The Caravel Mod

[gollum]

Originally posted by Caravel
The approach also has it's downsides. It provides the player with lots of free heavy cavalry units that cost nothing to support. If you go one further and give them the full vanilla cavalry unit size (40) this makes those free units even more viable, especially if you leave dismounts in, and makes units such as feudal knights and chivalric knights almost obsolete. If you leave the units at 20, the AI still suffers as they make very easy targets. It's somewhat of a a dilemma and I doubt the perfect system exists.

Bingo. All that maint. cost free full size heavy cav after some time makes the trainable heavy cav units obsolete and unbalances the camp. And if you keep them small the player can snipe them during battle as you say.

Personally I think the Byzantine and Russian/Novgord BG units works better. It keeps the support and training costs, but gives a larger more worthwhile unit to the AI.

Maybe, but it would work with smaller maint costson the campaign. I really wanted to keep the BGs in the mod full size for the Russ and teh Byz, but, the Byzs were really dragging themselves financially because of it. Once i dropped the BG to 20, the Byz played like a different faction; greatly balanced stacks, great economic development, using full roster, resisting and even beating back at times the Turkish onslaught and once every full moon even conquering Anatolia and the Middle East and resisting the Mongols. Hence, i stuck with the 20 men BGs for them and for the Russ. The Russ get the Boyars as a recruitable unit from v2.1 and onwards - the Boyars were too much of a stapple unit for them to make it small and non trainable - and they have unique BGs: Druzhina in early and Dvor (Royal Khazar Cav renamed and slightly more able) in high and late. The Byz on the other hand get the pron cavs for full size heavy cav, and so the kats can be their dedicated BG unit.

The alternative would be to still decrease the costs and keep them full size - but that also skews the early battles very much to their favor. In any case, once i made them 20man size, battles with and against the Byzantines became far more fun, balanced and challenging (because the AI produced better stacks and because as the Byz you couldn't just rely on the brute kata strength - you needed to use the rest of your army to beat the enemy).

I am only thinking to give the kata BG normal speed, as with less men, the slow speed makes them considerably more vulnerable to missiles and more likely to get caught for ransom or killed in routs. Or perhaps i should leave them thus as a sign of decadence of the Empire - proud and of great lineage but backward and awkward like their cavalry :)

[Durango]

Hi Gollum and Caravel, and thanks for the responses.

There are various work arounds but they take long to implement and they never achieve teh full effect of letting the AI free to build what he wants were he wants it. Thank you for the suggestions and ideas, but i have playtested and tweaked the campaign around this assumption, and changing it now would maen to change everything all over again, and playtesting it.

I see. One other way that I tried was to limit the bonus units from provinces to Early only if I start in Early - but that was
nullified when I learned that the AI stops developing regions beyond the tech for the +1 unit. Shoddy design, I'd say, by
the Creative Assembly. I don't believe Shogun had such nonsense, IIRC.

Well, the issue is then likely to remain for all of us to rip out our hair trying to solve...

The approach you mention certainly excludes AI factions to get into debt from BGs maintenance costs, and that is its strength. It also helps the AI factions that are 1 province only to gain forces as they get heirs and then use them to expand eventually and set up. However, it deviates from the way factions behave and are played in the vanilla game because of it, and so i decided to follow the core game.

Yes, the one province factions in my game really get active with that setup, Scotland sometimes takes half of England, and
Bohemia can very much expand and carve out a kingdom in central Europe. The other nations do get more resources as well,
but just as in real life, it's important that the poor can afford to look for jobs even if that means more Champagne for the upper classes.

Battles are most certainly not balanced for default - there is enough space that (many of) these maps were used in mp to host 2v2 and 3v3 battles online and CA would never make maps that would be useless if more factions or more men were on the battlefield anyway - it woud make the maps bigger than default needed them to be, so they can accomodate the more men online and from higher unit settings.
The terrain not only is not optimised for default, but its not optimised at all - the maps on average are just huge for the fatigue rates/walking speed/scale of units. Only STW maps were optimised for the fatigue rate of units. The only reason it seems that it is, is because most people play normal - and i used to be one of you guys and thought the same.

Now, this is interesting. The definition of "optimized" is not universal, and being that I'm not interested in MP (battles for the sake of
battling is pointless) the number of players per map is to me irrelevant. It is true that most maps are never too small nor too big to play
on, but there is a map size that resonates for every individual player. I like lots of space for different stages of the battle to play out in.
Fatigue rates however, are too harsh for these environments, I agree.

If you read the post you quoted, i state my case that accuracy and lethality are weapon attributes and not unit attributes. Training/experience are reflected in valor (valor afects missile accuracy and high valor missiles are more accurate) that is given through general's command stars and through battle kills. It can also be purchased on the campaign map; in Caravel you have to build th Military accademy to get valor bonuses however :)

Factors such as accuracy are not only based on the weapon, but on the characteristics of the unit itself like other stats. In the
VI campaign, Berserkers are faster than other unarmoured units, because they're angry blokes! Certain unit types can be better
than other faction's equivalents, but only if they are balanced properly (I usually solve that issue by restricting "plain better" units
to single province only, like for ex. Swiss Pikemen).

Bonuses in general are better kept to a minimum, otherwise the game becomes a little upgrading race for the player (to win) on the campaign map that then wins him battles by way of better valor, better weapons etc. I understand that many people play thus and enjoy, and in part i do too, but the AI doesn't know how to get the best out of the bonuses and navigate them. So i'd rather play more equal footing battles than have differences here and differences there that i can exploit to beat the game. The aim of the mod is to have better battles and the best way to get better battles is to get on a more equal footing with the AI in terms of bonuses/advantages etc etc.

True, but it's always a matter of playing style too - the human player is after all the most influential factor in the game. I tend to
give the AI a lot of advantages with my heavily turtle-based play, and always face numerically superior forces. Though it's important
to minimize player advantages when ever possible, otherwise the game stops being a game, and turns into a role playing mental
exercise with only self imposed "rules". Care should be taken, however, to not reduce the campaign map tech trees too much, lest
you have nothing to build towards.

I like the changes in the Caravel mod, and they frequently mirror my own. I have removed valour upgrades for high end buildings,
since it does not make sense to have the oppurtunity to "build" valour that way. Same goes for morale, too.

Also, Durango the huge unit size can be certainly played with the allowable camera, however the caravel mod is also reccommended for play using -ian (to add the -loyalty:180 and -green_generals) that allows you to zoom out (or in), as well as get any angle of view, as much as you want in the battle map.

Only for close ups, not for overviews. The camera can't go higher.

Regardless however, battles are not about seeing where your units are at all times, but knowing at any time where your units are (and what they are doing). In mp you also don't have time to see everything all at once and its more in how you filter the flow of information from the interface and the perception of the units' position in space and time at the dynamics of the battle that guides you - vision is your RAM, while percpetion of battlefield your cpu, so to speak, and you don't need to see all units in the battlefield at all times to lead your armies. Of course its more difficult in huge because spaces between units are greater and armies take more space and require a wider sweep of vision to be seen, and so understandably people are finding it hard, especially at first. But that doesn't mean that the battlefield experience is optimised for default unit settings.

This is not multiplayer, this is singleplayer. MP gameplay is not relevant to how people want to experience singleplayer. It's also a
matter of playing style, since I personally enjoy spreading out my units a lot as well as using a large amount of mobile units such as HAs.
The interface itself has drawbacks (no symbols for unit types on the minimap for example), but the biggest issue is that units, unlike real
life, cannot take care of themselves without orders. Babysitting units is not very realistic.

Personally, I'm also a very micro management oriented player, as I like precisely controlling the actions of the units. When the battlefield
is too spread out, I have less time to do what I enjoy the most, so therefore Huge unit sizes decreases my satisfaction. Not to mention
the other engine limitations I brought up, such as maximum frontage.

One useful setting that helps sweeping faster the field of campera vision in to increase, to teh point you are comfortable, the camera rotation and translation speed. This is available from the standrad Options menu in the game menu. I think its from "Game Controls".

Yes, it's very useful.

This was actually one of my original ideas from the Pocket Mod. Nice to see that you've adopted it.

Very likely I read it in the Pocket mod forums, yes. I've read all topics there. Good concept, regardless of who invented it originally.

The approach also has it's downsides. It provides the player with lots of free heavy cavalry units that cost nothing to support. If you go one further and give them the full vanilla cavalry unit size (40) this makes those free units even more viable, especially if you leave dismounts in, and makes units such as feudal knights and chivalric knights almost obsolete. If you leave the units at 20, the AI still suffers as they make very easy targets. It's somewhat of a a dilemma and I doubt the perfect system exists.

The full sizes are not really compatible with the solution in question, though, because as you say the BGs become too good. My home mod
has 20 unit BGs for all factions (with some stat changes to go along with it). In the end, there is no perfect solution. It's plague or cholera,
so to speak. Although I find the free upkeep and non trainable setting the lesser of two evils. Heh, maybe I should give all units elite status
to counteract the general dying. Or maybe play with morale off and suicide my own general first. Or dress myself up like a duck.
OK, I'll stop...

Thank you again for the interesting discussion.

[Trapped in Samsara]

I like very much the idea to change the AI unit setting of the BGs to the most conservative defensive unit possible, and i am interested in testing it and perhaps even incorporating it in the Caravel mod if it really works, in which case i will give you full credit for it.

Hi

If this change would go even a tiny way towards discouraging even a few AI generals from suicidally cantering up to within range of my missile troops and then halting, thereby allowing my chaps to interrupt their sunbathing to deliver a few devastating volleys of bolts/arrows/musketry... I'm all for it.

Also, Gollum, it really is refreshing to not be encountering absurd amounts of artillery in the AI stacks, and hence its initial deployments. This has been my biggest single whinge down the years. Thank you. At last, a BAI that doesn't cripple itself before it's even made it into the arena.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[gollum]

Thank you for your response Durango.

Its only natural that i would make the mod from my experiences and from my own playstayle point of view. In that sense, i am interested in having battles as intense as those i had online, if possible. I am certain that having battles that are a bit more on the edge might please/interest some people - certainly not all of course. Some people may like it, and some people may not. If you give the mod a try with the reccomended settings for a while you might end up liking the settings more than you now think perhaps... or not :) Either way no problem.

Originally posted by Durango
Only for close ups, not for overviews. The camera can't go higher.

Oh, but it does in fact go as high as you want :) You can go so high as being able to see beyond the edges of the map - as if from a sattelite.

Originally posted by victorgb

Hi

If this change would go even a tiny way towards discouraging even a few AI generals from suicidally cantering up to within range of my missile troops and then halting, thereby allowing my chaps to interrupt their sunbathing to deliver a few devastating volleys of bolts/arrows/musketry... I'm all for it.

Also, Gollum, it really is refreshing to not be encountering absurd amounts of artillery in the AI stacks, and hence its initial deployments. This has been my biggest single whinge down the years. Thank you. At last, a BAI that doesn't cripple itself before it's even made it into the arena.

Hello victor, the change is now complete as is the next version that contain it and a few small stat adjustments. Indeed this was the main work on the mod: to work on the rosters/dependencies/prices(maint and training) in order to have worthy stacks. The mod has fully succeded in that i feel. If you haven't try it yet, try v2.1, but if you haven't don't worry: v2.2 is coming up by tomorrow morning. I'll also post what i did for as it might be of interest to others for their own mods. Thanks again to Raz for the inspiration/idea.

[gollum]

Durango,

although the huge settings make the camera work requiring wider sweeps as you say (of course now that you know the camera can be taken as high as you want that might be less of a problem), the melee lasts longer - assuming always match ups are proper (ie not your spears to their swords etc). This gives you actually more time for micro on the flanks than in normal/default were often melees take up less time to resolve.

In my opinion, the settings issue you are having is a matter of habit more than anything. But of course its your habit and your choice :)

[Durango]

Sounds pretty good, actually. I could swear I did, a long time ago, read in the numerology thread that -ian did not raise the camera.
But if what you say is correct, than I'll try Huge unit sizes and see if it plays better. Nice to hear! Ever since switching back to
Default form Huge, I saw the benefits of the latter apply mostly to the campaign map.

I too await the results of the changes Raz mentioned could work. If only we could remove the entire system in MTW where
the general's death gives a big penalty to morale... perhaps even where the general bonuses persist in battle whether
the general lives or dies. Personally I would accept that even though it's unrealistic.

[gollum]

There is a way to bypass this; and that was Caravel's idea and intention that we were discussing together, and from those discussions i went on to make the Caravel mod (we were meant to have made the mod together and it would have been much more radical and from the ground up than what it is).

Caravel suggested that all units from Keep (level 2 castle) level onwards be elite. This is easy to do, and it doesn't show up in the unit card info: you just say YES in the comumn of the unit prod file that asks if the unit is Samurai. This is a carry over from STW of course that shares the core engine with MTW. In STW, Caravel said, only the Ashigaru spears (Yari Ashigaru) and the Ashigaru gunners (arqs and musketeers) are not Samurai and hence get hefty negative bonuses from the death of the General as they are peasants.

In MTW, very few units are designated Samurai, elites in MTW terminology. Hence why armies melt down at general's death.

I have not incorporated Caravel's idea into the mod because i wanted it to be vanilla-like gameplay - i wanted the General to matter, and i wanted most armies/units to be fragile to the general's death. Also some other features of the vanilla game apart from the battles would get affected. For example, the Military Academy that makes units disciplined would become more or less redundant - being elites is better, and if most units are elites, becoming disciplined would mean little. Equally redundant would be the property of disciplined of all those units that are such in their basic stats - Byzantine Infantry, Mamelukes etc etc. So, ileft it as is.

However, there is nothing from stopping you to do it thus in your own mods. Set the majority of units to elite, say from Keep level and above, and the problem you are having with armies melting at the death of the General will be solved.

I'll post what i did with the BG behaviour; its a small setting, but i played from last night about 20+ battles in custom and campaign and it does make a difference. I'll explain once the new version is out.

[gollum]

The most radical treatment you can do Durango is to turn off morale altogether. Battles will be a bit like... Warcraft, but never theless you won't be dissapointed by armies melting from the general's death.

[gollum]

Ok, new version will be available soon. This is the final version, for 2011 at least. I feel that the mod has succeded in all its goals and more now.

The new version, v2.2, contains minor stat adjustemnts in 3 unit cases. Its fully saved game compatible and the experience of the game remains 95+% unaltered from v2.1.

The stat adjustments are:

1. Xbows and arbs are returned to their normal melee, ie not ap anymore.

I have fully becomed convinced that the ap does not infact give any melee benefit against low/medium armor opponents as i was hoping. It also certainly does not make them helpful against high armour opponents - try flanking heavy cavalry; i did and the heavy cavalry felt a slight mosquito bite from teh xbows and then turned around and routed them while it was still fighting the spear that had it pinned. Not to mention that they were slow and fatigued alot due to being armoured.

So the ap is taken out as it is misleading - it might tell people that these units can do some ap damage, when they are in fact not going to and you are much better off having them shoot instead all the while.

All in all, i think that the problem i was trying to solve (AI moving about too much his missiles and having them getting caught by infantry/cavalry) needs tweaking of a different parameter altogether. I will try to experiment with the engagement threshold parameter (and a fewothers i have in mind) and see, but this mod is now finalised and at least for 2011 won't be updated further.

2. Adjusted the maintenance cost of the Swiss BGs (Swiss armoured pikemen) - now they cost about the same as other factions' BGs and the player does not benefit from that as they are unique to the Swiss and BG only (non-trainable). The player can still train Swiss pikes and Swiss halbs in Switzerland normaly as in vanilla.

This will improve the cah flow of the Swiss faction considerably, and as they are set on expansionist, beware of them if they emerge in your general area.

3. Adjusted Byzantine Kata BG to adapt them at being a 20 man unit.

The original unit was slow, large and powerful. Since now much of this power is taken away due to them being a 20man BG, i restored their speed to normal cavalry speed. This does not make them speed race champions - they are still slow and fatigue easily - they have probably 2 max full speed charges in them - but faster than before - basically alittel slower and more easily fatigued than Kwarazmians/Avar Nobles/khazar royal cav of vanilla. The idea is that they should be able to apply their smaller strength around the battlefield where needed, as "charge and let them duke it out" doesn't work with them anymore due to their smaler size. Also with their very small speed coupled with their now smaller size they would be too easy to capture when routing and also be easier sniped by missiles.

In addition to these 3 small changes, v2.2 contains an adjusted BG unit behaviour for all BGs of all factions, after following a suggestion/hint fom Raz.

Raz suggested that the BG be more conservative in battle so as to keep behind the lines, and thus the player not having an easy time sniping it out - as that's easy due to its small size. I followed his clue to set the BG units to DEFENSIVE, instead of ATTACKING (as they are) unit status, but that made them too conservative, and they would not use their power in early battles where BG units are the most powerful cavs/units.

Hence, i left the unit designation (ATTACKER, AMBUSH, ANTI_MISSILE, CAVALRY) as i could find nothing wrong with it for the unit (the unit should use its strength to attack, should prioritise missiles, should be an ambusher and try to flank), and i experimented with another closely linked set of parameters available.

I am refering to column 53. This is stated as "No longer used" but i am absolutely certain that it is used as i tried changing the parameters there and they did make considerable difference.

A typical line of this from Heavy cavs/BGs looks like that:

"SKIRMISH(0), ADVANCE_PARTY(1),OUTFLANKING_FORCE(1), MAIN_BODY(1), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(1), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(2), ASSAULT_COVER(0), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(0)"

Basically it designates (seems to me) the position and role of the unit in an army. The highest i saw in any of these values from any unit was 2 and the lowest 0.

The meanings, in my view are:

Skirmish: self explanatory, and it might (?) hold the key to the answer for the xbow/arbs problem - if it denotes which units have skirmish amility on
Advanced Part: unit being on the front lines
Outflanking force: unit included in the splitting of forces the AI does when he outnembers or when heis more mobile in force composition in order to sandwitch the enemy army
Main Body: unit being with the main melee line
Hold tarrain: i have no clue what this might do, and i am intrigued by it, as it may make the AI use its xbow/arb missiles better if used. I haven't seen any unit having set to more than 0 on that.
Reserve: Unit beig part of the 3rd line behind the melee main line (main body)
Reinforcement: Unit to be prioritised for reinforcement - so unit will wait untill its needed while others melee - typically for missiles.
Assault: Unit is to lead the charge that initiates the melee
Assault Cover: Unit is to fire to the enemy lines while its own army is engaging/fighting in melee - typically for archers, bow units/xbow-arb/guns
Assault cover Castle: Same as before but while on a siege assault
Cover: Firing at the enemy to cover advanced units of own army - again for missiles

If you consider the above and then study the designation for BG units that, as said is the same for HC full size units that do not contain family members, its clear that the higherst priority of the unit is Assault (2). This explains all those heroic single handed, but doomed, charges of BGs, and this is what i reduced. I reduced Assault to 1 and instead put 2 in the Main Body.

With these settings the BGs now will not lead the charge alone and wait for the others to catch up - but it will attack together with all the rest of the main line. This is also the reason why the BGs units sit there while other units coming up to it when the battle has reinforcements, i think. Now the unit will be sitting behind the others, protected, and will not recklessly commit, but still commit, to charges/fighting. However, full scale HC/Knights were left to assault 2, as they do not contain heirs/kings and do not suffer from small size. For them it makes perfect sense to lading the charge and that actually is ok and desirable even.

The results are a clear improvement of the use of the BG units by the AI. He uses them now in coordination with his main body army, but without being too conservative with them - which will help him, particularly in the early battles. I did now about 40+ battles in custom and campaign letting the AI have full size knights and BG knights and observed the difference. The feature works as described and its a clear improvement over the previous setting, as i hope you all find out.

The exact setting i used for 20 man BGs is:
"SKIRMISH(0), ADVANCE_PARTY(1), OUTFLANKING_FORCE(1), MAIN_BODY(2), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(1), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(1), ASSAULT_COVER(0), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(0)"

If someone wanted to make the BGs even more conservative, i say you could try putting the advanced party to 0. If youput 2 to reinforcement, the unit will not commit at all until the point its own line is faltering. This makes it the safest from missiles, but at the same time, it wastes its potential during melee, imo. Perhaps putting 2 to reserve might also help. I am not sure if putting two values@ 2 will be meaningful; it might be better that the highest priority/role for the unit is clear.

So, this is it, the mod is now completed (for this year at least:), and i hope you all enjoy. Thank you for your interest and patience.

I will make a post to let you know when the new version is up, and also update my signature link to reflect that.

[gollum]

Ok, i just got a reply from the administration. The admin is on leave and hence does not have the tools for making this available right now.
Final version v2.2 will be made available on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning CET.

Thank you.

[Stazi]

Congratulations! Some very interesting findings you got here. I always wanted to check these settings but never had enough time and patience. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Please, don't hesitate to make more "final" versions this year! I'm sure no one will complain about further improvement, especially like the ones from your last posts. This year has just started. We don't want to wait whole year for something new.

P.S. I've started Mamluk's campaign (on Hard, v2.1) yesterday with all your suggested settings. The main difference is very slow start for all factions. Empty provinces without any buildings, 2 years training time and loyatly:180 makes entire map really peaceful for a long time. It allowed me to cover whole Mediterranean with my ships and I have piles of cash (40 years have passed). I noticed that Byzantines don't develop their Asia Minor provinces (or develop not enough). It's hard to find one unit even in border provinces. When war started (after @20 years), Turks conquered all those provinces in just 3-4 turns and now they are attacking Constantinople. At the start of the campaign, Byzantines has highest income and it's strange that they don't build any troop producing buildings in these provinces. That's all for now. Just my first impressions.

[Durango]

Great work Gollum! Those are some true discoveries right there. Will be testing that tonight.

[gollum]

Thank you Durango and Stazi for your kind words and your interest in the mod. Feel free to incorporate any/all ideas wherever and however you like in your mods. if there is a similar small but significant improvement i have found out in the battles, i will either post about it or make a new version with it or both.

Stazi, thank you for your campaign account.

The Byzantines do infact develop as hard as they can but they are slow to begin with because they start with 1x100men Byz infantry, 2X60men Treb Archers and 1x60men Varangs and the Emperor, that is 4 half size units that are found in Greece, Bulgaria and Const. They cannot possibly cover their huge empire with that (the Ai can't at least) so quickly and so teh Turks will nibble away their empty Anatolian provinces. Their Naples province also starts with nothing: no units, no buildings so they lose that usually to either the Italians, teh Pope or the Sicilians. Sometimes though they bring units there from their core provinces by sea and even take Sicily and teh Sicilians out or the blitz the Pope out of existence (and then the Pope comes back etc etc).

The campaign starts slow, as slow as the vanilla campaign of early on huge settings and loyalty:180 :) Other than the Byzantines that i greatly disadvantaged in their starting armies (as they were in vanilla, you had so many troops that you could get rid of teh Turks practically in 4-5 turns - no exaggerations) in order to have to fight for their lives as it was historically, and also to counteract the shamefully easy campaign they normally had in early without having to take starting provinces from them, no oterfaction has different starting units - they are all as you remember them from vanilla. I have seen teh Byz/Turk fight (which is the one that starts first in the vast majority of campaigns) going either way, sometimes the Turks outright crush them, sometimes the Byz stem the flow and fight back till they defeat them, and sometimes it ends in a draw of sorts till the Mongols arrive and re-arrange them or till the Egytpians take on the Turks. In any case its pretty interesting how things go in that area.

The campaign picks up speed among the AI factions at sometime around 1130-1150 once teh AI factions have built up strength and cash flow; then at least one or two wars go on and as time progresses and empires rise and fall, war brakes out between (any of) them. Once the campaign builds up, factions use all sorts of things: Crusades, agents, ships, trade - but more cautiously and wholistically.

The slow build up, which is partly due to teh loyalty feature and partly due to the huge unit settings that make units trainable in 2 turns, allows the AI factions to have more time to prepare and go to war more with all their strength, as i hope you'll experience. This is all the more true if you avoid to use mercenaries on a regular basis. I wanted to keep mercs in the game for flavor reasons, but i made them far more generic - ie not elite/exclusive units of factions but more common medium infantry and cavalry. If you make it a home rule to recruit one every 10 years say, then the AI may prove surprisingly good an opponent. The mercs feature really gives a tremendous advantage to the player, as you can conquer vast areas in no time and then disband them and replace them with cheaper home troops or burn them in battle and keep conquering.

Conquering areas with other faiths will also prove more challenging. Faith propagates slower now and areas change religion slower which impacts particularly on teh Orthodox and Islamic factions that are religiously outnumbered on the map. This, coupled with happiness bonuses coming available more gradually means that conquest will require a bit more effort and preparation.

It also depends how you play. For example, i have one campaign in v2.2 (which is practically identical to v2.1) that i tried to play as aggressively i could (including buying mercs!) with the French. I do that with vanilla, and, typically by 1180-1190, i own France, Germany, northern Italy, Britain and Spain. In Caravel i could manage France, half of Germany and the north of Italy by 1160, with much more difficult battles and far less income and teching up - my cash flow has just started picking up. Because of the rush i have no ships yet, and so i have a long way in front of me. I also have no clue what the Almohads and teh eastern factions are doing - who is growing, who is on top. So i look forward to see how that will go and compare notes to vanilla first hand (not by autorun) as i have played the French many many times. By the way, the battles were very good so far in my campaign. Only the Germans proved dissapointing, but they always do :) The Italians on the other hand proved really a hard nut to crack and if they didn't have a civil war (as their Doge changed in the middle of my war with them) that made their best stack rebel, fighting them would have been even longer and harder. By the way, i fougth that rebel stack and lost :) with an equally strong stack. The AI took up a splendind defensive position on a slight slope and used his Royal BGs excellently in that battle - that was one happy defeat :)

Usually as the Egyptians, like in vanilla, i turtle until i have decent armies and income to take Syria and then start taking over the Turks. My guess is that if you take too long to take on the Turks, you might find that they have become stronger due to snatching provinces from teh Byz. I have seen their AI often fight a two front war against the Eggs and teh Byz and sometimes (not always) emerge victorious.

For the player, being the first to have a good trading network, especially if you play factions that have well defined and easily defensible borders and good starting income; ie Almohads/Egyptians is the norm.

One of the things that this mod has succeeded in my view is that, once an AI faction becomes really strong it doesn't easily fall from power, i have seen factions surviving civil wars, Papal re-emergencies and teh Mongols. That's partly due to the loyalty:180 effect and partly due to teh tech tree reworking that makes teh AI factions getting something from nearly everything they build - be it better income or units or agents or province happiness.

In any case: don't expect impossible difficulty - that is not what the mod is all about: what it does is to improve the vanilla campaign on the camp map and on the battlefield - and i think the mod has succeded, as i hope you'll find out. Having satisfying battles at all stages of a campaign - be it an early rush or a middle game death struggle or a late game clear up - was also part of what this mod is aiming for, and i think this is also true and hope peolpe will experience that. To teh very end of a campaign you'll find good stacks and worthy opponents in battles even when you are rolling.

Also, please don't assume that things you see happening in one campaign happen the way you see them in all campaigns. There is a sort of a common start theme inevitably because of the same starting positions, but, things can develop very diferently from campaign to campaign; i have seen in autorun camps having very different superpowers nearly everytime and coming on top to superpower from varied developments/paths.

i hope you enjoy

[gollum]

By the way, for those that look for a "from rags to riches" (start small) game, the Polish, the Danish, the Spanish, the Aragonese, the Russians and the Sicilians - ie all the starting small factions should prove much more challenging and satisfying now.

The Russians in particular will hopefully be giving you a good run for your money - they gave me one just to clear the steppe, in any case :)

And if all else fails (as it will, in all mods in all versions), you can always switch to another faction once too big :)

[Durango]

I've been editing the unitprod as per Gollum's changes, and noticed that default Golden Horde HC was set at
MAIN_BODY 2 and ASSAULT 1...

...Looks like we've been duped from the start! Who decided that the stats were "not used anymore"?

[gollum]

Thank you for this observation Durango.

It points that the tweak was sound. The Mongol HC is much better at coordinating with the rest of their army than the knights/ghulams BG.

Probably CA wanted the knights to be rash and head on foollishly brave. Their setting actually suits full scale HC knightly units without family members, but its really bad for the smaller and more precious BG units.

In any case, CA was not making this game for people who had played for... 10+ years They were making it for people that would be mostly new to teh game - having it improved as much as it goes was as impossible for them as unecessary, i guess.

[PershsNhpios]

Just reporting to say that I am about to experiment with an English game in 2.1 at the expense of the AAR.

Recommend the use of the campaign time limit, Gollum? I always play on Hard and Huge, so that isn't a problem.

Even if I am defeated in my last province as the English, I will switch and play on as suggested in order to see the whole campaign evolve.

[gollum]

Hello Glenn :)
your AAR is great and its a pitty that you switch to Caravel before gracing us with more of your Byzantine exploits and your great writings and storytelling. I think you really have lots of talent for AARs (and writing in general) and hopefully will be trying to make one and match(?) your quality.

I reccomend you switch the battle limit off if that is what you are asking - the AI in some battles will do a "continual retreat" tactic in order to decide the battle by the clock, but that is nonesense - battles are meant to be decided in the field even with a handful of men, and then they are great:) In my recent French campaign i rushed Aragon in order to take them out and safeguard my Iberian frontier before i moved against the Germans. So i bought as many mercs as i could afford and moved agains King Sancho. The battle was decided with a 5 minute duel between the two Kings(!) as only them had remained on the field :) It was just what the stuff of epic balladry was made of :)

If you are asking how long to play, then i'd say play as long as you like :)
The campaign is meant to be fun on the battlefield even when you have reached the point of steamrolling (sweeping all opponents in your path) all the way to full domination. You'll defeat the opposition because you are richer and can replace losses at that point, yes, but still you'll (hopefuly :) get fun battles in doing so.

Another mode you can try (next/another time), if you haven't done so, its the Glorious Achievements, that the mod is fully compatible with. As the Catholics try to match the Crusades GA goals or teh Krak de Chevallier as France or the Jihads or the Ottoman Empire as the Muslims, or the Lombard League or a trading Empire as teh Italians, or to recreate the Teutonic Order as the Germans or to defy the Mongols as teh Russ and the Poles while taking points for having conquered your "homeland" provinces etc. Its a really fun and roleplaying way toplay the campaign as it makes you shift your priorities from sheer conquest to historical GA goal achieving.

[gollum]

Also, Glenn, if your campaign comes to worst and you are defeated,make sure to switch factions/abandon ship a little bit before that happens; otherwise the game will end and if you have not saved recently that might force you to go back to your a save that is long before you reached the "almost defeated state". I tell you this, because it happened to me once or twice. Just when you see it really coming, abandon ship or save before you proceed.

[gollum]

An additional benefit of teh huge settings is that it makes for less stacks being about (because every stack has as much men and costs in maint as the equivalent of 2 default setting stacks! The same number of men is available (that is determined by the agricultural income of provinces/faction wealth) but in fewer "pieces").

This in practice means that battles are more reasonable in time length, as there are less reinforcements. Battles with endless reinforcements in default can be pretty tedious, but in huge only a half stack of reinforcement will come in at some cases, and in most it will be even less than that, if at all. This also helps the AI as he isn't very very good at coordinating reinforcements (muc better than RTW/M2TW though were he is absolutely horrible and he attacks piece meal with reinforcements).

In effect, battles are more decisive, more epic and less tediously time consuming than in default.

The only exception to this are the Mongols, but even they have less (1/2) stacks for the same reason. Less stacks also means that you have less flexibility in rush conquering (as your men are pachaged in bigger blocks) and so rushing requires more skill in huge.

[huth]

The battle was decided with a 5 minute duel between the two Kings(!) as only them had remained on the field :) It was just what the stuff of epic balladry was made of :)

I had similar duel long time ago, playing Armenians and defending fort from Egypt. All soldiers were killed and generals clashed in final duel, luckily my armenian ruler defeated egyptian sultan - it was true epic fight :)

Going to try this mod after my exams, this mod seems to be totally different from big ones with new stuff, after reading first page I don't really know what to expect :P And those -ian etc. - what is it, how does it work?

[gollum]

Hello huth,
thank you for your interest in the mod.

expect an improved vanilla game in the campaign and the battlefield. With improved better AI stack composition and behaviour and all the original campaign MTWish feeling and flavor intact and more balanced battles. That's what this mod is all about. On coming Tuesday night/Wednsday morning or there abouts the final version of the mod will be available so you can play that after your exams.

The -ian is an addition you add to your MTW exe shortcut. You do this by right clicking the shortcut and then choose properties. You'll get to the properties menu where you'll see the target for the exe shortcut.

Then leave 1 space and add -ian (lower case). Then leave one space and add -loyalty:180. Then leave one space and add -green_generals.

The -ian mode allows you to:
1.manipulate the camera as you like on the battlefield (can go as close or as far to the action as you want)
2. Switch from faction to faction by pressing the number keys in your keyboard in the middle of a campaign
3. Loyalty:180 makes the AI retain loyalty 180 to all his provinces at all times - basically means that the AI will self destruct much lessby opportunistic attacks and rebellions
4. Green_generals will make your generals dies and be replaced with men of slightly less stats every time. This makes the game more diffcult and more realistic.

These settings work with all mods of MTW and are not a feature of the mod. I just reccommend it to play with them because they make the AI play far better.

I hope you enjoy.

[huth]

Thank you for explanation. Shame that I didn't know -ian earlier, great feature. "Real" generals' death is realistic and it's good, but I like immortal generals, they make game tough in some way(fighting against enemy generals) but also gameplay become more and more easy further in campaign(my last BKB game - above 10 generals with 8 or 9 stars also many with lower command). So it'll change game quite strongly, no more epic 9 vs 9 starred generals fights :P

Certainly I'll play when you release new/final version :)

[gollum]

Final version is already uploaded, and is waiting to be approved by the administration.

The admin is on leave and does not have the tools to make this available until Tuesday night/Wednsday morning.

[gollum]

Regarding general stars, a balance needs to be stricken from a gameplay perspective, and this mod sticks with that.

The need for balance comes from the fact that General stars give +1valor per 2command stars to all units under their command and that means that every unit gets a +1attack,+1defence,+2morale per valor point.

Essentially most mods charge up the game with more command stars for generals and also from titles. This mod sticks to the vanilla command stars that are more moderate, because past a certain point, if too many high star generals are around morale is downgraded as a gameplay element - armies fight to the last man as a rule. This is not how this mod is meant to play at all.

On the other hand, reducing too much the initial stars of generals does not make much sense either because the generals upgrade command stars as in Shogun TW that is: 1star for 1 victorious battle, 2 stars for 2 vict battles, 3 stars for 4 victorious battles, 4 stars for 8 victorious battles, 5stars for 16 victorious battles, 6 stars for 32 victoroius battles, 7 stars for 64 victorious battles, 8 stars for 128victorious battles and 9 stars for 256 victorious battles. Every loss counts as -1 to the general's record and he has to counteract it with +1 victory and reach the numbers said before for the stars. So for example, a general that has 32 victorious battles and loses 1 battle will lose his 6th star.

However, ShogunTW had 4 turns(seasons) per year while MTW has 1 turn per year (1turn=1year). This means that generals in MTW are around much less time (typically a faction leader will last 25 to 45 turns) in order to accumulate stars with Shoguns system (where a faction leader would live from say 25 to 65 ie 40yearsx4turns per year=160turns! much more time to raise his command stars...). Hence it is necessary to give them some initial stars, especially since hero characters (Jeanne d'Arc, Saladin etc) make appearances as Generals.

If however, too many initial stars are given (or from titles etc) the gameplay becomes warcraft; ie morale practically doesn't impact on the battles, and battles are won by greater numbers and more uber units and upgrades.

This is what most popular mods are doing including XL and BKB. This is however NOT how this mod is made or its intended to play. This mod aims to keep command stars moderate and so morale always relevant in battles.

The general star issue is also another reason why i didn't follow Caravel's idea to make most units elites (elites + 4-5 on average stars = morale matters less). Of course, Caravel also suggested to make the default stars of heros and starting generals too small as well, but that would have run into the problem i described (too few years of life for generals to accumualte stars). To be honest from my perspective, that would have been better for gameplay reasons, but it would have skewed the vanilla gameplay too much and i wanted this mod to be reckognisably vanilla blah blah :)

[gollum]

btw in my own fight previously described that the two Kings were left to duel, all other units had routed - they weren't killed.

[Durango]

An additional benefit of teh huge settings is that it makes for less stacks being about (because every stack has as much men and costs in maint as the equivalent of 2 default setting stacks! The same number of men is available (that is determined by the agricultural income of provinces/faction wealth) but in fewer "pieces").

True, and battles are better for it. But I'm still reluctant to change back to Huge, due to the 120 man unit size tier I have
introduced in my game - exclusively for Pikemen, that is. Pikemen in Late get more men, so that they can utilize their
rank bonus to full effect, and I don't think there is a workaround for the crashes that occur when you go over 200
men per unit.

blah blah

It's never blah blah when you post. Post more!

[huth]

In BKB it's really hard if you don't have generals with high command, because of titles and offices which grant stars. I played XL looong time ago and I don't know whether it was the same, but in BKB is strong emphasis on generals' stars, eg title 'Champion of the Joust' +3 command, +3 dread, also almost every other title/office gives at least 1 star, almost every province in west Europe gives +2 command, add heroes and high density of factions on the map to this and I see stars everywhere :P My salvation were spies, assassins, bribes, but above all - Grand Inquisitors. It would be much harder without unconventional methods of ridding of generals.

Generally I think that it's an exaggeration in BKB with stars, I remember that in vanilla Byzantium was really tough to fight, because of its princes with 5 and more stars. And it should be like this imho.

My kings' duel took place in fort's siege, so for my troops it was fight to the death, but maybe some enemy units were routed. Anyway it was epic, I wonder whether similar rulers' duels took place in history.

[Durango]

In BKB it's really hard if you don't have generals with high command, because of titles and offices which grant stars. I played XL looong time ago and I don't know whether it was the same, but in BKB is strong emphasis on generals' stars, eg title 'Champion of the Joust' +3 command, +3 dread, also almost every other title/office gives at least 1 star, almost every province in west Europe gives +2 command, add heroes and high density of factions on the map to this and I see stars everywhere :P My salvation were spies, assassins, bribes, but above all - Grand Inquisitors. It would be much harder without unconventional methods of ridding of generals.

The only problem with command stars from titles is that when you whack them with strategic agents, the AI just gives the offices
to somebody else.

"Okay, who's up for 5 stars...? Anyone? The previous owner lasted at least 8 years..."

Glad to see you here at the .org, BTW!

[gollum]

Thank you for the confidence vote Durango, but i must have said that phrase (i wanted it to be recognisably vanilla) about a gahzillion times now and even i am annoyed by it. Its good not to take oneself too seriously.