Huuuuuuuuuuuuh? So have I missed it? I was studying commands list extensively and somehow didn't see that.
Well, nothing new for me. But good to know, could certainly be useful. Thanks, CD
And now for some more questions - not really suggestions, well, suggestions-questions...look, we had a very interesting discussion yesterday about making FtG manpower and support work like in last EU3 DW beta. And the reason is that we'd get much much more realistic numbers through all the game. I mean, in some cases you can easily reach even million of supportable amount (!) and 500k of manpower limit.
Also, starting numbers are too big. It feels bad. Being able to field 300k army in Napoleonic times should be max. And having only small amounts of support and MP in early game would make you treasure your army and MP more, also would force you to finally use goddamned mercenaries. As for now support/manpower change varies a bit, from 40 to 60% I'd say. But it still needs more testing, and some more knowledge - maybe even changes if there is possibility to implement them someday.
Anyway, here are questions for you Michael, if you could give us some clear answers that'd be uber valuable
1.) Does AI hire mercenaries? Looking at various savegames it seems to me that it does not, although it might simply merge them with its other units. If it's able to hire them, would cost matter much? I want to adjust mercs costs to be similar to EU3 ones, so they could be viable replacement in early and mid-game in exchange for manpower.
2.) How does combat work now and could you give us a short guide about how to edit it via combat.txt? Our initial thought was to make phases shorter, so you would have to use all types of units since fire and shock would alternate say every three days battles would be more intense). That's another concern - battles seem altogether way too random, not always, but sometimes they do, both in favour of player and AI. What could be possible solution to fix this? Initially that's why we though about quicker phases - if dice rolls everytime new phase engages, then maybe random effect could be neutralized (or maybe fleshed out even more, who knows?).
3.) Now for real suggestions, although I imagine that it might be too much: how possible would it be to add following modifiers moddable in defines.txt?
*Fortress size for every level. For now we can just set initial number and fortress level is just multiplier. And while I was thinking about making fortresses much more important by making numbers more stretched (for example 2.500-5.000-7.500-12.000-18.000-25.000, numbers are random but it gives you idea), so instead of either leaving fortresses at minimal whole game or spamming them all the way to maximum (MP), you'd have to decide where to place ones beside Lv4 let's say.
*Manpower bonus for war taxes. As for now war taxes seems to be completely and utterly useless, so I changed tax bonus from 150 to 300% (maybe 200 will be enough) and duration to 12 months, but as we've been talking about it, manpower bonus could be useful too. Some sort of forced conscription or something.
*City pop modifiers for manpower. That's how game calculates manpower per province: initial manpower size (in province.txt) * modifier based on city pop. So for example, 180k Nanjing will get 8 * 0.67 = 5.something IIRC. Every city size gets its modifier, for 1000 people it's 0.25, for 10000 it's 0.42, etc. If we could affect those, that would be fantastic.
Guess that's it. I still got to talk to some people with knowledge, but since we analyze FtG stats quite often as for now, I guess I'll come up with some sort of series/thread dedicated to our observations. There are much more things we want to edit, some exploits to prevent. Most of them can be achieved by now with what we got, some could use stuff like additions in defines.txt, but not necessarily. But since it's a suggestion thread I guess it's okay to ask, rite?
It's so much depressing when you realize that modding potential of FtG wasn't even remotely exploited, I believe that by changes like manpower ones I listed above we could really refresh the gameplay. Also, just in case you are asking, I use basic AGCEEP 1419 for now, but changes are being developed with new Plvs Vltra in mind. So once it is ready, we can really test how things work out
EDIT: Now it struck my head since I am talking with Therion atm. Would it be possible to allow techgroups to have more effects? Same as religions. Well, almost the same. If techgroup could somehow affect yield of useful guys (traders, missionaries, colonizers and diplomats), monarch's stats and some modifiers (like morale, income, trade/infra efficiency) we could quite possibly acquire a way to simulate governments in FtG. And since they would still affect technologies, it wouldn't break game really.
So technically additional modifiers for techgroups. That's sorta it.
Now that I read all of it, it's a lot of requests. Well, even if only one of those could be implemented sooner or later, guess we all would be overjoyed. Beggars can't be choosers, right?
Even if so, it's a suggestion thread, so I still believe that asking at least whether X is possible is fine. I hope
