[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[Jake Armitage]

perfect!

[leonardusius]

Now, I see clear. Thank you Ivanpera ! Very clever indeed those scripts. Jake, it's 100% importable in R2 via script. I mean AI offering peace lines. Also peace and military protectorate ideas.
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(Peace protectorate
Terms and conditions:
- Trade Agreement and the military alliance
- The ratio of the army AI / Army Player of less than 40%
- The ratio of the army AI / Army Player of less than 20% (for Indian factions)
- The percentage of world trade a player higher than AI
- AI faction is a potential protectorate (AI has one area and there is an item in the menu protectorate diplomacy)
Military protectorate
Terms and conditions:
- AI faction is a potential protectorate (AI has one area and there is an item in the menu protectorate diplomacy)
- The player is besieging the capital of AI one turn
- The ratio of the army AI / Army Player of less than 50%
Note: includes all the army, and not only those involved in the siege.
After 10 years will be the annexation of the protectorate and it goes into the player's faction.)
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Good news for the next Testudo update !

[raven63]

Apologies for my quite limited understanding, but do you think it's possible to use these techniques to

1) Make the AI accept and offer peace with both human and other AI if the war is not going well.

2) Make certain AI factions less likely to invade regions that are historically/geographically not a good place to go to, e.g. like Arabia or the asian steppes

[leonardusius]

Imho, both are very 'scriptable', so yes.

[nikossaiz]

Glad that ignite the fire

[raven63]

I love you guys. May the gods guide you and make your code lines strike true

[Jake Armitage]

We'll see... one day...maybe
To have them working on a good level will require coding work, guys...
It's not a simple copy paste actually, but we have a good skeleton to refer to and that's good.

@raven
1) well yes, "is not going well" is doable somehow, my fear is the option about choosing/not choosing the peace. I don't think it is doable and I see it as a limitation honestly
2) yes, I have in mind it in another way but yes there are many ways to do that

[raven63]

I think I know why AI armies freeze near neutral/allied settlements. I think it's the reduced movement points from 12 tpy and from Testudo. What happens is that the movement points the AI has is not enough to go 'past' the settlement, and there is no capability of the AI to re-calculate its path when this happens. The stuck AI stays there until, for whatever reason, one turn it has enough movement points to escape from the hole going forward in its original path, or it gets new 'orders'.

[nikossaiz]

I think it's the reduced movement points from 12 tpy and from Testudo

No, nothing to do with testudo. it is a known since forever as i can recall bug . Scipio ( a good moder ) tryed to remedy this. I dont know how nor if he manage to actually do it. AI cant directly moded, only "infuenced". So, yeah, not a testudo thing.

[Jake Armitage]

there is no reduction movement in 12 tpy. 12 tpy is just for turn count and seasonal rotation.
besides this, as nikos said, no, it's not linked at all to move points.
it is due to some weird CA scripted behaviour.
the only workaround would be an anti stuck script which will automatically move stucked armies from xy1 to xy2

[raven63]

I don't know, maybe there is two different problems then. The one I see is clearly caused by movement reduction. I don't know where that reduction comes from. I mean if you look at these pictures it is obvious https://imgur.com/a/hdsiKSX

What's happening in these pictures is the AI is following a path which goes through the allied settlement, but when it reaches the settlement, its full bar is not enough to clear the obstacle. When you click an AI army you see its movement range highlighted in red, which is what these pictures show. In the first three images there are four AI armies which are trying to move east, and in the last two there are two armies which are trying to go south

[Jake Armitage]

oh, yeah, I'm getting what you say and it is true, the movement reduction comes from testudo
but the classical vanilla CA feature of having stucked ai armies (in foreigned/owned territories or allied ones) represents the real pain,
It could be that movement reduction add more possibility.
Try downloading the turtle_movement_part and put the higher there is.
load, end turn (the pack will affect the game from nest turn) and see if those armies move through (maybe skip a couple of turns to check their behaviour).
Or send me the savegames and I'll try that.

btw I think that military access/alliance should cancel that red area, not sure though

[xH0oTx]

Hi Jake!

Thank you first for your submod. It's absolutely wonderful, because it's everything I'm looking for, SLOW PACE!

I love Rome civilization so I play exclusively with it (ok I must miss some great campaign with other factions lol).

I tested on HUGE, 12tpy but I struggle on how to start.
I usually make trade agreements with everyone at first to get the most incomes I can have.

But after, I don't know how to correctly be prepared against Epirus.
I tried to send my Legio II to Beneventum, change the general to a new one with garrison bodyguard, recruit low cost units like roarii and my first Legio was on route to Etruscan territory, I recruited some units, usually 8 units (triarii and principes) with 3 mercenaries (1 cavalry, 2 heavy spears). But I think it's not a good way to get correctly prepared.
Could you share with some other players too if they are willing, your tips or your way of being prepared to defense against Epirus and be ready to conquer Taras. What should I do with the money at first, how to manage PO, incomes and units?

Thank you in advance. Great work.

[Demon Soul]

Since there's no response I want to share with you my experience.
Like you, I also played as SPQR and 12tpy mod.

I've started two campaigns, both are lost, because CAI flooded me with army stacks and agents.
In first attempt I manage to conquer Etruria and focus on war with Epirus; my north borders were secured. I wasn't focusing on diplomacy. In the end I lost this campaign beacuse Epirus just wont want to die and finally - I was having a new war on north border. Epirus CAI flooded me with armies - it's just like they would have endless manpower and gold. It all happens with agents that CAI used (there were many); agents can really be dangerous, now I now it.

In second attempt (also as SPQR) things were quicker. I was keeping in mind what Jake wrote to me, I've changed my strategy and first-campaign-steps, but my campaign turn in to rampage.

From what I observed, and what Jake wrote, if CAI is acting unreasonable, just load your game and another time, and another...

I don't want to complain on Jake's mod, but on RTW 2 itself. So, I decided to return to Europa Barbarorum II.

Below are advices that Jake gave me.

@demon soul
Yeah I play normal. Hard is not advised while easy is playable, It is slightly easier and diplomacy should be decisively easier (never played though).

Look, I have 2 kind of reports here:
1) from some people people who are saying they like the game a lot (some of them uderlining possible improvements which are still a lot)
2) from other people who are saying the game is just unplayable

As I already said I think it is a matter of experience/concentration. Testudo is (metaphorically) more a chess game than a total war one.
I already answered you about diplomacy issues. Even if you pay much attention there is always an hardcoded possibility that will trigger weird behaviours through dice rolls.
It happens? Reload. I've been lucky and this "bug" never really affected my campaigns.
As a note I've never given money only to AI faction, just to get some agreements.

Dunno what starcraft is.

I get what you're saying but I think it mostly comes from lack of experience/concentration.
Testudo might be tricky and you have to pay attention both when you're turtling or rushing.
Diplomacy is really important, you have to build alliances and try to stay focused on less fronts of war as possible (which is pretty historical too, mostly for little factions).
Sometimes some factions will just declare war without reason. That's an hardcoded vanilla feature coming form very unlucky dice rolls. If it's a nonesense just reaload a previous save. There is no shame in this.
You'll need more than 1 campaign to become able to ride it, every faction has its own start and needed things to do.
You may want to use a light turtle weight or even play it at easy difficulty.

For Rome, follow what Dominus said.
1) make genua declare war on etruria and a trade agreement with veneti. They'll end fighting each other.
2) rush for etruria as soon as you can, probably Epiros will conquer bruttium (hopefully it's not beneventum)
3) garrison at beneventum and turtle until you have a good economy or it's the right time to attack.
4) conquer italy. Then you may choose to make peace with epirus (which will probably be conquered by some greek sooner or later) and liberate bruttium to avoid carthago and go north 8cisalpina is easy to conquer if you've secured the southern border)

Testudo is clearly slower. You just played the campaign wrongly. Sorry but testudo simply needs to played in a certain way you have to master through experience/concentration, otherwise it will end up as you're reporting.
You may check the map shots into OP. After 250 turns (Huge version) I had 8 regions (so, yeah, it's decisively slower) but I was in a full control of the situation (for now at least...).

[xH0oTx]

Hi Demon!

Thank you for your reply.

From my experience, I followed what Jake told you and same approach as you did.
I managed to destroy Etruria with an army of 8 new units recruited + 3 mercenary units (as I stated before). But the time I move my army to the south, Epirus conquered cosentia (fine, I was ok with this) but then, 1,5 stack army with elite unites came to conquer Beneventum, my 1.5 stack army composed of 1 stack of (5 triarii, 5 principeps, 3 hastati, 2 equites, 2 velites) and the second army (1 pedites extraordinari, 1 samnite hastati, 1 samnite principes, 6 roarii) couldn't stand against Epirus armies.

I'll try again a campaign soon. I was discouraged by the last campaign because I made a lot of quick test run on several mods and submods ^^

[Jake Armitage]

whoops, didn't see yours 10/24 post...

well I see that demonsoul (thx) answered you so there is not much to add...

I've played rome many times (even with previous testudo versions which were surely harder) and never had problems but... it seems it actually may be.
Can't say, I like testudo as it is and I'm not gonna make it too easy.
You can always play it on easy or add one of the blue packs which will make things easier (and play at normal)

My aim is: slower, more strategical (through new custom features) and harder (still really playable as per my experience and other guys' who are enjoying it)
I think it depends on what you want from a videogame.
If you want just to spend some time and have fun or if you want to have a "deeper" experience.
I'm for the second, that's all.

[Jake Armitage]

1.6.1 TEST PACK

Here should be the1.6.1 updated version.
I've begun to test it and seems fine.
I'll need time to do all the others packs (both RPGu factions and all the others testudo's different versions)

You can play it as 12tpy/HUGE/Rome faction
It has everything inside except the official 12tpy submod (so, load it)
Do not load anything else (graphics/rank sizes/movement packs excepted), just this pack:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/xtetv...pack.pack/file

There are a lot of changes, I'll describe them better when I'll release everything

- RPGu overhauled
- auto resolve overhauled
- added recruitments caps to seasons (you'll be able to recruit +/- x units depending on seasons)
- updated VPS
- rebalanced PIGS (and added the new script done by ivanpera for the AI General's Status)
- maybe removed child death (not sure)
- some fixed diplomatic stances (avoid wars during the 1st year) for some factions
- a lot of others rebalancements

It should be slightly easier than 1.6, overall.

[deeptrance83]

Do the new general units populate on the battlefield now?

[Jake Armitage]

yes they do
keep in mind you can play with rome only in the test pack

[bthizle1]

Wonderful to see you're still working on this Jake. An absolutely necessary (sub) mod in my opinion. Many thanks for all the work.

I haven't played in maybe 4-5 months, but recently saw that there is talk of two very exciting features. First being the ability to trade provinces, is there any progress on that? And second being the AI using more sensible measures to offer peace (maybe even declare war?) Hopefully both will be implemented into the mod? (They should be in the base DeI....)