RTRPE is not dead (Delvecchio's micro-mod)

**Delvecchio1975** · November 24, 2009, 08:46 AM

After brief and long stints playing other mods such as ExRM and RS, and even BI specific mods (Goth's mod, Rio's IBDF or something), I always feel drawn back to my beloved RTRPE. The way it looks, the ease of play, all of it really, makes me come back time and again!

Of course there are a few details that I think are not just annoying me, but simply 'un-finished'. I started digging in the EDU and EDB a little over the last few weeks and I made a few changes that make it a more finished mod in my humble opinion, sometimes not even from a historical perspective, but from a game balancing perspective:

I added ballistas and scorpions for the Seleucids. if the Parthians, Pontiacs, Armenians and Bactrians didn't have them before they do now as well (i know, it's been a while since a made that change!).
The AoR Macedonian phalanx was not available to the Macedonians to recruit. It is now, on the barracks level the lower level phalanx was recruitable before. Both that lower level phalanx, and the higher level one (the pink one) moved up one level of barracks. This slows the creation of black death high quality stacks.
Seleucid goldshields now take two turns to recruit, leveling the field with Ptolemaic pezoi, making Ptolemy less of a pushover.
Libyan pikes have been taken away from Ptolemy (have nearly the same stats as the white phalanxes anyway) and given to Numidia (which might be not very historical, but at least they now have a fighting chance against Carthage).
Hoplites would become unavailble on higher level barracks for the Macedonians, whereas you could still recruit them on lower levels. They now stay available throughout. I hated not being able to retrain them in Greek cities.
Cataphracts are now recruitable by the Parthians from the beginning. Thought it quite absurd to having to fight off the Seleucids with mountain men and archers. At least the AI wasn't very good at that.

Changes I still want to make (but don't know how yet, coz I'm a rookie with poop in my pants):

make rhodian/balearic slingers and cretan archers recruitable on their resp. islands
generals available for hire

Changes I'm pondering about (in a philosophical non-binding way):

eliminate the grain resource: on the one hand i think this is a great challenge in the game, to keep pop under control as Bactria, Pontus, Carthage and Ptolemy; on the other hand, playing as bactria, by the time you finally get the Indian pop under control, Seleukos comes knocking at the door with 35 stacks of goldshields. Focus needs to shift unreasonably to pop control in that scenario i think.

Questions to the RTRPE general population:

what do you think?
any help on the ones i haven't figured out yet?
any thoughts on the grain resource?

**florin80** · November 24, 2009, 11:45 AM

Good initiative.

Originally Posted by Delvecchio1975

[*]make rhodian/balearic slingers and cretan archers recruitable on their resp. islands

They do not have recruiting lines in EDB. The resources are already in place though. So it`s just a matter of adding lines for the missile buildings(practice_field and siege_engineer). For example:

Code:

                recruit "merc balearic slingers" 0  requires factions { pontus, } and hidden_resource aor_celt and building_present_min_level barracks_pontus auxilia_phase3

And you need to repeat this for any faction that should be able to recruit them. To make it easier do a search for another aor slinger in EDB(aor illyria slinger for example) and add the new lines under them. Make sure to not forget to change either the ownership in brackets and the name of the barracks for each faction.
Oh, and I see you need to change the EDU ownership so that all the factions are able to recruit them. For example:

Code:

ownership        barbarian, carthaginian, eastern, egyptian, greek, roman, slave

One more thing, in EDB do not use the tab for spaces. Use the spacebar instead. Too many tabs and the file crashes with no errors it seems. Of course, there are plenty of tabs used in vanilla RTRPE, but at least take care not to make it worse.

[*]generals available for hire

Depends from what building and whether you want it available as soon as you conquer the region or only after you colonize it as it happens with the regular units. Generally you just add the recruiting line under the building you want as for any other unit.
If you need more exact guidance let me know.

[LIST]

[*]eliminate the grain resource: on the one hand i think this is a great challenge in the game, to keep pop under control as Bactria, Pontus, Carthage and Ptolemy; on the other hand, playing as bactria, by the time you finally get the Indian pop under control, Seleukos comes knocking at the door with 35 stacks of goldshields. Focus needs to shift unreasonably to pop control in that scenario i think.

You could do it more elegantly and reduce the fertility levels of the affected regions. In descr_regions(data\world\maps\base) it`s the last number of each region`s entry.

**Delvecchio1975** · November 24, 2009, 01:01 PM

Florin, you're a GOD. Cheers!

**Imortal** · November 24, 2009, 01:08 PM

The same thing here..I'm returning each time to RTRPE,it's just a GODLIKE mod

Can i make a sugestion for your mini-mod?Can you make the Macedon more weeker,the everytime steamroll..
In my Rome campaign,they managed to destroy at the same time Iliriyans,Greeks and Thrace,beside that i have subsided them all with large amount of money 0_o

Cheers!

**Delvecchio1975** · November 24, 2009, 03:01 PM

well, i think the changes i made to macedon, making the level of barracks they need to get stronger phalanxes higher, go some way to doing that. If it's not sufficient (playing some games now to test), I might make their phalanxes two turns to train as well, at least the pink ones ... and maybe make their maintenance more expensive - we'll go from there!

**ATN** · November 25, 2009, 09:05 AM

Weaker Macedon please. I hate when they always attack me when I play as Germans.

**Delvecchio1975** · November 25, 2009, 09:27 AM

Yeah, I think I need to do more on that front. I'm subdueing the Seleucids from the East as Bactrians, but when I had a look at the wider world it became clear that my prudent changes are, well, too prudent. I'm gonna make their good phalanxes take longer to recruit, and up their maintenance as well ...

**Delvecchio1975** · November 26, 2009, 05:54 AM

Wow, after reaching the Indian ocean, taking Kapisa, Harmozeia and even Prusa (rebel), I'm now fighting a trench was with the Seleucids, who are sending over two full stacks per turn of high quality phalanxes. At the same time they apparently still had the energy to take out the Ptolemies!
Romans took Italy, Sicily and the south of France. Carthage has three stacks around Lilybaeum, one of them sieging it. Iberians got Iberia, but not for long i think as they are now at war with both Macedonia and Rome. Macedonia owns all of Europe (apart from Italy, south of France and Iberia), Anatolia is divided between Seleucids and Macedonia, and the Armenians own Armenia and Russia.
I think Romans need a boost, Max needs a serious nerf, and Seleucids a small nerf.

**AtlasGR** · November 28, 2009, 04:59 AM

Parthia needs a much much greater boost!
They never standed a chance in campaigns I played.

**Delvecchio1975** · December 02, 2009, 06:29 AM

I'll have another look at it soon. I don't really have much time to do this kind of stuff anyway, so patience is key!

**MasterOfThessus** · December 02, 2009, 08:49 AM

We all appreciate your work

**Quinn Inuit** · December 07, 2009, 08:19 PM

A new RTRPE mod? Awesome. Nice work, man.

**Delvecchio1975** · December 08, 2009, 05:56 AM

well, as said, it's a micro-mod, trying to iron out some of the glitches of RTRPE and balancing it better, mainly through fiddling with the level of barracks on which certain units can be trained. Nothing ambitious, and i have very little time to work on it, but I'll get there in the end!