CCM2 Hotseat Sub Mod v0.91 Beta Released!

[Unspoken Knight]

This patch is outdated, please visit the latest Hotseat Sub Mod thread:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=531257




The latest version Hotseat Sub Mod Beta has been released (v0.91 beta).

NOTE: ONLY APPLY THIS SUB MOD IF YOU ARE AN ONLINE HOTSEAT PLAYER. IT MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR SINGLE PLAYER OR LOCAL HOTSEAT GAMES.

This sub mod contains the following changes:

- Sub mod installs to its own mod folder (CCM2HS)
- Converted papal states to standard faction
- Removed crusades, jihads and college of cardinals
- Increased fort cost to 3000
- Forts are permanent wooden forts
- Disabled bribing
- AI doesn't like to be gifted regions
- Assassins can only target agents
- Added agent limits to assassins
- Spies, assassins and merchant min success chances reduced to 0%
- Cannot place units on docked ships
- Re-ordered factions (weakest first)
- Aztecs can recruit cogs
- Aztecs can recruit catapults
- Doubled religious unrest
- Swapped papal states and aztecs (tyronia)
- *Most cavalry unit sizes increased by 25%
- *Autoresolve separation_missile_add increased to 2

*These changes were added as a simple generic fix to improve autoresolve for cavalry and missile units. Please take note if autoresolve seems better with regards to cavalry and missile units and feel free to suggest changes.

The following changes might be looked at for the next version of the sub mod, open to more suggestions:

- Increase religious conversion rates
- Tune spies (increase costs, make success/fail chances more decisive)
- Tune assassins (increase costs, decrease success chances, make success/fail chances more decisive)
- Tune merchants (make success/fail chances more decisive)
- Add in agent limits for spies
- Increase cavalry size to 50%? (back to original M2TW sizes)
- Add a free upkeep slot to forts
- Increase fort costs to 5000
- Re-order factions in descr_sm_factions from weakest to strongest (for HS launcher)
- Remove: cannot place units on docked ships
- Remove: disable bribing
- Remove: Autoresolve separation_missile_add increased to 2 (drop back to 1)
- Fix Heroic Victory Message Bug (generated on crushing defeat)
- Add merchant stacking messages (if a merchant shares a resource tile with an army)
- Add faction defeated army reminder messages (to remind players a certain faction has defeated armies that cannot be moved)
- Rebalance some faction starting positions (England, France, HRE, Venice, Byzantium, Portugal, Scotland, Mongols, Timurids, Turks)
- Disable Floods
- Update the credits for those who have contributed with great feedback!

I will try to look into the following:

- give a small cash bonus for any units starting the turn with no movement points (compensate for turn order issue)
- generate a message if attacking with no siege gear (e.g. opening gates with a spy)
- reset random seed before battles

Installation Instructions:

- Download, unzip and run the installer exe
- The installer will install all required files to a new CCM2HS sub mod folder
- THIS SUB MOD IS NOT SAVE GAME COMPATIBLE

Please make any comments, good or bad, about this sub mod here. I welcome all feedback and am interested in listening to any ideas for improvements.

[wolf-yop]

cavalry its not good enough.

local militia vs mailed knights.

5 wins militia attacking the mailed knights, the same attacking the mailed knights the militia(lose the mailed knights).

the cost for a mailed knights is 675 plus 95 upkeep, the militia is 280 and 65 upkeep, making cavalrys is wasting money and upkeep. The only way for making them better whit this numbers is giving them a lot more of movement in campaign, like scouts and lighting attacks.

instead of giving them the same number of units ( that will make cavalry infantry clones) give them double movement in campaign map and less upkeep to make fast attacks since they are far worse than infantry in autoresolve and they cant use siege weapons.


edit: feudal knights vs local militia clear defeat 33 deaths for the knights and 9 local militia death.

archers win vs cavalry.

[Unspoken Knight]

Some good points and ideas wolf-yap! Much appreciated.

[Tonno]

Yo yo!!!

For a HS patch I think you should allowe bribing, loyalty is a big part in this game. And in late long term games it becomes a great addition to game.

So I think that should be first considered to be changed in next patch.

EDIT
O yea great addon on units... I like it realy much (if they where not available in regular CCM2)

[Unspoken Knight]

Thanks Tonno, I added removing the disable bribing change to the suggestions to the next update.

The new units were already in CCM2, but glad you like them. I am trying to keep changes and new assets to a minimum in the HS Sub Mod and focus on minimising HS exploits. The installer is currently under 3MB! (But installs to around 1GB after copying the original CCM2 files)

[wolf-yop]

How about giving the forts the free_upkeep_forts?, 3000 is a lot of money and this way you can expand the garrison of the province and make forts more of a strategic point.

The number of slots is up to you.

[Unspoken Knight]

I was considering this, and have added it to the list of suggestions. 3000 is a lot of money but should reduce fort spamming in HS games. Ideally I would have liked to script a cost penalty based on how may forts you have built but I couldn't find a way to do it. 2000 is probably good in the early game and 5000 in the late game.

I like the idea of having no upkeep slots for forts so people have to have a real need to put units in them. Castles can currently have peasants for free upkeep and towns have militia. I think adding free slots to forts would allow forts to use either, but I am not sure. Perhaps I should add at least 1 free upkeep slot for the forts.

I am also considering stone forts (but maybe for a CCM3) and am not sure if I need to change the cost to match.

Thanks for your feedback, hopefully someone else can comment on this too.

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

instead of giving them the same number of units ( that will make cavalry infantry clones) give them double movement in campaign map and less upkeep to make fast attacks

and who are they going to attack if they are weaker?

The thing with forts is avoiding spamming. Raising their price as much as possible is a must. Free upkeep slots is not that important. Do you think it would be possible to limit the constructions of forts per region?
Bribing can be easily exploited so it should be disabled.

[Unspoken Knight]

I am afraid I cannot find any way to limit the number of forts per region. I can't even find a way to detect when they have been contructed. Do you think the price should be increased further, now that they are permanent wooden forts? Or is 3000 ok?

I will keep it so bribing is disabled, unless more players feel strongly about it.

[wolf-yop]

and who are they going to attack if they are weaker?

yes, Whit less unit count they will be weaker, but whit better campaign speed, low cost and better pool replenish you can make cavalry do different roles like artillery can attack a castle/city in one turn.

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

Being weaker the only role I can think about is scouting, and spies do that much better. As Dave Scarface pointed out, Medieval times were when heavy cavalry was the most feared force in an army. In hotseats it is rarely seen that.

About forts, well, 3000 would be the minimum cost. I am currently playing a hs in which they cost 7500!!

[Unspoken Knight]

I will begin working on the final CCM2HS sub mod release, the full list of changes is in the first post above. Please post if you disagree with any of the changes and don't hesitate to offer additional feedback!

[wolf-yop]

what will you do with the cavalry?, give them the same numbers as infantry?

[Unspoken Knight]

what will you do with the cavalry?, give them the same numbers as infantry?

Not quite, they are being increased back to Vanilla sizes. CCM2 uses Retrofit/Kingdoms balance wich decreased Cav unit sizes considerably.

I really like your idea of increased movement and lower upkeep, and it would give them more of a unique feel, but I don't think I can use it due to the movement bug. I can't seem to mod a fix for the movement bug, and I think increasing cav by much will make it a very effective and difficult to admin HS exploit. A real shame, but I appreciate your great feedback!

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

- give a small cash bonus for any units starting the turn with no movement points (compensate for turn order issue)

I'm not sure this would be a good idea because in most hotseats it's implemented already the Turn of Respect to Beaten Armies rule, which forces all defeated armies to freeze the following turn, whether they have or not movement points. Thus this cash would be an extra advantage that may benefit mostly to latter moving factions.

- reset random seed before battles

What would this imply?

Good job mate

[Unspoken Knight]

I'm not sure this would be a good idea because in most hotseats it's implemented already the Turn of Respect to Beaten Armies rule, which forces all defeated armies to freeze the following turn, whether they have or not movement points. Thus this cash would be an extra advantage that may benefit mostly to latter moving factions.

If implemented it would be optional. I would like to counter the defeat exploit so the rule doesn't need to be used in all hotseats. I don't know if I find a good script solution though so I might drop this idea.

What would this imply?

Resetting the random seed might reduce the efffectiveness of reloading. It might not be any good for agents, but I can try it before battles or assaults. Changing the attacking units might get around the random seed, but it might fix reloading for spies opening gates.

[Unspoken Knight]

Found a bug for the Heroic Victory Messages. Currently they get generated for crushing defeats also. Added to the list of changes for the next release.

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

In the recent Bellum Crucis 6.3 Mod release I have noticed they have disabled the Floods as it caused several stability problems. After playing Tyronia campaign for quite a while I find it would be a good idea if you could do that here too, as we have found that these events tend to stay forever in the territories where they occur.

Also I think it would be a good idea to add in Grand Campaign maps a terrain square besides Venice because if you are playing in VH/VH and the city owner enters a full stack inside, with the bridge square as the only attacking position it is nearly impossible to conquer it in autoresolve using just one army.

Thx again

[Unspoken Knight]

Thanks Mencey, some more great ideas to add to the final release!

I am also thinking about rebalancing the starting positions of some factions in the grand campaign maps to give factions a more even start. I was thinking of tuning down England, France, HRE, Venice, Byzantium and tuning up Portugal, Scotland.

Let me know if anyone has any thoughts on this.

[[Celtíbero]Mencey]

That would be excellent. I think we will definitively discard Bellum Crucis for hotseats because the huge unbalance between factions.