[MOD] The Great Trade League + The Orders of Chivalry + The Sufi Schools

[LordPeter]

Great quality as always! The second one was the only one I couldn't recognise.

Yep, me too. Probably because the angle was unexpected; but then I also couldn't guess maybe 20% of the vanilla traits until I read a post where someone explained those - so I guess it's really not your fault and more a problem because they are tiny.
Overall though: Well done! You really do top-quality artwork for CK2, I am a little bit envious about your skills ^^

 

[Maal]

Great quality as always! The second one was the only one I couldn't recognise.

Yep, me too. Probably because the angle was unexpected

Thanks guys, not sure why I went with that angle, just went with the flow. Is that one better?

 

[ngppgn]

Thanks guys, not sure why I went with that angle, just went with the flow. Is that one better? My

I'd say the second one is better, but probably the main issue in my view is that the grey parts (I don't know the name of these pieces in english, sorry) doesn't constrat enough with the background. Maybe those could/should be outlined in black?

 

[LordPeter]

They're called "stirrups" I think.
And I can identify the second picture now without problems now. Maybe the stirrups could get some shadow below them to better make them stick out, but I'm not sure if that would still fit - well, that would be for Maal to test out

 

[Maal]

I'll tweak the... "stirrups" a bit then.

Meanwhile I am working on my own "duel engine", which will be used mostly to rank up in the non holy order societies. You can rank up normally too but it is expensive in society points and prestige. I've looked up at the code for HIP duel engine and it just seemed too complicated for my purpose so I'm writing one from scratch. I am still designing the details but here's how it should go:

These aren't duel to the death (but death can happen), people are scored by good hits/dodging/parry... The combat end when someone yield or the one fighter has enough points.

There is 3 kind of moves. Attacks, Stances and Reactions.
Attacks is any offensive moves picked by the character currently attacking, some are restricted by traits and the one you pick will affect the various odds of success of the Reactions. (A simple Swing is balanced, a Jump Attack has a high chance of critical hits, but also of critical misses) Critical hits stun the opponent, which severely lower their next attack, while critical miss pretty much give them a free attack on you.

Stances are also picked by the attacker and are limited by traits too. Picking a Stance instead of an Attack will let your opponent to chose an attack instead, but the odds will be changed up to your stance. A defensive stance will lower the odds of critical hits and critical misses for their next attack for example.

Reactions are the options you have after your foe picked an attack, things like trying to dodge or block it. This is where all the maths and points are. The odds of hitting you is based on the attacker traits affecting his attack choice and your traits your defensive choice. This is also where death can happen, but only if you have the wounded trait (getting hit or critically hit have a chance to give it). Killing your opponent will still give you victory but you'll lose some society currency.

I'll probably also use that system for a few mission like killing a known demon worshiper. Any ideas or comments before I fully commit to coding all of it?

And since I am speaking of warriors:

 

[LordPeter]

That new "duel engine" of yours sounds fantastical in my opinion!
CK2+ also has some sort of duel engine included, but I think it's pretty old and doesn't work that well. For example, sometimes you end up choosing the same option ("Chaarge!") three or more times in a row, with no actual outcome. You just fail, and get the same options again: Either yield or charge again. Since yielding isn't a good option, you might end up attacking over and over again, but somehow the math always makes that attack fail - and your opponent does nothing as well. Only after several of these events you either randomly die, get captured or win, without ever really knowing why, because the underlying math is hidden.

So yeah, what I mean is, there is definitely demand for a better, newer duel system. There are much more options today (just take e.g. variables), and so you will probably end up with a better underlying math than the old one. And from what you posted above, your design sounds pretty robust and fun - just make sure you avoid situations like the ones I talked about. Probably also not easy to code, but you got enough experience surely.
Good luck, looking forward to it

 

[ngppgn]

I'll tweak the... "stirrups" a bit then.

Meanwhile I am working on my own "duel engine", which will be used mostly to rank up in the non holy order societies. You can rank up normally too but it is expensive in society points and prestige. I've looked up at the code for HIP duel engine and it just seemed too complicated for my purpose so I'm writing one from scratch. I am still designing the details but here's how it should go:

These aren't duel to the death (but death can happen), people are scored by good hits/dodging/parry... The combat end when someone yield or the one fighter has enough points.

There is 3 kind of moves. Attacks, Stances and Reactions.
Attacks is any offensive moves picked by the character currently attacking, some are restricted by traits and the one you pick will affect the various odds of success of the Reactions. (A simple Swing is balanced, a Jump Attack has a high chance of critical hits, but also of critical misses) Critical hits stun the opponent, which severely lower their next attack, while critical miss pretty much give them a free attack on you.

Stances are also picked by the attacker and are limited by traits too. Picking a Stance instead of an Attack will let your opponent to chose an attack instead, but the odds will be changed up to your stance. A defensive stance will lower the odds of critical hits and critical misses for their next attack for example.

Reactions are the options you have after your foe picked an attack, things like trying to dodge or block it. This is where all the maths and points are. The odds of hitting you is based on the attacker traits affecting his attack choice and your traits your defensive choice. This is also where death can happen, but only if you have the wounded trait (getting hit or critically hit have a chance to give it). Killing your opponent will still give you victory but you'll lose some society currency.

I'll probably also use that system for a few mission like killing a known demon worshiper. Any ideas or comments before I fully commit to coding all of it?

And since I am speaking of warriors:

That system sounds fairly complex by itself.

How many rouds would a combat typically have?

Also, I don't quite graps the concepts of stances. Let me see, so combat has turns (firs A attacks and B defends, then B attacks and A defends, then A attacks and B defends). So picking a stance is passing your attack turn to get a bonus in your defense turn, on top of the reaction you pick then? Or when you pick a stance you cannot then pick a reaction?

 

[Maal]

[...]
Either yield or charge again. Since yielding isn't a good option, you might end up attacking over and over again, but somehow the math always makes that attack fail - and your opponent does nothing as well. Only after several of these events you either randomly die, get captured or win, without ever really knowing why, because the underlying math is hidden.

[...]just make sure you avoid situations like the ones I talked about. Probably also not easy to code, but you got enough experience surely.
Good luck, looking forward to it

You know these little pop-up notification that appear on the right of the screen? When your enemy react to your attack you'll get a "Dude has dodged your attack!" notification. But there is still a big amount of randomness so some things could take a while/be repetitive.

That system sounds fairly complex by itself.

How many rouds would a combat typically have?

Also, I don't quite graps the concepts of stances. Let me see, so combat has turns (firs A attacks and B defends, then B attacks and A defends, then A attacks and B defends). So picking a stance is passing your attack turn to get a bonus in your defense turn, on top of the reaction you pick then? Or when you pick a stance you cannot then pick a reaction?

Haven't decided yet, each attack/reaction give either one or two point to one of the contestant. Maybe 5 points would be fine, in a worst case scenario it would be 9 attack/reaction (both sides basically miss each other all the time), best case only 3 (2 critical hits and a normal one with no misses).

You can take a reaction on top of your defense, what stances does is affect all the odds of your next reaction. If victory require 5 points, and you know your enemy has 3 (if he critically hit you he win as it give 2 points) picking a defensive stance that lower the odds of critical hits / critical misses would be a good idea as it'll make your reaction more likely to end on a 1 point for you or your foe instead of 2. The reverse is also true, you need 2 point to win but your foe only 1? Pick an aggressive stance that increase the critical hits and miss chances when you react next, doesn't matter if you are critically hit as your opponent will win with 1 or 2 points anyways and YOU need to critically dodge to get 2 over 1.

Perhaps I should show the scores somewhere instead of keeping it hidden, the next DLC add something that allow it I think without making a custom_localization.

 

[ngppgn]

You know these little pop-up notification that appear on the right of the screen? When your enemy react to your attack you'll get a "Dude has dodged your attack!" notification. But there is still a big amount of randomness so some things could take a while/be repetitive.


Haven't decided yet, each attack/reaction give either one or two point to one of the contestant. Maybe 5 points would be fine, in a worst case scenario it would be 9 attack/reaction (both sides basically miss each other all the time), best case only 3 (2 critical hits and a normal one with no misses).

You can take a reaction on top of your defense, what stances does is affect all the odds of your next reaction. If victory require 5 points, and you know your enemy has 3 (if he critically hit you he win as it give 2 points) picking a defensive stance that lower the odds of critical hits / critical misses would be a good idea as it'll make your reaction more likely to end on a 1 point for you or your foe instead of 2. The reverse is also true, you need 2 point to win but your foe only 1? Pick an aggressive stance that increase the critical hits and miss chances when you react next, doesn't matter if you are critically hit as your opponent will win with 1 or 2 points anyways and YOU need to critically dodge to get 2 over 1.

Perhaps I should show the scores somewhere instead of keeping it hidden, the next DLC add something that allow it I think without making a custom_localization.

You can already show variables in localisation e.g. [Root.myVar.GetValue]

 

[Maal]

You can already show variables in localisation e.g. [Root.myVar.GetValue]

The hell did I see in that dev diary then...
...
It was this I guess, probably misunderstood it:

- Variables that haven't been set yet now work in localisation; they'll show "0" rather than simply being blank. "GetName" works as well. So [global_test.GetName] will return 0 for GetValue, and the "global_test" localisation for GetName

And I just add that idea, the game has plenty of combat sound effect already in, what if pressing the "swing your weapon" button played a sword swing sound and so on? I just need to find good one for each options.

 

[LordPeter]

Sounds good.
Yeah custom localization is pretty powerful already, the new stuff is mostly fixes. I know it because I currently make extensive use of it myself
It's perfect for displaying entirely new systems somewhat-readable in the interface.

The problem with the old "duel engine" I was referring to above was not so much that it was repetitive, i.e. that you were attacking multiple times in a row, but rather that it was exactly the same: You didn't get any options like in your design (e.g. pick a different stance), only two: Attack, or lose.
The attacking action was totally generic, and probably also produced the same "random" result, which meant you were doomed to do the exact same action forever, until the randomness somehow had a hiccup and allowed the dueling "time warp" to end.
So basically, you already avoided that problem if you allow the player to change his strategy mid-duel, which if I understand you correctly your system does.

Edit: Found an old screenshot, example of a badly designed event from that system - only one choice here at all!

(was a bit funny, too because the event didn't take into account that I had been taken prisoner immediately before. The imprisonment happened at the same moment as the event fired, so the event couldn't know yet. However, it should probably have had a check in place that stopped the chain from going on afterwards - so also something you can avoid )

 

[Maal]

Alright guys, I have a small battle engine test version ready (it only contain the dueling events, no societies or anything else). Full of temporary localization, pictures are not sets and so on. I just want feedback on how battles feels. Set your effect audio on .

To use it, join any society and use the console to start the event named CHI.310

Edit:[removed the download]

 

[DeltaCortis]

One thing first. I love the sound effects. Really something that I miss now with other duel engines after trying yours.

Second the options feel a bit unclear /localisation wise but thats WIP/ but I kinda like it in concept it feels fluid enough in my opinion.

 

[LordPeter]

I concur, great already!
Far superior to the old duel engine. The problem with that which I explained above does not happen here, not at all. Combat is interesting, yet not too difficult or too long. I actually won a bit fast and didn't know why (other than the other guys being Benedictine priests, and I was King of Poland ^^); but that is more of an balance reason and really nothing that could be perfect at this test stage. Oh, and the sound effects are a nice touch indeed - sometimes they sounded a hit off maybe (again, can be balanced later), but overall a great idea!
One thing you might consider though: I had a hard time judging from a quick glance at the tooltips, what the chances really were. Maybe I only think about thus because I learned a lot about it recently, but you could color-code the chances in the tooltips to make them more visible "at a glance". You know, like this:

Has a §GHigh§! chance of critical strike, §YMedium§! of a normal attack, and a §RLow§! chance of a slow attack.;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;x​

which would be rendered like this:

Has a High chance of critical strike, Medium of a normal attack, and a Low chance of a slow attack.​

That's just a mockup of course and maybe to colorful, but you could play around with it - maybe just make all the chances yellow, so they would still stick out from the rest of the text, dunno.
Anyway, keep up the good work, I can already see these societies will be blast

 

[Maal]

I'll probably make a tutorial tooltip about crits / hits and how the general duel goes on the button when you start/accept the duel, alongside color coding the options it should make it clearer. (I hadn't though about color coding it, but I do know about it!)
EDIT: I'm thinking of something like this:

About it being fast you meant in terms of rounds or "learning how to win all the time". You can win in 2 "turns" technically. You crit (2) on your attack/defense and get the random point from the follow up (1) and crit (2) on the next reaction/attack. Perhaps making it 6 points for victory instead of 5 would help.

About the sound being off, they are all sounds from CK2, the sound txt files cannot be merged and thus I do not wan't to mod it. Doing the best with what is available (some sounds are set very low in the txt file, so they are are basically mute in game, such as the horse, tried to add it to when you send a caravan in the trade league but I couldn't hear it ) Which one sounded a bit off?

 

[LordPeter]

I'll probably make a tutorial tooltip about crits / hits and how the general duel goes on the button when you start/accept the duel, alongside color coding the options it should make it clearer. (I hadn't though about color coding it, but I do know about it!)
EDIT: I'm thinking of something like this:

About it being fast you meant in terms of rounds or "learning how to win all the time". You can win in 2 "turns" technically. You crit (2) on your attack/defense and get the random point from the follow up (1) and crit (2) on the next reaction/attack. Perhaps making it 6 points for victory instead of 5 would help.

About the sound being off, they are all sounds from CK2, the sound txt files cannot be merged and thus I do not wan't to mod it. Doing the best with what is available (some sounds are set very low in the txt file, so they are are basically mute in game, such as the horse, tried to add it to when you send a caravan in the trade league but I couldn't hear it ) Which one sounded a bit off?

Those Plus/Minus things look pretty good. Yeah I just meant something to visualize it, and this is even better than only colored text.

I didn't mean combat was over too fast, that felt about right; it's just that I clicked seemingly random options and won all the time. But I paid attention to my opponents now and indeed the result was plausible, given that I was playing as a strong, martial-education Polish king, while my opponents were... well, Benedictine priests, gardeners and scholars and the like. You really would expect the strong warrior-king to win relatively easily against those
So nothing wrong with your system, just that the society wasn't the proper one yet.

Well, I only meant sometimes the sounds were a bit harsh - probably because they represent more "fighting for your life" or "death by sword" things that fights for honor or skill. At one point it sounded like steels slashing into flash, which is a tad too brutal maybe - though actually I didn't pay attention then, and maybe the other guy actually got wounded...
That is by no means anything that would bother me when immersed in the game, I was just paying closer attention to it because you told us to listen to the sound effects. Was meant more as an observation than as criticism, so by all means, keep them! A "tiny bit off" sound is still a 100 times better than no sound

 

[Maal]

Alright, thanks for the feedback. The sounds will probably stay as they are for now and the AI should probably win more often once I give them some AI_chance on their attacks choices so they don't just pick random attacks.

The duel engine is pretty much done now including localization, just need some balance tweaks and the pictures. Now I'll do... ehh
need to look at the to-do list in the first post
The hire a commander society power! Off to create some special commander traits.
Edit: I probably will take it easy this time (art wise) and just make "improved" vanilla trait like:

Enraged Leader:
+15% Damage
-15% Defence
+37.5% Persuit

The fighter guilds will have traits that are 50% stronger while the holy order's traits will have an extra +15% agains't infidel (half of the holy warrior leader trait) instead of the 50% buff. Maybe I'll just remove the negative mod on traits that have one instead of buffing their values.

I'll also use this time to make a simple power to transform your leader traits into these, like going on a warrior pilgrimage for 1 year.

And to celebrate the duel reign completion:

Not my favorite one, but Baltic pagans give me a hard time given their lack of iconography. This is basically a world tree over a sky with lightnings. Baltic pagans (all pagans in facts) love their thunder gods.

 

[Maal]

More traits! Since there is like 15 martial traits (with 2 versions each) excluding the terrain they are mostly edited vanilla pictures, ain't gonna custom paint 30 of these.
The Fighters Guilds version are have 50% increased values (including negatives), the Holy Order have the vanilla values but with 50% of the Holy warrior added to it. They are imo still weaker than the Jade Dragon traits.

All of the holy orders traits use the same effects as that last one, didn't bother including them in the picture because of that.

I'll probably need to copy the vanilla combat tactics or try to insert my traits into them so they trigger properly.

There is 2 ways of getting your hands on them:
-The first is to go on a warrior Pilgrimage. You need one of the vanilla traits and some society currency to start. Like the regular pilgrim you'll be away from court and get a few events that may give you other traits (it will be dangerous however). You should be able to go twice assuming you have 2 vanilla leader traits.
-The second is to hire a commander from the society, he will have one of the trait linked to his society and be overall a good commander. It will cost more society currency however.

There was an unexpected side effect from the second option, as these commanders will join your society. If you are part of a fighters guilds, some of these commander (random traits) may be quite challenging to beat in a duel!

All there is left is the terrain traits (and winter), but they are problematic as the terrain modifier is in the define file and I do not want to change it. So I cannot simply buff their values.
Should I simply merge them? But some have 3 terrains in one trait by default so it feel too much to add MORE to it, while some good combo are blocked. I'd like to do forest+jungle and hills+mountains, but forest and hill are already together...
I could split them between fighters and holy orders like the others, giving them either half of the holy warrior trait but what would the fighters get as I cannot buff the terrain value...
They'll probably wait until later as I cannot find a good solution.

 

[LordPeter]

Well, the terrain thing is problematic indeed. Maybe you could just add a second, general effect to them, like +terrain_bonus_hills & +10% defense, or +terrain_bonus_plains & +10% offense? That would make them stronger, but not totally OP imo, and it would differentiate them from the vanilla versions.

 

[Ruisuki]

Hey this looks pretty cool man. Ill add it to my upcoming ck2+ game when some of the todo list features are finished. Looks like it'll pair well with advanced trade systems ya
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1081631754