Late game balance issues

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

I've had a fantastic campaign as the Men of Alba. I'm the only faction with a presence on the British mainland, and the Norwegians are the only other faction in existence.

I thought things would get easier at this point of the campaign having slugged it out so far, but I've run into some new difficulties.

1. Rebellions - the cities of southern England seem uncontrollable once they have a decent population. I have did everything right - replaced other culture buildings with my own to reduce the culture penalty, garrisoned the local lords in their own settlement, and moved my capital to the most suitable location. But they still rebel when their population grows. This means I have to have two full-time 'exterminator' armies which rove around southern England exterminating a settlement once it rebels so it can be put under control again.

2. Income - I'm finding it very difficult to keep my settlements upgraded and have any sort of standing army. I think this is because the map is so big - anywhere not close to the capital will lose most of its income in corruption. Considering the garrison costs, a lot of the more far-flung provinces are financially unprofitable.

3. AI cheats - I realise these are needed to some degree, but I think they are a bit much. Norway controls far less provinces than me. It has Ireland, Norway, and some islands, while I have all of the British mainland. I checked the faction stats screen, and despite having about half my number of provinces, a third of my population, and two-thirds my income, it still maintains armies an armed force about 50% bigger than mine.

I just thought I should raise these issues. And maybe people could give me some tips if they have ever successfully conquered the map?

[Aradan]

1. Is growth too high (settlements keep growing beyond, say, 12K), or public order bonuses too low? Perhaps a public-order-boosting building is needed...

2. Effectively having a max limit to profitable expansion is not really bad in my book, but I can see why it would frustrate players who would like to conquer everything. The mod was balanced so that finances would be quite tight. Law bonuses decrease corruption though, so if the public-order-boosting building of #1 was introduced, it would also solve this problem by both reducing corruption and the need for large garrisons.
Can I ask, roughly how many settlements did you control before expansion became unprofitable?

3. We haven't added anything to what boosts the AI receives. Norway having a large army might have to do with the low upkeep costs of some of its units.





Could you perhaps upload a save-game for me to take a look at?

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

Thanks Aradan for your response. I actually took the liberty of making some changes myself to rescue my campaign. I gave additional law/happiness bonuses that can add up to 20% when they are all gained through their respective buildings. It made things a lot more manageable, although I think a further maybe 10-15% max possible would be ideal.

1. Growth is a bit high IMO. London, Canterbury and the one above London all end up at 14-15k before they stop growing. Around the 12k mark they become very difficult to control. Granted, the growth is small, only 0.5-1% by that point. I think it might be an idea to reduce the health bonus of monastery-level buildings by 5% each, or maybe the 0.5% bonus from the Trader-line buildings.

2. I understand this is fair enough, its not too big an issue since I just won the campaign today actually. But I still think the southern cities were barely profitable considering the upkeep cost of the army that had to constantly be around to exterminate them. Its also a real nuisance in terms of micro-management.

3. Apologies, I had a look at the script and it seems good IMO - enough to get them going at the start without giving silly bonuses. I think the Vikings must just have had some extra armies around from when they had more settlements, and I guess they get that tax bonus as well.

But yeah, I think some order bonuses are needed for the mid-late game, and perhaps slower growth for higher-level settlements.

EDIT: Sure, I'll upload a couple of saves later on tonight.

[Aradan]

Are you by any chance playing VI2 without DoB? I think VI2 "vanilla" had a number of 'grain' resource instances in southern England, which contribute a lot to pop growth, and also some buildings effect are different. I just tried VI2-DoB, and most settlements (including the ones you listed) can't go above 10.500-12.000 population with low taxes. Plus, monasteries and trades give a simple +1 to growth, nothing excessive.


Anyhow, those are all fair points. We dedicated much less time to late-game balancing than to early-/mid-game one, because the majority of players stop campaigns after they reach critical mass or achieve their primary VCs... If we ever release a new version of VI2, there will be improvements.

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

I'm playing without DoB, yeah. Here's a link to three save games:

http://rapidshare.com/files/568708170/vi2saves.7z

I hope they still work properly for you since I edited the buildings file to give those order bonuses. In the first one, Maelmin is the biggest problem since the southern cities were more recently exterminated. In the second one you can see Dorcic is the biggest issue. And in the final one, for those settlements I have just taken/about to take around the map, they are completely uncontrollable whatever I do. Even in Rogaland where I used an army of agents to give near 100% Christianity.

I started a new campaign as the Norwegians, and I'm finding order a big issue in even small settlements. If I start the conversion process then they will rebel, yet I know if I leave it they will get uncontrollable when a bit bigger, especially when Christian buildings give no happiness bonuses.

[Aradan]

If you are going to start a new campaign, may I suggest you try a DoB one? A number of improvements there, including balance-related ones.

The idea with Viking factions is to get in, destroy everything and get out. Occupation and expansion is more difficult with pagan factions, and it requires coordination of large armies, good governors, and agents (help with conversion), as well as a bit of patience.



I'll try the save-game and let you know if it works.


EDIT: It works, though without your added effects. As suspected, the problem during late-game is a combination of high growth and few public order effects, which results in corruption and squalor. Reducing the health bonus from the tier-2 monastery, while adding +1/+2/+3 law to barracks (maybe along with a +2 to the core building) would help you stabilise. The extra public order would allow you to increase taxes, which would decrease growth, etc.

That said, DoB is quite better during late-game, because most of those things have already been done.

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

Ah, OK. So is D0B really the main mod now? I glanced at it and I thought it was just a mini-mod.

Although on conquering as the Vikings - the problem with just raiding and leaving a settlement is that it will often rebel to another faction, giving them a big army with high experience. I wish there was a way to raid like horde factions can do.

[Aradan]

DoB an official, hm, expansion. It adds 2 factions, some provinces and a couple of other features, but due to being released after VI2, it includes some extra balancing as well. Unless someone really doesn't want the extra factions/regions, there's no reason to not "upgrade" to DoB.


After revolts, factions usually get some peasants (small, weak units) and whatever mercs are available in the region. The unfortunate thing is that the region goes to a faction instead of being rebel. It's something that can easily be solved, but when VI2 was made, we were going for simplicity.