[modmodmod] The Sword of Islam Reborn

[GregFred187]

I tihnk we could use Simeon from RFC Europe for at least 1st Bulgarian Empire, maybe add a second LH starting from ~1200 (2nd Bulgaria Empire) but idk which one could fit the best
For Serbia Stefan Nemanjic would be cool, and looking at his Wikipedia's portrait, Michael the Brave would be the most similar I think ?

Simeon for Bulgaria is a good idea, strange that I didn't think of it myself
For Serbia I thought more about Stefan Dusan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Dušan) He managed the Serbians to become a powerful state.
The Buttons and colours of the 2 civs are the same as in RFCE++.

About map making:
For me personally it isn't that important to have a 100% historical map, as long as it is strategic playable. That means, I give you @HNation, @Nizou free rein to create a map you like!

I would recommend keeping embryodead's original provinces for Asia Minor. I would also recommend removing the two cities AtlantaMarty added (Halicarnassus and Sampsounta). I prefer to build Tralleis than place Halicarnassus, and preplacing Sampsounta takes away the choice from the player of whether to build it next to the river for the health boost or a tile away to reduce BFC overlap.

But I am not sure how it would be for the gameplay. In my opinion, Byzantium shouldn't build any cities during the game. The main challenge should be: Keep the existing cities under control. (At this point I have to say: I haven't played Byzantium jet, not in old versions, not in modmods. So maybe the thoughts of someone who has played them counts more than mine.)

 

[GregFred187]

@GregFred187 - I would also recommend removing the extra corporations AtlantaMarty added, they just make things unbalanced and don't really add anything to the game.

I know +1, +1, +1 seems a bit unbalanced, but I like the idea behind at least silk road and tamil traders. (they act in areas where aren't much other corporations. The Pisans overlap Genoans and Venetians)
Adjusting their bonus seems necessary to me, but at least the first two should stay.

 

[GregFred187]

Anyone a suggestion for Bulgarian/Serbian UB?
RFCE++ UBs don't make sense for them. (Bulgarian UB more XP for mounted, already Mamluk UB; Serbian UB replaces orthodox temple, doesn't make much sense to me)

 

[DrLoboto]

Simeon for Bulgaria is a good idea, strange that I didn't think of it myself
For Serbia I thought more about Stefan Dusan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Dušan) He managed the Serbians to become a powerful state.
The Buttons and colours of the 2 civs are the same as in RFCE++.

About map making:
For me personally it isn't that important to have a 100% historical map, as long as it is strategic playable. That means, I give you @HNation, @Nizou free rein to create a map you like!

But I am not sure how it would be for the gameplay. In my opinion, Byzantium shouldn't build any cities during the game. The main challenge should be: Keep the existing cities under control. (At this point I have to say: I haven't played Byzantium jet, not in old versions, not in modmods. So maybe the thoughts of someone who has played them counts more than mine.)

I think it's important to not let the Byzantines get too powerful too quickly, given how established they are in 750 compared to everyone else on the map. Two ideas - one, as mentioned before, it looks like many of their Balkan and Greece cities weren't under their control at the start of the game. I think a solid chunk were overrun by the Avars and Slavs at the time, so maybe give those to the Independents with halfway decent garrisons. Two, I'd suggest keeping the vanilla amount of Anatolian Byzantine cities and let them spend time founding the rest, so they aren't ready to launch Total Balko-Syrian Reconquista at a very early date. Personally, I also tweaked the map resources and settler and cityname maps so they always end up founding historically important Philadelphia.

 

[ZezDispenser]

Hey GregFred187, nice to see your progress on the mod.

I know you are busy with the current expansion, but here is another idea for you: Revision of some of the UHV's.

Most UHV's are good imo, but the two that I think would benefit from this are Jerusalem and Ghaznavid. Jerusalem's "get spice, silk, and incense" UHV creates a strange situation where the player has to go to the Ethiopian shore and into Yemen to get enough. I think a more historical and thematic UHV would be "Make sure Palestine, Transjordan, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt, Northern Syria, Edessa, Syria, and Cilica are controlled by Christian civs in 1290."

As for the Ghaznavids, they controlled a vast empire, and were infamous for raiding into India. Some ideas could be "get x cash from raiding Hindu civs by x date" or have them control the areas the UHV just asks for one city in instead.

As for a Bulgarian UB, why not an "Krepost", which would be a replacement for a castle. You could give it a +25 defense bonus over a normal castle and/or a +2 to culture, to make the Bulgarians more troublesome to the Byzantines.

 

[HNation]

I merged the two maps (northwest corner is just plains since it wasn't on either map), but it won't load in game. @GregFred187 @Leoreth @DrLoboto @Nizou or anyone else with modding experience, do you know what's wrong?

Currently the map is 86x125. I hope to one day expand it in the South so there's room for Ethiopia and some Somalian states/tribes and more of South India, but I think that the current goal should be to get the merged map working and balanced, adding land to the South is the hardest direction to add land in, I have to both shift the entire current map and add the new tiles individually for each column. When adding the eastern expansion from DrLoboto's map, it was very easy - just copy and paste the end of the DrLoboto map to the end of the GregFred map.

 

[DrLoboto]

I merged the two maps (northwest corner is just plains since it wasn't on either map), but it won't load in game. @GregFred187 @Leoreth @DrLoboto @Nizou or anyone else with modding experience, do you know what's wrong?

Currently the map is 86x125. I hope to one day expand it in the South so there's room for Ethiopia and some Somalian states/tribes and more of South India, but I think that the current goal should be to get the merged map working and balanced, adding land to the South is the hardest direction to add land in, I have to both shift the entire current map and add the new tiles individually for each column. When adding the eastern expansion from DrLoboto's map, it was very easy - just copy and paste the end of the DrLoboto map to the end of the GregFred map.

The formatting at the top looks fine but there's a bunch of stuff like this in the plot info. Looks like remnants of "teamreveal" lines under "plottype":

BeginPlot
x=27,y=0
FeatureType=FEATURE_PALM_FOREST, FeatureVariety=0
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,
EndPlot
BeginPlot
x=27,y=1
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,34,
EndPlot
BeginPlot
x=27,y=2
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,34,
EndPlot

 

[Tigranes]

Anyone a suggestion for Bulgarian/Serbian UB?
RFCE++ UBs don't make sense for them. (Bulgarian UB more XP for mounted, already Mamluk UB; Serbian UB replaces orthodox temple, doesn't make much sense to me)

I suggest Krepost (many games use it, including age of Empires). Bulgarian replacement for Castle slowly damaging enemy units in adjacent tiles, akin to Russian General Winter UP effect. Also adding additional 2 exp to mounted units. There was a reason for Byzantine inability to subjugate Bulgars.

 

[Nizou]

I merged the two maps (northwest corner is just plains since it wasn't on either map), but it won't load in game. @GregFred187 @Leoreth @DrLoboto @Nizou or anyone else with modding experience, do you know what's wrong?

Currently the map is 86x125. I hope to one day expand it in the South so there's room for Ethiopia and some Somalian states/tribes and more of South India, but I think that the current goal should be to get the merged map working and balanced, adding land to the South is the hardest direction to add land in, I have to both shift the entire current map and add the new tiles individually for each column. When adding the eastern expansion from DrLoboto's map, it was very easy - just copy and paste the end of the DrLoboto map to the end of the GregFred map.

Got Python bug when loading the map, either as new game or from WorldBuilder, gonna try to see and fix what causes this

 

[HNation]

The formatting at the top looks fine but there's a bunch of stuff like this in the plot info. Looks like remnants of "teamreveal" lines under "plottype":

BeginPlot
x=27,y=0
FeatureType=FEATURE_PALM_FOREST, FeatureVariety=0
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,
EndPlot
BeginPlot
x=27,y=1
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,34,
EndPlot
BeginPlot
x=27,y=2
TerrainType=TERRAIN_PLAINS
PlotType=2
31,34,
EndPlot

This isn't what's causing issues. GregFred's map has the same thing in the text files and it loads fine.
Here's a screenshot of the merged map from MapView, though

 

[DrLoboto]

Hmmm, I'll keep poking around. Maybe someone with greater knowledge of these things can weigh in.

This probably isn't the issue, but the ownership lines here should be changed regardless:

BeginPlot
x=39,y=71
TerrainType=TERRAIN_GRASS
PlotType=1
BeginUnit
UnitType=UNIT_ARCHER, UnitOwner=42
Damage=0
Level=1, Experience=0
FacingDirection=4
UnitAIType=UNITAI_CITY_DEFENSE
EndUnit
BeginCity
CityOwner=42
CityName=Samkarsh
CityPopulation=1
ReligionType=RELIGION_JUDAISM
ReligionType=RELIGION_ORTHODOXY
EndCity
EndPlot

 

[DrLoboto]

Hmmm, I'll keep poking around. Maybe someone with greater knowledge of these things can weigh in.

This probably isn't the issue, but the ownership lines here should be changed regardless:

BeginPlot
x=39,y=71
TerrainType=TERRAIN_GRASS
PlotType=1
BeginUnit
UnitType=UNIT_ARCHER, UnitOwner=42
Damage=0
Level=1, Experience=0
FacingDirection=4
UnitAIType=UNITAI_CITY_DEFENSE
EndUnit
BeginCity
CityOwner=42
CityName=Samkarsh
CityPopulation=1
ReligionType=RELIGION_JUDAISM
ReligionType=RELIGION_ORTHODOXY
EndCity
EndPlot

Also, while I believe the map won't load for people who don't have my "FEATURE_TERRACE" added to their xml files, it's still crashing on my end, so it may be something more/else.

 

[HNation]

Also, while I believe the map won't load for people who don't have my "FEATURE_TERRACE" added to their xml files, it's still crashing on my end, so it may be something more/else.

I will remove that, but I don't think that's it, either, I saw a screenshot in this thread of red dots on the map because the person didn't have GregFred's palm forest addition installed

 

[GregFred187]

Great work and thanks for your contribute, HNation!

I will remove that, but I don't think that's it, either, I saw a screenshot in this thread of red dots on the map because the person didn't have GregFred's palm forest addition installed

This should already been solved.
You cannot open the map in civ, because civ cannot handle it without a adjusted CityNameManager.py, Maps.py and consts.py (consts only the 6 coordinates in the very beginning). Without that, the map seems incomplete to the game.
At the beginning, it does not matter whether the enlarged NameManager and Maps are filled meaningfull, it just has to be filled by something (so just the default value) in order to make it openable.

Sorry, I am again busy this and next week, but it is great to read about all the progress we make!

 

[HNation]

Great work and thanks for your contribute, HNation!

Thank you, GregFred187!

This should already been solved.
You cannot open the map in civ, because civ cannot handle it without a adjusted CityNameManager.py, Maps.py and consts.py (consts only the 6 coordinates in the very beginning). Without that, the map seems incomplete to the game.
At the beginning, it does not matter whether the enlarged NameManager and Maps are filled meaningfull, it just has to be filled by something (so just the default value) in order to make it openable.

Sorry, I am again busy this and next week, but it is great to read about all the progress we make!

I edited all 3 files (except the settler maps, since it says that it doesn't matter if they match in size), but it still doesn't work, I'm getting a python exception, apparently something's wrong with line 32 of the CityNameManager, but I'm not sure what.

CivFanatics won't let me upload python, so I uploaded it here: https://file.io/HQZU04Zg6fOE

 

[DrLoboto]

Quotation marks seem to have vanished?

Around the city names, I mean

 

[HNation]

Quotation marks seem to have vanished?

Around the city names, I mean

Is there any chance you could create the CityNameManager for the bigger map? I don't need you to actually add city names, just to add 11 rows in the north and 10 rows in the east with the base value (-1). Google sheets removes the quotation marks, and I don't have excel

 

[DrLoboto]

Is there any chance you could create the CityNameManager for the bigger map? I don't need you to actually add city names, just to add 11 rows in the north and 10 rows in the east with the base value (-1). Google sheets removes the quotation marks, and I don't have excel

Hopefully I counted this right. If you get any more python errors it probably means I misplaced or forgot a comma somewhere.

I would definitely recommend notepad++ for all the civ 4 stuff. I also use open office when I need it.

 

[HNation]

Hopefully I counted this right. If you get any more python errors it probably means I misplaced or forgot a comma somewhere.

I would definitely recommend notepad++ for all the civ 4 stuff. I also use open office when I need it.

It looks like you added tiles to the north of your map expansion, I meant could you please either add 15 tiles to the west and 1 tile to the east of your city name manager, or add 11 tiles to the north and 10 tiles to the east of GregFred's city name manager. This one doesn't match the map size.

 

[DrLoboto]

Whoops. Apologies, a little out of it tonight. You definitely need an extra tile to the east, for my file I mean?