Any plans to revisit using the augustus map for dei now that the ancient empires folks have done a lot of the leg work?

[yukishiro1]

I know that DEI didn't plan to use the augustus map instead of the old one due in large part to the huge amount of changes it'd take. The good folks over at the AE submod have done the vast amount of those changes. I do not know whether they would be inclined to allow them to be incorporated into the main mod, or whether there'd be enough demand for it, but I thought it might be worth making a topic about it.

FWIW, I modified the AE submod myself via a 5 minute quick-and-dirty operation so that it only has the map changes, just for my own gameplay purposes, and there are definite benefits to the gameplay compared to using the old map, particularly on the Rome-Sicily-Carthage axis, where a 3-region province of Sicily produces a much better Punic war than the old 2-region version did. In my game Rome and Carthage traded blows for a good 20 years in Sicily, with Rome taking the Carthaginian regions of the province twice before losing them to counter attacks, and Carthage took the southernmost province of south Italy three times, and once actually took Beneventum as well, making it all the way up to siege Rome before being beaten back. It felt like a real war in a way I've never seen replicated on the old map. 20 years in, Rome finally took back Sicily for a third time, and the war has mostly moved to fleet operations.

[Ygraine]

Cool stuff. Mind sharing with us how you did this in a mere 5 minutes? I assumed there was a lot of startpos editing involved in an endeavor like this?

[GourmetGorilla]

No, not in the near future. A LOT of people have been asking this all over the forum, but the fact is that it would take an unbelievable amount of work to port from one map to the other, all for a comparatively marginal advantage.

Porting to the Augustus map could potentially take many months, and it would essentially involve dropping all the current work on 1.1 for several of the most critical members of the team working on the 1.1 version of this mod.

[yukishiro1]

No, not in the near future. A LOT of people have been asking this all over the forum, but the fact is that it would take an unbelievable amount of work to port from one map to the other, all for a comparatively marginal advantage.

Porting to the Augustus map could potentially take many months, and it would essentially involve dropping all the current work on 1.1 for several of the most critical members of the team working on the 1.1 version of this mod.

My point was that work has pretty much already been done by AE submod folks. They have a working version of the Augustus map going for their main campaign (264 BC). Their submod does a lot of other stuff too, but the map changes seem pretty easy to separate out from the rest of them (not that a lot of those changes arn't good too, mind you). Of course it would be dependent on those folks allowing the main mod to use and build off their changes, but it looks like about 95% of the work has already been done by them.

It may or may not still make sense to do, but it does seem like the calculus has been changed a LOT by their outstanding work (assuming they were willing to share).

[yukishiro1]

Cool stuff. Mind sharing with us how you did this in a mere 5 minutes? I assumed there was a lot of startpos editing involved in an endeavor like this?

Oh for sure. Hundreds of hours of work, no doubt. But that was work done by the folks who made the AE submod. I like their submod a lot, but I also wanted to try playing the normal DEI game without any of their changes except the change to the augustus map, so I just went into their .pack and deleted all the categories that don't have to do with the map. Which took a little more than 5 minutes, but not too much. I wouldn't want to distribute it or go into any more detail because it's 99.9% their work, not mine, and I was just doing it for personal purposes.

I did leave in their new system of having breakaway factions, because I think it's super nifty. I guess editing those out (if you wanted to, although I don't know why you would) might take a little longer.

I didn't have to touch startpos at all - just removed normal db entries.

[Dresden]

This has been asked quite a few times recently. We may use the map at some point in the future (after 1.1). The amount of testing involved to make sure everything is functioning properly with all of our various db entries and changes is prohibitive at this time. It could very well be the focus of our 1.2 update. Thankfully, the AE team has done a ton of the heavy lifting (as you have pointed out). They have offered use of anything in the submod for the main mod because they are simply awesome folks and they are using DeI's assets in Attila.

To make it save compatible and also consider the aspects of testing every playable faction through multiple campaigns, we have to slow that roll a bit The main mod is used by thousands of players and they have a certain level of expectation in regards to bugs and other issues. These things require time to implement and test properly.

[yukishiro1]

Save compatibility seems like it would probably be impossible. But then you people are way smarter than I am and I would never want to say never!

No doubt it'd take a lot of time to iron out all the kinks even with all the hard work AE did, but it seems like it makes it easier on an order of magnitude compared to starting from scratch.

I'm glad you're thinking about it for the future. This post was mainly just intended to say I have been messing around with it and seems like there are real benefits, at least in some parts of the map. I don't know if it screws up others, but at least in the western med it seems to be a step up from the old map.

[Dresden]

Oh without a doubt my friend! Some sacrifices in the east/north have been made but the map is pretty much superior in regards to the regularly played areas. We are certainly keen on using it at some point and are very happy that the AE team (ABH2 thanks!) have contributed so much. They have certainly done the hard work without any shadow of a doubt.

Its just a matter of making sure every mod aspect is fully functional with it as the GC map. There are so many small things in DeI that are even forgotten by us. Its been a 2 year project, so at times we even forget what we did

[Ivan_Moscavich]

It's definitely something to consider post 1.1. Maybe a manpower system of our own, and a conversion to the IA map.

[Dresden]

I think Litharion and Magnar talked about working on a manpower system so hopefully that is something we can come together on as a mod community.

[Maetharin]

do you guys have access to mitch´s POPULOUS mod?
Would be awesome if you guys could finish it!

So many good news in recent times ^^

Best regards

[Ivan_Moscavich]

From what I heard, what he gave out wasn't very much in a state to use, and really wasn't enough, or wasn't detailed enough to be reverse engineered and made workable easily.

Dresden can tell you more, though I think he's said what happened a multitude of times already in other threads.


But the main point is, if Mitch was able to do it, someone else feasibly could, even if it would take longer.

[Maetharin]

ah so it would be some sort of long term project in which you guys somehow backtraced his steps or improvised where necessary.
I just hoped there had been some sort of development, like Mitch finally being able to somewhat release whatever he got so you guys could work with it.

But whatevs, looks like DeI still has a bright future ahead, even though you guys did so much already^^

Best regards

[Litharion]

ah so it would be some sort of long term project in which you guys somehow backtraced his steps or improvised where necessary.
I just hoped there had been some sort of development, like Mitch finally being able to somewhat release whatever he got so you guys could work with it.
But whatevs, looks like DeI still has a bright future ahead, even though you guys did so much already^^
Best regards

We basically have to start from scratch.

[ogggrez]

Any chance that you might want to share how you did this? I would really like to try and edit the files like you did, I just don't really know how or where to start...
And I completely respect if you don't want to share this, I am just really curious about what it feels like to play DeI on that map

[Telémakhos]

Any chance that you might want to share how you did this? I would really like to try and edit the files like you did, I just don't really know how or where to start...
And I completely respect if you don't want to share this, I am just really curious about what it feels like to play DeI on that map

Seconded! Would anyone else be able to help clarify which parts of the .pack should be kept, or make a submod that replaces the map? The AE team posted their raw data and invited people to use it, so hopefully this wouldn't be out of line to ask for...

[yukishiro1]

Sorry - been busy with life again.

I don't know if I can just post my version of AE here or not - would need to get permission from the AE folks, I think.

If you want to do the same thing, take the AE mod, and take out all the battles tables.

I may be missing something here, but basically going from top to bottom in the db part of the pack:

Take out: - the _kv tables (top 3 tables).

agents_,
battle_difficulty,
battle_entities,
battlefield_buildings,
land_units,
main_units,
melee_weapons,
missile_weapons,
projectiles_tables,

And everything below slot_template_etc

EXCEPT units_to_exclusive_faction_permissions_table


To be clear, this doesn't result in something that is exactly DEI, except with with the new map. The startpos changes remain (changing those would be a major PITA). So it keeps the new religion/culture system, for example.

If you want to get even closer to DEI you could try taking out buildings_effects_junctions too, and setting religion_shift in campaign_variables from .01 to something closer to 0.1, which is the base value.

This would vastly increase the speed of cultural conversion compared to AE (i.e. bring it closer to DEI / vanilla). But I haven't done this myself so I dunno how it would mesh with the base values found in the startpos. In other words, you might create a monster. It's probably better to just leave in the new building and cultural conversion system, and just tune the speed of it with religion_shift - if you find the AE values too low and you want faster cultural shift, just increase religion_shift till you get the right balance. I would think setting it to about .05 (instead of 0.01) would bring it to about the same speed you see in DEI.

You could also probably safely remove the stuff having to do with the new AE stances and edicts, too, if you wanted to. I like those so I keep them in - and again the same caveat about creating a monster. Basically what I have tried to do is use the AE campaign map system with the DEI battle system.

The only real problem I have noticed so far is that there are some carthginian mercenary units that seem too strong in this version of the mod relative to other troops - not so much that it totally breaks the game, but enough that it's noticeable. I think that is probably because these units appear in AE but not in DEI, so when you delete the AI battle tables, they end up having vanilla stats. But I'm not really sure.

If someone wants to go about getting permission from AE, I am happy to post my modded version here and you can download that. But I don't want to do that without getting explicit permission and I dunno who to contact myself to do it.

[Maetharin]

just ask in the submod thread ^^

[ABH2]

Yea, I wasn't really tracking this thread, or would have chimed in sooner. DeI is free to use any of our mod material for the main version, but the reality is - our submod is hardly the polished product DeI is. And to be honest, on our end, it's very tough to devote the resources needed to accomplish that in the first place when most of our time is spent on Attila. I would be very happy to see the map brought over into DeI, and any other features. Honestly, it's just less work for me/us going forward. Our work for Rome 2 gets to be played and live on while we can focus on Attila. The DeI team can honestly take it farther on Rome 2 than we could, as well, for whatever they decide to incorporate.

As mentioned above, we released all of our raw data for our mod, and everything anyone needs to mod it fully is publicly available. We are pretty committed to being, well, open source where possible. So, Yukishiro, releasing your version is fine with us.

Some other changes in our mod could also be done without the unit tables used at all (they are there for stats at the moment). If someone likes extra movement points. I'm sure there's already some mods out there that do that, as well, but you could just do that and the AI buffs through the campaign_difficulty_handicaps table. I'm personally a big proponent of the increased movement range myself, though I get some people don't like playing that way. Some of our AI buffs may have gone a bit far for the average player, as well. But it's certainly created a more challenge experience, I believe. I'm personally happy to hear players have lost campaigns.

A lot of the features can be stripped out by just deleting DB stuff is Yukishiro did, and I was kind of surprised no one had already done it, to be frankly. There are two things tied directly into the startpos that would be a little more complicated - religions and the new factions. The first has been a little controversial while the latter hasn't caused too many complaints/I think people have been very positive on it.

The only real problem I have noticed so far is that there are some carthginian mercenary units that seem too strong in this version of the mod relative to other troops - not so much that it totally breaks the game, but enough that it's noticeable. I think that is probably because these units appear in AE but not in DEI, so when you delete the AI battle tables, they end up having vanilla stats. But I'm not really sure.

Well, I can only say here that there are no mercenary units or units in general we added in. So, there's only DeI and vanilla units. Some vanilla mercenaries may have snuck in, but I don't believe they should be. If they are, they would be coming from the factional mercenary pool. But they *should* be all the ones just from DeI.

[yukishiro1]

Well, I can only say here that there are no mercenary units or units in general we added in. So, there's only DeI and vanilla units. Some vanilla mercenaries may have snuck in, but I don't believe they should be. If they are, they would be coming from the factional mercenary pool. But they *should* be all the ones just from DeI.

Yeah, I tracked it down last night. The Carthaginian faction merc pool in startpos has some vanilla units that don't exist in DEI - numidian noble cavalry, editani noble infantry, and a few others. I took them out. Maybe some other factions have similar issues, I dunno.

Thank you for the permission!

Here is a copy of the stripped-down mod, if anyone wants to try it. Again, it is really rough work - there are probably some tables I've left out. It leaves in the new building system and new religion/culture system, because separating one from the other would probably be problematic and I don't have the time to do it (and because I like them personally!). I do tune up the rate of cultural conversion so it's about what you see in DEI normally. It would be very easy to remove the building system if you want to try it (just deleting one table), and you can change the cultural coversion pace by editing the religious_drift variable in campaign_variables ---> religion_campaign_variables if you want to tweak that too yourself.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/xt...gustusmap.pack