Does Comp have Unlimitied Money???

[Fedor]

The harder the campaign difficulty level, the more money the AI factions get. That's why VH campaign doesn't work for me. I prefer M campaign. The AI only gets extra money if it's broke, and only a relatively small amount. M campaign is perfectly playable for most factions. I might pick E campaign if I was playing a very difficult faction, like Pontos, for example.

Hmm. I have exactly the opposite problem. I carefully run the script each time I load a fully patched-up EB 1.2 game and, as many factions (there are several exceptions!), I just can't get enough challenge on VH campaign settings without nursing the AI along.

My most recent VH/H game, as Macedonia, has so far gone something like this:
1) smash the Greek and Epirote field armies, take the Greek mainland cities. Time elapsed: roughly a year.
2) Sit in my (somewhat enlarged) corner for roughly the next 12-13 years, waiting for the AI empires to get big enough to pose a challange for Makedonian pikes and being careful not to develop my cities too much.
3) Notice Rome not kicking enough tail to satisfy my longing to fight hordes of Scipios and start giving them 10,000 minae/turn from my over-abundant treasury. Also decide to stop using Levy Pikemen (too effective for the price) and insist on Medium Pikemen (not much more effective and significantly more costly) as line troops. Decide to disband all the Scythian Horse-Archers units I recruited (way too powerful for the price for Macedonia). Put limits on combining archers and steep downhill slopes.

It's now 247 BC and a much-enlarged Pontos, the Getae, and Epiros have allied against me. I've just started to take the kid gloves off and now permit myself to actually enter their territory. I might endulge in the conquest of Epiros, or throw Pontos out of Europe, but that might increase my available spending power (after tributes) too much.

Long story short, I've learned that, if you want a challenge, you need to help the AI along. I therefore strongly support giving the AI money. I sympathize with the particular point being made by the OP - that tiny AI-controlled powers ought to be weak - but that would ruin a lot of the historical value of this mod, in which a tiny AI-controlled Parthia can actually form an empire and then send lots of Parthian Horse-Archers to fight you. Good times all around.

You give the AI what it needs, the AI gives you what you want.

[SwissBarbar]

Nobody who has answered to this thread has yet played a campaign with the money script set at 0... You all just assume that the Sweboz or Gauls would go broke... but picture this... lets say the sweboz manage to conquer some rebel settlements, ally themselves with the gauls, is it not possible that they would have positive income regardless of the money script??

Sure, and then imagine them conquering the Antarctic and attacking you with killer-penguins....

Look, despite the money script I still managed to reduce the gauls to their last 2 settlements with negative income. So why would there be a need for a script that prolongs their demise and causes me to do unnecessary things. Again with my allegory, why would street fighter have a script that makes every character of an equal strengh... Ryu > Ken ;) > Blanka > Dhalsim... just as at 270 BC Selukia > Rome = Carthage = Gaul = Sweboz > Casse...

Maybe you did not notice yet, but... this ist not Streetfighter. Not even comparable to Streetfighter. Lol, Streetfighter is not even worth it being mentionned in one sentence with this Mod. This is EB, in which the factions are meant to expand, this again meaning that they need more money than they're able to gain on their own.

I will restart my campaign with the script set at 0

Yes, do that. What's the point in trying to convince us to do the same? We like the game with the AI able to train strong armies. For some of the players here, the goal of the game is not "to win" - meaning blitz as fast as possible with the least effort possible - but to have the challenge of fighting strong AI factions and win great victories.

, except for the rebels because I read in the script something about altering them could lead to the script getting messed up... I encourage you all to do the same... maybe we will get some concrete answers to the question as opposed to hypothetical assumptions!

Yeah, let us know the results. Not necessary that everyone messes with the script, it will suffice if one (you) tests it.

[Dyabedes of Aphrodisias]

Nobody who has answered to this thread has yet played a campaign with the money script set at 0... You all just assume that the Sweboz or Gauls would go broke... but picture this... lets say the sweboz manage to conquer some rebel settlements, ally themselves with the gauls, is it not possible that they would have positive income regardless of the money script??

Look, despite the money script I still managed to reduce the gauls to their last 2 settlements with negative income. So why would there be a need for a script that prolongs their demise and causes me to do unnecessary things. Again with my allegory, why would street fighter have a script that makes every character of an equal strengh... Ryu > Ken ;) > Blanka > Dhalsim... just as at 270 BC Selukia > Rome = Carthage = Gaul = Sweboz > Casse...

I will restart my campaign with the script set at 0, except for the rebels because I read in the script something about altering them could lead to the script getting messed up... I encourage you all to do the same... maybe we will get some concrete answers to the question as opposed to hypothetical assumptions!

I totally sympathize with your argument, I really do. There's nothing more mind-numbing than approaching the final stronghold of a dying civilization, their citizens packing up their belongings and their boys and elderly and men taking up shield and sword and bow, this last city wallowing debt, and to be assaulted by two fairly elite full stack armies when sieging the city, which also has a full stack garrison.

But you're logic is flawed here: You say "Nobody who has answered to this thread has yet played a campaign with the money script set at 0." Yes they have. Everyone who's played EB has. When you play any faction in EB, you begin the campaign with the exact same starting conditions as the AI does when it is in control of those factions. And as such, for most factions you are given a certain starting military, a certain undeveloped economy and a certain small treasury, all of which combined mean, literally, debt on the very first click of "End Turn." When the player plays those factions, the player takes the starting armies and assaults neighboring settlements or disbands the starting military to make money. When the AI plays those factions, it calculates its odds and decides not to attack the stronger neighbors, and also cannot disband units as an alternative. Therefore, the AI factions do nothing and camp out in the same way they start out until they're literally millions in debt and the player's faction comes knocking. The AI has probabilities, the player has abilities. Therefore, the AI gets money to counter it's auto-debt situation and thus to spur growth and thus a challenge to the player.

I will concede that I have not altered the script to see this myself, but my counter is that I know how the game engine works, so that's unnecessary.You may call it "hypothetical assumptions," but it's not - it's how it works, the end.

Your problem is not with EB's system or the EB team, it's with Creative Assembly. The game designer made a game to be fun for the average Philistine and to make money from, not for people to alter to their liking. Modification of their software was and is an afterthought, I guarantee. If they allowed modders to alter the game's AI, there would be no money script, and I guarantee that even more. The EB team has tested and modified and tested and modified this game over and over again for years, so whatever you find in it is there for an exact and precise purpose, and with an exact and precise effect. EB II may provide the opportunity to add more complexity to the script for you, i.e. that factions on the verge of collapse by conquest get no more money or something of that sort. But I think it may not be changed, because then many of the small factions wouldn't have a chance from the start.

[Intranetusa]

]Nobody who has answered to this thread has yet played a campaign with the money script set at 0... You all just assume that the Sweboz or Gauls would go broke...[/B] but picture this... lets say the sweboz manage to conquer some rebel settlements, ally themselves with the gauls, is it not possible that they would have positive income regardless of the money script??Look, despite the money script I still managed to reduce the gauls to their last 2 settlements with negative income. So why would there be a need for a script that prolongs their demise and causes me to do unnecessary things. Again with my allegory, why would street fighter have a script that makes every character of an equal strengh... Ryu > Ken ;) > Blanka > Dhalsim... just as at 270 BC Selukia > Rome = Carthage = Gaul = Sweboz > Casse...
I will restart my campaign with the script set at 0, except for the rebels because I read in the script something about altering them could lead to the script getting messed up... I encourage you all to do the same... maybe we will get some concrete answers to the question as opposed to hypothetical assumptions!

Because it's stupid.

Have you even played the vanilla/regular RTW game? The campaign is ridiculously easy and that I steam roll the enemy AI with about 400 victories and 3 losses. (3 losses due to random ambushes or rebellions) In the regular campaign, where everything is dirt cheap and all the buildings produce crap loads of money for you, the AI still regularly goes into debt by not bothering to build the money making buildings.

EB introduces a far more complex money system in which everything costs more...the AI is too dumb to build buildings that make money, so they would go into debt even faster.

If you set the money to 0, you'd have the AI with -100,000 money and not being able to produce a single unit/building. The game would be even more easy than it already is.

[Lysimachos]

my strategic attempt to defeat them by attrition

I'm just curious, what do you mean by that in gameplay terms?

I mean I started a game with Macedonia recently, and they barely compare in starting strength to Rome... and if my studies in history have led me to believe, Rome was not yet a world power, whereas Macedonia was.

Well, well, in 270 Makedonia has been a world power and the region hasn't seen much peace in the past decades, so I find it plausible that it is only a shadow of its former self at the start of the campaign. Especially the last decade itself had some hard times for the homeland of Alexander.
Oh, beside that, don't the Maks have like twice the troops of the Romans at the start? I haven't played it for a while so I'm not sure.

You are of course free to play the game whichever way you care for. I still like to add that I strongly believe there is not a single mod or game out there with a focus on historical proportions instead of an all-factions-same-strength-philosophy which has been as thoroughly balanced as EB.

[Weebeast]

Nobody who has answered to this thread has yet played a campaign with the money script set at 0... You all just assume that the Sweboz or Gauls would go broke... but picture this... lets say the sweboz manage to conquer some rebel settlements, ally themselves with the gauls, is it not possible that they would have positive income regardless of the money script??

Assume? RTW and EB has been around for a while. There aren't much anything to discover until you start hacking the exe and reprogramming the engine.

Look, despite the money script I still managed to reduce the gauls to their last 2 settlements with negative income. So why would there be a need for a script that prolongs their demise and causes me to do unnecessary things.

Unnecessary like what? Fighting their stacks? If you can to reduce them to two settlements then you can eliminate them. Some of us like to have them around and actually keep fighting back.

why would street fighter have a script that makes every character of an equal strengh... Ryu > Ken ;) > Blanka > Dhalsim... just as at 270 BC Selukia > Rome = Carthage = Gaul = Sweboz > Casse...

Why not? Actually there's a script. It is called hadouken spam. It's not about making them equal. Faction balance isn't in EB agenda (see Saba). It's about making them move, appear alive, fulfill their objectives, have purpose in life.

[Drunk Clown]

I don't get the fuss about his opinion.
If he wants it easy he can play it easy. If you want a more challenging (and fun) campaign you keep it the way it is.

There's no need in explaining it him if he's to stubborn to believe.
We all know that with the adding of money it's more fun and that's why the creators of EB made it the mod that way. If it wasn't necesary EB wouldn't have it.
No need to flame.

[Ludens]

No need to flame.

Indeed.

The point has been made, and I guess SlickNicaG69 will find out soon enough how the game runs without a money script. That said, there is something to be said for limiting the financial aid to beaten factions, but remember the script is almost blind: it may not be able to tell the difference between the Sweboz at the start of the game, and the Sweboz at the brink of defeat.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Not to be mean, but you just aren't understanding the higher upkeep costs, recruitment costs, and large armies that many AI factions start with and what that means for your finances. Without disbanding half of your units starting as Sweboz, Lusotann, or several other one province factions, it doesn't even matter if you can conquer two or three settlements right off the bat. There is no money to develop these towns, retrain units lost in battle, etc.

Take Lusos for example. They start with 3-4 units of their elite cavalry which costs about 900-something a turn to upkeep in addition to their other forces. For the human player, disbanding the cavalry makes sense since they don't really help take settlements and it saves you almost 3000 a turn! The AI can't disband so it stays with them and adds that onto the debt.

Then, taking settlements for us isn't that hard, with starting armies you can conquer one or two pretty easily and start to develop them. However the AI autocalcs against the cities, many of which are led by 6-7 star generals who do very well in autocalc. It would be surprising if the AI took more than one or even 1 settlement. Add on top of this the fact that the AI builds in this order I have found: barracks first, economic buildings second. So, any extra money goes towards building barracks to get access to troops it can't afford...

If the AI was more intelligent, your idea makes sense. However, its not and I would say that the following factions would be doomed from the start.
Lusotann (one province, large starting armies)
Aedui (split provinces, war with Arverni and Rome at start)
Arverni (war with Aedui at start)
Casse (more than already)
Sweboz (one province, large starting armies)
Getai (one province)
KH (at war with Makedon, inferior forces)
Sauromatae (no income in home provinces)
Hai (one province)
Pontos (one province, not much expansion room)
Saka (one province in map corner = barely any trade, poor provinces)
Saba (one province)
Baktria (one province)
Pahlava (going to war with AS in turn 1 almost every time, can't afford that war)

I'd even throw in Eprirus because they start with Elephants so unless they conquer two or three provinces really quickly they will never be able to afford the ellies.

That leaves Carthage, Roma, Makedonia, AS, and Ptolies to contest every campaign. It already seems that is the case with the system the way it is now. I don't see how making things even worse for the poorer factions will help matters.

[Mulceber]

Just tacking on to what BBSR said: If we accept his list of factions which would be doomed from the start (and I do), that means that literally 70% of the factions will just wither and die once the game gets going. I'm perfectly content with leaving the money script as is. Would it be nice if factions on their last legs had armies to match? yes. Am I willing to so profoundly cripple the AI factions just to achieve that? Heck no. -M

[SlickNicaG69]

It seems I have found a curious effect with altering the money script... It seems factions are more disposed to sue for peace when they find themselves flat broke and on the brink of destruction... More to follow...

Also, the Geta, a faction I have never played but assume is the type that is quite "poor and would be frozen," have flourished in my Macedonia campaign, owning many rebel settlements that have the script activated...

Also I would like to add that the money script does not only help the AI factions, it causes those who flourish too much to lose gold as well... I guess that is good if you are afraid of facing too large an enemy empire...

Imagine having to face a Seleucid Empire that owns half the world and is able to recruit an army of cataphracts and elite steppe horse archers... I am fearful myself...

[Biowulf]

A. Nice testing, but what about the other Barbarians?
and
B. I would love to face a huge empire like that. Especially if I had my own giant armies to fight with.

[Intranetusa]

Also I would like to add that the money script does not only help the AI factions, it causes those who flourish too much to lose gold as well... I guess that is good if you are afraid of facing too large an enemy empire...

Imagine having to face a Seleucid Empire that owns half the world and is able to recruit an army of cataphracts and elite steppe horse archers... I am fearful myself...

Meh, the AI would still probably be too dumb to fight them effectively. I once won a defensive siege battle with 200 soldiers against an enemy army of 3000+ with 1/3 of their army being elites. All the AI did was sit around my walls getting picked off by tower archers or try to go through the main gate and being boiled alive by the gate oil defenses.

When fighting enemy cataphracts, I just use spearmen since the AI cavalry usually blindly charges my lines head on and die in a few seconds. Their horse archers would be problematic since they'd be in constant skirmish mode and just run away all the time, but that's countered by your own horse archers, archers, or siege battles.

[phoenixemperor]

Obviously SlickNica has never encountered the phenomenon of the Grey/Yellow Death...

[SlickNicaG69]

Obviously SlickNica has never encountered the phenomenon of the Grey/Yellow Death...

Wow. I'll assume you're referring to Seleucia and Egypt, since you weren't direct enough to address the subject. But this just makes me think... how common it must be to play the game, regardless of which faction you are...

[Macilrille]

Maybe my English is lacking, me being Danish, but what is meant there?

Also, the Yellow Fewer or the Grey Death/Plague are the commonly used names for AS or Ptolies going rampant and devouring the other. This almost always happen and the huge empire you want the rest of us routinely meet and beat.

Now I will go silent again for the same reason I did not comment before; I have no wish to seem condescending, enjoy your musings. The rest of us believe EB to be the best possible compromise achievement with the RTW engine and that noobs who elicit little experience with the gamne should keep quiet- sorry, but that is what we think.

[SlickNicaG69]

You seem to possess a character of little restraint Macilee, to say "noob" after you pledge to not seem condescending...

[Macilrille]

I am but trying to enlighten you on the way we think, not expressing my own stance but instead trying to explain the opposition you meet.
Further, I see nothing bad in being a noob (so do not take it personally), it is merely something we are at certain points in certain areas. Personally I would be very noob-ish in your beloved Streetfighter game, for I have never tried it. So to me, such titles carry no value, they are merely names. I am so old I have been a noob at many things later to become good at them, and also seen noobs pass my skill sometimes as they grew better and had more potential (and a good teacher).

And in this case meant to explain something.

There you go, as you see I was indeed restrained- which I mostly am, though also in possession of a huge ego.

That explained I have nothing more to say.

[SlickNicaG69]

You still make an error in assuming I am a "noob." As I have stated, I was cruising through you're beloved EB with little trouble - my battle stats were around 70-3, only because I try to play the game in a realistic way (in the case of being Rome, encouraging myself to fight battles in which I am highly outnumbered) and do not reload my game when I suffer a defeat. The settings were H / H, which makes the computer's units more powerful in regards to my own than the normal balance allows. And yet despite all this evidence, which if you were more possessive of acknowledgement you might realize, my complaint is not that EB is too hard, but rather that it is too easy! It is true that I haven't reached 200BC, or for that matter the dreaded "Gray or Yellow Death," but what I do know is that a script that caps the computer's gold reserves at 260000 can prevent such a "death" from being an utter, humiliating, and cry-provoking massacre!

Also, the Yellow Fewer or the Grey Death/Plague are the commonly used names for AS or Ptolies going rampant and devouring the other. This almost always happen and the huge empire you want the rest of us routinely meet and beat.

I also wanted to ask you something. Would the dreaded death happen, if you were Pontus?

[Ludens]

I also wanted to ask you something. Would the dreaded death happen, if you were Pontus?

The A.I. is programmed to gang up on the player, so factions you are at war with will generally get cease-fires with other A.I. factions. So if you are playing Pontus and are at war with the AS or the Ptolemies, chances are that they will forget their differences and join up to fight you . Again, this is a hard-coded feature of diplomacy, not something that can be modded.

BTW, you've been promoted to full member, so the edit button is now available to you. Use that instead of double posting.

[SlickNicaG69]

Then I take that as a no, since a Selucia/Ptolemy ceasefire would prevent them from "devouring" themselves...

[Macilrille]

You still make an error in assuming I am a "noob." As I have stated, I was cruising through you're beloved EB with little trouble - my battle stats were around 70-3, only because I try to play the game in a realistic way (in the case of being Rome, encouraging myself to fight battles in which I am highly outnumbered) and do not reload my game when I suffer a defeat. The settings were H / H, which makes the computer's units more powerful in regards to my own than the normal balance allows. And yet despite all this evidence, which if you were more possessive of acknowledgement you might realize, my complaint is not that EB is too hard, but rather that it is too easy! It is true that I haven't reached 200BC, or for that matter the dreaded "Gray or Yellow Death," but what I do know is that a script that caps the computer's gold reserves at 260000 can prevent such a "death" from being an utter, humiliating, and cry-provoking massacre!



I also wanted to ask you something. Would the dreaded death happen, if you were Pontus?

You take things too personally, I will let you ponder for yourself what that says of you.

I looked up Noob for you, to spare you the rant from me on what I mean by it

What is a noob?
A noob, also spelled newb, is someone that is new to a game or an activity.

And that is exactly what I mean. It has nothing to do with talent or with RTW Vanilla experience, it has to do with EB experience and you have elucidated that yours is limited. Whether you can blitz the map in 100 turns as someone did a month ago has nothing to do with it. Most of us think that the game is more interesting if the competing factions get time to develop and grow strong to present us with a challenge and most of us find it most fun to both expand somewhat historically and limit ourselves with houserules in order to get a realistic-ish challenge. If you bother to look through the forum you will find many such suggestions, lists, etc.
Further, where on earth did I say you wanted an easier game?
Nowhere, rather I suggest you look through the forum to find some houserules and stop blitzing. That will give a harder game. The consensus of the experienced players is that if you limit the AI's acces to money you will get an easier game no matter what you wish for.

Now, most people also thinks that before a Noob makes suggestions to change the game, he should get some experience with it, and that he should listen to what the old hands has to say. A bit like a new member in a karate club not giving the black-belted Sensei advice on how to fight if you see what I mean.
I personally lean towards that thought, but as I have seen the occasional good idea from a noob, and sometimes been a noob with good ideas myself I am not entirely closed to such suggestions. So for my sake you can change the money script all you want. Play 10 campaigns with it changed and ten with it unchanged- with houserules limiting yourself, then I will consider it tested. I believe some others think your idea harebrained and that these things explain the opposition you meet.

Personally I did get and appreciate your wit in the first few posts, and thought you got a slightly too hard reception of it, but could also see why. But TBH since then I saw you filter everything people said through sensitivity and possibly a bit of ego, and that makes me less likely to listen to what you have to say. Your reply to me is a case in point, nowhere did I claim you wanted an easier game. Nowhere did I attack you. I made an attempt to explain, yet you think I am attacking you and totally misinterpret what I write. That to me says that it is too difficult to communicate with you to bother.

So I am not taking potshots at you. I do not waste my time with such. In fact I feel I did waste my time trying to explain something to you, I wonder what it says about me that I try yet again- I am probably dumb as well as grumpy and arrogant.

If you want some advice on how to get people to listen, it is to communicate, both ways- listen/read as well as talk/write. Read what people say and kick those preconceptions (you are not alone in this, but I definately see a problem for you getting through the way you go). Turn off the ego and sensitivity and you will find a much better reception. We are not attacking you (but your idea), so be not so defensive.

Ludens has already replied to your other question, and has hinted at the absolute worst feature of EB, the berserk AI- which makes the added money for the AI a tiddling problem. If you find a way to deal with the AI and make it sensible, I will bow to you and call you Master. Though I have a nagging suspicion that the money script does make the AI more mad as it believes it can afford wars. I dunno, you will have to discuss that with the modders.

[Ludens]

Newb and noob may mean the same thing, but noob is often interpreted as the more derisive form. In any case, this thread is going nowhere good. In case SlicknicaG69 wants to discuss his no-help script further, he can start a new thread.

Thread closed.