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

[Tigranes]

There was very little activity this past week -- not only here but in Creation and Customization subforums in general. I hope our modders did not run out of steam (no pun intended)? Any way, I am posting here just to show how cool real Earth with cultures in all the right places can look in a typical game (Early Modern era, default difficulty and speed):

Notice, how each culture has it's dedicated symbol! Just yummy!

Ghanians in Africa, Aztecs in Americas, Norse in Karelia/Petersburg, Teutons in Western Europe, Poles in Eastern (ready to become Russians), Ancient Persians in Persia, Khmers in East Asia. We even got Mississippians in Americas. Only 3 out of 10 players remain "generic" Assyrians. This is no-loss version, where human player (me) liberates non-historical territory voluntarily (and still leads in fame). It is my firm belief that AI civs should only loose territory if they own something non-historical on another continent. Otherwise they are already handicapped by limited culture pool and the fact that human player understands mod's mechanic better. Territory loss version has game breaking bug that does not allow game to continue (please see my previous post).

Overall -- please keep up the good work. Award winning map is already great joy to play with, but seeing cultures in (more or less) right places makes unfolding history so much more enjoyable (at least for the history lovers like myself).

 

[Gedemon]

you can zip the save, but what would really help is the last "Diagnostics ([date] @[time].html" file in the "\Documents\Humankind\Temporary Files" folder (could zip it too) from when you're stuck on the AI turn.

 

[Gedemon]

and thanks to the help I got from Andrew and Touhma on Discord, next version will use bepInEx, no need to replace the DLL anymore.

 

[Tigranes]

My biggest pet peeve is the stupid random territory/outpost names which we cannot even rename. Is there absolutely no way to find the text file game is using to name territories? Is it hardcodded? Something so simple as text values should not be so difficult to edit!

 

[Gedemon]

Changing city names (and I think territory) is possible, but I'll wait for the official tools, as it should be easier to use them to set names and localization in the DB using them. If not we'll use a custom method.

Alpha6 released, now using BepInEx that must be installed first, and if you were using a previous version, remember to restore the original DLL first.

New version has 4 configuration options:

• KeepOnlyCultureTerritory : to set if Empires will keep only the territories of a new Culture and liberate the other Territories
• KeepTerritoryAttached : to set if Territories that are attached to a Settlement that has at least one territory belonging to the new Culture will not be detached and kept in the Empire, even when KeepOnlyCultureTerritory is active
• OutpostCanUnlockTerritory: to set if an outpost is enough to unlock a Culture, or if the new Culture Capital Territory needs to be a City (or attached to a City) of that Empire
• LimitDecisionForAI: to limit AI Empires to Culture choices that doesn't result in a big territory loss

File attached in OP, with links for BepInEx installation and instructions to install the mod and edit the config file.

It's still "alpha", options need to be tested, for example by making a save just before changing culture, editing the configuration file, restarting the game and reloading the save.

And please report any end turn "lock" by zipping and posting the most recent html "Diagnostic" file from your "\Documents\Humankind\Temporary Files", TIA

 

[Tigranes]

Did you make changes/improvements in the territories list? Siam did not become available for me, even though I had an outpost in Thailand in the previous version? Also 3-4 AIs stay Assyrian for the duration of the game...

 

[Gedemon]

nope, just the Olmec for slots 9-10, as I wanted to release the BepInEx version ASAP, knowing that at this point getting feedback won't be easy with a small number of players (and thanks everyone that do), while I don't want an "alpha" version to be released on mod.io yet.

I'll expand a bit the Huns and Celtics unlocking territories, but I don't want to have an IA picking (and locking) Rome by owning Greece while a human player was waiting for the Era change with a city on Rome for example, IMO the solution would be to have more cultures once the modding tools are available.

Now for that specific example I can add Rome to the list of Culture allowed for multiple Empires, that's a possibility. And maybe others.

Quoting myself:

I'm setting a few other Cultures to be able to be picked by multiple players, with multiple possible "starting territory".

So far I have:

• Assyria, not locked by any territory, backup Culture for the first Era if a player/AI still hasn't controlled an "unlocking territory" after collecting 50 knowledge Stars (will need to scale that with game speed)
• Celts (British Islands, France, NW Spain)
• Norse (Scandinavia, except Denmark which is attached to "Germany" territory)
• Goths (SE Sweden, "Poland", "Ukraine")

Should there be others ?
Changes to the territories list ?

Phoenician has been added to that list (Morocco, North Algeria & Tunisia, Liban, Libya, South Spain), Greece maybe (changing the territory coverage, but as I said, I'm a bit reticent to use the largest Empire size, but there is a good point to make on the range of the cultural influence...)

Let summon some of our forum historians (hopping you don't mind guys)

@Boris Gudenuf @Zaarin @Andrew Johnson [FXS]

Question being which culture could be controlled by multiple players, and which territories should "unlock" them.

 

[Zaarin]

Phoenicia is an obvious choice here: it scattered colonies all across the Mediterranean, which were nominally loyal to the mother-city but usually acted pretty independently. That means Phoenicia should be able to show up in her homeland of Lebanon as well as Cyprus, Malta, Crete, North Africa, and Iberia. Could make a case for the Levant in general, really. Carthage replaced Tyre as the epicenter of Phoenician culture so it follows that Carthage could be treated the same.

The Celts could be much more widespread than you've distributed them. They covered virtually all of Central and Western Europe, and they made incursions into northern Italy, the Balkans, and Anatolia. They also represent a disparate group of people and are another obvious choice for multiple players.

The Goths founded kingdoms in Italy, Iberia, and North Africa after being pushed out of their homeland in roughly Poland as well as occupying territory in Ukraine as clients of the Eastern Roman Empire. Split into the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, they're another candidate for multiple players.

Aside from the Greek homeland, the Greeks also had colonies in Anatolia (Ionia) and Italy (Magna Graecia). They could potentially be another multiple player candidate.

Insofar as the Huns represent Eurasian steppe nomads generally they could be placed anywhere on the Eurasian steppe and played by any number of players.

Given there are a few dozen Mayan peoples, they could be a multiple player candidate; the chief barrier is they inhabited a pretty small region that I doubt is more than two or three regions on the map. Ibid. for Aztecs.

Mongols are in a similar category as the Huns. Their sprawling empire broke down quickly, and the Mongols could conceivably be used to portray any of the post Mongol hordes like the Golden Horde or the Chagatai Khanate.

Norse might be a tight fit for multiple players, but if you include their colonies they could appear in not just Scandinavia but also France, the British Isles, Iceland, and Greenland. Vinland might be stretching it--they overwintered there and left--but, you know, it's there if you want it to be.


Just some ideas off the top of my head.

 

[Gedemon]

Seems I inverted a true/false check and AI could be locked again in Neolithic... Testing new build...

 

[Gedemon]

Fixed, alpha6.1 attached to OP.

 

[Tigranes]

Seems I inverted a true/false check and AI could be locked again in Neolithic... Testing new build...

Thanks for the fix!

I don't want to have an IA picking (and locking) Rome by owning Greece while a human player was waiting for the Era change with a city on Rome for example

By the way, for some reason, Mycenean player AI never picks Romans, even though they are available. So there is no need to worry. They pick Celts or Greeks, but more often transcend and turn into Teutons in Medieval. There was a reported observation that in Humankind AI likes to stick to particular affinity. At least during first 4 eras.

Western world got influenced by Roman Empire more than from any other Humankind culture, I think entire Roman empire territories need to be available for unlocking. In last 5 games I did not see Roman Empire once.

 

[Gedemon]

I was pondering a 10 player version with old world start only, one on Rome (maybe with Phoenicia unlock) and one east of the Volga (Huns)

But then I don't have a way to check in game which version is played (10 players with new world, 10 players on old world), so I'll also have to change the Olmec unlock by expanding the initial territories.

 

[Gedemon]

Teaser time...

Spoiler :

The city requirement is an option, I use an Era index to activate it, for example the default value is "3" (Medieval), meaning for era "1" (Ancient) and "2" (Classical) an outpost on a territory is enough to unlock its Culture.

I'm also adding an option that will allow the AI to keep all its territories whatever setting are used for the other options.

And yes, we absolutely need real world territory name, but that will come only after we've done a good balance pass on the map (split/redraw some territories, add some strategic resources)

 

[Tigranes]

@Gedemon

I am really excited about this particular mod and I know that a lot of time and energy was invested in it already. I hope it is not too late to suggest the following uniform approach for the beta before the development will take us too far:

Treat AI and human players drastically different: humans need to have at least an outpost in culture's capital's territory to unlock it, AI gets to pick based on outpost in the continent of culture's capital territory.
(additionally, once AI picks a culture it locks it for the human player but not for another AI)

All the other rules and options can stay the same. Please consider the following:

• Human players always look for a challenge. Going after particular territory in addition to collecting stars can be very fun challenge.
• AI has a hard time as is -- to adjust to all the new rules and restrictions. Giving AI more choices will result in more excitement for human player
• Games does a pretty good job ensuring there is at least 1 culture per major continent for all the 6 eras
• I rather see second Myceneans in Sweden and second Olmecs in South America than Assyrians for 5 eras. Different Mayan city states constantly fought each other, so it is not very far fetched.
• Every culture needs to be treated the same in case of human player, uniformity is very satisfying feeling. Why should one culture be unlocked by only one territory and another one with many?

This approach will create a balance between realism and gameplay.

 

[Gedemon]

Too complex, I do plan another option, a bit similar to one of YnAMP's: automatically place an outpost on a player starting position (off/all/AI only)

 

[smartclick20]

Too complex, I do plan another option, a bit similar to one of YnAMP's: automatically place an outpost on a player starting position (off/all/AI only)

coooooool

 

[Gedemon]

This looks better now...

Spoiler :

 

[Gedemon]

I'm not home this WE so I don't think next version will be ready before next week.

Should be the last "alpha" before a "beta" release on mod.io, and so I'll try to add the options in the "new game" setup menu, in the "difficulty" group.

I pondered moving the naming feature into another mod, but I don't like having too many different mods to manage, and I think it's thematical (Culture, Territories and -at some point- Cities being placed on their real location on a world map)

But I'll add a full on/off switch for the culture unlock code in case people just want to use the Territory (and later city) naming.

Now, I'm going to ask every one help again for naming, but this time of the mod

Something like:

NameOfTheMod
a True Culture Location and Real World Name mod

 

[Gedemon]

If your empire was stable, everything was developed and fine - then why should you suffer the extreme penalty of losing entire homeland just because you chose American culture?

I think I'll use that (Empire stability at the moment of the change) as a middle ground to determine if (and how much) you'll loss territories in the process (while still keeping the other on/off options)

 

[Gedemon]

Alpha 7 added to OP, with the compatible Giant Earth Map.

You need that version of the map, the previous version don't have matching territory indexes with the mod, and the mod will be deactivated.

Press F3 in game to show the territory list (and shift-F10 to hide/show the diplomatic screen UI), you may have to press F3 a few time if you add another menu open (like units/cities), I'll try to make this less hacky.