Well, I see that LoR forum is quite empty nowadays. I wasn't here before, my acitivities in CFC are recent, but this mod installed in my mods folder is a really old happening. I don't remember when I did, but I too don't remember how original Beyond the Sword is anymore. I've been playing this since it was for an earlier version then BTS 3.19.
My intention is to somehow make this alive again, I'm no modder, but I'm a huge fan of this mod. Every week I gather with some friends to play LoR. The three were introduced to Civilization playing LoR 0.9.8. They don't even know how is original BtS or any older civ game or version. And we have no intentions to forget about it, it's simply exactly what it wants to be: (an unofficial) Expansion Pack.
And when I mean we play every week, it's like we play the same game for several weeks, totalizing a hundred hours of gameplay for just a single game (as finally all our pcs can play a Huge Map game). And when we four gather to play the biggest game (as we have ourselves lots of smaller games with 3 or 2 players running at the same time), it's always at a really hard difficulty:
Marathon, Huge, Perfect World 2g, 7 starting AIs, Random, Start Anywhere, Deity with the options: No Legends (still waiting to tame Deity to reintroduce them), Start as Minors, Agressive AI, Ruthless AI, Raging Barbarians and Require Complete Kills.
To people who are used to normal BtS on deity, give a try to these options above. On Marathon, near 3000 - 1500 BC spawns a minor civ just out of your borders with 10 Swordsmen, 5 Chariots, 5 Spearmen and 10 Archers. LoR makes the game a lot harder by stopping your expansion because of Revolutions. Try to have 5 cities with despotism in early game to see what happens. Thinking to use your early warriors and scouts to get some tribal villages? Better to put them on strategic positions around you to prevent barb cities to appear (as they soon turn into a full civilization with a huge spawn like the one above - even without the needed techs, they get those units). But why not to cooperate with early civs to trade some technologies? After you get Alphabet, who else is not a minor to be able to trade with you?
The only thing I discovered yet to make the game playable (cuz as it is at Marathon Deity, it's impossible to deal with this) is to cause revolutions. Make the enemy cities revolt, and suddenly all that they have and you don't start to be possible for you. A great game, with a great mechanic, lots of needed units, better reworked traits, revolutions and a feel that it's a lot more realistic then it was before. This mod needs to go on.
My intention is to somehow make this alive again, I'm no modder, but I'm a huge fan of this mod. Every week I gather with some friends to play LoR. The three were introduced to Civilization playing LoR 0.9.8. They don't even know how is original BtS or any older civ game or version. And we have no intentions to forget about it, it's simply exactly what it wants to be: (an unofficial) Expansion Pack.
And when I mean we play every week, it's like we play the same game for several weeks, totalizing a hundred hours of gameplay for just a single game (as finally all our pcs can play a Huge Map game). And when we four gather to play the biggest game (as we have ourselves lots of smaller games with 3 or 2 players running at the same time), it's always at a really hard difficulty:
Marathon, Huge, Perfect World 2g, 7 starting AIs, Random, Start Anywhere, Deity with the options: No Legends (still waiting to tame Deity to reintroduce them), Start as Minors, Agressive AI, Ruthless AI, Raging Barbarians and Require Complete Kills.
To people who are used to normal BtS on deity, give a try to these options above. On Marathon, near 3000 - 1500 BC spawns a minor civ just out of your borders with 10 Swordsmen, 5 Chariots, 5 Spearmen and 10 Archers. LoR makes the game a lot harder by stopping your expansion because of Revolutions. Try to have 5 cities with despotism in early game to see what happens. Thinking to use your early warriors and scouts to get some tribal villages? Better to put them on strategic positions around you to prevent barb cities to appear (as they soon turn into a full civilization with a huge spawn like the one above - even without the needed techs, they get those units). But why not to cooperate with early civs to trade some technologies? After you get Alphabet, who else is not a minor to be able to trade with you?
The only thing I discovered yet to make the game playable (cuz as it is at Marathon Deity, it's impossible to deal with this) is to cause revolutions. Make the enemy cities revolt, and suddenly all that they have and you don't start to be possible for you. A great game, with a great mechanic, lots of needed units, better reworked traits, revolutions and a feel that it's a lot more realistic then it was before. This mod needs to go on.