[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[Jake Armitage]

I don't really think it will ever exists a testudo without rpgu.
I can't simply erase RPGu. If I would have to erase it (which I won't) I'll have to find workarounds about how to reweight some important values and options they are giving.
I get what you say but that's the way I plan and do things. If the removal/rebalancing would be possible in 5 mins I would have already done that.
But that's simply not the case.

As I said I have plans (one day) to do a medium version between dei vanilla and testudo. But that's not so easy to do nor it will come out soon.

Isn't Alernative phalanx/hoplite containing main and land tabs? I don't remember now.
This means it will have to be redone as soon as Kam's new battle system fits DeI.

Have patience... I personally don't even have access to a real computer since a month...

[NorthernXY]

Have patience... I personally don't even have access to a real computer since a month...

Damn.

[Jake Armitage]

no more damn for me btw, yesterday afternoon I brought it "home" since the phase 1 lockdown has been postponed to 3rd may...

[TheLonelyEmperor]

So glad to see the progress you've made with this Jake. Now that I kinda have a bit more spare time I look forward to getting into some more Testudo to see how things are. I've been studying the threads on its aspects to try to wrap my head around it all but I feel like someone could take a class on it for a semester or more to do that You've clearly put in so much effort and thinking!

[Jake Armitage]

Glad to see you back, man

Yeah, there are some... complications here and there but... testudo is kinda half way as it is now...
I have still to insert a lot of... complications actually.
But, honestly, after the first campaign one should be able to understand the mechanics, and used players just have to confront new features.
Also, the "math" behind is really simple, speaking of any feature. At the end they are basic interpolation of various factor.

Report, please

[TheLonelyEmperor]

Your too modest mate! This is clearly some next level stuff!

Do you recommend a specific pack to be the best representation of Testudo? I'm currently on 12tpy + Huge but was curious if you favored a specific one. It already feels better then when last I played.

[Jake Armitage]

No, really, it's just a funny hobby.
I simply like to plan things (proferssional deformation...) and since there are wide possibilities + no cost (except time) those plans form pretty naturally by themselves... it's producing the informatical part that is a pain and requires much more work I was expecting... Not difficult but long to do, a lot of operations (and tests) here and there.

Testudo huge is the best way to go imo, no turtle part nor weight needed.
Also 'cause I don't play any other version since 1.2, I think.
Huge is the one I mod and play (tests, mostly) and consequently scale the others.

[TheLonelyEmperor]

Thanks for the info mate! I'll be sure to throw some feedback at you later down the line!
Currently defending Rome against swarms of Carthaginian stacks D:

[Jake Armitage]

To anyone who wishes to give a hand to the DeI TEAM:

We are building a SMARTMAP TOOL, it's useful for a lot of things (and will be extremely useful for some upcoming Testudo's features).

So, please, sign yourself in and give us a hand!

Thx

https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...RE-RECRUITING!

[gnosis89]

I believe I am having a recruitment bug of sorts, even when having 0 or +1 recruitment in a region (or province with multiple cities even) I am unable to recruit. Playing on 4tpy small. I seem to recall someone having mentioned this problem before?

EDIT:
Also Jake, I know you are very busy with this, but ever thought of doing anything with/for the Ancient Empires mod for Atilla? (It's a much better base game)

[Jake Armitage]

I know a certain issue about recruitment, but it is when you have just your capital region + the passage to a bad climate.
Even if you should have 1 point the recruitment will halt and you'll still have to wait one turn more (this is affecting AI too).
I think it comes from something weird about the recruitment point bonus coming from the capital.

I don't really think it should happen inside provinces where you have more than 1 region honestly.
Sed me a save game and I can track better what's happening.
Remember that the military administration intrigue and the rpgu drill troop will raise provincial recruitment points.

------

No I haven't nor I probably will ever mod attila.
The only thing I'm doing is helping a guy for an event submod about mk1212 (and begun checking DETrooper scripts 'cause there are a lot of interesting things)

Atiila isn't a better game than rome2 for these reason:
1) Battles are much more broken than rome2, it's kam saying that, I don't see why it shouldn't be if t's coming from kam
2) there is no good overhaul at all as for today (you could say mk1212 is quickly becoming).
DeI needed 5/6 years to come at the level it is now and it was made by one of the best and organized teams who have ever modded a TW game.
Without a really solid and balanced basis like DeI, submods like testudo aren't simply possible

Atiila is a better game than rome for these reason:
1) there are some important lua functions, for example assign effects to region and the possibility to use the outcome of a dilemma choice inside custom scripts. they would be wonderful if they were avialbale for rome2. sadly they aren't.

So, no, speaking about submodding (which is my main interest) attila is overall worse than rome2.

Could be (who knows) I may be interested into modding Troy, perhaps.
Can't say, it depends on how they are building it (CA is working remotly as half of the world which isn't a good thing mostly if they want to release it anyway and do some cash) and the possibility to mod it (if the level is the same of 3K then the potentialities should be really cool).
It also depends if an hypothetical and interesting team will begin to form, otherwise I won't do pretty anything, probably.

------

I've spent some time lately building test packs for events lately and I've grown kinda sick of them... there are still things I don't understand and I fear that a simple insertion of new event systems while keeping all the ones coming from vanilla might have some gameplay issues.
So, I'll probably and temporarily quit from that (which was my intention for next update) and work on Digs and War Weariness.

[valerius karamanus]

I've spent some time lately building test packs for events lately and I've grown kinda sick of them... there are still things I don't understand and I fear that a simple insertion of new event systems while keeping all the ones coming from vanilla might have some gameplay issues.

Oh so I am not the only one... It drained my enthusiasm as well. It is unbelievably boring and frustrating to work with cdir. You have to work with more than a dozen tables not including text files. Gotta admit although incident modding sounds very creative bussiness, modding it is awfully time consuming.

Atiila is a better game than rome for these reason:
1) there are some important lua functions, for example assign effects to region and the possibility to use the outcome of a dilemma choice inside custom scripts. they would be wonderful if they were avialbale for rome2. sadly they aren't.

I think Attila seems a mile ahead when it comes to character interface. It has a personal loyalty system, more trait slots, office system is better designed and also that governorship feature. I am jealous that Rome2 didn't get these features

[Jake Armitage]

The main reason of this "modding event difficulties" comes from the fact there isn't much work done about them by modders.
Yeah, there are many custom events in dei and some other mods too but the way they have been built is the vanilla style, which is pretty simple and not so hard to track down and understand.
The complexity I want to achieve 8similar to yours, probably), sadly, need time and trials.
For example, climate effect is read as provincial and not regional which is a big delusion since the cdir CND won't read provincial effects...

What are you trying to accomplish?
Keep in mind that I was mostly referring to regional events, since we can't apply regional effects via script so we can't use a scripted way and then retrieve the effect bundle we applied to armies via script. If you're doing events for characters you shouldn't have great problems by building scripts and then use the correct CND_HAS_EFFECT_BUNDLE.
I can make a template if you're stuck about characters, so you'll begin checking those possibilities. I haven't yet.

Yeah, I'm becoming jealous too...
Anyway you can build a lot of things by defining complex systems, for example you can build a personal loyalty system through vps, you can expand skill trees by editing Uis (you already know that) you can spawn buttons 8so it seems) and maybe build a custom events system.
Yeah, modding is awfully time consuming, you can develop an idea in ten minutes and then you'll need one month for building it properly...

[valerius karamanus]

Thank you. There is no need for template. I'm doing it very basic but yeah its just a patience test.

Create a dilemma, set triggers, set options, set followup incidents, set payloads, if a desired payload do not exist, make a new effect bundle, make new effects, add choices, add some flavour text so the whole event does not become a yes-no event (very hard with my abysmal english), find suitable ui images... And copy this whole process with different outcomes to make it seem randomized. Heck, I've been planning to make at least +30 unique events per sub-culture...very boring.

About climate issue, I see that they are assigned to provinces by database. But have you checked their effect bundle scopes? They are all assigned as this_province. Maybe if you change their scopes to this_province_regions or something, then effect bundle can be assigned to each region. Cdir can see it that way? Just a thought.

[gnosis89]

I know a certain issue about recruitment, but it is when you have just your capital region + the passage to a bad climate.
Even if you should have 1 point the recruitment will halt and you'll still have to wait one turn more (this is affecting AI too).
I think it comes from something weird about the recruitment point bonus coming from the capital.

I don't really think it should happen inside provinces where you have more than 1 region honestly.
Sed me a save game and I can track better what's happening.
Remember that the military administration intrigue and the rpgu drill troop will raise provincial recruitment points.

------

No I haven't nor I probably will ever mod attila.
The only thing I'm doing is helping a guy for an event submod about mk1212 (and begun checking DETrooper scripts 'cause there are a lot of interesting things)

Atiila isn't a better game than rome2 for these reason:
1) Battles are much more broken than rome2, it's kam saying that, I don't see why it shouldn't be if t's coming from kam
2) there is no good overhaul at all as for today (you could say mk1212 is quickly becoming).
DeI needed 5/6 years to come at the level it is now and it was made by one of the best and organized teams who have ever modded a TW game.
Without a really solid and balanced basis like DeI, submods like testudo aren't simply possible

Atiila is a better game than rome for these reason:
1) there are some important lua functions, for example assign effects to region and the possibility to use the outcome of a dilemma choice inside custom scripts. they would be wonderful if they were avialbale for rome2. sadly they aren't.

So, no, speaking about submodding (which is my main interest) attila is overall worse than rome2.

Could be (who knows) I may be interested into modding Troy, perhaps.
Can't say, it depends on how they are building it (CA is working remotly as half of the world which isn't a good thing mostly if they want to release it anyway and do some cash) and the possibility to mod it (if the level is the same of 3K then the potentialities should be really cool).
It also depends if an hypothetical and interesting team will begin to form, otherwise I won't do pretty anything, probably.

------

I've spent some time lately building test packs for events lately and I've grown kinda sick of them... there are still things I don't understand and I fear that a simple insertion of new event systems while keeping all the ones coming from vanilla might have some gameplay issues.
So, I'll probably and temporarily quit from that (which was my intention for next update) and work on Digs and War Weariness.

The campaign features of Atilla are principally what I'm referring to. A shame when they "added" family tree etc... to Rome II they didn't add all that as well.

I was getting the problem in both my capital province (just having Pergamon) and in Bythnia et pontus with Bythnia and Sinope controlled. It took me like 6-7 turns to recruit 2-3 units? Even though it showed at times they'd be recruited...

Here's my save:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php...95429495470532

(wouldn't let me upload it here)

[Jake Armitage]

@ valerius

... there is always a blind spot... effectively just changing the scope might resolve the issue
gonna try that tomorrow, thx

@gnosis
ok thx, I'll check that tomorrow

[Jake Armitage]

@ gnosis
I was getting the problem in both my capital province (just having Pergamon) and in Bythnia et pontus with Bythnia and Sinope controlled. It took me like 6-7 turns to recruit 2-3 units? Even though it showed at times they'd be recruited...

I've checked the savegame and everything seems as intended to me.

Here is how recruitment points work in testudo:

- start with the assumption that every region starts with 0 recruitment points
- your capital has 1 recruitment point by default, meaning that if you own just the capital region you'll be able to recruit 1 unit per turn
- for every region you own inside the same province you get +1 recruitment points (so if you own just 1 region inside a non capital province you'll be able to recruit 0 units, if you own 2 then the recruitable units are 1, if 3 then 2
- climate affects recruitment points (default spring and autumn has a 0 modifier, summer +1, winter -1, while non default season has different modifiers that can go between -2 and +2). It si important to check the climate effect, the recruitment points modifiers is written in the effect tooltip
- rpgu drill troop and military administration intrigue add +1 recruitment points each (they are stackable, if you have both then it's a +2, if you have more than 1 drill troop then it will be: x drill troop = +x recruitment points. Civil administration will give a -1 recruitment points

Everything above works for AI too (except for drill troop and military administration ofc).

Whay is that?
Always for the same "testudo" reason: avoid arcadish features where you can form complete armies in few turns and to underline the need of planning things where random factors or player's choice can affect the gameplay in a positive/negative way

Keep in mind one thing: it is true that, during the turn you choose to recruit, you'll be able to recruit the amount that turn permits you...
But... recruitning units actually works inside the span of 2 turns (by game default), meaning that the game will halt the recruitment if in the next turn you don't have the necessary recruitment points.

To make an example: you recruit 2 units in autumn and you have a total of 2 recruitment points, you jump to a bad winter which is giving you a total of 0 recruitment points.
In this case the recruitment will be halted and you'll have the stucked situation you were describing above (works the same for AI too).

The only workaround is to add more recruitment points and no I won't do that.
Consider this system as a sort of system raising the turns you need to recruit units without doing that, actually.

----

I'll see to do a +1 recruitment points weight pack for player too, in the case somone prefers playing that way

[gnosis89]

Thanks for the quick reply jake.

I'll give it another go later today and see what's up. Sometimes in general I've also noted that it will say I can recruit a unit, and I will be (green and no hour glass thing), then come next turn it's not recruited and most often has the hourglass thing over unit card (signifying cannot recruit).

That pack would be much appreciated. Also, would that be save game compatible? Could use it at different times. I find that I can keep myself in check as well depending on what would be more realistic so I'd appreciate that pack either way.

[Beedo83]

Hey Jake, I haven't played since your 1.5.2 update and stepped away from Rome 2 for a while. Coming back now and redownloading everything. Excited to try the new stuff in your mod! What are some specific areas you're looking for feedback on now? Also I noticed that the playable faction list was trimmed a bit! Will some factions be coming back soonish or is that being put off for a bit? Thanks again for this submod.

[Jake Armitage]

@valerius
I've tried a lot of possibilities (build custom scopes too) but... effect always remains provincial
If you check both climate and PO effects you'll see there is no description about region like wonders or other cdir effects have
And the climate db table specifies a province in the effect column.
I just fear this is something hardcoded coming from CA scripts

@gnosis
uploaded +1 recruitment points for Player and +1 for AI_and_Player
they are in #1 post under the weights spoiler
yeah, savegame compatible (same or next turn)

@beedo
Hey beedo
RPGu has been overhauled, that's why you have less packs. It is much more time consuming doing them now...
Yeah, new packs will come sooner or later

I'm interested in 3 types of feedbacks, mostly
1) bugs/errors
2) the overall feel of the campaign (if you're having fun or not)
3) advices regarding improvements

@ trippin
Hey man, I've checked your 700+ turns savegame.
About turns lags... I had to wait 2:30 with the old pc, with the new one is 1:15 so it's exactly halved... the only solution is having a good pc, sadly (or remove every DeI and Testudo script...)
Your campaign seems more or less fine, apart all those allied armies sunbathing near your cities... I really have to do something about that 'cause it's quite evident AI does not bother much about db CAI values.
Also, could be that diplomacy is too easy now?
How was the overall gameplay experience? Anything weird/unbalanced/too easy/too hard?
I'll also upload a couple of stratmap pics from that save.
Thx.