The Caravel Mod

**gollum** · 04-18-2011, 15:24

hello victor, made some space now. No worries for the off topic - anytime.

**gollum** · 04-21-2011, 18:41

Dear all,
just wanted to say that unless future feedback identifies a flaw or problem of any kind, the only thing that i am considering to add in the future is a dead men page - essentially corpses - for units that miss it as suggested by stazi earlier in this thread.

I have playtested the mod as extensively as it was possible by both playing campaigns and running autorun camps, and i have to say that i can't as yet find any flaw that would require fixing (within the intended context of the mod) - be that in text, or gameplay factors.

**gollum** · 04-27-2011, 19:33

Dear all, after some more playtesting and playing i did over the easter weekend, The Caravel Mod v2.4 is now out :)

It includes fixes of one glitch and two small errors i found, as well as some text fixes, and also some more tweaking of the starting positions (infrastructure, infrastructure location, garrisons and garrisons locations, but not different lands - they are kept as in vanilla) of factions that gives more varied, more contested in the long and short terms campaigns. After experimenting some more with the loyalty setting, i think that loyalty:130 is a terrific comporomise for competitive short term perormance and long term development for the AI factions. The AI keeps small garrisons in his territories that provide a lot more stability than in the default mode (loyalty:120) that he leaves his core territories empty and so prone to rebellion and invasions. On the other hand those are not as large as with loyalty:180 that made him waste short term opportunities.

Many of the tweaks in this version and the previous incorporate lessons learned from past experience and feedback and i feel that now the mod has piled up a considerable number of improvements that are harmoniously coordinated into a single whole. Hopefully, you'll reach the same conclusion if you happen to try v2.4. The mod has grown in scope and improvements beyond anything i could imagine and with each subsequent incarnation, i think it is reaching more and more its intended concept.

As there will not be a new version for some time, let me add that this mod is meant to bring out the potential of the vanilla game by cutting off imbalances and weaknesses of the AI and game without killing the flavor and feel of teh vanilla Early campaign game. If you like MTW vanilla, early campaign, then the chances are that you may want to try this mod. GA mode is fully suppotred and all factions, except ones that appear later (Mongols, Burgundians, Swiss) and the Papacy, are playable.

It is for MTW/VI v2.1, preferably English edition (uncertain if others can really work, but check post#1 of this thread that i propose a way they might), and it is suggested you play with loyalty:130 and green_generals following the -ian extension in your MTW shortcut to provide better AI cohesiveness and long term development. It is also suggested to play in huge unit settings as this gives battles without endless reinforcements, more strategically cutting edge decisions on the camp map and more cutting edge tactical situations on the battle map. Also certain AI settings (as the number of unit ranks) where adjusted for huge unit settings.

Last but not least, i would like to thank once more Caravel with whom we came up with the mod concepts and ideas, and all the people here at the org in the MTW section who contributed in the mod via this thread or otherwise and also to those who had/have fun with it, as well as the org and the late TosaInu for kindly hosting it here.

Thank you for your support and i hope you enjoy

Yours truly, gollum

**Stazi** · 05-05-2011, 15:10

Some thoughts about new version of your mod.

Saracens - Hard - Huge - loyalty:130

I chose Saracens because I wanted silent place as far away from the "action" as possible.
Now, about 100 years past and there are some problems with the campaign mode. The main problem is that nothing really happens. Factions have hard time to gather enough cash to build significant army and move somewhere. This mainly concerns "one province" factions: Russia, Denmark, Aragon. Spain and Sicily have nearly the same situation. Spain (not being attacked by anyone) finally after 80 years managed to conquer Navarre. Almohads constantly fights with rebels in Portugal. The worst situation is on the east. Provinces to the east from the Lithuania-Kiev line have never seen any enemy army. Russians like other small factions are not able to expand due to high cost of their royal units. They have 10 druzhinas and 6 other units (vikings, horse archers, etc.). All these units make Novgorod exactly 130% loyal. All surrounding provinces are owned by not so powerful rebels. Russians have many opportunities but not enough cash to recruit troops and move somewhere. The same for Denmark ("free" Sweden and Norway) and Aragon (Navarre, Valencia). Poland fights with notorious rebellions in Pomerania and Prussia.
Factions that have more provinces (France, HRE) or are naval/trade oriented (England, Italy) can handle the situation better but they are still very slow.

All problems vanishes when you play with default unit size. It clearly shows that AI was designed for smaller units' size. AI has huge problems with managing big, costly units. IMO reducing the units' cost should help.

Tactical mode is another story. You did truly great job with tweaking units behavior. AI can still be outmaneuvered but it tries to keep right order/formation for the most of the time.

I think I'll try another campaign to see if it will go the same way. Russians look interesting and challenging.

**gollum** · 05-05-2011, 15:49

Hello Stazi,
and thank you for your feedback

If that's what you are getting, and you want more action and faster (as you may well want :) then by all means play in default or normal.

I agree with you that the AI is having trouble with managing financially costlier units (the recruitment and maint is scaled to the men of the unit by the engine) indeed and that the pace of the campaign is slowed down in huge for certain. This is because he has less "pieces" to invade with and fill in. That is something that can appeal to some people (like me :), but perhaps not to others indeed.

Playing in huge is a suggestion, not an obligation. By all means play in normal/default if you prefer quicker campaign action. I think that default is 60 man sword unit and normal is 80 man sword unit. The recruitment and maintenance costs are scaled automatically from the game engine and so nothing is lost there - all the thought that went into balancing prices to performance is maintained.

In my view is a matter of the AI apptitude relative to available funds. In default and normal, the AI has always much more financial room in his cash flow to make good his losses, as he spends less per unit, that leaves more funds unused for farm upgrades, navies and tech upgrades. In huge he has less as there is less room in his cash flow after building the same number of units. So a potential solution would be to raise the income in the map in proportion and another of course to play in smaller sizes.

One disadvantage of default (60 man sword unit) and less of normal, is that the AI has so much financial room that he makes multiple stacks that give these endless reinforcements battles that i am not very fond of. A good compromise for people that also loath endless reinforcements could be normal (80 man sword unit).

I have playtested the mod in autorun and things in most campaigns do start to boil after 40-50 turns, but i have no doubt that in smaller unit settings as i mentioned the campaign action will be more "hot" and quicker no doubt. And yes, war starts in the east first (typically the Turks and Byz and eventually the Egyptians) as factions there are in one way bottlenecks and have pretty good funds.

However, the loyalty:130 i think is significant. In effect anything above 120. I have played vanilla in default loyalty to death, and the AI factions really can show no coherense in their empires with default loyalty. They leave all their lands undefended, while alrady with 130 they place small garrisons that greatly enhance their stability and even their survivability in civil wars.

From the previous version i reduced the rebel garrisons as well as the very high rebelliousness in high rebelliousness provinces so that AI factions can expand. Provinces like Lithuania, Portugal and Livonia were death traps for the AI factions due to the high rebelliousness and were throwing the AI factions into an endless take-rebellion-retake-rebellion cycle that was draining them and making them easy targets for the player and their opponents.

I have also placed garrisons and initial training centers in relatively safe or easily defensible locations for the AI factions so as for them to be harder to rush - and i speak by experience as i like rushing lots :)

The trouble the Russians have believe it or not, is that they don't use the title of Novgorod at the beginning of the game always. Once or twice they gave it to a general with average accumen and then they played great; they took Smoliensk (that i gave on purpose a small. garrison for them to expand on) and even Lithuania and started making ships too. They are indeed challenging though. If i were to change them in order for the AI to do well, they would become much easier for the player. One idea for that is giving them one more province, say Muscovy. They are then dead easy as the player - tried and tested. Even the Mongols can seem little then :)

The upkeep for all BGs was set (non scalable) to 37 florins/20 man unit, that is pretty small to give a chance to AI factions to expand potentially. The alternative is to make the BGs no maintenance (free) something that i have tried often in my modding efforts but that detracts from teh vanilla standrad and also has disadvatntages. We infact had a discussion on this here between myself, Caravel and Durango in posts no 113, 118, 121 of this thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Thank you for your kind words for the tactical aspects. In my view it is a direct consequence of tweaking the BGs and xbows for the AI use as well as tweaking the tech trees and the rosters for meaningful only choices for the AI as well as tweaking the prices that affect the stack composition of the AI factions. So it partly has to do with the campaign map side of things too, as well as tweking and balancing the unit stats to make sure there are no redundant units and that all units have clear roles that the AI recognises and uses accordingly. Another thing that contributes to that that is a feature of the mod, is that neither the AI nor the player can win so much by bringing the better units or through upgrades. There are still better units and upgrades, but these are available as such as to never make generalship on the battlefield irrelevant as in vanilla and in some mods. I really think that this is the strongest point of the mod and something that i am also happy with.

I am considering to withdraw the play on huge suggestion in the very near future and replace it with play in normal. In practice it affects little other than the default unit ranks, but to my experience the AI adjusts this in battle, so there is nothing much lost. Of course it will have the effects discussed as per your observations in the game progression.

Again, thank you very much for your praise and feedback - the Russians are a challenge yes and by all means if that's what you prefer play in default or i would say on normal

**gollum** · 05-05-2011, 17:47

Regarding factions starting small; Russians, aragonese and danes, as mentioned i could make them play better as the AI, but then they would be too easy for the player. The Spanish and the Sicilians in autorun often perform relatively well - perhaps if you play a few more campaigns you might see it. The Almohads do much better with a less rebellious Portugal than before. The Polish and the Hungarians also do better but later on.

Again it is a matter of keeping these factions challenging when played by the player versus them making better as the AI. If i give them more lands or various other things (like starting troops or farming upgrades etc) they will be also that much easier to play with. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

The Italians, the Germans, the English, teh Byzantines, the Turks, the Egyptians and on occasion the French do really well, as well as the Pope also on occasion.

Also in TW the AI expands relative to the pace of expansion of the player, especially at the higher difficulty settings. If you had been turtling all the while, it does not suprise me that the AI factions have not done much to some extent.

All these comments are again for the huge setting - i don't deny your observations; i certainly agree to what you say as per the effect of the smaller unit size on campaign action and i will playtest when i get the mod in my hands again in normal unit setting for a bit and consider very much to change my suggestion to play on normal settings.

Again thank you for the feedback Stazi, it is much appreciated

**Stazi** · 05-05-2011, 18:10

I understand that you want all factions to be challenging for the player (like Russians) but they should be playable for AI too. Maybe give them a little more base income in their starting provinces?

Royal units and all low in number units. Imo they should be cheaper than units with the same stats but larger numbers. Units like these have to be used much more carefully cause they are easy to outflank or even surround. Due to this they are less valuable and should be priced much lower. btw I don't like the idea of making them totally free.

Originally Posted by gollum

I agree with you that the AI is having trouble with managing financially costlier units (the recruitment and maint is scaled to the men of the unit by the engine) indeed and that the pace of the campaign is slowed down in huge for certain. This is because he has less "pieces" to invade with and fill in. That is something that can appeal to some people (like me :), but perhaps not to others indeed.

Ok. It's probably the matter of personal taste but I can see nothing challenging in the situation when you have 40-50 free turns at the start. After such a time of peace I can literally swim in cash, doesn't matter which faction I play. That's why I like to be under constant pressure from the start of the campaign. Germans fits this scenario the best - everybody hates them ;). I think I'll try them after Russians.

One disadvantage of default (60 man sword unit) and less of normal, is that the AI has so much financial room that he makes multiple stacks that give these endless reinforcements battles that i am not very fond of. A good compromise for people that also loath endless reinforcements could be normal (80 man sword unit).

I like one stack per province idea. The campaign needs simply a little more balance. Now only big factions mean something. The small ones looks like dead from the start. I don't want to be them as powerful as the biggest factions but they surely deserve to have more chances to expand.

However, the loyalty:130 i think is significant. In effect anything above 120. I have played vanilla in default loyalty to death, and the AI factions really can show no coherense in their empires with default loyalty. They leave all their lands undefended, while alrady with 130 they place small garrisons that greatly enhance their stability and even their survivability in civil wars.

I think loyalty:130 is perfectly balanced. Rebellions happen sometimes but not too often and factions are not drained by them exactly like you said.

I have also placed garrisons and initial training centers in relatively safe or easily defensible locations for the AI factions so as for them to be harder to rush - and i speak by experience as i like rushing lots :)

I'm a turtle type. I like to have steady cash flow before going to war. That's why I like when someone tries to spoil my turtling behavior. E.g. sinking my precious fleet makes me really angry. This is the kind of pressure I mentioned before.

btw I'm not trying to criticize you but I think your mod has a potential to be the best ever made in terms of the AI and gameplay. Imo it just needs some more attention.
But, in the end, it's your mod so keep it as you like. Thanks for all your efforts.

P.S. Now, I'm starting new Russian campaign. I'll keep you informed.

**gollum** · 05-05-2011, 20:44

Hello Stazi and thanks for your reply; lots of interesting things to talk about :)

Originally posted by Stazi
btw I'm not trying to criticize you

Oh but please do :) Its by putting our ideas to the test that something can be proven or disproven in practice. Every person views a different angle of the truth of things and that is great as it showcases things that on my own i would never be able to spot or i would never be willing to spot (self bias) :)

There are some criticisms that i can do very little about as they are about people being fundamentally unhappy with the concept of the mod; this is entirely possible and in such cases i advise to play mods that have the aspects they prefer. But even these criticisms can be useful as they may point out things that i entirely missed, so all are welcome to express them, and i will try, as time allows, to reply or accomodate their querries or requests as best i can.

Your (and other people's in this thread) criticisms are from within the concept of the mod, and this is the most precious type of criticism that i am very very happy to get. It touches the core of the issues and points out where things can be done better. I am very greatful for it, and i greatly thank you

The campaign needs simply a little more balance. Now only big factions mean something. The small ones looks like dead from the start. I don't want to be them as powerful as the biggest factions but they surely deserve to have more chances to expand.

Certainly, more tweaking at the starting positions is definitely and always an option.

This is a very strong point and an important case you are making no doubt. I will lay here my point of view and please let me (Stazi and all) know what you think, if and when you have time.

The Aragonese and the Danes and teh Russians and the Sicilians and the Spanish (those are the small factions that start "dead from the start" as you say) can be given more lands or more garrisons or more income at the start.

With the more land approach there is the "problem" of diverging from vanilla and also of messing with the GA points - for whatever that is worth. There is also the "problem", as i wrote previously for the Russians to end up making factions too easy for the player. Similarly if i say give to the Aragonese Navarre and to teh Danes Sweden, it may greatly improve those factions performance, but at the same time, they become much much easier to play with.

One solution to these is do what RTW/M2 do ie give factions lands that are roughly historical (that's what vanilla is anyway doing) and then put rebels between them so they can expand there before making contact. This is an appraoch that works, because factions do not start with common starting points between them and hence they can be engineered for better performance as there is no more the danger to blitz the neighbours as the player with them. By the time you meet other factions they have grown and are ready.

While this is certainly worthwhile to consider, it means that basically the GA mode may be potentially made impossible - and i am not talking about teh homelands as those are fixable, but for the special GA goals, many of which depend on the vanilla starting positions of the factions. Of course i could change the starting lands without changing the GA homelands, and allocate factions while having GA in mind.

Another "problem" with it is that the game will be less "recognisably vanilla", but admittedly that may be sidetracked if it makes the game much better.

Giving more garrisons means again that as a player you can blitz too easily, and also that warring starts way too early for the AI to prepare.

Perhaps there is a switch as you say with giving more income that may prove possible in keeping the challenge while also improving the performance as the AI.

I will certainly look into these solutions once i pick up the mod again.

The one solution that resonates more with me, is to leave small rebel gaps between factions while maintaining GA homelands and goals in mind and more or less the vanilla starting positions. Till then i would be very interested to hear what you (Stazi and all) think about this.

I think loyalty:130 is perfectly balanced. Rebellions happen sometimes but not too often and factions are not drained by them exactly like you said.

When i statred the mod i was too conscious of factions not being able to maintain cohesively their empires as big, and so i used the loyalty and partly also the unit sizes setting to counter that. I think i went too far the other way though with loyalty:180 and huge unit sizes, and i will playtest normal and large unit sizes and try to find a golden cut, a good comprmise for that, with all that means in terms of the campaign boiling sooner as you mentioned. In my view it is a matter of finding a balance between the money available from agriculture in the map and unit prices ie sizes. From what you post, there may well be a solution in normal or large unit settings for this, and i will certainly playtest them both. The alternative is to change the money on the map, but its much more labour intensive without any additional benefits, and so i will go with playtesting normal and large unit sizes.

Ok. It's probably the matter of personal taste but I can see nothing challenging in the situation when you have 40-50 free turns at the start. After such a time of peace I can literally swim in cash, doesn't matter which faction I play.

This is certainly an issue and a very real one. However, the coin has (unfortunately!) another side too: that is if you make the early game too quick in development and faction progression, the campaign can be exhausted in terms of what there is to see and also won far too quickly (early high era typically) or (even worse) taht faction progression is so chaotic that they give early challenge but in doing so burn the AI factions out.

One solution is of course to play 2 rulers per faction and then switch faction - but this is only a side measure and perhaps not all people like it of course. However its still something that i enjoy very much and itreally solves the problem of the short term challenge versus long term stability and development pretty well.

Having said all this, i think that if we apply some of what discussed in the previous section about starting positions, that would make all factions more viable for the AI but also somewhat smaller that may contribute a solution towards that, as most would start medium (and so viable for the AI), with rebels in between and so the player would need to expand accordingly in order to keep up pace. The vanilla starting points have factions in full contact with one another and also some starting large. Admittedly its a short route to victory from there.

Playing in normal or large unit setting or in fact default if that's what you prefer may also provide some relief regarding early challenge in that respect as you mention.

Till then, one thing that can be done is, since you are a turtler, to play with smaller factions as you say, or with factions that have less good cash and are more in the middle of the action than the Egyptians like France and HRE as you mention or Aragon or the Sicilians or the Italians. They may provide with some more pressure. Egypt is pretty safe and rich, and yes if you choose to turtle you can become very rich.

...but I think your mod has a potential to be the best ever made in terms of the AI and gameplay. Imo it just needs some more attention. Thanks for all your efforts.

I'm very thankful for your kind words

Indeed its in gameplay and AI that efforts are primarily directed with, and if you find that it adds to your enjoyment of the game i am one happy guy tonight :).

I certainly agree with you that it needs some attention and i'll strive to improve it along the lines you and others have been kind enough to suggest by their feedback.

Thank you again for the feedback, as this is what provides me with the direction of how to do so