More building slots

[Tenerife_Boy]

Please finish this mod. Never give up man it will bring another fresh air breath to this game same as AAA did once.

[Emanuel82]

Keep up the good work Daruwind, and never give up. We are many supporting you.

[Astrolian]

We'll all wait as long as necessary Daruwind, never give up!

[Tenerife_Boy]

Still waiting...another dead mod I'm afraid.

[Jake Armitage]

More than dead is blocked due to technical issues which may be unresolvable

[Vardano]

More than dead is blocked due to technical issues which may be unresolvable

What you mean by that?

[Jake Armitage]

It's not my place to say that since my informatical knowledge is the one of a monkey but basically there is an UI restriction hardcoded in the dll, so while AI seems to be capable to build more than 6 slots (in attila at least), player isn't since the 7th slot won't be showed.

The only thing you can do ("simply" via startpos) is adding the 6th slots to non port capitals and the 4th to non port minor cities. Or (maybe) transform all the regions into single provinces so to have 6 for every settlement (like attila medieval mod did).

[Vardano]

Well, I'm still hopeful Daruwind gonna pull this off. I personally won't care if somethings will look ugly, this holds so much potential to give uniqueness to many factions and make game a bit deeper. I want to see many towns to start with one or two special buildings, it will help AI a lot to be more balanced in terms of economy and military in the same time.

[Daruwind]

Current obstacle lies in hard limit set upon slots. 6/4. Looks like despite info from various CA members and people they really put there hard limit. (a lot info was contradicting or just piece of puzzle to put together) Which is in dll file for R2. Hence it is way deep. This is basically true for R2/Attila/ToB.

Can it be changed? Surely. Question is how far you are willing to go and what to sacrifice ;-)

[Daruwind]

Well and here goes obstacles. With major longterm cooperation with DETrooper and some others, he managed to cracked Attila while I did R2. (and ToB is possible out of definition ) So current state is, we can recompile startpos,map to provide any number of slots for major settlements. Minor ones are resisting as of now. But if we cracked major....

Attila from DETrooper, he is making every settlement into major one so not caring about minor ones hehe

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mine R2

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And just warning, this is still very complex work and far from finish so...don´t spam where it will be ready to play. It will be done when it will be done

EDIT: test

[leonardusius]

OK, fair enough, but 'will be when it will be' sounds very phylosophical.

[Vardano]

I guess asking it one time is not a spamming, when will it be done?

[Daruwind]

Well a few more things need to be done.

1)despite all effort minor cities are still locked at 4. We just need to find the right "4" in the code...
2)these changes require altering games dll..... which sounds as bad as it sounds and DEtrooper thinks he can bypass it via LUA scripting
3)mine ingame UI is set up for 10/6...but if it depends on final decision. For example 15/9 or 12/8 system would require some tweaaaaking
4)buildings...landmarks, wonders, unique buildings, more resource building, chains....this point we can add later

[Vardano]

Man, this all sounds promising and thank you for working on this.

If I remember correctly, you can limit how big city can grow visually on the campaign map, so it would leave some space between settlements. Am I right?

[Jake Armitage]

OK, fair enough, but 'will be when it will be' sounds very phylosophical.

Sadly... adding more slots requires redoing the startpos from scratch. It should pretty easily doable for new or more simplier mods but for overhauls (like DeI) it's a BIG pain...
And I'm speaking about startpos only... balancing a completely new building system is another BIG issue.

[Sara Temer]

How hard would be to do system like in MK, one province = one city? For me campaign in Rome II would be much better with system where every city is separate province and has 10 or more slots

[Vardano]

Sadly... adding more slots requires redoing the startpos from scratch. It should pretty easily doable for new or more simplier mods but for overhauls (like DeI) it's a BIG pain...
And I'm speaking about startpos only... balancing a completely new building system is another BIG issue.

Do you personally think that it is gonna worth it?

[Jake Armitage]

@sara
as per more slots: for vanilla game should be pretty easy, for an overhaul mod like dei it means redoing the startpos from start

@vardano
My personal opinion? Having more slots can be just better, period.
Mostly for slow paced/more strategical mods like testudo.
Problem is that it is not an easy task, not talking about how to build it (ideas and plans) but how to produce it. It requires a lot of work and time spent, equally for the startpos part and the balancing/db one
It's too early to say anything for now, let Daruwind and DETrooper's work grow, then we'll see.

[Daruwind]

One city province is possible option for R2 as well.

However in my eyes it is detracting from province system. Firstly whole interaction between multiple settlements, culture tensions, possible revolts taking weak spot, edicts... simply keeping more cities in province with 10(12)/6/6/6 you have interaction of 28(30) slots while one city in province is probably easier to balance stuff but how many slots you are really needing? 10-16? So you have more on map in total but less in interaction....plus it is making every city into more or less a copy. Yes, you can add landmarks, special buildings but now you have secondary buildings for major city and minor ones. Under one city in province, you can merge all options and have everything everywhere. Plus whole concept that some provinces are bigger or more economically powerful...with one city, you can simulate certain degree....for example Egypt province. It has multiple Grain resource buildings so it is standing out among others. After this you will have multiple similar cites with Grain all over Egypt ...but it is valid way. Value/money/tax can be balanced. We are playing R2/Attila/ToB,Wh(s) wich limited slots for years now so having 20+ slots per city why?

So I would say that option to alter minor settlements would be useful for some mods as well. Let people decide.

Plus there is still need to alter game files to let it work...Detrooper thinks he will manage it via LUA. Plus if there is way to alter major city, why not minor ones?

Plus i really think it will require redoing startpos from scratch. Basically imagine updating mod when CA release DLC with new faction AND is adding settlements, if mod can merge that without breaking up, good. Big overhaul mods with tons manual changes...point is, our startpos reprocessing is shifting all inner IDs in startpos. Let say by 100. So everything all IDs for characters, garrisons,units...everything is shifted and i think this might be issue. It depends how each mod is build and rebuild....

If I can suggest my variant. 6/8 for minor cities. 10/12 maybe 14 for major ones. Like some special major cities, might have let say 12...normal major 10 and minor ones 6. For example. For me another question is, can third row of buildings be added? For example Attila has way larger pictures....one city per province is okey with 10-12 buildings. But imagine whole province with 4 settlements. We have to go up. like 4x3/2x3/2x3/2x3 slots...but all this is way future. I´m happy that the ther eis actual progress after so many years.

[Daruwind]

And I found magic "4" so right now even minor settlements are unlocked...