Revised Diplomatic Effects - Imperium and Cultural Effects

[Augustusng]

This is an early version of a mod to change the dynamics of the diplomacy in Attila, based on Osbot's idea in this thread.

For now, all I've done here is to change:

• Imperium level diplomatic penalties - 1/2 of vanilla values.
• CAI religious, cultural, and imperium-based personality traits (hates rival empires, culturally tolerant, etc) - 2x vanilla values.
• Reworked religious relations.
• The balance of political power within your faction now affects diplomacy (shown as part of the "Great Power" effect on the diplomacy screen). Let me know if this makes diplomacy too easy, but hopefully some factions will still hate you.

Very simple, but it means that the personality and political power of leaders will have a bigger impact on diplomatic relations, while imperium level has a smaller one. I might add more to this mod and flesh it out once I know this basic part is working as it should.

It seems to be working, so I'll take it out of WIP status. I'll try adding more effects later on.

Download Link:
Mediafire
Steam Workshop Link

Thanks to:
Osbot for the initial idea.
Sithrain and his politics mod for the idea to attach diplomatic effects to political power levels.

Update Log:
3/4/2015 - Added political power diplomatic effect.
3/5/2015 - Fixed the political power effect by adding a new effect.
3/5/2015, again - Actually (hopefully) fixed that new effect this time.
3/25/2015 - Updated for the Tin Isles Patch (Rebalanced Great Power effects).
4/29/2015 - Fixed a few things, and made some changes to religious relations.
9/16/2015 - Updated for the Empires of Sand DLC, added new religious relations entries for the new religions, and added a Mediafire link.
12/10/2015 - Updated for the Charlemagne DLC and the White Huns patch, and cleaned up a little.
12/21/2015 - Fixed some religious relations.
2/27/2016 - Updated for the Slavic Nations DLC.

[Jin-]

Thanks

[Theora]

very good idea, I'm gonna keep an aye on this! and test the out of it

[Fallen.Soldier]

Good stuff, thanks man.

[mmarekk11]

Thanks for this stuff. Vannila values seems to me a little exaggerated. I have just 7 regions and with some factions even -60 diplom. penalty (on normal difficulty).

EDIT: well i have problem with your mod. I launched it with mod manager, it worked. Then I deleted it to run vannila game and it crashes everytime I run the game. And the most weird thing is that when I put your mod back into data folder, the game runs again. I checked integrity of the game as well, but didnt help.

[Augustusng]

EDIT: well i have problem with your mod. I launched it with mod manager, it worked. Then I deleted it to run vannila game and it crashes everytime I run the game. And the most weird thing is that when I put your mod back into data folder, the game runs again. I checked integrity of the game as well, but didnt help.

That's really strange. I don't have the same problem, so I'm not sure what could cause it. My mod only changes a few values in some tables.

I assume you mean Mitch's mod manager. Do you have problems when you run the game without the mod manager?

[Simets83]

Hey mate, I can see that we tried to mod the same thing. Can you check my modification to diplomacy penalty numbers? So we can try to work out what the best solution is?
My mod is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...atic-penalties.

[Augustusng]

Hey mate, I can see that we tried to mod the same thing. Can you check my modification to diplomacy penalty numbers? So we can try to work out what the best solution is?
My mod is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...atic-penalties.

Ah, interesting. I like your graphs; very cool visual illustration of the effects. I think we've gone for opposite directions though. Our lower imperium level penalties are similar, but yours grow exponentially, while mine are much smaller increases. At highest imperium level, my mod gives -40, while yours is -100. To balance that, you've reduced (I think) the empire rivalry personality traits, while I've doubled them. If I'm looking at this correctly, your mod makes imperium more important while reducing the effects of faction leader personalities, but mine does the opposite. Both are interesting ideas, but I suppose it depends how you want diplomacy to work in the campaign. My take leans towards, I guess, the "great men" theory of history, that the personalities of the various kings should have a greater effect on diplomatic relations than the strength of an empire, but the other way around can work too. It would definitely mean less uncertainty when a faction leader dies.

[Simets83]

Ah, interesting. I like your graphs; very cool visual illustration of the effects. I think we've gone for opposite directions though. Our lower imperium level penalties are similar, but yours grow exponentially, while mine are much smaller increases. At highest imperium level, my mod gives -40, while yours is -100. To balance that, you've reduced (I think) the empire rivalry personality traits, while I've doubled them. If I'm looking at this correctly, your mod makes imperium more important while reducing the effects of faction leader personalities, but mine does the opposite. Both are interesting ideas, but I suppose it depends how you want diplomacy to work in the campaign. My take leans towards, I guess, the "great men" theory of history, that the personalities of the various kings should have a greater effect on diplomatic relations than the strength of an empire, but the other way around can work too. It would definitely mean less uncertainty when a faction leader dies.

I like your approach too. The only thing I see as a problem are not your numbers, but that it seems that TOO MANY rulers in game hate rival empires. At least in my games. But I guess that there is probably no right approach. Mine seems to just soften vanilla penalties on lower imperium levels (and I wouldn't need that if imperium was like in RTW2, I only need that because imperium is strangely connected to research) and stiffer penalties on higher imperium levels. I tweaked vanilla parameters, while you went with almost completely different approach. That's why I think it would probably be interesting if people could compare our approaches. No vanity here, the diplomacy is just broken with vanilla numbers and it's probably in everyone's best interest that the solution is found as soon as possible

[mmarekk11]

That's really strange. I don't have the same problem, so I'm not sure what could cause it. My mod only changes a few values in some tables.

I assume you mean Mitch's mod manager. Do you have problems when you run the game without the mod manager?

I know it is really strange. I used a ton of mods in R2 and something like this never happend.
Yes it was mitch's mod manager. Firstly I just copied your pack file into data folder. But in game nothing changed. So I downloaded mod manager, launched mod via it, and it worked. But then I deleted mod, and now the game always crashes when launching. But when I put your mod back, everything works. I absolutely dont understand . I even deleted data.pack and downloaded new one, after integrity check, but didt help. I guess the only option for me is reinstall.

EDIT: I found a solution without reinstalling game. I just opened mod manager, clicked on Tool - Revert to vanilla and the game now works again even withou your mod. Very very weird

[Augustusng]

I know it is really strange. I used a ton of mods in R2 and something like this never happend.
Yes it was mitch's mod manager. Firstly I just copied your pack file into data folder. But in game nothing changed. So I downloaded mod manager, launched mod via it, and it worked. But then I deleted mod, and now the game always crashes when launching. But when I put your mod back, everything works. I absolutely dont understand . I even deleted data.pack and downloaded new one, after integrity check, but didt help. I guess the only option for me is reinstall.

EDIT: I found a solution without reinstalling game. I just opened mod manager, clicked on Tool - Revert to vanilla and the game now works again even withou your mod. Very very weird

That is weird, but I'm glad you got it working in the end.

I like your approach too. The only thing I see as a problem are not your numbers, but that it seems that TOO MANY rulers in game hate rival empires. At least in my games. But I guess that there is probably no right approach. Mine seems to just soften vanilla penalties on lower imperium levels (and I wouldn't need that if imperium was like in RTW2, I only need that because imperium is strangely connected to research) and stiffer penalties on higher imperium levels. I tweaked vanilla parameters, while you went with almost completely different approach. That's why I think it would probably be interesting if people could compare our approaches. No vanity here, the diplomacy is just broken with vanilla numbers and it's probably in everyone's best interest that the solution is found as soon as possible

I wonder if there's a way to change how imperium is calculated, so it's not based on research. That would certainly make more sense. But I think we should eventually look at some of those other CAI diplomatic factors (I think some other modders have already), so that diplomacy makes a little more sense. In the campaign I just finished, the longtime faction leader of the Visigoths decided to declare war on me out of the blue, even though we had neutral but improving relations, common enemies, as well as a trade agreement and non-aggression pact. Certainly not something you would have ever seen in Rome 2, and it's an interesting AI behavior, but it doesn't seem to make much sense. I think, like so many of the mechanics in the game meant to challenge the player, it ends up being more frustrating when your earlier diplomatic efforts are simply nullified by this erratic behavior. I don't know how much of the CAI behavior is moddable (and frankly I'm pretty new to trying to mod it), but it's worth looking into.

[geala]

I thank you both for your effort and wish you both good luck. I will try both mods when I will be able to start a campaign (when the unit replacement nonsense is gone). A rational CAI with good diplomacy for me is at least as important as good BAI. I'm usually more on the map than in battles.

[gregnaar]

Hey there could you make a new factor desperation/envy and give it to factions with infertile soil against factions with fertile soil? Maybe it could scale with the climate change, the effect would be bigger and bigger. I'll try your mod as it is, i hope it works well, ill give feedback after some testing! (And thanks for making it! )

[Simets83]

Hmmm, there's a problem (with my numbers at least). When I use them, too few nations declare war on WRE so it almost never falls and usually becomes superpower. That's because for some reason WRE has ONLY 4 IMPERIUM at the start of the campaign so my revised numbers almost nullify diplomatic penalties for them.
FFS, how can my 2 stacks of horde with 5 researched technologies have the same Imperium as WRE with 50+ regions and 8 stack armies? o.O
Maybe if there is a way to notch imperium up for WRE at start?
I'll look into it, but I am afraid that if I start going that road and start tweaking that, it would do something stupid because of some other illogical number, and if I tweak that one, it will lead to the next and so on...

[Butan]

y doubled/halved the values correctly.

It works and its fairly better now... Only empire haters gonna hate.

[Augustusng]

Update: Added a new diplomatic bonus/penalty attached to political power. Thanks to Sithrain for this idea!

[Sixela]

if you open the technologies_tables after each tech a 5 point "enlightment prestige" is given to each one of them. Might that be the factor the ties imperium with technology?? .Also in your mod if u have positive imperium factor( supremacy in family but still not advanced in tech) so I had diplomatic boost with every faction instead of penalty, rival empires tend to love you!!!!! That's because the factor that calculates love or hate is a POSITIVE multiplier as you already know.So by having a positive imperium, as stated above, WRE adores you!!!. I have switched the multiplier by making it negative( only the one that deals with rival empires ) so when I had a positive imperium they hated me but when I had negative they loved me again....

[Augustusng]

if you open the technologies_tables after each tech a 5 point "enlightment prestige" is given to each one of them. Might that be the factor the ties imperium with technology?? .Also in your mod if u have positive imperium factor ( supremacy in family but still not advanced in tech) rival empires tend to love you!!!!! That's because the factor that calculates love or hate is a POSITIVE multiplier as you already know.So by having a positive imperium, as stated above, WRE adores you!!!. I have switched the multiplier by making it negative( only the one that deals with rival empires ) so when I had a positive imperium they hated me but when I had negative they loved me again....

Ah, okay. I'll take a look at that "enlightenment prestige" then. Seems like something left over from Empire.

As for the other stuff, I think the reason you're getting that is the new effect I added that improves your diplomatic relations based on the political standing in your faction (it's displayed as part of the "Great Power" effect on the diplomacy screen). Perhaps I could tone that down some though.

[Sixela]

I know that. I modded my version of Attila using your ideas. I don't use your mod but I modded my copy of Attila. The problem is that "Empire haters" should not love our faction more than others...They should hate us more by having a positive diplomatic factor....The problem is that the Hatred factor is a multiplier ( X2.5 for the player ) .So by having a positive diplomatic factor ,lets say +30, Empire haters love you more 30X2.5 = 75 !!!!! That's immense braking.......However thanks for the nice idea...

[Augustusng]

I know that. I modded my version of Attila using your ideas. I don't use your mod but I modded my copy of Attila. The problem is that "Empire haters" should not love our faction more than others...They should hate us more by having a positive diplomatic factor....The problem is that the Hatred factor is a multiplier ( X2.5 for the player ) .So by having a positive diplomatic factor ,lets say +30, Empire haters love you more 30X2.5 = 75 !!!!! That's immense braking.......However thanks for the nice idea...

Oh, okay. I see what you mean now. I might have to drop that effect for now then, unless I can figure out a way around it.