Free Units Slots for better gameplay

**methos666** · August 21, 2009, 01:57 AM

First of all i would like to say that SS6.1 is by far the best mod i ever had for MW2(If you could handle the faction limit and give me much much more factions i would really build you a temple and worship you every day)

I am not a modder but i like to play around a little bit with textfiles. One thing i changed lately had a great impact on the game(not only for me also for the AI). I multiplied the free unit slots by three. That means i can have a full army in my city/castle. I could also see that the AI does the same.

I think it is more realistic that you dont have to pay for an army that guards your town. It also slows down the expansion of the ai a little bit. It doesnt feel right that HRE or France are having serious problems during the whole game.

It also helps you defend your cities and it will prevent you from beiing ambushed by a smaller force. If you have your armies in the castles you can spend your money on the development of your town.

If you are at war and you move out and you have to pay for that war. You can not afford to buy anything in you city.

Maybe you want to try that.

**PerXX** · August 21, 2009, 03:26 AM

Why wouldn't an army require payment, just because they're stationed in a town, rather than in the field?

**talknight2** · August 21, 2009, 06:07 AM

Because they force the townspeople to support them?

**bɑne** · August 21, 2009, 07:49 AM

Besides that there is the idea that especially militias in fact "go home" and sleep / work in the city they are guarding and only assemble on the odd days for training or when the mongols are at the gates

**Razvus** · August 21, 2009, 07:53 AM

a soldier needs regular pay, don't see why it has to change because he's in a town or a castle. Because he gets free food in towns? Well that would mean reduction in food production. Anyway, you'll spend coin on them either ways.

**bɑne** · August 21, 2009, 09:07 AM

I think this topic steers away from the main benefit of increasde free upkeep slots: that the AI uses more units to defend their cities.
For that reason I think its best to combine the free upkeep with a AI check so that only the AI benefits from the addional free upkeep slots.
It makes no sense to me to support the human players any further as this potentially cancels out the AI garrison behaviour gain.

**Orange Carebear** · August 22, 2009, 03:17 AM

I think the idea is that, for a variety of reasons, stationing an army in a town or castle is going to be "cheaper" than supporting them in the field. Militia units can go home or simply work while waiting to be called up, paying for the logistics of supporting professional troops would be easier (cheaper to feed and house troops living in your city than camped out in front of a hostile town). troops could be used when not fighting to do a variety of tasks (police work, construction, etc) saving the faction money, etc.

As far as AI, perhaps they just need some coding to encourage them to station more troops? Taking towns guarded by 2 peasant archers is silly, but I don't want to have to grind through a full stack of dismounted chivalric knights in every town

**SamZi** · August 22, 2009, 12:42 PM

The AI not defending its settlements is perhaps the biggest problem in SS at the moment. Anything to remedy that would be most welcome though increasing the number of free upkeep units drastically is not the answer. I'd like all units to be free upkeep in castles like in vanilla (IIRC) and the number of free upkeep slots increased by, say 3 (resulting in 4 slots in a castle, 5 in fortress and 6 in citadel in RR/RC.) Then you could choose your own selection of higher quality troops to defend. If that's too much then maybe only have poorer quality troops free upkeep. Cities are fine, really.

**Point Blank** · August 22, 2009, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by SamZi

The AI not defending its settlements is perhaps the biggest problem in SS at the moment. Anything to remedy that would be most welcome though increasing the number of free upkeep units drastically is not the answer. I'd like all units to be free upkeep in castles like in vanilla (IIRC) and the number of free upkeep slots increased by, say 3 (resulting in 4 slots in a castle, 5 in fortress and 6 in citadel in RR/RC.) Then you could choose your own selection of higher quality troops to defend. If that's too much then maybe only have poorer quality troops free upkeep. Cities are fine, really.

In next RR/RC update, all Rural Levy and Local units are now free upkeep in castles, as well as Feudals. Only professionals are not free upkeep now. Its easy enough to give the AI extra free upkeep slots.

**betto** · August 22, 2009, 08:28 PM

Its a nice idea a bigger garrison bonus for cities and castles but doing it with a general higher unit upkeep . defend should be cheap expand should be very expansive.

**bɑne** · August 22, 2009, 12:52 PM

Well as free-upkeep slots are connected to castle and city base buildings you could easily achieve this by changing descr_buildings and descr_units files.
A great tutorial on free upkeep can be found in the mod workshop if you need additional information