SSHIP - General Discussion

[eyelurker]

a full stack of specialty Roman units materializes out of the blue, to fight my ragtag militia and mercenary garbage which is all I've been able to scrounge together since the start of the game. Furthermore there is no reason for the Romans to be here. Of all the provinces the Romans border, non-rebel-occupied Lower Serbia makes the least sense to go after as a first strike. a province that is more heavily defended than other ones that are more reasonable options for the AI. This makes the entire conflict seem like a case of "screw the player" rather than a legitimate AI decision.

Of course I lost.

So my solution is to restart the game.

Nothing has been accomplished except wasting my time.

Gotta be real with you. That comp is trash.

Where are the mercenary frankish knight? Why scouts? Why is not full stack when your gold are 15.000? This is a frontier against Roman and you need every unit you can get.

It looks like you buy all the mercenary at the start, the only crucial one are Mercenary Frankish knight and you can get them in Transylvania and Bosnia. For Transylvania one you need to buy it turn one before Serbia stole it. Scout are garbage, never use them. Oh and Transylvania have Pechenegs as well, more horse archer are always a good thing. You also have Balkan archer, i don't use them yet because i have 3 vlach archer at the start and i simply regroup all of them to my main army. Any non cavalry and archer i have are filled with spear trash like eastern spear militia and slav levies. I admit that maybe i should have run some javelin since they have high damage, can be important to assasinate enemy general.

Finally there are mailed knight available in Zagreb, very much worth the cost.

[CleopatraIV]

Byzantines have strong units true. But they are takeable, I have wiped out byzantines with serbia by turn 40 without the financial aid script. The only thing that sucked in that campaign were the roman generals that just kept appearing next to cities, especially even in cities that were already mine along with all their neighboring provinces. And roman general bodyguards are just pain to deal with...

I would expect byzantines to be strong, they are large, have big cities, have good units, would be bad if all factions were too weak. You could also try to not pick fight with them until you are ready, diplomacy kinda works in sship if you do not expand too agresively (emphasis on the "kinda").

[Jurand of Cracow]

Byzantines have strong units true. But they are takeable, I have wiped out byzantines with serbia by turn 40 without the financial aid script.

errrr... this shouldn't be possible, we'll have to adjust parameters to make it not possible...

The only thing that sucked in that campaign were the roman generals that just kept appearing next to cities, especially even in cities that were already mine along with all their neighboring provinces.

I probabaly need to find out where it is in the script. It shouldn't happen unless these were the loyalists' armies.

[CleopatraIV]

errrr... this shouldn't be possible, we'll have to adjust parameters to make it not possible...

The reason was that I may have slightly abused the way the game forbids AI from attacking a settlement they dont neighbor (not on purpose really though). I basically blitzed their cities, by the time they got any armies in I already owned all of greece, and then for few turns they were moslty running around with tiny armies I could take down easily. If they besieged my settlement I would sometimes manage to conquer the next setllement before they could attack, so they had to lift the siege. I think I encountered a first half-stack army around the time I took the citadel, and at that point even full stack armies were takeable for me given I took over half of their empire. By the time I had my crown my faction leader had something like 50 battles fought from all the tiny 2-3 units enemy armies.

I probabaly need to find out where it is in the script. It shouldn't happen unless these were the loyalists' armies.

Dunno if it was script or what, but I had a lot of lone generals siting next to my cities in greece, and it felt like they just respawned when I killed them. And enemy armmies in front had suspiciously lot of generals as well, it almost felt like killing enemy generals is undesirable, as it would do absolutely nothing but weaken me, considering they seemed to spawn from thin air.

[Gaku]

Gotta be real with you. That comp is trash.

Where are the mercenary frankish knight? Why scouts? Why is not full stack when your gold are 15.000? This is a frontier against Roman and you need every unit you can get.

because we weren't at war. Why would I put a stack of the most expensive units in the early game, on a border that isn't part of an active war? You're assuming I had any intention of fighting the Romans.

Like I said, the war makes no sense from their end, and from my end there's absolutely nothing to be gained from fighting it. Even if I "win", I lose. So if the Romans declare war, I'm just going to restart the game. There's no reason to even play at that point.




190 turns into the game, and my nation implodes in a civil war. The game decided to make someone who married into the family the heir. How that's even possible, I can't imagine. All of my armies immediately get expelled from the settlements and take a hypothetical TWO TURNS to even attempt to siege/assault them. Which means two turns of "campaigning in enemy territory" costing ridiculous amounts of money that I don't have. The income supporting the armies is gone, so I'm immediately in the red. The "mercenaries demand payment" so even if I wanted to, I couldn't assault next turn since I won't have any armies by then. So my options are to delete all my armies, give up half my settlements, and try to rebuild, or flip the table and end the campaign.

Is this someone's idea of fun?

[eyelurker]

because we weren't at war. Why would I put a stack of the most expensive units in the early game, on a border that isn't part of an active war? You're assuming I had any intention of fighting the Romans.

Like I said, the war makes no sense from their end, and from my end there's absolutely nothing to be gained from fighting it. Even if I "win", I lose. So if the Romans declare war, I'm just going to restart the game. There's no reason to even play at that point.




190 turns into the game, and my nation implodes in a civil war. The game decided to make someone who married into the family the heir. How that's even possible, I can't imagine. All of my armies immediately get expelled from the settlements and take a hypothetical TWO TURNS to even attempt to siege/assault them. Which means two turns of "campaigning in enemy territory" costing ridiculous amounts of money that I don't have. The income supporting the armies is gone, so I'm immediately in the red. The "mercenaries demand payment" so even if I wanted to, I couldn't assault next turn since I won't have any armies by then. So my options are to delete all my armies, give up half my settlements, and try to rebuild, or flip the table and end the campaign.

Is this someone's idea of fun?

The diplomacy is somewhat a zero sum game right now, unless you become absurdly powerful that recruiting full stack elite army and building in every settlement and you still gain like 50000-100000 in cash powerful, faction will take a fight with you eventually. Ally is just a tactic to delay AI invasion.

I'm suprised that you actually manage to not expand too much and stay firmly around Hungary for 190 turns but judging from your gameplay looks like it's hell.

And finally not much can be done with heir mechanic, the mods try and fail to implement choosing heir so the best solution for heirs with wrong bloodline are bravely charging them to the thick of the enemy line and die.

[CleopatraIV]

because we weren't at war. Why would I put a stack of the most expensive units in the early game, on a border that isn't part of an active war? You're assuming I had any intention of fighting the Romans.

Like I said, the war makes no sense from their end, and from my end there's absolutely nothing to be gained from fighting it. Even if I "win", I lose. So if the Romans declare war, I'm just going to restart the game. There's no reason to even play at that point.

This is total war, a rule of thumb: assume everyone is to attack you. If I saw a weak neighbor I would invade them instantly as the player for free land grabs. As hungary it is probably hard, but a rule of thumb is to always have garrison large enough to defend every single settlement neighboring another faction. The only exception I found was papal states. Alliance can help, but sometimes they will invade you just a single turn after signing alliance. A good defended borders make them think twice about attackign from what I saw, your borders were not well enough defended. It feels like factions attitude towards you stays kinda the same, if they havent interacted with you for 20 turns chances are they wont for the next few hundred as well, if they keep invading you all the time chances are they will invade you right away even if you ally them. If they invade you from time to time they ussually are willing to sing peace after you wipe out 2-3 stacks from them, and alliance seems to delay the next invasion quite a bit. Also use spies, if you see an army moving towards you it is suspicious, if it even moves into your land it means they intend to invade, with large enough garrison they might just chill around for few turns, but probably will invade eventually anyways.

I always put nearly a full stack of units in border cities, usually the cheapest ones, no need for fancy knights, horde of militia does the job more often then not. Knights can be recruited if a need rises and militia is not readily a available.

[Gaku]

I'm suprised that you actually manage to not expand too much and stay firmly around Hungary for 190 turns but judging from your gameplay looks like it's hell.

What's too much? I typically take one province every 20 turns. In that campaign prior to the nonsensical civil war, it averaged to one every 15 turns. I decided to play it out. As expected, when I dumped all my units, my neighbors made moves to simultaneously attack. I used the provinces lost in the civil war to create buffers, cheesed most of them back through siege exploits, and gave a fortress to the HRE to secure a peace deal after they attacked me, due to the other active front (Rus) taking all my resources, plus every time they sieged Esztergom with their disposable armies it dropped my income by half.

I like how you saw one screenshot of militia garbage I assembled specifically for Serbia (which attacks 75% of the time as its opening) and assume that's how I play the entire campaign. Cheap militia garbage works great against early game Serbia. Cheap militia garbage doesn't stand a chance against the specialty troops of the ERE.

This is total war, a rule of thumb: assume everyone is to attack you. If I saw a weak neighbor I would invade them instantly as the player for free land grabs.

...are we playing the same game? In this mod, free land grabs cause civil wars. I've literally had nations fall apart just from taking a province.

As hungary it is probably hard, but a rule of thumb is to always have garrison large enough to defend every single settlement neighboring another faction.

That's what I do, but not 20 turns into the game, and not against the Romans.

Alliance can help, but sometimes they will invade you just a single turn after signing alliance.

If that was in this mod, it was a bug or a very unusual circumstance.

from what I saw, your borders were not well enough defended.

What you saw was more than sufficient to deal with Serbia. i.e. the whole reason there was a stack there in the first place.

It feels like factions attitude towards you stays kinda the same, if they havent interacted with you for 20 turns chances are they wont for the next few hundred as well, if they keep invading you all the time chances are they will invade you right away even if you ally them. If they invade you from time to time they ussually are willing to sing peace after you wipe out 2-3 stacks from them, and alliance seems to delay the next invasion quite a bit. Also use spies, if you see an army moving towards you it is suspicious, if it even moves into your land it means they intend to invade, with large enough garrison they might just chill around for few turns, but probably will invade eventually anyways.

That's all great, 50+ turns into the game, or playing as a nation that has money, or playing as a nation that doesn't have to garrison every single province.

I always put nearly a full stack of units in border cities, usually the cheapest ones, no need for fancy knights, horde of militia does the job more often then not. Knights can be recruited if a need rises and militia is not readily a available.

When every single settlement is a border settlement, this isn't feasible as a nation with 80% of your provinces being a net drain on resources for 120+ turns.
So the options are to cheese diplomacy, rely on luck, or reroll.

[hateman]

Lost my 300 turns gameplay with castilla. Its barely possible to manage the cities with the popular unrest and squalor increasing constantly, overall if nobles dies quicker than spawn. in just few turns i have lost 6 cities, some of them with a 20 unit army because of the public order and i have faced at least 3 civil wars. it is just unplayable

[Jurand of Cracow]

Lost my 300 turns gameplay with castilla. Its barely possible to manage the cities with the popular unrest and squalor increasing constantly, overall if nobles dies quicker than spawn. in just few turns i have lost 6 cities, some of them with a 20 unit army because of the public order and i have faced at least 3 civil wars. it is just unplayable

You must mean something different by "3 civil wars". Within those "few turns" you are in the middle of a civil war, and your cities are indeed rebelling. As as result, your faction is falling apart. As it happened in history (and is simulated in Thrones of Brittania, and also in the Divide et Impera mod for the R2TW).
Upload a save - possibly from just the beginning of the civil war.

[CleopatraIV]

...are we playing the same game? In this mod, free land grabs cause civil wars. I've literally had nations fall apart just from taking a province.

Dunno, I had the expanding too fast problem pop up very few times, and always it went back to good the very next turn. Expanding cca 2-3 turns between grabbing a province in the early game. The real issue was pope, have to be very careful attacking catholics and executing prisoners and exterminating settlements. Gifts proved helpful as well.

If that was in this mod, it was a bug or a very unusual circumstance.

HRE loved invading me for a long time, they always had their armies chilling outside my cities, and would occasionally attack only to sign peace after I beat half their armies not caring to expand into their territorry myself. Two-three times did they accept alliance (may have been from marrying a princess) only to attack within 5 turns later. One of those times I hoped to postpone their invasion so I got an alliance only for them to invade on the very next turn. Served them right, they got excomunicated and them wiped within like 10 turns from combined forces of poland, england, france and me (venice).

What you saw was more than sufficient to deal with Serbia. i.e. the whole reason there was a stack there in the first place.

Except that province is neighboring byzantines, so clearly not sufficient.

If that was in this mod, it was a bug or a very unusual circumstance.
That's all great, 50+ turns into the game, or playing as a nation that has money, or playing as a nation that doesn't have to garrison every single province.

When every single settlement is a border settlement, this isn't feasible as a nation with 80% of your provinces being a net drain on resources for 120+ turns.
So the options are to cheese diplomacy, rely on luck, or reroll.

I would guess so, havent played hungary yet, so no idea. Personally I would use a lot of spies to know when attack is coming, and move armies around to defend when needed. Also would consider expanding to easier settlements to defend, wooden stuff is useless.

[eyelurker]

I was going to say something about the campiagn but i have to hold it because for now it no longer mattered. My laptop seems to be cooked fried just playing the games and i have to find a better platform before i could continue my game.

[Mixons]

Guys could you advise me why this unit of Woodsmen is not having free upkeep? The castle has 3 free upkeep slots, but one is not used even if the Woodsmen unit is recruitable in this castle.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Guys could you advise me why this unit of Woodsmen is not having free upkeep? The castle has 3 free upkeep slots, but one is not used even if the Woodsmen unit is recruitable in this castle.

very few units in the SSHIP has free upkeep. Basically, only Militia (Spear/Axe), and later incarnations.
Woodsmen are local rural units and they don't.
the goal of our modding is somehow shown below, but it still needs a lot of work, and may change (eg price of the noble units? maybe)

[Mixons]

Thank you for the answer. Can I check somewhere which units exactly can have free upkeep?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Thank you for the answer. Can I check somewhere which units exactly can have free upkeep?

open export_desc_unit.txt in the /data folder, and search (Ctrl-F) for the unit you're interested in, whether it has the attribute free_upkeep.txt
If you don't know the internal name of the unit, open export_units.txt in the /data/text folder and search for the name you see in-game.

[Mixons]

Found it, thanks! Another question, because I couldn't find the answer in any thread: How do I know if specific building is providing income or generating upkeep, if in descriptions it's stated: "income or upkeep"?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Come on, isn't it clear?
- upkeep
-/+ income

[CleopatraIV]

What condition gives FL the usurper trait? I remove it using console and on the next turn he always gets it back...

[Mixons]

Come on, isn't it clear?
- upkeep
-/+ income

OMG I don't know how I missed this +- near the number, thanks!