Ab Urbe Condita mod for Rome: Total War

PLEASE NOTE: This mod has been modified to run on Alexander; therefore it unfortunately cannot be played without the Alexander expansion.

Allright lads!

This mod began in 2011 as a small series of tweaks to Lusted's Terrae Expugnandae Gold for RTW 1.5. Over time (from v1 to v6) it has expanded into the monster that it is today, evolving into something way beyond the original mod. As of Version 3 it expanded enough to attain its independence!

So without further ado, allow me to present Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City). The overhaul contains many new major changes, some of which are as follows:

• New graphical improvements, courtesy of the Roma Surrectum III mod; this WILL cause lag on some lower end computers.
• Incorporation of Mundus Magnus as the campaign map; now the game spans from Ireland to India, with hundreds of new provinces in between.
• New factions, including the Kingdom of Epirus, the Kingdom of Baktria and the Kingdom of Sabaea (among others). Each faction is fully fleshed out and ready to play! To that end the Roman families have been merged into one faction, to facilitate the addition of others.
• Hundreds of new units, officers and textures for the various factions ingame. Almost every unit in the game has been re-skinned for the purposes of this mod. Note that the mod is not 100% historically accurate - some units deviate from historical accuracy in their appearances, although (for the most part) the historical descriptions of said units are sound. Moreover, the ridiculous fantasy units (i.e. Wardogs, Flaming Pigs, Arcani etc.) have been removed.
• New, Custom Wooden Walls for Settlements (base walls courtesy of Redfox); these new walls are much more substantial than the original Tier 2 walls, and will further deter any attackers!
• An AOR mercenary recruitment system; you can now hire units like Ethiopian swordsmen, Indian elephants, Caledonian tribesmen, Argive hoplites, Campanian cavalry etc. in their respective regions (provided you have the funds of course!).
• New UI; much attention has been given to improving this over the vanilla game. Now each culture contains their own unique UI (for example, battle advisors, campaign advisors, the UI interface itself etc).
• New loading screens and images.
• Many new custom battlemaps.
• Settlement names can be customised ingame, allowing for an increased roleplaying element.
• New descr_formations_ai file (based on Sinuhet's original):- the AI has been given double the amount of formations to choose from in battle, so expect to see a greatly improved AI response to your moves, and differing AI tactics on the battlemap.
• Landbridges have been added to improve AI expansion; expect to see previously dormant factions triumph ingame!
• A new, customised script has been added to help the AI when it runs out of funds (you should see a much tougher challenge from the AI, as well as allow the traditionally minor factions - Numidia/Thrace/Baktria etc - to expand and present a viable challenge.
• The Force Diplomacy Script has also been included in the mod, allowing the player to force negotiations to compensate for the Campaign AI's shortcomings (to activate the scripts simply click the "?" icon on the top right then the "Show me how" icon when negotiating with a foreign power).
• New Buildings and Temples; for example, build a Serapeum in Alexandria, or an Admiralty in Rome.
• New wall textures for the Roman and Greek city walls.
• New campaign map models for every culture on the campaign map.
• Egypt has been largely Hellenized; now they employ a predominantly Macedonian styled army, with some native elements (however much of their UI, interface and names remain as before).
• Massive AI tweaks and stat rebalancing of faction assets and units in the game; the Seleucid's should not be able to dominate the East as before, the Macedonians should be less likely to dominate Greece etc. Archers have had their lethality tweaked, yet are still secondary in warfare. Pikemen have had their vulnerability increased, with skirmisher/javelin lethality increased (making skirmish warfare more important). Barbarian factions are no longer easy targets; their advanced units will be able to take on the elites of their more "civilised" neighbours!
• The Marian Reforms have been made tougher to achieve; in order to trigger the reforms for Rome the player must build a Huge City in Rome and at least one other "major" city in the game (i.e. Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch, Syracuse, Camulodunum, Avaricum, Pella, Carthago Nova).

The overarching goal here was to create a mod that catered to players who wanted more from the vanilla game, yet still wanted to retain that "feel" characteristic of the classic game we know and love. I hope that this mod strikes a fine balance between those seeking something new, yet not wanting something too extreme (like the fantastic albeit massive Roma Surrectum/Europa Barbarorum mods). You can see a brief video demonstrating what the mod can offer here.

Ab Urbe Condita is fully modfoldered (so it is perfectly compatible with the vanilla game, and will not interfere with any other mod in your Rome directory)

To Install:

• Run the installer and direct it to your Creative Assembly/Rome - Total War folder (usually located in C:\Program Files\The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War).

• For those of you that use Steam, direct the installer to your RTW Alexander folder (normally this would be C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\RTW Alexander).

To Play:

• A desktop shortcut should be created for you. Simply run the mod via the shortcut and enjoy!

• NB: The above method applies to Steam versions of Rome Total War Alexander as well!

Update History:

• See the following link: Ab Urbe Condita "VI" Information & Download Thread

Credits:

• Lusted (For creating Terrae Expugnandae, the mod which started this whole venture)
• DVK, Tone and the Roma Surrectum team (Thanks lads for the terrain, graphics overhaul and new settlement/port models)
• DimeBagHo and the XGM team (Unit skins)
• RedFox (Unit Skins & Logwall template)
• Tony83, Ahowl11 and the RTR team (Unit skins)
• Ferres (Roman skins)
• Davide.Cool (Battlemap water textures, watchtowers, and new Greco-Roman walls)
• Lt1956 and the SPQR team (Unit skins)
• Kylan271 (For advice and feedback regarding early bugfixes!
• The Europa Barbarorum Team (Sabaean units/unit skins)
• Alin (For his help with permissions)
• Lanjane (for his UI cards)
• Darth Vader (For the descr_formations_ai and some units)
• Julius Caesar Salad (For the fix/installation tip with Steam)
• Xeofox (For the animated background menu and videos)

Feedback is greatly appreciated; with your feedback I can release better updates that fix any bugs or problems. PM me if you have any questions or problems with the mod!