No Godmode for Huns, AI Horde Debuff +Hadrian's Wall and Negotiations with Separatists

[gijojo]

Don't know if anyone else has stumbled across this, whether it's a glitch or an intentional thing on the programmer's part I discovered yesterday that if you eliminate the Hun Horde prior to 400 AD (for certain) and possibly at any point earlier than 420 AD (not confirmed yet) you receive the "Faction Eliminated" Message for them, only to see the entire Hun Faction re-spawn at full strength the following turn. If the Hun faction is player controlled they can be eliminated as normal. I have no idea why the devs would essentially grant what amounts to "god mode" cheat to an AI faction like this.

I don't have much experience with Mods at all no experience with Modding Total War games, so I'm proposing a couple of fixes to the community here in the hopes that more experienced modders agree with me and can help eliminate some of the more broken garbage that might have been overlooked.
So here are some of the stuff I'm suggesting:

-No more AI Hun god mode. If they get eliminated they should stay eliminated, "story progression" and dev hun-boners be damned.

-Debuff Hordes in general, AI Hordes are ridiculous.
-Horde campaign map movement should be slower, not faster than every other army's movement. They're traveling with all their possessions, women, children and camp equipment whether they've set it up to recruit or not but for game balance purposes I'd think it should just be brought into line with the normal movement range for other armies.
-Remove the ability for non-migratory societies (I.E. anyone other than the Alans, Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths etc.) to form hordes if their last remaining settlement falls. You can't do it as a player but from what I've seen all AI factions automatically do this if their last settlement falls and you haven't destroyed all their forces. Danes and Saxons definitely do this (confirmed in multiple campaign attempts.)
-Unit Cap hordes. No reason why they should be able to continuously spawn full stacks, two armies doesn't seem like an unreasonable limitation for a society that lives in tents and has no income.
-No tax income unless the horde is encamped, or at least impose a penalty to it for being on the move. I'd suggest this be done in player controlled hordes too for the same reasons.
-I have never seen an AI horde actually "settle" and lose it's horde bonuses and buffs as player controlled hordes eventually do. Give them some kind of impetus to settle, after all that's what the actual migratory societies eventually wanted to do historically, and eventually did. Maybe eliminate any AI Horde that doesn't have a settlement by 400AD (including Huns, for the same reasons as no god mode) or force them to become a "client state" of a faction that does control settlements in order to avoid being eliminated.
-Actual diplomacy attempts from hordes. I've never had a Horde engage me in diplomacy (I have two completed campaigns and two ongoing) except for the purposes of declaring war or suing for peace. It would be awesome if they actually engaged in other sorts of diplomacy such as requesting non-agression treaties in return for being able to levy troops etc. On the flip-side perhaps in such a case rather than being able to auto-levy from any non-hostile horde in your territory (both Roman factions) you'd actually need to engage in diplomacy to avoid triggering a war by levying their troops.

-Hadrian's Wall.
-Historically Hadrian's Wall was pretty damn effective at helping the Romans maintain control over the southern part of Brittania. It would be awesome if it imposed a debuff on Pict or other Northern forces who passed it to operate in the southern Britannic provinces, especially since even when you're not playing Western Rome having a possession in Britannia Inferior or Superior seems to prompt all three northern factions to auto-war on you during their next turn. (Geat tested, multiple times, no matter my diplomacy the minute I grabbed something south of the wall I got three new wars, only way to avoid this was by using the "liberate" option, but it only worked for me when liberating everything south of the wall, the moment I took something I still had more wars.)
-It would be awesome if Hadrian's Wall could be made into an object which whoever held that territory could station a garrison in.

-AI Faction Debuff, apply the numbers to the AI for god's sake.
-There's no possible way that AI factions with single settlements should be running around with multiple full stack armies. I'm sure someone is already implementing this one as they always do but it would be nice if the AI suffered some rebellions from bankrupting themselves out full stacks every other turn and then getting them murdered by more powerful factions.

-Negotiations with Separatists.
-I'm not sure how to go about this one, but it seems like in particular the Roman Empires but other factions as well should be able to negotiate with separatist factions as if they were legitimate. Granting them client state status and ceding the settlement under contention to them for instance. Every time a Total War game comes out one of the first mods that comes with it is axing the ridiculous frequency of rebellions which the Devs never seem willing to fix (probably because it's a super easy and super cheap-ass way for them to artificially increase the difficulty of the game instead of doing something productive like creating more effective AI for the battles.)
-Settlements with a garrison ought to be able to "sally forth" against potential separatists within their movement range. They can already move out to support active armies so why they can't be used to put down rebellions as they would have done historically is beyond me. If not all settlements then certainly those settlements in a region which has a provincial governor assigned should get this ability.
-No General characters for rebels, unless an actual general character's loyalty has dropped below 2/10. I have no idea where these people come from or get their military experience, especially late game when separatists and rebels are being led by 3 and 4 rank generals, it's nuts. If they're going to be a pain in the ass they could at least be an inept, realistic pain in the ass.
-If Generals for Separatists/Rebels do come from the pool portions of their army should join them giving rebels a potential buff, but if it's possible to negotiate with them this becomes somewhat fun rather than extremely tedious.

-Other Stuff, randomly.
-Someone is probably already working on this but enable recruitment of low tier units even after you've "passed them" technologically, especially since mid and late game units take two or even three turns to recruit by default. Maybe I wanted a cheap disposable army to raise in a single turn and then burn to deal with some moron rebels instead of having to sit there for four rounds recruiting the highest unit I'm capable of.
-Recruitment capacity bonus for units belonging to a tier lower than your maximum.
-No more "Blind" trait. I could not even remotely believe this crap, I got a general with this trait in my first campaign and have gotten one every subsequent campaign that lasts longer than 15 turns when playing either Roman Empire. Why in the unholy hell would I have a blind guy on the battlefield? The first time it was a mistake, only character I could afford to recruit but jesus, this shouldn't even be an option, it reduces authority and zeal to 1 and commander's aura to base range and can't freaking be compensated for. This trait needs to ing go completely.
-Make "out of favor" trait temporary. It might already be but long story short if my Emperor character didn't overcome it no one else is going to. I got that crap second turn on my Eastern Empire play through and fifth turn on my Geat play through. Both out of favor rulers went on to lead armies as generals (unintentionally, on the first play through with Dag of the Geats I didn't realize your ruler could actually be included in your army until after I'd already conquered all of Britain and maxxed out his rank) and yet never over came this trait or gained a single influence point again. That's absurd. I don't think this trait should have a "time limit" or anything but it should definitely be removable. I'd suggest that it be removed automatically when a character with this trait gains a rank.
-No loyalty penalty for removing/re-assigning a governor. It would be nice if you could move these people around because as it stands making someone a governor before they're a general or whatever which you absolutely have to do early game means that they're going to almost certainly kick off a civil war if you ever remove them or try to reassign them so that they can move up in rank.
-Make "Gather Support/Secure Loyalty" diplomatic actions specific to the character initiating them rather than the "family." For instance my second Western Rome attempt in 410 my emperor had an "heir" who was literally twice his age, who had three adult sons and two marriageable daughters. His wife had the "beautiful" and "priestess" traits as opposed to the "shrewish" trait. My actual emperor in spite of his crushing string of military victories had 0 influence and was incapable of ever gaining more due to the "out of favor" trait (see above.) I needed his heir to take over, who was obscenely popular, but every time the heir or his wife "secured loyalty" or "gathered support" it went to the emperor which didn't help at all because it just kept me on the edge, I expected some kind of option to transfer power or abdicate to my heir. It would be nice therefore if that existed, or if support/loyalty were gathered by the character initiating the action so that when I do assassinate my primary character it actually doesn't spark civil war.

Those are some of the suggestions I've noticed that may not be getting as much attention as they might. If anyone is beginning to work on these or wants to start working seriously by re-posting into the mod-specific thread I'd be thrilled but like I said in the opening I don't have the experience or skill with TW games to actually kick off a suite of mods myself, no matter how much I think they need to be done so I'm hoping that suggesting them to the community might help.

[JVR]

i like your idea with hadrians wall, will have to wait a see what the mod pack from ca will give us

[gijojo]

Honestly my biggest bugaboo is the apparent god mode for AI huns. Everything else I just thought I would suggest, I'm sure other more experienced modders are working on a lot of that stuff right now. Although it did occur to me that one thing I've never seen is a mod for stationary facing movements, or an advance to the rear action (I.E. back away slowly while remaining ready to receive a charge) for infantry. Stationary facing movements in particular such as half-right/left face, left and right face or about face would be useful because when your unit attempts to realign it seems to be treated as having lost mass/cohesion in terms of resisting charges and what not. Something allowing cavalry to bypass un-targeted formations on their way to the target (splitting around them perhaps) would be really useful as well.
That kind of stuff would be more up my alley anyway.

[GourmetGorilla]

I like these ideas, especially for the Hadrian's wall debuffs. After all, walls like that weren't just meant to keep raiders out, they were also meant to keep them in! I mean, it's not unrealistic that raiders could overwhelm a small contingent of garrisoned troops and climb over the wall, but try going back the other way with a heap of loot and a herd of cattle! Especially now that the garrison knows that you've crossed over and will have reinforced that section; good luck! I was made aware of this while watching a documentary on the Great Wall of China, but the principle is absolutely the same with Hadrian's wall. A raiding debuff at the very least would represent this factor quite efficiently, I believe.

[Orthrus]

With Hadrian's Wall, perhaps someone could create a new type of Attrition. WRE would be the only ones "Immune" to the walls attrition effects, much like The Viking factions with Snow attrition, or any of the Middle Eastern factions and their immunity to Desert Attrition. I haven't played as the WRE yet, nor have I made any attempts to venture past the Wall yet, I think perhaps it would be fair to make crossing it similar to crossing a river on the campaign map; Takes a full turn to do, and much like if you would enter and exit said river through a swampy areas, would suffer from the "Wall" attrition whilst making your crossing. It would make sense for it to apply to the WRE, as opposed to whoever owns the region, since the wall was of their making, they would be well informed on ( if not able to do so by legitimate means ) how to bypass the Wall's defenses, or were possible weaknesses exist they could exploit. One issue though is applying the "Wall" Immunity to whoever owns the territory, as it would make little sense to own the territory, yet penalize the owning faction for crossing a wall, although not of their own design, they still owned. One idea that comes to mind is possibly a region specific effect, much like how Rome in R2tw had an increased recruitment capacity in it's region, whoever owns whichever settlement is directly below the wall ( forgive my memory, I couldn't remember which exactly ) could gain the benefit of immunity to attrition when crossing. It would be interesting but I don't know how practical it would actually be to be honest though..

[Zikko]

Didn't the developers actually say somewhere that you aren't supposed to be able to defeat the huns? That's how it's supposed to work.

[M2net]

so the huns keep popping everywhere, so we are not able to finish the game ?
always fighting them, they don't starve, don't be exterminated, they don't make cities, they always have money, always have more and more people
that's just ridiculous

[gijojo]

@Gourmetgorilla, I hadn't thought about that before but now that you've pointed it out I agree completely, the Great Wall and Hadrian's wall would have served just as much purpose keeping raiders in (to be hunted) as it would out, after all it's harder to get away with the goods than to get them in the first place.
@Orthus, I think your points about the difficulty of creating a new attrition or making it Debuff based are right. Plus you have the added problem of what happens if one of the Brittanic settlements south of the wall are liberated or rebel successfully and spawn a new faction? I'd be leery of a universal debuff like that on the fact that: "what if the invaders came up from the south, the east, west, etc, they've bypassed the wall entirely," such as the Geats and Franks who from what I've seen tend to hit early and from the East into Londinum and Cadolinum. I could reasonably come up with a southern equivalent (cliffs of dover for instance) but not a western or eastern one, the Franks, Norse and Irish all raided freely through those approaches pretty much beginning around 500 AD. But, I think personally that making the wall garrison enabled, along with your suggestions about attrition and river crossing time frame would be an excellent and logical solution. Perhaps also apply the standard support range that settlement garrisons receive to, not cause attrition but prevent unit replenishment in that area. I.E. within x-distance of Hadrian's Wall an army that has been damaged cannot recover simply because the faction which owns the wall has the means and resources to hunt them and keep threatening their force?
@Zikko, I don't think the devs were speaking literally in terms of game mechanics, but yeah they did say something to that effect. Either way, to actually implement this to any extent at all basically means that you're no longer playing a game, since you can't win it ceases to be competition. They committed a similar mistake in Rome II by broadly defining the game's scope (timeframe) based on the rise of the Roman Empire, basically responding to the question of years/ vs seasons for advancing the calendar with "we want to make sure that people can play the full scope of the Roman experience" at which point you run into the difficulty that there are dozens of other factions (with DLC) which definitively did not share the "Roman Experience" and are all equally capable of winning, so the one year turns to artificially force the game to elapse over a 300 turn/year span are just pointless (plus even on harder difficulties you really should not require anything like 300 turns to reach end game.)
@M2Net, as far as I have been able to confirm it is not possible to destroy them prior to 420 AD (100 turns.) I have destroyed them personally in separate campaigns in 397, 399, 401, 405, 417 and 424 AD as of this writing only to witness them respawn on the subsequent term. Due to the victory conditions of the various factions and overall game length for a normal playthrough I think that the date at which you can begin eliminating them is 420AD. I did not see them respawn after 420 AD but by that point I had achieved both cultural and military victory conditions, it's possible that I just wasn't paying attention enough. Although even if they had the campaign where I eliminated them in 424 the only way they'd have been a threat would have been to spawn about 30 full stack armies in the same province in a single turn. Regardless it is a major issue as far as I'm concerned because no matter what the game is named if a faction is guaranteed survival past ahen certain date then nothing I do ultimately matters, thus it's no longer really a game. As far as starvation? It's impossible for any horde to starve as far as I know, which now that you've brought it up bugs me as well. And yes, they always have more money, even the campaign hordes technically have ridiculous amounts of money since their upkeep is equal to their armies and only their armies and yet they collect increasingly greater amounts of taxes based on their "horde encampment buildings" which you can upgrade further... man I hadn't even thought to be upset about that yet. Visigoths for instance gather about 1300gold per turn to start no matter what you do. That might suggest a mod requiring a horde to encamp in order to collect taxes, and further I would suggest they only be able to tax on the turn they have encamped, otherwise there's not a lot of point to playing anything other than a horde since hordes can just channel all their money to bigger and bigger armies while maintaining a fairly stable and exponentially increasing tax return.

[Patricius]

I, as the ERE, reduced the Sassanid Empire to one province beside the Caspian sea. I wanted the satisfaction of seeing a once mighty faction weak and pitiful. Within a few turns, it had five full stack armies. Some grand strategy games like Europa Universalis IV have an option to keep maintenance ultra low at the cost of morale with the idea being to raise morale when going to war and borrowing to stay out of the red. This game just has free gold to the ai. It really spoils the carefully worked out economic system. The ai can just get extra morale, instead of something that makes a nonsense of game economics. Having to kill Huns again and again gets weird, frankly. A number of factions can re-emerge through revolt. Maybe somehow if the Huns could be highly likely to re-emerge that way.

[Princeps]

Most of these ideas are bad

-Debuff Hordes in general, AI Hordes are ridiculous.

No

-Horde campaign map movement should be slower, not faster than every other army's movement. They're traveling with all their possessions, women, children and camp equipment whether they've set it up to recruit or not but for game balance purposes I'd think it should just be brought into line with the normal movement range for other armies.

No. unless you have separate horde armies and fighting forces.

-Remove the ability for non-migratory societies (I.E. anyone other than the Alans, Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths etc.) to form hordes if their last remaining settlement falls. You can't do it as a player but from what I've seen all AI factions automatically do this if their last settlement falls and you haven't destroyed all their forces. Danes and Saxons definitely do this (confirmed in multiple campaign attempts.)

No.

-Unit Cap hordes. No reason why they should be able to continuously spawn full stacks, two armies doesn't seem like an unreasonable limitation for a society that lives in tents and has no income.

No.

-No tax income unless the horde is encamped, or at least impose a penalty to it for being on the move. I'd suggest this be done in player controlled hordes too for the same reasons.

Why?

-I have never seen an AI horde actually "settle" and lose it's horde bonuses and buffs as player controlled hordes eventually do. Give them some kind of impetus to settle, after all that's what the actual migratory societies eventually wanted to do historically, and eventually did. Maybe eliminate any AI Horde that doesn't have a settlement by 400AD (including Huns, for the same reasons as no god mode) or force them to become a "client state" of a faction that does control settlements in order to avoid being eliminated.

No. I agree that they should be more inclined to settle, but the rest of this is a terrible suggestion.

Although, I have seen hordes settle. The AI isn't very good at it though, so it's probably forced to move on again.

-No more AI Hun god mode. If they get eliminated they should stay eliminated, "story progression" and dev hun-boners be damned.

No. I rather like it that the Huns are persistent.

[Mercsenary]

"Out of Favor" I hate hate hate hate that trait. It never goes away and there seems to be no way to fix it.

"-There's no possible way that AI factions with single settlements should be running around with multiple full stack armies. I'm sure someone is already implementing this one as they always do but it would be nice if the AI suffered some rebellions from bankrupting themselves out full stacks every other turn and then getting them murdered by more powerful factions."

Sassnids! I'm looking at you!

You've got all of 4 provinces. How the flying horses are you managing to field 7+ doom stacks in the span of 4 turns. GTFO.

[prithupaul]

I am waiting for this sort of mod to be released before I start a new campaign. It was really annoying chasing after Avar Hordes and other Hunnic Skirmishers for a thousand battles.

I hope CA can develop better campaign AI instead of creating magical artificial systems like this for the sake of challenge.

[lamenam]

Lol Huns are like super-cockroaches.