New Mod under development

[Re Berengario I]

The more unsatisfied experience in MTW is the tech tree as it is highly historically uncorrect.
It is based on the assumption that in middle-age there were nations like the assolutistic monarchies of the modern era (starting in late 1500) and I feel a bit out of middle-age acting like Colbert (the prime minster of Louis XIV) building forts, guilds and raising troops at my will in every province.
In reality in the West there were FEUDAL monarchies. This means that the King gave out part of his power and lands to feudal lords and in return he (teorically) would have some loyal (always teorically) armies raised at the expenses of those lords. The reasons behind this are multiple (german tribal mentality, alas the king being just the mightiest warrior amongst other equals, the impossibility to rule every piece of the kingdom without an adequate bureocracy, etc...) but the effect near the year 1000th was that the king could count just upon the land he PERSONALLY owned and most of the time was at the mercy of other feudal lords for raising a huge army, getting taxes from feudal provinces and so on. So the King of France was very weak because he could count just on his estates in the Ile de France and the Duke of Normandy, who teorically was under him , was a lot stronger because he personally owned most of the England and Normandy (and even more in the next years).
The same with the HRE, strong emperors were the ones with great personal estates (Saxonians, Franconians and Swabians), the other were little more than puppets in the hands of the Prince Electors.
This is the reason why no great power overcame the others in middle age, because they all were too busy fighting to keep their own feuds in line.

Returning to the game I would like to replicate this situation with a mod. It will need a lot of balancing but this is the idea.

My mod will start in 1000th year and you'll have basically four different trees for every province to build from:

1) Royal
This tree is based on four buildings (royal palace, royal estate, royal court, royal capitol [unique]). These buildings will allow you to produce royal troops at 200% cost (because they were mostly mercenaries in reality) but with a moral bonus, additionally you don't have any "people felicity" (aka loyalty at the end) malus. Every building will also have a maintance cost (a negative cathedral income) to represent the cost for the royal bureocracy and court.

2) Feudal
This tree will have the same structure as the above except that the feudal capitol won't be unique. With these buildings you can raise feudal troops at 100% cost (to represent the "gifts" that the king usually gave to his feudal lords to get them at his side on war). Plus these building will have a negative influence to people's happiness , so they'll make provinces a lot more rebellious (as they really were). They'll also have a great negative cathedral income to reflect that some of the taxes are collected by the feudal lord and not the king.

3) Town
Imperial and/or semi-indipendent towns are the other structure based on real middle age history. They weren't under a feudal lord but the town itself was a feudal lord giving the king troops and taxes in return for protection and other "gifts". I'll use to reflect it the already existing town buildings (Town Watch, Town Guard, Town Militia, County Militia) but they'll be linked to the merchant buildings "chain" (so not all the provinces could get them but just the most economically developed ones). They'll produce troops at 100% cost and some of the more "tech" units (i.e. arbalestriers or arqebusiers) not available elsewhere. These buildings will also lower people happiness (more indipendent towns are more prone to rebel) but not as much as feudal buildings. They'll also have a great negative cathedral income to reflect that some of the taxes are collected by the towns and not the king.

4) Monastery
Lands were also owned by monasteries and abbeys which were exempted by taxes but should also provide troops if asked by the king. The buildings here are coenobium, monastery, abbey and chapter house.
These buildings will not have effects on people's happines (in fact they were the most loyal feudal lords IR) but they'll cost a lot to reflect complete tax exemption. Troops will be the same that the feudal ones and at the end of the chain some factions will have Order troops (Teutonics, Templars, etc.).

These buildings will be just for some catholic factions, Italians and Swiss didn't have a Royal line. Byzantines weren't completely feudals, commerce and monasteries were exploited early in time by the basileus becoming a sort of his private property. Muslims will have just royal and town trees plus the already existing "fanatic" troops linked to mosque and ribat(even if their emirs and vizirs were as rebellious as the western feudal lords, I'll think about it).

Other different "unique" units will be available linked to almost every province at 200% cost (they'll be mercenaries in every aspect). So you can get desert archers in Syria or Highlanders in Scotland.

I also rewrote a lot of the army used by the Byzantines and the Muslim factions adding more unique units for every faction (similar work to what Wes' did in MedMod but fairly different units). So for example Almohads get the Saqlabi Guards (mercenary slaves), the Andalusian Cavalry (the original jinetes, spaniards copied the muslims IR, bah http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif), Moorish Heavy Cavalry (similar to western late knights), etc..

I'm also creating a new animations set for late units so Landsknecht and other renaissance units will look a lot more realistic.

Other already working modifications in my mod are the eliminations of about every "land bridges". I made Venice an island (as it really is) to prevent easy invasions (it lasted indipendent till Napoleon because of this).

The "to-do" list will include:

- new factions. Every province will belong to someone. I already created Pechenegs in Moldavia, there'll be Bulgarians, Genoese, Cumans, Scots and Welsh in early.

- new "landmark" buildings. I already created Saint Sofia in Constantinople. There'll be a lot more of this buildings and I'll use "dummy" trade-goods to link this buildings to unique provinces. This will also let me add a new kind of building representing the major towns of that province (Pisa and Florence in Tuscany for example) and maybe a complete tree for every city (if it'll be feasible). This could go around the limits in the number of provinces as together with cities I could also build unique "feuds" or "sub-provinces" with a dedicated tree attached to it (and even titles of course).
So we can get "hanseatic" cities in the baltic together with their ports merchant guilds, etc... my worry is that the build file will grow exponentially and I don't know if the game could compute it correctly, anyway I'll try and see what'll happen.

- I want more rebellions even in "normal" level. So it was the hard life of the King in the middle-age. If all the messing with peolple-happiness won't suffice to this I'll raise the rebellion value for every province in the game. I want to struggle with my barons dammit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Please, give me your suggestions and advices because maybe I'm reiventing the wheel or walking paths leading to an already discovered dead-end.

[Lazul]

Sounds very good mate... just add the swedes and im happy hehe... But i wonder how the computer will handle the new techtree thingi?

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[dessa14]

just one question how are you going to do it (technically) we can all roll words off the tongue that sound good but we can't always backup what we have to say. so please give a detailed explanation of how you plan to do this (change the game strategy system) without the source code. with the source code it would be easy, without it is difficult and sometimes impossible to edit a game the way you want it.
thanks dessa

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] (dessa14 @ Dec. 07 2003,09:45)]just one question how are you going to do it (technically) we can all roll words off the tongue that sound good but we can't always backup what we have to say. so please give a detailed explanation of how you plan to do this (change the game strategy system) without the source code. with the source code it would be easy, without it is difficult and sometimes impossible to edit a game the way you want it.
thanks dessa

What part is impossible technically?

Modifying the tech tree adding building and changing requirements for building units? Already done for the Byzs.

Creating a new faction? Already done for Pechenegs.

Creating a new type of building? Already done with Saint Sofia.

Creating a new fake trade good to give a province unique buildings (as thjs is the only way)? Already done for Constantinople and Saint Sofia. And Wes did it the same way with mercenary fake trade good in MedMod to allow inn construction.

Creating a new building representing the major cities of a province? I'll try, but there should be any problem as they'll be linked to the fake "trade good" unique for every province. As linking specific buildings to it, it should be feasible the same way you link the chapter house to the monastery.

How the game will react to a build_prod file with 40-50 new entries, to mess with about 20-30 fake trade goods and how the AI will set its behaviour to all this modifications it's a good question whom I can't answer at the moment. I really wonder how the AI react to all this and surely I will have to tweak a lot building prorities in the build_prod file. This is because I asked if someone else tried it before.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]What part is impossible technically?

Modifying the tech tree adding building and changing requirements for building units? Already done for the Byzs.

Creating a new faction? Already done for Pechenegs.

Creating a new type of building? Already done with Saint Sofia.

Creating a new fake trade good to give a province unique buildings (as thjs is the only way)? Already done for Constantinople and Saint Sofia. And Wes did it the same way with mercenary fake trade good in MedMod to allow inn construction.

Fantastic
Nice to see it's going on fine... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[shand994]

Quote[/b] (dessa14 @ Dec. 07 2003,03:45)]just one question how are you going to do it (technically) we can all roll words off the tongue that sound good but we can't always backup what we have to say. so please give a detailed explanation of how you plan to do this (change the game strategy system) without the source code. with the source code it would be easy, without it is difficult and sometimes impossible to edit a game the way you want it.
thanks dessa
WTF are you talking about.

what he's planning sounds like a great plan, and many mods like this have been done before. Ie NTW, Patrician. and many more

i dont see where u get off saying what he wants to do is impossible. he's not said anywhere that he's gonna edit the source code of the game.

[dessa14]

his feudal and royal and town idea how is he going to implement such a plan all the rest is fiesable but what is he going to do for this is he going to make 3 different tech trees? tell me how you plan to do that. i know how to make new factions, new buildings and whatnot but how are you going to technically implement that.
thanks dessa

[shand994]

I dont see it as a problem.

It can be done. like he said if you make each type of building reliant on unique resource found in each province. then this gives the ai no choice but to go with that tech tree. so if he has three different types of tech tree, he can make it so techtree A can be built in provinces, X, Y Z.
and techtree B, can be built in provinces A,B,C. i dont see the ai having a problem with this. if a province can be more than one of the tech trees, you can weight each type of building the ai is likely to build. i think its a pretty good idea so far and am looking forward to give it a go.

[dessa14]

i can see that now sorry for the last post.
thanks dessa

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] (shand994 @ Dec. 08 2003,02:08)]I dont see it as a problem.

It can be done. like he said if you make each type of building reliant on unique resource found in each province. then this gives the ai no choice but to go with that tech tree. so if he has three different types of tech tree, he can make it so techtree A can be built in provinces, X, Y Z.
and techtree B, can be built in provinces A,B,C. i dont see the ai having a problem with this. if a province can be more than one of the tech trees, you can weight each type of building the ai is likely to build. i think its a pretty good idea so far and am looking forward to give it a go.
Right now the tech trees are faction specific. For example Italians won't have the royal one, Polish won't have the town one, Muslims won't have the feudal one.
This said you can build all the trees your faction culture is allowed to in every province, the player choice is dependent on the cost of the units and the happiness and economical malus linked to the town and feudal trees (more chances to get rebellious provinces and less economical incomes).
This is my first step because provinces are so big but if I managed to include specific cities, feuds and royal feuds linked to unique provinces (like Florence and Pisa in Tuscany, Hanseatic cities like Hamburg and Brehm in Saxony, the Royal-feud in the IsleDeFrance, Abbey like Cluny in Burgundy, etc.) then you can set a prerequisite for the basic building of every tree to have this kind of buildings even if it will be a hell to set a shitload of alternate prerequisites for every building (to build a chapter house you should already have Cluny_Abbey OR Bobbio_Abbey OR SaintGallo_Abbey and so on).
I'm not saying that it'll be easy to do and that it'll work. It is teorically feasible but I don't know if the game will compute it flawlessy.
Surely it'll be a long work to balance all this stuff but for sure it'll be a completely different game.

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]- new "landmark" buildings. I already created Saint Sofia in Constantinople. There'll be a lot more of this buildings and I'll use "dummy" trade-goods to link this buildings to unique provinces. This will also let me add a new kind of building representing the major towns of that province (Pisa and Florence in Tuscany for example) and maybe a complete tree for every city (if it'll be feasible). This could go around the limits in the number of provinces as together with cities I could also build unique "feuds" or "sub-provinces" with a dedicated tree attached to it (and even titles of course).


The part about CITIES im very interested in, Im currently creating a MOD based on the 100 years war. I havea new campaign map, but Im not really happy with the lack of provinces and the inability to cover cities....

Could you please tell me more......

I am very interested in this theory of DUMP trade items, specific to one province etc.

[Re Berengario I]

The new tech trees are ready and the mod is in beta. Still have to try to put into specific buildings representing cities and sub-provinces because I want to balance all the rest first.
Modding completely the techtree made me discover that the AI don't build buildings with negative cathedral income, in any way, even if they let it build better and cheaper units. It doesn't care instead of the malus on province people happiness.

The combined results of the negative happines of the feudal tech tree together with the doubled price of the royal units brought in playtesting a somewhat desired effect: the map after 300 years resembled more a real map of medieval europe than the one of the British Empire in 1920... not a lot of the same colors around http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
I mean, all the feudal kingdoms (especially HRE and French) dissolved in a miriad of rebellious provinces but their kings didn't disappeared. They usually keep one or two province and are in deep debts. Byzs and Fatimidis usually rexist fairly well but they don't expand a lot as they also have to care a lot about rebellious provinces.
You may think that the Golden Horde would have sweeped away the table with easyness. No way... they were stopped near Balkans for the very same problem, units costed too much to stretch your empire fast and easily.
My work on rebellious units lead to many fine battles. Peasants are present just in peasant revolts (together with some nicer unit), the other revolts are leaded by top notch units. Faction respawning sometimes give a recently dead faction the strength to conquer back some provinces but almost all fall soon in red with the money. Just Burgundians once managed to keep a decent size kingdom.
I also gave all the "rebel" provinces (the ones without a ruler) a good bunch of units in the startpos. No easy conquering in the early years.

Right now the mod is very very hard to play and I think to lower the cost of the royal and mercenary units (the ones you can build just in specific provinces) to 1.8 factor just to see what will happen.
Anyway I'll do some more playtesting (maybe using the dreaded HRE) to see if is playable. The main AI problem is the lack of trade ability, which is something us players are plenty of.

Anyway I was happy to see almost every faction survived after 300 years even if reduced to 1-2 provinces with just the Byzs or the muslims having great kingdoms. As it really was http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[L`zard]

R_B 1;

Whoa I'm impressed

Where can one get this mod? If nothing else, I'd really like to see the startpos txts, just to see how Ya did this.

Sounds like boocoo fun to me, eh? Nice take on how to make the AI perform at will, methinx

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[ShadesWolf]

This sounds a very interesting mod..

GL

[Re Berengario I]

Playtesting is continuing.

Right now I'm finesetting rebels. I gave Sahara an income of 20000 florins so they also could build buildings in rebel lands so to avoid the nasty effect of "devasted" territory. I also enable them to the creation of the 3 basic type of ships... in lesser words "pirates" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I also tinkering a bit in other fields lessening the cost of the "ereditary" units (the ones that come with new princes) so to avoid factions with too many "babies" to go broke after a few turns.

I also gave some income to royal palaces (to reflect the fact that having a working bureocracy in a province means more taxes raised) and to town watches (as in my project they'll soon represent cities, the bigger the cities, the more tax you can get from it, but there will always be a happiness malus to reflect that city people pretend more political freedom).

I improved the income from spices and gems to help Venice and other merchant states but also to reflect the real value of those commodities (historically true, they discovered America trying to get them , not trying to get gold).

This time after 200 years no faction disappeared but they had a lot of problems to keep their kingdoms intact and there stil are a lot of rebellious provinces everywhere.

This time the stronger faction was the Fatimids but they didn't overrule, Danish and Norman-English are in deep debts as usual but they're dumbasses not succeeding to get some more lands from rebels.

Btw, the game level was set to "normal" difficulty.

Another weak spot I still have to try to fix is that factions put ships in stupid places (Venetians in Atalantic) relating more to some strange way to obtain "global naval superiority" instead than focusing to create trade chains. This is hardcoded and I have to find a way to push the AI to behave in a more smart way.

Right now the mod is playable. It just lacks descriptions of the new units and a correct heroes file (as the mod strats in 1000).

I could prepare a zip file for the ones who dare to try it. I hope to manage to include all the modified files, but once done it would be easy to update.

Let me know if someone is interested. Players other than me could discover silly bugs faster than me for sure. Also the bonus of some feedback and of new way of playthinking is indispensable.

[shand994]

id like to give it a whirl.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Let me know if someone is interested. Players other than me could discover silly bugs faster than me for sure. Also the bonus of some feedback and of new way of playthinking is indispensable.


Send it to me and i'll try it out
hjar_randAThotmail.com

Is it for v2.01?

As you probably know I'm making a mod with the same goals, but with a somewhat opposite approach. In addition to feudal buildings, urban buildings etc. I'm removing many buildings from the tech-tree, while you're adding Could be interesting to see how yours is working so far http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


Quote[/b] ]
This time after 200 years no faction disappeared but they had a lot of problems to keep their kingdoms intact and there stil are a lot of rebellious provinces everywhere.


One thing I have noticed that may make factions like France and HRE handle rebels a little better is changing their AI behavior in the startpos file from EXPANSIONISTIC to DEFENSIVE. They now tend to spend more resources on teching up instead of trying to expand, as well as handling garrison forces to avoid rebellions.
Of course, I understand it is your purpose to give them a hard time. They will still have huge problems with expanding and rebels, but the land they can hold on to is often kept over a longer period of time and is teched up faster. It could give som favourable results to try it out, if you haven't already done that.


Quote[/b] ]
I also gave some income to royal palaces (to reflect the fact that having a working bureocracy in a province means more taxes raised) and to town watches (as in my project they'll soon represent cities, the bigger the cities, the more tax you can get from it, but there will always be a happiness malus to reflect that city people pretend more political freedom).

Good idea. I may improve my own mod with some of your ideas if that's ok with you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]Anyway I was happy to see almost every faction survived after 300 years even if reduced to 1-2 provinces with just the Byzs or the muslims having great kingdoms. As it really was http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Well, well, well... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
Shall I start adressing your noble persona with some regal honorific???... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ...Because I think your work is achieving awesome results http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Bravo Bravo, indeed... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Re Berengario I]

I prepared the ZIP file but as I choosed the "Viking add-on" style I have a lot of duplicated folders with the same content (mainly portraits) which brings the total size of the archive to 280 MB.

If some of you know how to re-create all the duplicated folders following Barocca instructions (Adding a new expansion to VI - updated and cleaned up (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=26;t=12901)) the size would decrease to about 40mb as my mod also have a different Map (uncompressed MapTex2.tga is about 37 mb http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif) which makes Venice an island and cuts out Constantinople from Anatolia (as it really is, Constantinople can be reached by land just from Europe, check some maps if you wish http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif).

Anyway if some of you have some hint how to decrease the size of the archive let me know.

If someone is interested I could put on a ftp server if needed as e-mail wouldn't usually manage files of this size.

I wonder how the creators of NapMod solved this problem as they should have the same huge size modifications. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif 280MB http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

That's gonna take time to download even on Cable or ADSL

[Re Berengario I]

Without the duplicated "viking-style" folders is 56 MB (like Barocca's STW). I could add just 1 portrait file to avoid CTDs and keep the size to the minimum.

I could get rid off the new overiew map too even if it will seems strange to have Venice behave like an Island even if it looks as a land but the size will be reduced to 10 mb.

Custom textures folders are indeed needed to allow new factions not to CTD when in battle mode (old factshield problem) but again if you know how to copy and rename the files even those files could be avoided (as Custom0.bif is just Peasant.bif renamed) and the zip file could be shrinked even more.

I don't have much more solutions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[cutepuppy]

I have a little question on the decreased income by feudal and urban buildings. Have you tried it to give those building a multi-purpose building type? Like in the original game, chapter house was: "AGENT_PRODUCER, TROOP_PRODUCER".
You could set the building type for feudal buildings to: "TROOP_PRODUCER, FARM_INCOME" and then, for income generated by this building: 95, 90, 85, 80 (or similar values).
I must admit I haven't tried it myself, so it is possible that the AI won't build these buildings (just as it didn't with the negative cathedral income).
I also don't know what will happen when you build both farm upgrades and the feudal buildings. It is possible that only the 95, 90, 85 ,80 or only the 120, 140, 160, 180 factors are taken into account instead of 120*95 or other combinations. Or maybe only the last multiplier is considered, so that the income goes like 120, 140, 95, 90, 85, 160, 80, 180.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]Have you tried it to give those building a multi-purpose building type? Like in the original game, chapter house was: "AGENT_PRODUCER, TROOP_PRODUCER".
You could set the building type for feudal buildings to: "TROOP_PRODUCER, FARM_INCOME" and then, for income generated by this building: 95, 90, 85, 80 (or similar values).

It was my first trial. But it is confusing as, even if a building lower to 95% the farm income of a province, in the review panel you'll see "income generated by this building: (the province farm income) florins" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif So it seems the building gives you a positive income when it doesn't and you never know how much cost you anyway.

So I gave town buildings a positive income to reflect the economical improvement derived in the middle age from the grown of great urban centres (trade, industry, culture, etc...) but always with a negative happiness malus. Town buildings allow the production of the more "tech" troops (arbalester, polearms) but very few cavalry.

Feudal buildings don't have any income but have a stronger happiness malus. Why? Because they'll give you "elite" cavalry units at a reasonable cost but these troops are linked to their Lord, not with you, so potentially rebellious.

This balancement seems to work nicely ... I'm working on tradable goods now and on the http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif @#@# heroes file... I just added 4 factions (Genoa, Scots, Irish and Welsh) and obvioulsy the king names are all messed up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]Without the duplicated "viking-style" folders is 56 MB (like Barocca's STW). I could add just 1 portrait file to avoid CTDs and keep the size to the minimum.

I could get rid off the new overiew map too even if it will seems strange to have Venice behave like an Island even if it looks as a land but the size will be reduced to 10 mb.

I don't have much more solutions http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
Don't worry. The 10MB size is fine, even if I have to had the portraits later. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif



Quote[/b] ]Custom textures folders are indeed needed to allow new factions not to CTD when in battle mode (old factshield problem) but again if you know how to copy and rename the files even those files could be avoided (as Custom0.bif is just Peasant.bif renamed) and the zip file could be shrinked even more.
I've tried that. It's a hell of a lot of work... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif




Quote[/b] ]I'm working on tradable goods now and on the http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif @#@# heroes file... I just added 4 factions (Genoa, Scots, Irish and Welsh) and obvioulsy the king names are all messed up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

Sugestion: If you want, I can send you my Portuguese faction names. I've still not made the Portuguese heroes though, so I'll send them later if you want... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[cutepuppy]

Quote[/b] (Re Berengario I @ Dec. 14 2003,10:40)]
Quote[/b] ]Have you tried it to give those building a multi-purpose building type? Like in the original game, chapter house was: "AGENT_PRODUCER, TROOP_PRODUCER".
You could set the building type for feudal buildings to: "TROOP_PRODUCER, FARM_INCOME" and then, for income generated by this building: 95, 90, 85, 80 (or similar values).

It was my first trial. But it is confusing as, even if a building lower to 95% the farm income of a province, in the review panel you'll see "income generated by this building: (the province farm income) florins" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif So it seems the building gives you a positive income when it doesn't and you never know how much cost you anyway.

So I gave town buildings a positive income to reflect the economical improvement derived in the middle age from the grown of great urban centres (trade, industry, culture, etc...) but always with a negative happiness malus. Town buildings allow the production of the more "tech" troops (arbalester, polearms) but very few cavalry.

Feudal buildings don't have any income but have a stronger happiness malus. Why? Because they'll give you "elite" cavalry units at a reasonable cost but these troops are linked to their Lord, not with you, so potentially rebellious.

This balancement seems to work nicely ... I'm working on tradable goods now and on the http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif @#@# heroes file... I just added 4 factions (Genoa, Scots, Irish and Welsh) and obvioulsy the king names are all messed up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

Quote[/b] ]It was my first trial. But it is confusing as, even if a building lower to 95% the farm income of a province, in the review panel you'll see "income generated by this building: (the province farm income) florins" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif So it seems the building gives you a positive income when it doesn't and you never know how much cost you anyway.


I tried it out this afternoon (playing for 70 turns with .worksundays.) and the AI doesn't seem to build the 'feudal buildings'. So I guess it is the same as with the negative cathedral income.

Just keep up the good work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]I tried it out this afternoon (playing for 70 turns with .worksundays.) and the AI doesn't seem to build the 'feudal buildings'. So I guess it is the same as with the negative cathedral income.

So it was with me. AI doesn't build stuff which gives negative incomes (both negative cathedral incomes or farm incomes), but doesn't care about happiness maluses.

So my trick was to give the economic disadvantages using different unit prices (royal units cost 200%, feudal and town units cost 100%).


Quote[/b] ]Don't worry. The 10MB size is fine, even if I have to had the portraits later.

You know how to replicate the viking structure?

Maybe one day I'll study an installer which will do the copy and paste automatically.

Anyway, your e-mail will allow you to receive a 10mb attachment?

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]You know how to replicate the viking structure?
Isn't it just about adding and renaming portraits for each culture? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Is that what you're talking about? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Maybe I'm wrong... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif




Quote[/b] ]Maybe one day I'll study an installer which will do the copy and paste automatically.
That would be nice http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
But you could use third-party installer programs...




Quote[/b] ]Anyway, your e-mail will allow you to receive a 10mb attachment?
NO. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
We got to sort something out... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Re Berengario I]

This is a list of various thing I discovered modding deeply MTW-VI:

1) the AI on't build buildings with negative incomes of every type.

2) setting buildings with high faith or happiness modifiers screw the religion percentages of the provinces (you get Rome with muslims 100% and heretic 100%... maybe someone's dream http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif).

3) factions set as CATHOLIC_TRADER developes good trade routes.

4) factions with nice tradeable items, and a good start (castle4+port+shipyard+merchant) developes good trade routes.

5) Glorious achievements (GA points) are screwed up if your starting date is not exactly the same as the various periods of the original game startpos.

6) The more factions you add, the better the game react but it slow it down a bit.

7) Giving rebels a source of money (I use sahara income setting it to 30000 florins a year) helps AI to create more rebel units and also to build buildings in rebel provinces avoiding the desertification effect.

8) AI doesn't disband units so it manages money awfully.

More to come...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]5) Glorious achievements (GA points) are screwed up if your starting date is not exactly the same as the various periods of the original game startpos.
Really?
Is that one of my problems?... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

I've downloaded a campaign - "Twenty Kings of Europe". It allows for the certain factions (Hungary, Novgorod and The Papacy) to be played in Early. I've set startdate as 1071 (Battle of Manzikert).
If we start a GA game then we cannot consult the GA goals of these 3 last factions. If we try, it will imediatelly CTD...

What I don't remember is, if the campaign already CTD without my alteration... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]If we start a GA game then we cannot consult the GA goals of these 3 last factions. If we try, it will imediatelly CTD...

If you modify the date the checking points get screwed. My starting date was 1000 and my first checkpont year for GA was 1350.

Add the fact that if the game won't find an entry for some faction at that time (i.e. FN_NOVGOROD) then I guess it will CTD.

You can set a specific reg_owner file in your startpos but still the problem exists... I want to make some experiments though, I'll let you know.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]You can set a specific reg_owner file in your startpos but still the problem exists... I want to make some experiments though, I'll let you know.
Thanks for the imput http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
I'll be waiting for further info... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Re Berengario I]

This is the "state of development" of my mod:

1) Added 4 new factions: Genoans, Scots, Irishmen and Welsh. Changed Italians to Venetians.

2) Sucessfully modified the GA for all the factions (including the new ones).

3) I balanced the "phase 1" of the new tech tree. AI builds feudal buildings and the rebel provinces build up too allowing them to have ships and merchant level 1.

4) Solved various problems. The game engine screws up if you assign negative faith to buildings. I reduced the number of the new units as max entries in the unit_prod file don't exceed 256.

5) Raised the "rebellious" status of every province to 1 at least. Balanced rebelling troop mixes so peasant uprisings consist mainly of peasants, religious ones have a balanced mix and loyalist ones are made of good fighting units. No artillery for rebels, no way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

6) Raised the cost of spies, assassins, bishops, priests, etc... as those units are overpowered when dealing with province loyalty and faith (1 spy raises the loyalty of your province more than 200-300 man plus all the other benefits). Spies now increase the heretic faith of the province they're in giving them an aditional power when dealing with enemy provinces, but also a drawback if you rely heavily on them to keep your kingdom loyal.

7) Playtested all the above stuff in normal and expert mode. It was a hard task (and a lot of fun) since I was able to build spies. Then with spies it was a cakewalk as I could increase taxes without worrying for rebellions and florins flew in my pockets easily. The game is money based, if you have money you can have an empire, you raise huge armies, bribe rebels and people is happy. So there is the key. Anyway the HRE didn't crash in the very few turns but it shrinked to the very loyal provinces as France (and it is historically correct). Byzs behave well as they have a starting good fleet and so they had enough money, the same with Fatimids. Seljuk Turks and Almohad rexists fairy well too becase they don't rely on the unhappiness bringer feudal system (always historically correct). Rebellious provinces weren't an easy prey because rebels have money, a lot of troops rebels and ships so you get also attacked on the sea. Plus it took about 3-4 battles after you have conquered it to make a province at least 100% loyal and
this was most of the fun (and I finally got the feeling of the middleage rulers hard time).

Problems to solve and stuff to do:

1) find a place where uploading the mod. I have a custom map so it's 40 mb shrinked to the minimum (and the map is in italian as I have the localized version... well you'll have to learn geographical italian names http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif)

2) balance GA so that also minor factions (i.e. Scottish) could win.

3) balance faction incomes so that minor factions like the Danes and the Scots won't go bankrupt after few turns.

4) implementing specific buildings to Capitol provinces like what I already made with Agia Sofia in Constantinople Those buildings should allow you specific units or huge incomes so to push, together with high GA points, both the player than the AI (hopefully) to defend those homelands. Cities would be cool to implement also with the same goal.

5) maybe removing spies. They're overpowered and not realistic. You couldn't openly kill a feudal lord or an Amir (islamic) just because you thought he was disloyal. Their families had usually a lot of influence and power, their troops were loyal to them prior than you. Assassins will do the job with venom or a good backstab during the holy mass (or the friday praying in the Mosque, I'm politically correct http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif). Check for historical references and you'll find a lot of the latter and very few of the former (public executions) other than rebels and heretics (inquisitors anyone?).

Maybe I'll rename spies as "Missus Dominici". The messenger of the HR Emperor and Byz Emperor who should control the behaviour of the feudal lords and governors
and check the loyalty of the provinces of their empires.
They won't be hidden in the strategic map anymore, they'll be available only to the HRE (giving it a way to survive easier) and maybe the Byzs.

6) Reappearing factions in islands get stuck there as they have no ships and no money left to build them. I tried to put ships in the loyalist troop mix but the result was galleys together with infantry in the troop stack of land provinces http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif. I have to find a solution (mainly for the Venetians, Genoans and Irishmen).

7) Write new startpos for high and late era.

8) Complete the animations for more realistic looking infantry units of the high era (Landsknecht, Swiss halbardiers, etc...)

9) Writing descriptions and documents for all the above stuff to make people understand what's going on. The most tedious part http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Great post, Re Berengario I

Your MOD is looking great. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Except for a few minor points that I don't agree:


Quote[/b] ]maybe removing spies. They're overpowered and not realistic. You couldn't openly kill a feudal lord or an Amir (islamic) just because you thought he was disloyal. Their families had usually a lot of influence and power, their troops were loyal to them prior than you. Assassins will do the job with venom or a good backstab during the holy mass (or the friday praying in the Mosque, I'm politically correct ). Check for historical references and you'll find a lot of the latter and very few of the former (public executions) other than rebels and heretics (inquisitors anyone?).
Spies? Why? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Spies don't kill.
I really don't see the point. Historically accurate?




Quote[/b] ]Maybe I'll rename spies as "Missus Dominici". The messenger of the HR Emperor and Byz Emperor who should control the behaviour of the feudal lords and governors
and check the loyalty of the provinces of their empires.
They won't be hidden in the strategic map anymore, they'll be available only to the HRE (giving it a way to survive easier) and maybe the Byzs.
Don't agree either. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Are you sure? A spy isn't all that strange in ANY faction.




Quote[/b] ]Complete the animations for more realistic looking infantry units of the high era (Landsknecht, Swiss halbardiers, etc...)
Awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif




Quote[/b] ]Writing descriptions and documents for all the above stuff to make people understand what's going on. The most tedious part http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
Courage, you're on the right track... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Norseman]

Hi Re Berengario I.

Two quastions I think you may have the answers to:

1) If I make a completly new strategy map with fewer/more regions than the original, can the txt file with GA(landregions) be altered so that one can play the new map in GA mode?

2) You have described how you want to make special buildings for different regions using "fake tradegoods". That sounds like a great idea and I would like to do something similar in my "Fury of the Northmen mod", but I don't understand how it is done. IIRC you mentioned somewhere that WesW had used this in MedMod for Inns and mercs. But he used the resource "salt", not a tradegood, and to my knowledge we can't add resources, only tradegoods. So, have you got it working? If yes, how??

Thanks
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]) If I make a completly new strategy map with fewer/more regions than the original, can the txt file with GA(landregions) be altered so that one can play the new map in GA mode?

Theorically you could, pratically I still have to try it wanting to add some provinces as soon as other basic aspects of my mod are fixed. I explained in the other GA thread how we could add a land province (just new 8 after the already defined 99), try to do it and let us know how it worked, otherway just wait the next days when I'll have enough free time to bear endless CTDs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.


Quote[/b] ]2) You have described how you want to make special buildings for different regions using "fake tradegoods". That sounds like a great idea and I would like to do something similar in my "Fury of the Northmen mod", but I don't understand how it is done. IIRC you mentioned somewhere that WesW had used this in MedMod for Inns and mercs. But he used the resource "salt", not a tradegood, and to my knowledge we can't add resources, only tradegoods. So, have you got it working? If yes, how??


Nope, Wes used a tradegood named "mercenaries". To add new tradegoods follow the Barocca instructions that can be found somewhere here in this forum or in the Repository.
Anyway it's very easy to add a new tradegood, resources cannot be edited instead, they're hardcoded.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Nope, Wes used a tradegood named "mercenaries". To add new tradegoods follow the Barocca instructions that can be found somewhere here in this forum or in the Repository.
Anyway it's very easy to add a new tradegood, resources cannot be edited instead, they're hardcoded.


Adding a tradegood I can, but I don't understand how a building can then be tied to that tradegood. When I checked MedMod v.3.14 Build_prod.txt the only requirement for a INN I cound find was the resource SALT...

You are correct that there is a "mercenary" tradegood in his startpos.txt, but how is it limiting the construction of inns? And how do you avoid making Trading posts available if you have a region with no tradegoods except "mercenaries"?

Really appreciate your help, thanks

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]Adding a tradegood I can, but I don't understand how a building can then be tied to that tradegood. When I checked MedMod v.3.14 Build_prod.txt the only requirement for a INN I cound find was the resource SALT...

You are correct that there is a "mercenary" tradegood in his startpos.txt, but how is it limiting the construction of inns? And how do you avoid making Trading posts available if you have a region with no tradegoods except "mercenaries"?

Hmmm... very good question.

It seems that both Wes and I thought that you can restrict some buildings linked them to fake tradegoods. Instead they are linked to resources, which aren't editable. What brought me to the wrong path was the presence of icons depicting various merchant and factory buildings in the campmap\review_panel\buildings ("fish merchant, glass merchant, master potter, master weaver).

Probably this is another case of some feature left out by CA at release time.

In the end I haven't found a way to link buildings to specific provinces till now.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Probably this is another case of some feature left out by CA at release time.

Yeah, you're probably right about that. Sadly, because it would have been a great tool for modders...


Quote[/b] ]
In the end I haven't found a way to link buildings to specific provinces till now.

I think I'll use the existing resources in my mod, cause I'm not trying to make cities like you, but rather a given tech tree for each continent/faction. Like if a viking faction take Normandy, they will no longer have the Viking but the Franc tech tree. But that solution won't help you I guess.

[cutepuppy]

Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but the developpers had foreseen six resources(gold, silver, copper, salt, iron and forest), instead of five. They only never used forest. It is also easy to make salt a trade good (the icons are already available). So if you want, you've got 2 resources available to you. I planned to use them as:
SALT: 'inhabitants of this province can train a powerful militia' (northern italy, flanders, switzerland,...) allows for town watch and upgrades.
FOREST: 'this province sustains a mighty noble family', allows for royal estates and upgrades to be build (france, germany,..)
Off course, you better change the icons for those resources.

I've tried (but not very hard) with other resources (tin), but that doesn't work.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but the developpers had foreseen six resources(gold, silver, copper, salt, iron and forest), instead of five


Didn't know about FOREST. This gives us a resource to play with, great.