WIP Fix Pack 1.2.09

[Dresden]

This fix pack has now been released into the main mod as a full update. You no longer need to use this fix pack if you get the latest version of the mod.

[JCB206]

The work y'all put in is amazing. Thanks, I will download. Rome in my current Carthage campaign has become impotent. I met zero armies through Magna Grecia all the way through Italy. Even sat and waited for them for 10 turns after taking Magna Grecia.

[Chereye]

I don't get why you don't increase building income and decrease trading income, players have like 30 trade agreements when the AI is luck to even have 2. I believe this is a huge reason why there is little difference of a armies strength from a large empire to a much smaller one.

[bozu]

I totally agree with Chereye
I've nerfed trading myself to be about 10% of what it is, and increased slavery and taxes. Also did a small boost to vassals/client states triubutes. Much better IMHO

[KAM 2150]

We are testing that too. I will release pack with my ideas later this week. What I did was to increase building income (but not % bonuses) by x3, which at first seems rather high (as I wanted to see the results fast for the AI) but overal turned into rather nice campaign as due to AI armies and their aggressiveness (which might be due to previous update, not necessarily due to my changes, at least I am not 100% sure) I am not folating in cash and often end a turn close to 0 money, despite earning around 6000-10000 denari per turns but loss of a single town can now really hurt the economy. At some point I even had negative income few times as I had to sustain such big armies just to be able to defend myself from Takshila and Parthia.

[Dresden]

The problem with increasing building income by a lot is it makes the late game easy for the player. There are already a lot of complaints about that from some about the economy in the later game being too easy. I realize its not that way for everyone, but its hard to balance for all levels of playstyle and skill.

We may end up increasing building income and lowering trade income as you have suggested, but the first step is to see exactly what is crippling the later AI. From my tests with later saves, it was 2 things - low building income (as you have said) and barracks negatives. Since the AI would often not dismantle barracks, they would end up with a large stack of negative income modifiers. This would make the building income issue even worse as they would have very low overall income.

Reducing those barracks negatives and giving the AI a bonus to building income has really helped them in the test games I have run. We have to be careful to help the later game AI without making it really easy on the player also.

[KAM 2150]

Sure, I understand In my campaign simply I don't have a lot of money, often not enough to buy new troops or mercs, just because AI is soo agressive that it often destroys my armies/cities or at best deals severe casualties on my side so I need to get new troops anyway. I will see how it goes in that campaign later on as honestly I did not expect that much of fun and challenge with with increased income as you probably remember that I was always about making economy rather difficult

[JCB206]

Trading was a huge source of income. I love it. Maybe make the AI actually really seek trade agreements. The AI tends to have too many wars going on at one time. Most players try to attack one country at a time. The AI needs to try to focus on one or two enemies at a time. There are more problems than just money. To me, the excessive war fronts is a big problem. A good reason why we only see one army. The rest are fighting all their wars equally. Not sure what can be done, just one mans opinion.

[NateTheGreat1990]

Do we need to replace the crash fix from the "Crash Fix Help" thread with this pack?

[Dresden]

Its a serious issue in Rome 2 that I am not really sure can be truly fixed - the AI does not do well with multiple front wars. Its just the way it is unfortunately. Also they don't do that well when their empire is broken up by lots of water. We have done our best to combat that but its still a problem.

[nero997]

I think if you were to increase building income by a drastic amount, you should in my opinion increase corruption for the player.
Right now it's possible to have low corruption (>40%) even on quite big empires, I'm talking about the one when you can have 5 governors and 8 generals. I had 29% corruption and I could make easily over 70k as barbarians, just from buildings and considerable, although not that big trade hub. Of course there is no AI that defend against army sustained by that much. So if you increase corruption for the player but somehow not for AI, then it might be closer. Maybe get rid of corruption bonus for generals, as it's the easiest way to stack minus corruption, besides technology.
Take this with a grain of salt, I'm not nearly as experienced nor knowleagdable as you guys, KAM and Dresden and others.

[Dresden]

@Nate this has nothing to do with the crash fix pack and that pack is already incorporated in the main mod, as it says in that thread.

@nero yes we will have to rebalance some of the later game things for player economy after we get the AI fixed. But, corruption is sort difficult in that regard. Sure, if you assign every single one of your characters to reduce it then you won't have that many issues. But many players don't do that. I think reducing those skills is a good idea, though, since they are so stackable.

[Dresden]

Updated with some more changes/tweaks. Hopefully if anyone with inactive larger AI empires tests it they will see some more action from them.

[JCB206]

I think if you were to increase building income by a drastic amount, you should in my opinion increase corruption for the player.
Right now it's possible to have low corruption (>40%) even on quite big empires, I'm talking about the one when you can have 5 governors and 8 generals. I had 29% corruption and I could make easily over 70k as barbarians, just from buildings and considerable, although not that big trade hub. Of course there is no AI that defend against army sustained by that much. So if you increase corruption for the player but somehow not for AI, then it might be closer. Maybe get rid of corruption bonus for generals, as it's the easiest way to stack minus corruption, besides technology.
Take this with a grain of salt, I'm not nearly as experienced nor knowleagdable as you guys, KAM and Dresden and others.

$70k profit each turn? How many provinces? I have over 200 hours in DEI and I still haven't had $70k a turn profit. You might be too good to play the AI.

[JCB206]

Do corruption levels increase with difficulty?

[nero997]

16 provinces, but only 7 full. 39 settlements total. 80K on highest tax. 20k from trade, 5k from slaves, 56k from tax. Its not hard to get, get the resource buildings which give all commerce (jeweler), get more slaves than me, and most importantly get low empire mainteanance, which means philosophy researched, general traits, admiral traits(I don't have them, with them I believe its possible to go 0% corruption) and governant traits. And get level 4 main building chain, which I also don't have. Then you will have much more than me.
Difficulty is H/N. I can't answer your question regarding corruption.

[Vardano]

Is it possible ta actually make AI want to trade more? I know they don't like to trade when they about to attack you in a future or they simply don't like you, but still there is a lot of time time when it would be good for them and they don't do it. It is better for them to will to trade more. Maybe also possible to make them not to care too much about trade agreements when they want to attack you...

[babaikasc]

I can confirm that corruption can become 0% when traits are used on all generals. I don't remember that this was the case before in previous versions. If I remember correctly 3% before was not actually 3% reduction but rather 0,03 or so. At least now on imperium level 7 I got 0 empire maintenance. With income 35K+ I am just swimming in gold and there is no really point to upgrade something further. You could say don't use economical traits on generals but then you need to use combat traits that gives defense attack bonuses etc. But when those stacked your forces become so overpowered that you can just clean the flour with AI in any situations even when outnumbered. I have even lowered all those traits twice time since I think at the end your armies fight like on steroids. Casualties ratio has been improved by a lot in new version but I still think that bonuses given by traits are too strong in end game. I think there is no point to rely on AI capabilities to build economy. All AI behavior is done based on numerical values in tables change results of which you cant test at all. AI cant handle food production so is getting large bonuses to not starve to death. Same should be with income.

[Farrell]

It seems to work Dresden !


Its not ther same thing haha

But just one question; why increase our income taxe? Why for both and not for AI only? its because its ll be so hard for player after?

[JCB206]

@Farrell

What worked? Curious what you are showing? I see Rome at war with every faction in the game. Is there something else I am missing? Thanks.