Magna Mundi Ultimate 1.26 - Download Here!

[ubik]

Magna Mundi Ultimate 1.26 (2/09/2010)

MAGNA MUNDI ULTIMATE 1.26 (2/09/2010)


ONLY WORKS WITH THIS EU3-HttT PATCH.

- Fixed some wrong culture modifiers
- Fixed Gamesettings


Watch our for Magna Mundi - The Game. Dev Diaries & Webpage will start on September!

[venceitor]

Thanks! Again..

[Thistletooth]

Wow, a whole new patch just for the Diwani Script correction?

And what's the difference with the new Gamesettings?

[Wildy]

And what's the difference with the new Gamesettings?

Wasn't it something about land/sea provinces exploration sharing time period?
And AI aggression?

[elboludox]

The initial settings were incorrect and now they stand corrected.
Basically what Wildy said.

[Frattaglia]

I have 1.05 version. Do I need install some previous patch?

[Tyon]

You have to deinstall the previous version of magna mundi.

Also delete the EU3 cache folder inside the map folder.



I think.

[Laughing Beaker]

You have to deinstall the previous version of magna mundi.

Also delete the EU3 cache folder inside the map folder.



I think.

I tried installing on top of 1.25 without clearing the map cache, and it made half of the ports in the game disappear... which sucks, because I was 150 years into a KoSJ campaign. So, yeah, what Tyon said.

[Yasko]

This is a great mod and its getting better and better, thanx guys...

Its not compitable with previous version save games right?

[QBeam]

Wow, I'm not too far into my new game, but it looks like as a practical matter you've completely eliminated the cultural tradition mechanic, by giving an overwhelming negative base modifier. Can't say as I approve, since it removes one dimention from play. The hiring fair was a nice trick to get around having to watch the hiring pool with a finger poised on the pause button, but the 50d price tag makes it just another mechanism by which the rich get richer. I'm hoping this turns out to be a function of my country (Brittany), or of the early game (1399 start), but if not, thumbs down.

[myLAAN]

Lowering the importance of cultural tradition was a design decision to prevent players from having superb advisors of their choice whenever they want to.

[821]

and also the cultural tradition bonus for SRI is now completely useless

-5 is to much, in some circumstances should be possible to have possitive cultural tradition growth

[Cernifax]

The vanilla system is just too easy, but in I think ideally it should be handled like land and naval tradition. Most of the time you would only be able to hire a 1-2 star advisor, but with a few cultural NIs, advisors and the right cultural decisions you should be able to build up slowly to higher levels (3-4 stars).

But this probably isn’t possible with the current setup.

[Zolotaya]

The vanilla system is just too easy, but in I think ideally it should be handled like land and naval tradition. Most of the time you would only be able to hire a 1-2 star advisor, but with a few cultural NIs, advisors and the right cultural decisions you should be able to build up slowly to higher levels (3-4 stars).

But this probably isn’t possible with the current setup.

Testing indicates that you can still hire a 1 or 2 star advisor using the HttT method. ...

Anything more then that breaks the balance.

[ubik]

and also the cultural tradition bonus for SRI is now completely useless

-5 is to much, in some circumstances should be possible to have possitive cultural tradition growth

Decisions and events tied to tradition now give lump sums upfront. Use them immediately, wait for it to build if you can plan ahead other decision in the near time or want to risk another event that gives lump tradition... or spend it immediately.

Given the power of advisors in Magna Mundi and the general balance of the mod, the ability to pick any advisor when one wants it with good quality (how many times had you before recruited level 1 or 2 advisors?) was in fact destroying the balance of the mod.
Given how the mod is balanced, this is an example where a deterministic and structured gameplay asset does not further the final quality of the product.

After getting a candy it is a pain to lose it? Indeed and from a psychological angle I understand the issue raised but for the greater good of the mod it should be done.

Now on to address sugared inheritances...

[ubik]

The vanilla system is just too easy, but in I think ideally it should be handled like land and naval tradition. Most of the time you would only be able to hire a 1-2 star advisor, but with a few cultural NIs, advisors and the right cultural decisions you should be able to build up slowly to higher levels (3-4 stars).

But this probably isn’t possible with the current setup.

It is perfectly possible but not desirable. The simple capability of hiring any advisor when one wants (even a Lvl1) is already straining the mod balance.

[QBeam]

My complaint has very little to do with "balance." I've played the game in environments when I expect to have 3 advisors with 17 stars between them all the time, and I've played where I'm happy to have 3 advisors with a total of 4. Either way is fine. This isn't a trantrum because someone took a "toy" away. In fact, I've played I don't know how many versions of MM, and, generally, I've found the need to adapt to changes in the game one of the appeals. This is the first time I've ever encountered a change to which my reaction has been "that was a serious design error."

I'm talking about game depth. The present system makes advisors yet another asset that you get with money. I find it very unrealistic and unsatisfying the number of aspects of a country's power that, in practice, boil down to money. More specifically, the implausibly high price tag on the hiring fair divides the world into countries that can afford it and those that can't. This reminds me of the period when troops were so expensive to maintain that manpower was useless--armies were entirely limited in size by income. Like that mistake, stamping out cultural tradition has made the game more one dimensionsional (at least based on my experience so far).

Given the fact that this game doesn't even have victory conditions, I can't imagine how any concern with "balance" could make up for that. Still, what are these balance concerns? I don't understand what the horrible undesirable results of letting people get whatever kind of advisors they want are.

On the other hand, cultural tradition as it previously existed wasn't entirely satisfying, either, because, as a practical matter, it was little more than a measure of how many merchants you had out. It would be more satisfying if it were driven by a range of factors, which you might expect to reflect either (1) conditions in which government would be more effective (since that's what CT does, as a practical matter), or (2) conditions of a dynamic, creative, or cohesive culture (since that's what it's name suggests).

One step in the right direction on both counts, I believe, would be to introduce a decay coefficient, rather than the flat reduction, strongly linked to stability, and, if feasible, war exhaustion. I'd also like to see national ideas play a pretty big role.

Yes, this implies letting people get 1 star leaders of whatever type they want, whenever they want. But so far I've only heard conclusory assertions that this is bad. I haven't heard any explanation for why this might be, no examples given, nor have I ever felt that way when playing the game.

[elboludox]

Example: Now I need a theologian to enact a decision, I go and get a lvl 1 theologian from my cultural tradition. Now I want to enact another decision that requires a statesman, I'll go to the cultural tradition and get one. Now I want to build markets and workshops, I go to the cultural tradition and get an alderman. Now I want to forge a core, I'll get a diplomat and a spymaster so I increase my chances. This, on and on. MM has some decisions and events that require you to have a super monarch and a super advisor. That should happen once every three or four games.

And regarding the money issue, the best example: Urban offered his canons to the Byzantine empire, and the only thing the Byzis offered him was to make him a saint. He went to the Ottomans and they did py him well, had the material for building it and the rest is history.
Another exaples: Columbus, Magellan, John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), Sebastian Caboto (Sebastiano Caboto), Vitus Bering, Georg Wilhelm Steller, Gerhardt Friedrich Müller. All of these sold their services to rulers no matter which was their origin. So I am of the opinion that money is the only reason for a country to get a good advisor apart from randomness.

[ubik]

My complaint has very little to do with "balance." I've played the game in environments when I expect to have 3 advisors with 17 stars between them all the time, and I've played where I'm happy to have 3 advisors with a total of 4. Either way is fine. This isn't a trantrum because someone took a "toy" away. In fact, I've played I don't know how many versions of MM, and, generally, I've found the need to adapt to changes in the game one of the appeals. This is the first time I've ever encountered a change to which my reaction has been "that was a serious design error."

I'm talking about game depth. The present system makes advisors yet another asset that you get with money. I find it very unrealistic and unsatisfying the number of aspects of a country's power that, in practice, boil down to money. More specifically, the implausibly high price tag on the hiring fair divides the world into countries that can afford it and those that can't. This reminds me of the period when troops were so expensive to maintain that manpower was useless--armies were entirely limited in size by income. Like that mistake, stamping out cultural tradition has made the game more one dimensionsional (at least based on my experience so far).

By this reasoning, you'd say the up to MMU there was as erious unbalnce in MM.

In fact you are wrong from start to finish.

First, gold comes at the bottom of the list to hire advisors. This simplistic assertion of yours clealry shows how you fail to grasp the whole system of Hiring Fairs.
In order to Hire advisors you need to fulfill conditions other than gold first: geographic, prestige, stability, quality of ruler or recursive, tradition, specific buildings, ideas.
Then, you'll need gold.
But it is not yet finished. Because the two bigger equalizers come last. First, you need to have the luck to get the advisors you want and hopefully, with the quality you want. Finding one advisor you want is usually a 50% affair. Finding a good advisor you want is usually a 5% affair.
Finally, to prevent the enactment of hiring fairs one after the other while refusing advisor after advisor until getting the genius master you were looking for, something that could be done by someone with 1000 gold to spare, for each refusal you'll drop prestige, which ends up turning the enactment of more hiring fairs impossible soon enough (besides other penalties a drop in prestige carry).

Hope I have now she some light in the very basic view of your analisys.

Given the fact that this game doesn't even have victory conditions, I can't imagine how any concern with "balance" could make up for that. Still, what are these balance concerns? I don't understand what the horrible undesirable results of letting people get whatever kind of advisors they want are.

Specific advisors are crucial for some of the mods more powerful decisions and events.

Balance is meant in a way as the game is still challenging enough to play after 200 years instead of being a cakewalk after 50. The advisor bonuses are too powerful in the context of Magna Mundi for a player to have the luxury of a 6 star advisor at the right time, more than once or twice during the whole campaign.

Yes, this implies letting people get 1 star leaders of whatever type they want, whenever they want. But so far I've only heard conclusory assertions that this is bad. I haven't heard any explanation for why this might be, no examples given, nor have I ever felt that way when playing the game.

I hope thematter is cleared now and like always I don't expect to be judged by this or that decision (that only adds to the folklore of Magna Mundi being "difficult"), but instead by the final result coming out of all design decisions made.

[QBeam]

Ah, yes--as I thought about it overnight, I expected my response to provoke a bout of Ubik's defensiveness. In retrospect, I believe my tone was unnecessarily terse, because I was put off by the implicit assertion that I was just complaining about having a toy taken away. So, may I please request that we call a cease-fire on personal attacks and snark, and address the substance of the issue? I believe we are all on the same side here, ultimately.

Firstly, let me start with a point of agreement: Yes, the relevant standard is the overall effect, not the context of a specific decision. Let me assure you that that is the context from which I am speaking. Even so, I think at some point it becomes fruitless to talk only in generalities--concrete examples become necessary to illustrate and validate an argument.

Now, regarding the way hiring fairs work: Firstly, from your argument about how the hiring fair produces advisors, but not necessarily the ones you want, you seem to have missed my point. (One bit of evidence is that you are mistaken that I've found a "serious imbalance" in MM.) Rather than addressing my contention--that there is little problem with letting people get whatever kind of 1-star advisor they want--you seem to have directed your argument to why it would be bad to let people get 6-star leaders on demand.

To the extent that there are some decisions that you think it undersireable to permit to be taken at the drop of a 1-star advisor in the CT system, then my guess is amending them to require 4-star advisors (give or take) would be just the tonic. My game play experience when trying to get, e.g., Glorious Monuments, tells me this is fun and works well. I should add, though, that my sense was that many of these decisions worked quite well requiring only 1-star advisors, because it made a signficant difference between having a particular kind of advisor and not, despite the fact that 1-star advisors have very mild stats. Grabbing 1-star advisors to push a button right away, in my experience, disrupts my plans for maintaining an overall high quality of advisors; when I find myself having to weigh options, I'm inclined to thing the system is working well.

As for the argument that money is "the last factor" in aquiring advisors, your argument appears to be predicated on the assumption that I was suggesting, or even especially interested in, the acquisition of a particular kind of advisor. In fact, I am sufficiently flexible in my play style that I very rarely have a specific advisor I'm fishing for. Generally, one of three to six different types would be welcome (though, to be clear, usually a bit over half of the advisor types are of zero interest to me). In fact, off the top of my head, the only type of advisor I've found to produce the massive, game-changing events you seem worried about are the navigators. +50% colonial range can often shave 100 years off the time to be able to send colonists to a given region (which, obviously, can mean the difference between dominating a region or never getting a foothold). If that's not WAD, absent some other examples, I'd say that calls for editing navigators, not dumping the CT engine. (Especially since the CT engine doesn't contribute much to this particular problem; for whatever reason, I never seem to have any trouble picking up high-grade navigators from the hiring pool.) But if you have some other examples, I'm happy to consider them.