Anybody fancy co-operating in a balancing mini-mod for vanilla?

[Barbarossa82]

This is a call out to anyone who would be interested in collaborating on a limited mini-mod for vanilla RTW, aimed at redressing the problem where certain factions continually get wiped out early in the game without a chance to deploy their best units, while others take over the world with tiresome predictability.

The aim of the mini-mod would not be to make significant alterations to Vanilla but to simply try to shore up some of the weaker factions and moderately nerf some of the superpowers.

I have done some of the very basic modding, but anyone else's help, ideas, advice or input would be welcome.

The following are the early ideas:

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Non-Roman Generals
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Because of the way the Marius reforms work after 1.2, it is not possible for non-Roman factions to obtain their upgraded versions of their generals' bodyguards without waiting for the Romans to undergo the Marian reforms. Without scripting (which I am not competent to do), it is impossible to get the generals to upgrade when the faction builds its highest-level governor's building (which was the way it was supposed to work in 1.1).
So, I have decided to give all non-Roman factions their upgraded bodyguards from the get-go. I have already got this working in my game, and it seems quite straightforward. It also has the happy side-effect of depriving Egypt of their free chariots, since their upgraded generals are cavalry.
Generally this does not affect the diversity of a faction's military unit, because the models for the non-upgraded generals are mostly used for other units anyway. The only factions (I think) for whom this is not the case are Armenia and Parthia, who no longer have access to any javelin cavalry as their generals' bodyguards are now Cataphracts from day one. Ideally I would like to give each of these factions a separate, recruitable version of the heavy javelin cavalry (just like the Pontic Heavy Cavalry) so that they will not be deprived of them. Obviously the soldiers are in the game somwhere, but I don't have the know-how to create new unit cards to represent them.


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Britain
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The Britons, like the Egyptians, benefit from the dramatic over-valuing of chariots in auto-calc. So far I have reduced their starting money from D5,000 to D3,000, decomissioned their navy, taken away Smaraobriva from them and given it to the Gauls, disbanded their army on the continent and moved their family member Belenus to Great Britain. Now they are still a significant problem for anyone who wants to invade Britain, and they may cross onto the continent later in the game once they have built themselves some ports, but they are no longer chewing up the Germans instantly.


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Gaul
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So far I've given them Samarobriva which has been confiscated from the Brits, left them a small army in it and have slightly upped their starting denarii to D6,000. Hopefully they will now not be walked over quite so easily by the Julii, especially as they are no longer threatened so much by the Brits.


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Germania
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More testing is required to see what happens to them when the Britons are not ripping into them from the start of the game. It seems their Spear Warbands are more powerful post-1.5, so they may not need any more help.


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Carthage
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Major considerations are upping their starting cash, providing them with more men in Sicily, and giving them a naval squadron capable of challenging the Romans near Sicily.


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Seleucid/Egyptian Problem
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Egypt is waaay too powerful, again due to the chariot effect, while the Seleucids always get ripped up with the Egyptians normally the main perpetrators. Modifications I am considering making:
* Taking Sidon from the Egyptins and giving it to the Seleucids
* Giving the Seleucids a powerful field army near Damascus
* Financial adjustments
* Reducing Egypt's starting forces
* Increasing the size and power of rebel forces in Bostra and Petra to keep the Egyptians occupied.
*I'm reluctant to nerf the stats of any of Egypt's units because the problem is not so much with their power as with the overvaluation of chariots in autocalc. Egypt still has to be viable when played by a human.


Anyway that's the outline of what I'm trying to put together. If anyone would be interested in putting forward ideas or testing, It'd be good to have your input.

Barbarossa82

P.S.: I suppose we should wait till after Alexander before starting substantive work as it may come with a patch for Rome which might remove these issues (or create others!)

[Barbarossa82]

Update:
Since there seems to be some confusion over whether a new patch is forthcoming (1.7 and 1.8 are missing from the series), I have decided to temporarily suspend work on the balancing mod until we find out what is going on. In particular if chariots are rebalanced in auto-calc to be more realistic, there may be less need for some of the changes.

Anyway, playing with some of the early changes mentioned above implemented, I have experienced particular success, with the following observed (obviously this is only from one campaign, so consider this provisional).

GAUL: Far more effective. Resisted Julii attacks in northern Italy, temporarily owned Illyria and Dalmatia, resisted Spanish onslaught and even took Osca. It's taken the Julii and Brutii combined until about 209 BC to really chew them up.

GERMANIA: Powerful expansion eastwards, as far as Themiskyra. Have consolidated central Europe, at 209BC they are still a major power at war with Rome.

BRITAIN: Developed perfectly according to my hopes. Without a navy they basically sat on Great Britain until around 220 BC, although they swiftly developed a powerful military which would be a real challenge to any invader. After this period they hopped across to Hibernia and took it, and in approximately 210 BC they landed in Gaul and began an attack, too late to provoke an early Gaulish collapse but just in time to ignite a war with the Julii which hopefully will eventually see the Julii take Britain. Perfect!

Stand by for the results of my attempts to boost Carthage and the Seleucids.

EDIT: Dates should be BC, not AD. *smacks forehead*

[Byzantine Emperor]

I think this is a great idea. Do you need any help at all?

Also I would love to do any testing for this. Egypt has been overpowered far too much so far...

[Barbarossa82]

Thanks for your interest, Byzantine Emperor. As mentioned above, at the moment I am waiting to see if a 1.7 patch is forthcoming for the vanilla imperial campaign, in case it does something about the chariot auto-resolve problem.

If you would really like to help then it would be great to have someone run some test campaigns and experiment with different faction start-up situations. Carthage might be a good place for us to start, since it's not concerned with the chariot issue. The problem with giving advantages to Carthage, as with the Seleucids, is that we don't want to ruin the fun of playing as that faction in a single-player campaign. If we were to just, say, start them off with 50,000 denarii each then it would certainly help the AI but there would be no challenge for a human playing as that faction.

My thoughts were that we could do any or all of the following:
* Provide them with a more powerful navy - this would be historically accurate as well since Carthage were very much a maritime power. Positioned near Sicily, it might help prevent the flow of Romen reinforcements onto the island.
* Slightly increased starting finances
* Transferring one or both of the eastern "bloc" of Spanish provinces to Carthage. This would also be historically sustainable (at least the southern one of the two) and would give the faction a bit of a boost. Spain always turn out to be rampantly powerful in my games so I don't think it would hurt them to be nerfed slightly anyway.
* Changing the personality of the faction from "balanced smith" to something else. Not sure what though as I'm not very experienced with what the different effects of these are.

So if you wanted to experiment with any different combinations of those and give a brief report of results to be compared with mine, that would be great help, thanks!

[Byzantine Emperor]

Yep I will try some of your ideas, see how they work. Carthage could really do with a medium infantry unit, or iberian infantry boosted. Have you compared them to Hastati? Same upkeep and worse in flexibility and hugely worse in defence.

[Woad Warrior]

You could give Carthage Scutarii, theres a skin for them.

Also, I find Dacia does far too well, often defeats Germans along withe Britannia, then expands north and rolls over Scythians. Perhaps you could reduce attack of Falxmen and reduce starting money and armies.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I am experiencing no real change to Carthage using those ideas.

[Barbarossa82]

I have come up with a package of changes to Carthage which may have some effect, although I haven't had an opportunity to test them yet, and I'd appreciate anybody's help in doing so. Basically, what I have done so far is:

* Increase starting funds from 7k to 10k
* Moved Admiral Timasion's fleet to northeast Sicily, made him a four-star admiral and given him four biremes
* Made the other Carthaginian admiral a two-star admiral
* Moved the spy on Sicily to near Messana in order to avoid early Carthage-Sicily war
* Taken Carthago Nova from Spain and given it to Carthage, moving the Spanish general and his army to just south of the Pyrenees
* Added Carthaginian army to Carthago Nova - town militia, Iberian Infantry, cavalry and peltasts
* Slightly reinforced faction leader's army on Sicily with one unit of Iberians and one unit of peltasts
* Increased Iberian Infantry defensive skill from 2 to 4

Thanks for letting me know that there's a Carthaginian Scutarii skin already in the game, Woad Warrior. Adding them to the Carthaginian unit roster is a real consideration, although a unit card would have to be created which would somewhat increase the scope of this mod. Still, I'm not averse to doing that.
As regards Dacia, I find that when the Britons are not a factor on the continent in early game, the Germans tend to forestall Dacian expansion. However, that's my impression from only one campaign so I'd like to test some more and if Dacia are still running amok a bit I might well take the Falxmen down a peg or too.

[Barbarossa82]

Just tried the Scutarii and there are some pretty major problems with the Carthaginian version. It has no sprites, so uses those of the mercenary scutarii; and also seems to be missing some of the models so that all the men in the unit are pure white at most distances. Way beyond my modding skill to put that right, although if we're still stuck for ways to boost Carthage, we could let them recruit Mercenary Scutarii directly.

[professorspatula]

For the Carthaginian Scutarii unit cards:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=65668

There's no sprite though, but sprites are easy to make if you can be bothered to take the time, which isn't that long at all, but I'm too lazy.

I'm working on my own similar RTW-Vanilla mini-mod too. I got fed up with trying to overhaul the game completely and gone back to basics. Regarding Carthage's AI stance, I changed it from 'Balanced Smith' to 'Trader Stalin'. Trader is a pretty good bet for most factions as it ensures they try and build up some money. I'm not sure about Stalin though, I just thought I'd try something different; Stalin results in heavy infantry and mass troops, which is something Carthage won't have until they become big and self-sufficient, and then hopefully they'll churn out loads of Poeni infantry and Sacred band! I think leaving it at 'Smith' is probably as wise a move as any though. They got a fairly wide range of units afterall so a good mix is as good an option as any.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I have come up with a package of changes to Carthage which may have some effect, although I haven't had an opportunity to test them yet, and I'd appreciate anybody's help in doing so. Basically, what I have done so far is:

* Increase starting funds from 7k to 10k
* Moved Admiral Timasion's fleet to northeast Sicily, made him a four-star admiral and given him four biremes
* Made the other Carthaginian admiral a two-star admiral
* Moved the spy on Sicily to near Messana in order to avoid early Carthage-Sicily war
* Taken Carthago Nova from Spain and given it to Carthage, moving the Spanish general and his army to just south of the Pyrenees
* Added Carthaginian army to Carthago Nova - town militia, Iberian Infantry, cavalry and peltasts
* Slightly reinforced faction leader's army on Sicily with one unit of Iberians and one unit of peltasts
* Increased Iberian Infantry defensive skill from 2 to 4

Thanks for letting me know that there's a Carthaginian Scutarii skin already in the game, Woad Warrior. Adding them to the Carthaginian unit roster is a real consideration, although a unit card would have to be created which would somewhat increase the scope of this mod. Still, I'm not averse to doing that.
As regards Dacia, I find that when the Britons are not a factor on the continent in early game, the Germans tend to forestall Dacian expansion. However, that's my impression from only one campaign so I'd like to test some more and if Dacia are still running amok a bit I might well take the Falxmen down a peg or too.

Im on it! Ive already used most of your balancing tweaks for the other factions. About the Carthage tweaks:
*Money increase: Yep
*Navies: On it
*Spy: Is that necessary?
*Carthago Nova: Done it already
*Reinforcements: Done it
*Stats: Good idea, on it.

I also think Greece/Macedon need a little balancing, one or the other is always blitzed and eliminated.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Ive done everything on your list, bar the spy, and added Scutarii for city barracks. Test tomorrow. Greece ideas:

*Athens needs a bigger garrison to stop it being captured so easily.
*Spartan's power needs to be regulated. Greece steamrolls people with them.

Segesta and Appolonia need their garriosons increased so as to slightly hold back the Romans.

[Barbarossa82]

The spy movement was in response to something said by one of the moderators over at the .com, who reckoned one of the reasons Carthage loses out in Sicily is because the go to war with the Greeks before the Romans as a result of seeing Syracuse before Messana, and that moving the spy could alter that. Although I've made all the changes I've mentioned, I haven't tested it yet so I don't know how it will work out.

As regards the Greek situation, I agree with your ideas, especially about Athens and its garrison. In my games the Greeks tend to mangle the Macedonians before getting chewed up by the Romans, with Macedon rarely becoming a true power. The problem is that Greece does need a solid base because the remainder of its settlements are so spread out. Perhaps we should boost the Apollonia and Salona garrisons first to see how the Greece/Macedon situation resolves itself with a slower Roman conquest.

professorspatula, thanks for sharing the unit cards. I'd love to get the Scutarii into the game for Carthage and I think I can make the sprites as well. Did you encounter the same problem with missing 3D textures for the Carthaginian scutarii? I get plain white men at all except the closest views. Victims of the deadly Roman Duluxarii perhaps.

[Woad Warrior]

I can't understand whats causing the men to go white, its nothing to do with the model as its the exact same one as for the Spanish and Mercenary Scutarii. It also can't be anything to do with the skin, it applies at all distances until the sprites come into use. As for the sprites, just give them the Carthaginian Iberian Infantry one if a new ones to difficult to make, no-one will really notice.

Another idea to balance Carthage, give Libyan Spearman Phalanx ability, it only requires text editing and will make them much tougher. Also, because Carthage relies heavily on Mercs, you could make Numidian Javelinmen and Cavalry a bit cheaper. Also, I think Numidia has too many provinces for such a insignificant faction, I reckon you could give one or two of them to Carthage. Also, perhaps you could upgrade the infrastructure of Carthage, its not really as developed as it should be, having Elephants available from start would be a big advantage.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I can't understand whats causing the men to go white, its nothing to do with the model as its the exact same one as for the Spanish and Mercenary Scutarii. It also can't be anything to do with the skin, it applies at all distances until the sprites come into use. As for the sprites, just give them the Carthaginian Iberian Infantry one if a new ones to difficult to make, no-one will really notice.

Another idea to balance Carthage, give Libyan Spearman Phalanx ability, it only requires text editing and will make them much tougher. Also, because Carthage relies heavily on Mercs, you could make Numidian Javelinmen and Cavalry a bit cheaper. Also, I think Numidia has too many provinces for such a insignificant faction, I reckon you could give one or two of them to Carthage. Also, perhaps you could upgrade the infrastructure of Carthage, its not really as developed as it should be, having Elephants available from start would be a big advantage.

That may overpower them somewhat. I'll see what the other changes do first.

[Barbarossa82]

Ok I have created a v0.1 release for the purposes of testing only, incorporating the changes which we have got working so far.

Download Vanilla Balance Mod v0.1 here . Sorry about the annoying hosting service, I'll sort out a better one in due course.

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===Vanilla Balance Mod (Working Title) v0.1===
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INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
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1. It is highly recommended to make backup copies of C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome Total War\Data\export_descr_unit.txt and C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt
2. Unzip the files in the archive into your C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome Total War folder, selecting to use folder names and to overwrite existing files.


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LIST OF CHANGES
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NON-ROMAN GENERALS
All non-Roman factions use their upgraded, armoured generals from the beginning of the campaign. Roman factions continue to have a pre-Marian and post-Marian general's bodyguard which changes with the Marian Reforms.

BRITONS
* The Britons no longer control Samarobriva
* Army on the continent disbanded
* Starting denarii reduced to 3000
* Family member Belenus moved to Great Britain
* Navy disbanded

GAUL
* Samarobriva gained from Britons, with modest garrison
* Starting denarii increased to 6000

CARTHAGE
* Starting denarii increased to 10,000
* Carthago Nova gained from Spain with medium-sized garrison
* Spy Aqhat moved nearer to Messana
* Admiral Timasion improved to four-star admiral
* Admiral Timasion's fleet increased to four biremes and moved closer to Messana
* Hanno's army moderately reinforced
* Iberian Infantry defence skill raised to 4

SPAIN
* Carthago Nova lost to Carthage
* Family member Matugenus and his army moved to just South of the Pyrenees
* Iberian Infantry defence skill raised to 4


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UNINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
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Just replace C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome Total War\Data\export_descr_unit.txt and C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_strat.txt with the backup versions you were advised to create ;-)

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CREDITS
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Mod Co-ordiator: Barbarossa82
Testing/Ideas: Byzantine Emperor
Woad Warrior
Other Support: professorspatula

[Byzantine Emperor]

I think my version is further along than yours. Should I add mine?

Over yours I have:
CARTHAGE/NUMIDIA
Numidia (the province, not the faction!) given to Carthage.
Numidia and Carthage allies to prevent wiping out of Numidia
Numidia 1000 denarii richer, as per above
Further reinforced Hanno with more mercenaries, he still seemed to lose to the Romans every time

SPAIN
Spanish family member Matugenus deleted

GAUL
Same as what you have done

BRITONS
Same

SELUECID/EGYPTIAN PROBLEM
Sidon granted to the Seleucids
Jerusalem given to the rebels with a large garrison to form a buffer zone
Nearby rebel garrisons increased to give Egypt something to chew on

REBELS
Garrisons in Appolonia and Segesta increased
Garrison in Athens boosted significantly

EDIT: Your link doesn't work

[Barbarossa82]

Link mended.

Sorry about the brief hiatus, I've been somewhat busy.
Thanks for keeping me up-to-date with your own progress, Byzantine Emperor. By all means add your own files so we can exchange and test each other's ideas.
Overall your ideas seem really good. My only reservation is that I'm not too certain about the idea of giving the province of Numidia to Carthage - Cirta is Numidia's largest and most important city by far, and I'm not sure if it would be feasible for a human to play the Numidian campaign without it, it being quite a challenge already! I appreciate that you've compensated for this with denarii and an alliance, so I guess we'll need to test out your solution and see if Numidia is still viable and if it noticably improves Carthage's performance (more important, I accept).

Like the idea of giving Jerusalem to the rebels. Hope you gave them Judean zealots!

No sign yet of a 1.7/1.8 patch, so I guess we might as well proceed with the nerfing of Egypt. We can always undo it if a new patch tones down chariots.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Hope you gave them Judean zealots!

How could I not

OK, my files are coming up.

PS You can test Numidia to see how they work.

[Byzantine Emperor]

http://www.filefactory.com/?2c1e0f

Download link

[Barbarossa82]

Thanks for all your work, Byzantine Emperor. You've got the scutarii into the game which is something I couldn't achieve properly. I've made a few adjustments to enhance the way this works:

1. The morale, training and formation values of Scutarii and Iberian Infantry have been swapped in export_descr_unit. From the units' descriptions, their equipment and the relative barracks levels needed to train them, it seemed more appropriate that the Scutarii should be more disciplined than the Iberians.

2. Made a small change to export_descr_buildings (or similar-named file) allowing Carthage to build Scutarii in the campaign rather than just being available for custom battles. I simply allowed them to build them at the same level of barracks that Spain need for them.

3. Due to some small issues with the sprites (too bright, some flickering), made the scutarii use the sprite for Iberian infantry. Because of the differences in formation, Scutarii and Iberians can easily be distinguished even when seen as sprites.

4. Created a new model in descr_model_battle called carthage_scutarius_merc, describing the models and sprites for Spanish Mercenaries. This circumvents an issue where Spanish Mercenaries recruited by Carthage for a custom battle would use the sprites for regular non-mercenary Carthaginian scutarii, resulting in a weird moment when your troops flicked from green to white when zooming out. Using a separate entry in descr_model_battle is the same technique CA used to allow the use of Cretan Archers in custom battles by armies which can recruit greek-model archers without the same problem occurring.

Just a bit of tidying up at the edges, all seem to be working out OK. Will upload a new 0.2 version of Vanilla Balance Mod soon, including these adjustments.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Thanks!

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

Its good to see that you're working on a project such as this; the vanilla setup was biased and skewed in so many unfavourable directions that the gameplay suffers as a result. Steamrollering IMO is both boring and frustrating to watch, especially if you're into say the 100th imperial campaign. Poor old Seleucids, Gaul, Carthage etc in vanilla, they never had a chance...

Anyway, that's enough drivel I'd thought you may like to make use of my modified RTG imperial campaign map, here's a download link:

RTG Provincial Campaign Map

The map was designed to minimise bias and repetition each new imperial campaign. It provides a fresher approach to a faction's expansion; different outcomes are more likely each campaign. Also, the default campaign map resources have been relocated and have also been tweaked to reduce high-earning regions (through sea imports / exports).

If you're interested, its free to implement into other projects, the only request I have is that you credit myself - it did take a few months to build, code, beta-test etc

Btw, here is one of Adherbal's topics (that CA have replied to) regarding the sprite generator. Its relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it, but you'll need to download a DDS converter tool to convert the sprite files that you generate. I'll be using the generator myself in the near future, as there are several hundred new sprites that need creating; here's the link:

Sprite Generator... CA ?

Keep up the good work!

[Barbarossa82]

Big thanks to everyone who has helped with ideas, testing and implementation so far. I have now released a BETA testing pack incorporating many of these ideas, for which see this thread.

There are several good ideas which are not incorporated in the mod as it stands, but this doesn't mean they are never going to be in there. We just need to get some people testing this out so we can see how some of the basic changes affect the game.

Thanks also to Seasoned Alcoholic for the offer of the RTG campaign map. This is certainly something we'll be looking very closely at using in a 1.0 release, although we'll possibly have two "variants", one using the RTG map and one using the vanilla map for players who want minimal changes.

So once again thanks for your participation guys, (you're credited in the readme!), and please feel free to run the beta, see what needs to be done, and help make this campaign better.

Barbarossa82