The main structural problem of M2TW

[Klink]

Got thinking a little more about the themes raised in the castles v cities thread. The structural game problem with M2TW:

Developing lands is not worth it compared to attacking with what you have.

They point to a theme that has been central to the Civilization series, that of building vs attacking.

In Civ 1 and 2, all you needed to do was to build as many cities as possible and have them pump out chariots. A building strategy was crap compared to this most primitive of attacking strategies. With Alpha Centauri and later Civ games, the devs went heavily in the other direction to reward builders. By having many more improvements that worked far better, and also introducing corruption and a many-city penalty, builders could create an economy that would in time beat the crud out of the dedicated attacker if the attacker did not bring down the builder before then.

In LTC, Lusted wanted to slow down the game and limit all-elite armies. Good things. However, by making buildings very expensive and slow to build while lessening the pool regeneration of the new and better units from improvements, the building vs attacking balance was skewed in favour of attacking. And it was pretty bad in vanilla M2TW to begin with. The huge sacking windfall also did not work in favour of the builder.

Also, the way trade works means that a large and relatively undeveloped empire will automatically have a better economy than a small but developed one.

Finally, the AI is hopeless at bringing its economic advantage to bear on the player. Frequently the AI's armies sit in its homelands, and even refuses to engage the player when he arrives in horde fashion in its homelands.

So solutions, of which one, some or all could be implemented:

1. Make buildings economically worthwhile. Have built-up yet unconnected cities significantly outdo connected yet underdeveloped cities.

2. Make units more expensive.

3. Create a campaign AI that launches its armies at its enemies with wild abandon.

4. Eliminate rebels that hamper intra-kingdom trade.

Would love some discussion on this, and some other suggestions.

[Turbo]

As I see it 2 core buildings - city and castle are unnecessary. If you keep the city but allow it build all the buildings the castle does plus its own you have more buildings in the mix. You can then shorten the build time and cost.

I've tried doing this but haven't been able to figure out how to make stables and bowyers buildable in cities.

[Lusted]

1. Make buildings economically worthwhile. Have built-up yet unconnected cities significantly outdo connected yet underdeveloped cities.

That does happen though, cities with markets and ports will trade with cities close to them, and so make more money, so built up cities will produce more cash.

2. Make units more expensive.

Hurts the ai.

3. Create a campaign AI that launches its armies at its enemies with wild abandon.

No thanks.

4. Eliminate rebels that hamper intra-kingdom trade.

No, it makes the player think more about the territory under their control, as they have to make sure they deal with rebels that could be hurting their income.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

this game is called total WAR. you build and attack at the same time, that's the entire point of the game, not to research astronomy and build the Globe Theater.

i also don't understand your point about sacking cities. sacking cities is how you build things. i generally use all my normal income on troops and the basic cheap buildings, then when i take a city i sack it and use all the money to build the expensive stuff like earl's stables. i think you're a little harsh on the AI as well, it's MUCH better than in 1.1, more aggressive and willing to take the fight to you. but still the AI in civ was much better imo.

[Klink]

Lusted: That does happen though, cities with markets and ports will trade with cities close to them, and so make more money, so built up cities will produce more cash.

Nowhere near enough. Apart from trade ports and mines, other profit-making buildings just don't cut it. Also, in a VH/VH game, you basically trade with yourself, so a big underdeveloped empire is far better than a small developed one. For the, what, 7000 gold a great market costs, you could get a nice army instead and go take another city, increasing your trade far more. This is also central to the steamroller effect.

Do you agree with the basic problem, and if so, do you have any ideas about solutions?

[Lusted]

Do you agree with the basic problem, and if so, do you have any ideas about solutions?

No not really as i never steam roll, i just don't find it fun. It's also why the city/castle thread perplexes me a bit. Yes you can win with all militia, but it sure as hell ain't fun for most nations.

The idea of beating the game as easily and as fast as possible is anathema to me, as it's just not fun for me. I play this game for fun, and i paly in quite a slow way. I just don't get people who steamroll, or who conquer the world with militia because they want to win as quickly as possible.

[Germanicus75]

The idea of beating the game as easily and as fast as possible is anathema to me, as it's just not fun for me. I play this game for fun, and i play in quite a slow way. I just don't get people who steamroll, or who conquer the world with militia because they want to win as quickly as possible.

Agree totally!

[Lightzy]

Actually I agree with klink completely about this, but I have a pretty simple solution too.
then again, I haven't tested anything so who knows

Yes, its 'total war', but its a strategy game that can be very complex and challanging and just doesn't fulfill its huge potential because the balance between strategic gameplay and tactical gameplay(fights) is a bit skewed.
And I agree that its not generally fun to steamroll over the enemy and finish the game fast, lusted, but wouldn't you agree that it shouldn't be easier than building up and playing the 'go the pretty way round' style ?

More balance in building up your economy vs. your war machine (which is a central part of the game by design, but unbalanced) is not a bad thing.


The one simple solution I see to this is:

1)Make cities generate VERY LITTLE trade income and very little tax money, regardless of population and so on.
2) have city upgrades give VERY LOTS of trade income bonuses. so that the marketplace, roads, ports, farms, etc all are much more central to city income than just having a large population.


So, more economic focus on upgrades, less on everything else that gives income (other than merchants) .
Basically, skew the city economy base much more in favor of buildings in the city rather than the population or trade resources or whatever in the area.


This will also give the AI a big bonus because it has more money for city upgrades on H/VH, and it always has better develloped cities than the player, so it'll always keep the big economic advantage over the player throughout the game (As it always improves its cities faster and more easily), thus also increasing difficulty.



What do you think about that klink?

[Klink]

Lusted: The idea of beating the game as easily and as fast as possible is anathema to me, as it's just not fun for me.

But do you stand a chance of losing at all? I like it when I do. So far I have not lost a single game of either RTW or M2TW, in spite of all the silly mods I've used. I like being under pressure, that I have to struggle. Makes the winning so much better. I glorify in losing cities and battles. But the steamroller effect has an inverse effect on difficulty: Game starts out at its hardest, then becomes easier and easier until you win. That's not right to me.

Lightzy: A fine solution except for being based on trade, which assists the steam-roller effect. In Civ games trade was something you did only with other factions, and economy improvements were income bonuses rather than trade bonuses. In M2TW mines are the only thing that works like that, I was wondering if it's possible to add more mine levels than just the two. But I don't know a whole lot about building modding.

Possibly have a unique mineable resource called 'income', and put one in each province.

Another solution might be to exaggerate the farm levels and their tax income, then have them act as the main source of income.

[Lusted]

But do you stand a chance of losing at all?

Sometimes yes.

In any case the changes im going to be making in 2.4 should make very hard difficulty more of a challenege as the ai will gang up on you AND have enough cash to trouble you.

[Lightzy]

Klink, I think we may have a small missunderstanding here ---
the idea is indeed income is reliant on trade, but trade ITSELF relies most heavily on city upgrades, so in effect, the buildings are what gives you the cash (unless of course you're being besieged, blockaded or so on, which makes this system more sensible than mines, because mines give you income even when your city is closed up).

Basically, the result is the same.
Income relies more heavily on buildings.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

klink: play a VH campaign as Egypt. you have to hold off the crusades, the mongols, and of course the turks will inevitably turn on you. if you find this easy... well... i'm impressed.

[Klink]

Lightzy: Basically, the result is the same.
Income relies more heavily on buildings.

Not quite the same, since as you pointed out, it will also rely on not having your trade routes blocked, which is so much easier with a large empire.

Anyways, I modded the farms a little, going to try that out the next few days, looks promising. Balance is a female dog, of course, but I'll work it out. Also, I did change a few relevant invade_x parameters in the campaign ai file to invade_immediately. As Moors, I've already had Algiers under serious threat by Sicily. Looks promising as well.

QAR: I just did, with the Turks instead, and with numerous extra advantages to the AI. The only real problems are the Mongols and Timurids. But I was never in any danger of losing.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

well i am impressed. you should mod the game to make it even harder! try picking a faction for yourself, then mod the rival factions to have free units!

[Darkmoor]

Klink is correct in terms of any campaign difficulty - a steamroller effect is inevitable irrespective of embarking on a "rush" or not:

The more cities/castles you capture the greater the benefit as compared to the more improvement (to existing towns/castles) you make (In economic terms).


I know that ahving reached a certain "mass" my faction will then achieve the win conditions, playing beyond that point becomes irrelevant - I have already won why play out the rest of the turns?

Now you can argue that the "win" isn't the end of the game. It may well not be, but I would suggest that it is the end of the challenge.


In terms of gameplay mechanics CA have always struggled to combat this inevitability in gameplay - the most obvious mid/end-game counter to boredom being Plague - whereas military chaos may not ensue in your campaign you know that at some point economic chaos will (due to the plague).


Personally I think that they would do very well to add another factor, that does exist now, as a more enforced influence: Distance-to-Capital.

DtC is only a serious factor with modification of its impact (making it more significant) but is actually easy to counter (to a very large degree) by relocation of capital - that may sound obvious but it actually isn't that simple>

If my capital is london and i take all of france, flanders, ireland, wales, scotland and scandanavia, to the italian alps and northern spain, then i can counter DtC by simply relocating capital to, say, Paris... anywhere in "the middle" of my new set of provinces.

DtC thus helps set a faction radius: a distance beyond which keeping a city or castle content enough not to rebel is very problematic.

If the player is smart though he always move capital to the very middle of his empire to minimise DtC effect.


OK? Obvious in a way, yes?



So, consider this:

The player can not move his/her capital.


Have we not just radically altered the difficulty of *certain* factions, particularly those on the edges of the map.




- - -

Venice, being central, is going to be "easier" to get more provinces within a DtC (random figure coming up) of 500 miles than London (because there is very little west and north of london, but N, E,S and West of Venice are plenty of provinces)

- - -

So then imagine if, having fixed our player's capital, we then introduced a TRADE-to-Capital reduction modifier.

Essentially the opposite of the MERCHANTS positive Trade-to-Capital (TtC): i.e. a merchant trade income is increased with the distance of the trade resource away from the faction capital (or the nearest example of the trade resource to the capital).

Now, again, think of London: even where we are trading within our own faction the trade income from other provinces is reduced by distance from the capital. Again centralised faction HQs get an advantage, and "edge" faction HQs get a disadvantage (less provinces are close by).

Similarly province density (the number of provinces in any fixed area) is a factor.

We now have a law of diminishing return (for non-merchant trade) on intra-faction trading income. We also have (combined with DtC) a reason to prefer Castles over Towns in distant provinces (easier to keep them content). (and we also have a further incentive to garner maximum Merchant income rather than being able to happily ignore merchants altogether {which is very easy to do as they are never really essential})

And less towns and more castles means lower overall income, which means less ready cash for armies, which means lower ability to rush.

Furthermore it makes competition in the province-dense areas more intensive: compare the worth of one-province ireland (land mass on the edge of the map) to, say, 8 province northern italy.


And then, finally, reduce intra-faction trade incomes across the board i.e. make keeping viable trading partners a bigger bonus than it currently is and link what remains of intra-faction trade much more closely tied to the market build line i.e. help make intra-faction trading much more beneficial to towns with highly developed markets.


So to summarise:

Make Distance-to-Capital a non-optional fix by removing the ability to move faction capital (for the player)

Make non-merchant trade operate on a diminishing return basis the further away it is from capital.

Increase the appeal of Castle-provinces on empire borders due to contentment bonuses (for the goal of limiting exponential {well not quite but you know what I mean} empire income)

Make trade-rights a bigger factor than it currently is and reduce all intra-faction trade income.

KEEP rebels which also hinder intra-faction trade.

Encourage marketplace buildings (and thus towns over castles) to help maximise intra-faction income

- -

of course no idea how to do any of that

- -

A couple of interesting potential side effects:

As England (f.ex~) you would want to rapidly replace your initial castles with towns, and move your troop making facilities to the empire borders - requires management and can leave you vulnerable.

This would apply to all factions mind you, its just more intense for edge of map factions with fixed capitals... but being able to perpetually rely on starting castles to always produce your troops would no longer be a "dumb-not-to" option, indeed you would want to, and might be forced to ahve to, repalce close-in castles with towns on a regular and constantly shifting basis (as your empire expands).

Which would leave you potentially vulnerable to aggressor AI factions a lot more as you no longer have a perpetually safe, and ever safer, homeland production area which, as your empire grows, becomes more and more secure. (you always know you can elite troops from your starting provinces even if you lose some edge of empire provinces)

[Mr_Inu]

I can see Lusted's point. He even has a post where he suggests how to play LTC, and if you play by the house rules, it's quite a challenge. For example, in my recent game I decided to take no new settlements (or leave my territories with armies at all) until 1110 at least, and that made for a very good challenge. By then the AI had grabbed most rebels and had a functioning economy, and threw quite a lot at me.

Of course, in an ideal world you wouldn't have to restrain yourself to make the game challenging. I understand that point of view, and I don't like that I have to do so. But that is a basic flaw of MTW2, not a LTC problem. There are other mods that are more difficult right away, but they don't feel as real as this one. Try the house rules, and you'll enjoy LTC immensly.

[Lightzy]

darkmoor, your suggestion doesn't deal with balance though, just with pacing.
also there probably is no way to set a capital and not let the player change it :/


klink: makes sense to me that having your cities besiged and blockaded would significantly hurt your economy .. so why isn't the trade solution better than farm income?

It just reinforces the idea of 'not letting your cities get besieged/blockaded' which is probably an important thing when running an empire, and which is harder and harder as your empire grows, which is also a good thing.
It also means that blockading actually exists as a game mechanic (with farm gold or fixed 'income' buildings blockading is effectively removed from the game, at which point you may as well remove ships also).


and.. I can't enjoy house rules.. sorry..
I don't want to press 'end turn' for 20 minutes to start a game nor do I want to intentionally play badly because it only creates the illusion of challange and being a rather grounded person, its hard to delude myself that much..
Games are supposed to challange you, not make you try to lose so it looks harder to win -- but true, that is a CA problem, not a Lusted one

but I think the idea of having buildings control trade income much more than population or resources in the area will help the AI immensely because it always builds up (in harder difficulties at least. it has the money to do it).


and then, hopefully, you won't need an icky money script.

[Klink]

Lightzy: It just reinforces the idea of 'not letting your cities get besieged/blockaded' which is probably an important thing when running an empire, and which is harder and harder as your empire grows, which is also a good thing.

No, that's the thing, it gets easier as your empire grows. If your empire is deep, your enemy simply can't disrupt your heartland economy, it's a free ride then.

It also means that blockading actually exists as a game mechanic (with farm gold or fixed 'income' buildings blockading is effectively removed from the game, at which point you may as well remove ships also).

This is true, good point. Ah, what to do. Maybe reintroduce my money deduction script that subtracts money based on how many settlements you own. That would make trade important, and would also stifle the steamroller. It's just that blasted balance.

EDIT: I just lost Algiers to Milan. Bloody 'ell. That invade_immediately thing really fires up the AI. Only now it seems to be me against the world. Maybe a campaign AI that has it declare war on only its immediate neighbours.

[DrJambo]

Some good ideas here. I totally agree with Klink that the current economic system doesn't favour the buildings and instead is massively tilted in favour of conquering and sacking. Here are some of the items I think I'll be testing:

1. Increase trade income and proportionally decrease tax income. Blockading ports and besieging cities really doesn't have much economic impact on the income of cities.

2. Increasing distance to capital and corruption income modifiers.

3. Make the market line of buildings worthwhile. Right now, other than building the corn exchange for a merchant, there's little point or reward for building the more expensive buildings. Firstly, moving merchants to markets should help. Then, increasing the bonus to trade of the later buildings. Currently the bonuses go 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Maybe the later more expensive buildings should impart more than just a single incremental bonus? E.g. 2, 3, 5, 7, 10.

4. Decreasing the money received from sacking cities.

House rules are all fine and well and I like to role play a little too. However, the most enjoyment you'll get is when the challenge makes you play to the best of your ability. The start of the game always gives a challenge, but once you've got around 15 provinces and the AI cities start falling with regularity, there's not much left to stop the war machine.

[Lusted]

You lot are a fickle bunch(referring to LTC fans in general). In 1.2 of LTC, DTC, corruption and other factors were higher and people complained, so i toned them down slightly, now people want them higher again.

Trade income is already increased from vanilla, as is the bonus to order of castles, tax income is slightly down and so is farm income.

I cannot make it so merchants provide a bonus to trade income in cities, they only provide income by going out to resources.