[mod] Carthaginian Renewal

[crownsteler]

Carthaginian Renewal Mod

The Mod for version 2.0 has been released:

Steam Workshop::Mundus Poenicus

steamcommunity.com

Stand-alone deity icons (integrated in the main mod):

Steam Workshop::Punic Deities Icons

steamcommunity.com

Celtic Faction icons (not part of the main mod):

Steam Workshop::Vexilla Coronam

steamcommunity.com

Overview
The mod seeks to make playing as Cathage a little bit more interesting. The map of North Africa has been renewed to make gameplay as Carthage more interesting. First by changing the terrain map to make movement more constraint, secondly by adding a lot of (sort of) historical tags to the region.
In a future version Carthage gets new political parties with their own political objectives to make the internal political game more interesting.

Why this mod?
My fascination with Carthage for one, but mostly it is because the vanilla map makes no sense: there is no reason as to why anything is the way it is, with province borders seemingly randomly distributed and not lining up with the height map. It really itches me. Secondly I feel the map as it has no meaning as you have near complete freedom of movement. You can march your army from Carthage all the way to Cartennae no problem, whereas in reality that probably wasn't that easy. I prefer the map to have more constrained movement.
Furthermore I find the internal political game lackluster and feel there is a lot of potential for the political parties to liven up the game.

Changes
- There are two new mission trees. More to follow in the future.
- The map has been changed so provinces follow natural borders. A lot of impassible terrain (mountains/hills) have been added. It is no longer possible to march from Cartennae to Carthage.
- Carthage has been disembered and lost a lot of territory to allies and tributaries.
- Added a lot of new tags to north Africa
- New coat of arms for a number of tags (seperate mod)
- New icons for Punic deities.

What is left to do?
- Balance the political parties to make for an interesting game.
- Adjust the missions to make sense with the new map.
- Fix some colors and flags.

Wish list
- Create new missions to with with the new political situation.
- Add events.
- Redo the map of Morocco and Iberia (not happening any time soon).

Detailed look:

Spoiler: The Medjerda Valley

I wanted to better represent why Carthage grew to preemence amongst the Punic states. I also better wanted to represent the frenemy relationship between Utica and Carthage.

I added the Bagrada/Medjerda river and valley to the map. I opened up the Gulf of Utica resulting in Utica being square on the coast and more of a rival to Carthage. I also restored Carthage to the penisula it was back then.

Carthage's control is based on a comment I read that Carthage only really effectively controled the Medjerda valley and no territory outside of it. I gave Utica its own little hinterland as I feel it makes sense and will allow for some interesting (scripted) interaction between the two.

The Medjerda would shift course over the course of the game and silt up the Gulf of Utica, denying Utica use of a harbour. This will allow for some interesting events and interaction between the two (perhaps also alt history with the Gulf of Tunis/Carthage silting up instead).

The Medjerda valley is mostly farmland because of a comment on how the Romans were so suprised by the abundance and well kept farms around Carthage.

Spoiler: Tunisia

Carthage only really controlled the Medjerda river valley and some trading posts along the Algerian/Moroccan coast, as well as being allied to a number of other Phoenician colonies. While Massylia was at best a confederation of Numidian tribes. Due to lack of proper sources on the political situation at the time tribes, their precise location and territory is a bit of conjecture.

Spoiler: Algeria

Algeria received a similar treatment as Tunisia.

Again: due to lack of proper sources on the political situation at the time tribes, their precise location and territory is a bit of conjecture.

Spoiler: Morocco

Morocco received a similar treatment. No more Mauritania!

Again: due to lack of proper sources on the political situation at the time tribes, their precise location and territory is a bit of conjecture.

Spoiler: New flags

There are a lot more. Some good (though these are the best), and some terrible. I'll get better over time.

Spoiler: New Name lists

I added some new names to Carthage and Numidia. I collected these from various sources.

Carthage:

male_names = {
        Aabim Abaddir Abbal Abbar Abdeshmun Abdhamon Abdilim Abdmelqart Abibaal Abirami Adherbal
        Adombal Adonibaal Absalon Afun Agbal Agbor Ahinadab Ahirom Ahumm Amubal
        Annobal    Asmun Aqhat Azimilik Azmelqart
        Baalhanno Baldir Baliahaton Balshillek Banno Batnoam Berek Berekbal Birzil Bithybas Bodashtart
        Bodeshmun Bodinelqart Bodo Bodmelqart "Bod-Sakun" Bomical
        Bomilcar Boodes Borok Bostar Burk Bostar Bucar Butel
        Cartalon  Chelbes
        Danel Discun Duda
        Eshmounhilles Eshmouniaton Eshmunamash Eshmunazar
        Fasir
        Garta Gerbaal Germelqart Gerimilki Ghud Gisako Gisgo Gudul
        Hamilcar Hannibal Hanno Hannon Hasdrubal Hiempsal Himilco Hiram
        Iader Iddibal Ithimbal Itthobaal
        Kanmi Khilletzbaal
        Labi Lulhim
        Magdal Magon Mago Maharbal Makusan Malco Malq Maris Mattan Matun Melqartpilles "Melqart-shama'"
        Metallo Milkherem Milkiram Milkpilles Milkiathon Muthum Muthumbal
        Nabal Namphamo Nubo
        Paltibaal Philosir
        Qartiaton Qartmashal
        Safat Sakarbaal Salukan Selkeni Sidiathon Sicharbas
        Tabnit Tisdat
        Ummashtart Urumilki
        "Yada'milk" Yehawwielon Yehomilk Yutpan
        Zabog Zammak Zazibal Zimrida
    }
    female_names = {
        Abdosir Anina Arishat Astarte Shayna Tamar Adiya Tabua Yapa Ytab
        Suhaima Huldu Mashah Gamila Asherah Izavel Iezabel Elissa Muttunbaal
        Abbaluth Abitbaal Amotmicar Amatosiris Amotbaal Arest Arisuth Ashtzaph
        Auolim Aylima Batbaal Batel Batshillem Berekbaal Berekt Bequt Borokt
        Burkt Butilla Dida Dudit Kelidon Kinanipis Kinidial Gerotmilk Marith
        Matanbaal Matut Maqom Maubbal Methunilim Muthunbal Naburu Reriuth Sadeca
        "Sapanba'al" Shisfit Thader Zabulim Zalul Zybqt
  
    }

Numidia:

Acasan Achul Adherbal Agdibil Altifatan Altilimas Altisan Amastan Antifan Anzatal Aracan Arzan Aspar
        Balibal    Baga Barik Besan Bibba Bibi Bitipten Bogud
        Caccaban Carcasan Cartasan Cogutan Cutai
        Dabar Derku Disen
        Earbal Elcel Enipten Esputredan Ezena
        Fagustan Faraxen Farbigil Farisa Fofican Frecten
        Gala Gantal Gasmul Gauda Gaya Gitel Gubul Guenfan Guentan Gulussa
        Hiempsal
        Iabdas Iabenu Iafic Ialauda Iailuai Iamakara Iambal Iampsas Iarnichan Iasidba Igmazan Iisbal Inimsen Iugurtha Iurdama
        Kinidil
        Lacumazes Laumasan
        Maharbal Makarkum Makkal Mantisynan Maraks Masal Masguen Masinissa Maskal Massiva Mastan Mastanabal Mastanasosus Masthalul Meztul Mikupsan Muthum
        Nabdalsa Narbal
        Oezalces Oxyntas
        Rascut
        Sapon Sicharbas Siddin Sifaks Sirimbal Sosus Srukan
        Takfarin Tarafan Terefne Tesilasen Thulath
        Vermina
        Yriraban Ysysan Yuba
        Zabo Zabul

 

[crownsteler]

Updated the opening post.

So far I've found the political parties to be unrealised potential. So many interesting things can be achieved with it, but so far I mostly ignore them. So I decided to have a go at changing this.

This is still very much WIP. I haven't decided upon the final

Carthaginian political parties
Carthage gets their own unique political parties with their own objectives:

African Mizrehim - represents the landed aristocracy of Carthage. They have the foreign policy objective of expansion in Africa and the economic goal of expanding their agricultural estates.

Sicilian Mizrehim - represent the merchants and landowners of Siciliy. They have the foreign policy objective of expansion in Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. Their economic objective is naval/agricultural.​

Iberian Mizrehim - They desire expansion in Iberia for its mineral wealth.

Merchant Mizrehim - Represents the merchant class of Carthage. They are interested in trade and the foreign policy objective of fighting commercial rivals.

Democratic Mizrehim - Reformist faction whose primary objective is reducing corruption and political representation. They favour peace and economicly favour goods which freemen desire.
​

So how does this work?
The political parties have a number of goals. Roughly speaking they can be divided into two categories: territorial expansion and economic expansion. Every party has a primary objective where they desire expansion, but also have a secondary objective of what trade goods they desire to acquire. These are then multiplied by some other factors to determine whether or not the party supports this particular action.

Generally speaking:
-The African party supports expansion in Africa, but objects to expansion in Sicily. They are fairly indifferent to expansion in Iberia.
-The Sicilian party supports expansion in Magna Graecia and Corsica/Sardinia, but objects to expansion in Iberia. They are fairly indifferent to expansion in Africa
-The Iberian party supports expansion in Iberia and generally objects to expansion in Africa. They are fairly indifferent to expansion in Sicily.
-Merchant party support is mostly based on the commercial potential the territory offers.
-The Democratic party is not very interested in territorial expansion.

Spoiler: Here is an example of how support for war against Numidia is determined for the African faction

The African faction favours expansion in Africa, so gets a flat bonus for Massylia being located in Africa. Furthermore they like expansion into Numidia because it provided room for their estates to grow, as well as stone/marble they can use in their mansion (or art to decorate their mansions). Furthermore Numidia is a strategic interest for the party, so everything gets multiplied by 1.75 to increase its weight (though I might limit this to faction leader effect and trade goods, dunno).

Spoiler: Here is an example for support of the Sicilian party for expansion in Iberia

Even though Eburania ticks a number of boxes for support of the Iberian party, support is still limited because because the Sicilian party is opposed to expansion in Iberia (receive a * 0.5 malus for being in Iberia).

Spoiler: And an example for the limited support the Iberian for expansion in Siciliy

The Iberian isn't very interested in war against Acragas because what it offers the party is limited and the Iberian party is generally not interested in expansion in Sicily (a *0.85 malus for being in Sicily).

Spoiler: Merchant party lack of interest in Gyzantes

Gyzantes offers nothing the Merchant party is interested in, and what is worse the lack of ports means the party sees no benefit in expanding into their territory (though perhaps this should be based on number of trade routes?)

I hope this gives a good view of what I desire to achieve, and how I hope it will spice things up. This is all very WIP. I still need to settle on the final modifiers and balance everything.

I prioritised working on the parties as, as far as I am concerned, the map is finished, but I need to finish the parties before I can fix the missions to fit the new map (I want them to be tied into the parties).

 

[sillent]

Amazing work!

 

[Moredrug]

Looks amazing!

 

[MattAlexi]

I love the work that you have done so far with this mod. Please tell me, are you interested in a handful of Punic city buildings? I started modelling them before finding that the Rome & Carthage DLC had new Punic city buildings. I would personally love to see a Carthaginian wonder available for them to build. What are your thoughts on adding a wonder? I could 3d model something for you.

 

[crownsteler]

I am certainly interested in seeing your work. Can you show me what you had in mind? I am not exactly sure what a carthaginian wonder would be... Perhaps the harbour? Numidian royal tombs would certainly be interesting to add to the map. Perhaps some natural features as well?

I haven't looked into adding new assets to the map though. So I am not exactly sure how to do it (yet, but I suppose I can figure it out).

@sillent & Moredrug

Thanks for nice comment

 

[Limbojack]

This looks truly amazing! And does a great job at showing the unused potential of republics. I hope PDX follows in your footsteps, because it would make the game so much better. Well done!

 

[AnthraxDaveUK]

Looks awesome.
Do all the new countries start as Feudatories to Carthage, or as independent nations?

 

[crownsteler]

This looks truly amazing! And does a great job at showing the unused potential of republics. I hope PDX follows in your footsteps, because it would make the game so much better. Well done!

Thanks. I will continue to push such an approach to senate mechanics every time the topic is brought up.

Looks awesome.
Do all the new countries start as Feudatories to Carthage, or as independent nations?

Thanks.

Right now only the Phoenician cities of (Hippo) Akra, Nabul and Ruspina are Carthagian feudatories (+ the vanilla ones obviously). The Numidian (etc) tribes all start of as independent as I want North Africa to be dynamic and something the player has to take into account. Turning the tribal tags into Carthaginian tribal vassels would block any sort of war or expansion on their part, and you as Carthage can just ignore them. I would like it if Paradox would add something akin to a 'hegemonic defense league' where a greater power protects a group of nations against outside interference, but would allow the tags themselves to fight amongst themselves. That would work great in this setting.

As for progress:

• I've set up the character interactions and modified all events to take the new parties into consideration. I now need to set up their preferences for laws and all mechanical aspects of the new parties should be done.
• I've modified the calculations a bit. Senate support will now be calculated based on the parties preference for that province (based on it being a 'core' region and what trade goods there are) which is modified by the following factors:
  • country tyranny (vanilla)
  • ruler popularity (vanilla)
  • friendship between ruler and faction (vanilla)
  • the effect of 'political polarisation' (if ruler is not of faction, support is dependent stability: starting at -10% and ranging from -60% to +25% without a loyal co-ruler; starting at 0% and ranging from -25% to +25% if there is a loyal co-ruler)
  • The effect of corruption and bribery (max +30% support if party ruler has 30 corruption)
  • war exhaustion (starts at 0, but scales down to max -20%)
  • Leader skill (vanilla)
  • acquired political support (a feature Paradox forgot to implement, this will tie into the mission tree, more on that below.)
    
  • the 'interest' the party has in the area (this is scripted to fluctuate over time, but eventually, some day, I will replace this with events).
• Playing a Roman game I got similarly annoyed with campaigning in Spain as I did with Tunisia, I decided to give Spain a bit of a make over:
  
  I am not as happy with it as I am with North Africa, but oh well.
• I fixed some issues with the game not colouring impassable terrain as I think it should.

Tomorrow I will look into how missions are scripted to see if I can set up a few missions to work with the new political parties. The idea is that to complete a mission you either need 51% relevant party support, or need to acquire the party support by fulfilling wishes (such as building markets in port cities to get support of the merchant party, build fora to get the support of the democratic party, build mines in Iberia for the Iberian party, etc). This acquired support will then last for the duration of the current ruler, but will be lost when a new ruler is elected. This will hopefully force you to think about how you will garner the required support in time.

All in all this will give the player a few paths to troth to garner the garner support for senate actions: Increase tyranny, get a popular character elected, increase stability, turn Carthage terribly corrupt or start fulfilling party wishes.

Here are two overviews of how support is calculated at this moment for Syracuse and Bastetania respectively:

Only the Sicilian party and the merchant party want war with Syracuse, but that is not enough to tip the scales. On the other hand the gold reserves of Bastetania generate sufficient support that you can force war through the senate. I feel I am at the position where I want to be. I'll run a few test games when I get a few missions and the law calculations in place to see if everything is working as I want it to.

 

[mavregade]

This is good stuff! I am working on learning how to do anything at the moment, but I'd love to get good enough to contribute to something like this or help with an ambitious project like a detailed Punic Wars mod.

 

[mavregade]

I have found some evidence that the Barcids raised some of their elephants in Spain. I think maybe a mission event to get an elephant trade good for Spain would be ideal?

 

[AnthraxDaveUK]

I would like it if Paradox would add something akin to a 'hegemonic defense league' where a greater power protects a group of nations against outside interference, but would allow the tags themselves to fight amongst themselves. That would work great in this setting.

Have a look to see if you can implement/borrow some of the "Celestial Empire" coding for Ming from EU IV, because the Tributary System that Ming had was exactly what you describe above.

 

[schultz]

This looks very interesting.
Will you be incorporating updated missions tailored to your mod?

 

[crownsteler]

This is good stuff! I am working on learning how to do anything at the moment, but I'd love to get good enough to contribute to something like this or help with an ambitious project like a detailed Punic Wars mod.

Good luck with learning to code. Until I started working on the parties I only had experience modding Victoria 2, and I can tell you that the paradox scripting language has evolved since then. I'm basicly learning everything as I go. The best way I can tell you how to learn to code is simplying copying what Paradox did and then manipulating their code to suit your needs.

Anyway, if you have some cool ideas for events and the likes, do share them, and share your codes. I could give some pointers how I think it might work.

Have a look to see if you can implement/borrow some of the "Celestial Empire" coding for Ming from EU IV, because the Tributary System that Ming had was exactly what you describe above.

Oh, that is exactly what I mean. Wish that paradox would implement this. With the code already existing I don't think it would be too much effort for Paradox to implement.

Unfortunately I don't think I can do it myself. I can't find where the defensive leagues are implemented and just creating a new subject type is not going to cut it I think; it would still result in the overlord getting dragged into the internal wars?

I have found some evidence that the Barcids raised some of their elephants in Spain. I think maybe a mission event to get an elephant trade good for Spain would be ideal?

This looks very interesting.
Will you be incorporating updated missions tailored to your mod?

Yes I am working on custom missions, though I am struggling with the scripting language. I spend yesterday trying to figure it out, but didn't get very far. Especially the fulfillment conditions are a obstacle. I really need to look more closely at it. I also think an issue is that the game can only display missions 4 wide, and I want them to be 5 wide. As I've not yet succeeded at getting it to work, I can't actually show you what I had in mind.

The general idea however was that with every new ruler you'd selected a new 'mandate' to complete during this rulers term, tailored to their party. As an example and African party suffette might choose the following mission to try and complete in his term (not very incomplete due to issues with scripting):

This mission basicly gives you the goal of conquering Aelymas/Thugga/Afer (haven't decided on the name yet), but to do so you first need to build support in the Hadirim (Senate). To do so you need to give each party something they want. In this case the Sicilians are split and desire you to either fortify the island (increase fort level by one in all cities), or build a stronger army (build military academies around Carthage). If you go the fortification route, then there is a helpful senator who happens to own an interest in a stone quary on the island who could speed up the work if only some money were to be made available to improve the local infrastructure. The Iberian and (part of) the merchant faction and want you to focus on trade in the west (avoiding competition with the Greeks) and are pleased if you build a market on both sides of the straight of gibraltar. Meanwhile the Democratic faction, representig the poorer citizens, are not interested in expansion at all, and would rather see you develop the lands you already have (or build 3 farms around Carthage). Completing one of their objectives will give them a minor to sizable bonus during the senate support calculations, but only during the reign of this particular leader (the bonus is reset to zero 'on_ruler_change').

I also assigned each of the objectives a 'champion' (not necessarily the party leader) who will gain a bonus to prominance if you complete their mission. They are also referenced in the flavour text. Finishing a party objective also gives a popularity boost to that party. This is to make it less of a no-brainer to just collect party support, and you might need to think about what party to support.

That is the theory anyhow. I don't think I'll actually go this route. It is a lot of work to generate dozens of such missions (they should only last a single term), and in the end I don't know how many interesting party objectives I can script. It is basicly just limited to 'build this' or 'build that'. I will try to get this to work, but I'm thinking about something different:

I still want the missions you can choose to be decided by what party is in power, but make them multi-term rather than single term. E.g. you have selected an African mission, but a Sicilian is elected you have to replace it with a Sicilian mission, but once an African is elected again you can continue the mission where you last left off (or start a different one). Not sure yet how that is going to work, but I'll figure it out.

 

[Numahr]

I think you're up to groundbreaking modding on the politics in Rome: Imperator. What you're planning is how the political system should be used, to intertwine domestic politics and geopolitics! Please go on!

 

[egich]

When will you release this wonder?

 

[Battlex]

Shows as much promise as Rex Teutonicum did for ck2, which eventually got nicked as an official bookmark, best of luck going forward

I have found some evidence that the Barcids raised some of their elephants in Spain. I think maybe a mission event to get an elephant trade good for Spain would be ideal?

Could you provide the source please, that's amazingly interesting, I knew of European wild lions but never of elephants

 

[MattAlexi]

I am certainly interested in seeing your work. Can you show me what you had in mind? I am not exactly sure what a carthaginian wonder would be... Perhaps the harbour? Numidian royal tombs would certainly be interesting to add to the map. Perhaps some natural features as well?

I haven't looked into adding new assets to the map though. So I am not exactly sure how to do it (yet, but I suppose I can figure it out).

I’ve modelled two Numidian tombs and the Carthaginian great harbour. I’ve wanted this harbour in the game since I first played as Carthage. =D

The sheer cliff-face of the Jugurtha Tableland would be amazing, and I am working on creating landscape assets such as mountains and cliffs, but my work isn’t quite ready yet.

I'm hoping that you can add these to your mod! Depending on your plans for Carthaginian Renewal the wonders could be buildable or already placed on the map.

 

[crownsteler]

Wow those look amazing. I can't stop staring at them. I'd love to include these in the mod. I definitely agree with you that I've wanted to see the harbour in game from the begining. But suprised Paradox didn't put it in there themselves actually.

Could you perhaps sent them to me so I could try them out? Eventually they would be buildable by event/decision/mission, but they might just appear on the map first as there is so much I've got to do. It will also be some time before I can release any of thus (see also below).

If you want to create more models, Jean Claude Golvin has some interesting drawings which could serve as inspiration. I'll be happy with whatever you decide to make. But just to throw some things out there: The sanctuary of Ba'al Karnaim is something small which would be nice to have on the map. The forum of Carthage (center of picture) could also be nice and flavourful to have for Carthage. The Byrsa/Temple of Eshmun could also be interestingPerhaps a Nuraghe and Talaiot model to serve as a Sardinian fort? Or perhaps an entire new graphic model for Sardinia? Just to throw this out there, do whatever you want.

When will you release this wonder?

There is unfortunately a bit of an issue with the Paradox launcher which results in map mods crashing. Until Paradox fixes that, I can't actually release it, unfortunately.
Progress has also slowed down a bit because I am bit stuck on how I can properly implement my idea of party mission you can complete for political support. The mission tree idea doesn't really pan out, so this is what I have in mind right now:

Where the game would generate 3 party missions on each new ruler which you could complete. I am unfortunately unsure if this is possible in game and, if it is, how I would go about scripting it. Can anybody give me some pointers here?

In the mean time I've been entertaining myself with some more map work. Due to a comment by @Calamari1995 on Cyrenaica I had a go at redoing that part of the map:


Sardinia has also been on my list for a while now, so I had a go at it too (very much WIP):


Perhaps I should split up the mod? Seperate the map mod from the senate mod. Getting the senate mod in working order will take some time, while the map is mostly done and can just be updated whenever I want (it still requires Paradox to fix the bug in the launcher before I could release it though).

 

[Limbojack]

Perhaps I should split up the mod? Seperate the map mod from the senate mod.

I think that's a good idea. I'm not a modder, but I would guess that it's easier to test your mod as well if it's split into two? And giving people the option to play with the parts they'd like sounds great to me.