SSHIP - General Discussion

[Lifthrasir]

The infantry are too heavily armored. I often look at these Byzantine rosters and wonder why if they were apparently so well armored why'd they lose so much? Chainmail and a lammellar harness where a western milite would be hard pressed to afford even his hauberk? I'm just not convinced. Maybe as guard units, highly elite soldiers? Sure, but not as mainline infantry.

The current Greek roster was made by Caudillo87 and is absolutly inaccurate But it looked better than the vanilla one at the time it was implemented in SSHIP.

you're making an excuse that i dont think even you belive. Why did you release a v9.0 and a 9.2 and 9.5 ? why not have no release at all for 6 years and just release 1.0 ? i mean 9.0 and 9.2 etc all had bugs and werent complete right ? why did you release ?

i think you get the point i am making here which is that if you constantly chase perfection you'll never release anything, you can improve things forever

hope i didnt come across as rude again, it's really not my intention at all

There's no excuse and I don't feel the need to justify myself. People need to realise that we mod for pleasure and that real life always takes priority. Despite being all busy, we do our best to carry on with the mod development. It's slow. It takes time but that's the best we can do and at least we're still here. See how many mods have died during the last few years. My main problem is not to chase perfection but rather to find enough time to focuse on modding. And I think that it's the same for most of the other dev. here.

Now, regarding the Greek roster and nikossaiz, we've been in contact since last October. He told me that he wanted to complete his roster for SSHIP but was very busy in RL as well. I've delayed the release of the current version for a month in the hope he could finish his roster. Unfortunately, he didn't. But the release was made anyway. And for info, he even apologized a few days ago for being busy in RL and unable to give us his work completed. Many have joined us, have promised things and have disapeared without any notice. So, I see no reason to not trust him.

For now, I'm trying to fix 2 main issues: the missing voices for some version of the original game (Thanks to kostic and Blackader for being my alpha testers ) and that annoying archers' issue with their animations (black zebra all over the screen during battle). The others can be fixed while continuing the development as a lot less problematic.

No worries. There's no hard feeling and I hope I've answered to your queries.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I dream that one day the designers of Total War will make us a Medieval III Total War with a new engine allowing real diversity within the units ...

I think any TW engine will be worse in terms of historical feeling than the Medieval 2. Just try MKTW on Attila - units are nice, gameplay is very gamey, but the historical feeling is much worse (with simplified map, limited number of armies, 6-slot settlements, limited role-playing - it's really a platform for having battles). And everything will get more gamey in the future - in the Warhammer or TW Troy style.
M2 engine is the best we'll have unless DarthVader will adopt his Ultimate General system to the medieval times (what don't see in the foreseeable future).
I think the pinnacle of historical games is Europa Barbarorum II.
The SS had it's chances but the great modders of the past used to develope their own pieces but never fully finished one (SS6.4 was closest to this goal).
SSHIP is 096 and rightly so - 1.0 should be a finished mod, otherwise we just mislead the players.

[kostic]

Completely agree with you regarding the current TW. We are moving further and further away from historical credibility !
M2TW remains the most suitable for approaching the historical aspect.

[Palaiogos]

How would I create a minimod which gets free_upkeep back? Especially when you conquer another faction's capital, it's crazy leaving 1000-2000 florins of spear militia to keep the settlement from revolting. Also, how would you guys start your economy up besides conquering and exterminating/sacking settlements?

[shadowtwinz]

Medieval 3 with new engine can happen if SEGA doesnt see any other "Easier" opportunities to make money or expand.

Where can I find more information about this Darth Vaders Ultimate General system ?

[Dekhatres]

How would I create a minimod which gets free_upkeep back? Especially when you conquer another faction's capital, it's crazy leaving 1000-2000 florins of spear militia to keep the settlement from revolting. Also, how would you guys start your economy up besides conquering and exterminating/sacking settlements?

in export_descr_unit file you must add "free_upkeep_unit" to attributes line, like here

do so to all the units you think should have free upkeep

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type             Feudal Knights
dictionary       Feudal_Knights      ; Feudal Knights, f
category         cavalry  ; elite mounted melee, early lance/sword
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy
banner faction   main_cavalry
banner holy      crusade_cavalry
soldier          Feudal_Knights, 24, 0, 1
officer          Feudal_Knights
officer          northern_captain_early_flag
mount            barded horse
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, can_formed_charge, knight, free_upkeep_unit
move_speed_mod   0.88
formation        1.5, 4.4, 2, 6, 2, square, wedge
stat_health      1, 3
stat_pri         9, 18, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 60, 1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         1, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 15, 1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  12, 3, 6, metal ; 
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        8
stat_ground      -1, -2, -3, -1 
stat_mental      16, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 45
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 3110, 500, 120, 95, 1110, 4, 180
armour_ug_levels 6, 11, 16, 21
armour_ug_models Feudal_Knights, Feudal_Knights, Feudal_Knights_ug1, Feudal_Knights_ug1
ownership        england, aragon, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, hungary, slave, hre, france, scotland, denmark, norway
era 1            england, aragon, spain, portugal, milan, venice, hungary
recruit_priority_offset    40

then inside export_descr_buildings you must simply delete the semicolon
change this

;       free_upkeep bonus 2

to this

       free_upkeep bonus 2

that should do it

[Palaiogos]

Thank you!

[Jurand of Cracow]

Medieval 3 with new engine can happen if SEGA doesnt see any other "Easier" opportunities to make money or expand.

Where can I find more information about this Darth Vaders Ultimate General system ?

I do think Med 3 will happen within a few years, but my point was: it'll be so gamey that I won't get that historical immersion. I've played a lot in the other TW games and the mechanisms feel very gamey or arcady to me. You may read my thoughts about the Thrones here or about the system of sniping here.

Especially when you conquer another faction's capital, it's crazy leaving 1000-2000 florins of spear militia to keep the settlement from revolting

This is exactly the goal! It works!
The system of high unrest is created to prevent the player from conquest-rushing. The issue was: how to make the player stop after taking a settlement. And the solution was: high unrest that after some time may be coutered by building many buildings, but initially the whole army must stay and keep the order.
Furthermore, many outlying regions historically was simply un-economical: more costs than income.

Compare Garrison costs and Income:
(I think you may find also part of the answer to your other question, about economy: have a look at income of various cities: they're well-shepherd and grew bigger (some were also rebuilt from castles into cities - I need just few castles), so they provide hefty income.)

[Dekhatres]

@JoC you seem to keep posting that spreadsheet all the time every single chance you get, you in love with it or something ? no judgement

[Nemesis2345]

I agree too about future Total War games, they deviated hard from the core experience and i couldnt find myself to play anything other than M2TW and Rome 1 . Tried Divide et Impera on Atilla and was fine , but i still went back in the end at M2TW, i find it simply the most appealing to me in both immersion and gameplay. Looks can be decieving and this is why CA and SEGA put the graphical aspect above the gameplay and immersion and think it will do......

Also the Warscape engine or whatever is called (used for Shogun 2 onwward) sucks , the animation look robotised and u saw how they work on the battlefield

[shadowtwinz]

I agree too about future Total War games, they deviated hard from the core experience and i couldnt find myself to play anything other than M2TW and Rome 1 . Tried Divide et Impera on Atilla and was fine , but i still went back in the end at M2TW, i find it simply the most appealing to me in both immersion and gameplay. Looks can be decieving and this is why CA and SEGA put the graphical aspect above the gameplay and immersion and think it will do......

Also the Warscape engine or whatever is called (used for Shogun 2 onwward) sucks , the animation look robotised and u saw how they work on the battlefield

CA is spamming games. They need to fill all the gaps with spam. Every season you can purchase new set of clothing so this is basicly same thing. They skip the difficult mechanics and just proceed or rework existing possible. They dont develop any in deph mechanics. I think M2TW was a pure luck what we have right now. Imagine CA developing new engine and it being worse than M2TW engine again lol. They would also need 3 years to create it. Right now they are improving warscape by tiny bit with each new Title.

What is a great game design to me ? I'd say it has to contain these elements: Hard to master, hard to adapt, in depth game mechanics, variety of actions.

[Jurand of Cracow]

@JoC you seem to keep posting that spreadsheet all the time every single chance you get, you in love with it or something ? no judgement

You're right I'm reusing it all the time. I haven't seen anything similar so I don't have any other reference to back my thesis. I haven't produced a different set either. I'd love if somebody would provide data from playing the SSHIP.
I thought that it's always better to provide opinion with data used many times than to provide just opinion. I may change my mind, ofc.

[Dekhatres]

I thought that it's always better to provide opinion with data used many times than to provide just opinion

gotta agree

[Slaytaninc]

I guess the time to complain about the Byzantine roster was before CBUR set the standard for what they should look like.

[Jurand of Cracow]

My problem with the Byzantines is that they're crushed by the jihads on Constantinople so it makes little reason to play them.
Ehm, I may be wrong though since I've got experience just from Titanium with BGR_IV - and I had no money to prepare.

[Dekhatres]

^ reason why i am growing more and more fond of garrison scripts, used to absolutely hate them for being unfair at times but now i appreciate more the large epic battles for enemy capitals and main fortress, i also deleted many AI bonuses tho

[Alavaria]

Speaking of hilariously heavily armored units, it's interesting that the only real time I had "fun" fighting the constantly spawning vanilla Stainless Steel Byzantine family members' super-heavy cavalry bodyguard units as Lithuania was when I realized a bunch of crazy people with warscythes were amazing. That Followers of Perkunas unit is still in SSHIP, too. However, with how archers are even more effective against light units, they're at risk.

Though, it's unfortunate that campaignwise, while the high tier (late) units in SSHIP are very good at surviving due to a lot less armor-piercing, especially since removed from crossbows, you'll hardly see them. But the Perkunas unit is hilariously effective against the most frightening units, heavy cavalry (Armor piercing, bonus vs cavalry, locked morale, cheap, decently available)

[Jurand of Cracow]

Yeah, I've played Hungary in SS6.4. This faction doesn't have access to heavy cavalry (at least for some time). Fighting Byzantine bodyguards was indeed very difficult. I've lost a few kings in the process. I had to hire the Frankish Knights (extremely expensive).

Locked morale should not be present in any unit, I think...

[straightsilver]

Hey, sorry if this topic has been brought up ad nauseum but when does the "Usurper" trait go away? I can't do anything with my new monarch.

[kostic]

The subject has indeed been raised. https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ussion/page252

I am in favor of removing this immobility for the next version at least.