Minor Proposal: Increase the size of Eleutheroi garrisons

Something I've done almost routinely since starting with EBII now is using create_unit to boost the garrisons in historically significant/large settlements. Why? To slow the game down and prevent the usual snowballing into a handful of superfactions. Some of the settlements designated rebel are representative of powerful confederations or city states that didn't make the cut due to the faction limit. Yet they're pretty easily brushed aside by the initial forces available to some factions, which also makes things much easier for the human player.

The AI factions really hate the Eleutheroi and will go out of their way to besiege them rather than attack each other. Problem is at the moment, that's the easy option since quite a few places have too-small garrisons making them soft targets. For example, Histria has a tiny garrison and a Getai army starts almost at the gates. I've never seen an unaugmented game where they haven't taken it within 5 turns of the start. There's also an unfortunate tendency for most AI factions to avoid fighting each other until all the rebels in their immediate locality have gone. I wonder if the rebels were tougher that might encourage them to assess their neighbours differently?

I'm thinking both a general increase of 2-4 units depending on the size of settlement, and specific increases for important places. For example: Syrakousai. A powerful city-state that has more than once been suggested as a faction in its own right. That should have a near-full stack to help keep the Romani and Karthadastim at bay. Sinope is another powerful city-state that is taken too easily. Segesta is another one, the Ligurian/Kelto-Ligurian tribes there were so fierce they remained independent for over 150 years into our timeframe, in spite of repeated Roman attempts to subjugate them. The Insubres of Medilanon were another one - there's only about six units in there by default. I've had good results with boosting the garrisons in northern Italy more generally, to encourage AI Romani to go south first, rather than ignore southern Italy/Sicily and launch the Gallic Wars two centuries early, because that direction is so much easier. The Lusotannan have three weakly garrisoned settlements (Ebora, Tole, Brakara) a very short distance from their starting province, which is their springboard to steamrollering all of Iberia. Sweboz always seem to very quickly take the settlements near them.

i have been doing the same , its not the rebels the AI just has way to much money , even when i add super rebels some factions only slow a bit , what happens for me is Sweboz takes everything and if I don't add them 1 of the Iberian factions take everything.

After seeing Areuekoi & Lusitanians sitting there both with 1 town and 10-15 armies nothing you change will help.

I see in the script that's there is a small 1000 cash boost for factions but that dosent warrant this , maybe they go to zero than get added a 1000 every turn ?

I will let you know if i figure it out.

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType f_rome
and IsFactionAIControlled
and Treasury < 600
if I_LosingMoney f_rome
increment_kings_purse f_rome 100
end_if
if not I_LosingMoney f_rome
console_command add_money f_rome, 100
end_if
end_monitor

in this section of the script I reduced the money bonus for all factions to this , it was 1000 & 400 before and now is 100 & 100

This is easy to do just look for this , sc down a bit you will see it , its in world/maps/campaign/imperialcampaign , then the campaignscript

Either in EB2 the AI dosent have to pay for buildings or there money goes to 0 at every turn , not sure what it is , I think 200 & 200 or 3-400 would be good enough along with beefing up the rebels to create hinge points to stop blitzing of the AI.

I would make a descr_strat for people but just adding troops to towns is much faster and you can customize your campaign to how ever you want , editing all the rebel towns would be very time consuming and I'm not sure I have found the right balance yet.

https://i61.tinypic.com/rtqaro.jpg

this is after 60 turns , normally the Areuakoi would have 10 armies by now and took all of Gaul , I didn't add any troops to Rebel towns in this test but I think it would work perfectly along with the reduction in income .

What campaign difficulty and CAI are you using? Because I don't recognise this at all playing on M/M and using v3a.

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

What campaign difficulty and CAI are you using? Because I don't recognise this at all playing on M/M and using v3a.

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I have tried M/M H/M VH/M all the same I'm using same version as you.


I have a campaign going now H/M with the money reduced to 200&200 and also I have put more rebels in key places

https://i57.tinypic.com/2qmgsxt.jpg

Those Orange fvckers don't have 10 armies now which makes me happy

https://i57.tinypic.com/2gxiluq.jpg

The Eleutheroi-hating AI is probably hardcoded into the M2TW engine. After all, in vanilla the Rebels were religious heretics/pagans rebelling against the Pope, so the Pope hated them, which made all the Christian factions hate them and seek to get into the Pope's good books by wiping them out and ending their heresy.

With this in mind, I agree the Eleutheroi garrisions should be made into full or nearly full stacks everywhere.

Honestly apart from a couple locations (e.g. Syracuse) I am not sure that increasing the size of the garrisons is the most ideal way of resolving the problem. The deeper issue here is that some factions insist on attacking AI settlements over other considerations even when it results in adverse outcomes for them.

Additionally, regarding your singling out of Sinope. I am not sure if this is only something I have experienced, but out of the eight campaigns I have trialed, not once has Pontos successfully taken Sinope. In fact, both times Sinope was captured the event happened post turn 150, by Sauromatae and KH respectively. I would suggest that while Romans blitzing cisalpine gaul or Aurekoi blitzing Spain are common events, a blitz of Anatolia by any AI power (or player) is much rarer.

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Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato

The Eleutheroi-hating AI is probably hardcoded into the M2TW engine. After all, in vanilla the Rebels were religious heretics/pagans rebelling against the Pope, so the Pope hated them, which made all the Christian factions hate them and seek to get into the Pope's good books by wiping them out and ending their heresy.

With this in mind, I agree the Eleutheroi garrisions should be made into full or nearly full stacks everywhere.

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no it is not hardcoded.

HI, who starts a war with a faction when there are still non aligned towns close by? As Pontus I captured Sinope on turn 70 something. After 90 turns I have 6 towns. I am allied with all my next door neighbors. (and I kiss their butts when told to)
It's not the garrisons that determine who gets attacked at start of game. It's where the starting armies are. If the getai don't attack histera they will be 20k+ in the hole before they capture any other town. They are forced into that attack (or they can disband their army)
As the Getai I required 6 years (24 turns) to pay back debt accumulated taking that 1 city. That was after disbanding the army once I captured the town.
I would prefer all a factions troops be located inside cities. Even better convert them into cash and really let player decide on building his starting city or an army. What also hurts is disbanding units does not increase population.
So mainly the starting positions have more impact then size of garrisons. You have to attack them no matter what and if they are going to be too large to defeat why have an army at start at all? Just remove the factions starting armies and the neutral towns will be attacked when the player is ready but in a more logical sequence.

I feel like certain eleutheroi provinces do build up their armies a huge amount while others don't. Ancyra seems to sit at 10 troops until it's conquered by Pontus or AS while Sinope, Bythinia and Halicarnassus seem to spam troops even creating new armies.

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I would prefer all a factions troops be located inside cities. Even better convert them into cash and really let player decide on building his starting city or an army. What also hurts is disbanding units does not increase population.
So mainly the starting positions have more impact then size of garrisons. You have to attack them no matter what and if they are going to be too large to defeat why have an army at start at all? Just remove the factions starting armies and the neutral towns will be attacked when the player is ready but in a more logical sequence.

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I think this is a pretty cool idea. However certain troops should be outside cities to replicate Historic battles . Pyrrhus outside of Pela, a Roman army outside of Rhegion or Tarrantum.

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Originally Posted by mogami

It's not the garrisons that determine who gets attacked at start of game. It's where the starting armies are. If the getai don't attack histera they will be 20k+ in the hole before they capture any other town. They are forced into that attack (or they can disband their army)

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Interesting, that would work too, and perhaps with less unintended consequences than a worldwide increase of garrisons. Though I'd still like to see bigger garrisons in places like Syrakousai.