requesting guidance

[caoesraven]

hi love the mod its awesome vanilla was to easy how ever i want to change what the ai start with at beginning of campaign. like i mean i don't want ai to have x amount of extra income and food to be able to support full stack elite armies within 20 to 40 turns and only have one town with small amount of income from buildings and small amount of food from buildings. i want ai to have the same starting food and income that i do and for the ai to be affected by over recruiting and going into debt because of it.

yes i get this will break the mod to a degree but i just want to change some things around is all. if anyone could give me the file paths to be able to change things associated with what i'm indicating would be awesome.

[FlashHeart07]

I believe if you look in the campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects you will be able to find some of these values. If you really want to even it out you also need to change the scripts more specifically the money script. This script adds enormous income bonuses to the AI.
But I warn you. All test we, the team behind DeI, made proved that without these enormous income bonusses you will not see an AI expanding and if you change their food bonus too much you will also experience the AI starving.
What you need to understand is that the reason for us and CA adding these bonusses to the AI is the way they spend their money. If you really wanted a good results you would need to rework all the construction templates. The AI have a tendency of building alot of food consuming buildings causing them to starve.

[caoesraven]

I believe if you look in the campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects you will be able to find some of these values. If you really want to even it out you also need to change the scripts more specifically the money script. This script adds enormous income bonuses to the AI.
But I warn you. All test we, the team behind DeI, made proved that without these enormous income bonusses you will not see an AI expanding and if you change their food bonus too much you will also experience the AI starving.
What you need to understand is that the reason for us and CA adding these bonusses to the AI is the way they spend their money. If you really wanted a good results you would need to rework all the construction templates. The AI have a tendency of building alot of food consuming buildings causing them to starve.

mmmm i see. so if i change the building templates i could possibly replicate what i am looking for. is the building template scripted or is it like the other fields that can be easily changed? i can tamper with the script to give less money but if what your saying is the case it might not be worth it at this stage

[caoesraven]

i basically just want to face off against some crappy armies at the beginning of the game instead of some units never seeing the battlefield. i know there is more than one or two fields that i have to dabble with but any help would be awesome?? if not i'll just leave it for another day when i can be bothered learning how to mod properly

[FlashHeart07]

If you want crappy units. You could just change the units unlocked for each level of barracks. Atm we have moved alot of units down to be available at tier 1 and 2 in order for the AI to field more elite and diverse armies from the beginning. This was done due to the fact that the AI doesnt disband and replace units once they become obselete and you would therefore be able to face off against an army filled with levies while you have an army filled with late reform and highly experienced units.

So if you want the AI to start out with crappy units you need to change the building_units_allowed_tables and switch it back.
And you could also reduce the food bonus the AI recieves by changing the values in the campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects and the money script.
As with everything else. You need to work for it yourself if you want results. Unless you are lucky enough to find someone willing to make these changes.

EDIT: The money script was made to ensure that factions like Rome, Carthage etc is actually capable of expanding and not just losing to some small faction of gauls.
The building templates is not scripted but my guess from just quickly looking at it, is that it will take some time learning what values actually mean and how it will effect the AI. That is something that would take hours of modding and even more hours of testing in game to see if the changes work in the first place and if it has any real or beneficial effect on the game.

[caoesraven]

If you want crappy units. You could just change the units unlocked for each level of barracks. Atm we have moved alot of units down to be available at tier 1 and 2 in order for the AI to field more elite and diverse armies from the beginning. This was done due to the fact that the AI doesnt disband and replace units once they become obselete and you would therefore be able to face off against an army filled with levies while you have an army filled with late reform and highly experienced units.

So if you want the AI to start out with crappy units you need to change the building_units_allowed_tables and switch it back.
And you could also reduce the food bonus the AI recieves by changing the values in the campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects and the money script.
As with everything else. You need to work for it yourself if you want results. Unless you are lucky enough to find someone willing to make these changes.

i'm not boss level scripting like you guys that worked on this mod but i have some skill in this area... could a script be implemented that after x amount of turns from new reforms ai armies disband units to re recruit newer elite units?? or even have x amount of nested lists for different army builds based on overall income and if ai can afford it then it disbands that army and starts to build the new one?? i ask this because i have not looked into the scripting side of modding this game and i don't know how much leeway we have

[caoesraven]

thank you for you help to man and no i would not request that amount of work to be done just for a lowly pleb like me haha but thank you for the guidance it's much appreciated

[FlashHeart07]

Alot can be accomplished by scripts but Im not the scripting wizard of this mod. Litharion is. It wouldnt surprise me if it would be possible but you also have to take into account that the more scripts you add the more you slow down the game. A script like that would need to run for each turn to calculate if each faction have enough gold and if not, what army template would they be able to afford etc etc.
The AI isnt even able to cope with recruitment times other than 1 turn per unit. If you increased elite units to 2 turns the AI would never recruit them.
Alot of changes would be awesome but in some cases the work is either too much for too little gain or the limitations of the game engine simply prevents the implementation of these ideas.

[caoesraven]

yea i was afraid of this. i have experienced crippling game lag and physics engines going spaz from too much added scripting mods be for . i guess i need to understand the current scripting that is used and see if a new script can be used in place of old one and have the old one removed from the game folder entirely in place of a better script that works for better adaption of small ideas haha. but like you say to much work for too little gain it's a shame really mind you if the dei scripting wizard did something like i am suggesting in terms of complete scripting replacement he would more than likely get a job with them haha

[Dresden]

The main thing you can change is the campaign_difficulty tables - the bonus income for AI and food is there. Its actually not as high as it used to be.

The scripted bonuses are just for a few major factions.