Kings Purse mechanism and the need to blitz

[Shadowwalker]

Having read Moros' post at TWC where he states that some factions may have a hard time financially even if they blitz has reminded me on something I had thought about earlier already:

One of the features M2TW introduced was the King's Purse (I'll abbreviate that as "KP"). Each factions gets a sum x just at the start of their turn. The sum can be different for each faction and it can be increased/decreased via script.

It is for example possible to change the KP when a faction:

- loses or gains a certain province
- owns a number x of provinces
- exceeds a number of provinces or falls below a certain number
- gets/loses an alliance

etc

What brings me to a question: has the EB team already considered using the KP as a mechanism to get rid of the need for blitzing for many factions?
I don't remember exactly which mod I saw it in (may have been the excellent DEUS IO VULT) but it is even possible to represent the increasing bureaucracy effort needed to maintain a larger empire. That mod had linked specific values for the KP to specific sizes of the empires.

I'll give an example as it is somewhat difficult to explain.

Let's say you start a campaign as the Lusotannan. You start with 1 province. The KP is set to a value that allows you to have a +/- 0 (financially) at the end of the turn, without the need to quickly conquer a second (third, fourth, . . . ) province as soon as possible. In EBI you lost something like 6k per turn as the Lusotannan, if I remember correctly, so the KP would need to be around +6k.

Now you conquer (let's stay with the EBI example for the moment) Sucum-Murgi. Your loss per turn drops to ~4k. You take Baikor as well and the loss/turn drops to 2k. The KP script could have a line for the Lusos, stating "if number of provinces = 1, KP = 6000; if number of provinces =2, KP = 4000; if number of provinces =3, KP = 2000".

You can use that mechanism to even have negative values, which would for example make it harder for the big factions (AS and Ptolies come to mind, Romans too, now that they won't go bankrupt/exterminated anymore as soon as they reach the Marian reforms), since you could "punish" them financially for expanding too much. How about a -10k to their KP when they have conquered 10 provinces more than what they started with?

I'm more or less sure that this could even be used to get completely rid of the money assistance script, making economical warfare possible and preventing gigantic factions (like in EB1 a Ptoly Empire from Lixus to Baktra and from Meroe to Olbia).


tl;dr:

Has the EB team plans for using the Kings Purse mechanism?

[Moros]

When you blitz as a smaller faction you will get into debts and will have to pay them off during a number of turns. Personally I don't see a problem with that. What could make thing more difficult is if large factions attack when you are still trying to pay of your debt. Using the example of the Nabataeans, from my previous post, playing as them I start to blitz at least Bostra and Dedan, the nearest settlements. If you don't the ptolemaioi often conquer them first leaving you little to expand to.

After blitzing you can recover relatively easy after a number of turns but you will be vulnerable then if the Ptolemaioi decide to attack you. But then again that will always be a challenge as they have far superior troops, finances, population and they are more advanced.

[Shadowwalker]

A challenge is a fine thing, agreed. Victory is a lot sweeter when you have worked hard for it.

Who knows, perhaps I'm able to find that script and to adjust it. After all I consider this "I don't want to blitz with barbarian factions" thing a rather personal preference of mine. From what I read here in the forums, people tend to have little to no problems with starting their campaigns with 5-10 heroic victories. While I often enough quickly lose interest in a campaign that forces me to fight battle after battle without any chance to replace losses. Mostly because I usually take heavy casualties in every battle I fight with barbarian armies.

Being part of that minority of the TW player scene who is much more interested in the "Civilization" part of the game (in other words: the campaign map and the strategy) rather than the battles itself doesn't help either.

By the way: the Nile delta looks awesome.

[Moros]

Who knows, perhaps I'm able to find that script and to adjust it. After all I consider this "I don't want to blitz with barbarian factions" thing a rather personal preference of mine. From what I read here in the forums, people tend to have little to no problems with starting their campaigns with 5-10 heroic victories. While I often enough quickly lose interest in a campaign that forces me to fight battle after battle without any chance to replace losses. Mostly because I usually take heavy casualties in every battle I fight with barbarian armies.

Then the Prittanoi and Saba might be your cup of tea as they are quite remote, in no immediate danger and you can build them up slow and steady. With the Sabaeans I expect you have more money to build with, but with the Prittannoi I expect you'll have more time, as there are no Grey death or yellow fever that could come knocking.

[Gneisenau]

bellum crucis have a nice KP:
except starting provinces, the first five you conquer have a manteinance cost of 500 each one (and in the beginning of the campaign one
settlement produces 700-1000, the next 10 1000 each one, the next 10 1500 etc....

but the really better script, that make the game and the war campaign more realistics, is this:
every army in enemy territory have a plus manenainance cost of 600 (por turn) and every siege 2000 each turn!!!
this comport that you must calculate every action, and be fast when you attack an enemy province!

[Rex Somnorum]

When you blitz as a smaller faction you will get into debts and will have to pay them off during a number of turns. Personally I don't see a problem with that. What could make thing more difficult is if large factions attack when you are still trying to pay of your debt. Using the example of the Nabataeans, from my previous post, playing as them I start to blitz at least Bostra and Dedan, the nearest settlements. If you don't the ptolemaioi often conquer them first leaving you little to expand to.

After blitzing you can recover relatively easy after a number of turns but you will be vulnerable then if the Ptolemaioi decide to attack you. But then again that will always be a challenge as they have far superior troops, finances, population and they are more advanced.

Realistically, though, the Nabataeans should be almost unconquerable by settled factions, since they didn't have established towns until late in the campaign. Does EB have some mechanism to ensure long-term viability for the Nabataeans? Maybe a garrison script that runs during the early campaign?

[Moros]

Realistically, though, the Nabataeans should be almost unconquerable by settled factions, since they didn't have established towns until late in the campaign. Does EB have some mechanism to ensure long-term viability for the Nabataeans? Maybe a garrison script that runs during the early campaign?

Obviously no settlement can be made unconquerable in TW unless you make them unreachable. It might be difficult for the ptollemaioi to hold on to nomad camps, who will also feature a different religion. We tried to make the ptolemaioi friendly towards the ai nabataeans though, not sure how well that worked. It does not have a garrison script but it is hoard capable faction.

[V.T. Marvin]

Thanks for the suggestions in the OP, it is surely something to consider for a later day. We of course like to get the economy as "right" as possible, preferably without using any complex scripts. But that is a long shot and we can be almost certain to miss in the first release.

In the first release there is a simple kings-purse-based money assistance script for the AI and no money assistance or burden to the player. Hopefully once the game is out enough data can be collected to support further tweaks to the whole economy system so that we can improve it.

And of course as these things are readily moddable there is nothing to prevent anybody from developing his/her own script and tweaks to the economy for personal use or publishing as a sub-mod. Moddification of our mod is encouraged and a sound sub-mod is the best way how to become a full Team member...