Medieval: Total War XL

[Vladimir]

A working knowledge of AI build priorities would be needed to affect that. I've noticed that factions tended to build more missile units when I doubled the cost of buildings and improvements to slow development down; maybe it's a cost issue.

I'd like to figure out how to slow the English fleet down. Taking the Armenians from Early to over 60% currently in High, I faced massive English fleets. I'm having the same problem starting in Late with Burgundy. They dominate the coasts of Northern Europe, North Africa, and are about to take over Iberia. Their high tech fleets are going to be a problem for my mostly landlocked empire. I accidentally wiped out the Pope a couple of times so I have to be careful about supply lines to defend Italy. It doesn't help that I've had to improve defenses instead of building up my shipping industry because of him.

Why am I telling you this? I'm just wondering if you intended to make the English navy so strong. I know that's kind of a given that they'd have a powerful navy but some competition would be good.

Ok maybe it hasn't helped that I've been allied to them for like 50 years but STILL!

[Shaun]

Well the large English fleets are probably due the fact the England is an Island nation, so has to rely on a powerful fleet, besides its very rare for England to actually rise up in power...

[Vladimir]

True. That leads to them conquering costal providences which leads to more fleets which leads me to

[VikingHorde]

@Third spearman from the left
I will try out changing the date and see what happens with the gameplay. One problem is that the provinces will need to change hands, but I will look into it.

@Sensei Warrior
Glad you like the mod

@Shaun
There is sadly no more room for new factions, provinces or units, because MTW has a limit to those

@Ciaran
I will look into it, properly just some balancing of the AI.

@Vladimir
I have not edited the english ships, so they should build them like all the other factions would.

[Vladimir]

Well I wasn't speaking about the ships specifically but their shipbuilding. I know the English are supposed to be powerful but now they're a bit overpowering. Nothing really needs to be done, I just don't like the predictability.

[Tony Furze]

In case you come here VH, Im looking for advice on how you make the parchments for the faction leaders, including portraits,star,etc.

This is for an artistic purpose , not for a mod.

[Peasant Phill]

There used to be a problem for the papacy. They couldn't crusade although they had to in order to gain GA points. Has this problem been solved? If not, is there an easy way to sove it?

Thanks in advance, I'm really enjoying your mod.

[OmarPacha]

I've tried the mod last week and I must say that it is very well done and more balanced and sober than other previous mods.
New prebat and glory shields are fine and so all new factions shields made for campaign map pieces.
The thing I would like to know is how did VH realize all bifs without any black dot, and which program did he use to make battle unit icons (lbm) with faction colours.
Great work.

Greetings

[Tristrem]

hi

i've been having some trouble with the mod. In some battles when using mercs the screen is done loading, the screen turns black , and all the buttons such as formations continously flash on the screen. once this happens the map will do the same thing for that territory no matter what I use for troops. Is this a known bug, or is it my game. this can become very frustrating when this happens during key battles

[Martok]

AddictedGamer: Others have had this problem with Medieval in general, not just the XL Mod. As I recall, it seems to have something to do with people's graphics cards and/or their video drivers. I don't remember what the solution is, but a search in The Apothecary and possibly the Entrance Hall ought to bear fruit.

[Third spearman from the left]

Hi VH, I would like to suggest an improvement to include in the new patch. You have already used it but I think it might be worth adding to it. I feel that you should again increase the amount of money factions get from farming and reduce the amount made from trade. The reason for this is that although XL 2.1 has created increased numbers of AI ships. The AI fails to link them together enough times to make a profit from sea trade. However farming levels are always exploited by the AI, given how large some provinces are land should play a bigger role in revenues. But the best reason is that with better, regular income the AI will build more troops, buildings and ships making the game more of a contest between player and AI.

ps: I've heard also in another thread that the removal of certain sea lanes around the islands in the game has helped improve trade and the issue of being cut off from the main land with one ship and a huge florin zapping army (reemerged factions on islands)

thanks for your time

[Martok]

Hi VH, I would like to suggest an improvement to include in the new patch. You have already used it but I think it might be worth adding to it. I feel that you should again increase the amount of money factions get from farming and reduce the amount made from trade. The reason for this is that although XL 2.1 has created increased numbers of AI ships. The AI fails to link them together enough times to make a profit from sea trade. However farming levels are always exploited by the AI, given how large some provinces are land should play a bigger role in revenues. But the best reason is that with better, regular income the AI will build more troops, buildings and ships making the game more of a contest between player and AI.

I second this, VH. For as much fun as I have raking in the cash from trade (and I do ), I agree trade income should probably be nerfed even more than you already have. How *much* more it should be decreased, I admit I don't know--I realize we still have to make establishing a trading fleet worthwhile. At the very least, I strongly recommend increasing the income from farming and farming upgrades.

With that out of the way, allow me to once more praise you for your fine work, VikingHorde. XL has truly improved my MTW campaigns tremendously.

[OmarPacha]

I don't know if increasing land revenues will get a more diffcult (and more interesting) game contest.
I've been playing campaigns as Serbs, Lithuanians and Portuguese and it is true that AI cannot build, for lack of funds, units each turn, but I see that it works just the same for me; I had to decide, on a given amount of money available,
to get structures or units.
Only after the conquest of some rich territory I could get rid of the warning
of insufficient funds.

On the contrary, I'd like to see again the glory achievements based on trade
objectives that were in the original MTWVI, hopefully enlarged or anyway modded.

Greets

[Third spearman from the left]

Hi OmarPacha welcome to the org,

I understand the point you are making however you have hit on the very issue the AI has when building. As you said when you have low income you have to decide each turn to invest in troops or buildings. However the AI seems to struggle and will always choose to build a large army first then make building upgrades, even if it means running out of money. Then the AI sits there waiting for the years to pass in the hope of making some income from trade which it fails at most of the time.

Can I point out I'm not saying make 'it easier to make money for everyone so every faction has lots to spend' I'm simply suggesting that farming income have priority over trade income so that the AI has a better chance of building a balanced empire with higher tech levels, because it knows how to use farming.

[acesman]

I am currently playing the Almoravids in Early, GA made. I conquered Spain and England, and have been building up my infrastructure. I recall that in the vanilla version of VI one of the GA tasks was building the Alhambra (Red Castle) (actually a Citadel) in Grenada. I am at the point now of building a Citadel in Grenada, and wondered if that would invalidate the task. Any experiences in that area?

[Pericles]

I would also suggest the following:

1) Increase farm income.

2) Decrease trade income.

3) Decrease the cost/time to build of ALL buildings.

The reason: It takes a long time to build buildings and advance in the game. However, when a province is invaded, several buildings can get destroyed at one time, thus hindering the AI's position in the game, since it will, again, take a long time to reconstruct these buildings in order for it to advance.

For example, in vanilla MTW the time to build a wooden fort is FOUR YEARS. However, in doing some reading, I have found that medieval builders could easily build a simple wooden fort in 6 MONTHS. So I would suggest having the build time for wooden forts be ONE YEAR.

Similarly, ALL fort/fortress build times should be greatly reduced (as well as all other buildings).

[Maloncanth]

Form my experience, I honestly think income is fine where it is. Trading for money has become much harder to abuse. It rarely accounts for more than 20% of my income even with a significant ship network. Shrink it more and it won't be a part of the game, though ships for coastal defence still certainly will be.

I think the building times and costs as it is are nice too. Ultimately, cheapening advances helps the human more than the AI. The current configuration at least stops the human from simply building everything and keeps the human honest about losing provinces as even a strategically poor and unsupported attack from the comp will at least hurt if it manages to take the castle. Make the buildings too quick and the human will be able to maintain momentum as he quickly develops everything he conquers.

At a glance I'd say what needs rebalancing are some of the factions. A few, like the Cumans predictably explode (by rolling over everything, getting into four or five wars, and then imploding) while others like the Crusader States seem to become very strong every time. Ultimately I know factions ultimately shouldn't all be balanced, but regular dominant factions hurt because of predictability (like Russia in Late VI). I still have to play all the hardest small factions in each era to finish my opinion on this. So far, I'm thinking that each era should have a couple of designated minor factions that get rolled over as AI players (like they should be) but provide a challenge for players playing in their era.

[Third spearman from the left]

@ acesman: yes that GA still stands just check the dates that points are counted for building it.

@ Pericles: you have a nice idea there, maybe core buildings fort, keep and castle could be reduced by half to encourage AI Build.

@ Maloncanth: To be honest I think you have made my point for me, the problem of AI predictably is down to the way in which the AI makes it's money. Bigger/rich factions always do well because they have a stable money making base, small factions like the cumans make early gains but can't get round to teching up on these new gains which then rebel when the king dies. I've played many different factions in XL and always end up making lots of money from trade far more then from farming, which seem unfair as the AI does now invest in farming.

[Pericles]

I normally mod my games so that buildings take less time to build. This is all to help the AI mainly, since once a province is invaded, many buildings are destroyed, thus hindering the AI greatly.

Even though I have modded the build and cost times, I still find it takes me 150 years just to be able to build Hospitaller Knights (when playing as Crusaders).

Rarely, if ever, do I see the AI reach Fortress/Citadelle level, let alone build one of these things. 16 years is just far too long to have a building tied up in the AI's queue. Especially, since this same building can be destroyed in ONE turn.

To balance this out, I usually give all other factions more florins, so they start off in a good position.

And having a wooden fort be buildable in ONE year allows the AI to recover from invasion since it can again start pumping out units.

I have playtested all of this for a long time, and it WORKS.

Cheers!

[Maloncanth]

EDIT: nevermind, it's fixed itself. *builds more barques*

[Martok]

The funny thing is, the English recently finished building a Citadel (in Wessex) in my current Norwegian campaign.

That said, I confess I wouldn't at all mind if castle build times were reduced. I'm fine with the build times for most structures/upgrades, but it would probably help a lot if castles didn't take so bloody long to build. I don't have a problem with forking over several wagonloads of florins to build a castle; but the time needed to build the thing (4 years to build a Fort, 8 years to build a Keep, etc.) is way too long, IMO. I could probably say the same about Cathedrals and Grand Mosques as well, but it's build times for castles that really puts the AI at a disadvantage (at least from what I've seen).

@Maloncanth: I'm pretty sure that's a bug you've run into. In that last Bohemian campaign I was playing, I know that once I took Venice, I was able to build 2 types of ships, 1 of which was Galleys. (I can't remember which of the two small ships I could build, although it was probably Barques.)

[OmarPacha]

According to what Martok noted about Citadel in Wessex, I think that AI doesn't care about the years a structure needs to be built and, this may not be valued as an its disadvantage.
The thing none of us can deny is that AI - builds where there's a strategic advantage to gain -, so we'll see fortress in Wessex 'cause of cogs built there higher value ; we'll see fortress in Bulgaria when the Byzs try to reach stronger Bulgarian Brigands; you'll find citadel/fortress in Switzerland
for armoured pikemen, if Turkish survive they'll certainly build a fortress in
Georgia (Janissary bows), and so on.
I'd rather be worried about the land revenues big difference among the starting territories for each faction, this could be a factor that leads to build more (if revenues are enough) or to build less (if revenues are low and there's a need to conquer) and train more.

Finally, after having played 5 campaigns, I do not find any problem of balancing,
and I will not touch a comma of VH's startpos file.

Greets

[Pericles]

heheh

Yes, the AI factions will build any type of buildings to their hearts content. Yes, even buildings that take 16-20 years to build.

And this only occurs in certain rare occasions. What occasions are those?

Why.... in peace time....

However, peace is sometimes a rare thing in MTW... after all... the game IS called Medieval Total WAR....

Thus, when war does break out... (and isn't that in most cases?)... then all those nice buildings (that took dozens of years to build) can be destroyed in just ONE turn... that advanced faction can then be thrown back into the Stone Age after just one invasion... and it will take that faction (or the one that invaded) many, many years of building just to get back to where it was before the invasion....

And when you have many factions at war over a long period of time.... which is more often the case... you have many factions that have been thrown back into the Stone Age... and they simply don't stand a chance to recover...

That is why I suggest that the fort/fortress/citadel line of buildings should be drastically reduced in build time, with the cost slightly reduced for them.

I would also suggest that all farms be cut in build time and reduced in cost.

I mod these things into my games all the time.... and they work....

The AI is a far greater challenge in my games with these changes....

[r johnson]

Medieval: Total War XL

MTW - Viking Invasion is needed to play this mod.



The small 2.0 version (28Mb):
http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-gaming...W_XL2_Light.exe

The 2.1 Patch for small version:
http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-...ight_Patch.exe


The full 2.0 version (140MB):
http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-gaming...TW_XL2_Full.exe

The 2.1 Patch for full version:
http://www.3ddownloads.com/strategy-...Full_Patch.exe

Enjoy

Do I have to do anything after i've installed it? Or should it work straight the way?

[Martok]

Do I have to do anything after i've installed it? Or should it work straight the way?

Once XL is installed, you should be able to fire it right up and go at it.

[Mithras]

A somewhat basic problem, the file is too large to download in one go and when my PC dc's it resets my download express will not resume after i stop-any suggestions?

[Pericles]

A somewhat basic problem, the file is too large to download in one go and when my PC dc's it resets my download express will not resume after i stop-any suggestions?

Try using a FREE download manager such as GetRight. This will allow you to resume your download, even if it gets interrupted.

Cheers!

[Pindar]

Have there been any patches since 2.1 noted in the first thread (released in Ocober 2005 which Read Me File notes a 2.2 change)? I have the 2.1 already downloaded. Am I missing anything else?

Thanks

[gunslinger]

I recently downloaded and started playing XL. It's tough! I started two campaigns as the Norwegians on expert and got spanked both times. Not enough money there for me I guess.

Is it possible to play multiplayer against people who don't have xl? I keep getting a version conflict message when I try to join games. I don't play MP very much, but I have downloaded the mappacks in the past. Is there anything else I need to do?

[Martok]

Have there been any patches since 2.1 noted in the first thread (released in Ocober 2005 which Read Me File notes a 2.2 change)? I have the 2.1 already downloaded. Am I missing anything else?

VikingHorde has been slowly working on a second patch (2.2), but it's not been released yet. So if you have the 2.1 patch installed, go ahead and play XL to your heart's content.

Is it possible to play multiplayer against people who don't have xl? I keep getting a version conflict message when I try to join games. I don't play MP very much, but I have downloaded the mappacks in the past. Is there anything else I need to do?

Unfortunately, having XL (or any other mod) installed prevents one from playing online against people who only have the original MTW/VI.