View Full Version : The Medieval Mod IV v 1.8 beta
Ok, the new beta version of the mod is available through this link Medmod IV v.1.8b (http://wes.apolyton.net/Medmod_IV_1.8b.zip).
I have not made an updated readme, but I will cover the new stuff here.
The beta is available to anyone who wants to try it, but it is meant for veteran players to test the new ability stat system I developed through *considerable* time and effort over the weekend. I have played a few short battles with infantry v spears, cav vs spears, that sort of thing. I will not prejudice anyone by revealing my thoughts yet.
Note: I guess you should take the 1.71 spreadsheet out of its default folder so that it won't be over-written by the beta version, so that you can compare the two. This is the best and fastest way to do it, imo. I had both 1.7 and 1.6 printed versions lying around for me when making the changes, so I guess you could do that if you wanted with your 1.7 version.
I just remembered that I forgot to update some of the comments in the sheet. I had developed one system Friday night, then ended up tearing a large part of it up Saturday night, so some of them may be inaccurate.
About all the notes are in the Requirements/benefits column, which I re-named from Building info.
All of the Catholic units are very systematic now, so I think you will have little problem seeing the pattern even if some of the notes are mis-leading.
The Muslim units are so varied that I couldn't make them as systematic, however, I did make sure to keep their relationship to the Catholic units.
Basically, I used the lowest-level units as a starting point, and increased from there. Now, I did adjust the Spearmen up a little to begin with, and there were a few other minor changes to Urban Militia and some of the unique (one-faction) units. The basic relationships should not change much, however.
Spearmen increase by 2 pts per level on defense and armour, as always, which allowed me to increase militia units' attack by 1 pt per level, which, when combined with the extra point per level from the AP bonus, lets them keep up with the spears.
Swordsmen and cavalry both increase by 2 pts per level on attack, defense and armour, which matches the defense and armour increase of militia units.
In this way, the units *should* remain well balanced within their respective level. In theory then, any balancing issues should be when units from different levels meet. The question will basically be: "Are the higher level units beating the lower-level ones too easily?" This, of course, will largely be a matter of taste, so that is why I would like for the testing to be done by vets.
Simon, if you could persuade some of the MP guys to try the mod, it would help us out some. Remember to point out that they can use the Originals folder to "uninstall" the mod if they don't like it. (You could also point out that the Medmod I became the predominant MP setup for Call-to-Power I, if you want to.)
One thing I would want everyone to bear in mind, though, is that a change from the original game might not always be bad. When you ask yourself the basic question, you need to preface it with "For the best game experience", not just "Based upon the original".
You may find that some of the unit relationships in the game always bugged you, but you had learned to accept them. This would be a great time to change those relationships.
Anyway, here is a run-down on the other changes since 1.71...
Starting positions:
I used Red's technique to eliminate the Sea of Marmara and the Ionian Sea. (The Ionian was easier than the Adriatic to eliminate.) I played a few rounds just to see what the AIs did, and both the Byzants and the Italians kept a ship in the Adriatic, with the Byzants, whom I changed back to their original behavior setting, forming a chain all the way back to the Aegean.
I also took Red's advice and severed the link from Constan to the east (Nicaea and Trebizond). The Byzants should not have much trouble keeping sea lanes to both provinces, and if things get bad, historically the Turks had to assault Constan city from the west, so they had to get control of the seas somewhat. This actually increases the historical accuracy of the game, imo.
I decided to set Lithuania back to Rebel, and gave Khazar to the Kievans. I spent some time tonight researching, and apparently there was a thriving Jewish Khazar kingdom for hundreds of years until around 1000 AD, when the Kievans conquered them. The Kievan empire seems to have suffered fragmentation by 1100, but I went ahead and used this as my reasoning. As followers of the 1.7 thread know, this change was done to try and seal the Byzants off from eastern Europe, so that they would concentrate more on the Turks and keep from being run out of Constan.
In my test games, the Turks attacked Trebizond within the first five turns, so the Byzants had things to occupy them. They also seemed to place only a defensive garrison in the Crimea, rather than a huge offensive force, so I really think these changes are going to make a world of difference for the Byzants. It will also be interesting to see if the Kievans can make something out of two excellent provinces.
All crusading factions start with a Chapter House now, in some province. A few of these Houses shift place from era to era, though, so I think it will add a little variety to the game.
Buildings:
I changed the bonus you get from level 4 buildings, and from the Military Academy. Please see the spreadsheet for details.
Units:
I changed some of the dismounting units, notably Gendarmes and Teutonic Sgts.
Teu Sgts now carry a lance, and fit their description as upgraded Mtd. Sgts.
Lancers don't have a shield, though I can't seem to get it back off their battlefield icon.
Mongol units are stronger, cost much less to build and support, and have lower building reqs. The Eastern European provinces all have at least decent starting buildings now, too, so I am excited to hear how the Horde does.
I eliminated the 50% shield penalty that some of the infantry units had. I guess I understand the thinking behind it, but I don't agree with it, and it just seems a little silly to be honest. (It's also one less thing to worry about when you are balancing.)
I restored the faction discount bonuses to those unique units that didn't have them back already, like Italian Infantry, and the region valour bonuses for Gallowglasses and the like.
I changed either the building reqs, faction availability or/and era availaibility for Billmen, Ghulam Cav, Armenian Heavy Cav (whom I set back to their original faction and role), Alan Merc Cav and Mamluk HA and Cav.
The Byzants and Muslims now each have their own unique medium cav units: Byzantine, Armenian Hvy, Mamluk, and Ghulam.
For light cav they have Alan Merc, Trucoman Horse, Mamluk HA and Saharan Cav.
The heavy cav stays the same (Kats, Sipahi and Khwar), as do the camels.
Lithuanian Cav are now HA/ Mtd Sgts.
When a faction has a unique unit, like Vikings, it cannot build the regular unit, like Feudal MAA. This should help individualise the factions more, plus help the AIs maximize their advantages.
Militia units are somewhat stronger now. Urban and Sgts have better defense, while Halbs have better offense.
Swiss units trade defense for speed and attack, like always.
Crusades should start with even more troops now, and a much better ratio of crusader knights to peasant-types. I have not tested this, though, so be sure to note what you see in your games.
Whew, I didn't realize I had changed so much Will, take some time to digest it and play both some custom battles and some short campaigns and let me know what happens.
Hamburglar
03-03-2003, 21:40
What exactly is the 50% penalty for infantry units? I'm not sure what that means.
Also, I know it sounds like complaining too early, but you were concerned earlier with Vikings overrunning Europe and thus made them have upper build requirements, but wouldn't another solution be to only be able to train them in Scandinavia? Just Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland or something. That way they could only make a few a turn, tops.
I'll give 1.8 a go and bring back a report in a few days. I'm a university student who doesn't go to class so I have a lot of time haha
Hi Wes,
I am afraid I am going to have to pause a little playing your mods, as I have got closer to starting work on a little modding of my own to get the units a little more historical. However, CBR, posting over in the monastery, has just alerted me to a very nice file for modders that you may, like me, have been unaware of. I've tried to cut and paste the link directly into this reply, but it's too long. However, you will find it quickly if you read the thread I started on "Were knights better than Islamic HC?" in the Monastery part of these forums. It is the excel file CA used to compute the unit stats from some basic tables on equipment and troop quality.
I know you are interested in looking at patterns in the data. Well this file shows the rather complicated formulae CA were working to. My first impression is that the stats are almost 100% systematic with only very few "fudge" factors that CA thoughtfully annotate with comments. [The most notable is making Chivalric Sergeants lower quality "missile" troops in order to soften the tech improvement from Feudals.] The file also allows you to tweak the fundamentals or alter how they are related to the final stats, so it is perfect for systematic modding.
As I've said before, my preference is for the stats to be based on a model of the intended historical units, so I would recommend that in your next version of the mod you consider working from the CA excel file rather than make ad hoc changes. This is what I'm going to attempt (the excel programming in the file may be a challenge for me!http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.
If you know all about this file, apologies for trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs
All the best with the mod - I'll keep checking back to see how it's progressing.
Red Harvest
03-04-2003, 01:18
Wes,
Wanted to point out that disconnecting Constantinople from Trezibond and the other land link was Galestrum's idea, not mine (don't want to steal anyone else's ideas--although I often adopt them.) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
I haven't checked the Ionian bit, makes some sense though. The AI seems to pile ships in provinces with many sea and land connections (primarily sea). I think that is the main problem with Marmara.
Have you fixed the Tunisian port? It presently (non-modded) shows the port in the Gulf of Gabes, but you cannot get trade or embark troops from this location...for that you must use a ship in the African Coast. I'm going to do a little historic geography research to determine which sea zone the port should be in and what port this is supposed to represent, then place it there. Seems like there might be another province with this problem (Morocco?) but I need to check into it more.
Galestrum
03-04-2003, 01:25
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/mtw.jpg
Heres my 1.8 game in 1221 (starting on high)
I invaded the HRE, but I didn't attack any other factions.
There have been 1 crusade each from the Hungarians, English, French, Spanish.
Three of them succeeded in capturing at least one province, but only one of them have reached their objective.
1 Hungarian crusade aiming for Livonia. Captured this province and then stagnated here. They will soon lose it.
2 French sent a crusade here and siezed it.
3 French invaded this amphibiously, took it from Almohads.
4 French invaded this amphibiously from their mideastern provinces.
5 Ignore this, the Polish are controlled by me not the AI.
Other notes:
Byzantines expand nicely took Const first turn and never lost it) and seem better protected, but the Turks have just sat there not starting any wars, or invading any provinces. King has a magnificent builder trait, and they seem to be trading, but I can't see the altered seas yet.
The Russians quickly siezed all of Asia, perhaps fueled by the better buildings available. But they are spread thin and having a fair amount of revolts.
The Danes ignored Sweden (Russians invaded it by Sea after a long time) and invaded Saxony successfully (before I interfered with the HRE.)
I'll update again after the Golden Horde invades... the Russians are spread pretty thin so it should be interesting.
Finally, one balance comment.
Halberdiers seem very over powered relative to Chiv MAA Their melee stats are almost as good, not counting the horse bonuses, and for only a few florin more.
The stronger crusades, and the AI boat building makes for a more interesting game map, as you can see.
Nice job Wes I've downloaded and will have to try out the new mod. This will save me the trouble of deleting the Sea of Marmara and Adriatic and cutting the land bridges http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
I'll post my results here. BTW: If Action's post turns out to be typical it would appear that there are still a bit too many crusades 4 crusades in 16 years = 50 crusades that would be expected over a 200 year period (the historical crusading era). In fact there were only 8 major crusades (and a few minor ones). It depends on your point of view whether this is a problem. For me it is. At least they're stronger now.
I might suggest as a playtesting technique, just to test the mod, playing as the Sicilians. It's easy to just build some ships, concentrate on trade and building upgrades and stay neutral as that faction (since your provinces are mostly islands no-one can attack you as long as you have naval superiority). This way you can hit "end turn" and run off about 100 turns an hour or so. In a good night you can play more than 1 campaign this way and can really see what the AI playbalance is without human player interference.
Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ Mar. 03 2003,13:40)]What exactly is the 50% penalty for infantry units? I'm not sure what that means.
Also, I know it sounds like complaining too early, but you were concerned earlier with Vikings overrunning Europe and thus made them have upper build requirements, but wouldn't another solution be to only be able to train them in Scandinavia? Just Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland or something. That way they could only make a few a turn, tops.
Sorry about that. The sentence should read "the 50% shield penalty that some infantry units had."
I will keep the province restriction for Vikings in mind, though they actually spread all the way through western Russia to the Black Sea, I believe.
Cugel, in my last game, there were about 4 crusades launched early just like in your game, but there were no more after that, when the factions got involved with their neighbors. If you would try your Sicilian observation technique, it would be good for observing the spread over a 100 turns or so. (Don't forget to stop showing computer moves. This makes things go many times faster.)
Action, Halberdiers are not supposed to be available until the late era. That was a bug- glad you caught it. They were also a little underpriced, which I fixed, but not much. Remember that MAA have a large shield, which adds 2pts to both defense and armour.
Sorry Galestrum. I had an awful time last night trying to keep you two's suggestions straight. Both of you had excellent ones.
Hamburglar
03-04-2003, 19:30
Quote[/b] (cugel @ Mar. 03 2003,21:12)]"I'll post my results here. BTW: If Action's post turns out to be typical it would appear that there are still a bit too many crusades 4 crusades in 16 years = 50 crusades that would be expected over a 200 year period (the historical crusading era). In fact there were only 8 major crusades (and a few minor ones). It depends on your point of view whether this is a problem. For me it is. At least they're stronger now.
"
Trying to justify them historically doesn't work. For example, the first Crusade took control of Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, and Palestine. That would take 4 separate Crusades to do what one Crusade historically did in a short time.
Also, a Crusade in game only comes from ONE country. Take for example, the Third Crusade. It was essentially 3 major Crusades led by three different kings. Richard the Lionheart and the King of France each had a major force from their own country which they led jointly but the French left early, and then the English Crusade fought on. The Germans launched their own Crusade under Frederick Barbarossa which mostly fought against the Byzantines.
Plus, that map above shows Crusades that AREN'T to the Holy Land. Those 8 Crusades you talk about were Crusades aimed specifically at the Holy Land. (In intent). There were MANY Crusades aimed at other places - the Baltic Crusades by the Danes and the Germans conquered and Christianized many pagans. The French Crusades against Touluse were fighting Count Raymond and his Heretics. The Iberian Christian nations launched several Crusades to retake land in Spain from the Moors.
If you count Crusades to the Holy Land on that map of 1221 then I count zero. Thus if you want to count any Crusades at all, count the historical ones that didn't hit the Holy Land too.
I don't really think there is much wrong with having this many. Almost every invasion of a non-Christian area was a Crusade.
I decided to do a simulation where I isolate myself on Sicily and just watch the AI, to get a better test without human interferance. I started in Early and went all the way to the end. This was on Expert.
I don't want to clog up the thread with a lot of pictures, but if you click on any of these links you will see a mini map for the corresponding era.
1153 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1153.jpg)
Almohads, Argonese and Egyptians already dead. Italians a major power.
1201 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1201.jpg)
Italians, Byzantines and Spanish are major powers.
1230 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1230.jpg)
Ready for the mongols? Byzantines on top.
1240 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1240.jpg)
Mongols stagnating. Russians take Constantinople.
1250 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1250.jpg)
Mongols making a comeback, English empire on the rise.
1301 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1301.jpg)
Byzantines reeling.
1320 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1320.jpg)
Height of the English empire. Hungarians take Constantinople, Russians reeling.
1354 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1354.jpg)
English, Hungarians, Mongols on top. Russians dead
1400 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1400.jpg)
English empire destroyed by Mongols, Germans, civil war.
1453 (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jeminich/1453.jpg)
Hungarians and Mongols the only half way decent powers left. Mongols had a huge civil war but survived.
I also kept track of all the crusades, there were only 10.
1097. Polish crusade on Kiev. takes Volhynia and then Kiev. They would hold this for most of the game.
1097. German crusade on Egypt. They struggled all the way over to Georgia, briefly conquered it then ran out of men.
1097. French crusade on Novograd. Conquered Prussia, Lithuania and Novograd. They would hold Novograd for much of the game.
1109. Spanish crusade on Cordoba. Crusade vanished when the regular Spanish army took Cordoba.
1179. Italian crusade on Rum. Invaded amphibiously through Black Sea and Trebizond. Byz let it pass,Took Rum from Turks. Held it for a long time, till Mongols took it.
1220. Italian crusade on Edessa (rebel held.) Made it all the way there put with too few men to take it. Kept retreating and shrinking. Failed.
1247. English crusade on Rome, (held by Byz at the time). Papists recaptured Rome, crusade vanished.
1305. Hungarian crusade on Constantinople. (held by Kiev/Russia.) Took Bulgaria and Constantinople, eventually for keeps.
1415. Hungarian crusade on Castile (held by Horde). Petered out.
1416. Hungarian crusade on Livonia (held by English (excomm)). Petered out.
Observations;
Crusades have to take the long way to the holy land now, unless they have ships in the area. This sends them right through the Kievians.
Mongol changes work nicely.
AI builds so many ships that you might want to consider reducing upkeep. English for example had 20 ships in the English channel alone. This has got to cancel out a lot of the trade income. Might be a way to help out the AI, since the human knows how many ships to build. AI was trading nicely though.
The AI can't hold on to a large empire at all. Constant rebellions, revolts, bandits, re emerging factions and civil wars.
Every large empire in the game except the Hungarians had a serious civil war and for all ofd them except the Mongols (who got some off map reinforcements at the right time) it was fatal.
1.8 is a big improvement, but given the AI's horrible revolt prevention, and tendancy to leave higher level Citadels/Fortresses etc ungarrisoned (I guess it counts the citadel itself as a defender) I'm not sure its possible to make it a challenge for the human.
Hamburglar
03-05-2003, 02:06
Ha - looks like the Papacy even did some conquering.
I played a game on Sicily all the way through and here's what I noticed. (sorry no pictures)
I did not interfere with the AI in any way except the Italians invaded my only province by sea with their King and I killed him in battle and they degenerated. They came back again though in 10 or 15 years and became a decent power.
In my game the major powers standing at the end in 1453 were Spain - Had all of N. Africa, Iberia, France, England.
Germany - Had all of Italian Peninsula, Scandinavia, Germany, Poland.
and the Byzantines - basically everything else.
Italy, France, Russia, and the Mongols were surviving, but every one of them was a one or two province empire.
Observations on things -
Aragon makes a bit of a ruffle in the beginning of the game but I've never ever seen them even carve out a 3 province empire and hold it through early. They always get wiped out. Maybe they should be able to build Almughavars in Early? Should help them.
Italy got killed by me but all the rebel provinces just turned right back into Italian with the exception of one the Germans took over. Italy got pushed out and eventually lived on Corsica-Sardinia like they always do. I think a problem with the MedMod is that the Sicilians are too powerful. Admittedly I was playing them this time but every other MedMod game I've played through the Sicilians always wipe out the Italians. But then again every regular game I played the Sicilians always ended up trapped on an island and become a little pathetic country.
The Mongols came in and parked for awhile. I still don't know why they do that. Their cheap units did propel them forward though and they took a almost all of Russia and a good part of Asia Minor until the Byzzies just started raping them repeatedly. They had two major civil wars upon the death of Khan Ogadai and that was pretty much it for their empire.
England and France fought it out as usual and surprisingly France took over all of the English island before getting wiped out by the Spanish and the Germans.
The Germans hated the Pope and started wiping him out every chance they got starting around 1280, but the Crusade situation before then was.........
This was a GA game so the AIs had goals to launch Crusades.
The Germans launched 3 - one to France (excom) which took the province. They were also invading them anyway all over the place so it wasn't really making a difference.
In the beginning the Germans also launched one to Palestine. They had to take the LONG way around through Georgia which just looks really weird and hurt them very dearly. Their third one was directed at Palestine again but it was entering Khazar in 1230 so you can guess what happened to it.
The French, English, Aragonese, and Hungarians all launched Crusades to the Holy Land but none of them made it except the Hungarians. All of them lost too many men taking the long way around.
The Spanish launched one against the excommunicated French and succeeded and launched another against the Almohads in Granada and failed.
The Polish launched one to somewhere stupid like Ryazan but it got disbanded because the Germans invaded and apparently destroyed the chapter house.
------------------------------------------------------
I don't know about the elimination of the Constantinope landbridge - it really hurts the Crusades. An idea I have is to put a couple Papacy harbor patrols (those unmovable ships?) in the sea area around Constantinople and Italy and stuff so that AI Crusades can use these ships to land. The Pope rarely gets involved in wars Early and those ships should give Crusades a place to land in Turkey instead of walking all the way around through Khazar and Georgia. By the time the Pope gets in wars with people the AIs usually have enough ships in the area to launch Crusades by sea.
Red Harvest
03-05-2003, 06:13
Lack of a landbridge through Constantinople sounds like a killer for Crusades in a historic sense since they did go though Constantinople in reality in several crusades. Unfortunately, the AI stupidity on fortress/citadel defense might be insurmountable. The AI is so incredibly inept with ships that I'm about ready to give up. Been playing my own less extensive mods as the Sicilians with 2 turn ship builds. The Italians send all of their boats at me a few at a time (they build tremendous numbers starting in High.) They should be a terror, but are easily handled. I think it is damned if you do, damned if you don't. AI will now build lots of expensive ships, but fail to do much useful with them. They might get some trade, but the cost of the fleet is a killer...(building them AND upkeep.)
Well, from reading your descriptions this sounds like wonderful results, in particular the fact that they seemed to be so different in their storyline.
Action, your game in particular, with various factions falling and rising all the time just seems awesome. The Byzants and Mongols were two factions that have never done as well as they should, so it is great to hear how they performed.
In both games, the HRE not only seems to have survived, but became a major force in HB's game. This is also great news.
The number of Crusades launched, and their success, when not having to go the long way, seems great to me.
I had not considered the fact that cutting the land link between Constan and Asia Minor would screw up the Crusade pathfinding. I think I will try restoring just the link to Nicaea, and make it a waterway connection so hopefully the Byzants will be defending a bridge. I can then give them some artillery and see how things go.
I am just thrilled at how the Kievans became major powers, and how the Mongols overran most all of Europe in one game, with their major crisis being the death of their leader, just like in history. And in the other game, the Byzants were strong enough to crush the Mongols, and then became dominant powers themselves.
I don't believe I have ever heard of an early game that ended with the Byzants and HRE as the dominant powers. This is just awesome, since my main changes to those factions had been some boosting of economic potential (HRE), and increasing ship production along with the severing of the land bridge (Byz). Remember that I had drastically reduced the land value of Constan to make them dependent upon trade.
There is nothing we can do about the AI leaving its provinces undefended, but perhaps we can get the ear of the programmers and get this corrected, to complement the change in structure damage with the expansion pack.
I will also go in and reduce the priority of ships some more.
HB, Almugs can't be given to just the Aragons for an age, unless you want to create another unit.
As for the Sicilians, the only thing I have done for them is the increase in ship priority, and perhaps the decrease in Royal Kn maintenance. I guess this is just them finally being able to unleash their potential. (Sicily is such a goldmine with a good trade network.)
There hasn't been anything yet from the "generals" quarter regarding unit balance. Is there anyone out there testing this part of the mod?
A thought on the AI not garrisoning it's larger castles-- what effect would giving a happiness bonus to castles have? Something along the lines of 10 for castle, 20 for fortress, 30 for citadel or something like that... maybe even higher. Could offset the way the AI seems to consider the castle as a defending force when it comes to rebellions, anyway. Wouldn't keep them from being overrun by enemy countries, but it could help.
Really enjoying this mod progression... tons of fun, keep it up Wes
Warlokk
Hamburglar
03-05-2003, 19:19
What I meant about the Almughavars would that they'd be available to the Aragonese in Early, High, and Late and only available to everyone else as mercenaries. They show up rarely in mercenary inns anyway that it wouldn't unbalance the game i don't think and the Aragonese do need some help. Sicily has managed to do well in MedMod but Aragon always just gets smashed to bits before they can do anything.
I don't really know how to make new units, but maybe if you wanted it kept most the same you could make an exact copy of Almughavars and call it "Catalan Mercenaries" or something and have them available in Inns around the Med and the Almughavars themselves will be available to only Aragonese in all eras. If you think they are too powerful maybe make them only trainable in like Aragon, Navarre, and Valencia.
Also, maybe the landbridge from Constantinople could be to Trebizond, since that is Byzantine territory as well. That means that the Turks would have to conquer Treb before they go across the bridge to Constantinople. Just a little extra work I think.
The seazone changes are good though - the AI is setting up its trade decently.
As for my game, I'm gonna play again and see if the HRE makes it - they did have a lot of lucky breaks. They never got excommunicated until they started killing the Pope, and against a lot of countries they got pretty lucky. Danes attacked them, and their King and his heirs all got killed in the battle so there goes them. Same thing happened to Poland and the Hungarians so the HRE just gobbled up the rebels with their King-killing troops.
They did lose a LOT of ground at the beginning of the game though and it was only these lucky breaks that allowed them to get it back I believe. I think starting off the HRE with "happy buildings" in each of their provinces will help them out - for example, watch towers, border forts, and maybe a town watch everywhere will just give them a bit of happy power because their garrisons are really small.
As for other units -
Maybe Sicily should be able to build Italian infantry? They always take over Italy anyway and the Sicilians are very similar to the Italians historically. Its just that I never see these guys anymore since Italy always gets wiped out.
Also, woodsmen. These guys seem to have a lot more requirements now (Spearmaker?) for a pretty crappy unit. They are considered peasants, so maybe unit size could be boosted up to 100 instead of 60? I did this already for my mod but maybe its worth considering. I don't really see them as having any more requirements as peasants - they basically are peasants that have lumberjack axes and are a little hardier. Maybe they could essentially "substitute" peasants in the areas that they are produced - give them the same price, building reqs, support, and size and I bet the AIs will use them more. Just a thought.
Hamburglar
03-05-2003, 20:47
Okay my new campain
By 1160
Aragon had been wiped out by France within 4 or 5 turns of the game beginning. Almohads were destroyed by Spain. The French took over all of the French territories and pushed on Germany. Launched a Crusade to Palestine. It succeeded and they then carved out a 4 province empire in the southeast corner of the map. They had about 2/3 of Germnany when they Germans made an amazing comeback and took over all of France. The only place France exists now is in the Holy Land. The Byzantines were pretty strong, pushing on the Turks but then the Turks pushed them back and the Turks now have Constantinope and Greece. The Hungarians beat up the Polish so the Polish migrated into Kievan territory where the Kievans eventually killed them. The Germans took over Sweden and Denmark and then the KIevans finished off the Danes by wiping out their last outpost in Livonia. England has done nothing. Couldnt even take Scotland. Italy has done nothing. Only lost a few territories to rebels.
Okay Update. It is 1230.
The Polish and the Danes both reamerged in Russia, and were pushing on the Russians. Turks also were pushing from the SOuth. The Polish got eliminated again and the Danes were beaten back. Then it became a giant war between Novgorod, Hungary, and the Turks. France died with no heir (not in battle) and reamerged a few years later in Egypt and Aragon. The Germans kept attacking them in Aragon but the Spaniards kept lifting the siege. In Africa France carved out an empire up to the Spanish border in Morocco and East to Arabia. They wiped out Egypt.
The big war between the Turks, Hungarians, and Kievans was one of the big features. It was going back and forth like crazy. I was rooting for the Turks because I like them. Eventually the Byzantines reamerged in Constantinople and the Turks were sent reeling. They lost all their Balkan territories and a German Crusade to Palestine was cuttin through their men in Kiev, Georgia, and Khazar. It made it all the way to Palestine before a loyalist revolt got it. Eventually the Turks made a come back and there are back and forth battles going on in places like Hungary, Volynia, Greece, Serbia, Kiev, Khazar, Ryazan etc. Its really cool. Byzantines got wiped out again.
On the other side of the globe is the other big war. The Germans owned France, Germany, and Scandinavia, basically. They started invading Spain and were doing pretty well. They took the Northern half. They then launched a bunch of failed invasions into England and Scotland. This got them excommunicated. They launched another big invasion and after MANY years of fighting over the English island they wiped out the English. Looked like they had some brutal battles up there. But, during this time, the excommunication hurt. They lost ALL of France and a good part of Germany to Catholic rebels. Spain also retook all of Northern Spain. Right now Germany is slowly beating the rebels and reestablishing themselves. I'm rooting for them.
Some things of note.
Italy has done nothing at all.
There is a Heretic kingdom going on in Provence. Its been rebel the whole game but its now almost entirely heretic. Just seems pretty cool.
Now it is 1266 and a lot has changed.
A mere 3 years after the English were eliminated they reapear in Aquitane and proceed to develop a 4 province empire in France. France is still mostly all rebels. The Germans are having trouble keeping England and Ireland due to all the rebellions. Same with Scandinavia. The Hungarians invade the Germans and take over most of Germany. They also take Scandinavia.
On the Eastern front the Turks have a major civil war AND the Egyptians reamerge in the middle of them AND the Mongols invade. The Hungarians also invade and now they have the biggest empire. It extends from Constantinople and Greece all the way up to Sweden and has lots of German and all the Polish territories as well. The Mongols fight south and the Turks are reeling. They keep having loyalist rebellions but the Turks are crushing them.
Then comes bad news for the Mongols The Byzzies reamerge for the 3rd time RIGHT on the Horde. The game always makes revolts have a chance of succeeding so this one happened where the ENTIRE Golden Horde was parked (You know how they move the whole circus around in a big pile). Yeah, so there is something like 15,000 Byzantine troops in that loyalist revolt. Bad news for the Mongols I'd say.
The German empire is basically a midsize power that is shrinking rapidly. It's all from their excommunication mainly and all the revolts it caused.
And yes, Italy has still done nothing. No one fights them. They fight no one. Kind of funny.
Thanks for the reports, HB. The games sound like they are great.
I would like some info now on the armies the AI is making, and how they are developing their provinces. Another good piece of info is whether or not the AI leaders are getting the Builder virtue.
HB, if you check out some of the early screenshots from Actions post, you will see that the Italians built up a good empire at one time. I believe they are not supposed to be as aggressive as the other factions, being a Catholic trader. I think they are mostly meant to dominate the Mediterranean Sea, which is fine by me. Imo we have plenty of aggressors.
As to the Aragonese, I think their big problem is that they are a one province faction with no rebels near to expand into, and there is not much that can be done about that in the early era. I will see about giving them some more ships to start out with and see if that helps, but I don't really know much else to do. They are a minor faction, you know.
EDIT: I just looked through the startpos files, and saw that Aragon had no goods. Well, this could certainly explain why they never got off the ground. I had read in another post that the Aragonese were traders historically, so I looked up Spain in our old encyclopedia an gave Aragon wine and grain. I also added merchants and ships to them for all three eras.
Btw, I took your advise, HB, and made the Constan connection to Trebizond instead. I had already altered the files for the Nicaean route, but it only took a few minutes to change them back.
I also gave Crimea to the Kievans in the early age to try and consolidate the Byzant forces.
Hamburglar
03-06-2003, 19:43
I got bored with just watching, so I started a new game in the Early age as the HRE.
Again, Aragon got wiped out like a mofo right away. I played it mostly peaceful - my starting emperor had Magnificent Builder, Magnificent Steward, and Great Trader virtues. That was the first time I ever saw a trader virtue arise without starting with one.
His heir to the throne is the warrior - six star general, with Natural Born Killer, Great Warrior, Skilled Defender, Skilled Last Stand, Natural Leader, and Blood Lover (hey, whatcha gonna do?). I thought the heirs were supposed to be bad for the HRE. Anyway, I wish this guy wouldn't become an emperor because I'd rather have him as an immortal general. Oh well. He'll have good kids I bet.
Either way, there are some interesting power struggles. Kiev seems to be the most powerful AI faction right now. They're invading me in Pomerania. A lot of this has to do with my Crusade.
I sent a Crusade to Jerusalem and of course it had to walk around the long way through Kiev territory, and they just kept retreating and giving me their provinces, but since it is a Crusade I wouldn't be able to leave troops there. So they just get massive amounts of loyalist troops - ever seen an army of 4000 Boyars? Its not fun to fight. Anyway, this only seems to happen with the Kievans. Does it mean that Crusades ALWAYS fight them and the only Orthodox that they can pass through are Byzantines? I'm curious because I figure they would havejust let me through if they could, since I had about 4500 men in the stack and they had onyl a few hundred in their path.
Anyway, the Kievans seem to make a better trade empire than many other countries do. They've been extending out to Spain, which is pretty cool.
Hamburglar
03-07-2003, 03:05
I'm really slugging through this campaign.
Playing as the HRE is crazy. Its only in the 1130's but I feel like I've been playing for ages.
There is just no way to stop war. EVERYONE is at war with me, and all of them started it. The only war I started was with the Turks and Egyptians when I launched a Crusade.
But, invading me in Europe are........
Denmark
France
Sicily
Hungary
Poland
Kiev
Spain
Italy
I just eliminated Poland completely but these endless wars are crazy. There is no way to stop them but invade their sorry asses after awhile. It's just constant constant warfare - I have been unable to keep a ship in the water anywhere. It's a given that the AI will sink it. Hell, even the Pope did. Only thing that's sustaining my economy is that every province I own is 80% farming and all mines or on the way there.
The biggest complaint I see with people about the Germans is that they have a crappy royal family, but my royal line in this campaign is the best I've seen in any game, including the Byzantines.
That heir to the throne i talked about before is now the 58 year old 8 star Emperor and he is even better. Magnificent Builder and Magnificent Steward were added onto all his combat traits, plus charismatic.
But his sons are going to make the game easy.
He's had 6 sons so far and 5 have matured. The lowest quality son is 6 stars but his eldest is 9. They are all charismatic and have Killer Instinct or Natural Born Killer and Great or Mighty Warrior.
Since their father was a total monster on the battlefield (Blood lover, butcher) all his sons have maxxed out dread. It's amazing. I'm just imagining my family line as the scourge of Europe. In war I murder everyone I can but to my own people I'm rather nice - I tax them Very High but they all get lovely +80 farms to work at.
Also, just an amusement. The current Pope is both a Pervert and an Atheist. He has zero piety. I could get an inquisitor to burn him, but I just find him hilarious.
Anyway, your changes with the HRE of making them have more farm income actually makes them quite playable. I don't know why the game gave them such crappy lands when Germany is rather rich agriculturally.
"Playing as the HRE is crazy. Its only in the 1130's but I feel like I've been playing for ages."
Hamburglar - I found this as HRE in the unmodded game too, so I don't think it is anything Wes has done. HRE has one of the most "interesting" strategic positions, but if things go bad diplomatically, it can feel a little like Germany in 1943-45 Two partial solutions: (1) deterrence - have your army outbuild your neighbours and peace may have a chance. (2) unconditional surrender - if you go to war, wipe out your enemy, as otherwise you may lose all your allies. The problem is neither solution is how I like to play the game (pacific turtling). For my play style, I guess you need to start as another faction (eg England).
Well, in a previous post I said that I had found the HRE the most difficult faction to play as far as just trying to survive, though I have not tried Aragon yet.
Thanks for the Burgundy links, HB. I enjoyed reading about Belgium yesterday, and I found another article from the SCA (dragonbear site) on the HRE.
As you guys probably know, the HRE really was an empire in name only. I think this is why they normally have such aweful generals. (I rarely get heirs over 2 or 3 stars, and their regular units also seem handicapped.) The HRE is supposed to be defensive, just trying to fend off all the aggressors around it, like you are doing HB.
I have heard strategies for playing as the HRE which call for early strikes, but I always end up spending all my time trying to ring the empire with solid defensive garrisons.
Anyway, HB, what I need is info on the "AI" kings and provinces. If you could forego your serious game for a few turns and pump out some emissaries and get some good info on your neighbors,, that would be what I want.
You can use the startpos files to see what the provinces started with, and compare this to the structures now present there. After you get the info, you can reload and start playing for real again.
Btw, I ran a couple of short custom battles yesterday, and found that everyone else was right- the 2 point increase between levels is too much. So, I am going to re-work the unit stats again, and basically reduce the spear units to a 1pt per level gain like the sword and cav units.
I spent most of yesterday constructing an Excel formula which contains variables for all the price factors. Given my limited knowledge of Excel, I was quite pleased with myself for being able to do this. I have pasted the formulas below for anyone interested. (I couldn't get anything new out of the CA spreadsheets, or find the formulas they used. Perhaps this is because I don't know how to use the Summary function.)
I also decided to half the capacity of castle structures. If the AIs pack them full, you just starve them out in a couple of turns, which guts the AI forces, and when you do decide to storm a castle, it is because there are only a few troops inside.
I don't know if this will affect siege times, but either way it is a good move imo.
Back to Burgundy... After reading its history along with that of Belgium (Flanders), I decided to have the Burgundians re-emerge in the late era. Historically, they had regained Burgundian independence in this era, and acquired Flanders through marriage. Flanders gained independence from France shortly after the Hundred Years' War began, IIRC, and Burgundy-Flanders became allied with the English. It seems that Flanders has a history of rebelling against outside rule, so I gave them a couple of rebellious points, same as Scotland and Prussia. I also strengthened Flanders' starting merchant buildings and ships, since trade was always their prime business. The article said that the Duke of Burgundy became the richest ruler in Europe off the Belgian trade network.
Units:
I moved the Pavise versions of the Crossbow and Arbalest back one era. This suits me more, representing the development of these units as responses to the knights which developed towards the latter stages of each era. It also reflects the opinions of many of the MP specialists.
I also realised that I had given region bonuses to the Swiss Pikemen and Halberdiers to the Papist provinces, but forgot to make them buildable outside of Switzerland http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif . Therefore I have made the Halberdiers available in Rome and the Pikes available in the Papal States. Just something else to consider regarding the Pope http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. I will also go in and give the Papist good starting Town Watches and maybe some of these units in the late era.
I posed the question of increasing missile range in the MP thread, but I have not gotten much of a response so far. What I am thinking about is increasing it by 50%. This would give them more shots before a charging enemy could close, give them more time to retreat behind spears if that is your strategy, and maybe make handgunners and javelin throwers more useful.
Anyway, keep the reports coming, and I will try and have the public release version ready in a few days.
Here is the basic formula for unit cost, the W column. I managed to make it applicable to all infantry, missile and cavalry units.
=((E2+H2+I2+J2+N2+M2+IF(V2="Axe",H2,0))*12.5+(F2+G2+IF(L2="yes",1,IF(L2="no",-1,0))+IF(J2=4,1,IF(J2=6,2,0))+IF(K2="S",1,IF(K2="L",2,IF(K2="P",3,IF(K2="C",1,0)))))*IF(P2>4,12.5,25)+IF(O2="Poor",-2,IF(O2="Fair",-1,IF(O2="Good",1,IF(O2="Ex",2,0))))*25+IF(P2>0,100,0))*IF(R2="Court",0.75,IF(R2="",0.2,IF(A2="Mongol Warriors",0.3,IF(T2="Mongol Warriors",0.3,1))))
Here is the B column, which is the one you reference in the sheet. It contains a provision for the peasant units.
=IF(W2
Hamburglar
03-07-2003, 19:22
I've basically been playing as a "survivalist" in my HRE game to see what its like to just sit around and see what the AI does. The only provinces I've taken are Poland, Venice, Genoa, Silesia, and Pomerania, which really isn't that much.
But I've been playing with .matteosartori. on and been checking out the other empires.
France is at war with me but they stopped invading forawhile and now they are building up.
Their king has Great Steward, which is really rare for the AI.
The Spanish King has Great Builder and Steward.
The Russian King has Trader of all things
So some empires are building
The other ones are all very poor or embroiled in big destructive wars so they can't really get any of these traits.
As for spears - I don't know if you upped the original spear's armor or something, but they seem to get Quite Tired from just walking around a bit now. Lush or Temperate terrain, with no combat or running. Just by the time I reach enemy lines on the attack they're tired. I dunno what that is.
Oh yeah, as for using this mod for MP. I think your Crusader units kind of screw that up because for a few units there are "doubles" and some of the duplicates cost something ridiculously low like knights being 125 florins or something.
But anyway, maybe you could make the +20 farm improvement be very cheap or even free, so all the AIs do it easily. Everywhere on the map should have +20 farm because it is a prerequisite for a horse farmer even, along with the extra food.
As for the HRE heirs, I got my amazing royal line started by accident. I invaded Venice on like the second turn (Italians took over Provence so its payback) with my King and took it over. They had about 200 men hiding in the castle and I had only like 200 survivors sieging it. I saw they had about 600 guys in the Papal States ready to counterattack so I just pulled out all my men, happy to just loot money and destroy buildings.
But, during the year I pulled out, my oldest heir matured. And he appeared in Venice because that's where my king WAS, but no one was there anymore. Well, the sieging army sallied out on the same turn that I pulled out and the Heir matured.
Well, it just turned out to be 200 Urban Militia against my 40 Royal Knights. And he fought them off and killed most of them. This is before the Prince ever appeared on the strategic map so maybe some of his "stats rolling" was still not official, but because of that he was suddenly 6 star, Killer Instinct, Great Warrior, Skilled Last Stand, and Skilled Defender.
During the next years until even now when he's old I use him in every battle possible. He's now a great king and his sons are in the range from 6-9 stars with all of them having amazing VandV's (Except Blackmailer. Every single one of his kids is a blackmailer. Hell, he was too)
Wes, I thought it would be wise to quote this post from Kraxis from the projectile.txt thread here in the dungeon:
"Take care when upping the range of the longbows.
I upped them to 7500 (well 120 meters is not much, 150 meters much better), but then the Longbowmen could not angle the arrows high enough to actually fire them. So they walked a short distance and tried again, again and again. So I set the Velocity to 180 (up from 150) that flattened the trajectory a bit.
I also upped the shortbows and the mounted bows to 5500.
Upped the LB Accuracy to 0.75 (from 0.6) and Lethality to 0.95 (up from 0.63).
Normal bows Accuracy to 0.70 and Letality to 0.75.
Mounted bows Accuracy to 0.6 (from 0.4) and Letality to 0.75.
I also gave all dedicated archers 48 arrows (up from 28) and hybrid units (such as Ottomans and Jannisary Inf) stayed at 28. "
I think that these changes would be the best. Perhaps not even upping the range for archers. What you want is to increase the KILLS of charging enemies. The problem is not the range. Rather, its the velocity. Archers in the game fire at a higher trajectory and they simply don't LEAD very well. This makes it impossible for them to hit moving units with any accuracy. Their lethality is also too low by historical standards (this was lowered significantly from Shogun to MTW). Arbalesters by contrast have a higher velocity. This means a flatter trajectory and less flight time. This in turn translates to greater accuracy firing on moving targets (like charging knights). Since historically the difference in trajectory wasn't as significant as in the game (real life archers could lead their targets better than the game versions), changing the velocity to be the same as arbalesters (but NOT changing the range - leave arbalesters and crossbows with greater range), plus giving all DEDICATED archers (not horse archers or genoese sailors nor turcomen foot, but dedicated archers) more ammo, would increase the playbalance and utility of archers. Currently, from what I read in the jousting fields, in MP archers and missile troops in general are really superfluous. People only use them because of tradition. There are rush tactics that seem to make them obsolete. I notice in SP that the AI uses rush tactics a good bit as well. Such tactics should only be sound if you don't have missile troops and don't have a choice. We should enourage the requirement to produce balanced armies. This will also make the game better tactically.
BTW: I'm not considering argument from "camper" style tacticians that "archers are already strong enough" because they park their army on the hill at the rear of the battlefield so that they can't be outflanked, forcing the AI to come to them so they can shoot down large numbers of AI troops with archers. This is considered a "cheesy tactic" since the AI can't deal with it (you'll notice the AI troops wandering around indecisively in front of your lines). In the real world there is no "edge of the map" and tactics that utilize it are "gamey". In MP such persons are called "campers". This is not a term of endearment. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
The strength of archers needs to be somewhat increased, (note the word somewhat). I propose using the methods suggested by Kraxis, NOT by changing the range (Kraxis is arguing from historical data that longbows really had a longer range than ordinary bows and not from gameplay reasons). I'm not certain that I would change the range of longbows, because it might make the English too strong in the High period and unbalance the game. Changing the velocity and lethality of archers as Kraxis suggests probably wouldn't affect game balance much, but would be a nice gameplay improvement.
Hamburglar
03-08-2003, 08:19
I agree with making archers a bit stronger. As it is I never ever build them as any Catholic faction except English longbows and I hire mounted archers more as a diversionary tactic and to draw out enemy troops than to actually shoot them to death.
I think the archers need to be looked at but not made too good. It could be REALLY easy to make them the dominant force on the battlefield when they really were not. The only time the archers really were the battle winners was with the Mongols and the English longbow.
The Crusaders talked a lot about the Turk horse archers and such but they didn't talk much about the massive casualties being caused by the archers themselves, just the minor losses getting the knights all pissed off and out charging hither and thither chasing them only to get ambushed by doing it. Archers should be better, but definitely not battle winners.
If we do make archers better I think maybe we should make shields more "powerful" in the sense that they'd still stop the arrows and that we can form shield walls with large shield units like sergeants and such.
I just have really bad memories of all those Age of Empires games where you were an idiot if you built anything but archers and horses.
As for other changes, I really don't think the whole unit sheet needs to be revamped like you're trying to do. I know you can say we'll get used to the changes, and its the truth, but it doesn't necessarily make it better. If the game crashed every 40th battle I'd get used to it eventually, but it doesn't mean we'd like it. I think no one really wants the whole melee infantry stat system to be completely overhauled because it seriously is balanced as it is. I think the way to tell if something is out of balance is that people will use certain units like crazy and use some units not at all.
The only units I see people almost never using are archers, because they are definitely not worth it for the majority of the time. Especially because it rains every damn battle. But as for completely overhauling men at arms, sergeants, and horse units I think its just completely unnecessary and it is overthrowing a balance and making the game lose flavor. Giving Western Catholic factions fast light horses and giving Muslim nations heavy infantry and cavalry makes the factions lose their flavor and become more and more similar. I still think the purpose of playing a faction is to fight utilizing its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses. "Filling" out tech trees doesn't necessarily make the game better. The Catholics are supposed to have a hard time having very fast units to chase down the Muslims, and thus the Muslim advantage is to use lightly armed fast troops with lots of arrows. It says in almost every historicalrecord of Crusades battles that if the Catholic troops could just pin down the Muslims in a cavalry charge and all out men at arms melee the Catholic troops would typically win the day. The way the Muslims won was skirmishing, attacking, retreating, ambushing, all with cheap crappy equipment troops.
Making units "equal" to each other but just making them have different names kind of makes the game lose flavor. I've lost track of lot of changes but I believe you've "equalized" so many troops that a lot of the games different units are just "window dressing".
I don't think "equalizing" is the answer. From what I remember, Nizaris are Chivalric Men At Arms, Jannisary Inf are Gothic Sergeants, Jannisary Heavies are equivalent to Gothic Foot, Ghulams are equal to Feudal Knights. It just makes the game lose something. If you really want to change the units to be the same then can't you just make some sort of tiny alteration? Like make Ghulams have less armor than knights but slightly more morale. Make Jannisaries much more disciplined and have higher morale than Gothics but definitely give them less armor. Nizaris seemed to be perfectly usable before -the Muslims just need to take advantage of what they have.
If you think the Muslims need to be improved, then just make their units cheaper and have smaller support costs so they don't have as much trouble pushing them out onto the battlefield.
I know this sounds like a rant and you may not like it, but just let it be known that I do love the MedMod -its really the only topic I post on, but I just still believe that a lot of the game really is fine as it is and some of it you're changing almost for the hell of it. It can be looked at in the way of what changes people cry for and laud you for when they happen, most notably - Trading (the whole lot of it), Constantinople, including the landbridge and the elimination of sea zones, Crusades, Build Times, Support Cost and Pricing of "peasant" units, StartPos provinces, etc.
But the whole constant changing of units is really kind of weird. You received a lot of flak about the revamping of the horse speeds and said we'd grow to like it, but I don't really see anyone happy about it still. For both gamebalance and historical reasons it just seems weird.
Yes, I've accepted it, but that's because the MedMod has a lot more pluses than minuses and my modding skill does not even approach yours, even though everything I've learned I've learned from the medmod. I know this sounds critical and evilnatured and no I can't do any modding as well as you but I just think some of it needs to be sad. haha. Keep up with the good work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
I posted several days ago that I had set cavalry speeds back to normal. Overauling the unit stats and then essentially un-doing most of it has brought me a much better understanding of the system. It was somewhat like doing a big academic exercise in a college course.
The Muslim cavalry now have a charge of 6 until to get to the high era units, Ottoman Sipahi and Khwarazmian Cav, which is as far as the Muslim cav development goes. This reflects what I have read recently about them carrying light lances. I have also reduced the Mounted Sgt charge to 6, and the Muslim medium cav (Armenian Hvy, Ghulam and Mamluk) now have the same primary stats as Mtd Sgts (6,2,2,4), with a little better honor.
I have kept the Muslim infantry about the same in relation to the Catholic as before, since I believe that each faction needs at least one unit that can stand toe-to-toe with comparable Christian infantry, or else you just end up with the Muslims being cornered at the map edge and slaughtered, at least by the human. At least this is what always seemed to happen when I faced them. The Muslims did ok AI vs AI, where the auto-resolve is always used, but they never put up much of a fight to me compared with the Christian units, unless you were fighting in north africa or Syria and desert fatigue became insurmountable.
I really think this holds true for the Turks, who developed the Janissaries in order to invade Europe. The Muslim method you describe can work well for defense, but not for offense, imo. For this I think you need a few heavy units that can march up to the late era Christians and slug it out.
The reason I wanted to raise the sword and cav units in relation to the spears was that spears seemed overpowered to me. It just seemed that higher-level spear units would defeat comparable sword units one-on-one almost every time. The sword and cav units may do better man-per-man, but not in unit percentage.
Anyway, everything but the spears should be about the same as before when I post the public release version of this update, with the Muslim cav reflecting your wishes, I believe. It's just too bad that 1 pt in stats means a 20 or 25 percent increase in power, depending upon who you ask, rather than a 10% increase. The 2pt method certainly gave me more freedom to set rules and standards of development.
I knew that the overhauling would be controversial, and may not work- that is why I released it as a testing beta rather than a public release. When you fiddle with the game, sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. I think that perhaps what sets me apart from some of the other fiddlers is that I don't mind admitting when something doesn't work and ripping it back out.
Btw, I have not messed with spears' movement stats.
As to the archers, I always planned on increasing arrow velocity along with range, and perhaps more than range, as ECS has stated that he has made changes to help the missile units hit moving targets better. I hope that this means that they reference and adjust to the target's direction of movement, but it may simply mean that their missiles have a higher velocity.
As for camping, I agree with your points, but I wish that all the maps didn't have their hills along the border. If you want to use the best, or only, defensive terrain, this almost always means lining up at the edge of the map.
Back to missiles, I think that the combination of increased range/velocity and decreased reload time for non-archers is a good combo, without messing with the lethality, which is what could unbalance the unit imo.
I have had long battles against hordes of peasants where crossbows have gotten over 250 kills per unit, and other battles where they have gotten over 150 against knights and MAA (all post-patch). Camping or not, my archers usually end up with the highest number of kills of any unit, unless the enemy rushes from a severe downhill angle, and then the missiles can't seem to get an angle once they join in melee.
In MTW, battles which historically would have taken all day take less than an hour real-time, so when people argue that the reload time of crossbows in MTW should pretty much reflect reality, I wonder where their sense of perspective has gone.
To me, if you are in a 16 vs 16 battle, and your crossbow and/or gunpowder units don't use half their ammo, then something is wrong, and I see this time and again even with my current reductions.
I think I am going to give a good look at the projectile stats, and probably make some type of changes, then release this version to the public. This means that the significant differences between this and the 1.71 version will be the missile stats and the startpos changes, along with a gradual return to the original CA stats regarding the Muslim cavalry.
ToranagaSama
03-08-2003, 18:31
Quote[/b] ]When a faction has a unique unit, like Vikings, it cannot build the regular unit, like Feudal MAA. This should help individualise the factions more, plus help the AIs maximize their advantages.
Haven't had much time to play lately, but plan to check out the new mod sometime this weekend.
Gosh dude, I don't remember discussing this at all. My initial reaction is negative, but I'll see how it plays.
---
On the subject of Archers:
There is NOTHING wrong with them as they presently exist. I say again, NOTHING. This subject had been debated more than once by experienced players.
With SP, the consensus is that most people fail to learn to use them properly.
With MP, the consensus is that the nature of MP, precludes their effectiveness.
One of the things, that I believe "modders" need to guard against is "modding" changes to eliviate player skill deficiences.
At the least, it should be discussed what is the goal? What "archer" results are desired and/or acceptable?
How many man do archers need to be capable of taking out, to be considered effective? 1 unit, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10??????
Should archers have "stopper" artillery effectiveness? Using a few euphemisms, should they be the equivalent of, German 88s, Mortars, Grenades or M60 machine guns??
I dunno know, but "technique/skill" development is a HUGE part of the TW experience, quite obviously in MP, but ALSO in SP.
End of Rant.
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Lastly, with regard to MP:
Wes, I can appreciate that the MedMod became the "standard" for CTP MP; but expecting or desiring the same for MTW is not realistic. (I am presuming that CTP is very much like Civ.)
First, MTW and CTP are VERY different games; and, I would say, MTW attracts a rather large segment of RTS gamers, which CTP did not. TBS gamers are quite different than RTS gamers. MTW MP leans very much toward RTS players, than TBS (or simply "Strategy" gamers).
This "difference" is at the heart of the contention between MTW MPers and SPers. I'm not sure you are aware of this, but just to highlight this, is the existence of the Jousting Fields forum which came about as a result of the contention, which leads back to Shogun.
Further, its been debated that the "original" MTW stats do not serve both MP and SP equally; and that separate stats s/b developed. Not much has happend in this regard, that I am aware of.
I go into all this, as I am concerned with regard to your interest regarding MP results for the Med Mod. It is not possible to create a mod that will serve both camps equally. The nature of MP alters the value, use and balance of units. Below is a response to a comment by Simon from the 1.7 thread (I believe) that I didn't get around to posting, which attempts an analysis to succintly bring to light the issue(s) between MP and SP.
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Quote (I believe from Simon, see the previous MedMod thread for context) that started my thought pattern:
[QUOTE]There are also gameplay considerations. A +1 to attack (+20% lethality) from FMAA to CMAA is worth it for me and most MPers. [QUOTE]
IMO, this is not a good relational comparision.
"Purchasing" CHMAA/units in MP is quite different in comparision to "Developing" them/units in SP.
In MP this is a simple matter of, click, click, and making the most of the pre-determined funds available to you. The payoff is immediately available in the following battle and ONLY need prove its "short-term" value.
In SP, things are hugely different, An analogy:
Say you make $1 per day, and you receive a 10 cent a day bonus.
One person plans on working the job for a week; another for the next 5 years.
For the short term worker, in RELATIVE terms, that 50 cent bonus has a more "immediate" value for him. At the end of the week, he's able to buy a bag of chips or a candy bar or something equivalent. This is "real" value within the "context of time".
For the 5 year worker, the "real" value must also be considered within the context of time, 5 years. In this circumstance, "time" deminishes value.
Consider the "value" relation of these two ratios, 1/260 as opposed to 1/52. The HUGE relational differential is evident simply by viewing the above ratios. (Thought I'd have to go into greater explanation, but I don't think so, now.) The short-term worker is the winner (1/52 vs. 1/260).
Further, with SP, unit diffentiators, such as that between FMAA and CHMAA, need to be viewed from an "Investment" viewpoint with the payoff from your investment needing to be commensurate to that investment.
In MP, the construction of an Army, financially, is representative of simple "[i]Purchase" power; as opposed to SP, in which, the construction of an Army represents the result of [a] calculated return upon "Investment".
SP requires, not simply a monetary investment, but, additionally, requires investments of "time" and "strategic planning".
Also, it must be considered the (for want of a better term) "sub-investment(s)" required to "create" the MONEY/Florins to investment. Unlike MP, in SP, precluding the intial "starting" Florins, the money to build an Army must be "created", also, through "Investment".
Moreover, the above investments, in SP, most be [I]factored[i/] over SEVERAL provinces.
MP does not have ANY evquivalent(s)). One simply chooses the amount of Florins that will govern the composition of an army. Quite simplistic.
With the above SP "Investment" considerations, the "Return" MUST be Commensurate and, obviously, equitably greater than that received in MP.
[The following applies more directly to the original quote above re FMAA/CHMAA.]
Now, in just a moment or two I'm going to pick up my Danish 1.7 campaign, so I will really look at FMAA/CHMAA very closely, but the above outlines why I whine about the unit stats.
If I make an investment in "time", even more than money, I desire a commensurate payoff. I "believe" that (for the skilled player) CHMAA do not return a commensurate payoff, e.g., little tactical reason to build them.
Get back to you soon. TS diving into the Timesink called Medieval Total War. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Think I'll go eat first.
Wes, I agree with Hamburglar - you not only make fine mods, your threads are also the most interesting on the forums Your modding raises really fundamental issues that are fascinating from a historical or game modelling point of view.
You haven't responded to my earlier recommendation of the CA excel file, crusader_unit_prod11.xls. Have you had a look at it? It answered so many of my concerns about the previously strange patterns in the unit stats. Looking at some of the parameters, I can see ways to make the Islamic factions a little tougher (eg reducing the defense penalty for being unarmoured or fanatic) without upping their armour too much.
I agree with Hamburglar's points about differences in the factions, especially Islamic vs Western. Your concern seems to be that the Islamic AI does put up much of fight out of the desert. I am not sure that is a problem, at least from a historical wargaming perspective. Afterall, the Almohads did get driven out of Spain in the period and my reading of the Crusades period is that the Islamic forces rarely beat them in direct battles even in the desert (eg Arsouf). We want the Turks to be very formiddable in the late period, but confining the effectiveness of the Islamic forces to the desert does not seem absurd.
On the swords vs spears, this was discussed at length in the past (the TOC was down this week, but should be up again). The consensus, IIRC, was that swords do beat spears, although for this to be overwhelming you need to hit the flank. I used to be worried about 100 man unit vs 60 man unit comparisons but recently concluded this may be specious. The stacking limit is 960 men in the default game, so just because you get spears in packs of 100 and swords in packs of 60, it does not mean the swords are disadvantaged. You can just buy more sword units. So a comparison per man rather than per unit may be more legitimate. (I'm talking SP here.)
My own concern about swords vs spears is the opposite of yours. From a historical point of view, sword units seem over-powered. I can find almost no examples of foot units in the period that mainly used swords (I think the sword-armed Byzantine infantry are a myth) and I think that is because swords were actually rather inferior in close formation fighting to spears or pole-arms, especially against armoured foes. The game encourages a swords vs spears, scissors vs paper gameplay element, that is not apparent from most accounts of the medieval battles. I think this makes sense for some historical units to act as "shock" units, like Vikings and Ghazi, but for vanilla Catholic factions, I don't see the historical equivalents.
TS - I am not sure I am getting your point about SP vs MP costing. If you are saying that buying an SP unit is an investment, as it will benefit you in the future, that is true. And it means that for SP play, it is the future support cost not the purchase cost that really matters. (see my main hall post on this). But this is even more of an argument for a one point (20% increment to lethality) improvement in stats being worth it in SP - as support costs are less closely tied to stats than purchase costs.
I guess one thing I was overlooking was the prior cost in time and money of getting the buildings necessary to make upgrades. But then these investments have big spillovers, unlocking other tech improvements. Given the length of the SP game, I think it makes sense to go flat out building up your few main production cities regardless of whether FMAA => CMAA gives you a +1 to one stat or more.
Wes, are you taking into account Giljay Smith's comments about projectile stats?:
"A couple of notes on the projectiles file:
Range is the range within which the shooting cursor turns green (modified by the relative height of the firing unit and the target point). If the shooting cursor is green then the unit can attempt to fire, but all that means is that the individual men start to look for targets and firing solutions.
Velocity is what determines the actual maximum range. If I remember rightly, the maximum range is the velocity squared and then divided by four, or thereabouts.
In practice we use Range to limit the firing range of projectiles which are fired at high speed: compare the stats for arrows and crossbow bolts to see this in action.
TryHigh determines whether the firer can try a plunging shot if the flat shot is blocked. (For most shots there are two firing solutions, one flat and one high, either side of 45 degrees).
"
Thus, changing the range will only change the distance that archers seek firing solutions (i.e. the cursor turns green). Changing this stat alone wouldn't affect anything. The archers would go through their firing animation but no arrows would be released (as is the case when the archers are in range, but their line of fire is blocked).
CA, as Giljay mentions here use "range" to limit the actual range of missile troops. Increasing velocity, increases the actual maximum range that missiles can reach, but the troops will only seek firing solutions when the enemy comes within their "range" (the variable assigned by CA). When I spoke of range in my last post, I meant increasing the ACTUAL maximum range that missiles can reach by increasing the velocity (but limiting the effective range at which troops seek firing solutions by limiting their "range" (the unit stat)). The reason I argue for this is that we really just want to increase the accuracy of missiles so they can hit moving targets better. We don't need them to reach further, especially if lethality is slightly increased. Thus, my suggestion of increasing lethality (slightly to 0.75)and velocity, WITHOUT changing the distance at which the cursor turns green ("range"). If you will read some of the posts in the thread in the Jousting Fields on this point, you'll see that the consensus is that historical ranges for missile weapons (especially longbows) can't be used because of the compression of the battlefield in MTW, without unbalancing the game too much. Remember that in Shogun missile troops were much stronger and this lead to complaints in MP. For this reason CA reduced them for MTW (in the opinion of many too much reduction). We don't need to give missile troops the ability to fire halfway across the map.
I notice in addition that you have not mentioned increasing the ammo of dedicated archers. This in MHO would be THE KEY NEEDED modification. If you increase the effective range of archers they will simply run out of ammo sooner. Since the AI doesn't withdraw archer units and bring on fresh ones, this will hurt the AI more than the player. This makes them even more useless, not less. Even if you don't increase the range, it is important to at least increase the ammo from 28 to 32 or something (slightly more might be better but we have to be careful not to increase it too much) I strongly believe that archers would play a better role if their ammo would last at least 2/3 of the battle, not 1/4 or thereabouts. I DON'T think this would make them too strong.
Hamburglar
03-09-2003, 07:54
Haha thanks for changing the Muslims back.
I agree that ammo is the biggest factor really. In my opinion in real life it wouldn't matter how many volleys the archers could get off at a pile of knights charging them - if the archers didn't have any friendlies between them and the knights, I bet the archers would just RUN. The fact that they only have a few minutes of actual firing time is the real problem.
As for swords vs spears, swords usually always win, but yes, you need to hit them from the flank. I can't think of anyone in their right mind who would charge straight into a big line of guys holding pointy sticks. it is suicide. The swords would have to get in close to kill the spearmen and they'd be poked to death before then. I think it works as is. If spearmen are in closely packed ranks and facing directly at you, they should seriously be a pincushion. No question about it. People really just need to use more tactical finesse. Don't charge anything head on at spears thatare just sitting there.
ToranagaSama
03-10-2003, 14:19
Hello all,
TS is having some electrical work done in his apartment over the next couple of days. Ugghh, total PITA I'm sure you all will miss my commnets. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Anyway, spend a few hours trying out the new version, as the Danes, here are my initial impressions.
Still not sure about the FMAA, but surprisingly, I like the changes re the Vikings. Makes for a bit more of a challenge not having immediate access. Though, I think that Sweden s/b given, again, to the Danes.
Crusades, seem to back to normal, that is OMTW levels. Personally, not appreciative of this, and agains, I say Crusades are deletorious to Gameplay.
1097 - 2 Crusades, gosh, the game just began
1115 - noticed at least 1 Crusades.
The above were only the ones I was able to notice, there were more by 1151. To me this is ridiculous.
Back to the Danes. The needs need to start with an Emmissary. They are just too poor and without one, it is QUITE a long time before the expenditure of 1000 florins can be justified simple to obtain Emissaries.
The Danes need to build ships, tech up to Merchants and invade the Russian coastal terrorities before they really get going. All of this is Florin intensive for a poor nation. Please give me Sweden and an Emissary.
For the first time the Brits became a power, taking the coast from Brittany to Friesland. The HRE QUICKLY collasped into fractured provinces and eventually were destroyed only to rise again. I still don't understand why the HRE don't steamroll the Danes.
Anyway, that's all I have time for.
Later
Hamburglar
03-10-2003, 19:57
I think Aragon should start with a royal palace and emmisary too - every faction should have one.
alman9898
03-11-2003, 04:51
I feel stupid about asking this and I think i know the answer, but here goes nothing. If i download this mod will my other mods and edited crusader files still be usable? Cuz I like my homemade mods too.
Alman, if you install it correctly, an originals sub-directory will be created which backs up your files. However, I would save your own mods separately too, just in case.
Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ Mar. 10 2003,11:57)]I think Aragon should start with a royal palace and emmisary too - every faction should have one.
Note: I wrote this Monday afternoon, so some of it may be out of date.
I thought everyone *did* start with a palace. I thought that was mandatory or something- can't have a king without a palace. Anyway, I went through and everyone should have one now.
There hasn't been much activity in the 1.71 thread lately, so I have to assume that the old posts on Crusades are still bearing out. With me, there were a few factions that start making them on the first turn, probably has to do with being a crusading personality. If they didn't start them early, however, most factions seem to get too caught up in neighborly matters to devote the time and resources needed now for a crusade.
For the new version, I lowered the cost of crusading units to 20% of normal, down from 25%, and I also adjusted the makeup of peasant rebellions to include the crusader troops to get more in crusades that way.
The biggest adjustment, however, is that I made the Crusader units 50% over-strength, so that it takes 3 turns before they fall below normal. I think they lose 20% per turn, so after 2 turns they would be at normal strength.
I just realized that this means that you could group them back to 150%, and that would give you an advantage in battle. (Simon, the limit in a battle, which is what matters, is 16 units. The 960 pertains to grouping only.)
However, I have been playing the historical battles the last few days, where over-strength units are common, and I think the over-strength setting is too necessary to worry about it warping the battlefield. The human can decline to use them if he wishes, and I don't think they would have an effect on the AI vs AI auto-resolved battles.
I am also going to leave the Danes without Sweden. Everyone agreed that they were too powerful with it. I can always come up with some type of compromise if Sweden turns out to be the make-or-break factor.
Cugel, thanks for the projectile text quote, as I had not come across it before. I am glad that they use a type of *physics* to determine the range, but my changes are going to be ok, anyway.
I don't agree with you guys that missile units are under-powered. The problem, imo, is that they are sometimes limited by range and angles, which restrict which units they can target and how many men can volley into them.
My changes, and I made a new table in the readme to better show them, increase both range and velocity by about 25% for archers, with crossbows and arbs moved back to their original range and arbs given more velocity to match their range advantage over crossbows.
I have left all the effectiveness factors alone, since these units are quite capable of getting large numbers of kills already, they just aren't allowed to show this in certain situations.
I also upped the reload time of archers slightly, to space out their shots some and leave them in the battle longer.
I gave longbows two more arrows, and took 4 away from the crossbows and arbs, intially to help with my new cost formula, but after looking at it I think it seems natural.
I could give shortbows two more arrows to get them to 30, and give the longbows 6 more to 36. This would *look* neat with the 24 for bolt troops and 10 for gunpowder, but I don't know if it might not make the longbows too powerful. I would certainly bump up their price if I did this.
Simon, I got the excel sheets a few days ago, but when I looked at them, I didn't notice the way the slider at the bottom was set, and thought that the units file only had one sheet in it. Yes, this is embarrassing to admit, but I had a bad headache that night, and these things happen in those circumstances.
Anyway, I just found the Tables page after reading your post, and I will see if it changes my settings in the formula I put together.
As to spears, I wonder if the reason they go up in defense 2pts per era is that the sword and esp knight units were liable to get valour bonuses from master-level buildings, especially from spearmakers and horsebreeders, which don't require a fortress to build.
Anyway, back to TS's rather confusing post http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ...
I am majoring in Industrial Engineering, and our primary focus is often on statistical analysis, so if I was confused, most everyone would have been. Sorry.
I think what you meant was that units cost more than just their production cost, as in MP. I certainly agree with you there, but I wonder if this is not offset some by the valour increases received in battle.
As far as cost, and I have not yet compared this with CA's method, I figure that increased support per man is covered by the reduced men per unit as you go up through spears, swords and knights. In my cost formula, I simply treat ability points' cost the same for everyone, then for support I use factors which adjust for unit size, to match the ones CA uses to in their formula.
Glancing at CA's Tables sheet, it seems that they place values on unit's class- knights or mounted archers for example, when calculating costs. I figure that the classes are reflected in the stats, so the stats are all that really matter.
Simon mentions the lack of sword units hostorically. I wonder if that is because there no national standing armies during this time, and really no campaigning. I think most medieval *wars* were raids and skirmeshes, or sieges between dukes and princes.
This means that armies were composed of cheap amateurs used for defense, and knights looking for wealth and prestige. As the MTW descriptions state, good swordsmen had to be professionals on a salary, like Longbowmen I believe, and this didn't happen much in the feudal period.
TS was right in that I had not discussed excluding factions from building, for example, MAA if they had Vikings available, but when I implemented this, there were only three instances where this situation occurred. The other two were Billmen and Halberdiers, and Polish Retainers and Feudal Knights. This exculsion makes sure that the AIs will use their faction advantages more, and provides a little variation to the same old units you run into in Europe time and again.
I did not get Shogun, and thus I am unfamiliar with things that occured on its forums, or changes between Shogun and Medieval really. All I know is from bits and pieces I pick up in passing. I just recently started perusing the jousting fields, and I see that this is the place to go for advanced discussions on units and fighting. I guess it explains why the Main Hall is normally disappointing in this topic.
I would be interested in hearing, or being linked to, some in-depth discussions on the differences in unit effectiveness and/or attractiveness between MP and SP.
I can see where the fact that MP battles are stand-alone *might* make a difference, but it seems at first glance that things that factor into MP battles should factor into SP battles, unless the AI does things that upset the balance, and it seems that CA primarily uses common MP tactics when designing the battle AI.
Warning, long speech below...
Btw, I am glad you guys think so highly of my work and my threads. The threads were like this in the Call-to-Power mods as well, and I really enjoyed being a part of them.
You mentioned the point about examining the basics of things, and this is one area that I always try to include in the development of the mod. This type of thing goes on among the designers I am sure, or should go on, but rarely is taken up my players or even modders. People usually memorize the existing rules and conventions, and then discuss ways to tweak them; I always try to step back and examine the conventions themselves and see if they are the problem, rather than their implementation.
I think one of the things that happens within companies is that the conventions are laid down early in development, and then everyone works to implement them. If it turns out during the late stages that a feature or concept doesn't work well, people have gotten used to it being in the game, and don't think to question its very nature and/or importance, and whether or not it should be discarded or completely overhauled.
I know that discarding happens, but usually it is because their were technical problems, or because it was drastically messing the game up. And too often the lead designer is the only guy with authority to make such decisions, and in the later stages of development he has so many responsibilities, once you get into graphics and all the other project expansions, that serious gameplay work is neglected.
It is probably a pipe dream, but I would love to be brought on board in these latter stages, when the lead guys acquire other responsibilities, just to help assume the play-testing responsibility- not just tweaking, but looking at the core concepts from a fresh viewpoint when you are far enough along to play the entire game and see how all the various modules interact.
I think this is one point where many games break down. Everyone works on the separate aspects of the games in relative departmental seclusion, and just when you get to the point where you can put the pieces together, that's when the guy who has the best understanding of the entire puzzle has to start spending most of his time on other things. I think one of the things which separated Sid Meier from other creators is that he made sure he didn't neglect fundamental gameplay testing in the later stages of development, when someone with power, knowledge and authority is most needed.
Well, that's enough for today. I will probably not get this posted until the same time that I post the new version. I will make a note for everyone to check this post out, though, especially since I it's the size of a short story. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
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