ER | Version 1.0 Revision

[DaVinci]

Still using the PFM 1.13 (HusserlTW's), did quite some changes.

Technical content changes:
- Exchanged the units file with the latest vanilla one, and customised.
- Exchanged the building allows file with the latest vanilla one, and customised.
- Some small changes in land units stats.
- Merged file unit required technologies with the latest vanilla and the one from ER 1.0.
- Playing without the ER text file (as it doesn't consider all the latest DLC's).
Main purpose of these technical changes has been to have all DLC's active and readable.

Gameplay content changes:
- Activated Provincial Line Infantry (fieldcamp and minor gov field camp), this unit is slightly worse to the usual Line Inf, but also cheaper.
- The special styled naval recruitment is out (unfortunately), as for the new building allows file, but of course remanaged the most important realism approach (unrealistic ships removed) and ie. with British advantages (all min 1 exp).
- Recruitment in general: 2 turns for nearly all cavalry and canons, ships either 1, 2 or 4 turns.
- Diverse slight unit aspects tweaked of the european continent for balancing purposes, especially to name, some Austrian units (Line Inf) start with 1 exp to balance especially the central area (otherwise Austria is destroyed quickly what has been a gamebreaker for me), also Lancer units are later recruitable again.
- Some Moghul Empire and Maratha units tweaked in diverse aspects to balance the indian continent, purpose: take out or rather reduce the Maratha steamroller.
- Some american continent units tweaked in diverse aspects to balance the american continent, also removed the native american canon and mounted musketeer, main purpose was also to have a better historical reflection (problem stays: USA appears when native americans take a north american coastal region).

Game is good playable now for my taste (have to admit that England is my playtesting faction) also in the strategy part, combat part was already excellent due to the ER 1.0 tweaks.

Next final step:
- Adding back the technologies and building files, and applying some most important tweaks in these files.
- Re-organisation of the building allows file, ie. to have again some usual elites earlier recruitable (Guards etc.).

EDIT

JaM, is there a mod available for ETW which extends the battlefield (what we have also for NER, or was that for ER? I can't remember) ?

[DaVinci]

[Aware that nobody really participates here, i'm using this thread mainly as for my own track-keeper/reminder]

ER main pack renamed to ER_Main_rev.pack

Newly implemented and modified db tables:
- building effects junction
- building level required technology junctions
- building levels
- religion conversion mods
- technology effects junction
- technology required technology junctions
(and some other, see next post)

Rough, additional changes to the above initial thread (what i can remember now) are the following items.

Implemented files:
- Some building effects changed
- Some tech requirements for buildings added/changed
- Some building conditions and parameters changed
- religion conversion made slightly harder
- Some tech effects changed
- Few tech requirements changed

Common changes:
- All DLC units are now implemented into the ER files (means full ER support for the according unit installations); exception is here the Warpath DLC which is left untouched.
- Finetuning for the recruitment in diverse aspects (unit limitation, costs/upkeep, buildings, kind of unit type)
- Especially in the american colonies it is far harder now to get an army (it is not possible to have a european-like army in the colonies from local recruits)
- Campaign balancing main points: American colonies gameplay made more realistic, in europe Prussia is no longer the unstoppable steamroller, in india Maratha's steamroller impact is reduced
- Few general combat stats tweaked and especially some finetuning to support the campaign balancing.

Else, used submods: Militia mod and Equipment mod (both are must-haves with ER).

[DaVinci]

File structures:

- ER_Main.pack renamed to ER_Main_rev.pack
- Due to file changes, the ER_text file is not matching anymore, better use vanilla (if you wanna have all DLC unit names and descriptions, you'll need to move out the ER_text file). Remember, you can have only one text file active.

List of db tables: (file "ER_Main_rev.pack", formerly "ER_Main.pack" )

kv_fatigue
kv_morale
kv_naval_morale
kv_rules
battle_entities
building_effects_junction (since ER 1.0 revision)
building_level_required_technology_junctions (since ER 1.0 revision)
building_levels (since ER 1.0 revision)
building_units_allowed
campaign_ai_manager_behaviour_junctions
campaign_ai_personality_junctions
campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects (since ER 1.0 revision)
factions (since ER 1.0 revision)
gun_type_to_projectiles
gun_types
projectiles_explosions
projectiles
religion_conversion_mods (since ER 1.0 revision)
technology_effects_junction (since ER 1.0 revision)
technology_faction_junctions (since ER 1.0 revision)
technology_required_technology_junctions (since ER 1.0 revision)
unit_abilities
unit_required_technology_junctions
unit_stats_land_experience_bonuses
unit_stats_land
unit_stats_naval_experience_bonuses
unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions
units
units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions

Edit: Still added the technolgies file.

[DaVinci]

Content summery (the additional changes with ER_Main_rev.pack)

Short notes:
- Building effects changed
- Tech effects changed
- Tech requirements for buildings changed
- Tech requirements for units changed
- Building conditions, turns and costs changed
- Unit recruitment, availability and costs changed
- Religion conversion changed
- Unit stats changed

Some examples and effects:
- All DLC units are now implemented, means full ER support for the according DLC installations, exception is here the Warpath DLC which is left untouched.
- The gameplay has changed partly significantly in diverse aspects, the main purpose of the tweaks is an increased realism for the tactical and the strategy mode.
- Finetuning for the recruitment in diverse aspects; unit limitation, costs/upkeep, availability via buildings, kind of unit type.
- Some general combat stats tweaked and especially some finetuning to support the special campaign balancing.
... for the theatres:
- American continent units specially tweaked in diverse aspects to balance the american continent, also removed the native american canon and mounted musketeer (a problem stays: USA appears after a few turns when native americans take a north american coastal region ... hardcoded issue).
- In the american colonies it is far harder now to get an expressive army, it is not possible to have an european-like army in the colonies from local recruits, so a player has perhaps to ship units from europe to the colonies.
- In Europe, Prussia is no longer the unstoppable steamroller, also Sweden and Poland slowed down a bit.
- In India, Maratha's steamroller impact is reduced.

[DaVinci]

ER 1.0 rev build is released.

Just a note: In the meantime i'm working with PFM's and the DBEditor tools, just to have access to all according files, that is needed.

[JaM]

i have my PC back working (HDD crash), new graphic card in (GTX560Ti) so i will probably try new ER1.0 rev very soon

[DaVinci]

i have my PC back working (HDD crash), new graphic card in (GTX560Ti) so i will probably try new ER1.0 rev very soon

Wow... GTX560Ti ... that should enable a complete laggless game, also for upcoming games in 2011.

I have "only" a GTX 460 (MSI Hawk - an OC version with 812 MHz).

Btw., yesterday i installed the recently released WHQL nvidea driver 266.58 (or so), and i'm not 100% sure, if it helps the play with Empire, formerly used the 260.xx and it worked flawless. While the Win 7 index improved for the fx part very slightly since the new driver is installed.

Else, i have changed the tact and latency of my OCZ 12800/PC3 1600 4 GB Ram (OCZ3G1600LV2G) from system default mode 1066 MHz with 7-7-7-16-27 to 1333 MHz with 8-8-8-19-31.
Also here i'm note shure if it helped the performance of the pc, or not. Always with 1,5 V.
The settings are jedec settings of cpu-z ... i know i could increase the V value to at least 1,65 V, or test different latencies etc., but that's too much fuzz for me.

Maybe the lower former latency is more important as the tact? Do you have expert knowledge here?

Note, it's a Win 7 64bit AM3 system, with a Phenom II X4 970 cpu (4x 3,5 GHz) ... the AMD cpu's can't use the highest possible tact of 1600 MHz *, afaik, 1333 MHz is the highest tact possible.
Anyways, a OCCT tool stresstest (1 hour - normal standard) worked flawless without any errors, but subjectively i nearly have the feeling that Empire worked slightly better with the fomer Ram setting or with the former nvidea driver, strange.

* although i've read in the OCZ forum, that experts do that: Running their 1600's Ram with 1600 on a AM3 system. Maybe i should try it, too? The Bios allows it, or i try simply 1333 with the better latency of 7-7-7-16-27?

Next Ram project could be to install a Ram-Disk ... just increase the physical Ram from 4 GB to ie. 8 GB, and installing the according software to get virtual Ram used from the physical extra 4 GB ... but also here i'm not sure if i have enough info, ie. question: Can Win 7 64 bit use more than 4 GB by default for games? I believe not, also Benchmarks showed very less (marginal) improvements with more than 4 GB, but if so that it makes gaming more performanced, then a purchase of extra 4 GB is recommended, what do you think?

[DaVinci]

JaM, you said this about ER 1.0

blood and smoke should be ok

(just found that)

Are you sure? Afaik, this mod changes db parts of the projectile file. Could you investigate it? Because if it works flawless, then i'll install the blood+smoke mod as soon as possible. Maybe i'll try it just as modformat.

EDIT

BSM mod thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=237457
JaM, there you can see the concerning files changed.

Just an idea if you have the time: You would install the BSM (ie. medium or lite version, or just full if you want, but maybe the lite version is best as "default" because we already demand unit multiplier 2), compare the projectile file with the one of our mod.
Then perhaps make a merged file for the combi-usage ER and BSM? We could offer that combi file then officially?

[JaM]

if it changes projectile file,then it wont work together..

[DaVinci]

if it changes projectile file,then it wont work together..

Ok, i thought that.

What's about this?

Just an idea if you have the time: You would install the BSM (ie. medium or lite version, or just full if you want, but maybe the lite version is best as "default" because we already demand unit multiplier 2), compare the projectile file with the one of our mod.
Then perhaps make a merged file for the combi-usage ER and BSM? We could offer that combi file then officially?

... if possible.

[DaVinci]

Note: If one uses the Ornamentum text file, the East Elite DLC texts are not included. Damn. Maybe i'll create one day a text file that includes the Ornamentum and this East DLC, too.
Plus we could try to re-include all the ER custom text changes, some day

Btw., i think ER rev build needs also some day a "re-revision" of the ER ship recruitment (you know i needed to remove the ER 1.0 building allows file).

[JaM]

yeah, i also found you gave Brigs and Sloops upkeep back. In NER they are supposed to be corsair ships which are not paid by the crown, therefore they should have 0 upkeep. this makes them much profitable if you block trade line as you earn money that way - if they have upkeep, no money are earned, as upkeep is higher than money bonus from blockading,which is quite small (up to 50)

0 upkeep might make AI buying more ships, but this was adjusted by smalled pool of available ships (10 sloops,10 Brigs for Major factions, 5 for small factions)

And it just adds some meaning to those small ships that are normally unusable in the naval battle, and makes Frigates the only ship type that can effectively hunt them down (due to smaller radius for SOLs)

[JaM]

Wow... GTX560Ti ... that should enable a complete laggless game, also for upcoming games in 2011.

I have "only" a GTX 460 (MSI Hawk - an OC version with 812 MHz).

Btw., yesterday i installed the recently released WHQL nvidea driver 266.58 (or so), and i'm not 100% sure, if it helps the play with Empire, formerly used the 260.xx and it worked flawless. While the Win 7 index improved for the fx part very slightly since the new driver is installed.

Else, i have changed the tact and latency of my OCZ 12800/PC3 1600 4 GB Ram (OCZ3G1600LV2G) from system default mode 1066 MHz with 7-7-7-16-27 to 1333 MHz with 8-8-8-19-31.
Also here i'm note shure if it helped the performance of the pc, or not. Always with 1,5 V.
The settings are jedec settings of cpu-z ... i know i could increase the V value to at least 1,65 V, or test different latencies etc., but that's too much fuzz for me.

Maybe the lower former latency is more important as the tact? Do you have expert knowledge here?

Note, it's a Win 7 64bit AM3 system, with a Phenom II X4 970 cpu (4x 3,5 GHz) ... the AMD cpu's can't use the highest possible tact of 1600 MHz *, afaik, 1333 MHz is the highest tact possible.
Anyways, a OCCT tool stresstest (1 hour - normal standard) worked flawless without any errors, but subjectively i nearly have the feeling that Empire worked slightly better with the fomer Ram setting or with the former nvidea driver, strange.

* although i've read in the OCZ forum, that experts do that: Running their 1600's Ram with 1600 on a AM3 system. Maybe i should try it, too? The Bios allows it, or i try simply 1333 with the better latency of 7-7-7-16-27?

Next Ram project could be to install a Ram-Disk ... just increase the physical Ram from 4 GB to ie. 8 GB, and installing the according software to get virtual Ram used from the physical extra 4 GB ... but also here i'm not sure if i have enough info, ie. question: Can Win 7 64 bit use more than 4 GB by default for games? I believe not, also Benchmarks showed very less (marginal) improvements with more than 4 GB, but if so that it makes gaming more performanced, then a purchase of extra 4 GB is recommended, what do you think?

32bit games can use only up to 4gb, but at least system is not occupying that space if you have more RAM... so in the end game ends up with slightly more space than with 32bit system...


i plan to buy new CPU,but luckilly i didnt, because i have planned to buy Sandy Bridge CPU andyou maybe know how that turned out for Intel...

[DaVinci]

yeah, i also found you gave Brigs and Sloops upkeep back. In NER they are supposed to be corsair ships which are not paid by the crown, therefore they should have 0 upkeep. this makes them much profitable if you block trade line as you earn money that way - if they have upkeep, no money are earned, as upkeep is higher than money bonus from blockading,which is quite small (up to 50)

0 upkeep might make AI buying more ships, but this was adjusted by smalled pool of available ships (10 sloops,10 Brigs for Major factions, 5 for small factions)

And it just adds some meaning to those small ships that are normally unusable in the naval battle, and makes Frigates the only ship type that can effectively hunt them down (due to smaller radius for SOLs)

Yes, i thought about it. But in principle it is a human player exploitation - as we know, the AI is imcapable to use such features senseful.

But anyway, not a real problem to make Sloops and Brigs zero upkeep again for the next update. Money is tight anyway, so it won't hurt to allow few zero upkeep ships.

Btw., the gabionade is still in the game, the changes didn't work, have to investigate it anew. Do you know what's to do to disable it?

[DaVinci]

32bit games can use only up to 4gb, but at least system is not occupying that space if you have more RAM... so in the end game ends up with slightly more space than with 32bit system...

That's it, yes. As written above, one can create a Ram-disk, that indeed shall increase the Ram-usage not only slightly, because you can disable completely the virtual Ram (the system will use the additional physical Ram instead of slow hd space).

No, i didn't hear about the Sandy Bridge cpu from Intel. Have still to google it.
Atm., i'm quite fond of my new system setup with the AM 3 and Phenom X4. The only thing that annoys me is the fact that the pc is quite loud if games like Empire run. I even disabled the case-fan, but the noise is obviously made mainly by the fx fans (the Hawk has two of them), and probably by the cpu cooler (Scythe Katana 3). But in idle mode, i've silence. I've paid slight over 900,-- Euro incl. Win 7 installation, that's enough (that was a few days before christmas) - i think an Intel system with the same performance would have been more expensive. But now the new GTX 5xx series cards are out and spendable, a few days ago i saw offers for slight over 200,-- Euro, and i paid close to 180,-- for the GTX 460, that's a bit annoying.

[DaVinci]

A new update:

- Reduced upkeep of Brig, Sloop, small Galley and Xebec (between 5 and 20), but just not zero upkeep.
Reason: Actually i think one should not give out zero upkeep units, the human player has primarily an advantage then if he puts such ships onto tradelines (or even spams them), and the AI will anyway recruit what it can per situation, and won't use it the same way, so at least a small penalty (upkeep) is demanded, it is now marginal anyway to the damage you can do with a Sloop or Brig, ie. i often use them to blockade ports or just destroy those ports if not protected (often enough the AI leaves them blank) turn by turn, and the AI is mainly too dump to react properly. All in all, the argument of worthless Sloop and Brig is not valid for me, just for those reasons: They are raider ships par excellence, because you heavily disturb your enemy (the AI, if not MP against humans) and if the Slopp or Brigg is destroyed you laugh about it, because they cost very less, and you have another one the next turn.
Besides this, i use them also for passages of characters and units. Actually, if we technically could, we should reduce their ability to cross the seas, and make them coast-ships so to speak (just not longrange oversea ships), but we can't.

- Added a new file: unit_class_to_unit_ability_junctions_tables
Here i found as well the gabionade for the artillery units. I removed these lines.

Also, for all such files with "unit ability", i removed the "new" from the file name, maybe this has the effect that the game reads not anymore the vanilla file. So hope is there, that the gabionade is actually out.

Please playtest this build, just to check if the gabionade is out or not (i'm afraid it is still in the game due to a hardcode of the battle mode).
-

Btw., we could develop together an ER 2.0 version if you like, which makes the ER 1.0 and ER rev thing obsolete.
Just slowly and without hassle parallel to our playtesting in the sense "i have observed something that needs to be adressed". I'm doing it anyway on this way, and this is also the reason why ie. some unit stats but especially unit training and costs aren't neutral, rather "historical-realism-gameplay" oriented, with the purpose to support a higher chance of historical campaign outcomes.
For India it works finally, Maratha isn't anymore a superpower, and for europe it works quite good, just not perfect, but the campaign balance has actually improved a lot since rev2 build.

EDIT

As for the attached update file, i've just removed it because i'm playtesting today. I think i've gabionade out finally. Also i try to get fire and advance and rank fire out as effects, until now they are still in (effects will be replaced with additional campaign movement bonus, but they might be hidden effects). Expect the update today though, and i think i'll upload it then this evening.

[DaVinci]

So here is the result.

- Military tech-tree improved (orders and effects, it should make more sense now, while fire and advance and rank fire are removed as effects, just offer replacements).
- Few building requirements of techs (merely fixes, there was odnance-board as requirement for certain land military buildings, which is absurd and not working imo. as required, seems to be a CA bug, because it has been in the last building-allows file).
- Gabionade should be out now (last battle as was in defence for more than one turn didn't offer me the gabionade anymore, but the earthworks, so it should work now).
- And the said things in posts above.

I'll release it as rev3 this evening or latest tomorrow, but prior to this you have the option to find bugs or anything like that to provide input (if you have the time etc.) ... if you want - else, you can do it later as well, of course.

Attachment removed, just use the published.

[JaM]

sure, will try it once at home.

[DaVinci]

Alright, just released rev3.

Take your time - i think it makes sense that we playtest that build a lot in the next weeks, and create then a final ER 2.0.

A great supplement would be to get a startpos modder into the team though, that would/could change a lot.

[DaVinci]

What i'll try as next:

American theatre ... here i'll increase the training turns for the white nation units, perhaps also recruitment costs. Reason: Still in the current game one can create armies of easily over 1000 men, while this was actually first the case in the 7th year war. I'll try to balance it so, that such a recruitment is delayed, and skirmish wars are more due in the early game, while i possibly improve the colonial militia stats.

Edit: Now that works quite good in this theatre, but i have still balance issues in europe, up to an update rev4 ...lol.