Project proposal: SPQR mod

[TheLand]

NB. Please go to thebeta-version playtesting thread for the most up-to-date version to download and test.

This incorporates TheLand's Mod, plus work by Numahr and The Regent.

*Characters now have much more influence over how your emprie runs: tax revenue and revolt risk depend on governor finesse through extra traits, existing traits have more effect and impact on a wider range of events. (taken from TheLand's Mod and The Regent's, plus a bit of extra work)
*Colonisation is fixed to stop Macedonia owning Poland (TheLand's Mod)
*Population growth is now much more sensitive to many more things (Numahr's Demographics)

Please download and play the beta and let us have your comments!

====

Since the omens are auspicious, I would like to propose a direction for a mod-project, to be titled "SPQR"

A lot of people have suggested that a lot of existing mods should fuse. In some cases this is a good idea. However, I think it is important that as Rome modding goes forward, mods develop with some rhyme and reason to them.

This is the direction I want my own modding to go in. Of course no successful mod is ever going to be a one-man band, and I know a number of other modders have been thinking along the same lines.

Aims

I think the game could be significantly improved without going far outside of the sphere and spirit of the game as it stands.

Specifically, I would like to see improvements to :

• Detail - more fine detail which can be observed or managed
• Authenticity - a more immersive historical experience
• Player control - more influence over your empire (particularly but not exclusively through the character system)

I would like to see this done while staying basically within the spirit of the existing game, using existing mechanisms wherever possible, and remaining firmly based in history.

Specific ideas

Particular things which might be medium-term goals could include:

• A wider variety of more interesting trade-goods
• A more detailed empire management system with more role for governor characteristics, and deeper event-series for culture/religion switiching
• More detailed event-series for the internal politics of major powers, for instance the contest in Rome between the patrician and plebian factions
• A solution to the "Gaul problem" (Gaul being far too easy to acquire for Rome)

Things which I would not consider within the scope of this project would include:

• A radically expanded or much more detailed map
• Any fantasy elements
• Big graphical changes (this should fit alongside graphics mods, rather than being one)
• 'Hard' constraints to enforce 'historical' play; e.g. we would not solve Macedonian colony-spam by banning Macedon from making colonies.

Things which a lot of people are keen on, but which I am personally agnostic, include

• Filling the map with tribal nations - this might turn out to be the solution to some problems (e.g. Gaul?), but I would prefer to keep some space for colonisation if possible
• Increasing combat damage on the whole (I don't happen to think that 'ping-pong' warfare is a huge problem)

SPQR

To this end I will release the next version of what is currently "TheLand's Mod" as "SPQR 0.1" and hopefully it will incorporate more of other peoples' work as well as my own. I hope other modders who share my views will join in. Even though I am not a very experienced modder myself, I am willing to act as project co-ordinator for the time being. Obviously as well as modders, we will eventually need playtesters, researchers and many other kinds of contributor!

I am sure there will be high-quality mods for Rome which take a different approach. This proposal is actually quite a limited one. For that reason, it should be relatively easy to make progress. There would be little to stop other, more comprehensive, mods borrowing elements (or the whole) of SPQR.

If you want to join in, or have comments or queries of any sort, please post here, or PM me!

NB. Please go to thebeta-version playtesting thread for the most up-to-date version to download and test.

 

[Geno]

One thing I would like to see (if possible) is that a nation can change government. I don't just mean republic rome to dictatorship.

eg, Macedonia start the game as aristocratic, but if they start having lots of tributary states, then they would change to federal. of course it should work the other way round as well.

I would love to beta test your mod, although i'm not a history buff, I can comment of the more general gameplay-ness of it.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

I've been doing lots of modification on barbarian tribes.

So far what I have done is add 1 or 2 extra provinces to all the Gaulish tribes, I have also increased their population per province to somewhere between 16 and 20.

I've also added several Germanic tribes and some Celtic/Ilyrian tribes in Germania and the Balkans. They have all received the same treatment, 2 provinces to start with 16-20 population per.

In addition to this I have given all the capital provinces 55 civilization and I have increased the spread of civilization by neighboring provinces by about 50%.

What this has done to my test games is that various power blocs form between the tribes usually with one or two gaining regional supremacy.

The Germanic blocs tend to become relatively powerful able to resist Roman incursion fairly well. The Gaulish blocs depending on the way the alliances pan out tend to slowly lose territory to the Romans but usually a province or two at a time.

For example in my most recent game the Suebi/Vandal/Quadi alliance just fought a war against Rome in which a white peace was settled after Rome conquered several Suebi provinces but the Suebi and Quadi conquered the upper half of the Italian peninsula and some parts of Roman controlled Gaul. I was surprised to see Rome actually get a white peace.

So it is possible to make the barbarian tribes pack a bit more of a bite by making just a couple simple modifications to them.

I don't know how most people feel about increasing the speed of civilization spread but I feel that right now lack of civilization is a major speed bump to providing Barbarian states that can do something other than get conquered by Rome.

Thats all the information I've gathered on it so far, if I make any further tweaks to my modification I'd be happy to relate how they are impacting the game.

 

[Eldar]

I agree with the SPQR mod idea and I want to help!

I can maybe help with the character infuence with adding events and traits that would give the player a bit more influence on what they are doing. I would need just a small hint about how to create icon for traits. I can create the traits, but I have a hard time to change graphics.
I read the topic in the modding guide on the EU3 wiki, but it just sau

For the gfx folder, only the gfx/anims and gfx/flags is treated this way. To use other modified files in this folder, change a .gfx file in your interface directory and have it point to your new graphics file.

And I dont get it...

Thanks and keep up the good work!

 

[TheLand]

I've been doing lots of modification on barbarian tribes.

So far what I have done is add 1 or 2 extra provinces to all the Gaulish tribes, I have also increased their population per province to somewhere between 16 and 20.

Very interesting! Please keep us updated... perhaps start another thread with some screenies?

In addition to this I have given all the capital provinces 55 civilization and I have increased the spread of civilization by neighboring provinces by about 50%.

I can see why you'd do this, but it would mess up the solution to Macedonian colony-spam which I'm using at the moment. Of course, strong tribes might make that irrelevant...

 

[Asmodeous]

If only I understood the scripting language. I started a thread in the main forum about changes I'd like to see and it seems like we're on the same page... mostly.

Me


Edit: http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=353540 That's the thread I posted, for reference. I'm terrible with the scripting language because I haven't the foggiest about it because it makes my eyes swim, I mean I have a basic understanding, but I don't grasp it solidly enough to build in it... but I'd like to help if I possibly can in some other way, or in that way if someone is patient enough to help me learn it. hehehe.

 

[TheLand]

To-Do List

This is a provisional list of ideas I've had. If you want to help, pick a problem to either solve or research. Please feel free to add more ideas.

Script-and-Test stage:
*Religious/cultural conversion events for conquered tribal provinces - probably triggered by low Civ value? - should be more costly/difficult with the chance of a barbarian uprising
*Governor finesse to affect province tax income, with either additional traits, or province modifiers. Perhaps Martial to affect revolt-risk/recruitment speed. DONE, first stage at least
*High Priest characteristics to affect omens

Preliminary Research/Testing stage:
*Events to get Gauls allying when a major power attacks one tribe
*Trade Goods: identify new goods. Where were they found? What impact did they have? How will this translate into Rome terms?
*Further internal politics event-series - what were the internal conflicts in each major power and how can we model them?

 

[unmerged(51416)]

Few comments

I was planning to start similar thread, but decided it's too early for too extensive changes. I think we first need to get next patch For now I'd also keep some things you want to change, like trading system, since we don't know how AI will react on this. It's already too easy to cripple AI by taking key provinces.

I agree with you on many points (historical plausibilty, more depth). As I don't have too much spare time, and I currently work on other mods as well, I think I'll keep developing some kind of 'Vanilla Flavour' mod. However, feel free to use my work in your mod

 

[TheLand]

I was planning to start similar thread, but decided it's too early for too extensive changes. I think we first need to get next patch For now I'd also keep some things you want to change, like trading system, since we don't know how AI will react on this. It's already too easy to cripple AI by taking key provinces.

I agree on both those points, I'm just naturally impatient. ;-)

However, feel free to use my work in your mod

Thank you! I will ;-)

 

[unmerged(51416)]

What I'll do soon (probably start tomorrow) is to finally polish my units, tweak bb, expand events with characters giving you troops, and new traits graphics.

 

[unmerged(92421)]

Well this is all very nice in theory... but charisma and a good charter don't make a good mod though it is a start! It'll be good to see mods getting bigger and better regardless. What specifically are you going to work on first though? How are you going to structure the team? My mod will probably keep the title as the biggest mod for now though

This is the direction I want my own modding to go in. Of course no successful mod is ever going to be a one-man band, and I know a number of other modders have been thinking along the same lines.

Well weren't a fair few of the EU3 mods mostly one man things? After all two people working in parallel don't do twice as much work as one on his own.

 

[Asmodeous]

To-Do List

This is a provisional list of ideas I've had. If you want to help, pick a problem to either solve or research. Please feel free to add more ideas.

If anyone wants to point me to some Paradox Modding Scripting Language Tutorials I'll be able to be a lot more help, but here's what I can offer:

*Governor finesse to affect province tax income, with either additional traits, or province modifiers. Perhaps Martial to affect revolt-risk/recruitment speed

Does the Governor finesse not already help tax income? I believe it is a modifier. I would suggest having it also modify trade income (on the sense that he puts through taxing laws on trade income to adjust potential income for the State on the provincial level if that is possible. I would agree that their Martial skill should reduce revolt risk, but I would keep it out of Recruitment speed, I think, strictly for balance purposes.

*High Priest characteristics to affect omens

Good idea. The Zealous trait should increase Omen strength somewhat, the Pious trait should increase Omen chance. For instance.

*Events to get Gauls allying when a major power attacks one tribe

I don't know if that's going to be a solid solution. It's a start, but supplying them with free mercenaries when a major power attacks would be a huge improvement. Give them a bunch of free militia and cavalry every few months, and then if the war ends and they're still alive an event that autodisbands those units so as not to violate their coffers like the "More men" event chains do during a cival war. This would, at the very least, simulate the Gallic tribes' rising up to combat the invaders in their homes with the zeal that they did in reality.

*Trade Goods: identify new goods. Where were they found? What impact did they have? How will this translate into HOI terms?

Good question. A historian would have a better ability to answer it, but I think the way to do this would be to list out all of the current trade goods and their bonuses here (or wherever you do your brainstorming) in order to have an "at a glance" list as to what to add.

*Further internal politics event-series - what were the internal conflicts in each major power and how can we model them?

I would suggest that setting up more complicated character-oriented events would be the best place to start. Events that not only impact the character that is directed, but also trigger events to other characters more often, as right now there seems to be a severely limited number of those and it makes it feel like your decisions don't matter. Instead of just creating a rivalry, for instance, between your character and a character of another family, it should trigger an event for the second character that can then escalate it, and then this will cause a series of chain event triggers (with various MTTH ratings so it doesn't all happen at once or at a "specific" time that one can expect) that will cascade out, reducing or increasing loyalties and popularity as well as Family Prestige and Wealth.

I think that the political struggles inherent in the time period would be fairly easy to simulate through proper use of event interaction, and would likely be the most immersive part of the game. I think the reason most people feal the games breaks immersion too easily is specifically because all of the characters seem like cardboard cutouts and have no real stories of their own that lead them to where they are, so we pretty much just see them all as stats.

Me.
Edit: Stupid typos in quote tags.

 

[The Regent]

You're welcome to incorporate my mod into your new project. I'm hashing out a new, and hopefully interesting, process of provincial conversion. If you're looking for a team, I'll offer my services.

After all, it seems to be a Paradox tradition for a mod group to appear amongst the singles. Just look at the great work of the Magna Mundi team.

 

[Asmodeous]

Because I'm big on this idea and would like to offer assistance, here's a breakdown of the trade goods and what they do in plain old english and not zomgParadox-speak.

Trade-specific:

grain: +3% Local Population Growth
salt: -25% Recruitment Speed
wine: Local Revolt Risk -1%
amber: +10% Local Tax
stone: +100% Local Defensive Bonus
fish: +10% Manpower
spices: +50% Local Religious Prestige


Strategic:
iron: Allows Heavy Infantry
horses: Allows Heavy Cavalry and Horse Archers
wood: Allows Archers and Triremes
elephants: Allows War Elephants

The first thing I see right off the top of my head that makes no sense is why can you have Horse Archers without wood, but you need wood for Archers? I would suggest that having Wood + Horses in the same province should be necessary in order to create Horse Archers in the first place, if that's possible to accomplish.

The second thing is, I think I translated that right, if I did I'm one step closer to being useful because then I can at least comprehend the scripting language, hehehe. Secondly, does anyone know where they hide the formulas related to trade goods and their values for actual trade?

Me.

 

[unmerged(92421)]

I would suggest no wood needed at all for either. After all there were plenty of horse archers in the Parthian army despite there being little of the wood resource near there. Fair enough you have to have tons for a boat... or horses for cavlry but I'm not sure archers use up all that much wood.

 

[Numahr]

The Land,

You have my heartly support. Which means :
1 - you may consider my modest mod as a draft for moding demographics ;
2 - I will see how things structure and how I can help, given that I have very limited time due to huge RL constraints. The following topics are of particular interest for me:
a. Variable parameters for more dynamic economic and social dimensions of the game. This includes demographics of course, but also provincial government system, effect of trade, revenue system, impact of revolt risk and war attrition, stability,...
b. Anything related to Carthage, on which I have a good access to information (a couple of serious history books at home) and a personal passion.

 

[Battlecry]

Leather might be one good trade good. It was indispensable, virtually all armour of the time required it in some way (chain mail & scale armour require something tough under the metal to be truly effective). Perhaps this could be the prerequisite for archers, as their lighter armour was usually beaten leather. And they required far more of it than they did wood.

Edit: Also, there were a few major slave markets at the time (I'll need a day or two to find out where), a slaves trade good could be implemented, although what bonus it would give (manpower? or if there's a way to increase slave growth rate?), I'm not really sure.

Edit 2: Okay so Rhodes was the "premiere" slave port until 176 BCE (around 577 AVC) when the Romans built their own free port on the island of Delos (in the Cyclades - #146/Euboea ingame) Other major slave markets were Thrace & Bythinia, and later the Danube valley directly north of Italia (say #76/Vindelicia and/or #74 Raetia). The Egyptians also had large slave markets farther down the Nile.

 

[unmerged(97178)]

I can help with Dacian historical based updates
- new realistic flag
- more names
- Dacia playable from the beginning
- kings
If interested I can provide the modified DAC files. Now all are working but I want to do some improvements.

 

[.Spartan]

Great idea. A consolidated game play improvement mod is always on the menu. I dont have the time to get involved at the moment nor to even play the game. But I will distribute it if needed on my site.

 

[TheLand]

Thanks for all the comments.

I've produced a merged version of mine, Numahr's and The Regent's work.To this I have added some work on character-driven province-administration today and some further tweaks to colonisation.

The main change is 5 new traits which affect (mainly) province tax revenue. If a character is appointed as a Governor, then an event will fire giving them one of these traits.

Very high-finesse characters with good popularity will get the "gifted" trait which gives +50% tax revenue and a boost to population growth.

Good-finesse characters who are lucky or high-finesse characters who are unlucky will get "able" giving smaller, but still very usefulm bonuses

Characters with poor finesse will get "inept" which gives penalties

And characters with strong Martial and at least moderate Finesse will get "firm" which means +10% tax with benefits to province defence and revolt-risk as well.

For any character who is mediocre or just unlucky there is an "average" trait, which has no modifiers but is there to block any of the others from firing.

The way I have set it up, as a character's finesse increases, the chance of becoming inept falls (to zero), then a Finesse 4 character is bound to be Average, while Finesse 5 is about 50-50 for Able, Finesse 6 is more likely to be Able than Average, Finesse 7 is likely to be either Able or Gifted with little chance or Average, and Finesse 8+ are very likely to be Gifted (if they are popular, not Cruel or Corrrupt, lepers or plague victims).

To compensate for the traits, global taxation is 90% of its previous value.

I also tried to include a modified looting event-series based on nodrownboy's, but I'm not sure it was working properly, and even if working properly I'm not sure it was balanced.

This is all available as SPQR 0.1 at:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tmwvjm9o1mm

Please download and playtest! I would consider this a dev-beta rather than a release version.

@Asmodeous: Your comprehension is fine. The goods are in tradegoods.txt and there is a corresponding event file in the events folder. A very slightly revised tradegoods.txt is in the mod.

@Cotiso: I will certainly use the Dacian names.