1.3 Wishlist [Archive] - Page 2

neoiq5719

06-26-2007, 10:21

For me the cavalry is very important but it still requires A LOT of fixing such as:
1. Cavalry is just WAY TO SLOW by the time it tries to disengage (whether one horse is fighting or even none is engaged). It doesnt matter which way you try to go they just leave s l o o o o o o l y.
2. Sometimes a bolder or anything in the middle of the way stops cavalry charge cos one little silly horse stops.
3. Still problem pursuing routing units (specially when units are scattered around)
4. When going after routing units that are trying to enter a second gate, the gate does not open (normal not to let anyone in) but cavalry does not kill units left outside. They get kind of jammed there.
5. Horses broken off from the main unit slow down or even stop cavalry run.
6. The affinity for the cavalry to engage close units that are not ordered to be attacked must be eradicated ( why can´t we charge a group of archers and disengage from them without having your horses fight the spearmen right behind them?).
7. When told to withdraw from battle, they should exit the battlefield ( and this is not for the cavalry only but for all units) at the NEAREST place and not going thru the enemy lines just to exit at the opposite end of the battlefield or at the entry point.
8. It takes long time to get horses into motion (They should be MORE RESPONSIVE to commands) and this has nothing to do whether they are tired or not.
8. Some charges from behind stop just an inch from the enemy.

Garnier

06-28-2007, 23:13

Experience gained by killing/capturing routed soldiers needs to drop considerably. As it is, the best way to get experienced troops is to have a few of them in a unit, and pursue a big unit, and then you have guys with 9 valour that you can retrain and have a full 9 valour unit. Its not good.

jonty129

06-29-2007, 05:56

Have only read a few pages, so i hope I am not repeating anything...

It would be great when units on horses die, that some of the horses live and run away and scatter somwhere on the battle. Don't like it that when a knight dies the horse auomatically dies with him.

icek

07-01-2007, 10:07

1. fix guilt exp bonus bug
2. make ai more aggresive on strategic map
3. make ai smart like it was in 1.1 in battle and in siege defence
4. make princesses more charming
5. fix mongols, they landed 15 turns ago in my game and still didnt capture any city

d3nn16

07-01-2007, 19:25

Some ideas that need to be developed.

Strategic map :

- option for spies to follow other units, for catholic priests to follow Muslim priests for example

- possibility to use your ally's (or any neutral faction) buildings that are idle to make units (sometimes I have lot of good Italian spears waiting to be recruited but not needing them). This possibility should be arranged through diplomacy and bring some money to your treasury and it will also add some guild bonus for recruiting.

- possibility to borrow money from allied/neutral cities that have banks or from the allied/neutral faction itself using diplomats/generals?. Paying money back with interests (similar to a tribute). When other factions borrow money from your city banks the returned money will go in the bank instead of your own treasury and into your treasury if money was borrowed from your faction directly. The amount of money banks can lend should be proportional to the economic activity in the region and to the level of income it has from interests. If a faction starts war with the faction it borrowed money from it will stop paying interests to the enemy faction treasury (or better let the player make the choice) and if your faction borrowed money from a bank of the enemy controlled city there should be an option to stop paying back but that will prevent you from borrowing money again from that bank and/or will hurt your reputation in the financial world :laugh4: . Make faction reputation have an influence on the chances you'll have to borrow money from factions and banks.

- each region will have an amount of money stocked inside its city. Money can be transferred in a turn or more depending on distance, if region has a dock, rebels on roads will prevent money transfer or will reduce the amount depending on rebel stack size, pirates will do the same on seas. Make generals and fleets transport money with them, but there should also be a default way just clicking a button in a city to transfer the money to another city selected in a list. You will have the possibility to automatize the process. This will force you to plan your city development more carefully as money will not always be where you need it.

- city architecture will depend on climate and not on type of faction. For example when conquering Jerusalem and upgrading walls or buildings it will keep its oriental style architecture instead of being transformed in northern-european style.

- traits should have more anti-traits (or work as planned : one of my general is austere and extravagant, although austere is an anti-trait of extravagant in export_descr_character_traits.txt). And also make bad traits have a more useful counter-effect (like for extravagant make buildings build faster etc.)
There should be a special topic for trait balancing where everyone can post some ideas

- Implementing faction emergence :
example :
I just conquered all French towns and faction is destroyed. In the last city I captured I didn't massacre the population. This city was occupied for a long time by the French so people started feeling patriotic (make a patriotic-meter similar to the one for religions). As I didn't massacre the population, unrest will be very high, stacks of rebels will spawn very often (both proportional to the length of time the city was under French control) and try to retake the city. If the rebels do capture the city it becomes a French city and french faction is back again. This should make game more difficult since when you conquer new cities you have to build them from scratch because most of the time you're forced to massacre the population to control it. Also converting a Muslim population into Catholics should have a negative impact on the patriotic-meter toward the Muslim faction

I Am Herenow

07-01-2007, 20:52

Why should anyone lend you money in-game when you have no obvious way of repaying it with interest (i.e. you can't invest in stocks or anything)? Besides, who in their right minds would actually repay debts in a game in which you can go to war freely with next to no reprecussions?

d3nn16

07-02-2007, 08:12

Why should anyone lend you money in-game when you have no obvious way of repaying it with interest (i.e. you can't invest in stocks or anything)?

If my treasury is at the moment around 30000F every turn start I can pay some sort of tribute that can be around 2000F.

Here's another example :
I'm out of money because I used it all to build around in each city.
I need 9600F x 2 more to upgrade walls of 2 cities that attained population of huge cities at the same time. So imagine I pay 10 x (960 + 140) (interest).
You will only pay 2200F / turn instead of using 19200F out of the treasury.
The advantage is that you can build expensive buildings even if your treasury isn't sufficient at the time, so you won't have to wait turns to build one expensive building at a time.

Besides, who in their right minds would actually repay debts in a game in which you can go to war freely with next to no reprecussions?

A better example is when you borrow money to build an army then sack a city that will bring you lots of money to pay back with interest. Of course you can go at war with the faction you borrowed money from but that will hit your reputation and your chances of borrowing money again will be diminished.

The higher your reputation is the more money you will be able to borrow and also paying back all money should be rewarded with a reputation increase.

At start of campaign you don't have banks available so you will borrow from other friendly factions. But once banks are built it should be more easy to do so. Maybe make a money reputation that will be considered by banks before lending money.

Didz

07-02-2007, 11:06

More to the point, one of the weakness of the game at present is that Blitzer's can easily acquire the money they need by sacking cities, so allowing them to borrow money and commit the sin of usary is merely going to encourage more blitzing and make it even easier to ignore the economic and trade aspects of the game. If you don't need to trade then you don't need to make peace and so you can afford to go on another city sacking rampage.

d3nn16

07-02-2007, 19:03

Maybe a solution to the Blitz problem would be to make army and money management more complicated :

- make money be deposited in cities

- make armies able to transport money with them

- an army outside settlements will have to carry money with it to pay the soldiers or make some kind of resupplying mechanism when the army has exhausted all funds (the closest city to the stack will have to send money to it, and if all close cities are very poor you'll have to send money from a far settlement and make soldiers have a fighting penalty or make them desert if money takes to long to come etc.

--making armies carry soldiers salaries isn't very achievable at campaign start because of insufficient funds so you'll have to make war with neighboring regions. A good idea ? would be to make army not need to carry soldiers' wages if they are in a controlled region which will resupply it with money. On the other hand being in enemy territory an army will have to bring the soldiers upkeep with it (or make the money transfer somewhat difficult). This will have as consequence a better military protection of rich regions (having an important army in a poor region will mean transferring money from rich regions to the one the army is stationed in). This will mean other factions will no longer keep armies on your territory doing nothing. An enemy army on roads between regions transferring money to each other will intercept part of this money or just diminish the amounts transferred etc. Armies will no longer be sent far away capturing an isolated castle in enemy lands ready to pump soldiers that can't be payed with the region income alone.
Controlled regions having sea access and connected by sea trade routes should have a good money transfer capability.

- when you sack one city your objective can be to recruit some mercenaries to refill your stack and go on sack the rest of the regions causing damage to the enemy or after your army has gathered enough money you can bring it to a region and from there transfer it all over your empire.

- if you sack a city at one end of your empire it will take some time until at the other end you can recruit soldiers with the money you earned from sacking.

- fighting another army will give you a money reward proportional to what it was carrying

Of course after some more gameplay balancing here and there it should solve the *Blitz* problem. What do you think?

John_Longarrow

07-02-2007, 20:57

d3nn16,

I think it could have the opposite effect if it isn't handled well. As an example, if I have an army that is costing me too much where it is, I can either spend a fair amount of time in game trying to get my cash transfered around OR I can simply have that army go to the nearest enemy city and sack it. Once sacked, that army should have enought cash with it to handle its needs for the next few turn. As such, anyone who is not interested in handling the accounting of the game will simply blitz to avoid having to deal with it.

Instead of moving around money, how about tacking on a surcharge to all units beyond the area's ability to support? Deduct the upkeep for all units in the province from the provinces income first. If you have units that have not been paid yet, their upkeep is doubled.

This means its more expensive to have an army in the field than in your home territory. It also means that if you sack or exterminate a city, you reduce its ability to provide upkeep for your army. That should result in what you are looking for without increasing the amount of micromanagement that the player is required to do.

NOTE: As you do not get income from enemy or rebel territory, the cost of keeping an army in enemy territory is automatically doubled.

Didz

07-02-2007, 20:57

I think it would be much easier and more realistic just to stop rewarding players with money when they capture a city, double or triple the maintenance cost of any unit on campaign outside its own factions territory and introduce turn based attrition of between 2% and 15% on all units in armies operating beyond their own borders depending on season, terrain and morale.

That way players would have no means of supporting their armies on a prolonged campaign and would be forced to use trade and diplomacy to restore their treasury between each operation.

d3nn16

07-03-2007, 19:06

Blitz style of playing should be available for rich factions but not totally unachievable by raising too much the upkeep as it is mostly due to light garrison in AI settlements.

I think there is a way to avoid the upkeep increase.

Each army in a non-controlled territory should have some kind of treasury (like cities) and when it's insufficient for upkeep will go negative and soldiers will start deserting similar to crusades and will fight with a moral penalty. When in a controlled region the army's upkeep will be deducted from the city treasury.

The current problem with sacking is that money can be used immediately to recruit other troops and upgrade buildings in any region you control. That's why money should be transferred slowly between regions.

Money should travel between regions like an agent, it should take some turns depending on distance and amount of money (reducing proportionally the percentage of *money movement points*).
For example sending 10000F from the sacked city to a neighboring region will take 4 turns while sending 1000F will take one turn. This will incite the army to retreat from the sacked settlement to the city it wants to deposit the money instead of continuing to siege other enemy settlements, risking to lose the money or not using it to upgrade buildings. To avoid sending one unit with 10000F there should be a limit of 1000F/unit. A 20 units stack (or less depending on other factors) should have no limit of treasury. A 10 unit army with more than 10000F in treasury will not be able to split up.

Sacking a city will reduce its income and treasury so maintaining an army there will be problematic unless there is a close region that has enough income to send fast.
Not having enough money for the army upkeep in the region should make this region's treasury become negative (transferring money over enemy territory between controlled cities should not be possible – a city surrounded by enemy held regions will have no possibility to make money transfers). This will prevent upgrading of buildings, recruiting additional units and a moral penalty for the under payed army fighting in this region.

Suppose my army just sacked a neighboring city. It can leave part of the booty there that will be transferred (possibility to transfer only when a common frontier with a controlled/allied/neutral territory, controlled land being the fastest and neutral being the slowest way) to regions that you want to develop first. So the time money goes to those cities, the time you recruit units and the time they arrive at your initial army not mentioning that the reinforcement army will have to carry its upkeep when traveling across your poor regions you just sacked, your initial army will have its treasury exhausted (I don't think it can sack a city each turn) or being attacked by enemies and missing reinforcements (unless it hires mercenaries).
In the case of a rich faction you have enough money to recruit reinforcements and send them to the front. Becoming rich will mean less sack at start, or sack and retreat tactic.

To make micromanagement less heavy, cities that don't have enough money to upgrade a building or recruit a unit should automatically make neighboring regions that hold enough money send the appropriate sum (it will take some turns depending on distance, roads, brigands). Of course regions *borrowing* money from other regions will have a slower building and recruiting process.

I Am Herenow

07-03-2007, 20:19

John_Longarrow

07-03-2007, 20:27

D3nn16

If the army has to carry its pay around with it when on campaign, it makes even MORE sence from a players perspective to simply blitz and leave. As an example, if I have a stack of 6 italian militia (750 upkeep), 6 Geneoan crossbow militia (600 upkeep) and a general (250 upkeep), I've got to pay 1600 per turn to keep this army together. If I sack a city and get 6000fl, I've got about enough gold to move to the next city, siege it, then sack it before I start running into money problems.

If I don't keep my army in the field sacking, then I've got to worry about how much each stack is carrying and how I can make sure that I've got enought to pay each stack.

Net result, its easier from a management stance to simply blitz everything, sack every city, and sell off everything inside so I can pay for my troops. It is only if I am NOT blitzing that I have to worry about who has how much and where.

The situation is even worse if I have poor provinces. In a poor province I've got to worry about how I'll keep the troops paid there and by what route I'm sending cash. If I'm off on my timing, I start loosing troops in what is probably a buffer province. Most players would rather simply attack their neighbor and not have to worry about what happens when their money runs short in the local province.

Didz

07-03-2007, 21:28

Won't this just be pointless micromanagement, which will simply add to the complexity of the game without adding to its entertainment value? Moreover, won't having a "bankrupt" army that is breaking apart rapidly in enemy or neutral territory encourage the player to go blindly from city to city, annihilating everything in his path and "blitzing" even more than he would with a well-maintained army?
I agree, I think delaying with this in an abstract way by doubling or tripling the maintenance costs is much simpler and has the same overall effect. The extra cost is does not represent the soldiers pay but the cost of keeping them fed and equipped over longer distances and in hostile area's, plus of course the natural inclination for traders to milk the windfall opportunity of an army moving through their area situation for every florin they can get.

Besides, were soldiers in Medieval/Roman times really paid every year/month on a precise day, no matter where they were? Would they really want their payment when they were away on campaign, or would soldiers have in fact been paid when they had finished campaigning and were due to return to their home towns?
To be honest most soldiers in medieval times were only there in the hope of going home rich from the spoils they pillaged therefore salary was probably the least of their concerns as long as they had food and drink.

The big problem would usually be keeping them on campaign, either after a successful seige had filled their pockets with loot, or if it had been a long time since their last chance to do so. Attrition would therefore be high and only reduced by constant reinforcement of obligations through rewards, success or punsihment.

Snite

07-04-2007, 05:45

Don't know if this has been added, but a few things:

I would like Musketeers to have a special ability where they advance as they fire. The first rank would fire, the second would run up in front of them and fire, the third in front of them and fire and so forth and so forth.

I would like to name units, and once named, they can not be automatically used to replenish un-named units numbers after a battle. I hate growing attatched to a unit only to have them disbanded and spread out just becuase they have less than 10 men or whatever.

Stuperman

07-04-2007, 20:06

I'd like to be able to create sub folders in the saves directory. I.e. have one labled KOTR PBM and keep all my pbm saves there, one for each campaign maybe? I find that with 3 or 4 campaigns going one, it can get very confusing.

phonicsmonkey

07-05-2007, 03:18

On this whole issue of blitzing and some of the suggestions made above.

- I don't like the idea of having to transport money around. Too much micromanagement involved for little improvement in gameplay or realism.

- I am concerned with the idea of raising army upkeep to penalise troops in enemy lands, as i'm certain it would impact the AI with its poor economic skills far more than the player. We want the AI to have enough cash to attack us with good quality troops!

- I do support the move towards reducing sacking proceeds, as it would seem to bring an improvement in gameplay by making blitzing less of a sure-fire winning strategy, and although it's hard to verify I don't see the AI (Mongols / Tims excepted) using sacking as a means of income.

Didz

07-05-2007, 10:12

- I am concerned with the idea of raising army upkeep to penalise troops in enemy lands, as i'm certain it would impact the AI with its poor economic skills far more than the player. We want the AI to have enough cash to attack us with good quality troops!
On the other hand it might also stop it camping its armies in foriegn territory all the time.

I think we have to be careful not to confuse the poor AI performance with the game design here. The issue of why the AI performs so badly in putting together armies and challenging operations is not an issue of money, but an issue of bad AI programming. The fact that it can be influenced by throwing money at the computer players does not mean that the problem is caused by a lack of money, the problem is caused by poor programming.

In theory if the strategic AI was capable of managing its armies and operations more effectively it would do so whether it was awash with money or bankrupt. Therefore, throwing money at the AI might disquise the problem and provide a quick fix but it isn't the solution to, or the cause of, the problem.

The sacking and blitzing issue, on the other hand, is not poor programming but bad design and ought to be corrected to make the game more challenging for the human player. One can only assume that the AI gains the same advantages from sacking as we do, but there is no way of knowing that for sure and even if it does its clear that the AI does not expliot this weakness to its advantage.

Bijo

07-05-2007, 22:42

There have been good suggestions, however I have not read the whole thread. It is possible the ones I am about to propose occurred before.

Tactical Battles:
refined or alternative control scheme for whole army/armies (especially for General Camera)
commands
move forwards/backwards/strafe-like
face enemy army in straight opposite direction
move diagonally
engage enemy
frontline to engage
flanks to engage
etc.
defend (+ guard on)
etc.
reasons
mouseclicking spot sometimes fails proper mobilisation
rightclick + drag = prone to clumsiness
sometimes screen is too small for effectivity
allows greater strategical command
more realism and truism yet gameplay must remain fun
examples
missiles must perish targets accordingly (and faster)
cavalry charge deadlier, more effective and fun
archers on autofire must ignore small futile enemy units and concentrate on greater threats
etc.
from campaign map; more field battles, less siege battles
ordering of unit cards
Campaign:

ordering of unit cards
more effective spies/assassins upon recruitment
less of annoying repetitive routines <-- install automation
battling heresy
recruting spies
recruting priests/imams/etc.
recruting settlement forces to uphold control
merchants seek highest possible profit in appointed general area
etc.
to battle map; more field battles, less siege battles
If this is effected, it would be a boon bringing forth great joy :bow:

Bijo

07-06-2007, 23:37

Campaign map/gameplay:
conquering a foe's settlement enables utilization of its technology
examples
as France taking an English town having Longbowmen, research enables their recruitment --> as French, use own version Longbowmen
As Egypt one can research Turkish technology and deploy similar units of available level
etc.
etc.
elaboration(s)
research in settlement costs price to perfect afore use
research's completion enables spread to other settlements for a price
BUT: recruitment of unit is only available in relevant settlement and in areas logical for it
camels in Europe to be impossible
camels in East to be impossible
elephants in Europe impossible
etc.
when foreign technology is spread to settlement it remains usable there, but loss of last settlement with it removes it totally
allow recruitment of General (who is no family member) + bodyguardsWhat say you?

EDIT:
Battle:

* remove troublesome spear-like special abilities
* give spear units better autonomy in using special abilities
* some spear units -- when their special ability is active -- move illogically slowly while they should be fast --> their illogical slowness is to be removed

John_Longarrow

07-07-2007, 00:54

AI tweak

When a general is given the "Faction Heir" title, they should also get one of the five new traits listed, with an equal chance of each;

Warmonger +2 command when attacking, -2 command when defending
Agressor +1 command when attacking, -1 command when defending
Leader +5% to tax revenue
Conservative -1 command when attacking, +1 command when defending
Cautious -2 command when attacking, +2 command when defending.

In the AI scripts, build schedules, troop levels, troop type, and garrison/assault strengths should all be based on which trait the current faction leader has.

As an example, if a Warmonger is in charge then that faction will build troop producing building first, maintain a larger standing army, use smaller garrisons, and be more agressive on the campaign map.

An agressor would concentrate on happyness building, smaller garrisons, larger standing army (but lower quality troops), and be more agressive on the campaign map.

A Leader would use the current AI schedule

Conservative and Cautious leaders would likewise be less likely to attack and would maintain larger garrisons in their settlements. Conservatives would emphasize economic buildings while cautious types would emphasize military units.

This should lead to a large difference in how each faction behaves, especially during the opening few turns.

NOTE: This is a basic concept, but one which I personally think would be very worthwhile to persue. It would ensure each game would play out differently because of the number of factions present.

Bijo

07-07-2007, 18:28

Campaign
* to allow mercenary artillery
* for enemy armies to not consist of small futile numbers

John_Longarrow

07-08-2007, 06:40

Bijo,

I hear that. No rebel force should spawn with less than 20 units per stack and in groups of 9 stacks each. Hey, look how good it works with Mongols!

Didz

07-08-2007, 09:24

@JohnLongbarrow

That would depend what a rebel forces represents. Personally I would like to see more clarity as to why rebel armies appear and what their goals are. A clear distinction should be made between armies led by rebelious noblemen and groups of local brigands.

I also think that when your own armies rebel, then the rebel army ought to contain exactly the same units as the army that rebelled with the same expereince, at present they get morphed into completely different units.

I Am Herenow

07-08-2007, 09:43

I would like to see more clarity as to why rebel armies appear and what their goals are. A clear distinction should be made between armies led by rebelious noblemen and groups of local brigands.

I also think that when your own armies rebel, then the rebel army ought to contain exactly the same units as the army that rebelled with the same expereince, at present they get morphed into completely different units.

True, I agree with both your ideas - although two rebel types would surely mean 1 extra faction slot wasted?

Didz

07-08-2007, 10:59

@I am herenow
Not necessarily, they could still be lumped into the general faction of Rebel, just have different goals and army composition to represent their respective backgrounds.

An army of brigands would consist of unemployed soldiers and mercenaries, whose main goals would be to subsist off your local trade whilst avoiding serious combat.

An army led by a rebelious nobleman would contain a mix of units appropriate to the capture of a nearby city of castle which that nobleman hopes to annex as a base for further expansion of his empire. The logic being that until this nobleman was able to call upon such an army he would not show his hand.

The third class of rebel would of course be civil disorder and revolts, which would contain a mix of local peasantry and former garrison units and would usually start in possession of a city and from that point on would be able to recruit fresh units based upon that cities capabilities.

In theory at least, all three types might exist in the same region but the composition of their armies and their goals would be quite different.

I Am Herenow

07-08-2007, 19:26

Can individual armies be assigned "goals"? Aren't they just tools given to/used by the AI to kill stuff randomly?

Didz

07-08-2007, 20:31

Can individual armies be assigned "goals"? Aren't they just tools given to/used by the AI to kill stuff randomly?
Its difficult to imagine how an army can operate effectively without being given a goal, although I must admit the way some of them wander aimlessly about one wonders sometimes what goal they have been given.

In truth the only difference which matters is whether or not a Rebel army is led by a nobleman. If it is then the army ought to make an attempt to annex the mostly likely nearby settlement, if it isn't then it can be assumed to be an army of brigands and should move to interdict the nearest trade route whilst avoiding battle for as long as possible. That simple rule does not really need to be recorded as a goal but could actually be judged at the start of each turn. In fact, it would be better in some ways if it was, as this would mean the the target of the army could be re-assessed if the faction controlling the target city reinforces its garrison before the rebels reach it, and a new target chosen.

pike master

07-08-2007, 22:07

make units in spearwall mode immune to charge effects of two hand axeman and also to not allow any other infantry to get beyond spearwall during the charge.

John_Longarrow

07-09-2007, 07:20

Didz,

Sorry about that. My humor kicks in from time to time when people post vague comments without a way to judge what is really being suggested. As an example, if someone simply posts "This game sucks", my reaction would be "Be glad its not blowing instead!". If someone posts "The AI doesn't build logically", I'd ask how they think it should prioritize building.

When someone posts "Make the enemy armies better", My sarcastic side may go a bit overboard on the suggestion. :devilish:

madalchemist

07-09-2007, 16:12

Probably it has already been requested, but:

-Toggle Cheating AI Option.

Why? Because it alters and ruins the game mechanics and logic: when the AI siege units never catch fire, AI keeping public order in cities despite spies, Ai spawning "Men of the Hour" without fighting, AI 1-rank Assassins trying to kill a faction leader for several turns -failing each turn- without losing ranks and in the end succeeding while player's assassins cannot (this last happened to me in 2 separate campaigns).

If the AI must cheat to be more at the player's level, I say: no problem at all! Just give me an option to disable it (and fight with a poorer and more stupid enemy, I guess), like the option of unlimited time for battles and so on.

John_Longarrow

07-10-2007, 22:30

Campaign map Random world generator.

Years ago I used to play a game called Imperialism. One of the features of this game was its random world generator. Like M2TW, it was an expand and exploit type game. With a random map, each game definitly played out differently, and some factions would start out in such a bad spot that they couldn't win due to the poor combat interface.

A similar concept for M2TW would rock though. Have the option of choosing which faction or factions you want to include (including one or more generic factions for those who want a "Balanced" fight) plus having a total Fog of War (black map) as an option would make for a VERY challenging game compared to what we've got now.

I'm not sure how hard this would be to create, but I'm guessing it could be done by the modding community.

Bijo

07-12-2007, 01:04

I would support the Random World Generator proposal. It would be quite a nice feature if installed. Imagine one can choose a few factions whereafter you have the map generated, etc. It's like a skirmish option.

John_Longarrow

07-12-2007, 07:10

Bijo,

Exactly. After a while, since we KNOW where everything is, its a lot easier to play the game. There isn't a "Where the heck is this London place at?" feeling. There isn't a "What could be hiding on the other side of that forest?" feeling. It also encourages blitzing because you know what is or isnt' defended. You know who starts where and which way you have to go.

Monsieur Alphonse

07-12-2007, 22:48

Bijo and John

This would be great. And of course black FOW so you can't see the whole map but have to discover all of it or get the information by buying exchanging map information

Oh the dreams of endless different maps. CIV + TW yippee :clown:

John_Longarrow

07-13-2007, 02:24

Monsieur Alphonse

I don't play CIV, but I used to play a fun game called Imperialism. One of the best features of that game was its random world generator. Every game was different because of it.

I Am Herenow

07-13-2007, 15:02

But this mod is meant to be historical, unlike CIV which is a pseudo-history "generic civilization" builder (judging from the demo at least, which I've played, they oversimplify many things, such as Gandhi representing India from 5000 BC or whenever to the 21st century).

If this were to be implemented, then you could kiss goodbye to 80% of the mods out there that are trying to achieve historical accuracy.

John_Longarrow

07-13-2007, 16:22

I am Herenow,

I am not sure I understand your post. How would having an extra utility to create a custom mod to play with (that has a non-historical map) affect any mod geared for greater historical accuracy? As is we can have multiple mods on the same computer.

If you know something that would restrict multiple mods on the same computer, please let us know.

From a program standpoint, it would required M2TW to have an extra set of coding in it to allow for easier selection of mods (related to where the save games are), but I don't see that as a down side.

I Am Herenow

07-13-2007, 18:50

Well, if you want the Total War system of just using the known world of whatever time period (or at least part of it) for a campaign map to be scrapped and a random campaign map put in its place, then you're effectively killing off any attempts at historical accuracy.

If, however, you want this to be an optional feature (i.e. the old system would be retained and mods could use either a fixed campaign map or a random campaign map), then fair enough.

John_Longarrow

07-13-2007, 19:39

I am herenow.

It would be an option in addition to using the current historical campaign. Conceptually it would allow us to have a very diverse play environment that isn't constrained by historical situations. This would allow us to have a varied challenge without having to face a repeat of what we've done before.

Monsieur Alphonse

07-13-2007, 19:54

Total war is historical as accurate as the CIV games. I have masters in history so I can judged that. The human player reinvents in both games history. Both games have their flaws and both games have their strengths.

Total war is a turn based strategy game combined with a real time tactical game. If the campaign map would change then the strategy would also change. On the current map I know very good what regions are of strategic importance. I know for every faction what regions are of strategic importance. On a random map I would have to rethink about my strategy. The tactical part, the real time battles, would stay the same.

If total war had a random map the first part of the game would be used with exploring. I currently know exactly were to find other cities. If you don't know were to look the first, the decision to send a scout north/east/south or west would have far reaching consequences.

Didz

07-17-2007, 00:00

I think if MTW2 were to include a random map generator then I would prefer it to contain a random faction generator too. That way we could name our own faction and would not have to be restricted to specific combinations of historically based unit types on the ahistorical maps.

Yoyoma1910

07-17-2007, 06:40

Make the patch usable by all purchasers of the product, including people who dropped the quid for the electronic download version.

Soulforged

07-20-2007, 18:45

There's a lot of things, some of them have already been requested. In my opinion this game, like this new trend makes them, wasn't ready for shipping. The size of 1.2 was just ridiculous, the biggest patch I've ever downloaded. Leaving the past behind...

I'll like to see a better AI on the battlefield, right now the AI is, simply put, retarded. I've been testing it on several opportunities and have found a lot of things that are plainly laughable:

1- Mounted units will take a long time to charge upon archers always, even on VH. The first thing this unit has to do is to get out of firing range and evaluate the situation. If this is too complex, then why not do something simple as charging right away when the missile unit is exposed.

2- In a situation similar to the one described above: the missile unit places some pike walls in front of them. The mounted unit just charges directly up front being reduced instantaneously from 80 to 10, or perhaps zero depending on the ranks and lenght of the unit. This is just so stupid that I really don't know how something this big could escape anyone. This has other consequences as well, you don't need any more units with bonus against cavalry, you could play the whole game without them.

3- Make those walls less powerfull. Imagine this formation. I've only four Longbowman units while the enemy has 20 full stacks of heavy cavalry and reinforcements of more cavalry units (why not). I place my archers in a perfect square and order them to form a pike wall in front of them. The result, and endless slaughter of man and horse alike and almost no damage for myself. This could be solved in two ways: either make the walls destroyable upon the first charge and/or make horse units dismountable as someone has already requested, but also dismountable on the battlefield.

4- Make the AI strictly respect the stone-paper-scissors system of the game. Right now if the AI has two infantry units, one with bonus against cavalry and one which doesn't have it, it will attack with the second first. I've found that if you move your cavalry unit into another position after the battle starts and while the enemy comes forward the AI will actually attack with the proper unit (pikeman or whatever), but this seems to be totally random. This is just one example, the AI doesn't seem to respect this simple rules on any instances.

5- Make artillery units more powerfull than archers. Right now I'll prefer archers all the way instead of any hand cannon man.

6- Pathfinding inside the cities. I think there's no need to explain this at this point.

7- The AI should try less to conquer and more to scheme. Right now the only thing the AI knows is to attack me on every opportunity they've. If a christian nation knows that attacking another christian nation will get them on the bad side of the Pope then the AI should recognize this. They should use more their princesses, their diplomats, their assassins, their spies, their priests and their merchants.

8- I'll like to know if government hired merchants are historically accurate. AFAIK they're not contracted by the government to do anything they do it out of their onw will, and the ability to recruit them in this game seems a little contrived.

Most of this things are moddable AFAIK, so perhaps the modders could get them right in any case.

ForgotMyOldNick

07-21-2007, 00:59

Read here previously about commandeering Inquisitors; that'd be cool :)
Maybe if your own faction has the Pope too as a condition.

Grouped units still don't function properly for me, they attack anything nearby sometimes instead of going to new objective. If it's to do with an impetuous charge trait or something of the unit could it be made that grouped units with the General in the army always follow orders no matter what or based on command star rating of General?

Troops get caught in the wreckage of artillery.. spent 10 mins using 3
units of archers trying to eliminate 2 running bugs within the remains
of 3 wreckages of artillery :S Two incidences over two sessions. Even
though hilarious at the time it sort of dampened the excitement of the
overall battles.

More in game options, even a huge list of such things as simple as changing the names of characters would be good. Surely the game could make a preference back up text file for each seperate campaign, that gets deleted with the game save when it is deleted?

An optionable more interactive naval combat screen would be good. It
can be simple just using the ships moving around in an area and
fighting the other ships, simple play but good graphics etc and would
add to game play more. Sort of a mini game option.

Ah, and good old exchangable ancilleries. Please bring them back.

Diplomacy is lots of fun now but still seems limited. Maybe I haven't
worked it out properly yet as I discover a new way to use it each time I play. I think maybe adding some 'sub-options' under main ones would
make it a lot more fun and intriguing. Especially to do with bribing
rebels and recruiting some nice new units to your armies, instead of
disbanding the entire lot of them outside the general unit, maybe also
any nearby pirates/ships to hire also. As rebels tend to have some new
units before I can make them due to economy :(

The graphics are wonderful CA! Please concentrate on game play now and
the bugs. A full on strategy game should have heaps of options is all I would say about the game overall.

That's my wish list at the moment, can't think of everything else I wanted to add. In fact I think 5 pages of posts sort of covered it for me; especially the suggestions on page 1.

I Am Herenow

07-21-2007, 13:09

Make artillery units more powerfull than archers. Right now I'll prefer archers all the way instead of any hand cannon man.

I agree with all your other points, but here I'd disagree: as this game is about Medieval Europe, guns, cannons etc. were only just starting out and, to begin with, they were rubbish.

Soulforged

07-21-2007, 19:06

I agree with all your other points, but here I'd disagree: as this game is about Medieval Europe, guns, cannons etc. were only just starting out and, to begin with, they were rubbish.
But why were they rubbish... Was it because they didn't do enough damage or because they took an eternity to reload and even then they could backfire? I think the second is the truth, right? What I'm saying is this, make the unit take an eternity to reload (the backfire would be awkward though), and even employ a per rank firing tactic to overcome this problem if necessary, but there's other ways to balance both units: archers are quick, handgunmans are powerful.

Gregl26

07-21-2007, 20:09

Archers should be able to deploy spikes whenever they want. With the passive AI I always have to go to them and therefore my spikes are useless. So either let me deploy spikes when I want or have more aggressive AI. Hopefully both :)

John_Longarrow

07-21-2007, 20:25

Soulforged,
With smooth bore muzzle loaders being the only gunpowder weapon available, you run into several problems.

1) How well the powder was mixed and how recently directly affected their power and range. If the powder was allowed to sit for any length of time it would begin to separate, thus reducing its power. The longer it was mixed for, the finer the particles, the more powerful the explosion per mass.

2) Round projectiles fired from a smooth bore weapon have poor accuracy. At 25 paces you are not sure if you can hit a barn with one.

3) Fouling from firing caused many misfires. These could either be a lack of ignition, poorly packed powder that tended to fizzle rather than explode, or a projectile wedged into the barrel tight enough that the barrel itself exploded rather than the projectile traveling down the barrel.

In all, a crossbow was a more reliable weapon that was far more accurate at greater range with a comparable reload time. Gunpowder weapons had only one major benefit over other projectile weapons of the time, fear. They were scary, especially to troops not used to them. Both a crossbow bolt and a bullet would do similar damage. The crossbow bolt was a known quantity that medical science could deal with. Bullets tended to be much harder to deal with, thus more people died after a battle from them. They also tend to do nasty things inside a body and are much harder to get out.

In general, a soldier in the 1300s would much rather be hit with an arrow or bolt over a bullet. After all, the arrow or bolt had a conveniant way to remove it and an easy way to find it.

I Am Herenow

07-21-2007, 22:02

Yeah, before rifling, a bullet would bounce around in the barrel due to it not being a tight fit or flying straight, reducing accuracy.

Didz

07-22-2007, 10:34

Woolwich Arsenal did some tests on the accuracy of the Brown Bess Musket. (This was a much later smoothbore weapon as used at Waterloo in 1815)

300 rounds were fired at a company sized target board.

At 100 paces they scored 153 hits, suffering 15% misfires which would have disabled the weapon for the rest of the attack had it been a continous test.
At 200 paces they scored 102 hits, 15% misfires.
At 300 paces 64 hits, 15% misfires.

This was in range conditions, with the weapon being loaded carefully and unfouled if it misfired.

Analysis of actual casualties in battlefield conditions where misfires and cleaning was not conducted and rapid loading and stress combined to fluster the solider showed a different picture.

At 100 paces estimates show an average of 38 hits could be expected from 300 rounds fired. (12%)
At 200 paces 17 hits (5.6%)
At 300 paces 8 hits (2.6%)

These results degraded rapidly over periods of prolonged firing as misfires, fouling and fatigue reduced the number of rounds discharged. The average effect of three rounds rapid fire from 300 muskets showed a drop in average hits-

At 100 paces from 12% to 6%
At 200 paces from 5.6% to 2.6%
At 300 paces from 2.6% to 1.2%

A significant proportion of this reduced effect was attributable to weapon fouling and other failures which after three rounds would have disabled over 100 weapons.

Gray Beard

07-24-2007, 10:34

Pet peeves that I'd like to see changed.

The time span for a turn should be no longer than 6 month

Other nations should not be able to walk an army into your territory without your consent or without declaring war. How many times have I had the Sicilians or Venetians or Hungarians parade a small army down and camp out in front a city with a much larger garrison? happens every game. They just sit there turn after turn. You know what's happened. They have a mission to try and take that town and now realize they can't so they sit and hope you'll move. But. if you attack them you've suddenly an "Untrustworthy" reputation.

Abolish naval blockades. They were impossible during this time period. The ships didn't have the sea keeping abilities needed. The crews would die of scurvy and dehydration long before they cause significant economic damage. ESPECIALLY since most missions require you to hold the blockade for two turns or FOUR YEARS. Ships and navies able to do that didn't appear until the 17th century at least. Land an army or sail on by don't block the port this is especially true of pirates.

Some cities should be unable to fall by siege until the gunpowder era unless you have a spy or some other subterfuge device. For example. Constantinople had (Istanbul still has) underground cistern for fresh water that would hold BILLIONS and BILLIONS of liters of water. They had room inside the city wall to grow vegetables and and fruit trees. Why did the Turks not take the city until 1453 when they'd taken everything else? Because it would have cost more than the city was worth. Even in 1453 with huge cannons and a numerical advantage of 15 to 1 it took them over 30 days to take the city. Huge cities should be much more difficult to take. Perhaps you should be able to control a province and get revenue from it without controlling the city which is effectively what the Turks did for 100 years.

If you can besiege something then cavalry should have to begin eating their horses after a while and be converted into some form of foot soldier or militia.

I realize this would make a huge different in the way the game is played. But you shouldn't be able to besiege anything unless you out number the place by at least 4 to 1.

Units and ships should have greater movement distances. For example in 1438 (I think that was the year) Emperor John III sailed from Constantinople to Venice in 77 day and he stopped at the Byzantine city of Mystra. In this game that would take you 5 turns at 2 years a turn. You could swim the distance twice in that time. It takes an army, in the normal game 8 to 10 years to walk from Constantinople to Durazo. Are they crawling on their hands and knees? The troops would be to old to fight by the time they arrive. It appears to me that the movement speeds of the various units are setup to give you, the defender some idea that someone is invading you. Well, make them have to declare war before they enter your land.

There should be an option in the diplomacy screen "Leave my territory"

A Mercenary Guild. Level one allows you to recruit, train and rebuild mercenaries perhaps specific types depending upon your nation, in that city. Level two reduces the upkeep cost of the mercenaries to that of normal troops. Level three the Grand master level gives this to all your cities.

I Am Herenow

07-24-2007, 11:35

Units and ships should have greater movement distances. For example in 1438 (I think that was the year) Emperor John III sailed from Constantinople to Venice in 77 day and he stopped at the Byzantine city of Mystra. In this game that would take you 5 turns at 2 years a turn. You could swim the distance twice in that time. It takes an army, in the normal game 8 to 10 years to walk from Constantinople to Durazo. Are they crawling on their hands and knees? The troops would be to old to fight by the time they arrive. It appears to me that the movement speeds of the various units are setup to give you, the defender some idea that someone is invading you. Well, make them have to declare war before they enter your land.

Why not just have a bigger map (i.e. greater distances between cities)? This should increase the Field Battle : Siege Battle ratio too, which isn't a bad thing.

I agree with the rest of your points.

neoiq5719

07-24-2007, 19:20

Has this been reported already? It´s about routing units and i cant recall having seen this in the 1.1 patch. Routing units(in the highest level) start leaving but half way thru they stop (far or close from the battle) and u just cant select them anymore so they just stand there on withdraw mode and since u can no longer put them on withdraw anymore they die there cos eventually they get caught up by the enemy (this happens when attacking a fortress). Now when defending and they withdraw, they pile up in front of the gate (which of course does not open) and die there too by the enemy. I think this might be a bug brought about by the new patch.

ForgotMyOldNick

07-25-2007, 22:46

A line defining best path to target for Crusading Armies, when they are selected on campaign map.

I Am Herenow

07-26-2007, 08:40

A line defining best path to target for Crusading Armies, when they are selected on campaign map.
But surely that depends on what you mean by "best" - i.e. the player might (not) want to go by sea, or might want to avoid certain factions' territories.

ForgotMyOldNick

07-26-2007, 12:07

Have a squizz at this frustration then :

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=89078

Garnier

07-26-2007, 18:51

Bring back the windowed mode from RTW.

The way it worked, it was still fullscreen, but you could bring other windows up while the game was running in the background. Having it in a window is pointless and annoying.

Soulforged

07-26-2007, 22:54

I think this feature is interesting but its not asking to be added right now:
We could use spies to kidnap important people like family members or agents and then negociate a ransom maybe adding a new option to the diplomats like "Offer hostage".

Also on that vein, I believe it would be great if family members could do the diplomacy for themselves instead of relying on diplomats or princesess (wich are family members too:dizzy2: ) everytime they need to negociate.

d3nn16

07-31-2007, 08:58

About spies and assassins.

Problem : Assassins available for recruitment have very low subterfuge and it's very difficult to get a good assassin by "training" it yourself.

1st solution : make assassins and spies have a starting subterfuge of 5 then apply good and bad triggers.

Problem : If you want a good spy or assassin you have to recruit several ones until you get a good one that can probably fail and you lose too much money for it too.

2nd solution : have 3 flavors of agents.

1st : current low subterfuge (I suppose 0 starting subterfuge + a trigger) assassin (500 cost, 200 upkeep)

2nd : improved assassin with 4 subterfuge minimum (GoodAssassin trait level 4 + "good" trigger(s)) (750 cost, 350 upkeep) only available in any settlement if your faction has an assassin guild anywhere on your territory.

Note : having an assassins' master guild (+1 global) and training your improved assassin in a settlement with assassin guild (+1 local) will give you a 6 or more (according to the "good" trigger(s)) subterfuge agent.

3rd : excellent assassin with 6 subterfuge (GoodAssassin trait level 5 + NaturalAssassinSkill trait level 1 + "good" trigger(s)) (1000 cost, 500 upkeep) only available if your faction has assassins' guild HQ (+2 global) which will mean an 8 or more subterfuge assassin.

About diplomats :

Upgrading town hall buildings doesn't improve the diplomats you recruit in the settlement.
Personally I think it would be a good addition to recruit good diplomats in settlements with high level town halls (level 3 diplomacy minimum with the last level town hall).

MrsCabbage

07-31-2007, 19:45

Diplomacy
"Get off my land" option

Just want to put my vote in for this one. I quite often get a so called friendly faction camping out next to one of my settlements and you just know they gonna wack you but there is nothing in the game you can about it! So this would possibly give some of addressing this.

John_Longarrow

08-01-2007, 06:20

d3nn16

If you use the save/reload method, why don't you just hunt down the trait names and use the add_trait command from the command shell to up your assassins?

For myself, I'm willing to take the hit if it doesn't work. Then again I never reload just because something didn't work the way I wanted it do. I only use it if I can't count out the distance and it looks like my assassin/spy/merchant/what ever will get there but is just short. :furious3:

Yea, sometimes it winds up I'm just out of range but the blasted thing SHOWS I can get there!! Heck, the AI can! :evil:

d3nn16

08-01-2007, 06:37

That was before I found out about cheats and the trait files and how to get them (1st campaign), I used the cheats in 2nd campaign for the traits, and I started playing without cheats and saving/reloading in my 3rd campaign (the best).

And after I saw the movies about the expansion I stopped playing :jumping:

I Am Herenow

08-01-2007, 08:16

have 3 flavors of agents.

1st : current low subterfuge (I suppose 0 starting subterfuge + a trigger) assassin (500 cost, 200 upkeep)

2nd : improved assassin with 4 subterfuge minimum (GoodAssassin trait level 4 + "good" trigger(s)) (750 cost, 350 upkeep) only available in any settlement if your faction has an assassin guild anywhere on your territory.

Note : having an assassins' master guild (+1 global) and training your improved assassin in a settlement with assassin guild (+1 local) will give you a 6 or more (according to the "good" trigger(s)) subterfuge agent.

3rd : excellent assassin with 6 subterfuge (GoodAssassin trait level 5 + NaturalAssassinSkill trait level 1 + "good" trigger(s)) (1000 cost, 500 upkeep) only available if your faction has assassins' guild HQ (+2 global) which will mean an 8 or more subterfuge assassin.

I support this idea, as the whole idea behind the guild means you now have better Assassins/Merchants/whatever floating around your settlement(s), and so in theory you should be able to hire guys who are already quite proficient, rather than training your own man from scratch. This would mean than guilds gave de facto mercenary agents.

Valde

08-02-2007, 15:23

Have the boiling oil ducts above gates actually pour boiling oil as they did in RTW.

Be able to scout terrain before a battle. I remember in RTW you had the option of viewing a city. Would be cool if you could do the same for the terrain you are standing on with an army. Maybe have same option for spies so you can better choose where to fight or make a stand.

WhiskeyGhost

08-04-2007, 15:55

i'm not sure if its been mentioned before, i've tried searching it, but it didn't come up.....

What about being able to set fires in cities? I'd really like to be able to do something during battle, like lob fire arrows into a city and cause it to start burning (if sufficient amounts were used) or even be able to attack with torches and other fiery things to damage or destroy building in a town. Sure, you may not be able to take the town, but if you can get a cavalry unit in to set a few fires.....then you would not only harm some of the enemy troops, but also damage the buildings forcing them to repair them. I'm not saying there should be a single arrow starting a massive blaze, or a small fire growing into one either (i would assume they would try to put it out).

It would also address the whole "Lets run to the city square and fight to the last man" tactics the computer so loves to do.

Also, you could make it similar to Exterminating (not like being an additional option after youve one, but in that it is considered an evil tactic, and also kills population)

Oh, and also, i'd like to see Sally ports, or some sort of Wicket so that infantry may sally out, without worrying about cavalry pushing through them/holding the gates open for other cavalry to come through

d3nn16

08-05-2007, 21:42

Inspired by Magudai's post "Campaign Morale/Supply".

The idea I like in his post is about morale penalty/advantage upon troops depending on their position on the map.
Now what needs to be discussed and developed are the conditions that influence a stack's morale.

I took a quick moment to read the Wikipedia article about morale and I thought about some interesting and realistic ideas :

* position on strategic map :
- the more far from an owned region/capital the bigger the morale penalty on stacks with low quality troops (that can eventually start deserting), except for stacks with important objectives like crusades or other (big invasions ?)

- fighting in long time controlled regions will give a morale superiority to your units

- a recently conquered settlement will have an important morale penalty for stacks fighting in it or in neighboring regions (a recently conquered settlement will not give you the same morale influence as a long time controlled settlement) that will decrease proportionally to the time the settlement is kept under control

- morale influence for units fighting in a region surrounded by enemy, neutral or allied or own faction regions (these regions have resp. increasing morale influence). A morale influence capacity is calculated for each region according to the regions around it : long-time controlled regions or short-time controlled, long-time allied or short time allied, long-time enemy regions or short time.
An exception for crusades that already have a deserting system (speed at which distance between stack and objective is diminishing).

* introduction in M2TW of a new strategic element which is a supply line (the invaded faction will have another chance of surviving by attacking an enemy's supply line) that will influence a stack's morale. The implementation of this supply line should be further discussed.

* Make another type of action representing a pillage on an enemy territory (instead of the current system in which you only have to move your stack in an enemy territory to create devastation). Troops that are pillaging will have a bonus on upkeep (needs discussing). Fast cavalry/horse archers units will create the biggest devastation and will have the biggest upkeep bonus.
Devastation and upkeep bonus will be directly proportional to distance of pillaging stack to settlement (I'm thinking that the richer parts of the region are close to capital settlement).

* objective of a stack : similar to crusades
A stack will be assigned an objective as soon as it is created when making it move like it is done currently in the game (attack a settlement/army, go somewhere, enter another settlement, etc with the multi colored line indicating the stack's objective). The objective will be the last target of the line that the stack will move toward before finishing its MvmPts.

A stack with an objective and position inside enemy controlled regions will have a penalty if : I make it move somewhere with no objective (not even pillage) and click for next turn. This will create a morale penalty (troops don't know what they are doing there, low quality troops start deserting if stationed for long time).

For example, an objective penalty will occur if the stack moves to capture an enemy settlement this turn (without reaching it immediately) and the next turn it is given another objective away from the initial one (like crusading army going away from target settlement) . The following turn the stack will still have the first objective assigned until I capture/destroy/pillage the target or I move inside a controlled region.

* authority of the faction leader, authority/other of the stack commander, objective of the stack, number of units in a stack, percentage of complete units in the stack, (anything else ?) influence the morale.

* elite troops should be slightly (or not at all) influenced by position/objective on strategic map while bad troops should desert quickly

* make pillage be function of quality of troops (or type of troops) you have in your stack (peasant troops will earn less money than DFK for example)

* what reason should there be to have peasant units for training ?
Units of peasants should be trained in number of 4 per turn while one unit of DFK should be trained in 2 turns. Maybe a maximum of 3-4 turns for excellent units. This needs discussing if not already done.

andepans

08-08-2007, 04:48

allow me to play a LAN game with AI controlled armies, a feature that was in RTW

Patriote

08-08-2007, 17:20

Here all the ideas that I could think of, sorry if this is hard to read for some. I took some ideas from some people, I don't pretend to have thought them all by myself :2thumbsup:

Here some nice features that were in STW and MTW that were romved in RTW and never put back unfortunetaly:

- Special Titles from MTW such as Governor, Count, Lord of Amiralty, etc
- Loyalist, Religious and Peasant Revolts
- Combat mode: Engage at will (not to be confused with Fire at will), Hold formation (for units such as spearmen and spearwall) and Skirmish (not to be confused with loose formation)
- Setting "spy network" that inform you of the intention of the enemy
- Very agressive AI, just as STW (damn those Warrior Monks...)
- Formations available at the start of the game for the whole army (Army Formation Icon it was called)
- Watch towers and Border forts (would be installed automatically at your frontiers without having to do it manually and granting security and anti-unrest bonus)
- General (Taishos in STW) being able to gain Battle Stars, not just Family Members by keeping track of win and lost battles
- Navies being used are naval bridges as in MTW but with some tweakings to avoid the "teleportation effect" that was present in MTW (would reduced a lot the required micromanagement especially for agents)
- Possibilties of civil war throughout a whole faction (having to choose side)
- Possibility of trying to assassinate a character in your faction ***With that option, NOT bringing back the option to choose your faction heir; heirs were most of the time chosen by the laws of the kingdoms, then trying to assassinate an incompetent ruler would add flavor to the game, especially with the risk of civil war !
- Bring back faction goals like in MTW and/or allowed to customise goals at the start of a campaign just in STW WE
- Give destroyed factions a possibility to come back (could be a fourth type of rebellion)
- Using a money system like STW, taxes should only be collected once every of 4 turns, when the fields are collected and taxes taken. This was a very challenging when having to budget for 4 turns (although I don't know how the AI would deal with that but the STW AI seems pretty decent with money, but maybe they just have money bonuses as always)

New things that I think are missing and would make good modifications to the game:

- Less micromanaging for agents meaning that they can't have their path blocked anymore(after like 1/10th of their movement...)

- Abilities to set up constant diplomatic relationships with others factions by sending a diplomatic mission (diplomat) which would set a "ambassy" Option for both factions to break up diplomatic contact and add more diplomatic options (get off my land, declaring war, at least those two)

- Improving AI (some ideas I wrote in an other tread https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=
1632581#post1632581 (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1632581#post1632581)

- Supply and logistic aspects being added to the game (see Europa Barbarorum mod for RTW for an excellent system or read, Supply War from Martin Van Crevald)

- Bring greater realism to siege warfare, hence supply situation for both sides and better cities and castles defenses (harder to assault, build points for defenders too, more options to besiegers, etc)

- Having the "stacking" effects that 2000 troors are able to squeez themselves through a gate when only 50 men would normally be able to stand there (like the rush tactic almost always use by the AI)

- Rebels troops should not include troops that the nation they came from cannot produce (like facing rebel Gothic Knigths while playing HRE and being able to only recruit Mailed Knigths... where the hell those "rebel" knights come from!?)

- Troops cohesion should have a much greater effect upon their morale (battles have been lost just because of fleeing troops running through their lines and stuff like that) In addition, cavalry units should inflict casualties if they run through, while fleeing or not, friendly units. That would be especially true if 2 cavalry units from the same side run through each other!

- Seasons restrictions (see Europa Barbarorum again)

- Dividing the sea in "region" and granting control of the each sea regions to faction granting bonues on trade and sea combats or something like that.

- Possibility to dismiss an agent no longer required

- Possibility of "converting" an enemy religious agent (just like when one of your religious agent tried to trial an heretic but instead turn heretic himself)

- Having all armies, regardless of the army composition, move at the same speed (armies usually move at the speed of the lowest troops, normally the infantry because war machines were usually pulled by beasts and cavalry, especially heavy ones, could not run or even just gallop for hundreds of miles)

- Rules for units going by forced marches constantly, they will tire up

Remove banner color on the battlefield, would increase the usefulness of spy network and towers

- Reworking fleets concerning the number of troops and equipment that can be boarded and also the possible landings sites (to restrict them mostly)

- Just like STW and MTW, the number of troops that can be garrisoned should depend on the size of the castle/cities

- Tweaking Generals' Bodyguard concerning the way they replenish and also, why they automatically dissapear if the family member is slain

- Maye this is the case already but "awards" such as Strongest Armies, Greatest Nation, Richest Faction should grant bonuses to diplomatic negotiaton of that faction depending on what he is trying to achieve (such as Protectorate, alliance, "get off my land" etc) or maybe a bonus when comparing the two factions

- Concerning missile units being besieged, they should have a lot more ammunition or if this is possible, be distributed throught out (maybe automatically) towers and bastions. Also, towers and stairs should have doors... (and locked please:inquisitive:)

- Some basic naval tactic and strategy for the whole faction navy and then each individual fleet (advanced buildings like Admiralty would "develop" and give new naval doctrines to a faction

- Possibilty to engage in piracy (like several nations did against Spain after the conquest of the new world) but with possible diplomatic repercussions on the pirating faction (mostly negative)

- Possibility to build several buildings at the same time but each building after the first one, would cost more than supposed. E.g. second building would 25% more than supposed, thirst 50% and the fourth and last 100%.

That's pretty much for it. Don't hesitate to comment and extrapolate from my ideas.

ForgotMyOldNick

08-08-2007, 18:32

Nice one.

'Extrapolating' soon ~;) (after enough coffee kicks in this fine morning...)

"...- Seasons restrictions (see Europa Barbarorum again)..."

Gonna have a look at this mod for some more ideas. Thanks for the reminder.

Patriote

08-08-2007, 18:47

- Improving AI (some ideas I wrote in an other tread https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=
1632581#post1632581 (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1632581#post1632581)

EDIT: here's a better link: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1631976&postcount=35

:laugh4: I'm eager to see your coffee-pumped ideas FMON :idea2:

ForgotMyOldNick

08-08-2007, 19:22

The text file is HUGE! even with a 19" monitor lol! I woke up particularly early this morning (3am :S) so I am devoting this bonus free time (for me :()to try and get something on the forum prior to work. In any case watch for a thread called Ultimate Total War.

I am going to use this post to site this thread link too because it has some good ideas from AskThePizzaGuy and others that are relevant to the topic:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=89154

The Badger

08-09-2007, 14:47

... KingMaker or Shogun(the axis & allies spinoff) boardgames...?

The reason i ask is my wish would practically throw the baby out with the bathwater and I know better than to ask anyone to throw out their baby...
so to speak; i know a lot of work went into the system as it is.

So i guess what i would suggest is a mini-campaign - as kingdoms plans several-

that is a little different.

What if, as only main characters can recruit mercs; only they could recruit troops into a standing army PERIOD.

On the EB thread (which i don't feel i have a right to comment on as I've never played EB mod)
it was brought up how in MTW you could 'build' a crusade representing preparations for battle - that would be interesting -

But keep in mind the turn length of the Grand Campaign and I think that becomes too long..

MY SUGGESTION is a mix of the two - a compromise straight from Shogun-

Make (as it really WAS) the 'general' actually raise the armies by marching and recruiting from the unit pools

Make garrison armies that ARE PERMANENT - as they should be -
say; based on the building

No more troops appearring (spawning) out of abstraction

They should EXIST and in a shorter campaign; they won't be springing up except for the occaisional roaming mercenary bands.

Success or failure creates the INFLUENCE to recruit neutrals.

Recruiting another NOBLE brings his territory and troops with him...

So okay; 'saying' this has gelled it in my head.

MY WISH is for a 'KingMaker' style campaign -
smaller map scale; smaller time scale,

More strategy but less 'building' (long term economics)

lets ditch the risk/axis & allies model -
the abstract troop pools and spawns -

and play with a finite; existing troop pool -
make nobles NECESSARY to move troops from garrison (or 'pool') to STANDING (mobile) armies.

...revolt on antares...

...city-states of Arkyrel...

Other old games roving strategy does NOT have to mean "building" troops out of thin air.

and a game of thrones is going thru my mind right now

(which btw takes heavily from the War of the Roses)...

but i'm not saying inflict this on everyone...

It would be a nice ALTERNATE campaign however.:beam:

Patriote

08-09-2007, 16:33

Yeah that was my idea but the intended goal behind it was to avoid having a swarm of small AI armies walking around in your land all the time, sieging your town (then stopping all your production) and all the annoyance coming with that.

However, after some discussion with other people on the forum, I came up with the conclusion it would be really hard to implement and tweak especially because of the way the AI would be using it.

I have been inspired by your thread about M2TW depicting nations rather than family lines properly, by using Eb ideas, I have come up with the following ideas could make some good changes and add a whole new level of realism and historical accuracy to the game:

- Units should received movement penalties when moving through enemy territories (to represent the need of being cautious and also the time required to acquire food and forage from the land as the troops advance)

**I made some research and calculations on that. A "normal" advance day for a roman legion was between 15-20 miles using the highly and well maintained road system of the roman empire. If turns in M2TW were to represent seasons(like in EB) this would mean an army could move up to 20 miles times 90days (to take round numbers) for a maximum of 1800 miles in a single season! However (and a big one) the road system of the now gone roman empire had, during the time of M2TW, mostly because of a lack of maintenance, almost disappeared. Also, medieval infantry was a lot inferior to roman infantry so would be unable to achieve their performances. Also, troops would not be able to walk 90 days in a row, both because of physical exhaustion and time required, like said above, to gather food and forage, to build temporary defenses and etc. So I guess saying troops could walk once every 2 days for 10 miles a day would seem reasonable. This would give a total of 450 miles in a season even in then this is a long distance considering everything that can happened when campaigning throughout an enemy territory so this number could be reduce even more.**

- Forts, castles and citadels should instead be upgrades to cities which would have fortified walls as usual. They would make cities much harder to occupy because, before the apparition of gunpowder, as Martin Van Crevald said in Supplying War, a ratio of 7 to 1 in troops was usually required to besiege and take a well fortified town then making the logistic porblems for the besiegers for such a huge force almost impossible to solve, famine, disease and hunger often forcing a lot of sieges to be lift. The advantage was for the defenders in most cases, not the besiegers unlike the case right now in all TW games.

- Until a faction reach a certain level of development (like reforms in RTW) they should be considered a Feudal faction and only a fraction of the faction provinces should be controlled by the player(hence the King). The rest of the provinces would still be part of the faction but would be held by nobles (barons, counts and lords) I took this idea from an old SNES game from KOEI called Genghis Kahn II, Clan of the Grey Wolf, where players could only controlled one region and but could give orders to the others region such as: attack, support attack, move troops, send gold or supply etc although the governor was not obliged to obey leading to fear of rebellion (which were numerous!) That's what the reason why players were incited to members of the royal family as governor, wether brothers or sons of the rulers, or place general that were married to one the princess because of their higher loaylty. That could lead to inter-faction wars with a noble family trying to take over the throne as the power of the royal family weaken.

- Feudal kingdoms did not have large standing armies. They mostly had some militias troops to defend their land and cities as well as the Aristocraty forming Knight units. When a prince or a king decided to go to war, that was when he would raise an army and send messages to his vassals to join him. A lot of troops then hired were merceneries and were pretty expansive. Only when a faction would reach a level od political development with a Centrelized Power would they be able to maintained larger standing armies at lower costs and control(the player obviously) all his territories. I took this idea from a RTS called Cossacks where a player had to build specific buildings and pay a high amount of hard to obtain to "upgrade" from the 17th to the 18th century giving him a lot more upgrades and better troops possibilities.

Finally, one last change, maybe the hardest one to be accepted, would be that orders to move armies and troops would be given during the player's turn but would only be carry out when the End of turn button is pushed (just like in STW and MTW) meaning unforseen things can happen. This would make strategy a lot more possible "exciting" and harder.

Here some general points:

Retreats from armies should be worked out again. it is not logic that armied move away only a little bit when the retreat option is chosen(giving the possibility to the attackers to attack again) but will cover distances would normally be unable to do when defeated in battle, without taking into account the possible retreat ways or the remaining movement points (which should be a lot lower because of the exhaustion and confusion following the battle)
**During ancient, medieval and even later campaigns, it was hard for a commander to battle his opponent if the latter would refuse to face him. A common strategy was to retreat to a fortified city forcing the opposing army to besiege it because the risk to bypass the city was too great that the army would come out of the army and catch the enemy in its rear while the enemy is besieging an other town**

- About the preivous idea, battles where a relieve force attacks an enemy army besieging a city should not be fought in open ground but rather with the besieging army caught in some unprepared state from this unexpected new enemy.

mor dan

08-13-2007, 18:57

i would like to see more realism in the case of forests Vs. fiery projectiles. i should be able to set a forest on fire and cause heavy casualties to any army hidden in said forest. at the same time, for ecological reasons, there should be some sort of penalty for excising that option too often, or political unrest in the region which you basically burned to the ground because you were fearful of armies hiding in trees.

it just makes no sense to me that if i have fiery catapults and fiery arrows turned on that i suffer an even greater penalty when firing into a forest, when it fact the arrows and fiery mortars should set the place ablaze and cause all sorts of broken formation confusion of the army trying to escape the ensuing inferno...

I Am Herenow

08-13-2007, 19:30

^ Shouldn't work in the rain, though. And frankly, neither should flaming ammo or muskets.

mor dan

08-13-2007, 23:08

^ Shouldn't work in the rain, though. And frankly, neither should flaming ammo or muskets.

what type of "flaming" anything WOULDN'T set a forest on fire? "Just Jack 2000" aside...

Didz

08-14-2007, 09:01

My son and I tried to play a LAN multiplayer team battle last night and were amazed to find that it was impossible to choose AI controlled players to fill the spare players places.

I thought that was a pretty standard feature of every multiplayer system, so I would like to see it introduced into MW2 so that teams of players can play the scenario battles against the AI.

And along with that I'd like to see more team based challenges added to the scenario list.

John_Longarrow

08-15-2007, 06:38

Mor Dan

Odd... Japan tried the same thing against the western United Stated during the 2nd world war. They had the same effect as you see with flaming projectiles in M2TW. From what has happened, I don't think burning down a forest is something you can normally do. Most often this occurs when there is a drought in the local area, or at least very little rain.

It would look cool, but it would not be historical.

I Am Herenow

08-15-2007, 12:42

When I think about it, that sort of thing will probably come along a few TW games down the line, at the same time as realistic damage models for soldiers (scars, losing limbs etc.).

Mr Frost

08-15-2007, 16:55

Mentioned before or not , this deserves saying again :

New and this time realistic animations for 2-Handed Axes {the worst currently} Poleaxes {nearly as bad} and 2-Handed Swords !

I'm sure whomever was responsible for the animations we got had never handled the genuine article {likely only ceremonial weapons which are not balanced for combat or poorly designed modern copies} .

A properly made 2-Handed Sword is almost as fast as a properly made one handed sword and some {such as most Irish designs and Bastard Swords in general when used two handed} are equal in speed to a typical Arming Sword {the basic mid to late Medieval one handed sword} .

A Properly made 2-Handed battleaxe is slower , but only just in the actual swing {attack} , it is the recovery {to ready for the next attack} that is notably slower when comparing axes to swords {same goes for maces and such} . Still it {the recovery} isn't even close to as the game animation has it .
Ever watched wood chopping contests ? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pELoW59vq0) Battleworthy {not ceremonial or show peices} 2-Handed Axes weren't that much bigger .

Poleaxes are faster in the recovery than axes {much faster} for many reasons , but the most notable point {other than watching people who know what they're doing use them} is they weren't just battlefield weapons relying on support from others in your unit , but also dueling weapons .
A short {9 seconds} video example where the participants are still going slower and easier than would men trying to kill each other : A.R.M.A. Poleaxe demonstration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_F8bfhxJrw&mode=related&search=) note how much faster the attacks are compared to in game , and they're still going slow and careful .
If I had time I'd find more {there is a lot of rubbish to filter through to find the goods} , but it illustrates my point .

Anyone who has a clue on the subject will know that the animations we have for 2-handed swords is too slow and for 2-Handed Axes and Poleaxes bad enough to call a cariciture !

They need replacing !

Goaswerfraiejen

08-17-2007, 00:18

There are really just two huge things on my wishlist:

1.) Battles - Defensive deployment. I don't know why, but placing units (especially in sieges) is just bloody difficult. Not because the choices are hard (which is awesome), but rather because units won't deploy where you want them to, even if they "can" (that is, you get the yellow arrows, meaning that there's nothing preventing them for deploying there except for some mystical force). One of the best things about Rome, in my opinion, was the ease of deployment (it was easy in MTW, yes, but even better in Rome); I would love to return to that. Could it be the engine change that's responsible?

2.) Diplomacy needs a major update/overhaul. Again, diplomacy was a huge factor in my love for RTW over MTW: it was fresh and new, and played a much larger role. I've had a great deal of trouble finding any significant changes to diplomacy from RTW to MTWII, though: I mean, bribing is harder (not at all a bad thing), and there's cardinal vote-buying (which is AWESOME), but other than that... same old options, one of which is 100% useless and irrelevant and never works (attack faction). Ideally, such an overhaul would include more than just more options and re-tooling acceptance rates/sticking to deals/etc.--what, though, I have no idea. That's why I'm not doing it. :p At the very least, making the "attack faction" option significant and adding a "gerroff my land" option would certainly go a long way. Perhaps even (and this would be HUGELY AWESOME, although I think it's unlikely, since it would probably require significant changes to the way the game works) the ability to request non-financial or military aid from an ally (ex. supply trains that would lower crusader [or siege!] desertion [or prolonging the time a besieged garrison can hold out], grain to stave off the negative effects of a famine event [this could even increase the chances of spreading plague, and prolong Plague's effects], etc.). Such things would add a whole new layer to the game (economic warfare, punishing those who rely too heavily on foreign grain, etc.). The only catch is that you don't want too much micromanagement--but these are ideas that seem to do what CA wanted Merchants to start to symbolise.

Benandorf

08-22-2007, 02:44

What we really need, and have needed since RTW, is a "next unit with moves left" button. Press it and it takes you to a group that has moves left. Would be extremely useful, and would help late game where you start having problems with an enormous amount of agents.

kingbode

08-23-2007, 15:03

:beam: first say hello to everybody.:laugh4:

my wishes:

1. add sea battle. seems that CA had read my mind: i heard they are gonna make this a key feature in Empires: TW.

2. learn from Europe Universalis, adding new features for certain places like Center of Trade and Center of Production. a CoT is, as the name indicates, a hub of all kinds of trade of all the surrounding areas. you can see a huge income from trade in this province, along with big tax boost. and a symbol of marketplace s/b shown on the big map, and you can send your merchant into it to compete for higher share of the trade or even monopoly, just like what u can do in EU.

3. a CoP is a place where production value and income is much much larger than elsewhere. some kind of precious merchandise can only be produced in CoP. you can build factories in CoP, also like EU. or we can do it this way: you may build factory in each province, but only in CoP can you build multiple factories of various kinds, while only 1 can be built in other provinces. factories are shown on the big map too, and you may upgrade them by sending in Engineers, a new type of unit.

4. with the addition of CoT and CoP, certain places will be very strategically important. e.g. Antwerp is definitely a CoT, and its income can reach $20,000 or even $30,000 when fully developed, compared to $5000 or $6000 of other provinces. CoP is also critical. e.g. if you want to recruit a certain type of advanced gun, you must first produce a high level barrel in a high rank factory which can only be erected in a CoP.

5. the tech tree s/b revised. currently you can only progress in tech by erecting buildings. now we need some real Techniques to be developed, like Rifle which enables guns to shoot more accurately and farther. and these must be developed in University or Academy, by a new unit Scientist. besides, this system sh offer us Surprises! e.g. scientists may suggest you to invest in a certain research, and nobody knows what the result may be. it may turn out to be nothing, or a real breakthrough.

that's all for now. more to come later.:laugh4:

mkirchner

08-23-2007, 22:09

Protestant Reformation

Give you an option after a certain date to go protestant. This will then cause the catholics & protestants to go to war. Also allow protestant missionaries to spread the word in the catholic areas and vice versa.

Xerxes74

08-30-2007, 17:20

I would like to see Diplomacy tweaked...

My ideas:
- The option to ask your allies to borrow troops/boats - above and beyond the "please attack this faction" diplomacy request.
- Update the "Please attach X faction" dipolmacy request -- have it work better -- if you are a strong ally, the AI will actually comply and assist in wars.. whether it be the sending of troops/ boats (or even money) to borrow under your control or attack under your allies control.
- The "get off my land" diplomacy option.(already said ad nauseum)

icek

08-31-2007, 10:31

And i would like changing this topic name for "wishlist about 1.4" because everone know that 1.3 really doesnt exist.

lancelot

09-03-2007, 19:38

The return of titles...that +2 command really came in handy in some cases.

Ceremonial Varangian Guard Like they looked in the parchment unit pic in MTW1. They may be ahistorical (i dont know) but damn they looked cool!

Realistic ship speeds (if this hasnt been sorted already)

Most importantly-

bring back Glorious Achievment mode!!! That system was tenfold more interesting than conquer x provinces, which by now has frankly become a bit of a snore... It also added a sense of individuality per faction, and more importantly realism...factions should have their own worries beyond taking Outremer.

Goaswerfraiejen

09-04-2007, 04:33

Here's another idea: how about giving Russia back its War Wagons from the previews? It could really use them, and it would open up a whole new world of tactics in that part of the world.

Garnier

09-04-2007, 22:07

I have a suggestion, for performance.

Instead of having the change to sprites occur at a certain distance from the camera, which is increased when you turn unit detail up, have a setting in preferences which is the number of models to render, and have it always render the closest models. So if there are 10,000 men in the battle, all clumped in front of the camera, and your setting says to render 1000 models, the closest 1000 would be rendered, while the rest would be sprites despite being right in front of the camera. This would mean your performance would stay the same (at least for the graphics card) regardless of how many men are on screen.

Also if there are only 500 men in the battle, and you set to render 1000, then they would never change to sprites. This would not hurt performance, since you would set it to what your GPU could handle.

nikolai1962

11-22-2007, 05:22

Not very likely maybe but...

more campaign_ai_db conditions:

IsProtector
Is_Ally_of_Protector
IsNeighbour_of_Protectorate
IsEnemy_of_Protectorate
IsAlly_of_Protectorate
IsNeighbourOfNeighbour

In script

ProtectorateEstablished
IsProtector
IsProtectorate

This would make it easier to create a more realistic (in most cases) vassal-based empire building AI.

~~~

1. GiveMoney event seems to trigger multiple times per turn when it's a regular tribute

2. Forgiveness (obvious bribe case) seems to only trigger on 100 florins or more rather than for each 100 florins

This makes it harder to create a tribute based diplomacy.

code65536

01-15-2008, 17:51

Better notifications!

1) Notify me when rebel armies/brigands spawn in my territory

2) Notify me when a priest turns to heresy - We get priest died and priest assassinated messages, but why not when the priest becomes a heretic? IMHO, this is a MUCH more important event to be notified about because not only did I just lose a priest, now I have a heretic to deal with quickly since heresy causes so much religious unrest.

3) Notify me when witches and heretics spawn (on that note, what is up with all the witches spawning? what do they do, exactly, anyway?)

4) Notify me when a port is blockaded - This is especially annoying when a pirate fleet blocks a port and I don't notice.

5) Notify me when another faction gets a guild HQ so that I can stop trying to attract that HQ

6) Notify me when a settlement has completed conversion to a city or a castle (they don't show up in the construction messages list)

7) Notify me when a settlement is being affected by enemy propaganda - Sometimes this is masked by a good governor who is able to keep the face green despite the high unrest generated by the enemy spy, and then I get a nasty surprise when the governor is moved out or dies

8) Allow me to reopen notifications if I accidentally dismiss the window (or reload a turn)

In the mid- and late- stages of the game, the game becomes unbearably tedious (especially if I hold big territories like Jedda, Tripoli, or any of the steppe regions), and there are many turns where I waste 75% of my time during that turn scanning each of my regions to check for brigands, witches, and heretics, to the point of making the game unplayable. I've only finished the game once because I get so sick and tired of this tedious checking that I abandon it and start a new one.

Oh, and one other wish: [b]Let the AI have a bit more guild diversity; I've yet to see a city without a thieves' guild[b/]