Realistic expansion

[gregnaar]

Hey everyone!
i think everyone saw that the AI can go a bit crazy, and can expand in a very unrealistic way (and the player can too).

-So if it is even possible, the ability to peacefully occupy/Raze/Loot should be removed for most factions, except: Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedon, Seleucids (the remnants of Alexander's empire) or no exceptions if its easier to implement that way.

-The other factions could only sack settlements, take the money, and then move on, or liberate. -- HOWEVER if they DO have their culture dominant in the region, they could take a settlement.
It could be even tied further to the culture:
-if at least 40% of the attacking factions culture is present in the region: they could raze the defeated settlement
-if at least 60% of the attacking factions culture is present in the region: they could loot the defeated settlement
-if at least 80% of the attacking factions culture is present in the region: they could peacefully occupy the defeated settlement

This way, there would be eventually a bigger empire in each culture, or they would fight aganist other cultures and form confederations.

The only drawback is that in the AI settlements there would be a lot more slave rebellions, so might have to reduce the amount of captives taken after battles.

So what do you all think? Any questions, suggestions? Would this be possible to do DeI team? Or a sub-mod maybe?
Have a great weekend guys and girls!

[Butan]

How to possibly become a dominant culture in a region which you have no ties in, without capturing a settlement and building your temples though?

It would put frontiers on a world that is meant to be conquered, as slowly and realistically as possible, but not totally closed to non-historical empires

[gregnaar]

How to possibly become a dominant culture in a region which you have no ties in, without capturing a settlement and building your temples though?

It would put frontiers on a world that is meant to be conquered, as slowly and realistically as possible, but not totally closed to non-historical empires

Well, you can use spies, generals, agents, champions. Once you liberate a settlement you can stay there with your army and agents, and soon you will be able take another settlement in the region, or could do that after you looted a settlement. stay there with some armies, and agents, and after some turns you should be able to capture the settlement. The african tribes usually doing this, if you are at war with them, they tend to send massive amounts of dignitaries, and that can cause 20-30 cultural conversion.
So its not impossible achieve even dominant cultural rating without having an actual settlement in a region.

[Butan]

I forgot about the dignitaries... Indeed it could be used that way.

That would be a really hardcore way to set the pace of the game though, I'm unsure if it would ever see the light of day, but its interesting.

[gregnaar]

Thank you!
I was thinking about other methods, for example, when you dismiss a unit that is in your factions pool(not an AOR unit), that would impact the culture of the region.
So if you recruit a hastati in rome, take it to brundisium and disband it, you would get some culture, or cultural influence for 1-2 turns, depends on how can it be achieved. Ofc it should lower your cultural influence in the region whenever you are recruiting to balance the feature.

Or trade could give cultural influence to both trading partners provinces (where the trade routs go through your regions), so if you trade too much greeks you could get in trouble, in your cultural dominance. So trade would not be that overpowered, it would have drawbacks

[balparmak]

I haven't played the game for a long time (since 0.8 I guess),and while I think what you proposed is too extreme, you have a point. Maybe tying the negative public order effect after occupation to technology and giving more advanced factions a headstart would work. That way it would not be feasible for barbaric factions to occupy cities at the beginning of the game (too much negative p.o.,maybe even money loss?so that the loot you take doesn't cover the cost of governing a city (garrisoning,security etc.)), but they can catch up if they focus on technology. Seems realistic too, as those factions lacked an organized structure.

[gregnaar]

Yes that would also make sense, but i dont think that would stop the AI from expanding, or slow them for that matter

[MisterClever]

If done right with lots of scripting and tech changes, you might be onto something here...

Well i think this is very interesting if it was something that only applies to AI factions? Playing as the Suebi as the human player already is going to cause massive ahistorical scenarios, so maybe it's something that can be scripted to only apply to AI " civilized" factions. This would simulate "barbarians" copying "civilized" empires in the mid to late game "learning how to build empires" which we can agree is a deep political and cultural undertaking.

The reason Caesar was able to conquer Gaul among other reasons, was his ability to pit tribes against each other and chew them up piece by piece and was more concerned with confederation and unification of the tribes in RESPONSE to Caesar as a common threat. Major barbarian factions that settled down and created infrastructure, roads and so on were able to project their power. I think we all can agree what makes us upset about early expansion is the silliness of it. It's hard to justify how a small tribe of fierce yet independent warriors and champions can form vast empires across dozens of cultures and climates and adapt like they are Roman or Greek. Romans were already at the game start assimilating tribes, annexing land and conquering it's neighbours in a way we know recognize as 'empire building', but the Suebi were not. They would raid each other and show dominance etc. but they were not wars of empire.

I think the more I type and think on this subject, you maybe be onto something big here...

So, as this would allow historical empires to form, yet maybe allow Barbarian factions a chance at empire after saying researching one or more technologies modeling that they have advanced culturally and politically to allow 'empire building'. That way AI faction aggression would be more about annoying as you would worry about getting sacked and looted at first more than outright conquered.

Would simulate the tension and "justification" of expansion as Rome (for example) would commonly justify themselves with wars of aggression to feel "safer" about certain borders.

So in conclusion...
1. Rome, Carthage, Diadochi, Eastern Empires, African kingdoms(maybe not?), be allowed to keep land and build empires. Then only allow everyone else to raid sack and pillage, with the option of "learning about" empire through a very expensive deep in the tree civil technology that triggers a chain of 'civil reforms' that allow empire building.
2. Make "barbarian" factions tougher to conquer in various ways to compensate. The Romans did not conquer all of modern day Germany, modern day Scotland or the whole of 'Scythia' for these kinds of reasons. Essentially a " that " attitude lol prevailed. Hadrian's wall being one example.

So, A) Their units could receive a buff in stats. B) Their culture should be harder to control and 'tame' resulting in longer cultural assimilation, public order issues etc. This would make any faction bonuses and governors that increase cultural conversion even more important. A good idea would be to give all the Roman factions/families the 'Romanisation' trait the Julii have and boost it to +5. Maybe something similar but not quite as potent for Carthage too, like +3.
C) Unlikely trading partners. Only through offers of peace, gold etc they would back off and 'simmer down'. As an aside, however would be neat if you could form a non aggression treaty or something, that allowed you to recruit their units like you can do with satraps etc.?

[gregnaar]

It's hard to justify how a small tribe of fierce yet independent warriors and champions can form vast empires across dozens of cultures and climates and adapt like they are Roman or Greek. Romans were already at the game start assimilating tribes, annexing land and conquering it's neighbours in a way we know recognize as 'empire building', but the Suebi were not. They would raid each other and show dominance etc. but they were not wars of empire.

Exactly.
My idea may be a bit too extreme like others have stated, but with some fine tuning it could make the campaign map more challenging. I hope Dresden picks up the idea, or someone.
But they are working on other ways too to slow down the early expansion.

[Tundra98]

Well, i personally dont like this idea, at all. BUT some people like it, so if possible you could find out if it is possible to make a submod for DeI with this