Mod_CAI_higher agressiveness and higher military spending_Testers needed!!!

[Andonai]

Campaign AI Mod

What this mod does:
"Forces the CAI to:
- build more units
- spending more money on buildings,
- less on agents and diplomacy
- should increase the unit variety for land armies (need some turns and for hellenistic factions, or rome this triggers by far earlier)
- Increases the aggressiveness against neighbours, so you can be affected by this or not

What this mod not does:
-You will not have a better diplomacy system
-If the AI declares war on you is still luck or bad luck, DIPLOMACY SYSTEM IS UNCHANGED in the moment...
-The BAI is still crap, but this is a CAI mod, so...

Why this mod?:
After testing a lot of the mods out there, especially the all the different combat mods, I came to the conclusion, that even the best combat mod can´t change a campaign experience if you have to fight against low level peasant armies.
The last few days I spended all my time to play around with some CAI values, in order to make the AI more aggressive and spending more money in military buildings and units of higher quality.

The problem is, at least what I discovered so far, the techtree for the barbarians (celts, german tribes and all the others) needs a complete overhaul if you play with a combat mod that changes the armour values, and the armour values of the shields. These factions have to build too many various buildings to get access to higher and well armoured troops. As long as they fight against each other, it´s okay, but if they are unlucky and are neighbours of a hellenistic faction, they are doomed.

So if you play with a combat mod, and I highly recommend this just take the one that fits your likings, it could be, that the hellenistic factions will steamroll the poor tribes in many parts of the world.

What I discovered in my 40 turn campaign on very hard so far:
In my current campaign, very hard, as rome, in turn 40 the Seleucid empire is the strongest AI faction in the game with 12 cities and holding 2 provinces. Sparta 3 cities, Macedon 3 cities, Athen 1 city, Syracuse destroyed Carthago and took over it´s holdings in north africa and is currently fighting Novo Carthago (and winning, even if I took advantage of the situation and secured sicilia) and still winning. In the barbarian world, the Icenni are ruling britanny, masillia were destroyed by the volcae, but in the moment not a single tribe is really showing to win supremacy over all the others. In the East, Sardes is becoming very strong and destroyed Pontus, but the Thracian Factions or better the celtic hellenic factions have the same fate like the celts and german tribes, the simply take one city to lose another.

All factions I´ve encountered so far are figthing wars with their neighbours, and 15 factions are already completly destroyed.

Unfortunately, I can´t test a whole campaign, because I have to work and my wife will become very angry if I spend all my freetime in my hobby room...

So I need some testers and I will try, based on the feedback to further improve the CAI as soon as possible. There are many tables I can play with and a lot are still untouched, so there is a chance.
Hints, tipps, help and advises are welcome, I quited modding after Rome 1, so...

One thing is important, if you want to playtest, check every 5 or 10 turn if all the factions labeled as "expansionits" in the diplomacy screen are those who become stronger.
(This is important for me, so I know if the changes I did are highly dependent on the "default cai stance" of each faction or if my changes override the default stance or at least tweaking them)

Okay, long speech, short conclusion don´t except a perfect CAI and in the first 10 Turns you will still see a lot of slingers and so on, but in later turns, you will see a greater variety of units in their armies, especially in the hellenistic ones.

I recommend to play with the following mods:
A combat mod you like
Unit mods as long as they are just visual
Graphic mods you like

Highly recommended:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?618614 ==> Grand Campaign minimod by Livebyte
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?618583 ==> Squalour and Hunger reduction by Livebyte
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t-train-armies ==> Champions can´t train armies mod, by me
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...0#post13253750 ==> Additional income for all Factions, by me

Installation:
This time I´ll provide the mod as movie.pack, so just put it in your data folder
a mod.pack version will be released soon.

Mod.pack version: Use the modmanager by mitch: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...36-Mod-Manager

Start a new campaign, best on very hard or legendary

Incompatibility:
Not compatible with any mod that is changing the following tables:
cai_construction_system_province_template_assignment_policies_tables => extreme settings in the moment, every city with a port should become a military center, no matter what ai type the faction is.
cai_construction_system_templates_junctions_tables ==> many changes to streamline all ai_behaviours a bit and force them to build more military and buildings
cai_personalities_budget_allocation_policy_junctions_tables ==> I have an Idea how this works, but need more testing to be sure...
cai_personalities_budget_allocations ==> This is the one with the best results, lowered the cycles for building and units, increased the amount of funds, lowered the funds for diplomacy, agents etc needs balancing perhaps but is one of the files with the greatest impact in terms of building and armies
campaign_ai_manager_behaviour_junctions_tables==> will look into this further

campaign_ai_personality_junctions_tables ==> still a lot of tweaking needed
cdir_unit_balances_tables ==> there is a lot of work to do...

As you can see, this mod doesn´t changes anything diplomacy related, I am working on this too, but the results are not great so far.


As always, feel free to play around with this mod, use it in your own or whatever, permission is granted, feedback and crediting me would be nice.

If downloading from the forum is not working here external links:
movie.pack http://www.2shared.com/file/ISx8aaC_...ry_spendi.html
mod.pack version: http://www.2shared.com/file/HO3Z_7j_...ry_spendi.html

[Gaios]

Download is not working, at least for me.

[Andonai]

hmm, for an unknown reason firefox will open the attachement as gif file.
upload it at 2shared

[bla21]

Thanks for the mod, will try it out

[Andonai]

Thank you for testing it, a feedback would be nice, so I can improve this further.

[Tomsie]

Shall definitely test this tomorrow. Have you worked out how to give AI factions an income boost? Any increase in difficulty would be welcome.

[betoelbicho]

Income boost is not the way to go. What they need is anallize neighbours and attack the weakest and keep high level armies/focus research... every turn.

DBTABLES GOD INSPIRE

[Andonai]

There is no income boost, I just edited the way the AI is using the income, I didn´t increased it...

[Andonai]

There is no income boost, I just edited the way the AI is using the income, I didn´t increased it...
Many minor AI factions are receiving an income boost already (800 denarii per turn) and this is causing problems for some of the major factions like Carthago.
My goal is to force the CAI to use the income in a "better" way and in the end this will mean that the research tree for some factions must be reworked.
Radious did a good approach by making some higher tier units available earlier, I am working currently on a redesigned research tree for some factions.

We will see, perhaps we will find a good and acceptable solution for all. CA improved the CAI a lot in the last beta patch, at least compared with vanila, and if we are lucky, Germanicus will dig in the BAI and improve it like he did with the BAI from Medieval 2, in my experience at least the best ever BAI seen in any TW game.

[betoelbicho]

this + magnar mod works like a charm, i am seeing some stronger units on full stacks in the campaign

[betoelbicho]

this + magnar mod works like a charm, i am seeing some stronger units on full stacks in the campaign

[Tomsie]

Well I asked if you knew how, not if it was in the mod. Iv seen the 800 buff to Iberian, african and brit tribes, do you know how to add that to all factions? I'd like to try doubling that for majors, seems linked to cultural groups?
As for AI build priorities, reducing squalor/food costs of military buildings should do it. I'm playing a campaign with food and squalor disabled, and enemy AI army composition is improved, and most regions have one form of military building. Maybe moving units one building down their recruitment chain could speed things up? Adding a higher tier barracks to the Major factions start region might help also.

[Andonai]

Well I asked if you knew how, not if it was in the mod. Iv seen the 800 buff to Iberian, african and brit tribes, do you know how to add that to all factions? I'd like to try doubling that for majors, seems linked to cultural groups?
As for AI build priorities, reducing squalor/food costs of military buildings should do it. I'm playing a campaign with food and squalor disabled, and enemy AI army composition is improved, and most regions have one form of military building. Maybe moving units one building down their recruitment chain could speed things up? Adding a higher tier barracks to the Major factions start region might help also.

Regarding your question: Yes it is possible to add this buff to all factions.
The way to do it:
- Download PFM,
- update it if needed,
- open the data_rome2.pack
- navigate to db ==> effect_bundles_to_effects_junctions_tables
- extract the table
- open the extracted table in PFM
- Add a new row

Now the hard work:
1st: effect_bundle_key defines: what kind of effect you add, so you want to add the money constantly, it´s a faction trait
add this: rom_faction_trait this entry alone will do nothing, because you have to specify wich faction should get the trait: example you will give the iceni the trait you have to add: rom_faction_trait_britannic_iceni

2nd: effect_key: defines what the effect does, in our case the entry you have to add is this:
rom_building_gdp_subsistence_faction_capital_hidden

3rd: effect_scope: defines the "range" of the effect, you want the effect for the faction you definded in the entry under step 1, so add this:
this_faction

4th: value: the well value of the effect, in our case you will add denarii, so enter a value you like, standard for african, arabian and britannic factions (except iceni) is a value of 800, you want double it, so add 1600

5th: advancement_stage: this defines when the effect shall trigger, the standard stage is: start_turn_round_completed
I think you don´t have to change this, because the effect is a faction_trait and these are always active, so this is fine, no need to change this.

Summary: To add 1600 denarii per turn to the iceni it looks like this:

under effect_bundle_key ==> entry: rom_faction_trait_britannic_iceni
under effect_key ==> entry: rom_building_gdp_subsistence_faction_capital_hidden
under effect_scope ==> entry: this_faction
under [B]value[/B ==> entry: 1600
under advancement_stage ==> entry: start_turn_round_completed


if you did your entries, save the file as movie.pack or as mod.pack (I prefer mod.pack, but to activate it you have to use the mod manager created by mitch) and put it in your rome2 data directory. Oh and perhaps give your mod a unique name like: mod_economic_additional_income_allFactions (mod = it´s a mod, economic = your changes are related to the economy of the game, additiona_income = is what the mod does, allFactions: who will get it.) So you can see by the name of the file alone what it does, makes management easier if you will mod more in the future, but it´s just a suggestion.


Rince and repeat this for all factions, a list with the faction names you need for the first entry is available under db==>effect_bundles_tables==>effect_bundles

sort the enties under key and look for the entries that start with: rom_faction_trait_(name of the faction)#
example: rom_faction_trait_successors_egypt use this entry under step 1 to do the same for egypt, you can simply copy and paste.

Good luck, hope this is what you were looking for.

[Tomsie]

I'll try that later, thanks a ton for taking the time to write that all out. I'd just like to get stomped by the AI, like I did in shogun on VH. I'd also rep you, if I knew how...I'll be trying your mod after work, anyway. Ill let ya know how I get on. Thanks again.

[Mr. Os]

Will be testing tomorrow!

[Andonai]

I'll try that later, thanks a ton for taking the time to write that all out. I'd just like to get stomped by the AI, like I did in shogun on VH. I'd also rep you, if I knew how...I'll be trying your mod after work, anyway. Ill let ya know how I get on. Thanks again.

Here is your mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...0#post13253750
Feel free to use this mod and edit the income.

[Andonai]

Will be testing tomorrow!

Thanks, feedback is very welcome, especially how it works with the mods you use.
And by the way, I love your campaign for extra manliness, and your macedons are looking...
... well manly now!