Castle maps ??????

[ShadesWolf]

After reading the thread about adding cities to the game by creating a new raw material/ tradable item, and then creating a tech tree for each new tradable items, hense the ability to create cities...... I began to think about what was possible........

While looking in the directories of the game I found the following...


Quote[/b] ]Terrains:: LUSH ARID ROCK_DES TEMPERATE

Architecture:: LUSH W_EURO
Architecture:: ARID S_EURO
Architecture:: ROCK_DES ISLAMIC
Architecture:: SAND_DES ISLAMIC
Architecture:: TEMPERATE E_EURO

Game_Types:: SP_BATTLE CUSTOM MP_LAN MP_INET

MP_Styles:: LMS KOTH CTF

CastleMap

This has a map called 'siege of border fort' does naybody have any ideas about what this was for ?

I also found these in th description file....


Quote[/b] ]["Fort_Completed"] {"Fort Completed."}
["Fort Motte_Completed"] {"Fort and Motte Completed."}
["Fort Motte Bailey_Completed"] {"Fort, Motte and Bailey Completed."}
["Keep_Completed"] {"Keep Completed."}
["Keep Curtainwall_Completed"] {"Keep and Curtain Wall Completed."}
["Keep Curtainwall Ballista_Completed"] {"Keep, Curtain Wall and Ballista Towers Completed."}
["Castle_Completed"] {"Castle Completed."}
["Castle Ringwall_Completed"] {"Castle and Ring Wall Completed."}
["Castle Ringwall Catapult_Completed"] {"Castle, Ring Wall and Catapult Towers Completed."}
["Citadel_Completed"] {"Citadel Completed."}
["Citadel Barbican_Completed"] {"Citadel and Barbican Completed."}
["Citadel Barbican GunTowers_Completed"] {"Citadel, Barbican and Demi-Culverin Towers Completed."}
["Fortress_Completed"] {"Fortress Completed."}
["Fortress Artillerytowers1_Completed"] {"Fortress and Culverin Towers Completed."}
["Fortress Artillerytowers2_Completed"] {"Fortress and Siege Cannon Towers Completed."}



Quote[/b] ]["Watch Towers_Completed"] {"Watch Towers Completed."}
["Border Fort_Completed"] {"Border Fort Completed."}
["Border Fort Motte_Completed"] {"Border Fort Motte Completed."}
["Border Fort Motte Bailey_Completed"] {"Border Fort Motte Bailey Completed."}
["Border Keep_Completed"] {"Border Keep Completed."}
["Border Keep Curtainwall_Completed"] {"Border Keep Curtainwall Completed."}
["Border Donjon Curtainwall_Completed"] {"Border Donjon Curtainwall Completed."}
["Border Castle_Completed"] {"Border Castle Completed."}
["Border Castle Sally Port_Completed"] {"Border Castle Sally Port Completed."}
["Border Castle Ringwall_Completed"] {"Border Castle Ringwall Completed."}


Does anybody have any ideas, It would be nice to be able to have more than one attackable castle/ border fort/ citie in one province....

[ShadesWolf]

Bump

Anybody please

[Norseman]

To add to the mystery, there's some review panel BIF's called:
Border Fort
Border Fort Motte
Border Fort Motte Bailey
Border Keep
Border Keep curtainwall
Border castle
Border Castle Sally Port
Border Castle Ringwall
Border Donjon Curtainwall


Quote[/b] ]
Does anybody have any ideas, It would be nice to be able to have more than one attackable castle/ border fort/ citie in one province....

Agree, it would make expanding harder and more costly, both in time and money, thus simulating the hardships of campaign better.

My best guess is that we have found remnents of some feature that never became part of the finished product. Maybe CA intended to make more out of those border forts. Would have been nice with a comment from CA, but they are probably too busy with Rome...

[Re Berengario I]

I noticed those BIF too.
I agree with Norseman, probably CA intended to have 2 castles for every province, one as a border fort, one as the capital one.

Thus this would simulate the different moments of an invasion better, but it probably grew too much complicated code-wise and so was discarded in favour of the current simpler approach.

Too be honest (and I not want to start a flaming thread), I sincerely think that we modders want a game a lot harder and more realistic while the average gamer want simply to have fun smashing the enemy and become the ruler of the world.

So CA probably realised than a overcomplicated game wouldn't have been so successfull in the market and decided to let those features out in sake of reaching larger sales through a "Risk-style" style of play.

Reading the posts here, it's clear that most of us have a passion in history and we are probably older than the average game buyer, I'm 34 and I'm graduating in middle-age history (I already work, studying is a sort of hobby). Other people here are already graduated historicians, archeologists and so on and we have fairly different approaches (it makes me sick to see Constantinople stormed in one year http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif).

That's the reason why GA are coded in a certain way, why you have just one castle for province, etc... etc...

It's not a simulation game, it's an arcade game. We modders are trying to make the game a simulation one and bump everytime against the fact that it wasn't designed to be this way.

[ShadesWolf]

Some good points Berengario.

I just think it is a pity, the border forts, as you said could have made it two castles per province, hense a longer invasion time table, ie prolonged gameplay, instead of wham, bam.......

[Voigtkampf]

Quote[/b] (Re Berengario I @ Dec. 19 2003,17:25)]Too be honest (and I not want to start a flaming thread), I sincerely think that we modders want a game a lot harder and more realistic while the average gamer want simply to have fun smashing the enemy and become the ruler of the world.

So CA probably realised than a overcomplicated game wouldn't have been so successfull in the market and decided to let those features out in sake of reaching larger sales through a "Risk-style" style of play.
This sound quite reasonable.
Actually, the game can last for a very long time, even with one castle per province; imagine how much longer would it last if we had 2 castles in each province Every faction would have more time to repell invading forces, in one turn the invadors take out the border forts, and in the next they attack the main castle, only to be accepted by massively enforced defending army

I don't complain when it comes to history facts, I entirely agree with Re Berengario I on this, as I understand the argument of the game being too complicated, but I've often went berserk seing my province with highly developed infrastructure gets demolished in an instant, without me having the chance to back up my armies there, unlike the AI is capable of... Perhaps that is the reason why they wanted to have border forts too, so we could reinforce the province after it's attacked, since we are always one step behind the AI...?

[ShadesWolf]

So back to my first question....

Has anybody tried to but more than one castle in a province ?

What defines a castle ?

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]So back to my first question....

Has anybody tried to but more than one castle in a province ?

What defines a castle ?

I tried to set the "CASTLE" keyword in the column "Building type Label". I also set the files in the column "Strategy map piece filename String" and the numbers in the column "Unit Capacity Integer". (These are the values that define a castle in the build_prod file).

The mod starts but it won't load the buildings set in the startpos, so it doesn't allow 2 castles in the same province. Sad but true... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[Voigtkampf]

I just had a sort of an idea, reading the last post… Well, it's very far fetched, but still… I might share it before I go and write it down and give it a few dozen attempts doomed to fail…

If every province can have only one castle, could we redefine the borders of the province? In other words, define a small belt within the borders, declare it a pseudo-province (something like Bavaria_Borders in relation to Bavaria), and build a castle there? I know that there is a certain number of neighbor provinces you must not exceed, otherwise the game crashes (16, if I remember correctly), but is there a limit to the number of provinces?

A very far, far fetched idea… Even if it could be implemented, it would mean serious messing with all the coordinates, possibly ending up with two functioning provinces in one…

At least, an interesting thought.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]but is there a limit to the number of provinces?


There is and for what I remember there's no many free slots left (I think it's 256 land+sea provinces).

[Voigtkampf]

I don't have time to look up more closely into it right now, if I did, I would probably be poking around those text files for hours, so it'll have to wait for a few days…
But than again, even if we couldn't make this thing work with every province, perhaps it would be possible to implement this one to each faction's "main" province?

[ShadesWolf]

Sounds a good idea.

Might be an idea for a provinces that is surrounded by only one other or by sea. ie end of the map

[Voigtkampf]

I believe that a sort of "homeworld" concept should be introduced. I've heard about a certain mod with a similar feature, I believe it was the Wes mod, but I haven't had time to look it up until now and see what he did. Now, with the holidays coming I may be able to catch up a little bit and see how he did it.

Adding the second fort to the main provinces, for instance in Ile de France for the French, in Castile for the Spanish and so forth would add a greater strategic note to the game. The invader couldn't instantly overrun the most developed province of the attacked faction.

But for now, it's only on a sketch board – in my weary head…

[ShadesWolf]

The reason I find this so interesting is the fact im creating a mod with around 30 provinces only, so it would be very useful to me....

My mod will have unique castles for each province, so the ability to add a second would be great as I could get some really intersting effects..... and it would prolong the game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

IE in Normandy I could have Caen and another...
In Brittany I could have Mt St Michel and Rennes or Nantes etc...

[Voigtkampf]

This sounds quite interesting… If I get around to it any time soon I'll try arranging the second castle for each of main provinces, and will post my progress; if any is made, that is.

[ShadesWolf]

Ok thks voigtkampf

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
If every province can have only one castle, could we redefine the borders of the province? In other words, define a small belt within the borders, declare it a pseudo-province (something like Bavaria_Borders in relation to Bavaria), and build a castle there? I know that there is a certain number of neighbor provinces you must not exceed, otherwise the game crashes (16, if I remember correctly)


Very good thinking voigtkampf If you make a province that completely surrounds the main province, you probably won't have any problems with too many neighbors either, as the extra province will just get as many neighbours as the main province originally had + 1.


Quote[/b] ]
but is there a limit to the number of provinces?


The number of provinces(sea and land) is limited by the the number of colours, 256, as you will understand if you take a look at this image:
Medieval - Total War/Textures/campmap/LUKUPMAP2.LBM

Each land-province use 2 colours, one for the province itself and one for its borders. A sea-province only use one. So the number of provinces you can have is given by:
[nr. of land regions]x2 + [nr. of seas] = 256

IIRC, in the original MTW you can only add 8 more regions -too few... But you can always find regions you can remove. Sahara can be removed by stretching Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia further south. Rhodos can be sacrificed, and Corsica and Sardinia can maybe be combined. Just some suggestions...

Of course, all of this requires a lot of work. The LBM map that we don't see while playing, will need to be reworked,
but the landscapemap don't need any changes. From what I've read I think this should be doable using Wellington's LMM, but I have no experience with it so I'm not 100% sure.

[Voigtkampf]

Thank you, Norsemen, both for compliments and even more for additional advices.

I was reluctant to start any major modding of M:TW for one and only reason, the appearance of R:TW… In that one, I am sure that I will have many sleepless nights creating new units and buildings, checking the game balance and pushing the limits of what can be done somewhat further, if possible. But, on the other hand, R:TW appears in some 10+ months, therefore some more tweaking of M:TW could keep me occupied for some more time.

Indeed, this requires a lot of time and testing. M:TW displays many different sorts of malfunctions when modified improperly, so such endeavors should not be taken lightly. I hope that in near future I will be able to find time enough, so I can commit myself some more to it.

If I pull this off successfully, you will be the first to know

[ShadesWolf]

Is there any news on this voigtkampf