Do you play/played and enjoy(ed) Rome Total War? Get this mod!

Explorium

Not sure how many people here have heard of Roma Surrectum...but I found it a couple days ago and its awesome. Makes the game a lot more challenging (hardest mod for RTW and way harder than vanilla RTW), and has a version for each Rome Total War+expansions.

 

Here is the link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=251

One of the sticky threads is the download and information page.

 

Mod comes with...

A huge landmass, expanded from vanilla...some new factions, as well as changes (some big, some small) to others. The three factions of my favorites in the mod is Romans, Free Greek Cities and Sparta. The Barbarians are very nicely done as well (so I've heard), but I haven't had a chance to play with them yet. Belgae (they start in Britain and have cities on the mainland) aren't too much different though, but they have the easiest starting area. If you want an easier game. Many of the Barbarians have the Romans to deal with, which makes them tougher, and tougher endgame.

 

Romans are a lot different, and much more challenging. Hannibal attacks you at the start with a massive army, and I believe there are three rebellions over the course of the game for the Romans. You can recruit legions as well as the Romans.

 

Free Greek Cities is one big faction, but sort of split up into smaller factions. They have cities scattered around, each able to recruit various different troops. Each is supposed to represent a different "faction" I believe, from what I got of reading the forums. I think the mod team did a really good design with them. Tough faction though, since you are all over the place...but one of my favorites, and will go back to them when I'm better. I think the strategy with them is to focus on one or two areas, and kind of abandon the others...at least thats one strategy I thought of.

 

There are the Spartans, which is the one I'm currently trying. Technically, the Greeks can conquer Sparta and train Spartans...but playing as the Spartans is still awesome (at least I find it awesome). They start where they have only one city (which makes it easier and harder in different ways), an army and some family members to defend it, and surrounded by the Greeks and Macedon. Their troops are good, and fun and nice looking troops too. Technically they are defeated in history...but at least for me, Total War is always fun to re-write it or do things differently. But I'm guessing a lot of people are the same with Total War.

 

A lot of the factions are good though, and I'm still trying them all out. No faction is for everyone though. Quite a bit of nice changes that are too long to put in one thread.

bansan

Hope I'm talking about the same game...but I remember in vanilla setting the difficulty to hardest for a challenge.  Well, I outflanked an enemy unit with cavalry and performed a full charge into their rear.  I think I killed 5 of their units, but my unit was completely wiped out.

So, it really scares me if this mod makes it even harder.

Warmaker

Originally posted by bansan

Hope I'm talking about the same game...but I remember in vanilla setting the difficulty to hardest for a challenge.  Well, I outflanked an enemy unit with cavalry and performed a full charge into their rear.  I think I killed 5 of their units, but my unit was completely wiped out.

So, it really scares me if this mod makes it even harder.

Vanilla RTW I wasn't too fond of.  What made the game for me were the mods.

Now, I haven't played the mod that the OP listed, but generally RTW mods that make things more realistic or harder tend to have a big rebalance effort because Vanilla was waayyy too arcadey.

I'll use Rome Total Realism as an example.  Frontal charge with heavy cavalry against a stationary, properly formed medium to heavy infantry unit will not get you far.  A flank or rear charge will net you alot more, possibly even breaking their morale just because of your mere position if the infantry quality isn't good.

Last thing I want to say about RTW's difficulty settings is that by going higher battle AI, they're not getting smarter.  The AI just gets alot of cheesier bonuses (attack, defense, morale, etc.).  Personally, I played the game with mods and playing at Normal Difficulty.  That way there are no artificial, cheesey bonuses anywhere that isn't warranted.