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Thread: Answers to important questions and Info:

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    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default Answers to important questions and Info:

    1. Why does RS2 use the taxable income bonus so much, and why are there negative tax bonuses in many buildings:

    Our intention and goal in RS2 was to create a 'dynamic economy' that at least acted like reality, even if it didn't appear to be reality. What I mean by this is that certain conditions lead to either healthy economic situations or poor ones, and certain government decisions and\or decisions or behaviors of leaders also effect the economic performance of a nation. This is not an easy thing to 'mimic' in RTW, because the economics in RTW was virtually on autopilot, and there were few settings that had much effect on it. Heck, many, many players just automanage everything and get away with it because RTW is so 'generous' with money. Indeed, there WERE no negative bonuses in Vanilla, so everything was meant to grow, make more money, pile up a treasury, etc....to the point where you had so much it was just stupid. I tried very hard to solve this in RS1.6, but was never very successful.

    The REASON I was not successful was because I was trying to use trade bonuses and penalties to control economics...and they simply don't work that way in RTW. Trade bonuses basically 'increase the size of the pie' from which the player is spending, and you can't reduce the size of the pie enough with trade negatives to make any difference. Also, if you capture a region that already has a Market, or a Forum for example, you automatically gain ALL the benefits of that building...even though you didn't spend a cent to build it, nor would you in reality gain ALL of the benefits. You could tax it, but you wouldn't necessarily gain all the profits from it...which is what Vanilla RTW allows. So the goal here is to 'control the size of the pie' from which all pieces of spending occurs. You give a faction a more or less 'static' set of bonuses in regions they start with, or are considered their 'home', and you allow that to grow in the old RTW way. All the rest, everything you conquer, is a TAX benefit, but not a profit benefit (for the most part, until you reach very high level buildings).

    Thrown into this you have unit cost and maintenance. If you are at peace, you need less troops, and you make more money. If you are at war, you need troops, you spent a crapload, and your economy starts to take a dive. I've seen cases where one has a lot of money in the treasury, but it is all TAX money (or most of it). You do a ton of spending to build projects, recruit troops because you're at war, and all of a sudden your treasury is in the red. That's because your tax income isn't keeping up with profits...so it can sometimes take a while for everything to normalize and start showing a profit again. This exactly the sort of dynamic we wanted, because it essentially mimics a REAL economy. And it is for this reason that tax bonuses are used generously in RS2...because they allow this kind of control.

    Now, another part of this is the negative side of tax bonuses. In Vanilla and most RTW situations, you build a road and you reap the benefits of that road for the rest of the game...for hundreds of years. Same with aqueducts, temples, etc. Never mind that in a hundred years much of this would become overgrown or fall apart, RTW would have you believe that once you build something, you never have to maintain it or think about it again. However, in RS2 we tried to address the 'reality' of the situation. Infrastructure requires maintenance, repair, upkeep to keep it working and healthy. In RS2, for example, you rebuild or maintain Wonders....you just don't inherit Wonders that either no longer existed, or would at some point involve a 'cost of possession' (the Hanging Gardens didn't just grow themselves, somebody had to maintain them). So, in infrastructure buildings and roads you basically see a tax penalty that pays for upkeep. Every turn, as part of your earnings and taxes go to building maintenance, just like it does to unit maintenance.

    If I could've hidden all these penalties I would have...but RTW doesn't allow it. Because I know it's a bit disconcerting to see a penalty in a building that may (in your mind) outweigh it's usefulness. But here's another twist to all the buildings added to RS2. One of my major complaints about the game was that you so often reached a point in your 'inner-empire' older cities where there was absolutely nothing left for you to do. You built everything. People get unhappy and you can't do anything about it except let them rebel and kill them all. And it just gets boring, to be honest. And even in cities where the AI has built a lot of things, you STILL have a lot of things you can do.
    For me, this adds 'immersion', shall we say. "I conquered this place, and now I'm responsible for it. And I CAN do some things to make these people happy, even though it will cost me some money." Thus, the many Temples of RS2, for example. Sure, they don't offer a great deal. There isn't much they CAN offer in RTW without getting ridiculous. But they do offer a bit of law, a bit of happiness, a bit economic growth, a little public health and so on.
    You lose tax revenue...yes...as you would in reailty. But so far it has been our experience that the campaigns can be won, and you have 'enough' to do it....just not huge treasuries from which to pull unlimited amounts of cash.

    Still another aspect of the RS2 economy is the Leader of your particular nation. The goods and bads, I will admit, are modeled after the more well documented cases of the Roman Emperors. Good Emperors had the respect and loyalty of their troops....at the very least the content of the people....and the respect of their Nobles and peers. In these cases, generally, the economic health of the Empire was good. On the flip side, a bad Emperor would spend lavishly on his own pet projects...bankrupt the economy with senseless spending....earn the disdain and hatred of the soldiers, people AND other leaders. The subsequent attitude trickles down into all positions of government leading to corruption, economic stagnation or failure, and a lot of unhappy people. So in RS2 there are a system of traits that reflect the abilities and good or bad traits of the Leader. In short, if he's a nitwit and a corrupt idiot, everyone will hate him. If he's a good guy...he'll be respect, maybe even loved. Every Governor in RS2 'looks' at the faction leader for these traits...good or bad...and inherits either a good economic trait or a bad one. (And to encourage players to HAVE Governors in cities, a sitting Governor has a tax bonus that negates a negative tax bonus built into the building tree, and acquires a small trade bonus. So it is a good thing to have Governors. This was to DIS-courage the 'auto-manage' option and try to ensure that the trait system works as intended. So you can choose NOT to have Governors at a cost of 30% every turn in tax revenue.)

    Why all the fuss for that? Well, to create a situation where players have to be concerned about their leaders...both Faction and Heir. To throw a 'wrench' in the mechanics...so to speak...and afford the possibilities of great economic prosperity with a good leader, and maybe even economic depression with a bad one. Now, if your leader is a pervert, a narcissist, a cruel leader, or a coward (just to name a few) your whole faction suffers until you get rid of the jerk!

    I'll grant that the whole system is subject to tweaks and adjustments....but this is essentially what it's all about.

    *************************************************************************************************************************************

    2. What's up with the Family trees? My Heir isn't part of the family, or my Faction Leader has NO family.

    The current setup for many factions regarding their family tree was implemented for a number of reasons, among which were the ability to add historical characters freely, and faction survivability. But here is a detailed explanation of how the 'family' system works in RS2.

    First of all, I need to digress back to a known issue in RTW regarding the ability to add historical characters to the starting positions of any given faction. The ability to do this was severely hampered by the fact that in RTW, all family members MUST be related to each other. So you have a father and mother a certain age, and sons they had who must be related to the father, and who must be young enough to be his children. Here you have a typical RTW family setup...in this case for the Cimbri in RS2:

    character_record Vannius, male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 14, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Sesithacus, male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 10, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Othelhildis, male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 6, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Carolus, male, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 2, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Herlinda, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 58, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Thusnelda, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 35, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Aurinia, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 28, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Amalberga, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 8, alive, never_a_leader
    character_record Biua, female, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 7, alive, never_a_leader

    relative Arminius, Herlinda, Ariogaisus, Hariulfus, Ricburgis, end
    relative Ariogaisus, Thusnelda, Vannius, Amalberga, Othelhildis, end
    relative Hariulfus, Aurinia, Sesithacus, Biua, Carolus, end

    Note that Ariogaisus and Hariulfus are sons of Arminius, and that Arminius has to be old enough to be their father. So if the oldest son is 30, then the father has to be at least 50.
    This restriction of age and relationship makes it very difficult to add a LOT of characters to any faction's starting family tree, and on top of that, no father and mother can have more than four children.
    To get around this, modders started adding 'non-related' characters to this list...which you CAN do, but with the unforeseen side affect that the game would try to adopt this character (and in the case of the AI it WILL adopt that character) and then 'clone' him. What that means is that the game has difficulty recognizing the 'status' of this added 'non-family' character, so it not only adopts him, but also create another one of him, so there are now TWO people with this same name. Later in the game, when one of these two 'cloned' characters dies, the game will CTD. Without fail, the game crashes, and your campaign is over. There is no way around this error.

    To solve this issue in RS2, I added non-family characters like this:

    character sub_faction romans_brutii, Gaius Flaminius, named character, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 72, , x 156, y 145

    Note the 'sub_faction romans_brutii,' in front of Gaius Flaminius. What this does is make the game look at this character (my guess, anyway) as if he had been bribed and brought into the list of Roman characters. For whatever reason, a character added this way will NEVER be adopted, and therefore never cloned. The result of this, then, as shown here:

    relative Quintus Fabius, Faustina, Sextus Fabius, Marcellus Fabius, Licinia, Minervina, end
    relative Sextus Fabius, Poppaea, Fadia, Decius Fabius, Marcus Fabius, end
    relative Marcellus Fabius, Alypia, Amulius Fabius, end
    ;;;;sub_faction characters;;;All chars. are 'sub_faction romans_brutii'
    relative Lucius Paullus, Metella, end
    relative Gaius Varro, Antistia, end
    relative Gaius Flaminius, Eutropia, end
    relative Gnaeus Geminus, Domitilla, end
    relative Publius Scipio, Severina, end
    relative Atilius Regulus, Alfidia, end

    Is that the ruling family starts out as 'Fabius' (actually Fabius Maximus), and you have the normal family tree above...but all characters listed below them are 'sub_faction romans_brutii' characters, and I can add as many of them as I want to add. You could add hundreds if you wanted, and none will ever be adopted or cloned. However, a problem arose that at first seemed to 'upset the apple cart' of what I was doing. The game started making any one of these characters the 'Heir', and then HE would become the faction leader. Beta testers reported there was no family tree anymore, and I was upset....because I put tons of time into all this and it appeared the game was once again to thwart my best efforts.

    But credit to Tone, who noticed in a few of his countless AI campaigns, that these characters quickly and efficiently created there OWN families, or already had them. The resulting conclusion was that RTW keeps track of 'hidden' family trees. So even if a character isn't strictly 'family', he still gets married (or is), has children, they grow up.....they are just all hidden....until one of them becomes a Faction Leader. So this was not as big a problem as I first thought. In fact, it's very cool, because the family leadership can be totally switched to another family (as in real life).

    Then, I discovered a 'trigger' in the advice files of RTW that dealt with offering characters for marriage or adoption. It is the trigger that opens the window that asks if you want to allow a marriage, or adopt a character. The trigger CAN include a trait restriction......so if a character has a certain trait, you can tell that trigger NOT to offer him for marriage or adoption. This allowed the removal of the 'sub_faction' statement and a character list like this:

    relative Quintus Fabius, Faustina, Sextus Fabius, Marcellus Fabius, Licinia, Minervina, end
    relative Sextus Fabius, Poppaea, Fadia, Decius Fabius, Marcus Fabius, end
    relative Marcellus Fabius, Alypia, Amulius Fabius, end
    ;;;;Characters Not_Adoptible;;;
    relative Lucius Paullus, Metella, end
    relative Gaius Varro, Antistia, end
    relative Gaius Flaminius, Eutropia, end
    relative Gnaeus Geminus, Domitilla, end
    relative Publius Scipio, Severina, PubliusA Scipio, end
    relative PubliusA Scipio, Helena, end
    relative Atilius Regulus, Alfidia, end
    relative QuintusC Caecilius_Metellus, Fausta, end
    relative MarcusD Claudius_Marcellus, Dryantilla, end
    relative MarcusC Livius_Salinator, Ustina, end
    relative Tiberius Sempronius_Longus, Octavia, end
    relative LuciusC Postumius_Albinus, Plautilla, end

    Characters below the RTW approved 'family' all have a trait called 'Not_Adoptible', and their children inherit this trait. They also all have a high 'Fertility' trait setting so they reproduce like rabbits. And notice that Publius Scipio, a non-family member, who is the Elder Scipio, has a son named PubliusA Scipio, who is the famous Scipio Africanus. What this means is that with this setup, you could build incredibly large lists of characters with children, if you wished, and non-family characters with big families of their own right from the start. But in any event, every one of these characters, if made an Heir or Faction Leader, will either have or quickly create a family tree.

    Now, there is one caveat here, which we learned very painfully....this setup works ONLY for the Player. The advice thread trigger that restricts adoption or marriage via a trait ONLY applies to the played campaign...the AI ignores that resriction and adopts and clones characters anyway. So PLAYED campaigns have to be set up differently than AI factions. (Another reason for modfoldered campaigns).

    All of this allows for a large diversity of ruling families, often switching from one and back to the original...or the original may just die out. And, for some factions, this allows for a greater selection of characters to be made Heirs in the event that they 'accidentally' kill off all their family members in a campaign...which happens on occasion.

    Creator of: "Ecce, Roma Surrectum....Behold, Rome Arises!"
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    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    Why is cavalry so cheap in RS2? It should be much more than Infantry.

    Blame me. The issue here is that RTW's software engine is coded to recruit based on unit value (offense, defense) vs unit cost vs unit numbers vs 'perceived threat'. And although all of these factors may not come into play at once, the one that always does will involve "What do I get for my denari?" The AI is 'smart' in this sense that it wouldn't recruit recruits it sees no value in recruiting....especially when there are better ones available with more bang for the buck.

    This problem is extremely pronounced regarding cavalry in factions that are NOT cavalry factions.....and, I was sick and tired of the fact that in RS1.6 you rarely ever saw cavalry in Barbarian (Celt) armies, and to a great extent in other non-horse factions. It is an imperative of the RTW battle engine that armies have a balanced array of units...which includes a few cavalry units....but if you make them too expense in the sense of the man-to-cost ratio, the AI will simply NOT recruit them. This problem was satisfactorily solved in RS2 by making cavalry what 'appears' to be kinda cheap, but actually isn't. Basically, you have to adjust the cost of these units and tweak and test to a point where the AI consistently recruits decent cavalry in its armies. Where Tone has that set now is pretty much dead on, and I'm happy with it because I see a lot of good cavalry being recruited by all factions in their armies. This would true of 0-turn or 1-turn.

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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    My Launcher comes up fine, but there is no text on the buttons? What's going on?

    Well guys, I wish I knew! LOL. I have never been able to see them myself. I had for a long time a custom set up Windows XP SP1 machine that I liked that way, and was told to update it. So I did, to SP2, the latest .net (I think), and it still doesn't work right. I'm 'guessing' it needs a .NET library that my and your PC's don't have. I just keep a .jpg of the Launcher on my desktop, and when I want to start it I look at the picture. Dumb, but there you are.

    Edited (Brusilov): There have been two mentions of how to fix this in this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...7&highlight=XP

    1) Change the appearance to XP default (Capital)
    2) Use the Roman campaign .bat file (koningtiger)

    I've not tested either.
    Last edited by Brusilov; September 07, 2010 at 02:16 PM.

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    Brusilov's Avatar Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    This was posted by dvk901 in the forum in response to a question about Roman units bneing weaker inthe campaign compared to custom battles.


    Roman stats are weaker in their modfoldered campaign intentionally. Otherwise, the player could basically steam roll everyone. This is one of the benefits of modfoldered campaigns....we can make things harder for the player without killing the AI at the same time. This was easier with the Romans because their units are pretty much all unique to themselves. When you use them in Custom Battles, you are playing with the stats that the AI uses in all non-Roman campaigns. That makes the Romans much tougher as an AI enemy. This is also something Tone and I were very adamant about....Rome needs to be hard to play AND hard to defeat. In RS1.6, I never saw the Romans as all that great of an enemy. They rarely, if ever, expanded much, and were often gone by the time eastern factions ever got there. We wanted that different in RS2. The Romans historically built an empire, so every faction, no matter whom you play, should have to face them. So their settings as an AI opponent are 'survival settings'. They WILL survive.

    But as the player, you have so many advantages over the AI anyway it isn't funny. And their stats are by no means 'bad'...they are just more realistic for this game, in our opinion.

    Also, this mod was created by a lot of RTW 'old-timers', you might say. We've played numerous mods, and set out to create a mod that was by far more difficult than the one's we played before. It's a 'challenge' thing. Newer players, or no offense, less skilled players, may find RS2 too difficult on Hard\Hard. So play on Medium or even easy just to gain some experience.
    Last edited by dvk901; September 08, 2010 at 12:35 AM.

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  5. #5
    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    Because I have seen this problem so many times, I'm going to address it here for everyone who installs this mod, or has, or has had problems with installs for this 'specific' reason.

    Windows Vista, and Windows 7 both treat the 'Program Files' folder on your hard drive as a 'protected system folder'. What this means is that many settings, and many programs installed into this folder are protected from malware, spyware or virus intrusion by the operating system itself. This kind of 'protection' involves what is called 'virtualization', in some cases, of program settings and even files, which are stored in dynamic folders under you user profile, where Windows 'fools' the original software installed into 'thinking' all of it's files are in one place. The parts of this software that are 'virtualized' are thus protected from intrusion because those settings and files are actually not ever there in the program folder that the 'intruder' expects. Ok, that's hard to understand, but the gist of it is that Windows messes with software installed into that 'Program Files' folder...and not always in a good way....it just does it in the 'Windows way'.

    When you install RTW into the default folder that Creative Assembly chooses for you IN the 'Program Files' folder, Windows (depending on how your PC may be configured for you as a User), may well virtualize some of RTW's settings and files. That's ok for standard old RTW, but then when you add a mod to your RTW, which installs it's files in the 'right place' where they should be, Windows is telling the game itself that some of the files the mod uses are in the WRONG place for the mod. As a result, you get errors and the game and mod will not work.

    It also possible that in installing a MOD into an RTW install in the 'Program Files' folder, Windows will see the mod as an intrusion and cause MOD files to be put in places where they simply cannot be. Again the result is that RTW and the mod will not work.

    This does not necessarily happen all the time, but it has happened enough times that I would HIGHLY ENCOURAGE people with Vista and Windows 7 to never install RTW in the 'Program Files' folder. But if you did, do NOT install RS2 into that folder. Instead, create a folder NOT IN the 'Program Files' folder and copy the RTW files into that folder. Then install RS2 into THIS folder, not the original one. The bulk of the people who have had problems installing RS2 have installed it into a 'Program Files' RTW install, so please take this advice and don't do that.

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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    I have a lot of CTD's after battels. What is causing this?

    First off, if you have a CTD after a siege battle, this can be the old and well known RTW bug that causes this. You choose either 'Occupy, Enslave or Re-locate' population, and the game CTD's. I recommend waiting 30 second, or, until the hard drive activity light on your PC stops flashing. This is just based on a 'suspicion' (no one really knows what causes this, or it would be fixed perhaps) that the Battle Engine in RTW is still calculating troops losses, traits or other in-sundry things it calculates, and isn't finished when you click the buttons.

    The second issue...CTD's after field field battles (or during them) is another issue altogether.

    I suspect (but really can't prove) that after battle CTD's are due to Video card overheating or overloading. There is a LOT going on in the Battlefield, and many very intensive graphics and models involved. There will be many systems that just can't handle some of the higher settings for whatever reason. I would suggest doing the following:

    1. Do NOT use 'high-res' vegetation or the 'high-res DMB' from the Launcher. Set both to the defaults if you are having this problem.

    2. Go into 'Video options' before entering a campaign and check the box that shows advanced options. Now click the gold button in the lower left hand corner. RTW will do an analysis of your Video card and suggest the best settings it thinks you should use.

    3. Turn anti-aliasing OFF (Let the video card software handle this. RTW's version stinks.)

    4. Make sure 'Unit-Shaders' box is checked (they must be in RS2).

    5. Set Vegetation to 'Medium'

    6. Set 'Unit Detail' to 'High' (never to 'Highest'. That setting disables ALL of the unit sprites).

    7. Set Grass detail to Medium.

    8. Set resolution to a lower one than you are using...something in the 1200's.

    9. If you check 'Widescreen', this is what causes the momentary 'glimpse' of the Desktop, but that's OK. All other settings can be as you wish.

    Try this for a while and see if it solves the problem. If it does, you can try 'inching' settings up a bit. But I really see no point using the High Res files...they are for the most ungodly powerful rigs that most people don't have, and are very taxing on you PC and Video.

    I'm recommending this because I personally have not had this crashing after battles problem...but I have a relatively 'low-end' PC and I know it. So my settings are quite modest. My machine can't even handle 'Huge' unit settings, but works on 'Large', and lags like crazy when I choose 'High' detail for Vegetation. So I don't push it, and have no problems.

    Also, a house-keeping tip....make sure your video card is clean, and the fan is not clogged with dust or dirt. Same goes for the processor heat sink and fan. You can buy 'canned air' at a lot of electronics stores for a buck or two, and blow out these fans if they are dusty or clogged. BUT, never do this when the machine is HOT or running, and don't put the tip of the plastic tube that shoots the air too close to card or motherboard. Compressed air is VERY cold, and you can virtual 'freeze' components and snap them to pieces with it, especially if they are already hot. If you don't have canned air, use a vacuum cleaner or blow out the fans as best you can with whatever you can. Dust and dirt are your PC's enemy, and cause problems dispersing heat.

    Make sure that all of the FANS in your PC are working right. If they aren't, you'll have problems.

    Creator of: "Ecce, Roma Surrectum....Behold, Rome Arises!"
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  7. #7

    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    Question: Is there a Roman legion recruitment map?

    Answer: Yes and no
    There is an outdated map in data/_IMPORTANT_STUFF/AOR_Maps

    but this is outdated. If anyone with some understanding of the EDB and some graphics expertise was able to help in creating an updated legion AOR map, I'm sure a lot of people would be extremely grateful!


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    dvk901's Avatar Consummatum est
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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    I'm playing campaigns on Hard\Hard, or on Medium\Medium, or on variations thereof, and it's "Too hard, too easy, etc." Battles are too long. Units stats seem unbalanced. I make gobs of money. What's up with this??

    First of all, you're playing an RTW mod. Although we modded the crap out of this old girl, it's still being run by the same old exe's we've had for 5 years or so. So one can't expect miraculous changes in how the game itself works.
    Now, that said, we did our best to make this mod playable for a wide variety of people. This is different from RS1.6, which was configured for the 'best' experience on a H\H setting. Anything other than that, and it was either too easy (M), or too ridiculously easy (VH). RS2 was configured with something else in mind. Totally throw out playing anything on Very Hard ANYTHING. The VH setting in RTW is bugged and worthless. You end up with absolutely nonsense battles, and AI bonuses, as well as bonuses to the player that are ludicrous. So don't play VH anything.

    A Medium\Medium setting will result in a more generous economy, and well balanced units (battles). The stats in RS2 were configured for 'Medium' play.
    A Hard\Medium will result in a tighter economy, and as I said above, well-balanced battles.
    A Hard\Hard setting will result in tight economy, and very hard battles....perhaps too hard, and too long for some players.
    Of course, any 'Easy' setting mixed in there is going to result in much easier economics, and easier battles. Nothing to be ashamed of here. That's the way I started playing RTW, so if you are new to the game, don't feel bad.

    For 'normal' RTW players who just want a good thrill out of RS2, I'd say H\M is best for you.
    If you like a lot of money, and normal battles, M\M could be your choice.
    If you enjoy punishment and all around tough economics and battles, play H\H. This mod was configured to BE hard on a H\H setting.

    By and large, these choices are yours, and you may need to experiment a bit to find what you like. But please, don't make statements like 'the units are all unbalanced', or 'this is way too easy', without first exploring these settings a bit.

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  9. #9
    Brusilov's Avatar Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    This was posted by dvk901 yesterday in this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=388223

    The standard RTW economy is, really, no economy at all. It's just a game system on auto-pilot intended to pile up money for the player. You have a bit of vague control over it, but by and large, it's whole intent is to make more and more money.
    Aside from the built in things that are coded into the game engine, the ability to put trade and tax bonuses in the game are the only two settings that have much of an effect directly on 'making money'. Now, we could quibble about money per person, and population meaning more or less money....but in the end, the whole problem with the standard RTW 'way' of configuring economics is that it just goes up, up, and further up, until you are making so much money you don't even worry about it.

    Some mods use building and unit costs to help control this problem, or unit maintenance....but here again the system is flawed because these things are all static numbers that don't change very much. (Certain traits and THEIR bonuses can change them, but they don't change themselves). So what you have is a situation where you 'compromise' over the early game tough economy (where you have little money and high costs), and the late game too easy money (where those costs just aren't enough to control anything, because if you made them do so, they would kill the early game completely). It is just a system that doesn't work very well, is clunky, and as far as I'm concerned, got very boring. By the time you had a fairly large empire, you were swimming in money and throwing it at everything, and no other faction could stop you. I set out to change this in RS2....one way or another.

    One thing people have to understand, or at least accept, is that all the tax bonuses and penalties in RS2 don't always 'mean anything'. I think some people are confused by this, because they are looking for explanations of what 'this means', or some rationale for why this is that way, and another think this way. In truth, if I could have, I would've hidden ALL the tax stuff just to avoid all this....but I couldn't find a way to do so. So first of all, don't look for hidden meaning in a lot of things, just look at how the system as a whole works.

    1. The primary basis of the RS2 economic system is what I call, 'Homeland' or cultural zones of influence. The idea here is that each faction has a set number of regions that are either it's 'homeland' or it's cultural area of influence. In these regions, their economic buildings give them very generous trade bonuses that boost their 'base' economy. So trade buildings like Markets will offer a faction a very good trade bonus in one of these regions.

    2. The second aspect of the system is a Capital tax bonus that is very high. This, coupled with number one, provides each faction with a very strong economy in its starting regions all the time. There are two very good reasons for this. The first is that the factional economy is built on this, and the second is a 'factional preservation' measure. What I mean by this is that, for example, you could be playing the Gallaeci and beating the crap out of the Arverni....taking regions away from them that they took outside their own, driving them back to where they came from. In a 'normal' RTW situation, this would be the 'death knell' of almost all factions...because you are removing from them huge chunks of their economic strength and tax base. Their territories shrink, their income shrinks, their ability to survive and resist you withers. But in RS2, because factional economic strength in NOT based on regions you conquer as much as the ones you started with, the faction you are beating back is actually becoming MORE economically healthy...not less. In RS2, conquering regions costs money for a long time, so if you take a region away from a faction that was costing it money, that faction has MORE money. Which means they can recruit and build more, and resist your efforts to conquer them better.

    3. Conquered regions are treated totally different in RS2 than in the normal RTW situation. In 'normal' RTW, if you conquer a city with a Forum, for example, you instantly inherit not only the Forum you paid nothing to build, but the trade bonus that comes with it. This much of the reason for the fact that income skyrockets as you expand. So in RS2, if you conquer a region outside your 'homelands' or 'cultural influence', all YOU get from that Forum is a small tax bonus. In a real sense, you aren't making any profit from this, you are just taxing someone else's profit. And here, really, is the key to the whole system....taxing someone else's profits. You have your OWN profits in your own regions, you are taxing the profits of others in all other regions. It shrinks your share of the 'pie', so to speak, and controls the size of the Profit Base from which you can draw income. That this dynamic works can be seen by overspending what 'seems' to be a lot of money in your treasury, and then observing that your income sinks fairly deep into the 'Red'. That's because you have spent tax money gained on a fixed or slow growing profit base, and you literally spent more tax money than you could collect. (Hmm...sounds familiar. ) So Beta testers often saw themselves sinking into debt during a time of war very easily, and then recovering and gaining income during times of peace (whenever that rare occurrence happens)....better to say, during times of 'less strenuous war'.

    4. Why all the tax bonuses and penalties in buildings? Well, for one thing, you can spread around a lot of tax bonuses and have them not amount to gobs of money. Trade bonuses give too large a benefit, and negative trade bonuses are buggy and seem not to work very well, or at all. Plus, a tax bonus of 50 in a low level building, 60 in the next, and 70 in the next results in far less money that trade bonuses of 1, 2 and 3. So it's a way to give a little bit here and there in a lot of buildings, without piling up a ton of money. The penalties, likewise, may seem horrible at 60% or something......but in reality this doesn't amount to a lot of money either. And the penalties are there as a 'building upkeep' cost, or infrastructure maintenance, if you will. It costs money to keep things working, so the penalties reflect these costs.

    5. Should you build tax buildings, all buildings, some buildings, economic ones, etc.??? The whole idea of the building scheme in RS2 is 'supposed' to be that every city can be a little different. Tax buildings are in some cases necessary to build in order to unlock other buildings...so yeah, you'll have to build them. Do you 'always' have to...no. If you don't need or what the buildings that are unlocked, don't build them. Temples, Wine, Glass, econonic cities as opposed to Fortified? These are all 'choices'. They allow the player to make one city different from another. RS2 has sometimes 9 Temples available to build for a faction. Do you need them all. No! Of course not. But you have the 'choice' to make this city dedicated to 'this god' or another city to that one. You can build two, four, all of them. Doesn't matter. They are just choices that offer a little bonus to make people a little happier or more lawful. All these buildings have either small bonuses or penalties....'trade offs', so to speak. You gain a little, you lose a little. Sometimes you'll see BOTH a penalty and a bonus in the same building and wonder: "What's up with that? Is that a mistake?" No, it isn't. It is a bonus that has one thing in mind, and a penalty that has another thing in mind. (Here is where I REALLY wish they could be hidden.) Does it make sense to do it that way? Is it even worth building the thing? Yes, it makes sense, because this is a 'system', not just a bunch of buildings thrown together with helter-skelter bonuses and penalties thrown into them. And yes, it may well be worth building that building...for immersion reasons, for the happiness or law bonus, or the 'other buildings' it may allow you to build.

    A lot of people who tested RS2 in the beta stages commented that RS2 wasn't really all that hard to play if you did what we told them to do. Pay attention to economics. READ building descriptions. Make wise choices. If you build a good economy, you'll have a much better time of it. If you don't, you'll run into trouble. So regardless of "what all the tax bonuses mean", the ultimate goal is a more controlled and 'buildable' economy than RTW came with originally. You need to work a bit at it, and have a little strategy in mind while your doing it. It was a much neglected part of this game IMHO.

    I hope this helps. And feel free to ask away.

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    Default Re: Answers to important questions and Info:

    Command Stars.

    This was posted by dvk901 on the 8th September in this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=387607


    One of the last major things I want to do for RS2 is to totally revamp the traits file in this mod. But let me give you an idea about the problem we faced here. When Calvin passed away, we had just gone into Beta testing, and people started reporting that the traits were not working. The Roman Leadership was 'sort of' working, but EVERYTHING ELSE was not working. So I went and looked in the traits file and found that everything was GONE! You see, Calvin was going to totally redo the traits, so he was feeding us trait updates as he got them finished, and then wham! He was gone.

    Tone and I 'looked at' each other over the Great Pond and broke into tears! RS2 virtually had NO finished trait system. So basically, Tone took the Roman Leadership and Rebellion stuff, and I took all the rest, and between the two of us who up to that point knew NOTHING about traits, we slapped together a working trait system for RS2. That involved fixing the Roman Leadership where Calvin hadn't finished it, and my trying to remember what Calvin and I had planned to do with most of the other stuff. For a while there, I was about to shoot myself, because I was thrashing in a dark room trying to swat a fly with a paper clip.

    The result is that we got it all working...for the most part. There are still a few glitches. And we learned how this all worked. And once I DID learn how this worked, I saw a container-shipload of potential to make this trait system play the violin, chew gum, dance an Irish jig, and do stuff that would really be cool. But right now it's just a bunch of ideas and possibilities that need to be put into form and tested...along with adding Greek traits, Parthian, Barbarian, and stuff that's been in the works, but we've had no time for. So hopefully, all this will just get better and better.

    But for now, yes....we as a team were not happy with twenty-five 8-10 star Generals running around in every campaign. It's ludicrous and gamey. So we made it harder. But as of yet, things that I believe should be tied into the process of gaining command stars are not in place. For example, being or earning the trait 'Conqueror of Gaul, or Macedonia, or Hispania' or whatever should also be tied into the command traits. It just isn't yet. But it makes perfect sense that a General who can conquer 8-10 settlements deserves command points. On the flip side, a General who just sits around in the field or in a settlement and does nothing for years on end may lose command points. Or if he gains traits like senility, or heavy drinking, or whatnot. It's a system I want to study 'in depth', and requires isolation from everything else.

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