Great Mod - Few Questions

**Borluc** · February 23, 2011, 04:16 PM

(Playing with all patches including new hotseat balances. Wanted a taste of XAI)

Hey thank you for all your hard work creating this mod. I just recently re-opened my Kingdoms case and I decided that your mod was probably the best fit. So far, I'm not disappointed.

I do have a few questions though. I started out with normal unit sizes (60 man infantry, 40 or so cav). Is this recommended? I want to make sure that I'm playing the way you have it balanced to get the best experience.

Also, I decided on VH campaign and H battles. So far, the campaign is quite challenging as the Turks. I am around turn 10 and even with a couple mines built early on, I have just been able to get out of the red in my treasury. It seems like the AI has a huge advantage in funds, however with the limited garrison script, it all seems fairly balanced in order to make you feel like you are fighting a finite amount of enemies instead of endless clones.

Also, I am pretty happy with the battles. The AI armies seem to keep cohesion and the generals don't mindlessly attack and lose their lives. One drawback to this is that they let my skirmishers (especially horse archers) really lay into them without trying to counter. This seems to happen if I keep the main body of my army far back. When the two sides clash, I've seen a lot of flanking and intelligent attacks though. I can still generally stomp the AI, but it isn't as easy and I've had very close battles when outnumbered.

One thing that does concern me so far are what to appear to be inactive armies. I am the Turks and after a few clashes with Antioch, their main army defeated my land blockade of their port. However, I seems to be just standing there for several turns. Also, my other attack on Edessa (sp?) had similar results. I sieged them when they had few units inside and a half stack outside. The garrison script hit and they attacked me with both armies. Of course, I retreated hoping to thin their lines. The garrison followed me with another small army of about 5 units. I barely won that match. Afterwards, I linked up with some reinforcements and sieged the city again. The half stack is still sitting behind the city idle. Been that way for several turns now. Is this a part of passive defense coded in to keep armies near settlements that need help? I was thinking that this may be the case after reading a lot of about KCGM and XAI, but I'm not sure. It just concerns me because of past experiences of idle armies just waiting to be slaughtered.

Anyway, that whole story brings me to my last question. Do most of you guys prefer vanilla 4.2 patch or do you prefer to XAI elements included with the new hotseat patch (also good for single player if told by Dave Scarface in the XAI forums)? I went ahead and did the hotseat patch before trying just 4.2 and I'm really trying to get the closest thing I can to human reactiveness in single player.

Thanks for listening and for a great mod that doesn't change too much!

**Lanier** · February 23, 2011, 08:20 PM

are you using HBB? I am under the impression (which could be entirely incorrect

) that KGCM 4.2 uses Lusted's AI, doesn't it?

EDIT: nevermind, I obviously misread your post... didn't realize you were using the hotseat patch. If you arn't happy with the AI, I would recommend trying it without the patch and comparing whether you like Lusted or XAI more.

**Borluc** · February 23, 2011, 09:37 PM

Is there a way to undo the hotseat files? Just uninstall? What if I'd like to have both ready to go so I can switch between them? Is that possible?

**Lanier** · February 23, 2011, 10:58 PM

There isn't any way to do that which I am aware of. What I did was install 2 copies of the game and then two copies of the mod - one with and one without the hotseat patch.

**Magefsx** · February 24, 2011, 05:48 AM

Yes- make two seperate installs (which involves copying the entire M2TW directory), installing KGCM into the new one
The BAI for both versions is Lusteds, unless you're using HHB

**Borluc** · February 26, 2011, 12:42 AM

Ok, I just wanted to add another update.

The "idle" armies that I noticed were indeed waiting for the right time to strike it seems. I have since lost and regained Edessa and I've had a tough war with Antioch altogether. They wiped out one of my invading armies with their superior troops. So, no problem with idle troops.

One thing that I happened (and has happened elsewhere) was that Egypt suddenly decided to blockade my port and break our alliance. Doesn't make much sense to me atm.

Also, once the reinforcements for the enemy just sat there instead of moving to engage my army. After defeating the main force, I had to engage them to start their movement. I haven't tested this with other battles yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Altogether, this has been a very enjoyable time back in MTWII. Thanks again. I really look forward to your unit changes later in the game. I read up on the balances you created to make it necessary to keep with the times and evolve your armies. It all sounds very intriguing.

BTW, I didn't see anyone comment on my questions about difficulty and their preference of patches/mods.

**Borluc** · February 28, 2011, 04:17 PM

Reinforcements are still not attacking me atm. They usually just keep reforming. Once I attacked them with horse archers and they reacted after a bit then formed a battle line again. I had to bring the bulk of my army closer to them before they engaged. Not a big deal unless I am defending a settlement and have to go out to get them to engage me.

**Stylix** · February 28, 2011, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by Borluc

Reinforcements are still not attacking me atm. They usually just keep reforming. Once I attacked them with horse archers and they reacted after a bit then formed a battle line again. I had to bring the bulk of my army closer to them before they engaged. Not a big deal unless I am defending a settlement and have to go out to get them to engage me.

Not sure what causes this, but if you are defending a settlement and do not have 'unlimited time' for battles selected, you will win after time expires.

**Scorpius Centaurus** · March 01, 2011, 08:16 AM

@Borluc

From what I read, the hotseat patch only re-balances auto-resolve battles, it does not affect the battles you decide to play.

**Borluc** · March 01, 2011, 06:51 PM

Originally Posted by Scorpius Centaurus

@Borluc

From what I read, the hotseat patch only re-balances auto-resolve battles, it does not affect the battles you decide to play.

Yeah, which is why I was asking about the problem. Seems like they didn't fix it in the basic mod.

Hotseat changes the CAI, not BAI.

Honestly, I think it might have something to do with the Lusteds BAI though. Because it wasn't completely idle. It just seemed to sit back and wait for me to adjust. Probably a result of some more advanced tactics gone wrong (when in this situation).