Empire Realism - Feedback and General Discussion

[JaM]

this is hardcoded in ETW - artillery has to have predefined number of men - exactly 6 per gun, and all above that number behave that way... This got fixed by CA in NTW which doesn't have this bug.

[Sin316]

another i noticed with artillery, is, that sometimes (not always), when AI is attacking a fort, they drop artillery (which is in range) and charge the walls

[Sin316]

started a new campaign with Maratha.

-I ally with mysore (can't remember if it starts as ally or not, but we're allies ever since the beginning anyway hehe).

-Mysore takes goa first turn (or second) and i start expanding to the north into mughal territory.

-Mandatory declaration of war by france and england, followed later by UP and Portugal.

-England tried to land and attack my most lucrative region once (the southern one, Carnatica) and got crushed and was never seen again since.

-France tried at the same time, also got crushed at first, but came back with a second landing party and finally took the region from me (severally weakened garrison, after having fought off the british and first french army).

-France then even go to conquer a second province north (Hyderabad).

-By then, i was able to muster an army big enough to retake Carnatica from the french and at the same time, Mysore takes Hyderabad from the french. Which is fine by me. I think its good to have a strong mysore as an ally, instead of a weak one.

-Portugal and UP never sent any units, ever (it is now 1725).

-At around 1715 i decided to make peace with mughal empire, in order to bring my economy up and working (mughal is numeric weaker, but they eep harrassing and destroying my plantations etc).

- Just now, 1725, Mughal declared war on me again (which is fine, i've built several upgraded forts at my borders and my cities are well garrisoned).

- Ottoman turn takes 2-3 minutes, but it could be worse. I play windowed mode, so while they take their turn, i alt tab to firefox and write and read forums ( ).

[MariusHealth]

3.7 Britain.

- I can get unlimited trade routes because the game makes the ones above my port limit count as overland routes.

- My native auxiliary (musket irregulars) wont reload when fire at will is toggled OFF.
* Other times they will keep shooting at the enemy, even waaay beyond range when fire at will is toggled off.

- Sumerset house (max government building) wont let me recruit Coldstream Guards. Lower government buildings does.

[Sin316]

restarted a campaign H/H as maratha, because some things just seemed off. And well :

In myfirst campaign, i made peace several times with the mughal which resulted in them produced a LOT of units. Now, i conquered them province by province without any real breaks and funnily enough, they have like zero resistance and close to no units.

In my first game, mysore, being my ally, also started to build a lot of units, once it was able to conquer a province from france (which i lost to them). Once conquered, they keep producing units and have them sit around in their territory. Now, in my current game, they never got to do this (i repelled the mandatory french and british invasion) so they never build anything, just sitting there with goa and mysore regions, pretty much waiting for me to invade them, once i am done with the moghuls.

French and british (followed by especially the portuguese and the dutch) attacked me a LOT in my first campaign. (which was why i tried to maintain peace so many times with the moghul, in order to clear my backside from those european vermin (rp).

In the current game, british and french came once, failed, and since then, no european force has ever been seen again. (year 1717).

Another i noted, guessing its a bug ; i don't spawn any "missionaries" (whatever the word is, the religious guys), no spies, no assassins. I keep spawning "gentlemen" tho.

Somehow i think my whole game is bugged.

Moghul extremely weak.
European nations very passive.
No assassins, spies, priests

Seems off

[JaM]

I'm currently putting down release notes for next version which will get released in next few days.

[Sin316]

great

[JaM]

btw, regarding agents, priest and assassins - there is some strange bug in ETW which allows AI priests to assassin generals... therefore i have decided to reduce amount of priests in game. Anyway if it will become a problem even then, i'm considering removing priests from game completely and instead increase conversion rates for religion buildings, so if you want to convert populace you will have to build missions..

[MariusHealth]

Small Regions may not have town slots available. How about instead you add a marginal conversion rate for government buildings?

[JaM]

every region has some unused slots available where you can build a mission...

[Mjarr]

Although I do believe this is probably hardcoded AI issue, is there any chance you could try to adjust AI recruitment priorities? Facing three full stacks of provincial garrison infantry tends to be rather lopsided, given if it would be single full stack of line infantry instead it might be a force to take seriously even in the hands of AI, but instead what happened was such amusing slaughter that jumped my cavalry experience from 3x stripes to 8x stripes each, and General also went up by five stripes.

[JaM]

AI priorities in ETW are pretty much hardcoded or dealt in the background and there is nothing we could do about it. Anyway in new version there is improved manpower requirements, so its much harder for AI to recruit huge number of weak units. One of the changes i did it new version is to slightly increase morale for European Garrison units (units that are defending city) so they are somewhat bigger threat than previous militia grade units.

Also in new version there is completely reworked autoresolve mechanics, which will make AI take much less looses is battles (anyway this is somewhat eliminated by hardcoded automatic extinction of defending forces if you lose siege battle). And there is also some threshold increase for gaining experience levels, which will now require slightly more killed enemy soldiers than before to gain a level..

so overall new version should improve what you experienced to some degree. Also, Light artillery units will be available from Minor Barracks tree, so AI will more likely have stack containing artillery units now which should improve their battle effectivity, especially due to very good battle effectivity of light guns (high rate of fire,but low range)

[Rick]

btw, regarding agents, priest and assassins - there is some strange bug in ETW which allows AI priests to assassin generals... therefore i have decided to reduce amount of priests in game. Anyway if it will become a problem even then, i'm considering removing priests from game completely and instead increase conversion rates for religion buildings, so if you want to convert populace you will have to build missions..

Remove them completely. I generally stick them in a city and forget about them.

[JaM]

i will probably reduce spawn ratings for them to 0, anyway i cannot completely remove them from map, as that could cause CTDs.. so in the end, there will be some priests that are on map at the start, but once they are gone, there wont be more of them.

[Dandelion]

i will probably reduce spawn ratings for them to 0, anyway i cannot completely remove them from map, as that could cause CTDs.. so in the end, there will be some priests that are on map at the start, but once they are gone, there wont be more of them.

Sounds great. I often had up to five AI priests in some of my regions doing nothing but being present...
And as an "offenive unit" I think the priests are quite useless... never managed to get an opponent's region to rebel due to religion.
I use priest rarely, and mostly to convert natives in the americas or india..

And for converting it already is my usual modus operandi to build a religious building, then remove it as soon as 100% of the population are converted..

[Sin316]

by the way, shortly after i wrote my last "journal" (of sorts), france attacked and captured one of my regions. That in itself, is nothing special, but once i recaptured it, all of a sudden spies and priests started to spawn.

That being said, i now rule india completely, except mysore, which i consider my protectorate, which owns mysore and goa. But now i am in a bit of a pickle, since everybody LOVES me. I even get alliance requests from all the major factions and the world map is green all over. I think india, maratha, should have a bit more "hate" coming from the european colony powers, i.e. england, france, UP, spain and portugal. Also a little hate from muslim powers (notably Persia and Ottomans) wouldn't hurt, seeing as i wiped out the mughul, which were a dominent muslim power.

[JaM]

I made Maratha target in next version from Major Western powers, but you are right, i will make the same for Persians and Ottomans.

[JaM]

Btw, i have decided to do some changes to Lancers after reading some more about their tactics and usage. Instead of giving them highest charge values, i have decided to go similar direction as i did with bayonets - Lancer main benefit was its greater reach, which gave him advantage over shorter weapons, anyway once enemy was able to close the distance, Lancers were vulnerable and were forced to drop their lances... So, from now on, Lancers will get high melee stats, while their charge will be quite similar to charge of other cavalry units. Anyway their actual defense stats will get lowered (by the same value their melee stat got increased) - which would make Lancers quite dangerous attackers, but not that effective defenders. Their high melee stat would give them advantage over all unarmored cavalry, while only cuirassiers thanks to bonus armor value would be able to neutralize them, while their melee attack value would be more than enough to destroy them in combat..


(i'm still putting release notes together, as this release will be one of the biggest changes we had so far with Empire Realism mod...)

[MariusHealth]

Shouldn't early heavy cavalry be cuirassiers? As of now they don't have armour, at least not graphically.

[JaM]

Originally i had them this way, anyway later i dropped it, as plate armor was not that common. Even France stopped calling their Elite cavalry "Heavy" and instead called them Light, as they completely dropped the armor. So now, Early Heavy Cavalry is equipped with 4-6 pistols and standard Leather armor (boots,gloves, helmet/scull cap, coat), which is not as effective as Breastplate (6 vs 12), but is relatively good enough against standard melee attack potential of swords (4) and sabers (3)..