Government building's cost of manteinance

[Gatto_di_Pavia]

Hail and my compliments for the glorious Europa Barbarorum mod!
I actually think that a nation's government could be made more realistic by introducing a manteinance cost for all government buildings. For example Roman trails could cost a tax rate penalty of 5%, stratae viae could cost 10%and viae maiores 15%. So for other buildings like acqueductus and stationes
vigilum. At the same time units raising and manteinance cost could be lowered, expecially for militians, barbarian low-rank warriors and Roman Camillan-Polybian Legions. When the Marian Reform happens structures cost could be reduced by assigment of legionaries or even slaves to their manteinance (assuming that there are still free places for new buildings). This would prevent nations to develop (ahistorically) too fast large infrastructures except in very important regions (expecially the "Barbarian" factions that now are able to build a full earthen road sistem as quickly as nations like Greecian Poleis, Karthago and Macedonia). Also starting armies could be reduced in size and increased in quality; the Hellenic states for example have a large (and tremendously expensive) number of Hoplitai Haploi and no High class Phalanxes; all units should (with few exceptions) should be availlable from the beginning, according to government classes and times of history.

[blacksnail]

What you're talking about is a neat idea but a lot of it just can't work due to limitations of the engine. Penalties in RTW don't actually penalize you; they cancel out positive bonuses from other buildings. The unit cost effects are broken and don't actually work. Altering "maintenance" due to the presence of a unit in a city is not possible.

all units should (with few exceptions) should be availlable from the beginning, according to government classes and times of history.

I am really at a loss in how to respond to this. What you're suggesting pretty much breaks one of the core assumptions of EB and returns it to looking like Vanilla. Unless I'm misunderstanding you?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

blacksnail: is this not historical? Being able to build elites from the start in one province would be correct, would it not?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

You guys are talking about two different things. Blacksnail is referring to reforms of units in all probability, while Omanes and Gatto probably refer to high level MIC units. The reason we don't give the player immediate access to all of them is that this is still a game, and we leave some element of "building up" cities to the player.

[blacksnail]

blacksnail: is this not historical? Being able to build elites from the start in one province would be correct, would it not?

What I read him as saying was "I should be able to build all my faction's units in any city I conquer." IE, "like Vanilla."

Regardless, due to the limitations of the system it is impossible to be able to recruit all unit types immediately upon conquest. You would need to build two buildings of at least one level in any faction without reforms, and two levels of building plus a second building in any faction with reforms. Particularly for the reform-capable factions this would be a rather striking incongruity, and there is no way around this if everything is flattened to a single level.

As to historicity, you would have to ask the historians. I poke at text files.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Man, there's a lot of ways that one statement could be taken. I see at least three valid explanations now. It just shows we have to be pretty precise when referring to almost anything in this blasted mod.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Another problem with negative bonuses is that the AI won't build them. If anyone played the initial release of Arthurian - Total War, you may have noticed that a city you conquered never had health or farming due to the negative bonuses added to balance out growth. (They have since fixed that.)

[blacksnail]

That's really interesting. I did not know it affected the AI in that manner.

Ah well, back to the drawing board....

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

That's really interesting. I did not know it affected the AI in that manner.

Ah well, back to the drawing board....

Yeah they had buildings that were like 10% health bonus and -5% population growth and the AI didn't touch it.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Never heard of that actually. We place most of our negative bonus buildings at the start or by script though.

We do have a negative bonus for the gymnasium though. Can't recall if I've ever seen an AI city build one.

Grain Silo gives a negative bonus. Certainly the AI builds those, right? Villa chain has negatives often in it. Colony does also.

[Zarax]

The problem is that building penalties are an hell to balance...
Put them too high and AI will choke itself with the high level structures, too low and player will be swimming in money...

XGM tried to do a bit of both ways but it still works with mixed results.
The issue is that infrastructures needed to build elites had most of the times an economical burden themselves except maybe in nomadic cultures (even though unit upkeep partially accounts for that) yet you cannot teach the AI to be wise about money expenditure, meaning that 99% of the times you try to balance things you end up either with fighting half stacks of militia or full stack after full stack of elites...

How to babysit strategical AI is still a problem yet to be solved in RTW...

[Geoffrey S]

Is it possible, through scripts, to randomly damage buildings to represent the need of regular repairs? And would this be desirable?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Never heard of that actually. We place most of our negative bonus buildings at the start or by script though.

We do have a negative bonus for the gymnasium though. Can't recall if I've ever seen an AI city build one.

Grain Silo gives a negative bonus. Certainly the AI builds those, right? Villa chain has negatives often in it. Colony does also.

The problem that Arthurian had was that they completely or almost completely cancelled out the growth (5% health, -5% growth - for the cess pit).

I have never seen a gymnasium in an AI town except one in Greece somewhere, I think one town starts with one.

The AI loves population growth bonuses. The negative on villas is so low that the AI accepts it to get that growth bonus.

[PantsToucher]

Is it possible, through scripts, to randomly damage buildings to represent the need of regular repairs? And would this be desirable?

Probably not, as I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't repair buildings, or if it does it doesn't do so very efficiently. Plus I'm sure that would be a lot of work to code, assuming it is possible.

[Gatto_di_Pavia]

In reply to Blacksnail's post.
It actually looks like "tax income" (if not set to high levels) can be much inferior to production and trade income in some cities, when the correct infrastructures are developed. So building ports and an advanced road system could be a "good investment" in some regions but not in some others, (unless you need it for military reasons).
Before the Marian Reform legionaires werent' usually paid by the Republic for their service, so their manteinance cost should only be refered to supplies and equipement repairs (regardless if they are in a settlement or not). Unit manteinance cost should be even lower for barbarian warriors who supplied themselves "on the location" and personally provided to their equipement.
As for the last point I didn't intend to say that all units of a faction should be immediately recruited everywere. In Europa Barbarorum first class goverment are availlable only in "Homeland Regions" and require a long time to be implemented. Units recruitment should depend only by the goverment and not by a particular building (except for artillery, that if possible should require only a "technical accademy" and an higher class blacksmiths/craftsmans factory, leaving a free place for other buildings). "Homeland Regions" area has also to be restricted (for example Makedonia should'nt be able to recruit units like Pezetairoi and Agema in a conquered Greek city, and so for Camillan and Polybian legions in Gallia Cisalpina Transpadana and Magna Grecia wich were fully romanized at the beginning of the Empire).

[Tellos Athenaios]

In reply to Blacksnail's post.
It actually looks like "tax income" (if not set to high levels) can be much inferior to production and trade income in some cities, when the correct infrastructures are developed. So building ports and an advanced road system could be a "good investment" in some regions but not in some others, (unless you need it for military reasons).
Before the Marian Reform legionaires werent' usually paid by the Republic for their service, so their manteinance cost should only be refered to supplies and equipement repairs (regardless if they are in a settlement or not). Unit manteinance cost should be even lower for barbarian warriors who supplied themselves "on the location" and personally provided to their equipement.
As for the last point I didn't intend to say that all units of a faction should be immediately recruited everywere. In Europa Barbarorum first class goverment are availlable only in "Homeland Regions" and require a long time to be implemented. Units recruitment should depend only by the goverment and not by a particular building (except for artillery, that if possible should require only a "technical accademy" and an higher class blacksmiths/craftsmans factory, leaving a free place for other buildings). "Homeland Regions" area has also to be restricted (for example Makedonia should'nt be able to recruit units like Pezetairoi and Agema in a conquered Greek city, and so for Camillan and Polybian legions in Gallia Cisalpina Transpadana and Magna Grecia wich were fully romanized at the beginning of the Empire).

AFAIK: the buildings that mostly affect recruitment have everything to do with determining the "ethnical" make up of a given settlement. Therefore with which types of warfare are possible, whether or not the population is to be regarded as trustworthy (and thus should have "acces" to vital units) etc. It is then not altogether strange to limit recruitment through such buildings, especially since this is the most sophisticated way possible with RTW.

A practical example: you've got a class of people who have devoted themselves to some particular way of life (nomads), would you then be able to recruit their iconic troops in your highly urbanized territory in Greece (in real life)?

Otherwise: you've got this backbone unit which depends on a particular way of life that involves few people being able to afford a horse, and a sedative society - would you then be able to recruit them in the vast steppes of the Sarmatians you subdued? Again no - eviromental/social conditions over there don't permit it.

[QwertyMIDX]

The problem is that the RTW enginge doesn't allow for anything but a professional standing army to be represented. Despite the fact such soldiers were far and away the minority we have to treat them all like that in order for the game to work in any reasonable way.

[Bonny]

As for the last point I didn't intend to say that all units of a faction should be immediately recruited everywere. In Europa Barbarorum first class goverment are availlable only in "Homeland Regions" and require a long time to be implemented. Units recruitment should depend only by the goverment and not by a particular building (except for artillery, that if possible should require only a "technical accademy" and an higher class blacksmiths/craftsmans factory, leaving a free place for other buildings).

imo you mean: recruit all available troops for each government type in MIC level 1 wtihout having to upgrade it.

A) It would scew gameplay. One whole part would be missing. The campaign would be shorter and you have nothing left that keeps you intersted in the middle/late game. You would fight endless stacks of elite units from the beginnigng on, it would screw balance, too.

B) we had to revise our current very very complex recuitment system, which is highly compliceted (10 mb text (edb) is much).

C) It would make the game easier (you don't have to think of upgrading your mic's which are expensive and time consumimg) something that we and i think our fans don't want (if we want an easy game we could play vannila).

D) imho would be unhistorical to recruit elite units regardless the effort of building maintiaining a proper recruitment facility in (training, equipment, planning). You would have aone sice fits

E) On starting some Factions may have not the ability they would have had in those times (afaik seleukia can't recruit Hypapistai from start). But they are not starting from zero (like in vannila). If you look around you will notice that some bigger cities will have better recruitment than smaller. Rome for example can recruit Hastati, Prinzipes and triarii from start.

Point A and B are imho the most crucial one

Before the Marian Reform legionaires werent' usually paid by the Republic for their service, so their manteinance cost should only be refered to supplies and equipement repairs (regardless if they are in a settlement or not). Unit manteinance cost should be even lower for barbarian warriors who supplied themselves "on the location" and personally provided to their equipement.

The maintance cost also simulate to a certain degree that the man who is serving in the army do nothing to generate income, he cant harvest his field, produce goods etc.

[Atilius]

Before the Marian Reform legionaires werent' usually paid by the Republic for their service...

According to Livy (4.59) soldiers of the Republic began receiving pay during the drawn-out seige of Veii, about 406 BC. Polybius, writing in the mid 2nd century BC, states (6.39) that an infantryman received 2 obols a day, a centurion twice that, and that cavalrymen were paid a drachma per day.