What do you guys want?

[Quixote07]

I'm running out of things to change. If you guys have any suggestions about what you'd like to see altered most, added most, axed most, let me know here.

Keep in mind, I cannot do any of the following things -

1) Add or remove regions from nation control

2) Pretty much anything regarding diplomacy

3) Anything that has to do with the Battle AI

4) Things that change how the AI does things, instead of what it chooses to do

5) Anything to do with the tech tree

7) I can't alter the campaign map in any way


Get those creative juices flowin'!

[Tilarium]

Honestly, excluding what can't be done, I'm really happy with how the game is right now. Ofcourse you should know that as soon as the mod tools come out, I'll have a REALLY REALLY big wish list for you.

[JAMiAM]

Go back to a more vanilla style treatment of the Religious buildings, and conversion rates, and unrest.

In my opinion, even vanilla rates of conversion were way too fast. Given the general wonkiness of the religious unrest being wiped out, as soon as you destroy the non-state religion buildings and build your own, it makes things too weird. Now, if you can actually fix the problem, by keeping some unrest due to non-state religions co-existing, but offset that by retaining the existent buildings, then there might be hope for this particular aspect of the game. As it is now, both in vanilla, as well as your mod, it doesn't satisfy on so many levels.

Another idea that has been going through my mind is a general overhaul of the NA native controlled territories. Instead of them being protected by huge stacks of ubermenschen, they should have extremely high rates of unrest for all non-NA native powers. In other words, it should be fairly easy to capture the regions, but extremely difficult to economically keep them.

If the unrest spawns random stacks of NA natives, even with substantial garrisons, then this would better reflect the reality of the lack of inland colonization during the period. It wasn't armies of natives opposing the drive, it was the lack of any real economic incentive, given the high costs of fortifying the frontier and garrisoning any settlements against the raids and semi-random attacks.

[Quixote07]

I'll definitely look into your NA suggestion, the church thing however is there for the AI, unfortunately. If I reduced the buildings back to vanilla costs, they would build far too many of them. As far as how you feel about their effectiveness, the only thing I can say is that they are much less cost effective than in vanilla.

Though to be fair, Native American factions can only actually build about a stack and half, because of their unit recruitment limits.

Honestly, excluding what can't be done, I'm really happy with how the game is right now. Ofcourse you should know that as soon as the mod tools come out, I'll have a REALLY REALLY big wish list for you.

I wouldn't hold your breath for the tools Jack Lusted mentioned today that they only tool they had for modders has been "far surpassed" by the player made tools.

[Gora sahib]

Id like to see the 'plant stakes' ability removed from all light/skirmish units. This has got to be one of the more fanciful elements of E:TW in my opinion, and we could do w/o it.

[Quixote07]

I'll definitely take it under consideration. It is very wierd to see them pull an 8 foot wooden spike out of their back pocket. That said, I'm going to try to get more feedback first.

[Gora sahib]

Right-o Quix.

Now if you could, with your magical modding ways, make stakes work like this: 1. go to woods and activate "collect wood;" 2. then move to a destination to plant the stakes (at half speed); 3. then activate "plant stakes," which would take three times as long as it currently does ... if it were like that in the game I wouldnt complain.

[Kolath]

Agreed on the plant stakes.

Also I would look at the steal technology ability. It seems overpowered to me.

Finally, some other mods have tweaked the locations of techs in the tree, why did you list that as something to avoid?

[Quixote07]

Primarily because I can't add new effects to technologies, only shift effects around. I guess that isn't as limiting as I made it sound, it just feels like it to me sometimes

[JAMiAM]

I'll definitely look into your NA suggestion, the church thing however is there for the AI, unfortunately. If I reduced the buildings back to vanilla costs, they would build far too many of them. As far as how you feel about their effectiveness, the only thing I can say is that they are much less cost effective than in vanilla.

I disagree about the cost effectiveness of them. If I capture a 100% non-state religion area, it takes about 5 game years to convert the population to greater than 90% state religion simply by building a single level one church and then upgrading it to the second level.

Even Jesus, Mohammed, and Torquemada working together would have a hard time matching that rate of conversion. Throw in the increased happiness they give, the religious buildings are too "overpowered" in my opinion.

[Quixote07]

What I can do is reduce their effectiveness, I'm not going to reduce their price however. It has to remain at it's current point to force the AI to go for economic buildings (as much as I can, that is).

[NONOPUST]

Maybe just take away some happiness points they generate, and along with that lower the conversion rate?

Btw JaM what population did you convert that fast?

[themoob]

This may be a little biased, but how about improving Cossacks in melee?

It'd make sense of course

[JAMiAM]

What I can do is reduce their effectiveness, I'm not going to reduce their price however. It has to remain at it's current point to force the AI to go for economic buildings (as much as I can, that is).

That sounds fine with me. Like I said, I think that they are TOO effective. When I reference vanilla in this respect, it is to bring them back to *at most* this level of conversion rate - a rate that I still think too high.

I feel that Vanilla happiness levels for the religious buildings were about right, given the other unrest factors present. Though I think that IS's happiness levels are a bit high, my main beef is with the conversion rates. The followers of the world's main religions are a stubborn lot, and if you look at the history of the last three hundred years, you see very little shift in the religious makeup of any part of the world. Given that the game starts in 1700, I would expect that mass conversion of regions to be an extraordinarily difficult task.

[JAMiAM]

Maybe just take away some happiness points they generate, and along with that lower the conversion rate?

Btw JaM what population did you convert that fast?

I've noticed much the same rates on several campaigns started since Quixote made his changes. GB converting Animists and Catholics in NA. Ottomans converting Orthodox in Balkans, Armenia, and Georgia. Portuguese, GB, and UP converting all non-Christian religions in India.

In one of my recent GB campaigns in NA, I was originally expecting a need to build some level three religious buildings, but by the time I could build them, I discovered that the level ones, and a turn or two of level twos had already flipped the populace to >90%. So, I didn't even have to bother with any. Typically, immediately after capturing a region, I would destroy an economic building, build the church up, and five years later, destroy the church and rebuild an economic building. In the space of about 20 years, I essentially changed the religion of an entire continent.

[Aloicias]

Though to be fair, Native American factions can only actually build about a stack and half, because of their unit recruitment limits.

I dont necessarily agree with that, but I mean its your mod. Make as many assumptions as you want.

These entities represent more than one individual tribe. The Cherokee in 1700 could feild 6000 warriors by themselves.
People say that one tribe could only feild 1000 warriors at a time but what they dont see is the other 5 allied tribes sitting right next to them. The ratio of feildable warriors ranged from 1/4 to 1/6 of the population.

[Tilarium]

Ewww... I didn't hear that Lusted say that. That's pretty said if the only mod tool they were going to give us has already been surpassed by what we made ourselves.... Oh-well.... so much for most moddable game ever

Anyway, I like the NA idea, with them being easy to take but hard to hold. When you guys talk about the stakes, do you mean the ones you can set up if you're the defender? If not, I vote not to remove them, they have a good use... and they aren't pulling them out of nowhere. Honestly, I think everyone should have them as an option, as it represents the army anticipating an attack and having everyman chop down trees and build what defenses they can before the enemy gets there. I use those alot more then I use the trenches, atleasts the stakes slow the enemy down alittle....

[Seil]

Well , I have to say that this isn't a "church" problem , but a problem with the whole religion system in vanilla.

In my GB campaign I had only one Priest in Quebec , France had 5 Priests and one Church, and my guy was anyway converting people by more than 0.5%. This with latest IS version , at some point paying to build church doesn't really cripple your incomes.

In my Portugal Campaign I converted the whole India region into a giant priest factory , I had over 10 running around there. It took them less than 10 years to convert the whole population to catholisism...

I have no Idea how the game does calculate the converssion but it's clearly messed up.

I also agree that taking region wich isn't of the same religion that yours should be way more difficult. But that another problem... The unrest one...

I don't know what you can do Q , but there's work to be done there for sure :-/

I wouldn't hold your breath for the tools Jack Lusted mentioned today that they only tool they had for modders has been "far surpassed" by the player made tools.

Well , that has to be expected. I'd be surprised if they only had the intention to release any kind of modding tools. Anyway , glad there's so much people able to work from scratch - on foot coded - games in this community.


Edit :

- Also , I'm still unhappy with the naval combat. Thoses mortars ships were absolutely never used into an open sea battle. They should only be kept in game if there was real ports battles , or if it was possible to have some of them firing on a land battlefield close to their location (shore battles to protect landing troops).

- SoL's (4th , 3rd , 2nd and 1st rates vessels) shouldn't be that present in non European theater. They were very expensive ships, that means you could barely see some old 4th rate in the Carribean. Also SoL's were huge ships , the large majority of them wouldn't sail faster than 4-6 knots at their best sailling point (135°), also they were unable to sail under bad weather conditions, too much wind , big sea and the water would enter by bigger gun deck openings. When I say huge ships , I mean monsters , able to take a lot of pounding without sink ; basicly a SoL burns, is abandonned or surrendered to the enemy. It is extremly hard to sink because of the firing angles in sea warface it's really hard to hit under the floating line.

Any toughts on how to reprensent this ? Probably starting by denying the possibility for all european factions to recruit SoL's anywhere but European ports ... ?

[uos_spo6]

After playing a few more turns through as Portugal tonite (post bar excursion) I took notice that the upkeep of a Line Infantry unit is 196 (close?) and that of the Guerilla unit is 126 (just about?).

The line infantry number 150. The Guerilla 60. The Guerilla are listed as a civilian unit i.e. unprofessional locals banded together, much different from simple militia regiments in comparison. I think the upkeep should be significantly lowered on units like the Guerilla. Meaning like indigenous groups.

Also considering the unit is half the size of a line infantry it should be way less than the current differnce. It helps significantly in using Guerillas to harass and as light reinforcing units, as well as scouts.

Portugal has the Guerillas, haven't played as Spain yet but I would guess they have them as wel. And whatever other civilian localized units apply should be given the same attention.

[Sol Invictus]

I also think that the Stakes should be taken out.

I would also like to see the Prestige Victory Conditions have less Conquest requirements. Prussia shouldn't need to conquer all of Germany to win a Prestige Victory for example. The Prestige conquest conditions for each Faction should be more historically feasible. Prussia shouldn't have to conquer Bavaria for example.