Holy Rome 1.8beta

[Illyricum]

Finally it's all done, thanks again Angryminer for your patience and help. :go:

[Elvain]

thanks Angryminer, I don't have enough time to stay by the computer now, so thanks :go:

[Borsook]

Hi, Is there any, even rough ETA for 1.8?

[Elvain]

unfortunately not at all... I started working on some new things but I don't have much time now.. we'll see..
but I can't promisse anything.

[Borsook]

unfortunately not at all... I started working on some new things but I don't have much time now.. we'll see..
but I can't promisse anything.
Ok, no rush. As for new things - is there a chance teutonic order will get more historical boundries than they have now?

[Elvain]

Ok, no rush. As for new things - is there a chance teutonic order will get more historical boundries than they have now?
To be honest I'd really like to, but where to put them?
They should be there and they should start in Prussia, but should Prussians be dislocated? and I think Prussians should be there too...

do you have better idea how to deal with it on the actual map? I'm opened to any good suggestion

[Frieden]

Hello, i'm new in this thread :halloha:
And I beg your pardon for my english that should be improved as soon as possible :angel:

So, please, can you tell me if this is a hard mod or not ?
Reading the 1st posting of this thread I suppose that there are more than one Holy-Rome mod. Which is the most difficult one ?
What do I have do do to play it ?
Until yesterday I played Laudans' Final Mod Hard. Do I have to move these folders ?

Thanks in adavance for answering my questions :smile:

edit: Can I play it with my german version, too ?

[Angryminer]

1. Elvain raised the difficulty considerably.
But I think the main point was historical accuracy in the game.
2. You can either download HR-1.7, Elvain's mod, or download an extra package that only includes the map-changes he did. This map-package is for people who modify their game themselves but still want to use the improved map of HR-1.7.
3. The mapchanges, unit-changes, text-changes, etc. Elvain made were all done in english. If you install those files to a german game you get a mixture of languages.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

I think Angryminer answered the questions well.

Holy Rome 1.8 beta is compatible to the patch and it remarkably increased game dificulty (I actualy think about making it less hard in th ehard settings or increase little the dificulty in normal settings so normal players (including me) should play on normal, while the gods will have hard settings where it is almost impossible to win...

The mod is in english only. I don't understand German nor have German version so in this case I have to disapoint you, you will most probably have mixture of German and English (Provinces, units, buildings, kings and kingdoms will have English names)
--
I finaly opened a new thread for HR1.8 beta so I hope the confusion will disapear. Later I will probably also put the starting map screenshots here.
And once the final version will be ready, I will open a new thread for it
--
btw, I guess that someone in the German forum made translation of HR 1.7, I guess it was Olliminatore

but it is not up to date as the 1.8 version is bit diferent

[4zzY]

Hi Elvain,
I got a little confused by your last post :) Do you seriously think about making the game less difficult on hard?

I started writing a lengthy post with detailed analisys of my two games with your latest mod, but I gave it up... My point is that the AI is stable and meaningfull in terms of behaviour, but lacks the military strength to oppose you.
I usually play with two marshals who wage wars together, in order not to lose those pecious 3-starred veterans. The king or the prince acts as third marshal when somewone attacs my province and I dont have the time to go and defend it with my strongest armies. If the strength of the military units was greater it would be easyer for the AI to conquer provinces from me when my empire stretced across half Europe lets say. Now I just build a stone wall and even an unskilled prince with pesants is a huge problem for the AI armies. For the human player it should not make a huge difference as everyone who cares about his soldiers uses the same set with two marshalls moving tgether most of the time.
Another point is the rebbel armies plundering two villages, making a camp and starting to wait for your marshal to come and slay them. I suppose this was made to help the AI countries become more stable (along with the maximum nostalgia of -2). If this is the optimal solution for the AI problems it should stay I supose...

Otherwise you did GREAT and desere to be considered a Saint in KoH, as you made more than few mirracles for us :wink: :angel:

Keep up the great work and have FUN! :cheers:

[King Kaloyan]

There is no need of using PakMan to install any mode, Elvain. This is a little thingie Nike (a.k.a Traveller) discovered during the translation of the game. If there are folders in the game directory named "defs", "paks" e.t.c it just uses them instead of the original files. In two words just paste the folders from the mode in the game dir and then play.

Don't know if you knew that, it's just easier for the beginner players.

[Angryminer]

@King Kaloyan:
The game has different behaviour for different folders.
In most folders, like defs, the procedure is as follows:
1. Read list of necessary files.
2. Check wether file exists in it's directory.
2a) If so, read it. Go to next file.
2b) If not, open .pak files and read it from there.

In some texts-folders the behaviour is different:
1. Read list of all required folders.
2. Check wether the folder exists.
2a) If so, read all files in it. Proceed to next folder.
2b) If not, open .pak file and read all files within that directory from there.

That means, to work properly, *some* folders have to be complete. All files, even the unmodified, need to exist to make the game work properly. Elvain decided to obtain these via pakman. I distributed the unmodified file in the zip-file, back when I maintained GoG.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

Hi Elvain,
1) Do you seriously think about making the game less difficult on hard?

...
2) My point is that the AI is stable and meaningfull in terms of behaviour, but lacks the military strength to oppose you.
3) I usually play with two marshals who wage wars together, in order not to lose those pecious 3-starred veterans. ...
4) Now I just build a stone wall and even an unskilled prince with pesants is a huge problem for the AI armies. ...
5) Another point is the rebbel armies plundering two villages, making a camp and starting to wait for your marshal to come and slay them.
Hi, 4zzY
1) I seriously did think about it. but you are also right in several cases. But I find it extremely hard to expand, because I always have to pull one of my marshals back, because ne is not enough to defend my lands...
2) not one kingdom, but I try to set it up that a coalition of AI kingdoms will exhaust your armies so much that you won't be able to expand
3) But imagine those veterans are really skilled and that the skills have large effect on battles and you meet unexperienced AI marshals? You simply destroy them with no casaulties
4) do you really have enough money to build stone walls? I find it hard to collect enough money, however AI builds them normaly :bash:
but I guess I will improve the diference between peasants and other units..
5) I might try to increase the speed of rebels gaining experience. But do they have anything to plunder there? :go:

King Kaloyan and Angry:
I prefere PakMan installation because I'd like to use the way Angryminer used but even now the mod is way too large IMO.
But I will probably make a "no PakMan HR" if it is desired

[4zzY]

1) DO NOT make it easyer, try makin it harder. I told you about my set of knights: two marshalls attacking and the king and/or prince handeling the defence. They are great for defence as you can teleport them (the lost art of lightspeed travel) around provinces :biggrin:

2) After I build a wall and a townhall it is vary rare hat the AI conquers a province from me. It is rare that two enemy marshalls assault the city together and it usually happens after one has seaged it, and the other plundered a village. This gives you enough time to teleport the king and break the siege even with no army at all. If you have some regular army in the garison (I usually go for 6 squads of simple archers who stay on the walls) and the town guards (who btw are obcenely effective) are enough.

3) I guess there isn't a way to give the AI some military bonus as well? Can you make their marshals start with certain skills (3*siegecraft, 3* fortify camp, 3*conqueror i.e.), or make their bonuses from the skills they choose greater... I dont know what is possible:scratch: you are the magician after all :bday:

4) I HAVE to invest in wooden walls asap, or I can't defend my provinces, I usually manage to build walls sooner than the AI. This is because I play with 1 province countries and have to buid 3-5 stone walls in the first 1h of play and at that time the AI usually has just half of its provinces fortified.

4.2) The difference between the peasants and other units should be greater indeed. In the beggining I fight only with peasants and destroy AI armies with regular soldiers just because I swarm them with 18 squads of berserk rednecks :biggrin: If the peasants were less efective I would have much more difficulties in the initial expansion and later on, while defending castles with only town guards and peasants. Btw usually my first regular army units come from conquered AI provinces as I focus on economy in the beggining.

5) It depends on the rate AI gets rebels. If they can handle the harder rebels it OK (more experience for their marshals too). The new game that I started yestarday with Normandy, I expanded very quickly (crowned spies in Italy and France) and after reuniting England I had rebels everywhere. My second king is ruling over the whole western Europe except for Rome and the Iberian peninsula, with only Normandy not being nostalgic and rebelious. The funny thing is those rebels helped me a lot as I used them to get levels for my marshalls and made them unbeatable. They never got more than 5 stars, and were an easy prey for my normans/longbowmen :knight:

6) Another problem of the game I can think of is the Kingdom Advantages - the AI never gets them. Can you give them to the AI by default and how this is going to look money-wise (if i remember right the current upkeep for all KA is 1000 gold)? I dont know how much can be modded, but I would accept even cheating by the AI (give him gold, skills, bonuses etc.) if it would make it more competative. I want to FEAR Byzantium would wage war on me, not just go and conquer half of it, before the AI built some walls...

ps
Sorry for the lengthy post, I just thought you might appreciate some feedback. I pray that you'll have the time and the inspiration to continue what you are doing :cheers:

[Elvain]

thanks for very inspirative post.

I will try to improve what is possible.
(1, 2, 4): I changed several things in the mod, and you either lack money or people to recruit armies now (fully developed province rarely has more than 15 "population") My experience is that once I expand to more that 8 provinces, I desperately need 4 marshals: 2 to expand together and 2 as defensive forces who break town sieges, otherwise I often lose my provinces (even with full garrisons, but I hardly have enough money to build stone walls) I will move stonewall higher in AI building priority, I can't do more

3) unfortunately I'm not a magician. To be honest military aspect isn't the most important for me (now I'm afraid the mod is in certain phases of game way too military for me, I rarely have time to consider my diplomatical or espionage plans as I must always defend my lands)

5) I will raise rebels experience and also deepening the gap between cheap and expensive units will be deeper (maybe give all units same number of soldiers per squad? but it would require long balancing which I can't aford :sad:)

6) I experienced that AI builds admiralities, imports exotics and builds economic buildings, in actual KoH I can only make the tech tree even simplier, nothing else.

I'm very thankfull for your feedback :go: If you want I could send you actual version where it is much harder to train new units as there often is lack of either money, food or "free population" in your military bases, especialy if they have some villages plundered - yes, I'm trying to make the game as realistic as possible in the economic, not only in the military way

--
btw, with the changes in economy (food and population) I finaly made landlords worth hiring... In my testing game I was forced several times to hire one in order to be able to be able to even refill my squads :biggrin:

[Elvain]

I can't compete with Laudan's time but I've made several changes so the mod is more realistic in matters of food consumption and numbers of population.

Now I have to ballance it what requires testing = time what I dn't have, especialy in case of open battles. But peasants were relatively weakened as other unit numbers were increased. Generaly the advantage turned from archers to strong cavalry units which were the cores of true medieval armies. Their prize on the other hand is so high that it will take you some time to build them.

Good luck and thanks for your feedback: Special thanks to Azzy :go:

Badongo link: HR 1.8.1 (http://www.badongo.com/file/2627610)
Rapidshare link: HR 1.8.1 (http://rapidshare.com/files/23732070/HR181.ZIP.html)

Two biggest positives I see in the mod are:
1) You are forced to use princesses - it is the best (and on hard almost the only) way how to have active diplomacy and foreign policy - without marriage almost noone negotiates with you unless you give them large sums of gold (which you don't have) or release their (or their friends') prisoners

2) finaly landlords have some use: especialy at the begginging some of your cities may have negative food production. My advice is to assign landlords there and build granary as soon as possibe (it is the cheapest building) or you won't be able to even refill your squads there!

[Innocence]

If your're still doing map corrections for your MOD it'd be great if you could correct the geographical error of placing the town Odense on the island of Sjælland (Zealand) in Denmark :eek:

Odense is actually right in the middle of the island Fyn (Fionia) which isn't even in the game. Zealand's main city is the current capital København (Copenhagen), situated to the fart eastern part of the island.

http://www.danskbroderorden.dk/images/logekort.GIF

Alternatively, or if it's impossible to move towns on the map, you could call it Roskilde (Roskilde Cathedral has been royal burial ground since the first Christian Danish king Harald Bluetooth circa 986AD).

What about regent names? Can they be changed too (most of the current ones are very un-Danish :) )

[Gogo_t]

Download:
badongo:
Holy Rome 1.8 beta-mapchanges (http://www.badongo.com/file/2215056)
Holy Rome 1.8 beta (http://www.badongo.com/file/2215076)

rapidshare:
HR 1.8beta (http://rapidshare.com/files/16588086/HR1_8beta.ZIP.html)
mapchanges (http://rapidshare.com/files/16588739/HR1_8beta-mapchanges.zip.html)

Version 1.8.1 (improved economy, landlords, builders and princesses finaly have use)
Badongo link: HR 1.8.1 (http://www.badongo.com/file/2627610)
Rapidshare link: HR 1.8.1 (http://rapidshare.com/files/23732070/HR181.ZIP.html)


Should I instal Holy Rome 1.8 beta-mapchanges and HR 1.8beta first and after that to instal HR 1.8.1 ? Or i can instal only HR 1.8.1 ?

Btw, is there Volga Bulgaria in the mod or it is just Volga \I'm asking for the name of the kingdom\?

[Elvain]

install what you want, 1.8.1 s the latest

There is Volga Bulgaria but I will change it back to Volga as it is often very confusing - I foten think that someting was done by Bulgaria and then I see it was done by Volga Bulgaria... or I'll call it Volga Bulgarians to make some diference

to Inocence: I can make the capital Roskilde, I don't know why I didn't yet...

[Doux]

He meant, I think, is the patch an update or stand-alone. It's stand-alone - you can install HR 1.81b on its own.

Btw, there's a miscode in kingdoms_800: Sicily should be Sicilia ;)