Fans suggestion thread for future releases

[ZCnegan]

- Make this mod perfect by creating more challenge to the player.

- Make a faction uprise when your empire is too strong.

Im playing as the seleucids, pretty much the game got very boring. Im
extremelly powerful, have 500.000 $ and I even have to self impose certain
rules to make the game more fun, like never attack and try to never
destroy enemy factions but make them submit or cease fire.
I have Immaculate reputation too.

Therefore I basically won already even though I didnt conquer the whole map.
A thing that would make it very interesting would be if you could have
a script the sparks a rebellion a creates a new faction and split my
empire in half. The game knights of honor had this in place. At the apex
of empires they would split, making the game gain a new energy, and making
it replayable and always challenging. It would be nice that this happens
even to CPU players. Civilization 2 had this when you conquered the enemy
capital, splitting the empires in half, making the game more fun.
Medieval Total War 1 had this with the
remergent heirs, but they were quite predictable. You have
reemergent factions that is still a small army the rises on the capital city
of the defeated faction, but its still easy to manage and it needs the city
to riot.
Another thing that could be done was to just spark somewhere in your empire.
Forcing you to retreat or make peace with the enemy (make this them very strong).
Like give them at least an 6 armies of 2000 each, so they really do damage
on your empire and create a strong threatening faction.

Mods try to make the games harder by giving making the AI have bonus that
only unbalance things, the true challenge lies in spontaneity, because
once you are strong nothing will stop you except a huge new faction that
sparks out of nothing in the border or the middle of your empire.

[ZCnegan]

Elite units have an easier time gaining experience than thrash levies due to how Medieval 2 engine works. E.g. cavalry can almost gain a chevron with one solid charge but javelinmen... good luck getting them more than one bronze experience if any. Does EB2 take that into account? Strongest unit stats should be balanced around the fact that they will have more experience, so that their default attack and morale could be a bit lowered?

I know what you mean but I think its the complete opposite. In Rome 1 it was worthy to train soldiers for them to have max Chevron, because every 3 chevron there was a bonus of 3. In MTW2, you get 1 for every 3 so its not even worthy.
Its one thing that was great in Rome 1. Now in EB2 what they should do is make the elites even more strong so you can train them and feel like its worthy to make them gain chevrons. Otherwise they just died very fast and you dont even care about it. I dont really care about the chevrons of the javelins or whatever, and I dont care about weak cavalry. But I love to have Elite Phalanx with gold Chevron, that just feels awesome.

[QuintusSertorius]

Elite units have an easier time gaining experience than thrash levies due to how Medieval 2 engine works. E.g. cavalry can almost gain a chevron with one solid charge but javelinmen... good luck getting them more than one bronze experience if any. Does EB2 take that into account? Strongest unit stats should be balanced around the fact that they will have more experience, so that their default attack and morale could be a bit lowered?

Elites are already expensive and rare, and the effects of experience are rather negligible (especially when compared to RTW). So I don't see much justification in changing anything.

[kingofportugal]

Elites are already expensive and rare, and the effects of experience are rather negligible (especially when compared to RTW). So I don't see much justification in changing anything.

What ZCnegan is saying is that low quality troops are not worthy to care about. And if you have an elite unit no matter how expensive and rare you will care about it no matter what. So in that sense it makes sense giving them even more power but making them more expensive and rare. And that way the +3 attack bonus is actually worthy.

[QuintusSertorius]

What ZCnegan is saying is that low quality troops are not worthy to care about. And if you have an elite unit no matter how expensive and rare you will care about it no matter what. So in that sense it makes sense giving them even more power but making them more expensive and rare. And that way the +3 attack bonus is actually worthy.

No. The cost formula already makes account of their status, and recruitment pools are already balanced to make them rare. I see no need to change either.

[Laser101]

Expanding on my prior comment about reforms, the problem is that a lot of reforms in the game are too specific in their requirements, even if said requirements don't make sense in the context of what has transpired thus far in game, or aren't logical requirements for administrative reform (i.e. requiring you to win X many battles against faction Y in order to reform your government).
In the case of the 'independence' reforms for Baktria and Hayasdan, my problem there is that requiring you to win battles and take settlements just to become an independent state doesn't really make sense; it'd make more sense if you automatically gained the ability to build the 'Royal Capital' type government as soon as you declared independence (i.e. if you are at war with AS for any reason) and ending said war would have be done 'normally' but would be separate from your government reforms.

[Hellenikon]

I agree with the suggestion of changing provinces, in particular removing some from the far north of the map (the steppe areas), which currently are populated by small camps/villages, that had little impact on the history of the ancient world. I think the M2TW horde feature could be used for some cases, to represent nomads without needing to have a settlement present. Removing settlements from the steppe would also solve the issue of AI expanding north and having the bactrians as "steppe lords".

Places like from lower egypt to syria were far more populated, and particularly the nile delta - hierosolima region feels lacking in number of settlements, but also syria proper had lots of important cities on this period.

[Laser101]

Can you please get rid of the AI's getting free money from thin air? It's extremely unrealistic for a one-province faction with no economic base to be inexplicably able to recruit multiple stacks worth of high-tier troops.

[Colos1987]

They get only about 10k max, otherwise they will go into the red, never coming out and thus they become totally inactive (dumb AI, I know). Plus, should their treasury hit the 30k mark, every penny above that threshold is removed.

[QuintusSertorius]

I agree with the suggestion of changing provinces, in particular removing some from the far north of the map (the steppe areas), which currently are populated by small camps/villages, that had little impact on the history of the ancient world. I think the M2TW horde feature could be used for some cases, to represent nomads without needing to have a settlement present. Removing settlements from the steppe would also solve the issue of AI expanding north and having the bactrians as "steppe lords".

Places like from lower egypt to syria were far more populated, and particularly the nile delta - hierosolima region feels lacking in number of settlements, but also syria proper had lots of important cities on this period.

Again, we're not changing the map. Feel free to create a submod doing so, but it won't be happening in the main mod.

Can you please get rid of the AI's getting free money from thin air? It's extremely unrealistic for a one-province faction with no economic base to be inexplicably able to recruit multiple stacks worth of high-tier troops.

They get only about 10k max, otherwise they will go into the red, never coming out and thus they become totally inactive (dumb AI, I know). Plus, should their treasury hit the 30k mark, every penny above that threshold is removed.

As above, it's necessary to prevent inactivity. It isn't even very much money, for any faction with more than 5 provinces, it's just clearance of debt and a bit of extra cash every spring. And if they go above 30k (which won't happen from the script) they're clawed back to 10k.

If you don't like it that much, delete it from the script for your own installation. But again, this isn't going to change.

[svramj]

It's less about them being easy than reducing the dependence on the AI cooperating.
The conquest prerequisites would remain.

Have encountered a situation where a reform is un-attainable when playing Taksashila. Their reform depends on battling Baktria & Saka, But Baktria got destroyed even before I could have 5 large battles with them. There should be alternate fallbacks for such outcomes in future releases.

[Gabriel Oi Taurisia]

They get only about 10k max, otherwise they will go into the red, never coming out and thus they become totally inactive (dumb AI, I know). Plus, should their treasury hit the 30k mark, every penny above that threshold is removed.

So, the AI's total treasury cannot go beyond 30k? Or is 30k the total amount of money that the AI can receive via script?

[QuintusSertorius]

Have encountered a situation where a reform is un-attainable when playing Taksashila. Their reform depends on battling Baktria & Saka, But Baktria got destroyed even before I could have 5 large battles with them. There should be alternate fallbacks for such outcomes in future releases.

There's no requirement to fight Baktria at all, and if Saka are destroyed that part of the script already has a fallback.

The only battle requirement is to see barded cavalry, and it doesn't matter what faction is fielding it, just that those units are present.

So, the AI's total treasury cannot go beyond 30k? Or is 30k the total amount of money that the AI can receive via script?

The AI's treasury can't go above 30k. If that happens, it's reduced down to 10k. The AI never receives more than 12k by script.

[Gabriel Oi Taurisia]

The AI's treasury can't go above 30k. If that happens, it's reduced down to 10k. The AI never receives more than 12k by script.

Got it. But, why? For the player, in mid-late game, it's easy to have gained way larger quantities of money. Why giving the AI this handicap?

Of course there must be a reason, don't blame my being noob ��

[QuintusSertorius]

Got it. But, why? For the player, in mid-late game, it's easy to have gained way larger quantities of money. Why giving the AI this handicap?

Of course there must be a reason, don't blame my being noob ��

Because the AI can't go bankrupt, it's the flipside of the debt-relief script. There's no way the AI is ever going to find a use for that amount of money in a single turn.

It's also to prevent it stockpiling useless surpluses which it can't spend, and will only to go a stronger power if they're made vassals. In particular, the human player who might vassalise an AI faction knowing they'll be getting lots of easy money.

[MagusCaligula]

Why would we make the reforms so easy?

It's not making reforms easier but to be achieved in a way that makes more sense. I understand the "obssession" about history accuracy from the team and that's what makes this mod what it is and I love it because I love ancient history, however in some cases it can actually be immersion breaking like the case how some reforms are achieved. Like forcing to fight a faction that I could very well want to be ally or sometimes due to circunstances of the game achieving certain reforms are difficult just because the AI will not cooperate. You want reforms to follow history but while playing things can go very different from history and some reform triggers end up not even making much sense. I personally end up editing reforms stuff related for some factions before starting a campaign. Also reforms should be achieved in a way that one doesn't need to follow a guide that's not even in game to trigger it. Some reforms also force you too much to play in a certain way which is immersion breaking.

[Balkan Beast]

Can a way be set up to easily keep track of who has elected positions in a list?

[Hippo123]

Hi there, I have a couple of suggestions and I am not sure if they have already been covered. If so, I am sorry for wasting your time but I hope you can respect that I do not really want to read through 50 pages of thread to see whether these points have been covered or not.

First of all I do not know if the hellenic rosters are complete yet or not but I wouldn't mind seeing some uber-elite units like Silver shields for the Selukids or Bronze shields for Makedon. I know that Agema Phalangitai should already cover the hellenic elite phalanx but they are shared between all hellenic factions and I think that having some special elite units for individual hellenic factions would both give them more of an identity and make the game more interesting for the player. When you get to mid/late game, you often have refined your favourite army composition and just end up spamming them. Having some special units would just make these late armies more interesting and special, if you lose the army then you lose your favourite, most elite units. With medieval's recruitment system I think this could work really well. The recruitment pool replenishment time can just be set for a long time to avoid any sort of elite spam and make these units really precious. (This could be the case for other factions as well but I only really focus on hellenic factions because they are my favourite).

I have another suggestion which also ties in with elite units. I have played as Makedon and from the game's start I had one unit of elite Hypaspistai and one of Hetaroi. However, I could not recruit any more until I had built the top level Makedonian administration, which was only well into the mid/late game. What I propose is that these units be unlocked for recruitment from turn 1 but should have absurdly long pool replenishment times (say like 30-50 turns). This way it is more exciting for the player as he/she can have elites in his/her army from turn 1 and not just the usual militia junk. Then, after the player has built the top level Administration, instead of unlocking the unit for recruitment the pool replenishment time for the unit should be dramatically increased (say to 20-30 turns) so that the player still gets some sort of reward from the building. To me this also makes historical sense. These factions couldn't just build a building and suddenly train their elite troops. They were always searching for and recruiting the best individuals to serve in elite squadrons. However, after building this certain administration the search and recruitment drive is dramatically increased to fill the need for elite soldiers.

Now before somebody says this is impossible, I know it is not. I play a lot of Third age TW: Divide and Conquer and there this sort of system exists, which I think works really well. On the other hand I am no real modder and have no idea how much work this would take to implement and if it is worth the time, but I think I would really make the gameplay more interesting.

[QuintusSertorius]

Hi there, I have a couple of suggestions and I am not sure if they have already been covered. If so, I am sorry for wasting your time but I hope you can respect that I do not really want to read through 50 pages of thread to see whether these points have been covered or not.

First of all I do not know if the hellenic rosters are complete yet or not but I wouldn't mind seeing some uber-elite units like Silver shields for the Selukids or Bronze shields for Makedon. I know that Agema Phalangitai should already cover the hellenic elite phalanx but they are shared between all hellenic factions and I think that having some special elite units for individual hellenic factions would both give them more of an identity and make the game more interesting for the player. When you get to mid/late game, you often have refined your favourite army composition and just end up spamming them. Having some special units would just make these late armies more interesting and special, if you lose the army then you lose your favourite, most elite units. With medieval's recruitment system I think this could work really well. The recruitment pool replenishment time can just be set for a long time to avoid any sort of elite spam and make these units really precious. (This could be the case for other factions as well but I only really focus on hellenic factions because they are my favourite).

Hellenistic rosters are done. The absence of faction-specific elites like that is intentional, they're covered by the general ones and it's a much more efficient use of slots. They have different skins, which is all the differentiation they really need. We have plans to use all 500 slots, there would be no real gain in taking up 5-6 slots for what is only a cosmetically different unit.

I have another suggestion which also ties in with elite units. I have played as Makedon and from the game's start I had one unit of elite Hypaspistai and one of Hetaroi. However, I could not recruit any more until I had built the top level Makedonian administration, which was only well into the mid/late game. What I propose is that these units be unlocked for recruitment from turn 1 but should have absurdly long pool replenishment times (say like 30-50 turns). This way it is more exciting for the player as he/she can have elites in his/her army from turn 1 and not just the usual militia junk. Then, after the player has built the top level Administration, instead of unlocking the unit for recruitment the pool replenishment time for the unit should be dramatically increased (say to 20-30 turns) so that the player still gets some sort of reward from the building. To me this also makes historical sense. These factions couldn't just build a building and suddenly train their elite troops. They were always searching for and recruiting the best individuals to serve in elite squadrons. However, after building this certain administration the search and recruitment drive is dramatically increased to fill the need for elite soldiers.

Now before somebody says this is impossible, I know it is not. I play a lot of Third age TW: Divide and Conquer and there this sort of system exists, which I think works really well. On the other hand I am no real modder and have no idea how much work this would take to implement and if it is worth the time, but I think I would really make the gameplay more interesting.

The absence of a settled government in Pella is intentional, as is the lack of any real units right at the start beyond mercs. Makedonia was devastated by the Celtic invasion of the Balkans. The lack of elites is by design, you only start with some because as king Antigonos was bound to have had loyal followers organised in an elite, but no means to recruit more.

Makedonia having access only to "militia junk" and mercenaries at the start is entirely by design. The interesting gameplay for Makedonia is how you make do with having no decent troops apart from mercs, and survive until such time as you can recruit again.

[Trax]

The AI's treasury can't go above 30k. If that happens, it's reduced down to 10k. The AI never receives more than 12k by script.

Because the AI can't go bankrupt, it's the flipside of the debt-relief script. There's no way the AI is ever going to find a use for that amount of money in a single turn.

But there are buildings that cost more than 30000. Can the AI ever build them?