The Caravel Mod

[gollum]

Hello Armoros, welcome to the org enjoy your stay

I am glad the mod adds to your enjoyment of the game, i hope you enjoy.

Yes, i am Greek (as you saw from the Byzantine unit and building descriptions probably :)


Hello Stazi, thank you once again for the feedback hello drone :)

Originally posted by Stazi
It's a little funny when you see clansman wandering around the continent :).

You can try to put another unit on the top of the list and name it "Rebels" or similar. I saw something like that in other mods. This unit will fit wherever it'll appear.

Originally posted by drone
Regarding Highlanders in rebellions, has anyone tried swapping them, position-wise, in the unit_prod with, say, spearmen, or another fairly vanilla unit to see if their participation in uprisings can be limited?

"Funny" yes, Stazi :) Sometimes i don't know if i should laugh or cry :)

I will most definitely try the solution your propose and that of drone.

This will mean however that the next version (coming up within the weekend as there is lots to do and relatively easy to do it) will have a re-arranged unit_prod file, that means no save compatible campaigns. This is not a problem for me, but it might be problem for anyone that started his campaign, so just letting you know.

Originally posted by drone
I suppose you can role-play it some, when you get a horde of Clansmen in a rebellion, you can guess where Scotland was playing an international.

"By order of the King, all the kingdom's travel agents that sold tickets to Scotts are to be immediately beheaded"

Originally posted by Stazi
I decided not to go too far to the south. I've taken Muscovy, Smolensk, Lithuania, Prussia, Livonia, Finland and additionally Sweden and Norway. My account hit 300K when the Horde arrived. Unfortunately, they weren't fooled by my tactic and sent the most of their forces to the north. We've met in the open field of Muscovy. 2500 of my newly recruited soldiers against a group of 10500 barbarians. Hmm.. what can i say.. Battle lasted @7 minutes. I've defeated first wave and captured general. Second wave didn't even get near my line. They turned back back in the middle of the field and run away. I've lost 250 brave man, killed 550 and captured 900. I thought it'll will be long and tough battle but it ended before it really began.

Right, i see. Well the numbers cetrainly seem to be right for a good challenge. By the way, what stars your general had? The AI usually retreats when he is heavily outclassed in quality. And did they give you any more trouble or the rest of the campaign?
Its certainly weird because apart than giving them exclusively the Steppe Cavalry, i haven't changed much to the Mongols and in vanilla they keep coming very tenaciously again and again until almost they are spent. Will have to look into this.

Golden Horde certainly needs better generals. 2-3 stars are not enough. I think they should be like Byzantines 6-8 stars at averange (but we probably can't do anything about it). Numbers mean nothing when they don't have any anti cavalry capable units. Their generals use standard heavy cavalry unit so they go to the first line and get killed/captured very fast. IMO they need designated BG unit with AI settings as others royal units. They should get some of these BG units along with other units immediately after they appear in 1231 (maybe one per stack). Now, they are not a challenge at all. Expert difficulty it's not a solution because (as you probably know) it has many other disadvantages.

6-8 stars would be maybe a bit much with so many troops, but i agree with you to raise the average comamnd stars to above 4 (that means +2 valor to armies). 6 means +3 valor and 8 +4. I would say give them 4 as a minimum and 6 as a maximum when they land. Is that ok?

As far as teh BGs as concerned, it is certainly a worthy idea to try and give them particular BG units that are small and conservative in use by the AI and so their generals do not get captured or killed to fast in action that impacts negatively on the battles of course. This is something that i will change also in the next version.

Expert difficulty it's not a solution because (as you probably know) it has many other disadvantages.

No it isn't at all. Too much jedaism in expert in MTW. The campaign and its battles should be challenging enough in hard.

They have two different units named "Vikings" and two named "Druzhina" - one cavalry (early BG unit) and one infantry. Sometimes it's hard to recognize which is which (especially at the battle summary screen). Maybe "Mounted Druzhina" for cavalry version?

Absolutely, you are right. This is an oversight on my part. I will name the BGs, Druzhina BGs and the foot unit will be left as Druzhina. Will do something about the Vikings too - currently it does not hurt for them to have the asme name as they are exaclty the same unit apart from the skin. I used the VI one for recruitable by the Danes and Russians as its cooler. Units should have distinct names as you say.

Religions. I think it's a main problem for the AI when it tries to establish stable control over the province (like Almohads in Portugal). Without churches spreading faith and weakened priests/imams an average 1500 man army doesn't guarantee the 100% loyalty (even with lowest taxes).

The idea behind taking out the faith propagation from religiuos buildings is to balance the conversion happenings on the map. This is because the vast majority of factions are catholic and when there is a faith propagation bonus from Churches, they swamped other religions even in other factions' lands. Now only cathedrals/greatmosques iirc give a faith propagation bonus, and cathedrals/gmosques are much more rare and so they don't have the same effect. The idea is that conversion happens from:
a) The factions natural conversion rate (every faction has that, but its slow, and by the way its tied to the piety of the King most likely)
b) From priest characters

The priests/imams were too strong in vanilla - they could convert too quickly, hence why i nerfed them. Having conversion depending on agents rather than on infrastructure is better imo, as then you can have a whole game-within-the-game with trying to assassinate them etc. as they are the only ones that can do it.

The Mongols, that are pagan and have no priests, have their BG units acting as priests very slightly (smaller than the normal priests but still have an effect), in order to facilitate the Horde conquering. This is an idea i copied from the Medmod.

Another fature of this approach is that because its slightly harder to convert enemy lands, factions cetainly retain their "core lands". At the same time its easier to conquer lands of your own religion, than say of other religions (as it should be). Again in vanilla this is very much flattened because priests are too able in conversion but most importantly because religious buildings boost too much faith propagation.

The downside of course is that the AI is finding it slightly harder to expand in other religious lands than his own. However, as mentioned minority religion factions, like the Muslims and the Orthodox and less the Pagans have now more equal chances with the catholics.

So this is the rationale and context for gameplay.

The problem you describe happens most often in high rebelliousness provinces like Portugal, Livonia and Scotland. As a said before, its now less pronounced, as the rebelliousness was lowered. The highest rebelliousness province is Livonia (4 in vanilla, now 3) and then Portugal, Scotland and Lithuania (4,2,3 in vanilla now 2,2,2). Again the mod is following the vanilla pattern so things are familiar to players who have played that.

In other provinces (0 or 1 rebelliousnes) the problem you describe is either very very small or inexistent in my experience. Is that right?

If so, one thing it can cetrainly be done is slightly increase the priests conversion bonus. this will make their use more effective by teh AI factions and reduce the times the AI factions take to convert other religions in their new lands. In addition i will further reduce the rebel stacks so the AI factions take on rebel lands earlier (more on this coming up).

It is a bit again of finding the right balance for competitiveness and stability for the AI factions.

The funny thing was a Jihad contest - Egyptians conquered Tunisia - Almohads sent Jihad and took the province back. Then Egyptians sent Jihad and took the province again. Then Almohads... 3 Jihads from each side.

Sounds fun, i played once a great sand war as the Egypts versus the Almohads. It was really enjoyable.

War started early in the east but only there. War in the western Europe started after @80 years.

Yes indeed. I have playtested your suggestion for medium unit sizes already (and still doing), and i agree fully with your observations. Basically the same things happen in terms of what factions do, just they happen much faster and the campaign is more closely contested while stability is still acceptable although somewhat reduced - but not much.

I will calibrate AI preferred ranks for medium unit size, as well as the rebel stacks sizes. This will also reduce the rebel initial stacks and will make teh AI factions jumping to it somewhat faster, while maintaining teh intended effect. I will reduce also some rebel stacks in terms of units (take 1 or 2 from some that are key for faction development).

Another thing connected with low income/high support cost ratio. You don't have to worry about that any faction will be able to build high tier buildings and units too early. Around 1240 most factions still have only Keeps. Only English, Italians and Byzantines have one Castle each. It's a really long way for them to reach the Citadel or Fortress level. Smaller factions will surely never get to the Citadel level.

Fortresses i've seen very few times in the mod, and perhaps never in vanilla (starting from early) and always come in late. Citadels should be coming about at about the mid/late high era or there abouts. If its too easy for the AI factions to have them, then the tech tree is trivialised. I agree however, that there should be more tech up. It may again be a matter of funds available in the campaign and if so, switching to medium unit size may actually prove a solution. I will be paytesting these this weekend.

By the way, the castle tech level reflects the economics of a faction. Factions that remain on positive financies, but never make "the jump" to lots of income (either by conquest or trade) they will stay in keep level for most of the campaign and maybe for all of the campaign. For those cases nothing can be done. This is all the more as the AI prefers to build keeps in all its provinces before he makes a Castle, unlike the player who may have say a few forts and a castle (in order to benefit from the higher techs of the castle).

The factions that do have money, typically like the Italians, the English, the French at times, the Egyptians, the Almohads at times, the Turks, the Germans at times, the Hungarians at times, the Byzantines do make castles and eventually Citadels.

All in all some more speed needs to be given to tech development, and i have a feeling that switching to medium unit sizes will help towards that.

In terms of worrying for the high tier buildings, the Turks, the Pope, the Italians and the Byzantines or whoever gets to build in Constantinople, all have the potentially for that occurence to happen. From these factions, the Turks and all the Catholics have units dependent on the spearmaker4 and the town_watc4 that are tied to gunpowder. It isn't too frequent indeed for the Citadel level buildings, but when it happens it does take away florins and build turns.

Such things by the way happen in vanilla big time, and it this to a great part that makes teh AI a sitting duck as he spends endless money and time wandering the tech tree without getting anything. In this mod, this is solved down to its details as far as i know, as in this example. I have made lots of efforts for all the AI is getting to mean something and for him to be able to use it.

Regarding the town_watch4 is also connected to town_watch3 that gives arbalesters is also tied to gunpowder and that is available in Castle level that is more frequent. This is for gameplay reasons regarding the arbalesters as explained previously.

Factions "dead from the start": Aragonese, Danes, Spanish.
Factions "nearly dead": Sicilians, Hungarians.

I have decided to keep the vanilla format in starting positions, because:
a) I am famliar with it and hence tweaks i make i can predict better by projecting them into the future
b) players are familiar with it
c) it may be too much work in playtesting very different starting positions that we are all unfamiliar with. The problem is not that i am work shy, but that such work needs playtesting and playtesting needs feedback and time. Feedback is coming in but slowly as MTW is not a very new game anymore, and time is often hard to find in such large amounts as to set and playtest the game up from scratch - at least for me.

For these reasons as it has been the concept and sanity line for this mod and its maker :) and it has helped thus and so i feel i better stick with it. I may siedtrack only very slightly from this rule.

As mentioned, the problems you bring to the fore will be dealt with by change of unit sizes (the alternative is to put more money in analogy to provinces and so into teh campaign, but i feel that few people play huge anyway, and so forcing people to my preference is a bit much - i'd better make the mod enjoyable for unit sizes that are closer to more people's preferences, and that does not exclude anyone he likes it to play in huge still anyway - the engine scales costs and sizes just for that) and also by changing initial garrisons and infrastructure.

This however means that the one province starting factions (Danes, Aragon, Russians), will remain "dead from the start" as otherwise, it seems to me, they will be made too easy for the player.

However, i will certainly strive for Spanish, Hungarians, Sicilians and Poles to perform better than they do by the AI at the moment. The Almohads also need a very slight boost. These tie with the issues we have been discussing (rebel stacks, religion, unit sizes and hence economics), so please just wait till the next version that is imminent