V1.21 Rebuild-ProblemFixer BETA testing thread

[vonsch]

Sort of, except it keeps happening on the same turn, even if i go back to an earlier save. So I'd like you to play past the Mongols arriving ASAP as i'm thinking i messed something up in their script and it's that thats causing crashes.

Okay, just for you. Not really playing, but can hit turn end a few times.

There, they've arrived, shipping a spy out since I don't see them in the steppes.

Of course, when I go back to my save and really play, I'm sure they WILL arrive in the steppes.

Yep, CTD. Think it was 2nd turn after the arrival notice.

Guess that game is FUBARed. Just as well.

[Carl]

Thanks for that vonsch. i think i know whats wrong but i'll have to check it.

[Carl]

Alright, this could take a while i'm afraid, I've just finished getting to the Mongols with the changes and it's still kicking up errors, testing is slow or I'd have got this sooner. If you can, manually extract the V1.22 BETA somwhere other than the M2TW folder and grab the Campaign Script file from it (Data/World/Maps/Campaign/Imperial_Campaign), and paste it over the top of the current one. You miss out on Mongols being tougher, but it should cure the crashing issues.

I've just checked the system logs and found a clue. Unusual as CTD errors normally leave no clues in the log. theirs a misnamed unit (Mongol Dismounted Archers, when it should be Dismounted Archers). I think the Error is the Mongol AI looking for that missing stack that isn't created. Don't quote me though. Try the above temp fix and I'll get on a full fix tomorrow as it's too late for more testing now.

[Carl]

Right, fixed the issue with the first wave, but a missnaming has shown up in the third wave, so i'll need about an hour and a half to fix and run the tests, even with hotseat mode it takes a good hour and a half+ to test. However i'm nearly on top of it so I should have a fix inside the next few hours.

[Rozanov]

OK

a friend has DL'd v1.23 for me (he has broadband so it takes about 10 minutes - takes me more like 4 hours)

Is it worth trying out v1.23 if you're going to release v1.24 soon?

also are there any playable factions that people haven't tested yet you'd like me to look at?

cheers

R

[vonsch]

The problem with 1.23 is it CTDs shortly after the Mongols appear. But up until then it's fine (aside from already noted balance things Carl has adjusted).

Maybe Carl can get you the Mongol-crash fix as a separate download. I suspect that's a single text file.

[Carl]

Maybe Carl can get you the Mongol-crash fix as a separate download. I suspect that's a single text file.

Correct, it's an error in the Campaign Script file. V1.24 will be at least a couple more days as I need to do more editing and probably will be busy Sunday, and don't think I can get it all done by the end of tomorrow and checked for bugs.

EDIT:Just to clarify, i'm going to leave everyone playing the V1.23 BETA with the fix below added on over the top for now. In 3-4 days I'll release 1.24, I should have it nearly ready sometime tomorrow, so it will probably Monday I send it out.


Regarding test factions..

Could I convince you Vonsch to try out a Catholic Faction. Either HRE or France for preference, but Portugal/Spain need testing.

Rozanov, could I give you Denmark or Poland to test?


Anyway, got the file, it's self extracting, just download then double left click the RAR file and it will self extract to the default ProblemFixer Directory from the V1.23 auto-extractor/installer and will then prompt you to overwrite a file (say yes). That should sort the issue.


Link here.

P.s. it's not very big, so you can download it pretty quick, even with dial-up.

[Carl]

You got the Fix yet Vonsch?

[vonsch]

I got it, but haven't tried it yet.

[Carl]

Thats fine, just saw you online earlier and wantd to check you'd got it, (you normally say, so i wasn't sure if you'd seen it). It isn't save game compatiable though.

[vonsch]

Okay, I installed the fix and am trying France.

Turn 4: Excommunicated.

With no cash flow and too many units, France HAS to go to war. My problem is I chose to do it on two fronts and didn't have anything to bribe the Pope with. I booted the Limeys off the continent by taking Caen and (hopefully) crippled Milan by taking Genoa. The latter got me excommed. I wonder if I can survive that... need to see where the Pope is.

My cities and castles are completely empty. That's the problem with the existing logic of kill rebels first. The AI SHOULD be doing to me right back. Portugal and HRE have a great opportunity, but they will be beating on large rebel garrisons. If Milan dares come for Genoa, I think I can take Milan too. But will take luck there.

Turn 5 England begged a ceasefire and paid 700 for 4 turns for it. That part went well.

But don't think playing on excommed is what I want to do, though could probably manage. So I'll start again, this time with a bit more of a plan.

I think France is fine for the player though. All those starting units allow hitting reb cities one at a time easily. I just don't like letting Milan expand because I know what happens if they do.

[vonsch]

Ok, playing it your intended way this time, sort of. Set up trade rights and map swap with England, no more. Still need to give them the boot early. Got alliance with Portugal to keep them off my back a while. Aiming for same with Spain, that may take hooking up the prince with a dark-eyed Spanish temptest. Meanwhile, sent everything north to take some rebel cities to boost the economy while Milan and England beat themselves silly on rebel walls.

Deal with them once I have some cash flow. Pfft, Milan came begging trade rights and maps, so I weasled them into an alliance for 100 for 5 turns. They paid me, that is. I know they will break it. Or I may. But I can use that to start getting the Pope on my side.

For reference, takes 5 turns to consolidate troops in the north or south. That's for a player. The AI probably never even tries. Starting to build some militia garrisons in the north, and a bit in the south, but all allies there with rebel cities to play with. Gonna hit Rennes, then Bordeaux, if the plan works. Then head east north of the Alps to clean up those. Then turtle until Milan comes to play.



Spain agreed to an alliance without needing to marry off the prince.

Everything consolidated is over a stack and a half. Though most is militia, there are also 5 generals in there. Plenty to tackle most targets. As long as you are confident you've gotten your back covered with alliances.

Why DOES this French girl called herself "Madame?" She's single or she wouldn't be here.

England approaching Bruges with a stack of 4 whole peasants. No wonder it doesn't do well. Oh, it brought in a half stack from Caen or England by sea now too. Not enough to have a chance, but more reasonable. Should have sent that to Rennes. Might have gotten it.

Looking at units, don't see any reason to build Noble Knights. More upkeep for zero visible advantage. Unless there's a significant morale boost I can't see. Take away the impetuousness and they would be more tempting. Not really in character, but... Or give one better melee performance and the other better charge. That would be in keeping with their dismounted performance.

Ship upkeep wrong here too.

Okay, his Hatness wuvs me. For the moment. 6 alliances. Skipped England since one way or another gonna deal them off the continent. English went home. They got to Flanders and found out the locals speak French. We offered them some snails... Selling snails really helps the economy.

Turn 9: England has half stacks everywhere except in Caen. So Caen is now French and the English are on MY land. So I can attack them and they get in trouble with the Pope if they attack me! And he wuvs me best! (for the moment)

Turn 10: Top 3 overall all grouped so tight can't see who's first. One is France. 8 regions (+3). Next best is 6: HRE (flatline) and Byz (+1). Rennes will be French next turn too. Spy didn't get the gate this time. He had a hot streak of 3 for 3 going, so I'm a bit ahead of what should be normal (for a wimp siege autoresolver... though wooden walls aren't a big deal really, just lazy).

England is dead, though still "alive." Scotland has taken 3 regions because England moved everything south into my teeth. That leaves them one to fight over before they start fighting each other. Since I grabbed the lowlands, HRE, Poland and Denmark will be breathing down each others' necks too. Or mine... but two are allies and Poland isn't in reach quite yet.

Heh, I just noticed I did France by the ABC system: Antwerp, Bruges, Caen.

Oh, England did offer a ceasefire, but they wouldn't agree to my entirely reasonable terms of 500 a turn for 10 turns. I suspect that exceeded their budget. My bad. Not a peep from the Pope this time. But really only the siege of Caen itself (and the DOW) were inflammatory. After that it was all "self-defense." Killed off the two roving half-stacks in two turns. Amazing with 5 generals can do with a few militia units in support.... Especially when one is dear Loooie, the dreadful.

Hmm, I wonder if there's a nice easy crusade here somewhere. If I send Constance to the Holy Land and see if she can't seduce a Turk or Egyptian general... then hire 7 merc units there. Wait, this is your mod. No way I can take Jerusalem like that! Maybe Acre, or Antioch even. Not Jerusalem. She is up to 8 charm, so she might manage her part.

Darn, Milan beat me to Dijon. If they press on, they may get Metz too. I may have to go to war with them over this. I guess early is better. It's their first conquest, but their military is already a near match for France's. But their generals are not. Guess I'd better park one in Marseilles to start pumping it to a stone wall. Milan always comes there first.

Heh, England is "well off" now and still won't pay for a cease fire. Darn, I could use some of that gold!

Oops, HRE may get Metz. Near full militia stack almost there. Better them than Milan. Keep both in the mix and matched!

11 alliances, turn 18 and my rep is still dubious. But I have been at war, and I did start it. Better than the earlier versions.

My income at turn 20 is easily twice what Russia's was. Can manage a one-stack conquest run more easily with France too. Distances a bit shorter.

HRE has a 2/3 stack of mostly militia at Metz and it's not attacking it. Milan tried with a 1/3 stack. Odd behavior.

Give thought to making Explorers Guild castle also. Since castles get the big shipyards too, might make sense. Exploring was a military function to some degree with some of the cultures (Iberia especially). Be harder to get one in a castle though.

Pope called crusade on Jerusalem. Is that hardcoded, or modable? It's too early for the AI. Needs a 15-20 turn delay. I think I'kk see if Constance can't recruit someone. She happens to have just arrived at Gaza (and signed the last set of trade agreements... got England back at peace now too). Hmm, maybe she's not allowed to marry Muslims (she was gonna make them convert!) Forgot about that possibility.

Hmm, looks like Milan is moving on Boulogne. Full stack outside it. No siege yet. HRE is putting together more units to tackle Metz, it appears. Yep, HRE is on Metz with more than one stack. And appears that Milan may prefer Bern to Boulogne. Holding it will be a challenge. At least two stacks incoming, it appears, though they may do the shuffle a while.

Denmark went crusading, so we have first AI war: Byz-Denmark. Turn 29. Milan doing the stack shuffle. HRE got Metz. Makes them a little more viable.

[Carl]

Just to clear something up. You can grab Orthodox generals and get marriage alliances with them via princesses but not Muslim generals.



Regarding France. Your comments have grabbed my attention as they seem to imply a similar experience the the HRE campaign I started (cut short after I accidentally deleted the save). I found that all my starting castle where under-developed, as where many cities and as a result it was several turns before could develop my military and pull together a decent force. i managed to Get Stetinn/Hamburg/Madengurg. But only Hamburg was the right level of castle for the population, (the rest where ready for an upgrade), and it still needed the relevant military buildings to go up. Similar issues dogged the starting castles, they where both ready for upgrade and in fact needed to be upgraded before I got access to even the most basic castle military units. Goes double for archery ranges and stables where I was 2 levels off the first really decent medium Cav/Archer unit.

In effect because of my attacks northward I was forced to rely (like the AI), on locally produced units for my southern expansion. With Bologna cut off and Vienna underdeveloped, (needs a wooden wall building off the bat before I can get anywhere), and both southern castles equally underdeveloped i was left with Little production capacity for at least the first 10-15 turns and it was past turn 20 before I got a significant force together by which point only Metz was free.

For the AI this combination is disturbs as it is incapable of concentrating distant forces to take the Northern rebels on before Denmark and Poland hit them, whilst at the same time, it lacks the well developed castles and other military in the south to tackle Bern or Metz before Milan, and even if it had them, it would still only have limited expansion opportunities in that direction. In reality it needs to expand more in a northerly and easterly direction, thus helping to put pressure on Denmark and Poland who tend to explode.

In addition it lacks powerful town/city based units as other factions have and as a result suffers considerably in military terms as the AI tends to build large quantities of Spear and Town militia before it gets access to the truly powerful units that would give it true military power.


I suspect France has similar issues in that Dijon and Boruluex are normally taken by Milan/Spain/Portugal and with no northerly castles it rarely does well in the lowlands area The lack of links between it's southern areas and northern areas also fails to help matter as a chunk of it's empire is cut off and unable to supply reinforcements to the northern attacks. In effect all the forces in it's southernmost two territories end up going to waste doing nothing and tying down part of the military budget the AI assigns itself.

Your thoughts on the above?

Pope called crusade on Jerusalem. Is that hard-coded, or mod-able? It's too early for the AI.

Good idea, i think it's part of the campaign script but I'll have to check.

[vonsch]

Make Rheims a castle and Angers a town. That gives England a shot at Rennes still, but makes France's NE frontier a bit beefier. And give Rheims some tier 1 buildings, or pick one, stable or barracks. That will let it build units faster up near the lowlands and Metz/Dijon. HRE probably needs something similar. I don't know that well, but I see no issue with giving wooden walls to cities where appropriate. Bordeaux could be a town too, makes it a little easier for AI to take and player is probably gonna convert it anyway (so makes sense that whichever faction captures it gets an income producer).

Hmm, or alternatively Rhiems castle, leave Angers as is, make Bordeaux a town. Gives France a "central" castle in a not-great trade location, and makes Bordeaux and Rennes potential good income cities, while converting Rheims, in a bad trade location a strategic castle. But let each castle produce something useful right off. Not all three lines of units, but at least one. For France I'd do 2:1 cav:inf. Maybe Rheims infantry, the other two remain cav.

Maybe reverse that with HRE, so more inf than cav... or whatever seems right for them (as I said, haven't ever played HRE at all). But keep their castle count down to 2. Is Nuremburg a castle or town? Shoot, HRE's only decent trade city is Bologne and it's under pressure from turn 1. No wonder HRE has trouble.

France feels easy compared to Turkey/Moors/Russia. But it normally is, so that's okay.

[Carl]

but I see no issue with giving wooden walls to cities where appropriate.

Well apart from Vienna they have wooden walls everywhere the issue is that HRE (and a few others but HRE especially), don't have any decent city units, (i.e. something that isn't garrison fodder), until the barracks available after building Large Stone walls (12,000 population). So they are a LONG way away from an kind of major city military, they are also limited in that their best missile unit prior to Fortress level is Peasant Crossbows, (lower missile attack and significantly lower melee attack values, plus much lower overall defense, both melee and missile than any type of Longbow, Norse Archer, Highland Archer or Pavise Crossbow), which means they have terrible missile abilities, and Whilst Armored Sergent's aren't bad melee units, they also aren't anything special. That leaves only their Cav which needs the last level of stone castle stables just to get something decent, AND are heavily underestimated by both the recruitment and strength calculator AI's resulting in the AI not recruiting much and treating any armies with it present as weak.

France has similar issues here as well, they are totally reliant on Castle units, and mostly pretty poor or average units, (bar their Cav which the AI undervalues), which helps cripple them as an AI faction. In fact thinking about it, with the exception of Poland all the factions that do well ATM either are left undisturbed, (Russia for example, but also Egypt), or have a focus on something OTHER than Cav/HA.


The best thing IMHO would be to make sure all settlements, (both castles and cities/towns), have the best wall levels available, (for their starting population sizes), and take it from their. Right now the simple need to spend 10-15 turns building stuff just to get access to Armored Sargent's and peasant crossbows is hurting things badly. I also think giving HRE Madenburg and France something from somwhere would help enormously as it would give France one less rebel territory to worry about, one more production center and giving HRE Madenburg would really concentrate Poland's efforts on Stein which would slow down Denmark, and it might encourage eastern expansion by Poland, thus slowing down Russia. It would also give HRE a source of useful assault troops in the northern areas where most of the rebel territory that HRE can get to before others is situated (theirs a good few territories in that area, Antwerp, Steinn, Prague, another north of Prague, and it give access to a number of important Polish and danish territories.)

[Bongaroo]

Spain H/H. So far everything is very interesting and fun. I like that Spain starts with 2 princesses. One princess isn't in the tree though, odd. Got a crusade off on Cordoba and thats about all thats happened. Marriage alliance with france. Princesses used to grab 2 young generals from France.

Jinettes are fun but have they been weakened at all? I seem to remember them causing more kills before.

The moors and pontrugal just allied but portugal still hasn't done anything worse than march around my lands in the north a bit. I'm thinking of grabbing granada next to kick the Moors out and lure portugal into war with me so I can beat up on them too.

Spain is tough for me lacking in early infantry. I'm trying to get a shock stack of cavalry together and have a seige/militia stack follow. The two spainish rebel provinces are still rebel and have some full ciities, very uninviting looking.

[Rozanov]

OK not online at weekends so missed request to test Poles and Danes.

(on v1.23)

Played both Russia and Hungary up to the Mongol CTD.

Not keen on starting with no money but it soon built up - having just played a russian campaign (not to completion) I see Russia has Helsinki instead - which i took in the first couple of turns anyway, but not Smolensk. hmmm.

Managed to grab about the same amount as previously, so game doesn't play too dramatically differently.

Defending settlements / castles too easy - ballistas need slowing down - they fire far too quickly - can easily kill 2-300 people in the time it takes 4 units of archers to kill 60 -70.

Playing as Russia I got attacked by denmark (I had Thorn castle IIRC - very easy to defend!) they had dismounted chivalric knights - which struck me as a bit QUICK! My Russians had yet to build any foot soldiers with those new fangled things - swords. Needless to say the towers of Thorn plus 6 units of peasant archers and some militia spears did the trick and I won very easily.

Playing as Hungary - had a problem with Zagreb - never went beyond a village, even though the population kept increasing. Only when i converted to a castle did it grow - and as soon as it did the venetians bribed it - never had a settlement bribed before, and I've been playing since M2:TW came out. Got backstabbed by Venice and Byzantium, but that's to be expected I suppose.

Had a nasty surprise when I went to jerusalem with a full-stack army on crusade. - I was first there and had to deal with the 3 silver chevron defence garrison. We got destroyed.

Noticed afterwards HRE and another faction had crusading armies there - but they were just standing next to jerusalem and not siegeing it.

-----------------

will DL patch for 1.23 once I've finished DL'ing the new JRE update and have a go at Poland and Denmark (Denmark I know (in game) quite well so should be able to spot any serious issues.)

[Carl]

Jinettes are fun but have they been weakened at all? I seem to remember them causing more kills before.

Nothing Directly that I know of, but the Shield fix has an indirect effect as it increases the units missile defense to the right and rear whilst reducing it to the front and left, so that could heavily throw things out of whack. The AI also tends to get Blacksmiths and the like up faster.

Not keen on starting with no money but it soon built up - having just played a Russian campaign (not to completion) I see Russia has Helsinki instead - which i took in the first couple of turns anyway, but not Smolensk. hmmm.

Thats mainly for the Russians as an AI faction as when used by the AI their survival tends to be totally dependent on weather they take Helenski before turn 10 or not. If they do they do fine, otherwise they stall and never get anywhere. The general idea though is to try to slow the player down overall, (hence low starting money), early on whilst speeding the AI up early on. In effect ensuring that the AI factions have time to expand outwards and become major headaches for the player to deal with. Rather than the wet paper towel pushovers they mostly resemble in vanilla.

Defending settlements / castles too easy - ballistas need slowing down - they fire far too quickly - can easily kill 2-300 people in the time it takes 4 units of archers to kill 60 -70.

Thats deliberate as they need to be better than the arrow towers that come before them. Arrow towers are about the same overall as a good unit of AP Archers, (like Longbows, but their are also a few others around too), Ballista Towers are the same plus some extra range and a bit more overall power. Peasant Archers/Archer militia are very weak level archers and shouldn't really be compared to the towers in terms of killing power. A good AP archer unit can outperform them by significant margins, since said units have half again the attack the target has half the defense value it does against Peasant Archers.

For reference the wall arrow towers have 12 attack, AP, approximately 4 times the accuracy of a longbow, and fire an average of exactly 400 shots per minute. Your average Longbow has 8 attack, AP, a quarter the accuracy, but has a fire rate of over 600 shots per minute, (not 100% on exact fire rate for archers as reload times are not as exactly known as for arrow towers). This is on small unit sizes with the arrow towers from a stone Castle, they get slightly faster firing as you go up the levels. The attack value is also somewhat spurious as values over 10 produce no kill rate increases for Longbows, Longbows also get more accurate the closer the target is. Overall I'd give the Longbows a slight advantage, but only a slight one, and mostly down to the fact that at shorter ranges the fire rate and accuracy is high enough to make the better attack and slightly higher accuracy of the towers less of an issue.

Playing as Russia I got attacked by Denmark (I had Thorn castle IIRC - very easy to defend!) they had dismounted chivalric knights - which struck me as a bit QUICK! My Russians had yet to build any foot soldiers with those new fangled things - swords. Needless to say the towers of Thorn plus 6 units of peasant archers and some militia spears did the trick and I won very easily.

The easy siege defenses are a known problem that i'm working on. Part of the issue is the fact that the AI STILL isn't building enough catapults/trebuchates which are almost mandatory for attacks on the higher levels of walls. This is also a deliberate choice so as to make blitzing harder, (you need siege gear which slows your army down, and even then the losses you will suffer will force you to spend time retraining and replacing which will slow you even more).

It's just that right now the AI isn't using enough siege gear and a s a result it's attacks are somewhat half hearted considering the new defenses, the AI simply fails to take them into account in the strength calculator.

Playing as Hungary - had a problem with Zagreb - never went beyond a village, even though the population kept increasing. Only when i converted to a castle did it grow - and as soon as it did the Venetians bribed it - never had a settlement bribed before, and I've been playing since M2:TW came out. Got backstabbed by Venice and Byzantium, but that's to be expected I suppose.

The Growth situation is a know issue and will be corrected come V1.24.

Had a nasty surprise when I went to jerusalem with a full-stack army on crusade. - I was first there and had to deal with the 3 silver chevron defence garrison. We got destroyed.

, yes it is rather a shocking surprise isn't it.

Noticed afterwords HRE and another faction had crusading armies there - but they were just standing next to Jerusalem and not sieging it.

It's VERY annoying, I wish I knew why they did that.

will DL patch for 1.23 once I've finished DL'ing the new JRE update and have a go at Poland and Denmark (Denmark I know (in game) quite well so should be able to spot any serious issues.)

Ok, and thanks for the data, don't worry about not seeing what I wanted testing as you've still given me a lot of data to work with thats useful to me.

[Bob the Insane]

Finally got bored of Stalker and after watchng Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut (which I can really, really recomend if you like the film) i got the old MTW2 bug...

So updated to 1.23 and put the 1.23 fix on and started a Polish Campaign...

Despite having 0 money to start you have so few troops that setting Krakow to Very High Taxes gives you 500-ish a turn before you build any impovements so you can start, slowly as long as you are not foolish with your starting troops. You can abuse the AI a little by putting a stack near the rebel settlement you want to take and the Noble Council should promptly give you a mission to take it will a nice payout. I took by means of a long siege Berslow (spelling?), Thorn and Prague...

For both Thorn and Prague the garrsion sallied out. In Thorn it was primarily my Polish Nobles the insigated a large rout by use of missiles and then charges to the flanks. The battle for Prague was on a larger scale with a lot more spear militia on my side to hold the line, but basically the same tactics overall of flanking with the generals and Polish Nobles and routing the defending force... The Spear militia performed well.

A Crusade has been called and a large Danish Crusade army just passed through my lands so after taking Prague I have joined the call and sent my own including two generals (one is the heir).

With three castles and two cities finances are going well, I am allied to most of my neighbours (HRE, Hungary, Denmark, Sicily and the Pope) including by marrage to Russia. I have trade agreements with Venice, Milan and France.

I have not yet reached the magic 30 turns yet so things are pretty peiceful so far..

Additionally, I might have missed it, but castles no longer seem to be able to build farms??

[vonsch]

Yep, no farms for castles. And they also had their trade profits dropped. Carl is trying to differentiate between castles as productions centers and cities as economic centers more.

My only issue with it is the AI is too dumb to switch castles to cities.

My castles tend to develop faster (once I have cash flow) because there isn't much choice but to build unit production stuff in them. But I have even fewer than I tend to in vanilla too. I mostly use one main production castle, and captured ones for replacements until they are no longer forward.

[Bob the Insane]

I guess the only issue is that castle growth can be frightening slow without some farms... To be honest that is the reason I build farms in castles, not for income, but population growth...

Having said that though, in the Feudal world was that not the whole point of castles and knights but to secure all the farmland to feed the population and economy of the kingdom (and provide relatively easy access to self sufficient military forces)?

I would argue that farming should be available to either castles or cities but trade upgrades be limited strictly to cities (I guess that is the way it is aready however). But then again the whole point of this is to prompt the AI into intelligent decsions so I suppose anything goes...

[vonsch]

As things stand you have two alternate methods of growing castles (fairly) fast.

(1) Post a high chivalry governor there a while. They can really rachet up growth.

(2) Convert it to a city, grow it but don't build stone walls. Convert it back to a castle.

Carl doesn't like the second because the AI is too dumb to do it though.

I find myself mainly doing (1) these days, and using captured castles (which are often nicely built up for me). It's pretty easy to get a 5+ chivalry general and they improve if you put them to work as governor.

But I use big governors to pump cities fast too. Along with farms and trade and normal taxes. Once I get them grown to huge, I stall out growth as much as I can and move the governor away.

The nice thing about governors is they can be turned on or off, unlike farms.

[Carl]

I guess the only issue is that castle growth can be frightening slow without some farms...

Don't worry, basic castle growth rate will be upped for 1.24, as I agree in the case of some castles, even with trade the growth can be static without a good Governor, which the AI isn't quite up to using.

My only issue with it is the AI is too dumb to switch castles to cities.

I'm trying to make as many of the best trade spots cities whilst keeping a good selection of castle around so the AI has a castle nearby often whilst still having lots of high trade areas. I'm also planning on including a number of trade bonuses for castle linked directly to Gunpowder and "the World is Round" events so that as the game progresses and the best levels of city units become available, (reducing but not eliminating castles as the main production centerers), the castles start to take more of the economic strain.

I have not yet reached the magic 30 turns yet so things are pretty peaceful so far..

Only so far. What are the other local factions doing like then, any good or are they slow for you?

[Carl]

A quick update on V1.24. It's nearly their ATM, I've just got a few more tweaks to make. The Descr_Strat file changes took a while as it's VERY easy to make an error in their so it's taken forever to dig them all out. i've just got a couple of new traits to add and some last tweaks to reputation and I'll be ready to release it so it's going to get delayed 24 hours till tomorrow, sorry about this guys, just took a LOT longer to do some changes than I thought it would.

[Bob the Insane]

Only so far. What are the other local factions doing like then, any good or are they slow for you?

Well Hungary beat me to Iasi, and the HRE got to Prague first but could not deal with the garrison. The HRE have taken Magdeburg. Hungray have taken Zagreb, Sofia and Isai...

The Russians have taken Helsinki and Denmark have Hamburg and a large stack heading to Stettin (they start with Stockholm and Oslo now right?)...

It is 1111 and no-one is at war yet or allied to anyone but me... In addition to myself (the Polish) Denmark and Venice have crusade armies on the way to the holy land...

[Carl]

It is 1111 and no-one is at war yet or allied to anyone but me...

It usually takes about 5 turns after turn 30 before everyone starts waring in earnest. You should see the odd one before that, but nothing major until about 5 turns as those initial wars cause initial alliances which cause more initial wars which cause more alliances and thus more wars, and so on and so on.


Since the patch is now confirmed for this Thursday i'm going to put V1.24 on hold until that comes out as it would be pointless to release v.124 tonight and then have to release v1.25 a few days later. Exact release date of V1.24 will depend on what time the actual patch is released. if it's 1:00 AM on Thursday morning then I could have it by Friday night. If it's midnight Thursday Night then it's more likely to be Saturday night as i'm going to need at least 24 hours to check out all their changes and work from their.

[Bob the Insane]

Well, it is now in the late 1120's and the world has certainly gotten a lot more interesting for the Polish.

The HRE appears to have been quite upset over my annexing of Prague and after many terratorial violations and the assassination of one of our Cardinals they finally besieged Prague. On doing so the Hungarians canceled their alliance with us and the Pope (with whom I have Perfect relations) has done nothing. Fortunately we had been looking to the future and possible conquests to the east and with the bulk of our forces and royal family away on crusade we have been building a new and better army. Spearmen, Lithuanian Archers, Polish Nobles and those unpronoucable mounted crossbowmen (plus some catapults, but we soon left those behind). This army was almost finished and had been collecting in a fort outside Krakow.

With the King trapped but the siege of Prague (with 4 units of Spear Militia) and his two sons in the Holyland on Crusade, it is up to his son in-law who had been charged with the care of Krakow to take command of the army and move to relieve Krakow. On reviewing the strategic situation and noting further HRE stacks moving towards other settlements and to reinforce the siege of Prague our new general decided speed was of essence and leaving the bulk of the army to complete the build up, he took 2 units of Polish knights and 4 units of the Crossbow cavalry and rode hard to the rescue of his father-in-law and lord, the King... Long story to short, the relief when well with the besieging for attacked simultaniously by missile cavalry to the rear and Spear Miltia the the King to the front. The HRE force was cut down to a man and survivors out to the sword when their Emperor refused to pay ransom. Relief was short lived though as this was just the start of things, not the end. Soon Krakow itself plus some other settlements had small stacks besieging them. Small, but still too strong for the local garrisons.

Our general above has remained in command of the cavalry force tasked with relieving sieges and driving off the HRE stacks. The noble council has revealed that in it's highly aggresive strategy the HRE has left Vienna critically under-defended and has offered a reward for taking this city. The money is greatly needed, as is a new source of income, plus cutting that income off from the HRE. So the King himself has taken the bulk of our infantry and catapults and has started moving south.

The loss of income from Krakow is very bad news as it puts our finances in the red and stops the rebuilding of our forces until Krakow is relieved. To make matters worse the Hungarians, allied to the HRE, have taken advantage of the situation and have attacked a border fort guarding the main bridge north of Iasi. Finally the HRE have allied themselves with the Milan.

I do not seem to have gained any advantage so far from my alliances with Denmark, Sicily or the Pope. I allied with Venice in order to deny this to the HRE and balance their alliance with Milan, but this may prove a problem later as Venice are presently at war with my other allies the Byzantians. The war ceased for just one year after my new alliance with Venice before the fighting started again. Finally in response to the lack of action from Rome and to support my crusaders' efforts I have entered into alliances with both the Turks (ending their war with Byzantian) and with the Egyptians. Our crusaders have done well and have taken Acre and are now besieging Jerusalim with a danish crusading army stood by close enough to assist.

So overall, our missile cavalry has given us an open field advantage over the HRE's spearman, but finding the money to develop the infrastructure for them and to hire them has slowed me down. Note sure why the HRE and Hungarians are so openely aggressive to us..

[Carl]

Just a quick note for you regarding alliances.

You need relations with the other faction to be Very Good or above, and you need just slightly better than Reliable Reputation, (Very Reliable is certain to be enough), for it to be a trusted alliance. If it's not trusted it won't help you any more than in vanilla. If it is trusted then they ill declare war on anyone who declares war on you, but be aware that this doesn't work if you are already at war with the target when the alliance becomes trusted.

To get your rep up release prisoners and occupy settlements plus by back your own prisoners. Never ransom or especially execute prisoners and don't exterminate/sack.

Top get relations up constantly gift them map info and military access onto your lands. Even if they refuse it pushes relations up. Based on the pope thing I'd say your reputation isn't high enough.

Otherwise, thanks for the info. Would you say money has been a major issue for you then, or is it simply a little difficult but not nasty money wise? Not sure why all the small stacks though...

[Bob the Insane]

Top get relations up constantly gift them map info and military access onto your lands. Even if they refuse it pushes relations up. Based on the pope thing I'd say your reputation isn't high enough.

Just just can't seem to get passed Mixed with the Poles... Need that cash too much...

Otherwise, thanks for the info. Would you say money has been a major issue for you then, or is it simply a little difficult but not nasty money wise? Not sure why all the small stacks though...

I am definately hobbled by my cash flow, it was fine at first, but even with one army on crusade once I started building up the second army and I got past my second level structures, and the buildings start to get expensive, my cash flow started to dwindle. The war with the HRE, my major trading partner is another problem. However the situation is far from lost, even if I continue into negative figures, I have forces in the field, I am besieging one city and shortly about to attack another. I think I am going to have to stop pussyfooting around with the chivalrous path thing and go all Dread and lay a big can of whoop-ass down on the HRE and show these Western Europeans that then aren't so very Holy... If they are willing to betray me they deserve it...

So overall I think cash is just right, to much more and my early missile cavalry could have been causing havock all over the place.

However I am having problems growing my cities, even with a decent governor and all the buildings constructed, Krakow has not yet grown to the next level.

From a deplomacy perspective, the HRE were deceitful and had a priority of "war" before they betrayed us. So even if our relationship hand been Very Good and we had been Trustworthy would they have honoured the alliance?

The HRE stacks are like 6 units, mostly Spears with a archer unit. Some of the newer ones have mounted sergeants to. They are easily more powerful than my garrisons...

[vonsch]

With the walls the way they are, the small stacks are only a problem if they don't assault. They can starve you out if they keep besieging (which is cool). That and they cause income loss, which can hurt.

Taking the war to the enemy is definitely the way to go if your economy is dicey. Hit deep. If you can't afford to garrison the conquest, just sacrifice rep and exterminate and destroy all the buildings, then abandon it. But be prepared to make more enemies that way! Selling off the buildings after occupying should also work, and may leave a really ungovernable city behind too. Just don't destroy churches! If you have LOTS of alliances and few wars, you can earn back the rep loss pretty fast anyway. Mine is running at Immaculate in my last France test at about turn 45. Minor stuff like a little spying doesn't hurt it with 10 allies. The Ai factions are fighting, but I'm keeping my act very chivalrous and am only at war with the Moors, thanks to Spain. A little incident with a ship in a Moorish zoc. As soon as Spain pulled me into war with the Moors, they signed a ceasefire too! But no problem, I'll just take Tunis. The Moors are jihading on Bagdad so they have distractions.

With Carl's mod you pretty much have to use merchants for the income boost (which is not small). I get as many as I can to a good area. The problem with them being taken over is less as the odds of success are a bit lower. But getting them some early experience doesn't hurt. I do that by hitting lots of less good trade spots on the way to my actual target. Not even using the fort thing these days. I still lose one occasionally, but the payback on them is much faster. It's pretty easy to earn back the 550 in less than 10 turns with some knowledge of what's good for the faction you're playing. For Russia I head for slaves. That's a good compromise of quick payback and reachability. The slave trader ancilliary is nice if you can get it too. Don't know what's good trade goods for Poland though. Constantinople and N. Italy are pretty vicious for merchants still, so I'd only send experienced merchants there (and check out the locals first). If you can nab some low skill merchants enroute, you can boost skills even more/faster.

In my game I hold Bern and Milan Dijon. HRE holds Metz. So Bern is cut off. I can't move in or out without committing a transgression against one or the other. For about 5 turns HRE had a part stack parked next to Bern. I kept building junk units to fill up the castle as I was working on buildings. They finally pulled their units out. But both their rep and Milan's are trashed from transgressing in that region . I am just waiting for Milan to get pushy. Genoa is wide open and I have a ballista with its name incribed. I will soon do the same for Milan itself, since Bern makes a lovely perch to swoop down on Milan from! As soon as Tunis falls, I'll move the ballista and a short assault stack to Corsica where it's a quick hop over to Genoa. That way I can land and assault in one turn. But Milan has stopped poking around (for now.) France's military is rated #1. And Milan is besieging Venice. Don't think they can take it, so I'll let them batter themselves against the canal. If they do, Genoa must fall. Can't let them build momentum.

But don't know how much more I'll play this version with 1.2 close. Be nice to lose SOME bugs.

Oh, don't ally with Islamic factions, btw. Bad juju for rep. They are evil! Makes all good Christian factions suspicious. With Othodox isn't so bad. That might be hurting you. Having a lot of alliances really helps too, but after turn 30 they are harder to get, especially once you are at war.