[DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 ver. September 8th, 2022

**Belovèse** · September 12, 2022, 02:42 AM

This is second version this month, with the problems detected fixed: May 17th, 2023.
Add a patch: Here is the patch - it includes fixing Scotland coding error, adds bonuses for small factions, fixes Hungarian missile recruitment.

(deleted: This is a link to version of May 5th, 2023)

For some excitement before playing, have a look at the list of the unique buildings, list of the regional buildings., examples of historical events, all issues related to the crowns, provincial titles, ministerial offices, books, court ladies.

Hello everyone, here is the new version of the mod.

[] This is a standalone version - you don't need either the previous one or the base Stainless Steel. Just unpack the files into the mod folder, et voila.
[] This version is not save compatible: if you load a save started in the previous version, you will encounter crashes often, as well as other unpleasant phenomena.
[] It's always good to read the descriptions of the mechanisms drafted for the ver. 097 - you can find them in this link. You may find a lot of useful information also in the subfora.
[] You may choose difficulty level you prefer, here are the benefits you'd get. Perhaps the preferred one is VH with a strong faction. There should not be problem playing with Huge unit size.
[] The turn times should be between 30 and 50 seconds (this has been confirmed by a few players, and is achieved thanks to @Belovese optimisation work).
[] Keep in mind that this is a beta version, ie. a work-in-progress, and as such you might encounter balance issues and elements needing more polish (or even overhaul).
[] As far as the CTDs (crashes-to-desktop) are concerned, this version is very stable (read comments at the end of this entry). Nevertheless, bugs may happen what makes keeping multiple saves from the past turns being a good idea, have a look:

Originally Posted by greywarden

I just managed to check a few days ago, fortunately my older save is just a few turns away from the crash and now its working normally. Thanks!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

DOWNLOAD and INSTALLATION

WHAT WILL BE NEW IN JUNE 2023

You may find here log of changes made in the current devs' build:

UNITS
Reworked and made AoR (ie available for all factions): Scouts, Syrian auxilliaries, Daylami light infatry, Ruthenian archers.
Units added to other factions: Armored sergeants (for hungary, scotland), Sergeants spearmen for hungary, scotland, Prussian for hungary; Arbalest militia for hungary, england, scotland, serbia; - Halberd militia for jerusalem; Armored Swordsmen for jerusalem; Pavise spearmen for serbia; Cuman horse militia for hungary.
Units reworked: Mailed knights ug1 (bug mesh), Ne & Se bodyguard ug1 (same bug mesh), Adath sword militia ug1, Light sworsmen, Norman knights, Dismounted norman knights, Caballeros hidalgos, Welsh longbowmen, Lusitanian javelinmen, Levy javelinmen (no more mercenary unit & made for Aragon, Spain, Portugal & Slave factions).
New horse: for the Scouts.

UNITS' RECRUITMENT
- All mercenaries' recruitment prices were adjusted to take into account increased amount of money in the game (ie. higher budgets) - the last regions to do so were Africa and the Middle East.
- Berber units - recruitment reviewed and adjusted so that they're AoR units: available from both cities and castles, the main sources are the Ksar and Alkazar buildings.
- African units (ie those 3 left in the mod, reminder: the 2 other are planned to be replaced) - recruitment reviewed and slightly adjusted; recruitment from Oases added.
- Mercenary recruitment in Africa reviewed (actually, extended by 1 region).
- recruitment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem units slightly improved, including Canons of the Holy Sepulchre (also this is now a free upkeep unit in Jerusalem - you should garrison the city with them).
- recruitment of the "Marinae" units moved to ports, they're made available in the Holy Land, and for the KoJ around the Mediterranean sea. Overall, their availability is limited. Still, it's kind of fantasy unit with wooden maces...).
- Afghan Javelinmen de facto removed as it was very, very similar to the Kurdish Javelinmen and the Turkish Javelimen as far the functions and geographical availablity are concerned.
-"Prussian Axemen are again mecernary-only unit available from Northern Germany, Poland and the Baltics. They will show upo only after the Teutonic Knights emerge.
- descriptions of many units modified, esp. for Poland.
- the upper levels of the landowners buildings will provide fewer initial (ie those available just after conquest or building a new level) units (knights, fari etc) : before it was growing with the level of the building: 1,2,3,4, now it will be 1,2,2,2.
- the Peasant units that have lingered in the descr_rebel file and could be spawned as brigands or rebels were deleted - so the should not appear in the rebellions anymore.
- prices of a number of other units adjusted.
- other bugfixes for various units (incl. descriptions).

THE MONGOLS
- overall, replenishement pools lowered accross the board;
- in particular, their noble ("knight") units: 1. can be recruited only in the steppes (HR cumans) and turkic lands (HR turks); 2. even their highest level of Landowners building provides very limited number of those units.

BUILDINGS
- Oasis - regional building available in 9 desert provinces (Africa, Middle East, Persia);
- Kasr - regional building available in 8 African provinces where the Berbers lived;
- Stavkirke - regional building in Scandinavia, factional building for Norway;
- Petrova Crkva - unique building for the Orthodox in Ras;
- The Great Crane - uniqe building in Gdansk;
- Palazzo - regional building for Italy (combined with slight recoding of availability of Norman Stronghold building), it has a few upper levels for city of Venice and Milano;
- review of benefits of certain buildings (eg. Farms will provide more benefits from grain after Scythe historical event);
- some prices adjusted (notably, the core building: walls and castles);
- numerous retouches of the building pics, see examples:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

SCRIPTS
- Bedouin invasions (events plus scripted stochastic raids in 26 provinces around deserts);
- Catalan company invasions (events plus scripted stochastic raids in 15 provinces where historically it could happen);
- a dozen of faction-related historical special events;
- many fixes to factions' evolutions scripts;
- a few more settlement-name-changes-after-conquest;
- improvements to the aggressivity mechanism.

LESSER IMPROVEMENTS
- the traits of the generals leading rebellions after conquest of a province (sometimes they provide an army to the player) have been modified so that they have all the necessary traits, and would be (marginally) useful also for the player;
- 20 unique pictures to be assigned to the initial or scripted generals (Bedouin generals, intial: Almoravids, Poland);
- initial Princesses will have slightly better stats, added princess for KoJ;
- initial composition of Almoravid armies adjusted, also some changes for KoJ, Georgia.
- map: borders of Cologne changed a bit, resources in the neighbourhood repositioned slightly.

AI & DIPLOMACY
- another round of adjustments in scripting the diplomacy and the AI decisions - by @Macaras;
- the bonuses (discounts) provided by the core buildings for construction for the AI has been significantly increased - the AI should be able to undertake construction of the buildings even in situation when it fields large armies that upkeep devours all of its money (from the other side - bankrupcy - it is saved by the from the anti-bankruptcy script: as a result it will have not enough to recruit new units but enough to finance new buildings).

ANCILLARIES
- a dozen of pics of ancillaries replaced by new versions;
- many pics were edited to provide the background's colour similar to the window's background (ie blurred dark yellow);
- 3 lacking Provincial Titles added (now all provinces have PTs);
- some bugs in the triggers, benefits and descriptions fixed.

AGENTS
- the AI factions can recruit priests also at the lower church levels (the player still cannot);
- recruitment of priests for the pagan AI factions reviewed;
- recruitment of the diplomats slightly adjusted;
- in case of a few factions that received new unique buildings in this patch (i.e. Serbia, Pisa, Norway) recruitment of the intial agents moved to those buildings.

FIXES, FIXES

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

or the Notre Dame not buildable if the player is not France.

WHAT'S NEW IN SEPTEMBER 2022 - compared to April 2022

Changes between version of April 4th, and this one - September 8th.

UNITS AVAILABLE FOR MORE FACTIONS:
- for Byzantium: Urban crossbow militia, Axe militia, Georgian light archer.
- for Kiev : Berdiche axemen
- for Jerusalem : Georgian light archer
- for Abbasid and Turks: Naffatun

REWORKED UNITS
- Scouts
- Urban spear militia
- Levy archer (add armor level)
- Italian cavalry militia
- Axe militia
- crossbow militia (now different from urban crossbow militia/levy crossbowmen)
- Merchant cavalry (better protected)
- Norman serjeants
- Saxon huscarls
- Sergeants spearmen/armored sergeants (now different from spearmen)
- crusader knights and pilgrims (slight changes)

UNIT ICONS: a significant number of unit cards have been redone in order to better match the units on the battlefield.

AI AND DIPLOMACY
- some mechanisms for AI when the player has many neighbors, preventing everybody to attack at the same time,
- the factions which are traditional enemies are little more focused on each other, also they may start wars by naval invasions,
- some other tweaks and adjustments,
- diplomacy guide.

RECRUITMENT:
- missile units availability significantly lowered through:
(1) moving the building levels up one castle level (eg. Bowyer used to be available at the castle level Motte&Bailey, now it is available at level Wooden Castle),
(2) lowering the recruitment pools' refil rates (reviewed for most of the factions, although not all);
- major review of the recruitment from the Barracks in cities - lower recruitment pools refill, more systematic set of units, for many factions (less for the Muslisms);
- as mentioned above: major review of the recruitment from the Ranges - lower recruitment pools refill, unit progressions fixed, availability of the archers limit for some factions, while for the crossbowmen for the other;
- AoR units' recruitment also more systematically reviewed, with the refill rates more often lowered (0.07 to 0.05) than increased (just in few cases). Note that the AoR recruitment is the same for any settlement level (ie it does not increase with urbanisation). Some factions have special bonuses for the refill rates in their own provinces. Also some units moved to that category of AoR in recruitment.
- African units - recruitment for units disabled, for the other made more logical (they're all AoR now, as well).
- prices of units - adjusted for many units, especially those with mercenary attribute.
- units' stats - very few adjustments.

BUILDINGS:
- pics of many buildings retouched (this is an ongoing process)
- a few more builing lines added (eg Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, Castle of Angel, Vilnius Castle - see the relevant threads),
- many unique buildings provide additional refill for the units recruited (ie: many factions will see increased recruitment in their capitals, but not elsewhere: Palermo, London, Paris, Vilnius, Zaragoza, Pisa, Venice, Jerusalem, Tbilisi, Poznan, Kiev etc.).

PICTURES BY CEPHALOPHORE - many of them, see in his thread.

OTHER:
- adjustments in the initial population number / set of buildings for number of settlements;
- a few factions get initial boost to income before they own 3+ settlements;
- some usual additions: new historical events, new names in the script changing names upon conquest etc.
- faction evolution scripts reworked for a few factions.

BUGFIXES
- as usual: many small bugs fixed
- major improvement to the conquest of settlement script (the rebel armies will appear in the right provinces).
- pop-out windows fixed for: albigensian cruusade, settlement conquest, warmonger, Moscow established and other

TO DO, or identified deficiencies

The aspects of the game that have not been modified recently, but need to be in the future:
- the Mongols - thee mechanisms to make the player's life easier were introduced: (1) the AI / diplomaciy have been adjusted, (2) availability of the troops from the Landowners buildings, (3) massive uprisings once they expand beyond 30 settlements; but futher work is needed: (4) their invasions should be recoded according to the plan, lowering the number of armies and letting them invade territories more away from the player (eg. if the player is Kiev, then more Mongols go to the Near East, if he is the Turks, the Mongols armies go rather to Russia.

Visible problems report by the players
- college of cardinals empty - no cardinals catholic priests are not recruited by the AI what results in the college of cardinals being packed by the players' cardinals or empty;
- traits of the admirals need to be recoded in the EDCT so that no trait is given right after the creation of the ship, but it is only after the first battle. This will enable merging new ships into the existing fleets without a need that already existing ships are docked in a port right when a new ships is built.
- irregularities in recruitment from the Castle Barracs and the Stables - this should be further worked on, in contrast to the City Barracs and the Ranges, that are quite well re-coded;
- player's aggessivity system - does not work at times (at all?).
- too fast religious conversion of provinces.

Longer term projects:
- unique buildings for a few factions that still do not have own in the capitals or nearby (Hungary, Middle Eastern factions);
- review of the policies of the FL - there're seven, they do work but a review may help
- the loyalty / authority system (including regent/usurper/civil war);
- Latin priests and college of cardinals - fix the problem with a low number of recruited priests.
- re-introduction of the Next Heir system;
- more units made AoR units (available in particular territories but to all factions);
- in EDCT the traits of the princesses need to be redone (there's a NoGoingBack bug still in this part).
- the mercenary recruitment need to be further worked on, especially in the Middle East and Spain (perhaps along with a review of the rosters and making of the AoR units).
- descriptions of the units should be included in this work. Also the larger pictures of the units.
- descriptions of the buildings that do not have those.

Ideas for minimods if anybody would fancy:
- turning Almoravids into horde and re-making them to be Almohads (base Stainless Steel);
- mechanisms to merge factions into one (Aragon-Castille-Portugal, Poland-Lithuania, Denmark-Norway) - similar to the Hispania in the Middle Ages or DAC5 mods (perhaps not possible with limit of 31 factions but we are not going to turn the mod into IWTE project);
- religion script - enabling Lithuania to change its religion (iirc, it is in Broken Crescent);
- add religions - Shiia, possibly also Tengir.

CUMULATIVE CHANGELOG COMPARED TO VER. 0.97 (of 2021)

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(I) DYNAMIC INTEGRATION OF PROVINCES system
- this is the most complicated system in the SSHIP. You may compare it: in the SSHIP 097 the script.txt was .... long, while the new system alone is 80k lines long (with other modifications, the script counts now 150k lines).
- the structure of the code consists of
(1) a monitor that fires after a capture of each settlement (code-wise it means: each settlement has its own monitor with own counters, own conditions etc. - there are 199 monitors but only a few will fire each turn - depending on how many settlements were captured). This monitor a.) changes the name of the settlement after a capture (some 40% of provinces have coded such changes), b.) can spawn an army belonging to a faction traditionally owning the provice, or a rebel army (this is for H/VH difficulties), c.) increases Player Aggressivity Level (only VH difficulty).
(2) a monitor that fires for each settlement every turn (i.e. during the turn of the faction that owns it - 199 monitors that fire always, but only once a turn, and a big(ger) part of script for each monitor is not firing at all). It calculates turmoil points specific for that settlement, based on it's particular situation (how long ago it was conquered, what are certain historical events related) and the situation of the whole faction (aggressivity level, whether the FL has a crown, or whether he's got not-low authority; if the FL has just died, there'll be a one-time hit to stability that may prompt a riot or worse). It then tranlates those points it into a turmoil that appears in-game for the players. There're also penalties for the AI in the provinces that are outside historical influence of a faction. Furthermore, the un-integrated provinces will switch to the religion of the owner slower.
(3) ancillary coding in other places of the script.
- The Player Aggressivity Level mechanism is part of the system: each conquest of a province increases the level of how much both other factions (through diplomatic standing), and own citizens (through turmoil in all settlements) are anxious about your expansion. It increases exponentially: if the player doesn't wait enough between conquering settlements, the additional points of aggression accrue at a faster rate than before. The player must wait or do other things (building up the settlements, mopping up rebellions, maybe going on a crusade; this is also a perfect time to survive a change on the throne) for the tensions to subside. The punishment in the turmoil in the settlements should be really heavy at the highest levels of aggressivity. The information to the player is provided below in the bit of the script (the rest you can see in the other bits there is code for gathering the points, and for translating those points into unrest in settlement-specific).
- efficiency of coding: the number of monitors increased but not by 400 (2x199), but for perhaps by 250, as those 40% of provinces already had one or two monitors.

(II) BUILDINGS - overview of the changes:
* (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) all the buildings provide upkeep or incur costs:
-- the buildings either require upkeep or provide lump-sum income. The upkeep replaces the negative effects that were often attached to the buildings for the gameplay purposes: to deter the player from building everything everywhere. Now the player has to decide wheter investment is worth it as it costs not only the upfront price to build but also a continous costs for upkeep. In many situations, the benefits may not justify such costs. For instance, while schools will probably be worth their low upkeep in all settlements given that they provide +law, the universities will only be useful if used regulary for education of the generals. However, as the game progresses, the new historical events buff up the benefits of certain buildings (eg. the universities) and at some point they may became worth investment.
-- overall, the income for a settlement should stay roughly the same. This balance is achieved because the upkeep of certain buildings will be taken away from the additional income provided by other buildings. It might have not been achieved yet as not all the buildings have been adjusted.
* a few historical events that were added (Hanseatic Cog, Hansa Wars, Ascendency of Lubeck, Eldeguzids) or re-coded (those added in 097: Hanseatic League Expands, Confederation of Cologne) are utilised for coding the buildings or scripting other historic events, in particular the evolutions of the factions.
* missile building (providing archers and crosbowmen) moved 1 level up (starts in wooden castle, not motte-and-bailey; last level in a citadel)
* (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) a number of buildings have their names changed, icons and cards' pics replaced, benefits rebalanced, conditions or availability changed (see below).
* hidden resources changes:
- added: unique1, unique2, desert (explanations of their use is in the descr_region.txt file)
- removed: palermo, ireland, wonder5. The initially introduced "chude" and "scandinavia" turned out to be redundant and were not implemented.
* military buildings
-- kept in the mod as there're both castles and cities (what is different from OST system like in SS-HURB)
-- provide law bonus (very gradually: +1 every level)
-- military buildings in the castle provide positive growth, but in the cities they provide negative growth.
* in many buildings' capabilities there're a few options depending on the FL policy (eg. if the FL is "thinks_of_his_people" then Charity provide +1 Happiness)

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(IIa) REGULAR BUILDINGS CHANGES

-- Walls / Castle (core building):
(1) no longer provide the knights' units - this function has been moved to the Landowners line.
(2) Mongols: more public order in the conquered cities at the beginning of the campaign. It fades away so that in 14c. it'll get increasingly difficult for the Mongols to keep grip over non-steppe lands. Also other adjustments made.
(3) Given that (I) a certain level of farms (farms3) is required to build a stone wall, and that (II) this level is possible to be build only in non-desert provinces (technically: no HR desert), it is thus not possible to built the stone wall in such provinces. This means these settlements cannot grow beyond large town level. The same applies to the deep steppes (provinces with HR cumans), while normal steppe provinces can be upgraded if there's no nomad building (you have to demolished it to upgrade).

-- Roads:
(1) there are new names, new pics, and the benefits were rebalanced.
(2) the lowest level is now buildable already at the village level, while the upper have been moved to the more advanced cities.
(3) quite complicated conditions have be

-- Builders:
(1) this line is made out of two previously existing buildings: Carpenters, Stonemasons: they were merged.
(2) new names were added, benefits rebalanced (they are also more intricate benefits (eg. amount of money they provide depend on resources timber and stone in the province), new pics, next texts.
(3) two upper levels enables "quarring" of stone.

-- Farms
(1) two more levels were added, the logic is now different: first two levels are for non-urbanized provinces, then there's a land clearence, then communcal farms, and then various stages of Estates start. It is translated into their availability (eg. in the steppe or desert or far-north provinces) and benefits.
(2) The conditions for the fertility benefit have more intricated conditions: the bread-basket provinces of Egypt, Mezopotamia and also Andalusia and Sicily get higher numbers (in adition to the 097 dependence on the presence of a hidden resource river).
(3) Building times have been made much longer.
(4) There are new pics for most of the levels - sometimes taken from Rome TW, sometimes modified Med2 versions.

-- Churches
(1) had their benefits reviewed (provide law, not happiness) and simplified
(2) new icons and card pictures for the East European catholic churches, Greek orthodox churches, first levels of the Northern European churches. Icons and pics for the Orthodox chapels fixed.

-- Horse Racing:
(1) one new level added: Imperial Hippodrom / Sultans' Tracks (the lower level is now Emir) - this highest level possible to build only in Cairo, Constantinople, Baghdad, Cordoba, Palermo.
(2) the chain is now available also for the Byzantines and Georgia
(3) obviously benefits were rebalanced, new pics, next texts.

-- Schools & Libraries:
(1) lvl1 already buildable at large_town level (this will enable a few factions that don't have initial access to cities to prompt a schooling process in their generals).
(2) both building chains have new pics for Middle Eastern and Greek cultures.
(3) provide no positive impact on happiness, but on law.

-- Printing Paper
(1) whole line made available to all factions (but the highest level for the Muslim)
(2) additional level added (Parchment Manufacturer), available from the beginning of the game
(3) second level called Paper Mill, and only the third is Printing Press.

-- Mills:
(1) Water Mills have 3 and Wind Mills 5 different pics (depending on culture)) - actually a lot of work was put in this issue, sometimes there're different versions for buildable and already built situations.
(2) benefits and availability rebalanced.

-- Mines:
(1) 3 levels (with pics and descriptions) were added. They mine only metals, gold and silver, not salt or stone.
(2) benefits rebalanced, in particular they provide population growth, while giving health malus: netto positive, but likehood of a plague rises. (previously they'd negatively impact population growth, what was not really historical).
(3) mines are indestructible now (coded hinterland_mines)

-- Water Supply
(1) 5 levels (with pics and descriptions) were added.
(2) Aqueduct of Valens is now the highest level.
(3) It is possible to build this building in the castles.
(4) starting situation updated: most of the settlements start with a well/cistern.

-- Charity
(1) the whole chain made available to all factions: its role is to increase population and lower unrest.
(2) it replaced three building lines: orphan, monastery_castle, friar.
(3) new pics were prepared - different for each religion but pagan (so 3 sets: Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim).

-- River Ports: two new levels were added, benefits rebalanced, new pic added (from other mods), next texts.
-- Bakehouses have different names (Bakeries, Communal Bakeries) and their benefits were changed.
-- Taverns benefits rebalanced (more happiness, no negative health, but more unrest, fewer spies and assassins).
-- Ikoner line have much more complicated conditions for benefits for Georgia, Serbia and Byzantium.
-- Ports: fixed highest level (previously provided trade benefits only to NE factions), trade benefits lowered by 1 for each level. The names were slightly changed.
-- Warehouses: given that the number of sea export lines bonus doesn't work (it's hardcoded to ports), more trade boni added.
-- Brothel/Shisha Bar line provides less happiness, no additional population growth (but they do it through happiness), and provide income.

-- Money (former Merchant Bank)
(1) additional, first level added: Mint. Available for all factions in capitals, if the FL has crown. Some factions start with a mint.
(2) two other levels re-coded and descriptions rewritten; new pics added.
(3) several historical events were added - they will guide the evolution of availabilty and benefits.

* some buiding lines were removed:
-- Carpenters / Stonemasons - replaced by Builders.
-- Public Baths - this chain was entirely removed while their their benefits added to River Ports and Bakeries.
-- "imperial mercenary barracks" and "mercenary_barracs" were entirely removed, with the relevant recruitment moved to the ordinary builidngs, while landowners guard/council is available also to the Byzantines.
-- castle_bakery building line removed - now both castles and cities have access to the same bakery line
-- Hanseatic guild - replaced with regional building Hansa (see below).
-- orphan, monastery_castle, friar - replaced by Charity chain.

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(IIb) POLICY BUILDINGS:
* the concept was implemented partially before (Professional, Gallows and Tribute lines) but now it's getting its weight: these are buildings that largely define the place of the provinces (Landowners and Autonomy are exclusive, while Food Supply and Gallows are temporary).
* Landowners:
-- Professional building tree (Local Guard / Provincial Council) renamed Landowners and expanded to 4 levels (with new pics, new texts).
-- they take away a bit of income because the nobility is taking over it (there's no negative impact on trade because historically, the nobility were the main enginge for this trade to start).
-- they provide law benefits, and also buff for the agriculture.
-- The condition to build them are only farms, no technology buildings or barracks. On the other hand, they may be a requirement to build a few other buildings.
-- building chain is now available also to the Greeks.
-- nice pics made for: NE, SE, EE, ME.
-- recruitment reviewed and improved for England, Poland, Georgia.
* Local Autonomy buildings
-- 2 levels have been added: they exchange happiness (and, as a result, population growth) for law, trade, income.
-- pics and coding introduced.
* Tribute (former Food Supply) - more benefits for the receiving city, and more mali for those contributing.
* Gallows are available in both cities and castles.

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(IIc) REGIONAL BUILDINGS:
* this is a sort of buildings that buildability is limited not by faction, but by geography (hidden resources) and/or time (historical events). They usually have a few levels available for every faction, and certain levels available to only few or in certain locations - based on history.
* (new) Norman Stronghold:
-- it has six stages, three of which are the unique buildings (Palazzo in Palermo, Castel del Monte in Bari, Machio Angioino in Naples). New pics and icons, coding of effects, descriptions, placement of the initial buildings, scripting for fires.
-- in Palermo Palazzo dei Normani replaced the unhistorical Cathedral of Palermo.
* (new) Rus Monasteries
-- available in the Rus provinces (hidden resource russia and kievan_rus) for all Orthodox factions but also a factional building for the Rus factions (ie buildable everywhere)
-- it has 4 base stages plus 3 unique buildings (in Kiev, Novgorod, Pskov).
-- new pics and icons, coding of effects, descriptions, placement of the initial buildings.
* (new) Alcazar
-- available in the Al-Andalus for the Moors and the 3 Iberian Catholic factions (for the Moors it's a factional building (ie buildable in more areas).
-- it has 2 base levels plus 7 unique buildings (in Lisbon, Toledo, Granada (2 levels), Zaragoza, Fes, Tunis).
-- new pics and icons, coding of effects, descriptions, placement of the initial buildings.
* Hanseatic system completely re-done:
-- a new chain of (regular) building added, called Hansa Teutonica. It comprises of 9 buildings in 2 legs (one for the Hanseatic cities and one for the trading partners of those cities). All coding and pictures are new, fires of the unique levels scripted.
-- the very Hanseatic guild has been removed
* Chude Settlements: it will be available from the start in 16 northern provinces, but then will be slowly disbanded after the build-up of those northern provinces. It will be possible to rebuild them in 12 provinces, but it would be very lengthy (even if cheap) process.
* Bullring restricted to the Iberian Penninsula.
* Slavemarket building available all over the map for the Muslim factions.

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(IId) WONDERS (or unique buildings):
* only 1 such building may exist in the game, and only in one province (but there may be exceptions in the future, but not yet).
* most of such buildings are stand-alone in the EDB, but some are part of the regular building chains (eg. Aqueduct of Valens is a building in the water_supply chain).
* scripting for perhaps all wonders have been improved (conditions, benefits).
* for many wonders special scripts "Fire" are introduced. The player can experience that his "wonders" would be damaged / destroyed by the fire - and rebuilding would be needed. The likelyhood very low, and there're cool-off periods - so that a fire would be rather rare an event in the realm. Say, it may occur once in 100 years per "wonder".
* new wonders introduced:
-- Kaiserdom zu Speyer (4 levels, lvl3 is already built at the beginning of the game, but the building may burn down or be destroyed during conquests, so the player may see the other levels in game)
-- Stephansdom in Wien (3 levels, can be built after the Notre Dame event)
-- Marienkirche in Krakow (4 stages of building, possible to be built after event Ostsiedlung and further Poland evolution events).
-- St. Adalbertus in Poznan (4 levels, lvl2 is already built at the beginning of the game, but the building may burn down or be destroyed during conquests, so the player may see the other levels in game)
-- Stephansdom in Wien (3 levels, can be built after the Notre Dame event)
-- Mont Saint Michel in Rouen (4 stages of building, upper levels possible to be built after event Notre Dame).
-- Castle Rock in Edingburgh (4 stages, upper levels possible to be built after Davidian Revolution event).
-- Zoloti Vorota in Kiev (4 stages).
-- Uppsala Domkyrka in Sigtuna (4 stages + script for it to be buildable)
-- Campo dei Miracoli for Pisa (9 stages, starts with 3rd, but a fire is possible)
* a few wonders have undergone an overhaul:
-- Notre Dame - it has now 7 levels, instead of 1; there's a 2-levle script to start "Gothic Architecture".
-- Holy Sepulchre - it has now three levels to enable it to burn / be destroyed (the fire script added).
-- Umayyad Mosque - it has now three levels to enable it burn / be destroyed (the fire script added).
-- Kaaba - got the second level (Kaaba Masjid), for both levels new pics, adjustment in benefits.
-- Cathedral of Palermo replaced by the Palazzo dei Normanii (highest level of the Norman Stronghold building line).
-- La Mezquita - it has now three levels to enable it be destroyed or build upon the previous level.
-- Santiago de Compostela - it has now three levels and starts with the 1st - so there's plenty to be built.
* a few wonders were re-touched:
-- Bait al-Hikma is now the highest level of the university_education chain, not a separate building (still to be built only in Baghdad, ofc), it's pic has been retouched, and benefits adjusted. Not possible to build another university in Baghdad.
-- Al Azhar is similarly the highest level of the university_education chain, not a separate building (still to be built only in Constantinople, ofc), it's pic has been replaced with a better one, and the benefits replaced with similar to Bait al-Hikma. Not possible to build another university in Cairo.
-- Aqueduct of Valens is now the highest level of the water_supply chain, not a separate building (still to be built only in Constantinople, ofc), it's pic has been retouched, and benefits adjusted. Not possible to build another aqueduct in Constantinople.

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(IIe) GUILDS:
* a general note: it has been recently discovered that most of the triggers for the guilds are faulty coded in the Med2 engine. What follows - a general overhaul in the SSHIP would be needed. However, this will be one of the last things to do. For now, everything is kept in the previous, SS framework. Only some basic improvements were made.
- thresholds for acquiring the guilds have been significantly increased.
- some triggers added / modified, but it seems the guilds are still quite easy to get.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) Hanseatic guild replaced by a regional building Hansa Teutonica.
- pics for the Masons and the Assasins replaced with some pics from the Rome TW.

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(III) UNITS & recruitment:
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) recruitment of any unit category of any faciton has been overhauled. This is one of the most imporant and most laborious changes.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) extensive improvements of the mercenaries recruitment (availabilty, more areas analysed etc., esp. in HRE and the Balkans; more logical recruitment of the religious units; some fixes (eg. Armenia province do not appear twice in the file).
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) recruitment of ships reviewed and adjusted (the main change: availability of ships significantly reduced for the player).
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) recruitment of knights (or, more generally, the units made out of landowning elites):
-- only from the Landowners building line (not from the core castle/city building, as it used to be).
-- available in both cities and castles (no change here).
-- lower availability of units (re-fill of the recruitment pools is slower).
-- the maximum number of recruitable units is higher (you may keep large un-recruited reserve).
-- the AI pools regenerate slightly faster than the player's (additional coding made for the AI).
-- the bottom line for strategy: (1) build Landowners buildings to get heavy troops, (2) be economical with knights in battles (loses count: if you lose men then you'd wait long for the refill of the pools), perhaps do not disband them. (3) don't recruit everything once is available, keep it just in case of a dire need (you've got the guys handy but you don't pay upkeep). (4) before finishing a next level of the Landowners, recruit all the available knights, (5) if you lack knights, building a Landowner building is a good way to get new unit (every built building comes with 1+ units ready to be recruited instantly).
- recruitment of ships by the Hanseatic buildings updated.
- adjustments in the recruitment limits (eg. number of units to be recruited at one time) for: Castle core building, Barracks, Castle Barracs, Stables, Bowyer, Landowners. In general, they are higher and the way for the player will be to keep them high to be able to recruit units swiftly in case of an attack.
- trebuchets and mangonels can be recruited only by the player (which means you won't find yourself fighting against them in field battles), they will also be slower on the strategic map (slowing your entire army, obviously). This should prevent unhistorical battles with trebuchets shelling you like the 20th century artillery.
- recruitment of the Georgian units extensively analysed and overhauled (the roster still lacks at least two important units, so further changes are needed).
- recruitment of the Hungarian units from castle barracks analysed and overhauled.
- no more Military Orders' units recruitment as normal mercenaries.
- Magyar Cavalry recruitable also from the Grassland (ie nomadic) building.
- Kataphractoi are recruited now from the highest level of Mercenary Barracks (but not Imperial Barracks - this building has been removed).
- recruitment of Chude Militia will be from the dedicated building (ie it's recruitment removed from the barracks).
- name changes: Flagellants -> Armed Pilgrims, Religious Fanatics -> Pilgrim Militia.
- a few unit icons changed.
- unit Crossbow Militia has been removed (from now one, there's just one unit Urban Crossbow Militia, in-game called Levy Crossbowmen)
- unit Naffatun available also for the abbasid and turks (still from the alchemist building)
- units that were made Area of Recruitment (ie recruitable from in a certain geographical area by any faction that controls that area - both from certain buildings, and also as mercenaries):
--- Baltics: Lithuanian archers (Forest archers), Lithuanian skirmishers (Morass Scouts), Chude militia (Chudy)
--- Scandinavia: Bondir
--- Britain: Scots skirmisher (Galwegian Javelinmen), Irish kerns
--- Middle East: Kurdish Javelinmen, aor trasc javelin (Caucasus hillmen),
--- Africa: African tribal warriors (Sudan Warriors), Berber javelinmen

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(IV) MAP
* (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) two capitals of the provinces moved within their provinces to make it more historical but, more importantly, to make that area actually a space to play for the player and to make the AI behavior more rational (any big hole in the map that perplexes the AI):
-- capital of Sachsen moved much south-east and renamed (Hamburg -> Magdeburg: it is still for some centuries a dominant archbishopric in the east of HRE, and the northern HRE coast was overcrowded with cites: Bremen - Hamburg - Lubeck).
-- capital of Wallachia moved to the east and renamed (Severin -> Targoviste: it will be a capital in 14c, and in the game it serves as a gateway between the steppes and the Balkans).
* a few minor adjustments of placement of settlements (Brandenburg, Szekesfehervar, Gyulafehervar, Varad, Ascalon, Halab, Arta, Korinthos, Chandax).
* slight adjustments to placement of some ports:
-- Crete: to Chania space, Morea: to Modon space, Epirus: to Naupaktos space.
-- Westfalen: port of Bremen moved to the Wesermundung, Sachsen: port of Magdeburg (ex-Hamburg) moved south and a nice road is created by way).
-- Brest (so that of Rennes), Syracuse (Palermo), Limerick (Dublin), Slupsk (Gdansk), Kopenhagen (Roskilde), Sis (Adana), Tripoli (Gibelet), Baku (a bit south), Kutaisi (a bit north) - all to make the map more lively by creating additional roads.
* renamed a few provinces (eg. Tmutarakan -> Circassia, Heskif -> Diyar Bakr, Mosul -> Diyar Rabi'a, Edessa -> Diyar Mudar, Morea -> Hellas) and settlements (Aktobe -> Kiçi-Saray, Casteddu -> Calari, Oslo -> Ánslo).
* (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) changes in the borders of the provinces:
-- four provinces (Sidjilmasa, Tayma, Carinthia, Sarkel) made landlocked (their coastal areas were given to the neighbouring provinces) because of the historicity issues (these regions were historically not related to the sea) but also taking into account the number of land connections important for the trade income.
-- moved borders of Morea to include Attica and Boetia (and renamed "Hellas"); borders of Epirus and Albania moved east (to encompass also the mountains).
-- ownership of the island of Fyn switched from province Jutland (Ribe) to Sjealand (Roskilde)
-- borders of Ostfranken (ie Nurnberg) extended to the borders of Sachsen (ie means also cutting of Nordfranken from Brandenburg), the city of Nurnberg moved one space north to make the road network look nice.
-- borders of Schwaben (ie Ulm) extended to Ostfranken (Nordfranken trade cut from Bayern - but fear not, it's still very rich), a new ford created on the border with Bayern, and it all produced created two roads on either side of the Danube.
-- many small changes to the borders of the Krakow province plus a few bridged introduced on the Polish rivers (1 on Odra, 2 on Warta, 1 on Notec) so that the road grid is interesting (in particular: separate track directly to Poznan, separate track to Plock).
- Saqsin has now border with Derbent (as a result: no direct access to this sea for the great steppe province with Sarkel, they have economically little to do with the sea and coding will be easier).
- Urgench is cut from the Caspian as it was historically by the Kara Kum desert (again: easier for the coding purposes).
- Sharukan province is connected to the Bulgar province (so Aqtobe is cut from Ryazan) - more rational economic development those provinces.
- borders between Halab, Damascus, Tripoli, Antioch, Edessa provinces slightly modified.
- Baghdad province borders now Damascus province (so Al Ahsa is cut from Ar-Raqqa - the problem with Al Ahsa has always been it had too many trade connections and was getting hefty income).
* switches castle <> city (the end-goal is to make each region having access to a reasonable number of castles, 35-40% per region): Erzurum, Ani, Silves, Polotsk, Dyrrachion, Tarabulus, Rennes, Volodymyr turned into castles, while Prague, Corinthos into cities.
* after years of discussions on historicity in the TWC forum, two provinces were turn independent (Pamplona, Sinope) - Aragon and Byzantium will have to conquer them.
* fertility of the provinces reviewed again, lowered by 1 in all provinces and then lowered in a few.
* many adjustments in the placement of resources (esp. Seljuks, HRE, Byzantium, Anatolia).
* new hidden resource "slavic" placed in 36 provinces - then used in EDB for recruitment of the relevant units.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(V) STARTING SITUATION
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) numerous adjustments to starting buildings, population etc. of all settlements (it was required by the changes in the buildings benefits and availabilty, by lowering of the fertility levels by 1 in all provinces, by lowering thresholds of upgrade of various levels of settlements).
- in particular, the lowered thresholds for the settlements' upgrades required a thorough review of populations and scaling it down.
- initial family trees have been fixed and updated (by Macaras).
- some regions (West Slavic, south Italy, the Balkans) have their religion %% reviewed (West Slavic: it was too high for Christianity while historically the religion came to the masses only in 13c., afater Lateranum IV; Italy: similarsly, it was still predominantly Orthodox, then Muslim, and only then Catholic; Anatolia: domination of Orthodox, less Islam).
- most of the initial neutral/rebel armies limited in number to 7-8 (so that the AI factions do not face too big problems to expand - large armies give the player an upper hand as he can rightly assess and gather the attacking forces).
- a few new, strong (but not too strong) armies in the neutral territories in Britain, France, and especially Northern-Eastern Europe.
- composition of the (most) neutral/rebel armies (initial and those spawned by script as support for the AI) reviewed and updated according to the changes in the units.
- each Faction Leader has a "policy" from the beginning of the game (in many cases this provides an initial significant boon for a faction in terms of money or public order).
- additional initial characters for a few factions (Serbia, Scotland) (by Macaras).
- many aging starting generals added for the factions that have so few that Man-of-the-Hour event would kick in the first turns of the game (the reason is to prevent large gaps in generations: they should die out in a short time, then the children should Come of Age and new children are born).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(VI) SCRIPTS
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) unrest mechanism re-coded as described above.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) optional new AI : Skynet (by z3n) updated by JLMP. This makes the behavious of the AI quite different than it was before (Germanicus' RBAI 5.7 updated by MWY and possibly other modders).
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) anti-snowball mechanism extended ...
- a number of settlements will change their names upon conquests (scripts added mainly for the Greeks, based on Georgios proposals).
- changes of the names of settlements re-coded to consume less processing power (i.e. one monitor for one settlement) and to provide information about changes only if such a change actually occured (if-clauses).
- "City Reveal" script fixed while the number of initial information is extended only a bit (it may be extended in the future - they player starts a game knowing about some cities important to his faction) - the mechanism was slightly bugged until now, would revel wrong tiles.
- scripts for Great Fires (described above).
- historical events either introduced or re-utilised for the gameplay purposes with the relevant scripts:
--- Latin universities
--- mint / bank buildings
- a few factions have some initial reforms/descriptions of reforms (this is ongoing, long-term modification with the view of introduction of reforms for all factions)
--- Ostsiedlung mechanics (for HRE, Poland, Hungary).
--- Georgia Evolution: 8 events scripted, pics, info windows introduced - given the changes in the recruitment, this system should work and the faction should be really unique.
--- 4 new events for Scotland to guide the evolution of military.
--- placeholders for Serbia Evolution and some scripting for Poland (but overall, these are only placeholders).
- invasion / uprising scripts for (1) Rum, (2) Fatimids, and (3) the Moors to support them if in trouble (similar to Scotland's William Wallace), also (4) Eldegusid invasions on Georgia and (5) QaraKitai mechanism for the Turks.
- some factional scripted mechanisms (Baqt for Egypt, Sankt Erik for Denmark, Latin Universities, Al-Idrisi)
- new historical events playing role in the scripts or in the buildings' conditions: Roles d'Oleron, Hanseatic Cog, Hamburg Rights, and a few more.
- added a few windows with information for the player about the gameplay.
- al Idrisi event made dependent on building Palazzo dei Normanni.
- script destroying buildings that prevent building other buildings is implemented for the AI factions.
- a crude anti-hoarding script added (if Treasury is above certain level, part of the money is taken away).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(VII) AGENTS
- number of priests, merchants & diplomats eventually fixed (thanks to Gigantus advice and trial-and-error experience).
- the number of recruitable diplomats increases due to possession of the unique buildings in the initial capitals (not City Halls, as it was before).
- more merchants in the coasts of North and Baltic seas will be available due to the new Hansa Teutonica building (especially in later part of the game).
- number of the spies and assassins limited, in line with the limitations for the other agents.

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(VIII) TRATS & ANCILLARIES
- new trait for the admirals linking the fleets' range with the technological advancements (and also making some factions not so good at the sea: EE, mongols).
- corrections in some triggers, effects or descriptions when errors were spotted (eg. coward from battles won).
- a dozen of pics for the ancillaries were replaced (also PTs), a few new ancillaries added.
- some adjustments to the Crowns (certain unique buildings - not the cathedrals - are now alternative requirements to get one for: Byzantium, Serbia, Sicily, Venice, KoJ, Poland, Rus factions, Norway, Scotland, France).
- additonaly spawned AI generals will have Royal Bloods (should be conducive for preservation of the bloods).
- Loyalty of the spawned AI generals increased to prevent them from rebelling outright (what with scripted sieges may mean a CTD).

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(IX) PARAMETERS
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) thresholds for upgrading the city levels brought back to old levels for castles for: large cities (30k), minor cities (12.5 k), large towns (6k). Accordingly, the population benefit from the buildings have been reduced, certain buildings were removed (monastery line), and fertility levels were lowered for all settlements. Upgrading the settlements should still require employing a good general.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) impact of happiness effects of the buildings on the population growth (<factor name="SPF_BUILDINGS_FUN">) has been slashed from 0.5 to 0.2. The result is: population growth is much more tied to the growth/health benefits of the buildings.
- impact of happiness from buildings slightly increased (from 0.4 to 0.5).
- impact of the garrison (ie number of troops) on public order halved and the upper threshold is set to 80%.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) parameters for income has been significantly changed
- some adjustments in income multipliers from the mines.
- (SIGNIFICANT CHANGE) all money paybacks for successful missions and also for interactive events have been doubled (given the overall increase of money in the game).
- retirement age for the umarried daughters lowered to 35 (from 45) - this should free the slots for children in many instances, allowing for late-age children - with the necessary adjustments in the family trees by Macaras.
- slower siege weapons on the campaign map: <siege_movement_points_modifier float="0.5"/> instead of 0.85 (it should be viewed in context of removing recruitment options for the AI, and of lowering the availability for the player - see elsewhere in the changelog).
- the Papal States AI has now "comfortable" attribute that should make the pope much more peaceful.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(X) UI, GRAPHICS
- new pics (not on the map, but in the financial panel) for glass and cattle.
- banners for Abbasids and Georgia fixed.
- background tapestry for the Muslims a bit brighter, new tapestries for the Latins and the Greeks (by Ceph).
- a few movies added to be shown after certain cities are conquered (Cairo, Baghdad, Mecca, Constantinople).
- a few pips in the city panel (describing eg. religions or sources of income) replaced with other ones, some changes in names.

LINKS TO DEVS LOGS

OPINIONS ON THIS VERSION

Originally Posted by Waluk

Hey all, this version is really great. Started with HRE, since this is the faction I know the most. Played for 200 turns without a single crash. I love all the changes so far. As HRE you get enough diplomats, so you can actually cover most of your lands. A bit harder to get assassins, but that's better IMO. The amount of agents is perfect so far. By turn 200 the map is still 90% historical. The new icons are amazing, had to get used to them for awhile, but they are crisp and reveal greatly what the unit is supposed to be. While places that should increase in population size get bigger, some settlements stay small for awhile, also very historical and a bit slower paced than before, I like it. A couple of small things were a bit off, I get Serbian Nemanja dynasty event every turn, for the past 100 turns or so. I don't hear any horns when rallying troops as before, kind of got used to those, but thats nitpicky <img src="images/smilies/emoticons/original.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smile" smilieid="21" class="inlineimg"> Some units on the battle map have some weird stripes coming out of them, I believe those are upgraded mailed knights for HRE. Overall 10/10.

Originally Posted by Gaku

It feels like a completely different game with the slower recruitment pools. I generally like the changes. a lot of balancing. the different melee units have actual pros and cons now, instead of just being universally better or worse.
The only problem I'm having is that Magyar Cavalry are so restricted. in effect, only available in one province.
The Byzantines attacked, so time to restart. (They just randomly blockaded me for no reason to declare war? wat?) They're completely unbeatable under these circumstances. Aside from that, the campaign was going great.

Originally Posted by Gaku

It occurred to me that the recruitment slowdown changes the game in the same way that "marathon" timescale effects Civilization. You get more actions per universal unit of recruitment. Since this also applies to the AI, it means they can't out-recruit your actions like they could in the last version. Or put another way, you and the AI both have to be more careful with your units, because you can't replenish them instantly like you could before. And since the AI is generally worse at managing units on a macro level, this makes it much easier to win against comparable factions by out-microing them. On the flip side, if a nation that greatly outclasses you declares war on you, it means you're stuck with what you have and can't spam units to deal with the threat.
Over all, I do like the changes. In some cases it makes the game way easier (you can run circles around comparable factions). and in others way more tedious and difficult (trying to reinforce losses, dealing with OP factions).

Originally Posted by JB59114

1) As I said before the muslim faction does not have the same amont of details compared to the western one, the models provided by broken cresent are good and historically accurate but they lack in details and are little bit weird (some of the muslim cavalry men have strange shaped arms for exemple), my advice would be to enchance the existing models with more details.
2) The late era units (like gendarme or pikemen) have vanilla like models and textures, they could be improved by having a deal with the modding team behind Tsardom total war, they have one of the best units skin overall concerning the italians, serbs, hungarians and turks (14th/15th and 16th century included).
3) Also the mod doesn't use at full capacity the skin mechanics used by med2: the upgraded norman knight don't have new skin reflecting the evolution between mail and brigandine. Most of the units skin are centered toward the 13th century.

JoC comment: I suspect Gaku has set up a Hanseatic building in Brugges and this has left some imprints

Originally Posted by Gaku

What the

is this complete

? This is the second time in 3 campaigns that I've had a civil war rip away my capital, and the second civil war in under 5 years in this campaign. How the

is this game-breaking

even possible? My king's got high authority, he's the direct heir of the last king who won his civil war, and then you throw another one at me? The game's not hard enough - you have to put me 25,000 florins in the hole and delete my army, too? While I'm stuck in a

war that the AI refuses to peace out of, no matter how many of his OP

ing

units I release? 230 turns in, and another campaign goes in the

.

this. Just like last time - I take 1 irrelevant province from a nation that won't peace out, and then my whole nation falls apart. In a game called "Total War" - where apparently I can't wage war. Oh but the AI can with it's endless

stacks - which I have to fight, take losses against, and then release because muh diplomacy. They can take whatever the

they want without penalty. Me, though, I get a civil war for no goddamn reason.

ing stupid

. How do I disable these dumbass civil wars?

Originally Posted by Waluk

Before I would be bathing in millions of florins, after turn 200 or so, now even with cca 80k per turn, still can't beat the corruption to go above 150.000 florins or so in treasury. I love that

But that's HRE, smaller factions may not be so prosperous. Map is still 70% historical around turn 300. Yes, the Byzantines have conquered a lot of the balkans, also a lot of Poland and Ukraine, but at the same time they are losing badly in asia minor to Mongols. Someone said it's a bit less aggressive, but I guess I kind of like that. The invasions I had from english upon Loven were brutal, same with Serbia attacking Freiberg. No amount of florins would convince the attackers to stand down. Had to win those very narrow fights, but the wins made them so much better. It's without a doubt, the best SSHIP version so far. Stable, challenging, and lots of stuff under the hood. Love those new building s BTW.

Originally Posted by Waluk

had only one crash in 300 turns.

Originally Posted by yoba99

I love roman late (well, 150 turns, not very late

) units - tagmata, italian mercenaries, gasmulii, flamethrowers. However, I have the worst succession crisis every time I get to turn ~100. Now I have a basileus-usurper, but he was co-emperor for the whole time previous guy was in charge - why is he usurper??? He had 10+ loyalty, no negative traits beyond heir presumptive. What is even worse, both of his sons are bastards (I needed an alliance with Pisa against Venice, but their princess was really gross

), so all the hard work I put into crowning previous guy is now done for. Killing off bastards is a poor choice I assume, so probably have to suffer through, drop a couple provinces in outermer and serbia, and groom my bastard and next heir (here's to hope the bastard not gonna make more bastards).

Originally Posted by Gaku

Yeah, well I'm just over here playing Sim City. I almost never go on offensive wars. Maybe 5% of my wars are offensive. and anything I can do to keep from getting dogpiled is a plus in my book.
Also, when it comes to garbage units, I can't count how many times having spare units has completely saved my ass. Even if it's just something as simple as having some extra towers shooting at enemies during a siege, or being able to take out an extra tower or battering ram without risking my general. Or being able to sally during a defense and encircle the wall-scaling troops, without risking a valuable unit routing/dying. I can't just say "whoops! my general died! I should re-do that battle!" or "if only I had one extra unit in that battle!" I get one shot, so I have to play super conservative, meaning more units than would otherwise be necessary.

Originally Posted by Djangoo

I'm playing Leon on hard right now and I have to say the mod is outstanding!
Warhammer III made me actually want to play the older titles again haha.
The quality of life coming with this mod is amazing, especially to a returning player: easy install, no crashes, the pop-ups explaining and no sub mods needed! First time I played a mod and didn't feel the need to install several submods, wow!
You did a good job also making some features of BYG IV more simple, especially the Council thing with only some generals being able to recruit stuff was annoying.
Can't comment about the lategame since I'm only around turn 35 and unfortunately don't have a lot of time to play anymore. The challenge level is well balanced so far. The moment I allied with HR empire, Portugal (ally) and Aragon attacked me at the same time which was cool. Moores agreed to ceasefire luckily.
Definitely trying to do a crusade to Jerusalem, (the best feature in M2) and then report back.

Originally Posted by Konstantinos XII Rhomaios

Just wanted to drop and let you know I have been having an amazing time playing this mod! The team is absolutely amazing and I love the community here. Thank you for all of your hard work, it is truly appreciated over here!!!

Originally Posted by opaxite

Turn 200 here. My Faction Leader, a 82-year old dreaded war veteran who used to make whole armies run has been completely senile for almost 20 years now. He insists on getting military education that he keeps forgetting the next turn. The whole family who used to celebrate and respect him now resents him deeply and prays for his demise. The princess I've been stalking to marry to my next heir has grown past child bearing age. 10 out of 10 experience, absolutely recommended.

Originally Posted by Djangoo

I played until turn 150, once I took Tunis, a Jihad was called against it. Unfortunately I never managed to get crowned. Anyways, it was a very enjoyable and balanced experience, the AI was very reasonable. At the endgame I wished I had set the difficulty to very hard, AI could not do anything anymore against the stacks, but I probably would not have survived the early game then.
Highlights:
- coordinated attack by Portugal and Aragon in the early game (backstabbing me)
- married heir to a muslim princess while on crusade, this made him a muslim himself and triggered a civil war once he was king
- war against HRE (they attacked me probably because AI considered me a threat at this point)
- crusader states holding their own
-one of the very rare times in (modded) Medieval II times I got kicked out of a region after conquering it in a crusade (Alexandria), I didnt send more support and couldnt hold it (uprising drove the armies out and they defeated me in open battle)
The historic events make you want to play longer, will definitely try again on very hard with a small faction again and try to go turn 200+.

Originally Posted by dijenek999

Hi Guys, thank you for great mod and constant improvements. I am returning player. Last time played version 0.92 or something near that. Version 0.98 is really nice improvement and it is also much harder on vh/vh.
Temporarily playing with Georgia, year 1254. It is really hard position, but very fun. Had lots of problems with Cumans at beginning and hardly survived for 40+ years. They Bekh units were quite hard to fight on open terrains so i was defending behind walls most of time. Also, i am enyojing this new combat Ai. It is big improvement from version 0.92. Now i am surrounded with Mongols and Vizant, two biggest forces right now. Have alliance with Mongols but not sure for how long

, and war with Vizant. Don't have high hopes, but looking for how long i can survive

.
Also played with Serbia but didn't last long, and had some error very often. With Novgorod i manage to get to turn 80, but Litvanians were too strong for me.
....
Here are also few remarks from my Georgia campaign that i found interesting. I am around turn 260.

1. In year 1260 maps and faction positions and spreading looks nearly historical which is really great (screenshot below). Norway and Lithuania looks strong but they are still around Baltic. No crazy spreading from Scotland

.
2. Regarding re-emerging factions. I saw Leon re-emerging 5-6 times. Hungary also re-emerged and had nice come back. Now they holding 4 provinces. Also saw one re-emerging of Poland, Rum, Zengids. What i didn't saw are Sicily, Crusaders, Cumans and Great Seljucs. I guess re-emerging of Cumans and Great Seljucs are not historical after Mongol conquest but wondering is it possible? Also wondering is it possible for Crusaders to come back?
3. I had few 3 marriage alliances so far - Zengids, Great Seljucs and Byzantines. Zengid one is even proposed by AI at beginning of game. That was a bit surprising for me.
4. I lost Trapezous by Byzantines after 8 turns of siege. So after end of last turn of siege it was a bit surprise for me that there is no final battle where my city army is forced to run out to fight enemy, but i lost whole army and Byzantines took the city. I think i like it this way more because it is harder for player, but didn't know that could happen

.

Originally Posted by Konstantinos XII Rhomaios

Konstantinos here again, I think one of the things you guys have totally knocked out of the park is the recruitment system. I've finished up my Spanish campaign and started playing around with the Sultanate of Rum. Both start off small so you really have to manage your money and your army. Once the recruitment pools start to fill up I like to dismiss my "standing army" and only recruit when i'm put on the defensive or initiating a war. Peace and war time have two distinct feelings with one being prosperous and the other being a real nail biter lol. I think you guys did a great job with making recruiting an army feel like calling your banners.

Originally Posted by hazman232

Turn 195 loss as Hungary VH/VH. This is the only Total War experience which can prevent me from snowballing and maintain challenge even after 200 turns. By turn 60, after an unfortunate accident that saw my king killed in a minor skirmish and the civil war that followed, I was down to my final city. My royal family was turned completely wretched and deformed by a stubborn witch. by turn 160 I had taken back my empire from the Byzantines and the Qipchaks and forged powerful alliances with a new and modern army. By turn 195 I had lost it all to a rampaging Holy Roman Empire whom had already vassalized my neighbours Poland and Venice. I only wish they had offered me the same choice.
As always I had an absolute blast and can't wait to do it all over again.

LONGER REVIEW

Originally Posted by opaxite

Some observations after 380~ turns
I am having a blast and the game still feels fresh. As Kingdom of Poland I am roleplaying, so conquest is not my primary goal. There are no dominant factions except Mongols, whom I keep pushing out towards the Caspian sea.

I am playing normal/normal difficulty. At this point, with 20~ regions, I can easily field around 6 full stack armies. The main threat being abovementioned Mongols, whom I still fear, and keep reconquering provinces I've liberated. Waiting for the right moment to besiege them in a settlement is my go to tactic and I'm still learning new ways of dealing with them.

I have never been this invested in a campaign for this long. The mechanics introduced by this mod are on spot! Big thanks to everyone who made this possible, I hope you keep improving this incredible mod and more historical fans find their way to play it.

What keeps the game entertaining

[1] Somewhat accurate historical map
This has already been mentioned many times, I think the mod strikes a perfect balance. Factions keep surviving, or are brought back with the resurrection mechanics. From other threads I sometimes see a faction "go wild" and conquer half of Europe. This tells me every game is unpredictable and for me, this is the main "immersion keeper".

[2] Gradual unlocking and historical events
I keep reading through most of the scripted historical events. It feels amazing when I get a message that new pavise shields start to appear, and later I see that I'll be able to train a new unit! I am hyped to see how the unit fares in battles, how it looks like with armor upgrades, etc. It feels like there's always something fresh to come, ane even after so many turns, the game doesn't feel stale.

Thanks to this mod, I've started listening to Brief history of Poland podcast and read a book on History of the Bohemian Crown. It feels rewarding having the Piast family in the game, and then learning about them in the podcast.

[3] Custom buildings
I'd never think of such a clever way of introducing the Hanseatic league or German orders to the game. Especially the Hanseatic League feels like a gradual progress that develops over a long time and makes an otherwise uninteresting area very entertaining (even though in the game, no kind of danger ever came from the Baltic sea). The custom units is a welcome bonus and many germanic knights have fought in my ranks over the years. I wish the custom churches would also add some flavour, but that's for another thread.

[4] Crown mechanics
Love all about it. Took me a long time to achieve the crown, and it feels like I've earned every piece of it. Wish it would also change the FL title to King, but that's not really an immersion breaker.

[5] Province Titles, Ministerial Offices, Book Ancillaries
The Provincial titles feel very prestigious and the most accomplished family members are rewarded with the best titles. I made it a custom when a new King is crowned to gather all family members in Poznań for a "council", where titles and ministerial offices are granted. Love also the "Stripped of titles" trait, feels like a great way to punish embezzlers, drunks and other characters who have somehow ashamed the family.

I've modded the game to make all ancillaries transferrable, so characters can have their Provincial title visible in the first place. Sometimes, it's a bit tedious to manage the 8 ancillaries limit, especially when books start to appear. But they add a nice flavour and uniqueness into the game. (The images for the books could use some love, right now they look like covers rather than actual books (I'm offering my help with that though, I push pixels for a living))

[6] Character traits development
In general, it feels like I have a lot of control over how characters develop. There's some actions and consequences that I still need to understand better, sometimes they feel underserved, like getting the Poor disciplinarian trait from simply occupying a conquered settlement, or the Harsh taskmaster developing quickly when you use all your movement points. But over time, I've become more attentive towards the mechanics, and it actually adds more flavour to the game as well.

[7] Princesses, Noble Ladies and Family tree management
I am pretty happy with how I managed to develop my family tree and all the foreign blood in my lineages. I only allow marriage to the most accomplished family members, and they can only marry either a foreign princess, or a noble lady. The Noble Ladies are incredibly useful when I need to keep a certain lineage going, and the frequency is right. For every generation, there's one foreign princess and one noble lady available.

I have never managed to marry my princess to a foreing king or heir though, it seems logistically impossible. Adding foreing generals is a bit tricky, too, as they (or their sons) tend to become usurpers. I let most of those branches die out, but I still keep one really good lineage going. It actually adds a lot to roleplaying and feels like there's some competition inside the family and the sons want to prove their worth.

In general, I'm getting great sons these days, some 7 generations later. Haven't managed to develop chivalry too much, but that's one of my current goals.

[8] Merchants
This mod has finally made merchants meaningful. With the Merchants Guild HQ a and FL traits some of my merchants now make over 10k a turn, and make a significant portion of my earnings. There used to a bit more challenge while developing this, nowadays it's just replacing dying merchants, but I don't really mind.

What feels underwhelming

[1] Crusades
I love the crusades mechanic, but hardly ever partake in a crusade these days. There's little to no challenge, punishment or reward. Most of the targeted settlements and factions are very weak, the Crusader states keep a strong foothold in the area, 380 turns in. The problems are following:

Most of the christian factions participate, so there's little to no danger for the crusading army to venture in the area. Eventually you see this one targeted settlement surrounded by 4 crusader armies, so it's just a matter of who gets to besiege it first.
There is not enough reward: All I ever got from Crusades was an experience bonus for mercenary units I have to disband afterwards because I won't maintain them (can't replenish), and a "Pilgrim to Jerusalem" trait for one of my general, which added 1 Piety.
Not enough punishment: Simply ignoring the crusade means I lose a bit of favour with the Pope, and that's it. There's no real risk: He won't excommunicate you for it, you don't get any negative traits or disadvantages.
Not enough challenge: As mentioned, the crusades are mostly unnoposed, even if I get there first. Fielding a full stack army only to find an almost empty castle somewhere in the desert is just underwhelming. Where's the glory in that?
It is mostly just a logistics nightmare and negative traits risk: I have streamlined getting there and with the extended crusading army range, it only takes me measly 2-3 turns via a sea route. But getting back takes the best years of a young general's life, during which he'll just stagnate, and mostly risks negative logistical traits, diseases, and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.

[2] Mongols and Vassalage
Historically speaking, many countries became vassals or tributary states of the Mongol Empire, but in the game, Mongols tend to anihilate everyone. Not sure if anything can be done about this.

[3] Religion and Clergy
I started writing this down, but will start a different thread here. I think there's some potential for extending the mechanics, and will appreciate feedback.

Originally Posted by QKuhlmann

Hello everybody. Shortly before the advance of the new January-Version I would like to give feedback to my campaign with the Republic of Nowgorod, which now arrived in the year of 1307, turn 351. I played on h/h with the actual version 0.98 and no modifications.

First of all, the fact that I proceeded this far shows, that the gameplay was always thrilling and revardig for me. Throughout the many hours of gameplay I never got bored. The richness of features and the constant feeling, that though my empire was growing slowly I never really was safe, was a great motivation to move on and in my experience this is quite seldom for a total war mod. So in general I think, that this mod is pure gold. So, congratulations and many thanks for your work so far!

Campaign History: In early game I had constant trouble with Lithuania and the Kievan Rus, with short periods of peace in between. This was especially exciting, when both enemies attacked at the same time, and you had to choose your steps carefully. First mayor success was the conquest of Kiev, Chernigov and Pereslawyl in a small window of opportunity, which broke the neck of the Rus, who are now still dwelling in the far east. With Lithuania I was in a defensive position for a long time, until another window of opportunity allowed my to conquer their capital and everything north of it, reducing them to Twangste, which later fell to the HRE in a crusade. All in all that kept me very busy in the early game. Attacks of the enemies, especially the Lithuanians, were often well organized, with big armies attacking three of my bordering cities at the same time with the danger of doom, when you lose. That was really great. Later I had constant trouble with the Qipchuks and then of course, after a long period of suspense, with the mongols.

Diplomacy/Reputation: I like the diplomacy system very much, especially the feature, that you earn reputation by treating captured cities and enemy-soldiers in a kind way. So, you only take hostages or pillage conquered cities, when you have no other choice (which sometimes is the case) and build up your reputation by being kind in better times, which makes it a lot easier to trade alliances. A long lasting alliance with Hungary was very rewarding in the game both for the Nowgorod and the Hungarians, who became a real superpower in this game, building an empire from Moldavia to the Baltic Sea.

Civil wars/Uprisings: I survived three civil wars and one Lithuan uprising. Because I did not take care of the kings bloodline I often got Usurper Kings of doubtful heritage and skill. The civil wars though never lasted long and never got me on the false foot, so they were quite easy to handle. What I liked, was the difficulty, to hold peace in former Lithuanian Cities. So, the sudden death of a good Governour in his 50ies can course a real serious crisis for the whole empire, if you have no one to replace him properly.

Familiy members/Coronation: As I said I did not care about the bloodline, so I had constant trouble with the quality of my Kings. Also, there were times, when many children were born and then a whole new generation could take over and there were times, when there was a real lack of new family members for a long period, so you have a big empire with governors from 40 to 70, a senile king and no replacement in sight, so you are afraid of the future. I am okay with that too. In never got my king crowned though. Right now, I seem to fulfill all conditions, but maybe my king, who first was a regent, then an ursurper and then got accepted and is now quite old but “fit for the crown” has issues in his past. Who knows? My question here is: Is it necessary to conquer all regions shown in the faction window or only the central ones represented in darker color?

Mongols/Balance: I think the Mongols are an issue difficult to balance in the game. For historical realism they should be overpowered, but I think they are a little bit over-overpowered in 0.98. But I am not really sure. As Novgorod it went like that: First they were a relief, because they attacked the Qipchuks and all of the qipchuk armies that constantly attacked me in Kiew all of a sudden headed eastwards, so I knew: now it starts. They destroyed the Qipchuks then quickly and bordered with me. They did not attack but made trade arrangements. So the long time of suspense began. I developed three big armies in Kiew and surrounding, the Mongols destroyed Gerorgia within two turns and destroyed the Abbasides too. Then they destroyed the Crusader State. Catholic Christianity tried to fight back with two or three crusades, but only with about three factions participating, maybe because of the lack of priests, which will be dealt with in the next version. The crusaders were smashed by the Mongols and then they went against the Selchucks and the Eastern Roman Empirie, which was one of the worlds superpowers at this time. Meanwhile they attacked me. As I had time to prepare, I managed to hold them back with constant heavy losses, but they went through Minor Asia like butter, conquered Constanitople and invaded the Balcans. Moldavia became a place of horror, invaded by the Mongols, Hungaria, the Eastern Romans and me, who was quickly pushed back. Of course the Mongols won. I then managed to make peace with the Mongols to have a little break but because of that they attacked Hungaria and quickly threw it out of the Balcans. Now, in 1307, they own nearly 60 regions, are successfully invading Hungaria and I will have to declare war on them just to save my long time ally by taking a part of their military power against me. But I don’t know if that would stop them. They are so overpowered and the KI-Factions seem to have no chance against them. This is an issue for the late game, which is quite hard to deal with I believe.

Historically the Mongol Empire would split into 4 realms fighting each other. It would be a dream, if that would be possible to represent in the game. But I doubt it, and so maybe it would be a solution to give the Mongols a harder time to ensure public order in their empire, so that they would be weakened by civil wars in the late games and other factions and the player have a chance to push them back. Also, maybe to make the other factions more hostile, so that the mongols could not take one after the other, as they do it now. As it is now, they destroy faction after faction and then the map lacks of diversity in 1307. (There were a few rebellions against them, but they always quickly dealt with them)

But nevertheless: A real great experience! I am looking forward to the new version! When it is out, I will try a campaign with Poland to build the Polish-Lithuan Union

Originally Posted by Alex_TotalWar

I am having a very enjoyable campaign currently as Denmark, almost 150 turns in now. I prefer to play a relatively slow campaign and role-play; my campaign difficulty is Hard.
The mod is playing quite well for me; I try to add some constructive input on my experience:
- I have observed a decline in the number of cardinals; at the lowest it was 3 but the number has since rebounded to 6. It has not been a bother to me so far.
- Due to the recruitment times and perhaps the costs, defeating an enemy field army is impactful to the balance of power in a war, certainly over the short term.
- I think your decision to disable the AI's siege weapons is the right call.
- Building decisions have a strong impact on city development, growth, and income.
- The education and battle experience system is working great. I did disable some of the battlefield dread inducing checks after a battle.
- Aging and death can be very painful. Why does it always seem that the good die young? I have a totally useless 75 year old wanna-be crusader general that I "had" to drop off in Greece because he was slowing down my fleet. He just.... wont..... die.
- I still haven't figured out how to manage my family tree. This is especially true this campaign, because my 2nd King of Danish blood had 4 daughters! Any tips would be appreciated.
- Mongols have not invaded yet so I cannot comment on their invincibility.
In general I am finding that my decisions are having a strong impact on character and Kingdom. Great job and looking forward to the next iteration!

Originally Posted by QKuhlmann

Hello developers,
I found some time to play with the latest version (May 17th without the Scotland patch) in the last days, so here is my feedback. I played Poland until the year of 1198, vh/vh. Here is the save: https://mega.nz/file/nvJFzCQC#RU7YDt...43uJvgeKb4E4oc

In General:
This is to my opinion a really great Medieval Mod. I am an experienced but casual TW-player for many years and I have to say that the testing of SSHIP was one of my best experiences, that keeps me interested in the game. One has to make careful decisions, that really matter and there was no boredom in the 130 rounds I played so far. Capeau!

Reputation:
I managed to keep my reputation high mostly by releasing prisoners and by not acting evil. Only in desperate situations I stepped aside from this rules, knowing that it could have serious repercussions. For me, the knowledge, that alliances are really important and that backstabbing is much more unlikely, when you have good reputation, adds much to the game. As Poland, you have to rule Stettin for instance, to get your King crowned. But conquering Stettin leads to trouble with the mighty and much stronger HRE, so you have to build a stable alliance with them first to avoid doom.

Merchants:
They are much weaker in the new version, maybe a little bit too weak, although they were quite overpowered before. My two merchants are trading amber at the Ostsee, which is a really profitable resource. One is a quite capable merchant (8/10) and makes about 550 florins, the other one is not so talented (4/10) and makes about 110. Maybe you should tweak them a little bit, so that they matter but not to the point, that was before the new version. My financial situation as Poland was constantly tense in the game, so 800 or 1000 florins instead of 550 would really matter.

KI-behaviour:
This is a decisive topic of course. I had constant trouble with Lithuania in the early game, they attacked without provocation at round 13 or so. Once you conquer Twangste, they will attack from time to time but also agree to peace in between wars. One decisive moment of the campaign was the backstabbing from Kiev and attack of Lithuania at the same time around Round 66. That turned a relatively reasonable campaign into a very crazy and risky one, with dead family members, heroic victories, the acceptance of characters from outside, (that I always rejected before) because of simple need, the interruption of building the economy and, to the end, the doom of Lithuania and conquer of one Castle of the Kiewan Rus. Then of course the need to stabilize the new situation. Later I made a stable alliance with Kiew, but the conquered Lithuan Provinces were constantly and well organized attacked by Novgorod. Also Norvegia attacked from Stettin. The attacks of Novogorod, a not so powerful faction, were extremely well organized. Always coming with family members, 2 or 3 great armies and attacking the two bordering provinces at the same time, so I really had trouble. But so far I kept the HRE calm and managed to make an alliance thanks to the negotiation of an extremely charming princess and 5000 florines. Also, it was possible to by peace and trade from Novgorod, although it was “demanding”, with 3000 florins at one point.

Rebellions/Public-Order:
Shortly before I stopped playing yesterday I experienced a Lithuanian rebellion. Their former capital was ruled by an extremely capable but now aging Lord, who I sent to put down am army of rebels and who did not make it back to town in time. That simple, avoidable mistake caused a serious crisis for the whole realm, the town rebelled (from public order 55%) to Lithuania, the faction reemerged and now I have to deal with a full Lithuanian doomstack, while the HRE, although allied, is threatening me in the west. A very thrilling situation. Very good mechanics here!

Conquering abroad:
The mechanics work, it costs much money to conquer abroad. This is simply a good and realistic feature, I think.

Mechanics according aggressive player-style:
Here I experienced some kind of a bug: when I conquered Stettin from Norway, provoked by a Norwegian attack, this happened: I got a message, that I conquered 5 provinces so far, which was true. At the same turn, I got a message, that my playing style was too aggressive, causing rebellions throughout my realm, suggesting to slow down. Also about 7 “resistance” messages in my provinces popped up. That was certainly not right, because Stettin was the first province I conquered since the war in round 66, that was 30 years ago. Certainly not an aggressive playstyle. One turn later a message came, that the seat of power in one of my provinces was removed to another place, an my faction heir, in his 40ies, who conquered Stettin, died at this unusual age. But no seat of power was removed. Anther turn later, a message came, that I now conquered 15 provinces, which is obviously not true, and another message, that I had successfully slowed down my conquering and the rebellions would now stop. This seems to be bugged scripts.

Loyality:
I experienced the betrayal of one of my characters in the early game around round 25. Unfortunately I did not realize the circumstances of the betrayal but only saw it a few years later. Maybe he was married off by a foreign princess. He was an important figure, 19 years old, not disloyal (I think 6/10 loyality), intelligent, firstborn son of the King. Had to carry on without him. Maybe I sent him to another town and he was caught on his way. I looked into old saves and tried to reproduce it, but could not find the reason.

Priests: Cardinal College is getting empty again.

So, I hope that helps a bit and I thank you so much for all the thrill and fun I had with this campaign so far.
Best regards QK

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 03:09 AM

Here are examples of the empires created by the players with the September version:

Novgorod 351 by QKuhlmann

Norway 79 by vovery

Denmark 217 by a Dictator's Cigar

Denmark 181 by Alex_TotalWar

*Lithuania 51 by vovery

Here's roughly the path for that save:

Took Goroden on turn 2 (name was changed automatically to Hrodna, don't know if it's intended for Lithuania or if it should apply only to the Rus/Novgorod?).
Took Riga by turn 6-8 I think & fought some rebel armies wandering the lands.
Hungary offered alliance, accepted.
Was able to focus on taking Twangste, as Novgorod didn't get through from Kolyven to Riga to possibly attack me due to a tough rebel army of ~12 units standing on the border of Kolyven and Riga. It took them many many tries to beat that army, I had my spy watching nearby.
As I wasn't attacked by anyone yet, I decided to attack Poland, and took Plock. Poland was at war with my ally Hungary, so the relations with my ally were improved to amiable.
Poland sent only a weak army to try to retake Plock, beat them off easily.
At some point Novgorod finally attacked on the capital, Kernave, but only with an army of ~10-12 units. Beat them off easily. They agreed to a peace after about 2-3 turns of my peace offerings.
Poland must've been busy with Hungary or something else, so once I had gained some strength in Plock, I went for Krakow. The total units Poland had for the defense of their capital was maybe ~13-15 in 2-3 different armies (one garrisoned, others nearby). The fight happened on the field, as Poland attacked the besieging army on their turn. There happened to be a nice farm with some fences on the battlefield, where I was able to position my troops for defense, and won the battle even though I lost maybe ~35-40% of my men. There were no localist armies spawned after either conquest, which was fortunate, as I wouldn't have had enough men to survive those.
Poland didn't even try to retake Krakow, they must've been hit hard by losing their wealthy capital. After many turns of trying, Poland agreed to a peace.
Just on the very last turn before the save, Kievan Rus attacked Krakow with an army of ~10-12 units. Beat them off easily by sallying out, they had only one Druzhina cavalry unit and two Druzhina infantry units, and no archers at all.
Overall, felt like I got quite lucky on many occasions, and it might be difficult to achieve the same situation again so quickly. And had I played longer, I'm expecting Novgorod and Poland would've attacked in a similar fashion like the Kievan Rus just did at the end. Fighting 2-3 simultaneous wars would've been hard even with a stable economic situation.

Some remarks on early Lithuania:

The unit roster is very strong and versatile right from the start! The horse skirmishers are a precise counter against heavy enemy cavalry, whereas Lithuanian raiders can deal with enemy javelin cavalry, and ducal cavalry can deal with enemy archers and light infantry. Giltine's Chosen are a monster of a troop; lowish recruit and upkeep costs, free upkeep in settlements with an altar for Giltine, high damage & armour, and good traits. At times they feel even a bit overpowered at least for the early game. There's basically no reason to recruit the heavy axe unit available from Lithuanian landowners once you get 2-3 settlements with an altar for Giltine built, as the landowner unit costs about 1,6k to recruit, and is even a bit weaker by stats.
The movement bonuses Lithuanian generals have are nice, and once you've built dirt tracks, you can quite easily defend various settlements with generals and different cavalry units from central settlements like Kernave. The only worry I had was Twangste, as it's a bit isolated compared to the other settlements, and Lithuania doesn't have access to ships in the early game, but fortunately no one attacked it.
Pagan priests/shamans develop very slowly, and human-played Lithuania is inevitably going to steadily lose religious foothold in its settlements, even with many priests patrolling the lands. But this didn't provide any problems in the early game, and on the lands taken from the Poles, paganism is actually on the rise again. A big problem was when my best shaman turned into a heretic, and I didn't even dare to try exorcism on him, as he has full piety. He's actually still there near Riga, and even my best shaman would have only a chance of about 25% for the exorcism. Not worth the risk.
The diplomatic situation in the beginning of a Lithuania save is enjoyable, as it offers various options for the player after taking nearby rebel settlements. You can wait for Novgorod to attack you (they will at some point, as they start allied to Kievan Rus, and have pretty much no other directions to go to except west), or attack Poland or Kievan Rus, as both of them start at war, the firstly mentioned against Hungary, and the second against the Kipchaks.

Originally Posted by Macaras

Vovery, thank you for the report! I think though that if you continue playing you may be surprised because the difficulty will raise. In the first 50 turns there are some mechanisms still working that will make player's life easier: Lowered invade priority (until turn 50), additional lowered invade priority if you are already in war, even more if you are at war with 2 enemies (until turns 100 and 150), allies more trustworthy (until turn 70). I think that with your reputation of Untrustworthy at this point you may soon become a target for some other faction I think your way of starting a campaign is the most effective, sometimes there is no other way then to erase some enemies from the map since the very beginning otherwise they become too much of a problem later. I wish we had some scripts that will check the player's faction and adjust the starting armies, so these kind of blitzkrieg in the very beginning would be impossible. That's maybe something to add to 'to do' list.

Poland 360 by opaxite

Poland 257 by Macaras

*Poland 103 by QKuhlmann

*Poland 133 by QKuhlmann

Hungary 306 by Gaku

Hungary 223 by Gaku

Hungary 234 by Gaku

Hungary 195 by hazman232

HRE 104 by Nemesis

HRE 200 by Waluk

HRE 340 by Waluk

HRE 142 by meltorizor

HRE 321 by EmperorAlex

France 463 by valerius karamanus

France 108 by Kostic

France 218 by K_med2

Originally Posted by K_med2

VH,VH difficulty I've played with.
I've used Norman Sergeants quite often in the beginning as an elite unit. They cost 572 Florins per turn but allows you to confront both heavy cav and heavy infantry. I've used 3 or 4 units of archery unit (2 of 3 crossbow militia and 1 archer(French)) unit in my full stack armies. I've tried to use same Mailed knights in different armies in different battles to reduce army upkeep in general. This helped me a lot for winning against HRE. The rest of my army, my main line infantry, were consisted of Spearman unit, it has 11 defence and 330 Florin upkeep. If you fully upgrade their armor (to the gold armor), they will have 14 defence; which is a very very high number for unit of 330 Florin upkeep, they become very decent unit.
My main tactics were as follows:
When beiseged, I attack with my full stack garrison to the enemy; mostly tryed to bring the fight in front of the walls where my archers and towers help me to kill of the enemy.
Both in siege and open battles, I usually try to cripple the enemy's cavalry with 1 or 2 units of Breton cavalry. After this either they dispatch their cav (sometimes general) from their main army or try to fully commit an assault on my main army. If they dispatched their cav and possible general's bodyguard I easily kill them with crossbows, spearman etc. The remaining infantry was very easy to surround and force them to flee. If they commit a full assault on me, I've lots of spearman and 3 4 units of archery units, I generally won the battle, maybe after killing the enemy general.
Additionally, I've tried to use more cav than enemy if possible. Or a combination of 2 heavy cav and 2 Breton cav. Please note that one breton cav's missile count is enough to entirely kill a mailed knight unit of 60 person. OR you would cripple (reduce their man count to 15-25 men) 2 units of mailed knights instead completely killing an entire unit that will benefit more I guess.
In the very beginning, I took out most Rebel settlements and kicked England out of France. England attacked me in the very beginning, but I completely kicked them out from France. Later on HRE tryed to invade, after I've won the multiple invasions of HRE and England sometimes (they bring their full stacks to Rouen; but they have one armada hence they can only gather 1 full stack army near Rouen), I took out Toulouse and Bordeaux from Aragorn, they're already weak faction, they were challenged by Moors and Castille in Iberia. As far as i remember, even they offered me a peace treaty. With these two extra cities (one of them was citadel

), i did not have diffulties with economy and invaded Britain with my almost full stack armies. After some point my economy was so powerful that I did not have any difficulty.

Originally Posted by K_med2

In the game Notre Dame didn't seem to provide particular benefits, so I did not invest to it too much

(. I guess that was bad choice for the low piety. I didn't know that Mont Saint Michel was related to piety but i guess so. I am not French; i was just wondering how is like to play with a central European faction, with less archery units. Archery units are indeed allows you to win battles with very less losses, however i still used them very often in the campaign. The difficulty was VH/VH. But I quickly kicked England out of France and kept stable relations with Aragon. But there was a time I had very hard time from Holy Roman Empire, moved mostly all my power to their border but I've managed to keep them from the original French cities. I think after the 3rd time I've repelled them, I took out their less defended nearby settlements like Speyer, Frankfurt etc. But crippling the Holy Roman Empire took about 100-120 turns. Additionally, I've used lots of spies to open the gates in the first time that I've sieged a settlement; because the Pope does not allow you to siege settlements for more than 1 turn

. So spy usage was essential in my progress. A similar advance also happened for capturing the south and middle of Britain. After the England launched an 3rd invasion that I've repelled, I've captured Bristol and Norwich, waited for Pope's ceasefire, then quickly took out London within th first turn after the Pope's mission finished, again with the help of spies.
The current problem actually I've been facing is the following: Now I am pretty powerful, nobody dare to attack me. Hence my faction heir has no chance to improve his capabilities and his authority. The game killed due to old age (64) that guy while crusading Valencia (to improve piety, I requested Crusade, I was going to gift to Papal States after the conquest.) However he had "tidy and clean" trait which allows the character to live until 75+ ages. After this point, the game picked a very low authority and low capable faction member to be the heir. Even though I kill the uncapable heir or king; the game started to always pick the most ill and least capable family member. The latest heir was so ill that he barely moved from his city to the nearest Rebel force in 7 turns, a healty family member would do that travel in just 1 turn. That is the point I guess I stopped playing

. In short, due to lack of wars, I was having hard time about my average family member quality. Maybe from the very beginning if I was more curious about the royal line and wish I've started improving Rheims from the very beginning. For most of my campaign, there was no general in Rheims. It stayed as a large town for most the first 150 turns. I was late about the requirements of "crown", it was so late that royal line was disrupted. The below picture shows his movement range and one his illnesses. All of the medieval illnesses are found in his traits

He is ugly, cruelly deformed, some other illnesses and leprosy. As far as i know, leprosy illness is developed from the childhood, but he got leprosy illness in his 40's as i remember.
Attachment 368741
However, I have very powerful family members with their wives being the French princesses with too much charm. To improve my heir quality, I've married my princesses with the strongest militariled minded and militarily educated, compat proven family members. However, the game never picks them for faction heir. Indeed I tried to keep the princesses that I've married with them to have full legitimate nobility ( like mother is noble, not just a courtesan).
I will add the latest save, if you ever look one more time. Currently my family is even broken or the mod is trying to generate a civil war so that a new accepted royal line will be formed. I don't know what to do other than leaving the campaign play

Originally Posted by kostic

@K_med2: Your experience is all the more interesting for me as I am currently pursuing a campaign with France, myself in VH/VH. I'm at 1186 and you could see my progress in the thread of screenshots/campaign maps.
What's good is that I didn't play the same way as you, remaining at peace with the English for a long time. The HRE began attacking me seriously around 1160 and has not granted a ceasefire until today, so it has been my constant adversary for 26 years !
That's what I like about this game: each campaign can be different even when using the same faction.

Flaws that I have not yet noticed and which seem to be demotivating for your campaign:
1 - be forced to go through the spy to capture a city because the pope threatens excommunication from the first round of siege
2 - the degradation of the royal family for lack of wars and the fact that the heirs are chosen by the sickest generals
3 - the inflation of the treasure to the point of no longer fearing any opponent
In my case, the battles follow one after the other (almost only against the holy empire) and prevent me from building. Almost all my money goes into recruiting units.

Originally Posted by K_med2

Actually i was never the one who started the wars including Aragorn and England.I remeber i disbanded or moved most of the non free upkeep units from those borders( Rouen and south of france), i guess that was the reason that they tempted to attack my less defended but relatively developed cities. I suggest you to be careful with England, their last invasion attempt was very serious with full stacks mostly composed of miles/miles pedites. As i remember, they managed to take Rouen, they battled the city just 1 turn after they saterted sieging. However iwas able to kill most of their heavy inf in the siege battle so that my late relief force easily managed to take the city back, even using autoresolve battle. So long story short be careful with them, maybe you can even use Rouen as a bait then you can invade London. If you manage to take London, it will give you 10k florin per turn that will seriously help with the economy and war with HRE. Also i had good kings with good exploring abilities; in just 1 turn the good fighter king was able to come to paris from the HRE border. However he was called battler, that is why i was attacked by those two factions.

And for the unable to develop due to war with HRE, i suggest you to build roads or farms whenever you find extra construction money. Because technically with thr same amount of florin, you will be developing your cities for longer turns

and try to be active in the war, whenever you have the opportunity try to take out their border settlements, they have 4 good settlements very nearby to each other. After you captured them, they won't be able to cause you much problem. Also it is very pity that other than France, nobody (poland, norway, italian states) attacks them. That is also making them a harder enemy to reckon with

Yes, i agree with your comments for my campaign. Wish i could have invested more on religion and i wish i would have only invested in legit family members, maybe kill the others.

I have one last question unanswereed: is there a way for a FH to know whether he will be a regent/usurper or a legitimate king?? The same question also goes for all male family members. Can we know exactly who is legit and who is not, 100% percent ??

Venice 49 by MikeFriks

Venice 104 by Co22

*Venice 354 by krekker

Sicily 202 by perun74

Castille 150 by Djangoo

Aragon 160 by Mr_Sneeze

Aragon 68 by kostic

Portugal 92 by ?

Almoravids 111 by SkyrinV

Almoravids 190 by a Dictator's Cigar

Serbia 61 by vovery

Romaioi 236 by dfz

Romaioi 175 by yoba99

Originally Posted by yoba99

There is two viable strategies at the start that I figured out over replaying first 20-40 turns over and over for 6-8 times (I really like both this mod and byz roaster). Number one - completely crush Rum sultanate in first ~5 turns. That is easily attainable, leave garrison at Dyrrachium, collect your troops from everywhere else + train more pronoiars on the way, use fleets that you get at the start, figure it out how to do it fast. You can also buy mercenaries in rum regions, but it is possible to play without them and without bug abusing. If you do it fast - Rum gets no time to conquer Caesarea and the anatolian region is yours to conquer. However, this tactic gives advantage to Georgian and Crusaders kingdoms, as they will have more free land to conquer and you soon will have share border with them. Second strategy that I came to prefer more is to let Rum sultanate get Caesarea. You do mainly same thing as in first strategy, but stop for 2-3 turns after getting Ancyra. Use your spy in anatolia to find out when they get Caesarea, and then take Iconium. After that I'm pretty sure you can push for peace, maybe they will ask 1-2k gold for it, but its really worth it. Keep medium sized legions in both Ancyra and Iconium, disband or relocate mercenaries and pronoiars (leave 2 units of pronoia + whatever else in each town to be safe, oh and probably you will have to "let them have it" after getting the both towns to manage public order better).

Meanwhile you doing that you should also get your boats to Chersoneses and take everyone but a single unit of spearmen from there to conquer Sinope. Cumans gonna send stack after stack after stack for that settlement, it is near impossible to defend it from them at this point in the game. If you dont really mind - make sure that Nikiphoros Vryennios (yes, that one I assume, although I haven't read anything about him being a governor of Chersoneses) stays in Chersoneses for a turn, and then you can give title "strategos of Chersoneses" to your governor in Sinope, you can start right after taking it, appoint another general as governor of Sinope and the transfer said ancillary from Nikiphoros to him, as he is very old and gonna die in ~10 firs turns or even sooner, and bonuses of said title are enormous, helps growing any settlement. After that you can take Trapezous, but yo will have to do it fast as Georgia tries to take it at the start of the game as well. Obviously, you will have to leave a garrison there.

Next move is to build up your economy. If you left Rum alive with only Caesarea in possession, they will go for surrounding rebel towns, and then for Crusaders kingdom. Let it be - its nice to have a weak buffer state between you and crusaders at the start. If you destroyed Rum completely - well, make sure to take Caesarea and Sivas, but I never managed to make a Alliance with Crusaders (or a lasting peace), so keep some troops ready for next war.

I will assume that you choose to keep Rum alive as a weak buffer. Next you want to focus on building up your cities. Mix quick building with long projects like roads and farms so you would have most of the settlements busy. If you have some leftover cash - convert Chandakas and Attaleia to cities, little to no point in castles there. Do not go in for Targoviste - cumans will attack and you need additional income to protect it (and you dont have it right now). Instead build up barracks and bowers in Tarnovgrad and Adrianopolis, also build Alchemist's lab in Adrianopolis = flamethrowers, man. Cumans will always come for Tarnovgrad and sometimes also attack Nassios. Always keep a full stack at Tarnovgrad and a half stack at Adrianopolis. As soon as you fight off another cuman horde - merge, replenish from Adrianopolis, retrain wounded in Adrianopolis. Make a good bower building in Adrianopolis and Italian traders building in surrounding cities - soon after you will get access to Gasmuli = crossbowmen with stakes. As cuman hordes consist mainly of horseback archers, you know what that means - stakes right after the gates, easy win. I never managed to pay off cumans or make a lasting peace treaty with them. In first ~150 turns they never attack other NPC and other NPC never attack them, so you are on your own. Their settlements are small and produce little to no gold, so its really pointless to go and conquer them. If you do - remember to destroy nomad encampments after settlement reaches goal for grows, as it prevents you from building carpenters (required for upgrading walls).

After getting a steady flow of cash you can start preparing a legion for invasion of Italy. Start with Skadar if normans own it, if serbia owns it - leave it for them and take Bari instead. This is also a good time to ally yourself with Pisa and Hungary. Also some time before that Venice gonna start blockading random ports, not much you can do about. Southern Italy is a real cashcow that is easy to protect with a half-stack in Bari + garrisons in Napoli and Regium. Don't go for Rome, not worth the trouble. After that continue building up economy and start preparing for war with Rum.

Couple of little advices:
1) Check buildings in every settlement you take, there is stuff like slave bazar or nomad encampments that have negative impact and its better to get rid of them.
2) Make sure to train your symbasileus, you REALLY don't want to have a faction leader with authority <4.
3) Oh, and if your symbasileus is a illegitimate heir or usurper - get rid of him. Make sure your symbasileus married with children, you don't want a civil war.
4) Send your new young generals to Constantinople and keep them there until they are 18-20, so they can get the best education.
5) Build up those watchtowers! At least on the borders. I prefer them everywhere so I can see my whole realm (and every rebel army that spawns).
6) Don't marry your princess to a fathimid general turned to Catholicism if you dont want to ruin your campaign.

Romaioi 97 by yoba99

Rum 340 by murats987

Georgia 299 by Macaras

Kingdom of Jerusalem 140 by SkyrinV

Fatimids 83 by SurfinBird

Fatimids 148 by kostic

Abbasids 149 by a Dictator's Cigar

Abbasids 161 by minhnd6789

next 1 by one

**Waluk** · September 12, 2022, 04:51 AM

Already downloaded, can't wait to try. Was just finishing my frankish campaign.

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by Waluk

Already downloaded, can't wait to try. Was just finishing my frankish campaign.

Upload a save anyway in the thread on the April version.

**j.a.luna** · September 12, 2022, 07:06 AM

Great stuff sship team!!! Is it savecompatible with my old english campaign? Or i need to delete the old sship version and install the new version with my save archive.
ABOUT UNITS:
-For byzantines, why have they axe militias and georgian archers? I understand that urban crossbow militias were the italian influence in Constantinople and other cities...
-Naffatun also were used by Byzantium( greek fire in grenades)
And about archers... I think is historical add Welsh longbowmen at the beginning of the game as AOR unit( also welsh spearmen) in Wales region, and after (+50 turns?) They could be recruited in more english regions ( London, York, Bristol...)

- I understand that georgian light archers are as AOR units, not a factional jerusalem unit, for a factional unit Jerusalem should have Turcopoles as horse archers and also as foot archers, who were Muslims converted to Christianity and Christians born in Muslim customs who fought for the Crusader states but in the most Eastern form (archers and horse archers), a unit called "Poulains" (see Broken Crescent mod) could also be created who were second or third generation Christians born in the Levant fighting for the Crusader states, different from the Crusader knights and troops that came from Europe...

On the other hand with the new version I will be able to modify the EDU, descriptions and unit stats for my minimod.

THANKS TO SSHIP TEAM AND JURAND FOR THEIR HARD WORK!

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 08:03 AM

Not compatible.
Byzantines and other factions get access to those units only in the regions where these units could be levied (kind of AoR).
Welsh longbowmen / English Archer Militia - all to be reviewed in the future. For now, there seem to be too many archer units. They should be replaced by one another.
Turcopoles - yes, agains, it's to be reviewed.

**Gaku** · September 12, 2022, 08:44 AM

It feels like a completely different game with the slower recruitment pools. I generally like the changes. a lot of balancing. the different melee units have actual pros and cons now, instead of just being universally better or worse.
The only problem I'm having is that Magyar Cavalry are so restricted. in effect, only available in one province.
The Byzantines attacked, so time to restart. (They just randomly blockaded me for no reason to declare war? wat?) They're completely unbeatable under these circumstances. Aside from that, the campaign was going great.

**Khevsur** · September 12, 2022, 08:51 AM

j.a.luna

Georgian Cavalry helped Byzantines several times.There would be Georgian Cavalry in Jerusalem as well.

After the conquest of eastern Georgia(The Mongols could not conquer Western Georgia because of swamps and deep forests), the Mongols took many Georgian horsemen to the wars of conquest

Archers of Georgian(Kartvelian) origin were probably Lazi (Tzanni) Archers from Trebizond. I do not know about the presence of Georgian archers in the army of other countries

**kostic** · September 12, 2022, 08:53 AM

The file size is even smaller than last time.

I hope that the event image files prepared by @Cephalophore are integrated !
I find it hard to do without them as they improve the historical immersion.

**j.a.luna** · September 12, 2022, 11:59 AM

Another question about units, in the current version, where is possible recruit african archers, african spearmen a d african javelinmen, only see sudan warriors in the barracks in my egyptian campaign...

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by j.a.luna

Another question about units, in the current version, where is possible recruit african archers, african spearmen a d african javelinmen, only see sudan warriors in the barracks in my egyptian campaign...

African Archers and Sudan Warriors are normally recruited (Archers from the ranges), Afr Spearmen are mercs (iirc), and the Javelinmen were disabled.

**King Frederich I** · September 12, 2022, 12:59 PM

Is this version compatible with the submod KCC 0.9.5?

**sepas10** · September 12, 2022, 01:07 PM

Hello to the modding team, love your dedication to this game and I have had a great time playing it in the past, I'm just about to start a new campaign but I have a question:

1. In every campaign I played the AI would usually attack my cities/castles with forces similar or slightly larger than my own, even though they have troops to spare. But why? If the AI is trying to win they should try to guarantee their victory and attack with full stacks or at least triple the size of the defensive force if possible. Is this a MED2 engine thing?

Anyway I'll be jumping into a new campaign, thanks for the work you guys put into this dumb 16 year old game

**yoba99** · September 12, 2022, 01:27 PM

Welp, Rum destroyed in turn 4 - after me taking Ancara stupid AI takes all his forces to Kaiseri and I get Konya in a relatively easy siege fight

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by King Frederich I

Is this version compatible with the submod KCC 0.9.5?

KCC is included in this version.

**j.a.luna** · September 12, 2022, 03:28 PM

Hi sship team, i found a bug in my english campaign with new versio (september), I get desktop crashes when I reach the rebels turn and I can't get past turn 88, I have to say my save game is the old version (April) and I cut and paste it into the new version to continue it, it didn't give me any problems until After a few turns, I leave you the necessary files.

Ingleses.rar system.log.txt

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by j.a.luna

Hi sship team, i found a bug in my english campaign with new versio (september), I get desktop crashes when I reach the rebels turn and I can't get past turn 88, I have to say my save game is the old version (April) and I cut and paste it into the new version to continue it, it didn't give me any problems until After a few turns, I leave you the necessary files.
Ingleses.rar system.log.txt

the versions are not save-compatible, they'll crash at some point.

**Gaku** · September 12, 2022, 04:16 PM

It occurred to me that the recruitment slowdown changes the game in the same way that "marathon" timescale effects Civilization. You get more actions per universal unit of recruitment. Since this also applies to the AI, it means they can't out-recruit your actions like they could in the last version. Or put another way, you and the AI both have to be more careful with your units, because you can't replenish them instantly like you could before. And since the AI is generally worse at managing units on a macro level, this makes it much easier to win against comparable factions by out-microing them. On the flip side, if a nation that greatly outclasses you declares war on you, it means you're stuck with what you have and can't spam units to deal with the threat.

Over all, I do like the changes. In some cases it makes the game way easier (you can run circles around comparable factions). and in others way more tedious and difficult (trying to reinforce losses, dealing with OP factions).

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by yoba99

Welp, Rum destroyed in turn 4 - after me taking Ancara stupid AI takes all his forces to Kaiseri and I get Konya in a relatively easy siege fight

I've modified the script helping Rum. I'd also change the initial setting from being at war, into peace.

Code:

	;====================================================================================================== Turcoman Help for Rum	; the goal is to make the life of Byzantium more difficult early game (when it matters)
	; script is a modification of the William Wallace script
	; no time limit - but can be introduced in the future
	; in the playtests it did not prevent the Biz player from overwhelming Rum


	monitor_event PreFactionTurnStart FactionType rum
		and I_EventCounter faction_size_small == 1
		and DiplomaticStanceFromFaction byzantium = AtWar
		and RandomPercent < 50
		and I_EventCounter Turcoman_Help_for_Rum < 1


		log -------------------- Script : Turcoman Help for Rum (1) INFORMATION ---------------------


		historic_event TURCOMAN_HELP_RUM


		log -------------------- Script : Turcoman Help for Rum (2) TERMINATION AFTER ? -- to be modified in the future


		if I_NumberOfSettlements rum < 1
			terminate_monitor
		end_if


		log -------------------- Script : Turcoman Help for Rum (3) FUNDING FOR THE ARMIES -----------


		if I_EventCounter temp_purse_rum < 1			; in case it was increased somewhere else in the script
			add_money rum 5000							; in case the faction is in debts and would disband the armies outright
			increment_kings_purse rum 5000				; to ensure the AI doesn't disband the armies for some time
			inc_event_counter temp_purse_rum 21			; this counter goes down in another script and after 20 turns this additional income is removed
		end_if




		log -------------------- Script : Turcoman Help for Rum (4) SPAWN OF ARMIES ------------------


		if RandomPercent > 80
			log ------ spawn Orhan Arslan
			spawn_army
				faction rum
				character	Orhan Arslan, named character, age 35, x 307, y 123, family
				traits LoyaltyStarter 3 , MilitaryInclination 1 , Military_Edu 3 , GoodCommander 2 , ReligionStarter 1 , Royal_Blood_Rum_Turkish 1 , BiologicalSon 1 , Handsome 6 , Intelligent 8
					unit	ME Bodyguard				exp 3 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 7 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 1 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 7 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 1 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 7 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 4 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
			end


			inc_event_counter Turcoman_Help_for_Rum 30		; it goes down in another script
		end_if


		if RandomPercent > 60
			log ------ spawn Ahmed Arslan
			spawn_army
				faction rum
				character	Ahmed Arslan, named character, age 25, x 306, y 123, family
				traits LoyaltyStarter 3 , MilitaryInclination 1 , Military_Edu 2 , GoodCommander 1 , ReligionStarter 1 , Royal_Blood_Rum_Turkish 1 , BiologicalSon 1 , Handsome 4 , Intelligent 6
					unit	ME Bodyguard				exp 3 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 7 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 7 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 7 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 4 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
			end


			inc_event_counter Turcoman_Help_for_Rum 30		; it goes down in another script
		end_if


		if RandomPercent > 40
			log ------ spawn Fakih Arslan
			spawn_army
				faction rum
				character	Fakih Arslan, named character, age 20, x 306, y 124, family
				traits LoyaltyStarter 3 , MilitaryInclination 1 , Military_Edu 1 , Austere 1 , ReligionStarter 1 , Royal_Blood_Rum_Turkish 1 , BiologicalSon 1 , Handsome 4 , Intelligent 6
					unit	ME Bodyguard				exp 3 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Ghulams						exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 4 armour 1 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkomans					exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 4 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
					unit	Turkish Horse Archers		exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
			end


			inc_event_counter Turcoman_Help_for_Rum 30		; it goes down in another script
		end_if


		log -------------------- Turcoman Help for Rum (5) CHANGES IN DIPLOMACY ------------------


		if I_SettlementOwner Konya = jerusalem
			console_command diplomatic_stance rum jerusalem war
		end_if


		if I_SettlementOwner Konya = georgia
			console_command diplomatic_stance rum georgia war
		end_if


		if I_SettlementOwner Konya = kievan_rus
			console_command diplomatic_stance rum kievan_rus war
		end_if


		if I_SettlementOwner Konya = serbia
			console_command diplomatic_stance rum serbia war
		end_if


		log -------------------- Turcoman Help for Rum (6) END ------------------


	end_monitor

**Jurand of Cracow** · September 12, 2022, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by Gaku

It occurred to me that the recruitment slowdown changes the game in the same way that "marathon" timescale effects Civilization. You get more actions per universal unit of recruitment. Since this also applies to the AI, it means they can't out-recruit your actions like they could in the last version. Or put another way, you and the AI both have to be more careful with your units, because you can't replenish them instantly like you could before. And since the AI is generally worse at managing units on a macro level, this makes it much easier to win against comparable factions by out-microing them. On the flip side, if a nation that greatly outclasses you declares war on you, it means you're stuck with what you have and can't spam units to deal with the threat.

Over all, I do like the changes. In some cases it makes the game way easier (you can run circles around comparable factions). and in others way more tedious and difficult (trying to reinforce losses, dealing with OP factions).

Indeed, very sound analysis! This is the way of thinking we need to adopt while developing a mod.
Knowing that one can out-micring the AI, there're additional bonuses for the small AI factions, and some also for middle ones.

Code:

	;--- AI support (Lithuania city barracks) ----------------------------------------------------		; so that it fields better quality armies (goal: to provide the player with better experience: stronger AI armies)
		; added 1 time every 4 turns (leap_year_counter 1) so that the can be recruited in one moment thus creating stronger armies


		;......... base value
        recruit_pool    "Ducal Axe"				1   0.001	2  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and not event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1
        recruit_pool    "Lithuanian Noble Sons"	1   0.001	2  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1
        recruit_pool    "L Regular Infantry"	1   0.001	2  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter FULL_PLATE_ARMOR 1
		
		;......... if Lithuania has fewer than 20 settlements
        recruit_pool    "Ducal Axe"				0   0.124	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and not event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1 and not event_counter faction_size_huge 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1
        recruit_pool    "Lithuanian Noble Sons"	0   0.124	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1 and not event_counter faction_size_huge 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1
        recruit_pool    "L Regular Infantry"	0   0.124	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter FULL_PLATE_ARMOR 1 and not event_counter faction_size_huge 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1


		;......... mobilization of citizens if the AI is in trouble
        recruit_pool    "Ducal Axe"				0   0.375	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and not event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1 and event_counter faction_size_small 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1
        recruit_pool    "Lithuanian Noble Sons"	0   0.375	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter LITHUANIA3_MINDAUGAS 1 and  event_counter faction_size_small 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1
        recruit_pool    "L Regular Infantry"	0   0.375	0  0  requires factions { lithuania, } and not event_counter is_the_player 1 and event_counter FULL_PLATE_ARMOR 1 and event_counter faction_size_small 1 and event_counter leap_year_counter 1

(frankly speaking I'm unsure if it fully works, but we're looking into it - and any report will be useful).

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Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

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Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

Re: [DOWNLOAD] SSHIP 0.98 version 2022/09/08

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