The future of the IB2 mods

[midnite]

Hello fans of the IB2 mods. Just letting you know some future plans. Future upgrades are planned for all of our mods. Bug fixes, 2d and 3d improvements, etc. These mods will continue.

[Marc Byzantinum]

https://youtu.be/OYkiI2QK0n8?t=87

[TheCataphract]

Nice! IB Brittania is still my favorite after all these years.

[Kokito]

Excellent! Some better looking unit skins will not hurt, and make the Irish and Picts barefoot please!...! thanks!

[Maiar93]

There are still some bugs (IIRC Ui Neill or Guened have buggy diplomacy screens) but nothing game breaking. It is a shame there is not a bigger team for this project, and a shame that M2TW is so old. It is such a good concept for a mod, actual historical accuracy and not just bland euro centric vanilla.

[Riothamus]

There are still some bugs (IIRC Ui Neill or Guened have buggy diplomacy screens) but nothing game breaking. It is a shame there is not a bigger team for this project, and a shame that M2TW is so old. It is such a good concept for a mod, actual historical accuracy and not just bland euro centric vanilla.

We thank you

Maiar. Much has gone into the historical aspect.

[Genghis Skahn]

I was really impressed(and surprised) with IB2-CB, and it really helped feed my mod-crazed itch at that point in time; especially it's great setting(I view IB1-2 as the "definitive" late roman period mods). Keep up the great work guys.

[Maiar93]

My only problem is that this mod snowballs very easily, and the AI, especially Battle AI is sometimes good, but sometimes also perplexing. My experience is that there is the initial difficulty spike with Rome - e.g the Frankish death stacks - but they can be dealt with by efficient use of choke points, and because I used to play a lot of early-gen Total War multiplayer, the AI is easy to deal with even when outnumbered (though, I will go into this later, there have been moments when I cannot deal with too superior numbers). Now I felt like sharing a bit about my campaign, and my thoughts about the mod, since I really do love this mod so far. I'll start below.

Spoiler for The world after 156 turns: 

I manage everything except taxes myself. I know the build orders at this point, I start with 1-turn buildings and then go straight for Roman government buildings for quick assimilation. Then the rest, depending on the location. Maybe military, maybe economy.

Spoiler for And my economy: 

This economy is off the charts crazy. I could up my military spending by a whopping 50% and still be comfortably ahead in profits, and yet when I look at the faction rankings, my military rating is easily six times the others. Too easy for late game or not?

Let me first address my experience of campaign difficulty and snowballing economy.

I have played a Roman campaign for 156 turns now. In my experience, there are two notable difficulty spikes in the campaign. The early spike due to the Frankish death stacks. And the middle / late spike due to engaging whichever faction became the king in Britain. I crushed the Franks early on, and got stuck into slow wars with Alemanni and Thoringoz on the eastern front. On the western front, I quickly conquered Sundinium (that city is to this day my biggest cash cow, with 30k+ denars profit every turn) and then conquered the Llydaw (I think that was their name?) with a well balanced Legio full stack. Maybe 50-60 turns in I'd done this. At this point I had dipped into the red economically several times, but at this point my economy began to snowball hard. At this point, I briefly focused my efforts on crushing the Alemanni - maybe 5-10 turns - before my thoughts turned towards Britain. And so, with my economy now starting to steamroll everyone else's, I retrieved all of my veteran legions from the eastern front (and the western front too), alongside my best generals. I recruited and trained more legions from all of my largest cities, including Caer Uisc where I could build British Legionaries. I continued to prosecute the Eastern front with stacks of mercenaries, and though they were not as efficient as true Roman legions, I managed to defeat several armies of Sahsnotas, Alemanni and Thoringoz with them, and slowly consume their territory. Later on I would send proper roman legions (with artillery) to finish off the Alemani and the Thoringoz heartlands quickly.

Well, fast forward about 40 turns, at around turn 100 I've captured most of the British coast (and more or less driven the Eastern front to the enemy heartlands) and now I'm embroiled in the biggest war of the campaign. My opponent? Aenglalond. The Angli. I was quite shocked after I sent my army of spies up the island to see that the Angli had built a formidable empire that spanned the entire middle of the British Isles. I had expected the Romano-British successors or maybe the Council to have done that, or maybe even Gododdin or Ebrauc. Well, this is the second difficulty spike I mentioned earlier. It was during this war that I lost a significant battle for the first time, I was cornered by three strong Angli armies while I only had one Roman army of my own. I tried to contain one of the stacks in the corner of the map and finish them quickly, but they didn't break and I had to divert my reserves to deal with the other armies advancing in my back. My general sold his life dearly executing desperate hammer and anvils. I dealt massive losses but the poor Romans under my command died to the last man. And so I lost a stack of veterans. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. I had already snowballed so hard that I had three other stacks being either retrained at Lutetia or shipped to replace it from the mainland, and I couldn't see a way for myself to lose even at this point.

Another forty turns later, and the Angli were gone, driven back to a select few strongholds like Burh. It's now turn 156 and at this point I doubt anything can stop me. I am currently at peace with the four other significant factions left - Frisians, my allies for 100+ turns, Pictavians, Gododdin and the Ui Neill who are economically the most formidable of them all. Currently I am in the process of extinguishing Dal Riat due to their weakness and useful island strongholds that will be vital in prosecuting a war against all three.

What I feel is lacking in the game at this point is a proper end-game opponent for the player. There is a challenging early game, and a challenging mid game, but once you've broken the victor in Britain, the difficulty seems to slant downwards. Because of that, I've been thinking of ways to artificially inflate the difficulty - make this wonderful campaign a little bit longer, and more challenging. Perhaps giving large land areas in the Midlands to my stout allies the Frisians (as you can see I have already given them two settlements in Britain), and seeing what they do with them. Or maybe retreating from the Midlands and Wales entirely, allowing them to rebel and seeing who gathers up the spoils? What do you think? Do you have any suggestions to make the campaign more difficult, or thoughts about the difficulty curve? Could any of the three major powers left (Gododdin - Pictavia - Ui Neill) capable of challenging me anymore, if I leave them alone and feed them settlements?

As for the battle difficulty.

Archers are very strong against any non-roman factions. My go-to tactic is simply to let the enemy break themselves against my legionaries while I pepper their flanks with arrows and hammer-and-anvil with Candidati / Equites. Archer units get 300+ kills every single battle against full stacks (I play with max unit size). No battle against a full stack is unchallenging however, there's always some micromanaging to do. Only problem after mid-game of course is that I don't seem to encounter any real challenging units anymore. It's all mostly militia. (Also, I have been giving literally millions of money to Frisia, but they somehow still manage to go bankrupt - maybe they built too many troops lol). Oh and Guened are my protectorates in the map.

[midnite]

I was really impressed(and surprised) with IB2-CB, and it really helped feed my mod-crazed itch at that point in time; especially it's great setting(I view IB1-2 as the "definitive" late roman period mods). Keep up the great work guys.

Thanks for your words. The team will continue improving the mod.

[midnite]

My only problem is that this mod snowballs very easily, and the AI, especially Battle AI is sometimes good, but sometimes also perplexing. My experience is that there is the initial difficulty spike with Rome - e.g the Frankish death stacks - but they can be dealt with by efficient use of choke points, and because I used to play a lot of early-gen Total War multiplayer, the AI is easy to deal with even when outnumbered (though, I will go into this later, there have been moments when I cannot deal with too superior numbers). Now I felt like sharing a bit about my campaign, and my thoughts about the mod, since I really do love this mod so far. I'll start below.

Spoiler for The world after 156 turns: 

I manage everything except taxes myself. I know the build orders at this point, I start with 1-turn buildings and then go straight for Roman government buildings for quick assimilation. Then the rest, depending on the location. Maybe military, maybe economy.

Spoiler for And my economy: 

This economy is off the charts crazy. I could up my military spending by a whopping 50% and still be comfortably ahead in profits, and yet when I look at the faction rankings, my military rating is easily six times the others. Too easy for late game or not?

Let me first address my experience of campaign difficulty and snowballing economy.

I have played a Roman campaign for 156 turns now. In my experience, there are two notable difficulty spikes in the campaign. The early spike due to the Frankish death stacks. And the middle / late spike due to engaging whichever faction became the king in Britain. I crushed the Franks early on, and got stuck into slow wars with Alemanni and Thoringoz on the eastern front. On the western front, I quickly conquered Sundinium (that city is to this day my biggest cash cow, with 30k+ denars profit every turn) and then conquered the Llydaw (I think that was their name?) with a well balanced Legio full stack. Maybe 50-60 turns in I'd done this. At this point I had dipped into the red economically several times, but at this point my economy began to snowball hard. At this point, I briefly focused my efforts on crushing the Alemanni - maybe 5-10 turns - before my thoughts turned towards Britain. And so, with my economy now starting to steamroll everyone else's, I retrieved all of my veteran legions from the eastern front (and the western front too), alongside my best generals. I recruited and trained more legions from all of my largest cities, including Caer Uisc where I could build British Legionaries. I continued to prosecute the Eastern front with stacks of mercenaries, and though they were not as efficient as true Roman legions, I managed to defeat several armies of Sahsnotas, Alemanni and Thoringoz with them, and slowly consume their territory. Later on I would send proper roman legions (with artillery) to finish off the Alemani and the Thoringoz heartlands quickly.

Well, fast forward about 40 turns, at around turn 100 I've captured most of the British coast (and more or less driven the Eastern front to the enemy heartlands) and now I'm embroiled in the biggest war of the campaign. My opponent? Aenglalond. The Angli. I was quite shocked after I sent my army of spies up the island to see that the Angli had built a formidable empire that spanned the entire middle of the British Isles. I had expected the Romano-British successors or maybe the Council to have done that, or maybe even Gododdin or Ebrauc. Well, this is the second difficulty spike I mentioned earlier. It was during this war that I lost a significant battle for the first time, I was cornered by three strong Angli armies while I only had one Roman army of my own. I tried to contain one of the stacks in the corner of the map and finish them quickly, but they didn't break and I had to divert my reserves to deal with the other armies advancing in my back. My general sold his life dearly executing desperate hammer and anvils. I dealt massive losses but the poor Romans under my command died to the last man. And so I lost a stack of veterans. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. I had already snowballed so hard that I had three other stacks being either retrained at Lutetia or shipped to replace it from the mainland, and I couldn't see a way for myself to lose even at this point.

Another forty turns later, and the Angli were gone, driven back to a select few strongholds like Burh. It's now turn 156 and at this point I doubt anything can stop me. I am currently at peace with the four other significant factions left - Frisians, my allies for 100+ turns, Pictavians, Gododdin and the Ui Neill who are economically the most formidable of them all. Currently I am in the process of extinguishing Dal Riat due to their weakness and useful island strongholds that will be vital in prosecuting a war against all three.

What I feel is lacking in the game at this point is a proper end-game opponent for the player. There is a challenging early game, and a challenging mid game, but once you've broken the victor in Britain, the difficulty seems to slant downwards. Because of that, I've been thinking of ways to artificially inflate the difficulty - make this wonderful campaign a little bit longer, and more challenging. Perhaps giving large land areas in the Midlands to my stout allies the Frisians (as you can see I have already given them two settlements in Britain), and seeing what they do with them. Or maybe retreating from the Midlands and Wales entirely, allowing them to rebel and seeing who gathers up the spoils? What do you think? Do you have any suggestions to make the campaign more difficult, or thoughts about the difficulty curve? Could any of the three major powers left (Gododdin - Pictavia - Ui Neill) capable of challenging me anymore, if I leave them alone and feed them settlements?

As for the battle difficulty.

Archers are very strong against any non-roman factions. My go-to tactic is simply to let the enemy break themselves against my legionaries while I pepper their flanks with arrows and hammer-and-anvil with Candidati / Equites. Archer units get 300+ kills every single battle against full stacks (I play with max unit size). No battle against a full stack is unchallenging however, there's always some micromanaging to do. Only problem after mid-game of course is that I don't seem to encounter any real challenging units anymore. It's all mostly militia. (Also, I have been giving literally millions of money to Frisia, but they somehow still manage to go bankrupt - maybe they built too many troops lol). Oh and Guened are my protectorates in the map.

Thanks for your observations. We will continue to improve the mod.

[Maiar93]

No, thank you and the mod team for making the mod! I know without some serious influx of new mod team members it is impossible to make any major changes to the campaign, like changing the difficulty curve or anything, but I wanted to make those observations regardless, a small write up to celebrate haha. In case you've play-tested the Roman campaign, I'm interested does the late game snowball effect match up with your experiences?

[Riothamus]

What level of difficulty are you playing Maiar? That's some really good feedback. Did you experience a drop when Rome no longer financed your Kingdom?

I was really impressed(and surprised) with IB2-CB, and it really helped feed my mod-crazed itch at that point in time; especially it's great setting(I view IB1-2 as the "definitive" late roman period mods). Keep up the great work guys.

Ty!

[Maiar93]

I just checked, M/H, that is what I usually play with in new mods. There was certainly a drop when the Roman money stopped coming, but at that point I was already several hundred thousand in the clear and my economy could handle the extra stress even to the point of making a profit. I had only been dependent on the financing for the first 40 or so turns anyway, so by the time it ended I was already pretty much self sufficient. I remember my first few dozen turns being basically just "100k financing --> invest everything into the most profitable economy buildings ---> wait 10 turns, conquer as much as possible and sack everything --> rinse and repeat".

Perhaps it's the amount of settlements in the game. By the time you've dealt with the major threats in your immediate vicinity as Rome, you've already got most of the most profitable areas in the game under your control - and no enemies to really threaten you, since the Eastern front is full of easily capturable, easily defended chokepoints like the Rhine river (I can't even remember how many full stacks I held off at the Bonna bridge) and the war with Alemanni / Thoringoz is such a slow slog that it is not really a danger. And if push comes to shove, you pump out mercenary armies with Castellums and throw them into the meat grinder, that's basically how I fought the entire Eastern front when I invaded the British Isles. Extra upkeep is not an issue firstly because of the economic powerhouse that is Roman starting areas (and immediate surroundings) and secondly because the mercenaries will die in droves. Maybe the Jutes or the Angli should harry the Roman coasts more, I don't know.

[Riothamus]

I just checked, M/H, that is what I usually play with in new mods. There was certainly a drop when the Roman money stopped coming, but at that point I was already several hundred thousand in the clear and my economy could handle the extra stress even to the point of making a profit. I had only been dependent on the financing for the first 40 or so turns anyway, so by the time it ended I was already pretty much self sufficient. I remember my first few dozen turns being basically just "100k financing --> invest everything into the most profitable economy buildings ---> wait 10 turns, conquer as much as possible and sack everything --> rinse and repeat".

Perhaps it's the amount of settlements in the game. By the time you've dealt with the major threats in your immediate vicinity as Rome, you've already got most of the most profitable areas in the game under your control - and no enemies to really threaten you, since the Eastern front is full of easily capturable, easily defended chokepoints like the Rhine river (I can't even remember how many full stacks I held off at the Bonna bridge) and the war with Alemanni / Thoringoz is such a slow slog that it is not really a danger. And if push comes to shove, you pump out mercenary armies with Castellums and throw them into the meat grinder, that's basically how I fought the entire Eastern front when I invaded the British Isles. Extra upkeep is not an issue firstly because of the economic powerhouse that is Roman starting areas (and immediate surroundings) and secondly because the mercenaries will die in droves. Maybe the Jutes or the Angli should harry the Roman coasts more, I don't know.

Your military strategy appears to be very good. I think you found a sound ability to use the building trees wisely for your econ and Army. Many players struggle with that aspect of the game. I wonder if you were to play another campaign if the same results would happen. The feedback is excellent

Maiar

! We really appreciate it when a player gives us good constructive feedback.

[Maiar93]

I will start another campaign with the Romans on H/H and do the same thing at some point in the future. I am interested too to find out if it will feel different.

[Genghis Skahn]

I've only played a long campaign as the Mumhain on VH/VH. My experience was the economy was that it was very difficult to maintain at first--I was really really really on the ropes and broke during the first 100ish turns. I basically couldn't even afford to replenish my troops, whilst the Ui Neill kept pumping out stack after stack, I had just 1 or 2 to my name. But after I finally conquered the Ui Neill(it was essentially a life or death situation against them; I'd blitzed connaught and whoever else on the island already) and united all of Ireland, I was REALLY REALLY rich(like maiar), and never had to worry about money again. Thankfully there were so many building trees in IB2 CB that I always had plenty to build.

I did have some military troubles afterward however, but by that point my sheer wealth could keep pumping out stacks such that the Britons who opposed my invasion of Western Britannia wouldn't be able to stop me forever. Still, they put up a pretty good fight. IB2: CB on VH/VH as the mumhain was actually one of the hardest M2TW campaigns I've ever played as, right up there with playing as the orcs of gundabad in TATW(very poorly balanced faction).

My invasion problems were also compounded by the fact that I was a Celtic pagan--which was essentially a dying religion at that time, and so due to the sheer amount of Christendom across the map, I had lots of cultural unrest in some of my new territories.

But at any rate, like Maiar, once I overcame the initial difficulties of the campaign I was VERY rich and powerful. EB2 also has a similar, though not as pronounced as in IB2 CB(you get REALLY wealthy once you overcome that initial hurdle), problem with players becoming too rich and powerful as the game progresses. If I might, there was a minor trait solution I added to EB2(not in 2.3 series yet AFAIK) which might alleviate some problems:

;------------------------------------------
Trait Embezzler
    Characters family
    ;AntiTraits Upright, Austere, Stoic

    Level Embezzler
        Description Embezzler_desc
        EffectsDescription Embezzler_effects_desc
        GainMessage Embezzler_gain_desc
        Threshold  4

        Effect BribeResistance -10
        Effect TaxCollection  -25
        Effect Law -2
        Effect Construction  -5
        Effect Loyalty  -1
        Effect Unrest  1

;------------------------------------------
Trigger EmbezzlementFromHugeTreasury
  WhenToTest CharacterTurnEndInSettlement

  Condition Treasury > 100000
        and Trait Selflessness < 3
        and Trait LoyaltyLevel < 5
        and Trait Stoic < 1
        and Trait Austere < 1
        and Trait Upright < 1
        and GovernorBuildingExists > wooden_pallisade

  Affects Embezzler  1  Chance  20

It's not much--but it's at least some kind of penalty for being too rich. At any rate, corruption caused by too much wealth is VERY easy to create triggers for in the EDCT, simply make liberal use of the Treasury > X condition.

[Riothamus]

I've only played a long campaign as the Mumhain on VH/VH. My experience was the economy was that it was very difficult to maintain at first--I was really really really on the ropes and broke during the first 100ish turns. I basically couldn't even afford to replenish my troops, whilst the Ui Neill kept pumping out stack after stack, I had just 1 or 2 to my name. But after I finally conquered the Ui Neill(it was essentially a life or death situation against them; I'd blitzed connaught and whoever else on the island already) and united all of Ireland, I was REALLY REALLY rich(like maiar), and never had to worry about money again. Thankfully there were so many building trees in IB2 CB that I always had plenty to build.

I did have some military troubles afterward however, but by that point my sheer wealth could keep pumping out stacks such that the Britons who opposed my invasion of Western Britannia wouldn't be able to stop me forever. Still, they put up a pretty good fight. IB2: CB on VH/VH as the mumhain was actually one of the hardest M2TW campaigns I've ever played as, right up there with playing as the orcs of gundabad in TATW(very poorly balanced faction).

My invasion problems were also compounded by the fact that I was a Celtic pagan--which was essentially a dying religion at that time, and so due to the sheer amount of Christendom across the map, I had lots of cultural unrest in some of my new territories.

But at any rate, like Maiar, once I overcame the initial difficulties of the campaign I was VERY rich and powerful. EB2 also has a similar, though not as pronounced as in IB2 CB(you get REALLY wealthy once you overcome that initial hurdle), problem with players becoming too rich and powerful as the game progresses. If I might, there was a minor trait solution I added to EB2(not in 2.3 series yet AFAIK) which might alleviate some problems:

;------------------------------------------
Trait Embezzler
    Characters family
    ;AntiTraits Upright, Austere, Stoic

    Level Embezzler
        Description Embezzler_desc
        EffectsDescription Embezzler_effects_desc
        GainMessage Embezzler_gain_desc
        Threshold  4

        Effect BribeResistance -10
        Effect TaxCollection  -25
        Effect Law -2
        Effect Construction  -5
        Effect Loyalty  -1
        Effect Unrest  1

;------------------------------------------
Trigger EmbezzlementFromHugeTreasury
  WhenToTest CharacterTurnEndInSettlement

  Condition Treasury > 100000
        and Trait Selflessness < 3
        and Trait LoyaltyLevel < 5
        and Trait Stoic < 1
        and Trait Austere < 1
        and Trait Upright < 1
        and GovernorBuildingExists > wooden_pallisade

  Affects Embezzler  1  Chance  20

It's not much--but it's at least some kind of penalty for being too rich. At any rate, corruption caused by too much wealth is VERY easy to create triggers for in the EDCT, simply make liberal use of the Treasury > X condition.

Excellent Genghis. Thank you for the great feedback and the character trait! Sounds like a great campaign as Mumhain. there is the ability for you to change over to Christianity from a Celtic Pagan faction . I'm not sure if you are aware of this. I had hoped the expanding empire would become more and more difficult to manage financially. I think the issue is in balancing the AI and the local player to experience the same economic and political dilemma of an expanding and maintain an empire.

[Genghis Skahn]

there is the ability for you to change over to Christianity from a Celtic Pagan faction . I'm not sure if you are aware of this. I had hoped the expanding empire would become more and more difficult to manage financially.

Oh, I know--but I purposely chose Pagan because...I dunno, I just prefer Celtic Paganism for my faction religion than Christianity. I suppose it was good that I chose paganism due to the fact that it made conquests further east and south much more difficult than they would have been as a christian. It really was quite a fun campaign as the Mumhain.

The sheer amount of cities in the building queue did make things difficult/tedious to manage, but money was never a problem once I defeated the Ui Neill. I think the best thing to do for IB2(whatever the mod) is to add these treasury corruption triggers like EB2 has(we have more than just the one posted above), since they're easy to code and help mitigate the too much cash problem by producing generations of corrupt characters. They would, IMO, make immense historical sense for the Roman faction at least, since the late roman empire had a huge problem with loyalty and corruption AFAIK(most long lived empires do).

[Stannis Baratheon]

Hello, seeing discussion here i'd love to say how the gameplay went in my case. Hope it's not too much text.

Some time ago i also played a long campaign as Romans, VH/VH. First of all it was extremely enjoyable and engaging overall, i adored the map, the music, the units, the close to EB-level lengthy/gritty battles, the building trees, things like WRE pay script. I think Maiar above had an easy time partly beacuse of M/H difficulty, i didn't feel it was too easy at any point in early to mid game: due to weak economy i almost got ran down by the Franks, but i managed to hold on before winning a huge battle and securing enough territories in the west allowed me to slowly turn the war. I was at the 400th turn by the time i managed to completely wipe out the Franks and Lydaw: Franks had huge amounts of manpower and territories they built up before declaring war on me. I only got full control of the campaign once i sent a fleet down the Rhine to take Bonna and Colonia. Once i secured the Rhine border except around Argentoratum which was under Allamani, i had abundant money and men so i invaded Britain with 4 elite fullstacks. Saxons, Jutes and Angles ruled the entire southeast (with Concilium holding on to just Londinium) so it took lot of time to wipe them out completely since i refrained from spamming too much armies of my own despite denarii being in millions by then. Next main oponent there was Regnum Britonum which swallowed most of western Concilium's territories and had massive amount of troops free to throw at me so i got stuck in a long war against them.
Meantime, over the Rhine Allamani wiped out the Thuringians despite my diplomatic efforts to keep them alive. Next thing i saw, Allamani had literally 20-30 fullstacks poised to strike my lands around A. Treverorum. Frisians also staged a few minor invasions over northern Rhine with their fleet, that was extremely fun to witness. While i was recalling my praesental armies from Britain and marching them to Rhine, Allamani invaded and slowly managed to overwhelm me with numbers. A mostly limitanei+catapults/ballistas army on a bridge near Bonna took down dozen of their stacks before getting overwhelmed. Even 4-5 elite armies weren't enough to stem the tide (sights like this were common)

I played it out for couple of dozens of turns more: Allamani were slowly taking over my southeast and two of their stacks even made it to the vicinity of capital. http://prntscr.com/jf1hkn (this is how the minimap looks) I still had almost 8 millions in the treasury so i could've likely at least stemmed the tide if i started recruit spamming units everywhere but i got too tired of campaign at that point since Allamani were likely churning out new 2-3 fullstacks worth of troops every turn.
I also played somewhat "historically" (historical army compositions, trained and moved units in stacks like 2x comitatenses/limitanei+1 sagitarii+1 exculcatores, relied on recruiting mostly mercenaries/militia in my non-core territories, avoided spam recruiting to simulate manpower, tried to reduce my excess denarii by possible means, etc.) so if i purely focused on winning it'd be bit easier, but still. I'd say it's fairly challenging overall even for an experienced player if you play on VH/VH since it makes AI spam a ton of units and in battles themselves AI had high morale so their fullstacks would take long time to rout and in massive heavy infantry slogs archers have limited effectiveness because of firing on that awful upward arc (as well as in over stone wall battlements, just m2tw thing).

As for problem of economy, i think that's unavoidable once you manage to secure your borders; in m2tw there's no financial crisis or inflation. Once you build up your cities with high tier ports/roads/marketplaces and get their population up your economy is basically impossible to stop from blobbing unless you manually start to destroy your buildings. What could help are character traits like Genghis' above and making some high tier buildings (like barracks) have large income penalties on them. That way i could get punished for building whatever available everywhere every turn. I think a script like in Deus lo Vult where you get an income penalty for each city you conquer could also help a ton. That would take lot of balancing in regards to early game though, of course, but it's a theoretical possibility.

Also before this, i played a Ystrad Clut VH/VH campaign. It was really fun as well: obviously with less challenging early game but the setting and feel was really awesome, and economy was bumpy enough. I expanded mostly on neutral territories around untill i had territories similar to what kingdom of Strathclyde had IRL. Since i enjoyed watching Dal Riata and Goddodin fight Picts to a stalemate, i didn't wanna backstab my neighbours who refrained from attacking me and instead went over to Ireland where Ui Neill took over entire Ireland before i got my late game units and economy going. I tried to invade Ireland with some success but eventually i was actually forced to retreat and abandon the invasion completely since i got completely swamped by their stacks while not being able to retrain my armies properly. My economy wasn't powerful enough to support enough stacks to maintain a foothold there. So i just left it at that since i didn't wanna backstab Goddodin which i'd have to do to get more money, it felt too OOC

Besides this, idk if that's a reasonable request at all, but i wonder if in existing and particularly future mods (looking at Flagellum Dei and Vandalorum) it'd be possible to make getting native units harder for Romans. By this time it was actually cheaper to hire Germanic mercenaries than equipping and training native recruits (most of whom also weren't used to war) especially since Senate refused to let their tax privileges or their colones away so short of social revolution or reinvigorating old Roman martial spirit among the general populace somehow by 5th century it was really hard to actually recruit large numbers of natives in the army, particularly in Italy, i know in Gaul situation was bit better regarding that. Guess that's something i should try with modding my own version of the game, just an idea i couldn't ignore. Anyway, thank you so much for this wonderful mod and many years of work poured into it, i had endless hours of fun with it i'm sure many others did too. They also actually help a lot to form a picture in head when reading actual history books related to the period!

[Maiar93]

This mod was balanced for H/H IIRC, so I think that would be the truer test of this mod - VH/VH is an extra level of difficulty. VH battle difficulty is also just broken in this game. It does not make the enemy harder to rout in this mod, because they are already harder to rout. But it means that their spear militia units will now beat up your Auxilia Cohors or even Comitatenses in 1v1 combat