One downside of AI money scripts

[DrJambo]

First of all, I should say that AI money scripts in Med II are a necessity.

I do believe there is a downside however and the downside comes when the human starts conquering AI settlements, which the human will invariably do. The AI, will all its extra money, will tech up its settlements quite well and far faster than the human with comparatively paltry resources. Once the conqering starts, the human essentially gets access to all the top tier troops without actually having to build much in the way of improvements.

So money scripts make the game difficulty at the start, but they struggle to maintain the difficulty once the human starts conquering. The person that can find a way round this will have created the ultimate mod.

Dave, is there a way?

[Korvash]

Being able to get ceasefires where you get an additional 30-50k florins also makes it a bit easier.

[DrJambo]

As does vassalising a faction. All that extra money then comes direct to you...

[Dave Scarface]

@ DrJambo,

The beauty of this mod is that many of the settlements for each faction in the campaign are already teched up. The trouble with vanilla was that there were far to many rebel settlements at the start. And most settlements started out way to low in development. This is also the reason why I liked the Kingdoms campaigns more than the original grand campaign, the starting positions were better. Almost all castles in my mod are at least stone castles at the start, and most towns are at least large towns. By the time the AI reaches the next important level up either a fortress or minor city, human players should also have settlements that are ready to be upgraded. So this isn't as much a problem in my mod. But the garrison script does at least ensure that any battles for the better settlements in the campaign will be heavily defended.

Dave

[DrJambo]

How do you get the feeling of tech progression in your campaign? Starting off with peasant or militia armies, going through more advanced spear and sword armies, and then on to heavy knights and eventually pikes and gunpowder?

[Dave Scarface]

How do you get the feeling of tech progression in your campaign? Starting off with peasant or militia armies, going through more advanced spear and sword armies, and then on to heavy knights and eventually pikes and gunpowder?

That is one criticism that could be levelled at my mod indeed. But in answer to this I say the campaign starts off in year 1180, in the high era. The campaigns in the Kingdoms expansion offered better units and some more advanced settlements early in this era also. For example Dismounted Knights of Antioch and Jerusalem were brought forward to the drill square in the crusades campaign. These are the same units as (Dismounted Feudal Knights) which I have also placed at the drill square for nothern catholic factions. Also instead of having to fight endless armies of spearmen and mailed knights for the first 100 years. In this age Feudal Knights are also buildable now from knights stables. Thanks to the growth script made by Grandviz, population growth takes much longer. And there are still many many units to look forward to later on in the campaign. And remember that your average total war player won't play each campaign much longer than 200 turns.


Dave