[WIP] [SUBMOD] FPS_CTD "V2" - An economy mod *progress slow but steady*

[BrokenSky]

One thing. A lot of the resources feel.. I don't know.. same-y? Like they all give approximately the same effects?

Just going to throw some ideas around here:

Maybe if there were occasionally events tied to goods, for example the ability to order fine clothes or armour (artifacts) based on the availability of goods such as fine clothes or battle gear, or to build up an extensive library (books) or what-have-you.

Alternatively (or complementary perhaps) is more complex production chains with larger rewards for some of the more complicated chains, for example secondary goods which require other secondary goods. Perhaps the ability to invest in greater development of a finished good in a province, effectively locking it in so that it was harder to change, like the primary goods, but giving a stronger bonus based on it's type, a bit like the high level prosperity events. In-fact maybe tie things like resources to prosperity events, reducing MTTH for them (food resources -> extra holding slot, battle gear -> training ground, Books -> great library etc.).

Having resources give good options on events would be nice, e.g. on the event where you get a disease (replacing symptoms) you get a replacement option [replaces the normal option] giving a higher chance for a mild illness and a less chance of a worse illness, available because you have medicine produced in your demesne. Stuff like that?

 

[LordPeter]

Thank you, @zeress.
It's always interesting to hear opinions, and even the reasons why you prefer not to use the submod tell something about it. Actually, I feel similarly about CK2: The roleplaying aspect, the fact that I am playing as a "real" person instead of some mana-dependent generic country, is what makes me prefer CK2 over EU4. I started another game of EU4 lately to see how it had developed, and while it offers fascinating gameplay alright, I really can't help but feel it is a game. I constantly think to myself: "Well, that only happened because these variables are at this values, I need to change the values", and never: "Oh ****, the Mongols are coming and their ruler is a real badass! I gotta hide my kids! Flee, you fools!" like I do in CK2. Also, their events mostly give options that are very restricted. Feels like: "Do you want to draw another card, or discard one and draw too?"
Overall, EU4 feels a bit like a board game to me, not something as organic as CK2 - to that feeling of course Plus has greatly contributed, which is why I prefer it over say HIP.

That being said, yeah, I probably made the mod for myself in the first place, but since quite a few people seem to also want more economic stuff, and also because I "want to give something back" for all the years I passively enjoyed mods, I wanted to release it. And also, because I wanted feedback I cannot give myself, and the people I meet in real life are not interested in discussions about it ^^. So thx for the feedback.


@BrokenSky:
Great ideas, and I understand what you mean.
I also noted that the mod was a bit "barebones", so to say, especially if you consider I used to love VIET, and now my own mod offers no flavour events at all ^^
But it was planned to be only a "working prototype" from the beginning, and only grew a bit whenever I learned new things. Now that it is evident that the mod is working for other people as well, and I apparently coded everything properly, I realized myself that the mod needs more "flavour" on top of the arguably tedious micromanagement. And also, less micromanagement.
That's why the rework might change even more beyond what I already said; but I must first verify if these things are possible at all and could work as I envision them.
Ideally, the system would end up as something that is conveniently running int he background, while allowing player input and decisions if desired.

Your ideas on more "usefulness" of resources have been noted, and are in fact something that has occurred to me as well. Now I can't give any promises, because I need to check what's possible first. But longer term, if it's possible, I'll try to make the mod interact with the other gameplay to a much greater extend.
This will, however, even in case it is possible, take much longer than the current ongoing revision. I am only one guy, after all

 

[hsuzy1987]

Oo, this looks a lot like the much beloved but long discontinued Magnate Lords mod. Good work.

 

[Zenonira]

Out of curiosity, you said there wasn't currently a way to check for minor rivers in the game but wouldn't it instead the possible to check for the "Will cross river" modifier certain provinces have and use that as the basis for "being close to river"?

 

[LordPeter]

Oo, this looks a lot like the much beloved but long discontinued Magnate Lords mod. Good work.

Sadly I never really played it, but yeah I take a lot of inspiration from it (and peaks at their code ).

Out of curiosity, you said there wasn't currently a way to check for minor rivers in the game but wouldn't it instead the possible to check for the "Will cross river" modifier certain provinces have and use that as the basis for "being close to river"?

Indeed, you would think that would be possible!
But surprisingly, at least afaik, there is no way to access that modifier as a modder - it is put there directly by the engine, but there is no condition to check for it. Same goes for climate (winter): You can only check if a winter is happening *right now*, but not if the province usually experiences winters. That's likely part of the problem with(out) the India submod, because I have a custom trigger that checks for winter regions by checking for individual province ids. That's really tedious and sadly causes compatibility issues.
Well, gotta post a suggestion, maybe Paradox will allow such simple checks in the future...

 

[BrokenSky]

Indeed, you would think that would be possible!
But surprisingly, at least afaik, there is no way to access that modifier as a modder - it is put there directly by the engine, but there is no condition to check for it. Same goes for climate (winter): You can only check if a winter is happening *right now*, but not if the province usually experiences winters. That's likely part of the problem with(out) the India submod, because I have a custom trigger that checks for winter regions by checking for individual province ids. That's really tedious and sadly causes compatibility issues.
Well, gotta post a suggestion, maybe Paradox will allow such simple checks in the future...

You could have a (hidden?) modifier which lasts a year and triggers any time a province experiences winter, and then check for that modifier. It might slow the game down though.

 

[LordPeter]

You could have a (hidden?) modifier which lasts a year and triggers any time a province experiences winter, and then check for that modifier. It might slow the game down though.

Yeah I thought about that, but the problem would be that I couldn't assign stuff at gamestart, since I wouldn't know about winter then. Also, you can only check for -winter-, and not for the respective strengths - which wouldn't help me, since e.g. Wine can very well grow in Mild Winter regions (that experience winters), but must not in Severe Winter regions (that also experience winters).
I most likely can solve the issue with India by adjusting the trigger, it is just tedious and time consuming, and time I currently don't have. The rework will surely have that fixed, it would just be more convenient if I didn't have to care about it at all, and could just use premade conditions.

It might be because there were so few economy mods in active development lately, that no one really needed such things. Since economy mods work a lot on province level, whereas the rest of the game evolves more around characters that only indirectly interact with provinces.

 

[PlotVitalNPC]

Yup, right I forgot you did get that info ^^


Also, a short update:
I think I would allow a second "refined" good for provinces with 3+ holdings, and additionally a second "finalized" good for provinces with 6+ holdings. So the really big provinces (Constantinople etc.) can have some major industry diversification going, while the rest still has to specialize.

I'm still pondering just how detailed the tradegoods should be this time around. For example, I think I will probably not represent the difference between "tanning" and "tawing", even though I did read some interesting things about that lately. My megalomaniac approach is to represent the Medieval economy as truthfully as possible within this game, so either this is going to be great or overly convoluted and complicated
I spend quite some time reading on the books my University has on Medieval Economy, and luckily I also managed to get into the course about the "Late Medieval Economy of the Cities". Hopefully I'll learn something that I can put to use here...

Oh, and because this is a submod and does not get as much attention as it would on the main forums, and also because I'm kinda curious what you as the main mod dev team think, I invite you people like vukica and zeress to also give your opinion on this submod's design - if you so wish. Even if you don't want to use it, and even if you haven't used it yet, just based on the general design I presented in this thread.
Because the feedback I got until now - for which I am grateful - has focused mainly on matters of convenience, information-feedback to users and balance.
But I'm also quite interested in whether the general design and implementation (and, less important, the coding) I did is good, or if I should have done something different. I'm only asking you because you guys have written new gameplay elements in the past, and thus probably naturally have clearer ideas about how and why things should be done than the average mod user.
Only if you want, of course, please don't feel compelled. I'm just politely asking

The diversification will be a step in the right direction, but I don't feel like it'll ever be especially playable until you can de-spec the finalized and refined goods of a province, and at least the secondary output of livestock or fish there. It's fine for it to cost something, but clearing away decisions which worked in the short term, or the decisions of previous owners, as time passes and you become capable of better things is an essential power.

The state of things is just far too dismal if making mead becomes impossible because what few provinces spawned bees got specced for wax.
(Side note, it should probably sometimes be possible to build hives when you're clearing a blocker.)

 

[mkire]

how much work would this need to turn it into a general mod and not ck2+ specific?

 

[LordPeter]

The diversification will be a step in the right direction, but I don't feel like it'll ever be especially playable until you can de-spec the finalized and refined goods of a province, and at least the secondary output of livestock or fish there. It's fine for it to cost something, but clearing away decisions which worked in the short term, or the decisions of previous owners, as time passes and you become capable of better things is an essential power.

The state of things is just far too dismal if making mead becomes impossible because what few provinces spawned bees got specced for wax.
(Side note, it should probably sometimes be possible to build hives when you're clearing a blocker.)

Yep that will all be redone - I never payed much attention to how it actually played out since I spent all the time coding. That's what you have playtesters for I guess, so thx for the input guys ^^
New version will probably allow for much more player input, while the AI will be more passive and rarely change primary resources. The primary ones will still be a bit RNG, as I don't want the player to be able to just reproducibly "find" gold ore. Secondary and tertiary (refined & finalized) products could probably use some sort of decision on the province, that would trigger the event. Same goes for animalproducts.
But with all the new stuff I will also have to re-organize the event, as cycling through even more options would be tedious... but how to keep the AI aware of everything then? I am still pondering basic stuff here, and I haven't coded a word yet. I guess in professional production you would call me in "design" phase, after concept is done - but alas I am no pro and it takes a lot of time to do stuff. I hope the summer break will prove more productive.

how much work would this need to turn it into a general mod and not ck2+ specific?

Depends.
My dependency on CK2+ is 100% map-related, which becomes obvious if you consider the current version is having problems even without the India module.
So if Paradox would provide the condition checks I need (winter types mostly, best also rivers), then the only remaining problem would be regions - and that could easily be compatched to just about every map.
Even now, a fairly simple compatch would probably be possible, but it would be tedious because you'd have to track things on an individual-province-base. It's doable, just tedious. And it will probably remain mostly the same with the new version.

 

[LordPeter]

Hello and welcome to the first dev diary for

CTD V2.0​

Seeing how even CK2+ lately adopted the trend of releasing dev diaries I have decided to also try it, even though I will still try to keep most of the stuff secret (kinda like vanilla does). These dev diaries will not be a very regular thing, given that I am still right in the middle of coding, and actually am still fleshing out the design for the new tradegoods. Also, with my holidays ending shortly (now you know I don't live in Sweden), development will probably slow down again soon.
But I feel confident that this time around the mod will actually be in a nice condition when it relaunches, and I think I have some glimpses to share already

"Fake" Mapmodes
Anyone that has played Stellaris will agree how useful custom mapmodes can be - however, we most likely won't see them coming to the older engine of CK2. But less than a week ago I had an idea: What if one could emulate a "fake" mapmode, that would display some other information in one of the vanilla mapmodes?
I actually had done something similar back when I needed a visual feedback on the resource placement in the "old" CTD mod, but it wasn't really fleshed out, and only usable from console. Now it is a proper decision, and might prove very useful once you play with the new features in CTD V2.0 - here's how it looks:

Once you have chosen which type of "fake mapmode" to display, an event will fire in the background that changes all provinces in the game to have a neutral revolt risk. the calculations behind this were actually a bit tricky because you can't see negative revolt risk, but I managed to get it to work. Then, some more invisible modifiers will be applied to the provinces depending on whether they fulfill the conditions of the things to display.
Right now there's only one working mapmode, and what it displays I can't tell you yet. Also, since this method only really works with the revolt risk vanilla mapmode, I can onyl display boolean or gradual things at a certain time, and not all the different tradegoods colour-coded like e.g. in EU4 (but since I have over 200 of them now, it wouldn't be practical anyway...).

This is how this "fake" mapmode looks in my example game:

As it says, the revolt risk obviousely needs to be reset before you can unpause the game, lest the world goes up in flames immediately ^^
However, you can still see the mapmode as it was at that moment, as long as you don't click on another mapmode - it won't update its information of course, but it will allow you to take a look without the eventwindow in the way:

And lastly, this is how it looks when taken as a mapmode-screenshot directly from the game:

That'll be all for this time! Hope you have found this interesting, and next time there will be probably something more directly related to the mod. Oh and btw, I have found a new name to better go with the acronym. But I also can't tell you yet

 

[zeress]

Keep in mind for MP that events don't pause the game, so the flames of the world burning might happen there

It's a good idea, just might want to put a warning for those people.

 

[BrokenSky]

Are we allowed to speculate what the mapmode is for?

 

[vukica]

Seeing how even CK2+ lately adopted the trend of releasing dev diaries

We had one.

most likely won't see them coming to the older engine of CK2

Same engine

 

[LordPeter]

Keep in mind for MP that events don't pause the game, so the flames of the world burning might happen there

It's a good idea, just might want to put a warning for those people.

Right, thx! Well, I'll make the event include a big warning that on MP the game has to be paused. Or I'll disable it if the MP game rule is chosen. We'll see.
Anyway, I imagine the game is mostly played in singleplayer (or at least I can't convince my friends to play this game...).

We had one.



Same engine

Still counts.
Yeah but you know what I mean - not everything will get ported over to CK2. Not that I would protest if it turns out I am mistaken...

Are we allowed to speculate what the mapmode is for?

Sure, go ahead

 

[BrokenSky]

Sure, go ahead

So the red areas a clearly prevalent around developed or populous areas (Constantinople for example). It also covers the whole nile delta region and a lot of western europe. Perhaps population or something similar? Given the crytic comment wrt a better fitting name for the same acronym, it could be crops though (to go with the C), putting the mapmode as some kind of food supply metric; how much population the area can support given local and imported food or it might just mean that the mod is adding more development mechanics. Or alternatively I've completely gone off in the wrong direction and it's actually a measure something completely different.

Oh btw I realise this might be a bit of a weird thing to ask but do you think it would be interesting to add some interaction between this (the Gen2 version) mod and the "the great trade league" mod, given the overlap of topics? https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-trade-league-society-13-08-updated.1004900/

 

[LordPeter]

So the red areas a clearly prevalent around developed or populous areas (Constantinople for example). It also covers the whole nile delta region and a lot of western europe. Perhaps population or something similar? Given the crytic comment wrt a better fitting name for the same acronym, it could be crops though (to go with the C), putting the mapmode as some kind of food supply metric; how much population the area can support given local and imported food or it might just mean that the mod is adding more development mechanics. Or alternatively I've completely gone off in the wrong direction and it's actually a measure something completely different.

Oh btw I realise this might be a bit of a weird thing to ask but do you think you could make the version 2 mod compatible with the "the great trade league" mod? https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-trade-league-society-13-08-updated.1004900/

Not a bad guess, but I won't confirm or deny anything yet

Hmm, frankly I am not sure on that one, even though the thought has occured to me, too.
First off, you can of course use them together as long as it is compatible with CK2+.
But while I think the mod is well done and nice from a gameplay perspective, for my inner historian it is too much fantasy really, so personally I would not use it. It's fun to play with probably, but historical trade didn't work like that, and a truely Medieval economy is excactly what this mod here (CTD) is trying to simulate.
Second, the way the Great Trade League works is not really compatible design-wise with what CTD is doing. The province interface would get cluttered with additional modifiers like "Alcohol Shipment", when CTD handles its import/export of alcohol on a totally different level. Imo, it would be a confusing to use them together, let alone trying to combine their events.
I hate to disappoint you, but I think this is something that won't happen, not unless something changes.
That doesn't mean they are incompatible, just that they have no synergy and I would not recommend using them together. Same goes for the "Advanced Trade System" mod over at the workshop.

Nothing is set in stone however, and I haven't played that much with it. Maybe some rudimentery interaction could be achieved easily. I might consider it if there is a big demand for that. And who knows, now that Maal has released the Tutorial Society, I might end up creating my own trading society at some point . I think it could simulate The Hansa far better than a single Republic as is currently.
But for now, I am busy with getting my mod coded. Then we'll see.

 

[BrokenSky]

Hmm, frankly I am not sure on that one, even though the thought has occured to me, too.
First off, you can of course use them together as long as it is compatible with CK2+.
But while I think the mod is well done and nice from a gameplay perspective, for my inner historian it is too much fantasy really, so personally I would not use it. It's fun to play with probably, but historical trade didn't work like that, and a truely Medieval economy is excactly what this mod here (CTD) is trying to simulate.
Second, the way the Great Trade League works is not really compatible design-wise with what CTD is doing. The province interface would get cluttered with additional modifiers like "Alcohol Shipment", when CTD handles its import/export of alcohol on a totally different level. Imo, it would be a confusing to use them together, let alone trying to combine their events.
I hate to disappoint you, but I think this is something that won't happen, not unless something changes.
That doesn't mean they are incompatible, just that they have no synergy and I would not recommend using them together. Same goes for the "Advanced Trade System" mod over at the workshop.

Nothing is set in stone however, and I haven't played that much with it. Maybe some rudimentery interaction could be achieved easily. I might consider it if there is a big demand for that. And who knows, now that Maal has released the Tutorial Society, I might end up creating my own trading society at some point . I think it could simulate The Hansa far better than a single Republic as is currently.
But for now, I am busy with getting my mod coded. Then we'll see.

Yeah that's fair.

 

[NakedBeast]

Does it actually work atm?

 

[LordPeter]

Does it actually work atm?

My mod?
Sure it does, I run a lot of test games. But its really barebones currently, it does not even have any tradegoods in it atm ^^