Starting Money

[kiwitt]

I was wondering, Should that amount of money be variable, i.e. based on the starting revenue. The higher the base revenue, the lower the starting money.

A formula could be "10,000 - (Total of all provinces revenue.)"

This could balance the game a bit.

[SirGrotius]

I never thought of that before. It'd be also interesting to vary starting money based on historical estimates or even facts (if those exist, which I doubt) for each faction.

[kiwitt]

Also, for Difficult levels it could be also;

Easy = 10,000 - (Provincial Income x 0.5)
Normal = 8,000 - (Provincial Income x 1.0)
Hard = 6,000 - (Provincial Income x 1.5)
Expert = 4,000 - (Provincial Income x 2.0)

Note: this may put some in negative territory, and the factions will need to hold of building until they get into positive.

PS: I may do a calculation later, if someone is interested. I will use the region guide (excluding initial trade income)

[PseRamesses]

I actually tried playing games with O florins which led to the conclusion of the inbalance of the games economics because only FRA, SPA and ITA emerged with an active economy. So I came to the conclusion that 10.000 florins, or even more minus the sum of province income was more balanced.

[Quokka]

That won't work on a provincial income basis. Think about the HRE in EARLY, they have one of the highest provincial incomes in the game but their net income is close to zero and can go negative very quickly.

Have you played Expert much? If you have and still feel the need to reduce the money further just edit it in the startpos file. It'd be tough to try and play the Poles on Expert with less than 4000 Fl.

You have to be limiting this to the Human player correct? Otherwise

Quote[/b] ]Note: this may put some in negative territory, and the factions will need to hold of building until they get into positive.

this will lead to en even longer period of Peasant Supremacy. The AI has a hard enough time making money now without limiting it further.

[Brutal DLX]

The real issue is that the AI does not seem to disband older troops/depleted ones when better ones are available. Their only means of troop reduction is warring. Naturally, this affects smaller factions more than larger ones, a change of starting money will not do much about that. It should be adressed for RTW by the CA devs.

[Oaty]

Hmmm I wonder what you would have to face in few years if you gave each faction 50,000 florins to start with. Maybe you would be crying peasants please send some peasants against me. Sounds very tempting to do not only would you have to face higher quality troops but also run into teched out provinces.

[Quokka]

Quote[/b] (Brutal DLX @ Jan. 27 2004,17:02)]The real issue is that the AI does not seem to disband older troops/depleted ones when better ones are available. Their only means of troop reduction is warring. Naturally, this affects smaller factions more than larger ones, a change of starting money will not do much about that. It should be adressed for RTW by the CA devs.
Yes that is a major problem, that and the AI doesn't know how to save money, it will build something every turn it can afford it. If it has an income of 300 FL it will build 2 Spearmen instead of building nothing this turn and then building the boat it needs to complete its trade network next turn (or Feudal Knights or ...), which virtually ensures that it will never get enough money to build that boat, which means it will never have enough money again and so on.

Playing with VI I added the -ian extension to the shortcut and at the beginning of each game I go through each faction and assign governor titles and an initial province build order. This at least stops the Governor of Constantinople going to the 0 Acumen, 2* Varangian Guard and other such inanities. It also means that at least some of the provinces get some decent tech and hopefully some decent troops. The command star titles had to be assigned or they would be assigned to the highest generals, not highest acumen. Any left over titles would be assigned by the AI as soon as a 4 acumen unit became available.

Later, before I started playing MedMod, I would go through at every GA scoring period and reorganise their armies, disband Peasants, Combine units, retrain Princes etc. I remember once that I disbanded 138 units of Peasants from the Byzantines saving them 5100 FL in upkeep. They amassed this in 25 years. More typical was around 50 and getting less later in the game as their provinces teched up and their fleets expanded earning more money.

The faction that needs reorganising the most is the Mongols. After a few years their stacks are a mess of small units and they can become ineffective armies despite still being the most numerous overall.

[Brutal DLX]

Wow, that procedure would be too much of a hassle for me...
Since the building conservation during a siege was introduced, I have noticed much better developed provinces. In Late I usually see a lot of citadels, and armies consist of chivalric seargents, halberdiers, crossbows and sometimes even ChivKnights. The problem is that those are often not at full strength and also mixed with remnants of 300 year old slav warriors or javelin troops that give the human player a big edge.

I have only slightly modded my game, minor resource and unit changes (Early varangians, footknights buildable in 2 provinces) and no change to faction behaviour or building/training preference, that's why I'm amazed to see people speak of fighting peasant armies only. I can only imagine that either they play a quick rush and conquer style or that by saying "peasants" they refer to the whole non-elite group of units that would also include useful units like vikings or militia types. In my campaigns, only factions that are sitting and never go to war are largely stuck with the peasant armies they initially built, it happens mostly to the Egyptians and Polish.