Divide et Impera - People of Rome Submod [Updated Oct 30]

[Matt Slow]

Now here is something that will not work this way. This is Legio II going all the way back from Bibiracte to Italia. They did not replenish in Raetia & Noricum, not in Cisalpina and finally now they do not replenish in Italia. Still based on a very small empire, this means Legions will become incompatible to any historical expansion.

There must have been some kind of supply system. I do not have any historical knowledge on this system, but Roman roads have been built for many reasons... A total dependence on local population will not work for sure, especially as this seems bugged. Pops in the provinces travelled are bigger than 0, so at least there should have been some replenishment.

[Vardano]

I wish we could have something like this instead of the current broken, non-sensical political "system"!

Sorry for being off topic. I'm glad that many DEI memebers paid an attention to this mod because it seems it's all up to add depth to a game, some ideas sound so fresh!

[Amras89]

For simulate the emigration and immigration I think we should add a new building work as a road like we have in Total War Rome.
So hopefull we can simulate the citizen emigration to frontier from heartland and the other way round for foreigners.
We can create 5 kinds of road with diffince stats for every culture groups:

Roman Roads with a high movement point and replenishment for Roman faction
Gravel roads for barbarian
Silk roads with a high commerce income for eastern factions and Baktria
Nomad route for nomades with food bonus and high livestock income
And then a road for Greek factions

We can also include this into the correct building as create supplies route

[Alekho]

@Matt Slow, offtopic but, damn that looks beautiful. Are you using any graphical mods or maybe GEMFX?

[Matt Slow]

@Matt Slow, offtopic but, damn that looks beautiful. Are you using any graphical mods or maybe GEMFX?

Ironically I wasn't aware of any beauty in seeing this battered legion not replenishing... My settings are mostly extreme, using two crossfired 7970. It may get to the limits in big battles however (but more likely CPU-wise). That's probably also why any effort of running GEMFX fails, so this is the pure game/DEI version you are seeing.

However, I truly hope we get a solution for the replenishment problem first of all. In the meantime you may have a look at the settings...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[myarta]

Matt,

The reason I am raising huge Peregrini armies is my regular legions have totally depleted my Plebe population on 0.7 (I haven't tried the effects of using 0.7a with Temples to boost L2 plebes which is the Camillan/Polybian era draw). I think the explanation for your problem earlier is that if you are down, say, 1931 plebes in that army stack and there are 1929 plebes in the local province, then your stack won't start replenishing until there are enough. You can't replenish your units partway until plebe population drops to 0, then move them on somewhere else to finish topping off. Also, it lags behind one turn when you change regions.

Do Marian main legionary units draw from the Proles or are they also L2 Plebes? I have huge pools of L3 Proles (40k+) or L4 foreigners (40k+) in the non-starting cities that I just can't convert into L2s fast enough even for some modest wars (140 turns in and I just have Sicily, Cisalpina, and Provincia).

I want to find a way to get all these foreigners out of my cities so Romans can move in. Plus, it's kind of cheesy, but I think Sicilian units that are made with L4 will replenish with Greek men from Massalia, for example, since Foreigners are Foreigners. So basically the manpower is so hard for me as Rome that I need to have all or majority Foreigner armies just so they can actually replenish. Trotting back to the various villages in core Italy or Rome itself was cool for a while, but now my 2 full stacks are unreplenishable and will take 40+ turns of grinding just to get another 2-3 battles worth of replenish pools stocked up. Whereas you have infinite L4 pools if you're taking new lands.

Also, my population spread is a bit odd, like 17k patricians in Rome, very few Proles, then 60k+ plebians. I guess I could use more Triari? I use 5 of them per army, the rest Principes. I might try a fresh play through with 0.7a with more attention paid to using proles more, and manually fighting battles to save the L2 plebe units for last.

Over all, though, I like this addition to the game. It's a little too constrictive in L2 for Rome for me right now, along with not having a good way to get rid of the 40-50k foreigners per province each time you conquer to make room for decent sized citizens to grow (since the place counts as 'populous' and you start getting all classes shrinking thanks to crowding or such). Obviously the point is that it takes time, of course. If possible, maybe your culture ratio can convert L4s slowly into L3s/L2s/L1s when it's high?

[Matt Slow]

@myarta: Thanks, I finally got it. Also this makes 6 months for any replenishment at least: move to a region possible, wait another turn. Rather frustrating in my eyes.

Only solution I see currently would be any kind of barracks should start a major surge to plebs. I do not know at which point Rome started handing out citizenship for service and if this affected both legions and auxiliaries, but this was a key point in foreign recruitment and Roman growth/romanization.

Ed: you guys really make me look up history facts again. For most parts of Roman history, Peregrini had been the largest part of population and service in auxiliary units was rewarded with Roman citizenship. Citizenship however most of the time was required to enlist for legions. So in fact, aux barracks should create a huge plebs surge.

[Riksen]

First of all thank you for this great mod! The improvements are just too good and well done. That makes impossible to go back to vanilla Rome 2. Unfortunately, however, I've been experiencing CTD at turn 19 whenever i hit end turn button. Im not using any mods except all the 6 parts of DeI. I dont know if it helps but all the time it crashes, there is a freeze on the Masaesyli faction. Do you think that is related?

[Dresden]

@Riksen are you using the latest version (0.7a)? If so, can you upload your save?

@Matt Slow are you getting crashes during your turn when taking actions? If so, this is different from end turn crashes. It could be some weird conflict with a mod also causes those, but at the same time it could be something in the beta. About the replenishment - here is how it works. If a single unit in the army doesn't have enough local population to replenish, the army can't replenish. Its a bit harsh right now but its the only solution we have to adding replenishment as part of the system.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone about the foreigners. Since various units require them in DeI, we had to add some growth for them so that they could be around. I probably overdid it a bit in trying to balance that. The latest update did add group 2 bonuses to temples, so hopefully that helps citizens some more. We definitely want to get the balance right, but I have to say that having trouble with recruitment and having to be careful about when and how to recruit elites is sort of the whole point of this addition to the mod. Sometimes you may even have to disband your elite units in peace time to help bolster their growth levels. We are still working on getting it right, obviously, but having trouble after a few wars with certain population levels is actually one of the aspects of this mod. If it didn't have some sort of impact, what would be the point of it?

The building bonuses are about both realism and gameplay. We have to have some buildings give growth to various different classes. The reason aux camps grow those is because those are the troops you can recruit from those (usually) - 3 and 4. Same with main barracks. We also have an idea about adding a "colonia" type building chain or other building chains like it. These would be buildings that only add to growth but add a large amount to specific classes. Probably would be off of the minor town public land lines. Maybe they could also decrease foreign growth.

Another idea Litharion has is "Settler" units, where you can recruit a certain population class in an area and then send them to another area to disband. This could go with the colonia idea also.

To answer the other question, Marian legions and most Roman troops after Marian are from 3rd class.

[Matt Slow]

@Riksen are you using the latest version (0.7a)? If so, can you upload your save?

@Matt Slow are you getting crashes during your turn when taking actions? If so, this is different from end turn crashes. It could be some weird conflict with a mod also causes those, but at the same time it could be something in the beta. About the replenishment - here is how it works. If a single unit in the army doesn't have enough local population to replenish, the army can't replenish. Its a bit harsh right now but its the only solution we have to adding replenishment as part of the system.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone about the foreigners. Since various units require them in DeI, we had to add some growth for them so that they could be around. I probably overdid it a bit in trying to balance that. The latest update did add group 2 bonuses to temples, so hopefully that helps citizens some more. We definitely want to get the balance right, but I have to say that having trouble with recruitment and having to be careful about when and how to recruit elites is sort of the whole point of this addition to the mod. Sometimes you may even have to disband your elite units in peace time to help bolster their growth levels. We are still working on getting it right, obviously, but having trouble after a few wars with certain population levels is actually one of the aspects of this mod. If it didn't have some sort of impact, what would be the point of it?

The building bonuses are about both realism and gameplay. We have to have some buildings give growth to various different classes. The reason aux camps grow those is because those are the troops you can recruit from those (usually) - 3 and 4. Same with main barracks. We also have an idea about adding a "colonia" type building chain or other building chains like it. These would be buildings that only add to growth but add a large amount to specific classes. Probably would be off of the minor town public land lines. Maybe they could also decrease foreign growth.

Another idea Litharion has is "Settler" units, where you can recruit a certain population class in an area and then send them to another area to disband. This could go with the colonia idea also.

To answer the other question, Marian legions and most Roman troops after Marian are from 3rd class.

- Crashes seem to be evenly distributed for me, so there is no sure-fire pattern here, sorry. I cannot really say much about development on 0.7a yet, as the replenishment problem kept me mostly away from going on at that point.

- It could be simply the numbers are wrong, both in total pop number and in distribution. I think you should have at least numbers to raise and maintain 3 full Roman legions before Marian, but this already is getting close to the edge and current numbers may just be enough to replenish seasonal and supply attrition. They cannot cover attrition from sieges and they will hardly cover any battle losses - which is over the top.

- Giving some manpower bonuses to Italian Socii may help keeping balance. I made the error of recruiting 4 Socii cavalry units while I usually do not use Roman cavalry at all for early legions. As for auxiliaries, I would welcome some reasons to raise and use Socii units.

- I am glad about the information on Post-Marian. This is spot on as Rome turned Legions into professional armies and provided equipment for her soldiers.

- Atm you would have to postpone any major Roman expansion to post Marian era. Partially makes sense but going over the top currently

- Huge thanks for the information again. That's really crucial.

[Asparagus]

Are the patches save game compatible? Like if I download and overwrite the pack file from March 18?

[Jurand of Cracow]

A short feedback from my Makedon Campaing (Hard/Hard, submods: Increased Upkeep, Decreased Religious Drift).

- I turtle: at turn 70 I’m only conquering the third province (Macedonia, Thracia, Illyria). I didn’t have any big war of attrition, neither I battled many enemies - so no big war loses. This might be a reason I don’t have big problems with population.
- but still I have one: the main recruitment center at Pella was drained of Warriors (Class 2). I might have recruited to many units, but at some point (say 300) it was strangely heading down without any reason, then sit at the value of 0 for 2-3 turns, then it has been going up (now 150),
- when I disband a unit it doesn't add to the respective Class (I tried to populate Pella in such a way),
- I have learnt to recruit and replenish from Larisa or Apollonia (the other regions of the province), but there is a glitch:
- all ships are being recruited and replenished from the Pella pool – I mean: all, also those at the Black Sea, at the Aegean, at Adriaticus. (if there’d be a serious sea-war, I wouldn’t have any chance: no replenishment, no new ships)
- in general, I’m avoiding now recruitment of Phalangites or Hoplites, just stick to AoR troops – the foreigners are everywhere, and the units are really good. For instance, Rhompaiophoroi rock (morale 67! not to mention other stats), and they are easily recruitable (no need for barracks in Thracia, they just appear, you can replenish them everywhere from class 4),
- the conclusion: you should provide some limits for the AoR troops. Maybe a cap of number of units (I think there's sometimes such a cap, but make it lower), maybe lower seriously their morale to provide another trade-off: good factional troops or AoR troops likely to flee. Or simply make the AoR troops recruitable from 1,2,3 classes of society - after all, a simple foreigner roaming around would't become a Rhompaiophoroi...


General observation of the Population system (PoR2):
- there’s a clear effect on the recruitment and replenishment possibilities,
- there might be an effect of the Immigration system, but it’s hard to separate from the normal growth of classes (I find the information about %% of growth of classes useless since you cannot predict the change in the next turn: the predictions are pretty different from actual change),
- I don’t detect any impact of the Population system on the economy – the buildings’ income is unaffected, the provinces’ income is the same despite being “Sparsely populated” etc.

And again: thanks for the DeI team for your work on this mod, it's great!

[FlashHeart07]

Are the patches save game compatible? Like if I download and overwrite the pack file from March 18?

Unless otherwise is stated in the patch notes, all patches are save game compatible.

[Matt Slow]

- Update: Major problem. I can confirm ongoing crashes problem (all sorts, plenty of C++ runtime errors too) with 0.7a. Quite certain as I disabled all other submods by now and went for empire consolidation, giving up all province north of the Alps and releasing satrapies as Freisia and Massalia.

- The economic effects of disbanding troops, especially 1st cl seem massive. I am now down to 3-4 standing units of Triarii and enjoy massive income. Most emergency legions are covered with Roarii and Auxiliaries.

- Growth is down as I am trying to make Bibracte revolt and get conquered by rebels via taxes and raiding.

- Replenishment seems to work better now - likely it was all halted due to 1st cl troops

- Also turtling and working on internal growth. I only eye expansion to Provincia for strategic key points and recruitment pop for Greek AOR troops.

- Forget any idea of standing armies and only keep the very best 1st class troops with maximum experience while keeping 1st class numbers as low as possible before Marian reforms.

- I do get number restrictions on most important aux. units. Still I think aux. barracks need to create 2nd class surge while they do have
opposite effects.

- Roman core units in Aux. legions are auto-resolve nightmares and take most casualties. Which is really bad.

[Zonac]

I am sorry if this has already reported, because I am not gonna read everything ^^ Just wanted to tell you that in the province of thracia the UI is a little glitched... (The pop bar is locateted over the population icon when starting as antigonidai in the grand campaign...^^)

[Scaldar]

- I had some random crashes in 0.7a and now I get a permanent crash round. auto_save.rar

- I can't build new military wharf. The game only enables build military port those cities there was a military wharf at the game start. It is bug or just a feature?

- I play on hard/hard, but the AI is cheating calmly... After i defeated him (captured last settlement) he has summond one army and one fleet from nothing. Maybe the priest of knossos knows, how to raise the deads or summon an army from the underwold. It's maybe a bug, but i don't know. Btw pictures says more than words.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Finally I'd like say thanks for your work, becose this mod is awesemone and make Romne 2 much more enjoyable than ever was.

[Augustusng]

- I play on hard/hard, but the AI is cheating calmly... After i defeated him (captured last settlement) he has summond one army and one fleet from nothing. Maybe the priest of knossos knows, how to raise the deads or summon an army from the underwold. It's maybe a bug, but i don't know. Btw pictures says more than words.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think I know what's happening here, and it's not actually as weird as you might think. After you took the city, I guess Knossos still had the remnants of that army, and a fleet at sea. On their turn, they recruited all the mercenaries they could, and that's how they have a big army again. Notice that most of that army is just made of mercenary units.

[myarta]

Thanks for the reply, Dresden. I'll either continue my current campaign solely with foreigners until the Marian reforms open up L3 legions, or start a new one and try to balance my armies better to avoid the L2 drain.
My problem with foreigners in conquered lands specifically is that when the region is populous enough, ALL classes experience severe growth restrictions. Because the foreigner class is so numerous, it's very difficult to get growth on the L1/L2/L3 classes. For example, I was thinking you could Romanize a region in 50-100 turns, but I guess historically that's not realistic. A public land building that gives - to foreigners and + to the others would be awesome. It's either that or make the Sicilians fight my wars for me and fill the homes they leave behind when they die with Roman colonists from the heartland

Another option for the 'not quite enough men' problem could be permitting a population to go negative. Obviously that doesn't make any realistic sense, but as I understand it, the problem is all you can do is turn replenishment on or off. You can't control anything and make them replenish, say, exactly 67 men each. So the risk is you might replenish more in one turn than you have available if you turn it on. But how far negative can it really get? Being negative would prevent recruitment and further replenishment, and the further you are in 'debt' the longer it takes the province to recover so it's not like you can abuse it easily. It seems like the unrealism of -1000 Plebes beats having 1500 here and 1200 there but your army that needs 1900 is stuck heavily depleted.

Re: Matt Slow: Autoresolve seems to very strongly favor large units. I've had much much more luck with all-Rorarii stacks in 1.1 (not this 1.15 Population beta). It's quite different than if you play it out, in which case the morale and improved weapon/armor stats of the principes make them take FAR fewer casualties (and not break and route after they've lost 30 men). Unfortunately I do tend to autoresolve generally since I enjoy the campaign side more than the battle side unless the odds are so bad I have to command to save my bacon. So I guess don't autoresolve when using this population mod, or go 'cheezy' and use 225 man units like Rorarii if you're going to autoresolve.

[myarta]

I think I know what's happening here, and it's not actually as weird as you might think. After you took the city, I guess Knossos still had the remnants of that army, and a fleet at sea. On their turn, they recruited all the mercenaries they could, and that's how they have a big army again. Notice that most of that army is just made of mercenary units.

Yep. The general escaped with the war chests and hired everyone he could find to try to take his capital back. You can get a sense for whether this is possible on the diplomatic screen when you try to ask them for money. I think it tells you their treasury size. That, coupled with how many mercenaries are in the region currently, give you an idea of whether they'll pull that trick.

[Scaldar]

I can agree with you... I didn't see the mercenary icon... I've checked the pickture and they are really merc units.... btw it's weird to me, becouse I couldn't hire mercenaries.