Orange Crush: The End to the Maratha Horde

[PikeStance]

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GREETINGS TOTAL WAR PLAYERS

Are you tired of the Orange Horde destroying your game with unhistorical behavior? Do you wish it would act as it did in the 18th century? I believe I have a solution for you. From the trial lab of Imperial Splendour, I give you the Orange Crush!

This mod changes the way Maratha behavior based on historical facts. The Vanilla game did very little to differentiate one faction from another. As a result, Maratha would behave like a European colonial faction. Its focus as been restored to recapturing "India" from the Mughal Empire. My purpose was not to prevent the possibility of the Maratha from capturing most of "India," but to inhibit its growth to allow European powers to arrive. Also, it prevents Maratha from "exploring" outside of "India" and prevents Maratha from sending predatory armies outside their historical interest.

This is the Beta version of the mod, so they may still be some issues. Please report any problems in this thread.

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Latest Version (2 Feb 2015)

DOWNLOAD v.02 BETA

Changes v0.1 to .02: added Campaign AI Behavior Table.

Previous Version(s)

DOWNLOAD v0.1 BETA

INSTALLATION
WARNING: It requires changing the startpos in the "main" campaign folder. Before you make any changes to the startpos, please save the original game startpos.

1- Unzip file
2- extract the startpos file to the main campaign folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empire Total War\data\campaigns\main
3- extract the .pack file to the data folder here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empire Total War\data
4- Put the following line in the user.empire_script

mod "Pike_OC.pack"

It an be found here: C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts

COMPATIBILITY ISSUES
>The mod changes the startpos. Any mods that make changes to the startpos will not be compatible
>The mod changes the campagin_ai_personality_ table and the campaign_ai_personality_junction table. This should not be an issue if you place the mod on top.
>Starting with 0.2 BETA I will also make changes to the campaign_ai_behavior_table and the campaign_ai_Behavior_junction_table. If this is placed on top of other mods, it should not conflict.

ATTENTION MODDERS
In the spirit of cooperation and collaboration, please feel free to use my mod in whole or in part. Please give appropriate credit.

[Alwyn]

This looks like a useful mod for players who would like the late game to play out differently. While I like the idea that some factions will become powerful in the late 18th century and tend to come after the player's faction, for me, it's a shame that the faction which does this is almost always the same one - the Maratha Confederacy.

[PikeStance]

Thanks! One of the most common unhistorical complaint about Empire is the Maratha Confederacy. There were many solution offered almost al of them resorted to unhistorical solution to resolve the problem. This accomplishes to important goals; it is a historical solution and two, and perhaps the most important, it does not change any other part of the game. If you love Vanilla Empire, but hate the "Orange Horde/ Menace" then this is the mod for you.

[PikeStance]

OP UPDATED
v. 0.2

Please report any problems or give feedback on how the changes are working.
Thanks!

[md1453]

Thanks for this, it has always been a thorn in my side that they walk across the map, inevitably and inexorably.

Will let you know how it works.

EDIT: I notice the startpos is only for main campaign, not Road to Independence 4. I'll check out what you changed and maybe make one for the road to independence as well.

[PikeStance]

Thanks!
If you want to adapt it for Road to Independence, be my guest!

[PikeStance]

It has been about 2 1/2 months since I posted this mod. I am assuming anyone who has downloaded it have not had any problems to note.

[Elwood Hirsch]

Sounds like this is a nice piece of work. I would like to give it a try, but I am running DM and DM changes the startpos. Correct?

[PikeStance]

Yes, but PM/ post a message to DM and asked which startpos file to change and send it to me and I can make the changes. I can then upload here so others can use it.

[Sar1n]

I'd love to use this...unfortunately it's incompatible with my personal submod collection. If I knew what exactly you changed in startpos.esf, it probably wouldn't be hard to incorporate into my personally modded startpos via esf editor, but the rest...that'll require me to learn how to dig deeper.

[Akarios]

Actually, the easier solution is to take the Orange Crush startpos and add your changes to it, though you WILL want to compare the modded startpos with the vanilla one.

I'm not using it as I'm working on a different way to slow them down, but not them specifically. I've been intrigued by how easy it is to capture the cultural center of other nations and be able to suppress it easily. I believe I've found the setting in startpos (still experimenting, so not completely sure yet) which influences the number of rebelling units when a region rebels. Tripling that number should make cultural centers a LOT tougher to suppress for all nations. I'm also in the process of trying to hack the current API to learn what functions are contained in the scripting.game_interface, conditions, and context objects. Context is currently a lost cause as it's actually just a Lua representation of a C pointer. (works through Lua's native C interface) I have the API for the conditions object and am working through the arguments to those functions. I'm trying to build independent scripts for managing things like history uprising and internal civil wars resulting from succession. ETW doesn't do that very well.

Now if anybody's already done this research and has the API documentation tucked away someplace (I didn't find it in the forum searches), it would be greatly appreciated. Until that happens, I'll continue my research and post once I've figured it out.

[PikeStance]

This isn't a discussion thread. You should read the OP more carefully. It doesn't claim to create an simpler solution.
Developers are free to incorporate the mod in part or full in their won mod. If you wish to discuss the issue of the Maratha ans solutions I suggest you open a discussion thread on the issue. Please reserve this thread for issues directly related to this mod only.
Thank you for your cooperation.

[Akarios]

Sorry for the minor thread theft Pike. It wasn't intentional. I am going to take a look at how you managed it, as looking at others' work is always useful.

[HM Murdock]

Very interesting mod. Good job!

[PikeStance]

The 2015 Modding Awards is now open for Nominations. When nominating, be aware that Orange Crush is eligible.
Please go HERE to nominate.

[Captain Orange]

Playing as Spain, currently in the 1720s...

The Maratha had crushed the Mughals, as usual. But they haven't ventured outside India. Is this normal?

[PikeStance]

Crushing the Mughals by 1720 is unusual. In my test they normal are destroyed by 1720, but "flicker in and out" thereafter. The possibility with the current setting that they could expand is encouraging. In my experiences I would be tempted to "play" with the settings trying to find a balance. They should not venture out of India.

[Captain Orange]

Another thing. The Marathas DoW'ed me when I refused an alliance with them. Going back to my savegame, I accepted the offer, and relations are smooth ever since.

Just a question, though. Is this mod compatible with the town wealth mod, and the diplomacy mod by BraselC5048?

[ilia_r_s]

Can you please share what was changed in the startpos?

[PikeStance]

It has been about 7 years since I created this mod. LOL. My best guess is that Maratha did not have its own personality in the data tables. I would guess I had to create one in the data tables and then assign it to it in the startpos.