SSHIP - General Discussion

[Belovèse]

I have to correct myself, I did get Hamburgs provincial title, its just that I had several generals there and didn't notice it. So sorry about that. I noticed you mentioned LAA patch and since I reinstalled m2 several times I probably forgot to patch the exes. Would this help with my setup being less prone to crashes? If so please remind me which executables should I patch.
I have to thank you all for the great work on this mod. It is by far the best m2 experience. Will install KCC after current campaign.

First of all thanks for the feedback! In case you didn't use patch E (wich may not be save compatible with patch D), here is the fix for loading screen CTD, you can apply it freely.
About the LAA patch: I reinstalled SSHIP and M2TW cleanly a few weeks ago, and did not apply LAA patch. I wanted to have an experience close to 'default' setup for easier debuging. And I didn't notice more crashed. On the other hand, installing M2TW outside of Program Files, and playing windowed mode, seem to help a lot.

[Gigantus]

Windowed mode helps stability if you are used to 'tab out' from the game, LAA helps with mods that go overboard with their battle models, eg large textures and models with ridiculous vertice count that reduce the FPS to a crawl. Installing outside program files avoids issues with the virtual store - eg patches don't get applied because the game uses the intial files that are stored in the virtual store. Unfortunately the Steam caching system can be almost as bad and there directory change does not help.

[Belovèse]

Windowed mode helps stability if you are used to 'tab out' from the game, LAA helps with mods that go overboard with their battle models, eg large textures and models with ridiculous vertice count that reduce the FPS to a crawl. Installing outside program files avoids issues with the virtual store - eg patches don't get applied because the game uses the intial files that are stored in the virtual store. Unfortunately the Steam caching system can be almost as bad and there directory change does not help.

Didn't know all that, thank very much for the information!

[Macaras]

Thank you guys for this awesome mod! I am playing Poland, difficulty H/VH, I am enjoying it a lot I finally started to understand how to deal with your generals etc. The short advises now and then in the beginning of a turn are very helpful. However, I noticed some details which I would like to bring your attention to:

1. I had some CTDs after battles which sometimes deprived me on great victory after a long battle, which was frustrating. After I patched the files with LAA it seems that all the crushes stopped (!). Maybe it would be good to add this info about LAA together with the installation instructions..

2. The pink faction color for Poland. One thing is that the neighboring factions- Hungary, Lithuania, Cumans, they are all kind of reddish or brownish, in the map its very difficult to distinguish the color. And another thing is I just couldn't look at my armored brave medieval generals running around with pink standards ... So my proposal is just to change the color for similar to default, as in vanilla kingdoms. I did it for myself, just changed in the descr_sm_factions :

primary_colour red 215, green 215, blue 215
secondary_colour red 123, green 0, blue 0

This way the color is not completely white, and is visible on the graph, at least more or less. It is just a suggestion, I hope you find it helpful..

3. I feel a little bit like playing on Gracul AI, meaning the AI gets sometimes unreasonably aggressive, and it works to his disadvantage. For example the HRE attacked me twice even though they were my ally. The same happened with Denmark. My reputation was oscillating between Mixed/Dubious. They both broke the alliance, attacked my cities with small armies, with very little chances for victory. Now I conquered three German cities, they are excommunicated and waging war with 5 other factions including the Papal state.. Probably it will end up as always in SS 6.4 for HRE it means they will disappear.. which diminish the historicity of the game.
Anyway, in my opinion would be nice if the AI was much more hesitant to create alliances, but at the same time more faithful. Also maybe it is possible to introduce the limit of fighting factions for the AI (two for example and then the AI asks for cease fire even giving up a city?)

I know you have probably a lot to do already right now, but maybe you will find this observations helpful, somewhere in the future . Thanks for your work again.

[j.a.luna]

Windowed mode helps stability if you are used to 'tab out' from the game, LAA helps with mods that go overboard with their battle models, eg large textures and models with ridiculous vertice count that reduce the FPS to a crawl. Installing outside program files avoids issues with the virtual store - eg patches don't get applied because the game uses the intial files that are stored in the virtual store. Unfortunately the Steam caching system can be almost as bad and there directory change does not help.

What is LAA??? And why helps to the game?

[Gigantus]

What is LAA??? And why helps to the game?

Large Address Awareness. It enables the executable to access more RAM, 4GB instead of the default 2GB. Unfortunately it does so by altering the executable which is against the ToS and that's the reason why you will not find instructions or links pertaining to it here on TWC.

[j.a.luna]

Large Address Awareness. It enables the executable to access more RAM, 4GB instead of the default 2GB. Unfortunately it does so by altering the executable which is against the ToS and that's the reason why you will not find instructions or links pertaining to it here on TWC.

Ammm ok, And how is it possible that I can run it on my computer so that the game runs better and faster? it's possible?

[Kilo11]

Sorry j.a.luna, but you won't find any info, discussion, or help about that here. As Gig said, it is technically against the ToS, so it won't be allowed here on the TWC. But there are search engines out there that can help you plenty

[Gigantus]

Nvidia's GeForce application actually has a setting for M2TW that gets adjusted as per the capability of the Nvidia graphic card you use. Other then that adjusting graphic settings like unit details and grass details will already greatly help.
On the other hand there is the bottle neck of only one core being used - which means if the core speed is low (2.8 or lower) then you can expect delays.

Using the 'affinity' switch in the mod's BAT file helps in that regard as it prioritizes CPU use for the mod, underneath the present BAT file for Bare Geomod and other mods I made installers for recently (MOS, RotK etc):

@echo off
title Gig's Universal Batch file
cd ..\..
IF EXIST kingdoms.exe (start /affinity 1 /high kingdoms.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
IF EXIST medieval2.exe (start /affinity 1 /high medieval2.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
    echo.
    echo ERROR: Cannot find the M2TW or Kingdoms executable.
    echo You probably installed Bare Geomod into the wrong folder.
    echo.
    pause
  )
)

[Belovèse]

Hello @Macaras, thanks for you feedback!

Thank you guys for this awesome mod! I am playing Poland, difficulty H/VH, I am enjoying it a lot I finally started to understand how to deal with your generals etc. The short advises now and then in the beginning of a turn are very helpful. However, I noticed some details which I would like to bring your attention to:

1. I had some CTDs after battles which sometimes deprived me on great victory after a long battle, which was frustrating. After I patched the files with LAA it seems that all the crushes stopped (!). Maybe it would be good to add this info about LAA together with the installation instructions..

If you refer to CTD during the transition screen, here is a fix that is save-game compatible. It is also included in the latest patch E that you can find here.

2. The pink faction color for Poland. One thing is that the neighboring factions- Hungary, Lithuania, Cumans, they are all kind of reddish or brownish, in the map its very difficult to distinguish the color. And another thing is I just couldn't look at my armored brave medieval generals running around with pink standards ... So my proposal is just to change the color for similar to default, as in vanilla kingdoms. I did it for myself, just changed in the descr_sm_factions :

primary_colour red 215, green 215, blue 215
secondary_colour red 123, green 0, blue 0

This way the color is not completely white, and is visible on the graph, at least more or less. It is just a suggestion, I hope you find it helpful..

Thanks for the idea!

3. I feel a little bit like playing on Gracul AI, meaning the AI gets sometimes unreasonably aggressive, and it works to his disadvantage. For example the HRE attacked me twice even though they were my ally. The same happened with Denmark. My reputation was oscillating between Mixed/Dubious. They both broke the alliance, attacked my cities with small armies, with very little chances for victory. Now I conquered three German cities, they are excommunicated and waging war with 5 other factions including the Papal state.. Probably it will end up as always in SS 6.4 for HRE it means they will disappear.. which diminish the historicity of the game.
Anyway, in my opinion would be nice if the AI was much more hesitant to create alliances, but at the same time more faithful. Also maybe it is possible to introduce the limit of fighting factions for the AI (two for example and then the AI asks for cease fire even giving up a city?)

I know you have probably a lot to do already right now, but maybe you will find this observations helpful, somewhere in the future . Thanks for your work again.

I'm actually trying to improve the relation and reputation system, and maybe after that I'll move to the diplomacy itself. You can try it here, it is also save compatible. v0.1 is mostly minor tweaks, in v0.2 I'll release in a few days there are more changes and after that I'll try more heavy balancing. I need some feedback on how it feels though, so please givi it a try if you have the time/curiosity.

[Macaras]

@Belovese: Thanks for the answer, I will try it for sure!

[removeduser_28376423423]

Suggestion:Crusader type troops to be disbanded after Crusade is completed(Perhaps only for Very hard, and except for Jersualem), not only because I think that half armies of crusaders following a new leader, maybe in the opposite corner of the world and still with the crusader look feels weird, but mainly as an issue of balance, for example, playing as Denmark and having just a full unit of Crusader Knights (mounted), is almost enough to obliterate the Norwegians... Those units have high stats and high morale, and I think they're an immense help for the player.

[Nemesis2345]

Suggestion:Crusader type troops to be disbanded after Crusade is completed(Perhaps only for Very hard, and except for Jersualem), not only because I think that half armies of crusaders following a new leader, maybe in the opposite corner of the world and still with the crusader look feels weird, but mainly as an issue of balance, for example, playing as Denmark and having just a full unit of Crusader Knights (mounted), is almost enough to obliterate the Norwegians... Those units have high stats and high morale, and I think they're an immense help for the player.

They are good but they have drawbacks , high upkeep and if u somehow run out of money they will disband and you will lose all of them. They also can't be retrained / replenished in cities , so they are seen as limited use. Knights are indeed very strong, but you pay the price for them.

[Gigantus]

Yup, high upkeep after the crusade ends will force disbanding - unfortunately that's not an option for the AI. It will rather bankrupt that faction, eg stagnate further growth especially if the stack isn't used to conquer.

[kostic]

Suggestion:Crusader type troops to be disbanded after Crusade is completed(Perhaps only for Very hard, and except for Jersualem), not only because I think that half armies of crusaders following a new leader, maybe in the opposite corner of the world and still with the crusader look feels weird, but mainly as an issue of balance, for example, playing as Denmark and having just a full unit of Crusader Knights (mounted), is almost enough to obliterate the Norwegians... Those units have high stats and high morale, and I think they're an immense help for the player.

Use my KCC 0.9.5 submod to play Denmark: then you'll have generals on horseback as capable as the Crusader Knights.

[AnthoniusII]

What is LAA patch?

[Belovèse]

What is LAA patch?

There is a good explanation by Gigantus here

[Belovèse]

Nvidia's GeForce application actually has a setting for M2TW that gets adjusted as per the capability of the Nvidia graphic card you use. Other then that adjusting graphic settings like unit details and grass details will already greatly help.
On the other hand there is the bottle neck of only one core being used - which means if the core speed is low (2.8 or lower) then you can expect delays.

Using the 'affinity' switch in the mod's BAT file helps in that regard as it prioritizes CPU use for the mod, underneath the present BAT file for Bare Geomod and other mods I made installers for recently (MOS, RotK etc):

@echo off
title Gig's Universal Batch file
cd ..\..
IF EXIST kingdoms.exe (start /affinity 1 /high kingdoms.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
IF EXIST medieval2.exe (start /affinity 1 /high medieval2.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
    echo.
    echo ERROR: Cannot find the M2TW or Kingdoms executable.
    echo You probably installed Bare Geomod into the wrong folder.
    echo.
    pause
  )
)

Do you mean that the affinity switch is not in the "old" stainless steel launcher? If so I'll adapt your batch file to SSHIP, if you give us permission of course.

EDIT: tested it, it seems to run smother with the .bat than with SS launcher.

[j.a.luna]

A little suggestion sship team, i love see in the campaign map unique styles or unique cultures models in the strat unit models, Kostic mod add a lot of this with differences in the clothes and uniforms of generals, princesses, diplomats ... of different cultures such as Muslims, Russians, Europeans ... Also i love see unique descriptions for this strat models as " Imperial relative" "Papal legate" "Roman Pronoia" " Cuman warlord or chieftain".... but i think that can be add more names, not only simply "Lord", this word can be more for english nobles

-For castilians can be " Castilian Señor" or "Castilian Conde", Conde is similar to Comes and Señor is a Lord. Same for the King, "Castilian Rey" if you want.
-For Portuguese can be "Portuguese Senhor"
-For Aragon can be " Aragonese Barón"
-For Nogvorod and Kievan Rus can be " Kievan Boyar", you know boyars were russians nobles.
-For Muslims in general can be "Moor Emir" "Selyuk Bey" , you know that Emir were gobernants

For the rest of factions maybe you can have better names and originals, maybe for scandinavian can be called "Norwegian or Danish Jarl", and the king as " Norwegian Kong"


For the settlements also can be made,not all faction name in latin as it currently appears, for example " Castilian Town" "Imperial Fortress" "Roman Huge city".

i think that all this little things help for the inmersion of the game.




*What I don't know is because there are 2 types of names for some generals of some factions and what is it due to ... maybe their rank or some ancillary? Fo example i saw that at he beginning of the game a roman general in Nicea is called "Roman Strategos" and he has the ancillarie of Megas Domestikos so he is the supreme chief of the roman army,but the rest romans generals are called roman pronoia, aslo for cumans that i saw cuman chieftain and cuman warlord, for europeans i saw english noble and english lord.... maybe is that some generals are family member and others no?

But if is possible add this "tittles names" in the campaign map to generals it would be amazing for the gameplay and inmersion!!!similar to what happens with the ecumenical patriarch of constantinople and perhaps if what I proposed of the Great Caliph of Baghdad is done ... If you put the high office of marshall or chief of the army to a Castilian general, he could be called from a simple "Castilian Conde" to "Castilian Duque". That would be great.

[Gigantus]

Do you mean that the affinity switch is not in the "old" stainless steel launcher? If so I'll adapt your batch file to SSHIP, if you give us permission of course.

EDIT: tested it, it seems to run smother with the .bat than with SS launcher.

I am not aware that the affinity switch is used in any BAT file\launcher out there, with the exception of the very recent repacks by me (MOS, TATW, RotK) and the latest version of the EBII launcher.

You are welcome to use the above code as is, simply change 'Bare Geomod' to 'SSHIP' and change 'Configuration.cfg' to 'default.cfg' - then create a desktop shortcut linked to it.

Personally I only use the set up in Stainless Steel, the mod itself I always run with my BAT file - didn't bother to change the mentioned details as I am also using my BG's CFG file.