[Mod] ps Mods: Longplay, Stronghold, Others

[Poldworld]

Hi all,

I am hobby-modding the amazing OLD WORLD with focus to create a longplay/endless mode experience for singleplayer.
Happy to discuss ideas, proposals, wishes or any other feedback.

*** Longplay:
Vision:
- Create a mod/mods that supports playing a longer-game with main focus shifted from military-tactical to civil-development and role-playing.
Main ideas:
- Adjust tech tree, higher army resource costs, adjusted discontent mechanics, more important late game buildings
Current status:
- TechTree Mod (in early playtesting: lanes changed, science costs mostly maintained)
- Game Options Mod - concepts in early playtesting: food per order, higher unit consumption

*** Stronghold:
Vision:
- Create a mod&map that enables and encourages building your city like a castle - with walls, gates, towers.
Main ideas:
- Change forts and garrissons to function as "walls", create city boni to affect improvements.
Current status:
- Game Option Mod - concept testing: enables projects to affect improvements (towers project to increase range on forts & garrissons)
- Other - unreleased

*** Other:
- Extra Hotkeys - Quality of Life; next: hotkey to build suggested improvement, additional hotkeys for frequent improvements

 

[jguy100]

@Poldworld this sounds amazing! I enjoy mostly-peaceful, long running Old World games, so I'm definitely interested. Did you envision this primarily for player-vs-player or player-vs-computer play?

One of the driving factors behind Old World military expansion is the fact that having more cities is almost always better. I think discouraging endless expansion (ICS, or infinite city sprawl) will be key to getting this to work. Now how to accomplish that is the hard part. One straight forward way might be to impose harsh family opinion penalties for growing too large, but not sure how fun that would be.

 

[Poldworld]

@Poldworld this sounds amazing! I enjoy mostly-peaceful, long running Old World games, so I'm definitely interested. Did you envision this primarily for player-vs-player or player-vs-computer play?

One of the driving factors behind Old World military expansion is the fact that having more cities is almost always better. I think discouraging endless expansion (ICS, or infinite city sprawl) will be key to getting this to work. Now how to accomplish that is the hard part. One straight forward way might be to impose harsh family opinion penalties for growing too large, but not sure how fun that would be.

Tx for the feedback.
Lets have some discussion on your points:

1. PvP or PvC: I envision this longplay mostly for more casual and role-play. I guess thats mostly interesting for SinglePlayer vs AI. Realistically, I wont be able to balance it sufficiently for competitive play.
2. Expansion Analysis: Interesting analysis. I agree, that wide vs tall benefits is an axis to achieve longer/endless play. My first focus is/was more on "the" military vs civil benefits axis.
   
3. Expansion Carrot vs Stick - I see 3 ways to achieve less expansion/"wide play":
   1. Hard prevention: Currently my GameplayOptions-Mod already includes an option for a "Three City Challenge", which is a hard limit to 3 cities. (adapted from the vanilla OCC option).
   2. "Carrot": Encouraging "taller" play is in the plan by making late game buildings more attractive and generally improving civil play benefits compared to military focused play (e.g. by current options to increase unit consumption and movement costs (food per move)).
      
   3. "Stick": Discouraging many cities via penalties. I have not thought much into this direction yet. I want to change the discontent mechanic, but with a different target. I believe the "Dynamic World" mod from pharry has some concepts like stronger maintenance increase with distance from capital, which i find interesting.

 

[Poldworld]

PROGRESS UPDATE:
- Major improvements to order+food costs for unit actions (AI adjustments, proper UI, balancing) --> really happy with this new option and first play testing
- Extended analysis for "endless" mode tasks --> List of mechanics that break in endless: Unlimited army size, Discontent, unlimited resources unmatched by consumption -- semi-unlimited: expansion, growth, improvements, orders / legitimicy, culture

NEXT:
- "Polish" and release new order+food version
- Discontent mechanic
Minor things:
- QoL: Integrate "extra hotkeys" into the MOD (otherwise the 2 DLL mods are no compatible)
- XML Mod on Improvement upgrading and making mills an upgrade from lumbermills/mines