House Rules to a more challenging gameplay experienced?

Hi

First of all a great thanks to the mod team for during a great job.

Still feel that - even on VH / VH winning is to easy - especially with strong factions.

I had some ideas to some houserules that would make the game more challenging to play without ruining the experience

1) Can't iniate peace talks - must wait for ai to offer

2) Retraining experienced troops not allowed. Because their xp level doesnt suffer from it. Only transfering troops from another unit is allowed ( this affects the unit xp-level).

3) No use of pause in tactical combat. Would probably be best if the combat diffuculty was set to medium.

4) No transfering of Ancelliries (I usually love to micromanagement this)

These were some of them. Feel free to add your own rules and ideas to the thread

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Originally Posted by Valhal

First of all a

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Second of all b.

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

I quoted that because that is all the thread said for 8 minutes straight. I knew you must've hit the enter button too soon or something :beam:

As for my answer to your question, those are some common houserules that I too use.

Some others I use when playing as the Romanii are:

-Governement types have a huge effect (type iv means allied state and basically its own faction)
-No blitzing or unnecesary expansion
-Historical military content (more balanced)
-Roleplay characters (traits can greatly make gameplay harder if you roleplay)

etc. You get the idea. If you want some challenge, besides the no pausing part, when you are in battle stay locked on to your generals unit. Makes gameplay much more difficult as you cannot see all the angles of the enemys attack.

ay H/M campaign,

Must abide to historical expansion or in case of succesors, roleplaying a families ascendant to power, subjigation of other hellenic states, civil war, confrontation with rome and carthage...


-My own house rules, all conquered settlements become a type 4 with 4 local units with minimum 1 missle unit.

-Type 4 -> type 3 -> type 2 all in generations aka 30 or so years to become "hellenized or romanized etc"

-Armies cannot move in winter unless force marching to lift a city. Cannot go under 1/2 movement points to portray supply/weather problems

-Must havy a navy at all times in naval ports be it light ships or a heavy ship.

-generals must be sharp/charismatic/vigourous- no sending useless generals to death instead send them to govern outlieing cities and lead reinforcement/resupply units and manage logistics

-Cannot blitz, each siege must last at least 4 turns

-Forts with 5 units (1 calvalry, 4 infantry) must be placed at strategic locations on borders with a central fort with 10 units (4 calvalry, 4 infantry, 2 missle) to stimulate border defense headquarters.
--Usally 4 forts per headquarter of troops--
--must have an allied general and a FM to simulate a appointed general and a local defense adviser--

-Must havy a navy at all times in naval ports be it light ships or a heavy ship.

Good god man, in EB?

-In 'set-piece' battles, deploy all phalangitai in 16x15 squares.

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Originally Posted by Valhal

1) Can't iniate peace talks - must wait for ai to offer

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Me thinks you will be waiting quite a while, the ai very rarely, if ever initiates peace talks, and unless you've managed to remove all land borders then you will simply be at war the next anyway, and if you're playing on BI.exe and possibly ALEX.exe(i have BI) then even that doesn't matter since the AI conducts naval invasions.

I quoted that because that is all the thread said for 8 minutes straight. I knew you must've hit the enter button too soon or something :beam:


Hi

Yeah I did that intentionaly. Cause the first time I tried pressing the "submit thread" button it didnt work (even though I was logged in etc). So didnt want to rewrite the whole thread just to get it deleted once again :wall:

But it worked :2thumbsup:

Personally I'm not that keen about roleplaying the gameplay. I kind of feel that I should use all my resourcefullness to achive victory within a certain frame that would make it harder for me to achive it. Rules to keep me in check and increase the difficulty level without me roleplaying "Bad Decisions".

Instead of saying - That I shouldnt expand to quickly or blitz I would rather have some restrictions in place that would make it very hard for me.

I like the idea that it takes longer time to implament government forms. Repressenting the time it took to cultivate another area.


On another note:

Does anyone know if its possible to change the script for units?

Had in mind to change the units upkeep cost and the time it takes to build them?
- It could make for an interesting element that land units took 3-4 rounds to build instead of one.

Can it be done?

Cheers

When i say naval ports, i mean in the ports that can produce naval ships such as ambrakia, pella, mytilene etc.

Basically any port that can create a proper fleet, must have a local defense force as IRL, no navy at home = bad right?

As the Romani:
- Each fleet consists of four triremes fleet. These are never split up. If I need more naval transport, I build an entire new fleet.
- hardly any expansion in the first 30 or 40 years of the game (combined with VH/VH)
- Extremely limited use of mercenaries: I only take these mercenaries coming from a region that is sufficiently subdued and accultured.
- Not every city is worthy enough to train units for my glorious legions. I guess I conquered half the Balcan, Gaul and the Mediterranean using only Roman forces. By 190BC, almost all my forces are trained from 5 settlements. All my extraordinarii and all cavalry (with the exception of campanici) come from Rome. Arpi and Ariminium are only allowed to train low-level missile units.
- Units may only be recruited if a settlement has the highest level barracks.
- Not a singly city should construct a building that isn't already constructed in Rome.
- Until twenty years ago, only Taras and Segesta were allowed to train local units (i.e. Pezoi Brettioi and Ligurian Infantry). Since Brettioi 'disappointed' me in some (hopeless) fights, Taras may no longer supply troops to my army. When they were allowed to supply meat for the grinder, they had to take the heaviest casualties. I should ban Ligurians and local troops from Massilia once I can miss them for the very same reason...
- A newly conquered region starts with a government lvl 3 or 4. It can only advance to a lower level if (1) the province has fallen into enemy hands and is reconquered, or (2) when there are no more buildings to be constructed.
- My faction leader should have his residence in Rome (where all new governors are being trained), while my faction heir resides in Capua.

You cannot tax above Normal after you conquer your factional homeland areas.

One I,ve just added to my AS campaign;

Seige train; If I want to assault a "walled" city then my seige train has to be there as well otherwise it's starve 'em out time. Seige train is a 1 talent catapult two units low grade troops as engineers etc two units guard infantry and one cavalry, has too travel independently and must return back to Antioch or Seleukia when finished to disband!

Obviously only works with factions that can build artillery but represents the problems armies had in actually taking settlements by assault

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Originally Posted by Chris1959

One I,ve just added to my AS campaign;

Seige train; If I want to assault a "walled" city then my seige train has to be there as well otherwise it's starve 'em out time. Seige train is a 1 talent catapult two units low grade troops as engineers etc two units guard infantry and one cavalry, has too travel independently and must return back to Antioch or Seleukia when finished to disband!

Obviously only works with factions that can build artillery but represents the problems armies had in actually taking settlements by assault

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Moving a catapult back and forth from your capital to EVERY besieged city?!? This is madness!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valhal

On another note:

Does anyone know if its possible to change the script for units?

Had in mind to change the units upkeep cost and the time it takes to build them?
- It could make for an interesting element that land units took 3-4 rounds to build instead of one.

Can it be done?

Cheers

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Yes... in exp_desc_unit (a text file found in the Data folder of EB) you can change the values for a number of aspects of different units, including the cost, upkeep and recruitment time. If you decide to mess with this, I suggest you backup the original first. The description of what each value means is at the beginning of the document when you open it. Ask more about it in the mod forum if you are interested.

As for houserules, i roleplay alliances strongly and I try to never let a faction be destroyed. My ideal victory would have me be in control of 179 provinces, while all of the factions control a single province...

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Originally Posted by Irishmafia2020

Yes... in exp_desc_unit (a text file found in the Data folder of EB) you can change the values for a number of aspects of different units, including the cost, upkeep and recruitment time. ...

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Sounds Cool. Will try this to make the campaign a little more challenging.

Any one who has some good ideas to what these new stats should be (overall)?

Personally I thougth about changing the time it takes to produce the units. Maybe 3 rounds for a typical Hastari units (and similar units) - and maybe doubling the upkeep and recruitment costs for all "Romani units" (when playing the Romani Campaign).

On another note.
Have begun playing the battles without the use pause. I took the battle dificulty down to medium, and maybe this was a mistake cause I actually did better on medium with no pause - than on VH with use of pause. So will take it up to hard or perhaps even back on very hard.

Its actually is more fun with no pause - so think I would try this in Empire and MTW2 as well from now on.

main house rule

i only fight batles with the faction leader and the faction heir since the rest are family members with several degrees of independence thus they fend for themselfs (great for roleplaying imho)

i defend the idea that destroying factions is just wrong so i try t avoid it but it can get very frustating :furious3: expecially when they are totally beaten you offer them peace and they refuse (even more frustating is when they return within a turn to war with you even tough they have no armies whatsoever)

one of my favourite tactics is placing a massive army near their capital and if they break the peace i beat the crap out of them :whip:

Hi

After reading most of the posts here. It still kind a feels like that most of you are roleplaying or severely limiting your choices ingame. But woundn't it be wonderfull to have the crap beaten out of you by the ai :whip: ?

Has anyone tried changing the script and strengthening the other factions or typing some cheat codes that would give the other factions money (dont know if this is possible) ?

Cheers

giving the eleutheroi lots of money via script does make them a lot more active...but it affects the small factions more than the large ones, meaning pontos and hai hardly ever moves while AS and Ptolies become monsters...

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Originally Posted by Valhal

Hi



Has anyone tried changing the script and strengthening the other factions or typing some cheat codes that would give the other factions money (dont know if this is possible) ?

Cheers

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I did. You can determine money bonuses for each faction in the script. :yes:

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Originally Posted by Jebivjetar

I did. You can determine money bonuses for each faction in the script. :yes:

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Hi. Would like to hear more of you experience with it.

How much did you give the other factions and how was it to play with the aid to the ai?

Cheers

Cheers

I usually use this houserules for every mod i play.

Use mixed armies, never spam elites for ex Roman polybian setup 1 general,2 equites, 2 velites, 2 slingers, 3 triarii, 5 principes, 5 hastati, rest is usually mercs or later on auxilia.
Not like 10 first chohorts etc.

(This is my setup of legions i build one stack as one legion.)

No battle time limit

No pause in battle

Dont use exploit tactics against AI in battles like putting archers behind enemy lines.

etc etc.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valhal

Hi. Would like to hear more of you experience with it.

How much did you give the other factions and how was it to play with the aid to the ai?

Cheers

Cheers

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Well, i should be honest: i was very frustrated with my Pahlava campaign long time ago (i mean: VERY frustrated), so i gave money to myself (i've deleted line "and if faction is not local" for Pahlava so i recieved 5000 every 4th turn just like AI factions).

That's my whole experience wit money script. Btw i quit that Pahlava campaign and started a new one, and this time without cheating.

:2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Mikhail Mengsk

This is madness!

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No, THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valhal

Personally I thougth about changing the time it takes to produce the units. Maybe 3 rounds for a typical Hastari units (and similar units) - and maybe doubling the upkeep and recruitment costs for all "Romani units" (when playing the Romani Campaign).

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I wouldn't really recommend increasing the unit build time, as it's kind of hard to tell how AI factions would react and whether it would mess up game mechanics at all. By all means try it out, but it'd be historically inaccurate, and would probably cause the smaller AI factions, like Sab'yn or the Casse to be crushed by the Eleutheroi after they use up the starting army.

Changing the recruitment costs and upkeep is a better idea, and like satalextos said Eleutheroi bonuses would help, as well as maybe more AI faction bonuses if you want.

And if you're finding VH/VH easy, you're clearly good at the game, so maybe have a go at making a mod which is harder?

House Rules?

I have two:

1.Don't let your starting army be destroyed.
2.Never try to siege Bononia on the first turn.

After that i'm flexible.