MTW-Redux Beta Released!

**western** · 08-29-2008, 21:26

Axalon

OK, here's my feedback on the Byzantines.

My longest campaign was 70 years on expert, at the end of which I had the Balkans, Asia Minor and Italy and had wiped out the Hungarians and Italians. I had some truly epic battles against both those factions - big, tough, lots of variety in the troops but with the Italians in particular having a definitely different feel about their mainly infantry armies. Reminded me a bit of the feel of MedMod, the first great MTW Mod, where there was a real effort to give each faction a distinctive character.

I liked
- the look of all the troops. There's a weight and substance to the icons in review and a good match with the troops as they actually appear
- the balance. No troop type seemed too overwhelming. I was worried at first that archers were overpowered but that seemed to wear off. Factions didn't seem to spam all the same type of troops, or too low a level, and nor did rebels.
- the fact that ships were fairly few on the ground. Too many ships, with instantaneous movement, and any feel that you have to work to get from a to b, or that the world has any scale, goes out of the window. Those active rebels did a small sea invasion on me, which was novel. Otherwise it was land movement until I went into italy via the toe. The commonest ships were rebel ships
- regionalisation of troops, so that my troop options expanded with my empire
- good mix of mercs: very appropriate for the Byz
- stable balance of power. I killed 2 factions, rebels killed the Pope and someone else did in the Burgundians, but otherwise everyone was left at the end and all save Lithuanians were reasonably formidable powers.
- absence of bridge battles, which in my opinion are unrealistic, silly and too hard for the AI
- rebelliousness - not so high as to be silly, but it took time to stabilise new provinces, and depleting garrisons too far caught me a couple of times (since I don't check as a matter of realism)
- no uber generals. You seem to have somehow corrected the hard coded habit of the Byz spawning multi-star heirs. No idea how this has been achieved??

I would suggest
- money is still a bit too plentiful. That's what kills my interest, when I am struggling to spend my income each year once my empire has grown
- raise requirements (and upkeep) for Byz infantry and put in a militia unit between them and peasants.
- regionalise even more. I don't like being able to raise cataphracts and Byz lancers in Hungary and Wallachia. I should be having to recruit local auxiliaries or bring troops up from my home provinces.
- not sure why cataphract numbers are so small and lancer numbers so big.
- Byz lancers are probably my favourite unit. I like saracen mercs too and I'd like to see a buildable Byz unit that is basically a copy - heavy horse archers (actually the rear ranks of the line cavalry) are a Byz thing. Let's relegate the guys in shirts to being mercs and have some buildable mailed horse archers.
- I could do with less starting variety of light cavalry. I've got peasant cavalry, light cavalry, horse archers and scouts. Byz werent known for light cavalry. I would cut down to one or two and give Byz an incentive to go looking for some regionals instead.

I didn't see anything that would qualify as a bug - this is a real quality piece of work.

Hope that is the kind of thing you were looking for.

**Axalon** · 08-30-2008, 20:02

Hi again guys,

many thanks to the both of you, for the praise, additional comments and Intel. Now as promised earlier I will now give some further comments on the Byzantines. Over at the debug area Baron von Manteuffel wrote:

“The Byzantines, or Eastern Roman Empire, to me look to weak in their infantry units. They have the usual nice assortment of missile units and great looking cavalry but where's the infantry? The Palace Guard (Are they the Varangian Guard?) can only be recruited in Constantinople which really hurts, and then they have Light Spearmen, Byzantine and Armenian infantry. As you can probably tell I favor the spear units especially early in a campaign. The reason being that they're a fairly cheap unit to recruit, usually a large unit, and a defensive unit you need to hold what little you have at the start of a campaign. After I establish a trade network and can afford to do so, I will recruit elite units and have more of a balanced army.”

And below are my remarks and additional commentary.

Redux & the Byzantine faction:

If I understand you correctly you have “objections” against the fact that the Byzantines have a limited infantry arsenal available, and as you might already suspect this not a coincidence. I have designed it that way because I was interested in forcing the Byzantines to recruit auxiliary infantry formations as the game progresses. I had yet again to draw the line somewhere and it ended up the way it did. The Byzantines has a small core of solid and reliable formations of tac-units and the main problem, the way I see it, should be recruit- and support-costs, thus forcing the player to more actively have to restructure existing skeleton tactical resources and merge them to new operating formations (thus creating veteran formations).

The requirements for commissioning new Byzantine infantry formations are fairly easy, and this is intentional (this is of course linked to the tech-tree) because the main problem is designed to be the costs involved instead. I want the Byzantine armies to have a core of massive and unique formations and I want a Byzantine battle to be distinct and characterized by this core of massive infantry and cavalry formations looking mighty and disheartening to the enemy. It should have an “imperial” feel to it, so to speak. A Byzantine army of 6 full infantry and 2 cavalry formations should really have an “army” feel to it in a way that Catholic factions would have a hard time to compete with (still possible although, with the royal formations of course).

Since the Byzantines or any other faction (HRE is close however), can’t have it all in tactical resources the lines have to be drawn somewhere. I have designed it so that the Byzantines have three core units to build there armies upon: Byzantine- infantry, cavalry and lancers. Everything else is, to me at least, basically additional and auxiliary troops, regardless of what it may be (including the light spearmen. He he!).

Regarding the Byzantine palace guard then; no it’s not the Varangian guard it’s rather reduxes substitute for ‘em. They are indented to function as elite/veteran auxiliary units to support the regular infantry. These guys are good and can usually deal effectively with most things they encounter in battle. The reason for them being only available in Constantinople is based on the assumption that there the imperial palace is located; if that gets overrun, then the option of recruiting these guys won’t be available any more.
The “real” Varangian guard is supposed to be Norse mercenaries, and if my design works correctly, they should be available as mercenaries in Constantinople. Those boys could really be good “crack-troops” if properly supported.

Additional comments: (including Westerns Byzantine-Intel now)

Having reviewed the material Western posted in it is clear to me that I agree with much of it. It is also clear that the both of you are pretty keen on introducing new units to redux, and that’s fine and ok. But to put it frankly for you guys, I’m more interested in making the already existing units in redux work properly before even considering any such things myself. The door is wide open for the both of you to add and tinker with that as much as you like, privately or publicly. Now, von Manteuffel; it sounds to me that you should consider to do an “order expansion” for redux yourself since you clearly know more about that than I do anyway. And Western as far I can tell you have already two copies of redux one “vanilla” and “Western deluxe” and you are already doing some major alterations and custom stuff with redux as well. Great! Redux is supposed to be a platform for customizing your own personal game. But I would appreciate if you guys could help me out in securing a good “formal” VI-upgrade for redux first, if its ok for you guys? Since it is blatantly clear to me, no matter how much experience I have on redux and MTW, It is always a good thing to have some extra pair of eyes.

Basically what I am trying to say is that, I need your help, eyes and opinions to secure a good and sharp perspective on redux, which all leads to improving my chances to ensure a good quality on the VI-upgrade and the redux version itself. I might not always agree with your opinions, but I always appreciate your input because it helps me to keep my own perspectives on redux sharp. And there is also an ever standing possibility that I might miss something and your eyes and Intel is then the last line of defence I got in preventing such stuff to happen.

Now, having said all that I do agree with you western that some additional regionalizing could be a good thing for the Byzantines (sorry Manteuffel hehe!) and I will look in to it. It should not be too hard since it is really just 3-4 tac-units were talking about here anyways. If none of you guys have some “super ironclad” arguments for the restrictions of the Byzantine Infantry I already decided that they shall remain unchanged. That leaves the cataphracts, lancers and cavalry formations which are all currently unrestricted. That is all about to change somehow, the question is how? Now the cavalry is fairly hard to get due to the tech-tree the same is almost true for the lancers. Even if they currently are unrestricted it is not that easy to recruit them everywhere, the province must be developed as well. The cataphracts then? These are probably easier to get hold of then the other two, thus applying some restrictions are even more interesting here. Your views on this matter would be much appreciated, if nothing else to keep my perspective sharp at least. Frankly, I have not decided yet as I write this. This is one thing you guys could really influence me in.

Concerning the size of cataphracts then, the main three reasons for having them as they currently are; are cost, balance and the notion that they should be rare and few in numbers. Technically I could double their size to 20 and the over all effects would probably be rather smallish on redux-SPC. However, in doing so the cost for such a formation would be 500 florins which usually are very much when playing in solo battles or redux-MP. How about it guys? What are your views on that? Would that be a good thing? Would it serve the Byzantine faction? Don’t forget that there is a support costs involved here and that all Heirs will have these formations.

To the issue of support costs then, westerns Intel regarding the Byzantines clearly shows that my design has failed so far and that this needs some further adjustments. Currently it is cavalry 100fl./lancers 75fl./infantry 50fl. obviously it needs to be higher to some extent. I will look in to it. Concerning the light cavalry stuff for the Byzantines, they are all auxiliary troops as far as I am concerned. To me it is “the big three” that counts along with the Byzantine archers and cataphracts. Regarding the haltering of “super generals” Western, I have no idea what I did (if I did, I can’t remember, I have been working on redux for a long time). It’s probably just luck I guess hehe!

Some other unrelated remarks:

Now, if I remember everything correctly we have together played thru all the 8 factions and there have not been any obvious bugs on any of them so far, which of course is a great thing. But this also means that we probably can concentrate more on other things and that we also are one step closer to the formal release.

One thing is certain, and this is partly because of your input guys, I have decided to put in 12 additional slots in the CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT thus making more room for you guys to put in what ever troops you want when the formal upgrade pack is finally released. Thus there will be 24 instead of the current 12 available slots (I do know that there is a max limit of 256, but I prefer units that actually make a difference and not just adding quantity to the game). As far as I can tell there is no need to expand the CRUSADER_BUILD_PROD13.TXT so far and frankly I am bit concerned about making it to big anyways. Because I get the feeling that the game-program is not that happy about any such prospect (however I have no solid facts here). VI’s capacities for tinkering are at any rate far more greater than there ever was in V.1.1 which means that it is probably just as well to add some extra vacant slots for tac-units.

Another thing I have been considering is campaign start capital. Currently it corresponds to the original MTW but I am more and more convinced that this deserves some adjustments as well. In my book, an expert level on campaign is supposed to be expert and not the default setting for any meaningful play. Thus I am inclined to do some alterations for redux. How does this sound?

Alternative 1
--------------
Easy........8000fl.
Normal.....4000
Hard........2000
Expert.....1000

- Quite a challenge for the first 20-25 turns on expert I guess, as it should be. Imagine playing Poland or Spain now, Hell I’m interested!

or....

Alternative 2
--------------
Easy........5000fl.
Normal.....4000
Hard........3000
Expert......2000

- Still quite difficult for the first 20-25 turns I guess, expert is supposed to mean expert at least as far as I’m concerned.

Well guys what do you think?

Western I will get to your posted material as soon as we get the above sorted. For now I will start investigating your potential bug.

The OPTIONAL MISSION/experiment “1A” :
Oh yes! I got an optional mission for you guys: fire up the ol’ GnomeEditor and open up “CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT” and go to row:41-43/column:36 and set the ” ENGAGEMENT_THRESHOLD” to 10000. Do a least 5 battles against the English with whatever faction you want. The English must have at least 2 Longbowmen formations and the battle should be in open terrain. Then report back to me with your findings. Good luck!

- Cheers guys

**western** · 08-30-2008, 21:30

Axalon

Couple of quick points in response, since I am on line.

Very happy to keep trying things out on "redux pure". Just keep telling me what would help, and I will get around to it.

I understand all your logic round the Byz - except the low build requirements for their infantry. It meant I could keep instantly spamming them out any time I took a province, however unByzantine its character.

Now I have a hangup about realism, and here it seems to me realism and gameplay go together. Shouldn't I have to socialise the province a bit, and put in a bit of infastructure, before they will line up to wear my uniform? I reckon the Byz never got any decent infantry out of Italy even though they ruled in the south for hundreds of years.

My point about adding a weak militia (which doesn't have to be a new unit - the Catholics have one already that could be cloned) is that you have nicely simulated the feel of a Byzantine field army. But those guys didn't garrison cities - and sometimes, even in the field, they had to be bulked out with quickly raised levies who could just hold a spear and stand in place.

My field regiments should be precious rather than spam, so my suggestion is to make them quite a bit more expensive and give me townsmen to do the spam jobs (but so poor that they are not good for much).

I offer this as a suggestion for the greater good of Redux (and because I like a bit of debate). Ultimately you have made it possible for us all make our own adjustments, so we don't have to fall out!

Regarding cataphracts, I would double size and restrict where they can be built. Historically their breeding grounds were Anatolia and Rum and they went extinct after the Turks took these, the last remnants having to be consolidated in one super regiment, a bit like Napoleon's cavalry officers on the retreat from Moscow.

I'm still seeing my "bug" by the way - rebel monoculture followed, eventually, by diversity. It's not a major problem, because it's possible to tweak what the monoculture will be, but it's certainly curious.

**Baron von Manteuffel** · 08-31-2008, 01:36

Hi, I think I understand your intent now with the Byzantines and that's cool. I'm up for the experiment 1A. I'll try that this evening. Don't know if it is by design or not but there are two factions that start with the default 2000 florins. One is the Burgundians and the other, I'm not sure. Maybe the Lithuanians?

**Axalon** · 08-31-2008, 02:30

**** Manteuffel! You are absolutely right!

I had forgotten to fill in the “coffers” of both Lithuania and Burgundy in the “startpos”! I my book that at least an error! There you go again Manteuffel, you are good hunter no doubt about that! EDIT: I had also overlooked Russia.

On a different note, I’m really interested in your coming results from experiment “1a”. If it works the way I hope it will, then ….!!!.... That would be drop-dead cool!

Once again, good luck!

Cheers man.