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

[JooksKidd]

Is anyone getting crashes? Lately, it crashes before the game even loads.

[Krebskandidat]

I heard something about BAI improvements, when you play some battles. Since start I’ve been the only guy who attacks and every battle has been the same. To show you how lazy BAI in combat is, I post an remarkable battle statistic. Haven’t achieved such a result before. They were not much, but their behaviour was the same as before as we had equal army size. Cavalry attacks. Line infantry retreats to the edge of the map. Cannons do nothing but change position.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

I was seeing this at the start of my campaign for 20 turns or something and suddenly the bai changed!How many turns have you played?

[Hawkeye74]

@jookskid I found that if I use the debug cam crashes happen all the time during battles, that is if you are using the cam, in scripts it's '2' (debug cam). default is '1' but don't quote me, maybe someone could confirm.

[Krebskandidat]

I was seeing this at the start of my campaign for 20 turns or something and suddenly the bai changed!How many turns have you played?

I'm now in turn 5 (and had 4 assault battles) but 15 turns later whole America will be conquered because the British don't cause me any casualties as you can see (and the War of Independence should be over to).

Question: Does this BAI changing affects a new campaign? If this is so, I will play 20 turns at first (to calibrate the AI) and then start a new campaign and play it for real.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

I'm now in turn 5 (and had 4 assault battles) but 15 turns later whole America will be conquered because the British don't cause me any casualties as you can see (and the War of Independence should be over to).

Question: Does this BAI changing affects a new campaign? If this is so, I will play 20 turns at first (to calibrate the AI) and then start a new campaign and play it for real.

with which version did you start this campaign?8.01 final or one of the betas?

[Krebskandidat]

After the 8.01 Final had been released I deinstalled Empire (deleted all files) and installed the game completely new. Then I installed DarthMod 8.0 and patched it with 8.01 Final. Then I started the campaign "Road to Independence" without changes (instead of the technology from the late campaign). So this version of the game is uncorrupted. I think I’ve written this before.

Question: Does this BAI changing affects a new campaign? If this is so, I will play 20 turns at first (to calibrate the AI) and then start a new campaign and play it for real.

This would be interesting to know. If the BAI will change for good 8.01 is playable, but if you have to wait 10 years in every campaign it is not.

[Phildor]

I started a new 40 unit grand campaign with Prussia after installing 8.0.1 on H/H.
The CAI is good and acts reasonable. The Dagestan Protectorates are there as in the earlier platinum version.
The BAI seems to be worse in my opinion. In land battles the enemy does not form proper firing lines and need much time to form something "moving forwards" after the battle starts.
I played most of my battles complete passive and the enemy got crushed. Enemy lineinfantry runs in front of my lines in a bulk and gets shot. The cavalry acts similar. They ride parallel to my firing line in range and get slaughtered. As that, I get battle results of a 1:6 - 1:10 troop loss ratio. For hard that is way too easy. I would loose more troops, if the enemy would stupidly run into my army for melee, but it seems they cannot decide to choose musketing or a melee charge.
In fort defense, I hold Sweden with 18 lineinfantry vs a 40 unit well mixed swedish army without loosing 1/4 of my troops.
The artillery shot one gap in the wall and stopped firing then. Their infantry ran to the walls, but routed pretty fast. No single of their soldiers was able to climb up, cause of that. Their cavalry units were standing in the field without doing anything, till I moved some of my units out of the fort to finish the battle, then they engaged them one by one.

sum.: In my experience the BAI for landbattles were better in the first platinum version. The AI acts still weird in sieges. The CAI is good.

[alhoon]

Phildor, my experience from playing 8.0.1 for like 10-15 hours is very different. The battles were all very good. The BAI was moving in lines. Yes, they made a couple of mistakes here and there, but nothing as terrible as you describe.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

Phildor, my experience from playing 8.0.1 for like 10-15 hours is very different. The battles were all very good. The BAI was moving in lines. Yes, they made a couple of mistakes here and there, but nothing as terrible as you describe.

Do you use sub mod 1.5 (causa belli,death anim,ntw effects,polish units v2 on) ?what difficulty are you playing on?

[Fracchione]

Does the CAI develop the newly conquered provinces? Does it recruit from them?

[Sigmar Heldenhamer]

One problem i found , if it is a problem , i tried 5+ times but units in square formation never fire at cav running around them or about to charge them and most of the time enemy cav punch right through them when they charge.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

have played more than 70 turns in my russian campaign VH/VH 4tpy and i need 2 more regions from the required 2 win.With the stacks ai has recruited it seems difficult but i will find a way.
So far situation seems as following
Austria posseses most of the europe and could have more than 10 full stacks!.Germans and swedish seem strong while GB has army&fleet but makes no moves IN europe.Spain?havent seen them.Ottoman is strong but has lost many territories from me.Im in war with some of them(austria,ottoman,sweden,gb,prussia) some of the time i get too few blocades on my ports,even though when i have lost my fleet or have inferior fleet they dont move.FRANCE,DUTCH AND MARATHA ARE DOWN VERY VERY EARLY and too easily.
My suggestions/reports or ideas are
CAI
Big colonial nations such as (GB,FRANCE,DUTCH,SPAIN) focus more on building up forces in their colonies and neglect their home region.Look out what have shown.How many times during the 18nth century a colonial major nation has lost his home region?NONE.
france,dutch,Gp,spain should never lose so easily.Protecting their capital is urgent priority.So some rebalancing in big colonial nations should be done,They spent too many forces in their colonies and dont guard their capital well.So rebalancing should be also done in INDIA.mughal or MARATHA dispose one another and the europeans very easily!More balancing there could make campaigns better,and create action in India
CAI builds big armies and navies.I DONT KNow if you can make ai reenforce weak position by transfering armies through fleets.
Diplomacy looks better and more reasonable.AI trades techs military access and forces aliances more reasonably.Although your allies break the alliances with you very easily and become neutral,but if you propose with them to reform a military aliance with you they accept.AI hesitates to fight an enemy ai that is connected with a human?very friendly military allies should follow you to your wars.
Im not sure yet about region trading and protectorate making they rarely accept.Example france loses with capital region by an enemy ai im ally with them i conquer their home region for them and trade it for an other inferior and they didnt accept their home land!even though i was making a very good offer to them.Now if they wanted me to give the region and 50k better go to %^^%&^.Thats unreasonable.
I was happy to see ai expanding and attcking rebel nations that came from france and dutch fallen colonies!Mughals captured dutch and french guiana+ceylan,i captured acadia and newfound land from rebels while modreal is still under rebell control!I want to see more minor nation being more active.These region were under rebel control for many turns.They could have been claimed earlier from both major and especially minor nations.
Still i havent seen a revolution!Gentlemen rakes missonaries are being used very often,thats good.
One last thing.CAi very rarely changes the type of a building.For example Courland's only port is a major fishery dock.They should have burn it and make a trading dock.Moreover some minors they dont posses a school should burn weavers,taverns,churches and built schools or other buildings more efficiently and when needed,this will make them stronger.

BAI
IF only i could tell a good work here.To be honest its not that bad.There are good battles and there are battles ai changes the way he plays and battles become rather poor
Let me talk about <ok> battles (7,5/10) for me.These are mostly:a) the battles AI attacks you b)some battles you attack ai
In these battles ai is good,wastes he forces less and fires artillery.What i want here?more massiveness and attack at the same time to produce chaotic situations.Ai's attack tends to be in waves.For example first they send some units then some cavalry after that some more units etc.Also i should mention some lazy reserves that sit behind walls and do nothing.These <small> attacks are done with 10 secs of delay but thats crucial type.I can make a defensive position with reserves and i cant lose!AS you will see in pictures i beat 2 full stacks of austria one main and one as reenforcement because of this.They sent some units then some other in waves that couldnt cause a problem at me.I could kill 4 full stacks in total they way the attacked.They should have assembled as a force and then attack massively and cause problems.So there is a problem in massiveness and army assembly and in reenforcement use.I dont know if you can increase the slots for units that are received as renf,but appart from this ai should built lines first and then unleasing an attack.Attcking with units back to back is not very good and could not cause problems.
For me its Piece of cake!

Unfortunately there are some battles that are not very good at all.THese are mostly battles that ai is attacked by you BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.i dont know whats happening some are good some are changed and are bad(2-3/10).These <bad> battles contain the following bugs(cavalry wasting,artillery moving/no firing a single shot/infantry pulling back and dont generally bad defence).Combine this with lack of massiveness in defence and its absolutely a disastrous battle that seems to be, in easy difficulty rather that in vh.
I dont know what causes them i play these battles in undefined times.I dont know how can you fix this
To sum up about land battles:I want massiveness in attck and defence,with all they got!no sitting back except for the general. All units attck at the same time.No haste to attack,especially from cavalry, ai should wait untill all forces are in position.I want no complex things as napoleon said single maneuvres are the best ones.
I will finalise my review with 1 thing about naval battles and one about sieges.
NAVAL BATTLES
I Like them,even if my ships flee very easily.BAI circles and maneuvres well.I have noticed as you will see in pic that the first ship of an ai position moves far from the others.You can engage it and take it out of battle.THIS is not due to its speed they sent the first ship sighty more away from the others
SIEGES
there is not much to say here.I want to see the ai to charge inside broken walls with all he has.If there arent any breach in the walls and ai loses all his infantry had better retreating his cavalry/pikemen/artillery too instead of sitting out of fort's cannons range!Make them storm inside walls from cracks thats crucial!
Pictures
3 pictures from an austria battle i described above.ai hastes to attack and attcks in small packs.Receives reenforcements and does the same.
The last pic is from the issues explained in naval battles

I think im done for the moment.I will post no more unless i see something weird.Hope Darth is still here checks my posts and does the best he can as always,especially in the easter holidays aproaching

[The Black Ghost]

So are we not getting any more updates? Time for me to learn hod to mod.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

URGENT UPDATE OF POST #73
there seems to be a problem in sieges.The problem was found when you defend and the AI attacks the fort.AI has many troops and advanced the fort under heavy fire with all they got.The problem was no unit tried to climb the walls.They came close but didnt make it.Only one unit tried it and failed.they seem to do circles around the walls and not trying climb it,when there is no crack in the walls.Also in the same siege they receive reenforcements.The reenforcements were too late and when they arrived there was nothing to reenforce!Nontheless their reenforcements passed infront of the main gate and those not killed got parked in a corner away from the fort.Then some of then came close again got killed and battle was over.I have to mention first general was engaged and killed nobody helped.
I have to ask you to do something with reenforcements.Ai tries to fight quickly so that the battle ends fast,REENFORCEMENTS ARRIVE LATE and when they arrive there is nothing to reenforce.Can you make them arrive faster so the ai uses them properly?There is a major issue here.Imagine this siege their full stack attcking the walls and getting reenforced they could have a chance!Arriving one at another there is no hope for them.
The same thing is valid for land battles reenforcements arrive late because of limited slots.Sometimes its like you play two battles with 2 diff armies,when they arrive there is nothing from first army
check the pics check the casualities they had,i could kill tons of them
To sum up ai doesnt attack-or does it with a big delay- the walls even though he circles the fort from all direction.tHE OTHER ISSUE IS about reenforcements either make them arrive instantly or more quickly and ai wait and use them to attack or increase available slots.

[alhoon]

I have seen that behavior you describe when I played too, but it's not that terrible as in your case. After a while the units move on the walls and you have to fight in the fort.
What they did was to surround the fort, and after the fort was surrounded, they started climbing. One unit here, one unit there. Others were shooting from below the walls. Then a bit later, a wall was breached and their cavlary and some infantry went through. Then there were regiments on the back walls that I've neglected.
I routed them but with casualties. The battle took about 17-18 minutes.

NOTE: I had it at 20 mins time limit. Perhaps that's why the moved and attacked fast.


As for the submods I have: I have Causa Belli on. I have no idea about the other mods you mentioned. Are they up to date? Also is the CB used in the mod you mentioned the up to date one?
I would especially be wary of NTW effects and death animations. These are not just units, perhaps they change something in the way the battle is handled.
Yet, since the behavior we see in siege defense is similar (I just find it OK ) perhaps everything's fine.

From your remarks and my experience with the game I would say this Aggele:
We just have different expectations from the game. I find OK the behavior you described for siege defense for example.
I.e. they don't "park" out of the walls, they circle the whole thing. They shoot from below the walls. A couple of regiments lead the "attack" on the walls. Sure the rest don't follow soon. Which is actually smart. They give you a false sense of security, you pull your other wall defenses and then at one point you turn the camera and see 2 regiments of the enemy moving on the walls virtually unopposed because you've just left a militia in this part of the wall.
Yes, if I had a full stack with veteran line infantry on the walls, I would rout those regiments providing the first attack without need to pull forces from other sides of the walls.
But if I had a full stack with veterans inside the city, there's no way they could take the city anyway. *


* Because as you said, reinforcements suck bigtime.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

The sub mods are in huserls launcher?Dont you have this?how do you run the game?
Yes you see them climb the walls but not at once.When they are down there im up there and fire them with muscets,fort cannons,howitzer with carcass they dont have the time to circle around the fort.they should immediate attack and try to break their walls if they have cannons.
you gave me an idea about the time limit you say(because i play with no time limit) and i will try to deactivate NTW effects and death anim
check the ntw effects http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...8#post12217768

[alhoon]

I haven't checked the submods in Husserl's launcher.

And I kinda disagree with you on the surround the fort thing. They have the time to circle around it, even if it costs them some people in the beginning. Still, for them to have a chance to take a fort, they should be x1.5 your people or x2.
If you have howitzers, crack marksmen in the walls, grenadiers to defend the breaches and as many people as they do, they wouldn't take the fort anyway.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

tried to play a battle with 20 min limit AND NTW DEATH ANIM off! reenforcements arrived faster,almost instantly and generally BATTLE WAS ASTONISHING BETTER!FANTASTIC.it was like dmuc 6.9 old battles.Shocked how time limit can change the BAI.want to test more + rep to alhoon

[Spirit``]

Dagestan Protactore problem is continue... as i said before.. They like got 7 protactore at least in 1720's.. when late campaign Hannover takes the dagestans Role and Hannover start getting protoctare. Other thing is ottoman lag is offle i dont know how you guys can play so many turns ! im in 1726 and i have to wait 2-5 min at least for turn to end. its horrible !!!! ı always stop playing after like 1730. because turn lag becomes very longer and annyoing .........
And as i said Maratha always destroys in first 10 turns by mughals. Mughal is so unbalanced even i fight with them even i have the superior army still i lose to auto-resolve.they have major boost against not only me and all factions. they wipe out all factions in india.

please you have to fix these Three major problems.