[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

Tigranes said:

This looks so cool!

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Great.

Tigranes said:

I cannot test this because I am playing long, very long game, already invested 48 hours in it ...

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Sounds like you enjoy playing the mod.

Tigranes said:

I don't know why Normal speed feels like Epic or Marathon with RnR but progress is very slow...

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Well Religion and Revolution is supposed to feel different than other mods.
That is why we implemented all the new features and strategies.

Tigranes said:

Not a single Conquistador event even though I was almost constantly at war with Natives.

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The other main factor for that event is to have enough money at the end of the round.
(Conquistadores are strong and thus expensive.)

I thought a little about simplyfying our specialist for Mining Professions.
I really think it would be a good idea.

Gameplay: Less "Trainig at Native Possibilities" used up.
AI: AI could probably handle fewer specialists better.
Graphics: We would get rid of several graphics that almost look the same.

I think we should go with these 3:

Miner -> Ore, Stone-Salt
Stonecutter -> Stone
Prospector -> Gold, Silver, Gems

Hi everyone,

Crap, I was busy yesterday, and now I'm late to answer...

Tigranes said:

1. Forbid. Those 3 categories do not enjoy the progress of the Colonies, they try to flee, why would they bother to proselytize? Criminals cannot even train in Villages, how can they be role models? What Missionaries?

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I disagree with you. In colonies they can become preacher, or even produce bells. I really don't want us to prevent every profession. I'd rather have them suffer a penalty. With a significant penalty we would usually avoid turning criminals into missionaries, but we still could (as we can give them any profession inside the colony).

Schmiddie said:

1. dunno / abstention
2. Try to have less Specialists for Mining ( I would prefer 2 - one for gold, gems and silver, one for ore and stones). But please - Do not change this prior to release no. 1!
3. dunno / abstention
4. dunno / abstention ( I have never played one or another version since I never played a game until the WoI).

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I agree with you shmiddie on point n°2, we could have less specialists (two or three). But I'd rather leave it as it is for release 1.

Tigranes said:

2. Miner/Special Miner is all we need.
3. Yes please! But go even further. Nothing should work at Furious level, no cooperation whatsoever, not even talking to the Chief! To avoid Native raids I was methodically killing all the Natives except the one in the Village that provides important training. After the war was over and they built a new settlement I sent my scout there and Chief was happy to welcome me with 350 gold!
4. I just love the new TAC approach to WoI! Just make waves more unpredictable. It goes 10-20-30-40% -- shuffle those sizes please or come up with more unpredictable scenarios. Common strategy is fortify just 1 single coastal capital and wipe troops sent by the king. Perhaps King can get smarter and go after inland cities sometimes...

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3. and 4. I agree with you Tigranes

raystuttgart said:

@team:

I have uploaded some changes to Profession Missionary.
(New revision available in SVN.)

1. Criminals, African Slaves and Natives Slaves cannot have that profession anymore.
2. In order to assign that profession to another Unit you must have at least a Chapel in your city
(or a higher level of religious building)

Is that ok ?
(If not, I will remove it again.)

Please somebody else test, too.

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1. Most of the team wants to forbid the profession. I'd rather give them a penalty but That doesn't bother me.
2. This part bothers me a little... One of French starting unit is a Jesuit missionary with another profession (colonist I thing). It seems weird to me forbidding him to take the missionary profession
I'd rather not limit the profession.
Anyway, all these modifications are Xml, aren't they?

raystuttgart said:

However I did not remove the Button (for the action) in that case.
(Because players would think it is a bug.)

Instead, the button is there, but when you try to do the action you will get:
(The action will fail but you can try again, when relations have improved.)

• Warning Sound
• Red Button of Action that failed
• Red Warning Message

So in order to be able to perform these actions again you will need to improve relations again.
(By Diplomay or Trade or ...)

Is that ok ?
(If not, I will remove it again.)

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Seems great. I'll test.

Robert Surcouf said:

Crap, I was busy yesterday, and now I'm late to answer...

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No problem, it was not a lot of work.
(15min each)

Robert Surcouf said:

I agree with you shmiddie on point n°2, we could have less specialists (two or three). But I'd rather leave it as it is for release 1.

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Ok, then we leave it as it is for now.
(I was just asking.)

Robert Surcouf said:

One of French starting unit is a Jesuit missionary with another profession (colonist I thing). It seems weird to me forbidding him to take the missionary profession

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There is no effect on the starting units at all.
Also I think French currently have "Expert Pioneer" instead of Missionary.
Which is much more valuable in the beginning of the game.

Robert Surcouf said:

I'd rather not limit the profession.

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It is not a big limitation.

Chapel is easy to build.
Usually Criminals, African Slaves and Native Slaves would not be used as Missionaries anyways.

But if you don't like it I accept of course.

Robert Surcouf said:

Anyway, all these modifications are Xml, aren't they?

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No, this is DLL.
But I can change it to be activatable / deactivatable in XML.

So what should I do ?

1.) Totally remove it
2.) Change it to be configurable in XML but deactivated as default

I would prefer 2.)
(Since I personally would like to play with it.)

I am sorry that I did not wait longer to implement it ...
(I am simply not very patient and want to get things done.)

Robert Surcouf said:

Seems great. I'll test.

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raystuttgart said:

Ok, then we leave it as it is for now.
(I was just asking.)

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OK

raystuttgart said:

There is no effect on the starting units at all.

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In my last game, I put one of my starting units in my fisrt Colony and changed the other into a missionary. I will not be able to do this anymore...

raystuttgart said:

Also I think French currently have "Expert Pioneer" instead of Missionary.
Which is much more valuable in the beginning of the game.

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Great!

raystuttgart said:

It is not a big limitation.

Chapel is easy to build.
Usually Criminals, African Slaves and Native Slaves would not be used as Missionaries anyways.

But if you don't like it I accept of course.

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No. As I said, it isn't that important. I was waiting for the team's feedback...

raystuttgart said:

No, this is DLL.
But I can change it to be activatable / deactivatble in XML.

So what should I do ?

1.) Totally remove it
2.) Change it to be configurable in XML but deactivated as default

I would prefer 2.)
(Since I personally would like to play with it.)

I am sorry that I did not wait longer to implement it ...
(I am simply not very patient and want to get things done.)

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Oh NO!
I forgot
In Kailric's Inventor's modcomp there is an Xml tag telling you which unit can't have a specific profession. About Inventions. I was actually thinking that I could add the bas mechanism first (for release 2). And then discuss the specific inventions (release 3).
I don't think I can manage both things before release 3...
So you could do option 2 for release 1. And then we would generalize by including Kailric's work. What do you think?

Robert Surcouf said:

In my last game, I put one of my starting units in my fisrt Colony and changed the other into a missionary. I will not be able to do this anymore...

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That is right, with my current implementation you could not do that without a Chapel.
(Which is really easy to build.)

Robert Surcouf said:

In Kailric's Inventor's modcomp there is an Xml tag telling you which unit can't have a specific profession.

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I know, but that would have been to much work for me to do now.

Robert Surcouf said:

I was actually thinking that I could add the bas mechanism first (for release 2). And then discuss the specific inventions (release 3).

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I don't think that would be a good approach.
We would have Yield, Building, Screen, ... but not the inventions itself.

Let us do this all together in Release 3 then.
Until then we can discuss and prepare the concept (Inventions itself).

I am really no friend of having half done features in a release ...

Robert Surcouf said:

So you could do option 2 for release 1. And then we would generalize by including Kailric's work. What do you think ?

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Ok.

I will
1. Change it to be activatable / deactivatable in XML
2. Set default to be deactivated

Today I will try to include:
War of Independence from TAC

@team:

New revision available in SVN.

Changes for Profession Missionary is deactivated by default.

But everybody who does like that mini feature, can simply go to GlobalDefinesAlt.xml and set
USE_NEW_RULES_FOR_PROFESSION_MISSIONARY to 1.

raystuttgart said:

I don't think that would be a good approach.
We would have Yield, Building, Screen, ... but not the inventions itself.

Let us do this all together in Release 3 then.
Until then we can discuss and prepare the concept (Inventions itself).

I am really no friend of having half done features in a release ...

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OK

raystuttgart said:

@team:

New revision available in SVN.

Changes for Profession Missionary is deactivated by default.

But everybody who does like that mini feature, can simply go to GlobalDefinesAlt.xml and set
USE_NEW_RULES_FOR_PROFESSION_MISSIONARY to 1.

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New rules does both:
1) Forbid profession for criminals
2) Makes profession available if a chapel is built
or only one?

Robert Surcouf said:

New rules does both:
1) Forbid profession for criminals
2) Makes profession available if a chapel is built
or only one?

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Both.

But do not worry, it is now deactivated by default.

But just to clarify:

1. This would not affect starting units at game initialization.
(They could still be generated with Profession Missionary.)

2. Normal Colonists in Europe are not affected either.
(You can still give colonists on dock in Europe that profession.)

3. AI would not get into problems with that.
(AI is already using Missionaries not often enough.)

4. Chapel really is incredibly easy to build.

5. It really feels strange, that Criminals, Native Slaves or African Slaves become Missionaries ...

@team and partners:

New revision available in SVN.

I have included War of Independence from TAC.

I only did minimal changes in XML considering the Waves.
(Different handicaps have a different behaviour of the waves in our version.)

Doing stronger improvements / changes was too risky so short before our Release 1.
(I will do that for Release 2.)

Please, please somebody test.
(You could simply play a few rounds, set up everything with Worldbuilder and declare Independence.
You don't necessarily need to really play a normal game until Revolution.)

ill let you know in a few hours after a few acid tests how things went. (i will play about 20 turns on the highest difficulty, then place myself an empire and declare - hopefully the king rips me a new one, i know that in TAC there is a lot more aggro because the king doesn't retreat perfectly good warships to europe every time he sinks your navy.

thadian said:

ill let you know in a few hours after a few acid tests how things went.

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Thanks.
But no need to hurry, in a few hours I will be sleeping anyways.

Hi guys,

sorry to annoy you with this again.

raystuttgart said:

I thought a little about simplyfying our Specialists for Mining Professions.
I really think it would be a good idea.

Gameplay: Less "Trainig at Native Possibilities" used up.
AI: AI could probably handle fewer specialists better.
Graphics: We would get rid of several graphics that almost look the same.

I think we should go with these 3:

Miner -> Ore, Stone-Salt
Stonecutter -> Stone
Prospector -> Gold, Silver, Gems

Click to expand...

I really think it would be better to do this for Release 1 already.

1. All team members (and also our partners) have agreed with this so far.
2. I consider it to be a good improvement. (usability, looks, gameplay, AI, size of the mod)
3. I can be done almost without risks and efforts.
4. Later taking away things from our users in release 2, which we have introduced the release before would just confuse them.

Sorry, but I am a perfectionist and not doing improvements that can be done that easily simply bugs me.

@team:

Please give me some clear feedback about:

Lowering Number of Mining Specialists
Slightly changing rules for Converted Natives

I really think we should clarify and implement things like that before Release 1.

I feel the proposal of lowering number of mining professions adds sanity. "Less is More" in this case, less professions = more options. Instead of having to get 5 specialized miner types (and enough farmers and fisherman to feed them) to make proper use of mountainside cities, i will need less people in the same space - and i will have to choose how to use them more.

Changes to the converted natives are a good thing. They wouldn't just pop out of their tribal village, go back in to learn how to become an expert farmer then walk 5 tiles west and settle a city.

1. It does not weaken them at all, they still have a bonus when working plots.
2. I do feel they (and anybody) should be able to train at the colleges.

Nobody is, by birth location, too dumb to learn. I like the idea of natives and slaves taking longer to educate, and not becoming free colonists (meaning a converted native farmer is better than a free colonist farmer).

This also accounts that a free colonist Weaver would remain better than a native weaver. This allows people to be educated at different rates, and have different things they are able to learn, while keeping it simple.

@team:

About these points:

Lowering Number of Mining Specialists

--> As far as I understand, we all agree. Thus I will implement it the next days if there are no objections.

Slightly changing rules for Converted Natives

1. Converted Natives becoming "Experts" over time (just like Normal Colonists).
2. Converted Natives not being trainable at Native Villages.

Also:
Criminals, African Slaves, Native Slaves not being able to found cities.

Until now, feedback was also, that we agree. (Unless I misunderstood.)
But I will wait for more feedback until the weekend before doing changes.

--------------------

Also:
I had big problems getting the map I am currently working on (which I had started on an old revision) compatible to the current version of our mod again.
Please somebody test, if the maps already included in our mod can still be generated.

@colonialfan:

I have just read your improvements to diplomacy texts.

Well, what should I say ...
SIMPLY FANTASTIC !!!
They are really very atmospheric.

1. Converted Natives becoming "Experts" over time (just like Normal Colonists).
2. Converted Natives not being trainable at Native Villages.
3. Converted Natives (,Criminals, African Slaves, Native Slaves) not being able to found cities.

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Hello, I would have to say that I agree with number 1.

I really don't get why a converted native would not be trainable at a Native Village. Suppose that I get a Conv. Native from Village X, and that village trains Expert Farmers. The Conv. Native already is better at agricultural, mining than a normal colonist. Why would a free colonist be able to be transformed to an Expert Farmer, and my Conv. Native that at first was better than the free colonist not be able to be an Expert Farmer?

Also, the thing for me is that it would change my strategy. I use the french and they begin with a jesuit mis. I establish a mission, and get lots of Conv. Natives. I train some of them. When I don't need them more, I train them nonetheless, clear their profession and educate them to a new profession in either my college or university.

3. I'm not sure about that. Conv. Natives would know the terrain better than Europeans, they should be able to make a settlement. I can go either way.

Lowering the number of mining professions is a very good thing. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of professions.

Perhaps you should think about joining the professions of the planters. Tobacco, Hemp, Cocoa, etc. There are lots of them.

Pallando said:

Lowering the number of mining professions is a very good thing. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of professions.

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Sorry, I wrote none-sense.

Not Professions, Specialists for professions.
(We cannot remove a profession.)

Pallando said:

I really don't get why a converted native would not be trainable at a Native Village. Suppose that I get a Conv. Native from Village X, and that village trains Expert Farmers.

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Several of us feel, that this is unatmospheric and almost like cheating.

Pallando said:

Why would a free colonist be able to be transformed to an Expert Farmer, and my Conv. Native that at first was better than the free colonist not be able to be an Expert Farmer?

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He can.
Simply not at Natives.
He could be educated in schools or become specialst by "Learning by Doing".

Pallando said:

3. I'm not sure about that. Conv. Natives would know the terrain better than Europeans, they should be able to make a settlement. I can go either way.

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Well, I guess you are right, but I really think we should forbid it for Criminals, African Slaves and Native Slaves.
(Adjusted my post above.)

Perhaps you should think about joining the professions of the planters. Tobacco, Hemp, Cocoa, etc. There are lots of them.

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I don't like this idea.