WesW
12-27-2002, 10:02
One of the things which made the Call-to-Power games so enjoyable to mod was that you had access to almost all of the games' settings, as well as most of the AI behavior. I would like to find the settings for the following:
1)Reduce the chances of a civil war for large factions. Right now, on Expert, all you have to do is take one or two provinces from the Germans, French or English to set off a civil war, which kills the chances of them making any organized resistance.
Once, I played as the Poles, and I conquered most all of central and western Europe simply by waiting for civil wars and taking provinces from rebels. I started in the Late era, and by the end of the game, the Swiss and I, who had followed the same tactic I had, were the predominant powers in Europe.
2)Alter the chances of buildings and improvements being destroyed thru invasion. It seems that the AIs rarely improve their provinces, and if you do make a nice one, it can all be destroyed by one invasion.
I really hope someone in the development team reads this, because I have a major disagreement with their philosophy, both for historical and gameplay reasons (and I have gained a lot of experience over the last three years with gameplay due to my constant modding efforts). I will go into detail with my ideas below...
The current setting seems to be that debilitating structural destruction occurs when a province is invaded. This was probably done to reduce the "prize factor" of provinces to encourage building within ones own "heartland". However, since you usually have no notice when a neighbor is going to launch a coordinated attack from multiple provinces into one of yours, you usually end up retreating to the castle until your reinforcements arrive (this leads into a couple of the other wishes I have below). Thus, even if you drive him off the next turn, and even if no battle ever takes place, the damage is already done. Also, the economic strength of a province, specifically the land improvements, which is usually more valuable than the buildings, is usually not touched. Thus the "prize factor" of the province is not affected much.
In real life, medieval conflict occurred on open ground or around castles, thus you rarely had villages destroyed by artillery ala World War II. Thus things like swordsmith shops would not be destroyed. Pillaging soldiers would search for gold and silks, not anvils and tongs, and these shops would be the last thing that a conqueror would want to destroy.
OTOH, farmland improvements like fences and livestock were used as fuel and food by armies, and merchant houses would be pillaged for gold and valuables. Thus it is the economic strength of a province that war destroys, not the structures and mental knowledge such as a master swordmaker would possess.
My suggestions:
a)Set the probability of farmland and merchant-house damage equal to the level of improvememnt (20% for 20% improvement and trading posts, to up 80% for the highest levels), with other probabilities for total destruction as you see fit.
b)Non-economic structures would only be slightly damaged, if at all, and never damaged if no open-field battle takes place.
It really hurts the game's enjoyment to start a game in the early era, and never have any AI provinces get beyond Keeps by the time the late era end, or to start in the late era, and have the average AI province go *back* in developement to the early era due to warfare.
c)Castles would only be damaged if assaulted.
3)Increase the time before a sieged garrison starves. This was mentioned in the patch list, but I cannot tell any difference. A castle filled to capacity with troops should be able to hold out for at least two years. I don't know if we can get this effect by adjustng the values in the build text or not, either by cutting in half or doubling the maximum troops allowed.
I guess the best would be to keep the current starvation rate, but don't have it kick in until the second year of the seige. This would also make castle assualts mandatory between Catholics to avoid excommunication.
4)The automatic battle results option is badly in need of adjustment when it comes to castle assaults (it also gives too much weight to numbers over quality for field battles, but it's not nearly as off as the castle phase). In fact, it seems to hardly take the castle into consideration at all when making its calculation.
OTOH, manually assalting Citadels and Fortresses is almost suicide no matter which troops and artillery you bring up, making the choice to use the automatic feature, which doesn't require you to have artillery, a no-brainer.
5)Help the AI establish better trade routes. This was mentioned in the patch list, but the predominant factor still seems to be to protect the coastline, rather than trade.
5b)It would also be nice to stop the AI from attacking neutral ships which venture into its waters so often.
Add-on wishes:
1)Add a new structure, called trade routes, that would enable goods produced in inland provinces to be connected to ports and traded like a coastal province. This would be a major help to factions like the Germans, and would add another strategic element to the game.
2)A decent diplomacy model. There are several games out there with good diplomacy models that I think would be easily modified to fit Total War (Age of Imperialism II, Civilization III). If you could buy access their model, and have one of their designers help you configure it, it would be a huge bonus to the game.
2b)At least add something like the option of spreading propaganda to the populice in order to hype them up for war, and add a happiness penalty for failure to do so, in order to discourage the surprise attacks which are now the norm. This general propaganda would be common knowledge to other factions (perhaps with an Embassy required) and the Pope, thus giving time to strengthen border provinces and perhaps hurt relations with the Holy See short of excommunication.
You have emphasized the personal-glory aspect of warfare in this period, but it was also necessary to rationalize wars of conquest to the population to justify the higher taxes and confiscation of men and material needed to outfit and support armies in the field.
2c)Attacking a neutral faction of your own religion should hurt your influence among all factions, and attacking an ally should devastate it, perhaps starting a civil war.
2c)We should be able to sense the mood of factions towards ours, and the reasoning behind those moods. The option to establish an embassy would be good for this, as well as perhaps sensing the general propaganda noted above.
3)The option to buy or trade provinces, rather than having to declare war to consolidate your territory. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to program settings for the AI to judge an appropriate value for a province, and suggest either land or gold or both.
4)Paying gold or land for peace, either a lump sum or an annual tribute. This was how the Russians kept their independence from the Mongols until they were strong enough to defeat them militarily.
This game has such awesome battlefield AI now, it is a shame to let the other aspects of governing go unattended.
1)Reduce the chances of a civil war for large factions. Right now, on Expert, all you have to do is take one or two provinces from the Germans, French or English to set off a civil war, which kills the chances of them making any organized resistance.
Once, I played as the Poles, and I conquered most all of central and western Europe simply by waiting for civil wars and taking provinces from rebels. I started in the Late era, and by the end of the game, the Swiss and I, who had followed the same tactic I had, were the predominant powers in Europe.
2)Alter the chances of buildings and improvements being destroyed thru invasion. It seems that the AIs rarely improve their provinces, and if you do make a nice one, it can all be destroyed by one invasion.
I really hope someone in the development team reads this, because I have a major disagreement with their philosophy, both for historical and gameplay reasons (and I have gained a lot of experience over the last three years with gameplay due to my constant modding efforts). I will go into detail with my ideas below...
The current setting seems to be that debilitating structural destruction occurs when a province is invaded. This was probably done to reduce the "prize factor" of provinces to encourage building within ones own "heartland". However, since you usually have no notice when a neighbor is going to launch a coordinated attack from multiple provinces into one of yours, you usually end up retreating to the castle until your reinforcements arrive (this leads into a couple of the other wishes I have below). Thus, even if you drive him off the next turn, and even if no battle ever takes place, the damage is already done. Also, the economic strength of a province, specifically the land improvements, which is usually more valuable than the buildings, is usually not touched. Thus the "prize factor" of the province is not affected much.
In real life, medieval conflict occurred on open ground or around castles, thus you rarely had villages destroyed by artillery ala World War II. Thus things like swordsmith shops would not be destroyed. Pillaging soldiers would search for gold and silks, not anvils and tongs, and these shops would be the last thing that a conqueror would want to destroy.
OTOH, farmland improvements like fences and livestock were used as fuel and food by armies, and merchant houses would be pillaged for gold and valuables. Thus it is the economic strength of a province that war destroys, not the structures and mental knowledge such as a master swordmaker would possess.
My suggestions:
a)Set the probability of farmland and merchant-house damage equal to the level of improvememnt (20% for 20% improvement and trading posts, to up 80% for the highest levels), with other probabilities for total destruction as you see fit.
b)Non-economic structures would only be slightly damaged, if at all, and never damaged if no open-field battle takes place.
It really hurts the game's enjoyment to start a game in the early era, and never have any AI provinces get beyond Keeps by the time the late era end, or to start in the late era, and have the average AI province go *back* in developement to the early era due to warfare.
c)Castles would only be damaged if assaulted.
3)Increase the time before a sieged garrison starves. This was mentioned in the patch list, but I cannot tell any difference. A castle filled to capacity with troops should be able to hold out for at least two years. I don't know if we can get this effect by adjustng the values in the build text or not, either by cutting in half or doubling the maximum troops allowed.
I guess the best would be to keep the current starvation rate, but don't have it kick in until the second year of the seige. This would also make castle assualts mandatory between Catholics to avoid excommunication.
4)The automatic battle results option is badly in need of adjustment when it comes to castle assaults (it also gives too much weight to numbers over quality for field battles, but it's not nearly as off as the castle phase). In fact, it seems to hardly take the castle into consideration at all when making its calculation.
OTOH, manually assalting Citadels and Fortresses is almost suicide no matter which troops and artillery you bring up, making the choice to use the automatic feature, which doesn't require you to have artillery, a no-brainer.
5)Help the AI establish better trade routes. This was mentioned in the patch list, but the predominant factor still seems to be to protect the coastline, rather than trade.
5b)It would also be nice to stop the AI from attacking neutral ships which venture into its waters so often.
Add-on wishes:
1)Add a new structure, called trade routes, that would enable goods produced in inland provinces to be connected to ports and traded like a coastal province. This would be a major help to factions like the Germans, and would add another strategic element to the game.
2)A decent diplomacy model. There are several games out there with good diplomacy models that I think would be easily modified to fit Total War (Age of Imperialism II, Civilization III). If you could buy access their model, and have one of their designers help you configure it, it would be a huge bonus to the game.
2b)At least add something like the option of spreading propaganda to the populice in order to hype them up for war, and add a happiness penalty for failure to do so, in order to discourage the surprise attacks which are now the norm. This general propaganda would be common knowledge to other factions (perhaps with an Embassy required) and the Pope, thus giving time to strengthen border provinces and perhaps hurt relations with the Holy See short of excommunication.
You have emphasized the personal-glory aspect of warfare in this period, but it was also necessary to rationalize wars of conquest to the population to justify the higher taxes and confiscation of men and material needed to outfit and support armies in the field.
2c)Attacking a neutral faction of your own religion should hurt your influence among all factions, and attacking an ally should devastate it, perhaps starting a civil war.
2c)We should be able to sense the mood of factions towards ours, and the reasoning behind those moods. The option to establish an embassy would be good for this, as well as perhaps sensing the general propaganda noted above.
3)The option to buy or trade provinces, rather than having to declare war to consolidate your territory. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to program settings for the AI to judge an appropriate value for a province, and suggest either land or gold or both.
4)Paying gold or land for peace, either a lump sum or an annual tribute. This was how the Russians kept their independence from the Mongols until they were strong enough to defeat them militarily.
This game has such awesome battlefield AI now, it is a shame to let the other aspects of governing go unattended.