Several questions about modding (working on Videssos mod)

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Hi.

This is my first message here. I have some questions about modding EUR (gold). I'd like to work on a custom scenario inspired on Harry Turtledove's world of Videssos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videssos_cycle), but I need some other arrangements.

1) Map. It's almost 90% done, actually, but I'm afraid I'm lacking colors for provinces (need more than the original map, i bet...)
- is there a limit on number of provinces?
- what does exactly "terrain.map" do? what sensible effects in game?

2) Governments: I need a specific form of government used by Empire of Videssos and no other nation. So I think I cannot just edit the default government settings.
- Is it possible to define new government forms, and what other file than the government one shall I modify? (i.e. localisation?)
- where/how can I define the ruler's and other officers/ministers titles? The emperor of Videssos has "Avtrokrator" as title, the prime minister "Sevastokrator", the the leader of the church ha "Patriarch" and so on.

3) Religions: same as previous question. I need to define some new religions. Videssos has a monotheistic religion (similar to Zoroastrism) but divided into 3 or four different variations. An orthodox one, and 3 scismatic/heretic versions. Religion is a primary element in videssos literary cycle, so I cannot simply set the default religions.
- Is it possible to define new religions, and where exactly?

4) Timeline: actually, Videssos is a kind of "ucronia", inspired on byzantine scenario, with its own timeline and different playable scenarios depending on the date, with different starting conditions for involved nations.
- Is there a simple way to modify the date system or are we strictly blocked on the default interval between Rome-Epirus war and rising of Octavian?

I'll probably have many other questions next day, but this is just to begin

Thanks

 

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Map preview (b/w)

 

[Cheexsta]

Hi.

This is my first message here. I have some questions about modding EUR (gold). I'd like to work on a custom scenario inspired on Harry Turtledove's world of Videssos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videssos_cycle), but I need some other arrangements.

Looks like you've set yourself quite a challenge! I know how hard it is to make a new map from scratch, it's not easy.

1) Map. It's almost 90% done, actually, but I'm afraid I'm lacking colors for provinces (need more than the original map, i bet...)
- is there a limit on number of provinces?
- what does exactly "terrain.map" do? what sensible effects in game?

I don't know if there's a "hard" limit on provinces, but I know that after you add a certain number that the province borders start acting weirdly (they turn red rather than black, like a country border).

Terrain.bmp determines the kind of terrain that is in a certain province. The effects of these terrain types are defined in terrain.txt.

2) Governments: I need a specific form of government used by Empire of Videssos and no other nation. So I think I cannot just edit the default government settings.
- Is it possible to define new government forms, and what other file than the government one shall I modify? (i.e. localisation?)
- where/how can I define the ruler's and other officers/ministers titles? The emperor of Videssos has "Avtrokrator" as title, the prime minister "Sevastokrator", the the leader of the church ha "Patriarch" and so on.

It is certainly possible to make your own government forms; in fact, you can even delete all of the old governments and start from scratch if you'd like, so long as none of your countries have a nonexistant government type. You'll also need localisations (you can make your own localisations file if you'd like, I find this easier for keeping things organised) and will need to modify common\officeterms.txt.

Titles can be modified in common\titles.txt. Note that you cannot remove or rename the major titles in that file, but you can remove or add to any of the minor titles and can change any of the effects/modifiers of those titles. You can change the localisations if all you want to do is rename them. All of the changes you listed there are possible.

3) Religions: same as previous question. I need to define some new religions. Videssos has a monotheistic religion (similar to Zoroastrism) but divided into 3 or four different variations. An orthodox one, and 3 scismatic/heretic versions. Religion is a primary element in videssos literary cycle, so I cannot simply set the default religions.
- Is it possible to define new religions, and where exactly?

It's possible: common\religions.txt. You can modify existing religions/religion groups or add your own. You can change the effects of having a province with a different religion to that of the state in common\static_modifiers.txt.

4) Timeline: actually, Videssos is a kind of "ucronia", inspired on byzantine scenario, with its own timeline and different playable scenarios depending on the date, with different starting conditions for involved nations.
- Is there a simple way to modify the date system or are we strictly blocked on the default interval between Rome-Epirus war and rising of Octavian?

The only restriction with the timeline is that it ends on 1 January, 733 (IIRC), and the game throws a fit if you have characters that are born before year 1. Other than that, you can change any of the pre-set start dates in common\bookmarks.txt very easily, and province ownership for any particular year (or month, or day...) is defined in each province's history file.

 

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Work in progress.

colormap finished

 

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Altitudes map

 

[Borne2Run]

This is really cool! I look forward to playing it in the future.

I guess you'll have a Roman Legion pop out of nowhere at some random point in the future then? How are you including battle-magic?