Guild World Universalis

[Azélor]

For those who don't know, the title is a reference to the game Europa Universalis, game that I played for far too long already. I've wanted to do a mod with the Guild world map for a long time and began working on it a few day ago, instead of finishing my challenge entry.

I wanted to know if there were other players in the Guild that could be interested.

Obviously, a few concepts of vanilla will have to be scrapped like religions (replace with generic ones but keep the old ones to avoid a missing religion).

I already set up several files to begin testing by using my own country as a starting point. Mapwise, there is plenty of stuff to do. There will also be a lot of writing to do, adding the provinces and everyting that comes with them.

Right now, it is not starting. I'm still stuck at the init.maplogic which is the second stage of the loading. The log files do not tell me anything specific but the last thing loaded before the crash is the superregions. It is then normally followed by the tradenodes but does not appear in my case. The problem could be one of those two.

I am also using the validator but the real errors are getting drown in a sea of insignificant ones, like the missing localization.

[AzureWings]

From the sound of it you're already more knowledgeable about EUIV modding (I assume you're talking about IV) than I am. One possible thing you might want to make sure of is that any preexisting regions (or any other things that have tags like provinces etc) that you removed don't have their tags still showing up anywhere in any files where they'd still be loaded - I've read that that can be a cause of crashes. For instance, if any tags you removed appear in the trade nodes data still.

I haven't used the validator personally, but from a screenshot I saw it looks like you can turn off different types of validations (such as the missing localization warnings)? That might help you narrow things down.

[Azélor]

Yes it is EU4.

I made sure that there was no old content left in the files of the mod, although they are still in the main files (obviously) and maybe they are still loaded. In the .mod file, is used the replace_path for several folders. I'm not sure it is required since with or without doesn't make a difference.

I fixed a few things including syntax errors but still the same result. It is apparently very common for modders to have absolutely no error messages.
I fixed all the validator errors except the localization but these don't make the game crash, it's the text in game that will be missing. You'll see things like PROV_1 instead of Stockholm for example.

It could be my map files. There are different criteria to respect and they are not well explained.

Map height and width need to be divisible by 128 or 256 mentioned in another place. This is the case.
Each map have a specific size to respect, like half the original.
Most of the maps are color indexed and need to use a specific color table.

There are dds files representing a texture overlay for seasons. It is a specific file type that I have a very hard time understanding and working on.
It generate a bunch my smaller maps but the problem could be that I need them to be a specific size and I'm not sure how to resize them correctly.
Lastly, I need to select the right format when saving and there are a bunch of options.
The easiest solution (assuming my map is crashing because of the dds) might be to just use the default ones for the moment but that would mean expanding the oceans quite a lot. Because the original map is not a 2:1.

Also, apparently if a province is too large it can crash, although I saw a Japan mod using a province that covered 90% of the map if not more.
So i divided the ocean into several provinces, making sure that none exceeded 1/8 of the map.
Now I'm wondering if all these provinces can be in different tradenodes/superregions and if that could be the cause of the crash.

[Azélor]

If I use the same map size ratio, the world looks like this:




It makes the outer ocean wider than in the original map and the north/south ones shrinks. It means that travelling in the outer ocean becomes much harder until later in the game. The distance in vanilla would be like travelling form Korea to Hawaii. Yes, in the game they are almost at the same latitude even if in the reality, Korea is much further north.

Or 50% farther that Ireland to New England.

[Falconius]

I've also played WAY too much EU4, and this looks like a fun mod to make, but I doubt I have any real way to help you since everything you said up there sounds really technical.

[AzureWings]

The DDS format is a bit obnoxious to work with as a third party - it's kind of a 'container' format for textures in that the data a .dds file stores can be a variety of things, and many programs that use them only work with certain types of that data and often aren't clear about the details. What are you using to edit/generate them?

In this case though from some quick research (which you might already be aware of) suggests that you don't need to match the default map's aspect ratio exactly, just make sure your defaults.map file defines the width and height of your map.

Also, regarding the trade nodes, if I recall correctly the network of trade nodes can't contain any cycles - it has to be a tree.

[Azélor]

The DDS format is a bit obnoxious to work with as a third party - it's kind of a 'container' format for textures in that the data a .dds file stores can be a variety of things, and many programs that use them only work with certain types of that data and often aren't clear about the details. What are you using to edit/generate them?

In this case though from some quick research (which you might already be aware of) suggests that you don't need to match the default map's aspect ratio exactly, just make sure your defaults.map file defines the width and height of your map.

Also, regarding the trade nodes, if I recall correctly the network of trade nodes can't contain any cycles - it has to be a tree.

I open the dds with photoshop by using a plugin made by Intel. Gimp could also be useful but he also need a plugin.

I know about the infinite trade loop. I believe it breaks the game because each time trade passes in a node, the countries add more and more trade power, resulting in an ever increasing value until the game crashes.
That is potentially going to be a big issue later as the base system for trading is Euro-centrist. While it is possible to fare very well in other regions if played right, it tends to favour Europe.
It is hard to keep the system without favouring anyone in particular. Except if every node is separated. But then it makes trading lackluster.
Right now, I have 2 nodes, one send to trade to the other end node.

On a side note, I've found at least 2 other total conversion mod.
Iaponia universalis, a mod for Japan that is really outdated.
Asoiaf: about Game of Thrones, still a little outdated.

The thing I've notice about these mods is that they are bland (the lack events and other things) but also much faster than vanilla because of this.
Getting rid of the events doesn't crash the game but it disable many things in the game.

[AzureWings]

The Photoshop plugin probably just needs you to select the right settings to save it with then for the DDS (ARGB 8.8.8.8 with no mipmaps if my research was correct), and I'd guess you're probably already doing that so the dds format part is probably working right (though I'm not sure on all the particulars of how exactly the data in the dds file needs to be).

Regarding trade nodes - although I haven't dived in to attempt any serious mods for EUIV, I've planned one at one point, and the rule I used for trade nodes was to place the 'sinks'/end nodes at the location of preeminent mercantile capitals - that somewhat mirrors how they're placed to represent things in vanilla (Venice, Antwerp, etc) but unlike vanilla you don't need to put all the sinks in the same continental vicinity. The trade system will favor some countries yes, but if you spread out where the trade flow trends towards you can probably at least avoid favoring a single region of the world as blatantly.

Making custom events from the ground up could take a while and be tedious but I imagine it would personalize a total conversion mod to whatever world it was for very nicely.

[Azélor]

The Photoshop plugin probably just needs you to select the right settings to save it with then for the DDS (ARGB 8.8.8.8 with no mipmaps if my research was correct), and I'd guess you're probably already doing that so the dds format part is probably working right (though I'm not sure on all the particulars of how exactly the data in the dds file needs to be).

Regarding trade nodes - although I haven't dived in to attempt any serious mods for EUIV, I've planned one at one point, and the rule I used for trade nodes was to place the 'sinks'/end nodes at the location of preeminent mercantile capitals - that somewhat mirrors how they're placed to represent things in vanilla (Venice, Antwerp, etc) but unlike vanilla you don't need to put all the sinks in the same continental vicinity. The trade system will favor some countries yes, but if you spread out where the trade flow trends towards you can probably at least avoid favoring a single region of the world as blatantly.

Making custom events from the ground up could take a while and be tedious but I imagine it would personalize a total conversion mod to whatever world it was for very nicely.

After testing, the problem is not the dds. I did a small modification on the vanilla one to see and it loaded without problem.

Custom events such as the Cheese War?
The leading producer of dairy products goes into a trade war with another country. Then the Cheese war event fires. Major cheese producers have the opportunity to join the war on one side of the other. Will they try to break to unjust cheese monopoly by joining the challenger or will they enforce the existing international trade laws with the leading country (having the possibility to increasing their share of this lucrative market) ?

Some casus belli (like trade conflict) are completely useless but the Cheese war would be a special conflict.
It could include the dismantle empire peace offer from Victoria 2. That was cruel.

On an other note, I've found that there is no need to create new continent if getting rid of the existing ones is going to be a load of problems (missing references).
I can just go in the localization and change the names to anything I want : and that is what it looks like, not impressive



Guild world continents don't have names yet but for the moment, they will have these names. We can change how they appear in the localization later.



Shireland is New Zealand in a parallel universe.

[Azélor]

Placing provinces on the maps is actually harder than I thought. By hard I mean that it's hard when you don't know the country you are working with.
One country is in the mountains in the middle of the continent. My logic tells me it should be a desert similar to Western Tibet or Xinjiang for example, but the map shows a lot of vegetation.
If I decide to continue the project (not sure now) I will start by focusing on my own country first. I already have 143 provinces and some of them will need a rework.