What is best for medieval realism

[oldgun99]

I'm currently running 6.3 with BGRIV enabled and Savage AI. While it is challenging, I want the most realistic experience possible. I don't game the game so anything just to make things harder for no realistic reason doesn't interest me.

What other mods should I use that will work with 6.3?

[k/t]

I thought BGR did make things more realistic. That's why it's got an R in it, in the fashion of RR/RC.

[oldgun99]

I didn't mean that BGRIV was unrealistic. I meant that I'm not worried about more realism being more challenging but I don't want more challenge just for the sake of more challenge. I just worded it poorly I guess.

What other mods can I add to up the realism of the period?

[Ichon]

I didn't mean that BGRIV was unrealistic. I meant that I'm not worried about more realism being more challenging but I don't want more challenge just for the sake of more challenge. I just worded it poorly I guess.

What other mods can I add to up the realism of the period?

Well it is a game so there is only a modest amount of realism you can include. That said BGR does the best job at trying to add a bit of realism in expansion etc.

In reality how many kingdoms expanded in linear fashion to world supremacy? Not even Rome did that and it took several hundred years to achieve what it did. Napoleon and Ghengis probably came the closest to exponential growth of empires in short time period but theirs didn't last very long. The growth of Islam is probably the quickest expansion that endured but not as a single empire so its not very relevant.

It was not even easy to be a king in 1100 when SS begins. Let alone be a GOOD king- however you interpret that. More kingdoms fell than rose over time so realistic would probably equal defeat in most campaigns in the game.

If you want something which does not hinder player more than AI then there are very few mods that do that as without extra burden on the human player, he/she defeats the AI easily unless AI has huge bonus. BGR and most mods both give bonus to AI and to a lesser amount give penalty to human player in some way. BGR goes further in that area than most but still, most factions even on VH in BGR are possible to win with in less than 100 turns. (win being attaining a position that AI can't beat you in though it might take more than 100 turns to satisfy victory regions)

[k/t]

So you want realism that doesn't make things harder just so they're harder but makes them harder so they're more realistic? That's what realism is by default! Obviously, giving the AI morale bonuses because you chose VH campaign difficulty isn't realistic, but charging you a lot of money to go on crusades is. The people who went on crusade had to borrow, sell and mortgage everything they had. Nobles who rebelled because they thought the king was weak are realistic. An army's need for supplies is realistic. What BGR shows is just how unpleasant reality was back then and how many things you had to take into consideration if you were a king. BGR is more realistic than non-BGR. And it's harder because it emulates reality very well, removing gamish aspects. Grym didn't put all those things in his mod just to annoy people or make their lives difficult, but to increase realism.

[Byg]

Not BGR related in particular, but I even think the VH morale bonus for the AI is more realistic than without it when you consider the overall effect. I.e is it realistic to easily win every battle even when opposed by a much larger army with a 'better' (higher star) general? If you don't think so then granting the VH morale bonus is relatively more realistic than not doing so. Same thing applies to AI money bonuses.

A mod that ended building based recruitment would be more realistic (I'm doing something in that area), and so would one that did not differentiate between castles and cities in that an entire region represented by one or the other is unsound, but that's just the way they made it and everyone has apparently accepted it without question.

When choosing your reality enhancing mod selection, wether it adds stuff or takes it away, try to think about overall effects rather than superficial changes.

[hpsauce13]

How to make it more realistic? you could go for some house rules big time, depending on how you want to make it more realistic, i know some people find it kinda tiresome being bound by your own rules that dont really have substance but hey you can try

A mod that ended building based recruitment would be more realistic (I'm doing something in that area), and so would one that did not differentiate between castles and cities in that an entire region represented by one or the other is unsound, but that's just the way they made it and everyone has apparently accepted it without question.

this has been one of my main gripes with M2, and in my own Medieval Total War (I call it Super-Brilliant-Dreamland Medieval Total War) which i invented in my mind its all been changed and plays like a dream. If only i had a USB port in my head to transfer it to hard drive...

But in all seriousness i really look forward your 'ending of building based recruitment' changes, and im really curious as to how it would work?

[Ichon]

I can see ways to make it work for some units but not sure how different eras would be represented. Without buildings making higher units and #'s available by a certain point. Hidden resource and religion required for certain units might work but overall without using buildings there would either be less units available or many, many units all at once and difficult to phase out obsolete units in a campaign that spans 400 years.

If economy could be very well balanced then the availability of numerous different units is not meaning any faction could recruit them all at once though I don't know if AI can be scripted not to bankrupt itself in that case. Even using low availability and slow refill on the recruitment pools it would take much work to balance things with MTW2 engine.

I'm more a fan of making some basic units not require buildings and more advanced units become unlocked by event while most of the elite units might have a whole building tree requiring construction to enable the specific building they require. IE- certain level of armory, docks, markets, city size etc.

To make 0 buildings at all... well- unless you change "buildings" to something else like EB2 and other mods are doing like "government type colony IV" or something and just not call them buildings I can't figure how that would work.

[Gorrrrrn]

A mod that ended building based recruitment would more realistic (I'm doing something in that area), and so would one that did not differentiate between castles and cities in that an entire region represented by one or the other is unsound, but that's just the way they made it and everyone has apparently accepted it without question.

well almost everyone

work on the all towns version of the RozMod for SS6.3 will begin soon, once other issues have been sorted out.

as Byg mentions we have to differentiate between realistic values and realistic effects. To get realistic effects may require some not-at-all-realistic values esp for the AI and its bonuses.

Given the sampling effect of M2TW regarding medieval world, (ie it only models certain aspects of the totality) we can't expect the game to be a proper simulation, although some of us might find that very interesting.

One can say that the success of the M2TW and mods such as Stainless Steel in producing enough of a realistic effect gives an illusion of it being somehow "real" - and so we want ever more "real", but that doesn't necessarily work as we want or produce a better game.

[k/t]

Yeah, like not respawning after getting killed in a shooting game. That's realistic, but who wants to play that?

Is there a RozMod for RR/RC?

If recruitment wasn't based on buildings, then what would it be based on?

[Gorrrrrn]

k/t - the old RozMod was for the RC/RR compilation from last October - in order to develop it I didn't try and keep up with PB's updates.
work was abandoned to concentrate on the SS6.3 version.

If recruitment wasn't based on buildings, then what would it be based on?

I look forward to Byg's ideas on this.

I've made a very slight change in recruitment by making Marinae only available in settlements with ports.