MTW Pocket Mod: General

[caravel]

I have a possibly stupid question (I ask out of genuine curiosity, and not to be adversarial): Why the increase in build time & expense for every building level? Why not just make it an even 4 years & 400 florins for each one? Is there something inherently unbalanced about having equal costs and build times for each level?

Possibly a misunderstanding so bear with me. I have decreased build time and cost for all weaponsmith buildings. This is the system I'm currently adhering to:

2,4,6,8

200,400,600,800

(orignally for bowyer, town watch and spearmaker only)

I was inviting criticism of this system. I was hoping that any proponents of the other system would make their case:

4,6,8,10

400,600,800,1000

(the old swordsmith and armourer setup)

Given that the Spanish were reknowned for their steel weapons (their swords in particular), I don't know that removing the Metalsmiths is such a great idea. I can understand removing their dependence on the presence of iron, however. Would there be any way to make the Metalsmith dependent on specific provinces instead? That way, Castille and Syria (Damascus was famous for its steel weapons as well) could still produce troops with an attack bonus. I don't know if this is feasible, but it might be an alternative solution.

It is not possible to make the metalsmith (or any building) dependent on a province unless a resource is added. The only alternative would be to add another Iron resource called e.g. "Superior Quality Iron" and have this as the dependency for the metalsmith. I really prefer not to do that however and would like to remove the metalsmith and it's unrealistic attack bonus upgrades. I don't mind retaining it as a dependency building available in all provinces, without the attack bonuses, but I can't see it's uses as yet.

As for the Armourer(s), I think Noir may have a point. I'm not sure if they should be removed entirely, but it might not be a bad idea to at least dramatically raise their building requirements. Perhaps restrict them to Citadels and Fortresses only? That way one couldn't build more than an Armourers Workshop, and troops therefore couldn't be trained with more than 2 extra levels of armour.

That is one way of doing it I suppose, but it seems illogical. I am trying to achieve a logical tree that has some relevance to real life. Not being able to build a metalsmiths' shop at all because your castle isn't big enough is verging on the ridiculous. At least the lowest level building would be available, at Keep level.

I agree that giving Anatolia to the Turks would help. I disagree with giving them Nicaea as well, however -- while I believe you're right about the Byzantines not getting it back until the First Crusade, I think that would still unbalance things too far in the Turks' favor. I *do* propose making Lesser Armenia a rebel province, as it was (IIRC) a semi-autonomous principality largely independent of Constantinople's authority.

I seriously don't think it would imbalance it, if both provinces are orthodox and so not that easy for the Seljuks to hold down, but not impossible either. The Seljuks really do need all the help they can get, with the Byzantine on one front and the Fatimid war machine breathing down their necks on the other. Remember that they no longer have UM, Saracen Infantry in the early era, nor do they have universal and exclusive access to Futuwwas. Turcoman Foot Soldiers are more easily available and Turcoman Horse and Horse archers are in infantry sized units, but despite this in most campaigns they fail, this is because archery heavy armies will ultimately fail in an autocalced AI vs AI battle. This is one of the downsides of the game. To remedy this the Turks need a balanced sword Infantry unit that is not armed with a bow.

1.) Personally, I feel there's already enough war going on. While I realize the name of the game isn't Medieval: Total Peace, I don't think we need to try and force the factions into attacking each more often. I know that's only my own opinion, but I would wager a good number of florins that I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Constant war early on is very destructive and razes a lot of infrastructure. I do feel that there is enough war also, though I believe Noir may be referring to factions that have stockpiled lots of cheap units plunging further and further into the red while not breaking out and attacking. This may be remedied by changing some of the starting AI types, and by adding the extra provinces in certain eras.

2.) While historical accuracy isn't always the most important aspect of this game, I do believe it's something that Cambyses (and for that matter, myself) wanted to try and improve with the Pocket Mod. With that in mind, arbitrarily adding a lot of the "rebel" provinces to the lands of existing factions just wouldn't be realistic at all.

The way I look at it those rebel provinces can be strengthened for now with decent generals, good infrastructure and some strong units to represent the factions they should be. If a time comes when extra factions can be added then it will be easy enough to slot them into place.

Of course, it would be more realistic to make most rebel provinces their own playable faction, but that's obviously not a possibility with the hard-coded faction limit. (That, and I know Cambyses never intended to add more factions anyway -- doing so would be far beyond the scope envisioned for the Pocket Mod.)

New factions are something I have looked into and have decided against for now. Adding a lot of flakey factions to an already less than perfect vanilla game, with a Pocket Mod that is far from maturing would be running before walking. I too would like to see new factions such as the Navarrese, Leon, Portugal, the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, and Cilician Armenia, to replace the rebels but that is almost another project entirely. And I would like that project to be based on the core that is laid down by the Pocket Mod.

For what it's worth, I actually agree that adding more factions would be grand, all other things being equal. Doing so would require a great deal of effort, however -- far more so that the considerable amount Cambyses has already expended. Would that I possessed modding skills myself, I might be able to help him out; but (unfortunately) I don't, so I can't. That guys like VikingHorde and BKB managed to find the time and energy to create a mod all by themselves continues to simultaneously stagger and impress me!

I'm open to anyone providing data on extra factions, their locations and where they should be located, and especially units for those factions. The units can exist before the factions themselves exist and can be recruited by other factions or rebel only. One has to remember though, that new units require artwork to ensure they're not simply generic copies of vanilla units.

[caravel]

You have a point there, specially bearing in mind how the effects of armor affect the units. How are units with no armor, or very light armor, such as Psiloi, going to get "better" armor? Perhaps with better çuality leather, granted, but it should not give a "plus one" bonus, as a knight "improving" his armor gets that very same "plus one". And I don´t think that the improvement in defensive properties would be the same for a knight than a guy in a leather armor, or that the guy in leather should roast in the desert for carrying a BETTER armor than an unupgraded eçuivalent.
In fact, I don´t think the improvement would be noticeable at all, unless the armor in çuestion was falling to pieces.

My point exactly. It's not as if a superb suit of armour can be somehow bettered by running it through 4 different armourers. How is the armour going to be somehow "bettered"? It would be repaired perhaps but not improved that much. And why would it's improvement mean faring even worse in the desert? Surely a master armourer would produce only the best, lightweight, durable and ergonomic armour, which would actually be better suited to the desert than a heavy and cheap tin can of a suit produced in a normal armourer. It seems that the developers philosophy was that more armour is somehow added to the man, increasing weight, which is simply not the case at all.

YConcerning Javelinmen, I think they mostly represent the "historical" almugharavs, which did use hit and run tactics, (the actual in-game almugharavs are a bit puzzling, as they have an odd "defends well vs cavalry", which is unrealistic in warriors which would deal as much damage as possible, and then retreat to the hills). In fact, the muslims called "almugharavs" (bandits, or somesuch, when translated) everyone which used these tactics, which were popular in every region of Spain with mountains to do it. (Roland, the French hero, did not fall in battle with muslims, contrary to popular belief. Actually, he annoyed the Duke of Navarra -not a kingdom yet back then-, and got ambushed by his minions on a mountain pass). The term nowadays applies mostly to the Aragonese ones because it was them who started sending them around as mercs.
They´re a bit lacking in HtH skills, however, specially considering they´re more expensive than other javelinmen and that they´re described as being able to skirmish.

They're an odd unit which is why I've left them as rebel only. I may turn them into the Aragonese version of Spanish Javelinmen, and change their stats, removing the cavalry defence bonus.

Another potential unit (For High or Late only) would be the Knights of Calatrava, which was a secular, non-crusading, knights order, loyal directly to the crown.

A possible renaming for Lancers? Give Gothics to almost all catholic factions, create Milanese Knights for the Italians and rename Lancers to Knights of Calatrava? Personally I think they already fit the bill and have a poor name that needs changing. They simply need to be restricted to Castile only. And perhaps only trainable by the Spanish and Aragonese (as they are at present).

BTW: a bit off this particular subject: Arab Infantry (the "backbone of the armies of Islam" one) seem balanced to me after all (I had doubts formerly). While it´s a dangerous thing to get thrown at you, for their high attack and high numbers, their poor defense and armor makes them easy prey to projectiles, and repeated cavalry charges. Plus, while playing other factions, I´ve never really seen Egypt as able to flood the Almohads or the Turks by sheer numbers, unless they were already weakened by Byzantine or Spanish expansion.

Edit: Something I just forgot: Byzantines. As I usually played them on High, I rarely saw the "Byzantine Juggernaut". But I´ve seen it now, and indeed, is absurd. I think the problem doesn´t come from the command stats of heirs per se, but by the fact that, FOR SOME REASON, the Byzantine Emperors ALWAYS start with a very high influence (Even in High, where they are technically Emperors-in-exile), which, furthermore, doesn´t drop when a succession takes place (In my HRE and Almohad games, "succesion" is almost synonimous of "lossing one or more points of influence. Which is realistic, because a succession is the ideal moment for rebellious nobles to stage a coup or a secession movement), and which, furthermore, does not fall despite horrid defeats and losses (Come on, I lose l96 Psiloi because I mess up troop deployment, and my generals will just shrug and say "oh well, it happens"?). If their influence worked the same as with other factions, they wouldn´t be able to steamroll the steppes, because they´d suffer civil wars and/or rebellions for bloat effect. Right now in my HRE game they own ALL Eastern Europe, and all their provinces are cheerful and happy)

That is at the top of my "things to fix" list. I will be working on the starting royalties stats very soon. The further reduction of the number of provinces in early will also help, as will the addition of some stronger rebel provinces.

The massive trade bloat is also still an issue. Adding some deep sea regions is probably the only answer to this.

[The Unknown Guy]

(on that topic, even bearing in mind it´s a long term thing, if at all...)
Leon, Portugal, and Navarra I´d leave with default Spanish units (as with Aragon). Granada, I don´t really know. Andalusian Infantry is certainly a fitting unit, whereas Muratibin infantry and the like wouldn´t be. Maybe, akin to the proposal concerning Sicily, a mainly-muslim unit rooster with some heavy cavalry on catholic factions lines, to reflect both the adaptation of European military tactics, and the fact that many of the rulers of the Taifas kingdoms were native Iberian nobility gone muslim. I´m not profficient on the Granada dinasty, but I do know they were originally from the north.

As for shields, Portugal, Leon, and Navarra are easy to get. Granada I´m not profficient, as it´s current representation on the Spanish shield is a pomengranate (the çuestion is whether it was always so). And Cilicia, I have no idea. I just looked into wikipedia, the most unreliable source of information since the Yellow Press, and it says it was a standing Lion. In fact, it looks the same as the shield of Leon, only looking the other way

[ULC]

I've changed a few things in my mod that I would like to suggest.

#1: I've set my unit availabilty so that "Feudal" units are avaible in High, and Chivalric are available in Late. This eliminates the need for gothic units, which I have changed the names of and made german only. The ealry era is "the peasantry" era, and thus the most powerful units available are generally Militia Sergeants.

#2: I have changed the use of the town watch to be used in conjunction with the spearmaker, boywer, axesmith (which I'm having trouble with the pic, the background keeps turning up the supposedly transparent green), and swordsmith to create the "peasantry" units, the metalsmith and armourer have lost thier bonus and are now used as troop dependent buildings, for high attack and high defense/armor units respectivly(speaking of which; how does defense and armor factor in during battle exactly? Armor is for ranged, and defense is for melee, right?).

#3: The royal court line is now required for all "Knight" type units, and all factions can now build up to the highest level. Also, I have added requirements for "Bodyguards", including raising the requirements for the royal courts, as it used to be easy to get CFK at a low tech level.

#4: I have made Iron a tradeable item, and have mafe metalsmiths buildable everywhere. This reflects the fact that although good Iron sources were few, the material could still be traded.

#5: I have limited the production of faction specific only units to certian areas, but have made them buildable for any faction. Religion still plays a role, so no futuwwas or JHI for the Byz or Catholics, but okay for the Byz to have RK.

[Noir]

A few things just to explain myself:

1. All the input here on my account is suggestions and nothing more. There are no hooks neither strings attached nor any other sort of demand of the type "do this as i enjoy playing this way" from my part. I am simply providing feedback and ideas as i don't play the PM for pleasure, but for the sake of helping Cambyses II with it and i will do that as promised till the project is complete or abandoned. Please Martok & Cambyses II treat all my further posts here on this spirit ie discuss them further if interesting and disregard them without explaining more than a line if uninteresting/unfeasible.

I do understand that its a huge time waster and source of fustration having to argue for things that they are ultimately unfeasible or out of interest for the mod and having to "convince" the casual forumite that comes here and posts his daily opinion only, and yet having to do so with "reasonable" arguments, so feel free of this obligation in our interaction.

2. Relative to the warmaking level, my own experience with altering MedMod IV suggests the following:
a) Factions tend to go in still water financially with garrison troops.
b) There are more than one for each type of unit in each era so they go in inactivity with low tech/old units usually as the AI prefers them (due to being cheaper).
c) Constant (= about a battle per 10 turns on a particular front) border skirmishing of a certain degree alleviates that as the AI gets the chance to rid of its units and build the new ones.
d) This may be achieved by: incerasing the default rebeliousness from 0 to 2 for almost all provinces and tweaking the meintanance costs in order so that the AI can still garrisson effectively the more now rebelious provinces but still can get surplus forces to invade.
e) This works as AI factions fight without progressing in conquest - they simply get rid of a stack as the newly conquered province will rebel repeatedly and the AI stack will be lost most of the time and he will retreat. As a result the AI will build the new unts.
f) The above approach is best complemented with strict homelands to further prevent and punish gigantism and overexpansion. I have implemented and playtested that and it works as i describe.

In my first campaign i've played in the PM: French/Early/Hard the Italians were a pile of militias and cheap spearmen as they haven't fought a single battle in [U]60 turns (!)[/U]. When i atacked them in 1146 or so, they fell with only 2 extremely easy battles and no hope of re-making an army before i conquer them entirely eventually. Not "enough of warmaking" unfortunately i'm afraid.

The Italian AI was too busy teching up to the higher forts before building the military buildings and as this much like in vanilla takes ages and costs millions they cannot defend themselves before they finish all that building up, that is effectively before the late early era i guess.

Note also that i don't bum rush the AI never and i am roleplaying my games and enjoy peace for empire building etc. So the "classic" argument for total peace and total war is innaproriate relative to my suggestions, i feel, with all due respect Martok.

3. Relative to provinces: Historical accuracy in the mod as it stands is feasible only in the state of compromise in my view. Asking to respect it fully without more factions and without altering the map is sort of an impossibility as far as i can see.

The Byzantines as mentioned did held only 3 of the continental provinces (Greece, Thrace and Bulgaria) that they hold at the start of the early era excluding islands yet none of you finds that odd.

In my opinion to give reasonable starting points and home lands to factions so they play better in the course of the campaign is much more important rather than arguing who held what and when for a counterargument as why the Aragonese can't hold Toulouse or Navarre. All in all the Aragonese AI targets Toulouse or Navarre anyway as he has nowhere else to go and he can train units there (homeland). The Castilians and Almohads are too much for him so he has to build from somewehere. This will also help represent the more complex situation that existed in the Iberian rather than a black/white christian vs muslim war ie it will introduce the Aragonese as a power in the equation, which makes for more interesting political/military dealings.

Making it easier for the Danes to unite Scandinavia or even giving a second Scandinavian province to them, is way more reasonable from a "historical" persepective than them ending up in Burgundy or than the Russians conquering Sweaden.

4. Relative to rosters: What i mean Cambyses II is that the Byzantines for example don't need HAs and BC as in vanilla (haven't played with them yet in the PM) - they are the same type of unit in essence and one or the other is redundant. Conversely, the Catholics dont need spearmen and Sergeants - Hobilars and Mounted Sergeants in the same era; you can decide to give one unit of each type to certain factions and the other to certain others and so simplify the roster and so help the AI in the campaign and in battle (as you can work a style for him or the player that plays the faction after that point). You can group the factions as to who gets that spearman type and who gets that missile type etc also helping with distributing homelands.

All this can be done with existing units - at most a simple renaming will be required.

The AI will play better as the phenomenon of having lower tech units will reduce/dissapear = they will be only one unit per type the AI needs to build to fight effectively. Even if he is losing a war and makes a few units for a desperate defence they will provide a much better enjoyment/resistance than the bunch of UM and simple spearmen and archers that he is getting now when on the line financially.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I've changed a few things in my mod that I would like to suggest.

#1: I've set my unit availabilty so that "Feudal" units are avaible in High, and Chivalric are available in Late. This eliminates the need for gothic units, which I have changed the names of and made german only. The ealry era is "the peasantry" era, and thus the most powerful units available are generally Militia Sergeants.

I can see the sense in what you're doing there, though I would be uneasy about depriving the game of Feudal units in the early era. I have structured it presently so that Feudal units go out of date and are replaced by chivalric equivalent ones in the high era, to force the AI onto moving on to producing these unit types. Men at arms to Chivalric men at arms, Knights to Chivalric Knights, Sergeants to Chivalric Sergeants. The chivalric units then last for the last two eras.

#2: I have changed the use of the town watch to be used in conjunction with the spearmaker, boywer, axesmith (which I'm having trouble with the pic, the background keeps turning up the supposedly transparent green), and swordsmith to create the "peasantry" units, the metalsmith and armourer have lost thier bonus and are now used as troop dependent buildings, for high attack and high defense/armor units respectivly(speaking of which; how does defense and armor factor in during battle exactly? Armor is for ranged, and defense is for melee, right?).

Ensure you have the latest bif reader and which paint package are you using? Small black spots will always be an issue and you'll have to edit those out manually. The trick is to try and fil in with background space instead of leaving too many transparent "holes". It's these holes that seem to cause the problem when bif reader processes the file into a new bif. Personally I will not be implementing an Axesmith in the Pocket Mod, as that would mean me having to go down the fletcher, tanner, mason, camel breeder, halberd maker rout which I don't want to get into.

Armour is simply added to defence in battle. It is treated as a stat in that it causes units to perform poorly in the desert and is taken into account when on the receiving end of an armour piercing attack. All in all though it's the same thing as defence.

#3: The royal court line is now required for all "Knight" type units, and all factions can now build up to the highest level. Also, I have added requirements for "Bodyguards", including raising the requirements for the royal courts, as it used to be easy to get CFK at a low tech level.

By "knight type" are you including non catholics? If so then that would be ahistorical IMHO.

#4: I have made Iron a tradeable item, and have mafe metalsmiths buildable everywhere. This reflects the fact that although good Iron sources were few, the material could still be traded.

Expect to see uber upgraded units. Those factions with a poor economy - without the upgrades - will fall very fast.

#5: I have limited the production of faction specific only units to certian areas, but have made them buildable for any faction. Religion still plays a role, so no futuwwas or JHI for the Byz or Catholics, but okay for the Byz to have RK.

The Byzantine wouldn't have trained Royal Knights. Their bodyguards were Kataphraktoi type cavalry. Futuwwa are trainable by Egyptian and Turkish factions in the Pocket Mod but only in Syria.

[The Unknown Guy]

On the order of Calatrava: it appears that it would be slightly anachronistic as a "secular order", because althrough it indeed became so in time, it was not until the sixteenth century when it became fully secular.

I say "slightly" because, on the other hand, they did play a very significant role in the politics of the Kingdom of Castile during all the Reconçuista, becoming openly involved, and adding a significant manpower, in wars against muslim princes, other Spanish kingdoms, and succession wars, and besides, the King had a strong say in the appointing of the Grand Master (althrough "officially", it depended only on both a certain bishop and the pope).

My semi-mistake is due to a play I saw a while ago.

Addenum: apparently there WAS an earlier secular order in Castile, with the King as the Grand Master, the "Order of the Band", which was limited to the nobility, and placed a special emphasis in "chivalry, solidarity (whatever it meant), and loyalty to the king". And it was conveniently existant from around l304, and l474. So it would still be a little anachronistic in High (but just a little).
Either would do. Methinks that the Order of Calatrava is more famous, however.

[caravel]

Something I've just noticed... The Byzantine faction leader starts with +2 influence over all other factions which start with a standard, seemingly hardcoded, 4 influence regardless of era. This gives the Byzantine a distinct advantage over their rivals. They are exposed as cheats!!

I have reduced the start leader's command stars by 2 so far and this will hopefully make a difference. I have given Naples to the Sicilians and Anatolia and Nicaea to the Seljuks in the early era. Will reply to other comments tomorrow.

[The Unknown Guy]

Do they have any hardcoded non-decrease of Influence?
In my current HRE game I´ve noticed that every succession is followed by a decrease of influence (which makes sense), something I didn´t notice with the Byzantines, althrough that could have been because they already have an hyped influence, and I usually manage to, starting on High, get a stable border composed of Nicaea, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Greece, at the very least. This makes it very handy for getting influence for browbeating incoming enemy armies.


Oh, also: shouldn´t the germans get a special if Gothic Knights (and Milanese for others) become universal?
Or maybe Swabian Swordmen and the elective nature of the HRE (which effectively means that wars with them must be carried to the bitter end, as the royal line is a secundary concern)

[caravel]

(posts merged - please delete)

[caravel]

A few things just to explain myself:

1. All the input here on my account is suggestions and nothing more. There are no hooks neither strings attached nor any other sort of demand of the type "do this as i enjoy playing this way" from my part. I am simply providing feedback and ideas as i don't play the PM for pleasure, but for the sake of helping Cambyses II with it and i will do that as promised till the project is complete or abandoned. Please Martok & Cambyses II treat all my further posts here on this spirit ie discuss them further if interesting and disregard them without explaining more than a line if uninteresting/unfeasible.

I do understand that its a huge time waster and source of fustration having to argue for things that they are ultimately unfeasible or out of interest for the mod and having to "convince" the casual forumite that comes here and posts his daily opinion only, and yet having to do so with "reasonable" arguments, so feel free of this obligation in our interaction.

Well I for one and appreciating the input you are providing.

2. Relative to the warmaking level, my own experience with altering MedMod IV suggests the following:
a) Factions tend to go in still water financially with garrison troops.
b) There are more than one for each type of unit in each era so they go in inactivity with low tech/old units usually as the AI prefers them (due to being cheaper).
c) Constant (= about a battle per 10 turns on a particular front) border skirmishing of a certain degree alleviates that as the AI gets the chance to rid of its units and build the new ones.
d) This may be achieved by: incerasing the default rebeliousness from 0 to 2 for almost all provinces and tweaking the meintanance costs in order so that the AI can still garrisson effectively the more now rebelious provinces but still can get surplus forces to invade.
e) This works as AI factions fight without progressing in conquest - they simply get rid of a stack as the newly conquered province will rebel repeatedly and the AI stack will be lost most of the time and he will retreat. As a result the AI will build the new unts.
f) The above approach is best complemented with strict homelands to further prevent and punish gigantism and overexpansion. I have implemented and playtested that and it works as i describe.

a) Lots of cheap and poor quality troops do tend to bog the AI down and cripple it. your argument is that instead of giving the AI lots of poor quality troops give it 1 decent unit of every type per era that it can actually use. This does make sense though unfortunately it also makes for rather restrictive gameplay. Personally though I wouldn't miss units such as Spearmen or UM and I would definitely consider removing them. Taking Spear units as an example, currently there are a whole range of them available to catholics including Spearmen/Round Shield Spearmen, Armoured Spearmen, Feudal Sergeants and Chivalric Sergeants. I would advocate removing Spearmen altogether and converting them into a regional fuedal sergeant (known as simply "Sergeants" in this mod). That is I would structure it as follows:

Sergeants/Eastern European Infantry (mutually exclusive)

Sergeants: Western Catholic units represented by either the Feudal Sergeants info pic or the (square shield catholic) Spearmen info pic. The English and HRE could use the standard FS version and all other catholics could have the square shield one. All of these would be superceded and replaced by Chivalric Sergeants in the high era onwards.

<Eastern European Infantry>: Eastern Spearmen using either the Armoured Spearmen or (round shield catholic) info pic. The "armoured" variant could be exclusively a Danish and Novgorod version. The "round shielders" would be the Polish, Hungarian and Russian. These would last the whole 3 eras.

Alternatively it could be structured quite differently:

Sergeants/Eastern European Infantry (mutually exclusive)

Sergeants: Early Western Catholic units represented by the (square shield catholic) Spearmen info pic. High units would use the standard FS info pic, and Late using the Chivalric Sergeants. All of these units would be named "Sergeants". This would force the use of what is basically spearmen until the high era. Statistically they could be altered to give better morale, as at present they are not much good at anything except running.

<Eastern European Infantry>: Early Eastern Spearmen would use the Armoured Spearmen info pic, High and Late would switch to the standard round shield spearmen info pic (this is because the former looks antiquated and distinctly norse and is not really suited to the high and late eras). The Danes, Novgorod, Poles, Hungarians and Russians would use these types of infantry and not have access to sergeants. These would last the whole 3 eras.

Alternative suggestions welcome.

I would also advocate the 2 point increase to the default rebelliousness.

In my first campaign i've played in the PM: French/Early/Hard the Italians were a pile of militias and cheap spearmen as they haven't fought a single battle in [U]60 turns (!)[/U]. When i atacked them in 1146 or so, they fell with only 2 extremely easy battles and no hope of re-making an army before i conquer them entirely eventually. Not "enough of warmaking" unfortunately i'm afraid.

The Italian AI was too busy teching up to the higher forts before building the military buildings and as this much like in vanilla takes ages and costs millions they cannot defend themselves before they finish all that building up, that is effectively before the late early era i guess.

Note also that i don't bum rush the AI never and i am roleplaying my games and enjoy peace for empire building etc. So the "classic" argument for total peace and total war is innaproriate relative to my suggestions, i feel, with all due respect Martok.

This is why I'm trying to make building easier for the AI. So that if the AI wants to tech up to a certain unit it can do so easily and be in the position to train other units on the way. Making all of the weaponsmiths more easily available helps. The Italians have an extreme shortage of decent units in the early era anyway, except for Italian Infantry which I rarely see the AI training, and have an valour bonus for UM in Tuscany which means they'll develop those and start training many of them.

3. Relative to provinces: Historical accuracy in the mod as it stands is feasible only in the state of compromise in my view. Asking to respect it fully without more factions and without altering the map is sort of an impossibility as far as i can see.

As I've said before, more factions is a possibility in the future but I wish to lay a foundation before starting work on the furnishings. The map is another issue. Boundaries changed so frequently that no map can be accurate throughout 1087 to 1453 anyway, this is why I see changes to the map as secondary at the moment. The provinces are purely representational and if for example Lesser Armenia is far larger than Cilician Armenia that is purely cosmetic. The province is still in the same place, can be attacked by the same neighbours and has the same attributes. The difference is simply it's size and appearance on the map. Splitting and adding provinces is another matter, but there are not, IMHO, enough free "slots" to add the sufficient amount of extra provinces required to do it justice. Just botching in Mesopotamia or Murcia won't really help much.

The Byzantines as mentioned did held only 3 of the continental provinces (Greece, Thrace and Bulgaria) that they hold at the start of the early era excluding islands yet none of you finds that odd.

I have always found it odd, yet have not gotten around to altering it yet. Just because I haven't changed something it doesn't mean that I am not aware of it/ignoring it. It is basically because I am trying to do many other things in a limited amount of time as well as reading up on the subject.

It has now been finally altered and I have added Anatolia and Nicaea to the Turks. I will have to work on balancing the garrisons and adding basic fortifications and ports to the entire map. It bothers me that many provinces start entirely empty in the early era.

In my opinion to give reasonable starting points and home lands to factions so they play better in the course of the campaign is much more important rather than arguing who held what and when for a counterargument as why the Aragonese can't hold Toulouse or Navarre. All in all the Aragonese AI targets Toulouse or Navarre anyway as he has nowhere else to go and he can train units there (homeland). The Castilians and Almohads are too much for him so he has to build from somewehere. This will also help represent the more complex situation that existed in the Iberian rather than a black/white christian vs muslim war ie it will introduce the Aragonese as a power in the equation, which makes for more interesting political/military dealings.

You're quite correct, but historical boundaries have to be respected. The English will probably go for Scotland also, so why not have them start with Scotland. Give the Danes Sweden and Norway and give the Novgorod a good chunk of those rebel provinces? You see the argument "give them the provinces" can apply to any faction, the challenge is to get it working properly without resorting to this. I think the answer is to eventually add a Navarrese faction.

Making it easier for the Danes to unite Scandinavia or even giving a second Scandinavian province to them, is way more reasonable from a "historical" persepective than them ending up in Burgundy or than the Russians conquering Sweaden.

Not necessarily. By today's standards yes, but in those times where Normans ended up in Sicily, anything was possible under the right circumstances. The simple issue here is Sweden's rebelliousness. Reducing it will assist the Danes in holding it down. The other issue is that the Danes spam vikings, spawn bodyguards and then become crippled. Because you're playing an old version of the PoM you won't have the lower cost bodyguard units I'm working on at present. These cost little to support and so don't paralyse the economy. Aragon and Poland are benefiting greatly from this as are all other factions. The Danes are still the main problem. When testing for 200 years, I found that of all factions only the Danes still went into the red. I was quite pleased with the results.

4. Relative to rosters: What i mean Cambyses II is that the Byzantines for example don't need HAs and BC as in vanilla (haven't played with them yet in the PM) - they are the same type of unit in essence and one or the other is redundant. Conversely, the Catholics dont need spearmen and Sergeants - Hobilars and Mounted Sergeants in the same era; you can decide to give one unit of each type to certain factions and the other to certain others and so simplify the roster and so help the AI in the campaign and in battle (as you can work a style for him or the player that plays the faction after that point). You can group the factions as to who gets that spearman type and who gets that missile type etc also helping with distributing homelands.

All this can be done with existing units - at most a simple renaming will be required.

BC don't exist in the Pocket Mod. They have been replaced by the Pronoiarioi Kavallarioi Toxotai which are a version of Pronoiarioi Kavallarioi (Pr0n Cav) armed with bows. I agree though that the Byzantine don't really need the HAs and eliminating and restricting redundant units has been one of my priorities all along.

Hobilars and mounted Sergeants are another one. I feel that all factions with Sergeants should also have mounted Sergeants, thus Hobilars would seem somewhat redundant. Hobilars though were gaelic mercenaries and should have a place. It may be better to give the French and English Hobilars instead of mounted Sergeants.

The AI will play better as the phenomenon of having lower tech units will reduce/dissapear = they will be only one unit per type the AI needs to build to fight effectively. Even if he is losing a war and makes a few units for a desperate defence they will provide a much better enjoyment/resistance than the bunch of UM and simple spearmen and archers that he is getting now when on the line financially.

Many Thanks

Noir

I will look into all of this.

Do they have any hardcoded non-decrease of Influence?
In my current HRE game I&#180;ve noticed that every succession is followed by a decrease of influence (which makes sense), something I didn&#180;t notice with the Byzantines, althrough that could have been because they already have an hyped influence, and I usually manage to, starting on High, get a stable border composed of Nicaea, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Greece, at the very least. This makes it very handy for getting influence for browbeating incoming enemy armies.

There also appears to be a +1 command star bonus to the Byzantines, though I can't be 100% certain of this. I will check this out more thoroughly later this evening. I did notice that the first faction leader in the early period, faction leader 0, Alexius I IIRC, starts out as follows:

FAMOUS_KINGS::	FN_BYZANTINE	8
//name		no.	c	d	p	a	portrait	    vnv
6,		1,	4,	5,	4,	5,	-1,			defender2
0,		1,	2,	5,	3,	4,	-1,			lawman1
7,		1,	3,	5,	3,	3,	-1,			tyrant1
6,		5,	3,	3,	3,	3,	-1,			secretkiller3
5,		11,	3,	3,	3,	3,	-1,			tyrant1
3,		3,	2,	6,	4,	5,	-1,			builderking3
7,		2,	1,	3,	5,	1,	-1,			pious2
3,		6,	3,	4,	4,	5,	-1,			educated1

The first column indicates the name of the faction leader, no 6 "Alexius" in this case. The second is the number of times someone bearing his name has been king before (e.g. 1 = Alexius I, 2 = Alexius II etc). This is modified further in the setstartleader line in the startpos file. The third (c) is command, next is dread, then piety, acumen, special portrait and vnvs. Alexius starts with 4 command +2 command from the expert defender virtue to give a total of 6 command, except on the campaign map he clearly has no less than 7 command stars. Am I missing something here?

Reducing his command stars by 2 had the difference of reducing the stats of other starting units considerably. If I find no other way to fix this influence bonus I will have to reduce the command stars of all the Byzantine leaders considerably more.

As to whether their influence deprecates normally I can't be certain either. It may that they simply tend to win an awful lot which gives their leader the illusion of having unshakeable influence, who knows. All I know is that +2 influence is a killer and makes all the difference. It also gives the Byzantine better generals from the outset.

Oh, also: shouldn&#180;t the germans get a special if Gothic Knights (and Milanese for others) become universal?
Or maybe Swabian Swordmen and the elective nature of the HRE (which effectively means that wars with them must be carried to the bitter end, as the royal line is a secundary concern)

A valour bonus? This brings me again to the biggest issue with valour bonus regions, and that is the AI tendency to do nothing with the province except to build it up to produce the valour bonus unit. I'm reluctant to create more of them and have considered removing them and implementing them in another way perhaps. More use could be made of the ruler advantage column instead of the region advantage one. Certain factions would be able to produce those units cheaper, as they were famous for them. This is not as ideal as the regions but IMHO the regions simply don't work as the AI cannot handle them at all.

[Noir]

Originally Posted by Cambyses II
You're quite correct, but historical boundaries have to be respected. The English will probably go for Scotland also, so why not have them start with Scotland. Give the Danes Sweden and Norway and give the Novgorod a good chunk of those rebel provinces? You see the argument "give them the provinces" can apply to any faction, the challenge is to get it working properly without resorting to this. I think the answer is to eventually add a Navarrese faction.

I see where you are getting at, but IMO you are presenting the wrong example. The English do have a load of provinces and so they don't need to be "strengthened" with Scotland or Wales - their starting position is fine and so i dont propose that we "divert" from historical corectness for the sake of gameplay.

The Novgorodians have it easy also because of those rebel provinces - not to mention that being a generic "Russian" faction they should be representing the Kievans also that held three or four of those steppe rebel provinces in the south.

It is the Aragonese and Danes that suffer because of this. If having Toulouse the Aragonese AI may go for Vanecia or even better take it to the seas, I'd say that this is way more historical that it staying put for ages and not taking any part in the "Reconquista".

Of course you are the boss :)

Making the weaponsmiths easier to build is a good approach - also i would suggest that you treat their cost and building times - effectively the cost and building time the AI can churn out decent troops. The ones you have presented sound a bit high still to me - but remember that i haven't seen any playtest campaigns with the verson you are working on. In my experience the AI stubbornly goes on to complete them all - this is why he is building all the forts first (to guarantee their security) and then goes on to finish them till the last level before considering making anything else like for example economic buildings.

As for valor bonuses, as i said in another occasion, i would have them minimal or remove them entirely as they really hamper the AI's game in my experience - a substitute for them campaign-wise is to actually get certain units recruitable only in a single province.

Originally posted by Cambyses II
Lots of cheap and poor quality troops do tend to bog the AI down and cripple it. your argument is that instead of giving the AI lots of poor quality troops give it 1 decent unit of every type per era that it can actually use. This does make sense though unfortunately it also makes for rather restrictive gameplay.

If this means restrictive gameplay with having less than two or three units for a unit type (ie spears or missiles) i object it. Gameplay is actually improved for both the player and the AI if that single unit per role is decent per faction (and you can play around with that to create "styles" ie faction X may have strong infantry and decent cavalry while faction Y decent infantry and strong cavalry etc).

The tactical AI can greatly benefit by having available a single decent unit at every role as in vanilla is hampered by having 3,000 of each of very variable quality and his "choice" is often a function of his economic situation and that means that usually he goes for the cheaper. This is actually killing the gameplay in MTW as unlike STW the cmpaign can be won on the strategy map. The great "variety" of units benefits the player only - for the AI is definitely a great minus. Many of SP players play to play with this unit type or the other (Gothic Knights - so cool, Ah katanks so powerful, Lancers yeah!, JHI whoa! etc), however the point of the game is to play with tactics. I wouldn't play just to say "ah! Gothic knights are great, look how they charge and rout everyone" - that's not the point, every unit and every army should have a counter if played correctly and their strengths should be denied if one plays to their weaknesses - at least for me. The player shouldn't have infinite adaptability to rosters, circumstances, climates and terrains with just any faction. He should be playing with the strengths and weaknesses of his faction choice.

Battles in SWs mod for example that has the restricted roster of STW are extremely difficult and the player needs to shed a lot of effort into playing better to get anywhere in the campaign. You cannot win by simply swarming either, as profit is restricted. In MTW vanilla, you can win and lose simply by difference of strength most of the time. This is unacceptable for me, you should be playing with slightly less troops than the AI to get the best enjoyment in tactical terms in my opinion and with equal strength units overall (if you have better cavalry they have better infantry or missiles etc).

An equivalent for MTW would be to have a simplified roster for each era and for each faction and then make sure that all AI factions can have immediate access to them in the beginning of every era and that they cannot build their older units.

Many Thanks

Noir

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Hobilars though were gaelic mercenaries and should have a place.

That's a bit of a generalization. While it is true that they took the inspiration from light Irish horse, they would not have fought in the Gaelic manner, with no stirrups and using javelins. The Hobilar was mainly a term for light horsemen in English armies of the period. Hackney, Galloway or Bogtrotter horses would have been designated this term. There was also dismounted Hobilars, which probably would have been referred to as Welsh or Cornish foot during the HYW.

[caravel]

I see where you are getting at, but IMO you are presenting the wrong example. The English do have a load of provinces and so they don't need to be "strengthened" with Scotland or Wales - their starting position is fine and so i dont propose that we "divert" from historical corectness for the sake of gameplay.

Perhaps that was a bad example, but you are looking at it from a gameplay and tactics perspective, whereas I am trying to juggle gameplay, tactics and reasonable historical accuracy. My main point was that giving Navarre to the Aragonese in the early era would be like giving Scotland to the English, giving Egypt to the Seljuks or whatever - from an historical perspective.

The Novgorodians have it easy also because of those rebel provinces - not to mention that being a generic "Russian" faction they should be representing the Kievans also that held three or four of those steppe rebel provinces in the south.

The Novgorodians are something that I will be moving on to next. I personally don't much like the Russian/Novgorodian situation as it is. Surely in 1087 the Kievan Rus state would still have existed? It would have broken up in the early 13th century. Such a state is just a feasible as the HRE or any other feudal state. It seems that one Kievan Rus faction would be better in the early era and perhaps Novgorod as a faction and the other Kievan Principalities lumped into another faction for high and late?

It is the Aragonese and Danes that suffer because of this. If having Toulouse the Aragonese AI may go for Vanecia or even better take it to the seas, I'd say that this is way more historical that it staying put for ages and not taking any part in the "Reconquista".

Again I'm not sure about handing the Aragonese Toulouse, it seems ahistorical.

Making the weaponsmiths easier to build is a good approach - also i would suggest that you treat their cost and building times - effectively the cost and building time the AI can churn out decent troops. The ones you have presented sound a bit high still to me - but remember that i haven't seen any playtest campaigns with the verson you are working on. In my experience the AI stubbornly goes on to complete them all - this is why he is building all the forts first (to guarantee their security) and then goes on to finish them till the last level before considering making anything else like for example economic buildings.

2 years, 200 florins for the lowest doesn't seem high to me?

As for valor bonuses, as i said in another occasion, i would have them minimal or remove them entirely as they really hamper the AI's game in my experience - a substitute for them campaign-wise is to actually get certain units recruitable only in a single province.

I have homelands already, for most units and many units that are recruitable in just one or two provinces.

If this means restrictive gameplay with having less than two or three units for a unit type (ie spears or missiles) i object it. Gameplay is actually improved for both the player and the AI if that single unit per role is decent per faction (and you can play around with that to create "styles" ie faction X may have strong infantry and decent cavalry while faction Y decent infantry and strong cavalry etc).

The tactical AI can greatly benefit by having available a single decent unit at every role as in vanilla is hampered by having 3,000 of each of very variable quality and his "choice" is often a function of his economic situation and that means that usually he goes for the cheaper. This is actually killing the gameplay in MTW as unlike STW the cmpaign can be won on the strategy map. The great "variety" of units benefits the player only - for the AI is definitely a great minus. Many of SP players play to play with this unit type or the other (Gothic Knights - so cool, Ah katanks so powerful, Lancers yeah!, JHI whoa! etc), however the point of the game is to play with tactics. I wouldn't play just to say "ah! Gothic knights are great, look how they charge and rout everyone" - that's not the point, every unit and every army should have a counter if played correctly and their strengths should be denied if one plays to their weaknesses - at least for me. The player shouldn't have infinite adaptability to rosters, circumstances, climates and terrains with just any faction. He should be playing with the strengths and weaknesses of his faction choice.

Battles in SWs mod for example that has the restricted roster of STW are extremely difficult and the player needs to shed a lot of effort into playing better to get anywhere in the campaign. You cannot win by simply swarming either, as profit is restricted. In MTW vanilla, you can win and lose simply by difference of strength most of the time. This is unacceptable for me, you should be playing with slightly less troops than the AI to get the best enjoyment in tactical terms in my opinion and with equal strength units overall (if you have better cavalry they have better infantry or missiles etc).

An equivalent for MTW would be to have a simplified roster for each era and for each faction and then make sure that all AI factions can have immediate access to them in the beginning of every era and that they cannot build their older units.

The STW unit roster was indeed superior in this way. Any specific and practicable input on this would be good.

That's a bit of a generalization. While it is true that they took the inspiration from light Irish horse, they would not have fought in the Gaelic manner, with no stirrups and using javelins. The Hobilar was mainly a term for light horsemen in English armies of the period. Hackney, Galloway or Bogtrotter horses would have been designated this term. There was also dismounted Hobilars, which probably would have been referred to as Welsh or Cornish foot during the HYW.

Good to know, thanks.

[ULC]

I can see the sense in what you're doing there, though I would be uneasy about depriving the game of Feudal units in the early era. I have structured it presently so that Feudal units go out of date and are replaced by chivalric equivalent ones in the high era, to force the AI onto moving on to producing these unit types. Men at arms to Chivalric men at arms, Knights to Chivalric Knights, Sergeants to Chivalric Sergeants. The chivalric units then last for the last two eras.

I see what your getting at here. I mainly did it so that the player couldn't overrun the computer with the feudal units as the computer was still stuck with peasantry. This way, they are on a more equal (albiet forced) footing.

Ensure you have the latest bif reader and which paint package are you using? Small black spots will always be an issue and you'll have to edit those out manually. The trick is to try and fil in with background space instead of leaving too many transparent "holes". It's these holes that seem to cause the problem when bif reader processes the file into a new bif. Personally I will not be implementing an Axesmith in the Pocket Mod, as that would mean me having to go down the fletcher, tanner, mason, camel breeder, halberd maker rout which I don't want to get into.

I am presently using a rather jury rigged setup that involves bif reader, paint shop pro, and purpgrab. There are no "holes", just the green background isn't transparent, which I believe has something to do with the bif reader.

I use the axesmith as a catch all for "axe like weapons - polearms included. I reasoned it didn't make sense to have the Varangian Guard use a "spearmaker" when they are an axe unit.

By "knight type" are you including non catholics? If so then that would be ahistorical IMHO.

Sorry, I was being a bit too general there. What I meant was any "royalty" or "nobility". This includes Kataphractoi, Ghulam Bodyguards, and Royal Knights, Varangian Guard, etc.

Expect to see uber upgraded units. Those factions with a poor economy - without the upgrades - will fall very fast.

Iron is just a rather High income trade good now. Metalsmiths and armourers are now required to "make" the powerful units, such as Chivalric Knights, and no longer provide any bonus to attack, defense, or armor.

The Byzantine wouldn't have trained Royal Knights. Their bodyguards were Kataphraktoi type cavalry. Futuwwa are trainable by Egyptian and Turkish factions in the Pocket Mod but only in Syria.

I understand that. The Byzantines can train them only as normal units, to reflect that the catholics wouldn't quite be "Byzantine". They would continue to hold on to their past. At least thats the way I imagine it. Plus, it reflects the fact that you could't just walk into a islamic province and start training say, Byzantine infantry. I also believe that it could represent a form of changing military, allowing all faction to become more adaptable to changing warfare/climate/enemy. The other driving force behind it was the fact that people don't just move across the border when a faction is defeated; many stay, and could be recruited.

[Innocentius]

May I just make one quick remark on the landbridges between Denmark-Sweden and Sweden-Finland?

I've already earlier in the first thread about this mod questioned the existance of a landbridge between Sweden-Finland as I find highly unrealistic and ahistorical. Indeed the Baltic was not a theatre of great naval warfare until the early modern era and the 16th century, but it was still impossible to transport troops between Sweden and Finland for the kings of Sweden unless they had a sufficient navy to do so.

The landbridge between Denmark-Sweden is even more inaccurate. Yes, Öresund isn't very wide but naval control of these waters was still vital to the kings of Denmark during the medieval period, and in the 17th century, when the Danish had lost control of the eastern part of the strait (Scania) naval battles here were frequent to decide who should be able to obtain the Sound Dues (established in 1429, but dues obtained by the Danish existed earlier).

[Noir]

Originally posted by Cambyses II
Perhaps that was a bad example, but you are looking at it from a gameplay and tactics perspective, whereas I am trying to juggle gameplay, tactics and reasonable historical accuracy. My main point was that giving Navarre to the Aragonese in the early era would be like giving Scotland to the English, giving Egypt to the Seljuks or whatever - from an historical perspective.

I see the point, however what i tried to convey is that i would not wish to change anything that matches gameplay and historical accuracy - if something however would work in the campaign better for a slight sacrifice in historical accuracy (not gross errors) then i would go for it. I would repeat the example that all of us were playing with the Byzantines occupying Anatolia, Nicaea and Naples at the beginning of the early era which is similarly ahistorical and i am glad that you've changed it as it will help the Seljuks and the Sicilians as well.

You are the boss in any case :)

Originally posted by Cambyses II
2 years, 200 florins for the lowest doesn't seem high to me?

Yes, however if that increases to 4, 6 and 8 turns for the subsequent upgraded versions it gives a 4+6+8 = 18 turns wait for the AI to finish and start "considering" economic buildings. That is 18 turns per military building. In order to finish them all he would need say 5x18 = 90 turns for a single province. Not to mention that the time and cost for upgrading the fortresses is also added (another 18+ turns possibly with all the delays that the AI would make to actually find the money), not to mention any delays due to attacks/sieges/loss of province etc etc.

This brings up a total of i would say roughly 100+ turns before the AI accounts for his economy in most cases as he goes on to complete his military buildings before he builds anything else most of the time. During all those turns he has to defend himself with what he's got and that's why i'm saying that simplifying the rosters would help alot. You won't be getting chore battles with any faction even if they are not at the increase financially.
100+ turns of wait to develop the economy means that he is probably cornered and bankrupt, or swollowed by that time in vanilla at least apart from a couple of superfactions and the player.

This also explains why the AI gets most of his income by occupying land and why he is so desperate to expand rather than keep the expansion-turtle&upgrade process that the player does. Its simply because his building queu is dominated by military buildings alone until he more or less completes them and to myunderstanding this is hardcoded in order for the AI factions to keep up with the player in bulding the new units as i explained in the AI psychology thread.

Last but not least the Kievan/Novgorodian idea is certainly better than how things stand at the moment.

Again i am saying that i haven't played the version you are working on and i dont have a clue how it works overall. All the above is just speculation.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I see what your getting at here. I mainly did it so that the player couldn't overrun the computer with the feudal units as the computer was still stuck with peasantry. This way, they are on a more equal (albiet forced) footing.

I can see the sense in it, as I've said before, and i think it could work if vanilla spears were uprated to lower class Sergeants to fit the early era (see my post above on this).

I am presently using a rather jury rigged setup that involves bif reader, paint shop pro, and purpgrab. There are no "holes", just the green background isn't transparent, which I believe has something to do with the bif reader.

Everyone uses the same array of unsuitable tools so you're not alone. I'm not sure what could be causing your problem as I've done very little bif editing and creation for months now. It may be that you don't have the latest version of the bif reader. Version 23C is the latest I believe?

I use the axesmith as a catch all for "axe like weapons - polearms included. I reasoned it didn't make sense to have the Varangian Guard use a "spearmaker" when they are an axe unit.

Personally I would use the Swordsmith for this. The Spearmaker is simply representative of a pole turners', he would need the services/use of a forge to make spearheads. I would say that battle axe, pike and polearm units could rely on both the Spearmaker and Swordsmith. An "Axesmith" is a fantasy building in that Axesmiths didn't exist as pure axe makers. Axe heads would be forged, ground and hafted by a blacksmith, as axes were chiefly a work tool taken up as arms in times of war.

Sorry, I was being a bit too general there. What I meant was any "royalty" or "nobility". This includes Kataphractoi, Ghulam Bodyguards, and Royal Knights, Varangian Guard, etc.

I have the Bodyguard units all depending on the Royal Palace only. The way I see it is that the Palace incorporates the court anyway. The Royal Court building I have as one of the prerequisites for Feudal Knights.

Iron is just a rather High income trade good now. Metalsmiths and armourers are now required to "make" the powerful units, such as Chivalric Knights, and no longer provide any bonus to attack, defense, or armor.

That is probably the best way to do it, though I would just scrap metalsmiths altogether, unless they could be renamed as "Blacksmiths" and used as a prerequisite for all cavalry (shoes, bits, stirrups, spurs etc - the blacksmith was absolutely vital to most cavalry), and axe / polearm units?

I understand that. The Byzantines can train them only as normal units, to reflect that the catholics wouldn't quite be "Byzantine". They would continue to hold on to their past. At least thats the way I imagine it. Plus, it reflects the fact that you could't just walk into a islamic province and start training say, Byzantine infantry. I also believe that it could represent a form of changing military, allowing all faction to become more adaptable to changing warfare/climate/enemy. The other driving force behind it was the fact that people don't just move across the border when a faction is defeated; many stay, and could be recruited.

May I just make one quick remark on the landbridges between Denmark-Sweden and Sweden-Finland?

I've already earlier in the first thread about this mod questioned the existance of a landbridge between Sweden-Finland as I find highly unrealistic and ahistorical. Indeed the Baltic was not a theatre of great naval warfare until the early modern era and the 16th century, but it was still impossible to transport troops between Sweden and Finland for the kings of Sweden unless they had a sufficient navy to do so.

The problem is that in order to do this, we have to start questioning other Landbridges, and to remove all of those effectively cuts the Danes off from Sweden and Norway. If they do conquer them and then send their ships elsewhere you get the cut off effect and the provinces will rebel instantly.

The landbridge between Denmark-Sweden is even more inaccurate. Yes, &#214;resund isn't very wide but naval control of these waters was still vital to the kings of Denmark during the medieval period, and in the 17th century, when the Danish had lost control of the eastern part of the strait (Scania) naval battles here were frequent to decide who should be able to obtain the Sound Dues (established in 1429, but dues obtained by the Danish existed earlier).

Vital yes but not a wide channel as far as channels go. Inland rivers and mountain ranges were also vital but provinces between these are linked directly.

[caravel]

I see the point, however what i tried to convey is that i would not wish to change anything that matches gameplay and historical accuracy - if something however would work in the campaign better for a slight sacrifice in historical accuracy (not gross errors) then i would go for it. I would repeat the example that all of us were playing with the Byzantines occupying Anatolia, Nicaea and Naples at the beginning of the early era which is similarly ahistorical and i am glad that you've changed it as it will help the Seljuks and the Sicilians as well.

Yes, however if that increases to 4, 6 and 8 turns for the subsequent upgraded versions it gives a 4+6+8 = 18 turns wait for the AI to finish and start "considering" economic buildings. That is 18 turns per military building. In order to finish them all he would need say 5x18 = 90 turns for a single province. Not to mention that the time and cost for upgrading the fortresses is also added (another 18+ turns possibly with all the delays that the AI would make to actually find the money), not to mention any delays due to attacks/sieges/loss of province etc etc.

This brings up a total of i would say roughly 100+ turns before the AI accounts for his economy in most cases as he goes on to complete his military buildings before he builds anything else most of the time. During all those turns he has to defend himself with what he's got and that's why i'm saying that simplifying the rosters would help alot. You won't be getting chore battles with any faction even if they are not at the increase financially.
100+ turns of wait to develop the economy means that he is probably cornered and bankrupt, or swollowed by that time in vanilla at least apart from a couple of superfactions and the player.

This also explains why the AI gets most of his income by occupying land and why he is so desperate to expand rather than keep the expansion-turtle&upgrade process that the player does. Its simply because his building queu is dominated by military buildings alone until he more or less completes them and to myunderstanding this is hardcoded in order for the AI factions to keep up with the player in bulding the new units as i explained in the AI psychology thread.

So which is the major issue here, time or money? Or perhaps both? Do military buildings need to increase in cost but not in time? In fact should they function as "upgrades" should. That is should the first building cost e.g. 500 and each subsequent upgrade 200? After all one is adding on to, or otherwise improving, the existing building and not rebuilding it entirely. Perhaps 4 years for the first building and 2 years at 200 for each upgrade? That would be only an additional 6 years and 600 florins to complete the workshop, guild and master levels. The issue here is that the AI would get to the +1 valour bonus at master level rather quickly...

Last but not least the Kievan/Novgorodian idea is certainly better than how things stand at the moment.

Again i am saying that i haven't played the version you are working on and i dont have a clue how it works overall. All the above is just speculation.

Many Thanks

Noir

I can see no other solution at present apart from that. Extra factions are probably needed.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Cambyses II
So which is the major issue here, time or money? Or perhaps both? Do military buildings need to increase in cost but not in time? In fact should they function as "upgrades" should. That is should the first building cost e.g. 500 and each subsequent upgrade 200? After all one is adding on to, or otherwise improving, the existing building and not rebuilding it entirely. Perhaps 4 years for the first building and 2 years at 200 for each upgrade? That would be only an additional 6 years and 600 florins to complete the workshop, guild and master levels. The issue here is that the AI would get to the +1 valour bonus at master level rather quickly...

I think they need to decrease both - as you've said they are both the issue and also consider as to their dependency relative to the forts; the AI will go and build the citadel before doing merchants and the higher farms most of the time.

In the MedMod IV, at about 120 turns in the camaign the map was swarmed with Fortresses but not with 40% and 60% farms or secondlevel merchants at all. The AI was suiciding financially to build all the military buildings.

So what i did was take out the dependncy for all the higher level military buildings (4 and 5) and reduced it to the third level castle and standasdise the build times and costs to 4 turns and 400flrns and it worked very well that way: the AI was finishing all the military buildings within max 25 turns and then hit it with merchants and farms.

This also helps the AI to get the units of each era right away, even if there is a lot of pillaging because he can rebuild them cheaply and quickly.

Many Thanks

Noir

[caravel]

Well it can only be tested to see what the AI makes of it.

[ULC]

Just a suggestion, but is it possible to limit certain buildings being built in certain eras? This might alleviate the "build to fortress syndrome", which may also explain why Byzantium can become such a super power, considering Constantinople is already half way there.

[Innocentius]

Vital yes but not a wide channel as far as channels go. Inland rivers and mountain ranges were also vital but provinces between these are linked directly.

The main difference being you don't need to have naval superiority to defend and control a mountain range

[Noir]

For my part, i'm all for cutting off landbridges but only in cases where the cut off area can produce enough income for a faction isolated there to get back into the game.

In that respect islands arejust death traps for factions and this is unnacceptable. In my home mod of MedMod IV i've connected them all to the mainland getting rid of the phenomena of bankrupted Byzantines in Cyprus with 3000000 katafractoi Princes.

In that respect cutting off England works well, as a dominant faction there can return after a number of turns to being competitive in the game.

Posted by YourLandandConqueror
Just a suggestion, but is it possible to limit certain buildings being built in certain eras? This might alleviate the "build to fortress syndrome", which may also explain why Byzantium can become such a super power, considering Constantinople is already half way there.

Not that i know of, but it would be a one off solution to this problem as you suggest. Indeed the problem is that the AI won't stop building military buildings until they are complete and having access to all of the tech tree from the early era he does so.

As for Constantinople having an advantage well, that's another reason why i connected all military buildings to the 3rd level castle. Nobody gets any advantage other than the University, the higher Gunpoweder buildings and the Cathedral and Military Academic + the fortification. Most of these come very late in the campaign though so the others have time to catch up, not to mention the possibility that Constantinople is... sacked!

The Ai responded well in the change i saw the first fortresses over 180+ turns in the campaign.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Noir]

A side note for Cambyses II:

It won't be an issue if the AI gets to +1 valor bonus quickly for two reasons:
1. Everyone will be getting as fast there (the player included) and actually with much less lag than in vanilla.

2. You can remove the +1 valor bonus altogether.

There's nothing better in TW than building up veteran units and paying attention to how and whom of your generals are performing in battle.

All this was strangled by the "deep" campaign tech-tree in MTW, disregarding completely how the AI does things and destroying his game on the battles and the strategic map at the process. As i said in another occasion its simply bad design. It was the first but decisive step towards shaping TW into a conventional RTS and of course boosting sales.

At least in those days they weren't making "leaked" patches and subsequently polls (!) to "how many are satisfied with it" (!!). What a shame!

Many Thanks

Noir

[ULC]

Update on the "peasantry" era I am trying in my mod. It seems the Byzantines and Turkish have quite the advantage, as Byzantine has few quality competitors for its units, and the Turkish still have to many archery units, which go from very poor in combat to decent with my mod. Of course, once the clock hits 1205, everything changes, with the catholics getting a more even footing. By 1321, Byzantium is gone, the Turks are in power and fighting off the Egyptians and Hungarians, and suprisingly enough, the HRE is still alive and kicking. I am going to play through a couple of times, to see what happens, but everything is going quite well. Oh, sorry if this seems off topic, but I wanted to inform Cambyses II on how the changes went, so he can decide if you wants to consider them.

[caravel]

The main difference being you don't need to have naval superiority to defend and control a mountain range

I believe you may be missing the point here. Natural defences are natural defences. I perfectly understand your ideas of naval control cutting off islands, the problem is that this has absolutely no strategic value in the game itself. Cutting off Crete for example does nothing other than causing possible Byzantine faction reappearances on the island. It also turns it into a worthless backwater that once protected by fleets will never be under threat again. The same goes for Ireland. Totally isolated and often untouched by the AI until the English go there. I have seen a full scale English reappearance on Ireland alone. Without a port and financially crippled supporting a huge army, they are effectively dead. The same goes for the effective two province Island (an island in game terms) of Sardinia/Corsica. The Italians can reappear here, or even the Sicilians, when they do, it's often game over for them - they're trapped there. Your proposal of turning Norway/Sweden into a similar two province island would have much the same results. With no decent income apart from that which is gained from trade, useless if you've no ships and no port, they would be another death trap to reappearing factions. Having the link from Finland to Sweden is logical as those regions are linked by land - they are not islands. Yes the land route is not the most pleasant of journeys nor the preferred route (you will find that sea was often the preferred mode of transport for men and provisions - not just in Scandinavia), nor the most practical, though neither the is the land route through Arabia, Syria and Edessa to get to Rum. A faction cannot find support in those two provinces alone as one can in Britain, so why isolate it?

I dislike landbridges as much as the next man, though I have come to terms with the fact that in this game they are a necessary evil. I played the game with all land bridges modded out for almost a year. I witnessed the usual trapped factions and crusades all heading along the same route through Constantinople. The sad fact is that the AI shipping cannot be relied for this, and that land bridges are unavoidable. The only landbridge that can be removed is the one from Flanders to Wessex, and this is only because the British Isles can provide reasonable support for a faction. Other islands simply cannot.

It is obvious to me that more land bridges are needed and that ships alone should never be relied upon as a means of reaching any part of the map. The ships are there to protect the coasts from seaborne invasions, provide long distance transport and to prop up a global trade infrastructure, they are not portable landbridges. The AI has no clue as to how to utilise them in this capacity, and the player should not be able to exploit this.

[caravel]

The only way to restrict buildings to provinces is to bind those buildings to a resource (as with mines).

As for Constantinople having an advantage well, that's another reason why i connected all military buildings to the 3rd level castle. Nobody gets any advantage other than the University, the higher Gunpoweder buildings and the Cathedral and Military Academic + the fortification. Most of these come very late in the campaign though so the others have time to catch up, not to mention the possibility that Constantinople is... sacked!

The Ai responded well in the change i saw the first fortresses over 180+ turns in the campaign.

Many Thanks

Noir

When you say, bound to the 3rd level castle, are you referring to allowing all levels of smiths, militias and horse breeders to be built at that level? This sounds feasible. If so what would be the distribution? I intend to stick with the castle structure I have currently with the fort as the basic garrison building for holding down the province while the keep is being built. Perhaps the first two military building levels at Keep level and the last two at Castle level?

Update on the "peasantry" era I am trying in my mod. It seems the Byzantines and Turkish have quite the advantage, as Byzantine has few quality competitors for its units, and the Turkish still have to many archery units, which go from very poor in combat to decent with my mod. Of course, once the clock hits 1205, everything changes, with the catholics getting a more even footing. By 1321, Byzantium is gone, the Turks are in power and fighting off the Egyptians and Hungarians, and suprisingly enough, the HRE is still alive and kicking. I am going to play through a couple of times, to see what happens, but everything is going quite well. Oh, sorry if this seems off topic, but I wanted to inform Cambyses II on how the changes went, so he can decide if you wants to consider them.

I am certainly considering them, though I would have to make a lot of changes to the unit roster as I had detailed in an earlier post. The spear units in particular would need an overhaul, as would UM/MS. The militia buildings are another point I'm still not happy with. I have removed militias and the militia buildings, except the first, from the Byzantine, Turks and Egyptians as they are simply wrong. The Almohads still have both to try and represent the Andalusian soldiery, which they vaguely resemble (they certainly don't resemble anything else either Turkish, Egpytian or Moorish that I know of, though this is still far from the perfect solution. The rest of the UMs would then need to be doled out among the catholics in an era specific fashion. The UM as Early Urban Militia and the MS as High/Late Urban Militia perhaps? Feudal men at arms I consider as already done as they're early only. Chivalric would be high/late.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Cambyses II
When you say, bound to the 3rd level castle, are you referring to allowing all levels of smiths, militias and horse breeders to be built at that level? This sounds feasible. If so what would be the distribution? I intend to stick with the castle structure I have currently with the fort as the basic garrison building for holding down the province while the keep is being built. Perhaps the first two military building levels at Keep level and the last two at Castle level?

Yes, this is exactly what i did.

The distribution is up to you; the main differentiating point is the cost and build time of forts 2 and 3 (Keep & Castle). The other factor is how many of these military buildings need to be combined for each unit.

For example more professional units such as the Byzantines', would require a larger number of buildings to become available for training while more "amateur" units such as the Turkish in early may be more easily available.

Many thanks

Noir

[caravel]

I've been looking into the Kievan Rus provinces for the early period and as far as I can tell they would be occupying most of the east including Pereyaslavl, Cherginov, Smolensk, western Muscovy, southern Lithuania, northern Kiev, Ryazan, Volhynia and Novgorod. They would not be in control of Khazar, Livonia, Moldavia, Volga Bulgaria, or Crimea from what I have seen so far. The problem arises with provinces where there is clearly only partial control, though the Rus were in control of the capitals of these provinces. I am tempted to add only Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Cherginov and Smolensk, though I'll need to look into this more.