Alright, after a conversation with Bercor and reading many threads about AI expansion with other mods, I decided to make this so we can dictate which factions need to expand where. Every faction needs to expand somewhere, the game is not built for a faction to turtle. It's total war and every faction is trying to rule the world. This can also be tied into certain victory conditions for factions.
I'll go ahead and state my thesis for each faction and their expansion routes.
Rome - They need to want to expand everywhere, beginning with Sicily. With a land bridge between Italy and Sicily, this is possible. In RTH, Philadelphos has Rome at War with Epirus and almost always Rome expands into Sicily and ends up taking it. They then need to also find a way to get into Gaul eventually. Basically, we do not want Rome getting stuck and stop expanding.
Carthage - Should be focused on Sicily and Spain, eventually putting their focus on Italy. Yes they need to be semi concerned with Africa and the Numidians, but Sicily should be of main importance. I wonder if there is a script where if Carthage loses it's last city in Sicily that they automatically turn their focus to Spain and start expanding there? Maybe that's too predictable?
Diadochi Factions - Should all want to recreate Alexander's Empire as Well as own Greek Colonies
Gauls/Germans/Dacians - Should want to control most of Central Europe, Italy, Spain and Greece
Sarmatians - Should want to control most of northern Europe, Eurasia, Bactria/India and even Persia
Iberians - Control Spain and North Africa as well as Gaul?
Numidians - All of Africa, Arabia, Spain
Parthia/Armenia - Old Persian Empire
Pontus - Black Sea and Asia Minor Empire
Greek Cities/Greek States - All of Greece along with it's colonies
Independent Peoples - Either nothing or the entire world
My humble take:
Rome - Agreed. Should start by conquering Sicily, only after turn the attention to North.
Carthage - Sicily, Sardinia and Iberia the pressing matters. That script seems fine to me, after all, realistical, that's what happened and what makes more sense.
Seleucid Empire - Firstly, it should try to defeat the Ptolemies. After that to conquer Anatolia.
Ptolomeic Empire - Same as Seleucids.
Antigonid Empire - Control Greece and the expand east.
Galia/Germania/Dacia - Agreed.
Sarmatia - Agreed.
Iberia - Should just try to conquer Iberian peninsula. In reality, it would be impossible to them to invade the North Africa and the Iberians, in most mods, are overpowered because they conquer the Iberia very fast and then just send stacks through the Pirineus, I hate that. I think Hispania is enough.
Numidia - Control North Africa and maybe, after that, go east. Not Iberia, because they had neither the resources nor the interest to expand to that area.
Parthia/Armenia - Agreed.
Pontus - Agreed.
Greek Cities - Agreed.
Independent Peoples - The all world is ours!
I think Carthage should have taking southern Italy very much on the priority list as well - after all, that was Hannibal's strategy to keep Rome cooped up.
Agreed with everything, but my own two percents for the Ptolemies/Seleucid problem: Yes, historically their priorities were to go at each other'S throat. Nevertheless, would that be good for our campaign? In most other mods I've seen where the two factions set this priority one quickly wipes out most of the other (assumed both are AI controlled) and that is not only bad for balance issues, but also for the human player who might be disappointed when one of the factions is already destroyed before he could even see them.
Balancing the Seleucids will be one of the biggest challenges anyway and it would be good if the Seleucid fringe territories could be made weaker and their priorities set on defending or recovering them.
Quote from: Mausolos of Caria on January 30, 2014, 09:47:11 PM
Agreed with everything, but my own two percents for the Ptolemies/Seleucid problem: Yes, historically their priorities were to go at each other'S throat. Nevertheless, would that be good for our campaign? In most other mods I've seen where the two factions set this priority one quickly wipes out most of the other (assumed both are AI controlled) and that is not only bad for balance issues, but also for the human player who might be disappointed when one of the factions is already destroyed before he could even see them.
Balancing the Seleucids will be one of the biggest challenges anyway and it would be good if the Seleucid fringe territories could be made weaker and their priorities set on defending or recovering them.
I see your point and I agree with it. That's why I believe we should eventually create some kind of an anti-snowball effect, both for the player and AI. We need a mechanism that slows down the rhytm of expansion and gives smaller factions a chance when fighting bigger ones.
Mmh, maybe something like the Large Empie Tax on RTR VII? Although I think it's maybe a bit extreme.
But yeah, historically Ptolemies and Seleucids also neutralized each other for a long time and so, effectively, spent a lot of time on defending and recovering fringe territories, buth neutralizing is hard to achieve in the game. I'm not a modder or coder but I will have huge respect for the guy who manages to find an effective solution ;)
Quote from: Mausolos of Caria on January 30, 2014, 11:17:30 PM
Mmh, maybe something like the Large Empie Tax on RTR VII? Although I think it's maybe a bit extreme.
But yeah, historically Ptolemies and Seleucids also neutralized each other for a long time and so, effectively, spent a lot of time on defending and recovering fringe territories, buth neutralizing is hard to achieve in the game. I'm not a modder or coder but I will have huge respect for the guy who manages to find an effective solution ;)
Well, a growing empire tax it's a must, it would simulate the corruption and difficulty of coordenation inherent to a big empire. Right now, in any mod, if you control 20 settlements you are swimming in gold and, as such, are unstopabble. This is due to the very rudimentar Total War economic system. In reality, you can have a giant empire and even so go in debt. It would be amazing if we could create a interesting and challenging late game for the player. Just some food for thought.
For example, this guy is playing Europa Barbarorum with Casse, 50 years into the game and he controls the British Isles (7 barbarian settlements):
(http://gyazo.com/43be882f47f857d6b66832bf0ce48ec9.png)
Look at his income. It's just completely ridiculous! Now it's just gonna be a peacefull walk through the game, stomping everyone that opposes to him. No realism, no challenge.
Also, look at the Ptolemies. They just gobbled up the Seleucids...
That might have something to do with the whole AI being bad at naval invasions, allowing you to stay safe.
Generally if you try something like that, your land neighbors will go nuts and keep sending stacks of more and more elite troops and grind you down.
With water in the way, you can usually intercept them. Like it'll stack 20 units of ubertroops onto one little boat and you can sink them all.
Quote from: Alavaria on January 31, 2014, 02:49:10 AM
That might have something to do with the whole AI being bad at naval invasions, allowing you to stay safe.
Generally if you try something like that, your land neighbors will go nuts and keep sending stacks of more and more elite troops and grind you down.
With water in the way, you can usually intercept them. Like it'll stack 20 units of ubertroops onto one little boat and you can sink them all.
True, but my point still remains. In my opinion, taking in account the game context, nobody should have that much money. I will eventually work in inflation script to put the things in order.
Now an extreme example of blitzkrieg tactics:
(http://gyazo.com/5c025e5c0b9d0bdfa148d7b15a1e611c.png)
This should be simply impossible. In no way would any empire in the Antiquity be capable of conquering and control half Europe in only 50 years. This is the type of things that we have to fight if we want to make justice to our name
Rome Total Realism.
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 02:55:40 AM
Now an extreme example of blitzkrieg tactics:
(http://gyazo.com/5c025e5c0b9d0bdfa148d7b15a1e611c.png)
I agree with your point about balancing out income, I can't remember which mod it was but they had a system set up where building trade and tax oriented buildings like docks, markets, and forums would give you income (with things like markets giving a negative health bonus due to those places being meeting areas where disease could easily spread) but building government projects like barracks, roads, sewers, bathhouses, theaters etc. would give you negative income "bonuses" to represent the cost of running and maintenance so you would have to balance out your buildings and couldn't just click spam the list or you could very well drive your city into negative income. You would have to build your city up economically first before you could build it up militarily, like it should be. It would also require you have a few cities devoted to purely economic purposes if you wanted to have some cities dedicated to building the best troops.
As for blitzing, that's a hard issue to tackle since from what I understand it involves exploiting the flawed AI by attack cities behind those that border your territory as the AI doesn't really defend cities not bordering any other factions. The only way I could see this being dealt with is a garrison script.
Quote from: Sigma on January 31, 2014, 04:18:15 AMI agree with your point about balancing out income, I can't remember which mod it was but they had a system set up where building trade and tax oriented buildings like docks, markets, and forums would give you income (with things like markets giving a negative health bonus due to those places being meeting areas where disease could easily spread) but building government projects like barracks, roads, sewers, bathhouses, theaters etc. would give you negative income "bonuses" to represent the cost of running and maintenance so you would have to balance out your buildings and couldn't just click spam the list or you could very well drive your city into negative income. You would have to build your city up economically first before you could build it up militarily, like it should be. It would also require you have a few cities devoted to purely economic purposes if you wanted to have some cities dedicated to building the best troops.
Great ideia. Someone needs to find that mod, and see how that works. Now, as I said, we should complicate even more by adding an inflation script, with immense income all the prices increase.
Quote from: Sigma on January 31, 2014, 04:18:15 AMAs for blitzing, that's a hard issue to tackle since from what I understand it involves exploiting the flawed AI by attack cities behind those that border your territory as the AI doesn't really defend cities not bordering any other factions. The only way I could see this being dealt with is a garrison script.
Well, just of the top of my head, we could implement a building called, for example, "Pacify Province" that takes say 10 turns to be constructed. Without that building, the conquered settlement should have very low public order, forcing the player to strongly garrison it, and income.
I think ExRM's economy has some of the ideas mentioned in this thread.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?488745-Extended-Realism-Mod-v4-0-Documentation
I'm also for an economy similar to RTRVII. I want this mod to be slow paced and strategical, not a rush. Especially with 4 turns per year. The last thing I need to see is a Armenian Empire from Asia Minor to India in 260 BC!
Money should also be an issue!
This mini mod could give some ideas
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?583902-Sword-Spear-and-Shield-Mini-Mod-Thread!
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 04:31:18 AM
Quote from: Sigma on January 31, 2014, 04:18:15 AMI agree with your point about balancing out income, I can't remember which mod it was but they had a system set up where building trade and tax oriented buildings like docks, markets, and forums would give you income (with things like markets giving a negative health bonus due to those places being meeting areas where disease could easily spread) but building government projects like barracks, roads, sewers, bathhouses, theaters etc. would give you negative income "bonuses" to represent the cost of running and maintenance so you would have to balance out your buildings and couldn't just click spam the list or you could very well drive your city into negative income. You would have to build your city up economically first before you could build it up militarily, like it should be. It would also require you have a few cities devoted to purely economic purposes if you wanted to have some cities dedicated to building the best troops.
Great ideia. Someone needs to find that mod, and see how that works. Now, as I said, we should complicate even more by adding an inflation script, with immense income all the prices increase.
Yeah, that mod. RSII has it, dvk put it in and I was coding the EDB for parts of that.
With the integration of AOR into the economic buildings, you naturally find the further away settlements less worthwhile and can be quite annoying to try and hold onto them, for little gain.
EDIT: You cannot drive a city to negative tax income. Your total +Tax Income% modifer has to be positive. Thowing -1000% or -1% is the same. However, if you have a bonus, then a negative will cancel that. This +5% -3%=2%, but +5% - 100% => 0%
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 02:55:40 AMThis should be simply impossible. In no way would any empire in the Antiquity be capable of conquering and control half Europe in only 50 years. This is the type of things that we have to fight if we want to make justice to our name Rome Total Realism.
Yeah, Alexander went east from Macedon.
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 04:31:18 AM
Well, just of the top of my head, we could implement a building called, for example, "Pacify Province" that takes say 10 turns to be constructed. Without that building, the conquered settlement should have very low public order, forcing the player to strongly garrison it, and income.
Yeah, if we're using an aor system, you can make the governors palace have a negative happiness if it isn't in your home "area" and doesn't have the building.
Though I seem to remember some issues with using more than one conditional... not sure if you can actually have an unrest "bonus" on a building either. If your settlement doesn't have any happiness bonus buildings, I'm pretty sure it cannot go negative happiness. However, the usual distance to capital should "get" you.
We will be using an AOR system for sure :)
Quote from: Alavaria on January 31, 2014, 05:39:14 AM
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 02:55:40 AMThis should be simply impossible. In no way would any empire in the Antiquity be capable of conquering and control half Europe in only 50 years. This is the type of things that we have to fight if we want to make justice to our name Rome Total Realism.
Yeah, Alexander went east from Macedon.
Well, I would say that Alexander was the rare exception that confirmed the rule. The circumstances behind the Alexandrian persian conquest were very especific (a giant corrupt crumbling empire, with independent satraps that joined and helped the invader) and are not reflected in-game. Alexander didn't siege and conquer every single persian city, he did won a few key battles assaulted a few key cities and all the empire collapse into his hands.
Reminding me that the bribing mechanic in RTW is close to useless in the current form. Far too expensive to bribe anything, if I recall.
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 01:11:12 PM
Quote from: Alavaria on January 31, 2014, 05:39:14 AM
Quote from: Bercor on January 31, 2014, 02:55:40 AMThis should be simply impossible. In no way would any empire in the Antiquity be capable of conquering and control half Europe in only 50 years. This is the type of things that we have to fight if we want to make justice to our name Rome Total Realism.
Yeah, Alexander went east from Macedon.
Well, I would say that Alexander was the rare exception that confirmed the rule. The circumstances behind the Alexandrian persian conquest were very especific (a giant corrupt crumbling empire, with independent satraps that joined and helped the invader) and are not reflected in-game. Alexander didn't siege and conquer every single persian city, he did won a few key battles assaulted a few key cities and all the empire collapse into his hands.
So the realities of the day isn't part of the game. Ahhh, right.
Only natural since you wind up with a dozen empires dropping everything they have to make war on one guy. The player faction. And they can make peace with just about anyone, except one guy. The player faction.
Also, there are hardly any key battles or key cities since the AI is bad at doing things and throws stacks and stacks in a semi-blind manner, recruiting from everywhere and trying to drown you whenever you make forward progress. You can take Rome or Carthage and the AI can still spam from all the other cities.
Quote from: Alavaria on January 31, 2014, 02:01:22 PMSo the realities of the day isn't part of the game. Ahhh, right.
Only natural since you wind up with a dozen empires dropping everything they have to make war on one guy. The player faction. And they can make peace with just about anyone, except one guy. The player faction.
Also, there are hardly any key battles or key cities since the AI is bad at doing things and throws stacks and stacks in a semi-blind manner, recruiting from everywhere and trying to drown you whenever you make forward progress. You can take Rome or Carthage and the AI can still spam from all the other cities.
Of course the game doesn't reflect the reality of Antiquity. There were so many factors that could influence the outcome of a situation that it would be impossible to represent ingame. What I was talking about when I posted that example of blitzkrieg was the necessity of slowdown the expansion to at least try make a realistic medium/late game interesting for the player.
As for your points, all true. The constant spamming of armies it's a problem that should be analyzed. Maybe we should implement a restricted recruitment system similar to MTW2, if you recruit a unit, that unit would be only available to recruit again a x number of turns. In regards to the constant war against the player, we have the force diplomocy script, but that doesn't prevents the AI to attack you in the next turn. I'll see if a script that makes two factions not enter in war if the signed a ceasefire for, for example, 2 years (8 turns) it's possible.
Admittedly, I'm not being entirely "oh so serious". Part of the issue with restricting AI recruitment is that you get into a state where AI throws some stacks, then you kill it, then it is defenceless as you start wasting it since it can't get a stack together, allowing you to just kill small 6-unit groups while taking settlements over and over.
Of course garrison scripts can help with this (and I think we are removing the onagers etc, so only the spy method bypasses that).
Quote from: Alavaria on January 31, 2014, 08:39:31 PM
Admittedly, I'm not being entirely "oh so serious". Part of the issue with restricting AI recruitment is that you get into a state where AI throws some stacks, then you kill it, then it is defenceless as you start wasting it since it can't get a stack together, allowing you to just kill small 6-unit groups while taking settlements over and over.
Of course garrison scripts can help with this (and I think we are removing the onagers etc, so only the spy method bypasses that).
Yes, of course, I agree. That will need much thought and balance. Ideally, I would like us to implement something similar to Bryg's Grim reality submod for Stainless Steel (don't now if you ever played), but we'll see.
You should probably have a cost for building and empire maintenance.
Quote from: Fëanáro on February 04, 2014, 04:48:14 PM
You should probably have a cost for building and empire maintenance.
A monetary cost?
Exactly.
Quote from: Fëanáro on February 04, 2014, 06:28:08 PM
Exactly.
Well, building already costs money, but I agree with you, empire maintenance cost it's a must. I simply don't know if that's enough to prevent the overwhelming accumulation of money...
Quote from: Bercor on February 04, 2014, 06:34:07 PM
Quote from: Fëanáro on February 04, 2014, 06:28:08 PM
Exactly.
Well, building already costs money, but I agree with you, empire maintenance cost it's a must. I simply don't know if that's enough to prevent the overwhelming accumulation of money...
Buildings should probably deduct from provincial income every turn they are active. Maybe some way to model the over-extension of an empire? Fourth Age has done that to great effect.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?532061-DoM-Gameplay-Mechanics-and-Features-Overview-%28upd-24-12-2013%29
We could take a look at some of the ideas there.
Quote from: Fëanáro on February 04, 2014, 07:52:03 PM
Quote from: Bercor on February 04, 2014, 06:34:07 PM
Quote from: Fëanáro on February 04, 2014, 06:28:08 PM
Exactly.
Well, building already costs money, but I agree with you, empire maintenance cost it's a must. I simply don't know if that's enough to prevent the overwhelming accumulation of money...
Buildings should probably deduct from provincial income every turn they are active. Maybe some way to model the over-extension of an empire? Fourth Age has done that to great effect.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?532061-DoM-Gameplay-Mechanics-and-Features-Overview-%28upd-24-12-2013%29
We could take a look at some of the ideas there.
Yeah, I know, I'm eargerly waiting for that amazing mod. But I'm afraid will have to wait for Aradan to throw us some tutorials explaining how to implement some of that mechanics, there's noone currently because they pretty much created them from scratch, and I guess that could take a while...
What I noticed on Roma Surrectum II with their economy was, that it developed very differently with big and little factions. Whenever I picked one of the big factions (e.g. the Seleucid Empire), but also Parthia, for some reason, in the long run it was impossible to increase the income to a point where I could build buildings in every city every turn- in every city, where construction wasn't already underway, obviously. Whatever I did, it would only rise a little bit and growing squalor and unrest forced me to let my own towns rebel and exterminate them sometimes, like it happened on vanilla Rome.
Now if I played a little faction, I would also get a good income at the start (not the last because of the treasury in your capital) and after only 20 turns in I had stored enough money for basically the rest of the game. Similarly, public order was easier to control since your starting towns were always content and you yould decide over the fate of the newly conquered ones.
I liked the system of RTR VII somewhat more. With choosing how to occupy your town by implementing a certain policy (shown as a building that was finished after 0 turns and didn't cost anything) and then developing different ways you could keep the public order stable. Similarly in your economy you had to choose a certain chain of buildings (similar to Rome II or Shogun II) and that restricted the number of buildings with income. The only minor weakness would be that controlling public order was too easy sometimes- and I didn't really understand why the town always rebelled when a new building was finished (sure, a new policy has to be accepted by the people at first, but it was really annoying, especially because it could kill your general which isn't too realistic). So maybe we could combine the advantages of both (if it is technically possible) which would make both the economy and the public order difficult enough, but also keep out random elements you couldn't control at all like the increasing squalor- which, for me, was one of the biggest flaws of vanilla RTW.
I like Mausolos' Idea. I'm hoping that Alavaria could not how to do this. :)