Ideas/Suggestions

[Voice of Treason]

Nothing bad, just a gameplay Vs Historical authenticity question for Nanman settlement growth
Research
I'm 317 turns into Nanman campaign.
Over the turns, through a combination of, I've recruited every mercenary possible..thrown thousands bribing every neutral/enemy/rebel spawn near or in my lands...and assassinated what's left.

However, most of my cities crap out at a critical population peak well below next "level activation" despite moving in quality generals and moving the capital and having lowest tax ( I don't think disband to recruitment pools is activated so that option is out)

These pop growth levels have been peak constant over 317 turns, some examples
Yung chan 5760<8000
Yun Nan (even let it be captured and massacred to reset pop growth peaked around 16000<18000)
Jan Ning 5755 Yue xi 5021, Zhu ti 5751 Jiang zu 1709 Zang ke 5777<8000
Zi tong 15019< 18000

The only populous cities I own seem far away...eg, Cheng Du +30000 doing a slow 4 turn levied Han heavy Infantry...I cant even make enough to do battle compared to Ai stacks. One Nanman stack is the equivalent of roughly 1/3 average AI army, and they can outnumber me in loitering stacks easily 5 to 1 basic.
As a consequence, It seems I can seldom field any reasonable tier army compared to any other surviving faction at this juncture.(even with the basic Han conscripts)
Verdict
Though it may be historically intentional so far, I wonder if (at least) C-5101b-Yun Nan capital should have +1 farm base level etc tweaking ( i think that relates to population)...so at least this settlement can hopefully develop earlier?

Just to reiterate, I have been using the "assassin" exploit (I can field 6), it's been essential for the Nanman campaign to get this far...
All bribing and murder...

I'm gonna console command pop for C-1503 b Yongchang, Yun Nan, Jian Ning (the original settlements) as an experiment

[Seether]

in the next patch could we change some of the famous officer loyalty and dread level? cause I see a lot of faction famous generals and they got very low loyalty and dreads, cause back in the beta before 1.0 loyalty seem to make a lot more sense for instance zhang he was recruitable, but yan liang and wen chou cannot. basically any generals that switch sides got lower loyalty while officers that stick with one faction stays high loyalty. cause I see sun qian, liao hua, lu meng, and etc etc got high dread and no loyalty.

Are you talking about after you bribe them?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nothing bad, just a gameplay Vs Historical authenticity question for Nanman settlement growth
Research
I'm 317 turns into Nanman campaign.
Over the turns, through a combination of, I've recruited every mercenary possible..thrown thousands bribing every neutral/enemy/rebel spawn near or in my lands...and assassinated what's left.

However, most of my cities crap out at a critical population peak well below next "level activation" despite moving in quality generals and moving the capital and having lowest tax ( I don't think disband to recruitment pools is activated so that option is out)

These pop growth levels have been peak constant over 317 turns, some examples
Yung chan 5760<8000
Yun Nan (even let it be captured and massacred to reset pop growth peaked around 16000<18000)
Jan Ning 5755 Yue xi 5021, Zhu ti 5751 Jiang zu 1709 Zang ke 5777<8000
Zi tong 15019< 18000

The only populous cities I own seem far away...eg, Cheng Du +30000 doing a slow 4 turn levied Han heavy Infantry...I cant even make enough to do battle compared to Ai stacks. One Nanman stack is the equivalent of roughly 1/3 average AI army, and they can outnumber me in loitering stacks easily 5 to 1 basic.
As a consequence, It seems I can seldom field any reasonable tier army compared to any other surviving faction at this juncture.(even with the basic Han conscripts)
Verdict
Though it may be historically intentional so far, I wonder if (at least) C-5101b-Yun Nan capital should have +1 farm base level etc tweaking ( i think that relates to population)...so at least this settlement can hopefully develop earlier?

Just to reiterate, I have been using the "assassin" exploit (I can field 6), it's been essential for the Nanman campaign to get this far...
All bribing and murder...

I'm gonna console command pop for C-1503 b Yongchang, Yun Nan, Jian Ning (the original settlements) as an experiment

I'm going to take a look at a few thing. The threshold for settlement upgrading seems a tad too high, plus some could probably do with a little higher fertility.

[limith]

Are you talking about after you bribe them?



I'm going to take a look at a few thing. The threshold for settlement upgrading seems a tad too high, plus some could probably do with a little higher fertility.

Are you using governors with Pacifier and City Planner feats, or just high acumen? High acumen is insufficient to level up cities, while Pacifier and City Planner (+ Low Tax) is. There are many unaligned generals with such feats in the middle of the map, so it was quite easy for me as Liu Clan or any of the central factions to level up my cities (after a very long time), but it may be more difficult for you as Nanman faction. I will admit that the first threshold (8000) is a impossible for me to achieve without a governor that is >6 acumen, Pacifier, AND City Planner, so maybe lower the first threshold a tad. However, the 2nd and 3rd thresholds can be achieved with a governor without all of those (at least for me, mostly only high acumen required and ONE of the two feats, not test with Agronomist, I don't know if that feat works since I've put governors with that into a settlement and the settlement info tab doesn't see pop growth go up). The last threshold (50000) needs a really good governor and high base farming (not all places can get it) as most places peak around 49000. Although my observations are based on cities in Zhongyuan, which may have higher farming output rates. I also always build health and farming buildings first.

Lastly, my general observation playing TW games is that massacring a place makes it harder to level them up because most settlements start with higher population/lower squalor than if you started from scratch, or maybe that's placebo effect.
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I like the current faction symbols. However the naval captain flag colors doesn't match the faction symbol color...

[Seether]

These are the numbers I am working on right now:

New: 5000 > 12000 > 25000 > 40000
Old: 8000 > 18000 > 30000 > 50000

[limith]

These are the numbers I am working on right now:

New: 5000 > 12000 > 25000 > 40000
Old: 8000 > 18000 > 30000 > 50000

What about:
5000, 15000, 27500, 45000

It's pretty easy to hit 49000 with the best governors, so 40000 seems a bit low.

[Seether]

27500 is an odd number; I like good 'ol even numbers. But I'll take your suggestions into consideration

[limith]

@Voice of Treason: One of my unupgraded settlements is at 8000 population (upgrade level) with 1.5% population growth/turn before I upgrade the wall with Pang Tong as the governor in charge. It is entirely possible to upgrade towns even with the 8000 population level threshold. You need better governors, not just high acumen governors (acumen gives a very small bonus), but governors that reduce squalor (City Planning, Pacifier are the best feats, also some ancillaries give you bonuses such as 'Agriculture Monthly'), increase health, or increase farming output. At 8000 population and with a squalor reducing governor, the population growth penalty from squalor is only 0.5%. Bribe a few of the much better unaligned generals over, the AI never does it. You need to go far away from the Nanman starting area though since there's very few good governors around there to bribe from unaligned faction. In 80 turns, my population (with 41 settlements) has reached 600,000 due to good governors. I'm going to modify my feedback now to more favor thresholds that are closer to the current population upgrade threshold if you want to tweak them lower a bit (I now consider the existing thresholds fine after some more playing).

7000 -> 18000 -> 27500 -> 45000

Otherwise, if the thresholds are reduced more than this, then I suggest lowering the bonuses from City Planner/Pacifier/Argonomist/Agriculture Monthly/etc. etc. every other ancillary/feat because I'm getting 5% growth rates right now in some of my cities right after I upgrade them and build all of the population buildings, so if the threshold is lowered, the growth rate will be even higher since you'll be able to access the next level's population buildings earlier.
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New Suggestion: Allow 'defection' events to occur for factions outside of campaign missions. They can be fewer/smaller in scale.
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New Suggestion: Replace Trade feats with more useful feats. Trade still dies too early. I never get more than ~3000/turn from trade before diminishing returns kills trade. Upgrading a trade building kills trade faster. 10% income bonus on trade when trade is basically nothing is still nothing.
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New Suggestion: Remove merchants from the game altogether, still not worth it.
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New Suggestion: Make army limit script more aggressive, AI is still killing it's treasury by overbuilding military. Every faction is basically broke by turn 40 or earlier. Either that or disable AI military building if there's a deficit (so it doesn't burn the reserves). Once the AI gets broke, I can take over AI territory by offering tribute for settlements, and then immediately canceling the tribute.

[cheesegrader]

[QUOTE=Seether;14030645]Are you talking about after you bribe them?

I am talking about enemies general before bribing them they get so much dread and loyalty drop down to near zero, before 1.0 generals who switch sides historically such as zhang he are easier to bribe, and officers such as guo jia, xun yu are nearly impossible cause their loyalty only goes up never drops down. I assume this was intentionally such as not being able to bribe guan yu, zhang fei because they are fixed to only Liu bei faction, but that was before 1.0 not sure about now cause I see Liu bei for my current campaign recruited a lot of cao cao famous officers.

also was natural death base on age implemented yet? lol I want my childrens to marry more princesses since no one is at war atm and they are everywhere.

[limith]

Are you talking about after you bribe them?

I am talking about enemies general before bribing them they get so much dread and loyalty drop down to near zero, before 1.0 generals who switch sides historically such as zhang he are easier to bribe, and officers such as guo jia, xun yu are nearly impossible cause their loyalty only goes up never drops down. I assume this was intentionally such as not being able to bribe guan yu, zhang fei because they are fixed to only Liu bei faction, but that was before 1.0 not sure about now cause I see Liu bei for my current campaign recruited a lot of cao cao famous officers.

also was natural death base on age implemented yet? lol I want my childrens to marry more princesses since no one is at war atm and they are everywhere.

How do people bribe other faction's generals? I have yet to successfully bribe another faction's general, aside from unaligned and rebel. Even generals with 0 loyalty and a faction leader with 4 authority. This is with skill 9 diplomats too and ~150000 in the treasury. Do I just need more money?

[cheesegrader]

How do people bribe other faction's generals? I have yet to successfully bribe another faction's general, aside from unaligned and rebel. Even generals with 0 loyalty and a faction leader with 4 authority. This is with skill 9 diplomats too and ~150000 in the treasury. Do I just need more money?

I am unsure but even with 13000 when I played as heishan in the very beginning I could bribe both zhang he and qu yi.

[dalapto]

5000, 15000, 27500, 45000

Best population numbers for settlement upgrades, try these first and then you can tweak them if it doesn't work.

7000 -> 18000 -> 27500 -> 45000
Otherwise, if the thresholds are reduced more than this, then I suggest lowering the bonuses from City Planner/Pacifier/Argonomist/Agriculture Monthly/etc. etc. every other ancillary/feat because I'm getting 5% growth rates right now in some of my cities right after I upgrade them and build all of the population buildings, so if the threshold is lowered, the growth rate will be even higher since you'll be able to access the next level's population buildings earlier.

7000 is too high, not everybody can get 5% growth per settlement due to the randomness of good traits & base farm levels. I have a town with 0.5% growth on low taxes and a city with 4% growth on normal taxes. The problem is growth is inconsistent due to traits & base farm levels. Growth increasing buildings are fine, as you don't get them until later on, and you'll also recruit units frequently later on taking more population away. I find the problem is getting there to those buildings.

[Seether]

you'll also recruit units frequently later on taking more population away.

Are you sure about that?

[Gigantus]

It used to be like that in RTW - luckily (my opinion) this feature is removed in M2TW. Gaul used to be a wasteland of minimum development settlements because the AI would recruit massively (like it still does) thereby depriving himself of population needed for upgrades. 400 pop with a base level barracks as only building was the norm.

[Minn]

How about add this script to our mod? http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...elect-the-heir

[cheesegrader]

we have this script

[Voice of Treason]

After deliberating the population opinions, I'm experimenting and starting a new Nanman campaign.
I've adjusted the pop levels in the descr_settlement_mechanics.xml to (hopefully) take in the above game-play considerations of achievable but deliberate low end progress versus later effort and application of the traits and ancillaries to push max outs.
...and I prefer rounded numbers too, but I've gone with
2000 to 5500 to 16500 low end....to 28000 to 45000

I've also incorporated a "knock-back" script (to test in RotK) at the end of the campaign_script.txt under this principle for all factions.

monitor_event FactionTurnEnd FactionType whateverfactionblah
and IsFactionAIControlled
and Treasury > 80000
and I_TurnNumber >= 1
add_money whateverfactionblah -40000

I cut/paste this script into most of my mods.
How it works is it allows the Ai to organically accumulate wealth to the threshold of your choosing (varies mod to mod) in this instance, say 80000, but then gives a savage knock-back to a factions funding so they financiallydrop/climb again...repeat etc.

(The knock-back has to be savage so the Ai is pushed back from the threshold so it is not loitering way above losing miniscule amounts but remaining in the black
eg threshold 80000 -100. Ai has 150000 so loses -100 this turn. Next turn milking 149900 but still way above 80000 etc etc etc.)

I find some of the benefits are,
A faction can still drop into the red (BELOW ZERO) and as so will learn consequences.(very, very important!!)
No faction will over dominate financially, all have a reasonable chance.
It's easy to adjust/fine tune thresholds and knock-back per mod
The Ai Factions will be more reasonable, not haughty and arrogant in diplomacy, from supreme financial stability. eg sitting on $1000000 etc
The Ai factions should (hopefully) not sit on their fat asses comfortably pumping out armies but be more aggressive as the have to apply effort for all resources, land, units etc etc. They reach the threshold, mysteriously lose half next turn..now have to make decisions to remedy etc

Will report if proves beneficial/any progress...

edit: 2000 is just listed as my town jump off point. just being thorough, see pic

[limith]

After deliberating the population opinions, I'm experimenting and starting a new Nanman campaign. I've adjusted the pop levels in the descr_settlement_mechanics.xml to (hopefully) take in the above game-play considerations of achievable but deliberate low end progress versus later effort and application of the traits and ancillaries to push max outs. ...and I prefer rounded numbers too, but I've gone with 2000 to 5500 to 16500 low end....to 28000 to 45000

2000 seems a bit low? Confused. Otherwise, numbers seem good...

I've also incorporated a "knock-back" script (to test in RotK) at the end of the campaign_script.txt under this principle for all factions. monitor_event FactionTurnEnd FactionType whateverfactionblah and IsFactionAIControlled and Treasury > 80000 and I_TurnNumber >= 1 add_money whateverfactionblah -40000 I cut/paste this script into most of my mods. How it works is it allows the Ai to organically accumulate wealth to the threshold of your choosing (varies mod to mod) in this instance, say 80000, but then gives a savage knock-back to a factions funding so they financiallydrop/climb again...repeat etc. (The knock-back has to be savage so the Ai is pushed back from the threshold so it is not loitering way above losing miniscule amounts but remaining in the black eg threshold 80000 -100. Ai has 150000 so loses -100 this turn. Next turn milking 149900 but still way above 80000 etc etc etc.) I find some of the benefits are, A faction can still drop into the red (BELOW ZERO) and as so will learn consequences.(very, very important!!) No faction will over dominate financially, all have a reasonable chance. It's easy to adjust/fine tune thresholds and knock-back per mod The Ai Factions will be more reasonable, not haughty and arrogant in diplomacy, from supreme financial stability. eg sitting on $1000000 etc The Ai factions should (hopefully) not sit on their fat asses comfortably pumping out armies but be more aggressive as the have to apply effort for all resources, land, units etc etc. They reach the threshold, mysteriously lose half next turn..now have to make decisions to remedy etc Will report if proves beneficial/any progress...

I'm not sure about this, we already have a king's purse script. I don't know if a knockback would improve AI diplomacy or behavior. Currently the AI either accepts everything when broke, or declines most things when not. Also doubt this would affect aggressiveness, AI is sufficiently aggressive as it is (at least in my game). Most factions are always at war with 1 or more faction. Care to explain some of this? I don't really understand AI too well beyond how I can exploit it (AI Jiangnan just gave me all of their settlements except capital for tribute cause they are broke on the "Destroy Jiangnan mission". Needless to say I cancelled the tribute immediately after..

[dalapto]

Originally Posted by dalapto

you'll also recruit units frequently later on taking more population away.

Are you sure about that?

It used to be like that in RTW - luckily (my opinion) this feature is removed in M2TW. Gaul used to be a wasteland of minimum development settlements because the AI would recruit massively (like it still does) thereby depriving himself of population needed for upgrades. 400 pop with a base level barracks as only building was the norm.

My bad, thinking of RTW's recruitment. And it was definitely a worse system. You also had to wait 9 turns to recruit 9 units in one city and if you queued up the units you would have to pay the recruitment costs for those units. M2TW's is muuuch better and makes more sense.

[Seether]

@limith and VoT

You guys are talking about 2 different things. VoT was saying 2000 was too low for town upgrade, while you had 2000 listed for village upgrade. Basically the first tier, village upgrade, can be ignored since there aren't any villages.

[Gigantus]

That cancelling tribute exploit needs some serious plugging (or nasty penalties), I just can't think right now how to test for it...