The Caravel Mod

[gollum]

Dear all, just to let you all know; please let me know if you consider i should calibrate province incomes completely for huge unit settings or for medium unit settings. I will wait until i get some other opinions too before i proceed to teh next version with this

[caravel]

Haven't played the mod, so feel free to tell me where to go, but you should definitely design everything against huge units IMHO. If the mod needs to be played a certain way with certain settings, then the player needs to accept this and give it a go based on that.

[gollum]

Thank you master Asai, for (edit: i mean for giving me) the courage to pursuit our ideas to the end

I think you are right. Its true that not all people are familiar with huge unit settings, but if one comes to play in huge with an open mind then its possible to discover their qualities. Some people have expressed this here and its good to see. Also battles now in huge work really well, and it would be quite an upset to throw away all the improvements that have been cumulated over time.

While everyone is still very welcome to make their views known, i am now leaning towards calibrating the mod fully for huge. This practically will entail to add 30% extra base farming income in all provinces with respect to their current base farming income and playtest. The income proportions per area and per province are well worked out imo and i am happy with them, hence i won't be touching them. Still waiting for other people's opinions to be heard though.

I will also fix all glitches Stazi reported, give the Mongols unique and conservative BGs (i already have picked the unit i will be using) and 4 to 6 stars as they land, increase the priest/imam conversion somewhat to compensate for taking out faith propagation from churches and mosques. Once done and playtested to see if the intended effect in the campaign has been achieved, i will release a new version.

Should take only a day or two after the unit setting issue is firmly decided.

[gollum]

A few explanatory notes;

1. the difference between income/maintenance from medium to huge unit settings is approx. 30% and not 40. This is now corrected in previous posts and it is also how much i will be giving to all lands in proportion to their base income in the new version.

The difference is calculated thus: medium units settings=80man sword unit and huge unit setting=120man sword unit; 120-80=40men in recruit and maint costs difference. Then 120/40=33%down in recruit and maint. costs when switching from huge to medium. Then to reach that in the campaign with huge its 33%up in agri income on all provinces in proportion to their current base income. There are various factors that will play in this, that make it not precisely the same in effect, however this calculation is a useful rough guide, a rule of thumb. One such factor is that in huge the training time is 2 turns and so even with more income the campaign boiling will still take longer than in medium.

2. The reason church/mosque faith propagation is a problem and hence taken out is that it overspills to other lands. However the default faction faith propagation (that happens without churches/mosques) does not. This is what makes the game unfair to Orthodox and Muslims in vanilla and what also balances it out and makes it agent dependent (as apart from the King's piety that affects the faction faith propagation only priestly characters can affect it further) in the Caravel mod, as in the mod you convert people only in your own lands and not in neighbouring ones, unless you put agents there of course - but agents can be killed (unlike churches in neighbouring provinces).

With the faith propagation as mentioned on, and so faith overspilling to other lands, the Catholics have a huge advantage is the religious game. Without it, they stll have an advatntage (as they are more numerous and so have more priests overall) but it isn't of the magnitude of vanilla. In vanilla the overspilling effect is such that you can basically ignore agents altogether as a catholic as the huge amount of churches chokes other religions at the borders.

[Stazi]

2. The reason church/mosque faith propagation is a problem and hence taken out is that it overspills to otehr lands. However the default faction faith propagation does not. This is what makes the game unfair to Orthodox and Muslims in vanilla and what also balances it out and makes it agent dependent in the Caravel mod.

You can make it a little more fair if you give their imams/orthodox bishops more faith propagation power (or eventually add faith propagation to their units). Increasing the build importance of Town Watch, Church and Imams/Priest/Bishops should help the AI to keep order and peace in provinces too.

[gollum]

Hello Stazi,

You can make it a little more fair if you give their imams/orthodox bishops more faith propagation power (or eventually add faith propagation to their units).

Yes, as mentioned before i will be doing this in the next version. I am thinking to put it up for priests/bishops/imams from 2 (current) to 4. Admittedly it is a bit over nerfed, and it takes too long for conversions for the AI to be able to use priests effectively. This is on the list since you brought it up. I only wanted to explain that its the overspilling that made me take out the faith propagation from religious buildings, apart from Cathedrals and G.Mosques iirc. They are too rare to have the overpowering overspilling effect churches have in vanilla.

Increasing the build importance of Town Watch, Church

This is another gameplay region that i gave quite some thought in, namely the distrubution of happiness bonuses to early buildings. This is a huge issue as it affects greatly the speed with which new provinces can be conquered and hence the speed you can rush an opponent.

The aim was for rushing to be a viable option but to come with some risk (ie people not have enough time to adjust to the new rule and rebel) and that risk should be greater the more cultural/religious diferences there are between the new conqueror and the people he is conquering.

In vanilla, the watch towers have a huge happiness bonus of altogether (both buildings) +50 in 2 turns. This obviously makes rushing all too easy.

In the mod, the watch towers give +30 iirc in 3 turns. Then in fort level the town watch gives another +10 - as in vanilla, and after that, the Church/Mosque in Keep level gives +30. Essentially this means that you get the same amount of happiness vanilla provides but more gradually over time, in order to introduce some risk to quick conquests.

After that you need to build the brothel or the Monastery (monastery is unique in the mod though) in Castle level to get more happiness, as in vanilla.

Of course the trick is to have this gradual happiness bonuses slow enough for a rusher to be inconvenienced, but also quick enough for the AI to be able to expand. After quite some playtesting i think that the current system works pretty well, except occasionally for provinces that have high rebelliousness (2 and above). There the AI may face one or two large rebellions, and the player might too. One idea is to reduce further rebelliousness in western provinces especially, however, this will take out some vanilla flavor and some strategic challenges as they now exist in the path of certain factions.
The problem is more pronounced in Spain, for the Castilans and the Almohads not being able to get Portugal quick enough.

As far as the AI being able to maintain order in his already conquered and brought in his culture provinces is concerned, this is something that in the mod works well throuh the huge units, that make decent garrisons and the loyalty:130 that makes the AI keep small garrisons in his lands and never leave them empty.

At the moment i will leave things as they are till i playtest things with the increased incomes. Its possible that more armies avialable through more funds will solve this naturally rather than needing tweaks in the rebelliousness or the happiness distribution. If not, then this can be re-examined

[Belisario]

Hi Gollum, I'm glad you continue working in the mod.

I would prefer that you keep the huge unit settings because it makes a big difference in battle. So, my vote to the 30% increase in farm incomes to play more challenging campaigns. My recommendation to all, and in particular Stazi, to prove the game mode suggested by Gollum of changing faction after playing with one or two rulers with the same faction. As he says "it's like having all the time a new and natural opening" but usually in more complex scenarios.