SSHIP - General Discussion

[jurcek1987]

Yes, I agree. A script for every settlement would be too much, only for important ones.

[Larkin]

Can it be proportional based on population?

So a small village maybe only raises one or two poor quality units, while a major city can raise dozens of better quality ones?

[j.a.luna]

Can it be proportional based on population?

So a small village maybe only raises one or two poor quality units, while a major city can raise dozens of better quality ones?

Yes larkin,it is a good idea..each settlement have its garrison script,small village few and poor qualify units but huge cities or citadels much garrison and better equipment garrison( fo example ,at the beginning of the game,the village of riga one baltic spearmen and maybe peasant archers and constantinople four or five contairotai and four toxotai,or catastrophotai..i dont remember as write the bizantyne unit with sword and shield that is similar to scoutotai swordmen hehehe)

[Lifthrasir]

Yes to Larkin but no to j.a.luna. If there's a garrison script, the spawing units would be peasants, militias and/or levies, may be a few from the merchand guild for the biggest settlements. Remember that that kind of script is supposed to reflect the population defending his settlement. There can't be any professional/mercenary/religious order/elite units.

[j.a.luna]

Yes to Larkin but no to j.a.luna. If there's a garrison script, the spawing units would be peasants, militias and/or levies, may be a few from the merchand guild for the biggest settlements. Remember that that kind of script is supposed to reflect the population defending his settlement. There can't be any professional/mercenary/religious order/elite units.

Ok i agree in militias or maybe merchant guild for biggest settlements..and garrison scrip in all settlements or only the capital and one fortress? What is it better? You should think when pass turn(not slow pass turn too)

[Lifthrasir]

Not sure yet

[jurcek1987]

I think that capitals should spawn faction's best units when besieged for increased challenge. I'm in favour of garrison scripts mostly for gameplay reasons, it's far to easy to capture enemy cities because the AI is terrible at protecting them. It would also be realistic for some cases like Constantinople, which (if you believe wikipedia) had a permanent garrison of 10.000 not counting the 5.000 Varangians. Personally, I think that number is far too high, it might have been true during the late Macedonian dynasty, but it certainly wasn't that high during this time frame. Regardless of the numbers, a dedicated garrison did exist, units like Noumeroi or later Vestiaritai are mentioned, so to simulate this, I think the city should spawn units like Varangian guard and Spartharioi when besieged.

[Lifthrasir]

No, you misunderstanding the purpose of the garrison script. It's not supposed to represent a permanent garrison but the mustering of civils to protect their settlement in danger.

[bigdaddy1204]

the best solution i can think of is garrison script only for the capital and a fortress, or maybe just for the capital but with a huge garrison (thinking of Constantinople)

I agree, garrison scripts can be very annoying and tend to unbalance the game. What is the point of narrowly winning a pitched battle outside a settlement and destroying all enemy units, only to be unable to take the town because there's a huge garrison out of nowhere? It's annoying.

I think there should only be scripts for the capital city, and possibly a minimal script (2 or 3 decent units) for fortresses and citadels.

[jurcek1987]

No, you misunderstanding the purpose of the garrison script. It's not supposed to represent a permanent garrison but the mustering of civils to protect their settlement in danger.

Yes I realize that, I wrote that the script would be good for gameplay purposes, to increase the difficulty in capturing the most important settlement the faction possesses. Currently I can send an army by ship to Constantinople or Palermo or Venice or Pisa or any coastal capital on the map and capture it without much opposition and in doing so, severely cripple the AI faction. A couple of scripted levies won't make much difference.

[Lifthrasir]

Once again, the purpose of such a script wouldn't be to spawm good units. In that case, there's no need of it. It' up to the player to manage his troops.

@ jurcek1987, we might script something to avoid such a practice

[jurcek1987]

I'm talking about AI capitals, the player wouldn't leave his most precious city undefended, but the AI would. And does. All the time.

[Lifthrasir]

Not sure it would solve the problem.

[jurcek1987]

It's not perfect, but it's still far better than relying on the AI to protect its core settlements. I realize that garrison script is not everyone's cup of tea, that's why it would be best if it was optional, like in TATW.

[bigdaddy1204]

What's interesting about this is that it is actually a weakness of the 3D map that was created when Total War moved from the old 2D map of Shogun and Medieval Total War (2002) to the 3D map of Rome TW (2004). In the old 2D map, things worked better in some ways. If you moved an army into an enemy province, that automatically triggered a battle with ALL enemy units in that province.

I think what they did in Rome II was increase the 'zone of control' of each army, and limit the number of paths armies can take to get to settlements. This effectively made it almost impossible to simply ignore an enemy stack. They also used a garrison script to ensure no town was undefended. I think they pretty much solved this issue, through a combination of changes.

In Medieval 2, perhaps the best we can do is a limited garrison script for major settlements such as capitals.

[Larkin]

Yes to Larkin but no to j.a.luna. If there's a garrison script, the spawing units would be peasants, militias and/or levies, may be a few from the merchand guild for the biggest settlements. Remember that that kind of script is supposed to reflect the population defending his settlement. There can't be any professional/mercenary/religious order/elite units.

Mm, my thinking was for peasants in the small settlements, and militia for the others, maybe some spearmen in a big castle.

Can the spawned units reflect the blacksmith level? Or be given weapon/armour upgrades? That way you could have militia spawned from a castle given better equipment than those spawned in a town, for example.

[MWY]

Just want to let you know that every shape or form of a garrison script will have severe impacts on the turn times/campaign script. The more complex the longer you will have to wait.

[Larkin]

Just want to let you know that every shape or form of a garrison script will have severe impacts on the turn times/campaign script. The more complex the longer you will have to wait.

SSHIP's turn times are pretty fast as is. Not the worse tradeoff in the world.

[Konig91]

SSHIP's turn times are pretty fast as is. Not the worse tradeoff in the world.

It really depends on what machine you're running SSHIP.

[Larkin]

It really depends on what machine you're running SSHIP.

Not necessarily. M2 is so old it can't really be optimised for super fast rigs. I run it on a laptop.