add_money alternative for future LtC?

[Aedile Rich]

I've seen a lot of people ask how to disable this part of the mod (for reference the workaround is here - Money script thread) and I find myself in the same camp.

I understand the premise behind having it but when it comes down to playing with a varied style, as I find myself doing, it's nice to be able to choke a factions economy when you've got them down to their last province but your attentions may also be focussed elsewhere.


My question is, what could be an alternative approach?
Something slightly less in the vein of the "shotgun surgery" approach that this seems to take, preferably.
Perhaps something along the lines of 5000 per (non-sieged) settlement, rather than the blanket 15,000? :hmmm:
Maybe even have a base 5000, then add 5000 for each (non-sieged) settlement, so that the hordes still gain some financial aid.

I'm not sure if there were other ideas in the past that Lusted has considered and/or dismissed but if not, then I'd like to propose that we might help decide if an alternative is possible.

If not the idea I put forward, perhaps another way?
Thanks in advance for any input and, as always, to Lusted for a great mod (and the only one I bother to use).

[crossev]

I have changed the script to from 15,000 to 10,000 and I have noticed factions still going bankrupt. For example HRE had taken France's cities of Rheims, Paris, the castle beginning with a T and on other city next to that castle. When I sent a diplomat to France their wealth said Bankrupt. I ended up having to send an army and money to them for a number of years to keep them from being totally destroyed by HRE. Now HRE has been beaten back by the combined forces of Milan, Poland, Denmark and France. HRE is now bankrupt so is Denmark, Spain, and a couple other small nations. You may want to try it at 10K and see if that helps.

[Aedile Rich]

Well in my current campaign I've checked its activity by going into the console and scrolling through the previous entries by pressing the up arrow key and all ten other living factions bar the Papal States and myself are getting it pretty much every turn.
The strange thing is though, the seem be be all giving it to the Pope!

Case in point - In the Financial ranking screen, all factions lines for the past 240 turns are below 20,000, except the Papal states which climbs linearly at about a 40° angle to the point where he's currently sitting pretty at 1,600,000 Florins!

Something's amiss. :hmmm:

[Lusted]

The Papal States kings purse i set a little too high in 2.0, so combined with the fact it doesn't really do anything it amasses money.

[Aedile Rich]

The Papal States kings purse i set a little too high in 2.0, so combined with the fact it doesn't really do anything it amasses money.

Ah, I see.
That explains that part then, thanks.

Do you know what the flag is for the number of settlements, so that I might help tweak the script a little or should I start a fresh thread in the Mod Workshop?
[edit] ...or was this part of DarthMod or another and best belongs there?
[edit2] Ah, I see it's Ultimate AI, no?

[Uandwhosearmy]

The Papal States kings purse i set a little too high in 2.0, so combined with the fact it doesn't really do anything it amasses money.

I noticed that. That could also explain why it has chosen to recruit 8 catapults and ballistas as garrison in Marseille...

[dutch81]

I took the money script out completely because I noticed that when I started a Egyptian campaign ... it was giving ME nearly a million bucks per turn ... it made me wonder if that was the reason that it was steamrolling the middle east in my previous campaigns ... and yet the papacy always had the most money (how they have one province ... is it all tribute?) ... I just don't know so I just took it out for now ... I am still playing 1.2 so maybe it is fixed in 2.0!

[Lusted]

Yup its fixed in 2.0, the money script was not working correctly in 1.2.

[Faust Gottes]

I don't know what playing style most of you use, but I tend to spend money like it's going out of style. I would be eligible for the extra 20000 every turn, and I imagine that almost all of the AI factions get the boost every turn. At the very least, it makes it possible for the AI to maintain monster stacks with only one province, but it overly unbalances the game IMO.

It's really simple to modify, so there is no reason why each player can't do it him/her self and find a balance that fits their style of play. That is one of the great things about the modability of M2TW. Now if only CA would do something about those bugs....

[Aedile Rich]

I'm playing 2.0 as well, for the record.
I As I tried to outline in the OP, I don't mind the premise of the money script but I'd like to try and help refine it a little, so that it's not such a flat rate across the board, regardless of how much you've whittled a particular faction down into submission.

Ideally, as I've suggested, if a faction has three or more provinces then it's believable that they could field such armies but not when they're down to one and under siege to boot. <_<


I guess I'm looking for an extra modifier to introduce into the script, such as one based on number of settlements or even overall population, should that be easier to flag.



Once I've learnt a little more about the scripting itself, I'll make a fresh thread in the Mod Workshop but feel free to keep other ideas afloat here in the meantime if they might help Lusted make this awesome mod any better.
Thanks.

[crossev]

Here a script taken from DLV that may be to your liking Aedile Rich


monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType france
and not I_LocalFaction france
and Treasury < 6000
and I_NumberOfSettlements france < 3

console_command add_money france, XXXXXX

You can change the <3 to greater than so that only nations with x number of provinces get the money boost

[Aedile Rich]

Here a script taken from DLV that may be to your liking Aedile Rich


monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType france
and not I_LocalFaction france
and Treasury < 6000
and I_NumberOfSettlements france < 3

console_command add_money france, XXXXXX

You can change the <3 to greater than so that only nations with x number of provinces get the money boost

Me -> <- crossev

Thank you dude. That's exactly the kind of thing I was angling for.


I'll try that first and then maybe dig further with that info in hand to see if I can bring it down progressively for <3, <2 and <1.
I was thinking I'd have to use the NumberOfSettlements as a divisor but if that approach has been proved to work it'll save me a lot of headscratching.

Thanks, yet again.
I'd start a petition to campaign for Lusted to use this approach in preference to the previous one but I'm sure he'd get tired of me before long if I did.

[OmEgA-X1]

Seeing this, I do also hail this approach! GET 'EM LUSTED!!

[Lusted]

How about this for a money script:

-factions with 3 settlements or less get a boost of 5000 florins if their treasury drops below 5000.
-all factions get a boost of 5000 if their treasury drops below 5000 and less than 50 turns have passed.
-all factions get a boost of 1000 florins each turn for every settlement they own

[DrJambo]

Hi lusted,

Just a thought, but it might be more appropriate to have the AI money script award financial aid to the AI in proportion to campaign time, i.e. small financial aid at the start, say over the first 10 turns, which then steadily grows as the campaign progresses into the mid and then eventually late game, when:

a) the AI's got the more expensive buildings to construct and we all know how the AI doesn't save money from turn to turn.

b) the size of the AI empires will likely be considerably smaller than that of the human's. This is the time when they'll be in more need of larger financial aid to maintain the challenge during the mid-late stages.

If this sort of script is doable, I've love to know the code...! So far, I'm just using a basic AI money script, which doesn't grow over time and one that I consider to be too much at the start and too little towards the end.

Regards

[Lusted]

Im going for more cash early on in my script as the ai needs the extra boost early on to help it get going. Later on the extra money it gets should help it get enough to build the best buildings.

You can increase the financial aid the ai gets over the course of the campaign, and have it based on the number settlements.

Here is an example of the script i might use in 2.1(taking the england faction as an example)

	monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType england
		and not FactionIsLocal
		and Treasury < 5000
		and I_TurnNumber < 50
		console_command add_money england, 5000
	end_monitor

	monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType england
		and not FactionIsLocal
		and Treasury < 5000
		and I_NumberOfSettlements england < 3
		console_command add_money england, 5000
	end_monitor


	monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType england
		and not FactionIsLocal
		console_command add_money england, 1000
	end_monitor

[bkyn75]

@Lusted

If I wanted to incorporate some derivation of these suggested money scripts, would I have to start a new campaign? Or would changes mid-campaign to the capmaign_script take effect to my saved game?

[Lusted]

If I wanted to incorporate some derivation of these suggested money scripts, would I have to start a new campaign? Or would changes mid-campaign to the capmaign_script take effect to my saved game?

Im not sure to be honest.

[bkyn75]

Im not sure to be honest.

No problem! thanks for the quick reply.

[mayhemInc]

@Lusted

If I wanted to incorporate some derivation of these suggested money scripts, would I have to start a new campaign? Or would changes mid-campaign to the capmaign_script take effect to my saved game?

Well I tried that, and it seems it's not save compatible. After I edited the campaign_script file and loaded my save game, the computer opponents got tha old amounts of money. You can see that by opening the console command window (~ key I think) and push the up arrow button. There you can see the commands, that were executed.