Graphics tweak, game mechanics tweak, and some bug fixes(02/20/2018 update)

[ysl]

Hi, I made a cheat engine file which includes the following functions. Some values can be adjusted to achieve desirable balance between quality and performance.
You can also delete unwanted terms and save the file again.
※Similar tweaks for Attila are available now. Here is the link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ay-forever-etc

How to use:
This requires Cheat Engine installed in your pc, and works only for Rome 2 build 17561. You also need to follow the exact steps:
1. Double-click on the the downloaded .CT file. Then run your Rome 2 game and get to the main menu. Hop back to cheat engine and attach it to the process of rome2.exe
2. Back to the game, first press shift+F4, then click the "load campaign" button at the left, and then press shift+F5.
cheat engine download: http://www.cheatengine.org/downloads.php

graphics tweak

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. activate a group of range values concerning units on the battlefield (can be turned off during a battle by hotkey shift+F6)
3D infantry/cavalry/elephant range: unit model farther than corresponding range will turn into 2D sprite.
detailed motion range: soldiers farther than this range will show simplified & synchronized motion.

2. there is a range beyond which a unit's shadow will be of lower quality and won't completely follow the motion of the corresponding unit.
for extreme shadow setting, this range is 15. It is now increased to 350.(can be turned off during a battle by hotkey shift+F6)

3. LOD range designate (can be turned off during a battle by hotkey shift+F6)
You can now set the active range for 1st~3rd level models for each category: grass, ship, building, unit, artillery, siege equipment, tree, shrub.

4. There is a range limit beyond which the trees will become 2D "paper tree". Now you can decide that range by yourself.

5. activate higher quality shadow.(only effective when shadow is set as "extreme") Furthermore, I double the parameter of quality to make it even better.(may cause FPS drop)

6. increase the range of 1st~4th level shadow.(only effective when shadow is set as "extreme")

7. increase the maximum range of grass from 200 to 400

8. enable ultra texture quality for certain objects.
For some models(particularly buildings), its texture quality has an upper limit of "high", even when overall texture quality is set as "ultra".

9. disable soldier/artillery fading when too close to camera.

10. sea surface rendering always based on map center so that the shoreline doesn't twitch when moving camera.

11. disable spotlight on units during night battles. torch light range increased to 4.0
torch light can always appear regardless of their distance from camera.
delete "out of screen space" torch light so that they aren't left at their current position after soldiers move away.

12. projectiles stay forever. those of the category "sling" and "misc" are excluded. beside, too many of them will make the game laggy
there is a limit of total number of projectiles at the same time. default value is 1000, and I currently set it as 5000.

13. battle camera height minimun=1.3, maximum=90.0 (If you use any mod regarding camera height, this might negate it. In that case, just delete this tweak.)

14. blood stain/artillery shot mark on the ground won't fade out and will last forever. (If you use relative mods, then you can just delete this.)

15. expand the range of campaign map camera zoom in/out. (If you use relative mods, this might negate it. In that case, just delete this tweak.)

mechanics tweak

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. after a ship's entire crew landed, its location will be available for landing again. order a ship to land in an occupied location will erase the ship there.
(I see people complaining about unable to disembark naval crew after all landing spots are occupied, and therefore try to provide a workaround since CA probably won't.)
The reason I decide to erase the remaining ship is that it might be pushed aisde and the disembarking crew might end up landing on the remaining ship.
Once this happens, the soldiers will just jump back and forth between two ships and never be able to land.

2. grant infinite chance of changing weather. can change weather as defender or in ambush or in custom battle.

3. can start custom battle without normal general unit

4. [new]new political party leader won't come from player's party

5. battle weather designate
after finishing loading a battle and the weather choosing window appears, you can designate your desired type of weather, weather region, and season.
you can also choose to apply the "default" weather data (=the battle graphics in pre-emperor edition).
In that case, seasons doesn't matter anymore because all the "default" data is available for all seasons.

The last four terms in the downloaded .CT file are the switches of this feature. input the value of corresponding attribute to designate it.
weather type: 1=dry, 2=rain/sandstorm, 3=snow, 4=fog
weather region: 1=atlantic, 2=continental, 3=desert, 4=eastern desert, 5=mediterranean
season: 1=spring, 2=summer, 3=autumn, 4=winter
By inputting these values and then clicking on "wait" to change the weather, your designated weather will show up.
Once you get your desired weather, I suggest you set all four switch values back to zero. Otherwise they will affect your next battle.

Note that there are still some limitations:
If you want snow weather, the original location has to be in either atlantic, continental, or mediterranean area, and the original season has to be winter.
If you want sandstorm, the original location has to be in either desert or eastern desert. This can't be compensated by designating them after battle loading finishes.

The advantage of this feature is that, for example, if you want to fight in thunderstorm, which only exists in default weather data,
you only need to set weather type as rain and apply default weather data. Now as you choose to wait, you always get rainy weather.
Since there are only 3 different rainy weather(light shower, rain, thunderstorm), the chance of getting thunderstorm is higher.

bug fixes

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. fix the bug of firing range bonus with no actual effect.(correct a mistake I left in previous update)

2. fix the aimming calculation of autonomous engines firing at units

3. fix the problem of missile damage bonus with no effect. (yes you heard me. the missile damage bonus displayed in the panel doesn't provide any actual damage increase.)

4. make artillery aim at 50% height of wall/tower. (the default aim is 85% height. although not a bug, I do this to increase the chance of hitting.)

5. prevent navy artillery from firing at ship body. (initially it fires at a ship crew, but once it starts firing at ship hull, it will keep firing at it even after the target ship sinks.)

6. right now after loading a save file, the general can't get attribute buff from agent in the army.
you need to wait until the next turn or embed the agent into the army again to get the attribute buff. this is now fixed.

7. [new]skills of disbanded army won't vanish after loading save file

other

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. (only for player's unit)projectiles fly through friendly units, explosion doesn't effect friendly units, firing line not blocked by friendly units.
No more friendly fire and your missile units and artillery can support melee units without any holding back.

2. unit card panel max width increase. In 1080p resolution, with 50% UI scaling, 40 units can now be displayed in one row.

3. units in attacking testudo/defensive testudo/shield screen/shield wall/hoplite wall can now stretch wide without restriction of men per row.