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Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hello everyone. For those of you that don't know me, I am Seether and I am one of the developers of this fine modification for Medieval II Total War. I joined this project in August of 2012 and since then I have been working closely with Gigantus and y2day to get this mod released into its current beta. Before this I made some minor modifications for the famed Stainless Steel mod, all of which are now a part of the core mod, and have been a member of TWC since 2005. I am an avid RTK fan and scholar, having taken an interest in the era since I was 5 years old and have been a part of the global RTK fan community for the past 12 years. Originally I was signed on to be the mod's historian but, because of my background in text-based modding for M2TW, I found some use in the actual development of the mod along with the other members. Gigantus has been extremely welcoming to my advice and ideas, and has given me quite a lot of leeway in the direction that this mod is headed, even though I will always defer to his judgement on all matters as he is supremely more knowledgeable and skilled in modding than I could ever hope to be. I would like to remind everyone that this is only a beta release, not a finished or polished product, so there will undoubtedly be bugs, errors, and crashes. That is what happens during open beta testing and we NEED people to speak up if they believe something is wrong or out of the ordinary, as that will only allow us to improve and create a better mod. I'd also like to point out that a lot of the long-term aspects of this mod, such as usurpation, supporting the Han, establishing dynasties, and a lot of fun scripts, are either still in development or are present but incomplete.
With that introduction out of the way, let's get to the good stuff: gameplay
First, I would like to talk about the Unaligned faction. They appear as single characters, bearing a unique light-green color, and can be found all over the map. Do not mistake these guys for rebels, and instinctively attack them, as they are an entirely different animal. What they represent, in a nutshell, are characters that were not a part of any particular warring faction at our start point. Think of them as ronin looking for a lord to serve. Their purpose is simple: to strengthen your faction by giving them quality generals and administrators. Some factions may find themselves with an excess of generals at the start of the game but, as you progress and gain more territories, eventually you will need new blood to manage settlements and command armies. And that is where the Unaligned faction comes in. If you are short on characters but have several thousand wuzhu to spare, send a diplomat to one of them and bribe them. Costs can vary, but sometimes as little as 4000 wuzhu can get you a new general or administrator, which can really help you in your quest to unite China. So be nice to the little green guys sitting around and use them to your advantage.
Second, I would like to talk about rebels and "barbarians." You probably noticed that the rebel settlements in China-proper are lightly garrisoned. That is intentional and designed to be that way. My reasoning for such is that small garrisons in interior China promotes the expansion of factions in China and leads to conflict between the major players, which is what the RTK era was all about. Yeah, independent garrisons are push overs, but outside of organized forces (like the Yuan clan, Cao clan, etc.) the independents were pretty much pushovers in comparison. I think the focus should be on the factions and civil war within China, hence the small garrisons, while the regions outside China have large garrisons and armies. The outlying "barbarian" regions are much, much more heavily defended and garrisoned than the interior rebels, meaning they will be much harder to conquer. Unless you have no other option, "barbarians" like the Shanyue and Xianbei should be left alone until you have the manpower and resources to take them on.
Third, and something I mentioned in another thread, is that there are a few unique units in this mod. And I'm not talking about bodyguard units, instead I'm referring to elite units and special forces that gained fame during the RTK era. The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, Flying Bear Army, White Riders, and Danyang Troop are just a few of these. Although I had made text for them earlier, that text seems to have disappeared, so I will explain in a little detail on how these different unique units work. In the next patch unique units will be denoted in their info cards. Along with this, it will tell you how they can be retrained and, in some cases, where. It will also tell you how unique they are; as in if there can only ever be one unit (if destroyed it is gone forever) or if it can be recruited, very slowly, in specific regions. An example of the former is the Camp Crushers, while an example of the latter is the Qingzhou Troop which can be recruited only in the Qingzhou region to specific factions. Take good care of them, as they are highly valuable and can be of great tactical importance in the heat of battle. As I said, in the next patch you will be able to identify these and see anything specific, in terms of availability and regional recruitment, in their unit info.
That is all I have for now. When new patches with new concepts come along, expect this thread to get updated with any relevant information. If you have any questions or concerns about gameplay, please feel free to comment in this thread. Until then, happy gaming! :D
19 July 2013 Update
Something that has been brought up over the course of development is the desire for Liu Bei to start out positioned in the western regions of China. This will not happen, as we are basing our positioning of factions on their historic locations in the winter of 194 AD. The problem, obviously, is that Liu Bei will not make it to Yizhou (or Shu, if you will) and establish himself in the region that he is most known for. Many people also want the Sun, Cao, and Liu clans establish dominance over the areas they did historically and recreate, in-game, the Three Kingdoms. Unfortunately such is an impossible task, and it must also be kept in mind that the formation of the Three Kingdoms was a highly complicated process that took roughly forty years and innumerable variables due to individual actions of the people involved. Also once a mod, any mod, starts everything that happens afterwards can vary wildly. You could see Yuan Shao dominate Hebei or the Heishan; Cao Cao could dominate the Central Plains or so could either Lu Bu or Yuan Shu. With mods, you can only recreate history to a point, after that it is up to the player and the AI to determine how things progress.
But many people still want Liu Bei to establish himself in Shu, and honestly I am one of them, however he will not be there at game start. So what can be done to remedy this? I have already submitted to Gigantus a detailed outline for a series of missions that the player can undertake to accomplish such a task. The missions are, for the most part, accurate as to how Liu Bei went from ruling Xu province, to establishing himself in Jingzhou, and then to Shu. Some things were impossible to recreate, such as Liu Bei serving Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, so I had to be creative and take some liberty in how to get Liu Bei from point A to point B within the confines of the game's mechanics and limitations. If it works as I intend, then players that wish to establish Liu Bei in the land of Shu will be able to do so through a series of missions, with some interesting events along the way. I can't say for certain when these missions will be released in a patch, so keep your eyes peeled for any updates from the Mod team.
31 July 2013 Update
As was discussed in my last update, starting in Patch #4 (which was just released) players will have the choice, when playing as the Liu Clan, to undertake a series of missions that will lead to the faction from eastern Xu province all the way to western Yi province. When you start a new game as the Liu Clan, you will immediately be given an event that asks you to either accept or decline these missions. If you decline, you will not get any of the missions or special events that come along with them. If you accept you will first be tasked with capturing Xin Ye, which lies about in the middle of the map. In the mission's text it gives several hints:
- First, that you need to take your entire faction on the journey to Xin Ye. This is essential to success. Once you take Xin Ye, which is a relatively poor and undeveloped settlement, you will need your entire military force at your disposal in order to complete the next objectives, which involves war with one of the stronger factions in the game.
- Second, to build some Militia units to keep your holdings in Xu province from rebelling and thus ending your game before you can capture Xin Ye. One Militia unit per city should be fine. Constructing a Decree Office in each city, as well as reducing taxes, will also keep these cities happy until you can abandon them completely.
- Third, the text also mentions using your starting Diplomat, Liu Qin, to head immediately for Xin Ye and try to bribe it. Doing so will more than likely ensure that you conquer the city without going to war with any of the nearby factions, like Nanyang and Jingzhou, who are allied. It will also ensure that you do not take any military losses unnecessarily in taking Xin Ye.
Whatever method you choose, either Diplomat bribe or military force, the missions will not advance by just taking Xin Ye. You must also move all of your faction (except those Militias in Xu province) into the Xin Ye. After the next set of missions come up, now would be a good time to make Xin Ye your capital, and also to get rid of those militias in Xu province and put all of the Xu province cities to Very High taxes. But won't this cause them to rebel? Yes, and that is the point. Getting them to rebel is the easiest way to lose control of those settlements so that Xin Ye is your only holding. Plus, with the taxes set Very High, you can make a nice profit before you lose control of them. And finally, and this can't be stressed enough, Liu Bei must remain alive for the missions to continue. If Liu Bei dies, then the missions will be over, so protect the Liu Clan sovereign at all times.
In the future we will be making some adjustments to the script, and probably adding new missions and events, but for now just enjoy the work the team has done in Patch #4 and enjoy your game.
01 August 2013 Update
There was a minor error in the Liu Bei missions that I have fixed. Please refer to this post for more details.
19 August 2013 Update
If people are looking for a status update, then look no further. First off, we are getting very deep into our new unit rosters. "And what is so special about that?" you might ask... Well, for starters the standard regular units of every faction will now have historic arms and armor. Please give rep to The Blade That Was Broken, as he has been painstakingly creating models and units for our new roster. After the new units are done, then focus will be moved to armor uprades (so there will be a visual difference between the same unit with different armor upgrades), then we will work on general reskinning. Along with all of that, as was suggested in the forum, recruitment will be based on a regional basis. Right now Cao Cao only recruits Zhongyuan (Central Plains) units in settlements regardless of where the actual settlement lies, but in the new recruitment system he will recruit Ba-Shu units in settlements in the Ba-Shu region, Hebei units in settlement in the Hebei region, and so on. The only drawback is that this is a very time intensive project, so don't expect to see it implement for at least several weeks, if not a bit longer. We are also looking at including settlement titles and ancillaries based on settlement and provincial control. These will be broken down into three main groups, that is county (Magistrate), prefectural (Prefect), and provincial (Governor). This, as above, will take some time to complete and will not be implemented for some time.
Now, on to something that is (partially) implemented. If you haven't noticed, this latest patch now has some interesting things going on in Chang An. What you will notice is that whoever controls Chang An has two things happen. First, the Faction Leader will get a trait called "Imperial Guardian," representing that the faction leader is in control of Emperor Xian and the Han Court. Along with this, diplomats of the faction that controls the Emperor will get the "Imperial Controller" trait. If a faction controls the Emperor and has a set amount of settlements (won't say how many), they will get the "Prime Minister" trait, representing the Emperor's conferral of title upon the Faction Leader as the de-facto leader of the Han Court. If Chang An is lost, so is control of the Emperor, making this the beginning of a dynamic planned system. And finally, whether in control of the Emperor or not, when a specific number of settlement have been conquered, the Faction Leader will receive the "King" trait. The King trait will be specific for the faction, ie: Cao Cao will be King of Wei, Sun Ce will be King of Wu, etc. As of right now, you can not obtain the Emperor trait through our traits and scripting, as those are still being worked on. In essence, the Prime Minister and King (and Emperor) traits are placeholder for a highly dynamic and interactive scripted system that is being worked on by Gigantus. The player will have choices, as well as consequences and/or rewards for those choices. I won't give too much away but, in simple terms, a player can choose to become the Emperor's protector and support the Han, or replace it with his own regime. As said, what is in place right now is merely a placeholder for a great scripted system of political and philosophical dynamics to be included some time in the future.
01 February 2014 Update
It has been a long time since both my last official update and the last official patch. But, fear not! A new patch is on the way. Still no time frame, but I can confirm that we have A LOT of stuff already finished. Right now we are just waiting on a few things to be finished, then we can probably give a tentative release date. So, until the patch comes out, let me give you some insight into a couple of things you will see in this new patch.
1) As has been mentioned in previews, the first part of our roster overhaul will be implemented. This specific overhaul is what we call the "standard" units; those coming in the Light, Heavy, and Armored variety. Not only will these new units have a variety of faces, armors, and weaponry, but will also have a variety of faces as well. For the Lights and Heavies, when their armor is upgraded via the Smith buildings, you will see changes to their armor in-game. For example, a Light unit with leather lamellar, when upgraded to iron lamellar, will now be equipped with such armor. As said, this is only the first stage of the overhaul process, but we are sure you will all appreciate it once the patch is available.
2) In the next patch we will be introducing some new scripts. One particular script has to do with what was discussed in my last update: control of the Han emperor. While this script is not 100% complete, it is a fairly extensive script and allows you to make choices on how you ascend rank. The only reason I say it is not 100% complete is because there is more we would like to do, however we have to find workarounds of engine limitations. But even so, this script should still be considered a finished product, but if we can find those workarounds, it will be even more immersive and dynamic.
3) A new "governor" system will also be implemented. Essentially, each settlement has an associated "governor" title that is given to a character that occupies the settlement. Depending on where the settlement falls in the system of Han administrative organization (commandery, county, etc.), it will dictate the title (Grand Administrator, Prefect, Magistrate, etc.) and bonuses of the specific "governor" title. All will be represented by ancillaries, that are able to be transferred between characters. There will not be provincial titles (ie: Governor of Yi province), as that type of system is extremely complicated. However, it is planned for a future patch, just not this next one.
That is it for now. As I said, the next patch is nearing completion, but we do not yet have a time frame for release (so don't ask). And there is a lot more stuff in the upcoming patch that what I mentioned above. As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns, feel free to post them here and I will do my best to answer them.
17 March 2014 Update
A new patch, a new set of stuff from me. The first thing I want to talk about is the new units that you will find. Obviously they are a significant change from what we had prior to now. Essentially the core units of each faction have been broken into three tiers: Light, Heavy, and Armored. The Light units represent the standard soldier of a Han/Three Kingdoms era army. The base Light soldier wears a simple leather vest and, in the case of swordsmen and spearmen, a wooden shield. They also have two upgrades, Reinforced Leather Lamellar and Iron Lamellar. Unlike previous to this patch, these units actually have their equipment and armor change when upgraded. The same goes for the next tier, the Heavy Units. Unlike the Light units before them, the Heavy units represent a more professional force of soldiers with extensively crafted arms and armor. From first glance, you can see that not only do they have iron scale cuirasses, but they also have arm and upper-leg protection as well as helmets. These units only have one upgrade, which is from Iron Lamellar to Steel Lamellar. At the steel upgrade you will see that the armor color turns almost black, and the construction of the torso armor changes from scales to plates. Heavy Cavalry upgraded to steel will even have some armor on the top of their thighs. And although I mentioned Armored units, they are not currently in-game at the moment. They probably won't be finished for a few more weeks and we didn't want to delay Patch 8 any longer. The Armored units will be, as you probably guessed, thoroughly armored in Heavy Steel armor from head to toe... well, not toe, more like knees. ThatOtherGuy is currently working on them and, I must say, he is doing some damn fine work. I know you will all love them when they are completed. And the last thing I want to discuss, in regard to units, is the unit cards and UI pics. We are in the process of creating unit cards and UI pics for all of the new units, so the ones you see right now are simply placeholders from the old units that were replaced.
Although there are some minor issues with the script (which is fixed and will be included in a Hotfix in a couple days), if you have played as either the Cao Clan, Sun Clan, Yuan Clan, or Ba-Shu, you may have noticed that their starting characters have been reduced slightly. If you have captured some specific settlements with those factions, you might have also noticed that you will get a character or two that join your faction. If you constantly get a CTD after taking a settlement, as opposed to getting new characters, that is the script issue that will be in the Hotfix. Other changes with factions have been an increase in starting armies which, combined with the reduction of starting characters, will hopefully alleviate the issue of a bunch of generals clumping together into the same stack and all being killed. It will still happen, and there is absolutely no way to change that, but we can lessen how often it happens.
If you haven't given +rep to Gigantus yet, please do so, because he is the mad scientist behind all of the excellent scripting going on. One such script has to do with controlling the Han Emperor, being Imperial Guardian, and Usurpation to become Emperor yourself. As the in-game event states, you need to take Chang An to control the Emperor, thus becoming Imperial Guardian. From there, as you increase the size of your realm, you will eventually be given the opportunity to either support or usurp the Han. Supporting will allow you to become Prime Minister, while Usurping will allow you to become Emperor. Also, even if you don't control the Han Emperor, you can "self declare" yourself King, and later Emperor, by holding a large number of settlements. That is just a general overview of the process, as it is a bit more complex than that, but I hope this gives a little better insight into how it works.
The last thing I'll discuss is some new ancillaries. While in my last update I talked about the new "Governor" ancillaries, there are also "Minister" ancillaries for when your faction leader becomes Emperor. These Ministers include the Grand Master of Ceremonies, Privy Treasurer, Superintendent of the Household, Commandant of Justice, Commandant of the Guards, and Grand Minister of Agriculture. Each has their own unique ancillary, bonuses, and description, as well as unique requirements for acquisition. There was also a general overhaul of the ancillaries that were already in the mod. I went through all of them and was surprised by the amount of incorrect bonuses listed or obsolete (RTW leftover) bonuses for many of the ancillaries. Every ancillary, except for many of the admiral ancillaries, should now have a complete description of just what that ancillary does.
There was a lot more that went into this patch and what I discussed was only a small select portion of it.
03 August 2014 Update
The day is finally here... version 1.0 has been released for public consumption. It has been a long, grueling road for Gigantus, myself, and the rest of the ROTK team, but we got here after more than 2 years of development. However this post is not about the v1.0 release, but more so some of the content that can be found within it. In particular I will be discussing the complete revamp of the Emperor & Usurpation script, Nanman migration and native recruitment, and also the Fortified Pass settlements.
Previous incarnations of the Emperor & Usurpation script provided very limited options in the ideology and ambition of your faction; that is, whether you will support or usurp the Han emperor when you have the power to do so. Gigantus entirely rewrote the script while I made major modifications to the coding, resulting in a completely different experience than before with much more noticeable cosmetic results. In a nutshell, the script advances based on the number of settlements your faction controls, whether you do or do not control Chang An, and any decisions you make during the course of the script. In the first few turns, you will notice a message that talks about being Imperial Guardian; this forms the foundation of one path of the script. In this path control of Chang An (and the Emperor) is the key ingredient to advancing the script. As you acquire more settlements and more power, you will not only achieve greater rank within the Han government, but will later be presented with options to either support or usurp the Han. Similarly, if you do not control Chang An, you will be presented with similar dilemmas as you gain more territory and power. With the central government non-existent and the Emperor under the sway of other warlords, you will be offered the opportunity to self-proclaim noble ranks for yourself. Specifically, you can assume the rank of King and even Emperor of your own dynasty... if that is your desire. If you wish to stay loyal to the Han, and not assume self-proclaimed rank without the Emperor's consent, you can always turn down such opportunities.
Something new that was introduced (possibly in the last patch... I can't remember) was a unique recruitment system between the Nanman and Han factions. The idea for this comes from the fact that the Han Chinese and Nanman are so very different in not only their cultures and societies, but also in their manner of warfare. In this regard, depending on whether you are a Han faction or the Nanman, your unit recruitment options will change when inside or outside of the Nanzhong region (southwest China). First, I'll discuss playing as a Han faction. If you conquer territory in Nanzhong, which is land sparsely inhabited by Han Chinese people, you will find that your recruitment is far different than in your native Han settlements. You will have the ability to only recruit native Nanman soldiers, which are of slightly lesser quality than their counterparts in the Southern Tribes, and cannot recruit any of your typical Han units. However, recruitment of the Nanman units will mostly be of those that are infantry-based, with limited missile and cavalry units available. While playing as the Nanman, the same situation (but in reverse) applies to when you conquer Han settlements outside of Nanzhong, however there is another component. In your building browser for settlements outside of Nanzhong, you will see the 'Yizu Tribal Integration' building chain. Essentially these buildings represent migration of the Nanman tribes into Han territory, in turn allowing for the recruitment of regular Nanman military units. It is an interesting dynamic that gives at least a small bit of realism to the mod, at least in terms of the era's "culture clash."
And finally I am going to talk about the new Fortified Passes. But first, what are fortified passes? Basically they are fortifications found within strategic mountain passes, which are primarily located in north, central, and western China. Most were a part or an extension of the defensive system of the Great Wall but, unlike the majority of the Great Wall, these fortification were made of stone and brick as opposed to earthen mounds. In previous versions these Fortified Pass settlements were just villages but, once they got too much population and you upgraded them, then they were no longer strategic defensive fortifications. They were then changed to be unable to upgrade in size, and were simply placeholders until we could use IWTE to make proper fortifications. Unfortunately, with a small team and limited resources, this has yet to be done. Instead, what we have done is re-established castles as settlement types, with the Fortified Passes all assigned as castles and using a small settlement with brick walls. While this serves the intended purpose of a strategic defensive structure, it is not what we want or the end result. In the coming months when v1.1 is eventually released, and after we get more familiar with IWTE, we will have proper mountain pass fortifications as a part of the mod.
26 March 2018 Update
Only... 3 1/2 years since the last update. Not too shabby. Long-story-short: life got in the way, but things now are much, much, much better than ever. I'm not returning to modding, per se, although I am going to get out an update very soon. Essentially this update will have some minor gameplay/UI fixes, possibly a minor graphical upgrade, although the majority of it will be the faction missions for the Sun Clan.
On the topic of faction missions, specifically for the Liu, Cao, and Sun clans, I should make a comment about them. While performing the missions it may be very tempting to conquer settlements (and possibly destroy factions) not specified in the mission you are conducting, I would strongly advise against it. Simple reason is that it can either break the mission script entirely or not allow you to proceed with the next mission. If we use Liu Bei's missions as an example, once you take Xin Ye and have Liu Bei in Xin Ye's region (as instructed in the first mission) the following turn the mission will update, at which point it tells you to make Xin Ye your capital and allow your starting (Xu province) settlements to rebel. As opposed to allowing them to rebel, you can always sell them. Regardless, the next stage of the mission (defeating Jingzhou faction) will not update if you still retain your original starting (Xu province) settlements. Another example would be if you are tasked to conquer settlement A, but instead conquer settlements B, C, and D before capturing settlement A. You could break the script, meaning it will never advance or fire spawns correctly or triggers an incorrect mission, as a followup mission could require settlement C to be captured or a specific faction to be alive. As I said, I know easy targets to expand your kingdom are extremely tempting, but it would be best to refrain from that, and only conquer settlements and destroy factions as specified in your current mission. And finally, ensure that you read the objectives! Each mission will have objectives clearly labeled at the end of the mission text. Read them. Seriously, read them.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Firstly, awesome mod. I have a couple of questions.
- I love how the trait aspect of generals has been reworked, with skills and masteries and hidden potential and all of that stuff. Will we get at some point some instructions on how thios new system works?
-Should we still adopt generals that are offered? Playing yesterday I got a couple of offers.
-Lastly, medieval is kinda infamous when it comes to generals acquiring negative traits by spending time in a city, is that the case in this mod? It seems generals are more important here, it would be a shame to have Cao Cao suddenly get the drunkard or fiscally challenged traits : p
Thanks. Loving it so far, playing with Heishan in their little mountain fort : )
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I noticed that Li Jue's faction is missing alot of top officers that they had. Also, Yan Baihu's portrait is used instead of Liu Yao at the faction selection screen. I think this is a bug too, When I was playing as Cao Cao, Cao Ang got killed and then my heir was Xu Huang even though I still had Cao Ren, Cao Hong etc etc still alive.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
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Originally Posted by
DeVrie
Firstly, awesome mod. I have a couple of questions.
- I love how the trait aspect of generals has been reworked, with skills and masteries and hidden potential and all of that stuff. Will we get at some point some instructions on how thios new system works?
Possibly, although it is a fairly complicated system and there are different variables and triggers for each trait. Writing instructions would probably be more trouble than it's worth.
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-Should we still adopt generals that are offered? Playing yesterday I got a couple of offers.
That is entirely up to you. You will notice that the adopted character has not traits right away; wait until the following turn and they will be given traits.
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-Lastly, medieval is kinda infamous when it comes to generals acquiring negative traits by spending time in a city, is that the case in this mod? It seems generals are more important here, it would be a shame to have Cao Cao suddenly get the drunkard or fiscally challenged traits : p
For the most part, vanilla traits like that are not used. From what I have seen, getting negative traits isn't as prevalent as it was in vanilla.
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Thanks. Loving it so far, playing with Heishan in their little mountain fort : )
Be nice to Yuan Shao :D
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Originally Posted by jbutton
I noticed that Li Jue's faction is missing alot of top officers that they had.
Such as who?
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Also, Yan Baihu's portrait is used instead of Liu Yao at the faction selection screen.
That was corrected in the latest patch.
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I think this is a bug too, When I was playing as Cao Cao, Cao Ang got killed and then my heir was Xu Huang even though I still had Cao Ren, Cao Hong etc etc still alive.
That is definitely a bug. I think the issue is that Xu Huang is in a family tree, obviously not the main family tree. I'll have to figure out a workaround for that in a future patch.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seether
Such as who?
Hu Zhen, Zhong Yao (Possibly could give a young Zhong Hui too) Zhu Jun, Huangfu Song, Zhang Ji (Though I guess he would be dead in this scenario because Zhang Xiu holds Wancheng a few years earlier than he did.)
Also is there a way to select you heir like there was in Rome Total war. As Cao Cao and Yuan Shao both wanted to name younger sons as their successors? Is there a way to give a character loyalty to another, such as Taishi Ci to Sun Ce, Zhao Yun to Liu Bei, Zhang Liao to Cao Cao?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
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Originally Posted by jbutton
Hu Zhen, Zhong Yao (Possibly could give a young Zhong Hui too) Zhu Jun, Huangfu Song, Zhang Ji (Though I guess he would be dead in this scenario because Zhang Xiu holds Wancheng a few years earlier than he did.)
Hu Zhen - Died in 190
Zhong Yao - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Zhu Jun - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Huangfu Song - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Zhang Ji - Died in 196 but, as you noted, inclusion of Zhang Xiu means he needs to be dead
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Also is there a way to select you heir like there was in Rome Total war. As Cao Cao and Yuan Shao both wanted to name younger sons as their successors?
No, that is hardcoded in M2TW. I've always been bitter towards CA for changing that from RTW to M2TW... However there are mods that add an ancillary where you can influence who the next (not current) heir will be.
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Is there a way to give a character loyalty to another, such as Taishi Ci to Sun Ce, Zhao Yun to Liu Bei, Zhang Liao to Cao Cao?
Right now the only way is to bribe. As Sun Ce, I always make sure to bribe Taishi Ci away from Liu Yao :D
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
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Originally Posted by
Seether
Hu Zhen - Died in 190
Zhong Yao - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Zhu Jun - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Huangfu Song - never served Li Jue. Served Han Court. In-game serves Emperor Xian
Zhang Ji - Died in 196 but, as you noted, inclusion of Zhang Xiu means he needs to be dead
No, that is hardcoded in M2TW. I've always been bitter towards CA for changing that from RTW to M2TW... However there are mods that add an ancillary where you can influence who the next (not current) heir will be.
Right now the only way is to bribe. As Sun Ce, I always make sure to bribe Taishi Ci away from Liu Yao :D
Hu Zhen didn't die in 190 historically thats only novel to big up Sun Jian and Cheng Pu. They served Li Jue who held the Emperor but I guess seeing as there is a the Emperor in game thats fine.
Yeah its so annoying, I don't want Cao Ang as my heir :( haha, will you be adding Cao Chong to Cao Cao's children? I noticed you had Cao Zhang and his birthdate is unknown, even though Chong wasn't born until 196.
I can never get him to join! I managed to bribe Zhang Liao now but wanted Gao Shun too, unfortunately I had to kill him :(
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Each character can only have a maximum of 4 children and one spouse, so Cao Cao was given his eldest son from Lady Liu (Ang), then his three eldest from Lady Bian (Pi, Zhang, Zhi). There just isn't enough room to add Cao Chong.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Ah that sucks, Cao Chong was the best
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Just as a note, but we are currently working on scripted missions for each faction as well as some other fun scripts. When they get included, I will update the OP to give some background on them.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Just a note, Sun Ce is not aggressive what so ever, I made it to 200AD and he hasn't captured any cities
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jbutton
Just a note, Sun Ce is not aggressive what so ever, I made it to 200AD and he hasn't captured any cities
I too have noticed that Sun Ce normally does not go after Liu Yao, although I have never seen him not take any cities. Usually he takes at least Chaisang, and sometime Yuzhang as well. We will look at this and see if we can't make the Sun Clan a bit more aggressive.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
Quote:
19 July Update
Something that has been brought up over the course of development is the desire for Liu Bei to start out positioned in the western regions of China. This will not happen, as we are basing our positioning of factions on their historic locations in the winter of 194 AD. The problem, obviously, is that Liu Bei will not make it to Yizhou (or Shu, if you will) and establish himself in the region that he is most known for. Many people also want the Sun, Cao, and Liu clans establish dominance over the areas they did historically and recreate, in-game, the Three Kingdoms. Unfortunately such is an impossible task, and it must also be kept in mind that the formation of the Three Kingdoms was a highly complicated process that took roughly forty years and innumerable variables due to individual actions of the people involved. Also once a mod, any mod, starts everything that happens afterwards can vary wildly. You could see Yuan Shao dominate Hebei or the Heishan; Cao Cao could dominate the Central Plains or so could either Lu Bu or Yuan Shu. With mods, you can only recreate history to a point, after that it is up to the player and the AI to determine how things progress.
But many people still want Liu Bei to establish himself in Shu, and honestly I am one of them, however he will not be there at game start. So what can be done to remedy this? I have already submitted to Gigantus a detailed outline for a series of missions that the player can undertake to accomplish such a task. The missions are, for the most part, accurate as to how Liu Bei went from ruling Xu province, to establishing himself in Jingzhou, and then to Shu. Some things were impossible to recreate, such as Liu Bei serving Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, so I had to be creative and take some liberty in how to get Liu Bei from point A to point B within the confines of the game's mechanics and limitations. If it works as I intend, then players that wish to establish Liu Bei in the land of Shu will be able to do so through a series of missions, with some interesting events along the way. I can't say for certain when these missions will be released in a patch, so keep your eyes peeled for any updates from the Mod team.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
In the south of Luo Yang there is a territory called Di Du own by the rump state of Han dynasty, but my troops cannot get into the territory. Also is there any possibility of getting emperor Xuan as a trait that boosts authority to whoever conquers Luo Yang
What is this faction about anyway?
And also for the Nonalignment faction, they had a capital called Penglai, I wonder what their faction leader called...... besides Penglai was suppose to be Mt Fuji in the far eastern lands of Japan.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
The excited one
In the south of Luo Yang there is a territory called Di Du own by the rump state of Han dynasty, but my troops cannot get into the territory. Also is there any possibility of getting emperor Xuan as a trait that boosts authority to whoever conquers Luo Yang
What is this faction about anyway?
You would only see this with the toggle_fow cheat. It is simply a settlement to keep the Imperial Han faction alive and can not be reached. We are working on a trait system that has to do with controlling the Emperor, supporting the Han, and usurpation.
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And also for the Nonalignment faction, they had a capital called Penglai, I wonder what their faction leader called...... besides Penglai was suppose to be Mt Fuji in the far eastern lands of Japan.
You would only see this with the toggle_fow cheat. As above, it is simply a settlement to keep that faction alive and can not be reached. Zuo Ci is the faction leader.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seether
OP Updated:
Wouldn't Liu Bei's faction becoming a horde do the trick (like the mongols in vanilla, I think)?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
We had discussed that (briefly) before, but it won't guarantee the clan ever leaves the east and moves west. More than likely you would keep seeing the Liu Clan staying in the Central Plain. We could have the clan spawn as a horde (after being defeated), but at that point I don't think they would be able to supplant Liu Zhang and take Ba-Shu. In all honesty, you should have the option of getting Liu Bei out west if you play as his clan (like with the upcoming missions), but making sure specific clans take specific regions should not be our focus. We can recreate the situation in China starting in 194, and have follow up events/mission/etc., but after that how the mod progresses and who take what is totally out of our hands, and should remain so.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Maybe you could make some new scenarios like in Romance. For example: Yellow Turban Rebellion, The Coalition, Battle of Guan Du, Battle of Chi Bi, Three Kingdoms etc.
EDIT: Lol just noticed that my sig is too big:tongue:
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I definitely want to do a scenario at the start of the Hanzhong campaign in 217.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seether
I definitely want to do a scenario at the start of the Hanzhong campaign in 217.
I agree. At that time Liu Bei had the best guys: Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, Wei Yan, Kong Ming, Pang Tong, Fa Zheng and the list goes on :)
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I am most likely going to incorporate the 'custom battle within campaign' principle we used in the 1648 mod. That way you get the chance to fight battles with all those characters even if they have died already during the campaign.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hi Seether,
somewhere in this modforum I read about someone's question how to change the English -with German accent- voices to chinese voices. But unfortunately I can not find it anymore :(
Is it described somewhere how to do this ?
if yes, tell me where and also please put a link to it in e.g. thread 'ROTK mod-info' so anyone will find it easily.
Thnx. in advance !
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Here is the post Gigantus made on the voices.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
You could script liu bei for the Ai too. If he gets destroyed he appears at a new settlemenr somewhere like in liubiaos territory and if he gets beat again in liu zhangs territory
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gongsunzan
You could script liu bei for the Ai too. If he gets destroyed he appears at a new settlemenr somewhere like in liubiaos territory and if he gets beat again in liu zhangs territory
+1
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
If any faction should be able to horde, it is definitely the Liu Clan.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
31 July Update
Quote:
As was discussed in my last update, starting in Patch #4 (which was just released) players will have the choice, when playing as the Liu Clan, to undertake a series of missions that will lead to the faction from eastern Xu province all the way to western Yi province. When you start a new game as the Liu Clan, you will immediately be given an event that asks you to either accept or decline these missions. If you decline, you will not get any of the missions or special events that come along with them. If you accept you will first be tasked with capturing Xin Ye, which lies about in the middle of the map. In the mission's text it gives several hints:
- First, that you need to take your entire faction on the journey to Xin Ye. This is essential to success. Once you take Xin Ye, which is a relatively poor and undeveloped settlement, you will need your entire military force at your disposal in order to complete the next objectives, which involves war with one of the stronger factions in the game.
- Second, to build some Militia units to keep your holdings in Xu province from rebelling and thus ending your game before you can capture Xin Ye. One Militia unit per city should be fine. Constructing a Decree Office in each city, as well as reducing taxes, will also keep these cities happy until you can abandon them completely.
- Third, the text also mentions using your starting Diplomat, Liu Qin, to head immediately for Xin Ye and try to bribe it. Doing so will more than likely ensure that you conquer the city without going to war with any of the nearby factions, like Nanyang and Jingzhou, who are allied. It will also ensure that you do not take any military losses unnecessarily in taking Xin Ye.
Whatever method you choose, either Diplomat bribe or military force, the missions will not advance by just taking Xin Ye. You must also move all of your faction (except those Militias in Xu province) into the Xin Ye. After the next set of missions come up, now would be a good time to make Xin Ye your capital, and also to get rid of those militias in Xu province and put all of the Xu province cities to Very High taxes. But won't this cause them to rebel? Yes, and that is the point. Getting them to rebel is the easiest way to lose control of those settlements so that Xin Ye is your only holding. Plus, with the taxes set Very High, you can make a nice profit before you lose control of them. And finally, and this can't be stressed enough, Liu Bei must remain alive for the missions to continue. If Liu Bei dies, then the missions will be over, so protect the Liu Clan sovereign at all times.
In the future we will be making some adjustments to the script, and probably adding new missions and events, but for now just enjoy the work the team has done in Patch #4 and enjoy your game.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seether
OP Updated:
31 July Update
This is what i have been waiting for. Nice work.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
In the latest patch, a minor mistake was made that did not allow for the custom battle models of two major characters involved in the Liu Bei missions.
(If you don't want any spoilers for the Liu Bei missions, do not open the spoiler)
I have made a hotfix to correct this. Download the attachment in this post and extract to your Medieval II Total War/mods/Three_Kingdoms folder.
It is NOT SAVEGAME COMPATIBLE, so you must start a new game for it to take effect. This will be included in Patch #5, so whenever that patch is released this will become obsolete.
EDIT: New Hotfix by Gigantus includes this. Upload taken down :D
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semi-AAR, Kong Rong
Played about 15 years with Kong Rong, managed to secure my corner of the map from Cao Cao for now at least... I had a few comments and this is the closest thing I saw to a general feedback thread. Comments are based on this game plus about a 10 year game as Liu Yan and a 3 year game as Yuan Shu. Bear in mind I am NOT a modder, so if anything below is simply un-moddable due to game mechanisms, sorry to ask about it:
-I love the special city buildings! They really add to the immersion.
-Cities grow too fast. In the vanilla game, they grow over a period of hundreds of years. Here, within under 20 years, I had nearly all Large Cities. Is there a way to slow growth substantially -- a city of 2,000 people should not be a city of 10,000 within a generation -- while still allowing at least some improved buildings in smaller cities?
-Can forts be modded in any interesting ways? Some of the major battles of the era -- Guandu comes to mind -- were basically battles over encampments, granaries, etc. rather than city sieges or pure "field" battles. Related to this, more "objects" on the battlefield would be interesting. (I know in vanilla there will sometimes be small farms, un-enterable castles,...)
-Losing generals nearly always die. The first battle that I encountered Lu Bu, he personally trashed 3 infantry units but we ended up outlasting him and then my Pikemen killed him. In an aborted start as Yuan Shu, I killed Guan Yu in my first battle. With AI doomstacks there are so many battles, and so many AI-vs-Human defeats, it's really hard for AI generals to survive more than 1 or 2 battles against a human player.
-That said, and I don't remember reading about this in the mod summary, but the battle AI feels marginally improved from vanilla. They seem to use their cavalry more conservatively rather than slamming everyone into your lines and just getting flanked, they seem to hold their cavalry back a bit more. Maybe it's all in my head, but it's good. :)
-Maybe beef up archers? Their kill numbers are on the low side - I usually got between 25-40 kills per archery unit per battle, on "normal" unit size, even with decent archers. More than that, they just don't feel like having an impact. Even with Crossbowmen, I never really thought "I'd trade any of my front line infantry or any of my cavalry for another one of these." Maybe that's the way it should be, or maybe I should play as Han Xuan and then reconsider.
-Possibly slow down unit movement on the map. With the AI doom stacks it can get a bit like, AI siege / defeat / here comes new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / defeat / new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / repeat. It's very easy to rush reinforcements in the densely-packed northeast. If units moved a bit more slowly, there would be greater risks of overextended lines and getting caught without easily-available backup.
-Not sure if this is vanilla behavior, but I would estimate a 75%-80% success rate of AI merchants in eliminating my merchants. Whereas I normally had 15-25% success rates. It got to a point where I put 3 merchants in Taiwan where the AI doesn't go, 3 in the far northeast corner protected by 3 cities I held, and 1 on a gold mine in Beihai protected by an assassin who just stood there watching for enemy merchants. It was easier at first in my short game as Liu Yan, but even then, once they discovered Yi, all my good trade spots suddenly belonged to Liu Biao and Han Xuan.
-Sun Ce doesn't really expand. Could be a small sample size, but I never saw him go after Liu Biao or anywhere beyond his little corner.
This is an amazing mod, the beta with patches feels almost "finished" already. Keep up the good work!!
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Like 'mischadc' said, this looks like the closest to a general feedback thread, so here it goes.
First of all, I really enjoy this mod. After a CTD while trying to start my first campaign, the second time it worked. I started a campaign with Ma Teng, and here are some things I noticed. I never played vanilla Medieval 2 (yet), so some things might not relate to your mod. I also play version 0.1.310 so some things might have been fixed yet.
- The description of the XiLiang cavalry tells that they can be retrained at Huge Cavalry Camps. I could only retrain them at Imperial Cavalry camps;
- My assassins don't get any traits. After some succesfull assassinations nothing happens;
- When I send a stack with no general somewhere, they usualy turn rebel the next turn (byebye costly imperial units...). I don't make that mistake again;
- In some battles I can't even reach my enemy, of reinforcements can't arrive because there's a huge mountain in the way of something;
- Some characters have 'dishonor 0'. When I scoll over it a text appears that I shouldn't see that;
- Rebel stacks with no general look weird (they have their face on their back, there sword is purple, ...);
- Sometimes I get a CTD during a battle or after a battle;
- It would be nice to have other voices than default. When a diplomat of Lui Bei tells me 'do you have something for France' feels kinda out of place;
- Volunteer Cavalry riders don't sit on the saddle, they are slightly above.
That being said, I do really enjoy the mod so far. I don't mean any feedback in a negative way. It's just what I noticed (and propably some more but I forgot).
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Re: semi-AAR, Kong Rong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mischadc
Played about 15 years with Kong Rong, managed to secure my corner of the map from Cao Cao for now at least... I had a few comments and this is the closest thing I saw to a general feedback thread. Comments are based on this game plus about a 10 year game as Liu Yan and a 3 year game as Yuan Shu. Bear in mind I am NOT a modder, so if anything below is simply un-moddable due to game mechanisms, sorry to ask about it:
-I love the special city buildings! They really add to the immersion.
I think we could do some more on this, but that is a project for a later time.
Quote:
-Cities grow too fast. In the vanilla game, they grow over a period of hundreds of years. Here, within under 20 years, I had nearly all Large Cities. Is there a way to slow growth substantially -- a city of 2,000 people should not be a city of 10,000 within a generation -- while still allowing at least some improved buildings in smaller cities?
I agree. Perhaps the base growth rate needs to be changed. In the latest patch I re-balanced all of the starting cities, but even so (depending on the governor) cities can explode in population.
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-Can forts be modded in any interesting ways? Some of the major battles of the era -- Guandu comes to mind -- were basically battles over encampments, granaries, etc. rather than city sieges or pure "field" battles. Related to this, more "objects" on the battlefield would be interesting. (I know in vanilla there will sometimes be small farms, un-enterable castles,...)
I'm not sure if how forts are used is hardcoded or not. I assume it is, as is the battlefield objects.
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-Losing generals nearly always die. The first battle that I encountered Lu Bu, he personally trashed 3 infantry units but we ended up outlasting him and then my Pikemen killed him. In an aborted start as Yuan Shu, I killed Guan Yu in my first battle. With AI doomstacks there are so many battles, and so many AI-vs-Human defeats, it's really hard for AI generals to survive more than 1 or 2 battles against a human player.
To me that is because they don't tend to retreat when they should. But the thing is, as in all M2 mods, if a general goes into battle there is a likelihood that they will die. I know people want the "favorite" RTK characters to live on and yada yada, but because we are using the M2 engine and its limitations, characters (even the famous and favorite one) can die very early in the mod. Its just the way it is.
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-That said, and I don't remember reading about this in the mod summary, but the battle AI feels marginally improved from vanilla. They seem to use their cavalry more conservatively rather than slamming everyone into your lines and just getting flanked, they seem to hold their cavalry back a bit more. Maybe it's all in my head, but it's good. :)
I agree. Not only that, but cavalry also tends to attack vulnerable units (other cavalry, archers, and non-spear/pike infantry) while generals tend to not suicide themselves.
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-Maybe beef up archers? Their kill numbers are on the low side - I usually got between 25-40 kills per archery unit per battle, on "normal" unit size, even with decent archers. More than that, they just don't feel like having an impact. Even with Crossbowmen, I never really thought "I'd trade any of my front line infantry or any of my cavalry for another one of these." Maybe that's the way it should be, or maybe I should play as Han Xuan and then reconsider.
Archers probably won't get beefed up, but perhaps crossbowmen will. In all practicality, the crossbow was a much, much better weapon for a footsoldier in ancient China than the bow.
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-Possibly slow down unit movement on the map. With the AI doom stacks it can get a bit like, AI siege / defeat / here comes new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / defeat / new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / repeat. It's very easy to rush reinforcements in the densely-packed northeast. If units moved a bit more slowly, there would be greater risks of overextended lines and getting caught without easily-available backup.
Instead of slowing down movement, I am going to readjust the recruitment rate of many units, especially the low-tier units like Volunteers and County Spearmen. That should limit the AI spam, but I have to actually test it first.
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-Not sure if this is vanilla behavior, but I would estimate a 75%-80% success rate of AI merchants in eliminating my merchants. Whereas I normally had 15-25% success rates. It got to a point where I put 3 merchants in Taiwan where the AI doesn't go, 3 in the far northeast corner protected by 3 cities I held, and 1 on a gold mine in Beihai protected by an assassin who just stood there watching for enemy merchants. It was easier at first in my short game as Liu Yan, but even then, once they discovered Yi, all my good trade spots suddenly belonged to Liu Biao and Han Xuan.
I have noticed that as well. Gigantus had thrown around the idea of tossing out Merchants. But, if we don't, we will look into those success rates as they seem unfairly stacked against the player.
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-Sun Ce doesn't really expand. Could be a small sample size, but I never saw him go after Liu Biao or anywhere beyond his little corner.
In the latest patch (Patch #5) a descr_faction_standing file was included. Not saying it will work as we want it to right now, but it is a start. We will have to adjust it depending on how it works.
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This is an amazing mod, the beta with patches feels almost "finished" already. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you. We try our best :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Azumi
Like 'mischadc' said, this looks like the closest to a general feedback thread, so here it goes.
First of all, I really enjoy this mod. After a CTD while trying to start my first campaign, the second time it worked. I started a campaign with Ma Teng, and here are some things I noticed. I never played vanilla Medieval 2 (yet), so some things might not relate to your mod. I also play version 0.1.310 so some things might have been fixed yet.
I would highly suggest updating with Patch #4 and #5 as (I believe) some of these issues have been fixed.
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- The description of the XiLiang cavalry tells that they can be retrained at Huge Cavalry Camps. I could only retrain them at Imperial Cavalry camps;
I believe there was an issue with that before but, at least with the current Patch #5, it is indeed Huge Cavalry Camps that they can be retrained at.
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- My assassins don't get any traits. After some succesfull assassinations nothing happens;
Future plans are to rework assassin and spy traits, as well as add traits for princesses.
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- When I send a stack with no general somewhere, they usualy turn rebel the next turn (byebye costly imperial units...). I don't make that mistake again;
That happens, yes, and it can be annoying. I'm not sure what the chances are for that to happen, but best to ensure you have a utility general or two to move troops around where they are needed, as well as have multiple generals in a stack.
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- In some battles I can't even reach my enemy, of reinforcements can't arrive because there's a huge mountain in the way of something;
We know of this issue and it is something that will be worked on in a future patch. The west, south-west, and south-central regions are notorious for this.
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- Some characters have 'dishonor 0'. When I scoll over it a text appears that I shouldn't see that;
Just a missing text entry when a character has 0 honor (chivalry).
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- Rebel stacks with no general look weird (they have their face on their back, there sword is purple, ...);
I'm pretty sure this was fixed as of Patch #4. Also, in Patch #4, the "barbarians" were given entirely new rosters and textures.
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- Sometimes I get a CTD during a battle or after a battle;
An ongoing issue, related to either missing or corrupt battle_models or settlements located too close to rivers. Gigantus is currently working on this.
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- It would be nice to have other voices than default. When a diplomat of Lui Bei tells me 'do you have something for France' feels kinda out of place;
It does, yes, but we do not have any Chinese voice actors on our team. Somewhere in this forum Gigantus discusses using vanilla voices.
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- Volunteer Cavalry riders don't sit on the saddle, they are slightly above.
I will take a look at that.
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That being said, I do really enjoy the mod so far. I don't mean any feedback in a negative way. It's just what I noticed (and propably some more but I forgot).
Feedback is always appreciated, as it allows us to correct errors and bug and add new content to make this mod better!
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
1. In regards to generals dieing for the Ai. Ive seen some mods that make hereos respawn after they are defeated. Maybe its possible you could do this but instead of outright respawning when they die you could script it so there is a 75% chance that they respawn. And make this feature only apply to the AI. Or if you apply it to player as well make the percentage 25%. Im not sure if you can script percentage chances for this type of thing but i do know you can respawn characters when they die.
2. I agree with population growing way to fast. In my gongsun zan campaign all my cities are huge cities in turn 150. Im pumping out feather forest guards and imperial troops as my main armys. I feel its kind of unfair against the ai because my one stack of elites an beat 3 to 4 full stacks of the enemy. Especially now that i killed all the he bei factions i have no more pesky horse archers to contend with i take minimal losses. Cao Cao has 6 times my troops overall but I am beating him back slowly and steadily.
In third age they disabled governors chivalry increasing population growth that may help with population growth in this mod.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I am going to have a look at the SPF values in descr_setlement_mechanics with regards to population growth - it's 'vanilla' values right now. And the fertility level in the descr_regions entries. Level 6 is very high, see picture for distribution.
http://imageshack.us/a/img12/8020/jodp.jpg
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
A few more thoughts following some gameplay as Liu Biao. (Pro-tip: Rush Han Xuan immediately, ignore the rebel cities entirely until you've ended him. Once you finish him off, ally with the Nanman, and then you can eat the entire southland west of Chaisang without a fight.)
- You're certainly correct about archers, and they don't play a huge role in RTK other than a few expert leaders (Huang Zhong, Xiahou Yuan's cavalry archers iirc,) and ambushes (death of Pang Tong.) Maybe there are some bonuses that can be given to all archers in forests, or something else to represent their ambush niche, rather than necessarily raising the base missile damage. It's just that right now there's simply no reason to recruit them, and in Medieval's "rock beats scissors beats paper" sort of 3-unit-types system, it's a shame that 1 of those 3 is mostly useless except for aesthetic reasons. (I do like watching that hail of arrows as the enemy advances up a hill.)
- Pikemen may be OP. If you can get them facing forward against cavalry, they stop General's Bodyguards cavalry dead in their tracks. Certainly in Europe you had some pikemen who were considered elite (don't know if it's exaggerated but like, the Flemish against the French knights, the Swiss pikes, etc.) But in RTK, at least in the mythology that is the novel, there's really nothing more frightening than a strong general with cavalry bearing down. I don't remember any battles or commanders famed particularly for defensive infantry tactics. Maybe nerf pikemen a bit, just because right now a front line with 2 or 3 pike units is borderline invincible no matter how good the opponent's cavalry and commanders.
- You may already be working on this for the full release, but a little more unit variance between factions would be great. It looked to me like the universal unit types -- "(location) infantry"; "(location) spearmen"; etc -- all had the same base stats. Without going too far and imbalancing the game, it might be good to go +/- 1 on some of the numbers just to reflect regional diversity. For example it's great that Ma Teng has a special cavalry unit, but maybe Ma Teng's generic regional cavalry should also have +1 attack compared to everyone else's generic generic cavalry. Again, you can't go too far with this without imbalancing the factions, but it might add a little more flavor beyond the 1 special unit each faction has.
- Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
- Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
- Like GongsunZan said, once you get to Feathered Forest Guards and Imperial units, any serviceable human player really wrecks things no matter what the numerical disadvantage against the AI. Maybe either the gap between "elite" and "normal" units should be a bit smaller, or elite units should be verging on cost-prohibitive -- I'm talking like 7500 per unit. This might be a problem for the AI, maybe they'd never build them, but GongsunZan is right that one stack of elites under command of a human player is unbeatable. (I don't have it in front of me but iirc the Feathered Forest units have better stats than most General's Bodyguard infantry and cavalry. This is a problem since they come in units of 2x-3x the size of General's units. I could be wrong about that.)
- Is there a reason the number of factions is what it is? I remember reading that the game's faction cap is like 30 or 31. If there's room for any more factions, there's a few that come to mind immediately:
- Yan Baihu and Wang Lang, while loosely allied with Liu Yao against Sun Ce, were never Liu Yao's subordinates. Either one or both of them could have their own cities. I can see why you put them together -- they all opposed Sun Ce and having a united front makes them a stronger opponent in-game -- but any of the three could be their own factions.
- The Governors of the four southern districts. Han Xuan was Administrator of Changsha, while Jin Xuan, Zhao Fan, and Liu Du controlled Wuling, Guiyang, and Lingling respectively. Maybe they were lumped together for a similar reason as the three above -- to provide Liu Biao a credible southern opponent? In which case it's all well and good, it's just that they could also theoretically be separate factions.
- Kong Zhou. Governor of Runan. I have an irrational love for Kong Zhou dating to Koei's RTK III. He may die around 194 and should be a 1-province minor, but there's my pitch for him. :)
The more I play this, the better it is. Can't wait for the full release!
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Ps kudos on some absolutely stunning battle sites in Ba-Shu. Mountain pockets that are covered on 3 sides, really some situations that are just untenable or invincible depending on where you and the enemy deploys. Reminded me of battles in the Carpathians in the Deus lo Vult mod. Very impressive geography.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mischadc
You're certainly correct about archers, and they don't play a huge role in RTK other than a few expert leaders (Huang Zhong, Xiahou Yuan's cavalry archers iirc,) and ambushes (death of Pang Tong.) Maybe there are some bonuses that can be given to all archers in forests, or something else to represent their ambush niche, rather than necessarily raising the base missile damage. It's just that right now there's simply no reason to recruit them, and in Medieval's "rock beats scissors beats paper" sort of 3-unit-types system, it's a shame that 1 of those 3 is mostly useless except for aesthetic reasons. (I do like watching that hail of arrows as the enemy advances up a hill.)
What I would like to do is make archers the lowest tier missile units (militia, volunteers, etc.), while making crossbows the core missile units for all Chinese factions.
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Pikemen may be OP. If you can get them facing forward against cavalry, they stop General's Bodyguards cavalry dead in their tracks. Certainly in Europe you had some pikemen who were considered elite (don't know if it's exaggerated but like, the Flemish against the French knights, the Swiss pikes, etc.) But in RTK, at least in the mythology that is the novel, there's really nothing more frightening than a strong general with cavalry bearing down. I don't remember any battles or commanders famed particularly for defensive infantry tactics. Maybe nerf pikemen a bit, just because right now a front line with 2 or 3 pike units is borderline invincible no matter how good the opponent's cavalry and commanders.
What I want to do is completely overhaul the standard units, which includes eliminating pikes altogether and replacing them with halberds (ji). The ji was, afterall, the most common melee weapon amongst infantry and cavalry in Three Kingdoms armies.
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You may already be working on this for the full release, but a little more unit variance between factions would be great. It looked to me like the universal unit types -- "(location) infantry"; "(location) spearmen"; etc -- all had the same base stats. Without going too far and imbalancing the game, it might be good to go +/- 1 on some of the numbers just to reflect regional diversity. For example it's great that Ma Teng has a special cavalry unit, but maybe Ma Teng's generic regional cavalry should also have +1 attack compared to everyone else's generic generic cavalry. Again, you can't go too far with this without imbalancing the factions, but it might add a little more flavor beyond the 1 special unit each faction has.
A great suggestion and I am going to start making these regional changes. Expect them in the next patch.
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]Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
I will bug Gigantus about this.
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]Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
Might be OP, however we have the resources (like Nafftun units) to implement this.
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Like GongsunZan said, once you get to Feathered Forest Guards and Imperial units, any serviceable human player really wrecks things no matter what the numerical disadvantage against the AI. Maybe either the gap between "elite" and "normal" units should be a bit smaller, or elite units should be verging on cost-prohibitive -- I'm talking like 7500 per unit. This might be a problem for the AI, maybe they'd never build them, but GongsunZan is right that one stack of elites under command of a human player is unbeatable. (I don't have it in front of me but iirc the Feathered Forest units have better stats than most General's Bodyguard infantry and cavalry. This is a problem since they come in units of 2x-3x the size of General's units. I could be wrong about that.)
In the next patch there will be some big changes to recruitment. First, only a few select settlements will be able to construct top tier barracks, stables, and ranges. Also, even fewer settlements will be able to construct the Grand Palais.
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Is there a reason the number of factions is what it is? I remember reading that the game's faction cap is like 30 or 31. If there's room for any more factions, there's a few that come to mind immediately:
We have the same factions as the RTW mod, however we added Gongsun Du. What I would like to do first is add Shi Xie and Zhang Yang, then split Han Xuan (Liu Du, Jin Xuan, Zhao Fan) and split Liu Yao (Yan Baihu, Wang Lang). Family trees are already made for all, so it is just a matter of getting other issues settled before adding new factions.
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The more I play this, the better it is. Can't wait for the full release!
Thank you. Our small team is doing everything it can to improve the mod a step at a time.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
The principle of it makes me think of the flaming pigs - basically a one shot over powered assault unit.
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Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
This will need some balancing and also some 'importing' of vanilla traits for that agent. At present the income through taxes seems too high which makes the use of merchants obsolete, especially because of the lack of traits the AI merchants simply snipe away your merchant before he has even recovered his cost.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
19 August Update
Quote:
If people are looking for a status update, then look no further. First off, we are getting very deep into our new unit rosters. "And what is so special about that?" you might ask... Well, for starters the standard regular units of every faction will now have historic arms and armor. Please give rep to The Blade That Was Broken, as he has been painstakingly creating models and units for our new roster. After the new units are done, then focus will be moved to armor uprades (so there will be a visual difference between the same unit with different armor upgrades), then we will work on general reskinning. Along with all of that, as was suggested in the forum, recruitment will be based on a regional basis. Right now Cao Cao only recruits Zhongyuan (Central Plains) units in settlements regardless of where the actual settlement lies, but in the new recruitment system he will recruit Ba-Shu units in settlements in the Ba-Shu region, Hebei units in settlement in the Hebei region, and so on. The only drawback is that this is a very time intensive project, so don't expect to see it implement for at least several weeks, if not a bit longer. We are also looking at including settlement titles and ancillaries based on settlement and provincial control. These will be broken down into three main groups, that is county (Magistrate), prefectural (Prefect), and provincial (Governor). This, as above, will take some time to complete and will not be implemented for some time.
Now, on to something that is (partially) implemented. If you haven't noticed, this latest patch now has some interesting things going on in Chang An. What you will notice is that whoever controls Chang An has two things happen. First, the Faction Leader will get a trait called "Imperial Guardian," representing that the faction leader is in control of Emperor Xian and the Han Court. Along with this, diplomats of the faction that controls the Emperor will get the "Imperial Controller" trait. If a faction controls the Emperor and has a set amount of settlements (won't say how many), they will get the "Prime Minister" trait, representing the Emperor's conferral of title upon the Faction Leader as the de-facto leader of the Han Court. If Chang An is lost, so is control of the Emperor, making this the beginning of a dynamic planned system. And finally, whether in control of the Emperor or not, when a specific number of settlement have been conquered, the Faction Leader will receive the "King" trait. The King trait will be specific for the faction, ie: Cao Cao will be King of Wei, Sun Ce will be King of Wu, etc. As of right now, you can not obtain the Emperor trait through our traits and scripting, as those are still being worked on. In essence, the Prime Minister and King (and Emperor) traits are placeholder for a highly dynamic and interactive scripted system that is being worked on by Gigantus. The player will have choices, as well as consequences and/or rewards for those choices. I won't give too much away but, in simple terms, a player can choose to become the Emperor's protector and support the Han, or replace it with his own regime. As said, what is in place right now is merely a placeholder for a great scripted system of political and philosophical dynamics to be included some time in the future.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I know you guys are revamping the unit roster but i got a couple of suggestions.
Some of the more fearsome Generals should get the frighten enemy trait added to their BG. And maybe lower their base moral so that the generals rout easier. This allows them to run when things aren't going well so the player can capture them instead of kill and choose whether to release or execute. though i still advocate trying to script it so generals killed in battle have a chance of re spawning.
Foot based generals need to be reworked. They are really weak compared to elite infantry units and cavalry charge kills them. Maybe give them close to 30 defence and 3 hp. I can test this stat change on my own i guess and see how it goes. Also i think some characters need to be changed to foot based BG even though foot based BG are terrible. Dian wei should lead some new elite foot BG unit. Xu chu should also probably lead a unit of energetic tigers with boosted stats.
For Liang i think you could do something similar to the Heishan black mountain bandits and give Li Li, han xian, hu cai and any other white wave bandits a BG called white Wave Commander BG. Also Liang faction or any faction in control of that area around chang an could get white wave bandits from taverns. Also the bandit units should have more troops than regular infantry.
Really enjoying the beta. keep it up!
EDIT: I almost forgot something else related to gameplay. I was reading a general can only have a max of 10 hp. So those generals with strength above 10 dont get additional health. might need to rework strength trait then.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Maybe also a bigger gap between bad, mediocre, good, and elite bodyguard units. Generally, the bodyguard units are all above-average within a reasonable range. So for example I was able to take 3 Yuan Shu scrubs -- I can't even remember which, other than that it didn't even include Ji Ling -- and beat Lu Bu to death with them simply by surrounding him and going (charge from three sides) ---> (withdraw) ---> (charge again) ---> etc.
Every General's Bodyguard unit in the field really adds to an army's strength in MTW2. But there's no reason that 5 mediocre "named characters" would be any more of a threat to an army led by, for example, Xiahou Yuan and Xiahou Dun, than 2 of them. For advisers and garbage commanders (I'm looking at you, Chunyu Qiong), there's really no reason the bodyguard unit should be substantially better than a regular 2nd-level (non-levy) unit of the same type.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
You could handle this by making the bodyguard units smaller. Then you give the scrub commanders the basic BG stats but then you have the strong generals bodyguards with extra HP armor and damage. And i am really stressing adding the frighten enemy trait to the BG unit of generals like Lu Bu zhao yun xiahou dun, etc.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mischadc
Maybe also a bigger gap between bad, mediocre, good, and elite bodyguard units. Generally, the bodyguard units are all above-average within a reasonable range. So for example I was able to take 3 Yuan Shu scrubs -- I can't even remember which, other than that it didn't even include Ji Ling -- and beat Lu Bu to death with them simply by surrounding him and going (charge from three sides) ---> (withdraw) ---> (charge again) ---> etc.
Every General's Bodyguard unit in the field really adds to an army's strength in MTW2. But there's no reason that 5 mediocre "named characters" would be any more of a threat to an army led by, for example, Xiahou Yuan and Xiahou Dun, than 2 of them. For advisers and garbage commanders (I'm looking at you, Chunyu Qiong), there's really no reason the bodyguard unit should be substantially better than a regular 2nd-level (non-levy) unit of the same type.
So essentially what you are saying is that better/more famous generals should have better bodyguards than "scrubs"? Why? Bodyguards are soldiers that defend generals and officials, not the general/official themselves; characters have their own traits and stats that deal with how they personally fare in battle. Also, bodyguards would be substantially better armed, armored, trained, and skilled than any regular soldier because they are, after all, hand-selected and defending the most important people on the battlefield.
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Originally Posted by Gongsunzan
You could handle this by making the bodyguard units smaller. Then you give the scrub commanders the basic BG stats but then you have the strong generals bodyguards with extra HP armor and damage. And i am really stressing adding the frighten enemy trait to the BG unit of generals like Lu Bu zhao yun xiahou dun, etc.
Why would Zhao Yun frighten the enemy?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Yeah you got a point on bodyguards being weaker and stronger based on the general they are with. Even the scrubs would have the best men defending them. Adding the frighten enemy trait to the BG of the more powerful generals would be a less intrusive way of differentiating the combat prowess of the individual generals.
Zhao Yun is a famed warrior and soldiers would fear facing him. Just like the elite troops that you guys have that frighten enemy. I know several generals who scared the enemy. Dian wei when he defended cao cao at wan castle. Even when he was dead the soldiers feared to approach him because he was still standing. I dont know if thats historical or fictitious. Lu bu definetly frightned people. Zhang liao frightened the wu soldiers at he fei. Zhang Fei at Chang ban. Yan Liang and Wen chou were fearsome generals. I think adding the frighten enemy trait gives the generals a more powerful feel without having to update the stats too much. And gives them a more tactical appeal instead of just being a really powerful cavalry unit to smash into enemy lines.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I'm not sure how to approach it yet, but perhaps frighten (and other things) could be assigned to generals as special abilities instead; like increased attack, frighten, and a number of other things. Kind of defeats the purpose of a frighten the enemy attribute if a ton of characters have it. I think it would be much better to have more diversity and give special abilities to a select number of characters.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seether
I'm not sure how to approach it yet, but perhaps frighten (and other things) could be assigned to generals as special abilities instead; like increased attack, frighten, and a number of other things. Kind of defeats the purpose of a frighten the enemy attribute if a ton of characters have it. I think it would be much better to have more diversity and give special abilities to a select number of characters.
You sir get a rep for that. Giving special abilities to generals is a good plan. Generals of rather low renown could be given a basic ability to increase moral slightly. If you just rely on rally horn, generals who aren't the main commander wont be able to rally troops but an assigned special ability can be used in battle by generals who aren't the main commander.
Also with the current game I never find myself in a position where i need to use the rally horn... Even in a losing battle with my troops surrounded they will hold the line until theres 5-10 men left. In vanilla med 2 i found myself using the rally horn quite a few battles to hold my troops together. My general can be running all willy nilly about the battle feild and my troops will still fight on. I dont know if you might want to lower troop morale a bit?
If you lower troop morale you need to worry about the enemy troops morale being too low. Currently I can usually kill the enemy general and rout the enemy army fairly easily. Lowering the moral would make it too easy. I know third age total war did something with its computer troops where any troops that was AI recruited got a +3 morale bonus. Id go as far as giving them a +5 morale bonus.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
"Why? Bodyguards are soldiers that defend generals and officials, not the general/official themselves; characters have their own traits and stats that deal with how they personally fare in battle. Also, bodyguards would be substantially better armed, armored, trained, and skilled than any regular soldier because they are, after all, hand-selected and defending the most important people on the battlefield. "
Because the bodyguard unit represents that leader's physical presence in combat. Yes, leaders have Command ratings that give better or worse morale and other effects on other units. But that doesn't accurately cover the actual combat role of an individual, which is what some leaders -- Xu Zhu, Dian Wei, Zhao Yun saving Liu Bei's kid -- were famed for. This is very different from command skill. In some cases it overlaps (Zhao Yun), in others it really doesn't.
Example: Chen Gong should probably have as many Command stars as Lu Bu. But there's no way that just because Chen Gong's bodyguard was "hand-selected" means his immediate retainers (and him personally) should be thrown forward in a cavalry charge the way Lu Bu should. Xu Shu should have 6 or 7 Command stars, but should spend the battle sitting behind his lines, not hand-to-hand.
As it stands now, having 3 General's Bodyguard units in the field beats having 1 General's Bodyguard unit regardless of whether those 3 are actually civil officers with a combined 1 Command star. There has to be some way to fix this, otherwise the human player can just lump crappy disposable Generals together to create awesome heavy cavalry armies.
I trust that the modders can come up with something approximating a good solution. :)
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mischadc
Because the bodyguard unit represents that leader's physical presence in combat.
No, they don't. Our system is very different than vanilla and other M2 mods. Each leader has a "Strength" trait that is the direct influence over a leader's physical presence in combat. The higher the Strength trait, the higher the leader's Hit Points and combat ability of bodyguards.
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Yes, leaders have Command ratings that give better or worse morale and other effects on other units. But that doesn't accurately cover the actual combat role of an individual, which is what some leaders -- Xu Zhu, Dian Wei, Zhao Yun saving Liu Bei's kid -- were famed for. This is very different from command skill. In some cases it overlaps (Zhao Yun), in others it really doesn't.
Command Stars mean relatively little in this mod. As far as actual command and effectiveness of troops on the battlefield, each leader has individual Leadership, Attack, and Defense traits. As stated above, the Strength trait covers the combat role of the individual leader.
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As it stands now, having 3 General's Bodyguard units in the field beats having 1 General's Bodyguard unit regardless of whether those 3 are actually civil officers with a combined 1 Command star. There has to be some way to fix this, otherwise the human player can just lump crappy disposable Generals together to create awesome heavy cavalry armies.
As I said in my previous post, a bodyguard unit's skill is mostly dependent upon the soldiers that make up the bodyguard unit. The leader's traits have some effect on the bodyguard's ability to fight, but those effects are minimal, as it should be. Lu Bu's bodyguards are not clones of Lu Bu himself, they are merely good soldiers that protect him, just like every other leader.
As far as "crappy generals" you are missing two key points. First, a general with poor Leadership, Attack, and Defense traits will perform poorly, with their army, on the battlefield. Second, a general with a poor Strength trait will have a weaker bodyguards unit and the general himself will be more easily killed.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Agree to disagree then, I'll just keep dragging my civil officers into combat for the sake of having Bodyguard units at my disposal. :)
Keep up the good work -- the beta is more playable than most finished mods!
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Seether i was reading a general can only have a max of 10 hitpoints added by traits and ancillaries any more has no extra effect. Do you know if this is true or not?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I've never heard of this, actually, but doesn't mean that it isn't true. Do you have a link so I can do some research on it?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I was reading it on a third age total war thread regarding making heros stronger. I think KingKong the developer said that it couldnt be above 10. It might be true. I tested it on vanilla med 2 and gave someone a trait that added 50 hit points one that added 10. Then i fought with them against the same army both generals died realitively the same
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I'll test as well and, if necessary, make some adjustments to traits.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
01 February Update
Quote:
It has been a long time since both my last official update and the last official patch. But, fear not! A new patch is on the way. Still no time frame, but I can confirm that we have A LOT of stuff already finished. Right now we are just waiting on a few things to be finished, then we can probably give a tentative release date. So, until the patch comes out, let me give you some insight into a couple of things you will see in this new patch.
1) As has been mentioned in previews, the first part of our roster overhaul will be implemented. This specific overhaul is what we call the "standard" units; those coming in the Light, Heavy, and Armored variety. Not only will these new units have a variety of faces, armors, and weaponry, but will also have a variety of faces as well. For the Lights and Heavies, when their armor is upgraded via the Smith buildings, you will see changes to their armor in-game. For example, a Light unit with leather lamellar, when upgraded to iron lamellar, will now be equipped with such armor. As said, this is only the first stage of the overhaul process, but we are sure you will all appreciate it once the patch is available.
2) In the next patch we will be introducing some new scripts. One particular script has to do with what was discussed in my last update: control of the Han emperor. While this script is not 100% complete, it is a fairly extensive script and allows you to make choices on how you ascend rank. The only reason I say it is not 100% complete is because there is more we would like to do, however we have to find workarounds of engine limitations. But even so, this script should still be considered a finished product, but if we can find those workarounds, it will be even more immersive and dynamic.
3) A new "governor" system will also be implemented. Essentially, each settlement has an associated "governor" title that is given to a character that occupies the settlement. Depending on where the settlement falls in the system of Han administrative organization (commandery, county, etc.), it will dictate the title (Grand Administrator, Prefect, Magistrate, etc.) and bonuses of the specific "governor" title. All will be represented by ancillaries, that are able to be transferred between characters. There will not be provincial titles (ie: Governor of Yi province), as that type of system is extremely complicated. However, it is planned for a future patch, just not this next one.
That is it for now. As I said, the next patch is nearing completion, but we do not yet have a time frame for release (so don't ask). And there is a lot more stuff in the upcoming patch that what I mentioned above. As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns, feel free to post them here and I will do my best to answer them.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I can't wait to see the update!
Count me as "excited!" :thumbsup3
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
This sounds fantastic. Really enjoying playing through at the minute.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Meh, time to reinstall M2... :thumbsup2
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
what about the economy issue?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
What specific economy issue are you asking about? Unit costs? Settlement Income? Expenditures? Income from vassals?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hi! I've got a few questions and some minor suggestions as well.
Questions
- I've been searching around a lot using the search-engine for some kind of explanation regarding potential and so on. It seems to work differently for generals than it does for admirals. It seems as if when an admirals potential reduces, he's able to gain another command star through increased riverine combat. However I have not noticed any difference in for example 'Leadership', 'Strength' etc. when it comes to my generals. Which makes me wonder if even is a way to improve these traits(that is 'Leadership', 'Acumen' and 'Strength') or if they are firm base stats for a general. Otherwise potential seem to be spent on the ability to command different types of units(cavalry, infantry etc.), for example Chengdu has a building which supposedly improves infantry command. Does a change from let's say 'Basic' to 'Adept' require a potential point?
- What effect does academies, great schools and imperial college have besides the law bonus as well as the conversion multiplier? Since there doesn't seem to be any vanilla traits and ancillaries, I'm guessing they don't have the same character-evolvement purpose like in vanilla RTW and M2TW.
- I asked this in another thread, but realised later on that this seem to be the right place to ask this question. Am I, as the Liu clan, depending on the Sun clans survival for the mission series to continue, given that Zhuge Liangs 'Longzhong plan'(spelling?) states that I'm supposed to ally with them. Will eliminating the Sun clan result in consequences for the mission series or am I able to simply wipe them out without any problem?
Suggestions
- Assassins. Honestly I do realise their historical value and that they were a present threat. However I feel that it takes a lot out of the mod with the use of assassins. This mod is generally based around certain characters and their stories/journeys. Playing with these characters is very interesting and for me, who like a degree of role-playing, I try to use them as historically as possible(based on their biography-trait, since I really do not have any real knowledge about this part of the world during this era). Since playing with these characters is what I mostly look forward to when getting new historical characters(through completing the wonderful mission-series made for the Liu clan), I get a real "turn-off" when I see that the characters die through assassinations. I feel so turned off that I, in fact, exit the game the desktop and restart it from my last save the previous turn. This however is a tedious task as well as it is to clean out 4-5 assassins every 3-4 turns. I do recognize that people think differently and some even like the assassination-aspect of the game. I'm not sure which mod, I want to say that it was Call of Warhammer, which used a dialog-screen in the beginning of the campaign which gave the choice whether to enable/disable assassins in the game. Something of the sort should be implemented in the future since not only is the assassination percentage too low for human-player assassins to be of any real impact. I had a 10(14 when calculated) subterfuge assassin, try to target an enemy general only to see that the highest percentage I could find(despite being alone and in the open) was 13% of success. The AI however spams assassins and will from time to time luck out, to my personal frustration.
So in short: My suggestion is to add said choice to enable/disable assassins. - I read somewhere that a person is unable to become allied with a faction despite not being in war with their ally or vice versa. I believe this could be fixed through the use of a script that were used in TATW, where I believe the script worked in a way that it would nullify all relations and diplomatic agreements(including the state of being at war) with eliminated factions, thus removing the problem of "being ally with a dead faction which was at war with a living faction".
I realise that many of my suggestions would take time and asking for permission to use scripts and whatnot, some of them might not even be possible. Other than these and some few minor things this mod feels pretty much complete in comparison to other mods. That this is supposedly a beta-version baffles me to the extent of drooling amazement in the wait for the final product! A wonderful and beautiful mod that gives a great insight to this period and place. If this mod keeps up on this course, the full version will be nothing short of a masterpiece!
I humbly thank you for this mod and I curse you for the hours it will keep me from doing more important stuff! :P
/A-Woowie.Doowie
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
a-woowie.doowie
Hi! I've got a few questions and some minor suggestions as well.
Questions
- I've been searching around a lot using the search-engine for some kind of explanation regarding potential and so on. It seems to work differently for generals than it does for admirals. It seems as if when an admirals potential reduces, he's able to gain another command star through increased riverine combat. However I have not noticed any difference in for example 'Leadership', 'Strength' etc. when it comes to my generals. Which makes me wonder if even is a way to improve these traits(that is 'Leadership', 'Acumen' and 'Strength') or if they are firm base stats for a general. Otherwise potential seem to be spent on the ability to command different types of units(cavalry, infantry etc.), for example Chengdu has a building which supposedly improves infantry command. Does a change from let's say 'Basic' to 'Adept' require a potential point?
- What effect does academies, great schools and imperial college have besides the law bonus as well as the conversion multiplier? Since there doesn't seem to be any vanilla traits and ancillaries, I'm guessing they don't have the same character-evolvement purpose like in vanilla RTW and M2TW.
- I asked this in another thread, but realised later on that this seem to be the right place to ask this question. Am I, as the Liu clan, depending on the Sun clans survival for the mission series to continue, given that Zhuge Liangs 'Longzhong plan'(spelling?) states that I'm supposed to ally with them. Will eliminating the Sun clan result in consequences for the mission series or am I able to simply wipe them out without any problem?
Potential, Attributes, etc.: Potential is actually something I am going to rework in the future so that it has a more solid foundation and is more easily accessible. But, yes, improving specific types of attribute levels costs potential... As far as the Strength, Leadership, etc. attributes and the "places of learning," please check out this thread. I have not only reworked them entirely, but also added text to the building so that players know exactly what can be upgraded at each specific building and what the thresholds are... Those buildings you mentioned don't do anything other than the bonus(es) you mentioned. "Training" a character has been moved to the buildings in the link I just provided... I answered in the other thread already but, no, the Sun clan does not actually play any role in the progress of that mission line.
Quote:
Suggestions
- Assassins. Honestly I do realise their historical value and that they were a present threat. However I feel that it takes a lot out of the mod with the use of assassins. This mod is generally based around certain characters and their stories/journeys. Playing with these characters is very interesting and for me, who like a degree of role-playing, I try to use them as historically as possible(based on their biography-trait, since I really do not have any real knowledge about this part of the world during this era). Since playing with these characters is what I mostly look forward to when getting new historical characters(through completing the wonderful mission-series made for the Liu clan), I get a real "turn-off" when I see that the characters die through assassinations. I feel so turned off that I, in fact, exit the game the desktop and restart it from my last save the previous turn. This however is a tedious task as well as it is to clean out 4-5 assassins every 3-4 turns. I do recognize that people think differently and some even like the assassination-aspect of the game. I'm not sure which mod, I want to say that it was Call of Warhammer, which used a dialog-screen in the beginning of the campaign which gave the choice whether to enable/disable assassins in the game. Something of the sort should be implemented in the future since not only is the assassination percentage too low for human-player assassins to be of any real impact. I had a 10(14 when calculated) subterfuge assassin, try to target an enemy general only to see that the highest percentage I could find(despite being alone and in the open) was 13% of success. The AI however spams assassins and will from time to time luck out, to my personal frustration.
So in short: My suggestion is to add said choice to enable/disable assassins. - I read somewhere that a person is unable to become allied with a faction despite not being in war with their ally or vice versa. I believe this could be fixed through the use of a script that were used in TATW, where I believe the script worked in a way that it would nullify all relations and diplomatic agreements(including the state of being at war) with eliminated factions, thus removing the problem of "being ally with a dead faction which was at war with a living faction".
I realise that many of my suggestions would take time and asking for permission to use scripts and whatnot, some of them might not even be possible. Other than these and some few minor things this mod feels pretty much complete in comparison to other mods. That this is supposedly a beta-version baffles me to the extent of drooling amazement in the wait for the final product! A wonderful and beautiful mod that gives a great insight to this period and place. If this mod keeps up on this course, the full version will be nothing short of a masterpiece!
I humbly thank you for this mod and I curse you for the hours it will keep me from doing more important stuff! :P
/A-Woowie.Doowie
I agree about assassins, but I need to talk to Gigantus. I think they should be in-game for sabotage, but perhaps the better thing to do would be to limit the number of assassins per faction to 1 instead of banning assassinations. I will also talk to Gig about the script you mentioned.
Thank you very much for your input and suggestions.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Giving the player a choice about assassins is not a problem, it gets slightly more involved restricting the number of assassins, but even that should be possible.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Will the economy (infinite stacks) will be tweaked in the next patch?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
We have been trying out various methods and hope to have gotten a grip on the issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
a-woowie.doowie
- So in short: My suggestion is to add said choice to enable/disable assassins.
We limited the total of all other agents as well, that will reduce the usual 'agent spams'.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/l.../assassins.jpg
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Ah, this is good news! Thanks, Gigantus!
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That's amazing Gigantus. What is the agitator though? Is it supposed to be like an inquisitor?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
It's based on the priest agent - we are using religion as a kind of culture\conviction and the agitator tries to change the conviction to his 'brand'.
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good ridance of assassins, i can never assasinate any other gnereals and on turn 5 Zhou Yun of my army got assassinated and pissed me off lol
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See, we do listen and give consideration to the suggestions and feedback we receive from you guys :D
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I know you do i just like keeping you on your toes lol
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This are great news! +Rep!
When the next patch is released, the enjoyability of the mod will be increased A LOT! Well done!
Also I must say that since the current release is a beta-release, I expected there to be a whole lot more CTDs. I've played over 230 turns, only stumbling across a single CTD, during the campaign map. Luckily my paranoid side(after countless save-corruptions and whatnot playing total-war mods) forces me to save somewhat frequently, which meant the CTD didn't even bother me and I just reloaded and kept on playing for another 90-some turns without another CTD occurring. It's amazing how your beta-release is more stable than many of the supposedly completed and stabilized mods.
(Un)fortunately :P for my campaign, I now have to face the Cao Cao endless stacks. Wouldn't be a problem if I didn't get the script making me enemies with the southern tribes, I've almost conquered the Xiliang altogether closing up that front. My point being is that by now, any normal mod-campaign is pretty much a walk-through. But despite having conquered almost half of the map, the campaign still provide challenges. That's pretty darn unusual! :)
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
This mod is freaking amazing, thank god you guys came around and made it when you did , i was starting to go into ROTK withdrawl since the last good one was ROTK X and now i have this to keep my need filled, thank you all very much :thumbsup2
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
17 March Update
Quote:
A new patch, a new set of stuff from me. The first thing I want to talk about is the new units that you will find. Obviously they are a significant change from what we had prior to now. Essentially the core units of each faction have been broken into three tiers: Light, Heavy, and Armored. The Light units represent the standard soldier of a Han/Three Kingdoms era army. The base Light soldier wears a simple leather vest and, in the case of swordsmen and spearmen, a wooden shield. They also have two upgrades, Reinforced Leather Lamellar and Iron Lamellar. Unlike previous to this patch, these units actually have their equipment and armor change when upgraded. The same goes for the next tier, the Heavy Units. Unlike the Light units before them, the Heavy units represent a more professional force of soldiers with extensively crafted arms and armor. From first glance, you can see that not only do they have iron scale cuirasses, but they also have arm and upper-leg protection as well as helmets. These units only have one upgrade, which is from Iron Lamellar to Steel Lamellar. At the steel upgrade you will see that the armor color turns almost black, and the construction of the torso armor changes from scales to plates. Heavy Cavalry upgraded to steel will even have some armor on the top of their thighs. And although I mentioned Armored units, they are not currently in-game at the moment. They probably won't be finished for a few more weeks and we didn't want to delay Patch 8 any longer. The Armored units will be, as you probably guessed, thoroughly armored in Heavy Steel armor from head to toe... well, not toe, more like knees.
ThatOtherGuy is currently working on them and, I must say, he is doing some damn fine work. I know you will all love them when they are completed. And the last thing I want to discuss, in regard to units, is the unit cards and UI pics. We are in the process of creating unit cards and UI pics for all of the new units, so the ones you see right now are simply placeholders from the old units that were replaced.
Although there are some minor issues with the script (which is fixed and will be included in a Hotfix in a couple days), if you have played as either the Cao Clan, Sun Clan, Yuan Clan, or Ba-Shu, you may have noticed that their starting characters have been reduced slightly. If you have captured some specific settlements with those factions, you might have also noticed that you will get a character or two that join your faction. If you constantly get a CTD after taking a settlement, as opposed to getting new characters, that is the script issue that will be in the Hotfix. Other changes with factions have been an increase in starting armies which, combined with the reduction of starting characters, will hopefully alleviate the issue of a bunch of generals clumping together into the same stack and all being killed. It will still happen, and there is absolutely no way to change that, but we can lessen how often it happens.
If you haven't given +rep to
Gigantus yet, please do so, because he is the mad scientist behind all of the excellent scripting going on. One such script has to do with controlling the Han Emperor, being Imperial Guardian, and Usurpation to become Emperor yourself. As the in-game event states, you need to take Chang An to control the Emperor, thus becoming Imperial Guardian. From there, as you increase the size of your realm, you will eventually be given the opportunity to either support or usurp the Han. Supporting will allow you to become Prime Minister, while Usurping will allow you to become Emperor. Also, even if you don't control the Han Emperor, you can "self declare" yourself King, and later Emperor, by holding a large number of settlements. That is just a general overview of the process, as it is a bit more complex than that, but I hope this gives a little better insight into how it works.
The last thing I'll discuss is some new ancillaries. While in my last update I talked about the new "Governor" ancillaries, there are also "Minister" ancillaries for when your faction leader becomes Emperor. These Ministers include the Grand Master of Ceremonies, Privy Treasurer, Superintendent of the Household, Commandant of Justice, Commandant of the Guards, and Grand Minister of Agriculture. Each has their own unique ancillary, bonuses, and description, as well as unique requirements for acquisition. There was also a general overhaul of the ancillaries that were already in the mod. I went through all of them and was surprised by the amount of incorrect bonuses listed or obsolete (RTW leftover) bonuses for many of the ancillaries. Every ancillary, except for many of the admiral ancillaries, should now have a complete description of just what that ancillary does.
There was a lot more that went into this patch and what I discussed was only a small select portion of it.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Repped you both for this awesome update. Sadly, rep is such a puny thing compared to your great work. It's better than nothing and the EULA forbids offers of sexual favours, which have totally not been offered.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
One way to reduce stack spam is to increase building times. It looks like the turns to build are essentially the same as vanilla M2TW, which used a 1.5-year-per-turn script. Since this mod uses a different time value for turns, it would be appropriate to increase building times and possibly increase the cost of buildings.
In the same vein, I feel that either the population limits for settlements should be raised considerably, or pop growth bonuses cut. Even with a bad administrator and high taxes I'm seeing population growth of about 7% for my minor cities, and I often can only build 3 or 4 buildings before I need to upgrade the walls. Reducing the explosive growth rates would slow down the rate tax income increases and reduce the money available to spam units.
Increasing the cost and upkeep of build-able units would also work, and is what the Rome: Total Realism - Extended Realism mod did to represent the daily cost of taking men away from the fields both in terms of pay and lost economic potential.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
We approached it via reducing the fertility levels of the regions as that is the base all population calculations use. Underneath the current list of stuff to look forward to, it doesn't include a menu rework and adding Germanicu5's ReallyBadAI.
- Added missing text for 'Guardian Prime Minister' event
- Added 'Geisha coming of Age' event
- Added missing Personal Goal or FEAT traits to characters in descr_strat
- Tweaks to the Fealty-Personal Goal triggers
- Fixed distorted map display for battle editor
- Added trait triggers for Acumen
- Reduced fertility levels in descr_regions
- Adjusted law and order bonuses downward
- Crash solved for multiple reinforcement spawns (Sun Clan, Yuan Clan, Ba Shu)
- Duplicated traits and triggers resolved
After these changes I managed to incorporate an animated object as well! The dragons are temporary objects (not part of the background) and might get replaced.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/l...p/mainmenu.jpg
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
no leave the dragons lol , from what i have ceen china has a crap load of dragon artwork everywhear or mabye it could be a tiger on one side and a dragon on the other with a crane with its wings spread on top
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Glad to see you guys still working hard at it. Of all the mods I have played, this one feels the most complete and finished- and in an era I love. What more could I want xD True about stack spam though, I have seen crazy large stacks forming...the AI has like no money on the faction rankings and then pumps out 10 full stacks roaming around...strange but I am sure there is a solution.
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Geoffrey did a review of the unit costing - hopefully that will help.
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I have rotated between shogun 2 and ROTK XI and V for like the last 2 years and wanted to get M2TW really bad for the Third Age mod, then i seen this and almost pooped! So i ran right out and bought a steam card, I cant wait to check this out! I mod S2 a little and if i can be of any help, playtesting or editing in the PFM please let me know!
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
OP Updated:
03 August Update
Quote:
The day is finally here... version 1.0 has been released for public consumption. It has been a long, grueling road for Gigantus, myself, and the rest of the ROTK team, but we got here after more than 2 years of development. However this post is not about the v1.0 release, but more so some of the content that can be found within it. In particular I will be discussing the complete revamp of the Emperor & Usurpation script, Nanman migration and native recruitment, and also the Fortified Pass settlements.
Previous incarnations of the Emperor & Usurpation script provided very limited options in the ideology and ambition of your faction; that is, whether you will support or usurp the Han emperor when you have the power to do so. Gigantus entirely rewrote the script while I made major modifications to the coding, resulting in a completely different experience than before with much more noticeable cosmetic results. In a nutshell, the script advances based on the number of settlements your faction controls, whether you do or do not control Chang An, and any decisions you make during the course of the script. In the first few turns, you will notice a message that talks about being Imperial Guardian; this forms the foundation of one path of the script. In this path control of Chang An (and the Emperor) is the key ingredient to advancing the script. As you acquire more settlements and more power, you will not only achieve greater rank within the Han government, but will later be presented with options to either support or usurp the Han. Similarly, if you do not control Chang An, you will be presented with similar dilemmas as you gain more territory and power. With the central government non-existent and the Emperor under the sway of other warlords, you will be offered the opportunity to self-proclaim noble ranks for yourself. Specifically, you can assume the rank of King and even Emperor of your own dynasty... if that is your desire. If you wish to stay loyal to the Han, and not assume self-proclaimed rank without the Emperor's consent, you can always turn down such opportunities.
Something new that was introduced (possibly in the last patch... I can't remember) was a unique recruitment system between the Nanman and Han factions. The idea for this comes from the fact that the Han Chinese and Nanman are so very different in not only their cultures and societies, but also in their manner of warfare. In this regard, depending on whether you are a Han faction or the Nanman, your unit recruitment options will change when inside or outside of the Nanzhong region (southwest China). First, I'll discuss playing as a Han faction. If you conquer territory in Nanzhong, which is land sparsely inhabited by Han Chinese people, you will find that your recruitment is far different than in your native Han settlements. You will have the ability to only recruit native Nanman soldiers, which are of slightly lesser quality than their counterparts in the Southern Tribes, and cannot recruit any of your typical Han units. However, recruitment of the Nanman units will mostly be of those that are infantry-based, with limited missile and cavalry units available. While playing as the Nanman, the same situation (but in reverse) applies to when you conquer Han settlements outside of Nanzhong, however there is another component. In your building browser for settlements outside of Nanzhong, you will see the 'Yizu Tribal Integration' building chain. Essentially these buildings represent migration of the Nanman tribes into Han territory, in turn allowing for the recruitment of regular Nanman military units. It is an interesting dynamic that gives at least a small bit of realism to the mod, at least in terms of the era's "culture clash."
And finally I am going to talk about the new Fortified Passes. But first, what are fortified passes? Basically they are fortifications found within strategic mountain passes, which are primarily located in north, central, and western China. Most were a part or an extension of the defensive system of the Great Wall but, unlike the majority of the Great Wall, these fortification were made of stone and brick as opposed to earthen mounds. In previous versions these Fortified Pass settlements were just villages but, once they got too much population and you upgraded them, then they were no longer strategic defensive fortifications. They were then changed to be unable to upgrade in size, and were simply placeholders until we could use IWTE to make proper fortifications. Unfortunately, with a small team and limited resources, this has yet to be done. Instead, what we have done is re-established castles as settlement types, with the Fortified Passes all assigned as castles and using a small settlement with brick walls. While this serves the intended purpose of a strategic defensive structure, it is not what we want or the end result. In the coming months when v1.1 is eventually released, and after we get more familiar with IWTE, we will have proper mountain pass fortifications as a part of the mod.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hey RoTK Team, just wanted to pop in for a bit and say that I am extremely impressed with the amount of time and effort spent on this project. As an avid fan of both the total war series and eastern history I was amazed to find, when checking for mods after re-installing medieval 2 yesterday, that something like this actually existed. On top of that I didn't even have to wait for it! I spent pretty much the entirety of today playing the open beta and loved every second of it. Half of it was just because of the novelty value of something like this, but in addition to that the scale and relative historical/geographical accuracy is unbelievable. The amount of work put into this must have been so much more than is readily visible. A simple thank you just doesn't seem to cut it here. If I could do more, I absolutely would. But thanks nonetheless, you've successfully made me decide to call into work today and possibly tomorrow as well >_>
That aside, there still are a few problems I've been seeing, particularly when it comes to the AI economy and unit stacking. It's like playing against a constant 'mongol' invasion of Yuans and Caos and Lius. In my mind this makes it feel as though I'm constantly trying to play against the game, trying to find ways to cheat the system, instead of playing in it. I also noticed that factions are now being treated as 'catholic' factions and the addition of the 'ReallyBadAI' mod. Will this fix the constant AI aggression/unit stacking or is that still a WIP? Rather, do you view the current AI as having any problems or is it intended to be the way it currently is?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
First, welcome to TWC and thank you for your kind words; that was an excellent first post.
The AI economy is still an ongoing issue. Gigantus has done a lot of tweaking, and we even had some public testing, but the economy is not quite where we want it to be. I would argue that it is now better than it has been, but still needs work; mostly on the back end when factions acquire 15+ settlements and have an essentially endless income of money. Availability of money affects a factions ability to create unit stacks, however the AI is horrible with their money and gives priority to recruiting units over constructing buildings. If money is not enough, then the AI will only recruit units and won't construct buildings. If money is too much, the AI will produce endless stacks. Finding the "sweet spot" is difficult but, as I said, progress has been made and work continues to be done on the economy.
All factions now being "Catholic" (AI-wise, not religion-wise) was instigated by Gigantus to combat the constant AI aggressiveness and mindless backstabbing. If two factions are Catholic, they will respond better diplomatically with each other; if they are not both Catholic, they will backstab each other like crazy. However, keep in mind that the mod represents a civil war and all of the factions want to win. So don't expect an ally to always remain your ally, don't expect neighbors not to hit you when you're vulnerable, and don't give up on an opportunity to annihilate another faction. To answer the last part of your question, I don't see the AI as having any major problems. I can't really say that it is intended as currently is, as CAI and BAI sometimes have a mind of their own. What we intend for a CAI to do could work, in some instances, different than we had wanted. So problems could arise and the AI could show itself in need of refinement, or the AI could work with only minor or no issues. Either way, there will be major patches coming to this mod still (more scripts, unit reskinnings, etc.), with v1.1 hopefully coming out sometime next year.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
So if you're playing as The Liu Clan you: "First, that you need to take your entire faction on the journey to Xin Ye." I guess entire faction means abandoning the cities you start with correct?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Well, you can't completely abandon them until after you capture Xin Ye. First reason is because you need the income, and second is because you will lose the game if you lose all your cities. :P The end of the mission text says: "Be careful to not allow all of your holdings in Xuzhou to rebel! Perhaps constructing some Decree Offices and recruiting some Militia units could keep the lands of Xu content for the time being."
Once you take Xin Ye and have Liu Bei in Xin Ye's region, the following turn the mission will update, at which point it tells you to make Xin Ye your capital and allow your starting (Xu province) settlements to rebel. As opposed to allowing them to rebel, you can always sell them. Regardless, the next stage of the mission (defeating Jingzhou faction) will not update if you still retain your original starting (Xu province) settlements.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hi, I play the Xiao and was wondering if you either have the score or the name of the Xiao piece that can be heard during gameplay.
Also the Chinese text you use for Historical Event is a VERY awkward translation (The most most unlikely historical event). Like the Ou Ran bit is awkward as it is but adding Zhui infront really ruins it.
Imo just go for: Historical Event
(Li Shi Shi Jian)
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
No native Chinese speakers (or even decent ones) on the team, but you are correct that it is a very awkward translation. I don't want to say that it is too late, but it sort of is as we would have to redo every single eventpic (which can be done, but definitely isn't high on our priority list). By the way, can you give me the characters for that translation?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
I could probably help you guys out in my spare time then. Im a Native Chinese Speaker with a very comprehensive understanding of the language, culture, history etc. Characters: 历史事件 (Basically just the right half of the current one)
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Can't edit above post so yes do you know the name of the piece that is played on the Campaign map? I play the Bamboo Flute and that piece sounds very lovely and would like to try it.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Thank you for the translation :D
The music comes from the RTW version and was ported over for this mod so, unfortunately, I'm not sure what the name of the piece is.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Another thing I found awkward was calling Yu Ling Jun "Feathered Forest Guards" whilst yes it is the literal translation it is quite awkward.
Calling them Feathered Forest Guards would be the equivelent of say the Western World calling Centurions "Captain of a hundred men" instead of by the Latin term Centurion
So imo some edit to the unit_descr changing the name of those units to Yu Ling Guards (so actual name Yu Ling Guards) and in the unit description flavour describe them along the lines of Yu Ling Guards (Feathered Forest Guards) are ....
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Man i just played this mod today and everything is amazing. You guys are very talented. Thank you for making this great mod.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Liu Xuan De
Another thing I found awkward was calling Yu Ling Jun "Feathered Forest Guards" whilst yes it is the literal translation it is quite awkward.
Calling them Feathered Forest Guards would be the equivelent of say the Western World calling Centurions "Captain of a hundred men" instead of by the Latin term Centurion
So imo some edit to the unit_descr changing the name of those units to Yu Ling Guards (so actual name Yu Ling Guards) and in the unit description flavour describe them along the lines of Yu Ling Guards (Feathered Forest Guards) are ....
There are two different meanings of the word 'guard,' one singular and the other plural, and you using the incorrect singular version. Guard can refer to 1) a person on sentinel duty (singular); or 2) troops attached to the person of the sovereign (plural). In the mod the word 'Guard' is being used to designate a unit (ie: Imperial Guard) in the plural meaning of the word, as opposed to a position or an individual (ie: guardsman) in the singular meaning. So you're comparison to Centurion isn't really the same, as Centurion is singular and Guard is plural (and also referring to a military unit).
Despite that, I am going to remove the word 'Guard' from the units' names, as they were referred to as the Feathered Forest and not the Feathered Forest Guard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sindragoon
Man i just played this mod today and everything is amazing. You guys are very talented. Thank you for making this great mod.
Thank you for your kind words. We appreciate it! :D
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Liu Xuan De
Another thing I found awkward was calling Yu Ling Jun "Feathered Forest Guards"
I think it should be called "Yu Lin" instead of " Yu Ling"
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Minn
I think it should be called "Yu Lin" instead of " Yu Ling"
Oops it is indeed Lin instead of Ling, my mistake :D
Also is the town centre building im guessing Taishou Fu etc in siege battles suppose to be blacked out? And also, seems Chen Deng is also missing a model
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Liu Xuan De
Also is the town centre building im guessing Taishou Fu etc in siege battles suppose to be blacked out? And also, seems Chen Deng is also missing a model
The black building and missing model were both reported some time ago. Also, this thread is not for "errors" or "bugs" to be reported; such things belong in the Error Reports forum.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
What are the titles of the possible kingdoms e.g. "King of Yan" for Gongsun Du ?
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
Hi I just got the Three Kingdoms version 1.4. The game has something that I find a bit weird like the trade income of cities randomly just disappearing. For example, Pu Yang would start with 600+ trade; but 30 turns into the game Pu Yang will have 0 trade income. Is that supposed to happen? I made sure there weren't any foreign merchants in my territory, but the results were the same.
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Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes
It's the diminished trade principle - the more settlements you have the smaller the income per settlement becomes until it is zero. Forcing you to adjust your income to merchants and taxes.