{DIK} Discussion

[Aneirin]

Are you allied to the HRE?
You will have to wait till 1530 at least

[k/t]

I could try to help with some of the work of changing the coordinates and resources. It's only fair.

[Aneirin]

Well, that would be great!
But first of all, I'll finish the Republic of Siena.

[pons]

Hi Neadal
Really enjoying this fantastic mod but I have a small suggestion. Have you thought about limiting mercenaries by religion? I'm playing as Ottomans and have access to a number of mercs that I really shouldn't have. "Turning Turk" was a recognised phenomenon of the time - but involved defection of individuals rather than whole units of pike for example hiring themselves out.

Second suggestion is more a matter of preference. I think you should have to drag your artillery around with you rather than hiring some handy merc artillery when you get to the scene, so I would do away with merc artillery for islamic factions and probably for all. Again it was famous that Ottomans made use of western artillery experts - but they hired the individual who then cast the cannon in Ottoman workshops (eg at siege of Constantinople) - they didn't have the opportunity to hire whole pre-existing units of artillery. Choice between quick, light raids and slow transport of an army with capacity to take cities was a real one

Easy changes for me to make myself, but I would be interested to hear your opinion. You've clearly studied the period in depth and thought hard and creatively about game design.

[Aneirin]

Many thank's for your interest in our work!

Referring to your suggestions.
We are aware of this problem, but it would take us so much time just to make such a "small" change. We would have to code a trait for all Turkish generals and then connect it to the mercenary-system. Very time consuming, so we concentrated on other issues, at first. Well, do you know an easier way?

To your second point, a very interesting thought and actually you are right.
I think we'll change that for our version 5.0.
Thank's!!

Cheers,
Ned

[pons]

Many thank's for your interest in our work!

Referring to your suggestions.
We are aware of this problem, but it would take us so much time just to make such a "small" change. We would have to code a trait for all Turkish generals and then connect it to the mercenary-system. Very time consuming, so we concentrated on other issues, at first. Well, do you know an easier way?

To your second point, a very interesting thought and actually you are right.
I think we'll change that for our version 5.0.
Thank's!!

Cheers,
Ned

Neadal
There is an easy way to limit mercs by religion - in fact you've already done it for some. Just stick religions { catholic } or religions { islam } after the relevant entry in desc mercs and bingo - mercs limited by faction religion. Ottomans can't get flemish pikes etc any more. No need to mess with traits. Is there an aspect to the problem that I am missing??

[Aneirin]

Oh, I see!
Thank you very much
So, we can handle that as well


No, I don't think so.

[b257]

Will the winged Hussar have an unarmoured horse model for the next version? Loving the Dalmatian archers for Venice

Edit: never mind, saw you already answered it earlier,

[pons]

Hi Neadal
Here are some more thoughts from an Ottoman player based on game experience. They are offered as ideas about how to further improve - but against the background of this being one of the best and most playable mods I have seen in years of playing.
First, a tiny thing - I'm struggling a bit with the notion of anatolian ghazis in North Africa so how about renaming to just ghazis - there were plenty of the local variety?
Second a dilemma. Is it worth making things more realistic, but harder for the AI? At the moment it's a bit too easy to raise ottoman armies in Italy, and catholic armies in Africa, and not just junk troops but elite units (though your idea of kleinstadt, mittelstadt, grossstadt helps a bit).
History, you will appreciate, was different. In N. Africa the christians had to pretty much intervene and get out (Tunis 1535) or maintain themselves with supplies from home base against steady hostile pressure (spanish presidios 1500s onwards, including in Tunisia Annaba 1535-40 and Mahdia 1550-54). Similarly when the Turks took Otranto in 1480, they couldn't start recruiting locally - they had to hope that the Sultan would send them some reinforcements, which of course he didn't.
One way to reflect this would be to put a religious condition on recruitment of unit types, so these types can only be recruited in provinces where say 50% of the population are of their religion. This involves quite a lot of changes to export desc buildings - but it just means editing text.
Another way often used is to have separate buildings to create muslim troops and catholic troops, so conquering into another faith zone you have to build afresh before you can start producing new armies.
But the dilemma is that both would mean the ottomans were less of a threat if played by AI, so do you sacrifice a bit of realism in order to keep things interesting? Turks in Otranto are much more of a threat if they can start spamming out good troops straightaway.
I think a compromise might be to limit low grade and a few higher grade turkish troops to anatolia and n. africa with a hidden resource, and move production of the best turkish troops to the ports line (and uniquely Sarajevo, representing the road to Constantinople), so that you don't get turks spamming in mid-Italy, but you can get high quality turkish armies if they take an italian port. That sounds realistic for the human player and may actually bolster the AI turkish threat rather than undermine it.
As ever, interested to hear your views. I could always implement this compromise idea myself, play as a catholic faction, and give you some reports on how the AI turks are behaving.

[Mausolos of Caria]

From my observations the Ottomans are always the AI faction which expands the most in the first 50 turns, so the problem to make it more difficult for the AI might not be as bad actually. Otherwise, religious connections to unit recruitment are a very good idead, and I thought the same about artillery mercenaries. More infantry would be rather appreciated

[Aneirin]

The fast expand of the Ottomans was intended.

I have already had the idea in mind to add an AOR. But the thing is, how do we represent the smaller factions? They were only able to recruit some troops in their home provinces, otherwise they had to rely on mercenaries.. very difficult..

So my proposal is,
every faction have his "homeland" (every unit is recruitable), next step is "no-man's-land" (basic units, like militias are available), last stage is "far-off" (only mercenaries and local militias are available, all with bad stamina, training).

[b257]

I like that idea , BTW how historically accurate would it be to add a mounted gunner AOR, unit? Just wondering because in my Spanish campaign I have conquered all of the islands in the western med. and North Africa and I'm currently fighting a gruelling war with the HRE for the Italian peninsula and their mounted gunners are mauling my forces making my victories pyrrhic ones making me want to recruit my own, would it be possible to have have such a unit available via AOR?

[Aneirin]

Hard to say, on the Italian peninsula, such units were quite common.
I am not sure, because this unit does not meet the requirements of an AOR unit.
In my opinion, it would be to highly trained

[b257]

Shame, those units would be pretty handy for any army, especially given the damage they inflict on my forces, causing me to postpone my siege of Florence thrice already. Despite fighting on 2 fronts those Germans are putting up one hell of a fight, though it might be one soon since Hungary is losing on its end and despite taking north Africa, the ottomans are still a threat for me since they've joined in on attacking Hungary and have been blockading my ports constantly. I might just stop my Italian campaign and hit the ottomans before they get too big again.

[Hetman Khmelnytsky]

Three faction previews in just a few weeks - I smell an early release in a month or two...

[Aneirin]

Well, that would be awesome
But I fear that is not very realistic, there are many things, which need to be done.
I have only showed you the units, but most of coding and scripting is still remaining.
So, I think it will be !probably! around Christmas

[Mausolos of Caria]

Wow, the new family dynamics are looking very intriguing, +rep! Looking at them, just make sure that loyalty won't be too low, since at least half of these characters seems to have zero loyalty

[Aneirin]

Especially Siena
I have added a shadow factions to them, so there will be a lot of fun.
But more of that later

Really? Well, I could add "LoyaltyStarter" to each of the characters

[Mausolos of Caria]

Yes it looks great How did you do that, add a shadow faction for each of the three concerned factions? As for loyalty, I only judged from your screenshots... low loyalty for a few characters will be good, though, especially with a shadow faction covering it up- as long as not the majority of characters rebels all the time

Do you have a feature for Venezia and Genova, where a limited number of families always shared the rule between them? Without actually knowing it I would assume that only members of these families would receive military or governor posts as well, so they could have an advantage whereas Siena, the Papal States and Ragusa have this disadvantage. Or maybe they would have internal quarrel as well...

Also, as I am speaking about the maritime Republics, back then for Tsardoms TW (which never realized in the form I had hoped for) I suggested to add a building to Genova and Venezia to represent their exceptional maritime trade. Of course it shouldn't be unfair, but if you want I could look up my initial suggestion.

[Aneirin]

No, only for Siena (Signoria Borghese), but I could after my holidays
You just have to add ", shadowed_by your_shadow_faction" to the concerning faction inside the descr_sm_factions.
For the faction, which will become the "shadow-faction", just add ", shadowing your_target_faction".
And one more entry need to be done.
Set your "shadow-faction" at nonplayable inside the descr_strat.
Then add:

faction    mongols, balanced smith
ai_label    catholic 
dead_until_emerged
re_emergent
denari    15000
denari_kings_purse    3000

The line "dead_unitl_emerged" is very important, otherwise it won't work at all

Actually, I have no idea how that will effect the gameplay, we'll see about that

Currently, we haven't planned to add this feature to Venice nor Genoa, but we probably will!
To your thoughts, yes, that seems realistic to me, thank's for suggestions, I will keep them in mind!