It seems to me that everything is going perfect so the hoplites merge as they should and the aggressiveness of the campaign is a challenge but if you put your mind it is overcome
Generally there are a lot of things I'd like to work differently, but this game is very limited in how much you can mod it. You can even ask Dresden himself and he'll tell you the same thing.
Same goes for the CAI. I've already tried to improve it slightly by for example increasing + relations from releasing prisoners, and increasing - negative from killing them - but the AI will still do "random" decisions.
Even if I for example increase liberation bonus even higher and you have lots of resources to trade, some factions you liberate still won't want to trade with you even at +300 positive relations.
And once again, increasing their chance to ask for peace will just end up in them SPAMMING for peace almost every turn. We had this issue in DV at some point back in version 1.1 and also in older versions of base DeI.
Feel free to modify anything you want for personal use, but I recommend to make a new pack and load it before DV. Otherwise every update I release will break your version.
Yes, the AI gets lower upkeep on their troops. They have a hard time managing their economy and need both cheaper units and extra income, otherwise they'll end up with a negative in their treasury from time to time which will cripple them for the duration.
I will also most likely nerf tower damage slightly in the next update, and also lower fire arrow range on archers a bit in an attempt to balance out how easy it is for the player to burn the AIs fort- and barbarian-towers.
As for playing Rome, I've gotten to turn 110~ or so before I was more or less completely defeated. Pretty sure I only used forts one time against the Veneti. My mistake was very poor diplomacy early on which ended up in many neighbours allying against my aggression.
Υοu got me intrigued to start a new Roman DV game.
@Ygraine Are we getting close to the next update you mentioned ?
@GS - you absolutely should, mate. As you saw above, Ygraine the mod maker had to use a fort (and hey if that meant destroying 2 full Venetii stacks of 80 units that IS the difference between losing by turn 50 and losing by turn 110).
In both cases, the term was "completely defeated"!!!
How this doesn't get the attention of every DeI player I really don't know.
@Ygraine thank you for making this awesome mod that has me thinking about my next move while I'm at the supermarket!
As you may have seen above, I doubled the building times and reduced the Arrow Tower effectiveness. I think rather than reducing unit Fire Arrow, you could just increase the threshold at which the barbarian arrow towers catch fire?
But here's the BIG QUESTION: would it be possible for you to split the Campaign mod from the Battle mod? I know you like the 1.1 battle system more, however if it were possible to have the option of KAM's 1.2.2x battle system you would probably get more people trying this mod.
So Data Venia on your Data Venia!
The update will hopefully be out before the end of the month. I'm also working on another large mod compilation for another game, so my time is split 50/50 once I'm modding: https://www.nexusmods.com/grimdawn/mods/11/?
I only used a fort once at the start of that campaign, and only due to Venetian shortswords being quite strong early on against Roman spearmen. The other nearby celts train mostly spearmen so it won't be as much of an issue. I started another Roman Equites-campaign today just to test that once more and I defeated Veneti without any forts in one battle (taking their town). This due to me asking Daorsi to join my war against them, and Venetii sending their bulk against Daorsi.
Might slightly lower fire arrow range and increase ignition threshold on towers. It should hurt to approach towers and burn them, unless you stack a lot of bonus range. Being able to shoot fire arrows far isn't really realistic anyway!
There are no plans to split the mod or make it compatible with the latest balance (it will also require considerable time, something I don't have). With all due respect to the new battle changes, I prefer the old pace a lot more and without it I would have stopped playing this game a long time ago.
Thanks @Ygraine.
With all due respect, defeating the Venetii either with a fort or by taking out their garrison while their main force is away completely misses the point of the difficulty they represent in this mod.
From what I have seen, if they invade you soon after declaring war, it's game over unless you use a fort. So essentially you are relying on an (ahistorical) alliance or (ahistorical) fort mechanics to avoid being crushed.
So there really is only one pathway, and that is to hope the Daorsi actually declare war, don't themselves get crushed by the Dalmatae and that the AI decides to send the Venetii troops a long way away from their only settlement when they are being attacked from 2 sides and the weaker opponent is the closer one.
p.s. If the Venetii send both of their huge stacks to the east against the Daorsi, that's even more disappointing.
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Agreed fire arrows should have a shorter range, but that's a self-negating approach unless there are archer units defending the towers. It should hurt the attacking unit to be shot at by archers while trying to get within range to shoot their fire arrows. Is that what you mean?
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You don't have to wait for them to declare war on Venetii:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I got Ardiaei to attack Epirus, Liguria to attack Etruscans. Insubres conquered Ligurians, and declared war on me. Two turns later I asked for peace and they accepted. The next turn they joined my war against Etruscans. Easy peasy!
Leave the southern town in Italy to Pyrrhus and bottleneck at Beneventum. Ariminum is the place to send your legion(s), since the Etruscans can't really take Rome - and from Ariminum you can pounce on Venetii or Etruscans. Once Cisalpinia is more or less safe, you can march to southern Italy again and clear out the greeks.
As for "ahistorical", this game is sandbox - all campaigns are random more or less (with the exception of some scripts). You have to be really lucky to get a "historical" play-through as the AI can backstab you at any given moment if they feel like it.
And it's not impossible to beat Venetii without a fort, you just have to micro well and not be too outnumbered. Sword units get a bonus against infantry, so naturally they will have a slight edge damage-wise against your hastati (while the hastati are tougher and tankier). Invest in a bunch of leves and kill those shortswordsmen!
I had a Parthian campaign (around 450~ turns) where I had a stalemate in Armenia against a big coalition of factions, instead of constantly fighting them I started manipulating diplomacy a lot. In the end I managed to create a buffer zone of smaller factions between us and had them fight the war for me (while I trashed the arabs). Diplomacy is very important and you might not even need to fight a single battle against an enemy, if you can enlist someone else to do it for you
Yes, they should take damage from both garrison ranged units and the towers themselves.
Ahhh it's Rome Total Diplomacy
I guess I am used to some other mods where diplomacy is either ridiculously easy (like getting the Ardeai to open a second front war for 2k gold) or ridiculously hard where no matter what a +100 green faction won't agree to anything and then attacks you.
But yeah if you get everyone else to fight each other and march their stacks away from their settlements, that's back to Vanilla DeI.
So OK I'll use diplomacy more and see what happens
"
- Ptolematoi keep their Egyptian religion with Hellenic influences, rather than the opposite system in vanilla DeI."
So is Egyptian the official religion? I remember them having a 50% penalty for foreign religions before. So they can never have a majority in religion in any of their provinces? Why build temples at all? Just curious to the reasoning. And yes, I know that they were a minority ruling over a vast native population, just like the Selucids. But I believe the Selucids have a trait for being accepting of foreign cultures yet can increase Hellenic culture. Thanks.
Last edited by JCB206; January 18, 2018 at 10:08 PM.
Seriously guys, you're not playing right this challenging submod if you rely on forts. That means that your geopolitical strategy clearly failed, as you didn't properly use diplomacy and didn't plan your defenses correctly. Sorry I cannot bring huge details now (on the phone) but I managed to beat Carthage and Rome as Arevaci, despite a hardcore survival start (campaign detailed in previous pages, still have to update how did I conquer italian peninsula), and without using a single fort; just through massive and decisive open field battlefields against my odds that were some of the best, if not the best battles, I have ever had in a TW game. I was so close to lose them... even thought I will lose them many times within the battle itself as fronts were fluctuating,reinforcements were crucial to arrive on time and hold the line...but that's what slow paced battles make: to focus on deeply thought ancient military strategy or you will definitely lose.
Keep on trying, it's by far the most challenging and rewarding experience when beating your enemies that you can get in R2TW (given the lazy and clumpsy CA limitations)! Cheers
Last edited by jdofo; January 20, 2018 at 03:19 PM.
I downloaded DEI 1.2.2 g and now the game is crashing. Is Data Venia up to date with DEI?
1.2.2g works fine for me!
@Those that have problems surviving as Rome
102 turns and still kicking it. Just consolidated Latium and Italy! If I didn't make temporary friends, I'd probably be dead a long time ago. And one more thing, not a single fort used! 18 turns from Polybian reforms too!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Haha nice going @Ygraine. 102 turns to accomplish what most DeI Vanilla players accomplish in 25! That's why I love DV!
However...and there is always a but...it's only 2k gold to get the Ardaiei to declare war vs Epirous when they already are at war. Considering their monthly GDP boost that's a bit cheap no? Same with the Daorsi.
Yes, yes I know you can't please some people" but it would seem that temporary friends are bought far too cheaply. Now maybe they didn't need an invitation to open a second front.
Otherwise, I modded the income to be slightly lower at the beginning and I nerfed the forts a bit so they are not a temptation (just reduce fire arrow range and lethality so they're not getting 5k kills, reduce barricade durability so the Venetii can smash through your cheap spears if that's what you choose, and increase incendiary threshold of arrow towers so player has to get closer and take longer to burn them down).
Now it feels really perfect.
And I see you lost 6 settlements which means you really struggled!
The link for download Normal Civil Wars and Political Events is not wrking
Does this work on all maps or just Grand Campaign? Thanks