Petition to Remove/Lighten the Hardcoded Limits

**Frunk** · July 24, 2015, 12:15 AM

Great work Selv!

I've created a basic sig that links back to this thread. If anyone would like to use it, copy the code below. Alternatively, if anyone can do better, please do! I'm very much graphically handicapped.

Code:

EDIT: Unfortunately, the code tag isn't working as I'd expected... Here is the link:

https://i1379.photobucket.com/albums...pslgg6k2zq.png

**marcp** · July 24, 2015, 08:08 AM

I have now become the 534th signer of the petition

I used to be involved in the modding/hosting of a NeverWinter Nights persistent world and a very serious group in that community asked Bioware if they would be interested in merely leasing rights to the hard code...this was unacceptable as Bioware not so kindly stated they had no interest in ever letting their precious 13 year old software fall into the open source realm. Bioware did however jump at the opportunity of liscensing out the engine where "The Witcher" was concerned and said game was originally developed with the Aurora engine.

One 'I' can dream but I don't see CA being any more agreeable about these concerns, no matter how old the game, even if it might bring new sales. I am of the belief that it has as much or more to do with Sega and in Bioware's case Activision than it might with the original development co. I mean crap, weren't these folks gamers too at some point before becoming such fine capitalist.

**Drazule** · July 24, 2015, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by marcp

I have now become the 534th signer of the petition

One 'I' can dream but I don't see CA being any more agreeable about these concerns, no matter how old the game, even if it might bring new sales. I am of the belief that it has as much or more to do with Sega and in Bioware's case Activision than it might with the original development co. I mean crap, weren't these folks gamers too at some point before becoming such fine capitalist.

Actually no. They are people with money and they put it where they see fit. I'm sure Some investors and execs have played video games, but in all of my travels I have only ever heard of Danny Bilson (THQ) ever being an actual gamer who played games regularly.

Hell, I know many people who are studying game design who don't really play video games.

**marcp** · July 26, 2015, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Drazule

Actually no. They are people with money and they put it where they see fit. I'm sure Some investors and execs have played video games, but in all of my travels I have only ever heard of Danny Bilson (THQ) ever being an actual gamer who played games regularly.

Hell, I know many people who are studying game design who don't really play video games.

Quite right Drazule, quite right. I made a haphazard post but I was more so referring to the Saga corp. and Electronic Arts of the world{not Activison for Bioware and Atari was involved prior:} as being more so the obstacle when it comes to addressing these sort of matters.In NwN's case the old Bioware dev. guys were always awesome with the community and active for years answering modders Q's and giving clarifications and such. They were instrumental in giving support and blessing for the 1.69 unofficial patch etc. So there is hope yet.

As for the original dev. team members for M2TW they were contracted I assume and no longer derive a profit so I doubt they would have "a dog in the fight" anyway. Personally, if some modding community wished to keep the torch burning of something I developed nearly a decade past, I'd be all over that sh_t!

**mehmetozan** · July 24, 2015, 12:59 PM

Signed.

**Frunk** · July 29, 2015, 08:33 AM

Delicious irony!

This is the first comment I've made on a Total War article, this particular one about Warhammer, and it's currently comfortably the top comment (11 at the time of this post), with a few more likes on the page and signatures on the petition to boot!

Let's make our voice heard!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**koultouras** · July 29, 2015, 10:28 AM

not only signed but endorsing officialy ....

TWH Supports the petition

Kind Regards ,
koultouras (moder of M2tw since 2009)

**Drazule** · July 29, 2015, 04:21 PM

So after about a week I've given up on PC gamer responding to my request, but we've also gotten another 200 signatures since then so maybe my fears of this losing steam were in vain!

Originally Posted by koultouras

not only signed but endorsing officialy ....

TWH Supports the petition

Kind Regards ,
koultouras (moder of M2tw since 2009)

Thank you, good sir!

**tedster1995** · July 29, 2015, 04:49 PM

Just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has signed and endorsed this petition, sorry I've been very quiet on this forum. Been working overtime virtually every day at the moment :/ but I want to give a big thank you to everyone who has pushed this petition elsewhere, to places I would never think to post

. I've notice a few people say that there needs to be a specific list of limits that need to be removed, is this still the case? Does everyone think this or should the info remain the same as it is now?

@Drazule I know I'm amazed at how close we have gotten to 1,000 already in just 2/3 weeks

at this rate we could hit that target by the end of next week if not the middle of it. One thing that would guarantee CA would see it would be if I had a contact e-mail, but I have searched high and low and I cannot for the life of me find it, since CA have this system where you e-mail through their website as app issued to just telling you their address :/ probably to stop people sending them stuff like this I suppose

**Frunk** · July 30, 2015, 03:23 AM

Originally Posted by tedster1995

I've notice a few people say that there needs to be a specific list of limits that need to be removed, is this still the case? Does everyone think this or should the info remain the same as it is now?

@Drazule I know I'm amazed at how close we have gotten to 1,000 already in just 2/3 weeks

at this rate we could hit that target by the end of next week if not the middle of it. One thing that would guarantee CA would see it would be if I had a contact e-mail, but I have searched high and low and I cannot for the life of me find it, since CA have this system where you e-mail through their website as app issued to just telling you their address :/ probably to stop people sending them stuff like this I suppose

I think the main reason we need to put our requests into clear writing is because even if we were to contact/get the attention of someone from CA at the moment, I'm sure they might look at "Remove/lighten hardcoded limits" and think that it's a big ask.

I may be wrong, but I think we aren't asking for all hardcoded limits to be lifted, just the main ones that inhibit modding, with the important inclusion of multi-core support. I think Selv summed it up almost perfectly.

As for a contact place, there is a "Message" button on CA's Facebook Page. Facebook is generally a good way to contact organisations with or without an email address. I would be happy to send this message under the name of the Petition page, once we have decided on exactly what this message should be.

EDIT: In fact, I'll give writing it a go now. Let me know what you think.

"To the Creative Assembly team,

I am writing on behalf of the extensive Medieval II community, based at Total War Center and elsewhere. Years after the release of Medieval II: Total War, the game continues to go from strength to strength, thanks in part to the fact it is very "mod-able". This has allowed many creative people to create thousands mods to be shared and enjoyed by the wider playing community.

However, many modders are limited by some aspects of the games engine, often referred to the "hardcoded limits". We assume that this limits exist simply because computers and technology of the time were incapable of handling resource-heavy games.

Our community is very hopeful that, with the help of the Creative Assembly, the Medieval II engine can be revisited and these limits removed through a new patch. Some of the limits we would be interested in seeing the back of, include:

Region limit increased from 200 to x
Faction limit increased from 31 to x
Unit limit increased from ? to x
Building limit increased from ? to x
Culture limit increased from 7 to x
add more here
add more here
Finally, support for multi-core processors

With the limits lifted, many new mods with a wide scope of play could be created, and the many great existing mods would also greatly benefit.

We have created a petition on Change.org (I'll add the link later) to demonstrate the level of desire among the Medieval II community.

We truly believe that a new Medieval II patch would do wonders for the game's community, and for the Total War franchise as a whole.

Thank for you for consideration.

Sincerely,

The Medieval II community."

**♔atthias♔** · July 30, 2015, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Frunk

I think the main reason we need to put our requests into clear writing is because even if we were to contact/get the attention of someone from CA at the moment, I'm sure they might look at "Remove/lighten hardcoded limits" and think that it's a big ask.

I may be wrong, but I think we aren't asking for all hardcoded limits to be lifted, just the main ones that inhibit modding, with the important inclusion of multi-core support. I think Selv summed it up almost perfectly.

As for a contact place, there is a "Message" button on CA's Facebook Page. Facebook is generally a good way to contact organisations with or without an email address. I would be happy to send this message under the name of the Petition page, once we have decided on exactly what this message should be.

EDIT: In fact, I'll give writing it a go now. Let me know what you think.

"To the Creative Assembly team,

I am writing on behalf of the extensive Medieval II community, based at Total War Center and elsewhere. Years after the release of Medieval II: Total War, the game continues to go from strength to strength, thanks in part to the fact it is very "mod-able". This has allowed many creative people to create thousands mods to be shared and enjoyed by the wider playing community.

However, many modders are limited by some aspects of the games engine, often referred to the "hardcoded limits". We assume that this limits exist simply because computers and technology of the time were incapable of handling resource-heavy games.

Our community is very hopeful that, with the help of the Creative Assembly, the Medieval II engine can be revisited and these limits removed through a new patch. Some of the limits we would be interested in seeing the back of, include:

Region limit increased from 200 to x
Faction limit increased from 31 to x
Unit limit increased from ? to x
Building limit increased from ? to x
Culture limit increased from 7 to x
add more here
add more here
Finally, support for multi-core processors

With the limits lifted, many new mods with a wide scope of play could be created, and the many great existing mods would also greatly benefit.

We have created a petition on Change.org (I'll add the link later) to demonstrate the level of desire among the Medieval II community.

We truly believe that a new Medieval II patch would do wonders for the game's community, and for the Total War franchise as a whole.

Thank for you for consideration.

Sincerely,

The Medieval II community."

good work and a little note that you can add to your list the uint limit is 500
greetings atthias

**Paul_Atreides** · July 30, 2015, 07:03 AM

Signed.

**xHolyCrusader** · July 30, 2015, 02:24 PM

@Frunk thanks for formulating this, sounds good to me, maybe you can add that a direct discussion with leading mod develeopers as i mentioned before would be really welcome. I think this would be the most sensible way to find out what is needed and what would be possible for CA to change without too much work being involved, I mean we don't want them to rework the game completely.

By the way, here's a list Leo (the creator of the custom settlement submod for TATW) posted in the original memory editing patch thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

edit: I think we should wait with contacting CA in form of such a letter until we reached 1k+ signatures

**Frunk** · July 31, 2015, 01:36 AM

Originally Posted by xHolyCrusader

@Frunk thanks for formulating this, sounds good to me, maybe you can add that a direct discussion with leading mod develeopers as i mentioned before would be really welcome. I think this would be the most sensible way to find out what is needed and what would be possible for CA to change without too much work being involved, I mean we don't want them to rework the game completely.

By the way, here's a list Leo (the creator of the custom settlement submod for TATW) posted in the original memory editing patch thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

edit: I think we should wait with contacting CA in form of such a letter until we reached 1k+ signatures

Brilliant idea. I'll add that right now along with the other info.

And yes, I agree that we should wait until we have 1000 signatories before making contact.

I've made a post in a popular Medieval II group on Facebook as well. It seems really active so that might bring in some more. https://www.facebook.com/groups/123397977725098/

**Drazule** · July 31, 2015, 08:07 AM

I completely agree. We need to make this guy much more specific if it were to be taken seriously.

Sorry, between the obscure location of this thread (relative to my surfing) and my vacation time, I haven't been checking too often.

**UndrState** · July 31, 2015, 08:24 AM

Keep up the good work!

**k/t** · July 31, 2015, 05:18 PM

The stuff leo.uecfs wants is very specific to TA, so it should be disregarded when approaching CA. Changing the more basic limits is far more important and helpful to a lot more mods. Once we get the basic stuff, then we can push for more.

The building tree limit is 128.

www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?568506-New-hardcoded-list&p=14622816.

Adding a few more ancillaries and armour upgrade levels would also be good.

**Frunk** · August 01, 2015, 01:53 AM

Originally Posted by k/t

The stuff leo.uecfs wants is very specific to TA, so it should be disregarded when approaching CA. Changing the more basic limits is far more important and helpful to a lot more mods. Once we get the basic stuff, then we can push for more.

The building tree limit is 128.

www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?568506-New-hardcoded-list&p=14622816.

Adding a few more ancillaries and armour upgrade levels would also be good.

I agree. I've spent the last couple of hours re-reading Zarathos' Memory Editing thread to get a gauge of what was most commonly requested. Having sorted out the ideas that seem just plain fanciful, this is what I've come up with.

The kicker on most points was multi-core support. Zarathos stated that it's impossible to achieve via memory editing. I have no knowledge of what would be required to implement it, but I get the impression that its implementation is a bit of a long shot either way, compared to some of our other goals. Performance is already an issue on existing large mods, so increasing the limits without creating a way for a computer to handle them may simply be not viable. Still, I think it is important that we at least ask for it, and if we find that it is out of the question, there are still a few hardcoded limits that could be lifted. Zarathos did state that he was able to optimise the game for single-core execution, and make the executable aware of large memory addresses on 64-Bit systems with at least 6Gb of RAM. Personally, I don't really understand this well enough, but perhaps an enhancement such as this would be more achievable.

A lot of people ask for the limits to be blown out by as much as 1000% in some cases. In the event we cannot get any multi-core support or single-core optimisation, such increases would surely be irresponsible as the majority of low-end users would be unable to benefit from them. As such, it may be best to not worry about the numbers so much until a dialogue has been opened with CA.

These were clearly the highest priorities among posters in that particular thread (current limits in brackets):

Region limit (200)
Unit limit (EDU, 500)
Building trees (EDB, 128)
Faction limit (31)
Culture limit (7)
Hidden resources limit (64)
Multi-core support

These were less universal, but still fairly popular:

Religion limit (9)
Men per unit limit (min 4/max 100)
Mount limit (50?)
Campaign map dimensions (1021x1021 and 510x510)
Buildings in tree limit (9)
Agent types limit (12)
Resource limit (26)
Ancillary limit (8)
Climate limit (12)

These seem rather unlikely or don't really relate to hardcoded limits, but I thought I'd mention them (personally, I don't think there's any point in taking them to CA):

Units per army limit (20)
Increase battle map size
Ability to upgrade large cities without walls (as in RTW)
Ability to choose faction heir
Proper battle map rendering at heights above 80 (currently strat map terrain above 80 in map_heights is show as flat in battles)

Beyond these, it seems that fantasy-related mods do indeed ask for the most. It seems that these ideas are just incompatible with Medieval II, as so much needs to be changed for them to work.

Personally, I think we should only target the highest priorities listed above, but that's just me. If anything on the other lists, or something I've missed, springs to mind, please respond here and we can have a discussion.

If that was our primary objective, our secondary objective should be securing some official assistance from CA for Zarathos or others in achieving these goals via memory editing. I will PM Zarathos and find out whether there is anything in particular he could benefit from receiving from CA.

Finally, and I knew this would be here somewhere, the list of Creative Assembly staff on TWCenter is located on the Site Leaders page. Some of these guys might be the best place for us to start. We must be careful with whom we contact from CA, as contacting the wrong person could possibly see this whole thing dead in the water, when someone else might be more open to it.

**tedster1995** · August 01, 2015, 02:26 AM

I would also say that the mount limit is an important one as well that people seem to forget, I believe it is around 50, if the unit and faction limits get increased then this definitely should as well I would say increase from 50 to 90/100, also just my personal opinion but I would increase the factions to 70 and cultures to 40 but just a thought

Also we are getting very close to 1,000 signatures just over a 100 left till we hot the ultimate goal

that's when Change should start to advertise it a bit as well as media taking a little bit of notice