SSHIP - General Discussion

[Larkin]

Great feedback although I personally had no problem forcing Sicily into vassalage as Venice and saw many other AI factions establishing client states.

And I've fought 2 sally battles and the AI operated fine (well, it lost, but only through my tactical brilliance ) in both.

I like most of your suggestions, but I do not feel income is too high. If you are constantly building structures, one war will be extremely costly and can often push you into the red very quickly even with a 50k odd treasury.

[Chalupaku]

Great feedback although I personally had no problem forcing Sicily into vassalage as Venice and saw many other AI factions establishing client states.

And I've fought 2 sally battles and the AI operated fine (well, it lost, but only through my tactical brilliance ) in both.

I like most of your suggestions, but I do not feel income is too high. If you are constantly building structures, one war will be extremely costly and can often push you into the red very quickly even with a 50k odd treasury.

Re Vassalage: Looks like it was a fluke on my end, then.

Re Sally Battles: I wonder if it might be a force composition issue then. My armies with Pisa tended to lean heavily towards Crossbowmen (only fitting, really), so maybe that throws the AI for a loop? I'll try testing when I have a chance.

Re Income: I think income is going to vary greatly between play-throughs depending on how many and which settlements are captured when, and I agree that in the beginning of the game it is easy to push things too far with maintenance costs (which is why I built my personal bureaucracy/economy control script the way I did). For instance, Lithuania is probably going to be a challenge for a very long time.

However, I tend to find that when I get around 15 settlements the economy is no longer an issue due to the large number of highly skilled merchants one has and the ability to leave some settlements relatively undefended (I always choose some settlements as strategic chokepoints so that my core regions need not fear the first wave of enemy attacks). Also, it sounds like we have a slight difference in philosophies: I'd like to have to choose whether to build structures or wage a war, rather than getting to do both simultaneously (just adds another level of strategy imo).

Iirc, one of the mod's stated goals is to force players to choose between structures so they can't have them all. However, since most buildings currently don't have substantial penalties and there's a surplus of cash most of the time, I often find myself building everything possible.

[Larkin]

In my experience, the AI does tend to struggle with ranged units. I remember several battles back in the day with large amounts of crossbow men that the AI would not try to close with, stuttering back and forth like you mentioned - I believe it tries to counter ranged with ranged, perhaps it sent its own archers forward but they could not compete? However in SS and SSHIP most battles usually are decided by heavy cavalry charges, and are often very bloody, and relatively short.

Yes, of course it will vary based on location and player style. I like to have something building in every settlement at all times, waging war only with a single full stack - as Venice, our starting areas are practically identical, so we should have been ruling over the same settlements.

Then again, I found myself at war with the menacing HRE and ERE at separate times, so perhaps I was just a little more cost intensive. Either way, despite ruling ~25 settlements (and Venice+Verona bringing in 16k alone) I would not turn a massive profit every turn.

Merchant spam is a little exploitative and I try not to do it too often, operating only 2-3 merchants at a time. It is possible to secure ridiculous income with a maxed merchant, over 5k each.

[Chalupaku]

Just tested the Sallying issue, and it seems that only smaller settlements (city level and below) are affected. So it might very well be an issue with the player's start distance. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to alter that, so I can't test it myself.

Re merchants: Yep, that alone could explain our very different experiences with finances. I think my 15 odd merchants were making an average of 1k each. In my next playthrough I'll try fiddling with merchant contribution to my treasury.

There are two ways to address such an issue using modding (that I know of). One is to reduce the merchant income in the descr_campaign file, and the other is by scripting a hard limit to the number of agents one can train. Unfortunately, both have their downsides. The latter isn't a very 'clean' fix, and can be circumvented accidentally, while the former is tricky to balance while still allowing merchants to be meaningful in low numbers and not be overwhelming when there are many.

Regardless, I think I'll try adjusting the existing values and see how it goes.

[Daerandir]

I've read the installation instructions, and the caution against running the 6.4 set-up because that will require re-installation of the mod. Does that mean I cannot switch to play a late era campaign in SS 6.4 without having to re-install, or am I misunderstanding the caution?

[Lifthrasir]

I've read the installation instructions, and the caution against running the 6.4 set-up because that will require re-installation of the mod. Does that mean I cannot switch to play a late era campaign in SS 6.4 without having to re-install, or am I misunderstanding the caution?

Unfortunately, that's correct. But you have another option if you want to play the SS6.4 Late Era. You just need to install SS6.4 twice.

Basically, install SS6.4, run the set-up for Early Era and install SSHIP on top of it and following the installation instruction. When done, rename your folder as "sship" for example. Don't forget to correct and rename your shortcut as well (if you have one).

Then, re-install SS6.4 but run the set-up for Late Era game.

That's it. You have now the choice to play SSHIP for Early Era and SS6.4 for Late Era.

[Daerandir]

Thanks for the help. I think I'll give this mod a try.

[puddingkip]

Is there a bug concerning heretics? Because I've had continuous chances of ~40-45% with my priests of burning them and out of the 19 attempts 6 failed and 12 priests went heretic. Only one heretic burned. I don't mind heretics being stronger, but the odds are really deceiving which shouldn't be the case in my opinion

[achilles-91]

Is there a bug concerning heretics? Because I've had continuous chances of ~40-45% with my priests of burning them and out of the 19 attempts 6 failed and 12 priests went heretic. Only one heretic burned. I don't mind heretics being stronger, but the odds are really deceiving which shouldn't be the case in my opinion

heretics are realy too anoying :S even in vanilla ss 6.4 they were, but i think here are even more..all ti time i need to have armies of priests .
and btw i think unreast should be lowered and distance from capital too. its ok to be hard to hold new settlements ,but its extremly frustrating to all time destroying building and holding full stack armies.. i even set baghdad to capital when i captured, and still its rebelious..

[ananbabandeden]

Turkish units not historical. You must use Borken Crescent Turkish Units.

[Zanze]

Moors seem like they would be a little OP, though it adds some flair to Europe. They constantly vassalize the 3 Iberian countries and swim in their gold for some time before they revolt...and get re-vassalized. Moors are currently at a stalemate with France in Toulouse(French) / Bordeaux(Moorish). However, with the HRE having just declared on France it looks like there wont be a second Charles Martel.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

How can I make a mercenary unit available to recruit for a faction ?

Example: I want the Alani (Non-Horse archers) to be available to recruitment in the Byzantine Empire or Cumans.

Moors seem like they would be a little OP, though it adds some flair to Europe. They constantly vassalize the 3 Iberian countries and swim in their gold for some time before they revolt...and get re-vassalized. Moors are currently at a stalemate with France in Toulouse(French) / Bordeaux(Moorish). However, with the HRE having just declared on France it looks like there wont be a second Charles Martel.

Hmm that's weird in my campaign they got kicked out of Iberia by a Spanish-Aragonese-Portuguese Alliance by turn 79 pretty early I would say.

[Larkin]

Moors for me lost Morocco to rebellion and have been locked in a stalemate with Aragon-Castille-Portugal. Occasionally one seems to take the initiative, then rebellion loses the settlements they took and restores the status quo. I recently (150 turns) intervened by getting a crusade called on Granada, taking Valencia and Granada, and handing them over to Aragon and Portugal to try and be nice. Took Palma for myself

But hey, different outcomes = a good, balanced game! So yay team!

Ariel, I believe in descr_strat (mods>ss.6.3>data>world>campaigns>imperial campaign) you can find all the units recruitable by each faction, and it should be a simple matter of copy/pasting the units you want under the factions you want. I may be wrong though.

[Lifthrasir]

How can I make a mercenary unit available to recruit for a faction ?

Example: I want the Alani (Non-Horse archers) to be available to recruitment in the Byzantine Empire or Cumans.

Check this tutorial. That should help you.

Regarding Moors, it depends. In some of my test campaigns, they do well, expand and become quite powerful. In some other, they get wipped out by the Spanish factions.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Check this tutorial. That should help you.

Regarding Moors, it depends. In some of my test campaigns, they do well, expand and become quite powerful. In some other, they get wipped out by the Spanish factions.

Thanks .

[Kleptomayn]

Would anyone care to share some tips on how to play a succesfull Castille-campaign?? The Moors just spawn so many armies at you, I usually give up when one of the AI armies finally besieges Toledo without assaulting, starving the remaining survivors..

[MWY]

Castille/portugal/aragon are all very hard to play in the currently released version of sship. I adjusted this for the next version, so I can only suggest to wait for it to be released. Iberia gets a small overhaul in units, the almoravids get a huge one. So it really is worth the wait.

[cloud700]

Castille/portugal/aragon are all very hard to play in the currently released version of sship. I adjusted this for the next version, so I can only suggest to wait for it to be released. Iberia gets a small overhaul in units, the almoravids get a huge one. So it really is worth the wait.

That's great will Rum also be getting an upgrade?

[MWY]

spain, portugal got a small overhaul, moors a major one. fatimids are overhauled aswell, with upgrades to the saladin-era and to the mamluk era. Right now, Ichon is working on rum- and turkish units. With several new units for the abbasids aswell, you will basically get a major overhaul of the muslim factions in general (including historically correct characters for some factions).

[cloud700]

That sounds epic . I don't if I should start a new campaign or wait for next patch.