Some observations...

[danielc]

I've been playing v6.0, and I'm really enjoying my campaign, nonetheless, I thought I'd share some observations on some things that could be changed to improve gameplay, aiming for a more "realistic" experience. For instance:

- Upgrading a town to next level should be tied to building a new city hall, or mayors house, and not to building new walls. Walls should be tied to increasing your cities defences. This would a better representation of receiving a new city charter from the king.

- Access to new units should be tied to building the next level Blacksmith/Armourer, not barracks. What difference is there between training a billmen versus a heavy billmen? It all comes down to your ability to equip them, not training grounds.

- Upgrading to next level barracks should be tied ONLY to how many units you can produce per city in one turn, and how many you get to garrison for free.

- Why is there a need to upgrade your ballista manufacturing facilities? Is the same materials for all of them, wood and iron. Perhaps limit the ability to build a ballista manufacturing facility to one city, and allow from then on full production of ballistas, trebuchets, etc.

- I'm not sure on this point, but it seems revenue from taxes is not tied to population number, which seems wrong to me. The more population one has, the more taxes I should be able to collect, since everything goes up, commerce, mining production, farming, etc. As the cities grow, I seem to get less taxes, as I need to lower the tax bracket to keep the population happy, so I get less money. Even though I lower taxes I should get more money, since I have more people to tax.

- If population goes down, and my tax revenue goes down, it should be harder to maintain city structures, so perhaps there should be a script that generates damage to walls and buildings automatically, if I cannot pay for their upkeep, so that I'm forced to make repairs to them once revenue goes up.

That's it!

Cheers!

[ivanhoex]

1- its tied to market level, not walls. market level is tied to how you perform in the administrative/diplomacy area of the game

2- the game has a logic on this, you hire the troops, they come trained and equiped, if you dont have a blacksmith to buy the stuff there, equipment will come from other place, but if you want to give better armor to the troops that has been hired poorly dressed, you will have to build a blacksmith.

it makes the game easier / actually playable. else in order to build an armored bowmen you would need: archery range + blacksmith + swordsmith + barracks + leather..er + tailor + fisherman + agricultured lands + cattle + tavern + ..........

3- how would this mechanic work? i dont understand.

4- because the materials needed to build bigger, stronger and more sophisticated stuff implies from more funds to more manpower (experts in the area included), so with a small amount of money you can make things start to work, but if you want a quality production you will have to hire lots of especialists and workers, giving more power to the man in charge, etc etc, and that means more and more and more money from you. the game allows several steps and is not chargin you for the final building from point zero, that building would also be out of place if the castle is still a motte and bailey (the whole factory would rival with the lord´s chambers..)

5- and you also have greater problems around, policing the city is not as easy as it was, better buildings means a lot of working hands repairing and keeping them in shape, bureocrats and handywork is needed in every building you make, from sewers to mayor´s house, going through barracks and blacksmith...
and city politics become an issue of importance, too many independent cities about that time, just read about italy.. if city goes too big, it is needed great effort to keep it in line.
normally, a DLV´s governor has enough pollitic´s awareness to keep the city extremely loyal to the crown.
i have an average of 190% loyalty in very large cities, with a normal governor and high taxes (very high taxes means your governors are too greedy and that is not a good trait)
also having a great marketting hub means that you can get expert merchants, quality militiamen, experts from blacksmith to sieging equipment, huge faith centers that helps propagate your people´s belief, better training grounds to your nobility...... and later on, confort and learning will help the technologics developments needed to grasp the power of black powder.

6- you are actually paying for each building´s maintenance. so no prob. there.
if your town is sacked or exterminated by an enemy, you will certainly suffer structure loss.

if you are so in the red that you need every penny, you can always sell buildings.
you get a refund for it and you dont need to pay their upkeep next turn. that is exactly what you ask for.




=)

didnt mean to write this down as a flame, but to help you see the actual system from a different perspective.

[Taiji]

Hiya, thanks for sharing your ideas, they're not too shabby either

I hope you don't mind if I offer my feedback on them:

- Upgrading a town to next level should be tied to building a new city hall, or mayors house, and not to building new walls. Walls should be tied to increasing your cities defences. This would a better representation of receiving a new city charter from the king.

Nice idea but some units are recruited from that building line, it would reduce the work required to make them available to none which will negatively affect gameplay. They could be built in other buildings though.

- Access to new units should be tied to building the next level Blacksmith/Armourer, not barracks. What difference is there between training a billmen versus a heavy billmen? It all comes down to your ability to equip them, not training grounds.

Again, nice idea and I agree that some units should be tied to smith level but then where do armor upgrades come from? If it's the same building that the troops come from then again (and in the same way) it negatively affects gameplay.

- Upgrading to next level barracks should be tied ONLY to how many units you can produce per city in one turn, and how many you get to garrison for free.

Really nice idea, it might be nice to think of some combination of wall and barracks for working out free upkeep slots.

- Why is there a need to upgrade your ballista manufacturing facilities? Is the same materials for all of them, wood and iron. Perhaps limit the ability to build a ballista manufacturing facility to one city, and allow from then on full production of ballistas, trebuchets, etc.

So that the player is forced to spend more money, time and thought on getting all siege machines available.

- I'm not sure on this point, but it seems revenue from taxes is not tied to population number, which seems wrong to me. The more population one has, the more taxes I should be able to collect, since everything goes up, commerce, mining production, farming, etc. As the cities grow, I seem to get less taxes, as I need to lower the tax bracket to keep the population happy, so I get less money. Even though I lower taxes I should get more money, since I have more people to tax.

There is the issue of the more population you have the more it costs to administer the city. You do not need to lower taxes, you just need a governer and some nice buildings, that will do you nicely

- If population goes down, and my tax revenue goes down, it should be harder to maintain city structures, so perhaps there should be a script that generates damage to walls and buildings automatically, if I cannot pay for their upkeep, so that I'm forced to make repairs to them once revenue goes up.

Interesting idea, there is no upkeep for buildings that I know of but you could have a scripted limit that population cannot fall beneath for a specific level of city, I figure you mean something like that.

Anyway, nice ideas +rep

[danielc]

Ivanhoex & Taiji:

Thank you both for the input, and for the Rep, much appreciated. I'd like to go more in depth into what I initially wrote, so it becomes more clear what I'm thinking. So, here it is:

Stables + knight's training hall + Blacksmith = Light cavalry/Knights

Barracks + Drill Square + Blacksmith = Infantry

Barracks + Bowyer + Blacksmith = Archers/Longbowmen/Crossbowmen

Barracks + Gunsmith + Alchemist lab = Arquebusiers

Walls + Barracks level = # of spots available for recruting and garrisoning

Cannon Maker/Cannon Foundry/Royal Arsenal = Cannon units(no cannon units available at gunsmith level)

Eliminate Ballista maker + Catapult maker, and have just Siege Works. Units will be unlocked dependent on city level, and resources available to build them, and there would be a limitation on the maximum number one could build, and having the resources of wood, iron, and money available. The ability to build siege machines was something common throughout Europe, It came down to whether one had the money, or not, to do it.

Forging shop and Joiner's shop, can continue to give bonus stats to units, although I would do away with those, and use them just as economic resources. Another option would be to create two new buildings, a master swordsmith to upgrade mellee weapons, and a master gunsmith to upgrade arquebusiers guns. These buildings would be available only at city level, and only at capitals.

As one progess through city/castle levels, new infantry, missile infantry, and cavalry will be unlocked by upgrading the blacksmith level (Armourer/Heavy Armourer/Master Armourer/Armour factory).

Building the next level barracks will give you more spots for training/garrisoning new units, (not unlock new units, that is dependent on smith level). Additionally, for cities only, I would make the Royal Barracks buildable only at a faction's original capital, and give it the ability to house your professional units for free, as well as the militia. The king's capital should be protect by his best military units.

Barracks is where one trains soldiers, but equipment for those soldiers come from weapons manufacturers. Ranged infantry is ranged infantry, the differences between them comes down to how much body armour they are wearing, there was no such thing as a marksmen range in those times, that is total fantasy.

Stables are for housing horses, not training and equiping knights. In order to get knights, one needs to build the stable that houses the horses, then add a smith to build weapons and armour, then have a training area where a knight learns to fight(Knight's training hall, or some other name). Building bigger stables should only give you the chance to hire more cavalry units, but the type of units one can recruit, is dependent on the type of smith level built in the castle. blacksmith will give you hobilars, armourer will give feudal knight, and so on. I would also make knight units a lot more expensive to build. It was expensive to outfit a knight.

Jousting lists and tourney field are good ideas to improve a knight's skills, but perhaps it makes more sense that both should be tied to those events that one gets asking if we want to pay to organize a tournament, then we'd move the knights units into the castle where one these improvements is built, they stay there for a turn, and get the better stats.

I don't know whether this would make the game easier/harder, or faster/slower, instead, it would, for me at least, make it a bit more logical, and a bit more "realistic". Right now, it doesn't make sense in some instances, and is needlessly repetitive in others. I think it might make the game harder because it would at least insure that the AI is always producing fully upgraded units, which it does not do now.

I don't know how hard it is to alter the game files to have this type of configuration, but I wouldn't mind trying it. Perhaps some you guys that are more familiar with modding the game could give me some pointers on how to get started, and I can try do this as mini-mod.

Your opinions?

[Taiji]

You can probably work out how to do most of what you want just by looking at the export_descr_buildings.txt in dlv_ext\data.

The script and text editing modding forum is here if you need any advice.

And here is a tutorial you might find useful.

[danielc]

Thank you taiji for those links. I'm going to check them out!

[Tokus*Maximus]

Great ideas, good luck with their implimentation. Best, Tokoid

[Kjertesvein]

This sounds interesting. Looking forward to a preview/beta of a building three to try out.

Btw: You could combine this with Furins Gunpowder mod; The muskets, canons etc. all the gunpowder units appear with a few years in between - Not all at once... to keep it real.