I really want to slow this game down, how do I do it?

[htismaqe]

I've tried playing as the Ptolemaic Empire, which was OK, but had to abandon due to CTD problems.

I then tried to play the Massalia campaign and found that no matter what, I was into a full-scale war with someone in the first 10 turns. And what really burns me is that it's ALWAYS somebody that I'm allied with!

In my last attempt, I took Aleria from Carthage. I was already enemies with Carthage as was Rome. Yet, the Roman AI decided they wanted Aleria at ALL COSTS and spammed 2-unit stacks at me until I relented and abandoned the island. I killed 2 generals with 5+ stars!

I've gotten advice from several people and it's all the same - blitz, blitz, and more blitz.

I HATE blitzing. That's really my problem. I like to BUILD. I would like to slow down population growth rates for one. And I would REALLY like my allies to respect the agreements they've signed. Can anybody suggest if any of the following would help me?

1) Buy Alexander - I've read here that the campaign map AI is much, much better.
2) Use Zarax's Alternate Gameplay submod - Sounds like this will slow the game down considerably.

Or could it be as simple as using some of the features already in XGM, like:

1) Turn Reduced AI bonuses on - so that they can't build armies as fast.
2) Play with Huge army size instead of large - this should deplete population so that cities don't get as large so fast.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I love this mod, but it just doesn't suit my style of play.

EDIT: Needed to add one other thought - the AI makes/breaks WAY too many alliances. They might declare war/ceasefire/war with the same faction once a turn for 10 turns. I have a feeling it's because the AI expands too quickly/aggressively without regard for consequences, like I described above. So in essence, I want to have the AI play a little more like me - TURTLE!

[Stilgar CG]

Well, you kinda answered your question. What was the problem with Ptolemies, btw? Cause, that was a good choice: a faction on the edge of the map: fewer foes and decent chance to turtle. Saba is also a good faction to have a slow but steady early/mid game.

[htismaqe]

Well, you kinda answered your question. What was the problem with Ptolemies, btw? Cause, that was a good choice: a faction on the edge of the map: fewer foes and decent chance to turtle. Saba is also a good faction to have a slow but steady early/mid game.

Ptolemy thing was that I forgot to turn off Autosave and started having CTD problems, to the point where the game wouldn't even load. And after thinking about it, I just wasn't feeling any passion for the game - I think it was the unit roster. I like the GCS roster a little better. And I was drawn to the Provincial campaigns because starting with a very small stack, 2 family members, and one city works for the turtle in me. I'm just a control freak. I don't like to start all spread out. I want to hand-pick my retinue and swap them around to fit each character, etc.

As for answering my own question, are you suggesting I should do D - all of the above?

[Athenogoras]

1) Buy Alexander - I've read here that the campaign map AI is much, much better.
2) Use Zarax's Alternate Gameplay submod - Sounds like this will slow the game down considerably.

Or could it be as simple as using some of the features already in XGM, like:

1) Turn Reduced AI bonuses on - so that they can't build armies as fast.
2) Play with Huge army size instead of large - this should deplete population so that cities don't get as large so fast.

Alexander-exe could be a good idea. AI combines stacks more and attack less in my opinion.
Zaraxs slowmod isnt updated to the latest version(his PC is down). Take a look at this though. Do it yourself-guide.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=124131&page=3
If you want to make the Ai even weaker you can play with reduced bonuses.(reduces bonuses not already reduced by Zaraxs guide)
Still play with large. With reduced bonuses and Zaraxs changes settlementgrowth is already reduced. With huge you would only counter AI-levies. Not much fun.

[htismaqe]

Alexander-exe could be a good idea. AI combines stacks more and attack less in my opinion.
Zaraxs slowmod isnt updated to the latest version(his PC is down). Take a look at this though. Do it yourself-guide.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=124131&page=3
If you want to make the Ai even weaker you can play with reduced bonuses.(reduces bonuses not already reduced by Zaraxs guide)
Still play with large. With reduced bonuses and Zaraxs changes settlementgrowth is already reduced. With huge you would only counter AI-levies. Not much fun.

Yeah, I don't want to neuter the AI, I just want them to be a little less aggressive. I'm gonna go ahead and order Alexander and go from there. Thanks for the suggestions.

Anyone else?

[Stilgar CG]

Well, you could try Cyrenaica provincial campaign. Greek unit roster, enemies coming one by one (likely order of appearance: Ptolemies-Saba-TSE) in early-mid game. I guess, you will have a good chance to control the pace of the game. You might try invading motherland - Greece - at some point or attempt a Pontic expedition .
I think, autosave can be disabled in the middle of the campaign.

[htismaqe]

Well, you could try Cyrenaica provincial campaign. Greek unit roster, enemies coming one by one (likely order of appearance: Ptolemies-Saba-TSE) in early-mid game. I guess, you will have a good chance to control the pace of the game. You might try invading motherland - Greece - at some point or attempt a Pontic expedition .
I think, autosave can be disabled in the middle of the campaign.

Yeah, I was already thinking about Cyrene even before this, but if I can slow things down a bit, I might try Massalia again - I like the location.

And yeah, I disabled autosave, but by that time, my main gamesave was an overwrite of an existing autosave, so it contained the same corruption.

[TheSavage]

You can also reduce movement rates in descr_character.txt... That will slow things down!

[htismaqe]

You can also reduce movement rates in descr_character.txt... That will slow things down!

Movement rates for the campaign or battle map? I thought XGM included reduced movement rates by default?

[Scutarii]

Your problem is that your playing a provincial campaign... They all require blitzing initially because of their tough starting position (one city, terrible economy), and Massalia is the hardest of the prov's anyways... Try Saba for turtling, their fun.

[htismaqe]

Well, I may go back to playing Egypt again, I don't know. I still think Cyrene might give me the opportunity to not get into a blitzfest.

For right now, I'm gonna wait until Alexander gets here to play again. If all else fails, I'm gonna implement the changes from Zarax's slowmod too. Then it won't matter who I use, I can just play and have fun.

[htismaqe]

I started thinking about this last night.

Why do farms affect population growth so much? Heck, why do they affect it at all? In many ways, the mechanic of farming is broken. It's not so much unrealistic as that it causes people to play in an "anti-realistic" fashion.

Off the top of my head, I can think of several reasons why people flocked to cities - commerce and religion being the two major ones. Advanced farming techniques didn't LEAD to increased urbanization, but they were certainly needed to SUPPORT it. In the ancient world, people migrated to population centers to find jobs, be entertained, and visit the temple. Sure, most of the worlds largest ancient cities were founded in fertile farming areas - FOUNDED. You can't have a bunch of people gather in one place if you can't feed them. But once population growth started, simply producing more food didn't cause more people to come.

In game terms, what do I mean?

Well, for starters, farms shouldn't CAUSE population growth - higher-tier ports, markets, arenas, temples, and the like should. Farms should be REQUIRED in order for cities to grow past certain thresholds, however. Like I said, you can't have a huge city if the people are starving. These two things would end what I referred to as "anti-realistic" strategies - virtually everyone playing this game builds the first two tiers of farms and then stops so that their cities don't grow out of control. I call it "anti-realistic" because they shouldn't be able to get big cities without the farms to feed the people.

[Athenogoras]

Thanks for interesting post.

In many ways, the mechanic of farming is broken. It's not so much unrealistic as that it causes people to play in an "anti-realistic" fashion.

Agreed. I find myself blitzing the Ai so that they cannot make too many farmupgrades since it will make the city harder to control in my hands. This is especially so if enemy is of another culture(since the farms are indestructable they cause unrest if another culture).

In the ancient world, people migrated to population centers to find jobs, be entertained, and visit the temple.

Agreed. Other reasons: Security, political decisions(colonies), necessity(centralisation of land)

farms shouldn't CAUSE population growth - higher-tier ports, markets, arenas, temples, and the like should.

Agreed. For example the plebs of Rome were supported with grain from Sicily and later Egypt. I would also add slavery as a cause of population growth in cities. Slaves free citizens from farm and mining labour.

Farms should be REQUIRED in order for cities to grow past certain thresholds

Yes probably more realistic

Edit: Lets not forget that the population we see in a settlement really is the population of the whole region. That it is not a measurement of urbanisation but of the number of people the whole region can support

[TheSavage]

I started thinking about this last night.
Why do farms affect population growth so much? Heck, why do they affect it at all? In many ways, the mechanic of farming is broken. It's not so much unrealistic as that it causes people to play in an "anti-realistic" fashion.

I see where you're coming from, but sorta disagree. The "city" represents not just the city itself but also the surrounding region. In the ancient world, famine was a common problem in many areas. A region that was rich in foodstuffs might experience faster population growth both because it avoided famine, and also because it would have been generally prosperous, being able to trade the surplus foods for other goods.

That said, I agree that commerce played a greater role than is represented, and many of the truly huge cities in the ancient world grew so large due to commerce, not just efficient farming. (That's one reason I like M2TW engine better... you can alter all the settlement mechanics easily to, for instance, reduce the influence of farming on pop growth and increase the influence of trade.)

I see what you mean about anti-realilstic though. I agree that farms could be required to expand the city, and maybe also they could contribute to trade if you have farms build above what is required by the city.

[htismaqe]

I see where you're coming from, but sorta disagree. The "city" represents not just the city itself but also the surrounding region. In the ancient world, famine was a common problem in many areas. A region that was rich in foodstuffs might experience faster population growth both because it avoided famine, and also because it would have been generally prosperous, being able to trade the surplus foods for other goods.

Very true on the first point. In cases of famine, an area extremely rich in food production might see increased population due solely to producing more food. However, I would argue that trading surplus food is a function of trade rather than farming. In game terms, that again leads me back to the MARKET increasing population, not the farm.

I see what you mean about anti-realilstic though. I agree that farms could be required to expand the city, and maybe also they could contribute to trade if you have farms build above what is required by the city.

There's just something that's not right about the fact that one of the most-frequent suggestions that the vets of this game give the n00bs is "don't build farms!"

[Scutarii]

Lets not forget that the population we see in a settlement really is the population of the whole region. That it is not a measurement of urbanisation but of the number of people the whole region can support

I think this is really where the problem of farming comes from: sometimes CA wanted the city to represent just itself (like port upgrades and stuff --> there would be more than one port in a province in RL), and sometimes entire provinces (farming upgrades, more efficient farms)

[Zarax]

You might try to balance farms in a way that they give a mix of farming and trade bonuses so that upgrading the farms won't always lead to more pop growth.
Either that or place a negative population growth bonus to the higher level farms.

[htismaqe]

I was thinking a bit about both actually.

I think the lower-level farms would induce negative population growth because you'd be struggling to produce enough to feed the people you have. Only advanced farming techniques would actually lead to population growth, primarily because advanced farming was less agricultural and more industrial - large farms needed lots more people to function than just the farmer were tended to by indentured servants, paid workers, or slaves.

And of course, advanced farming techniques/higher-tier farms would ultimately lead to potential food surplus, which could mean trade bonuses or whatever.

Do you guys think it's worth discussing this in a separate thread?

EDIT - one thing about your approach that I like is that attaching negative growth bonuses to the upper-tier farms would ENCOURAGE the player to build them, rather than the avoidance game that's played today.

[TheSavage]

EDIT - one thing about your approach that I like is that attaching negative growth bonuses to the upper-tier farms would ENCOURAGE the player to build them, rather than the avoidance game that's played today.

I don't believe the negative growth bonuses actually work unless you already have positive bonuses from other buildings in the city. In RS there are buildings with negative growth bonuses (suburbs, etc.), I've tested them, and they don't work. I've looked at the EDB code and it looks fine, I've even gone in and tried increasing the negative bonus, and it doesn't make a difference.

In other words, if you don't have other buildings giving positive pop growth bonuses, then then the direct pop growth bonus is already at "0" and it can't go into the negative. The negative bonuses won't reduce pop growth from other factors like farming upgrades or base farming level.

Maybe one option is rework the bonuses for a variety of buildings to make higher populations more tolerable. For example, you could give the highest level entertainment and cultural buildings much bigger happiness and law bonuses, allowing cities to grow to 50k without becoming unmanageable due to squalor.

[htismaqe]

That's certainly discouraging info...

EDIT: If you up the bonuses of health and cultural buildings, you really only exascerbate the problem. Players will build those buildings all day, to get the massive bonuses, and still won't build farms. It will actually make the problem worse.