Rome - Survival?

[Illuminatus!]

Recognizing that the eventual fall of Rome was one of the biggest series' of events in Western history, that this is reflected in both true history and in KoH, and that Rome was, simply, kickASS, I'm thinking about putting together a Rome-centered mod. Since there are better historians here than I am, I've got some questions...

What would be the easiest way of framing a surviving Rome to (read: rewriting history for) the player in KoH without changing too much of history (and therefore, the map, the kingdoms, the names, kings, units, etc.)?

Atm, the option that looks best to me is:

The Empire (800's only...I don't want to try speculating any farther than I need to :P) was either not divided by Diocletian or was later officialy re-united. Rome didn't gradually crumble, but rather collapsed in on itself - the legions were reigned in and held a "core area" in the Western half from the barbarian tribes...A player starting as Rome holds what is currently Byzantia plus: the Italian penninsula (everything south of the Alps) and <?>.

- Effects: 1) No Papacy, Italy, etc. 2) Holy Roman Empire would be...something else ("Kingdom of Germany" or somesuch)? 3) Catholicism/Christianity would be in different (less?) areas 4) There wouldn't be such an official, open schism between Orthodox/Catholic Christianity - in game, this could be an either/or situation, or the Empire could be divided into an appropriate Orthodox half and Catholic half, with the official religion being ? 5) ???

As for kingdom special units, I was thinking either the vanilla Roman Infantry unit or adding a unit based on the Town Guard (the whole horsehair mohawk on the helmet, the huge shield and the polearm-that-vaguely-resembles-a-spear could serve as a nice medieval substitute for the ancient Roman legionary).

[Elvain]

nice I dea, I thought about adding period of 800 A.D. but I haven't even tried it yet. It would have much less christian kingdoms and 3 empires: Roman(Byzantine), Carolingian and Ummayyid caliphate + several barbaric kingdoms (Albian slavs, Greater Moravia, Caranthania/Carinthia, pagan Bulgar kaganate, kaganate of Avars etc.)

but those religious aspects couldn't be done in just 1 map, those changes are defined for entire game(all maps), so it would influence also 1200 and 1350 maps...

in modding we(or I at least) are not able to create entire new unit. I'm not so skilled. I can only use some unit as shape for another. They unfortunatey look the same, but have different skills and stats, that's all.
If there is anybody who could really create a new unit, tell me how, please

[Illuminatus!]

Anything to say about the Orthodox/Catholicism bit?

nice I dea, I thought about adding period of 800 A.D. but I haven't even tried it yet. It would have much less christian kingdoms and 3 empires: Roman(Byzantine), Carolingian and Ummayyid caliphate + several barbaric kingdoms (Albian slavs, Greater Moravia, Caranthania/Carinthia, pagan Bulgar kaganate, kaganate of Avars etc.)

If I looked each of those peoples up, would the map given in that resource be fine or would the continued existence of Rome change the extent of those other kingdoms?

but those religious aspects couldn't be done in just 1 map, those changes are defined for entire game(all maps), so it would influence also 1200 and 1350 maps...

True, but there's a relatively easy fix, if the player has the disk space. They would copy all of their .pak files (whatever theyd normally play with) to a backup directory, extract the Rome mod to the normal (non-backup) folders, play as long as they want, and, when they're done, they delete all the non-backup .paks and replace them with the "original" .paks that they copied to a backup directory beforehand. Doable as long as you don't do any modding while the Rome mod is in.

in modding we(or I at least) are not able to create entire new unit. I'm not so skilled. I can only use some unit as shape for another. They unfortunatey look the same, but have different skills and stats, that's all.

Right - I'd just clone the town guard, slap on a different name, and change the stats to reflect the überness of Roman legions. :)