Suggestions for v0.74/0.8

[nikolai1962]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

Sort of related to this but not in the same way. One of the things i thought about when i first got the vanilla game and played it half-heartedly while thinking how it could be much better was how historically different groups expanded in very ways, organisationally I mean. The Romans were one of the few groups who had a borg style cultural assimilation method whereas most other historical empires were client/tributary kingdom type empires.

EB is obviously moving in that direction with the government type idea but my suggestions below are about taking it further and accentuating the differences between factions so that playing them *feels* very different. (Some of these ideas are probably already going to be future versions if they can be coded I guess.)

1) Roman borg style expansion.

Homeland expansion in italy broken down into stages with upgraded homeland governments. Should take a lot of years to get to the final stage but broken up into steps so you got the alae troops earlier just with big morale penalty that gradually improves, *much* larger unrest penalty initially, reducing with each stage constructed as the italian cities were constantly rebelling.

Provincial expansion broken into steps too. Again much worse unrest and morale penalties initially, gradually tapering off. Final stage would be provincial capital that was tied to certain regions that were historically the capitals of the roman provinces or some way to restrict it to a limited number with the provincial capital providing actual bonuses instead of penalties.

2) Barbarians.

More geared to the tributary type arrangement. Much more limited in homeland expansion as simulating lots of independent minded tribes who share a common culture and not neccessarily a common loyalty to anything except a particular king/leader. (Most empires fell apart when the creator died or not long after). Expansion type governments even in most of their cultural homelands. The casse for example maybe just homeland in their staring province and client/allied in the rest of Britain. The barbarian cultures however would be used to this sort of thing and used to fighting for the guy who beat their army and barb tributary tribes/kingdoms would have less morale penalties maybe. Expansion model for barbs being more like a horde thing to simulate the times when they did just take over a new area and displace/enslave the original inhabitants. Possibly a "horde" building like the colonia which when complete allows a homeland government.

Outside their cultural homeland much more of a client kingdom/tributary/protection racket type deal. So for example a civilized city recruits only garrison quality troops with huge morale penalty but big trade bonus to simulate the basically protection racket type arrangement.

3) Trading Colonizers (Greeks and Carthaginians)
A lot of the history I've read speaks of greek and carthage colonies being basically trading islands in a sea of local tribes as they didn't seem to have the same desire as the romans to control everything. So for the greeks, outside of greece, and carthage pretty much everywhere except carthage itself, a government model that simulates this. Lots of unrest penalties to simulate the local tribes outside the walls, ability to hire local troops, big problems building your own troops to simulate the small numbers of your citizens available. In tandem you have the colonia building, broken into stages, which gradually counter-balance the big unrest penalty and whose final level is a condition for a colonized_homeland government so the condition for a homeland government would be precursor1 or colonia_stage4 (or something).

Secondary to this I always wanted to see something for the greeks (outside of greece) and carthage that simulated the sea trade aspect of their expansion so that for example the huge unrest penalties of their expansion type of government could only be offset by happiness buildings that required a port i.e coastal provinces would be the easiest places for them to expand.

4) Persian successors.
All the empires that took over from the persians seem to have collected some of their know-how vis a vis controlling huge chunks of that part of the world. The seleucids and maybe the ptolemies could start with that know-how, simulated with the hippodrome i.e making it basically impossible to control large empires without some particular mechanism. Simulated for the romans with their arena buildings, the seleucids with the hippodrome and the greeks with their theatres (where there are enough greek colonists i.e colonia levels).

Other factions would either have to rely on a much looser and more fragile empire of client states and tributaries unless they *learn* a mechanism. This brings me to some more general suggestions. But basically what I'd like to see is the player having to expand very differently depending on the type of faction.
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Non-military reforms.

Factions like pontus, armenia, baktria etc could have a reform mechanism to learn from the seleucids how to manage a big empire, simulated by becoming able to build hippodromes and stage races.

Barbs could learn stuff from conquering i.e creating tributary/allied governments in civilized regions e.g mining improvements or road improvements.

Like a previous poster I think pop growth is too fast (as it is is in the vanilla game and all the mods i've played). One of the reasons isthe number of buildings with pop bonus or health bonus and the large values they have. I much prefer the idea of generally slower pop growth. As the script gives pop back to the ai when it builds troops this would give the player something to have to think hard about when it came to where and when to raise units.

One thought i had was to make some of the buildings require non-military reforms e.g farming levels, improvement of health buildings, granary buildings etc. So for example farms+2 wasn't available until x date or maybe certain things could be triggered by building academy type buildings.

Other thoughts on the population thing are:
1) Reduce base fertility of provinces.
2) Spread building levels out more according to city size.
3) Historically certain cities became very large for reasons sprcific to their location (usually). Obviously if a big empire wanted it's capital in a particular spot you should be able have (expensive) options but generally the reasons would be geographical.

One thing would be take the pop growth bonus off the market line of buildings that can be built anywhere and put it on the port line. Especially if you have the sytem where not every coastal province can build the shipwright and dockyard levels. If the provinces that can build the bigger ports are the historically famous trading places then having the pop growth on the port buildings would simulate the fact that it was often the major trade hubs that grew large. Similarly with the unique roads or at least the terminus regions of the unique roads.

Generally my suggestion is to make base pop growth much slower except in areas with natural geographical advantages or heavy player investment. I'd like to see most regions stagnate at around city size (or even large town) with some large cities and huge cities only possible *naturally* in very few places. Though with some very expensive mechanism for doing it unnaturally to simulate a big empire just deciding it wanted a big city in a particular place. A grain_import line of buildings for example.

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Connected to all this is the desire to accentuate differences between regions, expansion models and how each faction plays. One of the things i noticed in the short games I've been playing was how as macedon i didn't want to build troops in my mak cities as the pop was low whereas i could just build a quick allied government in athens which had a high pop. The allied government gave an xp bonus of 1 and a morale penalty of 2. IIRC what each chevron of xp gives is +1 attack, +1 defense skill and +2 morale. So even if the morale penalty works (never tested it myself but generally in the game i think bonuses don't often work negatively) minus 2 is not very much given how much higher most mods set base morale.

So it made more sense to me to just build all my beginning troops in athens. I think the morale differences between the different faction government models and the conquered cities should be much starker. In the worst case I'd want allied/subject troops to have vanilla type morale to make the game much more of a juggling match between harbouring your homeland population and really flaky allied troops that you are always worrying about. So you'd have penalties like -10 or -12 or something. Less for subject barb tribes who were generally warlike.

Generally make the government types more extreme.

There were some more things i thought of but that will do for now :)

edit: Another reform idea was romans not able to build greek-style theatres straight away but learning it either as a reform event or a general's trait as I think rome got more hellenized after they conquered greece. Maybe other hellenization things too.

edit2: Temporary wave of unrest for king type factions when king dies.

edit3: Maybe just a personal thing but i never liked bring able to pick up cretan archer type mercenaries while wandering around the countryside. I'd like units like that to be recruitable through ports instead. 4-6 turns to build, expensive but retrainable.

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None of this is criticism btw. I love the government idea and just want to make it even more distinctive between the factions and the effects of the player's government choices more of a headache.