Suggestions for 4.0

[whitewolfmxc]

acutally why not include a big map version with 196 settlements in teh isntaller to let the plaeyrs chose ??

i mean forcing players to play small map or big map is cruel so why not give them a chioce ??? XD

[Speiz_Bankurt]

My suggestion is a bit more fundemental and I don't know if it can even be implemented.

I was thinking that it is a huge historical inaccuracy in the game that unit/troop types are faction specific. Most or at least some of them should be region specific. I mean if I play as Denmark and conquer Egypt, I should not be able to recruit Viking warriors in Cairo....

It makes sense historically too, that's how feudal societies worked. A conquered nation would simply become the subject to the conquering faction's king, who would then have access to that nation's culturally unique agents or troops.

It would also make gameplay a bit more interesting...

[Darkmoor]

Can you use Darker Night mod in yours, It really looks a whole lot better !

please god no.

[Germanicus75]

- I'd like to see the Orthodox Patriarch mod. See here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1260

- Please don't make the map much bigger KK, or at least make it a mod install option to choose between large and small maps.

Danke sehr! ;-)

[UnderdawgIV]

Tone down the Assasins. My Venetian royalty is getting decimated each turn. And I have many high level spies and assasins all around too.

It's really frustrating.

Well I guess its that I frequently forget to place a high level assasin/spy in my stacks so when my stacks go out of the cities full of my espionage agents, they just get decimated. But still, this is ridiculous, they just drop like flies!

Is there a setting I can change myself to tone down the assasins?

[Ozy]

-
.50 or .25 for turns. Realistic movement. More complex + realistic seiges. Ie, holding out for a few seasons as opposed to several years. Fewer assaults in sieging.

etc. I don't mind playing a 800+ or 1200+ turn game so long as its realistic. Infact, I play SS at .50 as it is now. I don't know if the TW:2 Engine can handle .25 turns, since there's no fall/spring mapsets.-

I would really like something like adding fall and spring since it would be much more realistic.
I actually thought of something that I think would make the game more realistic. If you create a seasonal game that works in spring, summer, fall and winter you might make it hard, to make a campaign in winter. I think it would be really realistic that if you left soldiers out of a city, town or fort during winter, that the army had several casualties due to the weather. Also if you try to move in winter the movement points might be reduced, and increased in spring.

I don't know how hard that would be since i don't really know anything about modding, but I would love that to happen.

[redalibi]

Yeah I like a seasonal format much more. I don't know why they ever went away from that.

[UnderdawgIV]

Yeah I like a seasonal format much more. I don't know why they ever went away from that.

I think it is because a campaign 4 times as long is too lengthy to finish. Heck, I already have enough trouble finishing a 225 turn campaign.

[scannerfish]

This just hit me , something that would take you like 10 -20 seconds to do . Some mods for the phalanx troops are removing there said phalanx ability and secondary weapon and pikes and halberdiers are doing way better . Another minor thing is the shield wall thing.

[akardy]

Firstly this is a fantastic mod. I've tried all the biggies DLV, LTC , Darth but can safely say I find this mod the most enjoyable. I genuinely feel you've struck the right balance between tweaking stats, adding graphical appeal and depth - kudos for picking the right mods to include BBB for example I love (especially the lineage additions and titles), Burreks work also springing to mind. Plus I find this release (the only one I've tried) extremely stable.

My main suggestion for your next release would be to consider adding further factions. The new orthodox faction looks great and that was an area of the map that really needed another faction adding. I would definitley support the further addition of another muslim faction to keep it busy to the East and South of the map.

On top of these additions what about adding user made factions, Flanders, Burgandy (I think maybe), Aragon, Wales etc. I know Portcale adds many new factions - I just love a cramped map and feel the more factions there are the better diplomatic and strategic game you have - plus the greater replay value this adds. Personally I have no preference as to what the factions should be just feel strongly you should aim at hitting the limit for factions (the capped number escapes me). I understand you are waiting for Kingdoms to effectively add the new factions, but I think with so many factions knocking around the modding scene there should be no real reason not too - though you and we your fans would perhaps have to try them out as some will be better implemented than others. King Kong what do you and the other fans think?

The 1.2 patch in my opinion has made the battle and campaign AI much better so the only thing I would say on this is be wary in including other modders AI files. Having tried Ultimate AI and seeing some improvements I also noted some not so great features, such as passive AI and generally a pretty dull early period game (Though I think Ultimate AI will eventually get the right balance).

Lastly, brilliant work and kudos for attracting a very supportive bunch of contributors and fans.

[numerosdecimus]

Hey King Kong, I just remembered something.

If possible(depending if I could get any images of it) could you add "Order of Christ Knights" to Portugal?

Please don't laugh if you find this absurd. It's that although the order was indeed mostly religious, it was still composed by some knights, not many, but still some.

[Favre]

Don't add in more turns, In RTW with the turns at 2tpy, You could conquer the world in like 240 B.C.

Things went so slow in RTW, here its fast paced and fun!

[King Kong]

First of all, thanks all for the suggestion!
sorry, that I responded a bit late to the previous suggestions...


And since some suggestion are mentioned several times and I don't have much time, I'll just summarize them:

Map Size: The map will be resized to 120%. Also it will be slightly extended to the north, east and probably west.
So the overall size will be about 30% bigger...
About 145 provinces.
I don't expect and havn't recognized (from early tests) any lag so far...

Unit stats: Will be more balanced, especially 2-handed and halbard units.

Character Names Project: Will be included.

Darker Nights Mod: Not decided yet...

AOR/ZOR system: One thing i wanted to make from the start of my mod.
However, this is really a fundamental change to gameplay and there are so many different systems that could be included that it makes it very hard for me to decide whether I implement this, and if yes which system I should choose..
Also it has to be considered that it can have a big (perhaps negative) affect for the AI and their unit recruitment and retraining.
Probably I should make an own thread to collect ideas...

Orthodox Patriarch Mod: Zephrelial stated that he doesn't give permission to use his mod elements.

Assassins: Will be further slightly toned down...

Turns: Most likely I'll make 1.5 years per turn in the next version.

Pikemen: Still trying to find a good fix for them. Just removing the secondary weapon makes them too strong.

....

Hi whitewolf,

An option to chosse bewtween SS and BigMap would be very time consuming, because of all the settlement titles and also some other bigger problems. I don't know if I have time to make that...

Hi akardy,

Very good post! And I also agree with you on most of your points!
The problem I have with most other additional factions from other mods, is that they are mostly just clone-factions (Please correct me when I'm wrong).
Actually I want to have some more unique factions...
Also I don't know who would give permission to use them.
However, ill look around a bit...


Hi numerosdecimus,

Thanks for the updates of the first post!
Nice idea, but I think there were other orders that were more important and also I think that Portugal has already cool Order Knights along with Spain...

[numerosdecimus]

Nice idea, but I think there were other orders that were more important and also I think that Portugal has already cool Order Knights along with Spain...

You could switch with Santiago Knights.

Santiago Knights were crucial in helping with the reconquista of southern Portugal, but so were the Templars. After that, in the 13th century, the Templars in Portugal changed into a new order named "The Order of Christ", they were super important in the history of Portugal from that point on.

[GrandViZ]

Having tried Ultimate AI and seeing some improvements I also noted some not so great features, such as passive AI and generally a pretty dull early period game (Though I think Ultimate AI will eventually get the right balance).

Maybe you can be a little more precise here. I would not consider Ultimate AI 1.4 or 1.5 as passive at all! AI nations sign alliances early on, get into wars early on and expand faster against rebel settlements than any other AI that I've seen. It is right that during the early period the AI prefers to go against rebels, but only if there are nearby rebel settlements left. This is not a bad strategy and is exactly what most human players do themselves.

It is also not necessarily passive behavior, if the AI considers its neighbour as a too powerful target to attack; so it will develop its economy and see later on. Why should it suicide, just to attack the human player for no reason with inferior troops, as it does in the vanilla game?

Furthermore, you cannot test the AI by behaving passive yourself (handsoff game) - btw you wouldn't in a real campaign - because your actions have an influence on the overall situation and to your relations to other nations, and the Ultimate AI is very sensitive when it comes to relations.

Another important point is, most people have a tendency to sign alliances with nearly all AI nations. I consider this as an exploit, because the game engine does not allow to restrict alliances (so you have to pay for them), without hurting the AI at the same time. Explanation: It is easily possible to change the diplomatical value of alliances (try yourself and set the cost modifier to 0.0 in descr_diplomacy.xml), but if you do, AI nations do not ally anymore with each other. So we have a dilemma here. If you want a decent alliance system, where alliances mean something, then you'll have to restrict yourself to some extent. The alternative would be to increase the odds for backstabbing even further (which I'll possibly do for the next release), but then alliances lose their value.

Regards
GrandViZ

[akardy]

Maybe you can be a little more precise here. I would not consider Ultimate AI 1.4 or 1.5 as passive at all! AI nations sign alliances early on, get into wars early on and expand faster against rebel settlements than any other AI that I've seen. It is right that during the early period the AI prefers to go against rebels, but only if there are nearby rebel settlements left. This is not a bad strategy and is exactly what most human players do themselves.

It is also not necessarily passive behavior, if the AI considers its neighbour as a too powerful target to attack; so it will develop its economy and see later on. Why should it suicide, just to attack the human player for no reason with inferior troops, as it does in the vanilla game?

Furthermore, you cannot test the AI by behaving passive yourself (handsoff game) - btw you wouldn't in a real campaign - because your actions have an influence on the overall situation and to your relations to other nations, and the Ultimate AI is very sensitive when it comes to relations.

Another important point is, most people have a tendency to sign alliances with nearly all AI nations. I consider this as an exploit, because the game engine does not allow to restrict alliances (so you have to pay for them), without hurting the AI at the same time. Explanation: It is easily possible to change the diplomatical value of alliances (try yourself and set the cost modifier to 0.0 in descr_diplomacy.xml), but if you do, AI nations do not ally anymore with each other. So we have a dilemma here. If you want a decent alliance system, where alliances mean something, then you'll have to restrict yourself to some extent. The alternative would be to increase the odds for backstabbing even further (which I'll possibly do for the next release), but then alliances lose their value.

Regards
GrandViZ

GrandViZ didn't mean to ruffle your feathers, I'm just basing it on my experiences of playing the campaign with your mod. I agree that we don't want a return of the AI attacking you with 1 unit for no reason, as well as incurring possible excommunication etc. Here you have definitely made progress - though I have seen a definite improvement with the 1.2 patch as well. I have just experienced what I believe a general passivity compared to vanilla 1.2. Though I do appreciate that what I may be calling passive is actually an under estimation of the AI's thought process i.e. "he's stronger than me I won't attack", it's just incredibly hard to tell when in MTW there is very little feedback. If you'd been tinkering with Knights of Honour for example it was generally easier to tell the effect of changes to the system.

I am very much of the opinion that the way you play the game drastically alters the desired effect the original modder was attempting. For example perhaps I do not do enough to provoke the AI. I also appreciate you are walking a tight rope between making the AI a backstabbing cheat with no percieved rationality and making them too predictable or honourable. I've messed around with the diplomacy files myself - and have not reached anywhere near the same progress you have.

I've been following the progress and using your mod on and off since 0.8 perhaps or maybe earlier and really feel you're onto something, but for myself I feel that your mod is not quite at the stage it would need to be for inclusion. However I am just one user and you have many, many positive comments about your mod - I hope which you will consider many of my points. My feelings towards AI mods in general (which are still quite positive) is that generally you know where you are with Vanilla, and until further progress is made in the AI files (which will happen) with more stability in behaviour etc I'm of the opinion "better the devil you know".

As a closing comment I would also like say I truely believe that before 1.2 came out your mod most definitely enhanced the campaign AI of 1.1 and I feel you will do the same for all other updates, its just it takes time.

All the best
Akardy

[GrandViZ]

I have just experienced what I believe a general passivity compared to vanilla 1.2.

I would like to know it exactly. What do you mean by this general passivity?
Only, if you characterize the situation or give examples from an UAI campaign, I might be able to improve on the deficits.

Regards
GrandViZ

[akardy]

Grandviz,

I'll replay a campaign with just your mod and post my observations in your forum.

All the best
Akardy

[GrandViZ]

Grandviz,

I'll replay a campaign with just your mod and post my observations in your forum.

All the best
Akardy

Thank you very much, your help is appreciated.

[King Kong]

Hi Grand Viz,

Maybe you can be a little more precise here. I would not consider Ultimate AI 1.4 or 1.5 as passive at all! AI nations sign alliances early on, get into wars early on and expand faster against rebel settlements than any other AI that I've seen. It is right that during the early period the AI prefers to go against rebels, but only if there are nearby rebel settlements left. This is not a bad strategy and is exactly what most human players do themselves.

It is also not necessarily passive behavior, if the AI considers its neighbour as a too powerful target to attack; so it will develop its economy and see later on. Why should it suicide, just to attack the human player for no reason with inferior troops, as it does in the vanilla game?

Furthermore, you cannot test the AI by behaving passive yourself (handsoff game) - btw you wouldn't in a real campaign - because your actions have an influence on the overall situation and to your relations to other nations, and the Ultimate AI is very sensitive when it comes to relations.

Another important point is, most people have a tendency to sign alliances with nearly all AI nations. I consider this as an exploit, because the game engine does not allow to restrict alliances (so you have to pay for them), without hurting the AI at the same time. Explanation: It is easily possible to change the diplomatical value of alliances (try yourself and set the cost modifier to 0.0 in descr_diplomacy.xml), but if you do, AI nations do not ally anymore with each other. So we have a dilemma here. If you want a decent alliance system, where alliances mean something, then you'll have to restrict yourself to some extent. The alternative would be to increase the odds for backstabbing even further (which I'll possibly do for the next release), but then alliances lose their value.

That's some really interesting information. Sounds really good and reasonable.
Maybe you know that I once complained about too passive AI factions in UAI 1.3, but when you have changed that in your new version it would be perfect!
I have to admit that I havn't tried your new UAI yet, but I'll use it when testing my new mod version and I'll also try to give you some more feedback...
And thanks for all your work!