Rebalancing IR with some ideas of my own for science, and experiment

[CaptinObvious]

So after posting this thread here, I decided to do an experiment; I will be changing a lot of balancing stuff in the game to see what actually works and what doesn't

FOR SCIENCE!

Changelog:

Oratory inventions

increase warscore reduction from inventions to -30%/-20%/-20% rather than -5%.

/Oratory inventions

00-defines

Pushed end date to 870/8/8.

increased PI cap to 1000.
increased starting PI to 200.

Reduced great power threshold to 300.

removed call for peace, as it never made sense for the period, and does not work well with IR's wars in the first place.

Increased number of potential missions by one.

I did not increase pop food requirement since I have no idea how will this affect the AI.

Increased exp effect from 30% to 50% reduction of damage.

Increased base morale damage from 2 to 3 to speed up battles.

Increased CW to 120 (I have no idea what this will do to the UI, but largest battles of the era capped at 80k v 80k, 120 seems like a good idea).

Decreased the base casualty ratio of assaults to 5:1 from 10:1(!!!), assault dice modifier to 3 from 5, and max breaches to 3 from 1, and assault width to 5 from 1.

Increased attrition on food consumption to 20% from 10%.

Increased flank size from 2/5/10 to 4/10/20.

Removed extra time for enforcing peace from rank.

Subjects no longer care about AE.

Removed AE impact on opinion, people just dgaf back then.

it seems that the code for gold from peace deals is still here, no idea how to enable it though.

Increased base kids per couple to 4 from 2, king and heir can have an extra child each, and ideal kids per family to 6 from 4.

Increased disloyalty threshold to 40 from 33, wrong religion characters no longer have -10 loyalty, this is the ancient world, not the crusades.

Families are no grateful for extra jobs, not just from double and above (greedy a-holes).

AI now waits two years instead of 18 months to reask about the same thing.

AI no longer awaits 18 months to start doing stuff (now one month)

/00-defines


Units

I will not be changing how much food they consume, as I have no idea how will this affect the AI, but I will reduce their carrying capacity.

Archers now 25% better against HA, can only carry one-year worth of food.

HC now only carry 6 months worth of food.

HI now 10% less effective vs War Elephants, only carry 6 months of food.

HA now 15% better vs Elephants, only carry 6 months worth of food.

LI now 25% better vs Elephants, can only carry one year worth of food.

Supply Train now moves at a speed of 1 from 2.5, can only carry 2/5 as much.

War elephants now 25 worse than LI, HA, and Archers, now carry 3 months of food, down from 3.33333[...]


Territory ranks

Settlements no longer have 75%(!!!) slower migrations.
Settlements now have 5% citizen ratio.
Settlements now have 45% freemen ratio.
Settlements now have 50% slaves ratio.

/Territory ranks

Terrain

Mountains now have 3 dice roll form 2.

Marshes now have 2 dice roll from 1, now have 1 attrition.

/Terrain

Subjects

there is a strange line here (has_overlords_ruler = no), no idea what's the intent with it was, since it's unused (= no everywhere).

Tribal vassals can now be integrated, can't cancel, no longer useless.

Feudatories now have 500% more expensive armies, they did not have the privilege of building their own armies, instead, they pay all manpower to overlord.

/Subjects

Prices from script

Triumphs no longer cost an arm and a leg, 2 scaled cost from 6, and no longer costs stab (this makes no fricking sense).

Roman roads are now free, normal roads no cost 10 gold to build.

Tributaries now pay 25% of income.

Fuedatories now pay all of their manpower, as they did historically.

Tribal vassals now pay 25% of manpower.

Satraps now 30% of income and manpower.

Clients now also pay 15% manpower.

Cities and Metros no cost half as much PI

/Prices from script

Prices from Hardcoded (no Idea what 'hardcoded means in this context, since it not read-only, and I can just change it).

Inventions now cheaper, since most of them weren't worth it, and the ones that were getting buried by the ones that weren't.

Changing pantheon now costs PI rather than stab (25 PI).

Governor policy change is now free, because frick them.

Monarchies now more unstable after succession, nobody buys that the new guy's promise to be nice.

Republics no longer destabilised on election, that's like the whole point pal, why so spoked?.

/Prices from Hardcoded

Pops

freemen now pay 0.015 tax, rather than the zilch that they paid in the past.

/Pops

Diplomatic stances.

Neutrality now adds 3 diplo slots from 1, now actually useful.

Appeasement increased to 0.5% from 0.2% extra AE reduction (no Idea why Chamberlain thought that this was a good idea)

Warmongering stance now Reduces Warscore costs by 20%, army maintenance by 15%, but decrease AE decay by 0.3% (You gain AE on it).

Vassalingstance now four times as fast for integration (1 from 0.25), and increases loyalty by 15 (up from 10).

/Diplomatic stances


Edit: someone has requested the file, so I will just post my common (where the modified data is) here for posterity

 

[CaptinObvious]

One:

These changes are made in the files in the common folder with the accompanying name.

Imperatorrome folder -> Game -> Common -> tagged name

So diplo stances are in the diplo_stances folder.

They are mostly arranged as they appeared in said .txt file, so the line for "Triumphs no longer cost an arm and a leg, 2 scaled cost from 6, and no longer costs stab (this makes no fricking sense)." comes before the line for "Roman roads are now free, normal roads no cost 10 gold to build." it means that the former comes before the latter in the .txt file.

Multiple lines of changes to code have been merged together in one log depending on how close they were (in intent and in terms of in-file distance), units were each put in their own files, so I've merged changes in each unit file to one line here.

level of specificity given is level of specificity meant. I did not change anything outside of the mentioned files in the log to help accompany the change in other changes, if two changes have similar effects, this was separate.

And finally, these changes were done sequentially, from first chapter to last, with no relation.

 

[CaptinObvious]

Two:

I will be playing a full campaign in this rebalanced mode, and I will be posting notes and results here every 50 odd Years in the campaign.

I will be playing as BYZ, however, after launching the game, I saw that their heritage gave -10% land morale, making an almost impossible start even harder for no reason, in exchange, they got very crappy bonuses, so I changed their heritage to

-15% ship maintenance cost (they had a large enough navy to where Antigonos tried to woo them to aid him into crossing against Lysimachos, they refused and he couldn't do anything)
+25 fort defence (the golden horn is very defensible)

and I gave them 25% more expensive stabbing up.


I will begin the experiment now, 2020/06/15 and continue until either I finish, or 1.5 'Menander' drops, expected to be somewhere this month.

 

[CaptinObvious]

Three:

Starting situation:

BYZ starts in a precarious yet enticing spot, which is why I chose it, it has access to a variety of trade goods, with a strong starting culture for the region (Thracian, which is Greek and big, for some reason), It is surrounded by two big bois, Antigonos, and Lysimachos, playing these two off of each other will be key.

We also start with three open to exploitation neighbours, Chalcedon, city of the blind, Bithnya, which would go own to found a Hellenistic kingdom IRL, be an ally of Rome, then got Annexed by the times of Ceasar, and Heraclea Pontica, which houses the last Achaemenids.

Our starting ruler is a familiar face, Kaisarjohan's vanity character, ex IR programmer, now works on something secret, as a character he's fine, but only 8 martial isn't that great for such a difficult start, no matters, I will start here and post the first update (part four in 500, most likely tomorrow)

I should add I won't be starting in ironman

 

[CaptinObvious]

Part four: Huge success!

Easiest BYZ ever, I got so lucky with everything, Thrace fought a bunch, and then became ally-less, and I conquered Europa and the Thracian bits of Rhodope, preparing a 2nd campaign, using Odrysia.

So far, changes are working as intended, The slow down of trains means they have to detach, otherwise, it's so slow.

Lowering of food cap seems to work, as logistics aren't as easy, though still too much for my taste.

Biggest one so far is raising the disloyalty threshold to 40 from 33, this caused some trouble, and because you cant combine armies I had to force an assault, luckily, they are no longer BS, but still heavy on casualties.

Logged 464/12/27.

Slaves are rare, this is good, they were valuable, but still, too rare, I should have made it so that farms/slavestates/mines change slave ratio to 100%.

I have no idea where the base 4% for tribesmen is (nor do I have an idea how to make it so that they have the standard 50/50 tribal split), so all tribes will look civilised people.

Logged 466/1/1.

Battles seem quicker, though less then what I have assumed from increasing base morale dmg to 3 from 2, perhaps bigger battles are needed to observe an effect?

Logged 472/2/16.

I just noticed the battle UI, it broke, it doesn't display any units, I have no idea if the change to CW worked, and I just barely won a battle thanks to an allied intervention, manpower is totally depleted, I have to peace out.

Logged 473/6/7.

During the last war, Armenia, an ally, got attacked by the Seleukids, I thought I can just ignore this, but Makedon, probably seeing me at war with the Big Blue Blob luckily, I swapped a worthless ally, Amisos, for a useful one, Tribalia, this won't be easy.

Logged 474/10/10.

Reminder for an experiment: is it faster to do reorg, then force march, force march, then recover normally, or just walking there (test for how long it takes for the low morale army to reach it's destination in full fighting shape).

Logged 475/2/1.

I had to recruit some mercs, and judging by my income and desperate situation, I was a choosing beggar, so I had to settle for this.

The fort of Abdera is the only thing standing between me and total defeat...this will be ugly.

Logged 475/10/1.

Allies started this before I'm ready...battle is yellow...it's do or die.

Logged 475/10/17.

[REDACTED]

Logged 476/2/6.

Tactical panic attack by the mercs on Adbera saves the day, the Makedonians are now trapped behind my lines...bust still behind my lines.

Logged 476/10/13.

VICTORY!!!

Makedon will cede Thasos, Neapolis Thrake, and Philippi!

PRAISE NIKE, ATHENA, AND ARES!!!

TACTICAL MERC PANICKING FTW!

(side note, whatever it is that I did, seems to make the AI more aggressive)

Logged 477/4/18.

Aftermath of the first war vs Makedon, I am keeping the mercs on the payroll, I need more manpower, and I need more forts.

Logged 477/11/15.

Finish what I started more than 25 years ago, Thrace, Isolated, and dow to nothing, their time is at an end.

I just pulled this ridiculous manoeuvre to supply my mercs, so a few notes:

1) I should be able to give food without merging.
2) AI needs to be hardcoded to build forts on it's capital territory.
3) Forts should block straight crossings for ships.

Massively reducing food carrying capacity seems to be a big nerf to mercs.

Logged 481/2/21.

I have annexed Thrace...so time to clean up this mess...I have to backstab my ally, and since I want to try out my improved vassals (really should've removed the disloyalty from AE) I have to fight them twice (Because god forbid you both take land and vassalise)

I am no longer as strapped for manpower, so time to disband the mercs.

Logged 482/11/03.

I am making a note of what I need here:

1) Build up the Iron, Stone, and Gold mines of the western parts of my demesne as it stands.

2) Increase the size of the army to 20HI/8HC and 2 Trains.

3) Build all urban centres to max.

4) Boost goods produced for export.

5) Further increase manpower base.

Logged 483/10/27.

WAR!

The Antigonids are on the prowl.

This will be a mess.

Logged 485/2/1.

The Getae offered an alliance...the war is no longer as desperate.

It seems that the 500% more expensive armies for subjects aren't working, no idea why.

Logged 485/12/1.

HUGE SUCCESS (totally first try) province of Bithynia Superior taken from the FRIDGE!

Logged 487/3/3.

I did some digging, Feuds weren't paying 500% extra for subjects, will fix.

Logged 487/6/1.

I fixed Feuds not paying more, for some reason the game translates 500 to 5000% (with hilarious results), they aren't disbanding their armies,
no idea why, will remove one zero.

Logged 487/8/7.

My best general, 'Berisades Rekiperid' know as the Violent, got demented, he was a 12 martial general, a very troublesome fellow, very disloyal, he served and harmed in near equal measure.

Logged 488/4/28

I will betray my ally Moesia, this will be done by attacking their ally, Olbia, the army has been built to strength (20HI/8HC).

Logged 497/9/10

Huge success!

The first 50 years of the game has bassed, and with it, invaluable data about how my ideas work!

These first fifty years have been totally successful, in both game sense and experiment.

The most important observation was that my thoughts on food for armies work!
towards the end of the game, I waged my first two-front war, one overseas, and one closer to home, both were logistically challenging, the halving of army carry capacity and slowing down of trains has the intended effect! it is no longer a boring no brainer, but instead, wagons must be detached and microed to ensure that armies don't starve, capturing of the local supply source is a huge coup, sieges can now be actually failed, as food runs out in less than a year, necessitating actually routing wagons for suppling sieges, and then dropping them for battle, and then picking them back for sieges, this is a glorious success! as there is risk to detaching them for speed, and bringing them for sieging can slow you down and make you vulnerable, or you can actually run out of food and lose the siege!

on a side note, this makes guerrilla warfare an actual thing (if only the AI did it).

I encourage the devs to look at this success and rebalance food for armies in a similar vein.

many other changes take to long to notice their effect during the first 50 years.

like for example:

changing CW to 120, I have no idea if this actually worked, since the UI for it broke.

Halfing of food resources, no city is big enough yet to actually see the effect.

Still too small to see if making governor policy free was a good idea.

Changes to settlements made slaves soo much rarer, which is good, but I don't know how to make it totally dependant on buildings. <-DONE!

I also need to fix it for tribals, so that they start with 50/50 tribesmen/slaves, rather than what the rest of the civilised world starts with.

Feuds did not work as I intended, but I fixed the issue.

the rebalance to stances is irrelevant, trading stance is still too strong.

I have made it so that building now completely determine the ratios of pops in settlements, this was not easy, as whoever programed it didn't account for either total territory overhaul, or integer overflow, and with how weirdly it's calculated, this was a pain to fix, but now it looks like this:

Slave estates, Farms, and mines now have 100% slave ratio.

Barracks now give 100% freemen ratio.

tribal settlements now have 100% tribesmen ratio.

Logged 500/1/1 2020/6/15

This is the common file ver2

notes:

Fixed Feuds not paying extra for armies.
Made settlement pop ratio totally dependant on buildings.

 

[bigdaddytyrone]

I was playing using this too. Very enjoyable.

 

[antrachton]

"Removed AE impact on opinion, people just dgaf back then " - they dgaf even today, they are just on facebook getting deranged

 

[CaptinObvious]

"Removed AE impact on opinion, people just dgaf back then " - they dgaf even today, they are just on facebook getting deranged

well, at least officially...

 

[CaptinObvious]

Five: grim realisations...

I just had to stop an offensive because I ran out of food, this never happened in the base game.

I need to both take territory and vassalise.....why do you hate us devs??

Logged 500/12/28.

I just concluded my war with Olbia and Moesia, due to the stupid blocking to taking both land and visualisation, I had to annex the whole of Moesia (wanted them as tribal vassal) and annexe most of Oliba and liberate Tyras (I wanted a Feud).

Phrygia is being hammered by the Seleukids, I should attack Athens for the Islets attached to Rhodope.

Logged 501/12/31.

The siege of Imbros is going poorly, I have forgotten about my wagons, and the straits were being blocked by passing navies, I lost more than 3000 men due to this erroneous error.

Logged 503/2/2.

Makedon just allied Phrygia....

Logged 503/6/23.

The war didn't go that well, but I actually managed to enforce peace for once in my over 900 hours, removing the extra weight per rank was the right choice.

Logged 506/6/1.

removing the negative opinion form AE made trade a thing past the first month of the game.

Posthumously logged 507/9/15 since I forgot to save this line.

Effects from food are starting to kick in...maybe I should've made trade investment cheaper?

Logged 509/1/1.

I have located a suitable coalition of tribals to attack, this will net me with the tribal vassal that I wanted.

Logged 510/3/1.

I am fighting some tribal backwater, this sounds like it should be easy....but the logistics have slowed what was once a pointless brainless blitzkrieg into a crawl, my rebalance of food has the intended effect, if I had the manpower, I would totally make a light stack that can actually handle the lack of food and plentitude of forts.

Logged 512/11/21.

Time to pull that rediculous Danube manoeuvre again...

Logged 513/1/22.

Shipping logistics are now a thing, now that I am on the banks of the Danube, I can ferry wagons to feed my armies besieging Danubian forts.

Logged 513/9/19.

First vassal, Potulatensia.

Logged 514/9/21.

I just lost 2 wagons to an ambush in the Carpathians....this will hamper the war effort severely...I guess I got what I asked for.

Logged 515/11/10.

Begging the long proses of adjusting vassal borders....we need a method of giving territories and provinces to subjects that isn't this painful.

Logged 517/5/16.

Time to invade Taurica, I don't expect this to be that eventful, might finally gain some Fueds.

Logged 519/5/23

Welp, it's a total mess, my army is so heavy I bearly have enough food storage to last long enough for one back and forth trip with the wagons...HC is totally non-viable now in low supply and medium terrain, or anywhere where you can't just jump the provincial capital, should probably buff them in battle.

I also need to invest in a light formation, because 6 base food consumption/month on 200% extra consumption for unit type is a nightmare.

Logged 523/6/4.

Oratory tech 6.

this is where the -30% warscore cost is, this is where the fun begins.

Logged 524/1/4.

Makedon is starting this **** again, luckily, I can hire some serious mercage.

Logged 524/11/17.

First wave of Hexeres is coming online...this might not be as bad as I thought.

Logged 525/3/17.

The war in the Bospran is ramping down, but the MaKedonians are at the gates....but I have formidable gates, let them come, for the will not wash their hands in Hellespont!

Logged 526/4/16.

Amphipolis has fallen! the road to Pella is wide open!

Logged 526/6/27.

The siege of Pella has begun! there is nowhere to run!

fire and brimstone will be wrought upon the Makedonians!

Logged 527/5/29.

Pella is mine!

Logged 527/6/30.

Heyyyy the battle UI finally showed up.....

Logged 527/7/16.

Makedon turned out to be a tough nut to crack...in the end, I only got Chalkidiki and Emathia...still a victory...but a very costly one....

Logged 528/5/27.

Time to experiment with cheaper cities....I am beginning to regret making PI this plentiful...but on the other hand, governor policies had to go...

Logged 529/1/22.

come to think of it, Adbera no longer needs three forts, should delete two.

Logged 530/8/18.

These missions are dumb, but the rewards are nice, and I can always just demolish these buildings.

Logged 532/1/5.

Time to take this whole 'lOgisTIcs sHoUlD MAteR' circlejerk of mine I always spout, time to build light armies for fighting where attrition is ruff.

Logged 534/3/27.

I have discovered the Modiferes/00.hadcoded file, this is a glorious day! Thanks to @Samitte for telling me where it is!

I will start hacking at it after 550, so version 3.

Logged 534/6/10.

New model army:

Due to the hilarious attrition caused by HC, I have decided to build some LC to help fight in low supply terrain, new army.

32HI.
8HC.
20LC.
6ST.

Army divisions:
2 * 10 LC Fights in Taurica.
16 HI + 8 HC.
12 HI + 2 ST.
2 * 4 HI + 4 ST, logistical train.


I will now be fighting a large coalition of many minors everywhere.

Logged 535/4/14.

I should cut back on the reproduction rate....

Logged 537/6/19.

This supply army thing doesn't work, it drags too much fighting power from the front lines....maybe LI?

Logged 538/8/1.

HC is absolutely worthless, they eat so much, weigh so much, carry so little, but they don't fight as well, they need a buff.

Logged 540/12/21.

So that was a disaster....attrion weight from uint type should be removed, there are no places where an 8 HC, 16 HI army can stand, and with logistics being an actual issue...it is a recipe for disaster.

Logged 545/5/7.

For costal fighting, a fast logistics fleet seems like a good idea.

Logged 545/10/17.

Grim realisations:

1) It appears that I did not account for the extra unit weight for attrition, this caused food capacity meant for 6-12 months while wagons go and fetch more
to deplete in two or three, this made HC totally non-viable, I also wish that ships can carry food with them.

2) Big powers still have too much manpower and gold, should make their costs scale with rank.

3) There are way too many characters, slowing down performance soo much, I should reduce fecundity.

I will start to work on the 3rd iteration today, but probably won't finish it until tomorrow, the second 50 have netted even more data than what I expected.

Logged 550/1/1 2020/6/16.

 

[bigdaddytyrone]

I noticed that although food wasn't that much of a problem for me my units were so heavily slowed down by supply trains that I had to make a pure cav army for actually fighting people because the enemies always run around me when I try to fight.

 

[CaptinObvious]

Six: VERSION 3!

So I had noticed several issues from the OG post 100 years into the game, chiefly

1) Food did not work as I anticipated, as the extra weight modify was a non-issue in the past, as food itself was, so armies burned half a year's supply in 2 months.

2) way too many characters.

So the notes are:

Defines

Reduced integration cost to 0.75 from 1 per pop to encourage vassal play.

Reduced years for max manpower, not everyone is born at once (15 from 20).

Reduced base years for tech, now you can actually finish before the end date (18 from 20, should be fourteen, but I already changed the end date).

Changed combat damage multiplier to 3% from 2.4%.

Naval commanders can now actually get some recognition for their service (popularity factor to 0.05 from 0.025).

You now need 5k men per fort (same as combat width).

Reduced base kids to 2.5, no idea how will the game interpret this (king Solomon perhaps?).

Heir now back to only one extra kid (king still at three, because why let civil war get in the way of having some fun?).

Ideal kids per family down to 4.

Families now want more jobs for extra loyalty (150% of demand, rather than any extra)

You will now be notified earlier about province issues (250 food warning, and a 12 months for disloyalty warning).

Provinces now disloyal at 40 (like characters).

/Defines

Diplo stances

Neutrality now gives 5% cheaper build cost.

Appeasement now better (1% from 0.5%).

Trading nerfed (only 15% better income, but 50% cheaper routs instead of 40%).

warmonger now gives 0.75% ae/month, but armies now 20% cheaper on it.

vassalage now 20 loyalty from 15.

/Diplo stances

Economic policies

High taxation now actually useful (20% extra tax from slave output).

/economic policies

Modifiers

Slaves now extra unhappy for being denied freedom (settlement buildings mostly fix this).

Civilised pops now slightly less happy for just existing in a civilised place (what have the Romans ever done for US!)(no idea if I should keep the modifier, it's soo cheesy) 0.0075 from 0.01 for citizens, 0.005 from 0.007 for freemen.

Population now grants extra supply limit (no idea why it's here, we have food, which is what attrition should be balanced around, not supply limit) 0.75 per pop from 0.5.

Exp decay from battle now -0.075 from -0.05.

Sieges now give -0.035 exp decay from -0.03, and monthly xp gain of 0.15 from 1.

Land morale now has a base recovery of 2.5% from 1%.

Base ae reduction now 0.0015 from 0.002.

Rebellion now harder to avoid (0.15 from 0.2).

Base mill XP down to 0.2 from 0.3, not only is there a bug that makes drilling free, but it's xp, not divination. <-ignore this, I removed it completely

Army XP now solely gained from unit XP.

Dip rep now helps integration more, 0.1 from 0.05.

WE no slightly more threatening (despite making no sense for the era) unhappiness to 0.03 form 0.025.

Subjects now totally dgaf about AE.

AE no longer slows claim fabrication (because why stop your pointless warmongering?)

Starting from rank 3, you will gain progressively less manpower recovery, and a more expensive army:

Rank 3: 10% extra maintenance and -10% manpower recovery.
Rank 4: 25% extra maintenance and -25% manpower recovery.
Rank 5: 50% extra maintenance and -50% manpower recovery.

This should help with the late game bloat, I wish I could make it more gradual, but I can't.

Finally fixed the issue with tribesmen (tribes now have the normal 50/50 tribesmen slave split).

Buildings

Fixed a weird rounding issue that was caused by a base of 5% slaves messing the nice-ness of ratios.

Buffed training camp, 0.25 from 0.10

Foundry now just extra output, up to 5%, still weak, unless in absurd numbers

Buffed the worthless economical buildings, markets now 25 gold, and give 35% extra commerce, same for Tax Office.

Courts now also bost commerce and tax income (20%), since more law and order = more petty crimes to hold people over more trade, in a pathetic attempt at making them worthwhile, also now 25 gold (should I make them give slave happiness?).

Granary now 75 from 50, 150 food from 200, was plain too OP.

Mills now make slaves happier, 0.05 from 0.03, to account for extra anger from blocking freedom.

temple and theatre now 5% happiness from 3%

Aqueducts now have 0.1 gold cost maintenance.

should I do this for almost all building? and make it so that tax offices and markets pay for other buildings???

/Building

Offices

Praetor now slightly less good at making AE go away, as appeasement has been buffed.

/Offices

Subjects

Tribals now join you in war.

Feuds had their navy rights revoked! (5000% ship upkeep).

/Subjects

Units

Completely removed unit weight modifier, it messes with my carefully laid calculations! (except war elephants)

Buffed HC against light units (1.5 VS LI, 1.6 VS Archers. 1.3 VS LC,)

HI now carry 8 months of food.

LC now carry 12 months worth of supply to represent foraging.

Increased flanking range to account for extra CW (except HI and WE)

 

[CaptinObvious]

I noticed that although food wasn't that much of a problem for me my units were so heavily slowed down by supply trains that I had to make a pure cav army for actually fighting people because the enemies always run around me when I try to fight.

1) where were you fighting? I had serious issues with attrition weigh, it completely messes HC to the point of worthlessness. ,<- fixed in V3
2) you can just detach wagons, HI still have 2.5 map movement, and now 8 months worth of supply!
3) If you have any suggestions, ideas, or critiques, then please inform me

 

[bigdaddytyrone]

1) where were you fighting? I had serious issues with attrition weigh, it completely messes HC to the point of worthlessness. ,<- fixed in V3
2) you can just detach wagons, HI still have 2.5 map movement, and now 8 months worth of supply!
3) If you have any suggestions, ideas, or critiques, then please inform me

1) Anatolia/Levant. I'm going to try the updated version.
2) Thank you.
3) I doubt this is possible with just the files in the game already but limited amount of mercs you can buy by rank?

P.S. Can you integrate tribal vassals yet?

 

[CaptinObvious]

1) Anatolia/Levant. I'm going to try the updated version.
2) Thank you.
3) I doubt this is possible with just the files in the game already but limited amount of mercs you can buy by rank?

P.S. Can you integrate tribal vassals yet?

1) well, that area is just rich enough if you don't use HC

2) I wish I knew how to do this...but I just don't, you will first need a method of tracking how many mercs a nation has, and then simply skyrocket the price if they exed a certain number, then increase the number per rank.

3) I am pretty sure I flipped Tibal vassals to integratable.

 

[CaptinObvious]

V3.1:

Fixed some discrepancies:

Tribals can no longer cancel.

Mill XP is now fully from army XP, no more from base.

 

[CaptinObvious]

Seven: something ends...something begins...

Beginning day three testing.

I am nervous about the game, I am 100 years in out of 420, and I have just made a huge series of changes to the game, I have no idea if it will even work...

Logged 550/1/1 2020/6/17.

Game has not exploded yet....taking a look at stuff:

Manpower banks are large...but recovery is very slow, for example, the Seleukids have 534, Antigonids 350, Egypt 756, Carthage 399, and Rome 826.

Armies are expensive, went from ~10 gold profit/month to -5 on normal upkeep, wars should now be actually expensive.

Makedon is nuked on manpower, totally and utterly spent, with no regen...

Logged 550/1/21.

Time for war against Scythia, Maeotia, and Siracia, it would be interesting to see if I nerfed MP regen too much; I am, however, confidant about the slight changes to logistics.

Logged 550/6/1.

Effects from nerfing food are kicking in, luckily, trade is an actual thing now, rather than just the first month.

Taurica is now fully mine!

I will start working on the rest of the 'Hospitable Sea' sea mission mow.

Logistics are now better, with armies now actually consuming food at the intended rate, instead of 3x as fast, might need to disband more of them, since they're so expensive now.

Logged 553/9/28.

This port was occupied by the Seleukids lmao I gained it from the mission.

It appears that an unintended side effect of boosting base fecundity was making loyalty a non-issue, since all the great families have so many rolls of the dice for good characters, I was spoiled for choice, as I could give them everything and not worry about merit.

Logged 555/8/17


This campaign has been bogged down by constantly changing the balance and my odd luck, I see no other option forward but to attack Phrygia, its 2:1 boys, but with the help of Getia and Armenia this might be possible.

Logged 561/8/23.

Let us try this:

I hold the local food supply, and they have no wagons, so the should run out of food soon...

Logged 562/3/11

We fought a battle, I was the victor, but at 2.5k vs 11k casualties on a 40k vs 27k, who was the real victor?

Logged 562/8/12.

Big battle in Lysimacheia.....40k vs 33k, 4k casualties vs 21K...what ever that little multiplier to casualties does...increasing to from 2.4% to 3% did a lot.

Logged 563/5/4

This is a bit ridiculous.....does anyone know where can I increase AI fort budget?

Logged 564/9/13.

The war with Phrygia turned to be easier than I had imagined, as they were totally depleted, like utterly, all it took was winning two battles and their spine was in two.

I gained a heck tonne from this war, the extra warscore cost reduction is working.

what isn't working, however, is the warmonger stance, as it's not increasing AE like I wanted it to increase it, it appears that the decay modifier doesn't work as I thought, I should change it to a base gain, like support rebels.

The AI seems to not build actual armies, instead, they go with these ridiculous fruit salads, I have a theory as to why, but that's a whole separate animal...

Logged 567/10/11. [the war lasted longer than I thought it would]

Manpower recovery is just too slow for defeated nations, I will increase the revanchism modifier for manpower recovery.

I don't think that this save will be of any use anymore...not only is it kind of broken, but very slow, what with the million extra characters, but I also have a much bigger issue to tackle, Fruit Salad Armies.

I won't carry beyond 600, but there will be one more set of changes.

Logged 570/9/3.

About to do the last wardec for the mission...

I am starting to need to import food everywhere that is even remotely well urbanised, the food rebalance is working, though I am seen a few empty places here and there in the AI, might give it a slight buff.

I should also note that most of my grain is from the Seleukids and Egypt, so that idea of mine basically works.

Logged 573/5/16.

Talk about camouflage....

Logged 573/11/8.

I just finished the 'Hospitable Sea' mission, it was boring AF.

I think I need a new CPU, my r5 1600 just can't handle the beating, the game is slowing to a crawl.

I will stop warring for the rest of the third 50 years and develop my lands.

Logged 576/11/12.

Due to the massive slowdown caused by the overpopulation of characters, I now have to stop this campaign here and now.

Spoiler: Overpop of characters

whoever, I gained valuable data from these 37 years that I have played using the new version, and I will be making a fourth, for now, this project is considered both a complete success and I hereby pronouncing this experiment over.

V4 should come out a few hours after this post goes online, I will then start tackling the AI's penchant for fruit salads, as I believe this to be the biggest issue causing the lack of challenge as of now.

thanks for reading through this.

Captain CaptinObvious.

Logged 587/3/18 2020/6/17.

Spoiler: State of the world

 

[CaptinObvious]

Eight:

V4:

Province ranks

Fixed cities having slighlty incorrect ratios (35 CTZ/ 35 FRE/ 30 SLV from 35 CTZ/ 35 FRE/ 25 SLV)

/ Province ranks

Trade goods

slightly buffed grain and, cattle, and fish to reduce AI starvation (grain to 3 from 2.5, and the rest 2 from 1.5).

/Trade goods

Modifiers

Made revanchism stronger to help beaten AI

Tuned lower manpower recovery from the 2 highest ranks as it was too much (4 to -20% from -25% and 5 to -40% from 50%).

defenders now gain 10% faster manpower recovery speed.

Ruler martial now gives 2% manpower recovery, up from 1%

/Modifiers


Army traditions

Greeks now use HC on wings.

Greeks now use Archers for first rank

Romans now use LI in the first rank

/Army traditions

Governor policy

Borderlands now 30% more manpower from province, up from 25%

Social moblity is no loger hot garabge (250% from 100%)

/Governor policy


This will be the last version, for now, I will try to set the AI to stop building nonsense armies now, either by changing the prices of lower tiers as ranks goes higher, messing with the ai_max_percentage modifier in the files or by actually finding where the heck the code for it is and fixing it.

Thanks for reading.

CaptainObvious

 

[N1ghteyes]

Following this adventure through balancing with interest.

 

[kwarktaart]

Following this adventure through balancing with interest.

same here
this is good stuff

 

[CaptinObvious]

Teaser image for how I plan on fixing fruit salad armies: