Quote Originally Posted by DECEBALVS View Post
I'm not a modder. What about this idea: I'm not assuming static and Rome-centered AI faction, but I'm trying to imagine a system that makes factions to have diplomatic relations closer to the historical ones. For example, if in Antiquity A was at war with B and both neutral to C and B was allied with D which was neutral to the rest of all [and all are neighbours], in the game we must have:
A will want to attack D when it sees it as a good movement
A will not attack C without a clear chance to win
C and D are really the factions were the machine may decide which will their relations be
So, that system will force the factions to action like in history. If romans aren't actually neighbours with Pontus, they can have a predilection to attack it after the year x. The historically correct game mustn't preserve only the starting diplomatic relations, but also must try to re-create [as a first to choose option for factions] the diplomacy at every turn according to the year in history. That isn't boring [to know
approximately all the factions' movements], but is a way to stop the creation of ahistorical superpowers.
Its probably best if you do actually learn a bit about what the engine is capable of before you start making suggestions that can easily be shown to be impossible - and that includes the one above. We cannot create specialist circumstances that will define what certain factions will do in certain scenarios based upon what we know of history. The campaign ai engine is 1) not that powerful and 2) not that moddable. All we can do is tweak settings to make certain outcomes more or less unlikely given the balancing of the campaign game.

And what you may find enjoyable, does not make it enjoyable for anyone else. What you describe I would not describe as enjoyable, because it would mean that my actions were not impacting the world as a player. If I, as Epeiros, had beaten Rome back into the Northern Alpine regions, such that the entirety of Italia was under my control, I would not expect Carthage to then declare war against Rome (or vice versa) while I was the more immediate threat to both.

To create ingenious scripts that would catapult certain factions into peace or war at certain times based on their history would be more ahistorical than what we do, because it would be forcing our realities turn of events onto a separate reality whose players are not the same.

Now, the idea of creating more thoughtful and more realistic campaign Ai's is certainly something we aim to do, but this will not script a faction's actions where such actions would be unrealistic. Furthermore, it would be dull if, every game you played, the Punic wars happened at exactly the same time; if, in every campaign, the rise of the Parni as successors of Persia happened each and every time. As Rome, I don't want to end every campaign fighting against the horsemen of the east. Perhaps I would prefer, in one game, to have a strong Greek east with phalangitai after phalangitai, and perhaps in another I would like to see the combined arms of Pontos be the superior power in the east.

Of course, thats not the say that the outcomes that we have now in EBI are perfect, and we would like to be able to balance the powers in the east out better (as we would like to balance the powers in the west out better). We hope that EBII will be better able to offer diverse campaigns.

As for the idea of Superpowers, that is exactly what eventually happened in history's case anyway, and we would expect the same to happen in the game. It would be a bit crap if all the factions largely stayed the same size except for the players faction, which grew.

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