[Submod] Slower Unit Replenishment (v2.35A R3.5)

[Dooz]

This submod slows unit replenishment rates to take 1.6x longer than the default mod. Where most units in the mod take either 25 turns (6.25 years) or 33 turns (8.25 years) to become available again after recruitment, they now take 40 turns (10 years) and 52 turns (13 years). There are a number of units that have different default rates than those two, and I combed through the edb to try and make sure I caught them all and adjusted accordingly. Some units already had rates of 100 turns or more, those I did not change as they're mostly client rulers or other specialized situations.

The idea is to make units and armies more precious, battles and wars more decisive. Maybe even lessen or prevent stack spam for super factions in the long run (to the extent that it might still exist in the mod at all). I ran a simmed AI campaign for 425 turns, and it seems to be working as intended. The largest factions had around 10 big stacks, most others around 5 or so. And the change didn't seem to negatively affect faction expansions, except for Rome which was the initially player-controlled faction in the hotseat campaign set to AI control. My assumption is it doesn't get all the bonuses that other AI factions get or something because hotseat campaign seem to always turn out poorly for the first-selected faction.

Spoiler for map of 166 BC: 

Below are the changes made to the edb for reference. Hopefully I haven't missed any, but if anyone happens to try this and notices refresh rates that seem too quick or anything else out of place, please let me know.

Spoiler for changes/notes: 

--------------------------------------
STANDARD UNITS
--------------------------------------
25 turns to 40 turns
--------------------------------------
0.04  1	>	0.025  1
0.08  2	>	0.05  2
0.12  3	>	0.075  3
0.16  4	>	0.1  4
0.2  5	>	0.125  5
0.24  6	>	0.15  6
0.32  8	>	0.2  8
--------------------------------------
33 turns to 52 turns
--------------------------------------
0.03  1	>	0.0191  1
0.06  2	>	0.0384  2
0.09  3	>	0.0576  3
0.12  4	>	0.0769  4
0.15  5	>	0.096  5
0.18  6	>	0.115  6
--------------------------------------
NON-STANDARD UNITS
--------------------------------------
20 turns to 32 turns (Nabatu/Germanic cav/Pentere/fleets)
--------------------------------------
0.05  1	>	0.031  1
0.1  2	>	0.062  2
0.15  3	>	0.093  3
0.2  4	>	0.125  4
0.25  5	>	0.156  5
--------------------------------------
26 turns to 41 turns (fleets)
--------------------------------------
0.075  2	>	0.048  2
--------------------------------------
30 turns to 48 turns (fleets)
--------------------------------------
0.1  3	>	0.062  3
--------------------------------------
32 turns to 51 turns (fleets)
--------------------------------------
0.0625  2	>	0.039  2
--------------------------------------
40 turns to 64 turns (Pentere/rebels)
--------------------------------------
0.025  1	>	0.0161  1
0.05  2		>	0.0312  2
0.075  3	>	0.0468  3
--------------------------------------
50 turns to 80 turns (artillery/elephants/rebels/ioudaioi)
--------------------------------------
0.02  1		>	0.0125  1
0.04  2		>	0.025  2
0.06  3		>	0.0375  3
0.08  4		>	0.05  4
--------------------------------------
66 turns to 105 turns (armored elephants/cataphracts)
--------------------------------------
0.015  1	>	0.0095  1
--------------------------------------
retrain only
--------------------------------------
0.03  0.99		>	0.019  0.99		(33 to 52)
0.045  0.99		>	0.028  0.99		(22 to 35)
0.09  0.99		>	0.058  0.99		(11 to 17)
0.04  0.99		>	0.026  0.99		(24 to 38)
0.06  0.99		>	0.039  0.99		(16 to 25)
--------------------------------------
OUTLIERS (unchanged)
--------------------------------------
100+ turns 
--------------------------------------
client rulers  1  0.01  1
"hellenistic infantry hypaspistai"  1  0.01  1
"hellenistic infantry epilektoi hoplitai"  1  0.01  1
"roman infantry cohors levy"  2  0.06  6
"roman infantry cohors levy"  2  0.03  4
"roman infantry cohors evocatae"  2  0.01  2
"italic infantry umbro picenian"  3  0.01  3
--------------------------------------
immediate/none
--------------------------------------
"hellenistic infantry hoplitai mercenary"  1  1  1
"hellenistic infantry phalangitai mercenary"  1  1  1  1
(many from gov buildings) 0  0.00  0  0
--------------------------------------

Installation: first make a backup copy of your default export_descr_buildings.txt (...\Medieval II Total War\mods\ebii\data), then unzip the submod file in there and overwrite the original.

[QuintusSertorius]

The EDB should compress small if you put it in a zip.

[Dooz]

Cheers.

[talknight2]

Enjoying this mod. However, I'm playing as Carthage and I've noticed a huge reserve of the Lybian phalanx unit Noshey-Hanitim Lybim building up in my cities whereas everything else is replenishing far slower. You might have forgotten to edit them.

[Dooz]

Uh oh, thanks for letting me know I'll have a look. Sorry if the inconsistency threw a wrench into your campaign :/

[Sarkiss]

interesting sub-mod, well done. having no population system it feels that shortage of troops can be addressed to somewhat greater extent, especially considering how diverse and plentiful the merc pools normally are (even on H-VH). thank you.

[Dooz]

I'm playing as Carthage and I've noticed a huge reserve of the Lybian phalanx unit Noshey-Hanitim Lybim building up in my cities whereas everything else is replenishing far slower. You might have forgotten to edit them.

Hmm, so I looked through and couldn't find any discrepancies. If possible, could you let me know how many turns for that unit to become available after freshly depleting the pool in game? According to what I'm seeing, it should be either 52 or 62 turns for most buildings able to recruit that unit. Though there was one entry with a 40 turn refresh rate, but it's correctly converted from the default so the ratio should still be as intended. If there's any settlement where a fully depleted pool of that unit takes less than 40 turns, I must have missed something a second time now..

having no population system it feels that shortage of troops can be addressed to somewhat greater extent

Do you mean the refresh rate could be slowed even further? I thought about making it double the default, but for some reason thought the timescale for making troops available again made more sense with this ratio. But if 10-13 years makes sense, 12.5-16.5 years probably could too.

[Sarkiss]

Do you mean the refresh rate could be slowed even further? I thought about making it double the default, but for some reason thought the timescale for making troops available again made more sense with this ratio. But if 10-13 years makes sense, 12.5-16.5 years probably could too.

no, i meant what you've done looks good. should hopefully make troops more valued and battles more decisive.

[talknight2]

Hmm, so I looked through and couldn't find any discrepancies. If possible, could you let me know how many turns for that unit to become available after freshly depleting the pool in game? According to what I'm seeing, it should be either 52 or 62 turns for most buildings able to recruit that unit. Though there was one entry with a 40 turn refresh rate, but it's correctly converted from the default so the ratio should still be as intended. If there's any settlement where a fully depleted pool of that unit takes less than 40 turns, I must have missed something a second time now..

I'm around turn 90 right now and I've got 5-7 of these guys stocked in each of my core territories, and that's after going on a recruiting spree in those cities to confront Rome. To be clear I'm talking about the unarmored Libyan Infantry, not the Liby-Phoenician Infantry, which is satisfactorily hard to come by.

I threw in a new submod which isn't savegame compatible so I can't go back in to give you the exact number, but I'll let you know if I come across anything like it again.

[Dooz]

Oh, if you mean the pool itself is large I haven't touched those, just replenishment rates. Though I just scanned through the file and it looked like 4 was the largest pool size for that unit, so it's strange that you had 5-7. Unless you had been disbanding those units in those settlements in earlier turns, which get added to the unit pool the next turn even beyond the otherwise maximum limit. Then again you mentioned seeing 5-7 after having gone on a recruiting spree, so it's doubly weird (unless you had disbanded many of them in those settlements and the pools were even higher than 5-7 before the recruiting spree...)

Speaking of "that unit", just to make sure I'm actually looking at the right one, is it this?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If so, Idunno this is an odd one. If the disbanding theory doesn't apply here (i.e., you hadn't disbanded and that wouldn't explain the large pool sizes), then I'm quite at a loss. I'd love to figure it out though. Hopefully it's not something I've missed in the submod at any rate.

[talknight2]

By the way, is there any way to create a max amount of a certain unit you can have recruited at any one time, so the portrait isn't even visible in the recruitment tab once you have a certain number of this unit on the field? That would be great for elites like the Sacred Band or Hypaspists.

[Dooz]

I don't know that there is a max unit mechanic in the game, unless I'm blanking on something super obvious right now. Pools just fill up over time (or with disbanding in settlement). Also, I might just be misunderstanding what you mean.

You could use console commands to create units, but those might not actually count against the unit pool, not sure.

[Shoebopp]

Hey Dooz, your idea is fantastic for making battles more decisive, and rare units all the more precious. I've cooked up a RegEx for users of your mod to fine tune recruitment here

Find:
^(.+)"(.+)cavalry(.+)"(.+)0.04\s+1(.+)$

Replace with:
\1"\2cavalry\3"\4 0.01 1\5

This example reduces all refresh rates of fast single recruitment of cavalry from 25 turns to 100(!) turns. You can adjust the red-highlighted values to values that suit your gaming needs, but I high recommend making all cavalry recruitment take 100 turns per single unit. This means that it will take a building offering 4 of a unit to bring the refresh rate back to 25 turns, making cavalry extremely precious and too valuable to waste, especially against nomadic factions

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

This is great I like the idea of precious armies, just how it should be. Do you risk everything on a battle or try to out manoeuvre and use diplomatic means. Thanks. Although I do not really want spam, the Romans are famed for their manpower. The ability to turn out army after army. Perhaps they should be easier to recruit. Eventually I want to fight the Republic.

[Dooz]

Glad you like it. Playing as Rome, it kinda does feel easier to recruit, at least in the early game. Because you can get both traditional roman units and allied ones in Italy. So I've restricted myself to recruiting Romans from just Rome personally, which itself has a decent recruitment pool, can recruit two full legions when maxed.

That said, it does feel scary to lose any early on so far. And I've had to make decisions on who to face and more importantly, not to face, to preserve troops for more important upcoming campaigns, or even just for defensive purposes. But anyway, I think Rome's manpower and recruitment abilities were already represented in the mod, so that ratio remains as compared to the other factions.


Edit: whoa, Shoebopp I somehow missed your post. That's amazing, thank you!

[Shoebopp]

Oh yeah, for cavalry, that RegEx snippet only processes single cavalry recruitment. For extra cavalry recruitment, you'll need things like

Find:
^(.+)"(.+)cavalry(.+)"(.+)0.08\s+2(.+)$


Replace with:
\1"\2cavalry\3"\4 0.02 2\5

And don't forget the 33-turn refresh

Find:
^(.+)"(.+)cavalry(.+)"(.+)0.03\s+1(.+)$


Replace with:
\1"\2cavalry\3"\4 0.01 1\5

And the 50-turn refresh

Find:
^(.+)"(.+)cavalry(.+)"(.+)0.02\s+1(.+)$


Replace with:
\1"\2cavalry\3"\4 0.01 1\5

WARNING: when you copy and paste this RegEx from this forum into your text editor, a \n symbol might be inserted at the end. YOU MUST REMOVE IT. Otherwise, the Regex would insert a huge number of newlines everywhere. Here's an example of faulty copy and pasted RegEx

Find:
^(.+)"(.+)cavalry(.+)"(.+)0.03\s+1(.+)$\n


Replace with:
\1"\2cavalry\3"\4 0.01 1\5\n

[talknight2]

Any chance for an update for 2.4?

[Dooz]

Any chance for an update for 2.4?

Unfortunately, my pc (or at least video card) is bricked, and I'm going to have to eventually build a whole new one. And I don't know when that will be... Hopefully someday in the future, or maybe someone can make sense of my change notes (i barely can at this point) and pick up the mantle in the meantime?