The Patch for BB 4.24 <24/08/2013>

[one day]

Thanks again. I hope that DLV will be more popular again, is not worse than Bellum crucis or Stainless steel. As I see, you propably prefer the mongols faction. I´m afraid, that now I known minimum about mongols in DLV, I didn´t study all scripts yet. I need some time for practice and testing the long campaign, because I had quite long break in playing DLV. For inspiration you can try my favourite mod "Mongolo-Tatars Invasion", where mongols are very dangerous war machine. And like mongols other your thoughts I have to study too, I have no answer now, hope later.

[Drinka of the Rum]

Thanks, one day. My posts always end up being longer than I'd like them to be, but here are a few points:

1. I've noticed in my most recent campaign that defense spending level 4 allows 7 units free upkeep, but spending level 5 only allows 6 units free upkeep. I doubt you changed anything in this script but I have only just now noticed this small glitch.

2. The 2 other M2TW mods you mentioned are great. Broken Crescent and TATW are also worth an honorable mention. Some less well known mods like The Last Kingdom are fun to play too. The depth of artistic and programming talent on this forum never ceases to amaze me. The "Mongolo-Tatars Invasion" mod you mentioned is one I haven't tried, but I'll be sure to download it ASAP. But, for me, there is something about DLV + BB that makes it infinitely re-playable. Maybe it's the RPG elements or just the sheer depth of content (art, history, scripting etc.) My goal is to help create the version that I can sit beside my trusty old Civ IV install, and know that I can always come back and expect a unique but challenging experience. It would be a real shame if this mod was left as is.

3. I certainly do enjoy playing the Mongol faction but my goal is really to get the minor, less finished factions up and running properly. I just got Georgia playing properly but their unit rosters are still a little messed up (have a look at the post I made about this and if you approve you can include it in the patch.) The Abassids are in my sights as well, but I've had to learn everything from scratch as I go. There are great posts in the modding workshop section but, naturally, I'd prefer for someone else to do all the work for me But this process has given me some appreciate for the scale of work that has gone into making this mod.

4. I feel like I'm very close to solving the problem with the Mongols not doing much in BB. Since the Temple Fix they are producing units, and I'm pretty sure they just need a river crossing to Sarkel in order to take that castle and kick off as they should. This is what I mean:

Notice the cluster of units inside the sharp bend in the river, just above the missions display scroll? I'm sure if there was a river crossing there the Mongols would take Sarkel (just to the west of the image) and this would lead to unleashing them on Kievan Rus and Georgian territory.

It would be great if someone who already knows how to edit maps could pop a crossing in around this point, it would save me the time of learning where these files are and how to mod them!

5. While I'm posting images... this one shows what the Mongols are capable of. What other faction could hope for such a decisive victory? (VH/VH, of course!)

[Vipman]

Here's the needed crossings Added 1 to Sarkel (where the mongol armies stayed) and one near Atil to make acces easier between Samandar and Atil.

Go to Medieval II Total War\mods\DLV_ext\data\world\maps\base, rename map_features to "map_features original" only if you want, it's not necessary. Extract the map_features in this .rar in that folder then delete the map.rwm, the game will create a new one when you start a campaign.

PS in case anyone's wondering it's not save-game compatible, trying to load a previous save will give crash.

@Drinka of the Rum you should make your mongols temples fix into a mongol improvement mini-mod or make a mini-mod including the mongol fixes + more stuff you talk about. You can include anything I help you with of course.

About mongol princesses, from what I know it would be pretty ahistorical, but I think it's the same for islamic factions too If you want to add voice to mongolian agents/units whatever, download these files http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...files-released and check what files you need to add & edit. I've looked through them and I think only export_descr_sounds_stratmap_voice needs to be edited. However I don't have knowledge or experience in modding these files except descr_sound_music

Another little problem I've noticed is that the government points required for city wall upgrades is out of sync. I rarely play to more that 30 or 40 cities captured but I'd never built a fairground or large wall until I modified the export_descr_buildings file. If you lower the market level required for large walls to "market" and to "fairground" for huge walls, castle and city upgrades occur at every close to the same time in the campaign. At the moment especially AI cities have a big problem with squalor and plague due to not being able to upgrade. Any thoughts?

That's a very good idea that you should apply, market for large walls and fairground for huge walls would improve the game a lot, as I'm sure not everyone plays hundreds of turns, although it's more probable with this mod, and in my opinion there should be at least a few huge starting from turn 200, currently I think it takes a lot more. They require a lot of population anyway to upgrade.

@one day excuse me, actually I didn't play DLV for quite some time and I don't have time right now to check your fix could you explain what exactly you changed when you say:

Here is new patch for BB4.24. I have changed no costs only now you pay real money without rounded up to 500. (The fields costs until to 5000 and the settlements costs until to 10000)

It would be really nice if there would exist 1 mini-mod/patch whatever to combine the great fixes you 2 guys made. While still keeping them separate too as not everyone might want all changes. I'll probably put all of them in 1 .rar sometime later if this is alright with you guys

[one day]

Giumbix, please see picture. E.g. without my fix you will pay rounded 500.

Yes, we can discuss at first, how technicaly do the best universal patch. Truly I feel more like player or betatester not like mod-maker. I have started only with my small patch without ambitions make whole submod. Some changes really need more testing and suggestions before release.

[Drinka of the Rum]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Giumbix... what can I say? You never fail to impress... I was dreading the thought of editing a graphics file. As it is, I struggle with the text files...

one day, please don't feel any pressure to work on this stuff, if you don't want/ don't have time to. Your Kingmaker and Field Costs scripts are more than enough, but for me it's just great to meet a few people, familiar with this mod, to bounce ideas off If you could keep compiling the mods/ fixes into one file, I would really appreciate it. For some reason I can't edit my previous posts, and having these fixes in one place makes life much easier for anyone who would like to apply them.

Re including Mongol Princesses: This would definitely be more for game-play than historic reasons, Giumbix. I never really used this agent type much in Vanilla but in BB4.23 they are great. I usually march them around making alliances ( and gaining charm) before attempting to snipe another factions battle-hardened 12 year old general. They lose some of their buffed traits but having a battle-hardened general makes campaigning significantly easier. More often they ride off into the sunset, never to be heard of again. For balance reasons, I don't see why the Mongols should miss out. I will take a look at their sound files when I get a little more time. Thanks for the pointers.

Re the change in market levels required for wall upgrades: I'm glad you like this idea, Giumbix. It was one of my first mods and I've been playing using this change for a couple of months now. The game definitely plays more naturally with this change and I finally got to build many city improvements I'd only ever seen in the Building Browser.) I don't know if Taiji meant to have a period (before large wall upgrades) when cities (esp AI) become bogged down in squalor, but that's what happens now. Even if this was Taiji's intention, then shouldn't castle upgrades be pushed back one barracks level as well? At the moment fortresses appear too soon in the game. Castles are already vastly better at producing units than cities. For balance reasons I believe castle and city upgrades should happen around the same time. This is what changing the market levels does.

Anyway why not try it out and see what you think? I will post my export_descr_buildings file here, but be warned: I have re-enabled merchants (one only per city regardless of market level... they add to the general chaos of the game) and I've enabled recruitment of archers from the Abbassid ranges line of buildings. I tried allowing them to recruit siege engines as well but ran into stability problems (I need to get to know the modeldb file better.) This file isn't really ready for public viewing, but you guys are friends and it is stable on my install. Because of my changes to the Abbassid's recruiting I think you may have to also use my export_descr_unit file.

Sorry for bringing up so many things at once. It makes it hard to keep the discussion focused. Ideally Taiji would swoop in and settle a lot of the questions his mod raises... we live in hope...

[one day]

Fixed bug - new position of the rebel army near Tbilisi in campaign _script.txt. Please, see post #1. Needs new campaign.


Drinka, try enable princess for slave faction too. After that princess can get married with rebel generals. Otherwise I see, you have enough material for a few months testing and massive submod for BB. And about grow of the settlements I remember, that only settlements with star in the name can upgrade to huge city or citadel. It´s Repman patent.

[Vipman]

@Drinka, unfortunately you need to have 25 posts to be able to edit you posts. Don't blame the site though, they did it to avoid spamming (because spammers could make a simple post then edit it, adding links to internet shops or whatever, avoiding spamming filters)

I just figured out, you don't have to download the files I told you about princesses sound, they are already in the mod. I think I figured out how to give mongols some voices, I'll upload it in this post if I succeed.

About merchants, I suggest to allow them at market level and not corn_exchange so they're not so easy to get and avoid spamming too early

BTW can you tell me what RGB you used for Mongol's faction colour? It looks very nice

@one day ah, now I understood, very good!

About the rebel army fix, it needs a new campaign only if you play as Georgia

Slave/rebel faction doesn't and can't have a family tree. Their faction never dies and their cities/units/characters can't revolt as they're rebels already. However I'm pretty sure it's possible to make princesses recruitable if you want.

I'm pretty sure Taiji adapted the whole mod for very long development, to get to turn 400 and still have room for developing and upgrading settlements. Indeed only settlements with stars (meaning with hidden_resource metropolis) can get to huge cities/citadels. Considering the fact that the end date is 1401, meaning above turn 880... However I'm pretty sure most campaigns get close to turn 200 at best, so in my opinion it would be nice to have by then mostly large cities and fortresses and also a few huge cities and citadels too. For this case I think huge walls should require fairground instead of great market too, anyway this is just my opinion.

Edit: Ok I succeded, mongols have voices now Just extract this in mods/DLV_ext folder and accept overwriting.

[one day]

Slave/rebel faction doesn't and can't have a family tree. Their faction never dies and their cities/units/characters can't revolt as they're rebels already. However I'm pretty sure it's possible to make princesses recruitable if you want.

Yes, ofcourse. But now I don´t mean a princess of rebels, I mean something else..

[Drinka of the Rum]

Drinka, try enable princess for slave faction too. After that princess can get married with rebel generals.

That is an awesome idea, one day. I love it! I've never seen that in another mod and I didn't know that could be done. But if they can be bribed, then why can't they be married into the family? This was a common way nobles consolidated power in medieval times, so it passes the historical accuracy test. The player will still have to fight their armies, so it should not effect balance too much. Do you think the other AI factions will try to do this as well? I will have to test this out and report back. I wish I had more time to dedicate to this game!

Edit: Ok I succeded, mongols have voices now Just extract this in mods/DLV_ext folder and accept overwriting.

After you posted your map fix yesterday, I told my wife that we are going to name our first born son "Giumbix." She just looked at me like I was crazy... We don't have many Giumbixs in this part of the world so I don't know if that's going to happen... but thanks anyway.

About merchants, I suggest to allow them at market level and not corn_exchange so they're not so easy to get and avoid spamming too early

I think that's reasonable. I will change the EDB before I post the next version. I've never really understood what the fuss is about merchants. I know some players exploit them in various ways but you can never prevent all exploits (what's next, no reloads?) and if people are having fun playing like that, then the mod has succeeded. From my point of view, I rarely use merchants as the AI merchants always end up wiping the floor with mine. The game turns are long enough once you have 3 or more armies in the field. If I spent time chasing each merchant around the map each turn I would abandon campaigns much earlier. So in my campaigns they yet are another advantage the AI has over the player, and add to the total color and action going on. Anyway, isn't it generally better to leave features in rather than take them out?

I'm pretty sure Taiji adapted the whole mod for very long development, to get to turn 400 and still have room for developing and upgrading settlements. Indeed only settlements with stars (meaning with hidden_resource metropolis) can get to huge cities/citadels. Considering the fact that the end date is 1401, meaning above turn 880... However I'm pretty sure most campaigns get close to turn 200 at best, so in my opinion it would be nice to have by then mostly large cities and fortresses and also a few huge cities and citadels too. For this case I think huge walls should require fairground instead of great market too, anyway this is just my opinion.

I would love to know what exactly people who play to 1401 are doing in their games? Once you have 40 cities and the next largest rival has 15-20, you are pretty much going to kick everyone's butt. I don't have a problem with that, but unless you start to auto-resolve every battle, the game will take weeks! The political and strategic side of the game is the more interesting one for me, and this loses it's interest when the challenge is gone. This has been a problem for pretty much every version of TW I've played.

A game that handles the problem of the late game well is Civ IV. I don't know if you know that game very well but the great thing about it is that you are always struggling to remain a dominant faction. By the time you hold a large part of the map, another few factions have large territories too. And by the time you hold half the map, you are usually up against a single very challenging rival. In M2TW, once you reach dominant position, the game just becomes a butt-kicking tour of the world without any chance for overall failure. The "offends nobles etc" things help this too some extent, but it's still a big problem.

An idea that occurred to me is if, through alliances/ vassal states etc, the AI could begin to consolidate into alliance blocks that act cohesively against the player. I know this already occurs to some extent, but AI allies still don't act in a well coordinated manner. It would be great if smaller AI factions could surrender their cities to larger factions (as the player faction captured more cities) such that truly challenging rivals could emerge. Is something like this even possible to script?

[Drinka of the Rum]

BTW can you tell me what RGB you used for Mongol's faction colour? It looks very nice

I use Cyprian's factions colors, found here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...olours-for-DLV

The RGB for the Mongols is:
primary_colour red 153, green 153, blue 22
secondary_colour red 153, green 153, blue 22

[Vipman]

Ah so you mean rebel princesses to come and steal generals from other factions. Well they'll have to be set in descr_strat and/or scripted to appear during the game. But do AI factions even use princesses to take generals at all? I've never seen one.

After you posted your map fix yesterday, I told my wife that we are going to name our first born son "Giumbix." She just looked at me like I was crazy... We don't have many Giumbixs in this part of the world so I don't know if that's going to happen... but thanks anyway.

I think that's reasonable. I will change the EDB before I post the next version. I've never really understood what the fuss is about merchants. I know some players exploit them in various ways but you can never prevent all exploits (what's next, no reloads?) and if people are having fun playing like that, then the mod has succeeded. From my point of view, I rarely use merchants as the AI merchants always end up wiping the floor with mine. The game turns are long enough once you have 3 or more armies in the field. If I spent time chasing each merchant around the map each turn I would abandon campaigns much earlier. So in my campaigns they yet are another advantage the AI has over the player, and add to the total color and action going on. Anyway, isn't it generally better to leave features in rather than take them out?

I think the major reason for merchants being removed is that it slows down the game a lot later in the game, and maybe a minor one is to make it harder for the player and remove the "little" exploit that 20 merchants can be put in a fort or an army standing over 1 resource, giving tons of money and merchants being safe from other faction's merchants.

I would love to know what exactly people who play to 1401 are doing in their games? Once you have 40 cities and the next largest rival has 15-20, you are pretty much going to kick everyone's butt. I don't have a problem with that, but unless you start to auto-resolve every battle, the game will take weeks! The political and strategic side of the game is the more interesting one for me, and this loses it's interest when the challenge is gone. This has been a problem for pretty much every version of TW I've played.

That's what I was saying, that very few people play over 200 or 300 turns and I don't think the mod should be made so you need 300 or more turns to get some huge cities/citadels, this way at least half the players don't get to see the late buildings and professional units which would take a very long time to get.

An idea that occurred to me is if, through alliances/ vassal states etc, the AI could begin to consolidate into alliance blocks that act cohesively against the player. I know this already occurs to some extent, but AI allies still don't act in a well coordinated manner. It would be great if smaller AI factions could surrender their cities to larger factions (as the player faction captured more cities) such that truly challenging rivals could emerge. Is something like this even possible to script?

1'st one I think depends only on how the AI is made, which is unknown territory for me, and 2nd I don't think it's possible to script. Only way would be to make the AI always attack the player if he gets big enough I think.

PS: To avoid any possible confusion I want to say I'm just an amateur modder, I can handle most text files (not scripting though) and know how to edit maps. So one could say we're on the same league here, fans of DLV, making a few fixes

[one day]

Updated post #1 with new version. Tips for incorrect or too shiny normal textures of units are welcome.

[AndrewNik]

I'm sorry, but the game has stopped running.

[Baron von Manteuffel]

Livonian rebel Baltic Raiders have a mess-up texture. I also keep getting this CTD:

20:37:46.142 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2
20:37:46.142 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Feb 25 2008 version development ===
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
20:39:39.646 [game.script] [error] Script execution error for <create_mission>, at line 4249, in mods/DLV_ext/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/campaign_script.txt:
Could not create mission.
21:49:49.151 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

[one day]

I'm sorry, but the game has stopped running.

I´m sorry, I don´t understand. What do you mean ?

Livonian rebel Baltic Raiders have a mess-up texture. I also keep getting this CTD:

20:37:46.142 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2
20:37:46.142 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Feb 25 2008 version development ===
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
20:37:46.142 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
20:39:39.646 [game.script] [error] Script execution error for <create_mission>, at line 4249, in mods/DLV_ext/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/campaign_script.txt:
Could not create mission.
21:49:49.151 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

I have identified both bugs. I need a little time to testing. Hope, I could release new version of the patch this weekend.

[AndrewNik]

[QUOTE=one day;12801721]I´m sorry, I don´t understand. What do you mean ?

After installing the patch, the game does not load.

[one day]

After installing the patch, the game does not load.

Sorry, still too few information. And without patch is your DLV+BB ok ?

[AndrewNik]

Sorry, still too few information. And without patch is your DLV+BB ok ?

Yes, without the patch all is well. In my problem in the file export_descr_buildings txt.

[one day]

Yes, without the patch all is well. In my problem in the file export_descr_buildings txt.

How do you know this ? In EDB there is repair of the Tengriism by Drinka. There is no evidently problem for DLV. Have you tried new campaign ? Anyway trace log.txt would be good .

[one day]

There is new version with two parts. See post #1, please.