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Thread: V1.21 Rebuild-ProblemFixer BETA testing thread

  1. #91
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Only that one heretic so far though. The high conversion rate was the biggest issue. I don't mind seeing them pop fairly often. Just not convert the province to majority heretic in 10 turns!
    Yeah, was a bit silly, didn't realize how much I'd buffed them TBH.

    No loose rebels so far either.

    Did not try Acre on battle screen. And that save is gone.
    Fair enough, was wondering how you where finding the towers when you actually had to fight right through them.

    Empty buildings are silly though. Must be a better solution than forcing it to be built with no purpose than as a prefix.
    Agreed, I'm just not sure what to put in their, Town/Spear militia maybe, with them disappearing/reducing when the next level shows up?

    Turn 10, just waiting for sally while I cook myself some dinner.
    LOL, it's 2 in the morning here so it would be a really late night snack for me. Enjoy it.

    Carl.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

    This ProblemFixer fixes the following: 2-Hander bug, Pike Bug, Shield Bug, Chasing Routers, Cav not Charging, Formation Keeping Improved, Trait Bugs, and Ancillary Bugs.

    BETA Testers needed for the current version of RebuildProblemFixer. Thread here

  2. #92

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Agreed, I'm just not sure what to put in their, Town/Spear militia maybe, with them disappearing/reducing when the next level shows up?
    I think this would be acceptable. Spear militia. Then replace it next level.

    Takes two levels of the city line to get to spears, I think. But that's okay, you want to encourage building castles and barracks! Yeah, it's archer, then spear militias, for Egypt. Could even make it 2 at first level, then 1 at second when the javs come in, since those aren't really stand and hold types. Nubian spears come at 3, then the better stuff at 4.

    Need to check vanilla. Since I haven't played Egypt, may be missing something in how they are set up there.

    Okay, we do have an issue. Castles produce Arab cav and Maluk archers at level 1. I knew something was missing. Egypt is HA based too. Desert cav are the jav version, Maluks are the HA. Arab is med cav. Need that early cav somehow or the play complexion is warped. I thought I was footslogging too much.

    No ideas at the moment, but it's not good as it stands. You have Mamluk archers at level 3 stables. That's a LONG wait for something Egypt should have immediately from the Gaza castle. Move them to stable level 1. Gaza does start with a stable, at least. Don't phase them out, ever. There is no replacement unit, unless it's gunpowder. If there's one, could downplay them then, but it would have to be a mounted unit. Anything less grossly shortchanges Egypt. The starting blurb says it all: "Relies on powerful cavalry, particularly the Mamluks." ie. That is the signature Egyptian unit and it's meant to come in immediately and progress into the heavy cav version at the Royal level.

    But having it in the stable line is fine, I think. The way Egypt starts puts that production at a strategic spot. And it will remain castle-based, just a stable upgrade later. Keep in mind you're also nerfing the AI version of Egypt with your existing changes. That's probably part of the reason I saw them performing so poorly (along with the beefy Jerusalem, which may prove to be a problem for AI Egypt).
    Last edited by vonsch; 03-10-2007 at 03:49.

  3. #93
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    I think this would be acceptable. Spear militia. Then replace it next level.

    Takes two levels of the city line to get to spears, I think. But that's Okay, you want to encourage building castles and barracks!
    Yeah, thats why i didn't like so much stuff on walls in the first place (well partly), many of the barracks building felt redundant due to what walls gave you. they all seemed to be a prefix for the last level, (or levels if city based).

    I'll add that to my to-do list BTW.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

    This ProblemFixer fixes the following: 2-Hander bug, Pike Bug, Shield Bug, Chasing Routers, Cav not Charging, Formation Keeping Improved, Trait Bugs, and Ancillary Bugs.

    BETA Testers needed for the current version of RebuildProblemFixer. Thread here

  4. #94

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Don't miss my 'plaint about Mamluks.

    Going back to the nerfed Eggies to see what the Turks do. I'll grind some infantry for a while and consolidate. Want to see if they get aggressive.

    Turn 20. Consolidated the Holy Land from Gaza to Aleppo. Too much money in treasury for this stage considering I do no sacking. 26k at the moment. It was tight around turn 10. Partly it's bringing all the cities online, and partly the big decrease in maint as they start getting free upkeep. And I think merchants produce too much income by at least double. For reference, I have easily two whole stacks above what I need for garrisons. They are mostly sitting in Damascus and Jerusalem at the moment. Well, Jerusalem needs a big garrison, it's big. But I haven't built anything in the last 5 turns except agents.

    I'm concerned that the AI seems to struggle a lot more now. Adana remains rebel. Not hearing any at war rumors. I'm number one, at least doubling the next closest. This is on H/H. I'm not THAT good.

    I suspect the beefing up the rebel towns is hurting the AI far more than it's slowing the player. Players are more adaptable. I have 8 regions and could grab 2 more as soon as I can reach them easily. Four more for that matter. The closes faction is at 6. HRE started at 6. France starts at 5, is now at 6. Byzzies still at 5. Turks still at 4. Moors still at 4. England took one (probably York). Venice took one. Wow, Sicily flat at 2 still, that's unusual. Milan too. Even Russia flat as the steppes. Denmark managed one.

    I think it's time for Plan B. The factions won't power up if they can't expland. I can easily handle any two at the moment. And I'm barely to tier 3 units (and missing all my horse archers!)

    The odd thing is I saw a pretty decent Byz stack near Nicaea. It looked to be heading to Trebizon, but... very hard to believe it couldn't take that town with that stack. Something is off. Everyone shows at war with the rebs, but not many are moving on them. Turkey should have plenty to take Adana now.

    I can understand them not attacking ME if alliances now make that less desireable, but not why they aren't taking these reb towns. I think I'll try to nicely annoy Sicily into declaring on me, see if that's even possible. I can flub diplomacy badly or something. Need to contact them first... long walk up through Turkey then west. Suppose I could build some ships, but I hate building tier one ships.

    My suggested plan B is stick with the rearrangement of wall units, but debuff those rebs back to vanilla. See if that helps the factions expand so they can tech up better. Still... they SHOULD have cash. Need to get to Italy so I can do more diplo work to check.

    Diplo just found a Hungarian army at Bucharest. 5 star general, 4 town militia, 1 chevvie, 2 Bosian archers beat up a bit with 1 chevvie, 3 slav mercs (javs), 1 Balkan archers. Decent half stack. Bucharest has 6 units, can only see 1 of peasant archers. It's a village without walls. Bran, just next door, has a garrison of 2 unIDed units. It's at castle, with 4 buildings I can't ID either. That building count doesn't look bad. The garrison is sorta thin. Turn 21. Hungary is a flat line at 2 regions still.

    Oh, I rank 5th in wealth. I have 30k florins. Money is not the problem.

    Or maybe it IS Hungary's problem. They are showing as bankrupt, very weak, no allies or enemies except rebels and Egypt (allied now)... okay, they are being passive. Another half stack just outside Bran with 4 Magyar cav, 3 Hungarian Nobles, 2 peasant archers, 1 spear militia. That's not a wimp stack. A bit north is a third with 7 more units. I can see 2 Peasant archers, 2 spear militia and 1 Magyar Cav. (How come they get HA and I don't! still can't build them at turn 21!) There's enough there for at least one decent full stack, especially for this early.

    Thinking about it, it doesn't make much sense that the rub buffing is causing this passivity. What else is changed that might be a factor? As many times are I watched Portugal try and fail to take Zaragoza, the AI isn't shy about tackling high odds normally. Something else is involved.

    Turn 25: Finally some wars! Sicily vs HRE, Venice vs Byz. Allies: Veice-Milan, HRE-Venice

    How long before Venice backstabs both?

    Checking Budapest... 1 general garrison. Saw two more short stacks heading to Bran. I suspect Hungary is spending every florin you give them on units and unit maintenance now. I can see tier 1 buildings in Budapest. 7 total. It's 10k pop with wooden walls. Bad priorities.

    I took Adana 2 turns ago per council orders. Dongolo under seige now, also per orders. I missed Jedda because my stack rebelled on me (no general). I'm just picking off the rebs and watching.

    Turn 26: Crusade called on Jerusalem! *starts building towers* Something to do!

    Is something wrong with imam triggers? Only seeing skill increases sometimes when I burn heretics. Saw a lot more with priests. Haven't seen any ancilliaries either. Priests usually get monks. Do imams have no equivalent? I thought they were just priests by another name. I would have expected at least one monk, and several skill boosts by now. Have about 7 team converting.

    Oh, the new one I just trained got a monk. May have to be in a city for those.

    Plan to let any crusade that turns up attack Jerusalem. if it doesn't attack anything else, at least. I want to see how the ballista towers do.

    I AM getting offers for guilds I didn't see often before, but all in the wrong cities Masons guild just now. Got swordsman offer where I want HBG. Explorer where I want theologians, etc.

    Hmm, Byz shows meagre wealth. Modest power. (I show very strong power, 54k wealth now, but getting into serious building range.) I'm up to trustworthy. Byz is reliable probably due to my alliance. 13 turns of trade rights with them.

    Hmm, I seem to be at war with Milan, but I've never met them. Something is wrong. Turn 27. Just happened. Checking my ports No sign of any Milanese. Do have Moors on my western borders as of a turn or so back, so at least they are being a little aggressive. Milan is allied with Venice, I am with Byz, and Venice is at war with Byz. Oddly, Milan did not go to war with Byz. I'm lost here. Oh, doh! Crusade. They must have joined it. Yep, see a Milanese crusading army outside Venice.

    Yes, Moors took 2 regions in last 10 turns. Venice took 2 also. Took them a while, but at least those two seem to be rolling.

    Turkey is building a while bunch of seige stuff, not troops. We need to figure out how to stop that behavior. No wonder they aren't doing anything. Maybe it's a leader personality thing?

    Venice is very rich and very powerful at turn 28. It seems to be working okay. As do the Moors considering they are just west in Tripoli.

    Turn 29: Spain declared on Portugal (oh, goodie!). Moors called jihad on Baghdad. I'll hustle there first. Got my Turkey-watching towers up above Adana. Early crusade warning system too.

    Turn 30: Florence is STILL rebel. Byzzies have at least two big stacks near Constantinople. Not doing much with them. One is mostly missile cav. (I'm jealous, STILL can't make Mumlaks)

    Turn 31: Oops, bet crusade dies. Milan declared on Byz.

    Turn 32: Crusade at Bosphorus. Byz stacks about, no action so far. Emp has 9 stars and all that missile cav.

    My imams still aren't getting any skill boosts. Except the starter one who's burning heretics and getting some occasionally for that. They are getting the job done, but it's very slow since they are all skill 1 and 2 (except big guy, who's off burning turkey down).

    Turn 33: Yay, 3 stacks of Byzzies taking on crusade. Yay, I think. Was sorta looking forward to watching ballista towers in action against THEM. Darn, my sultan died again. He was nice too. 8 command plus 2 more at night. 10 piety. 5 influence. Nice traits. He boosted growth by 9% in Aleppo. Trying to force grow it for better troops. Oh well, 4 more generals off to Baghdad to improve themselves.

    Hmm, no apparent fight with crusade, but several stacks moved next to it. Maybe I will see ballista towers in action.
    Last edited by vonsch; 03-10-2007 at 10:08.

  5. #95

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Okay, I got some solid turns in the English this afternoon after all. Obsession is either great or terrible. My wife votes for terrible by the way.


    Playing as the English on VH/VH. I began a new run at things by attempting to bribe every single rebel province in the British Isles. They were all strangely resistant to the coin of the english king and I was careful to hoard 5000+ florins ffor the purpose. They reaally don't like that hard a%^#$^^ Norman *&*&*%*%$#&* that took the English throne for himself the old fashioned way.

    I did successfully use my princess to catch an excellent French general who was living a Angers, he was much happier in Caen. It was a 33% chance according to the game screen.

    This was a good thing because after I managed to apply auto calcs with overwhelming force to York and Carnoevan Most of the royal family sailed off to Ireland, bloody , bloody Ireland . After garrisoning those two fine properties for the crown I sent virtually every trooper I had, 4 spearmen, four peasant archers, and three units of family calvary to Dublin to ensure that I got there before the Scots. I want them to have the smallest possible number of provinces when it comes time to Irrritate the pope b y eliminating their stain from the British Isles. maybe I can arrange for them to have a successful crusade first so I don't take the rep hit for eliminating the faction.

    The Irish managed a through demonstration of their feelings for the English. The upgraded Kerns, Gallowglaiches and town militia went down swinging in the finest tradition of the green isle. They chewed my spearmen to bloody gobbets and after I had committed the all the family calvary to one charge to many left two heirs to the English crown dead on the cold hard ground. King William survived but it took the last bitter dreg of will power to not exterminate the place in vengeance but he occupied it instead for the good of his remaining heirs. Ireland should definely not rebel for a couple of hundred years.

    A turn or two before this The new drillyard was finished in Caen and started turning out better troops than spearman. Specifically one unit Sergeant Spearman and one unit of billmen per year. These were eagerly even greedily received by the aforementioned french general who had found a certain english princess irresistible. At four command loyalty and two dread he was heartily approved of by her father as well.

    So having taken command of 2 units of armoured sergeants, 2 billmen, 4 spearmen, and another scion of tthe royal house he marches on Rennes to demonstrate his loyalty to his father in law by adding a province to his realm. All involved hoped it would be the first of many.

    Unfortunately he was cut down in the last moments of what would have been a great and heroic victory. His men had battered down the gates, having had the foresight to build three rams to disperse the withering fire from the enemies walls, his brave troops duly smashed down the city gates. The fire from the enemies towers did leave one ram a burning wreck and 30 or forty brave spearman dead.

    Then in what would have been the moment of his fist triumph he was cut down by a virtually the last remaining unit of infantry infantry when the crept up behind the main english line and overcame the last of his brave bodyguard, so many of whom had already expended themselves in heroic, and repeated charges to almost completely drive the enemy from the square. His heretofore brave troops broke and routed on his death throwing away the victory they had fought so hard for.

    Okay, enough story

    VH/VH on this mod is just that, you have to claw for everything and you DO NOT want to take your eyes of of the overview map, even when you think you have the battle won. Furthermore even small mistakes in handling charges in congested village streets are punished severely, with royal funerals.

    The arrow fire from wooden walls is heavy but not intolerable, you do not want to have your rams pushed by your best units though.

    The length of time it takes to get longbows seems excessive, the sergeant spearmen at the same time as billmen however are more than welcome, the low production rate from this level of drillsquare will mitigate against stupidities like assaulting instead of waiting out Rennes.

    There should be some way of re-offering the bribe when the garrison has had couple of years to ponder the choice between starving and charging.

    I think that the much heavier fire from even the most basic walls will go a long way to addressing some of the longbows uberness in vanilla. You will not be able to line up and shoot the garrison to pieces for little or no loss. I think that would allow some longbow production out of the lowest level archery ranges without throwing balance out of whack. I only had one heretic and my cardinal and a new priest are still trying to run him down. No major effects on happiness yet.

    Overall I like the feel, I have no major suggestions that are not listed in the posts above. I do like the idea of tying even more things into Chivalry/Dread, it makes a lot of decisions harder and more important. I continue to be amazed with your AI modifications on both the battle and strategy maps. The basic engine appears to be there to provide a real challenge and you have tuned it perfectly. I am looking forward to the next version. And since you are great about balance suggestions this should be fantastic in short order.

  6. #96
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Alright, I've been messing with files all morning so I'll write a reply. I'll edit it in in stages.

    First up stables:

    I tried lowering the tech levels but it went pear shaped, lowering it even one level makes the first level stables available at Motte and Bailey level, and also makes the 3rd level available at castles. Not really what I wanted, the 3rd level stuff is typically pro enough that it really belongs in fortresses, plus not everyone get the 4th level stables but I want everyone to have to go to citadel level for their best stuff.

    On the other hand, after adding in basic military infrastructure for everyone I'm seeing a lot more decent armies wondering around and a few more territories being captured really early on.


    Regrading Turks:

    I'd kind of like to see people have a reason to use their THA as lots of people tend to agree that in vanilla Turkomen largely replaces them almost immediately. Reading your posts your issue with this tends to be more related to the fact that your short on good mounted melee punch, hence your having to use foot-sloggers to compensate. What if I dropped a mercenary light Cav unit, (Alan light Cav for example), into the Turks tech tree at the first level stables to give you your mounted melee punch. I've done similar things in Moors, (Tuareg Camel Spearmen @ Militia Drill Square, and Irish Kern's replacing Peasant archers as Scots for example).

    That way you get your mounted punch but also still need to use THA till you get stables up enough. Although starting castles even with default stables positions still can get the second level so you'd still get Turkomen's from the starting castles if they really are necessary (i don't know how vital Turkomen's are, or (more to the point), exactly why they are so much more important than THA).

    Of course if that isn't a good idea don't hesitate to say so and explain why.


    Regarding Mameluke's:

    I agree 3rd level stables is overly harsh as it happens, I didn't notice when putting the tech trees together that I'd put such important units so far up. Also, it was probably down to the fact that i was insisting on no more than 1 unit type added per level of stables, this is fine with western factions that only get melee Cav, but doesn't work so well with the eastern factions that get lots of HA, considering that and the fact that Desert Cav+Arab Cav is the staple of Early Moors I see no reason not to budge Arab Cav and Eastern Cav down to level one, and drop the various Mamelukes down to Level 2. (I don't really want 2 HA showing up at once, most people seem to switch to bow HA other Jav HA except when dealing with Elephants and other HA (the elephants are why they didn't get reductions unless a better Jav Cav sowed up).

    Would that work do you think?


    Regarding Income:

    A couple of points here:

    1. the resources Egypt and Turkey have access to close at hand are worth 3-5 times as much to the them than the close resources in Western Europe, most western European resources are only worth 80-150 to the power near them. The Egyptian ivory and Byzantine Silks are especially valuable TBH.

    2. Your actually doing well to be struggling in the early game as Egypt with money. According to Egypt fans in the guide for vanilla it's fairly normal for Egypt to be rolling in so much cash that they can never be low on money, it's apparently one of the biggest money spinners in the game after Byzantine, and only the Italian states come close after that.

    However, with the large amounts of Chivalry running round I think it might be a good idea to reduce the fertility of all regions to cut the growth rates to something reasonable, I'm often finding cities growing a LOT faster than i can build now. (Like Constantinople hitting 30K pop withing 40 turns). That should cut overall income too.


    Regrading Rebels, and AI attacks on them:

    Their are a couple of probable reasons for the issues, and 1 possible reason.

    1. In the V1.20 nobody starts with much of a military infrastructure, tis means you need to build it up before you can stat building up your armies. The AI is poorer than the player at this and as a result is a good 15-20 turns behind where they where in vanilla, as a result they can't build stacks capable of challenging the rebels for a good number of turns. I'm correcting this deficiency in the next BETA though.

    2. My money Script was Broken so the IA wasn't getting it's extra money, with that I would expect the AI to do better as the script covers the initial building costs for the first 50 turns or so, (it gives the AI 5000 florins if their Treasury is below 5K), then roughly a single full stack in upkeep there-after.

    3. I'm new to AI editing and I may have messed up the AI for attacking rebels. I'll check although I don't think i have, i think the AI just struggles to get a decent army together for the first 20 turns or so.


    Regarding AI Wars:

    This is partly down to the old alliances thing as you can get quite extensive alliances going, and even more so, down to the fact that it takes the AI a fair old while to build up forces that are locally Superior to another faction, and it won't start a war till they are. by turn 50 wars tend to be going off every 5 turns or so. theirs less than their used to be (the old alliances again), but still plenty to go around.


    What else is changed that might be a factor? As many times are I watched Portugal try and fail to take Zaragoza, the AI isn't shy about tackling high odds normally. Something else is involved.
    I edited the attack rebels AI so that the comp actually has to out-power the rebels, before it didn't matter as they where always stronger than 90% of the rebels out their. Now every rebels stronger than most starting armies so it would just result in the AI wasting lots of expensive to replace troops.


    Is something wrong with imam triggers? Only seeing skill increases sometimes when I burn heretics. Saw a lot more with priests. Haven't seen any ancillaries either. Priests usually get monks. Do imams have no equivalent? I thought they were just priests by another name. I would have expected at least one monk, and several skill boosts by now. Have about 7 team converting.
    Their shouldn't be but I'll check as I've noticed weird behavior too. Monks need you to be in a province with 90% of your own religion for a about 10 turns without moving to get them.


    I AM getting offers for guilds I didn't see often before, but all in the wrong cities Masons guild just now. Got swordsman offer where I want HBG. Explorer where I want theologians, etc.
    I'm not sure what i can do about that, I've added a lot of local triggers, but not many global triggers for guild points, so you have to be doing something in those settlements to attract particular guilds. If you can give any more details here I'd be happy.


    Turkey is building a while bunch of siege stuff, not troops. We need to figure out how to stop that behavior. No wonder they aren't doing anything. Maybe it's a leader personality thing?
    It's because of the recruit AI, it recruits the units with the best attack+defense to cost ratios, and with an attack (after damage multipliers) of over 1900 a catapult puts any other unit to shame totally, i could cut pool size and replenish rates though or move them up a level in terms of when you can get them but I'd prefer not to as it hurts the player more than it helps the AI.


    Hmm, no apparent fight with crusade, but several stacks moved next to it. Maybe I will see ballista towers in action.
    Hope so, i want an opinion on them LOL.


    Playing as the English on VH/VH. I began a new run at things by attempting to bribe every single rebel province in the British Isles. They were all strangely resistant to the coin of the English king and I was careful to hoard 5000+ florins for the purpose. They really don't like that hard a%^#$^^ Norman *&*&*%*%$#&* that took the English throne for himself the old fashioned way.
    You'll need more than that, York is about 17K, (I'm reducing it for the next version BTW), so imagine how much others must be. ALSO, once you try and fail to bribe once they will always refuse now, that a bug in the hardcode thats being fixed in the 1.2 patch.


    This was a good thing because after I managed to apply auto calcs with overwhelming force to York and Carnoevan Most of the royal family sailed off to Ireland, bloody , bloody Ireland . After garrisoning those two fine properties for the crown I sent virtually every trooper I had, 4 spearmen, four peasant archers, and three units of family calvary to Dublin to ensure that I got there before the Scots. I want them to have the smallest possible number of provinces when it comes time to Irritate the pope b y eliminating their stain from the British Isles. maybe I can arrange for them to have a successful crusade first so I don't take the rep hit for eliminating the faction.

    The Irish managed a through demonstration of their feelings for the English. The upgraded Kern's, Gallowglaiches and town militia went down swinging in the finest tradition of the green isle. They chewed my spearmen to bloody gobbets and after I had committed the all the family calvary to one charge to many left two heirs to the English crown dead on the cold hard ground. King William survived but it took the last bitter dreg of will power to not exterminate the place in vengeance but he occupied it instead for the good of his remaining heirs. Ireland should definitely not rebel for a couple of hundred years.
    Sounds like you underestimated what you needed to get the job done. For reference, 3 Town Militia without upgrades are nearly as effective in combat as 2 units of Spear Militia, with upgrades you can bet on them seeing off 2 units of spears on their own and Galloglaich are even worse.


    Unfortunately he was cut down in the last moments of what would have been a great and heroic victory. His men had battered down the gates, having had the foresight to build three rams to disperse the withering fire from the enemies walls, his brave troops duly smashed down the city gates. The fire from the enemies towers did leave one ram a burning wreck and 30 or forty brave spearman dead.

    Then in what would have been the moment of his fist triumph he was cut down by a virtually the last remaining unit of infantry infantry when the crept up behind the main English line and overcame the last of his brave bodyguard, so many of whom had already expended themselves in heroic, and repeated charges to almost completely drive the enemy from the square. His heretofore brave troops broke and routed on his death throwing away the victory they had fought so hard for.
    Woops, that WAS bad, be aware that spear militia with the upgrades the have for rebels are actually more powerful than Armored Sergeants, so underestimate at your own peril. Also, if you units had suffered heavy losses and where tiered most would be down to 1-2 morale, the morale hit from generals death will almost always cause a chain rout at that point to say nothing of the sudden drop in total morale due to the general not giving morale bonuses anymore.


    VH/VH on this mod is just that, you have to claw for everything and you DO NOT want to take your eyes of of the overview map, even when you think you have the battle won. Furthermore even small mistakes in handling charges in congested village streets are punished severely, with royal funerals.
    , take it you liked it though.

    The arrow fire from wooden walls is heavy but not intolerable, you do not want to have your rams pushed by your best units though.
    Bear in mind that it gets faster the bigger the walls and the gates get tougher to break down now, so you'll need to check every level.


    The length of time it takes to get longbows seems excessive, the sergeant spearmen at the same time as billmen however are more than welcome, the low production rate from this level of drillsquare will mitigate against stupidities like assaulting instead of waiting out Rennes.
    Thats going to be fixed somewhat in the next version, with Practice ranges in all faction starting castles, your only one level away from longbowmen. It took too long IMHO in vanilla anyway.


    Overall I like the feel, I have no major suggestions that are not listed in the posts above. I do like the idea of tying even more things into Chivalry/Dread, it makes a lot of decisions harder and more important. I continue to be amazed with your AI modifications on both the battle and strategy maps. The basic engine appears to be there to provide a real challenge and you have tuned it perfectly.
    Thanks, it's nowhere near perfect yet, but it is getting closer.


    And since you are great about balance suggestions this should be fantastic in short order.
    I tend to consider myself stubborn and unyielding a lot so thanks.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 17:18.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

    This ProblemFixer fixes the following: 2-Hander bug, Pike Bug, Shield Bug, Chasing Routers, Cav not Charging, Formation Keeping Improved, Trait Bugs, and Ancillary Bugs.

    BETA Testers needed for the current version of RebuildProblemFixer. Thread here

  7. #97
    Member Member Bongaroo's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    France M/M

    I'll try to post some screens I took after some battles in a bit.

    I'm actually expanding quite quickly. I think thats due to the AI not being as aggressive against rebel factions early on as in vanilla. I see Carl's already noted and is looking into this, just figured I'd mention that I had noticed this to help confirm it.

    A wierd thing happened that I thought might have been bugged but I'll run it by you: a reinforce region mission didn't resolve when I added the requested 4 units (i made 4 units of cheap peasants) but it did resolve when I moved my nearby stack in on the last turn for the mission possible. Thought it wierd as in v1.13 the mission resolved as soon as I simply had 4 or more units in the settlement.

    Some nice features I jotted some notes on:

    -I really like the multiple agents available, that had bugged me a little bit in vanilla.
    -I've been getting plenty of varied guild offers which is nice
    -So far the unit shuffles are fine with me. militia peasants! w00t.
    -more free slots in the cities for militia is nice

    BACK TO THE GAME!!! w00t

  8. #98
    Ricardus Insanusaum Member Bob the Insane's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    I donl't know if it was intentional or not but all the positive triat you get from being good seems to have a odd effect on where your faction leader is the govenor...

    My Settlements:

    Bolonga - Pop 23577
    Vienna - Pop 9132
    Florance - Pop 8521
    Frankfurt - 7097
    Nuremburg - Pop 6265
    Hamburg - Pop 4376 (castle)
    Staufen - Pop 3430 (castle)
    Innesbruck - Pop 2294 (castle)

    Note a the growth of Bologna commarded to the others, now Bologna is where the emperor has been hanging out. Now compare to Vienna...

    Bologna has a base faring output of 4% and Vienna 3%...

    Both have only the first level of farm buildings (clearing).

    Both have a governor with the Farming Knowledge Virtue and are basically chivalrous (no Dread points).

    Yet look at the difference in Population and it us only 1110, the 31st turn...

    I belive this disparity is down to the govenor of Bologna, my faction leader. An odd character how has mostly been good and chivalrous. The faction are considered Very Trustworthy, we only been at war with the Venetians (they started it) and Egypt (we started it for a crusade). He has fought and won battles and never executed prisoners (unless capturing a fort counts). Yet letely we have taken to traing Assassins out of Frankfurt and this has had a slight negative effect on his reputation. I will list him below, but back to the point. By being good and getting loads of chivalry points this greatly increases his influence which seems to apply to population growth as well as public order...

    Is this effect intentional? Are your changes making super Kings too easy to get?


    Emperor Heinrick the Merciless

    Stats:

    Command: 5
    Chivalry: 6 (has dropped recently due to all the Assassin stuff)
    Authority: 10
    Piety: 8

    Ancilleries:

    Chivalrous Knight
    Master of Assassins
    Shield Bearer

    Virtues and Vices:

    Faction Leader
    Proven Commander
    Religiuosly Proper
    Champion of Honour
    Active Builder
    Farming Knowledge
    Rule Approved by the Church
    Dutifully Religous
    Good with Taxes
    Political Promise
    Politically Strong
    Master of Assassins
    Just
    Deceptive
    Merciless Leader
    Night Fighter


    Additionally:

    Carl:

    3. I'm new to AI editing and I may have messed up the AI for attacking rebels. I'll check although I don't think i have, i think the AI just struggles to get a decent army together for the first 20 turns or so.
    I don't think the AI has a problem with deciding to attack rebels, in my 30 turn HRE campign all but one of the provinces that have been taken where rebel (with Poland the current leader with 6 and the Byz in second place). The main issue is with the success the AI has against the Rebels. Denmark is still a single province and the keep throwing themselves against Antwerp and failing...

    Yet More:

    The seems to be something up with the Russians. Is dipite being surrounded by rebels and having two full tacks stationed outside their capital (of their only provice) they do nothing turn after turn...
    Last edited by Bob the Insane; 03-10-2007 at 18:02.

  9. #99

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Quote Originally Posted by Bongaroo
    A wierd thing happened that I thought might have been bugged but I'll run it by you: a reinforce region mission didn't resolve when I added the requested 4 units (i made 4 units of cheap peasants) but it did resolve when I moved my nearby stack in on the last turn for the mission possible. Thought it wierd as in v1.13 the mission resolved as soon as I simply had 4 or more units in the settlement.
    This isn't a bug nor specific to Carl's 1.2.

    Peasants count has half a unit. I ran into the same thing.


    The seems to be something up with the Russians. Is dipite being surrounded by rebels and having two full tacks stationed outside their capital (of their only provice) they do nothing turn after turn...
    Saw the same with the Turks. Were the Russians by chance building loads of siege gear? Or maybe it's related to HA cultures? The autoresolve/odds calculator may be undervaluing those units compared to the value its assigning them at decision time on what to build. Might explain the underperformance I saw with Hungary and even the Byzies too. That huge Byz HA stack I saw used properly can take any reb city. But the autoresolver sucks as handling sallies with missiles. It's very hard to get a win that way, but if the player runs the battle it's hard to lose (with reasonable odds). The enemy is forced to come to you and they aren't set up into a sensible battle line (though they will move to something resembling one).


    Okay, now to deal with Carl's short reply Soon as I get some caffeine.
    Last edited by vonsch; 03-10-2007 at 18:13.

  10. #100
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    A weird thing happened that I thought might have been bugged but I'll run it by you: a reinforce region mission didn't resolve when I added the requested 4 units (i made 4 units of cheap peasants) but it did resolve when I moved my nearby stack in on the last turn for the mission possible. Thought it weird as in v1.13 the mission resolved as soon as I simply had 4 or more units in the settlement.
    Peasants only count as half a unit fopr the purposes of this mission, it's the same in vanilla too, but with so few peasants available to most people and much better units available so early, most people use non-peasant units.


    Some nice features I jotted some notes on:

    -I really like the multiple agents available, that had bugged me a little bit in vanilla.
    -I've been getting plenty of varied guild offers which is nice
    -So far the unit shuffles are fine with me. militia peasants! w00t.
    -more free slots in the cities for militia is nice
    Glad you like it.


    I don't know if it was intentional or not but all the positive trait you get from being good seems to have a odd effect on where your faction leader is the govenor...

    My Settlements:

    Bolonga - Pop 23577
    Vienna - Pop 9132
    Florance - Pop 8521
    Frankfurt - 7097
    Nuremburg - Pop 6265
    Hamburg - Pop 4376 (castle)
    Staufen - Pop 3430 (castle)
    Innesbruck - Pop 2294 (castle)

    Note a the growth of Bologna commarded to the others, now Bologna is where the emperor has been hanging out. Now compare to Vienna...

    Bologna has a base faring output of 4% and Vienna 3%...

    Both have only the first level of farm buildings (clearing).

    Both have a governor with the Farming Knowledge Virtue and are basically chivalrous (no Dread points).

    Yet look at the difference in Population and it us only 1110, the 31st turn...

    I belive this disparity is down to the govenor of Bologna, my faction leader. An odd character how has mostly been good and chivalrous. The faction are considered Very Trustworthy, we only been at war with the Venetians (they started it) and Egypt (we started it for a crusade). He has fought and won battles and never executed prisoners (unless capturing a fort counts). Yet letely we have taken to traing Assassins out of Frankfurt and this has had a slight negative effect on his reputation. I will list him below, but back to the point. By being good and getting loads of chivalry points this greatly increases his influence which seems to apply to population growth as well as public order...

    Is this effect intentional? Are your changes making super Kings too easy to get?
    I think it's because Authority effects growth too, and (when your pop is below 20K anyway), each point of Chivalry adds about 0.5% to the growth, so your 6-8 chivalry leader is already adding 3% on his own before you add in the 0.5-1.0% rise from having any Governor their, the farm raises, and the Authority raises I suspect are their. I'm reducing region fertility in the next version to try to cut this down and cut the rolling in money issues for some factions.


    don't think the AI has a problem with deciding to attack rebels, in my 30 turn HRE campign all but one of the provinces that have been taken where rebel (with Poland the current leader with 6 and the Byz in second place). The main issue is with the success the AI has against the Rebels.
    I've, (if i haven't made any mistakes), set up the AI so it should only attack when it outclasses the rebels However, if it keeps any kind of significant Garrison, (more than 1 or 2 units per city/castle), in it's cities the AI can never pull together enough forces to actually have a chance to sauced, that why i think it's a unit recruitment issue. As the difficulty goes up the AI will tend to keep bigger garrisons and thus has more problems getting together a force that can beat the rebels, by 30 turns in it has it easy as it has the military up to scratch. What more worrying vonsch and me is the first 10 turns, a few armies aside no one does much then, (Hungary tends to grab Sofia given the chance).


    Denmark is still a single province and the keep throwing themselves against Antwerp and failing...
    Thats because Antwerp has Pikes in it and when determining if it's strong enough to beat the Garrison their it thinks the pikes are much weaker than they actually are.

    Thinking about it the displayed stats for units with Armour/weapons upgrades are wrong, so that could explain the excessive failures too, the AI's under-calculating the rebel strength overall anyway. Easy to fix though, i'll just increase how much the AI has to overpower the ebels and replace the Pikes with High Quality Spears.


    Okay, now to deal with Carl's short reply Soon as I get some caffeine.
    ROFL.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 18:36.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

    This ProblemFixer fixes the following: 2-Hander bug, Pike Bug, Shield Bug, Chasing Routers, Cav not Charging, Formation Keeping Improved, Trait Bugs, and Ancillary Bugs.

    BETA Testers needed for the current version of RebuildProblemFixer. Thread here

  11. #101

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    First up stables:

    I tried lowering the tech levels but it went pear shaped, lowering it even one level makes the first level stables available at Motte and Bailey level, and also makes the 3rd level available at castles. Not really what I wanted, the 3rd level stuff is typically pro enough that it really belongs in fortresses, plus not everyone get the 4th level stables but I want everyone to have to go to citadel level for their best stuff.

    On the other hand, after adding in basic military infrastructure for everyone I'm seeing a lot more decent armies wondering around and a few more territories being captured really early on.
    I agree that armies (in general) are looking better for early. At least some stacks. Still have the problem of AI not burning up old stuff and replacing it with new, but using the new and letting the old hang around. Now sure we can fix that.

    I think the answer to the stable issue is my special buildings idea. Where the special units SHOULD be there early, give them their own building at first tier.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Regrading Turks:

    I'd kind of like to see people have a reason to use their THA as lots of people tend to agree that in vanilla Turkomen largely replaces them almost immediately. Reading your posts your issue with this tends to be more related to the fact that your short on good mounted melee punch, hence your having to use foot-sloggers to compensate. What if I dropped a mercenary light Cav unit, (Alan light Cav for example), into the Turks tech tree at the first level stables to give you your mounted melee punch. I've done similar things in Moors, (Tuareg Camel Spearmen @ Militia Drill Square, and Irish Kern's replacing Peasant archers as Scots for example).

    That way you get your mounted punch but also still need to use THA till you get stables up enough. Although starting castles even with default stables positions still can get the second level so you'd still get Turkomen's from the starting castles if they really are necessary (i don't know how vital Turkomen's are, or (more to the point), exactly why they are so much more important than THA).

    Of course if that isn't a good idea don't hesitate to say so and explain why.
    I don't mind using basic HA for missile cav. But they are totally worthless for anything involving melee or charges. The can chase routers. They are very fragile. They make peasants look beefy. (well, almost) Part of the issue is the basic ones are terribly vulnerable to return missile fire. Turkomen are better there, and a bit more useful in melee. They are still brittle. Sipahis are the first that can be useful in charges without simply throwing them away. With your upgrading of spears, this is even more of an issue. Mostly they face spears (and archers) early. I don't mind the fragility per se, but in vanilla while it's there, you can pick and choose which to use when. That choice is removed by your changes.

    Basic HA are cheaper and like Turkomen have good stamina. This makes them really good as pure missile cav. Sipahi don't have the stamina. Though they have better stats, in battle they aren't so clearly better as missile cav because they tire much faster. In melee/charges they are a LOT better though. Even with the stamina issue.

    I like mixing types... unless I'm filthy rich (which is where the too much money becomes a negative factor on unit mix). HA are enough cheaper to justify keeping them around for emergency use. More missiles in the air is better when throwing stacks at incoming stacks to whittle them down. And more survive if you burn off their ammo then withdraw them to fight again next battle (hopefully with even more exp to help). But HA are not tri-purpose. They can chase routers if they can avoid unrouted units. But any melee means they rout and are lost, pretty much. That's not efficient. Need to have the cadre survive to really make them work.

    Turkomen survive a lot better, but can still be lost. They can manage light tri-purpose. They chase routers well, can take brief melee (so you can notice and pull them out), and can even manage light rear charge or flak charge work, if microed. Mostly they can force a quick route, otherwise they are in trouble.

    Sipahi can't run around as much as the first two, but they can hang in there and fight a while. And they can chase routers pretty safely. And they are up to med cav level, pretty much, for charge work.

    Thus, early on only bodyguard cav is available for real getting into hard work situations. And for whatever reason (probably simply tougher rebels) the mortality rate of generals is much higher. That's not all that bad in my opinion, but it is forcing fewer factional-style battles for HA cultures. They need something to charge. But I don't really like the idea of a med cav unit they don't normally get. I'd prefer to see them get BHA from a special building so it's widely available. It's always a bit useful as missiles-in-the-air from the flanks, but it's value does drop as armor goes up. The missile number is low. But Turkomen are no better, just more durable. Sipahi have better missile numbers, but can't dash around. Still, later the tendency will be to migrate to those for the improved hit rate. And to stand up better to return fire.

    If BHA are removed from stables and put into a separate building available at motte & bailey, or just into the structure itself, but at a low rate, and the others moved up to stable 1 and 2 respectively, that's reasonable. You can also play with the rates they come rather than leave a gap. Keep the Sipahi rate very low at tier 2, then up it at 3. Make Turkoman low at tier 1, but not very low, then pump it to full at tier 2 so it can start edging out BHA at the player's choice and so the AI will start swapping. A smart player can kill off BHA fast with concentrated missile fire.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Regarding Mameluke's:

    I agree 3rd level stables is overly harsh as it happens, I didn't notice when putting the tech trees together that I'd put such important units so far up. Also, it was probably down to the fact that i was insisting on no more than 1 unit type added per level of stables, this is fine with western factions that only get melee Cav, but doesn't work so well with the eastern factions that get lots of HA, considering that and the fact that Desert Cav+Arab Cav is the staple of Early Moors I see no reason not to budge Arab Cav and Eastern Cav down to level one, and drop the various Mamelukes down to Level 2. (I don't really want 2 HA showing up at once, most people seem to switch to bow HA other Jav HA except when dealing with Elephants and other HA (the elephants are why they didn't get reductions unless a better Jav Cav sowed up).

    Would that work do you think?
    Well, Mamluks are the signature Egyptian unit and CA has them ubiquitous at level 1. So it's a major style forcing change even at level 2. That's 2400 florins IF you have the castle level. That's not a minor investment when the going rate is 1600 or mostly 600 at that stage. At turn 30 I still don't have Mamluks as it stands now. That's a significant chunk of playing, and my armies are configured in a totally unnatural fashion for how Egypt appears meant to be. Not by my choice.

    Again, I think it's better to control the flow rather than turn it off. If you think they are too powerful for that early, cut the rate at tier 1. Just allowing them to be built in stables vs walls does that significantly already. It will be impossible to have a full stack HA army by turn 10 even with them appearing in tier 1 stables, I think. Both the Turks and Egyptians can do this in 1.13 if they choose, using captured castles to pump the rate. Even if you capture a castle, you still have to build a stable now (and maybe upgrade the castle too). So the rate will be much lower. You can further thottle it, if needed (which I doubt) by cutting the regen rate at tier 1.

    Whether it "will work" or not depends on what you mean by work. If you mean "will Mamluks still retain their role," no. If you mean will Egypt be playable as a faction, it is now. It's just not Egypt. It's a Westernized faction, pretty much like the Iberians, out of the starting gate. Iberian light. Desert cav can't match jinettes. Jinettes are sort of desert cav and Arab cav rolled into one.

    I'm arguing for ensuring the factions retain their flavor. Not really arguing the power issue. If you like a faction and play to its strengths, avoid its weaknesses, you will always do significantly better than with one that doesn't meet your style of battling.


    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Regarding Income:

    A couple of points here:

    1. the resources Egypt and Turkey have access to close at hand are worth 3-5 times as much to the them than the close resources in Western Europe, most western European resources are only worth 80-150 to the power near them. The Egyptian ivory and Byzantine Silks are especially valuable TBH.

    2. Your actually doing well to be struggling in the early game as Egypt with money. According to Egypt fans in the guide for vanilla it's fairly normal for Egypt to be rolling in so much cash that they can never be low on money, it's apparently one of the biggest money spinners in the game after Byzantine, and only the Italian states come close after that.

    However, with the large amounts of Chivalry running round I think it might be a good idea to reduce the fertility of all regions to cut the growth rates to something reasonable, I'm often finding cities growing a LOT faster than i can build now. (Like Constantinople hitting 30K pop withing 40 turns). That should cut overall income too.
    Okay, point one is valid. And this may be partly to compensate for them taking the bludgeon of the hordes full in the face. I haven't tried the Western factions to see how their money supply works here.

    And I agree the growth is very high, at least where there are governors. I'm not seeing my castle grow well, but that MAY also be regional. And it may be relative to cities. I think fertility is not THE issue. I think the chivary bonuses for cities may be too high. Don't cripple the AI by cutting its benefits for growth. It won't "grow" great governors as much, I suspect. Though it does park generals in cities as garrisons a lot, so maybe I'm wrong there.

    Seeing some broke AI factions and some very rich at turn 30 does worry me that something is off. Yeah, Venice is often rich. But so are the Byz, and the latter were not. Hungary I can understand as poor. And Turkey if they don't grab the Holy Land.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Regrading Rebels, and AI attacks on them:

    Their are a couple of probable reasons for the issues, and 1 possible reason.

    1. In the V1.20 nobody starts with much of a military infrastructure, tis means you need to build it up before you can stat building up your armies. The AI is poorer than the player at this and as a result is a good 15-20 turns behind where they where in vanilla, as a result they can't build stacks capable of challenging the rebels for a good number of turns. I'm correcting this deficiency in the next BETA though.

    2. My money Script was Broken so the IA wasn't getting it's extra money, with that I would expect the AI to do better as the script covers the initial building costs for the first 50 turns or so, (it gives the AI 5000 florins if their Treasury is below 5K), then roughly a single full stack in upkeep there-after.

    3. I'm new to AI editing and I may have messed up the AI for attacking rebels. I'll check although I don't think i have, i think the AI just struggles to get a decent army together for the first 20 turns or so.
    (2) If the money script is broke, that would explain the divergence of treasuries early. That should normalize the faction treasuries SOME. If they don't expand fast, they can't spend it all. They should rarely show as bankrupt.

    Something is up with the rebel attacks. And I'm not convinced buffing their armies is the answer to the problem. The Ai just needs to be more aggressive towards rebels very early. That will pressure the player, and it will tend to mean earlier wars too, even with the diplo changes. The player will need to pick a fight somewhere to expand. Or the Ai will. I don't particularly like those starting forces being uber, then rebel after that are back to normal levels. Feels wrong, and I reiterate, it hurts the AI a lot more than it slows the player. Flanders is a special case. I've seen that last to past turn 20 in 1.13. Those pikes are just nasty.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    I edited the attack rebels AI so that the comp actually has to out-power the rebels, before it didn't matter as they where always stronger than 90% of the rebels out their. Now every rebels stronger than most starting armies so it would just result in the AI wasting lots of expensive to replace troops.
    The problem here is those "wasted attacks" are not wasted. They wear down the rebels. The factions can replace those troops and try again. They typically do fail once on a lot of those cities (to wit, Zaragoza, Rennes). The net effect is they do better, far better, than I'm seeing in 1.2. I think the decrease in sacking will be a brake on blitzing, but there's another factor in play: diplomacy. If alliances hold better, there's less incentive to blitz. Those of us who prefer not to (except in the rebel grab phase), can turtle better. And we face less multi-frontal war in later game and more alliance play. We don't know how that will play out, yet, but it will discourage me from blitzing because I prefer that environment to "I must keep taking cities or I die."

    Can we try it without the rebel buffs, but with the rest, and see what happens to the AI factions? You're slowing the player about 5 turns, I'd say, because there's more force buildup required. But that's it. Once those turns are past the rebel blitz is as before. But the AI appers to be slowed by at least 10 turns. That's a net loss of 5 turns to the AI.


    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Their shouldn't be but I'll check as I've noticed weird behavior too. Monks need you to be in a province with 90% of your own religion for a about 10 turns without moving to get them.
    I definitely exceeded this and the only monk I saw was on an imam built and forgotten in a city. And still no skill upgrades except for burning. That means if my start imam dies, no more jihads.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    It's because of the recruit AI, it recruits the units with the best attack+defense to cost ratios, and with an attack (after damage multipliers) of over 1900 a catapult puts any other unit to shame totally, i could cut pool size and replenish rates though or move them up a level in terms of when you can get them but I'd prefer not to as it hurts the player more than it helps the AI.
    Hmm, annoying. CA issue. Seige gear should be ratio limited. No more than x% of an army should be seige gear for AI factions. If they meet or exceed that ratio, they should stop building it. But maybe we can influence it early on by playing with the building availability. If we up the price of the building, will they build it later? Or is price not a factor? Is there a priority list on which building gets built? I keep thinking that's Ai personality related. Maybe we need to remove the guilty personality from the mix. (Who loved artillery? While Nappy did, he SHOULD have a personality that isn't requiring that much.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Thats going to be fixed somewhat in the next version, with Practice ranges in all faction starting castles, your only one level away from longbowmen. It took too long IMHO in vanilla anyway.
    I agree. Longbows at the first level are not that great (only their AP trait is) compared to basic archers, and they are Engliand's special unit, and there are a lot of levels of them. If needed, just throttle the introduction of the better ones again. Start with 1 slot a tier earlier, full-production at existing tier.

    By the way, Carl, I think you have a fetish with one-unit-added-per-level.

    Vanilla adds more than one, so the design is intended to allow that. And it makes sense in cases. I still argue that it's better to do that but control the rates. Give the "better" (in your eyes) unit a low rate to pop 1. Thus until a lot of castles are up (assuming the player chooses to keep a lot, which I typically do not) and have the basic building, the stream will be very skinny. Or until the "proper" tier stable is in place. If the unit is being thrown into battle a lot, the flow will be used just to replenish a few units. A lot of units can't exist until the number of stables, or the tier, increases.

    This could apply to all the signature units that are arguably more powerful than tier 1, or at least have a very weak sister there.

    On the Mamluks, the issue is major to me because HA <> HJ. Desert cav is a very different beast than a horse archer unit. The former is much better at killing armored units, but it's not really all that useful as missile cav per se. Not enough ammo for that role. It's not a good strategic denial unit. Javcav fight, they don't do "death by 1000 needles," withdraw and repeat another day. The two do complement each other in pure cav armies, but neither is much use on even combined in taking cities except if you starve the garrison into sallying.

    I think the Mamluk issue is much larger for Egypt than the Turkomen/Sipahi one is for the Turks. The Turks retain their basic style with the BHA. The Egyptians lose theirs with the missing Mamluks. Desert cav supplements Mamluks, not the opposite.

    But CA does rate Egypt as an early game power, not a late one. So delaying those HA doesn't HELP Egypt in that regard, it hurts it because it can't expand as well (nor defend as well) against the early game factions and hordes. And don't forget they have to fend off crusades, which tend to get both beefy (for that stage) heavy cav and lots of missile-vulnerable trash that HA are really good at handling.

    In effect the Egyptians (and to a degree the Turks) are guaranteed multi-faction wars in the early going. Few other factions are in this position. Egypt cannot prevent crusades from being called. They will happen. They will even break alliances.

    (And I have a fetish for horse archers! I do, I do! But longbows are nice too.)

    Don't know what happened to my quote tags in last post. I cut & pasted them from your reply. Odd.

    Oh, and I should add a point on timing the arrival of these units. If they start coming in at turn 30, they lose 20 turns or so of postential experience gain which makes them better units. So it's no a simple 20-turn delay of the unit, that's at issue, it's the who process that's slowed. Egypt will arrive at turn 100 with less experienced Mamluks when they are starting to really need more punch. With the ability to pump out lots early, and protect their cadre, Egypt's HA "grow" with their role until finally outclassed completely with gunpowder units Egypt just can't match. But they can come closer with more experienced earlier units. They can hold out longer. They remain a win early or not at all faction. That's historical. When the real crusades with lots of advanced Westerners start coming, they are in trouble, especially if the hordes weakened them.

    We don't need to change that aspect of playing Egypt, or Turkey. That's the design. Move fast while it's your historical day or be forgotten. Portugal and Spain had theirs later. It was passed to England, France and Germany... and so on. Shoot, the Aztecs had their day! Then one day Hernan rode up. Instant obsolescence. "What is that beast? What went boom? Did I hear a fizzle?" That last was not a fuse, it was the Aztec culture. Some cultures need to fortify, dig in, batten down the hatches, just survive a century of turns before they can really excel. Not to say a player can't get around that, but it isn't completely necessary to. They can do it later.

    The model really does handle well the tendency of cultures to become complacent with their uber weapons systems. Because HA cultures, or cav cultures (to wit, Poland later versus Germans) cling to what they know worked well for them, they become obsolete when technology arrives that bypasses their strengths. Thus the HA doomed those cultures in the end. But the Mongols ruled the world for a time with theirs!

    I get the feeling your aim it to balance out all the factions so they all are of equal difficulty. That isn't really the original goal. Some are meant to be different/harder/easier. Some do well AI-controlled, others rarely do. There is some randomness due to diplomacy. With the rock/paper/scissors effect of different types of units, one faction that normally "pwns" another can be taken out of play with regards to that first faction so it can expand, tech up, and thus stand up to that threat. Or that threat is simply removed by it's natural antithesis, and the first just happens to fit that role for its savior too. "Thanks for saving me, now die!" Heh.

    Okay, think I'll retire Egypt for now. Not sure what I want to do now. I'm in "wait for the next rev mode," I think.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-20-2007 at 11:47.

  12. #102
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Give me a bit to reply, but it should be [/quote], you have [quote].

    p.s. what are BHA, or did you mean THA?

    I agree that armies (in general) are looking better for early. At least some stacks. Still have the problem of AI not burning up old stuff and replacing it with new, but using the new and letting the old hang around. Now sure we can fix that.

    I think the answer to the stable issue is my special buildings idea. Where the special units SHOULD be there early, give them their own building at first tier.
    I find the AI stacks improve over time, as time goes by and they use up their remaining low level troops they tend to lose them from their armies, eventually they do get really good armies, but it takes a good 100 turns to do (another reason i increased the time scale, it takes over half the game in vanilla for the AI to get going, and still takes a bit in mine).

    I don't mind using basic HA for missile cav. But they are totally worthless for anything involving melee or charges. The can chase routers. They are very fragile. They make peasants look beefy. (well, almost) Part of the issue is the basic ones are terribly vulnerable to return missile fire. Turkomen are better there, and a bit more useful in melee. They are still brittle. Sipahis are the first that can be useful in charges without simply throwing them away. With your upgrading of spears, this is even more of an issue. Mostly they face spears (and archers) early. I don't mind the fragility per se, but in vanilla while it's there, you can pick and choose which to use when. That choice is removed by your changes.

    Basic HA are cheaper and like Turkomen have good stamina. This makes them really good as pure missile Cav. Sipahi don't have the stamina. Though they have better stats, in battle they aren't so clearly better as missile Cav because they tire much faster. In melee/charges they are a LOT better though. Even with the stamina issue.

    I like mixing types... unless I'm filthy rich (which is where the too much money becomes a negative factor on unit mix). HA are enough cheaper to justify keeping them around for emergency use. More missiles in the air is better when throwing stacks at incoming stacks to whittle them down. And more survive if you burn off their ammo then withdraw them to fight again next battle (hopefully with even more exp to help). But HA are not tri-purpose. They can chase routers if they can avoid unrouted units. But any melee means they rout and are lost, pretty much. That's not efficient. Need to have the cadre survive to really make them work.

    Turkomen survive a lot better, but can still be lost. They can manage light tri-purpose. They chase routers well, can take brief melee (so you can notice and pull them out), and can even manage light rear charge or flak charge work, if microed. Mostly they can force a quick route, otherwise they are in trouble.

    Sipahi can't run around as much as the first two, but they can hang in there and fight a while. And they can chase routers pretty safely. And they are up to med Cav level, pretty much, for charge work.

    Thus, early on only bodyguard Cav is available for real getting into hard work situations. And for whatever reason (probably simply tougher rebels) the mortality rate of generals is much higher. That's not all that bad in my opinion, but it is forcing fewer factional-style battles for HA cultures. They need something to charge. But I don't really like the idea of a med Cav unit they don't normally get. I'd prefer to see them get BHA from a special building so it's widely available. It's always a bit useful as missiles-in-the-air from the flanks, but it's value does drop as armor goes up. The missile number is low. But Turkomen are no better, just more durable. Sipahi have better missile numbers, but can't dash around. Still, later the tendency will be to migrate to those for the improved hit rate. And to stand up better to return fire.

    If BHA are removed from stables and put into a separate building available at motte & Bailey, or just into the structure itself, but at a low rate, and the others moved up to stable 1 and 2 respectively, that's reasonable. You can also play with the rates they come rather than leave a gap. Keep the Sipahi rate very low at tier 2, then up it at 3. Make Turkomen low at tier 1, but not very low, then pump it to full at tier 2 so it can start edging out BHA at the player's choice and so the AI will start swapping. A smart player can kill off BHA fast with concentrated missile fire.
    AHHH, you've not only drawn me a lovely picture, but colored it in and added a Numbered Diagram to go with it. First I though ordinary Saiph's where a weaker version of the Siaphi Lancers, i.e. melee only.

    Second, your making it quite clear that Turkey was balanced around the idea that Turkomen's where the starting HA, with THA just being supplemental, and Saiph's taking over once a player has enough money to build them in really large numbers.

    I thought that THA where meant to cover the early period as HA, and Turkomen's take over in the mid and late periods, with Saiph's as mid level med Cav, Siaphi Lancers as mid-high Heavy Cav, and the last one (can't spell), as really late heavy Cav.

    Much the same with Desert Cav and Mamluk Archers. I though Mamluk Archers where the mid to late HA, not the early one. Thats easy to fix. Although I could kill CA for such a bad balancing act.

    Actually I should have realized I was wrong thinking about it, (see my bit on your statement "They remain a win early or not at all faction.").

    Well, Mamluks are the signature Egyptian unit and CA has them ubiquitous at level 1. So it's a major style forcing change even at level 2. That's 2400 florins IF you have the castle level. That's not a minor investment when the going rate is 1600 or mostly 600 at that stage. At turn 30 I still don't have Mamluks as it stands now. That's a significant chunk of playing, and my armies are configured in a totally unnatural fashion for how Egypt appears meant to be. Not by my choice.

    Again, I think it's better to control the flow rather than turn it off. If you think they are too powerful for that early, cut the rate at tier 1. Just allowing them to be built in stables vs walls does that significantly already. It will be impossible to have a full stack HA army by turn 10 even with them appearing in tier 1 stables, I think. Both the Turks and Egyptians can do this in 1.13 if they choose, using captured castles to pump the rate. Even if you capture a castle, you still have to build a stable now (and maybe upgrade the castle too). So the rate will be much lower. You can further thottle it, if needed (which I doubt) by cutting the regen rate at tier 1.

    Whether it "will work" or not depends on what you mean by work. If you mean "will Mamluks still retain their role," no. If you mean will Egypt be playable as a faction, it is now. It's just not Egypt. It's a Westernized faction, pretty much like the Iberians, out of the starting gate. Iberian light. Desert cav can't match jinettes. Jinettes are sort of desert cav and Arab cav rolled into one.

    I'm arguing for ensuring the factions retain their flavor. Not really arguing the power issue. If you like a faction and play to its strengths, avoid its weaknesses, you will always do significantly better than with one that doesn't meet your style of battling.
    I wasn't' trying to remove flavor or westernize Egypt, rather my tech tree layout was altered based on my experiences, (which where mostly western I'm afraid), what worked for western factorings clearly hasn't worked well for Islamic/Iberian Factions, and that has been compounded by my lack of understanding with both how HA work, and of the overall purpose of many HA units on top of that.

    I thought, (based on the fact that Moors players in vanilla find Desert Cav and Arab Cav to be sufficient for their needs), that Egypt would be fine the same way and Mamluk's where/could become the mid to late era HA, with Desert Cav covering the early Period.

    Whats messed it up is 2 fold.

    1. When moving form walls for western factions I've generally moved things into the barracks/stable level that becomes available after building the wall they previously became available from.

    2. after doing the above I the looked for situations where i had 2 units of the same type, (like Turkomen's and THA), turning up at the same level, and then moved the Higher levels up. I repeated this to make sure I never had 2 units of the same type, (e.g. HA/Spears/Heavy Cav/Light Cav/Swords/2-Handers/e.t.c.), turn up at the same building.

    3. Since stone castles are the staple castle level in the early period I decided the early units should go their, the mid game units at fortresses, and the late game units at Citadels. did a similar thing with Cities as it happens.

    Unfortunately the above doesn't work well when you put units in the mid and late periods when they really belong in the early period.

    I'll drop all Egyptian and Turkish Cav down a level and go from there.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 21:37.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

    This ProblemFixer fixes the following: 2-Hander bug, Pike Bug, Shield Bug, Chasing Routers, Cav not Charging, Formation Keeping Improved, Trait Bugs, and Ancillary Bugs.

    BETA Testers needed for the current version of RebuildProblemFixer. Thread here

  13. #103

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    Milan's crusade at Adana so decided to let it come on and see what happens. I'll do some save/loads and try autoresolve and battle screen. But it has no chance, I suspect. Can't see the unit makeup so far, but it's facing a large stone wall with ballistae twoers, 5 saracen infantry as gap stoppers, 5 archer militia, 2 mutatawwi's with a bit of exp (from the jihad that took it), 2 ghazi's (ditto), one desert cav in case there is seige gear it can tackle, and a general (1 star). The Milanese have a 4-star, a standard and 3 religious fanatics that I can see. Archer fodder. The standard is tough, but it's anti-cav and can't get in the city itself.

    Should be beseiged in 2 turns, if it bypasses everything else, which it has so far. Antioch is tougher than Jerusalem, but Damascus would be easier. My main field forces are at baghdad or close. It should fall next turn, so they can be back to retake other cities if the crusade decides to try an easier place first. And I can scrabble together a decent fire team from garrisons. Gaza has a half stack of desert and Arab cav. Plenty of Saracen militia in garrison, that's sturdy. And militia archers for support.

    Oh, 3 desert archers with padded armor just got to Jerusalem too, real archers, not militia. With 1-2 chevvies too. (7 missile vs 5)

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Give me a bit to reply, but it should be
    , you have
    .

    p.s. what are BHA, or did you mean THA?
    Heh, BHA = basic horse archers to me. THA is ambiguous because it's Turkish versus Turkomen.

    Oh, I nixed the slash somehow. Didn't notice. Not enough caffeine at the time.

    Ok, crusade one step from Jerusalem. It bypassed everything else.

    Lineup: 2 standards, 1 great cross (can we say overkill?), 7 Italian militia, 4 crusader sergeants, 5 religious fanatics, 4 star general (may have traits to boost that).

    Against: Large stone wall with ballistae, 5 saracen militia, 5 militia archers, 5 desert archers (with padded and 1-2 chevrons), 1 desert cav, 2 ghazis (1 chevron), 2 mutatawwi'a, 1 star general (no traits that matter).

    I say no chance. But we'll see. The standards are morale boosters, but tough infantry especially vs cav, but it's not a cav battle. No seige gear so it's on the spot work. I bet they don't breach the walls or gate on battle screen. With the towers, assuming you're right about their power, plus 8 archer units, should be a lot of rotten meat out there. The milita and sergeants are resistant, but the fanatics are not, and they are the offense. My saracens are as good as their sergeants and better than their militia, and I have the ghazis and mutas to chop down theirs once pinned. The cav won't play in at all, unless I can manage to stick some javs in their general's buttocks.

    Autoresolve should be very longs odds of success too. I should have at least parity in force values and I'm defending behind walls.

    A forced sally would be a different thing. That might be doable on their end. There those standards would help, but they have no cav to handle archers. And the Ai isn't smart enough to pull back and make me come to them.

    They wimped. Sitting just outside, no seige. Cowards! Fairly nasty place to remove them too. But not as back as it could be.

    Time for some rented HA.

    It's turn 38. I'm #1 and green in all slots (pulling away). 11 regions with a 12th under seige. Rep Immaculate. Power supreme. Perfect relations with Pope, though he's still calling crusades on me . My two neighbors, the Turks and Moors, score 2/5 what I do on the graphs. Venice, the next best overall score 3.5. Unless this is an Egypt thing (and it may be), I don't rate this harder than 1.13, Just different. The AI just isn't aggressive about taking rebels and that's hurting the other factions. And the walls are gonna after the AI more than me. It doesn't build as aggressively. I am more secure defensively, and I adapt better to what I need to tackle the walls.

    Also, while I like the concept of the diplomatic change, I think it needs to be turned down a notch or two. It's too easy to get a great diplo status early. Just don't be bad. Should take longer in the greater scheme. Twice as long, say. There are 450 turns, 50-60 to get to Immaculate would be better than 35. That will help trim the economic effects too. Should also scale based on how many cultures you are in contact with. I've contacted about 2/3 so far. If there's a way to scale the effect to how many are "in play," that might solve the problem. You shouldn't be able to have a great universal rep if you just aren't known except in your corner. But... I can see where that might he hard or impossible with the tools we have.

    As far as tech goes, my cities are ahead. But that's expected since they grow faster. And I tend to choose regions for castles that aren't growth oriented. No need to do that with Egypt, I see. When I next play I'll make on of the big growth regions a castle and tech up faster at least in some lines (stables!). The cities are building large stone walls (Cairo is on huge now). Several can build and upkeep free saracens. Those are solid defensive blockers. Gaza is building its fortress. That will allow lvl 3 stable. With your leader changes, might also be a play to sit the sultan in the numero uno castle to speed its growth. I was using him to boost Antioch. Didn't really need that boost. Money is not a problem. Gaza did get plagued at one point, so that hurt it, but still, it's been around since turn 1 and is below 6k. Alexandria, a comparable city, is closing on 14k. Both have been mostly governorless.

    So, keep in mind that forcing most good units to castles also delays them (on the whole) due to slower growth of castles. They need less pop per tier, but it comes more slowly usually too. This affects the AI more than the player, again. The player can be wiley. I can switch Antioch to a castle and be at max pop right away, but still need to build the stables. Still, it's faster than growing a castle.

    Well, I can't NOW, but I could have earlier to force it to a larger castle faster.

    Just got my HBG at Gaza. It was probably stalled waiting on the castle upgrade. Is it castle level or fortress level for basic guild in 1.2?

    Cagliari is still rebel at turn 39. Heh, diplomatic front geting more interesting. France and Portugal were allies, then one made the other a vassal, now they are at war with each other. Looks (from the French maps I just got) like no one has taken Rennes (wimpyish), Antwerp or Bruges so far. And Bern and Prague look rebel still too, unless my maps are recently outdated. I bet Valencia is still rebel too .

    Okay, finally see some skill increases on my imams, Battler of heresy line. Seems way too slow. Did one of those variables in that xml file change the rate of gain somehow? I have about 10 working as a team now. They allo got that one the same turn, so the trigger must be 100% under a certain condition. Turn 41. No heresy at all in that region, so maybe they cleaned it out and that's the trigger. It's 90% islam, 10% ortho.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-20-2007 at 11:48.

  14. #104
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    I've edited in a reply you might want to look at. not complete yet, I'll edit the rest of it onto the end of this post.

    But the first part is here

    Okay, point one is valid. And this may be partly to compensate for them taking the bludgeon of the hordes full in the face. I haven't tried the Western factions to see how their money supply works here.

    And I agree the growth is very high, at least where there are governors. I'm not seeing my castle grow well, but that MAY also be regional. And it may be relative to cities. I think fertility is not THE issue. I think the chivalry bonuses for cities may be too high. Don't cripple the AI by cutting its benefits for growth. It won't "grow" great governors as much, I suspect. Though it does park generals in cities as garrisons a lot, so maybe I'm wrong there.

    Seeing some broke AI factions and some very rich at turn 30 does worry me that something is off. Yeah, Venice is often rich. But so are the Byz, and the latter were not. Hungary I can understand as poor. And Turkey if they don't grab the Holy Land.
    Might be a better idea, i THINK I've found the appropriate file but I'm having a touch of trouble understanding it, if I'm right though, each point of Chivalry adds 1% to the overall growth rate, (OUCH), with Governor Kings often having 2-3 from StrategyChivalry and the same from HonestRuler thats a good +5/+6% growth. Castles grow at half the rate though and get half the bonuses Cities do.


    (2) If the money script is broke, that would explain the divergence of treasuries early. That should normalize the faction treasuries SOME. If they don't expand fast, they can't spend it all. They should rarely show as bankrupt.

    Something is up with the rebel attacks. And I'm not convinced buffing their armies is the answer to the problem. The AI just needs to be more aggressive towards rebels very early. That will pressure the player, and it will tend to mean earlier wars too, even with the diplo changes. The player will need to pick a fight somewhere to expand. Or the AI will. I don't particularly like those starting forces being uber, then rebel after that are back to normal levels. Feels wrong, and I reiterate, it hurts the AI a lot more than it slows the player. Flanders is a special case. I've seen that last to past turn 20 in 1.13. Those pikes are just nasty.
    Yeah, the broken script probably explains the divergences in money.

    What i meant with army buffing was that the AI attacking the rebels needs bigger stacks to deal with them than it is able to build with default money. So by upping the money the AI gets it should be able to get it's big stacks out and tackle the provinces with less issues.

    The problem here is those "wasted attacks" are not wasted. They wear down the rebels. The factions can replace those troops and try again. They typically do fail once on a lot of those cities (to wit, Zaragoza, Rennes). The net effect is they do better, far better, than I'm seeing in 1.2. I think the decrease in sacking will be a brake on blitzing, but there's another factor in play: diplomacy. If alliances hold better, there's less incentive to blitz. Those of us who prefer not to (except in the rebel grab phase), can turtle better. And we face less multi-frontal war in later game and more alliance play. We don't know how that will play out, yet, but it will discourage me from blitzing because I prefer that environment to "I must keep taking cities or I die."

    Can we try it without the rebel buffs, but with the rest, and see what happens to the AI factions? You're slowing the player about 5 turns, I'd say, because there's more force buildup required. But that's it. Once those turns are past the rebel blitz is as before. But the AI appears to be slowed by at least 10 turns. That's a net loss of 5 turns to the AI.
    I found (before I modified the AI), that the rebel defenders where so good that the AI was literally losing entire half stacks whilst killing less than 10% of the rebels. On the other hand i think it does need to go back in, it's slowing the AI down too much. I'll edit it back to how it was.

    I raised rebel power to help deal with a couple of aspects of Blitzing, let me explain the complaints Blitzers often had:

    1. Due to low aggressiveness on the AI's part and the weak rebels Garrisons it was possible for them to attack 2-3 rebel provinces a turn from the second turn onwards. The AI rarely got any rebel provinces because of that as all the one near the player where gone by turn 5.

    2. Sacking money was so high they could easily develop cities off it and have money to spare.

    3. Because they had so much money they could easily retrain losses and move on, the sacking also cut into the PO problems meaning you could leave minimal garrisons.

    4. Because you'd taken all the rebel province, and done so so fast the AI was often extremely weak by comparison, this made them simple pushovers at this point, with a couple of major AI power out of the way the income was now enough that even without sacking you could go on a rampage without issue.


    Reduced sacking money cuts into points 2 and 4 somewhat. But the better rebels and money script where meant to cut into 1 and 3. Here's how:

    1. The better rebels mean you not only have to build up before you can conquer anything, you also can't really try to hit more than one province at once.

    2. Now that you suffer higher losses and get less money you can usually afford to retrain losses and thats it.

    3. the AI with it's money script will be able to build bigger armies faster early on, and get it's economy going for when the money script drops down. That means it can easily capture provinces at the same rate as the player despite being less aggressive.

    4. with less total provinces captured, more captured by the AI and lower total money the typical Blitzer now has to work like the devil to get any further as he's facing stronger AI's, and has less to work with.

    I definitely exceeded this and the only monk I saw was on an imam built and forgotten in a city. And still no skill upgrades except for burning. That means if my start imam dies, no more jihads.
    I'll look into it as I'm getting issues with orthodox priests too.

    Hmm, annoying. CA issue. Siege gear should be ratio limited. No more than x% of an army should be siege gear for AI factions. If they meet or exceed that ratio, they should stop building it. But maybe we can influence it early on by playing with the building availability. If we up the price of the building, will they build it later? Or is price not a factor? Is there a priority list on which building gets built? I keep thinking that's AI personality related. Maybe we need to remove the guilty personality from the mix. (Who loved artillery? While Nappy did, he SHOULD have a personality that isn't requiring that much.)
    The problem is the AI auto-manages all settlements, and uses Military build policy, so it always puts a high priority on barracks and siege stuff, unfortunately I doubt we could increase the price too much without handicapping the player more than the AI. If anyone has any ideas I'm game.

    By the way, Carl, I think you have a fetish with one-unit-added-per-level.

    Vanilla adds more than one, so the design is intended to allow that. And it makes sense in cases. I still argue that it's better to do that but control the rates. Give the "better" (in your eyes) unit a low rate to pop 1. Thus until a lot of castles are up (assuming the player chooses to keep a lot, which I typically do not) and have the basic building, the stream will be very skinny. Or until the "proper" tier stable is in place. If the unit is being thrown into battle a lot, the flow will be used just to replenish a few units. A lot of units can't exist until the number of stables, or the tier, increases.
    Yeah, that and I got some units mixed up thinking they where late/mid units when they are actually earlier. had a basic strategy of no more than one unit of a given TYPE being added to the tech tree per level, so that spread the HA out a lot, sadly that was too big a spread. Will fix of course now I understand things better.

    On the Mamluks, the issue is major to me because HA <> HJ. Desert cav is a very different beast than a horse archer unit. The former is much better at killing armored units, but it's not really all that useful as missile cav per se. Not enough ammo for that role. It's not a good strategic denial unit. Javcav fight, they don't do "death by 1000 needles," withdraw and repeat another day. The two do complement each other in pure cav armies, but neither is much use on even combined in taking cities except if you starve the garrison into sallying.
    Thanks for that, I was just treating Jav Cav as shorter ranged but harder hitting HA's TBH.

    But CA does rate Egypt as an early game power, not a late one. So delaying those HA doesn't HELP Egypt in that regard, it hurts it because it can't expand as well (nor defend as well) against the early game factions and hordes. And don't forget they have to fend off crusades, which tend to get both beefy (for that stage) heavy cav and lots of missile-vulnerable trash that HA are really good at handling.

    In effect the Egyptians (and to a degree the Turks) are guaranteed multi-faction wars in the early going. Few other factions are in this position. Egypt cannot prevent crusades from being called. They will happen. They will even break alliances.

    (And I have a fetish for horse archers! I do, I do! But longbows are nice too.)

    Don't know what happened to my quote tags in last post. I cut & pasted them from your reply. Odd.

    Oh, and I should add a point on timing the arrival of these units. If they start coming in at turn 30, they lose 20 turns or so of potential experience gain which makes them better units. So it's no a simple 20-turn delay of the unit, that's at issue, it's the who process that's slowed. Egypt will arrive at turn 100 with less experienced Mamluks when they are starting to really need more punch. With the ability to pump out lots early, and protect their cadre, Egypt's HA "grow" with their role until finally outclassed completely with gunpowder units Egypt just can't match. But they can come closer with more experienced earlier units. They can hold out longer. They remain a win early or not at all faction. That's historical. When the real crusades with lots of advanced Westerners start coming, they are in trouble, especially if the hordes weakened them.
    Actually I don't think they ARE, (Turks Egypt), a win early or not at all faction. he thing is they switch over from HA to excellent infantry late on. Let me explain.

    JHI are the 2nd best 2-Hander, (in the game), Tabardariyya are the joint 6th, (along with Vargarian guard and Highland Nobles), ME_Halberd Militia are the 9th. For Ibireians the DPK are 5th best 2-Hander.

    Dismounted Arab Cav, Dismounted Saiph's and Dismounted Heavy Lancer are all Joint 2nd Best Spears in the Game, and Scarecen Militia are Joint 3rd best.

    Dismounted Christian Guard are the Best swords in the Game, with Dismounted Conquistadors at 2nd, Sword and Buckler men at 4t, and Urban Militia (because it's in cities), at 5th.

    Dismounted Dovor are the best non-Gunpowder Archers, with Janissary Archers at 7th, and Desert Archers/Ottoman Infantry at 8th. Peasant Crossbows are pretty hot too.

    Janissary/Cossack Musketeers are the best gunpowder infantry bar non, and Portuguese Arqubusiears/Sudanese Gunners follow in at joint 3rd, followed closely at 4th by Naffutmen.


    In reality not only do Islamic/Iberian/Orthodox (bar Russia), have half the top 10 great infantry t themselves, but they also have most of the upper top 10 to themselves, Pikes and good heavy Cav are the only Big equalizer here for western factions.


    Unless this is an Egypt thing (and it may be), I don't rate this harder than 1.13
    Most people say Egypt is easy in vanilla due to a near endless income, even when outclassed on units you tend to be able to spam so many unit without even slightly effecting your Treasury that it's easy indeed. I've never played hem but both Cairo and Alexandria have the joint highest fertility in the game so thats a massive income boost, (double the fertility of most regions in the game).


    Also, while I like the concept of the diplomatic change, I think it needs to be turned down a notch or two. It's too easy to get a great diplo status early. Just don't be bad. Should take longer in the greater scheme. Twice as long, say. There are 450 turns, 50-60 to get to Immaculate would be better than 35. That will help trim the economic effects too. Should also scale based on how many cultures you are in contact with. I've contacted about 2/3 so far. If there's a way to scale the effect to how many are "in play," that might solve the problem. You shouldn't be able to have a great universal rep if you just aren't known except in your corner. But... I can see where that might he hard or impossible with the tools we have.
    It's partly to do with the Alliance/War Rep triggers, I made alliances give a lot more back before I added the Chivalry/Dread triggers. Now the alliance needs toning down and the war one up. Plus sacking/externminating/executing/starting wars give very big rep hits by default, you haven't done many so it's hardly surprising your reps going up.

    So, keep in mind that forcing most good units to castles also delays them (on the whole) due to slower growth of castles. They need less pop per tier, but it comes more slowly usually too. This affects the AI more than the player, again. The player can be wiley. I can switch Antioch to a castle and be at max pop right away, but still need to build the stables. Still, it's faster than growing a castle.
    Good point.

    Cagliari is still rebel at turn 39. Heh, diplomatic front geting more interesting. France and Portugal were allies, then one made the other a vassal, now they are at war with each other. Looks (from the French maps I just got) like no one has taken Rennes (wimpyish), Antwerp or Bruges so far. And Bern and Prague look rebel still too, unless my maps are recently outdated. I bet Valencia is still rebel too .
    Really need to make the AI more aggressive to rebels.

    Okay, finally see some skill increases on my imams, Battler of heresy line. Seems way too slow. Did one of those variables in that xml file change the rate of gain somehow? I have about 10 working as a team now. They allo got that one the same turn, so the trigger must be 100% under a certain condition. Turn 41. No heresy at all in that region, so maybe they cleaned it out and that's the trigger. It's 90% islam, 10% ortho.
    Thanks for that.

    I haven't been up to check on the Russkis, but that pretty much is the situation I'm seeing with the Turks. But the Byzzies haven't been bees either. They and the Venals are getting into some skirmishes off and on though. Hungary appears paralysed too (another HA culture). It's normally fairly aggressive. I wonder if they are programmed to value HA higher due to the differences in style, and thus they are undervaluing their infantry/archer stacks?
    I think it's because the AI is handling Frontline strength differently to how i thought. Instead of going "is my forces in this province more than X times larger than the forces in that province" it's going "are the forces in all my provinces bordering the enemy provinces stronger than those in all the enemy provinces bordering mine overall".

    So with the equivalent (strength wise), of 3 stacks of militia surrounding Russia's starting location it considers 2 full stacks of militia too weak to launch an attack.

    I'll deal with it by including a simple trigger to make the AI attack any rebels nearby as often as it can with whatever it can scrape together and give it a really high priority.

    Those numbers look like what I'm seeing in game. My big sultan (before he died of old age) was a HUGE boost at Antioch. I knew he was affecting happiness, but didn't notice the large growth boost until later. He had like 9-10 in chivalry and piety. Love jihads for piety and chivalry! Then there was the nice guy boost from being a good ruler too.

    Let's see... Saladin of Zagazig is 5 chiv, 7 piety: Edessa is 1.5% growth without him, 1024 income, 85% order. With it's 5% growth, 1234 income, 130 order. Big swing. No other major trait factors (aside from those playing into the numbers above for chiv and piety) except active uilder (squalor cut) and architect (ditto, for -3 total). No trade or tax bonuses or cuts aside from those from piety/chiv either.

    Aleppo, a fort, CP Shehata is 2 chiv, 4 piety. No applicable traits. With him it's 1081 income, 205 order, 4% growth. Without him it's 987 income, 195 order, 3% growth.
    Thanks for those.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 23:18.
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  15. #105
    Ricardus Insanusaum Member Bob the Insane's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Additional for the issue I see with the Russains not moving... their two full stacks consist almost entirely of Spear Militia and Archer miltia..

    Over all, after nearly 50 turns Europe seems to be comming on just fine but the East (Russia, Turks, Eqyptians) are really fairing poorly with practically (or actually) no expansion.... The Turks where getting kicked about by the Byz until the Venetians decided that wanted to revive the Eastern Roman empire. ANd now even with the Byz heavily distacted the Turk do little...

  16. #106
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Thanks for that Bob. How's the rest of the campaign going?
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  17. #107

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
    Additional for the issue I see with the Russains not moving... their two full stacks consist almost entirely of Spear Militia and Archer miltia..

    Over all, after nearly 50 turns Europe seems to be comming on just fine but the East (Russia, Turks, Eqyptians) are really fairing poorly with practically (or actually) no expansion.... The Turks where getting kicked about by the Byz until the Venetians decided that wanted to revive the Eastern Roman empire. ANd now even with the Byz heavily distacted the Turk do little...
    I haven't been up to check on the Russkis, but that pretty much is the situation I'm seeing with the Turks. But the Byzzies haven't been bees either. They and the Venals are getting into some skirmishes off and on though. Hungary appears paralysed too (another HA culture). It's normally fairly aggressive. I wonder if they are programmed to value HA higher due to the differences in style, and thus they are undervaluing their infantry/archer stacks?

    Carl, dropping the HA back down to easier access may fix this. Needs testing. They are teching up slowly, it seems. But they Russia, especially, may need a starting stable. Not sure about Hungary, haven't played them. They need to have one though. Egypt and Turkey do have them, but the Turks need one forward at Caesarea. You could even remove the rear one to compensate if you feel the need. Nothing happens back there for a long time, so there's time to tech up a local one.


    Might be a better idea, i THINK I've found the appropriate file but I'm having a touch of trouble understanding it, if I'm right though, each point of Chivalry adds 1% to the overall growth rate, (OUCH), with Governor Kings often having 2-3 from StrategyChivalry and the same from HonestRuler thats a good +5/+6% growth. Castles grow at half the rate though and get half the bonuses Cities do.
    Those numbers look like what I'm seeing in game. My big sultan (before he died of old age) was a HUGE boost at Antioch. I knew he was affecting happiness, but didn't notice the large growth boost until later. He had like 9-10 in chivalry and piety. Love jihads for piety and chivalry! Then there was the nice guy boost from being a good ruler too.

    Let's see... Saladin of Zagazig is 5 chiv, 7 piety: Edessa is 1.5% growth without him, 1024 income, 85% order. With it's 5% growth, 1234 income, 130 order. Big swing. No other major trait factors (aside from those playing into the numbers above for chiv and piety) except active uilder (squalor cut) and architect (ditto, for -3 total). No trade or tax bonuses or cuts aside from those from piety/chiv either.

    Aleppo, a fort, CP Shehata is 2 chiv, 4 piety. No applicable traits. With him it's 1081 income, 205 order, 4% growth. Without him it's 987 income, 195 order, 3% growth.
    Last edited by vonsch; 03-10-2007 at 22:37.

  18. #108
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Finished editing in the reply.

    Did you check out the bit I linked to?

    Thanks for the help, you've helped identify so many issues.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 23:24.
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  19. #109

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Reduced sacking money cuts into points 2 and 4 somewhat. But the better rebels and money script where meant to cut into 1 and 3. Here's how:

    1. The better rebels mean you not only have to build up before you can conquer anything, you also can't really try to hit more than one province at once.

    2. Now that you suffer higher losses and get less money you can usually afford to retrain losses and thats it.

    3. the AI with it's money script will be able to build bigger armies faster early on, and get it's economy going for when the money script drops down. That means it can easily capture provinces at the same rate as the player despite being less aggressive.

    4. with less total provinces captured, more captured by the AI and lower total money the typical Blitzer now has to work like the devil to get any further as he's facing stronger AI's, and has less to work with.
    I understand the aim, I'm just arguing some of what you're doing appears to be counterproductive due to the way the AI works. More money for the AI okay, just don't go overboard and rip the guts out of the economic war. I don't think you have or will, based on what I've seen. Bottomless purses remove the economic aspects in the greater picture (things like take the rich regions or exterminate their populations then pull out become meaningless as strategic choices.) Having the AI factions always have a LITTLE money so they can hire replacements even with few regions as base isn't bad. That's what I saw you doing in the current scripts.

    But the better rebels aren't THAT significant a block to the player. Now that I know what to expect, and how big a hammer I need to smash them, my losses are minimal again. Just takes me about 5 more turns to get rolling. And I don't sack, so while I'm not a real blitzer test case, I, a non-blitzer, can still blitz the rebs faster than the AI can by a mile. So, that's not the answer. Better to let the AI deal with weaker rebs.

    We need another way to force early choices on the player.

    Can't cut the starting forces because that just hurts the AI as much or more.

    Removing sacking as a major money earner early does help. But maybe the starting cash needs to drop a bunch. Try it at 5k or 4k. That means the player can hire fewer mercs too, and is forced do balance out things more carefully, and develop an economy (I hope). With your diplo changes, good behavior should buy the player time to do that, but the AI will be rolling on those rebs with its extra money. The player can still get some, but not as many, thus things may balance better.

    That's my reaction to what I'm experiencing. Blitzing light will always be doable. But stronger rebs will always delay the AI more and longer. But you can give the player less starting cash, and the AI has its nice little pocket adjuster to keep SOME cash flow there. The player does not. But the player can EARN that. Even careful blitzing can work to a degree with the destruction of buildings, though that's a sort of scortched earth policy that can backfire badly. Which is good.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Finished editing in the reply.

    Did you check out the bit I linked to?


    Thanks for the help, you've helped identify so many issues.
    Yes, I replied to some, still checking back and forth.

    Just dealt with that Crusade, I think. My lovely HA style. May have taken a star hit on my general (nope!), but it was worth it. He can get that back. Did a hit and run cav strike (even with all that ugly anti-cav support they had), shot all my arrows (merc Turkomen) and tossed all my havs at the general. Didn't kill him, but captured him. I think that will disband the crusade. Don't know yet.

    Lost 261 men, they lost 976. I had 700, they had 1311. Hehe, can I call it a Pyrrhic loss? Sorta. I "lost." I accomplished my aim. My cadre survived. It's rated a close defeat. No way I could actually win it as those three carts would carve up my cav badly. And I left a lot of Crusader sergeants too. The milita is pretty creamed though.

    But they SHOULD disband since they have no leader, and I "lost" so I should get a ransom offer, I shouldn't have to ransom the general back .

    That's the theory. Heh, no theory. Worked. But all the Christian factions now HATE me. Oops. Now you see why the Islam factions get those units?

    On the other hand, they declared war on me and were on MY land. My rep remains Immaculate. Perfect. That's as it should be. I am a "noble foe!" as the dialog says.

    That was an ugly night battle though. Hard to see what's going on. Mass chaos, but semi-controlled. I pulled the eastern "retreat!" trick on them. Their general charged and put himself in front of his spears where my med cav charged him to pin him and the desert cav went to work. he was all along when they unhorsed him. Meanwhile the 6 torkomen shot up all the infantry they could and pulled out. They took some losses in the chaos pulling out. I was charging in all directions with my cav at that point. Anytime there was a flank or rear of a unit, it got slammed into. Militia were running every which way, but those silly fanatics don't rout (but they don't handle charges well either, they just die). And the Crusader spears were tough. My general picked up two chevvies and mostly can out in one piece. The med cav took a battering, but think all came through as cadre. Nope, lost one.

    Wow. Something in that pumped Nasser's chiv to 10 and his piety to 9. Must be defending against crusades?
    Oh, hehe, he gets 3 stars for fighting Catholics too. No wonder he had 10 stars in that battle.

    That was fun. I think I like defending against Crusades.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-20-2007 at 11:49.

  20. #110
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Yes, I replied to some, still checking back and forth.
    Fair enough, just wanted to check you'd seen my explanation of why i buggered up HA fir egypt/turks.
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  21. #111
    Member Member Erik Bloodaxe's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Hello Carl, I'll start a Cicilly campaign and I'm ready to go

  22. #112

    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Fair enough, just wanted to check you'd seen my explanation of why i buggered up HA fir egypt/turks.
    Yep, saw that. I didn't think you intentionally had it in for them.

    I figured you were applying the same standard everywhere. I was trying to show you how that is a bad policy in general, because this game isn't meant to be "everyone is even" like, say, Civ. Different but equal. Look at the earlier games in the series, some factions are really easy, some are really hard. While SOME tweaking is okay, too much destroys that. I like the differentiation in "level" of play it creates, not to mention the differences in style of play. I think that's a major strength of the series.

    I can play England for a month, then it's a whole new game when I try Turkey. Etc.

  23. #113
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    @Eric, Thanks, let me know how it goes as they are in a hell of an intresting postion.

    Yep, saw that. I didn't think you intentionally had it in for them.
    Just wanted to explain myself was all. Even if i'm wrong in an argument, after acknowlaging that I like to explain why I thought what i did and argued what i did. Just feels wrong if don't.

    I figured you were applying the same standard everywhere. I was trying to show you how that is a bad policy in general, because this game isn't meant to be "everyone is even" like, say, Civ. Different but equal. Look at the earlier games in the series, some factions are really easy, some are really hard. While SOME tweaking is okay, too much destroys that. I like the differentiation in "level" of play it creates, not to mention the differences in style of play. I think that's a major strength of the series.

    I can play England for a month, then it's a whole new game when I try Turkey. Etc.
    I though the diffrances between units, and the fact that no faction gets all unit types would ensure the diffrent play styles, but it was obviouslly a bad assumption, the trouble is the tech tree is very diffrent for the islamics, the western powers have a steadilly graded lineup of the diffrent types of nit avalibile t them. The islamic factions sort of get all types allmost all at once.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-10-2007 at 23:50.
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  24. #114

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    For giggles I ran an autoresolve on that Crusader battle with the same forces:

    Clear Defeat. I lost 394, they lost 88. That IS an anti-cav force. The AI underperforms with HA pretty often. That hurts the HA cultures too. I suspect it does better with them ON the battlefield just like the player does. AI HA can be annoyingly effective on the field. It may be treating them simply as archers for autoresolve purposes.

    Got to try it again to see if it's as bad, or if that was the outlier. That's a pretty bad loss considering every one of my guys can outrun theirs. That army has zero cav. Mine is 100%.

    Yeah, this time 385 dead, killed 176, a bit less lopsided. But not a lot.

    And it's not beating the army or disbanding it that put my diplo rep with each faction at 0, it's simply attacking a crusade. And they release my prisoners.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    I though the diffrances between units, and the fact that no faction gets all unit types would ensure the diffrent play styles, but it was obviouslly a bad assumption, the trouble is the tech tree is very diffrent for the islamics, the western powers have a steadilly graded lineup of the diffrent types of nit avalibile t them. The islamic factions sort of get all types allmost all at once.
    Heh, they get the horde all at once! Twice!

    Not to mention those silly Crusaders.

    It's really funny to see my 5 alliances, including the Papal States, all the Catholic ones hate me, but they are still allies. The others just shrug. England hates me, Denmark hates me, Spain hates me, Portugal hates me. Haven't even met them! But in this case it makes sense. Word of a Crusade army being disbanded (as a crusade, the leftovers are still sitting there) would spread to all Christendom.)
    Last edited by Carl; 03-20-2007 at 11:50.

  25. #115
    Member Member Erik Bloodaxe's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    "Eric, Thanks, let me know how it goes as they are in a hell of an interesting position."

    Indeed they are! The fact that you have REALLY boosted the pope's soldiers makes me feel more safe as Sicily. He's armies are now my shield against HRE, Milan and Venice, so I can expand south to Africa and west into Iberia while I'm killing their priest and spying at their cities

    I can now train two or more diplomates at the same time, the same goes for assassins and priest I guess? Lovely!

  26. #116
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    I can now train two or more diplomates at the same time, the same goes for assassins and priest I guess? Lovely!
    .
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  27. #117

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    I think it's because the AI is handling Frontline strength differently to how i thought. Instead of going "is my forces in this province more than X times larger than the forces in that province" it's going "are the forces in all my provinces bordering the enemy provinces stronger than those in all the enemy provinces bordering mine overall".

    So with the equivalent (strength wise), of 3 stacks of militia surrounding Russia's starting location it considers 2 full stacks of militia too weak to launch an attack.

    I'll deal with it by including a simple trigger to make the AI attack any rebels nearby as often as it can with whatever it can scrape together and give it a really high priority.
    Makes sense with regards to what we're seeing. Turkey is in two chunks with rebs between also. So their ratio is really skewed. Portugal is in two chunks, but one has no adjacent rebs. And it seems a bit more aggressive from the war reports. Makes me wonder if Turkey's non contiguous provinces result in any reb provinces that touch both being counted more than once... or, for that matter, whether it checks each province for an adjacent border and tallies them all up.

    If it's a force ratio thing, Russia's one province borders 5 reb ones. That might cause paralysis. In comparison, Denmark's one borders on two. Poland's two border on 8. Turkey's 4 on 7. Venice's 3 on 2. Milan's 2 on 3. Sicily's 2 on 0. France's 5 on 5. England's 3 on 4. Scotland's 1 on 3. Spain's 2 on 2. Byz's 5 on 5. Egypt's 3 on 4. Hungary is 2 on 5. HRE is 6 on 8.

    That might explain some of the relative differences in early game aggressiveness. If the AI waits for a favorable ratio with enemy border regions as a whole, the grossly outnumbered ones will wait and build until a lot of their border provinces are not rebel. I assume neutrals fall into a non-enemy category for the calculation. So it also means that the player's capture of border provinces probably ratchets up the AI's aggressiveness to what's left a bit. That last is a good thing. Just too little too late.

    It may explain why Russia often does poorly. AI Russia may NEED Poland to take Vilnius and Riga before it can move out.

    It also would explain why Sicily moves so fast into those open islands and north africa. (Or is this map wrong... they may start with Tunis. That would give them 3 to 1, which still means they would meet the condition very early.)

    I must say I don't understand the Nubian archers versus the Desert archers. I would never train Nubians as I compare the two. Desert are cheaper, less upkeep, same missile stat, better defense (important in missile duels) and 1 less melee (who cares, they are archers!). Desert also get a desert bonus, AND have very good stamina. Maybe the Nubians can upgrade armor more, that's all I can think. Oh, the Nubes get 1 more charge too. Like I said, they are archers. I don't charge my archers, I charge the enemy archers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl
    Yeah i will. Where still on V1.20 BETA ATM, but i'm gonna start updating soon. May be a while before I put everything in as traits are the devil to code without errors.
    If you do us a dot rev, get us the agent speed increase as a priority. That will help a lot with testing too.

    I'll stare at the triggers later and see if I see anything that might be affecting the skill gain for imams/ortho priests. I THOUGHT they got all the same traits, except the obviously pope-related ones. But maybe there's something I missed.


    The guild offerings seem to make sense now. I mean they come fairly often, and do appear to related to the expectations created by activity. Only the explorer's SEEMS a little unexpected. But if it's still triggering on basically the same things as the merchants, it's not really. I finally got my theologians offer in Jerusalem. But my imam training had been pretty scattered before turn 20 or so. Once I focussed it, voila!

    I got one upgrade already too. Master swordsmans in Antioch. Came fast after I decided to put the swordsmans there, so the numbers must remain and not be wiped on acceptance. I had trained a lot of militia spears there.

    It was offered ini Gaza too, but that was reserved for HBG, now in place.

    So those seem to be working.

    Did you add any thologians guild ancilliaries? Or merchant guild ones? I have modded a merchant clerk and another into 1.13, one for merchants and the other for governors. They had to end the turn there to have a chance to pick them up. Same for deacon or something for priests. Creates a little more push-pull tension to leaving them in a guild city a bit, or putting them to work converting.
    Last edited by Carl; 03-20-2007 at 11:50.

  28. #118
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    Did you add any thologians guild ancilliaries? Or merchant guild ones? I have modded a merchant clerk and another into 1.13, one for merchants and the other for governors. They had to end the turn there to have a chance to pick them up. Same for deacon or something for priests. Creates a little more push-pull tension to leaving them in a guild city a bit, or putting them to work converting.
    No, TBH most guilds are quite good enough without it, allthough if you want to show me the entries i'd be happy to look a hem and probs include them.

    I must say I don't understand the Nubian archers versus the Desert archers.
    Sounds like a swap around error on my part, sorry about that.

    Makes sense with regards to what we're seeing. Turkey is in two chunks with rebs between also. So their ratio is really skewed. Portugal is in two chunks, but one has no adjacent rebs. And it seems a bit more aggressive from the war reports. Makes me wonder if Turkey's non contiguous provinces result in any reb provinces that touch both being counted more than once... or, for that matter, whether it checks each province for an adjacent border and tallies them all up.

    If it's a force ratio thing, Russia's one province borders 5 reb ones. That might cause paralysis. In comparison, Denmark's one borders on two. Poland's two border on 8. Turkey's 4 on 7. Venice's 3 on 2. Milan's 2 on 3. Sicily's 2 on 0. France's 5 on 5. England's 3 on 4. Scotland's 1 on 3. Spain's 2 on 2. Byz's 5 on 5. Egypt's 3 on 4. Hungary is 2 on 5. HRE is 6 on 8.

    That might explain some of the relative differences in early game aggressiveness. If the AI waits for a favorable ratio with enemy border regions as a whole, the grossly outnumbered ones will wait and build until a lot of their border provinces are not rebel. I assume neutrals fall into a non-enemy category for the calculation. So it also means that the player's capture of border provinces probably ratchets up the AI's aggressiveness to what's left a bit. That last is a good thing. Just too little too late.

    It may explain why Russia often does poorly. AI Russia may NEED Poland to take Vilnius and Riga before it can move out.

    It also would explain why Sicily moves so fast into those open islands and north africa. (Or is this map wrong... they may start with Tunis. That would give them 3 to 1, which still means they would meet the condition very early.)
    I couldn't find any specific erors but i increased the invade trigger priority for rebels so they put attacks on rebels first.
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  29. #119
    Member Member Erik Bloodaxe's Avatar
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    Default Re: BETA Testers needed for latest version of ProblemFixer

    Here are some thoughts after 20 rounds.

    First thing I noticed was, like I said, the opportunity to recruit more agents within the same year. I quickly became the Popes ally, along with Milan, HRE and Venice. After 8 turns of alliance with Venice they betrayed me lol.. They blocked the port of Naples;( So I Ctrl + L to make a test , before I ended the turn, I ordered my fleet to guard right outside the port (not "inside") and the result was that they didn't attack. I send a diplomat to offer Map - Map information, they refused, but gave me 1.7k in return to maintain good relasions My reputation was Very realibie at this point btw.

    My first act was to secure Cagliari, Jesus Christ their walls was effective you might say. I outnumbered them 2:1 and lost more than half my army hehe, for a second I thought there was archers upon the walls Adds much more challenge than before, excellent.

    I'm very pleased that merchants now make more money, for once I have afford to actually use navies on a high scale, thank goodness for beeing able to bribe once more, free upkeep space in cities should as you said be nerfed a little bit. Enjoying your work

  30. #120
    Senior Member Senior Member Carl's Avatar
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    My first act was to secure Cagliari, Jesus Christ their walls was effective you might say. I outnumbered them 2:1 and lost more than half my army hehe, for a second I thought there was archers upon the walls Adds much more challenge than before, excellent.
    Glad you liked it, defintlly a bit shocking at first expiriance though.

    I'm going to play with trusted alliances some more too BTW, lastly, glad you like the navy, merchant, and bribe changes.

    Not really much else to say at this point, allthough i await with intrest the results of furthar fighting. Particuarly with a major power with bigger walls:evillaugh4:.
    Find my ProblemFixer Purehere.

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