Fixing the AI money script (preliminary tests)

[Dan_Grr]

Im trying out your script Errand.

[Lucidus]

Congrats to you all,Sheep,The Errant and Redmeth.Great work


The Errant wrote:

Bad news is I'm going to have to adjust the population bonuses for AI recruitment

It is a very good idea.Again,congrats.

[The Errant]

OK. Finished the modifications to the script. It took me over two hours just to halve the population bonuses for the AI factions. I'm never doing this manually again.
If this dosen't work I'll return to the original values but add a time trigger for the first 50 years. So after 220 B.C the population bonuses will stop completely. By that time most settlements should have sufficient population adding infrastructure, such as granaries, roads and markets, to still produce enough surplus population that can be drafted into the military.
If the AI is still determined to empty their cities in order to fight a war, then let it. It's better than an endless and unrealistic war of attrition.

[Dan_Grr]

I might as well make a new campaign with those changes, do you have a link so I can try it out?

[The Errant]

Here you go: http://www.axifile.com?4869948

I'm only at 250 B.C however so far I've seen a lot more agression from the AI. Useless stupid agression that gets the AI beaten by Eleutheroi but nevertheless, agression.
Baktria, Saka and Pahlava are at war with the AS. Saba is expanding with grace. Ptolies are eating up the Seleukids. Epeiros is fighting a war against Rome and the Carthies for control of southern Italy.
The Aedui are moving against the Arverni and the Sweboz have gotten a slow but steady start.
The Lusotana are trying to conquer in Iberia but are getting beaten back by the rebels and the Pontics are doing the same in Asia Minor but getting beaten back by the rebels.
Only the Getai are passive and content to sit by and watch others conquer the world.
The Sauromatae are also agressive but with little results it's not looking good. The Hai have taken one territory and are set on conquering more.
That's about it. I'll post screenies and more when I get to 200 B.C. Until then have fun with the new script.

edit. Damn this is a very good script. I'll post a little teaser pic so you have an idea what I'm talking about.

[Eminos]

Hi.

I've been watching the development of this thread with some interest as you can understand. I've continued to try to refine my initial idea guided by some of your results (Sheep's, The Errant's and Redmeth's mostly, but at one point I was thinking of exactly the same thing as Gaias, i.e. scripts for recruitment and using unrecruitable units in order to force the stupid A.I to build things instead of using almost all of its money for those stack parades. I gave up quite soon though since I don't think there are commands for recruitment, at least I couldn't find any under those few minutes I spent searching in the manuals from CA). I've also used some new ideas I just had to test. I'm not finished yet, but I may be on the right track now, heading towards what I would like to see. I give you one of my latest test results below, but I will wait with "publishing" of the script until I'm satisfied with the results over multiple test runs.

I think there are two choices regarding the step factions:
1. Reduce the upkeeps in the EDU-file, which sounds plausible to me as a layman. After all, I can imagine the armour and equipment being expensive, but people living "of the lands" as nomads shouldn't be dependent on a "normal" civilized economy based on mnai's. They are not roman legionaries demanding a regular paycheck. It's quite likely that someone will correct me on this point, I'm not a historian, but that kind of reasoning sounds good in my ears.
2. The other route, which I've actually taken since I don't want two separate EDU's for the two cases where I play as e.g. Sauromatae and the case where I play against them, is to simply give them cash to "balance out" the upkeep. I've also used another idea, trusting your reports that the AI recruits first and only builds infrastructure if there are any money left. Therefore as an experiment, just for the step factions, I've given them money in "bursts". Then there simply must be some money left once in I while for buildings and infrastructure (hoping that they only put one unit in que per settlement), and
I think it works since I'm keeping them just below zero in between the bursts so they are not too deep in a "valley of debt". In between those money bursts they are as poor as before.
I think I can see a tendency for them to develop their poor settlements better than before, I'm not sure since I haven't looked in detail yet if it is due to them or the rebels that held the settlement before them. In their starting provinces its easy to check and I'll have a closer look next time.

One quite fun experiment I was using in the latest test was something I called "Saka Great Leader". Inspired by the fact that step factions has had some tremendous leaders, (Genghis etc. Alright that was centuries later but why not a great leader earlier, we don't want to copy history by the book, do we?), and also by irritation over the poor performance of the Saka Rauka in a lot of my tests I decided to incorporate a trigger that gives them one shot, one chance to create an empire, even if it will not last so long. It's simply a spawn army, (or rather something like three half stacks, one general per stack) emerging under certain conditions and this may not even happen when those conditions are fulfilled since the whole thing is determined by a random number. I must admit that I couldn't resist laughing when I saw the mess those guys created for the Parthians one time, and for the Baktrians in another test. The maps below are from the test where they emerged 234 BC and totally disrupted Pahlavian plans of expansion for a while, as you can see. The Pahlavians (is that correct? maybe I should say Parthians) recovered but I think they would have done even better later on if it wasn't for those damned units emerging in the far east coming to rescue their western brothers. That's all for now. Back to tests and refinements, but before that I think I can't let go of the the test you see below. Usually I stop at 200 BC but this time I think I'll continue for some decades in order to see if the Romans manages to hurt Karthadast badly (that would be great considering that their armies are terrible, mostly consisting of their elite units and that they have taken a big bite out of the once so mighty Ptolemaic empire, seems to be simply unstoppable and there are even more coming in as reinforcements, and that despite the fact that I've been quite mean to Karthadast in the script).


[IMG][/IMG]

[Southern Hunter]

I've also used another idea, trusting your reports that the AI recruits first and only builds infrastructure if there are any money left. Therefore as an experiment, just for the step factions, I've given them money in "bursts". Then there simply must be some money left once in I while for buildings and infrastructure (hoping that they only put one unit in que per settlement), and
I think it works since I'm keeping them just below zero in between the bursts so they are not too deep in a "valley of debt". In between those money bursts they are as poor as before.

Sounds like a great idea. Why just the steppe factions though? Wouldn't that help ALL factions behave better?

[d'Arthez]

Could anyone explain to me, how to actually use Axifile? It keeps sending me back and forth between two screens, despite the fact that I have even resorted to use an unmoddified Internet EXplorer?

.

[mlp071]

I am using THe Erant's script and it's fun.Stacks are not that infinite , but there is still some of them.

I am in 200 BC and just repelled 5 of them send on me (as Makedon) by Egypt , and now i got Carthage landing next to Epidarmnos with full stack and 2-3 more on the way.

Rome is down to Marsilia, and Getai are huge, still managed to keep them in alliance...Others are doing fine, except HK and Epiros(they are gone, HK by me , Epiros by Carthage and Rome).I did have 30 years of peace for myself, till everyone decided that wants piece of me..

Only complaint that i have is, that it's looks that AI always manages to gang up on human player somehow soon or later.

One faction starts war with you and everyone jumps in within 4-5 turns, even they were in very long alliance with you

Happened in every campaign that i played on VH/M, disregarding of script.

[Watchman]

That's hardconed. As far as the campaign AI is concerned the human player is abominable in the eyes of the Lord and needs to disappear off the face of the Earth.

[Dan_Grr]

[...]

Only complaint that i have is, that it's looks that AI always manages to gang up on human player somehow soon or later.

One faction starts war with you and everyone jumps in within 4-5 turns, even they were in very long alliance with you

Happened in every campaign that i played on VH/M, disregarding of script.

This happened already in the Vanilla RTW. I think CA made the AI like that to compensate for the lack of any real intelligence, as factions ganging up on you will get you to think that this game is hard. Or something like that.

In my opinion this is a nuisance, completely unrealistic, and one of the most important, negative and annoying factors that put me off from Rome Total War altogether*. Essentially, diplomacy is a joke. But it's been this way since the game came out.

There a couple of ways to compensate for this: one is to wait eehmm maybe a couple of decades or so until games start coming out with an AI or until developers realize people want more than just shiny sparkling graphics;

OR

Use one of the money scripts on this thread and the Force Diplomacy mini-mod.



*I stopped playing several days ago, and before that, 2 year hiatus.

[temenid]

Is there any way to use that feature on an in-progress game? I can't seem to get it to work, but it'd be amazing if you could just... skip 80 years. What could be more fun than rescuing the empire that you established in the first place?

[bovi]

The -ai switch cannot be used on a game in progress, just like you cannot take control over a saved game that started with the switch.

[ombudsman]

just got a question regarding the scripts, though i´m not a big fan of the "fight 20 stacks every year" wich is mandatory if you fight the grey death with the normal script, im just worried that the AI wont put up a fight at all with theese scripts, since i want a bit of a challange from time to time. if thats not the case, it seems great, i really like the AI progression with the scripts, looks badass.

[Laevex]

I am currently downloading both The Errant's and Redmeth's scripts so I can test them both and see which I like best.

I was wondering though, are there any tests of these scripts where Roma has done well? I can't see one and I think that's probably an inaccuracy, considering this time-frame was primarily the rise of the Roman Republic. I have absolutely no modding skills and very little historical knowledge, but it just seems to me that Rome should be enjoying a little more success than they are in any of these scripts.

[Redmeth]

The problem with Rome is that the AI just doesn't use fleets often or well (even with the BI-exe) so Rome taking Iberia (without going through southern Gaul) or invading Carthage is something I have not seen.