[Workshop] Collection

[Hetairos]

Yes, good idea, i might create a list or documentation with startpos and scripting changes. Awesome idea mate.

What I meant with db editing is not the "difficulty level" of modding, but the hidden hardcoded elements and restrictions you encounter constantly in pretty much all areas of db editing. x(

[Hetairos]

Welcome Daruwind!

I am glad that we have you with us!

[Daruwind]

My plan for near future:
-Finishing port Icons and some others. It should be done by the time I finish loading preview things up here.
-Create completly DB entries regarding Resources,Commodities.
-Complete maps with idea for resource allocation,just suggestions for testing
-Finishing list of candidates for level 5. buildings
-And list of unused buildings secondary slots (4th/6th slot in some settlements)

I can use help in form of historical buildings and famous locations. For now I would like to have a list of +/- 5 buildings for every faction to fill level 5.

[ABH2]

So, as I mentioned in a PM sent to Daruwind and Alec, I had a small hope that we could find a workaround for resources being available faction wide/building construction based on resources. I was hoping that something could be done with the effect scope, or that perhaps the amount of the resource would make a different (too simple to work, really). Both are unsurprisingly a no-go.

The entire issue seems to stem from the 'production' bonus_value_id set for resources, and there's no workaround that I can find.

[Daruwind]

I had sadly the same results so far. But I got another idea as I said in PMs. If we can separate building trees for AI-controlled-faction from Player-controlled-faction (the same nation), then we can create pretty complex system of building´s resource requirements for player. While AI could simply build whatever (or bigger part of buildings) without being hampered down. I believe that with complex system player would be glad to obtain at least some resources at the start/mid game.

Alternative to this is to find a way how to add resource income directly to a faction. I have tried that and haven´t found a way through effects ...even to add resource to a faction. Not to mention in some weird way which would allow building contruction but not trading (like adding fraction of resource unit...) As stated before, even 1 unit of any resource allows world-wide contruction and trading...

Anyway one off-topic question guys. I´m not so familiar with Roma Resurecta 2, but is somewhere wiki/documentation/way how to get a list of all buildings for factions and etc? It could speed up some things... I´m trying to google something but without big success.

[Hetairos]

Since we can assign UI and texts to resources to be the same even if the resource is different... e.g.:

• olive_oil_1, Olive Oil (olive UI pic)
• olive_oil_2, Olive Oil ( olive UI pic)
• and so on...

... I was thinking we could solve the problem with it as well (as you said ABH2, this would have been too easy copy and paste to do). Unfortunately, it doesn't work with the buildings to be copy pasted endlessly to match the resources.

For AAW I was looking for a more different approach on resources. I wanted to use resources as a trade good only and not bind units or buildings to them. I also wanted to give regions more than one single resource (since regions where known for more than just one resource e.g. Peleponesse being known for fishing grounds, olive groves AND farming). So the crucial db editing here is to be found in the elasticity of the products (income) and the likely hood of trade (diplomacy). I wanted to make trade (respectively the control over resources and trade routes) one of the major income sources and taxes of the people itself a fairly lower income. Right now taxes are the major income and trade is only small part of your entire balance sheet. That way we could also issue events through technologies or scripts similar to CiGs tech tree where you could pay a certain amount of money for opening up trade with olive oil in all of your provinces (each region got x amount of olive oil available). If we ever get a scripting documentation for Rome II we might in future add events like: Your nation got hegemony over the medditeranian wine trading, all provinces get x amount of wine available. (triggered by the conquest of the major medditeranian trading harbors). Keep in mind its just a quick idea for an event to show an example.

One newbie question: Can we learn from how main settlement chains are handled? Since they are Gold City, Timber City etc. are they linked to the resource present? Are they special in the db? Can we extract any knowledge form them to be applied to other building chains?

[Daruwind]

Your idea would be nice Alec and would allow construction of supply chains across the map. But it has a few problems..I was already doing some tests

-Resource is simply world-wide. I´m not sure we can limit it somehow to be just localy available. Such feature weren´t in any later TW game (Empire,Napoleon,Shogun2).

Only possible way would be to limit it through available building selection in every settlement.

-It´s quite easy to have 20 version of the same resource. DB allows such things without problem. But we will end up with 20 version of the same resource in Trade Windows. Let´s say 20 versions for 10 resources = 200 different resources...Oliveoil1 is to Oliveoil2 the same as Marble or Gold..

We can have 10 "same" versions of one buildings for every one of resource

Barracks1 for Olive Oil 1
Barracks2 for Olive Oil 2 ...

Now came problems.

-Secondary slots. The building selection for them is also facion/world wide. There is no local setting to have different building selection in province A and different one in province B.

-We can lock down buildings to be just local in way of ports/primary buildings. It require inserting initial level of superchains in secondary slots however (with destrucion terminator like primary buildings/ports!)
So we will end up with fully development cities just with level 1 buildings in every secondary slots. This will of course remove samohow the SANDBOX options as everything will be pre-determined before the game. I mean we will have to make uniqe buildings trees for every particular city to reflect what resource is around in a few provincies around..

Even if we manage to limit resource area of effect what about trade? We will be trading with faction, having trading Iron with a few different nations yet it won´t allow player to construct buildings as the right Iron resource is in next to his region but the owner is not intereted in trading?
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Now positive fact. It´s easy to mod DB so player income would be mostly from trade agreements and not taxes.

Back to newbie question. Every primary building with resource is now unique building tree. Like I said above. First level is to be inserted in-game (startpos file) to allow only construcion of particular settlement tree. (With Vanilla trees we cannot build copper city in gold etc..with editing however it´s posible to have level one producing one resource while upgrade to level 2,3,4 can produce whatever you want. Hell we can even open selection so player could choose city specialization at all)

During the last week I have made the same even for ports. So now ports are holdings some resources. (Like fish,textiles,pottery,olive oil,wine...)

So it´s easy to have multiple resources in one province. We can have even multiple resources per one building..

Of course every unique combination is requiring a clone in terms of DB wiht particular effects.. And a clone for every culture group. If you produce unique city "Alexandria" then you need its version in every culture group.

Good experience is in fact Meaningul Resources mod from XiL0. It´s adding a lot of resources even to secondary buildings. But as said above,secondary slots are available world wide.

[ABH2]

One newbie question: Can we learn from how main settlement chains are handled? Since they are Gold City, Timber City etc. are they linked to the resource present? Are they special in the db? Can we extract any knowledge form them to be applied to other building chains?

To elaborate a bit further, resources are determined by the building_effects_junction for that resource production (ex-rom_building_resource_olive_oil_production). That's the only thing that ties a building to the resource. So, it's easy to do multiple per building as Daruwind said (though balance is the main issue), but it's part of what limits the use of resources in other respects for modders.

If the production value in effects is set to 0, there will be no resource. If it's set to 1, it is faction wide. If the effect scope is changed, it doesn't make a difference.

The effect for resources is defined differently from other effects. The effect_bonus_value_resource_junction_table is used to determine what it does (allowing for the creation of new resources). There is a table called bonus_value_id which sets the effect as production. Production doesn't appear to be defined anywhere else in the DB, so how this behaves looks to just be entirely hardcoded.

Peleponesse being known for fishing grounds, olive groves AND farming). So the crucial db editing here is to be found in the elasticity of the products (income) and the likely hood of trade (diplomacy). I wanted to make trade (respectively the control over resources and trade routes) one of the major income sources and taxes of the people itself a fairly lower income.

I may be misreading you, so forgive me if I am. I have thought about attaching a resource to a region the same way wonders and other effects are. See Phalangitis' work on Meaningful Unique Provinces.

The issue would be that the resource would be a fixed amount because they are governed simply by that effect mentioned above. The level of the product produced determines the income generated (along with a few other references). So, the only way to get varying amount from the resource, or to develop it, if I'm not mistaken, is through buildings.

[ABH2]

One thing that would be theoretically possible is to set negative resource production. So, if for some reason we wanted a building to use up a resource or to have production matter for a little more than just trade, you could have certain chains subtract another resource. You would need to acquire more or develop another line further then in order to develop another. But this would have to be carefully balanced, and it doesn't seem in line with what Alec just laid out. I don't have a particular application in mind at the moment.

Edit-one thing off the top of my head - wine production could use up olives. Cattle farms could be reworked potentially, though I'd need to test it.

I wonder if markets couldn't use up resources in exchange for the bonuses they provide. Say, a grain market for Rome. It would use up grain production in return for food.

[Daruwind]

Good idea ABH2! Question is, what happen with negative income of resource.... I have a small hope that it will prevent further building of buildings with that particular resource requirement. That would be wonderful! At least for my resource system. It would force player in nice way to carefully choose location for buildings.. And it seems to me that it will somehow limit resource being world wide. Let´s say player acquire 1 unit of warhorse. Good enough for Horse breeding range, but that buildings would enforce -10 warhorse resource so player would have to obtain another 10 unit to be able to produce another range. Definitely I´m going to test that. )

Basically it leading to my/XiL0´s system but instead of simply acquiring even one unit of resource it could force player to acquire a lot more in order to build more buildings.

Balance could be done as long as we kept some sort of system in resource production and requirements.

(yea it´s leading little away from Alec´s idea but I hope with exploring all possible options we can utilise it somehow. At least we will end up with a few working system and could later decide which one to choose and go on. )

[Daruwind]

Anyway adding resource production like region effect of effect on primary buildings/ports is almost the same. First had advantage of being isolated from buildings,their state,level... Second has ability of being influenced by the building levels. Like level 1 = 20 units production , level 2 = 40, 3= 80, 4 = 160...I think the best way is to use both.

I have seen a note about effect which could influece resource production in region. OR if it was for buildings. Have no idea now. I will try to find it.

[Hetairos]

Again, me not leaning too much out of the window due to lack of expertise on the matter, but I could probably get familiar with the idea of resources being provided by ports and farms, but used up by markets, recruitment buildings.

BUT I highly doubt that at the end I will choose to make kind of a broad and complete trade-off system for AAW like CA did with their food vs squalor system, but use this wisely only if highly beneficial. I found CA's system terrible and not comprehensive concerning authenticity. It felt kind of an unfinished system. CA did use population, squalor, food and income like some artificial resources (e.g. mine gold, chop trees, gather food only that they named it squalor, food and so on). So actually food had as little to do with food as it could. It was simply a artificial resource to provide a trade-off system concerning buildings. I could have understood if food was generated by farms and used up by population and provided for armies. Yet, Rome II's population system is reflected solely by the main settlement chain . e.g. you decide when the population gets bigger or not, not the game, the happiness of the people and time passed itself. Than on the other hand what CA calls their population system is a "recource" provided to unlock new building slots which also is more or less ill defined since its not the population that defines new buildings in reality but your cash and decisions as governors. Overall the entire campaign mechanics around that very interesting provincial system which has / had a lot of potential in my eyes, was very ill-defined and lead to Rome II being so shallow and frustrating on the campaign map.

So I still tend to lean towards resources to be used for trade only and not use them for anything else. Which however doesnt mean that we can not make use of the system you talk about that you provide a resource and gets used up by another building in AAW. I just want to say that it will not be used extensively and be more the exception than the default for buildings.

[Daruwind]

Alec, this is only idea, I want to see what is possible with current system at all. At the moment we are unable to extend building system due to limitation of building slots so why don´t try to produce more complex system. I remember in Shogun 2 controlling right resource was key for legendary buildings and for many advanced buildings as well. It was really strategical choice which areas to conquer at least for me as I like to build as many of legendary building as possible. It is saying nothing about how much profit player get from trading those resources.... Without system ala Meaningful Resources you are ending with resources system ala Rome 2 Vanilla where resources matter only as additional income. In your version they would matter only slightly more without any aditional depth to the system.

So question is why not to add such strategic layer to resources. Remember that Rome 2 has at the moment a lot of limitations and this one area might be in our grasp to enhance this particular part. Please don´t consider my building trees to be final or building requirements or number of resources. It´s just my vision and I should just see the end wheras it´s fun/working or not. Majority of resource requirements is for top tier buildings. And as I´m usually working tailoring everything around 4TPY hardcore mods of dresden...that means a lot of in game time for player to acquire them.

About Squalor/food. Together food/squalor are limiting how many provincies could be developted at the same time. That´s first thing we must think about. Then we can balance the rest.
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Now one by one

Vanilla system is balanced somehow about these artificial values to provide offset. We can of course remove negative effects of buildings but that would also somehow remove any depth from buildings system. In my opinion every building should provide desirable effects while player has to offset negative ones. Or player would build whatever wherever he wants. I remember how in shogun 2 legendary campaigns I spent a quite a lot time thinking where to build my key recruit facilities to get as much bonuses as possible. That was good challange at least for me.

So it is leading us to question if we want provincies with everything or specialized provincies? I would like to create system where player has to think and place building according to resource presented in province, regional effects and so on to fully utilize them. They are not force to but would be loosing opportunity. (Like Egypt would provide much better food/grain production for example with proper building selection like historical it was. Or player just will build there recruitment buildings and that´s it but at cost of missed opportunity to gain large food production for free..)

Instead of food requirement we can simply add upkeep cost. Farms would produce grain, which is generating fees from trade and these money would be spend by buildings in turn. Military buildings, road system, circus, colloseum...everything needs investment,repairing,human sources,slaves...... In my eyes it is just matter of balance if we need money/food/resource for them. Every of these ways has some positives and some negatives by implementation in game.

About squalor. Some building should provide negative happiness for province. Yet which one and how should be question for system balance. Military should be neutral while I can underastand that Slums, heavy industry are not welcome by public opinion.
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City is not getting any bigger by primary building that is just representation of your goverment and investment into the city. There is population growth (reflecting food surplus, some buildings affect it as well) And only when total population in region/settlement hit certain treshold you can extend city by opening a new secondary slot. Question is if it should be automatic or when player want. An another how much player can affect it. Player should be able to affect it pretty well by right building selection/eddicts... Anyway it´s up to player if he will use the potential and build something in these slots. Another question for balance is population threshold. That could be set to provide much much longer city development. I´m not sure if it is possible to link population number with possible building level. Like only with certain population we would be able to upgrade primary building and so on...

I can see your issue with that but at the same time how would you like to present buildings slots according to population? To me it´s making sense that there are certain population thresholds which somehow reflect potencial in settlement for buildings.

I have completed a lot of really long legendary campaign and even in mid game it took some time to balance every province up to my visions. Without squalor/food,all of them would be quite similar. If you want, try to play a few games with original Meaningful resources. I can see great potencial in XiL0´s vision.

[Hetairos]

Alec, this is only idea, I want to see what is possible with current system at all. At the moment we are unable to extend building system due to limitation of building slots so why don´t try to produce more complex system.

Please, by no means, don't take my earlier message as some kind of disapproval. I actually want to give you all the freedom to develop complex and in-depth concepts. I just wanted to say, that in case we dont get around the limitations well it might be that I do not want to include them. I better don't hype and than disappoint people. Just that. I approve your ideas though.

e.g. I also do not want to redo the campaign framework of Rome II but create a more complex one in case we get the campaign map editor tools. So please go on and don't listen to me too much I will answer to the actual content later.

[Daruwind]

Well that´s the result of using forum and being here instead of messaging. A lot of ideas and not checked things flying aroung.

Anyway if we manage to produce complex building system under such a strick limitation as Rome 2 has now it would just make a nice quidance when things are open by proper map editor. Extending working system is easier all the time.

[Daruwind]

Getting rid of some rests like making missing skins for some of our resources.

[ABH2]

Simple test results - it works fine if, say, you have 20 of a resource, and the building constructed takes away 20. You'll stop producing the item, and the game will read that as having 0 of the resource. Further construction of a line won't work.

Set it to smaller numbers, like -10, and the game screws up. Production may go away along with exports, but you can still construct a building that requires that resource. I may be running into issues because I used olive oil, which is imported from Syracuse via Epirus at game start, though it still says importing olive oil even if the trade agreement is cancelled.

[Hetairos]

Nice work on the skins Daruwind.

ABH2, thats nice.. Good research. Mhh so basically we gain x amount of resources by conquering regions, trading, building certain buildings like farms, harbors, researching technologies (like in CiG) or maybe even by edicts?! and than we pay x amount of resources by loosing regions, trading, building certain buildings like forum, market, certain military buildings? So as long as you have enough horses as a resource you could build x amount of stables until you run out of the necessary resource?

Although, I think this would be exploitable for example if you have one horse left you build in one turn all stables (e.g. -10 horses) in all your provinces and than jump into -99 horses for example if you build 10 stables at the same time? This could crash the game maybe.

[ABH2]

Well, ideally that would be how it would work. Like I said, it was theoretical. I consider this glitched and probably unusable.

As I said, the game can't do the math and add up the resource consumption. If you have 20 being produced and set -20 for another chain, it works fine. Set to -10, and it will for some reason say you are importing a resource instead of producing though exporting of the resource to trade partners seems to stop.

I tried to create a 'consumption' effect similar to with food, but that failed. It doesn't crash the game, but the game doesn't read it correctly and still just considers it production.

I'll try a few more things, but I'd toss this into the unusable pile. Game doesn't do it logically.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Seems very good!