EB 1.0 Balance

I have played a three campaigns as Carthage from the years 272-200 BC now, and I have a couple of observations;

1. The changes to the "Rebels" in northern Italy and the Alps work well in constraining unrealistic AI Roman expansion into Germany and beyond.

Unfortunately, however, they don't change the AI Roman "urge" to expand in this direction. Hence, AI Rome continues to ignore conquering Taras and sourthern Italy & Sicily, and instead strives unsuccessfully to go north.

The result is no war between Carthage & AI Rome in Sicily, and Taras enduring as an Epirote city. :(

2. The Seleucids ALWAYS get crunched by Ptolemies. There is no struggle for Coele-Syria - instead the Ptolemies power east, and overwhelm Mesopotamia and Asia-Minor.

3. Macedonia ALWAYS gets crunched by a combination of Epiros and the Greek Cities.

As always, congratulations on the work and success of EB. I LOVE the new Xanthippos feature, and the Carthaginian reforms are superb.

H.

1) The Taras bit is a stroke of luck (in the sense that with some luck Rome conquers it within a couple of years, otherwise ...) and eventually either Epeiros or Rome make something out of it...
2) You're not alone here. We are looking for a balanced AS faction which would be more than able to hold on to its western possessions; but gradually loose it from the East. Unfortunately the Pahalava and the Baktrians do not always help this scenario by going to the Steppe instead. Again something we're trying to improve.
3) Funny you should mention this. From my AS campaign:

For about 27 years the Maks had been doing OK; even able to claim Delphi as their own private oracle... However they got a little too much into the KH bashing business (the KH who did manage to hold on to Athens btw) and the Epeirotai knew a chance when they saw it... With the Maks leaving Pella virtually unguarded it did not take long from 245 onwards for Epeiros to conquer Makedonia. A similar pattern assured the fall of Demetrias and Thermon.

It's more a case of 'classic' AI failure to recognise the need for decent border garrisons + Epeiros building up armies for decades; rather than a balance issue. (Because for 27 years the three Western factions almost perfectly held each other in balance- and had the AI not decided to go against Athens' big walls yet again... This game could've continued for another 27 years.)

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Originally Posted by HamilcarBarca

I have played a three campaigns as Carthage from the years 272-200 BC now, and I have a couple of observations;

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You know there's more than one faction out there...

As for the Ptolemy-Seleukid battles, in the first of two campaigns I'm running right now the ptolemies and seleukia seem pretty much even (although after 220 BC the Ptolies did take over Seleukid asia minor). In the other one Ptolemy is smashing every seleukid force sent their way and going strong, but guess who I'm playing?:egypt:

I haven't been paying attention to the Rome- Sicily situation, but from what I've heard at least there isn't a bloodclot in easter europe anymore.

Ive played 4 campaigns with different factions for about 30 years each and noticed that romans have 3 out of 4 times ignored taras, but they did take rhegion as they expanded north. No war with Carthage though...
Maks have been decimated in all 4 campaigns
AS gets crippled between Pontos (in 3 campaigns out of 4) and Ptolemy in all campaigns.
Lusitani (sp?) are expanding in every game and have nearly conquered all of iberia in 2 out of 4 campaigns, but not much expansion by gauls or germans.

I do think all the extra rebels to the north are an excellent addition. as stated above it depends if they wanna just pound their heads against the wall until it breaks or if they move away

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You know there's more than one faction out there...

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So, he likes Kart-Hadast. You got a problem with that?

I recommend using force_diplomacy to make Romans attack Tarentum and, later, Carthage.

So... why DOES the AI like germany so much? Surely the southern towns are worth more... so, even if it's broken, the AI must be following some kind of reasoning (I hope it's not 100% random)

They like to attack rebels and the player over all other factions.

Wow, that's more dense than I thought.

There are some things you can do if you want to balance it out a little bit. You can put a cap on factions by giving money penalties if they get over a certain number of provinces. So for the Greeks if they have 5 or more province and treasury greater than a certain amount you can give them a cash penalty. Same goes for the Ptolemies. You can also try to change the AI "mentality". So making the greeks into a "fortified" faction may make them more of a defensive faction.

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There are some things you can do if you want to balance it out a little bit. You can put a cap on factions by giving money penalties if they get over a certain number of provinces. So for the Greeks if they have 5 or more province and treasury greater than a certain amount you can give them a cash penalty. Same goes for the Ptolemies. You can also try to change the AI "mentality". So making the greeks into a "fortified" faction may make them more of a defensive faction.

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How?

Give some practical advice on how to make it so!

I think a limitation on the Ptolemies is particularly necessary; and anything we can do to get an AI Rome interested in taras! :help:

H.

Go into the script and go to the money adding section.
You want to add something like this:

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType greek_cities
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury > 1000
and I_NumberOfSettlements > 5
console_command add_money greek_cities, -5000 (or whatever money amount you want to reduce them by)
end_monitor

The goal is to cripple a faction if it becomes too big for your liking. If you want to really drop them into debt you can take out the treasury line.

About the ai stupidity in going after rebels first, in my current game as Makedonia I kicked the Epirotes out of Epeiros, leaving them with just Taras. One city, a small stack and what do they do? They proceed with smashing the Romans, expanding up to and conquering Rome, as well as expanding into Sicily, taking Messana. The Romans, or what remains of them, still attacks the Eleutheroi in northern Italy, rather then doing something about the Epirotes.

I'm in a house-rule Roman campaign with 1.0 at 178BC using BI on VH / M. (first and really only atm - will try others later.)

AS got wiped by the Ptolemies
Mak got pushed back to 4 provinces but around 200BC or so had a resurgence (I hadn't even touched greece by that point and only have the Peloponnese atm.) They are now the dominant Greek faction with around 20 provinces.

At this point Baktria is pushing the Ptolemies from the east and I'm nibbling on their holdings in North Africa. It's become the blue death now.

Casse still hasn't figured out that wood floats.

I'm near the point where I'll shelve the game - it's become a sure Roman win.

Maybe Epiros next or something farther east.

You can't really judge AI behaviour off of experience with only one faction. For one thing, nearby factions will always be more powerful.

I have played with the Sauromatae for more than 60 years now and I had a completely different experience that HamilcaBarca. (take in mind I play with BI 1.6)

1º Rome have conquered Taras in the first 15 years of my game. They are now heading north into Gaul. They have pushed the Aeudi to the north and the Averni only hold Vesontio. The new superpower in the west are the Lusotannan who hold all of Iberia and are pushing north from Aquitania.
Regarding Sicily the romans have conquered it 30 years ago.

2º I have been fighting the AS from the east and they STILL have managed to defeat the Ptolies in Syria and have managed to conquer Alexandria and Memphis!!!
Although I must say that the Karthies helped them in destroying the Ptolomies from egpyt since they now hold everything in Africa from the Nile to the west.

3º In my game the Maks have been defeated by the KH alone(And the KH have in turn destroyed the Epirus faction...). Now the maks only hold a dacian settlement, Pergamun and Lesbos.

regards.

1 not always
2 not always, in my baktria campaign the seleukids in the east they would had destroyed the pahlavi long ago if I wasn't there to help economically and military, but in the western front they conquered Alexandria and are holding back the KH (that is a superpower in that campaign). The main strenght of the AS imho is that they can recover well after an eventual loss of Antiochiea, but the Ptolies are in much more difficult situation if they lose Alexandria
3 I agree :laugh4:

It's completely pointless to cap AI treasuries: for one thing the EBBS already does this AFAIK.

Hrmph, the patterns are indeed easy to detect.

Sweboz usually, logically, take control over the rebel provinces around them, which occupies them for quite a bit.
Aedui and Arverni bicker a lot, but can't seem to get much done between them, although the Arverni usually take a province or two in southern/western Gaul. The Lusitanians might take a province or two in Iberia, but then remain still for the rest of the game (at least, in my games). The Getai usually expand south- and eastwards, and quite often end up in war against Pontos over the control of areas around Sea of Marmara.

I've only ONCE seen Sarmatians manage to expand (westwards, two provinces), usually they just lose the eastern provinces. The Saka are the ones who take those eastern provinces, and every now and then conquer Xingu, and/or subjugate Baktria as their subkingdom. The Pahlavi manage quite well, succeeding in expanding into the AS-controlled Parthia etc.

The Romans... They ALWAYS expand northwards, and sometimes westwards (farther than Massilia, that is).

The Epeirotes either just take control over the western half of the Balkans, or, in addition to the rebel provinces, conquer Macedonia/Brettonia. Makedonia rarely succeeds in faring well in Greece, and usually loses most of its territories there. Taking Pergamon seems to be awfully difficult, also. KH usually ends up being the number one Greek faction in the area, conquering Aitolia, Euboia and Peloponnesos, and they sometimes also conquer some provinces on the shores of the Euxine.

Baktria usually conquers the closest rebel provinces to south/east, and then starts warring with the AS at some point. The Seleukids ALWAYS lose against the Ptolemaioi and lose Koile-Syria, and more often than not, also more areas, like Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Ptolemaioi also sometimes expand a little southwards and westwards, sometimes attacking the Qarthadastim, who just pretty much sit on their butts for the most of it. They don't even sometimes conquer Sicily and/or the rebellious North-African provinces (Sicily gets forgotten more often than Numidia).

Or, well, that's what I've been seeing.

The annoying things are how AS, Makedon and Sauromatae always lose, how Rome fails to focus on the Mediterranean, the Gaulsl bicker on and on forever, with neither succeeding to prevail, and how the Ptolemaioi always become the superstate of the east, and how the mighty Qarthadastim are just lazy traders.

I mean, "patterns" need not necessarily be bad, but when they follow unhistorical paths, I, at least, find it rather irritating.

And, ugh, do note that I *LOVE* EB, and those are just things that -annoy- me somewhat, they aren't game-breaking things or anything. I'd think it'd just be funnier if the AI was a bit more aggressive (well, some of the factions' AIs, anyway <.<), as seeing half the Iberia remain under rebels is somewhat annoying for me, for example.

I mean, when one of the most important historical events in world history (the Punic Wars) don't occur, it's a bit annoying, I find. :p

I think the only thing that will prevent from the Roman run for the Danube would be to asign the Northern Italian provinces to both Gaul factions and make them at peace with Rome and/or make Taras rebell. In that case the AI prefernces for attacking the rebells would lead the Romans to the south and against Carthage.

It would also help Epeiros, may be. Because in every campaign I see full stacks of Epeirote armies sitting on the shores of their homelands and staring across the Adriatic as long as they hold Taras, even when their ships had long since been sunken by pirates or the Roman-Carthagian fleets.

@ konny: right you are! Though sometimes (depending what faction I play), I see the Romans go south for both Taras & Rhegion, and even go for Sicily.

From my limited (2 campaigns) play, I've seen the Romans do both: In my current game, they're headed north, smashing their armies against the rebels, while Eppy owns all of southern Italy and is kicking the Carthies out of Sicily. In my first game, the Romans swept south into North Africa and left the north alone.

Why dont you guys check the 1.0 faction progression thread?

I have posted my Kart-Hadast campaign on the twcenter forum and got a very interesting AI expansion,
The Maks got really powerfull, their territories were only taken by brute force of a 3 faction alliance (Pontos, Seleucids, Getai)
The seleucids survived but because i helped them alot, the Ptolies were kicking ass.

But all factions progressed really well.


Cya
WCrusader

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

It's completely pointless to cap AI treasuries: for one thing the EBBS already does this AFAIK.

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I think the EBBS caps it at something like 240,000, which is still a lot of money. I'm experimenting, for my own personal tastes, at capping the treasury so a faction will have a hard time expanding beyond a certain point. I don't like the KH beating up the Maks and I'm not a big fan of the Ptolemies and Baktrians beating up the Seleukids and meeting at the center, so capping is one experiment to see if it can stop them.

Would it help to make the Romanii attitude towards the Rebel faction more neutral in descr_strat?

Is it possible to make the Romans start out at peace with the eleutheroi? Not that the AI is known for respecting ceasefires, but maybe it will make Taras more of a target. I'm also reasonably sure that the AI developes degrees of hatred... that it has hidden degrees of "at war"... the most common, apparently, being "war to the last man"... but it doesn't seem to always be the case. Maybe there's a way to adjust this hatred level? I figure it would have been done by now, though, if it could be.

mcantu - no, not noticeably

Danest - well:

1. It wouldn't really be accurate
2. Tyes you are right about these levels of haterd. Unforntunately, you can only move down, not up. CA was fealing rather cynical when they made RTW, by the looks of things.

Many times these strange AI tendencies are part of our alternate history we create. Sometimes it's great that the AI is not bound to obey history. Other times, like when Rome ignores Epiros to go hunting rebels, it seems to be illogical and problematic. So maybe we need to focus on specific instances, such as the Romani and Epiros. I remember that vanilla RTW had no trouble making Roman factions go after their "assigned enemies", such as the Greeks, or Carthage. I think it was with a script? Maybe such a script would be useful here? It would be almost an act of insanity for Rome to ignore an invasion of the Italian Penninsula like this, so... maybe they just need a push in the right direction at the beginning of the game, just to keep them from literally completely ignoring a direct invasion?

And, I wonder, also, if bigger factions are percieved as a more serious threat, making the eleutheroi seem more threatening than they really are?

You have to remember that the taking of Taras, IRL, was a large stroke of luck for the romans, mostly caused by Pyhrros's, completly unrelated, death.


Therefore, in game, the Epirotes are very much a rissing power, and it makes a certain sense for Roma to not wish for any more costly Pyhriric wars, and be content with a stalemate whilst they attack weaker and more disorganised foes.


OK, thats rather thin, but the golden rule of modding is this: if you find an incurable bug, turn it into a feature!:2thumbsup:

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You have to remember that the taking of Taras, IRL, was a large stroke of luck for the romans, mostly caused by Pyhrros's, completly unrelated, death. Therefore, in game, the Epirotes are very much a rissing power, and it makes a certain sense for Roma to not wish for any more costly Pyhriric wars, and be content with a stalemate whilst they attack weaker and more disorganised foes.

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I just don't agree.

Taras was on its knees before Pyrrhos arrived in 280, and it was quickly on its knees again when he departed Italy in 275. The fall of Taras was not a stroke of luck, but inevitable. Taras had a long history of sustaining its unsustainable position in Italy with external aid; as soon as that aid vanished, Taras succumbed.

Taras had been a noteworthy regional power during the time of Archytas (428-347), but by 272 it was enfeebled, it lacked significant military capability, and had a total dependence upon both mercenaries and adventurers/saviours from both Epiros and Sparta.

That is why the fall of Taras to Rome was so un-noteworthy. The small Epirote garrison quietly evacuated, and Rome quietly assumed effective control.

Epiros was not a "rising power" in 272; it was a mere months away from vanishing from the Greek stage altogether as a regional power. The unique personality of Pyrrhos propelled this small, poor and heterogenous polity onto the international stage during 280-272. In his absence, it resumed its status as a 3rd rate Greek kingdom cum league.

So, by 272, the supremacy of Rome in Italy was a resolved question. All that remained to make it a fact was to eliminate a treacherous Roman/Campanian garrison at Rhegium and bring a crippled Taras to heel.

It was a foregone conclusion.

H.

But that is just the whole point: in the absence of Pyhrros, Epiros collpases, cause he is dead. If he hadn't died, things could have turned out very differnetly indeed.

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2. The Seleucids ALWAYS get crunched by Ptolemies.

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In my Lusotana M/M they are ruling the world. :charge: Ptolies are a petty kingdom in Ethiopia. :egypt:

I'd love if you guys made over-expansion harder for both the player and the AI. Seeing such AS and KH expansions while trying to behave as realistically as possible makes me feel weird:

https://img67.imageshack.us/img67/9995/171bcux2.th.jpg

I suggested some emphasis on the faction leader (thus making another unfeature a feature) but flatly refused. Maybe distance from homelands or something like that can be done, I don't know. :shrug:
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You sure I can't tempt you?

Not even shadow factions for the deaths and MTW style FLs?

Admit it. Your tempted.:laugh4:

Interesting points from everyone. Achieving balance, playability, the chance to change history, and historical realism must be extremely difficult. I applaud the EB team for continuing to strive for perfection.

My largest frustration comes from Baktria. I would like it to be more of a toss-up between the Parthians and Baktrians to see who dominates in the East. I have only rarely seen Parthia dominate. For some reason, it seems that Baktria is just an economic powerhouse (likely because of the rich cities they begin with). Also, I think they get a huge benefit by being able to use the Seleukid MIC's. It explains their steamroll into the west, whereas Parthia has to slow down and develop each city before moving on.

But regarding the Taras question that seems to be dominating this thread, is it possible to make a script that gives Taras to the Romans if the player is any factions other than Rome or Epeiros?

I don't see why that's necessary. Check my KH campaign in the faction progression thread (it seems to have been missed b/c it preceded one of Soggius' massive updates). Playing with BI, AI Rome declared war on Carthage less than 10 years into the game and conquered Taras in roughly 2-3 years. They took Alalia, Karali, and Messana before Carthage mustered up troops and pushed back, retaking the isles and making all of Sicily Punic. As it stands the Romans and Punes are furiously fighting over Rhegion, in fact, it is a rebel city right now as the Carthies took it and promptly had it rebel. The Carthies are also engaged in the Sand Wars with Ptolies, who are 2 for 2 so far in crushing AS, though they just signed a peace with Ptolies and got Kyrene, so I don't see it lasting too long. Plus the Aedui have gained the upper hand in the Great Gallic Civil War.
I really think the conquest of Taras is the result of lucky battle roll for Romani, as if it had any phalanx units they will tend to kill a disproportionate amount and since the AI doesn't manually fight battles....the devs have really done all they can to encourage Rome to go after Taras and to their credit, teh Romans usually do. Its just that they don't attack with a real force and lose repeatedly.
EDIT: And Baktria only can use the regional MICs of AS, not factional. Its the Ptolies who truly benefit from any AS falterings since they can use Factional and regional MICs of AS IIRC.

Regarding Ptolemies/AS: excluding heavily tweaked games, I've had one game where the AS went on a rampage, and crushed the Ptolemies, taking also several Eleutheroi provinces and Pontos on the way there. In another the fight was pretty historical, with the Ptollies eventually taking Coele-Syria after a long struggle.

Regarding Rome: my big problem here is that the Punic Wars basically do not start. Messena can be trampled by either Rome or Carthage, without a war starting. I've seen Carthage in Southern Italy, and they're still the best of friends with Rome. IMO there should be a script to tirgger the Punic Wars as soon as either Rome or Carthage expands in Sicily.

But IMO, the worst unhistorical expansion is by the Sweboz. They always end up an all-conquering superpower. 50 years into any game and they're guaranteed to be in Gaul.

Umm, there already is a script, if the romans take Messana, then the Qarthadastim will declare war on them.

But not vice-versa. And in EB its is much, much more likely that Carthage will take Messana first.

:shrug:

In my Hayasdan campaign, Carthage is invading Italty from Sicily and has captured the toe of Italy, with some signs that they'll move on for more if not stopped. Rome has made significant progress the the north, and I believe they're directly bordering the Sweboz.

One thing that occurred to me as a means of encouraging historical growth and decline would be to have the money script change based on the year. In years particular factions were growing, they get larger bonuses. In years they were declining, they get less. Is that possible?

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Originally Posted by woirble

One thing that occurred to me as a means of encouraging historical growth and decline would be to have the money script change based on the year. In years particular factions were growing, they get larger bonuses. In years they were declining, they get less. Is that possible?

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Yes, that is possible, but wouldn't make much sense because you can't know in advance when, for example, the Romans will face Pontos, the Germanic push into Italy or Karthago starts her conquest of Spain.

I'd like to help the Pathians somehow. In all my campaigns from 0.7x onwards I NEVER saw them win anything.

I'd love to at least once come across a strong parthian empire which I could fight.


I think it's ok that Carthage doesn't do too much. after all they are traders not soldiers...and btw I saw them expand in Spain up to Massilia and they like to fight the Ptolies for Cyrene.

Yes, Phavala never lived long in any of my campaigns.
I've also very rarely seen any big Parthian empires on the Faction Progressenion thread.:no:

Then again it's the wierd Hayasdan goes into the wasteland phenomenon, instead of going south.

Otherwise everything else seems to be quite smooth at the moment in my oppinion.

Its hardly suprising, the AS is south.:whip:

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Copied from my post at EB Tweaks:

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Originally Posted by CirdanDharix

Fourthly, right now I'm experimenting with adding pop growth penalties to the unavoidable governor buildings, and it makes getting your cities huge much more challenging. I might increase the costs and build time on some buildings, as well.

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Awesome idea! :2thumbsup: The AI seems to upgrade too quickly -due to the pop and money boost from EBBS maybe- and that makes expansion into different culture land a great pain. While expansion by itself being pain is good ~D it forces the human player into blitzing; taking whatever before reaching the max town size.

So, while slowing pop growth and increasing the building time of the ridiculously indestructible palace buildings, adding law and happiness penalties in a fashion of enforcing town upgrades would make expansion both more stable and more challenging at the same time. :yes:
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