Comments - Benjin

Very impressive!

Yes, this version we're releasing will come with the first iteration of the campaign.

Hello everyone, the release date is now scheduled for 27/08/2023, apologies for the delay - we had to ensure that the version we were going to release was stable for us to build on top of for the next few updates. The next updates we have planned are to make more cultures (e.g. Mycenaeans, Assyrians etc) playable with this version serving as the framework, and to do that the foundation must be in a good place before adding more things on. The first step is always the hardest. A new blog post will be coming out on that day as well detailing the changes and another blog post will be coming out some time afterwards which will briefly outline our future plans.

We have no plans to make an entirely custom campaign map from the ground up, at least not until it is proven that it is possible to make one in Rome 2.

Andronovans start in Scythia (roughly where modern day Ukraine is).

Right now they cover a massive unconquerable land area and just have their own roster along with a generic "Tribal" building set which is shared with other Tribal factions with their AI switched off. We'll be fleshing them out, dividing up their lands into multiple tribes and making them officially playable and interactive at a later date.

Yes, finally! :)

Update is coming today!

Hey there, sorry for late reply - we've been rather busy lately and mostly posting to our Discord + Facebook, but we hope to have a stronger presence on ModDB going forward.

The new version is releasing later this month (June) and will include the following:

1. New Campaign (1500-1150BC)
2. New Unit Icon Artwork
3. New Events + Event Artwork
4. New 3D Artwork (characters & chariots for units, campaign models)
5. Battle Overhaul (e.g. local, core and mercenary rostered units, multi-man chariots, balancing rework)

Yes, we are still working on it. We are aiming to release the campaign later this month.

Sorry, we're not going to edit that - there are already many fantastic lighting mods for ROME II out there and we would prefer players to mod that sort of thing based on their own personal preference.

For me personally, I feel that Orbis Terrarum II + Orbis Aquarum are the best options to use for lighting in Age of Bronze as they provide a more natural, colourful and vibrant - but not excessively so - aesthetic which matches how I imagine the time period being. They are both used in this screenshot.

Yeah, agreed to above. I've also already said before that I would really like some more gunner-focused SP missions, there aren't enough of them currently to make use of the new gunner mechanics in the mod (e.g. gun aim spread, upcoming gun overheating etc). Plenty of gunner moments are in the universe to make use of that could be semi-recreated, especially the movies and latest TV shows (Mandalorian, Andor). Don't forget that this game does have strength being an actual shooter as well.

Yep, I get these exact same issues. Surprised someone reported them an hour before me.

I mod Total War: ROME II, so I get the kind of problem you're talking about. In R2, as soon as you tie a faction you're playing as to an entirely new culture or subculture you've created, it breaks a lot of things (e.g. character portraits, voice overs etc).

One way I get through this is by keeping the faction's culture/subculture the same old vanilla ones, but replace the specific things I want changed about them (e.g. roster sets, UI styles) via specific db columns that govern those small things. I'm not sure if EMPIRE: Total War has those columns though, so it may not be possible and you have to edit via culture as a whole?

Nice, that sounds pretty interesting.

One small issue(?) I've noticed about the mod is that the music tends to break during land battles; battle music never plays.

Also, while I like Civ V's soundtrack, it would be nice if those tracks didn't completely replace the old ones and instead were added on top of them to add more music variety, perhaps some more regional variation as well. Is there any way to do that?

I don't usually say this about many mods, but congrats for making one of the best visual improvement mods I've ever seen for Empire TW. Everything you've done - the portraits, buildings, unit details, UI styles etc - feel as if they were naturally done by CA back in 2008, they blend perfectly and add so much more flavour to the experience.

What else - if anything - do you have planned for the future?

Would be nice to feature a mission a few more times from the perspective of a gunner (e.g. Han Solo on Endor, Lando on Bespin, Stormtrooper on Tantive IV etc). The part where you played as a clone on Geonosis was pretty awesome even though it was rather short.

You're thinking of Galactic Legacy's "New Game Plus" mode, that's not a part of Movie Duels unfortunately.

Happy New Year! I can't wait for you guys to see the final results in (hopefully) a few months time. :)

On that topic of Canaanites, rest assured that I will also give the them a few new pieces of 3D art for their army roster as well. They're an important neighbour to Egypt (one of the first two playable factions for our campaign, the other faction being the Hittites, who I recently finished the new 3D artwork for), so should stand out a tiny bit visually.

Our campaign will start in 1500BC and end around 1150BC (just after the bronze age collapse), the Kingdom of Israel / Judah was founded around 150 years later around 1000BC. Unfortunately that makes them well outside of our timeline and so cannot officially exist in our campaign. Their predecessors - the Canaanites (split into multiple factions, of which the city state of Megiddo occupies the space where Jerusalem would be) - exist in that area instead.

If you or anyone else wants to, it is possible to make a "what-if" submod to add them after we release the campaign.

Yes, the team have already planned out exactly what all the factions + important characters (that have been documented - historical info around this time period is more sketchy, especially around the far east and west, so we will need to fill in blank spots where we need to) we want to implement for the first release.

We'll be revealing more about them in our upcoming campaign blogs for January which will show off detailed 2D maps of the first turn positions of all factions across the campaign (faction ownership, cultural influence, emergent factions, rebel types etc. They'll include the new 2D icons for our new cultures + minor factions).

Yes, of course you can run it - 2.00 (Patch 20) is the latest version released back in 2018 with the Rise of the Republic DLC. The current version of the mod (and the next upcoming update) are all compatible with that version.

The next update will be sometime in 2021, which will include the first release of our campaign as well as a tonne of new 3D artwork for the armies.

It's not dead, we're actively working on it. A news post showing some more 3D art will be up in a few days time.

Come join our Discord to chat with us; link is above.

I got a few questions regarding modding Mercs / UNISG voice modding:

1. Is it possible to give UNISG their own voice over set?
2. Is it possible to add more "killer" voice types to increase voice over diversity amongst those two factions?

That depends on the reception of the first campaign's release. Getting just the eastern portion of the map playable + looking good has taken a lot of time and effort already.

We're still working on it with the aim of releasing it in the next few months.

Released today!

Just saw this comment now - you posted in the wrong comments section. This comment section is for Total War: ROME II, not the Age of Bronze mod. But anyway, I'll answer those questions now, even if I am a year late.

1. For now we've made temporary unit icons in the same style as the pottery artwork from the vanilla game, but we are thinking of - once we've done most of the other artwork - getting a 2D artist to do more in-period, Egyptian wall-relief styled ones to fit our new UI.

2. Yes, most definitely.

3. Yes, we already finished those new ones a few months ago for the work on the campaign.

4. We're working on one campaign at the moment which will have one start date (1500BC), so yes on that front. Missions, definitely a yes to. Custom banner 3D art is possible, but those are low-priority for now; we'll get around to doing them once the campaign is near-completion.

Yes, they will be getting a visual revamp in 1.9 or 2.0 (whichever version we decide to call the next release featuring the campaign). I wanted to make some new tunics + armour for them for the Sea Peoples in the most recent update but ran out of time.

Yes, there is an update (1.8) coming in early August. It will feature all of the new assets that have been created for the mod, including the one in the above image.

The campaign will be coming soon afterwards (check the blogs + our Discord, linked below, for progress on it).

Discord.gg