New hints ???????????????

[Jxrc]

This actually works best and does not cripple the AI. The AI sees no difference between a landbridged province and an adjacent province. i.e. to the AI there is no difference between the existing wessex/flanders connection and the wessex/mercia connection. The AI benefits from this arrangement. How many times have you seen the Sicilian or Byzantine factions reappearing in force... in Malta/Crete/Rhodes/Cyprus without a port? (I've also seen the French or English reappear in Ireland, totally cut off) :

Seems more than reasonable to me. Will avoid the silly invasion by sea with an army lead by the king ... I have seen quite a few time the Egyptian king attack Rhodes and get stuck there until his death ... Same thing for the French king in Ireland ... Good recipe for civil wars ... On top of that the AI is usually not smart enough to build a harbour and get out of there ...

Trade ceases to function as it once did. There are numerous alternatives however. The first and most obvious is to improve farming income. Trade can also be replaced by giving ports a fixed income, then adding fixed incomes to the trader buildings and their upgrades. This gives a stable and unfluctuating income to the AI.

Another method is to exploit the "local trade" income that already exists but has little effect. This is a single income generated for a single trade goods type within a single province. This can be boosted by editing the values for the goods. This means that the traders will produce differing incomes depending on the goods found in the province, but the incomes will be static. In this way landlocked provinces with trade goods could also benefit from trade - whereas in the vanilla game building traders in such provinces is a waste of time and florins.:

If that can be done, that would be great but a little balancing exercise would probably be need to keep the game "accurate" so that a difference remains between historicaly rich provinces and others. If that is doable, adding a port could trigger the application of a multiplier of the trade income. At first glance I would say 1.5 but it would need testing. Increasing the basic trade and agriculture might also be required if one wants to tech up but on the other hand it might be more accurate if not enough cash is available to buid anything at anytime (feels weird to have fortresses all over the place after a while)

It can be achieved with a little time, effort and editing of text files.

I will have to trust you on that one

The next time I get MTW up and running I will be making these changes as a standard, so I can send you the files..

Please do. You will then be my new hero

The gains IMHO are great, the losses are small in comparison. The loss of shipping doesn't bother me, nor does the loss of the huge bloated trade income that the player can exploit so easily, but the AI is hopeless inept at managing. Transportation isn't a factor either. As it is, it doesn't work: Too many Almohads in Scotland or Byzantine in Flanders scenarios for my liking. This is the problem with shipping - the AI views a link of shipping from Egypt to Sweden in exactly the same way it views travelling from Egypt to Sinai. The AI does not give any thought to the possibility that the route may be cut off next year... By removing shipping, AI factions get better territorial integrity and stability which is compromised by the shipping in the vanilla game.

Yep, Italians invading Sweden and stuffs like that are pretty weird and putting a stop to that would make the game for "historical". On top of that, if the AI sees its own possibilty to invade a province by see, it does seem pretty useless at protecting its own shores from invasion.

Crusades will be much tougher for the human player without navy but that is not a bad thing at all. Would'nt it be a good idea to compensate that a bit and allow the successfull crusader to produce its own crusader units in Palestine, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli to make an attempt worthwile ? This would make the gamble tempting enough .... Doing the same for the German in Prussia and Pomerania could also be an option but perhaps it's too big of an advantage. Perhaps Livonia is a bit more reasonable.

If on your way you could modify or delete the useless bonus for some provinces (the one about the dismounted knights ...)

The additional benefit of your plan is that solves one of my major beef with the game, the last uncatchable (and in any event invincible) dromon (even if things got a bit better after the first patch IIRC).

Two suggestions if I may:

- might be a good thing to add a few connection from Sicily otherwise a Sicilian campaign will be quite hard ... Attacking the Pope after a few truns is tough ... Connection from Naples to Greece would help the Byz too much in Early. I would at first glance suggest a connection between Sicily and Sardigna. Another solution is to add a connection from Sicily to Tunisia (Sicilian GA Goal) but the risk would be that the Elmo reach Rome after a few turns (unlikely in the Early period during which they usually take a beating but possible in High). Spaniards can do the same, but having Naples as Spanish possession is not inaccurate ...

- some GA campaign will become more than difficult, for instance the French in Early and the Aragonese in Late (even though the connection Sicily/Sardinia would help). French in High will be tough since they cannot get any reinforcement except if new crusades are launched but that is basically the reason why the kingdom of Jerusalem did not survive.
- the connection from the three byz Islands should be made in such a way the they work in for the High Period. I would suggest to connect (i) Crete to Naples, Greece and Rhodes (ii) Rhodes to Nicea and the other two Islands and (iii) Cyprus to Rhodes and Tripoli.

Just food for thought. Perhaps these suggestion would trigger issues I have not contemplated so do not hesitate to dismiss them if you have better ideas.

Ok I will now let you work.