Anno Domini beta : test it and feed back here!!

[Rob (R8XFT)]

12 hours after the upload finished and the file still hasn't been approved by 3ddownloads . I'm off to work now and won't be back for another 11 hours , so if anyone finds that it has become available whilst I'm gone, please report back here .

 

[Blue Monkey]

Available now. I'm in the queue & waiting to dl.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Available now. I'm in the queue & waiting to dl.

That's great news!! I'm currently on my break at work and cannot access the 3ddownloads site from here (it's blocked); if someone could either advise the link or say if it's in the "latest mods" or "latest demos" section, that would help. I'll be on my way home in another 5 hours, so I'll ensure the direct link is in the first post from then .

 

[Plotinus]

I've edited the first post to put in the download link. Thought you wouldn't mind! You can re-edit yourself when you've checked the link and so on, of course.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

I've edited the first post to put in the download link. Thought you wouldn't mind! You can re-edit yourself when you've checked the link and so on, of course.

Of course I wouldn't mind!! Thanks for doing that (I've no need to change it ). Could you close the demo thread and the poll thread so that all comments go here please?

...of course the other question is "are you playing it yet ?"

 

[Stormrage]

Meh.. I guess I`ll just have to find the time for this baby..

 

[Plotinus]

Of course I wouldn't mind!! Thanks for doing that (I've no need to change it ). Could you close the demo thread and the poll thread so that all comments go here please?

...of course the other question is "are you playing it yet ?"

Done all that! Haven't had a chance to play it yet, but hopefully I'll be able to soon!

 

[Blue Monkey]

Got it installed this morning. Looked at the three Indian civs & other parts of the 'pedia. It's so exciting trying out a new mod with so many different bright shiny things. What's that do? What's that? How do I get to play with that fun thing?
Decided to try out the Mauryans. Don't know how this position will play out, but it looks like a pretty enticing opening to me ( my usual style is rapid expansion by settler/cultural dominance). A few turns later I found more rivers, and horses. What more could a Mauryan ask for?
thumbnail


I've noticed a few minor typos in the 'pedia (missed capitalizations for example) and I'd like to recommend a small addition to the Kushan entry, but I can't be bothered with that right now. your lucky I stopped long enough to post this much.

This is really going to wreak havoc with my to do list for the day.

 

[Stormrage]

Heckuva start, Blue! Congratulations!

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Ah, those friendly barbarian nomads !! Being spiritual, the Mauryans don't have any bad results from goody huts (a la expansionist trait in the "proper" game).

Glad to see you're enjoying yourself already and I'll be happy to make pedia amendments as they're reported.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

I'm thinking of making a Pezetairoi unit using the same basic costume set-up as the Macedonian Phalanx. Any thoughts? The civ colour is blue, so anything blue in the preview will show in-game as light purple.

 

[Stormrage]

*sigh*.. OK, I know that this has potential to insult a forum veteran and a modding legend, and a person I`d take in as a friend if he traveled to Zagreb (and I wasn`t living with my parents :mischeif, so I just hope this won`t turn out ugly.

Please, oh please, Rob, don`t be mad, you have made wonderfull units so far, but your swordsmen (axemen, etc.) are really below the usual quality of your art and work... I am talking about the attack of course, everything else, design icluded is flawless. Can you please try and change it, or use Cam`s thats in the Library? You`ve set some pretty high standards in modding with your first version of AD, its a shame to see a certain aspect of your own work not living up to it. I really hope you don`t get mad , especially since this is coming from someone so.. unproductive as I am.

Regarding the post above, yes, I think you should make that unit. It would be a fun adittion to the game, if you make it good.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Well, The barbarians were helpful; on the other hand I chose to face totally random civs. In the process of my figuring out what order to research and build improvements my immediate neighbors the Gauls, Macedonians, Nubians, and Norse decided to work together to rearrange my face for me. The only other one I've encounter is the Harappans. It took quite a while to convince them to come to my defense. I think I'm sunk; at least I can load my initial save and start over - even the Buddha couldn't do that in RL.

The Nubian Battlecart looks like it could become the basis for the Ratha (Indian Chariot) I'm always on about. Who made it? Is there a model of the cart itself floating around somewhere (even for $$)?

 

[odintheking]

Hey, Rob, what ever happened to the Chakra Thrower you previewed?

 

[Azmorg]

Right on Rob!
4 minutes to DownLoad...

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Please, oh please, Rob, don`t be mad, you have made wonderfull units so far, but your swordsmen (axemen, etc.) are really below the usual quality of your art and work... I am talking about the attack of course, everything else, design icluded is flawless.

Aww...I really like my attack anim; I used it last time when I brought out the original mod, so units that were in the original with that attack (e.g. Illyrian raider) have been left in. That said, I've been told about it before; some people like it, others really don't. So, listening to the feedback, I used CamJH's animations when I did the Indian Swordsman the other day (which is in the beta). I plan to do the above swordsman using CamJH's anims as well.

Odin, I might have previewed the Chakra thrower, but other priorities got in the way, so (at least for now), he's not being done.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Here’s my take on the Indian-related ‘pedia entries. I ended up doing more than hunting down typos. I found and tried to eliminate some “department of redundancy department” boilerplate within the descriptions. After noticing certain clues ("[58]" at the end of a sentence wa a big one) I gained confidence that you wouldn’t mind my correcting some historical or cultural inaccuracies or shifting emphasis at times. For example, your source for the Kushan Empire concentrated on their influence on the Chinese, to the exclusion of more Western contacts.

I wanted to leave your text intact, but show the changes I’d suggest. This is how it’s laid out: text I’d remove is struck through and is red; text I’d insert is in a contrasting font, bold, and in blue; anywhere I kept text (including that amended) but rearranged phrases, or moved it as a block, the whole thing is underlined and the original location is struck through & red. Do not, Do not trust any of the mark-up symbols used by the game in my document. I didn’t keep track of where they may have been deleted or moved inappropriately.

I’ve experienced problems sending my Mac/Appleworks documents to others on PCs when there’s a lot of formatting. So this is in PDF format. It’s probably just well that you can’t easily CnP from it, since you may not want any particular part of the changes I’ve suggested, and as I mentioned above you can’t trust what I’ve left of the special characters and formatting used by the game.

Blue Monkey's 'Pedia Edits


A comment and some questions (many may be nitpicky):

• Throughout the ‘pedia there seems to be inconsistent capitalization of names of units, techs, etc. I didn’t try to catch and correct all of them, since I’m not sure what was intentional and what was accidental.
  
• Many of the entries indicate that a certain resource must be within the city radius when historically they would have been available by road/trade. One example is tar for certain buildings. Is this for game balance or something that needs a second look?
  
• Meditation predates Buddhism, and Nalanda University is definitely not Kushan (its root are in the Mauryans' support of Buddhism). Yet meditation is in the tech tree later, is exclusively Kushan, and only they can build Nalanda according to the ‘pedia.
  
• Vedis can’t be built by rivers. Ahistorical. A gameplay choice?
  
• It seems like Matha, Great Granary, and Indian Masonry are lacking entries. Would you like me to take a crack at them? Also, would you like entries for the elephant techs and units?
  
• I’d suggest changing the “Kushan Rider” to “Ashvaka -” something (Cavalry? Horseman?). The Ashvaka were a clan within the Kushans who were especially noted for their superb horsemanship.

Tired and bleary eyed yet? I guess I could have multiposted.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I got it. Now i need time to play.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Thanks for the info, Blue Monkey, it's much appreciated. However, there's two things to be aware of:

capitalisation : this is deliberate - i.e. I believe that that "war elephant" mid-sentence is correct and "War Elephant" is not

pedia entries : by and large, I'll amend these; however, for the civilization history I only have one page to play with - the other page is being used to describe the unique gameplay for that civilization. Hence, I ran out of room when I did the Kushan entry; so something may need to be left out. I'm not at home at the moment, so please leave the pdf file attached so I can download it tonight and start the amendments.

Hopefully, everyone's having fun with the mod....

 

[Ares de Borg]

Okay, I have downloaded your work, Rob, but I haven't had time to play yet. I looked at the artwork, though, and I really like the new units. Very good quality and nice work! Thank you! I hope I'll have some time to playtest it soon.