Exilian

Since I cannot mod as of late I have done some extensive reading. Today I read the developers thread and suggestions thread for comrade_general's own THS on TWC. There were many ideas flung around but with the exception of Lanjanes units, not much progress was made. It seems like there were about 4-6 fans who had many ideas but did not have the time, or skill, to actually change anything. I was inspired by some of these ideas, and have written them down. I am now going to list them here for further discussion for XRTW:

1) There were a few references to Thorakitai using spears instead of swords. Then there was a huge discussion on the Thureophoroi and Thorakitai. Essentially 'Heavy Peltasts' in vanilla were the Thureophoroi. I won't get into details because it became very confusing. Instead I used it to help shape up the units for XRTW:

Tier 1 Range: Skirmishers (Vanilla Peltasts)
Tier 3 Range: Peltasts (Vanilla Heavy Peltasts)

Tier 3 Barracks: Thureophoroi (THS's 'Light Thureophoroi')
Tier 5 Barracks: Thorakitai (THS's 'Heavy Thureophoroi')
Tier 6 Barracks: Imitation Legionaires (From Rise of Empire, Seleucids only)

I don't know if these would be accurate, but they seem accurate.

So the original Thorakitai unit from THS will be discarded. However I may need to equip the new Thorakitai with a sword instead of a spear..

Also concerning these two units, it was confirmed that Thureophoroi should be identical with Hastati, while Thorakitai be identical with Principes. (Stat wise)

2) Iberia will need a spear unit, which is not going to be hard at all, multiple mods carry spear units for Iberia, and if worst comes to worst it can be made. Also in XRTW the Iberian General will not be blue  :D

3) Landbridges: I will probably include one between Messana and Rhegium, as well as Byzantium and Nicomedia. I wish I could have one in between Britain and Gaul but that would be ahistorical. However I get the feeling as if the Britons will have virtually no action being confined to the British Isles, which is making me consider if they should be used as a faction or not... Someone help me on this issue

4) Andalus and his un-released units in my opinion need to be released. There was discussion on Carthages unit roster and there was a preview of Carthaginian skinned mercenaries by Andalus. I am hoping a modeller and I can work together to make them and release them in his name.

5) Recruiting units at Ports, shipwrights and dockyards is an excellant idea for marine units used by Carthage and the Greek factions

6) There was mention of having a Jav Cav unit with an axe as the secondary weapon for the Illyrians, I will probably use that

7) There is an awesome bug fixer at the org that I will be using to fix all the common and annoying bugs in RTW v1.5

8) Everyone was impressed with the large rebel stacks in each city. I am definitely going to do that so the rebels are not push overs

9) One fan pointed out that the eastern factions are neglected in vanilla. This has been addressed regarding the units and it will also be addressed regarding the building tree. Roads, temples, and health buildings are substandard compared to the Greeks and Romans. They will be upgraded by using buildings from the Sassanids in BI. There will be 5 tier temples, 4 tier health, and paved roads.

10) I believe debux mentioned the possibility of the Parthians having hellenised units? I need to look into that

11) There was voice for a Caucasion swordsmen unit. That will be taken care of when I implement the AOR. I will use XGM's 'Georgian Swordsmen'

12) Macedon will get an upgrade with Hypaspists. Hoplites that can throw javelins. I will need a modeller to help me on that one. I might also include an elite slinger unit. I guess Macedon used them in response to the Roman heavy infantry

13) A quick add on about the Thorakitai. Desert fighter advantage for the Seleucids? I might consider it as an advantage when the Romans come in, but I hope it wouldn't make them too powerful.

14) There was mention of giving the Gauls a chariot unit. Is that historical? Also giving them another heavy infantry unit to help their cause against the Romans. Also a heavy spearmen unit as well

15) Giving the Germans a heavy axemen unit was also mentioned

16) I will be giving the Illyrians good ports and trade buildings to reflect their raiding ability as well as their wealth.

17) Should the Sarmatians get a spear unit? I'm thinking a simple Warband unit would suffice.

18) Iberians will get an upgrade in units with a spear unit (as mentioned above) heavy scutarii, and a heavy cavalry unit. Also a jav cav unit will be included.

19) I great suggestion was Made about MAcedon's bodyguards. They should be companion cavalry instead of Macedonian cavalry. Same will go for the other Diadochi factions. Also, apparently the general model/texture from ALX for Macedon is a better looking one than vanillas.

20) The unit size for the 'Bronze Shields' of Pontus has been changed to 240 instead of 160

21) It was proposed that the militia units for each faction be recuitable only in the Governor's House as it will reduce the spamming of weak units and give the AI access to stronger units earlier in the game. This has already been done :)

So that's it regarding THS. 21 ideas from that mod will help shape XRTW. Thank you to the dedicated THS fans and to the creator, comrade_general!

That's quite a list there. It took me a while to get through the whole thing. ;)

My reply will be rather short by comparison. Points 1 through 9 look good. For number 10 I have already given Parthia pikemen in THS so a bit more Hellenization wouldn't hurt. Next few look good, 14 I don't think it's historical, but then this is RTW, so go for it. ;) 15 The Germs already have the heavy axe guy, what did you have in mind? 17 is probably a good idea for the sake of the game engine. Everything else is good.

Good luck with it all. :)

Parthia (or Atropatene in THS) do have Pikemen. I'm guessing that I will use them as an AOR unit for when Parthia conquers peviously held territory by the Seleucids. They will be named 'Native Pikemen' or Pantodapoi.

I will have to research the chariots, if it's not historical I won't add them.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=426705
check the guys out in post #17 they look pretty suitable

I agree, good for the engine and for the historical accuracy

Thanks!

Just went through all the PI threads and found virtually nothing compared to what I found with THS. Hardly any suggestions regarding the mod (I believe it's because it's finished).

I might take a look at XGM from where it started to where it is now.. That may take awhile. In the mean time feel free to post your own ideas. I will make another thread regarding the map and the cities that I will look to include

Same as before, I'll cut straight to the points to not overextend this post :P

1) Historically speaking, I believe that those units (thureophoroi and thorakitai) used both weapons (leaving javelins aside), being those the spear and sword However, it would be interesting to know what weapons you plan on adding to each weapon. I'll express my own opinion on how I think it could be anyway, though:
Tier 2: -skirmishers (vanilla peltats, javs + swords)
Tier 3: -peltasts (vanilla heavy peltats, javs + swords: it would be plain annoying to have to chase a spear-wielding, "fast moving" unit that has the skirmish ability)
______-thureophoroi (THS light thrph., javs + spears: it would give a versatile and light spear unit with javelins. Of course, no "fast moving" trait due to the reason stated above, but at least it should have good stamina)
Tier 4: -Hypaspists (no idea where you can take it from, should be a hoplite unit but with a curiass, javs + spear: it would be the hoplite created by the macedonian centuries ago, much heavier than the normal hoplites. It would also give a nice assault infantry with spears to the hellenistic kingdoms. However, to represent how less common they were than hoplites, their recruitment cost and time should be rather high.)
Tier 6: -Thorakitai (THS heavy thrph., javs + swords: IIRC, these were the "imitation legionnares", as how the romans portrayed them. If the thureophoroi were an adaptation to the celtic invasion, adopting their famous shield [and relative mobility than the greeks lacked], the thorakitai were the adoption of roman tactics. I believe the Hypaspists would already fulfill the role of heavy, mobile spearmen anyway).

2) This (http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1923.0) might help you out ;)

3) Completely agree here. However, I'd change the land bridge between Asia Minor and Europe to that more southern peninsula, that way Byzantium wouldn't be that exposed to invasions.

4-7) Completely agree with all those

8) It's never a bad time to put a smiley 8)

9-11) Good thing that Eastern factions (and hopefully barbarians too!) will get higher tier buildings. However, I believe that their rosters have been rather sorted out. Pontus and Armenia should be alright with the Hillmen (with AP axes), Caucasian Swordsmen and some kind of heavy spearmen. Parthia never really had heavy infantry. I believe that they adopted the phalanx formation for their infantry, but it never really achieved a professional level (they should only get levies, or Pantodopai, as I believe you mentioned somewhere). As they got further into hellenized lands, I believe they also adopted the thureos, and made a unit similar to the Thureophoroi. I think Parthia would be alright if they had the Pantodopai, the Thureophoroi (but this kind should have swords, to give Parthia some kind of effective city-assaulting infantry) and maybe some kind of dismounted nobles unit (kind of dismounted cataphracts), but make them hard to recruit and small in number to avoid the AI spamming them.

12) Yeah, what I said in point 1. Maybe you can use the Macedonian cav torso, and somehow add it into a hoplite (maybe even a slightly modified armoured hoplite could suffice!). It would need some refining, but it's an idea.

13) No. Nonononono. Sorry, but that would mean giving them an unfair advantage to somewhere where they didn't have one. This way you can also give a certain advantage and chance of survivability to factions that have deserts in their home regions (like Nabatea and Parthia)

14) I agree. It's hard to balance it though. Not so sure on the chariots, or how to make the new heavy swordsmen somewhat different to the already existent Chosen Swordsmen, but the Gauls desperately need a heavy spearman unit.

15) Sounds good. But from what I've read (mostly on Eb unit descriptions) is that Germania itself had very little iron, and only started to work more with it once they had more contact with the gallic celts. They should start out with units that have very little iron (clubmen, axemen or spearmen), and later on in the game, get swordsmen and/or other armoured units (like heavy spearmen or something like that). This might also aid in decreasing their expansion to a certain point, and becoming more active and expansive in a later stage of the campaign.

17) Hard to say... but once they get to the Bosphorus and it's surrounding territories, they should get access to Hoplites, and maybe a few other hellenic units due to the AoR. Giving them some kind of AP wielding unit might be a good idea though, but I'm wondeing which kind of unit (a specific archer or a specific warband?)

18) Same as point 2. You'll get well covered in that thread ;)

16 and 20) Sounds good!

21) Sounds good, besides, you'll be avoiding the nasty Revolt CTD. I'd only suggest giving the units recruited there long recruiting time (2 turns should suffice), to avoid the AI spamming weak troops.

Oh, and I think you might find more interesting stuff on info in the XC forums... I think they publicly talk a lot more on mechanics than in XGM. I'd also suggest going through the ExRM documentation (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=488745)... it's a pretty interesting read on a whole new way of taking on the game engine.

My own unimportant opinion.

1) More or less agreed with Deeb here. I reckon that the Hypaspists should be stronger and therefore a higher tier than the Thorakitai though. They should also likely be a smaller unit than the Thorakitai due to them being more "royal guard-ish."

2) Agreed. Something that looks like the vanilla Iberian Infantry but with a longspear would be good and wouldn't be too hard to make either.

3) Agreed with Deeb again although I'd go with a landbridge across the Channel myself to avoid Britannia being left out of the action. Would it be possible to have an Iberian presence on Hibernia perhaps? So that the British Isles might have a little bit of action? Hell, you could even have some Gauls in the southern parts as well. Instead of getting Britannia on the mainland, how about we bring the fight to Britannia?

4 -7) Very nice. :D

8) It's a good plan. Perhaps it might be possible to spawn the Rebel faction some new, large-ish armies in the field too? Also, I don't suppose there's any way at all to get the Rebels to besiege places?

9) Good plan.

10) Agreed with the Deeb once more. Atropatene had a bit of Hellenisation going on but it was still mainly Eastern.

11) Yes.

12) Meh I've never been a fan of slingers meself but if you must. :P

13) Agreed with Deeb again, I wouldn't think that the Seleucids really warrant it. Nabataea's got to have something going for it.

14) I don't know if I like the idea of a Gallic chariot. As far as I'm aware, chariots were only used for ceremony amongst the Gauls in the time frame. As far as heavy swordsmen go, perhaps just a bit of a buff on the Chosen Swords but you're correct with regards to the spear unit. It's pretty necessary.

15) Chosen Swordsmen but with a great axe instead of a shield and sword?

16) Good thinking.

17) Yeah, just a Steppe Spear warband would be fine. I've forgotten, is Bosphorus a faction of it's own? Cause if so, perhaps an AoR to allow Sarmatia to recruit Heavy Bosphoran Spears, an archer unit and perhaps a Classical Hoplite style unit as well? Not sure about that last one there. Just how Hellenised was the Bosphorus anyway? (Damn it, I need to read posts ahead of mine before I start writing my own. Debux pretty much says the same thing. :P )

18) Aye agreed.

19) Haven't seen the ALX Companions so I have no opinion really. Still, if you like 'em, go ahead. ;)

20) Have the other pike units been increased too?

21) Yeah I like this. :D

My two cents.

Okay it seems like the Gauls are not going to recieve a Chariot unit, I just can't find any proof. Hypaspists will probably be in for Macedon and the Seleucids.

The only reason I added men to the Bronze shields is they had 160 instead of 240 which is the standard unit size for pike units.

Thank you for your thoughts PhoenixGuard!

Yeah I read that chariots were only involved in Gallic mythology.

Weird about the Bronze Shields. Teaches me for playing with mods all the time. That and I barely ever play as Pontus. :P

No problems Ahowl, I'll be following this fairly closely cause it's very similar to a mod I wanted to make. ;)

Cheers,

Thanks for the kind words!

I forgot all about SotK's Spain Mod! (maybe because he never released it)  ;)

There are some nice units in there for sure!

I don't know if SotK managed to save it from his hard disk...  :(

That would be quite a shame :(

I thought he said in the thread that he was able to save it.

Yeah, he's saved it! :D

Now he needs to release it  :D

Here are some ideas from Xico Bruto from TWC, I don not yet know what to think of them but they sound interesting, maybe I could edit them to fit my desires.

QuoteRegarding the barracks: it simplifies things. The barracks represents the whole military infrastructure of the settlement, where all units are trained and housed. Honestly I got the idea from EB, and grew fond of it in time.


Regarding recruitment levels: when the barracks is built, it grants the ability to train the troops there up to a certain standard, for instance, lvl 1 barracks is just a muster field, it allows the recruitment of untrained troops and mercenaries (whose training is independent from you); lvl 2 barracks, however, houses training officers/warriors, so troops with basic training can be recruited; lvl 3 has improved infrastructure and training standards, allowing better training for the men that need it, granting access to better trained troops.

Higher level barracks may also improve the xp of the lower level troops, provided they are actually trained. This represents their training being influenced by the better officers. (untrained troops are not trained, regardless of how good your officers might be).

So, what are principes? Experienced hastati. They are not independently trained, they just have more experience.
In my system, principes are more expensive and require more time to recruit, but are available at the same level as hastati, because their training is similar. Same goes for triarii and any similar cases.


Mercenaries recruited in barracks: was developed for 3 reasons:

1. To work as a half-arsed AoR
2. To allow Carthaginians to recruit good troops even with a bad roster, as their native troops were limited, and they relied heavily on mercs.
3. But mainly to solve a problem: first lvl barracks had too few troops to recruit, severely limiting capabilities of small settlements.


I got rid of the original temples for 2 reasons:

1. They would be unbalanced if I removed recruiting capabilities from them (which I intended to do).
2. I wanted to simplify things: You want public order? Get temple of justice. You want money? Get temple of trade.
Simple, and effective.


Other things i'm implementing that you might find interesting:

Most buildings are getting an "upkeep cost". I'm going to tone down building costs a bit, but most of them are going to come with a penalty to tax income.
This serves 2 purposes:
1. Represent the maintenance costs of the buildings.
2. Limit construction in cities, so the player won't go around building every possible building, he will have to make choices or suffer more than he benefits.


Divided units into categories. This represents historical availability and status in the army:

Elites and rare troops will cost more to recruit and upkeep. These troops expect better pay, or are simply hard to come by.

Regular troops will have standard cost. They are meant to be the core of the army. Most factional troops fall into this category.

Mercenaries and militias will cost more to upkeep. Mercenaries had no patriotic ideals, and militias had to go back to their land to produce things, besides being discontent with military service.


Hope that was clear enough,

Xico Bruto

Most things sound good, I would just like to give my comments on a few things:

-I'm worried about lowering building costs... in base to what? Because vanilla costs are really low.
-It would also be a good idea to merge the ideas of AoR troops with mercenaries... after all, they're almost the same.
-Mercenaries also should have higher recruitment time than normal... to avoid the player filling stacks with mercenaries, and to represent how hard it was to get stackload of mercenaries (besides, one should be able to recruit them outside of a settlement).

On allt eh rest, I agree completely, they're really good ideas.

As I was taking time off from the mod I read the book "The Hellenistic Age" by Peter Green. It seems like many of the diadochi armies were mercenary armies, and that the generals all tried to be like Alexander in doing crazy battle stunts. However they lacked the tactical genius of Alexander and they neglected many facets of the army, thus why they crumbled to Rome and insurrections.

How could we replicate this?

I'm thinking maybe have many mercenary troops available around the hellenic world and maybe crappy command ratings for the hellenic family members?

This leads to the idea that I believe their should be recruitable generals to replace the poor generalship of the royal family members.

I like to add something to what you've said: mostly, since Alexander was able to win battles using the battle model created by his father (and turned almost to perfection by himself) to what seemed all the different armies of the known world, the Diadochi didn't want to simply abandon what seemed to be the "winning formula". But when confronted with each other, it was hard to win against an army that was so similar to one's own, that they decided to add small exotic elements in the hope to gain a decisive advantage, such as Elephants, chariots, and other mercenaries/soldiers. Usually the backbone was composed of hardly replaceable Macedonians, coupled with native auxiliaries or mercenaries. Maybe the first could be given longer recruitment times, whereas auxiliaries and mercenaries could be easier to recruit (but more expensive and a smaller recruitment pool in general, to avoid AI spamming). That would be my suggestion.

I don't think it would be fair to generalize all the generals of a faction (in that case, Romans should have a terrible LoS, Carthaginians should have command penalties for attacking, among other "chiches"), but maybe it could be a good idea that those generals with a "hellenic" ethnicity trait could get a higher chance of developing negative command traits.

I won't say much on the recruitable generals there... I mostly don't think much on them, nor do I know how to make their difference with royal family members evident.

Good points debux, well it's just something for us to remember as we go forward