Meneth's Systems #1

[Los San Patricios]

Aren't almost all films with a medieval setting historical inaccurate? Since the mod is all about historical accuracy, or at least as much as possible wouldn't that mean that many of the in-game cinematics would be very inconsistent because the low number of 'reliable' films means you have to scrap clips together?

It's just a question, I don't know much about it so I could be totally wrong.

[\Vazul's Ghost/]

From the OP: "In-game cinematic pop-up for the Duel event"

OK sorry I must be blind.

[Meneth]

This isn't the place to ask. Make a thread of your own, or post in this one: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=209325

[Meneth]

Which reminds me that I have to script that pop-up sometime

[TuCoT]

It seems the DotS will not just about new map, factions and units. It will be more than expected!

Great script systems Meneth. +rep

[Meneth]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"
Seems pretty consistent with the ~50-year average lifespan we're going for, no?
Many diseases also leave permanent damage, especially when not treated properly. Therefore a slow gradual reduction in health makes sense.
Also, do note as I've currently coded the aging trait system, the first small debuff only comes at 36 at the earliest. It's more likely to come around 37-39. A general with the first level of the OldAge trait will still be viable both for combat and as a governor. It's only until at decade or two later that the penalties get so severe as to make up for experience.

[mynameisowen]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"
Seems pretty consistent with the ~50-year average lifespan we're going for, no?
Many diseases also leave permanent damage, especially when not treated properly. Therefore a slow gradual reduction in health makes sense.
Also, do note as I've currently coded the aging trait system, the first small debuff only comes at 36 at the earliest. It's more likely to come around 37-39. A general with the first level of the OldAge trait will still be viable both for combat and as a governor. It's only until at decade or two later that the penalties get so severe as to make up for experience.

I'm not questioning your decisions meneth they're great and I think it will work well, the example (even though it was off the top of my head) was to show that the nobility could and did live to relatively respectable ages. The slow degradation in health is a great feature to implement.

I'm critisizing the post above for ridiculing another user without reason.

[ByzantineCaesar]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"

That was the question that I was just about to ask. Is life expectancy higher for the Eastern factions than for Europe? Regarding your statement, John II indeed died aged 55 but that was a hunting accident in Cilicia. He would have probably lived until ~1150. Now what surprises me is Manuel's age. He died aged 70, in 1180. I suppose you are talking about the firstborn of John II, Alexius Komnenos, who died in 1142, aged 36?

[mynameisowen]

That was the question that I was just about to ask. Is life expectancy higher for the Eastern factions than for Europe? Regarding your statement, John II indeed died aged 55 but that was a hunting accident in Cilicia. He would have probably lived until ~1150. Now what surprises me is Manuel's age. He died aged 70, in 1180. I suppose you are talking about the firstborn of John II, Alexius Komnenos, who died in 1142, aged 36?

Ah yes, he did indeed die in 1180, his reign was 36 years but yeah sorry about that . These guys then are a good example of how nobility could, but not necessarily would, live to pretty old age. Living in the "queen of cities" for most your life I'm sure does wonders for your health .

@ Hross, I appreciate your response and I have respect for the research you guys have done, im certain it vastly outclasses what I know on the subject. As I said before I think meneths systems are great and its a shame we cant properly represent they vast difference in life expectancies through the engine. Eastern factions were for some time so much more advanced than the northen european ones...

@Meneth when you said "my aging system will likely be slowed down for the eastern factions" what did you mean??

[Meneth]

@Meneth when you said "my aging system will likely be slowed down for the eastern factions" what did you mean??

Currently the OldAge trait goes up a level on average every 5 years. It would be possible to make it go up slower for Eastern factions, meaning they wouldn't become severely disadvantaged by age as early as Europeans.

[jazstl]

Just Beautyfull.

[sumskilz]

I think it is quite likely that the medieval nobility, especially around the Mediterranean, ate a considerably healthier diet than the average North American today. The question is whether that plus increased exercise would have been enough to offset the issues of health related to disease without access to modern medical technology.

Here's an article on nutrition in the early medieval period, the main difference between then and the period covered by DotS is an increase in the efficiency of cultivation methods meaning greater abundance of the previously available foods.

[Space_Ed]

I think we all seem to agree that the ruling classes probably ate relatively well. I think it is quite easy to argue that they ate more healthily than a lot of modern day US citizens. Especially in the mediterranean as Skilz says.

I also think everyone seems to be in agreement that the majority of people in the medieval ages probably had it pretty terribly so I don't think there is a huge amount of disagreement amongst us about this issue.

[sumskilz]

Well even though I understand what Annatar was getting at, this particular part was worth criticizing:

When you take in to account that an apple from 100 years ago had 20 times the amount of nutrients of one today, and you expound that to all agricultural products, you find that people had access to better food in the past.

It's true that modern efforts in agriculture have been more focused on producing fruit that have the durability to handle transportation and will look nice in the supermarket which sometimes comes at a moderate cost to nutrition value (and taste). It's also true that the longer produce spends being transported, the fewer nutrients it will have at the time of consumption, but to say 20 times is ridiculous. Even the medieval nobility didn't have better access to food than the average person in Europe or North America today. We have better access, but a lot of people still choose to eat relatively empty calorie processed foods which the medieval nobility wouldn't have had access to (nor would they have been exposed to as many environmental toxins). Then again, they didn't have antibiotics either.

EDIT:

I also think everyone seems to be in agreement that the majority of people in the medieval ages probably had it pretty terribly so I don't think there is a huge amount of disagreement amongst us about this issue.

By our standards yes, but some recent research has shown that this view has been exaggerated a bit like the concept of "the dark ages".

[Meneth]

1. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically what the player will see, yeah. I won't go into detail right now, though.
2. There'll be no long-distance duels.
3. The current alpha values aren't final, so cannot make any concrete statements on this, sorry.
4. We'll make sure the character is still useful after a duel, just less useful.
5. Generals come of age at 21. The first level of the OldAge trait can only be triggered after age 36. That gives a minimum of 15 years (30 turns) before getting any disadvantages at all. The first few levels won't make a general useless, so most generals should be usable well into their 40s at least.

[Meneth]

I was quoting some other guy. Ask him, not me.
As to different life expectancies: sadly that's not possible, due to the age limits being global. My old age system will likely be somewhat slowed down for Eastern factions, though.

[ByzantineCaesar]

I was quoting some other guy. Ask him, not me.

Oops, sorry. I hadn't noticed it.

mynameisowen, would you mind to give an explanation?

As to different life expectancies: sadly that's not possible, due to the age limits being global. My old age system will likely be somewhat slowed down for Eastern factions, though.

Ok.

Anyway, +rep for your work.

[Hengest]

mynameisowen you've got some good points, but I think as you seem to say if I understand you right, the game can't really allow us to represent things in specific variable details.

Even if we generalise and say that aristos had better food, medical care and healthier athletic lifestyles -they were also more like to run into an arrow like William Rufus or bleed to death from having a hand partially sliced through with a sword, or even better getting a nasty case of squashed insides (like my Dad last year) when his horse capsized and he fell underneath it as it rolled over. Not fatal now, but back then a fall from a horse (pretty common for a knight I reckon) would not have led to 6 months with their legs in traction- if your bones are mashed, you saw the bleeders off!!

The other issue is that the nobility in the game engine represents different cultures, periods and factions in different scenarios such as war, peace, plague, famine, campaign etc and on top of that the nobility in a single decade in a single country all doing the same thing would still encompass various lifestyles- lesser barons would not have the same health or life expentancy as a king. But the game engine has to have a single life expentancy rate for ALL characters throughout the campaign. So finding an average between all that arse is no easy task. I have over 9 GBs of word documents on my PC, 4 private forums and dozens of internet nerds with access to their own university libraries all backing up a lot of our info. (Sometimes Ed just ignores them though and puts synth music in the campaign).

With ALL these variables factored into the equation, Meneth working with research came up with some pretty fair figures. It wasn't just Meneth pulling it out of his arse either- but its the culmination of over a 100 guys (some of whom were educated with degrees, books and even read some Osprey comics) arguing for 4 years about whether all the characters in the game should whether in 1080 or 1450 be allowed to die at 65 of 70...pulling out of the arses and having a collective rummage through the brown goo of internet geekery.

So trust me, in this context- the Dominion team are pretty confident lads, because we know how anal we all are, we have really tried each other's patience (well Ed has certainly tested mine)- so we are happy with the end product. I am sure that when you give the game a go, finally- then you'll agree that the representation of this and that are all kosher.

[Hengest]

Yeah these are the kinds of issues we tend to bump into on a regular basis- as you say the difference between Muslim medicine and say, Icelandic medicine. Life expentancies being effected by that. On the other hand, Muslim nobles were much more warlike than you're average Icelandic fisherman and yet it's likely the Muslims would have lived much longer on average. So one of the things we can do is to give the characters a trait 'hit' where their health drops after each battle- representing their wounds etc. I think what Meneth meant was that there are ways such as through traits that certain cultures or factions or even character types can receive 'help' to counter some of the likelihoods of sudden death or more importantly- handicap illnesses.

[Samariten]

Very interesting kutgw