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Troy Revised Mod v3.2

Would you like Total War: TROY to feel more unique, be more deliberate, have more strategy, be more challenging all while retaining as much of the original game as possible? Or you are a TROY veteran looking for a new challenge? If so, this mod is for you!

This is TROY, in all its original glory, revised how it should have been in the opinion of a veteran TW player, in the spirit of classic, unforgiving, Total War. Almost everything is adjusted, but the core gameplay is kept intact.

After >20 years playing Total War, IMO TROY is the best title of the series given its size, scope, and subject. Nothing compares to the theme, art, music, style, and atmosphere. However, after hundreds of hours playing it, I have reached the opinion that gameplay feels like Rome 2 in a closet. Armies spring up as 20 stacks rapidly, fighting excessive battles that do not capture the feel of the early period, where I believe it should be more deliberate, smaller scale, and personal. The economy becomes irrelevant since resources are over abundant, costs too low.

A year went into adjusting game play from the battles to the campaign to remove all "ADD elements", in all modes of play (historical to myth). Battles are now more deliberate and epic, the campaign has more strategy and the overall challenge increased. With greater challenge and difficulty, it also means that the better you play then it allows you achieve immense potential and actually outclass your enemies through skill, rather than out spamming the AI. This means that the better you play the more you may transcend your opposition through good management and decision making other than 'make moar armies!

With this mod, TROY plays more like chess. Smaller in scope and scale but far more personal, every decision is consequential. You will find yourself carefully contemplating what to do on your turn, planning your actions. Campaigns require more patience, typically taking 300 turns (turns are usually quicker though). Campaigns can end before you have maxed everything out, and that is intentional; you are not guaranteed nor entitled to unlock everything unless you go for Total War Victory conditions.

*If using my "Longer Battle Mod" or "Difficult Auto-Resolver Mod", you do not need to (and shouldn't) activate them with this mod; both are included and expanded. *

Recommended campaign difficulty:
Legendary or Veteran
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Changes:
Too numerous to mention, most significant are:

-The economy has been overhauled so that gold is far scarcer and more valuable. You can still accumulate substantial amounts of gold, but gold is now by far the most useful resource when it comes to bartering (especially useful in trade deals for food) and purchases.

-Population growth is adjusted so that population requirements are higher, and settlements grow much slower. The reason for this is to make it much more important as to what you choose to build with your pop requirements, to lengthen the "middle game", and to eliminate the standard game's ridiculous settlement growth where you can go from a shanty town to metropolis in around 50 turns. The problem with that behavior is that after your settlements quickly reach their maximum potential, there is nothing else to do.

-Technology requirements are increased, now takes longer to obtain, and resource costs are higher. This is done to increase the "middle game", and to make choices more significant. With a 300-350 turn heroic campaign, you should be able to obtain all technology by the end, with good administration.

-Battles are now more deliberate and tactical. Battle length has been increased, and AI tactical behavior has been adjusted so that they do not "blob up" as much as before; the AI now tries to outflank you!

-Ranged units now are far more realistic in their accuracy levels. They are no longer the most powerful units on the battlefield, like death rays. They are now what they should be: skirmishers to harass the enemy, reconnoiter, lower enemy morale under fire, *weaken HP for melee attack*, and for chasing off routed units. If you dislike the reduced accuracy compared to the standard game, give it a chance, and keep in mind: 1. it creates more realistic battles/game play, and 2. accuracy *does* improve as units increase in rank. Think of initial units as raw recruits not able to do much but skirmish. Changes also make hybrid units, like heavy skirmishers, more important. Accuracy also decreases the more fatigued the unit is.

-With more realistic less accurate ranged units, friendly fire is now a real possibility. No longer can you unrealistically bring surgical range attacks in to support your units in combat unless you accept that there will be fratricide, or unless your engaged unit is heavily armored and your opponent is not, or unless your ranged unit is experienced.

-In all modes, deity effects are more significant. A great deal of thought also went into balancing them so that each one has benefits that are useful, rather than the original game's clearly obvious few gods that would become favorites, because they were more useful. In Myth mode, the god powers are far more epic in effectiveness.

-Troop upkeep and costs are now greatly increased to make it much more difficult to field massive armies. Now it is a challenge just to field a GOOD 20-unit army - not just anyone can do it (especially not minor powers). Do you make bigger armies of cheaper units, or do you work on one highly capable but expensive army that cannot be everywhere needed? These changes help scale down TROY so that the battles are typically smaller, and smaller is more thematic. It also allows a great deal of potential if you are very efficient at building and maintaining your forces, over factions that are not.

-Experience gained by player Lords (generals) has been reduced to prevent the tendency for Lords to max out their skills very quickly, destroying the "middle game". When the Lords gain levels too quickly, then you are choosing abilities every other turn which makes them difficult to keep track of and makes the choices less consequential. Now you should put thought into which abilities you acquire, and you will need to work harder at leveling up (those XP gain choices and effects are now important).

-Lord traits and abilities have been fine-tuned so that the less attractive ones are now more attractive to gain, to help remove the "obvious choices" that existed before.

-Sieges are now more realistic in length, causing them to be more epic. In the standard game, you just must wait a few turns to starve out the enemy. With much longer sieges, you must protect your besieging force from counterattack by relief armies, and the besieged side has more opportunity to inflict attrition on the attacker with agents. Additionally, the effectiveness of the siege and how long the defender can hold out is directly dependent on the number of troops in your besieging army (more is better - and it is recommended that you play with Extreme sized units).

-Mythical units have numerous adjustments. Hydra units have increased # troops by 1.5x, to better give them a unique trait that they are more numerous, cheap infantry units are now expendable, making them feel more zombie-like. Shade units now have better effects when you choose to give them the ability to explode after death. Giants in general are more effective, but not so good with morale. Giants, cyclops, griffins, and others are larger in size, and have their combat abilities adjusted so that they are more effective (more like WH3 values).

-As well as many other miscellaneous changes, such as: the autoresolver is now no longer so easy that you have little inclination to fight out battles, AI cheats are reduced but kept at a challenging level, factions are no longer so quick to confederate, replenishment is reduced so that perks that increase it are more important...

...and more (see change notes)