Imperial Splendour v1.067 General Feedback

[Quixote07]

Post general comments and concerns about the new update here.

[Bongfu]

Excellent

[KindredBrujah]

I'm guessing the changes from version 1.66 to 1.67 are the following?:

- Churches have had their conversion rates and happiness modifiers greatly reduced

- Carabineers now use carbines again

- Morale has been lowered very slightly

- Colonial Light Cavalry is now full sized

- Hussars are now more expensive than Regiments of Horse

- Rifle units have been normalized in cost and stats (Greenjackets are still more expensive, with higher melee stats due to bayonet usage)

- Wooden Stakes have been removed for realism and AI reasons

- AI declarations of war tweaked

[Quixote07]

Yup

[SeanAmato]

Quixote - I really enjoy your mod, it's majorly enjoyable and has contributed to some recent raging battles. Your reforms of recruitment/upkeep costs, etc. make for a lot of fun in my new Italian States campaign - my state army has just managed to unite all of Italy other than Sardinia, which I will soon be taking from Spain (who I have already stolen Milan and Naples from, only for them to peace out and eventually become my ally, haha).

My only request may seem a little selfish, but as a member of several forums I've seen this echoed across them. Modders for Total War games do an amazing job but seem to take out things that many players really enjoy or have already worked into their strategies to a point where the removal of these little things may prevent them from a) enjoying the mod fully or b) downloading it at all. I'm not within this group, but then again, I downloaded your mod early and wasn't able to really play around with things like grenades, so I wouldn't really know of their effects in-game.

My request, then, is that you (maybe?) put out an alternate version of your mod in which some of the things you remove from the base game - hand-thrown grenades, anti-cavalry spikes, that sort of thing - are left more or less untouched. I wouldn't be asking for this if I had any modding skill - maybe even mentioning how to put them back in (a tutorial on modding your files, perhaps) would have a great chance at increasing the amount of people who get to experience your mod.

I for one love the effects that your mod has upon the game but would enjoy changing little things here and there - I am a very smalltime modder and ended up spending more time tweaking M2TW than I did playing it - but have no idea how to do so with the new file formats. If you have any way of showing me (and your audience) how to do so, I would appreciate it greatly!

[cherryfunk]

Ah, the new release, excellent! The best E:TW mod keeps getting better

[mkk]

Maybe the construction cost for churches can now revert to the vanilla levels or nearby.

I love to see less "stuff" on the battlefield since there are so many AI related problems.

And a non-version specific note, I'm much enjoying a more alive campaign right now with this mod. Several zombie-nations are now involved in some actions.

[Tobobu]

Thanks for the new release, I'll have great fun with it tonight

BTW, you tweaked the AI's declaration of war. That doesn't mean the AI is able to make peace with its rivals, right?

[Gomer_Pyle]

I am playing on VH/H and unit size "Small" and graphics juiced up. I really love this. I do not understand all the fuzz with EXTREMELY huge armies... I get the "great" feeling with unit size on "Small". Can run the game with Large without problems but doesnt feel right thats all.

@ Tobobu: I think the DoW tweak is preventing or making it harder for AI friendly to you to backstab you.

[Quixote07]

Thanks for the new release, I'll have great fun with it tonight

BTW, you tweaked the AI's declaration of war. That doesn't mean the AI is able to make peace with its rivals, right?

Unfortunately, making peace is bound up in the diplomacy files, so no luck there.

This is mostly to address problems where friendly and very friendly nations would attack you. The current AI fixes the problem as much as I can, and let me clarify why this is still limited.

Each nation has a BDI_POOL in the startpos.esf. It stands for Belief, Desire, and Intention. These control what the AI tries to conquer, by and large. I'm sure they do other things, but I havn't figured them out yet. These entries are the core of what is causing a lot of the "very friendly" and "friendly" attacks. The AI wants to invade something, but the only thing it's told it should invade is your friendly nation.

I can't change these yet. Each nation has three entries (belief, desire, intention) and each entry has several thousand pretty incomprehensible entries. In order to change these priorities, I'd have to go through each of these entries by hand, try and decode what it refers to, and then hope I changed it correctly. And then do it twice more for that faction. Seeing as how we've unlocked quite a few more in IS, it isn't feasible yet.

The only way to prevent these entries from overriding your diplomatic relations is to go into military alliances, which seem to change these settings.

What that means is that there'll probably still be examples of friendly and very friendly enemies declaring war, unfortunately. I've done all I can to fix this.


Edit - It just occured to me, this is probably what's causing CA problems with naval invasions too.

[Tobobu]

@Quixote07:

First of all: thank you for providing us with such a great mod. It really makes ETW much more interesting for me.

And thank you too for the extensive and interesting answer. It was good to get some inside information.

Your note that the AI uses some thousands entries to figure out who to attack might be quite a hell for a moder like you. At the same time it strengthens the view, that the AI isn't that simple build in ETW.

My question came up because I'm finding it quite iriting to see with who the AI is at war after 20 or 30 rounds. Usually it fights against all its neighbours and even some more factions. If I'd be at war with 10 factions, it would be very hard for me to build a strong and successful army and so is it for the AI I guess.

Why do you think all this has a connection with missing naval invasions?

[Quixote07]

Because they not only have to give the AI the capability to board ships, but the direction to use them. Due to the fact that a navy can hit any coastal region, they have to construct viable BDI_POOL entries for each coastal region for each faction, yet make sure they're prioritized correctly to prevent armies from going everywhere willy nilly.

[Froggie5]

Maybe the construction cost for churches can now revert to the vanilla levels or nearby.

They were purposely cranked up to dissuade the AI from building religious building everywhere instead of buildings that will help their economy.

[Tobobu]

Because they not only have to give the AI the capability to board ships, but the direction to use them. Due to the fact that a navy can hit any coastal region, they have to construct viable BDI_POOL entries for each coastal region for each faction, yet make sure they're prioritized correctly to prevent armies from going everywhere willy nilly.

Ok, I see. Thanks for explaining.

There is now way that you could alter that, I guess?

[KindredBrujah]

I suspect not without figuring out all those thousands of numbers previously mentioned.

Quixote07, couldn't you compare the numbers for, say, United Provinces and Great Britain (start off Allied) against, say, United Provinces and Spain (start off hostile) and work out how the numbers work from there?
I'm sure you've already considered this, or something similar, but it's worth mentioning, just in case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In regards to the release, there's one part (I've found so far) which I think should be changed (it was like this in v.1.065 and v.1.066 as well):

Bargir Infantry (Maratha Confederacy) stats seem to be as follows (not exact, just as I remember them):

Bargir Infantry
Range: 100
Accuracy: 20 (!)
Reload Skill: 25
--
Mêlée Attack: 4
Charge Bonus: 3
Mêlée Defence: 15
Morale: 11

Now, don't get me wrong, that's cool in itself, but I'm fairly sure that Maratha can field these guys from the beginning (or very near-to) of the game. I'm only in 1720, I just unlocked Grenadiers myself a few years previously and these random backwater guys (they DID get most of their combat tactics and equipment from the colonisations, so should therefore be worse during the Early Period) are a better shot and the match in defense and morale.

I think the defensive skill and morale would be cool if we just dropped their accuracy to 15 (the same as Line Infantry and Grenadiers).
Just a thought, you're more than welcome to explain your reasons for leaving it like it is.

[Quixote07]

Good point. Accuracy will be lowered to 15 in the next update.

Though their morale isn't 11, I think you might have been looking at a different unit. It's the default 5. Their melee defense is high, but they have exceptionally low melee attack. This makes them the go to defensive ranged infantry for Marathas. Their total melee stats are significantly lower then grenadiers and moderately lower than regular line infantry.

[KindredBrujah]

Yeah, just went back in and had a look. Don't know where I got the high morale from (I did say it was just from memory).
Nevertheless, glad you agree about the accuracy. Whilst you're there, Sikh Musketeers are also 20.
I would say, however, Maratha in general could probably do with some high morale units. The Sikh ones seem to be good candidates. 11 for the Sikh Warriors and 8 for the Sikh Musketeers?
You'd need to make the accuracy of the Sikh Musketeers significantly lower to compensate, since they're available in the Early Period (say, 13?)

[JAMiAM]

Started a fresh Austrian Prestige Campaign this morning, on H/N difficulty. Through my adept use of diplomacy I've pretty much managed to remain neutral through 1724. The only nation that I've gone to war with, other than the Pirates and Barbary States, has been Wurttemberg, and then only because they declared war on Bavaria. Both were my allies, but I chose to support Bavaria, since I already had a trade agreement with them and wanted a buffer state.

When you get a chance to start truly modifying diplomacy, I'm hoping that there will be a way that you can lock out a nation's protectorates from declaring war on on another, or at least strongly discourage it.

Anyhow, Austria continues to be a shining bastion of enlightenment in the middle of an otherwise war-torn Europe, and has used this peace to build up it's industry, merchant marine, and trade partnerships with several countries. Of course, I don't expect that this will last forever, so some of our best minds are striving diligently to catch up to the rest of the warmongering nations in terms of military technology, should they decide that the Austrian Empire be too juicy a plum to remain unplucked...

In other words...loving it!

[Chevalier IX]

excellent update,as usualalthough one little issue here..I am of the opinion that perhaps it would do well to revert the morale to prior levels.although i am well studied of the era and know that toe to toe fights to the last man were far from common place,I am thinking tyhy are routing too fast in far too high of numbers....either that or the fact that Frederick one said that the Austrians are terrified by the sight of his banner holds trueI had an incident where the battle lasted an entire 5 minutes with very low casualties,the end result being my victory due to the fact that over 3000 men of the Austrian colours routed simultaneouslywas this an isolated incident I would say it was well and good and a time to raise the glasses,but this was not the case,it happened in several subsequent large battles as well.even though you stated that you only slightly lowered the morale,could it be this tweak put it over the threshold???for they are routing far faster than the estimated 50%casualty rate of before....more like 15%as it standsI will say that having not often fought the Austrians it is nice to see they do less shooting out and more charging Bayonet,as was their doctrine of the time..not sure if that is your doing or not

[Quixote07]

I slightly lowered morale, but the overall morale changes in the previous update (harder to shatter, much easier to rally, more time "wavering") are all in. The change in morale I made was not significant enough to cause what you saw.