Some questions and complaints

[Schod]

After playing your mod for a few days I've had some really weird experiences that I dont want to keep to myself. So here goes:

Vassals
As I understand vassals play an insignificant role in the vanilla game, which is quite unhistorical. Supposedly this mod changed it, well.. I've yet to see that.

I started the game as the byzantines and sent a diplomat to Sicily right away to try to get a ceasefire. They refused and demanded that i become their vassal instead. Well, fair enough, I guess im the one in the worst position, being in war with two nations and not having controll over half of my subjects. In a few turns i noticed that they had gained a foothold in Greece (made sence), so I sent an army to take them out. Done. They've lost two nobles, two medium to small sized armies, two cities and a strategic position. Then a sicilian diplomat approaches me - yay! im gonna get peace - No. They demand that I become their vassal...

( Later I demand that the turks become my vassal. They only have two provinces left, one of them is Rhodes, which is protected, but completely cut off. I have an overwhelming army pointed at their makeshift capital. They Firmly refule the offer... )

Pirates
No blabbering this time: your mod has no pirates in them, but a grey colored terminator fleet gone wild. The smallest "pirate" fleets consist of 90 ships (wow) and those guys are independent at all. They merge with one another and they collaborate all the time. I bought a navy of 180 ships (this is Really expensive) and it was annihilated after two battles.

This is the reason why it didnt go to more blows with the sicilians - they couldent get no more armies across. I have yet to see the AI buy more than 30 ships, which is just like a worm against a shark. As said, even 180 ships (which is problably more expensive than an army) wont guarantee you getting your troops across.

Crusades
The pirates were also the reason why no christian state went on a crusade, when it was called against Cairo. The next one was called against Cordoba and right away a large Hungarian army arrived, was defeated, then an even larger Milanes one came and broke in.
The next turn a jihad is called, no, not against Cordoba, that would be too cool, no, the target was plain old Constantinope, as always.
In an instant I'm at war with the world of islam and I mean Everyone. Even the Iberian muslims, who just lost their capital send a huge army after me.. through Europe.. yeah, that'll work.
Before any military forces enter my state there come a bunch of diplomats. They all demand that I become their vassal, even the sicilian one showed up again.

Charges
Then come the holy armies, consisting mostly of fanatical troops, much more powerful than my militia unites and outnumbering them aswell. I still dont think im going to lose and I dont. Becaus my 6 general's bodyguards take out 200 of those bastards. Easlily, no casualties. I didnt even always charge their flanks or from behing, most of the times we charged eachother! Thats 48 strong, fanatical troops versus 6 tired generals bodyguards, again and again and again.

Pathfinding
IIRC all the muslim states sent a huge army against me but the Abbasids ( the poorest), but only one reached Constantinople. Why? Becaus when one of them was sieging the queen of cities, then the other one couldent do the same now, could it. So we have a huge Syrian army, standing next to one of my cities in Asia Minor, the one right next to Constantinople, defended by 20 spear militia. What do they do? They start marching to my capitol around the black sea. They will only and absolutely only attack the city on which the holy war has been called - besides utterly idiotic, its unhistoric aswell, just look at a map of the first crusade!


Well thats the meat of it. Besides it i want to ask:

1. What is the 'inexperienced governer' trait supposed to represent, that it loweres the population? Do the subjects of the town stop consummating becaus their governer is inexperienced? Or do they strangle their children, becaus a life under an inexperienced governer is not worth living? Or do they take off, into the unkown, to lands inhabitated by different people, speaking different languages and praising different gods - ALL becaus their governer was Inexperienced?

2. Whats up with the events? They are rather uninteresting (who cares when exactly an order was started?) and much of the time wont make sence, becaus Jerusalem problably wont be taken. Anyways just chaning the word "Jerusalem" with "christian lands" would give them a meaning in most conditions.

[acegogo]

180 ships??????

never seen that, And I can asure you I´ve played a few campaigns

[Irishmafia2020]

Maybe he means men... those are suppossed to be ships with 30 men apiece on them, and therefore a fleet of six ships would be 180 men... I agree about the crusade/jihad bug as well, since if a faction is at war they should be allowed to attack other cities in the region. I doubt that it can be changed though, as the crusade feature is a hardcoded piece of the game's mechanics anyway...

[Rex Inanimatus]

if you do not wish to cope with the fierce pirate forces, you have to lower the pirates spawn rates, in this mod the setting is 80. It will only affect a new campaign though.

about crussades/jihads it is all hardcoded unfortunately. And so historically incorrect as well. For instance Byzantium was the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire and it only fell in 1453 not in the beginning of the game.

about pathfinding: many hardcoded problems haven't been resolved in 1.2

about inexperienced governor: over the yaers the will they will get better for further info read the wiki Torn wrote.

nations only accept to become vassal when they are down on their knees and with only 1 province left.

hope this solves some of your questions

[Schod]

Thanks for replying.

180 ships??????
Yes, as Irishmafia2020 suspected, I meant 180 = 6 stacks of ships (stupid me).
The idea to beef up pirates is a nice idea, considering the vanilla game, where pirates arent even a nuisance, pleasently sailing the seas, not meaning anyone harm..
3 ships showing up once in a while is nice, but the wolfpacks are the problem. Once a ship goes out, everyone detect it and suddenly every pirate vessel of the mediterranean is there.

about crussades/jihads it is all hardcoded unfortunately
Too bad. Especially since this mod adds extra muslim faction, that take holy war rather seriously, which leads to rather ugly results as I described.

about inexperienced governor: over the yaers the will they will get better for further info read the wiki Torn wrote.
Yes, I know and I like the idea. I just dont understand why the population would start declining once a green nobleman takes up the reign. Less money coming in, more rebellion - sure.

nations only accept to become vassal when they are down on their knees and with only 1 province left.
Yeh, I experienced this now, that I have the island kindom of Rhodes as a vassal.. ruled by the turkish sultan, though most of the island is christian..
I guess demanding to become a vassal is the "howdoyoudo" phrase of this mod.

Oh, but generally the mod is nice. Huge map, a though economy - a lot more fun than the vanilla game.

[Irishmafia2020]

As far as "inexperienced governor" goes as a trait, it is partly attempting to suggest that he would not be able to initiate sanitation/trash removal or other public health or agricultural policies as well as somebody who has been a beaurecrat for years. Hence the population declines due to cholera deaths, food poisioning, and a decrease in general hygiene and food supply... you have to roleplay to make it believable I suppose...

[Xeno_cws]

Some really good Questions Schod I'll to answer them as best I can.

Vassals: In 2.0 there is a bug (left over from vanilla) that has diplomats demanding you become there vassal if your at war with them. Now I don't know how much it has (if at all) improved but I do know that it very difficult (though not impossible) to make another faction your vassal. I believe religion, distance, cities and armies are taken into consideration. Which is probably why you had a hard time making the turks your vassal.

I agree though this should be looked at, though truthfully I see it as less of import then some of the other things.

Edit- Confirmed bug and fixed for next release.

Pirates: They have dramatically been bumped up in terms of power and have had a lower spawn rate. While I agree that they are super machines now, further on in the campaign pirates become less of a danger as your ships improve and navy grows bigger. Personally, while they annoy the hell out of me in the beginning it adds a new side as you can no longer do early rushes via water bodies.

The faction AI also had their navy reduced because they where spending too much money and time making super navies that their land armies suffered greatly.

Further in the campaign their navies will increase but generally, if you focus on building a navy you'll completely outstrip them regardless.

Crusades: A lot of hardcodes here. One is that armies can attack only the target city. I suppose CA did this as a balancing issue I don't know. Even if you try your army will start to disband and eventually you'll lose that army (even if you head straight to the target afterwards)

Now the thing you said about the army going the long ways around is because of a pathfinding 'bug'. Since the army can't get through the corridor to attack Constantinople (due to the other army) it takes the next closer route.

Not much torn can do but make the corridor bigger.

Charges: Fantical troops are the weakest unit in the game. In fact they are so powerless that the only real use is to bulk up crusading armies and become cannon fodder. I wouldn't doubt that a single unit of spear militia could take down three fanticals. Personally fanticals should have a 1 or 2 point increase in attack and a slight decrease to cost and upkeep.

That aside charges, if done right, are still absurdly powerful. This is something that needs to be tweaked a little.

Q1: That trait brings down the money earned, increase dissent, squalor (I believe), and in general brings down the city. The longer that person stays govener the better he becomes. When he hits the best he can be, he'll be doing the flip of everything.

Q2: The events are one of two things. First they are simply historic telling you a significant event during that time.

The second is telling you something has changed ingame. Mail event for example is telling you that you can now train units with mail armor and upgrade other units to it (if they can). Order founding events are just that. The order has been founded somewhere and that faction can now use the orders bonus'. Without a doubt you need the second unless you play the guessing game.

The first I like since it breaks up the end turn spell.

Can't wait for 2.1 since some, if not most, of these issues are resolved.

[Schod]

Yes, that answered pretty much everything.

I'll note though that the 200 fanatical troops that those few cavalrymen took out werent the weakest, but quite strong offensive troops (attack 5?) called Ghazis or something, but I guess they're just ultra inneficent against cavalry.
Since yeh, I see that cavalry isnt nearly as deadly against other nonspear infantry.

But while playing on I noticed another thing - wars just dont seem to be worth it anymore. Atleast after taking out your closest neighbour.
While the building prices have been raised dramatically the cash you get from sacking doesnt seem to be. So its.. kind of weird. I guess vassals do earn their meaning this way, becaus i'd rather give the provinces I dont want to them than let them rebel and fall in to enemy hands.

[Xeno_cws]

Torn knows about the sacking money, or lack off, and has changed it for the next version.

[Irishmafia2020]

Personally, I sack a city completely, selling nearly all of its buildings and then granting the provinces that I don't want (or that I don't the expense of upgrading) to one of my several weak allies. Therefore I have three stacks blitzing thru different parts of the map, but when the war is over I may only have picked up one or two provinces. I make a fortune sacking the cities, and my weak allies are artificially strengthened by my land grants.

[Fargham]

Diplomacy is retarded and mostly hardcoded. Diplomats basically exist to make the game more challenging for you.

If you check the buildings file, you will notice that Independent cities can build pirate ships at their ports. Secondly, because of the change to the AI in not building ships for other factions, the pirates really only have you to fight.
Start capturing those Indies and you will notice a sharp decline in pirates.
Though, the pirates still seem 10x smarter than the other factions about combining fleets... I wish there was something that could be done there...

Crusades/Jihads -
I've never seen - even dirt poor Catholic factions fail to join a Crusade - they almost never take boats, so pirates aren't an issue - are you blocking the land bridges into Asia? Its an excellent strategy - one I do every time as the Byz - but I need to 'open the gates' briefly to let the Crusaders run amok in Asia - and sometimes they go around me. Which is all the better I guess, because they are worthless and cannot be counted on to distrupt the Muslim factions for more than a few turns.

Charges -
First, take a look at both units stats - especially armor rating. The generals easily have a huge advantage in all stats, especially the 2 hit points - this is huge. Now, this may new information to some, but combat is dominated by the graphics more than you realize. With the long spears/lances, the generals will take out the Ghazis before they get a chance to strike back. Thats right, the Ghazis could have 1000 attack, and they wouldn't even get a chance to swing - even on a head on charge, but this makes sense, because thats the advantage of having a long weapon. Second, once engaged in melee, it takes a bit of time for the troops to 'square off' and actually begin attacking each other - if you can pull your cavalry out - the infantry still don't get to attack. Next take into account the thought that not all of the infantry can get at the general to attack him, maybe 3-4 can get at each bodyguard, so you're really only fighting 24 poorly armed and armored, poorly trained, and piss-poor moraled troops, and thats only if you let them attack you. All infantry units take yet another morale hit against cavalry, even the spearmen, so again, another count against the Ghazis. So yeah - the generals are going to crush them, and historically thats the way it went - the muslims were terrified of the damage even a single mounted and well trained knight could do to their best trained troops - let alone their fanatical rabble.

Pathfinding -

It sucks, but hardcoded.

Events -

You couldn't be any more brashly disrespectful of other people's opinions without adding in swear words and insulting other people's parentage. The events are what makes the game feel like its a historical representation or approximation of what happened - and thats a huge reason why a lot of us play this game - especially these mods. They strive for historical accuracy and relevance, and even if you are deviating from true history, it gives you a good idea of where you should have been.