[REL] Historically plausible development minimod (in hibernation now)

[andrewdrakelive]

If the game could support realistic diplomacy we could do something where Rome gives you a peace treaty after the 2nd or 3rd time you smash them, but obviously that's not how diplomacy in this game works.

Is Rome not at war with Carthage.[/QUOTE]


You should check anabasis diplomacy mod, it does exactly that. I am currently combining it with this mod (anabasis mod needs to load before yukishiro's), and I am getting interesting results

[yukishiro1]

I added a version for Epirus to the steam workshop collection that tries to mitigate the problem by reducing the bonuses Rome gets (from 4000 income/ 5 slots to 2500 income/ 3 slots) and tries to compensate by reducing the bonuses for Carthage, nerfing Garamantia even more, and slightly nerfing the three celtic factions of cisalpina. I haven't had a chance to test this at all so I can't guarantee the balance is right, but it should make it a bit less painful to play as Epirus.

If you don't use the workshop lemme know and I'll put in a download link as I go to redo them.

[Draikz]

In my game Rome is at war with Carthage and his allies(the Getuli and Masaesyli (or however they're called), the Etruscan and me. They finally took Apollonia, I couldn't do anything to stop it and now Athens is besieging Larissa, so I'm definitely doomed hahaha, it seems impossible to play as Epirus, I just wanted to test it, I dont even like Epirus. Your Epirus version looks good, although Idk how those celtic will do against other celtic factions now they're nerfed (how are they nerfed? income? slots?)

I'll try it when I have time and I'll give you feedback.

Thanks for your effort in any case

[yukishiro1]

and now Athens is besieging Larissa, so I'm definitely doomed hahaha,

Something kind-of odd happened with Athens in patch 8. It didn't used to be extremely aggressive towards Epirus in patch 7, but now it is. It seems to go all gung-ho on Larissa most of the time right now, which is odd and annoying. It has a substantial upkeep penalty in this mod, and it can only recruit 1 unit per turn, so if you can beat one of its armies decisively you'll have it off your back for quite a while...but that is really hard when you're also being sandwiched by Rome. It is a tough problem to address.

[Black9]

Yuki, 2 questions:

1) any pics from your latest sims? I love watching the empires shift and grow.

2) does your mod make some of the factions virtually unconquerable? What I mean is that Rome, for example, gets 5k denarii and 5 extra recruitment slots. So even if I stomp their army, they can build another 5-9 units the very next turn. I guess Rome should be hard to conquer though, since it took ~700 years to happen IRL.

[yukishiro1]

2) does your mod make some of the factions virtually unconquerable? What I mean is that Rome, for example, gets 5k denarii and 5 extra recruitment slots. So even if I stomp their army, they can build another 5-9 units the very next turn. I guess Rome should be hard to conquer though, since it took ~700 years to happen IRL.

It makes it very hard for the AI to conquer rome. I am still refining the player balance aspect. If you are the only one fighting Rome, unless you have expanded majorly beforehand it will certainly be hard for the player to beat Rome in its home provinces...but I do not think it is impossible. Outside the home provinces, Rome is strong but not particularly invincible. Particularly when it first establishes a foothold in an area, you have a good chance to stop it because it can only recruit 1 (or maybe 2 if it's a major city) units per turn from that new province. Once Rome really establishes a presence in the area, it is going to be very hard to dislodge. This strikes seems realistic to me as well. Rome was the juggernaut it was largely because of its logistical superiority and its local partners. The powers that successfully resisted Rome did it by decisively defeating Rome in the field before it established itself in the region. Think the Germans crushing Varus' legions, or the Parthians destroying Crassus' army. Compare that to what happened in Gaul, where the Romans were allowed to establish their presence fairly slowly and given substantial support by segments of the local population.

To successfully invade Italy in this mod would be a major undertaking, however, and probably only really feasible if Rome is distracted by fighting on another front as well. Which seems realistic to me. You would probably need at least a 2-3 stack concentrated army to mount an invasion of the italian home provinces.

If people are finding that Rome is made too powerful that can probably be addressed. Right now, Rome gets boosts to help it expand; if that makes Rome too impossibly difficult to take on as the player, I could lower those bonuses and compensate by nerfing some of the AI factions around Rome instead, sort of like I tried with the Epirus version.

I have some screenshots, but I'm not sure if I have a recent full sequence. I'll take one for the next sim I do and post it.

[Shaggy1973]

Tried it but it seemed to nerf the etruscans to a standstill in my legendary rome campaign. think I will remove until it gets a little more rounded.

[yukishiro1]

Etruscans arn't modified at all, so that's odd. If you are playing as Rome, there shouldn't be any difference except for the modest income boost, which should be more than compensated for by the greater threat from Carthage. If the AI is Rome, it will obviously be stronger and will make fairly quick work of the Etruscans, but I don't think there's anything I can do about that. The Etruscans don't even survive against the vanilla Rome, which is much too weak to turn into a real superpower.

edit: Well, except for the recruitment changes, which will slow the amount of units per turn they can recruit per turn. If you are playing on legendary the AI gets 5 slots on vanilla; with this mod, they would get 2. So that would be a fairly big change. So that's really just a judgment call on your part. If you want a game where even relatively small factions are able to pump out full stack armies every 2-3 turns, this probably isn't going to be a great mod since it stops that from being possible. Although I am still actively tuning balance around the edges, that aspect of the mod is unlikely to change. Although small factions can still field relatively strong armies in this mod, if they lose that army it is likely to be decisive because it will take 5-15 turns to recover it. This is part of what historically plausible development means - losing a large army was devastating for a smaller state in the real world, and if it can just be shrugged off in a turn by the AI it wouldn't be possible for historically plausible development to occur.

[yukishiro1]

New versions being uploaded to steam now, including new diplomacy system inspired by Anabasis. Credit to him for the ideas! Seems to help avoid the endless to-the-death wars that plague this game and don't seem very historical.

[carbide]

Thanks for the new version, really looking forward to seeing the new diplomacy system you and Anabasis have been hammering out. Hell I'm even going to start a new campaign for this.

[lesterthenerd]

nice. so no need for anabasis's mod right?

[yukishiro1]

Also, the diplomacy values are still pretty rough. In some cases they may produce situations where peace is TOO easy to get, and in particular where it is too easy to extract a lot of cash from the enemy in return for a peace treaty. So at least for now it may be a little bit abusive to demand as much money as you can for every treaty - the AI may be a little too ready to roll out the treasury for you. I will try to find a way to fix this in future versions, but it seems like it may be hard-coded into how the system works and difficult to change.

[yukishiro1]

No, not unless you want to use his values instead. Anabasis' mod uses many of the same ideas as mine, but he has his own approach, which may or may not work better.


I don't know if you could load his over mine and get his values but my mod for the rest of it; it depends how he set things up in his mod.

[lesterthenerd]

No, not unless you want to use his values instead. Anabasis' mod uses many of the same ideas as mine, but he has his own approach, which may or may not work better.


I don't know if you could load his over mine and get his values but my mod for the rest of it; it depends how he set things up in his mod.

ok so no need. thanks for effort. think im going to restart my roman campaign.

[yukishiro1]

P.S. All changes should be are save-game compatible. If you like your old campaign, you can just keep running it and try out the new diplomacy features from the date of your old campaign save. They should even work into the diplomatic situation you find yourself in in that save. I.e. factions may suddenly be willing to make peace where they weren't before.

[Black9]

I.e. factions may suddenly be willing to make peace where they weren't before.

Have you seen if it's easier to make them into clients/satrapies? I love me some subjugation.

[Black9]

Will +rep for sim pics!

[yukishiro1]

I'm running a sim using the new version of the mod right now, once I get down to 242 (another 6 years!) I'll post em black.

[carbide]

I have one question, if I want to play using H or VH CAI will this disrupt what the mod is trying to achieve? Giving the bonuses with the higher difficulty.

[yukishiro1]

I have one question, if I want to play using H or VH CAI will this disrupt what the mod is trying to achieve? Giving the bonuses with the higher difficulty.

Only to a minor extent. It's designed for normal, but I don't think pushing it to hard to VH would fundamentally screw up the balance. But I don't really know. It's really just speculation on my part. Because H/VH will give equal buffs to ALL factions, it will probably upset the balance slightly. Some of those buffs are % based so they shouldn't have any effect, but some of them (like the +gold per turn) are hard values. For example, on normal ligura will get +1000 per turn and rome will get about +4000 per turn, but on VH it'd be +2000 and +5000. Now in my experience money doesn't matter all that much in this game for AI power, so it's probably not going to be a big deal.