Common Knowledge Mod (Proposal)

[The Blue Meanie]

Hi, I'm pretty much new to these forums, and modding in general. So, right from the outset, I have little to no experience with modding. But, I'd like to put forward a proposal and invite suggestions for a possible mod for M2:TW.

In the campaign game, there is no efficient way of telling what is happening in the world outside your little empire. Playing as the english, for instance, though I used my spies to find out who controlled which provinces in France, Spain, and Denmark, when it came to the holy land, the east, and Italy, it was just plain impossible to figure out what was happening in the wider world. I knew who was at war with who, but, for instance, there was no way for me to know whether the Byzantines held one territory, or ten.

I realise that this is what spies are meant for. But, sending out spies throughout the world is an inefficient way to figure out the shape of the lands held by factions. So, instead, I thought up this idea.

I think it is reasonable and historically accurate to assume that almost any leader of the playable factions in M2:TW would have a ROUGH idea of the shape of the European kingdoms. He would know the rough boundaries of the other kingdoms, though his infomation might be out of date by perhaps a few years. Such inmformation would be gathered from... well, at the least, "hearsay" and common knowledge. Traders and merchant captains would sail, for instance, from all over the world to constantinople, bringing news of local developments from their homes. Rulers WOULD KNOW the general shape of empires. They would know this, furthermore, without having to send spies to every damned province in Europe.

So, what I'd like to do, would be to find a way to enable the player to see in game who holds what territories. NOTHING more, like, I don't want to know where armies are, etc. It would also be good if this information was "outdated" by one or two turns, to reflect a sort of "time lag" as far as the spread by word of mouth of local developments goes.

I think this would be far more sensible - it would reflect a general understanding on behalf of the faction's leader as to the basic shape and land held by other European powers. From a gameplay perspective, it would also greatly aid the player to know who is powerful, who isn't. Playing as the English, for instance, when considering a crusade, iut would be plausible and helpful to know ROUGHLY how expoansive the byzantine empire was, if I was choosing a route for my crusade to Jerusalem or Antioch.

So, my questions:

How easy would it be to make a mod to this effect?

Has any similar proposal been put forward by another member?

For a non-modder such as myself, would it be possible, perhaps with a little guidance and assistance, to figure out how to do this on my own?

What are people's thoughts on this idea?

Is anyone willing to either help ME do this, do it themselves, or give me a few pointers?

Thanks in advance! And, sorry for the whole "Ugh! Another newbie with a mod idea" thing.

[Perikles]

Well Scripts can be used to place spies at the beginning of the game so that they revelal specific locations and are then killed off before the actual game begins. I'm not sure if this can happen during the game, maybe someone who knows mroe about Scripts knows...

[vikrant]

welcome to the forum,total war, and modding

moved to gathering where u can form a team ,discuss about ur idea .
and there is no "Ugh! Another newbie with a mod idea " thing
more mods more fun
and check out tutorials for moddings in tutorial section {those are for rtw but will be very useful}

[The Blue Meanie]

@Perikles: Hey, wow, that's a really good idea. It'd be a way of doing what I'd like to do, in a sort of obscure, indirect fasion. But, let's say if it could be done every five turns, so that a map update would occur every five turns. Spies would have to be spawned in every province of the map during one turn, then summarily killed off. It would work, but it'd be a very brute-force unelegant way of doing it. Hmmm.

Surely there's a simpler, more direct way of getting the same effect. Any more ideas?

@vikrant1986: Thanks, my bad for posting in the wrong forum. BTW, I'm not new to total war, I've been a fan of the series since medieval (the original), though never played Shogun. Am new to TWC and modding though. Thanks for the welcome!

Well, I've had a chance to mess around with the "toggle_fow" cheat using the M2:TW console. It works, but the problem is, you see EVERYTHING if you use this. Armies, settlements, agents, etc. I don't want this.

What I want to do, is to be able to see territory outlines and what faction possesses them, without seeing enemy armies, agents, or perhaps even settlements, without having a spy in the region. I'd also like to have a "delay" of two to five turns in terms of how outdated the information is.

The problem is, the "toggle_fow" option, which I believe can be enabled by default in the medieval2.preferences.cfg file, seems to be an "all or nothing" type option, where you see everything, or nothing. So, I have to figure out how to get halfway-house fog of war. :hmmm:

Okay, I'm just going to use this as a sort of working thread maybe. I'm really interested to hear what other people think about this idea!

Well, I've had a poke around some config files, and I think I have a plan of attack.

There's a type of event, "disaster", that seems to be able to be scripted to occur at certain points of time, or randomly. So, I think I need to create a new category of "disaster", named perhaps "common_knowledge_map_update" or something similar.

For this type of disaster event, what I need to make happen, is to update the player's map information, without getting rid of the fog of war, and without showing him anything other than region ownership and perhaps settlement location, nothing more.

What I need to do, is to EITHER give "omniscience" to an existing faction, such as the Rebels, OR alternatively create a new faction for the pure purpose of giving them no settlements or anything on the campaign map, and instead giving them only omniscience. I think the best bet is to give rebels omniscience.

THEN what I need to do, is to make it so this new random "disaster" event occurs every 2-5 turns or so, and what it does, is to automatically "share map information" (as in from the in-game diplomacy option) FROM the rebels, TO the player faction/. (And perhaps other factions too... that would be potentially troiublesome as far as the AI goes though, might screw with it)

That SHOULD give the player random updates as to region ownership in the campaign map, without giving him any more info such as army placement, and without disabling fog of war.



Anyway, that's my plan of attack. Any ideas or help, anybody? Any thoughts, comments, suggestions? I'd love to hear anything, even if it;s just opinions as to what I'm trying to do...
___________

EDIT: Another thing I've thought of. This mod would essentially mean that the use of the in-game diplomacy option "Share Map Information" would become almost useless.

Perhaps I could stop this by making the map update event occur much less frequently, such as every 10 or even 20 turns. That way, there would still be a motivation to "Share Map Information", in terms of keeping your map of faction holdings more up-to-date.

Another problem is that if you give the player the knowledge of the whole map, this may affect how the AI treats a diplomacy offer by the player to "share map information".

Merged triple post. Please use the edit button next time. - Trajan

[allypup]

Another forum lurker and new poster here.
I like the idea, some kind of toggle_ FOD ( fog of diplomacy). As the Danes my council of nobles know about the French, English, HRE, Poles and Russians, as faction leader I have no knowledge at all!
Along the same lines some sort of common family knowledge would seem approiate, ie. Other faction leader names, a rough idea of abilities ( are they full dread, half chilalry, and unmarried heirs. This type of information should be common knowledge, then by the time my princess finds a marriagable heir she won't be 55 yrs old!