
- In the shade
- →
- Hosted Mods.
- →
- Viking Invasion 2
- →
- VI-2
- →
- Viking Invasion 2 - Pre-release Thread
Welcome Guest
[Log In]
[Register]
| Welcome to In the shade. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Viking Invasion 2 - Pre-release Thread; Current Vsn: Public Beta 1.0 | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 1 2008, 04:05 PM (3,214 Views) | |
| palantir | Sep 3 2008, 04:37 PM Post #76 |
|
Perioikoi
|
Yes, report all here. I added the special characters for Ae but, with a few celtic exceptions, have not done so for any other language. If anyone has time feel free to post the corrections and I will attend to them. |
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 3 2008, 04:56 PM Post #77 |
|
Helot
|
If the map_regions.tga included in patch 1 is the one I sent you (and I think it is) I did use the corrected_blabla for it. Never had this kind of CTD on VI2 though. Pal, should I upload the tweaked descr_start when I'm mostly done with it so that we all are on the same page? |
![]() |
|
| palantir | Sep 3 2008, 05:03 PM Post #78 |
|
Perioikoi
|
Negative. We all get on the same page when the patch2 goes up else it gets confusing and errors will occur. I do not want errors being reported that have already been resolved, either. Bovi, try changing your map regions with the corrected one and see if the ctd persists. I'll see if I can get a patch up or send files to you - I goot go out now and am out all sat too so I'll have to get something done for thu/fri - monday failing that. Gah, I need more time. :angry: |
![]() |
|
| bovi | Sep 3 2008, 06:03 PM Post #79 |
|
Barbarian
|
No, the CTD is transient, not persistent. It only happened that one time. Anyway... My first impressions after a couple of hours playing. All points are in my humble opinion and in no way any demand. Sorry for any bluntness, but I'm rather disappointed to be honest. * The game is too easy (on VH campaign, M battles at least). Once you wipe out the good starting troops of enemy X, he'll muster only peasants and poor spearmen, and you can easily rout any number of them with a plain anvil+hammer tactic. By the time the AI factions get any decent troops, a human player will already dominate the map. I would suggest adding more starting troops for the AI and whichever free settlements are close to the player (as we do in EB). * The game is vanilla-ish. Since this is meant to be a port of Viking Invasion, I guess that's correct... However, the lack of faction-specific barracks for instance is really detrimental; I dislike the ability to create units immediately upon conquest. Then again, the playing area isn't exactly large, so I understand that there will be no great cultural differences and the people might not care which lord they serve as long as they can get on with their lives. But it's not to my preference at all. * What makes the point above worse, is that you can create any number of "mercenary" units in any settlement immediately. While these troops are perhaps slightly inferior to the faction troops, I find it unrealistic that you can get unlimited numbers of them, not to mention that it depletes the settlement's population in the same way as recruitment of non-mercenaries. It would be better to represent these through increased numbers of true mercenaries in the pools, but making the recruitment time 1 instead of 0 would help a lot too. * The vikings have no character. Yes, they have superior fleets, but don't use them. They are fielding the same mix of peasants and poor spearmen which all the others are. They aren't any good at raiding (which is the AI's fault, I'm sure). * The traits system is really minimal and characters have no... character. Having got used to EB's trait system, this is very simplistic and again gives bad associations with vanilla. I see in the traits+ancillaries post that this is by design, but again I disagree with the choice. |
![]() |
|
| palantir | Sep 3 2008, 07:24 PM Post #80 |
|
Perioikoi
|
My night out got cancelled and I am thoroughly frustrated with CSS and PHP, so I shall post here instead!
Ah, ok. Perhaps a vanilla glitch then.
We are of course in the balancing & polishing stage so much reworking and tweaking needs to be done. The AI of course will have adaptations based on the campaign script but this cannot be finalized until the basic balance is decided upon.
Yes, it is supposed to be vanilla-ish and simple. It is not EB or FATW, neither could it be seeing as I only started it 3 months ago and intend to have it out next month. I will look into *Culture*-specific recruitment bldgs for roster units if others feel the same way.
Making the recruitment time 1 would need justifying and would make them little different to normal troops. It is of course unrealistic perhaps, but the main thrust is to imitate VI2 and not get bogged down in realism, historicity or complex features. That kills mods or delays them and is not efficient. Mods can be improved upon after release if the - or a - team desires it. Turning them into pool mercs would invalidate the inns, a characteristic part of VI2. I am open to ideas.
peasants and poor spearmen were not what I saw on a break in the ai-run yesterday, though there have been some siginficant tweaks since patch 1. I hope this has been resolved. Naval invasions are a pain in any mod, but at least they are raiding in VI2. I've seen Norwegians attack Wales and western Scotland from the sea, I've seen Ireland attack Manau and even Wales, and Norwegians attack Ireland too. Danes have not shown raiding though.
Again, it is not viable to expand into such complexity. Such an attitude of adding more and more may work for such teams as EB and RTR, and FATW at its height, but will only serve to delay this mod and create more opportunities for coding errors which traits files are good at throwing up. The titles system, along with bishops and princesses, in VI2 is probably more complex than any other mod in this area though I understand most of the traits are vanilla - but they fit. When I create a mod I always imagine the person playing it has not played any other mods. I think that's how it needs to be seen otherwise you could go on developing for years - and comparing. And most people will give up in less than a year. Unique, simple and in the spirit of MTW:VI is what we want. And it is what we'll have P.S. do remember this mod is only 3 months old too
|
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 3 2008, 07:29 PM Post #81 |
|
Helot
|
Mercs: I am really trying to find a balance between the old VI system, where an inn was needed to give access to the regional merc pools and the RTW system where the pool is always there, but we have to simulate the original VI style with a building. If I make these units trainable at 1 turn, then the "merc" point is defeated, they will be just like any regular unit. If I keep them at 0, the player will spam them to protect himself. If we had a script, We would just destroy the building every turn with it and allow it to be rebuilt for 1 turn every x turns, so that the player would be able to recruit only at that time. I have now increased their costs by 0.5 on their base value and decreased their numbers, in order to make them less effective, but perhaps more toning-down is required. Open to suggestions. Pal, I have no objection at all against cultural barracks/etc. |
![]() |
|
| bovi | Sep 3 2008, 08:29 PM Post #82 |
|
Barbarian
|
I ran my trait/ancillary checking program. If you want to have it, just get it from the EB SVN under trunk/documentation/tools/Validation. You'll get the installation validation tool along with it, and it only needs modification of 2-3 hardcoded parameters to be used for any mod. EDCT, EDA, VnV is pretty clean now, but this is its report. There are a few descriptions that are not in use: Superfluous description? legendary_warlord_epithet_desc Superfluous description? terrified_by_slaves_effects_desc Superfluous description? nervous_near_slaves_effects_desc Superfluous description? legendary_warlord Superfluous description? fears_slaves_effects_desc Superfluous description? legendary_warlord_desc Superfluous description? legendary_warlord_gain_desc -------- For the balancing, how about placing the initial barracks by campaign_script? Then you can give the AI factions a good barracks in one settlement, which means it will be fielding some decent troops along with the useless rabble I've seen. Of course, if you're seeing a better mix already it should be okay. -------- I understand that you don't want too many barracks types. I just figured that with 8 factions it would be pretty much the same to have faction specific ones as culture specific ones. What are the cultures then: Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Norse, English, Saxon? That's six already... But it won't matter at all if the inn is working like now, as you have no need of any barracks to spawn masses of units. -------- IIRC, the inns of VI made available mercs that were disbanded troops from all factions, along with a few that regenerated without anyone disbanding. I don't think you can recreate this functionality at all, so don't see the value of implementing the inns in the first place. I don't see how an inn is really necessary to get access to mercenaries, and certainly it won't attract half of your citizens into mercenary service each year like it does now. Perhaps it would solve the problem if they were kept at 0 recruitment time but their upkeep cost was really high, like 2-3 times what a similar non-merc unit costs. You'd have to make the most of them and then disband, or take a hit to the economy for keeping them in your service. You seem to have enough EDU slots available to make separate mercs and faction units, so you don't have the problem we do in EB where the upkeep has to be low so it's viable to recruit the regular guys. Then again: How does the AI fare with it :unsure:... -------- I didn't see any bishops and princesses actually... I haven't got that far into the game I guess. I accept the choice of the minimal trait system and general vanilla feel, but it's still something that puts me off the mod. I'm sure many others will enjoy it though! |
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 3 2008, 09:42 PM Post #83 |
|
Helot
|
VnVs cleaned, I must have missed those. Yes, barracks, population, core buildings, money, armies, awill be tweaked by the campaign-script to make life harder for the player. Though some factions are hard already, try the Welsh. Cultures are 3: Viking, Saxon, Celtic. Again, the purpose is not realism, but getting closer to VI, which had inns used in a given way, and we're trying to approach that. I'll try to figure out a way to make the inns useful but not an exploit, it's not gonna be easy I imagine... It must keep the VI feeling, not exploit the RTW engine, not be too easy for the player, not be too hard for the AI, serve a purpose in the game etc...Bishops and princesses require diplomats from large towns at least (princesses only from specific settlements which also have to be city-level) and have a chance of appearing. So I guess you'll see them later. |
![]() |
|
| palantir | Sep 4 2008, 10:31 AM Post #84 |
|
Perioikoi
|
We'll need to review BG units. Once Royal Hirth, for example, get to xp 7 their auto-resolve power becomes too strong. I had a twenty-four BG on xp 8 under the King of Wessex on command of 9 - they could alone take down a full stack of Mercian units consisting of fyrdmen, spearmen, horseman most of which had an armour or weapon upgrade too. They seemed about ok in battle mode though, killing about three times their number on xp9 (and losing of course against a big army). Teulu are quite suicidal - will the skirmish be active for ai formations? Each culture now has their own recruitment tree. How goes the mercs? Should I implement culture-specific inn line? |
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 4 2008, 11:15 AM Post #85 |
|
Helot
|
AI generals get some hidden bonuses, was that Wessex guy one yours? Well, BG numbers are quite small already, we can't make them even smaller, can we? The only thing I can do to counter the hardcoded Command bonus is decrease their sec hps. I will implement my tweaked formations from FATW and will make all cavalry Bgs skirmish ones, hopefully that will do the trick and will also provide some more depth for the battle AI (no more single lines fo soldiers). Great. I tried making them animal units without animals (so that I could use the animal-unit-discount), but still the hardcoded elements of their behaviour mess with the plan. I see 3 ways of dealing with mercs atm: 1) Making them 1-turn to train. 2) Making them really expensive (0-turn). 3) Make them available only under certain conditions (EDB) I'm with 2 for now. |
![]() |
|
| palantir | Sep 4 2008, 11:35 AM Post #86 |
|
Perioikoi
|
Yup, the wessex BG was mine. Sec hps would be good as long as it does not then weaken them to much on 4 xp in autoresolve. Regarding peasants - maybe it would be an idea to have muster fields in all non-villages at game start; or at least allow the CS to give them to all ai factions and only have the player faction without them? At present the inn line can be built anywhere, maybe we should limit this to known areas of "high traffic" where mercs could historically be recruited? York, Dyflin, Winchester - maybe just the chief cities on the map? |
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 4 2008, 12:04 PM Post #87 |
|
Helot
|
Agreed about muster-fields and script, but we have to check how that plays out on balance; factions with money and regions will probably have the advantage against smaller ones. Sec hps reductions then, take all BGs to 4. Restricting inns... Better restrict mercs by HRs. Keep the inns everywhere for their public order bonus. |
![]() |
|
| bovi | Sep 4 2008, 04:11 PM Post #88 |
|
Barbarian
|
Adding muster fields everywhere might be too much, but I think it's good and it would definitely avoid the all-peasant armies I've seen. My thinking was that the capital (or one other settlement) could get a higher barracks, so that they will get a couple of good units to anchor the rabble. I'm sure the formations will help immensely too, so you can't just slam across their line without meeting any second-line reserves. ============= A small bug: The announcement for the King of Alba appears each turn, and I would presume it works the same for the rest. It would be fixed if you either * Didn't remove it each turn and award it again (danger of keeping the title without meeting the prerequisites) * Remove the gain message * Make a set of proper triggers to check whether it should be lost. * An alternative requiring less triggers would be something like this (not tested):
The code would award the first level the first time the conditions are met. Then (both immediately and each turn thereafter) the conditions are rechecked and if they are met the trait goes up to level 2, where the effects are. Finally, if it is not bumped up to level 2 again the conditions are no longer met, so the title goes away. |
![]() |
|
| Aradan | Sep 4 2008, 04:44 PM Post #89 |
|
Helot
|
Already fixed these traits for everybody, Pal has the updated files. I hope the formations will help too. We'll have to find a balance with that script. |
![]() |
|
| palantir | Sep 4 2008, 06:44 PM Post #90 |
|
Perioikoi
|
I will probably put together patch 2 tomorrow or late this evening. Halie, any luck with menu items Aradan sent you or with doing something to the historical battle pic to make it a tad less realistic? |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
|
|
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · VI-2 · Next Topic » |
| Theme: Zeta Original | Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
8:33 AM Jul 11
|
Hosted for free by ZetaBoards · Privacy Policy



It must keep the VI feeling, not exploit the RTW engine, not be too easy for the player, not be too hard for the AI, serve a purpose in the game etc...
8:33 AM Jul 11