Region Discount ideas

[bretwalda]

Hi there!

Since I am a builder type of person I enjoy producing high valor units (e.g. I love v2 Turcoman Horse or v2 Armenian Heavy Cavalry as the Turks) in my campaign games. My idea is to give at least one (but preferrably more) bonus valor units to each province.

I would like to see bonus valor Ghazis, Faris, Saracen Inf, Szekely, Jobbagy, etc...

What unit would you suggest and in what province? Historical, gameplay, game balace - all can be considered. This is (or meant to be) rather a theoretical thread not an actual modding, though I might do it if I can get myself to it

[bretwalda]

Allright, I give some ideas:
Faris: Algeria
Emissaries, Saracen Inf, FS: Greece (see Hoplite)
Slav Infantry: Serbia
Slav Javelinman: Croatia
Antioch: Futuwaa
Wallachia: Catapult
Khazar: Steppe Heavy Cavalry
etc...

[yesdachi]

Wallachia: Catapult

it would be sweet to have a province that produced "expert" siege crews.

[Joshwa]

I reckon one of the German provinces should get a bonus for cannon crews, maybe Bavaria or Franconia

[Marquis de Said]

Here's some which I've modded into my own game:

Hungary: Szekely (Hungarians have no bonuses)
Novgorod: Woodsman moved from Lithuania (give those northern provinces some bonuses)
Lithuania: Lithuanian Cavalry (the name says it all)
Arabia: Bedouin Camel Warriors (that's where they came from)
Ryazan: Steppe Cavalry (make the far-away province worth getting)
Volga-Bulgaria: Steppe Heavy Cavalry (make the far-away province worth getting)
Khazar: Alan Mercenary Cavalry (I just happen to love this unit)
Kiev or Muscovy: Boyars (Gives Russians and Novgorod a boost)
Chernigov or Smolensk: Druzhina Cavalry (same as above)
Austria: Gothic Sergeants (conveniently close to both Germans and Italians)

These are just my suggestions. Yours are quite good as well, Bretwalda.

I might think of some more later. If you want historical relevance, then you can search the internet for the different units and try to find out where they originated and where their best troops came from.

BTW, since you're Hungarian, do you know where Jobbagy and Szekely came from? What do the names mean, and do you know if they were specialised in any region?

Marquis

[Patron]

I've been browsing the history of military evolution in the middle ages, so I have some ideas to make teh mod more realistic.

Normandy: Feudal Knights
Poland: Feudal Knights
Castille: Feudal Knights
Burgundy: Feudal men at arms
Saxony: Feudal men at arms
Ile De France: Chivalric men at arms
Wales: Archers (aswell as longbowmen)
Papal states: Halberdiers, spies
Tuscany: Militia sergeants, spies

Pikemen can be produced in high era (aswell as late era)
Switzerland: Feudal Seargants
Tyrolia: Italian infantry and Feudal Seargants

Italians and French get lancers.

Some changes to your ideas.

Hungary: Szekely (Hungarians have no bonuses)
Finland: Woodsmen (Hardy peasants)
Lithuania: Lithuanian Cavalry (the name says it all)
Reduce lithuanian cavalry to equivalent castle requirements, armourer2 swordsmith2. Allow them to be produced in early era.
Cyrencia: Bedouin Camel archers (that's where bedouins come from)
Arabia: Bedouin camel warriors (for those anti-crusade jihads)
Ryazan: steppe cavalry
Volga-Bulgaria: horse archers
Khazar: Alan Mercenary Cavalry and steppe heavy cavalry (Khazar was developped enough to support heavy cavalry of that calibre.)
Moldavia: Boyars (Boyars originated in Moldavia and flexed their muscle in Russia, they are descendants of the Scythians, Magyars and Huns, like the Szekely in nearby Hungary. The fearsome horse archers sort of went west, became rich destroying the roman empire etc.., were beaten back to Hungary, the Hungarians became more gothic and catholic and those rich horse archers on the other side of the carpathian mountains decided to conquer their weaker steppe "homelands".)
Austria: Gothic Sergeants
Livonia: Druzhina Cavalry (Druzhina are a russian/viking cavalry. Maybe smolensk and carpathia can have horse archers or lithuanian cavalry.)

[bretwalda]

Guys, I love your suggestions, keep it coming! My view might be short-sighted because I mainly play Turks, Hungarians, little less Byz and Sicilians, Aragon, Spain, Almohads - but e.g. I never played Russians/Novgorod. I appreciate your different view of the map... :) I guess if you play a certain region mainly you "see" the map from that direction...

(...)

BTW, since you're Hungarian, do you know where Jobbagy and Szekely came from? What do the names mean, and do you know if they were specialised in any region?

Marquis

Székely is an ethnic group living in the present day Rumania. They speak Hungarian but some of them prefer themselves to be distinguished as they are not Hungarians (Magyar) but Székely (also written as szekler) More info here

Jobbágy simply means peasant - the type that cultivates the land of his master (ie local nobility) more accurately serf.

So Székely - by name - should be specialized in Carpathia and Jobbágy in Hungary (the Great Plain of Hungary).

A little grammar: the end of the both words are a double letter: 'gy' is like a soft g sound like 'fudge' while 'ly' sound like j as in 'yawn'. So maybe it is better to use plural like this: Székely-s and Jobbágy-s or Székelyek and Jobbágyok (the Hungarian plural).

[Budwise]

I reckon one of the German provinces should get a bonus for cannon crews, maybe Bavaria or Franconia

Don't quote me but I was studying the effects off cannon warfare and it turns out that the french all the way up to WWI had the best cannons. Too bad the Seige equipment is shown so badly here in this game.

Not only should they make different kinds, you should get more cannons than one.

[Marquis de Said]

Don't quote me

I did

Not only should they make different kinds, you should get more cannons than one.

Getting more than one cannon per unit wouldn't leave much space or time for the attacker to maneuver. Already 2-3 catapults/demi-culverins on defence can cause so much damage to the attacker and, even worse, kill the general, before the fighting has even started. If you got 2-3 pieces of artillery per unit, the bombardment would be crippling.

[Marquis de Said]

Thanks for the clarification on the Hungarian units, Bretwalda.

Interesting thing with the pronunciation of the endings in szekely and jobbagy.

The language of my native country Finland is related to Hungarian, but the two languages are so different. In Finnish writing, every letter corresponds to one phonetic sound, but I think the reason for that might be that Finnish grammar was set in the 19th century when there was better communication, more learned people who used better logic and very few old texts that would act as an 'illogical' model.

[Patron]

I once killed 250 men with one organ gun. The first shot routed a unit of urban milita, I then sent a single man over to hold some feudal sergeants in position whilst they reloaded, 2 shot later and the sergeants were running.

[bretwalda]

/OFF: Actually, Hungarian writing IS phonetic, just we have 44 sound to be pronounced and we have 26 latin letters to write it down. The way to do it: double letters (ly, ny, gy, sz, zs, ty, dz, cs) and one triple (dzs) give usually softer sounds while the accented wovels also give out different sound (é, á, í, ő, ú, ű, ö, ü, ó). They are not really accents but different sound, creating different word, meaning separate things: kerek, kerék, kérek mean competely different things.

/ON I like your ideas, might even include in a mod if you don't mind - when I have time to do it. My idea to have every province have a bonus in units as well.

[Marquis de Said]

If you're going to change the province bonuses for troops, might I suggest also a couple of things that I have done/plan to do to my vanilla game:

- make Almughavars buildable in Aragon, give them a bonus there and remove the bonus for Gungalleys (which is pretty useless since the Aragonese, Spanish and French can't build galleys)

- make Alan Mercenary Cavalry buildable in Khazar and Georgia. It is like the Almughavars a brilliantly fun unit to use, too good to leave in only as a mercenary.

- remove all the province bonuses for ships, since, if I understand correctly, they are of no real use. Your ships don't come out any better. Or does anyone have better information on this?

- remove bonuses for Chivalric/Gothic/Hospitaller Foot Knights OR make these units buildable. Otherwise the bonus goes to waste since plain Chivalric/Gothic/Hospitaller Knights don't benefit from it.

Just a couple of 0.02 ideas.

[bretwalda]

Very good ideas, indeed. I never played the French so I don't really have a clue what bonus they need or what bonus would be desirable... So keep it coming!

[Procrustes]

Just one thought re. bonuses and game balance.....

You can already get +1 valor anything-that-is-mounted just by building up the horse farms to the max - and you can do it without building up your castle tech. (I mean, the only prereq is 20% farms.)

I don't know how this may fit with your plans - but I know if I get a region that gives me +1 valor for say hobilars or szekely, then I'm going to build up my horse farmers there and turn them into v+2 without much trouble.

Best,

[bretwalda]

Just one thought re. bonuses and game balance.....

You can already get +1 valor anything-that-is-mounted just by building up the horse farms to the max - and you can do it without building up your castle tech. (I mean, the only prereq is 20% farms.)

I don't know how this may fit with your plans - but I know if I get a region that gives me +1 valor for say hobilars or szekely, then I'm going to build up my horse farmers there and turn them into v+2 without much trouble.

Best,

That is exactly that I do (in the stock VI game) with Turcoman Horses: v2 from Tripoli with Master Horse Breeder, with all available moral boosters I like to base my army on them. Fast, manuverable, can deliver a punch and even have arrows... sweet.

However this is not always available. Should the horsie base on Master Breeder or on Royal Palace you need the valor from the province.

Also you can get v2 with fort level but then the moral of these units will suck...

[EatYerGreens]

bretwalda,

there is a very relevant thread over in the modding forum but I think I encountered it as a result of a search and cannot remember the title, nor what search terms I used. If I find it again I'll stick in a link.


The main thrust of the thread was that, paradoxically, valour bonuses on units severely cripple the AI's ability to tech up its provinces properly. They got better results by modding OUT the valour bonuses altogether, or else by cross-linking the target unit to high level fortifications by making that adding that to the unit-build requirements.

The reasons why are complex but basically, the bonused unit becomes the main 'target' of tech development in that region. Funds permitting, the AI will follow the path towards it correctly. The big problem is that, having fulfilled the build requirements, it then brings all further development to a halt.

An example is the Master Horse breeder being achievable without requiring anything more sophisticated than wooden fort and improved farms. As a consequence, the AI may fail to construct the port and trader needed to get any trade benefit which is, coincidentally, available in that province.

So sticking bonuses everywhere disrupts the AI's tendency to properly advance its castles and have a RANGE of units to train. Instead it will develop only what it needs to get the bonused units and neglect everything else. This results in low-tech buildings and limited unit choice. The extra valour can count for nothing if their cavalry has it but they don't have enough infantry on hand to play the role they're designed for and cavlary can't meet those needs properly for themselves.

Experimentation proved that coupling Master Level training facilities to Citadel/Fortress level of castle ensured that the latter would at least get built at some stage and, during the times when the next castle level is simply too expensive for the faction, it will spend time upgrading its training facilities because they are affordable during that interim.

So, in short, dishing out province bonuses will help you, as the player but you may find the AI opposition disappointingly easy to overcome because it's become hide-bound into chasing after bonused units when they need balance and steadily improving quality in all of their unit types.

Two bonuses per province would be interesting but I think that thread expanded into talk of trials of doing this, only to find that the AI got it's priorities tied in knots and ended up stopping development completely.

[bretwalda]

That is sad to hear... so if I do it I will mess up my game playability...? And the more bonus I put in the worse the AI will be...? That is sad.

However the effect lessens if I give bonus to basic troops (those that do not require extensive building before being available). I mean Slav Javelingmen, Spearmen, Horsemen, Székely, Horse Archers and so on.

[Procrustes]

...

Also you can get v2 with fort level but then the moral of these units will suck...

Hi,

I don't think it will suck that bad - each point of valor that a unit has gives it two more moral points, so a valor two whatever has plus four moral. (The valor bonus you get from the general does not increase moral, though.) Add some churches, etc. and the moral goes up more.

Best,

[Deus Ex]

- remove all the province bonuses for ships, since, if I understand correctly, they are of no real use. Your ships don't come out any better. Or does anyone have better information on this?

IIRC command stars do make a difference in sea battles - and it seems to me (for example Venice) valour bonuses tend to cause more frequent 1 and 2 command star units to be created - but that could just be random...

DE

[EatYerGreens]

That is sad to hear... so if I do it I will mess up my game playability...? And the more bonus I put in the worse the AI will be...? That is sad.

However the effect lessens if I give bonus to basic troops (those that do not require extensive building before being available). I mean Slav Javelingmen, Spearmen, Horsemen, Székely, Horse Archers and so on.

No. As far as I can make out, the effect (lack of tech development by AI) gets worse if you give bonuses to units which only require low-tech buildings in order to train them. Development grinds to a halt as soon as it achieves the minimum building requirements for the bonused unit in question.

With you as the Hungary player, the bonuses will be of benefit, since you'll be in full control of what gets built. Just expect to see Hungary suffer as soon as the AI is put in charge.

Let me see if I can relocate that thread I was talking about.

EDIT:
Here it is!

A way to make the AI build up provinces better!

It's in the Repository section, which is supposedly closed to new postings but I'm getting a 'Post Reply' button at the bottom of it, regardless. Last post is from 2003 anyway, so perhaps little point in digging it up again.

It's difficult to tell whether the conversation is all pre-VI and how much of the problem they described was fixed by changes made by CA, in VI itself. If in doubt, contact +DOC+, who initiated the thread, or WesW, who seems to be a regular inhabitant of the Modding areas.

[Zarax]

Maybe we should get our expert modders and ask them to create a small showcase mod for AI improvements, just think the goodness that VH, BKB and Wes could do together on a single piece of work!

[bretwalda]

I already have the feeling that this modding stuff is too complex for me to compltetely unterstand... I tweak something and the has long ripple effect on the whole game...

EDIT: I read through the Repository thread and I am still not sure what is the solution... Only use advanced units is not an option because it narrows the choices. Maybe to use two units in every province of which one of them must be high level troop type.

However I still feel that there is no agreement how this exactly works and no way to tell without asking CA. Maybe we should ask them... Or, as it was many times suggested if the reveal the source code someone could tell how this works. (yeah, I am daydreaming...)

Anyway: I wonder why can't the AI follow a few easy rules to build its empire: no overbuilding units, not building unnecessary buildings, build up farms and merchant where applicable. Considering the number of provinces could allocate a province to unit types, etc. Or is it so complex that it is impossible to program the AI?

I rather shut up and go home and play some.

[Zarax]

Well, I'm by no means an expert modder, but I found this thread an excellent source of ideas.

What do you think about placing economical improvements as requisites for certain units?

[WesW]

Well, I'm by no means an expert modder, but I found this thread an excellent source of ideas.

What do you think about placing economical improvements as requisites for certain units?

Reading that old thread again got me to reconsidering the setup I had developed for my mod to encourage economic development in key provinces.
The system I have now uses the two types of Peasants as the goal units, with region bonuses in all the key regions. The Christian unit focuses on trade provinces, and requires a Castle and a Merchant's Guild. The Muslim unit focuses on fertile provinces, and requires a Castle and a 60% farmland improvement. Both units are available to all factions, but their priorities are set to zero, so the AI should never actually build them. I placed them at the end of the file, so that their bonuses never show up on the strat map.

I have given every province a unit bonus, as I feel it adds a nice strategic dimension to the game. Doing this can either help or hinder the AI, depending upon how competently you set it all up. Since the AI will strive for the bonus unit, it won't waste as much time and money on buildings it will rarely use.
The key is knowing the value of the provinces and selecting units whose requirements match the province. For example, pick your knights and other advanced units for your capital and richest provinces. What was so bad about the CA default settings was when they picked a low-tech unit for a rich province, such as Venice or Provence.
From what I gathered by reading the thread, the AI will drop back to standard priorities once it has achieved the ability to construct the bonus unit. If it is still trying to obtain units in other provinces, this can result in a stoppage of construction for some time, which I believe was mis-interpreted as a premanent end to construction.
It would be extremely difficult to tell whether or not the AI prioritizes the second bonus unit once it can build Peasants in my setup, but I feel that the certain economic benefits outweigh the military uncertainty.

[Zarax]

I agree with the principle WesW, in fact I'm using a lighter version of the system you described here...
What I would also suggest is to give to at least the smaller factions a small navy to begin with, as testing suggests that AI has problems in determine the army size, prioritizing unit construction to building one and too often resulting in bankrupt.

[Patron]

I don't think you should alter the game to make it easier for a certain faction, like giving the English kataphraktoi or the Spanish vikings. I think you should aim to make your mod more realistic, otherwise you might aswell play age of empires.

[EatYerGreens]

I don't think you should alter the game to make it easier for a certain faction, like giving the English kataphraktoi or the Spanish vikings. I think you should aim to make your mod more realistic, otherwise you might aswell play age of empires.

I don't think that's quite what bretwalda had in mind. If I read right, he wants to give every province a 'speciality' unit of some description, so that the motivations for conquest of these regions are not solely economic or strategic. For that to work, the special units would have to be accessable to all factions. As you say, this is probably not a good thing...

I presume that there's also a desire to make the game somewhat tougher, in that these regions will stay out of reach for some time and the player will find themself up against valour-bonused opposition.

However, if successful in spite of that, I see the 'snowball effect' being worse though - once the player has his hands on more and more of these bonused areas, the final stages of the game will become more and more of a walkover as the opposition forces lose their access to them and also face gradual economic strangulation.

The in-built inability to demobilise weak early units and replace them with those of higher quality is one of the biggest handicaps to the AI in the entire game, IMO. Other than through battle losses, there are few opportunities for it to do this. In fact, the retreated and/or ransomed bits of army they get back after losing a province is the most likely cause of them getting into negative cashflow situations, from which failure to demobilise means there is no escape.

Notice all those conditions in the unitprod files - situations like 'poverty-stricken' and so forth. These must alter their build priorities drastically.

Having lost a territory, a smallish faction might end up spamming peasants because that's all it can afford, when what it should do is dismiss all the dross and get as many of the toughest fighting units which it can produce out of the remaining treasury - like knights and so forth. The taking of a faction's last province ought to be the toughest you ever fight against them, no?

Regrettably, demobilisation isn't a factor which appears in the moddable files, so it's down to the hard-coding (or lack thereof) that this is the situation.

It would be interesting to know if the AI is programmed to stop mobilisation of army units at a particular level of yearly profit, so that it can still afford buildings, or to save up for expensive improvements, or if it just carries on mobilising until it calculates that the unit which its priorities says it needs has a maintainance cost higher than its remaining cashflow?

Some 'slack' is required so that the retreated army, as above, can be supported for as long as required for it to play its part in the retaking of what was lost.

What the AI really needed, in terms of unit build priorities is a simple formula such as
{number of men in unit} x {fighting effectiveness} / {capital cost/annual maintainance cost}

so that it prioritizes high power units over weaker ones (so long as it has the buildings required to train them) and gets best value for money by penalising units which are cheap to buy but (relatively) expensive to maintain.

If this is exactly the formula currently in use then I'm surprised at the results it seems to give.

The 'fighting effectiveness' term needs some flexibility about it, not something as simple, or rigid, as (attack + defence) scores. When a faction is on the ropes, it needs to prioritise units good at defence, so it doesn't lose any further territory. Once that has succeeded, it needs to switch to making troops good at attack, to take back what it lost. If it's doing well for itself, it should alternate between replenishing the pool of attackers, to take new ground and defenders to hold onto the gains and so on.

[Budwise]

I once killed 250 men with one organ gun. The first shot routed a unit of urban milita, I then sent a single man over to hold some feudal sergeants in position whilst they reloaded, 2 shot later and the sergeants were running.

Wait wait wait, YOU MEAN THE ORGAN GUN IS USEFUL. I have never used it because I thought it would be retarded. I mean low range, fixed position, and long pause between fires. It sounded like a waste of space to me before. Well, I was wrong about Berserkers I guess I can be wrong about here.

[WesW]

EYG, you are thinking the same types of things I was about three years ago, when I decided to leave the Civ world and plunge into modding this really neat game I had picked up, which added realistic real-time battles to the strategic gaming that I had played for so long.
Unfortunately, the strategic aspect of this game had not been given the same attention as had the tactical battles, which resulted in an AI unable to field competitive armies, and thus the formidable tactical AI was usually hamstrung.

Strengthening the strategic AI performance has thus been the primary goal of the Medmod since its inception, and I am quite pleased with the results. If you are interested in seeing those results for yourself, you might want to check out the v4 beta.