Getting rid of trade

[brent_james]

I'm modding my game of Medieval (v1.1) by creating a new startpos.txt file and adjusting the build_prod, unit_prod, and projectile_prod text files.
One thing I noticed in the game is the lack of intelligence among the AI for trade routes. A good player can easily take advantage of this and gain a much higher income with sea trade than the AI factions.

I'm thinking of getting rid of trade income, and just upping the farm income of certain provinces. Is this a good idea? Has anyone tried it?

[Oaty]

Heres 1 good suggestion I have is increase the income for ports that are recieving goods. I have to mention that any goods you are exporting not only give you income but that nation too. Heres what I noticed that when I have a nation exporting goods but have no trading post there, I select that territory and right click on the port and it tells me it is recieving anywhere to a few florins of income to about 25. Now if you modded the game to where ports would recieve almost the same income you are for exporting there, would in turn greatly help the A.I. for its poor managemant of trade. Even with the wesmod I have seen the A.I. build about 10 times more ships than before (even ran into the Spanish Armada of 12 ships in 1 stack kinda pissed me off actually because it served no purpose for where it was at, and could put to much greater use in 6 stacks of 2 to extend there trading power even further) they still do not seem to string there ships out well. It is even worse for the Kieveans when they have acces to trade in both the north and the south and move there ships back and forth trying to get them to 1 coast or the other.

[desdichado]

Oaty, I like your idea. MedMod does make AI trade more and have ships in more provinces but I think it is still too easy too get much more trade income than AI. (I am playing earlier version of MedMod so later versions may have helped here??). But i like your suggestion of increasing the import income - that way if you want more money from trade you will automatically give the AI more money - very clever http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Brent_james - I just finished a Hungarian campaign (early, expert MedMod) where I limited my ships to only my own coastal provinces so as to artifically restrict trade income and this dried up anyway when I went to war with those trading partners. Makes game a lot more tricky and I ended up having more generals than armies which at least helped me to cycle my generals when they took casualties - I didn't allow myself to merge general's units - they had to be retrained and most were royal knights which created a logjam in Hungary Ended up going into mot battles with one 16-18 units. Having only a few reinforcements makes you very miserly when it comes to spending the lives of your men. Bridge battles are suddenly a littlemore grueling

If you want a challenge give it a go - try not too increase farm income too much as you will find you replace one thing with another.

I just reread your post - upping the farm income of only certain provinces will make them rather strategically important and could result in many battles to control which could easily destroy the farm improvements being fought over. Hmmm, interesting. Half your armies will be peasants and the like.

Good luck and hope it turns out well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Oh forgot, welcome to the org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[el_slapper]

Playing MedMod 1.85, I have to tell that having more trade than others require a HUGE fleet to prevent attacks. And that is costly. I can even not trade outside my zone of influence, as I was doing before(5 provinces Danmark trading up to the black sea... no more, end ups in Costa Verde).

[Ironside]

That income change could be good and it seems that the comp trades better in MTW VI. I have only played two MTW campaigns in the expansion but in both games the comp had large, spread out fleets. The Byzantines had three full stacks of ships and destoyed my entire fleet in one game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif . But it's more of a challenge to control an empire without boats. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
The Danes gained more than 9k a year in trade in the other game (it was a GA) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

[brent_james]

That is a good idea oaty. I don't know much about editing that stuff though.

I don't have VI so I don't have the newest medmod. I have played the latest ones for the original Medieval 1.1 and yeah, the AI builds ships like crazy, but they don't seem to know what they are doing with them.

I'm also getting rid of the farming upgrades. I figure they would get in the way of income too much, and like you mentioned, they could be destroyed by invasions.

I'm thinking of upping the income on most provinces, but yes, doing most of the income increase on the 'important' ones, to make them much more strategically and financially important than others.

This could lead to larger armies. I prefer that, because it seems a little more realistic. And I dont think its right if you struggle to hold a 1000 man army, while a rebellion may pop up with 3000, or a faction re-emerges with 3000.

I'm still not sure how I want to divide the map. I'm giving Spain Aragon, and the HRE the italian provinces (mostly). No italians or Aragonese.

[TheBrux]

When I play MTW (I don't have VI) I always make a rule that I never build trade houses for exactly the reasons you state above. So I think it would be a good idea to remove trade.

I don't know much about modding TW but the ideal solution would be to have the amount of trade a flat rate, so you are either trading your goods or you are not. Instead of the current system where you can trade your produce over and over. Basically you would make it like mines but you would still need to have *one* shipping route to get the income.

[Razor1952]

Getting rid of trade...


Actually the mod I just did goes a long way to this.

The problem is really the huge income you can get from sea trade(say 10k for those good trade provinces) then you make 1 million gc and wipe the board.

Med mod encourages trade for some of the ai personalities, other ai personalities still suffer.

So I have reordered the VALUE of trade goods, sea provinces get poor value trade goods, inland provinces who only have local trade get high value goods.

Of course now income is decreased, farm and mine income is boosted.

The effect is most ai personalities now get a chance as their base income is higher.

Shipping gives a player a huge strategic advantage of being able to invade anywhere, moove his troops anywhere, and stop sea invasions everywhere. Add that to massive trade benefits and shipping is too strong. hence my severe reduction in sea trade value.

BTW my mod is only for VI, but it is simple enough to do this with 1.1 by editing startpos. Take a look at my mod if you're unsure.

[mystic brew]

oh, if you're getting rid of farm upgrades, make sure you mod the horse farmer etc

Otherwise a mod with nada cavalry. not so much fun

[brent_james]

Quote[/b] (mystic brew @ Sep. 19 2003,05:21)]oh, if you're getting rid of farm upgrades, make sure you mod the horse farmer etc

Otherwise a mod with nada cavalry. not so much fun
Yep, I know. I got rid of those requirements, and got rid of trading posts.

I tried playing it yesturday but my game crashed when I went to end my turn on the first year.

When I get this all settled I would love to upload the files if anyone wants to try it out. I'm very new at this so I would be very happy to hear suggestions or constructive critism http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Gregoshi]

Greeting brent_james and Ironside. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Thanks for joining us here at the Org.