Levy stacks

**Dahoota** · April 05, 2011, 09:06 AM

Hey I was wondering what the thinking is with the addition of levy stacks (full stacks that seem to spawn near settlements important to a faction, normally a capital, usually when they are losing). Were they simply added to improve difficulty?

They often seem to spawn at odd/unusual/inopportune moments. For example I recently had nearly finished off the Romans and they were still spawning every few turns just outside Rome (which I had controlled for some time). Now I've just had a stupidly powerful Spartan stack spawn behind my lines too.

They just seem more frustrating then challenging.

**chris10** · April 05, 2011, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

Hey I was wondering what the thinking is with the addition of levy stacks (full stacks that seem to spawn near settlements important to a faction, normally a capital, usually when they are losing). Were they simply added to improve difficulty?

They often seem to spawn at odd/unusual/inopportune moments. For example I recently had nearly finished off the Romans and they were still spawning every few turns just outside Rome (which I had controlled for some time). Now I've just had a stupidly powerful Spartan stack spawn behind my lines too.

They just seem more frustrating then challenging.

There are certain restrictions within the engine itself, but yes..those levy stacks shall help the AI to not get destroyed to easy...

why the system is not entirely perfect it is anyway better than not having them

**Ferdiad** · April 05, 2011, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

Hey I was wondering what the thinking is with the addition of levy stacks (full stacks that seem to spawn near settlements important to a faction, normally a capital, usually when they are losing). Were they simply added to improve difficulty?

They often seem to spawn at odd/unusual/inopportune moments. For example I recently had nearly finished off the Romans and they were still spawning every few turns just outside Rome (which I had controlled for some time). Now I've just had a stupidly powerful Spartan stack spawn behind my lines too.

They just seem more frustrating then challenging.

Its the "Emergency" army for AI factions.

**Oberbefehlshaber** · April 05, 2011, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

Hey I was wondering what the thinking is with the addition of levy stacks (full stacks that seem to spawn near settlements important to a faction, normally a capital, usually when they are losing). Were they simply added to improve difficulty?

They often seem to spawn at odd/unusual/inopportune moments. For example I recently had nearly finished off the Romans and they were still spawning every few turns just outside Rome (which I had controlled for some time). Now I've just had a stupidly powerful Spartan stack spawn behind my lines too.

They just seem more frustrating then challenging.

Wow. I did not know this, it sounds terrible. This is a perfect example of trying to control too much. Its one thing for a campaign to be tough, but I hate when the AI has to cheat to win.

**Ferdiad** · April 05, 2011, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by Oberbefehlshaber

Wow. I did not know this, it sounds terrible. This is a perfect example of trying to control too much.

The AI needs it.

**Oberbefehlshaber** · April 05, 2011, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Ferdiad

The AI needs it.

Originally Posted by Oberbefehlshaber

I hate when the AI has to cheat to win.

**chris10** · April 05, 2011, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by Oberbefehlshaber

I hate when the AI has to cheat to win.

The AI has to cheat to NOT be steamrolled by the player in warp (the engine has been designed to provide a steamrolling scenarion and not to be a challenge)

...

**Ferdiad** · April 05, 2011, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by chris10

The AI has to cheat to NOT be steamrolled by the player in warp (the engine has been designed to provide a steamrolling scenarion and not to be a challenge)

...

Yes, there is no way around it, even with the AI cheating It's still not a challenge though(Thats where HR come in )

**Dahoota** · April 05, 2011, 07:02 PM

I get that they are needed to boost the AI. But in a future patch would it be possible to change the scripting so that they don't spawn behind your lines? (eg near their current capital, rather than a specific city?)

They may actually be more useful to the AI that way and the aim of stopping a steamroll in its tracks. In both cases I mentioned I dealt with it by ignoring them while they besieged a city and pushed on to take out their remaining cities so that they largely disappeared when the faction was destroyed.

**xsithspawnx** · April 06, 2011, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

I get that they are needed to boost the AI. But in a future patch would it be possible to change the scripting so that they don't spawn behind your lines? (eg near their current capital, rather than a specific city?)

They may actually be more useful to the AI that way and the aim of stopping a steamroll in its tracks. In both cases I mentioned I dealt with it by ignoring them while they besieged a city and pushed on to take out their remaining cities so that they largely disappeared when the faction was destroyed.

Lol. I did the same thing when taking out Parthia in my Pontus campaign, but then again regular stacks of horse archers and cataphracts are bad enough and I felt no inclination to fight uber elite stacks of them at all. I hate Parthia.............

**Ferdiad** · April 06, 2011, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by xsithspawnx

Lol. I did the same thing when taking out Parthia in my Pontus campaign, but then again regular stacks of horse archers and cataphracts are bad enough and I felt no inclination to fight uber elite stacks of them at all. I hate Parthia.............

Who dosn't?

Even the Parthians hate Parthia.

**xXEsotericXx** · April 07, 2011, 11:09 AM

A challenge = frustrating

**Ferdiad** · April 07, 2011, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by xXEsotericXx

A challenge =/= frustrating

Fixed.

**dvk901** · April 07, 2011, 03:20 PM

The built-in problem with RTW....or really, any TW game, is that the developers wrote the games so that you could pretty much win all the time once you understood the mechanics and the game play. And that's fine, nobody wants to buy a game and play it, and then find they can't beat the dang thing at all. People just don't like to lose. However, as most of the developers of RS2 were long time RTW players and fans, the game and most all it's mods had become quite easy to beat. I really wanted a mod that when played...once in a while, you might actually lose.

But, that's a tall order for a game with a lot of built-in limitations, crummy diplomacy, and a very dumb AI. It (the AI) has a ingrained determination to attack, or hide it's armies, and it constantly and frustratingly leaves it's cities unprotected. Some of you above have actually exploited that weakness....ignoring levy armies and just taking out their cities...which I'd bet are just sitting there with nothing to defend them. Right?

Well, there really is no good way to correct this flaw in RTW. A garrison script is one way, and I understand why it has been used......but does it really STOP conquest? Nah, it just chews up your army a bit. And if you were to have a garrison script create a whole load of elite units that would REALLY challenge you, well, people would cry foul and complain about that. Our solution was levy armies that spawned in certain locations within a faction's starting territories if they did not OWN their starting territories. I prefer this for several reasons. First, the shock and awe factor....you waltz into a faction's territory, attack and take one of their core cities, and then find you weren't prepared for an onslaught of angry regional occupants. Secondly, they can hide, they can attack, they can go defend another place, or even attack you elsewhere. They are not 'frozen' in a doomed city you have already attacked. Third, I feel they are more historically accurate in terms of a nation or culture rallying it's people to fend off invaders. Fourth, by the time you are invading a faction's core territories, you are starting to disrupt, squeeze, and otherwise take away their income. When this happens, as I have seen it happen hundreds of times, factions just roll over and die with a whimper.

Frustrating? Yes. It makes it harder to just plain finish off a faction. Irritating? Perhaps. It just depends on your point of view, I guess. Some people play games with a mindset that "I just took that!! You can't try and take that back! It's mine now. Stop that!" Others enjoy a more realistic picture where you take something from someone, and their going to do their best to take it back. We have tried our best to 'enable' the AI to do that in some cases, and to be, in general, a real PITA.

**Milligon** · April 08, 2011, 01:03 PM

I don't mind the levy stacks at all. I think it makes it a bit more realistic actually in a way. History has shown that even when a region/province has been conquered, the locals may not agree right away and will resort to fighting with whatever weapons they can obtain, like the levy stacks. Now if the spammed stacked were top-tiered troops with armor and all that, then blech on that. But the levy's to me just represent ticked off folks that don't like you there. Hope that train of thought can help.

**Ferdiad** · April 08, 2011, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by Milligon

I don't mind the levy stacks at all. I think it makes it a bit more realistic actually in a way. History has shown that even when a region/province has been conquered, the locals may not agree right away and will resort to fighting with whatever weapons they can obtain, like the levy stacks. Now if the spammed stacked were top-tiered troops with armor and all that, then blech on that. But the levy's to me just represent ticked off folks that don't like you there. Hope that train of thought can help.

I think what gets people pissed is that the stacks don't actually spawn beside the city that triggered them, they seem to be random.

**dvk901** · April 09, 2011, 12:11 PM

The places where they spawn were chosen and scripted. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict or account for where one might attack someone. Again, the limitations of the game.

**Dahoota** · April 09, 2011, 05:05 PM

It couldn't be scripted to spawn at the faction's current capital? (as opposed to the original capital which may have been lost)

Surely the engine has some kind of capacity to that end if new faction members are scripted to spawn at or outside the faction capital in the right circumstances (dead parent, parent in enemy territory, etc. Outside the capital if a full stack is already present).

**chris10** · April 10, 2011, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

It couldn't be scripted to spawn at the faction's current capital? (as opposed to the original capital which may have been lost)

Surely the engine has some kind of capacity to that end if new faction members are scripted to spawn at or outside the faction capital in the right circumstances (dead parent, parent in enemy territory, etc. Outside the capital if a full stack is already present).

No..there is no way of dynamicly "checking" where the actual capital of a faction is...a "script" , as the name suggests, is a static thing which can not contain dynamic values within itself (except: random percantage ) ...What you asking for is something which would have to be implemented in the source code as a game feature and part of the engine...