View Full Version : Help with Modding
Could someone tweak their mod so the following things happen:
1. Enemy armies must attack with TWO armies toward the same target, if possible. I see so often two armies invade one province of my provinces, but one army attacks a village/farm/etc and the other attacks my city. Immediately this gives me the "central position" to choose which army I want to destroy first with my strong marshal. Then I move onto the other enemy army and kill it. War over, now that country is my vassal. If not, I invade one of their provinces and then they become my vassal. I usually have 3-6 vassals at any given moment and it is too easy. If their ARMIES (plural) stay together, I could not go and defeat one medium strength army after another. I would be forced to fight large tough battles and sue for peace more because my armies would be the ones getting killed. Is there a way to tweak the AI?
Have AI use two armies together as much as possible.
2. Come on this is the Middle Ages! Peasants don't care about wars in some other part of the kingdom, dead kings, new born babies, marriages. There is no "National Enquirer" for the latest gossip. Peasants farm, and care about the local conditions. Meaning if their farm is not getting burned down, they don't give a rat's bum about anything else. Nostalgia? Come on! Who invented that notion? I can see certain areas not liking being ruled by a different religion or something like that (maybe hike up different religion to -10 or something, but get rid of nostalgia). Do the English peasants care if they are under Wessex or York? Was there some large uprising when Ireland or England was united? Loyalists and Rebel armies are a small nuisance to me, but they are the bane of the existence of the AI. I don't want to waste my time fighting rebels or have the computer waste time fighting rebels. I want the computer to fight me. Like France always fell to rebels during the Middle Ages! :rolleyes: I don't mind rebels for war taxes or different religion, but war, dead king, nostalgia? Who are we kidding here? IMHO, nostalgia should only be valid in Southern France and Bohemia (where there was strong "nationalism" if you can call it that).
Since that is not possible get rid of nostalgia. PERIOD.
Get rid of "war exhaustion" penalty.
Get rid of "dead king" penalty.
You can get rid of marriage, new baby bonus.
3. Kingdoms should not split up because there is no heir. There were female rulers during the Middle Ages. So as long as you do not marry your daughter off to some other kingdom, your lands should pass to her and her heirs.
Also, queens ruled as regents until the baby heir matured. I am sick and tired of having one or more baby boys, the king dies and baby boy disappears! In the Middle Ages, baby sons were killed when their father died? Your kingdom should never split up unless your heir is your oldest daughter and you married her off to some kingdom. And only RARELY when you have no heirs at all. Because when you have no children, there is still a line of succession.
Since none of this is possible with AI tweaking, get rid of the break up of your lands after dead king with no heirs! Please.
4. Is there a way to have AI armies packed with troops? I don't like to have AI armies attack with less than full strength (9 units).
5. When trying to make it harder... Do not rely on rebels/loyalists to make it challenging, it only makes it chaotic and stupid. Do not rely on things that would break up your kingdom from within. What is the fun of your kingdom breaking up when you know you can take it back because the AI is so stupid. Just a waste of time. Even more important... what is so fun of your kingdom breaking apart, I want to die by fighting with other nations, not fighting myself.
6. I am finding I have armies of elite units and the AI armies are swordsmen and very few elite units? Anything that can be done would be great.
7. I don't care about having huge nations that last 5 or 10 hours. I want them to last until another huge nation takes them over or the huge nation wipes me out and game over. That's it. To make my point, if a huge nation lasts for 10,000 hours and it breaks apart into rebel states, there was no point for its existence. I want the huge nations to remain huge, unless they lose lands in war with OTHER nations, no more huge nations losing all their lands to loyalists or rebels or no heirs. It's stupid and pointless. I like the goal for stability, but I see the standards being too low (it should be both hours and results).
8. I noticed the AI is converting provinces far more often than I do, maybe make it cheaper to covert provinces for the AI.
I am using GoG 1.6 Mod and like it much better than Vanilla. Although, I have never been "scared" while playing it, meaning afraid that other countries may conquer me.
In the rare event of one of my cities gets taken over or my marshal is defeated, I rejoice and become very happy! It's sad! Nothing is a challenge.
one more thing:
Large countries should have large armies to defend themselves. No more two/three province countries (me) having many large vassals because the large countries have no idea on how to defend themselves from my attacks. Make it easier for AI to get many large (and preferable elite unit) armies. Many = 3 or more armies for large countries. And then have the armies work in groups - in point number 1.
P.S. The economic changes made in GoG are great.
Valgardur
28-08-2005, 10:57
I'm only a novice modder, but you can change a lot of rebellion risk settings in the file:
gamedir/defs/happiness/hconst.in2
You can for instance change the numbers following:
”warexhcap”
”nostsalgyval”
to get rid/lower the rebellion risk on warexhaustion and nostalgy (which I agree are very non-medieval). This will make the AI kingdoms longerlasting and more difficult to defeat - specially combined with one of the various mods available here.
Angryminer
28-08-2005, 13:28
Welcome to the forums, Doge! :halloha:
1. I'm completely on your side. It is a mayor flaw that every AI-marshall acts as a seperate entity though they should work together to pose a threat to the player.
2. I think of rebel armies as local nobles that protest against your rule. So when the king dies there is a chance that local nobility denies the newly crowned king for various reasons and draws an army from the population to establish an own kingdom.
But yes, I agree, war exhaustion and nostalgia were very seldom. In my current version of GoG (on my computer) war exhaustion is removed and nostalgia only plays a role when the former owner of the province comes back to retake the province.
3. Ruling queens were extremely seldom until the late renaissance.
4. There is the approach to give the AI so much money and make soldiers so cheap that the AI always attacks with full armies. But these changes also affect the player, so the game becomes boring to him. At least this is my opinion, ask other modders on their opinion.
5. The player will always dominate the AI when he is left the choice of decisions. When a rebel army forms within the kingdom he can't choose anymore but has to withdraw from the enemy kingdom to save the integrity of his kingdom. This makes warmongering much harder.
So far the theory behind rebels.
It's too sad that the rebels perform so bad and that the AI handles them so extremely bad.
6. Here some mods try the same solution as in question four. If you find this senseful or not is up to youself. I don't want to bias you with my opinion.
7. That's the fault of the extremely dumb AI. The AI will, for example, never deliberately marry off the king (beside randomly in peace-proposals). That means the king will not get any heirs until he decides to marry an "ordinary noblewoman". That means the chances of a male heir are very low. And due to the fact that the AI always draws itself into unnecessary wars this means the kingdom will fall apart sooner or later - and there is nothing we can do about it.
8. I have already taken care of this. :wink:
9. Neither am I. But I'm not the "0mg my longbowmen will r0ck you d00d1"-kind of player but more like: "Honor demands that the crown of England lays claim upon the province of Aquintania! Any resistance to this claim will be treated as a denial of the Lord's words and will be punished accordingly!"
Though actually I lost once. That was a good share of bad luck for me... :sad:
Perhaps you want to try other mods. Some mod-authors give a lot credits to their own work and praise their mod like it seems to be a completely new experience. Perhaps you'll have more fun with the other mods. :go:
Angryminer
6.I played cooperatevly with the AI for some time, watching carefully his moves. He had one province where he could hire feudal knights, one province where he could hire halbeirders, one province where he could hire templars, and one province where he could hire only swordsmen. He hired a marshal in the last province, and filled the army with swordsmen. I guess there will always be a big chance to AI have lousy armies late in the game :sad:
Perhaps you want to try other mods. Some mod-authors give a lot credits to their own work and praise their mod like it seems to be a completely new experience. Perhaps you'll have more fun with the other mods. :go:
:biggrin: That's all part of promoting the mods. How can people leave GoG or HR if I don't say that my mod is good?
2. I think of rebel armies as local nobles that protest against your rule. So when the king dies there is a chance that local nobility denies the newly crowned king for various reasons and draws an army from the population to establish an own kingdom.
But yes, I agree, war exhaustion and nostalgia were very seldom. In my current version of GoG (on my computer) war exhaustion is removed and nostalgia only plays a role when the former owner of the province comes back to retake the province.
I would not mind local nobles rebelling once in a long while, so long as they were real nobility with the best troops the province can offer (example: if Scotland rebels, the nobles would lead an army filled with highlanders, not peasants). Rebels and even famous rebels are no problem to me. I usually have one army of horses to go from one rebellion to the next, while my other army invades one province after another. It is the AI, as you said and I agree, which has the problems with rebels. So the less rebels, IMHO, the better. Very rare large and powerful rebels armies that go straight to the city would be great to replace the current situation.
Another one of my crazy ideas - This is probably impossible to mod, but my suggestion to Black Sea Studio is to have the ability to have governors for every province.
Here is my idea on how to do it... Hire knights at your court. When you make them the governor of a province, the knights leave the court (like princes/king can) and only appear in the "governor slot" when viewing the city. Black Sea Studio can decide two options from here. 1) when made a governor, the knight is always a governor. The only way to get rid of him is to exile him. OR 2) When you want him to return to the court, he does not directly go to the court, but to the "throne room". Why? because if you have all 9 slots for knights used up, then you will probably lose the governors you send back to the court. Therefore when "hiring" a knight, you have the ability to hire back the former governor knights (for free), just as you would your king and princes. But that is impossible to do by modding.
3. Ruling queens were extremely seldom until the late renaissance
Extremely seldom, but they still existed.
Perhaps you want to try other mods. Some mod-authors give a lot credits to their own work and praise their mod like it seems to be a completely new experience. Perhaps you'll have more fun with the other mods. :go:
Angryminer
But I love your city "tech" tree! I can never leave your mod and go back to the Vanilla game tech tree. The old one is just so... :nono:
Another question. Could someone help me figure out how to make these changes:
1) make taxes (thus large population and kingdom) is the only real way to earn money for your treasury
2) make kingdoms with small population (small kingdoms) not able to afford a marshal, the only marshals they can have are their princes and king. Medium Kingdom can afford one or two marshals. Large kingdoms can afford three to five marshals.
3) Make all military units free or cost 1 gold (keep normal population cost & maybe reduce food cost). Once the AI have marshals, they are ability to create armies on demand. The only real penalty for creating armies is the population penalty (cost = one population), and thus lower tax revenue. Too often, kingdoms have marshals with no troops because of money problems. I never have money problems, so making troops free will not help me out much. (BTW, I thought in the Middle Ages the nobles were expected to fight so many days out of the year and they had to buy their own equipment and train on their time, right?) IMHO, the upkeep of the marshal is enough money cost for the army.
4) Make trade revenue only worth-while when you have 10-15+ tradable goods. Therefore medium and large nations are far more wealthy (thus powerful) than smaller ones. Maybe have the income for the first few tradable goods increase very gradually (low), and the more trade goods you get, the more it increases. For example with harmonious relations, +1,+1,+1,+1,+2,+2,+2,+3,+3,+4,+5,+6,+8, +10, +15, etc. Angryminer, I think you did this for GoG, but the taxes were not high enough and trade was not low enough to make taxes the bulk of the player income. If the AI would develop as many tradable goods as the player, then I'd have no problem with trade routes as a significant source of income. Given the AI we are dealing with, that is not possible. I find in most of my games (even in GoG), when I become 3-5 province kingdom, I am making far more money than 10-15 province kingdoms because of trade routes and vassalage.
5) Also, in another thread, I believe someone said in his mod, a kingdom will not accept the player's demand for vassalage (or gold or marriage, etc) when the AI's military is larger than the player's military. I find it too easy to get medium/large vassals when you are small or medium in size. How is this change made?
Don't know if it will work or not. Thanks for all the time you all have been putting into this game, it is substantially better (but still too easy).
Angryminer
28-08-2005, 17:52
Interesting ideas.... Especially number two.
My opionions on that:
1. The hire-costs of a marshall could be interpreted as the hire-costs of marshall and army.
2. The AI would nearly always have a full garrison.
3. Downside: The AI would have serious problems with conquering an enemy town because it only attacks with one army and has to face the enemy townguards and 6 garrison squads.
Angryminer
2) make kingdoms with small population (small kingdoms) not able to afford a marshal, the only marshals they can have are their princes and king. Medium Kingdom can afford one or two marshals. Large kingdoms can afford three to five marshals. This works a bit in my mod.. but not exactly, it is connected with your point 4
small kingdoms mstly have not many trade goods, so their trade income is very small compared to large kingdoms with many trade goods. Also their income from taxes is low compared to big guys, what limits them in having more marshalls.
It would be the best to make game distinguish small kingdoms from large ones and make marshal upkeep for larger kingdoms lower than for small kingdoms(and player).
Now it's hard to balance upkeep of a marshal to be high enough for player and small guys, and contemporarily low enough for large AI kingdoms
3) to make marshalls-nobles buy own armies great idea. But it would making units free would make the game boring for the player.
In middle ages there were 3 general kind of armies:
1 kingdom armies - colected municipal and villager untrained troops. Those were used only when the kingdom was under attack. Mostly chronicles left them unmentioned, they were untrained, badly armoured. They were unlikely to betray but unskilled
2 noble armies - king asked all his vasals to collect their own troops and fight under king's banner together, but each noble army fought under own banner - those were mostly heavily armoured and well-trained troops. They followed their lord who followed the king, but when the lord betrayed, they all betrayed the king.
3 mercenary armies - appeared in catholic Europe since late 12th century, were used frequently since half of 13th century. But Byzantines used them long before(Varangian guards, Norman and English mercenaries around 1000AD etc)
I would support if all of them would emerge as autonomous armies. You would hire marshal and pay him and he would need to get armies himself. BUT you would have no influence on chosing armies then(but they would be mostly heavy cavalry:feudal knights, pronoias, boyars etc.), they would be extremely strong with high morale bonus, but autonomous-so unfaithfull.
They could be acompaigned by "kingdom army of peasants, swordsmen, axemen, saracens and such armies...
and I would like ot have mercenaries as separate marshals. The principle would be: you once hire the mercenary marshal. He recieved money, so his morale (faithfulness) is high, as the time goes, his faithfulness would be dropping down and to raise it up, you would need to pay him again(before battle, etc.) This mercenary could act autonomously and if payed too late, he could turn his man against you..
3. Downside: The AI would have serious problems with conquering an enemy town because it only attacks with one army and has to face the enemy townguards and 6 garrison squads.
Angryminer
I understand.
Maybe the AI will learn how to attack one of my cities with full garrison? :wink: :biggrin:
The upside: It will make it more challenging to conquer a province for the player. :swordfigh
Angryminer
28-08-2005, 19:28
1. The AI never learns anything.
2. The player learns damned fast and will attack with as many armies as available (at least two) to maximize the chances of success.
I'd love the idea if the AI wasn't so dumb...
But I think I will throw a look at it and test it. :go:
Angryminer
This works a bit in my mod.. but not exactly, it is connected with your point 4
small kingdoms mstly have not many trade goods, so their trade income is very small compared to large kingdoms with many trade goods. Also their income from taxes is low compared to big guys, what limits them in having more marshalls.
It would be the best to make game distinguish small kingdoms from large ones and make marshal upkeep for larger kingdoms lower than for small kingdoms(and player).
Now it's hard to balance upkeep of a marshal to be high enough for player and small guys, and contemporarily low enough for large AI kingdoms
I agree. That would be great.
That is why I want the tax income to be more extreme. Meaning higher population = big, big bucks! It probably won't work, but it's an idea. Trade income is too much of a cheat for the player.
3) to make marshalls-nobles buy own armies great idea. But it would making units free would make the game boring for the player.
In middle ages there were 3 general kind of armies:
1 kingdom armies - colected municipal and villager untrained troops. Those were used only when the kingdom was under attack. Mostly chronicles left them unmentioned, they were untrained, badly armoured. They were unlikely to betray but unskilled
2 noble armies - king asked all his vasals to collect their own troops and fight under king's banner together, but each noble army fought under own banner - those were mostly heavily armoured and well-trained troops. They followed their lord who followed the king, but when the lord betrayed, they all betrayed the king.
3 mercenary armies - appeared in catholic Europe since late 12th century, were used frequently since half of 13th century. But Byzantines used them long before(Varangian guards, Norman and English mercenaries around 1000AD etc)
I would support if all of them would emerge as autonomous armies. You would hire marshal and pay him and he would need to get armies himself. BUT you would have no influence on chosing armies then(but they would be mostly heavy cavalry:feudal knights, pronoias, boyars etc.), they would be extremely strong with high morale bonus, but autonomous-so unfaithfull.
They could be acompaigned by "kingdom army of peasants, swordsmen, axemen, saracens and such armies...
and I would like ot have mercenaries as separate marshals. The principle would be: you once hire the mercenary marshal. He recieved money, so his morale (faithfulness) is high, as the time goes, his faithfulness would be dropping down and to raise it up, you would need to pay him again(before battle, etc.) This mercenary could act autonomously and if payed too late, he could turn his man against you..
I love it. :go:
For the most part, the Middle Ages was not as centralized as the game is. Having marshals hire their own troops would add a bit of the decentralized nature of the M.A. kingdoms.
Free units boring? At a certain point of the game, all the units are virtually free for my kingdom. I give away 10,000s of dollars all the time to keep my trade partners happy (harmonious). I need the high income to prevent inflation. To prevent inflation I give money away. I can afford it because I have high income. It is a vicious cycle that never ends! :biggrin:
The big possible downside with my suggestion 3 (of the second list) I can think of... is the AI would keep building units like there's no tomorrow. Resulting in the AI "killing off" their source of income (population = tax $$). AI with free units may be like a kid in a candystore. I want that, I want that, I want that, etc. It would have no self-control. Self-control is not built into the AI because the miltary units are suppose to cost something in the game. The only thing that would stop it is full military unit slots. I still wonder how it would be overall. Angryminer is correct, cities would be alot harder to take, for everyone.
I'd love the idea if the AI wasn't so dumb...
Ahhh... the possibilities if the AI wasn't so dumb. Don't tempt me to think of them. :biggrin:
But I think I will throw a look at it and test it.
You da :king: . Danke schön!
Only do it if you have time because it probably won't work like we want it to... :sad:
Free units boring? At a certain point of the game, all the units are virtually free for my kingdom. I give away 10,000s of dollars all the time to keep my trade partners happy (harmonious). I need the high income to prevent inflation. To prevent inflation I give money away. I can afford it because I have high income. It is a vicious cycle that never ends! :biggrin:I don't understand one thing:
many players(not only you) keep trading even when their income from other sources is too high.
Why? :scratch: when you don't need money, why use merchants to earn you more and waste the space at the royal court by merchants when you can fill it by some other more useful knight?
I don't understand one thing:
many players(not only you) keep trading even when their income from other sources is too high.
Why? :scratch: when you don't need money, why use merchants to earn you more and waste the space at the royal court by merchants when you can fill it by some other more useful knight?
We Yanks are into high cash flow, even if it flows in and flows out at the same time. :silly:
Three merchants is not too much of a waste of space. Two or three marshals, three merchants, one or two spies, one cleric. What else do you need? I was Byzantia in the Late Period and conquered everyone with an army of horses and a seige army. Money wasn't an issue, AI was the issue. I play as though I were facing real smart enemies. If the AI can't keep up with me (and everyone) in terms of the economy and the military, it's not my fault. :holy:
If you can make the money, why not get it? It is right in front of me, tempting me saying "you want some, you can never have too much money, come on take it, it's so eaaaaaaasy." :dwink:
The logical reason is to give money to the kingdoms who vote in the election of the Emperor of Europe (if I 'm not mistaken: kingdoms 3-7). Money makes them happy.
3. Downside: The AI would have serious problems with conquering an enemy town because it only attacks with one army and has to face the enemy townguards and 6 garrison squads.
Angryminer
Another idea :rolleyes: I know, I know... :wink:
Problem: Having trouble with the AI's ability to conquer cities?
Solution: To help the AI conquer cities, is it possible to tune down the town guards to become worse soldiers (defense, armor, fighting, number in unit, etc)? It ought to help the attacker, so long as he has a good army and all.
I serious have to stop having these ideas. My mind wanders all the time, it's annoying. :sad:
7. That's the fault of the extremely dumb AI. The AI will, for example, never deliberately marry off the king (beside randomly in peace-proposals). That means the king will not get any heirs until he decides to marry an "ordinary noblewoman". That means the chances of a male heir are very low. And due to the fact that the AI always draws itself into unnecessary wars this means the kingdom will fall apart sooner or later - and there is nothing we can do about it.
There is nothing you can do about kings marrying earlier, but is there anything you can do about reducing the risk of rebellion if the king dies with no heirs? I understand there was a risk back in the Middle Ages. However, with this being one of the main reasons for the break-up of AI massive kingdoms, I think we can forget about the Middle Ages here because we are dealing with apples and oranges. In the Middle Ages, kings did not take the stupid approach of the AI and wait until it was nearly too late to have children and marry some common woman. The player does not take the stupid approach. The player seeks to marry early on and is frequently rewarded for using common sense. AI has no common sense, it needs all the help it can get.
My question: Is there any way to eliminate or reduce the rebellion risk when the king dies with no heirs (for the sake of the AI kingdoms)?
The loss (promotion to king) of an important Knight is bad enough, especially when he is the premier marshal of the kingdom or a 5-star spy.
There is always the load saved game option, with the hope it does not happen a second time (for the most part it does not happen a second time). That's what I do, but that is cheating for the AI. I can (I don't, but I can) take the load saved game option after winning a battle to compensate for the dumb AI, repeating the battle until the AI wins, but that is - again - cheating for the AI. I don't like to cheat for the AI, it ruins the game a little.
Angryminer
30-08-2005, 10:34
Is there any way to eliminate or reduce the rebellion risk when the king dies with no heirs? I can reduce the happiness decrease in the provinces, but I can't change the chance for the kingdom to fall apart (as far as I know).
Angryminer
I can reduce the happiness decrease in the provinces, but I can't change the chance for the kingdom to fall apart (as far as I know).
Angryminer
From what I noticed, relatively happy provinces have become independent after king dies with no heir. I am not sure about very happy provinces (-20+ green happiness), I never really paid attention. I've noticed it's your original provinces that you are left possessing after the kingdom falls apart.
I don't know for sure, you may have seen the same thing.
Angryminer
01-09-2005, 13:39
I took a look at "squads cost only 1 gold"-idea.
I had to ajust a bit more beside that so I came out with the following setting:
First marshall 5 gold, second 20, third 40, 80, 160, and so on.
This was necessary because small nations have to have at least one army available (or they are pointless), and bigger nations have to be militarily stronger than the weak ones.
This of course completely destroyed GoG's feel. But I wanted to give it a try. A long story short: After two hours at gamespeed 10.0 Kiev counted 24 provinces, italy 18, france 16, fatimids 15, byzantia 14.
Two times there were 6 (of course well equipped, because free) armies in one province. That looked... interesting.
Also the AI showed it's uselessness. It often fails to take a unprotected town with three armies, because army one attacks, army two plunders the harbour and army three plunders a farm. After army one is defeated by the garrison army two attacks the town and army three plunders a village until also army two is defeated, so that it can now also attack to be also destroyed. :confused:
Conclusion: This has about nothing to do with athmosphere. It just puts some "action" into KoH. But yes, the AI can overwhelm you with a lots of well equipped armies if you do something foolish.
Angryminer
vBulletin v3.5.4, Copyright ©2000-2007, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.