The Caravel Mod

[gollum]

Ok, version 2.0 of the mod is ready and uploading after i write this reply.

Stazi and Raz, thank you very much for your help

Stazi, i would argue that Byzantine troops with mail coats, beards and boots are far more fitting to the Byzantines than gothic plate armor, but "you can't argue about taste". Thank you however for reminding me my core concept, that is the vanilla game. I will stick with what makes the game immediately recognisable for anyone that has played vanilla, as this is meant to be an optimised version of vanilla.

Regarding ships:

Like Caravel said, i thought once that there might some obtainable solution to the silly invasions that isolate faction leaders. There is however none: cutting up the seas in regions, as Carevel says simply makes the AI go mad with ship spamming. Other such workarounds also are equally dissapointing and i tried most, if not all of them over the years.

The ideal would be to be able to trade while not able to embark for both the player and the AI factions. As far as i know, this is impossible, because trading is linked to the port, and as long as the port is present, the AI factions will invade by sea.

It would be possible to delineate the Shipbuilder line of buildings from the port; this would result in having ships, but then the ships would have only maintanence costs and bring no additional financial/strategic benefit to counteract that cost for the factions that build them.

Hence, i am afraid, the only true possible solution is to actually take out the ships and trade altogether for those that dislike them. That should be easy enough for those who wish to play so: go in the building production file and make the port (or the shipbuilding line of buildings) buildable by FN_NOVGOROD, that is the faction that is not present in the game, and so no faction will be able to have ships and you can play thus.

The approach of the mod is somewhat different: it tries to use what is given by the vanila game, only make it more easily available for the AI and so to have a sort of a dynamic competitive balance between competing factions. This works, for a while, that is as long as the AI factions put up a fight, but the player will always eventually crush them, because he is more consistent and more competent and avoids said mistakes (invade islands with faction leaders or invade lands that have little to no benefit).

As far as trade income is concerned, the same applies. I left in fact trade goods at their original values and tried to make building dependencies, province income distribution etc such that the AI factions take it to the sea and make considerable income from it. The results i have are quite encouraging: playtesting with autorun, that makes the campaign run essentially on its own, the AI factions do take it to the sea and do make quite a lot of money from trade. However, this comes with all the added risks that are present in vanilla: questionable invasions often with faction leaders, at lands of high rebelliousness and small income etc. When the AI factions play against themselves, this is not always lethal for them, and i saw them more than once, building ports and taking their leaders out of there, and even the troops (they redictribute them after their hold on the province has made it "theirs" to other areas they needs them). However, its still not bulletproof: a player will always be able to exploit these weaknesses.

The problem Belisario faces, as well as the trade problem (they are two sides of the same coin), that is the campaign becoming easier as you become the dominant power, can not be solved, at least to my knowledge, i am afraid. I can (and anyone else in fact can) make starting conditions for a certain faction(s) very difficult to begin with, but then that will mean that some other factions will be easier, and those factions are playable. Hence we are back where we started.

My personal solution is to play my initial faction for the duration of a King's reign. Then, play another for say, the duration of two kings reigns. Then pick a third one and play for three or more. This is because, with the initial faction the player can easily set it up so strong that its set to become the dominant one. The second will take a bit longer, hence the two reigns duration play. The third one, might be worth it playing for more, as yu might find that longer is needed before you can set that faction to be a major power.

I also try to roleplay: look at the Kings stats and his v'n'vs and try to set up a plan of action that such a character would favor, rather than the most "utilitarian" plan i could in order to win. If you roleplay the factions, and switch between them often, you will find yourself in situations that are great "what ifs?" and very challenging too. It makes the game really shine, as it gives great battles and striving turns - which are what this game is all about, and not become boring, as you are try to do your best for as long as the reign of you king/kings lasts - you won;t be there after it. And this is a lasting gameplay mode, at least for me :)

Or, you can play a GA game, and try to stricktly adhere to the GA goals. Try the French in early or the HRE, if you are set to play only one faction per campaign.

A few words about the latest version:

The weather modification seems to have worked; now, everytime its winter in temperate and lush (and less, but still more than before in arid), there is considerable chance for rainy weather, or fast fluctuations between sun and rain (especially in lush). For snow, i don't know if there will be more, but as stated earlier, the map has now far more temperate maps in it, and so you can expect more snowy terrain in winter time. You can tell when its winter or summer by the music piece played in the campaign map. Desert weather, i left as it is, as i find that sandstorms frequent enough, and this with much more edsert maps (all desert terrain provinces have desert crossings now) should give far more desert battles, that we all love, as it seems.

Version 2.0 is saved game compatible (for me at least), however, i did additional tweaking and finetuning of province/geagraphical area agricultural income, after Glenn's and Belisarios feedback. The result is a far more dynamic campaign, at least, so it would seem from the playtesting i've done. The weaks, are minor, but do have quite an effect, and i hope that those who try the campaign will be able to notice that.

Since the game seems to load the province/map details only once in a particular campaign saved game, you will only get the benefit of the tweaked incomes if you start a new campaign. However, you get all tech tree, unit stat, text editing, missile weapon stats and weather modifications in your saved games.

I also took the rosters and building dependencies to (what i think/hope is) quite a high degree for good gameplay. If you switch factions on a single campaign and play up to high and late, you will see the top level ships - booms, cogs, wargalleys, gungalleys - roaming the seas. You will see Ai armies that have one or two artillery pieces per good stack, including demi-culverins, culverins, bombards, serpentines. You will face Ottomans with a full Janissary corps: archers, infantry, heavy infantry. Catholics with pikes and decent halberdiers, Feudal Knights (quite often) and Gendarm cavalry in late.

All this comes without compromising (too much) the tech tree choices - you still have a choice between what you build and cannot build everything everywhere. However, its all far more accessible for both the player and the AI factions. The idea is to get the right units for the right era on the battlefield instead of making them a teching up bait for the player as they sem to have been intended in the vanilla game.

Additional tweaking has gone to missile weapons and now you will see that the AI can use better his xbows/arbs, arquebuses, handguns, javelins and even (once in a while) grenadiers/naptha throwers against you. I know, because he used them against me :)

The rosters and building dependencies had their final tweak, as did all text descriptions that match the stats of the units correctly: what you read in the text is what you get. The AI factions come up with really decent stacks and they do press their roster and land advantages against their enemies.

Nearly all factions have been set to expansionist that coupled with the -loyalty:180 setting in -ian makes them more dangerous while still stable.

Again, all this cannot counteract the fact that the player can set up his faction very easily the first 30 turns. I like long campaigns, but admittedly, you can win within a single era, especially in early if inclined to fast expansion, and when i play thus (expert) i do win. However, try the 1 reign of king per faction game mode suggested, if you will. I have recently had one of the best SP campaigns of probably my entire MTW gaming life with this mod, when, after starting as the Aragonese, i took over a Byzantine Empire at the point of collapse against the Turks. I had about 4-5 battles in a period of 15 turns my Emperor's life lasted that were among the greatest i ever had in an SP game. The AI Turks were rich, strong, aggressive and bloodyminded and i had to play to all the strengths i had - of both my units and teh terrain to win some very bloody, Pyrric almost, victories that ensured the Empire continued to exist - that was a great gaming time :)

Last but not least; if you would like to do personal custom modifications on the files accessed by the gnome editor (build_prod and unit_prod), by all means do so, but edit the files directly in the txt. The editor shifts the data columns everytime one modifies something (a thing of the editor, not a fault of my own as far as i know) and i have used that so many times, that now whenever i use it again, the game crashes because of it, if i edit by using the editor. Sorry about that, but that's the way it is, nothing i can do about it, unless i go back and make all the changes i did by now, by editing the file directly, which is way too much work only to have the files "modifiable" by the editor henceforth. Again apologies. You can use the editor, however, to find what goes where and what does what, if you are not familiar with the txt file you wish to alter, before proceeding to do the change directly in the file itself.

One last note: the infamous Clansmen rebellion from factions and in places it should't happen persists occasionally (not always! once every full moon) despite the fact that i made the Clansmen explicitly catholic and Scotland only. It especially comes about in provinces with high rebellion (Portugal etc). However, there are no siege engine rebellions at all to my knwoledge; i simply took siege engines from rebel groups and that (seems) to have worked - never saw a single one of them since then.

So, there you go, and just before the weekend :)

I hope you enjoy this as much as i do :)



PS By the way, this mod IS the intellectual heir to the pocket mod undoubtedly, and as stated, it was meant to be a joint venture originally between me and Caravel, and be actually much more "from scratch", and from "the ground up" than it is. I am also indebted to the org MTW community, including all of you in this thread and more. Thank you - i only give back what you gave me.