Agent Maintenence Mod Possible?

[Coucy]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on this wonderful forum, so please be nice to me! : )

One thing I've noticed while playing this great game is that lots and lots of Agents get built - both by me and the AI. Of ALL types. Probably because they are both relatively and cheap and useful...a very nice combination. AND there is no maintence cost, which means you can build practically zillions of 'em without much penalty.

The problem I see with this is I am as a result spending an inordinate amount of time micromanaging all these lil' buggers. It seems most of my turns are spent trying to keep track of which Emissaries are out wife-hunting, what Assassins have foolishly strayed into enemy territory pursuing prey, sending Bishops and Cardinals here and there, not to mention finding new ways to keep idle Spys and Inquistioners busy, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the Agent system in the game. I just wish I did not have to deal with so gosh darned many of them!

So anyways, it occured to me that a possible solution would be to make Agents cost some yearly maintenence, just like troops. That to me sounds like a win-win scenario on both the gameplay AND realism front; less Agents would obviously be less hassle for us human players, and its kinda realistic I think: Medieval rulers back then who maintained lavish courts, multitudes of civil servants, and various other far-flung agents of the Crown had to PAY these guys salaries (just like standing armies got paid)...and these Royal bureaucracies could and did get expensive for a ruler back then to maintain (just like today, in fact).

What I am thinking about is a yearly maintence on all agents (including Princesses - simulates dowry funds). 10-20% of recruitment cost sounds about right to me.

So...questions: Is this sort of Mod do-able by modders? And if so, is there any reason I missed why this would in actuality be a BAD idea?

Thanks!
Coucy

[barocca]

a piece of cake,
simply edit the support cost column in the crusaders_unit_prod11.txt file,
open in excell or similar and save as tab delimited
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Lord Krazy]

you can download a no agents mod if you
want from the org.It's from one of the
CA guy's Eat cold steele I think
and some exel stuff from Target or is it
Tagert he he.

Is that nice enough?

LK http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Coucy]

Yeah, like I said, I like Agents, but in moderation! : ) The no-Agent mod is too extreme a solution for me. I'd prefer just to penalize a player for building hoards of 'em, by setting a reasonable yearly Maintenence for each Agent.

Anyhow, I TRIED to edit the "0" in the 4th field of the units stats (which looks like the Maintence field to me) of all the Agents to a number, to add a Maintenence cost, but it did not take. At least, when I click on Finances, it does NOT list my Agents as an expense item (I did the math and confirmed this). Am I missing something?

Oh well, at least it did not crash the game!

Coucy

[barocca]

when you say a number, what number did you insert?

4 = 30 florins
25 = 62 florins

there is no mathematical formula which relates to the cost and the support cost,

a unit costing 375 florins has a support value of 25, which translates to 62 florins,
BUT a unit of 775 cost also has a support value of 25, which again translates to 62 florins!

so the support cost must be a table of some sort

[Coucy]

Ah...interesting. No, what I did was assume the number entered was the number of florins. I didn't realize the situation was more complex than that. So I entered 10's, 20's and 30's. Which may have had no meaning.

I'll try to use other numbers, that other military units use...

Coucy

[Coucy]

Bleh, try as I might, I can't seem to find a way to do this. Something other than editing the "crusaders_unit_prod11.txt file" on Agents needs to be done methinks.

[barocca]

i'm getting the same "no cost" results here,

must be linked to the unit type identifier,


Q for Dev types,
Giljay? Target? EatColdSteel?

can we make agents have a support cost?


to see in action edit the support cost column for spy to 50, the same as a carrack - a single "man" unit,
then add a spy to the startpos file,
then either delete all troops from the startpos file,
or simply enter game and disband all troops,
next lower all tax to minimum, check and recheck costs to get the income screen to "update",
do the math,
end the turn,
and the "costs" for maintaining agents are NOT removed from your income...

[dclare4]

So support costs are FIXED??

Danngggg!!!!

I was really hoping to make military units like really expensive with others really cheap so that you would be forced to rely on smaller forces or subterfuge...

Rats!

Anyone know the actual costs in florins and their equivalent number value for the crusader unit file?

thanks,
Gilbert de Clare

[barocca]

i do not think standard military units costs are fixed,

we are trying to give agents a support cost,
thus force the AI not to use so many,

[dclare4]

Okay... so if I give the Royal Knights lets say a value of 365 florins as maintenance they'll charge me exactly 365 florins per unit per turn?

Thanks,
Gilbert de Clare

[barocca]

no

BUT we do NOT know how the value is calculated!

a unit of 20 Royal Knights has a support cost of 60, represented by the number 25!

if this was for the unit, then support cost would be 25,
if it was per man in the unit then unit support would be 500!!

25(list S.cost)/20(men) = 1.25
60(S.cost)/20(men) = 3
60(S.cost)/25(list S.cost) = 2.4

does this make sense to anyone?

.

and, http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif,
can we assign a support cost to agents?

[EatYerGreens]

Apologies for digging up an ancient thread, especially if this has long since been worked out.


Okay... so if I give the Royal Knights lets say a value of 365 florins as maintenance they'll charge me exactly 365 florins per unit per turn? Thanks, Gilbert de Clare


no

BUT we do NOT know how the value is calculated!

a unit of 20 Royal Knights has a support cost of 60, represented by the number 25!

if this was for the unit, then support cost would be 25,
if it was per man in the unit then unit support would be 500!!

25(list S.cost)/20(men) = 1.25
60(S.cost)/20(men) = 3
60(S.cost)/25(list S.cost) = 2.4

does this make sense to anyone?

.

and, http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif,
can we assign a support cost to agents?

There is no relationship with the initial training cost of the unit, so set what you like for that.

I see the maintainance cost figures as being cost "bands", if you like.

The formula I came up with seems to give the right results:-

[{Cost band} x 7.5 x {number of men in unit(scaleable)}]/60

Some examples.

3^UnitName|=Maint|=Formula|=Result|=In Game
2^Archers|=band 4|4 x 7.5 x 60/60|=37.5|=37
2^Spears|=band 4|4 x 7.5 x 100/60|=50|=50
2^FMAA|=band 6|6 x 7.5 x 60/60|=45|=45
2^Naptha|band 5|5 x 7.5 x 12/60|=7.5|=7
2^JanissaryHI|band 9|9 x 7.5 x 60/60|=67.5|=67
2^Catapult|band 10|10 x 7.5 x 10/60|=12.5|=12
2^ChivalricKnights|band 17|17 x 7.5 x 40/60|=85|=85
2^RoyalKnights|band 25|25 x 7.5 x 20/60|=62.5|=62

The formula breaks down somwhat for ships and agents, counting as one man. For instance. Barque is "Band 20" but 20 x 7.5 x 1/60 gives a result of just 2.5, which is obviously incorrect. 20 is actually more like the cost per sea sector distant from home port.

We know that the game is coded to report ship costs to you but no equivalent 'keeping track' is done for agents. The values for them are set to zero in UnitProd11 but seem to be redundant anyway. Maybe they thought that any token figures would give people the false impression that they were even worth editing?

EDIT Reason: Table not displaying correctly after adding a post to the thread.

[Yukon Cornelius]

I thought the cost for units (not ships or agents) was [upkeep cost] * (1 / 8) * [Number of Men]. So in one turn 8 men costs as much as the listed upkeep.

[EatYerGreens]

For the purposes of discussion, we're not interested in the initial training cost of units, if that's what your formula relates to.

Then again, 100 spearmen cost 50pa to maintain and 50/8*100=625 but they only cost 150 to build. I don't get what you're on about. ~:confused:

[Yukon Cornelius]

[upkeep cost] refers to the value put into the upkeep column in the unit_prod file.

For example, look at peasants.
[upkeep cost] = 3
[Number of Men] = 100 (looking at a brandy-new unit built on normal unit size)

Upkeep Cost per Turn = 3 * (1/8) * 100
Upkeep Cost per Turn = 3 * (1/4) * 50
Upkeep Cost per Turn = 3 * (1/2) * 25
Upkeep Cost per Turn = 3 * 12.5
Upkeep Cost per Turn = 37.5 florins


Now, if you fight a battle and lose half those peasants, your unit now has 50 men. So the new upkeep cost is...

Upkeep Cost per Turn = 3 * (1/8) * 50
Upkeep Cost per Turn = half the upkeep cost of the full unit = (1/2) * 37.5
Upkeep Cost per Turn = 18.75 florins


I don't know whether the game truncates or rounds fractional upkeep costs. It may actually add fractional unit upkeep (i.e. on the first turn you lost 37 florins but the second you lose 38).


[Edit]
I remember seeing this upkeep formula (less formally stated) somewhere on this forum once upon a time, though it may have been in the famous Numerology thread instead.

Also, I would assume this formula applies to agents as well as units. I'm not entirely sure how ship upkeep works, though. Ship upkeep may be [upkeep cost] * [distance from friendly port] where [distance from friendly port] = 1 when it's sitting just outside your province.

[EatYerGreens]

My apologies. You were talking about "cost band" divided by 8 * number of men but you said "upkeep cost", which confused me, since that's the end result of the formula, which we are looking for.

And I only just realised that 7.5/60 = 1/8. Doh!

Judging by what's gone before, in this thread, it seems that the game simply takes no notice of any maintainance cost applied to agents - there's no code there to read that data field and subtract the result from the Treasury each year.

My attempts at adding faith propagation properties to a military unit were similarly ignored, as the game only executes that code when the piece is an agent.