Culture Unrest / "Blitz" Obstructer - submod BETA v2 out

[Ngugi]

Is conquest a too easy business, can you make a blitz across ME any day? Want to make it more of a challenge?
Wondered why dwarven population is content under pointy eared lords or why Orcs would be idly under good Mens rule, and vice versa? Want to make it more credible?

The Culture Unrest / "Blitz" Obstructer will make your expanding empire further face the reality of the different cultures of Middle-earth

'Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.'
-Gandalf the Grey, about ages passed.

Content and impact

The submod will increase the unrest caused by culture in all the settlements [still lower in castles than towns]. Now the impact of culture is (up to) x3 and the max level of the unrest from cultural differences alone is raised to 80% left at 60%.

The challenge will grow: The player will have to manage taken settlements with greater care to avoid revolts and it should tamper conquest rate.
On one side your more forced to lower taxes and construct buildings to provide order - especially "conversion" (creates an economical aspect). On the other side it's often required a larger garrnison (further economical aspect) that will rob the army of offensive troops, thus will make "blitz'es" harder (a strategic aspect).
- It will not cause any increased difficulties for the Arnor reemerging [confirmed].

Beta: v1 - the aim was to measure how the changes affect faction balance and mainly how AI handles the severity of more unrest.
v2 faces the AI's problem to handle rebelling settlements by removing the higher max level but maintain high disorder. Tests seems succesful, players input on precise limits/levels wanted for a final release

NOTE: CUBO is made for MOS 5.2 and TATW 2.1. It might work with other mods and versions but I will not encoruage to try out unless you know what your doing
The submod is save compatible - meaning that current/older campaigns will experience a potentially very changed strategic situation than before a CUBO-update. Backup, ladies & gentlemen.

Installation

1. Backup the original file

2. Download one of the attached .rar-files

3. extract descr_settlement_mechanics.xml into Medieval II Total War/mods/Third Age/data* (accept overwrite)

4. You are done and ready; please report back considerations, +/- and other experiences of current (or older) beta to improve the project

*in the case with MOS: Medieval II Total War/mods/Third_Age_SP/data

Thanks to

Tsarsies for his tutorial on settlement mechanics

/Regards Ngugi

[Khales]

Hmm this could make spys more useful?

I was looking for something that improves the usefullness of spies

And now i see this. It could make me happy or you could realize that you overlooked the improvement for spys through this

[Ngugi]

@ Khales
Hmm, yeah I saw your thread but did not made the connection until now haha

Yes indeed spies should be a greater instrument of expansion under these conditions, but honestly I do not know what impact spies really have in M2/TATW on settlement order? Though even a smaller boost should free troops or save money so either way they would benefit the empire

[Beorn]

This is an interesting project

[Yonan]

Nice idea ; ) Increased unrest is one more good system to make the mod more realistic imo.

[Ngugi]

Good to hear guys, I hope it will both increase realism and the joy of game challenge at the same time

[Himster]

Can liberation be done too? I think it's odd for an elf to conquer an occupied dwarf city and rule it with an iron fist with thousands of troops marching through their tunnels and streets dealing with unrest and stuff. Is it possible to have a liberation option.

[Ngugi]

@ Himster
Not quite sure I'm following your idea here.
Is it that you would like the (in the the example) elves to give a city back to the dwarves if it got a great part dwarven population or that there should be an automatic dwarven revolution? Figure the first?

There is a mod that allows certain factions to give settlements back, its included in MOS (dont remember the name), though it would be very hard to play the game this way with all good and not just certain (or all allied perhaps in the submod?) factions.
In case elves and dwarves really are enemies, then they would not be able to defeat each other As well, it would be hard to expand at all if you have to give away every non-elven community you take (and would give evil factions a mighty advantage as they ahve same culture) as you then have to give up settlements taken from say Orcs just because they have not converted to many in it yet (as I assume you accept good take evil settlements still).

[Bloodly]

Be aware that the AI is getting happiness and law mods. It's debatable to what degree this may affect the AI because of this. But it may works, especially as in many cases there are places with multiple equal cultures. You won't get Minas Tirith to rebel(The culture's too entrenched), but you might get Tir Ethraid or Umbar.

...This will hurt Arnor, though. There's already significant culture issues when the switch is made. This would make it more so.

[Ngugi]

@ Bloodly
Good considerations.
After tests [30 turns] the current Beta seems hard for the AI to handle, all factions dont 'take care' enough and the main fault is that they are by some reason slow to recover rebell settlements - will flag the current beta. EDIT: Will keep trying a while though.

Thus I have to figure out weither to lower the effect of cultural difference or the max limit of unrest. Those of you who have/are testing the beta, do you have any suggestions?

[Bloodly]

The issue is likely linked to the fact that the money mods and spawned armies mean AI is usually bankrupt(yet at the same time spending on units) a lot of the time.

You need to play conservatively(Going mostly economy as your first steps) to make a profit, and sometimes not even then. The AI doesn't do that and the spawns make it worse. Maybe if all the factions weren't 'Balanced Smith'...but that's guesswork and theory-craft.

Make no mistake though, the AI WILL gun for Rebel Settlements first thing, over and above most other conquest.

[Ngugi]

@ Bloodly
My hope while adjusting the unrest a bit to high (according to test at turn 40) was that the AI still would leave sufficient forces to adjust order by default to a higher degree than is the case.

Indeed, still 'first thing' seems to be a trap here hehe. All 'original rebeltowns' are the AI's aim but during my test settlements that have rebelled out of factions are 10-20 turns later still left alone even if the factions got stacks (doing nothing really) close by. It's like the AI "forgets" they are there - at least for so long. And thats to help any player far to much


Considering to** lower the max level of unrest but to keep the high level of impact each % of diffrent cultural population a settlement contains.
Then the chance of AI losing towns get less while the player still encounter a long term 'pacification' of new foreign settlement. Even small 'angry minorities'* have a large impact (due to x3 cultural unrest effect) but culture will not be as determined to cuase rebel settlements (due to lowered max level of cultural unrest).

EDIT:
* Have you learned nothing of the stubbornness of Dwarves?

EDIT 2: ** Tests seems fruitful of Beta v2 now it really should be rather a matter of fine adjustments; beta testing if weither should max level be a bit higher/lower and should culture impact be a bit lowered?

[alreadyded]

If you give a law bonus of 6 to some of the base buildings just for the AI (farms, religious buildings, etc., this should take care of settlements rebelling from the AI. For every "AI only happiness bonus" swap it out with a "law bonus" as well. Law bonuses do not give happiness or pop growth bonuses to the AI so they even they game out more population and happiness wise while allowing the AI to still cheat and keep their settlements easier than the player as far as unrest goes.

[Ngugi]

@ alreadyded
Oh, now thats an interesting solution!
I've not been into the export_descr_buildings before and understood its the one to alter?
The tutorials I've found is not too clear in their descriptions, is this (as an example) what I should change?

farming_level 1
;                population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
  happiness_bonus bonus 2 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
  law_bonus bonus 3 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1

[alreadyded]

Yup, just replace all the happiness bonuses with law +6 bonuses, you can even add law bonuses to additional buildings and their upgrades to ensure AI settlements never rebel. It will also reduce the AI population growth rate making the game more fair and realistic.

[Ngugi]

Yup, just replace all the happiness bonuses with law +6 bonuses, you can even add law bonuses to additional buildings and their upgrades to ensure AI settlements never rebel. It will also reduce the AI population growth rate making the game more fair and realistic.

Hmm, then I say b---er haha, I've tried that but it doesnt seem to work in either old or new games
Even went and made the max level from buildings +law x2 (in all settl) to make sure that a reached max-law-effect wasnt the case in the settlements I've checked. Still no diffrence, the city/castle-order % didnt moved an inch when I doubled the current or added an + AI law bonus, on any building.
Ran the cleander-bat to be extra sure, helped neither. Is there any special file I have to delete to make the changes in EDB apply?

EDIT: Or is the AI-effect actually invisible? Odd but there's stranger things around ^^

[alreadyded]

Do not use a number higher than 6 or it will not work, other than that it should work. If you have perfect spy enabled than you can see the difference in order, it should boost it by around 20 to 40 I think for every building they have that has a law bonus of 6.

Copy and paste this code (replacing your own building code) and test it, and make sure the AI has farms built.

building hinterland_farms
{
    convert_to hinterland_farms
    levels farms farms+1 farms+2 farms+3 
    {
        farms  requires factions { sicily, byzantium, milan, scotland, ireland, norway, normans, timurids, turks, middle_eastern, england, hre, portugal, greek, moors, saxons, } 
        {
            convert_to 0
            capability
            {
                farming_level 1
;                population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
		law_bonus bonus 6 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  2 
            cost  800 
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
                farms+1
            }
        }
        farms+1  requires factions { sicily, byzantium, milan, scotland, ireland, norway, normans, timurids, turks, middle_eastern, england, hre, portugal, greek, moors, saxons, } 
        {
            convert_to 1
            capability
            {
                farming_level 2
;                population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
		law_bonus bonus 6 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  3 
            cost  1600 
            settlement_min town
            upgrades
            {
                farms+2
            }
        }
        farms+2  requires factions { sicily, byzantium, milan, scotland, ireland, norway, normans, timurids, turks, middle_eastern, england, hre, portugal, greek, moors, saxons, } 
        {
            convert_to 2
            capability
            {
                farming_level 3
;                population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
		law_bonus bonus 6 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  4 
            cost  2800 
            settlement_min large_town
            upgrades
            {
                farms+3
            }
        }
        farms+3  requires factions { sicily, byzantium, milan, scotland, ireland, norway, normans, timurids, turks, middle_eastern, england, hre, portugal, greek, moors, saxons, } 
        {
            convert_to 3
            capability
            {
                farming_level 4
;                population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
		law_bonus bonus 6 requires event_counter is_the_ai 1
            }
            material wooden
            construction  6 
            cost  4500 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
    plugins 
    {
    }
}

[Ngugi]

Do not use a number higher than 6 or it will not work, other than that it should work.

Aha, that might be my mistake yes, well will check it as soon as I'm back from work, and unless my computer is faul next step towards a v1.0 is at hand. Thank your for taking you time to meddle with it

[Ngugi]

@ alreadyded

It makes no difference at all Public Order remains the same no matter what... I dont get it?