[Submod] Enhanced Campaign Movement for EB 2.35A

[Dooz]

Spoiler for original post: 

Playing another mod while waiting for 2.2b, 12tpy really has me spoiled. And I imagine it'd be even more fantastic with EB, especially with Roman office system and a year actually affording some meaningful time with which to do something.

Anyone else into the idea? Anyone with the time/ability to do something about it? I figure it'd take a lot of attention to detail to make sure everything falls in line with the longer timescale, from building/training times, to cultural conversion rates, to who knows what else, in order to be a perfect 1:1 transition from the intended 4tpy. I'dunno. I'd love it.

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Turning this thread into submod now to save space and make into something useful that grew out of it in the first place.

So I ended up trying and loving a longer campaign character/army movement range, with the caveat being that I didn't actually play the test campaign myself as the player, rather just let the AI take over and run its course over several decades (so I imagine a player might be able to exploit it and make things easier on themselves, but I'll leave that up to you), about 150 turns. Good things happened, in my estimation. Exciting things. Things like this -

Spoiler for campaign screenshots: 

Around 258 BC, the Leusitane begin sending raiding parties up North

Eventually assembling larger hosts and launching full scale invasion

And by 255 BC, the Leusitane had taken this bit of Northern territory for themselves


At about the same time, the Greek League was sending excursions into the Mediterranean

They took island territories from Carthage, as well as from the Epirotes, then reinforced their new holdings with troops from the islands back home



The largest extent (oh shoot, no it's not actually, they had lost Sparte by the time I took this zoomed in screenshot of the map) of the Greek Empiric League around 249 BC

Here's the world at 249 BC

They eventually did lose some of that territory back to Carthage and Epirus, and the Ptolemies had even taken Rhodes by 235 BC, where I stopped for now

From my very rough estimations, armies move at about 10km/day on average... I think. All the same movement modifiers that are in play regularly still apply, relevant to the increased values now, so traits and weather and whatever else that helps or hinders movement will have its effect, including for agents who can make some nice long trips at a much faster pace which probably makes sense for solo or small groups of travelers. And generals/FMs can move across the map real well on their own without attached armies, for getting to and fro cities, handling business. It all pretty much makes sense to me, scale wise. At least, definitely more so than the scale is by default, which is I'm almost positive painstakingly slow for army march speeds compared to any numbers I've seen in what little research I did online for this. And even though I initially wanted to make this change mainly just for this reason, the realism aspect, it turned out to have a big positive effect on the gameplay itself in my opinion. Classic win-win.

Some more positive gameplay effects with how AI handled its armies included the way it attacked targets and reinforced its own forces. Even though a lot of small groups or individual units wouldn't join into single large armies, the way they would array those units all around a target was really cool, and might make for tougher battles against AI as the player I imagine (or easier, depending on how you play it). Because of how enemy reinforcements would be coming into the battlefield from all sides since a lot of times they'd move many single armies and partially surround the enemy, since they had the leeway to move and arrange units as they saw fit for the most part. And it's not like since the AI has this newfound ability to move really far, it uses 100% of the available distance all the time. In fact, most of the time it just moved armies around to key points, borders, ambush locations, reinforcements, things like that. It's just simply the fact that it was able to do this in one or two moves, rather than cueing up for several turns and having plans get interrupted and things change before they're ever able to be enacted in the dynamic campaign environment. This actually ends up making the campaign feel more dynamic, but also the AI more responsive within it, which is like a double boost of awesome.

There's honestly way too much I wanted to say about all this as I was watching a lot of the campaign unfold and getting all excited over what I was seeing and realizing the potential, but I didn't take down notes and it was a week or two ago at this point so some of the finer points have escaped my memory. Also I've rambled on enough at this point and I feel like the best way to get an idea for what this looks like is if you try it for yourself, so

Here's the quick and dirty:

• Use Notepad++ (as opposed to default Notepad or other text editors to avoid potential file corruption issues) to open ...\Medieval II Total War\mods\ebii\data\descr_character.txt (make a copy of it first though, in case you want to revert)
• Ctrl+F to bring up search bar and look for entries named starting_action_points
• Change the value for each of them to 500 (starting with the ones from under "type named character") and save

Or you can download the descr_character.txt I've attached to this post and overwrite the one at the location mentioned above. It's just the default EB 2.2b one with this change made to it. But save a copy of the default one in case you want to go back, just remember you'll have to start a new campaign to do so. I chose 500 as the value based on initial estimations with the default, and what I wanted to aim for based on some numbers I saw thrown around online for what speed ancient armies might have marched at . It turned out to be right around where I wanted it and worked well, but you can feel free to mess around to your heart's content if you want to fine tune, give different characters/agents unique numbers or whatever it is you feel might make for a better experience. I hope someone tries this and likes it as much as I think I do!

[TheCataphract]

I haven't tried this out yet but there's something like this: 12 tpy script
I haven't tested it yet so I'm not sure if it works for EBII.

[Dooz]

I haven't tried this out yet but there's something like this: 12 tpy script
I haven't tested it yet so I'm not sure if it works for EBII.

Thanks for this! Will definitely be looking into it.

In the meantime, recently I'd been thinking about messing with movement distances to better reflect something closer to reality with 4tpy. If it turns out to work pretty well, might even be able to forego the 12tpy since characters, say Roman ones with limited time offices, could still accomplish stuff during that time instead of spending it all travelling... maybe? I remember having played around with these settings sometime in the past, but don't remember where I landed with it, whether I found it better with the longer distances or if there were problems that cropped up. I'dunno, we'll see how it turns out.

[Gigantus]

Converting the script to 12tpy is rather extensive work, a good number of monitor conditions (+- 100) are based on turn numbers which would need to be revised and in most cases have to be adjusted. There are other conditions directly linked to the tpy script which also require revising.

This is one of the decisions that has to be made before work on scripting (EDA, EDCT and campaign script) begins.

[Dooz]

Ah yes, I figured there were a whole lot of things dependent on the turns per year, that's why I knew a simple age of characters/build time fix wouldn't be enough to be comprehensive and take into account all these other things. Which is mainly why I don't assume someone not on the team would be able to do it, cause how could anyone else know all these conditions that are affected by turn times and all that kinda stuff. It'd probably be a nice option to have at some point, but I know it's definitely not a priority in any way. Causes its own little weird quirks anyway, with characters taking so long to age, and wars not slowing down any, sometimes a whole faction's roster of family members gets wiped out before the new crop has had time to mature and pretty sizable empires can turn "rebel" (something I've noticed in another mod with 12tpy). This can actually lead to some kinda cool outcomes during campaigns, but I can see how people might not necessarily like it. Also if building times were to be revised to take the same number of years, some of the ones that take say, 12 turns now, would take 36 turns... I can also see how people might not be into that idea, heh. And of course a bunch of other little things, like wars perhaps lasting only a few months or a year or two over the course of the same number of turns, instead of more "realistic" sounding several years long wars with 4tpy.

But anyway, I think a better solution (if the relatively short distances armies move can be considered a problem based on what would be more realistic distances armies could actually move) would just be increasing movement points for characters/armies. I still haven't actually gotten around to tinkering with that stuff yet, because I didn't want to change the dynamics of an ongoing campaign and thought I'd wait until I'm done with it and just do testing with a fresh one. If that day ever comes, I'll be sure to post some follow ups on how it goes and if there are any promising/troubling outcomes as a result.

Thanks for the info!

[Gigantus]

Movement points can be adjusted very simply in the descr_characters file for every agent. The caveat of longer distances are longer turn processing times...

Use a good text editor to work with TXT files - Notepad++ is good and freeware, and always keep back ups. The default Wordpad or Notepad tend to mess things up formatting wise.

[Dooz]

Thanks. I'm trying some changes now, didn't seem to be save compatible which is fine. With a new campaign it works fine and looks interesting. I was hoping to test how this might go with a hotseat campaign. Are there any issues with doing that with EBII, as far as campaign script or anything else? I want to set the faction control to AI and let it run for a while, checking in sometimes and seeing how things are progressing, and also turning off fow and seeing how things look with AI movement. Also, is there any built-in way to start a hotseat with EBII or does it have to manually be configured with new files and stuff?

[Gigantus]

I think version 2.2 has been set up for user friendly hot seat. Go via the multi player option, start with rome. Remove fog of war ( not advisable to use the 'follow AI' option). Then type control f_rome and off you go in automatic mode. Type the same again to get control of rome again.

[Dooz]

Thanks for that. Hadn't noticed there was a built in multi player option and just ended up doing the manual way last night, creating the .bat file and separate config file and all that, watched/let pass about five years with all movement points set to 500. Wow! I'm so excited about this. I wonder why more mods don't have these longer movement ranges. There must be some kind of reason, some drawback that most people have run into that makes them decide the tradeoff isn't worth it. I haven't encountered it yet. The AI armies move very well, not even taking advantage of the full range of movement available most of the time, which of course makes sense and is a good thing. But just having the option available, and once in a while using it, seems to be working out perfectly so far. From my very rough estimates, I'm guessing with this setting the corresponding maximum movement speed of armies is about 6 miles per day. I've seen some mentions of that number and ones close enough to it as being representative of what ancient armies might have moved at to make me feel pretty good about it being realistic enough. Definitely more so than the fraction of that it was before, where it would take a year to move a distance it should only take a few weeks/months or so.

Anyway, I'm still running that campaign, currently turned back off "Follow AI movements" to let it run some more turns, then sit back down and turn it on to watch some more real time action. Faction expansion so far looks fine to me, I'll be keeping an eye on that and taking some progress screenshots along the way to share down the road. I'm actually pretty bummed now about not being able to continue my campaign with this change since the save doesn't load with the change, I would love to switch to this and keep playing now that I've experienced it and feel like it's a huge improvement.

[Dooz]

Updated and converted into submod for increased movement range, check the first post!

[Dooz]

Updated descr_character.txt for new patch. I think I'll try a Rome campaign and see how it feels hopefully long term as a player instead of all AI sim tests. Getting characters to Rome for elections and general offices management should feel better and more realistic, timewise. I think.

[Kwebib]

I played with slightly more move points on EB1 and liked it a lot.

What is the reasoning for going with 500 for all characters? By default, EB2 has different rates for armies, navies, and all 3 agents.

I suppose you could also ask "what is the reasoning for the different rates in EB2?".

[Dooz]

Well, they all get their own movement bonuses and maluses via traits which differentiate them in game. Armies still have less range than agents and even solo FMs (except maybe when they get very old/injured?).

Frankly, it was the first value I tried as a catch all just to see how it all looked, and it all ended up looking pretty good (i.e., seem to match realistic numbers based on what I could find to compare to). I didn't see a reason to tinker personally, but it's easy enough to customize for anyone who feels different. Just keep in mind it's not save compatible!

[Kwebib]

Ok nice. Thank you for explaining.

[Dooz]

73 turns in, I can report it feels great to play with higher campaign movement, both for myself as the player and how AI seems to be utilizing it. I think it's especially helpful playing as Rome (and probably any other office based faction), which was the motivation for wanting to try this in the first place, along with being closer to realism. Here's a little story of how it's going and some context for some fun stuff that's currently happening.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My attempts at conquering the wildlands north of Italia beginning 264 B.C. were met with stiff Keltic and Ligurian resistance, losing one of my Consuls in battle and nearly the other (whose badly depleted army was besieged by a numerically superior force, but which siege lasted over a year and was long enough that reinforcements were able to be mustered back in Rome to destroy the attackers). This mostly resulted in a general stalemate by the end of 262, as I turned my eye toward Sicily and the Carthaginians. It wouldn't be until the Summer of 256 B.C. that the Roman invasion of Sicilia began, just after Carthage and the Greek League had gone to war, a perfect distraction. My Consul quickly took a lightly garrisoned Messana in the Autumn (the pretext for war here, after Roman offers to purchase the land which were declined, then threatening to attack if the purchase offer was declined again, cancelling trade rights, and finally war). Then things got interesting.

The Punic War script kicked in the next year, and Carthage got an army to reinforce Liliybeum, and another which laid siege to the newly liberated Messana. Luckily, my second Consul had just mustered his consular full stack and sailed over to reinforce, driving off the now-greatly outnumbered Carthaginians laying siege. He then boarded back onto the fleet and sailed around to lay siege to Lilybeum, as the first Consul still in Messana now marched his army out to attack the erstwhile besiegers. And there was the first real battle of the Punic war in the Summer of 255 B.C. which the Consul won and ransomed his captives back, leaving a sizeable army to retreat south to Syrakousi. As it turned to Autumn, a Praetor from Rome arrived to take over the pacification and integration of Sicilia as a Roman province, while the Consul chased the Carthaginians at Syrakousi, laying siege.

Spoiler for The Greeks invade newly conquered Sicilia - Autumn, 255 B.C.: 

Here's where it got crazy. Autumn 255 B.C., Messana is occupied by Rome and the remaining two strongholds on the island are under siege, each by a Consular army. Then the Greeks show up. They declare peace with Carthage, and war against Rome, laying siege to Messana and blockading ports.

Spoiler for Mediterranean - Spring, 254 B.C.: 

I keep my own besieging armies to their task, hoping the Greeks won't send any of their armies to attack them from behind and I can take the settlements in time to send help. By Spring of 254 B.C., they've maintained all their forces against Messana, maintained blockades on two of my ports, and their position back east in Hellas looks very comfortable. Seems they've come out on top in their ongoing war with Makedonia, who has struggled with wars on many fronts, including against another well-settled rival in Epeiros.

Spoiler for Diplomatic Standings: 

I established an alliance with the Ptolemies just before declaring war on Carthage in a classic enemy-of-my-enemy move, but I backed the losing horse as it turns out they've been losing ground to the Punic menace. Carthage keeps pushing east, they're in Egypt now besieging a settlement just south of Alexandria. Meanwhile, Epeiros and the Greek League are a worrisome pair. Though not officially allied, they've been at war with Makedonia and carved up much of Hellas between themselves. With such a strong base, if they avoid conflict with each other, they will be a force to reckon with.

Spoiler for Map of Spring, 254 B.C.: 

Some interesting stuff overall by this point. Pritanoi with continental holdings is always fun. Numidians getting in on the action as well, claiming a chunk of southeastern Iberia for themselves, sharing with their Carthaginian allies. The Bosporan greeks with some interesting westward expansion, they had been firmly rooted in and around the Crimean until pretty recently I think.

Spoiler for Carthage sends reinforcements...: 

As I hang on by the seat of my pants, hoping to conclude my sieges with as little losses as possible to I can either reinforce or recapture Messana, I am shattered. Carthage sails in two armies to reinforce Syrakousi and attacks my Consul. This is where I will be picking back up tomorrow, but I don't even know what to do. He's outnumbered more than 2:1 (49k vs. 22k), and outflanked on both sides. I don't think I can win the battle, it's been tough going so far in my battles back in Italy against Kelts and rebellious Sabelleans and Tarantines and everyone else. And that's been with more or less even numbers. But Roman honor demands no retreat, no surrender... to give up on the siege, and then what? He would be hounded by the attackers and probably surrounded and destroyed anyway... meanwhile Messana still sieged by the Greeks, and who knows what will happen to the second Consul still encamped outside Lilybaeum. Oh gods, what a mess.

[Kwebib]

Nice report! Looks like you're in quite the pickle. Do you typically starve out settlements or assault? Also, on what difficulty settings are you playing?

[jdofo]

Indeed, interesting report!

Do you think that AI becomes "smarter" when having higher movement, in the sense that they're able to have more of a "bigger picture" and more accordingly organise invasions and defense of their territory?

In broad numbers, how much percentage of movement has been increased in comparison to EBII 2.35A vanilla?

I would be keen to try this out for my first EBII 2.35A campaign when finding the time. Looking forward to more similar reports and how this tricky situation ended up... It's especially interesting as it involves naval invasion and defense of AI's territory.

Thanks in advance! Cheers

[Maltacus]

Thanks for sharing the reports, very entertaining and I wholeheartedly envy the campaign difficulties. I haven't tried out increased movement in EB II, instead opting to set it to 12 turns per year, but have good experiences with high campaign map movement in Stainless Steel. I think I've only been deterred by the idea that it would make things too comfortable for me as a player, and thereby easy, so I shouldn't increase the campaign movement for that reason...
Stupid notions like these aside, one thing that will be much easier and thus less challenging is the lessened costs and troubles from marching reinforcements to the front lines. There will be much less danger of unsupervised troops rebelling or being hunted by enemy raiders, and much less rounds you need to pay upkeep for a unit that is just transporting itself, which I find to be some major impediments for many factions.

The AI does not become smarter as such but increased movement makes it less hindered and interrupted by changing situations, so it is less likely to wander here and then decide to wander there the next round due to changing circumstances. You might call it a more determined AI that sees it plans through more.

[Dooz]

Do you typically starve out settlements or assault? Also, on what difficulty settings are you playing?

Playing on Hard campaign, Medium battle. Far as sieges, I hate to say it depends, but it certainly does on the situation at hand. In this campaign, I've taken four settlements. Rhegion was well defended and I was likely going to starve them out, but they sallied forth the first turn with a 1:1 battle strength ratio and that was that. Taras didn't end up requiring a siege as they had some units just outside, which I attacked and they were reinforced by the city garrison. None were left after the battle so my army just marched in. Felsina up north was a different situation. My consular army had been ambushed near the border, but outnumbered the attackers and won (though with sizeable losses). The ambushed army moved on to attack the main force it was heading up there to battle, a full stack which had been raiding my Umbrian lands for years, and what troops remained (now half strength) then laid siege to the town. I probably would have starved them out in another scenario, but there were quite a few huge barbarian hordes very nearby and I didn't want to chance them reinforcing any more than I had to, so the next turn I assaulted the town with two battering rams. I outnumbered the defenders about 2:1, though the battle strength was listed at 1:1 and indeed resulted in a surviving occupying army that was no longer in fighting shape (which then got besieged by a huge barbarian army and was saved only because the siege lasted over a year was I able to muster another army to come to the besieged consul's aid, the other consul having died and his entire army destroyed just months before in a disastrous Ligurian campaign). And finally, Messana recently, they only had 2 units, I had 20, and the rest of the island and more enemy armies to contend with, so I assaulted the first turn I could.

I guess generally, if I greatly outnumber them, and especially if I want some battle experience for a commander, I'll assault (unless I'm trying to draw in a larger army nearby as reinforcements for pitched battle). Larger garrisons I probably tend to starve out (or better yet, hopefully have them sally forth). Not too sure if starving out will really be a viable strategy with high campaign movement though, especially in more continental territories where reinforcements can get there fast and heavy. Heck, even in island territories it seems.

Do you think that AI becomes "smarter" when having higher movement, in the sense that they're able to have more of a "bigger picture" and more accordingly organise invasions and defense of their territory?

Absolutely, I got that sense during initial AI run test campaigns, and it's only been reinforced during my actual play campaign. Not getting bogged down with multi-turn plans, which inevitably get hampered either by loading a save resetting calculations, or other various reasons, seems to have opened up the AI to act more decisively. To my great detriment!

In broad numbers, how much percentage of movement has been increased in comparison to EBII 2.35A vanilla?

4x the movement points for FMs/armies (increased from 125/124 to 500), and closer to around 2x for agents since they had higher numbers to start with (200-300) and I have them all set at 500. An army can get from the southern tip of Italy at Rhegion, to Liguria in one turn. So that's around 1,234 km in 90 days, which comes out to about 13.7km/8.5miles per day at a forced march. I've seen some stuff saying 10miles/day was standard for roman legions, and other numbers that generally fall around these same ranges, so I'm happy far as the realism aspect goes. FMs on their own can get from southern Italy to southeastern Iberia in the same time I think, great for moving governors around or back to Rome for elections and the like. Those numbers also didn't seem out of whack with realism, I think it landed somewhere under 20miles/day. Which for a small all-cavalry force, seems okay.

I would be keen to try this out for my first EBII 2.35A campaign when finding the time. Looking forward to more similar reports and how this tricky situation ended up... It's especially interesting as it involves naval invasion and defense of AI's territory.

I hope you give it a try and enjoy! I don't see myself going back to default after my experience so far.

I think I've only been deterred by the idea that it would make things too comfortable for me as a player, and thereby easy, so I shouldn't increase the campaign movement for that reason...

I fully shared your concern initially, but tempered it with the knowledge that I had control over how I used these new powers and didn't have to abuse them. I prefer roleplaying rather than min-maxing personally, which makes it easier, but if all out gamer instincts take hold, perhaps it could be cheesed to your advantage in some ways. So far, it's only been harder for me, because the AI uses it well. But also more satisfying, because I can do realistic movements and reinforcements and that all feels good.

Stupid notions like these aside, one thing that will be much easier and thus less challenging is the lessened costs and troubles from marching reinforcements to the front lines. There will be much less danger of unsupervised troops rebelling or being hunted by enemy raiders, and much less rounds you need to pay upkeep for a unit that is just transporting itself, which I find to be some major impediments for many factions.

Well, I've been ambushed three times so far lol. Once in my own territory by Italic rebels as I hastily called up my allied troops from Rhegion (2 skirmisher units) to muster at Rome for the invasion of Sicilia, which luckily they avoided getting caught and were able to retreat. My main force already at Rome then came in and crushed the would-be ambushers, but the planned invasion was delayed a season as a result. I did get actually fully ambushed at the northern border as my consular army moved up to drive off the raiding barbarians. Turned out, the full stack at the border wasn't the only one raiding, and there was a hidden contingent next to them in the tiny wooded area in my territory. AI places their armies pretty well strategically, whether for defense or reinforcements or border patrols/raids/ambushes, etc.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Of course, these could have been avoided with more careful planning and scouting out with a spy, but I didn't and paid the price. Though the third ambush, I did see with my spy and knew the army was there visible on my map, but when I moved in my army to attack an adjacent enemy army, the hidden one still ambushed. That was kind of interesting and actually worked in my favor, allowing me to destroy that smaller army without them being reinforced (it was a night ambush and I guess their adjacent commanders weren't night fighters, luckily).

The AI does not become smarter as such but increased movement makes it less hindered and interrupted by changing situations, so it is less likely to wander here and then decide to wander there the next round due to changing circumstances. You might call it a more determined AI that sees it plans through more.

These are exactly my observations as well. I'm so excited every turn to see what happens next lol.

[Lusitanio]

Nice idea. I'm gonna give it a try on my campaigns, for now I've set the movement for my Generals and FMs to 420. So that the agents still have a bit more. I think it will be better campaign wise, I've lost so many turns before waiting for my Generals to get to a specific place.