V1.21 Rebuild-ProblemFixer BETA testing thread

[vonsch]

He fed them haggis. Makes them ornery.


Turn 70 World Sitrep:


Waiting on you know who to see how they act. Meanwhile, picking on Egypt. Had one big battle with just BI and a general. That didn't go so well . The Eggies had more balance and it showed. And my state of accustomization to HA didn't help either. BI just don't get around like HA do!

But I wanted to get rid of all that infantry anyway, so I attritted it away trading it for dismounted arab cav mostly. You'll be happy to hear the Eggies are certainly building siege gear. They just aren't using it very well... like in sieges. It gave me some trouble in that battle. They had a lot of cats and trebs and I didn't have any cav except my general.

Heh, I didnt choose the battle. I besieged Gaza and they pulled a part stack over to lift the siege. Oops.

That was my only land loss so far. 2 sea losses. 109 wins. (I told you Byz is easy!)

Turn 73: The Mongols are coming! The Mongols are coming!

Just a stack and a piece of another so far, came in at Baghdad. Wandering, as usual. I'm fairly ready for them. Wall, garrisons, etc.

But the crusade took Jerusalem. The Danes did it. They had two full stacks there, with Venice close with another. They promptly turned and attacked Acre, so things are heating up. I happened to have a full army just offshore (was on the way to Dongola) so I landed behind them and did a night attack (so I didn't pull my garrison as reinforcements). It was a lovely battle. They had a good stack, crusader Frankish knights, Alan light cav, turcopoles, some crusader sergeants, archers, and crusader riffraff. I had the 8 BA, 5 BS, 4 BC, 2 Latinkon, 2 VG plus general. Chewed them up and ran them off. I lost about 50 to their 600. But it was dicey for a bit with their cav trying to flank everywhere. They had me outnumbered in cav for I was kept micromanaging mine.

Now to see how that army does on Mongols. Probably be tougher. May have to set up in an inverted U instead of a line. The Byz spears stop the charges cold though. And the VG and BA slice and dice them nicely.

Some combination of diplomacy in the hinterlands forced a ceasefire with Egypt on me. So I have all these Egyptian remnants parked all over my new conquests that I can't get rid of since I won't start the war. I can't figure out exactly how that one happened. Annoying. I was hoping to finish that so I could focus on the Mongols. But I'm fated to a three-way war, it appears. At least.

Heh, pulled a fast one on the Danes. Venice's stack was still standing there, so I besieged Jerusalem and the Venetians were forced to help as my allies. Also puts Venice at war with Denmark too. Set up slush funds for Venice and Hungary to try to sweeten them up to me. But shared enemies won't hurt either. So far, All's Quiet on the Western Front. If only it stays that way.

Turn 80 World Sitrep:


Two more stacks of Mongols came in at Baghdad. I stuck with a locally made garrison of Archer Militia and Spear Militia only there (but quite a lot of it) to see if they would hold with large stone walls. Assuming the Mongols decide to attack.
All the other eastern regions are fortresses with all the free upkeep Peasant Archers, 4 BA, 3 BS, at least. No attack armies there yet. Want to deal with these Dane stacks (still 1.5 left) and maybe the Eggies first. The Eggies should attack soon. I may have to tease them.

[saurial]

So, its 1103. I've starved out Kiev and Riga, and Caffa will fall to starvation next turn. HRE and Denmark are both up to Very Good relations through persistent gifting, though my reputation remains mired at mixed (I've occupied every city I've taken, released every rebel prisoner, never attacked an AI faction or trespassed a border -- what are the triggers for helping the reputation out a little?). No significant battles yet... every garrison has fallen with <50 friendly losses and there have been no clashes with AI factions.

My economy took a hit after all the tributes ran out, but its been doing fine (if barely). I'm able to keep building in all my cities (though not always the most expensive building) and I'm to fully staff the free garrison slots, a half stack of troops sieging Caffa, and some reserves in the castles for dealing with rebels.

Growth really feels good -- the castle with the 10 chivalry king is doing great and everywhere else is still at 2-2.5%. I've been a little surprised that farming doesn't seem to help growth more -- even with Communal farming I don't seem to get about 2.5%. But this way I do have stretches where I can't build anything at a town (while I wait for it to grow) but it really seems to take too long for the growth notification to come around. The pacing seems spot on to me (though bear in mind this is not an overly fertile area).

At this point, I need to spend a significant amount of time consolidating. I've got to get religion heading upwards in all of these ortho-pagan provinces, get the economy on better footing, lay down a network of watchtowers to cover my land, and get a solid field army or two going to pound the Hungarians with. My current empire is very nicely laid out geographically though -- to the west and east I have bridges blocking entry to my territory, and I have a good castle/city ratio -- 3 castles, 5 cities, nicely spaced so Thorn holds the western border (HRE and Denmark) and supplies one city, Riga holds the northwest (Russia) and supplies two cities, and the starting castle holds the southwest (Hungary) and supplies two cities.

Other thoughts:
- Polish retainers should have their pool size cut to 2 at Castle stables and revert to normal at Fortress stables (they are basically extra-strength Jinetes -- +2 attack, +2 missile attack, +2 defense, +1 charge) but should be ok if they can't be spammed so easily.

- Religion penalties seem to be too small. I've had Kiev stay at 6% Catholicism for several turns now and the happiness is fine (90%) with a 4 unit garrison, normal taxes, and no general. I probably shouldn't be able to hold the place without a half stack when the religion is that bad.

- Merchants are definitely too good a deal at the moment. I've got 3 merchants pulling down 1k a turn total in northern Italy at the moment. They are so fast and they can pay for themselves in under two turns -- probably the speed or income potential should come down.

Thanks!
S

[vonsch]

- Religion penalties seem to be too small. I've had Kiev stay at 6% Catholicism for several turns now and the happiness is fine (90%) with a 4 unit garrison, normal taxes, and no general. I probably shouldn't be able to hold the place without a half stack when the religion is that bad.

I think that's because you have low populations still. The religion penalty feels a lot greater when the city has 20k and you can't get it to blue with a full stack due to the wrong religion. But watch out for the heresy penalty. Ouch. Kill heretics dead very fast. Two turns can mean serious problems if the heretic has any skill. Takes a long time to root it all out too.

[vonsch]

oops, double post

[vonsch]

Carl,

You see this post by Foz? Good stuff. Suspect you're already thinking the same way, but just in case you aren't:
Third Post

[saurial]

Sorry, I think I was half asleep when I wrote my last post. Let me clarify a few things.

- Growth seems good. I'm surprised that farming improvements have little noticeable impact, but overall I'm very pleased.

- Polish nobles (not retainers) are too numerous for their strength and tech level. Pool size at Castle stables should be cut in half (otherwise, they're fine -- it'd be awkward to get no new units with the Castle stable).

- One other thing I forgot to add -- generals seem sparser. I have 7 provinces and still only my three starting generals... I'm not getting adoption requests, babies, men of the hour, or anything.

[Bob the Insane]

- Polish nobles (not retainers) are too numerous for their strength and tech level. Pool size at Castle stables should be cut in half (otherwise, they're fine -- it'd be awkward to get no new units with the Castle stable).

I have to agree that would slow down Polish a bit. However I rarely built Polish Nobles when I tried Poland because they where the unit of choice to be given away by the council for succeeding in missions...

I played a Hungary campaign to turn 50 and playing the good guy, getting alliances and such (plus an early grab of Zagreb and Iasi) made for a pretty easy start... It is easy to end up with Budapest, Barn, Iasi and Bucharest, plus if you grab Zagrab that is three cities and two castles (Sofia is also possible if you are especially quick) by turn 30... It is a pretty flexible faction, with the archers and infantry (and knights) for fighting in Western Europe and the HA's necessary for controlling the steps... The down side is if Poland gets Kiev (oe worse Iasi) you get bottled up really quickly. Anyway conflicted started with the Byz attacking us, but it was half hearted and they quickly agreed to peace and backed off once Venice attacked them.

One odd thing though, had an Alliance with HRE from the start (in fact with HRE, Poland, Venice, Milan, Sicily, the Pope, Denmark and France) and made particular effert to suck up to Poland and the HRE (thinking to make the steps and the Byz my target). I did get the HRE relationship to Very Good and my faction as Trustworthy. It was then that I was attacked/betrayed by the HRE! I was curious as to how this Trusted Alliance thing works?

Anyway a couple of blocks developed with Venice and the HRE on one side and Hungary, Poland, Pope, on the other... The HRE got themselves discommunicated so we really stirred things up by have a crusade called against Vienna (HRE)... That battle was awesom... Three crusader stacks; mine (Hungary), Poland and Denmark and they are both my allies. I had two catapults and a balista (not that it is any use in a siege), Poland had one catapult and Denmark hand no artillery. I used a tactic of destroying the towers and then using a ram to open the gate. The Polish ignored the towers and knocked holes in the wall either side of the towers. The Danes simply waited around for someone else to break in, however they waited a little to close and took a lot of casualties from the towers.

I noticed Scotland had gone a bit wild so I thought I would try a game as the English... The Scots have taken a serious dislike to the French!

[Carl]

Sorry for taking an age to get back, i was dropping a reply into the thread Vonsch linked to.

Definitely on the same thought track, and putting some limits on heavy melee Cav might not be a bad idea for some factions, although i do need to think about it a bit more ATM.

I am trying a game as the English and Scotland had a go at York and Dublin, and they are at war with the French having taken Antwerp and Burges!!

Thats actually pretty aggressive for them in my experience. But they are a strong factions, primarily because they get some excellent early infantry units, so as soon as they get a castle up and running they can get access to Highland Nobles, they're vulnerable to missiles, but otherwise extremely deadly melee troops. In truth their isn't anything of a comparable tech level that is their equal, they're only slightly worse than DEK.

When you combined that with Border Horse and Highland Archers the Scots have a powerful early force that can do a lot of damage. It's largest weakness is it's vulnerability to Cav and missile fire. If you can get around that weakness though, you have one of the most powerful individual infantry forces in the game at ANY point, and it only gets better later on with Noble Swordsmen and Pikes.

In effect if they actually do go ultra aggressive and they can build enough units, they DO have the forces to beat their opponents pretty badly unless they pack a lot of Heavy Cav/Missiles. Since most AI factions don't include much Cav that really limits the AI's ability to intercept Scotland.

Just a stack and a piece of another so far, came in at Baghdad. Wandering, as usual. I'm fairly ready for them. Wall, garrisons, etc.

Thats just a kind of spawning force so the Mongols actually exist, the main forces won't show up for another few turns as you noticed a bit later.

Two more stacks of Mongols came in at Baghdad.

It should have been three as that is the "main" first wave.

Had one big battle with just BI and a general. That didn't go so well . The Eggies had more balance and it showed. And my state of accustomization to HA didn't help either. BI just don't get around like HA do!

But I wanted to get rid of all that infantry anyway, so I attritted it away trading it for dismounted Arab Cav mostly. You'll be happy to hear the Eggies are certainly building siege gear. They just aren't using it very well... like in sieges. It gave me some trouble in that battle. They had a lot of cats and trebs and I didn't have any Cav except my general.

How did the BI perform when they actually hit combat? Where they decent if less than spectacular, (as intended), or where they just lain weak. You initial description seems to go for decent but outclassed.

Growth really feels good -- the castle with the 10 chivalry king is doing great and everywhere else is still at 2-2.5%. I've been a little surprised that farming doesn't seem to help growth more -- even with Communal farming I don't seem to get about 2.5%. But this way I do have stretches where I can't build anything at a town (while I wait for it to grow) but it really seems to take too long for the growth notification to come around. The pacing seems spot on to me (though bear in mind this is not an overly fertile area).

Growth should be 0.5% per level of farm buildings.

- Merchants are definitely too good a deal at the moment. I've got 3 merchants pulling down 1k a turn total in northern Italy at the moment. They are so fast and they can pay for themselves in under two turns -- probably the speed or income potential should come down.

Bear i mind the rapid payoff is partly because i'm trying to make all recourses useful. Dyes/Wine/Timber/e.t.c. aren't worth much and your average merchant lifetime is 40-50 turns so he doesn't have long to make money back in. The other point is merchants are supposed to pay for themselves fast just because it's no good if it takes 10 turns to get your money back, by and large that small a total merchant income just won't mean anything past turn 40 or so. I'm trying to get it so that from around turn 80-100 onwards merchant income, (depending on faction obviously), makes up approximately 15-20% of the total income of a faction, it's MEANT to be as big a source of income as ordinary trade/farming/mining/taxes. It's just that early on the amounts ARE rather high by comparison to normal income.

- Polish nobles (not retainers) are too numerous for their strength and tech level. Pool size at Castle stables should be cut in half (otherwise, they're fine -- it'd be awkward to get no new units with the Castle stable).

Good idea.

- One other thing I forgot to add -- generals seem sparser. I have 7 provinces and still only my three starting generals... I'm not getting adoption requests, babies, men of the hour, or anything.

Don't look at me, I haven't done anything wrong your Honor.

I'm a bit clueless as to why this is happening...

- Religion penalties seem to be too small. I've had Kiev stay at 6% Catholicism for several turns now and the happiness is fine (90%) with a 4 unit garrison, normal taxes, and no general. I probably shouldn't be able to hold the place without a half stack when the religion is that bad.

As Vonsch said, bigger populations seem to mean more unrest.


Be aware guys, theirs a Little trait bug in the build, i'm not sure why but a special AI only trait is getting given to players generals too, but only when they come of age, probably a bad trigger.

[Rozanov]

Pleased to see people having fun with the new patch.

have DL'd the fix for the patch (says only 1 other person has DL'd it?)

My copy of the v1.24 should arrive by Saturday so let me know of any factions you want testing.

cheers
R.

[vonsch]

- One other thing I forgot to add -- generals seem sparser. I have 7 provinces and still only my three starting generals... I'm not getting adoption requests, babies, men of the hour, or anything.

Check your family tree. Are there a lot of underaged boys there? That will prevent adoptions and such. I don't like the way that all works so I tend to get grumpy and not let any of the men marry in the early game (the girls can if they bring me a good husband). That keeps me where I am choosing which of the offers I take when the count is low. Later, of course, everyone marries anyway. The game forces it once they hit a certain age. But it gets me past the early period where sometimes things get choked if you're turtling.


On the topic of Bzy Inf, Carl, they perfom fine. My problem in that battle was it was a pure "throw them at the walls" siege stack. The Eggs had a better stack, with a mix of stuff, and the combined arms wore me down. And they came in two waves which meant the second one hit me a bit disorganized still. Those cats and trebs had me a little scattered to deal with them fast. BI seems to have solid morale. They fought until they were down to 10 or so. And they tended to rally behind the lines on their own.

But they are a good early all-arounder. Not so good once I'm actually making armies. I prefer BA for holding walls, BS for the anvil, VG for the infantry hammer, etc. In fact, those three with a bit of cav support makes for a nice tough army so far.

[Carl]

here's to the trait Hotfix.

Once again it is not save game compatible. But again, if you wish, continue with your current campaigns.

Just be aware that your gens are getting significant growth and command bonuses as well as PO bonuses from this error.

On the topic of Bzy Inf, Carl, they perform fine. My problem in that battle was it was a pure "throw them at the walls" siege stack. The Eggs had a better stack, with a mix of stuff, and the combined arms wore me down. And they came in two waves which meant the second one hit me a bit disorganized still. Those cats and trebs had me a little scattered to deal with them fast. BI seems to have solid morale. They fought until they were down to 10 or so. And they tended to rally behind the lines on their own.

But they are a good early all-rounder. Not so good once I'm actually making armies. I prefer BA for holding walls, BS for the anvil, VG for the infantry hammer, etc. In fact, those three with a bit of Cav support makes for a nice tough army so far.

Thats more or less what i hoped for, just wanted to check i understood your comment correctly.

[vonsch]

Wow, Scotland came and offered ME an alliance at this stage. Haven't seen that before. Diplomatic situation is interesting. PS sided with Denmark over me (understandably, since Denmark is Catholic and I'm not, but I had perfect relations with Pope at the time), but a lot of Catholic allies have hung in there with me over the Pope! Heh, Venice got a ceasefire from the Danes fast though after I pulled them in (bad me!)

Four and a small piece Mongol stacks now. Danes seem to be running home. Thye remainders are up at Antioch from Jerusalem. But they're running into the Caesarea region which means nice close replacements for me, so I will kill them off. And I'm trying to tempt the Eggies to attack Cairo again.

Okay, Hungary was sending a small army towards Thessalonika, so I worked the relationship with them up to Outstanding to see if that keeps them off my back. And there's a tribute of 100 per turn for 19 more turns running too to keep it up.

Nit: "armoury" is not capitalized like the other buildings.

I wish these three stacks of 'gols at Baghdad would toughen it up and besiege it. I want to see if my militia can hold them off!

[Bongaroo]

Sicilian Campaign is heating up. I've taken Jerusalem on a crusade and found some cool relics. Egyptians keep marching through my lands with all kinds of troops but haven't attacked and they even offered an alliance. I turned it down in favor of allying with the Danes who took Acre. Danes sent emissary the same turn seeking an alliance which I accepted with a few financial provisions.

The Moors and HRE went to war with me with the Germans quickly accepting a ceasfire due to the Pope excomunicating them. The Moors have been on the attack until recently, I'm preparing a mighty invasion force to claim so turf along the North-West African coast.

Lots of war and truces being called. Things are starting to really heat up and the Mongels are due to arrive soon. Hope they really cause some shakeups too!

[Carl]

Any updates guys?

[saurial]

Installed the hotfix (all those bonuses felt unfair :/), started new vh/vh campaign as Russia. Took starting three generals and 1-2 militia units each and besieged Vilnius, Riga, and Smolsek (sp?). Got sallied against at Riga and won a heroic victory (general went up to 2 gold chevrons due to killing/capturing 400 militia). Starved out Vilnius and Smolsek. Took the faction leader to Kiev (alone) and the other two generals took some units and headed towards Moscow. Kiev's garrison sallied and was totally destroyed by the faction leader, who won the fight with 4 men left total. I'm happy with my western border now (except maybe Iasi) and plan to backfill through the northern black sea and the NE corner next.

Economically, turned Smolsek and starting castle into cities, made merchants, and headed straight for that gold you'd told me about. Headed around the map and got tribute from everyone. I have about 30k in the bank and I am continuously building.

Again, no generals for me past the starting three and Russia's early units (until Boyar's sons) are awful. I'm putting down rebel units with Viking raiders / Norse swordsmen with archer and spear militia, which requires a heavy numbers advantage. Still, the territorial position is good, the trade resources are good, and castle stables isn't too hard to get to -- I think the bad units are OK.

Suggestions:
- Maybe give every rebel garrison (sorry, sorry) one well-armoured spear unit (either a fully upgraded militia unit or something in the armoured spearman family). The generals are just too effective in the sally battles, which allows blitzing to still be moderately effective. If I couldn't starve them out or couldn't risk the calvary charge, I'd probably have captured two provinces now, instead of 5. The expansion even without sacking does fuel itself to a degree -- it allows more merchants and more cash producing farms to be built.

- Can Russia start with 2 cities instead of 1 city + 1 castle? That castle is almost in the worst possible position -- it takes so long to move troops to anywhere useful from it. Or else maybe give Russia the smolsek castle to start with and leave that one rebel (hey, the Danes might take it).

Thanks,
S

[vonsch]

Okay, finally played a bit more.

Turn 90 World Sitrep:


The Mongols are a bit more aggressive this time. After wandering until about turn 85, mostly west, they decided to pick a fight with a couple of my armies herding them around. But they first picked one on a bridge. So that stack (of theirs) died. The second (with a short stack of reinforcements) picked a fight at a river crossing. So those stacks died. I then tried attacking a depleted stack in the open desert. But it played good defense (refused to attack me) and I wasn't in a good position to press them with my mixed army, so I let the timer run out and took the loss.

Then they besieged Antioch with about 2.5 stacks. After two turns of not assaulting, I threw an army at them in the open, pulled 2 of the 3 stacks (it was 2 short stacks though) and whupped them! First major victory for me over Mongols in the open field 1:1 odds with me as attacker. (I'm learning!) I think they are fine, though I do wish they'd be a bit more aggressive. Are they gonna try to starve out Antioch?

Oh, they are making me rich too! Heh, they paid ransom for the FL and FH.

Meanwhile, Hungary, with whom I was at Outstanding relations and me with an Immaculate rep, backstabbed me. So I guess that trusted alliances still aren't. They will pay. It's no threat to me. They sent a stack of three units to besiege Constantinople. I laugh in their general direction!

I think I'll take Sophia and make that my new border while I'm swatting these pesky Mongols . I still haven't gotten them to assualt a wall. They are smarter than most factions, I guess.

This field army composition is working nicely. It's flexible. It's just not as easy to move around as HA armies. And the stupid group movement is bugged, which makes moving to attack at the tactical level with a unified force is very risky. I got luck in the big battle. They didn't charge with my formation disordered in the process of one move. I had to rebuild it. But I was a ways off and on a hill, so it wasn't a huge risk.

I got another message that more have arrived, but haven't seen them yet. That should have been the second wave. The first came in two parts, as I already mentioned, about 2 turns apart. This last message was around turn 85 or so. Let me check with fow off a min. Nope, no sign of second wave.

Byz Spears hold very nicely. ByzCav can't stand up to Mongol HA, but they do fine in a support/screening role. I let them sucker some Mongol cav back along my flanks, then charge the heavy cav into their flank. Most of the Mongol generals get killed or captured that way. My BC skirmishes until a bit behind my lines, then I have them charge the advancing cav to pin it. Then my general or knights crash into their flank. Short melee. BC does okay in the melee too, better than trying to exchange arrows. VG are deadly if I can pin something on my spears, and the BA rack up their share of kills burning off a lot of arrows. I had two units on hold in front of my spears (suckering the Mongols into attacking me) that accepted charges from heavy cav and survived to pin them a long time. One ended up routing off the map, but the other stuck around. Makes for some interesting battles. Just bridge and ford battles get so... ho hum.

Gonna switch from Latinkon to kats, though. I prefer the bigger melee to the charge. With Mongols, a good charge is hard because things tend to get really messy fast. Better to be able to wade in and dominate those melees.


Ho hum... Another bridge victory.


This was the open field metting engagement, much more challenging.

[saurial]

The campaign as Russia continues... its 1122.

I've expanded to take the whole NE corner, from Sarkel north to Bulger, and Iazi north to Riga (all through starving out rebels with general(s) and then slaughtering them in the sally).

I allied with everyone in the world (this needs to be harder :) ), though Poland broke our alliance around 1110 and attacked. Stack composition was fairly good on troops (polish nobles, peasant archers, and spearmen) but had far too many siege engines (about half the stack). This is the main AI problem I'm seeing right now -- too many siege engines being built, and it makes their stacks very vulnerable to interception by field armies. Anyway, I beat off a few of their stacks before they could lay siege, after which they voluntarily withdrew their remaining troops from my lands. I sent a diplomat for a chat and they agreed to be my vassal (even though they held 4 territories and I hadn't ever entered their lands). I was surprised.

AI expansion looks very good. Scotland has the British isles, the Moors have half of Iberia and all of north africa all the way over to Tunis, Egypt has half the holy land and the Nile, Denmark has all the coastal provinces in northern Europe, HRE has the central core of Europe, Milan has most of western europe, and the Byzantines hold all of Greece (including Zagreb). All of those factions are at 5+ regions I think.

Rebel spawning is very good this version -- lots of rebels with generals appearing, makes things more interesting. Get a stack somewhere in Russia every other turn or so, so frequency is good.

Growth is pretty good, maybe just a touch slow. I have nothing larger than a castle or a minor city yet, despite prioritizing growth improvements and trying for high chiv generals. Still, this keeps the battles more competitive.

Thats most of my thoughts for now.

Thanks,
S

[Carl]

Thanks for the updates guys, sorry for being so slow with the replies, caught that blasted cold again, (off my mum no less who caught it off me when I had it the first time).

@Vonsch: Thanks for the Mongol Stuff, what would you say was the biggest contributer to victory for you in your Mongols battles, (besides the obvious terrain in many cases), Byz Spears? The Heavy Cav?

Also i'm working on the Mongol AI too BTW.

Regarding Trusted alliances sometimes going poof, I've noticed this too, not 100% sure what triggers it but I think it happens when trusted alliances are effectively preventing the AI from attacking anything, it breaks one to break the deadlock and prefers the player to anything else normally.

@Saurial:

Thanks for the economics warning. and the patch should fix alliances with any luck, I just wish they'd hurry up.

Glad the AI seems to be doing Okay for you, also good to hear the rebel spawn rate is about right.

[vonsch]

@Vonsch: Thanks for the Mongol Stuff, what would you say was the biggest contributer to victory for you in your Mongols battles, (besides the obvious terrain in many cases), Byz Spears? The Heavy Cav?

None of the above. Or more accurately, all of the above and more: effective application of combined arms. The archers got most of the kills. But archers without all the backup can't do their jobs. Cav is the counter to their flanking heavier cav, is all. Spears prevent the headon charges. Cold. VG make them pay if they get into pin range (the pin is done by the spear or even archers charging out at closer forces that pulled up short of spears). The ByzCav and archers are great bait. They LOVE charging both.

If I have to move a long way, can't bait them to attack me, it's MUCH harder. I get there more tired (not a huge deal usually on its own) and it's a lot harder to hold formation. They can charge fast, so have to move in small pulses. And the bugs with moving as a group can be a royal pain. When I get close I go to moving one subgroup at a time to prevent total collapse if I get charged.

So I don't see anything major wrong with the Mongols on the field (aside from known bugs like passivity in some situations). They aren't smart about actually assaulting cities though. When they had 3-4 stacks at Antioch they should have tried an assault the first turn that they could. And they bypassed much easier targets to besiege that.

I could do the same thing with the Turks that I'm doing with the Byz, except better. Those stakes really help. But Turks give me the luxury of doing more HA on HA too. At a price. Eggies should be pretty good with all Mamluks and some heavy cav too. Just out Mongol the Mongols.

Some factions will have it tougher as they don't have the good foot archers. Range is a major factor there. But I'd think pavise crossbows would work with their increased resistance to return fire and the large target profiles of HA.

It probably didn't hurt a bit that my generals were decent chivalry and in the 8-10 star range either. The Catholics and Muslims would have a significant advantage in chivalry, but the Byz get some mightly fine generals to work with in command ratings. It is significantly harder to pump chivalry for Russia and Byz. Oh, the FL can do it, and governors to a lesser degree, but generals in the field don't have jihad nor crusade for the nice boosts.


As to the trusted alliance thing... Hungary was already at war with others. It's just BAD strategic AI. Opening a new front when at war is silly. I didn't even have significant forces (just garrisons) on that frontier. Considering the attack didn't even match my garrison in size, I find it hard to believe it saw me as weak... and shouldn't have seen me as a major threat there either. Overall I probably had 4 times to combat power of Hungary though, or more. The only "weak" indicator might have been that I was at war with the Mongols.

What I think is going on is the programmed enmity between Hungary and Byz kicked in. It disregards "trusted alliances," I think. If you want a real trusted ally, don't choose one that fits the usual criteria of "prime enemy." I suspect Turkey, Hungary and Venice are all impossible as trusted allies for Byz. And that's ignoring the expected issues of trying for a trusted alliance with Catholic factions who will crusade on you, and jihad issues for muslims in the same fashion.

I'm not complaining about the attack. I did expect it. I was just noting that it didn't meet your published expectation that it would be a "trusted alliance." Still, it held Hungary off until turn 85 or so. That's a pretty long tme there.

Another thought: It may be the the "war" decision happened before the alliance got to trusted status and cannot be aborted. When I saw Hungary take Sophia and start shuffling small stacks along and over the border, I sent a diplomat to set up a slush fund to keep them sweet (and bought them up that turn too). That may have already been too late, even though it took them 10-20 turns to actually attack (not sure how long it was... probably can figure it out from the old posts).

[Bob the Insane]

Continuing my campaign as the English I have taken Bordeaux and Ireland and have given myself a good base. The Scots are still Allied to me and are busy attacking the French now that they hold Antwerp...

I would love to see what would happen to the Scots if you took their starting boats away and forced them to concentrate on the English.

A crusade was finally called in 1123 but to my surprise it was against Toulouse and the French. We I guess I will have to claim those lands for the English crown and save the people from their heretical overlords...

The pope must really love the English because the French's allies, the Portugese, just attacked us and got themselve immediately excommunicated!

[Rozanov]

OK

up to speed again.

Played up to year 1200 (or thereabouts) as The Pope. Just to see what it was like from the inside so to speak.

Start with Rome (no surprises there then) and it's away we go - ahhggh. Pope has a very expensive army to maintain - we'd better go conquer places. quick or we'll end up with no settllements and no army.

Gather army, capture Florence. - (Florence was surely more than a village at this time wasn't it?) Turn 3 and I'm in the red already. Disband some damaged units (3 gold chevs all very well, but i need cheap garrison troops), gather up the forces to attack naples - no we have to capture Ajaccio first or else we don't get any sweeties. Stuff that - grabbed Naples (Sicily immediately excommunicated!) and with remaining troops got to Corsica in time to complete mission (having waited a couple of turns to be able to build a boat.

After which the Italian peninsular became something of a free-for-all, Venice took Bologna, Milan took Genoa, I took Durazzo (as per instructions of the council of nobles) and then we got stuck in to a long war of attrition.

Eventually grabbed Milan, Milan being busy elsewhere in France - eventually destroying said faction; and later I took Marseilles and Toulouse; His Popeyness also took Cagliari and Palermo giving him almost complete control of the peninsular when the venetians launched a deadly attack. Grabbed Florence - hopelessly underdefended and I held on to Rome by the skin of my teeth. (Actually quite easy as stone walls and militia troops proved adequate for the purposes.)

I noticed Venice had some advanced infantry - DCKs ? and so I reasoned they had to come from a big castle - which could only mean Ragusa had been built up quite quickly. And so it had - but (such dummies) with only a tiny garrison so I took some troops from naples plus a few from Durazzo and promptly bagged myself a facility to build some tasty troops.

Crusades - only been one (nothing to do with me - they happen automatically, the Pope don't get to say yay or nay.) Which failed despite the valiant attempts of Poles, Danes and French armies. I sent the Pope himself with an army to conquer Jerusalem (well I had to, to maintain my reputation with myself) but just as they were disembarking, the fool died and the army disbanded. Couldn't get another army ready in time to qualify.

haven't started any crusades yet - should do especially if I can get my allies England and HRE to do the donkey work. I don't think my allies the Moors, Egypt and Turkey would be interested though.

Being Pope means you get to control Inquisitors - well some of the time. They have "their" turn and then you get to control them. They appear out of nowhere and disappear as well. By the end of my stint there were no active Inquisitors. nb they get traits and retinue like other priests. (Talking of retinue -how come the first pope gets martin luther as retinue!!)

Obviously as the Pope isn't meant to be a playable faction you can get sillinesses:

at one point the Pope requested a donation from me - which the game sorted out automatically - I'd have had no idea how to give myself money!

Also if you vote for the wrong Pope (as the Pope is the faction leader then if you're dead how come you get to have a vote?) you can be very disappointed with your (former) self. Haven't worked out the tactics of voting -might be better to vote an enemy faction cardinal as Pope - takes one away from them and allows your others to roam around. But then it's be better if you knew their traits and retinues before voting for them.

Other than that the game much the same as any faction, you never seem to have enough money and the 3 gold chevey units tend to get dispersed over time.

Discover the venetians like building forts so I attacked one they had between Milan and Venice - oh dear, not a good idea to fill forts with troops if the attackers have bombards and catapults. Mucho carnage. 2 cats and a bombard killed over 50% of the defenders in 1 attack (although I tried to repeat the feat on another and they got clobbered by defenders ballistae and cat - had to rely on old-fashioned steel to win that one.)

Attacking settlements (and with my provisos from earlier posts) is fun - managed to take venice from a full-stack defending Venetian army - silenced the towers with my trusty siege train (now silver chevron units - all 3 of them) and then piled in with a motley crew of papal guards, cavalry, crossbows and anyone who could wield a sword. Took some casualties from
a tower I had trouble neutralising as the unit that controlled it was half hidden in back alley - and my cavalry couldn't attack them even when placed next to them. Luckily they unstuck themselves and were duly cut down and the tower ceased firing on me.

So playing Pope - fun and not as easy as it might seem. Some Pope functions (incl ex-comms) are partly out of the players control but there's enough there to make for an interesting game.

Anything else you might want to know?

[Bob the Insane]

Carl - Have you done any work against the leak 1.2 patch?

If so I, and I am sure the others here, would be happy to test that work for you to try and get ahead of the game for the 1.2 official release...

Happy testing 1.24b at present but I was just offereing...

[Carl]

Yeah, i've got most of the work done, I need it testing but thats it. (I haven't installed the unofficol 1.24, not familiar with torrents and I want to be on the same vershion as the majority of people are when testing as the 1.2 patch changes a few things with it's fixes).

I tell you what I'll send you a link for the 1.25 vershion which is the 1.2 patch compatibale vershion ATM.

p.s. just to be a show of and brag, i got all the work on 1.25 bar a few bits, (bassiclly suggestions from 1.24), done within a wekk of the patch leaking out LOL.

[Bob the Insane]

Cool...

P.S. I grabbed the leaked 1.2 from here, no torrent...

http://files.filefront.com/MIITW_Upd.../fileinfo.html

[Bob the Insane]

Well I got the 1.02 leaked patch working and applied 1.25 (Problemfixer.exe).

One note in this release you do not have any of your config file, batch file and shortcut stuff so I canabalised them from the 1.24 release.

Started as England... The 2-hander fix has not come into effect this early (no 2-handed units yet). The shield fix is nice, but as the early siege battles generally involve you facing the enemy archers and walls and little manouvering, it has little effect so far.

The differences so far are diplomatic, Venice and Sicily have gotten into a war already, in like the year 1097, only 17 turns in... You now get that old message (think MTW) for when two allies start fighting, you are asked which one you want to support and you lose the alliance with the one you do not chose. This has happened in every instance of allies going to war so far. It seems that power blocks form quite quickly around waring factions because the allies involved have to chose sides and that rolls around pretty quickly.

I noticed that my relations impoved really quickly. I gained an alliance and trade rights with the Scotish at start with marrage of our princess to their faction heir. I had no further interaction but our relations have moved up to Perfect with them in only 20 or so turns...

[Bongaroo]

No pics this time but after the last hotfix I started another polish campaign. After the initial rebel province capture rush I had the Germans, Hungarians, French, Spainish, and Potuguese as allies with relations at perfect for the Hungarians and Germans. I think that the danes attacking me screwed up my relations with the HRE. They attacked, and so did the Hungarians! I just got super backstabbed. But I'm actually looking forward to it. I'll be going to war on 3 fronts now while holding Jerusalem from a crusade. Very interesting.

[Rozanov]

Had a campaign as the french.

used the ballista/cannon fix file which i used instead of problemfixer descr-walls.txt. Didn't get far enough into the campaign to see if it worked but it sorted out the "problem" with the machine gun nests in towers

Well the French get a shed-load of settlements so it's heads-down send the princess out to build alliances etc. (nobody paid for map information but everyone joined in the grande alliance.) With the aid of a diplomat got every Xtian faction onside.

Meanwhile it was build up the economic buildings, and do what the council of nobles asked. (By some co-incidence they always seemed to ask me to take places nearest to a stack I was building for that very purpose. which was nice.)

No great problems with attacking settlements / castles. Alliances held fior a while until we were running out of rebel places to take. Inevitably Milan brokie cover first (and was eliminated - they built forts on the eastern and western approaches to milan so I simply attacked from the south thereby neutralising their 2 full-stack armies in the forts.) After that England and Portugal also broke ranks.

As I seemed to be the only one building priests in any quantity I was able to replace Popes with regularity. Up to mid 1150's no other faction had made any other alliances at all. But eventually they got going.

Ditto merchants - I had about 10 bringing in large amounts of money (someone's tweaked them haven't they!).

Crusades - went on both and took Jerusalem and Lisbon (Portugal having excomm'd for attacking me!) Jerusalem fell despite the 3 gold chev army inside - didn't even need the Venetian army (allies) to help out. TBH - I don't see the point of making the defenders so powerful if it makes no difference.

Jihad. Something odd happened - either I missed the notification or it went ahead without it. Anyway I wondered why I had 2 jihad armies parked outside Jerusalem for years - Turks and Moors (IIRC) - until the failed jihad message appeared. Don't know why they didn't attack me?

As Egyptian later on in the game I had a full-stack army invade Corsica (mine) with the faction leader in control. Again although at war with them they didn't attack, so i left them alone.

Mongols arrived on cue and took Antioch (from Venetians who had kept their crusade army in the Holy Land until a new crusade was called!) But their surviving armies had yet to approach Jerusalem. (Shame as I had upgraded the walls to include cannon towers and I wanted to test them out!)

Due to winning the papal elections and winning 2 crusades and not attacking any allies my reputation was "impeccable" at the end of the session (c. 1180).

Didn't notice any weirdness in battles, apart from passive AI - having blown several holes in the wall of one of my settlements a milan army with carrocchio standard and some artillery just sat out the end of the battle being shot to pieces by 3 units of crossbows and then ridden down by 2 units of cav. If AI had any sense if it wasn't going to attack it should withdraw rather than get annihilated.

(Noticed that portugese diplomats all had arabic names and pictures - is that in vanilla or an error somewhere?)

Also Rennes wouldn't expand beyond "town" so had to convert to castle.

In terms of making it difficult giving France so many settlements at the outset seems counter-productive. Maybe lose Marseilles ?

[Bob the Insane]

Some with 1.25... There is really something a little odd with relations... I am at war with France and my relations with them still keep improving??

I selected Hard for the campaign difficulty...

Battles are lots of fun, had an excellent siege battle, I was defending, against a near full French stack at Bordeaux. The French had catapults and a Trebuchet. We also had a near full stack plus some catapults as we had just taken Bordeaux and only just had time to repair the castle before the French tried to take it back.

It would have been a fanstastic battle but for the AI going passive for a bit... This meant it only opened a breach in one castle wall and damaged another before it stopped shooting. I push out some of my own troops and the AI burst into life trying to assault the castle (for some reason is switched the Trebuchet to "cow" mode for the rest of the battle).

If I had fewer troops there would have been a real problem but as it was I blocked up the breach with spearmen and still had enough left to cover the walls where ladders where used. The AI had two siege towers but they didn't get anywhere near the walls. The AI put up a tremendous fight in the breach but the steadfastness of my spearmen and the constant rain of flaming arrows eventually broke the attackers. If I had a minimal garrison in there rather than the full stack with general, I would have lost Bordeaux to the counter attack...

[Rozanov]

Continued French campaign

The grande alliance fell apart. As soon as I destroyed England, the Scots attacked me; Venice attacked once Milan was out of the way. Then the Danes piled in. (dammit I lost Antwerp to them due to not re-inforcing the garrison in time - those obudshaer (sp?) destroy spear militia. Managed to hang onto Metz though - the obudshaer killed my spears but the peasant archer units were too quick to be caught so were able to keep their distance and eventually killed the 2 obuddies without significant loss. Shame about my king though!

Still allied to Pope, HRE, Sicily, Byzzies. HRE even sent a small stack of pavise crossbowmen to help defend Milan - I sallied forth (with a catapult - did great damage) but waitied for the x-bowmen to trudge from the ooposite side of the map to defend the front of my settlement. Where they set-up and caused great carnage. So nice of the venetians to just stand there and be sued for target practice (although one unit did actually attack one of the x-bowmen who had got too close!)

Had a brill battle against 2 full venetian stacks. I attacked with a single unit of merchant cavalry. And won a heroic victory, killing and capturing nearly 500 troops. OK the Pope helped by attacking with a full-stack crusader army that just happened to be standing next to me. Still -great watching the AI fight against itself with me just mopping up routing units

In the East the Mongol hordes came up against my cannon towers of Jerusalem. And perished. Well 2 and half stacks have so far. Credit to the third one though - all cavalry and despite my cannons blasting away they stood their ground and the siege continues. Just hope they don't bring up any siege equipment and infantry as re-inforcements too soon! Good to see the cannon / ballista fix works though!

The Egyptians camped outside Ajaccio eventually got bored and went home.

[Carl]

@Bob: sounds like theirs a bug in the faction standings file.

@everyone else: 'm stil around and loving the feedback,. but i'm stuck in a kind of limbo as I can't really do much else to V1.25 without the patch to test things on.

Keep the feedback coming though.

You still playing vonsch, (play what you like now, i've nothing pressing that needs doing)?