Is it possible to model every city and settlement?

[Australis]

Hi everyone, I was wondering if it is possible to model every city and settlement on a mod. For instance, when I play mods like Eras Total Conquest I see that many towns and cities repeat themselves and that's very boring and breaks the immersion. In my mod I plan to add unique cities for every faction, with their architecture and stuff. Even if you would say that it is a lot of work, I am just asking if it is possible.

[makanyane]

Sort of. If you stop all settlements upgrading. You can have a unique model for each faction (used as faction_creator in descr_strat) and each settlement level - which would give you 31(factions) x 11(city/castle levels) - which is more than the 200 max regions...

Problems are;
Battle-map wise, mainly a time issue - it takes a loooong while to make a new custom settlement, and if you're attempting to realistically portray a real-life city you can meet insolvable AI related problems (I think I've spent about 6 months total trying to get a version of Caerphilly castle to work, and haven't solved it!)

Battle-map also has hard-coded issues about how you can use wall height/siege equipment, which needs careful planning...

Strat-map, you can have custom models using the faction-variant system, but having a lot of unique models can cause problems (one of which is shadows from the models disappearing)

[Australis]

Sort of. If you stop all settlements upgrading. You can have a unique model for each faction (used as faction_creator in descr_strat) and each settlement level - which would give you 31(factions) x 11(city/castle levels) - which is more than the 200 max regions...

Problems are;
Battle-map wise, mainly a time issue - it takes a loooong while to make a new custom settlement, and if you're attempting to realistically portray a real-life city you can meet insolvable AI related problems (I think I've spent about 6 months total trying to get a version of Caerphilly castle to work, and haven't solved it!)

Battle-map also has hard-coded issues about how you can use wall height/siege equipment, which needs careful planning...

Strat-map, you can have custom models using the faction-variant system, but having a lot of unique models can cause problems (one of which is shadows from the models disappearing)

Thank you! I won't try it then. I've saved up a lot of hours i was going to spend on such project

[paleologos]

Hey Mak, could you elaborate a bit more on this post of yours?

Also, is it possible to make an urban settlement that has a castle inside it as a citadel, so that the central plaza that needs to be occupied in order for the settlement to be considered "taken" is inside the castle?
If yes, is it possible to upgrade to two independently, meaning upgrade the urban part as the population grows and the citadel part at will?

[makanyane]

Hey Mak, could you elaborate a bit more on this post of yours?

Let me know which bit you want more info on please...

Also, is it possible to make an urban settlement that has a castle inside it as a citadel, so that the central plaza that needs to be occupied in order for the settlement to be considered "taken" is inside the castle?
If yes, is it possible to upgrade to two independently, meaning upgrade the urban part as the population grows and the citadel part at will?

You've only really got 3 things that can upgrade according to what you build.
A. the settlement (castle/city)
B. the arrow-towers
C. techtree slots (like barracks etc)

The only thing that walls/gates and central plaza will work in is the settlement - so to have functioning walls and defences your citadel part needs to be the model for the settlement. You could change the requirements for that so you don't need a large population to do the upgrade.

You could make the outer town bit like a huge techtree (which can have its own pathfinding, so it can change shape to grow with upgrades) - and you could impose some script condition on the building of that (I don't know if there's a population size condition or not)

You'd need to make sure each level of the outer town techtree has the same size and position of gap to accommodate each level of the citadel/settlement, so they can grow independently without overlapping.

[paleologos]

Basically, what I want is a functioning outer wall with functioning gates and defense towers and a citadel with equally functioning walls, gates, defenses and central plaza.
I take it, this is possible if they are part of the same structure?
So the only thing that I wouldn't get is the ability to upgrade them independently?

If I do it the way you suggested is it possible to associate the outer wall structure with the arrow-towers so that they both upgrade simultaneously?

[makanyane]

Basically, what I want is a functioning outer wall with functioning gates and defense towers and a citadel with equally functioning walls, gates, defenses and central plaza.
I take it, this is possible if they are part of the same structure?
So the only thing that I wouldn't get is the ability to upgrade them independently?

Correct.

If I do it the way you suggested is it possible to associate the outer wall structure with the arrow-towers so that they both upgrade simultaneously?

Not really, you could have arrow-towers that change shape to cover a larger area (unlike the vanilla ones that just change the top of the tower structure from arrow slots to cannon openings)

So towers could upgrade from a small tower to a bastion that projects out. Flaws = the pathfinding won't change, so you'd need to permanently block the area under the largest upgrade option. Something can't be an arrow-tower and have gate or breachable wall functionality at the same time, so you'd have to maintain links to the original gate/wall positions. If you make the complete tower/bastion as one arrow-tower object, when it's hit by artillery, you'll get the silly looking situation where one final shot switches the whole thing from a working tower to 'completely destroyed' - you could possibly get round that by making what looks like one tower actually be split into quarters formed by four arrow tower objects... ...it needs some thought!

[AnthoniusII]

My calculations to make Connstantinople's double main walls and decorative 1st wall and the motte is this.
The city is a "HUGE_CITY" . So both main wall lines are huge stone walls. In order to give the impression of different size without making AI unable to use siege machines I thought that the 1st line of walls will be in ground level one. Then in a space that allows siege machines to move and change directions like ladders and battering rams the second line of huge walls will be in a smooth ground elevation in a proper distance (atleast playing with small or medium size units that vanilla walls hundle properly in pathfinding. In fron of the 1st wall line a motte that could be accesive (simply decorative) or a ditch with many undistractable bridges.
AI will pass those bridges and ain to gates. The distance of the motte from the 1st line of walls must be also the proper one inorder units with sige towers and ladders may change direction.