[MOD] The West is No More (TWiNM) (v1.3.9)

[kronenblatt]

It is almost a thousand years since Rome last saw a king, but now he may have returned. Odovacar, of Scirian descent and slayer of emperors, can soon titulate himself King of Italy and whatever remains of the Western Roman Empire (Imperium Romanum Occidentis). Odovacar is formally a subject of Zeno, the emperor at Constantinople, but in reality his own master. Two remaining nations of Imperial West Roman origin remain in the struggle for survival; Syagrius in Gallia, and Julius Nepos in Dalmatia. But apart from that, the west is now dominated by a patchwork of Germanic successor kingdoms; in Britannia, Gallia, Hispania, as well as Africa, all fighting among and between themselves for supremacy and spoils of war. And in the east, the Sassanid Persians are facing two lethal threats; the vicious Hephthalites and the decaying but still mighty Guptas from India.

This mod takes off in the fall of September 476 CE, immediately after Romulus Augustulus has been deposed as Roman emperor in the west. It will last until 632 CE, at the time when the ar-Rashidun Caliphate begins its dramatic expansion. When the mod starts, Odovacar and Nepos are at war with each other, a cut-throat war with only one outcome: victory for one of them, death for the other.

Take the role as Julius Nepos and resurrect the Roman empire of the west. Or as Gallia Romanorum (Kingdom of Soissons), with the same goal. Or why not as Imperium Romanum pars Orientis, as the emperor in Constantinople, emulating the conquests of Justinian but decades earlier. Or one of the Briton kingdoms pushing the Anglo-Saxon invaders back into the sea. Or any of the barbarian successor kingdoms, carving out parts of all of the Roman empire for yourself. Or any other nation on the map. The choice is yours.

The political situation at start




Again, many thanks to Pocus for his immense help and advice on making this mod work and keeping me on the right route.

Main changes

• Two turns per year, summer and winter.

• Remote regions modifiers, giving fewer benefits from regions, the farther away they are.

• Mercenary units available only in a few regions.

• Nations' available units in FoGE more closely linked to FoG2 army lists for this era, and exports of units from FoGE to FoG2 to a large extent based on such army lists as well.

Download and instructions (latest version as of January 4, 2023)
Download of latest version (v0.9 for FoGE v1.3.9) from my Google Drive, available HERE (z476CE_TWiNM_v139_20230104_1715).



Important: Remove any earlier versions of the mod (folder and files) and then unzip this download file and place the unzipped folder and its files in the SCENARIOS folder of FieldOfGloryEmpires, under Documents/My Games/.

Under Options, in the upper left corner of the main screen, please make sure to uncheck 'Historical Names for Armies'!

[jfcottigny]

Hi Kronenblatt,
First thanks for the job, looks great !

I loaded it, it works, but I faced a few problems :

1- (minor) : army and fleet names do not appear, instead there's a "MISSING...". Seems to be a FACTIONS.CSV related problem.

2- (more annoying) : Italic (Constantinople, Nepos, Odovacar) factions have no generals... couldn't find where the problem is located.

3- many locations are already equipped with "paved roads". But if the region concerned does not have enough level 1 infra buildings, you never reach level 2. For example, many "poor" regions, only have brickwork and wheelmaker, no clay pit, wood cutting, charcoal pile. In this case, you can only build the first two, and then are blocked, no possibility for any land expansion, etc...

There's probably more to find but I didn't encounter it yet.

Sorry for the disagreement ...

[kronenblatt]

Hi Kronenblatt,
First thanks for the job, looks great !

I loaded it, it works, but I faced a few problems :

1- (minor) : army and fleet names do not appear, instead there's a "MISSING...". Seems to be a FACTIONS.CSV related problem.

2- (more annoying) : Italic (Constantinople, Nepos, Odovacar) factions have no generals... couldn't find where the problem is located.

3- many locations are already equipped with "paved roads". But if the region concerned does not have enough level 1 infra buildings, you never reach level 2. For example, many "poor" regions, only have brickwork and wheelmaker, no clay pit, wood cutting, charcoal pile. In this case, you can only build the first two, and then are blocked, no possibility for any land expansion, etc...

There's probably more to find but I didn't encounter it yet.

Sorry for the disagreement ...

Thanks for input.

1. Thats' weird: all armies and fleets in my launched game have names. Any specific nations? Could you please provide screenshots? EDIT: do you have another version than English? e.g., French?
2. Odovacar in fact does (but isn't Italic nation), but you're right in that the Italic ("Roman") nations (Imp.Rom.Oriens, Gallia, Nepos) don't. Have to check that up and why that is the case. EDIT: It seems that a LEADERS.csv file was needed, since I'm using new leader groups for Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Britons.
3. Don't understand the problem: does the existence of Paved Roads limit or even prevent further buildings in those regions?

[jfcottigny]

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Hi Kronenblatt,

1- All nations I tried seem to be concerned. Here are two screenshots, as you can see the denominations are "MISSING_nation"... I'm French, true, but playing with the English install as translations are sometimes... disappointing, I'd say . So, not a problem of language.

2- True, Odovacar does, sorry for the mistake. I tried to insert the LEADERS.CSV from vanilla game, didn't work, nor changing "latin" into "roman" in that file. After a few hours trying to find the solution, I gave up...

3- Paved roads are not "infra" but "financial" constructions. So that in "poor" regions, you had brickwork, wheelmaker and public works only as level 1 buildings. With that built you reached level 2 infra buildings, etc... But when in such a region there already is a paved roads constructed, which does not count as infra, you build the wheelmaker, the brickwork, and then are blocked, you never reach level 2 buildings as you'd need 3 level 1 buildings in order to be able to do this. And trying my first game as Constantinopolis, I faced many cases like that.

That's all I have for now, I'll return to the game when you have found a solution at least for leaders, as otherwise it's very unbalanced regarding the concerned nations. Thanks in advance and once again bravo for your great work (of course Pocus deserves the same thanks !).

[kronenblatt]

1- All nations I tried seem to be concerned. Here are two screenshots, as you can see the denominations are "MISSING_nation"... I'm French, true, but playing with the English install as translations are sometimes... disappointing, I'd say . So, not a problem of language.

2- True, Odovacar does, sorry for the mistake. I tried to insert the LEADERS.CSV from vanilla game, didn't work, nor changing "latin" into "roman" in that file. After a few hours trying to find the solution, I gave up...

3- Paved roads are not "infra" but "financial" constructions. So that in "poor" regions, you had brickwork, wheelmaker and public works only as level 1 buildings. With that built you reached level 2 infra buildings, etc... But when in such a region there already is a paved roads constructed, which does not count as infra, you build the wheelmaker, the brickwork, and then are blocked, you never reach level 2 buildings as you'd need 3 level 1 buildings in order to be able to do this. And trying my first game as Constantinopolis, I faced many cases like that.

1. Yes, that's extremely weird and even weirder that it refers to "_Italia" when the nation's name is still Odovacar. Anyway, I've asked Pocus how it looks on his build and I also urge other players to report whether they have the same problem or not.
2. LEADERS.CSV needs to be modded as well, since I've implemented new leader groups.
3. Still don't understand the situation and the problem: WHY does the existence of Paved Roads in a region prevent and block building more structures? Is that because Public Works cannot be built due to the higher-level Paved Roads are already in place? And there aren't in general any other level-1 Infrastructure structures available? Would it solve the situation if Paved Roads were to be reclassified as Infrastructure?

There's now a new version available on my Google Drive (see first post) that sorts out the leader issue #2 and some other stuff.

[gaius21]

Do we need the fog2 dlcs to access the new late roman units?
Did you add any new buildings from that time period, ie christian temples?

[kronenblatt]

Do we need the fog2 dlcs to access the new late roman units?

Don't know since I own all FoG2 DLCs myself. I haven't modded FoG2 at all for this, so try to export a game there (preferably between Odovacar and Nepos already at war, so straightforward), see whether it works, and report here, please.

Did you add any new buildings from that time period, ie christian temples?

No new buildings at all. Kept religion out of the mod, although I had some thoughts on implementing it. But I wasn't sure to which use, to be honest.

[Swuul]

Still don't understand the situation and the problem: WHY does the existence of Paved Roads in a region prevent and block building more structures? Is that because Public Works cannot be built due to the higher-level Paved Roads are already in place? And there aren't in general any other level-1 Infrastructure structures available? Would it solve the situation if Paved Roads were to be reclassified as Infrastructure?

(Most) poor regions have only three possible level 1 infrastucture buildings: Brickwork, Wheelmaker, Public Works. Ie with Paved Roads in the region, those poor regions can never reach level 2 infrastructure buildings (unless they already have at least one level 2+ Infrastructure building in the region).

And yes, reclassifying Paved Roads as Infrastructure would get rid of the issue. Another way to overcome the issue would be to add a Bridge to all regions with Paved Roads; would IMO be thematically correct (if you have Paved Roads, you really should have Bridges too, right?), and those piss-poor regions wouldn't actually benefit that much from the Bridge (especially with the upkeep cost of 3 -> very unlikely the +12% Commerce bonus should provide more benefit).

[gaius21]

i exported some battles to fog2 and without having the age of belisarius dlc the units seem to export fine, legio to legio comitansis auxilia to auxilia palatinae etc. hope im not "pirating" the dlc this way!
the eastern roman and nepos armies though dont have any names, and the eastern empire doesnt have any generals at the start.

[kronenblatt]

i exported some battles to fog2 and without having the age of belisarius dlc the units seem to export fine, legio to legio comitansis auxilia to auxilia palatinae etc. hope im not "pirating" the dlc this way!

Don't think you do, since it's limited to Empires battles.

the eastern roman and nepos armies though dont have any names.

You mean in FoG2 battle or in FoGE?
Does that only apply to the armies of these two nations, or to all?

Please provide screenshot.

(I've got names in FoG2 battles as well as in FoGE.)

the eastern roman and nepos armies though dont have any names, and the eastern empire doesnt have any generals at the start.

You mean in FoG2 battle or in FoGE? You use the latest version, right? The one from November 9?

(I've got generals at start for Imp. Rom. Orientis.)

[kronenblatt]

And yes, reclassifying Paved Roads as Infrastructure would get rid of the issue. Another way to overcome the issue would be to add a Bridge to all regions with Paved Roads; would IMO be thematically correct (if you have Paved Roads, you really should have Bridges too, right?), and those piss-poor regions wouldn't actually benefit that much from the Bridge (especially with the upkeep cost of 3 -> very unlikely the +12% Commerce bonus should provide more benefit).

Many thanks for input, Swuul! I'll consider the two options. The latter sounds better actually: it's only if there are enough available spots in all applicable regions for a Bridge at start. (EDIT: I went for adding Bridges in the end: as you said seemed to make sense and was more straightforward. There were a number of regions with too many structures then but I removed some and hopefully it'll now be in good order for next version.)

[kronenblatt]

New version now available, updated download link in opening post.

[jfcottigny]

Just to say I fully agree with both swull reply and suggestion about the bridges.
Eager to try your new version

[jfcottigny]

Found new little malfunctions :
I'm playing Constantinopolis. It's turn 7.

Till now, I've had no "regional decisions" given, nor "decisions" in the nation panel.

Ghassanidae, my client nation, relationship level 25 on turn 1, suddenly was at relationship level 0 on turn 2. Am I that bad a diplomat ? I tried to offer a gift, same result. Conclusion, nobody loves me...

[kronenblatt]

Found new little malfunctions :
I'm playing Constantinopolis. It's turn 7.

Till now, I've had no "regional decisions" given, nor "decisions" in the nation panel.

Ghassanidae, my client nation, relationship level 25 on turn 1, suddenly was at relationship level 0 on turn 2. Am I that bad a diplomat ? I tried to offer a gift, same result. Conclusion, nobody loves me...

Decisions unfortunately caused a lot of freezes during development, probably due to many new nations and new time period, so have been removed.

Regarding relationships: the larger a nation (in terms of number of regions), the lower a cap on the relationship level that it can have with other nations. Probably your situation is due to that.

And you still got the problems with no names for the armies and fleets off any nations?

[jfcottigny]

Thanks for the explanations.

Yes still no names for the armies and navies. Not a major problem.

Question : did you limit the number of possible building slots on purpose ? In both this MOD and ADA, there's a predetermined numbre of building slots which seem not to evolve with the population. And here playing Constinopolis, I'm supposed to have a "builders" people with one free slot, but... if number of slots is blocked, it seems to be quite useless

[kronenblatt]

Thanks for the explanations.

Yes still no names for the armies and navies. Not a major problem.

Question : did you limit the number of possible building slots on purpose ? In both this MOD and ADA, there's a predetermined numbre of building slots which seem not to evolve with the population. And here playing Constinopolis, I'm supposed to have a "builders" people with one free slot, but... if number of slots is blocked, it seems to be quite useless

Yes, on purpose, although different between ADA and TWiNM. If you get one additional slot though, then you’d have one slot more than everyone else. Or you’ll just need to remove some buildings maybe, to build those you really want.

[jfcottigny]

Ok Kronenblatt, thanks.
It's a fully different logics than in the usual game, but it's interesting, you have to plan what you really want, instead of building logically, but as much as you can. New intellectual mechanics, preserves me (hopefully) from Alzheimer

[jfcottigny]

Ok Kronenblatt, thanks.
It's a fully different logics than in the usual game, but it's interesting, you have to plan what you really want, instead of building logically, but as much as you can. New intellectual mechanics, preserves me (hopefully) from Alzheimer

[jfcottigny]

Euh, after all, maybe not completely, as I posted the same thing twice