House Rules and a (minor) Modification Question

[Augustus Germanicus]

House Rules Question:

Just curious as to what people's own House Rules are, those rules they play by to make the game more enjoyable to them personally. I for one always play the short game with the intent to take an empire's semi-historical territory (where applicable) and the settlement(s) required for the long game as well before winning. After that there doesn't seem to be much challenge as you're 3-4x larger than everyone else. I also never change settlement type (city to castle or castle to city) since the AI doesn't ever do this. I end up with alot of castles with only farming/roads upgrades but it does slow down the massive flow of cash a human player can amass, equalizing my economy to the AI's level. I tend not to break alliances, except when I ally with a faction because it's broken the alliance every time I've played before, only to find that this game is the one time when they (usually Venice or Milan) will actually not backstab you in a heartbeat. Even then I limit it to at most once during a King's reign.

*I do wish Vassalage worked alot better, maybe when you were 4x or 5x more powerful than them they would submit without having to be so badly broken down and heavily bribed (it'd be nice as the HRE to make Venice a vassal and be reasonably safe from incursions in Northern Italy instead of being forced to take Venice, Zagreb and Ragusa before they'll even consider a Ceasefire). Is there any way to change the vassalage diplomacy values so that it works when you're at supreme power vs their pathetic without the long, contorted processes I've seen described that only *might* work?

Minor Modification Question:

Exactly what all files need to be copied/changed to change the regions descriptions on the campaign map back to the way they were in 1.0 (maybe 1.1 too)? For some reason 1.2 made them "Milan Region" instead of "Lombardy Region", "Caen Region" instead of "Normandy Region", "London Region" instead of "Kent Region", "Jedda Region" instead of "Arabia Region", "Paris Region" instead of "Ile de France Region" ect. Oddly "Isle of Cyprus" and "Isle of Crete" managed not to be named after the settlement in them, not so for Sicily (sorry, "Palmero Region") or the others. Not sure why this was changed as it seems cosmetic and does nothing more than lessen the immersion level of the game, but I'd like to put it back if I knew how many and what files we're talking about here. Regions, Mercenaries, Disasters and probably more would have to be replaced with the 1.0 versions, I just wonder if this will break something in 1.2.

Anyway, thanks for reading/answering this long, rambling post.

[CMcMahon]

I always just do a short game. If I find that I really like the faction, I'll just continue it from there.

My only other rule is that, at least until I beat the short game, I won't attack with more than a single fullstack against my objective enemies; it's far too easy to totally cream a nation if you have four stacks roaming through their neck of the woods.

[Kobal2fr]

- Never, ever adopt anyone out of the blue. Less generals, less governors, less cash and less full stacks roaming around : all of that makes for a slower pace. Plus, I wants me bloodline pure. Thus, I keep it thoroughly inbred :}

- The pope is right. No matter what he says, he's right. He wants me to cease hostilities 8 turns into a siege ? Fine, I'll pack my treb's, saddle up and go home. His inquis are ALSO right, meaning I will never try to kill the bastards.

- As few mercs as possible, with a max ratio of 1/4 of the troops in a given stack. They're not to be trusted (and, of course, they make the game mondo easy). Only exception being Crusade/Jihad mercs - then I'll take any and everyone with a red cross'd shield who's willing to join.

- if possible and not too silly, try to turn every settlement that borders another faction into a castle. Inland and island provinces depend on wether they're already well built-up as castles, if not they'll usually be converted into cities unless sitting in a strategic spot.

- Usually, I'll be somewhat passive, respect my treaties and merely retaliate against factions that attack me instead of invading other people out of the blue. Exception made for crusades, and sometimes for other religions but only if the game gets too stagnant.

[Didz]

Like CMcMahon I always choose the Short Campaign option and limit my goals to those required for a short campaign victory, plus I try and complete Council missions if possible.

[Hermann the Lombard]

OK, let's hear from a noob wimp!

Believe what you read in the manual. :book: :dizzy2:

If an assassination fails:

1-eye assassin, let the bugger die :skull:
2-eye assassin, let him die if bored :skull: :skull:
3-eye or better, reload but don't take another action this turn with that assassin :sweatdrop:


If a spying attempt fails, see "assassination" above. :shame:

Auto-resolve all battles to save time. If casualties are too heavy (i.e. you lost) :oops: reload and fight on the battle map.

Use spies, assassins, troops, forts, *anything* to keep your merchants alive in the face of the AI super-salesmen. :wall:
Oh, did I forget to say "reload if you lose a good merchant"?? :embarassed:

If in doubt, add_money. :help:

(Hmm...I'm sure I omitted SOMETHING noobish.) :yes:

[Tambarskjelve]

Here are mine:

-No reloads for personal gain.
-No exploitation of game mechanics.
-"Turtling," give the AI a chance to establish.
-No First strikes (unless by Papal decree or historical prejudice.)
-Stick to the "Story" that develops in my imagination as events go by.
-Try to do something else after 6 hours have vanished.

[Silvershade]

I never attack first, this keeps me from the temptation to blitz.

I never convert cities or castles as I've found it makes the economy too easy.

I only occupy or sack taken settlements, this forces me to move slowly and take some time to get settlements under control.

I try not to abuse obvious exploits that i'm aware of.

[Gorm]

Exactly what all files need to be copied/changed to change the regions descriptions on the campaign map back to the way they were in 1.0 (maybe 1.1 too)? For some reason 1.2 made them "Milan Region" instead of "Lombardy Region", "Caen Region" instead of "Normandy Region", "London Region" instead of "Kent Region", "Jedda Region" instead of "Arabia Region", "Paris Region" instead of "Ile de France Region" ect. Oddly "Isle of Cyprus" and "Isle of Crete" managed not to be named after the settlement in them, not so for Sicily (sorry, "Palmero Region") or the others. Not sure why this was changed as it seems cosmetic and does nothing more than lessen the immersion level of the game, but I'd like to put it back if I knew how many and what files we're talking about here. Regions, Mercenaries, Disasters and probably more would have to be replaced with the 1.0 versions, I just wonder if this will break something in 1.2.

When you control a region, you can change its name by clicking on the name in the construction/recruitment window. I am not sure how to change the names at the beginning of the game. I will leave that answer to my more learned fellow members.

[Ciaran]

What´s with this "region" thing behind every region name? That´s something new in 1.2 (I only have the leaked version so far and currently lack the time to do the whole de- and reinstall hog)? I mean, it´s good that the correct region names are back ("Ile de France region" instead of "Paris region") but then they could´ve done it properly. Not that it´s difficult to do, and there is already an edited descr_regions.txt on TWC (I know because I use it), but still, that looks like kind of sloppy work.

[alpaca]

alpaca's fishy houserules ®

1. Never adopt anyone except when he's marrying one of your faction's daughters
2. Never build or recruit anything except when you have a governor in the city
3. Only generals can lead armies and/or move units about
4. Never attack a city unless you have at least one governor in every city you control
5. Try not to exploit the game (including stuff like the merchant fort exploit or micromanaging your characters by taking advantage of the weird way the trait triggers are done)
6. Role-Play your characters as good as possible
7. Don't sabotage
8. Don't use spies on settlements
9. Never reload
10. Have well-composed armies (not spamming certain unit types)


I think you can imagine that rules 1-4 are pretty restrictive to expanding and completely remove the ability to blitz.

[lars573]

Mine are.

1.Avoid building out of era units. No pikes before at least 1350. No feudal knights before 1150. No civalric knights or Latinkon/skithkon before 1275.
2.Hold back amrour upgrading for Europeans. EG Never higher than heavy mail till 1220 or so. Islamic and Byzantine can go 1 higher earlier.
3.If it's an island it has a city. With two exceptions, Great Britain and Sicily.
4.Short campagins for smaller factions (Sicily and Italians, Denmark, Scotland etc)

[Ciaran]

Alpaca:
I go along with your rules for the biggest part, but is point 4 actually possible?
If I remember correctly, at least RTW tried to maintain a 2/3 character/settlement relation, I assume M2TW didn´t change that so much.

[alpaca]

Alpaca:
I go along with your rules for the biggest part, but is point 4 actually possible?
If I remember correctly, at least RTW tried to maintain a 2/3 character/settlement relation, I assume M2TW didn´t change that so much.
In my current England campaign I just added a special rule for Crusades where until I established a nice Kingdom there, a general can have 2 provinces.
Anyways, right now I have 6 settlements with only 4 generals because William died lately, but I got a nice number of kids.
I think the game tries to maintain a 1:1 ratio, but you have a good chance of getting children until enough of them come of age, so you can expand a bit before your old generation dies and then get the next child boom.

You can't really expand much, but that's the exact aim of that rule. I'm trying to play a game where I am more or less restricted to my historical area. It's also much harder to fight the AI if you don't have unlimited money.