[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[Jake Armitage]

Thanks, I'll check it out tomorrow.
Seems the campaign is pretty interesting though... do you have any other suggestion to give, perhaps? Apart from those pop fixes?
Btw... I just found out I crazily increased the modifier for stationing foreign armies... but there are other things needing fixes for pop... and maybe even a surprise through buttons, if what I plan is easy doable.

[Syntax_6]

Jake I gotta say this is a lot of fun. So much to weigh and consider each turn, and if you let your attention stray from a key area for a while it can really bite you down the line.

I imagine I'll keep going for a long while yet. I'm greatly enjoying the experience, and Testudo was just what I was looking for. I never played Rome 2 Vanilla, but played quite a lot of 3K and Warhammer 2 extensively modded. I only played 2 DEI Campaigns prior to this, a 200 turn Rome Campaign and a 250 turn Averni one. I found DEI moved too fast for my liking, and with a bit of decent management I was absolutely overflowing with cash, food and public order. Testudo is a huge breath of fresh air in that regard, thank you.

There have been things along the way that I've thought could use this or that, but as the campaign progressed it began to make more sense. Here are a few that have stuck as the game goes on:

1: Death Script - I'm really torn on this one. On my regular DEI 12tpy campaigns it was obvious that characters hung around for too long, and gained too much experience. The death script alleviates that, which is great. In my early game, first 200 or more turns, it was really bothersome as the scripts often killed the wrong characters, some of whom were young men. From about turn 250 onwards this seemed to happen less. However, I got in the habit of saving the game once a char had died, and reload the auto save to check who it was that kicked the bucket and to see if it made sense. If it killed who the scripts seemed to be describing I'd let it stand. If it killed a char in the upper 40's and beyond who was the unintended target of the script, I'd also let it stand. If it killed a 25 year old drill general when the script had identified a 50-55 admiral, I'd stick with the autosave and run the end turn again.

Sometimes the script would run and identify an admiral or general had been killed, and for the life of me I could not figure out who, even with a reload. So I do think it misfires or perhaps its killing people in other factions?

The only thing I could think of is a Gentlemen's button equivalent to the Political Retirement button, that did not have a cost. It could be usable under a house rules sort of system. I actually did this once, because I had 4 characters named Decimus in my faction. 3 younger ones who had some decent levels on them, and one very old one who was in his 50's. I realized that it was going to kill every Decimus I had until it got the right one, so I loaded a save and ran the 'Political Retirement' button, and because I didn't wait a turn it just killed the elder off without consequence.

It's a decent work around to the wonkiness of the death script.

The other thought I had is that you may not need the script at all. Very few of my characters ever reach max level due to all the nerfs. I'm not sure how long they live without the script? I didn't play regular DEI long enough to have that many characters die in a 12tpy game.

2: I'd love to see a greater reward for becoming an Empire. An extra edict (which are underpowered) isn't worth it, and I don't see any reason to leave being a republic or reformed republic - which have some honest pro's and cons to them. Extra army slots, new (special) edicts, etc. Becoming an empire seems to be one of the harder things you can do, and takes a lot of time to get there, nevermind the historically significance. It would be nice if it had better perks.

3: Testudo Timed Penalties - I'm not sure I like these, but I handle them as Rome, but every time one fires I wonder if / when I start a new game as Sparta or some other small minor, will they fire along the same time frame? Some empires will remain small for quite a bit longer, and those penalties will be harder to deal with if you have a small empire I'd imagine.


4: Civil and Military Research. I found this the same with DEI , but I find I spend most of my time in the Civics tree, as the bonuses are so much more needed than the military tree. There is choice, sure, but its mostly what Civic research do I need now, so as an extra I don't run the military character mission very often either(because they hurt civics research). The military tree just doesn't provide as good of bonuses as the civic tree IMO. Not sure if that is within the Testudo Scope, as it seems mostly the same as DEI, but it would be nice to have some really nice things down the military tree to go for.

I'm sure I'll think of more as the game goes on, but overall this is a great experience and lots of fun.

[Jake Armitage]

good to hear

1) best workaround for this is to have a lot of possible names so to limit coincidental probabilities. Would you be interested into tracking down some new names perhaps?
No I don't really think I'll remove it, limiting characters age is important
could be that the guy identified through the message and the actual guy who has been killed are different, when they have same forenames
gentleman button: you have it, didn't post here (FREE SUICIDE): https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...clever-people!

2) yeah this is on my list, now that I can spawn buttons I can build a lot of things, custom governments actions depending on your actual gov too. They could be regional or factional.
Can't say what I'll do but I can say it's doable

3) that feature is needed for working with game math curves, I'll see to lower it a bit and make it... "warmer" and not just math, new icon, new name so that it could seem more realistic (with a slightly less impactant math)
keep in mind that until you are slightly superior to AI then it means the balance is good. without features like the timeline steamrolling would be easier
... and no one who likes testudo would like that
testudo is cool 'cause you always have the sensation that what you are doing is useful and necessary. when this sensation stops then the gameplay is no more interesting

4) I'm not changing anything besides turns needed and lowering overall the bonuses gained (with different ratios). Military bonuses are necessary since the more you go on with the campaign the less your armies will be strong (while AI grows)

[Syntax_6]

Thanks Jake, It really is a great mod, and I'm constantly weighing all my options. IE I just discovered the level 2 armor shop is going to set me back 30K - wow

RE the names, I found this site:

http://www.20000-names.com/male_latin_names.htm

858 male roman and latin names.

[Jake Armitage]

ok cool, seems that names are just db entries so this should be easy

[Syntax_6]

Hi Jake, I think you mentioned that you were aware of it, but I'm well past turn 500 and have had the Marian reforms for a while, and as I'm realizing that my 3rd class pops have mostly converted into Plebes over time. All of my older cities have hardly any 3rd class pops, despite me not even really using them up until this point. I can get around this by recruiting the Veteran Legions (which use Plebes, hope there is no capped limit) rather than the regular legions, so its not an impossible situation.

After the initial conversion to my culture, the 3rd class pops are the most numerous, but they dwindle quite quickly after that. Nothing obvious on the % indicators as to why they end up becoming so rare.

[Jake Armitage]

yeah, I'll fix that
I'm also trying to build buttons through which you can "promote" pop (with a cost) so to have pop more interactive

[Jake Armitage]

does someone have the @@@_TESTUDO_1.7_TPY_4tpy pack?
can you upload it here? (it's the only one I can't download from mediafire, dunno why)
'cause I had a problem with the HD lately, windows wanted to do a restore and just erased a lot of files here and there
thanks

[Falco]

Here's it is. @@@_TESTUDO_1.7_TPY_4tpy.rar

[Jake Armitage]

thanks falco

[leonardusius]

yeah, I'll fix that
I'm also trying to build buttons through which you can "promote" pop (with a cost) so to have pop more interactive

That idea Jack gonna make Testudo epic without any doubt. Don't even dare to think to not implement it. Costs can be money, PO's, and a lot other ones. Better to look into effect_bundles_tables, and/or ask for others opinions. Maybe a poll here for that specific question or something about that would help you better. Cheers.

[Jake Armitage]

yeah, I just have to find the correct way via script, should be 100% possible but first trials were emtpy
more trials will probably solve it

[Syntax_6]

Hey Jake,

Just a though, but how about some mega projects for questionable gains. Things that a player would look at in the early game, and say I'll never spend my money on that, but as the game progresses that mentality would change.

My situation, I have 2 full navies of expensive ships and 6 full legions (20 stack professional armies) and I'm swimming in cash - making 20-30k a turn unless I get hit with a load of poor dice rolls. I'm just out of things to spend money on, so corruption is starting to be a problem. This wont always be the case, inevitably highly skilled governors etc will die and my economy will come back to size again, but it would be nice to have money sinks for those times that you are super rich.

The Romans seemingly often ran into situations like that, and built great public works, gave expensive raises to the fighting men, put on huge festivals and the like.

You could see a system where you called the senate together to decide on a new project, and each side would have competing ideas which would fit nicely into the Testudo theme. Keep in mind these should all be very expensive, and likely cost per turn if possible (ie spend 2k, 5k, or 10k per month for 1 year) Some ideas could be

Empire wide festivals that slightly buff PO and conversion for a year
Expensive armor for all the troops, which may time out after 10-20 years
Some unique buildings would be great
Build a flagship
Land grants to soldiers (morale buff perhaps?)
Education - research buff
Agricultural investment - food buff


There could be many more, but I'd imagine a button that could be pressed to 'explore options for a great project' and this would pull up a tab where a list of potential projects favored by the various parties. Some of these could actually be quite decent, but have a lower overall weight. Some could be bad, but whosever idea gets chosen could have a somewhat longer lasting loyalty buff, while the others would receive a debuff.


Just another thing I noticed is that by turn 500 or so, generally only the 4th party has any power (other than mine), in this case the plebs. I noticed that with Vanilla DEI as well. I've read that this seems to be semi hardcoded.

[leonardusius]

There could be many more, but I'd imagine a button that could be pressed to 'explore options for a great project' and this would pull up a tab where a list of potential projects favored by the various parties. Some of these could actually be quite decent, but have a lower overall weight. Some could be bad, but whosever idea gets chosen could have a somewhat longer lasting loyalty buff, while the others would receive a debuff.

Another quite fantastic idea to implement. Jake have to verdict.

[Jake Armitage]

yeah there are tons of things that could be done...
sadly each one requires time, work and concentration
step by step
as for now...
1) wanna update/fix things and eventually build those pop buttons
2) after 1 I would like to script a complex trade region system

anyway... I'll keep in mind your suggestion and, yeah, I have plans for making the campaign more interactive

4th party power is hardcoded, yeah, it seems that CA forgot to disable something coming from pre political patch.
is it solvable? partially...
- keep in mind that the only important power ratio is the one between ruling and the sum of others (the fact that an other party has 0% or all the sum doesn't change anything
- use the testudo intrigues
- I could script a gravitas reduction for deployed 4th party guys only, this wouldn't solve much though

[leonardusius]

- I could script a gravitas reduction for deployed 4th party guys only, this wouldn't solve much though

That's better than nothing. Because CA seems forgot R2 totally, despite (still) many reported bugs. I can't suffer such attitude.

[Jake Armitage]

Salvador Dali said once that you shouldn't fear perfection 'cause you'll never reach it...

[Syntax_6]

Not sure if this is DEI or Testudo related, but as Rome I've conquered Sparta and the only Occupied version of the tier 3 settlement I can build is Commercial Sparta (Occupied). Fortified and Ancient are greyed out and say I do not have the right reform.

I have many other 'Ancient Capitals' in my empire, and all of them allow for the building of each of the 3 (Occupied) main settlement chains, so it is a bit strange. I also noted Honga has a DEI reference site for all the buildings, and the Occupied versions for Fortified and regular Ancient are listed, but the ones shown to me in game appear to by the options I'd have if I was playing as Sparta - no reference to Occupied - that being plain old 'Sparta' and 'Fortified Sparta'.

On the one hand it would sorta make sense given the bonuses they provide, but dang it, I wanted either of those two buildings Any ideas?

[Jake Armitage]

it's dei related
for what I recall the other 2 options are for sparta only
not so sure though, but surely isn't testudo related

[XBigEasyX]

hallo Jake love you mod btw ,but i think i found a bug in regarding of RPGu specially the mounted army as the generals bodyguards are dismounted.

I was playing as antigonos