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Thread: Seether's Gameplay Notes

  1. #21
    Gigantus's Avatar I am not special - I am a limited edition.
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    I am most likely going to incorporate the 'custom battle within campaign' principle we used in the 1648 mod. That way you get the chance to fight battles with all those characters even if they have died already during the campaign.










  2. #22

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Hi Seether,
    somewhere in this modforum I read about someone's question how to change the English -with German accent- voices to chinese voices. But unfortunately I can not find it anymore
    Is it described somewhere how to do this ?
    if yes, tell me where and also please put a link to it in e.g. thread 'ROTK mod-info' so anyone will find it easily.
    Thnx. in advance !

  3. #23
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Here is the post Gigantus made on the voices.
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
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  4. #24

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    You could script liu bei for the Ai too. If he gets destroyed he appears at a new settlemenr somewhere like in liubiaos territory and if he gets beat again in liu zhangs territory

  5. #25

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Gongsunzan View Post
    You could script liu bei for the Ai too. If he gets destroyed he appears at a new settlemenr somewhere like in liubiaos territory and if he gets beat again in liu zhangs territory
    +1

  6. #26
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    If any faction should be able to horde, it is definitely the Liu Clan.
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  7. #27
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    OP Updated:

    31 July Update

    As was discussed in my last update, starting in Patch #4 (which was just released) players will have the choice, when playing as the Liu Clan, to undertake a series of missions that will lead to the faction from eastern Xu province all the way to western Yi province. When you start a new game as the Liu Clan, you will immediately be given an event that asks you to either accept or decline these missions. If you decline, you will not get any of the missions or special events that come along with them. If you accept you will first be tasked with capturing Xin Ye, which lies about in the middle of the map. In the mission's text it gives several hints:

    - First, that you need to take your entire faction on the journey to Xin Ye. This is essential to success. Once you take Xin Ye, which is a relatively poor and undeveloped settlement, you will need your entire military force at your disposal in order to complete the next objectives, which involves war with one of the stronger factions in the game.
    - Second, to build some Militia units to keep your holdings in Xu province from rebelling and thus ending your game before you can capture Xin Ye. One Militia unit per city should be fine. Constructing a Decree Office in each city, as well as reducing taxes, will also keep these cities happy until you can abandon them completely.
    - Third, the text also mentions using your starting Diplomat, Liu Qin, to head immediately for Xin Ye and try to bribe it. Doing so will more than likely ensure that you conquer the city without going to war with any of the nearby factions, like Nanyang and Jingzhou, who are allied. It will also ensure that you do not take any military losses unnecessarily in taking Xin Ye.

    Whatever method you choose, either Diplomat bribe or military force, the missions will not advance by just taking Xin Ye. You must also move all of your faction (except those Militias in Xu province) into the Xin Ye. After the next set of missions come up, now would be a good time to make Xin Ye your capital, and also to get rid of those militias in Xu province and put all of the Xu province cities to Very High taxes. But won't this cause them to rebel? Yes, and that is the point. Getting them to rebel is the easiest way to lose control of those settlements so that Xin Ye is your only holding. Plus, with the taxes set Very High, you can make a nice profit before you lose control of them. And finally, and this can't be stressed enough, Liu Bei must remain alive for the missions to continue. If Liu Bei dies, then the missions will be over, so protect the Liu Clan sovereign at all times.

    In the future we will be making some adjustments to the script, and probably adding new missions and events, but for now just enjoy the work the team has done in Patch #4 and enjoy your game.
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
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  8. #28

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Seether View Post
    OP Updated:

    31 July Update
    This is what i have been waiting for. Nice work.

  9. #29
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    In the latest patch, a minor mistake was made that did not allow for the custom battle models of two major characters involved in the Liu Bei missions.

    (If you don't want any spoilers for the Liu Bei missions, do not open the spoiler)
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong


    I have made a hotfix to correct this. Download the attachment in this post and extract to your Medieval II Total War/mods/Three_Kingdoms folder.

    It is NOT SAVEGAME COMPATIBLE, so you must start a new game for it to take effect. This will be included in Patch #5, so whenever that patch is released this will become obsolete.

    EDIT: New Hotfix by Gigantus includes this. Upload taken down
    Last edited by Seether; August 02, 2013 at 07:04 AM.
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
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  10. #30

    Default semi-AAR, Kong Rong

    Played about 15 years with Kong Rong, managed to secure my corner of the map from Cao Cao for now at least... I had a few comments and this is the closest thing I saw to a general feedback thread. Comments are based on this game plus about a 10 year game as Liu Yan and a 3 year game as Yuan Shu. Bear in mind I am NOT a modder, so if anything below is simply un-moddable due to game mechanisms, sorry to ask about it:

    -I love the special city buildings! They really add to the immersion.

    -Cities grow too fast. In the vanilla game, they grow over a period of hundreds of years. Here, within under 20 years, I had nearly all Large Cities. Is there a way to slow growth substantially -- a city of 2,000 people should not be a city of 10,000 within a generation -- while still allowing at least some improved buildings in smaller cities?

    -Can forts be modded in any interesting ways? Some of the major battles of the era -- Guandu comes to mind -- were basically battles over encampments, granaries, etc. rather than city sieges or pure "field" battles. Related to this, more "objects" on the battlefield would be interesting. (I know in vanilla there will sometimes be small farms, un-enterable castles,...)

    -Losing generals nearly always die. The first battle that I encountered Lu Bu, he personally trashed 3 infantry units but we ended up outlasting him and then my Pikemen killed him. In an aborted start as Yuan Shu, I killed Guan Yu in my first battle. With AI doomstacks there are so many battles, and so many AI-vs-Human defeats, it's really hard for AI generals to survive more than 1 or 2 battles against a human player.

    -That said, and I don't remember reading about this in the mod summary, but the battle AI feels marginally improved from vanilla. They seem to use their cavalry more conservatively rather than slamming everyone into your lines and just getting flanked, they seem to hold their cavalry back a bit more. Maybe it's all in my head, but it's good.

    -Maybe beef up archers? Their kill numbers are on the low side - I usually got between 25-40 kills per archery unit per battle, on "normal" unit size, even with decent archers. More than that, they just don't feel like having an impact. Even with Crossbowmen, I never really thought "I'd trade any of my front line infantry or any of my cavalry for another one of these." Maybe that's the way it should be, or maybe I should play as Han Xuan and then reconsider.

    -Possibly slow down unit movement on the map. With the AI doom stacks it can get a bit like, AI siege / defeat / here comes new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / defeat / new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / repeat. It's very easy to rush reinforcements in the densely-packed northeast. If units moved a bit more slowly, there would be greater risks of overextended lines and getting caught without easily-available backup.

    -Not sure if this is vanilla behavior, but I would estimate a 75%-80% success rate of AI merchants in eliminating my merchants. Whereas I normally had 15-25% success rates. It got to a point where I put 3 merchants in Taiwan where the AI doesn't go, 3 in the far northeast corner protected by 3 cities I held, and 1 on a gold mine in Beihai protected by an assassin who just stood there watching for enemy merchants. It was easier at first in my short game as Liu Yan, but even then, once they discovered Yi, all my good trade spots suddenly belonged to Liu Biao and Han Xuan.

    -Sun Ce doesn't really expand. Could be a small sample size, but I never saw him go after Liu Biao or anywhere beyond his little corner.

    This is an amazing mod, the beta with patches feels almost "finished" already. Keep up the good work!!

  11. #31

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Like 'mischadc' said, this looks like the closest to a general feedback thread, so here it goes.
    First of all, I really enjoy this mod. After a CTD while trying to start my first campaign, the second time it worked. I started a campaign with Ma Teng, and here are some things I noticed. I never played vanilla Medieval 2 (yet), so some things might not relate to your mod. I also play version 0.1.310 so some things might have been fixed yet.

    - The description of the XiLiang cavalry tells that they can be retrained at Huge Cavalry Camps. I could only retrain them at Imperial Cavalry camps;
    - My assassins don't get any traits. After some succesfull assassinations nothing happens;
    - When I send a stack with no general somewhere, they usualy turn rebel the next turn (byebye costly imperial units...). I don't make that mistake again;
    - In some battles I can't even reach my enemy, of reinforcements can't arrive because there's a huge mountain in the way of something;
    - Some characters have 'dishonor 0'. When I scoll over it a text appears that I shouldn't see that;
    - Rebel stacks with no general look weird (they have their face on their back, there sword is purple, ...);
    - Sometimes I get a CTD during a battle or after a battle;
    - It would be nice to have other voices than default. When a diplomat of Lui Bei tells me 'do you have something for France' feels kinda out of place;
    - Volunteer Cavalry riders don't sit on the saddle, they are slightly above.

    That being said, I do really enjoy the mod so far. I don't mean any feedback in a negative way. It's just what I noticed (and propably some more but I forgot).
    - My spear will make you pay for your injustice -

  12. #32
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    Default Re: semi-AAR, Kong Rong

    Quote Originally Posted by mischadc View Post
    Played about 15 years with Kong Rong, managed to secure my corner of the map from Cao Cao for now at least... I had a few comments and this is the closest thing I saw to a general feedback thread. Comments are based on this game plus about a 10 year game as Liu Yan and a 3 year game as Yuan Shu. Bear in mind I am NOT a modder, so if anything below is simply un-moddable due to game mechanisms, sorry to ask about it:

    -I love the special city buildings! They really add to the immersion.
    I think we could do some more on this, but that is a project for a later time.

    -Cities grow too fast. In the vanilla game, they grow over a period of hundreds of years. Here, within under 20 years, I had nearly all Large Cities. Is there a way to slow growth substantially -- a city of 2,000 people should not be a city of 10,000 within a generation -- while still allowing at least some improved buildings in smaller cities?
    I agree. Perhaps the base growth rate needs to be changed. In the latest patch I re-balanced all of the starting cities, but even so (depending on the governor) cities can explode in population.

    -Can forts be modded in any interesting ways? Some of the major battles of the era -- Guandu comes to mind -- were basically battles over encampments, granaries, etc. rather than city sieges or pure "field" battles. Related to this, more "objects" on the battlefield would be interesting. (I know in vanilla there will sometimes be small farms, un-enterable castles,...)
    I'm not sure if how forts are used is hardcoded or not. I assume it is, as is the battlefield objects.

    -Losing generals nearly always die. The first battle that I encountered Lu Bu, he personally trashed 3 infantry units but we ended up outlasting him and then my Pikemen killed him. In an aborted start as Yuan Shu, I killed Guan Yu in my first battle. With AI doomstacks there are so many battles, and so many AI-vs-Human defeats, it's really hard for AI generals to survive more than 1 or 2 battles against a human player.
    To me that is because they don't tend to retreat when they should. But the thing is, as in all M2 mods, if a general goes into battle there is a likelihood that they will die. I know people want the "favorite" RTK characters to live on and yada yada, but because we are using the M2 engine and its limitations, characters (even the famous and favorite one) can die very early in the mod. Its just the way it is.

    -That said, and I don't remember reading about this in the mod summary, but the battle AI feels marginally improved from vanilla. They seem to use their cavalry more conservatively rather than slamming everyone into your lines and just getting flanked, they seem to hold their cavalry back a bit more. Maybe it's all in my head, but it's good.
    I agree. Not only that, but cavalry also tends to attack vulnerable units (other cavalry, archers, and non-spear/pike infantry) while generals tend to not suicide themselves.

    -Maybe beef up archers? Their kill numbers are on the low side - I usually got between 25-40 kills per archery unit per battle, on "normal" unit size, even with decent archers. More than that, they just don't feel like having an impact. Even with Crossbowmen, I never really thought "I'd trade any of my front line infantry or any of my cavalry for another one of these." Maybe that's the way it should be, or maybe I should play as Han Xuan and then reconsider.
    Archers probably won't get beefed up, but perhaps crossbowmen will. In all practicality, the crossbow was a much, much better weapon for a footsoldier in ancient China than the bow.

    -Possibly slow down unit movement on the map. With the AI doom stacks it can get a bit like, AI siege / defeat / here comes new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / defeat / new stack from somewhere else / AI siege / repeat. It's very easy to rush reinforcements in the densely-packed northeast. If units moved a bit more slowly, there would be greater risks of overextended lines and getting caught without easily-available backup.
    Instead of slowing down movement, I am going to readjust the recruitment rate of many units, especially the low-tier units like Volunteers and County Spearmen. That should limit the AI spam, but I have to actually test it first.

    -Not sure if this is vanilla behavior, but I would estimate a 75%-80% success rate of AI merchants in eliminating my merchants. Whereas I normally had 15-25% success rates. It got to a point where I put 3 merchants in Taiwan where the AI doesn't go, 3 in the far northeast corner protected by 3 cities I held, and 1 on a gold mine in Beihai protected by an assassin who just stood there watching for enemy merchants. It was easier at first in my short game as Liu Yan, but even then, once they discovered Yi, all my good trade spots suddenly belonged to Liu Biao and Han Xuan.
    I have noticed that as well. Gigantus had thrown around the idea of tossing out Merchants. But, if we don't, we will look into those success rates as they seem unfairly stacked against the player.

    -Sun Ce doesn't really expand. Could be a small sample size, but I never saw him go after Liu Biao or anywhere beyond his little corner.
    In the latest patch (Patch #5) a descr_faction_standing file was included. Not saying it will work as we want it to right now, but it is a start. We will have to adjust it depending on how it works.

    This is an amazing mod, the beta with patches feels almost "finished" already. Keep up the good work!!
    Thank you. We try our best


    Quote Originally Posted by Azumi View Post
    Like 'mischadc' said, this looks like the closest to a general feedback thread, so here it goes.
    First of all, I really enjoy this mod. After a CTD while trying to start my first campaign, the second time it worked. I started a campaign with Ma Teng, and here are some things I noticed. I never played vanilla Medieval 2 (yet), so some things might not relate to your mod. I also play version 0.1.310 so some things might have been fixed yet.
    I would highly suggest updating with Patch #4 and #5 as (I believe) some of these issues have been fixed.

    - The description of the XiLiang cavalry tells that they can be retrained at Huge Cavalry Camps. I could only retrain them at Imperial Cavalry camps;
    I believe there was an issue with that before but, at least with the current Patch #5, it is indeed Huge Cavalry Camps that they can be retrained at.

    - My assassins don't get any traits. After some succesfull assassinations nothing happens;
    Future plans are to rework assassin and spy traits, as well as add traits for princesses.

    - When I send a stack with no general somewhere, they usualy turn rebel the next turn (byebye costly imperial units...). I don't make that mistake again;
    That happens, yes, and it can be annoying. I'm not sure what the chances are for that to happen, but best to ensure you have a utility general or two to move troops around where they are needed, as well as have multiple generals in a stack.

    - In some battles I can't even reach my enemy, of reinforcements can't arrive because there's a huge mountain in the way of something;
    We know of this issue and it is something that will be worked on in a future patch. The west, south-west, and south-central regions are notorious for this.

    - Some characters have 'dishonor 0'. When I scoll over it a text appears that I shouldn't see that;
    Just a missing text entry when a character has 0 honor (chivalry).

    - Rebel stacks with no general look weird (they have their face on their back, there sword is purple, ...);
    I'm pretty sure this was fixed as of Patch #4. Also, in Patch #4, the "barbarians" were given entirely new rosters and textures.

    - Sometimes I get a CTD during a battle or after a battle;
    An ongoing issue, related to either missing or corrupt battle_models or settlements located too close to rivers. Gigantus is currently working on this.

    - It would be nice to have other voices than default. When a diplomat of Lui Bei tells me 'do you have something for France' feels kinda out of place;
    It does, yes, but we do not have any Chinese voice actors on our team. Somewhere in this forum Gigantus discusses using vanilla voices.

    - Volunteer Cavalry riders don't sit on the saddle, they are slightly above.
    I will take a look at that.

    That being said, I do really enjoy the mod so far. I don't mean any feedback in a negative way. It's just what I noticed (and propably some more but I forgot).
    Feedback is always appreciated, as it allows us to correct errors and bug and add new content to make this mod better!
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
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  13. #33

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    1. In regards to generals dieing for the Ai. Ive seen some mods that make hereos respawn after they are defeated. Maybe its possible you could do this but instead of outright respawning when they die you could script it so there is a 75% chance that they respawn. And make this feature only apply to the AI. Or if you apply it to player as well make the percentage 25%. Im not sure if you can script percentage chances for this type of thing but i do know you can respawn characters when they die.

    2. I agree with population growing way to fast. In my gongsun zan campaign all my cities are huge cities in turn 150. Im pumping out feather forest guards and imperial troops as my main armys. I feel its kind of unfair against the ai because my one stack of elites an beat 3 to 4 full stacks of the enemy. Especially now that i killed all the he bei factions i have no more pesky horse archers to contend with i take minimal losses. Cao Cao has 6 times my troops overall but I am beating him back slowly and steadily.

    In third age they disabled governors chivalry increasing population growth that may help with population growth in this mod.

  14. #34
    Gigantus's Avatar I am not special - I am a limited edition.
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    I am going to have a look at the SPF values in descr_setlement_mechanics with regards to population growth - it's 'vanilla' values right now. And the fertility level in the descr_regions entries. Level 6 is very high, see picture for distribution.











  15. #35

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    A few more thoughts following some gameplay as Liu Biao. (Pro-tip: Rush Han Xuan immediately, ignore the rebel cities entirely until you've ended him. Once you finish him off, ally with the Nanman, and then you can eat the entire southland west of Chaisang without a fight.)


    • You're certainly correct about archers, and they don't play a huge role in RTK other than a few expert leaders (Huang Zhong, Xiahou Yuan's cavalry archers iirc,) and ambushes (death of Pang Tong.) Maybe there are some bonuses that can be given to all archers in forests, or something else to represent their ambush niche, rather than necessarily raising the base missile damage. It's just that right now there's simply no reason to recruit them, and in Medieval's "rock beats scissors beats paper" sort of 3-unit-types system, it's a shame that 1 of those 3 is mostly useless except for aesthetic reasons. (I do like watching that hail of arrows as the enemy advances up a hill.)
    • Pikemen may be OP. If you can get them facing forward against cavalry, they stop General's Bodyguards cavalry dead in their tracks. Certainly in Europe you had some pikemen who were considered elite (don't know if it's exaggerated but like, the Flemish against the French knights, the Swiss pikes, etc.) But in RTK, at least in the mythology that is the novel, there's really nothing more frightening than a strong general with cavalry bearing down. I don't remember any battles or commanders famed particularly for defensive infantry tactics. Maybe nerf pikemen a bit, just because right now a front line with 2 or 3 pike units is borderline invincible no matter how good the opponent's cavalry and commanders.
    • You may already be working on this for the full release, but a little more unit variance between factions would be great. It looked to me like the universal unit types -- "(location) infantry"; "(location) spearmen"; etc -- all had the same base stats. Without going too far and imbalancing the game, it might be good to go +/- 1 on some of the numbers just to reflect regional diversity. For example it's great that Ma Teng has a special cavalry unit, but maybe Ma Teng's generic regional cavalry should also have +1 attack compared to everyone else's generic generic cavalry. Again, you can't go too far with this without imbalancing the factions, but it might add a little more flavor beyond the 1 special unit each faction has.
    • Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
    • Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
    • Like GongsunZan said, once you get to Feathered Forest Guards and Imperial units, any serviceable human player really wrecks things no matter what the numerical disadvantage against the AI. Maybe either the gap between "elite" and "normal" units should be a bit smaller, or elite units should be verging on cost-prohibitive -- I'm talking like 7500 per unit. This might be a problem for the AI, maybe they'd never build them, but GongsunZan is right that one stack of elites under command of a human player is unbeatable. (I don't have it in front of me but iirc the Feathered Forest units have better stats than most General's Bodyguard infantry and cavalry. This is a problem since they come in units of 2x-3x the size of General's units. I could be wrong about that.)
    • Is there a reason the number of factions is what it is? I remember reading that the game's faction cap is like 30 or 31. If there's room for any more factions, there's a few that come to mind immediately:
      • Yan Baihu and Wang Lang, while loosely allied with Liu Yao against Sun Ce, were never Liu Yao's subordinates. Either one or both of them could have their own cities. I can see why you put them together -- they all opposed Sun Ce and having a united front makes them a stronger opponent in-game -- but any of the three could be their own factions.
      • The Governors of the four southern districts. Han Xuan was Administrator of Changsha, while Jin Xuan, Zhao Fan, and Liu Du controlled Wuling, Guiyang, and Lingling respectively. Maybe they were lumped together for a similar reason as the three above -- to provide Liu Biao a credible southern opponent? In which case it's all well and good, it's just that they could also theoretically be separate factions.
      • Kong Zhou. Governor of Runan. I have an irrational love for Kong Zhou dating to Koei's RTK III. He may die around 194 and should be a 1-province minor, but there's my pitch for him.


    The more I play this, the better it is. Can't wait for the full release!

  16. #36

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Ps kudos on some absolutely stunning battle sites in Ba-Shu. Mountain pockets that are covered on 3 sides, really some situations that are just untenable or invincible depending on where you and the enemy deploys. Reminded me of battles in the Carpathians in the Deus lo Vult mod. Very impressive geography.

  17. #37
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by mischadc View Post
    You're certainly correct about archers, and they don't play a huge role in RTK other than a few expert leaders (Huang Zhong, Xiahou Yuan's cavalry archers iirc,) and ambushes (death of Pang Tong.) Maybe there are some bonuses that can be given to all archers in forests, or something else to represent their ambush niche, rather than necessarily raising the base missile damage. It's just that right now there's simply no reason to recruit them, and in Medieval's "rock beats scissors beats paper" sort of 3-unit-types system, it's a shame that 1 of those 3 is mostly useless except for aesthetic reasons. (I do like watching that hail of arrows as the enemy advances up a hill.)
    What I would like to do is make archers the lowest tier missile units (militia, volunteers, etc.), while making crossbows the core missile units for all Chinese factions.

    Pikemen may be OP. If you can get them facing forward against cavalry, they stop General's Bodyguards cavalry dead in their tracks. Certainly in Europe you had some pikemen who were considered elite (don't know if it's exaggerated but like, the Flemish against the French knights, the Swiss pikes, etc.) But in RTK, at least in the mythology that is the novel, there's really nothing more frightening than a strong general with cavalry bearing down. I don't remember any battles or commanders famed particularly for defensive infantry tactics. Maybe nerf pikemen a bit, just because right now a front line with 2 or 3 pike units is borderline invincible no matter how good the opponent's cavalry and commanders.
    What I want to do is completely overhaul the standard units, which includes eliminating pikes altogether and replacing them with halberds (ji). The ji was, afterall, the most common melee weapon amongst infantry and cavalry in Three Kingdoms armies.

    You may already be working on this for the full release, but a little more unit variance between factions would be great. It looked to me like the universal unit types -- "(location) infantry"; "(location) spearmen"; etc -- all had the same base stats. Without going too far and imbalancing the game, it might be good to go +/- 1 on some of the numbers just to reflect regional diversity. For example it's great that Ma Teng has a special cavalry unit, but maybe Ma Teng's generic regional cavalry should also have +1 attack compared to everyone else's generic generic cavalry. Again, you can't go too far with this without imbalancing the factions, but it might add a little more flavor beyond the 1 special unit each faction has.
    A great suggestion and I am going to start making these regional changes. Expect them in the next patch.

    ]Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
    I will bug Gigantus about this.

    ]Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
    Might be OP, however we have the resources (like Nafftun units) to implement this.

    Like GongsunZan said, once you get to Feathered Forest Guards and Imperial units, any serviceable human player really wrecks things no matter what the numerical disadvantage against the AI. Maybe either the gap between "elite" and "normal" units should be a bit smaller, or elite units should be verging on cost-prohibitive -- I'm talking like 7500 per unit. This might be a problem for the AI, maybe they'd never build them, but GongsunZan is right that one stack of elites under command of a human player is unbeatable. (I don't have it in front of me but iirc the Feathered Forest units have better stats than most General's Bodyguard infantry and cavalry. This is a problem since they come in units of 2x-3x the size of General's units. I could be wrong about that.)
    In the next patch there will be some big changes to recruitment. First, only a few select settlements will be able to construct top tier barracks, stables, and ranges. Also, even fewer settlements will be able to construct the Grand Palais.

    Is there a reason the number of factions is what it is? I remember reading that the game's faction cap is like 30 or 31. If there's room for any more factions, there's a few that come to mind immediately:
    We have the same factions as the RTW mod, however we added Gongsun Du. What I would like to do first is add Shi Xie and Zhang Yang, then split Han Xuan (Liu Du, Jin Xuan, Zhao Fan) and split Liu Yao (Yan Baihu, Wang Lang). Family trees are already made for all, so it is just a matter of getting other issues settled before adding new factions.

    The more I play this, the better it is. Can't wait for the full release!
    Thank you. Our small team is doing everything it can to improve the mod a step at a time.
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
    A Wolf Among Sheep: A Rise of Three Kingdoms AAR

  18. #38
    Gigantus's Avatar I am not special - I am a limited edition.
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    Maybe some sort of specialist fire unit? Fire was used a decent amount, particularly in valleys and ambushes. Given that there's no way to mod generalized battlefield fires, maybe a small, disposable fire-throwing unit that can trash heavy armor but has zero melee attack or defense could approximate this tactic. Or, it might be OP. Just an idea.
    The principle of it makes me think of the flaming pigs - basically a one shot over powered assault unit.
    Hopefully you can fix the balance on merchants, it would be disappointing to lose them entirely. I feel like the somewhat-broken current system is still better than no merchants at all.
    This will need some balancing and also some 'importing' of vanilla traits for that agent. At present the income through taxes seems too high which makes the use of merchants obsolete, especially because of the lack of traits the AI merchants simply snipe away your merchant before he has even recovered his cost.










  19. #39
    Seether's Avatar RoTK Workhorse
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    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    OP Updated:

    19 August Update

    If people are looking for a status update, then look no further. First off, we are getting very deep into our new unit rosters. "And what is so special about that?" you might ask... Well, for starters the standard regular units of every faction will now have historic arms and armor. Please give rep to The Blade That Was Broken, as he has been painstakingly creating models and units for our new roster. After the new units are done, then focus will be moved to armor uprades (so there will be a visual difference between the same unit with different armor upgrades), then we will work on general reskinning. Along with all of that, as was suggested in the forum, recruitment will be based on a regional basis. Right now Cao Cao only recruits Zhongyuan (Central Plains) units in settlements regardless of where the actual settlement lies, but in the new recruitment system he will recruit Ba-Shu units in settlements in the Ba-Shu region, Hebei units in settlement in the Hebei region, and so on. The only drawback is that this is a very time intensive project, so don't expect to see it implement for at least several weeks, if not a bit longer. We are also looking at including settlement titles and ancillaries based on settlement and provincial control. These will be broken down into three main groups, that is county (Magistrate), prefectural (Prefect), and provincial (Governor). This, as above, will take some time to complete and will not be implemented for some time.

    Now, on to something that is (partially) implemented. If you haven't noticed, this latest patch now has some interesting things going on in Chang An. What you will notice is that whoever controls Chang An has two things happen. First, the Faction Leader will get a trait called "Imperial Guardian," representing that the faction leader is in control of Emperor Xian and the Han Court. Along with this, diplomats of the faction that controls the Emperor will get the "Imperial Controller" trait. If a faction controls the Emperor and has a set amount of settlements (won't say how many), they will get the "Prime Minister" trait, representing the Emperor's conferral of title upon the Faction Leader as the de-facto leader of the Han Court. If Chang An is lost, so is control of the Emperor, making this the beginning of a dynamic planned system. And finally, whether in control of the Emperor or not, when a specific number of settlement have been conquered, the Faction Leader will receive the "King" trait. The King trait will be specific for the faction, ie: Cao Cao will be King of Wei, Sun Ce will be King of Wu, etc. As of right now, you can not obtain the Emperor trait through our traits and scripting, as those are still being worked on. In essence, the Prime Minister and King (and Emperor) traits are placeholder for a highly dynamic and interactive scripted system that is being worked on by Gigantus. The player will have choices, as well as consequences and/or rewards for those choices. I won't give too much away but, in simple terms, a player can choose to become the Emperor's protector and support the Han, or replace it with his own regime. As said, what is in place right now is merely a placeholder for a great scripted system of political and philosophical dynamics to be included some time in the future.
    Member of the Imperial House of Hader - Under the Benevolent Patronage of y2day
    A Wolf Among Sheep: A Rise of Three Kingdoms AAR

  20. #40

    Default Re: Seether's Gameplay Notes

    I know you guys are revamping the unit roster but i got a couple of suggestions.

    Some of the more fearsome Generals should get the frighten enemy trait added to their BG. And maybe lower their base moral so that the generals rout easier. This allows them to run when things aren't going well so the player can capture them instead of kill and choose whether to release or execute. though i still advocate trying to script it so generals killed in battle have a chance of re spawning.

    Foot based generals need to be reworked. They are really weak compared to elite infantry units and cavalry charge kills them. Maybe give them close to 30 defence and 3 hp. I can test this stat change on my own i guess and see how it goes. Also i think some characters need to be changed to foot based BG even though foot based BG are terrible. Dian wei should lead some new elite foot BG unit. Xu chu should also probably lead a unit of energetic tigers with boosted stats.

    For Liang i think you could do something similar to the Heishan black mountain bandits and give Li Li, han xian, hu cai and any other white wave bandits a BG called white Wave Commander BG. Also Liang faction or any faction in control of that area around chang an could get white wave bandits from taverns. Also the bandit units should have more troops than regular infantry.

    Really enjoying the beta. keep it up!

    EDIT: I almost forgot something else related to gameplay. I was reading a general can only have a max of 10 hp. So those generals with strength above 10 dont get additional health. might need to rework strength trait then.
    Last edited by Gongsunzan; August 20, 2013 at 02:47 PM.

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