Nerfing Bakria- and assorted campaign suggestions

[Imperator]

Well, the title kinda says it all- in a lot of games we see Baktria taking over the East from Mesopotamia to India within 50 years, so I think they need to be seriously nerfed- and fast.

Besides that I noticed a few other tiny tweaks that do a lot to improve the campaign balance and overall performance:
1)Baktria nerfed (previously stated)

2) Greece re-balanced- Macedon in a more fragile state (what with Pyrrhos and all) and same with the Koinon Hellenon (it's a loose alliance of otherwise bitterly devided cities, how uber can it be? But TA mentioned that it would be fixed in upcoming patch, so the team must already have that one figured out...

3) slow down growth rates- I've suggested that before and in my games I reduce all the base growth rates by a LOT (the highest is 3 or 4 as opposed to 8 or 9) and it seems like cities grow slower (duh) so the map isn't dominated by Large cities by 250 BC and backwater Celtic towns aren't massive, urban, metropolises within decades- save that for vanilla. I haven't seen its affect on the long-term campaign- maybe I'll post a save-game later.

4) Beef up Nomads, including Parthia- I'm sure it's already a team priority so it's a little like suggestion #2 but I wonder if that includes Parthia. I know the team doesn't believe in forcing the AI progression to mirror that of real history but then I can't help but wish that Parthia would expand every now and then, of all the factions they are among the most stagnant in a lot of my games.

just a few suggestions, and hopefully I'll get some useful feedback from other fans and the team!

[Tellos Athenaios]

About the Nomads: in my current campaign the Sauromatae are doing a splendid job - no needing there.
The Parthians didn't really do a thing, but I anihilated them pretty early on so maybe I'm not the one to judge.
The Hayasdan need some adjustment too. Placing their armies conviently next to an Eleutheroi town might be just fine.The Saka need some support too - so far only Bin Kath has been added to their realm.
Other factions
Pontus expands into Sinope area, and then quits campaigning till I conquer Anatolia and Phrygia (playing as AS); but then again I have removed faction early on, so perhaps it's all a matter of time.
The Romani are going so fast! By 261 BC, they'd pushed all the way north to the Southern Germany/Northern Swiss regions.
The Sweboz need some support, they haven't yet conquered a single region.
I haven't seen Baktria taking off on their own, it basically just sits there and keeps quiet...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

About Hellas itself in next patch: Yeah, we made some changes. And we definitely like what we have now better than what we had in 0.80. Does that mean we'll stick to it? Probably not. We want to keep tweaking things and if AI progression turns out to stink we might have to try some other things. Plus we really don't have all the factions' starting city development levelled out yet. That will come a little later too. Some factions' FC's pushed for more stuff in their starting cities and it hasn't been subjected to a mod-wide levelling in quite a while, so we probably need to do that a little (Romans would be high on the list I think of ones that need a little toning down).

As for Baktria, let's see how the mining changes affect things. We will do further resource and mining changes too, but it might affect things in a good way. I would highly recommend everyone picking this topic up again when the patch comes out - but we have moved on and made some changes here for the next one, so we won't be looking at 0.80 itself as much as soon as we can release the patch.

Sweboz will definitely get some help. Casse will too when their port problem is fixed (500 mnai a turn difference I've been told).

Pontos needs better units all around - their own. We will be working on this when our unit directors show back up again. Vacation and some health problems made us slam into a brick wall on this matter about a week ago.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

1- I have come to hate Baktria so very much (because of their expansion). I wish they would be nerfed so much that it was suprizing if they were aroundi in 250BC.

3- Second. Many cities didn't change in size for hundreds of years. And if there is a city like Sardis that has been around for centuries, why did it suddenly have a population boom in 272 and increase in size 10fold within fifty years (as well as its insignifigate, poor neighbor city)?

As for beefing up some nations, I like the way that some nations are right now. Casse, Armenia, Pontus, Lusatani, and Sweboz never built huge nations so that means they're balanced... ? Though I do wish that one day I could fight a huge Persian (Parthian) empire.

[MSB]

In my opinion Baktria should be gone at the start, they didn't exist until the 250sBC, but rebels in that region should take up the old Baktrian banner when they rebel. I think, instead, that the faction slot should be taken up by an Indeo-Greek Faction further east than Baktria. It's a little a-historical having a Baktrian Statrap at the start - those provinces were under Seleucid control.

[Lucasiewicz]

but rebels in that region should take up the old Baktrian banner when they rebel.

Is that even possible? If so, you would still have to save a faction slot for them, not?

[Thaatu]

1.) If it was possible then Baktria, Parthia and Armenia would be Seleukid protectorates in the beginning of the game, but I guess it's not. I'm hoping that alliances between these factions would last a bit longer than 2 turn from the start. Now either the client faction attacks seleukids or seleukids attack the client faction in the first 5 years...

2.) Growth rates go
...and I mean WAY down. Another thing that contributes to the baby boom of 272BC (besides the base growth) is governer traits. With retinues and good education I managed to get a governer who gives 6% bonus to growth rate... just what I've always wanted (now how do I get rid of him! ).

3.) Nerf Ptolemies a little. I was playing as Baktria and tried to interfere as little as possible with Seleukids, but they still got steamrolled by Ptolies, though not as fast. Weren't Seleukids winning the Syrian wars, so they should be the ones to eventually steamroll Ptolies (without Roman intervention).

4.) 70% of wealth for Baktria comes from mines, so if there's going to be some mine nerfs it's going to affect Baktria greatly. Maybe that's the key...

5.) Parthia... I don't like the idea of Parthian expansion in the early game. All I hope is they stay alive to the middle game and then start by conquering rebelling Seleukid provinces, which leads me to number six...

6.) Find a way to disable the AI "feature" of changing capitals. Its effects are most notable in the east Seleukid realm, because those provinces won't rebel anymore once the AI switch their capital to Susa or beyond.

7.) Roman expansion...

8.) I know I had something else... damn, it got away. Well that's it then...

[Dumbass]

What's the state of Sabyn like in the patch? They are soo fun to play, but it's annoying they don't have as much depth or units.

[-Praetor-]

Roman expansion is weird.

They go against cisalpine gaul in force, but leave Tarentum and Sicily alone.

Eventually, Epeiros starts to take Arpi, Capua and eventually Rome itself...

It`s weird. IMO, Rome should first go after Tarentum and Rhegion, and also after Sicily, and then go after Bononia and such...

Cheers!!!

[blank]

Maybe another thing to change:
two Epeirote settlements are ''towns''. Their capital is a village? A bit odd, ain't it? Maybe it should be changed to at least ''large town''

[Zastrow]

Problem with Epeiros is it starts with elephants so its automatically in the RED, so the AI gets force fed incredible amounts of gold, while Rome and Macedonia aren't, or at least not as much. Hence Epeiros usually ends up smacking either one of them up, and I think Epeiros' strength in Italy stunts Roman southern expansion. Perhaps tone down Epeiros' garrison strength in Italy.

[-Praetor-]

Or perhaps adding some more agents for rome in southern italy, in order to encourage their expansion southwards, and some epeirote agents in rome, in order to create some tension.

Perhaps...

[keravnos]

First of all, in so far as Baktria is concerned, I would wait until the patch comes out to fix a lot of outstanding problems. EB should be HARD, even on easy.

However to set the record straight.

1. By 180 BC Independent Baktria had conquered 1/3 of modern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyztan and Tadjikistan and a big chunk of uzbekistan, turkmenistan. So, they WERE a superpower at that time.

2. They DID have a lot of gold/cash to go around. Just google Bactrian Gold

[MSB]

Is that even possible? If so, you would still have to save a faction slot for them, not?

Not - EB has found a way of giving different rebels in different regions different banners. They are all, however, still under the rebel faction slot and have the same diplomacy, same turn etc.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The difference in rebel faction banners is based on the founding faction of that region. If Baktria were to rebel from Seleucia and be a rebel with Baktrian banners, then all territories owned by Seleucia at the beginning(with exception of a couple near Parthia and a couple in AsiaMinor) that rebel from anybody would have the Baktrian banner.

Too little is historically known about Baktria.

Either way strong or weak, Baktria shouldn't stand a chance against a Persia established Parthia.

[Thaatu]

Problem with Epeiros is it starts with elephants so its automatically in the RED, so the AI gets force fed incredible amounts of gold, while Rome and Macedonia aren't, or at least not as much. Hence Epeiros usually ends up smacking either one of them up, and I think Epeiros' strength in Italy stunts Roman southern expansion. Perhaps tone down Epeiros' garrison strength in Italy.

I've always wondered about this. Why do they have a huge upkeep? Isn't it enough for balance purpose to have just a huge recruitment cost? Especially since a unit of indian elephants with 32 men have only 12 elephants. I can't grasp the idea of 12 elephants demanding more food/entertainment/salary than 1000 foot companions. Unless they only eat curry flavoured food...

[MiniMe]

I've always wondered about this. Why do they have a huge upkeep? Isn't it enough for balance purpose to have just a huge recruitment cost? Especially since a unit of indian elephants with 32 men have only 12 elephants. I can't grasp the idea of 12 elephants demanding more food/entertainment/salary than 1000 foot companions. Unless they only eat curry flavoured food...

I've heard somewhere that average indian elephant consumes about one hundred and fifty kilos of different stuff per day =)

[Tellos Athenaios]

In my campaign Roma didn't had any trouble at all kicking Epeiros out. They've declared a ceasefire now Epeiros has been so long out of Italy. The Romans actually have taken everything in modern Italy save Sardinia, Syrakousai, and Lilybaeum (you don't mind if I call it by it's Vanilla name... I hope). Plus: they have pushed right through modern Swiss, and they are currently busy expanding into Southern Germany and Austria.

Epeiros, on the other hand, has managed to take Dalminion so far - and that's it. Epeiros actually doesn't even throw a Koinon army, standing there for ages, off their lands! IMO Epeiros is rather weak all round. Especially for what it was like in 272 BC. - the strongest kingdom in all of Greece, supposed to become the next uniting force in Greek history: one that was expected to back it's claim to the Makedonian throne, and to hegemonia over all of Greece with succes. And it doesn't even finish off three standing units, units belonging to one of their enemies, when it has got a full stack army of it's own around! (Okay, that's an AI flaw, but still it pictures the current 'attitude' of the Epeirote faction: I'm not at home, please come back later.)

I just hope my experience was an exception, but otherwise: help Epeiros out!!! Please?

[Tellos Athenaios]

I've always wondered about this. Why do they have a huge upkeep? Isn't it enough for balance purpose to have just a huge recruitment cost? Especially since a unit of indian elephants with 32 men have only 12 elephants. I can't grasp the idea of 12 elephants demanding more food/entertainment/salary than 1000 foot companions. Unless they only eat curry flavoured food...

Suppose you're away - say on a campaign in some Italian province. You took a few - say 12 elephants - with you. Now winter arives.... Where are you going to get 100 L water each day per elephant + around 150 kg of food each day per elephant from? On top of that: the beasts need extensive medical support: if they can't have a good bath once in a while (say a few each week, or one a day) they'll easily catch parasites and other nasty stuff.

"Oh well", you might say, "but surely if I have a standing army containig a few elephants in elephant land - that shouldn't be to much of a problem?" No, that probably wouldn't: but EB upkeep is something that is there to give you a feeling of how utterly expensive armies actually are - regardless of situation.

[Gazius]

More often than not, what I've seen even in my longer games, is that epeiros takes western greece and part of the balkans, KH takes the other part, and then just stagnate. My only AI game saw them take all of modern italy minus corsica/sardina, chasing the romans into austria. I think Epeiros should be set to a different attitude, Genghis Khan maybe? Something a bit more, expansionistic. However, I think its historically accurate for all of greece to be a quagmire until the Romans show up, no?

[Kugutsu]

I have totally the opposite. In my campaign the Epirots turfed the Maks out of greece in short order, then proceeded to wipe out KH. They then went on a massive expansion northwards, at their peak taking half of the steppes and attacking the Sweboz in their home territory. In the meantime they kept taking and retaking Taras and Capua and even besieged Rome with 3 full stacks. Unfortunately they made the mistake of attacking me in Nikaia, and I have since taken Greece from them. They are still pretty big in north east europe though, and so long as thry dont do anything stupid (like provoke me) they will probably outlast the Romans, who are in BIG trouble now the Carthies have finally wiped out the Lusetanns. Its amazing the effect that had: in about 2 years they have taken most of gaul and are besieging Segesta and Mediolanum...

[Conqueror]

In my Carthie game the Epirotes grew into a superpower, they kicked the Romans out of Rome & then Italy and almost destroyed the Maks (I interfered to save them). For a long time they were the strongest faction in Europe, but lately they've started to decline (probably because their borders became connected with Sweboz, Getai and the Gallic factions and they are at war with most of them).

[soibean]

kugutsu and conqueror Id like to see campaign maps if you wouldnt mind

[Thaatu]

Suppose you're away - say on a campaign in some Italian province. You took a few - say 12 elephants - with you. Now winter arives.... Where are you going to get 100 L water each day per elephant + around 150 kg of food each day per elephant from? On top of that: the beasts need extensive medical support: if they can't have a good bath once in a while (say a few each week, or one a day) they'll easily catch parasites and other nasty stuff.

"Oh well", you might say, "but surely if I have a standing army containig a few elephants in elephant land - that shouldn't be to much of a problem?" No, that probably wouldn't: but EB upkeep is something that is there to give you a feeling of how utterly expensive armies actually are - regardless of situation.

Reasonable points, but I still have to push a little deeper. Let's take pezhetairoi and compare it with Indian elephants. Upkeep for 240 companions is 502 mnai. Upkeep for 12 elephants and 24 archers is 2612 mnai. So we'll have to have 5 units of pezhetairoi to match the upkeep of the one indian elephant unit. Then we have 1200 companions with upkeep of 2510. There's still a gap of 102 mnai, but I think we can let the 24 archers keep that so we don't have to think about them. It should keep them happy.

So if an elephant would need 100 L of water a day and 150 kg of food, then that would be 1200 L of water a day and 1.8 tons of food for twelve. A soldier would require (a crude and unprofessional estimate) about 3 L of water and 2.5 kg food, which would be for 1200 soldiers 3600 L of water and 3 tons of food. Other assorted upkeep costs would of course mount for both the elephants and the soldiers (like salary), but I'm no expert so I'll just leave it at that...

I have a Baktrian campaign going on at the year 228 BC, so I put off the fog of war and started looking for african elephants (the unit that has no archers, just the elephants and their riders) because I wanted to see if I discovered a bug. I searched throughout Carthaginian land and realised that only elephant unit they have is in Sicily and it has 12 elephants left... That's the unit they start with. So I looked all around Ptolemaic and Seleukid realms for any elephant units they might have recruited. None... There were only 48 elephants in the whole game. My 12 armoured indian elephants, Carthago's 12 african elephants and 24 Parthian armoured indians which they got when the southernmost Indus valley province rebelled from Seleukids to them... They got two units of armoured indian elephants, with upkeeps that amount to about 7600 mnai and they already were broke (tough luck ).

The AI won't recruit elephants. Even the Ptolemaics, who in my game have a 1,2 million mnai economy and growing, won't have nothing to do with elephants. There's of course an another thing they won't bother with, and that's fleets. I looked everywhere for fleets and I discovered three: One macedonian lemboi fleet and two carthaginian fleets, one triere and a mangled Poeni tetrerai. There were more than enough pirate fleets though...


My fingers are beginning to hurt, but I have to go on.


Siege artillery, there are four types (atleast for Baktria):

3-span arrow projectors (anti-infantry, attack 14, cost 5000, upkeep 1900, 8 pieces per unit)
3-cubit arrow projectors (anti-infantry, attack 22, cost 9000, upkeep 2300, 4 pieces per unit)
30-mina stone projectors (anti-tank... building, attack 70, cost 15000, upkeep 3200, 2 pieces per unit)
1-talent stone projectors (anti-building, attack 110, cost 30000, upkeep 4500, 1 piece per unit)

I'm not sure if this is intended, but as the price goes up the amount goes down. The more expensive pieces you get the less you get them. I think two 30-mina stone projectors wreck more havoc to a town than one 1-talent projector. The same goes with eight 3-span pieces compared to four 3-cubit pieces (this I actually tested, though unintentionally).


And before I forget, the bug with african elephants that I was writing about earlier, that I can't prove right now is that the unit costs about the same amount as an indian elephant unit, though the african one has 24 elephants and the indian one has only 12...


Summary of what was written above:
1.) In my campaigns, extreme cost/upkeep cripples AI in that area (fleets, elephants, siege weaponry) causing it to disregard those units.
2.) The cheaper you go with siege weaponry, the better overall results you get (except maybe with anti-building weapons, I haven't tested).
3.) My fingers are bleeding.

I hope I haven't insulted anyone in the process. Sorry in advance.

[Conqueror]

You can see my maps in the AI progression thread (in the Gameplay Guides subforum).

[Kugutsu]

I have posted them in the faction progression thread, but here they are in series:

249BC

242BC

229BC

217BC

189BC


Unfortunately I didnt make a pic when they were at the peak of their power in about 205BC. At that point (before I invaded) they had all of Greece, all of what is now Poland, as far west as the Sweboz homeland, and as far north as the Baltic.

Edit: From these you can also see the dire straits of Bactria. The only reason they have 3 provinces now is because I gave them two. They seem to have simply given up, and are no longer building any troops. Its not because they are broke, because I have given them loads of money, and the graph shows they have about 3 million. The problems started for them when I took the last Seleukid settlement in Anatolia. After that they really took off in the east. I am trying to encourage Bactria to survive, simply to keep the Seleukids off my back...

[Kugutsu]

Thaatu: In my game the Ptolies are recruiting elephants in southern Egypt. I know this because I have fought them in half a dozen battles. They tend to have 2 units of archer-less ones and occasionally a unit of archer-carrying ones in each (big) army. I have also noticed they are very, very easy to kill. My horse archers generally kill the whole herd in 2 volleys, with any survivors running amok at that point. This is an issue, as my horse arches seem to ignore the amok units when they are in skirmish mode, so wont avoid them. I tend to lose more horses that way than from targeted enemy attacks...

I have also seen Saba armies in Egypt with elephants, but they might have been given to them when settlements rebelled.

[Thaatu]

Kugutsu: In my game Ptolies haven't yet conquered the southernmost provinces of Nile (too busy with their black sea expedition), so maybe that's why they don't have 'phants. What's the situation on AI fleets in your campaign? I hope I'm proven wrong. Either way, I worry too much about AI...

I would like to finish the year 2006 with these words:


Ptolemaioi nerfenda est!

[Kugutsu]

The only AI with fleets are the Carthies. They have dozens. The Romans have a couple, but the Carthies tend to sink them. The Seleukids did have a couple, as did the Ptolies, but I sank them...

One major issue for me is the fact that every rebel province with a port seems to spawn pirate fleets. and Im not talking single ships here... The north sea had 12 full stacks of pirates last time I counted, and I have one fleet on permanent pirate patrol in the Black Sea, and another in the Persian gulf. Im not entirely sure where they keep coming from there...

[Tellos Athenaios]

Excellent post Thaatu. Still, I have to dissapoint you with some RTW calculating stuff. Let's play on low settings, and mind that no upkeep costs change:
1 Unit of Elephants = 3 beasts + 9 archers;
5 Units of Pezhetairoi = 155 men.

That means according to your calculations that:
1 Unit of Elephants = 3*150kg food (450kg) + 3*100L water (300L) + 9*2,5kg food (22.kg) + 9*3L water (27L) = 472.5kg food + 327L water;
5 Units of Pezhetairoi = 155*2.5kg food (382,5kg) + 155*3L water (465L) = 375kg food + 465L water.

You can see that the issue partially depends on what difficulty settings you are playing. And we haven't even examined the costs of medical upkeep yet: Elephants usually need far more looking after than humans when on a campaign. (Due to the fact that Elephants have far more trouble adapting to a foreign climate - should this be radically different from their 'home climate', as shown by the experiences of Hannibal.)

So based on these figures I cannot but conclude that:
1) It's more of a Vanilla issue, than an EB issue since upkeep costs don't change according to relative unit ratio, in fact they don't even change depending on the settings you're playing on. Thus playing on low settings gives you, most likely the most accurate experience - moneywise;
2) Elephants, moneywise again, aren't all that unbalanced;
3) And there's a limit to what we can argue about. For if we don't even know the price of food nor the price of water nor the price of medical care in those days, we may or may not be correct in our estimates that a unit's upkeep is balance or not comparing to another's; but still we may never know wheter it's costs themselves are actually balanced.

Now, perhaps it's time to get .

To slow down growth rates: what about using the shell command add_popultation "Settlementx" amountx? If the background script contained a loop checking growth rates in each settlement just before the game start to calculate all the other factions' moves, and 'removing' population accordingly, EB would, perhaps, be able to 'control' growth rates. Btw, the command mentioned above is capable of 'awarding' negative bonuses.