General Economic Testing - All Campaigns Now Use New System!!

[Alavaria]

Hello, Ala here. I need one (only one!) person to sign up here and help me test the new economic model.

Update your RS2 and start a "Test Campaign". It is a basic attempt to see what a Pergamon modfolder campaign would be. The only difference between this and a "general" campaign is that Pergamon's treasury gives 3500% bonus instead of 5000% bonus.

I would appreciate greatly if you reported mainly the following for each turn:

• Turn number
• Number of settlements
• "End of turn" profit.

End of turn profit is the difference between the money you have at the end of a turn (just before you click END TURN) and what you have at the beginning of your next turn (or your projected amount for next turn).

Comments on the buildings, especially the TAX buildings, are welcome.
---However, be aware that the temples are going to change very very soon.

Comments on Public Order are also important
---Especially, have you been using the tax buildings? Why or why not?

How "tight" is the choice between "upgrade settlements" and "train units to expand"?
---Ideally the player should be able to do one, but not much more than that.
---Yes, I am trying to reduce "difficulty" to the starting level of income, but still allowing the player to do *something* meaningful


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Known Issues

• While units have recruitment and upkeep at 3x, mercenaries have the same recruitment cost.
  ----There's no way around this, I have to manually edit all the costs.
  ----Still, if you are going to use these mercenaries, how reliant on them are you? Does this cause any problems?

[tone]

You haven't inlcuded the 3x cost EDU in this.

[Alavaria]

My version has it though. Somehow SVN decided not to pick it up.

I edited my EDU (added a ; that did nothing) and used Commit. It should have the 3x EDU now.

[Benz282]

I'll do this. Getting pretty bored with fighting the endless Roman wave.

[Alavaria]

Ok, great! Thanks a lot.

The endless roman hordes in Carthage campaign must be at least partially my fault, because I was too good at killing those damn Romans in the field (with slingers) or in settlements (with archers/slingers). Partially because of the economy, I guess ...

Though I do enjoy the occasional Romani slaughter, and long walks down the coast of Iberia or Sicily.

[tone]

No all that's done is to restore the original 1x cost EDU

[Alavaria]

I deleted the EDB/EDU from my play_test folder, and redownloaded them via SVN. It's the right versions.

Though it seems if I delete and re-download the whole folder, it's the old one, and trying to upload the new version says there's no working copy.

[tone]

I'm finding that if I delete the old one, the old one gets downloaded again with the old costs.

I've just reuploaded the 3x EDU again - added a line saying that's what it is.

[Benz282]

You want pictures of just the end turn finances? Anything else besides the text comments and info?

[Alavaria]

Problem with SVN should be fixed ...

You want pictures of just the end turn finances? Anything else besides the text comments and info?

EDIT: Update now. If the following are not correct, delete the whole play_test folder and download it via SVN

• When you start the game, check (in Pergamon) the upkeep of a unit of ballista - it should be 1356.
• Your core government building should list a 50% tax income bonus

You got it right. When you're taking the finances screenshot, just note down the number of regions you have as well.

I (personally) gauge how well my economy is doing by end of turn profit, which tells me a lot. I'll inform you on the thread if there is anything specific that I want later on.

[Benz282]

I'm getting a text error upon exiting the Test Campaign:


I believe this is the section the error is coming from (I don't have a text editor that displays line numbers )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trigger alcoholdisease3
    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

    Condition IsGeneral
          and EndedInSettlement
          and RemainingMPPercentage = 100
          and Trait Drink >= 5
          and SettlementBuildingExists >= wine2

    Affects AlcoholDisease 1 Chance 3

[Alavaria]

On EXITING? Ok, not a CTD then.

Hmm, that trait. Yes, ok I forgot I fixed that. One second.
---
EDIT: Fixed, by removing the triggers. There are triggers that use levels of the "products" tree that no longer exist. Fortunately this bug does not cause a CTD. The trait can still be obtained, albeit only from the top (Tier 3) "products" building.

[Benz282]

K, other than that, I have the right files. 1st turn finances up in a minute.
EDIT:


Turn - 1
Smnts - 3
Comments:
Surprised by the massive increase in costs + money supply. Suppose the costs are still reasonable. 40k from Pergamon .

Temples seem to give a massive decrease in tax bonus. Is this because all settlements have a larger base tax "level"? Anyways, Temples to Hermes seem too "strong". While all other temples give -x% to tax, Hermes both gives increase in trade and a sizable increase in tax.

--

Turn - 2
Smnts - 3
Comments:
Retrained troops in Perg., building up my temple to hermes to boost income.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

--

Turn - 3
Smnts - 3
Comments:
Trained 9 Perg. Hoplites to deal with the Free Greeks at Nicomedia, Palisade in both other settlements.

Should I abstain from building more Temples until they are redone?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

--

Turn - 4
Smnts - 3
Comments:
More troops, this time a General and 8 Greek Archers. Also built a Great Forum in Perg, a Market in Assos, and Roads in Gordium. My goal is to maximize trade and taxes, while maintaining a small, unbeatable army.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

--

Turn - 5
Smnts - 3
Comments:
Treasury seems to be back to normal.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

--

Turn - 6
Smnts - 3
Comments:
Sieging Nicomedia; will assault next turn.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Alavaria]

It's scaling. Units cost 3x more.
So your 30K is more like 10K in terms of what you're used to.

Temples give public order, that's why there's a decrease. Generally, temples are changing though.
And yes, the trade ones are rather powerful (though an increase in trade is smaller in real terms because units cost more). Hilariously, that was pointed out as being really awesome. However, I'm going to have to recode it, so little point in redoing it all.

[Benz282]

I'm updating the first post with each turn.

Should I not build temples until they are redone?

[Alavaria]

Nah, the temples (well except trade) are "balanced" as buildings. It's just that currently factions with more "temple options" have an advantage over those with less. I think pergamon is in the middle, has some but not too many temples, so it should be fine.

If you can get them, a screenshot of your settlement list, sorted by income would be interesting.

EDIT: Wow, you managed to add an additional 50% worth to your army upkeep in a single turn.

[Benz282]

Ok, I'll get those for Turn 6+.

6 has a battle, so it wont be a quick update. I'll have it asap.

[Benz282]

Turn - 7
Settlements - 4
Comments:
Really no need to decide between Military and Economy at this point. I'm swimming in so much money, I can buy just about anything I want or need to. Later on, perhaps I would need to make tough decisions, but coming from the Carthage campaign where every purchase you make comes at a huge price somewhere else in the empire, this is much easier.

Also, I don't see the benefit in building Tax Collection buildings; too low benefit at too high a cost when compared with other buildings.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Alavaria]

That's enough on that campaign for now. There's some fixing that had to be done thanks to SVN, damnable software. The tax buildings and the trade temple and some other ones in the version you were testing were from the files that Calvin had left. Or maybe an earlier version that I was testing and thought I had updated before you started. Despite SVN saying it had uploaded my version. Whatever.
---------
I have a workaround that should ensure we're using the SAME FILE!!

Update now. Your core government building should have a bonus of 25% and 1% listed.

• Tax buildings give the intended 30% per level.
• Most importantly, Pergamon now should have 2500% tax bonus. I'm following the usual "modfolder = 50% of general campaign" rule.
  ---It might not have been too far off
• Damnable trade temple had its bonuses corrected back to what it was in the version I was testing.
• Minor other things, I had a typo at one or two points. (mis-commented out stuff)

I've been having problems with SVN not uploading when it reports it has uploaded. As a result, if you don't see ALL the tax bonuses I mention there, don't do anything. It means SVN has screwed around with me again.

[tone]

You need to make sure it doesn't cause a merging of files, which can happen if you've updated and someone else has uploaded an update as well.