Rome at War: Suggestions/bugs

a video dedicated to the Samnites\Safinim by RAI (italian TV) in 1989:

http://www.scuola.rai.it/articoli/i-sanniti-popolazioni-italiche-antiche/4129/default.aspx

and another one regarding Messapi and Apuli in the Third century b.C. :


http://www.scuola.rai.it/articoli/gli-apuli-popolazioni-italiche-antiche/5270/default.aspx

notice it's pretty slow to download and slow to watch we used to make very rhetorical documentaries, but at least based on history rather than Hollywood.

sorry if you don't understand italian I can very willingly translate for you.

However what is more important than words it's the landscape aspect. I'd like to focus the attention on the very dry condition of the terrain, the situation of the mountainous and rugged territory inhabited by the Samnites and in general of central- southerner Italy till the South where there's little probability to see any kind of Emerald grass like.
and of course the importance of the Mediterranean maquis for the flora.

in addition to this to make great and real scenes I suggest to make Cyclopean walls (huge rocks which made the walls around the city, the ancient people believed the Giants did them) and to preferably set the Samnites forts and cities on the top of a hill.

Seek n Destroy said:

In the first versions I messed around with menus and ended up messing the passages for scenes. It will be fixed with the implementation of new scenes.

Click to expand...

Thank you i will wait for the fix

"The Costume History": early reconstructions by Auguste Racinet
with documentation of gathered archeological artifacts & artwork
(Gallic & Romano Greek - should be taken with a grain of salt!)


modern interpretations & related research

matmohair1 said:

"The Costume History": early reconstructions by Auguste Racinet
with documentation of gathered archeological artifacts & artwork
(Gallic & Romano Greek - should be taken with a grain of salt!)

Spoiler

modern interpretations & related research

Spoiler

Click to expand...

*** grano salis perfect choice of words matmohair 1!
although I don't see nothing who can contribute to the Roman state of progress because the material seems more related to Caesar in Gaule period, I must admit the scenes are pretty and evocative. nonetheless the mod is in too early stage to make a serious overhaul of the native scenes. and what is said thousand times, lacking of props sadly cannot make us think of an implementation for interior scenes in the near future

however it would be the non plus ultra for us, eager fans of RaW, to see a scene for the Senate and The Forum in Rome and maybe (who knows?  ) some kind spirit would model some of the 7 wonders and hellenic agorà...

the fact is that the aim of the mod is to make everything as accurate and unique and not a copy&paste work, which is sensible and it worked for some of the best mods for ancient times here in TW.

patience strongs' virtue. we will hope and wait! pure talent is the base of this mod and watching the previews make me more than confident 

I found in particular curly hair styles mixed with greek headwear a must-to-have for creating character option. the previous bandanas and Golden crowns are a significant brekthrough !

There's no way to do anything convincing at this point, I try now and then but I give up... I tried to make some simple taverns to not overuse the Native ones but the results are uninteresting:

Seek n Destroy said:

There's no way to do anything convincing at this point, I try now and then but I give up... I tried to make some simple taverns to not overuse the Native ones but the results are uninteresting:

Spoiler

Click to expand...

unconvincing my big fat balls!!!

seriously Seek, wtf u talking about? to me it's more than a simple good start. of course you are uberusing native props  but the decency seems to be reached honourably. I like how the the brown bricks recreate the atmosphere of a Taberna, maybe a little darken could recreate the dirt and lack of light. instead of complaining i find the native oil lamps very functional, of course more than candles and annukah stuff which are on the tables
if it could be possible to add oil lamp instead of candlestick the result would be far better. and partitions! lots of partitions in the tavern, like filling every arch with wooden beams and bags and grains upon it. space is lots of money in Rome. in every period of its history. seriously, every little merchant used to sleep in his store literally dividing the height of the house in two and reaching the upper level with a little mobile stair... 

I'd like to have a bit of a Lucius Vorenus courtyard to give an example. not all the taverns are inside a building!In Italy like in Greece  most of the time is spent outside instead of sweating in a crowded hole.

if you remember my talk about the "atmosphere" you know you are really making impressive steps forth

don't try to give up! we are watching you!

I have a suggestion that you should still be able to recruit the different unique units (region based) after you conquer the towns

For example conquering Lakedaemon you lose the ability to recruit the different spartan units and they are replaced with "standard" Hellas units.

I was thinking of doing it culture based rather, if a hellenic faction such as Epirus or Macedon take over Athens or Sparta they get to keep some local troops. But if Celts take over they will recruit their own troops.

Yeah that sounds much better. However should they at least have to build some cultural buildning to symbolize the takeover so it shows that for example Celts are the dominant culture in that city or will that just be unnecessary?

First off, I would like to thank the dev team for this mod. You've all done excellent work RaW, or rather Vae Victus, and it has quickly become one of my favorite mods; even playing only SP, as my connection is garbage. Granted, this is large part because I'm a bit of a visual player at times and your models quite nearly make the rest of look good by proxy of their awesomeness. My limited fanboy moment over, I would like to point out a number of issues that I find irking, and offer a suggestion or two (for whatever that is worth). Hopefully this is constructive...

[list type=decimal]
[*]    While weapon stats seem relatively balanced in the italic theater, I noted that there was a noticeable discrepancy in the quality of armors, particularly between the Safinim & the Romani. I could well be mistaken,  but I had believed them to be of similar stock, both in tactics and armament; granted, my expertise in the area is limited. However, what I found was that top quality Safinim armors and shields out preformed both of their Romani and Gallic counterparts, though Gallic helms were superior to the others, by not only weighing and/or costing a significant amount less, but also having equal or better stats in such comparisons. Wasn't sure if this is as intended or not, but I thought I would point it out.
[*]I also was curious as to whether the Romans used iron in any of their greaves? It seems their best leg protection, Ocrea, which is solely in Bronze? falls into the worst metal category globally at AV= 32 whilst weighing 10.0; Safinim Ocrea et Caligae(Iron) out preformed globally at AV= 43 while weighing 7.0 . Once again, I'm not sure if this is as intended, but the disparity as is seemed quite large. Overall, I'm not as worried about the Romani, though I'd love to see iron greaves and cassis from a purely aesthetic sense (not sure on said historical accuracy though), but the the Safinim Ocrea seem a tad strong for its weight.
Also, Gaul-> needs more love, but that's Darth Taco's shtick, right?
[*]Though I'm not sure of how well it works from a historical perspective, I would love to see a bit more continuous troop progression particularly: I agree that going from peasant to legate makes no sense whatsoever, going from a hastatus, to a principe, and perhaps even a triarii, though that would be more of a stretch, due to the equipment issue (having to provide ones equipment and such). I personally still feel that such a progression would still be within the realms of reasonable accuracy, but I would love to know how accurate that perception may or may not be.
[/list]

I repeat, these experiences are based off the SP experience, so I've no idea how they may affect or be received in a MP environment.

Overall, though, this is fantastic work, and deserving of far more excitement than it seems to receive. Best of luck.

well at the moment i couldnt say that we have any 100% compleeted faction in the mod
and most what you see today in SP are just a baisic ideas on with we are experimenting
so mainly every new version might of get something different because we find out new information or just simple make new equipment for the troops

looking at the romans it seems that they are lacking decorations comparing to other factions like samnites etruscans or greeks
and what we are trying to do is based on the references we are able to find with fits more or less 300BC
sure most of the items are not directly made at 300BC but we are trying to use mostly cut between 400BC to ~250BC

looking at the celts side i am a bit evading to doing armors for thems due the fact i need to make a new system for thems cause pants can be used on nude body or can be used with linothorax type of armor (with at the moment wont really fits with the our hellenistic system)

looking at the greaves we have no evidences that romans has used any kind of a iron greaves at the moment the mod is set
perhaps consuls or legates might of have an silver ornated greaves but that might be just for the highest officers

my main software i am using for modeling still stands  wings3d, but i am starting using sculpting softwares for making decorations ornaments and engravings. I guess the most important thing with 3d software is that it could of export and import .obj and make uv coorrdinates for posibility to texture models.

At the moment i couldnt say that we have started in making new architecture buildings so that position is still open.

1- I haven't got around at editing weights and such just yet, I had a doc. with real weights of most items but meanwhile my pc died and resurrected after three days in a cave (or something along those lines)and all that had no backups has been lost and I couldn't find the motivation to start over, not that weight seems to matter all that much in this game it seems. I don't believe comparing best equipments gives a good idea of the balance of a faction since few are the troops/characters using it, for example "light" Samnite armors are of better quality than the Roman ones but the latter got better heavy armor, well I want to cut short but there is a lot more to compare.

2- Greaves are my mistake, we had different greave models in a previous version and since then we switched the models to something more appropriate and the stats remained the same, I have to add it to the to-do list (which keeps getting longer  )

3- I want to change troop progression entirely, I had some ideas for the next version which involves the complete removal of the trainer skill and maybe troop progression, you'll have to visit some facilities and pay money to "upgrade" your troops to some better equipment and for some factions, better ranks.
The basic idea taking Romans as an example:
Get basic Hastatus troop (Shirt, maybe a helmet, sword, pilum, shield), pay for better equipment (kardio armor, helmet, sword, pilum, shield), get to veteran and pay some more to upgrade to princeps. I still have to think about it to make it plausible and keep things interesting and balanced as possible.   

Great to hear, and thanks for the quick response. Even for a mod not focused on SP and no where near completion, you currently have a better quality of content than many mods do on release. I much  prefer quality over quantity. In other words, keep on and do that voodoo that you do so well, because it's damn good.
    Yeah, I was unsure on the greaves factor, so thanks for the correction rgcotl. Personally I prefer the undecorated styling, I was more concerned by the fact that they lag so far behind in defensive properties (This might change greatly with the weight re-balance, so my concerns here may or may not have any standing.). However, I understand that you're trying to as closely replicate the historical counterparts as possible, just throwing my few cents in. Also, in regards to the Celts, fair enough. I wasn't trying to prod so much as mentioning with comedic effect.
    As far as troop progression, I like that idea Seek, though I'm curious whether or not any of the armies of the Mediterranean during this period were professional, particularly providing arms and armor to their recruits?
    The reason I ask is I had a bizarre idea in that not only might you have to have particular facilities to train/advance particular troops (not only in the sense of upgrades but also the necessary supporting industry.), but that the number of troops either available or maintainable might also be scaled in regard to these industries. I've no idea how that might be implemented, or how well it jives with your existing game plan, but food for thought.

Hopefully some of this was useful, and not just me running my mouth... or rather my fingers, considering the medium.

Oh, and thank you, rgcotl, for the info on the software. Going to spend some time learning its ins and outs, hopefully with something to show.

gladius hispanesis is included in the mod (at least few versions of it)
not sure actually or it is added in SP
but yes 300BC is about right time to add gladius hispanesis as an rising sword, but our idea were to make it not to much popular cause it wasnt the era when mainly only this type of sword dominated romans infantry

Okay, sounds good. And that was a really quick response!

Veikeiing Kund said:

Okay, sounds good. And that was a really quick response!

Click to expand...

What helps is that his English is understandable but not grammatically correct. The rest of us spend a lot more time thinking about what we're writing

Concerning the professional armies, Athens after taking a severe beating at the Battle of Chaeronea started some reforms to its military, citizens when reaching adulthood would be forced into military service (as epheboi) at would be sent to the Piraios fortress for one year of military training and after that they would go in a one year campaign/patrol or something along those lines, a spear and shield was supplied by the state. It went back into decline in 300 B.C. and a few decades after they relied mainly on mercenaries to carry on their wars as citizens would mostly join the fleets and a handful of dedicated warriors would serve as elite guards of the city (Epilektoi). Philip of Macedon also lead some important reforms which were carried on by Alexander and the other successors and possibly some city states followed. Pyrrhus for example hired Macedonian veterans to train his army if I recall correctly so the concept of "professional" warrior must exist in the Greek world and poorer classes started to fill the ranks and they couldn't afford much so I believe certain states had to help in this matter if they wanted to keep up with their neighbors. Others such as the previously mentioned Athens and also Syracuse and Taras/Tarentum relied on mercenaries and this wasn't so uncommon at this time.
Rome on the other hand levied about four legions after the sack of Rome and kept around this number until the Punic wars, these weren't much of a professional army as social classes were rather firmly established and these legions were levied at the eve of a campaign with some basic training for the most part. At the time of the mod they also started to rely on Allies (Socii) and levied a rather important number of troops from them (I remember reading about some huge numbers at the time of the Punic wars).
This gives a lot to think about and sorry if it isn't very well structured, at this point I'm just trying to randomly fit the big lines in what appears to be a text 

¿When the next version be avalible?

What helps is that his English is understandable but not grammatically correct. The rest of us spend a lot more time thinking about what we're writing
[/quote]

I've long had the belief that grammar is intended to facilitate understanding rather than obfuscate it. So if I'm still understood, despite my lapse, I'm not too worried. That and I really don't want to be... "That Guy"...

  Yeah, Seek, I was working under a general assumption along those line, though I didn't know the particulars (Thank you for that. The more you know! ). I had initially formed the idea around the basis in Greece, but was, and still am, unsure how it might apply outside that theater. My reasoning was that even if you've the man power, food, and cash to support an army, industry is still required to churn out their arms, armor, replacements for both, and any such other items along those lines. I've always felt Warband's method of "Oh, they've all the necessary gear. Go forth and kill things. Ammo? You've an ever-filling quiver!" to be a tad jarring. That and a happy economy means you're that much more able to field those military forces. Perhaps as a more practical application, a series of additions to cities/castles allowing for their attached villages to garrison more troops of a related nature, in addition to giving an economic bonus?
          All said, it's an idea. Whether it carries any practicality... I've no idea. Also, I'm guessing that SP additions of this scale... Well, may be outside the bounds of what you, the dev team, want  to do...
          Here's to hoping though!

I have a bug report, Hopefully I am not the only one, but the Roman javelins the Velites carry are colored weird schemes of light, bright whit, light blue, only bug so far. Excellent mod btw.