v1.1 Ideas

[AGM]

First off, I want to say how great the DEI team is doing, especially with all of the features added in 0.95!


I'm just spitballing some ideas here for 1.1 (since 1.0 will be more of a refinement for the official release).

It might be interesting in terms of immersion to add historical starting buildings for certain cities (there is already a mod that roughly has this idea). These could include the Library of Alexandria, The Second Temple of Jerusalem, Port of Carthage, Circus Maximus in Rome, Royal Tombs in Persepolis, and other significant buildings of the starting era. It could add a little immersion by lending importance to certain settlements, because as of now many provinces are interchangeable. Factions could retain their ability to build level 5 buildings, for example Egypt could still construct a level 5 library, as this would just represent their predilection towards education. Also, I brought this up a long time ago, but this might go well with realistic building icons if DEI eventually moves in that direction (v1.8?)


love the mod, keep up the good work!

[MagicCuboid]

I recall ABH2 toying with this idea in his Walled Syracuse and Jerusalem mod thread. He discovered it was possible to add extra building slots to cities without a port and to minor settlements, but it was impossible to "expand" into those slots.

However, if he set up a predefined building in the startpos, it would appear and function in game. I believe it is also possible to upgrade those buildings. He was toying with road chains for all the settlements, but I believe your idea of unique historical buildings for special settlements would be more feasible and add flavor to the game.

The other main drawback is that major port cities cannot receive this type of treatment (Alexandria, Carthage, and Athens come to mind). You'd have to use up a regular building slot for them to represent buildings like the Library or the Parthenon. However, so long as these buildings add Public Order in addition to some other benefit, I see no reason anyone would complain. Almost every province capital needs public order buildings anyway.

[ABH2]

Buildings are a lot of work, but I do believe Dresden/the DeI team have mentioned they have plans to address them more in depth at a later date.

The other main drawback is that major port cities cannot receive this type of treatment (Alexandria, Carthage, and Athens come to mind). You'd have to use up a regular building slot for them to represent buildings like the Library or the Parthenon. However, so long as these buildings add Public Order in addition to some other benefit, I see no reason anyone would complain. Almost every province capital needs public order buildings anyway.

There are ways around this, but it requires a great deal of customization. There are 2-3 ways to really customize regions without taking up the building slots:
1. a. The main settlement lines, which are static and non-destructible in every region.
b. The port lines themselves, which function the same way as the settlement lines.
2. Wonder effects which are attached to the region themselves. The drawback - they are, first off, almost unnoticeable to the player because of how the effects are displayed on the UI. More importantly, however, is that they are static. The player has no control and can't get rid of them or change them.

1 a/b are the most work (really, a lot of work) and require the most balancing. Buildings are time consuming and tied to a lot of different areas of the game. It's why they have been so neglected until now.

The thing about them, though, is that they are perhaps the most moddable aspect of the game. There are are a lot of pesky drawbacks in other areas, but buildings are very flexible.

He was toying with road chains for all the settlements

My goal is/was roads that will have an effect throughout a province so that you only need to build a single instance of them (only consume 1 building slot). This is easily accomplished.

I'm a big advocate of focusing on this area of the game for the above reasons. I feel the mods have overlooked how much immersion and impact they have on the campaign. At least up until this point. It hasn't been a priority.

It's my own personal taste, but I consider them just as, if not more important than the constant unit packs we see. I enjoy having colorful, realistic units, but there are only so many ways you can depict Spartan hoplites before you are just reinventing the wheel. But unit packs are always very popular.

[MisterClever]

Buildings are a lot of work, but I do believe Dresden/the DeI team have mentioned they have plans to address them more in depth at a later date.



There are ways around this, but it requires a great deal of customization. There are 2-3 ways to really customize regions without taking up the building slots:
1. a. The main settlement lines, which are static and non-destructible in every region.
b. The port lines themselves, which function the same way as the settlement lines.
2. Wonder effects which are attached to the region themselves. The drawback - they are, first off, almost unnoticeable to the player because of how the effects are displayed on the UI. More importantly, however, is that they are static. The player has no control and can't get rid of them or change them.

1 a/b are the most work (really, a lot of work) and require the most balancing. Buildings are time consuming and tied to a lot of different areas of the game. It's why they have been so neglected until now.

The thing about them, though, is that they are perhaps the most moddable aspect of the game. There are are a lot of pesky drawbacks in other areas, but buildings are very flexible.



My goal is/was roads that will have an effect throughout a province so that you only need to build a single instance of them (only consume 1 building slot). This is easily accomplished.

I'm a big advocate of focusing on this area of the game for the above reasons. I feel the mods have overlooked how much immersion and impact they have on the campaign. At least up until this point. It hasn't been a priority.

It's my own personal taste, but I consider them just as, if not more important than the constant unit packs we see. I enjoy having colorful, realistic units, but there are only so many ways you can depict Spartan hoplites before you are just reinventing the wheel. But unit packs are always very popular.

I think if you could achieve building and province mods as you describe, it would set a chain reaction for other modders to do it. If nothing more than here, I did this and this is how I did it with a detailed step by step tutorial of sorts. I would love to see the campaign part of the game start to get modding love and attention. The buildings need to be rethought out. I was always thinking of instead of 'empty slots' you would have 6 or less predefined areas, kinda like how it is when you choose to say start building a temple chain. You build the placeholder temple, then from there you can again choose another temple option, like Neptune's etc.

Ignore my terminology just trying to make a point but... Barracks/military Area slot, Market/Commerce Area slot/Port Area slot/ Holy Site Area slot/Agriculture Area slot. I'm assuming 6 slots is hardcoded at this point? Also would be cool if for that final upgrade in Rome's Legion Barracks there was a fifth option for the historical buildings/areas like 'Campus Martius' which would give civil and military bonuses alike. etc. Famous buildings could be that final factions specific building chain offering flavour and a sense of accomplishment. We might also remember these kinds of special historical places from EB, those special buildings that cannot be destroyed and gave special bonuses, kind of like how the wonders are now but yeah the UI makes them disappear and I completely forget they exist.

If the game started with predefined slots already in place with a new tech tree that would unlock newer and better buildings, you would always be striving to improve your provinces or change them up etc. As it is right now, I basically build a province a certain way and forget about them.

[Moonflower]

Buildings are a lot of work, but I do believe Dresden/the DeI team have mentioned they have plans to address them more in depth at a later date.

My goal is/was roads that will have an effect throughout a province so that you only need to build a single instance of them (only consume 1 building slot). This is easily accomplished.

Would it not be easier to just have the effects of roads added to the main building chain effects? Their effect then would be directly attached to the advancement of the settlement...
For instance, in addition to the current effects you would have:
Tier 1 Polis: +10% movement speed, +3% replenishment, +2% local commerce mod
Tier 2 Polis: +20% movement speed, +7% replenishment, -3% tax effect, +5% local commerce mod
Tier 3 Polis: +25% movement speed, +10% replenishment, -5% tax effect, +8% local commerce mod

etc.

And because the main chains are culture specific they could be of course tailored slightly to fit a culture's... historical road building choices? lol. Barbarians maybe get line of sight bonus, Romans more replenishment, etc.

Also since there are minor and major cities, each culture's minor cities as well as major cities could be tailored; Roman minor cities at tier 2 or 3 become standardized--minor city roads are now on par with same tier major cities, while perhaps barbarian minor town roads are always of a lesser quality than their major city counterparts.

[ABH2]

For anyone interested in a preview of what I have planned for buildings, you can check out my working mod pack:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zj...buildings.pack

Just load that into the game and pick Rome/a Greek faction (I'd recommend Syracuse/Athens to start). Maybe it will inspire/provide some ideas to other modders. The effects aren't all implemented, and it's a working project (not meant for playing). You can see the chains I've added and how many are actually possible.

I believe that version also has a few customized regions including Rome/Syracuse/Athens. But I may have removed them from the startpos. I can't recall. I have abandoned the extra slots concept at least until CA releases proper map editing tools.

[Master.Mind]

I would really like to have more faction specific army stances

for example the barbarians could get a higher ambush success rate and more deployables (since the finally work in ambush battles)

[ABH2]

I think if you could achieve building and province mods as you describe, it would set a chain reaction for other modders to do it. If nothing more than here, I did this and this is how I did it with a detailed step by step tutorial of sorts.

A modder could take a look at the pack and see what I've done. It's the reason I posted it. But, to summarize:
1. The goal is to add special port chains and settlement chains as these are simply placed into the startpos and static. That makes them very convenient for special effects
2. Creating special effects with unique descriptions to further increase immmersion. Instead of the generic description for a public order bump, I want the player to read it and understand why this region has it.
3. This also allows for greater customization between factions. Since there are variations that can be done at the factional level for buildings, I can make the experience of conquering a territory different for each faction. So, taking Jerusalem for Rome is not the same as it is for the Ptolemies.
4. It allows me to demonstrate citizenship levels and other effects. I call this a form of 'dynamic policy making.'

So, I can really customize and balance the campaign (specifically regions but also factions) to my hearts content through buildings and there effects because of the variations. The only drawback - it is a great deal of work, and it has required a lot of research on my part.

Doing variations for all these chains is where I think a lot of modders will say thanks, but no thanks.

I was always thinking of instead of 'empty slots' you would have 6 or less predefined areas, kinda like how it is when you choose to say start building a temple chain. You build the placeholder temple, then from there you can again choose another temple option, like Neptune's etc.

I actually thought of this at one point, but it seemed like just adding another step in the building process that would serve no purpose. My thought was that you could designate a slot as a type of land, and from there develop it into specific buildings.

As it stands, I have grouped a lot of chains into the agricultural lines. There are also more branched pathways. I think in vanilla you basically only get options after level 1 on temples and the city center line. It's also tougher to mod a lot of branches. It gets more complex. It's not that tough once you get the hang of it.

The biggest issue - it would allow a lot of conversion when you take over a new area. That's something I want to reduce in general, but I wouldn't want the player to instantly be able to upgrade a line to large number of chains.

Barracks/military Area slot

One thing I've done which may be controversial/not widely adopted - I've done away with barracks lines for the most part. That's not to say there aren't some factions/cultures that may have variations of them. Honestly, while barracks did exist, they were more of garrisons than the big recruitment centers they are in game. Especially when you had conscript armies. Even the 'professional' forces at the start of the game, such as Macedon, really didn't have the sort of massive training centers we have now days.

So, there are special garrison lines (as well as garrison options related to the main settlement). Recruitment will be dealt with on a subcultural to factional level.

One thing I'd like to see - efforts to get more out of the limited building slots we do have. That is one reason I've done away with the old method of recruitment. The other is my own taste and goal of immersion. I'm attempted to demonstrate levels of citizenship and class that are absent from the game currently as well as most mods which make it purely about culture which really wasn't the case.

[Dresden]

I would really like to have more faction specific army stances

for example the barbarians could get a higher ambush success rate and more deployables (since the finally work in ambush battles)

We already have this


About custom faction buildings, I am hesitant to start out factions with level 4 buildings for various reasons, although I do see the draw to that concept. I would like to have more specialized level 5 faction buildings for all factions eventually.

[Master.Mind]

We already have this

Did I miss something I thought DeI had custom stances, but not culture/faction specific stances. It's nice that deployables finally work in ambush battles, therefore it would be great if the ambush army tradition/general trait could be buffed to include more deployables.

[Alu10]

We already have this


About custom faction buildings, I am hesitant to start out factions with level 4 buildings for various reasons, although I do see the draw to that concept. I would like to have more specialized level 5 faction buildings for all factions eventually.

Is the AI actually using the ambush stance? I hardly get ambushed by them... Thats sad, i wanted to have a teutoburg like defeat once

Also i hope that there will be more traits for generals when for example losing while ambushed. That Triumph this for SPQR is okay but its not hard to get that trait, nearly every general of my faction got it. Wished that CA added more to the characters and generals. They might patch something similar in. My expectations arent to high though, patch 14 aside.

[FlashHeart07]

is the AI actually using the ambush stance? i hardly get ambushed by them... thats sad, i wanted to have a teutoburg like defeat once

Never seen them using it. Only the fortified and pillage stance

[Unactuality]

It's in the patch notes, MasterMind. Different cultures have better/worse/different stances. Romans are good at fortifying, Greeks get good naval stances, etc.

[Master.Mind]

appologies, that must have slipped my attention

[Dresden]

Click on the Stances tab:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...=sharing#gid=4

I wanted to go even further and make it subculture specific. So, nomads would actually live off the land and not have the food requirements. But it seemed to cause crashes when I tried this in 0.9.

[Dresden]

I have no control really over whether the AI uses the stances or not unfortunately. However if you get attacked while in Patrol Region stance you should get ambushed

[Cope]

I have no control really over whether the AI uses the stances or not unfortunately. However if you get attacked while in Patrol Region stance you should get ambushed

Would it possible to have entirely unique stances for different culture groups? (not just like the same stances but with different modifiers). For instance I think it would be decent if the Romans could have double time for armies, but other factions would not have the stance at all. It would also be cool if nomads could have a 'roam' style stance which gives them +20 food or something. I figure this would be quite hard to do, but it would be cool.

One more thing, would it be possible to add a sack then liberate option? If I sack a settlement, its usually because I don't want it, but I also don't want the enemy AI to have it so they can instantly rebuild it and start army spamming from it again. It would be ok if sacking a settlement took it out of action for 5 or 6 turns, but like I said, the AI just insta-heals it so it really does nothing - other than give you golds lol. Which makes me wonder, shouldn't sacking give you more gold than looting?

[Unactuality]

Thanks for posting that! Very useful information to have.

[Dresden]

Unfortunately, when I did tests with subculture specific stances they caused crash issues. I may give it a shot again at some point, but my custom nomad stances caused 0.9 crash issues.

Stances are fairly fixed to what vanilla offers. You can't really add new ones other than what they have currently (Patrol Region is Forced March just altered). And, many stances have hard coded parts even though they are in the effect section. For example, you can't set Forced March to have the "can't move" setting (but you can lower the army's movement range). You also can't have Forced March cost AP or lower reinforcement range. Many things are hardcoded it seems.

I may revisit sacking at some point. I increased its yield compared to vanilla but I also buffed looting. The idea is that with looting you are staying around longer to get more of the cash/loot. Sacking gives you the money without the need to stay around. Also, I have it set so that the AI doesn't use sack (otherwise they would sack and not occupy way too often). I could increase the impact of sacking on a settlement so the AI isn't so quick to recover.

[Baltizar]

Would it be possible to add the following affect(not sure if it is done already). Example When your building a higher tear Public Building one of the resources you need is Marble. However, although at the beginning of the building program you have a trade agreement with a country that has this resource. For instance if the building takes ten turn to build and within that period, say 5 Turns, that trade partner breaks the trade agreement, i would like to see that building delayed/stopped until you are able to find another trade partner with that resource or conquer an enemy that has it.

The same would apply to recruitment of units if you need a resource to recruit them.

Would it be possible to add a new resource such as incense for temples..as this resource was very important in ancient times and was generally regarded as worth the same as gold.