Re: The Caravel Mod
Thank you very much for this intersting account of your campaign Belisario
As far as the weather is concerned i did some initial minor changes for winter (thought not to take it too far too quickly) and played some in campaign. I don't think that rain in lush that i played, became incredibly more frequent, but when it did, it was more than drizzling and this i liked. I played a few battles in temperate that has the harshest weather settings. Again, all i can tell is that rain when it came was much more than a drizzle, and that visibility was also suitably and atmospherically reduced with the intensity of the rain. I only altered the precipitation(rain) and the fog vanlues for winter, and most in the climates that one would expect it to: lush and temperate. Also increased it somewhat for arid in winter time - it was too little before. I did not alter the summer numbers at all, they seemed ok to me. I don't know how snowfall is increased. It could be tied to precipitation (for snowy days) or it could be tied to the temperature numbers. It seems that the armor-in-desert-and-in-snow effect has to do with the temperature.
As a matter of fact, there are far more desert and temperate maps in the Caravel mod than in vanilla (where lush was the dominant terrain). In many mountain crosses and in Germany/Eastern Europe, temperate is the predominant terrain. Lush is present in the in-between arid and temperate provinces (Hungary, Venice, Bulgaria) and in France and England. In the near-east, in desert provinces, all province routes are made desert ones. In vanilla, the Crusaer states provinces (palestine, tripoli, antioch) have arid maps in the routes that connect them. All these are now desert maps and so they favor the native Muslim factions as they should. Similarly in Russia there is much more temperate terrain than in vanilla. In addition there are no river crossing maps. There were two reasons for this decision:
a) The provinces are too big (the size of countries in most cases) for so many river battles to occurconsistently as in vanilla
b) The AI does not "know" that the map he is invading will be a river crossing map, and so often he marches to his doom, as he does not bring the proper troops to attack the crossing and the player can keep him off and massacre his good stacks with a few crossbows/arbs and spears.
In this way, the plans teh AI makes are alwys suited and the player does have to fight the best AI stacks in open battle more often than not
Indeed, its the building tech trees, dependencies and calibrating the AI choices by correct prices/maintenance costs/dependency-availability at the various castle levels that in turn affect stack composition that is the main work i've done, aiming for a vanilla experience without crappy/rubbish stacks and without the AI waisting money in building options that get him nothing.
To make an example, the Byzantines in vanilla could build all levels of the Town Watch line, while the only building that was actually getting them something was the 1st in line. All the other upgrades of the building with their many turns to build and cost in forins were getting the Byzs nothing. However, many times the BYz AI would go on and build it to the point it could (level3 of the line, and one after the other) in Constantinople, essentially wasting florins and investement time (that could be crucial at the early game). In the mod the Byzs have only the first level and so they do not waste money and investment time; rather they proceed to build things that contribute something to their game. That isn't to say that the tech tree is simplified to the point there are no direction choices anymore (the main choice for Catholics for example is, as in vanilla, should i go for the higher feudal troops or for the advanced militia troops?). Only redundant branches of the tech tree have been pruned and on an individual faction basis.
Another such example is the trading buildings in landlocked provinces. A major waste since the landlocked provinces as we all know do not worth more than level1 trader. Hence i tied higher traders to ports that are themselves tied to coastal provinces which ensures that merchants, guilds and master merchants are build by the AI factions where they are needed.
The ship use effect is made by the loyalty:180 effect mostly. I was astounded by how well the AI used ships and his navies in combination once in that setting and so decided to "strongly reccomend it" and work on the mod with that in mind.
Thank you very much for the offer Raz
As a matter of fact, i have one question, in a bit of an aesthetic change i would like to make. It seems quite complex to me though, and so, as it is an extra aesthetic thing, i did not dare attempt it. I would like to replace the army and faction leader only campaign map pieces for the Orthodox factions with the ones from the Viking campaign - that suit the bill for Orthodox better in armour and attire. However, the game does not offer a special folder Orthodox category but rather lumps the Orthodox with the Catholics together as Christians. Muslims and Pagans get their own folders for map pieces, but Orthodox don't. If there is a way to make that change, i would be interested in making it part of the mod. I thought that its possible there isn't such a way, as the exe might not have it in it to reckognise an additional, extra category. On the other hand it may be possible that it does, as long as one places the folders/files correctly at the appropriate place. But i was too chickened to try it on my own :)
The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improved
vanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign
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Originally Posted by Belisario
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