Victory conditions

[Forral]

I thought I'd say that I've been playing Beta version 3 for a while. I know there's a new version but it doesn't quite touch the issue that I'm speaking about.

I have played as Siciliy, brought down Milan and Venice before they could quite get on their feet, pushed the Byzantians out of greece and all the way into turkey, and cleared most of the islands of the mediterranean of hostiles. My empire is spread from Marsielle in southern France, through the whole of Italy (Including Rome), Greece and all the way to Constantinople.

I hold 33 provinces, and need only Zaragoza in Spain and Jerusalem to acheive the victory conditions for my faction.

The issue here is that only around 80 years has passed. Just now have we begun building stone walls, and the heavy mail isn't even avaliable yet. Basically I'm still in what would be called the Dark Ages, and I've soon finished the Grand Campaign.

It seems to me like an utter waste of the potential of the mod to have the player expand like a snail in order to savor the features it offers.

I recommend this:

Significantly extend the Grand Campaign

Keep the number of special provinces required low, but increase the needed number of provinces to the double. Over the lapse of almost 2000 turns it should not be that much of a problem even for an intermediate player to capture and hold 60 provinces (which is double the amount required in Beta 3)

Possibly, the Short Campaign (which today no one seems to play) could be changed to require the 30 provinces the Grand one today requires.

This is all to provide the player with something to actually do while they wait for technological advances.

Other things that would be possible to make use of the extended time in the mod is:

Increasing building times
Reducing movement speeds

However most of those changes would feel more annoying than rewarding, and few people would be very happy about them. So I again suggest the above - Double the required provinces for victory.

-Forral-

[tornnight]

When 1.9 is complete, you will have the option to choose your build times.
Version 1.8 does this.

I can't reduce the movement anymore. The AI isn't able to reliably pathfind at lower movement speeds.

You can continue playing even after you fulfill your win conditions.

I think the problem is the difficulty. It seems that it was too easy for you to conquer a quarter of the world.

[Lord Arne]

When I play I dont think about the win condition. I try to play my time and dont think about I have top do that to win. But, we al play differently. But I agree, its a bit easy to achive the win condition if I do think about it. Giving the example as Forral said, lowering the specific provinces and hightening the total ammount might help with this.

[Sulla's Dog]

I think the problem is the difficulty. It seems that it was too easy for you to conquer a quarter of the world.

I agree that the solution is to make it more difficult, not just add more prequisites to the win condition.

Perhaps unit cost adjustments will fix this?

[Forral]

You can continue playing even after you fulfill your win conditions.

I think the problem is the difficulty. It seems that it was too easy for you to conquer a quarter of the world.

Although I know continued play is possible after the victory conditions are reached, I'm personally not too fond of continuing then. It turns a little to sandboxy for me.

Either way, it's quite possible that it was too easy to win.

It was accomplished mostly using swarms of mercenary units, while keeping really cheap units protecting my cities. Sicilian Halbardiers, pikemen and the like, which are basically for free, possibly because of their low armor ratings.

I had most of my cities focused on income production, so roads, trade facilities and ports was on the top of my building priorities list, getting me a rather large income every turn.

Also I had no navy, or many agents. It was simply bliztkrieg using the vast amounts of mercenaries avaliable supported by the few strong military troops I could build. Such as the Sword and Buckler men that were avaliable.

Dunno if that helps, but that's basically how I played. Also since I paid no heed to diplomacy at all, and merely attacked any target of opportunity within my reach I was quickly excommunited. When excommunicated, I stormed Rome, killed the pope and replaced him with one of my own cardinals for a quick fix to my reputation and an abrupt end to crusades on my capital.

Edit: Perhaps it would suitable to make mercenaries more expensive in comparsion to regular troops of similar strength. I don't quite remember if they are already, but if they are it's not quite noticable. Also, perhaps it's viable to significantly reduce their morale as a way to portray their shifty alligiences.

Even more interesting would be if they had a tendancy to desert, much like the troops may do during crusades. I'm not sure if it's possible to do though.

-Forral-

[tornnight]

LOL. Thats quite funny.

I haven't gotten around to readjusting Mercenary recruitement costs. I've been waiting for the Mercenary / Auxiliary Project to finish.

[tornnight]

Partly.
However, that will weaken the AI as well.
Just need a smarter AI. Hopefully patch 2 will help a bit.

[Irishmafia2020]

I edited the win to require 70 provinces. It is very easy to adjust them, simply go into the mod files and find the desc_win_conditions file(that's its approximate name) and change them to whatever you like. Personaly I like the special province requirements, and I think the game is balanced well as it is.