What should I Mod?

[part_time_player]

Apologies in advance for the long post..

My campaign as the English (VH/VH) went something like this;

In France, secure Bruges and Rennes and then sit tight so as not to upset the Pope. These start bringing in the cash. In England, send everything North, take York, blitz the Scots, come back round for Dublin and Caernavon. Consolidate my Empire then send all my spare (and now highly experienced) troops to the continent. Since then I have steadily expanded so that I now control France, Germany, Northern Italy, Denmark and have outposts in Corinth and Antioch. Its about turn 105 and I have 36 provinces.

Now its been fun, but not that challenging and my question really is, what can I / should I Modify in the game to make that campaign run a bit more like this...

Turn 2, France lays siege to Caen, Caen defended with heavy losses, send reinforcements from England, remaining troops march on York. English defeated by overwhelming number of Scots north of York. Re-group and defeat Scots field army, lay siege to Edinburgh. French lay siege to Caen with full stack. Edinburgh taken, Caen lost. English troops move to crush remaining Scots resistance at Inverness, French navy blockades London. For the next few turns English consolidate UK whilst French take remaining rebel settlements in France, all the while harassing my ships and ports. Eventually, the rich french provinces allow the French to build up quicker and they land two full stacks near London, one lays siege, the other marches for Nottingham. Everything hangs in the balance...

[vitch]

Try the Lands to Conquer mod.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1355092

[zverzver]

I know a am not answering your question but my I suggest to change your gameplay rather than to mode the game. Most players expand agresivly in early game, by taking all rebel settelments and weak opponets as early as possible which then provides you with a far greater base support your expansion.
I played a very fun game with Venice by setting two "hous rules": 1. Don't take a rebel settelment unless asked by a council meeting and 2. Never declare war first.
This game was very fun (and more chalanging) than my previous game with Venece, in which I managed to take Durazzo, Zagreb, Florence and Rodos in early game, backstabed Milan by turn 20 and finished them off by turn 30.

AI is not expanding as fast as an experienced player can so it is left behind. I have a feeling that AI is not taking a rebel setelments without some equivalent of concil mission so players who want a tough game should do the same.

Regarding Lands to Conqur mod I can say that it is good but gives you too much money and being constantly under financial strain is what makes TW games so much fun for me.

[part_time_player]

Vitch - thanks for suggesting LTC, looks good.

Zverzver - I've considered the "house rules" approach but it always feels like I'm just defeating myself rather than being challenged. Saying that, Ever since MTW I've played with an "honourable" approach which is a restriction of sorts.

I think the biggest influence in achieving what i'm looking for would be in altering the AI's priorities somehow. Like France should go all out to kick the English off of the continent, so would declare war immediately whilst maintaining good relationships with the Pope and its other neighbours. As a human playing as France you can take Caen very early unless the English reinforce heavily from the UK, but this in turn delays their conquest of Wales etc. so there's really no reason why the AI controlling France on VH shouldn't be able to achieve the same thing.

I may just have to consider modifying things like starting florins for the AI to give them the boost they need.

[KARTLOS]

Vitch - thanks for suggesting LTC, looks good.

Zverzver - I've considered the "house rules" approach but it always feels like I'm just defeating myself rather than being challenged. Saying that, Ever since MTW I've played with an "honourable" approach which is a restriction of sorts.

I think the biggest influence in achieving what i'm looking for would be in altering the AI's priorities somehow. Like France should go all out to kick the English off of the continent, so would declare war immediately whilst maintaining good relationships with the Pope and its other neighbours. As a human playing as France you can take Caen very early unless the English reinforce heavily from the UK, but this in turn delays their conquest of Wales etc. so there's really no reason why the AI controlling France on VH shouldn't be able to achieve the same thing.

I may just have to consider modifying things like starting florins for the AI to give them the boost they need.

i use the map found in the royal arms mod:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ght=royal+arms

it is a standard size map with more provinces on it. its not perfect and you could improve it further if you are intersted in modding. ( for example the balaeric island city is actually inaccesable)

i am using the map in conjunction with various other mods that i have downlaoded plus my own changes. I use a shabba wangy diplomacy mod which is also hosted on tw centre. there are a few other diplomacy mods there, have a look at the ultimate ai mod and darth vaders diplomacy mod. i think the general trend with ai mods is to make the ai act a little more logically - which doesnt on the whole equate to extra expansionism. for example the mods will try to prevent the ai pointlessly declaring war on you by attacking a city it wont be able to take.

i think the biggest improvement to gameplay is the extra provinces though. because there are more settlements most nations seem to build up a small empire - this means they can sustain more troops and thus you face more large armies. it also means that it is easier to get overstretched by expansion as you can just have so many provinces to try and control, this means i find there is a bit of give and take with provinces with you capturing and then losing cities, which i think makes it more fun.

finally are you playing with the first patch installed? this makes the vanilla ai a bit more adventurous - it will now do naval invasions etc.

[KARTLOS]

no idea why i got a double quote?? the forum must be acting up

[part_time_player]

The map idea sounds great, thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it and the other mods too. I figured I'd need a combination of different mods but i was uncertain how they would all work together etc. so hadn't tried it yet.

I haven't installed the patch yet as i'm part way through a campaign and I've been scared off a bit by some of the posts. Something like portugal landing two units in Wales etc. just sounds annoying.

[econ21]

The patch is definitely required if you are playing England. Otherwise the passive AI bug means you can just shoot superior attacking enemy armies to death with your longbows.

I've heard no serious problems raised about the patch.

[sapi]

The patch is definitely required if you are playing England. Otherwise the passive AI bug means you can just shoot superior attacking enemy armies to death with your longbows.

Not to mention that once you've wiped out scotland your provinces in the british isles are impervious to attack

The patch is well worth getting