Vialabo's Imperial Survival Kit - Campaign Overhaul Mod: Update 1

[vialabo]

The Imperial Survival Kit
by Vialabo

A primarily economic rebalance mod focused on decreasing the threat smaller factions pose to their greater counterparts, allowing them time to grow into powerful and challenging empires.

Fed up with watching Carthage, Pontus, and Rome fall to barbarians after only a short time into the campaign I took up modding and set sights on fixing some of the issues Rome 2 has with its campaign. Turn after turn I watched the AI for any clues to what was causing the factions of antiquity to fall and at long last I bring you I.S.K. There are a number of fixes other mods have made to help alleviate the problem, but none so far have made large strides in finding a solution.

After a bunch of personal testing I think I have made a step towards a remedy.

There are a few fundamental issues with the way Rome 2's Campaign begins. Most notably being the lack of any large difference in income between small factions and the larger ones they often destroy. Exasperating the issue is the number of potential buildings each kind of faction can build from the start. A small faction will end up with a much larger army far quicker than a larger faction even though their sizes are so different. This is caused by the larger one spending its income constructing buildings in its numerous provinces instead of raising an army to defend itself. Lacking an army, the larger factions are targeted by the AI of the smaller states spelling doom for them quickly. The smaller state battles the larger one with an army much larger giving the large faction little chance when judged by the autoresolve. After the faction's army loses its battle a cascading effect of states declaring war on the further weakening large faction starts until they're wiped from history.

So what do we do about that?

The first thing I decided to change was the way income worked from the beginning of the campaign. If larger factions began with enough income to freely expand their infrastructure and raise armies to battle they would be far better off. While simultaneously lowering the income of the smaller states and bringing them closer to a power level owning one or two settlements might allot one. I accomplished this by decreasing the "king's purse" or "other income" received by every faction to 1000 per turn and then increasing the income gained from cities and settlements by a large amount to somewhat compensate. This made factions with multiple cities far stronger in comparison to their smaller neighbors. I countered the increased income from cities in the late game by increasing the effects of corruption on larger empires.

I also included a fair number of smaller gameplay fixes and tweaks I believe make the campaign funner while striving to maintain the little realism it originally had.

This mod is balanced for 2 years per turn, but also has a vanilla length alternative download

Features

Rebalanced Incomes: - All nations now have incomes better reflective of their stature. - The highest level of taxes has been made more extreme and should only be used for extra bursts of income. All other levels have been balanced to grant higher growth levels in general. AI Overhaul: - The AI is more likely to form trade agreements, defensive alliances, military alliances, form coalitions, help an ally when at war, and ask for help while at war. They're also more likely to try and find peace when they're losing a war. - The AI now builds a more well-rounded army with fewer missile troops and larger nations will raise far larger armies than before. - The AI of larger factions have been made more aggressive and their building habits better balanced to help facilitate their growth. Agents and Character Overhaul: - Agents have been rebalanced to be cheaper early in the game and become more expensive as their abilities grow. (No greater than ~40% in costs, but this will help the AI better make use of their agents without hindering other aspects of their economies.) - All characters require slightly more experience to grow in level, and now receive 2 skill points every other level. Spies - Spies have had their poison provisions ability made weaker. Dignitaries - Dignitaries limits have been doubled. In the vanilla game dignitaries were more or less required to always ghost your conquering armies in order to keep squalor down and I felt this eliminated their uses domestically. In order to give more options to the player I've doubled their amounts so they can be used more freely. - Dignitaries now receive conversion bonuses on a smoother curve. Originally they received most of their ability here from traits and that left some dignitaries so useless I would disband even high level ones if they got the wrong trait. Conversion bonuses are now largely received from skills rather than traits now. Champions - Champions with military training skills now give bonuses to experience gain rate for their parent armies rather than a flat xp per turn. Other Campaign Changes: - Faction traits have been intensified to create larger differences in gameplay. - Doubled the number of edicts allotted to a faction. - All attrition damage has been decreased to a less absurd level. - The rate at which mercenaries respawn is quicker. - Smaller nations have received small buffs to make them more playable. Planned Changes: Replenishment system overhaul

In here is a list of mods I personally recommend for an even better campaign experience. They're fantastic mods. Thanks guys!

Compatability

Highly Recommended Mods: Lines of Battle: Rome II - A Tactical Gameplay Modification Arete ton Xenon: V1.0 Carthage Overhaul Hellbent's Traits, Talents, and Toadies (TTT) - A Character Mod Overhaul Confirmed Compatability - Radious Battle, Unit Packs and Graphics Mods

Downloads

Requires Beta Patch 3 to use Backup your startpos before installing the mod Place the 1_mod_Imperial_Survival_Kit in your data folder and the startpos in your campaign/main_rome folder You do not need a mod manager for this mod Standard 2 Turns per Year --- Download --- Vanilla Build/Technology Times --- Download --- Reduced Squalor/Food --- Download ---

[Deketh]

Love the sound of it, and would love to use your mod but, alas, it crashes on the startup screen

[VladimirTW]

I love your explanation of the core issues facing the large empires (Carthage especially!)
Is this mod compatible with all factions playable mod?
Testing this would be awesome but I love the 50% faster tech mod, and its not compatible

[StrikeQ]

Game doesn't load with your Mod, just gets stuck on the loading screen for me.

[BigEl_nobody]

Strike you need to install the Beta Patch 3!

[StrikeQ]

Strike you need to install the Beta Patch 3!

I'll try that than, been avoiding beta patch 3 since I've heard way more bad than good.

Edit: With beta patch 3 the game doesn't freeze, it crashes on start up.

[lesterthenerd]

its the lua scripts table. i deleted it and the game doesnt crash anymore.

[vialabo]

Hmmm... The lua_scripts did this to me a couple times when I was modding. I wouldn't change anything and the mod would decide to start crashing. (They're part of the mad romans fix) I'll upload a fixed version. Seems i'll have to do more testing for that.

[vialabo]

Updated. Sorry for the inconvenience : )

[snarre]

game crash imeadly when star whit this mod and i have beta 3 and nou any other mods

[vialabo]

@ snarre : Are you using the new download?

[snarre]

yep now its work , writed same time when you was postin ^^

[vialabo]

Thats a relief : )

[vialabo]

Grr the site killed my formatting

[azreil1]

Will this still work if I use a Half time research mod and make it 4 turns per year? Also do these changes affect the player?(If I play as Rome will I start with more money?)

[vialabo]

You cannot use the Half time research mod because they edit the same table sorry. The changes do effect the player, but you actually tend to make less money as everyone but maybe Carthage. You will definitely make less money by the middle/late game.

[snarre]

sou far sou good =) Ai seems to act litle more smarted and first time i see macedon is build biger armys and controlling several towns and citys

[vialabo]

My personal favorites are Macedon and Pontus. They are ridiculously more active.

[Ahiga]

Are you a wizard Vialabo? Because it seems like you are with all these fantastic discoveries. Really fantastic work! Definitely going to run with this mod - downright shocked that the free money was set so high for those minor factions - I can't imagine how high it was that 1000 would be what it was lowered to.

[StrikeQ]

Did you change anything with Military Traditions? Armies show at 0/0 experience starting out. Win one battle and they become Rank 3 with 10/120 yet no military tradition can be picked.

Edit: Seems you deleted every other rank from them.