One question and one observation

[dakapes]

Hi all,

I have my most -ever- successfull ironman run with Epirus and tryning hard to wc , fighting to the last year.

Observation : I was quite lucky and came up with incredible bloodline mixes , all the combinations you can imagine. Argeads and Aiakides, Argeads and Antigonids, etc. I paid much attention to change the laws , to kill mail children in order to have many of my own and until 640 , the line haas not broken. Well you can imagine my frustration when not even ONE time was I able to get a decent character in terms of the starting ones. Not even a single time , given that all my leaders and heirs had the boost from 2 bloodlines. I literally want to break my laptop , I shout to myself and to paradox for this ridiculous sitiation. Not a single one , even with the maximum bloodlines. I think Paradox should take a look on this. Character mechanics really beg for some really gifted individuals in order for you to take advantage all the available interactions and push these guys to the top . It is so pitty what is happening right now. Also a nation that is doing well should have more chances to get and attract gifted characters , it is just common logic. Enough said on this , really hope someone will notice this. Until then I never bother with bloodlines again and stick to the @religiousphanatic's way ... never marry , never make children , just pick the best of the other nations and push them to the primary heir position

Question : Most of my campaign relied on levies, mostly due to the sacking effect of your ruler. Also I was afraid of the cost of legions. I used legions only for my capital after 570-580 and to be honest I am not sure what are the advantages and disadvantages, or to express it properly where is the balance.
Pros : better troop quality + engineers + building roads + drilling
Cons : Less manuever , increased cost , very very harsh punishement not being able to sack enemy cities.

Am I missing something here ? What is your feeling on this ? I mean if I managed with small epirus on very difficult setup and mostly levies to survive and challenge the game for wc , what is the point of legions? I am really qurious to hear other strategies and opinions on this.

 

[IsaacCAT]

About legion and levies:

Point: historical construction and choice
Why there is so little difference: balance

 

[Todie]

you can imagine my frustration when not even ONE time was I able to get a decent character in terms of the starting ones. Not even a single time , given that all my leaders and heirs had the boost from 2 bloodlines.

One of your starting ones? You mean your heir and their starting stats?

There is a lot of randomness in how stats get generated. I think its one of the drawbacks of monarchies, as you only have characters from one family to work with, and you may be ”stuck with” your firstborn.

I think this is intended to an extent. There are ”bloodlines”, but you can view them as reputations rather than a matter of genetics.

a nation that is doing well should have more chances to get and attract gifted characters , it is just common logic.

Countries with many jobs availabe end up having more characters = a bigger pool that can yield better characters.

I think working with the characters the game gives you is part of the fun... sometimes we tolerate mediocrity, sometimes we resort to tyrannical means to be rid of some of the uselessness and medicority — if we didn’t have to, spotting a good heir or character to lift up wouldn’t be anywhere near as sweet.

 

[religiousphanatic]

Hi all,

I have my most -ever- successfull ironman run with Epirus and tryning hard to wc , fighting to the last year.

Observation : I was quite lucky and came up with incredible bloodline mixes , all the combinations you can imagine. Argeads and Aiakides, Argeads and Antigonids, etc. I paid much attention to change the laws , to kill mail children in order to have many of my own and until 640 , the line haas not broken. Well you can imagine my frustration when not even ONE time was I able to get a decent character in terms of the starting ones. Not even a single time , given that all my leaders and heirs had the boost from 2 bloodlines. I literally want to break my laptop , I shout to myself and to paradox for this ridiculous sitiation. Not a single one , even with the maximum bloodlines. I think Paradox should take a look on this. Character mechanics really beg for some really gifted individuals in order for you to take advantage all the available interactions and push these guys to the top . It is so pitty what is happening right now. Also a nation that is doing well should have more chances to get and attract gifted characters , it is just common logic. Enough said on this , really hope someone will notice this. Until then I never bother with bloodlines again and stick to the @religiousphanatic's way ... never marry , never make children , just pick the best of the other nations and push them to the primary heir position

Question : Most of my campaign relied on levies, mostly due to the sacking effect of your ruler. Also I was afraid of the cost of legions. I used legions only for my capital after 570-580 and to be honest I am not sure what are the advantages and disadvantages, or to express it properly where is the balance.
Pros : better troop quality + engineers + building roads + drilling
Cons : Less manuever , increased cost , very very harsh punishement not being able to sack enemy cities.

Am I missing something here ? What is your feeling on this ? I mean if I managed with small epirus on very difficult setup and mostly levies to survive and challenge the game for wc , what is the point of legions? I am really qurious to hear other strategies and opinions on this.

Heh , i see you have a problem

I will tell you a secret but tell no one. When you dont play , you dont have that problems .

I have discovered plenty of other stuff which look that they are random but they are not, im lazy to explain but got tired of working as intended mechanics . But i must admit that im glad that people are starting to realise the stuff what i was talking about long time ago and maybe something will be fixed in some time cause in my case all of that is the reason why i dont play the game anymore and i dont think i will play it in some time soon .

Cheers

 

[Nostalgium]

Cons : Less manuever , increased cost , very very harsh punishement not being able to sack enemy cities.

While I 100% agree on the sacking bit (I honestly think loyal generals sacking a city should contribute some to the nation as well, or else have Rulers sacking add to the ruler's personal wealth too), can you elaborate on "less maneuver?" One of the reasons I make the switch to Legions towards the lategame is precisely because it allows me to move the army around in a zippy fashion, focusing the professional forces into the region where the campaign is going to be carried out without racking up war exhaustion from raising levies and transporting them across the entire Empire before we're even at war.

 

[dakapes]

@Nostalgium : What I mean is the ability to raise the army in any territory of the province I need them and it is very helpfull to immediatelly fight barbarians. What do you mean "racking up warcore from raising levies..." ? Is there a a connection between warscore and the kind of troops ( levies/legions) that fight ?

@IsaacCAT : Balance is nice , but you also need reasons to make a choice to go right or left . The stronger the reasons , the greater dilemma, the better experience to the user.

@Todie : By starting ones, I mean Pyrrhos. Ok he is super talented but my next leaders did not even come close to his abilities. Have in mind that I also had women as heirs just to have more options . My next 4 -5 leaders did not even had a 2 digit statistic. Do not forget that all of them had 2 bloodlines mixed, a crazy starting boost. Ok the additional bonuses ( eg morale of Aiakides) was nice, but the stats of the people where not what you would expect. And we speak for a nation that rocks in the current game ,is it strange that I would expect better characters? Also what you mention about monarchies is right but I did some good work promoting the heirs I wanted. Every time I was picking and promoting the best of the 4 ... No result, sadly. It is like the game was punishing all my effort to have perfect bloodlines( joking ) .
And what you mention my friend about reputation is not right. All my leaders had a +2 martial initial value. It is just statistics, In a random game , where the range is usually between 5 and lets say 10-12 , plus 2 initial value literally means you ALWAYS should get better martial leader from your opponents. Plus 2 is huge , player puts a lot of effort to make this happen ( suitable marriages , promoting the right guys, make the right wars, spend tons of pi) and this effort should be rewarded.

@religiousphanatic , miss your videos you crazy spartan Still refer to some of your strategies in past versions. Really hope to see you around again

 

[Nostalgium]

What I mean is the ability to raise the army in any territory of the province I need them and it is very helpfull to immediatelly fight barbarians. What do you mean "racking up warcore from raising levies..." ? Is there a a connection between warscore and the kind of troops ( levies/legions) that fight ?

I meant war exhaustion, sorry and also edited. And well, you can still do that even if you have Legions. Usually, Barbarians won't be an issue in your heartlands, and I don't tend to raise Legions from the smaller provinces on the perifery. Generally speaking, I won't raise a Legion unless its max size is at least 15, preferably 20 cohorts.

 

[dakapes]

Yeah you do have a point here . I would propose here maybe legions should have some more powerful tactics , or greater positive advantages when you pick the rigth tactic.

 

[Nostalgium]

Yeah you do have a point here . I would propose here maybe legions should have some more powerful tactics , or greater positive advantages when you pick the rigth tactic.

I think they're in a good place tbh. An indirect benefit is also that you can now completely ignore the Martial stat on your governors, "professionalizing" your civil administration. And you also get the benefits of Honours, which coupled with excellent generals and control over composition can quickly lead to elite forces of heavy cav and horse archers smashing through opposition at 2:1 odds.

 

[Todie]

Ok the additional bonuses ( eg morale of Aiakides) was nice, but the stats of the people where not what you would expect.

Phyrros is indeed extraordinary. I would consider any stat over 5 as decent and over 8 as good.

And what you mention my friend about reputation is not right. All my leaders had a +2 martial initial value.

Well, these were just regular human beings. It's more rational to understand royal bloodline traits as a representation of reverence for the famed ancestry of these characters rather than as some form of super-humans... you can make those in crusader kings using genetically inherited traits.

plus 2 initial value literally means you ALWAYS should get better martial leader from your opponents.

I mean no disrespect but that's simply not how statistics and math works. +2 is significant, but you only got to roll dice for your heir a few times - you were unlucky.

player puts a lot of effort to make this happen ( suitable marriages , promoting the right guys, make the right wars, spend tons of pi) and this effort should be rewarded.

Do you mean a lot of effort in order to get the bloodlines into the family? ... just because it's an option doesn't mean it ought to give a guaranteed payoff.

The game gives you options to tutor your heirs and to boost stats with great wonders, they even slightly increased stat-gain while growing up in a recent patch. I don't know who agrees with you about this being an important issue, but if devs somehow do - what would you do about it? what more would you want? less RNG for bloodline royalty?

If you want more play around bloodlines, I hear there's a popular mod for that Called Bloodlines. I think its this one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999873334

 

[Saladin87]

By starting ones, I mean Pyrrhos. Ok he is super talented but my next leaders did not even come close to his abilities. Have in mind that I also had women as heirs just to have more options . My next 4 -5 leaders did not even had a 2 digit statistic. Do not forget that all of them had 2 bloodlines mixed, a crazy starting boost. Ok the additional bonuses ( eg morale of Aiakides) was nice, but the stats of the people where not what you would expect. And we speak for a nation that rocks in the current game ,is it strange that I would expect better characters? Also what you mention about monarchies is right but I did some good work promoting the heirs I wanted. Every time I was picking and promoting the best of the 4 ... No result, sadly. It is like the game was punishing all my effort to have perfect bloodlines( joking [BGCOLOR=rgb(65, 65, 72)][/BGCOLOR] ) .
And what you mention my friend about reputation is not right. All my leaders had a +2 martial initial value. It is just statistics, In a random game , where the range is usually between 5 and lets say 10-12 , plus 2 initial value literally means you ALWAYS should get better martial leader from your opponents. Plus 2 is huge , player puts a lot of effort to make this happen ( suitable marriages , promoting the right guys, make the right wars, spend tons of pi) and this effort should be rewarded.

Sorry to hear about your court characters' competency problem mate. I've had the same issue in my last playthrough, with Rome. However, my current playthrough is with Epirus and I'm having a hard time picking between characters, most of them are so good, basically my court is full of skilled individuals with 10+ levels. It could be sheer luck and having characters with bloodlines has certainly helped, but I think three things have contributed to this effect, which I've paid attention to during this run as compared to the last. You may already know these but I'll state them just in case,
- To have the "Tutor" official with as high
charisma as possible and with good traits such as founder, scholar, polymath, obsessive, intelligent, good natured, etc. I think the tutor's skill level and traits directly contribute to the growth / development of young characters from all great families. I personally use the "Tutor" interaction on the Tutor to teach my heir what I need them to focus on.
- Build wonders with the education wonder effects which give a chance to add skill points to the court children randomly every month.
- After you annex any nation, before you decide whether to banish, imprison or execute their great families, look at the characters under the "Disloyal Characters" list on your outliner. If you see any interesting characters, just imprison them, release (if their home country doesn't exist anymore they'll stay in your court) and grant citizenship. They'll be super happy from the citizenship and it often offsets the loyalty malus from the annexation.

I hope they help. Good luck.

 

[Herennius]

- Build wonders with the education wonder effects which give a chance to add skill points to the court children randomly every month.

I would like to emphasize this one. Those are my favorite wonder effects - also because the game here clearly communicates the effects in has on the primary stats:

The % might look low, but especially if the wonder is high tier I wouldn't underestimate their impact. As far as I understand, each child will have 11 year roles - and with tier IV, each year roll has 4 sub-roles. If I calculate(*) the average stat increase correctly, we might look at +4.4 increase per trained prime stat in the ideal case of a T4 wonder and a child receiving the full education time span. And average means that the random chance will both create characters were you might see little impact, but also others were you get far more increase than the averagely expected!

(*)

11 times a 8% chance for +1 stat increase = 0.88 averagly expected increase
11 times a 6% chance for +2 stat increase = 1.32 averagly expected increase
11 times a 4% chance for +3 stat increase = 1.32 averagly expected increase
11 times a 2% chance for +4 stat increase = 0.88 averagly expected increase
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= 4.4 in sum

EDIT: Likely the math I did doesn't reflect how this works in game: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tion-wonders-supposed-to-be-this-bad.1466013/ So sadly this appears to be a lot weaker than I thought

 

[dakapes]

Yes it is nice.
But it is a big investment early on , with myriad of things you should take care of. I will try it in some run with the big guys

 

[Bovrick]

I also get the impression that the existence of those wonders has also led to tuning down base stats without them.

 

[MishaTX]

One advantage of legions (as well as the others already mentioned) is that you get to decide on the composition of your army yourself. No more useless garbage light inf milling about haplessly. Instead a solid wall of legionnaires trained and loaded up with all of the bonuses the inventions/traditions/honors can give them. Absolute murder machines! (As they bloody well should be. The moment historical strategy games get "balanced" to the point where every single nation/unit feels the exact same because "muh balance!" and "why can't I conquer the world as the [insert random irrelevant barbarian OPM here]" is usually the moment when said game disappears forever from my hard drive.)