[Mod] True Culture Location and Territory Naming for the Giant Earth Map

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

v1.0.5.0 available on mod.io

Old changelog

Spoiler :

source (gitHub)

Installation instructions, descriptions, post-release changelogs and credits/thanks are on mod.io

See the posts below for "How to use a .json file for mods or maps compatibility" and "How to get the diagnostic file for a bug report"

Other compatible maps

Europe Plus with the attached .json file (copied from this post, extract it in the "\Documents\Humankind\Maps" or the "\Documents\Humankind\Community" folder)

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

How to use a .json file or XML files for mods or maps compatibility

The .json file name must end with "TCL" or "tcl" for example "MyMapTCL.json"

You can create the .json file in the "Resources" folder of a humankind mod project, it will be embedded in the assetbundle when you build it and can be read by the mod.

You can also directly place it in your "\Documents\Humankind\Community" or "\Documents\Humankind\Maps" folders and subfolders

Spoiler .json example :

The only mandatory section is the "MapTerritoryHash", used to identify the map to use the data with, the mod output it in the log when starting a game, in the example above "-288044546" is the Giant Earth Map 1.1.1.1 and "-819807177" is the Giant Earth Map 1.1.1.0.

This section is a list, as you the hash will change if territory sizes change, but the content (TCL, names, etc) may still be valid for small variations of the same map.

If a map is updated and its hash changes, the content of the .json file will not be loaded with that map until it's updated to use the new hash.

Here is how the current hash is displayed in the diagnostic log (found in "\Documents\Humankind\Temporary Files")

The other optional sections:

LoadOrder : data from the file with the higher value will overwrite data from files with a lower value
MajorEmpireTerritories : the default list of territory indexes used for TCL, representing a Major Empire territories, the Capital being the first entry
MajorEmpireCoreTerritories : a reduced list of territories, activated with the "Keep only Core Empire" option
MinorFactionTerritories : TCL for independent people
ContinentNames : pairs of Continent index - name
TerritoryNames : pairs of Territory index - name
ExtraPositions : allows to set a list of alternate start positions, used when there are more than 10 player slots in a game (described as "old world only" in the options)
ExtraPositionsNewWorld : alternate start positions, full map
NoCapital : list of Cultures without capital (any territory from the list will unlock them, and they can be adopted by more than one empire)
NomadCultures : list of Cultures that never need a city to unlock a new culture

When there is a default entry set directly in the mod (all vanilla cultures and all territory/continent names for the Giant Earth Map), any entry with the same "key" (faction name, territory/continent/slot index) will replace it's value, and when it does not exist it's added.

For example that section in the example above

Code:

        "MajorEmpireCoreTerritories":
            {
                "Civilization_Era1_Phoenicia": [ 188, 190 ],
                "Civilization_Era1_EgyptianKingdom": [ 128 ]
            },

means that the existing list of "core" territories of Phoenicia and Egypt will be replaced by the territories listed here.

You can provide support for multiple maps in one file, for example

Spoiler .json example :

The full territory names and indexes for the Giant Earth Map can be found in the first post of the map's thread.

Update: XML file support

Most of the tables are now defined in XML files that are available with the Giant Earth Map. You can edit them directly (but remember that for Mp everyone must have the same files) or copy and edit them to use with another maps (by changing the map's territory hash, see above, and the territory indexes, visible in the world editor)

Example of a TCL file in XML, to prevent pre-industrial native American cultures to spawn on the Giant Earth Map for people wanting the New World to be empty of major Cultures

Spoiler :

And syntax example for the other TCL tables

Spoiler :

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

How to get the diagnostic file for a bug report

You'll find the log in the Temporary folder of Humankind in Document, sort them by date and zip then attach the last one to your post

To check if the mod is causing the issue, you can open them in your web browser, and check the first (by time stamp) "critical" line near the end of the file

if you click on "stack" it gives more details, please note that a text copy of a log without details can't help to diagnostic a bug.

If one of the white lines in the detail start with something like "Gedemon.TrueCultureLocation" instead of "Amplitude.", then the mod may be the issue, and I'd really like to see the full log.

Note that there are also a lot of colored lines tagged with [Gedemon], those are the mod's "normal" log line, grey, yellow or even red when I want to find them quicker.

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

Spoiler Original post :

Tigranes · Sep 6, 2021

Civ and HK offer two extremes of the real history. In Civ you are Ancient Egypt for 6000 years, and no one finds it weird or immersion breaking. In HK you can go Egypt > Greece/Rome/Persia > Umayyad > Ottomans > British > Egypt (so silly they have 2 cultures named Egypt, btw). But of course you can start as Egypt and all "historically plausible" next era culture can be taken so one will end up selecting Mayans and it will break the immersion, while creating 1.5 mln possible civilizations, if you do some combinatorics.

Capitals can be moved without penalty in HK, so instead of focusing on it I suggest to focus on the loosely defined "historically plausible" cultural connections. Generate the list of historical connections between every single culture across the 6 eras. If you can think of any connection associated with your current culture with the next era culture -- you can pick it while changing eras. Otherwise you will have to transcend. Here is some examples:

Mycenaeans, Celts/Romans, Franks, Spanish, French, Americans

Mycenaeans, Romans/Goths, Umayyads, Spanish, French/Mexicans, Americans

Olmecs, Mayas, Aztecs, Haudonesanee/Spanish, British, Americans

Zhou, Huns, Mongols, Ming, British/French/Siamese, Chinese

Hittites, Huns, Mongols, Poles, Russians, Soviets

Hittites, Achaemenid Persians/Greeks/Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Persians, Turks

Mycenaeans, Celts, English, Spanish, British, Americans

Mycenaeans, Goths, Norsemen, Poles, Russians, Swedish

Mycenaeans, Goths, Teutons, Spanish, Germans, Americans/Swedish/Soviets

Harappans, Mauryans, Khmers, Mughals, British, Indians

Zhou, Huns, Mongols/Khmers, Edo Japanese, Siamese/Russians, Japanese

gunnergoz · Sep 6, 2021

I was one of the loudest whiners about how I found Humankind's cultural transitions jarring. TBH, it still is but less so the more I play and enjoy the game.
What I complain about now is the idea of being limited in my next choice of culture - though, now that I think about it, given the concept that this is tied to history and global locations, it makes absolute sense. I suppose this game is bound to give rise to confusion to people like me who like to identify with certain cultures. Having them change underfoot takes some getting used to.
Anyway, I'm curious to see how it works out as described here, it is intriguing. Carry on.

Moderator Action: Changed a word without changing context. Please use appropriate language on the forum. Thanks. leif

UncivilizedGuy · Sep 6, 2021

Gedemon said:
There have been a lot of discussion about the Culture change each era and how players are either confused by it and/or find it immersion breaking.

But, as for civ6 AI, when you ask about it almost everyone would say that it should be "fixed", once you start actually debating about "how to fix it ?", you'll find out that there are almost as many different opinion as there are people playing the game...

So, some kind of Culture Tree as an option or a mod, there is a demand for that, okay.

But how to implement it ?

Well at this moment, I've not seen anyone coming with an answer that is not almost as immersion breaking at some point than the current implementation.

So I've been working on a mod for the Giant Earth Map that offer a potential alternative, but is dependent on fixed maps, which is unlocking Cultures depending on the territory you're owning.

I'll release a first simple version ASAP, working on the 4th era Cultures territories at this moment.

That version would be simple: if you own the territory of the Capital of a new Culture (or one of the initial territories of a Culture in some cases, like the Huns, Goths, Celts, Norse...), you can evolve into that culture.

I'd like to discuss a bit further the concept, as currently it allows an African/Asian Culture to set an outpost on France, Germany, Scandinavia and upgrade to Frank, Teutons or Norse while most of its territories are still in Africa/Middle East/Asia.

My idea would be to still unlock the Culture based on the Capital's territory, BUT when evolving you'll only keep the territories related to the new culture and all the other would be liberated.

Thoughts ?

I'm impressed that this is possible without any modding tools. It's a fantastic idea. Hopefully it translates to more interesting gameplay. I know sometimes things look better on paper before they're actually implemented.

After evolving to a new culture do we retain the territories of the earlier culture? I'm still trying to visualize how this progression will work. I'm assuming culture selection will still occur at the beginning of every era.

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

UncivilizedGuy said:
After evolving to a new culture do we retain the territories of the earlier culture?

Currently yes, but that's what I'm pondering to change.

UncivilizedGuy said:
I'm still trying to visualize how this progression will work. I'm assuming culture selection will still occur at the beginning of every era.

Yes, with the selection based on your territories at that time.

UncivilizedGuy · Sep 6, 2021

Gedemon said:
Currently yes, but that's what I'm pondering to change.

I suggest creating two versions so that we can give some feedback. It seems that having my empire shrink in size after an era change might feel penalizing. A lot of time and effort wasted. Do you have a real world example to back up your idea?

Siptah · Sep 6, 2021

I think the up and down from switching cultures is a great idea. Can‘t wait to give it a try.

Gedemon · Sep 6, 2021

UncivilizedGuy said:
I suggest creating two versions so that we can give some feedback.

Yes, as I'll release the simple version first, the second would need additional coding.

UncivilizedGuy said:
It seems that having my empire shrink in size after an era change might feel penalizing.

Yes, but there are a lot of people complaining about snowballing ATM, you can't counter that in an exponentially growing Empire without any sort of slow down somewhere in the process. I get that most people don't like penalties in gaming now, but I prefer some kind of limitation to infinite growth.

Now, to balance you also need to slow down Empire that keep their previous culture. A sort of decadence mechanism. Keep (or even raise) the bonus in fame in that case, but slowly lower the other yields (gold, influence, science, production, stability)

UncivilizedGuy said:
A lot of time and effort wasted.

No, as the game use Fame to determine the winner. And there are multiple way of doing that, the fast coded version could use "liberation" of previous territories, giving the new Empire an advantage over the other for its relation with the new independent factions, and could integrate back some territories this way.

Long-term version could use Stability as the main factor for example, you would have the choice to keep the previous territories, but the Capital location would move and be locked to the new Culture location, and Stability would be relative to the distance to the capital, the further away, the lower.

Of course, some locations on the map would be much more interesting than some others, but as long as there are more than one, it's fine IMO.

UncivilizedGuy said:
Do you have a real world example to back up your idea?

British Empire -> U.S.A.
Either you stay the "British Empire", or you become the "U.S.A" in America, but you don't become the "U.S.A" while keeping control of the whole "British Empire"

Franks -> France, Holy Roman Empire
Either you stay "Franks" with the whole territory, either you become France or Holy Roman Empire with a portion of the territory.

And Rome before that of course.

edit: If possible, I'd like to spawn new Empire as the game progress, ie instead of giving the old empire to independent people, give it to a new major player. Or spawn them from splitting the territory of a decadent AI empire.

UncivilizedGuy · Sep 6, 2021

Gedemon said:
British Empire -> U.S.A.
Either you stay the "British Empire", or you become the "U.S.A" in America, but you don't become the "U.S.A" while keeping control of the whole "British Empire"

Franks -> France, Holy Roman Empire
Either you stay "Franks" with the whole territory, either you become France or Holy Roman Empire with a portion of the territory.

And Rome before that of course.

edit: If possible, I'd like to spawn new Empire as the game progress, ie instead of giving the old empire to independent people, give it to a new major player. Or spawn them from splitting the territory of a decadent AI empire.

Interesting way to look at it. The fact that we can remain the original culture makes this an acceptable approach, IMO. Thanks for the thorough response.

fortydayweekend · Sep 7, 2021

Gedemon said:
That version would be simple: if you own the territory of the Capital of a new Culture (or one of the initial territories of a Culture in some cases, like the Huns, Goths, Celts, Norse...), you can evolve into that culture.

I can imagine the epic struggle between the Zhou and Mauryans to control Cambodia in every game

Maybe the Huns too, or even an enterprising Greek.

I like the idea of it still being more or less in the players control rather than dictating what cultures you can have. It is an alternate history after all. It would be good to have 2-3 options on average each Era, even if you have to do some conquest to get there.

I like the idea of colonies gaining independence, but not so sure it would be a good mechanic for eg the Franks splitting into France/HRE. You might be giving up all but one of your cities, which is possibly a bad AI city you just captured. Maybe if it's possible, only split if your new capital is on another continent? (Or similarly if youre using a stability penalty, add a major penalty for being on a different continent to the cap).

Gedemon · Sep 7, 2021

what about a fame bonus for every territory/city you lose on Culture change ?

Gedemon · Sep 7, 2021

Alpha 1.0.0 released, see OP for instructions.

fortydayweekend · Sep 7, 2021

Gedemon said:
what about a fame bonus for every territory/city you lose on Culture change ?

Is fame much of an incentive for players? I know I don't really care about it any more than trying to be just ahead when the game ends.

What if every other player got a grievance against you for every territory that you should have given up but didn't? That could be fun. And it's sort of similar to the situation where you expand too aggressively with outposts in the early game and end up in 3 wars at the same time.

I like the stability idea too, that seems to be what stability is for as a game mechanic, though currently it's too easy to get around with lux manufactories and a couple of extra CQs.

Gedemon · Sep 7, 2021

fortydayweekend said:
Is fame much of an incentive for players? I know I don't really care about it any more than trying to be just ahead when the game ends.

What if every other player got a grievance against you for every territory that you should have given up but didn't? That could be fun. And it's sort of similar to the situation where you expand too aggressively with outposts in the early game and end up in 3 wars at the same time.

I like the stability idea too, that seems to be what stability is for as a game mechanic, though currently it's too easy to get around with lux manufactories and a couple of extra CQs.

I'd use a percentage of Stability yield loss based on distance, it's one thing to loss 75 stability points when you have +400, it's another to loss 75% of the +400 points.

fortydayweekend · Sep 7, 2021

Gedemon said:
I'd use a percentage of Stability yield loss based on distance, it's one thing to loss 75 stability points when you have +400, it's another to loss 75% of the +400 points.

That's awesome (and how the base game should work...)

Siptah · Sep 7, 2021

Any plans to put this on the steam workshop as well?

Gedemon · Sep 7, 2021

on mod.io ? (no worshop atm)

when it's beta, it's a bit too "rough" IMO for a larger release. I've advertised it a bit to try to gather feedback, but on the other hand I'd want users that are not comfortable with manual installation/removal to stay away from it. I'd need at least a map check in the code to avoid the necessity of swapping DLLs when you want to play a normal map.

[Mod] True Culture Location and Territory Naming for the Giant Earth Map

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