The Rights of Man
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The Rights of Man (TROM) is a major mod for Empire Total War, that is intended to turn it into a more challenging and historical game, rather than battles and wars in the style of the Patriot or Braveheart. As such, the mechanics are based on historical accounts, not Hollywood. The balance of the mod has been changed, but not that much in order to retain the quality of the AI.
History
The first version of TROM was released in May 2009, and the creation of new versions of the main mod persisted up to version 1.69 in April 2010. The versions in between included a large number of fixes for the vanilla campaign and updating the mod for compatibility with the various patches. There were also morale and other balance changes. Several sub-mods have also been released-a Unit Variety Mod was updated to 1.6 compatability and released in February 2010, and an Ornamentum pack designed specifically for TROM was released around the same time as the latest version of the main mod. Since then, there has been no real development, and it has been a very long time since the original mod leaders logged on to TWC.
Features
- All changes take into account the ability of the AI, and historical accuracy.
- A detailed Area of Recruitment system allows for multi-faceted Imperial armies with representative and unique units from many different regions of the world-over 30 new units are added. These include the Walloon Guard, Chuguevski Cossacks, Freikorps Cavalry, Georgian Khevsurs, Swiss Infantry, and others, each balanced to fit in with the TROM gameplay. Additionally, many changes have been made to unit statistics and recruitability to improve historical realism and balance.
- Unique unit roster for the French Republic, with appropriate blue uniforms to replace the white ones used by this faction in the vanilla game.
- More authentic Ottoman unit roster, adding many more units such as Sekban Fusiliers, Cebülü Cavalry, Azab Infantry, and new ship types.
- Many Battle AI changes including changes to battle dynamics: movement speed, projectile ballistics, lethality, fatigue and morale to more closely match historical accounts and doctrine, while maintaining game balance and playability. There are also changes to naval battles-they are longer, and weapons are differentiated in range power and accuracy, and the handling of the vessels is slower and more deliberate, again much as it was historically.
- Changes to the Campaign AI include significantly reworked aspects of happiness, research, income, building benefits, campaign income, governments and others. Balancing progress, happiness and industrialization is more challenging than vanilla, and the better balanced buildings will help the AI on the campaign map. The player has to make very hard choices in order to be successful.
- Dozens of new descriptive strings to communicate changes to unit types and remove non-period wording, based on a proper descriptions pack originally from l33tl4m3r.
- Adjusted traits and ancillaries for greater challenge, and more characters with both positive and negative traits.
- Reduced speed of research through adjustment to buildings, characters and government types.
- Many other small improvements to the gameplay.
New Game Mechanics
Battle Mechanics
Projectile ballistics
When selecting a weapon's range, the following has been considered:
1) What is the maximum range of the weapon -- how far the projectile will go. 2) What is the maximum effective range of the weapon -- how lethal the weapon will be, in trained (or untrained) hands. 3) What is the doctrine of the weapon -- how soldiers were trained, and where they, in practice, opened fire.
Battle formations
The spacings between men in a unit have not been changed. Those modelled in game show a bit more than an arm's distance apart. This is for reasons of realism, albeit with a very modern taste-you will be stepping on the heels of the soldier in front of you, and when you change your facing, you run the risk of a rifle barrel to the head, a crushed finger, or a bayonet to the gluteus maximus.
Additionally, Sinhuet's army formations modification has been included. This changes the way that units are set up on the battlefield. The BAI makes use of these changes to very good effect.
Battlefield movement, morale and fatigue
A number of changes have been made to movement, morale and fatigue on the battlefield. The goal of these changes to improve game play, without hampering the AI. For example, since the AI is notorious for running its soldiers ragged on the battlefield, the fatigue penalty for running has not been increased. However, the fatigue penalties for fighting, reloading and firing have all been increased -- thus making fatigue more of an issue, but without penalizing the battle AI's poor decision making. All fatigue thresholds have been somewhat lowered, but this means that recovery time is proportionately faster, as well.
In general, naval combat should now more closely mirror historical accounts, without being too slow, or exposing problems in the naval Battle AI. Historical accounts often have battles last 6 or more hours. While it would be most accurate to cut ship movement speed by about 80%, severely reduce turning speed, and make reload speed about 1 minute 45 seconds to 2 minutes between shots (a well trained crew fired about 3 shots in 5 minutes while fresh), this can make for a very slow battle.
Campaign Mechanics
Government
The difference between governments has been emphasized. In conjunction with rebalancing buildings, this will force a player to think more carefully about strategic trade-offs. Religious buildings, and happiness generating buildings, may now prove critical, especially when conquering new provinces, or when an absolute monarchy attempts to modernize.
Research
The rate of research has generally been adjusted downwards, by reducing the spawn rate of gentlemen, reducing the research points generated by different school building types, and adjusting the government type research bonuses so they are normalized at -10% (i.e. technologies require +10% more research ponts).
Music
Lesser known pieces have been chosen, especially from those composers that people may be less familiar with. Whenever possible, those recordings where period instruments are used have been selected, and the piece is performed similar to how it would have been performed during the period. With the exception of Bach (his Der Kunst Der Fugue is used for the title screen and others of his pieces are included), the mod has less known works from composers such as Buxtehude, Telemann, Blow, Corelli, Scheidt and Boccherini. There is also have one piece of Anonimous 18th century Russian church music-you may recognize the theme as being that used in the 1812 Overture in the 19th century.
The Team
Design
Historical Advisor
Special Thanks to
- Yarkis
- Serenissima
- Tancredii
- Dogmeat
- JaM
- moopere
- Pdguru
- All the modders who allowed the inclusion of their work in the mod.
Included Mods
- Blood and Smoke mod by Mech_Donald
- Pip-mod and Marble UI by Waronmars
- Equipment mod by Erasmus777
- Animations modifications by Tiyafeh
- Model fixes by Ahiga and Reiksmarshal
- Musket and cannon sounds by Obushnikov.
- More authentic government office titles by jeweetwel_youknow
- Realistic Flags mod by Spanky
- Period loading screens by Spanky, accompanied by lesser known period music by Corelli, Telemann, Bach and others
- Modified early-game campaign script by TheStinger
- French revolutionary textures by Mr Thib, Gerard Duval and Amiral_Bruix
- Unique models/skins for British, French, Spanish, Russian and American marines and naval officers by Officerpuppy
