Slowing down early expansion.

[DrNo]

There are a few key areas of gameplay that need to be addressed to make this game appeal more to the masses while maintaining and improving the overall gameplay for experienced Total Warriors.

First is castle sieges, alot of people say they prefer to wait out a siege rather than loose troops because the siege dosn't last long enough in game terms. If a castle is under siege the loyalty of the region is lower than if you choose to assault, however this dosn't push the player to end the siege as you normally have invaded a province with a large enough army to keep loyalty up.

So my tweek to this area is to greatly reduce loyalty in the province while a siege is ongoing to increase the chances and size of revolts and therefore make ending sieges a worthwhile task.
I understand that there are plans to increase support costs for besieging armies and lengthen time of sieges but increasing disloyalty somewhat would help push this gamepoint home.


Then moving on it does seem to be too easy early on to take quite large amounts of the map and build a very large income. People do run into trouble later on with revolts and rebellions, but once you know the game mechanics, containg these is very easy.
So the human player gets a distinct upper hand early on making the game a little tedious, as the better and more varied units arn't available until later, so you roll across the map picking of faction by faction while maintaing good relations and trade with the others.

So I think the loyalty again needs to be adjusted way down in conquered provinces and make it take much longer for a province to adjust to new rulers. Perhaps 10 times longer than current or more.
Then to counter this effect and allow for global domination, enable later tech buildings to increase loyalty within provinces like Watchtowers, College of Surgeons etc.. already do. This will make an early large expansion very difficult if not impossible as you would have to maintain a very large army in a newly conquered province for many turns. The large army would put you close to maintenance limit, limiting your expansion by economic means.
The limited expansion of the human player (and the currently fast expanding AI factions such as Almohads), would allow more room for AI factions to survive and grow.

The other area that needs a tweak to allow AI factions to grow like a human faction does is to increase it's use of trade and hence build income. A few changes to AI priority of building and unit construction will sort this out.

[Yoko Kono]

IMO seige times should be at least doubled, i would go even as far as to say armies under seige should not even loss men until stores are exhausted
its far too tempting to just wait out a seige the way things are just now

[Enigma]

I think that a besieging army should also suffer attrition. Maybe not to the extent that the besieged suffers, but the besieger often suffered from problems with disease, raids, desertion etc.

[DrNo]

Well you see my idea of increasing rebellions will lead to besieging armies suffering from attrition of the greatest kind.
Add this idea to the tripling of support costs then it would not be possible to quell the possible rebellion without having a large army and hence very large support cost. Ending the siege would be the sensible way to go.

[Kalt]

""So my tweek to this area is to greatly reduce loyalty in the province while a siege is ongoing to increase the chances and size of revolts and therefore make ending sieges a worthwhile task."

#1 Increasing length and support costs will fix things. Bringing on massive rebellions is just stupid and unrealistic. Your motivation for ending a siege shouldnt be derived from a fear of rebels, especially if you have 1000+ troops. And even if this was the case, with rebellions consisting of large numbers of low tech troops in the patch, a besiegers crack army could sit there and make LOTS of money and valour/rank by slaughtering rebels every turn. It would be a cheesy way to build that rank 6 general AND get cash AND take provinces all in one. I'm sorry I just think it is a very bad idea.

""So I think the loyalty again needs to be adjusted way down in conquered provinces and make it take much longer for a province to adjust to new rulers.""

#2 Utterly gutting loyalty would indeed be a good way to stop conquests, but loyalty is already a problem on expert, and making it significantly worse would slow expansion to a _very_ slow crawl, AND the money from the province wouldnt pay the support of the troops required to hold it! At that point, wtf is a player supposed to do except to spend massive amount of time teching up a few provinces, then moving on and teching up a few more, etc. It just sounds very boring. If you made every province as hard to control as Portugal, the game wouldnt be even possible for any but the best players and it would be very very slow even if you could manage to thrive.

You could mod this by changing the stats on the individual nations to reflect portugal's level of unrest.

Oh and as far as I know once trade gets started up the human can blow past economic constraints on expansion.

[the Count of Flanders]

You could still get around it by building lotsa spies: spies are cheap and have no support costs.

[Dragon]

Kalt:

As soon as trade starts up, AND (as DrNo suggested) the AI has a part in this, conquest is seriously constrained by any war economically. If you have to hunt down his trade links, because yours and his mutually block each other, you get a big hit on your trade.

Imbalances only come from the player as the sole trade imperium on the map, thus still able to get tons of cash even in times of war.

[DrNo]

Kalt,
I don't know what game your playing but I have a Danish empire on Expert that has taken Spain Africa Egypt etc..killed of the Almohads, Egyptians and Turks and currently in 1218 income is 25000 + and profit of 10,000 florins a turn. Only had 1 turn of rebellions in 3 of my provinces which were beaten soundly. This happened when my king died.

There is not another faction in the game that would want or dare go to war with me, so it's effectively game over.
The only chance of things going a little awry will be when my king dies again and his current high influence(9) will be gone.
However I have already countered this effect twice ingame so far each time raising a new king with influence of 3 or 4 right back up to 9 influence within just a few battles/turns.

Maybe I was lucky at the start but I ahve seen many other people saying the game is too easy on Expert. I'm not after the glory of saying I am the best player, I'm after a cracking good but very difficult campaign game.

On the siege thing the point is that a crack siege army will be costing you alot(with triple support costs) of maintenance while you sit there. The rebellions will not be peasent rebellions but full on high-tech faction revolts allowing the besieged army to sally from the castle and join up with these new troops, giving them a chance of breaking the siege or at least cutting the besieging numbers down significantly.

Going back to your point though, there is nothing in current game to stop you putting a low number of troops in a province, wait for the province to rebel and then move your general in to crush the rebellion and level up. Increasing disloyalty will increase the size and quality of the rebelling army making this not such a wise thing to do. At least it will with some rejigged AI rebelling troop mix.

'At that point, wtf is a player supposed to do except to spend massive amount of time teching up a few provinces, then moving on and teching up a few more, etc'

mmm... how about currently not bothering to tech up but just conquering where and when you want at will with the limited troop variety that the low tech gives?

A slower expansion and teching up will give you greater troop variety and battle options and make you think about where and when to attack, not just go on a mass global walk about crushing whomever gets in your way.

'If you made every province as hard to control as Portugal, the game wouldnt be even possible for any but the best players'

I really don't see a problem with Portugal at all, not 1 revolt in at least 50 game turns since I conquered it.

But that's the way it's supposed to be on Expert. If this change was made and you found it too difficult on Expert then turning down the difficulty level is always an option. The point is the game is too easy on the hardest level it needs to give the ultimate challenge and have people quaking in their boots when they play it.


Count, to stop the counter of having lots of spies in a single region I suggest having a cap of the effects of these units effects. e.g. Having more than 3 spies in a province will still give you the same effect as having just 3 spies.

It was a huge problem with STW that a Shinobi army with zero support could destroy enemies by rebellions.

[Galestrum]

yes make Expert way harder, im consistantly an unbeatable powerhouse by 1180-1200

kind of boring knowing that the next 250 years will just be micromanagement

[andrewt]

Try playing on late period. You'll have difficulty conquering everything in the time allowed.

[Galestrum]

problem is i dont really try to conquer everything, i like the GA stuff

my delicate point is, i shouldnt have to play expert/late/hard faction to have a tough/enjoyable game from this product

if that is the solution, i am missing out on 2/3 of the game

[Vildhavre]

Extending siegetime is a bit unrealistic. Imagine living in a city that has been under siege for 6 years. I would surrender the next day no matter what.

Id rather see higher attrition in the game, specially in sieges and in enemy territories. Attrition would also balance the game in that huge factions lose more troops.

[maroule]

I agree with most of the remarks, having the same experience of finding expert too easy (Biz, starting in high)

Starting in late is definitively an option, but Galestrum is right on missing 2/3 of game : it is highly satisfaying to take a faction very early and take it to the top by seeing successive upgrade. One solution is to refrain yourself from conquering any non rebel province for the first 100 years.

Good idea on the spy cap, Dr No

[Kalt]

""currently in 1218""

-That is what, 131 turns into the game? Imagine where you'd be in Shogun after that many turns, youd be in year 1563 or something. I never had any game last that long.

-But I do understand what you're saying. The fact is that a good player advances exponentially while every other faction advances in a more linear fashion. By making your early game harder, youre going to delay domination by maybe 20-50 turns, but youll still eventually dominate, albeit it'll be slower.

""so it's effectively game over""

-Yeah you're telling me! By turn 40 I already have clearly pulled ahead of any AI faction no matter what faction Im playing. Inevitably, the AI will NEVER be able to make a comeback against you once you're dominant.

""a new king with influence of 3 or 4 right back up to 9 influence""

-How do you do that? I notice getting alliances/etc boosted my king but what other ways do you have of getting it to 9?

""full on high-tech faction revolts""

-This would reward a faction for getting besieged with free units, probably ones stronger than its tech level allows anyway. If this went in, I know Id purposely get besieged so I could mass armies of uber-troops and then lay waste to everyone.

""move your general in to crush the rebellion and level up""

-Yes, I personally love this. You should be able to do this. I do not see why being able to do this is a bad thing. Occasionally the rebels get a very nice general, so it can be risky.

""I really don't see a problem with Portugal at all, not 1 revolt in at least 50 game turns since I conquered it.""

-Then you mustve kept the taxes very low and/or maintained a large garrison. I highly doubt you profited from Portugal immediately after conquering it. Now make every province in the map like this, youll see what I mean.

""people quaking in their boots when they play it""

-very very true, there should be a setting for rebel activity seperate from difficulty level, like a slider bar that lets you either tone down rebels/discontent or jack it up. A change like that sounds like it would satisfy you as well as whomever wants a challenging game without endless hoardes of rebels.

""I suggest having a cap of the effects of these units effects.""

-Considering you need a level 3 castle in order to produce spies, and you cant get then for the first 40 turns or so, spies have no effect on the early game. To further balance them you could increase their cost. Putting a cap on spies simply eliminates any real offensive use as 3 spies will never provoke revolts. Maybe you do not like using spies, but many other players do. Massing spies to provoke revolts is no easy solution to the game. It can be helpful in some cases, but it would be a very very slow means of conquering the world if you relied on it.

[DrNo]

Kalt for me sending my King into battle seemed to raise his influence and fairly quickly too.

-This would reward a faction for getting besieged with free units, probably ones stronger than its tech level allows anyway. If this went in, I know Id purposely get besieged so I could mass armies of uber-troops and then lay waste to everyone.

Remember that you would have to defeat the besieging army first with this new army and you would be the attacker. But i'm not saying you should get 16 top units, just that they should be a good mix, not just peasents. It would be have to be balanced well to make it work.
Well have to see how well the tripling of support costs does.

On Portugal, yes I had a large army in there at first especially as the Almohads could have counter attacked, and I still have a reasonable army in there but I do in every province I own. High tax in every province and loyalties are mostly 200% including Portugal. Portugal is currently bringing in 1000 florins a turn for me so an army of 16 units at average support cost of 30 is giving me 500 profit, even with 8 units loyalty is high enough not to worry.
I think an increase of support costs for units might also be a solution to early fast expansion.

On spies I was thinking more a cap on defensive loyalty duties to avoid what Count of Flanders was saying. The loyalty should go up with higher tech buildings not through having 20 spies in a province. Maybe a support cost might solve this or raising initial cost.
I don't mind the offensive part as it was something I did in STW.

[DrNo]

Update on the influence of a king.

It seems that just conquering provinces will raise your kings Influence. Just had my king die so down from level 9 influence to 3 with new king. Invaded a rebel province with an army not including the King and next turn his influence was raised to 4. This makes sense.

So if your king is about to die(old age) then get ready to invade a few provinces the moment your heir takes over.