DarthMod Napoleon v2.25 Open Beta (Update 2)

[DARTH VADER]

***Removed beta file***
This update addresses the Campaign AI based on the feedback you have given.

Version v2.25 Open Beta

• CAI should develop and upgrade buildings more.
• CAI should manage better its economics overall.
• CAI should build more ships to bring more challenge in the seas.
• CAI should be more active in trading and upgrading ports.
• CAI should protect its ports more.
• CAI should be more energetic in diplomacy.
• CAI Friendly/Enemy stance more dynamic.
• CAI Spain should build much less armies and concentrate more in diplomacy and naval superiority.

To install do the following:
-First install fully DarthMod Napoleon v2.2+ and enable it.
-Unzip this file somewhere.
-Copy DMN_DarthMod_Napoleon.pack and Paste in the game's "Data" folder which usually is in the destination: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\napoleon total war\data
A windows message will appear asking you permission to overwrite the file and you must reply "yes".

Since I cannot play much, your feedback for this open beta will be very useful, to fine tune the CAI as you want it to be. Waiting for it

[Nigrinus]

Downloading now and testing, will give you feedback during the weekend. Thanks my Lord, i appreciate your efforts very very much. The emperor would be pleased

[Thoal]

That was verry fast well done.
Will download and test it to give feedback.

[BrodY]

Well, it appears that Russia (for once -.-) actually researches a bit. Now, I don't know why, but ever since ETW Russia has been EXTREMELY passive in means of progression. Sure, they usually bolster large enough armies, but they never ever research anything. Until now I remember I had to give them technologies all the time before this x) even the simplest tier one technologies xD In due time I had maxed out the research-tree and I would have given them all techs wouldn't it be for the fact that the second problem popped up; they didn't really advance their building either well, thanks. Maybe now they won't be such a worthless ally ^^

[John Marrington]

Hi darth,
Thx for your work. Do I need to start a new campaign in order to see the improvements?

[DARTH VADER]

A new campaign is needed to give useful feedback.

[Thoal]

Ok a short quickfeedback about the hotfix

I started with England again. Campaign difficult verry hard/battles hard. I play at the moment passive to watch the progress from the CAI.
I am now turn 50 on the beginning i sunk the french fleet with Villneuve. The french blockade my ports every 2-3 turns with one or two ships preffered 38gun freggates.
I saw that the french build a few more heavy class ships like the 74 cannon first line and the 122 not too much because they have one large harbour nantes to build these types.
It is understandable from the campaignprogress and the buildrate of four or five turns for the heavyclasses that not a great fleet appaers.
As i can see in the buildingqueue from the harbour the CAI uses everytime all two or four slots to build, this is a great progress. Verry good work
Calais and Corsica is not used as a harbour. All other french ports were used. They attack two of my tradeports St Augustine or Recife at least all 5-10 turns
Sardia and Sizili uses their harboaurs and the Austrian uses their too. Liepäja at Kurland and Sewastopol in Russia dont build ports up.
The tradespots Recife, Kamerun, Oran, Algier, Annaba, Kandiye and Ochamchira are not used by annyone. The other nations who have tradespots did not sent enough tradeships to get more money.
Spain has one shipyard and build it up to higher level, they build there ships too. By the fact that i hold Gibraltar, and i have a bordering landpassage to Spain the CAI must handle this problem with his money
to spend enough money for landtroops to conquer or protect and to build his seeforces and his economic. Without fullstocked tradeports Spain has no chance to survive over long time.
I saw that the ports of the tradingnations have the same income like in the last campaigns i played. France get 2500, Spain 1600, Russia 5600, Prussia 1700 and Austria 4900. As an example i have my
beginningspots and get over 15000 from them. This declares itself about the tradingspots. The problem what get out of this is that all nations who have no acces to a tradingspot or lost their spot are in a
financial disadvantage. Eventually can this be balanced about the landtrading.

Like Brody watched too, Russia is verry passive from building and techtree. Russia build troops but dont push theire economic or tech tree nor there ports. From the ballance it is fair for the other nations,
because when Russia would push at the beginning their economic potential they would overproduce the other european nations like prussia or Austria.
And with the big units and heavy artillerie plus the cossackcavallarie the autocalculate battles human vs computer or computer vs computer would it make at least unpossible or verry hard and frustrating
for the human/CPU player to stop the russianbear, or in every campaign russia would domoinate in europe when the CAI get agressive against the european nations i think but correct me ive iam wrong.
But this is another chapter, the thin line for modders to whare the ballance of the game and satisfaction of all kinds. Modders Daily Bread .-)

The CAi seems to build more but in this time of progress turn 50, all is open and possible. Must see what happend a good pair of turns later.

The fights from land to sea are stunning. Darthmod Total War

[Nigrinus]

Hi, so, quick feedback from me.
I started a new campaign as France (Europe) Settings were Hard/Hard and i play with ultra unit sizes (but not Darths ultra). That means 180 men in a line unit etc. and with 40 unit stacks.
So in the beginning I can as usual lean back and concentrate on my economy. No one is a threat to me. Austria has 2-3 full stacks in and around Vienna, accompanied by a small contingent of russian troops. Even though they can easily take Bavaria or Milan, they don't.
The Prussians ocassionaly attack one of my allies (Hessen) and...sit tight.
Actually, there were only four offensive actions in my campaign so far. Britain conquered Hannover from me (which was good as usual, but they do not repair the barracks, nor they try to send more troops from around London, where they set up camp), Prussia conquered Saxony, which seems good, and Württemberg conquered Tirol and Spain took Gibraltar. Right now this is all that happened. The great powers are not really active and i disbanded my whole infantry at the beginning, because they start with 160 men instead of the 180 men freshly build units have.
Austria and above all Russia should press the french more. Also Prussia seems to wait to long until i have the most powerful economy to wipe everyone out with 10-15 full stacks.
Problem is i don't get challenged on the Mediteranean at all. Spain is still friendly and they occupy the straights of Gibraltar. So no enemy ship comes through. I can farm the trade nodes there and make enough money without even leaving the Meditaranean.
Two problems that hit me here are:
1. A rather too passive CAI not using the full potential of their armies. Being no threat to me even though they should.
2. The Economy is way too easy to handle and to exploit. A lot of coins going into the players pocket when relying on sea trade. (No AI attemt to cripple enemies sea trade).

I noticed that the AI economies were not as bad as before, no bankrupt and half full stacks, and they even develop their lands, at least a bit that is.
Can't tell anything about research at the moment.

The BAI was brilliant I had a battle with portugal which was the best so far in TW history.
My main line occupied a hill and the AI did that too, out of range of my cannons. I went forward with 5 regiments of line infantry and 1 cavalry unit to advance on their left flank.
The AI took 6 regiments of line from his flank and reserve to meet me. After i routed this 6 regiments, he advanced with his whole army, not only to my attacking position on his flank, but on my whole line. also he tried to throw his weight sometimes to the centre and to the right. After half an hour i beat him and was pleased with the BAI behaviour so far. Good work on that one Darth. I will play more rounds and different nations on the weekend and hope to tell you more about the changes you made.

so long for now.

N.

[DARTH VADER]

Good feedback

I have updated the Beta and hope for new quick reports like this.

[Eodez]

I've only played one campaign so far but I'll offer some feedback from differences I've noticed.

Campaign: Great Britian on Hard/Hard
The main difference that I've noticed so far is that the ai seems much more active in naval warfare. The french have been sending frigates and small vessels to blockade any undefended ports every 2-3 turns (something they do in DMUC for Empire but haven't as much in previous Napoleon campaigns) so far and have also been attacking my merchant men more often. This has forced me to develop my naval forces faster than in previous campaigns and place more emphasis on guarding my merchent men and ports as they account for most of Britians income. The Spanish have also been much more aggressive with their fleets and also took Gibralter around turn 6, something they've never done so early before. This caused the first 25 turns to be very chaotic with me fighting both small and large scale naval battles against France/Spain almost every turn, also much to my surprise a Russian fleet attacked a large Spanish fleet that was blockading one of my ports.

The ai has also been researching more in previous campaigns and I've been able to trade technologies with several countries more often now.

Overall this has made my British campaign more active and hectic than previous british campaigns, which I enjoy very much. I'll start a French campaign later today to see if the British AI is more aggressive, in my pre-beta French DM H/H campaign the British have NEVER attacked a single port.

EDIT: This campaign was with the first version of the beta, any chance the second update would be compatable with this campaign or should I start a new one?

[DARTH VADER]

Eodez
Can you start a new one with exactly the same campaign circumstances and tell me the difference? It will help a lot.

[Eodez]

Will do.

EDIT: I'm 10 turns into a new United Kingdom campaign with same settings, Hard/Hard and World Domination, I'll post what I've noticed so far.

-France continues to aggressively go after undefended trading ports with 1-2 unit fleets, I've noticed they only go after ports with trade routes and have left the ports without trade routes alone so far. They were able to bankrupt me on turn 4 but I've managed to stop them by placing a few ships at each trading port, they've since left them alone and have contended themselves with raiding my trade routes.

-Spain has been quiet so far, I haven't been attacked anywhere by Spanish fleets and they have not made a move on Gilbraltar yet.

-Other countries are developing technologies at a good rate and I've been trading research when possible to tech up asap.

-France has gone to war with Prussia and the Ottomans went to war with Austria, I joined in but Russia did not and broke alliance with Austria. Austria knocked out Northern Italy as they did in the first campaign and Russia has taken Bavaria, those are the only territories that have changed hands so far.

[John Marrington]

Started new Prussian Campaign. After 10 turns of peace with everybody Russia and Austria declared War on me, Russia blocked my trading port and attacked Koenigsberg with a small army, that got defeated because of fire-by-rank. sweden also declared war on me and destroys my homeland. The nations are very busy trading all day long. Nearly every Spot is occupied. City development also is better now

[The Lions Den]

Working well for me. I notice building and more trade. Just a few turns in playing as France.

[Bendit]

Report one year into a new H/H campaign as Russia, begun with 2.25 open beta v2.

The CAI does seem to be developing more their technology and managing a growing economic infrastructure. Great. Very happy to see this. I hope it continues through difficult times for AI nations.

There are plenty of decent armies about, from Austria, France, Prussia and the smaller German states. Battles are being fought all over modern Germany, and new AI armies are being created and thrown in.

There are definitely more small fleets being built, and they are extremely active. Trading ports are being blockaded all over Europe and battles are quite common. Great. All trading spots have been taken, except those Atlantic ones near Spain and Portugal.

I am also noticing AI repairing their most important buildings quickly. Again an improvement. Although none of the major powers are facing economic ruin yet.

• CAI should be more energetic in diplomacy.
• CAI Friendly/Enemy stance more dynamic.

Diplomacy was already pretty good for me prior to this latest adjustment. I have seen one example where it possibly goes a bit far. Austria keeps asking me to declare war on the Ottomans, which I do (for a price). And then the Ottomans ask for peace, which I do, again for a price. This has happened four times and I am going to stop exploiting it, since it seems a bit over the top.

Other than that I am really loving the new CAI changes. And I am very glad I started a new campaign to fully appreciate it. Thank you again Darth.

For some reason in the poll I could only make one choice, so I voted for only for The CAI builds more navies, otherwise I would have voted for better CAI in everything.

[DARTH VADER]

The feedback I got was very helpful.
Currently I upload the new version and here is the final changelog:
Version v2.25

• CAI should develop and upgrade buildings more.
• CAI should manage better its economics overall.
• CAI should build more ships to bring more challenge in the seas.
• CAI should be more active in trading and upgrading ports.
• CAI should protect its ports more.
• CAI should be more energetic in diplomacy.
• CAI Friendly/Enemy stance more dynamic.
• CAI Spain should build much less armies and concentrate more in diplomacy and naval superiority.
• The player has slight GDP and upkeep penalties to make the campaign progress harder.
• Musket smoke improved even more as per feedback (Now it dissolves more gradually and is looking perfect!).

Your feedback can be given in the general feedback thread or in posts you create.
CLOSED