The Big Cheese!

[PershsNhpios]

Whenever I play an early XL campaign, it is most common that these powers will rise to highest prominence, and never lose their place on the european stage, except to one another;
France; Spain; Byzantium; Novgorod; Fatimid Egypt; Hungaria.

In High, which I have only now begun to play in a marvellous campaign as the Papacy;
France; Ottomans; Spain; Venice/Hungaria; ... Mongolian Ferals..;

I have no experience with Late campaigns.

I have never seen a wild card thrown up amidst the AI kingdoms.. Never have the Scots taken a chance.. Not once have I seen the Portuguese as masters of Iberia.

Indeed, I undertake always to ensure the dominance of the little people in their sector of Europe, with myself as their leader.
I recently saw Europe divided in 1229 between the Spanish, Byzantine, Novgorod, and my own Scottish Empires.
Then I took advantage of the Mongol invasion to send 6,000 men into Estonia and Finland, and the Byzantines allied with me to join in the sale of territory.

Shortly followed a great world war with the Gael-Byzantine Alliance against the filthy nomads in the north, and the successful crusaders in the south. Again to the topic;

Has anyone seen mutations from the boredom of these predictable rising AI empires?

Please share any experiences of a Norwegian monolith, or a Volga-Bulgarian empire created by the AI.

Certainly, even one from Vanilla MTW!

[caravel]

France; Spain; Byzantium; Novgorod; Fatimid Egypt; Hungaria.

I don't play XL, though with the exception of Novgorod, those factions almost always dominate the vanilla game also. This is quite simply down to poor economic balance. Simply reducing trade income and increasing farm income alone won't help this. It's a balancing act.

1) France, surrounded by weaker enemies, with good starting infrastructure and income, they tend to be quite aggressive. The English moving into Flanders can be the trigger, but they usually go all out against the HRE anyway..

2) Spain, too large an income in a strong position with weaker neighbours. If they take Iberia, the citadels and fortresses start going up in no time. It's only a matter of time before they storm across north africa before bursting through the pyrenees into Aquitaine or Toulouse.

3) Byzantine faction, overpowered in terms of territory, trade income, infrastructure, units and very high quality of royal line and generals. The Byzantine Emperor also gets a +2 influence and +1 command bonus.

4) Novgorod, not sure. Were a stagnant faction in vanilla, though perhaps they've been imbalanced in XL?

5) Egypt, in a good defensive corner of the map, with only the Turks as an immediate problem. Income wise they have the best trade on the map. Lots of cheap camel and nubian spam and they can take on most of the neighbours in autocalced AI vs AI battles with their huge stacks.

6) Hungary, in a centralised position with a decent income and surrounded by easy rebel targets and the German and Polish provinces. Once they take on the Byzantine and start winning they tend to go into overdrive.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

I have played several XL campaigns (+ Tyberius these days) and can vouch for the consistent strength of the Danes - cheap and plentiful Vikings and longboats are a lethal strategic combination - which you don't mention.

I guess what I'm saying is that I haven't found XL to be too 'predictable'. But let's face facts here: some factions do (and did) have superior strategic positions for any of a number of reasons/factors. That's just history.

I too, by the way, play as methodical builder and enjoy trying to undermine the dominant AI power(s) whether through alliances, military might, espionage, assassination, proselytisation, or whatever. This enhances the game for me.

I really do wish you could give funds/troops/mercs directly to allies, though. I wonder how difficlut this would be to engineer within the game, given that the Pope can show largesse.

Regards
Victor

[drone]

I haven't played XL, but in vanilla most small factions generally stagnate. I think some of this has to do with the upkeep expense of the many bodyguard units they tend to accumulate. If they take action early on and expand some, they will do better, but if they are hemmed in by larger factions and can't expand, the continuous generation of heirs seems to drain them. Every campaign I'll come across a small faction, sitting in 1 or 2 provinces, with very few buildings and 10-15 bodyguard units. I wonder what would happen if you modded bodyguards to be unbuildable but with lower upkeep, so the royalty wouldn't be such a drain.

[caravel]

I wonder what would happen if you modded bodyguards to be unbuildable but with lower upkeep, so the royalty wouldn't be such a drain.

The mod I am working on addresses this. I have tried several approaches. The only one that works is non trainable, and hence non retrainable, full size bodyguard units with no, or very little, upkeep cost.

[drone]

The mod I am working on addresses this. I have tried several approaches. The only one that works is non trainable, and hence non retrainable, full size bodyguard units with no, or very little, upkeep cost.

Full size, eh? Interesting. I would imagine for the 20 man units the AI merges and steals men from royal uncle units into the heirs' units, leaving lots of singletons as the game progresses. I can see how this would still happen with full size, but it would be less of a factor. How does the AI handle the era changes?

[chris34au]

i've seen the Armenians dominate their region in one campaign but i hadn't been playing XL long enough at the time to really appreciate what i was seeing. the Danes seemed like they were almost always a major player before i installed the Tyberius patch but i haven't seen them expanding all over the map, since i installed the patch.

[Fagar]

I don't really play XL but in Vanilla from time to time you see some interesting changes.
My current campaign (playing as the English) Hungary for instance are dominating, they have wiped out the Byzzies and the Turks and are well into the Egyptians and the Papacy has destroyed the Italians. So randomness is possible it just doesn't happen all the time.
I actually like that it is a suprise when an unusual faction rises to prominance.

The most unusual I have seen in Vanilla is the HRE losing switzerland to rebels and then this rebel faction going ballistic, taking out the French and English and pushing into Spanish lands, spawning swiss pikeman at scary rates out of Switzerland.

[Scurvy]

I play XL, and theres quite a variety of factions that come to prominance, although the Spanish and Almo's often do quite well, I guess because of thier very useful position on the map,

I tend to play as a Northern European faction, so Germany and France rarely do well, because even if i fail to expand into them, I almost always end up fighting with them in the early era.

To be honest i wouldn't mind an imabalance, as in real-life some factions would have huge advantages over others, and it also means some factions are more challenging to play (or you can take a big faction, and play really defensively for the whole game etc.)

[Fagar]

I agree, I don't mind an imbalance.
Some factions naturally have better starting provinces, more capital and better tactical positions.
It is more thn acceptable that these factions thrive.
I like the challenge of playing as another faction (a weaker less traditionally dominant one) and stamping my will on the map.

[caravel]

Imbalance as far as better starting positions and more territory is fine, though imbalance as in uber units and hugely bloated trade is not IMHO, and this makes the game very dull and predictable. Historically no faction made it big due to their fielding of supermen they did great and often horrible, things through great leadership. In game terms this is the player of course - it's you that makes your faction great not the units. Or that's how it should be anyway.

Later TW games became more and more imbalanced. This started with the MI and VI expansions. Instead of using strategy and tactics these give the player uber units (Mongols/Viking or Saxon Huscarles) with which to take on the enemy. The developer seems to take an approach that if they won historically then they need to win in the game. This is not the case at all. Later TW titles seem to continue with the same approach. In RTW the Roman units are very overpowered also. And in BI the Western and Eastern Romans are coded to break up and be weaker unit wise than their RTW predecessors. As for M2TW, I never got much further than seeing how horrible it is. Battles have been ruined beyond belief in that game.

The game is better if it is balanced correctly and allows the player to win through his own wits, tactics and management of the limited resources available. Having a massive treasury, fleets in every sea region and bum-rushing the AI with Viking spam is not a worthy victory - or the basis for an interesting campaign. If I feel that I'm winning a campaign too easily I tend to lose interest fast and give up the campaign. In the same way, if I feel that I am being defeated by uber units or having to use ridiculous and ahistorical "cheat" tactics to win against such units (i.e. massed crossbows or javelin spam vs vikings) then I am similarly disheartened.