Questionnaire: Help us improve DLV!

[HbHadast]

Hello everyone,


I think all of you have already tried many versions: 4.x/5.x/6.x and especially 6.2/6.3 openbeta

It's time for a feedback.


Please answer the following questionnaire:

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?


Thank you

[Tokus*Maximus]

1/ Playing Repman's pure DLV 6.2 plus latest update of Taiji's BB. Why? I like getting my men torn apart by the AI and my armies trooden into the mud. BB is pure hard going!

2/ Sub-mods? The Battle Balancer by Taiji as mentioned above. No others, apart from one of my four cultural loading screne packs (depends on which faction I'm playing for that campaign sitting).

3/ I always play the main campaign.

4/ England usually. I like the position and the carry on in that neck of the woods. Archers are my fav' units. I play onto the late gunpowder times until Taiji brings out another (weekly) patch!

5/ Only one bug reciently in 1240 but Taiji's fixed it!

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod? Ermm...
a/. Not getting rid of the new world but at least helping TaronQuinn to add Aragon and drop the Aztecs for varied rebels with different Indian tribal names.
b/. Also would like Merc buildings to be able to retrain there ones raised there and refresh their ranks.
c/. Adding special event pics when any of your allies loose or gain territory.
d/. Linked event pics easter-egg missions - or - just better missions all together. Soem of the Russian M2TW modders have done ownders I hear...
e/. A warning event pic when any faction is reduced down to just one settlement!
f/. A warning event pic that your King is extremely ill and is expected to die soon. Then he has a 75% chance each turn of actually dying. This gives the player some warning to move the heir closer to the capital.

That's all for now folks...

-- Tokus

[Rafael_Brasil]

1/ 6.2

2/ Never Tried ;X

3/ Main Campaign

4/1207

5/When i try to choose the factions for a hotseat campaign

6/Hotseat Campaigns,Aragon,Duke of Burgundy and Wales

[Zeeky_Bomb]

1. 6.2 with the latest BB.
2. BB, Crimson Tide from the SS submods
3. Main
4. Novgorod, I just started a new campaign so I think 1193
5. Frequent CTDs after ending turn. I deleted "ItsWinterNow" from character traits (the log gave me an error with it) and it's more stable now. Disabling UAC helped the stability more, but I still end up having to restart the game every half hour or so. I'm on Win7 x64, and installed to a custom location. Also, I have glitched audio when Eastern European siege towers reach enemy walls - the announcer's voice stops halfway through and then starts over.
6. The big thing here is polish. Gameplaywise, DLV is the best by far. It doesn't really seem quite as "professional" as other mods though - there are tons of grammatical issues in unit descriptions, apostrophes where there shouldn't be, unit names that aren't capitalized, units with no speech, etc.

[clone]

6 getting rid of the new world.

[Lord Ragnar]

Hi ya, using DLV 6.2 plus BB mod.As for improvements,what about giving the stone forts a happyness and trade bonus.Or replace them with a village icon, complete with a bonus.(Like ETW has).Makes it worthwhile taking them off the rebels and keeping them. Also helps when you want to cause unrest in the battle to take that factions area.
How about get rid of spys,assassins,princesses,priests. Replace with the Merchants that can kill,and the diplomats that can spy traits. Then merchants can either trade and if need be sent to kill. The diplomats can spy on there wander,but if caught you have a DIPLOMATIC UNREST!! between your factions. As for princess that could be handled by a card saying"Princess comming of age,do you want to enter into marrage arrangements.You then choose,your generals or If your of good standing with another faction you have a better chance,(a bit like requesting trade rights) The priest thing,(religion bonus with church building as is now,plus your general when produced could have a religion bonus to cause unrest/convert when entering a faction at war area. This could be temporary cancelled if access granted by a faction NOT at war,when needing to pass through.Thanx for reading

[Flavio]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions) I use the 6.2 version, i try the 6.3 but i find it strange

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones? Yes, BB2.7u18

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign? Main campaing

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign? Scotland, my last campaing is in 1223.

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs? Yes, when i try a campaing with Kingdom of Jerusalen i could not build anything in my settlements. I know the recruitment is hard because of the start religion, but at least i should be able to build something.

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod? Maybe making it easier to the family menbers having children, as Scotland sometimes take more than 5 years to the guys make a single boy.

[LaMuerte]

1. Version : 6.3 Beta
2. Mini Mods : No
3. Main Campaign
4. Flanders , 1390
5. Bugs : Sometimes a CTD when loading a battle
6. Bigger units (I know , not possible)

[Seer7]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

6.2, because it's the latest stable release. (No idea) I'm considering playing DLV Europa for my next campaign since I find the Americas a pointless addition to the Euro-centric campaign.

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones? None.

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign? Main.

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign? Royaume de Sicile, currently 1310 or nearby.

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs? Random CTD's during CPU turns, and a texture bug. Nothing game-ending so far, though some CTDs were persistent for a while, but eventually got past them somehow.

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?

Little things - updated descriptions (some units have none or ones that clash with their faction for example) and making sure textures work properly on the battle map etc. Just spit and polish mainly. With a mod this complex CTDs are inevitable, but any work to reduce their incidence is worthwhile.

[Taiji]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

6.2+BB. Other versions are outdated. In terms of coding the vast majority of changes to DLV since 5.8 are BB.

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?

BB

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?

Main campaign.

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?

Most by now, I usually get to ~1250 and then have to do something which causes a restart. But I'm testing rather than playing most of the time.

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?

Yeah plenty. Fixed most of them myself. Some annoying ones still remain:
- Start campaign without heraldic ranks, occasional but fatal bug
- Ugly shiney textures seemingly applied to units at random and then left that way
- Occasional CTDs during AI turns
- Many of the typical CA bugs remain, like walls don't allow for units above a certain size and the BAI cannot cope with that oversight

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?

Polish, in particular the text. Some descriptions are almost OK, some look like dumb nationalism. But they all need to provide the same information - what the unit is for. And if possible some historical background, but that is secondary. We have mechanics that should be explained in building descriptions, etc. Much of the manual should be redundant.

Nonenglish text presented without any guide for pronunciation - might as well be in chinese. Yes, I mean the faction names, and I think norway even has some non-latin characters. Great examples of lack of polish.

The points system, it's clunky, it needs to evolve. The mechanics it creates are great but it's too artifical and immersion breaking. It needs to be integrated into the game in a way that makes it blend in. As it is, sometimes the mechanics are just plain dumb - 'Oh no, I better lose some mil points!' - WTF?!

Split the gov required and gen required scripts so that we who don't like the gen required script don't have to lose the gov required part.

Drop the new world. It sucks until someone does something with it. And so get a better map, a bit more eastern like europa.

Drop the 'history' campaign. I think it's delusional to think that a focus on history rather than gameplay makes for a good game. Sorry to the history buffs that have their priorities mixed up, go rob a grave

The time would be better spent improving a campaign which offers a better experience.

Drop most of the script choices. They distort feedback or make it more laborious. And they imply that the game is somehow optimised for any combination. Which is just not true.


Hmm, maybe I will come back later and rant some more, that felt gooood

[avner]

Boy, if someone didn't know you are actually one of the biggest users/fans of DLV one might miss the fact that you have strong criticisms stemming from love of the mod.

[Taiji]

Boy, if someone didn't know you are actually one of the biggest users/fans of DLV one might miss the fact that you have strong criticisms stemming from love of the mod.

lol yes, I look like a hater... When perhaps only Repman has put more effort into making DLV than I.

If I'd made the same post a while ago there would have been a tonne more things to complain about. Agis' new unit cards solved a very important one of them, for example.

edit:

And I have been PvPing a lot recently, I guess that might have something to do with it

[eatme]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

6.3 beta, in order to test it out..

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones? none for testing purposes

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign? Historical campaign, since I consider it historically more accurate, that way more balanced, and also more challenging.

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign? Crusader states, 1237

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs? like already mentioned above, some CTDs when loading a battle (3 times it happened when having 4+ FMs in the army, though dunno whether it's related to CTD)
Also some innaccuracies with text descriptions in expanded.txt ( i ve already posted on this in 6.3 bug thread)

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?

- Europe map w/o americas would be better
- meaningful economic system, with bigger variety of buildings tied with resources
- more historically accurate family trees
- more faction specific units/mercs

[Quirinus Kuhlmann]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)
2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?
DLV 6.2 with latest BB, because of better Battle and Campaign AI, the amazing FOW-Script and the steady developement and improvement of the submod. It's also generally better looking than pure 6.2.


3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?
Main campaign as recommended in BB

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?
Poland, 1200. Also played Byzanz and Kiev, Lithua and Flanders a lot. Tried Armenians too, because I like small factions, but that one was unplayable for me because of incredibly ugly looking faces of the units (would be somehow offended, if I was from Armenia)

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?
Yes, because due to the developement, there are Bugs in BB, but Taiji does his best to solve any problems.


6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?
Another Muslim Faction instead of the Aztecs. Extension of the Map a little bit more to the east instead of America.
In my opinion the game is not capable of simulating the colonisation of America properly. So compared to the thrilling, multidimensional, realistic and deep simulation of the medieval struggles in Europe and the Middle east the unrealistic colonisation thing is simply boring. It cannot meet the standards of the rest of the game and therefore somhow ruins the whole feeling, if not ignored.
Furthermore another Muslim-Faction would make it more interesting to play as muslim, as you are not so alone in the world. Also Georgia and Jerusalem would not be on the edge of the map.
Alternatively the Aragon Project would be a good thing to improve the game.
But besides that, DLV is my favourite Kingdoms Mod by far.

[la coupe est pleine]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)
I'm 6.2. Very nice one.

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?
No mini mods. I'm sure I would love to install BB but I've already started an AAR and I don't want to risk to lose the game. After, surely, if I suceed to finish .

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?
Historical campaign. I like it a lot. I think (maybe I'm totally wrong) that it is more difficult because for a lot of factions, there is no rebel around you and you must start war without more than one city, sometimes.

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?
I liked to play with little factions because it is more difficult (flanders, jerusalem, teutonics, armenia...) but I'm currently playing with france, for my AAR.

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?
Not really. Everything seems quite OK. Some units are in silver sometimes, but it is a common bug (I think) and it is not a big problem...

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?
* I liked the last units of bodyguards. I don't really like to see that they are the same graphics than Vanilla.
* The famous problem of the special graphic for the king in battle which is unic, and can't be sent to the heir at the death of the king.
* Maybe having the possibility to recruit some foreign and conquered units. For example, if I'm the english and invade France, I would love to be able to hire some lancers, or aventuriers, after a while in the country.
* More units for each factions (easy to say, isn't it? . I nearly feel guilty to say that, as I've done nothing to improve this mod)

* Adding dozens of new factions . What a shame it is unable...

Anyway. Thanks a lot for this amazing mod. I really love it and think it is the best forever and ever...
You have made a perfect job, and it is a pleasure to see that you still like to work on it, with a lot of courage, determination, and intelligence...

[Kjertesvein]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

Used to use DLV 6.3, but now I have gone back to DLV 6.2.

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?
With DLV 6.2, I'm using BB.

3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?
Historical campaign, because it's more in the moment of faction rivalry. Tho, when playing France, I tend to play imperial for the lack of brits on the continent.

4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?
Norway, France, Flanders, an italian state(not papal) and perhaps KoJ now and then. I quit my playing around 1270 - 1350-ish. Most probably from CTD, but also game playability decreases.

5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?
Yes, now and then, butfar less then with 6.0/6.1. However, I still get those pesky CTD's when we are closing in on the 1300s and onwards.

6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?

DLV need the following buildings. Due to population boom in high medieval citys prompted an expanding in colonizing settlements elsewhere. i therefor hubly suggest the series of buildings in this order: Land clearence(deforestation, clearing fields, drying out marshes, etc.), Village, Town, Vassal City. The orgin of new settlements back in the middle ages were mostly due to the lords who in the sought oppurtinuty or need of trade or existing population boom in other settlements. I would give these new "Constructions" some trade and some farming outputs. Possibly even a Governor point for each building as opening a new achivement of the realm is allways a significant event for the peasantry and those seeking to obtaining new land and status. You may compare it when your government opens a new bridge or tunnel.

The infaltion script is brilliant, but it needs a wider scope. Not just 2 stages, but perhaps 7 stages ranging from 40 000, 50 000, 60 000, 70 000, 80 000, 90 000 and 100 000 florins. This way, it's a gradual stage, rather then the player focusing on keeping just below a certin limit of 50 000 or 100 000.

Generals should be a necessity, just like Governors are to large growing citys and fortress'. An inexperienced general, captain or governor should have serious decrease in moral, logistic(length of travel) and line of sight. In my opinion, tt's crazy when a player do not even require to have a general.

Several unit-stats and red/blue -meters which tell you if you are going to win a battle should not be visable. Maybe some Tokus art to replace it, if that is possible. They are completly ahistorical and takes every joy out of finding the answer out for yourself on the field of battle. Right now, you know information only the most seasoned general would calculate, which is utter crap. Limiting this knowledge to the new DLV player will increase the level of enjoyment by tenfolds.

Famine should play a larger role in DLV. I'm not the master of the univerce, but I think we togather cane come up with some ideas. One idea is how the player must deal with a famine, which may cost him authority and reputation among his own.

There is also the Banking sector of DLV which need more elaborating. See this link.

Best regards,

~Wille

[ilshur]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)

6.2, or whatever the most up to date stable v is

2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones?
no
3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign?
i play both, i oscilate back and forth because the main is early and lets you develop perhaps more slowly and in a way that gives you more control, but the historical has already huge city'sa nd fortresses, so you get to the fun units sooner, and it is a bit more playable
4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign?
I've played for at least 60-80 turns i think every faction, except maybe the mongols and desert tribes, because in the spirit of the original game i dont think they should be playable and being stuck in a corner keeps you pretty far removed from the action.
5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs?
A variety of random shutdown bugs, starting with selecting the 2nd faction when choosing a faction in campaign load, and ending with random ones that occur without any discernible pattern.
6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?

Alright, i have a ton of ideas, so i'll break them down by topic
///Coming of age///
Make all generals come of age at 14, and give them 4 turns to get to the settlement wherre they will start their education. Early game when your empire is small, this isnt so much of a problem, but late game when your stuff is all spread out, it would be helpful to not have to bring every governor or general back from the hinterlands to your top university or citidel to learn em some schooling.

///Stainless Steel mod faction map!!!///

Add this map with DLV -mod-, if at all possible. This map is huge, for one, but the increased accuracy of regions and sheer number make for a better game, in my opinion.

///in keeping with the above, add a late and early campaign map. if i knew the first thing about modding, i'd do it myself, but i am terrible when it comes to intricate stuff ill leave it to the pros. More factions, too, but honestly, with the exception of Aragon, there aren't that many missing. Knights of St. John based outta malta would be cool, tho - require them to take all of north africa, holyland, and Constantinople as victory regions. not all that historical, but it'd be fun anyway.

///More roleplaying stuff in general, and _dramatically_ scale back the bonus's and penalty's that govern loyalty, chivalry/dread, and command. it is easy to farm up a general's stats by doing x y and z, require heroic victory's for basically anything.///

///Some way to recruit general or governor, but make it tremendously expensive to mainain, like 1000florins/turn or something, until they are married in. In historical campaign, basically every faciton starts with a whole slew of these guys, but they are all dead by turn 60 and the family tree is incapable of maintaining this. Either im missing some key game feature here that lets you recruit them - lol, if i am, forgive me - but man, it is so annoying not have any generals/governors around once you get more than 6 or 10 settlements.

///vh/vh with all scripts enabled is sufficiently hard - i think i have at least a 50% defeated record on vh/vh, but more because you just get dogpiled by every neighboring nation or what seems like extreme crusader prejudice.




i just reformatted my gaming pc, it was overdue to clean out the filth. when i reinstall DLV in the next day or two, i plan to follow the install guide to the letter, and ill give feedback on how it can be perhaps improved.



You have a great mod here, but adding more maps to play (maybe something completely wild?) would be cool, and small additions in the above would increase the challenge and playability.

[XIIICaesar]

1/ Which version are you currently using? Why? (What are the drawbacks of the other versions)
6.2 Patch. I love 6.3 Beta Patch but have had some problems and would rather wait for complete Patch b4 movin on from 6.2.
2/ Are you using any mini-mods? Which ones? HbHadast's Improved Characters Portraits, BB2.7u21 ::War Draft:: <15/06/10>, 4/JUN/10 - REVAMP'D SYMBOL SET SAMPLER by Tokus & Shadrach, Units' Cards improvement Project [UCiP], Aragon Faction Swap 1.0 RELEASED
3/ Are you playing the main campaign or the historical campaign? Main Campagin.
4/ Which faction did you choose? And which year is your actual campaign? England always. Right now that far as I am installing the Aragon-Aztec Swap mod.
5/ Did you encounter any problems/bugs/CTDs? Yes not so much with 6.2 though. Most bugs were encountered with 6.3.
6/ What is missing in DLV to be a better mod?
Its got almost everything already. Maybe give better variety of cavalry to England plz lol?! No truthfully maybe tone it down a notch on how much money is deducted each turn with all scripts activated.

[ilshur]

Also - i want to be able to construct and further upgrade defensive castles. the free-upkeep castles are nice, but there must be a way you could build your own. Reason - rarely are these in proper defensive positions that force an enemy attacking that region to go through your castle before directly besieging your town. If i had to make a judgement call, i''d say this:

Basic Castle - Cost: 1000; free upkeep to 2 militia units and any 2 other units

Upgraded Castle - Cost: 5000; Free upkeep 3 militia units, any 3 other units, and drastically improved defensives at the gate and on the walls

Field Fortress - Cost: 10000/20000; free upkeep 4 militia units, any 4 other units, 2 layers of gates/walls that the enemy must go through, improved defensive at the gate and the walls.


further edit:

Recruitment of new generals at your capitol or at huge citiy/citadels (definitely at your capitol even from the beginning though). Make them roughly half general half governors, expensive to recruit (3k? 5k?) and with typically low traits, but give em something. Once you expand beyond 5 or 7 cities, it's almost impossible without supergarrisonning to keep them all up and running, and is really a logistical nightmare to keep your faction leader and heir moving about them all. Furthermore, some of the largest factions in Historical campaign start with 4-8 unaffiliated nonfamilymember generals and governors anyway - im talking mainly of france england and hre - why can we not recruit them from the start?

A 'big family' setting would be nice, which auto-sets your family members to maximum fertility. i don't know what settings govern the chances that a child will be born, but it is infuriating when you go out if your way to find a princess with all the good fertility traits, marry them off to your heir, and then 20 or 30 turns elapse with no child. infuriating.


Also, im sure this has been asked before but - why can you not hard-code stationary defensive siege artillary onto the walls? Something between the siege scenes of minas tirath in lotr3 and Jerusalem in kingdom of heaven. THis would be _awesome_ if you could do it, and would require enemy attackers to emphasize building more artillary than they already do, and not just zergrushing the gate when you repel em at the walls

[VikeKing]

1)6.2 with Taiji's BB latyest version





6)Hungary unit roster could be upgraded. I also believe adding units from kingdoms to the jerusalem roster would be awesome, I see the edessan units, if the antioch and tripoli units were added it would make the jerusalem unit roster much more enjoyable.