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Thread: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

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    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    With all the hub-bub and controversy over Rome2...some loving it, and some not so much, I think it's necessary (at least for me) to do some thinking about the future of RS2. A lot of people have praised it and shown support for it....so here's an opportunity to voice ideas, likes, dislikes....and in short, provide some ideas for me to make it even better. I can't offer sea battles, or anything that RTW just can't do, but there are things that can be done to some extent, and are at least worth a try.

    For example, I aim to try and improve Diplomacy in RS2 by any means I can find to do it. I can't change the code that is there, or necessarily the way it works. But I may be able to affect a faction's choices regarding diplomacy by either rewarding it, or punishing it for a wrong choice. For example, you are allied with faction 'X', and then for no reason, they betray and attack you. My solution to this would be a set of traits, given to the faction leader involved, and then propagated to all named characters (visible in the FL's list, but hidden in all the other's). The 'good' trait would give a bonus for the alliance of faction 'x' with faction 'y'...probably a trade bonus....as long as the two factions are allied. If the alliance is broken, the faction will suffer a penalty, on the other hand, that takes away the bonus and gives a trait with a tax penalty (negative trade bonuses don't work). Triggers would determine whether the player or the AI faction broke the alliance....at least I 'think' this may be possible.

    I'd also like to find ways to at least simulate better a more active diplomacy...by giving Diplomats rewards for brokering deals with factions.....such as, 'Made peace with Macedon', or something like that. In other words, a sort of rewards system like Roman Generals can get.

    *************************************************************

    I am also seeking and hoping for someone who can help or figure out either WHY all the buildings in a settlement can't be seen in the normal Strat UI...OR....find a way that the 'destroy buildings' button in the building browser could be activated so that they could be destroyed there. You can see the buildings there, but you can't get rid of them if you wanted. The button is just always disabled. Frustrating, and I'd love to fix this.

    *************************************************************

    I am going to remove all but one of the Temple trees from RS2, and maybe expand that tree to 8 or 9 levels. Now, before you all seek to tar and feather me, let me explain why. The EDB in RS2 is only one or two short of the max trees allowed, and I need extra ones for other things. So what I have done in a test bed for all of this, is have one temple..rather expensive...with a lot of nice bonuses. To ease the pain of removing the others, I created ancillaries (priest and priestess) for all the gods in the game (with the descriptions for them including the old temple descriptions), and then used the triggers to limit them so that any one character can only get one of them. In this way, a lot of characters will get one, and they are more diversified, and virtually nothing is lost concerning the gods of all these factions (except the buildings).

    **Edit: I like the idea of leaving at least one temple in each of the categories that currently exist in RS2. I will probably do that instead.

    **************************************************************

    With the additional building slots, I am going to continue working on more specific differences between Governors and Generals, and drastically change the way the Romans (at first) recruit units. The first change will be to 'revise' the descriptions of the current RTW 'mines and mines+1' buildings and use the Strat model that is generated when you build a mine to instead represent a 'Fortified' city....by showing a little castle model next to the city in question (lifted from M2TW). This will be an important and necessary change, I feel, because I want it to be easy for the player to identify a fortified city since the best units he\she can recruit will be recruitable only in those cities. And building a Fortified City will be a 'permanent' choice....one needing forethought and planning during a campaign. This type of city will be upgradeable to a 'Merged City'...with some of the benefits of an 'Economic' city, in allowing a number of other buildings to be built. Also, only Fortified and Merged cities will be able to build Stone walls or above. Fortified cities will not make a lot of money...if any. The idea will be to encourage a majority of 'Economic' cities to support the Fortified ones...ala Rome2.

    Economic cities, on the other hand, will be the money makers. You'll be able to build all the economic buildings to all levels....in effect, all buildings except walls and barracks above a certain level.

    **Edit: This is what a Fortified city would look like as of now:

    take a screenshot

    The old mining tree will be merged with the other mining tree in RS2 and added to the 'top' of it. Gold and Silver will be merged into one resource, and no little mining model will show anymore. I figure it's time that things change anyway, and the mining model is of less importance to me than implementing this change. I have to use one of the resources...either gold or silver, in order to show the little castle, so that's why they will be merged.

    **Edit: To answer several questions, historically important cities will have stone walls as they do now in RS2. That's a given. Also, it will be the player faction that gets to make these 'economic\fortified' decisions, not the AI. That's the beauty of having all these separate campaigns, because each one can be tailored for the faction being played.

    ************************************************************

    The Roman barracks system will change drastically. There are several reasons for this, based on player input and my own dislikes of the current system.....and this will provide a better solution to all. First, I much preferred the Legion recruitment setup in RS1, where you were limited to 'a' Legion in a region. It caused retraining issues, yes, but it also made it a real challenge to expand historically. The current RS2 system allows Legions to be recruited in a lot of different regions, and it makes it far too easy IMHO.
    So I want to have a system that sort of applies both ideas in a different way, and adds to or expands on some old ones.

    First of all, the current 'Marian Reforms' event will be done away with and replaced with a fully 'player controlled' building. You build it, and the Marian Reforms occur. You don't build it, and you can play the whole game with the Polybians if you choose. Building it will allow the 'Roman Legionary' and 1st cohort to appear, and all other pre-Marian units will disappear. You can stop there if you wish, and play the whole campaign that way.

    Second, building the 'Imperial Reforms' building will 'unlock' all of the named and numbered Legions and Auxilia units. The generic Roman Legionary will disappear, and be replaced with all the new units.

    **Edit: Some have mentioned that prefer not to have this choice, however, there are a couple reasons for this. First, the Marian Reforms event is based solely on an Imperial Palace being built in 'a' particular city. It is likely this will be a Roman city, therefore the choice is there anyway to build it or not....and it makes no sense to tie this event any longer to a core building (that will unlock other buildings if built), when it can be just 'any' building and have the same effect. The second reason is that the 'means' of having these reforms work right is dependent on building a building that has the exact correct weapons bonuses in it, that can be applied faction wide.

    All of this will be done with two distinct yet 'linked' Roman barracks trees that will serve separate functions. The 'basic barracks' will consist mostly of the current RS2 barracks, except that, outside your 'home' territories, you will only be able to build this tree up to the 'order3' or first 'city' level. Economic cities will never be allowed to build any barracks beyond this level (but it will still provide some decent units anyway). In your 'home' territories (which for the Romans in RS2 is 'area6'), the Field of Mars will unlock three 'Italian Roman Fortress' choices. Regardless of when you build them, the idea is to plan ahead in terms of which Early named and numbered Legions you want to recruit where. There will be 3-4 Legions recruitable in each one, and you will be able to see which ones, even though they aren't yet recruitable. In these 'Italian Fortresses', Auxilia units will be available after Imperial Reforms in this building (determined by an AOR).

    Outside your home territories, building the 'order3' (Roman Military Base) building will unlock 5 or 6 'Roman Fortress' buildings.
    In these, various Early and Imperial Legions will be available, 4-5 of them per building, and as above, you'll be able to see which ones. In this way, you'll be able to strategically place Fortified cities with Legions recruitable in them as you wish. You can have 'Roman Fortress I' in several regions near each other if you wish (to make retraining easier), or you can have 4-5 different ones with nearly the full list of Legions available between them. Auxilia units will be available as well, but they have to have an AOR to prevent cue overload.

    The Citizenship building will also change. It will be required to build a Fortress, but their will one for Fortified Cities, and one for Economic cities. In economic cities, the AOR\merc units will remain available. In Fortified cities, they will disappear. Again, this is to prevent cue overload.

    I have this all up and working in a test bed, and believe me, it's pretty cool. And it's not as complicated as it sounds.

    **********************************************************

    Note to bobbyr: I have been toying with an Augustan era campaign for a long time, and want eventually to do one. Having three or Four Roman factions fighting each other (Antony, Octavian, Pompeii, etc.) would be pretty cool. And having the actual Legions involved even cooler.

    Note to All: Regarding costs increasing as time passes. This is going to be an important objective of mine to make the later campaign...as some have said...less boring. One thing I'm considering to deal with the proliferation of armies (particularly in 0-turn) is a 'field attrition' script entry that was originally in BareBones Wars (by Repman). I like the idea because it will not only affect the player, but the AI as well for having a ton of armies sitting around doing nothing. But I am also considering ideas that would use the number of regions held (aside from the rebellion) to trigger certain events that would add to the peril of your empire. What that is I haven't decided...but I'm open to suggestions.

    **********************************************************

    Traits and ancillaries are going to be redone somewhat (especially triggers for a lot of things), first of all to fix problems with 'event' triggers that don't 'quite' work as they should. There will also be a system put in place that will essentially 'create a character', with basic personality traits, who from then on will be 'static' except in the case of military and government traits (for the most part). No more gobs of ongoing personality traits being gained.

    While doing this, I want to put a large emphasis on 'traits that matter', rather than superfluous things that just make the list scroll. Government, military...these are the important things, so expect to see a more streamlined and simpler approach to things like sickness, health, marriage, etc. I want people to care about their Governors and Generals, but be less burdened with some things that people look at once and say: "So what?"

    I am also going to explore ways to refine and expand the kinds of things that affect the loyalty of characters. The BI system is pretty lame, and is basically a system that just slaps loyalty bonuses or penalties on top of existing traits. I want loyalty based on 'reasons', not just math additions or subtraction. So there will be new traits for this, and input\ideas would be greatly appreciated.

    Likewise, ancillaries are going to changed to more specifically target them to Governors and Generals.

    ********************************************************

    New buildings: One that will definitely be added that I can't believe I missed, because it was one of, if not THE most important part of the Roman economy, is a 'Slave Trader' building tree. In researching the Roman economy, I discovered that the slave trade was vital to Roman society, and it really should have a place in this mod.

    Likewise, all cultures except the Eastern ones had a rather vigorous slave trade. So this will eventually apply to most factions.

    Also, I might expand and enhance the 'Grain' buildings to indicate a 'food supply', ala Rome2, and make them more important to settlement health than they are now.

    ********************************************************

    Settlements:

    Now this is a rather expansive idea, and would certainly take some time, help and borrowed models perhaps. One of the main complaints about RTW is that all settlements look the same. So, having learned when I was working on RS2.5 how simple it really is to create specific 'plan_sets' for settlements you want to be unique, it occurred to me that it might be good to make a LOT of them unique....maybe even all of them in some way, shape, or form.

    (I work more on this later, gotta go now.) WIP
    Last edited by dvk901; October 27, 2013 at 05:01 PM.

    Creator of: "Ecce, Roma Surrectum....Behold, Rome Arises!"
    R.I.P. My Beloved Father

  2. #2

    Icon14 Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by dvk901 View Post
    With all the hub-bub and controversy over Rome2...some loving it, and some not so much, I think it's necessary (at least for me) to do some thinking about the future of RS2. A lot of people have praised it and shown support for it....so here's an opportunity to voice ideas, likes, dislikes....and in short, provide some ideas for me to make it even better. I can't offer sea battles, or anything that RTW just can't do, but there are things that can be done to some extent, and are at least worth a try.

    For example, I aim to try and improve Diplomacy in RS2 by any means I can find to do it. I can't change the code that is there, or necessarily the way it works. But I may be able to affect a faction's choices regarding diplomacy by either rewarding it, or punishing it for a wrong choice. For example, you are allied with faction 'X', and then for no reason, they betray and attack you. My solution to this would be a set of traits, given to the faction leader involved, and then propagated to all named characters (visible in the FL's list, but hidden in all the other's). The 'good' trait would give a bonus for the alliance of faction 'x' with faction 'y'...probably a trade bonus....as long as the two factions are allied. If the alliance is broken, the faction will suffer a penalty, on the other hand, that takes away the bonus and gives a trait with a tax penalty (negative trade bonuses don't work). Triggers would determine whether the player or the AI faction broke the alliance....at least I 'think' this may be possible.

    I'd also like to find ways to at least simulate better a more active diplomacy...by giving Diplomats rewards for brokering deals with factions.....such as, 'Made peace with Macedon', or something like that. In other words, a sort of rewards system like Roman Generals can get.

    *************************************************************

    I am also seeking and hoping for someone who can help or figure out either WHY all the buildings in a settlement can't be seen in the normal Strat UI...OR....find a way that the 'destroy buildings' button in the building browser could be activated so that they could be destroyed there. You can see the buildings there, but you can't get rid of them if you wanted. The button is just always disabled. Frustrating, and I'd love to fix this.

    *************************************************************

    I am going to remove all but one of the Temple trees from RS2, and maybe expand that tree to 8 or 9 levels. Now, before you all seek to tar and feather me, let me explain why. The EDB in RS2 is only one or two short of the max trees allowed, and I need extra ones for other things. So what I have done in a test bed for all of this, is have one temple..rather expensive...with a lot of nice bonuses. To ease the pain of removing the others, I created ancillaries (priest and priestess) for all the gods in the game (with the descriptions for them including the old temple descriptions), and then used the triggers to limit them so that any one character can only get one of them. In this way, a lot of characters will get one, and they are more diversified, and virtually nothing is lost concerning the gods of all these factions (except the buildings).

    **************************************************************

    With the additional building slots, I am going to continue working on more specific differences between Governors and Generals, and drastically change the way the Romans (at first) recruit units. The first change will be to 'revise' the descriptions of the current RTW 'mines and mines+1' buildings and use the Strat model that is generated when you build a mine to instead represent a 'Fortified' city....by showing a little castle model next to the city in question (lifted from M2TW). This will be an important and necessary change, I feel, because I want it to be easy for the player to identify a fortified city since the best units he\she can recruit will be recruitable only in those cities. And building a Fortified City will be a 'permanent' choice....one needing forethought and planning during a campaign. This type of city will be upgradeable to a 'Merged City'...with some of the benefits of an 'Economic' city, in allowing a number of other buildings to be built. Also, only Fortified and Merged cities will be able to build Stone walls or above. Fortified cities will not make a lot of money...if any. The idea will be to encourage a majority of 'Economic' cities to support the Fortified ones...ala Rome2.

    Economic cities, on the other hand, will be the money makers. You'll be able to build all the economic buildings to all levels....in effect, all buildings except walls and barracks above a certain level.

    The old mining tree will be merged with the other mining tree in RS2 and added to the 'top' of it. Gold and Silver will be merged into one resource, and no little mining model will show anymore. I figure it's time that things change anyway, and the mining model is of less importance to me than implementing this change. I have to use one of the resources...either gold or silver, in order to show the little castle, so that's why they will be merged.

    ************************************************************

    The Roman barracks system will change drastically. There are several reasons for this, based on player input and my own dislikes of the current system.....and this will provide a better solution to all. First, I much preferred the Legion recruitment setup in RS1, where you were limited to 'a' Legion in a region. It caused retraining issues, yes, but it also made it a real challenge to expand historically. The current RS2 system allows Legions to be recruited in a lot of different regions, and it makes it far too easy IMHO.
    So I want to have a system that sort of applies both ideas in a different way, and adds to or expands on some old ones.

    First of all, the current 'Marian Reforms' event will be done away with and replaced with a fully 'player controlled' building. You build it, and the Marian Reforms occur. You don't build it, and you can play the whole game with the Polybians if you choose. Building it will allow the 'Roman Legionary' and 1st cohort to appear, and all other pre-Marian units will disappear. You can stop there if you wish, and play the whole campaign that way.

    Second, building the 'Imperial Reforms' building will 'unlock' all of the named and numbered Legions and Auxilia units. The generic Roman Legionary will disappear, and be replaced with all the new units.

    All of this will be done with two distinct yet 'linked' Roman barracks trees that will serve separate functions. The 'basic barracks' will consist mostly of the current RS2 barracks, except that, outside your 'home' territories, you will only be able to build this tree up to the 'order3' or first 'city' level. Economic cities will never be allowed to build any barracks beyond this level (but it will still provide some decent units anyway). In your 'home' territories (which for the Romans in RS2 is 'area6').

    (I work more on this later, gotta go now.) WIP

    Damn, you sure like climbing mountains, so to speak. Bravo.
    Need your Rome itch scratched. Head for Total War: eras Forum. Your Empire Beckons.
    RS2,EB1,RTR,SPQR,Diadochi,RTH,Troy,IBFD,Hegemonia City States,77BC FRRE,more.
    EB2 needs modders. click The EBII Recruitment thread, mod Medieval 2 for ancient eras.
    (Now a community service announcement) Feel you're being cheated and deceived by bad game releases? Let us agree, no preorders from any company known to release incomplete games. Wait for the game to come out to decide. This will eventually cut down on bad releases and reduce forums that pit fellow gamers against one another.

  3. #3

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    The Roman barracks system will change drastically. There are several reasons for this, based on player input and my own dislikes of the current system.....and this will provide a better solution to all. First, I much preferred the Legion recruitment setup in RS1, where you were limited to 'a' Legion in a region. It caused retraining issues, yes, but it also made it a real challenge to expand historically. The current RS2 system allows Legions to be recruited in a lot of different regions, and it makes it far too easy IMHO.
    So I want to have a system that sort of applies both ideas in a different way, and adds to or expands on some old ones.
    I am curious about this piece right here. It seems like your focus is specifically on Rome. I find myself playing as other factions more often. And generally as one turn. Do you intend to overhaul all factions or just Rome? Just trying to get clarification.

    Also, if you are going to take it to this level, I wonder if you could change how cavalry are recruited to better reflect the cost and maintenance of these units? I know you have them as cheap as they are because the AI wouldn't otherwise recruit them. I was thinking that by making another tree of buildings to build advanced cavalry units might still get the AI to recruit without them getting so spammy. IMO this is a small issue, but since you're in there...

    ---

    Oh yes, and just so you know RS2's biggest competition for my attention is Stainless Steel. Not because I like it so much, but because that engine runs nicer and more efficiently on the various hardware I've tried. I like the more laid back approach of SS, but the tedious nature of messing with merchants, princesses and missions, and then putting up with the Vatican drives me bonkers.
    I definitely like the diplomacy found in SS, you can actually get an alliance going with a neighbor and keep it the entire campaign. Everything else though I really do prefer RS2. It's just more "fun".
    Last edited by Risasi; October 23, 2013 at 11:24 PM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    I love the mod and I would love to see the things you are talking about implemented. CA made Rome Total War, but it is really people like you that take a videogame and turn it into a masterpiece of love, dedication, and history. When I play RS2 I feel like I am playing a game made by the Shakespeare of videogames. I have repeatedly held up RS2 in particular to friends and family when I talk about why gaming as a medium has so much potential to educate and entertain.
    War is peace.

  5. #5

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    I can't believe you're still going after this latest patch dvk. I have to say, the energy behind this mod is extremely impressive.

  6. #6
    CanOmer's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    If it is possible I would like to see gradual increase of upkeeps and costs over years. In the beginning we had low income and with building upgrades we have much more income. I think some kind of inflation can take place. So, in mid and late game there wouldn't be too many stacks to fight, so, battles wouldn't be boring.
    My Submods For Europa Barbarorum II Clean Campaign Mini Map for EB 2.3 ;

  7. #7
    GeorgiBG's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Seems impressive! I can't say something more.


  8. #8

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by CanOmer View Post
    If it is possible I would like to see gradual increase of upkeeps and costs over years. In the beginning we had low income and with building upgrades we have much more income. I think some kind of inflation can take place. So, in mid and late game there wouldn't be too many stacks to fight, so, battles wouldn't be boring.
    I don't think that can be scripted, but you can edit the EDU yourself to simulate the changes. Obviously I'd be interested if some kind of tool could be made to make this less of a hassle, but I don't think we'll see that for a while

  9. #9
    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    I will do my best to answer all questions posed in here, but they will likely be in the first post as I update it.

    But, I will answer one now, regarding whether just Rome will get attention, or all factions. The answer is that in time, all factions will receive attention. Rome is the most popular, so I'm going to work on them first. Then I'm going to work on Seleucid, because I promised a team member I would. After that, probably the Greek factions, but in what order I don't know.

    I'm going to work on each one individually, as it is too difficult anymore to work on one massive patch. But I think as changes are made, it will get easier to update each one 'quicker'.
    Last edited by dvk901; October 24, 2013 at 10:30 AM.

    Creator of: "Ecce, Roma Surrectum....Behold, Rome Arises!"
    R.I.P. My Beloved Father

  10. #10
    bobbyr's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Apart from the battle Ai - which is hardcoded, RS2.6 is perfect to me.

    The only thing I would really love to finally get is a submod or alternate campaign which starts during the Principate. Maybe right after Augustus death, all the way up to Hadrian's reign.

    I absolutely love the imperial era and RS2 - like no other mod for Rome TW - has the ingredients for a stunning campaign during that time, with the named and numbered Augustan and Imperial legions, plus all of the Auxilia, the map, the traits and ancillaries and the building tree.

    I'm actually quite bored by the Polybian era now and it's so damn long until the Marian reforms happen (If you play with historical accuracy)
    I also find the imperial period much more attractive as a whole setup (the state of the world, the Roman War Machineary and so on).

    So I would go nuts over an Imperial campaign/ submod starting around 9 A.D.

    Cheers




  11. #11

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by bobbyr View Post
    Apart from the battle Ai - which is hardcoded, RS2.6 is perfect to me.
    This expresses the sentiments of this (relative) newcomer to the mod. After playing a number of other mods for RTW and M2TW, RSII is pretty much the best - if only because of unit balancing (this in 2.6). Some mods seem to try to achieve difficulty just to be difficult - as if the modders are saying, "How hard can we make this?" That stops being fun really quick.

    Things that seem a lot better in 2.6 include:

    Unit balance - last night I almost cried when my 5th legion was eaten alive by the Gauls (the averni now). The champions are seriously tough and for the first time, I want to play as a barbarian. But the cool thing is the Gauls don't spam the same units to fill an army. That same army that killed my 5th legion had a unit of levy clubmen, some cavalry, and missile units as well. I can no longer assume my raw Roman units are going to sweep the battlefield.

    The Garrison Script: I used to hate it, now I think I get it.

    Money is more balanced, and I'm not scrambling to find money for a legion, but I'm not spanning legions either.

    Anyway, I find it a challenge and as someone else said a few days ago, RSII (as Rome) is like crack cocaine. It is so much fun to follow and create the history of a unique legion. Great work!

  12. #12

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by dvk901 View Post
    I will do my best to answer all questions posed in here, but they will likely be in the first post as I update it.

    But, I will answer one now, regarding whether just Rome will get attention, or all factions. The answer is that in time, all factions will receive attention. Rome is the most popular, so I'm going to work on them first. Then I'm going to work on Seleucid, because I promised a team member I would. After that, probably the Greek factions, but in what order I don't know.

    I'm going to work on each one individually, as it is too difficult anymore to work on one massive patch. But I think as changes are made, it will get easier to update each one 'quicker'.
    Copy that. I remembered you talking about doing these "small patch" releases, but then the way you were phrasing your plans for Rome at the start of this thread lead me to believe you'd reversed your decision. Probably just my misunderstanding, and I was reading too much into it.

    As some of the others have mentioned, I really don't have any complaints. The battle AI is what it is. It's a toy, and sandbox if you will. A human will always figure out a way to beat the predictable AI.
    This is one reason I really prefer playing battles against other players on a more consistent basis. But fat chance of that happening again with RTW. The MP fanbase is a very fickle crowd, so it's probably a waste of time to even consider trying to improve upon that. I like your ideas, and will be very happy to see diplomacy improve and more focus put into the CAI.

  13. #13

    Icon14 Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by CanOmer View Post
    If it is possible I would like to see gradual increase of upkeeps and costs over years. In the beginning we had low income and with building upgrades we have much more income. I think some kind of inflation can take place. So, in mid and late game there wouldn't be too many stacks to fight, so, battles wouldn't be boring.
    Hey CanOmer, I think your on to something there, but its hard to see how that could be implemented. Possibly when an Empire hits a certain tax level or more likely, capture a certain amount of cities, maybe a script would then be activated(maybe randomly) to similate inflation to say +50% for all building and recruiting/maintenance costs.

    Man that would slow the economies and recruiting down. But even if such a thing where possible, it sounds like a lot of work and there's already alot on the table for RS2. But I do like your idea. We know inflation in the Roman empire was a problem.
    Need your Rome itch scratched. Head for Total War: eras Forum. Your Empire Beckons.
    RS2,EB1,RTR,SPQR,Diadochi,RTH,Troy,IBFD,Hegemonia City States,77BC FRRE,more.
    EB2 needs modders. click The EBII Recruitment thread, mod Medieval 2 for ancient eras.
    (Now a community service announcement) Feel you're being cheated and deceived by bad game releases? Let us agree, no preorders from any company known to release incomplete games. Wait for the game to come out to decide. This will eventually cut down on bad releases and reduce forums that pit fellow gamers against one another.

  14. #14

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Just a thought: I've been thinking if it is possible a change in the game mechanics. If we are commanding a small territory we should not be able to field big armies consisting of "home" troops. Our armies should be either small or a mixture of "home" troops and mercenaries. Therefore I'm suggesting a redical increase in the "home" troops costs and a rather low price in most mercenaries (with the exemption of the elite ones, i.e. cretan archers). Thus the game might become more realistic and even more challenging. And as we conquer new regions, the home troops could be increased due to bigger income. As I mentioned above it is merely a thought. Any comments?

  15. #15
    High Fist's Avatar Vicarius
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by dvk901 View Post
    With the additional building slots, I am going to continue working on more specific differences between Governors and Generals, and drastically change the way the Romans (at first) recruit units. The first change will be to 'revise' the descriptions of the current RTW 'mines and mines+1' buildings and use the Strat model that is generated when you build a mine to instead represent a 'Fortified' city....by showing a little castle model next to the city in question (lifted from M2TW). This will be an important and necessary change, I feel, because I want it to be easy for the player to identify a fortified city since the best units he\she can recruit will be recruitable only in those cities. And building a Fortified City will be a 'permanent' choice....one needing forethought and planning during a campaign. This type of city will be upgradeable to a 'Merged City'...with some of the benefits of an 'Economic' city, in allowing a number of other buildings to be built. Also, only Fortified and Merged cities will be able to build Stone walls or above. Fortified cities will not make a lot of money...if any. The idea will be to encourage a majority of 'Economic' cities to support the Fortified ones...ala Rome2.
    Lovely. Will we be able to see screens of the fort model before the next version?

    The Roman barracks system will change drastically. There are several reasons for this, based on player input and my own dislikes of the current system.....and this will provide a better solution to all. First, I much preferred the Legion recruitment setup in RS1, where you were limited to 'a' Legion in a region. It caused retraining issues, yes, but it also made it a real challenge to expand historically. The current RS2 system allows Legions to be recruited in a lot of different regions, and it makes it far too easy IMHO.
    So I want to have a system that sort of applies both ideas in a different way, and adds to or expands on some old ones...

    ...All of this will be done with two distinct yet 'linked' Roman barracks trees that will serve separate functions. The 'basic barracks' will consist mostly of the current RS2 barracks, except that, outside your 'home' territories, you will only be able to build this tree up to the 'order3' or first 'city' level. Economic cities will never be allowed to build any barracks beyond this level (but it will still provide some decent units anyway). In your 'home' territories (which for the Romans in RS2 is 'area6').
    Sounds very interesting. Would your "Home" territories be cities with citizenship granted to them, or simply regions in Italy?


    Quote Originally Posted by Mirionis9 View Post
    Just a thought: I've been thinking if it is possible a change in the game mechanics. If we are commanding a small territory we should not be able to field big armies consisting of "home" troops. Our armies should be either small or a mixture of "home" troops and mercenaries. Therefore I'm suggesting a redical increase in the "home" troops costs and a rather low price in most mercenaries (with the exemption of the elite ones, i.e. cretan archers). Thus the game might become more realistic and even more challenging. And as we conquer new regions, the home troops could be increased due to bigger income. As I mentioned above it is merely a thought. Any comments?
    Well,
    depending on what faction you're playing as, mercenaries would cost much more than "home" troops. Y'see, Roman soldiers (Pre-Marian) had to pay for their own equipment, as were the Greeks. In Carthage the Sacred Band of Ba'al was a force consisting of Carthaginian citizens, but I don't think they were paid much in the way of upkeep as they were already loaded.
    Mercenaries should cost a good bit though, they're fighting for money, not their home.
    Last edited by High Fist; October 24, 2013 at 02:08 PM.
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  16. #16
    SD_Man's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by dvk901 View Post
    **************************************************************

    With the additional building slots, I am going to continue working on more specific differences between Governors and Generals, and drastically change the way the Romans (at first) recruit units. The first change will be to 'revise' the descriptions of the current RTW 'mines and mines+1' buildings and use the Strat model that is generated when you build a mine to instead represent a 'Fortified' city....by showing a little castle model next to the city in question (lifted from M2TW). This will be an important and necessary change, I feel, because I want it to be easy for the player to identify a fortified city since the best units he\she can recruit will be recruitable only in those cities. And building a Fortified City will be a 'permanent' choice....one needing forethought and planning during a campaign. This type of city will be upgradeable to a 'Merged City'...with some of the benefits of an 'Economic' city, in allowing a number of other buildings to be built. Also, only Fortified and Merged cities will be able to build Stone walls or above. Fortified cities will not make a lot of money...if any. The idea will be to encourage a majority of 'Economic' cities to support the Fortified ones...ala Rome2.

    Economic cities, on the other hand, will be the money makers. You'll be able to build all the economic buildings to all levels....in effect, all buildings except walls and barracks above a certain level.

    The old mining tree will be merged with the other mining tree in RS2 and added to the 'top' of it. Gold and Silver will be merged into one resource, and no little mining model will show anymore. I figure it's time that things change anyway, and the mining model is of less importance to me than implementing this change. I have to use one of the resources...either gold or silver, in order to show the little castle, so that's why they will be merged.

    ************************************************************
    I would like to know, how would this "fortifying system" affect the "big cities" (Rome, Carthage, etc)? Will these economic cities have special treatment and be allowed to build large walls or armies, as they traditionally did?

  17. #17

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    OK, lets go down the list:

    Diplomacy:
    I like your idea a lot, however, I'm concerned that you might be overestimating the capabilities of the AI. Those consequence you intend to introduce might not figure into the decision making of the AI, so in effect it's possible that you will punish bad behaviour but that would not promote good behaviour whatsoever. So we will have AI factions being stupid as always, just being additionally weakened by the negative reinforcement that isn't actually working.

    Temples:
    I understand the scarcity of programming resources but I would advise against scrapping all of the temple trees - it removes diversity and players' choice to a large degree and thus I believe would be detrimental to immersion (which is mostly what keeps me playing a mod of a decade old game).

    I would instead keep three mutually exclusive trees - Temple of Fertility, War and Law(Supreme Deity). My idea is that the building tree would start with bonuses in the implied major area - say command stars for War complex and influence and law bonuses for a Supreme Deity complex. Then, as the temple complex grows, the bonuses in this major area (Fertility/War/Law) would get stronger and more varied, while also adding small temples of other deities, which will provide very minor bonuses along the lines of that deity's main characteristics, plus the possibility to get a priest ancillary of that deity. You could also vary those bonuses a little - e.g. War Temple gets a shrine of Hephaestus at some level and it contributes an increase in trade goods and another level for weapons/armor, while Fertility Temple would get the same shrine but the bonuses would be increase in trade goods and more tax. Both would still have a chance of giving the priest of Hephaestus ancillary though.

    Another fun thing would be to make most deities available to two of the building trees but not the third - e.g. the War Temple and the Fertility Temple get a shrine of the Trickster (Hermes, Mercury, etc.) added at level 4 but the Law temple never gets it.

    Also, if possible without allocating more resources, varying the bonuses depending on the faction or culture would be great. For example, Carthage gets better trade bonus from Temple of Fertility, while Celts get a better population growth bonus, Romans would get better farm production and Greek factions would get a little of farms and trade bonuses. Progressing along the tree would grant the same increases and additions to all, thus keeping the initial diversity between factions.

    Economic vs. Fortified Cities
    I'm all for it, but there's one thing that must be handled correctly or it will screw the whole mod irreparably - what if I conquer a city from an enemy that has developed it not at all like I would? For example, I take Carthago Nova and decide to use it as a military staging ground for my further Iberian operations, but the Carthaginian AI has already developed it as an economic contributor. The AI would effectively limit my recruitment options before I ever get a chance to choose.

    Roman Recruitment:
    In dvk901 we trust.
    Just make sure the AI is not able to rush to Imperial legions - those stacks are incredibly hard to beat.


    Other:
    "Steal" the whole naval aspect of RTR VII - unit balancing, sea lanes, ancillaries and traits that add movement... IMO that's a thing they got quite right.

    Modify the assassination chances - right now it can be incredibly hard and frustrating to get rid of an enemy assassin that kills your best and brightest one after the other. Also, adding a few more traits to the FL based off of agent usage would be a nice touch - like Spy Network, Diplomat Savant, etc.
    Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana...

  18. #18
    Rex Basiliscus's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by CanOmer View Post
    If it is possible I would like to see gradual increase of upkeeps and costs over years. In the beginning we had low income and with building upgrades we have much more income. I think some kind of inflation can take place. So, in mid and late game there wouldn't be too many stacks to fight, so, battles wouldn't be boring.
    Quote Originally Posted by stackero View Post
    Hey CanOmer, I think your on to something there, but its hard to see how that could be implemented. Possibly when an Empire hits a certain tax level or more likely, capture a certain amount of cities, maybe a script would then be activated(maybe randomly) to similate inflation to say +50% for all building and recruiting/maintenance costs.

    Man that would slow the economies and recruiting down. But even if such a thing where possible, it sounds like a lot of work and there's already alot on the table for RS2. But I do like your idea. We know inflation in the Roman empire was a problem.
    That is a very intriguing idea ... chris10, the creator of 'Five good Emperors' mod for RSII used a script in it, that after a certain amount of years passed, and based on the amount of settlements you own, took away a certain amount of money from your treasury. Now, he'd done that to offset the big differences between end-turn treasury balance, but I think something can be done with this ...

    Ofc, that would mean extra work for dvk, because the team is very short on manpower

    Quote Originally Posted by SD_Man View Post
    I would like to know, how would this "fortifying system" affect the "big cities" (Rome, Carthage, etc)? Will these economic cities have special treatment and be allowed to build large walls or armies, as they traditionally did?
    The 'big cities' as you call them: Rome, Carthage, Pella, Antiocheia, Alexandria etc., already have stone walls and can recruit the best units. I think the starting situation won't be much different to as it is in 2.6, where the historically important and large cities were like that. You'll be able to choose how other cities will 'contribute' to your campaign by choosing the path dvk described. And this doesn't mean that they will become similar to castles in M2TW in appearance, but will have the option to actually build walls, unlike the economic ones ... at least that's how I understood dvk.

  19. #19

    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    I actually like the way that the Reforms are currently represented. Historically, they did not occur purely as the result of choice, but rather of necessity; the Polybian system was highly Republican, and the change to the Marian system was a paradigm shift that would have grave consequences. In other words, the Reforms would never have occurred in lieu of the major extenuating circumstances that necessitated them. Making it a simple choice would dilute their importance, IMO. R2TW already does this, and I don't like it.

  20. #20
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    Default Re: RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

    Quote Originally Posted by dvk901 View Post
    But I may be able to affect a faction's choices regarding diplomacy by either rewarding it, or punishing it for a wrong choice. For example, you are allied with faction 'X', and then for no reason, they betray and attack you. My solution to this would be a set of traits, given to the faction leader involved, and then propagated to all named characters (visible in the FL's list, but hidden in all the other's). The 'good' trait would give a bonus for the alliance of faction 'x' with faction 'y'...probably a trade bonus....as long as the two factions are allied. If the alliance is broken, the faction will suffer a penalty, on the other hand, that takes away the bonus and gives a trait with a tax penalty (negative trade bonuses don't work). Triggers would determine whether the player or the AI faction broke the alliance....at least I 'think' this may be possible.
    Although this sounds very cool and all, but I highly doubt this AI would ever understand the nature of importance of their own trade routes and the economical penalties involved in breaking an alliance with the player. Whereas a player will then be forced in this system to limit itself in his intentions and make himself artificially feel safe, right before a random "ALLY" boat comes and blockade your port.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mirionis9 View Post
    Just a thought: I've been thinking if it is possible a change in the game mechanics. If we are commanding a small territory we should not be able to field big armies consisting of "home" troops. Our armies should be either small or a mixture of "home" troops and mercenaries. Therefore I'm suggesting a redical increase in the "home" troops costs and a rather low price in most mercenaries (with the exemption of the elite ones, i.e. cretan archers). Thus the game might become more realistic and even more challenging. And as we conquer new regions, the home troops could be increased due to bigger income. As I mentioned above it is merely a thought. Any comments?
    This is quite interesting, but slightly out of era I think. This would more likely work for the city states epochs, where the citizens would be the heavy and veteran core of the troops. And meteks, or mercenaries, would form the levy or light armed force. This would only work in RS2 for a faction like for exemple Sparta.
    Last edited by jrhindo; October 24, 2013 at 04:39 PM.

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