[Modmod]Dawn of Knoedel - Comprehensive Rebalance Project

[PizzaProwler]

Yay new commit (albeit a minor one)

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Another small commit. I made some minor changes to Byzantium before moving on to the next civilization in alphabetical order: China

The Ancient Cannon is now called Handgonne, and it replaces the Bombard instead of the Trebuchet.

Edit: Oh and I also moved Lumbermills to Guilds, bringing this mod full circle back to DoC in that regard. Or half circle? Originally they were at Replaceable Parts, and I decided that was way too late, so I've been moving it around Mathematics, Machinery and Engineering, only to come to the same conclusion as Leoreth.

 

[Ecthy]

Canada?

More importantly, what steps do you take to "update" a civ in your mod? Could this work be compartmentalized and shared? I'd like to learn some of this python business.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Canada?

It will be a cold wet day in hell before I call this glorified British colony a civilization.

But yeah I guess I revised them too, or at least I tried, but their history is just soooooo boring that I couldn't bring myself to care.

More importantly, what steps do you take to "update" a civ in your mod? Could this work be compartmentalized and shared? I'd like to learn some of this python business.

I guess maybe.

It usually goes like this:

Step 1: Go over the Unique Historical Victory.

Spoiler Details :

For the most part what I have been doing with UHVs was move dates around. It's pretty easy to do and yet many deadlines in DoC are... problematic. I'm especially looking at you, England. 1730 to establish a global empire, what a joke. While some deadlines in DoC do roughly correspond to the time the real civilization had more or less accomplished a given goal, e.g. 1800 for France's Napoleonic Empire or 1940 for Germany's Lebensraum, I wanted a little more detail. What I'm doing here is going through Wikipedia to read up on the history of the civilization and searching for major events that can be seen as UHV milestones, and then make the year that happened (rounded to a multiple of 5, so 333BC in real life turns into 335BC in game) the deadline for it. Examples include:

Moving France's conquest goal deadline to 1815, because that's the year of the Congress of Vienna.

Moving Germany's conquest goal deadline to 1945, because that's the year Nazi Germany was defeated. Also moving the Dichter und Denker deadline to 1870 because 1871 Germany was united.

Moving two of Arabia's deadlines (the spread Islam one doesn't have one to begin with) to 1270 (I think?) because of the sacking of Bagdad by the Mongols.

Moving Persia's territory deadline to 330BC or 335BC because that's when Alexander rekt them.

And so on and so forth. England's empire UHV deadline is 1850 now because that's when the first world's fair was hosted in London and stupid Canada spawns a few years later, preventing me from in good conscience moving the deadline to 1915 for the begin of the first World War even though that would be a lot more fitting.

Deadlines for "build this and that wonder" goals are usually around the time the last needed wonder was completed in real life, like 1945 for the United Nations.

I have done all that already for most civs but now I'm doing it systematically to make sure I didn't miss anything. The one exception is Canada because it's just soooooo boring and try as I might I just couldn't find any interesting major events in their history at all, so I just left their deadlines completely untouched.

I don't think I actually ever added a completely new goal, however I did change some numbers. When the deadline was moved forward in time I usually made it harder (e.g. England's Empire goal deadline being moved from 1730 to 1850 also warranted increasing the number of cities they need per continent), when it was moved back I usually made it easier (e.g. Persia's territory goal now needing less % but having to be accomplished right before Greek conquerors spawn). Golden Age UHVs now generally need more of them because Golden Ages are easier to come by in my mod, which in itself is not something I'm too happy with, but that's something to address another time.

Step 2: Make sure starting civics in all scenarios as well as the favorite civics of all its leaders are appropriate. Also see if maybe their Unique Power needs some tweaks, but I usually only tinkered with them when they were related to civics.

Spoiler Details :

Favorite civics is something I'm not very sure about in many cases. Roosevelt is a prime example: One could easily argue that Public Welfare was his favorite civic as a person, but at the same time he is representative of America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and they should be the last civ going around demanding other people adopt Public Welfare. Do I go with what the leader actually wanted or with what best represents the civilization during the time period the leader is supposed to be featured in? For now Roosevelt likes Capitalism as a sort of compromise.

Peron is an example of where I'm not even sure what the leader himself wanted. Mercantilism or Public Welfare?

San Martin is a real funny example: His favorite civic in DoC is Autocracy, even though he literally went and gave up his leadership voluntarily to go into exile at the height of his power.

Note to myself: It just occurred to me that I forgot checking for favorite civics of Canada's leaders, I should go back and do that.

Step 3: Go through Unique Units and Buildings and make sure they are appropriate.

Spoiler Details :

Appropriate can mean quite a lot: They have to replace a fitting default, they have to be better than whatever they replace (if they are worse in any aspect their other bonuses need to be big enough to make up for it), they have to actually be historically accurate both in the sense that their names fit (looking at you, Askaris) and that their bonuses represent their real life counter part (e.g. Legions being able to build roads and forts), they should be realistically buildable and relevant during a historical playthrough (for example I would love to add the Foreign Legion as one of France's UUs, but it would just not be proper as they were only established after Napoleon's defeat, so I couldn't in good conscience make them available in time for their second UHV, and there is no point in them having a UU that they only get after they are done conquering and need to focus on research) etc.

Step 4: Go over the world wonders this civ built in real life (even if they are not part of a UHV) and make sure they are appropriate.

Spoiler Details :

Again, appropriate means their effects are fitting, it's on the right tech, it's realistically buildable in time in its real location, it obsoletes with a tech that makes sense, the resource that speeds it up actually was used in its construction in real life etc.

Note to self: Go add some actually useful effect to Theodosian Walls. Also go over the CN Tower or whatever that one Canadian wonder was. Also go over China's wonders you forgetful airhead.

Step 5: Actually play a game with them on Regent trying to get a UHV, and fix anything that stands out.

Spoiler Details :

This will usually require a number of restarts because then I notice something I don't like about their starting situation and go fix that only to notice something else etc.

Note to self: Remove the Stone on the Konstantinopolis tile again. Silly me started a game as Byzantium, noticed that I didn't have stone anywhere around me but that it speeds up Theodosian Walls, then went to add temporary stone from 300AD to 600AD in Python, then restarted, played two turns, and realized that I would flip Egypt along with its stone. Whoops.

If you want to, you are welcome to help, and there is a lot you can do without even touching Python, or doing anything but playing and taking notes or even just checking something in Worldbuilder.

Three things come to mind:

1.: Play civs that I skipped or didn't play conclusively, trying to be historically accurate and accomplishing the UHV, informing me of everything notable. I haven't played Canada at all for instance, and never finished my American, Argentinean and Brazil games.

2.: See if stability and flip zones actually make sense. I never bothered with this before, but Tigranes' comment about Korea in another thread made me consider that maybe I should.

3.: Find art for better unique units. I really am not a graphics person and can't be bothered to actually search this website for unit skins, but if someone came up to me and gave me a better skin for Tagmata (they are supposed to be mounted but right now they replace Pikemen and look the part) or Mehal Sefaris (the current Askari/Oromo skin really isn't fitting) I would gladly integrate it.

If you insist on learning Python, I guess I could give you instructions on how to change UHVs, as far as I can tell they are handled in two Python files and one XML for text. Making resources appear and disappear and handling dynamic city names are both Python stuff as well, but I don't need them as consistently.

 

[Leoreth]

To be slightly provocative: you don't have to learn Python to mod victories etc. in this mod. Of course you have to touch Python files, but as long as you don't want to do anything completely different from what is already in the game, you can easily copy goals from other civs or change dates or requirements around. Python is quite readable as natural language, don't be too discouraged.

 

[Ecthy]

I did learn some programming in school, and have worked with languages that were close to not algorithmic at all (like Civ2 event scripts, or html!), so I don't think this should be too difficult. Just haven't dealth with Python before. EU2 event script e.g. was mostly about the right amount of brackets.

 

[Ecthy]

Knoedel some of those seem just the thing that would interest me, others.... for example I've played some US games, but never really finished those South American civs, so maybe there's a reason to start. First question: how does Brazil aquire enough slaves?

And while we're at it, with my biographical background I can't help but notice that Prussia should have a Corn resource at home from 1700. Potatoes!

 

[Ecthy]

Looking at those zones sounds like something I might do as well, totally not a graphics person though!

Edit: sorry for the consecutive posting, my attention is a bit daft on sundays.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

First question: how does Brazil aquire enough slaves?

Heh, that's exactly what I'm wondering about and the discovery of which I want to outsource to you.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Going through Chinese leaders' favorite civics when suddenly...

 

[Leoreth]

Well Qin Shi Huangdi is kind of a historical aberration compared to the overall continuity of Chinese history that followed after him, so maybe it shouldn't be him representing ancient China in the game, but instead someone like Wu of Han.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Well Qin Shi Huangdi is kind of a historical aberration compared to the overall continuity of Chinese history that followed after him, so maybe it shouldn't be him representing ancient China in the game, but instead someone like Wu of Han.

I don't even know. I spent the last hour reading up on every single one of the Chinese leaders (except Mao because I dare say I know enough about him to assign him a fitting favorite civic), and China's history is, like, really rich and fascinating. Especially Hongwu's. Crazy stuff. What I find interesting is that not a single one of them could really be said to have Confucianism as their favorite religion. Mao was an atheist, Qin Shi Huang actively suppressed it, Tang was a Buddhist, and I guess Hongwu was kind of sorta Confucian but not completely. Now I changed it like so:

One leader likes Taoism (Qin Shi Huang because I read on some website or other that Taoism was kind of a predecessor to the legalist thought he followed)
One leader likes Buddhism (Tang Taizong because, yeah, he actually did.)
One leader likes Confucianism (Hongwu because he kinda sorta did?)
One leader doesn't like anything. (Mao, duh.)

That way every major Chinese religion is represented by at least one leader. Good enough for me.

 

[Leoreth]

I guess the question is what you are trying to achieve. Confucianism has been the dominant religion in Chinese administration ever since the Han dynasty until the end of the Qing.

 

[Ecthy]

Should we have Mohism instead of.... Islam?

 

[Leoreth]

No.

 

[ales_]

No.

Oh, the five characters rule was removed? That's great news!

 

[Ecthy]

That was a joke. Are you ever NOT serious, Leo?

 

[Ecthy]

Knoedel, why is your mod so slow? I'm kinda used to my machine (netbook, 2 GB ram lol) making a slow game after 1700-ish (and before, actually), but your modmodmodmodmod seems much slower than Leo's. Been playing around with things that Leo deliberately managed in a fashion to reduce stress on memory? I have noticed that independents tend to have more units than in Leoverse. Might there generally be more units on the map in Nudelverse than in Leoverse?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Knoedel, why is your mod so slow? I'm kinda used to my machine (netbook, 2 GB ram lol) making a slow game after 1700-ish (and before, actually), but your modmodmodmodmod seems much slower than Leo's. Been playing around with things that Leo deliberately managed in a fashion to reduce stress on memory? I have noticed that independents tend to have more units than in Leoverse. Might there generally be more units on the map in Nudelverse than in Leoverse?

Is that so? Huh, curious. I had no idea. Is it just slower than the official release version (1.14) or also slower than the development version?

 

[Ecthy]

And how would I know which one's which? I think I'm using the 1.14 release version. Never downloaded Leoverse from Git, as opposed to Nudelverse, which is straight from Git.