XC5 Pre-Release Thread news - Extended Cultures (XC) mod for Rome: Total War

Hi everyone! Extended Cultures 5 in now finally ready and will be released today. I'm just going to quickly give you an idea of what you can expect if you download the mod. I know there wasn't any news regarding the mod for several months, this is because there was originally a plan to release the mod in late summer/early autumn but XC5's current unit artist, Lanjane, felt there was still a lot of room for improvement when it came to graphics. Indeed, the mod has been given a facelift with the number of new textures in this iteration rising to over 1100, the number of new models rising to over 500 and almost every unit receiving new UI. In addition to that, the time since the summer has seen XC5 gain new animations, a new menu background, new loading screens, a stunning new soundtrack and some changes to vegetation. I also want to try to explain Suppanut's new building system, which has been the defining feature of XC5 for quite a while, but I never talked about it in the summer previews.

First of all, here's a taste of the new UI:

New units have been added for various roles throughout the mod, but there are two unit roles you will now find to be present for most factions: a garrison unit and an officer unit. The officer units are a recruitable elite cavalry unit that comes with an accompanying characterer.

Rome received brand new units for both of these roles, the Rorarii and the First Class Equites.

Iberia's old garrison unit is still around but has been made look less vanilla-ish.



There has been a lot of love given to the elephants of XC, they are more realistic now and each unit type has unique decorations.

You will also find a few unusual units in XC5:

Units of Druids with Berserker bodyguard for the barbarian factions.

The Incendiary Stone Throwers of Pontus.

Now, to say a few words regarding the building system as it can be very intimidating at first glance. XC5's building system takes its inspiration from MTW (the first one!). Buildings operate with a complicated web of bonuses. Economic bonuses and recruitment is highly dependent on the other buildings and the resources present in a region. Certain maybe unusual measures had to be taken in order to provide adequate information to players in-game.

See the screenshot of the Warrior's Hold above, this is one of Thrace's starting governor's buildings. Governor's residences in XC5 will display the hidden resources and trade resources present in the region to you. The public health bonus and cultural influence bonus in the scroll are just regular building bonuses, but all the other lines in the "provides" section are giving you information regarding the resources (don't mind the zeros on the side, they are simply being used as bullet points and do not indicate quantity).

Now see the screenshot of the Port from the same settlement above. Its "provides" section only has one line but the description lists 6 possible bonuses. The first 3 of those bonuses are resource-dependent tax bonuses. The region has salt, but no fish or dyes (as seen from the Warrior's Hold). Therefore only one of those tax bonuses is active hence why there is only one tax bonus displayed in the "provides". The trade volume bonus is inactive as Thrace is not a thassalocratic faction.

Finally, the last 2 bonuses have no condition so they are always active. Unfortunately, the confusing part is that they are not displayed in the "provides" section. It is hardcoded that contruction time bonuses they do not display the same way as other bonuses, so you will only know about them by reading the description. However, they are very important for XC5's gameplay as some buildings in the mod have very long contruction times and you should only attempt to build them once you have stacked enough of these contruction time bonuses to make it practical.

One last thing to note is the use of dummy buildings in the building browser. They are "buildings" that appear only in the browser, in order to inform you of important splits in building trees, you can recognize them through their split UI. The Ruralized Hinterland in the screenshot above is a splitting of the tree between the Ruralized Hinterland with Free Subject Society building and the Ruralized Hinterland with Estate Society building.

This building system will probably take a campaign or two to grasp, but XC5 is still quite playable even if you don't utilize this system to its fullest. It's possible to get by with most factions simply through recruiting units and winning battles. However, once you do understand it, it will hopefully bring much more depth to the campaign experience.

That's all from me! Happy holidays and have fun with the mod!