v1.7x Feedback and suggestions

[grbo]

I mulled this over, and I really like the idea of morale +1 -> +2 for the 1st level of experience, coupled with a -1 accross the board to all units morale... but I'm not going to do it. Why? Since the AI has a really tough time getting (and keeping) its troops experienced, this change would overly favor the player. At some point, I might revisit this if the BAI improves, and actually withdraws successfully from losing fights.

Thanks for the feedback... and yes, I do agree with these reasons. Let's wait for the next patch, and hopefully the AI will know to withdraw.

PS: while looking around, it seems that "Terra Incognita" has come with an interesting model for supply and manpower. I'm wondering you'd think about that ?

[Red Paladin]

I went and empty the data folder and use verify game data to get vanilla back. I had to start a new game inorder for the change to show up.

I notice that the second level textile building have 675 region wealth but the 3rd level only have 600 region wealth. Is this part of vanilla?

Is there somewhere I can look at vanilla values for units and building?



Lastly, shouldn't the british dragoon guard have a high tech requirement? giving them to the british at 2nd tier make the regiment of horse unit very redundant

[sage2]

Thanks for the feedback... and yes, I do agree with these reasons. Let's wait for the next patch, and hopefully the AI will know to withdraw.

PS: while looking around, it seems that "Terra Incognita" has come with an interesting model for supply and manpower. I'm wondering you'd think about that ?

I'll have a look at TI.

EDIT: alpaca's done some really fantastic work here, but some of this is already done by TROM. I'm going to see about pulling some of this in, especially the man-power stuff.

[Red Paladin]

Just had a strange occurrence where All of my units somehow manage to incur a 10% loses after a battle, most of them didn't fight at all as it was a curb stomp battle (11 units vs 1 unit).

I had manage to rout the one unit when I hit quit battle and exit to the campaign map to find that all of my unit lost 10% of their men. It was snowing during the battle so maybe some of my men died from the cold ?

[sage2]

Just had a strange occurrence where All of my units somehow manage to incur loses after a battle.
The strange thing is that all of them seems to suffer from a flat 10% lose even thou most of them didn't fight at all as it was a curb stomp battle (11 units vs 1 unit).

I had manage to rout the one unit when I hit quit battle and exit to the campaign map to find that all of my unit lost 10% of their men. It was snowing during the battle so maybe some of my men died from the cold ?

No -- it sounds like you're runing into the vanilla bug where, if you hit 'continue' after you are queried to end the battle, then quit later on, it autoresolves the combat. Jack Lusted has acknowedlged this bug, and it should be fixed in 1.3.

[Beastro]

Just had a strange occurrence where All of my units somehow manage to incur a 10% loses after a battle, most of them didn't fight at all as it was a curb stomp battle (11 units vs 1 unit).

I had manage to rout the one unit when I hit quit battle and exit to the campaign map to find that all of my unit lost 10% of their men. It was snowing during the battle so maybe some of my men died from the cold ?

I HATE this bug.

In my Dutch game I was defending against some Russians that came to releave Konigsberg as I was besieging it. I knew I was going to lose and couldn't fall back so I decided to maul them before I died.

To cut it short I had a good position behind a stone wall while my light infantry and dragoons were set up in a thicket along their approach. My LI's attacked the vanguard which sent the Russian cavalry into a charge which pinned them as my Dragoons circled around and crushed their artillery train or 4 batteries, few survived.

My LI didn't last long so and my Dragoons got counter attacked which sent them off badly hurt back to my main position to regroup.

The end was predicable but bloody, almost none of my guys survived while the enemy must have lost more than half it's numbers.

BUT!

Just as my last unit broke the game auto resolved and...... I lost my army and the Russians lost only 40 men....

I was pretty ing pissed later on, I was still on a high for abit from defnding so well.

[Red Paladin]

I'm noticely that on H/H the minor is not being aggressive at all.

Huron had a near full stack sitting in his city but right now it's only being used defensively. It could have taken moose factory ages ago but it just sit there.

Similarly I took Gibraltar from the Spanish and Morocco declared war on me, but Morocco are sitting in their only city with a full stack doing nothing while I have a half stack of british regiment of foot sitting in Gibraltar.

Spain and Portugal are hardly doing anything either. I've had line of sight on their unit for a while and their armys are just sitting there.

[ibigscarymonster]

It's always a good day when there is a new version of TROM
Anyways, I was messing around lastnight as Maratha and the Mughals using 1.24, so here is some feedback on the Indian powers.
(I also wanted to play a faction that would let the European Powers fight withought me involved. Two noteworthy observations, Austria is still alive even though they are at war with everybody and their territory seems intact. The Ottoman's have lost Serbia, to Serbian Rebels!, and Mesopotamia to Perisa but are doing a lot better than they normally do.)
The Mughals and Maratha seem pretty balanced unit wise at least in the early game. It's kind of weird seeing Mughals with Desert Warrior and Camel Units but I guess parts of India are desert like, still I'm not sure if that isn't an error on CA's part. Might want to think about removing them from the Mughal unit roster.
Historically Mughal armies seems to have comprised of elite Muslim cavalry and Hindu musketeer infantry. I'll try and do more research later but I think the Hindu Musketeers are fine but the Muslim Cavalry maybe need to be tweaked a bit. For an elite warrior class descended from Gheghis's original Mongol Army they seem a little weak.
Elephants are very powerful and fun. They can decimate entire units in seconds, including your own if you aren't careful where they charge , but they are very vulnerable to ranged fire which is a nice counter.
The Mughals like the Ottoman's spend 1000's of gold a turn on town watch policing which limits their power but if you can get that under control the situation isn't so desperate. I think this makes sense, both Empires are in decline but under a great leader (ie. the player) there is no reason they can't be a great power again. I think the key is when a computer is playing them we don't want them to collapse too quickly.

On a seperate note I still have concerns about Cavalry. I sent 6 veteran Maratha Lancers at 3 units of Mughal Urban Militia in open ground, 2 Lancer per unit. All six hit mostly head on and did very little damage, I was wondering what you thought about making the charge more dangerous?
I understand Cavalry being weak in melee after the charge and vulnerable to the square and fighting in build up areas like walls or forests but it seems they should be dangerous in open ground to a marching Infantry unit. Maybe I'm just a bad cavalry commander...

[Johan217]

I'm noticely that on H/H the minor is not being aggressive at all.

I'm not sure how much the campaign AI has been modded.
I would say the AI is aggressive alright, because it likes to declare war and do raids, but it doesn't like to commit large forces and press the attack. In my campaigns with TROM I do see the AI attacking, but very often it's just raids with small stacks. On the other hand, I (Austria) did just lose Transylvania to The Crimeans and Silesia to Poland, and they were attacking with seizable stacks (10 units and more). So it does happen, though just not often enough.

It's always a good day when there is a new version of TROM
Anyways, I was messing around lastnight as Maratha and the Mughals using 1.24, so here is some feedback on the Indian powers.
(I also wanted to play a faction that would let the European Powers fight withought me involved. Two noteworthy observations, Austria is still alive even though they are at war with everybody and their territory seems intact. The Ottoman's have lost Serbia, to Serbian Rebels!, and Mesopotamia to Perisa but are doing a lot better than they normally do.)
The Mughals and Maratha seem pretty balanced unit wise at least in the early game. It's kind of weird seeing Mughals with Desert Warrior and Camel Units but I guess parts of India are desert like, still I'm not sure if that isn't an error on CA's part. Might want to think about removing them from the Mughal unit roster.
Historically Mughal armies seems to have comprised of elite Muslim cavalry and Hindu musketeer infantry. I'll try and do more research later but I think the Hindu Musketeers are fine but the Muslim Cavalry maybe need to be tweaked a bit. For an elite warrior class descended from Gheghis's original Mongol Army they seem a little weak.
Elephants are very powerful and fun. They can decimate entire units in seconds, including your own if you aren't careful where they charge , but they are very vulnerable to ranged fire which is a nice counter.
The Mughals like the Ottoman's spend 1000's of gold a turn on town watch policing which limits their power but if you can get that under control the situation isn't so desperate. I think this makes sense, both Empires are in decline but under a great leader (ie. the player) there is no reason they can't be a great power again. I think the key is when a computer is playing them we don't want them to collapse too quickly.

On a seperate note I still have concerns about Cavalry. I sent 6 veteran Maratha Lancers at 3 units of Mughal Urban Militia in open ground, 2 Lancer per unit. All six hit mostly head on and did very little damage, I was wondering what you thought about making the charge more dangerous?
I understand Cavalry being weak in melee after the charge and vulnerable to the square and fighting in build up areas like walls or forests but it seems they should be dangerous in open ground to a marching Infantry unit. Maybe I'm just a bad cavalry commander...

Thank you for your feedback! The Indian factions haven't really been addressed yet, apart from a few general tweaks and extra money for the Mughals, I believe. I'm already happy to see that the Marathas don't take over the continent early in the game, as seemed to be the case in vanilla ETW. After the European factions we should indeed have a look at their rosters, and see if there are some interesting AOR units. If you have any ideas on how to improve that theatre, we'll be happy to hear them.

[ibigscarymonster]

I had some time at lunch so I did some research on the internet and then I did a more thorough check of the Unit Rosters for the Mughals and Maratha when i got home.
So here are some suggestions for making the Indian factions more realistic.

- Hindu Musketeers should be recruitable by both Maratha and Mughal throughout India. Right now Mughals can only recruit them in Gujarat (probably the Hindu tag) which doesn't make much sense. Hindu's exist throughout the entire Indian sub-continent. I see them as like the Reserve Line Infantry in Europe making up the bulk of the Maratha/Mughal Armies. If you are questioning Hindu's fighting for the Mughals, like I did before i started reading, apparently it was very common and they were loyal troops even if they were treated badly by their Mughal Lords. During the battle of Haldighat in 1576 the Mughals sent their Hindu troops to fight other Hindu troops and the Mughal cavalry circled both groups shooting arrows indiscriminately. The Mughal Commander told the historian Badaoni "on whatever side a man falls, it is a gain to Islam because it is is one Hindu less". So the Hindu rand and file were certaily seen as expendable.

- Hindu Warriors (Maratha) I would leave alone because they are offset by Islamic Warriors and Dervishes (Mughal).

-The Qizilbashi Infantry/Cavalry (Mughal) and Bargir Infantry/Cavalry (Maratha) should be like the named Line Infantry in AOR. Higher quality but with a limit cap.

- Pindari should be exclusive to Maratha, they were bandit troops raised by Maratha to fight Mughals. Apparently when the British took over they exterminated them for the deprivations they caused to the peasants.

- All Sikh Warriors/Cavalry should be exclusive to Maratha (The Mughals killed a bunch of their leaders on a number of occasions). Probably they should be a Rebel Minor as well but that woudl be too complicated to add.

- Sipahis are Islamic troops so they should be exclusive to Islamic factions (I'm pretty sure Maratha can recruit and that's probably not historical)

- War Elephants (Lancers) should be recruitable earlier. Right now you need an Army Council building which is too high on the building tree for something that has been in use for thousands of years. I would move them lower maybe Drill School but limit them to 6-8 units. Elephant Musketeers require Staff College which is fine but they should be limited as well to 6-8 units. Elephants should also scare horse like camels, apparently horses don't like the smell and get nervous.

- Let the Mughals recruit Desert Warriors, Camel Cavalry and Camel Gunners but restrict the recruitment of these units to the Middle-East (ie. Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt...). They shouldn't be recruitable in India.

I think everything else is fine. Anyways, just some suggestions, hope they are helpful, sorry for any errors or omissions

[Johan217]

I had some time at lunch so I did some research on the internet and then I did a more thorough check of the Unit Rosters for the Mughals and Maratha when i got home.
So here are some suggestions for making the Indian factions more realistic.

Those are excellent. Thank you!

[sage2]

Those are excellent. Thank you!

Yup, this is tons of great info. Here's the preview of the 1.25 version:

v1.25.0
* Inherrent bonus of cav vs. inf 4 -> 5.
* British Guard Dragoons only available at higher level buildings.
Lots of good feedback from ibigscarymonster:
* Hindu musketeers more widely recruitable (all of India), cheaper, and lower morale. Acc a little higher, reload a little lower.
* Bargir and Qazilbashi cav and muskets now have a recruitment limit, and are only recruitable in India. Their stats are better, and their price is a little cheaper, to normalize them better with other types of 'named' infantry and lancers.
* Sipahi Cav not recruitable by Marathas.
* Elephant troops have a maximum recruitability.
* Lancer elephants recruitable much earlier.
(sikhs and pindari already not recruitable by mughals)
(desert warriors, camel cav etc... already recruitable by mughals)

[sage2]

I'm not sure how much the campaign AI has been modded.
I would say the AI is aggressive alright, because it likes to declare war and do raids, but it doesn't like to commit large forces and press the attack. In my campaigns with TROM I do see the AI attacking, but very often it's just raids with small stacks. On the other hand, I (Austria) did just lose Transylvania to The Crimeans and Silesia to Poland, and they were attacking with seizable stacks (10 units and more). So it does happen, though just not often enough.

There have been no major modifications to the campaign AI parameters, and I don't think there need to be.

That said, I have repeatedly lost territory to the AI on vh/vh, and seen some AI moves that might even be considered overly aggressive. Here's how this works (as far as I can tell):

1) The AI builds strength.
2) At a certain threshold, the AI begins to raid.
3) At a higher threshold, the AI attacks to take a province.
4) At a higher threshold still, the AI considers naval invasions and helping allies.

The AI builds strength faster on VH campaign, so you see more aggressive moves. Making the AI more aggressive means lowering the threshold to attack, which means it will attack when it is less likely to be successful. Which would be a very bad thing for difficulty.

[Beastro]

When's 1.25.0 coming out?

I've decided to restart my Russian game and will hold off to get the effects of the latest version.

[sage2]

When's 1.25.0 coming out?

I've decided to restart my Russian game and will hold off to get the effects of the latest version.

It's out now...

[Beastro]

Awesome, thanks!

[ibigscarymonster]

Glad you found my research helpful. Fighting in India with no Elephants made me sad so i'm looking froward to trying 1.26

[sage2]

I know, I know 3 updates in one day is crazy... but that's what happens when I have two days off in a row for the first time in... a year? Don't worry, I'll be trading one hot dusty place for another shortly and losing my pimp internet to boot, which is guaranteed to slow down the rate of updates significantly!

[sage2]

Glad you found my research helpful. Fighting in India with no Elephants made me sad so i'm looking froward to trying 1.26

It was very useful, and your logic was sound. Feed back is always appreciated by us!

[dantragic]

damn you sage

just when I finally found some time to download 1.26 and played a few rounds you uploaded 1.27. Anyways, just thought I might post some things about the CAI in my campaign so far, playing on H/H with Prussia.

So my plan was to expand my empire a bit before trying to make peace with my neighbors and heading for oversea. So I did the usual stuff, conquering West Prussia and Saxony in one single round, surprising Poland and its allies. Went quite good, although I underestimated the power of rioting populations. Got into a little bloody civil war in West Prussia with Pommerian Rebels (btw, do they emerge as a faction? they had unique uniforms). Forced me to send a great amount of my Prussian Line to West Prussia while Saxony remained stable. However, both Westphalia and Bavaria recognized me as a major thread '(and the low garrisons in Saxony) in that region, declaring both war on me and sending troops to Brandenburg and Saxony. Luckily their Protector Austria didn't join them, however I'm now engaged in a three-front-war with Westphalia, Bavaria and Courland.

It's a lot more complicated now with the limited units. Good job on that, makes the game more challenging.

However, I noticed that Westphalia, Courland and Bavaria sent rather small stacks instead of smashing me into pieces, which would have, no doubt, worked pretty well. Gonna look into that if this is just a financial problem of the AI or something more general. Gonna try 1.27 this evening, so far I'm really happy