DEVELOPERS DIARY [Sharing Our Work with IS Supporters]

[Goutlard]

Suggestions :
1. Add the unit Solaks to the Ottoman Empire, they are Janissaries I talk about in the
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=299719&page=3
with some documents.
2. Make the Kapi Kulu Janissairies Line infantry & the Bostanci Elite infantry !

[Navneeth Jay]

1: I really am sorry, but I just cannot accept the current state of artillery in this game. It's just not reasonable. In one campaign siege battle (British v Maratha), a Maratha mortar battery with percussion shell took out over SEVENTY SOLDIERS PER ROUND (!!!) for at least 60% of its shots. I thought at first that my soldiers were on the very edge of the mortar's range, which tends to give it very high accuracy, so I moved back to see if they could escape it. But alas, no.

Literally over half of my casualties were due to artillery, and just by one battery of mortars. One of the only reasons I won is that the stupid AI charged his army into his own mortar fire.

This is the 18th Century (or 19th by game time), not World War II. Artillery wasn't near capable of that kind of destruction. Mortars and explosive ammunition in general needs to have their damage reduced.


2: And again, could you improve the round shot in this game to a large extent compared to other rounds? Roundshot was still by far the most commonly used ammunition by 1800. Even during the US Civil War, gun crews were equipped with half round shot and the rest divided into canister and shrapnel rounds. If shrapnel were anywhere near as effective as it is in game, they simply would not bother having roundshot at all (or for that matter, having infantry).
The game engine makes it a bit difficult to balance the two, I can imagine. The problem remains that roundshot is basically just registered as a large musketball while shrapnel/canister is registered as dozens of smaller but equally deadly ones. One vaguely possible solution might be to make roundshot an explosive weapon so that artillery fire will look more like this. I'm just afraid that making them explosive prevents them from bouncing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ijL8...eature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nmAhDVc2HA

EDIT: Shrapnel isn't a bunch of smaller musketballs. Sorry about that. It's still vastly more effective.

[wangrin]

We don't have modify artillery yet.

Personally, I think we should only have :

1. Cannon :
   
   • round shot
   • cannister
2. Howitzer :
   
   • round shot (?)
   • canister (?)
   • shell
   • carcass
3. Mortar :
   
   • round shot (?)
   • shell
   • carcass

Percussive projectiles should be banned as well as shrapnels.
I don't know what to think about quicklime.

Maybe could we add "boulet rouge" (heated round shot) as incendiary projectile for naval battle.

On the other hand, we should create projectiles for each era (early / mid /late) and each caliber , for instance :

• Early 12 pounder cannon : early 12 round shot / early 12 cannister
• Early 12 pounder cannon : mid 12 round shot / mid 12 cannister
• Early 12 pounder cannon : late 12 round shot / late 12 cannister

Their stats will differ depending of the era.
We could modify range and misfire base rate to represent gun powder quality.

[Inkie]

That's cool. I agree that there is too much focus on crazy ammunition types in vanilla, when in fact the central issue throughout the period was increasing mobility, standardisation, reliability and accuracy.

Yes, something annoying about TW, which actually seems very difficult to modify, is that mobility with your cannon is not encouraged. You can more often than not get away with simply forming a line and pulverizing your foe once he approaches canister range. Also, getting your artillery in a key position and having good weather (elements which could alter the fate of a battle easily, as it happened at Valmy and Waterloo) are of practically no importance in TW. Sad face...

[Navneeth Jay]

Interesting. I didn't even know that cannons could misfire in game...

As for the unmoddable artillery; that's a pain. The "Women Vs. Cannons" video really highlights the limitations of this game's artillery.



The closest one could get to that would be to replace all roundshot with very weak shrapnel/percussion (if howitzer ammo can be added for other guns). But that just seems strange and not at all like roundshot.

I suppose that plain roundshot and canister would be the best idea, then. Roundshot just needs vastly improved accuracy and reloading speed (but I doubt the latter is possible), and canister needs tighter spread and less balls (simply dubbing them as grape, as suggested before, might suffice).

And yes, no point in keeping the eccentric ammunition types. EA probably got the quicklime idea from an incident where a British ship crew tossed, not launched, it on a boarded French crew (or perhaps from the word "Lime Mortar" ). Carcass rounds were used few times in history, often just on ships where the fire could prove deadly, and could weigh nearly 100 kg. Plus I don't think anyone will miss either of them in game, if you know what I mean.

[Sandels]

I have a couple of questions.

How many turns there will be per year?
I hope many so i can enjoy all the period troops.


Also about the campaing map, Flikitos once showed this picture. I think the trees look really good . So could it be possible to have autumn like in Napoleon.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Flikitos]

Hey Sandels!

Well we would be able to create four seasons BUT we do not absolutely know how to make the transition between those, how spring succeed to winter, how autumn succeed to summer, etc.

T.C told me that it was probably hardcoded. A shame...

I think a 4 turns per year would be a great thing, but it is a huge work we have to rework the technology research delays, the units recruitment and moving delays etc. It will be probably integrated later, but for IS 2.2.1 we stay with a 2turns per year.

Good to see you pal!

[Navneeth Jay]

Do you plan on making empire building more difficult in IS III? I believe the plan was to make rebellions much more common and whatnot.

The current state of the game does not discourage moderation when it comes to conquest. The main deterrence for me right now is just international scrutiny; for some reason, most European nations have over -200 Territorial Expansion against me (Great Britain) and are all Hostile (even allies like Denmark D: ) except for the ones that came from rebellion and had their diplomatic relations reset.

There needs to be REAL prices to imperialism. Conquered populations should never lose their resistance to foreign occupation fully. More territories than your capital should be subject to War Weariness and the effects of Bankruptcy. And military expansion should harm you beyond just the upkeep costs; the costs of war need to be changed so that they harm a nation's economy directly.



I think we can all agree that the campaign is a constant trend towards a few nations controlling the world. Part of this stems from endless economic growth (Nervos belli, pecuniam infintam). Perhaps you should prevent economy's from growing indefinitely, like population? Make them more variable as is in history.

[Inkie]

The problem with TW is that empires have no heyday: Once you've started on a path to greatness there's little that will stop you, and the same often goes for AI factions too (Maratha in Greece, anyone?). I don't think there are any ways of truly representing internal decline, corruption, sudden upheaval, etc. and in TW there is always an easy answer to any given crisis. EiC for Napoleon implemented a "manpower" and resources factor I think, but I'm not sure how well that has worked. Also, the permanent resistance you propose would be controversial seeing as throughout history you can find just as many, if not more, cases of a people being quietly subdued than one of continuous readiness for revolt.

[Flikitos]

Well about marathas, it is may be possible to prevent them to attack Europe, also I think that there is a way to prevent the two much expansions of some factions as sweden or Prussia, I think I will integrate this stuff in the Beta so as to let you trying with a whole campaign. My goal is to have a consistent campaign map, at the late period in a great campaign, that's mean a non expanding behaviour from the other factions. But I will try to balance the aggressivity of the nations and their ability to make peace easier as in the vanilla campaign.

Not an easy thing.

[gastovski]

Well about marathas, it is may be possible to prevent them to attack Europe, also I think that there is a way to prevent the two much expansions of some factions as sweden or Prussia, I think I will integrate this stuff in the Beta so as to let you trying with a whole campaign. My goal is to have a consistent campaign map, at the late period in a great campaign, that's mean a non expanding behaviour from the other factions. But I will try to balance the aggressivity of the nations and their ability to make peace easier as in the vanilla campaign.

Not an easy thing.

Please don't make them passive because that was the main problem of Darthmod.

[Swerg]

At the same time, while I agree that having limitations to expanding empires is important, I think we should be careful to avoid the Third Age TW pitfall by introducing too many artificial difficulty gimmicks. There's a fine line between "Oh, this is nice and challenging," and "Oh, look, the AI just spawned another stack of elite veterans. Yay." Indeed, I think that coming up with a way to limit the size of armies overall would be a good thing to do, make those units precious so that that epic battle where you repel the Turkish hordes from Iasi actually has consequences, instead of just being another in the string of thirty similar battles you fight that turn because the AI spams everything.

[Flikitos]

Yep Gastovski and Swerg you are right:
First Gastovski, it is a difficult thing because, we need to have battles without the fact that the faction captures all the provinces of the faction ennmy. I think we should give the ability to make the peace easier with the ennemy country when it will be in a critical situation, so as to prevent the invasion.

Swerg, your idea is good about the limitation of the units, we will limit the number of the units. We will have to think about it. I think we will have to think about it ALL together, in a kind of debate.

[Swerg]

Historically speaking, it seems that most nations of the period put their main focus on a single army, with several other smaller forces. This was the case in the Great Northern War, where Russia had one large central army with various other small forces either for raiding or for less important objectives.

There were exceptions, though. The French could maintain up to EIGHT field armies in wartime, although they also definitely fielded the largest military of the time, with a peacetime standing army of 150,000 and something like 500,000 men in wartime. You did not mess around with Louis XIV.

Playing around with IS once more, I like the current pricing scheme. You can't pump out billions of units and the AI doesn't have hundreds of stacks wandering around. In most cases. I remember why I like ETW with IS more than Napoleon

[079rtfgkljt90rgio]

Provincial and elite units should be recruitable with limitations, as it was in reality, due to several reasons. It is already the case in ETW, right?

Alas, ETW population is ed up, so we can't count on that for limitation (number of regiments allowed per number of population). Also, is it possible to fixe the population, to script it, so we don't have small countries with tens of millions of inhabitants?

Good luck for the Marathas

[gastovski]

Making peace shouldn't be too hard. Just give the enemy four or five new tech they will happily accept because I do this all the time.

[ErikBerg]

Making peace shouldn't be too hard. Just give the enemy four or five new tech they will happily accept because I do this all the time.

Trading tech is impossible in IS as the technologies are faction specific.

[Inkie]

Historically speaking, it seems that most nations of the period put their main focus on a single army, with several other smaller forces. This was the case in the Great Northern War, where Russia had one large central army with various other small forces either for raiding or for less important objectives.

There were exceptions, though. The French could maintain up to EIGHT field armies in wartime, although they also definitely fielded the largest military of the time, with a peacetime standing army of 150,000 and something like 500,000 men in wartime. You did not mess around with Louis XIV.

Playing around with IS once more, I like the current pricing scheme. You can't pump out billions of units and the AI doesn't have hundreds of stacks wandering around. In most cases. I remember why I like ETW with IS more than Napoleon

As much as I wish that was possible, there are a few factors which make this unrealistic (as a project). Firstly, it's impossible to make the AI use their stacks with coordination, except sometimes when they mass all of their troops around a city/their capital. Secondly, it would make things even easier for the player - the AI rely on having superior numbers of men and showing up randomly where you don't expect them.

Also, there's no diplomatic tool in ETW to represent desires for maintaining a balance of power. There's only 'territorial expansion' which turns other states against you only once you have already expanded. This means that there the only possibility of recreating the situation around 1700 would be to start the campaign in an imbalanced fashion: France (with tons of stacks), Spain (with hardly any and no money) and Bavaria at war with the Brits, the Dutch, the Austrians and the Portuguese. I asked about this a while ago and apparently it's near impossible to implement. In addition, there would be little capacity among the AI states to switch sides and 'forgive' an ex-enemy, so you wouldn't get shifting alliances and things like the 'stately quadrille' to preserve the balance of power. There just seem to be a massive amount of things in the way of creating something stable, historically accurate, balanced and realistic. It gives me a headache and I don't even mod...

[Navneeth Jay]

The costs of expansion are more complex in history than this game can represent, perhaps. But I think there are still several venues to address them in a more, if not entirely, accurate manner.
*parts or all of this idea may not be possible, but I'm not certain

War Weariness and Resistance
"let fierce contending nations know. What dire effects from civil discord flow."

-War weariness comes from conquest. In other words, constantly attacking other nations or recruiting endless forces could add to war weariness regardless of whether or not you win (the domestic costs to imperialism, such as exportation of capital investment, remain). Patriotic fervour could be removed entirely.
-Some regions should never fully lose their resistance to some foreign occupation* (ex. Ireland).
-Garrisoning troops should only have a limited effect on repression; troops are more for passively quelling rebellions than preventing any form of civil unrest. Quelling rebellions shouldn't be so repressive, either.
-Positive resistance to foreign occupation (when your territory is under attack) is reduced; declines over time*

A combination of these factors should make one more wary about endless territorial expansion. If they choose it, they'll have to bear the costs of rebellion and public opposition that result.

Revenues and Expenditure
"Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam (The sinews of war, infinite money)"

The number one problem might be the fact that there is no debt in this game. This results in the treasury being infinitely expanded which is not the real life case. Governments tend to have a perpetual debt that can consume them if not controlled and paid, whereas the game's message is, "Limited spending? Pffft. Why? No point not spending that limitless treasury money!" I doubt the concept of debt can be evoked. But there are some fiscal effects that can still keep a player on his toes.

-Taxes should have a more significant impact on economic growth. If possible, this effect should be extended to the lower classes as well* (any economist knows that taxing the poor will hurt growth)
-Raising taxes to the highest setting should be viable in terms of resistance (why give the option at all if it will always result in rebellion?) and not raise revenue or change growth as much. This gives some reason to think about tax policy
-Economic growth from technologies is reduced (benefits only large nations with numerous schools )
-Destruction from enemy armies and food shortages should hurt growth* (no-brainer )

Essentially, war should harm economic prosperity rather than adding to it.

[ErikBerg]

I believe some effort to simulate the huge cost of wars is already in; the replenishment action is more expensive than in vanilla. This might not be a huge thing, but it is a step in the right direction!

This has the direct consequence that keeping a full stack army around is managable, but going to war with it and constantly replenishing your troops will bleed the coffers dry.