Imperator Development Diary - 15th of April

[blackninja9939]

Can you use more advanced maths like finding the square root of a number or multiplying a number to the power of another number?

Currently no, but I imagine you are unlikely to need to do this that often in the script though

 

[Meneth]

Another question, I reckon scripted GUIs have the same capabilities as they are implemented in HoI4, or can we expect new things like pie charts since Imperator uses them relatively often, or even sliders?

I also want to say how awesome you guys are for ever expanding the modding possibilities!

Right now, it mostly has parity with HoI4. More powerful in some areas due to being hooked into the data system. Though lacks a few bells and whistles like support for custom lists.

Can you use more advanced maths like finding the square root of a number or multiplying a number to the power of another number?

Wouldn't be particularly difficult to add, but I'm not sure how likely it is that we'd add it. Those operations (except purely integer powers) are very expensive, so it's something to be avoided. Not supporting it at all ensures it is avoided entirely.
Though if there's interesting use cases, we might reconsider that.

 

[ToraktheNord]

Interesting read! Just wondering, in EU4 when you get a bad event that costs you more money than you have, it will leave you with a negative amount of gold until the monthly tick turns this deficit into loans. In Imperator, could it be possible that after such an event your negative amount of gold will be multiplied and you'll actually lose a shitload of money?

Oh yeah, that would be interesting, is the max number of a value still around 2 million?

 

[Elryos]

I'm picking up some bad vibrations regarding father figures and athletes.

 

[cristofolmc]

Right now, it mostly has parity with HoI4. More powerful in some areas due to being hooked into the data system. Though lacks a few bells and whistles like support for custom lists.

Does that mean that we can expect you to keep supporting moddable GUI adding new stuff to it that allows for newer and more things, (like custom lists, since you mention an example)?

 

[blackninja9939]

Another question, I reckon scripted GUIs have the same capabilities as they are implemented in HoI4, or can we expect new things like pie charts since Imperator uses them relatively often, or even sliders?

I also want to say how awesome you guys are for ever expanding the modding possibilities!

As Meneth said it currently lacks a few of the bells and whistles like custom lists although I've got a working prototype of that I just need to find some free time to sit down and finish it off.
The new data system is generally a lot more powerful in being able to display whatever you want but the scripted gui stuff has evolved bit by bit in my evenings and I've yet too pull it up to the level of HoIs in every area, will try to at some point though!

I'm picking up some bad vibrations regarding father figures and athletes.

Hahaha, that was mostly just cause it was very quick to type those ones

 

[Meneth]

Oh yeah, that would be interesting, is the max number of a value still around 2 million?

For a lot of things, yes.
Though the script math is internally done 64-bit rather than 32-bit, and has a max value a bit short of 300 trillion. So briefly going above 2 million in the middle of some math shouldn't mess things up, but if the final result is out of range it'll log an error and clamp it to the allowed range (+/- 2 million).
Values that are 64-bit support the full range of that, of course.

Does that mean that we can expect you to keep supporting moddable GUI adding new stuff to it that allows for newer and more things, (like custom lists, since you mention an example)?

Depending on how much we use it internally, and modders externally, that's a possibility.
But no promises.

 

[Nufan]

@Meneth @blackninja9939 and anyone else willing to help

Hi! I'm a "copy, mix and use" kind of modder with no knowledge of coding terminology or even most math functions in english. So a majority of this dev diary doesn't help me understand which of the things I'm interested in will be doable. Could you reply to (some of) the bellow if possible? No need to describe how or go in details, I'll find out or ask for more help in time.

Is it possible that:

• Units can be made to "drain" one pop of a type assigned to their unit type on recruitment? If so, can those pops be settled like migrating hordes do (but even individually), while keeping their original culture/religion/pop type?
• We can add modifiers or abilities to culture/religion groups?
• Units can require more than one resource, say horses and iron? Can we remove unit types?
• Power costs can be changed to another resource? Like "move slaves" requiring gold or "military inventions" requiring military power instead of civic? Or have the cost depend on ruler's and/or target characters matching attribute? Say for "make friends", oratory power cost = (x + rulers charisma) - target's charisma.
• Resources can be removed entirely or be changed to fit another resource category in the interface? Is the interface size in general adaptive to some degree of changes or would it need interface modding to exceed its preset size?
• Omens can fire events depending on conditions, for example high priest (position/job) loalty?
• The game can track manpower percentage and tie it to modifiers? Or track power resource amount and tie it to modifiers?
• For tribes, player controled clan chiefs have their own retinue like AI ones? If so, can the mechanic also be used for non-tribal governments to represent a king's retinue or a standing/elite unit?
• We can have specific idea sets for states or culture groups and increase/reduce the total number of ideas? Is the same possible for inventions?
• Will the unmodded AI be able to handle customized content, like new unit types or heavily altered governor policies?
• Forts can be changed to reduce enemy supply limit in adjacent cities, instead of having the effect of taking over them and blocking movement? How moddable are the 4 building types' effects and requirements?
• We can change military tradition paths to be tiered instead of linear, or have other forms of requirements?

Lastly, more of a suggestion than a modding question. You could have an enhanced "move pops" interface where the player can hover over each city and see the total cost of instantly moving the pop there, and click to move it. It would remove a lot of tedious micro.

That's it for now, sorry in advance if I have missed public answers to some of them.

 

[famaouz]

Say that I want to give myself 100 gold for every owned province with horse, so the script will look like this right?

add_gold = {
every_owned_province = {
limit = { goods = horse }
add = 100
}
}

 

[DuxBellorum]

Perhaps a silly question, but why can't we play on after the end date like in a sandbox mode?

 

[xangelo7]

about Unit gfx modding how will it work in I:R?

 

[GoldenKahn]

How easy/difficult will it be to mod in nations, compared to CK2 or EU4 or HoI4?

 

[Nerdman3000]

Will it be possible to mod in more omens, more than the currently default 8 omens? Say I wanted to add 2 more omens to each of the religions, and bring up the number of omens to 10?

 

[Trin Tragula]

How easy/difficult will it be to mod in nations, compared to CK2 or EU4 or HoI4?

About the same
A new country requires a country definition file with its color, it will need a flag (though these can be scripted from existing emblems in Imperator).
Adding the country at start means adding it to a big file called setup.txt which is a bit like a save file, but more readable, something we use instead of the history files that many older games use.

An example for a country entry in the setup file could look like:

JUD    = { #Judean Subject State, at the start loyal to the Antigonids. Would later be a Ptolemaic subject.
            government = theocratic_monarchy
            primary_culture = hebrew
            religion = judaism

            capital = 687
           
            own_control_core =     {
                683 684 685 686 687 688 689 691 692 711 713 715 #judea_region
                681 710 712 714 716 717 720 731
            }
        }

 

[Lensy6]

Since you're on the topic of scripts, how exactly are the Buddhism conversions implemented? From what I saw in one of the streams it seemed to grow the most around the most northern parts of India, does it expand out more as it grows / is the expansion time based? Is the expansion based entirely on region of the map, or does it take into account other lands owned by the regional powers (on the idea that followers in one realm could be able to easier make use of the infrastructure of the empire they're in)? Does it convert on a pop-by-pop basis or does it convert all pops in a province at once? Does a player have influence over the rate of growth of Buddhism in their realm before adopting the religion?

Thanks if you can answer any part of this question, interested to see if any of this could be implemented for similar events later elsewhere.

 

[Meneth]

Say that I want to give myself 100 gold for every owned province with horse, so the script will look like this right?

add_gold = {
every_owned_province = {
limit = { goods = horse }
add = 100
}
}

That looks right.

Will it be possible to mod in more omens, more than the currently default 8 omens? Say I wanted to add 2 more omens to each of the religions, and bring up the number of omens to 10?

I'm relatively sure that's possible.

 

[cristofolmc]

How moddable are new pop types? Can the scripted scopes and effects Jomini gives us use to make them do more than just give a plain +5 manpower/pop? For instance if I wanted the pop to give a new game mana called production, and depending on how much a pop produces of that new value, called "production", you can produce more or less trade goods (for instance if i wanted to create an 'artisian' pop type).


I hope there is no problem with the UI adding more pop types

 

[Cassilda]

There are other backgrounds if the empire you're playing becomes historically relevant instead of staying a small state?

 

[princeseth]

such a beautiful end screen ... can we have it without the menu for our Desktop please ?

 

[cristofolmc]

such a beautiful end screen ... can we have it without the menu for our Desktop please ?

This. Please @Trin Tragula can you release it without the menu and letters? I want it as my screen pic for my laptop right now.