>>>>> dHRR 0.8a beta <<<<<<

[hemeroc]

i played somehours today to get a feeling for 0.8 and did some testing for hungary

first of all, i noticed that when i obtained kassa (rebel city) my general got dux of nitravie as it is intended - but the next turn he also got another anc serbiae magnus zupanus.

he also got 2 different traits - house of nitra and house of serbia. is it intended that he gets 2 houses of his own with just 1 province?.

hungarian nobles are heavy cav and use melee as weapon only, yet their unit pic depicts a archer cav unit.

i once lost a general in a battle( forgot who it was, but it was one of the starting generals) but after i finished the battle, he was still alive oO.



what i also noticed : graz is held by bohemian rebels, yet bohemians should be north of austria.

merchants are quite useless, merchant income is REALLY low.


overall, it is quite stupid diplomatic ai for the hrr factions - by turn 10 austria was finished off by the bohemians. this happened everytime i did not play a hrr faction.

when i invaded a hrr faction with hungary (wanted to see if they work together - civil war has already ended.) it was too easy to finish a whole faction . since there are so many different factions for hrr(as it should be) they stand NO chance when the bigger neighbors invade them. they really should try to help each other when a foreign factions attack them. but as it was, i finished 2 factions in quite a short time, since they just watched their german allies get owned.


overall, all ai factions are too passive.

even by turn 20 sweden did not attack one single rebel village near them - and they only have rebel villages to take care of......

all psanish factions as well as portugal did not get one single rebel province.

and i never got attacked by any faction - it was only me who attacked all the time.

only once bohemians sieged a city of mine(when i played austria) because i conquered it some turns ago.

they always had less units than me and still attacked all the time - i never lost more than 200 - they always lost about 1400 units. quite stupid, since they did that 4 times in only 13 turns

[hemeroc]

after doing many battles on open field and siege battles, i came to the conclusion that archers are way too powerful, especially in siege battles where horses cannnot charge nto them.


its good that contrary to vanilla archers actually kill enemies with arrows - but since they have the same amount of armor as normaly melee units and such a high melee damage output( i have archers who got 9 dmg with arrows and 6 melee dmg - all archers i got and face in battle are somewhat the same) they are nearly as good in defending walls as infantry units. a group of 120 archers even kill about 15 of my generals bodyguard in melee combat - and that really should happen! they are after all archers.

i think that archers melee dmg output should be greatly reduced!


edit:

when i conquered ragusa, my general did not get count of ragusa(he had 0 ancs.)

[konny]

first of all, i noticed that when i obtained kassa (rebel city) my general got dux of nitravie as it is intended - but the next turn he also got another anc serbiae magnus zupanus.

I see, this ancillary accidently is tied to the House of Nitra, not Serbia. I have added it to the list for next patch, thank you.

hungarian nobles are heavy cav and use melee as weapon only, yet their unit pic depicts a archer cav unit.

Yes, there are still some issues with the UI pics. In this case they still use the Vanilla pic.

i once lost a general in a battle( forgot who it was, but it was one of the starting generals) but after i finished the battle, he was still alive oO.

uh? Strange, but that would be bug of M2TW.

what i also noticed : graz is held by bohemian rebels, yet bohemians should be north of austria.

Yes, rebel naming still is a problem. It has not changed since 0.7 but needs a fix.

merchants are quite useless, merchant income is REALLY low.

The number of trade ressources has been seriously upped, in return the ammount of money you make from a single ressource has been nerfed, what also affects merchants. I think this agent is mostly pointless because of the crap way the AI uses it. May be, we come to a better conclusion when reworking economy for 0.9?

overall, it is quite stupid diplomatic ai for the hrr factions - by turn 10 austria was finished off by the bohemians. this happened everytime i did not play a hrr faction.

Not always: I often have Austria destroying Bohemia and pushing into Poland. In my recent game the hold Vienna and Kassa around 1100.

they really should try to help each other when a foreign factions attack them.

That's nothing that can be changed with a few lines of code, but I agree that internal-HRE politics as well as external relations when under attack need some changes; what would require to mod the complex campaign AI. This is talk about, but will not come in the near futue (may be for 1.0).

overall, all ai factions are too passive.
and i never got attacked by any faction - it was only me who attacked all the time.

You need to give them some more time: Rebel garrisons are seriously upped (in exchange for all garrison scripts having been removed). That way it takes longer for the AI to expand because they now need a full stack before attacking the next settlement. But they will come, don't worry (in my first campaign with Milan I was instantly shreddered by Swabia who came down the Alps with a full stack).

When playing as Hungary, don't forget that you start the game as allied to Austria and Bavaria, and the rest of the "papal party" inside Germany. That way your faction standings with all Germans will seriously imporve once the civil war is over.

after doing many battles on open field and siege battles, i came to the conclusion that archers are way too powerful, especially in siege battles where horses cannnot charge nto them.

Nah, the problem we have with archers is that AI archers often don't do a thing at all and just stand around being shot to pieces.

a group of 120 archers even kill about 15 of my generals bodyguard in melee combat - and that really should happen! they are after all archers.

That really depends on what archers we are talking about: retinue, peasant, mercenary, regionals? While you should have no problems to defeat a unit of peasant archers with not more than 1 or 2 casualties amongst your knights, mercenary archers can offer stiff resistance when not being properly charged at.

when i conquered ragusa, my general did not get count of ragusa(he had 0 ancs.)

There is no count in Ragusa, the Archbishop of Split, the King of Coratia, and the Ban of Croatia (only available when the FL is King of Croatia but absent from his kingdom) can get the feudal bonus there.

[Moritol]

I started playing with Saxony and finished civil war in an epic battle, lost 70% of my army and 2 family members but I was able to kill the King and destroyed his whole army. This was my first turn. After this one I became King.
My first impression is that the AI is better and more aggressive than in 7.0. Bohemia attacked the Obotrites in turn 5 and took Magdeburg the next turn.
Lower Lorraine expanded too and declared war on France (turn 15).
Milan wasn't passive at all, while my Romzug I saw them besieging the town below, they failed but I think it was a close one.
My mighty Saxons then attacked the Obotrides (10 turn) and I finished them of in turn 15.
I discovered no bugs and had not a single ctd.
The unit pics are a bit confusing, because there is often one pic for 2 types of troops.

the next faction I played was Sweden, and I have to admit that it is really hardcore. Your starting money is pathetic (1000) and you will lose more than half of it next turn. If you don't take a settlement next turn, you might be broken.
My suggestion is to improve this financial situation, especially for the AI.
Nonetheless I could conquer Visby in turn 1-2. I sieged it with 2 bunches of spearmen, 3 bunches of viking mercenaries and my Prince then I waited for the AI's turn to force it into a field battle. Thank god there was only one troop of cavalry in their army (I didn't noticed it before because of the unit pic) .
I hope the swedish unit pool is going to differ a bit more with technologial advance compared to the Saxons. If Sweden is not finished yet, I'm gonna wait for the next patch.

I miss the castles a bit, but not much. Less problems for the AI

[konny]

The unit pics are a bit confusing, because there is often one pic for 2 types of troops.

I think I need to fix that as soon as possible.

My suggestion is to improve this financial situation, especially for the AI.

The AI has a mighty money script that will keep it above the water.

If Sweden is not finished yet, I'm gonna wait for the next patch.

If you like Sweden, play it now because it will most likely be replaced by Norway in the (very nearest) future.

[JorisofHolland]

The AI has a mighty money script that will keep it above the water.

Does the AI get an improved Kings Purse or just money? Kings Purse will lead to huge armies with only a few settlements, in the long run. If the AI is given money, it's more likely it will be used on buildings.

If you like Sweden, play it now because it will most likely be replaced by Norway in the (very nearest) future.

Why? Did you already reach the 30 faction limit? And why do you prefer Norway over Sweden?
And can't you give population boosts to AI controlled settlements? Then tax effect could be put back in.
BTW: Does low tax still give chivalry?

[konny]

Does the AI get an improved Kings Purse or just money? Kings Purse will lead to huge armies with only a few settlements, in the long run. If the AI is given money, it's more likely it will be used on buildings.

King's Purse.

Why? Did you already reach the 30 faction limit? And why do you prefer Norway over Sweden?

Yep. The Mongols will be replaced with Novgorod and Norway would be more interesting because of its ties to the British Isles; but this still is under testing.

And can't you give population boosts to AI controlled settlements? Then tax effect could be put back in.

Nope. That would require an imense script with one monitor per settlement called for on each settlment turn.

BTW: Does low tax still give chivalry?

For now the Vanilla traits had not been touched; but don't expect that to stay this way.

[Moritol]

If you like Sweden, play it now because it will most likely be replaced by Norway in the (very nearest) future.[/QUOTE]


The main reason I took Sweden is that I like the challenge to turn a little nation into a mighty one.
And when I play nordish factions, I use less horsemen and archers. Close combat with infantry is more entertaining, especially viking style.
I think too that Norway might be a better solution, the time for Sweden will come with Protestantism.

And I wanted to find out why Sweden is so passive. In HRR 7.0, Sweden still got one territory after turn 100. Gonna keep on playing with the Saxons without attacking the North and watch if this situation has improved.

And I forget to say that I love this mod. Sorry.

[JorisofHolland]

And I wanted to find out why Sweden is so passive. In HRR 7.0, Sweden still got one territory after turn 100.

Maybe this is due to very strong rebel garissons in the area? Removing some units from it will certainly make Sweden mora agressive. And turn 100 isn't very late turnnumber, it takes a unit pool 10 turns to refill, and the AI is always a bit less active when taking rebels, so they might start to move soon.

[konny]

Maybe this is due to very strong rebel garissons in the area? Removing some units from it will certainly make Sweden mora agressive.

No, I don't think so. The rebel garrisons only became that large with 0.8. Even before that Sweden didn't do much. May be, it's a problem of pathfinding, because I also have never seen anyone taking Uppsala. On the other hand, sometimes the Swedes do cross the Baltics for Danzig or Twangste, but often get stalled after that.

[Edelward]

I can say you one thing@Konny
I went to that place with nothern captaign
and iI have found that there few more northern captains have this mistake-nothern,for example
bohamian and swedish.

It also a grand mistake to replace Sweden with Norway.Norway can be a sub-faction in Denmark .

[eatme]

overall, it is quite stupid diplomatic ai for the hrr factions - by turn 10 austria was finished off by the bohemians. this happened everytime i did not play a hrr faction.

This is completely chancy. It happens sometimes, and I ve seen the contrary happen just as often. This applies to all other factions. E.g. Scotland vs England, Burgundy vs France, etc. Overall these factions are more or less balanced in terms of relative strength.

after doing many battles on open field and siege battles, i came to the conclusion that archers are way too powerful, especially in siege battles where horses cannnot charge nto them.


its good that contrary to vanilla archers actually kill enemies with arrows - but since they have the same amount of armor as normaly melee units and such a high melee damage output( i have archers who got 9 dmg with arrows and 6 melee dmg - all archers i got and face in battle are somewhat the same) they are nearly as good in defending walls as infantry units. a group of 120 archers even kill about 15 of my generals bodyguard in melee combat - and that really should happen! they are after all archers.

i think that archers melee dmg output should be greatly reduced!

Some of the archer untis, were historically pretty powerful troops, esp. mercs. But they still do not stand any chance vs cavalry in the open. If it is different in the tight quarters during the sieges, then it is only WAI.

[konny]

It also a grand mistake to replace Sweden with Norway.Norway can be a sub-faction in Denmark .

As a side note, we had, in a very early internal version, given Denmark a town on the British Isles to promote them taking active part in the fighting there. This did them no good because it caused them to completly neglect their mainland possessions, usually being killed soon by Obortrites or Saxons. This wouldn't happen to Norway because their homelands are far off the route of any invaders.

[JorisofHolland]

Too bad the AI can't fight on two fronts

[Edelward]

But few feeble domains ,which Norway sold to Scits in circa 1200 are surely can not be comparable
to Swedish expansion of that time era .
Sweden got biggest land gain during Northern Crusade compare to other powers in Western Europe .

[hemeroc]

there are some issues with formations - double line formation does not work( they jsut stay in single line) and single line formation sometimes does not place them next to each other

in quite a few cities i conquered, my general did not found a new house and his seat is not heriditary.

instead he gets a anc that tells he is the lord of blabla and rules in the kings place over this land - and i can transfer the title. how do i transfer it?


also - when my king of croatia died, he had 2 daughters(the eldest) and 2 sons - instead of his first son his 2nd became king of croatia

[hemeroc]

so ive played quite a few hours with hungary and here are my impressions (some things i may have said before)


i cannot quite remember at the start of hungary, but iam quite sure that they had no watch towers at the start( when i played austria and england, they had).

starting troops seemed to be fine - i managed to conquer a new province by turn 3 , but only with hiring some mercs - after this i had to do something for my economy to get more troops.
i noticed that after acquiring a new province, i had to pause attacking for some turns to get new tropps, since u cannot just buod up stack after stack in your cities, as it is in some other popular mods. in my opinion thats a good development for warfare, since u really have to take care of your units and cannot really afford to loose a whole army.

since iam talking about troops now, ill stay there a bit:

there are certain mercs (for example woodsmen) that can be recruited at your cities and as mercs. yet they cost the same and do have the same upkeep. is this intended? i think that mercs should be a lot more expensive in upkeep, since they only fight for coin and not for their kingdom.

now ive already expressed my opinion in archers meelee skills and i would like to explain this a bit further:
Meelee/Ranged
free fighters 5/11
dism. magyar cav. 7/12
bulgar archers 5/11
peasant archers 4/9

now when i compare them to slav mercenaries( maybe thats not intendened, i can recruit them in my cities)
who got 7 attack power and 3 charge bonus and a total of 24 armor

compared to, for example dism magyar cav they planly suck. they got the same meelee attack power, only got a slight better charge bonus(dism. maygar cav got 2 charge bonus). dism mag. cav got a total of 22 armor. they can use long ranged missiles(all archers can do that - EVEN peasant archers). Yet those archers only cost 436 and 180 upkeep. compared to slav mercs ( 561 build costs and 204 upkeep. the overall stats of archers are just better than infantry - they kill even before enemies get to them ( they often kill more than 15 horses before they reach my spearmen), got the same melee damage output and cost less than slav mercs.

thats only one example, u can compare most infantry units the same way. it maybe that some archers are equally training in man to man combat, but a slight reduce in melee combat should be done - i mean, peasant archers are just peasants who have been given a bow and some arrows - they should have 1 melee dmg , not 4.

so i mostly dont even need to bother getting my archers into safety when enemy troops storm my walls, they can fight with a sword just as well!

also i think that long range missiles should be restriced to only some units - ALL my archers can use them - yet when i think back to my history lessons, the only renowed longbows i can remember are the english and welsh(i even looked that up now)^^.

they should be a special units for england only (as well as welsh mercs) and not be spread all around europe.

if i got that historicaly wrong, plz cotrrect me - but i think that the first documentation of the massive usage of longbows in battle has been at the battle of crecy somewhen in the 14th century.

just a side note since iam still at units:

a good idea was getting an 80 man bodyguard, now generals are a real force to reckong with. but the horse charge animations are a bit bugged to other mods. when i charge into some light infantry my horses dont just run through them - they kinda push the infatry some metres back and then they die..... 10 metres behind the place they were overrun (i hope u know what i mean, if not ill make a vid) takes looks kinda stupid.


now back to my overall impressions:

what i liked most when i learned of this mod is, that finally we get heriditary titles! i always hatted it when i played stainless steel or dlv that my generals did not inherit their fathers seats.

inheritance has always worked fine yet, only my king of croatia inherited his title to his youngest son , not his eldest.if i may say, a loyalty decrease of 3 for some titles is jsut to hard, 3 of my lords have no loayalty whatsoever^^


-------------------------------------------------------

now back to my campaign progress: it was quite easy to get the 2 cities of venice after some turns, since they were only held by about 500 units and they never even tried to get them back.

i bit harder appeared to be the byzantine empire when i took their first city. i spyed belgrad and saw that there were hardly any troops in there so i took this city. just 2 turns later the byz. empire reattacked me at 3 different places at the same time (2 armies trying to get to my cities, another one already sieging belgrad. i dont know if u did some ai scripting to use their troops better or if it was pure luck, but it was quite hard for me to gather enough troops to dispell them from my lands.

i only managed to do so because iam not some stupid ai( wich is in this mod challenging!) and could win my battles with smaller armies. right now im struggling to get more troops to attack the byz empire once more and get active again, but iam quite out of money all the time and need to save some money first this is a good thing, since going to war has always been an expensive adventure back in the middle age.


iam now at about turn 60-70 and when i toggle_fowedi noticed quite few things:


all spanish factions as well as purtugal did literally nothing, maybe they always attacked each other and did not even glance to all that rich rebel provinces nearby, but after more than 60 turns they should have done a bit more. since england didnt invade a rebel province but attacjked scotland all the time, i gather that the ai usually focus on enemy factions not on rebels( the same goes to portugal and all hre factions- graz is still a rebel province and austria sits around doing nothing!.) for france its the same, they havent got one now province and they are surrounded by probably rich provinces( many big cities there).


crusades should get some work too. since there are only 2 islam factions, the usage of crusades is quite useless - since no one is at jerusalem and other provinces to hinder them from achieving the crusade goals. i know that the focus of this mod is on the hre factions and mainly europe - but the starting time of the mod is when the crusades were quite frequent. maybe it could be possible to randomly spawn muslim armies to attack the provinces taken while crusading.


i hope u get all the things i wrote here, i jumped between my thoughts all the time so it must be quite hard to read it(its quite late by now^^)


now i just want to say keep up your good work, thats the best mod ive ever played!


ps: forgot something now.

in some of my cities i suddenly have a 15-25% population of jewish and they are causing some religious unrest why do i get them?^^


and at last: u said that hungary was not tested and we should test it: are there some things that not to be watched because hungary was not tested? i gathered that they do not have such special functions as venice and sicily, because they have quite different systems than other factions

[konny]

in quite a few cities i conquered, my general did not found a new house and his seat is not heriditary. instead he gets a anc that tells he is the lord of blabla and rules in the kings place over this land - and i can transfer the title. how do i transfer it?

Give it another general in the same stack or town.

These offices are Ispans, they were the Hungarian equivalent to the western European counts, but different to the former Carolingian states this office did not become hereditary in Hungary before the late Middle Ages.

i cannot quite remember at the start of hungary, but iam quite sure that they had no watch towers at the start( when i played austria and england, they had).

Some have, some don't. I have stopped pre-placing them when we started working on the new map because they need to be re-arranged after that.

there are certain mercs (for example woodsmen) that can be recruited at your cities and as mercs. yet they cost the same and do have the same upkeep. is this intended?

Yes, it is. Mercs being available in cities was first of all done because the AI hardly ever fields any mercs, save for crusades. This system will be a bit refined (for the player) in the future, in the way that you need certain characters in your cities in order to recruit certain units.

Meelee/Ranged
free fighters 5/11
dism. magyar cav. 7/12
bulgar archers 5/11
peasant archers 4/9

now when i compare them to slav mercenaries( maybe thats not intendened, i can recruit them in my cities)
who got 7 attack power and 3 charge bonus and a total of 24 armor

That's absolutly correct:

Slav Mercenaries, Free Fighters and Bulgar Archers use axes as melee weapon. The axe has 7 Attack (amour piercing), of which the archers get a penalty of -2 for being archers first of all and not "full time" melee troops. None of them is considered "elites" or "crappy", so no other modificators are used.

Dismounted Magayar Cavalry uses swords which has 9 Attack (no AP); -2 archer penalty makes melee attack of 7. The same unit mounted would have 9 Attack because being mounted gives you +2 Attack, -2 Defence.

they can use long ranged missiles(all archers can do that - EVEN peasant archers).

I don't know with which range the game starts displaying them as "long range", but be assured that ranges of missile weapons is set according to the (assumed) quality of marksmanship of said unit; which must not be identical with the overall quality of that unit, BTW.

Yet those archers only cost 436 and 180 upkeep.

recruitment costs is based on

(equippement + horses) x men

upkeep is based on

recruitment + men + horses

so i mostly dont even need to bother getting my archers into safety when enemy troops storm my walls, they can fight with a sword just as well

Yes, why shouldn't they? Only because they are archers doesn't mean they would not have axes or swords as side arms.

if i got that historicaly wrong, plz cotrrect me - but i think that the first documentation of the massive usage of longbows in battle has been at the battle of crecy somewhen in the 14th century.

Longbows are attested for Germany since the Migration periode. Most likely they were in fact imported by the Anglo-Saxons to the British Isles. But again, the game displaying the bow as "long ranged missiles" does not mean the true range is identical with that of Welsh Longbowmen.

a good idea was getting an 80 man bodyguard, now generals are a real force to reckong with.

Yes, they actually should represent the count/duke/whatever with his feudal knights. And because of the 20 units limit, you should be rewarded for using your family members as warriors by having them coming around with a decently strong unit of elites.

but the horse charge animations are a bit bugged to other mods. when i charge into some light infantry my horses dont just run through them - they kinda push the infatry some metres back and then they die..... 10 metres behind the place they were overrun (i hope u know what i mean, if not ill make a vid) takes looks kinda stupid.

Each unit is able to push the enemy depending on its mass. That's the reason why the knights push and kill their targets at the same time. This is not a matter of animations but of the engine having the pushing happening despite the soldiers already being killed.

inheritance has always worked fine yet, only my king of croatia inherited his title to his youngest son , not his eldest.if i may say, a loyalty decrease of 3 for some titles is jsut to hard, 3 of my lords have no loayalty whatsoever

Yes. Just think your faction leader would be the Count of Burgundy or Margrave of Austria and one of the other family members would become King of Jerusalem or (Latin) Emperor of Byzantium. In this case it would indeed require an extremly loyal character to still hold alligance to the count as faction leader.

maybe it could be possible to randomly spawn muslim armies to attack the provinces taken while crusading.

Yes, a "Saladin-Event" using spawned rebel stacks is planned for the future.

in some of my cities i suddenly have a 15-25% population of jewish and they are causing some religious unrest why do i get them?

You have Jewish communities in your cities, check the building panel.

are there some things that not to be watched because hungary was not tested? i gathered that they do not have such special functions as venice and sicily, because they have quite different systems than other factions

The special thing are the Ispans, what seem to be working as intended (see above).


Thank you for your feedback!

[hemeroc]

eastern spearmen havent got any bonus (like bonus fighting cav or schiltrom)

[hemeroc]

The special thing are the Ispans, what seem to be working as intended (see above).


Thank you for your feedback!

well since that works and every thign else with hungary seems to be fine ill switch to milan


what is there to look out for? havent seen a faction preview for milan