Tribal Civilizing Mod (Or: How to Make Suebi Worth Playing)

[SimuLord]

Just to ask the "serious" modders around here...

Am I missing something in my plan to mod the Suebi to have 50% Civilization level in each of their two starting provinces in order to make them colonization-capable? Should I be doing something else as well in order to make it playable without breaking the game in the process?

Also, I've thought about modding one of the National Ideas to grant a bonus to civilization level (so barb tribes can adopt it and gradually civilize themselves more organically)...is this possible and how would I go about it? Of course, since I can't draw a stick figure right, there wouldn't be any special art to go with it, just a change in the tooltip and a "you get the idea" in the readme file to explain away my artistic incompetence.

I don't have a lot of modding experience (last game I modded to any great degree was Civilization 2---yes, 2---years and years ago.) Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just want the joy of one-province minors without the hassle of ending up like the EU3 Native Americans.

 

[unmerged(80821)]

philosophical advances has 25% civilization spread, but i don't know what the effect is for just a blunt civilization plus, if you have more than one province then the civ spread is worth it. I may add something like that national idea to my national ideas mod though if you would allow it, or I could help you with some of the national idea things .

I don't know if there is a blunt civilization bonus or not but I scanned over the events real quick and didn't seem to see one.

 

[Snall]

A way to play a one province minor..is well...to eat one of the mother minors by the sea...not realistic though, I'm going to just mod my capital to 50%...also a lot of the greek minors start at like 70%, like Crete/Rhodes.

 

[SimuLord]

philosophical advances has 25% civilization spread, but i don't know what the effect is for just a blunt civilization plus, if you have more than one province then the civ spread is worth it. I may add something like that national idea to my national ideas mod though if you would allow it, or I could help you with some of the national idea things .

I don't know if there is a blunt civilization bonus or not but I scanned over the events real quick and didn't seem to see one.

I couldn't find one either---civilization spread is more intended for the big blobs (like Rome) to civilize their colonies up to a more acceptable level. I'm thinking more of a built-in civ-plus of even .05 per month (a bit more would work well early but would lead to all kinds of issues once a certain civ level (much beyond 65% or so, since a lot of the buildings seem to rely on it) was passed.

Of course I'll allow someone who knows better what they're doing than I do to incorporate my idea---I'd be honored, in fact.

I'm also toying with the idea of modding the Pictii into the game, giving them that province in the upper edge of Britain, and seeing what happens if they trade with nations that are more civilized than they are (like, say, the Big Red Blob). Not quite sure how to mod a country into the EU3 engine, though---but a Saturday afternoon spent parsing the existing country-files will probably help me on that front.

As things now stand, I'll probably just crank the capital province up to 50% until I can wrap my brain around this whole modding thing.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

I've modded all the barbarians to have 50 or 55 civilization and I've increased their population enough so they can colonize 1 or 2 provinces.

The one problem is that they still don't really have the income to support decent sized armies which makes them vulnerable to hordes. Usually they will colonize one or two provinces and then their capital gets sacked and knocked down to 35-40 civilization halting further expansion.

I'll let you know how it goes in this Armenia game I run. I'll be keeping an eye on the Suebi as they should be the most buffered from Rome.

 

[Snall]

I've modded all the barbarians to have 50 or 55 civilization and I've increased their population enough so they can colonize 1 or 2 provinces.

The one problem is that they still don't really have the income to support decent sized armies which makes them vulnerable to hordes. Usually they will colonize one or two provinces and then their capital gets sacked and knocked down to 35-40 civilization halting further expansion.

I'll let you know how it goes in this Armenia game I run. I'll be keeping an eye on the Suebi as they should be the most buffered from Rome.

In the demo as Suebi I had a huge army. I took that one minor province right on the coast. Setup a trade that made like 1.1 gold a month. And etc. Of course I didn't mod civ value etc, but I had enough money/soldiers to take on the rest of those minors easily.

 

[monsterfurby]

Hm.. as a way to keep it realistic and at the same time allow the barbarians to become some sort of high culture, we could of course add an event chain that fires when a barbarian chief is very talented (Finesse 7 or greater) and increases a province's civilization value if it is under 50%. Also, this could lead up to the opportunity to increase civ spread for barbarians at a reasonable cost (to simulate "civilizing").

 

[SimuLord]

Hm.. as a way to keep it realistic and at the same time allow the barbarians to become some sort of high culture, we could of course add an event chain that fires when a barbarian chief is very talented (Finesse 7 or greater) and increases a province's civilization value if it is under 50%. Also, this could lead up to the opportunity to increase civ spread for barbarians at a reasonable cost (to simulate "civilizing").

Maybe add another one tied into his Finesse and Charisma---if they're both over 7, not only does he have the talent to increase the civilization level by fiat, but he's got the persuasiveness to get all the Great Unwashed to get jazzed up about the effort (if the first event fires annually and gives, say, a 2.5% boost, the latter event can be worth twice that.) In each case, placing a cap on the civ value for the event at 50 or 55 can keep it from getting out of control.

I like this option!

 

[monsterfurby]

Well, I have started working on a mod which splits the process of "civilizing" into three steps, making it a bit more interesting for a tribal player.

1. Uniting the Tribes - to unite all tribes in ones territory, the player will gain options depending on their chief's characteristics. A warrior chief might start military campaigns to take their lands (fighting rebels), another chief might prefer negotiating (through events). This serves two purposes: the increase of the civilization value in the tribe's home provinces and the increase of population. And yes, capping the civ value would be a good idea here.

2. Administrative Reform - If the tribe is able to expand far enough through colonization - as allowed through the unification of the tribes event chain, the player will eventually get the chance to reform the administration of the tribe. There are three choices: Roman-inspired (republic), Greek-inspired (kingdom) or to strive for a distinct Celtic/Germanic super power.

3. If the latter is chosen, the player will have to accumulate more provinces in order to further their conquest, also, through events, useless leaders can be replaced by more capable ones, but this may lead to civil war as the old leader's loyalists rise up. If the player masters this, they will get the choice to proclaim an empire, which assigns them (if I can figure out how to do it script-wise) to a new culture group, temporarily called high_barbarian, which mirrors roman and greek advancement speed and can rival them easily.

Right now I am trying to implement point 1, while the others are long-term goals. Option one alone should be enough to give the tribes some of the much needed advancement, but the others will fit in quite well and give tribal leaders somethign to do.

 

[unmerged(85011)]

@monsterfurby:

Interesting idea. Definitely looking forward to the release of your mod!