I guessed that the object was to delay "top units," but I don't like the result. Not all cultures work like that. Some cultures require "hang in there, just keep alive, until late when you get the uber units" while others are "move fast or you will be mincemeat later!"Originally Posted by Carl
My first thought, if there's a prioritizing of buildings versus walls... can that be changed instead so that the AI always builds walls as soon as it can? That will help it defensively a lot more with your stronger walls too. The we could leave the unit production alone. Otherwise...
I think it's going to affect game balance for some factions far more than for others. And more than that, it will affect play style. For example, it won't be a huge deal for England. Their special units, archers, don't come from walls until pretty far up the tree, and the archer militia cannot come close to comparing with the longbow line. The archer milita is okay for behind-the-lines free garrisons.
Won't matter to France a bit. Or probably HRE. Their play style remains the same with those starting units and the later ones, at least until gunpowder takes off. But some cultures will have to act like... British! Or Germans. When they aren't that.
The best cav unit the Iberians get, and their signature unit for style until late era armies, the jinettes, are really crippled. Instead of being a staple, they are a luxury. You can't get enough of them fast to start using them as they are intended to be used, as the cav spine to your forces. (See details below... they aren't TOO bad for Spain, since Toledo is central. Potugal gets hurt more.) There is a reason they can be produced in both cities and castles. They are meant to be everywhere!
The same to the horse archer cultures. The Turkomen cost more than plain horse archers, but they are better. They were available, as were Sipahis, at game start. Now they are quite a long wait away. The Turks don't have the luxury of a lot of time. Mongols, you know? Similar issues for the Russians. Those HA armies aren't good at taking cities fast (at least not cheaply), but they are great at the sort of delaying actions the cultures that have them need to survive. And they move fast on the strategic level. Poor Russia. Infantry just can't handle the distances at the speed needed to cover the steppes defensively. Same in the convoluted passes in Turkey.
I guess that's my complaint, really. I can't be a Turk until I'm a footslogging Brit for a decade or more. If I want to be a Brit, well, I can play the English. Same for other cultures with really unique styles if they have special units "out of the box." Turks start with Turkomen. Portuguese and Spanish start with jinettes. Russians start with kazaks. But can they make them? English don't start with longbows, oddly. It's clearly a balance decision. The English have time on their island. The Mongols are not coming.
I'd suggest (and I know it's a major balancing act, but you started it!) moving up those units removed from walls in their new building by one tier, so instead of turkomen coming in at tier 2 stables, they come in with horse archers at first tier. But limit the quantity to lower. And I'm not crazy about the diminishing returns. You already remove production pool when you subtract those from the walls. The available jinette pool drops a lot! And don't take them from the special buildings, like horse tracks. Those take extra effort and more developed cities to build, there should be a payoff that's appropriate to the culture. Without those units I guarantee I will never build them (unless it's over and over to force a horse breeders guild... tearing them down each time). The Genoese Crossbow Militia, and Italian Militia in general, are the signature units for those cities. You've made it so they can't recruit them in the numbers they could before. Ditto for others. The also can't get the stream of replacements they had before.
I can see the argument for stripping them from the walls, but in isolation that changes the texture of the game too much for me. Those units still need their proper prominence over the long haul. Delaying their arrival a bit is one thing (though I don't like it!); making them far less significant is another whole matter. Italy becomes just another infantry culture, not one with a significant difference in that it's city-based and can ramp a high output of standard basic (and solid) units fast. Ditto for the horse archer cultures.
I don't want all Western European-style wars. I want reall differences in styles of war across cultures. I don't play Turkey because I feel like playing with spears.
Don't downplay the differences that exist. Re-arrange them if needed to adjust balance, but don't negate them. I feel like they have been, more due to the shrinkage in the pool sizes than the delay, though the delay does play a part. And some units, as I mention, are plain gone. I can understand removing the duplication across cultures, like DFK or whatever, that everyone has... but not the unique units like Broken Lances, even if they are pretty much like something else. Let the differentiation exist. If nothing more it makes those units SEEM unique. After all, we have orders of knights that are (unless you use fixes to tweak them slightly) all the same except in name.
Okay, did some checking: Spain CAN build jinettes at Toledo. Limits their output, but they are there, at least. The pool is 6. In vanilla they are widely available. Most cities can build from a pool of 2 also. If they build a bull ring, 2 more. Those limits are limits on replacements more than sheer unit numbers.
Portugal can build them at Pamplona. BUT Portugal has no interior lines, so it changes the game for Portugal. Lisbon is exposed and fighting a holding action without its premier troop-style.
Turkey gets one level 1 stable in Mosul, way out of the main action. And it can't make Turkomen until Mosul grows which will take 6 turns if nothing else is done there, plus another 3-6 to bring them to the "front." In vanilla they can build them in Caesarea too. And Sipahis are available as soon as they capture some large Holy Land cities. Or upgrade Caesarea a notch to full castle. They really need a stable at Caesarea with your system. And their special building should retain their special units, as should everyone's!
When you take away starting production, you need, IMO, to make sure the faction has it somehow, unless you mean to drastically change the balance of that faction with regard to others that retain their primary starting unit production.
As far as the custom battle stuff goes, I know a lot of people multi-play and like that. I could care less as long as I can use the custom battles to experiment with tactics with the same units I have in the strategy game. But that's me.
"Problem fixing" is one thing. You're definitely far into balancing, and balancing is a lot more complicated. Making all units produced in walls harder to get does not affect all factions anywhere near equally. To retain something resembling faction balance, you're gonna have to understand each and adjust it accordingly. There's a reason those units are produced in walls, I expect.
And for the record I tried Lusted's LTC. Didn't like it. Loads of huge stacks and overflowing treasuries, and not much activity. I don't particularly think huge stacks are the answer. I like seeing the right amount and type of force applied to solve a particular problem. Sometimes that is 5 stacks, sometimes it's 2 units, but the right units. And overflowing treasuries (mine too!) kills off the economic balancing act that makes the game what it is at the strategic level.
Oh, I am seeing a lot of errors in the logs. Also, the log directory is set up in the data directory, but the .cfg points to it being at the top level: Problemfixer/logs/system.log.txt. Since the directory doesn't exist, no log is created until you manually create the folder.
There are a lot of missing files reports. I suspect you're not installing all the files the game wants in the mod folders. It may result in problems farther in. Also, script errors involving some of your changes. A lot in the traits file. A few in buildings.
"Infantry_bonus_ capability seems not to exist, by that name.
I think using "=>" <> ">=" but haven't tested that yet. That's in the standing file.
Loads of trigger parsing stuff in traits. Some just don't mix with some trigger conditions.
Okay, I started a campaign as Turks on H/H. It's turn 6. The Bizzies look pretty skinny. (So do I!) I managed to take Adana, barely. There were 6 silver chevron units, 2 archers, 2 spears, 2 heavy cav (eek!). All had weapon upgrades. The foot units had armor upgrades too (padded). It's a piddling motte & bailey with nothing in it. (Playing on normal unit sizes.)
I scraped together 2 leaders from Caesarea and Iconium and all the units I could dredge up in 6 turns time. That made 2 leaders (4 stars) with their cav, 2 Turk archers, 1 militia spears, and the two Turkmen HA I started with. I forced them to sally, so I had no wall towers to deal with (3 turns wait). It was not pretty and IMO it took too long. The morale boost just makes the combat last a LONG time. Units were not routing until they were down to single digits from 60-75. Partly that may be the silver chevron. Still.
I lost half my force in the process, including both leaders. The heavy cav had me outnumbered 2 to 1 and thier chevron made a big difference. And they didn't rout until down to 5 or so. My HA and archers survived, and about half the spear unit that held well strung out in a line 2 deep. The cav never got off a charge on them though. The archers had to pitch in with swords and the somewhat delicate HA had to charge too, before it was over with. I lost about half my HA. Still, I killed twice what I lost. Hurt badly though.
One other oddity. I got no chevrons and normally I would. With all those friendly casualties, the survivors usually do well. Is the exp gain toned down? If so, we have too many "balances" in play at once. With slower exp gain the losses will remain high longer. So don't need the extra morale too. Or vice versa.
I'm not sure that the added exp on top of the other changes is needed. I don't like long draw out battles all the time. A few are okay. For a small unit action, this took too long. Already these battles tend to last longer than RTW ones of similar size. Longer is not a plus. I think it's overcorrection.
From looking at the charts, Denmark is the only other faction to take a territory so far.
Looking at the Antioch garrison now: 2 Turk archers, 4 town militia. But all are 1 silver chevron and weapon and armor upgraded. Where they got them I don't know. Antioch has a stone wall and a town guard building.6024 pop. I am accumulating HA now. These are the basic units, so worthless in melee. But bringing in more militia spears. I will force a sally again. May have to back off out of tower range.
Heh, out of curiosity I went back and reloaded the quicksave and autoresolved. It showed I had a slight advantage (say 11 of 20). First try: Crushing defeat. 177 men lost to 16 killed. Trying again.
Oh, nice, the scumm rebels want to ransom me back my men! :P On the other hand, the AI in autoresolve isn't as ruthless with leaders. Both survived. Neither has scars either! Cowards!
More numbers: 5 star Sultan on my end. 11 of 20 looks about right on the odds bar. They have 333 men to my 336. They have 80 heavy cav, I have about 45-50 in the two bodyguard units. I suspect the AI is sending my guys in, not holding them back, thus the bad ugliness. Second try:
Exactly the same. Suspicious.
Third try, different: Clear defeat. 196 men lost to 83 killed.
Ok. not sure what that shows. Except it proves that I'll have to run my own field battles, at least.
Can we lose either the upgrades or the boosted exp? Or lose whichever makes the fight take so long? I don't mind bloddiness, but not drawn out bloodiness.
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