A new way to calculate REFs

Some of this problem with building REFS has to do with it being directly tied to liberty bells. Is it ONLY tied to liberty bells?

How about it being tied to a number of things such as all the various political points, number and size of colonies, gold in treasury etc. My thoughts on the matter would be that, at the lower difficulties, it would check against the LOWER of the different sets of points and at the upper difficulties, the HIGHER of the different sets of points.

This would have an interesting spin off in another way in that we could get a variation of reports of why the king has increased his REFs.

egs: "The King is jealous of your growing religious freedom and has increased his REFs". (religious points)
"The King is gaping at your growing riches. He has increased his REFs". (gold in your treasury)
"The King is coveting the new land you have discovered and is building up his REFs." (exploration points)

The formula might go something like this. If, for instance, the difficulty level is at the lowest, it may take the lower of (ignoring 0 point results, otherwise this could be a gameplay exploit):

political points
religious points
military points
trade points
exploration points
number of colonies x total population
gold in treasury
total hammers produced
max total of any resource stored in your warehouses/wagons/boats on a turn
number of turns
refusing the king

and then compare it to the last noted points when the last REF buildup was triggered. If it is greater than this, then more troops are added to the King's REF.

(Note: The poiltical points etc would obviously be the total you have generated for the game regardless of whether you have spent some.)

And in another approach, REF buildups could be made completely independant of gameplay, simply building randomly, the size and frequency tied in with difficulty level only. I'm thinking this could be a check option in the custom game screen, something like "Calculate REFs independantly of gameplay"

Anyway, is the above possible with a MOD?

I would suggest a REF based more on population size to keep it balanced:

something like

Example :

population : 100
Rebel Sentiment : 50%
cannons : 10
-> REF_max = 120 Units = (48/24/24/24)

If economy and tax-system were better balanced, you could also base REF on the King's tax-income with permanent costs for the standing REF (Royal Expeditionary Forces) ... but since your trade-income is decreasing continually by falling prices and higher taxes, this probably won't work.

I've been thinking since I wrote the OP and had already decided to simply take the maximum of the various points I was talking about and then use the levels of effect based on difficulty level.

The problem, as I see it now, is that players fnd a way to work around REF buildup by not generating LBs in the early stages.

By basing it on a number of things, there is simply no way for the player to work around the REF build up. I think the game would also be more exciting to have a whole variation of reasons for the king to build up his REFs.

"The King is in awe of the amount of ore that you have" etc etc.

Because you are only taking the maximum of a range of points, the buildup can still be in rough proximity to what it is now but there won't be a direct work around the system. That's what I'm saying. And the player's gameplay is still having a direct affect on

Where is the code for building REFs? I 'd love to try modding this myself if I could. Does code have to be compiled? Are there any instructions for modding?

Actually, I should start slow, presuming I can work out how to mod.

The first thing I would do is simply change the trigger from the number of liberty bells to total political points. If I can get that working sucessfully, then I'd try to move on from there to add more.