Carl's Re-balance (Discussion only ATM)

[Carl]

In the process of doing my bugfixer i've decided a seperate re-balance mod baced off it would be a good idea. The BugFixer is for those that just want the bugs out or want to do their own mods on an unbugged version.

the Re-Balance version will include my own, (along with Stirlands ), re-envisioned version of the game and will thus include a lot of stuff (such as price changes and changes to individual units rather than classes of units), that fall outside the realm of BugFixing.

So if you have an Ideas after playing my BugFixer that you feel I might be intrested in and that fall outside the realm of BugFixing. Drop em here.

[Stlaind]

heh, you want to paste the massive chunks of of discussion you and I already had or should I?

One thing I'd like to see (more for campaign balance) is an english longbow militia. I want to face longbows damnit.

[Carl]

heh, you want to paste the massive chunks of of discussion you and I already had or should I?

Paste anything you thinks appropriate (you'd have a better idea I think).

Thanks for the work BTW.

One thing I'd like to see (more for campaign balance) is an english longbow militia. I want to face longbows damnit.

The idea had passed through my head too. That, or, english specific peaseant Archers with better range.

[dismal]

Re: price changes

I'd be interested to see how the game would play if knights were much more expensive.

Combined with the fact they only require castle walls, I find I fight with full stacks of them.

OTOH, I'd rather see the AI use them more.

[Stlaind]

personally for campaign balance I think lower prices over the whole spectrum are needed as the AI is very spendy.

EDIT: limits would still need to be set on max recruitable at a time and turns per unit available. However, I htink with price a bit more out of the way for the AI it might stand up to players a bit better.

[Foz]

Someone in another thread suggested that the AI is currently using a military buildup policy for all of its settlements, which more than anything seems to be why the AI churns out so much militia and not quality castle units (as opposed to this being some sort of price concern for the AI making it avoid castle units).

Also I don't agree at all that knights you get from walls are underpriced. Keep in mind that they bear the weighty 225 upkeep that is just under that of a cav unit. The real price of a unit is much less about the up front cost you pay, and much more about the upkeep you'll pay to have the unit around for any length of time. In just 3 turns the upkeep expense of a knight has in most cases already surpassed his recruitment cost, and after 5 I think it is the case for every single unit in the game.

To illustrate this, consider training 10 DFKs and using them for 10 turns. The cost you pay to recruit them is 10 * 570 = 5700. Their upkeep over the 10 turn span is 10 * 10 * 225 = 22500. That's ~4 times as much. Since the knights drain your economy so much each turn, it's really silly to rely on them heavily as lower upkeep units represent a much better investment. It almost kills me to recruit DFKs when I play England now, because I know the Armored Swordsmen (at 150 upkeep) are SO much better for my economy (as are the 150 upkeep archer units). So to close, I strongly recommend we resist the urge to place too much emphasis on the recruitment cost of the units, as it is certainly not the most important part of the unit price.

[Jambo]

Very well put the_foz, couldn't have summed it up any better. Mounted Knights range from 210 to 320 upkeep, so to balance things up with the AI, one could consider slightly increasing the upkeep of the good units. After all we all the know the AI will have less of them. Oh and an AI money script helps too, but that's another topic altogether. :)

[Stlaind]

Someone in another thread suggested that the AI is currently using a military buildup policy for all of its settlements, which more than anything seems to be why the AI churns out so much militia and not quality castle units (as opposed to this being some sort of price concern for the AI making it avoid castle units).

Also I don't agree at all that knights you get from walls are underpriced. Keep in mind that they bear the weighty 225 upkeep that is just under that of a cav unit. The real price of a unit is much less about the up front cost you pay, and much more about the upkeep you'll pay to have the unit around for any length of time. In just 3 turns the upkeep expense of a knight has in most cases already surpassed his recruitment cost, and after 5 I think it is the case for every single unit in the game.

To illustrate this, consider training 10 DFKs and using them for 10 turns. The cost you pay to recruit them is 10 * 570 = 5700. Their upkeep over the 10 turn span is 10 * 10 * 225 = 22500. That's ~4 times as much. Since the knights drain your economy so much each turn, it's really silly to rely on them heavily as lower upkeep units represent a much better investment. It almost kills me to recruit DFKs when I play England now, because I know the Armored Swordsmen (at 150 upkeep) are SO much better for my economy (as are the 150 upkeep archer units). So to close, I strongly recommend we resist the urge to place too much emphasis on the recruitment cost of the units, as it is certainly not the most important part of the unit price.

I understand that very well, and unless there is a way to change the way the AI sets settlement spend policy, then it will use all of it's cash to generate militia every turn.

Short of that I bet that dropping unit price and availablility across the board will improve AI army selection.

[Lt.NuGGets]

Can you make some type of AI script that makes them recruit better units please?

I know it would be hard to make the AI stop doing dumb things, like declaring war with a stack of two pesants then offering a truce next turn, but hopefully making it recruit good units would be do-able. And maybe a script that makes it have variety in each stack instead of all siege weapons and crossbows?

That along with a cash script would be perfect. And easy installation like your de-bugger.

Keep up the good work! I will deal with the crappy vanilla ai with hopes it wont be around much longer due to your work.

Nugs

[Stlaind]

Thing is a script does several things:
1. It doesn't solve the real problem that the AI can't recruit the proper units without
2: It makes the AI impossible to starve out. This can be done through rapid siege/devestation across a lot of territiories.
3: makes it so that with one city and one faction member the AI would have an economy comparable to one that could support a 15-20 territory empire.

I'd love to hear how Lusted has achieved more varied AI armies.

[Carl]

@Stlaind: I havn't tried playin with a cash script, but it may actual be a good idea as the idea of the AI coming back from 1 territory down apeals. The problem with re-scripting the AI is that a lot of the stuff's hardcoded and can't be changed. Whilst it may be possibble to achive more varied armies without it, i'm not sure how far we can go with that. Lusted's input would be welcome though as i'd love to know what he's done.

However we might have to resgin ourselves to using a cash script for the Ai if worse comes to worst.

[Stlaind]

For some reason I remember a file that set AI type for factions in RTW.

While I don't remember which file it was I suspect that that file is the source of the AI woes.

[Lucidus]

the Re-Balance version will include my own, (along with Stirlands ), re-envisioned version of the game and will thus include a lot of stuff

A little suggestion:

Read this thread: (about the Knights)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80565

[Stlaind]

Little hint: referencing a thread which has pretty much nothing but Lusted saying some's ideas are un-implementable doesn't help anything, especially if you've not added anything into this thread yet.

Not trying to be snarky, just wondering what your objective was.

[Carl]

I'd like to also add that 90% of the stuff their is impossibile to put in game. Let me also add that the spears as present in V1.11 of my bug fixer remove much of the superman knights issues and make massed knights less of an issue overall, in no small part due to the Sheild fix, but the Skeleton Componsation factor also cghanges things somewhat.

[Lusted]

I'd love to hear how Lusted has achieved more varied AI armies.

Various things. I set most ai factiojn build priorities in descr_strat to smith from napoleon for whatever it is. I did not change this for Russia, Byzantium, Turks, Mongls, Timurids or Aztecs. I set Poland and Hungary to Henry.

I then edited recruitment pools and replenishment rates so the elite units had smaller pools and took longer to replenish, but less elite units als had slightly reduced pools.

I also removed some low level units from high level buildings.

I then adjusted unit costs making missile and militia units more expensive as it encourages the ai to build more elite units as they are more cost effective.

And then you have to give the ai time. I can't stress this enough. It takes the ai time to get going, get buildup and churning out well balanced mixed armies. In the early game it will produce all militia armies, but if you give it time you will see much better armies.

[Stlaind]

Thank you.

[Ar7]

personally for campaign balance I think lower prices over the whole spectrum are needed as the AI is very spendy.

EDIT: limits would still need to be set on max recruitable at a time and turns per unit available. However, I htink with price a bit more out of the way for the AI it might stand up to players a bit better.

If you plan to lower unit prices and at the same time make the unit pool smaller then the result will be a large amount of useless florins. Currently people earn florins to be able to recruit and wield large armies, and they still have a hefty profit, if you decrease both the price and the amount of recruitable units there simply won't be anything to spend the money on. It will make the entire economy rather pointless as you will be able to have a good army with less build up and development (which is now needed to earn florins)

[Stlaind]

In Any game I've played so far I can afford to have a 1000fl per turn tribute to at least one ally and the pope, and pump out a professional army.

The fix is two part for a reason. part one is to get the AI to build the higher end units, part two is to restrict the player's advantage in said units.

I don't really see much of a true negative impact from lower prices across the board.

[Lucidus]

Not trying to be snarky, just wondering what your objective was

.

Trying to be helpful,nothing more than that.
Now,I deeply regret my post.(the first and the last)

[Lt.NuGGets]

Carl can you give us an all-in-one installer for your bug fixer and the Ultimate AI mod ? (check mod forum, I'm sure you know it.) The AI mod looks good, just dont want to mess with anything cause I have zero clue if it will work. He gives instuctions on installing the AI mod in an exisiting mod, but still not sure if your files will work with his.


Thanks!

Nugs

[Carl]

I can have a look at least.

[dopp]

And then you have to give the ai time. I can't stress this enough. It takes the ai time to get going, get buildup and churning out well balanced mixed armies. In the early game it will produce all militia armies, but if you give it time you will see much better armies.

Even in vanilla the AI can produce some decent armies by the time the Late Era rolls around.

[Point_Blank]

I'd like to also add that 90% of the stuff their is impossibile to put in game. Let me also add that the spears as present in V1.11 of my bug fixer remove much of the superman knights issues and make massed knights less of an issue overall, in no small part due to the Sheild fix, but the Skeleton Componsation factor also cghanges things somewhat.

Hi, in what way have you changed the Skeleton Componsation factor and how does that change affect things? Thanks

[pdoan8]

To add my opinion to Lusted post above, have you consider to make some of the castle units available in city? For example, city can recruit DFN but with much smaller pool (1 max) and lower replenish rate. I find that helps the factions that only control city and they have no way converting their city to castle. Now they are not forced to employ all militia army any more.

[eire1130]

I'm not sure if this is a feature or not, but the morale on most, if not all, of siege units is far too uber. Long after the general has died and all units routed, they will stand there and fight. They should either do an orderly retreat or be routed. Very often they will fight to the last man. It would seem they should be more susceptible to routing then other units, but this is not the case.

[FrauGloer]

I'm not sure if this is a feature or not, but the morale on most, if not all, of siege units is far too uber. Long after the general has died and all units routed, they will stand there and fight. They should either do an orderly retreat or be routed. Very often they will fight to the last man. It would seem they should be more susceptible to routing then other units, but this is not the case.

True. 9 Morale for siege engineers?? Pur-lease! Personally, I was fed up with 18 carpenters holding a 60-knight charge and killing some 15 of them before finally dying (not routing!), so I changed their morale profile to that of peasants, which works just fine. They still work the siege engines properly, but if they are engaged in melee, they die. This is how it should be, IMO.

[Carl]

Hi, in what way have you changed the Skeleton Componsation factor and how does that change affect things? Thanks

I've changed all foot spear units Skeleton Comp Factor from 0.6 to 1. It seems to increase charge resistance and to a degree kill rate.

Good point guys on Seige Equipment too.

Don't worry, i'm listning, but refraining from commenting overmuch ATM.

[Lusted]

I don't really see much of a true negative impact from lower prices across the board.

Lots more full stacks running around(and i mean a lot more). Units dont need lower prices, the ai can recruit devent armeis with the few tweaks i said. Lower unit prices will just provide a surplus of cash for the player which the player will spend on paying other factions for example. The ai doesn't do this, it will just churn out as many troops as it can. If you want lots and lots anf lots of armies then lowering unit prices will do that, but if not there is no need to do it.

To add my opinion to Lusted post above, have you consider to make some of the castle units available in city? For example, city can recruit DFN but with much smaller pool (1 max) and lower replenish rate. I find that helps the factions that only control city and they have no way converting their city to castle. Now they are not forced to employ all militia army any more.

But that removes one of the big differences between castles and cities. Personally i just raised the amount of units recruitable per turn in each castle level so the ai produces more castle troops.

[Foz]

I wonder if it's possible to make the AI use a different build policy than it currently does in cities. If the speculation is correct that it imposes military build everywhere (which I'm guessing is correct since AI cities I capture typically have the maximum available unit-production buildings with considerably less economic upgrades) then the best solution to this would be changing its build policy in settlements. Anyone have any idea if this is possible? I'm not at home right now to dig through the files, nor have I delved into the AI files much...