I just came back from my journey and only had time to 'scan' the new entries so far. There is much valuable info and help, some misunderstandings and some issues I can only answer when I have downloaded Doomie´s patch myself.
Some first remarks:
1. My additions will always be part of Doomie´s patch, so there will be no seperate download link. We agreed to divide work, so that in the future I will concentrate on Afrika, Middle East, Asia and SE Asia.
2. In the version I sent to Doomie, there were no problems with 'unknown strings' etc. Maybe this is due to not installing the patch correctly, Yannelis? (You have to add some changes to text.csv by Yourself - this is all in the readme.) I will test this issue in the evening with the 1.2. patch (I still have to download).
3. I think I did most of the changes concerning Ragusa alright. I myself didn´t make them a vassal of Hungary, because this vassalship was quite 'inconsequential' and the Turkish influence seemed much stronger to me. In the light of the results of future testing, we should discuss this issue further. Maybe in the end Ragusa shouldn´t be a vassal to anyone at the start of the game and only have a royal marriage with Hungary and Venice. Look at this for comparison: In 1492 Crimea was a vassal of the Turks, too. But they were free to do almost all they wanted, including an alliance with Russia. That´s why in the game they only start out with a royal marriage with Turkey.
About the question, whether one province minors as Ragusa should be implemented in the game at all, You always have to look at the 'big picture' - here, the Eastern Mediterranean. With all the changes (wharf, Cyclades, Greece, Ragusa) it´s definitely protrayed much better now than it was in the original GC.
4. Building costs for Greece can be adjusted in further versions, no problem.
5. I will not 'drop' the Aq Qoyunlu, but maybe there will be only one 'Persia', where the dynasty of the Aq Qoyunlu will be followed by the Savavids instead of having two seperate countries. Keeping them seperate still will be an option also, but this would include some 'Swiss Cheese' and maybe also weaken the region too much with regards to the Ottomans. Besides historical accuracy of the initial settings, we will always have to take gameplay issues into account, too.
6. Next country I will implement, will be Ethiopia. I already did some preliminary changes, which look quite nicely. Historically, Nubia and Ethiopia bordered each other and I took care of this (giving Nubia another two provinces to the South, which is correct). Besides, I also corrected the 'Known provinces' for Nubia already. Making Ethiopia orthodox is best, but one has to assure, that they don´t use their yearly settler excessively. That´s why I will make some of their provinces colonies only and confine their known provinces to the South in such a way, that they only can colonise the horn of Africa (i.e. Somalia).
I still need feedback on the question, whether to use BAN for Ethiopia (nice graphics, but no chance to develop technically). Another idea to consider would be to interchange tags for Ethiopia and Nubia, which will leave Nubia as the 'nondeveloper' instead.
7. Nations to drop:
- Cyrenaica (province to Mamelukes, tag will be used maybe for Uzbeks)
- Tripolitania (province to Hafsids, i.e. Tunis, tag still free to use)
- Mahrati (will be Dai Viet)
I will probably not delete any of the nations of India, so at the moment we will have only one additional SEA nation.
O.k., that´s it for the moment.
Hartmann
[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited 04-02-2001).]
