Suggestion on logistics and booty

[V.T. Marvin]

First of all I have to thank the authors of this fantastic mod which has given to me a whole new game experience and which I personally consider more as a new game rather than a mod.
Therefore I hate "having issues" but I cannot resist the temtation to suggest a possible minor improvement in terms of historical accuracy and hopefully gaming experience as well.

It is cool that the EB Team tried to implement logistics into the game, but IMO the armies should not be penalized for moving on the enemy territory and resupplied by staying there (pillage), but vice versa.
I base my objection on various historical sources, namely Xenofon´s Anabasis. His Ten Thousand were quite happy while marching through hostile lands as they could take whatever they liked and actually enrich themselves. On contrary many problems arised when they entered friendly greek colonies on the Black Sea shore, because now the have to buy their provisions. Also it was common during prolonged sieges that the besieging army pillaged the nearby country and subsquently run out of provisions sooner than the besieged and the siege had to be abandoned.
Therefore I suggest that:
1.- General moving on enemy territory (i.e. he has less than 50% movement points left at the end of turn) should gain a trait "raiding" or "booty", giving him some cash income (say 1000 mnai). This would represent the historical army living off enemy land and decreasing its upkeep costs as the provisions are taken from the enemy.
2.- The supply traits already used (rationing, etc.) should be invoked while the army is "pillaging" (represented in the game by those black spots). This would represent the unavailability of food on the territory already plundered.
3.- (This would probably could be done only for provinces with a family member in town as a governor, but role-players mostly have one and if the AI would not be that affected by this it won´t mind) The governor of a province which has enemy army on its soil should gain a trait like "enemy raid" or so, causing 50% decrease of tax income and 50% derease of trade income. This would represent the severe impact of an enemy invasion to the province.

I am looking forward to your comments on this idea. Sorry for the long post.

[mirmorix]

I have too question - it is possible to implement some cash profit when i defeat army??? After battle victor obtain a lots of enemy weapons and armor and this could represent this event. And when a player with low money defeat in battle stronger faction it may helps a lot. Is this possible or not?

[Pius Curus]

Perfect question, Miromorix, it would be perfect!

[V.T. Marvin]

I concur Mirmorix, that is a good idea, probably the income could be based on the number of enemy casualties (maybe 1 mnai for each man killed).
I am not a modder but I would think it could be done by a script having victory as a trigger and number of "enemies killed" from the battle statistics screen as a value of cash to be added to the victor. Hopefully.

[bovi]

Some factions are better at foraging in enemy territories than others. These get a small amount of mnai when the army devastates a tile.

About the loot, I don't think it's possible to get a mancount, but we could use a combination of battle size and percentage of enemies killed. I had been thinking about this myself, with adding a trait to the general signifying the loot and awarding cash when he stayed in a settlement to sell it, but I didn't want to burden our single, overworked traiter with it.

[Shigawire]

It wouldn't be this simple. Although I certainly thought of Xenophon as an example of how foraging works, you can certainly find examples where it became more expensive/difficult after crossing the enemy border.

Hannibal didn't have an easy time crossing the alps. Crassus had no easy time crossing the desert in the reckless manner he did. It really depends on the state of the defending homeland's guerilla forces and the kind of terrain. If the guerilla are non-existant, I'm sure the foraging would be more painless. And even then, it's still expensive to extend a supply train from your own homelands through enemy homelands. Because you need a constant supply line connected to your army. Foraging only works in certain kinds of territory. Or if there is a grain silo nearby (Cannae). But if the enemy had a well established guerilla force in an enemy homeland, such as in the Iberian peninsula, then it would be problematic to have your army there. The loot you gained would be offset by the resources you would have to spend on replenishing supplies. Supplies might get stolen in night raids or simply exhausted in daily skirmishes. And people killed must be reinforced with local mercenaries. All this costs money.

Logistics, if we could implement them, would not be a one-dimensional affair. Unfortunately, we have no way of differentiating between tiles in our scripting. Nor do we have a way to create scripts based on and affecting army-size. Only for generals. So we can't let an entire army die in the desert of thirst and exhaustion, as we might have wanted. Or use water-hole tiles as "resupply points". All of this has been thought carefully of already - and dispelled by RTW engine modding-limitations.

[pezhetairoi]

Then would it be possible to try this in EB2, when you have the 'prisoners' feature? Is there some way to hardwire the thing so that all battles would by default yield 'prisoners' that, while auto-ransomed to add money back into your treasury, would not reappear in the enemy's roster?

[bovi]

Possibly, but it sounds farfetched. I don't think they will give any API towards such parts of the game.

[V.T. Marvin]

I have to admire the patience with which you EB guys explore and reply to every suggestion no matter how silly it may be. And mine was, actually:sorry: , as it could not be done, given the limits of what can be modded. Whether it would be more accurate and/or better gameplay-wise to have financial gains (as I have proposed) or morale losses (as it now) from having army on enemy territory is certainly debatable, as it really depends on particular circumstances in each particular case:book: . To put it shortly, I stand corrected and thank you Bovi and Shigawire.
Nonetheless I am still attached to the idea Mirmorix have presented in this thread of having some gain from victories, representing scavenging of the dead bodies and looting the enemy camp. Therefore I have looked on the modding fora for the first time in order to learn the basics as I will try to do that myself as a mini-mod.
As it is the first time I try to mod anything I have a very modest goal for now, just for testing purposes: After any victory the general will gain a simple trait saying that he has been victorious and captured the camp of his enemies. At the beginning of next turn this trait will be canceled by an anti-trait.
Interesting is, that the .txt files have survived my meddling and the game runs smoothly without CTDs or any strange behavior, but my trait is just not appearing - as if nothing has changed. Discouraging... :wall:
When/if get this work properly I plan to write a script adding a certain amount of money to the faction of general bearing this trait.
Final step would be a set of several traits attributed according the size of the enemy army and a set of script giving appropriate reward.
Any advise or help will be much appreciated.

[bovi]

Your suggestion is appreciated and not a silly one. Believe me, we get lots and lots of suggestions that are good but not practical or impossible to implement, do not ring well with our visions, or don't fit entirely with history. We also get a lot of suggestions that are less thought-through than yours, some delivered with little grace.

I suggest you start a thread in the unofficial mods section for your work implementing the loot mechanism, it will be welcome :2thumbsup:.

[Kham]

So we can't let an entire army die in the desert of thirst and exhaustion, as we might have wanted... ...All of this has been thought carefully of already - and dispelled by RTW engine modding-limitations.

I have no clue about modding whatsoever, so the following suggestion might be useless, but anyway:

Would it be possible to let armies loose men if they are badly supplied or exhausted (due to forced maching) by one of these two methods:

1. Fake a siege: making the programm think that the army is besieged and let it loose men through the existing mechanism for sieges.

2.Make them ill: just infect them with a disease that would then kill some men (and maybe let them be cured once they are well supplied again or rested)?

I don't know much about diseases in ancient wars, but from the middle ages until at least early 19th century, diseases were major killers for most armies in the field (or camps). So the disease might be more realistic.

[geala]

1. Logistics
I like Xenophons Anabasis very much, but I would say it was a very special case. The army was rather small and it had not to achieve special goals (conquer a town, beat an army f.e.) but only to march through and survive. They could use the best route for looting. But still they had some difficulties during the foraging. And later on the shore of the black sea: it was a mercenary army without an official job, so the friendliness of the Greek cities was a bit tense at least.

Many other armies had bad times when they entered enemy territory. The need to find food for men and animals often led to casualties among the foraging parties or even battles ahead of time. As you make war as the state with an official army the provision of this army could be better organised in your own country. I think the way EB shows it is quite good, no changes please, even if it would be possible by code.

2. Booty
Booty was a great thing for generals and soldiers and one of the first reasons to go to war. But in EB you are the state/tribe (leader) and not every state/tribe would have had a great economic profit from booty because it was partly an individual affair. So the idea is not bad but must be implemented with care and different for every faction.

Edit: 3. Diseases
You are right, before the Japanese-Russian war 1905 casualty rates from diseases were far greater than from actual fighting. But EB is a game and some aspects of reality should be excluded. If diseases were simulated in the way you want the playing experience (or: the fun) would suffer enormously, I fear.

[bovi]

I have no clue about modding whatsoever, so the following suggestion might be useless, but anyway:

Would it be possible to let armies loose men if they are badly supplied or exhausted (due to forced maching) by one of these two methods:

1. Fake a siege: making the programm think that the army is besieged and let it loose men through the existing mechanism for sieges.

2.Make them ill: just infect them with a disease that would then kill some men (and maybe let them be cured once they are well supplied again or rested)?

I don't know much about diseases in ancient wars, but from the middle ages until at least early 19th century, diseases were major killers for most armies in the field (or camps). So the disease might be more realistic.

Impossible, sorry :shrug:.

[helenos aiakides]

What about a recruitible unit "baggage train" that would reduce movement but negate lack of food?

[bovi]

Sorry, no. We cannot detect which units an army is composed of.

[helenos aiakides]

Bovi, i thought traits like "skilled cavalry commander" only come if you command cavalry which means some units can be detected

[bovi]

No, that is an engine effect. We have the APIs of trait triggers and script available to us, which does not include queries of which units are present, among its many limitations.

[Kushan]

It is semi possible to implement a supply/logistic system, using traits. Its very generic, but does make things interesting for the human player. I know this is how several M2 mods are doing it, including mine. You can even represent resupply by sea. BUT the downside is it can only be applied to family members s captain cant have traits.

Kushan

[V.T. Marvin]

I suggest you start a thread in the unofficial mods section for your work implementing the loot mechanism, it will be welcome :2thumbsup:.

Heureka! I get it working!!! :yes:
You may now find more on this thread here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1652974#post1652974 . My micromod gives the victorious general who fought more than 1000 enemy troops and killed more 30% of them will gain "Enemy Camp Captured" trait raising temporarily his Influence and Morale of troops and at the end of turn his faction will get 2000 mnai cash.

I propose to continue this discussion and submit your suggestions on further improvements, balance issues, historical evidence on the amount and division of booty and other related topics at the abovementioned thread. :feedback: