Garrison script in EBII?

[hefa]

Hello everybody.

I have played Deus lo Vult, a mod for MII:TW, for some time. In this mod there is a script, which spawns a lot of troops in a settlement, once you lay siege to it. This script is meant to emulate the feudal system of not having big standing armies, but using locals, which are levied in case of invasions. A very good side effect is that it counters the apparent disregard or inability of the AI to take good care of it's vital core provinces.

I wonder if the EB team is considering to implement a similar script in EB II. First of all, I'm pretty sure that many factions at that time actually were feudal societies to a certain degree. Second, it would counter some of the worst stupidities of the AI. I'm always bothered for example, when I'm attacking rome but the AI decides that conquering some petty province in gaul or whereever is more important, than my army in front of their capital (besides other nonsense).

[THE IBERIAN]

really good idea I like it and it would make game more interesting

[Aquila SPQR]

I think there was a garrison script in one version of Third Age mod. While it prevented Rohan and Silvan Elves from destruction in the first 50 turns I think it's not a good thing. It's simply cheating, nothing more. It would be good if the script would add only one or max two weak units, but adding many "normal" is unrealistic and I hope there will be no such script in EB II or at least it could be easily deactivated.

[Horatius Flaccus]

Absolutely against it, I hate garrison scripts.

And I thought EB didn't do it because it crippled the AI.

[THE IBERIAN]

but it's realistic, if I amn't mistaken when u make siege in ETW such things happen too

I think it will really make game more realistic and more interesting, but of course every settlement mustn't have many normal units, about 5-6 will be ok, while when in the case of the capital strong army must spawn it'll be very realistic

[Aquila SPQR]

Why it is realistic? Spawning a huge and well equipped army when a city is under siege is realistic? So why when Wandals laid siege of Rome or Seljuks of Constantinopolis no huge army arrived from nowhere to help the defenders? One or two units of quickly gathered pesants - all right. They rode to all nearby villages and ordered every man who is strong and healthy to help defend a city and were able to gather them before they closed the gates but that's all. No legionnaires or equites or even auxillia (not to mention phalangites or hoplites) spawning magically in a besieged city! You were not able to prepare a proper defence - you have to pay a price for your fault.

[bobbin]

I think it would be quite realistic, unless a city was convinced to surrender an invading army didn't just walk in and take over. If it were to be implemented the forces spawned should always be fairly basic, some low level spearmen and missle troops, maybe a few levy phalanxes.

It could be linked to what buildings were present in the city, so a city with a stone wall would get more troops than one with just a palisade reflecting the investment put into city defence, or a city with Katoikiai (military settlements) might get some better units to represent the semi-professional soldiers of these settlements coming to the defence of the regional capital.

This all hinges on one thing, I know you can create units with a script but can you remove them as well? if not then this is a very bad idea as you'll just end up with a load of stacks cluttering up the map.

[Seleukos_I.]

You were not able to prepare a proper defence - you have to pay a price for your fault.

I would prefer if only the AI would get the garrison script because if it comes to the player I agree with you. It was your own fault. But the AI is just too dumb to defend it's cities.

[Aquila SPQR]

So if AI is dumb we should allow it to totally cheat? As I said earlier - I hope there will be no garrison script or at least I hope that they include it if most people will want it but also provide us with clear instruction how to easily deactivate it.

[Seleukos_I.]

It's quite easy to remove in TATW so that should not be the problem.

[Hakomar]

Couldn't you just spawn some levies or militias or what not that have no upkeep in cities?
To be honest, it still would be pointless, they are going to die anyway, and I wouldn't want it to drag out.

[bobbin]

So if AI is dumb we should allow it to totally cheat? As I said earlier - I hope there will be no garrison script or at least I hope that they include it if most people will want it but also provide us with clear instruction how to easily deactivate it.

It already does, in EB the AI gets scripted cash injections to keep its funds above a certain level.

Couldn't you just spawn some levies or militias or what not that have no upkeep in cities?
To be honest, it still would be pointless, they are going to die anyway, and I wouldn't want it to drag out.

The point would be that it would slow you down allowing a proper feild army to counter attack, currently you can conquer most places far too fast as taking a city usually results in few casualties.


edit: had a look over at the modding forums and there is apparently no way to delete a unit via the script, the best that can be done is to only spawn a garrison when the player attacks. Knowing this I'd have to say I'm against the whole idea now

[Isildor]

Why not adding a "town watch" building showing the number of people looking for law and order. It would be logical that this people, the "police", would help to defend their city. But this would be only light soldiers.

(level 1) - two scripted militias
(level 2) - four scripted militias
(level 3) - six scripted militias

With such a building both problems would be solved. The AI would get additional units in important regions (level 3 could be e.g. only for cities or large cities) but the player would still know how many and which units the AI get (You just have to look which town watch level the city has).

What do you think?

[THE IBERIAN]

I think great idea @Isildor but at level 3 let there be heavier troops

[hefa]

Hello guys,

nice to see some discussion about the issue.

What concerns realism: I think it depends. If the faction is feudalised to some degree then it is realistic. The parthian empire for example organised their defense in such a way (if I remember correctly). However, in order to settle this question my historical background isn't strong enough.

What concerns gameplay mechanics: Though such things were always secondary for the EB team, they are however, not unimportant. I think that the present behaviour of the AI in EB I is simply bollocks (which certainly stems from the R:TW engine). I mean, when I'm standing right in front of Rome, Carthage, etc. with a big army I expect the AI to react accordingly, which it simply not does. If the MII:TW engine is good enough to avoid such stupidities; fine. If not, than i think that the garrison script would be a good workaround. The AI is heavyly scripted anyway in order to stand a chance against the human player. So having to choose between an idiotic behavior without a script and an improved behavior with possibly some historical plausability I certainly vote for the latter.

That's just my point.

[Isildor]

I think great idea @Isildor but at level 3 let there be heavier troops

I don't think so because all this units are normally used for police issues and are now used as militias. There would be no reason why they should become heavy units. Furthermore it should be still possible to conquer regions. I really hate it when I attack a region with 1 or 2 militias and suddently there are thousands of heavy units. This is redicules. But militia would be ok, and realistic.

[spartan753]

I think a garrison script is a good idea. It makes the game harder and more interesting. If the AI has a garrison script, you would have to plan your attack a bit better.

In SS (no garrison script) I managed to push the Fatimids from Antioch to Cairo in like 15 turns (hard difficulty), while in Chivalry II (garrison script), I have used 60 turns from Adana to Damascus. I played as the Byzantine Empire in both games, and the garrison script are among the things that make me like Chivalry II a lot better than SS.

[jazz_chow]

I think garrison script is a good idea.

[Dargaron]

Why not adding a "town watch" building showing the number of people looking for law and order. It would be logical that this people, the "police", would help to defend their city. But this would be only light soldiers.

(level 1) - two scripted militias
(level 2) - four scripted militias
(level 3) - six scripted militias

I support Isildor's idea, as it seems more reasonable than dropping highly trained soldiers out of nowhere (I'm thinking of the city of Rhodes in XGM). Also, this would provide a use for the Garrison building, which in EB 1 was 6 turns and 2k mnai for just a +5 bonus to law.

However, could there not be two "Building trees" for garrisoned troops, one which would be much cheaper, around the same as the current Garrison building, that follows Isildor's pattern, then another tree, which would be available only in the EB II equivilent of a level 2 government, called "Settled Veterans", or a regional equivilent. These buildings would produce semi-elite units, (Aka. Greek Classical Hoplites, while the town watch produces slingers and Hoplitai Haploi) but only in small numbers.

The drawback to this set of buildings would be that they would promote countryside authority as opposed to city-based authority, as the settled soldiers/nobles moved out into the countryside to claim or buy their patches of land.

Also, I don't think Eleutheroi should get this, as they automatically start with (most of the time) between 1/4 and 1/2 a stack.

[Atilius]

Some points to consider:

A complete garrison script would be very large. We'll have 31 factions and 199 settlements, so the garrison script alone would require 6169 event monitors. For comparison, EB1 has a total of less than 5000 event monitors. The more extensive the script, the slower the game will run.

I'm sure we wouldn't want to implement any script that spawned generic units for all factions. Anything like an EB2 garrison script would need to take into account the faction ownership of a beseiged settlement, its geographical location, and the current military era in order to spawn a suitable army. That would be an enormous undertaking.

We might consider using a very limited garrison script in conjunction with other measures to make the conquest of certain regions more difficult, but there may be alternatives to this approach. The AI can be manipulated to certain degree in Kingdoms, which could alleviate the problem. We may also wish to increase the strength of settlement defenses, to realistically allow a relatively small garrison to defend fortifications against a large besieging force.