Sandbox+ Game Mode

Hey folks,

I hope you are all doing fine. As you can remember, around a week ago I shared some ideas that I had in mind but didn't finalize due to the complexity of the features. This weekend, I wanted to give another try at one of the ideas, and I believe I finally have something that you can test out. Hence, I present: Sandbox+

A more randomized, more unique experience for each playthrough.

What is Sandbox+?

Sandbox+ is basically an extended Sandbox for a bit of unique gameplay. Both Campaign and regular Sandbox always start in the same year, with the same clans, factions, and so on. I find this very boring, and I don't think it reflects the Sandbox feeling as it should. With Sandbox+, all of your campaigns will be unique to you. You will see different lords, different balances, and even different kingdoms. You will also have the opportunity to have siblings and even nephews at the start. I think this type of gameplay offers more uniqueness and more fun. Honestly, this "mode" is something I would expect from Taleworlds as well, but well...

When you click on Sandbox+, you will be welcomed with an options page before proceeding. I know most of you like to have some control over your gameplay, and this page does exactly that. I think most of the options are self-explanatory, but let me explain each one very quickly.

Years to Fast Forward: This setting fast-forwards the years. The maximum you can advance is 500 years, and the minimum is 60 (though I haven't enforced a minimum yet). Every year will affect the family trees. This is something I spent a lot of time on. Unfortunately, real simulation (i.e., moving the game day by day under the hood) causes an insane startup delay (sometimes up to 8 minutes), so I had to use a different technique. The current system doesn't cause any delays.

Allow Border Change: Enabling this will allow border changes between Kingdoms. Basically, I'm creating a Convex Hull for each faction and finding the "border" settlements between factions. Based on the aggressiveness, these border settlements change owners based on some random value. Increasing aggressiveness will result in more variable borders than you are used to from the normal Campaign. This system is designed in a way that - rather than me putting the border settlements by hand, it simply checks the map and creates the change based on that. This practically means, it supports any mod that changes the campaign map.

Allow New Kingdoms: This is something I designed for quite some time, but then I decided the most logical version would be branching out a clan and becoming independent over time. Finding the banner color for these new kingdoms was the biggest challenge. For that, I searched through all colors, took their "distance" from their original color, and selected the color that was slightly different. This avoids having funny banner colors and helps players understand which faction is a "spin-off" of which real faction.

Allow Family Members: This enables the generation of family members for your clan. The count, age, and gender will be totally random, and there will be a chance to have nephews as well.

Here is a screenshot from my initial start. As you may notice, the borders have changed. For example, Chaikand is captured by the Southern Empire, Epicrotea is captured by Sturgia, Omor is captured by the Northern Empire, and so on. But I believe the most noticeable changes are in Rhotae and Husn Fulq/Razih. This is because they are now owned by two new Kingdoms in the game that are generated randomly, unique to this gameplay.

 I think names speak for themselves but as you can see we have two new Kingdoms. Banu Sarran Emirate - which owns Husn Fulq and Razih. And Lonalion Empire, which owns Rhotae. Of course, changes are not limited to this, if we look at the existing Kingdoms, we won't see the old leaders such as Caladog or Monchug Khan.

  And if we have a look at our clan, we will see a nice surprise. For this gameplay, we will start with our brother and sister, whom both have more or less around the same age as we are and share the same culture with us as well. With this, you will be able to play with your family, fight as an united clan.

Anyway, this is all that I can write up about related to this game mode I think. I tried to did some long-lasting testing for a few years and didn't notice any crashes or issues. Balance didn't seem to be affected as well but I don't have a huge mod venue like most of you guys, so feel free to report in case if you encounter any problems. It comes in English, Turkish and Russian right now. I will add more languages in the future. I will also probably create a short video about it soon and share it with other folks through Nexusmods too but for the time being, this is obviously exclusive to Patrons :)

Download Link:

https://drive.proton.me/urls/DC6WVC4EFM#prr5TadHMtsb

Password:

PlusSandbox