Economic warfare?

[fomalhaut]

yes anything where elites take up more than 20% of an army is elite spam. that's because they compose 20% of 100% of their armies :P


and NEVER EVER EVER EVER has opening up new fronts EVER worked. Which is why fighting Arche Seleukeia is so infamously stupid, because the 7 front battle it is supposed to face NEVER HAPPENS if you play as an eastern faction because the A.I. collaborates basically understanding "this is the player, therefore he must die". So the AS will make infinite peace with every Satrap AND! Ptolemaioi and focus on you if you are Saba, for instance. Play a western faction, however, and watch the Arche fall in 2 decades.

I am playing Ptolemy now and i am the AS' only enemy, and when i played Pahlava i was the AS' only enemy.

It's a fundamentally broken set of campaigns :P :P :P :P

[Ksifos]

Well it seems so but actually the AI must have some method of measuring your strength and relations.

In my KH campaign I went to the end (was around 170BC) with having the Getai loyal allies and firends.What I did was just gifting them each round 200 mnai.
The same now happens with Aedui in my Casse campaing.In fact with Aedui things are supposed to be more complicated since I have grabbed all their core provinces.I stopped gifting them and a full Aedui stack comes near our border.Immediately I started raising army in nearby towns, Aedui stack goes south towards Averni ;-)

IMO diplo is not won once but needs constant effort, because the AI factions "fight" you there too.Also raising armies helps discouraging the AI since he probably "calculates" a high resistance and looks for better opportunities.The RTW AI is highly opportunistic.

With AS as enemy you have a bunch of nations (Baktria is a good candidate) to try diplo deals, and with Ptolemaioi you have a great economy.So offering some ...gifts along with your proposals should get you there.Plus there is the "Attack Faction" diplo.In my experience sometimes they respond and attack.Or you can try provoking the AS near an "ally army" and if attacked the ally comes automatically into assistance - same goes with ships.These are small tricks I use when building my nation, because afterwards I just don't pay attention.

Also there are times when you get some nice gifts from AI.In fact I havent noticed that before.As KH I was gifted from Lusos 60k - I saw their diplomat in a town, thought he was bribing but when AI round finished I look in my cash and, wow.I open economic details and see in diplo income some 60k.Nice.

[fomalhaut]

I don't think the A.I. has any measurements of anything. They are suicidal to a comical degree.

attack faction doesn't work im prettttty sure, and i give lots of tribute. some for roleplaying, some for survival, some to keep them from eating me alive.

[TheLastDays]

Yea... I've done "attack faction" hundreds of times... for example, especially when playing Baktria or Saba... the stupid AS will either make peace with Ptolemies - that happened when I was Baktria, they concentrated on me the whole time, while Pahlava was eating away their heartlands they still sent their armies against me... Even though each and every single army died, utterly defeated... and I have used "attack faction" for the ptolemies a few times in that campaign, they accepted but never attacked the AS...

then as Saba, I was allied to them and they were fighting the Ptolemies, the AS never cared about me much... as soon as I conquered the one arabian territory next to their borders they started to sent full stacks down there... my army was still there, able to defend, beacause these towns were nicely developed over there I could retrain and it didn't break me but it's just so ridiculous and makes RPing impossible... I mean, they obviously have the money to send full stacks almost every turn but they don't use it on real threats (Ptolemies have taken all of Mikra Asia, cut the AS off the Mediterranean and the Pahlavan are eating their way down to Persepolis... no, they have to invest into attacking Arabia...

The Campaign AI's bias against the player is ridiculous and makes them ignore critical threats to their existence just to attack the player one more time...

[A_Dane]

AI is ridicolous. This is the main reason why i never play VH campaign. I like a challenge, but it's not fun having every nation attack you, once you share a border..

I had a game as Hayasdan, was locked in a war with the seles, who were also fighting the Ptollies and Parthians.
Once i shared a border with the Ptollies, they immediatly made peace with the Seleucids and focused on me, and on top of that the Parthians, who i didn't share a border with, was allied to and paid tribute to, marched an army around the caspian sea, to attack me...

That was the last game on VH i ever played, was simply too insane for me to actually bother with.

However, I should mention, that in another game (on hard), I stayed allied to Pontos, even though we had a long border (they conquerored mikra asia without my help, was kinda shocking), for some 60 years (campaign is on pause), without ever bribing them anything. I was, for once, pleasantly surprised.

[TheLastDays]

Yea it works SOMEtimes.. like 1 in a million times, or that's what it seems like... the depressing thing is, I don't even play on VH anymore... the aforementioned examples were on H (Baktria) and M (Saba) campaign difficulty. So, I play on M or sometimes H because I like to RP things and that includes resting times between wars... it includes, at least to some extent, reasonable behavious from an ally...

And it doesn't happen with every faction... In the above mentioned campaign with Baktria I also share a border with Pahlava and have been neutral with them in the beginning when they declared war on the AS, because I tried to stay on good terms with the AS, then the bastard Seleukids declared on me and I allied with Pahlava and have stayed allied with them ever since... It's strange but in the end, after taking India, I had to station forts on strategic passes and finally they'd keep the peace... I had to garrison these forts with substantial forces though... so yeah, now Pahlava has secured Persia so there's a "buffer" of Persians between two split-up parts of the AS so I've started taking over the eastern Sleukid kingdom (hehe) and we'll see what happens once I share that large border with Pahlava...

[Scutarii]

I cheat.

Repeatedly because I am just NOT fighting yet another Ptolemaic horde of 7 star generals (who come from where?) and their elites.

I play as Qart'Hadast and they will not ever leave me alone. I abandoned Lepki on turn 1 to increase the buffer zone between us and they still march single unit stacks to attack Adrumento, on foot across the entire f****** desert. From that point on it is impossible to get them to sign a ceasefire.

So I cheat.

I hired a General who I run around the desert and auto_win to destroy their stacks. I spend almost more time doing that some turns than governing the rest of my Empire. VH is broken. Painfully.

[fomalhaut]

You guys know how to like truly cheat, yeah, but to end the AI's hatred against you? force dip them to become your vassals. they will never attack again as long as they are still your vassal.


it's cheap, but so too is the A.I. in every way, to the point where the game is a broken piece of fecal matter with no fun factor at all without this.


I don't think i misuse it either, just after HUGE and heroic victories over an enemy that would cripple a real life economy, i usually set up a deal where they pay me tribute and become my vassal. Now in my roleplaying world, they aren't really my vassal, but its the only way to get the AI to not suicide against you until their bitter end.

I will usually set up in my mind some thing where i will give back x territory in the deal, or they give me y territory, etc. Important cities like Antioch, Babylon, Alexandreia, you get the picture, are never allowed to be traded but have to be conquered.

[Scutarii]

Vassals?

Never happens. Especially against the only factions that truly annoy me, like the Ptolemaioi.

[fomalhaut]

force diplomacy it.

like i said, don't abuse it, just when you just beaten the 4th full stack in the past 2 years and your cities are literally unable to train any more people because of the dead soldiiers.

when roleplaying or writing, it's hard to constantly think of new reasons why the AI WONT GIVE UP especially since Hellenic warfare was pretty laid back. One or two victories and treaties were made, not TOTAL KRIEG

[NikosMaximilian]

The Ptolemaioi and Karthadastim inevitable war gets kind of ridiculous. When you are playing as either of them, and at least 40 years into the game where you expended, the AI will betray you and send fullstack after fullstack across the desert. The Ptolemaioi doesn't even have a Karthadastim region in their campaign goals. It's not realistic for that period to march entire armies, hundreds of thousands of man, across those regions, to conquer some small settlements, but well, that's the way the AI behaves, so we gotta deal with it.

Back on topic, I find that economic warfare is almost useless, unless we're talking about a homeland region (sabotage their MICs so they can't train their elites) or a far, far away province that maybe could rebel (Alexandreia Eschate for the AS).

[ximxim]

Not sure if you've tried this already, but I've found that keeping a full stack in all provinces bordering a neutral faction helps keep the peace quite well. Of course, once they do declare war they need to be put down like the mad dogs they are, even if the odds are a 1000 to 1 against them they'll keep coming...

[fomalhaut]

right, you have to completely end them as a political entity before peace can come. it's stupid and not at all representative of warfare. How often did this happen... with Carthage? yep. with... not sure who else

[Jackaloboulos]

Would it be possible/advisable to move this thread to the "EB Unofficial Modding Projects" Sub-Forum? I feel like it might be productive to discuss the issue of economic warfare in terms of implementation...at least insofar as discussing the matter in a thread devoted neither to EB II suggestions nor EB I modifications kind of channels all this creative energy off into the void, in my opinion.

[Constantius III]

The Ptolemaioi and Karthadastim inevitable war gets kind of ridiculous. When you are playing as either of them, and at least 40 years into the game where you expended, the AI will betray you and send fullstack after fullstack across the desert. The Ptolemaioi doesn't even have a Karthadastim region in their campaign goals.

Purely out of curiosity, but does the win conditions submod fix this at all?

Not sure if you've tried this already, but I've found that keeping a full stack in all provinces bordering a neutral faction helps keep the peace quite well. Of course, once they do declare war they need to be put down like the mad dogs they are, even if the odds are a 1000 to 1 against them they'll keep coming...

Vido Santiago reference?

right, you have to completely end them as a political entity before peace can come. it's stupid and not at all representative of warfare. How often did this happen... with Carthage? yep. with... not sure who else

Not even with Carthage.

[TheLastDays]

You guys know how to like truly cheat, yeah, but to end the AI's hatred against you? force dip them to become your vassals. they will never attack again as long as they are still your vassal.

That would work, although:

1. I sometimes don't get the option of "vassaling" them in the Diplomacy menu. Any ideas why?
2. Are you sure vassals never attack you again? The problem is... that kind of breaks RP too, because war could break out again, it's just annoying that it happens ever turn...

One or two victories and treaties were made, not TOTAL KRIEG

HAHA thanks, made my day :D

And yea, placing strong armies in all border provinces helps, forts help, if you have a small enough passage (which means, if they can't get around the fort)... but that's a drain on the economy if you share a large border...

[Vaginacles]

I use force Diplo alot, what i do is remove FoW and when i completely decimate their armies (as in not even enough for a serious garrison) i force diplo them after conquering a few territories. This works well until you fight those superpowers like AS and Poles, since force vassalage is ridiculous for such a huge empire but setting up a ceasefire/alliance would just result in immediate backstabbing. I find that i can avoid war by making sure the nations boardering mine are fighting another nation, and if they are losing i'd give them money to stave off defeat. I did this to great success as Macedonia, making an alliance with them after taking Ambrakia and then giving them funds so that they can fight Rome. It worked so well that it slowed down the march of time reform because Epiros took Capua and i had to wait until Arretium became a Huge city :(.

[fomalhaut]

LastDays vassalage can only occur if you are at war with them, and if you are and it's not available, they are someone elses vassal.


Like I said, I don't in my roleplaying mind consider these my vassals unless they are small, like Pontus. I also do make war break out between us larger powers every decade or so, a city lost, FM lost, whatever, then peace treaty again.


Vaginacles i know what you mean, my reforms never came as Macedonia because i funded the Epirote proxy war in Rome for a long time. Epirus got too strong though, and i had to put them down. Rome must prevail in Italy

[Jackaloboulos]

Okay, so I've done some thinking about this lately.

What if the money script were kept in place, but it were extended to include a negative component, whereby penalties would be imposed after the cash bonus each turn for blockaded ports or besieged settlements? It might be a way to balance out both Europa Barbarorum's condition-based bonuses and the vanilla per-turn bonuses.

I feel like it would be simpler than figuring out a way to teach the machine to calculate the size of the bonus itself as a function of open ports and roads. What's more, it would probably be simpler to adjust to individual preference, if anyone using this modification wanted to go in and fiddle with the script files.

As far as I can tell, the greatest difficulty in creating a modification like this would be fixing the cash deductions, in turn, to be greater or lesser based on the size of a settlement, the roads in that settlement, the size of its port, and so on. Of course, this could be skipped over entirely, but it might be something worth thinking about. Does anyone here happen to have ideas about how one might make a money-script counterscript like this?

[Rahl]

I had the same idea. But is the script even able to know if a port is blockaded? And even if it can, making the script as detailed as you want it would make it enormous I think.

Since I do this with the console most of the time now (I roleplay and thus I cheat), I'm thinking of including a new part to the script that substracts mnai from a faction that had high battle losses, to prevent instantly recruiting full stacks or hiring mercs all the time. I think that would be relativly easy, maybe linking it with the spoils of war-mod...

[Jackaloboulos]

I had the same idea. But is the script even able to know if a port is blockaded? And even if it can, making the script as detailed as you want it would make it enormous I think.

Since I do this with the console most of the time now (I roleplay and thus I cheat), I'm thinking of including a new part to the script that substracts mnai from a faction that had high battle losses, to prevent instantly recruiting full stacks or hiring mercs all the time. I think that would be relativly easy, maybe linking it with the spoils of war-mod...

Sounds like an interesting idea. Do you feel that there are costs to defeat that the game doesn't take into account, or are you using the costs to balance out the cash bonuses the AI gets under unrelated circumstances?

[LusitanianWolf]

I'll rather have a easy game that makes sense than a challenging game that makes no sense.
The RTW AI is so bad that the game is frustrating and infuriating anyway.

An AI that is too poor to offer a challenge is frustrating but so is an AI that stubbornly sends a stack after stack against you EVERY TURN.

Both will lead to a ragequit sooner or later.

Totaly agree. I've started using auto_win besides force diplomacy because of that. And even with FD its impossible to get the AI to be even half reasonable. I've being playing with Lusos (Vh/M) and for the second time I'm being forced to reconquer italy for romans because they just focus on north and completely ignore the carties and epirots despiste I've being trying to Force Diplomacy them to defend theirselves and giving them lots of gold...
But what's happening interesting in my campain is that I've being able to keep (a somewhat durable) peace with both gauls (without FD) despiste sharing borders with both inside Iberia. Usualy in my games every neighbourd ally to attacking me but now, not only they arent betraying me and even the Aeudi who're my enemys almost never send their forces against me (too busy fighting my Averni and Roman allies.. Alex engine perhaps help (my first time playing with it)


And lets make one thing clear, I usualy don't ally with Rome, just want them to grow to the reforms before I obliterate them :P

Okay, so I've done some thinking about this lately.

What if the money script were kept in place, but it were extended to include a negative component, whereby penalties would be imposed after the cash bonus each turn for blockaded ports or besieged settlements? It might be a way to balance out both Europa Barbarorum's condition-based bonuses and the vanilla per-turn bonuses.

I feel like it would be simpler than figuring out a way to teach the machine to calculate the size of the bonus itself as a function of open ports and roads. What's more, it would probably be simpler to adjust to individual preference, if anyone using this modification wanted to go in and fiddle with the script files.

As far as I can tell, the greatest difficulty in creating a modification like this would be fixing the cash deductions, in turn, to be greater or lesser based on the size of a settlement, the roads in that settlement, the size of its port, and so on. Of course, this could be skipped over entirely, but it might be something worth thinking about. Does anyone here happen to have ideas about how one might make a money-script counterscript like this?

I like that! See my Field Battles threat to more similar ideas!

[vollorix]

You are playing on VH and are wondering that "diplomacy" ( if one could call this feature in RTW ) is totaly broken? ^^
One should allways think of one thing: RTW ( ROME Total War ) was mainly intended for player to take controll of one of the Roman factions. And since they were 3 activ + senate totaly, there was a dire need for the AI to hate the player and go against him at any costs. During the Republic your "Roman" collegues allways used to declare war on any faction that dared to go against you. During the imperial time, the player was the "allmighty" Rome, no wonder AI went crazy - after all, we knew what happend with Roman allies once they became uncomfortable neighbours with no farther use due to lack of common enemies etc.

[Zarax]

It's not so straightforward though.
Ironically RTW AI is much saner than most player thinks, with a "small" issue: it's oversensitive to cash.

If you manage to balance the game so that money is in relatively short supply (both for player and AI) you will start seeing many less declarations of war and even ceasefire request as when really short on money AI knows that it's beaten.

[Jackaloboulos]

It's not so straightforward though.
Ironically RTW AI is much saner than most player thinks, with a "small" issue: it's oversensitive to cash.

If you manage to balance the game so that money is in relatively short supply (both for player and AI) you will start seeing many less declarations of war and even ceasefire request as when really short on money AI knows that it's beaten.

That's really, really interesting. So you're saying that constant warfare on a dozen fronts in the game is just a symptom of too much cash in the economy?

Sounds like we need something like the Federal Reserve...

[Zarax]

Err.. I'm not saying that less money = smart AI but let's put it like this:

As weird as it sounds AI likely takes in consideration several factors before attacking*, two of which almost certainly are income and global army size.
What makes AI go berserk in most occasions is when they get over a threshold that makes it think "I'm strong!", therefore making them think they can take on the player.

Our problem is that the said threshold is likely a fixed value (possibly a formula like "if (net income-(income from trade with the player)+army strenght-(player army strength)+core stance+diplomatic stance) > (threshold*difficulty modifier)) then attack else peace) and this value is set relatively low (think about a map of vanilla size and economy of early game), making late vanilla campaign and most mods getting over it very easily.

In short words, by toning down the global money supply you reduce both income and army sizes, making it easier to stay under the aggressiveness threshold for a while.
Ironically it is likely that CA could have addressed it fairly easy but seen as many players complained that the game was too easy and mods went into the direction of giving more AI bonuses they decided that it was something of very low priority and never addressed it.

This at least is my opinion after several years of RTW modding and I can safely say that cash starved factions are a lot less likely to be aggressive, at least on lower difficulty levels.

*note: it is possible that CA put a turn threshold before forcing an attack like in M2TW, still if AI feels weak it's likely they will ask for ceasefire provided the player is not overly aggressive and the trade income AI gets from him is high enough.

[Cute Wolf]

Err.. I'm not saying that less money = smart AI but let's put it like this:

As weird as it sounds AI likely takes in consideration several factors before attacking*, two of which almost certainly are income and global army size.
What makes AI go berserk in most occasions is when they get over a threshold that makes it think "I'm strong!", therefore making them think they can take on the player.

Our problem is that the said threshold is likely a fixed value (possibly a formula like "if (net income-(income from trade with the player)+army strenght-(player army strength)+core stance+diplomatic stance) > (threshold*difficulty modifier)) then attack else peace) and this value is set relatively low (think about a map of vanilla size and economy of early game), making late vanilla campaign and most mods getting over it very easily.

In short words, by toning down the global money supply you reduce both income and army sizes, making it easier to stay under the aggressiveness threshold for a while.
Ironically it is likely that CA could have addressed it fairly easy but seen as many players complained that the game was too easy and mods went into the direction of giving more AI bonuses they decided that it was something of very low priority and never addressed it.

This at least is my opinion after several years of RTW modding and I can safely say that cash starved factions are a lot less likely to be aggressive, at least on lower difficulty levels.

*note: it is possible that CA put a turn threshold before forcing an attack like in M2TW, still if AI feels weak it's likely they will ask for ceasefire provided the player is not overly aggressive and the trade income AI gets from him is high enough.

this is soo true

[Captain Pugwash]

two tactics - use assassins to destroy the barracks thus denying recruitment. second target the key recruitment centres - key cities which are often 'unguarded' with some feeble unit and take it destroy the infastructure and leave. it will take years to rebuild. do that a few times and the elites dissappear. AI cities never revolt - some have been rioting for years then go straight to green somehow? so the economic route is pointless

[TheLastDays]

They do revolt. AS cities in the eastern outskirts regularly revolt to Eleutheroi

[vollorix]

You need good spies, 2-5 assassins, and no enemy FM in the town ( normaly those freaking AI FM´s become administratively inept, but often gain cool ancillaries like "judge", or becomming "drillmasters" with law bonuses when the town riots, depending on the taxe rate ).
The easiest way to let a city revolt is when there are penalties of any kind:

first cultural ( or even freshly conquered, of course )
then distance from capital
and the squalor ( if the town has overpopulation, and the government building isn´t upgraded yet, this is a very good chance to start your plot ).

When a settlement riots, citizens are getting killed, and depending on how large it is, there might be a significant decrease in population so that the public order might stay out of "red face".
Also, AI loves to put the taxes as high as possible, so while you might observe public order of 60% only, this is due to "very high" taxe rate; going to "high" will bring them additionaly +20% public order, to "normal" +45% ( 20 + 25 ), and to "low" +75% ( 30 + 20 + 25 ).
Numerous assasins are needed to destroy multiple buildings in the town at once ( once the AI stops/partially stops repairing damaged buildings, you might need only 2 for the barracks )

- target barracks + auxillery, don´t ever let them stay repaired for even 1 turn, or new units might be recruited
- destroy temples, depending on the size and art of it
- all happieness and law buildings starting with the highest bonus given by them
- once you notice that AI isn´t repairing all buildings at once ( they mostly concentrate on the most vital ones, and the barracks, of course ), you know it´s bit short on money ( you should observe their chash flow in the statistics and hit while they have none; on the other hand, playing on "vh" enables AI to always rapair ( due to 10k mnai cash per turn ) but if you hit the really expensive buildings, it´s still gonna heart ).
You should make sure that the AI has no troops near the town, nor any FM ( assasins and spies suck mostly if FM are present ) which they might bring into the town to boost up the public order.

Also, an enemy spy in the town can destroy all your plans ( enemy spies are almost impossible to kill within a town - "spyguildmaster" trait, no matter how trained he is ).

Well, that´s briefly how i act, but there is no guarantee for your succes - some cities do not revolt, others get "bugged" through you own spy who is increasing the public order instead of decreasing it - in this case try to replace the spy, double them, etc.