[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[raystuttgart]

What about this ?
Should I implement such a DLL-Diplo-Event ?

I could do something similar if Schmiddie would like to have it.
(It would be relatively easy to implement.)

Spoiler :

The Archbishop could ask you to declare war on a tribe that does not have any missions yet.
"Those Natives have not accepted salvation by Christ. They must have a pact with the devil ! ..."

As a reward for accepting you could get a small army of conquistadores.

Of course this event should occur earliest in midgame.

 

[Nightinggale]

That is thinking pretty far into the future and a much bigger feature, than I currently want to implement.

I did some brainstorming on how to exploit the church ingame without considering how hard it could be to code. I haven't read the code change and have no idea how compatible the code is with my idea. If it's too much work, then I'm fine with not implementing it. It sounds cool, but it's not a major game changing idea.

What about this ?
Should I implement such a DLL-Diplo-Event ?

The idea sounds interesting. However I fear I will end up hating it because with my luck I'm ordered to attack a nearby native tribes with 30 camps because I have missions in all other nearby tribes, but missed that one. I would then have to either upset the church or get killed by indians.

Maybe the request should take military power into consideration. That way it will not make completely insane demands and at the same time we dealt with the not too early request issue. However even if it is set up like this I'm not sure if I would like it in the game. If it's implemented, at least make it optional, possibly though XML editing.

 

[Schmiddie]

What about this ?
Should I implement such a DLL-Diplo-Event ?

I like such an event, but Nightinggale brought up an important point.

If the native nation is a strong one and the event occurs early or at a time the player is weak (maybe after a fight with another nation), the player could be wiped out.

But we could handle this by triggering only light punishment if declining the request from the church (maybe worse relationship to the church or the king or monetary Penalty) so that the player can decide if he wants the challenge...

 

[raystuttgart]

But we could handle this by triggering only light punishment if declining the request from the church (maybe worse relationship to the church or the king or monetary Penalty) so that the player can decide if he wants the challenge...

I usually prefer working with rewards when accepting than heavily punishing when declining.

So basically, the player would accept because he wants to get the free troops.
(Just like he does with the DLL-Diplo-Event "European Wars".)

He can decide himself if that is worth starting the war.

Declining would result in nothing else, than the Archbishop being a little bit angry.
(Maybe -1 in Attitude, which is not really critical with the Archbishop anyways, since it mainly affects prices and likeliness of his demands a bit.)

AI would not even get that DLL-Diplo, because it is too complicated to figure out if it would be a good idea for that AI to declare War to a randomly chosen Native Nation.
(Distances, its general sitution, strength comparison, ...)

And all of my DLL-Diplomacy events can be deactivated in XML anyways.

So nothing to worry about.

 

[Nightinggale]

AI would not even get that DLL-Diplo, because it is too complicated to figure out if it would be a good idea for that AI to declare War to a randomly chosen Native Nation.
(Distances, its general sitution, strength comparison, ...)

The AI sometimes declare war on the natives. Logically vanilla provided code to make the decision. This feature could be a matter of calling the right function with the right argument. I don't know if it would work, but it would be worth looking into. I agree that it's way too complex to write AI code to decide something like that without relying on existing AI decision code.

 

[raystuttgart]

I did some brainstorming on how to exploit the church ingame without considering how hard it could be to code. I haven't read the code change and have no idea how compatible the code is with my idea. If it's too much work, then I'm fine with not implementing it. It sounds cool, but it's not a major game changing idea.

There are many things to think about with such a concept.
(I know that because I had been thinking a lot about such issues when creating my concept for a big feature about Religions.)

For example we also already have different Units (for the same UnitClass):

Jesuit Missionary (e.g. Spain) and Evangelist (e.g. England)
Priest (e.g. Spain) and Preacher (e.g. England)

How would you want to do these things when all Nations are catholic in the beginning and can become Protestant ?

 

[raystuttgart]

The AI sometimes declare war on the natives. Logically vanilla provided code to make the decision. This feature could be a matter of calling the right function with the right argument. I don't know if it would work, but it would be worth looking into. I agree that it's way too complex to write AI code to decide something like that without relying on existing AI decision code.

Well, the player will not notice anyways if AI is not using that feature.
I could also simulate things in much easier ways in the background.

There really is no need to put effort into that.
Also I don't like to have too many AI wars going on anyways.
(It simply makes the AIs weaker. And that makes the game more boring for me.)

Simply trust me a little bit, that I know how to create such features.

 

[Nightinggale]

For example we also already have different Units (for the same UnitClass):

Jesuit Missionary and Evangelist
Priest and Preacher

How would you want to do these things when all Nations are catholic in the beginning and can become Protestant.

That's a very good point. It's doable to convert those units, but then we get into way more coding than the feature is worth.

 

[raystuttgart]

..., but then we get into way more coding than the feature is worth.

Exactly.

There are often ideas, that sound interesting and not that difficult to do.
But when you look into the details and side effects, you will soon realize that you will end up changing and changing and changing ... .
It is all doable, but if your concept is not really good, your efforts will start growing exponentially until you elminiated all unwanted side effects.

And the problem with the Units/UnitClasses was only one aspect / problem I had come up with, when thinking deeply about a big "Religions" feature.

 

[Willi_Tell]

Wouldn't it be cool, if The Church (called TC from now on) would have its very "own" diplomatic possibilities? Come on, guys - it's THE CHURCH...

Something like this:

- TC will demand cash and/or goods from time to time. Completion will rise player's attitude to TC (and vice versa)

- At certain attitude level, TC will "put in a good word for the player" at the Royal Court and the King, appeased by the words of TC, will reduce some REF troops

Don't know if that would be easy to implement? I just thinking/hoping about some real new and unique diplo-events. We can trade maps and get units/cash/FFpoints by other factions and existing quests - let's make The Church being "special"...

 

[raystuttgart]

- TC will demand cash and/or goods from time to time. Completion will rise player's attitude to TC (and vice versa)

- At certain attitude level, TC will "put in a good word for the player" at the Royal Court and the King, appeased by the words of TC, will reduce some REF troops

Actually what you suggest is basically already done in this DLL-Diplo-Event.

At the moment the Church is not initiating trade offers by itself anymore.
(Because it had nothing to offer and was annoying.)

But the Player can still initiate trade with the Church.
I have some plans about changing this a little bit though.

Basically it will not be normal trade anymore, but be working similar to requesting troops from the King.
(You will be able to request favours from the Church. For some little donation of course.)

Also, I will implement the DLL-Diplo-Event, where the Church asks to start War with a Native Tribe without Missions.

I am still working on improving and enhancing this feature.
Just give me some time.

 

[Sarin]

I've got a couple of suggestions:

Founding fathers. I think Shrapnel should apply to artillery regiments too, as they are available to player, in limited numbers. Many of the FFs have free promotions that apply only to gunpowder and mounted units, I think they should apply to melee too, since Conquistadores are melee (at least dismounted ones).
Wild animals, especially the sea ones, should start with promotion that gives them healing when moving. Many times I've seen a sea creature crippled by storm.

 

[raystuttgart]

The balancing of FF already has been changed / adjusted since Release 1.6.
The current balancing is simply not available to public yet.

I think Shrapnel should apply to artillery regiments too, as they are available to player, in limited numbers.

UnitStrength modifiers can only be applied to UnitClasses and not Units.

The Pedia simply translates the UnitClass to corresponding Unit that is "officially" available for the Player.
(Or it is only listing the default Unit for a UnitClass.)

What you see in pedia is not always exactly what is really happening in the background.
The pedia simply does not know, that I created features that give Units to the Player which he "officially" could not have.

Many of the FFs have free promotions that apply only to gunpowder and mounted units, I think they should apply to melee too, since Conquistadores are melee (at least dismounted ones).

As I said, the balancing you know from Release 1.6 is not the current internal one that will be published with the next Release.
(And I really think the current internal balancing is ok.)

Also, Conquistadores, Rangers, Militia, ... all have their own FF giving bonusses to the Units.

Wild animals, especially the sea ones, should start with promotion that gives them healing when moving. Many times I've seen a sea creature crippled by storm.

Well, I don't think that is a problem.
Giving those units Promotions would look a bit stupid to me because the naming of these Promotions simply does not fit to an animal.

 

[Nightinggale]

Wild animals, especially the sea ones, should start with promotion that gives them healing when moving. Many times I've seen a sea creature crippled by storm.

Alternatively they could become immune to storms, the AI could let them sit idle and heal. If a promotion is out of the question, it could be linked to being a feature of wild animals. There are many solutions for that problems.

Personally I don't think it's worth the time to bother with this. Sometimes you find wounded animals in the wild and if you want to hunt it for food, then it's your lucky day. The game will spawn new animals once in a while. It's only fitting that the old ones die once in a while. I take it that you didn't try Medieval Conquest before the wild animal issue was fixed. The game could generate so many wild animals that they could beat any early to mid game army. Combined with the other bug, which allowed all animals to attack cities, it really killed players. There is a bug report about stags razing cities . The game is no fun with too many aggressive wild animals.

 

[raystuttgart]

I think the feature Wild Animals in RaR is fine as it is.
I do not see any problem.

Making them immune to Storms or giving them some artificial promotions is nothing I want to do.
Also, Storms can not completely destroy units in RaR.

 

[raystuttgart]

I am currently working on "Requesting Favours from the Church".
(When contacting the Church yourself through Diplomacy.)

"Normal Trading" will be disabled for the Church.
(It would not have anything to trade anyways, since it is not on the map.)

It works quite similar to "Requesting Military Support from the King".

Implementing such a "Favour System" with the normal Trade System (using Trade Items) would have been much much more work.
Thus I went for this solution.

The feature is still in prototyping phase, but I thought I could show some Screenshots anyways.

Edit:
Screenshots removed because outdated.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team and modmodders:

The feature "Favours from the Church" is now completed and uploaded to SVN.

When contacting The Church through diplomacy, you will be able to request favours for a small donation.
(It replaces "normal trading" for that player.)

* Favour choices only available if you have the money for the donation.
* Price of donation will grow with every favour requested.

Favours available are:

* Speaking in favour to your king --> Attitude improvement of your King
* Speaking in favour to a European you have met --> Attitude improvement of that European you selected

The list of available choices, will grow with every European you meet.
(In the Screenshot I had only met "Martim Afonso de Sousa".)

-------

In my first prototypes I had several other favours as well, like getting Points for Founding Fathers or getting Units, but all of them either felt:

* overpowered
* unatmospheric

So I decided to stay with Attitude improvments and removed all the other stuff again.

-------

Use these favours wisely.
(As I said, they will become more expensive every time you request.)

 

[lethiel]

There are many things to think about with such a concept.
(I know that because I had been thinking a lot about such issues when creating my concept for a big feature about Religions.)

For example we also already have different Units (for the same UnitClass):

Jesuit Missionary (e.g. Spain) and Evangelist (e.g. England)
Priest (e.g. Spain) and Preacher (e.g. England)

How would you want to do these things when all Nations are catholic in the beginning and can become Protestant ?

You could have a random event that occur during early game that says "Luther is advocating in Europe for a reform of the church. Do you want to spread these ideas in the colonies?"
If you says yes you get the protestant unit design for the rest of the game.
You then get say 5 drops in attitude from the pope and your school buildings becomes e.g. 20% more effective. (Luther advocated for schooling so that people were able to read the bible themselves).

The pope will run independently of this event. If his attitude to you is low he will call you/ treat you as a protestant/ rebellion no matter what you picked.
Low attitude = low amounts of requests for donations but also little chance for positive events.

 

[raystuttgart]

What you suggest is currently not possible.
(e.g. changing graphics or Units from UnitClasses by some event.)

And I am not going to spend my time coding it.
(I would be an awful amount of work for almost no benefit.)

 

[agnat86]

Hey everyone,

I've been occupied the past week, but you've been adding many awesome features. Great to have the Religion aspect of Religion & Revolution becoming more prominent.

If I can help with anything, please say so. For example, I can write diplo-texts and text for the colopedia. I don't know much about how events work yet (though I want to learn it in the near future), so I don't know if I can be of much help in the technical part. These are some ideas you may like, just from the top of my head:

- different kinds of missions (protestant and catholic), which make natives pick sides in religious struggles
- events where the church/your king asks you to attack natives
- events where the church asks you to attack colonies/natives of a different religion
- events where the church asks you to make peace with colonies/natives of the same religion
- an event where the church offers a missionary to start a mission in a specific native village
- events where the church asks you to construct monasteries or religious buildings in towns for a reward.
- missionaries and monasteries of different religions
- attitude bonuses with the church for establishing missions and building monasteries of the same religion, and penalties for building those of the other religion
- an option to include both religions in your colonies, or to pick one, and persecute the other
- religious affiliation of colonists, comparable to rebel sentiment
- together with expanding diplomatic options with the church, I would like to expand diplomatic options with kings and other colonies as well.

Of course, some of these would be new features, which would take time to implement, but I would like to see religious parents take active roles in new world politics.

I have new diplo-texts for Europeans almost finished. Please let me know if you are interested.