure post them here for all to see!

Didn't had lot of time this weekend to work on the mod, thus little progress to post, mostly some progress on setting up city graphics, preview below, credit to their respective artists (I really have to take note of names when I download stuff from now on...), with the main input coming directly from LBPB's Great Lost Civilizations, thanks!
Let me know how they fit in the mod!

I will go through buildings' graph and civ entries soon.

City Preview (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/CityPreview.jpg)

Preview look great :goodjob:

BTW, I'm not sure on the placement of certains cities...

of which cities? You have to say what's wrong in your opinion, or we can't 'repair' it ... :)

mfG

PS: yes, I've been silently watching all the time

@ Mitsho, I knew it ;)
That screenshot with Palmyra-Petra was only for you

oh yes, thank you, :) And I would be willing to help, but this is not possible, at least not before next week ... :)

mfG mitsho

According to the books with maps that I own :

Capua is too close to Rome, it should be the closest possible to Neapolis

Aleria should not be on the bottom of Corsica but mid on the easter coast.

Here's a map from the 1st punic war
(in french sorry)
http://solidariteetprogres.online.fr/Dossiers/Histoire/Rome3.gif

Ah, but it came that I speak French too :)
Yes, some cities might be placed a bit away from where they should be, for the sake of giving them enough space to grow. Thus Capua must be where I put it, or not exist (merged with Neapolis) which would be a pity. In the case of Aleria, that is a mistake, it should be one cell above, on the hill (which shouldn't be a hill then, since the place wasn't know for being impregnable).
When I finally release the alpha, I hope you can find the time to comment and help more on cities names and placement :D. I would especially enjoy having all their names in Latin...

Oh, moi aussi, je parle fracais un peu. Je suis dans francais trois en ecole.

Ah ;) et ces entrées civilopedia, l'artilleur, ça avance?
I am finishing the graphics for the buildings and wonders... Will post some progress today.

BUILDINGS & WONDERS

Preview, with inspiration and great help provided by several existing mod, I hope they won't hate me for that:
-SPQR (Arne)
-GLC (LBPB)
-Warhammer (Embryodead)
-TAM (Thamis)
Thanks guys !


All graphics, including those for the pedia, are completed, but I -of course- still miss the pedia entries :o )

EDITED
Preview removed for the time being.

Having downloaded a few leader heads, I am modifying the pediaicons to add them, and crap, that is a lot of work again. I wish good old civ3 would be a tad more friendly when it come to modding... Once that part is finished, and that won't be tomorrow, I still have to work on the tech, plot their coordinates and attribute them proper graphics.
Alpha testing... not before next month. How are these entries going folks?

ADVANCES TREES

Do not mind current graphics used for the improvements since it is likely some of them will change.

Only are visible the advances accessible to the Romans. Most of the advances of the other civilizations are hidden, since based on a non-era starting tech.

1. The Rise of Rome

2. The Apogee - Pax Romana

3. The Fall of Rome

4. The Legacy - The Byzantine Empire


Some concepts imbedded in the trees


I am not sure I can be clear enough, I will try though...

In the two first ages, we have a main advance line which usually includes the important events achieved by Rome in a sequential manner; this is mostly new military units and laws/reform/governments. Besides, there are smaller lines which provide economical/social/cultural improvements.

The third age is more special and one may ask why the player would be willing to go through research of these 'roman decadence tech'. The answer is not only the gifts of the last age (Byzance), but also a series of game mechanisms which are running against Rome. There is a time bomb which renders the Roman most critical buildings, those reducing corruption, obsolete: once the Germanics reach a certain progress, these buildings become useless and the Roman is left facing huge income and production problems which can't be overcame unless he goes ahead in the advances. This will happen twice, first with the 'Praetor' later to be replaced by 'Dioceses' and then with the "Dioceses', which are also ultimately replaced with the Byzantine 'Themes'. The Roman has no courthouse (the forum reduce corruption but is obsolete along with the Praetor and only accessible to the most developed cities), thus these 3 categories of buildings are overly important. These three are Wonders (so that they might be made obsolete by foreign research), similar to the 'Forbidden City', and the Roman can build 5 of each (with 5, hopefully, Rome can match the corruption that will grow in the very large Roman Empire). In between, there are some forms of government which help reducing corruption but which have their negative backside (such as outrageous legion maintenance rates). The later maintenance costs of legions will also force the player to slowly upgrade his 'grand legions' into lower class, free to maintain, 'mercenary legions'.[B]

Someone still reading? :mischief:

Bien sur. Et si veux de l'aide ou des cartes (en francais) pour placer les villes, tu es le bienvenu. Au fait tu fais quoi en Thailande ?

Hi Loulong,

[english_mode_off]

Toutes les villes sont placées sur la carte, mais comme l'a souligné LBPB, des erreurs se sont sûrement glissées un peu partout, et surtout, j'ai un grand besoin de noms latins. Si ça t'intéresse de jeter un oeil, je peux t'envoyer le biq :D

Ce que je fais en Thaïlande? De la plage, beaucoup de mer ;) Je travaille dans une organisation régionale pour la gestion durable des pêches. Pas évident que ce que mon boulot aide vraiment, mais l'idée est la.

[english_mode_on]

Anyone feeling the soul of an artist and willing to draw a few buidlings? Be warned, otherwise I could do it, and that will be UGLY!

A few new buildings

Obviously, it is mostly a copy-paste work based on the pictures I can find. However, it is all home made. Some are clearly less good than others and will be replaced if I can find a better model, or if anyone can draw something better :)... Should I continue?

its looking great!

Ok, I will take a 10-day break from the mod, starting Sat, go browsing around Angkor and get some 'fresh' air. I will try to resume working on the mod ASAP, but have some serious workload to manage first hand. Once I am satisfied with the art (that's about the only thing still unfinished), I hope some folks will volunteer for tuning the game (mostly tech costs).
Cheers

Home sweet home :)
Just for the sake of keeping the thread from falling to far behind, here is how far I am with the city improvements graphics. More, as soon as I can.

PS Colors are ugly, but I am real nowhere with Photoshop, that's the best I can do. You were warned :D

Well, pinktilapia, I like the city improvement graphics very much. The colors are quite realistic in my opininion. Were did you get all those 3D-views of this antique buildings?

Thanks :) They are from a few large models of Roma and Ostia, the main being the model of Ancient Rome at the time of Constantine presented in the Museo della Civilta Romana (Museum of Roman culture), built under the 'patronage' of Mussolini shortly before WWII. Another one, older and great also, is a model of Rome presented at la Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines at Caen. They was a lot of copy-paste, and even some drawing involved, but mostly credit should go to these models and their artists!

Hello folks,

All is completed and set-up, the game is currently playable, although needing lot of future adjustments in order to stay roughly along an historical line. I am currently trying to 'guess' the wonder's and advances costs, so as alpha-test might start on the best base. Is there anyone around with some free time ready to join and form a small team (just a few, say 3-5 persons), beware that job will be mostly tuning costs and balancing sides and units, probably requiring many updates in the process. It could be fun but also tedious at some point.

I have several small problems, would love help:

- I am finally going to upload that beast (175MB unzipped), and I believe this can be done by PM Thunderfall and then using some FTP stuff. Problem is, I have no appropriate software and little idea on how to use it. Maybe there is a FAQ on that somewhere?

-Is there a way to set-up civilizations respective hostility and friendship as the mod start? I would love Rome and Carthage to be at the edge of war...

I will post some screenshot of my first round of tests this week, alpha team, join the boat!

Thunderfall will give you a link to a FTP free software that is extremely easy to use.

Hostility : not that I know of but putting units in the other's territory will surely annoy them

Still hot from the game:

- City screen of Rome
- Naval clash on the coast of Sicilia

BTW, all is completed is a slight overstatement. I had forgotten (how could I) that the civilopedia is still to be written, from scratch. It is not required for the game to run, so I will work on that later on.

Thunderfall will give you a link to a FTP free software that is extremely easy to use.

Hostility : not that I know of but putting units in the other's territory will surely annoy them

Ok, I will cry loud if I can't manage the FTP software
Hostility not coded...I should have known better... missing Civ2 more every day.
Thanks

I would be interested in gametesting! Maybe this motivates me to do some civilopedia entries, too. Just let me know, if you found any upload possibility.

By the way: The screenshots are really good. I especially like the improvement graphics in the city screen of Rome and the different city graphics in the main game screen shot of sicilly.

I especially like the improvement graphics in the city screen of Rome and the different city graphics in the main game screen shot of sicilly.

Me too ! :coffee: :joke: :D

BTW I would like to try it too :goodjob:

Me too, albeit my own creations don't leave me much time...

Glad to have you on board!

Tentative list of the brave alpha testers:
- pinktilapia (focal point)
- Lares (pedia man)
- LBPB (thanks a thousand times for your beautiful cities!)
- LouLong (map checking)
- Nazbol
- King Coltrane

We need a few more candidates and the team should be complete.

I will continue selfishly playing alone for a while and PM Thunderfall next Monday once done with a last round of correction. Expect the alpha soon after.

I definately want to help out!!!! Sign me up!

How'd you give the northern barbarians borders and territories without cities? It might come in useful for other people, you know. Anyway, 'tis an innovative concept.

They DO have cities. I understand you must think they don't by looking at the screen shots I posted above: these were taken in DEBUG mode, when all the map (including areas which in a normal game would be covered by a fog of war) is visible to the player, although only the cities in the 'officially known area' are shown on the minimap for some strange reasons...

BTW, nice breadfish! :)

not needed, but rename the Large Esate 'Latifundia' to give a more latin feel.

Will do! Ultimately, I wish I could rename all buidlings and units in latin.

Thanks. I like the breadfish, too. Still, it's too bad that Civ3 doesn't support nomcivs. Just too bad. Also, would it be possible to avoid the bad late era techs by having the Romans research the Forever Tech, or does that have an off-tech-tree prerequisite?

Actually, I made the forever tech accessible, but I might change that. The point is that the player has no choice and must rush forward even if the technologies in Era 3 seem bad (and they are!). It it because his/her wonders keeping corruption at bay become obsolete when the barbarians reach some advances. Freezing research once having the grand legion and all our old imperial buidlings will not help with an empire which doesn't produce anything and with a treasure getting empty under the cost of maintenance: you have no choice but to go forward for a revival with the byzantine technologies. Only testing will tell us if this work, but I believe it should!

Now, I was just expelled from my game, beaten to death by a giant coalition (I had initiated a war vs. Carthage and finished at war with half a dozen of hungry powermongers raiding Italy). Humiliation. Most of my civ games actually finish like this, the IA doesn't seem to like me much, eh. Could someone tell me why this happen? Or is it my mod? How can I avoid that? Otherwise, I will have to try byremoving offensive alliance from the game, but again it might just be my gamestyle. One thing is sure: Rome isn't strong enough at start to deal with a world war, just taking Sicily took me 40 years.

maybe make the roman garrison have a slightly higher defense? how much better is the first legion that you can build than the first unit you can build? if it is a drastic improvement, that will make the player or AI research that tech quickly to allow more massive wars. but in reality, Rome was pretty weak early on. We just have to figure out a way to make them go from weak to strong very quickly and very early.

Well, a new attempt did carry more hope for the desperate Romans :). I contracted an early alliance with Pergamum, and didn't rush to war. Instead I spent a couple of decades strenghtening the agriculture and building granaries, thanks to Egyptian wheat (which will not be possible anymore, I lowered the initial roman treasure to ensure that wheat must be taken in Sicily and not traded). My war with Carthage was then more fair and I managed, at high cost, to take Panormus, although Carthage was allied with Syracusae (oh nice, it is historically correct!). It is actually critical to keep a strong army in Italy itself, not to send all we have in Sicily, since the Phoenician use their fleets and embarked amphibious mercenaries quite well (they took me Neapolis during the first game). A weak point I have to signal is that the time between turns is long; although I think things will go better in next versions (I have reduced the quantity of units the barbarians’ civ can maintain).

Other nice things that came out during the tests (unplanned but coming in nicely) are for example:
- The prisoners (enslaved units) which you must not incorporate in cities before the end of the war unless you want your towns to riot (you can dismiss them to boost construction instead)
- The velites and the legion - since legions are both expansive and cost one population, defeat with them is a terrible loss. I used first cheap (no pop cost) velites to weaken the enemy (and likely die in the process, but who cares) before sending in the legions. Once legions become experienced, I feel like I can use them directly (so many HP).

That's all
I go back to my tests.

Once you're done with this, why not make a Rise and Fall of the American Empire scenario?

Uhh...Didn't mean to kill the thread...

Aye :) I wait for the elections. Might fall, or might go to the next level?

WHO IS GOING TO MAKE A BUSH LEADERHEAD!?

A first skeleton of civilopedia has been put down, thanks to a long *awww* weekend. You now should be able to find all game related information in the pedia, but historical descriptions are still missing for -much- later.

And so, the mod is more or less complete, with a zipped size of 100MB, and hopefully those willing to test it will be able to download it soon, maybe very soon!

Are the graphics done, that is, do you have leaderheads?

100 MB does include leaderheads!
Many of them are from R8XFT, and some others I still have to trace. In some instance (twice I think), there is also the use of the same art for 2 leaders, to save space. I might change that later on.

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
RFRE alpha

Size: 98.55 MB
Version: 0.2 alpha

Alpha is no longer available in order to save server space.
Beta will be uploaded as soon as possible.

Note:

I sincerely advise you not to download the alpha version of this mod unless willing to test it, that’s it report bugs, help at tuning the game balance and at making the AI a bit less laughable, or simply contribute to make the mod more historically correct. It is currently playable, but lot of work has still to be done for RFRE not to be just a mod, but a great mod. Once the alpha is tested through, which shouldn’t take more than 2 weeks, hopefully less; a much more playable beta will be released in the completed modpack section of CFF for all to download. The final version will only be released when I can get all sections completed (including the pedia and script).

Assembling this mod has required an ominous amount of work, well above what I expected. It is my first completed mod, although I must have 4 or 5 failed attempts behind me before getting to this stage. I hope those willing to sacrifice some of their time testing will also have some fun. After all, it is all about that!

Overview:

From 272BC to 538AC, you are going to replay Roman history. Along these 800 years, you will have to face fierce opponents, gloomy events, conquer the whole known world, and eventually fall back under the pressure of the barbarians’ invasions. The game should end as Constantinople rises.

The main features currently implemented are:

- 70 units, including 6 types of legions, using the great art available here at CFF.
- More than 40 improvements, most of them with original art
- About 55 wonders, some of which reflecting important historical events
- 4 original tech trees, replaying history as the Rise of the Republic, the Imperial Apogee, the Fall of Rome, and the Byzantine Legacy.
- 25 civilizations
- Tons of original ideas of which I can’t even remember
- Basic civilopedia giving you some clues on how to proceed and on what is the function/capacity of each unit/building.

Some of the main events you will go through:

- The Punic Wars
- Scipio vs. Hannibal
- The emergence of slavery and the large estates
- Slave revolts
- The social troubles as Rome strives to reform its agrarian law
- Caesar and the civil wars
- The advent of Imperialism
- Foreign heroes such as Mithridates VI and Marcus Antonius
- The crucifixion of Jesus the Nazarene and the diffusion of Christian faith
- A great Golden Age under Trajan
- The slow fortification of the borders with limes
- The slow decadence of the senate and of roman institutions
- The age of barbarian migration
- A short revival under Diocletian & Constantine
- The complete decadence of the Romans
- The great invasions and the division of the Empire
- Attila and the Huns
- The Fall of Rome and the advent of Constantinople

Some tips [spoilers]:

- Sign a early alliance with at least another nation, diplomacy is only possible with a few nation, and you better be in
- Keep good defense in Italy
- Trying controlling the seas
- Don’t rush to war with Carthage, build up your local economy and towns first
- Keep prisoners working in the field or disband them for shield during wars, do not incorporate them in towns
- Get wheat as quickly as possible
- Civil engineering is the most useful early advance
- Velites are expandable, legions aren’t

I will be checking the thread often this week, Bangkok time. I hope there will be no problems with download & installation. Anyway let me know how it goes!

Wonderful! Can't wait to have a try on this! Well, I have to wait until evening ... :-(

Downloading now.

Building names In Latin I guess I can ask my old mother who is a Latin teacher.
Not sure if (and when) she can do it but I will contact her.

Downloading now.

Building names In Latin I guess I can ask my old mother who is a Latin teacher.
Not sure if (and when) she can do it but I will contact her.

That would be cool and add much flavor to this Mod :goodjob:

There are a few d/l problems. Also, for Latin translation, try QuickLatin.

I've downloaded the Mod and jut opened the editor for instance.

Lot of work :goodjob:


Looks like I'm the first sending you feedbacks...


1) I'm not English but I found a little error, you mispelled Arc of Triumph (that sounds too french), it should better be Triumphal Arch. ;)

2) Also for Parthenon. Why did you use my Temple of Zeus graphic ? I made a Parthenon too :confused:

3) And why do the Kreta's cities have an Mesopotamian look ?? Shouldn't they be Greek ? :scan:

Okay. The scenario is quite fun to play, even if it does take a little while to load.

My main complaints are...

#1: Spelling errors are rampant. Misplaced apostrophes are everywhere. It shouldn't be "Desert's Nomads," for instance, it should be "Desert Nomads" or "Arabs." Of course, the "Desert Nomads" didn't really do anything, so I don't think they should exactly be there, but that's just my opinion.
#2: The terrain set. No offence, but Sn00py's terrain set makes me want to vomit with rage all over the floor. I find it disgusting and painful to look at. I would recommend that you make two versions--one with Sn00py's terrain graphics, and one with the standard Firaxis graphics.
#3: Other graphics issues: Many of the cities had the wrong artwork. It's probably just temporary, but I think that you should make a generic 'Greco-Roman' art set and use that for the civilized powers, as they were all 'Greco-Roman' cultures. There should also be an 'Eastern' city graphics set for Persia (which should be Parthia) and Pontus, and perhaps for the Arabs as well. In addition to this, there should also be city graphics sets for the Celt/German cultures, and a Nomad Camp style city set for the steppe dwellers.

So, in short, some desired improvements would be better grammar, punctuation and spelling, a Firaxis terrain set version, and more suitable city graphics. Also, if you have time, complete the Civilopedia. Suitable information for everything would be quite nice. Of course, the modpack/scenario itself isn't bad. As a matter of fact, it's pretty fun to play. It would be more fun, however, if some slight adjustments and improvements were made. In my opinion, some of the improvements listed above would be particularly nice to have. I hope this feedback will help you improve "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," which shows lots of promise. Keep up the good work, man!

@LouLong

If she can spare the time to translate a list, it would be great! I can prepare that list sometime soon in that case :)

@Pr.Marcos

What problems (aargh!), tell me or I can't fix it!

@LBPB

Thanks for the 1st feedback.
1) It will be spelled in latin, so let's forget our englifrench
2) Hum, I will take a look ;)
3) I was willing to give a clear sign to the player that these weren't greek cities but Pirate cities. Also, I see ancient Crete as very different from Greece, with ruined big palaces looking like... hu... ziggurat? Now that I think about it, I might switch back to Greek style of cities.

Was the download ok?

Okay...so let's go over that again. The first grammar error to be corrected is the apostrophe in words like desert or forest. You don't need to name the tribes Desert's Nomads or Forest's Nomads. You need to name them Desert Nomads or Forest Nomads. Same goes for the Steppe Nomads. Next, there's issues with the leadername and title of the Romans. "Imperial" isn't the proper title. Imperator or Emperor would be the proper title. Next, Christian's Persecution should be Persecution of the Christians, or better yet, Christians and Lions. Also, Theodoses's should be Theodosius's, Byzantine's should be Byzantine or East Roman. In regards to Art, there should be five sets of cultural group graphics.

#1: Graeco-Roman. This should be the style for the Meditteranean basin powers, including Egypt. They were ruled over by Greeks at the time, after all.
#2: Eastern: It's harder to define, but this would be the style of city and clothing that would belong to powers like Persia and Pontus. Middle Eastern-ish.
#3: Barbarian Village: This would be the style of the Gauls and the Germans. Large, motte-and-bailey style village graphics. That village from Armorica would be a good example.
#4: Steppe Nomads: This would be the style of the steppe nomads. It would be nomand-campish: lots of those interesting portable tents, some corrals, maybe a few permanent-looking buildings in the larger cities.
#5: I'm just using this as an empty slot, should a need arise.

Again, this is a very good mod. If I could buy you a cold beer, I would.

Okay. The scenario is quite fun to play, even if it does take a little while to load.

My main complaints are...

#1: Spelling errors are rampant. Misplaced apostrophes are everywhere. It shouldn't be "Desert's Nomads," for instance, it should be "Desert Nomads" or "Arabs." Of course, the "Desert Nomads" didn't really do anything, so I don't think they should exactly be there, but that's just my opinion.
#2: The terrain set. No offence, but Sn00py's terrain set makes me want to vomit with rage all over the floor. I find it disgusting and painful to look at. I would recommend that you make two versions--one with Sn00py's terrain graphics, and one with the standard Firaxis graphics.
#3: Other graphics issues: Many of the cities had the wrong artwork. It's probably just temporary, but I think that you should make a generic 'Greco-Roman' art set and use that for the civilized powers, as they were all 'Greco-Roman' cultures. There should also be an 'Eastern' city graphics set for Persia (which should be Parthia) and Pontus, and perhaps for the Arabs as well. In addition to this, there should also be city graphics sets for the Celt/German cultures, and a Nomad Camp style city set for the steppe dwellers.

So, in short, some desired improvements would be better grammar, punctuation and spelling, a Firaxis terrain set version, and more suitable city graphics. Also, if you have time, complete the Civilopedia. Suitable information for everything would be quite nice. Of course, the modpack/scenario itself isn't bad. As a matter of fact, it's pretty fun to play. It would be more fun, however, if some slight adjustments and improvements were made. In my opinion, some of the improvements listed above would be particularly nice to have. I hope this feedback will help you improve "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," which shows lots of promise. Keep up the good work, man!

Thanks Pr. Marcos :)
- ok for the spelling errors, let's wait to see how we can manage a Latin version, otherwise I will need an editor (guess what, you just volunteered!).
-Civilopedia: most of the non-historical important information should be there already!
-Snoopy, oh my, I and most like it, but since I want you to keep a clean keyboard so as you may edit my poor English, you can just remove the snoopy graphic from the mod. It will then load vanilla graphic instead... but there will be some oddities.
-For cities, I disagree for a Greco-Roman style; I wish to keep a difference between Rome and the others for gameplay reasons. Current eastern city style seems great to me even if I agree it would be great for the mod if LBPB could replace the ziggurat with something more like a palace (I called it Persia since it includes both the Parthes & the Sassanids at the end). Nomad camps for the steppe guys are good if I can find one set. Celt/German settlements are not to your taste?
-Desert nomads did raid the province of Africa during the migration age, that is why they are included. They receive the Maure Raider unit by 250AC, not a big threat, but in combination with the more massive germanic, steppe and sassanid attacks, nowhere will be safe.

Thanks for your comments!
BTW, what kind of adjustments for improvements do you have in mind?

We have no limit to the number of city style we can use. As suggested before by, I think, Sweeney Tod, since the civ are blocked in one era (except Rome), we can have 4 culture group x 4 eras, or 16 different sets of city style. Thus no need not to use great Egyptian graphics from LBPB, or to merge greek and romans. Just have to find enough art! Armorican village, Asterix?!, the sets by Maisse Arsouye?!

I read to fast, a cold beer! Be sure to PM me if you take an holiday around here!

Yeah. The village from Asterix. Although I live in the United States, I still like that weird little Gaul. Speaking of which, have you ever read the "Cartoon History of the Universe?"

I fear i haven't. I will take a look in Google.
Glad you like Asterix, it makes me proud of my tiny nation.

Written by Larry Gonick. Originally it was published in 50 page volumes, but now it's in softcover collections of 7 to 6 installments. There are three currently out, encompassing 19 50 page units, and a fourth and probably final one is due in 2007.

If it is as good as Asterix & Obelix, I would love reading them... but with the money I make here, though luck I can buy these ;)

Was the download ok?

Well the Download, yep no probs, but the loading/configuring time of the Mod need some improvements it's just horribly long on my computer (PIV 2GHz) :gripe: . I have play another game (an online RTW) while it has configured... :(

Current eastern city style seems great to me even if I agree it would be great for the mod if LBPB could replace the ziggurat with something more like a palace (I called it Persia since it includes both the Parthes & the Sassanids at the end).


I really do not have time for this right now... :blush:

Heu... Just a thought, what would like a Parthian Palace ? :confused:

Long initial loading time... it takes 7 min in my case (2.4 Ghz), which is still acceptable I feel... I can't fix that, it is the problem with all non epic mod/scenario which start with many cities. So unless making a simplified version with just a few cities (more like the Rome scenario in Civ2), we will have to suffer it. Not to discourage you but the between-turn-period tends to be a lot more of a nuisance as soon as the game settle in. It is very boring as the Roman has little things to do at start. Once you manage getting the islands from Carthage and the north of Italy, slow turns become more tolerable as you have more to play, or so I feel. As the game goes, Rome grows and the enemies shrink, thus I expect this is a problem only for the start of the mod.

A Parthian/Persian palace... hu... ok, I need to do some more googling ;)

This palace is a lot more ancient than the Roman period of course, but it could do... That is if you had the time of course. While looking for these pictures, I was amazed to see how far you eastern city graphics actually are like true iranian villages/small towns :goodjob:

Okay. Well, there has to be a way to keep the Romans and Greeks culturally distinct. Perhaps a compromise in city style would do well to simulate historical reality. In the early era, when Rome lacks contact with the Hellenic world or else is lacking in philhellensim, it should have it's own city style. However, when it becomes more of a Romano-Hellenistic culture, namely, the later eras, it can have a city style more Graeco Roman. This would do well to simulate historical reality. Oh, and as for the tech tree...the techs regarding the Triumvirate and all, well, they should be moved to the next era, IMO.

So, Era #1:The Punic Wars (272-146 BCE)
Era #2: Imperial Glory(146 BCE-192 ACE)
Era #3: Barbarians, Barbarians Everywhere (192 ACE-476 ACE)
Era #4: The "Roman" Empire (476 ACE-600 ACE)

The reason Era #2 should start at the sackings of Carthage and Corinth, in my opinion, is that the sack of the two cities marked a transition from a power that mostly acted to protect itself and it's form of government to a more expansionistic, imperialistic outlook on things. Later, after all the techs concerning the origin of the Empire, there should be the "Pax Romana" techs. Then, after Imperial Glory, there's the Decline, or as I have named it, Barbarians, Barbarians Everywhere. This is the era with all the decadence techs and the barbarians getting uppity. Finally, there's the "Roman" Empire, concerning the early history of the Eastern "Roman" Empire. They called themselves Roman, and so did everyone else. Byzantine was invented in the eighteenth century as a way of describing the Eastern Roman Empire.

Got it - Ok for the late Greco-Roman city style idea, although it is all about finding appropriate art. If you have some in mind, put the links here.

Concerning the tech trees, some of your ideas are in line with mine. As it is, triumvirate should be the end of the 1st era for most players, as it gives you a wonder which boost you 2 advances ahead (usually thus bringing you directly to imperialism and the end of the era). I have chosen incorporating triumvirate in the 1st era as Rome is still, officially at least, a republic. Era 2 is about the Empire, as you put it out, it should start as the 1st August is proclaimed. As for renaming the eras, yes, I love some of your titles, so I might do that :)

Is anyone playing the game ahead of the 1st few turns? How is the challenge?

Well, great minds think alike, after all.

I downloaded this scenario and it looks really good. :) It looks different from S.P.Q.R. even if some implemnted ideas are the same. Some features are good and I like them very much, some others I don't like. But it's like everywhere: Some like this, some like that. About gameplay actually I can't say anything, becouse it takes looong between turns allready early in the game and becouse there is still an other roman scenario crying loud for me. ;)

Pink, i had a problem with the download. it didnt come with a text folder and some of the art either for some reason. any ideas what to do?

@ Arne

Hey Arne, thanks for your feedback! I'm glad you took a look. I haven't play SPQR yet, just took an in-depth look with the editor ;). The reason was to avoid being 'inspired' by your mod. Now that RFRE is more or less in its final shape, I will give a try with yours, will be good to see how far I remember my German classes.
I sadly agree, the between turns is outrageously long, I hate to say it but it kills the game. I am working exclusively on trying to improve that, mostly by reducing the number of units that can maintained. I do not understand however why it is so slow, I have seen scenarios with more units and cities going faster... Any idea on what is causing such delay & on how to improve it? I guess I will have to play in debug for some dozens of turns to see where is the problem :rolleyes: ... If one thing must be done for the beta, it is that.
BTW, tell me which are the good and the bad ideas!

@ Coltrane

:( What happened? Anyone else got a download problem? Did you tried downloading again? For the text folder, I can send it to you by e-mail, but the art stuff is huge. What is missing? I want to fix your problem so as to hear from you

Okay. There shouldn't be just a Persia. There should be Parthia, and the Seleucid Empire, and Pontus as well. That's all for now...

You would merge Pontus and Parthia?
Pontus was more like a hybrid state in between persian (parthian), greek and armenian culture. Besides, it would be a monster able to run down the Romans and all its neighbours!
How do I rename Regnum Parthorum and Seleucid Empire in one generic term if not Persia? It is the same civ, its is just research that makes it change from building Parthian Horse Archers and Horsemen to Sassanid Cavalry by 250AC.

Since another weekend is coming, and in the case you are still suffering on the mod :mischief:, you may as well use this updated biq instead of the original one. It fixes a few things, give a slightly better position to Carthage as the game start, and the whole thing should run a bit faster. It seems the problem is with the barbarian civs which build an outrageous number of units. I hope having an 'even faster' version next Monday, for those too lazy to restart a game :D

One way to reduce time between turns is to limit the features of the units (ie : not offense AND defense for instance,... so the computer does not have to calculate what it wants to do with the unit.
People from the USCW team used that to reduce waiting time dramatically, I think it is Rocoteh who worked on that issue.

Sorry but this is a newbie thing...... The rar file wants to download as atext file. Any help out there? As for the project.... Congratulations to all involved!
I used to play an ancient med mod for civ II that was really enjoyable. This mod looks as if it will be satisfying in the same mode. :confused:

The problem was with my lack of knowledge. I figured it out. :)

This mod/scenario seems to be very impressive. Too bad I don't have enough time to test it this weekend. Have you already decided about a concrete date for the release of the beta?

@D'zilas

Glad you made it, I will have to remove the file today to save server space. Let' me know how your game goes.

@CellKu

It all depend on how much feedback I can get from you folks ;). My main issue right now is to reduce the between-turn period.

@LouLong

The only 'polyvalent units' were ships. I have change that. Hopefully it can make a difference :)

I have spent several hours last WE observing the game running and it seems my computer freeze from time to time between some civ turns (usually after/during a big one's turn). I suspect it is too many of units/cities. I am working on it, reducing how I can. Ultimately, if I can't fix it well enough, I will have to make a smaller map with about half the number of cities/units. That will take time though. I would appreciate to know from you if you have the same problems, especially those with big configuration.

Hi there, just tried out this game and got to say that this scenario looks great.

I've had some problems with the unit encropedias in which they were missing and the game crashed when trying to read.

Some units like the allied hopites, are they suppost to look like what they do? The unit on the map looks completey different from the one in the encropedia and selection screen for construction.

Keep up the good work. It looks wonderful

Hi, I will check for the allied hoplites, but something must have gone wrong in your download/installation. It is basically the hoplites from vanilla, with the same pedia pic, but with a different shield. See that post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2177021&postcount=97) for an in-game preview of how it should look like.
Tell me on which pedia entry you got a crash, I must fix these :mischief: but it might also be linked to other missing files during the download!?

@CellKu

It all depend on how much feedback I can get from you folks ;). My main issue right now is to reduce the between-turn period.


I know that feedback is the most important. I will try to get a look at it! I promise (especially since I am sure I can't wait til the release of the beta ;) ).
BTW, how big is your map? I have seen many scenarios with a lot of units (but a relatively small map) which were still fast and others with not that many units (however with a huge map) which were very slow. A few weeks ago I reduced a map by about 1/5 (leaving almost all cities untouched) and thereby reduced the initial loading time from 21 min to 4 min.

:), that is what I am doing right now, reducing the map size, and more...
It was 135x135, it is now smaller thanks to map tweaker, 'surprise' preview tomorrow.

hey pink, i think i have the solution. The main problem is the garrison/tribals unit. They are so good (powerful, cheap,no upkeep) that EVERYONE builds hordes of them in each city. Not only does this make it less fun (i cant conquer cities fast enough!) but it means longer loading times. Consider: every city on the map is making one of those units. that means tons more units for the AI to deal with quite often. While this is an exhaggeration, i think you get the point. I suggest making them cost support, cost more shields, lowering stats, or any combo of those. In all just make them less useful and the AI should build less of them. (hopefully)

one more thing, whats the deal with diplomacy? i can't make alliances with some and cant even establish embassies with newly met civs... is this intentional? also, just a strategy thing... where would i want to turn to first to conquer and capture a source of timber?

Thanks for the feedback :) Garrison/tribals point taken. The AI indeed builds many of them. In the later version however, they are to be supported and ALL units are more expensive (for civilized) or have a high population cost (for barbarians). Be patient, drastic changes are coming as soon as I can get finished with some proposals. BTW, I think the garrison isn't that good, it is somewhat similar to the speaman compared to the swordsman (vanilla - 3:2 ratio; RFRE - 6:4 ratio), ok the legion cost one population but has an HP advantage.

Preview:
smaller map (cropped)
number of cities reduced by 40%
higher unit cost
slightly larger cities
a couple of 'new' units
modified costs for units

Concerning diplomacy, embassy should be allowed with all. I haven't tried so I will check. Diplomacy (alliance, treaty, etc.) is only possible with a few states when playing as Rome (with Macedonia, Carthago, Egyptus, Pergamum, and Syria). These five states however can make alliances with all states and thus bring you to be allied with some others. This is to limit unhistorical alliances such as Rome-Celts, and yet keeping it open.

Timber would be just accross the adriatic, currently used by sordid pirates to build their dreadful ships. Get Queen Teuta!

ok cool, thanks for the feedback, ill keep testing and report any comments and/or changes i think would be good.

Ok guys, I have some good news: with the version lite things seems to go well faster. I haven't tried playing it yet but loading the game now take less than 3 minutes :) With some more work to manage, expect a RFRE Thunder 0.4 for next Monday.

Here is a preview of the new minimap. For reference, the previous minimap did look like this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2164625&postcount=96)

Are the light blue guys Seleukids? Note: In most cases, when there is a 'C' in a Romanization of a Greek name, it is often a hard C. It is often better spelled with a K...for instance, Kurush, instead of Cyrus, Kraterus instead of Craterus, Kroisos instead of Croesus, etc...

Yes could you hint us what is each color ? :p

Hu, it is the same as before, have you not even tried to play the alpha :p . Just the Picts and the Desert (no 's ;)) tribes went out along the cropping.
What would Seleukids be in latin anyway? If LouLong later confirms his mother can work on some translation, I really look forward having all these terms in latin.

Hu, it is the same as before, have you not even tried to play the alpha :p .

I started more or less... but having to wait several minutes between turns ingame just drove me crazy, and I gave up :rolleyes:

Hmm...For the barbarians, make a new, typical government, call it 'Barbarian Confederation.' Later on, have a government called 'Migration' or something. For the Scythians, well, they had a number of tribes...Royal Scythians, for instance. For the barbarians, you could use tribe names for cities.

I have played the beta to about 170BC. Besides the long time between turns I like this game. The game did crash on startup because some pediaicon text files were missing: #TECH_Mithridates, #TECH_MarcusAntonius, and later when I built the Pantheon wonder, the #WON_SPLASH_BLDG_Pantheon entry was missing. I improvised and continued on. Things are going well. The Cisalpine gauls and Western Greeks have been conquered and I have taken a few Carthaginian citys. Sicily is mine!, along with some of the northern adriatic coast (got that timber resource). Tech wise, I have all naval techs and the Consular Legion. The Education path and slave path have not been started on yet. All right, there you go. Hope it helps. Although I know alittle about Roman History I haven't taken the time to see where my game stands wrt the historical time line. Keep up the good work pink and all others! I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together. :goodjob:

Reference to the Red Green Show, or coincidence, I wonder?

I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together.

@ D'zilas

Great to hear your exploits. It helps. You are more or less in line with history, having conquered the Western Greek rather than crushing Carthage in Spain. I am actually amazed you were patient enough to play that far with the old crawling version. Really sorry for the bugs you reported, these were two techs I added after having uploaded the mod (version 0.3 and above), thus you don't have the correct lines in your pediaicons.txt. I should have thought about that. The splash scene for the Pantheon is also indeed missing. All these will be fixed in the next update. Keep giving comments!

@Marcos

For the barbarians, as you might have seen, I have done as follow:
- where the romans went and conquered historically, I used the location of their main cities with latin names, so once conquered, towns have correct names
- for the areas that have never harbored any roman settlement (which weren't conquered), I used the tribes names, although not in latin. So most parts of Germany and Russia are populated by small settlements with tribes names such as Vandals or Huns.
Government are, also, like you said :). Barbarian first start with tribal council, which is good for limiting corruption in tribes far from the capital, but having important war weariness (so conflicts with barbarians are violent but short). Once the Germans reach their tech 'great invasion', their get a special government (warmongering), without any war weariness, that hopefully should allow them to plunder Rome quickly enough. I have of course not yet ever reach to point of the game, so only further playtesting will tell us if it works.

BTW, what is that Red Green Show :confused:

Update
RFRE 0.4

The zip below includes 3 files that must replace previous files of the same name:
- the biq, to be installed under .../CivilizationIII/Conquests/Scenarios
- two txt files (pediaicons.txt & civilopedia.txt), to be installed under .../Civilization III\Conquests\Scenarios\RFRE\Text

Main change is:
FAST GAMEPLAY, turns go well faster, with no more major slowdown.

Other changes are:
- Smaller map size with less cities
- Less turns (447 total)
- Barbarians units cost population; civilized units slightly more expensive
- Reviewed tech costs
- Lot of other balance changes which I never keep track of, I could fill pages on that.

Haven't been done yet most of cosmetic changes:
- editorial work
- latin translation & changes in names as suggested on this thread

Let me know of any problem, I don't think having changed any other file (or linked to any new file) so it should work as long as you have downloaded the full package earlier.

Cheers,
PT

Not one comment in four days :hmm:
Is there something wrong with the update? Any error message when starting the game maybe?
I need feedback guys, so as to release a beta soon. Since the weeks ahead will not let me much time to work on the mod, if anyone is interested being associate modder... Also, although I have tested the first 50 years more or less thoroughly, I need people with enough free time to test the game in the second era and ahead. Anyone :)?

Where can I get the rest of the files?

hey Pink, sorry i havent posted in a while, ive been busy. anyway its going pretty well. i did notice that the art file for the quinqueremes was missing, so i just replaced it, but you need to fix that. I dont know if anyone else had this happen but as i was busy capturing sicily, sardinia, corsica, and even north africa all of a sudden 5 units (at min) from about 10 different civs appeared on my northern border and declared war on me. Now i defeated them, but not without heavy initial losses. This isnt a huge problem i suppose, but its definately NOT accurate to have Pontus and the Huns invade alongside the celtic civs to destroy Rome... in 200BC ish. yeah, well thats all for now... back to playtesting!

The graphic you have for the quinereme (sp?) is that of the galleass which has cannons, it might look wierd in a roman sceanario.

@No Idea - sorry, right now, the main files are no longer available. Couldn't host them on civfanatic forever. As soon as I can get a sufficiently improved version, tested up to the later eras, I will find a way to upload it again (any idea where?!). Galleass graphic was temporary and has already been changed to a more ancient looking unit. If you are really willing to help testing, I could try to find a way to send you the files. Tell me if it is worth the effort.

@King Coltrane - Ah, barbarian invasions in 200BC???! What kind of unit did they have? Are you playing with the latest version (smaller and faster)? Art missing, isn't it rather the 'fine triremes'? Anyway, this is surely due to my change of graphics for the quinquiremes, as said above. Sorry for the missing files :blush:, I should have attached them in the update... Keep testing and feel free (compulsed) to post the details of your exploits here! I have absolutely no time for playtesting myself this month, but I will come online when I can, to get comments and work on a good beta that hopefully will be out for Christmas :xmas:

about the ship, you are correct, fine triremes it is, my mistake. yes i am doing the newest version (smaller and faster) and so far it is smaller and faster. the barbs had only archers (illyrians) archers and hoplites (west greeks) warrior guys(Cisalpine gaul and Celtic gaul) and of course the lovely nomads i believe (steppe nomads)

you know what, i just had an interesting thought... what if we created a unit called like "italian rebels" or something that was very week and had very few HP and placed many of them throughout italy. we could disable the pillaging option for them so they dont ruin the improvements... but the point of these is simple: to get slaves and experience for your troops. Rome's army was dependant on its slave population back home, without it there is no way so many men could have been able to fight. so if we put there units throughout italy, we can allow the legionaires to become vets and even elites perhaps and increase the skill of the military as well as capture slaves that could be brought back to rome to help feed a growing legionary based force. if you wanted, you could even make this a seperate civ beccause it would be gone within a few turns and you wouldnt have to worry about any mechanics concerning this civ.

Edit: give rome maybe one or 2 more legions at the start

AH! one last idea (for now)... for the consular legions, i say get rid of the pop cost. marius's reforms made the army open to all romans (pretty much) and so greatly incresed the size of forces to meet the needs of an expanding empire. i say having no pop cost for consulars would reflect this well, especially because this is the period we want rome to expand the most in.

AHHHHHHH sorry, i cant help myself!! lets redo the great leader units like scipio's legion etc. i say you make them different levels of armies. like a scipio legion could carry 2 legionaries, a caesars legion could carry 3 (consular) legionaries, a trajan's legion could carry 4 (imperial) legionaries. the wonders could generate a scipio legion (or whatever special leader) every 20 turns i guess, maybe 25. as for the foreign leader units, (barcas merc's, mithridates guys) i say leave em as single units but increase the HPs (lets say they have 5, give em 7). we all know that the comp sucks when it comes to armies, so we wont give em any, just units that are as powerful as armies. also flag these units only offense to encourage wars and expansion as well as speed things up as far as loading times go.

yes i am doing the newest version (smaller and faster) and so far it is smaller and faster.

glad to hear that :crazyeye:

you know what, i just had an interesting thought...

Ah comments and ideas :)

Idea #1 - The Italian Rebels

In my games, I had often many prisoners after a few turns of war (too many to my taste, which explain why I removed the enslave capabilities of later era legions) so I am unsure if this is a good idea. Meanwhile, it could go well if we increase all legion cost to 2 populations, as it was already the case for the grand legion and stratiots, and reflects well Rome need for slaves, as you suggested. Since cities are larger with the new map (size treshold 6 and 12 instead of 4 and 8), 2 pop cost could do fine. Also, are you sure having legion getting easy experience on these 'rebels' wouldn't make the game to simple for Rome? Once legions reach elite, they are rarely defeated. A couple of extra legion at start? In my games, I have enough at start as long as I don't start a war to fast, but of course I have never been attacked by a barbarian coalition by 200BC ;).

Idea #2 - On Marius' Reform of the Legions

Well ok I see the point, but then I should make all later legion free as well! If I increase legion cost to 2pop, then maybe just the consular legion could cost 1 pop to reflect the reform and the fast pace of the roman conquest by then. The only no-pop cost legion will stay the mercenaries legion (which anyway are freaks).

Idea #3 - Revolution in the leader system

At first reading, I love it! But, yes there is a big BUT there:

1. There is no way I can make armies disappear once the leader historical period is gone. The player won't upgrade the armies to a simple new legion (even if it was technically possible, which I doubt) and thus we will have Scipio's legion moving around by the time of barbarian invasions, hardly a good idea... The advantage of the so called 'leader units' are that the player would sooner or later upgrade them to the next legion level (Scipio's legion to Consular legion, Caesar's legion to Imperial legion, and Trajan's legion to Grand legion).

2. Besides, I think we can have only 2 level of armies (but, we can improve their efficiency, so total that could work for 3 leaders).

3. My biggest NO NO for the armies stay with the fact it is just too porwerful with an AI unable to deal with them. Three legions together with some experience have at 15+ HP, they potentially can defeat everything, and in the hand of a human player, they will be there forever.

However, I might very well make leader units as you suggested with the AI: more HP, but balanced down with stat similar to their contemporary units



Be sure some of these ideas will be in the next update, after a bit of thinking from my side too ;). Keep suggestions and comment coming! :goodjob:

def make the non human leader units very strong... also you can indeed have different level armies... its just a matter of creating a new unit "army 2" that carries an extra unit (see RAR... thats where i got the idea) also i think you can have the army units upgrade to legions, if you tool around with hps throughout the game it would be worthwhile... for example: a scipios legion has 2 legion units in it... lets say with a total of 10 hp, stats are 6.3.1(we can probably make them have only 1 movement point if we want) then you research consular legion's tech and it has say 7 or 8 hp... but stats of 8.4.1. the difference is pretty good, id rather have 2 less hp for an extra 2 attack and one extra defence. (but maybe thats just me) but as far as upgrading costs go, you simply make the cost of the army units that are produced the same cost as the following unit (which youve done anyway)

also, regarding the marius thing.. one hp instead of two (for all others except the merc's) works. id be fine with that.

How can I playtest?

The full package is no longer online until:
1) A beta is ready
2) I find a way to host the files permanently

My hope is it will be there around Xmas.

Now, do someone has some clue on which server could be used for permanent hosting? I feel like using the office server isn't looking to good... ;)
Metacomet, if you have quick internet access and are really willing to test the game in its alpha phase, PM me!

Pinktilapia,

Do you plan to have all the names in Latin?

Afaik, he wanted but needed (was searching) someone who could do it. If he doesn't find one, the names will be in English. But of course, if someone wants to... :))

But of course, I cannot speak for him, I don't know if he has already found someone...

mitsho

Very true, and didn't found anyone yet, although there has been a suggestion. If you have the time, there isn't that much to translate anyway, it would really add to have most fo the texts in latin.

I will have to leave CFC for two weeks, having some duties far far away in Penang :), post nonetheless any feedback, questions, etc. Once back, by December, I will try to upload the mod once more, if I can find an host, in order to drag in more testers.

Rome? Man...There are ALOT of Roman mods lol. This one looks a cut above the rest though....

I don't know. Since the time I am around on CFC, I never saw any mod on Rome, just maybe a few raw scenario. The only developed mod I know is SPQR, of which I heard the 1st time after having started to work on RFRE, and it is still AFAIK at beta stage in German. What else do you see there is about Rome?

Theres the Roman Conquest, and Xen's Crisis of the Third Century project, plus the Punic Wars scenerio. Plus theres two mods based on the ancient world with Rome as a major player.

I'm curious as to why Rome though....I thought S.East Asia was your specialty?

Of course, there is Conquests' Rise of Rome, but I don't call that a scenario, much to wrong historically and barely limited to a few cities dropped on the map. Xen's project, never heard of it, is it around already? Any thread, sounds interesting? The Punic war is very new, just started a few weeks ago, far far away from a playable version last time I checked. Please also link these two mods you spoke about, if these can still be digged out. The point of this mod is to have the complete history of the Roman Republic & Empire in one game. (Too?) ambitious, and I am still unsure to have succeeded as I can't manage playtesting long enough before having to restart with a new version with less bugs :P BTW I love much of everything in history, Southeast Asia is just the place I work for the last 4 years, so I got to know a bit about it, have read a few books, but don't consider me as a specialist of southeast asian history! Good to hear about your mod!

I was actually websurfing one day and stumbled on a site called "Revisionist History" or something on those lines, and they claimed the Roman Empire never existed, and their were no ancient greeks, and the Jews first appeared in the 19th century....lol

The Punic Wars isn't done, I think its in the planning stages like this mod...as for Xen's...its probably on page 12 or further back...

The point is that you actually making the mod, as shown by the fact this thread is still alive and kicking, makes it better than all the others.

As for Heart of Destiny, I've got 3 South-East Asian civs so far, Kymer, Siam, and Malaysia. I've also put toghether a Asian Biq, which will feature China, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, Siam, Kymer, Malayasia, Tibet, and Annam as playable civs. This is a prequisor to the Asian Continent Mod idea that I had after working on the ACM with Civarmy.

Thing is, theres the Ancient Meditarrian, and two America-specific mods(both of which I helped to make lol). With all the great Asian units I think it will be fun to make an Asian-specific mod.

If you plan to do an asian specific mod you'll have to count my angry liberal ass in as well. Asian History is super fascinating.

I'd love to have you on board Goldflash

Goldflash, you may be a liberal(but are you really? you can never know for sure online....)...but you aren't an ass, unless on coarse you are a member of the Democratic party, but that does not mean Glutious Maximus, but rather the species of quadraped also known as a Donkey.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm an angry Liberal. I voted Kerry.

Your mod would need more Nomads though... say the perhaps the Kara-Khitai, the Uhigurs, the Xoing-Nu, and the Manchus. But maybe not...

I think I'll open a new thread...

sword, i wanna help you out too since, as goldflash so aptly put it, "asian history is super fascinating". also, i had an idea for a meiji restoration-era-japan scenario, any thoughts, ideas, references, etc? i want to get that going. also have there been any mods/scenarios like that? i havent seen any and i think that may be the most interesting period from a military point of view. anway... ok pink, ill keep working on this one too.

You can help as well my nautical friend, but try to keep it on the Battlefield Asia thread...I don't want to upset our piscine host by threadjacking...

Just bumping it back up.

Sword, are you stealing my lone testers for an asian mod on my thread :mad: ;)
Well, it is anyway good to know there could be more focus on Asia in the future. I am however for now giving some of my free time on finalizing RFRE, although my hard-disk is giving me a few vibes that it might be a good time to backup data and format, especially when playing Civilization with its humongous size. I have more or less finalized version 0.5, that will be uploaded when back to BKK, and will work on a full release beta as soon as I can plyatest the game beyond the barabarian invasions. If no feedback, I guess things will continue to go at a slow pace. I am also thinking giving a set of save games that allow the player to start at a fixed date with the correct historical situation. It could help playtesting in later periods. Cheers all!

Good luck with this mod. I look forward to playing it when its down my fishy friend.

Are you using the many legionarys availible here btw?

Let's see... *counting*... that's about 5 legionaries (6 if you include the stratiots/scutatio). Sword, since you are a veteran with modpacks, any idea where I could host these files once for all?

Well, if the mod is more than 100 MBs, than you have two choices:

1. Split the Download into smaller chunks

2. Find another website to host you

If the former approach is taken than I suggest the Completed Modpacks Board, as it gets far more attention than the Completed Scenerios board.

:thumbsup:

Hi,

I supose that the roman legions can built fortifications, well then we should rename the fortifications in the original game to agger (that's the latin word to wall).

Is that the kind of things that you want for the game?

I'm back for a little while, feeling a bit miserable to see it is so hard to get feedback!
I wish all that work doesn't get lost. Oh I wish that hard! Since all the tough work is done, the hell, why losing it!!? What is needed now is just testers ready to play the game so that it can be adjusted into balance and makes justice to history. Thus mates I ask again, anyone know where I can host this bunch of files (100 MB zipped) before I forget about that mod for good?

Better late than never...

@metacomet

Yes, that's is the kind of keyword that would give a nice roman flavor to the mod. If I can host that babe and if you are ok with latin while having a bit of time to give, then I would greatly love some help: I could quickly come out with a relatively short list of words to translate.

pinktilapia, I do hope you don't feel too disheartened at the lack of feedback! You must remember, most people are lurkers on forums and rarely post, and I'm sure there are others, like myself, who are looking forward to playing this but have yet to post anything constructive. It would be a tragedy to see so much hard work go to waste, I hope some kind soul can help with file hosting as I really want to play this!

Thanks Asclepius, it is indeed really hard to get people involved on a forum. If I could gather a few serious testers, I am sure this mod could be finished in a couple of weeks and well worth the time put in it. Wait and see it is then!

the crisis of the third century was scrapped- none of the proper units were going to get made for it, so I decided to quite while i was ahead. currentlly negotiations are going on with a certian *nameless* unit creator for a different project that shouldnt be a huge problem. hopefully. of course its unit needs are actually far more ambitious, because of thier nature, and far more difficult then three assorted infantry men from the "Gallic" Roman Empire, Roman empire proper, or the Palmyrene Roman empire, but on the other hand, its also far more enderaing to unit creators. specifics will have to wait until I can hash out all the detils, and be assured that units will be made.

hi there pinktilapia, i tried installing the newer version of your scenario and it gave me some message regarding missing RTrireme files! I changed the name of the Trireme folder and Trireme.inf file to RTrireme and seems to work, but is this correct to do or is there another trireme in the game? I played out the previous version of the game and everything so far seems ok. Haven't played Civ3 for the last month and half because of Rome Total War game. My previous post regarding spelling mistakes I believe have been fixed and spotted by other testers but if anything comes my way i'll report it. Your game is fasinating for the community and just want to let you know that your work is nothing of a waste. Its an amazing piece and just want to congratulate you on your progress. The Rome Total war game could also have a factor to why some people haven't been active in this thread for awhile. Dont get discourage. Your work is great!

Civfan........

I almost can taste the irony...My brother got Rome Total War for Christmas, and this comes out almost around the same time....

I'm playing this though....... :p I was never much of a fan of the Total War games

I got rome: total war christmas gift... i played it for two days i became the impertor,i played couple of gustom games, i won and got tired to that game... :(


Aren't you (who ever is making this scenario) forgeting the dacians.

@Xen
I hope this nameless guy will help. These units could be surely used in a few other mod as well! In the case you make this mod, feel free to use the building art I made, if it is at your taste. If you have time Xen, if that mod is uploaded (unless you have already downloaded it), I would welcome your comment on the historical correctness of the game (especially the tech trees).
@A.Civfan
Wow, you actually love the mod :) Thanks, it is good to hear that, I tested it so much last month (the same very first 50 years fighting Carthage) that I got dizzy and had to take a break from it. Concerning your missing files problem, you are correct. In the last uploaded version (which is now a real old-timer), I changed the graphic of the quinquireme (galleass stuff, with guns, didn't do it). The old 'fine trireme' graphic became the quinquireme, while I had a new graphic for the 'fine trireme'. The files related to this new graphic are missing for you since not present in the package a start. All this would be fixed if I can upload the updated (and final) zip file. I will try to spend some time to look for a possible host today.
@SoG
Tasting the irony... *crunch, crunch* ...it is bitter.
Hey, how is your Asian mod going?
@Naziassbandit
Dacians are there, and so are their fabulous piles of gold and ore. They are included in the Thracians tribes (which you could argue is not to be very correct, but making a mod is making compromises).

Yet another screenshot of that tiny island of Sicily in the middle of heavy turmoil... yes, I am doomed testing the very same year forever it seems

Well, at least it is getting better. Now that Carthage has no choice but to go naval (desert are impassable, thus no more tourism in Egypt), these dogs are buidling a lot of ships, and throwing me troops from oversea by packs. That screen is the 2nd year of the war (which they declared after my refuse to submit to their cheap blackmail). The good thing is that I was expecting that and my expeditionary forces (5 legions supported by velites) is stationed strategically near Mount Etna, ready to strike Panormus (that is a slightly embolished way to see things, they are actually trying to construct a fort in time to resist the massive invasions to come). The dreaded carthaginian fleet just bombarded (at last, they did it!) en masse and managed to sink one of my three poor trireme stationed in Messina, while damaging the couple remaining... my mistake... so much for my dreams of dominating the seas.

Wow - pinktilapia, did you make those city graphics? :eek:

No no no, I will have to work on a credit file soon. Most are from LBPB. And I recently changed the look of the Greek cities with, I believe, your excellent city art for the Roman (I just dropped the circus, which obviously didn't fit for the Greeks) - you can spot one down there, Syracusae, yours no?

Battlefield Asia is coming along....slowly. I need some help with the tech tree. I want it to be a realistic progression of the Far East from Neolithic Times to the Modern Era.

No no no, I will have to work on a credit file soon. Most are from LBPB. And I recently changed the look of the Greek cities with, I believe, your excellent city art for the Roman (I just dropped the circus, which obviously didn't fit for the Greeks) - you can spot one down there, Syracusae, yours no?

Well, I thought it looked familiar :D

I'll have to get my hands on those other graphics :evil:. They are fantastic.

Oh (how rude of me), your project is coming along beautifully, pinktilapia!

@ Sword of Geddon - As is yours :)