MTW Pocket Mod: General

[caravel]

Very good point. I hated the Geisha. Specially REBEL geishas (I saw -felt- one once)
They were probably about the worst thing about STW, as well as the rubbish introduced by the MI expansion, and if you didn't want to end up losing all of your generals you were pretty much obliged to train your own Geishas to deal with the AI ones. The GAs are similar in that they can simply toast all of your generals one after the other once they get to a certain valour.

Cardinals would be more fitting, imho, as bishops can be churned out from any church.
I agree. I have looked at adding a zeal increase to Bishops and decided against it. Only the player can use Inquisitors intelligently to boost zeal for crusades anyway so this will help the AI.

Then again, the çuestion is whether it should be easy to plug the population into a religious frenzy from early on, or if it should reçuire some effort, which in turn would regulate the number and strenght of "holy wars", to a greater or lesser degree. I think that, with increased zeal, the number of crusades around would increase, if only because the player would have an easier time raising zeal, and their strenght would be certainly greater. The problem is twofold: Muslim factions, which do not Jihad nearly as much as the catholic factions crusade, would likely be on the receiving end of "juggernautish" crusaders, which could be spawned from early on (whereas Jihads would reçuire the Grand Mosçue to be built). The other problem is that one or more crusades following the same route would tear down the garrisons in their path (as most provinces would hold a high zeal), resulting in... odd, geopolitical changes.
A possible solution to "huge crusades" would be increasing the building reçuirements for Chapterhouses (which right now can be built before you have access to mounted sergeants). This would give non-catholic factions the chance to build up a decent army to withstand the crusade. And would limit once again the number of crusades going around, which is convenient too, to avoid several crusades following the same path ripping apart the garrisons there.
I've thought about raising the requirements for the Chapter House, but don't particularly want it to depend on the Cathedral. Perhaps it could be made to depend on the Reliquary? This brings me onto a related subject. i had considered turning the Church, Monastery, Reliquary and Cathedral into a single tech tree line. The first building would be the church and the others would function as upgrades. The Chapter House could be added in between the Reliquary and Cathedral. I'm just wondering if this system would make it simpler for the AI, as I've noticed that it often still fails to build churches.

That faction´s low piety generals, or all AI´s low piety generals? The latter would be an annoyance, as you would be the only one to suffer Papal presence, no matter where you were. The former makes sense (specially if only the papacy issues inçuisitors) as the AI wouldnt go around destroying itself. Plus, in my HRE game I have a pope with 0 piety. (this would present problems to the agent handling AI if it went after its own)
The AI faction burns it's own generals with it's own Inquisitors. I have seen this a few times, and definitely remember the Papacy doing it. I remember clicking on the Inquisitor in question and seeing that his mission was to burn a papal general. Next I checked out the target, and apart from low piety, he was a decent general with maximum loyalty and no vices. This proves that the AI sends out Inquisitors at random targets. It seems like a bug as the AI doesn't use assassins to assassinate it's own generals or agents.

Well, on the other hand, having only papal inçuisitors to deal with wouldn´t be that much of a problem. :frog: At worst, standing ready to kill them off as they arrive.
I think it's a good idea as they would operate invisibly and silently. When caught you wouldn't know who they were as it would just say "enemy spy caught". You could think of them as Inquisitors doing the work for the Church, or a monastic order, in general. You would only know about them when they start one of their damned inquisitions in your province or decide to try one of your generals for heresy. Keeping spies or assassins your provinces as well as the usual Bishops, will give you enough protection.

Granted, sending a character which is essentially a (well, what she is) with open fanfarre and noise to a foreign ruler's court would be a bit unfitting. On the other hand, it's not exactly the kind of "threat" spies would be looking for, either. :p
BTW: does the AI build them? Never seen it, but it might be because of their high build reçuirements.
I have never seen the tech up to the Sultan's Harem as yet, so I'm not sure if they build them or not. They should do as the unit choices are set. The reason why I'd have them as invisible units is because the player can spam them, despite the cost and build time, once they have teched up to them. This will further deter this, as they will be cleaned off by counterspies and border forts.

[Noir]

A few comments on the preceeding posts:

1. Relative to rebelliousness of provinces and religious conversion rates:

Increasing the default rebelliousness, means that provinces will rebel faster than before if you leave them with a small garrison. There is also another way of doing it suggested to me by Puzz3D that alters the level of province loyalty that rebellions will happen and this is including -loyalty:xxx (say for example 130) to your MTW shortcut. The AI reckognizes it and plays with it.

What i did in my home mod for MedMod IV was to raise the rebelliousness of most provinces to 2 (a few were set to 1 and a few to 3, 4 and 5).

Since the AI garrisons provinces, he has less troops available to invade according to the threshold of the personality he has taken. The AI does invasions on the basis of the No. of men that guard the next province relative to the No. of men he has in his own bordering province.

This effectively implies that:
1. Invasions happen less often - ie the overall level of aggressivness between factions is lowered.
2. There are no more 0-garrisoned provinces and all the troops are not at the expanding frontier, as the AI typically does in vanilla.
3. Invasions are slower (the remmnants of a victorious army are not often enough to deal with the rebellion)

By having garisson armies the AI achieves territorial robustness over space and time ie his territories shift far less often and so are more developed as he holds them for longer. This i further enhanced with strict homelads, forcing the AI to stay whithin a geographical area that he reckognises as his recruiting core.

The other fator that greatly afects this is upkeep costs. If they are too high, then invasions happen even less frequently - if they are too low they happen more and more often till the altered rebelliousness doesn't have any effect.

By tweaking the two i was able to reach the size of battles that pleased me which was a one full stack(+a few extra units perhaps) vs another full stack.

The use of agents further affects that, as spies and priests affect the loyalty and faith of a province.

In particular i cut the conversion rates from buildings to about a tenth of what they currently are and from priests to about a fourth, and i also gave to muslim bodyguards the ability to work as priests. Wes has done that for the Golden Horde BG units. This helps the muslims to keep their lands muslims as there are about 13 catholic factions and only 4 muslim ones on the map that in vanilla ensures that everyone eventually turns catholic no matter how hard you try.

2. Relative to agents

Agents i worked this way:
Agents are now introduced by the compass and gun-powder progressively to reflect the historical development of centralised states during the campaign. Gameplay wise this also provides with playing for some eras with not the full range.

The division is as follows:
1. Religious era: Start to Compass
Only religious agents are available to reflect the emphasis on religious matters. Note that conversion rates are now about 25% of what they were in the original game – that is provinces do not change religion with 4 priests in 10 turns. They take now about 40 to 50 turns to change, and if at the border more (as they get the conversion wave from both religions in that case).
2. Era of political machinations: Compass to Gunpowder
Assassins are introduced. Inquisitors and the like now do not reign supreme as they can get assassinated.
3. Macchiavelian Era: Gunpowder onwards
Now spies are also available. Note that assassins and spies, can be produced at the 1st level only (the rest was remobed) and sine border forts are also out they are your only defence against enemy spies and assassins. Some of them will need to work as counterspies and you’ll find that they tech up pretty quickly.

GOOD GAMERS RULE:
No offensive spy use. That is not moving spies to enemy provinces unless you hold them partly or totally (siege) from the previous turn. That prevents putting the AI to trouble with caused rebellions (he can’t really defend against that).

I find that the game is lots of fun in this way as there are 3 distinct agent gameplays.

In this way, religion reigns supreme in early, while late on inquisitors and priests may be assassinated.

Note also that i have removed the border forts. this accounts for way more fun gameplay IMO if the player does not play with offensive use of spies.

I disagree with the ideas proposed by Cambyses II of taking off the inquisitors from factions other than the papacy, making them invisible and expect the border forts to capture them (entirely ahistorical/does not reflect the power they yielded in their hey day neither the political machinations they were involved in) and also it subtracts some of the fun that the game offers.

I always hated the fact that the border forts worked as an inmistakable net for capturing all troubles, that effectively acts as a protector for the AI factions that are too vulnerable to what the player can do and so i modded them out and introduced agents gradually in.

Priests have the power to cower or incite rebellions in the early era due to the low conversion rates - and you can't assassinate them.

I agree that the GIs should be removed or severely limited ie Papacy only for example, and in fact this is what i did in my home mod.

Adding zeal increasing powers is not a good way to deal with weak AI crusades IMO, because itwill work to the advantage of the player. Zeal needs to be increased very very slowly with many agents and i cut down on that too in my home mod. I dislike cheap tactics as rushing an inquisitor or two in a province before a crusade appears to make it attract more units.

A crusade needs to become more powerful by means of messing with the crusader build prod and so ensure that it gives two stack army by default in early and one full army by default in high and less than that in late.

This is what Wes has done in MedMod IV and it works wonders. In that way i play with the default army and never add extra units myself to feel the challenge of getting the crusade where it needs to be as is.

May i also add that only three factions are allowed to crusade: the French, the HRE and the English as it was historically - i dilike the idea of Polish and Hungarian crusades and even more of Spanish crusades that bears no resemblence to reality to my understanding and from a gameplay perspective overloads the map with "revenge/opportunistic" crusades more than enything else.

Many Thanks

Noir

[The Unknown Guy]

Since the AI garrisons provinces, he has less troops available to invade according to the threshold of the personality he has taken. The AI does invasions on the basis of the No. of men that guard the next province relative to the No. of men he has in his own bordering province.

This effectively implies that:
1. Invasions happen less often - ie the overall level of aggressivness between factions is lowered.
2. There are no more 0-garrisoned provinces and all the troops are not at the expanding frontier, as the AI typically does in vanilla.
3. Invasions are slower (the remmnants of a victorious army are not often enough to deal with the rebellion)

By having garisson armies the AI achieves territorial robustness ie his territories shift far less often and so are more developed as he holds them for longer. This i further enhanced with strict homelads, forcing the AI to stay whithin a geographical area that he reckognises as his recruiting core.
You know, this sounds a rather intriguing possibility. So you say that the AI becomes more stable and less "expand and blow up by bloat effect" prone?

(It makes it more realistic, besides. Either you keep your subjects under your rule or bandits and mercenaries on the lines of Werner von Osbert (spelling?) will try to set up their own racket)

I´m rather eager to try this. It's changed from the startpos file in campmap, right? Any suggestions to specific province rebelliousness?


I disagree with the ideas proposed by Cambyses II of taking off the inquisitors from factions other than the papacy, making them invisible and expect the border forts to capture them (entirely ahistorical/does not reflect the power they yielded in their hey day neither the political machinations they were involved in) and also it subtracts some of the fun that the game offers.

I think it's a pity to lose the possibility of using inçuisitors altogether, althrough there's Cambyses's point of them being abused, which is true, as they work too much like the Shogun Geisha.
If restricted to the Papacy, which is an option, they should not be interceptable by spies, and the player ought to commission assasins to them.

However, if NOT restricted to the Papacy, and instead players are allowed to build them, having them being able to be caught by border forts would effectively remove most of the abuse done through inçuisitors, as you would only be able to make "Faith Ordeals" at will in your home provinces, to your own people. Making them go deep into enemy territory might mean getting caught by a spy (or, in a roleplay setting, getting "assasinated çuietly" in the border, before they can wreak havoc). It would make sense as well, as inçuisitors favoring one faction might find themselves in deep trouble if venturing in enemy territory.
(I offer this as a middleground alternative)

[Noir]

Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
You know, this sounds a rather intriguing possibility. So you say that the AI becomes more stable and less "expand and blow up by bloat effect" prone?

Yes. The blow up effect manifests much less as the AI factions spend way more time in stability and also if coupled with simplifications in the military buldings building time and costs as i suggest earlier in this thread as well as the roster simplifications (one decent unit per role per faction), makes the AI factions powers to be reckoned with and the campaign way more realistic and lessoverblown.

Another thing i did that influenced that is that i cut down the seas into 4 distinct zones and modded out the 2 higher merchants. This puts a ceiling into the trade profits that factions can make including the player - the bloat effect happens when the AI has a lot of money and starts spaming anything he can:units agents fleets. The zones communicate only with deep sea vessels that are very expensive to maintain and time consuming to build.
The zones are:
1. Eastern Med and the black sea
2. Western Med
3. Atlantic Coast to English Channel
4. Baltic sea

This also furher limits the AI factions to reasonable expansion that they can support rather than the Byzantines invading Flanders with their faction leader because they have fleets there only to be plagued by a civil war soon after he is cut off.

All these superempires that you see in the "Pictures of your empire thread" are simply not feasible. You have to work hard and play well in the battles to stay around as you face an AI that holds his act together.

The bloat happens because of the trade network being unrestricted and boat maintenance being negligible relative to the profits sea trade is making.

Bloat for the player also means "game over", if you are too rich you know you can't lose and all battles can be won by swarming the opponents - tactics are not needed anymore. The same goes for upgrades and morale bonuses which i similarly moded all out.


Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
I´m rather eager to try this. It's changed from the startpos file in campmap, right? Any suggestions to specific province rebelliousness?



Originally posted by Noir
What i did in my home mod for MedMod IV was to raise the rebelliousness of most provinces to 2 (a few were set to 1 and a few to 3, 4 and 5).

However be aware of the other factors affecting it, principally the units upkeep costs and how these relate to the margin of profit that can be made by trade in each era with every level of merchant. The two need to operate together.

Another way is to pass to you the files of my MedMod IV home mini-mod, which i'll be very happy to (this includes anyone else that wishes so).

May i also add, that i will be more than happy for Cambyses II to adapt any of the preceding suggestions for the Pocket mod, as has been discussed sometime ago with him, so please dont take it as i am "advertising" or "competing" in any way. I am not interested in releasing what i did, but i am happy to share it with others if they wish so.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I disagree with the ideas proposed by Cambyses II of taking off the inquisitors from factions other than the papacy, making them invisible and expect the border forts to capture them (entirely ahistorical/does not reflect the power they yielded in their hey day neither the political machinations they were involved in) and also it subtracts some of the fun that the game offers.

I always hated the fact that the border forts worked as an inmistakable net for capturing all troubles, that effectively acts as a protector for the AI factions that are too vulnerable to what the player can do and so i modded them out and introduced agents gradually in.
Well that's exactly why border forts have been in since STW - because the AI cannot manage spies or assassins, well agents in general, effectively. Border forts help to clean up a lot of the assassin spam that the AI produces. They also protect the AI from the player. I disagree with your removal of border forts for this reason. I know that if I removed them, that I would be able to assassinate the AI at leisure, and that the AI, especially the Byz, that has a tendency to go after a certain faction or province with it's assassins will have a field day. I dislike border forts also, and adopt the policy of not building them myself, but leave them for the AI only.

Priests have the power to cower or incite rebellions in the early era due to the low conversion rates - and you can't assassinate them.
This basically means that my priests can sit in e.g. Almoravid lands and convert at will with no danger of being picked off. The Catholic factions in particular have a habit of sending in a lot of bishops to convert a particular province before sending a crusade or before invading. You can often guess where the AI is going to attack next when you see his priests deployed en masse. This is why I would not restrict assassins or spies, as it's ahistorical and will tip the game balance in favour of massed conversions.

I agree that the GIs should be removed or severely limited ie Papacy only for example, and in fact this is what i did in my home mod.
The Grand Inquisitor was the head of the Papal Inquistion IIRC, one individual, not many. The player can tech up to these quickly and proceed to obliterate the AI catholic royalty. This is why they need to go.

Adding zeal increasing powers is not a good way to deal with weak AI crusades IMO, because itwill work to the advantage of the player. Zeal needs to be increased very very slowly with many agents and i cut down on that too in my home mod. I dislike cheap tactics as rushing an inquisitor or two in a province before a crusade appears to make it attract more units.
Zeal increasing ability needs to be added to Cardinals instead of Inquisitors. Currently Inquisitors have two "passive" abilities, that is the zeal increase and the mass inquisition. The zeal increase increases the zeal of the province by the percentage in the unit prod file on a yearly basis. The mass inquisition is an effect that has a percentage chance to occur every year. It is based on the zeal of the province. If a province is at around 60% zeal or more, the mass inquisition has a very good chance of occurring. This another "feature" that the player can take advantage of and the AI cannot. The Player can use this in several ways. The first being to increase the zeal in rival faction catholic provinces along the route to an acceptable level and then pull the inquisitor(s) out. The second is to raise zeal in your own provinces to the point of a mass inquisition and then pull out the inquisitor(s). The crusade can then be launched, leaving your own men for the most part intact, and sucking up the AI's troops in the high zeal provinces on the way. I would prefer to have cardinals that raise zeal slowly. Cardinals are much more difficult to get hold of anyway (as with imams that already function in the same way). For the Inquisitor I would remove the zeal increasing ability. For an agent that is constantly on the move burning people anyway (when used by the AI) it is not that useful, and the ability is better given to a more static agent that will stay in one place for at least a few years.

My proposal to make "invisible" Inquisitions will in my opinion, give these units some immunity from "direct assassination", but it will also mean that they have the chance of "going missing" if they stray. Historically anyone travelling in foreign parts took such a risk. Taking them out of the player's control, and giving them to the Papacy only, which in my opinion is correct, will balance it further as that way all catholic factions will be equally at risk from Inquisition. and the only way to beat them will be to increase your security (hire some thugs and have the meddler disappear). The difference is that instead of having to play cat and mouse sending your assassins chasing an Inquisitor half way across Europe, it will all be dealt with automatically and silently. As I've stated before, you won't know Inquisitors are there until you see the announcement that one of your generals was tried for heresy or until they start Inquisitions in your provinces. If caught it will read "enemy spy caught" so you will never know if you caught and Inquisitor or not. IMHO this will help the AI that is better at this kind of passive use of agents than at sending agents on missions. It will also solve the problem of the AI trying it's own generals for heresy, as only the papacy will do this now, and as they can never be wiped out, it won't affect them as such. While there has been mention of "Pet Inquisitors" by local rulers the only real example of this was before the 1230s during the Episcopal Inquisitions, it only occurred on a large scale in the Spanish Inquisition, and that falls outside of the game's time frame, though I doubt any of these would have taken it upon themselves to try and burn a heretic in Scotland or Pomerania being more interested in the affairs of the local ruler. Only Inquisitions set up by the Pope himself would have had the authority, the Papal Bull, to travel abroad and root out heresy in foreign lands. During the mid 13th century it would have been down to the Dominican Order under direct Papal Authority (The Papal Inquisition) to deal with heresy. In view of this I would also restrict Inquisitors to the high and late eras, to give the AI, and indeed the player, some breathing space.

May i also add that only three factions are allowed to crusade: the French, the HRE and the English as it was historically - i dilike the idea of Polish and Hungarian crusades and even more of Spanish crusades that bears no resemblence to reality to my understanding and from a gameplay perspective overloads the map with "revenge/opportunistic" crusades more than enything else.
Many would argue that the Reconquista of Spain was in fact a crusade. The Sixth Crusade involved the Hungarians and Austrians. The Danes were Involved directly in the Northern Crusades. The Crusades against Timur Lang involved the Lithuanians and many other Eastern Europeans.

Also considering we're not following history to the letter, it seems rather odd if the player has an Hungarian/Polish/Danish/Italian/Spanish/Aragonese/Sicilian super empire stretching across 50% of Europe but can't launch a Crusade because the Pope says: "well you're not one of the crusading factions are you?".

[Noir]

Originally posted by Cambyses II
Border forts help to clean up a lot of the assassin spam that the AI produces. They also protect the AI from the player. I disagree with your removal of border forts for this reason. I know that if I removed them, that I would be able to assassinate the AI at leisure, and that the AI, especially the Byz, that has a tendency to go after a certain faction or province with it's assassins will have a field day. I dislike border forts also, and adopt the policy of not building them myself, but leave them for the AI only.

The AI is in disadvantage only if the player plays with what i call "offensive agent use", that is assassinating and using agents out of his borders. Conversely though, if you are using the border forts that are indeed a viable alternative there is almost no advantage by them as they (agents) are all caught when operating outside your territories that effectively gives the same gameplay as the one with the iron rule i describe minus assassinations by the AI.


Originally posted by Cambyses II
This basically means that my priests can sit in e.g. Almoravid lands and convert at will with no danger of being picked off. The Catholic factions in particular have a habit of sending in a lot of bishops to convert a particular province before sending a crusade or before invading. You can often guess where the AI is going to attack next when you see his priests deployed en masse. This is why I would not restrict assassins or spies, as it's ahistorical and will tip the game balance in favour of massed conversions.

Not at all. The conversion is so slow that with frequent exhange of the povinces or with bordering of provinces of different religion it takes more than 60 years to turn them around even with the full sets of Priests the AI is using. In most cases the AI is waisting his time if he does not conquer them as well. What you describe is the gameplay of vanilla.

I have playtested this extensivelly and the possibility you are raising for playbalance is not happening at all, it works as described. As for being "ahistorical", well it's for each to decide what is historical or not in a game that is meant to be an abstraction of some sort in any case. For me it plays more historically as a gameplay, for you not.



Originally posted by Cambyses II
Many would argue that the Reconquista of Spain was in fact a crusade.
The Iberian affair was indeed in a form of a crusade that was aided massively by lords in France AFAIK that contributed in the decicive victory of the Christians that turned the tide of war. As such, and following the way you put it, it doesn't justify giving the Spanish and Aragonese the ability to properly crusade against any others then.


Originally posted by Cambyses II
The Sixth Crusade involved the Hungarians and Austrians. The Danes were Involved directly in the Northern Crusades. The Crusades against Timur Lang involved the Lithuanians and many other Eastern Europeans.

I will go with your words and point out that were involved not organised, launched or expedited is the key word here to my understanding. This is expressed well with the ability of a crusade to suck in troops from every province it passes by.

Many Thanks

Noir

[The Unknown Guy]

(Caravel) Many would argue that the Reconquista of Spain was in fact a crusade.
It was. The battle of the Navas de Tolosa was a "Crusade" in the sense that the Pope made a call to all the Northern Christian Kingdoms to join into a coalition against the Almohad Caliphate.



(Noir)
The Iberian affair was indeed in a form of a crusade that was aided massively by lords in France AFAIK that contributed in the decicive victory of the Christians that turned the tide of war. As such, and following the way you put it, it doesn't justify giving the Spanish and Aragonese the ability to properly crusade against any others then.
Back then it didnt happen, but the later, unified Spain DID crusade against the Ottoman Empire, after a fashion. Look at the battle of Lepanto, or the lifting of the besieged fortress of the Hospitalers in Malta.


(Caravel)Not at all. The conversion is so slow that with frequent exhange of the povinces or with bordering of provinces of different religion it takes more than 60 years to turn them around even with the full sets of Priests the AI is using. In most cases the AI is waisting his time if he does not conquer them as well. What you describe is the gameplay of vanilla.

I rarely (read: practically never) have managed to cause religious unrest by just spamming priests. Nor have I suffered from religious unrest, even when playing as Byzantium and being spammed by enemy bishops.



(Noir) The division is as follows:
1. Religious era: Start to Compass
Only religious agents are available to reflect the emphasis on religious matters. Note that conversion rates are now about 25% of what they were in the original game – that is provinces do not change religion with 4 priests in 10 turns. They take now about 40 to 50 turns to change, and if at the border more (as they get the conversion wave from both religions in that case).
2. Era of political machinations: Compass to Gunpowder
Assassins are introduced. Inquisitors and the like now do not reign supreme as they can get assassinated.
3. Macchiavelian Era: Gunpowder onwards
Now spies are also available. Note that assassins and spies, can be produced at the 1st level only (the rest was remobed) and sine border forts are also out they are your only defence against enemy spies and assassins. Some of them will need to work as counterspies and you’ll find that they tech up pretty quickly.


Eh, forgot to mention earlier: This I don't like. I think that spionage and assasinations have always been a part of the world's politics. To point out two instances: The Hashasini, in the Muslim world, and the assasination of a Pope (the predecessor of Clement VIII) in Rome by a man hired by the King of France. Bringing up the power struggles in the Byzantine Empire would be opening a too large can of worms :)


(Caravel) My proposal to make "invisible" Inquisitions will in my opinion, give these units some immunity from "direct assassination", but it will also mean that they have the chance of "going missing" if they stray. Historically anyone travelling in foreign parts took such a risk. True, and in fact I guess that if a ruler had reasons to fear inçuisitors heading his way, he'd dispatch a group of partisans to "deal with them. Many inçuisitors ended up assasinated by random mobs anyway. Its not like they were particularily popular.
On the other hand it would pave the way for a "massacre of the inçuisitors", in which they would effectively be almost unnoticeable in the game due to all of them being caught. Maybe make it so that they start off with higher honor, thus compensating the "interception" capabilities of border forts and spies?


Caravel:
The Grand Inquisitor was the head of the Papal Inquistion IIRC, one individual, not many. The player can tech up to these quickly and proceed to obliterate the AI catholic royalty. This is why they need to go.
I always thought that it was a made up title. For instance, Torçuemada was not "Grand Inçuisitor", but "General Inçuisitor". And it meant that he was at the head of the organization, and laid out the how-to's. Hunting frenzies were carried out by underlings.
(I have a book about the Inçuisition somewhere, but I just can't find it right now :/ )

Caravel: Well that's exactly why border forts have been in since STW - because the AI cannot manage spies or assassins, well agents in general, effectively. Border forts help to clean up a lot of the assassin spam that the AI produces. They also protect the AI from the player. I disagree with your removal of border forts for this reason. I know that if I removed them, that I would be able to assassinate the AI at leisure, and that the AI, especially the Byz, that has a tendency to go after a certain faction or province with it's assassins will have a field day. I dislike border forts also, and adopt the policy of not building them myself, but leave them for the AI only.

I do pretty much the same. It´s not like agent spamming is a big deal, anyway, as only one spy will be operative in each province, and that was the major possibility of agent abuse in Shogun (where you could turtle up and destroy very powerful rivals by inciting rebellions in their backwater provinces, or just cramming provinces with more and more spies so that the AI concentrated all it's military assets in keeping loyalty there.).
Border forts are in to avoid assasin spamming, for the most part, IMHO, as otherwise it would be easy (or easier) to destroy factions by just shooting lots of assasins their way. One thing I noticed is that, if heirless, the AI tends to withdraw its leader to some BFed province without forts.

Also: observation: as the game is right now (last version of the PM) the AI DOES use agents for defensive purposes. I´ve lost several good spies in formerly-mine provinces without BFs.

[General Dazza]

I always hated the fact that the border forts worked as an inmistakable net for capturing all troubles, that effectively acts as a protector for the AI factions that are too vulnerable to what the player can do and so i modded them out and introduced agents gradually in.

Just to throw my 2c worth in. To me border forts make complete sense as a gameplay concept, irrespective of how well the AI handles agents.

The border forts as I see them respresent the non-mobile (i.e. not roaming agents) security that any faction would put in place in territory it owns (particularly terriroty that is has just captured).

When a faction takes over a province, it is completely natural to create a system of local security to stop enemies/outsiders from causing political unrest. That would include the mayor's network of informants and police/local troop garrison etc.

It shouldn't be easy to send assassins/agents of unrest into enemy territory as that local security would be particularly alert. That goes also for friendly factions - someone coming in to cause unrest would be likely to get noticed by the authorities at some point.

[The Unknown Guy]

It's not like there were means for absolute borderl control in the medieval period...

In any event, the point is mostly moot, as it is a personal choice whether to use them or not. Personally, I don't, for three reasons:
- It would hinder the AI in it's botched strategic deployment of agents
- If I lose the province, they turn against me
- My spies and assasins lose valuable points that could be put to use.

[caravel]

Just to throw my 2c worth in. To me border forts make complete sense as a gameplay concept, irrespective of how well the AI handles agents.

The border forts as I see them respresent the non-mobile (i.e. not roaming agents) security that any faction would put in place in territory it owns (particularly territory that is has just captured).
Border forts are ahistorical in that this kind of border security simply did not exist then and does not even exist today. This is something that Rome does do correctly in that a spy has to infiltrate a settlement to have an effect but can wonder freely in a province. Border forts would have to surround a province at a distance of no more than about 1/4 mile apart and have teams of customs officials and guards operating 24/7, this would in real life terms be well nigh impossible - even today.

Border watch towers are another ahistorical feature. Such structures positioned on the frontier line would have little strategic value. Historically watch towers would have lined the outer walls of forts, not the border regions. They would have been on the look out for enemy armies, not a lone ragged traveller. Spies or assassins would not walk through open country in full view of border defences, they would enter through the city gates passing themselves off as townspeople. The only exception would be those placed on hills, near to the towns themselves overlooking the border with an enemy. This structure would command a clear view over the countryside and give advance warning of an approaching enemy army. As not all regions are suitably hilly and/or the lay of the land is simply unsuitable, this type of lookout outpost would be a bonus rather than the norm.

When a faction takes over a province, it is completely natural to create a system of local security to stop enemies/outsiders from causing political unrest. That would include the mayor's network of informants and police/local troop garrison etc.
The biggest factor would be garrison size, that is militias brought in from outside. Intrigue would play a much lesser role with a recently conquered people. In those days, of banditry, outlaws and general lawlessness, it would also have been next to impossible to prevent outsiders from entering. Networks of informants and hired killers are already represented by spies and assassins.

It shouldn't be easy to send assassins/agents of unrest into enemy territory as that local security would be particularly alert. That goes also for friendly factions - someone coming in to cause unrest would be likely to get noticed by the authorities at some point.
The problem with border forts is that if one exists then it's almost impossible to cause unrest in rival factions' provinces as the border fort will pretty much catch them all. I hate having to spam 20 assassins just to give one a chance to get through a border fort province. I'd prefer to pay more for my spies assassins and pay upkeep for them, so as to increase their value than spam hundreds of failures. Sending an agent to a border fort is predictable certain death, this in itself ruins gameplay. At least if the AI has a spy hidden there and your assassin gets caught it adds a bit of diversity and has you wondering what kind of agents the enemy has in their province. It also means that the AI spies and assassins gain valour for catching yours, which is better than the border fort doing all the work. The AI also does not border fort it's provinces in any kind of logical fashion. Some provinces, especially those with unit valour bonuses, will remain without border forts, or even watch towers, for the entire campaign.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Both Watch Towers and border forts should be removed from the game. If you want information on neighbouring provinces you should have to send one of your people in there to have a look around, whether that is a nosey bishop, overly inquisitive emissary or someone more covert, and not rely on an ahistorical and wholly unrealistic border fort/watch tower with satellite uplink, giving you real time information of everything occurring in your neighbours' provinces, while stopping and killing everyone that tries to enter your province in a sneaky fashion.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not advocating the removal of border forts, and that would be somewhat contradictory of my previous post, but I do think that they shouldn't have been there in the first place. The problem with relying on only spies and assassins is that the AI has a tendency to not deploy them where they're needed.

:bow:

[The Unknown Guy]

The AI already has a built-in spy defense, as it tries to withdraw to no port provinces when the assasin killfaction threat is looming. Or so it seems.

Also, they build lots of assasins, which already gives them a measure of security against enemy agents, by the assasin's own defensive possibilities.

Suggestion for the Papal inçuisitors matter: remove assasins and spies from the Pope's unit rooster, so that he builds just inçuisitors, and uses them instead of those two.

[Noir]

Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
Quote:
(Caravel) Many would argue that the Reconquista of Spain was in fact a crusade.

It was. The battle of the Navas de Tolosa was a "Crusade" in the sense that the Pope made a call to all the Northern Christian Kingdoms to join into a coalition against the Almohad Caliphate.

Yes, posted previously that i agree, and it was calling for knights from Europe to join the Christian coalition of Iberian kingdoms against the Almohad threat that culminated in the aformentioned battle. A Spanish/Aragonese crusade wouldn't represent that as well as an English or French crusade that would suck in large amounts of Spanish troops at the border IMO, much like the ones i am getting at the moment. Or even better a combined attack of Spanish armies in combination with a French crusade another scenarion that i otfen see in the mini-mod.


Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
Back then it didnt happen, but the later, unified Spain DID crusade against the Ottoman Empire, after a fashion. Look at the battle of Lepanto, or the lifting of the besieged fortress of the Hospitalers in Malta.

So, if its "they were involved" (Caravel) and "after a fashion"(the Unknown Guy), these battles/ involvements may be represented by crusades passing over lands and by proper wars. They certainly don't have to mean that the Spanish or Aragonese should have the ability throughout the middle ages to crusade against say the Byzantines or the Holy Land as they never did.

I doubt in any case that the Spanish/Aragonese AI would crusade against the Almohads as before winning some or all of the Iberian he is not so well financially to do so prior to that. It is most likely that he would crusade against other places after he wins the Iberian. Wouldn't that be "ahistorical", as Caravel likes to often argue (simple and well meant humor and nothing more :)?

On top of this the "Reconquista" involved significant aid from mainland Europe to my understanding, and i can't see how this is better represented by allowing the Spanish/Aragonese launching their own crusades, as previously said. It needs to be a struggle that the Iberians win by a small margin and with external aid, not one that they hold all the winning cards and are allowed a choice in their enemy's destruction IMO. This were the "historical" element needs to be preserved and expressed in my opinion and allowing them the crusade is against that.


Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
Eh, forgot to mention earlier: This I don't like. I think that spionage and assasinations have always been a part of the world's politics. To point out two instances: The Hashasini, in the Muslim world, and the assasination of a Pope (the predecessor of Clement VIII) in Rome by a man hired by the King of France. Bringing up the power struggles in the Byzantine Empire would be opening a too large can of worms :)

It's alright, these are just suggestions, and a general debate; they dont have to be liked.

By the way in a recent campaign the pope got assassinated 3 times in a row in the "middle" agent era by a powerful but excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor. I dont recall seeing this by an AI faction in the vanilla or any other for that matter version, and it reminds me very much the historical incident you refer to. I have a feeling that its because of the border forts that such things cannot happen very often.


Originally posted by the Unknown Guy
Quote:
(Caravel)Not at all. The conversion is so slow that with frequent exhange of the povinces or with bordering of provinces of different religion it takes more than 60 years to turn them around even with the full sets of Priests the AI is using. In most cases the AI is waisting his time if he does not conquer them as well. What you describe is the gameplay of vanilla.

I rarely (read: practically never) have managed to cause religious unrest by just spamming priests. Nor have I suffered from religious unrest, even when playing as Byzantium and being spammed by enemy bishops.

If i may, you are quoting me and not Caravel here. Unless you are addressing this to him? In any case the point i tried to make is that in vanilla religious unrest doesn't happen as the rebelliousness is low (0 as default value). In the home mini-mod i play is high (2 as default value) and put together with the slow conversion rates religious unrest is a common feature to advancing armies. I like this element very much and i find it way more historically accuarate than conversion in 20 turns with 4 priests that happens in vanilla and most mods.


Originally posted by General Dazza
Just to throw my 2c worth in. To me border forts make complete sense as a gameplay concept, irrespective of how well the AI handles agents.

The border forts as I see them respresent the non-mobile (i.e. not roaming agents) security that any faction would put in place in territory it owns (particularly terriroty that is has just captured).

When a faction takes over a province, it is completely natural to create a system of local security to stop enemies/outsiders from causing political unrest. That would include the mayor's network of informants and police/local troop garrison etc.

It shouldn't be easy to send assassins/agents of unrest into enemy territory as that local security would be particularly alert. That goes also for friendly factions - someone coming in to cause unrest would be likely to get noticed by the authorities at some point.

I agree with you, however that degrades the use and function of agents for the AI factions; the role of border forts may be reproduced by keeping some of your agents stationary to catch enemy spies and assassins and the effect is the same. As for the player causing havoc to the AI lands i mentioned that i play without offensive agent use.

All in all, border forts are a "device" added to make up for the incompetence of the AI in agent use and protect him from the player. What i do as mentioned is never use spies and assassins offensively (not in any province that i don't own or siege). This enables the AI to assassinate my generals and other factions' generals, princesses, emissaries, inquisitors and Popes. If you put border forts in, you end up with the same result ie keep your spies within your borders mot of the time, minus the activity of AI factions versus other AI factions and yourself.

It is for this reason i modded them out as the resulting gameplay is more rich IMO by keeping to a simple ironman rule.

What sounds "reasonable", "logical" or "historical" i won't touch as it is a matter of feel or opinion, i realise after all. For example we were previously arguing with Caravel the number of factions in the Iberian in early for a more interesting interaction and he would almost refuse to continue the debate unless "Portugal" was called "County of Portugal". Frankly that makes not much difference to me at all (it is the more interesting political military interaction that i'm after), but i realise it does to him (Nizaris become Nizari footsoldiers and the like are in the same spirit), its his touch for immersiveness that makes the game feel "historical" and i have my own such touches that he frequetly condemns (sometimes reasonably sometimes unfairly IMO) as he has used the word/expression "this is ahistorical" a large number of times as a response to my posts. So many that i wish he would make one of his fine jokes for himself relative to that :beam:

On the other hand i have my own prefered "touches" (for example for me its ahistorical allowing the Iberians to Crusade), but this is all subjective and a matter of taste at the end of the day.

I just make suggestions that have a practical/gameplay aspect and also by necessity an immersiveness feel. Its up to Caravel to dissmiss them or adopt them, however it is pointless unless i have the right to "defend them" conversation wise.

One of the reasons i dont pursue public release of my mini-mod, is because i am really not interested in suiting it to other's people gaming habits and standards and historical likes. I play the game i want to play.

I doubt if any of the mods may be called "historically accurate", as this is simply not possible within the limitations of the game, to my understanding. Only something that resembles history is possible and i try to reproduce that more in the way the game unfolds over time rather than respecting details and names in campaigns that will end up way off history anyway. All my suggestions are along that route.

Crusades shouldnt contain Knights Templar before capturing and holding the Holy Land as they didn't exist prior to that. However, we regard it as "historically ok". All rosters are pre-determined for a faction and this is the biggest historical inaccuracy ever. The way one fights and the men he recruits come to suit specific needs and historical developments - they are not predetermined a-priori! For example the English may launch a succesful Crusade in Andalucia in the game, but i have not included a crusader roster in Granada for them - its a pitty. If on the other hand i allow them the crusader roster in too many Muslim lands then they can eradicate the Muslims simply by swarming them - again ahistorical. So i end up giving the roster to them in a limited amount of provinces that they historically occupied in Crusades, because its a middle path and accounts for gameplay and historical accuracy.

There are many many other things that in reality are out of the question however nobody complains either because they became a habit to them game-wise or simply because there's nothing to be done.

The game balances awkwardly between "reproducing history" and "making history" while in the end it fails to do both IMO, and it doesn't really matter as long as the challenge and struggle are satisfactory as well as a feeling that "you've been there". It is for this that the way a campaign develops is where i put more focus rather than in reacreating details and initial conditions.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

Yes, posted previously that i agree, and it was calling for knights from Europe to join the Christian coalition of Iberian kingdoms against the Almohad threat that culminated in the aformentioned battle. A Spanish/Aragonese crusade wouldn't represent that as well as an English or French crusade that would suck in large amounts of Spanish troops at the border IMO, much like the ones i am getting at the moment. Or even better a combined attack of Spanish armies in combination with a French crusade another scenarion that i otfen see in the mini-mod.
I still disagree, because an English or French run Crusade to Cordoba would actually seize Cordoba for the English or French, and not for the Spanish or Aragonese. This puts them at a disadvantage. Rather than have the system your propose I would prefer to mod crusades out altogether. Also the Crusades in MTW are not based on history, they don't occur at the same dates that the true crusades occurred. The French may launch a Crusade for Arabia in 1100, is that any less ridiculous than the Spanish Crusading to Cordoba? Also as I state previously, the game doesn't follow historical events, so it is possible that Spanish empire controlling half of Europe should be able to launch crusades.

So, if its "they were involved" (Caravel) and "after a fashion"(the Unknown Guy), these battles/ involvements may be represented by crusades passing over lands and by proper wars. They certainly don't have to mean that the Spanish or Aragonese should have the ability throughout the middle ages to crusade against say the Byzantines or the Holy Land as they never did.
No, the Danes were involved in the sense that they were one of the factions that actually started it. With the crusade against Timur Lang, yes it should be a Lithuanian crusade sucking up units from territories it passes through.

I doubt in any case that the Spanish/Aragonese AI would crusade against the Almohads as before winning some or all of the Iberian he is not so well financially to do so prior to that. It is most likely that he would crusade against other places after he wins the Iberian. Wouldn't that be "ahistorical", as Caravel likes to often argue (simple and well meant humor and nothing more :)?
No it wouldn't be ahistorical in that sense. If you wish a totally historical campaign, then you would need it to run on a script where you do not interact at all. You would simply sit there and watch history unfold. MTW gives you a historical starting point and puts you in control from there. Crusade is not a unit, it is a potential that is there for any faction.

On top of this the "Reconquista" involved significant aid from mainland Europe to my understanding, and i can't see how this is better represented by allowing the Spanish/Aragonese launching their own crusades, as previously said. It needs to be a struggle that the Iberians win by a small margin and with external aid, not one that they hold all the winning cards and are allowed a choice in their enemy's destruction IMO. This were the "historical" element needs to be preserved and expressed in my opinion and allowing them the crusade is against that.
As I've stated previously, the reconquista cannot be modelled in that way, because outside help cannot be enlisted in that way, due to how crusades actually work in-game. The French marching through your territory sucking up all of your troops are not helping you reconquer Cordoba they are conquering it for themselves and stealing your troops to do that.

By the way in a recent campaign the pope got assassinated 3 times in a row in the "middle" agent era by a powerful but excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor. I dont recall seeing this by an AI faction in the vanilla or any other for that matter version, and it reminds me very much the historical incident you refer to. I have a feeling that its because of the border forts that such things cannot happen very often.
I agree with you, and if you read back in this thread, you'll see where I had planned the removal of border forts and where it was opposed. The issue for me is that if I was taking out border forts, I'd want watch towers to go also. Another factor is the behaviour of AI spies and assassins. I have been observing their movements of late and have not been impressed. Spies move randomly and assassins assassinate randomly. The counterspying is not always effective because the units won't stay still for long enough.

In any case the point i tried to make is that in vanilla religious unrest doesn't happen as the rebelliousness is low (0 as default value). In the home mini-mod i play is high (2 as default value) and put together with the slow conversion rates religious unrest is a common feature to advancing armies. I like this element very much and i find it way more historically accuarate than conversion in 20 turns with 4 priests that happens in vanilla and most mods.
I agree with you there, and I have said that I'll be working on that soon enough.

I agree with you, however that degrades the use and function of agents for the AI factions; the role of border forts may be reproduced by keeping some of your agents stationary to catch enemy spies and assassins and the effect is the same. As for the player causing havoc to the AI lands i mentioned that i play without offensive agent use.
Again, you can keep your agents stationary, a spy or assassin in each province, but the AI cannot do this effectively as it keeps shuffling them around. (see above)

All in all, border forts are a "device" added to make up for the incompetence of the AI in agent use and protect him from the player. What i do as mentioned is never use spies and assassins offensively (not in any province that i don't own or siege). This enables the AI to assassinate my generals and other factions' generals, princesses, emissaries, inquisitors and Popes. If you put border forts in, you end up with the same result ie keep your spies within your borders mot of the time, minus the activity of AI factions versus other AI factions and yourself.
I agree also. Border forts are exactly that, but from what I have seen there is no other mechanism to do this job. It is a pity that border forts did not function as base level spies, that would clean up rival 0 valour spies and assassins and some 1 and 2 valour. As it is they appear as something equivalent to a roughly 4 valour spy as it is extremely difficult to get anything below valour 5 past them. If border forts had worked as 0 valour spies they would have then been the stationary counterspy that the AI needs.

What sounds "reasonable", "logical" or "historical" i won't touch as it is a matter of feel or opinion, i realise after all. For example we were previously arguing with Caravel the number of factions in the Iberian in early for a more interesting interaction and he would almost refuse to continue the debate unless "Portugal" was called "County of Portugal".
That is nothing short of a gross exaggeration on your part. I was debating as to what the faction should be called, considering it didn't exist in 1087 as an independent kingdom that was a valid point. I didn't put the breaks on the whole debate due to that, in fact I made it clear previously that ideas for new factions would be welcome despite the fact that I haven't begun to work on new factions as yet.

Frankly that makes not much difference to me at all (it is the more interesting political military interaction that i'm after), but i realise it does to him (Nizaris become Nizari footsoldiers and the like are in the same spirit), its his touch for immersiveness that makes the game feel "historical" and i have my own such touches that he frequetly condemns (sometimes reasonably sometimes unfairly IMO) as he has used the word/expression "this is ahistorical" a large number of times as a response to my posts. So many that i wish he would make one of his fine jokes for himself relative to that :beam:
Nizaris became Nizari Footsoldiers because calling them simply "Nizaris" would be like calling Feudal Men at Arms "Feudals". Also Hashishin, were renamed "Nizaari Fedayeen" and they and Nizari Foot Soldiers ("Nizari Infantry" if you prefer?) had their training dependencies changed, and were allocated homelands.


On the other hand i have my own prefered "touches" (for example for me its ahistorical allowing the Iberians to Crusade), but this is all subjective and a matter of taste at the end of the day.
As I've said it's not ahistorical from a campaign perspective where the campaign does not follow historical events to the letter. For example the Almohads may never have build a Grand Mosque in Syria, so do you prevent them from doing that on the basis that it never happened historically? Do you not train a very large army and invade a certain province, because it didn't happen?

I just make suggestions that have a practical/gameplay aspect and also by necessity an immersiveness feel. Its up to Caravel to dissmiss them or adopt them, however it is pointless unless i have the right to "defend them" conversation wise.
I have listened to and adopted many of your suggestions. I have taken note of everything you've posted and have appreciated all of your input. I haven't dismissed it out of hand, in fact I've replied at length sometimes agreeing, sometimes not.

One of the reasons i dont pursue public release of my mini-mod, is because i am really not interested in suiting it to other's people gaming habits and standards and historical likes. I play the game i want to play.
That is all well and good, but you have to understand that this is a public mod. Also I dislike a mod that I have absolutely personalised to my tastes as then it gets boring and predictable. Similarly I dislike some of the other mods that have been personalised according to others tastes. You may see this mod as personalised, but I don't. I haven't added units that I like personally, I've only sought to add balance and correct errors. Some of the name changes were among the earliest work I have done on this mod. I haven't added personal favourite fantasy units based on Wikipedia articles, I have modified existing units. From your perspective this project may appear behind, but you are already playing a 90% finished mod and are basing many of your views of this mod on that one.

I doubt if any of the mods may be called "historically accurate", as this is simply not possible within the limitations of the game, to my understanding. Only something that resembles history is possible and i try to reproduce that more in the way the game unfolds over time rather than respecting details and names in campaigns that will end up way off history anyway. All my suggestions are along that route.
Exactly, hence my earlier crusade argument. But since we are representing cultures and a period of time, accuracy is important - otherwise we may as well give the Byzzie Infantry machine guns.

Crusades shouldnt contain Knights Templar before capturing and holding the Holy Land as they didn't exist prior to that. However, we regard it as "historically ok". All rosters are pre-determined for a faction and this is the biggest historical inaccuracy ever. The way one fights and the men he recruits come to suit specific needs and developments they are not predetermined a-priori! For example the English may launch a succesful Crusade in Andalucia in the game, but i have not included a crusader roster in Granada for them - its a pitty.
I have been working on this on and off, again you assume because I haven't addressed a problem, that I'm somehow a) not aware of it, b) don't care, c) have double standards as far as historical accuracy is concerned. I have most order Knights as trainable in their historic regions, and will be removing them from crusades at some point. At present I have a "to do" list as long as one of my wife's shopping lists and very limited time.

The game balances awkwardly between "reproducing history" and "making history" while in the end it fails to do both IMO, and it doesn't really matter as long as the challenge and struggle are satisfactory as well as a feeling that "you've been there". It is for this that the way a campaign develops is where i put more focus rather than in reacreating details and initial conditions.
The game doesn't seek to reproduce history. It gives the player a campaign on an historic theme. What were are trying to do here ( :wall: ) is improve gameplay while also correcting historical errors that actually can be corrected.

[Noir]

First off all comments do not come as criticisms or demands (and i think i have said that enough times in the past as to be believed?).

You are taking an apologetic/defensive mode, while i am simply debating. I take the role of the "devil's advocate" for the sake of putting things forth and i never mentioned anywhere that i feel you neglected them - unless you feel that because i debate them even when you dismiss them. I dont debate them to make you consider them more. I am debating them to debate them.

In certain cases i am adressing other people (as the Unknown Guy or General Dazza) and discuss a thing as the conversion rates with them. I dont repeat the discission to get on your nerves, i know that we've made it already - i just make it with them.

I also posted a number of times that i understand the fact that this needs to appeal as a public release, and i really do - i still don't see why though i shouldn't post and argue my ideas and thoughts even if they arent meant to please a wider player base. Some of them might still be useful perhaps, no?

The fact that i judge from a 90% finished mod is better in my opinion as it hepls showing blank areas - it doesn't mean that i think you don't know were the blank areas lie. The full of the aims you put forward for the mod are way out of reach if you dont alter the map and include more factions IMO, so i suggested you introduced them and also remember that i offered a helping hand with file work and my offer still stands.

As for standards relative to historical accuracy, yes i believe you have indeed double as all of us IMO, and i mean to say that you put emphasis to certain elements and much less into others IMO. My "exaggeration" was in line to bring this out as an example, it was not in any way to offend or misinterpret you, despite having achieved one or both of the latter two apparently, rather than my original aim.

Crusades in the way they are put in the game, expressing a faction's potential as you posted do not correspond to 3 fragile militarised kingdoms pushed back in the backwater Pyrhenies IMO.

An alternative would be to allow the Spanish to Crusade in the late era but not in the early era, say.

Introducing the French to Cordoba after a succesful crusade is a possibility anyway as the game stands - they are allowed to do so if they wish. The matter in question is whether the early Free Christian kingdoms themselves can do it, by holding onto Aragon, Castille, Navarre and Portugal alone, and they most likely won't, as the money they are getting are not enough most of the time in my experience.

On top of this not all Crusades were of the same size or of the same scope, and the game cannot reflect that unfortunately. It ends up in the "ahistorical" result of a Hungarian Crusade of the late era being as large as a German Crusade of the early era. Ahistorical in the sense that the two factions exactly shouldn't enjoy the same potential and that the two expeditions would be most likely far apart in aims and participation.

I repeat that i debate, and there is no need to feel as i am demanding, misinterpreting accusing or anything else. If i made mistakes i am happy to aknowledge them. I enjoy reading the thread and trying out your mod in any case. I am not bothered at all in how many things from the ones i say you'll take on board or not, and i mean this in a good sense.

Please dont feel like this, as i dont mean my posts in this way - disagreeing in opinions is one thing, getting nervous is another. I tried to enter humorous touches in my expressions, but judjing from the response ( :wall: ) i better give this a rest.

So, I think i'll rest my case for a (short) while now.

:bow:

With all my good will:

Apologies (if needed) & (as always) Many Thanks

Noir

[The Unknown Guy]

Crusades in the way they are put in the game, expressing a faction's potential as you posted do not correspond to 3 fragile militarised kingdoms pushed back in the backwater Pyrhenies
This is more suited to the Library forums, but still, since it's a historical context discussion...

First: they weren't "backwater Pyrenees" kingdoms. It was all the northern zone of the Iberian Peninsula. It hardly çualifies as "backwater". It does çualify as "more montanious and defensible than the rest", AND those regions were more politically stable in the original Kingdom of Hispania (Mostly Visigoths, with Suevs in the North-west and Cantabrians/Basçues in the Northern centre) than the volatile southern duchies (To be honest, the internecine wars between the different duchies played a role there as well), which is the reason why the original arab invasion in 7ll stopped where it stopped. Going into a terrain with strong local rulers with a taste for guerrilla warfare seemed like a Very Bad Idea for them, specially since their lands weren't specially fertile, were cold, and by that point they were rather content. Those same kingdoms were responsible for the defeat of Roland's army in Spain. I'd not call them military weak. As for Aragon: the origin is latter: it was originally "the Spanish Marçue" of Charlemagne's Empire, with the ruler being a Count. Nominally Charlemagne had come to "aid" them in their defense against the muslims. After one of his armies was massacred in the west (see above: Roland's army) and the original Caliphate massacred another in the south, he decided to beat it. It didn't take long for the "Count" of Aragon to begin styling himself "Count-King"
Another reason not to disregard the military strenght of the Northern Kingdoms is that, after the Caliphate broke up (some decades before the game's start date), the Taifas kingdoms started to pool their wealth into hiring them as mercs. This in turn meant that the formerly not-too-prosperous Christian Kingdoms found themselves with a lot of wealth to amuse themselves, and keep stronger armies, with better eçuipped and trained soldiers.
(A somewhat later, but still relevant event would be the Aragonese Crusade, where a pope was asked by the French permission to launch a crusade against the excommunicated Count-King of Aragon. Which ended up with a major defeat, and several members of the French Royal Family being massacred while trying to withdraw through the Pyrenees)
To make it brief: those lands were "poorer", but the rulers holding them were certainly not "weak". They would have been throughly annihilated by their neighbours otherwise.

The crusade against the almohads was waged mainly by Iberian Kingdoms. I'd almost say "solely", but I would not hazard that right now. The Pope didnt
ask "for all Christianity to stop the Almohads". Rather, he politely reçuested that the Iberian Christian Kingdoms stopped battering each other up for a bit and presented a common front to the Almohads. And it ended up in a major victory despite the joint Portuguese-Navarrean-Castilian-Aragonese army being half the numbers of the new Caliphate's. Of course we dont know the exact composition of each side's troops. But, as I said, by that point the Christian Kingdoms had been receiving cash from the Taifas kingdoms for years, and investing it mostly in military strenght.



I still disagree, because an English or French run Crusade to Cordoba would actually seize Cordoba for the English or French, and not for the Spanish or Aragonese. This puts them at a disadvantage. Rather than have the system your propose I would prefer to mod crusades out altogether. Also the Crusades in MTW are not based on history, they don't occur at the same dates that the true crusades occurred. The French may launch a Crusade for Arabia in 1100, is that any less ridiculous than the Spanish Crusading to Cordoba? Also as I state previously, the game doesn't follow historical events, so it is possible that Spanish empire controlling half of Europe should be able to launch crusades.
My point exactly. What if the king of Portugal/Navarre/Castile/Aragon had managed to beat up their rivals by that point and claim the rights to the crown of the old Visigoth kingdom? I doubt his ambitions would have ended up there. In fact, historically, those kings pursued territories both inside and outside of the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, both Castile and Aragon did that, seizing the Canary Islands, and the Balears/Naples/Sicily/Athens, respectively.

[Noir]

Thank you for a very informative post.

I quote from it:


I'd not call them military weak.

Neither did i - i said they were fragile in the sense that were were small political entities and that their future was uncertain at that point in history.


...specially since their lands weren't specially fertile, were cold, and by that point they were rather content

Essentially a backwater place? The fact that it wasn't fertile was the reason why the Muslims supposedly ignored it in the first place AFAIK.


The crusade against the almohads was waged mainly by Iberian Kingdoms. I'd almost say "solely", but I would not hazard that right now. The Pope didnt
ask "for all Christianity to stop the Almohads". Rather, he politely reçuested that the Iberian Christian Kingdoms stopped battering each other up for a bit and presented a common front to the Almohads. And it ended up in a major victory despite the joint Portuguese-Navarrean-Castilian-Aragonese army being half the numbers of the new Caliphate's.

It is not documented officially as a Crusade, but as the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and it is not given a crusade No. AFAIK. As to the numbers of northeners i really need to research that more - it seems that i am wrong according to your post in my statements - apologies for that.

The battle ended in victory as "...after some disagreements among the members of the Christian coalition, Alfonso managed to cross the mountain range that defended the Almohad camp, sneaking through the Despeñaperros Pass, so that the Christian coalition caught by surprise and smashed the Moorish army that left some 100,000 casualties at the battleground."

That is in an open encounter it might have ended in defeat for the Christians much like the battle (or disaster) of Alarcos.

All i was trying to point is that the "Reconquista" was a tough affair that could have gone either way against a superior in numbers enemy, and it should be so in the game.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Martok]

This is just a gentle reminder to stay on topic, guys. Not that what you're discussing is completely irrelavent, but it *is* starting to stray a bit off-track. Please try and confine your comments here to discussion of the Pocket Mod. (If you like, I can also split this off into a separate thread and move it to the Monastery.) ~:)

[General Dazza]

I think this is on-topic (apologies Martok if it isn't :bow: )...

Cambysess, I understand your points re border forts. However I'd clarify what I was getting at. I don't see border forts in their literal sense - forts on the border stopping people getting into the province. I see them as the agents and informants within the population that work for the local ruler.

It makes sense that when enemies or instigators of disunity come into a province's city, they will have to be careful of what they say and do for fear of being noticed. That 'network' is what I see the border forts as representing.

True, spies and assassins can do the same thing, but I see them as being mobile and singular, whereas the local network is neither, and is something that would naturally be established, even in times of lawlessness.

I agree that they would be more realistic and better for gameplay if they were equal to a level 1 spy, and this would be a good improvement to any mod. And maybe they could be renamed to 'local spy network' or something.

[The Unknown Guy]

You could interpretate spies and assasins as the agent + their web of direct informants&provocateurs. Thus, when an assasin "catches" a spy, it´s more on the lines of one of his "singing birds" in the city which he uses to find a target's bodyguard weak spots, tells him that someone is acting very odd around. So he goes and slits his throat.

[caravel]

the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and it is not given a crusade No. AFAIK.
It is not a good idea to pay too much heed to "crusade numbers", they are historically recognised crusades carried out by the western european kingdoms, probably named, chronicled and preserved by those kingdoms themselves. The Crusade numbering is entirely from an English/French/German perspective and just because other crusades don't have numbers it doesn't make them less important. A crusade in that period was any kind of military expedition to capture territory from pagans or other non christians. This was pretty much the criteria for the pope authorising one. There were man minor crusades, and not all crusades were to the holy land. In selecting the French, English and HRE you appear to be selecting only the "numbered" crusades of popular history that were aimed at the holy land. Another factor you have perhaps not considered is that when a faction becomes excommunicated and the pope requests a crusade against them, only those factions that participated in the numbered crusades to the holy land can respond.

:bow:

[Noir]

The problem gameplay wise is IMO that you have a crusader unit roster that will man your Crusade and that the game all by itself does not differentiate between a major expedition like the 3rd Crusade that bankrupted a flowering English economy, and one of the less ambitious in scope and participation crusades you refer to.

Particularly in the MedMod IV, the Crusade gives a full one and a half stack army of decent units like Templars and FFKnights. As i said before, its entirely off for me to have the Hungarians or the Poles (that by historical accounts were not keen to Crusade and even ended up fighting Crusaders or loathing them for pillaging, much like the Byzantines) getting an army of that size full of "Frankish" units crawling around.

There are 10 catholics in vanilla: England, France, HRE, Danes, Spanish, Aragonese, Sicilians, Poles, Hungarians, Italians, that guarantees that the game becomes overloaded with huge stacks crawling around the map mingling everything irreversibly, if you allow cheap Crusades for all.

Some players i guess like that. I just don't, so i've found it very nice that in the MedMod a Crusade was a serious but costly expedition. It was so costly and time consuming though that the AI factions practically never did it - only one would usually do after 150 turns or so and if they were very rich.

In my view, it is preferable to make do with the "popular" numbered Crusades, that were large in scale and scope and constitute the "Golden Era of the Crusades" rather than focus on the smaller ones or to any other war of Christian vs other faiths by giving to all Catholics the ability assuming that you have only one Crusader roster.

Otherwise it ends up calling most wars a "Crusade". Yes they were in the form of a Crusade, with the blessing of the Pope etc but the point is whether they also fit the bill of what the game has as a tool to represent a Crusade and whether introducing this in a large scale is for the better or worst gameplaywise. For me its simply for the worst. But its just my opinion.

There are alternatives as far as i am concerned and i pm'd one to you in one of my very first pm's relative to the PoM.

1.The "Crusade" is technically a unit that does not count towards the 256 limit, so you can have one for every era to my understanding. It follows that you can price an early one cheaply, a high one more expensive and a late one very expensive if you have the same participation level and factors. You can also allow certain factions to Crusade in certain periods like this.

2.Alter the participation level of crusader units in high and late so there are less per crusade. This i think happens by increasing the "price" of the Crusader unit in the units txt. But that's just speculation, i haven't done it.

Last but not least the Pope is less heard in high and late in the way the mini-mod plays.He's asking for support on his excommunications but does not always get it, unless a major Catholic has a grudge towards the target. By major i mean whoever has the most homelands not whoever has the most provinces. There are ethnicities that have certain sizes in reality and the fact that the game does not originally seem to want to account for this is one of its main faults IMO. That's how i wanted it to be and it feels historical to me. It definitely plays better IMO than having every Catholic going about the map with a large free stack in high and late, that i deem "ahistorical" as the larger Crusades happened in early. But that's just my preference.

Relative to my post i said that "It was not documented officially as a Crusade" which makes an objection to calling it a "Crusade" from a technical point of view. Even certain guides/publications on the Crusades dont mention it as such - some others do. All however seem to agree that it was a "Battle of a Christian coalition versus the Almohads".

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I think this is on-topic (apologies Martok if it isn't :bow: )...

Cambysess, I understand your points re border forts. However I'd clarify what I was getting at. I don't see border forts in their literal sense - forts on the border stopping people getting into the province. I see them as the agents and informants within the population that work for the local ruler.
Indeed but the whole problem with border forts is that they wreck subterfuge and render agents almost useless unless AI has been stupid and not placed one in the province in question.

It makes sense that when enemies or instigators of disunity come into a province's city, they will have to be careful of what they say and do for fear of being noticed. That 'network' is what I see the border forts as representing.
In the city yes, but MTW works to a provincial model. Agents never enter the city but roam the province. Generally anyone could get into the province as there were no clear borders in most cases and no real border controls. Entering a town would also be easy enough, getting into a stronghold would be more difficult but for a spy/assassin, that has already infiltrated, very possible.

True, spies and assassins can do the same thing, but I see them as being mobile and singular, whereas the local network is neither, and is something that would naturally be established, even in times of lawlessness.
The border forts are there for that reason, because the AI won't leave it's agents in one place long enough for them to be effective or deploy them to the right provinces in the first place. The answer to this problem was what CA did, and that was to create a static spy in the form of the border fort.

I agree that they would be more realistic and better for gameplay if they were equal to a level 1 spy, and this would be a good improvement to any mod. And maybe they could be renamed to 'local spy network' or something.
Unfortunately this cannot be modded.

@Noir et al: I think we have flogged the crusade debate to death. There are basically two camps: The "all can crusade", and "only the principal crusading nations can crusade". For myself I'm still not certain about this. CA's solution seemed to be a compromise, but I'd prefer not to go back to that. For now I think we should give it a rest and move on to other issues. This thread has a habit of getting derailed and is very chaotic at the moment. Unfortunately we don't have our own forum as with other mods so we don't have the luxury of creating threads covering different issues.

:bow:

[ULC]

I have an update on your PM Cambyses.

1) I increased the rebeliousness of all provinces by 2, some a little more, and the enemy AI stability shot way up. The HRE still exist in 1151 with all thier lands! I'll release the data to you later, as thier are still some bugs in it, but for right now, the French fight the English, the Spanish fight the Almohads (and neither side has conquered the Iberian by 1151 yet.), the HRE fights the Italians, etc. Borders are a little more static, but overall AI army compostion has improved becuase for some reason the it cares a little bit more about it's economy.

2) I gave a happiness bonus to farm upgrades. I know this isn't truly realistic, but it makes the AI more prone to making them, especially in rebelious provinces.

3) AI seeks peace and ceasefires more often now, don't now why.

4) Increased the income for most provinces by 40% to help counter the increased rebelliousness. Works wonders.

5) Removed Border forts. AI usage of agents has skyrocketed, and it appears to be using them better (although it could be decieving me)

Some bugs...

1) Novgorod have some problems in Early GA, game CTD's.

2) Boats seem to simply vanish for no reason (and no CTD) when they attempt to cross the Gribalter.

3) Problem with Cardinals and Inquisitors. The AI now attempts to spam Cardinals, may have something to do with the zeal bonus. Inquistors (papal only) seem attracted specifically to the French and HRE, but will ignore the English, Poles, and Italians. It went so far as to cancel the order to burn an English general.

I'll keep working at it. Tell me if thier is anything else you want.:egypt:

[The Unknown Guy]

The AI already has a built-in spy defense, as it tries to withdraw to no port provinces when the assasin killfaction threat is looming. Or so it seems.

Also, they build lots of assasins, which already gives them a measure of security against enemy agents, by the assasin's own defensive possibilities.

Suggestion for the Papal inçuisitors matter: remove assasins and spies from the Pope's unit rooster, so that he builds just inçuisitors, and uses them instead of those two.
(Just so that this suggestion doesn't get lost in the flogging of the Crusades)

[caravel]

I have an update on your PM Cambyses.

1) I increased the rebeliousness of all provinces by 2, some a little more, and the enemy AI stability shot way up. The HRE still exist in 1151 with all thier lands! I'll release the data to you later, as thier are still some bugs in it, but for right now, the French fight the English, the Spanish fight the Almohads (and neither side has conquered the Iberian by 1151 yet.), the HRE fights the Italians, etc. Borders are a little more static, but overall AI army compostion has improved becuase for some reason the it cares a little bit more about it's economy.
The only issue I can see with increasing the default rebelliousness is that factions will have to use very low taxes and thus make less money. Starting garrisons can be increased via the startpos file, but that equals more expenses, and the bonuses from happy buildings can be increased. Any ideas? sounds good so far. I haven't had time to test it myself, but did alter the startpos files to give provinces a default of 2 rebelliousness yesterday evening. For provinces that were already 1 or 2 I upgraded them to 3 and those that are 4 I left as they were.

2) I gave a happiness bonus to farm upgrades. I know this isn't truly realistic, but it makes the AI more prone to making them, especially in rebelious provinces.
Well if it works then perhaps it's worth doing, and there is no reason why fields full of food and livestock shouldn't contribute towards a province's happiness.

3) AI seeks peace and ceasefires more often now, don't now why.
Could be indirectly related to income, rebelliousness of provinces or a combination of such factors. :book:

4) Increased the income for most provinces by 40% to help counter the increased rebelliousness. Works wonders.
Another solution to the above, and generally more money isn't a bad thing. 40% seems a bit high to me though? A bloated income instead of a regular and balanced income can have a very adverse effect.

5) Removed Border forts. AI usage of agents has skyrocketed, and it appears to be using them better (although it could be deceiving me)
I'm seriously considering doing away with border forts as well, and leaving watchtowers as a compromise.

Some bugs...

1) Novgorod have some problems in Early GA, game CTD's.
That's a bug related to making an unplayable faction playable. you have to avoid clicking on their GA goals. I'm not sure if this can be fixed, but I don't think so. (anyone?)

2) Boats seem to simply vanish for no reason (and no CTD) when they attempt to cross the Gribalter.
That doesn't sound healthy, but I don't have that problem. As far as I know ships can't just disappear. :pirate2: :captain:

3) Problem with Cardinals and Inquisitors. The AI now attempts to spam Cardinals, may have something to do with the zeal bonus. Inquistors (papal only) seem attracted specifically to the French and HRE, but will ignore the English, Poles, and Italians. It went so far as to cancel the order to burn an English general.
I haven't added a zeal increasing effect to Cardinals so I'm not sure why you're getting that problem. Did you add a zeal boost? If so How much?

As to Papal Inquisitors being attracted to only the French and HRE, there are several possible reasons for that. The most obvious being that their piety is especially poor making them easy targets. It may also be that the papal inquisitors just end up there, due to convenient ports, etc. I'm not sure if the Papacy tactically targets those factions it's not allied to, you may want to check that.

I'll keep working at it. Tell me if thier is anything else you want.:egypt:
:bow:

[caravel]

The AI already has a built-in spy defense, as it tries to withdraw to no port provinces when the assasin killfaction threat is looming. Or so it seems.
interesting, I've not noticed this myself. :book:

Also, they build lots of assasins, which already gives them a measure of security against enemy agents, by the assasin's own defensive possibilities.
Perhaps, though the assassins keep moving around, being constantly on missions. There is a danger that with everything on the move, that the player will be the only protected faction with his stationary assassins/spies.

Suggestion for the Papal inçuisitors matter: remove assasins and spies from the Pope's unit rooster, so that he builds just inçuisitors, and uses them instead of those two.
Not a bad idea, as regards assassins but without both and without border forts he'll have no conunterspying capability. Unless border forts are made Papal only?

:bow:

[ULC]

That doesn't sound healthy, but I don't have that problem. As far as I know ships can't just disappear.

It has nothing to do with spanish or moorish pirates:laugh4: . I believe it's just a bug specific to me. The ships themsleves disappear, but are still dislpayed in the info parchments.


I haven't added a zeal increasing effect to Cardinals so I'm not sure why you're getting that problem. Did you add a zeal boost? If so How much?

As to Papal Inquisitors being attracted to only the French and HRE, there are several possible reasons for that. The most obvious being that their piety is especially poor making them easy targets. It may also be that the papal inquisitors just end up there, due to convenient ports, etc. I'm not sure if the Papacy tactically targets those factions it's not allied to, you may want to check that.

I added the Zeal (5) to the Cardinal as suggested within the thread. The papacy also tries its own, FYI. And, yes the papacy happens to allied to polish, english, and italian factions.

[caravel]

It has nothing to do with spanish or moorish pirates:laugh4: . I believe it's just a bug specific to me. The ships themsleves disappear, but are still dislpayed in the info parchments.
I'd say a graphics glitch but if it doesn't occur with agents or armies then no. Have you messed with the .bif files at all for the campaign map ship icons? Do the ships disapear when they're attacking or always? Your ships or the AI's or both?

I added the Zeal (5) to the Cardinal as suggested within the thread. The papacy also tries its own, FYI. And, yes the papacy happens to allied to polish, english, and italian factions.
Makes sense, the Pope usually "hates" (never seems to ally with them - this may have historical relevance as certain factions' attitudes to others does appear to be hard coded) the HRE and the French, once their empire starts to grow a bit. Had either of them been threatened with excommunication or excommunicated at all? Do you have ian mode enabled? Try switching to the papacy (shift+8 or thereabouts IIRC), train a lot of inquisitors, and then hand them back over to the AI. End the turn and check to see what missions they're carrying out. Use god mode 'g' to see the entire map (saves you typing out .matteosartori.). It may be that the Papacy will prioritise, but I'm wondering if with a surplus of Inquisitors if it will begin sending them against more factions. Zeal 5 for the cardinals may be much too high. That is equivalent (I think) to a Grand Inquisitor's effect on zeal. I would reduce it to 1 and take it from there. You have to remember that the Cardinal won't suddenly demolish zeal again like an Inquisitor does when he starts a mass Inquisition.

@Noir: What stats did you use for the faith propagation of building and agents and the zeal of agents?

I've been testing Unknown Guy's idea of adding a different type of faith propagation to units (initially for buildings but that doesn't seem to be possible as buildings always propagate the faith of the owning faction, for example churches), such as Heresy for Spies and Assassins. I'm not sure if this will really work out or not, but it does work. Keeping spies and assassins in my provinces increases Heresy. As these agents will be buzzing the map anyway, especially once border forts are completely gone, they will spread a small amount of heresy as they go, reflecting perhaps how volatile religious faith was back then. This means that religious buildings and priests will actually serve the purpose they're there for, of keeping the flock adhering to the the ruler's religion. I need to test and see if an agent can be used to propagate two religions at once. Currently it's: HERETIC(1) and I'm wondering if "HERETIC(1), PAGAN(1)" will work (I don't see why not as this would be like having two priests of those religions in the province). This will reflect a populations gradual slide back into both paganism and heresies unless the ruler's organised religious establishment is present.

[ULC]

The bif file isn't the problem, my attention span is. It seems it DOES have something to do with spanish pirates:pirate2: . Thier sinking every ship that enters the gilbralter. The reason I didn't notice is I would check the turn BEFORE. Everything would be fine, then BAM! the spanish attack. And I thought it was their inquisition you had to watch out for:sweatdrop: !

Would 2-3 be okay? 1 seems just to small.

Umm... how do 2 factions end up excommunicated at the same time, when they are also at war with only each other?

[Noir]

faith appeal level1 priest(All faiths)=0.25
faith appeal level2 priest(Orthodox&Catholic)=0.5

faith appeal Muslim BG units=0.2

faith propagation from churches/mosques=0.015

zeal appeal for inquisitors=1
zeal appeal for muslim priest level1=0.1

I did originally the priests faith appeal @0.1, but then it was really really slow. I tried other in-between values as well.

I was satisfied with the results of the above input, but you can try for yourself and see. The faith propagation also apparently happens due to the ownership of a province, that is catholic faith advances faster to a just conquered ex-muslim province rather than in a muslim province that borders 1 catholic with a church, as far as i can tell.

Note that, the Cathedrals and Grand Mosques are unique in MedMod IV. This means that although i set them to 0.05, i would treat them differently if a faction was able to build more than one of them as they will distort the result if built all over by a very afluent faction IMO.

On a short note: a faction won't make less money with increased rebeliousness - it will simply garrison its provinces so it can safely put very high taxes to them. It is this garrisoning that does the trick as i posted before and as YourLordandConqueror confirmed. The fact that he increased the output of provinces is good as factions will continue to invade others with the extra troops they can support from that income - if he didn't do that they would simply stay in their place (overall aggressivness of the campaign would decrease), as they wouldn't have extra troops to "burn" in invasions.

Interestingly enough povinces of very high rebelliousness act as a pin for faction territories, that is, the AI loads them with troops enabling better defence. For example i put 4 rebelliousness in Tyrolia (MedMod doesn't have Switzerland), and that worked wonders in keeping the HRE together as they parked two full stacks there, most of the time.

A balance between income, territorial robustness of AI factions and aggressivenes needs to be found; if the income is low then territorial robustness is very high and aggressivness low, then the game is dull (static); if the income is too high then all factions have troops to burn and they will invade each other until most of the map is rebels (fragmentation). That's also bad, as there aren't any strong opponents for the player and the rebel faction is huge, so the AI factions cannot come back to hold their act together.

This is what is happening in vanilla (too many troops to burn) with the exception that rebelliosness is low (0 default). So, rebellions dont happen upon invading succesfully a province; instead you have 3 superpowers in no time and everyone else in the bin (of reapperances).

A mid level can be found that invasions happen gradually so the AI moves resemble the expand/turtle/expand phases that the player does. That is factions do take their chances, but not excessively so they can keep their territorial core.

By tweaking income/upkeep/rebelliousness also the average size of battles may be determined.For example my taste is about a stack (and a few units). I am very much bored of endless reinforcements that i need to wait for to slaughter after i win the initial encounter. So i tweaked it to about that size. The only battles that are larger than this are usually, the Horde and Crusades/Jihads. That's just my personal taste though.

The Unknown Guy's idea for heresy spread by agents is good IMO.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

faith appeal level1 priest(All faiths)=0.25
faith appeal level2 priest(Orthodox&Catholic)=0.5

faith appeal Muslim BG units=0.2

faith propagation from churches/mosques=0.015

zeal appeal for inquisitors=1
zeal appeal for muslim priest level1=0.1

I did originally the priests faith appeal @0.1, but then it was really really slow. I tried other in-between values as well.

I was satisfied with the results of the above input, but you can try for yourself and see. The faith propagation also apparently happens due to the ownership of a province, that is catholic faith advances faster to a just conquered ex-muslim province rather than in a muslim province that borders 1 catholic with a church, as far as i can tell.

Note that, the Cathedrals and Grand Mosques are unique in MedMod IV. This means that although i set them to 0.05, i would treat them differently if a faction was able to build more than one of them as they will distort the result if built all over by a very afluent faction IMO.
I have made the changes as follows (using your format):

faith appeal level1 priest(All faiths)=0.25
faith appeal level2 priest(All faiths)=0.5

faith appeal spy=Heretic 0.15, Pagan 0.05
faith appeal assassin=Heretic 0.15, Pagan 0.05

faith propagation from churches/mosques=0.015
faith propagation from monastery=0.020
faith propagation from cathedrals/grand mosques=0.030

zeal appeal for inquisitor=0
zeal appeal for priests level2(All faiths)=0.1


On a short note: a faction won't make less money with increased rebeliousness - it will simply garrison its provinces so it can safely put very high taxes to them. It is this garrisoning that does the trick as i posted before and as YourLordandConqueror confirmed. The fact that he increased the output of provinces is good as factions will continue to invade others with the extra troops they can support from that income - if he didn't do that they would simply stay in their place (overall aggressivness of the campaign would decrease), as they wouldn't have extra troops to "burn" in invasions.
With increased rebelliousness a faction will need to a) increase garrison size and/or b) lower taxes in order to maintain loyalty. This in basic terms does equate to lower income. Despite this I do agree with you on this point. I have been running a test campaign and have noted the territorial robustness already. This comes from homelands and the larger garrisons. The HRE in particular have surprised me entirely in that in a campaign starting in the early period and run on automatic, their territory was still 90% intact in 1200 and their armies are strong, consisting of Swabian Swordsmen, Archers and Sergeants. There were none of the usual civil wars and implosion followed by a Hungarian and French land grab. The French actually fared worse and seem to be training a lot of archers, which is something else I need to look into.

Interestingly enough povinces of very high rebelliousness act as a pin for faction territories, that is, the AI loads them with troops enabling better defence. For example i put 4 rebelliousness in Tyrolia (MedMod doesn't have Switzerland), and that worked wonders in keeping the HRE together as they parked two full stacks there, most of the time.
Makes perfect sense. Look at Reget on the VI map, a horribly rebellious province with some decent rebels defending it. You see the AI Northumbrians, Mercians, Vikings and Scots going for it repeatedly and losing.


A balance between income, territorial robustness of AI factions and aggressivenes needs to be found; if the income is low then territorial robustness is very high and aggressivness low, then the game is dull (static); if the income is too high then all factions have troops to burn and they will invade each other until most of the map is rebels (fragmentation). That's also bad, as there aren't any strong opponents for the player and the rebel faction is huge, so the AI factions cannot come back to hold their act together.
True enough, but another factor is balancing the troop mixes and economies. Historically certain factions were weaker than others, but they had certain strengths such as better shipping, trade potential and strong fighting men. for factions like the Danes this is definitely the case, but the AI still manages to bankrupt them. I have reduced the costs for bodyguard units but the Danes still sit there and go into the red. The next stage will be to try some other methods such as reducing the support costs for vikings and improving the provinces base income. I also need to add a lot of buildings to the early campaign anyway, but have yet to start that.

This is what is happening in vanilla (too many troops to burn) with the exception that rebelliosness is low (0 default). So, rebellions dont happen upon invading succesfully a province; instead you have 3 superpowers in no time and everyone else in the bin (of reapperances).

A mid level can be found that invasions happen gradually so the AI moves resemble the expand/turtle/expand phases that the player does. That is factions do take their chances, but not excessively so they can keep their territorial core.

By tweaking income/upkeep/rebelliousness also the average size of battles may be determined.For example my taste is about a stack (and a few units). I am very much bored of endless reinforcements that i need to wait for to slaughter after i win the initial encounter. So i tweaked it to about that size. The only battles that are larger than this are usually, the Horde and Crusades/Jihads. That's just my personal taste though.

The Unknown Guy's idea for heresy spread by agents is good IMO.

Many Thanks

Noir
This is all stuff that I need to work on soon, and any help or ideas as to the implementation would be most welcome.

I will be chopping this thread up over the next few days, so I would appreciate it very much if people would adhere to a simple very easy to follow rule (if only I myself had followed this in the past throughout this thread! :wall: ). When replying to different posters please do not multi quote, if you have to double post to reply to three different orgahs/subjects, that's fine and makes the splitting of the thread a lot easier. This will apply until we get the place in order then it will be back to normal. I have split the summary and the downloads and bug reports off already. The use of that thread should be obvious from the title. This thread will resume as the development/input thread until it is split up.

Feel free to make new threads on different issues related to the mod as you see fit. Please label any new threads relating to the Pocket Mod using this form:

"PoM: Example Thread Title"

or:

"Pocket Mod: Example Thread Title"



Many thanks

Cambyses II

:bow:

[Noir]

All sounds good Cambyses II;
just a small comment on monasteries/ribats. I made those with less faith propagation from the basic churches/mosques, for the simple reason that as a player i could exploit their better capablities against the AI - the AI wouldn't do the same, unfortunately.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

Well I may remove that altogether and I haven't added any to the Ribat or Reliquary at all. Which brings me to another related subject.

As a simplification, and hopefully an optimisation, of the tech tree I was going to turn Churches and Cathedrals into a single upgradeable line, and the same for Mosques and Grand Mosques. The Ribat I see as an additional building on the level of the Chapter House and not the counterpart to the Monastery, yes it has the +1 morale bonus but all of that can be changed if necessary.

Back in the days before I removed mercenaries I had intended to use the Ribat as the Muslim equivalent to the Inn - but that is irrelevant now.

The only use of the Ribat in this mod is as a dependency to fanatical units such as Ghazis, the Nizari types and the Futuwwa. It's secondary use is to provide the Morale bonus as it no longer produces Jihads. This makes it seem rather redundant for a faction such as the Almohads that can utilise it for nothing except that bonus from within their own lands. I may add it is a dependency for the al-Murabitun Infantry as the Almohads were a kind of Jihadist movement.

Similarly Monasteries and Reliquaries are now next to useless to all Catholic factions except the Papacy, the only gain being the morale bonuses (I'm not playing these down, but I hardly see that alone as the sole reason for building such a structure). This is something else that also needs to be looked at. The Reliquary would have basically been a shrine for the remains of a saint or other holy relics. Such a structure would definitely contribute to the faith of the province. I do think that it should provide a substantial propagation bonus when built, but should be a stand alone structure depending on a Cathedral and not a Monastery.

The Monastery is the real issue here. These were the real centres of learning in the Medieval age, yet the game doesn't do them justice. I have a feeling that these should produce an income, though I would be interested in hearing opinions as to how Monasteries affected Feudal Society? Were they a burden, a blessing or a mixed bag? The Abbey from VI could be brought over to use as a lesser Monastery to give two levels of Monastery. The Chapter House could be utilised as the third. They would either sap resources or provide an income.

One idea is that the proposed Abbey/Monastery/Chapter House line could provide an income whereas the Church/Cathedral line could actually incur support costs (if the negative income thing works that is - another thing I need to test!). The former line would contribute to covering (nullifying) the costs of the latter line.

[Noir]

In fact i gave them the Cathedral income just to reflect their importance at some point during the time i was "making" the MedMod home mini-mod. Was forced to change back though since the AI would hardly build them, and i couldn't justify otherwise teching all the way to Citadel if the Cathedral wouldn't give an income.

However i have a feeling that this can be changed if the Ai preferrence is increased and the monastery is put somewehere nicely for the AI in the tech tree.

I personally agree with this approach - it appeals to my sense of "history" (like in "The Name of the Rose" - great movie!).

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

In fact i gave them the Cathedral income just to reflect their importance at some point during the time i was "making" the MedMod home mini-mod.
You gave an income to Monasteries? Positive or negative?

Was forced to change back though since the AI would hardly build them, and i couldn't justify otherwise teching all the way to Citadel if the Cathedral wouldn't give an income.
And the AI wouldn't build Monasteries? That challenges the concept that the AI always goes for income buildings. :dizzy2:

However i have a feeling that this can be changed if the Ai preferrence is increased and the monastery is put somewehere nicely for the AI in the tech tree.
Well as a prerequisite to the Chapter House, this would make the AI want to tech up in order to build Crusades or train Knights of the Crusading Orders?

I personally agree with this approach - it appeals to my sense of "history" (like in "The Name of the Rose" - great movie!).

Many Thanks

Noir
I think it could work out well if it's balanced correctly. I do think that the Monastery and Church lines need to be two opposing lines. I will test the negative income thing later and see if it works out. In such a case the Church line (Church, Cathedral) would have the advantages of faith propagation, and happiness with the disadvantage of support costs. The Monastery line (Abbey, Monastery, Chapter House) would have the advantages of an income, and being upgradable to the Chapter House but with the disadvantages of no faith propagation.

Ribats, Mosques and Grand Mosques are another issue. The Ribat usage I have already covered, though the Mosques and Grand Mosques I'm not so sure about. I think perhaps they should both incur support costs (again if the support costs thing works).

[Noir]

I gave a positive income to Monasteries but a negative income to the "Royal Court" line of buildings to reflect these good-for-nothing knightly nobles eating and drinking and shining their armours.

Negative income works and also negative loyalty works (interesting for certain provinces that had a tendency to go independent say Burgundy? Nicaea? etc). That was an idea suggestion that Cegorach made in an irrelevant thread sometime ago.

The AI wouldn't build them in a large scale, yes.
In contrast to that and in order to help the AI, i've put a small income in the Town Watch line of buildings - this helps the AI get some finance going as he prefers the TW and builds it to completion first and foremost. It can be also thought that the TW generates a small income for being "useful" around the town by policing/puting out fires.

The idea of having monasteries opposing churches is interesting IMO.

I would get bugs/CTDs (?) if giving the Cathedral income to way more than two lines of buildings, but i can't remember :thinking: how many was the limit. Currently i have the cathedral, the Royal court and the Town Watch for sure. I'll check if the Academy is also considered cathedral income.

It is also most likely that i was getting CTDs for puting the Cathedral income to church and monastery say. This contradict the fact that all my royal court line has a negative cathedral income associated with it. It may be or not related to whther a building is separate or an upgrdade of a previously built building.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I gave a positive income to Monasteries but a negative income to the "Royal Court" line of buildings to reflect these good-for-nothing knightly nobles eating and drinking and shining their armours.
I'm not entirely sure about a negative income from Royal Courts from a Feudal Perspective. Realistically these would be the residences (castles even) of the Feudal lord running the province. I'm pretty sure he'd cost the King nothing in terms of expenses, but would actually provide an income to the king in terms of taxes on the peasantry, already represented by farm income, and the troops levies provided in times of war.

Negative income works and also negative loyalty works (interesting for certain provinces that had a tendency to go independent say Burgundy? Nicaea? etc). That was an idea suggestion that Cegorach made in an irrelevant thread sometime ago.
That's good to know, I wasn't sure about that. Negative loyalty on buildings?

The AI wouldn't build them in a large scale, yes.
In contrast to that and in order to help the AI, i've put a small income in the Town Watch line of buildings - this helps the AI get some finance going as he prefers the TW and builds it to completion first and foremost. It can be also thought that the TW generates a small income for being "useful" around the town by policing/puting out fires.
True, it's all gains, in terms of policing and maintaining public order, probably more than nullify it's expenses, which would probably be quite low.

The idea of having monasteries opposing churches is interesting IMO.
I'll have a go at that later (this should be my slogan :dizzy2:). I really want a tech tree that makes sense and not a tech tree that has the appearance of an incoherent mess strung together for game balancing purposes.

I would get bugs/CTDs (?) if giving the Cathedral income to way more than two lines of buildings, but i can't remember :thinking: how many was the limit. Currently i have the cathedral, the Royal court and the Town Watch for sure. I'll check if the Academy is also considered cathedral income.
I didn't know about that either, though I'm hoping I can avoid such a problem by condensing the buildings into single lines, thus removing the old building when the upgrade is complete. This is why I'll have to make all of my various bonuses as standalone rather than cumulative as the previous building will be removed (losing all of it's bonuses in the process).

It is also most likely that i was getting CTDs for puting the Cathedral income to church and monastery say. This contradict the fact that all my royal court line has a negative cathedral income associated with it. It may be or not related to whther a building is separate or an upgrdade of a previously built building.

Many Thanks

Noir
I'll test it and see what happens.

Many Thanks Also

:bow:

[Noir]

Sorry,

negative loyalties on titles for generals. Come to think of it though it might work for buildings too if you put a negative figure in the "happiness appeal" column.

I should have been more specific.

As for the royal courts i see your point - IMO is coming as a compensation for the fact that i lowered the very high upkeep costs of BG units as i told you in the past, that are already charging your kings an arm and a leg (and not the nobles themselves) to have them on the battlefield. However, since i sense a "derailing" (on feudal perspectives :) - i'll leave it at that. I'm happy when you are happy : ) (honest)

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I'm not so sure of the logic behind a title with negative loyalty...

Buildings with negative loyalty I'm also not so sure about, except in one case... Could this be used as an instrument to make the AI boost it's garrison size at a certain point? Perhaps this could be applied to higher castle levels, needing larger garrisons? ~;)

No, I see your point - transferring the support costs to the building itself instead of paying dearly to support every man and horse. I already have my bodyguard units costing very little to support, but none of those depend on the Royal Court line of buildings anyway. The BG units in the PoM depend on Royal Palace, which is a unique building. The lowest, the Royal Court (needs renaming - suggestions welcome) forms the prerequisite, along with an armourers' workshop and horse breeder for (Feudal) Knights instead. The Royal Estate is for Chivalric Knights, the Baronial Court for Lancers (Aragonese and Castile Leon only) and the Baronial Estate for Gothic Knights (this is far from finished and it feels like there's one building too many at present).

[Noir]

The overall approach sounds good - i'll try and think of a building name (hopefully!:stupido:) to suggest.
For the garissons in larger castles: sounds alright - although i took an opposite approach and added a small happiness crumb for every castle level - it could also work very well the way you say though i'm sure.

Behind negative loyalties: may be thought off as areas where the "local authority" has traditionaly been strong - too strong in fact for the "central" government to control. Making a General duke of Nicaea or of Anatolia it would turn them local barons that wish to negotiate their independence playing on multiple diplomatic tables - avoiding taxes, torturing the peasants, grrabbing their land and working them to death and creating huge feuds (that were common in Anatolia - called "Tsiflikia" = large estates) and causing uprisings like that of Skleros against Basil the Bulgar Slayer.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

The Cathedral is now an upgrade to the Church. It functions in exactly the same way but both the Church and Cathedral now cost upkeep instead of the latter giving an income. I have it at -25 and -75 respectively at present, though that is hardly final.

The Monastery line I still haven't done. I'm still deliberating on whether to add the Chapter House as the last building in the Monastery line. :book:

[Martok]

The lowest, the Royal Court (needs renaming - suggestions welcome) forms the prerequisite, along with an armourers' workshop and horse breeder for (Feudal) Knights instead.
How about Ducal Estates? (Or perhaps that should be switched around with Baronial Estates, since a Duke ranks higher than a Baron?)


The Cathedral is now an upgrade to the Church. It functions in exactly the same way but both the Church and Cathedral now cost upkeep instead of the latter giving an income. I have it at -25 and -75 respectively at present, though that is hardly final.

The Monastery line I still haven't done. I'm still deliberating on whether to add the Chapter House as the last building in the Monastery line. :book:
I have to say that overall, I really like this idea (of splitting the church/monastery tech tree); it's quite innovative. :2thumbsup:

I'm not sure about the placing of the Chapter House after the Abbey & Monastery, though. If that happens, I imagine it would probably take quite some time for factions -- both human and AI alike -- to tech up to the point where they can launch Crusades. I know we've been working on this with an eye towards improving game balance & AI performance -- and I still support those goals wholeheartedly -- but is there no way to do so without essentially eliminating Crusades from the Early period (which is effectively what we'd be doing)?

[caravel]

How about Ducal Estates? (Or perhaps that should be switched around with Baronial Estates, since a Duke ranks higher than a Baron?)
That is a possibility, a Duke is higher than a Baron though. IIRC Barons are some kind of lesser peers and not true peers. It would make sense that the governor of the province be assigned this way, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

It would be interesting to tie the Royal Court line of buildings into the Castle tech tree somehow, whereby you cannot upgrade the Castle until you have built the next level of Royal Court - just an idea.

I have to say that overall, I really like this idea (of splitting the church/monastery tech tree); it's quite innovative. :2thumbsup:

I'm not sure about the placing of the Chapter House after the Abbey & Monastery, though. If that happens, I imagine it would probably take quite some time for factions -- both human and AI alike -- to tech up to the point where they can launch Crusades. I know we've been working on this with an eye towards improving game balance & AI performance -- and I still support those goals wholeheartedly -- but is there no way to do so without essentially eliminating Crusades from the Early period (which is effectively what we'd be doing)?
There is that, but I don't intend to have the same Kind of Abbey as in VI. It will probably take about 2 - 4 years to build and provide only a small income. The next upgrade - the Monastery would take about 2 years (thinking along the lines that an upgrade is usually an addition to the old building and not flattening and rebuilding) and provide a Mediocre income, and Chapter House would take about the same and provide slightly more income. This would not delay crusades that much, as you already have to build a 4 year church, followed by a 4 year (?) chapter house anyway.

[Martok]

That is a possibility, a Duke is higher than a Baron though. IIRC Barons are some kind of lesser peers and not true peers.
Exactly. Hence, why I suggested that a Ducal Estate be placed above the Baronial Estate on the tech tree. :yes:


It would be interesting to tie the Royal Court line of buildings into the Castle tech tree somehow, whereby you cannot upgrade the Castle until you have built the next level of Royal Court - just an idea.
An interesting idea. Doing so would force the AI-controlled factions to build the next level of court/estate should it wanted to upgrade the castle. That in turn should help to guarantee the AI could train the best knights available to it as well, correct?


There is that, but I don't intend to have the same Kind of Abbey as in VI. It will probably take about 2 - 4 years to build and provide only a small income. The next upgrade - the Monastery would take about 2 years (thinking along the lines that an upgrade is usually an addition to the old building and not flattening and rebuilding) and provide a Mediocre income, and Chapter House would take about the same and provide slightly more income. This would not delay crusades that much, as you already have to build a 4 year church, followed by a 4 year (?) chapter house anyway.
Hold on a second -- is the monastery no longer dependent on the castle level? (I was under the impression one would have to build a Citadel before a Chapter House could be constructed.) Guess I missed that one.... :oops:

[caravel]

Exactly. Hence, why I suggested that a Ducal Estate be placed above the Baronial Estate on the tech tree. :yes:
Yes I was agreeing, my use of "though" caused the confusion there. Apologies. :bow:

An interesting idea. Doing so would force the AI-controlled factions to build the next level of court/estate should it wanted to upgrade the castle. That in turn should help to guarantee the AI could train the best knights available to it as well, correct?
It's an idea, but it needs some consideration. The problem is that looking at it from a different perspective, it prevents the AI from teching up to the highest level unless it has a citadel (or does it??). The tech tree for military buildings is now on a two level system. The keep is the prerequisite for all first and second level military buildings (including royal courts and horse breeders) and the castle for third and fourth level. This makes the citadel and fortress almost optional.

Edit: I suppose this could work and my above concern may be redundant. I would start it with the Castle though. First build the Keep, in order to build the Royal Court which then allows the Castle. Then build the Royal Estate, which allows the Citadel, then the Baronial Estate which allows the Fortress. Though the player/AI can tech straight up to Baronial Court and then would be able to upgrade the castle to the highest level unhindered.

Hold on a second -- is the monastery no longer dependent on the castle level? (I was under the impression one would have to build a Citadel before a Chapter House could be constructed.) Guess I missed that one.... :oops:
The Monastery no longer trains Inquisitors, except for the Pope. I have added the Abbey (from VI) as the first level Monastery and the Monastery itself is now the second level (the Abbey disappears when you upgrade to the Monastery). Both provide a small income (yet to be finalised) and a small provincial happiness bonus. The Abbey has no dependencies and the Monastery upgrade depends on the Abbey and the Castle. I have not added the chapter house to the line as it seems to me that it might not be strictly accurate to do so. Instead, the Chapter House, as with the Reliquary (both were actually parts of a church or cathedral) may have to depend on the Church, as the Cathedral takes far too long to build and cannot have it's build time realistically reduced.

[Martok]

It's an idea, but it needs some consideration. The problem is that looking at it from a different perspective, it prevents the AI from teching up to the highest level unless it has a citadel (or does it??). The tech tree for military buildings is now on a two level system. The keep is the prerequisite for all first and second level military buildings (including royal courts and horse breeders) and the castle for third and fourth level. This makes the citadel and fortress almost optional.
Hmm; interesting points there. I suppose that ultimately, it really depends on how well the AI would perform overall.

You also bring up a bit of an issue with Citadels & Fortresses. What buildings are still dependent on these, by the way? How worthwhile it is it to construct them now?


Edit: I suppose this could work and my above concern may be redundant. I would start it with the Castle though. First build the Keep, in order to build the Royal Court which then allows the Castle. Then build the Royal Estate, which allows the Citadel, then the Baronial Estate which allows the Fortress. Though the player/AI can tech straight up to Baronial Court and then would be able to upgrade the castle to the highest level unhindered.
Yeah, that might work. It would (hopefully) give the factions greater flexibility in choosing what they want to build, while still helping to ensure they have decent infrastructure in place.


The Monastery no longer trains Inquisitors, except for the Pope. I have added the Abbey (from VI) as the first level Monastery and the Monastery itself is now the second level (the Abbey disappears when you upgrade to the Monastery). Both provide a small income (yet to be finalised) and a small provincial happiness bonus. The Abbey has no dependencies and the Monastery upgrade depends on the Abbey and the Castle. I have not added the chapter house to the line as it seems to me that it might not be strictly accurate to do so. Instead, the Chapter House, as with the Reliquary (both were actually parts of a church or cathedral) may have to depend on the Church, as the Cathedral takes far too long to build and cannot have it's build time realistically reduced.
Agreed. :thumbsup:

[caravel]

You also bring up a bit of an issue with Citadels & Fortresses. What buildings are still dependent on these, by the way? How worthwhile it is it to construct them now?
The administrative buildings all still depend on the citadel or fortress, the cathedral and grand mosque also still depend on it. The merchants also still depend on each castle level from keep upwards. This is there, because it is the player that gains the most from merchant upgrades and not the AI. The idea here is that the massive citadels and fortresses become the exception and not a common sight all over Europe. Historically there were actually few of these in the world, probably one per country or less. A larger number would have been of the castle or keep size. This is why I've tried to have less buildings depending on them. It also helps out the AI which can tech up faster and start building better troops sooner, instead of seeing hundreds of years of spearmen, militia and archers.

Yeah, that might work. It would (hopefully) give the factions greater flexibility in choosing what they want to build, while still helping to ensure they have decent infrastructure in place.
I think for this to work the castle upgrades and royal courts would need their costs and build times adjusted accordingly.

Are we going for Ducal Court/Estate for the renaming of Baronial Court/Estate or are there any other suggestions?

:bow:

[Martok]

The administrative buildings all still depend on the citadel or fortress, the cathedral and grand mosque also still depend on it. The merchants also still depend on each castle level from keep upwards. This is there, because it is the player that gains the most from merchant upgrades and not the AI. The idea here is that the massive citadels and fortresses become the exception and not a common sight all over Europe. Historically there were actually few of these in the world, probably one per country or less. A larger number would have been of the castle or keep size. This is why I've tried to have less buildings depending on them. It also helps out the AI which can tech up faster and start building better troops sooner, instead of seeing hundreds of years of spearmen, militia and archers.
Thanks for the clarification, Cambyses. :bow: I knew you'd lowered the prequisites on a lot of the buildings to Keep/Castle so as to help the AI keep up with the human tech-wise, but I couldn't remember which structures still required Citadels/Fortresses (aside from the Cathedral & Grand Mosque.


Are we going for Ducal Court/Estate for the renaming of Baronial Court/Estate or are there any other suggestions?

:bow:
I would say that makes more sense than calling them Baronial Court/Estate. It's ultimately your call, though. ~:)

[Belisario]

I have made a new set of flags and shields for the Russians. I have chosen the same Russian crest which it's used in MTW2. There are other alternative options for instance the Ukrainian coat of arms which is inspired in the personal crest of Vladimir I the Great (ruled Kiev 980-1015), or religious banners with images of saints or Christ. But I prefer the "MTW2 Russian crest" because is a more generic symbol without modern political connections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ruriks_crests1.png

http://www.goldschp.net/archive/rusheraldry.html

Please, send me a PM with your e-mail to send you the files.

[caravel]

Many thanks, once again, Belisario. :bow:

address sent.

[Belisario]

I have noticed your problems editing Lukupmap, perhaps this post of VikingHorde provides you some useful information.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38121

I have finally made working lbm unit icons without black dots using CA_BIF_BUF tools. This package is also very useful to make other MTW graphics (flags, shields, infopics...), I mean, to make correct bifs and lbms. The key issue is how to use CA_BIF_BUF tools; I found the proper way in this post:


This is an alternative way to save a bif using a tga, without relying on an lbm file saved through Grafx2. #(I used the version of paint-shop-pro avaliable in the tools download area to do this.)

First, take a bmp extracted from the original bif and save it as both a tga and lbm in a program like paint-shop- pro. #The tga file will need to be saved as “10001,” for simplicity sake I named the accompanying lbm 10001 also.
Second, open the program called Seqgrab, and set the information as follows:
– In “path to images” write the location of the 10001.lbm file, e.g., for mine it was “C:\Program Files\Total War\CA_BIF_BUF_Utils”
– In “filename stub” type “1”
– Type in the location of your new lbm file, the one saved as 10001.lbm, where it says "lbm to import from...", #e.g., for mine it was “C:\Program Files\Total War\CA_BIF_BUF_Utils\10001.lbm”
– Check the square that says “whole frame grab”
– Check-off the square that says “purple as transparent”
Choose OK and a bif named "1" should appear.

Whole thread: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=32556

I have hopes CA_BIF_BUF is able to save correct Lukupmaps but I don't test it with maps for the moment (I suspect it's a very hard task).

Cheers

[caravel]

That's good news and the Mithel Image Converter does work. I have created a working lukupmap using that program in conjunction with ultimate paint, so we can start a new "changes to the map" thread whenever. :thumbsup:

[ULC]

Whoohoo! Come on and Celebrate! I shall find the Village People and we will dance the YMCA!:laugh4: :laugh4:

Ahhmm...Really though, I would make a suggestion on the Campaign map. Could you please break apart the Sahara into Barbary, Sub-sahara, and turn the rest into parts of Algeria and Tunisia? Sure, the motivation comes from wanting the Mali Empire, but why not? And can you split Ireland, Hungary, and possibly Austria (giving the Lower part to the Italians or Venetians, if we ever include the latter)?

[caravel]

Ahhmm...Really though, I would make a suggestion on the Campaign map. Could you please break apart the Sahara into Barbary, Sub-sahara, and turn the rest into parts of Algeria and Tunisia? Sure, the motivation comes from wanting the Mali Empire, but why not? And can you split Ireland, Hungary, and possibly Austria (giving the Lower part to the Italians or Venetians, if we ever include the latter)?
Probably won't be enough provinces to do all of that. If you can provide me with sources and preferably maps regarding the Sahara issue I'll be interested, as that area does need some attention.

:bow:

[ULC]

On titles, have you decided on any, and do you have any stats on them yet?

[caravel]

I haven't been able to work out where the titles for buildings are defined. :dizzy2:

[ULC]

It's in the start position files, around the provincial titles I believe.

[caravel]

It's in the start position files, around the provincial titles I believe.
*slaps self* Of course. I see them now, below the governor's titles. Thanks!

:oops:

[The Unknown Guy]

Following Noir's and Omanes's suggestion, I increased the rebellion risk of all provinces to 1, except those which are "non-factions" (AKA: Navarre, Portugal, Khazar, Ireland...) which I put up at 5. Observations:

- Expansion is FAR MORE DIFFICULT. Starting as Castile-Leon, I had two rebellions in Leon (Risk:1), which required extensive putting down, and mass executions. Valencia (also 1) gave me problems too, despite having managed (at least, after several attempts) how to use Jinetes.
I conquered Navarre (Rebellion Risk: 5) and I've put down five rebellions, with mass executions, and the loyalty is still only around 65% (despite a four javelinmen-one Jinete garrison). So the "Keep-non-factions seems to work.

-Loyalty: Apparently having a low loyalty province producing troops begets low loyalty generals: many of my jinetes in my Low-Loyalty Leon were born with 2 and 3 loyalty (My king starts with 4 influence). Did anyone else notice that? It might allow making "troop homelands" less general, as it will take a while to "pacify&assimilate" a province anyway.

[caravel]

Following Noir's and Omanes's suggestion, I increased the rebellion risk of all provinces to 1, except those which are "non-factions" (AKA: Navarre, Portugal, Khazar, Ireland...) which I put up at 5. Observations:
The problem with a province of 5 rebelliousness is that the AI will find it almost impossible to hold down. Especially if it is a valour bonus province as the AI may try to tech up to the valour bonus, and not get the happy buildings in there.


- Expansion is FAR MORE DIFFICULT. Starting as Castile-Leon, I had two rebellions in Leon (Risk:1), which required extensive putting down, and mass executions. Valencia (also 1) gave me problems too, despite having managed (at least, after several attempts) how to use Jinetes.
I conquered Navarre (Rebellion Risk: 5) and I've put down five rebellions, with mass executions, and the loyalty is still only around 65% (despite a four javelinmen-one Jinete garrison). So the "Keep-non-factions seems to work.
I am currently running on a default of 2 with the other rebellious provinces still at 3 or 4. Even 4 is still difficult for the AI to deal with. You find that when a province has been razed that it becomes impossible for any faction except the player to hold it down.


-Loyalty: Apparently having a low loyalty province producing troops begets low loyalty generals: many of my jinetes in my Low-Loyalty Leon were born with 2 and 3 loyalty (My king starts with 4 influence). Did anyone else notice that? It might allow making "troop homelands" less general, as it will take a while to "pacify&assimilate" a province anyway.
I've never noticed that, interesting though as it would represent the recruitment of the locals into the army who would be less than loyal and need titles to keep them in line.

Speaking of titles I need some ideas for titles for the highest level barracks. The barracks are no longer purely "Town Watches" so "Sheriff" type titles would not be suitable.

[ULC]

I have been using the same setup as Caravel. It appears the AI THINKS more when it has to deal with a rebellious province then when it doesn't. The thing you need to do is also increase the amount of income per province, to 15-30% so that the AI will use it more effectively. It garrisons better, troop quality is better (the rebellions quckly weed out the weak units), the AI will actually seek ceasefires and peace, Territorial boundries are signifigantly more robust, and with a little tweaking in the UNIT_BUILDPRODUCTION file, it will concentrate on it's economy more by making income buildings with a happiness bonus. I've heard complaints also of the AI poor management of Trade. An Idea would be to reduce the overall sea regions to 10-14.

[caravel]

I haven't been tweaking provincial incomes as yet as I intend to add incomes to troop equipment buildings, and perhaps some incomes to others (not too many as I don;t want to crash the thing!). Swordsmiths and Armourers perhaps could produce an income. I already have Abbeys and Monasteries producing a small income and churches and cathedrals incurring support costs (a negative income).

[ULC]

On provincial rebelliousness, should the German provinces have 2 for a rebellion factor? It appears the HRE can hold on to them better that way (wierd, huh?) and I think that it historically reflects the natural indepence these areas had. Also, places that were independent or were rather pragmatic about thier rulers (bulgaria comes to mind) should have high rebellion rates.

Umm, Caravel, where should we discuss Titles and control of provinces? Here, the factions thread, or the maps and provinces?

Although this is a long time coming, I disagree with a complete wipe of command stars from titles. Things such as Universities, the Barracks buildings and Military Academies should give a command bonus (ONE STAR!) to reflect higher learning, familiarity with the troops, or strategic and tactical training, respectively.

[caravel]

On provincial rebelliousness, should the German provinces have 2 for a rebellion factor? It appears the HRE can hold on to them better that way (wierd, huh?) and I think that it historically reflects the natural indepence these areas had. Also, places that were independent or were rather pragmatic about thier rulers (bulgaria comes to mind) should have high rebellion rates.
It is ok to give persistently rebel provinces the high rebellion rates, but for factions anything over 2 is hurts the AI.


Umm, Caravel, where should we discuss Titles and control of provinces? Here, the factions thread, or the maps and provinces?
You can either make a new thread, which would probably be the best idea, or go to the maps and provinces, but that thread is in danger of getting very clogged.


Although this is a long time coming, I disagree with a complete wipe of command stars from titles. Things such as Universities, the Barracks buildings and Military Academies should give a command bonus (ONE STAR!) to reflect higher learning, familiarity with the troops, or strategic and tactical training, respectively.
One star I think we can live with as it's not going to have a massive effect. We just need to decide on some titles for the buildings for all cultures and factions. I have given a title to the Turks for the Sultan's Harem building. This title down bestows "The Aga of the Girls". This was only a test and is strictly an Ottoman title but unlike units we cannot restrict titles or buildings to eras.

[axel]

Hi all i have a question wich one of the downloads most i install becose i got 8 of them i got :1.0 and 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 and 1.0.4. and 1.0.5. and 1.0.6 and 1.0.6.b i guess i should be the last one or most i install them all from 1 to 6b ??

[caravel]

Hi all i have a question wich one of the downloads most i install becose i got 8 of them i got :1.0 and 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 and 1.0.4. and 1.0.5. and 1.0.6 and 1.0.6.b i guess i should be the last one or most i install them all from 1 to 6b ??
Download the last one and install that. 1.0.6b supercedes all older versions. It is the same as 1.0.6 but fixes a rather silly error that slipped through unnoticed.

Be aware that this is an unfinished mod that is still in development and is not anywhere near finished, though versions 1.0 to 1.06b are relatively playable. 1.0.7 will be a big diversion from previous versions and is not scheduled for release for an indefinite period.

Many thanks for trying it out, let us know your comments and observations. :thumbsup:

:bow:

[axel]

Thx Caravel,
I will play and let you know :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
wot exact is changed in this mod compare to the normal MTW ?? is there a list of it ? :2thumbsup:

[Martok]

Hi mate
wot exact is changed in this mod compare to the normal MTW ?? is there a list of it ? :2thumbsup:
Link. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=85235) ~:)

[The Unknown Guy]

So far the AI seems to be doing better (as a general rule), with the increased rebelliousness factor. Superpowers don't bloat-collapse as often, at least by themselves (destroying a chapterhouse can throw them into Civil war, but that's usual anyway), and the Golden Horde lasted a long while, and made a decent infrastructure, before having problems (with the polish, which were also doing rather well. I might have increased the lifespan of the GH unwittingly, however, as I made a fast raid and cut Poland in two. To be tested further)
Concerning the GH: increasing it's starting cash might make it last longer...

[ULC]

On the Golden Horde, do you think it would be possible to add an "Anti-Halberd" unit? Me thinks it would enable the Golden Horde a better chance against the human player. On monetary matters, I think the main problem is the support costs. The Horde goes bankrupt withn a few years after appearing, so lowering the support costs and increasing the starting treasury may help. Also, a well developed Khazar (thier favored province) could help them too, although a pragmatic player would simply raze it prior to the invasion :juggle2: .

[caravel]

I have valour bonuses in Khazar for the mongol units, developing it won't help much, and as armour and weapon bonuses wont exist in the next PoM, that won't be an issue.

The best counter to halberds is a Stronger Infantry or for the human player only good missile units, as the former would not be very historical for the Mongols and the latter would not help the AI at all then a Stronger Cavalry would be in order. The MHA and MHC could be improved slightly, to make them more of a threat. I always find that I can melt MHC and that MHA rarely commit to the offensive anyway, and it is usually a combination of Benny Hill code and a being flanked, shot up and/or charged that gets them routing.

The Mongol Auxilliary Cavalry unit may also make a difference. These will be almost AHC class cavalry and not armed with bows, which means the AI won't turn them on to skirmish and have them sitting there at the foot of a hill getting shot up by foot archers or crossbows/arbalests. At present the GH have the too extremes of cavalry, Horse Archers and Heavies. The HAs are great in most situations, but when they could be chasing routers and flanking the simply hang back. The MHC are also good for their role but fall victim to spear walls and concentrated missile fire. I always find that in battles where the GH bring along some Steppe Cavalry, they do much better, simply because it takes away the predictability. The SHC will attack and the HA's are there to harass and cover their backs. The MHC can hang back and come in for the kill later. What the SC lack is some guts and this is where the new MAC come in. They will be the cav to surprise the player, balance the roster, and have him looking for a suitable counter. instead of the old formula of arrows and loose formation for the MHAs and spears, anti cav and bolts for the MHCs the player will have to start thinking again. This would also involved the removal of the hordes of Mongol Warriors which I find easy pickings and a huge exploit. They will be either a dismount only unit (though I'm thinking strongly of removing dismounts as the AI can't use this feature at all) or a steppe unit (the steppe equivalent of archers).

[ULC]

When I was talking about a well developed Khazar, what I meant was to jump start the Horde so that they don't end up crippled unit wise. They eventually run out of MHC (never seem to run out of MHA or arrows for that matter) and lack any form of support for their forces. The idea was to give them adequate facilities to more easily replenish their units, and possibly make them more aggressive.


Originally Posted by Caravel
The Mongol Auxilliary Cavalry unit may also make a difference. These will be almost AHC class cavalry and not armed with bows, which means the AI won't turn them on to skirmish and have them sitting there at the foot of a hill getting shot up by foot archers or crossbows/arbalests. At present the GH have the too extremes of cavalry, Horse Archers and Heavies. The HAs are great in most situations, but when they could be chasing routers and flanking the simply hang back. The MHC are also good for their role but fall victim to spear walls and concentrated missile fire. I always find that in battles where the GH bring along some Steppe Cavalry, they do much better, simply because it takes away the predictability. The SHC will attack and the HA's are there to harass and cover their backs. The MHC can hang back and come in for the kill later. What the SC lack is some guts and this is where the new MAC come in. They will be the cav to surprise the player, balance the roster, and have him looking for a suitable counter. instead of the old formula of arrows and loose formation for the MHAs and spears, anti cav and bolts for the MHCs the player will have to start thinking again. This would also involved the removal of the hordes of Mongol Warriors which I find easy pickings and a huge exploit. They will be either a dismount only unit (though I'm thinking strongly of removing dismounts as the AI can't use this feature at all) or a steppe unit (the steppe equivalent of archers).


Now that sounds great, I'm drooling over it already. Are you perhaps going to make the GH playable in late? I would love to utilize the Hordes units, as I can easily rout just about any army with them. Also, would it be possible (and historical) to give a "fear" bonus to some Mongol units? I definitely like the idea of making the Mongol Warriors "Steppe Archers" or some such unit, and the "possible" Volga-Bulgarian and Cuman factions could easily make use of it.

[UltraWar]

Will the Glorious Achievements be fixed in a later patch?

[caravel]

Ultrawar,

GA functionality is very likely to be removed from the mod due to incompatibilities. This is not abnormal as most mods, especially those covering different periods, have seen the removal of GA. So far I have tried to keep GA function intact, but as the mod advances and more changes are made with more provinces being moved, removed and added, GA will become more of a problem and may end up being a restrictive factor.

From my own point of view this is not a problem. I find the GA game restrictive and predictable, and it seems that the AI is inept at it. I understand perfectly however that many players do like the GA game, and I consider it a sad loss that it was not included in later TW games. This is why I have strived to keep it in the mod thus far.

:bow:

[The Unknown Guy]

Some experiments I am messing around with, as an approach to what has been styled in this forum, plus some other of my own concoction:

-Removed armoury. All armoury dependences have been switched. For instance, now Feudal Knights need a swordsmith as well as a (decent) spearmaker

-Removed spearmaker's and bowyer's dependences on town watch. Now they're independent military buildings. The swordsmith, however, DOES depend on the spearmaker (as an approach to the blacksmith thing)

-Spanish factions (Castile&Aragon): Now they lack access to Town Watch buildings. Their basic unit is the Almugharav(Spanish javelinmen), with a reduced support cost

plus some messings with Byzantium
-Found the standard Prononai Kavalliory (regular Prononai Allaegion) a bit lacking in stats. Improved their charge and attack, left their defense and armor as it is (I think I reduced defense). So now they're a half-breed between Feudal and Chivalric Knights, being somewhat better overall than the former, with equal charge, and a bit better general stats, albeit with a higher upkeep. They are now a good charger cavalry unit, able to hold themselves against FKs, but in a fight against Chivs, if left by themselves, they will get torn to shreds. I tried to alter their cosmetic looks, to make them look different from Stratioi. I was pondering removing them, and making an all-around PKT with Feudal-knight charge stats, 5 armor (as it is now), and horse-archer capabilities, with high upkeep, but thought it might turn too uber (either that or with a big requirement stepping stone bridge, which would make their arrival late. And as it is now the reqs are rather steep)

Psiloi: Made them "Fast" as well as their standing stats (to make it more viable to make hit and runs.
Skulkatoi: Now they have "Normal" morale instead of "poor".
Note about All byzantine units: Some did receive an upgrade as I stated, but I increased the building requirements for all of them, following this rule-of-thumb:
Byzantine armies were professional/mercenaries. So now, ALL STANDARD BYZANTINE UNITS require a certain level of the town watch to be built, to reflect their reliance on cities.
So now, for instance, my Psiloi need Bowyer level 2, and Town Watch level 2. I´m pondering switching this to bowyer level 1, swordsmith level 1, Town watch level 2.
Skulkatoi need Swordsmith level 2 plus Town Watch.
Prononai Kavs require, as well as their "swordsmith" and a high-rate horse-breeder (standard for all heavy cav), town watch 3. So do PKT, which also require bowyer level 3, and swordsmith (I put them as a crossbreed of horse archers and heavycav)

As for mounted sergeants: Horse-breeder2 and Spearmaker 2. ByzLancers(PrononaiStratioi) the same + Town Watch

Also: some ways I thought of removing the "swords vs spears" problem without removing the spears category: Two possible ways, to be precise

- Lowering the men at arm's defense drastically. This would make them decent assault forces, able to withstand arrow rains (thanks to armor), but would likely suffer heavy casualties, and would stand no chance against a cavalry charge. Even light cavalry would be deadly to them

-Increasing their support cost: In the sense of "them being the higher ranks of the gendry, and thus being costly". They'd be as deadly as they are now, only far more scarce. The historical reasoning is sound. In Spain, for instance, "hidalgos" were the lowest nobility rank, and yet they did not pay any taxes. Their bloating eventually brought the state to bankrupt. I understand in Turkey something akin happened with the nominally slaves but actually equivalent to a gendry class Janissaries.

[ULC]

I like the idea of lowering thier defense. They would end up being used much like no-dachi from STW, and they would finally stop beating cavalry. On anoher note though, any english only MAA we make should have cavalry defense bonuses, in my opinion at least, to better reflect english fighting style.

[ULC]

I've been working over a few things, and have come to discover that to my delight, Spies and Assassins have gained much with the spreading of heresy. For instance, we know that one spy is enough to start a rebellion and you need no more (except as fodder). But with the spread of heresy comes the ability to forment rebellion overtime. As such, although only one spy may be working at a time, any other spies in the region are spreading heresy. This means that spies, working in groups, can make otherwise loyal provinces that would normally be out of reach revolt eventually. Also, the spy has another power (along with the assassin) to be a "crusade caller". In effect, if the heresy in a province is high enough, you may call a crusade on provinces that would not normally be able to crusade against, and quite cheaply too (my experience any way).

[Third spearman from the left]

Wow I really have been playing RTW for too long :dizzy2:

So do I get a mention in the credits for starting this topic and bringing all these hard working modders together? :laugh4:

[Noir]

A suggestion for minimising rushing openings:

In many guides of the vanilla games you see that people tend to write out their future problems by a nice quick rush. For example say the Turks in vanilla can take out Constantinople in two turns almost that deals a deadly blow in the Byzantines; the Byzantines from their part can do the same with Rum. Planty of other similar strategies exist all over the board, say also in the Iberian peninsula or by raising mercenary armies.

This in large is made possible by the starting treasury; 6000 flrs at hard level are more than enough to support such moves (the other reasons are the low rebelliousness and fast religion conversions but the PoM is dealing with those already).

My suggestion is to keep the starting treasury column empty in the starpos.txt that will render all treasuries for all levels 2000 flrs. That will cut down on prolonged opening rushes/offensives that will guarantee a large sizze state to begin with in 10 turns. Its more difficult to consolidate provinces with 1.0 or 2.0 province rebeliousness with fewer starting money.

Noir

[The Unknown Guy]

I made a full rehasal of building orders, and altered cavalry yet again to some more uniform standards (which vary depending on faction and depiction, but anyway,:
The military reforms, I already outlined in the previous posts, and now are a bit refined by trial and error (custom battle comparation of battle efectiveness: heavy cavalry have 7+ charge, light cav 5-6, dragoons/horse archers, as they have no weapon, 3 as a "trampling bonus". Men at arms have around 1 defense, attack around 5-6. I suppressed the charge because they are not quite yet like no-dachi, but rather an inbetween "slow mowing" unit. I made two handed axe-sword units no-dachi like, with 3 charge, 7-8 melee, and varying ammounts on armor depending on the unit (gothic foot being the strongest, highlanders the lowest. For the record, you cant put 0 armor, it causes a crash). I also added a "muslim mercenary" to sicilians, which is a combination of Men-at-arms and compound bow, but with low defense -2, expensive, and not too good morale (they are mercenaries), and I want some "two handed" troop for the almohads, which as a counterpart lose naphta. Either that or halberdiers. I also tried two custom "Nizari" and "Granadian" factions, but I´ve left it aside for now because I had too many crashes, and I dont want to get around balancing them right now.

Now the building order/economy, heavily altered

Six farming improvements, which deal 140,200,260,320,380,440 income improvements. Last two need the compass. So do the last two merchant improvements.
Basic troop building thing: Blacksmith (as with the viking blacksmith, only I used the unused "Tavern" building because I had problems copying-pasting code). It requires farm level 2 and a castle, and it´s a prerrequisite for all other weapon manufactures (spears, swords, etc...). It also makes some basic units avaiable (vanilla spearmen, javelinmen, woodsmen and other "trash troops"), but for sergeants, men at arms, etc... you need the adequate smith.
The Royal Court line also needs some farming improvements. I´m thinking on restoring byzantine access to this building (at least low levels) and making the Pronoiai dependent on it.

Now, related to economy: I drastically reduced all farming incomes. Some noteworthy cases are Constantinople (which I left with a low farming income, even when upgraded, but with many trade goods, as to point out it´s "trade" roadway). Anatolia and Smyrna/Nicaea have a more decent (in the "reformed farmland" system I outlined) as they were prosperous as well (nothing out of the ordinary through. They have a slightly higher than average income, but their main advantage is that they start at level 4 of farm). I lowered castile's farm income, and removed trade goods, but added in it´s place gold (which is slightly enhaced), but the south remains economically rich (it was so historically, and muslims brought new farming techniques, whereas the north, barring mineral wealth, was not as profittable to invade-specially bearing in mind the rugged terrain favoring ambushes, and native hostility). Egypt keeps a large income because it was historicaly prosperous.

The reduction of farming incomes only makes sense, as with the new system there are more economic improvements, and furthermore, they will be built by the comp as the basic ones are needed for units. (I´ve tested this, and it does). This also slows early rushes, as barring some early more or less (faction dependant) developed provinces, which start with farm1 or 2 (more in some cases) the players (computer or human) have to develop what they conquer.

As for trade, I made some "trade routes", one "spice/cotton" route following Levant-Cyprus-Crete-Sicily-(Venice,Genova,otherports), and one "silk/dyes/gems" route, following Asia minor, Constantinople, Hungary, Venice, and the rest of Europe, and some minor ones. My theory is that this way trade routes are somewhat profittable, but not bloatish, and that real trade power comes from holding monopolies, which is very hard. Also, I wanted "island stranded factions" to have a chance to build an economic network. This would symbolize taxing all trade coming near the island to try to regain their position.

A not altogether too relevant note: I did manage to get the inn as a rebel only income generating thing, by making it produce a huge farming income. It does work, the rebels DO build it, but I´ve not seen it do anything beyond that. I want to keep an eye on rebelled developed provinces.

Balance testing system: I tested my modifications on building order, economy, and starting position, by running medieval on auto/godmode several times until year 1300, and observing the outcome:
I managed to outcast bloating for the most part, until at least year 1200, and now superpowers are not as "determined", meaning that whereas in some games Spain squikked the almohads, in others it got squikked in turn, and likewise for all factions (I saw French, German, and British Empires as well). Byzantium does have a tendence to become superpowerish, as well as Italy, but they are far later more unstable bloats than what I had seen until now. Italy can bloat onto the mediterranean, but it is still vulnerable on the mainland (in some games I saw it survive with scattered colonies around), and Byzantium has fallen to the Seljulks several times. Their survival is not ensured, nor is their bloating. The only one I´ve seen survive more often than most is Egypt. Which doesn´t bloat. I also increased the survival rate of the Golden Horde.
Factions do build advanced troops (specially Euro factions), in big ammounts, althrough they do produce a lot of trash, specially early in each era (this comes, I think, from homeland restrictions, as European factions, with no restriction to building, do produce more advanced troops (chivalric maa, heavy cav, etc...), than, for example, the Byzantines or the Egyptians. I attribute this to a computer preference for low tech approaches, and thus, spearmen and naphta taking the places which would have been for pronoiais. Thus, I see less of them. Psiloi, Skulkatoi, and Kontarakoi do parade around in significant numbers, through.

Right now I´m playing a "normal" game as Castile, and all seems to be allright
Cosmetically I changed "Byzantine Emperor" and "Emperor whoever" to "Romaion Autokrator" and "Autokrator Whoever", I left Holy Roman Emperor stand, but changed the "Emperor Conrad whatever" to "Kaiser Conrad whatever".

[Noir]

Remaking of an old suggestion, just so to get it out of my system:
I am well aware that valor bonuses in provinces are an essential element for many players; nevertheless i've only seen it making the gameplay better when applied in provinces of low income and no minerals. In all other cases the AI was wasting its potential significantly just to get the bonus, that is definitely not worth it especially for low end units.

Noir

[ULC]

I had some rather lopsided ideas lately, but here me out.

What I did

I recently made the Castle line entirely dependent on the farm upgrades; If the A.I. attempts to tech up to fast, it is at least forced to build the farm upgrades. Also, I slimmed down the number of unit production buildings, their are now only 6 unit training types - Barracks line, Stable Line, Archery Line, Court/Estate line, and Blacksmith Line. Spies were moved to the Court/Estate line, and Assassins were moved to the Merchant line. Also, regional units are now avaible to anyone who controls the region, but you must have the required level of "Merchant" to hire them. Also, I made all religious units trainable, but rendered the Chapter House and Ribat as "unique" buildings.

What do you think?

[The Unknown Guy]

Interesting. I did the same with the chapterhouse (IHMO it should be unique. With muslims it´s even more needed, as jihad spamming is far easier)

I also did something akin making some structures dependent on farm upgrades. I was going to do it further, but found a lack of AI tech development, so I lowered some tech requirements a bit and started tinkering with the building influences. Now the AI does tech up to knights and other advanced units (mameluk horse archers, Byzantine Cavalry, etc...)

I have made a small package if anyone wishes to try my particular tinkering:

http://files-upload.com/files/493697/Modtest.zip


Also, regional units are now avaible to anyone who controls the region, but you must have the required level of "Merchant" to hire them.

EDIT: I was thinking on doing something akin, althrough placing some restrictions with some units. I also linked urban militia to the merchant line. The problem I see with tying mercs to that is that not all provinces have a merchant avaiable (I thought that UM didn´t matter that much, as its an auxiliar at best), so I tried to leave units in two tech trees, with "royal court" tying in full feudal units, such as knights, and early gendry, and the town watch covering mercenary, mercenary gendry, and urban units (IE: all the Byzantine tech tree, pikemen, etc...) Some "mercs" such as steppe heavy cavalry, and whatnot, are widely avaiable, but not "tied", as somehow I saw them as "local tribes and clans", more occassional mercenaries than organized companies. The spanish javelinmen I made into a basic spanish land unit into almughavars, and the old almughavars into the Catalonian company, avaiable to anyone who holds Aragon (I was going to make a Navarrese company as well, but stopped at the last moment because I was unsure on what stats I should place the difference)

[The Unknown Guy]

BTW, could the pics from Shogun be used as the basis for some units? I find that the pikemen animation is unsatisfactory, as they look like regular spears. The Yari Ashigaru, or the Yari samurai might be more in order for those units. Some others could be used as well...

[The Unknown Guy]

Feedback anyone?

[caravel]

All good ideas, Unknown Guy, though I have pretty much suspended work on this mod for a number of reasons, the main one being time, I quite simply don't have the time to devote to this project, and the understandable general lack of interest as a secondary consideration.

There is also the issue of MTW mods and the current demand for such mods. The Medmod, XL mod and BKB Super Mod seem to fit the bill in all respects as far as Medieval realism/gameplay balance mods go, there simply isn't a "gap in the market" for this type of thing.

The mod did get off to a good start but eventually tailed off due to lack of new/innovative ideas. Instead of innovating in a "pocket sized" fashion, we seemed to get side tracked into doing what "xl has done" or what "medmod has". I started with a simple unidirectional beast and finished with a mass of loose ends, reminiscent of the spaghetti monster himself. So instead of working on a particular part of the project and focusing on that part until completion, people were requesting all kinds of things not at all related to what was being worked on at present. You have to see it from my point of view, that while being busy working on the units and tech tree, I was being bombarded with requests for work on the map, then once work on the tech tree and units had been postponed and work on the map begun the ideas/requests began for unit balancing and additional units. At that stage I could have closed the doors and gone it alone, but that was not what the Pocket Mod was all about.

This has left me with a momentus task that is not complete in one single respect and is still far from ready for distribution.

So it is with regret that I must close the project. Individual files will be available for those that want them. I might one day get the unfinished v1.7 ready and upload it.

Feel free to use any of the ideas/info in the Pocket Mod threads for your own projects.

Thank you for your support.

C

:bow:

[caravel]

This is my Edessa Garisson prior to receiving a kicking from the Fatimids:
https://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9550/00000000nz3.th.jpg (https://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=00000000nz3.jpg)

This is the Edessa "troop surge" (unfortunately led by the very same coward...) the following year receiving more of the same from the Fatimids...
https://img141.imageshack.us/img141/9986/00000001sx1.th.jpg (https://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=00000001sx1.jpg)

The conclusion I've come to is that the Fatimids must be smoking something...

Anyway those damned 200 men Arab Infantry units are absolute killers, due to how that simply wrap around my smaller units. In melee they are unstoppable by anything I can field at present, and combined with Ghazis, Futuwwa, Camels and the Arab Horse Archers they make a dangerous combination. I feel that my Turcoman Horse were not in large enough numbers to really show their best, I also ended up in a very bad position perched on the crest of a hill with the Fatimids milling around (they also had a pretty good general).

[naut]

Ouch. Unlucky.

[Martok]

Incidentally, I'm about 20 years into my Fatimid campaign. I've not had any issues thus far. :beam:


About the only thing I've noticed is that the Blacksmith provides only 2 florins/year, despite costing 500 florins to build. Sorry to sound like I'm second-guessing things, but is that right? I mean I know it's not supposed to be a major income-producer, but that still seems to be an overly high cost/benefit ratio. Unless the Blacksmith is a prerequisite for something that I'm forgetting?

[caravel]

The smith buildings are still very much in the experimental phase. I want to see what people (well so far the mod has two players :beam:) think of the smith buildings and whether they're worth keeping. Currently the spearmaker is unbuildable (removed). The blacksmith, armourer and swordsmith are all income generating buildings under the Iron mine. So they are not available to build in all provinces anyway. The serve as the dependency for no units. At present I'm still wondering whether taking them out altogether would not be the best approach, as they seem redundant.

Remember that your campaign will crash at 1159/1160. The only fix for this is the next version. I want to find as many problems as possible before I release v1.0.9 and also I would like to include many of the changes we've had suggested (changes to hobilars, muslim halberdiers in granada and saragossa etc). I'll also need to know if it's worth keeping the smith buildings or not as that ties in with tinkering with the resource names and icons.

[Martok]

The smith buildings are still very much in the experimental phase. I want to see what people (well so far the mod has two players :beam:) think of the smith buildings and whether they're worth keeping. Currently the spearmaker is unbuildable (removed). The blacksmith, armourer and swordsmith are all income generating buildings under the Iron mine. So they are not available to build in all provinces anyway. The serve as the dependency for no units. At present I'm still wondering whether taking them out altogether would not be the best approach, as they seem redundant.
Well unless we're going to either increase the smith buildings' income, drastically reduce their construction costs, or a combination of the two, then I agree it might be better to just remove them entirely. As they are right now, there doesn't seem to be much reason to build them.



Remember that your campaign will crash at 1159/1160. The only fix for this is the next version. I want to find as many problems as possible before I release v1.0.9 and also I would like to include many of the changes we've had suggested (changes to hobilars, muslim halberdiers in granada and saragossa etc). I'll also need to know if it's worth keeping the smith buildings or not as that ties in with tinkering with the resource names and icons.
All right. I'll try to do some more killing Seljuqs/ & Byzantines bug-hunting then. ~D

[caravel]

Well unless we're going to either increase the smith buildings' income, drastically reduce their construction costs, or a combination of the two, then I agree it might be better to just remove them entirely. As they are right now, there doesn't seem to be much reason to build them.
As I said, I haven't worked on them apart from sticking them in roughly the right part of the tech tree. It's to give an idea of how it might work and to spot potential issues before going to the trouble of implementing them properly. This is why the incomes have been left as they are so as not to impact provincial income too much. I'm ok with removing them altogether as they look messy and seem redundant.


All right. I'll try to do some more killing Seljuqs/ & Byzantines bug-hunting then. ~D
My campaign has started to go well. Fixing the 1159/1160 bug allowed me to continue, which was lucky. The Fatimids are on the run but the Byzantine invaded Egypt which was rebel at the time.

Speaking of rebels, they are still strong and haven't gone bankrupt, if you look over the rebel provinces carefully you'll see why.

:bow:

[naut]

Hehe, I like the Nomad Camp description.

Also, the Seljuks start with under-strength Steppe Horse Archers.

[caravel]

Also, the Seljuks start with under-strength Steppe Horse Archers.
The Seljuks can train Steppe Horse Archers in the correct provinces. As to the under strength issue I suppose it depends on the unit size you play the game on, though I know that some of the sizes are odd. I might tidy these up at some point.

:bow:

[caravel]

My Turks campaign is coming up to 1204. No issues, other than those I've reported, as yet. I will be interested to see the arrival of the Mongols. I have quite a lot of infrastructure built in most provinces now and I'm holding the usual 3 way chokepoint region (now only a 2 way, because Egypt no longer has a "back door"). My next goal is the massed training of Anatolian Infantry once they become available, to replace the basic spearmen which won't be much use against the Mongols...

[gollum]

Hi there,
i've played 4 campaigns so far: Byzantine, French, Almoravid, Danes and Sicilians all of which were good fun until 1159. If you got the fix made may you please include it in the download? Since the pace is slow i get to the point that things get interesting and then get the ctd.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

Welcome gollum,

I will try and get the next version out as soon as possible. You're right of course and as it stands the current version is not much good for testing and further development. I'm just trying to get through a campaign at least to mid way through the high era and then I will release the fix. This should be some time this weekend. All fixes are included on the download of the next version. Be aware that not all fixes will affect existing savegames though the fixes to the event CTDs do resolve without you having to start again.

Thank you for your support.

Caravel

:bow:

[naut]

Playing the Turks is fun. The combo of spearmen and ghazis early on is a challange to actually keep in battle without a top general.

[gollum]

Hi,

thanks for the reply and for making the mod. Here are some suggestions/impressions:

-the muslim cavalry units of 60 men are almost a cheat when used en masse. They also make units like desert archers obsolete since they can take better position for shootouts, they can skirmish better, are faster to redeploy have a better charge due to being mounted can melee reasonably because of their large number and can chase routers. This mostly concerns the cheap to train/quick to get desert horse archer/steppe horse archer but also applies to ex-faris, mameluk horse archer. Perhaps returning them to 40 men may be a consideration.

-The muster field/inn line of buildings may be perhaps restricted to Byzantines, Russians and Danes. The catholics do not really need it as they have the chapter house +2 morale bonus. In addition it affects playbalance as catholics get +1 from church, +1 from monastery, +2 chapter house and +1 inn. That's +5 in total that essentially turns seargents to (jedi) knights. Not to mention provinces with royal palaces that the player tends to use as troop factories that get another +2.

I would also suggest dropping the +2 for chapter houses to +1 and the +2 for Royal palace to +1 and the +3 of cathedral to +1. Units with +5 on average from production under worthy generals will simply not rout unless sandwitched by knights or something.

For the Byzantines, Russians and Danes the muster/inn line it represents well the thematic system and scsandinavian/russian societal hierarchy and so its really a good idea: invest to get native troops better.

-FMAA are somewhat too far into the tech tree for catholics - the player may get them at citadel barracks level that appears well after 1159 unless the Byzantines. This takes a component from the tactical battles - that is the player gets spears/shooters/cavalry instead of spears/swords/shooters/cavalry. Perhaps tieing them to town barracks might be a good lidea and a similar argument can be made with feudal foot knights (currently at fortess barracks - drop to citadel). The varangians that are comparable are in fact at citadel level which feels and plays ok.

-It might be worth it in future versions to split the Egyptians or Turks or both in two factions. For the Turks the sultanate of Konya/Iconium and the Great Seljuks and for the Fatimids the Fatimids and an independent Damascus. As the game stands at the moment the situation is too easy for the Egyptians since they are protected from the desert and the Byzantines that start with many provinces. The Anatolian Turks may be given Nicaea, Sinope, Antalya, Anatolia while the great seljuks Rum, Armenia, Edessa and Mosul. The fatimids may get Egypt and Palestine, while the Damascenese, Tripoli, Antioch and Damascus - or something historically plausible in that vein.

The Levant may turn much less predictable in this way - much like Iberia which is imho excellent. In all 4 campaigns i played by 1159 the Egyptians had annihilated the Turks and invaded the Byzantines ready to deliver the kill.

-Consider returning the arad swords to 60 men default since they aer killers on the field and probably i suspect in autocalc two.

!itburnsus!

[gollum]

(continuing from above)

-Dynatoi Oikeitai can be called simply Dynatoi (the strong ones), since the name being long proves invasive in the tactical screen when moused over. The "oikeitai" (familar ones) bit can be included in the unit card description. Similar arguments may be applied to Nizari Fedeyan.

-The iron line of buildings can work thus: introduce the blacksmith as an extra investment and then the swordsmith and then the armourer as money makers with something semi-decent as income such as say 26 florins +10fl for every upgrade for the swordsmith and 36fl +12fl per upgrade for the armourer.

-A historical description of the order of the camel is missing in the nomad camp building info.

!itburnsus!

[caravel]

You have raised some very good points and there were quite a few that I was thinking of changing myself, including reverting back to smaller units for HAs and Arab Infantry, but many more ideas I've not considered. I've noticed the problem with the HAs already and yes with the Arabs I have created a monster, so I will either adjust their stats accordingly or reduce them back to a standard size sword unit.

I totally agree also on the morale bonuses, they clearly have no structure whatsoever. I prefer to simply start from scratch with those and ensure that it's balanced correctly.

The Muster Field/Inn is necessary for training local units (Woodsmen, Clansmen, Kern, Gallowglass, Celts, Slavs etc) and only requires the fort. I'd rather leave it in, but it certainly should not produce any morale bonuses, those will be removed in the next version.

I'm not sure of the issue with the long names, I'll have to look into that. The names I've added are no longer than those of vanilla units such as "Byzantine Lancers", "Sipahi of the Porte", "Knights of Santiago" or "Trebizond Archers", etc.

I have some serious PC upgrading to do this weekend, but when I get "back" I will be moving on with the mod.

Regards

Caravel

:medievalcheers: :bow:

[gollum]

Hi,
i actually had in mind Kavallarioi Pronoiarioi Toxotai - not Dynatoi Oikeitai that are nor a problem nor bigger than vanilla names as you say - 500 years of ring bearing leave their mark.

Perhaps simply named "kavallarioi toxotai" for the reasons outlined earlier with the Pronoiarioi kavallarioi as the appropriate name for the ex-pronoiai allagoion/high-late byz heavy cavalry.

here's a few more:

-Thessaly is actually comprising of parts of Epirus, parts of Thrace, the whole of Thessaly and significantly the whole of Macedonia and has as its capital the capital of Macedonia, Thessalonica. I understand that once you've denoted Thessaly in startpos.txt it will be a pain to rename, not to mention the homelands maneuver. Yet, i had to say it and therefore here i say it:sweatdrop: that Thessaly is more appropriately named Macedonia.

-The French and HRE behave much better for their own good if set at: CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER. You can get a taste of this by the behaviour of the ex-Spanish, by far the most considerate of the catholic lot, because of this setting.

Currently France and HRE are set at CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER, which means that if they have the cash they'll try to expand with crusades - failling of course and suffering from civil wars due to the influence hit- and also they'll jump into landgrabs messing their integrity and development. While this is somewhat alleviated by the 2 rebelliousness that prevents them from jumping the gun all too often, i suggest you consider trying the DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER mode for them. Generally the expansionist mode burns out the AI factions.

All muslims also fare better set at: MUSLIM_PACIFIST (actually this means that the AI will not sail easily in some desperate invasion of doom scenario and will develop his lands - once the "pacifist" is invaded, he turns nasty with the perpetrator). The Egyptians at the moment are set to: MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST, which somewhat explains their behaviour.

Factions that depend on the sea such as the Sicilians, Danes and Italians fare way more reasonably at: CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER - the NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST makes them burn out and the CATHOLIC_TRADER makes them pay no attention to defence of crucial starting territories as they build tons of ships and no troops which become their financial doom once they have no ports/no trading provinces.; the Italians suffer particularly from this in vanilla.

Finally the Byzantines might prove a bit more prudent if set at ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE instead of ORTHODOX_STAGNANT.


!it burnsus!

[gollum]

correction: it is MUSlIM_PEACEFUL and not PACIFIST.

!itburnsus!

[gollum]

Hi,
just a bit more

-The names are really ok after all, they are never longer than the unit mental state description.

-I noticed a few bugs, namely the port of Tripoli is at its old location in Palestine. The Murabitin infantry are tied to the inn that is not permitted to Muslims.

*****Already fixed - please post bugs in the bug reports thread*****


I did a few custom changes, that is allow only a +1 morale from the inn/ribat, and also one from the grand mosque and one from the reliquary and one from the royal palace. In this way on average provinces provide a plus one and in only one unique province after a lot of investing a plus three.

Returned muslim horse and Arab swords to default sizes.

Changed the AI personalities according to previous post.

I aslo did a cheap fix for the 1159 ctd, returning Morea/Finland to the catholic flock so i can play past that date.

Allowed FFKnigths at citadel barracks level.

Then i started a campaign with the Byz on hard, that now approaches the high era. Turks gone and Egyptians suffer multiple civil wars. Currently holding border on Georgia, Allepo, Antioch, Serbia, Bulgaria. Constant skirmish with Hungary for Serbia. Also took Naples and Sicily when the SIcilians went extinct. No other wars.

Have about 230k in the bank with an average of 6000annual turnover.

-Noticed that eastern archer missile troops resist charges from Byz lancer and melee ferociously against them admittedly under good generals (4 stars plus) and yet the same does not happen with desert archers.

-Varangians are absolute killers - something needs to be done, perhaps put them to the extra info pic/sprite provided by ca in VI and nerf their stats -- they are really a high late era unit as they are. Half size units of them kill royal knights harboring kings of equal valor.

The muslim_peaceful is probably not optimal for the Turks as the game stands. Expansionist gives them better chances.

France and HRE fare better with defensive_crusader. More stable, more concentrating efforts of wars.

!it burnsus!

[gollum]

Hi,
its now 1214 and everything is going ok without ctds.

I have now 360k in the bank with an average annual turnover of 5k. That's because i am basically at war with whoever can be at war with me, hence the trade income is substantially reduced (basically black sea only, with the Kiavans).

The CLeonese have taken over Cordoba, Saragossa,, Algarb and Murcia. They've been at war with the French over Navarre (which was a point of bitter contest for much of the early period), that changed hands several times. In the end the war ended because the Frenchrun out of steam when the HRE empire took over Ile-de-France andFlanders from them. In the midst of all this they managed to find the time and money to send a (failed) crusade to Constantinople at 1180 or thereabouts. They have another one reaching Croatia that i hold right now, again for the same objective.

The Aragonese were very quiet all this time however when the opoortunity presented itself they took Navarre from the French and after that Aquitaine, Anjou and Brittany. Now they are building up a navy and are looking good.

The French after kicking out the English from the continent went at war with the Cast_leonese over Navarre as mentioned, currently down to one province Toulouse, been squashed from two sides by HRE and Aragon.

The Almoravids went through several advantures including taking over Vanelcia, making it muslim and losing it in a civil war (currently still rebel), and several civil wars coming at the top, in the end. They are currently holding Granada only in Iberia and all of their native Mahreb (marrackesh, fesh, algeria,tunisia). They have a substantial navy and it looks like they've just won a major defensive battle against Castile-Leon.

The English went into substantial depth and lost Mercia in a civil war after losing their mainland posessions. However, they've recovered over the years from a -13k to +1k currently and +0.5k annual turnover. Nice.

The Danish haven't gone broke yet, they've built a castle and the royal palace among other things. Their Scandinavian neighbours though (currently rebel) look beyond them.

The Italians colonised very early on Portugal and Scotland to reduce the upkeep of their roaming ships (as they always do) and later on Mercia. They've lost Genova during a civil war and now will have a tough time to get it back as the rebel faction seems on steroids. They've just launched a crusade against me (Constantinople). They went to war against me from the sea and now we are duking it out in the big blue.

The Hungarians are currently reduced to Wallachia and Carpathia. I decided to deal with them after the Mongols are no more a threat.

The Poles are sending large stacks of Slavs,from Moldavia every now and then across the river to Bulgaria, hence my valour 6 crossbows there. They hold Pomerania, Prussia, Poland and Moldavia and look dangerously sandwitched between HRE and the Kievans.

The Germans took over the French and even the Kaiser got a bit of influence. They've assisted the Hungarians in various epic battles over Hungary against me but they hadn't any luck there yet. They hold all starting provinces plus Champagne, Flanders, Normandy, Ile-de-France.

The Kievans killed off Novgorod and currently look scary - yet i give them little thought for in another 15 turns they'll have their hands full ~D.

The Fatimids managed to inflict a nice defeat on me in Damascus where their massed Gulam BGs and the desert tiped the scales against me. Since then i was busy in the balkans and so i simply strengthened the frontier armies in Antioch-Allepo and made no further move. Even with 2 provinces left (Damascus-Egypt) after a string of civil wars the Fatimids recovered, and gradually took Jerusalem and now Tripoli from the rebels. It seems that we'll meet soon again...

And finally me, Byzantium. I further conquered Hungary and Croatia and currently building large armies that i keep in Thesasly/Constantinople as a central reserve to act against the Crusaders and Fatimids and later on the Mongols. Have build up infrastructure to the satisfying point that i can raise three fullstacks of all goodies i have in good quantities in 5 turns. I naturally dominate the seas east of the strait of sicily.

A few more impressions/suggestions/observations:

-BUG: the rebels of the civil war in Tripoli and Allepo were building western knights from the courts as well as Turcopoles from the stables. It seems that the rebel AI recruits catholic units in the levant, even though the unit leaders have arabic names. perhaps some limitation is required to fix the problem in the knights.

*****Not a bug, but a limitation of the game engine. The culture type remains the same but the religious percentage in the province is also a factor, this causes the strange combos that you see in provinces such as Pomerania and Prussia in the vanilla game. The only safe way to stop the rebels producing such units is to define more culture/faction/province resrictions*****



-The Byzantines should be able to recruit Turcopoles in the Levant like the catholics - after all, as the Turcopole unit info card says they were Christianised Turks that the Byzantines used regularly. Turcopoula (Turcopoles) actually means "sons of Turks" much like Archondopoula means "sons of nobles", for those who play M2tw. It makes sense given the local units system of the mode, not to mention that it would be a welcome addition in the emperor's army!

-SUGGESTION: i noticed that the mod introduces plate armoured units, with the very heavily armoured description (presumably +9 armour as in vanilla?) at 1204. This is ahistorical (as vanilla is) - actually the 1204-1320 era is the golden era of scale-mail armour. Plate armour was introduced from 1320 onwards and replaced scale mail after 1400. It is also bad for gameplay terms as it makes the transition of eras sudden - quickly units are obolete. I suggest that no high era unit has more than heavily armoured description (+7 armour).

- Archers as i noted earlier, desert archers, eastern archers, can indeed fight well in melee against medioum cavalry with lances like the Byz lancer, that is somewhat counter intuitive. Yet i recockgised that given that the Ai uses tones of missiles and protects them poorly it might be a welcoming measure.

Things that i really liked:

-Recruitment system and relevant tech tree - nice work.
-Strict Homelands.
-Slow pace and meaningful use of agents due to high rebelliousness.
-Reworking of missiles - now can fulfill their independent use from the Ai as they can set up ambushes. Probably you have reqorked the skirmish use in crossbows - and AI unit took a shot in the face of my charging (bought) knights causing heavy casualties. Nice.
-The map - very good job. Historically and gameplay wise.
-Making rebels develop quickly (somehow rebel Georgia is making 600fl!?). Its risky now to leave the rebels on their owndevices for too long.
-Buildings construction times and prices - good balance between investment of strategic choices and dynamic play.
-Naval units construction times and prices - good balance between investment of strategic choices and dynamic play.

Overall: a promising piece of work - good luck!

!itburnsus!

[gollum]

Just forgot to mention that the Pope joined the catholic anti-Byzantine league of HRE, Hungary, Poland and Castile_leon the same year as the Italians making a walk into Naples with some seargents and piles of crossbows. The Norman knights serving the Basileus there - relics of the house of Guiscards bribed a century earlier when their lord was no more, actually bet before the battle who would catch the most prisoners - it was tough competition, but in the end the unit of Isaac Orphanopoulos won with 185 heads, only 5 heads ahead of the runner-up. However the true star of that day was the Alans that captured the holy father himself:smash::. He was graciously allowed to live and return in Rome with his brand new 1204 armour for only 14.5k florins. As for his offer to reunite the churches in exchange for his life as soon as he was brought in front of the emperor in person - it is still a favorite tell-for-laughs in Byzantium.

!it burnsus!

[gollum]

Hi, another one. Sorry for the barrage, but i try to do it while its all still hot...

The Mongols came and appeared ok. They have plenty of everything including the new steppe cavalry like mongol auxilia. Played the first battle and got the usual 3k approx kills. All is good except that some of the initial punch is lost due to the small sizes of MHC. I appreciate the intention, that in the long run the horde plays better without relying on them too much though.

BUG. After the battle i did a rightclick on the info card of what i guess must have been the mongol aux cavalry unit card, and got a ctd.


*****Missing info pic - FIXED 16/12/08*****


BUG. Denmark in high can built a lancer icon/unit card heavy cavalry unit entitled knights (i guess the knight late version). Could it be that the unit has escaped restriction for high and comes out of the baronial estate?


*****Not a bug - already fixed, the era restrictions were wrong for the Late era Knights (Lancers)*****

Observations/Suggestions.

-Its now well into the high era 1232, and i noticed that the catholics do not have a prpoer selection of units in their provinces. The new seargents are a barracks up from the early ones and so can be built in surprisingly few provinces. Chiv Foot Knights on the other hand are more common than foresters it seems as they are only tied to the royalcourt2 unlike feudalfootknights that needed the fortress barracks too. I suggest again that men at arms are lowered and chivfoot knights tied to citadel barracks. Its unnatural to have more availability in foot knights that men at arms.

-Perhaps turning Wallachia and Moldavia pagan at the beginning of the campaign is more historical and better gameplaywise. I think that the Cumans/Quipchacks occupied that area in 1087. It might also prevent the Byz ai running after Moldavia.

-I also suggest to reduce the cost and time construction of the royalcourt line of buildings as they are not tied to castles and the AI builds them to completion - yet this is not always worth it.

!it burnsus!

[gollum]

Hi,
some further ideas,

regarding spliting Turks and Egyptians, another possible way;

Antalya, Nicaea, Konya; Sultanate of Iconium
Sinope, Rum, Armenia; Sultanate of Rum
Allepo, Mosul, Edessa, Antioch; Great Seljuks
Damascus, Tripoli; Damascus
Palestine, Egypt; Fatimids

Although this is simply an idea and for the future too, its quite easy to do (apart from adding faction icons/colours of course), as all Turks and all Arabs may share common rosters, homelands etc that are ready.

- The English AI course is very predictable - inevitably put at severe disadvantage as it tries to desperately defend Aquitaine. Giving that and Anjou to the French might prove a long term benefit to the English AI.

- The Italian roster is very generic and same with that of all the other catholics. This is somewhat of a shame as the Italians can have a more distinct roster with emphasis in polearm/spear heavy infantry, crossbows and light cavalry.

!it burns us!

[caravel]

Some great ideas once again gollum, thank you for your input. :bow:

Can you please report suspected bugs separately in the bug reports thread? This enables us to keep a log of everything that needs urgent fixing. I will be working on the mod again soon when the memory arrives for my PC (I'm currently running on 256MB and it's not much fun). I will then go through everything in detail and begin to action the needed changes.

:medievalcheers:

[gollum]

Hi, yes will report in the bug thread hereafter.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

I've implimented most of the changes you've suggested and fixed the problems you're reported. There are a few I haven't such as the removal of the Muster Field/Inn and the transfer of Aquitaine and Anjou to the French. Also I have not added any of the extra Muslim factions as yet, though this is something that I would be interested in adding to future releases. For the time being I've turned the unneeded Smith buildings rebel as I want to see how things go without them.

A new release will be out soon.

:medievalcheers:

[Martok]

[Martok wishes he had more time to play.] :embarassed:

[gollum]

Hi,
the inn/ribat buildings and their morale bonus work very well when there not many other bonuses from other lines of buildings. Glad to hear that a release will be out soon, i ll most likely play camps during xmas.

I hope that the pocket mod manages to find its way to completion. Its not a mainstream product but its a worthy one nonetheless that reveals a veteran players mind and an indiocyncratic one as such.

The most important thing is to have fun, and there can be loads of it while playing and modding this little gem. Too bad that the developers being succesful commerecially with their newer but a bit shallower releases are unlikely to repeat its fine, atmospheric lustre.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

I've just started a campaign as the Sicilians, so I am going to play through that until Friday, which is the deadline I have in mind. I will be keeping an eye on the other factions as well (-ian mode etc) to see how things go. I then intend to make a few more tweaks and change some of the starting garrisons. If all is well at that point I intend to release the next testing version at the end of the week.

[naut]

I'm going to load up a game as Aragon to observe how Iberia progresses.

[caravel]

:2thumbsup:

I am in the middle of a Sicilian campaign, but hardware problems are ruining it. I recently "upgraded" (not a major upgrade) my PC and now the old graphics card problems (infinite loop bug) I was having before have surfaced once again, except this time there is no solution. I will have to get a new graphics card. I was actually bidding on an X1950 and an X1650 last night on ebay but was beaten in the dying seconds. :furious3:

I am now faced with either resurrecting the old 9800 or reinstalling all of my old hardware. I'm going to go with the former for now, but I need to get a cooler for it first.

Anyway the Sicilian campaign is going well so far. Building up slowly and extending my shipping. A crusade is building so will be heading for the Almoravids soon. No issues as yet, though it's early days.

-Edit: I enabled the onboard graphics, an S3/VIA Unichrome IGP with 64MB of shared memory and now all is ok. No more lagging, no more massive delays in the menus, glitches on the campaign map and especially no more of the huge delay on the loading screens. It just works.

[naut]

Good to see that your computer is up and running.

Ok, Aragon I found to be a bit challenging, (or maybe I'm just really rusty). I noticed that quite a few of the surrounding provinces are quite rebellious. And being fairly strapped for cash made it hard to hold on to anything I took. Which is a good thing.

It's 1120 now, didn't notice any bugs so far. I may start again, on perhaps normal rather than hard, since I'm getting my butt handed to me.

Edit: I like how you start with the two provinces rather than the single province.

[caravel]

Good to see that your computer is up and running.

Ok, Aragon I found to be a bit challenging, (or maybe I'm just really rusty). I noticed that quite a few of the surrounding provinces are quite rebellious. And being fairly strapped for cash made it hard to hold on to anything I took. Which is a good thing.

It's 1120 now, didn't notice any bugs so far. I may start again, on perhaps normal rather than hard, since I'm getting my butt handed to me.

Edit: I like how you start with the two provinces rather than the single province.

This is the key to improving Aragon - and a single province is the reason why the Danes are still in a bad way. The Danes are very tricky to balance. I would like to improve them of course, but at the same time I don't want to unleash a horde of Huscarles on the world. I may have to add another province or two in the region yet as it is pretty sparse up there. I'd advise that you don't get too much into your campaign as I have a new version on the way.

:bow:

[gollum]

Playtesting 1.0.9 beta;

Just reached 1270 in a very adventurus and topsy turvy campaign as the French, suffice to say that i did three (succesful) Outremer crusades so far Nicaea, Antioch, Tripoli, one of which took 50 years to complete; and was forced to instigate a civil war to save my a** kingdom when my second in line ruler was blessed with 6 daughters/nieces and no male heirs.

First and brief impressions;

-Campaign game way more dynamic than 1.0.8.

-New Sea regions connection works well.

-Stack composition very, very much improved from 1.0.8, especially after 1204. Now catholics play ok, except Chivalric Foot Knights that make Halbs obsolete. Consider altering stats or bringing FFKanighits in high era too and CFKanighits in late era only. Almost cheat unit in high, although available to all (AI builds it in decent amounts).

-Byzantines in dire straits at the beginning

-Siculo-Normans hungry for plunder transplant the Romans with aid from Papacy and pressure from Seljukids. Witnessed a Byz civil war despite jedi emperor 6 influence. Sicilians played great and become major sea and land power, that currently is helping me dismantle the Turks and will be my next adversary in the area.

-Egyptians way more balanced - turning Arab swords and desert horse archer default hepled a lot - as a result they are sitting in Egypt (only province) at the moment instead of Paris.

-Turks now a major headache for Fatims and Byzs, doing very well for large tracts of time - even withstanding the Mongol visit.

-HRE degenerates into a weak slavic kingdom in the long run - AI preffers cheap and plentiful slav units than native catholic good german stuff, especially since he is so damn poor in the long run. Something needs to be done (to retain sovereignity).

-SPain and Aragon turned behemmoths - killed off Almoravids and subsequent pretenders and focused on shaming napoleon by conquering parts of Russia (the rest under the hoof of the horde) and challenging France (me) - currently Aragon gone and CL richest for decades since their side of the map is dead end. Consider gaping Bay of Biscay and Elnglish channel through Atlantic (ie deep sea passage only) as you did east - Spain way too rich with all these provinces although less behemmoth than vanilla even so and with much better stack composition nontheless. Alternatively consider making overall wealth of Spain less - or making the Cordoba/Granada landbridge extinct so cinquering Alms takes longer giving them time to recoup.

Not sure if more regions in Aquitaine and Toulouse would help - since they might end up as extra regions in the hands of the Spaniards, making the situation worse.

-No ctds

-Invisible Inquisition a nice plus

-Battles very good especially against Turks - large casualties on both sides many times - no more pushover.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

-Stack composition very, very much improved from 1.0.8, especially after 1204. Now catholics play ok, except Chivalric Foot Knights that make Halbs obsolete. Consider altering stats or bringing FFKanighits in high era too and CFKanighits in late era only. Almost cheat unit in high, although available to all (AI builds it in decent amounts).
Yes I will be looking at those again.

-Byzantines in dire straits at the beginning
Good or bad?

-Siculo-Normans hungry for plunder transplant the Romans with aid from Papacy and pressure from Seljukids. Witnessed a Byz civil war despite jedi emperor 6 influence. Sicilians played great and become major sea and land power, that currently is helping me dismantle the Turks and will be my next adversary in the area.
Well in the campaign I'm playing they seem a potent force as well. I'm not sure they should be that potent though?

-HRE degenerates into a weak slavic kingdom in the long run - AI preffers cheap and plentiful slav units than native catholic good german stuff, especially since he is so damn poor in the long run. Something needs to be done (to retain sovereignity).
This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.


-SPain and Aragon turned behemmoths - killed off Almoravids and subsequent pretenders and focused on shaming napoleon by conquering parts of Russia (the rest under the hoof of the horde) and challenging France (me) - currently Aragon gone and CL richest for decades since their side of the map is dead end. Consider gaping Bay of Biscay and Elnglish channel through Atlantic (ie deep sea passage only) as you did east - Spain way too rich with all these provinces although less behemmoth than vanilla even so and with much better stack composition nontheless. Alternatively consider making overall wealth of Spain less - or making the Cordoba/Granada landbridge extinct so cinquering Alms takes longer giving them time to recoup.
I haven't done much with the Castilians/Aragon as far as economy and units goes. It is hardly surprising that they are now even more overpowered than they were as there are more provinces. The provincial incomes need to be halved and the Almoravids need strengthening as their garrisons are insufficient in their current state. I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole. :beam:



-Invisible Inquisition a nice plus
What Invisible Inquisition, I've no idea what you're talking about really...? :book2:

Keep an eye on the enemy spy/assassin caught messages as I'm not sure how that part functions as yet. That has been in there since v1.07A IIRC and I'm not sure if I've done the message for it. I've a feeling that I've set it up so that they show as either spies or assassins being caught as I don't want the player spotting them so easily.

Feedback much appreciated.

:bow:

[Martok]

This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.
I definitely agree the Slav Javlinmen and Warriors should be restricted by province and/or faction (whichever you feel is most appropriate). I've always found it a bit odd that the HRE (or anyone else) can recruit them to begin with. :inquisitive:

Changing the SW to more of a spear/sergeant type unit is fine by be. It would probably help give Kiev, Poland, and the Huns a bit more of a unique feel as well. Not sure about historical accuracy, but otherwise it sounds good to me.



I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole. :beam:

Feedback much appreciated.

:bow:

Gah! Had too many errands to run this past Monday, next Monday is so far away, and am still doing the 12-hour days right now.... :wall:

[gollum]

Good or bad?

depends who you ask - i'd say excellent


well. I'm not sure they should be that potent?

Again depends who you ask - i'd say they should, since if Robert Guiscard wasnt taking the big sleep earlier than expected, Alexius-i-did-it-not-because-i'm-rotten-but-because-i-had-to-Comnenus would have led a less happier, succesful and perhaps much shorter reign as Byzantine Emperor. In any case, they are a potent force not a blitzing maelstrom - if the PoM manages to make the Byzantines a genuine challenge in early i'd say it has succeded.



This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.

Sounds a good idea - local flavor should be for locals to enjoy.



I haven't done much with the Castilians/Aragon as far as economy and units goes. It is hardly surprising that they are now even more overpowered than they were as there are more provinces. The provincial incomes need to be halved and the Almoravids need strengthening as their garrisons are insufficient in their current state. I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole.

Not sure if its due to starting forces only - in 1.0.8 say the Alms played great - it could be because i took the French, that the Spanish and Aragonese went "mad".



What Invisible Inquisition, I've no idea what you're talking about really...?

I dont know, what are you talking about??

:bow:

!itburnsus!

[caravel]

I definitely agree the Slav Javlinmen and Warriors should be restricted by province and/or faction (whichever you feel is most appropriate). I've always found it a bit odd that the HRE (or anyone else) can recruit them to begin with. :inquisitive:
I'm going for restricting both. Those sort of units should be rare and not make up the backbone of any faction's armies, or they should be incorporated in some other way preferably replacing another unit.


Changing the SW to more of a spear/sergeant type unit is fine by be. It would probably help give Kiev, Poland, and the Huns a bit more of a unique feel as well. Not sure about historical accuracy, but otherwise it sounds good to me.
Well as far as the historical accuracy goes I'm not overly worried. The spearmen stats will suit the info pic better than the sword stats it currently has. They can also be renamed if necessary. There is simply no point in many duplicate units simply to satisfy anal historical accuracy. I would like units to be culturally distinct but that's about it. The main focus is balanced battles with well rounded units.


depends who you ask - i'd say excellent
:bow:


Again depends who you ask - i'd say they should, since if Robert Guiscard wasnt taking the big sleep earlier than expected, Alexius-i-did-it-not-because-i'm-rotten-but-because-i-had-to-Comnenus would have led a less happier, succesful and perhaps much shorter reign as Byzantine Emperor. In any case, they are a potent force not a blitzing maelstrom - if the PoM manages to make the Byzantines a genuine challenge in early i'd say it has succeded.
I wanted the Byzantine to be an interesting faction for the player, though stagnant for the AI. On a related note I have made the changes to the black sea provinces. Two of them are now pagan to help slow Byzantine expansion. The Byzantine are still overdoing it navally of course. This will need tweaking until the number of ships reaches an acceptable level.


Not sure if its due to starting forces only - in 1.0.8 say the Alms played great - it could be because i took the French, that the Spanish and Aragonese went "mad".
It's partially due to starting forces. There a few starting garrisons of less than 100 men, this combined with the higher provincial rebelliousness can cause provinces like Murcia to rebel in the first turn. I know that one of those Iberian provinces has no garrison at all, I think it's Catalonia. On the whole the area needs looking at. The Spanish factions as a whole during the start of that period were poor.


I dont know, what are you talking about??
Ok who sent you? Let's take this one finger at a time...

-Edit: My patience wears thin, where is Caraveloto-san hiding?

[Turbosatan]

Playing beta 1.09, by the way.

Apologies again if I seem ungrateful or my comments ill-informed, I just thought I'd tell you how I'm finding it as I'm playing. I am really enjoying the mod, it's a totally different take on the mods I've played before & I think the building strategies & farm income ideas are a work of art, as are the new province ideas. At first I thought that the paucity of units would bug me but the battles are much more difficult, what with no ultra-uber troops, & that makes up for the somewhat uniform composition of armies.

Stupid stupid question, even more stupid than the things I've posted over in the bug reports thread: when it gets to 1205, will new units appear? I know that you haven't finished the High era yet as a playable start, but on the roll-over during an Early era game will upgraded units be available?

[caravel]

Yes new units will become available from the High era, but as to how many depends on the faction. The Catholics, Novgorod and Kievans get significantly better, whereas the Muslims and Byzantines either stay much the same or worsen.

In Late the Catholics and Seljuks (Will be known as the Ottomans in the late era, though only if you start from the Late era once the Late Era startpos file is done) will get much better and most other factions will fall well behind.

Bear in mind that the unit rosters are not finalised as yet so there is till work to be done on balancing units and ensuring that there are only those units that are required. Every unit must fill a role or it is essentially useless. There are many mods that offer a great variety of different units per faction, this isn't one of them. The Pocket Mod aims to provide every faction with one unit, per role per era. The only exceptions will be special localised units, such as e.g. Clansmen or Nizari. These will add the "flavour" where required. This is preferable to opening the unit training scroll and finding six types of Horse Archer available and wondering which one to train. It also suits the AI better as it makes it easier for it to / forces it to make the right unit choices.

Men at Arms are an example of a unit that may be changed. The High/Late MAA (CMAA) may be moved to Late only due to them being depicted as plate armoured infantry units. I would also prefer that the Early MAA (FMAA) continue into the High era as they are more readily available and are a good all round unit. Sergeants have been corrected in that there are now Early*, High**, and Late** Sergeants respectively.

*Square Shield Spearmen with slightly improved stats
*Feudal Sergeants
*Chivalric Sergeants

:bow:

[ULC]

Foolish question, but IIRC, Arab armies really did not become worse as time went on, especially those in Turkey/Egypt. Will anything be done to address this?

[caravel]

Not a foolish question, but in the mod Arab armies do not get worse, they merely get outclassed by western armies, which did happen. Prior to this western armies would have been inferior to their eastern counterparts. If anything I've made the Fatimids and Seljuks stronger from the start, but with the exception of the Mamluk units and Janissary/Sipahi/Ottoman units they do not really get constant flow of new units as time goes on.

[caravel]

Observation: The Byzantine are still too strong. In the campaign I was playing as the English, they've exploded all over the map. They're in Egypt, the steppe and are heading into eastern Europe. They have huge stacks of Skutatoi, Kontaratoi, Psiloi and various cavalry types. They need to be brought under control.

I'm against totally nerfing them, but I would like to make their homelands easier pickings for the Turks and others.

[Martok]

Observation: The Byzantine are still too strong. In the campaign I was playing as the English, they've exploded all over the map. They're in Egypt, the steppe and are heading into eastern Europe. They have huge stacks of Skutatoi, Kontaratoi, Psiloi and various cavalry types. They need to be brought under control.

I'm against totally nerfing them, but I would like to make their homelands easier pickings for the Turks and others.
Agreed. I'm about 30 years into a Fatimid campaign (finally got to play a little today! :beam: ), and the Byz are already overrunning everyone around them. Perhaps their homelands should be more restricted than they are currently? I don't really like that idea, but at the moment I can't think of anything better. :gah2:

On the other hand, I really enjoyed fighting the Seljuks. They're finally decently strong, and more of a force to be reckoned with. :medievalcheers:

[ULC]

Actually, it has less to do with homelands, and more to do with financial allocation - the Byz have the money, therefore they build the troops in excess. To much upkeep prompts the AI to become aggressive. They conquer further territory, increasing their income and reducing their upkeep.

Rinse. Repeat

There are three ways of stopping this effectively without crippling the Byzantines.

1) Decrease their financial capability in the beginning, and make it harder for them to win battles
2) Increase the financial capability of surrounding factions in the beginning, and make it easier for them to win battles
3) Increase the number of factions in the area. More Faction means the AI will attempt to maintain Garrisons in the area per faction, thus reducing it's ability to expand

[caravel]

I'm thinking along the same lines...

Really we need to isolate where most of their income comes from and try to cut it in half. They seem to be trading and ship building to the extreme. So this leads me to believe that it is their farm income that is driving this. I'm sure this can be started with halving the farm income of Trebizond and Sinope (I may have duplicated these effectively adding another provincial income in the same area instead of distributing the income between the two), and reducing that of Antalya, Nicaea and Constantinople. The latter rakes in a large trade income anyway.

[caravel]

To add to the above, I'll admit that I think we may be getting ahead of ourselves when thinking of new factions this early on and this issue demonstrates that. There is so much that needs doing and yet already we are discussing the adding factions to an existing faction line up and unit roster that is not yet balanced. I would like to put new factions, new units and indeed new eras on hold until what we have at present is fixed and working acceptably.

At the moment we have the issue of the imbalanced Byzantine to fix. YLC's theory above is pretty much the same as what I'm thinking, mainly due to the sheer numbers of ships they can build. I don't think that reducing their homelands will be historically accurate (wait until the high era for that, where they will start with nothing but Nicaea), but I do want them to recede and decay rather than take over the world. We need to encourage factions such as the Italians and Sicilians to head for Constantinople though I cannot see a clear way as to how that can be done. The Seljuks also need a slight monetary boost to get them moving a little faster. I'm thinking that Mosul and Damascus should be richer provinces than they are at present. This would tie in with the creation of independent Atabegs or Emirates in the region.

:bow:

[ULC]

Hmmm...I have a suggestion for getting the Italians and Sicilians to go after Greek lands. Correct me if I am wrong, but if memory serves, didn't the East Romans, in the aftermath of Manizkert, have a disastrous time trying to levy anything at all? The idea being that if we reduce initial production capability and make East Romans ripe for conquering, and have a nice line of nifty ships for the Italians leading there, the will take it. Without the masses of troops, the East Romans would suffer rebellion in their provinces, which I would think would be historically accurate anyway.

[naut]

Hmmm...I have a suggestion for getting the Italians and Sicilians to go after Greek lands. Correct me if I am wrong, but if memory serves, didn't the East Romans, in the aftermath of Manizkert, have a disastrous time trying to levy anything at all? The idea being that if we reduce initial production capability and make East Romans ripe for conquering, and have a nice line of nifty ships for the Italians leading there, the will take it. Without the masses of troops, the East Romans would suffer rebellion in their provinces, which I would think would be historically accurate anyway.
Sounds feasible.

[caravel]

Thessaly, Epirus, Athens and Morea are the key provinces. Once the Latin factions are in there, there should be no stopping them from getting to Constantinople... what is stopping them at present is the Byzantine money machine. I'm still for cutting down on their net income. It would be an idea to make the islands, Athens, Epirus and Morea more likely to rebel early on. The only way to do this would be to make them non orthodox provinces, as increasing rebelliousness further would affect the conqueror as well. Also the Byzantine are probably building armies to hold down their provinces, so as well as cutting their income it might be an idea to add some happy buildings in key provinces - only enough to stop rebellions and stop them increasing garrisons. This will give them stability where it counts and less stability in border regions from the start.

[The Unknown Guy]

so, to avoid having to browse the last hundred pages: have there been any novelties since 1.6beta?

[caravel]

There are only 10 pages in this thread. 1.09b is totally different to 1.06b. You'd have to try it for yourself - up to you.

[Martok]

so, to avoid having to browse the last hundred pages: have there been any novelties since 1.6beta?

Many. The 1.9 beta is very different from the 1.6 version. :yes: