nerfing large empires

[Quinn Inuit]

I think large empires need to have brakes put on their expansion. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking increased unit upkeep, trade income penalties...any other ideas?

My preliminary plan is a 20% increase in unit upkeep. Maybe more. That will scale nicely to prevent the accumulation of huge armies. But the AI is stupid, and might overbuild units. I'd hate to see the AI screw itself.

[decimator22]

Very High culture penalty and trade penalty in far away provinces? and a trigger after 40 or 30 settlemnts to make settlements rebel with generals or simply to aument the cost(IDK if its possible)

And make it only affect the Human Player

[Jamey]

Very High culture penalty and trade penalty in far away provinces? and a trigger after 40 or 30 settlemnts to make settlements rebel with generals or simply to aument the cost(IDK if its possible)

There are already massive penalties to civil order and income in large empires. The distance from capital penalty to order gets as high as 80% (you'll even see that in some starting Seleucid settlements). I've seen the corruption penalty eat up 3/4 or more of the income from far flung settlements until I've put in a concerted effort to reduce corruption with law bonuses.

Hmm... Quinn, I'm presuming that you're looking to nerf primarily the AI's early expansion. :hmmm:

One interesting thought would be to start out the larger empires with more garrison troops and less front line troops. Seleucia, for example, has Chalks for most of its garrison forces. It's very easy for a human or the AI to build garrison troops and free up a huge pike army. Making those troops less standardized with more local garrison units would be time consuming but likely effective. Also, adding more inefficient starting units to the attack forces would help to reduce immediate conquests. Units like elephants and heavy cavalry are never as good as their maintenance in autoresolve.

Another way to deal with this would be to increase the recruitment cost of some of the larger factions' units. That would slow down their ability to recruit new front line units and force them to make do with weaker garrison forces. This would require careful balancing, of course.

Another thought would be to place the attack forces internally to force the larger factions to spend several turns moving the troops forward before attacking. This may give their opponents more time to make their grab for the rebel holdings. It may also allow the large factions to grab settlements weakened by their smaller neighbors. Again, careful balancing would be required.

At the end of the day, Carthage, Seleucia, and Ptolemy are going to start with stronger economies because historically they were bigger and had stronger economies. It's going to be hard to reconcile that fact with slow expansion given their starting situation.

[Lord Dakier]

Armenia and Pontus should be getting to that rebel city that pontus take over at the same time. Its south of Kotais. Armenia probably have one of the hardest times cause their infantry being so weak.

[Delvecchio1975]

The Seleucids don't need nerfing in ExRM i think. Since I reinstalled it about a month or three ago, i played (or started playing) perhaps 6 or 7 campaigns, and they get eaten up consistently by the Ptolemies, and in a rather short timespan as well. As Jamey said, they have very expensive garrissons in their central cities, but i think the AI doesn't know how to replace them with cheap units to move the chalks to the front line. if you look at the efficiency of the pike units in autoresolve, i propose nerfing macedonia and the ptolemies by making training times of pikes three turns (instead of resp. one and two) and the seleucids two turns. this will overpower the greeks though, so their hoplites should be two turns, or maybe even three (to stay equal to the macedons). historically they were able to field large armies, but not in short timespans like the romans... just a thought of course .... but i guess if you do this type of nerfing, the balance of the armies gets screwed up? skirmishers only probably?

[LeoDowner]

In my campaigns (3 so far) the only problem faction has been the Ptollies. Like Delvecchio said they get through the whole Seleucid Empire very very quickly. In one Roman campaign I was getting attacked by the Ptollies at Byzantion around 220bc after they had conquered all of Asia Minor.

Small factions like Pontus, Parthia & Armenia don't stand a chance of growth when the Ptollies become so powerful that fast.

My current campaign is like a ticking time bomb. The Ptollies are the only superpower and they own the whole eastern half of the map apart from the North East. When they attack me I might play a few turns before getting bored of fighting the same full stack armies over and over, causing me to start another campaign.

[Wien1938]

In my experience from 3.2, increasing the build times of the better troops does lead to more balanced armies. Phalangites took a lot longer to train because the drill had to be of a very high standard to avoid being unreliable on the field.
From historical battles, light infantry should make up about 1/2 of normal armies.

[caldarium]

IMO, the Ptollies (I like that) have a distinct advantage because the western border is secure. Even if they get trounced up in Asia Minor early on by GCS, Big Blue, or Pontus they still only have the single front to their northeast. Big Blue gets devoured on all sides and the Ptollies clean up.

I've never seen the AI invade Cyprus, Cyrene, or Egypt proper that I can recall - that would slow them down, methinks. I don't know if you include the Cypriot cities as win conditions for the GCS it would help. I guess you could also increase dissent against them in Babylonian territories (lot of bad blood there).

If it helps, in my recent campaign I have seen Macedon get beaten up by the Illyrians, who in turn are bested by the GCS. Meanwhile Thrace happily moves northwest and gets beefy and the Ptollies gradually move through former Seleucid areas until they are beating on Pontus and Bactria. The west is fairly stable with the Numidians eventually falling to Carthage. The Ptollies are by far the largest followed by moi.

[decimator22]

The GCS do invade Cyrene, mytiline, rhodos and cyprus some times but they constantly make peace.

[caledonius]

What about making Persians more aggressive and give them a better chance to expand,perhaps they could be modded to have the Egyptians as enemies.
i am not a modder but can change the odd file and i have tried to help the Persians in other mods,some of the things i have tried are,gave them loads of money,reduced build times to 1 turn,changed their form wharever trader to same as macs in the hope that that would make them expand
Apart from staying in the game longer the biggest i saw them get was down to the nile before the bactrians over ran them.It would also tie up the Egyptians a bit if that was possible and i have never fought the Persians with Rome as they are always gone whenever i have reached that area.

[Quinn Inuit]

Thank you all for your input. I think your perspectives have been valuable in getting at the problem in different ways.

Here are the causes of trouble that I've pulled out of your posts, followed by proposed fixes:
1) Macs occasionally moving north
I'm discussing a potential map-based solution to this with PatricianS. I think we've a plan.

2) GCS won't do good naval invasions of the Ptolemies.
The AI for this is remarkably dim. I think PatricianS may have developed a map-based solution, though. It's not exactly realistic, but I think it will work extremely well.

3) Ptolies have it too easy.
This is a problem. I was initially thinking dropping the occasionally raiding army of Nubians on their border, but experience with the Sarmatian raiding script has shown that doesn't always work well. I think the best option may be to give them a trade income nerf similar to what we've done to Greece.

4) Big Blue gets overwhelmed.
I think you've identified a real problem here. Big Blue has so many troops early on that it can't pay the upkeep, causing it to get gradually further behind in development. Meanwhile, the AI empires can expand gradually and more solidly. I think the AI just needs more $.
The question, then, is how to give Seleucia more money. Clearly, ancient Persia was a wealthy place, able to afford to field vast armies. How do we replicate that? Should we increase farm income and decrease trade income across the board? Should we script extra money for Big Blue? I'm not sure how to proceed here.

[Delvecchio1975]

2) carthage is a REAL pain for rome though in the first 20 years - how is that done then?

4) making their armies cheaper, but still solid? ~ deleting the expensive starting cavalry they have, replacing the gold shields with persian pikes?

[Preskinn]

Hi Quinn!
First let me say I am enjoying this mod very much, it has been verly long since I had so much fun in a campaign!

To me a good faction balance is one that makes it possible for differentfactions to become in different games - Without fielding 20 huge stacks

I think you have achieved parts of this, few full stacks and thus far I am having a world map far into the game that is more balanced than usual.

The way I see it there is two problems.

1. Macedonians.
- I don't know how much of a problem they pose anymore, as I crushed them early on in my game as Rome this time, but I think mainly their greatness is a result from very good troops combined with their wealthy lands - a combo of reducing initial development and raising troop-costs/training-times should be able to make them more balanced maybe.

2. Seleucids/Ptollies/carthage.
Might pitching them against eachother instead of nerfing them solv the problems? Making life a little harder for them - else we are allways going to end up with the same results - 3-4 big empires having a real hard time with the economy, one eventually crumbling down (Seleucids) and giving space for the others to expand (ptollies).

In my latest game(s) I have noted a few things.

- Carthage allways get very big, taking all of northafrica and eventually spain and gaul.

- At the same time, Ptollies wear down the selucids because it is the only thing they can do.

- Seleucids fight against everyone untill they are worn down mainly by ptollies.

So what to do? In my opinion:
Make Celtiberians (who hardly expand at all) stronger, give them a settlement or two more, and some more trade and more upgraded lands. - that way Carth won't steamroll them. Numidia seems to fight prety good, even if they die - they are ok. Still, carth has only one way to go and will allmost certainly kill everything.

One way I see to solve the selucid/ptollie/carth question is a uncomfortable way. - To remove the landblock. This would give carth and ptollies something else to worry about, and the possibility of making selucids weaker AND with less garrissons, rather than stronger with more garrissons eating away at their economy. This could balance things out - but then again - we have the landblock for a reason. w/o it there would probably be no historical expanssion for carth....

The more I think about it the more I believe what really needs to be done is this:

- Keep the landblock.
- make celtiberians stronger to create a real war when carth gets there.
- beef numidians just a little.

- Nerf ptollies alot via trade & longer recruitment times. (stats of units?)
- Reduce Seleucid garissons, and make them weaker economicaly.

(on a other note, germans should be beefed up a bit, via trade and populationboost - in my games they have a hard time)

Maybe this would make the Seleucids fight level with its enemies, and ptollies wouldn't be able to get so dominant later on? Hopefully the smaller factions together could hold the Seleucids back, they are allready sort of at the hight of their power no, it Should be difficult for them. And if they die, ptollies wouldn't be able to steamroll everyone else. This would require a heavy nerf of ptollies (but they have only a corner to defend so it should be ok IMO).

Think about it, if it works we could have a small empire in egypt, a hardpressed Seleucid empire, and several interesting small states rising to medium power in later games. (A very interesting potential I think)

A lot of text, I hope it makes sense and that my point go through somehow. Awesome mod!

// Preskinn

[Delvecchio1975]

- Keep the landblock.
- make celtiberians stronger to create a real war when carth gets there.
- beef numidians just a little.

- Nerf ptollies alot via trade & longer recruitment times. (stats of units?)
- Reduce Seleucid garissons, and make them weaker economicaly.

- agreed, i don't want to see a desert slug fest between carthage and ptolemies
- don't agree, the celtiberians will steamroll the gauls if made stronger
- in my campaigns, it's a 50/50 between numdia and carthage, since carthage invests some much in landing troops in italy and sicily (prefers naval invasion). quite often carthage loses out against numidia; numidia doesn't need beefing at all IMHO.
- instead of nerfing the ptolemies, the seleucids should be beefed up, to withstand the onslaught from virtually every side better. nerfing the ptolemies and leaving the seleucids in their current weak state, will just create a walk in the park for the macedonians - return of the black death!

[Preskinn]

- agreed, i don't want to see a desert slug fest between carthage and ptolemies
- don't agree, the celtiberians will steamroll the gauls if made stronger
- in my campaigns, it's a 50/50 between numdia and carthage, since carthage invests some much in landing troops in italy and sicily (prefers naval invasion). quite often carthage loses out against numidia; numidia doesn't need beefing at all IMHO.
- instead of nerfing the ptolemies, the seleucids should be beefed up, to withstand the onslaught from virtually every side better. nerfing the ptolemies and leaving the seleucids in their current weak state, will just create a walk in the park for the macedonians - return of the black death!

- hum, ok. In my game, with no intervention from me or carth they did not expand more than one city before being anihalated by carthage. It was quite many turns in.
- ok, I pushed them back to africa early so that explains that.
- Maybe, I am just afraid the smaller factions will suffer from it, long into the game they have just managed to get a foothold and a few more settlements each.

we have some different experiance, but I see your points. it is hard :s

[Delvecchio1975]

it is hard :s

it is, ol' chap, it is. what i notice is that for some people their campaigns always go one way, for other people always an entirely other way. it's like dependent on the timezone you're in or something. maybe something in the water? star signs? :hmmm:

[Domitan]

How about just giving Selucids a lot more starting development. I.E all the cities have the maximum income stuff built from the start. And maybe some big cash injections. Not sure if this will OP them to much but they dont have a chance in hell at the moment. As galatia you can literally take the entire area around them in about 10 turns with selucids being able to do practically nothing to stop them.

Or is there anyway to stop the selucids and the other eastern empires it is allied with breaking there alliances so early. Not sure if that could be implemented but giving them like 100 turns before the alliances are broken will give them less enemies to fight early on.

[Delvecchio1975]

that might be a thought. there used to be roads in mesopotamia in those days, right? why don't we give the main cities a roads network, that should boost their income from the start ....
i don't think they should get the entire development, we should try going halfway first ...

[Domitan]

I might start a game as selucids tonight and see how much the credit crunch is effecting them per turn id imagine its at least - 10000 a turn.

[Delvecchio1975]

if you don't dissolve your cavalry you're in for an economic downturn. you'll be nationalizing your mortgage companies before you know it!