Ok, i've begun modding [Archive]

+DOC+

11-19-2002, 12:28

Ahhh good man Kraellin, nothing better than a good bit of modding http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Actually to tell you the truth, i've been very interested in the idea of modding the borders of several provinces too, but have never been fully courageous enough to actually do it. Specifically i'm talking about severing the Mercia to Flanders border and the Granada to Morocco one, however, i'd like to get some feedback on this by someone who's already tried and played like this. I know Turbo has modded this, but he never replied back on my thread so i've no idea as to how it plays, especially as far as the AI is concerned? I suppose the AI might have been the main reason such restrictive boundaries weren't included in the first place?

I imagine what it would do it prolong the existence of the verious factions that fight across these borders, i.e. English and French, Spanish and Almohads. More often than not one of these factions will wipe the other out completely and relatively early. Anyway i'd like to hear anybody's thoughts or experiences regarding severing the fictional borders. My only concern would be on how crusades would work crossing these borders.....?

In terms of other modifications Kraellin, you may or may not be interested in some of these that i have introduced..... currently these are more gameplay enhancing mods rather than for an actual mod as such:

1. Campaigns:

a) All AI factions start with 10K florins for all eras.

b) In the early era, the AI Danes start with a castle4, shipyard with longboat, royal palace with emissary and level1 improved farmland. In all eras Denmark's province income is doubled. This now makes them a very competitive AI faction. When i play as the Danes i play as they were intended.

2. Units:

a) All units have +2 morale, barring the 8 morale knights. Anymore than 8 morale for them and AI leaders have serious difficulty retreating....i.e. they always fight to the death in a battle.

b) Number of men in all siege units x1.5. Stops them being made redundant from casualties so quickly.

c) Hashishin and naptha throwers x1.5 men.

d) All catholic factions can now build a type of crusader unit (e.g. Teutonic knights/sergeants or Templars) and the order foot. They still can't build chapter houses, but if they capture one through conquest they can now construct "effective" crusades. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

e) Differentiated the crusader knights:
IMHO melee and defence are better so,
Templar gain +1 melee (+ another 1 to compensate for their poor charge) giving +2 melee.
Santiago gain +1 defence.
Teutonic gain +2 charge (since they already have a habit of spontaneously charging).
Hospitaller get +2 armour.

f) All archers now have 30 ammo.

3. Buildings:

a) Churches and mosques give extra +1 morale.

b) Build times of certain improvements slightly lowered to enable reaching the late game buildings and units, specifically:
Castles now 3,6,9,12,15 rather than 4,8,12,16,20.
All troop/ship producers, armourer, metalsmith and some of the "unique" later buildings.

I'm still thinking of something for the University building, since it currently doesn't do anything, so any ideas for an applicable bonus?

4. Projectiles:

a) Accuracy
Short bow 0.60 to 0.65
Longbow 0.60 to 0.65
Mounted bow 0.40 to 0.50
Javelin 0.15 to 0.20
Ninjastar 0.50 to 0.55
Handgunner 0.05 to 0.08
Arquebusier 0.07 to 0.10
Grenade 0.03 to 0.05
Ballista 0.9 to 1.0

b) Lethality
Short now 0.63 to 0.70
Longbow 0.63 to 0.80
Mounted bow 0.63 to 0.70

c) Range
Arbalester & Pav Arb 6000-5500
Arquebusier 4000-4500
Handgunner 2000-2500
Ninjastar 1500-1800
Javelin 1500-1800
Grenade 1300-1600

d) Guns can now reload as they move. They get such a disadvantage with it always raining...

e) Crossbow reload time is now 12. Now makes it a worthwhile option to build compared to the Arbalester which is still 15.

f) Siege weapon rotation
Even the big immobile siege engines can now rotate, albeit very slowly.

That might give you some modding ideas... let me know what you do K, especially with the borders.

Cheers

Doc

Edratman

11-19-2002, 14:26

+DOC+
My suggestion for the university would be for it to generate somewhere between five and ten +3 acumen titles that you could bestow on your province leaders. This would enhance your income and thus make the university valuable and cost effective.

monkian

11-19-2002, 15:45

I'm using Docs stats now and think they are a great improvement http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

+DOC+

11-19-2002, 18:11

Thanks Monkian,

If you're interested i've made some more additions since i sent you those stats. These include a shortening of build times for some buildings to allow the latter third of the tech tree to be reached within the game's time period. Plus a generic +2 morale to all units which replaces the extra morale bonuses i'd given to churches and mosques.

Just drop me a line if or when you are interested.

Doc http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

monkian

11-19-2002, 20:00

Have done http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Kraellin

11-20-2002, 00:51

ok, the mod is done and uploaded to the .org's file section. it'll take a while for the staff to look at it and check it out before it's posted, but i did send it up.

this mod ONLY removes ALL the land bridges. there is no other modification to it. i tested it in the early era playing the english and was able to observe that the wessex to flanders land bridge is now gone and so is the denmark to sweden. i didnt play the other eras to test them, nor did i play long enough in the early to actually see if the others were gone, but they shld be.

there are 3 files in the zip file. you must unzip it and put the 3 files in the campmap\startpos folder, either overwriting the existing files or having already removed and saved the existing files. i highly recommend you save all of your original files before adding any mods.

the change was simple. it isnt the setborderinfo:: that adds or removes the land bridges; it's the setneighbors:: stuff. i simply removed the id_provincename for all six land bridges and the vice-versa ones. and, just as a precaution, i also remmed out the setborderinfo:: lines for the appropriate provinces. target had said earlier that it was the setneighbors:: lines that removed the land bridges, but i'd forgotten when i posted here earlier.

having just played as the english on this new mod, i found it quite a bit different. if you remember, in the early period you start out with several provinces down in traditional france, thus, you are immediately split and with this new mod, there is no way to reinforce those troops in france until you build a seaport, shipyard and ships. this seems to embolden the french and it wasnt long before they attacked me and eventually took ALL of those lands from me. meanwhile, all i could do was build up england and take wales and scotland and try to get some ships on the seas in time. i failed. this leaves england a hard row to hoe, being pretty poor in this early stage. but, it does give them a huge defensive advantage allowing them to get their shipyards up and running. fun stuff :)

i may try to play as the almohads next just to see how they fare. the italians shldnt have much problem with corsica and sardinia because the italians already start out with a shipyard and some ships. the danes may have it rough, if you play those, because you'll have to get a shipyard going before you can get to sweden or norway. the sicilians, in my game got wiped out somehow, but i couldnt see how as i didnt have any agents down there yet, so not sure what's going on with sicily and naples. i dont even know who attacked them or how. hehe. interesting.

at any rate, the file is up. enjoy.

K.

+DOC+

11-20-2002, 13:28

Kraellin,

I thought it would be difficult, especially if you've not modded anything else as a result. For the human player i guess it'll be slightly easier since you'll understand the importance of developing a navy as quickly as possible.

I was more interested actually to know how the AI will deal with these changes since it, presumably, won't understand the necessity of quickly building a navy...?

With this in mind, i assume that if you're not playing the English or Almohads then you might find you'll have to give them a shipyard and a boat to start with, otherwise you might find they'll stagnate. Take the English and crusading for example....when they decide to lauch their first crusade from the UK how will this crusade reach it's destination if their is no navy present? Similarly, this will also be the case for any of the crusading European countries attempting to crusade to North Africa and for the Almohads sending Jihads to Spain.

There are a lot of difficulties associated with this, particularly with the Spain/Morocco border and launching crusades/jihads, and therefore i'm interested to know how your current game is proceeding...

Cheers

Doc

Kraellin

11-20-2002, 16:58

hi doc,

the game is progressing quite nicely so far as the english...slow, because of the lost lands in france, but i'm now producing ships from two yards. the biggest problem for the english, having been kicked off the continent, is money. i'm seriously thinking of giving wales and scotland at least one tradeable good to increase this a bit.

there are other differences also. sweden is unapproachable until you have a ship route. you cant even send emissaries to bribe anything because sweden has no seaport. this has also shown up what i consider to be a flaw in game design. even with a trade route to sweden i cant send emissaries. this just seems odd to me now, so i'm also considering giving each island, that is now cut off, a seaport to start with. i had to invade sweden to take it, rather than bribe the armies.

i've been keeping an eye on the spanish, the almo's, and the french. the french wiped out the aragonese. spain has spain. the sicilians got wiped out by someone, not sure who, but have now come back and are island hopping with a small navy. the french are holding their own against the HRE and the spanish. both the french and the spanish have been sending out crusades, but sending them into the orthodox provinces instead of the muslim. the almohads do seem a bit confused, so i might give them and the spanish one shipyard and a ship to start with also. the almo's arent doing much, but they arent losing much either. the real surprise is the danish. without those northern provinces available to them, they are a bit more aggressive into the south. all in all, it's proving out to be quite interesting.

i've not seen any major difficulties in any of it, but i have seen a place or two that could be tweaked for the sake of balance. i'm also thinking of just eliminating the english armies that start in france at the start, but i'll wait on that one. i may have to play several opening games as the english before i decided on that one. i also want to see if the english can maintain those provinces in france or if that was just a fluke in that first game.

it's just always bugged me that one could wade across the english channel, and that in turn means the other land bridges bugged me as well. so, i wanted to make a mod that only removed the land bridges and no other tweaks for those that might wish to try this.

i've also come to the conclusion that we need a massive editing tool for all this and that the manner in which mods are done could be done a better way...more on that later.

i've also begun looking into modding the campaign map and have found the same things that other modders have found when working with the .lbm files. paint shop pro just does not handle the .lbm's the same way that whatever CA is using does. i find this quite odd, since one of psp's strengths is its file conversion and ability to handle many file types. i suspect that CA is using a flawed program that is not handling .lbm's the right way, but that's just pure conjecture based on psp's excellent file handling capability. i'll be looking into this more. i used to have an address for the psp guys. perhaps i'll write them and send them some CA files to let them figure it out. meanwhile, i have gotten the 2 other paint programs for .lbm's that others recommended, so i'll be trying those out.

i've also retrieved some interesting maps that i'm looking at converting into campaign maps, but more on that later also. i'm not quite ready to reveal what i'm working on there ;)

i would suggest to CA that they might take a look at using the .pcx format instead of .lbm for various files. the .pcx format is a little more 'current' and fairly versatile, if i remember correctly.

i'm not doing any stat mods, though i may tweak the ammo loads for siege engines. i just like blowing up castles :)

i prolly shld play a few opening games where i'm NOT the english and see how the english handle all this as the ai. it might be necessary to give them a shipwright and a ship or two also at the start. we'll see.

K.

Kraellin

11-21-2002, 05:14

well, i decided to carry the mod further, though this time i'm not posting the results...yet. still working on it. i removed the english from france as a start positions, gave teh english a port and shipyard, gave the danes a port and shipyard, gave the spanish a port and shipyard, and the almohads a port and shipyard. i also added one tradable goods to wales and scotland. the italians and sicilians already get ports, shipyards and two ships to start, so didnt have to compensate them.

the play is a bit different now. the french are a bit too strong with the extra provinces and give the HRE fits along with aragonese and spanish. the spanish did start to build ships, which was good. the almohads seem to be confused still and dont do much of anything. i believe their king is stuck in cordoba or granada, so they end up being pacifists unless the spanish attack first.

i'm also thinking of giving the sicilians rhodes, crete and malta and maybe the aragonese that horse province the english used to start with to help curb the french a bit. the novgorods also could use some extra provinces from the rebels as the byzantines seem to keep the nov's handily suppressed and that whole region just seems to revert to rebels. it's the danes, though, that have me the most confused. they are labeled as naval expansionist, but dont build a navy, even when given a seaport and shipyard, so may have to give them sweden or increase, as Doc suggested to me on icq, more money to start with. they seem bent on attacking the HRE and always wind up dead before they can grow. at least with sweden they'd have a chance of surviving a bit longer.

i've again been only playing the english. the opening moves are a toss-up between building ships for trade money or taking wales and scotland. the better move seems to be taking wales and scotland first because there just isnt enough other nations to exploit trade with at the start of the game and those barques are a bit expensive. so, either way, the progress is slow while you build up your economy. i may have to give them back a couple of their old provinces in france to start with, just to keep the french from growing too quickly and to boost the english economy a bit.

i do like the game without the land bridges. it seems much more natural to me and explains somewhat why the spanish could survive and grow into a nation. i also like the defensive postions offered by the isolation. it just never felt right walking across water from wessex to flanders and back again and the same with the rest of the bridges.

now, Doc also suggested i keep an eye on how the crusades panned out and so far, they seem to be going just fine. i have noticed one change in them. more of them seem to be going north to the orthodox states rather than to the muslim states. could be a coincidence as i've not played that much into either mod yet. but the french and the spanish both sent out crusades to the novgorod nations in the first game rather than sending them to the holy lands.

all in all, i'm having fun with this and have some other ideas i'm going to be playing with. if you would like me to test something or have some ideas, feel free to post them. just bear in mind that i'm terribly bad at giving credit to others :)

K.

+DOC+

11-21-2002, 12:19

Like Kraellin, i've been experimenting with removing various bridges across the strategic map, especially the Wessex-Flanders and Morocco-Cordoba/Granada crossing points. Likewise the Danes, English and Almohads have all been given a shipyard, a port and a boat in their main province.

I have tested this using the "see-all" cheat .matteosartori. to get a better picture of what goes on across the globe for all factions and here are some of my findings:

1. The Danes have real trouble expanding because they just don't start with enough troops to deal with the excitable rebels. They take a territory, it rebels with 2-3 stacks, the Danes retreat. So my remedy for them has been to double Denmark's provincial income, give them a shipyard and longboat and double their starting troops (i.e. an extra spearman and viking unit). They have been more stable as a result, but they still usually prefer to go for Pomerania rather than Sweden? Instead, maybe removing the Denmark-Sweden border and simply giving them Sweden to start with might be the best option? As yet i'm unsure.

2. Novgorod have similar problems and in fact their best policy is usually to get wiped out by the rebels and then re-emerge with a more healthy stack. This is a somewhat controversial manner in which to expand, but one that works now given the scary rebellions. So, maybe like the Danes, doubling their starting troops might help them get going without being eliminated. The other option is to give them say Muscovy and see what difference that makes?

3. The trouble with this is where do you end...? SHould the Poles also get a little boost, but then would the HRE need a boost if this were the case?

4. The Almohads probably need a port in Granada as well as Morocco otherwise the AI can only traverse troops one-way, which probably explains the confusion Kraellin thought the AI Almos were experiencing.

5. So far i have refrained from giving the Spanish a port and shipyard as they seem to be very tough as they are and if they stave off the Almo threat, their secure borders make them very tough opponents. What i do like about removing the border here is it seems to sort of prevent complete annihilation of either the Almos or the Spanish from occurring too early.

6. I haven't given the English provinces in France to the French as Kraellin has simply because it makes the French very tough from the outset. This has severe repercusions for the HRE as the French can now spend all their time bashing them as they don't have to worry about he English. Likewise, i also added another tradable resource to the English and that was Grain to Wessex. THe English now have much greater security from early extinction because their island is much harder to gain access to. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

7. However, in terms of Crusades i haven't found the same as Kraellin. In one test as the Almos i was informed of quite a few French and Spanish crusades destined for Morocco only to see them head east through Constantinople and get about as far as Palestine before crumbling. This may not be a problem though as it doesn't take long for the Italian fleet to get up and running and if the Spanish develop a fleet quick enough then any Crusade can pop up on your doorstep in North Africa fairly easily.

It's all about balance.... The more balanced the game is then each time you play it different outcomes will be possible resulting in a more replayability. At the moment it is clear the Danes and Novgorod are lightweight competitors in the Early period and therefore have been given special attention so far.

Obviously as a human playing each of these factions i tend to play from that faction's vanilla settings as it's much easier for a human to understand and adapt to coping with the border restrictions.

+DOC+

11-21-2002, 13:43

Just had a thought Kraellin...

If you're still wondering what to with the English provinces on the mainland, why not make them Burgundian as they don't appear to be used in any of the early, high or late period campaigns...? In fact the Burgundians seem to be totally redundant...?

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Kraellin

11-21-2002, 21:33

doc,

yeah, a port in granada makes sense. i did notice, when using your suggestion for the .matteosartori. cheat, that the almos did figure out how to get across the water. they build one ship and left it there. and didnt build another one till much later. but, yes, a port on the other side would be good.

and yes, the french need to be toned down for the start. i like the rebel idea and had thought of that also. but i think i'm still going to give the aragons either aquitane or that other province just north of aragon. the aragonese are just too small.

i like the ideas for the novs as well. they need to be a bit stronger to counter the byzantine expansion.

i'm also thinking about giving the english wales and maybe scotland to make their expansion just a little quicker. they dont really need it to survive, but it's just kind of boring having to build england up to a power.

in my current game, the spanish did start to build a trade route. they had ships all the way up to the east of england, but, the french were so strong, harrassing them in the east, and the almo's had figured out the sea bridge and were harrassing them in the west, that they eventually got wiped out from the double whammy.

the one very funny thing that did happen in my current game is that the french were getting VERY powerful, but then had a MAJOR civil war. this nearly cut their strength in half and i was able to secure a couple of new rebel provinces on the continent. this civil war also almost pushed them out of spain and the almo's were able to take very nice advantage of this.

the sicilians and italians seem to be ok, so far, but i'm still thinking of giving the sicilians an extra island or two at the start.

the egyptians, turks and byzantines seem fine.

i still like that the sweden/demark bridge is gone, but i am still considering giving the danes, sweden, or maybe norway, since sweden is such a rich prize.

it might also be interesting to pump the english up a bit by giving them either normandie with a port or that northwest province next to it with a port. but only give them the one. this would counter the french a bit more and give england early access to the continent, or maybe just leave the english in aquitane but give it a port and give the english enough ships to run back and forth with troops.

yes, the balance issue is an interesting one. the more i mod, the more i appreciate what CA did with the initial game. i've also been checking out historical maps and find some differences between them and the opening campaign map, but this is quite understandable.

um, why did you give wessex grain? wessex already has tradable goods. why not wales or scotland who dont have any?

btw, i may just leave the almo's the way they are. NOT putting a port in granda gives the almo's a way into spain if they build a ship (which they do) but forces them to commit to it. this gives spain a bit more time to build up and defend. i find that spain loses to the almo's about 7 out of 10 times to the almo's in a normal campaign, so this method gives them a bit more chance to survive and maintain a traditional spain. and, if the aragonese and english are blocking the french from coming into spain, then this also gives spain a better chance. i think i'm gonna go this way and see what it's like.

K.

+DOC+

11-22-2002, 01:05

Hi K,

What i was meaning was the Burgundians are actually a minor faction but don't seem to be included at all? So why not make some of the ex-English provinces on the mainland Burgundian and give them leaders, etc, etc. Might be a bit of a modding task though... Maybe giving them to the Aragonese would be simpler.

I wonder if the Burgundians are actually used at all throughout the period campaigns?

Regards the port in Granada, i agree it's not necessary. I've tested it and the Almos do fine, they do eventually build a port in Granada anyway. I also didn't give them or the English or Spanish starting boats and they coped fine with that. The English build boats fairly soon anyway and the Almos a bit later. I don't think the Spanish need any helping hand at all when the border is removed, so i didn't even give them a shipyard or port.

The Novgorod's best tactic is to get wiped and then re-emerge. It's somewhat ironic that a faction's best chance for survival is to get annihilated. lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

With Denmark's provincial income doubled, their starting troops doubled and given the capability to build ships from the start seems to make them worthy adversaries. I doubled the Novgorod's starting troops in Novgorod and gave them Muscovy and they still struggle with rebellions, maybe they're a lost cause? Just let them get wiped and they always come back more capable http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

You're right the Eygptians, Turks and Byzantines are ok as they stand.

I find the English now do ok, but then again in my game they still have their mainland provinces. The reason i gave Wessex Grain was that it makes their income rise quickly in Wessex. Giving Scotland and/or Wales tradable goods is only useful if they take those provinces and end up building trading posts there? It often takes the English quite some time to have these provinces under control.

I'm still unsure as to the Sweden issue. Whether to remove the border and/or whether to give Sweden to the Danes? IF unoccupied by another faction, the Danes always prefer to go for Pomerania and Livonia first, which is probably attributable to their Glorious Achievements. It's a shame the Danes don't appreciate the fact that Sweden is a gold mine just waiting to be exploited

I have to say, i like the way the game plays with these borders removed. It adds a whole different complexion to the game and seems to prolong many of the "major" factions lifespan. With the borders severed, the crusades really now seem to hurt the Egyptians and i prefer that since they arguably have the best starting position of all and need pegged back a notch or too... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kraellin

11-22-2002, 06:46

well, i've hit a snag, doc,

not sure what i'm doing wrong, but when i load the game and pick new campaign, my 'early' option is no longer there. i must have messed the file up somewhere. i tried editing it in wordpad (which is how i did the earlier ones) and in excel. both give the same results. i dont think it's the tabs. those seem ok. but i've changed something, somewhere, and not sure what it is.

only thing i can think of right off hand, is that i removed norway from the rebels and gave it to denmark and in doing that i removed whatever that rebel faction is that is listed after norway, but this doesnt make a lot of sense because those rebel faction listings are remmed out.

does changing the province owner sequence matter? i moved anjou and normandy back to the french and left the english in aquitaine. i also gave toulouse to the aragonese. and in doing all those i moved the positions of the ID numbers to where the rest of the new province owners FN numbers are. would that matter?

the only other changes i made were giving norway a port and aragon a port.

doesnt make sense.

oh, and i found another interesting little bug. if you have ANY other file in the startpos folder with the beginning of the file's name as 'early', it may get loaded instead of the real early.txt. thus, if you have, let's say an earlier modded file named early-2.txt, it may actually load that file instead of the early.txt file. cute. that one fouled me up a few times.

but i'm at a loss on this other thing. any ideas?

for now, i'll go back and start making changes one by one, i guess, but if you know what's doing this, gimme a holler, either here or on icq.

K.

+DOC+

11-22-2002, 12:42

Hmmmm nasty one that

Not sure i know what's wrong here as i've not encountered the problem myself.

When you named your mod, did you change the "true" to "false" under the name description and rename it something different?

I doubt it has anything to do with giving Norway to the Danes as i've given Sweden to them before and never encountered any problems. Whether it's linked to giving the English provinces to other factions i am unsure, i've never done this before and wouldn't know the full extent of what it would involve? Sorry i can't be of more help here, but i suppose trying one thing at a time and testing is the only likely way of finding out what went wrong.

I take it from this that you've decided to give Norway to the Danes as opposed to Sweden?

Kraellin

11-22-2002, 16:48

umm, doc,

ya lost me on this one
Quote[/b] ]When you named your mod, did you change the "true" to "false" under the name description and rename it something different?

i dont rename the mod at all. i just use the 'early.txt' and change the values within. i dont know about any 'true' or 'false'. you talking about the file where you change the text description of the mod used in the campaign intro? if so, i've not done anything with that yet. the ONLY changes i've made are in the 'early.txt' file.

ok, i went back through this again after i posted my last post and it's not the re-arrangement of the ownership of either the french or english provinces. it's not the adding of any of the ports or shipyards. and it's not the adding of tradable items to wales or scotland. so that pretty much leaves the removing of norway from a rebel province and thus removing that remmed item from the rebel provinces or altering the starting money for expert and hard or the altering of the danes to 'catholic_crusader_trader'. like you say, i'll just have to go thru and alter them one by one and check them to find which is doing it. maybe i forgot a carraige return or tab somewhere, or left a carraige return in that wasnt supposed to be there.

btw, what i did get to work was a change of those english/french ownerships. i left aquitaine to the english, but gave anjou and normandy to the french. this worked a charm. my current game is running extremely well. spain has managed to beat back the almo's, even with the almo's making a ship and crossing the straights. france and germany are very well balanced now and france cant get immediately into spain because i and the aragonese are blocking them. spain and aragon have sparred a little bit, but aragon has managed to survive and even made a ship and used it to cross troops into provence to attack and take the german province hehe, now that was fun. the nov's still suck, like we've both found, and when i figure out what i'm doing wrong in my mod, i'll prolly give them muscovy, like you did.

i've got a very well balanced game going now. even the danes have built a ship, though they do keep making the mistake of attacking the HRE, which is why i'm changing them to catholic_crusader_trader. and yes, i was planning to give norway to the danes. if they want sweden they're just going to have to figure it out on their own :)

now, i didnt respond much to your previous post because of my bugged file, but yes, i had considered giving some of the provinces in france to the rebels. but, after playing with my current configuration, i think i'm going to leave it like i've got it, for now. giving the english that one province seems to be enough to give the english a bit of a boost and act as a deterrent to france from invading spain and keep france from having all those rich provinces for income. it seems to be just the right touch as it stands.

yup. the almo's seem to figure out they need a ship pretty quickly and by making this a one way street, it gives spain just enough time to build up a bit. it could still go against spain if the almo's play it right or get lucky, but yes, you dont need the port in granada.

as for spain's port, i'm still debating this one. they will build ships, but not like a trader faction and so their ships dont really come into play re the almo's very much. so, yes, it may not be necessary. i was hoping spain would figure out the ship crossing thing also and battle the almo's for control of the straights, but it hasnt happened yet. and, like you, in my recent game, spain sent a crusade to algiers, but it had to go the long way around. lol. the turks and egyptians werent very happy with that, as about 3000 spaniards waltzed thru their provinces on the way to algiers. the really cute part was, the almo's kept fighting spain right up until this crusade was in egypt and then made peace with spain and spain disbanded the crusade in return before it ever touched a single almo province. talk about diplomacy :)

yeah, i think the nov's might as well start with muscovy also. i'll prolly also boost their starting money. hadnt noticed the get-wiped-out-to-reemerge-stronger tactic on the part of the nov's before. it didnt happen yet in my recent game. in mine, they simply lost novgorod but gained muscovy and are just sitting there licking their wounds.

the danes is one where i had to wipe out the changes i'd made there because of whatever i bugged the file with, so i still have to make some changes there to see what they need. oddly, so far, they are still alive, even with attacking the HRE a few times in some really poorly conceived moves. try making them catholic_crusader_trader and see if they dont build more ships and expand better through the sea routes. maybe they'll invade sweden and norway then.

the one debate i still have is whether to try and make the danish, the aragonese and the nov's into equal partners with the other factions. i like the idea that there are small powers that can affect things, but arent major players, necessarily. they are like wildcards in the deck. and, giving the danes too much to start might destroy it for when a player wants to play as the danes and have that struggle of being a one horse wonder of one province to start. still, i'll prolly do a couple more things to alter them and see.

my current bottom line is, only the danes, aragonese and nov's need any help now. the balance tween the almo's, spain, france, england and the hre seems to be quite good. and, the polish and hungariarns seem to be keeping a handle on the byzantines now. with france and the hre butting heads, the hre doesnt have the resources to hurt the polish or hungarians, so they are more free to expand east and keep the byzantines in check, and that in turn keeps the byzantine-turk-egyptian relationship more equal. normally, my games all tend to end up with the turks getting wiped pretty early, but in my recent balances the turks are equal partners with the byzantines and egyptians.

so, all in all, i'm pretty happy with the way things are going. i'm still playing as the english and will definistely need to check things by playing other factions, but i like the way the ai is balancing things out with the major powers now.

at some point we're going to have to exchange our files and see what the other guy is doing. btw, the only file i'm modding right now is the 'early.txt'. i'm only playing in early and i'm not altering the description files. however, when you make changes in province ownership you do see the new owners displayed in the map shown where you pick your options for a new campaign. pretty slick on CA's part.

K.

+DOC+

11-22-2002, 17:37

Ok K, regarding the naming of mods issue, the first few lines of your Early.txt file should read:

//========================================
//campaign name: can either be text or a
//label. Set predefined accordingly
//========================================
cn_predefined::true
cn_title::"Early Period"
cn_short_title::"Early Period Short Title"

Now, for the purposes of modding i'd recommend creating a new txt file with the appropriate title of your mod, then you can leave the original Early.txt alone. I think this is advantageous for MP as the originals campaigns need to be there (i think?). Anyway, mine is called EarlyModBorders for instance and after changing the txt file name the above part was changed to match the title, e.g.:

//========================================
//campaign name: can either be text or a
//label. Set predefined accordingly
//========================================
cn_predefined::false
cn_title::"EarlyModBorders Period"
cn_short_title::"EarlyModBorders Period Short Title"

This simply puts my new mod on the list of available mods without disrupting the originals. It is also called EarlyModBorders and is distinguishable from the other campaigns.

You may find doing something like this helps, although don't quote me on that?

On the issue of the English lands on the mainland and their ownership i wasn't referring to making them "rebel". What i meant was making them Burgundian. The Burgundian faction is a minor faction like the Aragonese, however, it doesn't appear to be used throughout any of the preset campaigns? It is listed in the High period campaign although all its entries are remmed out. Whether this means they'll appear like the Golden Horde or not i am again unsure, but by adding them in it would give another faction to play with and at a very appropriate location for the Burgundians. I haven't tried this as such and i don't know how hard it would be, but it might be worth a try.

Like you say i think the borders actually work very well and as a result i'm contemplating removing the Denmark-Sweden border. Maybe giving them Norway or at least giving Sweden and/or Norway a port might complement this well?

One of ther reasons you're finding the Danes attacking the HRE is because they are trying to get to Pomerania, Livonia, Prussia, etc, and without the means to a navy they have to go through Saxony first. You see, it was suggested that many of the factions play towards their GAs whether you play in GA mode or Conquest mode and obtaining Livonia or something like it is one of the Dane's GAs. In my opinion, that's why they always go south into Saxony rather than attack Sweden. By giving them a boat to start with they'll use it, eventually, to take Pomerania without attacking the HRE in Saxony (assuming another faction like the Poles haven't managed to get it first).

I hope this helps with your modding. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Doc

+DOC+

11-22-2002, 17:57

Have you also removed the Sicily-Naples and the Corsica-Sardinia borders? How does that affect things?

My initial thoughts would be not very much, simply because the Sicilians and Italians usually have tons of ships anyway, unless that is, they go to war with each other

Th Novgorod faction still struggles even with Muscovy. Maybe their only salvation is to double their starting forces in Novgorod??

Kraellin

11-22-2002, 18:50

doc,

oh, ok. i understand now, i think, about the file names and headers. that's why my other files in the folder, the older mods, were trying to load when i started a new campaign, and not the most recent mod. so apparently this 'bug' i reported isnt really a bug after all, but a built in feature to allow for more than one 'early.txt' file. do you need to name the actual file name all as 'early.txt' or does it just read all files in the folder and attempt to load them all? so, if i have a file named 'early-mod1.txt' and 'early.txt' and as long as the header info is different and named properly, they shld both show up in the new campaign area? that's pretty cool if that's how it works. i was just constantly modding 'early.txt' and saving all the changes to the same file.

yes, in the mod i posted on the .org, i removed ALL land bridges. and for every subsequent mod i've left that part intact and just done other things as i go along. that has always bugged me in the normal campaigns, the land bridges, and i just wanted them all gone. the sicilians and italians do about the same. like you say, both already have ports, shipyards and ships, so little is affected. i am still thinking of giving the sicilians one more island though, maybe crete.

the reason for modding the nov's stronger is two-fold. one, you want a counter agent in there to stave off the byzantines and two, there are too many rebels in the north and with a faction like england now REALLY being a trading nation, it's just too easy to walk in there and bribe all the rebels and take massive amounts of territory. so, the region needs a protector. however you wish to do this is fine, but the nov's being stronger is the best way. yes, i'd give them muscovy, up their starting money and maybe give them a few more troops or land type buildings. i would NOT give them ports in finland or novgorod though. i think we want them to be mostly a land based protector of the north. you could change their faction/religious leanings to something else, however. i dont recall what it is right now; maybe orthodox_peaceful? if they were orthodox_aggressive, or whatever it's called, that might work better.

yeah, i dont know a thing about the burgundians at the moment. i'll leave that one up to you :) and yes, i dont understand why all those rebel factions are remmed out either. the file says that if a province isnt assigned to a faction then it's automatically a rebel province. i dont know if those remmed out rows are just to show us what rebel factions exist in the game and where they will show up, or if it's something left over from an earlier version, or if it's something that is actually used, though i dont see how when it's remmed out.

the danes are a bit tricky. i decided against giving them sweden but am toying with the notion of giving them norway. and, if like you say, they are more or less coded to act towards their GA goals, even in the conquest mode, then it might actually make more sense to give them that one province just south of them instead of sweden or norway. btw, i think you're prolly right about the GA stuff and the danes. that makes a lot of sense and explains a few of the oddities of the danes. so, if that's what they really want to do, and the danes are a bit too weak, then it sorta makes sense to give them something that is heading towards what they are already trying to do. i dont know if this will muck up the GA game or not by doing that, though. so, this one is still up in the air for me.

like i said before, i'm now quite happy with the almo, spanish, french, english, hre relationship and prolly wont change much more of that. well, at least not till i start playing some of those factions. so far all i've been playing is the english. i'm also now leaving .matteosartori. completely on and watching things. before i'd toggle it on and then toggle it back off again. i'm actually somewhat torn by this as a permanent mode of play. it makes sense that you'd get information across the known world about troops movements and what the other factions were doing, but it also makes sense that some of that data would be out of date or inaccurate or completely false. so getting ALL true data isnt quite right, but getting NO data isnt quite right either. i think this is something that CA could improve upon for the future.

and again, the more i fool around with this stuff, the more of the genious i'm seeing in what CA has done. oddly enough, they are winning me over to the single player mode, whereas in shogun and we/mi, i hardly played single, except to practice in custom games. here, i find myself hardly going to MP any more and spending most of my time in single or in modding single. very insidious of them ;)

K.

Kraellin

11-23-2002, 18:21

hi doc,

made some more changes. norway is danish, muscovy is nov, toulouse is aragonese, and made all the minor factions into major so that they're playable. i now observe the changes by playing sicily rather than egypt.

sicily is weird though. you're sitting in deep water and need a deep water ship to get into it. is there any way to change deep water into the more shallow water without having to edit the lukmaps or something? i kind of suspect not, so i may just have to give them one deep water ship to start.

i've also changed those title things so that my campaign shows up in the campaigns available, but it's got that thing about untranslatable in it. is that from not changing the 'true' to 'false'? cause i forgot to change that. i'll try it the other way today and see if that doesnt fix it.

i've now also tried the danes as catholic_naval_expansionist, catholic_crusader_trader, and catholic_trader, and the one that seems to build ships the earliest is catholic_crusader_trader, and even then they arent too aggressive on the sea. they do take sweden ok, but they're doing that from norway and not the sea. i think i'll look at what the byzantines and italians are using because they seem to build the most ships in my games.

also, the thought occured to me, that it might be more interesting in the faction leanings if they were a mix and match and multiple type thing. so that each one was a smaller division and you could add more than one to a faction, like instead of it being one as catholic_crusader_trader, those would actually be 3 different leanings and you could add any or as many as you wanted. thus, you could have 'catholic' as one, 'crusader' as one, and 'trader' as one, along with all the others. you could then just construct the leanings however you wanted by adding or subtracting any of these. you might then make a 'catholic_trader_peaceful_defensive_crusader' or whatever combination you wanted. or maybe it's like a chinese menu where you could pick one from each column so that you dont end up with 'catholic_orthodox_muslim_crusader_raider' or something. thus, you pick one from column A, one from column B, one from C and so on. just a thought.

i find that the tendency in this modding is to try and make all the factions equal, major and minor. i think that may be a mistake. i think we need some weaker powers, some wimps and oddballs and weirdos. this gives the player some challenges and also allows the AI a chance to overcome the odds as well. so, i've not done much extra to the nov's, for instance, other than give them that one extra province of muscovy. they dont seem to be very good managers so giving them a lot of extras isnt going to help them much anyways. they'll just squander it :)

now, that isnt to say that one couldnt make a mod where everyone starts out with TONS of stuff, ships, armies, buildings, etc; but for this first mod, i think maybe it should be a more minimalist kind of thing. just a preferences thing. it might be fun to turn all the factions into peaceful traders with lots of ships and buildings and see what happens or go vice-versa and make them all raiders :)

K.

Kraellin

11-24-2002, 02:30

hehe, i'm having fun with this. i got the campaign name thing to work right by changing that true to false. i've added more tradable goods to various provinces, particularly those bordering the sea. never mind about malta and that deep water statement. i understand it now. never really looked at it before. it's an inset, as is rhodes. ok. no problem. the novs are doing better. the danes are doing better. i gave the sicilians, crete and added tradable to both malta and crete. gave an extra ship to the sicilians. the french are a bit strong yet due to giving them the english provinces. it doesnt show up till a bit later, but they tend to beat up the germans eventually, so may have go give one or both of anjou and normandy back to the english.

it would seem i'm working my way to making this a very strong sea trading game, at the moment. might have to alter a few faction behaviors to get them to take advantage of this more. byzantines do fine with it. italians do fine, except they tend to build up a lot of ships around sicily and dont expand out enough. english have started to sea trade a bit also, but very slowly.

all in all, it's stacking up nicely. still some things to try, but i'm about ready to move on to the next mod project.

K.

+DOC+

11-24-2002, 16:12

Yeah, sounds like you're getting there K. Changing it to "false" is indeed what you need to do.

I gave the Novs Muscovy, gave Muscovy a castle and improved farmland and a few extra troops in Novgorod and they seem to do better. For the Danes i doubled Denmark's province income and started them off with a trading post. That seems to give them the financial setup they need to expand out of Denmark to Sweden/Pomerania. IU also gave them a few more Viking units and that seems to allow them to take a province without it immediately rebelling, which is essentially the main problem the smaller factions have with trying to expand.

All my factions start off with 12K starting money, which appears to enable them to build up and branch out ok and lessens the likelihood of bankruptcy. This is done by changing the "normal" money column as all AI factions use this no matter what difficulty the human player plays on. I just make sure i never play on Normal level. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

By the way the only difference between Crusader_trader and Trader is the tendency to build crusades, otherwise they're exactly the same. So unless you are enabling Denmark to build crusades i would simply leave them as Trader or Naval_expansionist.

All in all, i think this Mod works particularly well, the slighly more minor powers are still not as potent as the bigger ones, however, at least they now have the ability to expand for themselves.

My campaign to help the Danes has finally been accomplished. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kraellin

11-24-2002, 19:55

doc,

yeah, the 'false' item did the trick.

ah, that's good to know about the 'normal' money column and the ai. i think i saw that in someone else's thread, as well, but had forgotten it. that will be useful. thanks :)

sounds like yer changing the danes and the nov's into major factions. what happens when the player plays these factions? i find the hardest trick is making the ai strong enough to survive and balanced and then turning around and playing that same faction as a human and not having it overwhelming against the ai. and along those lines i'm currently experimenting with altering the resources and tradable goods. knowing that the ai uses 'normal' for starting money will also help.

i'm definitely getting the hang of things. i recently screwed up my file in one of my mod attempts and the bloody thing wouldnt load and show at all when i started a new campaign, but managed to go back in and find and fix the problem, so i'm getting a little better at this. i'm also getting more outrageous in what i attempt as i gain more confidence in altering things. so, it's getting interesting :)

K.

+DOC+

11-24-2002, 21:04

heheh well the Danes are technically supposed to be a "Major" faction aren't they http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Anyway, they are now able to compete which makes the game play slightly differently as previously they never featured and so could be ignored. If you play as any of the Northern European factions one simply can't ignore them now as they have the potential to launch naval assaults all over the place...

It's quite cool, in my current game as the Turks, the Danes have taken Burgundy and Normandy from the French and historically the Normans who invaded Britain were of Viking descent So they're following history, lol. The French have taken all England's original mainland provinces, but have lost Flanders to an English naval invasion. The English are now quite effective and in this game i would say the removal of the border between Flanders and Wessex saved them from an early extinction at the hands of the French. Likewise the removal of the Almo-Spain border has essentially saved the Almos from an early exit

All in all the game plays very well, the factions stay alive longer as it's more difficult to eradicate certain ones. The game progresses at a better pace and i'm not seeing half the factions eliminated before i get to the High period. This was one of the most irritating occurrences when the borders were in place, so many of the factions would get destroyed before i'd progressed very far in the game, quite often before i'd even reached the High period I like having the factions last longer to have more of an impact in the game and give some variety to the factions i fight. I find the game loses some of its interest when it becomes a slogfest between 2-3 major powers too early in the game.

Your question on how i play the game when i go one of the "modified" factions is a good one. What i would do under these circumstances is to play them as they were intended by CA (e.g. the Danes/English/Almos in their vanilla state) since as a human i can build them up properly. Therefore i'd remove their shipyards, boats and any extra troops i'd given them, otherwise it would be too big an advantage for the human player.

Most of what i've modded has essentially been done to boost the potential of the factions when played by the AI and to help them cope with the removal of the borders.

Kraellin

11-25-2002, 09:01

interesting idea giving the danes a trading post. i'll have to try that as well. my danes are still staying mostly in norway, sweden and denmark, with a couple doomed excursions outward at times. more vikings also sounds good. they often lose to rebels in sweden after they take it, so i'll try that as well.

all i had to do with novogorod to get them jump started was give them muscovy, a couple extra troops and 12,000 starting money. that seems to get them going ok, though they do still lose to uprisings.

yup. i didnt like the early faction demises as well, so, you shld see what i've got going with the current mod and the current campaign. it's unbelievable. england, france, italy, the hre, and aragon did not start ANY fights with each other until 1139 and then, only the french and english have started fighting. talk about balance and build-up hehe.

the almos and spanish didnt start fighting for about 10 or 15 years, mostly because the almo's focused on taking portugal and portugal kept erupting on them. this gave spain time to build up and spain finally attacked and drove them back across the straits.

in the southeast, the byzantines and the turks started fairly early but couldnt take ANY provinces of the other guy for a good 10 years. this was finally broken when the egyptians sided with the turks against the byzantines. the byzantines have now been driven back to constantinople in a long, bloody series of battles.

the nov's came south a few years after the start, taking out rebel provinces, and had quite a chunk for a while, but eventually the nov's just shoot themselves in the foot by not protecting their loyalty, so their advance has pretty much stopped or is at least not as steady.

i'm playing the sicilians again and mostly just building up money and ships. i'm making about 12,000 a year profit, have 10 children and 5 provinces and almost 150,000 in the bank.

hehe, as you may be able tell from the money stats, i've been making my mods on the additive basis only; meaning simply that every time i tweak something i only add something and rarely subtract anything. thus, there are some very healthly trading provinces out there now, so there's more money in the game overall.

oh yeah, i also split the hre. they are now a country divided, which seems to have the effect of keeping them in check a bit more.

the hungarians and polish also havent fought anyone, except a rebel or two. thus, i've lost NO factions at all yet and the balance in western europe is really quite amazing, at least in this first trial. if i bump the danes up to where they'd attack someone like france, i'm afraid i'd upset my balance. lol.

1139. that just floored me. what year does the game start in, 1080? that's almost 60 years where the english, french, hre, aragonese and italians dont fight lol. how boring still, it was the most fascinating boring i've watched in a while ;)

when ya get your mod how ya want it, gimme a holler on icq. i wouldnt mind taking a break at this point and looking at someone else's work. your danes are intriguing me :)

K.

+DOC+

11-25-2002, 13:05

Hi K, i pretty much have my mod how i want it now.

You have the Novs almost identical to what i have them and yeah, they do seem more able to expand into the rebel provinces albeit not too rapidly. This seems about right.

The Danes, like the Novs, might still get problems from rebelling rebel provinces, but at least they don't appear to go bankrupt anymore, so given the worst case scenario they can always progress albeit slowly. In my current campaign the Danes and the English were double teaming the French for a while, but now the English and French have made peace and they're both attacking the Danish forces in Burgundy, Mormandy and Ile de France. A Danish-English war should be interesting given that naval superiority will be critical for any major advances to be made. The Danes also took Ireland and Scotland and it'll be interesting to see whether they can hold them from the English or indeed use them as a means to launching an attack into England's heartland. The French are by no means out of it and no doubt have a valuable part to play in this developing 3-way struggle.

The Spanish have take Spain back and the ALmos and them trade Granada on a regular basis. If and when the Spanish get a fleet up and running we may see them take a more dominant role in this war. As yet, the Italians and HRE haven't done any real fighting, the HRE have only taken Pomerania.

Down in my neck of the woods, i had been continually struggling with the Byzantines however, recent events have worked in my favour with the Hungarians and Sicilans also joining the war and fighting the Byzantines. This has meant slow but significant in-roads being made into the Byzantine's eastern provinces by myself (Turks) and into the western provinces by them. The Sicilians now have a huge earner in Constantinople

The Egyptians are sitting ominously in their own lands minus Palestine, which i took following a successful Spanish crusade there. They haven't done anything yet but a backstab attack on me might prove fatal should they be tempted as most of my resources are tied up elsewhere.

It's nearly 1170 and all factions are still very much in it. The Byzantines and French have taken significant knocks but are by no means out of it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kraellin

11-25-2002, 16:59

very cool, doc,

you've made your danes stronger than mine and i've been debating this in my own mind as to this being a good or bad way to go for my own campaign, but, i do keep increasing them by small increments. i may also change them into that 'raider' behavior to see what that will do. i'm also toying with the notion of just giving them sweden, as well as norway, to start and then putting a port on sweden and a trading on denmark, like you suggested. my reason for this is to make them a natural counter to the nov's as well as a raider into the hre, english and french and therefore a sort of wildcard nation. could be fun.

i'm also adding africa (the sahara) to the almohads. i almost got it working right yesterday, but had a bug in it somewhere. there's a number of things you have to turn on for id_africa and i think maybe i messed up the governor title, so i downloaded that other person's africa mod to see what he did for the title and will be adding that in today at some point. this makes for an interesting strategic province since the bloody thing stretches so far east and west and also connects to an ocean zone.

oh, and just for your info, you can add tradable goods more than just 3 to a province. i suspect you could prolly do the same with resources, though i havent tried that one yet and since there are only 5 resources. i now have several provinces with 5 tradable goods. this is one of the ways i've added more money into the game. i'm also giving just about anyone at least one tradable good or resource. it just strikes me odd that some of these provinces couldnt dig up at least something to trade or mine. they still vary. i'm not just giving everyone 5 items or anything, but almost everyone is getting at least one. this is also another tool for tweaking the balance. the danger here is, of course, that with too much money in the game, nobody will ever have to watch their expenditures and it just gets a bit too wild, but if you give everyone a little more then the armies tend to be bigger when they do clash, and the loss of one province isnt likely to be as critical. i mostly keep the same relationships as the vanilla campaign, such that khazar and sweden are still big traders and someone like serbia, who didnt have any before, now has one.

i've also made naples a rebel province to start and taken crete from the byzantines and given it to sicily. this works to balance the byzantine, turk, egyptian equation a bit, particularly the byzantine-turk one. yeah, 5 mods back those factions were pretty balanced, but with everything else i've done around this world it was getting out of whack and the byzantines were getting too strong.

if you're interested in turning africa on, download that mod named 'africa' on the .org download pages. you have to change the setneighbors, setborders, province governor title, setcastle, (setorgin is already on), give it a unit or two, and a building if ya want, and iirc, the set attributes. it's pretty straight forward and i dont know what i had bugged in my own first attempt, but just look at that africa mod for any questions about it.

and oh, btw, to whomever made that africa mod, you forgot to turn on id_africa to id_atlantic_coast, so you've only got a one way street there. i dont know if that was intentional or not, but it is missing, or maybe it was the other way around, id_atlantic_coast to id_africa, but one of them was missing.

there's also something i dont understand in that governor title thing. they give the attributes for that in part as "" in many of the titles and in others they'll give "King of whatever". i dont quite follow how that "" is working and giving the correct titles to those other provinces. there will be a whole string of those in a row from province to province. does the "" just mean use the title given from the last one set but input the ID name or something? i dont get it.

time for work. talk to ya later, doc. if i see ya on icq later today maybe i can get your mod from you :)

K.

+DOC+

11-25-2002, 18:26

Sure thing K, i'll send it to you the next time i catch ya online.

Back on the Danes, the interesting thing about them is that they don't always follow the same strategy. More often than not they end up heading east into the rebel and Novgorod provinces, usually by trying to establish a foothold in Pomerania, Prussia or Finland and then heading east. Failing that they may challenge the HRE in Saxony. This is the first time i've seen them attack the English and the French to the west

I still have my Danes only starting in Denmark, but they have Denmark's income x2, a shipyard, a longboat and a trading post. All this serves to do is prevent them from bankrupting themselves should their attempted invasions into the rebel provinces go sour. Oh, i also gave them a few extra Viking units to help stave off the rebellions too. Norway and Sweden however, both remain as rebel owned, thus giving another faction like England the potential to to take them if they're quick enough... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The only trouble i might envisage with making more tradable goods available is that the AI will never utilise these as well as the human player, and so it may turn out to be only advantageous to the human player in the long run. If the AI was better at utilising the trade aspect of MTW then this would a very favourable addition.

ID Africa, now that sounds interesting, i'd like to hear how you get on with that and what impact that'll have on the game? Never even knew that was possible...

Kraellin

11-25-2002, 21:47

doc,

when you say you give the danes X2 income, you mean the starting money or are you somehow giving them extra income per turn?

you dont give the danes norway to sweden to start...hmm, ok, maybe i'll try that as it did bug me a bit that that was cutting down other's chance at norway and sweden.

as for raising the tradable goods and resources, i'm not just giving it to sea provinces, nor just to a few provinces. the ai does make use of it, though obviously not as well on the sea, but i'm working on that ;) the armies in my game are bigger all the way around, so the ai is making use of the internal trade and resources at least. i'm going to be investigating the behavior routines more to see if something cant be tweaked to force the ai to build more trade routes, at least for some factions. most likely there is a file that can be tweaked to alter ai behavior. i'll let ya know.

i'd actually like a campaign mod where the emphasis is on trading and not war and conquest. in fact, there shld be a game mode, similar to the GA mode, where the goal is not conquest or GA points, but plain and simple richest country in the world by X time limit. i'd also like to see the ai operate on good old plain and simple GREED at times. i was playing sicily in my last game, was making gobs of money, had very little military and defense, other than being isolated on islands, but was NEVER attacked, never robbed or nothing. it would be interesting to make at least one faction operate on the basis of GREED and act accordingly. then, when you get that 'you are the richest country in the world' message, you'd better watch out, because now YOU are the target of the GREED faction. and in fact, you could do the same thing for every one of those 'you are the X'est whatever in the world'. get that message and X faction will react to it, where X faction may or may not be the same one for all the different messages.

i'd also like to see more randomity in various traits and loyalties and triggers. i'm beginning to see patterns in various things and this spoils the unpredictability of the game. once you start knowing how this guy works or this function works and so on, you start predicting things too easily. just as an example, the hre is usually pretty aggressive. let's swap that aggressivenes to the french this game and in the next it gets swapped to someone else....things like that. loyalty is another one that gets too easy to predict. just make things a bit less predictable is all.

ok, lots to do and i dont see you on icq, so i'm off to mod some more :)

K.

+DOC+

11-25-2002, 22:42

Actually the French and the HRE are both Catholic_Expansionist in behaviour so they should have exactly the same personality in-game. That's the theory anyway, and in my game the French have been aggressive and HRE haven't done a thing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The Danes like everybody else get the 12K starting money. It's the province of Denmark that i doubled the annual income of.... this gives them a more solid base from which to work and expand from without going bankrupt.

I'm on ICQ now if you want me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

fenir

11-26-2002, 23:36

Quote[/b] ]by Kraellin,
it would be interesting to make at least one faction operate on the basis of GREED and act accordingly. then, when you get that 'you are the richest country in the world' message, you'd better watch out, because now YOU are the target of the GREED faction

So Greed Faction? You Mean the Italians? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

fenir http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

cugel

11-27-2002, 01:24

Hi +Doc+ I've been playing as the Danes with Paladin's 1092 mod (modded so that all the land bridges are cut). I must say that that is the hardest campaign game yet for me. I think that your suggestion to raise the income of their starting provinces is good. Even with each faction set to begin with 10,000 koku I nearly went bankrupt (took me 2 tries on expert to realize that you need to build a trade empire 1st as the Danes). I tried to conquer Lithuania after Norway & Sweden, ended up with minus florins and had to abort.

BTW: if anyone wants a totally wild game, change the Byzantines to Orthodox_Expansionist and watch the fur fly
:lol:
I've never seen such craziness They stormed all over asia, attacking everything. Just when I thought I'd better restart and tone them down a little, they left Constantinople ungarded. The Turks took it. The Byz and Turks took and retook it about 5 more times before the Byz regained control. Meanwhile the Egyptians grabbed Anatolia from the Turks while the Byz were laying seige to Leningrad. The Byz. seized and lost Sicily and Genoa too. Huge rebellions almost every turn. All the provinces in total flux. That was one hilarious game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

+DOC+

11-27-2002, 12:17

Cugel, yes the income from the province of Denmark really needs to be doubled the allow the Danes any "chance" at expanding as the AI. On top of that they also really need a helping handing towards getting that trade Empire established (shipyard, trading post and ship) becasue they tend to spend they starting money poorly...

Kraellin, I have tweaked my mod a little more since i last sent it to you....

What i have essentially done is modify some of the AI's build preferences in the Crusaders_unit_prod and the Crusader_build_prod files. This is a tricky area as it's obviously very difficult to ascertain changes to the AI during the course of a game. The main things i tweaked were:

1. Slightly upped the chance of the AI building ports, shipyards and trading posts/merchants for all personalities.

2. There is also a column that deals with build influences for AI combos. For instance, under ports it has "{merchant 100}". I interpret this to mean that building a port will add on 100 to the chance of building a merchant (or it could be vice versa?&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. So these values also got a modest hike.

3. The likelihood of all non-naval_expansionist and non-trader personalities building their respective ships all received a modest hike, although not to higher levels than the naval personalities themselves.

4. Some reductions and increases were made to the units build preferences too....
Increases include:
Varangians, Saracens, Byz Infantry, Vikings and AUM to name a few.
Decreases:
Peasants as teh AI still loves them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Additionally their support costs are also now only a third of what they used to be, i.e. they cost only 12 to maintain as they should.

There is also a mistake whereby Mangonels can be built in all_periods whereas the Trebuchet can only be built in High, Late. The Mangonel is now like the Trebuchet.

I can't see anything negative with ships at all and i believe that all personalities should attempt to build them quickly. Not only will it accentuate income via potential trade routes, it'll also give freedom to attack factions other than your neighbours assuming they don't have ships too.....

Without any borders in my Mod, it has become all the more necessary to build a navy soon.

I have been caught napping on a couple of occasions as the Turks by sneak attacks into my heartland by the Hungarians and Sicilians. Freedom of the seas is too big an advantage that the human player enjoys with the original game stats. This will hopefully make it just as tough on the seas as it can be on land for the human. I've since been finding i'm having to build a more constant stream of ships as the Turks to replace the ships taken out by AI factions, including factions that never attempted to build ships in the past...

Doc

Kraellin

11-27-2002, 21:17

oh, that's excellent doc,

i'll have to tackle that next, or borrow your file. yes, the human has waaay too much advantage on the seas.

i unzipped and played your game last night. i hadnt realized you were changing the other files, like projectiles and stats, but i went ahead and used yours.

the biggest differences i see tween yours and mine are:

your england/france/germany relationship is better than mine.

your spanish/almohad is weaker than mine. your spanish tend to always win spain.

your turkish/byzantine/egyptian relationship is a touch weaker, at least in the one game i played, as the turkish got wiped out fairly quickly. mine tend to be a little more balanced and all 3 factions last longer. but, it was only one game, so that could just be the roll of the dice.

your danish and my danish are now very similar, though i bumped the danish up to 20,000 starting money and they get a better jump onto the continent...maybe too good, so i'm going to try at 18,000.

i liked your novs better. they're a bit more aggressive and take more ground at the start. they are still similar to mine in that they dont manage the loyalty very well, but that's fine.

your hungarians and polish are about the same. hardly any differences.

my sicilians start with 3 islands instead of 2 and all 3 islands have at least one tradable goods. but, i played yours like you had them and managed to survive and expand ok, so not really any critical differences there.

i noticed you gave burgundy to the germans at the start. interesting choice and it does seem to balance things better. i may do the same.

you gave navarre to the aragonese. i left it rebel, but gave toulouse to the aragonese. this makes them a bit more stable and more aggressive. i've seen mine attack the english and win and attack the germans and win. they still cant expand very fast and still get invaded themselves at times, whereas with yours and the spanish, the spanish always take spain and then go after the aragonese in navarre. so, i like mine a bit better.

my biggest problem at the moment is with the english/french/german triad. my french always end up being too strong and wipe out or nearly wipe out the germans and often force the english off the continent, so i'll be adjusting that. i did have one very good game where the french were kicking the germans pretty bad and the english were trying to help, but not quite making it and then the italians jumped in and attacked the french. now that made things very interesting. but still, my french are too strong.

if you are modding those other files to balance the shipping out, i'd be very much interested in seeing that one file and simply plugging it into my mod to see how it works in mine. so lemme know on that one.

the africa thing was just the right amount of extra to bump the almo's up to where spain is much more contested now. it's no longer an automatic win for the spanish. i only gave africa about 50 as an income and gave it one tradable item, ivory, but it's just enough to balance the almo's and the spanish better. in one game the almo's got and kept portugal and in another the spanish got it and in both they tend to fight a bit and then reach a very uneasy peace, but no one is claiming all of spain.

now, since i only play about 50 or 60 years in any given tweak, and since i'm only observing by playing the sicilians, it's hard to say what the long term effects are of all this tweaking, but so far, i mostly like it.

i'm working on the basis of, if i can get all the various factions to reach a static position, more or less, as the ai, then the player coming in and playing those factions is going to have a rougher time beating out all the other too easily. and since a lot of the tweaks involve more money for the ai but not for the player in expert, this will also keep things challenging for the player, no matter which faction he chooses. i just dont know if the theory matches the practical yet :)

one really simple tweak would be to just give the ai gobs of starting money but not the player. that alone would make expert mode much more difficult for the human.

at any rate, i do look forward to seeing your ship tweaks. that shld help the ai tremendously and is also one of the things i've always found too easy about the game as well.

K.

cugel

11-27-2002, 23:09

+DOC+ Sounds as though you have gone and done exactly what I was thinking of attempting - figuring out how to tweak the AI so that all factions think more about naval strategy and building a trade empire. There ought to be much more competition for the rule of the seas. I wonder if I might prevail on you to e-mail me a copy of your modified Crusader_Build_Prod and Crusader_Unit_Prod files so I can see how you've done it? If you like I will play test the changes and let you know about the results: my e-mail is: sjv1@qwest.net.

BTW clearly, these values e.g.: CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(200) etc., aren't based upon a percentage probability of 100. Do you know what number they're based on? Obviously, changing the number changes the probability of the AI building regieme, but to what - based on a percent of 200 . . . (that's the highest # I see in the file)?

Clearly there is a problem with the AI not recognizing the importance of building a trade empire. I my most recent game (Paladin's 1092 mod - modified to sever all land bridges) playing as the Danes, the english built a navy of 8 ships by 1155, but they just left them in the English channel http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif This does give the player MUCH too much of an advantage - so great an advantage in fact as to almost amount to a broken feature. There should be a much tougher time gaining and maintaining control of the seas.

Have you guys tried Paladin's 1092 mod? I found (in only 3 campaigns - 100 years or so each - so far) that the play balance between the english v. french v. HRE, and the balance Almo. v. Spanish is much better. No faction has managed to wipe the other out in the 1st 75 years, as often happens in the regular game. That could just be the result of severing the land bridges though, which is clearly an improvement in its own right.

+DOC+

11-28-2002, 02:22

Absolutely no bother Cugel, it's in the mail for you. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The non-naval and non-trader personalities have had their build preferences significantly tweaked so they should build ships and trade related improvements on a more common basis. The others (Danes, English, Sicilians and Italians) will produce plenty of ships as long as they can afford it.

However, like you've stated, because the values are not % it's difficult to ascertain what incremental increases will produce what effects to the AI's build strategies? So essentially changing and testing is the only sure-fire way to find out.

Using the .matteosartori. cheat to see all AI units and moves is the best way to determine whether the changes are producing noticable differences or not. I appreciate your offer of helping to playtest and any feedback you can provide would be great.

Both myself and Kraellin have found that removing the borders seems to prolong the lifespan of all the factions. However to compensate for the factions badly affected by this, i.e. the English, Danes and Almos, they were given the ability to produce ships from the start. If you decide to use the no-borders mod and go one of these factions it may be worthwhile returning them to their original state by removing their shipyard, port and starting ship, otherwise you'll be at a significant advantage. These changes are intended to help the AI cope with the removal of the borders and as a human you will already be able to cope (i hope http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) and so you may find the advantage too great?

Have fun

+DOC+

11-28-2002, 12:27

I haven't tried Paladin's 1089 mod, but he's introduced a lot of good improvements so i hear. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Removing the borders certainly prolongs the lifespan of the factions affected, there's no doubt about that. If the Spanish beat back the Almos as they seem to do more often than not then the Almos are temporarily saved by the fact the Spanish can't immediately invade Morocco. They have to build a fleet first and this seems to take them an eternity. I wanted this to happen to give the Almos a chance should they lose the initial conflicts with Spain, however, since then i've been modding the personalities to try and encourage Spain to build a fleet more quickly than it used to do.

The same goes for the English/French/HRE/Danes, they now fight each other in a more balanced and prolonged manner. The French more often than not retake their mainland provinces from the English to start with. In the original version the French would then have continued into the weakened English homeland provinces eventually wiping them out. Now however, the English get some respite knowing that they are temporarily safe from invasion on their homeland provinces. This allows them the time needed to recover and potentially become a major power again, which is exactly what they've done in my current campaign. The Danes with the boost they've been given are a bit of a wildcard, sometimes they head East into the Russian provinces, sometimes West for Ireland, Scotland and/or Flanders and occasionally South into HRE-held Saxony. They're less likely to be the useless, sometimes self-destructing faction that everybody could simply ignore.

In the East, Kraellin gave me the tip of giving the Turks Georgia to start with. Previously the Turks had to fight either the byzantines or the Egyptians simply to expand. Now they have the option of heading into the Northern rebel provinces instead, which may prolong the lifespan of these 3 factions. More often than not in the original version the Byzantines would wipe the Turks and then battle it out with the Egyptians all within the first 50 years. Now, if the Turks go North into rebel territory then this enables the Byzantines to do the same, thereby prolonging the inevitable outbreak of war between these two factions. All of these factions have been more encouraged to build a navy with the hope being that the standard pattern of events might not necessarily always ensue.

You see, the great advantage of having plenty of ships in the seas is that the unpredictability of the game is increased since factions that otherwise couldn't attack each other now can. Unfortunately there's no way i can see of preventing factions from stockpiling ships in their originating province. The English always have tons of ships between Wessex and Flanders, however, they do expand and form trade routes better than they did in 1.0. In fact, in my current game they just launched a huge (>2000 men) successful assault on my (Turkish) province of Morocco which had ~2000 men Youch, i could be trouble. Plus the Horde is about to arrive any turn now... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Kraellin

11-28-2002, 17:55

hi doc, cugel,

i didnt send you the file yesterday, doc, because in tweaking the french and hre some more, i found this whole situation somewhat bizarre. it seemed no matter what i did the french would still overwhelm the hre. i could delay it a bit, but not prevent it. that struck me kind of odd, so i began observing the situation a little more closely. the first thing i noticed is that burgundy is THE key to the entire thing. he who holds burgundy, wins, at least re the french and hre. so, i simply gave it to neither. you had suggested turning on the burgundians, so i did :)

the burgundians are now a major, playable faction. they own, simply and only, burgundy at the start. what was happening was the french were starting with burgundy and this borders on swabia, tyrolia, switzerland and lorraine, all held by the hre. i had been giving the french, burgundy, so what would happen was that the hre had to defend 4 provinces, but the french only 1. so the french would pick and choose which of those 4 provinces to kill while the hre couldnt or wouldnt attack burgundy in a concerted effort. by giving this province to neither it somewhat delays the inevitable french, hre war. it also adds another playable faction :)

what occurred in my first attempt was that either the hre attacked the burgundians or the burgundians attacked the hre. for some reason i couldnt tell who was the first aggressor. but the burgundians ended up taking provence and then the french attacked the burgundians in burgundy and took it, so i was right back to the french owning burgundy and then it was back to the same old situation of 'he who owns burgundy will win the french, german war'. so, still some tweaks to do there.

i also forgot to swap the crusader stats and projectile stats back from the original game. i was still using the ones you sent me. so, i've got to re-test this, but i havent forgotten you. i will send you the file when i at least get this thing close to how i want it.

i'm also tempted to unzip that new file you sent, the one with the naval tweaks, but i want to get this burgundy, german, french thing worked out first.

i'm now pretty happy with all the other factions. i've had the spanish, almo thing go different ways, and the turk, egyptian, byzantine thing is pretty stable. the danes still have trouble, but they do usually take at least norway and sweden, usually with bribes, and then head, or try to head, into the continent. the novs go pretty much unabated for a long while, but still tend to shoot themselves in the foot, so no worries there. the italians, polish and hungarians seem quite content to only pick on rebel provinces, though the polish did get excommunicated in the last game for attacking a much weakened german faction. even the papacy gets in on things from time to time by trying to take naples every so often.

i cut the sicilians back a bit. sicily now only has two tradable goods and crete only 1. i've found a small flaw in the trade system. it's not a bug, just a design thing, but it shows up in the sicilian province. here's the jist of it. you've got a relatively small island, sicily. it has X number of trade goods. now, regardless of how many other folks you trade with, that one small island can produce those goods in sufficient quantity to supply the entire world each year. in other words, it doesnt matter if you're trading with 1 or 1000 other provinces, sicily can still provide goods in unlimited quantities. and this is true with every province, no matter how small. if i give malta a tradable good, that tiny island can produce unlimited quantities such that it can ship out the same amount to everyone in the world. you see what i mean here? if you really exaggerate it, it becomes obvious. give malta 10 tradable goods. that tiny island, with its limited land mass, could supply everyone with all its needs and wants. grain, oh sure, we've got 100 tons surplus. oh wait, you also want grain? ok, in that case we've got 200 tons surplus. oh, someone else wants some? ok, we've got 300 tons surplus. lol. it can get sort of silly.

now, i understand the devs just sort of conceptualized all this to keep things simple, but i hope that if they expand the trade stuff they bear this in mind :)

K.

cugel

11-30-2002, 18:41

Hi Kraellin, +DOC+. +DOC+, thanks for sending me the files. I've been taking a look at them and inserting some of the code into my mod of Paladin's 1092 mod to see the results. So far, very interesting.

1st: your tweaking of the ports and shipyards seems to improve play balance quite a bit. It's 1205 in my campaign as the Danes and most of the factions are still in it. The Spaniards didn't do as well as they usually do. They never managed to off the Almos; neither did the Almos conquer Spain as they used to do (pre-patch). I gave the Almos a port and they managed to hold their own until the English came to Iberia, maybe I should give the Spaniards a port also. Most of the factions produce more ships as you intended, but they don't always know what to do with them. Not much we can do about that.

2nd: I think that the next modifications I want to make will be to increase the production of merchants somewhat for all factions to take advantage of the increased opportunities for trade that their shipping makes possible. I noticed that Constantinople under the Egyptians only has about 1000 koku income. Under a player, by 1200 it could easily be closer to 4000+. I'll let you know if I achieve any notable success. I also upped the florins of all factions to 10,000. Play might be even better at 15,000 (except for the player's faction perhaps). I also think giving Sweden to the Danes (if you're not playing them) is more historically accurate, since the Danes held the southern 1/2 of Sweden from the 6th to the 16th centuries. Don't know what that would do to play balance.

The english are doing fine, I don't think they need any more adjustment.

I am thinking of upping the production of ports and shipping for the muslims and Byzantines to be equal to that of Europeans (though still less than TRADER factions). Right now, the English have the 2nd largest fleet (to mine). If I weren't building ships as fast as I could they would rule the waves (somewhat anticipating their naval dominance by several centuries). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

3rd: Have you guys noticed that most of the turnover in possession of provinces (amoung the AI factions) is due to the fact that the AI doesn't sufficiently guard it's home provinces? Constantinople changed hands about 15 times before the Egyptians finally secured it, largely because they didn't leave enough troops in the province. A human players would never have permitted this to happen, since it's such a rich prize. The Byz, especially have no chance if they lose the province (in my current campaign, they're hanging on largely due to timely rebellions but are in a marginal position). Perhaps it was a mistake to give them Orthodox_expansionist as their initial setting, Orthodox_Defensive might work better. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

Pachinko

12-01-2002, 04:50

New province for the Danish empire>>Sweden and Finland. A new titles for Finland and Sweden +1 loyalty, +2dread and +2 or 3 acumen. Make 3 Farms. You have two longboats. It seems to work.

P.

Kraellin

12-01-2002, 19:08

hi guys,

hehe, i've been so busy tweaking that i havent done much posting.

pachinko,
i find if you give either norway or sweden a port to start, and the danes a ship and some more starting money, that the danes will either bribe the north or invade it, so i've quit automatically giving the danes norway or sweden. and at times, they go other ways, like livonia, finland, or even scotland. more fun this way.

cugel,
yes, the game AI's need more ships. this is also what i've been working on lately. i've even got the french invading england this way at times.

also, one note about ships that i've begun to notice. we've all seen that the ai doesnt seem to handle ships and trades routes 'right'. but what i've begun to notice is that 'right' is based on the ai behavior settings. if a faction is set as catholic_defensive, for instance, the ships that faction builds will tend to first hover around the port where they are built and then spread along the coast when that faction owns provinces. in other words, the ships are being defenders, just as the faction is being catholic_defensive. so setting the ai behavior makes a difference in how the ships act. in my games the italians are catholic_traders and tend to spread out nicely, for the most part.

this is also why i'd like to see CA change this a bit. if the system were an additive system, whereby one could add tiny bits of specific ai behavior, i think it would make for better tweaking. then you could make them 'catholic', 'expansionist', 'trader', etc, all one by one. so, you could then make your own combos however you wanted and could get things like, 'catholic _ trader _ peaceful _ defensive _ expansionist _ raider' as a combo ai behavior. you could just take each separate part and make up what you wanted. perhaps giving each a priority as to how they would function would also be good, so you might get something like 'catholic(50)_muslim(25)_orthodox(25)_expansionist(50)_trader(25)_stagnant(25)' as a formed behavior. in this way, you are actually setting up the province starting religions also and how much of each type exists in that province and how much each of those religions might influence the ai in its decisions. this could prolly be expanded even further, but that's the general idea of it.

doc,
i've not forgotten ya, bubba :) my original intention was to get things just right and send you the files. however, with as much as i keep changing things, maybe i better send you what i've got as i go along every once in a while :) also, being somewhat ignorant of how things worked in these mods, when i played your mod files i only swapped out the building_prod file and not the unit_prod file when i played, so i never got the full flavor of what you were doing. i now understand why you sent me all those files. lol. ah well, we live and learn (and mod). i may have to install a 3rd copy of the game on my machine; one for a pristine version of the game, one for my mods, and one for your mods :)

i'm still only working with the early period, as changing 3 sets of files with all the stuff i'm doing, would drive me nuts. i've almost totally abandoned any historical considerations, but i do have an interesting game going as far as game play goes. i've just got to figure out how to end this so i can move on to the next project ;)

K.

cugel

12-01-2002, 19:55

Kraellin: Interesting comments. I see what you're getting at with regard to adding partial faction behavior, i.e. {MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(30)_MUSLIM_DEFENSIVE(45)_MUSLIM_DEVOUT(25)} etc. Unfortunately, I doubt that EA will do this, as it might take a bit of programming. They're probably much more interested in things which will provide obvious splash appeal for their next project. Also, we really are tinkering around in the dark here by changing the AI values. Increasing the AI preferences SEEMS to have a certain effect (example: adding to the port preferences as +DOC+ has done), but since we can't actually see what the game engine is actually doing because it's hard coded in all we can do is judge by the OVERALL effect. If you add three or four variables each of whose whose actual effects are unknown, you wouldn't know how to begin to tweak each one. For example: SetBehaviour:: FN_PAPIST POPE presumably calls a function entitled "POPE" somewhere in the game engine. God knows what this does, it's all hard coded in.
Once the game starts the behaviors all change anyway in ways we can't control or predict. I think a better approach is simply to modify the build preferences upon which all AI behavior must operate as we have been doing and see the results over time. It's all trial and error (in my case a bit more of the latter) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Kraellin

12-02-2002, 05:56

cugel,

Quote[/b] ]SetBehaviour:: FN_PAPIST POPE presumably calls a function entitled "POPE" somewhere in the game engine.

the FN_PAPIST simply refers to the Papal faction. if you notice in the files, each faction uses 2 names, e.g. 'France' and the 'French'. each province also had a name, e.g. ID_PROVENCE. where you see FN_ you are seeing the French name used and it's referring to something that affects the entire faction. i believe the FN stands for faction name and if it does not, then it will still suffice to use that for our purposes.

the ID_ simply always stands for a province name, such as, ID_NORMANDY. this can be a touch confusing when a faction name is also the name of a province, like ID_NOVGOROD (a province) and FN_NOVGOROD (a faction name).

thus, the files within the startpos are very exact and quite easy to mod with some certainty.

in the building_prod file things are a bit less exact in their overall effect, as you point out. this is not so much because of the game engine, but because of the other influences within the game. one can set the aragonese, for instance, to seemingly build a ton of ships, and yet they may not produce a single one, even when given a port, trading post and port to start with. the reason for this varies due to other conditions within the game, and, because the ai behavior changes from time to time based on influences and conditions. if you notice in the build_prod file, there are several tags like 'desparate defense' and 'close to support limit'. these somewhat esoteric labels come into play as a given faction's conditions change. you'll notice, for example, that for merchants, 'desparte defense' numbers are quite high. this means to the ai, 'build more merchants when i'm low on money'. the ai changes. when low on money it goes into 'desparate defense' and then builds merchants more frequently. this is by faction, not by province. ai behavior is an FN_ thing, so it's always faction wide, not just a province.

so, if a faction is at war, it may change behaviors and begin building or not the things it needs for war based on the settings for this when the ai behavior changes. when conditions change again, the ai will alter its behavior settings again and pick the new items to build or not. this also applies to the movement of troops and ships, i presume.

we were told before the game was actually released, that this would be the case. we were told back then that there would be 14 distinct ai behavior patterns. i've not counted the actual number since the release, but there are certainly a few.

all you are changing in the build_prod file is influences for a given ai behavior, but you cant control the ai behavior, only the influences it's to use when the ai picks that ai behavior to use. and, we can change these quite handily.

in my last version of my mod, i've altered port, merchant, and shipyard production influences for a number of ai behaviours. i've also changed the requirements for building shipyards. this does not mean that the ai will ever build any of these. it will only build them if the ai happens to choose the behaviors where these influences will come into play.

it's actually pretty straight forward. you could modify things, such that regardless of ai behavior, it would always build ships. but that would, at times, considerably weaken the ai.

oh, and btw, someone said that the limit for some of these numbers in the build_prod file was around 200. it's not. it's actually much higher. i've seen settings of almost 700 on some.

and another point, if you use excel to read your build_prod file, mine at least, does not work right, even though i'm using it in tab de-limited mode. it truncates some of the fields and does not show all that is there. i've gone back to using wordpad to mod build_prod and continue to use wordpad for the startpos files. it may be that if i were to re-format the columns or rows that i could correct this, but it's easy enough to read in wordpad, so i havent bothered. i dont know if other versions of excel do this or not, but mine, from office 2000, does.

i've also now turned on the burgundians, the swiss, and the russians. i may also attempt the golden_khanate (the mongols). one note about turning the swiss, russians and mongols, though. this may screw things up later on when the periods change. i dont know. it may also screw up the mongol invasion if you've turned the mongols on. again, i dont know. and, the russian faction uses the same flag and map colors as the novs (small wonder), but will co-exist on the map with the novs as if they were two separate factions...at least for a while. again, this may go haywire during the period change.

i give switzerland to the swiss and leave tyrolia as rebel. interestingly enough, the rebels simply join up and convert to the swiss.

i give chernigov and ryazan to the russians. this is quite confusing, since these border on muscovy and the nov's and since they are using the same map color and flags. but, they do still play as separate factions with their own units, emissaries and so on. when a nov emissary comes to greet you, it says nov emissary and when a russian emissary comes to greet you, it says russian.

now, i dont know if the russians and novs could be separated out more as factions, but i suspect at least some of it could be done. making a new flag to use shld be simple enough, since there is a setting in the startpos files that allows for the calling of a flag file. dont know about the map colors, though. and certainly dont know yet about the period changes and how that might affect things.

i've got some other ideas i'm also working on, but i'll save those for when i either get them working or blow the whole thing up :)

K.

+DOC+

12-02-2002, 11:48

As far as i'm aware each faction has its own specific personality, i.e. Spanish are always Catholic_Defensive_Crusader. I believe that this is subject to change depending on various game circumstances, however, i don't believe this is subject to change to another faction's personality.

These are the possible personalities which i imagine are available to all factions (imho):
Poverty_stricken
Close_to_support_limit
Desperate_defence

If they are not in one of these personalities then they are simply in their own designated one. FOr example, I do not believe that the English will ever change from Catholic_crusader_trader to Catholic_isolationist or Catholic_expansionist.

Most of the changes i made to the preferences for building a port, merchant, shipyard and ships were based with these assumptions in mind. If it is possible to change to another's starting personality then maybe my modifications might not be so advantageous. I mean, i can't ever foresee when it would be beneficial for the English to change from a trader personality?

I used to think that the crusader factions might lose the "crusader" part of their personality when they approach the late phase of the campaign since Crusades become less important and not as useful, but on looking through the Late version of the campaign they all still have the same personalities as they do in the Early period.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

+DOC+

12-02-2002, 12:06

Oh, i've also now managed to get Africa up and running for the Almohads although i've yet to try it in a game to see how it balances out.

It's a poor province with an income of 100 in the text file. This actually translates to about half as much in-game. It has Salt and two tradable resources, Hides and Ivory and i'm hoping that this might be the small boost that the Almos needed as since the patch the Spanish have always seemed to end up forcing them back into Africa. Africa is actually very comparable to Norway as a province.

Anyways, i'm still progressing forward with my Hard Turkish campaign. I was doing very well until the Mongols arrived. My empire, which stretched from Morocco to Constantinople and Kiev, has been whittled down to about half of what it was. If i was the computer, i suppose i'd be in the desperate_defence personality now. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Hungary and England have jumped on the Turkish-bashing bandwagon now. Hungary have taken Constantinople and Greece and the English Morocco and Algeria. MEanwhile the Mongols have taken all my Russian provinces and Trebizond and Armenia. If i can hold out with Rum until i'm able to build the Janissary troops i might be able to make a comeback, since at the moment my troops are hopelessly underpowered compared to the weightier European and Mongol forces.

The Spanish and Aragonese have finally decided to have a go at things, however, i think from the lack of Spanish building that they may have reached their monetary limits. If only i'd done my changes to ships whilst they'd still had some available capitial they might have been more of force to reckon with like the English are Still, we'll see what happens now they are fighting.

Kraellin

12-02-2002, 16:57

hi doc :)

yeah, i wasnt trying to say that a faction switches from something like orthodox_expansionist to catholic_expansionist. that would be pretty silly. what i was trying to convey, and not necessarily literally, is that the ai alters its behavior. that's the main point. what all it uses and why, i dont know. there is some evidence that it uses the various offices and titles to switch modes and some evidence that it uses those items you mentioned. the point was simply that it does switch its tactics based on the circumstances within the game. it would be interesting to find out what all of those things are.

i'm quite afraid i've gone off the deep end again as far as my mod is concerned. having added the burgundians, the swiss and the russians, has also forced some other changes. one cute thing that would occur was that i made the burgundians catholic_traders, with a starting port in provence. however, this port is also in the same sea zone as the genoa port of the italians. every time the burgundians would make a ship and stick it in the water, the italian ship there would attack it and the two would go to war. lol. took me a while to figure out what was going on and why in the world the burgundians and italians were always at war. lol. so i ended up removing the galley that normally starts in genoa. this would delay things a bit, but the italians would always take their galleys out of the adriatic and sail them around to genoa and start a fight anyways. quite amusing.

and this brings me to another point; there seems to be a condition within the game that if and when you sail a ship into a faction's home sea zone, or what they consider to be their home zone, you have a much greater chance of that faction attacking you. i've noticed this with egypt as well. i can be at peace with egypt but quite often if i sail into the sea zone bordering the egypt province and egypt has a ship there, it will go to war with me. i can sail it into other zones where egypt has ships and ports and nothing will happen, but sail it into the zone bordering egypt itself and boom, i'm at war.

i believe this also accounts for some of the odd build-ups one sees at times around other main ports, where a faction will build ships but just keep a herd of them around its main port. i believe it also somewhat accounts for the italian habit of sending a large fleet and parking them around your main port. whenever i play sicily the italians tend to do this to me a lot. they park every other ship they own within the sicilian home port zone.

i thought for a while that the egyptians were attacking me when i did this because i was allied with one of their current enemies but i've had them do it to me even when i'm not allied with anyone.

i've also found a small bug, or at least it seems like a bug. i've had this occur several times with at least two different factions; you sail a ship into a zone occupied by another faction's ship. the other faction attacks you and sinks your ship but no war is declared. yet whenever you sail another ship into their zone you always still get attacked and this may or may not trigger war. it's caught me by surprise several times. when i hit end turn i get the message that i've lost a ship in a sea battle, yet when i go to look at whom i'm now at war with, there is no war. i've had this happen with both the egyptians and the aragonese. quite odd. it can also catch you up short because if you dont look and see that there is no war declared, and you then attack the faction that you think you shld be at war with, you actually start a war. so, this seems like a bug to me.

sounds like you're settling into the final phases of your mod, doc. how prolific are the various factions at ship building? i'm still struggling with this a bit. i've increased the merchant, port and shipyard numbers and the ship-making stuff, but i seem to still get fewer ships on the seas than i expected to see with the tweaks i've made. i've also even reduced the requirements on building shipyards to a port and castle2 rather than a port and castle4. i even tried it with a simple port and castle, but that only seemed to help me. it helped a bit. i did see a few ships earlier, but not an abundance by any means. i've even got the french and germans making a few and this gives the english headaches no end. in various trials the french even managed to invade england and take most of it.

so, even though i said most of this stuff is pretty straight forward, i am still trying to understand how and why the ai does what it does and havent, by any means, solved it all ;)

K.

cugel

12-03-2002, 03:12

Hi Kraellin. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I guess my real point was simply that we don't know how the string "POPE" is defined in the game engine. We can guess at what some of the various faction behaviors are simply by examining the various mentions in the build prod file to that behavior (without knowing what the various numbers refer to). Thus, increasing MERCHANT . . . CATHOLIC_TRADER_EXPANSIONIST(80) to (160) should (perhaps) increase the probability of the AI building the Merchant (by how much we don't know) in a given province when the AI is utilizing that behavior. You and I believe that increasing the numbers increases the probablility, because we've done it and observed (seemingly) more building of merchants, or ports or whatever, but such anecdotal evidence is hardly conclusive.

BTW: what are your values for Merchant in the build file? (you might just paste them in here in a post). What results have you observed? Do the factions build more substantial trade empires? I have observed more shipbuilding since I tweaked the shipyard and port entries, but I haven't changed the merchant prod. figures so far. I'd like to know what results you've gotten.

I forgot to mention the most important change I've made to the Early.txt. Following Giskard's suggestion to increase the probability of rebellions, I increased it by 1 for each province, except for the particularly rebellious provinces like Scotland that already start at about 4 (I think). This has had both positive and negative effects. (Giskard increased rebellions by much more than this, but I viewed his mod as a bit too extreme for my tastes). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

Positive: Rebellions have resurrected several factions (some on more than 1 occasion). More factions = better gameplay (IMHO).

Negative: The AI doesn't really guard it's provinces sufficiently. I believe that this is because the AI attempts to tax the province to the max, while maintaining province loyalty at close to 100%. As we all know, 100% ain't near enough http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif I get uneasy if my province loyalty drops much below 150% for a sustained period, since accidents can easily spark a rebellion. This seems to be what happens to the AI.

What effect have you observed from creating the minor factions like the Burgundians and Swiss? How has this affected the overall play balance? I like this idea, and if the results are good, might implement it myself. I would hate to doom the HRE though by crippling them at the start. :lol:

Kraellin

12-03-2002, 08:36

my current merchants settings:

MERCHANT "Trading Post, Merchant, Merchants Guild, Master Merchant" TRADING_POST "800, 1000,1200,1400" "2,4,6,8" "{CASTLE}, {CASTLE4, MERCHANT},{CASTLE7, MERCHANT2},{CASTLE10, MERCHANT3}," "Office Level 1, Office Level 2, Office Level 3, Office Level 4" "POVERTY_STRICKEN(380), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(5), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(280), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(380), CATHOLIC_TRADER(350), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(310), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(280), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(70), POPE(30), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(60), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(30), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(60), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(270), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(150), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(280), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(320), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(60), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(320), REBELS(80), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(280), POVERTY_STRICKEN(270), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(7.5), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(175), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(220), CATHOLIC_TRADER(295), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(295), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(175), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(105), POPE(45), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(90), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(45), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(90), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(175), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(120), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(220), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(190), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(90), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(215), REBELS(120), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(370), POVERTY_STRICKEN(405), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(11.25), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(212.5), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(280), CATHOLIC_TRADER(392.5), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(392.5), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(212.5), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(157.5), POPE(67.5), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(135), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(67.5), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(135), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(212.5), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(180), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(280), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(235), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(135), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(222.5), REBELS(180), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(405), POVERTY_STRICKEN(607.5), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(16.875), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(268.75), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(370), CATHOLIC_TRADER(538.75), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(538.75), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(268.75), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(236.25), POPE(101.25), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(202.5), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(101.25), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(202.5), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(268.75), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(270), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(370), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(302.5), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(202.5), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(333.75), REBELS(270), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(607.5), " "{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHI
PYARD(25)}" NO "1,2,3,4"

yeah, i wasnt very clear on the effects of ai behavior. what i've noticed is that the ai does indeed change its behavior. the main thing i've noticed lately is that if it doesnt feel 'safe' it will put production into building and maintaining units. ship building ALWAYS seems to take 2nd fiddle to this.

two, if the ai feels a monetary crunch of any sort, it will quit or not build ships.

the formal ai behaviors that you set in the startpos files make a big difference to ship building, particularly if you've modded your files to sway this even further.

ships tend to deploy based on ai behavior settings in the startpos file. the spanish were my key to noticing this. they ALWAYS protect their shores. my spanish are set to catholic_defensive_crusader. i'm assuming the 'defensive' part of that is determining the defensive posture of the ships.

my italians are set as traders and do spread out fairly well. my byzantines are somewhat weird. they are orthodox_stagnant, but actually build a fair amount of ships and are one of the best at setting up trade routes. my egyptians, when they build, tend to also be pretty protective of their shores and they're set to muslim_expansionist, so i dont quite follow that one. the almo's are set at peaceful and do build ships if they're not warring, but spread out pretty slowly and tend to keep a group near their home port. the burgundians, a very small faction, so not a lot of money, i set as traders also, and they do build and do spread out, but hard to tell much as they are so poor comparitively that it takes a while. my english are a disappointment. they do build but hardly ever get beyond portugal. they spread a bit but it's always in the north and also tend to group around the home port. i think they are set as catholic_naval_crusaders. the germans and french are catholic_expansionist_crusaders and build quite a bit fewer ships and never get very far from home or very many ships. besides which, they are almost always at war and dont want to spend much time or money on ships.

i've by no means got this all figured out. quite the contrary, it drives me nuts at times. "but, but, i set you with shipyards at 600 and merchants at 600 and ports at 600 and gave you extra money and set you as traders....BUILD SOME FREAKING SHIPS". lol. yeah, it's odd at times. ;)

oh? where do you increase/decrease the rebellion thing in the early.txt? is that part of the leader settings or is it in the attributes? that could be a fun one to mess around with.

as for my results with merchants, it's hard to tell exactly, because the bloody .matteosartori. thing wont show everything. it only shows the army stacks and ships, but not what's built in a province, nor what units are in a stack. but, i do know that more are being built now because i do tend to monitor the province incomes somewhat. i also tweak different factions in resources, tradable goods, income, and starting money, but not all the same way. some factions have to more or less build stuff to take advantage of their resources, where others get more starting money to get a quick start, but then slow down after they've wasted that. so, my 'balancing' is a real mix of things

i also employ a ten year rule for tweaking. if any playable faction goes to war with another playable faction within the first 10 years, i modify things so this wont happen again. it's like a grace period for everyone. after that, it's a free for all. i dont mind if they attack rebels or even if they can bribe another faction's units in the first ten years, but no wars much be declared. this makes it easier for me to monitor things and hopefully gives the player a chance to get going in a minor faction before he can be wiped out too easily. this is important, because some of my factions are quite hard. this also gives the randomity factors a chance to mix about a bit and start sending things in other directions than what they went in the last game. it's a real juggling act.

hehe, yeah, gotta watch that loyalty :)

i absolutely love the all the extra factions in the game. i gave the aragonese two provinces, the burgundians two, the russians two, the swiss two, the sicilians 3 (i took crete away from the byz's), the hungarians whatever they were already starting with and the nov's two. i had to tweak a lot of stuff to keep them from being overrun too early. the nov's were easy. the aragonese and burgundians somewhat difficult, since they are side by side. the swiss are the real surprise. i gave them switzerland and tyrolia in the current mod and they not only hold up well sitting right next to the powerful germans, but they tend to kick the german's butts a little at a time. quite fascinating to watch the swiss.

my europe is quite a bit different from the original game. the french and germans are still the dominant factions, but are bordered by the english, the burgundians, the aragonese and the swiss, with the hungarians, the danes, and the polish all sitting on the other side of the germans. the danes are a real wildcard in this mix. they may attack scotland, or livonia, or finland, or lithuania or pomerania, or even the germans in saxony. they might also bribe the norwegians or swedes or both, or simply invade them. the danes are one faction that get a lot of starting money instead of lands. it's pillage money, since i changed their faction to 'barbarian_raider' :) they also get a port, merchant and shipyard as well as one starting longboat. they almost immediately build a 2nd, and often a third, but rarely venture beyond england or portugal.

all in all, it's an interesting mix. the worst part is that i keep changing things based on observations from the last game. naturally, this is only guess work, since you've got so many random variables that can change from game to game. i prolly shld just post the thing let it go :)

K.

+DOC+

12-03-2002, 15:40

Hi Krae and Cug,

Hmmmm the usual predicament of when to stop modding and start playing... not easy, lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Anyway, back to modding.. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

K, i don't think the various AI personalities employ different strategies for their ships. In fact the only thing i think that is different with the AI personalities is what you have available to you in the two production files. Personally, I find that factions with the naval or trader personalities will build lots of ships with a huge stack remaining in one sea province, smaller stacks in adjacent provinces and single ships forming trade routes to further reaches. In fact i often think it actually has nothing to do with a faction's main port but is rather linked to the various choke points on the map, i.e. Wessex, Morocco and Sicily, although i can't be sure.

I see the increases you gave for building merchants were much bigger than mine. All my increases to shipyards, merchants, ships and ports were far more subtle, in fact never more than +50. Like you say though, for various reasons including an element of chance, it's difficult to ascertain any effect on the gameplay for any increases applied. One things for sure the more ships you have in the water the more likely you'll be drawn into a war as it appears to be the AI's favourite way of initiating war.

"{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHIPYARD(25)},{PORT(100),SHI

PYARD(25)}"

This part here i increased substantially as this appears to be related to the AI's building combos. In other words, once a merchant has been built the chance of these improvements being constructed is increased by the amounts listed. OR, i suppose it could be that once a port or shipyard has been built the chance of building a merchant is increased by the stated amounts?

I see that while you increased many of the personalities' building priorities towards the merchant you left Spain (who're Defensive_crusader) as very low. Imho, they're one of the factions who really need to be encouraged to build on the naval side of things. I've been finding in my campaigns that once/if they oust the ALmos from Spain they'll stagnate if they don't have other wars to fight or don't build any ships. Still maybe this is to be encouraged as this allows other factions to coexist for longer without extermination.

The rebellion information can be found under the Region attributes part of the campaign files. You'll notice that Portugal is a 4, Scotland a 2 and Ireland a 1, etc, and this should give you some idea of potential modifications that could be imposed. I've often toyed with the idea of making the provinces more rebellious, however, i get the feeling that this might hamper the AI far more than it would the human player; it already does with the current values. The AI especially has problems expanding due to large stack rebellions, for exmaple, look at the Danes and Poland. Meanwhile, the human will always have a better idea of the number of troops and other parameters involved in keeping a province happy, especially if newly conquered. So unless the mod affects the AI and human equally i'd always be cautious in its application.

Doc

Kraellin

12-03-2002, 22:46

hi doc,

well, i disagree with you on the way ships are deployed based on faction behavior. my main evidence of this is the italians compared to the spanish. the spanish are almost always protective of their shores, where my italians almost always spread out and are offensive in their deployment of stacks around my nation. i dont think this is solely based on choke points. but, without hard data, ....potAto, potahto :)

yup. i didnt alter the combo stuff for anything. that could account for most of the differences we see tween our various mods. i read your earlier data on the combo stuff but decided to just do the individual buildings and ships first. i think you're prolly right though. i mean, what else could it be?

in my mod, spain and the almos are fairly balanced as far as spain itself is concerned. the spanish normally drive the almo's back a bit, but is much harder to completely drive them out. in my last game, the spanish built enough ships and deployed them as normal, in a fairly protective manner, but the spanish also took navarre from the aragonese. they then launched a sea invasion on brittany against the french, so they can, and will, break out of spain by other means if the almo's block them sufficiently. this actually came as a very nice surprise to me, and a very bad one to the french :)

yup. i agree with you on the rebellions. increasing this just makes it harder on the ai, not the player. serbia and wallachia, in my game, are constantly being attacked and taken by the polish, or the hungarians or even the russians or novs and is never held very long by anyone. 3, 4 and 5 stack rebellions just make it too tough to take and keep for the ai. they dont need any more barriers on this than they already have. those rebel provinces up around the baltic often are the same way. the ai will attack and take and hold for maybe a turn or two and then grand rebellions and it's lost again, making it tougher for the next guy to come in. i find it a bit odd that you might have a rebel province with 1/2 a stack, or maybe 1 stack, that gets taken and then rebels with 4 or 5 full stacks of decent warriors. seems a bit odd. i suppose it's not really all that unrealistic, but i'd prefer it were amended somehow. maybe having a province rebel several years in a row or something, or increase the rebellion rating might be good. in fact, that might be a very nice feature to incorporate across the whole game. a fluctuating rebellion rating would add a lot of unpredictability to the game, and not just for the AI. i find it way too easy now to keep my provinces under control, and particularly compared to the difficulties the ai suffers on this.

i'm also starting to get annoyed at these 'adjusted' income values at the start of a campaign. i can set my german provinces up, for instance, with a high income in the stat files and then start the game and find them WAY lower than what i set them, and vice-versa, the i can set the french incomes low, and start the game and find them quite a bit higher. it's one of the things i've had difficulty with when trying to balance the germans with the french. it's not that it is a bad system, it just takes some getting used to, and a bit more guesswork.

now, just to throw some last minute fuel on the fire of shipbuilding, i removed the italian ships that normally the italians have at the start. so they had zero ships to start with. they still had the ports, merchants and shipyards and still had the same income values and starting money, but they wouldnt build ANY ships. i only played for about 30 or 40 turns in that game, but the italians didnt build a single ship. i wonder if they need a 'seed' ship out there to tell them it's ok, or if their land position was shakey relative to an increased german faction next door. things like this make me absolutely convinced that the ai is constantly evaluating its position and conditions and altering its behavior based on this.

oh yeah, another factor that changes ai shipbuilding is how many offices a given faction holds, which is mostly based on the tech rating. but if you notice in the merchant stuff i posted, that stuff about 'office 1, office 2, office 3, office 4' is why there are 4 separate listings of all the faction behaviors. when a faction raises itself to a new office, it alters its preferences for building based on that. very clever.

the things i see are that the ai alters its behavior based on many factors, some of which are, at war/not at war, strength or weakness of neighbors, office level, faction setting, wealth/poverty, and alliances (perhaps. not sure on that one). but it is using the conditions it finds itself in to alter behavior. and there may well be more.

i'm currently leaving the golden horde out as a playable faction. they come in soon enough anyways, so no big deal for me. i know that some would like to play them at the start, and i may add them later, but i'd have to test what them already being there as a playable faction and having them then enter as a major invader would do.

at any rate, my tweaks seem to be getting fewer now, so i may just wrap this one up and send it to you pretty soon and then post it. i can always do another :)

K.

cugel

12-04-2002, 03:33

Kraellin, +DOC+. Read your posts with interest. K. increasing the rebellions is easy:

SetAttributes:: ID_LITHUANIA "Lithuania" 3 . . .

etc. The "3" is the rebellion value. I didn't change Lithuania, or any province that has a geater than 2 rebellion factor, all the others I changed from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 2. I originally got the idea from Giskard's mod, but that mod had quite extreme rebellion values. What I've noticed is the following:

Yes it's easier for me as the player to keep my provinces in check (only had 1 rebellion so far) than for the AI, but this can be a GOOD thing and NOT because it makes the game easier for the player http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif The main thing I have observed is that no AI faction really remains dead. The Sicilians were kaput for more than 20 years, then made a comeback via a rebellion and now are a major factor in the Med. The Byzantines and Germans made more than 1 recovery by this method. Nor is it always easy or convenient to eliminate a re-emerging faction because the Pope can get on your case for picking on the weakling. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

Personally, I like the intrigue and variation of having more factions in the game, rather than fewer. I generally get bored when it's down to only two major factions (mine and 1 other that I know I can beat because I've got a big lead in development and a lot more income) (ZZzzzz). At that point, I generally start a new campaign. It usually takes me about 100-150 years in the early campaign. My goal in modding the game is to create enough variation so that the AI makes it more difficult by building up its provinces and trade routes, generating more income and generally competing with the player at a higher level. Right now, for instance, in my Danish (1092 mod) campaign, the English are a major power. They're large and powerful enough that I've scrupulously avoided conflict with them so far (it's 1228) and I've by no means conquered the map. Soon the Horde will appear to make things even more interesting. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

BTW: I've noticed that if you make sure to outnumber the ships of any potential adversary in each sea province the AI is hesitant to attack. I haven't been attacked by any faction at sea, unless I was already at war with them. The AI also is wary of tackling large fleets. Although the English outnumber me 18 ships to 16 in the English channel and 6 to 2 in the Irish Sea, they haven't made a hostile move. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

I have observed that the main difficulty for the AI with respect to rebellions comes from launching invasions of another province with ALL its forces, leaving little or nothing behind to hold down the original province. It does this over and over again. Of course, province loyalty immediately drops and there's generally a big rebellion. Rebellions actually hurt me as the player, because you can't trade with rebel provinces (at least if you're at war with them - and all "rebel" factions are somehow consider you at war with them if you attack one of them - I invaded Finland and took it from Rebels, this made me be at war with rebels in Algeria http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif ). I couldn't figure out for a while why my trade income had fallen disastarously, then found out it was because of a number of rebellions breaking out. If the player is close to his support limit, as is often the case with aggressive players, this can be a serious problem.

I have thought about lowering the time it takes to build improvements and possibly lower the cost as well (somewhat). I have refrained so far so as not to possibly increase the player's advantage. But, I've noticed that after several change of posessions of a province, the infrastructure gets severely damaged (desertification). Since I'm generally much better at rebuilding than the AI this gives me an advantage and I'd like to even the score. What do you think?

+DOC+

12-04-2002, 12:46

Aye, interesting stuff here... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Firstly, the shipping observations. It may well be you're correct Kraellin, i haven't done too much in the way of extensive testing on how the various factions lay out their ships, but i suppose a lot depends on where the originating port is situated. In the early game this will factor quite heavily on support costs as the AI may have only one port and many ships at this stage? Furthermore, Spain's likely first port will be in Leon which isn't a choke point and doesn't share the same sea zone with another faction's port (am i right here?&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. Wessex or Morocco do Anyway, one way of testing your theory might be to make the Spanish a Trader personality and observe whether it situates its ships any differently compared to when it was a Defensive personality?

I'd actually be quite interested to see the values you have currently been using for the AI building ships. For mine i increased the values of all but the Trader and Naval personalities by about 20 points. This made their values around half that of the Trader and Naval factions. Because i'm still playing my Turkish campaign throughout all my tweaks to the AI it's maybe been difficult to determine to real effect of some of my changes, especially say if the faction i'd tweaked was at its support limit.

Cugel, on rebellions i can see the obvious advantages you are speaking of in terms of faction reappearance and loyalist revolts, etc. I have to admit i like it when a faction re-emerges with enough troops to make a difference to the map's status quo. However, i fear this would be restricted to provinces of the AI factions, which as you state, have problems dealing with loyalty levels to the same degree of proficiency as the human. Ye see, i don't want to make the game any easier for the human player or more difficult for the AI. I only wish the AI would take on board these parameters more effectively. Is the fact of increased difficulty in trading the only aspect of the more rebellious provinces that is more problematic for the human player?

What Kraellin said about a fluid rebellious setting would be a super implementation. It's all too easy for the human player because we know that Portugal, Livonia and Scotland are among the most rebellious provinces whereas the AI never learns and adapts to this aspect I tghink it would be great if a provinces rebellious setting would change randomly or depending on various in-game events.

Oh K, have you given the Almos Africa in your mod?

Doc

Kraellin

12-04-2002, 17:51

hi guys,

yes, doc, i give the sahara (ID_AFRICA) to the almo's. i gave it about a 50 income or something like that and one tradablegoods, ivory. and i think i gave it one desert archer or negrospearmen, i think. it's a tactically interesting, albeit somewhat unrealistic, province, with all that large area connecting to the underbelly of the the coastal provinces. i used the settings for the castle and port that the person that made that mod posted in the .org used. btw, the numbers after the port setting are the first two map settings and the third is the facing of the port.

i shld have this mod done soon and you can see my settings for yourself, doc. if i can just get the french to quit attacking the germans in the 8th year... lol. the french in my mod are quite aggressive for some reason. it's kind of odd. they have an income that clearly shld make them less aggressive, at least to start with, but they seem bent on harrassing the germans, which is quite odd, since the english hold anjou and aquitaine and are quite a bit weaker than the germans to start. but for some reason my french just have this deathwish that sends them hurling themselves at the much stronger germans. now this would normally be fine, but they are violating my imposed no wars in the first 10 years rule, so i either have to make the germans even stronger initially, or cut the french back more. quite irrational, these french :)

yes, i found the attributes for altering rebellions. it's labeled kind of funny in the file, which i guess is why i missed what it is before. it might make for an interesting game to just make ALL provinces a 4. lol.

i'm also thinking of doing a minimalist mod. just start every faction with only 1 province and very limited resources. thus, you'd have a ton of rebel lands to work with.

i'd also like to see some more trade stuff done. things like the horse breeder upgrade could actually create a new tradable good, for instance. land trade routes would also be a nice feature. silk and spice routes in particular.

doc, yeah, i prolly shld experiment with what affects what in the factions re shipping, but for now, i'll be happy if i can get this one mod right :) maybe later.

i shld also try that stuff with the combos. you guys sound like yer getting more ships than me, even though my numbers in the other stats are higher, so the combo stuff may be the real key.

it might also make for an interesting game by turning off some of the factions, even the majors.

what was the cheat in shogun for playing as the rebels?

i've also been thinking about a way to make the game even more random and unpredictable. it can be done, i'm pretty sure, but it's one that would take some study. i'll get back to you on this one ;

K.