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Separate Slots, Useful Defences (FotS)

This is included in FotS Enhanced, and it performs much better as a part of that. I'm putting it here as a proof of concept, I won't be tweaking this except for fixing serious bugs.

In vanilla, defences are pretty useless. Even if you remove technology requirements or lower their costs, they still occupy a very valuable building slot, making them a whole lot less desirable. This mod provides a solution by giving them a separate slot. All provinces now start with a Matchlock Tower and can be upgraded to higher tiers. I also restored some sanity to the costs and research times, see the details below. The AI is fully able to utilize defences and will upgrade them when they see fit.

This stuff is pretty much hardcoded, so a lot of workarounds were used. As a consequence, the final tier town building, Prefecture, does not provide an additional construction slot. Considering how rare it is to see either the player or the AI actually build Prefectures, I consider this a good trade-off. Also, the town upgrade chain will now start with Large Town and proceed as ->City->Large City->Municipality->Prefecture, otherwise the UI was bugging sometimes. THIS IS PURELY A COSMETIC CHANGE, FOR ALL PURPOSES "LARGE TOWN" IN THIS MOD IS THE SAME AS "TOWN" IN VANILLA.

I reduced cost and construction times so that they're similar to other military buildings. Vanilla was kinda ridiculous, upgrading four towers should not cost more than building a castle. New values:
-Gatling Gun: 4 Turns / 4000
-Gun Batteries: 8 Turns / 8000

Tech: Not perfect but to be honest technology balance in FotS was already terrible. I would've merged improved defences with Gatling guns, but modding the technology table takes too much time and prone to bugs. This may be less pretty but gets the same result.

-Improved Defenses: 300 points (was 800). A bit drastic but necessary since it's much weaker now.
-Gatling Guns: 700 points (was 1000)
-Gun Batteries: 1500 points (was 1800).

Other small tweaks:
-Matchlock tower reload time decreased by 25%
-Doubled the time to capture towers, but towers now have a minimum range of 10.
-Gatling tower bullet spread reduced (10 to 2), range doubled. It is still weaker than a proper Gatling gun unit, but making the tower as strong as that would break the sieges, like a lot. It's much better to think Gatling tower as an improved rifle tower.
-AI, especially minors, are more likely to build defences. Still, the defence techs are not a priority for major clans, so you'll see them more in longer campaigns.

To do: Add a Shogun hat to Ramsay.

Is it defenses or defences? I'd say the former but the game uses the latter, so...


Due to engine limitations, the mod took a lot more time than it should. People interested in modding can check the discussion for further information.

Compatibility

Unlike my other mods, this mod has limited compatibility. Do not use it with any mods that edit startpos, the modders should state if their mods edit that. This includes many large overhauls (Darth, Radious), any mods that make changes to map (adding/changing regions e.g. Extended Map, new clans etc.), and turn-per-year mods. Blame CA.