Beefing up rebels

[xayoz306]

I'm in the process of beefing up the rebels a little bit in Vanilla SS6.1, and I have given them a little cash, the ability to recruit some troops, and the ability to leave their cities. It has led to some interesting situations, like have a half stack come up and help lift a siege. However, I want to make them a littel more aggressive. As it is right now, the rebels are building up stacks that do present a bit more of a challenge when conquering a city, but the agressiveness is lacking. What do I need to edit in order to tweak that aspect of things?

[Quark]

xayoz306
Edit the Ai personailty in descr_stat to default and then the Ai files to make them more aggressive.

[xayoz306]

xayoz306
Edit the Ai personailty in descr_stat to default and then the Ai files to make them more aggressive.

Thanks!

Now comes the dumb question. How do I edit the AI files. Just looking for roughly which lines I should be looking at. I find those .xml files a bit daunting at first, until I can see that I am going in the right direction.

If I can get it to work the way I am looking for, I may even submit this as a sub-mod. But only if I can get it to work, lol

[Quark]

xayoz306
:hmmm: Not sure I can explain how to make an Ai in one post, so lets keep it simple and look at is descr_campaign_ai_db.xml and the <faction_ai_label name="xxxx"> section, where xxxx is what is in descr_stat, in this case 'slave'. If you feel that the Ai is not attacking enough then you need to add/increase rules. Lets look at

<decision_entry>
<faction_attitude invade="invade_opportunistic" invade_priority="550"/>
</decision_entry>

Try editing this to something like

<decision_entry>
<min_entry target_human="true" turn_number="10" is_neighbour="true"/>
<faction_attitude invade="invade_opportunistic" invade_priority="800"/>
</decision_entry>

This sets it so the rebels will only attack after 10 turns, and be more aggressive (as assuming you have already edited <min_turn_keep_rebel_garrison int="999"/> in descr_camapign_db as per my previous posts in other threads).

If you are giving rebels plenty of cash, you can swap invade_opportunistic to invade_buildup, as this will cause them to build up forces before attacking. If 800 is to high, try decreasing by 50.


Hope that helps.

[xayoz306]

Thanks! If I could rep you, I would

And I take it that there are some descriptives of what the various tags are in the xml files, as there are in the txt files. If not, I can always poke around, see what I can cook up.

[King Sama]

DOes this mean that the AI could now besiege and take a city? Because that would make the game much more realistic and challenging.

Im pretty sure they did it in europa barboarum...

[Theseus1234]

so this means rebels that will actually rebel? zomg!
since xayoz cant rep you, i will
edit: oops, ive given out too much rep...ill tyr later

[Shabby_Ronin]

call me cynical, but isnt this further kneecapping the ai even more?

it already has the decision making ability of a squirrel in the middle of the road...although on my end i would welcome a more dynamic rebel element, i just worry about the poor ai

[xayoz306]

okay, so I have the ai effeectively edited, now I`m just trying to figure out exactly how much money to give the rebel factions. There are 96 rebel settlements at the beginning of vanilla SS, early era. I figure if they get a monthly income of 96000 that works out to roughly 1000 per settlement, which should be more than enough to recruit, and in some cases, build up certain settlements. If only I can figure out how to code the ai so that the rebels will spend money to recruit and build when threatened (ie a faction is on the doorstep) then I think I can perfect it.

For those who are interested in what I have done so far, in terms of what is available for the rebel factions, I have enabled them to build rebel units tht are in common with the hre, since the hre has afairly large selection of units. I am still torn on whether or not I should include siege weapons for the rebels though. That could be a little sick when you besiege a rebel town, and they repel you with mangonels.

[Friesian]

The amount of money added every turn might be not enough because all the rebel armies hanging around all over the map. The upkeep of these troops above the upkeep of troops in settlements will eat the money away before you can recruit and build. After most of the settlements have been taken by regular factions the money will be more then enough.

[themoob]

This would rock if you could perform diplomacy with the rebels, and they all didn't count as one faction.

Silly CA.

[Quark]

xayoz306
You don't want to give the rebels to much cash, as that will make it to difficult for the other Ai factions, and at the end of the day they are minor factions which did not invade much, but did exist for a period, and should be hard to take out. As such I prefer invade_buildup, but it really depends on region size. One of the issues with all maps is that the region sizes vary so much, so the Ai sees an army close by as a threat, but far away as not, even though in both cases they are sitting in the next settlement.

What I do is edit the campaign_script and add something like this to the money script (this is for easy)

increment_kings_purse slave 500


you could also edit the script for lack of cash eg

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType slave
and Treasury < 5000

add_money slave 9000

end_monitor

and try higher values.

As to units, I would have gone with the mercenary set of units (although I have edited my descr_rebel_factions.txt file to add a few more units to each rebel set.

[Anarion]

Try adding mercenary units to the rebels and adding their recrution possibility also through export_descr_buildings.txt

I only recommend it for roleplaying though. It's fun when suddenly some "Raubritters" try to establish their own dominion in the Alps and you need to raise a quality army to crush the revolt.

I like it more than just having to face peasants and peasant crossbowmen and if you take care enough it doesn't hurt balance.

[xayoz306]

you could also edit the script for lack of cash eg

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType slave
and Treasury < 5000

add_money slave 9000

end_monitor

and try higher values.

As to units, I would have gone with the mercenary set of units (although I have edited my descr_rebel_factions.txt file to add a few more units to each rebel set.

Now, in that same vein, wouldn't I be able to, at that time, limit the amount of money that the rebels get as they lose settlements? Simple script along the lines of:

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType slave
and I_NumberOfSettlements slave < 96

increment_kings_purse slave 1000

end_monitor

Or something along those lines. Or even set up a counter for the rebel settlements that will do something to that effect. I'm just getting started with this sort of stuff, and so I'm not familiar with all of the possible commands that can be executed through the game...

Of course, the simple way, but long way, would be to create 96 different monitors to check for each loss of settlement.

As for the available units, as long as they are able to recruit some units at the onset of the game, and actually hold on to their city-states for a while, I'm happy... The edits I am making are great for turtles like myself, you want the AI to have something to keep their attention for a little bit. I do find if does make a bit more dynamics in the sense of the game...

Here is how my campaign may after 40 turns looks, using the Templars, with the edits:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Still learning GIMP, so I apologize for the large amount of white. The program just didn't want to blow it up the way I wanted, I guess.

So far, it appears that the Russian rebels are still quite fractious, which is fairly historical, as is the Arabian Peninsula. I know that it will still be hard to have the perfect set up, with all of the independencies set up, but it is a start.

As well, you I haven't had situations where I capture a rebel Minor City (Antioch) and have nothing built. They do a fairly good job of building up, trying to maintain public order, oddly enough.

[Quark]

xayoz306
I you want to base it on numbr of cities, you might try

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType slave
console_command add_money slave, 1000
end_monitor

as that would add for each settlement the Ai has. Not sure about impact on turn time, but it should be very small.

[xayoz306]

That might be the most effective solution, Quark. Thank you very much for the assistance. I know you and KK worked hard on the AI, so I feel a little guilty making changes to it, lol.

I'll make the necessary edits, give'er a try for a few turns, maybe a 100 or so, and then post some maps with the impact, and even a screen shot of a few of the stacks that I encounter along the way.

[EDraven]

xayoz306
I you want to base it on numbr of cities, you might try

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType slave
console_command add_money slave, 1000
end_monitor

as that would add for each settlement the Ai has. Not sure about impact on turn time, but it should be very small.

If you wanted to do this for al AI cities, how would you do it? And would it add considerable lag in turn time, do you think? My best guess is:

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType england
if IsAIcontrolled true; (forget the actual attribute here)
console_command add_money england, 1000
end;
end_monitor

monitor_event SettlementTurnStart FactionType france
if IsAIcontrolled true; (forget the actual attribute here)
console_command add_money france, 1000
end;
end_monitor

etc, once for each faction.

[xayoz306]

The goal of the mods I'm attempting is to just make the rebels a little more powerful, not attacking the factions themselves. I am seeing so far in the testing that I am doing that they are building, but they aren't providing much more of a challenge than before. It looks like they are concentrating their money in to buildings, ignoring troop building, or they are spending all of the allotted money on buildings before they can recruit troops. What I think I may do is see what the average income per settlement that I am making is, and then use that as the amount of money that the rebels get per turn as income, in addition to the income they may earn on a per turn basis.

On another note, does anyone know for certain if the rebels can be given the opportunity to build merchants? This would perhaps help them out in the income area, and give another challenge as rebel merchants could potentially swarm the world.

[Dr. Hook]

However it lands up I am looking forward to seeing what you can achieve. Would be nice to have the rebels make buildings and upgraded units, and build to replace units that get crunched during sieges. Good luck with it!

[xayoz306]

Okay, so I think I may have it figured out. Here is a screen shot from a recent test, I'm using France...




The rebels seem to be setting up armies at every chokepoint going towards Toulouse. As well, there are 1 to 2 full stack armies as well. As for composition, they have stacks with a fair mix of infantry (at this point, pretty much spearmen and peasant archers). In the cities, they are actually building them up to the point that they are growing, and while I haven't seen it yet, I could see the rebels actually upgrade a city. Who knows, still early in the campaign.

To get these results, I simply tweaked the descr_campaign_ai_db and the descr_campaign_db, as well as descr_strat, and the EDU/EDB. If people like, once I clean up a version of it, (ie remove the personal tweaks I made) I can post it for everyone's enjoyment