SSHIP - General Discussion

[Jurand of Cracow]

I think it's exactly the question of balance of various mechanisms in the SSHIP and also of views on historicity.

History: Lifth (and I presume the former leader Fair Prince) thinks it's unrealistic as any soldiers would expect a pay for their services. I actually agree but I wouldn't have problems if we'd say "the city pays for the security services" and some units (like the Georgian Metsihovne - professional guards in a city) would have a free upkeep. But we can go either way.

Economy: you may take away the free upkeep and limit the bonusses for the AI, or leave the free upkeep and extend the bonusses. Either way is ok. There might be blantant errors (as, imo, the forts in the HURB: I used to build colonies of forts (like 20 of them) to keep my army with no cost in. But apart from such errors - both ways are ok for me.

Gameplay: you should think how it works with the other mechanisms. Again, it can go both ways, eg. if my ideal system would be implemented, then with high parameter 3 the free upkeep is redundant.

Currently in the SSHIP, if you have aroun 10 settlements, you'd get more feudal reserves than you need, so after a campaign you'd indeed disband the feudal heavy cavalry (what is realistic imo).

[Lifthrasir]

is this realistic tho ?

recruits_morale_bonus bonus 2 requires event_counter is_the_ai 
happiness_bonus bonus 1 requires event_counter is_the_ai 
law_bonus bonus 5 requires event_counter is_the_ai 
religion_level bonus 2 requires event_counter is_the_ai
construction_cost_bonus_wooden bonus 20 requires event_counter is_the_ai

Cairo is making 15k denars under Ai control, i take control of Egypt with console and now Cairo is making only 9.8k

And what? Your example is more related to the 2nd part of my sentence rather than to the 1st part. AI is not as clever as the human player. It needs to be helped

@ JoC, even if the unit cost is taken "locally" - city, feudal lord, etc - there's still a cost. Some units need to be equiped. Some needs to be paid. All need to eat and drink. The engine doesn't allow us unfortunately to represent that with accuracy. So, each unit in game has a cost. That's for the accuracy part.

Now, regarding the gameplay, the human player will always optimize the free upkeep feature in order to keep the best units with the lowest cost. The AI is unable to think that way. That gives an advantage, quite important to the human player IMO (actually more important than the extra income the AI receives as pointed by Dekhatres).

For the record, that's actually MWY who implemented it and I fully agree with that choice even if I still can't understand how he has calculated the costs and upkeep. Tbh, I find some quite weird - I'd say
As he's inactive nowadays and hasn't explained how he did it, I guess that they (cost and upkeep) will have to be reviewed soon or later.

[Palaiogos]

Oh! AI doesn't have free upkeep?

[Dekhatres]

that AI needs help to compete with player is a fair argument, that free upkeep is favoring the player too much is not since AI gets compensated with higher income

taking Cairo as example, the AI has 5k+ more in income which is the upkeep cost of about 9-10 units of medium/good quality, for all that the players gets to have free upkeep on 3 crappy militias who already have low upkeep, how is that too unfair to the AI ?

[Lifthrasir]

Well, if you find it too unfair for the human player, I'm afraid that you will have to put that feature back by yourself because I won't. I've explained that the AI is dumb and unable to manage its bonus as efficient as a human player. I'm not gonna move back on that point.

[kostic]

Personally, I am doing very well against AI with version 0.9.5. Did version 0.9.6 change anything about free unit maintenance or was it already the case with the previous version ?

[Lifthrasir]

No, we didn't. Free upkeep has been removed since v0.9.0 or v0.9.2 (can't remember exactly). The only thing is that we have slightly changed the factions' standing to make peace negociation easier. In some cases, it was impossible to get peace between some factions like between Poland and Hungary f.e. However, it seems that the AI is less agressive as a counter part
We're currently investigating

[Alavaria]

The funny thing about garrisons is that if your unit is too small (eg: 2 soldiers, but the unit should have 3 officers) problems can occur if they actually end up in the battlefield.

And it's sort of funny to have tons of skeleton garrisons in every single settlement, since just avoiding being garrisonless is a major benefit.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Welcome back, Alavaria, it's been long time you haven't been active.

Your (second) argument is right if there're settlements that don't need many man to keep them under control. You've shown us how to do it and as we've discussed I think the secret lays in the many guilds providing PO benefits for all the faction's settlements. I hope it's very rare situation - as your playstyle is.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

SSHIP is easily the most fun I have ever had at a historical MTW2 campaign. The balance and difficulty are so good, like not impossible but also not easy.

[Alavaria]

Well, the main value of having "just a banner" as your garrison is highest early game*, where it can save you the upkeep of say four or five units (which instead goes to four or five units** in your early army. On a larger scale, yeah it's a larger benefit in numbers, but less relative to your needs, after a while garrisons shouldn't be an issue costwise, due to how your defence needs do not scale up as much as your income does.

By the time you get to killing/farming factions for their guilds, that's already a different point, I remember starting to buy up merc crossbowmen to garrison places. This is because your initial growth makes things a bit harder thanks to "distance to capital". But mainly because once you start grinding out Siege Assault Total War, a Banner Logistics distraction isn't worth the hassle. Though you will have all the banners available to use as garrisons then...


*Actually this got me into trouble since the SSHIP pope is more like a normal faction and will attack you. However, having 1 full unit of spear militia vs a unit with 2 people won't prevent him from attacking anyway either... the root cause was really treating him like a vanilla pope than a standard faction.

**Because there's a unit pool, you don't get extra soldiers by training new units and retraining depleted ones (Unlike say RTW, where you can retrain endlessly). So having 1 "banner" and 1 "full" unit is really more like getting a free banner. Unless experience is high and matters for the depleted unit, a bit less likely early game, though having XP1 might be nice since it gives +1 attack.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I agree with you, Alavaria, just some comments:

after a while garrisons shouldn't be an issue costwise, due to how your defence needs do not scale up as much as your income does.

buy up merc crossbowmen to garrison places. This is because your initial growth makes things a bit harder thanks to "distance to capital".

Fully agree on the mercs - their upkeep should go absolutely up. Well, sometimes the costs of the garrison in the outer regions may be higher than the income, have a look at Halicz and Turov.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Actually this got me into trouble since the SSHIP pope is more like a normal faction and will attack you. However, having 1 full unit of spear militia vs a unit with 2 people won't prevent him from attacking anyway either... the root cause was really treating him like a vanilla pope than a standard faction.

I actually liked the aggressive pope - it was a real threat (even though not really historical...)

Because there's a unit pool, you don't get extra soldiers by training new units and retraining depleted ones (Unlike say RTW, where you can retrain endlessly)

exactly, exactly!

SSHIP is easily the most fun I have ever had at a historical MTW2 campaign. The balance and difficulty are so good, like not impossible but also not easy.

It's exactly why I'm involved in the SSHIP. I have some doubts if some of the changes in the recent version don't make the things too easy.

[Lifthrasir]

To all, the missing faction button issue (reported here) has been fixed with a 2nd patch that can be found here (save game compatible).

[rflo93]

Thank you for the fix.

[Dekhatres]

@Lift that image in the bugs thread was posted by niko in 2017 XD

do you think maybe it would be better to just fix the current captains since who knows when the new roster comes ? (or if it ever does)

in any case there's CBUR HQ and there's MarbleEmperor's unit models, i am using some units from both

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

from MarbleEmperor








from CBUR HQ

very similar looking varangians, just a bit less.. decorated, they look more pratical, kind of


same for the scholarii and rest of units

their looks arent far off from that of niko's units i believe, you can see in that left upper corner of the pic you posted in bug thread that scoutatoi are even using the same shield

what ya think ?

[Lifthrasir]

Luckily, I've been in contact with him recently
His Greek roster is done or almost done (99%). nikossaiz is busy in RL and have limited free time like most of us (dev). I told him I'll use his roster if he can complete it. It wouldn't be fair to use stuff from another modder after him being in the team for only 2 months.
He keeps me regularly updated and honestly, his roster seems very accurate. So to answer, no, I don't plan to use another Greek roster for now

[Slaytaninc]

The infantry are too heavily armored. I often look at these Byzantine rosters and wonder why if they were apparently so well armored why'd they lose so much? Chainmail and a lammellar harness where a western milite would be hard pressed to afford even his hauberk? I'm just not convinced. Maybe as guard units, highly elite soldiers? Sure, but not as mainline infantry.

[Dekhatres]

if they were apparently so well armored why'd they lose so much?

i'd say equipment generally played quite a small role in winning

Chainmail and a lammellar harness where a western milite would be hard pressed to afford even his hauberk?

money i believe, iirc there is a saying that more money passed through Constantinople in one week than the whole Europe in a year but i am not sure what year it refers to, still

i will say imo current SSHIP byzantine units do look a bit too bulky and overly armored even for me, it's why there's a charm to the Broken Crescent units

Luckily, I've been in contact with him recently
His Greek roster is done or almost done (99%). nikossaiz is busy in RL and have limited free time like most of us (dev). I told him I'll use his roster if he can complete it. It wouldn't be fair to use stuff from another modder after him being in the team for only 2 months.
He keeps me regularly updated and honestly, his roster seems very accurate. So to answer, no, I don't plan to use another Greek roster for now

you're making an excuse that i dont think even you belive. Why did you release a v9.0 and a 9.2 and 9.5 ? why not have no release at all for 6 years and just release 1.0 ? i mean 9.0 and 9.2 etc all had bugs and werent complete right ? why did you release ?

i think you get the point i am making here which is that if you constantly chase perfection you'll never release anything, you can improve things forever

hope i didnt come across as rude again, it's really not my intention at all

[Jurand of Cracow]

The infantry are too heavily armored. I often look at these Byzantine rosters and wonder why if they were apparently so well armored why'd they lose so much? Chainmail and a lammellar harness where a western milite would be hard pressed to afford even his hauberk? I'm just not convinced. Maybe as guard units, highly elite soldiers? Sure, but not as mainline infantry.

I agree on the criticism of heaviness.

I think there're usually 2 reasons for such depictions:

-- source bias: the pictures and archeological founds we've got belonged either to the highest elites: in case of Byzantium there're depictions of emperors, highest officers and saints, so there're the best armour available (or rather imaginable for the author). And they're beautiful, those armours.

-- belowed-subject bias: I love my country's history and I think they're best warriors in the whole world. With the best gear, of course. Just look at the Khevsur thoughts in the Georgia thread: the Georgians were the heaviest armoured units!

In my opinion, most of the units in the SS and in the other the mods are armoured much better than they're in reality. The units that are present in 12th century would fit rather to 13th century and later.
Think of the Polish mounted crossbows Strzelcy. There's such unit for 12th century in the SS but after reading the books I think the sources corroborate the existence of such units for 15th century.
Or think about all those two-handed axe units. I don't think they ever existed. A few men for a unit - yes, but not whole units. On the Bayeux tapestry you've got such soldiers - but how can you tell how many they're? The authors would depict only the best gear.
Not to mention those Georgian units where all guys have armours and weapons which only the eristavi could afford. In the mountanious country with few resources, little trade contacts to for the transfer of technology (well, proximity to Constantinople and Baghdad helped up to a point) you've got an army of the best armoured units in the world... give me a break.

----

"why'd they lose so much" is another question. Losing was always the effect of bad politics, not bad armour. More expensive weapons wouldn't win on their own (it was probably only the case of big ships at the beginning of 20th century or maybe of machine guns in Africa in 19th century). So why Byzantines were losing is a different topic (and me, I think they're pretty successful, until they broke a couple of times: end of 11th century, end of 12th century and beginning of 13th, middle of 14th century - I think Anthony Kaldellis works on the Byzantine political system are quite illuminative.


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Gameplay-wise: Byzantium is the target of the crusades (pretty un-historical for the period, it's a fantasy of some authors, muslim moralists, and game creators). It will have difficult time to fight off all those muslim armies and perhaps suffer a loss of Constantinople. So the player faces a challenge and maybe heavy units would help a bit ;-)

[kostic]

The infantry are too heavily armored. I often look at these Byzantine rosters and wonder why if they were apparently so well armored why'd they lose so much? Chainmail and a lammellar harness where a western milite would be hard pressed to afford even his hauberk? I'm just not convinced. Maybe as guard units, highly elite soldiers? Sure, but not as mainline infantry.

This is the classic problem of the right balance in the representation of war units from the past. Some describe the equipment in the Middle Ages in a miserable way, others in a lavish way ...
I agree with Jurand of Cracow; the units represented in Total War are often over-equipped, but above all, there has probably never been a complete unit where each individual carries exactly the same type of weapon or the same equipment. It is a challenge to try to diversify the units with the limits of the Total War game engine !
I dream that one day the designers of Total War will make us a Medieval III Total War with a new engine allowing real diversity within the units ...