This will probably be one of the smaller releases that you see me put out. This release is necessary though in a few ways.
First, a lot of time was taken figuring out an Area of Recruitment (AoR) system for the mod so that you could recruit local units in your foreign settlements. All of my efforts ended with me being unhappy, or with the game having limits that would make things look and feel very strange. The quality of the mod would have definitely taken a big hit if I were to have given in.
Every major or even decent mod has some sort of AoR system where you can conquer a foreign land and recruit the local Warbands, Horse Archers or Hoplites. I personally like the concept, but I do not like the results: Armies full of random warriors from various locations. As a player when you face a Diadochi army, you want to face Phalangites, but when you get a horde of Celts and Thracians, it is disappointing. Same if you were to face the mighty Roman Legion, only to face a mob of Gauls, Iberians and Greeks.
So, I dared to be different. There will be no AoR and the standard recruitment remains. However, I decided to take advantage of a rare feature in the Alexander engine, and that was to customize and restrict the mercenary pools based off factions.
If you are playing as the Ptolemaic Kingdom and your general is outside of Alexandria he will find an assembly of Greeks that are only able to be hired by Diadochi. Meaning, when Rome comes, these Greeks will not be available to them. This is in alpha stages so if you notice anything weird please let me know. However, if you are the Gauls, don't expect to be able to hire Gallic mercenaries!
Only the Diadochi can hire these troops here
The next important thing that I wanted to focus on was Martial Law. This has been a thorn in my side for 3 releases now, but thanks to BHL_20 and Suppanut, it has finally been tamed to where the AI will not build it and the player can't take advantage of it. First you cannot build it if a recruitment center is present. Once built, you can then build your colonies and recruitment centers. However I would not keep the building for long as it will cripple your economy!
I then started focusing on RTR 5.4.1 and it's mysteries. I have wanted to implement this forgotten mod for a very long time, but I had to be patient. The features of this mod were relatively small, but I made due and integrated them in. The most important feature from RTR 5.4.1 was it's new Egyptian roster, based off of Egyptian Locals and Greek Elites. I have integrated this by reintroducing some vanilla Egyptian units: Peasants, Bowmen, Skirmishers and Slingers. I have also added a new Egyptian Militia unit and the Rebels will have Mounted Skirmishers.
However, the Ptolemies still keep their basic Greek troops, the recruitment has just changed. If you are in Egypt or anywhere else, you can recruit Egyptian Auxiliaries (this represents the lower Machimoi who served in the Ptolemaic armies as auxiliaries and garrison duty troops.. this was before Raphia where the Machimoi were trained to be professional soldiers). In Greece though, you can only train Greek local troops such as Militia Hoplites, Peltasts, etc.
Militia Cavalry - now renamed to Prodromoi - can be recruited anywhere as they represent the Thracian and Galatian cavalry that the Ptolemies used.
The New Units of v16
The rest of the features in this version are smaller, but still significant. Here they are in detail:
- Changes to General's Bodyguard Units: Each faction no longer has a bodyguard upgrade, as I wasn't seeing a good use for it. All early bodyguards have been removed and replaced with the later bodyguards to add a bit of flavor. Also just about every faction has a unique bodyguard except for a few
- New Historical Battles by NinjaCool: Bibracte, Camelodunum, Pydna, Pharsalus, Silarus River, Ilipa, Zama, Mons Graupius, and Watling Street. These battles should offer some fun game play, but don't expect them to be narrated or anything.
- Italic Units: one small feature from RTR6 that I added before I work on it, is the Italic units for the Romans and Rebels. Italy was desperately lacking units for the Rebels so I figured I'd get them in sooner. I've added Italic Swordsmen, Skirmishers, Spearmen and Cavalry.
OTHER NEW UNITS FROM RTR 5.4.1
-Ubii Cavalry, a unit specific to the Germans available in Treveri. An upgrade from Barbarian Cavalry
-Veneti Raiders, a unit specific to the Gauls available in Condate. Similar to vanilla Night Raiders
- German Spear Band - a unit specific to the Germans. Upgrade Spear Warband
- Iberian Tribesmen - a unit specific to the Iberians. Militia unit
- Gallic Light Cavalry - a unit specific to the Gauls. Skirmisher Cavalry
- Cantabrian Cavalry - mercenary unit in northern Iberia. 'Cantabrian Circle' came from them
- Arab Infantry - mercenary unit in Arab regions.
- Gallic Cavalry - mercenary unit in Gaul. Widely used by Carthage and Rome in history
- Indian Elephants - for Seleucids only, replacing the African Elephants
OTHER FEATURES FROM RTR 5.4.1
- Boats and Large Boats renamed Warships & Large Warships
- Barbarian unit names changed to Gallic, Germanic etc
- Imperial Palace now requires a Great Forum to be built
- Germanic Skirmishers renamed to Germanic Frameamen
- Carthage & Numidia start allied with very good relations. Hopefully it keeps Numidia alive longer
- New Blood Soaked and Tattered Routing banners
- Militia Cavalry renamed to Prodromoi
- Irrigation and Latifundia now require and Academy and Scriptorium to be built
- Army Barracks and Royal Barracks now give a Law Bonus
OTHER FEATURES
- New Forts from the SPQR mod for Romans, Easterners and Barbarians
- Germans have access to 3 new temples
- A few new ancillaries from the GAFH mod (Genetics, Aging, Family, Health)
- Vanilla Historical and Quick Battles updated to be playable
- Bug Fixes: sprite issues, texture issues and Armoured Elephants aren't immortal
- Vegetation update by Robbe: Grain fields shouldn't be so large now
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
- 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
- The RTR 5.4.1 team lead by Gaius Julius through 4.0 and then the infamous Tyr the rest of the way
- tommh for many of the ideas in RTR 5.4.1
- Lt_1947 for his Roman Fort mod
- NinjaCool for his Historical Battles pack
- RTR6 for Italic units and Sacred Band Cavalry
- BHL_20 for all the help with Martial Law
- Suppanut for coding assistance
- XGM for Egyptian Militia
- Lanjane for Indian Elephant UI
- Everyone on the discord, moddb and twc for testing and feedback!
Really good job continue with this please, the only bad thing i've founded is that the iberian general's bodyguars crashes (at least for me) saying that the texture file "sacred_cav" is not found
Thanks for doing this free
Bug is fixed in v17, check it out!