BUGGED?: Upkeep cost: -2% per non-Roman

[Athanasios55]

It has already been reported on a very old post and I have also confirmed myself that the WRE's faction trait "Upkeep cost: -2% per non-Roman in a military force" does not work at all. There seems to be no change in any panel about army or unit upkeep, even when changing the turn after recruiting the non roman unit. I also tried to check how the effect works in db, to what bonus or script it is linked or how "non-roman" units are recognised (I found no specific unit set) so I think we can be sure that this effect doesn't work -unless someone can confirm the opposite.

In fact it's not even bugged, it's probably just unfinished (as I said, I found no link of the effect to any actual functional mechanic in db or any script)

So...any ideas how we can fix it? It can happen in two ways I guess
1) stick to developer's intentions (but I have no concrete answer on how to do that)
2) change it a little to have an easier db solution, like WRE having a small upkeep cost reduction to non roman units (using unit sets)

I wanted to make this thread for a long time. Not sure how many are active in the Attila forum but I would really really appreciate any help with this... thanks.

[alhoon]

I am pretty sure that a 2% less upkeep for non-romans is automatically applied. It doesn't reduce the army's upkeep, it reduces the upkeep for the unit. I.e. the upkeeps you see when you hover over the units you want to hire, is the upkeep you would pay.

Also, remember that 2% less upkeep for some units is not a big deal. If you have a whole stack of non-romans you would have ... 2% upkeep less in that army. So if that army would cost you 2000 per turn now it costs you ... 1960 per turn. Awesome gain, right?

[Athanasios55]

Γειά σου φίλε!

It's stated as a discount of -2% PER non roman unit. That means if you have 10 non roman units you will get a bonus of -20% to upkeep cost.

If what you describe is correct then the description would be "-2% upkeep cost TO non-roman units"

However when I check, nothing is discounted at all. We all have the vanilla values for every unit upkeep, they are in the tables anyway.

Plus the effect is quite unfinished as I wrote before since there it is no reference to any bonus_value_id or script. Plus no unique unit_set to target the non-roman units.

PS: there is no change netween the shown pre-recruitment upkeep cost and the upkeep cost after recruitment. And it's the same default value with no upkeep reduction applied. If the effect worked and there was a cost reduction both would be reduced or at least the post-recruitment upkeep would be shown reduced. Unfortunately I see it doesn't work...

[Athanasios55]

Well...no offense, but I have noticed that people never believe the claim that the effect is bugged. And I made the mistake to not use proof from the start.

So I decided to settle this once for all so that we can move on to fixing it. It's quite an important faction trait for such a major faction of the game. Well, here is proof.

So the test is done with a general with no other cost reduction effects applied (like cunning). We see the germanic warband has the same upkeep cost for both ERE and WRE, so the WRE faction trait doesn't apply at all in this case.

ERE upkeep: 153

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

WRE upkeep: 153

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Let's recruit a few non-roman units and see if the upkeep will be reduced according to the trait's description

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nope. Conclusion is the effect doesn't work.

And now, a confirmation that IF it worked, we would have seen it: here is a general with 5 cunning which provides upkeep cost reduction

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We see with this that with an effect that does work, we do see the number going down (146 instead of 153). I also want to note here that roman units didn't get an upkeep reduction either.

I hope I have proven my claims now, sorry for the previous wall of text

So, is there anyone interested in helping me fix this?

[Athanasios55]

I have tried the basics so far, using the assumption that maybe the effect itself is hardcoded
1) Tried different and larger values (-50, -100, -600): no effect
2) Tried a different scope (from faction to faction I tried faction to armies and faction to characters): no effect

I will really appreciate any help with this! Most likely a script will be needed.

[Athanasios55]

Any chance someone is interested in helping me fix this?

Thanks