[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[macabre]

Hello!

Since I do only auto-resolve naval battles (did never get warm with them and also do not have enough time to "learn" it) - do you have any tips which ships to use in fleets to get good results in auto resolving? Fleets are a hell of expensive troops ..


And - is there any chance to delete / remove some household members? After some time there are lots of useless household members - and searching for a good one takes some time since you always have to check all of them.

Thx!

[Iskandar]

I have a question regarding the Dacian reforms - are the 100 turns and 10 battles with Rome the only conditions? I am at ~turn 200, have 11 battles with Rome (though half of them are auto-resolve), have researched the purple tech and the reform units are not grayed out anymore in the barracks view, yet they are still not available in the recruitment queue.

Perhaps Imperium lvl 5? I am still at 4.

EDIT: Nevermind, it fired off several turns later.

[NorthernXY]

Have you thought about renaming dynastically named faction rebels and usurpers location names? If the Ptolemies were overthrown in a coup/civil war, it would no longer be the Ptolemaic Kingdom but the new king's dynasty's kingdom. Guessing that may be impossible, so just using Aegypt would make it not conflict with the new dynasty's name is, while still showing the Ptolemies have been ousted. Similar to Parthia, it's the Arsacid dynasty to begin, if they die-off or get overthrown, it's still the Parthian Empire.

Going to go investigate whether faction names can be changed by script or save game.

[Ptolemaios Soter]

For what it's worth, most civil wars were between various claimants from the same dynastic line. For example, Caesar interfered in a Ptolemaic civil war on the side of Cleopatra against her brother. Parthian civil wars were similarly within the Arsacid house. Rome is really an exception because - for a very large variety of complicated reasons - it took much longer for the dynastic transfer of power to really enshrine itself as the legal norm. So your idea isn't bad and would add some nice depth, but it's also not out of the ordinary the way it works currently.

[gregoirezz]

Starting an Egyptian Grand Campaign, I can get paid 3k quite consistently for a trade agreement - I'm sure this is due to the resources I have, but naturally doing this with ten or so factions within the first 1-2 turns of the game is quite powerful, and I can probably get 20-30 factions to pay me as I scout around the map with an admiral. Isn't this quite an unfair advantage?

When selecting Seleucids, I can get fewer trade deals and generally get paid less. Is this likely due to starting diplomacy differing between the two, or does it reflect the different resources the two factions have?

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

I'd assume Egypt's starting resources and position on the map--you can connect with other factions capitals right away during to Alexandria's spot in the Mediterranean. Also, the more resources you have, the more the AI will want to trade with you.

[gregoirezz]

Yeah but as I say, Seleucids have similar territory and access to the Med, must be that their resources are less desirable. Pretty mad you can just double your starting Treasury though, the resources can't be that valuable on turn 1!

[Ptolemaios Soter]

Egypt is supposed to be insanely rich from the start and to have one of the easiest early campaigns. So yeah, that sounds about right. You have starting access to dyes, glass, salt, and iron (four of the most valuable trade resources - the only one you're missing being silk). You also have fish, so there's that. I'm going to up updating my province management guide on the Strategy/Gameplay subforum to include a discussion of trade, but basically factions can only accept a certain amount of trade resources based on their size. Since most factions start small, that means that they won't use a ton of your resources, allowing you to spread trade deals across much of the map. By the time you develop tier 2 cities, you would have enough resources to trade with I think 12 different factions, all of whom would pay you tons of gold for the agreement, and the resources would yield tons of income per turn.

If you want a hard economic start, play Armenia or a barbarian faction. Egypt is easy mode... appropriately.

[gregoirezz]

Okay that's interesting - just started a MP as Egypt and early on I was able to get a good bunch of trade deals (each netting me a 3k payment from my partner) from around Greece, running a spy up towards the East Bosporus gets me another 5-8 all around the Bosporus by about turn 6 and I've got a general scouting the Med - grabbing me 1 new trade partner every other turn basically. I recall from a previous campaign as time goes on I probably won't get paid 3k for each trade agreement, but it's a fair amount, and given I can do this right the way around Spain and to Britain and north Germany, that's a lot of cash!

Are the resources so valuable early game that they're willing to pay me THAT much for them? It just feels a bit cheeky. It's really helped me with up-front investments in my Cities, which in turn gets me a nice econ boom going on while still able to afford armies for early territory grabbing.

[Jurand of Cracow]

More generally: I consider the trade system in the R2TW engine to be very un-historical. You make a lot of money from the deals with far-away factions that in reality wouldn't have any technical possibilities to trade with you. Then the value of trade is determined by the resources - while in reality the distance would play a crucial role (gravitational model of trade worked also in the ancient times).
In the very gamey fasion, the first thing in game I do is to recruit a admiral-only fleet and send it overseas to get all those cheesy deals.
The barbarians are difficult in this respect, indeed. With Armenia it's easier: you always need to take Colchida (or Trapezous) asap.

[gregoirezz]

Yeah I agree. I saw a house rule suggested for multiplayer campaigns - 3 trade deals per imperium level, which was a pretty good fix for the income disparity that is created between coastal and landlocked factions, but doesn't fix the general issue you're pointing too (which I suspect isn't moddable)

[Jake Armitage]

@gregoirezz:
you can mod it by changing some campaign variables.
the weight of the money you can get through diplomacy depends on a ratio between player's and AI's treasury and some fixed threshold.
I can do a simple pack which lowers the weight of the money gained if you wish.

@jurand:
there are a lot of ways to limit trades.

db solution:
1) just lower the % gained

script solution:

1) the simpliest way is to count how many trades you have, organize thresholds and assign trade penalties depending on those thresholds
2) point 1) + interploation with empire level (or a lot of other things, depending how complex you want to have it)
3) a more complex system through virtual points (I've added the trade feature into last release but keep in mind that this system is for every economical aspect not only trades)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

4) and yes, theoretically you can set % differences depending on geographical distances

[gregoirezz]

Jake - so do the AI get the same big starting treasury as players do in DEI? That might explain part of the issue on turn one, getting paid a lot, in addition to the resources.

I did notice I got paid less / not at all after losing the resource at Tyros, so there's a factor there. But some sort of adjustment would be cool - it basically just takes away something that feels like an exploit - in single player naturally you could just not do it (ha!) but in MP it'd be a good fix for sure.

That, and mitigating long range trade which is also a potential boon to the player (relative to AI, which won't do it) but also adds a kinda weird time-wasting where you have a general alone scouting the oceans, ha!

I think both would be interesting enhancements to the base mod for sure.

[Jurand of Cracow]

@Jake - I was complaining about the historicity / realisticity of the Rome2 engine. In this respect (as in many others ;-) the Medieval 2 is much better (after tweaks, like nerfing merchants).
JoC

[Jake Armitage]

@gregoirezz:
I'll do a simple pack to reduce the income.
For more complex things I have no plan about trades, honestly. Just setting a lower % income is mostly fine.

@jurand:
mmhhh... speaking about how things have been set for vanilla games then yes I agree but technically that's not true.
I've been a modder for both and I assure you Rome 2 has dozens of times the potentialities med2 had.
It just requires deep modding and time.
DeI team has done a lot of work to transform the vanilla crap but the road is still really long if people want to keep modding it.

[Jurand of Cracow]

@jurand:
mmhhh... speaking about how things have been set for vanilla games then yes I agree but technically that's not true.
I've been a modder for both and I assure you Rome 2 has dozens of times the potentialities med2 had.
It just requires deep modding and time.
DeI team has done a lot of work to transform the vanilla crap but the road is still really long if people want to keep modding it.

I fully agree that DeI is a gem of modding. I widely disseminate the news that the KAM's BAI is the most "realistic" among all the TW games. However, in this particular aspect - trade - the R2 engine is fully un-historical, I'm affraid. And the Med2 solution (trade between provinces, not factions, improving provincial income and modified by the resource) is the most realistic (well, in the Paradox Imperator:Rome it is much more, but it's a different genre ;-)

[skillfultree]

@gregoirezz:
I'll do a simple pack to reduce the income.
For more complex things I have no plan about trades, honestly. Just setting a lower % income is mostly fine.

@jurand:
mmhhh... speaking about how things have been set for vanilla games then yes I agree but technically that's not true.
I've been a modder for both and I assure you Rome 2 has dozens of times the potentialities med2 had.
It just requires deep modding and time.
DeI team has done a lot of work to transform the vanilla crap but the road is still really long if people want to keep modding it.

I hope the road to Rome 2 modding has a bright and long future.

[Demosthenes26]

There was some talk awhile back about giving rhodian Hoplites a dual ability as slingers to match xenephon's account of them being used in this role during the march of the ten thousand. IIRC the idea didn't get off the ground because phalanx units bug out when combined with missile weapons. Could Rhodian ekdromoi be given this ability without messing with the AI, since they can't form a phalanx? maybe with reduced ammo compared to regular rhodian slingers.

[Dardo21]

There was some talk awhile back about giving rhodian Hoplites a dual ability as slingers to match xenephon's account of them being used in this role during the march of the ten thousand. IIRC the idea didn't get off the ground because phalanx units bug out when combined with missile weapons. Could Rhodian ekdromoi be given this ability without messing with the AI, since they can't form a phalanx? maybe with reduced ammo compared to regular rhodian slingers.

I recall the idea gave some our devs nightmares, so sure, why not .

[King of Rat Kings]

Will the Macedonian Wars get an update anytime soon? Having played it recently, it appears to use outdated assets/units, rosters are a mess, and many of the greek factions are horribly lacking.