Rome at War: Suggestions/bugs

Seek n Destroy said:

No wonder I get lost in all this since most records are not made by the natives but by the surviving cultures and it's frequent to have mixups and different interpretations and of course some very unique stories. The details are pretty vague because I don't record all of them but there was one in which the Greeks were doing some sort of cartography of the settlements in Sicily and approached a settlement of the Sikeloi to inquire about its name, the guard did not understand or hear the question and simply answered "Hello" in his native tongue and the Greeks rolled with it for some time before correcting the mistake. Would be nice to have some background available to read about the cities with such short stories or their origins.

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Such episodes are so frequent in the history of colonization and exploration that one reading this cannot think of the famous episode of the "boomerang" name 
Furthermore we must not forget that Italy had been the Far WEST of the Greeks for centuries: it was full of dangers, wild, populated by hostile natives, but rich and fertile. Many names were invented by the explorers referring the climate, the abundance of gold, silver, sheeps (why not? MONEY=PECUNIA<pecus: sheep) during the first journeys; we must not forget, however, that some native names resembled something to the Greeks and that they tried to rationalize everything with myth. This field is in the linguistic area of studies and it is very interesting and amusing IMO.

However, for sure, you can count on me, and I'll try to be as quick as a I can (and to talk the less I can...), but there is a but. Firstly Corinth has to fly away from my map, I want a Korinthos bigger than the moon! lol, apart from that, please I humbly request to be in the credits, only for the glory of the mod which I fell in love to.

@Childe_Rolande
please keep in mind DLC, not everytime, but very often is s%$t. So, if you don't mind, keep separate a work inspired by love and a hobby full of attention and research (believe me, very hard research) from something you pay for. When money comes in, many aspects go to hell simply because the team has to hurry, the release cannot wait longer. This is not equal only to patching and fixing, this means inaccuracy. Inaccuracy and phantasy (almost within Corinthian helmet and lorica segmentata) DO NOT BELONG to RaW.
And that's why you must love RaW. Bigger doesn't mean better. Well, in sex maybe.

EFREM said:

However, for sure, you can count on me, and I'll try to be as quick as a I can (and to talk the less I can...), but there is a but. Firstly Corinth has to fly away from my map, I want a Korinthos bigger than the moon! lol, apart from that, please I humbly request to be in the credits, only for the glory of the mod which I fell in love to.

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Hah, that's the plan, as accurate as possible without resorting to Greek characters but we might have to compromise a bit about the size 
Italy should be completed in the following weeks or at least in a state to make adding locations reliable enough, at this point I'm marking possible locations so we have a base to work with and know which areas need improvement.
Credits should be given where credit is due, in this case overdue.

Not in every case, I've bought many good dlc's in my time. Regarding official DLC for Warband, I can say that Viking Conquest, With Fire and Sword, and Napolean Wars were all good quality and worth the purchase, so I don't know exactly what you're referring to.  Also, you don't have to be forced to work a certain deadline when getting paid to do the work if you can deliberate with the fanbase regarding your schedule. That's a lot more common with Indie games and Kickstarers, of course.  This is a bigger issue if you're owned by a huge company that puts absurd demands on you which forces you to rush a game. I didn't imply bigger was better, either.  The team itself would have to speak for whether or not they think more people, or more money, would be helpful. A great deal of mods and projects that have shown tremendous promise have died out before their time due to a lack of manpower, lack of knowledge/historians/research, and inability to put the time into their work due to real-life constraints. A lot of that can probably be fixed with money/manpower, I would think. If you were getting paid to do the research or create the models, you can rest easy in that you have a greater security with your day-to-day life.  In the end I only meant to compliment that the quality within this mod is beyond the point that I'd pay for it. Usually, quality is associated with content behind a paywall. Not in this case. Also, of course I'm not assuming segmentata or the corinthians should be in this mod. I know that.

Seek n Destroy said:

EFREM said:

However, for sure, you can count on me, and I'll try to be as quick as a I can (and to talk the less I can...), but there is a but. Firstly Corinth has to fly away from my map, I want a Korinthos bigger than the moon! lol, apart from that, please I humbly request to be in the credits, only for the glory of the mod which I fell in love to.

Click to expand...

Hah, that's the plan, as accurate as possible without resorting to Greek characters but we might have to compromise a bit about the size 
Italy should be completed in the following weeks or at least in a state to make adding locations reliable enough, at this point I'm marking possible locations so we have a base to work with and know which areas need improvement.
Credits should be given where credit is due, in this case overdue.

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You, sir, made a captatio benevolentiae as it is meant to be. And because of this I must not deny my help, even if it can be considered a help and not a useless display of pedantry.
I confess: I did not expect your kind words in the credits, and you almost make me blush. And that's not good. I invite more people to share their knowledge of the period related in oder to grow the amount of research material, only if, I'm bit ashamed, the sources are valid and thrustworthy. So dear reader, Don't type Wikipedia or just trust rumours on the net! The effort on the study it's a way both to refine your culture and to be a better man, i.e. the concept of Humanitas the Latins had contributed to create.
I cannot stop thanking RaW enough to make such a mod possible, you don't have to thank noone else.

@ Childe_Rolande
I'm afraid my great expectations on the TWR2 disaster made me a sad man, disenchanted and disappointed. I didn't mean WB dlc's are not Worth to be bought, I didn't buy them because those periods don't have so much appeal on me. About Viking Conquest no word can come out from me, because of the respect we due to the creators of Brytenwalda: a milestone of this modding community and an example for all.
Maybe your reasoning is more based on business aspects than hobby leisure. I refuse the equation more money: more team= more accuracy: sooner completed work. It's not so easy to find this outside of the indie gaming, and it doesn't belong to world of modding because a paid work excludes modding in his substance. It's the ontology of modding, free-time, love for an idea, hate of the Scripting, coding, swearing to the gods part. Of course you can donate. It's a very noble action, I encourage it. But the team paying someone is like a mercenary contract.
Qulaity is what RaW is achieving with great efforts and sweat: maybe they are a few, but, quotating Catullus, it's better a libellus clean and cleaned with pumice, little but elegant, perfect in every possible way. Better than the enormous and not overseen work of a Volusius Annales.
You know Catullus Carmina are what they are. Even nowadays. Volusius' Annales are what they deserved to: cacata charta.
The philosophy of RaW is proceeding step by step, not announcing Majestic plans. Every change is very significant but quite silent in the changelog. A bigger and paid team seems to denaturalize the delicate balance of RaW IMO.

If that is the case with the RaW team, then I can only respect their decisions, of course.  It shouldn't seem to me too unusual as it is, really, as there is another great team which does things their own way, at their own pace, and who also, (to my understanding), refuse pay. And that would be the EB and EBII team. Great deal of awesome research, ever-increasing accuracy, (as far as the sources can tell us), and all for free.

Ah, TWR2.. a game that disappoints me so much that I have yet to purchase it, and probably never will unless it's down to 20.00 USD or less. Not to sound high-horse, but I kind of refuse to pay for the game in it's state, with that engine, and with the glaring mistakes they've made. I will play EBI over that any day, and I too think their DLC practices in particular were garbage. I will always laugh in the face of Rome dlc's that add factions that mods give you for free.  Funny enough, the eras that Warbands' DLC's take place in have almost no interest in me either, but I was very curious to try them out, and I wanted to support every official mod, as I tend to get sick of non-official mods, (with all due respect), containing a plethora of bugs, and official ones are usually more stable. [not to say mods don't exist that are mostly or fully functional, but I haven't browsed a whole lot thanks to my poor experiences with some] I'd actually kinda like to see an official mod roughly around this era, as that's always been my interest, but alas, it won't even be necessary of RaW continues on it's glorious path.

If RaW's team feel they are getting along quite fine, then by all means, they've no reason to desire otherwise.  While I'll say it doesn't have to be the case, as you say it is a lot more possible that anyone putting in money will then start making demands which will make things uncomfortable and awkward for the team.

Addition: I've seen good mods here die after years of work, due to the members being busy or life interrupting, or some such. There was that old Peloponnesian War mod long ago that I think never got finished, and there was another one ages ago I was really looking forward to.. I think it was Hegemony 268 B.C. that was also never finished. I'm glad, and I feel lucky, to have found one where the team is alive and well!

Would you consider making the aspis model a bit more robust? It's a small thing that I've noticed, and I've been on the fence about suggesting it because it's so small, but most versions of this shield I see are a bit thicker and just slightly deeper than the in-game model, (as in more bowled). You'll notice in particular they get thicker toward the rim, with re-constructors thinking this was to aid its' structural strength in a push.

These two are based on the surviving Etruscan shield. You can see it's depth and rim thickness.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/39/d3/fb/39d3fb555d2c9054bc610f4fad51db07.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_O-l1-qFVCoE/R8JS0wZvlII/AAAAAAAAAKk/T22YJLdRGqU/s400/gregoriano.jpg

https://deadliestblogpage.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/inside-detail-shield.jpg?w=500

A replication. http://www.manningimperial.com/gallery/1171086323.jpg

you must be spying on me
as i today i just started to bring some ideas and references for it (and we can say i started to rework it)

Oh, I didn't know!    Fantastic co-incidence then! 

I know aspides differ, and people's views on them differ slightly. For instance, statuary appears to show that over time, the aspis became 'more bowled'. But one could also argue that statues were simply trying to save marble/stone initially. Archeological finds from what I heard do have different levels of depth. I think I read the max depth as 5'' or so, but usually they do have the robust rim.  I personally just happen to think the best-looking aspides are more bowled then the current models, and I know they do get thicker, particularly so around the outer bend and the rim, which was re-inforced, (also part of the reason why I'd say shields need more strength, they're usually destroyed from the rim downward versus being punched right through, and a re-inforced rim makes that tougher to do). 

If you're on it already, no need to add any more. Time to stalk perhaps. Heheh.   

Was on the server as well today. A few people hopped in and out. The apparent balance issue popped up, but then, I completely understand if MP receives a low priority.  MP, sadly, can't be a constantly guaranteed function, whereas SP, when finished, should provide a great depth of gameplay. etc.    Cheers!

I found these interesting armor reconstructions from this magazine, 
I know they're chronologically too early, but they could be helpful in
designing costumes, helmets and crests for Illyrians, Etruscans and other factions

Are those indeed Ilyrians and Etruscans? I can usually pin down the date and culture depending on ancient (western) armor, but I couldn't pin these down.

Especially confused that lightly armored troops with helms and thureos shields seem to be referred to as line hoplites. 

they're early Roman citizen armies, but some of the helmets and equipment
where found in Ilyrian and Etruscan archaeology and art too

It would be great if you can add also:
-Caucasian states: Iberia, Colchis (state of laz and megrels same people that time), Albania and Armenia
-East states: Parthia and seleucid empire


http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,247645.0.html

We reduced the area covered by the map for the next version so these factions are off limits.

well here you can see max size of planed map

we had no plans to increese it more
small area of seulucids still is possibile

will that be in Asia minor and the Levant?
or will it be possible to include the 
Kingdom of Lysimachus or the Galatians?

Lysimachus's kingdom yes, Galatians are not planned since they only settled there 20 years after the starting date of the mod.

Seek n Destroy said:

We reduced the area covered by the map for the next version so these factions are off limits.

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Ok. I will ask other Rome mods.

Could you implement vambraces like the roman manica or simple single leatherbraces for archers?

May somebody point me to the Dedicated server files please?

Vaim said:

May somebody point me to the Dedicated server files please?

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None have been uploaded. I'm afraid you'll simply have to get the warband server files and toss the mod folder in there. If it's any consolation, it's possible to delete certain files from the serverside mod without causing issues. Can't remember which off the top of my head though.