Anybody fancy co-operating in a balancing mini-mod for vanilla?

[Barbarossa82]

Link mended.

Sorry about the brief hiatus, I've been somewhat busy.
Thanks for keeping me up-to-date with your own progress, Byzantine Emperor. By all means add your own files so we can exchange and test each other's ideas.
Overall your ideas seem really good. My only reservation is that I'm not too certain about the idea of giving the province of Numidia to Carthage - Cirta is Numidia's largest and most important city by far, and I'm not sure if it would be feasible for a human to play the Numidian campaign without it, it being quite a challenge already! I appreciate that you've compensated for this with denarii and an alliance, so I guess we'll need to test out your solution and see if Numidia is still viable and if it noticably improves Carthage's performance (more important, I accept).

Like the idea of giving Jerusalem to the rebels. Hope you gave them Judean zealots!

No sign yet of a 1.7/1.8 patch, so I guess we might as well proceed with the nerfing of Egypt. We can always undo it if a new patch tones down chariots.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Hope you gave them Judean zealots!

How could I not

OK, my files are coming up.

PS You can test Numidia to see how they work.

[Byzantine Emperor]

http://www.filefactory.com/?2c1e0f

Download link

[Barbarossa82]

Thanks for all your work, Byzantine Emperor. You've got the scutarii into the game which is something I couldn't achieve properly. I've made a few adjustments to enhance the way this works:

1. The morale, training and formation values of Scutarii and Iberian Infantry have been swapped in export_descr_unit. From the units' descriptions, their equipment and the relative barracks levels needed to train them, it seemed more appropriate that the Scutarii should be more disciplined than the Iberians.

2. Made a small change to export_descr_buildings (or similar-named file) allowing Carthage to build Scutarii in the campaign rather than just being available for custom battles. I simply allowed them to build them at the same level of barracks that Spain need for them.

3. Due to some small issues with the sprites (too bright, some flickering), made the scutarii use the sprite for Iberian infantry. Because of the differences in formation, Scutarii and Iberians can easily be distinguished even when seen as sprites.

4. Created a new model in descr_model_battle called carthage_scutarius_merc, describing the models and sprites for Spanish Mercenaries. This circumvents an issue where Spanish Mercenaries recruited by Carthage for a custom battle would use the sprites for regular non-mercenary Carthaginian scutarii, resulting in a weird moment when your troops flicked from green to white when zooming out. Using a separate entry in descr_model_battle is the same technique CA used to allow the use of Cretan Archers in custom battles by armies which can recruit greek-model archers without the same problem occurring.

Just a bit of tidying up at the edges, all seem to be working out OK. Will upload a new 0.2 version of Vanilla Balance Mod soon, including these adjustments.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Thanks!

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

Its good to see that you're working on a project such as this; the vanilla setup was biased and skewed in so many unfavourable directions that the gameplay suffers as a result. Steamrollering IMO is both boring and frustrating to watch, especially if you're into say the 100th imperial campaign. Poor old Seleucids, Gaul, Carthage etc in vanilla, they never had a chance...

Anyway, that's enough drivel I'd thought you may like to make use of my modified RTG imperial campaign map, here's a download link:

RTG Provincial Campaign Map

The map was designed to minimise bias and repetition each new imperial campaign. It provides a fresher approach to a faction's expansion; different outcomes are more likely each campaign. Also, the default campaign map resources have been relocated and have also been tweaked to reduce high-earning regions (through sea imports / exports).

If you're interested, its free to implement into other projects, the only request I have is that you credit myself - it did take a few months to build, code, beta-test etc

Btw, here is one of Adherbal's topics (that CA have replied to) regarding the sprite generator. Its relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it, but you'll need to download a DDS converter tool to convert the sprite files that you generate. I'll be using the generator myself in the near future, as there are several hundred new sprites that need creating; here's the link:

Sprite Generator... CA ?

Keep up the good work!

[Barbarossa82]

Big thanks to everyone who has helped with ideas, testing and implementation so far. I have now released a BETA testing pack incorporating many of these ideas, for which see this thread.

There are several good ideas which are not incorporated in the mod as it stands, but this doesn't mean they are never going to be in there. We just need to get some people testing this out so we can see how some of the basic changes affect the game.

Thanks also to Seasoned Alcoholic for the offer of the RTG campaign map. This is certainly something we'll be looking very closely at using in a 1.0 release, although we'll possibly have two "variants", one using the RTG map and one using the vanilla map for players who want minimal changes.

So once again thanks for your participation guys, (you're credited in the readme!), and please feel free to run the beta, see what needs to be done, and help make this campaign better.

Barbarossa82