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Thread: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

  1. #21
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    gangster19, you suggested using this mod together with Bran's Empire Campaign AI. I found that Bran's Empire Campaign AI does modify the same database table as this mod, so using both mods could cause problems. Bran's mod already causes the diplomatic penalty for going to war to be reduced more quickly - especially if the diplomatic penalty for going to war also drops quickly. If you would like to modify your copy of Bran's Empire Campaign AI so that it also reduces the diplomatic penalty for taking a region more quickly, then you would need to:-
    - Download Pack File Manager (PFM) if you do not already have it. You can get the latest version, PFM 3.5.1, from the 'Tools, Tutorials and Resources' section of the Mod Workshop for Attila. You can use PFM 3.5.1 to edit mods for Empire Total War without owning a copy of Attila.
    - Start PFM and open a copy of Bran's Empire Campaign AI
    - Open the 'db' and then 'diplomacy_attitude_tables'. Find the row for 'annexed_territory'. Find the middle column, headed 'change_per_turn'. Change the entry to the number of points which you want the diplomacy penalty for taking a region to drop per turn. For example you could edit this entry to 2, 5 or 10. The higher the number, the quicker the diplomatic penalty for taking a region will be reduced.
    - Save the mod
    - Close PFM. Move your unmodified copy of Bran's Empire Campaign AI out of C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data and replace it with your modified copy.

    Warning: I have not tried doing this and do not know what the effects of this will be in a campaign. If you make the diplomatic penalty for taking a region drop quickly (by 10 per turn) then it is possible that this could cause wars generally to stop earlier. This might enable the Ottoman Empire to become richer more quickly (rather than having to defend their borders in several directions) which could increase the risk of the Ottoman turn bug happening. (In some campaigns, the Ottoman Empire, when played by the AI, recruits large numbers of small armies which slows down the Ottoman turn dramatically. If you are unlucky, this can make a campaign unplayable.)
    --

    I like your thinking, Akarios. Your ideas sound historically authentic and well thought-out. You suggested a +5 modifier per turn, reducing both the -140 penalty for war and the -30 penalty for taking an enemy region. Those two changes are easy to mod. I have made a new version of the 'more reasonable diplomacy' mini-mod which should implement those changes. This seems better balanced than my 'reasonable_diplomacy_reduce' mod, so I will call this version the 'reasonable_diplomacy_balanced' version. When I have tested it, I will make a download link available in this post for anyone who would like to try it.

    Unfortunately, I don't know how to modify the relationship for the capturing faction when a region is captured. I also don't know how to modify the diplomatic relationships based on war weariness or patriotic fervour.
    Last edited by Alwyn; October 03, 2015 at 11:03 AM.

  2. #22

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    I just wish there were documentation I could read on what properties are in the various databases. I haven't located them yet in the forum. Since I use a Mac at home, getting into the pack and esf files has been a bit more problematic. I believe the pack files are the Oracle pack200 format supported by Java. If that's the case, I can start cobbling together a Java based version of the PFM, which would allow more than just Windows users to mod ETW. (Not to mention other TW titles) The esf files are tougher. I haven't yet determined what their format looks like.

    Much of what I posted on relationship adjustments was theoretical. I know nations receive a negative modifier whenever capturing a region (1 for the nation the region was captured from and 1 for everyone else in the same theater - factions outside that theater don't care), but didn't know if there were some way to make a modifier for the faction actually DOING the capturing. My guess at present is much of that would have to be written into the scripting.lua file under a function called OnFactionTurnStart. This function runs when the player turn begins. This is a perfect place to make any diplomacy modifications. (another place to put scripted diplomacy would be in the OnFactionTurnEnd function which runs after the player turn but before any AI faction runs. It all would depend on when you wanted the effects of diplomacy to be most effective. Immediately for the AIs but lagged for the human, or vice versa)

  3. #23

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    One area of research I'm conducting into this for you Alwyn is what events are fired in the Lua script when a region is captured and what properties (again readable in the scripts) define whether a faction is at war with another.

    I'm trying to tackle one diplomatic issue at a time. I'd like to start with region unrest. Currently, a region can be pacified far too quickly than would have happened in the 18th Century. As a result, a faction can usually quickly overrun another faction even with a fairly small army. I'm hoping to change that a bit. Nevertheless, some of the following is more for a general diplomacy engine than specifically unrest.

    What I'm planning is this:


    • Right now, it appears the probability of reducing unrest in a given captured province is around 50%. I'm proposing reducing this to 5% and utilize scripts to determine the actual probability.
    • Define in the Lua scripts, the basic historical alignments that existing during the period and determine the probability of whether a given faction would ally with or join the war of another faction, or declare war on its own. (This has been done in board games - see old Avalon Hill's "Empires in Arms" for a fantastic example of such a matrix) This will allow better control over faction relationships. With a little tweaking, it could be rigged to start building AI faction alliance webs to offset another faction (especially a human one) expansionism. Yes, this will mean creating and maintaining data structures and matrices in Lua. This could all fail horribly if the ETW Lua sandbox doesn't allow the io and file libraries to work. (which is the case in some Lua sandboxes) This may be offsetable by reading some of the required setting from the game save file data matrix once loaded, but right now I'm speculating.
    • Each region would have created in Lua (since we don't have access to the underlying game engine settings) 3 properties: Original Owner, Current Owner, Previous Occupier. The reason for this is to model a multipronged war between multiple factions over a given region. These properties somewhat model the historical control of that region.
    • If the current faction is at war with the Original (i.e. cultural) owner, the probability of reducing unrest in the region is 5%.
    • If the current faction is at war with the Current Owner or Previous Occupier, the probability is adjusted to 25%.
    • Only if the current faction is not at war with any of the other propertied factions, does unrest reduction jump to 50%, unless that region currently has a town wealth modifier greater than or equal to 15 gp (I'm just picking a number right now, but subjectively, this number appears to suggest that the new owners are better administrators) when the unrest reduction probability goes to 75%.


    At present, most of this is just speculation. I'd like to get Bran's view on it to see if he knows if the current game API actually would allow viewing some of these details. The code generating these relationships would run in the PlayerTurnBegins and PlayerTurnEnds functions responding to the appropriate events. This will allow the game to adjust for both the player and the AIs (taking advantage of the fact that the player faction always goes first).

    Let me keep researching. Let me know what you think.

  4. #24
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    These look like really exciting possibilities, if there are ways of implementing your impressive ideas. Unfortunately, I am unable to suggest ways to implement them because I don't know how.

    My only concern is about your expectations of me. The ONLY thing I know about scripting or code (for this or any other game) is which bit of the scripting.lua to delete, to prevent the hand-over of the Thirteen Colonies, Louisiana and New Spain to Britain, France and Spain. I'd like to learn more, but (as you've probably noticed) have very limited time. The modding I've done is almost all editing of the startpos.esf and creating and editing modded pack files. So I suggest considering your work on this as research which you will share with the Empire Total War modding community, rather than research for me. Even then, you may be the person most capable of implementing your ideas.

    It looks like your intention behind the changes you would like to implement is greater historical realism. You mentioned discussing this with Bran - I wonder if you have also discussed your modding ideas with the modders who made Empire Total Realism and Imperial Splendour, since they both aim for historical realism? I imagine that adjusting the possibility of reduced unrest would make rapid expansion virtually impossible, as usually was the case in history (would you proposed system allow events such as Napoleon's conquest of large parts of Europe to occur? Admittedly, his armies suffered guerrilla warfare in Spain, so - in ETW terms - public order was probably negative there.)

  5. #25

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Don't worry - I've been throwing code nearly 40 years now and Lua for about 6. I've written extensive Lua based plugins for another game Vendetta Online as J. A. Keller. (my usual alter ego; it's a bit odd that I picked Akarios - Greek for Icarus - this time) If I can find the appropriate API calls or properties within the existing game objects, I'm perfectly fine and happy doing the coding.

    As for the system allowing certain types of rapid expansion? Yes - remember that if your faction is at peace with the faction which owned the region (or previously occupied it), the system reverts to the current behavior in ETW with the added perk that if you manage the region well by improving its town wealth past a certain point, unrest disappears quite quickly. Examine how Napoleon worked historically. He attacked rapidly and overwhelmed local defenses, usually going straight for the capital. (his version of today's Shock and Awe) While still reeling from the shock of losing on the borders so quickly and having the capital overrun, he basically told the rulers "You want more of the same? Or would you prefer peace?" To which they always (until Russia and Spain) always did. In both Russia and Spain, the local unrest never went down (or did so very slowly - as per the 5% chance each turn of dropping by 1), requiring huge armies to tie everything down and control the countries. While this was physically possible for France to do in 1 of the 2 countries, trying to do it in both basically burnt out France's ability to manage, inevitably leading to Napoleon's downfall. Great Britain greatly assisted this in tying up large amounts of money and material in an attempt to offset the Royal Navy and in GB's efforts to support Portugal through coastal raiding. We see something similar in ETW through raiding requiring the reconstruction of locations on the map. Being required to rebuild towns, mines, ports, etc. on a constant basis usually results in a faction being unable to maintain a large army.

    I'll take your advice and be more active in the IS and ER forums. What I'm trying to research doing isn't a simple tweak of the setup files, though I do think in the end it would make for very nice mini-mod.

  6. #26
    wangrin's Avatar Unguibus et Rostro
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Expansion :
    I agree that, historically, we have never seen "total domination" like we see in game.
    Many factor in "real life" limit expansion :

    • manpower
    • supply system
    • financial resources
    • industrial and agricultural capacities
    • diplomacy (coalition, etc.)



    Regarding the XVIIIth century, if over simplfying situation, I would say that most important factors that limit expansion were :

    1. In Europe, major powers take care to keep some "balance of power", avoiding one of them to become too much powerfull
    2. Supply was a major limit to military expansion, supplying armies and fleets in campaign was an extremely difficult task
    3. financial resources were a major issue for powers and armies were greetly reduce after peace by disbanding some regiments but also by reducing the number of men per unit.



    Then, we have to deal with ETW game engines limits :

    • diplomacy is quite poor ;
    • no supply system ;


    Moreover, ETW is plagued with several weaknesses, one of the worst is, I think, unit spam due to unlimited unit recruitment and poor economical system.

    On the other hand, it is possible to make things better :

    • Solutions to unit spam :
      • The most effective is limiting unit recruitment using a regional recruitment and limiting all unit in number.
        It increase the strategic importance for some regions (those having "large" recruitment pool) and make extremely difficult expansion even if you can recruit a limited pool of unit in each regions.
      • The "manpower mini mod" should be effective too, but I never try it

    • Solution to diplomacy
      I don't think solution as effective as those limiting unit spam exist.
      One of the possibility is to create new CAI character and tweak parameters. This is a very empiric system, lot of trials and errors and extremely difficult because of it's complexity.
      An other one is to try to use script to force faction behaviour.

    • Solution to supply effects :
      One of the solution to try to simulate deficient supply system is the "Supply and Demand v1.0 - An attrition mod for ETW".
      Maybe is it possible to upgrade this mod ?



    I will end with unrest.

    During the XVIIIth century, unrest linked to capture of province is not that obvious.
    This is mostly due to the fact that nationalism only begin to rise during the XVIIIth century and begin to be really significant after the American and French Revolution.
    For example, when Prussia "capture" Siliesia, did the region suffer from high unrest and for a long time.

    Even during war, when region being under "occupation", I don't think that unrest was that high (apart when armies used most of region resources).

    Unrest was more due to poor crops / high food price and/or excessive tax.


    Possible interesting features :
    • Occupation system
      Faction A at war with faction B
      A capturing B's region
      Captured region is considered as occupied as long as A and B are at war.
      Effects : lower income, (limited) unrest, ?


    « Le courage, c’est de ne pas subir la loi du mensonge triomphant qui passe, et de ne pas faire écho de notre âme, de notre bouche et de nos mains aux applaudissements imbéciles et aux huées fanatiques.. » Jean JAURES

  7. #27

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Supply would be nice Wangrin, but given some of us use Macs, a platform specific solution that runs only on Windows isn't going to be good in the long run, as it locks out other players. That's why I figure we're going to have to model most of the limitations ourselves in Lua, then utilize the events which fire when units are created, regions are captured, etc. to manage those limitations in our own code. (Yes - I understand it's a kludge, but sometimes that's all you can get) I just need to figure out all the callable functions and object properties within the existing compiled Lua code CA provided when they published ETW.

    My suggested modifications to unrest were largely made in that light. Knowing we don't have complete access to the game engine, what aspects are usable that may be modified by script code to simulate effects we know occurred during the 18th Century. (e.g. friction and replacement difficulties in enemy territory)

    I fully agree with your suggestions about possible new features. As I've stated, I'd love to see it modeled that a faction doesn't actually get to own a region unless it requests and is granted ownership during peace negotiations. i.e. you don't get a region just because you've 'captured' it - only because you request it from its owner and are granted it when peace is declared. Otherwise, the war will continue.

  8. #28
    wangrin's Avatar Unguibus et Rostro
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Do you think it would be possible to port W.A.L.I to Mac and Linux ?
    This tool is the "ultimate" solution to bypass some of game engine limitation.

    For example, it is the only solution to create a true "unit evolution" system that replace an obsolete unit by a new one unlocked by technology or date.
    But I'm off topic here.


    « Le courage, c’est de ne pas subir la loi du mensonge triomphant qui passe, et de ne pas faire écho de notre âme, de notre bouche et de nos mains aux applaudissements imbéciles et aux huées fanatiques.. » Jean JAURES

  9. #29

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Frankly, don't know. Normally porting .Net stuff to Mac or Linux has serious issues, but I've read that some of it was done successfully.

    I did discover we can save whatever we want to the game save file. This is good because even if we have to create parallel data structures, any modifications won't be lost.

  10. #30
    wangrin's Avatar Unguibus et Rostro
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    When using lua script in ETW game, we are limited by available commands.
    Using a memory hook tool allow to bypass this limitation.

    For example, we have no command to modify string in .esf, but directly modifying such data in memory allow to rewrite such data.
    On the other hand, we are still limited by AI. It will be unable to take into account such "external" modification.
    For example, AI is unable to "understand" the attrition system and could loose entire army because of it.


    « Le courage, c’est de ne pas subir la loi du mensonge triomphant qui passe, et de ne pas faire écho de notre âme, de notre bouche et de nos mains aux applaudissements imbéciles et aux huées fanatiques.. » Jean JAURES

  11. #31
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Quote Originally Posted by IBSXYPNTS View Post
    Sorry if this is not the appropriate place for this.

    Thank you very much! + Rep for being so helpful! I am horrible with newer TW games mods however, I downloaded the Zip and have 7zip. However I extracted the file for reduced and it didnt seem to change anything when I copy pasted the extracted file into ETW/data. This is only in a save game mind you, but I am really bad with zip files sometimes. For instance it didnt seem to need to be unzipped only extracted and I am not sure if that is the same thing.
    You asked this question on the Mod Recommendations Thread - I'm replying here because people normally these kind of questions on mod threads.

    I think that 'extracted' and 'unzipped' mean the same thing. If the end of the file name has changed from .7z to .pack, and if the mod is in your data folder, then it should work - at least if you start a new campaign.

    This mod won't change anything which already happened in a saved game. I do not know whether it will change what happens after you re-load the saved game. I only know that it works for me, when loaded in the data folder from the start of the campaign.

  12. #32

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    BTW, unless someone has documented it already, I'm in the process of cracking open ETW's Lua API at the moment. Thus far, I only have the conditions object API (which was easy and straight forward). I'm currently working on the scripting.game_interface object. Once I get some lists of function calls done, I'll work on determining their argument lists. I've learned quite a bit with just the conditions object alone, so it's been interesting so far.

  13. #33

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Alwyn, Do you have plans to do an "tighterformations" mod? The generic one someone has given us causes the system to crash.

  14. #34
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Akarios, I am sorry for not replying before now. Your research sounds impressive - and goes far beyond anything which I understand. Good luck! Will you share your findings in the Empire Mod Workshop?

    Rick, I do not have any plans to do a tighter formations mod, sorry. Would you be interested in developing one? In theory, it might be possible to make such a mod by simply editing the distances between soldiers in the relevant columns of a mod pack containing the unit_stats_land table (I have not tried this, so I do not know whether it works). If that is right, then it would be time-consuming, but relatively simple, to make such a mod. However, I have no idea why the generic tighter formations mod causes the system to crash.

  15. #35

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    I actually found one, it's Goutlardfiringdrillsfixed. it does a very nice job.

  16. #36

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Thanks for this mod, it makes the campaign more playable on H/VH difficulties without being at war with everyone.
    Usually I play around with PFM myself, but i notice that ETW is limited in which files are shown in PFM and needs DBEditor or so.

    I was wondering if you would be interested in making a mod (or more) that improve the diplomacy aspect for trading as well - currently the AI values whatever you give it significantly less than anything it gives you (roughly by a factor of 7-10). In ETW 1.0 it was a 1:1 ratio I think.
    What I think would be nice is a mod that makes the AI value what you give it vs what it gives you a bit closer, such as 1:2 or 1:3 so you can still reasonably trade with it. Similarly, if you could make trade agreements less costly to obtain that would be great.
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  17. #37
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    Thank you, FactionHeir. Unfortunately, I do not know how to make AI factions more willing to trade (by making the AI value what you offer more, making trade agreements less costly to obtain). This is just a guess - perhaps increasing the value for trading_behaviour and trading_area_behaviour in the campaign_ai_behaviour_junction_tables would make AI factions more willing to trade? I might experiment with that. [Edited to add] I tried a quick experiment, making a mod file which increased those values and playing as Britain on VH. The mod made no difference to the amount of money I would have to pay either major or minor factions for a trade agreement. Sorry! You could try an AI mod, such as Bran's Empire Campaign AI. I think that Bran Mac Born might have found a way to do this.
    Last edited by Alwyn; August 29, 2016 at 11:42 AM.

  18. #38

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    I use a modified version of Imperial Splendour. I downloaded the Territorial Expansion Reduce version of the mini mod, but as you said it isn't compatible with IS, I extracted the contents of the pack file of the mini mod, and added to Imperial Splendour's DB. Will it work this way? Thanks in advance

  19. #39
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    I am sorry, I do not know whether that will work. If you try it, please let me know whether it works for you.

  20. #40

    Default Re: More reasonable diplomacy mini-mod (using taw's research into the territorial expansion problem, v10, May 16, 2015)

    I think it has worked for me, because when I conquer a territory other factions give me a -6 of territorial expansion, then the next turn it's gone. So it works, thank you!

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