V1.21 Rebuild-ProblemFixer BETA testing thread

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Originally Posted by Carl

The reasons where 3 fold:

1. The AI places a bigger importance on barracks buildings than walls. In vanilla this means it's often well behind you in recruitment stakes in vanilla as you will have gone for walls sooner and got better units sooner. It was actually Lusted that pointed this one out. His solution was to cut everything except aztecs and counquistidors from walls.

2. As Lusted also pointed out. With all but the very best non-gunpowder available from city walls/castle walls their was no point to the barracks and stables lines as as just about every unit actually needed to beat the AI could be recruited from wall. This set of changes throws renew emphasis on the actual troop production buildings, and not just the walls that allow access to those buildings.

3. Their was a tendency because of when things became available for anyone with a Stone walled castle to be able to get the best or second best f their heavy Cav/heavy infantry/HA. Byzantines with Dotti where the worst offenders. They could literally from the very start of the game get access to their very best HA rendering the lower levels Pointless. The same happened with DFK/Mounted Feudal Knights for Catholics however. Likewise the first 3 barrack levels where nearly pointless in cities as walls gave you spear and town militia anyway. Thats something else I've tried to correct by spreading out the different levels. That means you now need fortresses and Citadels for your elite and ultra elite troops, stone castles just give you the basic Pro troops these days.


So yes it takes a lot of time and effort to get your HA up and running as Turks. But with the exception of basic spears and town militia, exactly the same is true of Heavy infantry, Heavy Cav, Light Cav, Foot Archers e.t.c for everyone else as well, so I would hope it would balance out in the long term as no one gets any upsides or downsides really. Add to that that most factions have a castle to begin with or a Motte and Bailey in conquering range that they can upgrade as soon as they capture it. so all told it should be about 5 turns after capturing to your basic HA. Not bad if you ask me. Especially when you consider it would take most factions a lot longer to get access to their best foot infantry.

By veriaty I was partially talking about the way many factions have gained a number of units they only have in custom battles. On the flip side units that where two similar have had one unit cut. Coupled with the way the tech tree is re-arranged so as to make you build up to get your best units you will no longer see armies composed mostly of one or two diffrent units, (i.e. all Vardorti armies), you start having to settle for a mix of your best and your not so best units.

On the other hand I am NOT an Islamic/Iberian faction expert. Thats why I wanted testers and I may well have missed some vital point in my explanation. If I have please feel free to criticize my argument and explain the flaws in it.

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I guessed that the object was to delay "top units," but I don't like the result. Not all cultures work like that. Some cultures require "hang in there, just keep alive, until late when you get the uber units" while others are "move fast or you will be mincemeat later!"

My first thought, if there's a prioritizing of buildings versus walls... can that be changed instead so that the AI always builds walls as soon as it can? That will help it defensively a lot more with your stronger walls too. The we could leave the unit production alone. Otherwise...

I think it's going to affect game balance for some factions far more than for others. And more than that, it will affect play style. For example, it won't be a huge deal for England. Their special units, archers, don't come from walls until pretty far up the tree, and the archer militia cannot come close to comparing with the longbow line. The archer milita is okay for behind-the-lines free garrisons.

Won't matter to France a bit. Or probably HRE. Their play style remains the same with those starting units and the later ones, at least until gunpowder takes off. But some cultures will have to act like... British! Or Germans. When they aren't that.

The best cav unit the Iberians get, and their signature unit for style until late era armies, the jinettes, are really crippled. Instead of being a staple, they are a luxury. You can't get enough of them fast to start using them as they are intended to be used, as the cav spine to your forces. (See details below... they aren't TOO bad for Spain, since Toledo is central. Potugal gets hurt more.) There is a reason they can be produced in both cities and castles. They are meant to be everywhere!

The same to the horse archer cultures. The Turkomen cost more than plain horse archers, but they are better. They were available, as were Sipahis, at game start. Now they are quite a long wait away. The Turks don't have the luxury of a lot of time. Mongols, you know? Similar issues for the Russians. Those HA armies aren't good at taking cities fast (at least not cheaply), but they are great at the sort of delaying actions the cultures that have them need to survive. And they move fast on the strategic level. Poor Russia. Infantry just can't handle the distances at the speed needed to cover the steppes defensively. Same in the convoluted passes in Turkey.

I guess that's my complaint, really. I can't be a Turk until I'm a footslogging Brit for a decade or more. If I want to be a Brit, well, I can play the English. Same for other cultures with really unique styles if they have special units "out of the box." Turks start with Turkomen. Portuguese and Spanish start with jinettes. Russians start with kazaks. But can they make them? English don't start with longbows, oddly. It's clearly a balance decision. The English have time on their island. The Mongols are not coming.

I'd suggest (and I know it's a major balancing act, but you started it!) moving up those units removed from walls in their new building by one tier, so instead of turkomen coming in at tier 2 stables, they come in with horse archers at first tier. But limit the quantity to lower. And I'm not crazy about the diminishing returns. You already remove production pool when you subtract those from the walls. The available jinette pool drops a lot! And don't take them from the special buildings, like horse tracks. Those take extra effort and more developed cities to build, there should be a payoff that's appropriate to the culture. Without those units I guarantee I will never build them (unless it's over and over to force a horse breeders guild... tearing them down each time :laugh4:). The Genoese Crossbow Militia, and Italian Militia in general, are the signature units for those cities. You've made it so they can't recruit them in the numbers they could before. Ditto for others. The also can't get the stream of replacements they had before.

I can see the argument for stripping them from the walls, but in isolation that changes the texture of the game too much for me. Those units still need their proper prominence over the long haul. Delaying their arrival a bit is one thing (though I don't like it!); making them far less significant is another whole matter. Italy becomes just another infantry culture, not one with a significant difference in that it's city-based and can ramp a high output of standard basic (and solid) units fast. Ditto for the horse archer cultures.

I don't want all Western European-style wars. I want reall differences in styles of war across cultures. I don't play Turkey because I feel like playing with spears.

Don't downplay the differences that exist. Re-arrange them if needed to adjust balance, but don't negate them. I feel like they have been, more due to the shrinkage in the pool sizes than the delay, though the delay does play a part. And some units, as I mention, are plain gone. I can understand removing the duplication across cultures, like DFK or whatever, that everyone has... but not the unique units like Broken Lances, even if they are pretty much like something else. Let the differentiation exist. If nothing more it makes those units SEEM unique. After all, we have orders of knights that are (unless you use fixes to tweak them slightly) all the same except in name.

Okay, did some checking: Spain CAN build jinettes at Toledo. Limits their output, but they are there, at least. The pool is 6. In vanilla they are widely available. Most cities can build from a pool of 2 also. If they build a bull ring, 2 more. Those limits are limits on replacements more than sheer unit numbers.

Portugal can build them at Pamplona. BUT Portugal has no interior lines, so it changes the game for Portugal. Lisbon is exposed and fighting a holding action without its premier troop-style.

Turkey gets one level 1 stable in Mosul, way out of the main action. And it can't make Turkomen until Mosul grows which will take 6 turns if nothing else is done there, plus another 3-6 to bring them to the "front." In vanilla they can build them in Caesarea too. And Sipahis are available as soon as they capture some large Holy Land cities. Or upgrade Caesarea a notch to full castle. They really need a stable at Caesarea with your system. And their special building should retain their special units, as should everyone's!

When you take away starting production, you need, IMO, to make sure the faction has it somehow, unless you mean to drastically change the balance of that faction with regard to others that retain their primary starting unit production.

As far as the custom battle stuff goes, I know a lot of people multi-play and like that. I could care less as long as I can use the custom battles to experiment with tactics with the same units I have in the strategy game. But that's me.

"Problem fixing" is one thing. You're definitely far into balancing, and balancing is a lot more complicated. Making all units produced in walls harder to get does not affect all factions anywhere near equally. To retain something resembling faction balance, you're gonna have to understand each and adjust it accordingly. There's a reason those units are produced in walls, I expect.


And for the record I tried Lusted's LTC. Didn't like it. Loads of huge stacks and overflowing treasuries, and not much activity. I don't particularly think huge stacks are the answer. I like seeing the right amount and type of force applied to solve a particular problem. Sometimes that is 5 stacks, sometimes it's 2 units, but the right units. And overflowing treasuries (mine too!) kills off the economic balancing act that makes the game what it is at the strategic level.

Oh, I am seeing a lot of errors in the logs. Also, the log directory is set up in the data directory, but the .cfg points to it being at the top level: Problemfixer/logs/system.log.txt. Since the directory doesn't exist, no log is created until you manually create the folder.

There are a lot of missing files reports. I suspect you're not installing all the files the game wants in the mod folders. It may result in problems farther in. Also, script errors involving some of your changes. A lot in the traits file. A few in buildings.

"Infantry_bonus_ capability seems not to exist, by that name.
I think using "=>" <> ">=" but haven't tested that yet. That's in the standing file.
Loads of trigger parsing stuff in traits. Some just don't mix with some trigger conditions.

Okay, I started a campaign as Turks on H/H. It's turn 6. The Bizzies look pretty skinny. (So do I!) I managed to take Adana, barely. There were 6 silver chevron units, 2 archers, 2 spears, 2 heavy cav (eek!). All had weapon upgrades. The foot units had armor upgrades too (padded). It's a piddling motte & bailey with nothing in it. (Playing on normal unit sizes.)

I scraped together 2 leaders from Caesarea and Iconium and all the units I could dredge up in 6 turns time. That made 2 leaders (4 stars) with their cav, 2 Turk archers, 1 militia spears, and the two Turkmen HA I started with. I forced them to sally, so I had no wall towers to deal with (3 turns wait). It was not pretty and IMO it took too long. The morale boost just makes the combat last a LONG time. Units were not routing until they were down to single digits from 60-75. Partly that may be the silver chevron. Still.

I lost half my force in the process, including both leaders. The heavy cav had me outnumbered 2 to 1 and thier chevron made a big difference. And they didn't rout until down to 5 or so. My HA and archers survived, and about half the spear unit that held well strung out in a line 2 deep. The cav never got off a charge on them though. The archers had to pitch in with swords and the somewhat delicate HA had to charge too, before it was over with. I lost about half my HA. Still, I killed twice what I lost. Hurt badly though.

One other oddity. I got no chevrons and normally I would. With all those friendly casualties, the survivors usually do well. Is the exp gain toned down? If so, we have too many "balances" in play at once. With slower exp gain the losses will remain high longer. So don't need the extra morale too. Or vice versa.

I'm not sure that the added exp on top of the other changes is needed. I don't like long draw out battles all the time. A few are okay. For a small unit action, this took too long. Already these battles tend to last longer than RTW ones of similar size. Longer is not a plus. I think it's overcorrection.

From looking at the charts, Denmark is the only other faction to take a territory so far.

Looking at the Antioch garrison now: 2 Turk archers, 4 town militia. But all are 1 silver chevron and weapon and armor upgraded. Where they got them I don't know. Antioch has a stone wall and a town guard building. :thumbsdown: 6024 pop. I am accumulating HA now. These are the basic units, so worthless in melee. But bringing in more militia spears. I will force a sally again. May have to back off out of tower range.

Heh, out of curiosity I went back and reloaded the quicksave and autoresolved. It showed I had a slight advantage (say 11 of 20). First try: Crushing defeat. 177 men lost to 16 killed. Trying again.
Oh, nice, the scumm rebels want to ransom me back my men! :P On the other hand, the AI in autoresolve isn't as ruthless with leaders. Both survived. Neither has scars either! Cowards!

More numbers: 5 star Sultan on my end. 11 of 20 looks about right on the odds bar. They have 333 men to my 336. They have 80 heavy cav, I have about 45-50 in the two bodyguard units. I suspect the AI is sending my guys in, not holding them back, thus the bad ugliness. Second try:
Exactly the same. Suspicious.

Third try, different: Clear defeat. 196 men lost to 83 killed.

Ok. not sure what that shows. Except it proves that I'll have to run my own field battles, at least.

Can we lose either the upgrades or the boosted exp? Or lose whichever makes the fight take so long? I don't mind bloddiness, but not drawn out bloodiness.

It is explicitly stated that the rebels have been beefed up to slow down a players initial expansion. Even the vanilla game regularly gives rebels units they do not have the buildings to make. The Welsh longbowmen in Carnoevan come immediately to mind(the bleeps keep turning down my bribe too). It is just a trick that Carl is using a little more. While their are a lot of things to quibble over, see quibbles above :laugh4: ,the only way to make the initial part of the game more than busy work is to make it bloody hard. That is why there are twice as many turns. Your going to need them.

If you start asking where rebel troops are coming from I want to know where the endless stacks of flemish pikes come from, so I can invade. Again that is in the vanilla game.

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Originally Posted by chickenhawk

If you start asking where rebel troops are coming from I want to know where the endless stacks of flemish pikes come from, so I can invade. Again that is in the vanilla game.

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Heh, that was a rhetorical question. Those Welsh longbows always catch my eye.

I understand the object is to make it harder to slow things down. But I'd prefer that to be at the strategic level. I don't need battles lasting more than three times as long. I get plenty of long battles as it is. I as much as it cringe to say it, I'd prefer more opposing units to ones that refuse to rout. Especially starter, non-pro troops. What is it gonna be like against the first string? Will there be ANY prisoners to ransom?

I think we have a morale uptweak, a unit experience upgrade, AND weapons and armor upgrades in play. Those are stacking too high for my taste.

This is just feedback. I may be the minority.

Hmm, my governors are picking up positive governance traits early, I see. And both sitting in cities have architects too. One has learned "Understands Trade," "Good with Taxes" and "Farming Knowledge." (I am building and taxing heavily, needless to say.) The other has the latter two, and he's an adoption, so been around a couple turns less.

Okay, I have alliances with the Eggies and Bizzies. We'll see how that plays out. Neither has taken any territories so far that I can see. It's now turn 8. I have Antioch under seige. It's a 5-6 turn wait for a sally. I'm still bringing in units as I train them. Have one leader (2 stars) with his 20 guards, about 2.6 Turk archer units, fragments of the two Turkpmen (about 1.1 units), 3.3 militia spears, and 4 plain Turk HA. I'm up against 2 Turk archers and 4 town militia (no sweat! normally), but they have the weapons and armor upgrade, 1 silver chevvie, plus the morale boost and maybe some missile fire from the walls too. I'll try to avoid that being a factor.

Meanwhile building econ stuff and upgrading cities. I haven't yet converted any castles to towns. Need the production. I'll convert Mosul as soon as Adana can build HA for me. Then once I get Aleppo, I'll convert Adana. I plan to keep Aleppo as a main production center. Caesarea will also until I take Smyrna to use to supply my move on Constantinople. Assuming I survive that long.

Of course, since I'm playing the diplo angle, which way I go will depend on how my lovely allies act. While waiting I'll pick up all the rebel regions that I can. One at a time.

Wow, merchant income is 10x higher. May be too high. Sure makes merchants pay early. That said, my treasury is running on empty, which is not at all normal for me. hiring a lot more units and expanding a lot more slowly. Not getting the incremental taxes. I don't sack often, so that's no factor of significance.

Okay, it's turn 14. Antioch garrison sallied: Did an autoresolve for test purposes. By this time I'd added one more unit of militia spears and filled up the stack with plain Turk HA. Odds were 2:1. Clear victory: I lost 72 to their 131. I see one of the Turkomen and one Turk Archer did get a chevvie this time. Now to try it myself. Sack would net 1447 and 1703 killed. Occupy 733. Exterminate 289 and 5804 killed.

Interesting. That time it didn't take nearly as long. My losses were slightly higher at 99, but I killed 222. Better ratio but bloodier. The plain HA took a lot of missile hits. In the confusion of setting up to meet the sally (I hate not being allowed to set up first) the Turk archers on their side got set up and did some damage before I could sic my heavy cav on them. The swarming HA really did a number on their morale. Maybe if the battle isn't close the time will work out okay. That went fast. It hurt having the spears holding ladders, etc. By the time they got mostly into line, they were being charged by the enemy militia. And I had no time to micro maneuver the HA, I just charged them in on skirmish and let them do it themselves. It was a swarm, but it worked. All but the archers (their general was an archer leader) broke at once, then my heavy hit their archers and broke the non-general one, chased it towards the gate a bit, then revered and charged the other from the rear. That was it.

Shuffled the bulk of the stack on to Aleppo. 3 turns until they sally. Damascus and Jerusalem look ugly. Acre only had 4 units last I saw so that will be next. It's a fort too, so I can use it to rebuild HA. Caesarea is now a town, as is Mosul. Bizzies have taken 2 territories, I think in the Balkans. Egypt is a flatline. Jerusalem walls are damaged, maybe they tried and failed. They're welcome to try again. Soften it up for me. Oh, Bizzies took Smyrna. I see the border is purple now. Time to watch my back.

Hmm, 3/4 stack of Eggies near Jerusalem. Mostly Cav and archers. They won't take Jerusalem with that, I don't think, unless autoresolve is very weird. Jerusalem is a half stack of mostly infantry, heavy on spears.

My rep is up to reliable. I've been a very nice sultan. :) Just allied with Hungary too. I figure I will get out of the alliances when they start fighting or they backstab me. One war on, Sicily vs HRE. Pretty quiet so far. I see a couple Bizzie ships near my ports, and a small stack (6 units) in the Smyrna region near my border. Trebizon remains rebel as does Rhodes. I'm seiging Tbilisi now, but it's 8 more turns to a sally. Rhodes is 3 units defending, and they are militia and archers, so doable if I can spare about 4 units and a leader. 5 turn seige though.

The spawn of heretics has either been high, or the spawn of imams has been low. The starter one went heretic on me. So no jihad ability yet. Trying to train up a couple now, but slow going from 1 or 2 piety. If I go to the fringes, the heresy number is 20+ and I risk just ending up with more heretics. In Tbilisi the current number is over 40. Unless the heretic pop value has been changed, I suspect it's just the roll of the dice.

"We are currently performing a network upgrade from now until 3am PST. During this time, some user files, uploads, and file management will be inaccessible."

Thank you FileFront:wall:
Looks like I have to wait a bit: ~:mad

The Pope and the First Cursade...

The Venetians and me (the HRE) have been at war for a while now, mostly manouvring troops around while we build up stacks. Interesting they dropped down a fort in the Venice province with a full stack in it. I was not sure what they where up to, but I managed to sneak a full new army of Sergeant Spearmen, peasant archers and Mounted Sergeants past them to hook up with the Emperor and another general. We besieged the fort and the Venetians immediately sallied out to face us. There was a conventient ridge of hige ground immediately behind my deployed force so I withdrew to that is a simple Spear, then Archers then Cavalry setup... The Venetian force was mainly militia (the better Italian ones), a few crossbows and a general. The plan was to hold the line and flank with my cavalry. It worked perfectly this time with only the enemy general's charge to the center of my line blowing right through the spears and into the archers causing a problem. I counter him with the Emperor... We won mainly through routing the enemy, enemy force was a little over 1000 men (playing on Normal unit size), and while there where 0 left, we only killed ~250... Unfortuately being a siege battle (even for a fort) there is no chance to ransom the prisoners... :thumbsdown: :skull: :laugh4:

Having sorted out the casualties and bolstered my force back to a full stack with Mercs I besieged Venice. At this point I was wondering what the Pope was up to... Well, fate struck and the very next turn I get the leave the Venetians alone or be excomunicated!! @#$%...

In the meantime a crusade had been called to Jerusalim... The force and general that took Hamburg was dispatched and made there way via the land route and Constantanople. By the time of the above they where getting close to their destination and the original force was mostly replace by a full stack of Crusader Spearmen, peasant archers and Crusader Knights. I even picked up a pair of Crusader Dismounted Knights. On approaching the prize I saw the reason for the Pope's sudden support for the Venetians as they had arrived there first, but had not yet besieged the city (bean counting cowards... :laugh4: ). So I swooped my army in there first...

In Frankfurt I have been training Assassins... There was a conventiently small and nearby group of rebels that I left alone to be an assassin training ground. Of the 6 assassin I have trained only 3 have survived, 2 are average but one it now an 8 point agent... I have dispatched him to Venetian lands...:2thumbsup:

My concentration on Italy left Prague and the castle to the North East to Polish expansion. I will have to keep an eye on them...

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And for the record I tried Lusted's LTC. Didn't like it. Loads of huge stacks and overflowing treasuries, and not much activity.

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Yes the lack of activity in LTC is a problem. With the changes being made with patch 1.2 by CA, i might not use any diplomacy/campaign ai mods so that there are more wars, as those tend to reduce your treasury and put those stacks to good use.

Sorry for the off-topic Carl, was just reading the thread and noticed this.

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Sorry for the off-topic Carl, was just reading the thread and noticed this.

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Don't worry lustd, I don't mind.

I'm writing a big reply to vonsch now BTW. He's raised many good points and helped me clarify and narrow down the reasons for many of my changes, and also spot a few mistakes on my part.

It's taking a while to write thopugh.

First I'd like to thank vonsch for showing some excellent testing abilities. In spite of disliking some things he's kept at it, has been totally professional about it, and he's given me some very useful info and expanded on his concerns greatly.

I'd also Like to thank everyone else of course, your all doing sterling work and I have to thank your for that. vonsch is just really standing out ATM.

He's explained several issues I wasn't aware of and done exactly what I needed and explained where I've buggered up unique units for some factions, and unique play styles. I'm an infantry guy at heart and even when playing as Byzantine I use Merc mounted units more than Byzantines own. Most of my forces are Byzantine Spearmen and Trapezoidal archers till better comes along. My other Favorite factions are Scotland, Danes, England, and Papal States, With the odd Venice thrown in.

Naturally I'm not a big user of HA and Heavy Cav, (though i like my light and medium Cav just fine), so balancing factions reliant on them on my own just wasn't possible. I need the feedback on them as I need help getting them right.

I'd also like to add that when arranging the new tech trees I used a standard formula for all factions. Namely wall units went into the barracks/stable/archery range level that requires that level of wall. With a few shuffled around so as to make the weaker units come first, and to stop duplication. That has produced some similarities that I will have to work on.

After this post, I'll write another with my conclusions based on what I've got in feedback, so if you want my overall view of thins said, look their. Below is the detailed thoughts as I go along bit.

Many Thanks for this, and now it's time to reply to your points.

Sorry for the number of quotes BTW.

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I guessed that the object was to delay "top units," but I don't like the result. Not all cultures work like that. Some cultures require "hang in there, just keep alive, until late when you get the uber units" while others are "move fast or you will be mincemeat later!"

My first thought, if there's a prioritizing of buildings versus walls... can that be changed instead so that the AI always builds walls as soon as it can? That will help it defensively a lot more with your stronger walls too. The we could leave the unit production alone. Otherwise...

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Sadly we can't change the priorities at the moment, the upcoming patch is supposed to unlock some more files though, so we may be able to edit things then.

On the flip side, whilst I don't mind adding the odd unit back to walls, (I was very draconian this time around), for faction balancing acts.

On the flip side I'm largely against adding too many back because i don't like the way in vanilla most barracks lines are only useful for the final level or two. Every level should have a place and a purpose. Taking so many units away from walls helps make sure people actually have a reason beyond getting the best level barracks for building the barracks. Peasants are only their for cheap and nasty Garrison troops, thats why they are so easily available and so cheap.

Regarding the Hang in their and Quick or where mincemeat styles. to a degree I'm trying to cut this down, no faction should actually require you to get to the best troops just to be able to actually fight off an opponent. By the same token, no faction should really force you to rush around trying to win before anyone else shows up. I'm wiling to tweak unit stats to achieve that if necessary. A large part of the reason for wanting this is because the various era's in custom are based of the early/mid/late stages of the campaign. If armies are unequal in terms of maximum power at any given level then theirs issues right their.

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Won't matter to France a bit. Or probably HRE. Their play style remains the same with those starting units and the later ones, at least until gunpowder takes off. But some cultures will have to act like... British! Or Germans. When they aren't that.

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I certainly don't want to mess up play styles, thats why need you and the others though. I use the same infantry/archer mix with nearly every faction I play. So if you see a faction not playing right. Tell me how it's supposed to play style wise and where the issue is.

You've already done this this for Turks and Spain/Portugal by identifying that they struggle to get access to large quantities of their unique units without big investments as they need several building to get enough of them and to get high enough quality troops.

That doesn't mean i won't have some things to point out regarding what you've had to say, (see jienites in a moment), but I am listening because this is precisely the info I need, to keep unique play styles whilst still having a balanced and challenging game.

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The best Cav unit the Iberians get, and their signature unit for style until late era armies, the jienites, are really crippled. Instead of being a staple, they are a luxury. You can't get enough of them fast to start using them as they are intended to be used, as the Cav spine to your forces. (See details below... they aren't TOO bad for Spain, since Toledo is central. Portugal gets hurt more.) There is a reason they can be produced in both cities and castles. They are meant to be everywhere!

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Jienites got moved simply because they where one of the few units in the game mucking up the Castle/City balance./ Prior to the late period when you start getting pikes and gunpowder and halberds at cities, castles are supposed to be where your recruit your Field armies. Cities are meant to be for the cheap Garrison trash.

Their are exceptions of course. The Italians get near pro quality troops from cities, but they STILL get their best troops from castles.

Thus I removed Jienites from cities because I actually wanted to see the Spanish and Portuguese have to use their castles for their Field armies, it's also part of the reason I cut the numbers of genosse crossbow militia down, I wanted to see people have a reason to use genose crossbowmen, (most people complain they can get by with militia types only), it also helps with encouraging gunpowder use.

I'd like to point out that I've increased the number of recruitment slots in castles to 3 and modified retraining so it doesn't take units out of the pool when you retrain, (I did this to make it easier to retrain mercs). So you can build more of them at once and retrain on mass if needs be. Not perfect I know but worth remembering.

Thus I'm not really wanting to put Jienites back in cities. But before you get mad at me let me reply to the next quote and after that I'm going to have a few ideas to bounce off you.

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The same to the horse archer cultures. The Turkomen cost more than plain horse archers, but they are better. They were available, as were Sipahis, at game start. Now they are quite a long wait away. The Turks don't have the luxury of a lot of time. Mongols, you know? Similar issues for the Russians. Those HA armies aren't good at taking cities fast (at least not cheaply), but they are great at the sort of delaying actions the cultures that have them need to survive. And they move fast on the strategic level. Poor Russia. Infantry just can't handle the distances at the speed needed to cover the steppes defensively. Same in the convoluted passes in Turkey.

I guess that's my complaint, really. I can't be a Turk until I'm a foot-slogging Brit for a decade or more. If I want to be a Brit, well, I can play the English. Same for other cultures with really unique styles if they have special units "out of the box." Turks start with Turkomen. Portuguese and Spanish start with jienites. Russians start with kazaks. But can they make them? English don't start with longbows, oddly. It's clearly a balance decision. The English have time on their island. The Mongols are not coming.

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Alright, I would point out that I wasn't trying to make the Turks footsloggers early on, and what you've described is unintentional but exactly the kind of bug I needed to know about.

Would I also be correct in saying that the issues with jienites and the HA are down not so much to them being in castles, but more to do with limitations regarding what you have to build to get them, and how quickly you deplete the pool when building them?

If thats the case I could move the stables line down so that the first level shows up at a Wooden castle and the Second Level at a stone Castle. You'd still need a Fortress for Saiph's. But Turkomen would just need castles.

I could also add building to the Descr_Strat file so that each City/Castle starts with the best barracks/stables/archery range available at that level. That should cut down the building up phase and get the AI going sooner.

Also upping max pool size, replenish rate, and I could accept bigger recruitment slot numbers. it's currently 2/3/3/3/4 for the various levels of castle. I could make it 2/3/4/5/6. So you could recruit 4 units of anything at a given level easily if needs be.

What do you think?

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I can see the argument for stripping them from the walls, but in isolation that changes the texture of the game too much for me. Those units still need their proper prominence over the long haul. Delaying their arrival a bit is one thing (though I don't like it!); making them far less significant is another whole matter. Italy becomes just another infantry culture, not one with a significant difference in that it's city-based and can ramp a high output of standard basic (and solid) units fast. Ditto for the horse archer cultures.I don't want all Western European-style wars. I want real differences in styles of war across cultures. I don't play Turkey because I feel like playing with spears.

Don't downplay the differences that exist. Re-arrange them if needed to adjust balance, but don't negate them. I feel like they have been, more due to the shrinkage in the pool sizes than the delay, though the delay does play a part.

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I certainly wasn't trying to reduce their significance, More ensure that the elite units actually take till the late game to get, rather than cultures getting everything at once.

Regrading the Italians, they should still get an extra recruitment sot over everyone else at cities, and their militia remains the best available. But likewise, as should be they are still militia and proper troops still outperform them and should still be got in preference to them. They're simply able to put together Okay Field armies from cities unlike everyone else. However they HAVE to stick to the same balancing point as everyone else. Namely that cities are big on income but worse at military than castles, whilst castle are low on income but good at military units. Thats one of the most basic mechanics of the game and breaking that breaks the entire game down as it makes castles fairly pointless.

I also wasn't aware pool sizes had shrunk, i thought they where the same. If you could list what units have had their pool size reduced and by how much I'd be happy to add them back on.

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And some units, as I mention, are plain gone. I can understand removing the duplication across cultures, like DFK or whatever, that everyone has... but not the unique units like Broken Lances, even if they are pretty much like something else. Let the differentiation exist. If nothing more it makes those units SEEM unique. After all, we have orders of knights that are (unless you use fixes to tweak them slightly) all the same except in name.

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I've tried my best not to remove unique units, and it seems i made a mistake with Broken Lancers. the Dismounted version is available to Sicily as before. But it looks like I've taken them from Milan thinking Venice still had them, and taken them from Venice thinking Milan still had them.

Rest assured I'm going to change this ASAP, and get them back on one of those factions rosters. Probably Milan as they are supposed to have good Cav.

Say add them in as free-upkeep high level city Cav to supplement Familiae Ducal?

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Okay, did some checking: Spain CAN build jienites at Toledo. Limits their output, but they are there, at least. The pool is 6. In vanilla they are widely available. Most cities can build from a pool of 2 also. If they build a bull ring, 2 more. Those limits are limits on replacements more than sheer unit numbers.

Portugal can build them at Pamplona. BUT Portugal has no interior lines, so it changes the game for Portugal. Lisbon is exposed and fighting a holding action without its premier troop-style.

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Thats a worry, I hadn't realized I was limiting them unduly, was merely trying to limit them so as to prevent players and AI alike from having more than about 40% of their army made up of them, the pure jinette armies really shouldn't be a standard thing.

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Turkey gets one level 1 stable in Mosul, way out of the main action. And it can't make Turkomen until Mosul grows which will take 6 turns if nothing else is done there, plus another 3-6 to bring them to the "front." In vanilla they can build them in Caesarea too. And Sipahis are available as soon as they capture some large Holy Land cities. Or upgrade Caesarea a notch to full castle. They really need a stable at Caesarea with your system. And their special building should retain their special units, as should everyone's!

When you take away starting production, you need, IMO, to make sure the faction has it somehow, unless you mean to drastically change the balance of that faction with regard to others that retain their primary starting unit production.

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Definitely sounds like i need to give factions some starting barracks/stables/archery ranges.

Also, I wasn't trying to cut down the amount they could build of particular units, (so long as a better replacments wasn't available), just move where the production was done so cities weren't producing pro troops early on and so that you had to build the various barracks/stables lines to get them rather than the barracks/stables being an unimportant after thought.

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"Problem fixing" is one thing. You're definitely far into balancing, and balancing is a lot more complicated. Making all units produced in walls harder to get does not affect all factions anywhere near equally. To retain something resembling faction balance, you're gonna have to understand each and adjust it accordingly. There's a reason those units are produced in walls, I expect.

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I'd say it was done because CA was feeling lazy, (no offense BTW), Right now you need walls for the PO and defense benefits so putting money into them isn't really investing money in your military infrastructure. What i wanted to create was a situation where anyone wanting to build anything had to actually invest i their genuine military infrastructure to get access to their units. the better the unit they want the more they have to invest.

I certainly wasn't trying to mess up the balance too much, some tweaks produced better balance IMHO, but I wasn't making any changes JUST for balance alone.

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And for the record I tried Lusted's LTC. Didn't like it. Loads of huge stacks and overflowing treasuries, and not much activity. I don't particularly think huge stacks are the answer. I like seeing the right amount and type of force applied to solve a particular problem. Sometimes that is 5 stacks, sometimes it's 2 units, but the right units. And overflowing treasuries (mine too!) kills off the economic balancing act that makes the game what it is at the strategic level.

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I understand this which was why I didn't increase costs and build times on too much stuff. With Lusted's LTC the increased prices mean more income is needed to buy the same old things so you end up basically needing even more money than before. I actually use Lusted's LTC 2.1 money Script in this, it's main purpose is just to get the AI going early on and keep it going when it's struggling.

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Oh, I am seeing a lot of errors in the logs. Also, the log directory is set up in the data directory, but the .cfg points to it being at the top level: Problemfixer/logs/system.log.txt. Since the directory doesn't exist, no log is created until you manually create the folder.

There are a lot of missing files reports. I suspect you're not installing all the files the game wants in the mod folders. It may result in problems farther in. Also, script errors involving some of your changes. A lot in the traits file. A few in buildings.

"Infantry_bonus_ capability seems not to exist, by that name.
I think using "=>" <> ">=" but haven't tested that yet. That's in the standing file.
Loads of trigger parsing stuff in traits. Some just don't mix with some trigger conditions.

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he traits ones are because of the anti-traits fix. The game thinks anti-traits are working right and is warning me that the triggers are redundant. Don't worry though, they still work as written, the game just thinks their redundant. I know about the building one, was going to try to fix it. The missing files aren't an issue, ALL modded games get them even with every file unpacked. it's because their are some files that are ignored I think when reading from the Packs in vanilla. In a modded game it doesn't ignore them, so don't worry about the errors.

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Okay, I started a campaign as Turks on H/H. It's turn 6. The Bizzies look pretty skinny. (So do I!) I managed to take Adana, barely. There were 6 silver chevron units, 2 archers, 2 spears, 2 heavy Cav (eek!). All had weapon upgrades. The foot units had armor upgrades too (padded). It's a piddling Motte & Bailey with nothing in it. (Playing on normal unit sizes.)

I scraped together 2 leaders from Caesarea and Iconium and all the units I could dredge up in 6 turns time. That made 2 leaders (4 stars) with their Cav, 2 Turk archers, 1 militia spears, and the two Turkomen HA I started with. I forced them to sally, so I had no wall towers to deal with (3 turns wait). It was not pretty and IMO it took too long. The morale boost just makes the combat last a LONG time. Units were not routing until they were down to single digits from 60-75. Partly that may be the silver chevron. Still.

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Actually I've lowered Morale, Let me check my list, I might have mis wrote something.

However having Silver Chevrons reverses most of that. the Armour is worth about 4 points of defense from all directions against both missile and non-missile attacks, and the weapons seemed to be a 25% buff according to the MP people. the Chevrons are either +4 or +8 morale and +2 attack and defense skill. Morale lowering is as follows:

All peasants except Aztecs and Highland rabble dropped from 3 to 1 (the two left are above average anyway so...). % dropped to 4, 9 dropped to 6 and 11 dropped to 8 except for bodyguards and units with Lock_Morale. However with the morale boosts, those militia might have had as good a morale as JHI in VANILLA, and better than them in ProblemFixer. It makes it easier to get chain routs and makes watching your own morale and getting slightly beaten/tied/shot up more important now.

Oh, and spears/Pikes now inflict a -2 morale penalty on mounted units. Run you damm elephants, run :laugh4:.

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I lost half my force in the process, including both leaders. The heavy Cav had me outnumbered 2 to 1 and their chevron made a big difference. And they didn't rout until down to 5 or so. My HA and archers survived, and about half the spear unit that held well strung out in a line 2 deep. The Cav never got off a charge on them though. The archers had to pitch in with swords and the somewhat delicate HA had to charge too, before it was over with. I lost about half my HA. Still, I killed twice what I lost. Hurt badly though.

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In some ways that what i wanted, I'd rather leaders didn't die so easy. But I find I now need 3/4 stacks of good castle only troops to overwhelm my opponents now with few losses. Also I wasn't trying to create marathon battles. Damm I wish I could do something about the rebel morale.

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One other oddity. I got no chevrons and normally I would. With all those friendly casualties, the survivors usually do well. Is the exp gain toned down? If so, we have too many "balances" in play at once. With slower exp gain the losses will remain high longer. So don't need the extra morale too. Or vice versa.

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I haven't touched experience. You can't I'm afraid.

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From looking at the charts, Denmark is the only other faction to take a territory so far.

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It's because they have no starting military infrastructure, (another good reason for adding it). They need about 10 turns before they can start getting good troops out, and they don't buy mercs like I do. That probably why i missed the Turks issue. Apart from never having played them I've always hired masses of mercs even in vanilla, so if I had to wait to get some units it never really bothered me as mercs got me by until then.

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Heh, out of curiosity I went back and reloaded the quicksave and autoresolved. It showed I had a slight advantage (say 11 of 20). First try: Crushing defeat. 177 men lost to 16 killed. Trying again.
Oh, nice, the scumm rebels want to ransom me back my men! :P On the other hand, the AI in autoresolve isn't as ruthless with leaders. Both survived. Neither has scars either! Cowards!

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I don't think you can actually lose your leader in auto-resolve, something kicks in that means only a disbanded army will cause that.

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Originally Posted by chickenhawk

That is why there are twice as many turns. Your going to need them.

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Very true indeed. Also what else he said.

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I understand the object is to make it harder to slow things down. But I'd prefer that to be at the strategic level. I don't need battles lasting more than three times as long. I get plenty of long battles as it is. I as much as it cringe to say it, I'd prefer more opposing units to ones that refuse to rout. Especially starter, non-pro troops. What is it gonna be like against the first string? Will there be ANY prisoners to ransom?

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It's the Silver Chevrons, it adds a LOT of morale to the units. I could try more rebels with lower experience though if you like?

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This is just feedback. I may be the minority.

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I don't care if your a Minority, you seem o have hit a lot of issues I wasn't even aware exited until just now.

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Wow, merchant income is 10x higher. May be too high. Sure makes merchants pay early. That said, my treasury is running on empty, which is not at all normal for me. hiring a lot more units and expanding a lot more slowly. Not getting the incremental taxes. I don't sack often, so that's no factor of significance.

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8X actually, but you have much reduced acquisition chances and are near some VERY big starting resources that are worth a lot close up even. In western Europe the income is much lower.

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Interesting. That time it didn't take nearly as long. My losses were slightly higher at 99, but I killed 222. Better ratio but bloodier. The plain HA took a lot of missile hits. In the confusion of setting up to meet the sally (I hate not being allowed to set up first) the Turk archers on their side got set up and did some damage before I could sic my heavy Cav on them. The swarming HA really did a number on their morale. Maybe if the battle isn't close the time will work out Okay. That went fast. It hurt having the spears holding ladders, etc. By the time they got mostly into line, they were being charged by the enemy militia. And I had no time to micro maneuver the HA, I just charged them in on skirmish and let them do it themselves. It was a swarm, but it worked. All but the archers (their general was an archer leader) broke at once, then my heavy hit their archers and broke the non-general one, chased it towards the gate a bit, then revered and charged the other from the rear. That was it.

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Sounds better. Bear in mind that the rebel units are 2-3 times more effective than before so it's much easier to end up with similar power armies than before. As you noted these battles take forever.

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Shuffled the bulk of the stack on to Aleppo. 3 turns until they sally. Damascus and Jerusalem look ugly. Acre only had 4 units last I saw so that will be next. It's a fort too, so I can use it to rebuild HA. Caesarea is now a town, as is Mosul. Bizzies have taken 2 territories, I think in the Balkans. Egypt is a flatline. Jerusalem walls are damaged, maybe they tried and failed. They're welcome to try again. Soften it up for me. Oh, Bizzies took Smyrna. I see the border is purple now. Time to watch my back.

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Once they do take it Egypt tends to go pretty crazy in my experience, but they do try and fail a lot i find first. And TBH your lucky, I was tempted to buff Jerusalem even more to make it really hard on the first crusade that usually gets sent their.

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The spawn of heretics has either been high, or the spawn of imams has been low. The starter one went heretic on me. So no jihad ability yet. Trying to train up a couple now, but slow going from 1 or 2 piety. If I go to the fringes, the heresy number is 20+ and I risk just ending up with more heretics. In Tbilisi the current number is over 40. Unless the heretic pop value has been changed, I suspect it's just the roll of the dice.

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I think I ovverdid Heretics, most people complained they where easy to whack so i upped spawn rates and conversion rates, but I think I went too far as HRE tends to be infested with the buggers.

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We won mainly through routing the enemy, enemy force was a little over 1000 men (playing on Normal unit size), and while there where 0 left, we only killed ~250...

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This sounds more normal. I find in custom battles now that about as many are captured as are killed as units rout much more easily now.

How are people finding the Honest/Dishonest ruler traits then?

Alright, give me a minute and I'll writ up the Conclusions post.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Don't worry lustd, I don't mind.

I'm writing a big reply to vonsch now BTW. He's raised many good points and helped me clarify and narrow down the reasons for many of my changes, and also spot a few mistakes on my part.

It's taking a while to write thopugh.

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Hehe, you don't have to reply to everything at once! I was writing a post, then using edit to update it as I went along... for hours. I stayed up way too late playing.


Lusted,

Glad to hear you know about the issues with LTC. I really want to see improvements in the role play aspects like diplomacy and generals' development. And, of course, the AI strategically (and tactically, but that's better on the whole). I'm not a fan of the "overwhelm the player" school of "AI." I tend to avoid the levels of difficulty where that difficulty is achieved by giving the AI overwhelming advantages (like diety level in Civ, or even VH here). So seeing huge AI treasuries disturbs me if I have to struggle to balance my budget. I KNOW the computer is cheating. :yes: Ditto for making the AI's force's morale sky high compared to mine on a troop by troop basis. A small boost is okay. In play that's invisible. But as I said way above, I know that's a personal issue. A lot of players don't mind.

Means I have great respect for AI that performs in a reasonable fashion.


Okay, back to testing this to see how the diplomacy stands up. (Only turn 15, so far.) The governor's are picking up positive traits pretty fast. Maybe that's scaled to the short game rather than the 1 year per turn? Feels a little too fast, but I'm basing that comparison on 1.13 with my small tweaks. I scaled farming a little faster. I think it was 1-3-6 and I went 1-2-4 or something. So far leaving the generals parked (which I stopped doing in 1.13) in a city isn't proving a bad idea. The income boost (the economy IS tight) is visible, though not huge, and I'm getting the savings from the architect in filling up the build stack.

My replacement faction leader (an adoptee, since I lost the FL anf FH in that first seige) has pretty much stayed in Iconium, the capital. He's no great general. He's now a Rural Expert (+2 farm), Honest Ruler (+1 chivalry), Thourough Taxman (20% tax bonus, but +1 unrest... oops, should have dropped below VH taxes earlier), and Understands Trade (10% bonus). The architect with the squalor cutter (-1) offsets the trade unrest a little, at least.

Normally I'm more careful with faction leaders. I was pushing things in that first seige very hard. So I'd have a couple more generals by now, and my FL would actually be better than that, I suspect. I tend to use my FL fairly hard early, but not too riskily, unless he's no great shakes. Then he retires to run things, maybe kill a few rebels, etc. If he's poor and the FH is significantly better, I push him hard in combat so he either improves a lot or gets killed. And I watch for a nice jihad or crusade.

Just a quick reply to the first part of your post above, Carl, I reserve the right to decide your changes on the wall to stable (or whatever) shift is okay. I need to play a couple starts to see how much it changes early going with some other factions too. I do think the special buildings should get their special units still. If you feel they should be later, move the building reqs up a tier. The Islams should get their HA troops from race tracks too. Ditto for bull rings and jinettes (and that one is still in, you probably missed it :P).

What's making me reconsider on the wall-to-building shift is the over all slower pace of the startup by the AI. If they are slowed a bit too, and they are in my game so far, that gives the player back some time to get those buildings up and get out a "real" (for that faction) army.

I may seem to "spam" HA, but that's pretty historical too. My ideal is a mobile HA force (I don't use jinettes exactly the same way, those are almost always part of a combined arms team) with a general as a roving attacker/defender. Behind that will toddle a real combined force army with some HA to do the flea-bites and flanking, but the more typical spearwall, foot archers, meleers, for actually busting walls. Some heavy cav will be salted into each when I can make it. With most other cultures I'm much more single army type based. I have been known to use all longbow armies in some situations too, if the terrain is right. And pure Milanese crossbow armies can make good sense too!

Conclusions:

1. I need to edit the descr_Strat file to give everyone more in the way of barracks/stables/archery range as currently they are having to spend a long time building it up before they can launch real attacks, this is slowing AI and player alike to much early on and producing almost no action in the first 10-15 turns.

2. may need to alter when the Stables line shows up so as to allow those factions that are highly Cav reliant to actually stand a chance early on. Currently they struggle to gain access to many of their vitally necessary units until too late on. Especially true of factions that will have to deal with the Mongols.

3. I also need to watch out for similar situations elsewhere where required units are delayed too long because you need to go too far along the tech tree to get them.

4. Some units have had the total amount available to a faction reduced heavily when they had them taken away from cities, this means that the quantity recruitable from individual castles may need to go up in some cases.

5. Rebels may be better with more units with less experience upgrades as they tend to fight to the death too much due to the morale upgrades this gives.

6. Heretics seem to be too strong.


What does everyone else think of that and have i missed anything?

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I'm not a fan of the "overwhelm the player" school of "AI."

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Neither am i. Im trying to strike a balance in LTC between the ai producing enough full stacks, but not too endless amounts of them. The main problem im 2.1 is the general lack of wars, because if there were more wars the ai would use more troops, and the ai would spend more cash(though it is a little too easy to make cash and im tweaking that as well).

And back on-topic once more.

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I'd like to point out that I've increased the number of recruitment slots in castles to 3 and modified retraining so it doesn't take units out of the pool when you retrain, (I did this to make it easier to retrain mercs). So you can build more of them at once and retrain on mass if needs be. Not perfect I know but worth remembering.

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Not sure this is the right answer. The flow of replacements is what puts a control on how mercilessly you abuse your own troops. I prefer being encouraged to win in a fashion that preserves the maximum in troops on my side. If replacements are bottomless, that's a negative incentive to good behavior. Is there a variable to determine the relative replacement cost, by chance? Something like 50% or 33% might be better. That way you can build fewer new units than you can replenish hardened ones, which encourages better player behavior as CiC.

I think moving the stables down a level for the HA and jinette cultures (and others may pop up that I don't know of) might be all that's needed. Or maybe let the cities build the lowest level of stable too (as they can churches?) That might be a better solution still. If they can build one (maybe two) levels of stable in cities, they still have to build the thing seperately from walls, they do get those troops anywhere they like (but not the end troops in the stable line) as it appears CA intends (and makes sense historically) and they get them a bit earlier in startups since they can build closer to the "front" in a city, rather than way off in some castle that's inconvenient for what's supposed to be their staple troop.

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However they HAVE to stick to the same balancing point as everyone else. Namely that cities are big on income but worse at military than castles, whilst castle are low on income but good at military units. Thats one of the most basic mechanics of the game and breaking that breaks the entire game down as it makes castles fairly pointless.

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Two points here: (1) The dilemma is good, but Italians are supposed to sort of short-circuit it to a degree. That's their cultural advantage. They do cities well. But I agree that balance there needs close scrutiny. (2) Maybe the balance between cities and castles should come more from other sources than their build capacity? How about making castles even harder to take than cities? They are somewhat harder now, but not THAT much. Maybe the difference should be emphasized more making castles more important as strategic blocks. That would have the side-effect of making it more difficult for the player to strip the AI's production capability of good units. As it stands now, with your mod I can cripple an enemy by just taking their castles. The cities don't produce much good offensively any more. But the cities are needed to fund the castles, so they too need to be protected, but that should come from those armies the castles maintain.

The player will have an advantage here until the strategic AI improves, of course. Ideally the AIs should have target city/castle rations they strive to maintain. The AI should also look to convert appropriately, preserving the best castles for troop production, but converting others to towns.

I'm dreaming. :yes:

As far as rebel chevrons and morale and all go, I think it's a player-adjustment issue. Stick in the readme, plan on overwhelming force more. The higher victory categories will be a lot harder to achieve. When I hit the next two cities with larger forces, the outcomes were more what I expected, units routed. I think the the battle AI is measuring relative strength in the equation on routing, so a matched force has to work a LOT harder to win. That's as it should be. I got caught by not realizing just how much difference those upgrades meant. :help: AND my troops were a lot lower powered than usual.

I avoid mercs a lot. Especially when money is tight. The jihad/crusade ones are the major exception. So assuming the player will use mercs more than very pickily is probably unsound. In my Iberian play I will grab a few purely to let me wipe out the opposing Catholic faction fast. But with this slower pace, it's easier (and cheaper in the long run, I think, since the saved florins goes into development) to go for bulk over quality. One militia in front, a second into the rear, is quicker and cheaper than an expensive but significantly better merc spear unit. (But therein lies my footslogger complaint!) But I think adjusting the building levels for those signature troops will resolve this.

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Once they do take it Egypt tends to go pretty crazy in my experience, but they do try and fail a lot i find first. And TBH your lucky, I was tempted to buff Jerusalem even more to make it really hard on the first crusade that usually gets sent their.

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Hmm, I sort of think that you should buff up Jerusalem more. Will Egypt pileup there though? Ideally, they would bypass it until later. I think it needs that bulking up against the crusades. :smash: I've never found it an interesting fight. And the crusader can hire more mercs on site, so it's easy to adjust in 1.13 or vanilla. I started crusading with minimal forces to reduce attrition to desertion, since that appears to be proportional to the size. Then I hire up on the final approach when I have better intel. Crusader mercs are cheap. Hasn;t failed me yet. Should be a risky strategy.

It might be a lot of editing, but it might make sense to have some rebels be much harder than others. Most factions have one to four rebel provinces that they always seize immediately. if the first couple were easier but the last one or two were very strong it would provide some advancement early without speeding things up too much. It would also provide an interesting strategic choice about seizing "your own" hard rebels or someone else's easy ones.

In terms of troop production I feel that a faction should be able to get good faction appropriate troops from their starting provinces quite quickly, it should much longer to get them from newly conquered ones.

Being able to get DEKs from a city on the Dalmatian coast that I seized two turns ago is borderline silly. Having to play as the English for quite a few turns before I can turn out longbows anywhere is frustrating.

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Originally Posted by chickenhawk

In terms of troop production I feel that a faction should be able to get good faction appropriate troops from their starting provinces quite quickly, it should much longer to get them from newly conquered ones.

Being able to get DEKs from a city on the Dalmatian coast that I seized two turns ago is borderline silly. Having to play as the English for quite a few turns before I can turn out longbows anywhere is frustrating.

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This is a great point. It argues to put the HA and jinettes (and such) into their own, lower-output buildings alongside the stables (where they are too). Thus unless you're fighting a similar culture from a fighting-style perspective (like Turks fighting Russians or Portuguese fighting Spanish) the buildings you need for your unique troops won't be there. The bullring is one possibility, but the reqs are too high for it to work. Ditto for racetracks.

If a such a building could put out 1 over 2-3 turns, and was buildable very early anywhere, that would create a supply, but still at a separate cost from something useful in its own right like walls.

Maybe a version of the bullring with no happiness boost. Add the boost back in later, and maybe bump production capacity by 1, with an upgrade available at the original level. This way there's a quick and easy source of SOME specialty units early, but the main benefit remains at its original level. Same with racetracks. That already has two levels though, so easier to work with. And the non-HA cultures aren't guaranteed stables in all the captured cities. Instead they get a structure that just doesn't do anything for them... (or does it poof?)


One thing that Lusted did in LTC that I don't think you've looked at, Carl, is boost the movement speed of agents. I think that's a good change, though Lusted may have gone a little too far. (I'm open on that.) As it is it just takes too long to move agents around. Princesses end up in convents before they get to their target! I'd like to see them move about twice as fast as infantry, maybe as cavalry. I'm not sure how fast Lusted's are, but they were a lot more useful.

Alternatively, they could have their own Explorer's Guild traits or ancilliaries that added in this boost, killing two birdies with one slingstone. It would make the EG really useful, and also the agents. Have the trait be universal if the EG exists that does a half boost, and the ancilliary require a visit to an EG city for a turn or two (maybe 50% chance per turn in the city with full MPs).

Faster fleets universally also deserves some consideration. Not a huge difference, but one to shorten sea travel times a bit. On the other hand that would depend on how good the AI is at moving forces amphibiously. It does do it, but not as much as a player would, so it might be stacking the odds against the AI too much.

In terms of tweaking unit production is there someway to tweak things at the beginning so that a faction could get some production of a mid grade signature unit immediately? Maybe some thing attached to the walls only through certain provinces with certain owners? The idea is to get signature armies early without enabling the player to spam the map with them later.


I also strongly agree with Vonsch about agent speeds. The restrictions on armies reflect a lot off issues that do not really affect hour by hour marching speeds, like feeding them. None of this applies to agent, even one with a good sized retinue.

I just had another idea that may or may not be doable. Since you are emphasizing the Chivalry/Dread of your generals it would make sense to give the option for players to select a higher movement speed for their armies at the price of increasing the general's dread. This would reflect the stripping of the countryside for supplies. the peasants certainly dreaded that.:sweatdrop:

If the engine won't let you do that( a forced march option would be nice too) maybe you could tie an armies movement speed to the Chiv/Dread score. it would increase the tension of chosing considerably.:inquisitive:

:wall: The awfulness of my typing is exceeded only by my excuse for editing.

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Not sure this is the right answer. The flow of replacements is what puts a control on how mercilessly you abuse your own troops. I prefer being encouraged to win in a fashion that preserves the maximum in troops on my side. If replacements are bottomless, that's a negative incentive to good behavior. Is there a variable to determine the relative replacement cost, by chance? Something like 50% or 33% might be better. That way you can build fewer new units than you can replenish hardened ones, which encourages better player behavior as CiC.

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I altered the recruitment slots more to encourage the use of castle units, and changed retrain to make it possible to use large amounts of mercs if your so inclined. Right now it's nigh on impossibbile to retrain more than a couple of units of mercs at once in vanilla. The effects do carry over to ordinary units but it's my experience that the number of recruitment slots is a much bigger limitation on retraining than anything else. S you still have to be careful with your units. It also still costs you money to retrain a unit, it's not free.

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I think moving the stables down a level for the HA and jinette cultures (and others may pop up that I don't know of) might be all that's needed. Or maybe let the cities build the lowest level of stable too (as they can churches?) That might be a better solution still. If they can build one (maybe two) levels of stable in cities, they still have to build the thing separately from walls, they do get those troops anywhere they like (but not the end troops in the stable line) as it appears CA intends (and makes sense historically) and they get them a bit earlier in startups since they can build closer to the "front" in a city, rather than way off in some castle that's inconvenient for what's supposed to be their staple troop.

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I'll try moving the stables down but I'd prefer to keep them out of cities if possible at all. On the other hand their are a lot of villages around that I could turn into lowest level castles in Descr_Strat. That should help matters rather a lot as their will be more castles for both AI and player alike to play with.

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Two points here: (1) The dilemma is good, but Italians are supposed to sort of short-circuit it to a degree. That's their cultural advantage. They do cities well. But I agree that balance there needs close scrutiny. (2) Maybe the balance between cities and castles should come more from other sources than their build capacity? How about making castles even harder to take than cities? They are somewhat harder now, but not THAT much. Maybe the difference should be emphasized more making castles more important as strategic blocks. That would have the side-effect of making it more difficult for the player to strip the AI's production capability of good units. As it stands now, with your mod I can cripple an enemy by just taking their castles. The cities don't produce much good offensively any more. But the cities are needed to fund the castles, so they too need to be protected, but that should come from those armies the castles maintain.

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(1.): I partially agree here, they do mostly short-circuit it by having decent quality city troops that they can actually use in Field battles without being totally outclassed. But they still have better castle level troops, the disparity just isn't as large as other faction. So yes they should have a lower reliance on castles, but they should still need them too and prefer the castle troops over the city ones. Even players agree that most Italian castle infantry and foot archers aren't worth it as the city equivalents do everything they do but rather cheaper and only very fractionally worse.

(2): Possibly, but that would be hard to set up and would have no effect on AI vs. AI fights till the auto-resolve issue is dealt with. On the other hand it IS a good idea IMHO. If I can figure out a way to implement it all the better.

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The player will have an advantage here until the strategic AI improves, of course. Ideally the AIs should have target city/castle rations they strive to maintain. The AI should also look to convert appropriately, preserving the best castles for troop production, but converting others to towns.

I'm dreaming.

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Yeah, if the AI would actually switch between castles and towns it would be so much better IMHO.

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As far as rebel chevrons and morale and all go, I think it's a player-adjustment issue. Stick in the readme, plan on overwhelming force more. The higher victory categories will be a lot harder to achieve. When I hit the next two cities with larger forces, the outcomes were more what I expected, units routed. I think the the battle AI is measuring relative strength in the equation on routing, so a matched force has to work a LOT harder to win. That's as it should be. I got caught by not realizing just how much difference those upgrades meant. AND my troops were a lot lower powered than usual.

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Glad to hear it isn't such an issue any more, you had me worried for a while. And outnumbering your opponent overall inflicts a morale penalty I think, add in having unit around behind them and at the sides and thats -2 more, also add on actually fighting outnumbered, and fighting with units in your flank rear and thats another -3 i think. maybe another -1/-2 if losing. Pretty easy to break at that point.

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I avoid mercs a lot. Especially when money is tight. The jihad/crusade ones are the major exception. So assuming the player will use mercs more than very pickily is probably unsound. In my Iberian play I will grab a few purely to let me wipe out the opposing Catholic faction fast. But with this slower pace, it's easier (and cheaper in the long run, I think, since the saved florins goes into development) to go for bulk over quality. One militia in front, a second into the rear, is quicker and cheaper than an expensive but significantly better merc spear unit. (But therein lies my footslogger complaint!) But I think adjusting the building levels for those signature troops will resolve this.

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I was just pointing out I use them a lot.

Also, remember that Merc spears can typically take a good solid formed charge from almost anything of feudal knight level or below so they have their uses over militia, thats also another reason I reduced the number of militia late on. Many late units are as expensive as you can allow early on, but are too cheap for their cost late on. Yet elites should be expensive so that as the game, (and your income), progress you don't end up with overwhelming numbers of troops running round. In effect the quality of your armies improves, and the amount of income improves, but the total size of your army doesn't.

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Hmm, I sort of think that you should buff up Jerusalem more. Will Egypt pileup there though? Ideally, they would bypass it until later. I think it needs that bulking up against the crusades. I've never found it an interesting fight. And the crusader can hire more mercs on site, so it's easy to adjust in 1.13 or vanilla. I started crusading with minimal forces to reduce attrition to desertion, since that appears to be proportional to the size. Then I hire up on the final approach when I have better intel. Crusader mercs are cheap. Hasn;t failed me yet. Should be a risky strategy.

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Glad you like it.

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It might be a lot of editing, but it might make sense to have some rebels be much harder than others. Most factions have one to four rebel provinces that they always seize immediately. if the first couple were easier but the last one or two were very strong it would provide some advancement early without speeding things up too much. It would also provide an interesting strategic choice about seizing "your own" hard rebels or someone else's easy ones.

In terms of troop production I feel that a faction should be able to get good faction appropriate troops from their starting provinces quite quickly, it should much longer to get them from newly conquered ones.

Being able to get DEKs from a city on the Dalmatian coast that I seized two turns ago is borderline silly. Having to play as the English for quite a few turns before I can turn out longbows anywhere is frustrating.

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Theirs only so much i can d about the troops turning up Ellary, their just isn't any files I can edit to get rid of them for a while in some provinces.

On the other hand I agree it's frustrating to wait on longbows in your own provinces so much.

Having Hard and easy rebels would be interesting, but would take some working out. All castles are Hard by default for example.

Any further elaboration on who you think should be hard and who should be easy?

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This is a great point. It argues to put the HA and jinettes (and such) into their own, lower-output buildings alongside the stables (where they are too). Thus unless you're fighting a similar culture from a fighting-style perspective (like Turks fighting Russians or Portuguese fighting Spanish) the buildings you need for your unique troops won't be there. The bullring is one possibility, but the reqs are too high for it to work. Ditto for racetracks.

If a such a building could put out 1 over 2-3 turns, and was buildable very early anywhere, that would create a supply, but still at a separate cost from something useful in its own right like walls.

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Interesting idea, I'd still like to limit pro troops to castles as much as possible, although adding a small pool to some cities may work.

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Maybe a version of the bullring with no happiness boost. Add the boost back in later, and maybe bump production capacity by 1, with an upgrade available at the original level. This way there's a quick and easy source of SOME specialty units early, but the main benefit remains at its original level. Same with racetracks. That already has two levels though, so easier to work with. And the non-HA cultures aren't guaranteed stables in all the captured cities. Instead they get a structure that just doesn't do anything for them... (or does it poof?)

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It would stick around, but interesting idea...~:).

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In terms of tweaking unit production is there someway to tweak things at the beginning so that a faction could get some production of a mid grade signature unit immediately? Maybe some thing attached to the walls only through certain provinces with certain owners? The idea is to get signature armies early without enabling the player to spam the map with them later.

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This might be possible, although I'd have to create a lot of unique resources and I'd still want to keep it low pool size so that you still need the proper buildings at home.

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also strongly agree with Vonsch about agent speeds. The restrictions on armies reflect a lot off issues that do not really affect hour by hour marching speeds, like feeding them. None of this applies to agent, even one with a good sized retinue.

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I missed that line~:O. Good idea as I find many agents FAR too slow.

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I just had another idea that may or may not be doable. Since you are emphasizing the Chivalry/Dread of your generals it would make sense to give the option for players to select a higher movement speed for their armies at the price of increasing the general's dread. This would reflect the stripping of the countryside for supplies. the peasants certainly dreaded that.

If the engine won't let you do that( a forced march option would be nice too) maybe you could tie an armies movement speed to the Chiv/Dread score. it would increase the tension of choosing considerably.

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It would be do-able, but in a roundabout way. I LOVE the idea myself as it would really throw up a load of interesting mechanics.

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The awfulness of my typing is exceeded only by my excuse for editing.

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LOL, join the club:laugh4:.

FileFront is back up guys so you can download it now if you haven't already got it.

Could you start numbering versions of the BETA so i know when to reload?
:idea2:

Yeah i will. Where still on V1.20 BETA ATM, but i'm gonna start updating soon. May be a while before I put everything in as traits are the devil to code without errors.

You fix the problem you where having?

Hasn't recurred in the few turns I have played today, I am going to be very time limited until Monday unless plans change. Don't think that I have disappeared.

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Hasn't recurred in the few turns I have played today, I am going to be very time limited until Monday unless plans change. Don't think that I have disappeared.

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You warned me about that so your okay. Anyone else downloaded it yet?

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I altered the recruitment slots more to encourage the use of castle units, and changed retrain to make it possible to use large amounts of mercs if your so inclined. Right now it's nigh on impossibbile to retrain more than a couple of units of mercs at once in vanilla. The effects do carry over to ordinary units but it's my experience that the number of recruitment slots is a much bigger limitation on retraining than anything else. S you still have to be careful with your units. It also still costs you money to retrain a unit, it's not free.

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I don't find this the case. But I micro manage my units. I combine them in such a way to create as many full-strength units as possible without eliminating any units. That way I keep my cadre intact, preserving their experience. Then I use replacements to replenish the severely depleted cadre. This means I need a couple slots per unit type at most. Usually just one will do it, unless I'm severely mauled. (Which may happen more now, true!)

But I agree with the shift of them from cities to castles. And not enough play time to decide if there are too many in castles now. I do FEEL like there are too many free upkeep slots though. Those help the player more than the AI, I suspect. So far (it's early though) I am not seeing any significant jump in garrisons at AI behind-the-lines cities/castles. I AM seeing my garrisons increase in size though. :2thumbsup:

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I just had another idea that may or may not be doable. Since you are emphasizing the Chivalry/Dread of your generals it would make sense to give the option for players to select a higher movement speed for their armies at the price of increasing the general's dread. This would reflect the stripping of the countryside for supplies. the peasants certainly dreaded that.

If the engine won't let you do that( a forced march option would be nice too) maybe you could tie an armies movement speed to the Chiv/Dread score. it would increase the tension of choosing considerably.

It would be do-able, but in a roundabout way. I LOVE the idea myself as it would really throw up a load of interesting mechanics.

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Ancilliaries. Maybe a forced march ancilliary that really boosts movement speed, but also boosts dread. The drillmaster trait sort of fits this idea already. A trait could do it also, and might be a better solution mechanically... depending on the goal. An ancilliary could be transferable, which has benefits and disadvantages (from balance standpoints); a trait is more fixed. Then there's the question of how to acquire either in the first place. I'm against having it appear if you use all movement points like the logistics traits. Efficiency is good. Overextension is another matter. That means it probably needs a building trigger of some sort. Or maybe having a high dread FL would increase the chance that any dreadful general might pick up the trait or ancilliary. If you want to avoid it in your generals, avoid dreadful behavior.

Maybe have the first level not inspire more dread, but +1 at second, and +3 at third (where they are assumed to practice scortched-earth maneuvers!)

You could also have an anti version. If the FL is chivarous above a certain level (5 or so) his generals have a chance at this "be nice to peasants" ancilliary that drops MPs an amount (a lesser amount, but enough to put him at a slight disadvantage strategically) and increases their piety.

Thus the dread version would mean better generals (more maneuvering) and the chivarous version would mean better governors, but slower maneuvering. The former is more expansive, or combative; the latter is more settled.

But as ancialliaries, while you could swap them around, you are stuch with them in the bigger picture until you can manage to "lose" them. Get too many and you are forced into a role. But choices on how to play are probably the best way to determine the role you chose. Dread should breed more dread, and virtue more virtue (we wish!)

At the same time, I suggest the no-going back (if one exists at all) should be high, maybe 3rd tier. Should allow the player to change styles, with effort. New FL, new govermental style... once he cleans out the bureaucracy.

If it were to be building-based, the Explorers Guild would be a good choice too. But I sort of like the idea of ancilliaries. Is it possible to "upgrade" ancilliaries like traits? Could we check the existence of an ancilliary as a precondition to further tests, then, assuming "success," delete the existing one and add a newer, better one?

If not, traits would be the way to go... though a single version of a pro and con ancilliary might also stack (and allow some transferability, without making it a very powerful swap). The interpid explorer is the general type, except it would have balancing side-effects to the movement boost. Leave the explorer as is for an EG benefit though. That guild needs the help.

Okay, I've played one whole turn. Let me stop spouting ideas and criticism and play a bit more. :whip:

All right a quick ideas list of things to change:

Hopefully done for V1.21 BETA:

1. Move the stables line down a level in terms of settlement size required for each level.

2. Edit Descr_Start so that as many settlements as possible start with some form of barracks/stables/archery range. Not to be applied to rebel owned settlements however.

3. Fix starting Imam Piety.

4. Fix Castle Free upkeep slots being missing.

5. Fix some replenish rate errors in Descr_Buildings.

6. Reduce heretic power slightly.

7. Increase agent movement rates.

8. Move Broken Lancers/Dismounted Broken Lancers back into Milan. Looking at things I did it because the dismounted version is identical to the Dismounted Italian MAA, and the mounted version nearly identical to Mailed Knights. I can swap that around no problems.

9. Buff Jerusalem defenses.

10. Fix merchant acquisition to something where they can acquire anything.

11. Reduce Free Upkeep slots at cities as their are too many ATM.

To be added eventually, time permitting:

1. Hidden Traits to reduce/increase the movement rates of Chivalrous/Dreadful Generals somewhat.

2. Look into making castles tougher targets to take.

3. Look into possibly adding a unique building to the HA reliant factions if the Stables changes prove insufficient.

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I don't find this the case. But I micro manage my units. I combine them in such a way to create as many full-strength units as possible without eliminating any units. That way I keep my cadre intact, preserving their experience. Then I use replacements to replenish the severely depleted cadre. This means I need a couple slots per unit type at most. Usually just one will do it, unless I'm severely mauled. (Which may happen more now, true!)

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I'm pretty poor at fighting battles and often have to replenish 2 or 3 units at once TBH. Plus it helps the AI rebuild faster after a defeat.

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But I agree with the shift of them from cities to castles. And not enough play time to decide if there are too many in castles now. I do FEEL like there are too many free upkeep slots though. Those help the player more than the AI, I suspect. So far (it's early though) I am not seeing any significant jump in garrisons at AI behind-the-lines cities/castles. I AM seeing my garrisons increase in size though.

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I'm beginning to agree about the free upkeep slots. Too many IMHO.

The reason for poor behind the lines defenses is because I've set the AI to concentrate it's forces on the borders, this gets the attacking force up high enough for the AI to attack you faster and means that you face significant opposition now. The only way to get it to put troops behind the lines if with the "defend_deep" parameter which was what was being used before and it resulted in the defense being too weak on the border and never strong enough to beat anyone off.

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Ancillaries. Maybe a forced march ancillary that really boosts movement speed, but also boosts dread. The drillmaster trait sort of fits this idea already. A trait could do it also, and might be a better solution mechanically... depending on the goal. An ancillary could be transferable, which has benefits and disadvantages (from balance standpoints); a trait is more fixed. Then there's the question of how to acquire either in the first place. I'm against having it appear if you use all movement points like the logistics traits. Efficiency is good. Overextension is another matter. That means it probably needs a building trigger of some sort. Or maybe having a high dread FL would increase the chance that any dreadful general might pick up the trait or ancillary. If you want to avoid it in your generals, avoid dreadful behavior.

Maybe have the first level not inspire more dread, but +1 at second, and +3 at third (where they are assumed to practice scorched-earth maneuvers!)

You could also have an anti version. If the FL is chivalrous above a certain level (5 or so) his generals have a chance at this "be nice to peasants" ancillary that drops MPs an amount (a lesser amount, but enough to put him at a slight disadvantage strategically) and increases their piety.

Thus the dread version would mean better generals (more maneuvering) and the chivalrous version would mean better governors, but slower maneuvering. The former is more expansive, or combative; the latter is more settled.

But as ancillaries, while you could swap them around, you are such with them in the bigger picture until you can manage to "lose" them. Get too many and you are forced into a role. But choices on how to play are probably the best way to determine the role you chose. Dread should breed more dread, and virtue more virtue (we wish!)

At the same time, I suggest the no-going back (if one exists at all) should be high, maybe 3rd tier. Should allow the player to change styles, with effort. New FL, new governmental style... once he cleans out the bureaucracy.

If it were to be building-based, the Explorers Guild would be a good choice too. But I sort of like the idea of ancillaries. Is it possible to "upgrade" ancillaries like traits? Could we check the existence of an ancillary as a precondition to further tests, then, assuming "success," delete the existing one and add a newer, better one?

If not, traits would be the way to go... though a single version of a pro and con ancillary might also stack (and allow some transferability, without making it a very powerful swap). The intrepid explorer is the general type, except it would have balancing side-effects to the movement boost. Leave the explorer as is for an EG benefit though. That guild needs the help.

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Hidden trait would be best IMHO. I intend to set it up like Honest/Dishonest ruler except it uses Chivalry/dread instead of reputation.

p.s. Explorers guilds gives trade improvements and a Hidden traits that give +25% movement to everything (ships, agents, generals, the works) at basic level, +50% at Master level and +100% (or crusade movement) at HQ level and it stacks with other bonuses and Crusades:laugh4:.

Heh, okay, Battle of Aleppo. This is different (for me). I have 726 men and a 3 star general against no general rebels, 353 of them. The power meter is at a hair more blue, I hesitate to say 11-9, more like 21-19. Gonna be a challenge. They are sallying, so no setup for me.

I have about a 3/4 stack, mostly starter HA (9) and militia spears (3). A couple Turk archers. And general. My aim is to do the job with missiles. Let's see if it works.

It's a mix of arab cav, archers, militia, I think two of each. But upgraded.

Heh, I royally screw up my setup. But pulled it out. I misclicked my spears way out of position and didn't notice until late. Darned swarming HA! The stragglers are hanging in to fight to the death again. It must be the close odds that don't give the extra boost that superiority does. Those tower arrows DO hurt. I paid attention this time. If you're fighting a sally, you want to stay well back from the towers. Slows everything down since it takes those early routers longer to come back that far. But I do have the choice to chase them if I want to accept the losses. Two of my three spear units routed off the map. One HA broke under tower missile fire (behind the enemy, so exposed morale drop too), but rallied behind my lines.

I think the towers' range is too great. They are a meatgrinder, that should apply when in fairly close, not what appears visually to be twice arrow range. Give them arrow + 20% range. Their ROF is plenty high to hurt badly when in close.

Shoot, looks like I'll have to run out the timer. They are down to a couple men and those guys are standing the the square and I can't enter the gate. I think one thing you've achieved is making me use seige engines. :yes: I can use HA to start the seige, then bring in the slowpokes. That way I can destroy the gates even in this situation where a sally will start the battle. Even at 3x time it takes forever to time out.

Okay, it rated a draw (of course, since I played the timer...starved them all!) I lost 310, they lost 347. But I screwed up badly. Most of those are militia spears that routed. A lot more are from wall arrows. Bodyguard got 2 chevvies. I think the lower exp is simply dilution. I'm using a lot more units, and the casualties they inflict are thus more spread out. And the enemy is higher quality, so there are fewer.

Hmm, I'm getting the chance to ransom rebels! Wonder if they'll pay. Nope. never seen those pop up before. Saw one the other direction too. Something has changed. mixed feelings on it. If they accept ransom, that's good. Not sure they sure pay ransom though. They aren't a "faction" in the same sense.

Okay, autoresolve from quicksave for kicks: Crushing defeat. 368 vs 38 dead.
Second try: Same (it's not so random!)
Third try: Same again. Let me try once more doing something else first. May be using a seed for RNG that's producing identical numbers. This would explain skewing of reports on agent mission success too.
Fourth try: (did a spy mission and shuffled some imams a few steps) 357-41, Clear defeat.
Fifth try: (same quicksave as last to test seed hypothesis) Hmm, nope. 350-40. Clear defeat. Odd that streak of three. Unless it's save in the qs... first time I saved then clicked end turn. Maybe I need to do ql first to get the static seed.
Sixth try: Yep! 350-40 again. So it's the load that's forcing the identical result. Let me load-save-load and see... maybe that will set the seed to a new one.
Seventh try: Yep, it's the save process that sets it. Load retrieves the set value. Draw, 366-181 that time. So took city with autoresolve. My first outcome still slightly better. Good.

This big difference in autoresolve must be the walls, partly. And maybe the AI assumes I am still attacking the city rather than waiting outside for the sally.

:egypt: Learned: Loading saves will always produce the same result if you take the same action immediately (hit game end, in this case, which produces the sally). That can skew testing. But it's set with the save. So you can save, load, test, then load, save, load, test, again load, save, load, test, etc.

Now to do it one more time myself, without major screwups (I hope).

Report in a bit.

Better. Still had to wait out the timer. 255-320

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Hidden trait would be best IMHO. I intend to set it up like Honest/Dishonest ruler except it uses Chivalry/dread instead of reputation.

p.s. Explorers guilds gives trade improvements and a Hidden traits that give +25% movement to everything (ships, agents, generals, the works) at basic level, +50% at Master level and +100% (or crusade movement) at HQ level and it stacks with other bonuses and Crusades.

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Heh, I HATE hidden traits. Why not just show them?

But those EG traits are good. Maybe too good, since they stack with others. Maybe 10-25-50.

Hmm, can the HBG give a movement bonus like that to cav? But more modest yet? Like 5-10-15? In my saved 1.13 I finally got the guild but haven't really tested it yet. But a simple exp upgrade of one chev (and I'm unsure how it stacks) isn't a lot considering how tough it is to get. Not even easy for Turks, though a lot easier than for Western civs. Your changes may actually help with that though. If we start with more castles, and have incentive to keep some as castles a while before swapping them into cities, some will have built a lot of cav and be poised to get a guild once converted.


Okay, it's turn 17 and Iconium is at 85% heretic. It was below 10% at game start. It's one heretic. They are WAY overpowered. He's rated 4 and he was my Imam until at least turn 4. A wandering random spawn has Tbilisi at 49% and Yerevan at 45% (3 rating now on that one). Yerevan has a small masjid too. At this rate jihads will be out of the question this game. That's such a large problem I'm not sure it's worth continuing.

Rebels spawn feels pretty agressive too, and they are harder to deal with since so much more force is required to tackle settlements. At least they have no exp chevvies.

No AI merchants in sight so far. See a couple priests and imams though. Probably more heretics in the making. Nicaea is at 68% too, and the Bizzy priest is there. He's rated 1. Another heretic soon. The Eggy imam is a 4, and at Jerusalem which is only 9% heretic. With luck he'll help keep that area pure. I have 2 1s and a 2 at Edessa, which is 76% Islam and 0% heretic, trying to train them, but no increases so far.

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Heh, I HATE hidden traits. Why not just show them?

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Because theirs a limit on the number of visible traits you can have I'm afraid~:(.

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Hmm, can the HBG give a movement bonus like that to Cav? But more modest yet? Like 5-10-15? In my saved 1.13 I finally got the guild but haven't really tested it yet. But a simple exp upgrade of one chev (and I'm unsure how it stacks) isn't a lot considering how tough it is to get. Not even easy for Turks, though a lot easier than for Western civs. Your changes may actually help with that though. If we start with more castles, and have incentive to keep some as castles a while before swapping them into cities, some will have built a lot of Cav and be poised to get a guild once converted.

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True enough about the guild, i think it's the Master/HQ levels that are the biggies as they give such huge global bonuses.

I can't create a Cav specific movement bonus I'm afraid, the way you give them it's an all or nothing thing and you can only give traits to generals, agents and admirals~:(.

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Heh, Okay, Battle of Aleppo. This is different (for me). I have 726 men and a 3 star general against no general rebels, 353 of them. The power meter is at a hair more blue, I hesitate to say 11-9, more like 21-19. Gonna be a challenge. They are sallying, so no setup for me.

I have about a 3/4 stack, mostly starter HA (9) and militia spears (3). A couple Turk archers. And general. My aim is to do the job with missiles. Let's see if it works.

It's a mix of Arab Cav, archers, militia, I think two of each. But upgraded.

Heh, I royally screw up my setup. But pulled it out. I misclicked my spears way out of position and didn't notice until late. Darned swarming HA! The stragglers are hanging in to fight to the death again. It must be the close odds that don't give the extra boost that superiority does. Those tower arrows DO hurt. I paid attention this time. If you're fighting a sally, you want to stay well back from the towers. Slows everything down since it takes those early routers longer to come back that far. But I do have the choice to chase them if I want to accept the losses. Two of my three spear units routed off the map. One HA broke under tower missile fire (behind the enemy, so exposed morale drop too), but rallied behind my lines.

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Sounds like you had fun LOL:laugh4:, (was it actually a fun challenge, or just frustrating?). Sounds like you had a lot of work to do too, and found out about the towers the hard way:smash:.

Quote:

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I think the towers' range is too great. They are a meat-grinder, that should apply when in fairly close, not what appears visually to be twice arrow range. Give them arrow + 20% range. Their ROF is plenty high to hurt badly when in close.

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that would actually be 192 which is longer than their current range. they currently have 180 which is the same as muskets and 12.5% longer than standard long range archers.

Whats catching you out is that in vanilla they only had 120 range, so they seem a LOT longer than before (well they are), but they aren't that exceptional compared to hand held missile units. Deployment distances are rather lower in sieges than in Field battles too, that will effect your perceptions.

Quote:

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Shoot, looks like I'll have to run out the timer. They are down to a couple men and those guys are standing the the square and I can't enter the gate. I think one thing you've achieved is making me use siege engines. I can use HA to start the siege, then bring in the slowpokes. That way I can destroy the gates even in this situation where a sally will start the battle. Even at 3x time it takes forever to time out.

Okay, it rated a draw (of course, since I played the timer...starved them all!) I lost 310, they lost 347. But I screwed up badly. Most of those are militia spears that routed. A lot more are from wall arrows. Bodyguard got 2 chevvies. I think the lower exp is simply dilution. I'm using a lot more units, and the casualties they inflict are thus more spread out. And the enemy is higher quality, so there are fewer.

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Interesting on how you'll be changing your siege style, thats kinda what i hoped for as (especially late on), the Islamic factions actually get some of the best infantry in the game and I'd like to see it used. Before sieges where so easy for HA, (if you knew what you where doing), that their was no need for infantry. I actually wanted to make infantry a near necessity in sieges. You can get by without them but it will cost you more and be a lot more difficult. Especially once cannon towers show up.

Your probably right on the experience too as I don't think it takes into account enemy experience and upgrades either like it should.

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Hmm, I'm getting the chance to ransom rebels! Wonder if they'll pay. Nope. never seen those pop up before. Saw one the other direction too. Something has changed. mixed feelings on it. If they accept ransom, that's good. Not sure they sure pay ransom though. They aren't a "faction" in the same sense.

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Thats one of the many Little campaign tweaks. Can't see why you shouldn't be allowed to release/execute/ransom them. Also bear in mind that every time a ransom is refused you take a rep hit.

Quote:

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Okay, auto-resolve from quick-save for kicks: Crushing defeat. 368 vs 38 dead.
Second try: Same (it's not so random!)
Third try: Same again. Let me try once more doing something else first. May be using a seed for RNG that's producing identical numbers. This would explain skewing of reports on agent mission success too.
Fourth try: (did a spy mission and shuffled some imams a few steps) 357-41, Clear defeat.
Fifth try: (same quicksave as last to test seed hypothesis) Hmm, nope. 350-40. Clear defeat. Odd that streak of three. Unless it's save in the qs... first time I saved then clicked end turn. Maybe I need to do ql first to get the static seed.
Sixth try: Yep! 350-40 again. So it's the load that's forcing the identical result. Let me load-save-load and see... maybe that will set the seed to a new one.
Seventh try: Yep, it's the save process that sets it. Load retrieves the set value. Draw, 366-181 that time. So took city with autoresolve. My first outcome still slightly better. Good.

This big difference in auto-resolve must be the walls, partly. And maybe the AI assumes I am still attacking the city rather than waiting outside for the sally.

Learned: Loading saves will always produce the same result if you take the same action immediately (hit game end, in this case, which produces the sally). That can skew testing. But it's set with the save. So you can save, load, test, then load, save, load, test, again load, save, load, test, etc.

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Actually the auto-resolve seems to treat all towers as inactive, but it is pretty much impossibbile to take the walls and for some reason if you are fighting an auto-resolve the engine assumes you can reach the walls. Fighting on walls even without towers is very bloody, and against such good enemy troops, nearly suicidal.

Quote:

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Now to do it one more time myself, without major screwups (I hope).

Report in a bit.

Better. Still had to wait out the timer. 255-320

---

Glad to hear it went better.

p.s. be aware that Ballista towers have 240 range and it's 600 for cannons, (just enough for 1 or 2 towers to reach any spot on the map no matter what), so it's only going to get worse :evillaugh4:.

Quote:

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Quote:
Heh, I HATE hidden traits. Why not just show them?

Because theirs a limit on the number of visible traits you can have I'm afraid.

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Oops, good reason.


What files is it to adjust the heretic rate? I'll restart as Egypt with it tweaked down and see how that looks.


Hmm, maybe the shorter arrow tower range in vanilla is right then. It just feels too long in seiges. The enemy archers standing well outside their gate have a much shorter range. And the ROF of towers is quite high now (not complaining about that, just that when combined with the longer range it's harsh.)

And as far as ballistae and cannons go, well, those ARE artillery and they do have advantages of fixed positions. Archers in towers are still archers, even if they have elevation. They also have limited fields of vision, typically, by the nature of the structure.

Was afraid there wouldn't be a way to boost a class of units' movement, but would have been nice. The base HBG "advantage" isn't one. Not with your changes. Can't build any cav at all in cities except the merchant guild cav. Maybe we should just put the thing in castles? It would make it useful. Or maybe this:

Make it buildable in BOTH cities and castles, but make it only upgradable in cities beyond level 1. That makes it usable, but still keeps the higher level global bonuses more challenging to achieve. Those are the powerful ones. That gives the Islamic cultures a slight bonus with there racetracks still too, since building those helps with getting HBG. They are clearly meant to get that bonus. It also adds a bit more to your drive to encourage more castle-usage.

As far as seiges go, I've always been a wimp. I hate playing them out :P. I usually use maneuver to remove the need. But that won't work with rebels. Now, unless the AI is a lot smarter, I won't be beseiging many faction-owned cities or castles that have more than a defender or two. I typically catch them when they are vulnerable, grab the city/castle, THEN crush the silly army "protecting" it that got suckered out. I took Constantinople this way in 1.13. The AI moved an army next to it, I dashed in with an HA army, engaged the outside army and pulled the garrison. All died. I walked in. (Hey, I read Sun Tsu!) Took Nicaea the same way earlier. Silly Bizzies. I don't see a way around this tactic either. But it does require player patience and good intel work. Or really good baiting. :P

But this is not late game play (what's that?) It's something more doable in the early to mid game. In late game play I'm sure you'll see your wish of lots of blood and infantry deaths. It's much harder to "steal" cities when there are 4-5 armies prowling nearby.


But will rebels ever pay ransom? They usually are rated as pretty wealthy, but I'm 0 for 2. And I was assuming a rep hit was possible. There's no downside in releasing them, as it stands. No rep hit, and they just poof. Now if they became free bandits...

And there should be no rep hit for executing rebels IMO. That is expected. They ARE rebels, no? But allowing them to ransom YOUR soldiers makes sense.


I don't mind the autoresolve results for seiges, however they are arrived at. If I use that in a seige, I DO have overwhelming force normally, and am prepared to absorb whatever losses result.

Quote:

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Oops, good reason.

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:yes:

Quote:

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What files is it to adjust the heretic rate? I'll restart as Egypt with it tweaked down and see how that looks.

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Descr_Campaign_db

copy the following in over the top of the existing one. You'll need to use "open with" and open it with notepad, it opens it in IE by default.:

Code:

---

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <recruitment>
      <recruitment_slots uint="1"/>
      <retraining_slots uint="0"/>
      <deplenish_pools_with_caps bool="false"/>
      <clear_pools_with_caps bool="false"/>
      <add_initial_with_caps bool="true"/>
      <add_disband_no_caps bool="true"/>
      <force_clamp_to_max bool="false"/>
      <deplenish_multiplier float="0.9"/>
      <deplenish_offset float="-0.2"/>
      <percentage_pool_reduction_lost uint="10"/>
      <percentage_pool_reduction_occupy uint="20"/>
      <percentage_pool_reduction_sack uint="45"/>
      <percentage_pool_reduction_exterminate uint="100"/>
      <max_agents_per_turn uint="2"/>
  </recruitment>
  <religion>
      <max_witches_per_region uint="1"/>
      <max_witches uint="800"/>
      <max_heretics_per_region uint="1"/>
      <max_heretics uint="800"/>
      <max_heretics_conversion_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <max_inquisitors_per_region uint="1"/>
      <max_inquisitors uint="5"/>
      <heretic_conversion_rate_modifier float="0.05"/>
      <heretic_conversion_rate_offset float="0.025"/>
      <witch_conversion_rate_modifier float="0.04"/>
      <witch_conversion_rate_offset float="0.025"/>
      <inquisitor_conversion_rate_modifier float="0.010"/>
      <inquisitor_conversion_rate_offset float="0.04"/>
      <priest_conversion_rate_modifier float="0.004"/>
      <priest_conversion_rate_offset float="0.015"/>
      <witch_creation_modifier float="0.0"/>
      <heretic_creation_modifier float="0.1"/>
      <inquisitor_creation_modifier float="50.0"/>
      <min_cardinal_piety uint="5"/>
      <convert_to_heretic_base_modifier float="5.0"/>
      <convert_to_heretic_unorthodox_modifier float="0.4"/>
  </religion>
  <bribery>
      <bribe_to_family_tree bool="false"/>
      <base_character_chance float="8.0"/>
      <religion_modifier float="0.66"/>
      <combined_attribute_modifier float="0.2"/>
      <briber_attribute_divisor float="3.0"/>
      <bribee_attribute_divisor float="3.0"/>
      <army_size_modifier float="0.035"/>
      <base_settlement_chance float="2.0"/>
      <settlement_loyalty_modifier float="0.01"/>
      <settlement_population_modifier float="0.0001"/>
      <faction_standing_divisor float="10.0"/>
      <max_bribe_chance float="100.0"/>
      <min_bribe_chance float="5.0"/>
      <bribe_chance_modifier float="1.0"/>
  </bribery>
  <family_tree>
      <max_age uint="90"/>
      <max_age_for_marriage_for_male uint="75"/>
      <max_age_for_marriage_for_female uint="40"/>
      <max_age_before_death uint="105"/>
      <max_age_of_child uint="10"/>
      <old_age uint="60"/>
      <age_of_manhood uint="16"/>
      <daughters_age_of_consent uint="16"/>
      <daughters_retirement_age uint="40"/>
      <age_difference_min int="-10"/>
      <age_difference_max int="30"/>
      <parent_to_child_min_age_diff uint="12"/>
      <min_adoption_age uint="20"/>
      <max_adoption_age uint="30"/>
      <max_age_for_conception uint="50"/>
      <age_of_manhood_close uint="14"/>
      <max_number_of_children uint="4"/>
  </family_tree>
  <diplomacy>
      <max_diplomacy_items uint="8"/>
  </diplomacy>
  <missions>
      <null_mission_score float="25.0"/>
  </missions>
  <display>
      <character_selection_radius float="0.3"/>
      <character_selection_height float="1.3"/>
      <character_selection_height_crouching float="1.0"/>
      <diplomacy_scroll_height uint="768"/>
      <recruitment_sort_simple bool="false"/>
      <faction_standing_min float="-1.0"/>
      <faction_standing_max float="1.0"/>
      <use_orig_rebel_faction_models bool="true"/>
      <keep_original_heretic_portraits bool=false/>
      <alt_sett_order_colours bool=false/>
  </display>
  <ransom>
      <captor_release_chance_base float="50.0"/>
      <captor_release_chance_chiv_mod float="12.0"/>
      <captor_ransom_chance_base float="60.0"/>
      <captor_ransom_chance_chiv_mod float="-5.0"/>
      <captor_ransom_chance_tm_mod float="10.0"/>
      <captive_ransom_chance_base float="40.0"/>
      <captive_ransom_chance_chiv_mod float="6.67"/>
      <captive_ransom_chance_tm_mod float="-10.0"/>
      <captive_ransom_chance_msm_mod float="10.0"/>
      <captive_ransom_for_slave bool="true"/>
  </ransom>
  <autoresolve>
      <min_capture_percent float="35.0"/>
      <max_capture_percent float="90.0"/>
      <lopsided_thresh float="1.5"/>
      <lopsided_hn_mod float="3.0"/>
      <separation_missile_add uint="1"/>
      <naval_sink_modifier float="1.5"/>
      <naval_sink_offset float="15.0"/>
      <naval_sink_max float="80.0"/>
  </autoresolve>
  <settlement>
      <sack_money_modifier float="0.1"/>
      <exterminate_money_modifier float="0.2"/>
      <chiv_spf_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <chiv_sof_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <dread_sof_modifier float="-1.0"/>
      <piety_cor_sif_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <piety_admin_sif_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <port_to_port_mp_min float="100.0"/>
      <heresy_unrest_modifier float="30.0"/>
      <religion_unrest_modifier float="20.0"/>
      <siege_gear_required_for_city_level string="huge_city"/>
      <siege_gear_required_for_castle_level string="moot_and_bailey"/>
      <no_towers_only_for_city_level string="huge_city"/>
      <no_towers_only_for_castle_level string="moot_and_bailey"/>
      <min_turn_keep_rebel_garrison int="999"/>
  </settlement>
  <revolt>
      <end_turn_modifier float="2"/>
      <excommunicated_modifier float="60"/>
      <new_leader_modifier float="10"/>
      <max_effective_loyalty float="7.0"/>
      <rebel_region_modifier float="2.0"/>
      <shadow_region_modifier float="2.0"/>
      <rebel_border_modifier float="1.1"/>
      <shadow_border_modifier float="1.1"/>
      <num_units_modifier float="1.05"/>
      <captain_modifier float="0.4"/>
      <min_revolt_chance float="0.0"/>
      <max_revolt_chance float="100.0"/>
      <ai_revolt_modifier float="0.25"/>
      <revolt_additional_armies bool="false"/>
      <revolt_crusading_armies bool="false"/>
  </revolt>
  <characters>
      <agents_can_hide bool="false"/>
  </characters>
  <hordes>
      <end_target_faction_bonus int="-300"/>
      <start_target_faction_bonus int="-500"/>
      <farming_level_bonus int="50"/>
      <shared_target_bonus int="-1000"/>
      <disbanding_horde_bonus int="-500"/>
      <starting_region_bonus int="-700"/>
      <horde_target_resource_bonus int="1000"/>
  </hordes>
  <merchants>
      <base_income_modifier float="4.0"/>
      <trade_bonus_offset float="10.0"/>
  </merchants>
  <agents>
      <denounce_inquisitor_base_chance float="25.0"/>
      <denounce_priest_base_chance float="35.0"/>
      <denounce_attack_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <denounce_defence_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <denounce_chance_min int="5"/>
      <denounce_chance_max int="95"/>
      <denounce_heretic_attemp_modifier float="1.5"/>
      <denounce_character_attemp_modifier float="0.5"/>
      <assassinate_base_chance float="18"/>
      <assassinate_attack_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <assassinate_defence_modifier float="0.0"/>
      <assassinate_public_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <assassinate_personal_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <assassinate_counter_spy_modifier float="1.0"/>
      <assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/>
      <assassinate_own_region_modifier float="0.7"/>
      <assassinate_assassinate_attr_modifier float="0.1"/>
      <assassinate_chance_min int="5"/>
      <assassinate_chance_max int="95"/>
      <acquisition_base_chance float="20.0"/>
      <acquisition_level_modifier float="3.0"/>
      <acquisition_attack_trade_rights_modifier float="1.3"/>
      <acquisition_defence_trade_rights_modifier float="0.7"/>
      <acquisition_chance_min int="5"/>
      <acquisition_chance_max int="95"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_heresy_divisor float="1.0"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_pfp_modifier float="0.5"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_pfp_modifier_min float="0.0"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_pfp_modifier_max float="1.0"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_chance_min float="0.0"/>
      <inquisitor_crt_chance_max float="0.1"/>
  </agents>
  <crusades>
      <required_jihad_piety int="5"/>
      <max_disband_progress float="5.0"/>
      <near_target_no_disband_distance float="80.0"/>
      <disband_progress_window float="2"/>
      <crusade_called_start_turn float="20"/>
      <jihad_called_start_turn float="20"/>
      <movement_points_modifier float="2.0"/>
  </crusades>
</root>

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Quote:

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Hmm, maybe the shorter range in vanilla is right then. It just feels too long in seiges. The enemy archers standing well outside their gate have a much shorter range. And the ROF of towers is quite high now (not complaining about that, just that when combined with the longer range it's harsh.)

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Well TBH the towers are higher up and that gives a range buff, (that i wasn't aware of when i upped the range), 160+ the natural tower buff should be more than long enough. Plus as noted, the towers out-range most long range archers by a good 20 units to begin with, (thats the width of most units roughly).

Quote:

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Was afraid there wouldn't be a way to boost a class of units' movement, but would have been nice. The base HBG "advantage" isn't one. Not with your changes. Can't build any Cav at all in cities except the merchant guild Cav. Maybe we should just put the thing in castles? It would make it useful. Or maybe this:

Make it build able in BOTH cities and castles, but make it only upgradeable in cities beyond level 1. That makes it usable, but still keeps the higher level global bonuses more challenging to achieve. Those are the powerful ones. That gives the Islamic cultures a slight bonus with there racetracks still too, since building those helps with getting HBG. They are clearly meant to get that bonus. It also adds a bit more to your drive to encourage more castle-usage.

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Already available in both cities and castles and both horse breeders and swordsmiths have more contributers. i thought ahead LOL, (actually I did it so Catholics could get it but it works out as it happens).

Quote:

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As far as sieges go, I've always been a wimp. I hate playing them out :P.

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Me too, i tend to auto-resolve, I just hate the bad path-finding and prefer to actually attack the walls directly.

Quote:

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usually use maneuver to remove the need. But that won't work with rebels. Now, unless the AI is a lot smarter, I won't be besieging many faction-owned cities or castles that have more than a defender or two. I typically catch them when they are vulnerable, grab the city/castle, THEN crush the silly army "protecting" it that got suckered out. I took Constantinople this way in 1.13. The AI moved an army next to it, I dashed in with an HA army, engaged the outside army and pulled the garrison. All died. I walked in. (Hey, I read Sun Tsu!) Took Nicaea the same way earlier. Silly Bizzies. I don't see a way around this tactic either. But it does require player patience and good intel work. Or really good baiting. :P

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Nice trick, I like:smash:.

p.s. to get~;p you need to replace the capital p with a small one and the : with a ; and add ~ before both.

Quote:

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But this is not late game play (what's that?) It's something more doable in the early to mid game. In late game play I'm sure you'll see your wish of lots of blood and infantry deaths. It's much harder to "steal" cities when there are 4-5 armies prowling nearby.

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Thats what i really want to do, make it so that any late assaults are real bloodbaths, means you have to heavily re-train after each battle and thus really slows blitzing down.

Quote:

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But will rebels ever pay ransom? They usually are rated as pretty wealthy, but I'm 0 for 2. And I was assuming a rep hit was possible. There's no downside in releasing them, as it stands. No rep hit, and they just poof. Now if they became free bandits...

And there should be no rep hit for executing rebels IMO. That is expected. They ARE rebels, no? But allowing them to ransom YOUR soldiers makes sense.

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I always release so i don't know if they'll pay TBH. I haven't got round to coding the no rep hit for rebels, but it does make sense. I'll add it to my to-do list.

Quote:

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I don't mind the auto-resolve results for sieges, however they are arrived at. If I use that in a siege, I DO have overwhelming force normally, and am prepared to absorb whatever losses result.

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Same here, which means I always use overwhelming force:laugh4:.

Thanks for a LOT of very useful feedback BTW.

Carl.

Ok, put the xml changes in, and upped iman starting piety on my end to 5 also. I just gave the three starters a natural skill of 3.

Gonna give Egypt a whirl for a while. Want to see how well jihad works very early, as that's a prime Muslim strategy. The repeat delay keeps it from being nuts though. If we can find that variable (if it is one), we should probably scale it to the time/turn ratio too. Otherwise with more turns you can net more jihads.

First try of Egypt with M2TW, so my results may... vary.

Imam fix worked, can call jihad.

Hmm, Mustering Hall gets no units for Egypt. That intended? not sure I like the archer militia going away at higher level city barracks either. A bit is always useful in countering seiges, even if just for the morale effects of putting attackers under missile fire. Especially fire arrows. Yeah, they have better archers then, but those aren't free in city garrisons. And peasant archers persist in the range line, even if at lower rates.

Hmm, peasants do have a use in seiges. They can activate towers! Assuming that activation distance isn't plain huge now (making it moot). It was too small in vanilla.

Egyptian army is less pure cav early on, I see. Desert cav is the light jav version, Arab cav is decent med cav. But Saracen militia is pretty good spears and desert archers aren't bad. So more traditional approach, at least until Mamluks.

The plan is bypass Jerusalem, hit Acre for forward building (keeping Gaza as a permanent fort), then build up for Antioch. Leave Damascus too. Aim for Aleppo and make that the early "line" against Turkey, which I will also try to ally with. Then deal with Damascus and Jerusalem, probably in that order.

Right, i'll watch with intrest, i have to say i've never played egypt eithier so where both into new territory here:smash:.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carl

Right, i'll watch with intrest, i have to say i've never played egypt eithier so where both into new territory here:smash:.

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Turn 3, Acre under seige. But it's not a force that can invest the walls, just a holding force. More coming up from Cairo and Alexandria. Then I may try to tackle the walls for the heck of it. The garrison is 2 desert archers, 1 town militia, 1 militia spears, but upgraded. Wooden walls. It's an 8 turn wait for a sally, so a long delay either way. (In the former a delay to rebuilt a LOT of units. ~;p)

Dang, turn 4 Sultan drops from old age. Why start us with these old-timers?

Turks near Adana, let's see if they can take it (heh, not a chance with that force). Heretic near Antioch, WITH the changes. Okay, I see a Turkish merchant near Antioch too. That's good. Didn't see any foreign ones in my brief Turk test.

Ok, turn 5. Autoseige attempt as test. 4 star sultan, 5 desert archers, 2 peasant archers, 4 spear militia, 1 desert cav. The could handle a sally, no question. But can they invest it? Long on missiles, short on melee. No good melee units in sight. No merc of use either: Bedoin cav and Turkoman HA.

Attempt 1: Looks like about 5:2 on power meter. Yeah, missile troops overrated in autoresolve here. Clear Victory. 67 to 117 losses. Numerically I had them overwhelmed, 865:252.
Attempt 2: even better, Clear victory, 11:98. Overwhelming numbers definitely helps.
Heh, got a whisker that time too. ~;p

Ok, onward to Antioch. Egyptian Saracen militia is pretty decent, so Cairo pumping them out as often as it can. Gaza building desert cav mostly for future screens. Changed my mind about Acre. Comverting it to a city as soon as the basic structure is up, dirt roads, port, land clearing and small masjid. Low losses taking it made that decision. I'll just use Aleppo farther north.

Turn 7, Antioch under seige. 6 turns to sally, but will try to storm it next turn. My spy couldn't budge the gates. Two Turk merchants there now, they are clearly adding economic infrastructure to get those. Their force iback off into the fog from Adana. Zero chance it could take it.

Turn 8, the gods hate me, plague in Cairo. At least no general there. Imam caught it though. Heh, let's see if I can use this... Jerusalem and Damascus need conversion! A bit of plague may convince them the Wrath of God is looking their way! Maybe I can infect Constantinople if I can keep passing it north.

Failed to purge the soul of the heretic... so far.

Okay, Antioch: 882 to 361 numbers. Sultan (5 stars), 4 desert archers, 2 peasant archers, 5 militia spears, 3 desert cav. Forget what they have (4 town militia, 2 Turkish archers, upgrades). Looks like about 5:3 odds.
Auto 1: Clear Defeat (these are stone walls too). 450 dead to 56. "They fight like a cornered snake! Pull back!"
Auto 2: Clear Defeat. 457:38. Ransom offer of about 4k ~;p. More than my treasury can bear.
Auto 3: (night attack this time for one more star) Hmm, Clear Victory, must have caught them in their beds! 86 lost to 212. Either the one star made a big difference, or I got really lucky. Let me try again. Oh, chance to ransom rebels, but to whom?
Auto 4: (night) Clear defeat, so it was good luck. 419:37. The extra star may help though, that wasn't as bad as the earlier ones.
Auto 5: (night) Clear defeat. 444:50. Slightly lower losses with the extra star and the one anomolous win.
Conclusion, big walls mean a LOT more force is needed, even with autoresolve. Suspect sweet spot is around 2:1 battle odds, maybe 5:2 as at Acre.
Moving on.

Note: I don't usually use save/restore much. Except for testing. But since I am, I am shamelessly picking the best outcome here. ~;) Normally I'd force a sally in this case. I have terrible luck with rams. I can make as many as I like, they all get burnt up. No seigeworks yet.

Exploring to south and west with the extra desert cav I got for reinforcing Alexandria. South to Dongola looks easyish, and the ivory and slaves profitable. Shifting my merchants that way. Tripoli is still neutral but a long way off. Hmm, might cause a diplomatic faux pas if Sicily sneaks in and takes it with my cav out there. Better call it back and explore that by sea. Or send a diplo.

Aleppo next. It's just a motte & bailey. 1 arab cav, 2 turkomen, 2 turk archers, 1 spear militia, 1 town militia, upgraded. Need to pause to bring up more troops so I can garrison Antioch and still have a significant force, which it will take. Can for a sally here though, 3 turn wait. And should be fine with my new Saracen spears leading. The desert cav's javs will deal with their arab cav. The HA will be the problem. But I have lots of foot archers and they have to attack me!

Turn 8. Heretic now toast(ed). Plaguebearer approaching Jerusalem. I'll sacrifice imams to drop that garrison. ~;) Starter ones, at least. Holding my first jihad for there, I think, and will aim for Damascus on the way, depending on how the force mix looks. New son matured, born conqueror. 4 stars. Nice. Plus a movement trait. He needs to jihad and then go capture some of the outlying cities.Treasury scraping bottom. Have to stop some building projects soon, or cut back on campaigning and garrison troops to cut upkeep a bit until I can build up. Need to hold some florins to pay for jihad troops too. And Antioch need pacifying. I can have new son start seige of Aleppo, then swing over support in a couple turns once I have put more militia into Antioch from its own production. Of course, if they sally early it may be... interesting, as the Chinaman would say.

Oops, Imam can't infect a non-friendly city, darn. Spy out of position. So much for that plan.

Quote:

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Heretic near Antioch, WITH the changes

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It was only a very slight Nerf to spawn rate BTW, I was gonna play around and decrease the spawn rate till i was happy, so it may need lowering more, on the other hand I do want every faction to have to deal with a heretic every couple of decades or so (20 turns in other words), just not the crazy 3-4 a turn that seems to happen with the current spawn rates. That and they can turn a province by 10% or more a turn previously. that got a major tone down.

p.s. I've highlighted the changes to heretics in the text I told you to paste in so you can see. The spawn chance and Unorthodox modifiers are inverse Decimals (i.e. 1=100% and they produce lower effects the smaller the value).

p.p.s. did you try fighting out the acre siege on the battle map, or auto-resolve only? as the battle map would be much nastier, (towers and all that).

p.p.p.s I'm pretty sure turks get Saracen militia. The archer reduction is more because (in theory), by the time you get a significant number of really big cities up gunpowder should have rolled round and you can get gunpowder units then that are better. Thats why the reduction, I want the AI to recruit plenty of gunpowder stuff. Also, i know about mustering Halls, they are where peasants used to be built, i don't really want to move the infantry line down a level so I've accepted the situation as is and am hoping it works out overall.

Have checked, Turks can get scaracen militia., and your going to love Jeruselem when i'm done:evillaugh4:.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carl

It was only a very slight Nerf to spawn rate BTW, I was gonna play around and decrease the spawn rate till i was happy, so it may need lowering more, on the other hand I do want every faction to have to deal with a heretic every couple of decades or so (20 turns in other words), just not the crazy 3-4 a turn that seems to happen with the current spawn rates. That and they can turn a province by 10% or more a turn previously. that got a major tone down.

p.s. I've highlighted the changes to heretics in the text I told you to paste in so you can see. The spawn chance and Unorthodox modifiers are inverse Decimals (i.e. 1=100% and they produce lower effects the smaller the value).

p.p.s. did you try fighting out the acre siege on the battle map, or auto-resolve only? as the battle map would be much nastier, (towers and all that).

p.p.p.s I'm pretty sure turks get Saracen militia. The archer reduction is more because (in theory), by the time you get a significant number of really big cities up gunpowder should have rolled round and you can get gunpowder units then that are better. Thats why the reduction, I want the AI to recruit plenty of gunpowder stuff. Also, i know about mustering Halls, they are where peasants used to be built, i don't really want to move the infantry line down a level so I've accepted the situation as is and am hoping it works out overall.

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Only that one heretic so far though. The high conversion rate was the biggest issue. I don't mind seeing them pop fairly often. Just not convert the province to majority heretic in 10 turns!

No loose rebels so far either.

Did not try Acre on battle screen. And that save is gone. I really don't want to tackle stone walls/castles on the bettle screen without seige gear. Even with it it's apt to be really annoying. Autoresolve is much more... sanitary.

Empty buildings are silly though. Must be a better solution than forcing it to be built with no purpose than as a prefix.

Turn 10, just waiting for sally while I cook myself some dinner. :beam: