City State Diplomacy Mod (Updated)

[Gazebo]

I tried looking for "CSD" and "Gazebo" but couldn't find anything.

by the way, the OP in this thread only mentions an incompatibility with EUI CityView.lua, while the EUI thread (which seems more recently updated ) mentions CityView.lua, TopPanel.lua, and InfoTooltipInclude.lua

I haven't kept up with EUI lately, as he's changed a lot recently. I'll probably need to update the OP.

Guto,

Follow Whoward's instructions for the CSD + Mod Components Dll. That's the only way to get those two mods to work together. There are a lot of threads on this in the CEP forum as well - you might ask there.
G

 

[guto8797]

Much to my dismay, following precise instructions did not function, the UI fails to load nonetheless, I shall report should i find a solution.

 

[Sheepou]

Hello Gazebo,
I have played with your mod for a month and it is truly amazing. My only grip is about the barbarian horde. Most of the time when the barbarian horde event starts, the horde appears, then in the same turn, kills my nearby units which I can't do nothing about it and pillage my trade routes. And what I find quite frustrating is when I kill all the barbarians, a new wave may pop at the 19th turn and so my friendly city state becomes barbarian at the 20th turn. I've tried to disable the barbarian horde but with keeping all the amazing other stuff, but I can't seem to find the line to desactivate. Is it possible?
Sheepou

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah – if you go to DLL/AddDefines.sql (in the CSD mod directory), navigate to

 QUEST_DISABLED_HORDE

and change the '0' next to it to '1.'
G

 

[Sheepou]

Thank you very much !

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

neat! I agree with him that the horde quest needs a bit of tweaking, it can be quite unfair if you're unlucky.

 

[Gazebo]

I could turn off the barb 'ambush' moves if there's a large consensus against it. I personally find it thrilling, as barbs get the jump on you, but I can also see why it is frustrating. I'm not terribly committed to either model, so community, you decide.

G

 

[Funak]

I could turn off the barb 'ambush' moves if there's a large consensus against it. I personally find it thrilling, as barbs get the jump on you, but I can also see why it is frustrating. I'm not terribly committed to either model, so community, you decide.

G

If you by ambush means that they get to attack the same turn as they spawn, then yes, get rid of it please.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

+1 to that ^

I'd also get rid of the randomness for barbarian waves, as Sheepou pointed out a new one may spawn one turn before the end of the quest and you simply cannot rid of them all fast enough.

Personally I'd also remove the "if one of them is still alive after 20 turns the city gets captured" because it's very counterintuitive. a city gets captured when it's out of health. the fact that a fully healed city can get captured by a single barb warrior with 1 hp left just becuase the time is up makes no sense at all, especially since it seems there's no reward for the quest. having to deal with the invasion seems like enough penalty imo.

 

[Gazebo]

Gekko,

The spawns are not random – they spawn every four turns, for a total of four spawns (there's no spawn on the last turn of the quest).

The quest ends the way it does because it works with how barbarians function. Barbs are not intended, in the AI, to conquer cities. They just aren't. Using the 'barbs threatening a CS' mechanic does the job, and is symbolic of the fact that barbarians have had a military presence near the CS for 20 turns (and have thus 'sieged' it successfully).

G

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

so even if you left them alone with the barbs the city would never get conquered if not for that mechanic? if it's just an AI issue then there could be a way to fix that, after all you still need art for the barbarian leader with the current implementation

 

[Gazebo]

The AI for barbarians is handled separately from the tactical AI for the rest of the game. It is not intended to sack cities. I'd rather not go down that road (as it'd effect barbarian behavior in other ways). The mechanic works as-is. Perfect? No, but it isn't broken either.
G

 

[Stalker0]

I will agree to take out the ambush, but otherwise leave it in.

Remind me does this mission maintain a clock on how many turns are left until it flips?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I understand why you've handled it the way you did now. Could the trigger for the city getting captured be changed so it's not arbitrary i.e. after X turns? I'd have it trigger after the CS gets below a certain health treshold. Do they even damage the city, or just focus on pillaging?

@Stalker0 : yes, it does show a countdown.

 

[Gazebo]

I understand why you've handled it the way you did now. Could the trigger for the city getting captured be changed so it's not arbitrary i.e. after X turns? I'd have it trigger after the CS gets below a certain health treshold. Do they even damage the city, or just focus on pillaging?

@Stalker0 : yes, it does show a countdown.

They will damage the city, though rarely. I had it that way in a pre-release version, but the CS won almost every horde invasion without contest because barbs tend to dart in and out of CS territory (instead of assaulting it). This was the easiest option I could come up with without rewriting the barb AI.
G

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I see you had already thought of everything then

For the record, I was a CSD naysayer before actually trying it - I thought micromanagement = bad. But after playing a couple games with it it's definitely a must have, a vast improvement over the oversymplified vanilla "CS are hoes" approach

 

[Gazebo]

I see you had already thought of everything then

For the record, I was a CSD naysayer before actually trying it - I thought micromanagement = bad. But after playing a couple games with it it's definitely a must have, a vast improvement over the oversymplified vanilla "CS are hoes" approach

Glad you've converted – one more for the borg.

Well, perhaps CSs are still, in fact, ladies of the evening, and the diplomats are simply political pimps (and pimpstresses, given that the Emisssary and Diplomat are female) making their rounds?

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore – someone should just take away my keyboard.

G

 

[Funak]

Glad you've converted – one more for the borg.

Well, perhaps CSs are still, in fact, ladies of the evening, and the diplomats are simply political pimps (and pimpstresses, given that the Emisssary and Diplomat are female) making their rounds?

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore – someone should just take away my keyboard.

G

Too bad keeping it optional is going to screw us over when trying to balance the patronage tree, going to have to write two completely different versons.... work work.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Little "preview" of what I'm currently working on (after going mad for a day because I forgot to add the specular textures to the virtual file system ):

Spoiler Embassy Test :

Still fiddling around with it a bit (I think the new specular texture made the while thing a bit dark overall), but I think I like it so far. Plus, I figured out how to do the height maps on the decal, so transparency for the decal is a go (will also help getting rid of the weird borders)! If it's too far from Ekmek's version before, I can remove the extra buildings - I just thought it'd help with making it look more "vanilla".

 

[Ekmek]

I like it!

Can you explain this: "I figured out how to do the height maps on the decal, so transparency for the decal is a go " ?