Changing the morale bonus to exp

[Salahedin]

As morale bonus given by buildings on recruited troops does not work, I'd like to change it to experience bonus. Not to much, +1 exp for wonders and +2 max for temples.
I'd welcome any help and tips because I don't really know what to change :
- in Data folder, the "export_descr_buildings"
- what else?

Apart frop this I can't believe this morale feature has not been removed from the game by the team, or modded by the fans, and added to so many wonders if it doesn't work! Don't take offense, this mod is a great job but I just can't see the point of this.

cheers

[Ludens]

You only need to change export_descr_buildings.txt (EDB). Good luck modding!

[Salahedin]

I've just done it, it was is easier than I thought... but still it takes time, and I only modded the roman temples.
I gave xp bonus on Mars temples (+1 to +3), added xp bonus also on Minerva temples (+1) as she was also a war goddess, raised the health bonus on Juno temples to make them interesting to build, and added pop growth on Vesta temples. I surely would have been more historical giving pop growth to Ceres temples, but I was getting tired of modding and didn't know what to do with Vesta. Finally I have :
- Jupiter temples as before, very good for law, order and against corruption
- Mars temples to build strong core troups
- Juno temples for highly populated cities, good against squalor (though as it allows them to grow bigger I'm not sure it's such a good idea)
- Ceres temples for money
- Vesta for small cities that need to grow fast
- Minerva temples for a good mix of law and a small exp bonus, mainly used in allied settlements to recruit strong local troops

It seems good to me for now... though I'm afraid my units will be too strong. I hesitated giving the exp bonus to all factions with the temple of battle, but many of them already have buildings that give exp (gymnasium, game field...).
I also give an exp bonus for a few wonders that gave morale bonuses, assuming I will not build a temple of Mars in Roma with the wonder already giving me +2 exp...
I'm trying it now and I surely will work on it again.
If anyone has successfuly modded the entire folder with ALL factions temples and buildings, please let know! I'll post this (very) little mod later if anyone's interested.

[bobbin]

You could use the replace function found in almost every text editor to change the morale boni to XP. I would have to say IMO you might have been a bit too strong with the XP values, I would have gone with either a +1 or +2 at most.

[Ca Putt]

very good, I once did something similar but with more changes, thus my game got instable and I did not have enough free time to properly debug it :/

there are two other boni which are fairly useless: loyality and Tax bonus. In my modification I changed both which may even be the reason for the CTDs^^
I changed loyality to hapyness or law and increaced the tax bonus.

good to see people dealing with this problem :)

[Heilong]

If anyone has successfully modded the entire folder with ALL factions temples and buildings, please let know! I'll post this (very) little mod later if anyone's interested.[/QUOTE]

I would be interested in this mod. I am surprised that no one else has created this mod yet.

[Fedor]

Are we sure that the morale bonus doesn't work? I thought it did...

[Magraev]

I've heard several times that morale bonuses don't work. I thought that loyalty and tax bonuses did work though - can anybody confirm that they don't?

I think you have to tone down the bonus if you go from morale to exp. Maybe let +2 and +3 morale translate to +1 exp and removing +1 morale.

I'm going to try modding this when I can. It seems unfair that all those morale-bonuses don't work, it makes some temples a lot less valuable than others.

[Dram]

Yeah it is really quite annoying. Takes away the enjoyment of capturing a wonder that gives +1 morale when you know it doesnt actually do anything. Particulary as Rome where you expect units trained in Rome to be the best, and they should be getting 2 or 3 bonus morale from wonders.

[Magraev]

It's no technical problem replacing "_morale_" with "_exp_", you can do that with notepads search and replace, but as I said, an experience bonus seems a bit to strong compared to a morale bonus. Maybe +1 morale should be replaced by a small trade bonus or something.

[Dram]

i think +2 morale should be coverted to +1 exp, the remaining +1 morale bonuses could be something else.

ill have a go at it

[Dram]

well i used the replace feature in notepad and did it like this:

+1 morale = +1 law (5%)

+2 morale = +1 experience

+3 morale = +2 experience (there are not many buildings that grant this... usually it would only come from the largest war temple, and not every faction has a +3 morale war temple)

i would of preferred to make +3 morale = +1 exp and +1 law but this couldent be done using text replacer because it requires multiple lines and i dont have the patience to do it manually.

In game terms this benefits Rome the most. Currently Rome gets +2 morale from their type1 gov, +2 morale from the jupiter wonder in Rome, and if you built the largest temple of mars in Rome you'd get an additional +3 morale for a total of +7 which unfortunately as we know does not actually do anything... so with this change you'd be able to produce 2 exp troops in Rome, or 4 exp if you demolished the normal temple of jupiter and built up to the biggest mars temple. obviously if you were playing as rome and think +4 is too much you could simply refrain from building a mars temple.

Other factions would not benefit as much, and some would not have any real change.

I would like to be able to upload the file but its 13MB and I dont think the forum allows uploads bigger than 1MB

So if anyone wants to do this they can use Notepad and select Replace then replace:

recruits_morale_bonus bonus 1

with

law_bonus bonus 1

and... recruits_morale_bonus 1 with law_bonus bonus 1

and... recruits_morale_bonus bonus 2 with recruits_exp_bonus bonus 1

and... recruits_morale_bonus bonus 3 with recruits_exp_bonus bonus 2

Obviously you should back up your export_descr_buildings.txt file before doing this.

Make sure you're not using the trivial script to start the game if you modify anything otherwise EB will run in default settings.

Requires a new game to work and will crash pre-existing games if you load them after changing the file.

[Kival]

Thanks for the advice, but I've two questions. There are some passages like "recruits_morale_bonus 1" without a second "bonus" behind. It's not changed due to your replacement. Perhaps one needs to add an additional replacement? And there are also some lines with a negative bonus e.g. " recruits_morale_bonus bonus -1". I do not really know what they are meant for, because I can not recognice any building's description saying "Decreased morale of your units".

[Dram]

Yeah I noticed that as well after starting a game as the Seleukids , almost every building was changed but the type II gov was still +1 morale. After doing another replace it was all gone. I'll edit that into my post.

As for the -1 morale ones, I honestly dont think I've ever encountered a building that actually has that while playing, so I didnt bother to change that to anything else.

[Kival]

I've done the additional replacement and also changed the -1 morale ones to experience -1. I startet a new game with Quart-Hadasht and the change worked for me, but when i attacked Messana and sent some troops to rhegion rome did not declare war on me. As far as I remember they should do at that moment. I cannot really imagine how this modding has disturbed it, but it's a coincidence...

[Ca Putt]

I do not really know what they are meant for, because I can not recognice any building's description saying "Decreased morale of your units".

I think the game only gives every line a string determining of what kind it is thus the text is not dependant on how high the bonus is.
It's the same with the trade "bonus" of level 2 Grainaries. which actually causes a decreace of trade

still I've not noticed the moral malus yet who gets it? Carthage? I hope it does not result in you getting 9 star units right away XD

[Kival]

It's the same with the trade "bonus" of level 2 Grainaries. which actually causes a decreace of trade

Yep, but it's mentioned in the description and I did not encounter any description about a decreased morale.

still I've not noticed the moral malus yet who gets it? Carthage? I hope it does not result in you getting 9 star units right away XD

It does not seem so, and I really doubt the set of possible experience values is a ring. I've to look it up next time I'm at my windows PC.

[Magraev]

I recall some buildings have a morale +-x line in the description - I believe the Roman type 1 government building has that.

[Ca Putt]

It does not seem so, and I really doubt the set of possible experience values is a ring. I've to look it up next time I'm at my windows PC.

I find it unlikely aswell although the opposite situation once happened to me: FM with a BG xp boost routine 's BG leveled up to 9 chevrons => no chevrons at all. happily I could give away that silly ancilary and he was back to 9 chevs :)
I think it was an exeption because of the ancillary.

[Heilong]

Is modding the EDB save game capatible? I want to change the temples abilities and I am already in the year 220BCE.

Thank you for your help.

[Ludens]

Yes, provided you do not delete the entries of existing buildings.

[Marcellus Caesar]

Just curious... how do you know that the morale bonuses don't work? Is there a faulty piece of code somewhere, or do the buildings not work properly because of the script, or is morale just badly hardcoded, or what?

I mean, maybe it's the placebo effect, but the units I train in morale-boosting temples and wonders perform better...

[Qvintvs]

Now, that could be somehow linked to the fact that spies always die when they fail...

[Ludens]

Just curious... how do you know that the morale bonuses don't work? Is there a faulty piece of code somewhere, or do the buildings not work properly because of the script, or is morale just badly hardcoded, or what?

I assume the EB team has done tests to verify this. I don't recall any tests showing that it works, and there does not appear to be an morale attribute that sticks to units in the game (unlike experience and armour upgrades, for example). We don't actually know the code, though.

[Marcellus Caesar]

I assume the EB team has done tests to verify this. I don't recall any tests showing that it works, and there does not appear to be an morale attribute that sticks to units in the game (unlike experience and armour upgrades, for example). We don't actually know the code, though.

That's odd. Why would they add a morale bonus to buildings and the scripts, but these bonuses wouldn't work at all? I can't recall right now, but does vanilla RTW/BI/Alexander have morale-boosting buildings?

I mean, if it's true that morale doesn't exist, this renders entire traits and ancillaries useless, like "Confident Troops" or Armorers.

[Ludens]

No, morale does have an effect; it's just that morale bonus given by buildings does not appear to work. Possibly it is doing something else (maybe the bonus is for troops defending the province/city), but unlike armour and experience upgrades it does not appear to stick to units. Apologies for being unclear.

[Ca Putt]

that gives me an idea: what about this bonus being identical to the Traits and ancillaries of the General thus the Temple or whatever acts a s general. so the bonus would only apply to siege battles.

just a thought from a fellow modder.