ALEXANDER EB

[Maksimus]

I like this idea, and am interested to see how it develops. I think it'd cut out a lot of AI retraining. But even if it works beautifully I'd still be concerned about medium troops in some areas being constantly retrained by the AI and ending up with all gold chevrons. One or two units like that is okay. An army of them completely changes the battle dynamic and renders it unhistoric - you might as well play on VH/VH.

Forcing the AI to auto_merge units at the start of its turn seems to me to be a useful, low impact part of the solution (if it's at all possible). That way the AI will end up with one or two units of uber-gold Pezhetairoi, rather than four or six.

This idea was already tested by myself in numerous modds for RTW, that changed the way AI plays in the general picture, those AI 'tweaks' should follow as one City Mod version would be implemented (or one that could 'copy' that idea). In my examples I always used the 'big city start's and stays big during the game' like it was often the case in history, so one 'can' develop small town into Imperial one, but with alot of effort, construction time and money..

AI on Alex.exe is not automerging because it is 'smart' in a way it makes it harder for us to win.. That engine is gold! So we all have to count we must run and strike fast after one victory to destroy enemy as a whole - if we don't want that army to came back after it fils it's rank's again .. The barracks system will make much of that to be 'controled' ... Like, you know that Royal Barracks are in Alexandria.. so you know that if you strike elites - only the natives would be able to fight even as retrained..

That is one balance in the middle of advanced AI engine and human needs to win .. Also.. celtis reforms are acctually one more reason that barracks system should be worked on..

btw, I use VH/VH it's just that I am waithing Konny to upload his 'modded' script for EB on Alex for me to test it on VH

[mrtwisties]

Oh, okay. I'm probably not that interested in an EB mini-mod that's geared for VH/VH, and am pretty concerned about letting the AI develop golden stacks of anything, since although the human player might capture such a city, the AI definitely wouldn't.

Reckon we might have different philosophies, mate. Good luck with it!

[Maksimus]

Oh, okay. I'm probably not that interested in an EB mini-mod that's geared for VH/VH, and am pretty concerned about letting the AI develop golden stacks of anything, since although the human player might capture such a city, the AI definitely wouldn't.

Reckon we might have different philosophies, mate. Good luck with it!

This is really not an EB mini-mod that will be geared for VH/VH game, It is very possible this thread would carry 2 or more optional minor 'tweaks' mod's and one 'whole' so, you shouldn't be concerned.)

The Alexander EB will not be made for VH/VH, It is tested on medium by konny and the only VH that could be recommended is campaign VH (and that would be me to say it - just because I am one 24 year old RTW veteran that won tournaments on it)

By what we know AI on Alex is not ending up with all gold chevrons or even silver as much as one could belive... the point is that barracks system should prevent that .. Let me note, I play always on VH/VH and I started Epeiros and reached Alexandria and I never fought an army with above level 4 experience, so we don't have much different philosophies my friend

It's just that most of what you are suggesting (or all of it) is open for talks and test-modding but with Konny, he is the one that is currently messing with a EBBS - and he has my full support.. I doubt he will ever leave CPU unbeatable.. So you should not worry, stay around during the test's so you can see it your self.. Hell I will post tomorrow segments of my VH/VH campaign so anyone can see that there are NO golden stacks of chevrons for CPU..

What I wa refering as gold - Was The Engine Of Alexander - not the diffuculty

And after all, most of downloads and files will be separated, so you can chose what to use.. maybe there would be one 'lighter' and one 'harder' version's of the mod.. Who know's .. we are in beta fase of discussion yet .)

[Lgk]

And here i go, migrating from old alex thread.

At last i got my EB and now begin to test it immediately. Made a few short runs with BI exe to note campaign flow there, then switched to alex, starting new campaign. Here are my observations.

Human player: Casse
RomeTW-ALX.exe only (alex not installed)
Difficulty: H/M (not fought many tac battles anyway)
EBBS script: original, then changed (see below)
Victory towns assigned: no
descr_strat: "options +prebattle_night_battle_tickbox", NOT "options bi" (see below)

I confirm that AI factions have a tough time expanding, despite AI being more active in general under alex... It wasn't a prob in XGM, where rebels are weak and unscripted, but in EB many rebel towns eventually get half-stack garrisons full of golden chevrons... This doesn't mean that AI can't expand at all (Lusitans took Numantia in 255!), but smaller factions tend to stagnate most of the time, falling in dire debt under high upkeep rates and still reluctant to attack rebel cities.

Now i think that "difficult start help" (what a misnomer!) in EBBS (section 5a) isn't up to the task. Now, it gives 20000 mnai per year to all factions short of 5000 mnai, which is excessive for larger ones (not to mention makes pointless such things as naval blockades) and not enough for smaller factions (eg checked stagnating Pontos in 253 and found them losing over 7000 per turn - that's about 30000 per year, EB original script can't solve this). There is also per-city help in EBBS, but again, it's useless for smaller factions. Also i checked konny's and Davor's scripts and found it less than ideal... so here is my variant, applied in mid-campaign circa 250 with great effect.

It is divided in two parts for each faction:

1) This part will cover any debt as big as 65536 mnai (per turn)...

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < -32768
console_command add_money romans_julii, 32768
end_monitor

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < -16384
console_command add_money romans_julii, 16384
end_monitor

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < -8192
console_command add_money romans_julii, 8192
end_monitor

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < -4096
console_command add_money romans_julii, 4096
end_monitor

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < 0
console_command add_money romans_julii, 4096
end_monitor

...and leaves treasury within certain range (0-4095 mnai in this case) afterwards. One can get lesser values and even exact zero treasury continuing this pattern (note last 2 bonuses are equal and last bound is 0), but script becomes bloated soon and i don't think it's really necessary.

2) This part will help small factions only!

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < 5000
and I_CompareCounter seasonCounter = 4
if I_NumberOfSettlements romans_julii < 5
console_command add_money romans_julii, 5000
end_if
if I_NumberOfSettlements romans_julii < 4
console_command add_money romans_julii, 5000
end_if
if I_NumberOfSettlements romans_julii < 3
console_command add_money romans_julii, 10000
end_if
end_monitor

It's nothing more than modified original EBBS section-5a script. It gives 20000 mnai per year if AI faction has only 1-2 cities, 10000 in case of 3 cities, and 5000 if 4 cities (i noticed that after gaining 3-4 regions AI factions finally can take care of themselves and perform well, but some further faction-specific tweaks are possible). Now human tactics of targeting AI economics makes some sense, at least when fighting large empires (we can always pretend that enemy resorts to desperate measures when he's reduced to last 2-3 regions).

Reloading game with new script variant had a couple of sleeping factions almost immediately awake and going on conquest (though i'm still worrying about gauls, still beaten by rebel garrisons). But, if script alone won't be enough, there are other possibilities, eg giving AI generals command traits vs rebels (not sure if they affect autocalc, though), in similar giving rebel generals negative traits vs neighbouring AI (thus making certain factions harder to take certain regions and leading to more historical expansion), aging some rebel generals, so they die early and garrisons come out... All such changes can take into account human player's faction proximity - luckily most edits then will affect campaign script and descr_strat, not the background script.

Also tried to destroy some factions (using auto_win cheat) - and all the pictures were shown with no probs (though text stated something about Romans rejoicing, despite the fact that destroyers were the seleucids).

[Redmeth]

For testing purposes as the Casse, I'm pretty sure you will find this small executable very useful
http://www.usaupload.net/d/ueyssz5v6jm

It's an autoclick program you start it set it to unlimited and the interval at something like 30 secs than you can position the mouse over the end turn button and let it autoplay. The only thing that stops it are adoption events so you'd need to check on it from time to time but it sure helps that you don't have to click end turn and be around the computer for too long.

The -ai switch doesn't work cause you can't start the script, you can use this with the -ne switch to leave the game in windowed mode too.

[mrtwisties]

The -ai switch doesn't work cause you can't start the script.

So they can't run the script from descr_strat.txt?

I assume not, since that's not what you guys have been doing. But what stops it from working, do you know?

[mrtwisties]

Also Redmeth, do you know any programs that can automate keypresses like enter and esc? I've been hunting around for some to coerce my year jump script into actually working. If I can also get it to work with the EBBS, it could become a really useful testing platform - all of the factions will be played by the AI, and there'll be nothing that pauses it.

[Redmeth]

So they can't run the script from descr_strat.txt?

I assume not, since that's not what you guys have been doing. But what stops it from working, do you know?

Well I remember trying it and the 4tpy didn't work for sure, descr_strat and campaign_script are run once at the beginning of a campaign so that's why all the stuff that needs counters to check for different condition each turn and so on needs to be in EBBS. I can't give a good explanation like a scripter could but it won't work.

Also Redmeth, do you know any programs that can automate keypresses like enter and esc? I've been hunting around for some to coerce my year jump script into actually working. If I can also get it to work with the EBBS, it could become a really useful testing platform - all of the factions will be played by the AI, and there'll be nothing that pauses it.

I don't have one but I looked till I found this small bastard (the autoclick one) for more than an hour and went through 10+ others before I found this one that did exactly what I wanted (on a Romanian site of all places). So keep googling...

[konny]

It's just that most of what you are suggesting (or all of it) is open for talks and test-modding but with Konny, he is the one that is currently messing with a EBBS - and he has my full support.. I doubt he will ever leave CPU unbeatable..

Certainly not. I like interessting games with a lot of challanges, but nothing that is difficult beyond frustration.

The idea is like the following:

Every faction has assigned Victory Conditions. These are some towns they allready posses and much more they have to conquer. Some or all of these can be "cashcows": the AI gets money help as long as it has not conquered them, assuming that it has run in some kind of problems.

---------------------------------------------------
Example: Aedui and Arverni have both the same VC towns in Gaul as tragets. They get money help for every of these towns they don't own. At the start of the game they both get the same (much) money, what is desperatly needed to get beyond the debth created by the starting army and to give them the money to develop their lands and go around conquering.

As soon as, for example, the Aedui start conquering Gaul and/or take lands from the Arverni, they get lesser money help because they now own more VC towns than before. Up to the point when the Aedui controll all of Gaul and they don't get any more money help at all.

Then again, when an invader comes along, for example a human controlled Rome, and starts stealing provinces from them, the money help again pops up and gives the Aedui money for VC provinces they lose; allowing for strong resistance even when reduced by provinces.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Now, that's the point when frustration might come up, because you are making the AI even stronger by beating it. To prevent from this and to aviod the "Mytilene-Effect", when a faction is reduced to one remote province from where it hardly can re-conquer its homelands but is getting tons of scripted money every turn, most of the factions have a "capital province", that they need to hold to get any money help at all.

In our example that would be Bibracte for the Aedui. So, you can breake the Aedui (i.e. stop any money help for them) by taking Bibracte. I think that will add to the motivation, not the frustration, of the player?


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You see that this can only be done together with assigned VCs. Otherwise we would give the Romans money to conquer Rhegion and they would use that money to take the Alps, ignoring our wishes.

I haven't yet decided on the amount of the money help per town. That will most likely differ from town to town and will be about or a little less the profit the AI will make when controlling that town.

I haven't also decided for the "unbreakable" factions (i.e. without capital province to hold). That will certainly be the two nomads, probably Parthia because the VCs should make them somehow "horde" south, and may be the Sweboz.

[Maksimus]

Bibracte example is nice, that should also be Pella (or maybe Corintos) but for the AS that should be 2 towns, like, Seleucidia and Antioh, for Aegypt I belive Alexandria is ok, Baktria, Athenai, Rome.. other..

I am testing the 'share' system, in wich Hellenes/Barbs would be able to use other - hellenes/barb barracks (just tu use - not 'build over it') because Army and Royal barracks should be really rare - like in the Historic notes,

But when you take Antioch with Macedon or Baktria or Epeiros, you will be able to train anything in their Royal barracks (according to recruitment viewer)... And due to the new barracks test system that would make any factions have army at the start (but with a few and less options to have many - unless they take other factions barracks)

(based on the same conditions even if you take Royal Barracks in Sparta - you will have what you have.. no more according to recruitment viewer and that is 4 types o units, but Athens is something else, do Athenai should have city_b)

Here is what I am thinking... The big barracks will be rare, so in the Army/City/Royal types of them factions that should be able to 'use' eash other's barracks are:: Macedon, Epiros, KH, AS, Aegypt, Baktria...
And Pontos, Armenia and Parthia should have their chances when they take lands form BIG factions, like AS or Aegypt. This system should apply for barb's too, so they could share the 'use' of barracks but they should not have options to overbulid army ontop of some city barracks (if they want to to that - they start from 0)

So, in that respect, anyone can hardly belive that one or ANY! faction could reach as far as Babylon and/or Alexandria and then seek their army to be reinfored by the homland in Britain of Gaul.. So, I belive that ANY! barb faction should have use of ANY! royal barracks if it reaches that land (but, according to the recruitment viewer - in case of celt's there would be almost no advantage even it they take Alexandria).. Even if that means adding the Regional or Mercenary unit's to be able to be build there...

But.. AS or Aegypt are big- they would have no probs in using just their own barracks.. So, Pontos/Armenia/Parthia should have some use of AS or Aegypt barracks and each others, but to some extend, myabe the whole system should be based on City to Royal types of barracks rather than from muster_field...

So in this way, barracks we keep EB teams ideas (like share system) and 'support' the one outmost realistic outcome that would follow one's faction permanent holdings of the enemies regions that have city/army/royal barracks - wich means - Big Cities.. (so you see, ALL factions should have benefits of using each other's city/army/royal bs, but offcourse that should not go in all directions - because ''uncivilised'' factions could use ''civilised'' factions barracks - but ''civilised'' should not use ''uncivilised'' barracks at all..

[Redmeth]

I'm not so sure on of what you're trying to achieve with this mass sharing of barracks.

So if I were to play the Getai and conquered Pella I'd be able to train all my elites from the hellenic barracks built there by the Maks?

First see if the money script coupled with more expensive and longer to build army/city/royal barracks doesn't do the trick. Trying to revamp the system of sharing put in place is quite hard to do not to mention it could create errors and what not. But I guess when 1.1 comes out I'll implement in my build whatever features I like from your endeavor.

[Maksimus]

I'm not so sure on of what you're trying to achieve with this mass sharing of barracks.

So if I were to play the Getai and conquered Pella I'd be able to train all my elites from the hellenic barracks built there by the Maks?.

If you look closely to recruitment viewer - you can see that the only factional units you will have in Pella with Getai using Macedonian Army or Royal barracks - are just Dacian Medium Cav. and Thrakian Medium Cav. so this system is no big deal really - it would just enable you to train 'some' units and use Pellas infrastructure (like maybe som bonusses) a bit - or Destroy it and gain money! But, destoroying buildings especially barracks in times of war was not ever a politic's of ancient states or factions (that wanted to occupy one region)...
And because ''IF'' condition's for building can not be added - even if you add any level of your goverment - you will be able to use just those two unit's - so.. you don't need to spend the money of reaching Royal or Army factional barracks in Pella just to ger two factional unit's and use some moral bonuses.
The regional barracks are up you to develop... do, one solution may be to make all faction's share the USE of barracks - that means that you can use AS city regional barracks as Dacia but you can not upgrade it to Army regional, Also Civilised Faction can't use 'barb's' barracks - so Dacia would have bonus for Pella, while Macedon would have none in Dacia.

Anyway's I was thinking playing with Dacia one campaign right now

First see if the money script coupled with more expensive and longer to build army/city/royal barracks doesn't do the trick. Trying to revamp the system of sharing put in place is quite hard to do not to mention it could create errors and what not. But I guess when 1.1 comes out I'll implement in my build whatever features I like from your endeavor.

As I mentioned, revamping the system of sharing is not in case here.. The simple optional 'use' of other High-eng barracks is in case of history quite right and that is only for the biggest ones. You don't suppose that Getai would destory Macedonian Army barracks and then build their own for years just to have 2 available unit's? - while tha war is on? I am sure they would use them and develop one military revolution fo their own kind

+ Don't wory.. copy paste buisiness is the only thing here - and I don't make mistakes in ''export_descr_buildings.txt'' .)

note: this 'tweak' is in development.. so it might not be in after all .)