SloMod

[Dooz]

Hey folks. Here's a "mod", if you want to call it that, that I just put together compiling a few things I recently learned from the modding community (my thanks to those who posted replies with their help for my queries). It's pretty much the most basic of text file edits to achieve the goal of slowing down M2TW, even more so than it already is. Specifically, here's what's been done.

• All playable factions unlocked.

• Rebel brigands and pirates reduced.

• The year is displayed instead of turns, and the timescale is 2 turns per year. Character aging is synched up with actual years passed.

• Population growth rates have been decreased proportionately across the board to compensate for building times not being able to be modded at this time. This has a few effects I was looking for. It lets you enjoy lower techs longer by not allowing you to build up cities and castles as fast and teching up. It also makes money tighter because you can't have all your taxes on high or very high if you want any population growth at all.

a really low growth with lower income and of course with a balanced planing of what & when i build .... the time period of building remains the same only the resources r low thus u have to wait and struggle with the tech at hand for quite some time.

• Diplomacy has been tweaked to make alliances stronger, especially between factions of the same faith. There are now fewer arbitrary transgressions and factions are generally better about building up their power in preperation for conflict. AI factions also go for rebels a bit more.

These values just mean the AI will attack the rebels first (thus developing larger empires) and be more inclined to hold alliances with nations of the same religion. Of course wars still happen, but so far the diplomacy has worked very well for me.

On another note, sometimes the campaign AI of factions stalls. This happened to England and Scotland in my game, I found that using the move_character command on one of their family members fixed this.
(This wasn't caused by my diplomacy settings, it is just a bug, and I just thought I'd let people know how to work around it).

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/SloMod.zip


That's all for now. Any further changes and tweaks to the details can be done according to feedback I suppose, depending on how people feel about the pace. To install, just unpack the two text files into your Medieval II Total War\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign folder and overwrite whatever is necessary. Enjoy!

[Censor]

Wonderful, Wonderland! I'm going to test this out, it looks like what I've been in search of.

Thanks. I'll give you some feedback later on.

[bdtj1815]

Very similar to what I am doing except I am trying to do a faction, England, specific mod. That allows a bit more freedom to tinker with the other factions so as to keep them healthy. I have also made one or two other changes to try and make thinks more accurate/challenging. Will be testing tomorrow and all going well will then release it.

[Dooz]

Thanks Censor! I'm currently playing a campaign as the French with this and it feels better than my first vanilla English campaign. The more I play, the more I'll figure out more little changes that could be made. Of course, your feedback is appreciated .

bdtj1815, that sounds good. It's always good to have faction specific mods as you can cater them to more specific needs and generally have tighter gameplay. It'd be cool to do something similar for every faction seperately, to have something for everyone! In any case, good luck with your work.

[Agapeus]

cool Wonderland,

So far I followed ur ex & others to come up with some specific pref. So far besides Fr, Sp & HRE I mainly plat as UK due to the cool red ( Julian fam - RTW )& coolest Archers in game. here how it set:

UK @ vh / vh
1 y/t ( keeps a fast action imho)
end 1630
rebels & pirates values @ 48 ( vh / vh - gives me some peace home )
To keep HRE from failing gave them 10k start & 4k kings purse. France I let be with a +500 fl tho. Dan & Mil have king purse reduced at 500 (!!!) to allow HRE to develop a bit.
Turks king purse = 4k fl
All base farm values r @ 2, exception : HRE Turks Moors Egypt - cities = 4; castles = 7.

dipl values uk - fr , fr - uk , scots - uk , uk - scots, and all factions toward "slave" r @ -8.
thus Scots & Fr more aggressive @ UK, & factions go hard for rebel settlements 1st. ( i hope...)

So far the UK ( vh / vh ) is quite hard, with only HRE as allied and continuos wars with scots , fr , milan.
UK is a low middle power & i really have to struggle to keep caen , rennes & angers( that cost me to take from fr 1/2 of all my forces!)
despite the + i gave to HRE & even they r @ war "just" with Mil & Den; HRE is going down to become a vasal to Mil ....( i still dont get it ...)
Den have Antverp & french r at their 3rd siege of Bruge : all that in turn 27.
turn 26 represent for me 1st upgrades in London & Nothingroom ( :) )
with the disappointment in HRE ( how much / M2TW earth shall I + their +es ???) my UK campaign is rewarding in action & struggle , giving already a dark horizon of terrible clashes with the turks & latter mongol & timuris invasions.


Long live M2TW

[Re Berengario I]

Problem with HRE is that its troops are far inferior to the low-cost ones from Venice and Milan, it happened in all my modded games to see the HRE become vassal of Milan with the latter become the middle-europe superpower.

Things start to change towards 1200 (with 2 turn/year) probably because of some new kind of troops from HRE filling the gap.

Still these considerations are just raw experimenting without being able to have a units comparing spreadsheet.

[Agapeus]

Problem with HRE is that its troops are far inferior to the low-cost ones from Venice and Milan, it happened in all my modded games to see the HRE become vassal of Milan with the latter become the middle-europe superpower.

Ur right m8 : had similar problem just now; at turn 85 ( 1Y/t ) HRE was left with just two castles !!!!!

as i wrote before, Mil & Den have just 500 fl kings purse ! whereas HRE 4000 !!! & 10k start . Im at vh/vh & because this I just got that soft feeling for HRE.....
thus ....

I smashed Mil = peace got Dijon - gave it to HRE ; went to Den, smashed in open field got that fortress up north & frankfurt - which i gave it to HRE + additional 10000 fl from my total of 12000 ,
ofcource HRE is in love with me; i can pas with troops where ever i want in their regions np at all.
But as this forum is supposed to be a mod one :

common guys lets do something about HRE when we play as some buddy else. hello ! HRE was a power !! I want , lets say as UK to be able to fight'em in their coolest being some 50 turns latter ....

[Dooz]

Well, these are all fair points, but as far as this mod is concerned I'm just gonna' keep it as an overall thing and not get into the specific factions just yet. Although, the more I'm playing, the more I'm seeing the same things you guys have mentioned, so maybe some things can be tweaked along those lines in the future, once it's figured out what'll help the situation most effectively without throwing off the balance of the game.

[Agapeus]

Well - i found that the HRE's beginning boost wasnt enough and despite all my "gifts", they collapsed to venice !
thus i plused HRE start cash at 50k & kings purse at 15k !
I set HRE dipl at war with milan, + added similar cash to "slave" - ill see ...

[Agapeus]

I apiologies for this 2nd post but i found something that works ! - imho

me - UK ( casual start settings except replaced peasants with town militia)

changed in descr_strat

HRE:

faction hre, balanced mao
ai_label catholic
denari 50000
denari_kings_purse 15000

packed with troops !

scotland:

faction scotland, balanced stalin
ai_label catholic
denari 20000
denari_kings_purse 7000

with 4 extra highlanders to each general.

( in turn 6 at vh/vh Scotland has invernes & dublin while me got just york & rennes at heavy costs & almost bankrupt - masochistic )


turks:

faction turks, trader napoleon
ai_label default
denari 30000
denari_kings_purse 10000

with extra 4 "turcoman" per general.

faction standings & relationships :

faction_standings england, -0.8 france, scotland
faction_standings england, -0.8 slave
faction_standings scotland, -0.8 england
faction_standings scotland, 0.4 france
faction_standings scotland, -0.8 slave
faction_standings france, -0.8 england
faction_standings france, 0.4 scotland
faction_standings france, -0.8 slave
faction_standings venice, -0.2 byzantium
faction_standings venice, -0.6 milan, hre
faction_standings venice, -0.6 slave
faction_standings milan, -0.4 venice, hre
faction_standings milan, -0.8 slave
faction_standings hre, -0.2 poland
faction_standings hre, -0.8 venice, milan
faction_standings hre, -0.8 slave
faction_standings poland, -0.2 russia, hre
faction_standings poland, 0.2 hungary
faction_standings poland, -0.6 slave
faction_standings hungary, -0.2 byzantium
faction_standings hungary, 0.2 poland
faction_standings hungary, -0.6 slave
faction_standings spain, 0.2 portugal
faction_standings spain, -0.8 moors
faction_standings spain, -0.6 slave
faction_standings sicily, -0.2 moors
faction_standings sicily, -0.4 byzantium
faction_standings sicily, -0.6 slave
faction_standings denmark, -0.6 slave
faction_standings portugal, 0.2 spain
faction_standings portugal, -0.8 moors
faction_standings portugal, -0.6 slave
faction_standings papal_states, -0.2 hre, scotland
faction_standings papal_states, 0.4 england, portugal, poland, hungary
faction_standings papal_states, -0.8 slave
faction_standings moors, -0.1 sicily
faction_standings moors, -0.8 spain, portugal
faction_standings moors, -0.6 slave
faction_standings byzantium, -0.2 hungary, venice
faction_standings byzantium, -0.4 sicily
faction_standings byzantium, -0.8 hungary
faction_standings byzantium, -0.4 turks
faction_standings byzantium, -0.8 slave
faction_standings turks, -0.2 egypt
faction_standings turks, -0.8 byzantium
faction_standings egypt, -0.2 turks
faction_standings egypt, -0.8 slave

faction_relationships england, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships france, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships hre, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships hre, at_war_with milan
faction_relationships spain, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships venice, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships sicily, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships milan, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships milan, at_war_with hre
faction_relationships scotland, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships byzantium, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships byzantium, at_war_with turks
faction_relationships russia, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships moors, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships turks, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships turks, at_war_with byzantium
faction_relationships egypt, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships denmark, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships portugal, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships poland, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships hungary, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships papal_states, at_war_with slave
faction_relationships aztecs, at_war_with slave

Pope relation with scots is at -2 ( i was always annoyed by pope's love for them - i love scots but in this game is impossible to fight'em & not having serious problems with Papas) and i need some papal backup (the positive value of "0,4" to us loosers) given the power of "the highlands"

HRE is roaming (at wealth = boundless ) & they rejected my alliance proposal.

France is massing troops both to Caen & at HRE border.

& in this creepy europe i'm kind of screwed....
HRE at war with milan ( given the power that milan's cheap units can display on battlefield i recon HRE will keep them at bay if not getting hold of them ...)
turks r at war with Biz ( in the hope that helped by their plus will hold Constantinople - other wise they never do...)
all this in turn 6 !
I hope that now getting hold of the english islands & at least holding the normandy will be a real challenge & for 1 y/t & at vh/vh i really have little hopes of wining ...

[Re Berengario I]

So far my modded campaign is coming out pretty balanced except:

1) HRE is still very weak, it's a problem with the effectivness of its troops, they lose even in number superiority against Venice and/or Milan, the same problem has France, but to be honest the problem is the following:

2) Venice, Milan and Denmark (and probably Scotland) have too much unbalanced better troop types at start. Very little we can do except to mod them out when the unpacker will come. I think I won't change their stats but I will make them less available as it seems to me they're ELITE troops and not just cannon fodder. So if Venice wanna have Italian Spear Militia it will have to pay a lot more, spend a lot more in maintenance and have them build less and on more turns, otherway it could used the normal militia units as everyone else.

3) Unability for the AI to do naval invasions or to exploit well landbridges. This leads to islands never to be attacked or conquered (Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Corse, Sardinia and England too) and England not exiting from Caen.

4) Rebels being just a silly buffer not putting strain over nothing. They do not build, do not attack, do not siege, they're just an annoyance. Plus your generals don't rebel almost at all even when there's a low autorithy ruler. Damn MTW1 was a lot better and I loved civil wars (as historically no kingdom had a really estabilished statal government until late middleage).

[Agapeus]

@ Re berengarion,

ur right m8

although i gave HRE as u can see above all that stuff, now Milan is getting the upper-hand.
turn 6 was ok HRE doing & moving & got antverp (!) & milan there somewhere ; turn 21 i got again HRE falling !!!

Ok the patch might give us the possibility to undo the Milan's & other Italic Jedy powers but that will be ...- soon i know .... but well i really enjoy so much both my game & my "mini-sub-mod" , that experiencing with all these factors give be both pleasure & knowledge .

Thus milan will get nothing, nada = no start cash, 200 pop max in all its start settlements & "0" king's purse !! Its standing with Puppy will be -8 . Cause I'm just sick & tired of fighting wave after wave of "italian uber militia" & "pavise darth-vader crossbow" ....
Lets see - what now?

Slaves ... the annoing guys : the one I love so much telling me " that's right u fool , it's an enemy ship"

gave them 1 mil start cash & 100k the purse....
even before these modified values at vh/vh because a left York with 1 peasant archers the rebels sieged with an army of 2 chivalric knights 2 archers 2 spear & 2 mailed knight. thus the random AI might be there to "make my day"
perhaps adding more units will make them = = me

i find very helping these ex-change of idea so its cool !


.

[Re Berengario I]

Slaves ... the annoing guys : the one I love so much telling me " that's right u fool , it's an enemy ship"

gave them 1 mil start cash & 100k the purse....
even before these modified values at vh/vh because a left York with 1 peasant archers the rebels sieged with an army of 2 chivalric knights 2 archers 2 spear & 2 mailed knight. thus the random AI might be there to "make my day"
perhaps adding more units will make them = = me

I almost doubled the starting troops of rebels and gave them 50k plus 20k purse and nothing... they're still as dead except of the increasingly number of pirate ships.

Prolly I will use your sistem to make them drow in cash and see what will happen.

Anyway I'm already pretty of the idea in the future to create a "Feudal Rebels" faction for the western lands and I will also remove the national faction names.

In middle age there were dinasties not nations except the Byz Empire and the italian republics (Pisa, Genoa and Venice). The first nations to be called with its name was France at the ages of Philip the Handsome (1200) and the Sycilian Kingdom under Friedrich II (but still wasn't part of HRE, Sicily was his dinasty PERSONAL RULERSHIP).

It'd be so cool to have titles linked to the land one can acquire, your faction (alas dinasty) it's not England, it's Plantagenets who are king of England and also, following their proclames, king of France. So it isn't a France-England war (as nationalism in the 19th century taught in the history books), but a clash of two dinasties which both were of french origin.

Crusader Kings was so much cooler in this aspect.

[Agapeus]

It'd be so cool to have titles linked to the land one can acquire, your faction (alas dinasty) it's not England, it's Plantagenets who are king of England and also, following their proclames, king of France. So it isn't a France-England war (as nationalism in the 19th century taught in the history books), but a clash of two dinasties which both were of french origin.

Amen to that m8, but that will be quite a big modification. Personaly i would love it. But rest asured I love M2TW as is. it's like u love ( adore) ur girlfriend, for she is the most beautifull in the world , but some make up is always welcome ( lol ).

I almost doubled the starting troops of rebels and gave them 50k plus 20k purse and nothing... they're still as dead except of the increasingly number of pirate ships.

results of my slave faction boost :
in turn 8 all surrounding rebel settlements were full, packed with troops , my spy chance to get info was 35 % ! , and the huge armies of HRE Scotland & Fr , so far as i could see around my petty UK, were smashed to pieces in useless attempts to storm those settlements ( at Dublin the scots lost two packed armies - and the irish rebels were able to retrain at an incredible level. U can imagine the strain on other factions and in the long run the strain would have had on my PC's performance ( or not ?)

anyway after two futile attempts to take York ( !!!) I stoped & lowered the 1 mil to 200k & purse to 50k . now scots control the north & dublin but at a so high cost that they allowed me to go unhindered for 10 turns ; but now they siege York every turn ....
Brugge is almost packed with some different kind of rebel troops ( but still no buildings ) and i figure it will fall to HRE.
Milan ( that pain....) is gone to HRE as well ; which now is facing Denmark & Poland and keeps troops near Paris so the Fr released the pressure on Caen, and (again) the Angers adventure got me the castle but halved my troops (the nearness of a full packed Fr army forced me to storm it)
the Puppy standings dint help as im about to be excommunicated. hm.
with the financial power scotland displays i now try to figure how on M2TW earth i'll keep the island ?

Turn 42: The Turks r sieging Constaninopole ! but venice is fighting them vh.

well perhaps the rebels r not that active , but that could be the result of boosting the real sharks ....
If I wanted a vh near impossible game im almost there...

cheers