Cathedrals and Mosques disappearing when factions of other faiths conquer cities

[Roma_Victrix]

This might be hardcoded into M2TW due to building tree complications, but if it's not it should be reverted. Churches and mosques should stay on the battle map of cities regardless of the faith of the faction owning the settlement. It's stupid and unhistorical to have it otherwise, given the enormous quantity of Christian churches that were converted into mosques and the other way around: Islamic mosques that were converted into churches throughout the ages. Prominent examples include the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople being turned into an Ottoman mosque, or the Moorish Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba turned into the Castilian/Spanish Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Spanish: Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción). It would have been retarded to knock these buildings down and establish new ones when it was simply cheaper and easier to re-purpose them.

M2TW the game and all its mods, however, FORCE you start building tiny churches from the ground up, until you've spent a billion dollars making the cathedral and then huge cathedral again.


I mean, come on: a medieval European city without a cathedral in its skyline would be like a car without an engine, a sandwich without meat, or a supermodel without breasts.

For that matter, another stupid thing: Orthodox churches and cathedrals don't appear on the battle map. That's something at fault with the original vanilla M2TW, but it's something modders have never corrected, for some odd reason. Seems like a no-brainer to make custom Orthodox churches or simply use existing church models.

There are really simple solutions to this problem, actually, and Europa Barbarorum II (EB II) for M2TW has proven it. The antiquity mod De Bello Mundi (DBM) had settlements with the exact same problem only it involved custom ancient polytheistic temples (with models taken from original Rome Total War cities). EB II fixed this problem by permanently placing the temple type building in cities, large cities, and huge cities. It didn't matter if the campaign map building tree contained a temple or not, or a small temple or large temple: the same temple model appeared in every minor city, and the same was done for every large and huge city.

This is a viable solution for Stainless Steel 6.4. Islamic cities should still have their mosques and jamas after pagan, Orthodox or Catholic factions conquer them, and the Christian factions should still have their churches and cathedrals.

[Lifthrasir]

The generic model of cities (and castles btw) are tied to the faction's culture and upgrade. For instance, all Northern European factions have the same model. Same for Muslims, East an South Europe, etc...
If, let's say a Muslim factin, conquers a Northern settlement and keeps it, then, at the next upgrade, the settleent model will change to get the relevant model (if I remember correctly. I might be wrong).
Anyway, the only way to represent your point would be to re-work all settlements models to include these religious buildings and let them to appear on the battle map. None of the developper of SSHIP has the skills for that as far as I know and for now.

[Roma_Victrix]

^ That's a shame. The EB II team was able to do it with their own custom-built settlements (using base models from DBM, as I mentioned). Perhaps I could find someone to help out with this? Someone who did it for EB II, perhaps?

[cRuNkEd31337]

That is actually something i tend to find very frustrating as well.
To be honest i was relatively salty when i was playing with Sicily and lost Tunis for a short time during a civil war.
After that my Huge Cathedral was gone, since Tunis was originally of islamic origin ( even though the cathlics rate was somewhere in the 90s). So i basically lost 25 turns of building time.

So if this is intended to be fixed, i would be very very grateful if you guys could make that happen.

[Lifthrasir]

I need to check but could Cathedrales and Great Mosquees be undestructible? At least, no matter who controls the settlement, these buildings stay anyhow. That could be a good temporary solution

[cRuNkEd31337]

Thats sounds like a very solid approach.
Its very historical as well. Who would destroy such a monument if he captures a town?
( We do have examples for restructuring them, but in the end Hagia Sophia will always be a cathedral partly and the the Cathedral of Cordoba will always be a Mosque partly).

[Lifthrasir]

I know. That's just one of the game mechanics that hasn't been touched/corrected yet

[Alavaria]

Because that Huge Cathedral just won't do when you need an Orthodox Huge Cathedral.

[M.A.E]

^ That's a shame. The EB II team was able to do it with their own custom-built settlements (using base models from DBM, as I mentioned). Perhaps I could find someone to help out with this? Someone who did it for EB II, perhaps?

Please Inform Me If They Replied, I want To make Custom Settlements Too .

[Roma_Victrix]

I need to check but could Cathedrales and Great Mosquees be undestructible? At least, no matter who controls the settlement, these buildings stay anyhow. That could be a good temporary solution

Please Inform Me If They Replied, I want To make Custom Settlements Too .

It just dawned on me how much of a great job EB II has done and most people probably don't even realize it. It's very fitting for the polytheistic faiths of antiquity being compatible with one another, but EB II somehow managed to figure out how to keep permanent temples on the battle map AND have factions of different cultures not only retaining the original temple/religious structures of those they've conquered, but building them up and upgrading them! Well, in the building tree and construction roster on the campaign map, that is, which doesn't even affect how the settlements look when your army is besieging them on the battle map. This is EXACTLY what Stainless Steel needs, with Orthodox churches, Catholic churches, Islamic mosques, or pagan temples being re-purposed and converted for the faction that owns the settlement.

The religious bonuses should quite honestly stay the same. No one should be forced to spend 15 and then 25 turns rebuilding the cathedral and huge cathedral, respectively, let alone all the money that is wasted.

I posed these questions over at the forum for EB II: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...lement-editing

[bigdaddy1204]

This is a great idea, Roma Victrix.

There is a mod for Medieval II Total War called Anatolian Principalities which has a very interesting mechanic that may be worth looking at. Factions in that game can build Orthodox churches and Jewish synagogues as well as Islamic mosques. The Ottomans can build churches which converts some of the population to Orthodox in exchange for increasing income. I wonder if structures like that could be another path to keeping minority religions alive?

While we're on the subject of buildings, a similar problem is the way the Town Hall and Barracks building lines intersect with public order is SSHIP.

Often when capturing a settlement, extermination is the only option that doesn't leave public order in the red. Added to this, the player will typically want to move his army on to attack the next target as quickly as possible. In war, having your one and only full stack army play baby sitter to prevent a city from rebelling is simply not an option. So extermination is the only viable choice, especially if we're talking about a large city.

The problem is, extermination destroys or damages the public order buildings. A few turns later, public order takes a nose dive while unrest sky rockets. But due to the 8 or 9 turns it takes to complete each level of the Town Hall and Barracks chain, you're looking in some cases at 20 or 30 turns of building to get the structures you require. But in the game, you just do not have time. You need these buildings NOW, not in 20 turns time. The result is often rioting, and in some cases full scale revolution.

My objection is not that the game is hard. The point is, building times are far too long. If youre the king and you want something done immediately, if youve got the money, you should be able to do it. Broken Crescent has this right, imo. Most of these buildings even at the highest level can be built in 3 turns or 4 at most. The difficulty comes in price (expensive), not in forcing the player to wait an unrealistic and arbitrary number of 8 turns or more, which simply gets in the way of good game play, imo.

Anyway sorry to hijack the thread a bit. In terms of Roma Victrix' idea, I support! I remember modding the campaign map myself in the descr_strat to make Syracuse an Islamic city in Stainless Steel campaign map. This is done by specifying the faction creator. I also did re-assign a lot of rebel armies, changing their sub-faction attribute to Moors for cities in the Iberian peninsula.

[Alavaria]

My objection is not that the game is hard. The point is, building times are far too long. If youre the king and you want something done immediately, if youve got the money, you should be able to do it. Broken Crescent has this right, imo. Most of these buildings even at the highest level can be built in 3 turns or 4 at most. The difficulty comes in price (expensive), not in forcing the player to wait an unrealistic and arbitrary number of 8 turns or more, which simply gets in the way of good game play, imo.

Essentially, you soon reach a point where your income exceeds your settlements' ability to absorb it...

It isn't so much "a Huge Cathedral needs 12.5 years to build (25 turns)" but "it's impossible to build a Huge Cathedral, Well and Gallows at the same time" which is amusing.

[Roma_Victrix]

Good news! QuintusSertorius over at the EB II forum has specified how the campaign map building tree avoids the unnecessary bulldozing of religious buildings from different cultures (in addition to the fact that the battle-map town and city models are designed to have permanent temples regardless of what has been built on the campaign map):

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15498670

Temples aren't auto-destroyed in EBII because they have no religious conversion factor in them. If a building has both a religion and either the city or castle tag in the EDB, they auto-destroy when someone of a different religion takes them.

Perhaps something similar could be implemented in SSHIP and Stainless Steel more broadly?

In fact, SSHIP European factions already have monastery buildings (that upgrade to medieval hospitals) and Islamic factions have bimaristans. If there are other building options in the building tree that allow for religious conversion, could this simply be removed from churches and mosques, which could instead only improve public order, population growth, and allow recruitment of a priest agent?

This is a great idea, Roma Victrix.

There is a mod for Medieval II Total War called Anatolian Principalities which has a very interesting mechanic that may be worth looking at. Factions in that game can build Orthodox churches and Jewish synagogues as well as Islamic mosques. The Ottomans can build churches which converts some of the population to Orthodox in exchange for increasing income. I wonder if structures like that could be another path to keeping minority religions alive?

That sounds infinitely more realistic and historically accurate than vanilla M2TW and most of its mods.

Anyway sorry to hijack the thread a bit. In terms of Roma Victrix' idea, I support!

No problem, we all need to vent about something it seems.

[j.a.luna]

The first and honorific sship fan(me )also support the idea of Roma Victrix, maybe if this have a fast and simple solution can be added in the upcoming new release...

[Dekhatres]

or a supermodel without breasts.

tbh i like small tits and even if breasts were nonexistent if it's a supermodel we're talking about i would still be into her


on topic, afaik you can also make buildings indestructible by adding "hinterlands" tag in descr_strat iirc, dunno if they still disappear when different religion faction takes ownership of the settlement

i remember i've done this for scholae barracks a long time ago and they werent getting destroyed, prob as the guy said it was because it also didnt have castle/city tag nor religion conversion

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

I need to check but could Cathedrales and Great Mosquees be undestructible? At least, no matter who controls the settlement, these buildings stay anyhow. That could be a good temporary solution

Sounds like a really great idea honestly.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Good news! QuintusSertorius over at the EB II forum has specified how the campaign map building tree avoids the unnecessary bulldozing of religious buildings from different cultures (in addition to the fact that the battle-map town and city models are designed to have permanent temples regardless of what has been built on the campaign map):
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15498670
Perhaps something similar could be implemented in SSHIP and Stainless Steel more broadly?

More broadly - you may ask the Stainless Steel developers. I'd be glad to know who they are now. SSHIP - yes, it could be done. Give me one or two skilled modders who have enough time and devotion. They appear occasionally with brilliant ideas, and they disappear (recently the guy who thought the guilds should be done in a different way. He promised to fix it his way and?).
On religion: there're many ways to skin a cat. The EBII effectively removed religion as a mechanism. They made many other changes to well to compensate. For us, the religion mechanics is more-or-less ok, and even if it wouldn't, there wouldn't be modding time.

In fact, SSHIP European factions already have monastery buildings (that upgrade to medieval hospitals) and Islamic factions have bimaristans. If there are other building options in the building tree that allow for religious conversion, could this simply be removed from churches and mosques, which could instead only improve public order, population growth, and allow recruitment of a priest agent?

Monastery buildings are "health buildings", not religious buildings. We've had a discussion on historicity of the names, but it seems ok, for the moment.

It isn't so much "a Huge Cathedral needs 12.5 years to build (25 turns)" but "it's impossible to build a Huge Cathedral, Well and Gallows at the same time" which is amusing.

Yes, I also think it should be possible to build more things at the same time. But 1. its M2TW mechanics, and you may go to the newer TW game to have the possibility to build many things - but then you need to live with 6/4/4 build spaces in a city system plus many other horrible things (for the worst see link in my signature). 2. this a constraint on your game, and the game is about prioritizing, so a decision what to build first is at the very heart of gaming.

the player will typically want to move his army on to attack the next target as quickly as possible.

The goal of the modders of SSHIP is exactly to prevent it from happening. In history conquering spree was possible very rarely, and was very short-lived. No big empires created in a moment (but Arabs and Mongols). A war would end in capturing one province. Creating bigger entities required centuries - and they'd crumble often. For me, the possibility to make fast conquests Alavaria-style, is a problem of design of the mod. Fortunately, only Alavaria can do it, I suppose ;-)