A "thing to do list" prior to 1.0 version

[Hister]

ACS, I've sent you a PM. Link is there. Check 39th post which will be constantly updated to see what is free to be done. Let me know what you want to do and I'll give you more details.

Thank you for helping me out.

[Hister]

List in 39th post updated.

[Hister]

I'll post a PM conversation here so that you guys will know what me and Benz are cooking up

Posted by Benz:

With the Sabini project done, I'm going to move on to the "- Fix UI pics of some temples that show up as vanilla". I noticed this while I was checking the factions, and so I will make a list of the problem temples. I'm falling behind in the GED's scripting course over at the Scriptorium, so finishing this week's lesson is my first priority tomorrow and thus, I'm not sure if I'll be able to actually fix the temples as well. If not tomorrow, I'll have them fixed the day after and will move on to a new task.

After that (just to give you an idea of what I'm thinking):

- Balance the campaign map so that no faction has too much money from the start - Veneti are one such example.
I will at least compile a list of starting treasuries and income for all factions. That will take very little time for me to do, and I could also probably do the "balancing" afterwards, but I am not sure how to do so (altering treasury at the start?).

In hindsight, that task should probably be saved for later on; the new EDU mentioned in the ToDoList will apparently have different unit upkeep, so balancing the map to the old EDU will only waste time. Also, messing with the settlement levels will drastically change factions' income.

-Add new Ligurian diplomat from PI II (property of Invasio Barbarorum 2 team)

-Add new Gallic diplomat from PI II (property of Arthurian Total War)
These two will also be quite easy to take care of. I am not entirely sure how to do these, though I am sure the TWC Wiki will have something on it. I will take these tasks unless you can get to them first, or already know how to implement them.

-Use remaining faction descriptions from M2TW PI when done.
Whenever you have the time to give me the faction descriptions, I can probably implement them.

In addition, at the faction selection screen, the "title" at the top of Syracusae's faction description box is different than the other factions. Instead of just saying the faction's name, it says "SYRACUSAE - Sicilian Greeks" (as opposed to, for example, "ETRUSCAN LEAGUES"). This is not necessarily a problem, but it just seems a bit "off" given that no other faction has anything like that in their "title".

- Add remaining building descriptions from PI II and adjust them.

- Add finalized unit descriptions.
These I can do as well, unless you have someone with experience in implementing these kinds of things ready to do them instead.

- Make different tier settlement and building levels on the map.
This is a big task, and it is obviously very important. I can do it, but it wont be a "quick" thing I can do in a day or two; it will probably take a week. I have never done much "serious" modding of Descr_strat like this will require, but I do know how to add, remove, and replace buildings in cities, as well as change their settlement levels and population. It is simply a matter of knowing what levels to make the cities, what buildings to place, and checking all the time for errors.

Ideally, this task could be split up between you, the other volunteers and I. In other words, we would each be responsible for editing the levels of all the settlements for a few factions. When we were done, we would send all the pieces in to a single person to be compiled into one file. This way, it would be done much, much faster, and the end result will have more variety (the building layouts in the cities would be coming from the imagination of 3 or 4 people instead of just 1). However, someone is bound to make a mistake along the way that would just cause more problems, so unless there are other volunteers with experience modding settlements in descr_strat, I think it will be safest for me to do it alone. If we do indeed go that path, I believe I will do a couple factions a day, then send you the updated descr_strat every morning in case someone else wants to check over the changes or add on to them.

Regardless, it will probably take a few editions to get the settlement variation and campaign balance right.

Answered by me:

Thanx Benz, the first task from the list is DONE

Temple pics task reserved for you.
I know what needs to be fixed - don't bother with the list. It's all the temple pics that have #"culture_name"_temple_of_hunting_lots_"level of temple"; #"culture_name"_temple_of_mithras_"level of temple"; #"culture_name"_temple_of_ultraviolence_"level of temple"; etc. names - they need to be given appropriate pic since they have vanilla ones currently. Assign them small UI pic that you can find for their coresponding culture. For example if you are fixing etruscan temples go to "\PI\data\ui\nomad\buildings" and search for #nomad_shrine, #nomad_temple, #nomad_large_temple shrine, make a copy of them and rename them to #nomad_temple_of_hunting_lots_shrine; #nomad_temple_of_hunting_lots_temple;
#nomad_temple_of_hunting_lots_large temple. Overwrite the original ones with them and the problem is fixed. Awesome temple and panteon can remain as they are since I think they aren't used in-game.
It's a bit of work but not overwhelming. Sure, finish the scripting course first and then work on temples, we are not in a hurry.

Balancing of the campaign map is logical to be done as one of the last things prior to compiling an installer. EDB and DS needs to be finished first for example otherwise all the work is fruitless.

the new EDU mentioned in the ToDoList will apparently have different unit upkeep

No, EDU in 0.95 version is the latest and no more radical changes are to be done on it.

The two diplomats will be impelemnted by someone else - dunno who yet but your skill and time should be reserved for other tasks.

I'll implement remaining faction descriptions, it's no biggy - it's just that I'm still waiting for SigniferOne to give them to me.

In addition, at the faction selection screen, the "title" at the top of Syracusae's faction description box is different than the other factions. Instead of just saying the faction's name, it says "SYRACUSAE - Sicilian Greeks" (as opposed to, for example, "ETRUSCAN LEAGUES"). This is not necessarily a problem, but it just seems a bit "off" given that no other faction has anything like that in their "title".

This is actually WAD - it's there as a hint for new players and am not considering to get rid of it as of now.
Btw, do you like faction description unit weaknesses and bonuses in faction selection screen?

- Add finalized unit descriptions.
These I can do as well, unless you have someone with experience in implementing these kinds of things ready to do them instead.

I'm waiting those descriptions to be put in PI II. When I'll have them all I'll send them to you or someone else if you'll have other work to implement them.

- Make different tier settlement and building levels on the map.

Yes this will indeed be the toughest thing to do. When we come to it we'll see if anyone else will be interested to work on it.

[Hister]

Guys, to make things easier I updated the first post in this thread so from now on relate to the first post and not to 39th post which won't be updated any more.

[Hister]

- Give Veneti, Liguri and Umbri their own distinctive barracks description. - Done.

[Nullified]

Hey I'm game to help with whatever you need but keep in mind I have no modding experience. I'm quick to learn though so give me a job and some quick instructions and I'm sure I'll figure it out.

[Pode]

Hey I'm game to help with whatever you need but keep in mind I have no modding experience. I'm quick to learn though so give me a job and some quick instructions and I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I think Hister's hope is that we'd all pick something off the list in the first post that sounded interesting to us, post a reply here claiming it as our own and guesstimating a timeline to finish it, and then we go read up in the modding tutorials section and get it done.

[Hister]

- Make barracks for every faction so that when you conquer a neighburing province that has barracks built you can't get anything from them. (Optional since it is a lot of work!) - Being done by Nullified.

[Hister]

- In EDB file equestrian buildings (used for regional subjugation) need to be given to factions so that when for example Romans conquer a province where regional subjugation building was already built by Samnites Romans are not able to recruit any units from that building since it’s not them who established subjugation in the first place. - Done by ACS - have to find time to implement it myself.

[Daminios]

Good too see work being done to further complete this mod ........
Im almost 50 & have no experience in what you guys are doing but i wish you all the enthusiasm , energy & strength to complete that list !!
Keep going lads !!

[Hister]

Thank you Daminios - always nice to see veterans interested in the game. May I ask how did you come across this game?

[Daminios]

In the old days i wargamed with figurines , starting in the late 70's in my late teens & rite thru the 80's until the early 90's , where the first proto primitive wargames appeared on computers .
Ofcourse the next decade bought us Shogun & the rest is history .
I played MTW for a few years when it was released & then also got Rome , only to put it away as a racing game got my attention for a while , now some 4 yrs later i returned to the battlefield again & a search to find some updated info led me to the TWCenter once again ! , I was delighted to see everything still so active & so many new versions out ! .
I checked all forums to find that the RTW engine very well suported especially in the mods section , where i found yourself & team working on this mod , & thats how i have returned .
Keep up the great work as i'll be re-installing my copy of Rome TW to play some of these upcoming mods , especially yours !!.
cheers

[Hister]

Just wanted to let you guys know that today I had a day off at my work since it was raining I was working whole day trying to implement one feature where regional subjugation buildings don't give anything to the foreign occupier - this "building" has to be built by the owner of the province in order to receive benefits. Well I got a bug when I'm thrown out of the game after the splash screen without any error notice. Was searching for what might be wrong but couldn't find anything. Maybe now there's too many building entrances taken, what's the hardcoded limit in EDB already?

[Daminios]

Hister ,
Thats a great feature if you can include it !!
... perhaps one of the other mods has used it ?

[Hister]

Hister ,
Thats a great feature if you can include it !!
... perhaps one of the other mods has used it ?

Well it's hard to compare other mods since everybody has their own style of building the mod. It's raining today so I'll be checking the code I made for errors and posting questions on the forum for the solution.

[Hister]

I think I have found the reason for the bug -I now have 85 EDB entries because of 21 added new ones for regional subjugation (each faction has it's own subjugational building tree). Hardcoded limit is 64 of such trees. I can't belive I threw out one whole day of coding for nothing. This idea I had now can't be fully implemented. Subjugational buildings will have to be build-able on the basis of culture which means that if for example Sabelli conquer one Samnitian province where regional subjugation building is, they will immediately have access to this building and will be able to recruit native units. This is because they both belong to the same culture. Ugh...

[wudang_clown]

You mean: 85 hidden resources? Could you ascribe those buildings to already existing culture-specific hr?

Ooops, sorry, I didn't know about RTW hardcoded limits.

[Pode]

Hister, I recall from my EDB fiddling that each tree can have 9 upgrades, not just 5. So beyond a shared first level you could have different sets of upgrade buildings that were faction/culture dependent. Some careful thought and compromise may allow you to combine trees and reduce your total under the cap. I don't recall if any given building can have more than 2 upgrades or not.

I'm thinking you might have 3 culture-related subjugation trees: Gallic, Italic, and City-State. City-State subjugation level 1 upgrades to Citizen army subjugation (Etrusco-Roman) or Mercenary army subjugation (Greco-Phonecian). Level three becomes the faction specific subjugation bldg. Level 1 allows basic barracks, level 2 barracks level 2, and level 3 the full barracks tree. Tweak the recruits to require both the barracks and the subjugation bldg and you should get almost the same faction-unique subjugation pattern with only 3 new trees instead of 21

[Hister]

Pode - you are a genius!!! Thank you for the insight!!!

[Pode]

Shh, none of that, I have a reputation to maintain. Save the congrats untill we know it works