SSHIP - General Discussion

[kostic]

@Macaras: @Umbra's solution seems preferable to me because it acts directly on the late period without affecting the early period.


Concerning the power of the AI, the amount of money it has, the number of armies it can generate simultaneously, it would be necessary:
1- either put the same financial brakes on him as the player
2- or, in the case of the most powerful factions like HRE or ERE, other limits to prevent it from producing so many armies in a chain... undoubtedly more difficult to implement to find the right balance

[adeperry]

@Macaras: @Umbra's solution seems preferable to me because it acts directly on the late period without affecting the early period.


Concerning the power of the AI, the amount of money it has, the number of armies it can generate simultaneously, it would be necessary:
1- either put the same financial brakes on him as the player
2- or, in the case of the most powerful factions like HRE or ERE, other limits to prevent it from producing so many armies in a chain... undoubtedly more difficult to implement to find the right balance

I completely agree that this needs to be looked at. It's extremely disheartening to have to face an endless supply of nearly full, high quality stacks seemingly coming from nowhere. Trying to nerf their economy by blockading all of the enemy ports has no effect. It's when this happens against an enemy that is about equal or even smaller than yourself that is becomes very frustrating.

[Sllhouette]

turn 819, 1541 AD. all of a sudden, all of my units can retrain another tier of upgrades, i'm assuming its armor. i didn't see any notice. i moused over halberds, and it showed next upgrade as "increased armor thickness" but i don't see any words for other units (they can be upgraded). i tried to see if i could find a text file of world events in the descr folders, can't. anyone know where i can read all events?

[Sllhouette]

In the late era, assuming most settlements have high tier landowners building, have a unit pool for at least 3. Perhaps reducing them into 1 can be a solution. Also to reflect the declining times of chivalry

YES! i've also brought this up before. this may only be true for scotland late-game, but many of my units are weaker, more expensive, higher upkeep, and die to nothing in one fight. but my landowner units, since early game? they fight hard against even the best late game units, they survive wave after wave, even though they have lower numbers they still take less casualties. and there's a giant pool (3) of them in every city i choose. its crazy. why would i recruit anything else when they are worse? i could have armies full of chivalric horse/foot in 1500.

i suppose you could keep them the same low cost and upkeep... but you have to severely reduce their pool to reflect the times. i thought maybe 2. but even with 2, i'm still able to get as many as i want. i think 1 is necessary. that way, it becomes an actual rare treat to have the unit. they already limit and then erase other units of the times, like mailed knights to feudal knights, so its possible

[Macaras]

Yes, I agree, I think we need to somehow rebalance the upgrades, because the knights with upgrades are very strong, they receive 2.5 defense for every upgrade. Another problem is the replenishment- it should be lowered (landowners and military orders). Jurand is working on this part of the game though, let's see his insight.

[Sllhouette]

what if late-game units were scaled up in stats, so that it would be pointless to use obsolete older units? i could see balance issues, plus they would tear through obsolete units like paper in a few seconds, unrealistic. i feel like jurand's stats for knights are reasonably strong, the problem is probably that he's only been focusing on the early game, so there's been no hard testing against late game armies. maybe you guys only have to work on late game armies to match the same balance as the knights. right now the units are so weak even though they're more "advanced". i like jurand's powerful knights. they feel like the king of units, you just don't feel ready to face your european neighbors until you've got them in your army, then you're confident.

i really wish i came into SSHIP when you guys were already working on late period. but at least when it happens and if i'm here, i'll get to appreciate the new work done to SSHIP

[Macaras]

I think the late units were never taken seriously into consideration, nobody used to play more than 400 turns (never mind 800). It seems the mod became too engaging, so the late units enter into play

[Sllhouette]

a shame because so much happens past the simple early era. plate armor, for one. it should excite players to move onto a new era where most of their troops start to wear plate. guns, as bad as they are in m2tw, are interesting in how they start to make elite units not so powerful anymore. its made me change and adapt all in one playthrough, it felt like the world within the map really was changing throughout the centuries. isn't it boring to play the same century and warfare style over and over again? why conquer a few territories, then quit the campaign after 50 turns, then do the same thing again? it doesn't seem fun to me to start over all the time. then again, you can call me crazy and say playing 800 turns is not fun, and i agree lol, i need this to be over already

[kostic]

As a unit modder, if I've never gone as far back as the end of the 13th century, it's just due to the very long time it takes to remake the anachronistic units in each faction. In the meantime, new updates are released that are not compatible with older versions, and you have to start a campaign all over again to take advantage of the improvements.
Ideally, I still have plenty of plans for later units, but you'll understand that my first priority is to get some historical credibility at the start of the game.
Our director for this mod is our friend @Jurand, and no doubt he too has plans for players who, like you, have reached the 16th century. It's been several days/weeks since he last wrote on the forum. I hope all is well with him.

[adeperry]

Another factor in this that makes it worse is the amount of money lost to embezzlement. When you're relatively small and have managed to build up to an amount where it kicks in, the waves of stacks uses that up and you cannot replenish it. Result, fewer and fewer units can be repaired/recruited and a downward spiral commences. Perhaps, the embezzlement could be changed so that it varies depending on how many cities/castles you own. If your're small, less embezlement, equating to you (leader) have tight control over few assets/generals. The lrager you get, the less control you can exert and embezzlement rises.

[Sllhouette]

actually i was thinking about embezzlement problems today too. i've gotten so used to money, that i had nearly 2 million florins, i recruited what i wanted and had stacks of captain-led armies moving around. embezzlement didn't matter. but i hit a point of actually breaking the bank, and i didn't realize i was going into debt in a few turns, that was fun. empire financial crisis. wasn't my enemies that beat me, it was money that threatened to destroy everything. anyways, i got back down to around 185k florins a turn, and i was very surprised to see there was still embezzlement. i control maybe 85% of the world, if there are banks to be built, they belong to me. but the mechanic was not designed for an empire.

if the restriction was proportionate to empire size, i would say give me up to 500k at least before embezzlement kicks in. its designed for small kingdom realism only. it seems i can't raise the ceiling any higher. also, i only remember being able to build a few banks, not every city can have them? i remember italy, and london. now, that's historical for the medieval period, but...it sucks for the game

[Sllhouette]

is there any of the old SS 6.4 climate traits present? back then, it would say if your men were used to hot or cold weather, and it would affect their stamina. i know we don't see those traits in SSHIP, but i can't help but wonder if its affecting my troops in egypt and the middle east, or if i'm imagining it

[Sllhouette]

turn 837, 1550 AD! "the rise of shot" cool to see another event this close to the end. unfortunately, i can't really see any difference, it may just be flavor text. could be that scotland just doesn't have many advanced gun units, i'm the wrong faction for this event

[Sllhouette]

elephants are insane...i finally get to recruit them as mercenaries once i reached the east edge of the map. i used one to help take a rebel persian city Merv. almost every casualty was from the elephants... i could path them through the street and stomp anyone in the way. when i do actual attack commands, they can swipe multiple people to death with one swing of their trunk, or they could do a frontal stomp that takes out multiple men too. i almost thought they were unfair...until i tried to attack the next rebel town, i sent elephants in alone without support, and they ended up going berserks at the front gate. i had to euthanize them when they started getting too close to my army. a very delicate superweapon

[Stivanderen]

Do we know what units the team plans to remove? Personally i think the late pikemen are unnecessary.

[vovery]

Referring to the AI landowner unit spam discussion earlier this month: judging by Lithuania and Norway campaigns it seems to kick in at latest by turn 100, when the AI faction has expanded their realm to nearby rebel settlements, gotten more of their settlements upgraded to a point in which landowners become available in multiple places, and has been living in peace for the most of the early game barring short disputes with their neighbours.

Take Denmark for example. In my recent Norway campaign they expanded nicely taking Ribe, Lübeck, Stettin and Visby. They attacked me at Skara only twice by turn 85, since I married a princess to their FL in early game. They lost Stettin to Poland, and signed a ceasefire some time after. The attack on Skara at turn 85 was still survivable, although we both lost most of the fighting armies. But rather than retaliating at them and going for Lund, I wanted to build up my still fragile economy, and agreed to a ceasefire.

At turn 100 I spotted the following army coming my way. The heavy infantry troops alone cost over 9k/turn on upkeep, and was simply an impossible fight to defend with my inferior armies. At this point both me and Denmark had five settlements, albeit theirs were of course more lucrative due to better locations and higher populations. I loaded up an earlier save at turn 85, right before agreeing to a ceasefire, and went for Lund to cripple Denmark for good it seems, as they didn't even try to take it back, but offered a ceasefire as soon as their princess made her way to Lund.



I don't mind having a tough time and losing settlements to the AI, and think the AI needs a lot of help to offer a challenge to the player, but this kind of army composition is indeed disheartening, as someone put it earlier. It simply takes the fun out of big battles. Not only because of how strong the AI army is because of those landowner units, but because it also means their armies lack variation. AI Denmark recruits very few castle barracks, stables or range units, even though their capital is a castle.

[Sllhouette]

good data vovery. even though the mod is meant for the player, the game can't help but be designed around the AI. we know we can't improve the AI to play like a human. therefore, the only real way is to give them insane bonuses. so i'm thinking the mechanics too must be scaled around the AI.

having 2-3 max landowner pool is perfectly ok for a player, they can hardly afford it anyway and will always need more. but AI? thats just free elites. then they get multiple cities, all of them multiplying their pool of elites, and they can afford it.
i think it would have to go down to 2, even 1. they must remain elite and rare, or they have no value. only the largest feudal countries would field a lot of knights, but that's their reward for getting that much territory.

if done this way, small countries will only be able to field a very tiny amount of knights, but this makes sense to me. medieval france would have large amounts of knights, compared to say, medieval serbia

[Maroslav]

My experience is same from my previous Norway campaign. However, while i don't mind these money cheats, low /no recruitment cooldowns , cheated benefiting attributes to FMs, cheated FMs into crippled leftovers of an army from previous battle which in turn hire half stack of mercenaries from a thin air( regardless of such mercenaries, nor in those numbers weren't available) , and so on. I don't mind these that much, although those are exaggerated at least. Combined with fact AI is unwilling to peace out unless you cripple them in military power on your line, some factions are unplayable to some, tough nutt to crack for others. I am playing Hungary right now and, either i chosed a wrong path for expansion or, it is that kind of tiresome campaign. Top military strenght Cumans + restless ERE means 5+ battles/turn without even a chance of hurting them back. I couldn't finish Serbians before ERE turned its sight on me, so they are little nuisance to. I don't have any money to spare , either i invest into irrelevant buildings( worthless investment for situation i am in), or spend a money for retrain casualties from each turn. It is literally that or they would wear me down another turn. Starter king Béla cause, that most of my generals balance arround 3-5 loyalty at best, so i can reliably use him, and my FH + another one as a major generals, others as subgenerals. It is tiresome, especially for a fact, that ERE doesn't really have any oposition to face. Venice in both of my campaigns became their puppet arround T 30-50. Sicilians have stupid expansion line, so they sail up for some castle in Africa commiting all its troops and freezing there, leaving Sicilia and rest of its provinces in Italy be taken, either by ERE or by whoever decide to expand that way( mostly probably Pissa) . Rum Seljuks seem to be somewhat passive, and don't bother to fill their historical role at all in neither of my campaigns, and vice versa for ERE in this regard. Not even Cumans do attempt to take Crimea at least. If hungarians wouldn't have horse archers in their rosters, they wouldn't stand any chance.

I swear, that should someone else join this missery, someone from north, i would quit. This all campaign is only about spending all my movement points runing from one province into another to repulse some minor or major siege attempt, so there is no room left to other things.

In this, and in previous norweigan campaign i really doubt, that a script giving me option to divide/ keep spoils from a battle really works. Once or twice i did notice, that it added few hundreds to my chest after declining and thats it.

In a regard what literaly infuriate me, unlike overcheated AI is a fact, that despite all those bonuses which AI gets to be competitive, it doesn't really suffer from any debuffs nor setbacks. I don't know if those are hardcoded or what but i hate things like :

My FM parked in a city gets, IN A SINGLE TURN, 2 major debuffs from a 1 skill point witch, which didn't even stand near that settlement on my End turn, but came on her turn ( i thought garrisoned characters should be safe from this). In contrary, Serbian young handsome, 7 star general ending his turn near another witch in neighbour province didn't do absolutely nothing. And these kind of unfairness is really unnecesary.

My question is, if there is a way to cure this *****, and if not, my suggestion is to add such possibility, because gaining such traits in a single turn permanently is infuriating. No need to say, that i am able to recruit, yet, priests lvl 2 at best unless some miracle happens. My current priest failed 3x in a row trying to burn her. I only wait , when that second witch decide to join a party ( what Rebel AI loves to do most, spawn somewhere and migrate into players territory- such like Bohemian rebel stack leaving a city and coming to visit Olomouc devastating its land, while all my armies are on the other side of realm).

Another mention about traits : sometimes i get complete oposit in regard of what i do. I release prisoners after battle , sacrificing a 1 turn of respite i could have if i execute them, for a sake of gaining some chivalry - what i get? 1-2 points in dread. Either he wants to win fast- this i don't absolutely know what it means and what is a condition to avoid this, or he progress some other trait like hars taskmaster- which i suspect is related to spending all movement each turn. Either way its chaos- but '' thats a life'' as someone mentioned in one of a pop ups.

edit: take it easy please. i am hot headed now because of consequences of 2 previous turns. I will get that *** crown in the end. ( note - i hope i can get more crowns in the end if i survive)

[Sllhouette]

Jurand the dev has mentioned that the spoils mechanic doesn't work yet. just decline it. you need every bit of money you can get as you know

witches are for sure, have to shut that down immediately. i've lost too many up and coming generals to stupid hexes and leprosy not being careful. they ended up having to stop at the nearest town and just become a governor there, because they would take 100 years to get to their destination. thankfully witches are very weak to assassins.

"winning first" means before anything else, ethics or mercy, the general wants to win first and foremost. related to exterminating or i think even failed ransoming prisoners.

[MoorsihSultan]

hi folks ,
recently i was working on editing somethings in sship and importing new units from other mods is one of them , during the process of importing everything is fine and show up properly in battlefield but i wanted to add one more unit but the unit is invisible despite the fact that everything in its place ( i know the limit of 500 unit) somebody to help .