Kingdoms, Empires and Fiefdoms(General rebalance)

[Darkarbiter]

Ok guys I just got kingdoms and I was a tad disappointed by a few things. Some things were certainly better then others... and the costs and way buildings were layed out has been improved... but I think I can do better with some minor fixes. Anyway this will be a general balance for all 4 campaigns... although each one will be worked on seperately and some may accidentally end up getting more attention.

If theres any suggestions you might like to add for balance or gameplay then post them. I'll add more as I play more and think of more things that need could be changed. Theres plenty of big things(comepletely new factions... reskins etc) you could do but I'll think about that later

Overall:
-The whole "archers and cavlry are castles only" was a stupid, unrealistic and arbitrary idea. Cities will be able to recruit everything... although castles need less money spent on them to upgrade them so they are a slightly better way of training troops. They will also be much easier to control... so if your newly conquered city of another religion is rioiting then you should turn it into a castle. In effect castles will basicly be a well defended police state. In general they will be less useful though.

-On that note... converting a castle to a city will be free (or very cheap). This is because all your doing is basicly telling everyone they are allowed to build more stuff and allowing them more freedom. I recognise that they would need to reorganise the stone... but it's allready there and the short term economic boost would balance it out. Converting a city to a castle will be a lot more expensive and so will city/castle upgrades in general.

-Buildings in general more expensive. However barracks and similar will get less teirs. Perhaps some minor common sense balancing as well. E.G. pyramids will have a seperate (0 cost 1 turn to build) sacraficing building that allows sacrafice. However the building will have a -0.5% growth rate penalty. Also things like markets will grant a minor growth bonus at the upper levels. The lowest level market will add an interger amount of income (internal trade) as well as that interger moving up a bit as you get bigger markets.

-The battles seemed pretty ok... all testing will be done on huge (I know that thats a system hog... but well that's simply where the battles are best... and how they should be balanced for)

-All factions playable

Campaign specific

Teutonic
-Set up a kalmar union rebels shadowfaction
-Set up Lithuania and the Teutonic order as each others shadowfaction (cities are probably only going to be rebelling because of religion anyway... so this makes sense)

Americas
-Overall change of gameplay style for the Mayans, Aztecs etc (Everyone except the tribes and the Europeans). This will come in the form of warriors are very cheap (although upkeep hasn't changed so it's balanced by that) also... the civilisations will have a lot of economic buildings that add to trade, add an interger amount of moning and similar. The stats on units will be nerfed a bit. In general these guys will be very rich, be able to make very big cities but will be let down by an ineffeciant military
-Navigatable rivers: All rivers will be navigatable with river ports and boats(no more fords and no landbriges)... the Spanish will be able to hire mercanary boats but will otherwise have a bit of trouble crossing the rivers (they use their sea ships a lot anyway... so they might end up just using them). Note that this will also make factions richer by adding trade.
-Cities which are next to a lake will be able to (name WIP) "Center the city buildings around the lake" which will add a lot an extra trade fleet or two as well as adding a little bit to growth and a trade bonus. Basicly you will be able to make cities next to a lake like tenotichtlan was historically. Unfortunately I don't think theres a way to represent this on the battle map.
-Cities next to the sea or a river will get a hidden resource that allows them to build fishing hutts, adding to growth.
-Hopefully someone can point me in the direction of historical relevence of another faction or too... would be nice to add a couple of shadowfactions for some of the factions too.
-In general cities less happy... however happiness traits easier to get. Also perhaps less morale but bonus morale traits easier.

Crusades

-Fix that stone fort bug

Releases
It's a WIP atm... I'll release it asap... and it probably won't have all of the things mentioned above in it right away. For now make some suggetsions!
I think I'm going to be focusing on the Americas campaign first.

[Darkarbiter]

No comments?

[Swagger]

no

[The Border Reiver]

I can't believe you waited so long to get Kingdoms!

1. Archers vs Cavarly - regardless of whether what might be realistic. The reason certain units were added to castles/villages was to make the player choose which was most important. It certainily wasn't stupid, and for me is a welcome feature.

2. Making a castle/village free to change makes your first point invlaid because the player is not affected in anyway, becuase they can choose to do it anytime. It doesn't make sense that it is free one way to the other.

3. I'm not sure why you would be taking anything out of the game like building tiers. Just use hidden resources to restirct certain regions from building certain tiers.

4. You are completely wrong here, the battles are the area that need the most work depending on personal taste. While they are definitely better than MTW2, they still require lots of work.

I agree with you on the stone fort issue though! I can't comment on the Teutonic or Americas campaign.

[Darkarbiter]

I can't believe you waited so long to get Kingdoms!

1. Archers vs Cavarly - regardless of whether what might be realistic. The reason certain units were added to castles/villages was to make the player choose which was most important. It certainily wasn't stupid, and for me is a welcome feature.

2. Making a castle/village free to change makes your first point invlaid because the player is not affected in anyway, becuase they can choose to do it anytime. It doesn't make sense that it is free one way to the other.

3. I'm not sure why you would be taking anything out of the game like building tiers. Just use hidden resources to restirct certain regions from building certain tiers.

4. You are completely wrong here, the battles are the area that need the most work depending on personal taste. While they are definitely better than MTW2, they still require lots of work.

I agree with you on the stone fort issue though! I can't comment on the Teutonic or Americas campaign.

2. I said the transfer between castle to settlement will be free. However not the other way around... well I guess it's a matter of personal preference.

3. Well I mean it's just unrealistic to have barracks teir 1, teir 2 etc... I would adopt a similar approach to RTR. Specifically talking about the americas... for the Aztecs and Spanish any normal building will be able to be built anywhere with the exception of things like ports and river ports. However certain cities will likely start the game off with expensive barracks/other recruitment buildings so in the short term you will need to recruit seperate units at seperate spots.

4. I agree... I just meant they are better then m2tw and it isn't on the top of my priorities since that would require quite a lot of time. I However if anyone could suggest some things to change stats wise I'll probably put it ingame if it's an improvement. I defenitly think that the game needs a lot more variance, depth and balance (some units never get used for e.g.). As I said with the mayans and aztecs being more numerous this will require quite an overhaul of their battle stats and therefore I may as well rebalance everything in that campaign at the same time.

Thanks for comments btw. I'll get started on some basic stuff soon (Americas campaign will be first).