CA propositions thread

[alpaca]

Well, Lusted and my own self decided (after an instigation from Pnutmaster) to open threads here and on the TWC where all modders can propose (modding) features that you would like to have requested from CA.
Since we'll be the ones that present it to the two kind people we know over MSN (Caliban and Palamedes, big thanks for what you're doing for us already), we will also author it.

The system will work like this:
Everybody can make propositions, and we will collect them in the first post of these threads (and probably mirror them from time to time).
Append to each proposition a number from 1 to 10 signifying it's importance/urgency for you (where 10 is most important).
Also ask for features that have already been asked, as I will treat features that are asked for more often as having a higher priority.

We will then discuss these propositions privately to see what we think is feasible to request from CA and then pass that on to them.
After that, all we can do is twiddle our thumbs and see what happens. The devs are pretty busy with the expansion right now, and we don't have a programmer contact anyways. Usually, we'll get a reply within a few weeks though and will then post that in these two threads.


I know it's not the perfect system (and am already afraid of spam), but it's -the best we can do right now.

A last command: Only post sensible (i.e. small) requests. It's not too likely we'll get things that involve a lot of workload.


Here's a link to the thread on the TWC: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...32#post1631132

Features that were already asked about:

- View city feature: won't return
- raising the maximum number of provinces: could happen if it doesn't impede performance too much (pre-caching). Scott K. promised to test that within a few weeks
- Sprite Generator: Will come in 1.3 or if we're lucky in 1.2
- Contextual scripting commands (asked on April, 19th - no reply yet)


Propositions

- Increased hardcoded limits(unit, province, trait)
- More Tools
- Shieldwall formation for spearmen, with possibility to use secondary weapon in very close melee like pikemen.
- More dynamic cavalry combat which could last longer.
- a way to remove an ancillary if a certain event occurs
- a way to directly check for whether a character currently has a given ancillary [without having to give it its own type]
a way to give traits to the leader on various occassions instead of the character performing the action [currently only supported are successful diplomacy, assassination and spying]
- a new special condition for traits that can directly specify who is affected, i.e. EffectOn: FactionLeader; NearestFriendlyCharacters, NearestHostileCharacters
- Conditions working with OR [instead of only AND - saves a lot of extra triggers]
- Possibility to make our own conditions for certain events or more basic conditions
- Better documentation for some files
- Ability to give faction's a "desire" rating for particular regions
- Ability to read and use faction leader traits in the strategy AI
- Access to character name and age
- A setting to enable the choosing of faction heirs
- a configurable message box with yes, no buttons to interact with the player
- a command to disband units through scripting (the reverse of create_unit pratically)
- create commands and triggers to handle more efficiently the family trees (design leaders, design heirs, force births, force deaths, force marriages)
- a system to assign a different battle model and unit to faction leaders like it's done with the strategical model and banner
- destroy_building command
- raised culture limit
- raised map size limits
- raised unit size limit
- raised unit cap
- raised faction limit
- provoke_rebellion working for characters in addition to settlements
- Allow more slots for trade goods, so we can add to the existing
- City/castle wall mechanics. Non-interlocking concentric walls.
- A list of hardcoded limits
- The ability to configure walls to behave like in RTW, aka capturable towers, and towers that fire automatically without unit proximity.
- I'd like to be able to adjust growth rates within a specific campaign without heavily effecting everything else from economy to unrest
- Ability to use up to 4 turns per year with the appropriate number of winters showing up
- It should snow on sub-arctic climates
- Artic (permanent snow) climate
- In-depth details on savegame structure for single player
- The ability to destroy already created watchtowers in game, both normally by generals and through console commands
- Process_rq working
- A fix for the obnoxious bugged province/can't build watchtower/reduced movement deal that happens after a disaster
- Ability to make *every* building in a settlement destructable, including walls.
- Ability to set the tax rate for castles
- Ability to set how many actions agents can perform per turn
- Ability to set min/max range 'cooldown' required between crusades/jihads
- Ability to configure what constitutes a valid target for crusade/jihad
- Ability to set line-of-sight distances for watchtowers and cities
- addition of a working float "multiplier" variable for both of these that can be used to speed up or slow down animations
- Allow users to create their own UNIT formations, like Horde in RTW
- turn based event trigger
- A setting for how much characters should age per year
- Be able to have additional Jihad (or culture)* type missions - for other faction groups
- An ability to vary the seasons in multiple turns per year games
- Engine calculations formulae
- ai_gta commands explanation
- FactionWideTraitExists condition
- OffspringTrait condition
- Enabling negative building capabilities

[Herkus]

1. Shieldwall formation for spearmen, with possibility to use secondary weapon in very close melee like pikemen.

2. More dynamic cavalry combat which could last longer.

[alpaca]

As an afterthought, please append each proposition with a number from 1 to 10 signifying it's importance/urgency for you (where 10 is most important)

Please also ask for features that have already been asked, as I will treat features that are asked for more often as higher priority.

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

Sprite Generator - 8
Increased hardcoded limits(unit, province, trait) - 10
More Tools - 10 (Modding capabilites are one of the biggest assets to PC games...)

Thanks

AT

[Lusted]

There is already the shiedwall formation from RTW ingame, and you can have both spear and sword infantry.

[FactionHeir]

Ancillary file and Traits file:
- a way to remove an ancillary if a certain event occurs (7)
- a way to directly check for whether a character currently has a given ancillary [without having to give it its own type] (10)
- a way to give traits to the leader on various occassions instead of the character performing the action [currently only supported are successful diplomacy, assassination and spying] (5)
- basing on the above: a new special condition for traits that can directly specify who is affected, i.e. EffectOn: FactionLeader; NearestFriendlyCharacters, NearestHostileCharacters. (7)
- Conditions working with OR [instead of only AND - saves a lot of extra triggers] (4)
- Possibility to make our own conditions for certain events or more basic conditions (6)

General:
- More guiding on range and meaning of variables in files. Several files are lacking any documentation making it a trial and error thing to figure out what a change of a certain variable effects. [example: campaign_db.xml, diplomacy_xml] (3)

[nikolai1962]

1. Ability to give faction's a "desire" rating for particular regions that can be used in the campaign AI decisions i.e make explicit and moddable how much a particular faction wants certain terriotory so we can set historical type expansion aims. (10)

edit: this is possibly almost there already. the AI already seems to take into account the faction_creator of regions and has a preference for attacking rebel regions where they are hostile to the faction creator. unfortunately that means they have a tendency to ignore regions where *they* are the faction creator as they are not hostile to themselves. if that could be tweaked so they prefer those regions that would be great.

2. Ability to read and use faction leader traits in the strategy AI e.g mod a trait for faction leader type (expansionist, defensive etc) and that being able to be used in the AI decisions so factions vary whenever their faction leader changes. (4)

3. Strategic AI "event" for new faction leader. An entry to check against when the old leader dies and new leader takes over to use for potential vassal revolts. (3)

4. Access to some of the data passed to events/triggers so you don't need a script for every region (******10+*****)

So instead of something like

character_turn_end

condition specific_settlename_name
trait y > 1

create_building specific_settlename_name

instead something like

character_turn_end

trait y > 1

create_building this_settlename_name (whatever it is)

5. Access to character name and age. (4)

[PROMETHEUS]

I don't hope they 'll consider this for mtw2 , but possibly for their next total war game .....

10

Models Editor ..... damn a unit editor importer exporter in 3dsmax format to edit it , without such tool Modding is a useless reconfiguring stats work ....

Its the main priority in all the games that you want to mod , all the rest is secondary !

10

Animations Editor , same reasons as above a but slightly secondary in certain terms ....

10

and please make stuff easier to mod like for example with a Construction set like what Bethesda softworks made for their funs of Oblivion game .....

[thenewkingtw]

10* chose faction heir

[alpaca]

Guys, don't give everything a 10. It's useless...
The range goes from 1 to 10 and yet you only use the upper third of it, which honestly doesn't make much sense, and I can't deduct anything from it.

About the tool requests: CA knows that we're in need of tools, there's a reason why we didn't get any (not sure if I can talk about it though), and annoying them by asking for it all the time probably won't help. So I think we might exclude this topic from the "ask for it even if it's already been mentioned" clause.
Please don't ask for tools anymore

By the way Prom: I have a different opinion really. For me, all graphics are secondary and should simply support the immersion of a game.

[Herkus]

There is already the shiedwall formation from RTW ingame, and you can have both spear and sword infantry.

Though I would love to have the shieldwall formation to work similar like pikemen with secondary various melee weapons for close combat. Having separate spearmen and swordsmen infantry types is not the answer.

Another thing:
raise the max number of men in unit to 200. 7

I guess it is pointless to ask for, but dismounting ability for cavalry at least in sieges would be wonderful. 8

[Lusted]

I meant that, you can have units with both spears and swords, just like in RTW.

[FactionHeir]

Guys, don't give everything a 10. It's useless...
The range goes from 1 to 10 and yet you only use the upper third of it, which honestly doesn't make much sense, and I can't deduct anything from it.

I've used 6-10, not just 10s like others :p

For me, anything below a 5 is not worth mentioning really at this point. They probably may even get introduced in a late patch like 1.9 or so.

[alpaca]

I've used 6-10, not just 10s like others :p

For me, anything below a 5 is not worth mentioning really at this point. They probably may even get introduced in a late patch like 1.9 or so.

Not worth mentioning means that you don't mention it...
5 is medium priority, 1 is low priority and 10 means "this is the feature I want to have most urgently", so if people use 10 for everything, I'll ignore it and they should think about how to set priorities for a few minutes
The standard priority you should use is 5, everything above should be very important to you.

[FactionHeir]

Not worth mentioning means that you don't mention it...
5 is medium priority, 1 is low priority and 10 means "this is the feature I want to have most urgently", so if people use 10 for everything, I'll ignore it and they should think about how to set priorities for a few minutes
The standard priority you should use is 5, everything above should be very important to you.

Edited my post to reflect your suggestions.

[Re Berengario I]

Not my role but I think some requests are bit off topic:
200 units, shieldwalls, ships, flying saucers are new game features (some a lot desiderable) but not modding improvements in themselves and they'll require deep modifications to the current game engine.

Anyway here's my list:

- expansion of the "this" keyword to more console commands and also to script commands (like proposed by nikolai1962) (10)

- a configurable message box with yes, no buttons to interact with the player (6)

- make console_commands like give_trait, give_ancillary, remove_ancillary, kill_character, move-character, mp, etc usable inside scripts using the character data exported by triggers. (6)

- a command to disband units through scripting (the reverse of create_unit pratically) (5)

- create commands and triggers to handle more efficiently the family trees (design leaders, design heirs, force births, force deaths, force marriages). (5)

- remove or raise hardcoded limits for provinces and map dimension. (5)

- a system to assign a different battle model and unit to faction leaders like it's done with the strategical model and banner (3)

[nikolai1962]

i ditto all re berengario's as well :)

plus i thought of a new one

destroy_building command (2)

[madalchemist]

(10) - Remove ANY hardcoded feature so that skilled modders can fix and adjust the game according to their desires, with no need of patches, updates or any other release.

...frankly, that would solve all problems, given time.

[alpaca]

(10) - Remove ANY hardcoded feature so that skilled modders can fix and adjust the game according to their desires, with no need of patches, updates or any other release.

...frankly, that would solve all problems, given time.

Yeah and that comment will really help improve things for us...

[Casuir]

extra cultures

faction/culture specific descr_campaign_db.xml settings

[Abe Froman]

-provoke_rebellion working for characters in addition to settlements (5)

[fenir]

most important first.


My Apolegies, in my rush to install the patch, i did not properly read the first post.


In importance...

1. Allow more slots for Units and trade goods, so we can add to the existing.


2. Allow us atleast 5 extra slots for Faction development.


That is all i have at this time

Thank you alpaca and lusted for this ....


fenir

[Lusted]

This is for MODDING requests, not for game features requests. Did you read the first post in the thread?

[Herkus]

A tool for editing and generating battle_models.modeldb file.

[Whacker]

A real, fully moddable game, and official support for it. Client side source code and an SDK. Open source tools that the community can contribute to.

[madalchemist]

Yeah and that comment will really help improve things for us...

Maybe you could just send the request without comments, but you know way better than me that modders can solve problems (like the sucking Diplomacy/Alliances, Antitraits) more quickly than developers...

[Lusted]

Maybe you could just send the request without comments, but you know way better than me that modders can solve problems (like the sucking Diplomacy/Alliances, Antitraits) more quickly than developers...

No we can't, as far as im aware no modder is always a fully qualified programmer in C++ who knows how to edit the hardcode of the game.

A real, fully moddable game, and official support for it. Client side source code and an SDK. Open source tools that the community can contribute to.

This is for stuff to go in the 3rd update, not for the next game, so keep it realistic.

[alpaca]

Maybe you could just send the request without comments, but you know way better than me that modders can solve problems (like the sucking Diplomacy/Alliances, Antitraits) more quickly than developers...

No, because it's a request that has a chance of succeeding similar to that of a mayfly trying to lift an elephant.
And I stated quite clearly that we will make a preselection of the propositions - most of them won't be implemented anyways, and such completely unrealistic requests can be taken wrongly and sound close to CA bashing, even if that might not be your intent.

[Whacker]

This is for stuff to go in the 3rd update, not for the next game, so keep it realistic.

Fine, fair enough. I will not withdraw that comment though, seeing how CA has hyped this game as "modder's heaven" and in my view they've utterly failed to deliver on that.

Things I'd like to see in update 3:

- Dismounting units. I honestly don't care if they don't implement it in the main campaign, so long as we have the actual GAME MECHANIC and ABILITY to configure units to do so.

- Ability to change things like individual unit movement speeds, turn rates, etc. All the stuff that we lost in the engine upgrade from MTW to RTW.

- City/castle wall mechanics. Non-interlocking concentric walls. I can't say that enough. The ability to configure walls to behave like in RTW, aka capturable towers, and towers that fire automatically without unit proximity.

- User-definable religions and cultures, and a good limit please. More than just 5 or so, 10+ should work. By cultures I mean like "roman", "carthaginian", etc. Ignore this if the ability already exists.

- More console commands and BETTER DOCUMENTATION. The docudemon files floating around aren't accurate and don't cover a number of commands available at the console. The better documentation also applies universally, the comments in the config files are helpful for the most part, but quite often are woefully incomplete and/or do not give enough data to help determine what is valid input or settings.

- A list of hardcoded limits for files like export_descr_units. The ol' trial and error gets really old and annoying real fast, esp. when the developer should be able to and should have already told us what these are.

Thanks.

[Lusted]

There not going to put the first 3 in the patch, those are major engine rewrites and game changes. Please be realistic.

We can already add new cultures i think, i know we could in RTW:BI.

Your last 2 are the kind of thing me and alpaca are looknig for, reasonable requests that could be done.