the new stuff

[Kraellin]

ok, we're getting a lot of different topics here in this forum, and essentially, they're all covering the same thing, the demo.

how bout we write our reviews here.

i'm gonna cover one thing i just looked at in the files. CA hasnt just sort of thrown us modders a bone with the new game, they've blown the doors wide open!

here's a very short list of some of the things we can now mod:

unit name
unit type
unit cost
support cost
production time
starting honor
handicap
unit base strength
number of men in unit
buildings needed to produce this unit
is this units base unitsize scalable
melee with shield
shield modifier
cavattackbonus
cavdefensebonus
units this unit is fearful of
what troop this becomes when dismounted...
the amount of kills this unit must make to 'level up'
period descriptions for crusaders may be created here, please use capitals and underscores.
religion
..............it goes on.

when i first looked at this file in wordpad, it surprised me because there was a huge amount of blank space at the end of the file. after reading the file more closely, i now believe this was intentional. i believe it was for adding OUR stuff. then again, maybe someone just didnt edit out the blank space :)

when i start modding, i first gather tools and information. one of the tools i use is printed text files. the file the above information came from is 46 VERY tightly spaced pages of stats on units. this is one file. it doesnt even cover the mods for the buildings and other things that are moddable now.

CA, you guys just blew my socks off :)

we'll prolly start posting more stuff about mods in that forum. in fact, there's already a mod out for the demo. go to the mods forum or the .org's download pages for more on that one.

if this open system is continued on thru to the final release and also covers multi, then i think we're going to see some very good mods coming out.

they done good :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Papewaio]

The one thing I would have liked to do in-game was rename my daimyo/taisho unit to something else ie Dragon Warriors/Elite Guard/ or with the Heir /'Maybe an Ashi but remember your son is in this unit so don't use him to slow down those damn monks'

So can we post edit a units name to something else once it is created? I for one will go into a text file and rename all my Heir units Peasant_Heir or Knight_Heir etc.

[CeltiberoSkullXIII]

CA hasnt just sort of thrown us modders a bone with the new game, they've blown the doors wide open!

LOL nice sayed KRAELLIN... instead i never make a mod or ever edited a map i m incredibly tentaded to do it on MEDIEVAL TW

MWAHAHAHAHA


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"It's better to let the enemy alive as to kill it ... To TORTURE it!" http://gifanimados.ya.com/terror/calaveras_banderas/flag_wht_blkbns_clr.gif

[Kraellin]

pape,

i didnt see a thing in the stats about heirs, but remember, we dont have any campaign stuff with the demo, just the tactical, so we'll have wait and see about that.

and skull,

yeah, i think we're going to see a lot more folks in the mods forum with the new game. let's hope that provisions for the new mods in multi are there.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Khan7]

Yes, Krae, I took one look at that file.. and then I actually took another look, and looked it up and down for maybe a couple of minutes...

But the point is, I'm just like NO WAY MAN. What the hell happened to the nice little troopstats of yore? Bah..aaagh..

I mean, it's not even remotely legible!! Rules.txt for CivII may have been LONG but it was friggin organized at least!! CA may have dynamited the dam, but.. they're just sadistic bastards!!

Someone (Vanya?) will have to cook up an actual editor for this one.. Magyar's effort with STW was nifty but worthless.. Troopstats.txt edited itself. But MTW seems to be a different matter.

Matt

[This message has been edited by Sir Kuma of The Org (edited 06-25-2002).]

[Papewaio]

Do these pages open up neatly in excel?

Could someone email me the text files (if it is not too much trouble) so I can start looking at ways to speed up transfer of ideas -> editor -> text files.

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Victory First, Battle Last

[This message has been edited by Papewaio (edited 06-25-2002).]

[Khan7]

Well, my friend Pape, if I remembered your e-mail addy, or it were in your profile, then I would most gladly oblige.. however..

EDIT: Damn, you must have added that to your profile in between me reading and posting.. swift.

[This message has been edited by Khan7 (edited 06-25-2002).]

[Papewaio]

Yes I added in my email.

Thank you very much for the info.

It opens very nicely in Excel. Oh my god look at the size of that thing! Hey its a change being the one saying that instead of just getting the complement http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Have to digest this now... so large and spicey I may need some antiacids.

[Papewaio]

Interesting listing of Faiths (a la Monk effects)

This describes how much the unit affects the Faith of the followers for each religion.

PAGAN(0), CATHOLIC(0), ORTHODOX(0), ISLAMIC(0), JEWISH(0), HERETIC(0)

----

ROFL

Horses, Camels etc are listed as having a cost of 1

While the Princess is the only 0 cost unit, horse, princess, horse, princess...
----

Stats and general info about this trooptype
Samurai (YES/NO) seems to be the morale effects like shogun. See non samurai class running doesn't effect the samurai class

---- EDIT ----
Buildings

Unit capacity of Castles does not appear to have been increased. Just a change in the bands;
240, 420, 600, 780, 960

And farmland increases do not look as effective;
120/140/160/180 (vs 200 for legendary in STW)

[This message has been edited by Papewaio (edited 06-25-2002).]

[Kraellin]

ok, here's some more 'teaser' info culled from the 2 main stat files. this may or may not be working stuff. it just looked kinda interesting.
AI characters building production preferences
Loyalty bonus gained from having this building
Resources required to be present in region before this building can be built.
How much this building will increase the peoples happiness if built.
Is this shady meeting place where you might hire mercenaries?
Invention requirements for building.
"Some glory conditions require a building to be present
14 CASTLE "Fort, Fort Motte, Fort Motte Bailey, Keep, Keep Curtainwall,
Keep Curtainwall Ballista,Castle,Castle Ringwall,Castle Ringwall
Catapult,Citadel,Citadel Barbican, Citadel Barbican GunTowers,Fortress,
Fortress Artillerytowers1, Fortress Artillerytowers2" "CASTLE,
TROOP_PRODUCER"
BARBARIAN_RAIDER(5)
BOWYER "Bowyer, Bowyers Workshop, Bowyers Guild, Master Bowyer"
METALSMITH "Metalsmith, Metalsmiths Workshop, Metalsmiths Guild, Master Metalsmith"
SIEGE_ENGINEER "Siege Engineer, Siege Engineers Workshop, Siege Engineers Guild, Master Siege Engineer"
GUNSMITH "Gunsmith, Gunsmiths Workshop, Gunsmiths Guild, Master Gunsmith"
TOWN_WATCH "Town Watch, Town Guard, Town Militia, County Militia"
MERCHANT "Trading Post, Merchant, Merchants Guild, Master Merchant" TRADING_POST
INN
TAVERN
BROTHEL
ROYAL_PALACE
CHANCELLERY
ADMIRALTY
UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE_OF_SURGEONS College Of Surgeons NON_PRODUCER
ROYAL_COURT "Royal Court, Royal Estate, Baronial Court, Baronial Estate"
COPPER_MINE "Copper Mine, Copper Mine Complex"
SILVER_MINE "Silver Mine, Silver Mine Complex"
GOLD_MINE "Gold Mine, Gold Mine Complex"
SALT_MINE "Salt Mine, Salt Mine Complex"
Ruler ID troop advantage Region ID troop advantage
Is the unit invisible to other players in the strategy map?
"Ship info, including stats ( if this is a ship ).."
Affects how evenly spaced the troops are in formation. Cosmetic only. Default is POORLY_FORMED.
ShieldModifier.
"ArmourPierciingWeapon
Units this unit is fearful of.
DismountInOpenBattle
"What troop this becomes when dismounted, if nothing specified then it will be
judged as non dismountable." yes if the unit can dismount in open battle. No
if the unit can only dismount in castle battles
These values describe an additional influence the AI will feel towards creating
buildings producing troops that have some advantage in a particular region.
"Perio descriptions for crusaders may be created here, please use capitals and
underscores."
BombardCrew ARTILLERY
MortarCrew ARTILLERY
DemicannonCrew ARTILLERY
SerpentineCrew ARTILLERY
SiegecannonCrew ARTILLERY
ADVANCE_PARTY(0)
CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(120)
Longboat SHIP
Galley SHIP
Wargalley SHIP
Spy
Princess
Jihad
CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST
boom sunk message

i may have to edit this if stuff comes out wrong, but there it is :) take this stuff to mean what you will at your own risk ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Trousermonkey]

To get back to Kraellin's original intentions in this topic;

I just had the good fortune to play the demo for the first time. It is a beautiful thing. I didn't think anything could top shogun as my favorite game but this looks like it will do it.

The frontend is happily very shogun-esque. The music and sound seem as immersive as shogun was. You know that weird feeling of familiarity when you hear the deep drums and throat chanting? -like that.

The battlefield textures seem to be of a higher quality than shogun -they almost look like they're a higher resolution but I could be mistaken. I wasn't able to see any of the seams between tiles -something that always kind of bothered me with shogun.

The units are also probably of a higher quality than shogun but I didn't really notice much of a difference. After running the demo I opened up one of the bif files with RSW's bif editor. Apparently they used the same format -a decidedly good thing. As long as this remains unchanged in the release version we won't have to go back write another app to edit these files.

Hovering the mouse over a unit also seems to display that units current moral status. My unit of knights were 'worried about the number of casualties they had taken' but were encouraged by the bravery of my general.

The new rules for routing were wonderful. It's great to see troops scatter away from danger (instead of running blindly through it) but I'll have to rethink many of my shogun strategies now.

I also paid attention to the way my cavalry charged into the enemy line. There was some sense of momentum there but it's a little subtle. I need to go back and try it a few more times or run shogun as contrast.

My only gripes with the demo were minor setup issues; I was no longer able to bind the pan up and pan down camera actions to the page up/page down keys and I didn't have the option to fix my preferences to remove the line of buttons across the top of the screen by default. These both seem like things that will be added before the final release and, in any case, their absence is just an annoyance -not show stopping. Hey devs, put these options back in the game and I'll buy you a beer.

I had my doubts CA would be able to put together another game that would successfully expand the shogun experience. I guess it still remains to be seen how the strategic aspect of the game will pan out but I'm not as worried now. Perhaps my greatest fear was that they would cave in to (seemingly) popular demand and produce another AOE clone. Something with lots of eye candy and no tactical depth (I can have up to 9 8000-poly 3-D soldiers in my unit! radical! Watch out, I have my xtreme action tony hawk battle ninja ready to thrash through your defenses! Look, they're doing backflips! awesome!).

[Hirosito]

lol