Minimod idea

**taw** · January 02, 2009, 11:42 AM

Hi, I'd like to try making M2TW more dynamic without changing anything fundamental about it. Things I'd like to try changing, including why and now.

Nerf bodyguards, so factions have to use their real troops. Right now it's too easy to take 8 generals and blitz through early map. I'd at least change their hitpoints from 2 to 1, so charging with bodyguards is risky business. Won't it result in too many AI general casualties? Should I reduce their attack/charge instead, or their numbers? I can edit export_descr_unit.txt for that, but I've noticed number of bodyguards per general is not constant. Do I need to handle it somehow?
Make buildings build very quickly (1 turn, I'd do multiple building per turn if possible), and maybe more expensive so building is money-dependent, not time-dependent, and if you have money you can build whatever you want. This should increase game dynamism a lot. I just need to edit export_descr_buildings.txt for it right?
Make gates a lot more ramming-resistant, and give foot missile units more ammo, so sieges are harder. Can I increase gate_strength as high as I want? Can I make it resist ramming but not artillery?
I'd like to make everyone faster on campaign map - they should be fast enough so you can easily send reinforcements to the front, but not fast enough that you can just hop with artillery one settlement per turn. I think I'd like to increase speed of agents (so there's less micromanagement), ships, and everything on roads. Is it possible? I haven't found anything yet.
I'd like fewer but stronger rebels, so they're either a big problem or they don't exist. Current situation of frequent nuisance rebels is annoying. descr_strat.txt has brigand_spawn_value and pirate_spawn_value, I guess it only changes spawn frequency. Can I make them stronger too?
I'd like merchants to be more profitable, so they're useful not only outside Europe. Is it just changing trade_value in descr_sm_resources.txt? Would it automatically increase mines' value too? I don't see any independent controls for value of resources in mining. I think more profitable mines would be great, if only mines were more expensive to build in the first place.
I'd like to make settlements reach mid tier faster, and I would like tax policy to have more effect. I think a reasonable way would be to increase tax bonus/penalty from 0.5% to 1.0%. Is it possible? I haven't found anything in text files.
Can I make AI less aggressive, more likely to accept ceasefire while losing, and more likely to keep treaties?
I really hate that in city battles that so much of visually free space is not accessible to units. It's probably too much work for me to fix it, but has anybody fixed it already so I could just include it in my minimod?
And general question - do I just dump files I modified to mod directory and pass a command line option to game exec or do I need to do anything more? Is there any difference between modding m2tw and modding kingdoms (I want to base the minimod on vanilla m2tw but I have kingdoms installed too)?

I'm not sure if it will make the game better or not, but I'd like to try. Thanks for help.

**Moon** · January 03, 2009, 08:02 AM

If anyone can correct me on any thing please do.

Nerf bodyguards, Won't it result in too many AI general casualties? YES.
Should I reduce their attack/charge instead, or their numbers? NO. as previous question
I've noticed number of bodyguards per general is not constant. Do I need to handle it somehow? NO.
Make buildings build very quickly (1 turn), and maybe more expensive so building is money-dependent, not time-dependent, and if you have money you can build whatever you want. This should increase game dynamism a lot. I just need to edit export_descr_buildings.txt for it right? YES.
(multiple building per turn) NO.
Make gates a lot more ramming-resistant, YES.
and give foot missile units more ammo so sieges are harder. YES.
Can I make it resist ramming but not artillery? PROBABLY NOT. must be a limit
Can I increase gate_strength as high as I want? PROBABLY NOT. as above
I'd like to make everyone faster on campaign map - they should be fast enough so you can easily send reinforcements to the front, but not fast enough that you can just hop with artillery one settlement per turn. I think I'd like to increase speed of agents (so there's less micromanagement), ships, and everything on roads. Is it possible? I haven't found anything yet. DESCR_CHARACTER
brigand and pirate_spawn_value I guess it only changes spawn frequency. YES. Can I make them stronger too? NO.
I'd like merchants to be more profitable, so they're useful not only outside Europe. Is it just changing trade_value in descr_sm_resources.txt? NO. DESCR_SM_RESOURCES and DESCR_SETTLEMENT_MECHANICS
I don't see any independent controls for value of resources in mining. I think more profitable mines would be great, if only mines were more expensive to build in the first place.Would it automatically increase mines value too? DESCR_SM_RESOURCES and EXPORT_DESCR_BUILDINGS.
I'd like to make settlements reach mid tier faster, and I would like tax policy to have more effect. I think a reasonable way would be to increase tax bonus/penalty from 0.5% to 1.0%. Is it possible? I haven't found anything in text files. DESCR_SETTLEMENT_MECHANICS
Can I make AI less aggressive, more likely to accept ceasefire while losing, and more likely to keep treaties? DIPLOMACY IS VERY FLAWED. TRY SOME AI MODS.
I really hate that in city battles that so much of visually free space is not accessible to units. It's probably too much work for me to fix it, but has anybody fixed it already so I could just include it in my minimod? NO.
And general question - do I just dump files I modified to mod directory and pass a command line option to game exec or do I need to do anything more? http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76289
Is there any difference between modding m2tw and modding kingdoms (I want to base the minimod on vanilla m2tw but I have kingdoms installed too)? NO.

**Azim** · January 03, 2009, 03:21 PM

I like your ideas, taw.

I don't think nerfed bodyguards would hinder the AI; they would actually help it. Don't forget that the AI doesn't care about the "general" label. All it cares about are the units stats. This is why the AI is always so keen on using the general's bodyguard, because it is an excellent combat unit, statwise. If the bodyguards were nerfed, the AI would be more cautious about using them, and the player wouldn't be able to steamroll entire armies with them.

Making rebels stronger is pretty difficult. I'm trying to figure out how to do that as well. It would seem that the only way to strengthen the rebels is to use the campaign script to spawn rebel stacks when necessary.

What you want to do with the AI isn't very complicated, so you could try modifying some of the *_db.xml files, but it may be wiser to use an exiosting AI mod, as there is also a lot of room for messing things up.

About for freeing up the untraversable space in cities: it has been done, but only in small experiments so far. No mod has actually implemented this. I'll find you a couple of threads on this. There are some in the tutorials section, named along the lines of "modifying the world."

And there is a difference between moding for Kingdoms and for M2TW. First off, for kingdoms, you have to use a subfolder in the mods folder to store your mod and place your cfg file inside your mod subfolder. For a M2TW mod, you have to create a new folder in the main M2TW directory and create a cfg file in the main directory as well. Kingdoms also has some extra commands and features which can be used in descr_strat.txt and campaign_script.txt.

**taw** · January 05, 2009, 01:42 PM

I made this minimod, and got most of what I wanted working. I'll release it after a bit more of playtesting.

Can I make it resist ramming but not artillery? PROBABLY NOT. must be a limit
Can I increase gate_strength as high as I want? PROBABLY NOT. as above

It turned out to be possible by descr_walls.txt and descr_engines.txt
I reduced ram's attack, and increased gates hitpoints. Gates are now slightly stronger against artillery, and a lot stronger against rams.

I don't think nerfed bodyguards would hinder the AI; they would actually help it. Don't forget that the AI doesn't care about the "general" label. All it cares about are the units stats. This is why the AI is always so keen on using the general's bodyguard, because it is an excellent combat unit, statwise. If the bodyguards were nerfed, the AI would be more cautious about using them, and the player wouldn't be able to steamroll entire armies with them.

I playtested campaign with half size of bodyguards, and just 1hp, what's a pretty drastic nerfing. They're still rather powerful, with three digits kill rates when used against low tier missile infantry etc, but they suffer high casualties when used against competent troops, what's exactly what I wanted. AI doesn't seem to suffer too much, I haven't seen any AI losing because of running out of generals yet.

Total list of changes in the minimod:

everybody moves 2x faster in campaign (maybe I'll reduce it a bit, but it plays a lot better than vanilla)
rams have 50% attack (I really love it, I think about nerfing them even more)
rams have 50% hitpoints (doesn't seem to do much, chance of catching fire seems hitpoints-independent)
Taxes influence growth rates at 1% per level, not 0.5% (I like it)
Resources are 2x more valuable - so trade, and mining are 2x more valuable, and merchant trade is >2x (it's not linear because higher income gives merchants extra levels faster). I think this is too much, I'll reduce it a bit. It doesn't make merchants in Europe all that valuable, but it makes merchants outside Europe really overpowered, not the intended result.
gates are 2x stronger (definitely a good idea)
all towers fire at 2x the fire rate (definitely a good idea)
everything builds in 1 turn (definitely a good idea)
mines are 2x more expensive to match their income increase
bodyguards are 1hp and half size (works great)
missile infantry gets 2x ammo (and now we have proper rock paper scissors with cavalry beating archers beating infantry beating cavalry)
rebels and pirates spawn half as often - it seems to make them stronger at the same time, but I haven't made any scientific measurements. Some posts at the forum suggested that this would happen, so it's not just my imagination.

As for AI impact, the minimod gives AI some advantage in sieges, as autoresolve ignores boosted defences. Using autoresolve in sieges by player is now officially considered dirty cheating ;-). I think AI doesn't build mines as often as it should. It handles faster campaign movement speed very well, doing surprise counterattacks with big forces when I overextend.

I definitely like it more than vanilla, I'll tweak and playtest it a bit more before releasing (unless someone wants a quick preview zip), probably on the weekend when I don't have that much work :-)

Are there any diplomacy-fixing (and bugfix) minimods that I should and can include?