[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[Beedo83]

Man I have to say this submod is brutal! I'm getting absolutely thrashed as Rome. Things started off well enough, killed off Epirus after a struggle for southern Italia. Illyrians helped finish them off in Greece. Stabilized relations with Syracuse and tried to focus on building up my economy. Got a couple buildings down but nothing really super helpful in the short term before Veneti and Ardiaei started begging me for help with the Boii. Finally I started to look into why and saw they had built a small empire up in the north. They broke through Noria with 7 full stacks of tough troops. I can barely afford to keep 1 full stack of quality troops and 1 and a half with auxiliaries and I feel like I'm really struggling with the economy portion. I think I spent too much effort on public order as I noticed it really bounces around between 40-60. My old strategy was just to build up public order to 100, once that was done focus on bringing money in. Seems that doesn't do too well here and I really like how things are a lot more dynamic. As for the Boii, I'm kind of at a loss. They took out the Veneti and invited the Helvetii who also brought down a couple stacks. I'm really at a loss for what to do next and I think I might just scrap the campaign and start fresh now that I have a slippery grasp on the mechanics. Great work Jake, the challenge here is just fantastic.

[ltsweeting]

I'm currently like 180 turns in as Rome and am caught in a war with Carthage who just keep sending 2 full stacks every 3 or 4 turns against me. Even though they're more powerful than me in terms of economy and military I can still beat them in battle so I can gain inch by inch strategically but the issues which make the game really difficult with this sub mods are all due to the stupid diplomacy AI in my opinion. I'm at war with the Scordisii (not sure if I'm spelling that right) and The Odyssian faction simply because they decided to declare war on me for no reason (was on neutral standing with them). Liguria also did the same a few turns ago and so now I'm fighting off full stacks from both sides when I can only support 1.5 stacks worth of troops. If you could manage diplomacy more realistically it would go along way but unfortunately you can't. If I destroy all your armies in the field and am marching on your city you would usually accept a peace agreement but Rome AI would rather be annihilated completely unfortunately. Same with faraway factions which can't even get to my territory and have nothing to gain by fighting me. If you could manage this so as not to be jumped by 4 factions at once you'd be ok. But you can't and so this is where this sub mod really punishes you with its economic penalties. Fighting off multiple 20 stack armies when you can only afford one 20 stack yourself . Was playing on huge, then moved down to large but I think I might now just use Large as a base and the economic medium tortoise pack.

[Beedo83]

Even medium is still pretty punishing, but I may just be bad at managing economy with this sub mod. It is vastly different from vanilla DEI and what I'm used to. I didn't have too much trouble with diplomacy on medium but the Boii going all powerhouse so quickly was a big shock. The difference in upkeep between their troops and Rome's means they can support 3 line units for every one of Rome's. And their night runner skirmishers are absolutely insane with their impetuous ability. They stand up to everything I can throw at them and just decimate everything with their strategy of 4 per stack. They engage with 3 stacks every single time and I get steamrolled every single time. In my game, I've managed to delay the Punic war by making friends with Syracuse and giving them money every so often. They've been holding off Carthage but it's only a matter of time and with the barbarians very nearly at the gates of Rome I just don't think there's anything I can do to get out of this situation.

[Jake Armitage]

thx for the reports guys
I have experience with huge (normal difficulty, don't play it harder) with rome (100 turns) pergamon (200 turns) ptolemai (100 turns), all was going fine till then.

you have to pay attention on diplomacy, don't do too many pacts (non aggresion mostly) and divide the campaign into war fronts and peace fronts, otherwise you'll encounter these issues.
you can always cheat using this pack if you're really cornered and don't want to restart a campaign https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1349902818
I'll se if I can do something similar with a paying tribute and not just through cheating

- regarding PO, you can see there are bonuses when you have low PO an penalties when you have high, so to reach high values you'll have to struggle and keep armies in the province (armies/generals will give boosts to PO)
- make a good use of the RPGu units, they are quite necessary
- think you already did this, with rome you'll have to rush for etruscans (even if epirus takes bruttium), have a good diplomacy with cisalpina and then focus on carthage. you can always take all southern italy and offer peace to epirus and then go north
- I'll see to make a pack to reduce AI army number and keep the player's as it is
- with any faction: first build the economy (you'll need dozens of turns) then strike

[Beedo83]

Ha well I would say no cheats! But I did have to uncheck that 'control large armies' box just to have a fighting chance against the Boii, I just now managed to fight off their 3 stacks by maxing taxes and recruiting every single mercenary in Latium into my auxiliary army right before they attacked and I reinforced that with another fresh 8 unit army. Felt like cheating but it was literally the only way to not get swarmed by them. Thanks for the tips, hopefully my campaign can keep chugging now that they are retreating into venetia. I don't think I've ever had a campaign be this fun and stressful at the same time. I'm eager to see how the rest of Europe is looking since I've never seen a game play out like this. I'm around turn 150. I was able to try out the urban administration general and I notice they seem to have a bug if you move them to another town after recruiting them. I wasn't getting the -1 turn for construction (maybe other effects don't work too?). But if I disband them and then recruit them at the town I want them to be in then it works fine.

Runocingetoi are the skirmishers I'm talking about, they are just nuts. They can absorb charges from cav with no problem and stand their ground long enough to start killing them off. Freaking beasts!

[Jake Armitage]

most of the scripted effects will take place one turn after the deployment or their change postion/stance
check RPGu conditions into RPGu thread, you can't have an urban administration being out of town (he'll give you penalties)
you should use RPGu units from the start, for example with ptolemai I have something like 5 RPGu and just 2 armies

[Beedo83]

I did wait and had him garrisoned. What happened was I had him in Rome initially, then moved him down to Cosentia to build some buildings. I waited 2-3 turns just to make sure it wasn't working then disbanded him and recruited him at Cosentia when he had returned the next turn. Garrisoned him and waited until next turn and it worked as intended.

[Jake Armitage]

so you moved him from a garrison, walk around the map with the penalties till cosentia, then garrison again and the effect wasn't taking place?

[Beedo83]

Exactly yes

[Jake Armitage]

weird, I'll check

[Giwrgos Stamos]

In my previous campaign as Rome,my starting strategy was to sign peace with epirus,then to deploy urban admin in roma,land admin in arrenium,and the same tactic in Italia ,and i had one legion with proletaries,two unit of equites and two hastati,and focused north(etrusc/ligur),then i started slowly to build my economy.Now apart from thanking Jake for this magnificent work,i am commenting just to report in the above comments,that it has more depth than a usual playthrough with any other submod,every move must be careful and active in diplomacy with the right way(trade,gifts,etc)and a bit of luck,i don t want to seem a smartass after a lot tries that came to a point to end my campaigns over time i realised how serious and harsh this sub mod is..i play with huge and some graphical mods.

[Jake Armitage]

yeah, some luck is always needed.
glad you're liking the gameplay style, with time there will be a lot more things regarding micromanagement, I've already planned them, know how to do them but they'll need time to be assembled and released.

[Beedo83]

Also, I don't know if AI armies need to be lowered. I could see possibly that in my particular scenario the amount of armies that I'm having to face from the Boii being a problem if it was just me vs them. All of their armies would definitely overwhelm me in a heart beat but they are in a war with me and Ardiaei. Their units also really aren't on par with Republican Rome's. As it stands, they definitely live up to being the barbarian hordes that Rome was so afraid of. Maybe a slight reduction simply for balance but a hardcore mod should be hard. As to whether it's too hard, I can't say yet. It's a tough call to make. How difficult did you find the barbarians to be in your games Jake?

[Jake Armitage]

err... never fought against barbarians (above alps) nor I played a barbarian faction...
maybe there is something weird inside their stats, I'll ask kam if he has time to check them (I never changed stats)

Remember to take a campaign (mostly on huge) very slow, first defend and build and accumulate some cash (which will be limited by the treasury script), in the meantime wait for the best moment to attack, once you conquer repeat the procedure from the start, never rush, it will be a backslash.

I'll make a pack to reduce AI army cap

Runocingetoi are the skirmishers I'm talking about, they are just nuts. They can absorb charges from cav with no problem and stand their ground long enough to start killing them off. Freaking beasts!

Kam (praise him) controlled and there are some weird stats regarding this unit, making them stronger than they are supposed to be

[Beedo83]

Thanks for passing that along!

[raven63]

Thanks for this great mod! I started a campaign with Massalia on the medium version of the mod. Possible bug: I noticed that the RPGu modifier symbol (the hexagonal one) does not appear, even after two or three turns. This is for both urban and garrison, while definitely satisfying the conditions.

Edit: fixed it by opting into the old launcher, then ordering the mods correctly by renaming them.

Fantastic mod so far, really well done. I think I found one (real) bug though: I did the meeting intrigue, and the outcome was bad and it said loyalties should decrease by 3, but when I checked loyalties actually increased by 3.

[Jake Armitage]

Thanks, glad you like it

The metting intrigue works this way (like most of the others): it gives +4 loy for 8 turns (4tpy) for the party you picked and then (through an added script) gives various factionwide outcomes (and a +/- to loy for all parties).
Sadly, adding custom incidents via script will give you factionwide effects only, 'cause the lua function is set to do that only (while scripted dilemmas are completely useless outside choosing capital).
It is quite difficult to follow values into my mods 'cause i set low values coming from a lot of ways, usually. This will lead to more variations.

Guys, how is it with food, is it too low? I'm planning to add a script to diversify food income (and also PO, dividing it in more thresholds than the existing ones, no more with a pace of 25, something like 15)
and then I'll probably remove 1 army for AI, so not to have too issues with AI's army number for advanced campaigns.

[leonardusius]

yeah, some luck is always needed.
glad you're liking the gameplay style, with time there will be a lot more things regarding micromanagement, I've already planned them, know how to do them but they'll need time to be assembled and released.

We awaiting your super new ideas. Don't let us waiting too much, summer holidays are almost here.

[Jake Armitage]

NEWS

I've added a pack into OP download spoiler which will reduce army cap for AI (to tell the truth it actually reverts army cap values more similar to DeI's and then raise the cap for the player via script)
Sadly, effect is both for land armies and navies so you'll find yourself able to deploy quite a lot of navies, but I don't really think this should be a problem since you'll never have the cash to sustain them all.

Check this icon into faction panel.
The numbers showed into the "deploy new army" panel (when you click into a settlement to deploy a new army) are correct.

- Notice that if you use it for a saved game it won't kill AI armies, but it will set a new cap once AI armies are below the new cap. So it is actually better to play a new campaign

[Beedo83]

Nice thanks Jake. Food I think is pretty well balanced. I haven't run into any severe issues yet but I haven't been able to expand much yet to where I need to worry about that. Putting my Roman campaign on hold until Kam fixes those Boii skirmishers. In the process of trying out the Parthians though.