Play for eternity?

[Sirrvs]

Hehe, eternity, sort of. Is there a way to mod the game so that old units never become obsolete? For example, I'm playing as the English and I conquered Scandinavia and I got a kick out of integrating Viking units into my armies but then they disappeared from my training options around the year 1200. Any way to make it so that I could still produce Viking units if I wanted to?

[edit]Sorry, bit of a side question too. Are there any mods that let all units be produced in one year? (I always use the .worksundays. cheat because to me it doesn't make sense that it takes years to build things like watch towers and docks, hehe) So I'm looking for a way to make units be produced the same way.

[Goofball]

[edit]Sorry, bit of a side question too. Are there any mods that let all units be produced in one year? (I always use the .worksundays. cheat because to me it doesn't make sense that it takes years to build things like watch towers and docks, hehe) So I'm looking for a way to make units be produced the same way.
Since most units only take one year to build, I'm not sure what you are asking. As far as the few that take more than one year (i.e. VG, ships), you could simply use the Gnome editor to reduce their build time to 1 year.

[Sir William Wallace]

i was wondering if there was a way to play eternity,, like not have the game end, and have the years just keep going. Also i was wonderign if there was a way to change the time setting from years,, to seasons like in STW and RTW?

[Sirrvs]

Since most units only take one year to build, I'm not sure what you are asking. As far as the few that take more than one year (i.e. VG, ships), you could simply use the Gnome editor to reduce their build time to 1 year.

There isn't a way to use the Gnome editor to make units like Viking Huscarles never become obsolete is there?

[Ldvs]

There isn't a way to use the Gnome editor to make units like Viking Huscarles never become obsolete is there?

Yes, use the gnome editor. You can change the training time of all your units. If you open the building production file you'll also be able to change the required time of construction.

In MTW you can't play for eternity, but you can change the end date. Just type the end date you want in the campmap/startpos files. (It's at the beginning of the files, you won't have to seek for long ~;) )

[Sirrvs]

Cool, maybe I'll change the construction time for ships and stuff. But what about the Viking units? They become obsolete (meaning I can't train them anymore) around the year 1200. Is this setting stored somewhere in the units file or is it something that can't be changed?

[Ludens]

Cool, maybe I'll change the construction time for ships and stuff. But what about the Viking units? They become obsolete (meaning I can't train them anymore) around the year 1200. Is this setting stored somewhere in the units file or is it something that can't be changed?
Yes, also in Gnome editor, collumn 20. Change 'EARLY' into 'ALL_PERIODS' (without the quotation marks).

[Sirrvs]

Yes, also in Gnome editor, collumn 20. Change 'EARLY' into 'ALL_PERIODS' (without the quotation marks).

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks dude!

[EatYerGreens]

Hi Sirrvs,

Your second point, about training more than one unit per province per year touches on something that has bothered me since STW. Now, I wouldn't mind so much if it was one unit per dojo (or MTW equivalent) per province per year. In other words, the ability to train 'in parallel'. If you have several training schools, then you should be able more than one unit at once.

I think the concept is like with modern military academies, where they turn out one 'class' every year. In the case of the Japanese dojos, it could have been that there was only one master archer or swordfighter etc. per establishment, hence it takes a year to teach 60 students. In the case of cavalry, it could take even longer as the horses require special training too!

In MTW, there's a subtle difference as, instead of training facilities, the buildings are just the weapon makers. Perhaps the implication is that your faction has just the one troop-training facility per province, so each year you have to choose what type of unit to train and it's your weapon-makers who determine your range of training options. With nothing but a fort, you just get peasants.

I was going to make a point about 3 years building time for a ship actually being quite sensible - for 18th century multi-cannoned things maybe! I've no idea how long it took in medieval times. Maybe the lower tech tools they had at the time meant that smaller sized warships took just as long, in their day. All the same, if the picture of it is anything to go by, the base level unit, the barque, should be at most a one-year build.

On the other hand, maybe the game is trying to represent the time taken to recruit and train the ships' crew, as much as the time taken to construct the thing?

Whilst it is frustrating that you can't train ships and troops in parallel and, needless to say, you will be building your first shipyards in your province which has the biggest castle upgrade to date - and thus probably is also responsible for the training of your best-equipped troop types - it's probably a good thing that the game is setup in this way. Otherwise the AI will probably make the most of its seemingly infinite money supply and out-build you in next to no time.

Not being able to construct more than one building at a time is probably the game-designers' idea of protection against players unintentionally overspending themselves into a position whereby a sudden need for fresh troops, say, can't be met due to excessive construction commitments made in a previous turn.

I'm playing my first ever campaign as the English and I think the bulk of my income is coming from sea trade. This could so easily fall apart at the seams if I get thoughroughly blockaded. I've had sporadic incidences of this so far but luckily I'd got my ships stretching from the Baltic to the coasts of Spain before other factions' ships began to appear. For some unknown reason, they move them about without seeming to attempt forming a complete trade route of their own. Call it exploring :) Anyone notice how ships allow you to look into neighbouring provinces and see castles, building lists and army stacks and troop movements, if not the stack contents? Ships as mobile watch towers? ~:D

At worst, a blockade in the English channel would cut my trade incomes in half but the routes either side of it still worked. If I was blockaded along the full length of my route, I might be in serious trouble just trying to maintain my troop numbers. On the off-chance of this happening later I'm making the most out of the current profits by building up farm income and upgrading some trading posts to merchants. In STW I was always hobbling along, nearly broke, only building up serious money once I was more or less in a winning position anyway. In MTW I have a piddly little collection of provinces and a long way to go but 16,000 in the bank and more rolling in by the year. That's much more than I'd ever seen in an STW game (give or take the building-things-for-the-heck-of-it I used to do in the closing stages of a campaign). I've read other players talk of having money upwards of a million but how they could do this without winning the game outright eludes me at the moment.

[Ludens]

EYG, the computer does not have unlimited cash. It used to be able to deficit-spend in the original STW, but CA removed this after MI because it made the game too difficult or too unfair. In MTW the computer is quite often broke. This is the reason why it produces so much militia-class units: it are the only ones it can afford. MedMod is popular because it increases the priority for farms, ships and merchants, effictivily giving the computer more cash. In MTW, trade is the biggest money spinner, but cost the most to set up and trade can stop really fast. That is why players can gain tons of money while the AI is floundering; the AI does not build enough ships and does odd things with the ones it has.

The point about building one unit per province is probably added for convenience reasons: more would be hard to program and hard to display on the interface. Hard, but not impossible. Perhaps it also prevents early game rushes (allowing every one to build up before commencing battle) and bankrupcy. Lack of money the reason why the AI and most beginning players are not very succesful.

I don't think unit buildtimes represents anything but balancing: ships should not be build in large numbers (because the stacks only can manage 16 ships), so building them is slowed down. Same goes for Kensai: their buildtime is so long it becomes unattractive to station one in every province, but you can still recruit one or two for your main armies.

[EatYerGreens]

> EYG, the computer does not have unlimited cash.

Yes, you're quite right about that. I said "seemingly infinite" but I think that was written more in expectation, after STW experiences, than from observation. As the game has progressed, it certainly hasn't been borne out by the observations. Troop numbers may seem large but, as you said, they are low quality units and it never seems to take the approach of maintaining a certain level of profits, without fail, teching up, then disbanding redundant unit types and replacing with better ones. Higher maintainence costs but somehow better value for money once on the battlefield.

The hazard of building troops right up until the point at which profits dwindle is that tech development is drastically slowed and the loss of a single province puts them into negative equity in a hurry and that's the first stage of total collapse, like a balloon.

As a for instance, I'm up to 1297 and the Byzantines have been crushed back to just Rhodes. They have a King, about 4 princes and about 4 more 20-man Royal Knight units (Katanks??), presumably leftovers from expired Kings and maybe one unit of infantry. I checked the income level for the island, then subtracted the maintainence costs of their Cav units and was into the negative by the 4th unit. None of the other factions has the will or the resources to wipe them out for good and somehow the AI hasn't the sense to disband the units it can no longer afford to support. Then again, even just the King and Prince's units would still leave it in negative equity. What that faction ought to do is a suicidal invasion attempt overseas, leaving the king at home, then let invaders in, voluntarily retreat to the castle, die in a siege and at least stand a chance of a re-emergence, later in the game, perhaps with a refreshed bank balance - enough to get farm improvements started and at least some import income, even if Rhodes has nothing to trade outward for itself.

Having just seen the thread about donations from the Pope, it suddenly strikes me that it could be fun to be able to give cash handouts to other factions - allies or not - just to keep your larger competitors busy in the places you can't reach yourself. The Byz being Orthodox, they're not going to get a penny out of old Popey.... ;)

[HicRic]

EYG, as per your question about the players getting more than a million in the bank, it's because you can get that kind of money without having a huge empire, and so you simply can't spend all the money, so that's why they haven't won the game at that point (although with that much cash, you've as good as won)

To make that kind of money, take any provinces with trade goods you have and build the best merchant level in each, and have a ship in every zone containing a port (and have ships to link them all together). Just having about ten good merchants in constantinople/antioch general area of the map and a ship in every sea zone gave my income of around 20K florins every turn. After 100 years of that you'd have 2 million florins, less the amount you spend. Of course, a smaller income (say 10K a turn) is easier to set up and you'll still make 1 million every 100 years. Of course if you're a fast player you might find yourself in a position where you rule most of the map by the time you reach that point (it can take a fair while to set up the trade network).