Best historical mod for RTW?

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

There is Rome Total Realism, Roma Surrectum, Europa Barbarorum,...
Which one is the best/most realistic/correct? I didn't see any onagers in RTR, I hope there are in the other mods?

[Sean Manning]

I expect it depends on which faction you care about- I think some focus very much on the Romans and their neighbours. My only experience is with EB. It adds logistics rules, native troops (no "conquer the Peloponnese and start raising Hastati there that year" silliness), and some detailed scripted events like political/military reforms. They also try to make combat and development slower for a more historic flavour. However, the stats they assign are sometimes strange (good units seem a little too good compared to lighter competitors, some units are shown with shields but don't get the benefit of them, some 'light' units have a much lower melee attack than others for no obvious reason) and in their zeal to realisticly represent obscure factions they have added some things which the evidence doesn't seem to support like Spanish cataphracts.

I played Armenia, and my other annoyance was that armoured horse archers were almost invulnerable and seemed to be easy for the steppe nomads to raise. Historically, good foot archers like I had usually won an exchange of shots with any horse archers they outnumbered. But that's debatable! I'd much rather play EB than the basic game.

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

EB is good if you have a fast(ish) PC. The scripts can add a lot to the game, but also slow the game down to a crawl. It took me over 30 minutes to get into EB the first time I played it.

Depending on the time frame, RTR Ancient Empires: Elysium is great for early Republic. Roma Surrectum is great for the legions (35 named legions, 30 in RS2 coming this year sometime), has great unit variety and with a '0' turn recruitment option you can play the game with as many epic battles as you want-and, if a smart commander, as few if you block the passes right. It allows you to choose your primary area of conquest, and so on, with a map large enough to avoid total domination right away. It can however lead to superpowers in a struggle against each other later in the campaign.

Troy Total War is good for the 1200 BC timeframe, even though many units seem to be taken from the movie in the Greco-Troy arena. I've not played the Hittites or other cultures, so it's more 'fun' than 'historically accurate' imho.

For BI, IBFD is great and has a ton of submods and elective options and scripts that add greatly.

[Lanista]

I reall liked the expanded Hellenic total war mod - the Corinthian hypastists were ace.

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

I was looking on the forums of Total War Center, and I did also see a mod called SPQR TW. Anyone experiences with that?

My pc isn't really fast (512MB Ram and not so great processor
[size=75:3mm56806](look at the first screenshot in this thread)[/size]
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63456

Do you guys have any idea of the time schemes the mods have? I'd like late Republic and early Principate. (+/- 100BC-100AD)

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

RS goes by Ab Urba Condita (sp?), or "Since the Founding of Rome," or city... anyways, they do this both to bypass a 66BC Civil War bug that was causing a lot of crashes and so that you're not saying "it's only 216BC- I shouldn't have imperial legions yet!" So it starts at the regular timeframe-280BC-or 473 AuC-but it gives you the option to "re-write" history. RS2 will start out much later, around 216 BC and Hannibal, iirc. One thing I don't like as much with RTW is that by 100BC it's a battle of the superpowers, with generally only five or less factions left. Sometimes if you're really patient and can finish a campaign you are fighting Seleucid Phalangites around 100 AD, or fighting Parthian Horse Archers around 200BC, and so on. There's not many time specific mods out there, I don't think, other than BI mods that cover the fall of Rome and the Dark Ages. Most RTW mods cover the vanilla time frame or a wider time frame even, so you may have trouble finding a mod that covers that time frame exactly.

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

Yes, I know, I rather meant a time scheme covering the period, not only those 200 years.

anyways, they do this both to bypass a 66BC Civil War bug that was causing a lot of crashes and so that you're not saying "it's only 216BC- I shouldn't have imperial legions yet!" So it starts at the regular timeframe-280BC-or 473 AuC-but it gives you the option to "re-write" history

I'm sorry, till when does the game go then?

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

The game goes to 200 AD maximum I think... however, that puts you facing mostly hellenic enemies in 200 AD. There are a few mods in the process bridging the gap between RTW and BI however.

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

Oh, that's far enough for me. P lol:

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

Oh, that's far enough for me. P lol:

Well yes, but even though the game plays out until 200 AD methinks, the enemies you face do not go that far. One major fallacy in the TW series is that when one threat is crumpled, another does not emerge like they did historically. There are no uprisings of random new factions, and there is no way to replace a faction that has been wiped out. BI pseudo fixed the issue with some factions having the 'horde' ability, but still there is no 'new' factions other than predetermined 'emergent' factions. So modders come in here-with time-specific mods-that make the enemies of the time, the maps of the time, etc, correct if they do it right. I don't know, I just have an issue playing hellenic factions in 50BC lol... Maybe someone will make a mod that starts in 100BC and with Marian Reforms already in play.

[Robert Vermaat]

BI pseudo fixed the issue with some factions having the 'horde' ability, but still there is no 'new' factions other than predetermined 'emergent' factions.

There are the 'rebel' armies. Even though my Sassanid Empire now rules the world (save for one city of the Britons), I still have to fight up to 6 battles each turn against these infidels... :evil:
I'm cheating of course. I have to 'fill' every region with troops, and even though I own every city my annual income is still only a third or less of what my armies need! :evil:

[Lanista]

wasn't there a mod with female hoplites - that seems to ring a dim and distant bell

[Senovara]

:o That would be awesome!

[Marcus Hortensius Castus]

There was one up on that... there was a mod with nude Amazon women. The problem was, the modder used very high quality 3d models and when it seemed it was more to get his kicks in for nude women holding shields and spears, and nothing else was being done on the mod, some of the moderators of the forums felt it was in violation of the 'no nudity and no pornography' rule and deleted the sub forum. However, Troy Total War has Amazons in it, and if you want women warriors look there.

[Agraes]

We do have some in Arthurian TW too... Pictish and gaelic female leavies, and gaelic female warriors