ahowl11's Vanilla Enhancement Mod v10 - Colonies, Temples & Recruitment feature

It has been about 3 months since I released v9. I hope you all have enjoyed it because a new version is now here to take up your time! Being busy with a career and social life is the main reason why it's taken awhile to get this release out, but also partly because as this mod gets more polished and detailed it requires more attentive care and time. I like to make sure that what I am putting it works properly. I hope you all can understand, and can appreciate the versions I release, whenever I find time to do so.

So what's new in v10? Well, a lot to be honest. First and foremost I have made the culture mechanic more immersive by adding a Native Culture building and Colony building. Those who have played Extended Greek Mod (XGM) and it's spin offs know what I am talking about.

For those who have not, basically in the Ancient world there were many cultures. These have been condensed into 3 main cultures based off the BI religion feature. There's Tribal, Greco-Roman and Eastern. Each settlement has a native culture attached to it via an indestructible building. Native culture is not changeable and remains a constant throughout the game. The second building is a colony system that has 4 levels and also represents each culture. By building a colony that differentiates from the native culture it will bring unrest, however it is needed if you want to recruit. A new wrinkle to this system is the third new building, which is the Recruitment Center. This building requires the colony to be built before it can be built, and requires an upgrade in the colony before it can be upgraded. The recruitment center is the building in which you can recruit units based on what military buildings are present. If no military building is present (barracks, range, stable) then no units can be trained. Basically it's vanilla recruitment with two added steps. The reason for all of this is to slow the game down and make it more strategic. Historically factions were not able to pump out their homeland troops in foreign territory right after conquering it. It took some assimilation before anything could be done. The assimilation process in the VE mod is by building a colony, withstanding the unrest, and then building a recruitment center along with the 3 military buildings.

Here is an example. If you are playing as the Julii and you conquer Segesta you'll be dealing with a Tribal culture. If you don't build a colony, the populace will be happy, but you will not be able to recruit any units, so you can let it be an economic hub that has it's population grow quickly. Your other option is to build a colony, and a recruitment center. This will convert your populace but they won't be as happy. Segesta is small enough to manage without issue. However, other cities later in the game might be a lot more unhappy and possibly revolt against you, so be wise as the game goes on.

Okay, so obviously we don't want this to ruin the game right? Having revolts left and right just because you want to build an army isn't fun. So, a major change has been made in addition to these new buildings. It is now possible to build multiple temples in a settlement once the settlement reaches the city size. The way is works is if you have Arretium, you have your choice of 3 temples. Choose one to be your main deity in the city. Once you upgrade it to a city, you can then build the shrines of the other temples. Not only will these give the small happiness bonuses but they will also give off their original bonuses as well (pop growth, trade increase etc depending on the temple). These shrines will not be able to be upgraded as you will have one main temple to upgrade. The reasoning behind this is populaces worshipped multiple deities, so it's a way to simulate that, and also, the happiness bonuses will offset the unrest as your city continues to grow. Normal overpopulation unrest applies as well, so managing cities isn't going to be as easy as in vanilla. To balance further, I have removed the law bonuses from the Governors palace. I don't want this to be too easy!

A few smaller but still significant changes in the campaign are new ai personalities, that should serve the purpose of each faction better and gladiators are no longer recruitable but they'll still pop up in the Gladiator revolt. Also, temples are no longer required to train units. This should help the barbarian factions have some more diversity in their recruitment. Finally, the Britons have had their starting generals adjusted to different locations so they can actually expand and not get stuck all game.

Next, some changes to battles. The main thing I worked on was Hoplite warfare. It was a bit annoying and buggy with the old formations (short_pike) but after testing the Diadochi TW mod I think I have found the solution without having to do anything drastic. Hoplites now have a normal fighting animation and no longer have the bugged short_pike phalanx. Instead they are very compact in formation, and stay together in a fight instead of moving around independently. The battle results are better and it looks accurate.

Along with hoplites fighting better, are more accurate formations. These are still works of darth, but they were specifically made for XGM and they seem to work very well!

Finally, there wouldn't be a release without some new units right? I have added 13 new units, changed models of a few more and adjusted stats to fit in with the original unit roster. All of these units were either unused or I simply mounted or dismounted current units to make new ones. Spear Warband and Pikemen will fight uniquely, adding some flavor to the barbarian armies.

The list of new or edited units:

- Spear Warband (britons, dacia, gauls, germans, slave) - this unit uses short_pike and fights differently than a typical Warband

- Chosen Spearmen (dacia, gauls, germans, slave)

- Pikemen (dacia, germans) - this unit has phalanx but no unique pike

- Scythian Horse Archers (dacia)

- Iberian Spearmen (spain, slave)

- Iberian Light Cavalry (spain, slave)

- New Peltast model & texture (armenia, pontus, slave) -old one remains with Parthia and Slave

- Heavy Peltasts (armenia, pontus, slave)

- Elite Archers (armenia, parthia)

- Persian Light Cavalry (parthia, slave)

- Persian Cavalry (parthia, slave)

- New Horse Archer model & texture (armenia, parthia, slave)

- Kinsmen (armenia, parthia)

- Slingers (egypt, greek_cities, macedon, seleucid, thrace, slave)

- New texture for Rhodian Slingers

- Sprites are included for all units!

Here is the full list of features:

- New Native Culture building

- New Colony building

- New Recruitment System and Building

- Multiple Temples able to be Built

- Temples not required to train units (other than Sacred Band for Carthage)

- New AI Personality combinations, unique for each faction

- Gladiators no longer recruitable, but still appear in revolts

- Law bonus removed from Governors building

- Britons unstuck

- New Hoplite Warfare mechanics

- New formations from Darth's XGM version

-13 New units with 40 different skins

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION:

DOWNLOAD HERE

- If you have an old HRTW version, you can try overwriting, but to be safe, delete it as this will not work with it. This version isn't save compatible.

- One thing that I need to be clear on, is this mod runs on the Alexander.exe not the regular Rome Total War exe. Please make sure you use an Alexander Install.

- To Install, simply extract HRTW into your Rome Total War Directory, or if you use steam, your Rome Total War Alexander Directory. when making a shortcut, use the Alexander.exe or in steam go to Launch options and include this: -show_err -mod:HRTW -noalexander

IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THE ABOVE INSTRUCTIONS, NOTHING WILL WORK!

Want to follow this mod more closely and be more involved? Then join the Rome Total War Community server on discord here! Discord.gg

CREDITS:

- Suppanut for all of his advise and helping me figure out buildings and temples

- XGM for the base of my ideas

- XC for some building cards

- Lanjane for some excellent UI's (hidden since 2011)

- Andalus for his Additional Unitpack which inspired me to do mounted and dismounted units. Also some Unit cards

- RedFox for his DTW mod which has very accurate Hoplite warfare

- Darth for his XGM specific formation files

- Aradan for his knowledge on the EDB that makes this recruitment system possible

- The New Discord community for testing and giving feedback (crazyroman, BHL_20, foxcon, PJW6, Crysix, Lanjane, Suppanut, Robbe, Saul_Tyre, Mausolos)

All of you - For Helping, testing and playing this mod, thank you!