Please Help Me Decide Which Mod To Use [Archive]

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candelarius

11-02-2006, 20:03

Greetings KoH Fans,

I've been playing KoH all week after just purchasing it, and, I love it! I've noticed there are a few major mods out for the game. I plan on completing a couple "vanilla" campaign before I worry about mods, but, I've been reading the forums about the Glory of God and the Holy Rome mods, and, I have a few questions.

I've noticed that both mods do similar things, and, indeed, both mods seem to share components. What are the essential differences between the mods?

What are the advantages of chosing one over the other?

Which mod is more historically accurate?

Is one mod more stable than the other?

What are the key differences between the mods versus vanilla? I've read over the long list of changes that each mod has made, and, that's great, but, what do these changes do that improve the game?

Thanks!

Angryminer

11-02-2006, 20:10

candelarius

11-02-2006, 20:26

1. I guess Holy Rome is the most accurate.
2. Propably the stability of all mods is equal. KoH is the limiting factor here.
3. About your "improvement of the gameplay"-question:
What do you exactly want to know?
You said you read the changelogs, and most propably also some opinions. Propably also Elvain's "Mods available"-thread, with it's short-discriptions.
Now, even though I'm the author of Glory of God and played Holy Rome and some other mods, I don't know how I should assist you any further. Perhaps you want to ask more specific questions, so we can help you better. :go:

Angryminer

Perhaps I'm not being clear because I'm still very new to KoH? I've only invested perhaps 14 hours of gameplay so far. So, some of the changes in the change logs I'm familiar with, but, most sorta go "over my head", as in: "Oh, that sounds nice, but, how is that better?" I guess my question, in a round-about-way, is, which mod is better, and why should I play it (how does it make vanilla better, not just different)? :wink:

I've listed my questions with regards to the Holy Rome mod more precisely below:

- Kingdom power: gold benefit is inverted:
- KP = +gold, -happiness
+ KP = -gold, +happiness

This statement I didn't understand. How is the gold benefit inverted?

- trade profits tuned down. Who doesn't have anything to offer, has no profit

What does this mean? I've read elsewhere that trade is changed alot in the mod, but, I'm not sure what "tuned down" means. Have the trade mechanics changed, or, is it just harder to make money now?

- province population copied from GoG1.6
- taxes - amost copied from GoG1.6

???

- map is edited newly. Mostly russian and Anatolian provinces changed their names. Anatolian provinces have now names inspired by byzantine themes...

I guess I'm not familiar enough with the current map to understand what the changes to the new map will mean.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you for responding.

Angryminer

11-02-2006, 22:12

1. About kingdom power:
That was copied from Glory of God (GoG). It means that kingdom power is interpreted in a different approach. In the normal KoH a good kingdom power will make your population happy and give you more money.
In GoG and HR (Holy Rome) kingdom power works differently. Low kingdom power will mean "I'm an evil king. Let the peasants suffer." and thus increase your income and lower the people's happyness. On the other hand high kingdom power is interpreted as "Hey, the peasantry also needs to live, don't they?" and will increase the people's happyness on cost of your income. This is so in GoG and HR.
2. Tuned down means lessened. That means where the money flourished in the normal version you only earn a small pocket-money.
In the normal version the amount of gold recieved from a trade route was specified by the size of the other kingdom. After this change the amount of retrieved money is controlled by the amount of valuable goods the partner has to offer. This is so in both GoG and HR.
- I slightly changed the link between the level of a town and the amount of recruitable people there (the small people floating above the town that deplenish when you recruit squads). The result is that it is harder for the player to draft giant amount of troops at an instant. Also the player has to be more aware that when he drafts a lot of troops less people pay taxes, reducing the income. Obviously this is the same in GoG and HR.
- I changed the amount of taxes paid by your people so you will get most of your income from taxes (as in reality) and not from buildings-bonus (as in the normal KoH). This is obviously also the same in GoG and HR.
- Elvain changed some province-names to be more historically correct. I copied most of the changes to GoG. So this is also the same in GoG and HR.

You propably ask yourself what the difference is between GoG and HR. The first thing you'll notice is that in GoG-1.6 you can only hire a single marshall for a reasonable price. Any further marshall will turn your income into a big -9000 or so. That is so because historically there was only one marshall and I believe the AI performs better with only one army under it's control.
In HR you can use several armies.
There are some more changes, but this is the most obvious difference.

Angryminer

Doux

11-02-2006, 22:15

Exactly what Angryminer said :)

I think that Holy Rome is most historically accurate, it was at least one of Elvain's focuses. But Angryminer's comment on Marshals is also true..

candelarius

11-02-2006, 22:39

Thanks a lot to both of you. This really helps. I think the biggest thing I didn't get was a) The kingdom power meter changes and b) what the differences between the two mods are. You've done a great job explaining. I think I'll try both mods out! :biggrin:

Elvain

12-02-2006, 16:03

candelarius

12-02-2006, 23:04

Hi, I didn't know how to answer.. but now.

Angrymier described it almost perfectly :go:

one more change I would see between the mods is use of spies. In HR Ai uses lots of spies (generaly I did everything to encourage Ai to use knights - merchants as well as clerics, marshalls and spies) and I must say that I am very happy how the ai deals with it.

In many cases I just copied features from GoG (like the kingdom power) or got inspiration (like in trade etc.)
original idea was to make the game more accurate (so the map changes) and then I added several buildings (that are mostly parts of other mods, including GoG) and units

the main diferences are in the style of playing. Naturaly I try to make Ai to play as I do (use spies and clerics as much as possible)

Elvain,

Is your mod meant to be played on "easy, medium, or hard"? Are the difficulty settings of the game effected by the mod? For example, can I still use the difficulty settings as per normal? I read in the GoG thread that his mod is probably best played on "hard"...but, I'm still playing on "easy" (because I'm still learning and thus **** still). Please clarify, if you don't mind.

Also, do you intend to eventually update the Help Sections and Text-Mouse-Overy descriptions? Some of them are still taylored to "vanilla", like, for example, the Kingdom Meter settings still relate to standard KoH and not your mod settings.

Also

Thanks!

Elvain

13-02-2006, 00:23

Elvain,

1) After conquering most of Europe as Normandy on easy, I've decided to take a whack at the game with your mod (which sounds great). I have one question about the Kingdom Meter (for some reason this concept is difficult for me):

2) Update: I just got done playing Holy Rome mod for about 45 minutes. I like what you have done alot! But, I'm still confused on the Kingdom Meter. I broke my Peace Treaty with France, my kingdom meter drops, my people get pissed...yet, I get more income?

3) Should the bold text above say unite_rome? I followed your instructions exactly, but, I don't have a unit_romans, just "rome". Just thought I'd be double sure.
1) I recomend to play on hard as I play/test the mod only on hard (only several times I tried normal, but never easy... but it is your decision and I can be only happy that you like the game even on easy
2) Kingdom power shuold be understood as kingdom reputation. When you care of your reputation, it makes your people more happy, but reputation costs something (firstly "good behaviour" and secondly money - to gain respect of your own subjects-people). When your reputation drops downit would be logical that the income stays the same, but it's simply impossible to make working in moding.
The main reason why I used this Angrymniner's irea was gameplay. When your kingdom rises, you often increase your kingdom power just to spend some money, but the effect is that your income rises too. So I prefere this way. Also when your empire is big (over 15 provinces) your problem is not to GET money, but to SPEND them. This lowers your income so you don't have so big problem with spending money - it really bothered me in vanilla: many times my taxes were 0, I used no merchants, but my income still was over 500g per turn. How the hack could I spend such money?
3) there should be both of them. I don't understand how can you have only one of them, they shold bothe be part of HR1.6 version. But maybe the download has some older version, I don't know. The readme is not as good as instructions in the thread Holy Rome1.6 (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=5244) as the thread is updated while the readme is not:sad: I always forgot to update it

candelarius

13-02-2006, 00:28

1) I recomend to play on hard as I play/test the mod only on hard (only several times I tried normal, but never easy... but it is your decision and I can be only happy that you like the game even on easy
2) Kingdom power shuold be understood as kingdom reputation. When you care of your reputation, it makes your people more happy, but reputation costs something (firstly "good behaviour" and secondly money - to gain respect of your own subjects-people). When your reputation drops downit would be logical that the income stays the same, but it's simply impossible to make working in moding.
The main reason why I used this Angrymniner's irea was gameplay. When your kingdom rises, you often increase your kingdom power just to spend some money, but the effect is that your income rises too. So I prefere this way. Also when your empire is big (over 15 provinces) your problem is not to GET money, but to SPEND them. This lowers your income so you don't have so big problem with spending money - it really bothered me in vanilla: many times my taxes were 0, I used no merchants, but my income still was over 500g per turn. How the hack could I spend such money?
3) there should be both of them. I don't understand how can you have only one of them, they shold bothe be part of HR1.6 version. But maybe the download has some older version, I don't know. The readme is not as good as instructions in the thread Holy Rome1.6 (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=5244) as the thread is updated while the readme is not:sad: I always forgot to update it

Elvain,

Sorry, I was editing my post when you were replying! :wink: Please see my revised post. I found this description:

3)this what I like probably the most!!! KP is(as I understand it) meant now to be understood as "kingdom reputation" more than real power. If a player is honorable and humanstic, it is reflected at home(happiness of people) as well as in abroad(better posibilities to negotiate etc.) but for such rule he needs lot of administration (to keep people happy) and high expenses on royal court("diplomatic missions" in abroad etc.)
In the other hand, if the player is ruthless and greedy, he doesn't need to keep any diplomats as he doesn't care of their advices in foreign policy, he doesn't care of home population(as he demands war tax-which decreases KP) so he has bad reputation in abroad and at home too(highh rebelion risk). So you can decide if to be humanist or ruthless and greedy:
high kingdom power gives you good reputation and makes your people happy, but costs you money
low kingdom power gives you money bonus, but keeps your people unhappy and rebelling

In another thread and the Kingdom Meter makes more sense now.

I will try playing on normal and hard...I always start games on easy till I get the feel of things. I just started another new game on normal with your mod.

Thanks for your quick reply! It's nice to see such great support for your mod is available. Do you have your own site on which you host your work, or, is it just based here? Just curious. Thanks. :go:

PS> You're right, both Roman quests are there, I found it and was edited my post when you replied. Sorry!

Elvain

13-02-2006, 00:38

it's ok..

btw sorry that I merged your posts into one. I just wanted to make it easier for me to reply :angel:

No I don't have own site yet, it's still based only here (and on Paradaxforums and on Xuca's site (my special thanks:go:)
I don't understand computers much and am too lazy to create onw site :lol:

The support is that fast only when I have free time (and it will be worse as my school starts this monday :sad:)

And I the one who's pleased here, believe me. I am happy that my sork have some sense and makes people enjoy this wonderful game even more :wink: