Playing with the limited recruitment & PO nightmare mods

[Roskilde grenadier]

So, I've been enjoying DEI for a good 1½ weeks at this point, and as I've written in other threads, I'm very much satisfied with the experience, bar a few annoyances - worst among them the unhinged expansion of certain AI factions. So I thought I wanted to change that - fortunately, there as mods out there which can help this problem. So I got the limited recruitment and public order nightmare submods for DEI, and they work as intended, as far as I can tell, though I couldn't say which of them has the best effect - I think they work quite well together, since it matters little if the AI can recruit less, but still does not have to maintain the areas it captures.

I've played about 5 years in the current campaign, and so far the effect is as intended. Initially, Syracuse took Lilybaeum, as always, but in the end they lost it again to the rebels (a first for me), and now I have taken the settlement. AI troop output is significantly less than regular DEI, and this of course hinders the AI expansion somewhat - in 268BC I have not seen a lot of aggressive expansion around the Mediterranean; it looked like Liguria had quite some trouble trying to take Mediolanum, and failed (then I took out Liguria). Massilia has stayed put, Carthage builds up, and things are at status quo in Greece - Epirus is still around, and this time (though I have no idea if this is due to the two mods I've installed) something weird has happened that I have not seen before:

First, Epirus and Ardeiai declare war on each other, only to negotiate a peace 3 turns later (there was one other peace agreement, but I don't recall between whom). Sparta took Epirus, but then negotiated a client state agreement with them. The same thing happened between Massilia and Volcae - I didn't see what happened between them, but they couldn't have had more than at most one military encounter, and then they negotiated a client state agreement.

In general, things are a lot more peaceful (for a TW game), and minor factions are a lot slower at expanding. I don't know about the Suebi, but this is my general view after having played a little with these mods on hand. The AI also seems to respond to the added threat of constant rebellion (concerning the PO nightmare mod, I think it should be tweaked somewhat before eventual inclusion in DEI) - at one point, after having taken Lilybaeum, Syracuse started off for Africa and Thapsus, as they usually do, but then turned around and went back home because of the rebellion they would have next turn (I think).

Overall, as I see it, there is no reason why you should not include the limited recruitment mod in v1.0, but I think it should be in combination with a custom version of the conquest PO mod.

[Butan]

Thanks for input, I've already downloaded said mods to try them out tomorrow!

[Roskilde grenadier]

Bear in mind that even the regular PO nightmare mod is quite severe; you will fight off rebels for a good at least 20 turns after capturing a single region, let alone a province. I find this a little tedious, so I tried to mod it to my liking, but it hasn't turned out quite as I wanted it. I've tried asking the guy in his thread in the submods section, and we'll see. With the PO mod tweaked just right, I think those two mods in unison could really be a boost to DEI gameplay.

[Cope]

I think the idea with the LRM was to make the AI expand realistically. The idea was to give a boost to Rome/Carthage since they have lots of starting land so they can recruit plenty of guys whilst factions like the Suebi only have one or two pieces of land so they can't recruit as many.

[spirroouu]

I could agree with the limited recruitment for the AI, but I think DEI tries to make the gameplay a bit faster. In 0.95 they tried to make the gameplay less of a Capture > garrison > go on fashion and give it more of a real campaign feel, which worked wonderfully. If you have only played 10 days with the mod I think you should maybe try playing a full campaign with it to see how it works out for you. As some factions do deserve to expand far beyond their border.
I am somewhat against the historic accuracy of the AI expansion as those were purely coïncidental and should not be recreated on purpose.
At any rate, I don't want to fight off tireesome rebels during 20 turns, I feel tired just by saying it ^^

[Roskilde grenadier]

I could agree with the limited recruitment for the AI, but I think DEI tries to make the gameplay a bit faster. In 0.95 they tried to make the gameplay less of a Capture > garrison > go on fashion and give it more of a real campaign feel, which worked wonderfully. If you have only played 10 days with the mod I think you should maybe try playing a full campaign with it to see how it works out for you. As some factions do deserve to expand far beyond their border.
I am somewhat against the historic accuracy of the AI expansion as those were purely coïncidental and should not be recreated on purpose.
At any rate, I don't want to fight off tireesome rebels during 20 turns, I feel tired just by saying it ^^

Funny, I would say DEI tries to do the exact opposite. If you want fast gameplay, go play vanilla. If you look at the various threads on this board, the most common message for the DEI dev team appears to be "slow down the AI" with some AI factions mentioned specifically. I fully agree that the game should not be a historical simulation, but it just gets ridiculous when at turn 30 there are only half the original factions left, with 4 among those factions being ridiculously huge empires, when you have only barely made it out of Italy as Rome. I'm thinking about Massilia taking most of Gaul, Suebi expanding onto the Alps, Syracuse (if left alone) taking half of North Africa, Breuci taking all of Pannoia & Illyria, and so on - all before you've even made it out of Italy. This is ridiculous, and as far as I can tell, most players of DEI want to get rid of this.

I don't want to fight rebels for 30 turns either, but there has to be some measure implemented to stall the AI, and I think one such measure is to drastically up the conquest PO penalty. As you can see higher up, I also stated that I thought that particular mod should be tweaked exactly because it is too extreme as is, but the general idea of it is spot on as a tool to halt the AI.

[spirroouu]

Funny, I would say DEI tries to do the exact opposite. If you want fast gameplay, go play vanilla. If you look at the various threads on this board, the most common message for the DEI dev team appears to be "slow down the AI" with some AI factions mentioned specifically. I fully agree that the game should not be a historical simulation, but it just gets ridiculous when at turn 30 there are only half the original factions left, with 4 among those factions being ridiculously huge empires, when you have only barely made it out of Italy as Rome. I'm thinking about Massilia taking most of Gaul, Suebi expanding onto the Alps, Syracuse (if left alone) taking half of North Africa, Breuci taking all of Pannoia & Illyria, and so on - all before you've even made it out of Italy. This is ridiculous, and as far as I can tell, most players of DEI want to get rid of this.

I don't want to fight rebels for 30 turns either, but there has to be some measure implemented to stall the AI, and I think one such measure is to drastically up the conquest PO penalty. As you can see higher up, I also stated that I thought that particular mod should be tweaked exactly because it is too extreme as is, but the general idea of it is spot on as a tool to halt the AI.

Hey there, don't get me wrong, DEI does promote faster gameplay but not in the way you are thinking of. I am not saying DEI wants your campaign to be over sooner, quite the opposite, but DEI wants your campaign to be less of a tedious hassle with the conquest of cities. Once you capture a town, you should not have to put down 5 armies to make sure no one will rebel, which is what they fixed in 0.95, this made the game have more of a military campaign feel.

And yes I do agree completely with some of the minor empires overexpanding too early on, but that is something that I am sure will be changed, I still think some factions should expand far off, like Rome or the Germans, or even Pontus but as you said, not Massilia or the Breuci. Although I do think that the diversity of nations should be kept, as an economic victory is near impossible atm.


Anyways, I agree with some of your points but the solution called extreme PO is too, well, extreme.

[Butan]

^ I agree

Still Spirroouu isnt isnt completely wrong either.


I feel like we can have a compromise for "slow expansion" but "fast gameplay" in the sense that we provide the player with intense action (lots of battles) but not as decisive and which does not end with complete annexation (lots of PO and management problems).

In the end, I think it would be the best since it would mean that except in extreme scenarios, all important factions remains alive (with their unit roster, culture and diplomacy) and duke it out with the players on a reasonable basis.



I feel we're getting there.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

^ I agree

Still Spirroouu isnt isnt completely wrong either.


I feel like we can have a compromise for "slow expansion" but "fast gameplay" in the sense that we provide the player with intense action (lots of battles) but not as decisive and which does not end with complete annexation (lots of PO and management problems).

In the end, I think it would be the best since it would mean that except in extreme scenarios, all important factions remains alive (with their unit roster, culture and diplomacy) and duke it out with the players on a reasonable basis.



I feel we're getting there.

Problem is that if the battles are not decisive then why should I play them instead of just autoresolving them?

[Butan]

Aggressive auto-resolve almost always destroy the whole enemy, sometimes if you want a decisive victory its better to auto-resolve! Especially if like myself, you never press "continue" at the end of a fight, allowing for much routers to survive, my manual battles often ends up with 30-40% casualties for the enemy and no more (except for the few disband).

But yes it would increase the number of battles, and it could be annoying to play too many battles to crush an enemy, but I really prefer that to crushing an opponent in one go with the current state of the garrisons, it would go hand in hand with very long and protracted wars, except when you really manage a heroic battle, which would have more meaning then.

[Butan]

Aggressive auto-resolve almost always destroy the whole enemy, sometimes if you want a decisive victory its better to auto-resolve! Especially if like myself, you never press "continue" at the end of a fight, allowing for much routers to survive.

But yes it would increase the number of battles, and it could be annoying to play too many battles to crush an enemy, but I really prefer that to crushing an opponent in one go with the current state of the garrisons, it would go hand in hand with very long and protracted wars, except when you really manage a heroic battle, which would have more meaning then.



I know that my opinion is not the majority, but I believe its closer to the reality of the past, which is more important to me.

[The_Bot]

I also have tried the nightmare PO mod and find its effects a little too excessive, although I think the fundamental idea of trying to limit run away AI expansion is sound.

I know you can mod some of the values using the pack manager. Has anyone hit on a balance that slows AI expansion but doesn't result in constant rebellions for the player?

[Roskilde grenadier]

Not yet, but I've tried. Unfortunately it didn't work out for me, for some reason. These are the values I have set mine to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8z6k6uo7oyvno8y/PON.jpg

But for some reason, those values translate into -66 public order over time, instead of the values I have put in, regardless of what option I choose when I capture a new settlement.

Sorry for the setup of the post, I don't come here a lot, usually.

[spirroouu]

I have recently picked up the Limited recruitment mod and I must say it does its job well in limiting the AI, however some factions came out stronger: Seleucid still lives, Lugii got most of German territory, Syracuse has plundered and raided Rome to submission and Athens has never been as good. As always Ptolemaio lives on and weirdly, so does Carthage. The Hayasdan who, before, had the upper hand in the black sea region are now not as prominent and have been slain.

I can go more into details but basically, it did a whole lot for me and it works as intented although it is not enough for "pure" balance.

I will write down a full resume of my VH/VH campaign with Arche Bosphorus as soon as I am done, I'll go more into detail then.

[FlashHeart07]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Im 22 turns or so into my campaign and Rome is doing well. Carthage getting pounded like they always do and the barbarians is not spreading like wild fire. Im using the limited recruitment submod.

[Roskilde grenadier]

How do you do that? Getting the whole map shown??

Also, it looks good. From what I hear, it sounds like the mod really does make quite a difference. I think I'll continue to use the PO mod as well though, just to get even slower expansion (once I get it tweaked right).

[FlashHeart07]

Just click the compass. Bottom right corner.

[Butan]

I use PO nightmare and limited recruitment and I have had the same interesting AI expansions: namely, most survived or confedered, some were crushed but mainly minor or 1 province factions; and then thanks to extremely resilient rebels, factions have a tendency to rise again.

[Dresden]

To see the whole map, you can get the fog of war mod that makes it so agents have limitless sight range. Do not use the script fog of war because it will mess up our scripts.

[FlashHeart07]

If you use the no Fog of war mod. Recruit a spy ( unless you start with one) then save, exit the game, un tick the mod and load. That way you will have the entire map and the enemy wont.