vanilla vs. mods

[Vantek]

I don't think you've seen a drop in the quality of games - I think you're just getting old :P Like you, I haven't played any game made after 2001 or 2002. In fact, I think MTW might be the youngest game I've ever played. But it's not because of a drop in the quality of games. I'm actually sure the quality of games has INCREASED quite a bit. It's just that for me these new games inevitably can't have even a tenth of the charm of my childhood favourites (and games resembling them, like MTW). That pixellated look and those cartoonish colours just make me feel warm and fuzzy the way gorgeous photorealism never will.

[Gaiseric]

I don't think you've seen a drop in the quality of games - I think you're just getting old :P Like you, I haven't played any game made after 2001 or 2002. In fact, I think MTW might be the youngest game I've ever played. But it's not because of a drop in the quality of games. I'm actually sure the quality of games has INCREASED quite a bit. It's just that for me these new games inevitably can't have even a tenth of the charm of my childhood favourites (and games resembling them, like MTW). That pixellated look and those cartoonish colours just make me feel warm and fuzzy the way gorgeous photorealism never will.

You may be on to somthing here:) My Nostalgia of games past may be affecting how I rate and enjoy newer games. My age and computer game experiance makes me prone to demand more from the games I play. If I take that all away, roughly 20 years of pc gaming, I wonder what expectations I would have on computer games?

My number one rule is gameplay before graphics. If I took this rule away I would probably think some of the newer TW games were great. If I took away just my TW experiance, literally hundreds of hours from just RTW to ETW, I might not think them bad games at all.....at least until I played them awhile. The more you play a game the more you realize its shortcomings. Even if you have got nothing to base it on or compare it with, these shortcomings can be gamekillers.

Why should CA or another game company care about a few flaws with game mechanics when these only become apparant to the new gamer after extended periods of play? The PC gaming market is filled with new gamers that buy games impulsively. We experianced gamers are a dieing breed. I dont know wether I would trade my game experince for a new gamers innocence. I know that I can tell a good game from a bad one. It is a bad sign for the pc game industry when new games cant compete with games that are 5-10 years old.

[gollum]

Comparing a game to others and getting to know it really well, reveals as you say its short comings, but also reveals its advantages and its hidden potential. You get to understand that it was a unique thing, that despite this and that that could be done better, was actually quite an achievement.

MTW is certainly such a game for me. It has a lot of hidden potential that, unfortunately modding cannot always bring out due to the hardcoded limitations. RTW and M2TW had even more hidden potential and it is no accident that they have been modded as much as they have been. Some mods took whole teams working on them for years. There was a lot you could do in them.

MTW by comparison is rather simpler. There is less you can mod. This is its advantage and disadvantage. Generally it was pretty solid out of the box although lacked desperately optimisation. With a few changes in the roster (take out peasants, prohibit the AI to spam cheap siege engines, put plate armor units and arbs in the late era only, take out dismounting units, reduce command stars bonuses and default level per faction etc) that can take out obvious exploits the player has versus the AI, it can really shine as it is.

[caravel]

This is a recurrent topic here. What has always come up over the years is that mods are very much an individual thing, from the creator's point of view and from the perspective of the player also.

Most mods deal with adding new factions, units, provinces and graphics. With the exception of a few tweaks to upkeep and farm/trade income, few mods however, except the SW mod, attempt to tackle the inherent imbalances in the game. This in itself is not a bad thing, but from my point of few, more does not equal better. Having extra factions like Portugal, Scotland, Venice or extra units, etc may add some novelty value to the game, but in gameplay terms they don't actually improve it, make for more challenging gameplay or, most importantly improve the balance of battles.

The main balance issues as I see them are:

1) Armour/weapon upgrades - these skew battle outcomes horribly and make pathetic units more powerful than superior ones. Units should "just work" with their base stats. e.g. if FMAA are not armoured enough, then there's CMAA in the high era.

2) General's command star bonuses - as above. + Generals should start with at the most only one or two stars, titles should not give stars, but other stats (loyalty, acumen, piety, dread).

3) Far too many units - there are simply more units than the game requires. A single faction does not need four different types of archer in one era or two different types of spearmen with much the same stats in the same era. Raising and support costs are also unbalanced, with some units costing more than they are worth and others being available to certain factions that already have a better and cheaper equivalent.

4) Dismounts - obvious exploit that the AI cannot make use of etc. In several cases effectively adds extra units for the player only (foot knights, dismounted faris, etc).

5) Maritime trade - needs complete removal as only the player can effectively exploit it's potential. Flat rate trade or trade based on just the local trade value of the goods in a given province will be easier for the AI to deal with.

6) Naval transport - send AI factions to the most idiotic places, often getting them cut off in the process, this can be tackled in several ways (personally I think it's better removed, but thjere are other ways of optimising it without resorting to this).

7) Lack of landbridges in key areas - causes islands to get completely cut off, paralysing the AI. Islands should be linked to the mainland with a landbridge.

8) Morale upgrades - these need reducing and leveling out - unit base morale needs some improvement across the board and the upgrades from buildings should be modest. Many more units need to be elite with only the low quality levies such as basic Archers, Spearmen and UM being non elite. The idiotic mass routs of the Egyptian armies are a good example of how unbalanced morale is. STW, on which MTW is based was not designed to work like this. The only non elite units were Ashigaru (Teppo, Yari and Crossbow), so these mass routs were not anywhere near as bad. The MTW roster should have been designed around what already worked, i.e. a core of elite units for every faction with a few minor auxiliary "peasant" levies as lower cost extras. For example in the catholic roster the only non-elite vanilla units should be spearmen, archers and crossbows (and a few other misc units such as Woodsmen, etc). Every other unit should be elite.

[gollum]

Probably because of the recuring members ;)

Apart from my usual disagreement to removing naval trade - that we have exhaustively discussed in a number of occasions - i am not sure about all others being elites. I waas always thinking of a more gradual progression between levies/militias, middling militias/faudal troops and elites (guards, knights etc), with the most units falling in the middle categories and tapering out in the extremes (low and high morale). An average morale of about 2-4 per army stack would be could enough in my perception; that is have routs if one engages unskilfully, but have solid melee if one does engages properly (correct match ups). This, however, may be understandably not popular with mod players (and mod makers) that shoot morale to the stars ending up with long hard fought melees no matter how unskillfuly one engages. I dislike this, admitedly, because its both unrealistic and bad for gameplay - miitias holding off elites until the player can flank them with cavalry is a mistake in terms of tactics and should be punished.

Another thing to add to your list is the very high base armor between eras. It has about 2-3 armor points difference (faudal knights=4, chiv knights=7, late royal knights=9). This is clearly to make the new unit still useful in the face of upgrades - if say a player has build a level2 armory that adds +2 armor points to the feudal knigths, now at level 6, then the chivalric knioghts are still worth it, since they are introduced at armor 7.

However, this has many disadvantages.

One is that the MTW maps are way too large for the vanilla unit speeds, which results in fatigue being a very important factor. Adding armor adds to fatigue and that makes it even worse to play battles as armies literally get exhausted with a few ups and downs on the map. This is all the more worse if one is playing with small unit sizes (40-60-80), because that increases the number of stacks in the camp map and battles become very lengthy affairs. Its relatively ok if you play in huge though - i do and reccomend that, and i know that Caravel does too.

Another and far more important is that archers are litteraly made useless and crossbows and arbs are made indispensible. Archer fire will make a relatively small impression with units that pass armor level 6-7. Last and not least, melee is again overextended and match ups are skewed.

[caravel]

It's best on to get elite/non-elite confused with morale here.

Non-elite units suffer a permanent -2 morale penalty after the general's death. The other (main) aspect of elite/non-elite behaviour are well known, i.e. elite units ignore the non elite routers. So elite/non-elite status mainly affects chain-rout scenarios. This hits AI controlled factions hardest as when the general dies a large army made up of mainly non-elites can disintegrate very quickly. Personally I think reducing the number of non elites would be a good thing. For example, if FMAA are considered elite, then so should Saracen Infantry and Byzantine Infantry, etc. All units except the "peasant class" units, miltias, archers and crossbows should be elite, morale can determine the rest. In the vanilla game, the artificial morale and valour upgrades are necessary due to the low morale stats and non elite status. Removing the armour and weapon upgrades altogether and putting a cap on morale upgrades (~ +2) would make the case stronger for increasing the number of elite units. This would only work of course if combined with a reduction of the overall unit roster.

You can also look at this from the reverse perspective. For example if Saracen Infantry are elite - and rout, then other elite units will take notice of them - as they should (i.e. the defensive "spear wall" and mainstay of the army turned just ran for it...). This is better than a unit of peasants routing and quote possibly taking AHC and Saracen Infantry with them.

[gollum]

A compeling argument and concept. Would love to see it in action. Could that be substituted with disciplined perhaps if similar effects ensue and leave the elite designation for "elites"? Not sure if that is the case with disciplined though.

[gollum]

PS I think we should get on our asses one day and make a cooperative "vanilla" mod. I feel enough "mature" to do that in MTW and i am sure you do too ;)

It shouldn't drag over a long period of time (we'll just drop it in that case most likely). We should just set up the fundamental principles, translate them to concrete actions, divide the workload and get it done in incremental steps (while keeping a log of the versions marked by the implemented actions while trying each change to safeguard for gliches and crashes). Then, we can release it here and see what Main Hallers think - in this way can have plenty of play testing. If concentrated effort is made, helped by say doing it over Xmas or something, i am pretty confident that we can have it done within 2 weeks (action only - not concepts). In things that we disagree, we can offer different versions (with/without naval aspect etc), if concensus is not reached among us.

In this way, you won't have to deliberate whether you should give in or not to the modding urge ;) There would be a place to start right here.

Can share your thoughts here or in pm.