Fixing the AI money script (preliminary tests)

[Thaatu]

The AI faction expansion is very, very, very random. I too have never experienced Seleukid domination, but I have seen screenshots of it. Weird since I have played about eight different campaigns in 0.81, one of which was with Seleukids. In one game the Ptolies and Seleuks were in a perfect balance, fighting for the levant all the time for 65 years.

[alatar]

In one the egyptians won, in the other the AS are ruling everything, gave Parthia a massive income bonus to help out and raided the AS's tressury, since then there provinces are rebelling but there still holing on.

[Sheep]

Second test game - same procedure and same script as Test #1



Notice:
Very active Armenians, Pontics, Saba, Getai and Lusotanians!
Aedui win the Gallic Wars this time!
A real First Punic War - Rome vs. Carthage in the western Med!
Rome invades Germany and Gaul - Europe looks like a patchwork quilt!
Seleukids nuked again in an exciting new way!
Baktria once again becomes a giant octopus with Parthia and the Saka as protectorates!
Ptolemies concentrate on Africa, capturing the coast almost all the way to Spain!
Epirus shares a border with the Sarmatians!

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I like Seleucia in those Sheep. But Baktria is still growing out of control.
Maybe the script should be faction specific. Those who generally need help get more money and those who generally expand get less. Also maybe the cutoff number of cities for barbarians should be lower than the cutoff number for civilized factions (in an attempt to recreate history and possibilities). But this stuff is way down the road, after the basics get tested, and based on different people's oppinions. Anyways, nice!

[Redmeth]

@MAA
Aren't changes to the money script an objective of the official EB dev team? With all due respect to the other modders in generally I trust the "official" stuff.

[The Errant]

@MAA
Aren't changes to the money script an objective of the official EB dev team? With all due respect to the other modders in generally I trust the "official" stuff.

The team has confirmed that they will not be directing any effort to balancing out the money script until the release of EB 1.0. They have their hands full tracking down bugs, including new content and fixing recruitment zones and the like.

Since EB 1.0 will take a long time to be released, this issue with the money script will take an even longer time to be adressed by the team. However if we find a working model that balances out the game, that solution will be available to all EB players before the team gets around to fiddling with it in EB 1.x. Who knows. If it's good enough it may be included in 1.0 as a standard.

Right now it's still a test. Sheep has kindly provided us with the working code based on Eminos64 original concept. It's up to users to test and modify to try to find the right balance between factions. We will get it right eventually. But the more people who download and test and adjust the script. The sooner we will find the perfect balance between factions. So don't be afraid to try it, just because it's not "official" content from the team.

[Morte66]

Will the altered script be picked up when you load a save, or restart EB, or do you need to start a new campaign?