Observations/suggestions

[Slor]

I havent commented on this mod much considering how much time i've played it. I think its great, and i hope you guys continue into R2 in the future. I'm sure a few of these may have been brought up and i just overlooked them, so just ignore if thats the case. Anyway, after a few campaigns.. probably about 1000+ turns here is what i've noticed.

1. [U]Mountains/Paths[U]: While the map may be completely accurate, for game sake purposes there are a few areas that really constrain the ai from war/expansion or just from being blocked into an area. For the locs in this list I would suggest they be made into a path.

302,259////////336,175///////342,158////////353,101/////////305,287///////246,386////////215,424////////202,427

337,157- there seems to be general pathing trouble in this area, sometimes a unit will move thru, other times it will show a path thru but stop.
262,379- every game played the Tyrrhenians gather 6+ stacks around this area. Possibly because the path slightly to the NW has a settlement and the ai feels blocked.. even at war. /shrug

The large amount of still 'rebel' territory from Album Intimelium to the NW into Gaul, and into Boii homeland NE of where Cenomani tribes occupy seem to have few mountain paths aswell and may create more problems later on. These are just suggestions that may clear up a few ai hiccups.

2. Population growth: Mainly the factions that have mountain/plains herding suffer from poor growth. I've played Samnite and i think Umbrians or Sabine maybe and its near impossible to get last tier settlements. 250+ turns and none. I just cheat to get around it. Suggest keeping income the same but adding a few % to the growth bonus.

3 Diplomats: Most of the diplomats in the game seem to gather in the SE tip of Italy just below Uzentum. Most likely they are trying to open diplomacy with the philosophers. Others mods like Rule Britannia and Last Kingdom deal with this by adding a diplomat for that faction. That may be the only way to deal with that. /shrug figured I would mention it.

4. Culture Conversion: Last tier only conversion for some cultures makes it a strain on the budget having to garrison extra troops in places you've conquered.

5. The dreaded campaign_ai_db: This is more of a question since most expansion/war/diplomacy problems are resolved by this crazy(I just hate to stare at code) file. I never played the first PI so i dont know if you guys plan to set this up or if you intend to leave the game as a basic sort of FFA?

There are very few problems at all with this mod. Its put together very well!! I've customized the EDU a bit for myself as i like slower/longer battles, but thats it!

I'm looking forward to what you guys release in the future. I hope you put in the Illyrians, they are quite a fascinating near dual culture society during this time period.

[KEA]

1. [U]Mountains/Paths[U]: While the map may be completely accurate, for game sake purposes there are a few areas that really constrain the ai from war/expansion or just from being blocked into an area. For the locs in this list I would suggest they be made into a path.

Interesting observation. Could you please give a screenshot of the region in question.

The large amount of still 'rebel' territory from Album Intimelium to the NW into Gaul, and into Boii homeland NE of where Cenomani tribes occupy seem to have few mountain paths aswell and may create more problems later on. These are just suggestions that may clear up a few ai hiccups.

Yes, I think we anyways need to think what to do with that region. I could rather imagine to make the Alps inaccessibale and add the free province slots in Cisalpina, Africa or Dalmatia instead. I don't think that we desperatly need the Rhaetians.

2. Population growth: Mainly the factions that have mountain/plains herding suffer from poor growth. I've played Samnite and i think Umbrians or Sabine maybe and its near impossible to get last tier settlements. 250+ turns and none. I just cheat to get around it. Suggest keeping income the same but adding a few % to the growth bonus.

The economy still is vanilla. We are definitly going to do something about it. I have now added trade ressources to all provinces as a start (that way we can at least build mines now).

I could imagine a system in which economic buildings would be tied to those ressources. This would anyways be required because we don't have so much land-trade going on with most neighbouring provinces having the same ressources - a result of the smaller scale of these kind of "zoom-mods". So we could have, for example, several "farming" buildings available, depending wether you have grain, wool, cattle, wine etc. in that province.

But I think we should not end up with a system in which each Samnite hillfort would become as large as Carthage. Being poor should be a special challange when playing with one of those factions.

3 Diplomats: Most of the diplomats in the game seem to gather in the SE tip of Italy just below Uzentum. Most likely they are trying to open diplomacy with the philosophers. Others mods like Rule Britannia and Last Kingdom deal with this by adding a diplomat for that faction. That may be the only way to deal with that. /shrug figured I would mention it.

Good approach. We also should check the diplomacy section of descr_strat for spicing up the game start a bit more.

Concerning the philosophers, I am not sure if we desperatly need them (giving the other Greeks the option to build "philosophers" as an agent would do the same IMHO). May be we rather should use them to split up the Italian Greeks into several factions to avoid them becoming overpowered.

4. Culture Conversion: Last tier only conversion for some cultures makes it a strain on the budget having to garrison extra troops in places you've conquered.

pardon?

5. The dreaded campaign_ai_db: This is more of a question since most expansion/war/diplomacy problems are resolved by this crazy(I just hate to stare at code) file. I never played the first PI so i dont know if you guys plan to set this up or if you intend to leave the game as a basic sort of FFA?

So far nothing is planned in detail; on the other hand I would not exclude any file from being modded for PI2.

There are very few problems at all with this mod. Its put together very well!! I've customized the EDU a bit for myself as i like slower/longer battles, but thats it!

EDU will be changed with the next version. We will be using a WYSIWG-system in which each unit is assigned values and costs according to the weapons and armour the model is showing in game.

Another point is that professional units now start with a certain ammount of experience (from 1 for African skirmishers to 9 for "naked fanatics"). This means that they already have the bonus in attack and moral those chevrons give; and of course they also demand a higher payment due to their status. On the other hand, they won't improve much further when already starting with high experience.

Militia units start with no experience (save for boni from buildings that add experience to all units). This means they are in a serious disadvantage to professionals, unless you keep them alive long enough to acquire enough experience. Militas are also quite expensive in upkeep, but cheap in recruitment. In return they all have the free_upkeep attribute. They are also available in larger numbers than comperable professional units, but do replenish slower.

That way you get a serious difference in how to handle your military when playing a faction is mostly using militas, like the Romans, and one that is depending on professionals, like Carthage.

I'm looking forward to what you guys release in the future.

We are already in the process of testing and fine tuning with the next version.

I hope you put in the Illyrians, they are quite a fascinating near dual culture society during this time period.

I don't think so. We certainly will add Epeirus, but I am not sure if will add a second faction east of the Adriatic.

[Slor]

I'll hop in and take some screens when i get off work for those areas.

4. Factions like Samnite/Brettains can only build oscan shrines for the 2% conversion once they have the 24k population highest level city walls up. Atleast thats how it was for me.

Good idea about the trade/income/growth, and the Greek split!!

[KEA]

4. Factions like Samnite/Brettains can only build oscan shrines for the 2% conversion once they have the 24k population highest level city walls up. Atleast thats how it was for me.

That indeed shouldn't be the case, I'll look into it.

[Slor]

Here are those pics with highlighted areas that would probably make travel easier on the AI.

[KEA]

Ah yes, some of those look realy bad, in particular that one in the north with the Etruscan stacks being stuck on both sides of the Apennins. On the other hand, at this spot Misa should control the passages and without it you can't cross the mountains. That place is then held by the Gauls.

That's a bit difficult because when opening more passways (that had not been there) we also would be destroying the startegical setup of the entire region.

[Slor]

Indeed it is hard to decide on something like that for strategy sake.

I've installed xai 4.01(i believe they are working on AI for you guys?) for this, and edited a few things. With their better AI it may work itself out, ill run thru a new campaign and see what happens.

[Slor]

From what i've read on pathing issues i've come up with an idea that should work. Basically the path leading to Misa might be fine. However, Misa blocking the exit is the issue. If you were to widen the exit going past Misa so that a stack can pass without touching the AI cities zone of control it should take care of the AI looking at that path as "blocked." Thats what i get when i read about MTW2 path issues.