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Thread: AAR/Gameplay analysis

  1. #1

    Default AAR/Gameplay analysis

    Hi all,

    After trying out all the major mods of this game I've finally decided on The Sicilian Vespers as my favourite mod, mainly because of the generals script and the garrison script. Making a field army cost more is a great way of introducing basic logistics into the game, and helping the AI with free upkeep levied units is another great idea.

    This AAR will focus on gameplay and historical realism; if you want an immersive storyline I will disappoint you.

    The campaign is played in the Late Era, Byzantine Empire, on VH/VH.

    To improve realism, give the AI a fighting chance and to hopefully create conditions in which a blitz campaign will be difficult, I'm playing with the following house rules:

    1. King's Purse edited to zero. This makes early expansion a bit harder, since it will be harder to field a large army immediately.
    2. Projected Treasury Total must always be positive. This is to stop you from taking advantage of your large initial army, and to reflect the fact that your troops, some of whom are mercenaries, will need regurlar pay or desert. Together with a King's Purse set at zero, this rule will force you to disband a large part of your initial army, as well as think ahead if you take your armies to the field.
    3. Disband all levied units at first opportunity. This fine feature of The Sicilian Vespers mod gives the AI a much-needed helping hand in resisting sieges. As a human being with a functioning brain, you should have no need for free-upkeep units to keep your AI opponents at bay.
    4. No priests. The process of converting a populace to another religion should take several decades, sometimes centuries. Not using priests will force you to build churches to slowly convert the population, and in the meantime you'll have to deal with religious unrest the hard way.
    5. All eiege engines except ballistae are treated as immobile units after positioning on the battle map. With their current movement rate, their tactical use in sieges as well as in pitched battles is unrealistic. Fighting street battles with catapults or bombards is great fun, but has little to do with reality. Most siege engines like catapults and trebuchets were assembled on site, and were bolted to the ground, not mounted on wheeled carriages.

    Next post will detail my opening moves. Wish me luck!

  2. #2
    DaVinci's Avatar TW Modder 2005-2016
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    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    I wish you luck and fun, and i'm excited to read more. I must say though, that for a gameplay analysis, the Early era would be the better attempt, as this campaign is the most advanced development in v2.5, compared to the Late era.
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  3. #3

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    @ DaVinci: Really, I thought the 1311 campaign was the main focus of SicilianVespers. Anyway, the Byzantine situation in 1311 is very interesting, and it will be fun to see how much trouble I will get into. It's a crowded neighbourhood.

    FIRST MOVES: With my starting income and expenses I'm running a deficit of over 2000. My treasury starts at 6000. As I see it, this gives me two strategic options; increase my income by conquering some rich cities immediately, or disband most of my army in order to build up my income through city upgrades.

    I choose to conquer. Why disband all those good-quality units when instead, their lives can be thrown away in battle against my enemies? Hopefully a few costly victories will increase my income and reduce my expenses sufficiently.

    Where to attack? I need a city within reach of the bulk of my forces on the first turn. I really cannot afford to go on a long campaign, as this might force me to disband part of my army due to lack of funding. No rebel cities are good targets, the choice narrows down to either the weakly defended Bulgarian capital or the Ottoman capital. I decide upon Tarnovo, since it is within reach of more of my forces and additionally, I have a spy within range who could be very helpful with those pesky gates.

    I'm off to a bad start as my spy dies during his infiltration attemt, and to my dismay I discover a Bulgarian army blocking direct access from Constantinople to Tarnovo. However, with my spy caught and relations with Bulgaria suffering as a result, I figure the dice are already rolling. I am able to lay siege with a half-stack army consisting mainly of cavalry, with another half-stack army in immediate support. I am tempted to attack the rather small bulgarian army right away, but decide against it, hoping instead to incite him to attack my siege force.

    The entire fleet, and all forces in Corinth are disbanded. This brings my deficit down to -1100. However, with two field armies out, this will be a costly first turn. My princess is on her way to Nicea to talk with the turks, while my bishop will shortly be joining the troops.

    I'd love to post a map for you guys, but I don't know how. Help?

  4. #4

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    1312:

    Tarnovo falls after a costly siege. Since this is the first time I've stormed a citadel, I was unprepared for the triple wall-within-walls defences. With two rams and 4 ladders, I expended all my ladders scaling the first walls. Having to wait for the ram to do its work cost a lot of men later on in the siege. With no ladders complicating the issue, the AI was relatively quick to retreat to the next intact defensive line once a wall gate was breached, however I was able to trap and destroy a couple of spearmen units.

    Several times my gate bashing was interrupted by sallying units. While this looks strange on the battlefield(suddenly my men swing the ram out of the way) the effect is to delay the breaching of the gate, although at a heavy cost for the defender.

    All in all, a loss of over 700 men for the storming of a citadel defended by more than 2000 is still not as much as it should be. Keeping in mind that historically a besieging force should be 5 to 10 times stronger than the defender to have a decent chance of storming a stronghold, in game terms there's still a long way to go before we're approaching realistic siege conditions.

    The fall of Tarnovo has consequences. The Bulgarian faction is destroyed, and this gives me a lot more strategic room to maneuver. I am in posession of a citadel, meaning high-quality units can be built in the near future. Most importantly, I am now turning a profit of 1900 per turn.

    The council of Nobles have given me a mission to conquer the rebel town to the northeast of Tarnovo. This is excellent news, since my main army is nearby and the reward will be more high-quality units.

    A considerable(half-stack++) army of Bulgarian rebels remain in the Tarnovo region, and should be dealt with before they cause devastation to the land. They will be a first target, before I move on to conquer the rebel town to the northeast.

    In the meantime, what to do with my money? I'm actually running a profit now, and I decide to spend it on catapults. Beyond maintaining a full stack of good-quality units I'll not spend any money on units, preferring instead to build up my cities' economy.

    On the diplomatic front, the Serbs approached me for trade rights; I counter-offered trade rights/alliance/map information, but they refused. A subsequent offer of only trade rights was also refused. Strange, but not critical.

  5. #5
    The King Of Peasants's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    This sounds difficult but very interesting!
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  6. #6

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    1312:

    The remnant army of 1000+ bulgarian renegades is defeated at a cost of 100 my own men. The lightly arboured, predominantly missile forces of the bulgarians attempt a flanking attack, but are mowed down by Byzantine missile fire and finished off with cavalry charges. Although far too agressive in this defensive battle, at least the AI tried to do something.

    A closer look at Tarnovo reveals that although the citadel has a barracks and a bowyer, no unit construction apart from skythikon is possible. Even the building overview scroll shows that constructing this and other buildings will not enable any unit types, while the same buildings in Hadrianople do. Bug? Design? The result is that my newly conquered, Bulgarian-populated, predominantly catholic fortress will not be a source of recruits. That feels realistic in the short/medium term. I guess one solution is to convert it to a town/city later on. Time will show.

    After building a chapel in Tarnovo(no priests, so conversion is a top priority), I spend most of my remaining funds (ca 2000) on building cheap infantry units destined for garrison duties in Tarnovo. This would free up my main army from garrison duties, and enable me to move northeast in short order. After conquering that village, I'll be awarded some (somewhat) heavy cavalry units by the Council of Nobles, and this should be sufficient to consider attacking Serbia, or fending off an attack by the Ottomans, Venice, Sicily or Hungary. The Balkans are still crowded, but if I have my way this will not last.

  7. #7

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    To post a screenshot, first download Fraps to be able to take bmp screenshots (the free version) and then upload the images to photobucket and post it in image code to get it to show up on TWC.
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  8. #8

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    1314/1315:

    The conquest of the rebel village northeast of Tarnovo(dammit, I can never remember its name) goes relatively smoothly, although casualties could have been better; 700 for 1700. Since I now have a mobile force of only half a stack, I decide to develop my economy more before expanding further. For the next couple of turns I spend it all on consturction, mainly ports, churches and farmland. A long-term goal is to build up a force of Kataphracts, Varangian Guard, Muortatoi and bombards. My depleted forces are kept busy eliminating rebel armies that pop up in the countryside. My merchant finnally arrives in Africa and sets up ivory trade, and I am able to secure an alliance with the Holy Roman Empire.

    Then it happens: the Ottoman attack Constantinople. That in itself is absolutely fine, but something strange happens to my treasury! It starts going into negative and just keeps going. I admit I haven't read the 'known bugs' section, so this may be old news. In any case it's a game killer. I'm discontinuing this AAR...

  9. #9

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    .... and that's how long it took me to realize I haven't installed the hotfix! Let's see if the save game is salvageable...

  10. #10

    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm starting another game in Early era, I'll post some general comments in another thread.

  11. #11
    DaVinci's Avatar TW Modder 2005-2016
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    Default Re: AAR/Gameplay analysis

    .... and that's how long it took me to realize I haven't installed the hotfix!
    Lol ... sorry, but the Late era has with the hotfix applied no such special bugs, that you describe above. Please make sure you have installed the htofix correct (check out if you have installed the SV hotfix folder to the M2 directory in the same way you did with the main SV 2.5 - SV 2.5 Late era should be 100% bugfree with the hotfix, same is valid for the Early era).
    Last edited by DaVinci; January 08, 2008 at 06:54 PM.
    #Anthropocene #not just Global Warming but Global Disaster, NASA #Deforestation #Plastic Emission #The Blob #Uninhabitable Earth #Savest Place On Earth #AMOC #ICAN #MIT study "Falsehoods Win" #Engineers of Chaos
    #"there can be no doubt about it: the enemy stands on the Right!" 1922, by Joseph Wirth.
    Rightwingers, like in the past the epitome of incompetence, except for evilness where they own the mastership.
    Iirc., already 2013 i spoke of "Renaissance of Fascism", it was accurate.
    #"Humanity is in ‘final exam’ as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in universe." Buckminster Fuller
    Any chance for this exam? Very low, the established Anthropocentrism destroys the basis of existence.
    #My Modding #The Witcher 3: Lore Friendly Tweaks (LFT)
    #End, A diary of the Third World War (A.-A. Guha, 1983) - now, it started on 24th February 2022.

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