some observations

[tonedog]

the first 15 turns or so involved 4 ctd's, all on the campaign map.

not to keen on the fact that all settlements seem to begin with 200 people, kinda takes the value away from capturing town, especially on crusades.

in relation to the last point crusades are almost worthless. it cost me about 15000 to raise crusader troops and when u capture the crusade target its so small there's no reward for pillaging it.

i miss the scripts from DLV involving garrisons as most of the towns here have hardly any troops in them

and finally the map os very quiet not any wars, also many rebel settlements around that the AI is so slow to take

so say as well that im playin this hotseat and on H/H

[tornnight]

Hmm, I'll take a look at pillage costs. I thought those were based on buildings not population.

Garrison scripts are one reason why turns take so long. I wanted to avoid that if possible. You need 1 script for each settlement and we have more settlements than DLV.

Diplomacy changed drastically with Patch 1.2. I still haven't fully adjusted for the changes.

Thanks for the feedback.

[tonedog]

is there no way to make the garrison scripts only apply to when the human player sieges AI towns and leave AI vs AI alone? this would speed thing up

[tornnight]

Same thing. You still need at least 1 script per settlement.

It's messy, hard to maintain, slow, and prone to bugs. People could add Klink's Garrison script manually if they know how to merge the scripts and see how it goes. For now it's not a priority.

[Irishmafia2020]

I agree that there is very little gain in pillaging cities... most of my early game conquests have netted me 0 $... the only advantage to conquest is therefore gain in taxable population... I think the pillage should be revamped if possible, as this does affect the crusades...

[Rusty Hammer]

I've played DLV and if the scripts are what you want, well then play DLV, the scripts add a challenge but the end turn times are way too much for me, also I like the AI with less chaotic wars all over the place

[Umbrisse]

1.) With the significantly lower populations, the amount of money that you get from pillage and exterminate has lowered dramatically. For the first 100 years, there is rarely any point to doing anything but simply occupying the settlement.

2.) I'm not familiar with DLV - how long are the turns? Turns right now are probably what.. 30-45, maybe 60 seconds? I'd be willing to wait 2-5 minutes for a turn if it meant a game that was significantly more fun.

For those that have played Heroes of Might and Magic V against a human player, you know how much work you can get done in a long turn based game (for those that haven't played, HOMMV is a turn based strategy AND turn based combat game, so when you play against a human player, you have to sit there and wait while they take their turn, and if they do a battle against the AI during their turn, the turn can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes. You can also do battles versus each other, of course, and those don't waste either persons time. Grab a book, watch TV, do some exercise... it helps if you're at a LAN so you can yell at the other person when your turn is done =P.. fun stuff)

[tornnight]

Yep, I consider the current population/pillage issue a broken part of TLR. I will be addressing it for the next update.

Regarding the issue of garrisons. I'm not sure if everyone would agree that 2-5 minutes per turn is acceptable. Besides, my biggest gripe is the sheer size of these scripts. I'm honestly hoping for some improvements in the expansion pack which CA has alluded to that may make this cleaner.

[Rusty Hammer]

I beg you please, no garrison script, the turn time in DLV is its biggest gamebreaker

[acegogo]

I must agree with Rusty Hammer, if you like DLV (which I have played on a few ocasions) play DLV.

[Rusty Hammer]

Torn what you have done already in TLR makes it a more challenging game, garrison scripts are neat, but not worth the wait time, TLR is a game that involves a lot of turns, and sometimes you really just need them to cycle by to make some cash, garrison scripts make this nearly impossible.

[Umbrisse]

I'd be willing to wait 2-5 minutes for a turn if it meant a game that was significantly more fun.

Just me =D
Didn't mean everyone would like that. If you put a poll up, I bet I'd be the only person who reads the forums who would support it =P

I would just like to see much bigger battles... currently every siege battle (and most regular battles) are between 4-8 units per side. Full card is 20 or 22 units.

[acegogo]

maybe a solution could be to increase the deafualt garrisons inside independent towns, it may prove realistic aswell, because, at the begining of the game when we are all rather small, it would mean a huge gamble to conquer neighbouring provinces.... otherwise if they had small garrisons I am sure they would have being conquered before... POWER TO INDEPENDENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Philippon]

Ace: maybe a solution could be to increase the deafualt garrisons inside independent towns, it may prove realistic aswell, because, at the begining of the game when we are all rather small, it would mean a huge gamble to conquer neighbouring provinces.... otherwise if they had small garrisons I am sure they would have being conquered before... POWER TO INDEPENDENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: As far as I can tell, rebel factions don't retrain or recruit when inside their starting cities. Hence the computer AI just hit's them again and again with a handful of units and eventually wears them down.

In fact, I've taken that into account in numerous games and just wait for the AI to lose yet another attack then march up and besige the city myself when it's down to a quarter strength.

Now as for a garrison script. I like the idea and in my playing of Anno Dominae, quite frankly I don't have an issue with the increased game times. But conversely you might be able to achieve the same result if you doubled the free upkeep levels so that the computer would be tempted to stick EVEN MORE garrison units into those cities and castles.

But as for dealing with the various small stacks of computer run armies bouncing about and their strange reluctance to unify into a larger command . . . if you want more troops, jack up the unit size in the options. Eventually the computer does get it right and gives you those full stacks. It's all a question of time and money. Of course if you set your unit size on Huge in the options, you won't get reinforcements normally.

Given the money issue, you don't want a full stack army dashing from one side of the country to the other every time you end up at war on several fronts. Personally I spend a lot of diplomatic effort to be friendly with everybody save one . . . and that's the power I go for until they are taken out or driven from my goal areas I'm looking to take. You'll get the two front war eventually, given the slow deterioration of your status among the other powers, but by that time, you can have an army sufficient to deal with any threat IF you know what's likely to be coming for you. Spies are your friends and you can't have too many friends.

[tornnight]

I actually have a secret project with the independents. I think I may be able to make them aggressive and recruit troops and attack your cities. That would provide a big challenge. But I'm not going to say more until I go try it.

[Rusty Hammer]

sounds interesting, so will Independents behave more like independent factions?

[Umbrisse]

They are factions, or supposed to be. The only reason that they're "independent" is because CA limits the # of factions that can exist.

[tornnight]

Well the problem has been that they are kind of useless. They don't attack and kind of sit there waiting for you to kill them.

[Rusty Hammer]

exactly, it would be nice to see some aggression in them

[acegogo]

chills down my spine.... war active independants....... uuuuuuuuuhhhh