Colonialsm 1600AD: expanded edition (SEARCHING FOR HELP)

[Danylo]

A big rework of balance, diplomacy, design and many features, which improve gameplay experience and appearance of the mod.

Changes so far

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-starting date: 1618 - beginning of the Thirty years' war.
-diplomacy and starting positions: as accurate, as possible for 1618.
-4 years per turn.
-amount of units (pikemen now have in average 400 soldiers, but it depends on types and time (colonial and late pikemen have less soldiers). The same is with gunpowder infantry. Also changed amount if horsemen (increased) and artillery (decreased).
-balance and stats. Arquebusiers, calivermen and early mousquetaires have less accuracy, range and reload rate. Pikemen are now formed into 20 ranks instead of 4, they are disciplined and strong, but they don't scare horses. Moreover, all horsemen, except the lancers, have pistols and now behave more like in 17th century. Horses don't scare pikemen, so horsemen can fire ar them without punishment. To avoid this, you have to cover your pikemen by line infantry, but defend them cavalry charge.
-naval stats. Ships now much more destructible and there will no more infinite battle with no losses on ships.
-economy. Less profit, bigger price. Still, England and France have too big income, i'll continue changing them.
-travel distance. Decreased by the 40%, so now you can't just attack city at the center of Europe for one turn.
-time of recruiting and building, effects from buildings. Most of units are recruiting for more, than 1 turn. Time to build the buildings increased at least twice.
-more difference between home units and global. To make global units (i.e. units, which can be recruited all over Europe or world) similar to mercenaries, i made 1 turn to recruit them, but decreased maximum amount of recruitable units.
-new technologies, many of them are unique for specific factions, some of them are experimental (as the Triennial acts and Puritanism, which have to provoke the revolution and restoration.
-new load screens, UI, eventpics.
-new historical portraits and names.
-new flags.
-and many smaller changes.

some screenshots

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Future plans

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After finishing startpos, technologies and UI, i want to make some improvements of units appearance, maybe make new units. Ideally, it would be awesome to make some scripts and formations, but...

Asking for help

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I need help almost in everything, especially i need people who could make units and write scripts, i won't refuse in help with UI too. I also need some ideas for the technologies for Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Ottomans, Poland, Russia, Persia, Indian and American factions. If you know about some reforms, movements, philosophy etc. or sources of them, please, write in comments.

The mod is still raw, there are some problems, which i will try to fix. You can download from here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...K0?usp=sharing

First, unpack VDM 2.2. mod and put it into data. Then, put all files from "updated files" to data, put first user.empire_script (smaller one) to AppData/Roaming/Creative Assembley/Empire/scripts. There is a folder "additional content", where are some unnecessary, but useful files, you can download it and put into data. Then, download bigger user.empire_script into AppData/Roaming/Creative Assembley/Empire/scripts. I know, it's quite complex instruction, i will make it easier with next update.

[Danylo]

Damn, didin't notice there is another expanded sub-mod. Anyway, as there are no news of Geronimo2006, i started to continue what he didin't finish, but now it's more like parallel mod. I also want to try to change some units and add more, but it will not be soon.

[Gaul]

Thank you for continuing the work. Most modders are usually pretty receptive to shairing each other's work. IF you can't hookup with the expanded team, at least use what they've done so far. Available here: Colonialism 1600 AD Enhanced mod for Empire: Total War - Mod DB

[Danylo]

Yeah, i've seen this and my modification is built on Enhanced and Expanded mods. But honestly, the Enhanced mod is not very good, at least in stats: musket ranges are ridiculous, 600 pikemen causes many bugs in battles, especially in towns, on the other hand, they could run just after two shots of 150 musketeers and they couldn't even destroy musketeers in melee. Then, horsemen couldn't even approach to pikemen, because horses were afraid of them. There were a lot of unrealistic and disbalanced things, so i've completely changed them.

[Danylo]

If you can't help physically, with units of scripts, you can write your ideas about technologies of Eastern Europe, Ottomans, Middle East and America. I also recommend play for England, France, Spain, Austria, Netherlands and Sweden as they are almost complete (England and France are fully complete with technologies and portraits of ministers).

[the new username]

CTD on loading screen when launching empire. in the CMD box the message "couldn't find the path specified" appears. Any help?

[Danylo]

CTD on loading screen when launching empire.

Thank you, i suspected, that i've made something wrong. I'll reupload today.

[Danylo]

Updated files, now they are all in one folder. You don't need to have 1600AD installed, just put Data into game directory and put bigger user.empire_script into AppData/Roaming/Creative Assembly/Empire/scripts. The updated folder is already with files from additional content, so if you don't want some or of them, you can just look on the smaller user.empire_script in the link and delete unnecessary files. But remember to delete or add files both in user.empire_script and Data.
There is also a short campaign - 12 turns per year, longer recruiting and building, decreased travel distance. But there are older files, i'll finish it later.

[the new username]

Even with the old files I managed to make it work by first installing the 1600 files and then the VDM ones, however when I switched the files for those of the short campaign i'm experiencing a CTD upon launch.

I managed to start a campaign before dropping the short campaign files as England, and I noticed you could recruit very few units. In London all you could recruit was artillery and a unit of pikemen.

[Danylo]

Well, now it may work without such troubles. As i said, the files on short campaign are older, it's more for testing.

At the start you have a little units to recruit, because many of them appear with researching technologies. Another thing is small amount if early units in general, so you have to choose: either you want to have more units at the start, but less less interesting technologies (just buffs/debuffs and couple of units), and unhistorical late units at the middle of the game, or you want to have more historical and realistic campaign. Another thing, is script of author (Geronimo2006), that access you to recruit some units in certain period of time, but i don't even know if it works. Anyway, i'll add at least some militia units, but for more units i need modders.

By the way, did the game show new loadscreens? There have to be pictures of cities when you loading campaign and pictures of sea battles when you load sea battle. They worked for me, but suddenly they all stopped to show and i wonder if it's something with my game, or it's with files.

[the new username]

Even then, when looking at the technology tree there was like 3 or 4 early units available... My advice would be making most of early units available at start for a better experience and flavour.

Haven't seen any new loadscreen, but I only had like two loadscreens before my game CTD.

[Danylo]

Okay, i'll fix this. But as i've seen, there is only England (and maybe couple of factions), that have a little units and i thing this is because of script. For example, France and Austria have quite a lot units in the technologies.
You can now download new version, it's stable.

[Danylo]

So there is CTD, caused by startpos, but i don't know why. In the folder "updated" you can download a bit older startpos, without historical names of the statesmen and without minor diplomacy changes. There is also an updated file colmod - i've decreased time for research mercenary recruitment and made some units available from the start. I've also started to make some units available for more factions, especially austrian-german, as there were a lot of german mercenaries around the Europe at that time.

[the new username]

I'm busy with my own modding atm, but when I get the chance i'll try the newest version. Really looking forward for this mod.

[Gaul]

I have no experience installing a Empire mod. Could you update your original post with step by step instructions? No hurries though, I still want to finish my vanilla game and I"m at 1787 i think

[Danylo]

Sorry, i haven't permission to edit my posts. But i've reupload mod and added there information and instruction. In the future, all new files will be in the "updated" folder.

[BlackEagle88]

It's great to see that Colonialism 1600AD is getting a continuation with your project. I installed it, but I'm facing an important issue. For some reason I'm not able to pass turns. Any idea on the reason?

[Danylo]

I suppose you didin't play in Empire with VDM before? There are tasks in upper left corner (round icon, probably with the image of gazette), you need to open them and choose any option. After that, you can pass the turn.
But i managed some problems with campaign and decided to rework it. I can reupload it, but there are much more unfinished things, like absence of names and icons, as i started almost from the beginning and decided to make fully playable and detailed startpos for one faction (i.e. portraits, economy, armies, fleets) and then switch to another faction. So now i've almost finished starting positions just for Spain, Ottomans, Sweden and almost finished Russia. So maybe next week i'll make startpos for all major factions.

[BlackEagle88]

Yes, first time with VDM. Thanks for the answer.

Do you think it's possible to make Portugal playable?

[Danylo]

There is a readme file in the link, with the description of VDM, so it will be easier t understand.
Of course it's possible to play for Portugal, i've already did this. And not just Portugal, but almost every faction. But there is no sense play for them now, as i didin't finish many things yet.
Okay, i'll postpone making portraits and maybe next week i'll upload updated mod with most factions playable and more interesting starting positions for them.