[Acko]

This mod is a second attempt at this. That was abandoned because of a huge morale loss because some progress was not saved. So, without further ado, I present

Amod, for Vicky

The Quynian Revolution has meant the demise of the Aconian Empire, and the beginning of an era of unprecedented stability. The six post-Aconian Republics are now sworn to preserve peace and prosperity across (continent) and the world. But, these republics now face a new kind of threat, the rapidly growing (name)ian Empire. It is up to you to stop them, or help them in their cause.

Pretty bland for now, but I'm going to work on the plot.
DDs - The Game Mechanics and you!
DD.GM.1 - What this is (General)
DD.GM.2 - Pops and you (Pops)
DD.GM.3 - Realpolitik (The Great Powers)
DD.GM.4 - Election day! (Elections and Politics)
DD.GM.5 - The Map (Map)

[Darth-Apple]

It's gotta be frustrating losing so much work from your last project. This one seems to have a very good plot, so I'm looking forward to further updates.

[Acko]

DD.GM.1 - Grand Strategy

Victoria II is a grand strategy game which covers the Victorian Era (1836-1935). It handles pretty much all aspects of nation building, including politics (elections, parties, reforms), military (war, army maintenance), and, most importantly, economics. The game's economic system is very complex, and all goods travel through the world market. You can either micromanage your exports and imports, or you can let the game do it automatically. Another complex system is the Pop system. Each POP is an individual male citizen. These POPs are seperated in groups; each group of POPs has their own religion (e.g. catholic, sunni) occupation (aristocrat, farmer), and political views. Each POP group has militancy. If militancy is high enough, they may revolt. Consciousness is basically the same- though it has positive effects, in that consciousness boosts plurality, which adds to you research point pool (you use these to conduct research). So now you see how complex this game is.
NEXT Update: POPs explained more.

[Acko]

DD.GM.2 - POPs

Okay, my last explanation of POPs was lousy. So in this DD, I'll explain them with complete accuracy.
Editor's note: Much information paraphrased from the Vicky II Wiki. I do not take all credit for the information in the following passage.
POPs, in game terms, are units of population which represent people of similar culture, occupation, religion, and location. Over time, pops will shrink or enlarge, depending on the circumstances. Every province has its own POPs. Another factor in POP size is immigration and emigration. POPs will often immigrate or emigrate depending on certain circumstances; For example, using your influence to encourage immigration to your country from another area can increase immigration. All POPs have their needs; If they do not get these needs, then their militancy may increase. It should be noted, that POPs only represent the healthy adult males of the unit.
POPs have three types of attitudes: Plurality, consciousness, and militancy. Plurality is a measure of your POPs demand for social reforms and democracy. Plurality can be used to measure how liberal your country is becoming. Plurality influences consciousness, which is defined as your as your POPs desire to fulfill their own self-interests. Consciousness affects militancy, which is how likely a POP is likely to revolt. With a militancy of 1-6, your population has no chance of revolting; Rebel factions began organizing at a militancy of 7; At militancy 8, your POPs will join an active uprising in the province; Finally, at militancy 9, any POPs will immediately revolt. Other than consciousness, there are other factors that influence militancy, such as nationalism, dislike of ruling party, or war exhaustion (losing battles, losing your war goals, etc). Factors that reduce militancy include sympathy for ruling party, conservative ideology, or a failed revolt.
So this sums it up for the post on POPs. If you want to learn more, check out this page on the Vicky II Wiki!

[Darth-Apple]

So POPs are a lot like social tribes in a sense, as they seem to act as one unit when it comes to major affairs?

[Acko]

Yeah, but they're only like this because it's efficient; having 4 million individual people in the game wouldn't quite be economical with this technology D:

[Darth-Apple]

I've found that the simulations that are that detailed tend to be too much. It's awesome to have a good simulation, but if it's too complex, I've always felt like it took a part of the fun away. Maybe that's just me though.

What's the typical population of a POP?

[Acko]

Around 40000.

[Darth-Apple]

So it's roughly the size of a large town or small city? That seems like a decent population for that sort of thing.

[Acko]

It's real cool, yeah. The devs had to actually find 1836 census records to find accurate records for the POPs. It doesn't seem like an easy task, as censuses weren't as organized as they were starting in the 1900s. Heck, I even had difficulty finding complete census records for 1914 (I was actually working on a WW1 scenario for the game, something that's been missing for a while [though the devs said they wouldn't ever add it, as it would be too much work])

[Darth-Apple]

Oh wow. Seems like the developers knew what they were doing if they were looking at real historic census records.

[Acko]

DD.GM.3 - The Great Powers

The Great Powers are the eight nations in the game which exert the most influence over the world. At the beginning of the game, the eight great powers are (in ranking):

• The United Kingdom
  
• July Monarchy (France)
  
• Russian Empire
  
• United States
  
• Prussia (destined to become Germany)
  
• Austrian Empire
  
• Ottoman Empire (sick man of Europe)
  
• Spain (lol)
  

The great powers are able to include all lesser nations in their sphere of influence. They will recieve a call to arms to protect any nation in their sphere of influence, should an outside power declare war on their spherelings. Another great power can take from their sphere of influence by these means:

• War (the 'Take from Sphere' war goal)
  
• Influence (A great power can influence the opinion of the other's spherelings, to the point they'll leave it)
  

Great powers can also colonize.
Secondary powers are the next 8 greatest nations. Like great powers, can colonize uncolonized lands. (But cannot keep an SoI)
Civilized nations are the first rank of nations. They cannot colonize, nor they do not get any of the benefits great powers get.
Uncivilized nations are nations that are not westernized. Every country in Africa and Asia is uncivilized. To westernize, you will have to enact a chain of reforms that will eventually lead you to westernization.
I guess that's it for Great Powers. Next post: Internal Politics.

[Darth-Apple]

Nice post. The whole concept reminds me quite a lot of the popular board game, Risk. Looking forward to watching the plot develop.

[Acko]

Okay, instead of you reading long walls of text that show why I love this game, I'll direct you to this page, by the devs. So this will be a development diary, not Victoria II for Dummies

[Acko]

DD 1 - The mod file

To run a mod, you have to specify which mod you want in the mod switcher inside the launcher. Example:

In the bottom left corner, 2 mods with checkboxes beside their name show. One is my mod, the other is POPs of Darkness (the other name for the great POP Demand Mod). You can check one of these mods, or you can check both. However, if the mods edit the same files, they will NOT work. So if you want to use PDM with my mod, sorry :|.
The .mod file is created in this format:

Code:

name = "The name of your mod, inserted in quotes"
         path = "The path of your mod, inside the mod folder"
         userdir = "The directory of your mod, found in your documents folder under Paradox Interactive/Victoria II/yourmod"

There are many optional parameters. The

Code:

dependency = {"Another Mod"}

makes your mod dependent on another mod. For example, if I wanted to use the reforms of PDM, then I would add that to my dependency list.

Code:

replace_dir = "game directory"

This completely replaces the files in another game directory. It's very useful for total conversion mods, which don't use ANY of the files in that directory.
So that's my first DD. A bit short, but it explains the base of the mod, which you NEED for it to run it.

[Acko]

Since Microsoft hates everybody, they decide to break DirectX 9.0c on Windows 7. So now I can't play any Paradox games. So no more Amod. Maybe when I learn more programming.


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