Watchtower village mod

[Megas Methuselah]

I think the "barbarian" factions get the coolest watchtowers. They look like little villages, you know? It gives off the appearance of the map being more densely populated. Anyways, I thought, "Why not give all the factions a village for a watchtower, eh? It would look awesome, having more than one settlement per region." So, did is what I did. It's quite simple, to be honest.

Btw, THIS IS SAVEGAME COMPATIBLE, YAY!!!



Step 1: Make backups of the following files: descr_cultures.txt (in EB/Data), expanded_bi.txt (in EB/Data/Text), and strat.txt (in EB/Data/Text). You need to modify these three text files, and to be a safe and cool () modder, you hafta back'em up!


Step 2: Let's modify the descr_cultures first. Go to EB/Data, and open it. Use a more advanced text editor, such as Notepad++, because in certain cases, simply using Notepad will mess up a file's format, causing a CTD.

Anyways, this text file has all the different cultures listed. It displays their village.cas models, fort models, watchtower models and so forth in an orderly manner. The watchtower is near the bottom of the list, whilst the village settlement is near the top. What you need to do is copy the village (towns or large towns are too big IMO, so I prefer using villages) model down over the watchtower model. I'll show you an example with the Greek culture:


Find the village cas entry, it's near the top of the Greek culture section. greek_village.CAS. You will be pasting it over the watchtower cas counterpart, near the bottom.





Repeat with the the rest of the cultures. Their village cas entries will be different, and vary from eastern_village_buildings.CAS to barb_village.CAS, and so forth. Just paste those entries over the watchtower cas. You don't really need to do this with the "barbarians," but I do, because their watchtower camps look too small in comparison to the rest, so I paste their village.cas over it.

Optional: Outlined in blue is the watchtower's cost. Unlike forts, watchtowers cost money to build in EB, which vary from faction to faction. Personally, I made it free to build (a cost of 0) in order to encourage the AI in building them.

Save and exit.



Step 3: Simple enough. Go to EB/Data/Text, open expanded_bi.txt, and use to search option to find all entries that contain the word "watchtower." You will only edit the entries on the right-hand side of the text file. The left-hand side of the file must remain unchanged. On the right-hand side, whenever "watchtower" appears, replace the word with "village." It should roughly appear like this, except with big spaces between the bracketed entry and the other entry:

{EMT_ROMANS_JULII_WATCHTOWER} Seleukid Village
{EMT_ROMANS_BRUTII_WATCHTOWER} Baktrian Village
{EMT_ROMANS_SCIPII_WATCHTOWER} Haikakan Village
{EMT_SABA_WATCHTOWER} Sabaen Village
{EMT_MACEDON_WATCHTOWER} Makedonian Village
{EMT_EGYPT_WATCHTOWER} Qarthadastim Village
{EMT_SELEUCID_WATCHTOWER} Roman Village
{EMT_CARTHAGE_WATCHTOWER} Pontic Village
{EMT_PARTHIA_WATCHTOWER} Pahlavân Village
{EMT_PONTUS_WATCHTOWER} Saka Village
{EMT_GAULS_WATCHTOWER} Aedui Village
{EMT_GERMANS_WATCHTOWER} Swêbôz Village
{EMT_BRITONS_WATCHTOWER} Casse Village
{EMT_ARMENIA_WATCHTOWER} Sauromatae Village
{EMT_DACIA_WATCHTOWER} Getai Village
{EMT_GREEK_CITIES_WATCHTOWER} Koinon Hellenon Village
{EMT_NUMIDIA_WATCHTOWER} Ptolemaioi Village
{EMT_SCYTHIA_WATCHTOWER} Arverni Village
{EMT_SPAIN_WATCHTOWER} Lusotannan Village
{EMT_THRACE_WATCHTOWER} Epeirote-Massalian Village
{EMT_SLAVE_WATCHTOWER} Eleutheroi Village

Save and exit.



Step 4: Go to EB/Data/Text, open strat.txt, and do the same thing. Use the search function to find all "watchtower" entries, but only replace the word with "village" on the right-hand side of the text file:

{SMT_WATCHTOWER} Village
{SMT_WATCHTOWER_DESCRIPTION} Villages extend your line of sight over territory
{SMT_SELECT_FORT_OR_WATCHTOWER} Select a fort or village to build

Save and exit.





You are now done. If you screw up, don't come blaming me. This is only for those who actually know what the hell they are doing. If you messed up, go away and leave me alone; I don't care about you.

[ARCHIPPOS]

hmmmmm, if they do giveincome bonuses you'll end up building watchtowers all over your regions (simulating agricultural growth and low density urbanism).That could be interesting...

[Duguntz]

And we'd end up with a Sweboz faction richier than Rome or Cartage! hahahahaha... so yeah, but to to counter a senarion like that, we'd ahve to simulate a drop in the population of the closest city (simulating those who depart to found, to populate, that agricultural place...)
a bit l;ike a ''colony'' system
surely it can't be done, but it's be damn nice if it could!

[ARCHIPPOS]

haha that kind of reminds me the civilisation series where you could build stuff (farms, villages and so on) on land tiles :)

[athanaric]

Nice idea, though impossible to implement with this engine.
Some mods have a "village" resource in more densely populated regions, though. I don't know exactly what it increases, but it allows you to show smaller towns on the strat map.

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, I'm modding it, anyways. Re-name them "village," and change the various skins of the civilized factions. They can be used for RP purposes, if nothing else.

[Megas Methuselah]

Here we go, easier than I thought:



Food for thought... Should I re-name them "colonies" or something else, or do you guys think "villages" are fine?

[vartan]

Village is fine. Colonies would be far away conquered lands, right? Like how Trebizon is a Greek colony?

[Hannibal Khan the Great]

@Megas Methuselah In XC they have the same thing, except they're called Minor Settlements or something like that.

[Megas Methuselah]

@Megas Methuselah In XC they have the same thing, except they're called Minor Settlements or something like that.

Yeah, if you think about it, it's such an obvious idea, isn't it? But I like it.

[ARCHIPPOS]

Methuselah is this change savegame compatible ??? Perhaps you should post the aterations you made in the gamefiles and move this whole thread to mod projects...

[Duguntz]

well Megas, I personally like the name colony! because yeah, some went far away, but some were close! if you read the Peloponnesian wars by Thucydides, you see that many (now grown) cities of costal greece and what would be in EB timeframe, Illirian and epeirote territories, were colonies of great cities like mecena (at the time) and sparta was, at the start, only a colony of her mother city : Doris, from where all spartans werre called Dorians... the source from those in is the Peloponnesian wars, by Thucydides... So colony would work as well! and honnestly, I also like the name if only for roleplay reasons!

Megas, you did great work :)

[Dutchhoplite]

Methuselah is this change savegame compatible ??? Perhaps you should post the aterations you made in the gamefiles and move this whole thread to mod projects...

Agree! I'm also interested in these changes ;)

[Alexokrat]

me too, looks very good and should be an interesting feature :-)

[Ludens]

Moved to the EB submod forum.

[Megas Methuselah]

It's very simple, so I'll include a read-me in the OP.

Can a moderator change the thread's name to "Watchtower Village Mod" or something of the sorts? That'd be real nice.

Methuselah is this change savegame compatible ???

Yep.

[Dutchhoplite]

Thanks! But i'm wondering... aren't the changes described in step 4 made in strat.text??

[Nirvanish]

Great idea Methuselah! Branching off from the idea of modifying watchtowers what do you think of making modifications to forts. I do not know if it would be possible but it would be interesting if you could give them an increased sight radius. They could then become something of a guard post, replacing watch towers.

[Megas Methuselah]

Thanks! But i'm wondering... aren't the changes described in step 4 made in strat.text??

Whoops, my bad. Minor typo.

[Salahedin]

hmmmmm, if they do giveincome bonuses you'll end up building watchtowers all over your regions (simulating agricultural growth and low density urbanism).That could be interesting...

I don't think they give income bonus. All I see is that there's a road under this village/watchtower/colony/callitwhatyouwant that's giving the usual bonus.

[Hannibal Khan the Great]

I don't think they give income bonus. All I see is that there's a road under this village/watchtower/colony/callitwhatyouwant that's giving the usual bonus.

I'm not sure that adding income bonuses to watchtowers is even possible.