[SUBMOD: a Slower Paced DeI Campaign] TESTUDO v.1.7 + Custom Packs [upd: aug.09/20] - OUTDATED

[Jake Armitage]

yeah banditry is built through hardcoded thresholds, the higher they are the more probable a banditry event is

at 800+ turns... do you have same steamrolling feeling as for dei vanilla?

[Dankvart]

Glad you like RPGu and I have your same opinion about it

Now... RPGu as it is could surely be appreciated but, actually, is just a first version.
In time I would like to:
- give less importance to BG effects and build specific units (for specific RPGu types) so that the level of a whatever RPGu general can be customized. The more you spend (upkeep and cost via recruiting RPGu units) the more the RPGu will "shine" since it will be helped by secondary administrators, mercenary units, AoR captains, whatever. These could have wide applications regarding almost any game effect. For example a specific RPGu unit giving +1 exp per turn, one specified into PO, one buffing heavy infantry... well I think you see the point here
- something similar to what you propose but... built through a different way. Not skills when you level up but virtual points where the general specialize himself depending on what kind of RPGu he used mostly... this is pretty ambitious and will surely come after the point above

Besides what above... yeah I would say I am interested in your idea.
So if you wanna begin to write down some concepts I'll surely consider them.

Or... maybe... you could start thinking about the specific RPGu units?
'Cause I honestly see this second way more viable for what you wanna do which, basically, is the same idea I had for the RPGU specific units.
And would be much less rigid, I think. Not a general to be irremediably trained towards something (without the possibility to change him) but a general who recruits specific "advisors" in time of need.
I honestly would prefer to "save" skills and traits for something else... and to be honest I haven't built something serious in my mind for that part of the game.
Some concepts, some possible systems... but nothing serious yet.

What do you think?

I definitely like the idea of having additional "specialist" or "advisor" units to add further specialization and bonuses. Of course, I hope that it is possible to make them not count towards the penalized army limit, otherwise "civil" BGs will be in a disadvantage. There's clearly a lot of potential in hiring, let's say, a drill sergeant for extra xp or a vexillarius for morale boost to a levy army of 15, which has 5 unoccupied slots.

In a way it would be an extension of the current "household" function. Right now I am already swapping item and advisor cards depending on the current needs, but their effect is not always too impactful, so creating the whole separate unit roster for that seems much more promising. On a side note, maybe, by moving current household function to advisor units, the household can also be reworked to focus more on the general's personal effects (and/or stats) rather than province/faction wide bonuses?

There is one potential problem I see though, and perhaps you can tell if you considered ways around it already. What I mean, any other units apart from BG can create certain encumbrance, reducing flexibility of the force (by which I mean named army). I.e. if your urban admin has advisor units, you won't be able to simply disband him and redeploy in another city. You will have to disband his advisor units too, right? In that case you incur 1) losses for hired and disbanded units, 2) loss of money for recruiting advisor units at his new location, or 3) loss of efficiency if his redeployment was temporary and you don't want or can't afford to hire advisors at the new location only to disband them again few turns later. In this scenario, only a thriving economy would be able to maintain advisors for "travelling governors" who get frequently moved around the empire. But would such rich empire need to bother with buying/disbanding those advisors in the first place?

Furthermore, the flexibility of altering force's purpose, like in my example from the previous post, could be somewhat affected by the advisor units. I.e. if you have a land developer with advisor units, you will also have to disband them in case you decide to change this force into drillmaster's army, because the latter requires different advisors. And it won't be a good idea to keep them hanging around (cuz upkeep) if you plan to turn that force later into any type of an army to go on a conquest. Am I right?

As for the general's promotions, well.. they are irreversible indeed, but that's exactly how people are. I mean, people grow up to be good at certain things, some at business or administration, others at strategies and planning, others at social interactions, others at science or philosophy and abstractions, others at being brave, agile and strong, etc. Very few can excel at many things at once, and it's unlikely that you change your character drastically even if you want to. So to me this promotion system seems like a continuance of each general's character. I am not obliged to, but I try to pick promotions which correspond with their traits, e.g. for a general with "hot-headed" trait I'd rather pick Ferocious Warrior tree than Tactician (but it would have been amazing if some character traits rendered certain tree choices unavailable, that would bring more life to personalities of generals).

In the end, to summarize my thoughts... Perhaps, all of these aspects could be made into a Specialization Triad? General own skills (i.e. promotions) - Bodyguard unit - Advisors.
Nothing would stop you from using BG and advisors of a type "non-matching" with general's personal affinity (promotions), or to leave aside advisors and rely solely on promotions and BGs, but only the ultimate match of all three would bring the top notch effect (in perfect world - with synergetic bonus for ticking all three flags, but I don't know if it's technically possible).

Soo... for you to consider ^^ I will be happy to assist with drafting the concepts when you decide on the course to follow.

[Jake Armitage]

by moving current household function to advisor units, the household can also be reworked to focus more on the general's personal effects (and/or stats) rather than province/faction wide bonuses?
yes you can, by adding (or modifying) an army effect and/or a trait though, you can't directly affect ancs' effects

There is one potential problem
Furthermore, the flexibility
yeah but we can fix this in various ways, since we are changing the system we'll need to adapt the previous one, theoretically speaking (and units numbers thresholds too, at this point I would assign penalties when and if a BG is carrying a non suited BG unit)


In the end, to summarize my thoughts
you got the point... things have to be interpolated... and is not that easy
one thing I've learned is to proceed step by step or you'll get overwhelmed
after theory... you need to make things come true and... this requires time and concentration

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So... if I would have to choose a course to follow I would go for BG units as for now, and keep traits/skills "unscathed"
I would like to build the same (or mostly similar) trait/skill system both for testudo and ror666 and I really haven't planned it yet, I still have to consider other things before doing it.
But, if in the meantime you would like to throw some ideas they would be surely considered.

Also, my near future plans for testudo are
1) fix the things dei fixed with last and coming update
2) other fixes related to testudo
3) insert those population buttons (to have micromanagement control over it through a cost) and hence fix pop which greatly need

after this (which should be 1.7.1) I wanted to start finally doing the transfer_region system + ceasefire via gifting regions
but.. start reasoning on RPGu overhaul wouldn't be bad at all

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Last note: regarding the RPGu units... I wanted to have (maybe) buildings too, units that "represent" buildings
more turns for recruiting, will halt movement, more powerful, I don't know
Think about it if you think that 2 possibilities (advisors + buildings) could be cool

[Syntax_6]

Hi Jake,

No, I don't think I'm steamrolling. I have mini golden ages when my characters are high level, and things are good, but often have a stretch where a lot of them die in quick succession which can lead to a degree of turmoil.

I've taken to building a few academy provinces where I can train up new characters. I can't buy them anymore as they cost 200-350k a pop. This enables me to smooth out the transitions a bit better.

I'm just in the process of finishing up my conquest of Gaul, and this is by far my longest TW game I've ever played. Great work!

The longer it goes, the more I can see that all pops are slowly converting to Plebs. Not a big deal for my army, as I still have lots of options to recruit in that class - especially at Imperial Reforms, but my navy can be a pain, as it is mostly 3rd class.

One thing that takes the edge off, is that I don't need to really worry about the normal families, just the plebs. I keep them very happy since they 'own' half my territory. I wonder if you could script senate seats to the other families to spice things up a bit. I had a bit of a crisis when a family successor had some really bad traits that made Junia very disloyal, but they only have Cisalpania, so even if they revolted it wouldn't mean much.

[Jake Armitage]

yeah, sadly pop is what it is in 1.7 (and some previous version too probably)

the "last party super power" is a known problem and sadly not easily nor properly fixable... and no you can't script power, maybe you can retrieve it (not sure tbh) but there is no function for changing it
the only thing we have is an effect adding/removing to ruling party, nothing else
only workaround would be to script gravitas penalties to the deployed last party generals
keep in mind though that the only power ratio affecting the game is the one between ruling party and the sum of other parties (the ratio between them doesn't really affect anything besides a single political trait)

remember to post the save as soon as you reach 1000 turns

[Dankvart]

Hi Jake,

Sorry I was silent for a while, was busy irl and also forum seemed to be down a couple times when I checked it lately.

I got your point. I will post my idea about once I think it through while playing and considering things in promotions which I find lacking, but my first focus will be on thinking about improving current BGs and adding specialization units. Hopefully, I will be able to give some ideas soon.
Also, I think I understand you about unit-buildings. It seems like a perspective idea in certain cases. For example, my faction leader is stationed in the capital and I never really planned to move him, so I would naturally be interested in getting additional more powerful effects (especially to PO) at the cost of losing movement and such. I will think about the options too.

Meanwhile, since I've played my bosphorus campaign a bit more, reached turn 180 or so, and on the way kept collecting notes and observations, which I'd like to post now. I’m sure many of them are already reported and familiar to you. But I hope at least some could be useful in your work on the update (I do not follow the main DeI thread so I am not sure what is currently being fixed).

Sorry in advance for a lengthy post, and thank you for your time and great work!


Campaign Arche Bosphorus, 12 tpy, HUGE.
Observations and questions

- Is it supposed to be that winter starts in January instead of December, and year starts in February (i.e. I get the historical message about the year not in Jan but in Feb)?

- upgrades to the copper mine building (in Tanais) are not affected by urban admin’s construction time reduction (same as with the main building I've reported before).

- diplomatic relations/bonuses are dropping down almost immediately. Just in few turns (i.e. months!) AI “forgets” such boosts to our relationship as wars with common enemies etc.

- why is raiding so severely restricted? First of all, it’s really unfair since AI is not limited by anything and can raid with full 20 stack anytime it wants. And second, why is it made that a huge army or a professional army cannot raid? It is not historically or logically accurate, see Napoleon’s army in Russia, for example. Maybe there are less detrimental ways to create distinction between levy, regular and professional army? Such artificial limitation really is upsetting.

- but even with that, raiding seems to be totally broken. I enter neighbor enemy province, my army is well and healthy, I switch to raiding stance and instantly get attrition debuff. Some mechanics I am not aware of? The province has food surplus and stock of supplies, so does my province next door. My second army, which cannot raid and just stands nearby, has no attrition.

- hidden attrition. No warnings, no visual attrition effects on the army, no report in event messages, but suddenly it just gets severely hit, i.e. on a new turn you see its numbers reduced significantly.

- I was expecting that if you start taxing a province with positive food balance, your total food increases, but for me it decreased. In Phasis I had the main building which consumes 0.9 food and fish port which provides 3.8 food. Local effects and winter consume 1.35 more, so it’s 2.25 consumption, and I’m supposed to get +1.55 if I start taxing it. Instead, I lose 1 food from my total pool. Could not possibly be armies stationed in the region, because in that case I would lose 3 food, not 1. I really lack mechanics information available somewhere.

- the game sometimes behaves in a way I don’t understand. For example, in my home province I have no squalor and disease outbreak risk is 0%. Yet, I get a plague in my capital and in my faction leader’s army (BG). It says duration 3 turns, but it lasts for more than a year, because after 3 turns until supposed expiration it just gets renewed.

- same with banditry, I have none of it in my home province (1%), yet I suddenly get a message which says “ÿou couldn’t keep bandits under control, now the province is overrun by them”. BAM! -8 to PO. Is this something decided with random rolls? And if so, then why would players be interested in reducing negative effects, what's the benefit?

- public order is truly the worst issue, a nightmare, especially because the counter-measures are very limited compared to vanilla, and most PO bonuses from techs/promotions/skills are cut out in Testudo. Especially upsetting is that the PO bonus from deploying heroes is so much reduced comparing to vanilla. They used to be my contingency tool (reasonable alternative to the loss of experience from not accompanying an army), but now give only +2 FLAT bonus. And by flat I mean that their additional promotions (like Olympian, at rank 2 supposed to add extra +3 PO in province with Bread&Games) do not work... I tested.

- taxes have very strong negative impact on PO even at the lowest possible rate (-6). Come on, I would probably understand 0, difficult but can be reasoned, but so much to negative is simply ridiculous. PO is already a huge issue with very few ways to counter it, so why undermining it further in such an artificial way? Basically, in 200 turns of the game I was able to tax only my home province without dropping into revolts, but others I could not keep in the green zone while having taxes on.

- garrison BG type army seems to be completely useless. I’ve tried to use it once (10 units) and my PO fell from -6 to -19! This makes no sense, in fact, it should be on contrary, since historically garrisons were placed to ensure PO, especially in conquered cities, not destroy it completely. As long as there is ANY penalty for garrisoning a GARRISON army (which basically is the only thing it’s meant for), I’d rather use a levy army stationed right outside the city, if I need to protect it from enemies. -1 build time also means nothing, it’s easier to bring an urban admin for a couple of turns in order to launch a construction project. IMO garrison army should give PO bonus, upkeep redux and bonuses for def fights – this way it could be a viable choice to keep one around.

- replenishment issues are severe. I am all up for disabling replenishment in enemy/newly conquered provinces, and even ok with the bug that I cannot replenish/recruit from province where I have only 1 region. However, when it is faster and easier (and cheaper if you consider upkeep) to disband badly wounded units and recruit new ones than to wait for an army to get replenished (which can take up to 20+ turns in fully owned home province!!!), then something is very wrong with the balance and rationale behind it. Especially in the environment where AI doesn’t have replenishment issues and can also pop up fresh full stacks within 6-8 turns from being defeated in the field. This would have been less annoying if at least you could make it possible to merge units, like it was in RTW1. And what about replenishment stance, huge penalties for just 8% more replenishment? How does the math work then, if my replenishment rate is 6 or even 9 men per turn, do I get nothing but the negative effect?

- it’s difficult to understand the math behind the food system (it’s main DeI issue I suppose), like when I have -4/-2/0 food in 3 provinces, my total food is +14. My generals don’t give that much, for sure. So, some of the information must be missing or incorrect.

- it’s very unclear to me how food transforms into/related to supplies. Or it does not? Then, what’s the merit of having so much food surplus and so many promotions/features/intrigues addressing food and none addressing supplies? E.g. civil administration affects only the food part, and doesn’t seem to have any impact on supplies production.

- why are supplies divided by regions and not province? There, I had a huge problem in Samandar, because of one 18 stack and one 10 stack armies going to war, and also a lydian 20-stack sitting there just because it can, so my supplies dropped to negative and attrition began, while next to it in Siracena I had 200/200. Perhaps, it’s not that bad in the original DeI, but in Testudo it takes very long time to move armies, especially in areas of such huge distances like Scythia, so this issue really hurts. I lost almost 1/4 of my army while just moving it to the border with Roxolani (6 turns, half a year from Samandar).

- the whole supply mechanics creates very unpleasant situations when, for example, I siege Daix with two stacks of 18 and one stack of 10 (the least viable number vs tier 2 capital with 14 units garrison and garrisoned general with 20 units stack) for 10 turns, depleting supplies of the region (which has no impact on me or the enemy since it’s his territory), but once I capture the city I’m instantly hit with attrition due to supplies being in minus. And what’s worse, I have to use cheesy solutions like moving my armies to the nearby enemy region where attrition magically disappears. Yes, I cannot replenish there, but at least my armies won’t starve to death while the enemy is happily popping up his second 20 stack in his single remaining village.

- well, yeah, the solution would be to build grain pits for supply lines and accessing baggage trains. But isn't it weird and illogical that all other agricultural buildings somehow prevent my citizens from discovering the idea to send supplies with their armies? I wouldn’t mind to have some specific building forced on me of course, but honestly, in a game with such a horrible limit of building slots, it’s intervening with province development and synergetic economy bonuses planning…

- you are unable to get rid of another (non-enemy) faction’s army sitting in your land and destroying supplies except for war (by sitting I really mean sitting, like for years and years, not moving anywhere). AI clearly doesn’t give a crap that he’s inside someone else’s borders, with no alliance or military access. Although, the other side of this coin works for the player's benefit, because you can also move your armies into non-allied AI territory (for example, to avoid supplies drop and attrition), and spend a year or two there without any obvious consequences.

- agents quite often stop being deployed for no reason. When an agent, on whom food supply or positive income fragile balance depends during winter, stops providing his bonus (so you lose turn), it’s kinda frustrating, especially because I have to check my agents every turn to see if any of them got undeployed.

- it feels like AI plays with vanilla rules/cheats not only in regard to armies but everything else too. For example, his freshly bought generals get promotions and sick stats in just a couple of turns (5 5 4 for a rank 1 general who just appeared, or 5 7 6 for a rank 2 who appeared 10 turns ago), rendering them nearly immune to any of my agents actions. They also get experience gain for garrisoned army, and 90% of time they just sit with their majestic 20 stacks in their towns and villages.

- even with enemy agents, chances of success are calculated highly not into the favour of the player. For example, my spy lvl 6 with cunning 5 (this is literally maximum possible, since I have +1 from two retinue items and +1 from rank2 promotion) and several bonuses on success has only 25% overall chance of success to sabotage even the “army” of that newly made general with just bodyguards and one extra unit. Imagine my chances to sabotage a larger army of a seasoned AI general.

- in addition to the AI ability to field two full stacks even with one puny village, some other things seem completely wrong with their capabilities. For example, see screenshot attached. In just one turn, from January to February, their king moved from Rha to the current position (mouseovered). The only bonus I could see in his status effects was +8% from encampment, but his actial movement was twice more than it should have been.

- another jawdroppping feature was that one of the stacks roxolani sent against me had Sauromatae Kataphraktoi, LATE Sarmatian cataphracts with insane stats (see attached). Yes, they have stables in their village, but it is only lvl 2 and it’s goddamn year 264 BC, so why are they able to buy (in numbers!) seemingly top tier heavy cavalry which is as strong as general bodyguards? My barracks lvl 2 allow me only medium cavalry, way worse than those cataphracts.

- besieging army still loses troops. I know it was reported long before, but I’ve read in some topic that your intention was to remove that.

- why do all variants of yellow buildings in province capital provide garrison troops? I can understand logic in case of slave market, traveller’s lodge or warhorse pens, but library, amphitheater or wine trader??

- more of a suggestion: trade income in Testudo is as low as in the vanilla. However, since the economy is way harder to handle, perhaps it can be reasonable to increase trade profits, like it was done in Alternative Economy submod. This would also make it more appealing to hire and keep diplomat generals (for better relations and more trade opportunities), since right now I don’t feel like I can afford to lose urban admins/land developers.


That is all for now

[Jake Armitage]

- Is it supposed to be that winter starts in January instead of December, and year starts in February (i.e. I get the historical message about the year not in Jan but in Feb)?
it starts in january so that seasons go even with the year, 1st month is january (1st winter month), last month is december (last autumn's month)
also... winter starts with the solstice... which has always been in the second part of december, which means january in the game

- upgrades to the copper mine building (in Tanais) are not affected by urban admin’s construction time reduction (same as with the main building I've reported before)
I really don't have any idea why is so... I'll try by checking that building entries but I really can't figure how some entry could affect a scripted effect...

- diplomatic relations/bonuses are dropping down almost immediately. Just in few turns (i.e. months!) AI “forgets” such boosts to our relationship as wars with common enemies etc.
I've lowered DeI's harsh diplomacy a lot through scripts... I don't think I would like much to have easy good relations
diplomacy seemed quite manageable to me, not too easy, not too harsh

- public order is truly the worst issue, a nightmare, especially because the counter-measures are very limited compared to vanilla, and most PO bonuses from techs/promotions/skills are cut out in Testudo. Especially upsetting is that the PO bonus from deploying heroes is so much reduced comparing to vanilla. They used to be my contingency tool (reasonable alternative to the loss of experience from not accompanying an army), but now give only +2 FLAT bonus. And by flat I mean that their additional promotions (like Olympian, at rank 2 supposed to add extra +3 PO in province with Bread&Games) do not work... I tested
I was thinking to do a patrol RPGu unit, focused on PO patrolling
Besides that... yes PO is harsh but... I think it's correct, otherwise you'll always end having green regions, that... wouldn't be fair nor realistic.
Also, in testudo, the PO curve is much slower... 'cause its overall pace is slower

- why is raiding so severely restricted? First of all, it’s really unfair since AI is not limited by anything and can raid with full 20 stack anytime it wants. And second, why is it made that a huge army or a professional army cannot raid? It is not historically or logically accurate, see Napoleon’s army in Russia, for example. Maybe there are less detrimental ways to create distinction between levy, regular and professional army? Such artificial limitation really is upsetting.
I probably didn't put much attention on that... reason is that I never used raiding in my life...
I'll see to take your suggestions and modify something
Yes, I added an attrition effect for raiding. If I would make raiding "stronger", as you suggested, I think some attrition should be correct, since plunderers surely risk their lives while plundering
A gain and a loss, probably the gain is too low/limited as it is now

- hidden attrition. No warnings, no visual attrition effects on the army, no report in event messages, but suddenly it just gets severely hit, i.e. on a new turn you see its numbers reduced significantly
This I have no idea... you are saying that you had attrition without: plagues, raiding, lack of food?
I didn't insert any new attrition besides the raiding one

- I was expecting that if you start taxing a province with positive food balance, your total food increases, but for me it decreased. In Phasis I had the main building which consumes 0.9 food and fish port which provides 3.8 food. Local effects and winter consume 1.35 more, so it’s 2.25 consumption, and I’m supposed to get +1.55 if I start taxing it. Instead, I lose 1 food from my total pool. Could not possibly be armies stationed in the region, because in that case I would lose 3 food, not 1. I really lack mechanics information available somewhere
food is affected by tons of things and is being calculated at different times (start turn, click ecc...) and it works as integer only it works like: from 0,5 to 1,4 = 1 / from 1,5 to 2,4 = 2 ecc...
don't bother much about changes regarding +/- 1 food
no I didn't put changes depending on taxation nor they are in dei nor rome2. The UI is limited and in the tax panel of the game can show 1 thing only.


- the game sometimes behaves in a way I don’t understand. For example, in my home province I have no squalor and disease outbreak risk is 0%. Yet, I get a plague in my capital and in my faction leader’s army (BG). It says duration 3 turns, but it lasts for more than a year, because after 3 turns until supposed expiration it just gets renewed.
there is a vanilla plague event that triggers without checking sanitation, it can affect other armies/regions depending on rolled dices
I should have halved the attrition % here

- same with banditry, I have none of it in my home province (1%), yet I suddenly get a message which says “ÿou couldn’t keep bandits under control, now the province is overrun by them”. BAM! -8 to PO. Is this something decided with random rolls? And if so, then why would players be interested in reducing negative effects, what's the benefit?
Hardcoded random rolls, rolls are more probable depending on threshold, the lower it is the lower is the %
In testudo there is a slight chance for having a banditry event even at first threshold

- garrison BG type army seems to be completely useless
I don't use them either, but I've seen a lot of guys using them in their savegames
RPGu is mainly a matter of personal taste at the end... the more the possibilities, the more the options, the more the fun... I would say
I can raise their PO though, yeah

- replenishment issues are severe
I don't agree honestly, I think replenishment is more or less ok as it is
there is a testudo_weight pack you can use so to have better replenishment
ok with the bug that I cannot replenish/recruit from province where I have only 1 region: that's not a bug, it's intentional (you have rpgu drill troop and the civil administration intrigue for raising recr points, and seasons affect them too), and replenishment doesn't fit here, it works in a completely different way

- it’s difficult to understand the math behind the food system (it’s main DeI issue I suppose), like when I have -4/-2/0 food in 3 provinces, my total food is +14. My generals don’t give that much, for sure. So, some of the information must be missing or incorrect.
yeah, never bothered trying to understand that thing either

- it’s very unclear to me how food transforms into/related to supplies
they are 2 different systems
food is a CA vanilla one
while supply is a modded one
supply script surely works with something about food but you'll have to track things inside the script
I didn't do that system nor I modded it, it's not an easy script and I take it as it is, don't think I'm gonna mod it
And, yeah, you have buildings that will build supply line, in most cases you'll need them

- you are unable to get rid of another (non-enemy) faction’s army sitting in your land
that's an old issue since Rome2 DeI one.
you have that cheat pack which is killing armies by a simple touch, use it, you'll do yourself and the AI a favour.
could I script something for that? yes, but it would be a difficult to do script and it would probably lag pretty much

- agents quite often stop being deployed for no reason
I think they get discovered by AI, a vanilla thing, check the event log at start of every turn

- it feels like AI plays with vanilla rules/cheats not only in regard to armies but everything else too
Yeah, I put those buffs, we'll probably add something similar for DeI too
AI must be strong, otherwise it would be a crap

- even with enemy agents, chances of success are calculated highly not into the favour of the player
This I really dunno, I know that I lowered % both for AI and player
could be AI has some buffs somewhere

- see screenshot attached
no... AI doesn't have any movement buff at all nor it can't warp itself
the city area, the yellow circle around cities, is movement free for anyone, player too, that's why you can move much more when you pass through a city (and it's not possible to modify)

- LATE Sarmatian cataphracts with insane stat
this is coming form DeI, didn't modded that
again... AI must be strong otherwise game would be a crap (and testudo wouldn't be an hardcoded mod)
could be too much sometimes? yes it could... sorry for that

- why do all variants of yellow buildings in province capital provide garrison troops
coming from DeI, can't say how it was planned but it seems more or less ok to me

- trade profits
I can raise them a little but not much, money must remain low in testudo

[Dankvart]

Thank you for the reply, some things are clearer now.

Some are not XD

I've lowered DeI's harsh diplomacy a lot through scripts... I don't think I would like much to have easy good relations
diplomacy seemed quite manageable to me, not too easy, not too harsh
I have no problems with the difficulty of diplomacy, but the speed of changes... how to put it… is breaking the immersion. I mean, if it's 1tpy then fine, it's plausible that relations can deteriorate in few turns (years) from good to crappy even between former friends. But in 12tpy mode with very slow game pace, few turns for such a drastic change is way too fast in my opinion.


Besides that... yes PO is harsh but... I think it's correct, otherwise you'll always end having green regions, that... wouldn't be fair nor realistic.
I agree that all green maxed out regions is not much fun or realism.
Still, maybe you can think about reducing PO penalty for taxes. Because it is not realistic either that you can't safely tax acquired regions even after several years of possession. For example, I have Phasis for years by now, maybe it was 60 or 70 turns since the occupation (peaceful) occured. It is my only town in that province (I did not manage to get others before they were conquered by a strong faction I don't want to fight yet), so my culture is not dominant, which gives quite a serious penalty to PO. So, even if I don't tax it, PO there oscillates between -30 and -80 depending on the season and other factors. Taxes would give me puny 150-200 gold pt, but will also drop PO into revolting -100, so I just gave up on that. And if you can't tax, then what's the point of expansion?
As a suggestion, right now it's almost a flat penalty scale -6/-9/-12/-15/-20, but maybe you could rework it into a curve like 0/-4/-9/-14/-20?

I probably didn't put much attention on that... reason is that I never used raiding in my life...
I'll see to take your suggestions and modify something
Yes, I added an attrition effect for raiding. If I would make raiding "stronger", as you suggested, I think some attrition should be correct, since plunderers surely risk their lives while plundering
A gain and a loss, probably the gain is too low/limited as it is now
Raiding is quite important if you start as a small faction (especially if 1-town), because to expand you would need more than 1 stack, and it's very hard to support that much with single town unless you're AI. I've had a hard time supporting 15+12 units even with 3 settlements as Bosphorus. So, sending a new army to neighbours to raid can help a lot with this burden on treasury.
I understand the idea of attrition, but in its current state it's deadly. I've tested and found out that I lose more troops from raiding than from siegeing. It's kinda wrong in my opinion. Reducing attrittion rate by maybe 2.5-3 times would balance gain/loss and make it more viable and realistic I think.

there is a vanilla plague event that triggers without checking sanitation, it can affect other armies/regions depending on rolled dices
I should have halved the attrition % here
Can it be spread? I have a suspicion that that chain plague I had for more than a year was the result of my general and my city infecting each other, i.e. when it was ceasing in the city, my general still had it, so next turn he 'infected' the city again, and vice versa. And it did not help moving him outside, maybe because he remained in the same region. Only after I moved him into the sea, it stopped.
Does it really work like this? If so, then I see a problem for the idea you have about RPGu buildings. I like it and I agree that they should remove movement of the general, but then there always will be a risk of an unending plague cycle.

- hidden attrition. No warnings, no visual attrition effects on the army, no report in event messages, but suddenly it just gets severely hit, i.e. on a new turn you see its numbers reduced significantly
This I have no idea... you are saying that you had attrition without: plagues, raiding, lack of food?
I didn't insert any new attrition besides the raiding one
I think, it is some bug related to winter.
Check out my savegame.
Select Adelphius (the army next to the bridge close to Rha) and send him to the point closest to my deployed hero. At the end of his move he suddenly loses a part of his troops, as if he suffered from attrition. But no warning/message is given.
This happened to me before too, I just did not realize that this happens within the same turn.

- even with enemy agents, chances of success are calculated highly not into the favour of the player
This I really dunno, I know that I lowered % both for AI and player
could be AI has some buffs somewhere
Well, lowered chances are bearable I guess, but the main problem here I think is that the growth of stats is removed nearly completely for agents. I.e. even at highest rank they will have quite crappy stats compared to generals, and especially to AI generals who quickly get high stats as I've mentioned. At stats comparison is apparently what mainly defines the success/failure chance. E.g. I have rank 7 spy with unlocked Assassination, and several promotions which alone give in total around 7.5% success/crit success. But my spy has only 4 zeal, and enemy general rank 1 has 6 zeal. And this makes me unable to use Assasination on him, it shows 2% success rate and the button is not clickable.

supply script surely works with something about food but you'll have to track things inside the script
I didn't do that system nor I modded it, it's not an easy script and I take it as it is, don't think I'm gonna mod it
But do you think you can add bonuses to supply production in regions as part of let's say RPGu for Land admin or smth like that?

I don't agree honestly, I think replenishment is more or less ok as it is
Well, I just did simple math.
Take the levy hoplites with ~95 upkeep. If it's wounded badly, it will probably take 10 turns to replenish to full, i.e. 950 gold spent on nothing, just waiting.
If I instead disband it, then with a drill troop RPGu and general with promotion I can recruit it back at 3 bronze chevrons for 541 gold, and start moving my army the very next turn.
The less is the ratio between rec.price/upkeep the greater would be benefits.
So if you are in a hurry, and do not have irreplaceable or super-experienced veteran units, disbanding and recruiting anew is much more efficient way of "replenishing", against all common sense.

Anyhow, there is no way to allow unit merging, do I understand it correctly? I loved this feature in RTW, as well as the fact that upkeep was paid proportionally to the current number of people in the unit, not at the fixed rate. I.e. badly wounded units were not taking as much upkeep as healthy ones. I so wish it was the same here...

no... AI doesn't have any movement buff at all nor it can't warp itself
the city area, the yellow circle around cities, is movement free for anyone, player too, that's why you can move much more when you pass through a city (and it's not possible to modify)
It's not that, I assure you. Look at another screenshot, you can see that his current movement range is waaay shorter than the distance to the settlement's circle. Yet, he covered this whole distance in one previous (winter) turn.
I can give you the savegame if you want to test it, although when I tried to replay it he moved into different direction, but still much farther than he should be able to.

I can raise them a little but not much, money must remain low in testudo
I guess even a small raise would be nice and make it more attractive. In the beginning of the game I've sent a harbor admin (for less upkeep) to explore Mediterranean for trade partners (took him 2+ years) and kept a diplomat garrisoned in order to have better relations with all of them to increase my chances to get trade agreements. But I'm still not sure if I won this way more than I lost, since trade profits are really small.

-----------

Btw, I think I will finish the first concept for RPGu/buildings update in a day or two, so how would you prefer to receive it: here, pm or email?

[leonardusius]

Thank you for the reply, some things are clearer now.

Some are not XD

I've lowered DeI's harsh diplomacy a lot through scripts... I don't think I would like much to have easy good relations
diplomacy seemed quite manageable to me, not too easy, not too harsh
I have no problems with the difficulty of diplomacy, but the speed of changes... how to put it… is breaking the immersion. I mean, if it's 1tpy then fine, it's plausible that relations can deteriorate in few turns (years) from good to crappy even between former friends. But in 12tpy mode with very slow game pace, few turns for such a drastic change is way too fast in my opinion.
Yea, you're right here. Discrepancy between TPY only, not a general issue.

Besides that... yes PO is harsh but... I think it's correct, otherwise you'll always end having green regions, that... wouldn't be fair nor realistic.
I agree that all green maxed out regions is not much fun or realism.
Still, maybe you can think about reducing PO penalty for taxes. Because it is not realistic either that you can't safely tax acquired regions even after several years of possession. For example, I have Phasis for years by now, maybe it was 60 or 70 turns since the occupation (peaceful) occured. It is my only town in that province (I did not manage to get others before they were conquered by a strong faction I don't want to fight yet), so my culture is not dominant, which gives quite a serious penalty to PO. So, even if I don't tax it, PO there oscillates between -30 and -80 depending on the season and other factors. Taxes would give me puny 150-200 gold pt, but will also drop PO into revolting -100, so I just gave up on that. And if you can't tax, then what's the point of expansion?
As a suggestion, right now it's almost a flat penalty scale -6/-9/-12/-15/-20, but maybe you could rework it into a curve like 0/-4/-9/-14/-20?
I must attention you that this was mostly historical accurate. Whenever was cultural incompatibility there were a lot of problems...the first thing to do on a newly conquered region is to REDUCE the cultural frictions with any tools. Reducing the taxing is not enough. I ALWAYS use another self-made mod which don't let me to recruit army from conquered regions with other culture WITHOUT BIG PENALTIES (increased raise money, capped number of units, etc)

I probably didn't put much attention on that... reason is that I never used raiding in my life...
I'll see to take your suggestions and modify something
Yes, I added an attrition effect for raiding. If I would make raiding "stronger", as you suggested, I think some attrition should be correct, since plunderers surely risk their lives while plundering
A gain and a loss, probably the gain is too low/limited as it is now
Raiding is quite important if you start as a small faction (especially if 1-town), because to expand you would need more than 1 stack, and it's very hard to support that much with single town unless you're AI. I've had a hard time supporting 15+12 units even with 3 settlements as Bosphorus. So, sending a new army to neighbours to raid can help a lot with this burden on treasury.
I understand the idea of attrition, but in its current state it's deadly. I've tested and found out that I lose more troops from raiding than from siegeing. It's kinda wrong in my opinion. Reducing attrittion rate by maybe 2.5-3 times would balance gain/loss and make it more viable and realistic I think.
Raiding is and was always very dangerous. But now is exagerated. You're right. My sugestion is ...yet another ...scripting; depending of how many units are raiding, so the attrition to be and so the losses for both. Raiders will loose soldiers and the raided will loose population. That would be fantastic. Because is historical, immersive and strategic. You don't want to raid too harsh/too long a region which you want conquer next steps.

there is a vanilla plague event that triggers without checking sanitation, it can affect other armies/regions depending on rolled dices
I should have halved the attrition % here
Can it be spread? I have a suspicion that that chain plague I had for more than a year was the result of my general and my city infecting each other, i.e. when it was ceasing in the city, my general still had it, so next turn he 'infected' the city again, and vice versa. And it did not help moving him outside, maybe because he remained in the same region. Only after I moved him into the sea, it stopped.
Does it really work like this? If so, then I see a problem for the idea you have about RPGu buildings. I like it and I agree that they should remove movement of the general, but then there always will be a risk of an unending plague cycle.
Yea. here is another 'good' field to be manipulated in some ways, because you're right. How to do, I don't have any vision, yet.

- hidden attrition. No warnings, no visual attrition effects on the army, no report in event messages, but suddenly it just gets severely hit, i.e. on a new turn you see its numbers reduced significantly
This I have no idea... you are saying that you had attrition without: plagues, raiding, lack of food?
I didn't insert any new attrition besides the raiding one
I think, it is some bug related to winter.
Check out my savegame.
Select Adelphius (the army next to the bridge close to Rha) and send him to the point closest to my deployed hero. At the end of his move he suddenly loses a part of his troops, as if he suffered from attrition. But no warning/message is given.
This happened to me before too, I just did not realize that this happens within the same turn.
Bug here, bug heeereee ! Spray it pals !

- even with enemy agents, chances of success are calculated highly not into the favour of the player
This I really dunno, I know that I lowered % both for AI and player
could be AI has some buffs somewhere
Well, lowered chances are bearable I guess, but the main problem here I think is that the growth of stats is removed nearly completely for agents. I.e. even at highest rank they will have quite crappy stats compared to generals, and especially to AI generals who quickly get high stats as I've mentioned. At stats comparison is apparently what mainly defines the success/failure chance. E.g. I have rank 7 spy with unlocked Assassination, and several promotions which alone give in total around 7.5% success/crit success. But my spy has only 4 zeal, and enemy general rank 1 has 6 zeal. And this makes me unable to use Assasination on him, it shows 2% success rate and the button is not clickable.
I encountered that too. Didn't dissecate what's the cause yet.

supply script surely works with something about food but you'll have to track things inside the script
I didn't do that system nor I modded it, it's not an easy script and I take it as it is, don't think I'm gonna mod it
But do you think you can add bonuses to supply production in regions as part of let's say RPGu for Land admin or smth like that?
Absolutelly second this suggestion !

I don't agree honestly, I think replenishment is more or less ok as it is
Well, I just did simple math.
Take the levy hoplites with ~95 upkeep. If it's wounded badly, it will probably take 10 turns to replenish to full, i.e. 950 gold spent on nothing, just waiting.
If I instead disband it, then with a drill troop RPGu and general with promotion I can recruit it back at 3 bronze chevrons for 541 gold, and start moving my army the very next turn.
The less is the ratio between rec.price/upkeep the greater would be benefits.
So if you are in a hurry, and do not have irreplaceable or super-experienced veteran units, disbanding and recruiting anew is much more efficient way of "replenishing", against all common sense.

Anyhow, there is no way to allow unit merging, do I understand it correctly? I loved this feature in RTW, as well as the fact that upkeep was paid proportionally to the current number of people in the unit, not at the fixed rate. I.e. badly wounded units were not taking as much upkeep as healthy ones. I so wish it was the same here...
I think merging units is still working.But overall you're right. My suggestion is to keep the long-term replenish but to cutt-off a lot the price. It is just irrational and innacurate to spent more on replenish than to recruit a new unit.

no... AI doesn't have any movement buff at all nor it can't warp itself
the city area, the yellow circle around cities, is movement free for anyone, player too, that's why you can move much more when you pass through a city (and it's not possible to modify)
It's not that, I assure you. Look at another screenshot, you can see that his current movement range is waaay shorter than the distance to the settlement's circle. Yet, he covered this whole distance in one previous (winter) turn.
I can give you the savegame if you want to test it, although when I tried to replay it he moved into different direction, but still much farther than he should be able to.
I don't understand what's the issue.

I can raise them a little but not much, money must remain low in testudo
I guess even a small raise would be nice and make it more attractive. In the beginning of the game I've sent a harbor admin (for less upkeep) to explore Mediterranean for trade partners (took him 2+ years) and kept a diplomat garrisoned in order to have better relations with all of them to increase my chances to get trade agreements. But I'm still not sure if I won this way more than I lost, since trade profits are really small.
Abosultelly agree. I used ALWAYS a minimod with x3 money for trade. It's just innacurate to the sky....for example a region who have gold and gain from trading it an insignifiant sum.

-----------

Btw, I think I will finish the first concept for RPGu/buildings update in a day or two, so how would you prefer to receive it: here, pm or email?

Without any doubt that would be a monumental addition to the game. Totally agree, but with the proper cap on those units.

Thank you, Jake and also Dankvart for implication. Jake, consider to enlarge your Testudo 'authors' to detach some implemantations to others, speeding up the progress and raising also the quality. DeI is a team not a single person modder. Just my 2 cents.

[Mouth Of Sauron]

Hi Jake. Is it a bug or intended feature or am I doing something wrong because diplomacy is not working every turn? Same with declaring war on campaign map.
And sometimes units get stuck on fortify and raid stances and I have to disband and recruit them again. Otherwise pretty decent modification.
Am 65 turns deep.

[Jake Armitage]

diplomacy speed of changes
I'll check what entries I put there but do not expect big changes, maybe I can lower a bit the max values and put a slower degeneration

reducing PO penalty for taxes
I don't think I will change the values, the ones you are suggesting are really too high, a change of 5 ie will mean that in 10 turns you are going to gain something like 50 (well it doesn't actually works this way, I'm making an example).
There are many ways to get PO under better control through armies, rpg admins, intrigues, taxation ecc
You'll probably need to learn a little more about testudo curves, all other guys savegames do not have big PO issues, and without those kind of issues you'll just end swimming in gold

Raiding
ok I'll check its numbers

vanilla plague event
yes it works that way, it's a matter of luck. It's simply not always that way, you were unlucky, it happens

hidden attrition
could be the climate attrition yeah, never go where a skull icon appears, mostly when it's winter (it's not a bug and should come or from vanilla or from dei's supply, can't remember now)

agents
I honestly don't want to give space to agents actions, they are too arcadish, I never developed anything for them but I will, in the meantime... don't use their actions (there is a weight pack for having stats a little better but I don't think it will change much)

supply script
yes it's doable but I am not sure I'll do that, I'll see this in the future

replenishment
you can easily merge units by clicking on them (there's a button) or dropping one inside another (same type ofc)

movement
I assure you there is no bonus/malus for AI movement, it's the same as player's (except rpgu effects). I don't know what happened but if you would have had weird movement behaviours then this would happen for rome 2 vanilla too

money
at the end, money is a single value (whatever its sources are) and I don't wanna raise it, what I've seen from other people savegames suggested me to lower it actually
trade is a 100% gain in every sense, it will give you money and diplo points (and remove fow), I'll check how I balanced it but if I'll raise its money it means I'll lower it somewhere else

pm or email
cool
join discord, is better suited for communication
in dei channel https://discord.gg/Wez6GSY
or in ror666 channel https://discord.gg/9GVd9Kc
and then pm me (Jake Armitage)

@leo
I honestly consider testudo an open mod, every one can enter its development, and if he doesn't like my final decision (yes final decision is mine 'cause otherwise would be a mess) then he's free to release alternative packs.
You can check the credits in #3 post to see how many guys directly (or indirectly) helped testudo being developed
But it's not up to me if a guy wanna mod, it's up to him.
Yes teams exist but don't expect they work like a professional sport team where everyone knows what to do... at the end modding is an hobby, most of the times there is a brief discussion and then a single guy do the task on his own and eventually sub-appalt dome specific parts. 99% of the time it depends on "leadership", luckilly to us dresden (and kam too) is a perfect leader for dei's context

@mouth
that diplomacy feature is scripted and intentional (i would suggest you to read the links I've pit inside the very first spoiler at 1st post)
for diplomacy: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...1#post15879401

yeah stances can get bugged but the only thing you'll have to do is clicking somewhere else (a city, another army ecc...), in the worst case reload a savegame or skip a turn (you surely do not need to disband at all)

[Dankvart]

hidden attrition
could be the climate attrition yeah, never go where a skull icon appears, mostly when it's winter (it's not a bug and should come or from vanilla or from dei's supply, can't remember now)

So it's normal to lose troops just from walking through a wrong spot? And you basically can lose your whole army in one turn? Seems so indeed.

It was not like this in vanilla, I'm pretty sure, especially because it does not trigger any event message, just reduces your army numbers.
In vanilla you used to lose troops only if you end your turn in such a skulled place. After all, the AI which play under vanilla rules seems to be immune to this.

Oh well.

[Dankvart]

I must attention you that this was mostly historical accurate. Whenever was cultural incompatibility there were a lot of problems...the first thing to do on a newly conquered region is to REDUCE the cultural frictions with any tools. Reducing the taxing is not enough. I ALWAYS use another self-made mod which don't let me to recruit army from conquered regions with other culture WITHOUT BIG PENALTIES (increased raise money, capped number of units, etc)

Not sure about "'historically accurate".
After all, Rome started taxing Judea immediately after incorporating it as a province, despite cultural tensions and general dissatisfaction with Romans on part of locals.
And they got only 2 revolts in 100 years, not like me in Scythia after conquest, with new rebel army popping up every 2 turns (i.e. months).

[Jake Armitage]

So it's normal to lose troops just from walking through a wrong spot? And you basically can lose your whole army in one turn? Seems so indeed.
I'll check the savegame, haven't done yet
No, anyway it's not normal and no you shouldn't loose an army in one turn, let me understand what we are talking about here, 'cause I haven't figured much yet

[leonardusius]

Not sure about "'historically accurate".
After all, Rome started taxing Judea immediately after incorporating it as a province, despite cultural tensions and general dissatisfaction with Romans on part of locals.
And they got only 2 revolts in 100 years, not like me in Scythia after conquest, with new rebel army popping up every 2 turns (i.e. months).

Oh, yes, here I'm right. Those 2 were not revolts but massive insurrections, revolts I assure you were plenty. But I agree that rebelling is too exaggerate in the actual form, mostly problem of TPY.

[Jake Armitage]

are there real problems managing early stages PO for difficult regions?
never had that impression much, would be good to raise the bonuses when you reach low PO thresholds perhaps?

[Mouth Of Sauron]

Thanks for the answer and everything else too. This mod has made me come back to Rome 2 and Divide Et Impera for few years now.

[Leon Michiel]

Apologies for reporting a bug in the main DEI thread earlier. I honestly thought that would be the right place,

I did some thread searches and only saw something similar being reported in the main thread,

anyway, another occurrance. Re-downloaded the mod files, started a new campaign,

all proles go poof in Taras after finishing a drydock there.

taras proles go poof.zip

[chemical_art]

I love this mod so much I made an account to give thanks! Seeing there is still communication on updating this I feel delighted I can contribute however little I can

are there real problems managing early stages PO for difficult regions?
never had that impression much, would be good to raise the bonuses when you reach low PO thresholds perhaps?

I feel like this is most the case early on because there are few options to develop PO if it is needed. For example as Rome taking arretium occupying takes -10 initially and -23 decaying to PO. There simply isn't enough ways to really fight that amount of PO early on. Being thorough to all options if you loot it is -30 initially and -12 decaying and that is far more manageable but I just cite it as an example.

[chemical_art]

I probably didn't put much attention on that... reason is that I never used raiding in my life...

I noticed raiding seemed odd and have a few suggestions. I'll make a table / spreadsheet to how I'd make it for various stances. Only question I have is are able to reference / modify regional supplies? Such as able to increase an army's consumption based on stance? That would provide an additional option to reference