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Ever wonder why the AI might have strange build priorities for ships? If you look at the values there really is no logic to the numbers each ship has been given.
Column B is supposed to represent an initial build value which is based on cost and this is the basis for all units..... apart from ships. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...s/confused.gif
Based on the Excel sheets kindly given to us by CA, one finds that the values for the ships (Dhow to Carrack) are not based on their own costs but are instead based on the cost of completely unrelated, infantry units. These being from row 125 on the Unit Def sheet (Celtic Warriors) to row 137 (Round Shield Spearman).
If you base them on the actual costs of the ships you would find the build values are suddenly very much higher, possibly even too high to be honest. Nevertheless, this explains the slightly odd build values for the various ships as their values are dependant on the cost of the unit they happen to have been linked with between rows 125 and 137.
The same is also true for the special units such as assassins, spies and the religious figures. The reason you see floods of catholic bishops in MTW is because they're tied to Saxon Huscarles, which obviously cost a lot
Take from this what you will, but it makes no sense to me. At least with v2.0 the build priorities for ships are higher than they were pre 2.0 and the AI will actually build ships. However, this is probably a result of the extra VI units being tagged on the end of the Units_prod file more than anything else. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif
Regards
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Ok, it took me a while to remember the spreadsheet setup and gather in what you mean, but this copying of priorities would explain why ship priorities are about twice as high as 1.1 in the standard campaigns, but half as high in the Viking camp, where I gather the copied units are cheaper.
I think I settled upon a 25 to 33 percent increase for the Medmod v1, so I wonder why I am not getting reports of massive fleets using the Medmod v2. After my economic improvements to the 1.1 version, I have frequently received reports of massive fleets with v1, though repeated testing shows that this can vary wildly from one game to the next. I wonder if people just expect frequent huge fleets, and don't report them any more, or if something else is happening?
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Hi Wes,
Actually the reasons for the low values in VI are very easy to explain. If you have CA's files, this is what it says under the Curragh's "build value based on cost" (column B) in the Personalities Excel Sheet of the vikings_unit_prod file:
=10 +INT(('Unit Def'AC161/3))
If you view the Unit Def Sheet you'll notice that the last entry is in column 160 for Welsh bandits, hence there are no cost values for the ships
I think this may have been the same for pre-2.0 versions of the MTW campaign and probably explains why ships were very rarely built. However, with the introduction of VI, the crusaders_unit_prod13 file supplied by CA has the extra VI units tagged on at the end of the Unit Def Excel Sheet. Therefore, the ships are now using the cost values of the extra units for calculating their build priority values on the Personalities Sheet, as i mentioned in my first post.
Dare i say it, but from all this one might assume that the fact that the AI now frequently builds ships in the MTW campaign is actually more of an accident, due to the addition of the extra units in the Unit Def Sheet, rather than a deliberate design implementation? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif
Cheers
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I think you are mis-interpreting the Excel formula, or else the note you read was wrong. My Excel skills are hit-n-miss, but the ships definitely had different building priorities. If the formula was reading a zero value for AC161, then it would return 10 for each ship, which is not the case, either for the entire entry or for the first faction for each ship.
The ships generally come in three categories for each level, Catholic, Mediterranean and Muslim, so I think the formula works by reading the value from unit 161/3, and proceeding from there, which would result in identical values for each level of ships for all three ship categories. Still a poor way of doing things, though.
I read that Shogun didn't even have ships, and that they were added just because the players raised such a fuss about it, so apparently they were not much of a priority during play-testing, if they had even been added by that phase.
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Wes,
I am not misinterpreting the Excel formula I copied and pasted it straight from Excel. If you have the Excel Spreadsheets supplied by CA then please check for yourself.
Precisely what the "+ INT" means, i am not sure. But under column B "Base value based on cost" of the Personalities Sheet each ship in VI has a base value of 10, which obviously comes from the 10 in the formula, as they have no cost on the Unit Def sheet. This value is then further modified by specific formulas for each of the different individual personalities, e.g. Catholic_Trader, Barbarian_Raider, etc.
Furthermore, if you were to put cost values into colummn AC for the corresponding rows of each ship (e.g. row 161 for the Curragh) in the Unit Def sheet then the final build priority values will change. Check it and see for yourself.
