Aha, thanks. Never saw that there before, default was other way around in last version it seems.
I want to make a whole thread about my suggestions/complaining, but I'm not that narcissistic.
Here's my problems/suggestions, including those that were easily fixed, or things included in submods:
- Priests/Imams need more movement points
- Certain buildings need their vanilla bonuses restored, or else given greater incentive to be built. I have Large towns and Cities that don't even have the first level building "Town Hall"-type structure simply because it's happy enough, and whereas in vanilla, those buildings reduced squalor, all they do here is increase happiness. They're not even worth building most of the time. Similarly, churches and small chapels providing ZERO religious conversion bonus or support for a priest/imam or two, despite being essential as a stepping-stone type building, really makes me feel cheated wasting money on them rather than replenishing an army or building roads in Asia.
- Severe lack of useful mercenaries for certain factions. As Kingdom of Jerusalem, I can ONLY hire ONE unit of Turkopole mercenaries ANYWHERE.
- Not enough soldiers per unit. Only 62 knights in one unit on Huge unit scale? What do I not-pay you for?!
- Free upkeep should be enabled as per normal (as in, lighter units, one or two slots average)
- LIMIT THE AI'S ARMY SIZES. 100 turns into a campaign and I control nearly 30 regions, and can support 3 full stacked armies with an income of 20k per turn, nothing completely saps the immersion and makes me want to quit and play a different game more than seeing another faction of equal or slightly greater size showing off four or five full stacks, and as many half-stacks literally just sitting around one of their cities doing nothing for turn after turn after turn after turn after turn, not including the full stacks being used in other conquests
- Greater consistency in where certain units can be trained. I don't know how this relates to the AOR thing, but it frustrates me to have to send certain units back to my capital just to replenish them, only to suddenly find that a closer city can suddenly train them, despite not having its barracks upgraded, or to suddenly find out I can randomly train a shiny new unit in my city only a few turns after churning out a full-stacked army for a new campaign that could benefit significantly from the shiny new unit.
- More coherent unit stats. I know vanilla M2TW best. I know a unit that does 9 melee damage, 3 charge bonus, and has 17 defense is a solid unit. I have NO ing idea how I'm supposed to use a unit with 2 melee damage, 1 charge bonus, and 30 defense.
I think that the team should concentrate on diplomacy. Whenever a faction attacks, even if I have them at the edge of destruction, they refuse to make a ceasefire whatever I offer them ... it's like other factions want to continue fighting till they get destroyed, even if their kings character has peace as his priority
"Greeks do not fight like heroes,heroes fight like Greeks" , Sir W.Churchill
I disagree. Less movement points make handling religion less annoying. They can't quickly cross huge distances which means you won't get a new enemy imam/priest in your territory the next turn after you killed the previous one. Also, less movement points = shorter turns, because AI has less to calculate.
Clearly, you ought to have known that in BC you are not supposed to build everything in every city. That's part of strategic planning.- I have Large towns and Cities that don't even have the first level building "Town Hall"
And make the campaign dull and easy? Face it, if AI didn't receive bonuses, it would be as pathetic as vanilla Medieval 2. In fact, BC is still too easy for some factions even on VH.- LIMIT THE AI'S ARMY SIZES.
A personal preference I guess. I like it as in my opinion it adds depth and another layer of strategic planning.- it frustrates me to have to send certain units back to my capital just to replenish them
It's simple - the core mechanics are the same, but the defense has been buffed to make for longer lasting battles. That's all. Spears are still good vs cavalry, cavalry is still good vs swords, archers are effective vs lightly armored troops and troops with no shields. AP units have lower attack values but pierce armor. Basic vanilla M2 stuff.I have NO ing idea how I'm supposed to use a unit with 2 melee damage, 1 charge bonus, and 30 defense.
A couple of questions:
1. I have noticed some different strat map models(Ghurids). Is this new because I didn't see them in BC 2.02?
2. The icon and menu screen still have the old BC logo, not the new one, did you intend it like this or are you going to change it?
What's up with the campaign AI? It's been 50 turns as KoJ and no one has come close to attacking me despite barely garrisoning my cities. It's not that I'm complaining, but seems strange for a MTW2 game where I'm used to the AI coming at me fairly quick.
The KoJ unit roster seems a bit redundant. There isn't much of a difference between Templar/Hospit Knights and Poulain infantry seems superior to the more expensive and smaller dismounted knights. Other than Latin crossbowman, what late game unit should I even be excited about? It just seems like I get little benefit, compared to other factions, in upgrading the Barracks/Stables in Castles.
What the hell does that even mean? How is that supposed to help or make sense? If a previously useful building is now next to worthless, save to build a diplomat in one city, then why even bother including that building there to waste game space with?
THE CAMPAIGN IS ALREADY DULL BECAUSE OF THIS! It breaks the game and makes it into an MMORPG---grind. No such thing as decisive battles anymore, you just GRIND through endless hordes of enemies. Enemy's too damn stupid to ceasefire when they've lost 2 cities and 900 million soldiers, and you end up giving up on the campaign because you're bored of the grind.
Does that sound like MORE fun? I haven't played all the mods, but ones I have played didn't have the enemy getting -tons of free money to build endless stacks of armies
I'm not an expert player by any means. I hardly consider the AI "pathetic" in the vanilla game, save for the apparent uselessness of diplomacy. The AI already gets free money in the mod script. Why give them enough to build an infinite number of armies?
It's already frustrating enough to have enemies declare war on me for no reason and send their main forces at me, much less having to take the offensive only to find half a dozen full stacks standing in a convenient line for me to bleed myself dry upon.
You make a good point, but I can always find some reason to complain. Here, it's not so much the limitations, but the seeming arbitrary nature of it. The buildings don't announce, as iin the Kingdoms campaigns, which buildings support which units based on religion conversion (such as, needing 50% Catholicism to build certain unit in the region). I just suddenly find that Templar with big-ass axes are available in Jerusalem all of a sudden.
Makes sense to a degree, but it's all the more frustrating when the first two church levels provide no religious conversion bonus
but the defense has been buffed to make for longer lasting battles.
But M2TW has kill-rate options that can be lowered. But meh, you're right about this. It's just a little confusing/disillusioning when a Sergeant Spearmen's charge counts for almost nothing, and his attack is only slightly better than militia archers' melee
Hi, after playing BC 2.3 for a few hours I have come up with a few comments and suggestions:
1. The map seems very empty with the Seljuks of Iraq as a very small faction.
2. Most factions do not even try and conquer the myriads of rebel settlements around them.(Abbasids, ayyubids, oman, SOI, and SOR have conquered 0 or 1 settlements in 40 turns.
I think this has happened because of the dramatically increased prices for buildings.(dirt roads 7000 florins etc)
3. Islamic factions seems to be weakened as in my Ghurid campaign the Ghaznavids got demolished by the chauhans, the ayyubids are being thrashed by KOJ and ERE have crippled the Seljuks of Rum. The rest of the Islamic factions have just turtled leaving me as a sole Islamic superpower.
(All this is before Mongols)
Congrats on your attitude, but what's the point of asking for things if you assume that you can complain anyway? Discussion with such an attitude is pointless.
Yes, mods are arbitrary, and you can notice how fans discuss things constantly on all forums. If you don't like certain arbitrary limitations in a mod to an extent you have to complain instead of giving a constructive feedback, then make your own mod or submod.
Well, if you build Templar Chapter House, then what do you expect to recruit there? Ghulams? Also, there is no religious conversion in BC, if you haven't noticed so far.
You are misusing units. Spearmen are not supposed to devastate an enemy with their charge. If you want to make effective charge, then use your heavy cavalry, not spearmen. Spearmen are supposed to defend your army from cavalry and infantry charges...
Try to consider your feedback more carefully, before posting. You often miss obvious things.
This is a foreground for new factions.
I disagree with your assessment. I've made many tests of 2.3, I've made them with BC2.02 AI cash script, with sums in AI cash script halved, and with sums in the script significantly reduced. In all cases ifactions do try to conquer settlements and they do conquer them.
Now, AI expansion may be slower, or significantly slower, but it is never halted to the point you claimed it is. I only see a problem with Ayyubids and Seljuks of Rum; Seljuks of Iraq could be a bit stronger, but not too much, as it is a faction in decline.
Actually, no. AI gets many bonuses, including bonuses to building costs.
Ghaznavids are in their historical position now, there are weak as they historically were at that point, though I have never seen them defeated by Rajputs - in my tests those were always Ghurids who finished Ghaznavids off. Moreover, in most tests Ghaznavids expanded nicely to Sindh. As for the rest - it seems to me that in the west Christian factions dominate usually, while in the east there is only a power struggle between Islamic factions. I've never seen Rajputs expanding beyond India. Maybe that's because before the Ghaznavids collapse the Ghurids are too strong. Anyway, Rajputs do not tend to expand far beyond India within 80-100 turns.
There isn't much statistically different between the two early incarnations which you're comparing there. Both Orders have "late" versions of their knights. You'll get the Templars much earlier though and they are completely different: huge 2 handed axes + a second 1 handed axe and shield. effective against armor, and heavily armored themselves with the latest solid iron plate fashions including a great helm and I think a coat-of-plates or something similar under their red cross emblazoned surcoat.
Attack: 22 (With AP)
Defense: 37 !!
Charge: 5
And that's the dismounted ones, the mounted ones have a HUGE charge, frighten enemy and get a bonus against enemy horse.
But you're also missing the most important point about the knightly orders of this faction. Even if all 3 orders had similar stats, the point is that you can only raise them in a tiny handful of cities in the whole world. THe KoJ has some of the best units on paper, these knightly orders, but they are very limited in manpower and logistics. It takes a lot of effort to field these guys and keep them supplied/recruited. It's a way of braking up the KoJ roster in a challenging way that is very historical, representing all the disparate places from Europe that make up this one faction we call the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
They are not superior at all. However, they are your best early game AP unit. Also, BC has a problem with it's swordsmen, being ineffective due to a buggy animation. There are many people working on fixes to this. But you'll notice that a unit such as Latin Knights (or the early templars and hospitallars) don't perform as well as you think they should. Still, the religious orders have inspire troops and have good enough stats that even the busted animation doesn't make them irrelevant.
Crusader sergeants, Mounted and Dismounted Templar Knights (late), Knights of St John, Teutonic Knights, Norman Knights... basically, all your knights!
Sadly, one of the crucial backbone units, the Knights of Outremer (those connected regionally through fiefs and land, even born there) are not recruitable. They are a decently priced, mace wielding AP unit. Sorely missed. It is a bug that should be fixed in the next patch if it is not already (someone reported that it's fixed but it's not in the change log of 2.3 and i've not played the KoJ yet. I suspect they mean the mounted version, but I think the dismounted ones are still not in game).
See here KoJ.
Haha Im an idiot, after a little googling I answered my own question.
Last edited by iPoon; May 29, 2011 at 01:24 PM.
I wasn't being mean/angry.
Well, if you build Templar Chapter House, then what do you expect to recruit there? Ghulams? Also, there is no religious conversion in BC, if you haven't noticed so far.
Except this isn't the case. I build a Templar Chapter house, it says it will let me produce a certain Templar unit, I can produce it. Suddenly, a few dozen turns later, I can produce a completely different Templar unit without any explanation (such as, reform of some sort, increase in religious conversion [which is why I brought up the question of religious conversion in BC, perhaps unlisted]). Otherwise, these units are simply becoming available entirely at random, without any provocation in terms of new buildings, religious conversion, or population.
You are misusing units. Spearmen are not supposed to devastate an enemy with their charge.
I'm not talking absolutes (1 charge vs 30 charge) but the fact that ANY military unit can deal greater damage when charging. Greek Hoplites did just that as often as they could---spearmen. This isn't a case of "Spearmen behave like this because they are spearmen" but "A fully-trained, highly disciplined military unit has the same effect when charging as a local peasant with a sling and a butcher's knife"
You're right, it would be better game making if there were a special announcement card that new arms and armor had arrived from Genoa and Venice, Paris and Nuremberg, and that the Templars were reforming their battlefield kit, etc. Maybe that will come in another edition when the mod turns some attention back to the Christian factions. However this last release and 3.0 are focused more on on Islamic factions (the majority). The event is tied to a historical date+buildings built, loosely I presume. It represents the Templars turning into a hardcore military fighting force, from a lesser trained group of knights "defending pilgrims." A few dozen turns is putting it mildly, but you do see the Templar reforms first. You'll get access to even better knights across the board later in the game. Soon after you'll see the a group split off from the Hospitallars and call themselves the Teutonic Knights and they will be available too. No game message there either, but you'll be happy about them anyway.
That's true, and certainly the spearmen do more damage when charging, just not much. Spearmen are the heavy casualty doers in this game, for the most part. But they hold and stand longer than other units - some are nearly impossible to vanquish.
ON a historical note: the sergent spearmen use that early oversized kite shield -- used by most Crusader spearmen (and some others) until at least 1225. It was not good for charging.
What it was good for was protecting the spearmen (and indeed the men and horses they in turn protected behind their lines) from missile fire standing still and on the move. And, I cannot source this right now, but I thought it was often used to pitch the sharp bottom end into the ground to firm up a shield wall against fire or a charge.
It depends on how you formulate your observation.
I believe spearmen's charge is set low to discourage you from using that type of troops to charge the enemy. This complies with rock-paper-scissors approach to statistics.
There are no peasants in BC, actually, but if you mean low tier unprofessional troops, then yes, they have better charge values, but that doesn't make them better troops, as they much lower defence, morale, armour, etc.
there is still problem with swordsmen unit, they are almost useless. 4 example I have beat 1 unit of azeri swordsman with northen axemen militia unit. when azeri swordsmen is one of the elite s of seljuks and northen militia is levy i think. I mean spearmen have to protect from calvary AP units need to pierce armour but what is the swordsmen s duty in the game
Have a question. Was the buggy behavior by the Varangian Guards and the Dismounted Templar Knights fixed? In BC 2.02 they had a tendency to switch from their primary weapon to secondary before finishing their charge and as a result would suffer heavy casualties.