My method for improving the pace of the game based on seasonal periods

I've been playing total war games since they came out, but mostly have modded MTW2 Kingdoms. One of my biggest issues is slowing things down in order to most enjoy the passage of time, and take advantage of incremental changes in technology.

1) Adding in a script to make six bi-monthly periods such as the one GrnEydDvil created helps in many ways. Once that was set, then I sat down and recalculated all of the other files to adjust for the passage of time, versus attempting to mimic an annual cadre of new recruits, income, movement rates, etc.

2) Now that you have six periods to move, the next thing you can do is perform some calculations to move your armies in a normal manner at either normal or forced marches for the Crusade or Jihads. By normal I mean 5 miles ever other day, or 10 miles every other day for Crusades/Jihads. Now the armies can arrive in the proper historical amount of time to a battle or the Holy Lands. The same is true of navies. Navies are limited by the cargo of armies or agents, however they are unimpeded if empty, so I calculated something like 6-10 miles every day, and adjusted their movement rate accordingly. It works out very well.

You could make movement rates historically accurate in an annual period, but then you'd have a real blitkrieg effect that would unbalance the game.

3) Once you adjust that, the next thing to look at is the EDU. I adjusted the units in general to take four two month periods to be recruited. I think this is more normal and more fun. Now you have to plan carefully in order to create an army of a proper composition of units thinking ahead and regarding time management to craft them into an excellent fighting force.

In general making a ship also takes about 8 months (4 two month periods). Advanced docks allow for replication due to trained workers, that said more advanced ships require more time too.

Creating new units in one turn just doesn't make sense to me, and that's what happens with an annual system.

4) Once the time scale is adjusted, and units take time to create, then I adjusted some of the missions to reflect the new time scale. I did however keep 9 turns as the time for joining the Crusade. This means you have to anticipate it, craft a relationship with the Papacy in order to try to effect the target, and build up an army and navy in advance. You have to carefully recruit priests too in order to have it all ready for the Crusade in time.

5) Income badly needed to be adjusted. If anyone is interested, at the end of the article, I have included my settlement mechanics. I adjusted the population to grow slowly, and for there to be a little more income from a variety of sources. It seem pretty balanced. Growth is slow, usually around 0.5-2% and this keeps squalor less than 20% and averaging 10%. Think about it, while we think of the game as having cities and castles, in reality it has regions. This includes the migrations of villagers and tradespeople to the urban areas and soldiers to castles. There was a gradual loss from the smaller towns and these people migrated to the places we think of as settlements. With the lack of clean water, disease, and blight, growth across the region was slow. Now the game slows down, and your mod dynamics will change. It's a big deal when you switch to longbows from peasant archers, and then, the new units come out slowly.

6) Now you can manage income separately from agriculture. Before the standard paradigm was hurry up and grow farms in order to vastly increase income. Not so fast. That way leads to squalor too soon. Now that income has been balanced, it's no longer necessary to concentrate on farms so much. I made trade very important. The player should look at their settlements and see if they should agree to a trade agreement based on imports and exports. Now you can plan which building to construct in an intelligent manner versus hurrying up the farms into irrigation way before it really happened.

7) The next thing I did was vastly increase the slave King's Purse, and starting money. First I proportionally divided the King's Purse for each faction, but I also in general doubled it to 20,000 florins, This creates seed money to begin, but then the player must carefully manage income generation versus soldiers and agents.

The "slave" settlements shouldn't be pushovers. They should be difficult to take, but of course using the kind of units that are plausible in the early medieval period. I in general doubled the units for their settlements and of course they needed more income to thrive with so many settlements to manage.

I picked a starting date of 1067AD. What happens is that the Papacy generally calls for a crusade in turn 20-30, but of course it fails since no one has enough soldiers to handle one. It usually is declared in Cordoba. By turn 60-80 some territory has been taken, and as result the kingdoms are strong enough for a Cordoba crusade, but not quite strong enough to pull off a Crusade to the Holy Lands. They can manage one perhaps 1/3 of the time which I think reflects the luck of history in the 1st Crusade.

8) Now it's a big deal when you take York. It's much more of a struggle. I use Blood Broads and Bastards 4.0a, and with it's supply system, the player cannot simply wait out a siege, generally the AI will attempt to take the region after sieging it for one or two turns to build ladders, rams, and towers. You should too. You can rotate in generals with new supplies, but it takes work. In general BBB 4.0a forces you to carefully manage your generals by moving them around to build things in castles and cities.

9) Although I like the idea of merchants, in my mods current incarnation, I have removed merchants from being generated. It merely slows down the turn times to have them, and you can easily boost trade income to take over. Really the AI is heavily favored to use the merchant system anyway managing lots of merchants is ultimately boring for the player.

10) I made the chance of assassination low to reflect the real chance of pulling one off. In general spies would be extremely lucky to open a gate, that said spies are vital for intelligence gathering.

11) I make few or no mercs available until 1100AD. This makes sense. There were very few mercs available until then. The best system uses time periods to reflect when and where they actually happened. I of course left the Crusades alone, but typically no Crusades are possible until 1180AD at the earliest.

By doing all of these things, while it takes a long time to get into the high and late medieval period, in my person aesthetics, it's a vastly superior game. I admit it's more cerebral and some might think glacial. When I feel the need for a rush to use gunpowder units, I simply play a custom battle, and using plausible unit composition based upon a scenario. But I generally like to slowly advance a nation along.

By making the slave settlements tough to take, it forces the AI to slowly invest in infrastructure and soldiers.

I did make it easy for Denmark to take Oslo by placing soldiers next to it, and making it rather weak since they begin with a city and no castle. One could easily just assign them one. The same is true of Scotland and Inverness. This helps out both immensely, though Scotland more often than I would like falters. Pirates often get their weak fleet in a hapless attempt to take out Flanders at Bruges or Antwerp. Those cities held out for awhile. Honestly they shouldn't have pikemen, not for some 200 years, but I generally put armored sergeants in them (but pikemen do help them hold out for a long time).

Here's my settlement mechanics:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<factor_modifiers>

<factor name="SPF_FARMING_LEVEL">
<pip_modifier value="0.8"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_FARMS_BUILT">
<pip_modifier value="0.8"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_HEALTH">
<pip_modifier value="0.8"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_BUILDINGS">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="4"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TAX_RATE_BONUS">
<pip_modifier value="0.9"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="2"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_BUILDINGS_FUN">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="4"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_GOVERNORS_INFLUENCE">
<pip_modifier value="0.7"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.3"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="4"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TRADE">
<pip_modifier value="0.15"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="4"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_SQUALOUR">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="2"/>
<pip_max value="30"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_PLAGUE">
<pip_modifier value="0.75"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TAX_RATE_PENALTY">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_GARRISON">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_BUILDINGS_LAW">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_BUILDINGS_FUN">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_GOVERNORS_INFLUENCE">
<pip_modifier value="1.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="20"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_TAX_BONUS">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_TRIUMPH">
<pip_modifier value="1.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_BOOM">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_ENTERTAINED">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_HEALTH">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_FEAR">
<pip_modifier value="1.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_GLORY">
<pip_modifier value="1.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_SQUALOUR">
<pip_modifier value="0.8"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="16"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_DISTANCE_TO_CAPITAL">
<pip_modifier value="0.8"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.2"/>
<city_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="16"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_NO_GOVERNANCE">
<pip_modifier value="1.1"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_TAX_PENALTY">
<pip_modifier value="1.1"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_TURMOIL">
<pip_modifier value="1.1"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="16"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_BESIEGED">
<pip_modifier value="1.8"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_BLOCKADED">
<pip_modifier value="1.1"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_RELIGIOUS_UNREST">
<pip_modifier value="1.1"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_max value="16"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SOF_EXCOMMUNICATION">
<pip_modifier value="6"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_FARMS">
<pip_modifier value="0.83"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_TAXES">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_MINING">
<pip_modifier value="1.7"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_TRADE">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.3"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_BUILDINGS">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_ADMIN">
<pip_modifier value="0.40"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_WAGES">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_UPKEEP">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_CORRUPTION">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="1000"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_ENTERTAINMENT">
<pip_modifier value="0.4"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SIF_DEVASTATION">
<pip_modifier value="1.8"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="1000"/>
</factor>
</factor_modifiers>
<population_levels>

<level name="village" base="1000" upgrade="2000" min="400" max="2500"/>
<level name="town" base="2000" upgrade="4500" min="400" max="6000"/>
<level name="large_town" base="4500" upgrade="8000" min="400" max="12500"/>
<level name="city" base="8000" upgrade="15000" min="400" max="25000"/>
<level name="large_city" base="15000" upgrade="25000" min="400" max="50000"/>
<level name="huge_city" base="25000" min="400" max="100000"/>

<level name="moot_and_bailey" base="500" upgrade="1000" min="400" max="1500"/>
<level name="wooden_castle" base="1000" upgrade="2500" min="400" max="4000"/>
<level name="castle" base="2500" upgrade="8000" min="400" max="12000"/>
<level name="fortress" base="8000" upgrade="15000" min="400" max="24000"/>
<level name="citadel" base="15000" upgrade="40000" min="400" max="50000"/>
</population_levels>
</root>