V1.21 Rebuild-ProblemFixer BETA testing thread

[vonsch]

Lots of intresting stuff their that i'll comment on in the morning.

But to get an anwser before then on somthing, Which Version of Problem Fixer are you playing as hungay, and wha turn are you on? And difficulty too if possibile.

Just so i've got some refrance material for them.

Oh, that's 1.13 with some additional small tweaking I've done (agent speed, a few extra guild perqs (none in play so far this game)). I wanted some perspective so decided to try a new HA culture with something closer to vanilla.

I'm on turn 23 now, that was about turn 20. H/H. 9 alliances so far . But I haven't allied with any muslims, and I am still at war with Venice, just waiting for the Pope's edict to run out to take them off the continent. Then I may try to goad Milan into attacking me and getting excommed. If I can take them out, I am pretty solid and my economy will do much better. Moving west makes sense for Hungary. HA vs HA is bloody. HA vs infantry is nice. Or even versus plain cavalry, though that takes more work.

Should be a crusade soon too. Maybe I should call once to control where it goes. Jerusalem is inconvenient. Maybe Tunis or Tripoli.

[chickenhawk]

Quote:
You mentioned being able to speed the conquest of rebels by lowering their reputation. Could this also be manipulated to speed up AI consolidation?

What do you mean by that, sorry i'm not quite getting what you mean by consolidation in this case. Sounds interesting even if I don't know what your going on about. Quote

I was trying to ask if you could use that to raise the probability of certain AI wars. So the Moors would go all at to grab Spain early or vice versa for example. The idea is to encourage the creation of large empires that can really give the player a fight. Same thing with the random chunk of money.

Completely different issue. You mentioned that you tweaked the Ai to guard its border cities heavily and leave its interior thin so that it would at least be strong somewhere instead of being ineffective everywhere.

Would it be possible to apply some kind of movement or morale penalty to stacks that are more than one province deep into enemy territory? This would restrict the players ability to take advantage, or at least make it riskier and or slower.

[Carl]

First, @Econ21: if your reading this I'll get back to you in a bit about your PM as your quite right about this becoming more of mod and all that.

If it's agreeable with the high lords of the board I'll probably follow someones suggestion from ages ago and request my own sub-forum in modding for it.

I was trying to ask if you could use that to raise the probability of certain AI wars. So the Moors would go all at to grab Spain early or vice versa for example. The idea is to encourage the creation of large empires that can really give the player a fight. Same thing with the random chunk of money.

well they have below average relations with each other to start with, the trouble is the way the AI is set up they'll concentrate on the rebels for the first 30 turns and not start wars with each other, by which time diplomatic offerings will probably have got the standing up. hell, the first thing the Moors do with the new agent speeds is to get an alliance with Spain. It usually lasts too.

Oh, that's 1.13 with some additional small tweaking I've done (agent speed, a few extra guild perqs (none in play so far this game)). I wanted some perspective so decided to try a new HA culture with something closer to vanilla.

I'm on turn 23 now, that was about turn 20. H/H. 9 alliances so far . But I haven't allied with any muslims, and I am still at war with Venice, just waiting for the Pope's edict to run out to take them off the continent. Then I may try to goad Milan into attacking me and getting excommed. If I can take them out, I am pretty solid and my economy will do much better. Moving west makes sense for Hungary. HA vs HA is bloody. HA vs infantry is nice. Or even versus plain cavalry, though that takes more work.

Should be a crusade soon too. Maybe I should call once to control where it goes. Jerusalem is inconvenient. Maybe Tunis or Tripoli.

Thanks, it still gives me useful reference material.

think the autocalc undervalues HA. That's my finding based on a bit of comparison of those to my own command of the battle.

Auto-calc does under value them, but the army strength calculator does it more. Auto-calc is actually a simulated battle in a reduced complexity engine fought out by the AI, (i.e. it controls both sides). The Strength calculator is just:

(Attack+Defense)*Number of Men in The Unit

With HA having such low numbers and fairly low attack values for both melee and ranged, plus rarely excellent defense it's hardly surprising that armies of mostly HA so rarely attack anything. Blame CA :madashell:

Byz is an HA faction too, but not as heavily as most. So it's calc may be affecting it too. Be interesting to know what's in those stacks it's not using. Seige gear seems to be the other culprit.

Hmm, could we move seige gear up a tier? I know that will affect seiges too, but players can adapt. I suspect we mostly only have one city producing it anyway. Need to discourage the AI from making it everywhere.

I was thinking the same thing myself, plus take it away from cities entirely, that should cut the amount we see.

Siege gear is definitely part of the issue, but I think a lot of it is down to the fact that their are very few units (especially early on), that have High Attack, and Defense, and Decent Numbers. By buffing the Spearmen, (Byzantium was in desperate need of a good spear unit anyway, Charge 8 Knights could still roll over every infantry unit they had, rendering them largely useless), I've given them something close to that as they have acceptable defense, a bit low attack, but plenty of men in the unit.

I'm loving Hungary as an HA faction, except, man are they poor! Probably the upkeep on my Magyars and Nobles doing me in though . Starting to get past the curve now, as Venice, Sophia and Zagreb are putting out some decent trade. Budapest is Okay, but Bran and the other ex-reb cities are rotten on trade. ROTTEN. If they weren't so inconvenient to Italy and where I expect the core fighting to happen, I'd make them castles and put my production all there. But it's 4 turns or so to Venice for cav, and infantry and siege gear is worse. And the ship route isn't much better, and more dangerous.

I'm used to being able to steadily upgrade most cities I own while still fielding a decent army. With Hungary I'm lucky to start 2 buildings a turn even at tier 1. And the merchant environment is deadly.

Thanks for the info now i know what Hungary tends to be like in vanilla. it probably explains why Russia, Poland, and Hungary suffer from stalling. hey tend to run out of income awful fast.

Oh, that's one side-effect to the agent movement change. Your merchants are chow to enemies you never see until they do a takeover. They come out of the fog, or cities and hit you in one turn. But if their speed is normal, it takes them decades to get anywhere. Hard to balance this one. A bit less of an issue if the payback is faster, but with 1.13 they don't pay anywhere near enemy cities.

Acquisition chances are higher in V1.13/Vanilla than they are in this version of ProblemFixer. the AI will tend to fail more now.

Back to Russia and all, I think judicious allocation of some territories might help. Helsinki is one. Since it's a "corner" region (only land access is from Novgorad), it's going to fall to Russia sooner or later anyway. Same for Inverness and Scotland, yes. Might be interesting to swap an eastern Turk province for a connecting one. I'd say give them Adana and take away Mosul. Oh, and double Antioch's defenders. Those are just too low for THAT city.

Good ideas, I agree totally.

Hmm, maybe swap Dijon for Marseille for France? And swap Pamplona and Leon (we aren't being historical anyway! Besides, that corner practically speaks Portuguese!) Portugal will have to take to the sea to find rebels, but it's a seafaring culture like England and Spain, so no real big issue. I just don't like that split start. I think it's unfair to Portugal. But Leon is not a castle and Pamplona is. That would need reversing.

I was thinking initially of just dumping Marseilles and the Nearby castl;e, but a better bet would be to dump the starting town north east of Paris, and the castle near Marseilles as Marseilles is a big Italian trading port and France could do with the money. Does leave France a bit split though.

Portugal is awkward, it isn't really the split start thats the issue, it's the way that the Moors, Spain, and Portugal occupy the area and their are only 2 rebel provinces. With it's armies split up like they are it really struggles in it's fights. but if we moved them around they'd never go anywhere. the trouble is if they go naval they insist on getting Dublin first, but never seem to get a stack together thats able to deal with it. the Iberian peninsula has too few provinces for 3 factions IMHO. They need another one between Toledo and Leon, and another either north or south of Lisbon.

I'd say give the Moors Timbuktu, and Aruin from the off as well, they're the only ones likely to grab it and it cuts out the moors going down that way and losing half their armies to going rebel.

I haven't played HRE. Vienna seems off to one side though. And Bologna is isolated, but it's a good city.

I'd cut Vienna, Bologna, and probably Frankfurt off, that gives them a core series of territories and a lot of income alongside their large armies.

Nicosia may be a problem for Byz. I don't understand its problem. Should be more aggressive. usually have plenty of forces around Constantinople. Does seem to go for Smyrna. Seems to be intimidated by Sophia to some degree. That is one of those decent garrisons, but it's no Brussels. More like Dublin.

I've noticed similar things, but TBH in my last game where everything went fine till people ran out of money they got Sofia, Smyrna, Burchest, and Durrazo, and also Trebizond, and Tbilisi, and gabbed iconicom before going passive. The Turks went they don't stall tend to get Trebizond, and Tbilisi though, but since they sat stalled the Byzantines grabbed them.

Would it be possible to apply some kind of movement or morale penalty to stacks that are more than one province deep into enemy territory? This would restrict the players ability to take advantage, or at least make it riskier and or slower.

It would be nice wouldn't it. but theirs no trigger condition anywhere that can measure just how far into enemy territory you are or how far away from friendly territory you are..

[vonsch]

Auto-calc does under value them, but the army strength calculator does it more. Auto-calc is actually a simulated battle in a reduced complexity engine fought out by the AI, (i.e. it controls both sides). The Strength calculator is just:

(Attack+Defense)*Number of Men in The Unit

With HA having such low numbers and fairly low attack values for both melee and ranged, plus rarely excellent defense it's hardly surprising that armies of mostly HA so rarely attack anything. Blame CA :madashell:

Okay, now this explains a lot. The Hungarian and Egyptian HA do a lot better, and this is why. They have better starting HA. The attack and defense are higher than, for example, the Turkish basic HA which have low numbers. Mamluk Archers are nasty there. Hungarian Nobles are the same, and Magyars are better than Turkomen slightly (I think), and definitely better than THA. So Hungary does better in that regard.

But as horse archers controlled by the player (at least THIS one) there is less difference except in force preservation. I need fewer replacements as Hungary and Egypt than as Turkey. But the former cost a lot more to maintain too (and hire!) As far as missiles in the air go, the difference is less. When purely shooting up infantry, as the Hungarians do more in the west, any sort of mobile archer rules. Attack and defense values don't matter much, just the missile number and speed (and stamina, to a lesser degree).

Toss in some fast cav and those melee numbers suddenly matter.

This is also why archers can be undervalued. I suspect the early longbows are quite heavily undervalued also, based on autoresolves and odds calcs when playing England. Longbows, even without a lot of support, crush an even force, even cav, before it can reach melee range often. Fast cav may be the exception there because it is so fast. But terrain is probably the greater variable. High ground = longbow win. Flat makes it dicey. Their speed of fire and range is the battle turner. AP plays in too, of course, but only if the opposing force is armored.

The later longbows, like retinue, have big melee stats so they are factors closer to their real performance, but it's still probably off due to their attrition of the attacker before it can even reach melee range.

This would explain oddities with using seige gear too. They mostly have low values for melee, but they can (if the situation allows) totally dominate.


Thoughts on regions:

Ireland... maybe break the landbridge? Then drop the garrison in Dublin so Portugal has a chance there? The Spanish and Portuguese did historically tackle islands often, and the Spanish sure looked to the British Isles.

Historically Portugal didn't come into its own until it went to sea. It IS trapped there. But a connected fort and city is more viable. (I am prejudiced to Portugal due to my personal history... lived in Brazil) They were the great explorers (along with Genoa and Venice... and Spain) and it would be cool to see more of that in play. Maybe give them more navy, though upkeep can be an issue there. Hmm, but increasing the navy movement range (which I don't think I've succeeded in doing) might help those with larger navies too. They can spot those rebel islands and coastal provinces sooner and get to them with forces faster.

It's too bad the Atlantic won't allow them to go south past the Moors. North to Scandinavia is a long way and they'd have to pass a lot of potential hostiles.

As far as the sub-Sahara goes... I worry about the large potential income boost to the Moors. But if they "own" those with small garrisons and NO buildings, just basic towns, that might be okay. Are they infertile? Don't want them growing fast and allowing them to become economic powerbases too soon. The Moors seem to do okay in the games I've played (as far as I've played them). They get in trouble if Sicily and Spain/Portugal pile on. Which makes sense. And I've seen them at the Pyranees with Spain and Portugal gone or down to a single region.



The idea to limit seige gear to castles... that might be the way to go. That's not a big problem for players, and it will at least have the AI making some city units insteead of seige gear in those. And the AI would direct those florins away from seige factories and into some more useful buildings, we hope. Militia infantry is probably better in force calculations than seige engines are. And it's cheaper.

[Carl]

I suspect the early longbows are quite heavily undervalued also, based on autoresolves and odds calcs when playing England. Longbows, even without a lot of support, crush an even force, even cav, before it can reach melee range often.

That and I suspect it's the same Auto-Resolve engine as in RTW, their i'm led to believe the angle at which the arrow hits the target didn't matter, if thats true then the engine is probably making crossbows more powerful than they normally would be as even a slight change in angle effects their firepower enormously.

Lastly, the AI tends to leave it's archers in skirmish mode and never deploys stakes so they are not only very vulnerable to Cav, but anything fast enough to catch them will ride them down as they try to stay out of melee.

Okay, now this explains a lot. The Hungarian and Egyptian HA do a lot better, and this is why. They have better starting HA. The attack and defense are higher than, for example, the Turkish basic HA which have low numbers. Mamluk Archers are nasty there. Hungarian Nobles are the same, and Magyars are better than Turkomen slightly (I think), and definitely better than THA. So Hungary does better in that regard.

But as horse archers controlled by the player (at least THIS one) there is less difference except in force preservation. I need fewer replacements as Hungary and Egypt than as Turkey. But the former cost a lot more to maintain too (and hire!) As far as missiles in the air go, the difference is less. When purely shooting up infantry, as the Hungarians do more in the west, any sort of mobile archer rules. Attack and defense values don't matter much, just the missile number and speed (and stamina, to a lesser degree).

Toss in some fast Cav and those melee numbers suddenly matter.

First, i'm petty sure attack for missile units is Missile Attack + Melee Attack, not just one of them. The other issue is that the AI very rarely sends it's HA round the sides and rear of the opposition and to a degree HA are balanced around the idea that they will get all the bonuses flank and rear fire brings, thats why they have such a low missile attack, flank and rear attacks make up for it by quite a margin TBH, and the rest is made up for by melee and lower loss rates to enemy Cav that HA get.

I also suspect the use of what i believe is the old RTW auto-resolve engine (note I can't prove any of this), means auto-resolve does not have the formed charge mechanics, so Cav are even more undervalued their, that TBH was one of the biggest clues as to the shield bug and CA does a lot of balance testing via the auto-resolve engine.

[vonsch]

If there's a variation between the battle odds estimator and the autoresolve, that has nasty implications for strategic balancing though. It simply won't balance.

That's totally aside from the issue of player performance on the battle map.

[Carl]

If there's a variation between the battle odds estimator and the autoresolve, that has nasty implications for strategic balancing though. It simply won't balance.

That's totally aside from the issue of player performance on the battle map.

I don't think it's quite as bad as that, it mainly seems t effect siege gear (overestimated), and Cav, (Underestimated, but more pure missile HA than melee Cav). Almost everything else whilst perhaps out on some details works Okay, high attacks and AP in combination can mess things up too if the unit in question is a missile unit but that has a lot to do with the fact that AP has such a big effect.

Ireland... maybe break the landbridge? Then drop the garrison in Dublin so Portugal has a chance there? The Spanish and Portuguese did historically tackle islands often, and the Spanish sure looked to the British Isles.

Historically Portugal didn't come into its own until it went to sea. It IS trapped there. But a connected fort and city is more viable. (I am prejudiced to Portugal due to my personal history... lived in Brazil) They were the great explorers (along with Genoa and Venice... and Spain) and it would be cool to see more of that in play. Maybe give them more navy, though upkeep can be an issue there. Hmm, but increasing the navy movement range (which I don't think I've succeeded in doing) might help those with larger navies too. They can spot those rebel islands and coastal provinces sooner and get to them with forces faster.

It's too bad the Atlantic won't allow them to go south past the Moors. North to Scandinavia is a long way and they'd have to pass a lot of potential hostiles.

Good points, but honestly, having a third faction, (Portugal), involved in British isles conquest is far from ideal as Iberia shows what happens when too many people concentrate in one area.

My favorite idea is to cut the moors to just Granada on the peninsula itself and Give Zaragoza to the Portuguese whilst removing the prefers navel invasions trait as they've got most of the land south of France to rab, (thats one of their biggest issues, the AI ALWAYS sends underpowered stacks when it goes by sea, and Portugal even tries attacking Bordeaux by sea when it could walk). Spain would now have Valencia and the new rebel to go at as well as the med islands and the moors with any luck.

The Moors with Timbuktu/Arguin wouldn't be much richer TBH as they aren't rich or fast growing, and the moors waste ages sending stacks their and having them go rebel, so it slows them down a lot actually, same with Denmark and Oslo/Stockholm. Add to that the moors losing a city and I think they'll be just fine myself.

The idea to limit siege gear to castles... that might be the way to go. That's not a big problem for players, and it will at least have the AI making some city units instead of siege gear in those. And the AI would direct those florins away from siege factories and into some more useful buildings, we hope. Militia infantry is probably better in force calculations than siege engines are. And it's cheaper.

It seems to have worked TBH. You can't limit it to any l;aer than castle level TBH as Fortresses and Citadels take too long, as well as it being impossibbile to limit them to fortresses only anyway.

Anyway, as you can tell i played another test campaign about an hour ago.

Overall the results where good. First Denmark went crazy grabbing Hamburg, Oldenburg, Steinn, the province east of stein and the one south of that. HRE eventually got going and grabbed every rebel as far south as Bern and as far west as Antwerp. France never really got going, and Portugal lost Lisbon to the moors but finally grabbed Bordeaux just after. Sicily sat idle whilst Milan went crazy grabbing Aleppo, Tunis, and Tripoli, (moors got calgari), before they went after the moors grabbing the starting moors province bordering Tunis, and Calgari. Spain eventually got Valencia, but Milan got Zaragoza (but bypassed Burn and Dijon).

Byzantine grabbed Durrazo, but Hungary got Sofia then stalled, (at turn 30 they became Byzantines vassal and never moved again). Byzantine continued on to grab Trebizond, but Tbilisi belonged to the Turks, who eventually grabbed Edessa too. Egypt got Jerusalem eventually, but not before grabbing Jedda, Baghdad, and Dongola.

Byzantine eventually attacked the turks and reduced them to Tbilisi, Mosul, and their starting province below Tbilisi.

Russia went well grabbing Moscow and Helenski in short order, followed rapidly by the castles east of Moscow, and south of their starting point, Riga would be grabbed by the poles though, same with Burchest and the province immediately north of Poland's starting point. they also grabbed on to the west I believe.

France eventually got cean too BTW.

Overall the big worries where Venice never moving, Sicily never moving, Hungary and Poland and France being very slow off the block.

Scotland, (bar Inverness), and England never moved either.

Portugal was nearly dead too and the Turks where both a bit slow and really didn't resist Byzantium well.


Overall I've picked up some more clues as to AI behavior. First their seems to be some kind of set limit on how many troops a faction can have per province, (i'm sure it's upkeep related), I think this is part of why Portugal and Scotland and England and Sicily and Venice are stalling. They don't get many starting provinces and not a very good starting army either so it's really slowing them down in the initial stages of conquest, and if they don't watch out they hit their limit without their armies ever getting strong enough to have a crack at the rebels. i can deal with the British isles by slightly debuffing the rebels. But the rest are an issue.

I'm sure it's not money as at turn 30 the Portuguese had 20K in the bank and weren't spending any of it on unit.

Byzantium defiantly dominated due to the buffed spearmen, I'll buff base price and upkeep to keep them numbers down plus switch them and Dismounted Lancers i think.

[vonsch]

Well, Vanilla and 1.13 behavior has seemed to be that either Spain or Portugal moves, the other sits. And what they do affects the Moors, but the Moors do have other options. England seems to prefer moving on the continent to on the isles. That probably explains some of why Scotland can eventually take most of the reb regions there. But Scotland doesn't move fast.

I think the HA changes are hurting the Turks a lot. They can't get Sipahi into the force calculation that early, and those "look" a lot stronger than THA and Turkomen. The Russian behavior is encouraging. I think the Danes are another either/or faction though. They do perfectly fine if they go active. But if they turtle... They do have room if they want it. As does Egypt.

Milan seems to always be aggressive. Venice is a bit less predictable. It's vulnerable to having Venice itself grabbed, which tends to cripple it. Silly AI doesn't garrison those important regions well. It likes putting an ambush army in those woods just NW. But that leaves room to sneak a force onto the bridge and assault Venice.

Removing Cordoba from the Moors will hurt it. Removing Granada wouldn't much. Cordoba is BIG income. Not enough provinces in game for the number of factions on the penninsula. Really should ignore the Portuguese (wince) at this scale. They don't do much until late historically.

[chickenhawk]

Carl it sounds like enough progress to kick out a version, at least to beta.

[Carl]

Carl it sounds like enough progress to kick out a version, at least to beta.

Just need to make the Broken Lancers Changes to Milan. But yeah, I guess if I do that i'm ready for another release.

Well, Vanilla and 1.13 behavior has seemed to be that either Spain or Portugal moves, the other sits. And what they do affects the Moors, but the Moors do have other options. England seems to prefer moving on the continent to on the isles. That probably explains some of why Scotland can eventually take most of the reb regions there. But Scotland doesn't move fast.

All true, I'm just finding that England/Scotland spend too much time just siting their TBH.

I think the HA changes are hurting the Turks a lot. They can't get Sipahi into the force calculation that early, and those "look" a lot stronger than THA and Turkomen. The Russian behavior is encouraging. I think the Danes are another either/or faction though. They do perfectly fine if they go active. But if they turtle... They do have room if they want it. As does Egypt.

Actually i find with enough money that the Danes always go mental. I've fixed the THA/Turkomen's/Siaphi/Mamluk HA issues with regards to when they become available though. So thats not influencing things, although other things naturally could be.

Milan seems to always be aggressive. Venice is a bit less predictable. It's vulnerable to having Venice itself grabbed, which tends to cripple it. Silly AI doesn't garrison those important regions well. It likes putting an ambush army in those woods just NW. But that leaves room to sneak a force onto the bridge and assault Venice.

True enough, it's worrying though.

Removing Cordoba from the Moors will hurt it. Removing Granada wouldn't much. Cordoba is BIG income. Not enough provinces in game for the number of factions on the peninsula. Really should ignore the Portuguese (wince) at this scale. They don't do much until late historically.

Well I don't really wasn't to take Grenada as it's their big castle, a victory condition for Spain/Portugal, and would split the Moorish Iberian Territories.

And your right about too few provinces, TBH they really should have included more on the peninsula to balance things out IMHO.


I'll go fix the Broken Lances and then send out Links.

[vonsch]

Well I don't really wasn't to take Grenada as it's their big castle, a victory condition for Spain/Portugal, and would split the Moorish Iberian Territories.

You have it exactly backwards on the split.

The landbridge is from Cordoba to Marrakesh. If you make Cordoba neutral, you split Granada off.

But it is a knotty problem.

[Carl]

Woops, I don't know Iberia well so sue me. Actually in that case I could swap the victory condition from Grenada to Cordoba.

Just finished the changes and ran a 40 turn campaign to test them. Everything seems okay and france actually expanded in that one so nice.

I'm gonna start pack it up and then start uploading now.

it does not include any reassigned provinces yet, i'm stil trying to get it as good as I can without that first. Also, I want to have good discussion on it before I make any changes.

But it is a knotty problem.

You said it, not me.

[Carl]

ALL FURTHER INFO AFTER THIS POST IS WITH REGARDS TO THE v1.21 BETA.

Just letting everyone know.

I'll continue to use this thread till i get a yay or nay on a separate forum in modding for this mod, or the mods decide to lock it for some reason LOL.

[Bob the Insane]

v1.21...

Restart as the saem fation or try something else... what would be most helpful?

[Carl]

Whichever you like, I just need info.

I'd kinda like Vonsch to tell me what he makes of turks/Egyptians.

Other factions I could do with data on are Hungary, Byzantium, Poland, Russia, and the Moors ATM. But if you prefer someone else then go for them as I need some info for all factions anyway. I'm just short on info for those factions as I've never played them much, or anyone similar to them.

[vonsch]

Hmm, why is Egypt starting with halberd militia instead of Saracen militia (which it can make?)

Hmm, went a bit overboard on rebel garrisons, didn't you?

[Carl]

I just trebled the garrisons up and i gave them the Halberd Militia to try to get them going a bit faster, as the Halberd Militia are good in the strength calculator and even stronger against the actual units they tend to face (mostly spears and archers). Jerusalem is exceptional BTW. the rest have no experience.

In theory I think those trebled garrisons should be about as effective in actual combat as the old high experience ones. if you find them better than that let me know and I can debuff all rebels a bit which should really help everybody massively.

Jedda and Dongola are easy targets as Egypt too, Baghdad too if you can beat the turks.

[vonsch]

I just trebled the garrisons up and i gave them the Halberd Militia to try to get them going a bit faster, as the Halberd Militia are good in the strength calculator and even stronger against the actual units they tend to face (mostly spears and archers). Jerusalem is exceptional BTW. the rest have no experience.

In theory I think those trebled garrisons should be about as effective in actual combat as the old high experience ones. if you find them better than that let me know and I can debuff all rebels a bit which should really help everybody massively.

Well, those large garrisons will mean a little more buildup for me, but a lot more for the AI. Let's see how it looks about turn 25 or 30. I think the agent movement may be more than is needed too. I did about a 50% increase and though that was about right. Looks like you at least doubled it. Maybe you just gave them all the same number. I didn't. Some were faster than others.

Btw, what did you change that makes it look like 2 agents are available to be trained when only one really is? That was in last version too. Forgot to mention it. It's annoying. When I put one in the queue, the other still shows but it's greyed out.

[Carl]

I just trebled it, but it is a bit high for spies and assassins at least, maybe a bit too much for others too.

Yeah, I'll probably have to wait 8 or so hours to see our report as i'm off to bed now, but I look forward to how your ding in a 25-30 turns. Also looking forward to your suggested attempted england blitz campaign.

Btw, what did you change that makes it look like 2 agents are available to be trained when only one really is? That was in last version too. Forgot to mention it. It's annoying. When I put one in the queue, the other still shows but it's grayed out.

it's because the game was never meant to allow you to train more than one, so it displays two available, even when building 1 will make you hit your agent limit.

[vonsch]

I don't like the Theologian's Guild HQ in Jerusalem either. Too deterministic. Make it a plain guild. Let the player decide where the master/GM goes (if he can). Players only get one.

And, IMO, Jerusalem is a bit silly as far as the garrison goes. The AI won't take it for 100 turns, crusades and jihads nowithstanding (if then).

Acre fell to me turn 8. Would have been 2 turns sooner, but the Sultan croaked on me and he was to lead the attack. (Why, oh why does Egypt have to start with a 54 year old Sultan? And his son is no spring chicken! I suppose it's an intentional handicap to make up for the economic machine.)

I see a Turk army near Adana, but they don't have half the force needed to take it. Rotten intel on the AI's part. Heh, they turned around and went home.

Antioch is next, maybe turn 15. Definitely slower pace for me, but haven't seen AI manage anything so far. Allied with Turks and Hungary. Expect trouble from Turks anyway, but we'll see. Don't want to ally with Byz since I need their capital. If they and the Turks get into it, I can probably up my rep with Turks by pitching in (and stealing Cons first chance I get!)

Diplo closing on Italy to make more alliances to try to fend off crusades... though one about now MIGHT help if it actually attacked Jerusalem, which is unlikely.

Think I feel a jihad coming on soon. Money is tight. Even for Egypt. Lots of troops in the field. But am upgrading econ stuff as it makes sense (not port lines in Cairo, those are a total waste it appears).

Venice has a 3/4 stack sitting just east of there. Have to see if it tackles Zagreb. Gonna take a bit more than that, I suspect. Full stack might be enough if those rebs aren't buffed.

Heh, council wants me to take Adana. I'll think about it. Later. I have one dhow shuttling troops from Alexandria to Antioch, mainly for the Saracen militia, but some militia archers too. I have about a half stack of cav, just Arab and Desert so far. Worrying more about economy than high tech troops at the moment. But have those horsies getting some exp in the seiges. As soon as I get another general or two I'll split off a field army of the cav to hunt rebels for experience. No sign of other threats to date. Turn 14. Antioch will sally next turn and I think I'm ready for it. Might be able to storm it this turn, but why bother? They will come out next turn or STARVE!

I haven't chosen next target yet. Adana would probably put me into conflict with Turks early. No sense in that. Probably Aleppo or Damascus. Have to see what the spy reports. Acre is about to become a large village (instead of a castle). Hmm, Adana WOULD be a great forward castle though. Aleppo has all that nice spice to trade.

Did you boost fleet speed at all? Doesn't seem like it. Might have to do it by giving admirals a trait to up speed at birth. I haven't found any other number that actually seems to work, though I have found other numbers.

About to catch up to Byzzies in population. 4th overall. 6th military, 10th financial (but that's balance, not income... stupid).

Ok, turn 16 coming up and Antioch coming out. Mostly infantry and archers on both sides, but I have 7 cav and second general coming as reinforcements. They should swing things immediately.

Rep seems to not go up as fast, which is good. Allied with Venice, Turks and Hungarians now.

Sheesh, first city I see not-reb is Florence, and PS took that.

Turn 16: Oh, power meter says I have better than 2:1. More like 3:1 from the bar, but the swords say 2:1. Gonna be lazy. Autoresolve. Lost 188 to 389. Eek, draw! But they lose on a draw. Lots of prisoners, but I released them. Sacking would have gotten me 1500, which I could use... but the chivalry will pay it back in growth.

Ok, Pope thinks I walk on water. But he's probably confusing me with a prophet. I created the fund for the financing of gluttony and sloth at Rome.

Battles won 3. Battles lost 0. Turn 16. Kinda slow.

Heh, Turk army, tiny one, beseiged Adana. Got sent packing. But at least it wasn't all seige gear! No sign of that in Turk stacks so far.

The heresy situation seems ok. Spotted one heretic near Mosul.

Not sure what the trigger for seige engineer is, but they seem a bit common.


Sheesh, silly AI. Genoa has a 1 general garrison. Milan has... ZERO.

Ok, it's turn 19. I've taken 2 regions, a 3rd will sally next turn (Adana). I think I can beat them, but not a sure thing. PS got Florence. Of the rest:

zero regions taken: France, HRE, Venice, Sicily, England, Portugal, Hungary
one region: Spain, PS, Milan, Moors, Poland
two regions: Scotland! Russia, Egypt (me), Turks (must be to east, Tblisi and Treb, maybe), Danes
three regions: Byz

You may have overcompensated with Byz. Yeah, one Turks got is Tblisi. Other might be Treb or Smyrna, my maps are outdated. No, Smyrna is Byz. They may have grabbed Rhodes and Durazzo too. Looks like Turkey got Treb, unless they grabbed Baghdad after my spy left the area. From HRE maps, looks like Danes went north, but maps may be out of date too. Lowlands showing rebel (surprise!).

Byz ranks 1, Egypt 2, Turkey 3 (go East!), HRE 3 or 4 (looks close), Moors 5

Augurs well for trouble for me. Odd that the Italians are so anemic.

Turn 21: Adana fell, thanks to my Turkish allies They had a part stack there too. But I had almost two stacks. Still 2nd behind Byz. My economy is cranking now. 13.5k income, half that in expenses, but building getting expensive with Cairo and Alexandria built up, and Gaza moving too. Just doing walls and econ, mostly, in the two core cities. Rest econ. Adana needs to grow a lot, but I'll make it a big fort, I think. If the Turks let me keep it.

Been using Saracen Militia to beef up my seige armies. Suspect Kurd javs might be more efficient. And they are closer to the front since Gaza can make them. Once Antioch can make the bigger militia, that will be best though.

Spain got Bordeaux. Zaragoza still rebel. 8 alliances now, France most recent. Up to 10 turns of 100 per turn tribute while still making the offer generous. But my power is "supreme" and I do have loads of allies including the PS. At first I only got 100 for 5 turns. Gotta finance my Pope-bribery somehow. I'm just brokering indulgences for him. Oh, it was Baghdad the Turks took.

Gotta get some replacements to the front. Adana cost me almost 400 men. And I think I'll jihad the next one, Aleppo. The Turks have a 2/3 stack at Edessa, but that won't do it. Doubt they can tackle it for a while. I'll go there after Aleppo and dare them to try Damascus. Converting Adana to a town to grow it faster. My heir is up to 5 chivary, so he'll be sitting there as soon as I get reorganized.

I do sort of like the diplomat speed. But the spies are a bit overpowered with theirs, since they can "see" without using an action. Diplomats can to a far lesser degree, and they usually have business they need to be sure they can get to. Merchants are overpowered too. It's a bit TOO nice. It's also gonna be deadly in the closer in areas. You won't have ANY warning before you are challenged with takeover attempts. Egypt has a preserve in Dongola, at least as far as I've seen so far. Holy Land, Byz and Italy are crowded. England has a preserve too, but it's not lucrative. Scandinavia is good if you can blockade the straits (and you aren't too local to it). Sub-Sahara is still a haul, but lucrative.

Just saw that 2/3 Turk stack beseige Edessa. The rebs immediately sallied and ran them off. But another part stack close. The Turks may get it before I do. Of course, a lot of the rebs now have one chevron.

[Carl]

I don't like the Theologian's Guild HQ in Jerusalem either. Too deterministic. Make it a plain guild. Let the player decide where the master/GM goes (if he can). Players only get one.

It was just a random thought, i don't mind shifting it TBH, just thought it would give people a good reason to grab the place.

And, IMO, Jerusalem is a bit silly as far as the garrison goes. The AI won't take it for 100 turns, crusades and jihads nowithstanding (if then).

It's usually taken between turns 40 and 60 by the AI in my tests, typically a Crusade/Jihad hits it and weakens it then either a follow up normal army or more commonly a Crusade/Jihad will take it (typically they are called at about the same time so if a Jihad gets their first then the Crusades get it, if the Crusades get it the Jihad gets it). I designed the Garrison with Human Crusaders in mind in truth as it should really slow them down no end.
Although it was meant to be worse, but rebels can't have JHI, Qupoxloa, or Janissary Musketeers :evillaugh4: .

Any chance of getting you to try and fight that one on the battle map? It's got Ballista Towers so it should be a nice way of finding out how good/bad they are.

Acre fell to me turn 8. Would have been 2 turns sooner, but the Sultan croaked on me and he was to lead the attack. (Why, oh why does Egypt have to start with a 54 year old Sultan? And his son is no spring chicken! I suppose it's an intentional handicap to make up for the economic machine.)

Possibly, and it is a bit silly if you ask me.

I see a Turk army near Adana, but they don't have half the force needed to take it. Rotten intel on the AI's part. Heh, they turned around and went home.

This does seem, to happen a bit TBH.

Antioch is next, maybe turn 15. Definitely slower pace for me, but haven't seen AI manage anything so far. Allied with Turks and Hungary. Expect trouble from Turks anyway, but we'll see. Don't want to ally with Byz since I need their capital. If they and the Turks get into it, I can probably up my rep with Turks by pitching in (and stealing Cons first chance I get!)

So it's slower than before, interesting. Is it because of the better Garrison power wise, or are they about as powerful, but harder to deal with with limited forces? Are your units getting more experience now too BTW?

Also, the AI's been reprogrammed so it won't start wars with you or each other for the first 30 turns so you've got a bit of a wait in store before the Turks and Byzantium go at it.

Think I feel a jihad coming on soon. Money is tight. Even for Egypt. Lots of troops in the field. But am upgrading econ stuff as it makes sense (not port lines in Cairo, those are a total waste it appears).

The ports add trade bonuses to cities, these effect both land and sea trade, same with markets, if you have a port the markets upgrade income from your sea trade.

Did you boost fleet speed at all? Doesn't seem like it. Might have to do it by giving admirals a trait to up speed at birth. I haven't found any other number that actually seems to work, though I have found other numbers.

I've noticed that too, I think it's a combination job of 2 or 3 numbers that need altering TBH as level 2 shops are faster than level 1 ships so theirs a control somwhere. I did try buffing them though.

About to catch up to Byzzies in population. 4th overall. 6th military, 10th financial (but that's balance, not income... stupid).

Ok, turn 16 coming up and Antioch coming out. Mostly infantry and archers on both sides, but I have 7 cav and second general coming as reinforcements. They should swing things immediately.

Rep seems to not go up as fast, which is good. Allied with Venice, Turks and Hungarians now.

Sheesh, first city I see not-reb is Florence, and PS took that.

Glad to find your not top dog early on. getting an alliance boosts your rep, but maintaining one doesn't any more, so that cuts your rep gain a lot.

Papal States ALWAYS grabs Florance on the 2nd/3rd turn, it's the first reb province to fall normally, with Inverness falling a turn after typically.

Turn 16: Oh, power meter says I have better than 2:1. More like 3:1 from the bar, but the swords say 2:1. Gonna be lazy. Auto-resolve. Lost 188 to 389. Eek, draw! But they lose on a draw. Lots of prisoners, but I released them. Sacking would have gotten me 1500, which I could use... but the chivalry will pay it back in growth.

What did you have and what did they have, (i.e. was the Garrison damaged)? Chiv is now worth 0.4% growth per point BTW.

Heh, council wants me to take Adana. I'll think about it. Later. I have one dhow shuttling troops from Alexandria to Antioch, mainly for the Saracen militia, but some militia archers too. I have about a half stack of Cav, just Arab and Desert so far. Worrying more about economy than high tech troops at the moment. But have those horsies getting some exp in the sieges. As soon as I get another general or two I'll split off a field army of the Cav to hunt rebels for experience. No sign of other threats to date. Turn 14. Antioch will sally next turn and I think I'm ready for it. Might be able to storm it this turn, but why bother? They will come out next turn or STARVE!

Are you finding yourself too foot reliant then? If so is their any reason at all? IS it a case of insufficient HA, or do you just need more infantry for the sieges?

OK, Pope thinks I walk on water. But he's probably confusing me with a prophet. I created the fund for the financing of gluttony and sloth at Rome.

Battles won 3. Battles lost 0. Turn 16. Kinda slow.

Heh, Turk army, tiny one, besieged Adana. Got sent packing. But at least it wasn't all siege gear! No sign of that in Turk stacks so far.

The heresy situation seems OK. Spotted one heretic near Mosul.

Not sure what the trigger for siege engineer is, but they seem a bit common.

Thanks for the info, I'll look at siege engineer and architect. I didn't write the triggers for those so i'm not 100% sure of the cause ATM, but I find both too common.

Sheesh, silly AI. Genoa has a 1 general garrison. Milan has... ZERO.

They've probably got their entire army out after Burn and Dhjon. Expect one of them to fall in the next few turns.

OK, it's turn 19. I've taken 2 regions, a 3rd will sally next turn (Adana). I think I can beat them, but not a sure thing. PS got Florence. Of the rest:

zero regions taken: France, HRE, Venice, Sicily, England, Portugal, Hungary
one region: Spain, PS, Milan, Moors, Poland
two regions: Scotland! Russia, Egypt (me), Turks (must be to east, Tbilisi and Treb, maybe), Danes
three regions: Byz

VERY slowed down I think, but have you got Dongola and Jedda yet? They both have 4 unit weak garrisons, as did Baghdad. That could shift things in an awful big hurry.

Scotland tend to get Inverness early now, but it then either get York on the third attempt or stalls.

HRE and Hungary being Frozen are not so common, but the rest regularly stall. England sometimes gets going after turn 30 though.

You may have overcompensated with Byz. Yeah, one Turks got is Tbilisi. Other might be Treb or Smyrna, my maps are outdated. No, Smyrna is Byz. They may have grabbed Rhodes and Durazzo too. Looks like Turkey got Treb, unless they grabbed Baghdad after my spy left the area. From HRE maps, looks like Danes went north, but maps may be out of date too. Lowlands showing rebel (surprise!).

The trouble is that if Venice doesn't grab Rhodes or Durhazzo the Byzantines tend to get both and Smyrna. Sometimes Trebizond if the Turks are too slow,one of the reasons I want to give the Turks it, it secures one side against the Byzantines). The buff does help but part of the issue is that Byzantium doesn't often have any serious competitors, so it can grab stuff fast, it also starts with more places that can have ports so whilst Egypt may be a bigger money powerhouse in the long haul, in the first 30 turns or so it's the richest faction going and can support quite big armies if it's so inclined.
On the their hand I rarely see Dismounted Lancers so i might try swapping the Sears and Lancers over as it should encourage more of the Lancers early on.

Byz ranks 1, Egypt 2, Turkey 3 (go East!), HRE 3 or 4 (looks close), Moors 5

Augurs well for trouble for me. Odd that the Italians are so anemic.

Nice to see your not number 1 this early on.

The Italians are so weak because i still haven't debuffed the Mediterranean isles/Tunis for Sicily's benefit and I've mad Milan prefer land attacks and it needs a few turns to grab Bern/Djon, although it's still going slow.

I've also noticed the AI tend to go better if it's near the player, it's like it plays better when it's the players neighbor.

Turn 21: Adana fell, thanks to my Turkish allies They had a part stack there too. But I had almost two stacks. Still 2nd behind Byz. My economy is cranking now. 13.5k income, half that in expenses, but building getting expensive with Cairo and Alexandria built up, and Gaza moving too. Just doing walls and econ, mostly, in the two core cities. Rest econ. Adana needs to grow a lot, but I'll make it a big fort, I think. If the Turks let me keep it.

Been using Saracen Militia to beef up my siege armies. Suspect Kurd javs might be more efficient. And they are closer to the front since Gaza can make them. Once Antioch can make the bigger militia, that will be best though.

Sounds OK to me, I notice your saying you need a lot of Saracen Militia for Sieges? Is it just for Sieges, or are you needing them for Field armies a lot too? Nice to see allies pitching in to help out too.

Spain got Bordeaux. Zaragoza still rebel. 8 alliances now, France most recent. Up to 10 turns of 100 per turn tribute while still making the offer generous. But my power is "supreme" and I do have loads of allies including the PS. At first I only got 100 for 5 turns. Gotta finance my Pope-bribery somehow. I'm just brokering indulgences for him. Oh, it was Baghdad the Turks took.

Spain's moving fast. Zaragoza always seems to take forever to fall TBH. Nice to see you with lots of allies too.

I do sort of like the diplomat speed. But the spies are a bit overpowered with theirs, since they can "see" without using an action. Diplomats can to a far lesser degree, and they usually have business they need to be sure they can get to. Merchants are overpowered too. It's a bit TOO nice. It's also gonna be deadly in the closer in areas. You won't have ANY warning before you are challenged with takeover attempts. Egypt has a preserve in Dongola, at least as far as I've seen so far. Holy Land, Byz and Italy are crowded. England has a preserve too, but it's not lucrative. Scandinavia is good if you can blockade the straits (and you aren't too local to it). Sub-Sahara is still a haul, but lucrative.

I was thinking the same about Spies TBH. The Diplomat speed is a godsend as it lets you build them up and move them places in a hurry.

I had hoped Merchants would be less prone to being taken over. i'm trying to make Acquisition a fairly minor thing for merchants ATM, a useful extra, especially for shifting merchants of resources you want, but the majority of income comes from trading.

Just saw that 2/3 Turk stack besiege Edessa. The rebs immediately sallied and ran them off. But another part stack close. The Turks may get it before I do. Of course, a lot of the rebs now have one chevron.

I've seen them take it, but not this early normally.

[vonsch]

So it's slower than before, interesting. Is it because of the better Garrison power wise, or are they about as powerful, but harder to deal with with limited forces? Are your units getting more experience now too BTW?

Not, units are getting far less experience. Bigger battles, more units, fewer battles. The experience is spread around. When I quit for the night (well, morning) I think I had a couple with 2 chevrons. And the new garrisons are a disincentive to horse archers (which you may like), at least for the Egyptians. They will come into their own later. But that means there's no rush to upgrade that stable at Gaza. Have to try the Turks later. They are more dependent on horse archers in the early going. And they get cheaper ones.

The ports add trade bonuses to cities, these effect both land and sea trade, same with markets, if you have a port the markets upgrade income from your sea trade.

I think the Red Sea port are either very poor, or flat broken. Dongola is on the other side of the Nile, and not sure it has a connection to its port. The Cairo port never had any sea trade going in my last game (and I got to where I had Jedda and Dongola with ports too). Not saying the port has zero effect, but that it doesn't have its normal ROI. It's not worth paying for if money is tight.


Acre garrison was virgin. No idea what I had now. Probably mostly starting units and all of them. With a turn or two of cav builds from Gaza thrown in. Had one general. Other one was on governor duty.


The reason I am going so heavy on footsloggers is cost. Cav is not as efficient. Mobility means little in seiges and it costs relatively a lot. And replacements are more expensive too. And with the high unit count for defenders, it takes a lot of units. Which means paying maintenance on them longer. So I really look at the maint versus "firepower" ratio. The up front cost is a small part of the total when multi-turns are ensured.

Looking at the rosters, the only reason to use cav in a seige is to get it done fast, not cheaply. They get there faster, and if the defenses are light, they can get the job done. But they take far more losses in the tight spaces of a city than in the field. They aren't suited to the task. Though with very thin defenses they do well because they force the city square defense (instead of gate or walls) and there they have SOME room to at least attack flanks (sort of). But I autoresolve most seiges. I hate that pathing stuff. It's annoying. Very hard to even reform a unit into a different formation in a city.

But as things progress I expect to use more cav as the mobile (and destructive) arm. For things like crusade attrition and depleting defenders in the field, it's superior. And for strategic defense, denying easy access to my cities. Being able to throw cav at walls is a bit unrealistic anyway. So don't see the current thing as bad. The player does have the choice. It just makes sense, due to other factors, to choose infantry for this stage. For Egypt.

The numbers may work differently for the Turks, in which case I would force sallies and defent them in the field HA style. With infantry storming is viable. With pure cav you flat can't (though you can hire a few infantry merc units on the spot, cav is still not cost effective in the streets on the whole, at least if there are more than a couple defending units).

Thanks for the info, I'll look at siege engineer and architect. I didn't write the triggers for those so i'm not 100% sure of the cause ATM, but I find both too common.

Architect is not too common. You get it for building. If your "general" is sitting in a city playing governor, you deserve to get that one. It's the seige engineer that I don't know about. That one should come from building the seige line, I'd think. Or beseiging cities. Not sitting in cities.

VERY slowed down I think, but have you got Dongola and Jedda yet? They both have 4 unit weak garrisons, as did Baghdad.

No. Both are strategic dead ends. If I leave the Holy Land open, I will not get it, the Turks will. Those two are "safe" for Egypt for a while. And neither is important (though Dongola is nice for the trade). Both are poorly positioned for building units or other purposes of that nature, but both are economy boosters. I go for them once my forward borders are settled. I'd go earlier except Egypt doesn't have the generals to spare. I keep one on governor duty, and push the other (now two) forward to fight and get the trait boosts from that. And I use the 4th to put up towers everywhere (and it's a lot of towers!) So those two don't need large garrisons. They have a built in delay in that wasting resources on taking them early will hurt the player on the real front. Forces sent there are out of play for 10 turns each. And they are both far enough away that rebellions in general-less armies are very likely. I saw that happen with a half-stack I sent to Jedda in the last game. Made me more conservative where long trips are involved. Total waste of time and forces to have them rebel 5-6 turns move away.

Hmm, actually, Jedda almost justifies a port at Cairo. Just for the saved time getting there and back. The 800 for the port is probably recouped in just unit upkeep for the saved 4 turns or so. Don't think that would apply to Dongola though. It's a long way from the Red Sea.

Nice to see your not number 1 this early on.

It's actually bad strategy to be tall poppy early. I'm pushing it. The only thing keeping me out that early is I'm spending all my money. As soon as the economy is cranking, I will have trouble with getting alliances, I suspect. Need to move fast. The bigger buildup in army mass is also a factor. I usually build more economy and less army this early. But those garrisons are forcing me to build up a lot faster. I do have the choice of taking those conquests slower if I want to get into a war with the Turks later (well, sooner, in a sense). I'm less apt to be able to force them to attack me, and more apt to put muself where I have to take the rep hit by attacking them, if I delay my expansion.

I actually took Adana first for the council 2500. Could have taken Aleppo instead. I know Adana will mean earlier war with the Turks. But Edessa might also prove that trigger. Assuming I get it before the Turks. They are trying. They have backed away from Adana (for now) since I took it.

The question will be whether the Byz attack them to keep them off me or not. Suspect they will go for Treb and get into it with the Turks.

Sounds OK to me, I notice your saying you need a lot of Saracen Militia for Sieges? Is it just for Sieges, or are you needing them for Field armies a lot too? Nice to see allies pitching in to help out too.

Heh, what's a field army? All I have so far is armies aimed at cities. Antioch is crammed full, and there's a fort just outside Aleppo that's almost full. Both will hit Aleppo shortly. Using almost two full stacks to overpower the garrisons, which keeps my losses down.

The "ally helping: bit was tongue in cheek. They were after the city, I just beat them. Since they were adjacent to it, they got pulled in as an ally force. They took zero losses, but then so did my second stack. The main stack did all the work in the autoresolve, it appears.


I don't really know about the merchant takeover chances yet. I don't have any in the heavy competition areas. My comments there were based on past experience. Someone needs to play Milan or Venice to test that. Lots of merchants fast and in the really hot zone.

especially for shifting merchants of resources you want, but the majority of income comes from trading.

Heh, shifting them off resources is no problem. A little force works (a military unit will shove them aside).

Okay, caffeine then I'll play on a bit more with that one.

[chickenhawk]

Carl I think I have found a definite bug.

Playing as the English on Vh/VH I waited out Carnoevan and Dublin. In both cases the garrison sallied. The game did not give me the pre battle screen where I get to pick whether to fight or auto resolve. It just went ahead and auto resolved. Is this a leftover from testing maybe? It was definitely not happening in 1.20

The number of missile troops in those motte and baileys makes assault almost prohibitive by the way. The M & B also slows me down considerably because I don't need castles in these locations, I need cities. I can't afford the troops I could make from Caen and Nottingham, so having to convert them is a definite brake.

I like the agent speeds, but it lets them get more done, opinions may vary.

Ship speeds are unchanged. This may matter less since agents can get where they are going. I am not sure the AI could deal with long range amphibious assaults from the player.

Will give a more complete report in a little while on the rest of the campaign.

[vonsch]

Playing as the English on Vh/VH I waited out Carnoevan and Dublin. In both cases the garrison sallied. The game did not give me the pre battle screen where I get to pick whether to fight or auto resolve. It just went ahead and auto resolved. Is this a leftover from testing maybe? It was definitely not happening in 1.20

The number of missile troops in those motte and baileys makes assault almost prohibitive by the way. The M & B also slows me down considerably because I don't need castles in these locations, I need cities. I can't afford the troops I could make from Caen and Nottingham, so having to convert them is a definite brake.

I haven't seen that and I force sallies a lot. Odd. I'll keep an eye out for it. Is there a configuration switch somewhere in the .cfg file to never autoresolve?

Caernoven is a castle-type in vanilla. So that's no change. Dublin is a town. A town without a stockade, as I recall. Just give it a wall, Carl. It's always had a pretty decent garrison.

And Chicken, I flip Caen over to a city immediately. But then that's because I hate getting into it with the French early. I basically ally with them and pull out, just leave Caen as a money pump with little improvement for the eventual day when France decides to backstab me. When I need a castle on the continent, I pick my own and take it! The Ai has usually nicely outfitted it for me by then. With trade agreements, Caen is better at producing money early than those small towns. But I flip them to towns too, they grow a lot faster, then back to castles later if I want castles. I just don't build stone walls so I keep that option. England can get away with a small and elite military early if they don't get pushy in France.

[chickenhawk]

Especially with the tech tree changes Carl has made I can get good units out of Can very early, but I had not considered the economic benefits of flipping it. I was kind of hoping the French would shatter a stack or two on it about the time it went to a fortress. You, and that Machiavelli guy are right about money,money, and more money though.



I do always take out Scotland first. I like one front wars. With the merchant changes in my current campaign I might try to take Sweden an Norway. Some of those resources are worth real money now.

[vonsch]

Especially with the tech tree changes Carl has made I can get good units out of Can very early, but I had not considered the economic benefits of flipping it. I was kind of hoping the French would shatter a stack or two on it about the time it went to a fortress. You, and that Machiavelli guy are right about money,money, and more money though.



I do always take out Scotland first. I like one front wars. With the merchant changes in my current campaign I might try to take Sweden an Norway. Some of those resources are worth real money now.

Yeah, Scandinavia isn't bad for merchants. But it's gonna put you into conflict with the Danes, who consider that their backyard. Plan for that. If you can get there early and blockade the strait, it's better. I always seem to get there when the Danes already have a force in Sweden. And I'm usually trying to avoid continental wars with Catholic factions! (Not that I've ever managed, so far.)

But I have hopes! (if Carl lets me play England again... )

[Carl]

Playing as the English on Vh/VH I waited out Carnoevan and Dublin. In both cases the garrison sallied. The game did not give me the pre battle screen where I get to pick whether to fight or auto resolve. It just went ahead and auto resolved. Is this a leftover from testing maybe? It was definitely not happening in 1.20

It sounds like the MP campaign has been enabled.

I'll get back on the rest of the points ASAP, I just want to get this out fast, i've been out for the last couple of hours, so just seen these posts.

[chickenhawk]

How do I disable it?

[Carl]

Not, units are getting far less experience. Bigger battles, more units, fewer battles. The experience is spread around. When I quit for the night (well, morning) I think I had a couple with 2 chevrons. And the new garrisons are a disincentive to horse archers (which you may like), at least for the Egyptians. They will come into their own later. But that means there's no rush to upgrade that stable at Gaza. Have to try the Turks later. They are more dependent on horse archers in the early going. And they get cheaper ones.

Hmm, fair enough about the experience, not what I'd prefer but unavoidable. The HA situation is a bit sad, (they are Egypt's unique unit after all), but a bit unavoidable, it's worth noting however this may be getting thrown a bit as I disabled rebel and pirate spawning in my testing to see if it speeded up the AI (it didn't really), and have forgotten to re-enable it. S their won't be many rebel Field armies ATM. Sorry about that, i only realized when I came to try and edit some starting provinces around just before I went out.

I think the Red Sea port are either very poor, or flat broken. Dongola is on the other side of the Nile, and not sure it has a connection to its port. The Cairo port never had any sea trade going in my last game (and I got to where I had Jedda and Dongola with ports too). Not saying the port has zero effect, but that it doesn't have its normal ROI. It's not worth paying for if money is tight.

Of course, I was just saying that if you have spare income it is worth it as it does give a bonus to your land trade, just as markets boost your sea trade.

Acre garrison was virgin. No idea what I had now. Probably mostly starting units and all of them. With a turn or two of cav builds from Gaza thrown in. Had one general. Other one was on governor duty.

So it was a tough Garrison on it's own, but not utterly silly as i feared, (I was worried it was a major force of extremely high quality stuff that got beat up badly).

The reason I am going so heavy on footsloggers is cost. Cav is not as efficient. Mobility means little in seiges and it costs relatively a lot. And replacements are more expensive too. And with the high unit count for defenders, it takes a lot of units. Which means paying maintenance on them longer. So I really look at the maint versus "firepower" ratio. The up front cost is a small part of the total when multi-turns are ensured.

Looking at the rosters, the only reason to use cav in a seige is to get it done fast, not cheaply. They get there faster, and if the defenses are light, they can get the job done. But they take far more losses in the tight spaces of a city than in the field. They aren't suited to the task. Though with very thin defenses they do well because they force the city square defense (instead of gate or walls) and there they have SOME room to at least attack flanks (sort of). But I autoresolve most seiges. I hate that pathing stuff. It's annoying. Very hard to even reform a unit into a different formation in a city.

But as things progress I expect to use more cav as the mobile (and destructive) arm. For things like crusade attrition and depleting defenders in the field, it's superior. And for strategic defense, denying easy access to my cities. Being able to throw cav at walls is a bit unrealistic anyway. So don't see the current thing as bad. The player does have the choice. It just makes sense, due to other factors, to choose infantry for this stage. For Egypt.

The numbers may work differently for the Turks, in which case I would force sallies and defent them in the field HA style. With infantry storming is viable. With pure cav you flat can't (though you can hire a few infantry merc units on the spot, cav is still not cost effective in the streets on the whole, at least if there are more than a couple defending units).

Thanks for that explanation, and I agree about pathing. It is improved and I've had uphill formed charges in castles before, but it takes a lot of careful rearranging of unit widths to get things just right.

I tend to auto-resolve because of the pathing too TBH.

Architect is not too common. You get it for building. If your "general" is sitting in a city playing governor, you deserve to get that one. It's the seige engineer that I don't know about. That one should come from building the seige line, I'd think. Or beseiging cities. Not sitting in cities.

True, I just see Goveners pick it, (Architect), up every single time within a few turns, i've even had feild generals who've stoopped for 5 turns to secure PO get it. hats a pretty bad state of affairs.

No. Both are strategic dead ends. If I leave the Holy Land open, I will not get it, the Turks will. Those two are "safe" for Egypt for a while. And neither is important (though Dongola is nice for the trade). Both are poorly positioned for building units or other purposes of that nature, but both are economy boosters. I go for them once my forward borders are settled. I'd go earlier except Egypt doesn't have the generals to spare. I keep one on governor duty, and push the other (now two) forward to fight and get the trait boosts from that. And I use the 4th to put up towers everywhere (and it's a lot of towers!) So those two don't need large garrisons. They have a built in delay in that wasting resources on taking them early will hurt the player on the real front. Forces sent there are out of play for 10 turns each. And they are both far enough away that rebellions in general-less armies are very likely. I saw that happen with a half-stack I sent to Jedda in the last game. Made me more conservative where long trips are involved. Total waste of time and forces to have them rebel 5-6 turns move away.

Hmm, actually, Jedda almost justifies a port at Cairo. Just for the saved time getting there and back. The 800 for the port is probably recouped in just unit upkeep for the saved 4 turns or so. Don't think that would apply to Dongola though. It's a long way from the Red Sea.

I was thinking f them more as Cav production centerers as the Cav can eat the distance fast, and also in the case of Dongola, it could feed all sorts of troops to Alexandria to by shipped to the holy lands, the Turks tends to concentrate on Tbilisi and Trebizond first, and then spends a fair few turns weakening garrisons up so you'd probably have had chance to do that and if you struck quickly at the territory near the turks cut them off from the holy land and have the whole lot.

But i'm not an Egypt player so you'd probably have a better idea than me.

It's actually bad strategy to be tall poppy early. I'm pushing it. The only thing keeping me out that early is I'm spending all my money. As soon as the economy is cranking, I will have trouble with getting alliances, I suspect.

It was harder before because their where triggers that automatically lowed your rep and faction standing with everyone if you where in the top 5 or so. Since the player is almost always going to be at least 5th no mater what I do I decided to just remove those triggers, so being 1st shouldn't make it any harder to get alliances.

Need to move fast. The bigger buildup in army mass is also a factor. I usually build more economy and less army this early. But those garrisons are forcing me to build up a lot faster. I do have the choice of taking those conquests slower if I want to get into a war with the Turks later (well, sooner, in a sense). I'm less apt to be able to force them to attack me, and more apt to put muself where I have to take the rep hit by attacking them, if I delay my expansion.

I actually took Adana first for the council 2500. Could have taken Aleppo instead. I know Adana will mean earlier war with the Turks. But Edessa might also prove that trigger. Assuming I get it before the Turks. They are trying. They have backed away from Adana (for now) since I took it.

The question will be whether the Byz attack them to keep them off me or not. Suspect they will go for Treb and get into it with the Turks.

The Byzantines tend to go for turkey pretty fast so probably. And thanks for the extra info, it sounds inane to most people but it paints a really clear picture which lets me plot opening moves in my head and figure out how well your doing.

Heh, what's a field army? All I have so far is armies aimed at cities. Antioch is crammed full, and there's a fort just outside Aleppo that's almost full. Both will hit Aleppo shortly. Using almost two full stacks to overpower the garrisons, which keeps my losses down.

The "ally helping: bit was tongue in cheek. They were after the city, I just beat them. Since they were adjacent to it, they got pulled in as an ally force. They took zero losses, but then so did my second stack. The main stack did all the work in the autoresolve, it appears.

LOL, I hoped it might be something like this, but I DO want to see Egypt's HA used early on as thats when they excel, and I wanted to check it wasn't a case of them being too weak.

I got the irony with the Allies comment, I've just never sen tis happen before so...

I don't really know about the merchant takeover chances yet. I don't have any in the heavy competition areas. My comments there were based on past experience. Someone needs to play Milan or Venice to test that. Lots of merchants fast and in the really hot zone.

Or Byzantium. Will have to ask somebody to do that as I want your English blitz at some point too.

Heh, shifting them off resources is no problem. A little force works (a military unit will shove them aside).

LOL, that only works near home, not so useful when the nearest army is half the world away, which was more what i meant.

The number of missile troops in those motte and baileys makes assault almost prohibitive by the way. The M & B also slows me down considerably because I don't need castles in these locations, I need cities. I can't afford the troops I could make from Caen and Nottingham, so having to convert them is a definite brake.

I did it more for the AI's benefit as they are normally desprally short of castles, but i've begun to suspect that both York and Dublin should be pallissade walls, same in a few other areas. But in most areas the AI is often in desperate need of castles.

I like the agent speeds, but it lets them get more done, opinions may vary.

Ship speeds are unchanged. This may matter less since agents can get where they are going. I am not sure the AI could deal with long range amphibious assaults from the player.

Will give a more complete report in a little while on the rest of the campaign.

Thanks for that, I was actually trying to encourage naval attacks and defenses by the AI TBH, one issue right now is that the AI often has it's fleets badly out of position if the player tries navel invasions and can never get them into position to defend.

Caernoven is a castle-type in vanilla. So that's no change. Dublin is a town. A town without a stockade, as I recall. Just give it a wall, Carl. It's always had a pretty decent garrison.

I was thinking the same, when I added things in a I just changed every settlement without a wall to a Motte and Bailey castle TBH without thinking about it as in most places thats what the AI needs the most.

How do I disable it?

Go into your Medevil 2 prefrance.cfg file and look for the following entries and delete them:

[multiplayer]
playable = 1
hotseat_turns = 1
hotseat_scroll = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 1
hotseat_disable_console = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1

Does that Help?


Any idea how it got enabled as my mod shouldn't enable it...

But I have hopes! (if Carl lets me play England again... )

I just want a quick check that Egypt/Turks are Okay power wise now, thats all. After that if you still feel up to it I'd love an attempted English blitz to find out how you do, thats going to be EXTREMELY valuable info, I just ant to check the old versions faults have been put to rest.

[vonsch]

I see Anno Domini is increasing ship speeds via an invisible admiral trait, which was my plan A (until I saw all those movement numbers in files relating to ships).

Just give it to all admirals at birth and tinker with the number there. I think he uses 20. Not sure how that translates, probably 5% per point.


And on the Egyptian HA, yeah, lack of compelling reason to build them yet is part of it. I noticed the missing bandits too, and meant to ask. The ARE a major source of general training. Too many can be annoyingly dusruptive, but not enough isn't a good thing either.

Bring back the bandits! (Can you tell me what the setting should be, and where it is? Campaign file?)


Been going through the AD traits to see if there's anythign interesting. He did a fair bit of reorganizing, and stripped out some things. But still WAY too much emphasis on princesses there, considering how uncommon they are in game. Half those princess traits (both the good and bad sides) can just be cut. If you want to release some resources (script execution time and bulk of text in the file).

A lot of the random general traits that the player can't influence at all could go too. Some are okay, we shouldn't have TOO much control (can we ever?), but some are pretty silly. And annoying. If they are triggered by player choices, that's different. Like those firing off sitting passively in settlements, or sitting in the countryside... or burning all movement points, etc. AD stripped out a bunch, it appears. But not all by any means (and not much of the princess garbage that we never even see).

I just want a quick check that Egypt/Turks are Okay power wise now, thats all. After that if you still feel up to it I'd love an attempted English blitz to find out how you do, thats going to be EXTREMELY valuable info, I just ant to check the old versions faults have been put to rest.

The blitz I mean of England is just of England itself. After that I'd settle in a bit, then try a swing far south to Moorland. I figure to tie up the ivory and such, then use that as a springboard east along Africa and the islands (where I can without tackling Catholics unless they start a war). I'd aim to take over the Holy Land and play with the hordes. The would mean wiping out Moors, Egypt, and maybe Turkey for the dear ol' Papa.

Of course, I'd never do all that testing!

I think Egypt is ok. Changed a bit, but everyone will be with the major uptick in rebel settlement garrisons.

I could try a bit of early Turk to see what the implications are with HA there.

Hmm, my 5 star merch vs a 3 star, 32% chance. But the AI seems to have a hidden boost. I say SEEMS. No hard data. It seems to beat my guys a LOT more often than I do its, with the same odds showing. That said, that one was taken over first try.

Dongola is 4 turns from Cairo over mostly paved roads, btw. Jedda is farther from Gaza. I think that's farther than it is from Nottingham to Dublin. And there's the navy shortcut to make that 3 turns at worst, maybe 2. So don't expect Dongola or Jedda to be early captures for anyone, even with the small garrisons. Failure means another 10 turn wait.

Turn 24, Tunis is still rebel. My diplo can't see if the garrison looks like it's been fighting. Turks are beseiging Edessa again. They hava a chance, this time, but doesn't look great.