MTW Pocket Mod: General

On the Golden Horde, do you think it would be possible to add an "Anti-Halberd" unit? Me thinks it would enable the Golden Horde a better chance against the human player. On monetary matters, I think the main problem is the support costs. The Horde goes bankrupt withn a few years after appearing, so lowering the support costs and increasing the starting treasury may help. Also, a well developed Khazar (thier favored province) could help them too, although a pragmatic player would simply raze it prior to the invasion :juggle2: .

I have valour bonuses in Khazar for the mongol units, developing it won't help much, and as armour and weapon bonuses wont exist in the next PoM, that won't be an issue.

The best counter to halberds is a Stronger Infantry or for the human player only good missile units, as the former would not be very historical for the Mongols and the latter would not help the AI at all then a Stronger Cavalry would be in order. The MHA and MHC could be improved slightly, to make them more of a threat. I always find that I can melt MHC and that MHA rarely commit to the offensive anyway, and it is usually a combination of Benny Hill code and a being flanked, shot up and/or charged that gets them routing.

The Mongol Auxilliary Cavalry unit may also make a difference. These will be almost AHC class cavalry and not armed with bows, which means the AI won't turn them on to skirmish and have them sitting there at the foot of a hill getting shot up by foot archers or crossbows/arbalests. At present the GH have the too extremes of cavalry, Horse Archers and Heavies. The HAs are great in most situations, but when they could be chasing routers and flanking the simply hang back. The MHC are also good for their role but fall victim to spear walls and concentrated missile fire. I always find that in battles where the GH bring along some Steppe Cavalry, they do much better, simply because it takes away the predictability. The SHC will attack and the HA's are there to harass and cover their backs. The MHC can hang back and come in for the kill later. What the SC lack is some guts and this is where the new MAC come in. They will be the cav to surprise the player, balance the roster, and have him looking for a suitable counter. instead of the old formula of arrows and loose formation for the MHAs and spears, anti cav and bolts for the MHCs the player will have to start thinking again. This would also involved the removal of the hordes of Mongol Warriors which I find easy pickings and a huge exploit. They will be either a dismount only unit (though I'm thinking strongly of removing dismounts as the AI can't use this feature at all) or a steppe unit (the steppe equivalent of archers).

When I was talking about a well developed Khazar, what I meant was to jump start the Horde so that they don't end up crippled unit wise. They eventually run out of MHC (never seem to run out of MHA or arrows for that matter) and lack any form of support for their forces. The idea was to give them adequate facilities to more easily replenish their units, and possibly make them more aggressive.

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Originally Posted by Caravel
The Mongol Auxilliary Cavalry unit may also make a difference. These will be almost AHC class cavalry and not armed with bows, which means the AI won't turn them on to skirmish and have them sitting there at the foot of a hill getting shot up by foot archers or crossbows/arbalests. At present the GH have the too extremes of cavalry, Horse Archers and Heavies. The HAs are great in most situations, but when they could be chasing routers and flanking the simply hang back. The MHC are also good for their role but fall victim to spear walls and concentrated missile fire. I always find that in battles where the GH bring along some Steppe Cavalry, they do much better, simply because it takes away the predictability. The SHC will attack and the HA's are there to harass and cover their backs. The MHC can hang back and come in for the kill later. What the SC lack is some guts and this is where the new MAC come in. They will be the cav to surprise the player, balance the roster, and have him looking for a suitable counter. instead of the old formula of arrows and loose formation for the MHAs and spears, anti cav and bolts for the MHCs the player will have to start thinking again. This would also involved the removal of the hordes of Mongol Warriors which I find easy pickings and a huge exploit. They will be either a dismount only unit (though I'm thinking strongly of removing dismounts as the AI can't use this feature at all) or a steppe unit (the steppe equivalent of archers).

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Now that sounds great, I'm drooling over it already. Are you perhaps going to make the GH playable in late? I would love to utilize the Hordes units, as I can easily rout just about any army with them. Also, would it be possible (and historical) to give a "fear" bonus to some Mongol units? I definitely like the idea of making the Mongol Warriors "Steppe Archers" or some such unit, and the "possible" Volga-Bulgarian and Cuman factions could easily make use of it.

Will the Glorious Achievements be fixed in a later patch?

Ultrawar,

GA functionality is very likely to be removed from the mod due to incompatibilities. This is not abnormal as most mods, especially those covering different periods, have seen the removal of GA. So far I have tried to keep GA function intact, but as the mod advances and more changes are made with more provinces being moved, removed and added, GA will become more of a problem and may end up being a restrictive factor.

From my own point of view this is not a problem. I find the GA game restrictive and predictable, and it seems that the AI is inept at it. I understand perfectly however that many players do like the GA game, and I consider it a sad loss that it was not included in later TW games. This is why I have strived to keep it in the mod thus far.

:bow:

Some experiments I am messing around with, as an approach to what has been styled in this forum, plus some other of my own concoction:

-Removed armoury. All armoury dependences have been switched. For instance, now Feudal Knights need a swordsmith as well as a (decent) spearmaker

-Removed spearmaker's and bowyer's dependences on town watch. Now they're independent military buildings. The swordsmith, however, DOES depend on the spearmaker (as an approach to the blacksmith thing)

-Spanish factions (Castile&Aragon): Now they lack access to Town Watch buildings. Their basic unit is the Almugharav(Spanish javelinmen), with a reduced support cost

plus some messings with Byzantium
-Found the standard Prononai Kavalliory (regular Prononai Allaegion) a bit lacking in stats. Improved their charge and attack, left their defense and armor as it is (I think I reduced defense). So now they're a half-breed between Feudal and Chivalric Knights, being somewhat better overall than the former, with equal charge, and a bit better general stats, albeit with a higher upkeep. They are now a good charger cavalry unit, able to hold themselves against FKs, but in a fight against Chivs, if left by themselves, they will get torn to shreds. I tried to alter their cosmetic looks, to make them look different from Stratioi. I was pondering removing them, and making an all-around PKT with Feudal-knight charge stats, 5 armor (as it is now), and horse-archer capabilities, with high upkeep, but thought it might turn too uber (either that or with a big requirement stepping stone bridge, which would make their arrival late. And as it is now the reqs are rather steep)

Psiloi: Made them "Fast" as well as their standing stats (to make it more viable to make hit and runs.
Skulkatoi: Now they have "Normal" morale instead of "poor".
Note about All byzantine units: Some did receive an upgrade as I stated, but I increased the building requirements for all of them, following this rule-of-thumb:
Byzantine armies were professional/mercenaries. So now, ALL STANDARD BYZANTINE UNITS require a certain level of the town watch to be built, to reflect their reliance on cities.
So now, for instance, my Psiloi need Bowyer level 2, and Town Watch level 2. I´m pondering switching this to bowyer level 1, swordsmith level 1, Town watch level 2.
Skulkatoi need Swordsmith level 2 plus Town Watch.
Prononai Kavs require, as well as their "swordsmith" and a high-rate horse-breeder (standard for all heavy cav), town watch 3. So do PKT, which also require bowyer level 3, and swordsmith (I put them as a crossbreed of horse archers and heavycav)

As for mounted sergeants: Horse-breeder2 and Spearmaker 2. ByzLancers(PrononaiStratioi) the same + Town Watch

Also: some ways I thought of removing the "swords vs spears" problem without removing the spears category: Two possible ways, to be precise

- Lowering the men at arm's defense drastically. This would make them decent assault forces, able to withstand arrow rains (thanks to armor), but would likely suffer heavy casualties, and would stand no chance against a cavalry charge. Even light cavalry would be deadly to them

-Increasing their support cost: In the sense of "them being the higher ranks of the gendry, and thus being costly". They'd be as deadly as they are now, only far more scarce. The historical reasoning is sound. In Spain, for instance, "hidalgos" were the lowest nobility rank, and yet they did not pay any taxes. Their bloating eventually brought the state to bankrupt. I understand in Turkey something akin happened with the nominally slaves but actually equivalent to a gendry class Janissaries.

I like the idea of lowering thier defense. They would end up being used much like no-dachi from STW, and they would finally stop beating cavalry. On anoher note though, any english only MAA we make should have cavalry defense bonuses, in my opinion at least, to better reflect english fighting style.

I've been working over a few things, and have come to discover that to my delight, Spies and Assassins have gained much with the spreading of heresy. For instance, we know that one spy is enough to start a rebellion and you need no more (except as fodder). But with the spread of heresy comes the ability to forment rebellion overtime. As such, although only one spy may be working at a time, any other spies in the region are spreading heresy. This means that spies, working in groups, can make otherwise loyal provinces that would normally be out of reach revolt eventually. Also, the spy has another power (along with the assassin) to be a "crusade caller". In effect, if the heresy in a province is high enough, you may call a crusade on provinces that would not normally be able to crusade against, and quite cheaply too (my experience any way).

Wow I really have been playing RTW for too long :dizzy2:

So do I get a mention in the credits for starting this topic and bringing all these hard working modders together? :laugh4:

A suggestion for minimising rushing openings:

In many guides of the vanilla games you see that people tend to write out their future problems by a nice quick rush. For example say the Turks in vanilla can take out Constantinople in two turns almost that deals a deadly blow in the Byzantines; the Byzantines from their part can do the same with Rum. Planty of other similar strategies exist all over the board, say also in the Iberian peninsula or by raising mercenary armies.

This in large is made possible by the starting treasury; 6000 flrs at hard level are more than enough to support such moves (the other reasons are the low rebelliousness and fast religion conversions but the PoM is dealing with those already).

My suggestion is to keep the starting treasury column empty in the starpos.txt that will render all treasuries for all levels 2000 flrs. That will cut down on prolonged opening rushes/offensives that will guarantee a large sizze state to begin with in 10 turns. Its more difficult to consolidate provinces with 1.0 or 2.0 province rebeliousness with fewer starting money.

Noir

I made a full rehasal of building orders, and altered cavalry yet again to some more uniform standards (which vary depending on faction and depiction, but anyway,:
The military reforms, I already outlined in the previous posts, and now are a bit refined by trial and error (custom battle comparation of battle efectiveness: heavy cavalry have 7+ charge, light cav 5-6, dragoons/horse archers, as they have no weapon, 3 as a "trampling bonus". Men at arms have around 1 defense, attack around 5-6. I suppressed the charge because they are not quite yet like no-dachi, but rather an inbetween "slow mowing" unit. I made two handed axe-sword units no-dachi like, with 3 charge, 7-8 melee, and varying ammounts on armor depending on the unit (gothic foot being the strongest, highlanders the lowest. For the record, you cant put 0 armor, it causes a crash). I also added a "muslim mercenary" to sicilians, which is a combination of Men-at-arms and compound bow, but with low defense -2, expensive, and not too good morale (they are mercenaries), and I want some "two handed" troop for the almohads, which as a counterpart lose naphta. Either that or halberdiers. I also tried two custom "Nizari" and "Granadian" factions, but I´ve left it aside for now because I had too many crashes, and I dont want to get around balancing them right now.

Now the building order/economy, heavily altered

Six farming improvements, which deal 140,200,260,320,380,440 income improvements. Last two need the compass. So do the last two merchant improvements.
Basic troop building thing: Blacksmith (as with the viking blacksmith, only I used the unused "Tavern" building because I had problems copying-pasting code). It requires farm level 2 and a castle, and it´s a prerrequisite for all other weapon manufactures (spears, swords, etc...). It also makes some basic units avaiable (vanilla spearmen, javelinmen, woodsmen and other "trash troops"), but for sergeants, men at arms, etc... you need the adequate smith.
The Royal Court line also needs some farming improvements. I´m thinking on restoring byzantine access to this building (at least low levels) and making the Pronoiai dependent on it.

Now, related to economy: I drastically reduced all farming incomes. Some noteworthy cases are Constantinople (which I left with a low farming income, even when upgraded, but with many trade goods, as to point out it´s "trade" roadway). Anatolia and Smyrna/Nicaea have a more decent (in the "reformed farmland" system I outlined) as they were prosperous as well (nothing out of the ordinary through. They have a slightly higher than average income, but their main advantage is that they start at level 4 of farm). I lowered castile's farm income, and removed trade goods, but added in it´s place gold (which is slightly enhaced), but the south remains economically rich (it was so historically, and muslims brought new farming techniques, whereas the north, barring mineral wealth, was not as profittable to invade-specially bearing in mind the rugged terrain favoring ambushes, and native hostility). Egypt keeps a large income because it was historicaly prosperous.

The reduction of farming incomes only makes sense, as with the new system there are more economic improvements, and furthermore, they will be built by the comp as the basic ones are needed for units. (I´ve tested this, and it does). This also slows early rushes, as barring some early more or less (faction dependant) developed provinces, which start with farm1 or 2 (more in some cases) the players (computer or human) have to develop what they conquer.

As for trade, I made some "trade routes", one "spice/cotton" route following Levant-Cyprus-Crete-Sicily-(Venice,Genova,otherports), and one "silk/dyes/gems" route, following Asia minor, Constantinople, Hungary, Venice, and the rest of Europe, and some minor ones. My theory is that this way trade routes are somewhat profittable, but not bloatish, and that real trade power comes from holding monopolies, which is very hard. Also, I wanted "island stranded factions" to have a chance to build an economic network. This would symbolize taxing all trade coming near the island to try to regain their position.

A not altogether too relevant note: I did manage to get the inn as a rebel only income generating thing, by making it produce a huge farming income. It does work, the rebels DO build it, but I´ve not seen it do anything beyond that. I want to keep an eye on rebelled developed provinces.

Balance testing system: I tested my modifications on building order, economy, and starting position, by running medieval on auto/godmode several times until year 1300, and observing the outcome:
I managed to outcast bloating for the most part, until at least year 1200, and now superpowers are not as "determined", meaning that whereas in some games Spain squikked the almohads, in others it got squikked in turn, and likewise for all factions (I saw French, German, and British Empires as well). Byzantium does have a tendence to become superpowerish, as well as Italy, but they are far later more unstable bloats than what I had seen until now. Italy can bloat onto the mediterranean, but it is still vulnerable on the mainland (in some games I saw it survive with scattered colonies around), and Byzantium has fallen to the Seljulks several times. Their survival is not ensured, nor is their bloating. The only one I´ve seen survive more often than most is Egypt. Which doesn´t bloat. I also increased the survival rate of the Golden Horde.
Factions do build advanced troops (specially Euro factions), in big ammounts, althrough they do produce a lot of trash, specially early in each era (this comes, I think, from homeland restrictions, as European factions, with no restriction to building, do produce more advanced troops (chivalric maa, heavy cav, etc...), than, for example, the Byzantines or the Egyptians. I attribute this to a computer preference for low tech approaches, and thus, spearmen and naphta taking the places which would have been for pronoiais. Thus, I see less of them. Psiloi, Skulkatoi, and Kontarakoi do parade around in significant numbers, through.

Right now I´m playing a "normal" game as Castile, and all seems to be allright
Cosmetically I changed "Byzantine Emperor" and "Emperor whoever" to "Romaion Autokrator" and "Autokrator Whoever", I left Holy Roman Emperor stand, but changed the "Emperor Conrad whatever" to "Kaiser Conrad whatever".

Remaking of an old suggestion, just so to get it out of my system:
I am well aware that valor bonuses in provinces are an essential element for many players; nevertheless i've only seen it making the gameplay better when applied in provinces of low income and no minerals. In all other cases the AI was wasting its potential significantly just to get the bonus, that is definitely not worth it especially for low end units.

Noir

I had some rather lopsided ideas lately, but here me out.

What I did

I recently made the Castle line entirely dependent on the farm upgrades; If the A.I. attempts to tech up to fast, it is at least forced to build the farm upgrades. Also, I slimmed down the number of unit production buildings, their are now only 6 unit training types - Barracks line, Stable Line, Archery Line, Court/Estate line, and Blacksmith Line. Spies were moved to the Court/Estate line, and Assassins were moved to the Merchant line. Also, regional units are now avaible to anyone who controls the region, but you must have the required level of "Merchant" to hire them. Also, I made all religious units trainable, but rendered the Chapter House and Ribat as "unique" buildings.

What do you think?

Interesting. I did the same with the chapterhouse (IHMO it should be unique. With muslims it´s even more needed, as jihad spamming is far easier)

I also did something akin making some structures dependent on farm upgrades. I was going to do it further, but found a lack of AI tech development, so I lowered some tech requirements a bit and started tinkering with the building influences. Now the AI does tech up to knights and other advanced units (mameluk horse archers, Byzantine Cavalry, etc...)

I have made a small package if anyone wishes to try my particular tinkering:

http://files-upload.com/files/493697/Modtest.zip

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Also, regional units are now avaible to anyone who controls the region, but you must have the required level of "Merchant" to hire them.

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EDIT: I was thinking on doing something akin, althrough placing some restrictions with some units. I also linked urban militia to the merchant line. The problem I see with tying mercs to that is that not all provinces have a merchant avaiable (I thought that UM didn´t matter that much, as its an auxiliar at best), so I tried to leave units in two tech trees, with "royal court" tying in full feudal units, such as knights, and early gendry, and the town watch covering mercenary, mercenary gendry, and urban units (IE: all the Byzantine tech tree, pikemen, etc...) Some "mercs" such as steppe heavy cavalry, and whatnot, are widely avaiable, but not "tied", as somehow I saw them as "local tribes and clans", more occassional mercenaries than organized companies. The spanish javelinmen I made into a basic spanish land unit into almughavars, and the old almughavars into the Catalonian company, avaiable to anyone who holds Aragon (I was going to make a Navarrese company as well, but stopped at the last moment because I was unsure on what stats I should place the difference)

BTW, could the pics from Shogun be used as the basis for some units? I find that the pikemen animation is unsatisfactory, as they look like regular spears. The Yari Ashigaru, or the Yari samurai might be more in order for those units. Some others could be used as well...

Feedback anyone?

All good ideas, Unknown Guy, though I have pretty much suspended work on this mod for a number of reasons, the main one being time, I quite simply don't have the time to devote to this project, and the understandable general lack of interest as a secondary consideration.

There is also the issue of MTW mods and the current demand for such mods. The Medmod, XL mod and BKB Super Mod seem to fit the bill in all respects as far as Medieval realism/gameplay balance mods go, there simply isn't a "gap in the market" for this type of thing.

The mod did get off to a good start but eventually tailed off due to lack of new/innovative ideas. Instead of innovating in a "pocket sized" fashion, we seemed to get side tracked into doing what "xl has done" or what "medmod has". I started with a simple unidirectional beast and finished with a mass of loose ends, reminiscent of the spaghetti monster himself. So instead of working on a particular part of the project and focusing on that part until completion, people were requesting all kinds of things not at all related to what was being worked on at present. You have to see it from my point of view, that while being busy working on the units and tech tree, I was being bombarded with requests for work on the map, then once work on the tech tree and units had been postponed and work on the map begun the ideas/requests began for unit balancing and additional units. At that stage I could have closed the doors and gone it alone, but that was not what the Pocket Mod was all about.

This has left me with a momentus task that is not complete in one single respect and is still far from ready for distribution.

So it is with regret that I must close the project. Individual files will be available for those that want them. I might one day get the unfinished v1.7 ready and upload it.

Feel free to use any of the ideas/info in the Pocket Mod threads for your own projects.

Thank you for your support.

C

:bow:

This is my Edessa Garisson prior to receiving a kicking from the Fatimids:
https://img201.imageshack.us/img201/...0000nz3.th.jpg

This is the Edessa "troop surge" (unfortunately led by the very same coward...) the following year receiving more of the same from the Fatimids...
https://img141.imageshack.us/img141/...0001sx1.th.jpg

The conclusion I've come to is that the Fatimids must be smoking something...

Anyway those damned 200 men Arab Infantry units are absolute killers, due to how that simply wrap around my smaller units. In melee they are unstoppable by anything I can field at present, and combined with Ghazis, Futuwwa, Camels and the Arab Horse Archers they make a dangerous combination. I feel that my Turcoman Horse were not in large enough numbers to really show their best, I also ended up in a very bad position perched on the crest of a hill with the Fatimids milling around (they also had a pretty good general).

Ouch. Unlucky.

Incidentally, I'm about 20 years into my Fatimid campaign. I've not had any issues thus far. :beam:


About the only thing I've noticed is that the Blacksmith provides only 2 florins/year, despite costing 500 florins to build. Sorry to sound like I'm second-guessing things, but is that right? I mean I know it's not supposed to be a major income-producer, but that still seems to be an overly high cost/benefit ratio. Unless the Blacksmith is a prerequisite for something that I'm forgetting?

The smith buildings are still very much in the experimental phase. I want to see what people (well so far the mod has two players :beam:) think of the smith buildings and whether they're worth keeping. Currently the spearmaker is unbuildable (removed). The blacksmith, armourer and swordsmith are all income generating buildings under the Iron mine. So they are not available to build in all provinces anyway. The serve as the dependency for no units. At present I'm still wondering whether taking them out altogether would not be the best approach, as they seem redundant.

Remember that your campaign will crash at 1159/1160. The only fix for this is the next version. I want to find as many problems as possible before I release v1.0.9 and also I would like to include many of the changes we've had suggested (changes to hobilars, muslim halberdiers in granada and saragossa etc). I'll also need to know if it's worth keeping the smith buildings or not as that ties in with tinkering with the resource names and icons.

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Originally Posted by Caravel

The smith buildings are still very much in the experimental phase. I want to see what people (well so far the mod has two players :beam:) think of the smith buildings and whether they're worth keeping. Currently the spearmaker is unbuildable (removed). The blacksmith, armourer and swordsmith are all income generating buildings under the Iron mine. So they are not available to build in all provinces anyway. The serve as the dependency for no units. At present I'm still wondering whether taking them out altogether would not be the best approach, as they seem redundant.

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Well unless we're going to either increase the smith buildings' income, drastically reduce their construction costs, or a combination of the two, then I agree it might be better to just remove them entirely. As they are right now, there doesn't seem to be much reason to build them.

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Originally Posted by Caravel

Remember that your campaign will crash at 1159/1160. The only fix for this is the next version. I want to find as many problems as possible before I release v1.0.9 and also I would like to include many of the changes we've had suggested (changes to hobilars, muslim halberdiers in granada and saragossa etc). I'll also need to know if it's worth keeping the smith buildings or not as that ties in with tinkering with the resource names and icons.

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All right. I'll try to do some more killing Seljuqs/ & Byzantines bug-hunting then. ~D

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Originally Posted by Martok

Well unless we're going to either increase the smith buildings' income, drastically reduce their construction costs, or a combination of the two, then I agree it might be better to just remove them entirely. As they are right now, there doesn't seem to be much reason to build them.

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As I said, I haven't worked on them apart from sticking them in roughly the right part of the tech tree. It's to give an idea of how it might work and to spot potential issues before going to the trouble of implementing them properly. This is why the incomes have been left as they are so as not to impact provincial income too much. I'm ok with removing them altogether as they look messy and seem redundant.

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Originally Posted by Martok

All right. I'll try to do some more killing Seljuqs/ & Byzantines bug-hunting then. ~D

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My campaign has started to go well. Fixing the 1159/1160 bug allowed me to continue, which was lucky. The Fatimids are on the run but the Byzantine invaded Egypt which was rebel at the time.

Speaking of rebels, they are still strong and haven't gone bankrupt, if you look over the rebel provinces carefully you'll see why.

:bow:

Hehe, I like the Nomad Camp description.

Also, the Seljuks start with under-strength Steppe Horse Archers.

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Originally Posted by Rythmic

Also, the Seljuks start with under-strength Steppe Horse Archers.

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The Seljuks can train Steppe Horse Archers in the correct provinces. As to the under strength issue I suppose it depends on the unit size you play the game on, though I know that some of the sizes are odd. I might tidy these up at some point.

:bow:

My Turks campaign is coming up to 1204. No issues, other than those I've reported, as yet. I will be interested to see the arrival of the Mongols. I have quite a lot of infrastructure built in most provinces now and I'm holding the usual 3 way chokepoint region (now only a 2 way, because Egypt no longer has a "back door"). My next goal is the massed training of Anatolian Infantry once they become available, to replace the basic spearmen which won't be much use against the Mongols...

Hi there,
i've played 4 campaigns so far: Byzantine, French, Almoravid, Danes and Sicilians all of which were good fun until 1159. If you got the fix made may you please include it in the download? Since the pace is slow i get to the point that things get interesting and then get the ctd.

!it burnsus!

Welcome gollum,

I will try and get the next version out as soon as possible. You're right of course and as it stands the current version is not much good for testing and further development. I'm just trying to get through a campaign at least to mid way through the high era and then I will release the fix. This should be some time this weekend. All fixes are included on the download of the next version. Be aware that not all fixes will affect existing savegames though the fixes to the event CTDs do resolve without you having to start again.

Thank you for your support.

Caravel

:bow:

Playing the Turks is fun. The combo of spearmen and ghazis early on is a challange to actually keep in battle without a top general.

Hi,

thanks for the reply and for making the mod. Here are some suggestions/impressions:

-the muslim cavalry units of 60 men are almost a cheat when used en masse. They also make units like desert archers obsolete since they can take better position for shootouts, they can skirmish better, are faster to redeploy have a better charge due to being mounted can melee reasonably because of their large number and can chase routers. This mostly concerns the cheap to train/quick to get desert horse archer/steppe horse archer but also applies to ex-faris, mameluk horse archer. Perhaps returning them to 40 men may be a consideration.

-The muster field/inn line of buildings may be perhaps restricted to Byzantines, Russians and Danes. The catholics do not really need it as they have the chapter house +2 morale bonus. In addition it affects playbalance as catholics get +1 from church, +1 from monastery, +2 chapter house and +1 inn. That's +5 in total that essentially turns seargents to (jedi) knights. Not to mention provinces with royal palaces that the player tends to use as troop factories that get another +2.

I would also suggest dropping the +2 for chapter houses to +1 and the +2 for Royal palace to +1 and the +3 of cathedral to +1. Units with +5 on average from production under worthy generals will simply not rout unless sandwitched by knights or something.

For the Byzantines, Russians and Danes the muster/inn line it represents well the thematic system and scsandinavian/russian societal hierarchy and so its really a good idea: invest to get native troops better.

-FMAA are somewhat too far into the tech tree for catholics - the player may get them at citadel barracks level that appears well after 1159 unless the Byzantines. This takes a component from the tactical battles - that is the player gets spears/shooters/cavalry instead of spears/swords/shooters/cavalry. Perhaps tieing them to town barracks might be a good lidea and a similar argument can be made with feudal foot knights (currently at fortess barracks - drop to citadel). The varangians that are comparable are in fact at citadel level which feels and plays ok.

-It might be worth it in future versions to split the Egyptians or Turks or both in two factions. For the Turks the sultanate of Konya/Iconium and the Great Seljuks and for the Fatimids the Fatimids and an independent Damascus. As the game stands at the moment the situation is too easy for the Egyptians since they are protected from the desert and the Byzantines that start with many provinces. The Anatolian Turks may be given Nicaea, Sinope, Antalya, Anatolia while the great seljuks Rum, Armenia, Edessa and Mosul. The fatimids may get Egypt and Palestine, while the Damascenese, Tripoli, Antioch and Damascus - or something historically plausible in that vein.

The Levant may turn much less predictable in this way - much like Iberia which is imho excellent. In all 4 campaigns i played by 1159 the Egyptians had annihilated the Turks and invaded the Byzantines ready to deliver the kill.

-Consider returning the arad swords to 60 men default since they aer killers on the field and probably i suspect in autocalc two.

!itburnsus!

(continuing from above)

-Dynatoi Oikeitai can be called simply Dynatoi (the strong ones), since the name being long proves invasive in the tactical screen when moused over. The "oikeitai" (familar ones) bit can be included in the unit card description. Similar arguments may be applied to Nizari Fedeyan.

-The iron line of buildings can work thus: introduce the blacksmith as an extra investment and then the swordsmith and then the armourer as money makers with something semi-decent as income such as say 26 florins +10fl for every upgrade for the swordsmith and 36fl +12fl per upgrade for the armourer.

-A historical description of the order of the camel is missing in the nomad camp building info.

!itburnsus!

You have raised some very good points and there were quite a few that I was thinking of changing myself, including reverting back to smaller units for HAs and Arab Infantry, but many more ideas I've not considered. I've noticed the problem with the HAs already and yes with the Arabs I have created a monster, so I will either adjust their stats accordingly or reduce them back to a standard size sword unit.

I totally agree also on the morale bonuses, they clearly have no structure whatsoever. I prefer to simply start from scratch with those and ensure that it's balanced correctly.

The Muster Field/Inn is necessary for training local units (Woodsmen, Clansmen, Kern, Gallowglass, Celts, Slavs etc) and only requires the fort. I'd rather leave it in, but it certainly should not produce any morale bonuses, those will be removed in the next version.

I'm not sure of the issue with the long names, I'll have to look into that. The names I've added are no longer than those of vanilla units such as "Byzantine Lancers", "Sipahi of the Porte", "Knights of Santiago" or "Trebizond Archers", etc.

I have some serious PC upgrading to do this weekend, but when I get "back" I will be moving on with the mod.

Regards

Caravel

:medievalcheers: :bow:

Hi,
i actually had in mind Kavallarioi Pronoiarioi Toxotai - not Dynatoi Oikeitai that are nor a problem nor bigger than vanilla names as you say - 500 years of ring bearing leave their mark.

Perhaps simply named "kavallarioi toxotai" for the reasons outlined earlier with the Pronoiarioi kavallarioi as the appropriate name for the ex-pronoiai allagoion/high-late byz heavy cavalry.

here's a few more:

-Thessaly is actually comprising of parts of Epirus, parts of Thrace, the whole of Thessaly and significantly the whole of Macedonia and has as its capital the capital of Macedonia, Thessalonica. I understand that once you've denoted Thessaly in startpos.txt it will be a pain to rename, not to mention the homelands maneuver. Yet, i had to say it and therefore here i say it:sweatdrop: that Thessaly is more appropriately named Macedonia.

-The French and HRE behave much better for their own good if set at: CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER. You can get a taste of this by the behaviour of the ex-Spanish, by far the most considerate of the catholic lot, because of this setting.

Currently France and HRE are set at CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER, which means that if they have the cash they'll try to expand with crusades - failling of course and suffering from civil wars due to the influence hit- and also they'll jump into landgrabs messing their integrity and development. While this is somewhat alleviated by the 2 rebelliousness that prevents them from jumping the gun all too often, i suggest you consider trying the DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER mode for them. Generally the expansionist mode burns out the AI factions.

All muslims also fare better set at: MUSLIM_PACIFIST (actually this means that the AI will not sail easily in some desperate invasion of doom scenario and will develop his lands - once the "pacifist" is invaded, he turns nasty with the perpetrator). The Egyptians at the moment are set to: MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST, which somewhat explains their behaviour.

Factions that depend on the sea such as the Sicilians, Danes and Italians fare way more reasonably at: CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER - the NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST makes them burn out and the CATHOLIC_TRADER makes them pay no attention to defence of crucial starting territories as they build tons of ships and no troops which become their financial doom once they have no ports/no trading provinces.; the Italians suffer particularly from this in vanilla.

Finally the Byzantines might prove a bit more prudent if set at ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE instead of ORTHODOX_STAGNANT.


!it burnsus!

correction: it is MUSlIM_PEACEFUL and not PACIFIST.

!itburnsus!

Hi,
just a bit more

-The names are really ok after all, they are never longer than the unit mental state description.

-I noticed a few bugs, namely the port of Tripoli is at its old location in Palestine. The Murabitin infantry are tied to the inn that is not permitted to Muslims.

*****Already fixed - please post bugs in the bug reports thread*****


I did a few custom changes, that is allow only a +1 morale from the inn/ribat, and also one from the grand mosque and one from the reliquary and one from the royal palace. In this way on average provinces provide a plus one and in only one unique province after a lot of investing a plus three.

Returned muslim horse and Arab swords to default sizes.

Changed the AI personalities according to previous post.

I aslo did a cheap fix for the 1159 ctd, returning Morea/Finland to the catholic flock so i can play past that date.

Allowed FFKnigths at citadel barracks level.

Then i started a campaign with the Byz on hard, that now approaches the high era. Turks gone and Egyptians suffer multiple civil wars. Currently holding border on Georgia, Allepo, Antioch, Serbia, Bulgaria. Constant skirmish with Hungary for Serbia. Also took Naples and Sicily when the SIcilians went extinct. No other wars.

Have about 230k in the bank with an average of 6000annual turnover.

-Noticed that eastern archer missile troops resist charges from Byz lancer and melee ferociously against them admittedly under good generals (4 stars plus) and yet the same does not happen with desert archers.

-Varangians are absolute killers - something needs to be done, perhaps put them to the extra info pic/sprite provided by ca in VI and nerf their stats -- they are really a high late era unit as they are. Half size units of them kill royal knights harboring kings of equal valor.

The muslim_peaceful is probably not optimal for the Turks as the game stands. Expansionist gives them better chances.

France and HRE fare better with defensive_crusader. More stable, more concentrating efforts of wars.

!it burnsus!

Hi,
its now 1214 and everything is going ok without ctds.

I have now 360k in the bank with an average annual turnover of 5k. That's because i am basically at war with whoever can be at war with me, hence the trade income is substantially reduced (basically black sea only, with the Kiavans).

The CLeonese have taken over Cordoba, Saragossa,, Algarb and Murcia. They've been at war with the French over Navarre (which was a point of bitter contest for much of the early period), that changed hands several times. In the end the war ended because the Frenchrun out of steam when the HRE empire took over Ile-de-France andFlanders from them. In the midst of all this they managed to find the time and money to send a (failed) crusade to Constantinople at 1180 or thereabouts. They have another one reaching Croatia that i hold right now, again for the same objective.

The Aragonese were very quiet all this time however when the opoortunity presented itself they took Navarre from the French and after that Aquitaine, Anjou and Brittany. Now they are building up a navy and are looking good.

The French after kicking out the English from the continent went at war with the Cast_leonese over Navarre as mentioned, currently down to one province Toulouse, been squashed from two sides by HRE and Aragon.

The Almoravids went through several advantures including taking over Vanelcia, making it muslim and losing it in a civil war (currently still rebel), and several civil wars coming at the top, in the end. They are currently holding Granada only in Iberia and all of their native Mahreb (marrackesh, fesh, algeria,tunisia). They have a substantial navy and it looks like they've just won a major defensive battle against Castile-Leon.

The English went into substantial depth and lost Mercia in a civil war after losing their mainland posessions. However, they've recovered over the years from a -13k to +1k currently and +0.5k annual turnover. Nice.

The Danish haven't gone broke yet, they've built a castle and the royal palace among other things. Their Scandinavian neighbours though (currently rebel) look beyond them.

The Italians colonised very early on Portugal and Scotland to reduce the upkeep of their roaming ships (as they always do) and later on Mercia. They've lost Genova during a civil war and now will have a tough time to get it back as the rebel faction seems on steroids. They've just launched a crusade against me (Constantinople). They went to war against me from the sea and now we are duking it out in the big blue.

The Hungarians are currently reduced to Wallachia and Carpathia. I decided to deal with them after the Mongols are no more a threat.

The Poles are sending large stacks of Slavs,from Moldavia every now and then across the river to Bulgaria, hence my valour 6 crossbows there. They hold Pomerania, Prussia, Poland and Moldavia and look dangerously sandwitched between HRE and the Kievans.

The Germans took over the French and even the Kaiser got a bit of influence. They've assisted the Hungarians in various epic battles over Hungary against me but they hadn't any luck there yet. They hold all starting provinces plus Champagne, Flanders, Normandy, Ile-de-France.

The Kievans killed off Novgorod and currently look scary - yet i give them little thought for in another 15 turns they'll have their hands full ~D.

The Fatimids managed to inflict a nice defeat on me in Damascus where their massed Gulam BGs and the desert tiped the scales against me. Since then i was busy in the balkans and so i simply strengthened the frontier armies in Antioch-Allepo and made no further move. Even with 2 provinces left (Damascus-Egypt) after a string of civil wars the Fatimids recovered, and gradually took Jerusalem and now Tripoli from the rebels. It seems that we'll meet soon again...

And finally me, Byzantium. I further conquered Hungary and Croatia and currently building large armies that i keep in Thesasly/Constantinople as a central reserve to act against the Crusaders and Fatimids and later on the Mongols. Have build up infrastructure to the satisfying point that i can raise three fullstacks of all goodies i have in good quantities in 5 turns. I naturally dominate the seas east of the strait of sicily.

A few more impressions/suggestions/observations:

-BUG: the rebels of the civil war in Tripoli and Allepo were building western knights from the courts as well as Turcopoles from the stables. It seems that the rebel AI recruits catholic units in the levant, even though the unit leaders have arabic names. perhaps some limitation is required to fix the problem in the knights.

*****Not a bug, but a limitation of the game engine. The culture type remains the same but the religious percentage in the province is also a factor, this causes the strange combos that you see in provinces such as Pomerania and Prussia in the vanilla game. The only safe way to stop the rebels producing such units is to define more culture/faction/province resrictions*****



-The Byzantines should be able to recruit Turcopoles in the Levant like the catholics - after all, as the Turcopole unit info card says they were Christianised Turks that the Byzantines used regularly. Turcopoula (Turcopoles) actually means "sons of Turks" much like Archondopoula means "sons of nobles", for those who play M2tw. It makes sense given the local units system of the mode, not to mention that it would be a welcome addition in the emperor's army!

-SUGGESTION: i noticed that the mod introduces plate armoured units, with the very heavily armoured description (presumably +9 armour as in vanilla?) at 1204. This is ahistorical (as vanilla is) - actually the 1204-1320 era is the golden era of scale-mail armour. Plate armour was introduced from 1320 onwards and replaced scale mail after 1400. It is also bad for gameplay terms as it makes the transition of eras sudden - quickly units are obolete. I suggest that no high era unit has more than heavily armoured description (+7 armour).

- Archers as i noted earlier, desert archers, eastern archers, can indeed fight well in melee against medioum cavalry with lances like the Byz lancer, that is somewhat counter intuitive. Yet i recockgised that given that the Ai uses tones of missiles and protects them poorly it might be a welcoming measure.

Things that i really liked:

-Recruitment system and relevant tech tree - nice work.
-Strict Homelands.
-Slow pace and meaningful use of agents due to high rebelliousness.
-Reworking of missiles - now can fulfill their independent use from the Ai as they can set up ambushes. Probably you have reqorked the skirmish use in crossbows - and AI unit took a shot in the face of my charging (bought) knights causing heavy casualties. Nice.
-The map - very good job. Historically and gameplay wise.
-Making rebels develop quickly (somehow rebel Georgia is making 600fl!?). Its risky now to leave the rebels on their owndevices for too long.
-Buildings construction times and prices - good balance between investment of strategic choices and dynamic play.
-Naval units construction times and prices - good balance between investment of strategic choices and dynamic play.

Overall: a promising piece of work - good luck!

!itburnsus!

Just forgot to mention that the Pope joined the catholic anti-Byzantine league of HRE, Hungary, Poland and Castile_leon the same year as the Italians making a walk into Naples with some seargents and piles of crossbows. The Norman knights serving the Basileus there - relics of the house of Guiscards bribed a century earlier when their lord was no more, actually bet before the battle who would catch the most prisoners - it was tough competition, but in the end the unit of Isaac Orphanopoulos won with 185 heads, only 5 heads ahead of the runner-up. However the true star of that day was the Alans that captured the holy father himself:smash::. He was graciously allowed to live and return in Rome with his brand new 1204 armour for only 14.5k florins. As for his offer to reunite the churches in exchange for his life as soon as he was brought in front of the emperor in person - it is still a favorite tell-for-laughs in Byzantium.

!it burnsus!

Hi, another one. Sorry for the barrage, but i try to do it while its all still hot...

The Mongols came and appeared ok. They have plenty of everything including the new steppe cavalry like mongol auxilia. Played the first battle and got the usual 3k approx kills. All is good except that some of the initial punch is lost due to the small sizes of MHC. I appreciate the intention, that in the long run the horde plays better without relying on them too much though.

BUG. After the battle i did a rightclick on the info card of what i guess must have been the mongol aux cavalry unit card, and got a ctd.


*****Missing info pic - FIXED 16/12/08*****


BUG. Denmark in high can built a lancer icon/unit card heavy cavalry unit entitled knights (i guess the knight late version). Could it be that the unit has escaped restriction for high and comes out of the baronial estate?


*****Not a bug - already fixed, the era restrictions were wrong for the Late era Knights (Lancers)*****

Observations/Suggestions.

-Its now well into the high era 1232, and i noticed that the catholics do not have a prpoer selection of units in their provinces. The new seargents are a barracks up from the early ones and so can be built in surprisingly few provinces. Chiv Foot Knights on the other hand are more common than foresters it seems as they are only tied to the royalcourt2 unlike feudalfootknights that needed the fortress barracks too. I suggest again that men at arms are lowered and chivfoot knights tied to citadel barracks. Its unnatural to have more availability in foot knights that men at arms.

-Perhaps turning Wallachia and Moldavia pagan at the beginning of the campaign is more historical and better gameplaywise. I think that the Cumans/Quipchacks occupied that area in 1087. It might also prevent the Byz ai running after Moldavia.

-I also suggest to reduce the cost and time construction of the royalcourt line of buildings as they are not tied to castles and the AI builds them to completion - yet this is not always worth it.

!it burnsus!

Hi,
some further ideas,

regarding spliting Turks and Egyptians, another possible way;

Antalya, Nicaea, Konya; Sultanate of Iconium
Sinope, Rum, Armenia; Sultanate of Rum
Allepo, Mosul, Edessa, Antioch; Great Seljuks
Damascus, Tripoli; Damascus
Palestine, Egypt; Fatimids

Although this is simply an idea and for the future too, its quite easy to do (apart from adding faction icons/colours of course), as all Turks and all Arabs may share common rosters, homelands etc that are ready.

- The English AI course is very predictable - inevitably put at severe disadvantage as it tries to desperately defend Aquitaine. Giving that and Anjou to the French might prove a long term benefit to the English AI.

- The Italian roster is very generic and same with that of all the other catholics. This is somewhat of a shame as the Italians can have a more distinct roster with emphasis in polearm/spear heavy infantry, crossbows and light cavalry.

!it burns us!

Some great ideas once again gollum, thank you for your input. :bow:

Can you please report suspected bugs separately in the bug reports thread? This enables us to keep a log of everything that needs urgent fixing. I will be working on the mod again soon when the memory arrives for my PC (I'm currently running on 256MB and it's not much fun). I will then go through everything in detail and begin to action the needed changes.

:medievalcheers:

Hi, yes will report in the bug thread hereafter.

!it burnsus!

I've implimented most of the changes you've suggested and fixed the problems you're reported. There are a few I haven't such as the removal of the Muster Field/Inn and the transfer of Aquitaine and Anjou to the French. Also I have not added any of the extra Muslim factions as yet, though this is something that I would be interested in adding to future releases. For the time being I've turned the unneeded Smith buildings rebel as I want to see how things go without them.

A new release will be out soon.

:medievalcheers:

[Martok wishes he had more time to play.] :embarassed:

Hi,
the inn/ribat buildings and their morale bonus work very well when there not many other bonuses from other lines of buildings. Glad to hear that a release will be out soon, i ll most likely play camps during xmas.

I hope that the pocket mod manages to find its way to completion. Its not a mainstream product but its a worthy one nonetheless that reveals a veteran players mind and an indiocyncratic one as such.

The most important thing is to have fun, and there can be loads of it while playing and modding this little gem. Too bad that the developers being succesful commerecially with their newer but a bit shallower releases are unlikely to repeat its fine, atmospheric lustre.

!it burnsus!

I've just started a campaign as the Sicilians, so I am going to play through that until Friday, which is the deadline I have in mind. I will be keeping an eye on the other factions as well (-ian mode etc) to see how things go. I then intend to make a few more tweaks and change some of the starting garrisons. If all is well at that point I intend to release the next testing version at the end of the week.

I'm going to load up a game as Aragon to observe how Iberia progresses.

:2thumbsup:

I am in the middle of a Sicilian campaign, but hardware problems are ruining it. I recently "upgraded" (not a major upgrade) my PC and now the old graphics card problems (infinite loop bug) I was having before have surfaced once again, except this time there is no solution. I will have to get a new graphics card. I was actually bidding on an X1950 and an X1650 last night on ebay but was beaten in the dying seconds. :furious3:

I am now faced with either resurrecting the old 9800 or reinstalling all of my old hardware. I'm going to go with the former for now, but I need to get a cooler for it first.

Anyway the Sicilian campaign is going well so far. Building up slowly and extending my shipping. A crusade is building so will be heading for the Almoravids soon. No issues as yet, though it's early days.

-Edit: I enabled the onboard graphics, an S3/VIA Unichrome IGP with 64MB of shared memory and now all is ok. No more lagging, no more massive delays in the menus, glitches on the campaign map and especially no more of the huge delay on the loading screens. It just works.

Good to see that your computer is up and running.

Ok, Aragon I found to be a bit challenging, (or maybe I'm just really rusty). I noticed that quite a few of the surrounding provinces are quite rebellious. And being fairly strapped for cash made it hard to hold on to anything I took. Which is a good thing.

It's 1120 now, didn't notice any bugs so far. I may start again, on perhaps normal rather than hard, since I'm getting my butt handed to me.

Edit: I like how you start with the two provinces rather than the single province.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rythmic

Good to see that your computer is up and running.

Ok, Aragon I found to be a bit challenging, (or maybe I'm just really rusty). I noticed that quite a few of the surrounding provinces are quite rebellious. And being fairly strapped for cash made it hard to hold on to anything I took. Which is a good thing.

It's 1120 now, didn't notice any bugs so far. I may start again, on perhaps normal rather than hard, since I'm getting my butt handed to me.

Edit: I like how you start with the two provinces rather than the single province.

---

This is the key to improving Aragon - and a single province is the reason why the Danes are still in a bad way. The Danes are very tricky to balance. I would like to improve them of course, but at the same time I don't want to unleash a horde of Huscarles on the world. I may have to add another province or two in the region yet as it is pretty sparse up there. I'd advise that you don't get too much into your campaign as I have a new version on the way.

:bow:

Playtesting 1.0.9 beta;

Just reached 1270 in a very adventurus and topsy turvy campaign as the French, suffice to say that i did three (succesful) Outremer crusades so far Nicaea, Antioch, Tripoli, one of which took 50 years to complete; and was forced to instigate a civil war to save my a** kingdom when my second in line ruler was blessed with 6 daughters/nieces and no male heirs.

First and brief impressions;

-Campaign game way more dynamic than 1.0.8.

-New Sea regions connection works well.

-Stack composition very, very much improved from 1.0.8, especially after 1204. Now catholics play ok, except Chivalric Foot Knights that make Halbs obsolete. Consider altering stats or bringing FFKanighits in high era too and CFKanighits in late era only. Almost cheat unit in high, although available to all (AI builds it in decent amounts).

-Byzantines in dire straits at the beginning

-Siculo-Normans hungry for plunder transplant the Romans with aid from Papacy and pressure from Seljukids. Witnessed a Byz civil war despite jedi emperor 6 influence. Sicilians played great and become major sea and land power, that currently is helping me dismantle the Turks and will be my next adversary in the area.

-Egyptians way more balanced - turning Arab swords and desert horse archer default hepled a lot - as a result they are sitting in Egypt (only province) at the moment instead of Paris.

-Turks now a major headache for Fatims and Byzs, doing very well for large tracts of time - even withstanding the Mongol visit.

-HRE degenerates into a weak slavic kingdom in the long run - AI preffers cheap and plentiful slav units than native catholic good german stuff, especially since he is so damn poor in the long run. Something needs to be done (to retain sovereignity).

-SPain and Aragon turned behemmoths - killed off Almoravids and subsequent pretenders and focused on shaming napoleon by conquering parts of Russia (the rest under the hoof of the horde) and challenging France (me) - currently Aragon gone and CL richest for decades since their side of the map is dead end. Consider gaping Bay of Biscay and Elnglish channel through Atlantic (ie deep sea passage only) as you did east - Spain way too rich with all these provinces although less behemmoth than vanilla even so and with much better stack composition nontheless. Alternatively consider making overall wealth of Spain less - or making the Cordoba/Granada landbridge extinct so cinquering Alms takes longer giving them time to recoup.

Not sure if more regions in Aquitaine and Toulouse would help - since they might end up as extra regions in the hands of the Spaniards, making the situation worse.

-No ctds

-Invisible Inquisition a nice plus

-Battles very good especially against Turks - large casualties on both sides many times - no more pushover.

!it burnsus!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gollum

-Stack composition very, very much improved from 1.0.8, especially after 1204. Now catholics play ok, except Chivalric Foot Knights that make Halbs obsolete. Consider altering stats or bringing FFKanighits in high era too and CFKanighits in late era only. Almost cheat unit in high, although available to all (AI builds it in decent amounts).

---

Yes I will be looking at those again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gollum

-Byzantines in dire straits at the beginning

---

Good or bad?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gollum

-Siculo-Normans hungry for plunder transplant the Romans with aid from Papacy and pressure from Seljukids. Witnessed a Byz civil war despite jedi emperor 6 influence. Sicilians played great and become major sea and land power, that currently is helping me dismantle the Turks and will be my next adversary in the area.

---

Well in the campaign I'm playing they seem a potent force as well. I'm not sure they should be that potent though?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gollum

-HRE degenerates into a weak slavic kingdom in the long run - AI preffers cheap and plentiful slav units than native catholic good german stuff, especially since he is so damn poor in the long run. Something needs to be done (to retain sovereignity).

---

This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gollum

-SPain and Aragon turned behemmoths - killed off Almoravids and subsequent pretenders and focused on shaming napoleon by conquering parts of Russia (the rest under the hoof of the horde) and challenging France (me) - currently Aragon gone and CL richest for decades since their side of the map is dead end. Consider gaping Bay of Biscay and Elnglish channel through Atlantic (ie deep sea passage only) as you did east - Spain way too rich with all these provinces although less behemmoth than vanilla even so and with much better stack composition nontheless. Alternatively consider making overall wealth of Spain less - or making the Cordoba/Granada landbridge extinct so cinquering Alms takes longer giving them time to recoup.

---

I haven't done much with the Castilians/Aragon as far as economy and units goes. It is hardly surprising that they are now even more overpowered than they were as there are more provinces. The provincial incomes need to be halved and the Almoravids need strengthening as their garrisons are insufficient in their current state. I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole. :beam:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gollum

-Invisible Inquisition a nice plus

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What Invisible Inquisition, I've no idea what you're talking about really...? :book2:

Keep an eye on the enemy spy/assassin caught messages as I'm not sure how that part functions as yet. That has been in there since v1.07A IIRC and I'm not sure if I've done the message for it. I've a feeling that I've set it up so that they show as either spies or assassins being caught as I don't want the player spotting them so easily.

Feedback much appreciated.

:bow:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cynewulf

This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.

---

I definitely agree the Slav Javlinmen and Warriors should be restricted by province and/or faction (whichever you feel is most appropriate). I've always found it a bit odd that the HRE (or anyone else) can recruit them to begin with. :inquisitive:

Changing the SW to more of a spear/sergeant type unit is fine by be. It would probably help give Kiev, Poland, and the Huns a bit more of a unique feel as well. Not sure about historical accuracy, but otherwise it sounds good to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cynewulf

I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole. :beam:

Feedback much appreciated.

:bow:

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Gah! Had too many errands to run this past Monday, next Monday is so far away, and am still doing the 12-hour days right now.... :wall:

Quote:

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Good or bad?

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depends who you ask - i'd say excellent

Quote:

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well. I'm not sure they should be that potent?

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Again depends who you ask - i'd say they should, since if Robert Guiscard wasnt taking the big sleep earlier than expected, Alexius-i-did-it-not-because-i'm-rotten-but-because-i-had-to-Comnenus would have led a less happier, succesful and perhaps much shorter reign as Byzantine Emperor. In any case, they are a potent force not a blitzing maelstrom - if the PoM manages to make the Byzantines a genuine challenge in early i'd say it has succeded.

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This is because I've robbed them of the UM that they liked to spam previously. The solution is to restrict the Slavic units that were introduced by the VI expansion and rebalance them. The Hungarians have the Jobaggy (sp? - I can never get that one right!) and thus do not need the Slav Javelinmen. It might be a better idea to restrict them to a particular province and faction(s) such as the Poles, Kievans and/or Novgorod. The Slav Warriors could also be restricted to the Hungarians, Poles and Kievans only. Their stats could be radically altered turning them into spearmen and those factions would then not train (round shield) spearmen or early sergeants, which would be restricted to Danes/Novgord and the Catholics respectively.

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Sounds a good idea - local flavor should be for locals to enjoy.

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I haven't done much with the Castilians/Aragon as far as economy and units goes. It is hardly surprising that they are now even more overpowered than they were as there are more provinces. The provincial incomes need to be halved and the Almoravids need strengthening as their garrisons are insufficient in their current state. I'm waiting for people to suggest decent garrisons for the early campaign as a whole.

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Not sure if its due to starting forces only - in 1.0.8 say the Alms played great - it could be because i took the French, that the Spanish and Aragonese went "mad".

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What Invisible Inquisition, I've no idea what you're talking about really...?

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I dont know, what are you talking about??

:bow:

!itburnsus!

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Originally Posted by Martok

I definitely agree the Slav Javlinmen and Warriors should be restricted by province and/or faction (whichever you feel is most appropriate). I've always found it a bit odd that the HRE (or anyone else) can recruit them to begin with. :inquisitive:

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I'm going for restricting both. Those sort of units should be rare and not make up the backbone of any faction's armies, or they should be incorporated in some other way preferably replacing another unit.

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Originally Posted by Martok

Changing the SW to more of a spear/sergeant type unit is fine by be. It would probably help give Kiev, Poland, and the Huns a bit more of a unique feel as well. Not sure about historical accuracy, but otherwise it sounds good to me.

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Well as far as the historical accuracy goes I'm not overly worried. The spearmen stats will suit the info pic better than the sword stats it currently has. They can also be renamed if necessary. There is simply no point in many duplicate units simply to satisfy anal historical accuracy. I would like units to be culturally distinct but that's about it. The main focus is balanced battles with well rounded units.

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Originally Posted by gollum

depends who you ask - i'd say excellent

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:bow:

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Originally Posted by gollum

Again depends who you ask - i'd say they should, since if Robert Guiscard wasnt taking the big sleep earlier than expected, Alexius-i-did-it-not-because-i'm-rotten-but-because-i-had-to-Comnenus would have led a less happier, succesful and perhaps much shorter reign as Byzantine Emperor. In any case, they are a potent force not a blitzing maelstrom - if the PoM manages to make the Byzantines a genuine challenge in early i'd say it has succeded.

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I wanted the Byzantine to be an interesting faction for the player, though stagnant for the AI. On a related note I have made the changes to the black sea provinces. Two of them are now pagan to help slow Byzantine expansion. The Byzantine are still overdoing it navally of course. This will need tweaking until the number of ships reaches an acceptable level.

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Originally Posted by gollum

Not sure if its due to starting forces only - in 1.0.8 say the Alms played great - it could be because i took the French, that the Spanish and Aragonese went "mad".

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It's partially due to starting forces. There a few starting garrisons of less than 100 men, this combined with the higher provincial rebelliousness can cause provinces like Murcia to rebel in the first turn. I know that one of those Iberian provinces has no garrison at all, I think it's Catalonia. On the whole the area needs looking at. The Spanish factions as a whole during the start of that period were poor.

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Originally Posted by gollum

I dont know, what are you talking about??

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Ok who sent you? Let's take this one finger at a time...

-Edit: My patience wears thin, where is Caraveloto-san hiding?

Playing beta 1.09, by the way.

Apologies again if I seem ungrateful or my comments ill-informed, I just thought I'd tell you how I'm finding it as I'm playing. I am really enjoying the mod, it's a totally different take on the mods I've played before & I think the building strategies & farm income ideas are a work of art, as are the new province ideas. At first I thought that the paucity of units would bug me but the battles are much more difficult, what with no ultra-uber troops, & that makes up for the somewhat uniform composition of armies.

Stupid stupid question, even more stupid than the things I've posted over in the bug reports thread: when it gets to 1205, will new units appear? I know that you haven't finished the High era yet as a playable start, but on the roll-over during an Early era game will upgraded units be available?

Yes new units will become available from the High era, but as to how many depends on the faction. The Catholics, Novgorod and Kievans get significantly better, whereas the Muslims and Byzantines either stay much the same or worsen.

In Late the Catholics and Seljuks (Will be known as the Ottomans in the late era, though only if you start from the Late era once the Late Era startpos file is done) will get much better and most other factions will fall well behind.

Bear in mind that the unit rosters are not finalised as yet so there is till work to be done on balancing units and ensuring that there are only those units that are required. Every unit must fill a role or it is essentially useless. There are many mods that offer a great variety of different units per faction, this isn't one of them. The Pocket Mod aims to provide every faction with one unit, per role per era. The only exceptions will be special localised units, such as e.g. Clansmen or Nizari. These will add the "flavour" where required. This is preferable to opening the unit training scroll and finding six types of Horse Archer available and wondering which one to train. It also suits the AI better as it makes it easier for it to / forces it to make the right unit choices.

Men at Arms are an example of a unit that may be changed. The High/Late MAA (CMAA) may be moved to Late only due to them being depicted as plate armoured infantry units. I would also prefer that the Early MAA (FMAA) continue into the High era as they are more readily available and are a good all round unit. Sergeants have been corrected in that there are now Early*, High**, and Late** Sergeants respectively.

*Square Shield Spearmen with slightly improved stats
*Feudal Sergeants
*Chivalric Sergeants

:bow:

Foolish question, but IIRC, Arab armies really did not become worse as time went on, especially those in Turkey/Egypt. Will anything be done to address this?

Not a foolish question, but in the mod Arab armies do not get worse, they merely get outclassed by western armies, which did happen. Prior to this western armies would have been inferior to their eastern counterparts. If anything I've made the Fatimids and Seljuks stronger from the start, but with the exception of the Mamluk units and Janissary/Sipahi/Ottoman units they do not really get constant flow of new units as time goes on.

Observation: The Byzantine are still too strong. In the campaign I was playing as the English, they've exploded all over the map. They're in Egypt, the steppe and are heading into eastern Europe. They have huge stacks of Skutatoi, Kontaratoi, Psiloi and various cavalry types. They need to be brought under control.

I'm against totally nerfing them, but I would like to make their homelands easier pickings for the Turks and others.

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Originally Posted by Caravel

Observation: The Byzantine are still too strong. In the campaign I was playing as the English, they've exploded all over the map. They're in Egypt, the steppe and are heading into eastern Europe. They have huge stacks of Skutatoi, Kontaratoi, Psiloi and various cavalry types. They need to be brought under control.

I'm against totally nerfing them, but I would like to make their homelands easier pickings for the Turks and others.

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Agreed. I'm about 30 years into a Fatimid campaign (finally got to play a little today! :beam: ), and the Byz are already overrunning everyone around them. Perhaps their homelands should be more restricted than they are currently? I don't really like that idea, but at the moment I can't think of anything better. :gah2:

On the other hand, I really enjoyed fighting the Seljuks. They're finally decently strong, and more of a force to be reckoned with. :medievalcheers:

Actually, it has less to do with homelands, and more to do with financial allocation - the Byz have the money, therefore they build the troops in excess. To much upkeep prompts the AI to become aggressive. They conquer further territory, increasing their income and reducing their upkeep.

Rinse. Repeat

There are three ways of stopping this effectively without crippling the Byzantines.

1) Decrease their financial capability in the beginning, and make it harder for them to win battles
2) Increase the financial capability of surrounding factions in the beginning, and make it easier for them to win battles
3) Increase the number of factions in the area. More Faction means the AI will attempt to maintain Garrisons in the area per faction, thus reducing it's ability to expand

I'm thinking along the same lines...

Really we need to isolate where most of their income comes from and try to cut it in half. They seem to be trading and ship building to the extreme. So this leads me to believe that it is their farm income that is driving this. I'm sure this can be started with halving the farm income of Trebizond and Sinope (I may have duplicated these effectively adding another provincial income in the same area instead of distributing the income between the two), and reducing that of Antalya, Nicaea and Constantinople. The latter rakes in a large trade income anyway.

To add to the above, I'll admit that I think we may be getting ahead of ourselves when thinking of new factions this early on and this issue demonstrates that. There is so much that needs doing and yet already we are discussing the adding factions to an existing faction line up and unit roster that is not yet balanced. I would like to put new factions, new units and indeed new eras on hold until what we have at present is fixed and working acceptably.

At the moment we have the issue of the imbalanced Byzantine to fix. YLC's theory above is pretty much the same as what I'm thinking, mainly due to the sheer numbers of ships they can build. I don't think that reducing their homelands will be historically accurate (wait until the high era for that, where they will start with nothing but Nicaea), but I do want them to recede and decay rather than take over the world. We need to encourage factions such as the Italians and Sicilians to head for Constantinople though I cannot see a clear way as to how that can be done. The Seljuks also need a slight monetary boost to get them moving a little faster. I'm thinking that Mosul and Damascus should be richer provinces than they are at present. This would tie in with the creation of independent Atabegs or Emirates in the region.

:bow:

Hmmm...I have a suggestion for getting the Italians and Sicilians to go after Greek lands. Correct me if I am wrong, but if memory serves, didn't the East Romans, in the aftermath of Manizkert, have a disastrous time trying to levy anything at all? The idea being that if we reduce initial production capability and make East Romans ripe for conquering, and have a nice line of nifty ships for the Italians leading there, the will take it. Without the masses of troops, the East Romans would suffer rebellion in their provinces, which I would think would be historically accurate anyway.

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Originally Posted by YLC

Hmmm...I have a suggestion for getting the Italians and Sicilians to go after Greek lands. Correct me if I am wrong, but if memory serves, didn't the East Romans, in the aftermath of Manizkert, have a disastrous time trying to levy anything at all? The idea being that if we reduce initial production capability and make East Romans ripe for conquering, and have a nice line of nifty ships for the Italians leading there, the will take it. Without the masses of troops, the East Romans would suffer rebellion in their provinces, which I would think would be historically accurate anyway.

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Sounds feasible.

Thessaly, Epirus, Athens and Morea are the key provinces. Once the Latin factions are in there, there should be no stopping them from getting to Constantinople... what is stopping them at present is the Byzantine money machine. I'm still for cutting down on their net income. It would be an idea to make the islands, Athens, Epirus and Morea more likely to rebel early on. The only way to do this would be to make them non orthodox provinces, as increasing rebelliousness further would affect the conqueror as well. Also the Byzantine are probably building armies to hold down their provinces, so as well as cutting their income it might be an idea to add some happy buildings in key provinces - only enough to stop rebellions and stop them increasing garrisons. This will give them stability where it counts and less stability in border regions from the start.

so, to avoid having to browse the last hundred pages: have there been any novelties since 1.6beta?

There are only 10 pages in this thread. 1.09b is totally different to 1.06b. You'd have to try it for yourself - up to you.

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy

so, to avoid having to browse the last hundred pages: have there been any novelties since 1.6beta?

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Many. The 1.9 beta is very different from the 1.6 version. :yes: