add_money AI Optimization

[TinCow]

I've noticed that a lot of people have started using the add_money cheat to make the 1.2 patch AI harder. However, the amounts given and the frequency of the donations appear to be all over the board. I thought it would be useful to have a discussion to try and figure out how to make this process the most effective.

First, for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, you can give money to any faction in the game (including your own) by typing the following into the console:

add_money FACTION, AMOUNT

where FACTION is one of the following:

england france hre spain venice sicily milan scotland byzantium russia moors turks egypt denmark portugal poland hungary papal_states aztecs mongols timurids slave

and where AMOUNT is the number of florins you want to give them. As an example, if you wanted to give 2,000 florins to sicily, you would type the following into the console:

add_money sicily, 2000

In my latest game, I gave 100,000 to most of the factions at the start of the game, and have been giving further donations of 100,000 every once in a while to those factions that have chewed through all their money. Obviously, the immediate result of this is that the AI factions assemble much larger armies. While challenging, this can actually backfire, because the AI then has such a large military upkeep that they quickly go bankrupt. This means that a one-time donation won't work, because the AI will cripple itself with the initial high upkeep. So, if you give them tons of money, you need to do so regularly.

Doing this manually can be slow and you can often forget to do so. One alternative seems to be simply editing the King's Purse for each AI faction, so that they have a steadily high income. However, this would require manually editing that file every time you wanted to play a different faction, which is annoying.

So, for people who do this, I have a few general questions:

1) Is it better to use add_money or edit the King's Purse?
2) How much should we be giving and how often?
3) Should the Pope and the Rebels also be given money?
4) Should the Mongols and Timurids be given money before they settle?

Hopefully we can figure out a good standard system for this play style.

[alpaca]

Well in my current vanilla test game I give every faction that is not the player, aztecs, mongols, timurids or slave 15k each turn via script. The AI never seems to spend all that money though, it just saves up apparently, which is weird.

All their princesses get the snob trait because of this, too

[Shahed]

1) Is it better to use add_money or edit the King's Purse?
2) How much should we be giving and how often?
3) Should the Pope and the Rebels also be given money?
4) Should the Mongols and Timurids be given money before they settle?

1. I'd say King's purse is easier.
2. I gave 1,000,000 to all factions and I did'nt see anyone go bankrupt. I would start the game with all AI having 250K, then give a million every 25 turns.
3. NOPE !
4. YES ! That will make them all that much more interesting.

[HoreTore]

I prefer doubling the value of the kings purse. The AI doesn't seem to make use of anything more. 5k seems the best value IMO, though I've just added 3k to every faction, so it's easy to edit the descr_strat file when I start a new campaign, I can just remove 3k from the faction I want to play, and give 3k to the one I just played.

As for giving the pope money too, well that depends. If you give him more money, he becomes more aggressive, and conquers stuff. Some like it, others don't.

Giving rebels money doesn't seem to affect anything in my experience.

The Timurids and Mongols have a buttload of cash when they settle, and they rarely get to use it all anyway. Giving them even more doesn't seem necessary.

[Jambo]

Here's the main part of the campaign money script I use:

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType scotland
and not FactionIsLocal
console_command add_money scotland, 1000
end_monitor

Essentially, each turn this gives the AI 1,000 florins for each settlement they have. The bigger they are, the more money they receive.

[Shahed]

Excellent. Thanks for the tip, Jambo !

Is 1k per settlement enough ?

[Jambo]

I also have another script in there which activates when the AI treasury falls below 5,000.

What I might suggest though, is to have exactly the same script above in duplication but make it so it only gets activated once you pass turn 100, say. For example:

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType scotland
and not FactionIsLocal
and I_TurnNumber > 100
console_command add_money scotland, 1000
end monitor

I always find the mid to late stage of the campaign gets rather easy and this should help ramp up the difficulty level when the AI most needs it. Plus, later game infrastructure costs so much more, and therefore this should help the AI have enough to upgrade.

[TinCow]

Giving rebels money doesn't seem to affect anything in my experience.

I wonder if this is because they have a huge negative income, due to owning such a massive empire with relatively little development. I remember that in RTW, the rebel faction started the game losing something like 10,000 per turn. Maybe giving the rebels a very large amount regularly would make them more active. I would really like to see rebel provinces developing and getting stronger. Imagine if Wales upgraded its castle and started hiring more longbows! That would make rebel settlements far more interesting and realistic.

[Lusted]

Atm the rebels can't recruit any units, it only gets new ones which spawn. You'd also have to set the Kings Purse for the rebel faction realy high as well to compensate for the money it loses every turn.

[RickooClan]

Here's the main part of the campaign money script I use:



Essentially, each turn this gives the AI 1,000 florins for each settlement they have. The bigger they are, the more money they receive.

Where should i put the script?

[sapi]

Figured I'd add some observations with my 25k/turn optimisation to the AI

Armies are much better; cities/castles upgraded very well.

I'm regularly running into elite or semi-elite stacks, which is always nice.

Unfortunately, the Battle AI is still the main problem.

All this optimisation doesn't mean that much when you can defeat a 1 and a half stack army (in two waves) of byz infantry and varangian guard with half a stack of early era spearmen, a few archers and a general

[TinCow]

I am experimenting with different monetary levels, so I'll report on my results. I have been editing the King's Purse, as it's far more convenient that using the console all the time. First game (1.2) was as Milan. I gave each AI faction (except rebel, emergent, papal, and Aztec) a 15k purse. Armies were very strong, settlements upgraded well. However, this was way, way too much money. By about 1200 AD, most factions had over 600,000 florins saved up, and that's with their massive armies all over the place. Even the 'poor' factions had 150-200k. This causes problems because all AI princesses become snobs and (most importantly) they throw around cash far too often in diplomacy. It drastically decreases the challenge of being cash strapped when the AI will pay you 20k for a ceasefire without even flinching. Especially since the AI actually likes ceasefires now.

I think the sweet spot that we should aim for is enough money to give the AI very strong armies and money to upgrade, but not enough to accumulate a large treasury. Essentially, we want to pay the maintenance costs on everything, but without giving them any surplus.

Currently trying a new game as Portugal and I added 3000 to each purse, as someone above suggested. Not far enough into the game to say how well it is working, but I'll report back when I am.

[Moah]

I can't add more than 40000 in one go.

Is this a feature or am I doing something wrong?

add_money 75000 or any other figure above 40000 just adds 40000...

[Tyrac]

What I plan on doing in my next campaign is rather then give all the AI a cash boost I will increase the kings purse of a select few. I find that after you have beaten the factions that directly border you it is simply a matter of steam rolling the rest. However, if you give just a few A.I. factions, that are far away from you, and each other, a large King's purse you can create other super powers to challenge you in the late and mid game.

[dopp]

The snobbish princess is a newly-introduced 'bloated empire' feature that kicks in if your treasury is above 20k every turn. The chance of trigger is pretty high I think (10%). I hate the bloated empire philosophy, so I always mod it out every time I patch (along with all the corruption triggers).

EDIT: I'd actually quite happy with the new VnV in v1.2 (especially the thorough bugfixing; I only found a single obvious error in the entire file), but the insistence on 'empire bloat' as a gameplay feature conflicts with my play style, which is to build the most efficient empire (as opposed to simply rampaging across Europe like you're supposed to).

[fenir]

Agree with Dopp,
I hate it, when I run my Empire with maximium efficiency. Only to have mass corrpution and stupid traits from silly triggers.

I mean really, I make sure all members of my family mow my lawn (back and front of the palace), before i hand any money over.

I guess it comes down to the usual, We run a good empire, we want the good v&v. Just doesn't happen, punished for success, times of our age.


fenir

[Foz]

Agree with Dopp,
I hate it, when I run my Empire with maximium efficiency. Only to have mass corrpution and stupid traits from silly triggers.

I mean really, I make sure all members of my family mow my lawn (back and front of the palace), before i hand any money over.

I guess it comes down to the usual, We run a good empire, we want the good v&v. Just doesn't happen, punished for success, times of our age.


fenir

Hate to say it fellas, but that's life. Look around you in the world. Which people are the corrupt & evil ones? Invariably, they're the ones with the power. Business executives & government officials come to mind, and the more power & the less people watching them, the more corrupt they become. All the "bloated empire" stuff is so real life it isn't even funny. What's the phrase? "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" I think. I'll agree it can get annoying, but the sad truth behind it adds an interesting realism aspect to the game, as well as making it more difficult to maintain a superpower which I think is definitely a good reason for it to stay, since most of us agree the game needs all the roadblocks against the human that it can get.

As a measure against it, I recommend focusing more on recruitment. Even if run with maximum efficiency, the right amount of recruitment and standing armies can gobble up any amount of surplus cash, so most of the princess triggers at the very least can be easily avoided. I run economics like crazy in my campaigns, and still manage to keep my treasury total under the required amount, so it's certainly not impossible to do, it's just an added dimension of management.

[dopp]

Total War is a computer game, not life, and corruption VnVs are much more irritating than other 'bloated empire' aspects of the game, which I have no quarrel over (squalor, distance penalties, heresy, tall poppy syndrome).

[Foz]

Total War is a computer game, not life, and corruption VnVs are much more irritating than other 'bloated empire' aspects of the game, which I have no quarrel over (squalor, distance penalties, heresy, tall poppy syndrome).

How is it more irritating? Manage your empire to avoid it, as you do to avoid the others, and it will stop irritating you. If you pile up cash, you deserve to pay for doing so since as I pointed out there are easy ways to avoid it, and no good reason to pile it up anyway. It is simply another aspect you must manage, and no more irritating nor difficult if you take it as such. I actually find the other bloated empire aspects infinitely more irritating since I have no actual way to control them at all, only ways to combat their effects - ways which, in poor circumstances, can all too frequently fail to provide enough relief even when implemented with absolute efficiency. I have yet to see a treasury situation that I couldn't spend my way out of, which is clearly not always the case with the other bloated empire penalties.

[dopp]

An efficient empire is a bankrupt empire? The logic escapes me. Being punished for having a surplus is absurd. Assuming you can spend it all in the first place: 20k is chicken feed in the late game.

[alpaca]

Yes I agree. Having a large chest was a very good way to ensure the safety of your empire in Medieval times because other people knew when they attacked you that you'll be able to fight back with mercenaries.

[Moah]

Yes I agree. Having a large chest was a very good way to ensure the safety of your empire in Medieval times because other people knew when they attacked you that you'll be able to fight back with mercenaries.

Although it can be argued (very strongly) that that's actually been the downfall of several empires (including the Byzantine).

Rich Empires rely more and more on mercenaries and have less and less native armies.

Then a) Something hits cash supply, mercs don't get paid and loot your own empire or

b) You're invaded and those mercs prove less than brave or loyal (prone to bribery) by the other side.

c) they just get greedy and start interfering. Then you have ot perpetually buy them off becasuse you've no native forces to threaten them with.

[alpaca]

In fact your "native force" in the middle ages was usually a peasant bunch forced into servitude and not any more prone (actually even less) than paid mercenaries.
Mercs also had experience and some equipment (well usually stolen off fallen enemies ) so they were much better soldiers than any native force.
The reason for the downfall of the Byzantines wasn't that they used mercenary armies, that played a very marginal role if it had any influence at all.

But let's not get this thread too much off-topic.
Fact is, for the AI in M2TW a large chest is a good thing because it can afford to raise an army when it needs one. The same is true for me.

[TinCow]

So far with the 3k purse, I'm seeing mixed results. There are large armies around, but not as many as before. Many nations are accumulating large treasuries, but I don't think that's going to continue. I'm at about 1150 and about half the factions have around 120k stored up. However, their income seems to be leveling out now, probably because they have high maininance costs on their armies and they finally have lots of buildings to construct since they have all expanded into the rebel territories. Some nations are actually relatively low on cash. I would say these are around the 10-25k region and on the downward slope. I expect the 120k factions to start decreasing soon as well, if the graphs can be believed.

I am going to keep playing this campaign, but I'm starting to think that 3k is too little. It's enough to get them all off the ground with a great start, but not enough to keep them growing and pumping out armies throughout the game. I will try 5k next time.

[Foz]

An efficient empire is a bankrupt empire? The logic escapes me. Being punished for having a surplus is absurd. Assuming you can spend it all in the first place: 20k is chicken feed in the late game.

How does what I'm saying even remotely resemble bankrupt? Geez you need to pay better attention and use your noodle some. The requirement is only that you spend your empire down to under 20k before the end of the turn. You then get all your new income for your next turn. It's not bankrupt, it's running your empire without excessive surpluses. World of difference. I thought you'd have understood that, dopp.

As to your initial question, you should have asked "An efficient empire is one with a balanced budget?" to which the answer is obviously yes. governments/rulers that hoard funds are generally corrupt with those funds and tend to negatively impact their countries/empires. Whether or not you can see that, it is in fact true. The concept is only absurd to you because you refuse to acknowledge the realities of government, power, and humanity upon which the concept is based. If you accept realism in other aspects of the game, why do you have a problem with it here? That something is inconvenient is not sufficient proof that it is bad or incorrect, contrary to what you seem to be arguing.

What's truly absurd is your complete inability to grasp why it might be bad to leave your royal family with hundreds of thousands of florins to do with whatever they want for the next 2 years. Ask yourself what YOU would do if you suddenly had a million of your currency and absolutely no pressing use for it. I bet you'd be corrupt too.

Yes I agree. Having a large chest was a very good way to ensure the safety of your empire in Medieval times because other people knew when they attacked you that you'll be able to fight back with mercenaries.

According to dopp history is entirely irrelevant to this game, so I guess we can't use even simple facts like that, alpaca, to make any sort of meaningful points. Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger of his holiness' will.

[Lusted]

Woot for tying money scripts to difficulty level!(it's what im doing for next version of LTC).

[dopp]

How does what I'm saying even remotely resemble bankrupt? Geez you need to pay better attention and use your noodle some. The requirement is only that you spend your empire down to under 20k before the end of the turn. You then get all your new income for your next turn. It's not bankrupt, it's running your empire without excessive surpluses. World of difference. I thought you'd have understood that, dopp.

As to your initial question, you should have asked "An efficient empire is one with a balanced budget?" to which the answer is obviously yes. governments/rulers that hoard funds are generally corrupt with those funds and tend to negatively impact their countries/empires. Whether or not you can see that, it is in fact true. The concept is only absurd to you because you refuse to acknowledge the realities of government, power, and humanity upon which the concept is based. If you accept realism in other aspects of the game, why do you have a problem with it here? That something is inconvenient is not sufficient proof that it is bad or incorrect, contrary to what you seem to be arguing.

What's truly absurd is your complete inability to grasp why it might be bad to leave your royal family with hundreds of thousands of florins to do with whatever they want for the next 2 years. Ask yourself what YOU would do if you suddenly had a million of your currency and absolutely no pressing use for it. I bet you'd be corrupt too.

According to dopp history is entirely irrelevant to this game, so I guess we can't use even simple facts like that, alpaca, to make any sort of meaningful points. Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger of his holiness' will.

And I'm disappointed at you flying off your handle like that. Balancing your treasury at 20k per turn? Having to balance your treasury at all is absurd. Why can't players hoard their money, especially if they can't spend it fast enough? It's their loss if the Mongols arrive and all that money could have been spent building walls. That's what I mean by being punished for success. I always ensure every city is building something but I still have a healthy surplus each turn because I don't need that many armies.

You also didn't read the whole of my message. I said the game was predisposed towards an expansionist, aggressive play style. The only way in the endgame to spend enough money is to build huge armies and conquer more land. I don't like playing that way, so I mod the game. What's wrong with that? I didn't say CA's choices were stupid, I said they didn't agree with me.

What I did say was absurd is that a surplus treasury is automatically bad. It doesn't. Kingdoms were self-sufficient in those days and a positive treasury was always a good measure of national security. A better measure of corruption is the use to which you put that money. But that is already in the game, via the luxurious lifestyle triggers.

Oh dear, say something simple and get it taken to extremes. I said that Total War is a game, so players should enjoy it, maybe at the expense of history a little. Corruption VnVs (not the other aspects of corruption) is not fun, so tone it down a bit. How did that become 'history is irrelevant'?

[Foz]

And I'm disappointed at you flying off your handle like that. Balancing your treasury at 20k per turn? Having to balance your treasury at all is absurd. Why can't players hoard their money, especially if they can't spend it fast enough?

Oh that's funny! I don't think I've ever flown off the handle on this forum. God willing, I never will. That post, while likely a bit snide, is barely a distant cousin of "flying off the handle."

To continue, you're welcome to hoard funds, and it continues to have the benefits you mentioned. But it has tradeoffs too, as every aspect of the game does. I still don't see any issue there - good balance is derived entirely from a give and take system. Something that has benefits and no drawbacks generally breaks that system, and thus the balance as well.

You also didn't read the whole of my message. I said the game was predisposed towards an expansionist, aggressive play style. The only way in the endgame to spend enough money is to build huge armies and conquer more land.

This is much less true now that income loss due to corruption is so much higher (least I think I recall noting that). Besides, this it total war, and the goal is domination. The game promotes you building armies, because, well, you're supposed to. You have to conquer ~50 provinces usually, and you're sure not going to get it done playing Medieval 2 Total Peace.

You are of course welcome to play the game how you want, but it sounded numerous times like you and others were arguing against the existence of those triggers at all, and not simply as a personal mod. Thus my need to defend their existence.

What I did say was absurd is that a surplus treasury is automatically bad. It doesn't. Kingdoms were self-sufficient in those days and a positive treasury was always a good measure of national security. A better measure of corruption is the use to which you put that money. But that is already in the game, via the luxurious lifestyle triggers.

The princess triggers are also a measure of how you use your money, just applied to princesses. If you fail to use your money, your princesses suffer. 'Nuff said.

Oh dear, say something simple and get it taken to extremes. I said that Total War is a game, so players should enjoy it, maybe at the expense of history a little. Corruption VnVs (not the other aspects of corruption) is not fun, so tone it down a bit. How did that become 'history is irrelevant'?

You said "Total War is a computer game, not life" and used it to write off everything I said about history and realism. That's how I interpreted it that way, because the way you said it left little other way to interpret it. In any case you apparently didn't mean it that way, so let's let it go.

I guess different people enjoy different things. I haven't heard more than a handful of complaints about these particular game aspects. Personally, I'd be pissed if they were removed, because it's one of the few things that makes the game even reasonably challenging. I'd really like to have even more hoops to jump through, provided they make some sort of sense, as I still feel insufficiently challenged. Hoops that are harder to jump through as my empire grows are especially effective to that end, so while I will swear up and down at how annoying they can be, I will also defend their existence to the end. I guess I just value challenge far more than I dislike annoyance.

[sapi]

Woot for tying money scripts to difficulty level!(it's what im doing for next version of LTC).

Does LTC currently run any money scripts?

I've been playing with 2.3 and been noticing similar results to when I adjusted the king's purse; not sure whether that's 1.2 improvements, your AI improvements or a script...

[dopp]

There have been more than just a 'handful' of complaints about VnVs, especially in vanilla M2TW. Most of the complaints were along the lines of 'why are all my family members useless bums' rather than 'why is the game punishing me for turning a profit', because not everybody went into the trait files to see exactly what was causing such an excess of foul habits. I just like pointing out exactly why people are getting stuff, such as an excess of pretentious princesses.

As for play style, I think I'm not alone in wanting a slower-paced game. How many people clamor for the return of Glorious Achievements so they can indulge in empire-building? How many mod their game's time scale to extend their playing pleasure? I can drag out the long campaign, enjoy being the top dog with a treasury of 100k, play global policeman, and still win with 50 turns to spare. And I play on vanilla time scale. The beauty of Total War singleplayer is the expansive and essentially open-ended campaign. Forcing a faster pace detracts from that.

The tradeoff for not spending money when you could have is being an idiot when the Mongols arrive and you have no army. Besides which, you'd probably not have a kingdom in the first place if you were shy on spending cash to build stuff. Corruption on top of that is overkill (and the corruption triggers are very, very harsh in their effects, capable of destroying your royal family in just 5 turns). The most probable cause of excess funds (other than plain hoarding, which is punished enough already) is success at running your empire, which the player shouldn't be punished for. Why do I say 'punished' rather than perhaps the more optimistic 'increased challenge' (hoop-jumping)? Because the only way to vent the excess cash (other than giving it away free, which is lame) is to continue expanding and conquering, which not everybody wants to do (especially those who like Glorious Achievement style campaigns). I would much prefer the challenge of civil war as my empire expands than the current corruption system.

Don't get me wrong, the traits file has been vastly improved from vanilla. All sorts of good traits have been added, almost all errors and omissions have been rectified. But if there was one little thing I would still like to see removed from the system, it would be the corruption triggers.