Upcoming Imperial Edition Patch

[Silven]

Hello everyone! After hearing about the new patch and free campaign map that is soon to be released, I wanted to make this simple post to let everyone know I'm excited for what the new politics system might bring and how it will affect STIM. I think it's a safe assumption that this patch, which has been announced to be released on the 16th of Sept, will be rather large and probably make some pretty big changes.

My most recent work has been focused on updating STIM to include the new female units introduced by the last Daughters of Mars FLC. And I had the patch about half-way complete before I learned of this next patch due on the 16th. As a result, I will be postponing any further work on updating STIM until CA releases their content on the 16th. The Imperial Edition patch is supposedly going to include battlemap balancing, which usually means unit stat changes and morale rule changes. So it doesn't make much sense to update, include, and balance the new female units when they are just going to be changed again in a week. So following the release of this CA patch, you can all expect the next STIM patch to include the Daughters of Mars content and to have everything balanced and in working order.

In addition to these updates for STIM, the next revision will also include some further testing and balancing of the morale system following a few complaints that certain units take an unreasonable amount of time to break. I will also be taking a further in-depth look at the balance of Elephants and War Chariots, since these have been reported as overpowered for some time now.

You might be coming to the conclusion by now that this next update for STIM is going to a pretty big one, and a little more reminiscent of the large scope of the updates that STIM used to undergo back when it was first being developed, and you would be correct. It is for this reason that I would like everyone to place all their major concerns and feature requests that they've had for a long time here in this thread. I intend to spend a lot of time on this next patch, so now is the perfect time to round up all these big and small ideas and take care of them all at the same time. I will do my best to address each and every one of them, and let you know if your ideas are both feasible and desirable for the goals of this mod.

Hopefully all of the new features and updates of the imminent CA patch, combined with this next major revision of STIM, will finally bring forward the Golden Age of Rome II gaming!

Cheers!
-Silven

[yar987]

Great news!

There is a beta of the patch available, if you're interested in getting a look at what most of the changes are.

[cherryfunk]

Excellent news! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

I would agree with the comments about elephants and chariots being over-powered. I'm also wondering if it's possible to bring some balance to the Very Hard difficulty so it's not quite as insane? (In short, I sort of feel that VH should be the 'hard' difficulty and H the 'normal' -- which seems to be what CA intended since the game defaults to Hard...)

[yaVuz]

Waiting for it^^

[Reggum]

Hope it coming along nicely

[Silven]

Update #1.

Update is coming along nicely. It is absolutely massive as I expected. 174 tables were altered in this update. The land_units table is likely going to take an entire day all on its own (every single unit in the game had something about it changed). I'd estimate the compatibility update phase about 25% done at this point. After that part is done comes the 'improving STIM' phase, which will involve a lot of play testing to make sure things are working as intended.

Please stay patient with me fellow mod users! Try not to forget I am only one person working on this mod and work and other real-life things continue to be a big sink of my time. Slow and steady wins the race.

[Grundhelm]

Take your time mate, we will wait for it because it will be great I am sure.

[cherryfunk]

Please stay patient with me fellow mod users! Try not to forget am only one person working on this mod and work and other real-life things continue to be a big sink of my time. Slow and steady wins the race.

Yes, take your time and get it right! This break gives us a chance to play some vanilla (*shudder*) and try a few other mods, making us realize just how good STIM is!

[Silven]

Update #2.

The DB tables are DONE!!


After I finished the land_units table earlier today I just couldn't pull myself away from getting more done since that in itself was such a huge hurdle. 12 hours, several pee breaks, and a Papa Johns pizza later; the db portion of the update is finally complete. This means the compatibility phase is about 90% complete before I can start play testing things. All that's left is the scripting.lua and startpos.esf in the campaigns folder, the lua_scripts folder itself (which houses the instructions for major factions to stop getting run over by minors), and some UI stuff for the frontend. After I finish that stuff up tomorrow, I can start testing how the new and improved STIM and EE are communicating with each other and look to wrapping this beeotch up and slapping a bow on it for all of you to enjoy.

The end is nigh!!

[Yarev]

Great can't wait, I didn't play the new campaign since there's no point playing the vanilla so I count the hours for stim...

[Silven]

Update #3.

STIM is 100% operational again. I didn't even notice the incredibly huge and game-changing shakeup of the new building_key designations until the last minute, and despite a nagging missed comma in my script that held me up for 2 hours, the core mod is completely finished and Rome 2 ready. The building_key change means that the unit unlock order shuffle that STIM previously implemented will probably no longer be necessary, and it has been removed for this next release. If after several hours of playing, testing, and feedback it turns out that a shuffle is still needed; then I'll bring it back if that time comes. In the meantime, STEP will probably be all that's necessary to make unit unlocks work out nicely and make sense in-game.

Which brings me to the next step of the update process. STEP now needs to be brought up to speed, but it shouldn't take nearly as long. Maybe half a day at most. Once I get STEP in line with STIM at 100% working order, the testing phase can begin. The testing phase will involve making sure all the mod edits are doing what they're supposed to be doing, and fine-tuning and tweaking unit balance.

I expect to have everything ready for the testing phase before the start of this weekend, but then things are gonna have to be put on hold until next week as I'm going to be super super busy with work this weekend. I'll do my best to sneak in some testing time and answer questions here on the forum though.

[cherryfunk]

Nice! You work fast... looking forward to taking this baby for a spin

[arthuros]

Testing, who needs testing.. just do it -CA&Sega way and release it already

[Silven]

Testing, who needs testing.. just do it -CA&Sega way and release it already

Hahahaha, this made me laugh. Think I woke up the cat. XD

[Silven]

Update #4.

STEP's update process is complete, and working in-game. I managed to get about 5 or 6 custom battle tests done tonight using both STIM-modded vanilla units and STEP units. Kill rates and morale loss were initially taking way too long, in the order of 30 minute long battles. But this is why we test things right!? After tweaking and testing several times, Kill rates and morale swings are almost in the sweet spot. 20 unit vs 20 unit battles are taking somewhere in the range of 20 minutes (give or take 5 minutes), and units are showing dynamic morale shifts. Low grade units exhibit panic when encircled even early in the battle, with wavering morale flags and in rare cases might even break early. Units that break while the fight is still up in the air will routinely return to the fray after regaining their composure. High grade units are stalwart and stand their ground even after taking heavy casualties. But routing friends, dead generals, imminent army destruction, and finding themselves encircled could all be the one thing to tip them over the breaking point.

I tried a battle in which I was greatly outnumbered, but with superior quality units. The AI swiftly attempted to encircle my position with its cavalry, but my high-grade pikemen made quick work of them while my 4 Hoplite Phalanx's held the rest of the opposing army in place. Overall the pace and impact of the battle was pretty satisfying.

I'm chomping at the bits to do my final full campaign test so I can make the final adjustments and start typing out the newest changelog (which is gonna be a thousand miles long). Unfortunately my long work weekend starts in 8 hours and I've gotta get some rest. As I mentioned before I'll try to pop in when I can, but otherwise I'll see you all on Monday!

[cherryfunk]

Excellent, sounds like you're getting close -- those battle descriptions are exactly how I like it to play!

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Mate, can you make scenario mods?

I really see less of them nowadays, and they need to be made. I would like to have five/six scenario campaigns in this mod or others.

[Silven]

I'm not sure what you mean by scenario mods? At any rate the next update for STIM won't contain any of what I think you're talking about. 3rd Party sub-mods are something I'd always be open to, though.

Going back to the thread topic though, today Arizona got hit with some really bizarre weather and it led to me coming home much earlier than expected; Which gave me the opportunity to do some unexpected extra testing, and battle balance is nearly perfect for where I want it. A few extra hours on the campaign map for QA bug-hunting and STIM 4.0 will be all ready for shipping! Stay tuned!

[Reggum]

oh great news, good job mate. Question does this mod work with all the campaigns or just grand campaign and is TTT mod compatible with this mod?

Thanks again for your work.

[k995]

I'm not sure what you mean by scenario mods? At any rate the next update for STIM won't contain any of what I think you're talking about. 3rd Party sub-mods are something I'd always be open to, though.

Going back to the thread topic though, today Arizona got hit with some really bizarre weather and it led to me coming home much earlier than expected; Which gave me the opportunity to do some unexpected extra testing, and battle balance is nearly perfect for where I want it. A few extra hours on the campaign map for QA bug-hunting and STIM 4.0 will be all ready for shipping! Stay tuned!