[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[raystuttgart]

... native mercenaries could be "hired" by the player for a "deposit" ...

Have you ever played TAC ?
(We are based on TAC.)

Native Mercenaries are already part of TAC and our mod.

Generally:

When creating a huge mod and trying to achieve high quality, you should choose your features carefully.

Features that

A) cause a lot of changes, efforts and risks
B) add very little fun
C) are problematic for balancing

are very unlikely to make it into our mod.

"Spreading Plagues" and "Natives leading war against each other without reason" are good examples for that to my opinion.

Especially when considering that Natives are also very valuable partners in Religion and Revolution.

1. Native Mercenaries
2. Bargaining with Natives
3. Training
4. Missions
5. Various Events (DLL and Python)
...

Also you might have defensive pacts and could be drawn into conflicts all the time ...

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We could pump up this mod with endless amounts of features, but that is not what we want.
(There is a huge difference between a feature and a good feature ...)

Religion and Revolution is not about Quantity only, it is first of all about Quality.

Our main goals:
(Basically our checklist, when considering a feature.)

1. Fun
2. Stability
3. Atmosphere
4. Historical Correctness
4. Smart and Challenging AI
5. Good Balancing

 

[orlanth]

BTW, I noticed there may be some bug with selling Treasures; when I got a treasure and moved it to a coastal settlement, there was no diplo popup to sell it, and no button to sell it in the action bar. (This was from a version of a few days ago, so maybe its already been fixed.)

 

[raystuttgart]

BTW, I noticed there may be some bug with selling Treasures; when I got a treasure and moved it to a coastal settlement, there was no diplo popup to sell it, and no button to sell it in the action bar. (This was from a version of a few days ago, so maybe its already been fixed.)

This is no bug, it was implemented on purpose.

You need to build a Dock first to be able to sell treasures to the king.
(This was necessary to prevent cheating with Abandoning Cities.)

Edit:

I corrected this post.
You need a Dock and not a Landing Stage.
(Landing Stage can be built too easily.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I uploaded a new balancing for Winds and Storms.
(The mod should play quite well with these settings.)

 

[orlanth]

Originally Posted by thadian View Post
My first question is about natives. Will they ... be playable ?
No.Neither vanilla, nor this mod were ever designed to have playable Natives.
Too many game concepts and features will simply not work for Natives.
Within the main mod, we will never try to have Natives playable.
(But maybe other people may try to do so in modmods.

I'd like to try making a playable natives modmod at some point, since I really like playable natives. But I probably won't try it for a long time, when most of this mod is finished. To be fun the natives would need to get access to more building and unit choices; I suppose a good way to do it would be to add some native-specific buildings and units which get extra benefits from advanced Native Knowledges, and also allow them to unlock some european buildings through technologies but make this very challenging for them. I don't know a lot of coding & might have to turn off some of the other features, I think playable natives could be very fun but not sure if this will even be possible without causing crashes

My third is a silly personal request to add a leaderhead for Great Bear of the Animal Kingdom

Here's a quick "Bearman" LH I made from ostenaco if you'd like it lol. but of course an Animal "leader" won't actually be visible in game for this mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Schmiddie:

I have just checked the UnitArtStyles of the ships.
Very nice work.

It would be great, if you could also create UnitArtStyles for Whaling Ship.
(It is the only ship currently without a real Nationflag.)

 

[Schmiddie]

I thought about that. And I thought it was a nice idea to "hide" the nation status of whaling ships and not to give them a flag...

 

[raystuttgart]

I thought about that. And I thought it was a nice idea to "hide" the nation status of whaling ships and not to give them a flag...

Why do you want to hide their nation status ?
They are not doing anything illegal like Smuggling Ships and Privateers.

I would prefer to give them flags like the other ships.

 

[Schmiddie]

I tried to implement Unitartstyles for the whaling ship.

But it doesn't work. 2 Problems:

1. UnitArtstyles only work for the whaling ship - but not for the whaling ship_working (Error message when you start the mod).
2. Meanwhile I use UnitArtstyles for the whaling ship (only), the graphic for the whaling ship_working (ship and boats with whaler) also does not work - you can only see the UnitArtstyle of the whaling ship.

I have currently no idea which entries in the xml.-files cause this problems...

 

[raystuttgart]

I tried to implement Unitartstyles for the whaling ship.
But it doesn't work. 2 Problems:
....

Ah ok.

I guess, we would need 2 UnitArtStyles for each Nation for the Whaling Boat.

One with:
<ProfessionType>NONE</ProfessionType>

And one with:
<ProfessionType>PROFESSION_WHALING_BOAT_WORKING</ProfessionType>

But before this is getting too much work:
Let us simply leave it as it is.

 

[Schmiddie]

Yes, it works!

I have uploaded all graphics and have improved English flags (warships = white ensign; merchant ships = red ensign).

 

[raystuttgart]

Yes, it works!

I have uploaded all graphics and have improved English flags (warships = white ensign; merchant ships = red ensign).

Great.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I have finished the new Balancing for Bonus Resource Generation.
(It is uploaded to SVN.)

I have tested several times and got really good results.
(FaireWeathre and Mapsize Gigantic.)

1. All Bonus Resources generated at least once.
2. Bonus Resources that are supposed to be common are generated quite often.
2. Bonus Resources that are supposed to be rare are generated only a few times.

I am pretty satisfied with the result.

Just for clarification:

We have an incredible amount of Yields and Bonus Resources.
Some of them will only be available in very specific combinations of
PlotType, TerrainType and FeatureType.

Good maps for our mod:

1. All TerrainTypes of our mod available.
2. All FeatureTypes of our mod available.
3. Good mix of all PlotTypes (flatlands, hills, peaks, coast, ocean).
4. Good mix of areas with forests and areas without.

Maps that are not balanced will not play well with our mod !



Edit:
I have attached Screenshots with highest zoom level of our incredibly big Mapsize Gigantic with the new balancing.
(It was just to big to get the whole map, even with highest zoom level ...)

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

Please get current revision.

I have done further balancing improvements and also another merge with current development of TAC (improvements in texts).

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I will continue checking and improving balancing until end of next weekend.
(Yields needed for Buildings and Ships, some AI settings, ...)

After that, I believe we have reached a point, where we need to play long games
to find further aspects that need to be improved or even fixed.
(Especially the new features and AI need to be checked ingame.)

Of course, we should continue working on these points:

• English Texts
• French Translations
• German Translations
• Adding newest maps from TAC as R&R-Version
• Adding Sanotra's Maps as R&R-Version
• More Python Events (Optional)
• Improving Tooltips and Pedia (Optional)

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Otherwise our currently highest priority should be to find out, why Schmiddie gets this bug.

If a team member cannot play the mod, that is really urgent.
So please tell us, if you also experience that problem or not.

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All in all we are progressing really great.
(Pretty soon, we will be able to taste the sweet fruits of our hard work by extensively playing our own mod. )

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

Please get current revison.
(I have corrected some errors in XML.)

 

[Robert Surcouf]

@team:

Please get current revision.

I have done further balancing improvements and also another merge with current development of TAC (improvements in texts).

Great! I've checked our last version. Wind and Storms seem much better.
I guess we should indeed remove all the Storms before we generate new ones ... (But I guess this should not be the case if a feature isn't generated dynamically...)

I will continue checking and improving balancing until end of next weekend.
(Yields needed for Buildings and Ships, some AI settings, ...)

Great!

After that, I believe we have reached a point, where we need to play long games
to find further aspects that need to be improved or even fixed.
(Especially the new features and AI need to be checked ingame.)

Yes indeed!

Otherwise our currently highest priority should be to find out, why Schmiddie gets this bug.

If a team member cannot play the mod, that is really urgent.
So please tell us, if you also experience that problem or not.

I've checked. And I do not have this problem. I can change professions whenever I want (I mean my colonists can, not "me" )

All in all we are progressing really great.
(Pretty soon, we will be able to taste the sweet fruits of our hard work by extensively playing our own mod. )

I agree

 

[raystuttgart]

For the moment I will focus on fixing all small XML bugs I encounter and finding out why the mod does not run for Schmiddie.
(Thus I will need to postpone further balancing improvements.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

New revision (#428) available in SVN.
(Please everybody get it. )

I have uploaded:

1. AI improvement for MYCP (DLL and source file)
2. big block of translations for German (XML files)

Also, please follow this little guide.

Edit:

Another new revision (#429) available in SVN.
(DLL changes)

3. Small AI improvement considering Breeding Horses.
4. Small AI improvement considering needed defenses in "forced peace period" at beginning of game.

 

[raystuttgart]

Workpackages already done.

Spoiler :

@Robert:

You are probably busy with translation into French, but could you eventually take care of checking this package of balancing:

• Prices of Units in Europe
• Yield amounts needed for producing Ships and Cannons
• Yield amounts needed for building Builldings

So basically these are the things to be checked:

1. Is any unit to cheap or to expensive to buy ?

• compared to another (comparable) unit
• compared to "real worth" in game
• also please check price increases

2. Are the amounts of yields needed to build a ship / cannon to high or to low ?

• considering efforts / prices to get those yields
• compared to simply buying it
• compared to another (comparable) unit
• compared to the "real worth" in game

3. Are the amounts of yields needed to build a building to high or to low ?

• considering efforts / prices to get those yields
• compared to another (comparable) building of same level
• compared to lower / higher level of that building
• compared to the "real worth" in game

Thanks.
(Thus I can focus on finding the bug of Schmiddie and eventually other balancing aspects when that is solved.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I have uploaded some more balancing improvements to SVN.
(Please get current revision. )

1. Balancing of Yields on Terrains improved.
(Main reason was to bring profession in balance with MYCP professions.)
2. Balancing of Yields for buildings checked and slightly improved.
3. Balancing of Prices for units checked and slightly improved.
4. Balancing of Yields for ships and cannons checked.

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Other than testing (with long games), these are the aspects we should still work on:

1. Improving English texts
2. Completing German and French translations
3. Adding R&R-Versions of newest versions of Sanotra's Maps
4. Adding R&R-Versions of newest TAC Maps
5. More Python-Events (Optional)

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Looking forward to get some feedback from the test games.
(Please post that feedback here.)