Question about Mod Options

[dwin]

I am just getting back into this series and have some question about the mods.

1) The Volcano Mods - saw that these create alt scenarios using a new database. Does this change the existing OOB for the scenarios or are new ones created for the alternative scenarios?

2) Why couldn't I just use the MapMods without Volcano Mods? Outside of the alternative scenarios what would I be missing?

3) And then there are the mods by Phillipe_at_bay - it looks like that lets you get a different look for the zoomed out map which looks good - is there anything else?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Philippe_at_bay]

1) Ed needs to answer this himself, but since I don't think he comes here much I'll take a shot at it.

I don't think the OOB changes in the original scenarios. To get the full effect of what his mod really does you need to play _alt scenarios, which are really good and heavily tested.

2) The short answer is that it would look awful. Do you really like out-of-the-box Tiller art that much?

3) There's a lot going on my mods, but the bottom line comes down to how you feel about staring at a hexgrid. My maps look slightly antique and the hexgrids can be turned on and off. Mapmods maps are high concept and the hexgrid is persistent.

 

[dwin]

Thanks - 2nd point well-taken

Do your mods just change the map art?

Thanks

 

[Philippe_at_bay]

My mods are graphics-only.

Things get changed besides the map art, but what happens on the map is most important. The mods tend to use period maps for the vertical and horizontal side-bars that the unit boxes appear in. The unit boxes themselves (for the WW II games at least) use a background derived from a tactical battle map.

It's been a while so I'd have to dig through my notes to figure out where everything came from. If you're curious what you should do is install and patch the game, then make two copies of the patched install (they'll both run). Leave the base version in it's pristine state, install Map Mods on one copy and my mod on the other. Then try playing on all three versions and go with the one you're most comfortable with.

Just remember to download the Panzer Campaigns-related mods from Task Force Echo 1.

The overhaul of the WW I mod is currently in progress. All the other mods (e.g. War on the Southern Front) should work. There's an as yet unpublished Modern Campaigns mod for the Middle East that is almost finished that will come out in a month or two (it's the Tiller version, so it incorporates graphics for the changes to the engine). If those changes spread to the Panzer Campaigns mods (they probably will) I can retro-fit them to existing mods easily enough.

 

[dwin]

Good approach to trying things out - and thanks for the in-depth descriptions!

 

[Mandelbaum]

Great work Philippe, I have use the 3-Mod system (Volcano, MapMods, and Philippe) on all of my PzC Installed Games. Just a couple of quick questions...

1) Is there a Patch for "War in the Southern Front", as I have v1.0, and have to play it with disc in the disc-drive (which I prefer not to do), is there a patch to allow game to run without the disk in the disc-drive?
2) SDC's Total War in Europe alternate map graphics mod looks incredible all sewn together, I am not too sure how to get the Huge Map of Eur-Asia assembled. Do we just extract all of the 33 2DMaps in the Mod Folder provided, or are there sections of map, or? (oops sorry, a re-newbie I be, it's been a while since I have seen alot of these great mods and things).

 

[Philippe_at_bay]

Great work Philippe, I have use the 3-Mod system (Volcano, MapMods, and Philippe) on all of my PzC Installed Games. Just a couple of quick questions...

1) Is there a Patch for "War in the Southern Front", as I have v1.0, and have to play it with disc in the disc-drive (which I prefer not to do), is there a patch to allow game to run without the disk in the disc-drive?
2) SDC's Total War in Europe alternate map graphics mod looks incredible all sewn together, I am not too sure how to get the Huge Map of Eur-Asia assembled. Do we just extract all of the 33 2DMaps in the Mod Folder provided, or are there sections of map, or? (oops sorry, a re-newbie I be, it's been a while since I have seen alot of these great mods and things).

Not sure I'm the person you should be looking to for the answers to these questions.

You should pay a visit to the HPS website. They have all the patches for the HPS games there, though I don't recall that there is a Southern Front patch. You should drop a line to support@hps.com and they can give you an authoritative answer.

The Total War in Europe is not a series that I expect to see completed during my lifetime. I'm sure it's not completely abandoned, but Tiller has started several new series rather than spending time on developing it.

 

[trauth116]

WSF - no there is no update on the HPS site, and I am fairly certain that TFB was not updated with a no cd check thing yet.

The big map is just a series of screenshots of all of the submaps put together - I wanted to see how it all looked put together. Unfortunately I did not have a single game map to go by; I imagine one has to exist, because it fit together too well not to.

I think Philippe is a little younger than me -so I hope he is mistaken; although I can understand where he is coming from. I really want to complete the map.

One thing though about how Tiller works -he is working with teams on these, and starting new series is not really going to be relevant to anything other than there was a developer working on the project with Tiller at the time. There can be other bottlenecks aside from JT's available time as well. Other bottlenecks have impacted some of the other series and they have involved some other things, like other people's availability, etc...

Fwiw, JT talked a fair amount about that series during a video interview from about a year ago ... I don't know what it all means, but considering I will never see the Europa 3rd generation Eastern Front titles... maybe one day .... one can hope, I hope.