Moneys!

[bondovic]

Here I go again.

As the title reveals, I want to hear your thoughts on in-game money. Why? Because there are so many different ways to engineer economic models and each model has its own perks and drawbacks. For example, reducing upkeep for royal units to 0 is a very simple model for distribution of wealth. This lets smaller factions, like the Danes, to expand even when keeping 10 uncles.

Another model could be to reduce all units' upkeep while seriously boosting trade income. Or bumping harvest income and reducing build times for farm upgrades, while increasing upkeep for naval units. You get the picture...

The model you choose, obviously, changes the dynamics of the game. These dynamics cannot, in most cases, be said to be inherently good or bad, but must be measured as a means towards an end. This end, most likely, being Gameplay - which should be the operative word in any modding procedure.

So, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top, if you'd explain your preferred model and explain why you prefer it, that would be absolute gold for me!

Many thanks.

/B

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

I'm no modder, and claim no great insight into MTW, but...

1) I think it's generally accepted that the AI is pretty poor at exploiting trade goods on account of its inability to maintain a 'ship in contiguous sea regions' infrastructure; and

2) By contrast, the AI does a reasonable job of building the farming and mining technologies so getting good returns from these resources.

It seems to me, therefore, that trade income potential should be significantly reduced, and farming and mining income increased.

I would also approve of an increase in the cost of building and maintaining ships, plus making them take longer to build. I feel this is preferable to other strategems to cut down on (or at least make more expensive) teleportation-like long distance naval invasions and vast trading networks

I definitely think artillery should be much harder and more expensive to build.

I sympathise with the desire to help smaller factions, but see this as a forlorn hope. I am inclined to boost the staying power (and challenge) of the larger factions, and rely on revolts and reappearances to keep the smaller factions in the game.

I really really wish the player could gift sums from his treasury to AI factions.

Just my ha'penny worth.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[The Punish-ed]

Hello, I am also no expert, although I do enjoy tinkering around with the files to try and have a different gaming experience. At the moment Im working on allowing all factions to build some units (Cuman Warriors, Rus Spears, Arab Infantry, Camels and suchlike) but with the units affecting the religeon of the poulation - so that, for example, a Catholic army could build Camels, but it would increase the Muslim population in his empire if he did so.

Financially the biggest problem is that hinted at above - anything that improves the AI's income also improves the players, and the player can then make the trade income on top of it, meaning the human almost always benefits more than the AI. Short of using your own rules (like not building traders posts) its not easy to do.

If you almost always go the same faction, you could simply reduce costs on all units that you cannot build or give other leaders discounts on certain troops. This can, unfortunately backfire - as sometimes they will respond by building huge numbers of the cheaper units and less of everything else.

During the Medieval era, trade was MASSIVELY reduced outside of the Eastern Roman areas, so it makes historical as well as gameplay sense to focus on making trade benefit the human less, but the effects are just as easily achieved by refraining from using trade yourself. Same goes for making boats cost more, you'll hurt small factions and achieve the same result by simply altering your own bahaviour. If anything, Id suggest making ships MUCH cheaper and more easily accessible. A committed player will rule the seas without much competition after the first 150 years anyway (I generally have 3-6 provinces churning them out asap and have uncontested mastery of the med after 100 years and the atlantic by 150 years when I go for it) - while it's simple enough to sink a large fleet, it gets annoying to have to constantly pick off little ships - and if my 'compeition' could be spawning new little fast annoying ships every year instead of every 3 - while this would not significanlty alter my own approach or dominance - meaning my trade would suffer a lot more, it'd be harder to invade.

If anything it might be worth redistributing resources a bit - give the Danes, Irish, Scots, Volgos (obviously depends what version / mods you use) either more supplies or make only a select few provinces trade points - rather than a region producing goods; just choose the main hubs of trade and make them have more concentrated groups of 'gathered' trade items - obviously constantinople, Egypt, Syria, Novgorod were places that got a slice of almost all trade heading through them.

As I usually play Byzantines, Greece, Nicaea, Constantinople, Crimea and Bulgaria already have great trade potential from the word go; whereas if we considered that almost all of these goods went where they were going via the Capitol; it might make sense to focus all Byzantine trade goods at the City - making the surrounding provinces poorer.

there is, however, nothing to stop the human grabbing all the hubs and ruling the world anyway - but if you gave specifica advantages to factions and territories that YOU rarely utilise, you can make a better game of it - but you could just as easily not build trading posts.


Again - all these things can be achieved by the player deciding not to use his advantage to full - so im not sure that modding is necessarily the best answer.

P

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

"If anything, Id suggest making ships MUCH cheaper and more easily accessible. A committed player will rule the seas without much competition after the first 150 years anyway (I generally have 3-6 provinces churning them out asap and have uncontested mastery of the med after 100 years and the atlantic by 150 years when I go for it) - while it's simple enough to sink a large fleet, it gets annoying to have to constantly pick off little ships - and if my 'compeition' could be spawning new little fast annoying ships every year instead of every 3 - while this would not significanlty alter my own approach or dominance - meaning my trade would suffer a lot more, it'd be harder to invade."

That makes sense to me.

Regards
Victor

VGB edit:
Plus, if the AI had a lot more ships at sea, and therefore fully populated the sea regions, it might actually start to benefit from trade to a similar degree to the player - sort of by 'accident'.

[wumpus]

I'm so glad that many people still play MTW, as I continue to enjoy it. Talking of money, I discovered a long time ago a good use for it--to bribe unoccupied (or rebel) provinces to my side. I once played Byzantine, then sent off my emissaries to the West, managed to bribe (to buy?) Norway before the Danes succeeded there, and had a powerful army that used a combination of Norse Huscarles supported by Byzantine Cataphracts. You guys try it some time; I wish you great success at it. That's how powerful money is. Hawooh. :-)

[m52nickerson]

The one problem with giving the AI any more money is that larger factions will just spam even more troops then they do already. The smaller factions will not be able to keep up. Perhaps giving those smaller factions, like the Danes, more money to start, or making their home provences much richer would help more.

[VersusAllOdds]

Trade is unquestionably the most effective way of making money, in every total war game (I played Shogun, M1, M2, Rome), and have had enormous stashes of money in every campaign I play seriously. Right now, I'm playing GA with Sicilians, started from Early age, and got smth like 2mil florins.
Trade trade trade!

[wumpus]

@Versus AllOdds
Yes, my friend, you are absolutely right. In MTW, it appears to be the more effective way of getting money than anything else. Farming is good, but trading is better.
Funny, though--just a whimsical thought--how come no enemy or neutral faction has ever attempted to bribe or buy me off in my so many campaigns???
Hawooh.

[Ironside]

@Versus AllOdds
Yes, my friend, you are absolutely right. In MTW, it appears to be the more effective way of getting money than anything else. Farming is good, but trading is better.
Funny, though--just a whimsical thought--how come no enemy or neutral faction has ever attempted to bribe or buy me off in my so many campaigns???
Hawooh.

Give the AI enough money and they will do it. They won't really do it normally because they spend money on troops and buildnings until they run out. Switch factions in godmode and you'll see those millions of your empire be spent quite quickly on troops and bribing (they'll bribe every possible stack then).

Anyway one way is to increase the trade import to 100% of the export (normally 20%), making the AI earn as much money as you on the trading. Only downside is that wars will him them really hard then.

[Subutai's apprentice]

Hail to all,
Here comes my experience in MTW, usually when I play first 100 turns or so I use trade of course as best way to produce lots of florins. But as the game progresses inevitably your trading partners turn into bitter enemies and stash starts to crumble. So if you didn’t created sizeable amount of florins you are in pain now. When you play with smaller factions (especially if you hold all of Europe’s non profitable provinces and the Byzantine or Seljuk are rock hard in Middle East and Africa and Almohads are wel established in Spain ...) it’s pretty much hard to do so. My main source of income in those situations is rebellions. Pick some provinces, put the taxes sky-high, tear down all the buildings that deal with dissent (or preferably don’t build them at all), kick out all agents, and prepare for executing all the peasants you capture (I’m usually not bloodthirsty and I seek to bring prosperity and peace, but sometimes drastic measures are needed).
So I was wondering could the same thing be profitable for AI? Since I’m no moder and I don’t pay too much attention how does AI manage economics,hopefully someone will know is this possible.

[VersusAllOdds]

@Versus AllOdds
Yes, my friend, you are absolutely right. In MTW, it appears to be the more effective way of getting money than anything else. Farming is good, but trading is better.
Funny, though--just a whimsical thought--how come no enemy or neutral faction has ever attempted to bribe or buy me off in my so many campaigns???
Hawooh.

I did see them bribe rebels... But I guess we all did.
Problem is, you, as the majority of us, maintain a high level of loyalty among the generals. If the loyalty is high, it takes something like 70000 to bribe a general... Profitable? Not even for an AI :D

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

"My main source of income in those situations is rebellions."

I believe that most veteran players would regard such a stratagem as an exploit.

Best regards
Victor

[Subutai's apprentice]

Hi

"My main source of income in those situations is rebellions."

I believe that most veteran players would regard such a stratagem as an exploit.

Best regards
Victor

Well, I believe that most of the people on the street would regard such a strategy as an Eifel Tower, but in case that I want to criticize someone strategy I would use qoutes or refernce not a general idea of some veterans. Maybe I went to far, trying to colorfully explain possibility for AI to prosper, not to point you how to play.
Anyway, explanation why I consider some strategy exploit or not should be in a separate thread. I will be more than interested to engage in such a discussion.
Better regards
Apprentice.

[caravel]

Well, I believe that most of the people on the street would regard such a strategy as an Eifel Tower, but in case that I want to criticize someone strategy I would use qoutes or refernce not a general idea of some veterans. Maybe I went to far, trying to colorfully explain possibility for AI to prosper, not to point you how to play.
Anyway, explanation why I consider some strategy exploit or not should be in a separate thread. I will be more than interested to engage in such a discussion.
Better regards
Apprentice.

Hello Subutai's apprentice,

I don't think victorgb meant any offence in that statement. "Farming for rebellions" is actually a common exploit. This doesn't mean it's necessarily "wrong", but many members here will always flag up such tactics when another member mentions they are using them. Please don't take this personally.

Some other exploits include jihad spamming and assassinating own agents to valour up. These are just considered "unsportsmanlike" and cheap by many members here (especially among the longer term members and more experienced players). This is probably because many of us seeks to make the game more challengining rather than less so.

I regard many other aspects and "features" as exploits, that many players may not, such as dismounting units before battle and hiring mercenaries among other things. This is because the AI is unable to exploit those features.

[Subutai's apprentice]

Hello Subutai's apprentice,

I don't think victorgb meant any offence in that statement. "Farming for rebellions" is actually a common exploit. This doesn't mean it's necessarily "wrong", but many members here will always flag up such tactics when another member mentions they are using them. Please don't take this personally.

Some other exploits include jihad spamming and assassinating own agents to valour up. These are just considered "unsportsmanlike" and cheap by many members here (especially among the longer term members and more experienced players). This is probably because many of us seeks to make the game more challengining rather than less so.

I regard many other aspects and "features" as exploits, that many players may not, such as dismounting units before battle and hiring mercenaries among other things. This is because the AI is unable to exploit those features.

Hello Nagamasa-san
Sorry if I sounded offended, because I'm not.
Again, I was a bit carried away with description of strategy and the sole purpose was to describe possibility for AI. This isn't the strategy I use (well, most of it). But if you like I can explain my strategy on this thread and why I don't or do consider some strategy exploit. And again, I'm not using this strategy literally, I'm trying to point on a way for AI to gather more money.
Anyway, thanks for the info on exploits (this isn't sarcastic) and I have to point that your post shows why you are moderator (this isn't sucking up).
And finally, Victorbg deserves apology if I offended him. Sorry.

OK, back to the topic, does anyone knows is this possibility for AI.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

No offence taken, or intended, and no apology required.

Best regards
Victor

[caravel]

OK, back to the topic, does anyone knows is this possibility for AI.

The AI would be partially unable to exploit such a strategy - even through modding. This is mainly because the AI lacks the disband/destroy capability (the AI is unable to manually and selectively demolish buildings and disband units). Disband/destroy is another feature that I regard as an exploit (but many do not). It was introduced back in Shogun Total War: The Mongol Invasion expansion and has been present in all TW games since. In my humble opinion it's a bad feature and does not add to the gameplay experience.

If you want the AI to gain more florins from taking provinces, then provinces themselves need to be better developed as a whole. One way to do this is a big cash injection for the rebel faction. This is very easy to acheive (in VI) by adding a generous "cathedral income" to the two unused tavern and brothel buildings (in VI both the tavern and brothel are replaced by the upgradable "new tavern" and "new brothel"). Both of those buildings are rebel only so no faction will be able to build them and they will be automatically razed once a faction takes the province. You can set the tavern and brothel to cost 1 florin and 1 year to build, which ensures the rebel faction gets the pair built in every province ASAP before it goes into the red. This way the rebels will be developing their lands in sync with all other factions, instead of stagnating for centuries. It can also mean lots of annoying rebel assassins and spies running about.

Another exploit, before I forget, is the in battle "kill prisoners" button - this is also something that the AI cannot use at all. It gives the player the flexibility to avoid the in campaign ransom offers that follow the battle. So if you capture the enemy's 9 star faction leader, you get the option to kill or ransom. The AI only has the option to ransom and see if it is accepted or not.

[drone]

Along the same lines of removing ship trade, has anyone tried adding upgrades to the Port building line? I could see adding a 2-3 upgrades to the line, with cathedral income offering the incentive. Ports have a hardcoded nature about them though, so I'm not sure it's possible.

[caravel]

Along the same lines of removing ship trade, has anyone tried adding upgrades to the Port building line? I could see adding a 2-3 upgrades to the line, with cathedral income offering the incentive. Ports have a hardcoded nature about them though, so I'm not sure it's possible.

IIRC this stops the trade/imports income from working. It would still be worth a try though.

Personally I would be inclined to leave the standard port as is and then improve the dock/ship yards adding any income to them. The trading posts function as a sort of upgrade to ports anyway.

[drone]

Personally I would be inclined to leave the standard port as is and then improve the dock/ship yards adding any income to them.

That would make a lot more sense.

[Garnier]

My economic model:

Ships are removed, so no sea trade.
Land trade buildings give more income (by increasing value of trade goods).
Farm upgrades require technology (so 60% comes in high period, 80% in late period).
The Inn building costs 1 florin and 1 turn, and AI priority on it is set to max. It also acts as a significant farm upgrade now. Thus the AI builds it in every province they have.
I don't allow myself to build the Inn, and I destroy an Inns I take. This gives the AI extra money. (I play on Hard because I prefer better AI armies than a huge + to AI stats).
The castle upgrades are in one straight hierarchy so you have to build all of them one at a time. They take less turns to complete. This makes it less devastating when a castle downgrades from being lost, or when a province is taken while a castle is under construction.
Upkeep on all units is in proportion to their purchase price. This makes big armies of knights hard to upkeep, while cheaper units are easier. Royal Knights are free to upkeep, but they can't be purchased (they only come with princes).
Siege weapons and peasants removed for the sake of the AI.
Landbridges are added all over the place where crossings should be possible, to make up for no ships. (so for instance england can be entered from a lot more directions, as well as all the islands and such).

I realize those aren't all directly "economic" changes, but they all work together with the economic system in some way.

[Prince Cobra]

Strange... As the Spanish, I indeed get fabulously rich. However, as the Byzantines, the coffers are never full. Not bankrupt but not rich as well. I can't remmber I ever exceeded the 80 000 florins (including the last turns in which I am eager to conwuer the 60 per cent and spend little for infrastructure. Perhaps just a few farms so that the ruler gets "Steward" line virtues). As the Byzantines, the coffers vary between 0 and 20-40 000 and as I said only in the last turns reach to 80 000 (sometimes).