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I have some bad news and some good news:

The bad news is that I accidentally spilled my drink on my laptop and wrecked it, so I can't mod at this moment.
The good news is that my harddrives should be intact and all data preserved. So I shouldn't have lost any work.

As such I am in the market for a new PC with a budget of about €1000, any suggestions?

Any ideas for when/how things might change with 2.0 coming?

The biggest issue is the new recruitment system: Carthage is probably significantly weakend because I gutted the amount of Punic POPs. I wish to explore the possibility of including POPs of unintegrated cultures in armies as a 'unique' mechanic for Carthage. The way I envision it is that Carthage can recruit unintegrated POPs as mercenaries. It would be at a very low rate (say 10% of normal), while also costing gold to recruit and maintain them. I don't know if it will be possible, but I'll look into it.

The new port system and 'gate' type provinces means I'll clean up the map here and there to get rid of some redundent provinces.

I imagine the great Cothon of Carthage will be made into a great works, so I'll have to look into how that will work and what I want to do with it.

I want to look into changing Carthage heritage. I am thinking about changing it to:
- increased pop promotion and demotion speed;
- decreased unhappiness for each integrated culture;
- increased unhappiness for each unintegrated culture.
This to represent that money formed the basis of acceptance in Carthaginian society, not birth. Or to quote Mike Duncan:
"If you were poor and made yourself rich, you were invited into the senate; if you were rich and lost all your money, you were kicked out. [...] The way to get ahead in Carthage was to make money; nobody cared if you made it last week or ten generation back."

I am also, always, looking into adding flavour. There are some things I am working on, but am thoroughly uninspired in my event description. So it is slow progress.

This looks great, as a EBII player I have learnt to love the central asian region and am constantly intrigued by Khwarezm region the more I look into it, looking forward to play the Saka raukae in your mod (God I can't wait for a steppe nomad focused mod/update, your maps look awsome, altough given the scope you might want to change the name of the mod since it's not only about carthage now as it seems that carthage was more of a first step for you of sorts (and this is the next steppe, get it?).

So excited to push the Bactrians into beeing Indo greeks keep on this is awsome man :)

I hope central asia gameplay will be interesting and unique. Unfortunately until now it doesn't really feel different from mediterranean gameplay; I want to enjoy a central asian nomad game, but I get turned off of it very quickly as it just more of the same. Lets hope the patch and new UI can change that.
 
I'd highly recommend that you look at the HP Omen series. I think they start at around $900 and go up from there.
I've got a buddy with one, and he absolutely loves it.
 
A small request: is someone willing to help me implement my deity icons for 2.0? Unfortunately my new computer got wrecked in shipping and I can't really mod. But since this is such a minor mod, I suppose I can still put it on the workshop.

So could somebody help me to see if the mod works, and perhaps help me modify the setup file so I can properly assign the pantheons? Thanks!

The included file should work, but I have no real way of knowing.
 

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Arados.png
Sidon.png
 
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This is looking gorgeous and well put-together. This may be beyond the scope of the mod, but regarding money and politics, it would be interesting if character wealth heavily influenced popularity/prominence, and/or the promotion/demotion event for great families was more frequent in Carthage.

I assume you got your machine in finally, but let me know if you need any testing help.

Additionally: Phoenician reconquest mission tree? Carthago restituenda est.
 
Yup, finally got my computer in working order. So now I can start porting the map over. :) That is going to take a little while though.

I started the map editor, and it seems like the issue with the roads has been fixed; I can manually redraw the roads. Which means I can also look into fixing those little stubs you get when you do have a road, but don't have a city.

Unfortunately I also immediately broke the map editor again. I haven't been able to get it working again. This is the error log I get:
Code:
[21:50:27][pdx_assert.cpp:566]: Assertion failed: Not ingame and not mapeditor?
[21:50:27][brush_settings.cpp:419]: Error while loading radial brush database: Failed to open file tools/mapeditor/radial_brushes.json. File does not exist in any of the mounted locations.

Does anybody have the radial_brushes.json file in their mapeditor map? If so could it be posted here along with other files from the mapeditor map?

As for more gameplay changes:
Yes I would like to see money play a bigger role in Carthage, with more fluidity based on it. As a start I whipped up a new heritage for Carthage:
heritages.png

(un)integrated culture happiness is there to make rulling diverse empires harder while incentivising the cultural integration of peoples (should probably also get an assimilation and conversion speed penalty)
Corruption is there because Carthage comes across as a rather corrupt state to me
And promotion and demotion speed increases to represent that money, not heritage, counts in Carthage.
 
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When playing with the flags mod from steam, I'm getting a cyan replacement where white should be, or maybe a transparent cyan layer over the banners. Am I using an outdated version? I don't think any of my other mods alter banners.
 

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Yes it is outdated. The new UI has made some changes which results in such graphical glitches with faction icons.

I haven't found a solution to it yet. I suspect the files need to be exported with a particular setting, but I haven't been able to find the exact setting yet. I am working on it, but there are a lot of potential settings which it could be, and I am not there yet.
 
Yes it is outdated. The new UI has made some changes which results in such graphical glitches with faction icons.

I haven't found a solution to it yet. I suspect the files need to be exported with a particular setting, but I haven't been able to find the exact setting yet. I am working on it, but there are a lot of potential settings which it could be, and I am not there yet.

Seems like all textured emblems are using the coloured emblems shader. I feel like it would be best to convert your emblems into coloured emblems and code in the colours. That way you can re-use your emblems in the randomly generated flags.

P.S. Contact me if you would like an update to the 3d models that I made.
 
I got the map editor working again and am busy converting the map. And then I figured out you can manually draw roads... On which I spend perhaps an excessive amount of time... This is my take on the Via Appia, Via Latina, Via Aurelia, Via Flamina and Via Cassia
View attachment 701151


Seems like all textured emblems are using the coloured emblems shader. I feel like it would be best to convert your emblems into coloured emblems and code in the colours. That way you can re-use your emblems in the randomly generated flags.

I hope not. I hope there is a solution which can make textured icons work.

I would be interested getting updated models, I'll contact you later. I'd also love to see more of your work. The most recent thing I've seen is the stupa great work you made. Is there any more recent work?
 
I got the map editor working again and am busy converting the map. And then I figured out you can manually draw roads... On which I spend perhaps an excessive amount of time... This is my take on the Via Appia, Via Latina, Via Aurelia, Via Flamina and Via Cassia
View attachment 701151




I hope not. I hope there is a solution which can make textured icons work.

I would be interested getting updated models, I'll contact you later. I'd also love to see more of your work. The most recent thing I've seen is the stupa great work you made. Is there any more recent work?

I converted the Carthage wonders that I made into the new wonder system. So all the code is ready for them to be pre-built in your mod. Including the tombs in their correct places.
 
Well that would be great if you could sent those to me, especially if you converted them to the new wonder system; that will save me a lot of time figuring out how that works.

I have finished converting the entire western half of the map (Italy, Spain, North Africa), and I will release this as soon as possible. Considering the amount of time it took me to get this right, the eastern half (Anatolia, Armenia, Persia, Central Asian steppes, Afghanistan) will come later. This will give me some time to play around with the other changes I have been meaning to make.
 
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Well that would be great if you could sent those to me, especially if you converted them to the new wonder system; that will save me a lot of time figuring out how that works.

I have finished converting the entire western half of the map (Italy, Spain, North Africa), and I will release this as soon as possible. Considering the amount of time it took me to get this right, the eastern half (Anatolia, Armenia, Persia, Central Asian steppes, Afghanistan) will come later. This will give me some time to play around with the other changes I have been meaning to make.

Sweet, that sounds great.

To make it easier for me, could you send me your mod please, that way I can add the files and make changes based on your setup.

Otherwise, all of the files are available at this link on the Imperator Mod Coop Discord. https://discord.com/channels/563655919892692992/584806378766598195/813435638106947644
 
After today's news it is best to show that we wont let Imperator die. Unfortunately I had to return my new computer to the store (again...) so I haven't got much modding done...

I'd still like to show something I have been working on the past week:
overview.png


I tried my hand at some more faction icons. Celtic this time. They aren't all finished, and aren't all up to my standards, but I'd like to show them nonetheless. I am unsure the Hellenic ones will make into the game due to the UI bug with faction flags, but I did create the celtic ones with that bug in mind. I should be able to get those properly into the game.

Aside from that other things I am working on:
- 4 new flavour events for Carthage - and more if I can find inspiration
* The Return of Gelon/Hamilcar - discover the Charioteer of Moyta statue​
* Melqart of the West - An event which moves Melqart's holy site to Gadir if the one at Tyre gets desecrated​
* The Little Carthaginian - flavour event around Plautus play Poenulus​
* Stirring of the Gods - dealing with the silting of the harbour of Utica (or Carthage - it depends)​
* A few canaanite variants of the Grand Festival event​
- Reworked Carthage's laws to make more sense for Carthage
- Started looking into reworking Carthage's senate (again) with the intend of tying the law system, the senate system and the mission system together.
- Reworking the road layout because the automaticly generated one is terrible
 
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I am terrible at self promotion. So I am just going to say it: the mod is updated on the workshop, and it should work.

The phoenician deity icons are included in the mod, but are also uploaded as a standalone version with just the graphical changes.

The faction icons should be up soon as well under the name Vexilla Coronam, but will only include the celtic icons as I haven't gotten around to converting all my other icons to 2.0.
 
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I am terrible at self promotion. So I am just going to say it: the mod is updated on the workshop, and it should work.

The phoenician deity icons are included in the mod, but are also uploaded as a standalone version with just the graphical changes.

The faction icons should be up soon as well under the name Vexilla Coronam, but will only include the celtic icons as I haven't gotten around to converting all my other icons to 2.0.
Mod is looking good, I noticed some bugs but nothing serious, any idea however how AI Carthage would perform on this? Carthage already isn't much of a challenge against a player.
 
The mod doesn't do the AI any favours due to more isolated provinces and a massive reduction in Punic POPs in Africa. I did run a couple observer games to see what would happen:

Game 1:
Carthage looses Sicily and Sardinia, but conquers most of Africa, and it managed to push back the AI naval invasions of Africa every time.

Game 2:
Carthage lost Sardinia but suprisingly held on to Sicily, despite sharing a border with Rome.

Game 3:
Carthage manages to expand fairly decently into Iberia, it only lost the northeast province of Sicily.

Game 4:
Carthage lost Sardinia but came close to recapturing it once. After that I accidently broke the AI with my testing.

So no, it isn't doing the AI any favours. Rome however, needs to be looked at. Rome is an antagonist which gives them massive bonusses. Amongst other things I am thinking about removing the levy size multiplier and instead give the antagonist AI a manpower, manpower recovery and reinforcement speed/moral recovery bonus: Rome didn't win wars because it had larger armies than its opponents, it won because it never gave it. Fighting Rome shouldn't be an experience of fighting endless hordes of armies, but an experience of every army you defeat coming back again.

I want to look at reblancing the levy sizes in general. I want to look if it is viable to give a levy size penalty based on country rank (you know; bureaucracy and distance make it all just a little bit harder), so that smaller states have a better chance against larger states.

I also noticed some AI behaviour I can't change:
- The AI seems to get stuck in a loop when multiple armies converge on a single spot. It seems that when armies converge the AI does a strength calculation on the total stack, but runs into problems with this calculation when the army has to move. When a movement order is given, it takes a while for the whole army to start moving, but the AI then seems to evaluate its strength based on the moving part, seeing that it didn't have the strength it had before, it decides upon a different course. Then the other part of the army starts moving, and the same thing happens. So the AI gets stuck in a loop which greatly hampers its ability.
- Naval invasions are difficult, but the AI is suprisingly good at it. I did run into a bug where an army was given a naval invasion command, but when the navy shows up it doesn't board the ships. After about 6-12 months the order is cancelled, but the AI still thinks it is a good idea so tries again. It gets stuck again, gets cancelled again, tries again, gets stuck again, etc etc.

Something I might be able to do something about:
- It would help the AI if it got easier military access to neighbouring states. Perhaps I can find a way to make this happen.
- Currently Carthage has a heritage which gives it a -2.5% levy size multiplier. In the next version that will be gone. The small amount of Punic POPs already more than compensates for that.
- The AI tends to get stuck on missions as it cannot work towards a mission goal. This means it misses out on bonuses, but also isn't flexible in its goals. I intend on cutting all missions into smaller missions which are only active for the duration of 1 consulship (they will be a sort of 'party agenda' the current sophets want to realise). This should prevent the AI from getting stuck in mission trees.
- I didn't notice AI Carthage hiring a lot of mercenaries when it really should. I'll see if I can get them to hire more mercenaries.


What bugs did you run into btw? If you look at this for as long as I have, you just don't notice anymore.
 
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The way you have changed the terrain in this mod really engages you more in tactics and bottlenecks etc, it's really great. I hope you'll expand the mod to other regions too, and apply the same way of edited terrain.
 
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