Feature Requests

[Balikedes]

](even though nobody downloaded them..)[/COLOR]

Hey RedFox,
I guess I missed your release of this...is there any way you could direct me to the appropriate page?
Every time I see your screen shots I get all jealous...maybe I don't have to.
Thanks,
Bal

[Zarax]

*sigh*, that's a lot but i'll give it a go...


We'll just give it more eastern looking pike infantry, weaker ofcourse and make it rely on more persian/mountain cavalry, which would hopefully create a very flexible and mobile army, with supporting greco-eastern troops.

Hey, I'm not asking [I]you[/] to do all those things alone, don't worry

I was thinking to copy some of the indo-greek and baktrian units from EB, of course within XGM vanilla-ish style plus the archer/spearmen and mada asabara

Completely agree on that, so the Scythians could use a makeover, though they'd pretty much still be the same cavalry based army, as for the Armenians, they could be removed or just given more interesting units, such as some wierd eastern infantry, so to completely set them apart from Pontus and their low-quality pikemen....

I'd replace Scythians with saka-rauka like EB did or give them access to some mixed units like the steppe hoplites from EB...

We could really boost up the use of mercenaries in the whole game so you'll always have these expensive mercenaries to recruit.
As for AOR units, they could need some "uniqueness" indeed.

Again, EB is the best places to take examples from, they have a ton of cool and historical AOR units.

Simply add another faction. Western part of norther greece could easily sustain atleast one more settlement, so if you use senate for Epirus, it would create another fun mini campaign against the might of Rome...

Epirus as greco-illiryan faction would be quite nice especially if we add stuff like tarentine cavalry and bruttian infantry.

Well of course units could change from their light armour type to the more pre-medieval type of heavy armour, scales and chainmail, no more cuirasses.
Also, significantly push back the military reforms, so that they would make sense in the long term.

Well, it would mean a more widespread use of chain mail (like it historically happened) over units and possibly to have them more disciplined, giving shield-wall and schiltrom where needed (or even testudo for some units, hypaspists could use that as they were assault troops) so that they would be able to withstand the might of the legion.

No, he did not. It was acctually you who gave me access. You should check it out if you have some time, it has some really nice stuff. Though don't download the old beta, it sucked - way too many bugs.

Well, what I mean is the ability for all of us to have access to the same source and the ability to make releases, not just the FTP access (which is separated for you and DBH ATM)... It would be great if any of us could just make small updates and release them as installer like DBH is currently doing...

[RedFox]

Do you remember the program I talked about? I think it was called Putty, though not sure, allows for a very smooth teamwork based modification, so that every change you make gets uploaded to a central server and is then updated in everyone's computer. This is developers only though.

is there any way you could direct me to the appropriate page?

Unfortunately, no. The old ones had quite a few bugs, I will release the bunch in near future, complete with skies, campaign and battlemap textures.

Also, we'd need a way to tone down the Romans, they are way too overpowered and seem to conquer a vast amount of territories, 10 years into the game they usually own half of Gaul, sicily and Illirya. I'm thinking on removing bonuses for them completely...

I was thinking to copy some of the indo-greek and baktrian units from EB, of course within XGM vanilla-ish style plus the archer/spearmen and mada asabara

Could you work on a list of those Baktrian units, how they look like, what's their advantages/disadvantages...
We should take this thing slow and start with one faction before going to another, I think Baktria would be a nice start, though this means no cutting the edge of the map.
If you check the FTP you gave me, you should see a half-complete campaign map. If you get that to work, then I think you've found your map. I think it needs some water added to the west, before you can get it working, somekind of landmass problem I think.

[Zarax]

Possible units:

http://www.europabarbarorum.com/fact...ria_units.html
Eranshar Arshtbara (eastern AOR)
Mada Asabara ( eastern AOR)
Baktrion Agema

amd also
http://www.europabarbarorum.com/fact...aka_units.html
Hoplitai Hellenikon (maybe after reforms or AOR in steppe area)

[RedFox]

Hell, wish we had someone who could make skins like those Baktrian Somatophylakes and Pheraspidai..
I'll give it a go and see what I can come up with as a base roster for the baktrians. Basically a strong Indo-Hellenic mix of troops.

[Zarax]

And no elite phalanx either...

[RedFox]

Well I figured Indo-hellene Pezhetairoi could be the "elite" of Baktria, it will take me some time to mess together the new skins, though I could really use a bunch of shield and linothorax textures, to mix together some nice new skins. Could you arrange something?

[Zarax]

Alex got nice pikemen textures, maybe that could be used...

[RedFox]

Alex got nice pikemen textures, maybe that could be used...

I've already been on ALEX textures and have practically drained it dry from every decent pixel it has. Thanks to it, Dacians and Barbarians now actually look cool. (can't leave out the Greeks either...)

I figured more like textures from other mods, if you could get the permission to edit them.
All we need are some new armour and shield designs

[Maraxus]

Hell, wish we had someone who could make skins like those Baktrian Somatophylakes and Pheraspidai..

Dang, those are some nice skins, kinda makes me want to play around with scale mail hoplites for the Seleucids.

[RedFox]

kinda makes me want to play around with scale mail hoplites for the Seleucids.

Son, nobody's holding you back. So what are you waiting for? Get!
If you can chum together something nice for Seleucids, then it's always welcome..

[Zarax]

Well, scale and chain mail hoplites is something I would love to see in XGM, would make a few areas quite worth holding...

[RedFox]

I've been working on some new Greek units lately. Hoplites now have a correct looking Aspis and a reasonably lengthy spear. The spears they used to have were just... UGH.
Greeks also have Iphikrates's reformed Hoplites, with medium length pikes, so they do some pretty heavy damage to enemy infantry, but even some Macedonian levies can hold out pretty well against the Greeks, because they have way longer pikes. Projecting 5, instead of 3 ranks.
They also wear new Chalcidian helmets and Thureos shields.

Unfortunately for some reason I can't take Screenshots. Keep getting black screens, might it be because of overriding AA and Anisotropic Filtering settings?

[DimeBagHo]

If you use the built-in screen shot function then you have to switch off anti-aliasing. Better to use something like Fraps.

[Bootsiuv]

I knew Anti-Aliasing screwed up the built in screenshots....yeah, I know I'm not crazy now.

[RedFox]

Well, I couldn't stand all those jagged edges, so I used Fraps instead.
By the way, i'm overriding the videocard settings manually to 4x AA, but haven't tested it yet. It seemed that for some reason the game still had AA on, so it still provided black screens. I'll take a closer look later... it looks so much sweeter with AA turned on though, but I can't seem to notice any difference when it gets past 4x AA...

Iphikratean Hoplites:


Same class as Principe, able to hold them out quite well, but suffers badly when they crawl around the flanks. I edited the formations, to make the Romans a tad bit more aggressive.




Greek Hoplites:


I completely reworked the shields and helmets. Also added some basic weapon holsters, which I plan to improve later today.. The original Hoplite was recoloured by Maraxus, so kudos to him.


Here you can see them forming Hoplite phalanx

Clash with the Principe


They perform pretty well against the might of Rome, but they are still outclassed and after a tedious slug-fest they won't come home with their shields nor upon them.


The Greeks still need a lot of work, but when I'm finally finished with them, they should look rather good, compared to the vanilla xgm version (which was outdated by the game period, they switched from round shields during the first Diadochi wars).

EDIT:
I figured i'd post this little animation here too -
Perfect and Not Perfect Charge
Notice how the first roll around charge barely dents Triarii, killing a lot more of my cavalry than the enemy. Then I regroup, properly align the cavalry and then click once for them to charge.
You can pretty much see the result yourself... only do this when the enemy is engaged in combat though, anything better than Peasants should be good enough to keep them at bay while you maneuver your cavalry. It doesn't take much time to align them either, once they got a direct heading and they lower their spears, it should be a perfect charge.

P.S. - Notice the new skies and ground textures, don't they look absolutely stunning?

[Cymera]

Well done on those skins and models, they look very good.

[Balikedes]

Wow RedFox, the skins and colors look great! I like the first few screen shots of the Iphikratean hoplites as well. You guys do a superb job!

[Bootsiuv]

Very nice, I especially like the skies....

[Zarax]

All we need now is to get them integrated in the next release along with KLA units...