VanillaMod Suggestions thread

[FactionHeir]

Please post all your gripes, critiques and suggestions for future vesrion here.
While I do not promise that all your suggestions will be implemented, I will get back to them and explain my reasoning. Please understand that while I value all suggestions and will definitely consider them, as the author I do have a vision for this modification as well.

[Roman_Man#3]

Heya,

Do you have any plans on expanding this and incorporating a new map and possibly skins?

[FactionHeir]

Thanks for the suggestion,

Yes I would be interested in making the map larger, however I would still offer a standard map version in addition for download for those who don't want a larger one, therefore having 2 somewhat different versions of VanillaMod.

If you are interested in making a larger map, you could have a chat with Warluster who offered to make one currently.

[Slawomir]

Hello there!

I think the AI is getting too much money! The armies it is constructing are large even though it has less settlements than me and is losing the war.

I think you should limit the amount of florins a faction receives.

Thanks!

[Slawomir]

Hello again!

Checked some files and noticed that you are giving each faction 8000 florins a turn!

That is way too much. I limited that to 1000 as long they have less than 20000.

Now I understand why my enemies are sending wave after wave of armies consisting of 2 full stacks every 3 or so turns! TOO HARD! :no:

[FactionHeir]

Hiya,

They get between 4000 and 8000 but normally will not attack you until turn 11 the earliest, and even then only if your relations are truly bad with them. Alliances last fairly long, so if you can convince them to be on your side early on, that is an advantage.

I will look into your claim that they are getting too much however, and see if I can split it into 4000 early on and 8000 later on. That will not be until at least a week from now though as I will lose access to M2TW for a week due to repairs.

[Raz]

I don't suppose this is possible but I'll ask it anyway. About those injections of money, is there a way of using the AI's provinces to calculate how many Florins are given? Say they own four cities, multiply four by 1500 and thats how many Florins that are injected. That combined with the "no florins after 70,000" would make for some interesting gameplay. :2thumbsup:

[FactionHeir]

Hmmm I don't think multiplications (or calculations in general) work in the campaign_scipt. What is possible is to give a set amount per settlement for instance, but that would require 4 lines of code for each settlement, and even when capping this at 30 settlements, that would be 120 extra lines of code per faction and really bloat the file. Might even break it possibly...

What I could do (to keep the code to a minimum) is to stratify it, so that 1-2 gets X 3-6 gets +Y etc. I'll consider that for the next release. Thanks for your suggestion

[rebelscum]

Playing Russia I ran into some huge rebel stacks around Moscow, are you sure that the rebels aren't getting a bit too much money?
Its costing me a load of resources to wipe them out, and I probably wont be able to withstand the mongol horde at this rate. Good job making it harder though.
I took Moscow with a full stack over two battlws by waiting until the rebel stacks had started romaing. Which is a good thing, is this something else the mod has introduced, I'm used to rebel stacks coming and plonking themselves in my territory rather than defending their own.

[FactionHeir]

Yup, I modded the rebels so that they can build buildings and hire units as if they were their own faction. When rebels have many provinces, their funds are split accordingly and thus each province is defended mediocrely well. Once they are down to a few, they also get less cash, but each province will be defended heavily.

The advantage the player still has over rebels is that rebels have inherently lower morale and you don't need to chase down a rebel stack to defeat it. If a rebel stack involved in a battle loses, it disappears.

I'll see what I can do in terms of maybe lowering their cash amount though without making them the usual walk in the park.

[rebelscum]

Yes that would be great. You can probably tell by the name I'm a rebel fan. Have you adjusted the bribary chances of rebels as per other factions, I know you have made bribary work, but I think Rebels should be a bit easier to bribe. You could make them cost about the same as mercs. I suppose how bribable they are depends on how strongly their cause, if you are a despotic leader, you could make the bribable chances a bit lower. On another, note, one persons rebels are another persons allies. Maybe the bribable chance could depend on how close the rebels origin settlement was to your eniemies. Ooh its so complex ;)
:wall:

[soulbreaker360]

Can you please do something to make gunners (who are defending the castle) able to shoot off walls correctly and straight? :)

[FactionHeir]

Can you please do something to make gunners (who are defending the castle) able to shoot off walls correctly and straight? :)

Sadly gunners will only be able to shoot at targets lower than them off the castle walls if they shoot into the air due to the way they are coded, and I'm not sure if that would be desired. They will however shoot from the walls correctly at targets that are on a near even level (some city battles have internal battlements which are optimal for gunners to shoot at the external battlements)

[FactionHeir]

Yes that would be great. You can probably tell by the name I'm a rebel fan. Have you adjusted the bribary chances of rebels as per other factions, I know you have made bribary work, but I think Rebels should be a bit easier to bribe. You could make them cost about the same as mercs. I suppose how bribable they are depends on how strongly their cause, if you are a despotic leader, you could make the bribable chances a bit lower. On another, note, one persons rebels are another persons allies. Maybe the bribable chance could depend on how close the rebels origin settlement was to your eniemies. Ooh its so complex ;)
:wall:

The problem with bribery is that it is a few variables that apply globally and cannot be tied to specific factions, so one can't make rebels much more difficult to bribe than normal factions without making everyone too easy to bribe.

[rebelscum]

Does this also apply to diplomacy? Diplomacy is one of my pet peeves since MTWI. The main issue is, some factions are ultimately out to get you, so diplomacy leads nowhere. Whilst some factions are quite amiable. One thing I've noticed in your mod is that princesses seem to be much more active, and their appearance is slightly more prolific. I agree with the limitation on the production of diplomats, most of us know from MTWI, RTW its a pain to have a lot of diplomats camped around Rome and your major city, and I usually have a roaming diplomat and a Rome camper. I've got some diplomats maxed out and still have been uable to make some factions see sense, offering cities, cash, map information. Money should be more of a major factor in diplomacy and everybody should have a price. :2cents:

[FactionHeir]

In diplomacy, several faction specific factors play a role: Whether it is a shadow faction, whether they are of the same religion as you and the current standings/reputations.

However, as you can see those aren't really specific to any one faction. Other variables do depend on monetary value and have been modified to make diplomacy more useful, but I didn't want to make florins too useful either, where you can buy half of someone's empire for 100k. While this isn't inherently a problem with humans (you can reject the offer) the AI just works by balancing numbers and will accept any offer (save military access and sometimes map info - seems to be an engine issue that doesn't let me fix these to display as the others to the fullest extent) that is rated generous or better.

Oh, and making factions your vassal only works if they want to be your vassal, i.e. are not a shadow faction and don't have a lot of allies that are all at war with you. You also need to be bordering their regions and have significantly more military prowess than them and their allies combined.

[pevergreen]

Shadow Faction?

Only suggestion I have is 2h Animations, if they arent fixed (I havent used 2 handers yet)

Make all ancilleries transferrable?

[FactionHeir]

Yeah, the animations aren't fixed because the ones currently out there are too strong (i.e. faster than 1H) or don't fit (halberd animation for 2H).
I've tweaked their stats though so they should be useful at times in melee against infantry while still being decent cav killers, but not overly so.

You are the second person to suggest transferrable ancillaries. I'll bring out an alt version for those of you who want all to be tranferrable in a bit.

[xjllm7]

hey i was wondering would it be feasible to change the year passed per turn from 2 years to 1 year. generals age 6 months per turn (correct me if im wrong) so i thought it would be more in sync. increasing build times and cost would balance the time difference. i was thinking of changing that in my game but i do not know how to do it. :wall: could anyone teach me?

[FactionHeir]

Please have a look here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1946808&postcount=8). I already posted a quick 1tpy script there ~:)

Since you have Vista, please ensure that after placing all three files into your imperial_campaign folder, you delete any hidden stuff of the old files you need to overwrite. Also, you need to start a new game for it to take effect.

[Johan217]

Only three suggestions really:
- include Kingdoms features Boiling oil, Control reinforcements and Hotseat like in the Retrofit mod
- include the Historical Character Names mod
- correct some spelling/language errors, mostly in diplomacy_speech.txt.strings.bin

If those seem like nitpicks it's because VanillaMod includes everything I want :)

One change I would like to make is to have characters age more realistically, like 1 year per turn (still not in pace with the game, but better at least). There is a script that does this, but it also makes devastation on the campaign map permanent. You can get around this by changing devastation parameters in descr_campaign_db.xml, but I think this only works for Kingdoms. Hence my first suggestion.

BTW Love the work you did on the character traits! I just wish there was a way to limit them

[FactionHeir]

Hello and welcome to VanillaMod ~:)

Unfortunately your first point cannot be done as it requires Kingdoms. I have vowed that this mod will never require Kingdoms so all those non Kingdoms players have a mod they can have fun with that is up to the standard of other Kingdoms mods.

I have been considering including the CNP, but finneys has been rather uncooperative with fixing bugs in his mod (CTD and missing names) or providing more information on it, so its currently out until that situation changes.

Not aware of diplomacy text bugs but then I hardly ever read them. Let me know when you get them (i.e. with which faction, talking to which faction about what and their response) or a rough outline of what was said so I can track it down and fix it.

Aging characters 1 year per turn is only possible by making the campaign stay always in winter mode, so that is not really a great option sadly :wink:

[Johan217]

Unfortunately your first point cannot be done as it requires Kingdoms. I have vowed that this mod will never require Kingdoms so all those non Kingdoms players have a mod they can have fun with that is up to the standard of other Kingdoms mods.Fair enough :)



I have been considering including the CNP, but finneys has been rather uncooperative with fixing bugs in his mod (CTD and missing names) or providing more information on it, so its currently out until that situation changes.I did some work on the CNP too. I've merged it into my VanillaMod installation and I haven't seen any CTD's yet. I might have a look at it.



Not aware of diplomacy text bugs but then I hardly ever read them. Let me know when you get them (i.e. with which faction, talking to which faction about what and their response) or a rough outline of what was said so I can track it down and fix it.I'll have another look at the files and let you know.

A few things I found:
- Muslim characters can get crusader knights as ancillary, which seems inappropriate to me, since they give command/security bonuses
- I have also seen muslim imams with the "bishop" trait.

[FactionHeir]

Are you sure you haven't modded some files? ~:)
Since 0.91 at least (probably since 0.9) the triggers are as follows:



;------------------------------------------
Trigger knight_crusader_vnv_trigger
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition AgentType = priest
and I_CrusadeInProgress
and IsRegionCrusadeTarget
and CharacterReligion catholic
and TimeInRegion > 1

AcquireAncillary knight_crusader chance 33

;------------------------------------------




;------------------------------------------
Trigger priestinit4
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = priest
and SettlementBuildingExists >= cathedral
and Trait PriestLevel = 0

Affects PriestLevel 1 Chance 100
Affects NaturalPriestSkill 1 Chance 10

;------------------------------------------
Trigger priestinit4_orthodox
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = priest
and SettlementBuildingExists >= cathedral_o
and Trait PriestLevel = 0

Affects PriestLevel 1 Chance 100
Affects NaturalPriestSkill 1 Chance 10

;------------------------------------------
Trigger priestinit4b
WhenToTest AgentCreated

Condition AgentType = priest
and SettlementBuildingExists >= jama

Affects NaturalPriestSkill 1 Chance 50
Affects Dogmatic 1 Chance 50

;------------------------------------------


So as you see, muslims cannot get Bishop nor crusader knights.

[Johan217]

Are you sure you haven't modded some files? ~:)Uhm... possibly :oops:

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Thought I might add a few minor gripes & suggestions.

I do get a lot of Papal elections, something in the order of every 3-4 turns. Wow! Imagine the repetitive scenario Pope calling a crusade on an excommunicated faction capital or maybe Rome and 3 turns later the crusade is cancelled. I would like to see more papal elections so that factions aren't excommunicated for pro-longed periods but perhaps something between vanilla and vanillamod setting would be ideal. BTW which file do I mod to change this?

The guild offers don't seem to have any logic. The first guild I get offered was a Templars and never was on a crusade. I kind off liked the vanilla settings as it gave some faction specific guilds or at least guilds that are more likely to appear with certain factions. With vanillamod I have more or less each & every guild offered and I feel this reduces challenge b/c its the player which ends up with a headquarters for almost everything. It also reduces inter-faction guild diversity.

Not too much else that I have come across to gripe about.:thumbsup: I did however restore normal build times as I do prefer a slower paced game.

Very dynamic campaign map with key settlements constantly changing ownership and power waxing & waning among factions. ~:cheers:

[FactionHeir]

Hmmm not sure how to address those, but I'll try ~:)

Papal elections: How far are you in your campaign that they happen so frequently? How many cardinals do you have? I haven't changed anything with the papal elections so I'm wondering if it could just be the starting cardinals taking turns at becoming pope and they all being around 60 years old by then. I suppose if you want more elections, you want to reduce the max age of characters from the default value and/or make it even harder to get priestly traits (->fewer cardinals)

Guilds: Some settlements have a high base chance of getting a guild historically. Those will mostly always end up with a certain guild unless you reject it the first time or so. As for the rest, they are based on points. Even in the unmodded game, you could get templars and the other order chapters if you did not partake in a crusade. In fact I think I raised the importance of crusading relatively. Still, another factor with orders is that they tend to appear more often in regions bordering other factions of a different religion and if you are declaring war against islamic faction or have a high chivalry governor for a given settlement. Overall, I rebalanced the points needed for each guild and what allows you to obtain a certain guild to prevent the AI ending up with only thieves and merchants guilds.

Let me know if there's something else in specific that you feel could be improved though.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Papal elections: How far are you in your campaign that they happen so frequently? How many cardinals do you have? I haven't changed anything with the papal elections so I'm wondering if it could just be the starting cardinals taking turns at becoming pope and they all being around 60 years old by then.

:jawdrop:
I'm on about turn 80 but I doubt I have many cardinals as I only recruit priests on a need to basis. Exactly how many I'm not sure as I don't pay much attention to this part of the game. Guess its just a freak then.



Guilds: Some settlements have a high base chance of getting a guild historically. Those will mostly always end up with a certain guild unless you reject it the first time or so. As for the rest, they are based on points. Even in the unmodded game, you could get templars and the other order chapters if you did not partake in a crusade. In fact I think I raised the importance of crusading relatively. Still, another factor with orders is that they tend to appear more often in regions bordering other factions of a different religion and if you are declaring war against islamic faction or have a high chivalry governor for a given settlement. Overall, I rebalanced the points needed for each guild and what allows you to obtain a certain guild to prevent the AI ending up with only thieves and merchants guilds.

I'm aware its based on points but in a vanilla game I would only be ever offered Templars if I rejected St Johns a couple of times and been on at least 1 crusade. Its unusual b/c it was the first guild offered. Another example would be Portugal having a woodsmen guild before the English. Heaven forbid!

In the vanilla game I had good success reducing the AI having only thieves guild by removing the Spy-on-settlement trigger and by reducing points for spy missions. This gave AI majority merchants & explorers guilds.

[FactionHeir]

Its chance based really if both guild requirements are met. Which faction did you play and what factions did you border, and the settlement where you were offered the templars was bordering which settlements? What governor did it have?

Regarding woodsmen, in the unmodded game only England could get it. Now any faction can (but only England can get the unit from the building) if they recruit tons of missile troops.

I played around with removing some spying triggers early on before releasing the mod and as you describe, the outcome wasn't great with the AI just getting explorer and merchants guilds. With the current system, it can get unit guilds which actually result in it having stronger units to send against you and the woodsmen/swordsmith guilds will make battles tougher too, so I can't really complain :grin:

[Johan217]

In the bug thread I read something about obsolete units. Maybe it's an idea to tie recruitment to in-game events.

E.g.:

recruit_pool "Mailed Knights" 1 0.2 2 0 requires factions { england, scotland, france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily, } and not event_counter gunpowder_discovered 1 This way, no more new units of Mailed knights after a certain point. A bit like the Marian reforms in RTW :-)
I think this would definitely be an option for ballista's and catapults, that are basically useless for sieges as walls become stronger later in the game. Same for "era-specific" units like mailed and feudal knights. Also, maybe link late units like arquebusiers, and cannon to an event well after 1400. I get the impression they are available too soon after the gunpowder event, so there is not much point in the early bombard or gunner units.

Maybe also revisit the mercenary pool. Landsknecht Pikemen seem to be available from 1170 onwards, which is way too early (you may easily add 200 years to that). Same for mercenary arquebusiers, that are available right after the gunpowder event.

And finally a trick I used in my install: remove all ships for the Papal States. I got tired of the Pope conquering African shores. Now he stays - more or less ~D - where he belongs.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Maybe also revisit the mercenary pool. Landsknecht Pikemen seem to be available from 1170 onwards, which is way too early (you may easily add 200 years to that). Same for mercenary arquebusiers, that are available right after the gunpowder event.


Got to agree! Some merc units are a tad early coming.

Also rep seems to easy to gain. Got to Immaculate by turn 70 or so and I had never released prisoners (only ransom).

[FactionHeir]

Must have missed the merc part when I ported the game from my initial "mod-for-self-use", will fix that, with the exception of crusaders which I'll leave till 1530 (as otherwise going on crusade after 1300 gives you no real crusader units)

Rep gain: You were only occupying and not at war with anyone, eh? :wink:

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Yes, I only ever occupied settlements. Playing as English I was at war with France, Sicilly, also a short time with Milan & Spain. Allied to Papal states, Scotland & Byz

[FactionHeir]

Occupying gives several points towards a good reputation, but sacking and exterminating give a big hit. Things add up, and I felt that this way diplomacy and standing would be more important ~:)

[gNostic Heretic]

Will the 1tpy script adjust building and unit buid times and costs? Ideally what I'd like is a 0.5tpy mod where build times and costs are increased fourfold. This would stop the dual nightmares of semi-immortal royals or being in the situation of having built everything by the close of the 12th C. and floating on a sea of unbelievable wealth.

Any help gratefully acknowledged.

Er... and sorry, PM'd you by accident because I'm a noooooo:shame:oooooob-y

[FactionHeir]

No, the 1tpy script change was made per request to change only timescale and events but leave the rest intact.

I'm fairly busy these days though so its unlikely I'll provide such a drastic script change, but I can walk you through it.

You want to change export_descr_unit's stat_cost for each unit from 0, X to 0, X*4.
In export_descr_buildings you want to change all building durations (build_time) *4
Also, in the same file, change any notion of cost *4 as well.

In descr_strat then, change timescale from 2.00 to 0.5.

That should do it.

[St.Jimmy]

Is there any chance of you making a version for kingdoms? I would like to play as Ireland or Norway on the Grand Campaign. I could just download another mod like Stainless Steel but all other mods change too much and I like to keep everything the same except this game needs your changes to keep it fun to play.

I know this is a long shot as you already said your too busy but thought id ask.

Iv not got round to using pikes yet. Are they fixed? (In your current version)

[FactionHeir]

Pikes are as fixed as they can be without removing their secondary weapons ~:)

Regarding Kingdoms, I don't have it, so I can't make a Kingdoms version unless you happen to buy it for me :wink: It should be possible for you to port it over though I imagine.

[gNostic Heretic]

Thanks, that's a great help! Even [I]more[I] hours can now be spent on TW!

I've finally decided to give a mod a go. Vanilla Mod it is!
F:Gulp\Mildly_terrified\Convinced_you_know_what_youre_doing_though.exe

Hmmm... can cost and buld time adjustments be tied to events? That could make the Black Death a much more serious disaster management scenerio, for example.

[FactionHeir]

Sadly not possible unless you make it a completely different building.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Suggestion..
Is it possible to bring the ancillaries for each province into this mod?
I've seen this in Stainless Steel and in Deus Lu Vult.
I really like that feature since it gives a lot of RP possibilities.
Other than that it's a pretty good mod!:2thumbsup:

[FactionHeir]

Certainly possible, but I'm rather wary of the settlement ancillary system for several reasons:

- You can only give, not remove settlement/region ancillaries via code, so if say the Count of Dijon still lives and hides in Baghdad with the Counts of all French settlements, then good luck getting those ancillaries when you take all those towns. If you still give the ancillary, then you end up with a lot of Counts of Settlement X. If you don't, then you can't get it as long as those people are still alive somewhere.

- What system should the ancillaries follow? Say you take Constantinople as the Turks. Do you want to be King of Byzantium or Amir of Istanbul? If you follow a standardized system applicable to all factions, then you are bound to run into inconsistencies and odd situations like the above. Every faction will call the reigning Lord of a region differently. A HRE leader might be a Margrave or Elector, an English one a Count or Duke, a Muslim one an Amir, a Mongol one a Khan etc. Unless you call a settlement title differently for each faction or group of factions, which is a huge amount of work (i.e. faction number times region number + code to crosscheck), would it really enhance anything?


From my perspective, its possible to address the first point by using traits rather than ancillaries, but this way they won't be transferable, which kind of defeats the purpose, but at least the person who takes the place also will be the only one with the title, and you can even force characters to stay within that region's borders to hold on to the title. It would be a lot of coding work though, and less flexible than the ancillary system in some ways, more flexible in other ways.

But of course I would invite you to discuss this here with me further to reach a conclusion that is amicable to everyone.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

IIRC then the title is connected to the settlement (Amir of Alexandria or Count of Flanders..)
I have always role-played it like the locals have granted me the title..
It would be weird if the Muslim people from Cairo would give my character the title of Count or Duke just because I'm from England..

[FactionHeir]

True, though would an Frenchman accept, that he would be addressed at the French court as "Amir of Cairo" for instance? ~;)
I see your point with the people - but back then, it was really the rulers that decided the title, especially for crusade targets (Count of Tripoli, King of Jerusalem vs their Muslim counterparts, who happen to start there).

Any comment on the other issue btw? ~:)

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I forgot that the Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch (Perhaps some other settlements in Levant) have European and not Muslim titles. And it would be kind of funny to have a Muslim called 'the King of Jerusalem' at the beginning of the game and before any Crusaders have taken the city:beam:

The other issue.. I don't know much about scripting but perhaps it is possible to create a script that takes away the ancillary if the character have been away from the settlement for a certain amount of time? Let's say 10 turns or so?

[FactionHeir]

That's the thing: you can only give, not remove ancillaries via code. You can remove traits, but you cannot transfer traits manually in game, so both have some major drawbacks, though a trait rather than ancillary system would probably be preferrable ~:)

[drake4]

Hi

I noticed you're using



WhenToTest AgentCreated
Condition IsAdmiral

in at least your ancillary file (havent gotten to traits yet), and in my games i have never seen these triggers actually fire. I'm using a vanilla M2TW patched to 1.2 then to 1.3 from the Kingdoms DVD but without actually having Kingdoms installed (so no kingdoms.exe whatsoever, i assume it's the same 1.3 patch that you can download anywhere). The actual working trigger for me is



Trigger naval_gunner_vnv_trigger
WhenToTest NewAdmiralCreated
Condition SettlementBuildingExists >= naval_academy

AcquireAncillary naval_gunner chance 33

i'm curious whether your triggers stop working because of the 1.2 -> 1.3 and also whether my trigger works in 1.2 (it should, but i wouldn't reinstall to test it :P)

[FactionHeir]

Hmmm I don't think I did much in terms of testing naval as I personally don't use it much, so the code I got should be a remnant of CA's original code. However, checking the docudemon, it seems it should be NewAdmiralCreated.

Thanks for the tip, I'll have it fixed for the next release!

[drake4]

Well if you're not much into naval things here's a few other suggestions i have :laugh4:

Changing

stat_pri 28, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, slashing, none, 25, 1

to


stat_pri 28, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, naval_gunpowder, slashing, none, 25, 1

for the gunpowder ships will actually have these ship's weaponry displayed as 'Naval Cannon' and upgraded at the corresponding buildings (weapon_naval_gunpowder capability in the EDB). I haven't tested ship performance like this though, but i don't think it should be affected. I'll test it later just in case. Gunpowder ships are: Baghlah, Carrack, Galleass, Grande Carrack, Gun Holk, Lanternas, and depending on your preference the Fireship. The weapon_naval_gunpowder capability in the EDB does nothing otherwise (and i noticed you still have it in there too :P).

Also since no unit other than ships uses melee_simple as a tech, changing


{SMT_CAPABILITY_WEAPON_MELEE_SIMPLE}Capable of upgrading crude weapons

to


{SMT_CAPABILITY_WEAPON_MELEE_SIMPLE}Capable of upgrading basic naval weaponry

in shared.txt.strings.bin allows you to use wepon_melee_simple in the EDB as a means of upgrading the attack of basic ships. Obviously you can use it without changing the string file anyway it'll just look bad and probably noone will know what it's for.

[Stone and Blood]

Hi FactionHeir
Your Mod is incredible, but I got to tell you that the cavalry is too overpowered.
You did a good job increasing the efectiviness of the spearmen, but after making some tests,
you can realise that the cavalry is too strong.
1 group of the hobillar cavalry( one of the weackest) can defeat the heavy two handed infantry of the Germans, with just 4 charges.
1 Lancer(1000$ aprox) can defeat 4 english dismounted knights(670$ each group)

I belive that would be nice if you duplicate the price of all the cavalry, and decrease a little theyr status.

Thanks again for the Mod
See ya.

[FactionHeir]

Thanks for the feedback.

I realize cavalry is still fairly powerful, but less so than in unmodded M2TW so that your lighter cavalry won't tear through heavy infantry and spears in a single charge but requires multiple. Also, braced enemies are harder to punch through.

At a point during balancing, hobilars couldn't kill more than 2 heavy infantry per charge with their whole group which wasn't overly desirable since mount impact should kill a few more. So they are still the weakest chargers (besides border horses and scouts).

The cavalry price was already raised manifold. This is not reflected in their buying price but in their upkeep instead. So you can buy cavalry at a good/high price but to keep them around is another matter entirely ~:)

Spears are best when charging cavalry, bracing against them or fighting them in melee usually. If they are charged while walking, they will take heavy losses.

The heaviest cavalry (armor plated) generally will tear through spears too. For those, you want to be using pikes and halberds ~:)

[Handel]

I stopped to play the game long time ago because of the bugs. Now reading about the vanilla mod I am tempted to start playng again - but I should like to ask some questions before (I read the changelog and didn't find anything about this):
1. Is the shield bug fixed? And if it is fixed is it fixed as it should be or it is left as one of the first fixes - just by adding some more armor instead of the shields? Actually this is my main concern after H weapons bug.
2. Is the wrong type of defence towers bug fixed? I mean ballista towers shooting cannons before gunpowder age and when upgraded cannon towers shooting as ballistas depending on the size of the town?
3. Is the design of the fortress bug changed so the enemy cannot anymore just walk through the walls into the inner fortifications (not at all fortress designs)?
4. Is the expolit fixed when you can kill any inquisitor just by circling him with troops and them squashing him with another troop?
5. Is the missile defenders shooting in a plain air instead at the enemies bug fixed?
6. Is the polearm units bug fixed when the polearm units were changing to the secondary weapon when charged by the cavalry and thus being easily slaughtered? The yearly fixes just removed the secondary weapon but as a matter of fact a polearm weapon should be useless against any infantry with shields?

I hope at least some of those bugs to be fixed if possible so please look at this as a suggestions:idea2:

[FactionHeir]

1. Patch 1.2 addresses this and VM has been rebalanced to accomodate for it. Units that should have shields have shields rather than extra armor.

2. Yes, from 1.2.

3. Yes from 1.2.

4. Cannot be fixed.

5. Cannot be fixed without making missiles not fire at all. Fixed for gunpowder though.

6. Polearms: more effective due to anims. Pikes: less likely to change weapons due to formation fixes and will change back more often rather than stay in secondary.

[Handel]

Ok, thank you! Nice work there with the vanilla mod.

This was very weird game. Everyhting in the game which was bugged. It is quite an achievemnt to screw every single thing in the game:furious3:

[oz_wwjd]

Would it be possible to educate the AI into not running a full calvary carge over a line of Longbowmen with stakes ion front of them? I've had a few tough battles,that is until the AI stupidly decided to destroy it's entire calvary force by doing this..

[FactionHeir]

Its never done that in any of my tests on field battles. The only time it does so is in sieges, and there you can't code it.

[cambovenzi]

really a somewhat simple, but great mod.
im really liking it.

i think i come off as complaining too much, so i will turn my ideas or complaints into suggestions and questions.

im playing with the english:

1. i like what you did with the armoured sergeants and billmen as an offensive+defensive combo or alternative. however, right in the description, it says that the billhook is both a great offensive AND defensive weapon. while i see the need and want for a lower defensive number, as well as the fact that they are unarmored compared to heavier versions, i think it is realistically a little too low. it is currently at 3 i believe, with no armor.

looking over at even plain town militia, i see a 7 defense rating.(some from shield obviously, but still. both have 3 def from skill)
i highly doubt town militia can defend themselves more than twice as well as trained billmen.
this got me to thinking. could it be that town militia would give billmen a hard time?
i ran some custom battles.
using the billmen i somewhat easily dispatched the town militia(8 or 9 out of 10 IIRC), but not w/o a fight. partly due to a repetitive weak AI manuever that withdraws about 15 yards, and then comes back for more. allowing the billmen to gtet extra charge value, and also often kills the TM's general.
playing as the town militia however, i was able to win 5 of 10 battles, just standing still.:surrender2:
not really going for high ground, or snow bonus' or anything. just with maybe a lone tree sitting somewhere near them.:tumbleweed:

maybe its just me, but i dont think "heavy infantry" billmen should be having serious trouble with the lightest of lightly trained infantry militia.

i would suggest adding atleast a single point or two to their base skill defense, at the very least.
as well as possibly looking into weakening TM a small amount.

im terrified to even think about matching them up against cavalry, which they are supposed to handle decently well.


also these weak, unarmored, shieldless billmen have 48 men in a unit, cost 480 to train(190 more than TM), and have a 160 upkeep cost.
in comparison to armored sergeants available at the same time:
60 men in a unit. 560 training cost(cheaper to make, per individual), 155 upkeep cost.
they have 8 attack and 16 defense.(7 from shield, 4 from skill, 5 from armor)
they are armored, shielded, and have more men. why is it that they have a lower upkeep cost?:inquisitive:

also i have not yet had much experience with the tech tree's, but if other versions of the billmen are still around, you might want to look into their recruiting costs or skills.
i saw a better version with a slightly lower cost.(heavy bill militia have 12 att and 10 def. reg billmen are 12/3.)
if they are not still in the campaign game like i suspect, it really isnt a big deal at all. but
are still in custom battles.(which is how i saw it)

edit UPDATE: i ran some tests against cavalry that i talked about.
i took some scottish "border horses"(7/10 with 3 charge) which are about the weakest cav i could find, and ran them right into the billmen.
more than half of the billmen died within seconds of impact and they routed shortly thereafter:eeeek:
i tried to play as billmen vs BH's. not pretty. by the time the "my general is killed" cutscene is over, i am down to ~20men wile they are near full force. after some favorable melee combat, they decide to pull away when we are both at around 8-10 men. they then charge again, killing off the rest of my unit.

i have come to the conclusion that it is safe to say Billmen are almost completely useless and overpriced.
nothing more than high attack flanking troops with limited speed, and cannot hold up against almost anything in battle.


2. mercenaries. they have a lower upkeep than most units.
to me, that isnt how it should be.
merc's arent going to just stay with you cheaply forever based on a one time slightly higher fee.
i would imagine you would have to pay them more than regular troops to stick around, not less.
for example i saw a group of spearmen with a 180 upkeep. those are good solid spearmen, better than most early infantry.

[cambovenzi]

oh no:laugh4:
i tried a strategy as billmen against those light cav.
i spread my line down to a 2 man depth, in what turned out to be a very, very, very bad idea.
when the cavalry charged me i lost all but 6 of my 48 men on impact.:gah:
:laugh4:

[FactionHeir]

Against cavalry its normal to want a deep formation.

Regarding billmen, there are 4 types, from worst to best: Bill militia, billmen, heavy bill militia and billmen.
Their upkeep scales, but not significantly as you require higher level tech buildings to access better versions, and lower versions eventually phase out.
Think of the lesser billmen as peasants with a bit of training and a weapon. Higher billmen as standard heavy infantry.

Non-heavy bills have very little armor and tend to be effective in clsoe quarters against cavalry - they are not meant to take a charge, but rather charge or pin down the cavalry. If you want a unit to take a charge, use spears or pikes - these consequently are slightly less good at killing cavalry in close combat and will fall more easily than bill type units against heavy infantry due to lacking the armor piercing attribute.

To make good use of light billmen, you want to be upgrading their armor using a blacksmith. Or use them mainly in flanking or urban battles. They will only be good against cavalry. Heavy billmen can deal with light-medium infantry and heavy cavalry. They still cannot take a charge, but will have better survivability and not fall to missiles as easily either.

Regarding upkeep for mercenaries, these are significantly higher than those for similar units. I.e. mercenary spearmen cost 180 upkeep while armored sergeants cost only 155. They also cost a lot more to hire, so I would need a precise example from you where you found that not to be the case?

[cambovenzi]

Against cavalry its normal to want a deep formation.
yeah that was just me messin around:beam:


Regarding billmen, there are 4 types, from worst to best: Bill militia, billmen, heavy bill militia and billmen.
Their upkeep scales, but not significantly as you require higher level tech buildings to access better versions, and lower versions eventually phase out.
Think of the lesser billmen as peasants with a bit of training and a weapon. Higher billmen as standard heavy infantry.

Non-heavy bills have very little armor and tend to be effective in close quarters against cavalry - they are not meant to take a charge, but rather charge or pin down the cavalry. If you want a unit to take a charge, use spears or pikes - these consequently are slightly less good at killing cavalry in close combat and will fall more easily than bill type units against heavy infantry due to lacking the armor piercing attribute.

To make good use of light billmen, you want to be upgrading their armor using a blacksmith. Or use them mainly in flanking or urban battles. They will only be good against cavalry. Heavy billmen can deal with light-medium infantry and heavy cavalry. They still cannot take a charge, but will have better survivability and not fall to missiles as easily either.

i think part of it is just my perception of the units.
town militia are exactly that, some bum folks from down the street that have been called into semi-organised duty.
i have a hard time believing they should be able to hold their own against somewhat more professional billmen.
thats just how i look at it anyways.

i will have to start thinking of the lower billmen as crappy militia troops who should solely be flankers and shock troops.
they still are massively overpriced.(480 i think?)
they are basically woodsmen with a cavalry bonus.

part of this is my bad.
i just realized they have the same statistics in regular m2tw than they do in your mod.:wall:
i could have sworn they were armored/higher defense.
i must have mistaken them for an armored variation.
however, they have a 230 recruiting cost in m2tw.



Regarding upkeep for mercenaries, these are significantly higher than those for similar units. I.e. mercenary spearmen cost 180 upkeep while armored sergeants cost only 155. They also cost a lot more to hire, so I would need a precise example from you where you found that not to be the case?
ill have to get back to you on that.

i noticed it was markedly lower upkeep than in the original version.
its more of a personal preference i guess.
in vmod, mercs are much more playable and usable long term. so much so IMO that it significantly weakens the use of homemade troops. (when you are able to recruit mercs immediately, and ones that might not even be available yet in your provinces[better units], for only a very slight increase in upkeep.)

anyways, thanks for the reply.
i knew part of what you were saying, but it will help re-inforce my knowledge of strategy.

[FactionHeir]

The stats shown on the sheet are similar (not identical) to unmodded for billmen, but I have given all of them also got a boost against cavalry (hidden attribute) ~:)

Town militia are no longer cheaper spearmen but actual light infantry. Not great against spear militia, but should do a bit better against other light infantry than spears do.

[oz_wwjd]

I'm not sure if this is a question or a suggestion but here goes:I like to play the eastern natioan (turks,byzantines etc)but I always seem to be having the mongol horde when they appear make a beline for Antioch,take it and then proceed to take just about every other cities and castle around that area. They also seem to wait until they have all there stacks together before they attack. I never have enough time to tech up for them as I need to go to war in order to make cash,and the wars seem to last forever,so would it be possible to mod them down to be a threat,but not a unstoppable horde that lays waste to everything in the area,or give a different target for them to hit simetimes?

[FactionHeir]

Hmmmm I suppose you could remove some lines of script from the campaign_script file to weaken the Mongols.

The behavior for them is intentional though - I fixed them not doing anything :grin:

Alternatively, go to descr_events and delay their arrival a few years.

[oz_wwjd]

I just wondered,seeing with your changes,they know enough to avoid forts-lines now if they can help it.if they was any way to restore them to how they were in MTW1,where they where a challenge,but beatable,without a war of attrition,if you know what I mean. Thanks for the suggestions anyways.

[FactionHeir]

As I said, to make them easier, its best to decrease the amount of stacks they send in the campaign_script file ~:)

[John_Longarrow]

I am not sure if this is doable, and I'll admit it is not historical, but could you have the Mongols appear someplace other than the eastern edge of the map?

ie, could they show up coming down from the Arctic and overrunning Norway on their way to the heart of the HRE as an option? Or come up through Africa and take out Egypt or Morocco?

P.S. Just started playing with it and it's not the cakewalk I'm use to with Milan.

[FactionHeir]

Certainly possible, though not for mainstream use, but at best as a minor mod request if you really need it.