[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[bthizle1]

Back to give yet more compliments to this incredible mod. I'm playing the small version, and around 100 turns in and I have been struggling nigh every turn to balance my economy/military. Having to give considerable thought to my actions.

I was curious as well, have aspects of ai arbitiris been included in this?

[Jake Armitage]

Glad you're enjoying, without a solid base like DeI it would have been really difficult to do something intriguing.

Having to give considerable thought to my actions.
Yeah, That's the aim, less arcade, more strategical

I was curious as well, have aspects of ai arbitiris been included in this?
Nope, DAIA is bugged since last DeI/Scipio's CAI, but this last update shifted more towards DAIA values.
In my opinion there is no more need for DAIA, although it would be nice to have different packs to choose from.
Sooner or later I might do them.

------

Tomorrow I'll add testudo packs for the VPS submod I've just released

[milt]

maybe... try to use a decoy army, land it a bit far from that nightmare region and see if some enemy armies follow the bait.

Thanks. It's quite hard. It would have been smarter to liberate cities one by one. I'm just smashing armies. If I had to fight on two/3 fronts as the Romans did, I'd be done for. The struggle with trying to move further afield, is the AI moves at my weak points with lots of armies. Very challenging. I didn't realize they were allowed to break the 40 unit limit rule with battle reinforcements, so it makes for interesting strategy countering 60 to 80 units in one battle.

I also noticed my Cretan archers seem to be hard limited into normal archers with something knocking 4 points off their arrow attack. It shows as a red marker where the white for experience usually is, they are 39. Right clicking on the unit, they are supposed to be 43. Elite units are half the fun of the game, so removing that cap would be wonderful.

Also, interestingly it's my pike phalanx units that always break first in battle. I think the AI is correctly targeting them over my Roman infantry with its missiles, and as there are only two in my armies, they don't fare well. I doubt they'd be as a fragile in a full phalanx line. But for a bit I wondered if Roman units are simply stronger even in a line.

Overall, I'd say your mod really increases the difficulty on the player in a good way. With another campaign, I'd likely lower the difficulty a tad. The AI is as strong as it is with the hardcore mod, but the player is weaker. Also, population growth seems to work much better in your mod. And the AI performs better in terms of strategy. That may be luck with the last, but I was glad to have it!

I suggest getting creative with turn packs. It would be fun to play with abstracted 4 season and 12 month options, were 4 seasons could be over 4 years. 12 over 12, or 12 over 3 or 4 years. That way we could get the effect of seasons/months in a faster paced game. I figured this has already been thought of, but couldn't find anything on it with a search.

Taking a break for a bit. But looking forward to checking out your new work!

[Jake Armitage]

NEWS

- Added compatible packs for the new VPS feature (it would be better to start a new campaign so you can handle it from start).
You'll find both a normal and a light version. Light will make your games easier (economically speaking).

- The old TESTUDO_Treasury script has been deactivated.
- You'll find also a new pack for phazer's camera mod. Use the one inside the zipped folder for VPS, not the one inside OP.

- Added a pack to lower units penalties

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

@milt

Very challenging.
yeah, sort of, my advice is to wait for the right opportunity before launching any big assault.

I didn't realize they were allowed to break the 40 unit limit rule with battle reinforcements, so it makes for interesting strategy countering 60 to 80 units in one battle
yeah, at battle start will be deployed 40 units max, as soon as one is wiped out another one will come in (for both player and Ai). This is an old TW feature, dunno if there's a limitation though.

About units
I put those penalties 'cause 90% of the time I play a battle I just loose 10/20% max.
Anyway I've uploaded a pack which will reduce those penalties.

With another campaign, I'd likely lower the difficulty a tad.
Try using the VPS_light pack, it should make the economy easier.

Also, population growth seems to work much better in your mod.
Good.

And the AI performs better in terms of strategy
Hope he'll continue doing so.

I suggest getting creative with turn packs.
No that's not possible, you can't force the game to change season (maybe inside hex editing but I have no idea), you can just set tpy and most of the possibilities are just bugged (season won't rotate)
The possibilities are: 1, 2, 4, 12, 24 (and maybe 24 multiplier, dunno)

[Lupo]

Hi!

Fides_Populi_DeI_beta_03 is in Testudo-MoD ??????

Lupo!

[jeanlannes]

Hi Jake. I've noticed that, as the happiness of a region increases, that region receives increasing bonuses in many aspects with the exception of the PO, where it receives a negative bonus also increasing as the happiness gets higher. Is this intended?

[Jake Armitage]

@lupo:
no fides populi is dead and wasn't balanced at all, it had many empty callbacks/values, play with the VPS pack for now (economy only) and wait for the others to be done (for characters too).
Porting many aspect of the game (like people trust/fides populi) inside the same curve is not a wise thing to do. It's quite uncontrollable

@jean
Yeah 100% intended and when you'll have low PO, there will be a PO increase.
There are many features working this way, mathematically you could say it is a reduction to the gaussian curve's spread, it is meant to have a less arcadish gameplay.
This way, regarding PO, it will be more difficult to have high values, while playing vanilla you don't have many problems to reach 100 and I hate to see a 100% agreement.

[jeanlannes]

I see. It feels weird when you see it happening, but I guess it's a good solution to get what you're trying. Thanks again.

[Jake Armitage]

Mathematically speaking it works really well and that's more important than anything else.
If you think about it, having +/- values when you have -/+ PO it means the PO curve will be slower which is perfect for a slower gameplay.
No more great changes (not considering specific event) in few turns but slow changes you'll have time to control and manage (strategically) during your turns.

Conceptually speaking.. well, you could say that people aren't automatically happy/unhappy if their neighbours are happy/unhappy.
Nor that people are really happy/unhappy for prolonged time. High PO (conceptually) should come for short period of social happiness which is a really difficult thing to obtain.
That's why the PO gaussian curve has those limitations, to prevent going too low or too high and have a tendency to stay in an average fork and then go up and down depending on contestual events.

Testudo has a lot of values coming from a lot of things, some may appear weird but there is actually just one value affecting the game: the final one (provincial PO in this case).

[milt]

@Jake

About units
I put those penalties 'cause 90% of the time I play a battle I just loose 10/20% max.
Anyway I've uploaded a pack which will reduce those penalties.
I don't mind increased battle difficulty. It was that only that unit was reduced. I'd prefer some general penalty.



For anoter campain I'd use:
facton pack, less battle penalties TP, vps light from this thread, testudo 4tpy, DEI 1, DEI 2, is what I've got loaded in that order for the next campaign. I think this is what you suggested.


No that's not possible, you can't force the game to change season (maybe inside hex editing but I have no idea), you can just set tpy and most of the possibilities are just bugged (season won't rotate)
The possibilities are: 1, 2, 4, 12, 24 (and maybe 24 multiplier, dunno)

Ah, I thought it was just turns. And the seasons and years were modifiers. I didn't realize it was a vanilla feature.

Thanks!

[Jake Armitage]

I don't mind increased battle difficulty. It was that only that unit was reduced. I'd prefer some general penalty.
That's weird 'cause the penalties I did are for every unit, not some specific

For anoter campain I'd use:
yeah, I should release a better version of VPS soonyou're welcome!

[milt]

I don't mind increased battle difficulty. It was that only that unit was reduced. I'd prefer some general penalty.
That's weird 'cause the penalties I did are for every unit, not some specific

Maybe it's not even something with your mod, or something I don't understand. Entire classes of units seems made equal, taken to the lowest value for the class. All archers scaled back to 39 damage, slingers 34, likewise for javelins.

It's mostly for ranged units, but I saw it with one cavalry unit when I was looking. And I've seen a battle where this didn't happen, and I'm not sure why. Another where the scale value went back only to 40 for archers.

The bug, feature, or misunderstanding persist with the less battle penalties mod. I can see about providing screen shots if it's not clear. If I'm understanding it right, I'd like to remove it so that elite units are properly elite.

[Jake Armitage]

In Testudo I've halved most of the effect values (battle too) and added some penalties for player only which will grow with time. All values are quite low.
During my campaigns I see that my units doesn't have much white bar and sometimes some red ones (into unit UI you can see normal values as green, while affected values will be white if positve and red if negative, well, you know that).
And that's the thing I'm aiming for.
Never seen anything weird but I may be wrong.

Please send me a savegame so I can check.

[Mietek88]

I play Seleucid. After capturing Alexandria and Side I can not recruit any units. Is it normal? - medium sub mod

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Jake Armitage]

Yes it is, it's the same for Ai too.
Wehnever you own a region only, inside a province, you won't be able to recruit.

As written into Warnings at #3 post:
- sometimes you won't be able to recruit at all (mercenary excepted) in provinces when you have only 1 region (except for your starting/capital region obviously).
In this case use the MILITARY ADMINISTRATION Intrigue or recruit a general with the Auxiliary BG

Lower overall recruitment is one of the best (and best working imo) features to slower the campaign.

[Maximus030]

Sorry for asking but how can I install your mod? Until now I only used mods via steam... I’m keen to play your mod after I finished a couple of campaigns with Scipios realism mod

[Jake Armitage]

Yeah, you're right.
I've added instructions into OP too.

Instructions:

a) Choose between Tiny/Small/Medium (4tpy) or Medium/Large/Huge (12 tpy, you'll need to load 12tpy official submod too)
b) Choose a "pick faction" pack
c) If you want, choose one or more of the other packs to customize various aspects of the gamplay style (optional or turtle)

then

1) Put the chosed packs into the data folder (..\Steam\SteamApps\common\Total War Rome II\data)
2) Start Rome II
3) In Mod Manger, check "Enable Out of Date Mods".
4) Make sure all chosed packs are checked green. Their load order should be ok. It is given by the number of @, the more they are the more previous the mod is loaded.
5) Play the game

[milt]

In Testudo I've halved most of the effect values (battle too) and added some penalties for player only which will grow with time. All values are quite low.
During my campaigns I see that my units doesn't have much white bar and sometimes some red ones (into unit UI you can see normal values as green, while affected values will be white if positve and red if negative, well, you know that).
And that's the thing I'm aiming for.
Never seen anything weird but I may be wrong.

Please send me a savegame so I can check.

I haven't seen it that drastic again, so I'm probably mistaken. I'll send it if I do.

[Jake Armitage]

Well, no need, you're probably right, I'm correcting some values here and there for many things and I've halved the "archers" maluses so this issue shouldn't show no more.
Thanks for let me notice this!
Your feedbacks are much appreciated.

[milt]

Well, no need, you're probably right, I'm correcting some values here and there for many things and I've halved the "archers" maluses so this issue shouldn't show no more.
Thanks for let me notice this!
Your feedbacks are much appreciated.

Well, no need, you're probably right, I'm correcting some values here and there for many things and I've halved the "archers" maluses so this issue shouldn't show no more.
Thanks for let me notice this!
Your feedbacks are much appreciated.

Glad it's helped, even if I've been confused. Ha.

Also, I think I might have figured out why the ladies weren't negating corruption. Their husbands as household member ancillaries often get quite large negatives to empire maintenance . So one negative husband =-2, where it takes four 4 star wives to negate that. I assume they still help with loyalty, giving free characters and other bonuses.

I've been having a bit of trouble with locked AI armies. I managed to unlock most by revoking all my allies military access, who were trying unsuccessfully to path find around rivers and my cities? But two Carthaginian states and I were competing for Illyria. I beat them too it and remained allied. Now there have been 2 armies sitting at sea for 100 + turns, and one next to Epidamnos. I think it's a shared war goal that never reset, but who knows?

Any trick to unlock them? As a side note they seem to have a LOT of money, using all their army slots with good units. I'm taking Greece before I go after them at this point!

Otherwise there's been some good, if overstretched AI expansion with some majors to fight as the game progresses. Everything seems to be working fairly well.