This mod is hard! Filing chapter 11...

**TeeWee** · September 25, 2008, 11:13 AM

Just started a first tentative game as Denmark in Early Campaign. Can you say "cash stripped"! I did put all my men in settlements to prevent the money script from kicking in, but that isn't enough.

I guess one of the first things I should have done is to disband a lot of troops instead of trying to expand in any way. Guess I'll have to try again, as I'm in a bit of a bankruptcy spiral now

Oh, how accurate are the financial forecasts in the financial screen with the money scripts anyway? Or is the "in the field" penalty for your armies the only important one?

**SicilianVespers** · September 25, 2008, 06:58 PM

You should be able to adjust it based on how many characters you have in the field.

**Grimmy** · September 25, 2008, 11:01 PM

I had a hella hard time getting "in the black" financially, as well as keeping any sort of positive population growth in my first attempts at this mod.

Please keep in mind that I tend to play on m/m so your mileage may vary, but here's what I did to fix both those issues.

1. As with military settlements, not all civilian settlements are created equal. Careful study of the building info screen in each of your civilian settlements will tell you which is what. Some, maybe just one or maybe even one you need to eventually conquer, will have some non combat units available earlier than the others, and the same units will be available trough a wider variety of buildings. That town will tend to grow quicker than the others, have less probs with loyalty issues and probably end up as your economic engine.

2. Expanding in this mod is a bit of a balancing act. If done too quickly, you'll be in constant financial difficulty. If put off too long, you'll stagnate both financially and population wise.

3. Adding buildings to the build que when they give pop growth bonus is as important as adding those that only give trade/financial bonus.

I've developed a series of personal "rules of thumb" that fits well enough for my games so far, and that is this:

Pop growth first, financial growth second, military growth last.
In the beginning, have all civ settlements set to normal tax and disband military units in order of highest maint first, until the cash flow shows slightly positive. Then adjust taxes as needed, but attempt to keep them at normal as much as possible... that whole Pop Growth First thing.

No military unit recruiting except what is needful for internal rebel pacification. Disband recruited units when possible. Military maint kills.

Once my financials are able to create a surplus of coin in excess of 1200 per turn on average at normal tax setting, I'll begin recruiting my army of expansion. Keep the maint on that army at or below 1000 per turn. Raise taxes as high as necessary while army is in the field to limit coin loss due to expeditionary expenses. Return taxes to normal as soon as profitably possible. Dont get greedy with the looting of newly conquered settlements. Each settlement taken will be adding anywhere from 500 to 1300 in coin to your per turn bottom line. Any debt incurred by the expedition goes away rather quickly. By not looting, you keep the pop. Settlements grow slooooowly, or at least seem to. So I don't kill any of my new citizens that I dont absolutely have to.

4. Sea trade is great. Lots of money to be made in sea trade. Sea trade is also a pirate magnet and I've yet to develop sea trade to enough coin to offset the costs of the fleet I have to keep on hand to keep the blockading rats off my ports. So, I tend to skip sea trade development until after I've gotten a geographically stable and defensible land area secured.

Hope I didn't break any rules in posting the above ideas and suggestions. Also I do hope that the ideas and suggestions submitted aren't totally dumb**s and stoopid.

**DaVinci** · September 26, 2008, 01:06 AM

In contrary, this is a very well reflection of what was the intention within the cash-flow model, and of course with the background to make it a historical reflection, and i think we did this quite good via the tech-tree and related files.
Players who already know or knew the original ChivalryTW mod have it a bit easier to getting this special gameplay in order for Chivalry II.

**TeeWee** · September 26, 2008, 10:45 AM

@Grimmy: I think I'll do stuff like that in my next ChivII game. Thanks for your views!

Originally Posted by DaVinci

In contrary, this is a very well reflection of what was the intention within the cash-flow model, and of course with the background to make it a historical reflection, and i think we did this quite good via the tech-tree and related files.
Players who already know or knew the original ChivalryTW mod have it a bit easier to getting this special gameplay in order for Chivalry II.

Oh, I'm in no way debating the accuracy or inaccuracy of the costs of maintenance. I'm just taken a bit aback by the severity of it! It's the least forgiving of the mods I have sampled thus far, financially speaking.

**Grimmy** · September 26, 2008, 10:40 PM

One thing I do that tends to help me quite a bit is to take the time to "test drop" different buildings in the first slot of the build que while I have the settlement details up. This lets me see what each building will affect in areas of growth and income. It's not always the same cause and effect expected from vanilla or other mods.

**SicilianVespers** · September 27, 2008, 07:23 AM

This is obvious to DV and I, but I am not so sure everyone understands the purpose of the economics, field costs, etc...

Historically, feudal forces only had to serve for around 60 days a year (+/-), and even then in the campaign season (summer).

The hard economy, and field costs are used to "encourage" the player to release his feudal forces once the task is completed. They finish their service, and go home to their farms, fiefs, etc... Only the most advanced states like Byzantium, Sicily, and the Islamic states could afford standing armies (Paid in the case of Sicily, and Byz, Military slaves (ie. Ghulams) in the Islamic states).

**DaVinci** · September 27, 2008, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by SicilianVespers

This is obvious to DV and I, but I am not so sure everyone understands the purpose of the economics, field costs, etc...

Historically, feudal forces only had to serve for around 60 days a year (+/-), and even then in the campaign season (summer).

The hard economy, and field costs are used to "encourage" the player to release his feudal forces once the task is completed. They finish their service, and go home to their farms, fiefs, etc... Only the most advanced states like Byzantium, Sicily, and the Islamic states could afford standing armies (Paid in the case of Sicily, and Byz, Military slaves (ie. Ghulams) in the Islamic states).

Sure, true ... this was a basic idea already by the early Chiv I TW inventers/makers, even alpaca put out this rule as he did version 0.34

and i developed the mod further in that tradition.
Whereas, this holds only the first turns, especially in RTW (anyway, Chiv I TW became more and more userfriendly with the years, because people often moaned a lot about money issues and a too hard play, so we softened it up for the Softies

(but Chiv I TW is pretty much balanced perfect globally in the meantime, while Chiv II SV needs still 2-3 years before the balance would be really finished, to be honest

yes, so it is, balancing needs years if properly done for a map and faction number that this mod has, but maybe we won't have the same heavy approach in Chiv II, a half good balanced mod is better than a not-at-all balanced mod) ... however we should keep the hard-style in Chiv II and increase it still

... ie. we need to implement still a script that subtracts money from the human player in intervalls in the later game as for decadent feudal festivals

).
And, it is also possible in Chiv I TW and in Chiv II TW SV to maintain units without to disband them all for the first turns. As for Chiv I TW this is possible to a certain degree depending on the faction and how you start, quite easily. In Chiv II TW SV we increased these less-money effects immensely as for the far better and opened options via the very much changed file-structures in edb, and especially of course the camp script plus also traits and ancs and even the descr_strat has more options in cash flow ... this is a big advantage when modding M2

**firekiller** · September 27, 2008, 09:08 AM

Well i always am bankrupt in the beging in the game i always secrifise all my family members (exept 1 or 2 who i put in settelment). Wenn i start i get all rebels i can getthen total disbanned else you never get money.

I am now byz empire in rennecaise and it is hard making money but you can do it if you just allie very 1 and dont do many stuff for the first 50 turns

(only building economic buildings

)

**Grimmy** · September 27, 2008, 10:44 PM

Keep in mind that I've only played Saxons in the Darkages, but so far, I find the economic system in this mod to make perfect sense. It takes a bit of experimenting to relearn which building does exactly what, and also to catch on to the differences between the various settlement types, but once the pattern is learned, it's not at all difficult to manage.

The fielded unit script also makes sense and is easy enough to manage once it's figured out.

One of the things I really appreciate about this mod is the additional strategic thinking that needs to go into decisions on when to start building toward specific economy/trade areas.

For example, I find that building much in the way of sea trade before a fairly large defensive fleet can be supported financially without sea trade can cause me problems.

In most other mods, it's just a case of build it, get the bennies, move on. In this mod, I often find myself pausing to think on the timing of what I'm building.

**Argent Usher** · September 30, 2008, 06:04 AM

ATM i play (third try

) a Khazar Khaganate VH/VH campaign in DA and it is the hardest game i ever played in the total war series.
Only one town and near completly surrounded with AI factions, no ressources, no money and with judaism you have no religion buildings except the synagoge with limited priests.
Your army eats really fast your starting money but the old khan is a though guy mostly kills anyone alone.

Note: I play currently with the last XAI files (3.2).

Regards A.U.

**jnecros** · October 05, 2008, 03:31 AM

I build many forts, adds a feudal feel and is a good upkeep shelter for those high end starting units. For non Islamic factions it is the first activity I do, often get into positive cash flow within a few turns, as my army expands, so do the number of forts. Mounting a campian is tricky and expensive, requiring a few turns of moving all the units stationed in the various forts to a central local then striking.

I would agree however that starting any faction, well at least in the Dark and Early ages, is a receipe for bankruptcy. I assume its to create an additional challange for the player..as the CPU is uneffected and the situation is contrary to history. No "power" of these ages would be bankrupt by the few thousand man armies you start with, not to mention many would have had some of the economic ties you are forced to establish manually(trade agreements) and all would have had a good number of economic buildings in place already.

**TeeWee** · October 05, 2008, 05:59 AM

I restarted several games now just to get the flavour of the mod and now have decided to recreate al-Andalus. It's a slow start, much slower than anything else I've played (even PDER is easier on the cash flow). It seems that overextending is almost certain to happen!

I must say that the building tree is complicated and takes a while to get a feel for it. It would be handy to have a proper building tree help-file or something. Also, the rules for garrisons are a bit hit-and-miss for me. I'll probably get used to it, but at the beginning of the game, every lost florin hurts!

**Mattress** · October 05, 2008, 11:53 PM

Couple ways you can easily get a jump on a good economy.

Everyone has expansion on the mind when it comes down to it. Doesn't matter if it's 200 turns or 20 playstyle wise. Just dont build anything (building wise) right away and try to consolidate your troops. The latter is very situational and can often just lead to war.

Anyway, just subjugate a people. Don't wipe them out. Once they are a vassal, the cash ROLLS IN. Again, this is only viable to certain factions. With the Romans in the Dark Ages, you just make the Langobards a vassal straight away. Then take Sicily.

Really, economy wise, focus on your big two cities first. DA Romans the top 3 are Athens, Thessaly and Constantinople. Easily can be turned into an economy that doesn't get super inflated. I like sitting at 10 to 20k in back cash, but I'll spend if I get too high. I'm not a fan of having 100k plus. That's too easy and really not realistic. When I go on a war spree, or building spree, I end up going negative, which is working as intending, at least in my eyes.

Hope this helps.