Idea for a Rome Mod.

[Spankfish]

OK, im not a modder, and know jack ***t about anything other than putting them onto my PC.

But i had a good idea for a Rome mod.

It would be based on "Anabasis" or "The Persian Expedition" in english, by Xenophon (one of the loading screen quotes in Rome is his from this book.).  It was one of Alexander the Great's favorite books and is based on real events, as Xenophon was elected as one of the generals to lead them later.  There are also other versions to compare his to, but his is the most widely know.

Basically, about 10'000 Greeks and other assorted troops get conned by the brother and Satrap of the king of Persia into attacking him and trying to usurp his throne.  They travel deep into the Persian Empire, fight a battle, loose, then have to fight all the way back to the Bosphorus to try and get back to Greece.  They fight Persians, local tribes, loose all their generals, fall out amongst themselves until finally getting back to Greece.  A good old Greek tradgey.  Then they are hired by a Thracian king to kick out some other tribes, then are hired by the Spartans to go back to Ionia to fight the Persians again.  After this they end up back in Greece involved in other battles.

Clearly theres alot that goes on and cant all be told in one post.  Even if no-one picks up the idea, i can recommend it as a good read to any fan of warfare and good old adventure stories.  Its quite an epic tale.

I had a few ideas for implementing a mod where you basiclly just control 1 army, dont keep towns, just sack them.  I could imagine all sorts of ambush scenarios, raids, full blown battles and maybe starvation.

Anyone interested in hearing more, let me know.  Incidently, the book is about

[comrade_general]

I am familiar with this story, incidentally there was a movie made in '79 called The Warriors based on the idea of some guys getting stuck in the middle of enemies (in New York).  

But anyway, that would be an interesting game. BI would be a plausible platform for it. You should get out there and read some tutorials and make yourself a mod folder to tinker with.  

[Spankfish]

Yeah, "The Warriors" is a modern (well 70's) re-working of Xenophons tale.

I really would like to try my hand at some modding.  Any pointers in the right direction you can offer me, for help/info/tutorials etc?

[comrade_general]

The .Org has a nice tutorial section, all categorized, you can find it here. The best thing you can do though is to get into the game files and experiment.

[Spankfish]

Just a quick question,  Where the do i start?  I could read all the topics, but i wouldnt really get much.  Any suggestions on what to do 1st?  I tried playing with the map editor once, made a battle, but then could never get the side i wanted to control to work.  Just need a nice starting point then i can add to my knowledge from there.

[comrade_general]

What specifically would you like to do? I haven't tinkered with the battle editor that much, and I can't find a good tutorial either, but anything else I can help you with.

In general terms the first things I do are make a list of what factions I want, and then make a mod folder (also take a look at the command line switches part), then edit descr_sm_factions.txt by putting 'yes' or 'no' next to 'custom_battle_availability' to narrow down the slots I need. If needed you can change the 'culture' line to to one of the available cultures to better fit the faction you are making. Next you can open up expanded_bi.txt (assuming you have RTW patched to 1.5, which you should) and right at the top are the faction names, don't touch the parts in { }. You can change the names to whatever you like, for example:

Code Select Expand

{ROMANS_JULII} The Clown Men

Any instance where the Julii are listed you will need to change to represent your new names, just don't change anything in the { } parts. Always be sure to make backups, and run the game every so often to test your progress. Moving on you will eventually edit export_descr_unit.txt to change which factions have which units, and descr_strat.txt to change how they are situated on the map. This is a very vague idea of the process, there is way to much to list here, so get out there and tinker and find those tutorials.