Resources in TLR - ideas, discussion, re-working

[Averroës]

On the resources issues.

I was working on these initially for Tornnight and they really need a complete re-working. It has been shown to me that we are missing an entire set of merchant traits - Monopolist - because no province has 2 (or more) of the same resource.

So, I'm going to go over the entire list of resources and see about rearranging them altogether. Have a doubled reource in one of each faction's starting provinces. This will give merchants the chance to gain the Monopolist trait line again in TLR.

It will also allow me to focus a particular resource type for each faction.And then balance the resource base values so they're equivalent for each faction's possible monopoly.

These are the resources we have to use:

Amber
Coal
Cotton
Dyes
Grain (has special funtion for population growth)
Gold
Fish
Furs
Iron
Ivory
Marble
Silk
Silver
Slaves
Spices
Sugar
Sulphur *see below
Textiles
Timber
Tin
Wine
Wool

Not used in TLR:

Tobacco
Chocolate

Some possible resource monopoly choices for each faction. Ideas welcome! I've listed some preliminary ideas below with reasons for each:

Scots - wool (England was more wool rich, but they also had a tin monopoly so wool for the Scots)
English - tin
French - textiles (technically Flanders was the real textiles powerhouse)
HRE - timber (The Rhine was used as a timber highway)
Danes - amber
Novgorod Rus - furs
Kievan Rus - slaves
Magyars - silver (and other ores like iron and gold too)
Abbassids - spices
Syrian Turks - cotton (Damascus was a major cotton center)
Khwarzemids - silk (control of the silk road)
Egyptian - ivory
Moors - iron (one of the world's major iron mining centers is still northern Mali)
Polish - salt*

*I saw a thread where someone figured out an easy way to graphically convert sulphur to salt. This makes a lot of sense, as sulphur really didn't become important until the advent of gunpowder, and salt was so precious it was often worth as much as gold. Some of the oldest salt mines in Europe are in Poland and Germany. So Poland could have salt as its monopoly.

That leaves several open factions.

Milanese
Venitians
Portuguese
Spanish
Rum Turks
Sicilians
Greeks/Byzantines


Remaining resources:

Fish
Coal
Marble
Sugar
Wine
Dyes
Gold
Grain - since it gives a population boost, I'd like to try and give each starting faction one grain region and not use it for a monopoly. Likewise for gold.

Sicily (and southern Italy) was a huge source of grain. But grain has a special function in MTW, and would thus give that population boost just to them if we made it a regional monopoly.

Keeping grain out, that means we have 7 factions and 7 resources.

Some possibles:

Portuguese - wine (port wine is still a leading export there)
Greeks/Byzantines - dyes (the famous purple dye)
Sicilians - sugar (technically fruit like dates and olives)

That leaves some bad choices:

Milanese - fish?
Venitians - gold?
Rum Turks - coal?
Spanish- marble?

However, we also still have chocolate and tobacco, which can be modified to fit our needs.

Ideas?

[kepper]

Portugal wine
Spain gold
Byzantines dyes
Milanese Fish
Venitians sugar
Sicilians marble
Rum Turks coal

[Averroës]

Some possible resources to replace tobacco and chocolate:

Leather goods (This would give the Spanish a resource, since they were a major cattle producer)
Fruit (or can just imply fruit by using the existing sugar resource)
Glass
Honey
Wax (candles, lots and lots of candles)
Alum (alum salts were used in just about everything!)
Incense (every church needed incense)
Oil (lamp oil and other kinds,from olives and fish and more)


Sources:

Main source - [url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1j.html]Internet Medieval Sourcebook -Economic life[url]

A List of the Tolls at the Port of Colibre, 1252

Theoderic, King of the Franks: Grant of Tolls at Arras, 1036

List of various medieval prices recorded for items

List of Florentine Crafts Subject to Tax, 1316

[Averroës]

Vindex246 has the following post which details how to change the graphics and files to make sulphur into salt:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=sulphur+salt

Interestingly he mentions using some of the old RTW graphics for glass, which he also changed to from coal.

Also, it appears we could (or more precisely someone with graphics skill like Acegogo!) also change tobacco and chocolate into some new resources as well.

And better yet, we might also be able to use elephants, dogs and camels which are already hardcoded in as resources but not used since they were leftover from RTW.

This means that along with changing sulphur to salt, we might have five extra resource slots to use from tobacco, chocolate, elephants, camels and dogs!

Having those extras for monopoly resource types will then allow us to put more generic types of resources in the rebel faction provinces. They need resources too.

So maybe make one of the new resources honey or wax and give that to the Kievan Rus (they did a lot of trade in those with Byzantium) and something else instead of fish and timber. Then we'll have grain, fish, timber, slaves and a couple more to use in the provinces without a monoploy resource - which would be all of the rebel provinces plus all but one each of the starting faction provinces.

[acegogo]

maybe we can add iron also to spain , as swords from spain where renown for its hard steel and fine craftmanship especially in the meddle and later parts of this mod..... also we could try and add weapons.... they are used in Kingdoms... but from what you are saying I gess there is a limit to the number of resources.

About the monopolist trait, I always asummed you had to control the resources of the entire map to get it. surely this will only benefit goods such as gold or silver as there aren´t too many of them.... and this way nobody can get monopolist trait from selling fish in any particular region.

[Averroës]

maybe we can add iron also to spain , as swords from spain where renown for its hard steel and fine craftmanship especially in the meddle and later parts of this mod..... also we could try and add weapons.... they are used in Kingdoms... but from what you are saying I gess there is a limit to the number of resources.

About the monopolist trait, I always asummed you had to control the resources of the entire map to get it. surely this will only benefit goods such as gold or silver as there aren´t too many of them.... and this way nobody can get monopolist trait from selling fish in any particular region.

That's a good idea for Spain. The actual iron Spain used came north from the Sahara and Sahel via the Moorish trade, though. Maybe worked steel could be one of the new resources changed over from tobacco or chocolate. Then Spain could have steel as their monopoly, meaning the famous Toledo steel.

We're limited by the hardcoding to the 24 resources defined in the desc_sm_resources.txt file. But we don't have to use those names and graphics. As Vindex246 showed in the link I posted above.

And we may be able to use the 3 extra resources defined - elephants, dogs and camels - as well. I can't find any posts where someone has done this, however.

As for monopolist, Alpaca explained it to me when I asked in the script/text modding forum.

In TLR, we removed the duplicate resources from the provinces. But in vanilla, some provinces had two and sometimes three of the same resource in several provinces. This allowed the Monopoly trait to be acquired. According to Alpaca, the Monopoly trait (Trade_Monopoly is one of the docudemons) can be gained if a resource has two or more spots in the same province and your faction's merchant is trading the majority of that resource in that province.

So, if there are two fish resource spots in a province, you can put a merchant on one of the two and if no rival claims the other then you have a chance each turn of gaining monopolist. Or you can put two merchants on the two fish resources and each turn one or both has a chance to earn the trait. If there are three resources of that type in the province, then you need to have a merchant on at least two of them.

That's how it works, as Alpaca explained it.

So for monopolist to be gained, we need provinces with at least 2 of the same resource in them.

[Banjeeboy]

While you are at it, could you adjust the values of the different resources a bit, so there is an actual point in putting a merchant on the "lesser" resources (fish, amber, wool etc)

[Averroës]

While you are at it, could you adjust the values of the different resources a bit, so there is an actual point in putting a merchant on the "lesser" resources (fish, amber, wool etc)

I agree. Since each faction will have its own "monopoly" resource, they should really all be equivalent in base value.

Then the rebel provinces will have the lower value resources, as well as more important resources like grain and gold. But the gold will be distant and rare. So you'll have to decide, is it more worthwhile to go after the closer monopoly resources (and gain the monopolist trait as well) or go after the distant but richer gold resources and risk rival merchant acquisitions and the negative traits that come with distance from the capital.

So, using England as an example:

One of the English starting provinces - likely London - will have 2 tin resources. These will have a medium value. But if you place your merchants on one or both, then you can gain the very valuable trade monopoly trait line. North of you Scotland might have a province with 2 wool and will probably be competing with you for those resources, or France with 2 textiles near Paris and so on. So you can concentrate on those monopoly resources plus the slightly lesser value generic resources like, hopefully, fish and grain and so on.

Meanwhile, gold will be in single spots scattered at a greater distance. You'll have to balance the costs. Is it worth walking a merchant all the way to that very valuable gold resource, wasting all those turns to get there and also risking acquisition by a rival, or is it better to keep your merchants close at home on lesser value resources and the monopoly resource in one provice for each faction and the chance of gaining the nice Monopolist trait.

I think that way will give more value to the lesser used resources, along with increasing their base value. Gold will still be the most valuable; but it will also be much a greater risk because the AI tends to concentrate solely on the most valuable resource first.

[acegogo]

excellent ideas!!!

[Irishmafia2020]

Dogs or elephants could be translated into horses or cattle. Camels could remain in-game, while tobacco and chocolate could become finished steel and Olive Oil or something. Mercury or glass might be a possibility as well.... I am unclear on the monopolist trait though, does the player have to control all of a resource everywhere, or merely two of that resource in the same province?

[Averroës]

Well, that's what I thought about Monopolist, too.

But in my thread in the modding questions forums here, Alpaca stated in his response http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...82&postcount=5 :

"A monopoly in the game is defined by two conditions being satisfied:
1. The traded resource must have more than one instance in the province
2. All merchant(s) trading instances of the resource in that province must belong to exactly one faction (i.e. you can only trade one of two resources and still have a monopoly, while trading two of three and another faction trading the last one doesn't satisfy this)"

So, assuming Alpaca is correct and I have no reason to doubt him as he is one of the most accomplished modders here, it is based on monopoly of a resource in a province instead of the entire map.

If we make one monopoly province in each faction's home area with 2 of the same resource - each faction with a different monopoly resource, then you can get the Monopolist trait by putting a merchant on one of the two spots. But if a rival faction places a merchant on the other, then you can't get Monopolist; so you'd need to cover both with merchants or keep an eye on approaching rival merchants.

This means that with our current resource distribution, no one playing TLR can get Monopolist, because we don't have duplicate resources in any province. It's my fault, because I was the one who suggested the initial resources decrease in the first place.

I'm still not certain that using camels, elephants and dogs will work. I haven't been able to locate any thread where it was announced as being done successfully, just a suggestion that it might be done. Those three resources aren'tactually in the game, but like many things are just leftovers from RTW that CA never cleaned out of the files. But since they are there, it means that those 3 resource slots are defined and accepted already by the game - I hope.

I know we can use chocolate and tobacco, however. And change them to something else just like Vindex246 changed sulphur to salt.

We have, for certain, 24 resources to spread among 21 factions for monopolies for each, leaving three free for generic (non-monopoly) resources like fish and timber for the rebel provinces and then gold. If the other three are also available, then that gives us more leeway for making more generic resources.

I'm going to play around with it this afternoon and see if I can successfully place camels, dogs and elephants on the map. If so, then we're all set and we can start deciding on the resource list for monopolies for each faction and the rebel province resources.

If anyone has any suggestions for other resources types, then please speak up!

New resource ideas we have:

Salt
Steel (for Spain)
Honey
Wax
Glass
Oliveoil
Fruit
Cattle
Horses
Alum
Leather
Incense

We can narrow it down with a poll or two after we figure out how many rssources we can use (24 or 27).

[acegogo]

I had a look at Vindex246´s post and the gfx stuff seem pretty straight forward, not so sure about the code though..... So if you need/want any particular gfx changed let me know and I´ll have it done quickly for you to try.

[Averroës]

Thanks, Acegogo. We'll definitely need sulphur changed to salt then.

Ok, well, it seems the 3 extra resources - camels, elephants and dogs - ARE available! I was able to successfully add each to the map.

That means we have 5 resources we can change and ad into the game.

Tobacco
Chocolate
Elephants
Camels
Dogs

I'm going to start a new thread with a poll to vote for which new resources to add. After we choose the 5, then Acegogo can make us some .CAS and .tga files for them. Then I can get to work on placing the resources on the map for the factions.

If, at a later date, we add more factions, then we'll need to keep in mind that they'll need a resource monopoly as well for each new faction we add.

[Irishmafia2020]

You know... there really isn't any reason that we have to have separate starting monopoly resources for each faction - I know that it does add a unique element for every side, but if wool or silver or silk is traditionally used by more than one faction, they could simply be spread out. For example, England and Scotland both had a Wool industry, and we could just give them each one starting province in which Wool is available for a monopoly rather than giving England fish and Scotland wool... That would solve the problem of not having enough unique resources available for each faction without requiring additional modding of graphics and such (although a couple of new old world resources would be nice). That way if we add more factions later, we only have to add an existing resource anyway. Plus, I would like to see a few monopolies available in rebel lands to begin with. It would seem that conquering Ireland (Usually a challenge in TLR) should result in some kind of trade reward anyway, and the same could be said for the Mediterranean Islands, N. Africa, or that big empty caucus region as well.
On an entirely unrelated and off-topic note, I am considering adding the "Horde" feature to TLR for my own personal use. This is because I hate to see factions destroyed easily (like France, Byz, or Portugal) and I want them to have the option of hording. This addresses one of my pet peeves, but if anyone seems interested, and my experiment seems successful I may post the files involved. Let me know if you are curious...

[Averroës]

Agreed, and it's something to consider. My initial plan is to provide monopoly choices in rebel province as well, although not every one. It does make sense to use wool for both the Scots and the English, perhaps silk for the Khwarezmids and Abbassids since they both sit on different portions of the Silk Road, and perhaps spices for both Milan and Venice to symbolize their control of the sea trade.

[acegogo]

good ideas guys,

Irishmafia, you have quite a bit of experience modding bits and pieces and we could do with your help from time to time, I know you are a busy person, but if you share the bits that you mod for yourself I can check them out and maybe include them in a future TLR release, I really like the idea of hording abilities for factions, so , what do you think??

[Averroës]

I think Irishmafia's idea of doubling up monopoly resources onto two factions is a perfect solution. It will allow us to save the extra 5 resource slots from tobacco, chocolate, elephants, camels and dogs for use as new resources for future factions. At that point we can add in steel and switch Spain and Syria to steel (for their famous weaponworking). Until we get the new factions in, we can just use the same 22 we've been using.

So, I'm looking at the following as a tentative list for faction monopolies:

English and Scots - Wool
French and Milanese - Textiles
HRE and Magyars - Silver
Moors and Spain - Iron
Portuguese and Sicilians - Wine
Danes and Novgorod Rus - Amber
Abbassids and Venitians - Spices
Khwarezmids and Byzantines - Silk
Syrian Sultanate and Rum Sultanate - Cotton
Polish and Kievan Rus - Salt (will use sulphur as a placeholder)
Fatimids - Ivory

The faction monopolies will all have a base value of 4.

That leaves fish, furs, slaves, timber, coal, dyes, marble, sugar, tin and grain and gold for use in rebel provinces and non-capital faction provinces. Except for gold, these will have a value of 3 (a significant increase from the current 1 or 2 for some). Gold will retain the value of 7.

Each capital province will have two of the resources listed for a monopoly plus a grain resource. The grain will increase growth in the capital, which means you'll have to watch squalor! But since it's the capital, it seems reasonable to expect that it would be a serious grain producer.

The other faction provinces and rebel provinces will have mixes of fish, furs, slaves, timber, coal, dyes, marble, sugar and tin.

Several rebel provinces in strategic regions will have doubled monopoly resources in appropriate historical areas:

Slaves on the pagan Baltic Sea coast (Thorn or Stettin to simulate what actually happened to the Slavic and Baltic pagans there).
Furs somewhere among the provinces along the upper Volga and Dniepr rivers.
Timber along the Rhine.
Fish in a few spots on the North Sea and Med.
Tin in Cornwall.
Sugar in Iberia and Middle Eastern provinces for sugar itself and also for fruit production.
Marble in Cyprus, Granada, Ireland, western Anatolia, southern Greece, and Italy (probably near Firenza/Florence).
Grain in one of the Irish provinces, southern France, the Crimea and Bulgaria.

And finally 3, maybe 4 at most, widely separated spots for gold:

Timbuktu
somewhere in the Caucasus
somewhere far northeast to simulate a placer deposit on the west slope of the Urals.


With the increased values of some things like fish and such to 3, and the possibility of monopolies for some, it will be worthwhile to consider sending merchants to these locales.

Closer to home, with a value of only 4, your local monopoly won't be worth as much as that resource used to provide - at first glance. But you'll be able to gain the very nice Monopolist trait line on these and they're closer and thus gaining income quicker. On the other hand, the AI will be competing with you for some of those, since gold is rarer and more distant.

Gold retains its nice value. Since the closest instance of it will be further away for most factions, it will actually increase in value. However, balanced against that is the fact that the AI will be going straight for those few gold spots and you'll be wasting a lot of turns getting your merchant there. It's a tough choice, but could be very profitable if you use higher skilled merchants and are willing to risk their loss to the AI.

This is going to take me a while; but it should really boost the utility of merchants and heavy trade-style play for those who like that sort of game. And since merchants is one of the things the AI is actually rather good at developing, it will help the AI out a bit too.


Any objections or suggestions with reasons? Speak up!

[kepper]

Form my is ok good work, Averroës

[acegogo]

something else I´ve noticed ages a go and got kind of used to it, is spices in southampton... if distance to capital matters, maybe we should consider removing this one.

[Averroës]

It will definitely go. Southhampton will probably get fish or possibly a single tin while Exeter gets a double tin to simulate the tin mining for which Cornwall was famous since Roman times.

I'm working through the map, looking for the best spots to place resources. I want to be sure there aren't any conflicts with the terrain. And I try to keep them off roads but still nearby. If they are too close to roads, then passing military stacks can knock them off the resources too easily, which is highly annoying. But roads would certainly be more likely to develop near producing resources.

When I get a working copy, I'll attach them as files here. All the changes are done via just desc_strat.txt and desc_sm_resources.txt so they aren't big files to handle.