DarthMod Empire v8.0.1 Platinum Feedback (READ FIRST POST)

[Napoleon2013]

When I download, it says insert disk 2. What the f[beep]k does this mean?! Please help!

[Holger Danske]

Thoughts on my current campaigns.

- Netherlands are way too weak and generally gets knocked out very quickly by France or Spain
- Austria is either a steamroller or completely incompetent. I my current Swedish campaign Austria died by 1716... Prussia seems unusally strong though.
- Mughals are way overpowered. Tried invading India by 1765 only to realize the entire continent was cramped with full stack Mughal armies. Also they have a way of killing off all competition within the first 10 years, no matter what. I have never seen the - Marathas stand up to them. Figured I may have to restart my campagins and try wardec'ing all the indian nations at once. Maybe that'll keep the Mughals from steamrolling everything.
- Spain always annex New Spain within the first couple of turns ( how do they do it, btw? )

Britain always declares war on Denmark (when playing as them) within the first 10 turns. I can understand Sweden, but even they don't actually try to invade me...

[Sigmar Heldenhamer]

Not when i play as the Netherlands they dont lol muhahahahahahahaha

[Person012345]

I dislike the long naval movement ranges could we get an option to make them normal?

[Sir_Red]

The routing is a joke at the momet. H/H and my army is slightly outnumbered but still, within one or two volleys my men are routing!?? Is it because I have no general in sone of my armies?

[alhoon]

Try for Normal battle difficulty instead of Hard and yes, the lack of general makes them quite easy to break. And when I say general, I mean someone with at least 3 stars. Bad generals are also bad for morale.
Works for the AI too though. Kill their general with an assassin before battle and then you can defeat the army easily.

[Sigmar Heldenhamer]

how can i add other start pros like i want to play as greece with DME but how do i do it

[alhoon]

You can't because there's no such ESF yet for DME.

[Sigmar Heldenhamer]

But darth is from Greece so i dont know why he didnt add greece as a playable campaign in either early or late campaign or even 40 unit saves

[HaveFallen]

Well! Just finished a little of my very first campaign for this mod after a few tweaks and sub mods and failed campaigns. My God has that AI really been buffed up, or perhaps it's been too long that I haven't played. I am enjoying myself as the Maratha Confederacy and man, the AI has really learned how to turn up a war.
.

[alhoon]

What settings and which submods?

[BLuBMuZ]

I downloaded 8.01 last Saturday and i'm playing since then. I'm now in the middle of the long campaign as England. It was the only full campaign i played with Vanilla, so i can compare.
Settings: usual 20 units, 2 turns/year, no custom modifications. Aim: conquer the entire world.
I already used Darth mod in RTW and in Med2. I like graphics and battle sounds in DME, but i don't find much difference with Vanilla in terms of AI. Probably something better in battle. About stability, there's some flaw in loading/unloading troops on ships (CTD) and the game slows and some "square hole" appears when you select a ship.
Now, about playability.
I hoped to find a really better Campaign AI and mainly to see a reworked Economic system.
This latter is a disaster exactly like in Vanilla: you need a lot of money to maintain your army and navy but Trade and Taxes will never give to the player and the AI enough to do that, invest in new buildings and new units and conquer new land.
I started my first English long campaign with the usual prudence in the early turns and focused on the economic aspects while warring. Exactly as i do in RTW and Med2.
Making a comparison between the 3, i can say that Rome is even too much "rich" in terms of money, Med2 is well balanced and Empire is almost unplayable.

Aspects to improve to actually improve Vanilla Empire:
- All buildings damaged when you conquer a city even if you don't use siege
- No prize when you take a city
- ridiculous show in chasing routing infantry with cavalry (i guess you know what i mean)
- too high costs of building and units (training and upkeep) compared to Trade/Taxes output (or too low T/T output)
i.e., taking Madrid costed me some 2k gold to repair buildings and over 12k to replenish my units (not one lost). Not a problem in Med2 or Rome, but here you can be ruined
- need to lower the "clamour for reforms" which many techs and the universities give. Mainly the techs. I would espect that some will give a positive value
i.e. Division of Labour, humanism, Goverment by consent

Variations in DME failed
- no Indiamans: this means that instead to build a fleet of Indiamans and escort with some 4th and 6th rate, you must build a fleet of 6th rate to benefit of the Trade Theathers.
the problem is that their upkeep is higher than the Indiamans, thus the benefit of trade is heavily lowered. Why 6th rate? i found them to have the best balance between cost and possible defence.
Related problem (i think): I haven't seen any Spanish Galleon. In my Vanilla campaign i experienced a big challenge to fight those damn powerful ships. In DME i haven't seen one.
- higher city walls cost: the result are just easier cities to conquer for the human. Given what i say above about the Economics, the AI isn't able to build them. In some 30 cities i conquered until 1713 i've found walls in 3 or 4... easy prey.
- unit limits in Americas: it's too low and it blocks you to use the Native buildings, forcing you to demolish them and build the city from scratch. You can choose to do so in Vanilla, but you're forced to in DME. You also need to "import" cavalry from Europe to be competitive with the Natives. A nice feature would be if you can build Native units like bowmen and such, but this way it won't work well.

Conclusion
A nice mod for graphics, musics and sounds. Also the "elite" units are nice. It shows a huge work in historical documentation which i appreciate.
But it failed to actually improve the game, mainly in the aspects i listed above, which are the weakness of Empire.

[Bran Mac Born]

BlubMuz-try this then for a different experience. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...E-Mod-settings

[alhoon]

With respect Bluz, I disagree mainly in the economy thing.
You make so much money in ETW, that I had to make a mod to reduce the huge earnings.

Also, why 6th rates? Make 4 sloops, add a 5th rate and you're OK. Need more? go up to 16 sloops, 2 5th rates and 2 3rd rates.

As for Taking Madrid and 12K replentishing. You could have forgo replentishing and merged the units. Also, if you're like 60 turns into the game, Madrid's huge income will make up those 15K in like 5 turns.

[BLuBMuZ]

With respect Bluz, I disagree mainly in the economy thing.
You make so much money in ETW, that I had to make a mod to reduce the huge earnings.

Also, why 6th rates? Make 4 sloops, add a 5th rate and you're OK. Need more? go up to 16 sloops, 2 5th rates and 2 3rd rates.

As for Taking Madrid and 12K replentishing. You could have forgo replentishing and merged the units. Also, if you're like 60 turns into the game, Madrid's huge income will make up those 15K in like 5 turns.

Thanks for the answers.
BTW you're the one with that disturbing picture in the sig, which made me disable to see the sigs in this Forum. I can't suffer to see that face, the less in a game forum. I know that thanks to that guy Italy seems to not deserve respect, but some italian still does.

After my rant, back on topic: about money,
- i got 1 huge fleet in any trade theater, with 6th rate, brigs and - well - no sloops. In any case remains the fact that even a sloop has an higher upkeep cost than an Indiaman, more than twice IIRC.
- i have a lot of trade agreements and a huge gain from that
- i got all my towns updated to the higher possible building

Despite that, my net income is between 500 and 2500 gpt. I got 4 full armies and the safe cities are guarded by militia with a few competitive units carefully distributed to be ready in case of some sneak attack. With that break even you can't keep up with the new buildings and with the replenishing needed after a battle (i'm not loved by most AIs). I must admit i cheated at the beginning (art money works fine). I cheated because there's no way: to be competitive with the AIs with a decent degree of aggression, like i can be without cheating in RTW or Med2, i need to do so. Otherwise i get bored.

Then, please explain what do you mean with "forgo replentishing and merged the units" how it works? I usually select all the units, clish the replanish button, wait 2 turns for land units and 1 for naval. Nothing more.

One last thing please: how do you edit a post of yourself in this Forum? I can't find the button, but i'm sure it should be somewhere. As you see i'm new here, i'm much active in CFC, so i need some help.

Just change that picture, please.

[alhoon]

This is not the place to discuss politics.

About your question, you can merge units by ctrl+M IIRC automatically, or by dragging same units over each other like M2TW and RTW. I.e. you get your depleted line infantry of 65 people with 5 XP and put them in another line infantry with 150 people and 3XP and you get a regiment of 235 people and 3-4 XP.

Also, you mentioned -4- armies + militia + extra units. Yeap, you can't afford all that unless you've a huge and developed empire.
I usually go by 2 armies (not even full) + a few crappy units to keep the peace till I reach like 15-20 settlements. The key IMO is to not have many fronts, so that your 1 or 2 stacks can handle it.

[BLuBMuZ]

This is not the place to discuss politics.

About your question, you can merge units by ctrl+M IIRC automatically, or by dragging same units over each other like M2TW and RTW. I.e. you get your depleted line infantry of 65 people with 5 XP and put them in another line infantry with 150 people and 3XP and you get a regiment of 235 people and 3-4 XP.

Also, you mentioned -4- armies + militia + extra units. Yeap, you can't afford all that unless you've a huge and developed empire.
I usually go by 2 armies (not even full) + a few crappy units to keep the peace till I reach like 15-20 settlements. The key IMO is to not have many fronts, so that your 1 or 2 stacks can handle it.

I've read something about that merge, i will try it. But i think i prefer to spend in upgrades and keep high XP units.
About the upkeep thing, the army i described is referred to my last turn played, 1713, so some 26 turns inside and i have > 50 regions: the starting 6, the 13 colonies and 2 former Native nations, Europe from France to Vienna and Milan and down to Morocco. Plus almost all the Caribbeans.

I declared only to France and Morocco, basically i was a poor victim. Which reacted hardly.
Actually i'm starting a new game and set both difficulties to hard. The one i described is boring.

[alhoon]

At turn 26 you have 50 regions, 4 armies and militia in all settlements?
Well, no wonder that your money runs out!

Call it different perspective, but I don't call it a problem when you can't afford to control the world in 26 turns.
If anything, it shouldn't actually be possible to afford all those campaigns and wars in just 26 turns IMO, but I guess that's not your style, which is fine.

About the campaign getting boring: Well, you control over 50 regions! You've basically won that campaign like 20 settlements ago.


A suggestion: Try to make a Hybrid Startpos if you know how.
That way, you can take another surviving faction in the same campaign, and fight off the huge and powerful England you created. That's not boring.

Another suggestion: Since your style is more aggressive, you could edit the DB with the DB editor to create a modification that reduces recruitment and upkeep for player and AI by like 35% or something.
Since your army upkeep is probably in the 30-40K range, that cut will save you like 10K per turn.

Something I forgot to mention: While the upkeep of Indiamen was indeed somewhat lower than sloops, the prices of commodities were somewhat lower too.

[Kraut and Tea]

Just installed Darthmod and the game now wont launch.
Is that a common problem and does anyone have an idea what might have gone wrong?

[Sigmar Heldenhamer]

1. uninstall mod,
2. verify game cache (personally I always launch ETW and make sure it runs before step 3)
3. reinstall mod
4. make sure it is installed to right path
5. enable auto start, SP ,
6. if that does not work i am sorry but i dont know what else to do