Discussion: AI Expansion

[ahowl11]

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

[Bercor]

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!

[Jubal]

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.

[Mausolos of Caria]

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.

[Bercor]

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.

[Mausolos of Caria]

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 

[Bercor]

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):


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...

[Alavaria]

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.

[Bercor]

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:


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.

[Sigma]

Now an extreme example of blitzkrieg tactics:

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.

[Bercor]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[ahowl11]

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!

[Alavaria]

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.

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%

[Alavaria]

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.

Yeah, Alexander went east from Macedon.

[Alavaria]

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.