Region Discount ideas

[NodachiSam]

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.

Nice

[EatYerGreens]

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.

I'd certainly like to give it a try but, in spite of the amount of posting I do here, my actual game experience is quite limited. I contribute to threads if it's something I happen to know and feel will be of help but a lot of it stems from either Shogun gameplay, where some characteristics have carried over and are still relevant, or things I've picked up from reading the forum and have 'recycled', so to speak.

In reality, I've had several incomplete campaigns due to, variously, gamesave corruption, hard drive failures and 'try restarting with another faction' disease. I reckon only one past campaign got as far as transitioning from Early to High but also crashed not long after. I've made a brief foray into multiplayer but found myself completely unfamiliar with the High/Late unit types and their abilities and felt somewhat out of my depth in the tactics required to make best use of them.

I don't think my playing abilities have improved a lot since Shogun days. On the strategic level, I still often find myself outnumbered on nearly every border, too skint to tech-up and, usually, not having enough men to both attack out of a province and leave enough behind to defend it from a counterstrike along another border. Naff though the AI may be, I have a hard time beating it now, so a mod which is designed to be tougher still seems out of the question.

Put differently, I basically want to see what the default game has to offer first. In doing so, I hope to get a really good handle on what needs to be altered to make the game better/harder, or whatever. After that, I just need to see which mod comes closest to my way of thinking. If I'm already at the stage you were at some years ago, then that is a good sign. Mind you, I've posted elsewhere today, to say I like the idea of the restriction to sea trade and that is, err, someone else's mod. Oops!

Now, it's just possible that there could be a fallacy embedded in that idea. If I'm going to end up playing a modded game, in the long run, then however many months of gameplay it will take me to complete full 3-era campaigns as each and every faction in the default game beforehand (such that I can fully appreciate the changes which the mod makes), this will all be time wasted since the AI opposition is strategically weak in the default game and thus the whole exercise will be a poor preparation for the tougher stuff to come, in the mod(s). What would you say to that?

In other words, I am thinking I need to be a better player (at the default game) in order to be able to cope with the modded version, so do you think the modded game will actually help me to become a better player because stronger opposition will force changes in my strategy and battlefield tactics?

[bretwalda]

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...
(...)

Not even have to be available to all factions... What I meant was an extension of the province valor bonus system of the vanilla MTW VI - as I noted that some of the provinces have no bonus and some have useless bonus unit.

I really liked XL mod but I was unhappy to see that some of the bonuses were removed... that is how the idea sprung out of my mind...

[EatYerGreens]

I really liked XL mod but I was unhappy to see that some of the bonuses were removed... that is how the idea sprung out of my mind...

I see no reason for not going ahead with your plans, I only interjected to point out that some bonuses can have bad consequences for the AI controlled factions, which may upset the gameplay somewhat. The other thread pointed out how removal of some resulted in better province development. For instance, taking the bonus off Saharan Cavalry in Algeria (or Tunisia?) had the Almos developing properly, setting up the Gold Mine at last and trading properly, giving it a stronger army overall than any amount of bonus SC would ever have done.


I forget where I saw this but there's a feature in the -ian command whereby you can set the whole campaign to run on 'autopilot' - basically all factions under AI control while you just sit back and watch. It will run through the years without user intervention and this vastly speeds up the testing process. I hope I can find this reference again as I can't remember the actual keypress required to set it off.

My idea of a well-balanced mod would be one whereby this kind of test will result in no single faction getting either crushed out of existence, nor running rampant all over the world map, or perhaps a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing as each factions gets its hands on its latest hi-tech unit at different times.

[bretwalda]

The thing is that I realized that MTW is more complex than I though so by putting my favourite units to the bonus position in the provinces might make an AI too powerful or stall its development so generarly upset the balance of the game...

But I decided I will do it, use the -ian switch (haven't tried it but hope will work) and see if this works out...

[WesW]

In regards to becoming a better player, I would concentrate on playing shorter games, rather than 3-era marathons. Once you are twice the size of the next largest faction, the rest of the game is just mopping up, imo.
As for using a mod, I would give it a shot at least. Version 1 of the Medmod deals exclusively with balancing and AI improvement, without adding new units or factions, so I would think anyone would enjoy it regardless of their experience or skill level. It corrects a lot of bugs, and makes the game more enjoyable in general while you are learning. Versions 3 and 4 throw a lot more at you, so you might want to wait a little while before delving into them.

[EatYerGreens]

In regards to becoming a better player, I would concentrate on playing shorter games, rather than 3-era marathons. Once you are twice the size of the next largest faction, the rest of the game is just mopping up, imo.

Mopping up sounds about right and I guess that could get old, very quickly, when the resistance against you isn't up to much. Conversely, I reached the boredom threshold in my Byz/Conquest/Normal campaign at a point where I was attacking a multi-stack Spanish force, having met them halfway across Africa. The game crashed before the battle began and I left it in that state. Just the amount of 'admin' needing to be done each turn was becoming a drag. Resistance against me was strong and I could see a long slog ahead, which I couldn't stomach, on the day. I may still go back to it later but the HRE/GA campaign continues to hold my interest, precarious as it is.

I could speed up the process of learning about High/Late units simply by starting a fresh campaign in the relevant era. I only recently realised that you get ready-made Citadels in Late, for instance, which saves a lot of time and money. My tendency toward economic mismanagement suggests to me that the chances of building one for myself, in a 3-era game, are quite small by comparison, which means not getting to even see the better types of High/Late units, let alone use them.


I wasn't aware that earlier versions of your mod were still available, so I really ought to take a closer look at your website. Thanks for mentioning this.