XAI for PDER 1.0A

[Socal_infidel]

I wish it was that easy. I need to do some thinking on this. Currently the AI portion will ask for a vassalage if these conditions apply.

1) 1-4 settlements left.
2) Must be same religion
3) Must be a neighboring faction
4) Have a military strength of >2.0 and Alliance military strength of >3.0

I may need to loosen up the tolerance in the Diplomacy file a wee bit.

Wow. You really know these files inside out, eh?

I like to consider myself a jack of all trades, master of none, kinda modder But the AI files are still unknown to me.

Can the same religion thing be modded?

[EmperorCharles]

@ Emperor Charles: I have not had this issue at all, there has been one other case reported of this, but it was sallying out. Can you make sure all files are installed, the formation and the formation ai. I have installed this AI on 4 different mods and haven't ran into it once. I will check into this further. The first BAI didn't have the formations in there? Was this a sallying out issue by chance? Was it only calvary? were other troops able to go in? Did you have control of the entrance? If you didn't, sometimes the doors will lock, even trapping their own troops outside. What level of difficulty of battles were you playing!! UPDATE: I have a feeling you where playing on easy or medium. I have fixed this issue now and will release an update, tonight. If you play on harder levels you will not have this issue.

Have you unpacked your Medieval 2 files? What happens if you replace the bai files ? If you can give me as specific information as possible, then I maybe able to find the issue faster. What kind of settlement? Is it generals, or all horses? Give me a screen shot.

Has anyone else had this issue? can you try to recreate it. I want to make sure all bugs are squished ASAP

Ok I'll answer all your questions the best I can. However I can not answer the ones involving the script I have no idea what to look for.

Was this a sallying out issue by chance?.

I'm afraid I don't know. I have yet to be besieged as I was playing aggressively for a change.(I'll check this later tonight)

Was it only calvary?

yes only calvary, all my infantry unites were able to move freely in and out.

Did you have control of the entrance?

Yes, and if I did not it was destroyed. Its not just the gate however they can not move through breaches in the wall either.

I have a feeling you where playing on easy or medium.

no I was on hard.

Have you unpacked your Medieval 2 files? What happens if you replace the bai files ?

No I have not unpacked. for the second one once again this is not my area of expertises by any stretch of the imagination. I am utterly clueless. Essentially I followed the link and backed up my files in a different folder and replaced the data folder.

Unit composition for the battle I do remember. 2 units of heavy byzantine spearmen, 6 units of byzantine lancers, 3 units of byzantine infantry. Two units of archers(I can't remember which type) 2 units of horse-archers
The enemies army was comprised entirely of horse-archers along with one general unit totaling about one half stack.

The settlement's defenses were the first leave walls.(sorry I have no screen shots)

I will try reinstall it and let you know that works out but, that will not be until about 8:30pm eastern standard time.

[xeryx]

Ok I'll answer all your questions the best I can. However I can not answer the ones involving the script I have no idea what to look for.

Was this a sallying out issue by chance?.

I'm afraid I don't know. I have yet to be besieged as I was playing aggressively for a change.(I'll check this later tonight)

Was it only calvary?

yes only calvary, all my infantry unites were able to move freely in and out.

Did you have control of the entrance?

Yes, and if I did not it was destroyed. Its not just the gate however they can not move through breaches in the wall either.

I have a feeling you where playing on easy or medium.

no I was on hard.

Have you unpacked your Medieval 2 files? What happens if you replace the bai files ?

No I have not unpacked. for the second one once again this is not my area of expertises by any stretch of the imagination. I am utterly clueless. Essentially I followed the link and backed up my files in a different folder and replaced the data folder.

Unit composition for the battle I do remember. 2 units of heavy byzantine spearmen, 6 units of byzantine lancers, 3 units of byzantine infantry. Two units of archers(I can't remember which type) 2 units of horse-archers
The enemies army was comprised entirely of horse-archers along with one general unit totaling about one half stack.

The settlement's defenses were the first leave walls.(sorry I have no screen shots)

I will try reinstall it and let you know that works out but, that will not be until about 8:30pm eastern standard time.

Are you sure your battles were on hard? because there is no reason for this if they weren't. However I have increased the engagement distances of horses and generals, on easy and medium. I wanted the AI to keep them in the cities. Had no idea it would do that. I will also try and test this tonight. I have been able to use all my forces in the sieges and fight in the central square. I will try and recreate this though!! Thank you for all the valuable info.

[xeryx]

Wow. You really know these files inside out, eh?

I like to consider myself a jack of all trades, master of none, kinda modder But the AI files are still unknown to me.

Can the same religion thing be modded?

Yes, that can easily be removed if you like. I will tell you how this week, in a pm. But be wary of Vassalage it can give the human too much advantage. Because of the enormous amount of money they give you, this is not right. This is also one reason they do not develop well. I have no idea how money scripts would also affect this? Now you see why! I have waited on this. Unfortunately, I have not found any values that allow you to mod the amount of money the faction gives you, for vassalage.

I dedicated myself to the core improvement, because with out it..all you are stuck with is eye candy. The Cai's have never challenged me. I have always been bored before turn 100. Darth's was the only one I really liked.

xeryx

[SigniferOne]

Yes but, if the faction is destroyed they cannot develop at all! So better to be developed little, than be destroyed, right?

The thing about giving money to the player is the only thing of concern here. But the money they give is only a proportion of their total income, and not an absolute amount right? So you can set the income for a vassalized faction to be -100,000 (reversing the money script), and then maybe create random buildings in that faction by script, or something. That way they're giving no money to the vassal owner, but are still being a little bit developed on their own.

[xeryx]

It could be possible for that to work, we would have to do further research and testing to find the best possible solution. I will mod the Diplomacy and the AI files for your mod, it's your guys' mod. This is why, I suggested a beta.

EDIT: The best possible way I can think up is to give like 60-80% of the money back though a script.

xeryx

[KraLL]

Well hi,
the mod is the best mod I played till now.
here some facts that I found a little bit bad.
I played as georgia VH/VH
1) On diplomacy, Seljuks as turks too came to me at the start ask me for ceasefire, giving me trade rights and the offer was so generous that I got 2000 gold from each. I think that would be me that should give actually money, as they at least seljuks are way better than me, and they can destroy me easily?
2)On diplomacy too, even kingdom of aragon came for alliance as many other. I mean what perpuse/point ask me aragon as many other catholic nations to alliance? not close to them, not same religion, not me to be one of the top factions at the fisrt turms, cant help them, was not at any point to attack them or fear me. Maybe alliances should become little harder to get.
3)I saw some nations especially byzantines, to start war with all near factions (well I was on VH but ok this is not so good) without any chance of success conquering even the half of them. I would like to see if there is a way to tell AI to choose an target and focus on it instead of just opening wars with everyone. Dunno if it can be done or has already done, but would be good in the calculations of choosing an enemy to check with how many near factions is he allied so lowering the chances to start war with him.


army stacks have excellent compination. ad BAI is very good, althought didnt play many battles yet, was checking the CAI mostly.

[xeryx]

Krall, something doesn't sound right? There is very little chance of Islam and Catholic relations, other than trade rights. Now, if you are of the same religion, you have much better chances for alliances. This has been tested extensively..and it does work. Did you copy the modified desc_strat.txt file into the world\maps\campaign\imperial-campaign folder? because it sounds to me as if the AI is using the defaults, which have no religious rules. These incur the diplomatic penalties?

Please!! double check your installation
You will have to start a new game.

[EmperorCharles]

I'm not entirely sure what the problem was but reinstalling the folders fixed it. I'm assuming I did not unzip the folder the first time. Thanks for all the help you did provide though.

[Atman]

Xeryx, when I order my unit that is already engaged in a melee to attack, they charge and ram in! I'm not saying I don't like it, but...do they still get charge bonus? that wouldn't make any sense, would it? unlimited charges when there is no space to charge

[xeryx]

@ AtMAn: The big advantage to that is that the AI uses it too, to break through your lines. So, it is good to have reinforcements in reserve, which mos people neglect, but now they wont. I believe that in order to get the charge bonus they need to be at full speed, but i am unsure of that.

Glad to hear that Emperor Charles!! It is hard to make an installer you guys for this mod, because of all the special stuff that needs done. Just make sure you other guys read the directions. Hopefully Signifier one and Gigantus, agree that they need the XAI sooner for the patch.

[Gigantus]

The installer should be pretty strait forward, if necessary you can provide the original files in a renamed form (_org ending for instance).

[resenberg]

Hi there,

Been trying you submod and so far I like it, specially the BAI. Regarding the CAI I played a few turns in VH/VH as Genova and also Venice, In the 1st few turns playing any of these factions I can buy off Germany Bolonga and Florence for 2000 to 3000 florins each. Now, I think that is a bit too cheap to sell a city for..

[xeryx]

@ Resenberg.. What are your relations with that country? It is my experience you cannot buy cities unless you have very good relations, and have a large upper hand. Did you restart the campaign? that sounds like Lusted's Diplomacy. That just doesn't sound right either.. I think we need an installer.

[Socal_infidel]

I shall whip up an installer today at some point (working from home today )

A few things I noticed last night in my new Turks campaign:

Weird things: Not saying they're necessarily bad...

1] I noticed a few alliances like KraLL mentioned. Georgia allying with Aragon. Armenia and Spain. Weird ones like that. Not sure why two orthodox factions would feel the need for an alliance with two catholic factions half the world away.

2] The Byzantines blockaded my port at Nicaea and the next turn offered a ceasefire.

3] Egypt decided to blockade my port at Attalia for no apparent reason. I was still at war with the Seljuks at the time so not sure what they had against me.

Good things:

1] I have never seen Crusades like I have since I started using your XAI. Part of the reason I started a Turk campaign because I want to play it by attacking all Crusader armies wandering through Anatolia on their way to the Holy Lands.

Wow! The Holy Roman Empire decided to send one full stack and another stack of 16 units. And the army compositions were lovely. One stack had about 4-5 Crusader Knights, 4 units of Crusader Sergeants, Swabian Swordsmen, Men-at-arms with only a few units of Militia and no pilgrims!

The other stack was primarily infantry but again only a handful units of pilgrims.

I was actually challenged a little but I did earn myself two heroic victories with my all horse archer army. But it required a lot of micromanagement and their battle against the full stack was especially tough. At one point I thought I was going to lose as my units were all starting to run out of arrows.

But a mass charge of cavalry against their remaining infantry pretty much resulted in a chain rout.

And I took a quick peak using toggle_fow to see what else is coming. Whew. Aragon is coming. The Poles are coming. England is coming. I'm retraining my troops in Konya and getting ready for the next battle already.

Loving it!

[xeryx]

1) Then double check your installation, or the desc_strat file..because I'm telling you. Unless the wrong religion is used, Catholics do not make friends with Islam and visa versa. It is not the XAI causing that issue. I have not had time to play, lately. Also check the Starting Faction standings there maybe an error.
Trust me!! We put tons of hours in, to prevent Strange Alliances.

2 & 3) Blockades will happen, its a side effect of having naval invasions.

EDIT: OK, to clarify. I see Georgia and Armenia are Orthodox. It is normal for them to be able to make alliances with Catholics and Islam. It is harder for them to make for Islam than it is Catholic, they do have a higher penalty though. Because when this mod was made I only had to worry about Russia and Byzantine. I think some adjustments to the starting Faction standings are in order here.

[Socal_infidel]

1) Then double check your installation, or the desc_strat file..because I'm telling you. Unless the wrong religion is used, Catholics do not make friends with Islam and visa versa. It is not the XAI causing that issue. I have not had time to play, lately. Also check the Starting Faction standings there maybe an error.
Trust me!! We put tons of hours in, to prevent Strange Alliances.

Oh I trust you! I haven't spent any time in these files. You da man for that!

It's not Catholic/Muslim. It's the Orthodox/Catholic ones that seem strange. Haven't noticed any problems with Muslim/Catholic or Muslim/Orthodox...

What are the parameters for Catholics wanting an alliance with an Orthodox faction?

2 & 3) Blockades will happen, its a side effect of having naval invasions.

No problem. Actually, I did think I noticed Aragon getting to Jerusalem by boat. Because they certainly didn't pass through my lands to get there. Unless they went through North Africa, but I've never seen that before.

Like I said, I'm really enjoying this AI so far. Fantastic work

[AnthoniusII]

I like naval invations(even by AI)but i notticed that a fleet with a unit in it looses 70%of moovement per turn...why?

[Alexandrov]

Hello there. Been playing the mod with XAI 2.20d and have to say all round its been great fun so far. Been playing as Norway on VH/VH. Took me till 1110 to unite all the north rebel Settlements on same landmass + visby. This was due to rebel garrisons being quite smart with their flanking attacks and harrying my own flank attacks! nearly had me beat to start with.

Diplomacy seems quite alot "smarter" to a degree. scots and rench ighting england. Sicily made the pope into a vassal to. Thankully their my allies. I was even able to get germany to give me a castle in exchange for peace.next to a coastal settlement i was able to snatch off em when they got ganged up on by the danes/kiev and magyar. now i can send some local levies to help my kiev allies in the in novgorod war with them. shipping some more men to inland and their capital soon to cut them in half .

The only thing that made me do a double take was this Military buildup the danes are making near my borders. they send in sometimes up to a stack of just all sorts of assorted archers/ranged milita and crossbows without a general and just stand there on my side of the border in plain sight. first time it happened I increased local garrisons just in case and they stayed put there for nigh on 20 game years then turned rebel. Wasnt a big problem as i sent in my huscarls and scouts to get some easy experience. But seemed a bit weird. and ive just seen them start the process again.

But yeah. Great mod. Its by far the only mod since the Long road ive enjoyed. other than the fixed sound bug its all been playing smooth for me. Great choice of factions to ( love seeing the aragonese back . brings back medieval 1 days ).

keep up the good work!

P.S. I found it very weird seeing The rum turks Allying with The byzantine empire on turn 1. i double checked to make sure my install was working fine and it seems to be. tried starting new games and out of the 8 i did 2 started with the byzantine allying with muslim factions. just thought id mention.

[xeryx]

We need to expand the starting faction standings. The difference between the religions is the amount of penalty used. Even though orthodox and catholics didn't see eye to eye, I ultimately decided that they would be able to have alliances and join against the common enemy. In the case of Orthodox, they are more apt to be friends with Catholics, although they can still achieve a relationship with Islamic states, it just takes time..and neither trusts one another.