Giving up. It seems I'm stuck in an LTC trap

[Istari6]

I'm pretty frustrated. So let me vent for a second here. Then I'm looking for any good advice for the future.

I'm giving up on my Byzantine campaign in 1200. I just spent 3 hours playing trying to get myself out of an "economic sandpit", but I've had it.

Here's the story: Started as Byzantines on H/H using Klinks Garrison script and playing by Lusted's House Rules. So that meant holding off on starting a war with my neighbors for the first 50 turns (up to ~1165 based on 1.5 yrs/turn).

I use that time to mimic the historical Byzantines and build up my economy and trade so I can later support a professional military. I take Smyrna (rebels) but by the time I'm ready, the Hungarians already have Sofia and the Venetians Durraza. So trying to follow the House Rules, I don't pick a fight and sit tight trying to build trade networks, farming, roads, build up Corinth as a military base, build up a navy to control the Adriatic, etc.

Meanwhile, I watch my relations with one nation after another plummet to Abysmal, even though I respect every treaty and never attack. I even give a few gifts of cash to try to keep relations from deteriorating, but buildings in LTC are so expensive, I can't afford much excess going to diplomacy. Despite my efforts, Hungary and Venice attack, and I riposte and take Sofia and Irkalon. Then Milan, the Turks, Egypt, the Moors and even England declare war on me. Remember, I've never attacked anyone, and I'm always a middling-to-last power based on rankings.

Soon I'm fighting big stacks rolling in from every nation. Meanwhile, even though I've built up as much as I can in the first 50 turns, I'm barely breaking even with cash. I use Sofia as a fortress to attract enemy stacks and break them at little cost to myself. Still I can't get any traction economically.

The attacks pause for a few turns, and I try desperately to get some cash flow going. I turn up taxes to the point of near revolt, demobilize all my military except for garrisons (minimize expenses), planning to defend my cities and castles while building up cash.

Only no matter what I do, I can never get ahead. Just rebuilding the fleet (from Venice and Egypt hammering me by sea) and repleting my minimal losses (from defending cities and castles) drains me to 0 EVERY turn. I'm only spending ~500 gold a turn, but no matter what I do, I can't get any cash going.

I play for 3 hours tonight, trying everything I can to turn things around. I use every advantage of terrain to fight outnumbered and win. Then as I'm already fighting 6-7 countries (none of whom I've attacked or broken treaties with and many whom I've given what gifts I could afford), at that point a Jihad is called on me. I win some Heroic Victories at Constantinople fighting off the Jihad called on me (3 FULL stacks in 3 turns, 1 each from the Moors, Egypt and the Turks). I play for 30 straight turns desperately juggling forces to keep a minimal military so I don't drain the treasury. Stack after stack rolls in from every direction. I'm now spending only 100-200 per turn, and still I can't get any cash flow.

Finally, I give up with a bitter taste in my mouth. I've lost before and I don't mind that if it's a good fight. I lost playing the Germans in RTR, but in a way which made sense. I fought long and hard before the combination of the Romans, Macedonians and Gauls and a minimal economic base eventually drove me back into Scandinavia. This feels different. After investing 8-10 hours of gametime over the past few days, this just feels like the game balance was somehow broken for my starting conditions. There's nothing for me to decide every turn. I've minimized everything I can, and still my expenses = income so I can't build anything or upgrade the army.

Lusted, I love your mods, but has this ever happened to you or anyone else? Is LTC 2.3 designed more for England or other countries with a different starting position? What do I do next time (or even in this game if I could return to it with some prospect of changing things) so I don't get stuck in this sandtrap? It's very frustrating to play for so long and just be stuck no matter what I do. Looking back, the only thing I can think of is I should have been more aggressive and sacked other towns for money from the beginning, but the House Rules told me to hold off.

Again, Lusted I really appreciate the time you've spent modding M2TW and your constant presence here in the forums. Also congrats on your new position with CA - well earned! But do you or anyone else know what to do differently next time so I don't repeat this experience?

Thanks,

Chris

[Klink]

Precisely what house rules did you follow? Give us a list.

As Byzantium - a difficult faction that teeters between triumph and collapse - the first thing I do is build a shipwright at Constantinople, to get fire ships. A powerful fleet is vital to keep the trade flowing. I also aim for fourth tier city barracks, to get cheap and effective Byzantine Infantry. I capture Smyrna and Rhodes, converting both to cities, along with Nicosia. I stay away from contested Durazzo. Then I take it from there. Usually gunning for Crete, and areas around the Black Sea.

[gunnigolfer]

I would reccomend that you remove the script that makes releations go down every turn. In my opinion it doesn't just make the game hard, it just makes it stupid.

You can find it in the descr_faction_standing.txt

Trigger 0092_Update_Easy_Difficulty
WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

Condition CampaignDifficulty = easy

FactionStanding exclude_factions { } normalise 1.0 50

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0093_Update_Normal_Difficulty
WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

Condition CampaignDifficulty = medium

FactionStanding exclude_factions { } normalise 0.0 50

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0094_Update_Hard_Difficulty
WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

Condition CampaignDifficulty = hard

FactionStanding exclude_factions { } normalise -0.5 50

;------------------------------------------
Trigger 0095_Update_Very_Hard_Difficulty
WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

Condition CampaignDifficulty = very_hard

FactionStanding exclude_factions { } normalise -1.0 40

Just change the very hard and hard triggers to the same as normal (maybe you can delete them, i don't know)

[Lusted]

Lusted, I love your mods, but has this ever happened to you or anyone else?

Not really, Byzantium are tough but i tend to do a land grab early on as them by taking Durazzo, Rhodes and Smyrna.

Oh, and with 2.3 i should have really revised the House Rules with the change from a 1 year per turn to 1.5 year per turn campaign you shouldn't attack the ai for the first 30 turns or so.

Is LTC 2.3 designed more for England or other countries with a different starting position?

It's designed for all factions, i haven't actually played an English campaign in ages, just Byzantium have a tough position.

Also play on Medium Campaign and Very Hard battle difficulty in future as medium camapign difficulty does not have the constant drop in relations.

[gunnigolfer]

Not really, Byzantium are tough but i tend to do a land grab early on as them by taking Durazzo, Rhodes and Smyrna.

Oh, and with 2.3 i should have really revised the House Rules with the change from a 1 year per turn to 1.5 year per turn campaign you shouldn't attack the ai for the first 30 turns or so.



It's designed for all factions, i haven't actually played an English campaign in ages, just Byzantium have a tough position.

Also play on Medium Campaign and Very Hard battle difficulty in future as medium camapign difficulty does not have the constant drop in relations.

Or change the script, like I said above. That has helped me alot.

[Lusted]

Or change the script, like I said above. That has helped me alot.

It's a bit of a cop out, one of the big reasons hard and very hard difficulties are called that is because of the more likely ganging up on you by the ai.

[gunnigolfer]

Ok, didn't know that. I thought the only reason for the AI ganging up on you was becouse of the auto deterioration(???) of relations every turn.

In my portugal campaign I'm allied with Denmark, Polland, Sicily and Hungary. I think that all of them are also allies, so everyone is allied with everyone. I'm pretty happy about that.

England, HRE, and Milan are also allies and they are at war with me, England is at war with denmark and HRE is at war with Hungary and Polland.

I don't feel like the AI is ganging much on me while playing hard, after i changed the script i talked about earlier.

[Lusted]

Ok, didn't know that. I thought the only reason for the AI ganging up on you was becouse of the auto deterioration(???) of relations every turn.

Yes it is, it's why the code is in there for hard and very hard difficulty, the game is set up so you get ganged up moe and more on the harder difficulties, so removing the code that causes this is a bit of a cheap way out.

[gunnigolfer]

Oh, so that's what a cop out means, didn't know that

I still think this code is a bit simple. Even nations in the other end of the world, and you allies use this same script. Couldn't it be changed to something more complicated that makes more sense

For example:

If an AI faction has an ally that's your enemy relations would lower much faster in VH than Easy.

If you march your military through others territory it woud have a greater effect on harder difficulties

If you have grabbed much land in short time relations would decrease more in harder difficulties


Something like that, i know this isn't perfect but I'm only mentioning a few things. I think that instead of having the relations go down becouse of nothing, they should go down more easily in the harder difficulties.

Maintaining releations would be very difficult in Hard an Very hard if you are a bad boy but still not a big challenge if you are a good boy

[Lusted]

Maintaining releations would be very difficult in Hard an Very hard if you are a bad boy but still not a big challenge if you are a good boy

But then how is that anymore of a challenge if you play as a good boy?

[gunnigolfer]

But then how is that anymore of a challenge if you play as a good boy?

If you play as the good boy the whole game you can't build a large empire
So, a mix of both would be possible.

You could start the game, building your economy, making a few allies and stuff like that, but when you want some territory, things will get more difficult.

[Garnier]

There have to be other differences in H and VH difficulty than just relations dropping, in which case removing the relation dropping script and playing on VH would be fun.

[gunnigolfer]

There have to be other differences in H and VH difficulty than just relations dropping, in which case removing the relation dropping script and playing on VH would be fun.

That's what I'm talking about

[Klink]

oh btw, DisgruntledGoat's skins for Byzantium are utterly gorgeous. Maybe you'll perform better with them.

[Lusted]

There have to be other differences in H and VH difficulty than just relations dropping, in which case removing the relation dropping script and playing on VH would be fun.

Well im moving towards that for the next version of LTC. H will not have a relations drop, and VH will have the vanilla H relations drop. Instead the ai will get 250 per settlement per turn on H and 500 per settlement per turn on VH.

[gunnigolfer]

Well im moving towards that for the next version of LTC. H will not have a relations drop, and VH will have the vanilla H relations drop. Instead the ai will get 250 per settlement per turn on H and 500 per settlement per turn on VH.

That's a good idea, [Borat style]Great Success, hi five[/Borat style]

[Istari6]

Thanks all for the quick responses. Particularly gratified to see both Klink and Lusted here since I'm using their mods.

Klink - just the standard House Rules that Lusted has in the sticky post. Don't blitz the first 50 turns, don't exploit passive AI, don't build all elite armies. Lusted's post above helps explain - I think I would have done much better if I'd let my forces "off the leash" at Turn 30 rather than "holding tight" until 50+.

Lusted & Gunnigolfer - yes, agree that the auto-deterioration isn't challenging, it's dumb. I mean, England declaring war on me from across the map when I've never even met them? Glad to hear that Lusted's working to modify in the next LTC mod.

How difficult would it be to take a page from the Civilization series re: diplomacy? The thing I liked a lot about the Civ series is that it seemed to mimic the real-world a little more - if you were aggressive &/or getting too powerful, more and more countries would ally to protect themselves. This scales the difficulty so that as you're becoming successful, you're finding the rest of the world increasing the difficulty of getting any more powerful. That's how the real world works too ;>.

Instead, currently, I can be a middle-ranked power with totally honorable relations and still be treated as the Adolf Hitler of the Golden Horn.

* * * * * *

Is there any way to salvage the current campaign? I'm already set at H/H, but can I cut in Gunnigolfer's script at this point and have no further auto-deterioration? Is there any way to reset the relations to neutral (ideally, I could set everyone to neutral except my obvious natural enemies like Venice and Hungary), then I can take it from there and live with the consequences if I screw up the diplomacy and piss people off through my actions?

Thanks,

Istari

[Istari6]

Do any of the other mods (Ultimate AI, etc.) create a more realistic diplomacy situation like the one I'm describing above?

I'm concerned that if there isn't any auto-deterioration AND there isn't any scripting/AI so that the other factions ally with each other when threatened, they'll just sit there dumb and happy as I steamroller them one after another without any coalitions forming to oppose me. That's a situation almost as bad as everyone ganging up due to auto-deterioration.

Thanks!

Chris

[Istari6]

Just trying to think creatively, since I still would love to continue the Byzantine campaign...

Is there a script like Gunni's that would "repair" relations for awhile? Then I could just cut in the neutral script once things are a little more balanced?

is there a way to increase the Kings Purse or give a 1x infusion of cash so I can get some money flowing again and get out of this sandtrap?

Istari

[Lusted]

Is there a script like Gunni's that would "repair" relations for awhile? Then I could just cut in the neutral script once things are a little more balanced?

Yeah, just find the code for the easy difficulty in descr_faction_standing.txt and replace the very hard code with it(but making sure you keep the references to the campaign difficulty)

is there a way to increase the Kings Purse or give a 1x infusion of cash so I can get some money flowing again and get out of this sandtrap?

You might have to cheat for that. Just a one time use of the add_money cheat should be enough.