I just got my butt kicked by the AI- using my mod- YAY!

[dearmad]

Two pictures. This is during the reign of my Second king in an EARLY start game. So the AI grew pretty fast...

http://www.applesnake.net/oddstuff/france.jpg

I was LEON. I am getting my *** handed to me by France. I had Pamplona, Brittany and a few other allies, but France gobbled them up in a war I dragged them all into... :sad:

The screenshot is from about 15 minutes before the AI took my last province.

Right before the end I ransomed the knight you see I have captured back to France for 6000 and then bought a quick alliance w/germany... Look at the SIZE of them (and Kiev!) and they have many Vassals... and much peace within their lands...

http://www.applesnake.net/oddstuff/germkiev.jpg

Then I invoked the alliance but they BACKSTABBED me... waste of money. Bastards...

I married off my first and only princess to York- got a quick alliance with them and asked for help- they agreed, but it was all too late... :nono:

I LOVED IT!

I heavily modded my game from GoG and HR and others. The main difference: NO traders for human player- the AI has more money than human now and is a challenge. To make money as the human you have to rely on taxes and the indirect trade stuff form ports and other improvements that make money. Also pillaging and other things the human player ALREADY takes advanatge of (like crusades) to make lots of money... so it evens out.

Plus I let the AI be more honorable (evil ones too) and have more marshall's than GoG and HR- they have 4 or so now with GOOD armies and they upgrade their territories fast now.

It's a mistake to not let the AI have many marshalls- it can't deal with rebellions and such unless it has at elast 4 or so- 2 to attack people and 2 to get rid of rebels and such.

WOW that was a fun game!

[Angryminer]

Good progress. :go:
You might also want to remove the most of the rebels completely remove nostalgy. Rebels and nostalgy keep the AI from growing and are historically disputable.
Without rebels and nostalgy the AI grows to up to 30 provinces until these empires clash upon one another.

Angryminer

[dearmad]

I just weakened the rebels the bit. So far they are a challenge I think I like in the game. With all the extra cash the AI has now compared to me it's tougher for me than him by far!

I did drop max nostalgia down to -5. But I made it recover to 0 a lot more slowly and increased the price to drop it.

[Angryminer]

Nostalgy doesn't recover for the AI because the AI is approximately 100% of the time at war. This results in nostalgy in every conquered province for ever.
That's an AI-error. To work around this I removed nostalgy.

Angryminer

[dearmad]

Good thinking... I'll see how mine runs and maybe change it.

I thought nostalgia recovers even during war- jsut not war weariness... grrrr.

[Traveller]

Wait, I thought nostalgia and war exhaustion are two different things!

[dearmad]

They are. I think agryminer *might* be wrong on this...

[Elvain]

yes, nostalgia and war exhaustion are 2 different things, but...

1) nostalgia automaticaly decreases when the kingdom is in peace
2) AI doesn't use clerics much and if he doesn't use them to adopt provinces (even in my mod where I strongly encourage AI to use clerics I have noticed only about 10-15 conversions but only up to 3 (visible) adoptions)
3) war exhahustion in vanilla causes neverending growth of inhappiness what causes rebellions, of course... but nostalgia causes loyalists to emerge and they emerge even when the happiness is around 0, just because they are still inloayal toa new owner...

I am now considering to remove nostalgia too...

[Angryminer]

Yes, war exhaustion and nostalgia are two different things. And I removed both. Works rather good. Still here and there a rebellion comes up because of 3% rebelion risk in some province with a silvermine, but rebels don't recieve elite-units, so that is completely okay (I like the fact that I have to be aware of rebels, and the AI isn't harmed too much).
In my latest games the empires just had on direction: Growth.
I gave up on GoG-1.7, removed a lot of features, kept some, added some - the experience is now very different. Stay tuned. :wink:

Angryminer

[Doux]

I will, Angryminer! Please inform us what you change. Removal of both is in any way profitable for the AI and it might not harm realism either.

[MannofWar]

Is there any mod like that for people like me who dont know nothing about modding. the AI in my vanilla game is way to easy even on hard, a mod for AI would be a god send if its possible :angel:

[kevincompton]

how did you remove traders for just the humans?

[Doge]

how did you remove traders for just the humans?

by editing the file: defs\Knights\menu.in2

remove "promote_trader" from the following list

[no_sel]
promote_marshal
promote_spy
promote_trader
promote_cleric
promote_farmer
promote_builder

Once the ability to "promote" a trader is removed from the menu options, you no longer can have traders, but this change only effects the player. The AI still can have traders.

[kevincompton]

brilliant!