Hotseat modus

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February 12, 2020, 08:54 PM
SirWitan

Hotseat modus

Hello!

First I want to thank for this nice mod, that puts a lot of flavor into the game.

Me and some 15 people are planning to make a Hotseat with this submod but the question arose how well this mod is suitable for it?
Should we consider to change some things or is this mod perfectly playable in Hotseat mode with the current features?

I would be very grateful for an answer =)
60/5000

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]but the question arose how well this mod is suitable for it

60/5000

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[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]but the question arose how well this mod is suitable for it

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February 13, 2020, 12:38 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Hotseat modus

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirWitan

Hello!

First I want to thank for this nice mod, that puts a lot of flavor into the game.

Me and some 15 people are planning to make a Hotseat with this submod but the question arose how well this mod is suitable for it?
Should we consider to change some things or is this mod perfectly playable in Hotseat mode with the current features?

I would be very grateful for an answer =)

I have no clue how the mod behaves in the hotseat. It should as it just to be before (version 092 from 5 years ago) as I think we haven't changed anything since.

From my side I may say that many features are still unfinished: many crowns are lacking, many PTs are not balanced, AntiTrait bugs are still present. And recently, it turned out that something's wrong with the education. So I'd rather play it in a few months time in such a large group :-)

However, the current shape of the SSHIP is still much better IMO than the base SS6.4: many bugs present in that version are fixed, while the historicity is much increased.
February 15, 2020, 01:47 AM
SirWitan

Re: Hotseat modus

Thank you very much for this answer!

We are planning a rather historical foccused roleplay hotseat, especially because the mod has a focus on historical accuracy.
Still I do not understand, why many Characters and family trees seem not to match the historical ones in 1132? Is there a reason for this?

So we should rather wait a few months until we start the hotseat? Pardon me, but I am not following the development of this mod... may I ask if there is a greater update planned for the future months?
Also, if we should wait some months and SS6.4 also has many bugs present, what mod would you recommend for us until then? We are lucking for a quite finished mod that that has a great focus on historical accuracy.

I would be grateful for a recommendation =)
February 18, 2020, 05:16 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Hotseat modus

Family trees - if you ask the reason, it's because the date was pushed forward from 1100 in the SS6.4 to 1132 in the SSHIP . It's not updated yet for some factions, but much work has been done by VineFynn for the SSHIP 096. If you have comments, please leave them in the subforum related to the factions, it'll help.

In my sig you may find links to my reviews of some mods. I don't think there're better mods for the Middle Ages than SSHIP and Broken Crescent with B&S. Visit webpage of Titanium to see what I think about it.

I think you'd better wait some time - we're improving the SSHIP. My main concern for the moment is a soft diplomatic CAI. However, with 15 people it might be not such a problem.

You may always help with the mod, eg. developing the Conqueror traits descriptions ;-)
February 20, 2020, 05:32 AM
SirWitan

Re: Hotseat modus

Thank you very much for the answer!

I have to say that I would love to help in the development of such historical focussed mod, but sadly I have no free time left, so it is impossible for me to contribute in an appropriate manner.
But it is great to hear, that the mod will be further improved. it would be nice to have accurate family trees and more unique buildings in cities for a later version (for example I am missing the theodosian wall) as also more appropriate skins for agents of the campaign map.

May I also ask from there the population data for cities is taken? Somehow I have the feeling that some settlements do not match the historical estimate numbers.

But all in all, I am really looking forward and would love to see this mod getting even more historical accurate and finished!
February 20, 2020, 06:58 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Hotseat modus

I think it's unlikely we'd introduce more unique buildings into the game. However, I find the current set-up quite well-developed.

What I'd like to develop is more releated to historicity, like names of provinces and settlements, initial situation of the factions (I think it's already very good but those famility trees), political situation (eg. Rus or Poland should have plenty of internal problems - this should be a period of the fragmentation) and the population numbers. Some discussion on the latter you may find here. You see the problems with the sources on the example of Ani. Me, I've got heavy doubts about precision of the webpage used (openhistory.net). I've checked data for the Polish settlements and they're rather far from what I know about the Polish medieval cities (I recall that there's data for Warsaw, that wouldn't exist for another 200 years). However, the numbers are still closer to what we know about the past than used in the base SS, or in the other mods (well, un-historicity is one of the reasons why I cannot play eg BulatSteel or Bellum Crucis - I'm furious when I see a picture of the prince that had dies 200 years before). As said, I find the SSHIP still much better on most of the historical aspects.
February 21, 2020, 12:41 AM
SirWitan

Re: Bugs Reports & Technical Help

Smyrna and Nikaia only have 1 recruitment slot available, while a city like Attaleia with the same stone wall has 3 slots?
While experimenting I have noticed that after deleting the Council Chambers in Smyrna and Nikaia I got an additional recruitment slot, so after this I had 2 recriutment slots available.

My question is: Is this intended, or what I espect, a bug?

I am not sure if other settlements are affected by this, but I have noticed it so far for Nikaia and Smyrna. I have also noticed that building a land clearance in cyrus brings absolutely nothing and the public gallows in Corinth are only giving the good modifiers, not the reduction of population groth, even after i deleted it and rebuild it.

But anyway, I am not quite sure if building economical buildings is worth it. Many mods and also the vanilla game have the problem that most buildings seems quite unnecessary, regarding the price and buidling time they need, for what they bring... for example building a merchants wharf brings nearly no more income (in the mod at least some growth). But anyways, I think just using merchants on the right place is much better than building economical structures, what seems sad.

Also, how Jurand of Cracow already stated, something with the education of characters seems quite broken and also, it seems not possible to station a general in a big city like constantinople without getting nasty character traits. I put someone into constantinople, because he had the trait "knows little" so i thought, he might educate a bit, even he was not a teenager anymore ( it's never too late to learn )...

All in all I really like this submod so far, but don't get me wrong, I just wanted to list a few things that I noticed ;)
February 21, 2020, 01:12 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Bugs Reports & Technical Help

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirWitan

Smyrna and Nikaia only have 1 recruitment slot available, while a city like Attaleia with the same stone wall has 3 slots?
While experimenting I have noticed that after deleting the Council Chambers in Smyrna and Nikaia I got an additional recruitment slot, so after this I had 2 recriutment slots available.

My question is: Is this intended, or what I espect, a bug?

I am not sure if other settlements are affected by this, but I have noticed it so far for Nikaia and Smyrna. I have also noticed that building a land clearance in cyrus brings absolutely nothing and the public gallows in Corinth are only giving the good modifiers, not the reduction of population groth, even after i deleted it and rebuild it.

But anyway, I am not quite sure if building economical buildings is worth it. Many mods and also the vanilla game have the problem that most buildings seems quite unnecessary, regarding the price and buidling time they need, for what they bring... for example building a merchants wharf brings nearly no more income (in the mod at least some growth). But anyways, I think just using merchants on the right place is much better than building economical structures, what seems sad.

Also, how Jurand of Cracow already stated, something with the education of characters seems quite broken and also, it seems not possible to station a general in a big city like constantinople without getting nasty character traits. I put someone into constantinople, because he had the trait "knows little" so i thought, he might educate a bit, even he was not a teenager anymore ( it's never too late to learn )...

All in all I really like this submod so far, but don't get me wrong, I just wanted to list a few things that I noticed ;)

From the last:
- I really appreciate listing the noticed issues. It helps to improve the mod that is still being not finished (not even 1.0 version).

Education
---- what I've meant the currrent version doesn't have Teenager trait that translates in no education. In my current built (perhaps I'll issue a patch today) it's fixed.
---- there're won't be Knows Little anymore. Most of generals will have average education.
---- big cities are a problem: they have so many buildings that a general gets both good and nasty traits. The riches Constantinople were spoiling people, after all. So there'll be trade offs: the best (fastest) education at risk of learning corruption etc.
---- unless a general is a Scholar, he'll learn only marginally.

Economy
- merchants - their numbers will be very limited in the future. I wanted to make it in the next patch, but I'll do it later. So there won't be such easy shot.
- economic buildings - they provide more money over time, not instantly. The more population, the more money from trade. And you'll get a Trader trait for a general only if they are present in the city. And the Trader has a potential of increasing income by up to 30%.

Situations in the cities you've mentioned:
--- Land Clearance provides 0,5% (iirc) growth so it's possible that you don't see it on the screen. But if you combine it with the Chivalry of your general (0.75% in cities, 0.5% in castles) then it'll be a full point. See the entry here.
--- Gallows - in a very small castle there might be no happines and no growth to lower. And you don't discern the impact on religion.
( law_bonus bonus 8 happiness_bonus bonus -2
population_growth_bonus bonus -5 requires event_counter is_the_player 1
population_growth_bonus bonus -3 requires not event_counter is_the_player 1
religion_level bonus -1)
--- Recruitment slots - I haven't analysed the details the details (they're done by MWY) but the recruitment slots are conditioned by a few buildings, not only the walls. See here for the Stone Wall:

recruitment_slots 3 requires not event_counter freeze_recr_pool 1 and not building_present_min_level farms farms+2 and not building_present_min_level city_hall council_chambers
recruitment_slots 2 requires not event_counter freeze_recr_pool 1 and building_present_min_level farms farms+2 and not building_present_min_level city_hall council_chambers
recruitment_slots 2 requires not event_counter freeze_recr_pool 1 and building_present_min_level city_hall council_chambers and not building_present_min_level farms farms+2
recruitment_slots 1 requires not event_counter freeze_recr_pool 1
February 22, 2020, 12:24 AM
SirWitan

Re: Bugs Reports & Technical Help

Education:

- It would be really great if you could post a patch regarding the teenager trait issue the following days, because we want to take this mod for our historical hotseat anyway. Every nation will be human, so no AI problems I hope.
- Where would you recommend educating teenagers after a future update if not in constantiopel as byzantine?
- Regarding the generals: Do you mean a "scholar" trait or just "Administratively minded"?

Economy:

- I am not quite sure, if it is a good idea to further limit the number of merchants. You may say that buildings provide money over time, but for example speaking about thessalonike (this is not a small city, even it should have around 150 000 citizens after what i have read), is it really wise to build a merchants wharf for 3600 gold that provides 104 gold per turn regarding the settlement details and needs 5 turns to be build. Regarding this statistics it needs 34 turns to just pay off! Not mentioning the building time of 5 turns in which case we have nearly 40 turns no win out of this builing and even after this the win is minimalistic...

Even with a mine (one of the best buildings to make money), that provides 425 gold and costs 3250 gold it takes nearly 8 turns to pay off and 7 turns to build, so its first worth it after 15 turns...

Speaking of hotseats with many participians, it takes weeks to get until turn 15 and months until reaching tunr 40... so I am really unsure if anyone will build some economical buildings and not just loot enemy cities, which provides much more money.

City:

- I always look into the settlement details, and thereis always noted a 0,5% growth boost. But regarding the land clearance in cyprus, there is no change in the settlement details. In other cities the land clearance provides a 0,5% growth.
- Well speaking of castles, I do not think that Corinth is a small castle and I see no change in the settlement details regarding the growth if I destroy it, just the bonus in law get lost, while in other towns and castles the population growth gets lower after building a gallow. I am also aware that the impact on religion is not shown in the details, so I cannot state anything regarding the functionality of this.

Recruitment slot:

- So, if i understand this right, I have to destory the council chamber to get more recruitment slots in a settlement? In my opinion that does not make any sense... why should a building reduce the possiblilites of training units and agents?
I dont want to destroy the council chamber in Nikaia and Smyrna just to get another recruitment slot...
February 22, 2020, 01:55 AM
SirWitan

Re: Hotseat modus

Sorry, I planned to post this in the bug thread, I do not know how it could get here...
February 22, 2020, 02:25 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Bugs Reports & Technical Help

Hi SirWitan

Patch regarding the teenager trait has been issued just 8 hours ago :yes: See the relevant thread.

It's sounds very interesting to me that you're taking this mod for our historical hotseat. Indeed, the AI problems should be lower - but mind the very aggressive pope. I'd expect factions bordering him to have a hard time.

But you need to keep in mind that it is a slow-paced mod. You may rush and conquer but it's very rare. You need many turns to make profit out of your buildings, even though we don't have such long building times as they were in Europa Barbarorum (mines under construction for 40 turns). You'll have to sit and wait for money to pour to your coffers. You'll need to disband feudal troops to make some money. It's meant to be like this.

Keep in mind that refill of the recruitment pools is very slow. You need to wait 8 or 12 turns for better units to be available (more or less like in Europa Barbarorum II, but there's fewer types of units so there're fewer units in general). And even if they're there the player due to money constraints would often not hire them unless there's a clear need.

You've got always (or we'd like to make it such) a trade-off in the SSHIP: either high income and high unrest costing you upkeep of the units, or low income and low unrest. Or you can educate teenagers in smaller cities only with schools - they'll get the education slower and of lower quality, but they won't get many bad traits. Or you can educate them in Constantinople but they'll learn bad things. The choice is yours. I think there's a quite extensive description in-game of the dos and donts but tell me after you play if I should complement it with more info.

After-school education: only Scholars (but they are always "Administratively minded") can get a serious education and usually only they'd get PhD/Didaskalos/Mujtahid. All generals can get a point or two in schooling, but it'd be just marginal, by way do doing other things.

Thessalonike was the second biggest city of Byzantium but it was much smaller than 150 000 citizens (this was the maximum size of Constantinople, and in the highest calculations. McEvedy tells that Constnatinople was 40-80k).

Looting cities is not a way to play this game, afaik. They'll get smaller and smaller and the AI won't rebuilt them very fast. So one-time benefit (and not very large, it won't even pay back the upkeep of the conquering army) and that's all. Plus your general will get some not-so-nice traits.

I cannot comment more on Cyprus, Corinth and Smyrna, but I believe there're reasons for it.

Recruitment slots: these are rather less important in the SSHIP. It lasts many turns after all. Destroying council chamber just to get another recruitment slot makes little sense. Or any.

Again, you need to build up your cities and only after some time they'll provide enough income to sustain an army. Just analyse this table:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

https://www.twcenter.net/forums/atta...6&d=1478632004

You may read as well:
- my Medieval II Mod Recommendations,
- my Assessment of the SSHIP v. 0.9.2 - note that it doesn't take into account 096+patches changes
- some thoughts on BGR and the SSHIP.
February 22, 2020, 04:54 AM
SirWitan

Re: Hotseat modus

Ahh thank you, I did not see the patch^^

But I have noticed that there still is no "teenager" trait that is visible for me... is this intended? "Knows little" is also still there, but i assume that this will be fixed in a further patch?

I doubt the pope will be a problem in our historical hotseat, since the faction is also played by a human (all factions expect rebels are played by humans in our hotseat). The papal states will be played in our historical hotseat by the player that controls the curia, since no player faction controls the curia in 1132, we gave it to sicily, isnce they there the only ones that supported pope Anacletus II. We are roleplaying that pope Innocent II is still in france and waiting for support by the yewt uncrowned emperor lothair III.

Most references that i found are telling that constantinople had around 300 000 citizens in that time period. But I have also read that Bagdad should have over a million in that timeperiod.

Regarding the other things, i thank you for the answer and just give it a try :)
February 22, 2020, 05:46 AM
Jurand of Cracow

Re: Hotseat modus

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirWitan

Ahh thank you, I did not see the patch^^

But I have noticed that there still is no "teenager" trait that is visible for me... is this intended? "Knows little" is also still there, but i assume that this will be fixed in a further patch?

I doubt the pope will be a problem in our historical hotseat, since the faction is also played by a human (all factions expect rebels are played by humans in our hotseat). The papal states will be played in our historical hotseat by the player that controls the curia, since no player faction controls the curia in 1132, we gave it to sicily, isnce they there the only ones that supported pope Anacletus II. We are roleplaying that pope Innocent II is still in france and waiting for support by the yewt uncrowned emperor lothair III.

Most references that i found are telling that constantinople had around 300 000 citizens in that time period. But I have also read that Bagdad should have over a million in that timeperiod.

Regarding the other things, i thank you for the answer and just give it a try :)

Implement the most recent one, that I've just uploaded. Teenager is fixed.

On the number of population:
https://www.twcenter.net/forums/atta...4&d=1497880783

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow

Hi MWY,

I think it'd be easiest for you just to buy the McEvedy book in German (you can buy it cheaper in English, just search the web). Have a look at ihs methodology (he's a combination of archeologist, medical doctor and demographer; he checks, for example, if it was possible for so many people to live in the space available in a city given the technologies available) and you'll see why I'm extremely reluctant to trust the figures from the medieval sources, not corroborated by the research of today. I don't claim he's perfect in his counting, but still the approach matters.

A short review you may find here.

In Wikipedia on Derbent: "According to Arab historians, Derbent, with population exceeding 50,000, was the largest city of the 9th century Caucasus." This is exactly the problem of all sources on those numbers: somewhere at the beginning there was an enthusiastic, ignorant author putting the figure to impress, to hail greatness of his nation, and to make his readers (who paid him) feel good. Then, after a few centuries, people put it into Wikipedia because it's a "contemporary source".

My opinion on the figures put into the tables on Wikipedia: they're wild, wild fantasies. My favorite is Agrigento in 500 BC - 800.000 inhabitants. (based on the book published by the "Lulu Enterprises Incorporated." :laughter:. Or Corinth at 100-700.000 on the 1 AD.

Chandler provides more reasonable figures. I'm impressed to see that somebody finally admits that the legend of 1-milion Rome was not true and puts modest 450.000 (what is only two-times higher than reconed by McEvedy). However, there're still funny figures like Istambul at 660.000 in 1550 (well, where would they live? and in 1927 census there're 200.000 living in the entirely build-up city with multustorey buidings (plus 500.000 around but on the areas empty before modern times).

I agree with you that something between 100.000 to 250.000 might have been possible for Constantinople but then - what do you think about 50.000 people in Ani or Derbent, somewhere at the end of the world, far from feritile plains or big rivers or just any hinterland known for decent agriculture. Where did the food come from? What did they do? Where did they live?

Think about technologies - in the Middle Ages they were unable to construct any building as high as in the Roman times because the relevant masonry technologies were forgotten. Prof. Andrew Wilson claimsfor instance, that in Europe the masons learnt to produce concrete of the similar quality only in the 18th century. Think about the roads, about trade connections, about sanitation etc. etc. The Middle Ages were nowhere close to those numbers the authors put in their chronicles.

The bottom line: sorry, I don't buy any of those figures if they don't look plausible.

Similarly, I usually don't buy any figures on the battles if not researched thoroughly. The estimates for the Didgori battle are laughable on the Muslim side even after deflation proposed in the article (they'd starve to death before arriving to the battlefield - you need a good logistics for big armies, it's why the really big ones were made possible only by the French logistical savvy in the modern times, and finally by the railroad).

Attachment 346407

John France in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare, 2010 - I like the passage on the Milan siege and I think it should be applied to any reports on the number of combatants in a battle ;)
BTW, France mentions here the Battle of Leignitz where, according to his article, Mongol forces were 30.000 and German force 20.000. The battle actually was fought by the Silesian nobility (though every Pole and many German historians would say it was a Polish army since it was lead by the Piast dukes), but this is irrelevant for the purpose of my case here. What matters is that over the last two centuries extensive research was made and now the textbooks tell the figures of 10-20 thousands versus 7-10 thousands. Some historians claim it was a tiny battle that was made important only because the Silesian overlord from the Piast family was killed what prompted his historiographer to conjure up a dozen of thousands of additional troops just to make that death look serious. So it might be - and this passage is making his way into the textbooks in Poland as there're absolutely no sources of the higher numbers - that it was a few thousands of the Mongols (eg 7000) against 1-2 thousands on the Christian side.

But this might irrelevant - the question is what would you like to convey in the figure in SSHIP? What to do with the areas which were organized differently than only around urban centres or had multiple urban centres, but smaller ones? (btw, this is the case of Georgia and Armenia - due to the "landscape fragmentation" they'd lived more in the countryside than Italian communities, traditionally concentrated in the cities. So I'm not so strict on giving cities more. But we need to be reasonble. Caucasus was not Egypt or Gaul where you can easily feed people. Too little rainfall, to weak soil (like only 15% territory around Lake Van was possibl to cultivate), too many problems with transport, much less possibilities for irrigations (fortunately the rivers Kura and Arax were there). So keep in the SSHIP Egypt and Mezopotamia feritile, rich and populous, but most of Caucaus, Persia hinterland, Ireland, Poland or Rusia sparsly populated. It's been done in the SSHIP by limiting the number of provinces in the far-away regions. It's good though sometimes not enouth for my taste (I'd vote for one province Derbent-Baku, but maybe for the gameplay purposes we need to have something for Georgians to conquer?). So the problem is rather that comparisons I've hinted at: Baku and Derbent being Large City and City while Alexandria and Cordoba are also Large Cities or Koeln a Minor City - this doesn't add up. It's why I propose to downgrade them. I really like how the SSHIP is conservative on the settlements in Poland - they're small as they should been (even if I'd still make Plock smaller). Civilization was far south, not in those forests .

The openhistory - I'll comment on it once I have time to have a closer look. The first was not very favourable - the city of Poznan is said to have a few thousands inhabitants some 200 years before it was even founded....