How to get the Irish to expand?

[bondovic]

Not saying it would necessarily be a bad thing, but that would squelch the importance of naval affairs.

Not entirely. Only one faction, the one owning the landbridge, would benefit by not having to build fleets in order to invade. England still has to keep fleets to protect themselves from the Danes and the Spanish, etc. Regarding the small islands, I think it's an acceptable 'loss'. The gain of having re-emergants come back to relevancy far outweigh the drawbacks of not being able to turtle.

[caravel]

Not saying it would necessarily be a bad thing, but that would squelch the importance of naval affairs.

Not in the slightest. The main advantage of fleets is in trade, long distance troop movements and protecting from coastal invasion. None of this would be effected by additional land bridges.

My personal opinion is that fleets and trade are best removed altogether as the game plays better without it.



-Edit: On the subject of Wessex/Flanders, I disagree with myself earlier in the thread. This is because I used to be a "landbridge cutter" rather than a creator. This was before I realised how important they are and how much the AI is crippled by their removal. If you're playing as the Turks though as I was and want to fight endless crusades, try removing the landbridges in the straits of Gibraltar. This will force a lot of crusades to head through Constantinople and makes for a good campaign.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
Not in the slightest. The main advantage of fleets is in trade, long distance troop movements and protecting from coastal invasion. None of this would be effected by additional land bridges.

Well it would actually to some extent its just that your personal opinion is that...

...fleets and trade are best removed altogether as the game plays better without it.

and hence the less importance navies get the better.

My personal opinion (that you know well) is that although the AI is not terribly adept at handling teh naval aspect, its still worth it and adds a strategic layer and flavor in the game if the game is a bit optimised.

The AI performs much better in terms of navies when set in the DEFENSIVE personalities. He doesn't spam boats all too often then, and certainly not in the rate that he does for the "sea oriented" personalities (NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST, TRADER etc).

Also despite many other people really disliking it, i actually like the sea trading system and how it is implemented with the navy mechanics - if you want profits you need to keep the peace - while in later TW games you can rake in huge amounts of sea trade profits regardless of war/peace status because inter-empire trade is better than with trading partners if you conquer the right places; in that respect this was another mechanic that made conquering all, the best course of action and robbed the game some of its diversity in gameplay.

In my opinion the achille's heels for the MTW naval system and their solutions are:

1. The AI cannot disband ships; this chokes the AI facions once they get in the red. It could have easily be resolved by autodisbanding all AI faction boats when that faction goes red. (Btw something similar could have been done for land AI/player forces that go in the red - their stacks could start draining in the same manner they Crusade armies do in order to bring the AI back in the green and disallow players that mismanaged the financies to keep using the troops they've built).

2. There is unlimited troop transport capacity regardless of how many boats per sea area comprise the "bridge" from a boarding province to landing province. This results in factions emptying their core provinces to invade some poor island that hurts them very much in the long term; and for the player it means infinite flexibility in hitting an enemy that has coasts when he dominates (as usual) the seas. What should have been done is allow transport to a certain number of units per ship factor present in each sea area that connect a boarding province to a landing province (the lowest ship factors determine the limit based on say 2 units per small ship, 3 units per medium ship, 4 units per large ship). This would control the strength of naval invasions for the AI factions and also it would limit the player's ability to exploit naval invasions against the AI.

3. Prevent (by hardcoded means) AI island invasions using kings, as they get hit from the distance to monarch mechanic and they again suffer immeasurably.

[caravel]

Your 3 points actually illustrate perfectly as to why fleets/trade is so poor for the AI and so easily exploited by the player.

The AI spams fleets with no clear objective. It produces them because it can afford to and it techs up to them because it's AI script tells it do so. The AI personalities are linked to the unit/building choices in the production files. That's about all the effect that the personalities have. It's enough though to give the AI the illusionary intelligence that some attribute to it.

Try setting up a startpos with even numbers of ships in all coastal sea regions. Then set the game to auto-run in AI control for about 10 years and see what the AI does with it's fleets. The AI will not form trade routes, nor will it put together lines of ships defending it's coasts and/or linking it's territories. The AI only appears to do this when it has ships in vast numbers. The AI also fails miserably at balancing fleet numbers per sea region and you will often find massive stacks in one sea region and several adjacent regions empty.

This is why I dislike naval fleets and maritime trade as implimented in MTW - not out of any personal bias, but because they simply don't work and don't add to the game in the way that they should. It's just far too easy to conquer the Levant and start raking in a massive trade income. In the past I've often had 1m florin plus treasuries in MTW due to the ease of gaining naval supremecy.

[Jxrc]

Your 3 points actually illustrate perfectly as to why fleets/trade is so poor for the AI and so easily exploited by the player.

This is why I dislike naval fleets and maritime trade as implimented in MTW - not out of any personal bias, but because they simply don't work and don't add to the game in the way that they should. It's just far too easy to conquer the Levant and start raking in a massive trade income. In the past I've often had 1m florin plus treasuries in MTW due to the ease of gaining naval supremecy.

I would agree with the above.

The only drawback would perhaps be that some GA goals such a Kalmar Union, Noble Mercantilism, and Hanseatic League would not work or be far more difficult than under the vanilla game but since Noble Mercantilism, and Hanseatic League do not work anyway, it does not matter.

We digressed on the same topic in this thread (starting only at post 24) if anyone is interested https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=120132.

What Gollum suggest is fine but I kind of doubt that it would be possible to implement those changes through a mere mod.

[caravel]

I've never played GA, so I have no idea about it or the goals. What I said in that thread still pretty much stands. The STW style trading system or traders that are based on the local trade values of trade goods would be both simpler and superior IMHO.

This is not to everyone's tastes of course, but there are certainly a few of us who would prefer an MTW free of fleet trading/transport mechanic.



-Edit:

I would mod that in now if I could get the game to run decently. (at the moment I'm in a continuous cycle of swapping my graphics card in and out. Currently it's in because I need it to run some fancy 3D rubbish in Debian... but it probably won't stay in. This will probably continue until the PCI-e slot in the motherboards gets as loose as a )

[gollum]

Originally posted by Jxrc
What Gollum suggest is fine but I kind of doubt that it would be possible to implement those changes through a mere mod.

If it was possible i wouldn't mention:

Originally posted by gollum
(by hardcoded means)

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
The AI personalities are linked to the unit/building choices in the production files. That's about all the effect that the personalities have. It's enough though to give the AI the illusionary intelligence that some attribute to it.

If that was the case each AI faction would be using the "spamed" boats it makes in the exact same manner but that is not true. If you play long turtling campaigns in domination or better still in GA, notice how the Hungarians use their ships in the mid-late game. You'll see that their AI systematically is trying to get naval dominance and is actually building amounts of boats that aim for that, because once he achieves it he stops- unless he is challenged/disrupted in which case he makes up for his losses.

The reason the Hungarians were a good case of observation in several of my early Russian campaigns is that: 1. they are set at DEFENSIVE 2. they cannot crusade and hence they last longer because they are spared the influence hits of failed crusades and civil wars 3. they start with their home provinces and their rulers always get influence points for completing the homeland GA goal (unlike other factions) 4. their homelands have a decent income.

Because of these the Hungarian AI proves to be a good test subject as he is lasting quite long if the player is sufficiently far away. Once he gets the cash to get it to the seas he moderately implements a sea domination effort (fill all sea areas with boats hence get max trade, max coast protection and max enemy disruption) - yet he did it with relative adeptness and proved a relatively (for TW AI) tough nut to crack as long as the duel was kept in the seas (i eventually took out most of their land and hence they lost at sea too). This is simple indeed but far from completely random spamming and roaming.

The different STW/MTW personalities also seem to use sometimes different moves to attack or defend a province/stretch of land, and although some of this is in data files (like invasion) values, some of it could be hardcoded. So there might be more parameters we dont see for every AI "personality".

How the AI moves his pieces around, and what sort of benchmarks of production he uses when deciding to attack or stay in defense are hardcoded - and it seems to me that he clearly must be using both, because well otherwise he wouldn't be able to play the game at all.

I am well aware that the AI does not have long term plans, but does "static" on the spot evaluation - however even so he has a pattern of behaviour in the long term, for if he had not he would move ships and stacks around completely at random. That is clearly not the case as far as i am concerned. He nearly always (finances permiting) try to get a global supernetwork from the Baltic to the Meditteranean, and this although simple and repetitive is not random. He also tries to conquer regions at the end of the network and that also does not appear to be random. Similar observations may be made in how he plays his stacks - there is a pattern behind how he defends and attacks.

Of course i may be wrong, but so may be you

[gollum]

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
The STW style trading system or traders that are based on the local trade values of trade goods would be both simpler and superior IMHO.

Simpler, yes; superior not really. Every port rakes in the same amount of money regardless of location and time of operation?

It would have been far better for the amount ports make to be say a function of the time they have been in operation as well as the status with neighbouring clans (peace=monies, war=nil).

However the thing that i disliked most about ports in STW was the ability to teleport stacks - i mean from home port to home port (not the raiding thing). It really killed the logistical aspect of the mid-late game; moving lots of troops around huge distances should cost either time or money. I think that what they were after was to kill the "chore" of the late game, although imo they ended up making it bigger - remaining clans would put up more of a fight to a unifier that has to spend lots of time or money to reach their part of Japan.

Ports in STW were better off to be unique buildings imo.

[caravel]

There is also the fact that a faction's AI personality changes during the course of a campaign, so the hungarians you are seeing may have changed AI in the first few turns of the campaign. They are actually quite an aggressive faction once they get started. I am not certain what factors change the AI personalities mid campaign, but going to war probably has something to do with it. The Byzantine faction are set to Orthodox stagnant at the start of early, but soon get quite a few ships in the sea and start expanding north westwards from the off. Personally I think incomes and troop numbers can trigger changes in the AI personality.

Ships are not so numerous because the unit choices values for ships and agents are much, much lower than for units. The AI starts spamming ships once it has the available funds with which to do so.

[caravel]

Simpler, yes; superior not really. Every port rakes in the same amount of money regardless of location and time of operation?

It would have been far better for the amount ports make to be say a function of the time they have been in operation as well as the status with neighbouring clans (peace=monies, war=nil).

Too complex, and not really what the game was all about. The campaign map served as a means to string the battles together into something meaningful. I don't really see the issue of flat rate incomes from ports? If it wasn't a port, i.e. if we called it something else, and that produced an income no one would have a problem with it producing a flat rate.

MTW allows for variable incomes, not from the port but from the traders using trading goods as the variable. The missing factor is the state of war/peace, but I don't really see that as a big deal. In STW the port income represented fishing etc. The trade income represented foreign trade, not trade within Japan. Either way it's none issue IMHO.

However the thing that i disliked most about ports in STW was the ability to teleport stacks

I also disliked that, but the AI does not often do it and I avoid doing it myself.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
There is also the fact that a faction's AI personality changes during the course of a campaign, so the hungarians you are seeing may have changed AI in the first few turns of the campaign.

I dont think that this happens in MTW at all - it certainly happens in STW/MI though and in theory in 1-1.12, but not in MTW as far as i can tell. A small piece of evidence for this is that the reference in STW is to Daimyos and in MTW to factions. A larger one is that an EXPANSIONIST faction is always behaving as such in MTW, and the same with the others it seems to me.

Ships are not so numerous because the unit choices values for ships and agents are much, much lower than for units. The AI starts spamming ships once it has the available funds with which to do so.

Well in many cases yes - in that one as i mentioned (and others similar to it) no. The rate of production stopped once naval dominance was established and reprised once losses occured as i mentioned - it seems the AI had a "cap" and that was much smaller than other AI personalities had. Also the amount used per sea area was 1-2 ships (very occasionally 3), so relatively well proportioned, i'd say.

Too complex, and not really what the game was all about.

Doesn't TW have a logistics/economics side to it? If the answer is yes there is no reason why a more representative model of trade would be included assuming the AI would be relatively competent to use it and the player could not blatantly exploit it, of course.

I don't really see the issue of flat rate incomes from ports?

The issue is that the representation and the represented are well off; respresenting agricultural income with a linear relationship between land held and income is fine, but trade doesn't function like that - rather it gives profits out of all proportion in specific areas that are vitally located or are blessed with certain goods and gives none when there is a state of war and no-one to trade with. It also needs time to develop and doesn't remain static - it fluctuates upon the conditions it is based on.

In that respect, trade should be like an economic wildcard; high yield but fragile and risky. In STW is anything but since its directly proportional to land held essentially.

MTW has imo a good trade model, the shortcoming is that the AI isn't really adept at using it.

If it wasn't a port, i.e. if we called it something else, and that produced an income no one would have a problem with it producing a flat rate.

Sure - like local crasftsmen etc - however this is not national/international trade - MTW represents regional economy better with local goods and the trading posts. I agree though with you that in terms of actual economic mechanic/gameplay there is little actual difference.

The trade income represented foreign trade, not trade within Japan.

This is indeed so - yet inter-regional/national trade was neither uncommon nor negligible.

The missing factor is the state of war/peace, but I don't really see that as a big deal.

Well in a Sengoku Jidai scenario it sort of half makes sense - raiding of populace in the same manner that was conducted in Medieval Europe was unknown. Even in SJ however, periods of peace meant more trade and development of middle class regional economy.

[caravel]

I dont think that this happens in MTW at all - it certainly happens in STW/MI though and in theory in 1-1.12, but not in MTW as far as i can tell. A small piece of evidence for this is that the reference in STW is to Daimyos and in MTW to factions. A larger one is that an EXPANSIONIST faction is always behaving as such in MTW, and the same with the others it seems to me.

Well I've certainly noticed changes to AI behaviour? Also remember that the startpos only starts factions off using one of a handful of AI types.

No factions start the campaign using any of the following AI personalities:

POVERTY_STRICKEN
DESPERATE_DEFENCE
CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT

To me this indicates that starting AI types do change in the course of a campaign as units are coded to change AI type based on certain events/factors.

Well in many cases yes - in that one as i mentioned (and others similar to it) no. The rate of production stopped once naval dominance was established and reprised once losses occured as i mentioned - it seems the AI had a "cap" and that was much smaller than other AI personalities had. Also the amount used per sea area was 1-2 ships (very occasionally 3), so relatively well proportioned, i'd say.

Do you play using 'ian' mode? If so it's a good idea to switch to the AI faction and examine their treasury. Factions that stop building/training might have simply run out of florins.

Doesn't TW have a logistics/economics side to it? If the answer is yes there is no reason why a more representative model of trade would be included assuming the AI would be relatively competent to use it and the player could not blatantly exploit it, of course.

Of course, but we don't really have a very representative side of any of the various facets of the army logistics train.

The issue is that the representation and the represented are well off; respresenting agricultural income with a linear relationship between land held and income is fine, but trade doesn't function like that - rather it gives profits out of all proportion in specific areas that are vitally located or are blessed with certain goods and gives none when there is a state of war and no-one to trade with. It also needs time to develop and doesn't remain static - it fluctuates upon the conditions it is based on.

I disagree with regards to agricultural income. It is not really a static fixed income, but an unpredictable one. Harvests could be poor, blights, disease and weather were a huge factor. Warfare would also massively disrupt agricultural output. The game does not really represent this apart from in "improved farmland" upgrades.

In that respect, trade should be like an economic wildcard; high yield but fragile and risky. In STW is anything but since its directly proportional to land held essentially.

MTW has imo a good trade model, the shortcoming is that the AI isn't really adept at using it.

Trade does work like that, it's high yield and it's fragile and risky - but the AI cannot use it effectively - the player can make a killing.

Having trade at least partially proportional to land held makes some sense if you think about it. If you have more land and more people you have more available goods to sell. STW simply abstracted trade, without all the nitpicky fuss and micro-management heavy ships. STW's system was no where near perfect, but MTW's was simply broken.

Sure - like local crasftsmen etc - however this is not national/international trade - MTW represents regional economy better with local goods and the trading posts. I agree though with you that in terms of actual economic mechanic/gameplay there is little actual difference.

MTW's represenation of trading attempts to recreate the style of pan european maritime trade which actually wasn't happening on a large scale in the time frame of the game. Ships were not buzzing to and fro in huge numbers from Denmark to Palestine back in the 1200's. Most of the crusades took the land route also so the massive troop movements are also quite silly.

There's also the fact that those landlocked provinces with trade goods see no benefit anyway - yet the AI will still spend 1000s building the trading posts. IMHO it was a half hearted plaything inserted into the game by the developers as a bit of a toy. In the latest title shipping has served the same purpose in another way. Knowing that the AI was still the same and that there would be few other improvements besides those cosmetic ones, the CA used the new 3D naval battles as a bait - and people took it in droves.

This is indeed so - yet inter-regional/national trade was neither uncommon nor negligible.

I agree and it is represented in the system of ports with their fixed incomes. Not ideal but it works and the AI can use it. When CA can actually design a decent AI, they can then start introducing a decent naval/trade system - until then...

Well in a Sengoku Jidai scenario it sort of half makes sense - raiding of populace in the same manner that was conducted in Medieval Europe was unknown. Even in SJ however, periods of peace meant more trade and development of middle class regional economy.

With MTW's system a trade route can be entirely severed by a single hostile vessel interposing anywhere on the route. This is not very representative. Shipping at the time always had to deal with piracy and enemy vessels. Having a trade route blocked off entirely for one year simply because an enemy ship appears is nonsense.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
Well I've certainly noticed changes to AI behaviour? Also remember that the startpos only starts factions off using one of a handful of AI types.

No factions start the campaign using any of the following AI personalities:

POVERTY_STRICKEN
DESPERATE_DEFENCE
CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT

To me this indicates that starting AI types do change in the course of a campaign as units are coded to change AI type based on certain events/factors.

Perhaps; it can also indicate though, that they are modes for all AI factions when these conditions are encountered rather than a personality in it self.

Iirc these are not listed in the faction/AIpersonality list as possible "personalities" but as eventualities within every AI personality parameter profile. I may be wrong though as i haven't checked the files for a while.

My observation is that AI factions beyond these extreme conditions follow the (AI personality) pattern set in the campaign txt files without fail.

Do you play using 'ian' mode? If so it's a good idea to switch to the AI faction and examine their treasury. Factions that stop building/training might have simply run out of florins.

Yes i do - and in many cases i came to observe through this that an AI with a healthy economy was often making a relatively reasonable use of boats and boat production rates when set on DEFENSIVE either catholic, muslim or orthodox (or their equivalent).

Of course, but we don't really have a very representative side of any of the various facets of the army logistics train.

We do actually, and this relates to the level of infrastructure in a kingdom as a whole as well as the location of that infrastructure relative to the where the troops are needed to be (frontline). This defines the amount of troops that can be maed within any time interval as well as the amount of time it takes to get them to the frontline or other places they are needed.

I disagree with regards to agricultural income. It is not really a static fixed income, but an unpredictable one. Harvests could be poor, blights, disease and weather were a huge factor. Warfare would also massively disrupt agricultural output. The game does not really represent this apart from in "improved farmland" upgrades.

Its unpredictability has boundaries and these boundaries are determined on a direct proportinality to land held. One can use statistical averages to make a calculation on projections more precise, but that is not really necessary.

The bounded area is: (Sum of average province agr income)+ or- up to 50%

This gives you the boundaries within which unpredictability happens. The statistical average is much closer to the average value of the provinces (with any upgrades) because the more extreme the fluctuation is (ie the 50%) the more unlikely it is.

Similarly MTW has an equal unpredictability in the accumen of governors and the King that can +or- the agricultural income. However again the whole is directly proportional to the land held - you are just receiving an average value within the boundaries defined by the highest and loewst possible incomes over time.

MTW's represenation of trading attempts to recreate the style of pan european maritime trade which actually wasn't happening on a large scale in the time frame of the game.

Trade does work like that, it's high yield and it's fragile and risky - but the AI cannot use it effectively - the player can make a killing.

Maritime trading between nations was happening during the medieval era - the 4th crusade diverged to Constantinople instead of Egypt because the Venetians were making really good profits trading with the Muslim Egyptians. Catholic Europe existed in a state of cultural, ecclesiastical and economic union - and this can be witnessed in the variety of places medieval scholars lived during their lifetimes. There are many other examples that i am sure you are aware of.

The problem in game terms is that the trading goods have too high values assigned to them and so the mechanic can be exploited by the player - if you half the values of goods, trade functions much better. I have modded the game along these lines and trade happens without being the huge exploit it is in vanilla - again it is a matter of optimisation and i believe that it can partly be solved with the means the game has currently available. In these terms i think thet the model is good and the implementation half good - but not terrible

Having trade at least partially proportional to land held makes some sense if you think about it. If you have more land and more people you have more available goods to sell. STW simply abstracted trade, without all the nitpicky fuss and micro-management heavy ships. STW's system was no where near perfect, but MTW's was simply broken.

Not really - trade goods need processing and this happens in urban centres where small factories and specialist skills exist - the most succesful traders of the Middle Ages were city states, that had very little land in the usual feudal sense.

STW trade representation works within the game, however that does not mean that it is good as it is and there was no room for improvement. For me MTW's was the right model although of course the AI should have been improved in handling it and the margins of trade profit should have been optimised.

There's also the fact that those landlocked provinces with trade goods see no benefit anyway - yet the AI will still spend 1000s building the trading posts.

Landlocked provinces do benefit but with a much smaller profit. As for the AI building up traders in land provinces is again a matter of optimising the game - it can be easily solved (via modding) by linking the traders beyond level1 to ports. It is not related with how good the trade model is.

In the latest title shipping has served the same purpose in another way. Knowing that the AI was still the same and that there would be few other improvements besides those cosmetic ones, the CA used the new 3D naval battles as a bait.

I certainly know where you are coming from but this is beside the point - we are discussing MTW and its trade model.

I agree and it is represented in the system of ports with their fixed incomes. Not ideal but it works and the AI can use it. When CA can actually design a decent AI, they can then start introducing a decent naval/trade system - until then...

The suggestions i give above to improve the MTW trade system could be small hardcoded scripts and not major AI undertakings, and lots could be solved with such simple means imo; i think that there was realistic room for improvement in the trade system and that MTW's offering is good although it does lack on fore/afterthought and optimisation from the developer.

With MTW's system a trade route can be entirely severed by a single hostile vessel interposing anywhere on the route. This is not very representative. Shipping at the time always had to deal with piracy and enemy vessels. Having a trade route blocked off entirely for one year simply because an enemy ship appears is nonsense.

This is a matter of representation and abstraction and not of whether it sounds realistically believable or not - under the same light its strange that one should accept that a port in Dewa (a backwater historically) and one in Hakata/Nagasaki (great centres of commerce historically due to their proximity to the mainland) can make the same money because they represent the local economy, since there was no comparison between what the local economy and port accessibility and importance was in the one and what in the other.

Its simply an abstraction - as you would say. Similarly what you mention for the MTW trade routes are means to represent the model and its wrong to judge and scrutinise their "believability".

A trade route is open when friendly ships occupy it and when there is no enemy ship in it - a much better representation than one that is open all the time from all places and yields the same profit, dont you think?

[Jxrc]

Perhaps it's a silly suggestion but could'nt the problem be, at least partially, solved by increasing the income generated by imported goods so that it's equal to what the exporter gets ? That way the cash differrence between player and AI would be reduced (to some extent since the whatever the player gets would be spread among several importing AI factions). Perhaps not totally unreaslistic since cities like Venice did not really export their own goods but essentially imported stuff from the middle east. No idea if that is easy to implement.

Regarding the replacement of fleet by landbridges, it does not seem that inaccurate to me since in that time period (i) long distance sea invasion were not really possible on a large scale since it seems that the maximum distance that could be travelled before having the stop was rather short (Scotland/Palestine is one go was just not possible) (ii) there was no way , at least before XIIIth century, that a fleet could intercep an invading. There a few example of long-distance invasions such as the conquest of Sicily by Normans and Norwegian crusade but the former does not involve a large army (IIRC a few Normans took control and were reinforced only after the "good news" had spread home) while the latter made many stops on the way. I personaly know of no fleet intercepting another that did not want to fight but I could be wrong.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Jxrc
Perhaps it's a silly suggestion but could'nt the problem be, at least partially, solved by increasing the income generated by imported goods so that it's equal to what the exporter gets ? That way the cash differrence between player and AI would be reduced (to some extent since the whatever the player gets would be spread among several importing AI factions). Perhaps not totally unreaslistic since cities like Venice did not really export their own goods but essentially imported stuff from the middle east. No idea if that is easy to implement.

Its a good idea in theory and both Asai and myself have tried it in our modding efforts, i believe.

The problem with it is that both parties get the increase imprt tax. My experiment with it ended in failure - it felt like actually the disparity was somewhat enhanced in practice, and the player was doing even better than usual.

Imho you'll get much better results if you lower the goods values - but no more than half; otherwise trade is not really worth the expense, especially for provinces that havelow value goods. You'll get even better results if you reduce the disparity between agr. incomes in provinces and reduce the overall agr. money floating about in the game, because then trade becomes imperative in allowing you to have enough infrastructure and armies to carry out extensive conquests - ie funds for player aggression are limited and this leads to more challenging campaigns both in attack and defense in my experience.

[Jxrc]

Its a good idea in theory and both Asai and myself have tried it in our modding efforts, i believe.

The problem with it is that both parties get the increase imprt tax. My experiment with it ended in failure - it felt like actually the disparity was somewhat enhanced in practice, and the player was doing even better than usual.:

Seems weird but if that's the result fair enough.

Imho you'll get much better results if you lower the goods values - but no more than half; otherwise trade is not really worth the expense, especially for provinces that havelow value goods. You'll get even better results if you reduce the disparity between agr. incomes in provinces and reduce the overall agr. money floating about in the game, because then trade becomes imperative in allowing you to have enough infrastructure and armies to carry out extensive conquests - ie funds for player aggression are limited and this leads to more challenging campaigns both in attack and defense in my experience.

If you reduce agricultural income, would'nt the AI armies be even worse than they actually are. The AI is inept at managing its trade so that farms and mines are its only steady sources of income. if you reduce them the AI will be building even worse armies and you'll end up facing a horde of javelin men and spearmen each time. Yours will not as good as it would have been under in vanilla but the AI's army will always be inferior cause the AI will not manage to trade anyway.

I do not have any problem with the idea of reducing the income generated by trading but at first glance I would suggest to increase the other sources of income (mines, farms, imports).

Some balancing exercise and testing would be required but why not:

- reduce the income generated by exports by half;
- increase the income generated by import so that it is equal to the one received by the exporter and,
- increase farming and mining income by 10 or 20 % ?

One other option, but I have a feeling that it is no doable, would be to have a port multiply the trade income by five unless the adjacent sea is occupied by an enemy fleet. The multiplier would be advanntageous early in the campaign but would prevent the player from becoming filthy rich (perhaps five is too much though). Merely a suggestion and I have no modding skill whatsoever so forgive me if it is inept

[gollum]

Originally posted by Jxrc
If you reduce agricultural income, would'nt the AI armies be even worse than they actually are. The AI is inept at managing its trade so that farms and mines are its only steady sources of income. if you reduce them the AI will be building even worse armies and you'll end up facing a horde of javelin men and spearmen each time. Yours will not as good as it would have been under in vanilla but the AI's army will always be inferior cause the AI will not manage to trade anyway.

Hello Jxrc,
the key is evening the disparities between province incomes.

Think of this as transfering money from the very rich provinces to teh very poor ones ie from Antich Tripoli Jerusalem to Arabia Sinai and Cyrenacia (as an example). Afterwards reduce the rich ones some more too. This produces conditions very favorable for the AI because all the provinces are worth having and upgrading and the cases that his judgement is poor are justified.

Taking out some more money from the rich provinces to reduce overall money in the map also favors the AI, because the player has to work to make his lands yield profit as the AI needs to do. In vanilla as it stands the player is well aware which provinces to take and which to leave which makes it very easy gaining all the rich areas of the map and then use the huge amounts of cash to overopwer the AI in terms of quantity but most in terms of quality.

It sounds paradoxical, but it actually works as i described, i have made a mod of it and played several campaigns and it works as described.

I have also fiddled extensively with unit rosters, unit prod requirements and unit stats - again basically evening out the huge disparities in stats between low and high end units and between units of different eras while maintaining the intended flavor and use of the units. Taken out valor bonuses and armor/weapon/morale upgrades. So one seldom fights low end unchallenging armies.

Apologies for not explaining all this in more detail earlier and creating misunderstandings.

The balancing approach you suggest is more or less implemented in XL, and although it has its merits, it is not my cup of tea. I vastly prefer a vanilla mod that retains all features of the vanilla game and try to bring them out as best as possible with the means available. All my modding efforts are based on this vision, hence no units/factions/heros/buildings etc just optimising the game to bring AI play to the fore and retain all core mechanics.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Jxrc
One other option, but I have a feeling that it is no doable, would be to have a port multiply the trade income by five unless the adjacent sea is occupied by an enemy fleet. The multiplier would be advanntageous early in the campaign but would prevent the player from becoming filthy rich (perhaps five is too much though).

It sounds like an interesting idea to try but i personally dont know the means to implement it.

[Jxrc]

Taking out some more money from the rich provinces to reduce overall money in the map also favors the AI, because the player has to work to make his lands yield profit as the AI needs to do. In vanilla as it stands the player is well aware which provinces to take and which to leave which makes it very easy gaining all the rich areas of the map and then use the huge amounts of cash to overopwer the AI in terms of quantity but most in terms of quality.

Makes sense but it seems that it could lead to some surprising result if the evening of the disparities is not "regional". The exemple you give is fine but if the evening is made on a worldwide basis some faction with many provinces designed to be rather poor (HRE, Russia) would be hugely advantaged compared to the situation in vanilla. If all steppe provinces generate half the agricultural income of Flanders, it will be quite good to be the Tsar.

My 2 cents would thus be that the evening should be made on a regional basis and to make it inside groups such as:

- Scandinavia;
- HRE land (- lorraine, Provence and Burgundy + prussia + pomerania + Poland + Silesia);
- Russia;
- Balkans (Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldovia, Wallachia, Constantinople)
- Asia minor (everything between the lines Nicea/trebizond and Tripoli/Syria)
- maghred (eveyting between Morroco and Palestine/Arabia)
- Iberic peninsula
- France (brittany, Flanders, champagne, toulouse, Anjou, Aquitaine, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence and Burgundy)
- Italy (+corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Malta)

Perhpas that's already what you had in mind. Apologies if I just stated the obvious

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

Fascinating discussion, you guys!

I also note Gollum wrote, "The reason the Hungarians were a good case of observation in several of my early Russian campaigns is that:...2. they cannot crusade and hence they last longer because they are spared the influence hits of failed crusades and civil wars..."

which might explain why a Hungarian crusade caused my XL+Tyb Venetians Early Expert GA campaign to freeze until I edited out their ability to build the Chapter House and rolled back to an earlier save.

Personally I am of the opinion that MTW's naval and trade 'artifices' add more to the game than they take away. I particularly like the fact that, in mid to late game, income generation is highly dependant on avoiding being at war, so as to maintain trade relations. This acts as a brake on the player simply rampaging about - which does not appeal to me. I almost always play GA for that same reason.

I don't like the idea of preventing movement of ships between certain sea zones. I experienced this once when playing a version of Wes' mod. It just did not 'work' for me, and really intruded into my enjoyment of the campaign.

Quick question please: is there a way of editing a file/s mid game which would, in effect, allow the player to transfer sums from his treasury to an AI faction's? Do you see where I'm going with this? I really like the idea of being able to finance another faction/s so that they, in effect, become my proxies in a war against a common enemy.

The fact that the Papacy can do this may or may not be relevant.

Cheers
Victor

[gollum]

Originally posted by Jxrc
Makes sense but it seems that it could lead to some surprising result if the evening of the disparities is not "regional". The exemple you give is fine but if the evening is made on a worldwide basis some faction with many provinces designed to be rather poor (HRE, Russia) would be hugely advantaged compared to the situation in vanilla. If all steppe provinces generate half the agricultural income of Flanders, it will be quite good to be the Tsar.

This is indeed an important point. My appraoch is that although the disparities need to be even out there have to be provinces that are more valuable than others and also geographical departments (cllections of adjacent provinces) again need to have disparities; France should be more valuable than England for example.

The areas that need tempering the most for me are the Iberian peninsula, the middle east and Italy. Also certain provinces that are very rich comercially are also too productive in agr. terms: Constantinople, Venice, Antioch/Tripoli, Cordoba/Leon/Aragon/Valencia, Sicily, Egypt. Many of them need to retain their status but in a smaller proportion by shedding some of their agr. income to other less agr. productive areas imo.

My 2 cents would thus be that the evening should be made on a regional basis and to make it inside groups such as:

- Scandinavia;
- HRE land (- lorraine, Provence and Burgundy + prussia + pomerania + Poland + Silesia);
- Russia;
- Balkans (Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldovia, Wallachia, Constantinople)
- Asia minor (everything between the lines Nicea/trebizond and Tripoli/Syria)
- maghred (eveyting between Morroco and Palestine/Arabia)
- Iberic peninsula
- France (brittany, Flanders, champagne, toulouse, Anjou, Aquitaine, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence and Burgundy)
- Italy (+corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Malta)

Perhpas that's already what you had in mind. Apologies if I just stated the obvious

Interesting approach - just try it out, its easy to do.

Originally posted by victorgb
which might explain why a Hungarian crusade caused my XL+Tyb Venetians Early Expert GA campaign to freeze until I edited out their ability to build the Chapter House and rolled back to an earlier save.

It may or it may not. I think that all Catholic factions can be made to crusade with the right modding. There might be an error in the files.

Quick question please: is there a way of editing a file/s mid game which would, in effect, allow the player to transfer sums from his treasury to an AI faction's? Do you see where I'm going with this?

One thing that you can do is play with the -ian mode on. This allows you to switch factions (not all of them - only the ones represented in the number keys afaik) in the middle of the game and then you could add money to them with the money cheat.

What you suggest can be made in RTW directly from the command prompt i think, and also indirectly by gifting money from your treasury to other factions using diplomats. You can even go as far as making a money giving script as the EB guys have done. As far as i know there is no such function in MTW.