Had never heard of this mod until today, saw v6.3 announced on twcenter.net, apparently it's huge and involved and has only been available in Italian til now.  Haven't had time to try it yet, just figured some of you might want to check it out as well, sounds really interesting from the little I've read of its manual so far.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=524732

I like the list of kingdoms on it.

However:

I will be adding more translation text files into English, but I am relying on my brother as he can translate fluently into English

looks like it's not fully translated yet?

Originally Posted By Nefaro (27 FEB 2012 6:29pm)
 

looks like it's not fully translated yet?

The title is not even translated yet.  Haha!

Only played a little so far:

-  A lot of it is still in Italian.  Essential info and many troop descriptions seem mainly (NOT the game menus yet though) translated (not fluently really, but you get the idea of what it's saying) , quite a bit is still in Italian.  There is a lot of "atmospheric" info that isn't translated yet.

- There is A LOT going here.  I'm not exactly running it with a supercomputer (an Athlon Phenom II w/ 8 gigs of RAM here), and turn times take about 1 minute each at the beginning of a campaign- not sure if they'll get slower as the campaign goes on or not, some mods do from what I understand.  Compared to my Europa Barbarorum (Rome TW, once infamous for it's long turn times) and favorite M2 mods (Broken Crescent, Last Kingdom, Chivalry II) which on this pc take about 10-15 seconds between turns max, this feels SLOW.  Quite a bit that I haven't read up on (the mod has a must-read manual like Deus lo Vult does) is going on the background here.

- Unit graphics are very nice, not many ugly "vanilla" unit skins here.

- Siege assaults are BRUTAL.  Not sure exactly what was happening but I'd guess the wall defenses have been given higher attack numbers and sped up as well.  I imagine this will be a love it or hate it thing, personally I like it, as siege assaults against even a half-decently garrisoned, fortified town SHOULD be brutal, bloody, horrible, and quite possibly stupid for the attacker.  Vanilla Medieval 2 (and most mods) siege assaults are way too nice to the attacker in general IMO.  Had my assaulting army that was twice the size of the defenders, with a handful of better troops as well, totally destroyed fighting for the walls.  Losing only a handful of those walking up with rams/ladders isn't happening here, my ram-pushing unit was completely annihilated by the time they knocked open the gate.

- no comment on the AI yet, haven't played enough campaign (or any field battles) yet to comment.

whats the main thrust of the mod? Does it concentrate on a certain area like Broken Crecent, or is it a general mod like Stainless Steel?  A certain time period? I couldnt really tell from the product page.

Same as vanilla M2, begins in 1155 or so I think.

Here's the manual link, there's a lot of info in here not on the forum.

Originally Posted By Caffeinator (27 FEB 2012 8:23pm)

Only played a little so far:

 

-  A lot of it is still in Italian.  Essential info and many troop descriptions seem mainly (NOT the game menus yet though) translated (not fluently really, but you get the idea of what it's saying) , quite a bit is still in Italian.  There is a lot of "atmospheric" info that isn't translated yet.

 

- There is A LOT going here.  I'm not exactly running it with a supercomputer (an Athlon Phenom II w/ 8 gigs of RAM here), and turn times take about 1 minute each at the beginning of a campaign- not sure if they'll get slower as the campaign goes on or not, some mods do from what I understand.  Compared to my Europa Barbarorum (Rome TW, once infamous for it's long turn times) and favorite M2 mods (Broken Crescent, Last Kingdom, Chivalry II) which on this pc take about 10-15 seconds between turns max, this feels SLOW.  Quite a bit that I haven't read up on (the mod has a must-read manual like Deus lo Vult does) is going on the background here.

 

- Unit graphics are very nice, not many ugly "vanilla" unit skins here.

 

- Siege assaults are BRUTAL.  Not sure exactly what was happening but I'd guess the wall defenses have been given higher attack numbers and sped up as well.  I imagine this will be a love it or hate it thing, personally I like it, as siege assaults against even a half-decently garrisoned, fortified town SHOULD be brutal, bloody, horrible, and quite possibly stupid for the attacker.  Vanilla Medieval 2 (and most mods) siege assaults are way too nice to the attacker in general IMO.  Had my assaulting army that was twice the size of the defenders, with a handful of better troops as well, totally destroyed fighting for the walls.  Losing only a handful of those walking up with rams/ladders isn't happening here, my ram-pushing unit was completely annihilated by the time they knocked open the gate.

 

- no comment on the AI yet, haven't played enough campaign (or any field battles) yet to comment.

I have not seen better skins than the vanilla ones in mtw2 sorry. The original skins have all the correct effects and lighting. All of the mod skins I have ever seen don't even come close to the bump mapping and other effects in vanilla.

It's all personal opinion I guess.

Personally I don't like these (all of these below taken at max detail, same max details for each):

As much as any of these:

(Bella Crucis, same unit types)

Last Kingdom

And Broken Crescent

Are much nicer looking to me than the vanilla ones.

I can see what you mean about the lighting, I just never liked the vanilla M2 skins even before mods were out for it, I always thought several Rome mods (Europa Barbarorum and Roma Surrectum especially) had unit graphics/styles that appealed to me much more.

A quick update, the mod's forum page says quite a bit more is now translated, link is in the 2nd post.  Not sure when I'll get to giving this one the play time it deserves, but I'll post more when I do.