ahowl11's Vanilla Enhancement Mod v13 - Costs and XGM Part 1 feature

Okay, after the last release I thought to myself "Wow, the basics and base of this mod are almost finished. This is the period where this mod evolves from a small enhancement mod to it's own unique entity." Even with that being said, I have no plans on straying from my mod name, or the overall mission.. which is to simply make the game better without getting rid of the vanilla feel. When I speak of 'vanilla feel' I speak of the looks. Unit design and uniformity, environments, campaign map aesthetics etc.. As far as the ai, the difficulty and the complexity of the game itself, I would say this is a mod that will be historically accurate and also a very hard game to play. Finally, my aim is for this mod to delve deep into immersion, not just for the campaign but for the battle and overall feel for the game.

With that all out of the way here is what v13 has to offer! One thing I didn't think was necessary for v12 but found out after release that it was, was costs. Units, buildings and mercenaries were still vanilla and even though it was a bit harder to make money, you could still rake in cash pretty easily. So, I went back and edited the costs of all units, mercenaries and made sure the buildings were also in line.

The model for costs is pretty simple, and this isn't something that totally wrecks the ai from what I saw in testing. However, you should see less death stacks roaming around, and instead some balanced armies. For the player, going into the red at game start won't be rare, but a smart player will be able to do just fine.

Here is the model:

Skirmishers, Slingers, Archers: 1000-1400

Basic Line Infantry: 1500-2000

Cavalry: 1400-2000

Elite Infantry: 2000-2300

Elite Cavalry: 2000-2500

Siege: 2000-2500

Elephants: 2000-2700

Generals: 3000

Ships: 1800-3200

Basic Mercenaries: 1400-1600

Professional Mercenaries: 1700-2300

Elite Mercenaries: 2400-3000

Okay, some may be wondering "But ahowl, why? This totally ruins the game for me!" Does it? I am sorry. Unfortunately, I don't think it is fair to the majority for the game to be super easy. I am making this mod based on what I like and what I want first, and for me, having a ton of money and just training elite units and building all buildings everywhere without having to do much management is a waste of time and frankly extremely boring. So, in the future I might make a super easy version, but for now it will be based on trying to make the game hard and realistic. I hope most of you can enjoy it like I have in testing!

Some of you might have been around 2005-2009 when a mod called Extended Greek Mod or XGM for sort was in development. Others might have come across it later and played it. If you don't know what it is, it's a mod that focuses on giving the Greeks just as much immersion as the Romans. From there it expanded and became for a long time, the 'go-to mod' for vanilla fans. I did some digging and found old versions of the mod and then dove deep into it's history, features and everything about it. There are a lot of things that I will be adding from it. In this version, you'll come across features from it's inception until the final version of XGM3 which was released in 2007. Below is a list of features, as well as units inspired or taken directly from it.

- New General's Bodyguards for Greek Factions: Macedonian Cavalry for Early and Companion Cavalry for Late

- Removed Heavy Onagers, Scorpions and Repeating Ballistas from mod

- Gave all Greek factions Ballistas

- Gave Biremes and Triremes exp if recruited by Greek factions

- Added 2 new Naval units: Syracusan Quinquireme and Heptere

- Greeks can stage races and hold games

- GCS has highest stables

- Greek Ports now show Greek Walls

- Moved all Naval recruitment from temples to Ports

- Greeks have different Sub factions instead of all being 'of Sparta'

- Recruitable Generals.. for civilized accessed at Academies.. for barbarian, accessed at Taverns

- Royal Barracks for Carthage, Egypt, and GCS

- Caravans limited to Eastern Regions

- Caravans can be built by all civilized factions

- Silk road requires silk, and can be built by all civilized factions

- Civilized factions can build Highways once Silk road is built

- Blacksmith buildings require Iron to be built

- Eastern factions can build Sewers and Baths

- Carthage can build Aqueducts

- Some Javelin units now fight with spears (Iberian, Greek, Eastern, Numidian)

- Restricted Recruitment of Elite Phalangite units to Greek or Hellenistic settlements only (Royal Pikemen, Silver Shield Pikemen, Basilikon Agema)

Spartan: The ancient Spartan way of life required constant and rigorous military training. Those who keep up the ancient ways are much harder to kill, and armies led by Spartans have much higher morale. Limited to members of the Spartan sub-faction.

Rhetorical Skill: The Greeks invented the arts of rhetoric and logic. Those who master them gain added influence. Acquired from schools and in various other ways.

Political Skill: Increases influence and reduces unrest. Acquired by engaging in political activity.

Demagogue: Increases influence and increases unrest. Acquired by not taxing enough or allowing riots and rebellions.

Kleptocrat: Increases tax income and risk of assassination. Acquired by taxing too much.

Stoicism: Stoicism is a school of philosophy that teaches strict control of the emotions. Mastery of this school of philosophy will improve bribe resistance and law bonus, and protect against a variety of vices. Acquired from schools.

Epicureanism: Epicureanism is a school of philosophy that teaches the rational pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Mastery of this school of philosophy improves management and squalor bonuses. Acquired from schools.

Legendary Conqueror: This is a special set of traits. If a Greek general achieves great victories on three continents then he gets the Legendary Conqueror trait, and "the Great" added after his name. For "Victor in Europe" you must win a great victory against a Roman faction, or a Barbarian faction, or against the Greek Cities, Macedon, Thrace, or Spain. For "Victor in Africa" you must win a great victory against Carthage, Numidia, or the Ptolemaic Empire. For "Victor in Asia" any Eastern faction, or the Seleucid Empire will do. A win counts as a great victory if the odds are worse than 3:2 and the result is a clear victory or better.

What would a release be without units right?

Here are the units added:

Thureophoroi: Greeks, Macedon, Egypt, Seleucid, Slave

Mercenary Thureophoroi

Thorakitai: Greeks, Macedon, Egypt, Seleucid

Spartan Phalangites: Greeks (only available in Sparta)

Athenian Marines: Greeks (only available in Athens, needs dockyard and Archery Range)

Thracian Peltasts: Thrace, Slave, Merc

Galatian Mercenaries

Italic Infantry (Mercenary)

Civic Levies: Carthage (only available in Carthage)

Slingers: Armenia, Pontus, Slave

Funditores: Romans

Ballistas: All Greek factions

Also some units had a makeover: Neo-Cretan Archers, Armoured Hoplites, Greek Cavalry

OTHER FEATURES & FIXES

- Replaced formations files with ones from v10. Suppanuts' hasn't been fully tested and has some game breaking bugs. Will add his back in once tested and bug free.

- Fixed Pontic Recruitment so they could train their phalangite units

- Removed bp and area attributes from units, as it would make battles weird (men floating in air bug)

- Moved Heavy Peltasts to tier1 recruitment for the Greek Cities

- 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.

1. Download the mod
2a. (Steam) Extract the files to your Rome Total War Alexander directory
2b. (Disc) Extract the files to your Rome Total War Directory
3a. (Steam) go to your library.. right click RTW Alexander.. select properties.. select launch options.. put in this: -show_err -mod:HRTW -noalexander
3b. (Disc)Create a shortcut of your RTW Alexander exe file.. right click the shortcut.. select properties.. in the target line after everything insert this: -show_err -mod:HRTW -noalexander

CREDITS

- Quinn_Inuit for ExRM and the costs for buildings, units and mercenaries

- DimeBagHo for XGM (literally he did just about everything I added)

- Zarax for XGM ideas

- Barbarians Revenge for the Athenian Marine, Thracian Peltast and Neo-Cretan Archer files

- webbird for the model that made the Spartan Phalangite

- RTR6 for the models used for Thorakitai, Italic Infantry and Galatian Mercenaries

- comrade_general for some UI

- Lanajane for some UI and textures

- Everyone in the Discord Community that gives feedback and tests!