Empire Realism - Feedback and General Discussion

[JaM]

i'll release it tomorrow. no worries.

[MR.Buttons]

cool you deserve a nice break after this release

[Marcus Vitruvius]

Really excited for this next release. I played a bit of the previous one and I for one am happy with your decision to revert the firing lines to back the way they were. While it might cause problems with column formations, it looks the most appealing. Looking forward to the next version and playthrough, thank you for the work.

[JaM]

Some further changes to campaign gameplay:

- Religion unhappiness reworked. All religions will now react much worse than before, certain religions got large unhappiness bonuses based on historical info
- Spawn for priests restored back, to give player and AI ability to convert population
- Spawn for eastern scholars reduced
- Spawn for Gentleman reduced, but more Gentleman allowed for single research, to reward focus on enlightenment


Religion changes follow historic path, plus i wanted to create typical struggle between nations. Goal was to punish quick conquests of regions of completely different cultures, while effect is especially increased for some typical enemies - Protestants vs Orthodox should make Sweden vs Russia more interesting for both, as well as Austria vs Ottomans or Prussia. Similarly, Mughals vs Maratha fight will be also a bit more about religion hate between islamic and Hindu/Budhists (with Sikh in the middle). English vs French in North America will also gain another level thanks to this change.

[JaM]

During testing i discovered a bug with rebellion units, which were in some regions composed purely of arty units. Only way how to fix it is to update startpos, but that means this fix will be not save game compatible and will require new game to work properly. (fixed startpos will be included in today's release)

[JaM]

Empire Realism 4.7 was released

[MR.Buttons]

Omg. many thanks you are god jam

[poa]

i once burned myself out on my favorite game by too much test-runs on my modifications, i no longer play it.
i hope you dont suffer that fate JaM

[JaM]

i had a good break doing Rome 2 mods, yet after a while i just realized Rome 2 is actually less playable than good old Empire... CA focused on eyecandy, but gameplay suffers big time..

[JaM]

btw, 4.7 is the last version released within ER4 bundle. I'm already gathering stuff for ER 5.0, which will bring some major reworks, especially to units, recruitment area, new graphic and also long planned overhaul for eastern factions.

[Maurits]

Good to see that you're still working on this JaM. I had some great times last weekend playing ER again, got my mind off my studies for a bit. One thing I wondered about, though. The campaign AI seemed a bit passive to me when playing as Spain, only Britain kept sending fleets to Gibraltar and that was about it. Is this being caused by me using normal/normal settings?

[JaM]

yeah, AI is usually more active on higher difficulties, especially on VH.

[Marcus Vitruvius]

When can we expect the 5.0 release? Am I better off waiting for the next major release instead of playing a long campaign (my last one lasted 200+ turns) with 4.7?

[JaM]

that will take some time... no need to wait and not playing 4.7.. i'm in material hoarding phase, so 5.0 will take few weeks, maybe even months.. It wont be minor update, but a major one.

[Blackader]

Hello,

I am a little bit confused with campaign scripts. As far as I understand, I have to choose the script for the faction I want to play, correct? And I extract in campaign folder, replacing the old scripting-lua file, still correct?
And if I stop my prussian camapign, and I will to test an austrian campaign, I have to do the same with austrian campaign script, right?

[Heptagenia]

Hello,

I am a little bit confused with campaign scripts. As far as I understand, I have to choose the script for the faction I want to play, correct? And I extract in campaign folder, replacing the old scripting-lua file, still correct?
And if I stop my prussian camapign, and I will to test an austrian campaign, I have to do the same with austrian campaign script, right?

right

[JaM]

yes, these scripts prevent AI from trading land with other AI factions and are faction specific. WHich means, if you dont switch to proper file, then you wont be able to initiate land trade for that faction.

[JaM]

One thing i plan to update in near future is the size of naval guns. While right now entities are scaled based on caliber, their radius is not set as precisely. I will adjust the size of the footprint of all naval guns, so chance to hit them in naval battle will be more realistic. Main change will be not as visible in normal side vs side broadside exchanges, but will be much more visible in raking fire, as guns will have smaller frontal profile when ships are side by side, but will be much bigger targets when hit from ship rear side (just imagine a gun and its profile and how it is placed on ship to get the idea how it will work) Raking fire was so effective because all roundshots would travel through the whole ship length, while having much higher chance to hit guns,masts and men as they are proportionally much larger target.

[Marcus Vitruvius]

Question for you JaM - I've noticed that some of the units on the British roster cannot be recruited such as Hessian Grenadiers (they don't appear at all) even though I have built the necessary technological and building requirements. Where in the DB files do I go to correct this?

[JaM]

Hessians are now restricted to Hessen.. so practically you need to own the province to be able to recruit them. British king was also king of Hanover, and Duke of Brunswick, while 12.000 Hessian soldiers were originally provided by Frederick II Von Hessen Kassel, who was an uncle to British King.

Thing is, at this point it is problematic to simulate this somehow, so i have linked these with province of Hannover. Anyway, i think i could adjust the British script a bit, and give Hannover under British control around year 1715 in future updates, which could create a possible tension in Western Europe


I will be releasing a small update for ER in next few days, adding few changes i made recently for NER, and this script might be part of that release.