Circles - Klink's personal mod

[Klink]

Introducing Circles, Klink's personal mod.

Featuring a new map, and scripts aplenty.

This mod is a labour of love. Often frustrated by the AI of M2TW at various turns, I've tinkered with this custom campaign to create ideal terms for a decent challenge to the human player by the AI. I made this to challenge me, and I release it, as it may possibly be of some entertainment to others out there as well. Focus has been entirely on gameplay, and not on realism or historical precision.

The map is a circle, all factions starting in equal positions. Bored of the regular historical setup, I've endeavoured to place factions next to those they would hardly ever fight in vanilla. So as the Poles, you go up against the Timurids and the Venetians. As the Russians, you are next to France and The Papal States. And so forth. Refreshing. Rivers and bridges are eliminated, as are mountains, both of which can easily be used and abused to destroy thousands of AI soldiers with little effort of one's own.

Circles naturally includes my garrison script. It also includes numerous other scripts, all designed to balance a building strategy vs an attacking strategy. Since money is the only resource in the game, this is where focus has been laid. Following scripts are in place:

You are deducted 500 gold for each general abroad, and 1000 extra for every turn sieging, as in Deus Io Vult. Thanks for the idea, guys.

When you capture a settlement, you are deducted a decreasing amount of money each turn, depending on the level of the settlement, to simulate the process of assimilation of new provinces. In total, for each settlement:

Town: 1000 gold over 2 turns.
Large town and wooden castle: 4000 gold over 4 turns.
City and castle: 11000 gold over 6 turns.
Large city and fortress: 25000 gold over 8 turns.
Citadel: 45000 gold over 10 turns.
Huge city: 65000 gold over 12 turns.

To counter these expenses, trade improvements are actually worth it. More importantly, you can expand mines beyond the basic two levels, with significant income boosts for each level. This makes building a viable, if not necessary strategy.

But no longer can you lurk behind your walls as the AI besieges them. To simulate damage by enemy armies roaming your lands, for each turn besieged you are deducted a sum corresponding to the level of the settlement, as follows:

Town and wooden castle: 500 gold
Castle: 1000 gold
Large town and fortress: 1500 gold
Citadel: 2000 gold
City: 3000 gold
Large city: 4500 gold
Huge city: 6000 gold

As one can see, the numbers are halved level-wise for castles, making frontier castles useful for a siege defense strategy, should one be so inclined. Also, the deductions happen at the end of your own turn, so if you can chase away the besieging army before then, you save your money. To this end, and to avoid the poor sally defense AI, each time you are besieged a tiny band of peasants loyal to your faction is spawned next to the settlement. I encourage you to use this unit to attack the enemy, rather than sallying out, but of course I can't stop you doing so.

Finally, a money script gives money to the AI in increasing amounts every 20 turns, up to the 140th, at which point it will remain for the rest of the campaign.

The unit roster is based on Unspoken Knight's Retrofit mod, with some significant changes. First of all, mid-to-top level cavalry is far more powerful now, but rarer and more expensive, making a frontal cavalry charge a satisfying if expensive spectacle.

Also, a number of top level units from each faction have had their stats boosted, and their price as well. This makes late-period armies very effective vis-a-vis early period armies, creating an actual technology gap.

Enjoy!

How to use: Unpack the rar file into the "mods" directory created by Kingdoms, and run the mod by executing the medieval2_circles.bat file in the circles directory.

[Klink]

Come to think of it, I probably should have slapped on a version 1.0 number on that rar file. Ah, well.

A bit of warning: This mod will pull out your teeth, depending on your skill.

Some other things:

Diplomacy is rather simple. The AI has been set up to, eventually, declare war on its neighbours. You can't avoid this, just get ready for it, or go pre-emptive. The effect is a consolidation of land in the hands of the few and powerful, which keeps the late game challenging. The AI has also been set up to dislike bigger factions, based on territory only. So expand with care, or you will be at the bottom of a pile within a few dozen turns. The pope has been eliminated, crusades and jihads too, and The Papal States reintroduced as a normal faction.

The mines become more profitable the closer you are to the centre, with the central province the most profitable of all. Of course, in the light of the diplomacy AI, you have some interest in not barging right into contact with too many factions.

It is possible to play the Aztecs for test reasons, but not really since they're stuck in a corner, so don't pick them.

Bloody hell, also forgot to give credit for using some sort of version of the names project, can't remember which one really. And for some of Lusted's ideas, particularly with regard to the EDB file. And, and, and. Prolly some others too. So appy-polly-logies to those I've forgotten.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Thats a pretty unique idea Klink, + rep

Still needs some smoothing but a good start. I had to edit the cfg file as you have it pointing to retrofit instead of circles.

Are you going to add mercenaries?

[Klink]

Thanks. Mercs are in, in a global pool. Will need to edit the cfg file and reupload then, still am not entirely sure how the Kingdoms system works, compared to basic M2TW.

Edit: There we go, corrected and reuploaded.

[Klink]

Mod updated, with following changes:

Map beautified. Terrain combat modifiers for all units nullified, to compensate for the similar starting terrain for all factions. Cavalry units now given -3 combat modifier in woods. Recruitment priority modifiers balanced further. Several balance changes to unit pools, mostly to do with regeneration rates. Besieged-deduction-penalty increased for city settlements to make up for vastly increased income on higher levels. Many small EDU balance changes. Spam script removed from campaign_script.txt, was not necessary.

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Lost with Scotland, won with HRE, so I'm quite happy with the balance here. Still can't figure out why England is so powerful in the hands of the AI.

I might also add that, should you desire more powerful generals than the neutered ones of this mod, the export_descr_character_traits.txt file can be deleted or replaced with your own preference. Gotta enjoy the modularity of TW modding.