Archi's Rome II Mods - Discontinued

[WayneRooney]

How are you dealing with CAI? Will CAI be aggressive and make balanced armies?

[Archimonday]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Have Uploaded a new update which includes the Roman and Carthaginian Recruitment pool expansions. As well as the minor CAI Tweaks done from the last iteration. I also added acai back to the attachments section of the Original Post, for those people who would simply like the CAI, and not the entire mod as a whole. Although I recommend playing the mod in its full version, acai.zip should be compatible with almost every mod when placed in the correct file load order. Check the Original Post for the links. Easiest way to get updates is to subscribe to the mod on the Steam Workshop.

To better explain the tweaks done to the CAI from the last update on November 13th:

Task Generation

*Attack All Enemy Forces - Priority Raised
*Attack All Enemy Settlements - Priority Raised
*Attack All Local Human Forces - Priority Raised
*Attack All Local Human Settlements - Priority Raised
*Complete Province - Priority Lowered
*Attack Agents in Own Regions - Priority Lowered
*Defend Sea Regions - Priority Lowered
*Raid Unstable Regions - Priority Lowered
*Attack Food Producing Regions - Priority Lowered
*Attack Neighbouring War Regions - Priority Lowered
*Actively Defend Capital - Priority Raised
*War Coordination, Regions and Forces - Priority Raised
*Consolidate Borders - Priority Raised
*Defend Allied Territory - Priority Lowered

Campaign Personalities

*Help Multiplier for Sea Path - Value Lowered
*Help Multiplier for Land Path - Value Increased
*War and Peace Manager: Importance of Distance - Value Increased
*War and Peace Manager: Importance of Paths - Value Decreased

Cultural Multipliers

*Latin Attitude towards Punic Culture
#Negative Value Increased
*Punic Attitude towards Latin Culture
#Negative Value Increased
*Latin Attitude towards Latin Culture
#Negative Value Increased
*African/Arabian Attitude towards All Culture
#Positive Value Increased

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[bantad87]

Hey, two questions Archi:

1. Have you noticed any weird campaign behavior regarding diplomacy? I just came back after a month or so and downloaded your mod, and noticed that turn 1 Egypt is ready to become my client state(I'm playing Sparta). This seems unusual, since technically Egypt is far more powerful than I am.

2. Also, looking at your signature - Do you happen to be in A Co, 1-5 INF out of Ft. Wainwright, or is that 5-1 CAV?

[Archimonday]

Hey, two questions Archi:

1. Have you noticed any weird campaign behavior regarding diplomacy? I just came back after a month or so and downloaded your mod, and noticed that turn 1 Egypt is ready to become my client state(I'm playing Sparta). This seems unusual, since technically Egypt is far more powerful than I am.

2. Also, looking at your signature - Do you happen to be in A Co, 1-5 INF out of Ft. Wainwright, or is that 5-1 CAV?

1.) Yes there are instances where these large empires are doing strange things. The thing about the cultural modifiers I changed, is that I want to expand them, since say, one barbarian factions culture is not the same as anothers, and one Greek City state would differ from another. This meant that there were long standing rivalries between certain Kingdoms. This will be fixed, currently all Hellenic countries have a diplomatic bonus toward one another, and a small distaste for everybody else.

2.) The latter.

[Archimonday]

Added Early Principes to the game, which will be the first Principes recruited. As a player upgrades his military buildings to a Tier II military building, these Principes will be replaced with the normal ones, armed with Gladii and Pilum instead of the Hasta.

Picture was taken using Kaziels Romans! Excellent skins.

[Archimonday]

A new update has been uploaded. Check the Original Post for the attachments.

​Changes

- Added Early Principes to Roman Unit Recruitment Pool
- Cultural Modifiers for AI adjusted
- Unit Upkeep and Recruitment Costs redone.
- Campaign TPY lowered to 6

[Archimonday]

A version of the mod has been uploaded to Steam Workshop and the Original Post which features just the Battle Tweaks, for those people looking for battle modification without Campaign modification.

ACAI.pack and Amod_b.pack can be used together to avoid the longer campaign, economy tweaks, technology research times, etc.

[Muskelsteffen]

I must confess that I have quite some sympathy for your mod! One thing that you could adjust to the 12ypt are the siege lenghts.

[bantad87]

Hey archi, something else you may want to consider looking into is the balance between javelin and slinger armed troops - you've got the javelin damage set to 33, range 65, shots per minute at 11, and ammunition at 3; however, slingers have 11 damage, 160 range, 14 shots per minute, and 25 ammunition. To top all this off, slingers have the same offensive stats as javelins, but more armor. Right now I'm having a hard time justifying the use of javelins over slingers, considering that javelins need to be closer to their targets, run out of ammo quickly, and have lower damage overall. I understand that javelins have much higher armor penetration, and are therefore exceptional at killing enemies like Hoplites, but slingers with concentrated fire will quickly decimate Hoplites as well.

I don't necessarily think that javelin ranged damage needs to be adjusted, but making them stronger in melee would help to bridge the gap between them; considering they run out of ammo so quickly, I end up using them as a melee unit in half my battles. It's also fairly historically accurate, and in later warfare skirmishers were expected to throw javelins and then support the battle line.

[Audacia]

Does your mod incorporate a AOR for any factions, especially Rome? I believe that would most definitely be historically accurate, and it would reflect that it takes a good amount of time to recruit, say, legionaries, once a settlement has been occupied.

Also, Real Roman Reforms is a mod that reflects what you touch upon with your early Principes and Hastati. Is there any chance to make RRR compatible with your entire mod, even though that mod's battle statistics will be differently balanced than yours?

And...some feedback: I just played a custom battle using Polybian Roman troops against a fairly strong Avernian army and lost. While I love the battle mechanics, I definitely felt like the troops were moving too slow. I definitely think that they should be slower than in vanilla, but they were so slow that visibly they did not look right. Cavalry charges felt incredibly lackluster, because units were moving almost too slow for the animations. It just did not look right, and I feel as though, for the sake of gameplay, that unit speed should be slightly increased.

[bozu]

My first post. I had to log just to say that this is becoming an amazing mod.
You sir are simply fixing this game. Now Rome 2 is more mature and requires thinking, sometimes it's even a bit like chess!
For those who want strategy and patience instead of simple hack and slash, this is highly recommended.
kudos and keep the awesome work

(a small note: I've edited a few things for personal use, like slightly increasing the negative moral impact for units when charged from behind/flanks. I think this aspect is tactically important and i had the impression it's too hard to tactically break a unit's morale).

[adambajer]

Thanks for reply Archimonday.
You were right. Now I am expanding into Iberia and they really do not like me Even in Gaul where I have some alliances and non aggression pacts its slowly falling apart. They are starting wars amongst each other and I have to carefully choose which side I want to join, because I do not have enough armies to fight everywhere. Only thing that doesn't seem right is that they are offering me too much money for any pact. At the beginning of campaign it was too easy because of that. (Of course I could choose not to accept the money, but it was too tempting ).
By the way. Battles in your mod are the best and so much fun. I am enjoying them as much as I enjoyed playing Stainless steel mod for Medival 2 total war.
I agree with bozu. Even when enemy is completely surrounded and exhausted, it is very difficult to break them.
Keep up the excellent work and I am looking forward to next update

[Archimonday]

News Update for December 4th added to OP.

[SD_Man]

Not sure if you would like to keep the Hastati equipped with the spear but I remember that the original EB team mentioned that Polybius specifically said that the Hastati were the only ones not armed with a hasta during the First Punic War. Not much information is known before 272 BC so this is the main reason why they gave the Hastati a sword; it does make sense though as the poorest/least experienced would only have a "peasant's weapon" while the richer folk would be armed with "noble spears."

[Archimonday]

Not sure if you would like to keep the Hastati equipped with the spear but I remember that the original EB team mentioned that Polybius specifically said that the Hastati were the only ones not armed with a hasta during the First Punic War. Not much information is known before 272 BC so this is the main reason why they gave the Hastati a sword; it does make sense though as the poorest/least experienced would only have a "peasant's weapon" while the richer folk would be armed with "noble spears."

Its heavily believed that the Hasta was replaced as the primary weapon of the Hastati in the first few years of the First Punic War. Rome and its Italian allies saw the horrific wounds caused by a sword wielded by Iberian soldiers fighting for Carthage, and adopted their own version of the same sword for almost all of its infantry.

[SD_Man]

Its heavily believed that the Hasta was replaced as the primary weapon of the Hastati in the first few years of the First Punic War. Rome and its Italian allies saw the horrific wounds caused by a sword wielded by Iberian soldiers fighting for Carthage, and adopted their own version of the same sword for almost all of its infantry.

Hmmm thanks for the info, I always wondered where/when the Polybian Romans got their Hispanic military influence from.

[Archimonday]

Update 0.98 and Changelog added to OP.

[bozu]

Going to test 0.98 now.
About the previous version: playing Rome, steadfast.
After playing a few turns and building good relations with a couple of factions I'm now able to collect about 20 thousand coins per turn as pure donation (gifts)/ PER very friendly faction. Tested it every damn turn afterwards. Works like a charm, and since it would destroy the challenge the only option is voluntarily not doing it.
I don't know if this is a vanilla bug or not.
Fact is, I could raise +500k in like 5 turns, making building economy absolutely useless.
I could even run Rome under heavy fiscal deficit (-50k/turn), just raising money around the globe out of nothing, creating huge armies. ( a certain contemporary country comes to mind... except that there's no debt in the case of this little game ).

[Archimonday]

That doesn't really make sense to me. Every campaign I've played running the full version has been an economic nightmare, unless gifted money by the AI, or paid for an alliance of some kind. Quickly used up but building cost and unit creation.

[adambajer]

Going to test 0.98 now.
About the previous version: playing Rome, steadfast.
After playing a few turns and building good relations with a couple of factions I'm now able to collect about 20 thousand coins per turn as pure donation (gifts)/ PER very friendly faction. Tested it every damn turn afterwards. Works like a charm, and since it would destroy the challenge the only option is voluntarily not doing it.
I don't know if this is a vanilla bug or not.
Fact is, I could raise +500k in like 5 turns, making building economy absolutely useless.
I could even run Rome under heavy fiscal deficit (-50k/turn), just raising money around the globe out of nothing, creating huge armies. ( a certain contemporary country comes to mind... except that there's no debt in the case of this little game ).

I mentioned something like this to times before. Only thing you can do about it is choose not to accept that offering (12000 for peace, 6000 for non aggression pact, they are offering gifts for no reason) You can raise money only by accepting diplomacy proposals and be at debt at the same time. In one of my campaigns I had 2 cities, 2 full armies, 20000 gold and -200 in debt and I knew that every time I end turn money will come by diplomacy. Everything else is perfect. When you get in other areas they do not offer this money, only your neighbors do that with same religion as yours.