Tribal Settlements & Resource Logic
This is a small resource and building mod designed to work as part of an Invictus+ setup to address some immersion gaps in the tribal and settlement economy. It modifies the bonuses and allowable tiles for slave estates, ports, and tribal settlements.
In the base game and major mods, the distinction between a "Tribal" economy and a "Civilized" economy often feels like just a matter of tech levels. This submod introduces mechanical identity to how different governments interact with the land.
- The "Wild" Resource Lock: Historically, no one ran industrial-scale plantations for goods like Amber, Furs, or Wild Game. These were gathered by the community or specialized hunters or trappers with an intimate understanding of the landscape. Therefore, all nations, regardless of government type or tech level, are now restricted from building Slave Estates on Wild Game, Furs, and Amber. You can’t chain-gang your way to an Amber-based trade empire! (Slaves still contribute to excess goods, as domestic thralls free up the broader populace to search for amber, hunt, or trap for the export market).
- Tribal Administration & Slavery (Centralization Lock): Decentralized tribal societies relied on communal labor and domestic thralls, not the massive cash-crop plantations of the Mediterranean. Tribes with less than 60 Centralization cannot build Slave Estates at all. You must rely on Tribesmen and Freemen to generate wealth until your administration is advanced enough (or until you reform your government).
- Tribal Settlements (The Gathering Mechanic): Tribal Settlements have been tweaked to represent a communal gathering economy. While a tribe holds these lands, they focus on Tribesmen output and growth. The AI heavily prioritizes these on gatherable resources.
- Ports & Maritime Resources: Ports in settlements weren’t just for ship-building and landing armies; they should be the lifeblood of coastal communities. Ports will now provide a boost to food output, simulating fishing fleets.
- AI Logic Overhaul: Coastal tribes and governors will now prioritize ports on fish-heavy settlements, even when the base game would normally push them to build a farm. This allows the AI to create well-fed ports rather than "farms" on fish tiles, speeding up growth into cities. This also addresses a port spam issue encountered with INR – Invictus while still incentivizing organically and strategically placed port cities.
- Invictus & Timeline Extender (TE): Fully compatible and balanced around Invictus, for which this acts as a submod (Requires Invictus 1.7+). Should be fine with INR and other navigable river mods.
- Save-Game Compatible: Should be fine to add to an existing save, though the AI will take a few months to adjust to the new building logic. Removing mods mid-game will likely block your save from loading.
- Mod Conflicts: This is a small mod that only modifies 3 buildings (slave estates, tribal settlements, ports), so other mods that impact those will likely conflict.
- FMO Incompatibility: Please note that this is NOT compatible with FMO (Full Mechanical Overhaul) or any mods that contain it, such as Reanimata. FMO’s changes to buildings and settlements do not play nicely with my edits. If anyone wants to adapt this into FMO’s framework, consider this open permission—just leave a link in the comments!
- Recommended Pairings: Designed to work in tandem with Tribesmen Revival and INR – Invictus.
Bugs or Balance Issues? Please let me know. It’s a simple txt file to tweak if you want to try your own settings. If enough people want just subsets of the included buildings, it’s not hard to split them up. Feel free to use my code for your own mod, just acknowledge my work and the Invictus team’s work.
Special thanks to the Invictus team for the BRC framework, which this mod uses to ensure the AI nations actually know how to use these new tools.
"Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance, they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude."
— Tacitus, Agricola, 21
