TROM2 - Feedback and Suggestions

[qvint]

First I want to tank for this great mod. I have only one question. I've never played vanilla NTW so I don't know AI behavior there but I've noticed that when playing Austria campaign twice on hard, after about a year I was the only one at war with France and I couldn't persuade anyone to join me. Also BAI is never protecting its artillery. So is this normal AI behavior or its TROM2 specific?

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Not sure if this would have been brought up before, but would it be possible to include shrapnel shot for long guns in the game? The British army used shrapnel (as spherical case shot) from the early 19th century, including use in the Peninsular war and at Waterloo.

I will look into that. First if shrapnel works at all in NTW and then how to implement that. Do you have any links/quotes about the use of shrapnel? Did other nations also use it up to 1815?

I was trying to get ai using canister at closer ranges by editing battle_entities no luck so far . How come in vanilla ai uses canister and in trom they dont? or at list i haven't seen it they should switch to canister at max canister ranges for sure.

Hm, I didn't notice that the BAI does not use canister in TROM2. I am pretty shure it does. But it may not happen at maximum canister range, because the ranges may be hardcoded. An interesting question. So, thanks for bringing this up.

I've noticed that, in large battles, A.I. armies sometimes concentrate too much on one flank. They will move their entire army to face one or two units and suffer unecessary casualties because of this. Do you think there might be a solution to this Yarkis?

I only noticed this in custom battles. The BAI likes to shift the whole army to one flank. Never found out why. However, in the campaign I haven't seen this.

First I want to tank for this great mod. I have only one question. I've never played vanilla NTW so I don't know AI behavior there but I've noticed that when playing Austria campaign twice on hard, after about a year I was the only one at war with France and I couldn't persuade anyone to join me. Also BAI is never protecting its artillery. So is this normal AI behavior or its TROM2 specific?

On hard and very hard the AI tends to gang up on the player. That's why I made the economic difficulty independent from the diplomatic difficulty. The difficulty levels in TROM2 will only affect the diplomatic behaviour of the AI. If you want a more "reasonable" AI with less bias against the player start a game on Normal. For the battles I recommend at least hard difficulty.

The BAI protects artillery only with one unit of cavalry, which gets released from this duty after some time. That's all hardcoded. Sadly the BAI in NTW is still unfinished in many ways.

[hippacrocafish]

Well that sucks. :/

Something else I wanted to bring up is the agressiveness of the A.I. nations, the only factions I ever see expand are France, Austria, and Great Britain (Mostly into each other's territories) but big nations like Sweden, Denmark, Russia, the Ottomans, Spain, and Portugal almost never expand at all (There was one odd game where Russia took Switzerland though). Is there a way to make the nations more aggressive towards one another? Portugal and Spain and Denmark and Sweden are the most in need a change IMO, I don't think they fight at all.

[rossw]

I will look into that. First if shrapnel works at all in NTW and then how to implement that. Do you have any links/quotes about the use of shrapnel? Did other nations also use it up to 1815?

Only from Wikipedia. I'll go and look some more when I can get away from my campaign

Wiki Link

And from Cornwell's Sharpe (Reliable, I know) it was a British thing, the French engineers couldn't make the fuses or something to that effect

Found this :

Interesting piece on British artillery in general

The bit on shrapnel (5th page) seems very similar to the wiki. There's an interesting bit at the end on rockets as well

[Huberto]

Hi Yarkis,

Please allow me to toss a few impressions your way about this mod, which I am enjoying playing and find quite challenging (playing TROM historical campaign, France on normal/hard, utilizing the even easier economy submod). I've concluded for now that the cumulative effect of your changes making army creation and maintenance -- e.g. increasing unit recruitment and maintenance costs, increasing build times, extending research times, and making money more scarce overall -- has knocked the game a bit too much off-balance. On the bright side, I've found the AI much improved and really like what you've done there and in many other areas.

But the campaign seems unbalanced. Using my 1805 French campaign as an example, I was unable to build a full stack army for Napoleon as well as find adequate troops to defend France and northern Italy and create the necessary supporting forces for Napoleon's invasion of Austria.

Instead, by early September 1805 I was able to raise only 1 3/4ths stacks for the invasion of Austria + 3/4 stack for Italy + 3/4 stack for France. This simply isn't enough to deal with the 5 or 6 full stacks that Austria is able to throw against the player plus dealing with the forces of Austria's Russian and British allies.

At the same time that it was harder and more costly to build units, I found the French player drastically limited economically -- despite making numerous economic improvement. The additional economic pressure was diplomatic,caused by (i) losing trade with the Ottomans in September 1805 (who also declared war at that time) ; (ii) getting blockaded in one or two ports by Sweden and Britain, crippling overseas trade; (ii) becoming invaded by by Britain in the Fall of 1805 with a full stack army commanded by Wellington; (iv) and losing trade by early 1806 and being declared war on by Prussia. This meant in fairly short order that Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Russia all became enemies, and that as a consequence Spain was the only effective major trade partner.

I am not saying that the diplomacy is unfair. Rather, I am arguing that the player cannot build the armies necessary to compete with the powers arrayed against it, and that is due to the cumulative impact of all the changes you've made with the economy and army costs.

In my case as France, invading Austria in the fall of 1805 with 1.75 stacks with some support from Massena in Italy, and winning every battle, I simply was unable to prevail and conquer Austria with the 5-6 full stacks ultimately thrown against me. Although Prussia did not confront France during this time, my recollection from playing vanilla and NER is they are even harder to overcome in the game than Austria.

My recommendation is that you make it easier to recruit and maintain armies. Not only are larger armies historically accurate, it will help balance your mod more.

[A.Suvorov]

Hi Yarkis,

Please allow me to toss a few impressions your way about this mod, which I am enjoying playing and find quite challenging (playing TROM historical campaign, France on normal/hard, utilizing the even easier economy submod). I've concluded for now that the cumulative effect of your changes making army creation and maintenance -- e.g. increasing unit recruitment and maintenance costs, increasing build times, extending research times, and making money more scarce overall -- has knocked the game a bit too much off-balance. On the bright side, I've found the AI much improved and really like what you've done there and in many other areas.

But the campaign seems unbalanced. Using my 1805 French campaign as an example, I was unable to build a full stack army for Napoleon as well as find adequate troops to defend France and northern Italy and create the necessary supporting forces for Napoleon's invasion of Austria.

Instead, by early September 1805 I was able to raise only 1 3/4ths stacks for the invasion of Austria + 3/4 stack for Italy + 3/4 stack for France. This simply isn't enough to deal with the 5 or 6 full stacks that Austria is able to throw against the player plus dealing with the forces of Austria's Russian and British allies.

At the same time that it was harder and more costly to build units, I found the French player drastically limited economically -- despite making numerous economic improvement. The additional economic pressure was diplomatic,caused by (i) losing trade with the Ottomans in September 1805 (who also declared war at that time) ; (ii) getting blockaded in one or two ports by Sweden and Britain, crippling overseas trade; (ii) becoming invaded by by Britain in the Fall of 1805 with a full stack army commanded by Wellington; (iv) and losing trade by early 1806 and being declared war on by Prussia. This meant in fairly short order that Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Russia all became enemies, and that as a consequence Spain was the only effective major trade partner.

I am not saying that the diplomacy is unfair. Rather, I am arguing that the player cannot build the armies necessary to compete with the powers arrayed against it, and that is due to the cumulative impact of all the changes you've made with the economy and army costs.

In my case as France, invading Austria in the fall of 1805 with 1.75 stacks with some support from Massena in Italy, and winning every battle, I simply was unable to prevail and conquer Austria with the 5-6 full stacks ultimately thrown against me. Although Prussia did not confront France during this time, my recollection from playing vanilla and NER is they are even harder to overcome in the game than Austria.

My recommendation is that you make it easier to recruit and maintain armies. Not only are larger armies historically accurate, it will help balance your mod more.

Economy is fine I was able to get 3 full active attacking stacks by year 1807 without easier economy submod your not doing something right use trade ships, raid enemy trade routes and loot enemy strongholds.

[A.Suvorov]

Also can you make buying technology more expensive? Right now 5 k is enuff to buy anything.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Hi Yarkis,

Please allow me to toss a few impressions your way about this mod, which I am enjoying playing and find quite challenging (playing TROM historical campaign, France on normal/hard, utilizing the even easier economy submod). I've concluded for now that the cumulative effect of your changes making army creation and maintenance -- e.g. increasing unit recruitment and maintenance costs, increasing build times, extending research times, and making money more scarce overall -- has knocked the game a bit too much off-balance. On the bright side, I've found the AI much improved and really like what you've done there and in many other areas.

But the campaign seems unbalanced. Using my 1805 French campaign as an example, I was unable to build a full stack army for Napoleon as well as find adequate troops to defend France and northern Italy and create the necessary supporting forces for Napoleon's invasion of Austria.

Instead, by early September 1805 I was able to raise only 1 3/4ths stacks for the invasion of Austria + 3/4 stack for Italy + 3/4 stack for France. This simply isn't enough to deal with the 5 or 6 full stacks that Austria is able to throw against the player plus dealing with the forces of Austria's Russian and British allies.

At the same time that it was harder and more costly to build units, I found the French player drastically limited economically -- despite making numerous economic improvement. The additional economic pressure was diplomatic,caused by (i) losing trade with the Ottomans in September 1805 (who also declared war at that time) ; (ii) getting blockaded in one or two ports by Sweden and Britain, crippling overseas trade; (ii) becoming invaded by by Britain in the Fall of 1805 with a full stack army commanded by Wellington; (iv) and losing trade by early 1806 and being declared war on by Prussia. This meant in fairly short order that Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Russia all became enemies, and that as a consequence Spain was the only effective major trade partner.

I am not saying that the diplomacy is unfair. Rather, I am arguing that the player cannot build the armies necessary to compete with the powers arrayed against it, and that is due to the cumulative impact of all the changes you've made with the economy and army costs.

In my case as France, invading Austria in the fall of 1805 with 1.75 stacks with some support from Massena in Italy, and winning every battle, I simply was unable to prevail and conquer Austria with the 5-6 full stacks ultimately thrown against me. Although Prussia did not confront France during this time, my recollection from playing vanilla and NER is they are even harder to overcome in the game than Austria.

My recommendation is that you make it easier to recruit and maintain armies. Not only are larger armies historically accurate, it will help balance your mod more.

Thanks for the extensive feedback, Huberto! I think the best way to accomodate the neeeds and wants of all players is to make the effects of the easier economy submods more pronounced. In 2.1 they reduce your army and navy upkeep compared to standard TROM2 by -5% (easier economy) and -10% (even easier economy). I will raise this numbers to -10% and -20% (see the attached files). Hope this helps and let's you enjoy TROM2!

Also can you make buying technology more expensive? Right now 5 k is enuff to buy anything.

So far I don't know a variable to influence the buying prices. I have to test if it is tied to the amount of research points you need to gain a technology. If so, I can simple shift the whole scale.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Only from Wikipedia. I'll go and look some more when I can get away from my campaign

Wiki Link

And from Cornwell's Sharpe (Reliable, I know) it was a British thing, the French engineers couldn't make the fuses or something to that effect

Found this :

Interesting piece on British artillery in general

The bit on shrapnel (5th page) seems very similar to the wiki. There's an interesting bit at the end on rockets as well

Thanks! It looks like I can get shrapnel shots to work. I will have to make seperate artillery batteries that use shrapnel ínstead of roundshot though. This makes shure, that the AI will also use it.

[A.Suvorov]

Yarkis, how do i make minor nations more aggressive?

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Yarkis, how do i make minor nations more aggressive?

I don't know the answer. I tried it myself but wasn't successful so far.

[A.Suvorov]

I kind off softmodded your mod to be more realistic according to my beliefs lol , the only problem is after I increased unit numbers to 320-400 for line and 500 for column AI likes to "blob" more even with 6 rank deep up from 3 , what's the max recommended amount of line units 240 or can i go 280 3 ranks without issues? also i changed arty to have 8 for France 6 all else units and 12 grandbattery seems to work fine.Increased reload rates close to realistic values , increased musket lethality , tweaked all unit stats elite units feel more elite now and theres some veriety in unit stats, made cavalry scary, tweaked canister made columns strictly melee charge formations and many other tweaks.Had some fun 12000 man battles with AI handing it to me on normal battle difficulty on even plain map but ruff hilly terrain confuses AI unfortunately.I basically tweaked everything in your mod and incorporated UAI campaign AI if you don't mind Economy is mostly the way it was although I tweaked some unit upkeep stuff cheaper units for Turkey more elite units for France and alot more lol.Sorry for badly thought out post i am drunk

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Moding when drunk can be dangerous for the files. Take care. I don't know what the maximum amount is, but there is a limit to the width of a unit and also pathfinding can go nuts if units are too big. Currently I stick to a moderate 25% increase.

[Charbel]

Hi, sorry for the long post and repeating topics but i couldn t play for a month now and will have to wait another one, so u will probably think I am going crazy , indeed I am..

1-is there any difference on accouracy and reload times for fort guns manned by say elite infantry or armed mobs? i would like to know because i always keep the lowest quality infantry on walls and other more trained troops in front of those walls to engage enemies in melee

2-maybe u could add a submod that eliminate those large starforts from the game, the 2nd tier ones not all of them.
they are a pain to defend and to attack, in my 2.0 campaign tha ai spends so much money in them that could be spent otherwise...maybe changing 1st tier fortifications to those woodforts from empire and the 2nd tier to those smaller stone artilery forts...keep the cost high so no fort spam.

3-is this mod compatible with trom 2?
Pd guru equipment mod?
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=413341

4- I haven t played in a while but I think the game incorrectly numbers my units like heavy dragoons - "2nd regiment horse guards" instead of "1st heavy horse" (this happens with infantry too) however i don t remember if it was normal units or those AoR ones (sorry i won t be able to play again in the next 30 days, so this can just be outdated)

5-is the ai attacking navies in trade posts or I need to leave some ships out of it in order to be attacked?

6-maybe there could be some more difference regarding cost/upkeep on ships, why would someone build a 32 gun frigate instead of a 38?or a 64 instead of a 80 SoL.. perhaps making those more armed ships more costly instead of their lesser armed counterparts so to choose wich ship to buid have something to think about....

in my campaigns i never build those 32 frigates or smaller ships and just build 38 instead (actually I do build every ships but only for roleplaying)
I am suggesting to change something so the player is forced to use those less armed ships in a way that they are more atractive to the player than they are now...
make those smaller Sol like the 50, 64and 86 more atractive and available to every nation

7-Also I don t see the value of sloops and brigs...they exist just for Ai spamming large fleets of those small gunboats, or the player exploit them as cheap transports to send a full stack army under the nose of that stupid thing CA call Naval Ai....remove them or give em trade ability or something..... Dont say to me to raid trade lanes with those , 24 gun corvettes are much more fun to use and can actually take some merchantmen alone



I will go back to EtW, Much more fun when u HAVE to work together with your armies and fleets to have a suscesfull campaign. when Ca got ETW right they ripped the fun out of it with those scripted campaigns and europe only map...RTW map would fit nicely for napoleon with just a little bit more of water so retreating navies wouldn t bump in the edges and ruin the game for me
I will try TROM for Empire then, happy new year all

I just wish my statements are clear to understand, if they aren t I will be glad to write those again differently

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Hi, sorry for the long post and repeating topics but i couldn t play for a month now and will have to wait another one, so u will probably think I am going crazy , indeed I am..

1-is there any difference on accouracy and reload times for fort guns manned by say elite infantry or armed mobs? i would like to know because i always keep the lowest quality infantry on walls and other more trained troops in front of those walls to engage enemies in melee

2-maybe u could add a submod that eliminate those large starforts from the game, the 2nd tier ones not all of them.
they are a pain to defend and to attack, in my 2.0 campaign tha ai spends so much money in them that could be spent otherwise...maybe changing 1st tier fortifications to those woodforts from empire and the 2nd tier to those smaller stone artilery forts...keep the cost high so no fort spam.

3-is this mod compatible with trom 2?
Pd guru equipment mod?
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=413341

4- I haven t played in a while but I think the game incorrectly numbers my units like heavy dragoons - "2nd regiment horse guards" instead of "1st heavy horse" (this happens with infantry too) however i don t remember if it was normal units or those AoR ones (sorry i won t be able to play again in the next 30 days, so this can just be outdated)

5-is the ai attacking navies in trade posts or I need to leave some ships out of it in order to be attacked?

6-maybe there could be some more difference regarding cost/upkeep on ships, why would someone build a 32 gun frigate instead of a 38?or a 64 instead of a 80 SoL.. perhaps making those more armed ships more costly instead of their lesser armed counterparts so to choose wich ship to buid have something to think about....

in my campaigns i never build those 32 frigates or smaller ships and just build 38 instead (actually I do build every ships but only for roleplaying)
I am suggesting to change something so the player is forced to use those less armed ships in a way that they are more atractive to the player than they are now...
make those smaller Sol like the 50, 64and 86 more atractive and available to every nation

7-Also I don t see the value of sloops and brigs...they exist just for Ai spamming large fleets of those small gunboats, or the player exploit them as cheap transports to send a full stack army under the nose of that stupid thing CA call Naval Ai....remove them or give em trade ability or something..... Dont say to me to raid trade lanes with those , 24 gun corvettes are much more fun to use and can actually take some merchantmen alone



I will go back to EtW, Much more fun when u HAVE to work together with your armies and fleets to have a suscesfull campaign. when Ca got ETW right they ripped the fun out of it with those scripted campaigns and europe only map...RTW map would fit nicely for napoleon with just a little bit more of water so retreating navies wouldn t bump in the edges and ruin the game for me
I will try TROM for Empire then, happy new year all

I just wish my statements are clear to understand, if they aren t I will be glad to write those again differently

Thanks for the feedback and comments. I hope my answers satisfy you.

1. No, I am not shure if there is a difference, but i don't think so. You could test it out in a custom siege battle with a stopwatch and tell me...

2. I disabled the bigger starforts for the next release.

3. Pd guru equipment mod is compatible with TROM2.

4. I think I changed the naming in one of the latest versions.

5. The naval CAI will attack trade nodes.

6. In the latest TROM2 version I made heavier ships available earlier and tried to stimulate the building of ships of the line by the AI. Other then that I try to stick to the historical availabilities of ships.

I agree that the game has not much use for smaller ships. Historically big battles were only fought by ships of the line (the 74 gun ship was considered the smallest ship of that type), while frigates and other stuff were important to secure, raid or blockade trade. Ships of the line shouldn't be able to raid trade lanes at all, but that's hardcoded. Honestly, I don't know how to make frigates and such more attractive (beside the privateer tech I already implemented). Any additional ideas? What might be a good idea is to limit the biggest ships (beyond 86 guns) to only 1 or 2.

7. Sloops and briggs have a unit cap. After you have researched the privateer technology, there upkeep is greatly reduced. So it is much more profitable to raid trading lanes with them instead of using corvettes or frigates.

[Charbel]

great news!! sometimes i keep thinking TROM2 is made especially for me!!

I a looking forward to rule the world with portugal, maybe backstabing the british and ruling europe ( and some asia too)

1-Altough I like historical accouracy every nation should be allowed to build the big three deckers (unlike vanilla where some nations are limited to smaller SoL) Maybe limitting this ships would be a good idea but could have some issues ...
limiting it to small numbers is a good idea but won t it trouble the aI?
maybe some AoR ships ....this way if u play france reach their limit and capture british land this limit could increase or u would have acess to their designs of ships (NVM , just dreaming here )
2-U shouldn t make individual ships like LME mod but maybe adding different classes of ships could be a good idea ......one ''class'' of 74 SoL , after u research carronades u unlock recruitment of another ''class ''of 74 this one with some carronades in the upper castles(forget the name ) this way u could limit them too
3-make corvettes atractive with the privateer tech too, not too much like brigs and sloops
4- eliminate trading techs and make them a bit more harder to steal... I play Hard campaign and with just one gentlemen i ripp others nations tech in less than a year ( and I mean just one gentleman going to russia , than austria, than prussia( i just look in the trade tech screen to know where to send him ...at least i would have to search by myself
5- consider adding more techs too
taking a plane now in some days will keep posting
best luck too you all

[Huberto]

Thanks for the extensive feedback, Huberto! I think the best way to accomodate the neeeds and wants of all players is to make the effects of the easier economy submods more pronounced. In 2.1 they reduce your army and navy upkeep compared to standard TROM2 by -5% (easier economy) and -10% (even easier economy). I will raise this numbers to -10% and -20% (see the attached files). Hope this helps and let's you enjoy TROM2!

Thanks for doing this Yarkis. I will give your change a test drive this week.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Thanks for doing this Yarkis. I will give your change a test drive this week.

If you play France the key is to be aggressive like Napoleon. I recently did a test game with France at N/H and captured Vienna before Summer 1805. The battle for Vienna was bloody and I lost one unit completely, but my artillery superiority and the Old Guard won the day. Now Austria is severly crippled and Prussia and Britain are not yet ready to strike against me. And with Vienna and Tyrol in my hands and a first trade ship in the Mediterranian sea my income is more then 2000 per turn.

France starts with the biggest and best army and the biggest economy. If you make use of this advantage early on you should prevail.

[20° Maine Trooper]

Yarkis The mod is really good but maybe you can add some skin mod... For some more realism diversity

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

One of my next project will be to add the rest of L'Aigles skins.