SSHIP ver. 0.98 - April 25th, 2024 - DOWNLOAD HERE

[dnzunlu]

In the August version there is way more crashes. I didn't save at all in the June one, but in August I save a lot. IDK why this might be, it seems related to battles. I did change unit detail from high to highest but that is the only change I did and my specs are not such that they would crash from a 10 year old game.

As for the campaign, I still play as Rum VH/VH. I would bet that this is the hardest faction. You are expected to take Constantinople to get crowned but the Pope declares a crusade on you as soon as you take it even if you maintain immaculate reputation. After that it is at least 30 turns of defending against Crusader armies stack after stack. I'm pretty sure that I beat at least 20 full stack armies during the crusade. It's probably more. All that money spent on defending the crusade with troops, it would be more profitable to let the city fall and conquer it again once the crusaders took it. That is not fun at all. If I just abandoned the city with no garrison and conquered it again it would take way less time and money. I would do that if it was not Constantionple but any other city, and I only did that for RP reasons.

Besides this, as Rum, you also have to watch out for Jerusalem armies from the south. This time I didn't even meddle in the Levant because I thought Jerusalem would leave me alone. But no. They want to attack me exclusively deep in Anatolia while they are just chilling with the Fatimids and Zengids. I would assume that Jerusalem would be the hardest faction of all because of history and geopolictcs but the Zengids and Fatimids don't attack them at all. Also, the amount of heavy armor troops Jerusalem can recruit should be nerfed becaeuse its ridicilous. They send stack after stack of religous order knights or regular knights with the heaviest armor. Rum gets a few heavy units every 20 turns and these have to suffer massive casualties to deal with crusades unless you are amazing at this game or savescum.

Also, even though I secured an alliance with the Georgians and the Byzantines with immaculate reputation, they still besiege my cities on the borders as soon as they see a garrison that is not full. I thought it was hardcoded that they don't attack 20 turn after you secured an alliance.

All of this is manageable if you are an experienced player because med2 is not that hard, but I wouldn't call it fun. You want to build your cities and use the game mechanics like provincial titles but you have no room for that because you have to defend 3 seperate fronts all the time. You guys might wanna open a discord cuz nobody is on forums anymore.

[eyelurker]

I actually think Crusade is a blessing in a disguise. Because defeating large enemy army give you large amount of gold, especially if they accept ransom. I haven't try Rum and i don't think i play in vh/vh but archer based army really help in dealing with crusade, i like Turkoman and Turkish archer more but Oghuz horse archer(or more expensively Turcopole) are always available thanks to large surplus of them. Horse archer are quite important to assasin enemy general/heavy knight and foot archer minimize casualties by killing everyone that approach.

[eyelurker]

So right now playing as the Norman Sicily and as in history decide to fight Roman. So the Roman sent a small but high quality infantry including a Varangian guard while i only outnumber them slightly, i have an advantage in knight including hospitaller and crossbow but my crossbow cannot fire properly due to terrain and i'm force to engage them in melee. I already expect heavy casualties.

And then Varangian rout. Then the other Heavy infantry while held on, find themself outmatched by Urban spear militia of all thing(even with my Hospitaler foot sword support this is still embarrasing for the Roman) I won the battle with a bit of damage, especially crossbow but still relatively combat ready and don't require retrain while Roman are completely wiped out.

I can't help but to be dissapointed for the Roman.

[Jurand of Cracow]

In the August version there is way more crashes. I didn't save at all in the June one, but in August I save a lot. IDK why this might be, it seems related to battles. I did change unit detail from high to highest but that is the only change I did and my specs are not such that they would crash from a 10 year old game.

As for the campaign, I still play as Rum VH/VH. I would bet that this is the hardest faction. You are expected to take Constantinople to get crowned but the Pope declares a crusade on you as soon as you take it even if you maintain immaculate reputation. After that it is at least 30 turns of defending against Crusader armies stack after stack. I'm pretty sure that I beat at least 20 full stack armies during the crusade. It's probably more. All that money spent on defending the crusade with troops, it would be more profitable to let the city fall and conquer it again once the crusaders took it. That is not fun at all. If I just abandoned the city with no garrison and conquered it again it would take way less time and money. I would do that if it was not Constantionple but any other city, and I only did that for RP reasons.

Besides this, as Rum, you also have to watch out for Jerusalem armies from the south. This time I didn't even meddle in the Levant because I thought Jerusalem would leave me alone. But no. They want to attack me exclusively deep in Anatolia while they are just chilling with the Fatimids and Zengids. I would assume that Jerusalem would be the hardest faction of all because of history and geopolictcs but the Zengids and Fatimids don't attack them at all. Also, the amount of heavy armor troops Jerusalem can recruit should be nerfed becaeuse its ridicilous. They send stack after stack of religous order knights or regular knights with the heaviest armor. Rum gets a few heavy units every 20 turns and these have to suffer massive casualties to deal with crusades unless you are amazing at this game or savescum.

Also, even though I secured an alliance with the Georgians and the Byzantines with immaculate reputation, they still besiege my cities on the borders as soon as they see a garrison that is not full. I thought it was hardcoded that they don't attack 20 turn after you secured an alliance.

All of this is manageable if you are an experienced player because med2 is not that hard, but I wouldn't call it fun. You want to build your cities and use the game mechanics like provincial titles but you have no room for that because you have to defend 3 seperate fronts all the time. You guys might wanna open a discord cuz nobody is on forums anymore.

Very interesting observation on the crashes. Let see if the other players have similar.
Yeah, Constantinople is difficult for all. I recall playing Titanium with BGR, and I fared pretty ok as the Romans, but then there's a jihad on Constantinople and it broke my spine instantly.
In the next release, KoJ should have fewer armoured troops in the first hundred of turns or so, given that delays in Military Orders' buildings and units. But my take-away is also that there're many troop in general (those full-stacks).
Afaik, not hardcoded keeping of alliances (what is a good facet of the Med2 engine - even though it breaks some gameplay, what it the main reason to introduce it in the newer TW games).
Discord - I am on 15 TW-related discords, and I ceased reading them altogether. Including our own, SSHIP discord. I would never bother to answer to entries like this in discord as they instantly disappear - and you've noticed I do it here regularly. And nobody else seem to use it to communication.

So right now playing as the Norman Sicily and as in history decide to fight Roman. So the Roman sent a small but high quality infantry including a Varangian guard while i only outnumber them slightly, i have an advantage in knight including hospitaller and crossbow but my crossbow cannot fire properly due to terrain and i'm force to engage them in melee. I already expect heavy casualties.
And then Varangian rout. Then the other Heavy infantry while held on, find themself outmatched by Urban spear militia of all thing(even with my Hospitaler foot sword support this is still embarrasing for the Roman) I won the battle with a bit of damage, especially crossbow but still relatively combat ready and don't require retrain while Roman are completely wiped out.
I can't help but to be dissapointed for the Roman.

Interesting, but we haven't changed much in this respect it should have been as before in the SS/SSHIP.

I actually think Crusade is a blessing in a disguise. Because defeating large enemy army give you large amount of gold, especially if they accept ransom. I haven't try Rum and i don't think i play in vh/vh but archer based army really help in dealing with crusade, i like Turkoman and Turkish archer more but Oghuz horse archer(or more expensively Turcopole) are always available thanks to large surplus of them. Horse archer are quite important to assasin enemy general/heavy knight and foot archer minimize casualties by killing everyone that approach.

In the next release the pay-off from the battles will even be larger.

[eyelurker]

The Roman defeat my campaign by using a classic Roman tactic when they cannot defeat me in combat. Killing my general with assassin.

I think i should keep/build Tavern.

[eyelurker]

So my mind change and decide to play Roman. It was uneventful but i have discover 2 thing.

First, after i got crowned and it's maintence kick in it seems like my income ground to a halt and then deducted my treasury by 5000. This is an unpleasent suprise and my money reduced into debt but it has only been 2 turn since my coronation so this might subject to change.

Second are horse archer. Turns out undisciplined horse archer such as Oghuz/Turcoman perform better than the disciplined version like Turcopole/Byzanitne horse archer. This is because disciplined horse archer waste their time reforming their line which make them much slower to react meanwhile undiscipline will not sorry with such trivial thing and will immidiately act, in addition their undiscipline formation means that if they get caught they can retreat with fewer casualties. It's something neat to remember by if i used horse archer from now on.

Edit : it turns out i miscalculate the Crown payment. It's after i end the turn that i got the crown is when the 20.000 payment is made.

[vovery]

It seems the player receives two different financial aids when playing Portugal:

1. If choosing yes to the financial aid, you get the regular money from the believers event + extra 5000 each turn.
2. Even if choosing no, you still get the 5000 each turn. Checking from console it seems like this extra 5000 could be faction-specific aid for the AI, perhaps not meant to activate when faction is player-controlled?

[Sannitico]

Very interesting observation on the crashes. Let see if the other players have similar.
In the next release, KoJ should have fewer armoured troops in the first hundred of turns or so, given that delays in Military Orders' buildings and units. But my take-away is also that there're many troop in general (those full-stacks).

Yep, i noticed huge spam of armored knights since the first turns by crusaders too. Quite annoying a the beginning with my abbassid campaign. However, it's a good thing reduce stacks roaming across the map and also the major impact of winning a huge battle on diplomacy. Working in this direction it's for me the best way to make the campaigns even more enjoyable.

[William the Silent]

Fleets cannot be merged.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Fleets cannot be merged.

Yes, this is one of the issues I need to work on. It requires re-coding of the traits for admirals. Good you've reminded it.

Yep, i noticed huge spam of armored knights since the first turns by crusaders too. Quite annoying a the beginning with my abbassid campaign. However, it's a good thing reduce stacks roaming across the map and also the major impact of winning a huge battle on diplomacy. Working in this direction it's for me the best way to make the campaigns even more enjoyable.

ok, good to know.
the impact of major battles on diplomacy would be @macaras business, from my side I've recoded the financial benefits of such victory if the battle is played by the the player - and this will be quite important for finances.

[eyelurker]

This is less of complaint over mechanic and more cry for help for it's difficulty.

So i play HRE and i was like how the hell do you survive the Usurper era?

Edit :Turns out i just got bad luck with my starting emperor that die too soon, if he live long enough to adopt a son so you don't get an usurper emperor.

[eyelurker]

Been having a bad victory. Enemy cavalry being cheeky to flank charge and kill my expensive infantry and my general lost much of it's bodyguard after charging enemy cavalry. Again. Seriously charging cavalry with cavalry or cavalry combat are just bad idea as it make your rare and expensive knight gone in an instant

[Jurand of Cracow]

Been having a bad victory. Enemy cavalry being cheeky to flank charge and kill my expensive infantry and my general lost much of it's bodyguard after charging enemy cavalry. Again. Seriously charging cavalry with cavalry or cavalry combat are just bad idea as it make your rare and expensive knight gone in an instant

BTW, have a look at your general's traits and look for "HitPoints". Some can have negative numbers (teenagers by default) and this may lead to them get killed.
I recall once playing the Europa Barbarorum as Epirus - and my Pyrrhos died in the first battle as I was unaware of this (ok, it was like 15 years ago...)

This is less of complaint over mechanic and more cry for help for it's difficulty.
So i play HRE and i was like how the hell do you survive the Usurper era?
Edit :Turns out i just got bad luck with my starting emperor that die too soon, if he live long enough to adopt a son so you don't get an usurper emperor.

Well, it is (was?) by design that such a big faction as HRE has special problems at the beginning - the usurper should happen.

[eyelurker]

BTW, have a look at your general's traits and look for "HitPoints". Some can have negative numbers (teenagers by default) and this may lead to them get killed.
I recall once playing the Europa Barbarorum as Epirus - and my Pyrrhos died in the first battle as I was unaware of this (ok, it was like 15 years ago...)

Well, it is (was?) by design that such a big faction as HRE has special problems at the beginning - the usurper should happen.

The general itself is not a problem although their survivabilty is still somewhat rng dependant. The one who die are their bodyguard so technicly nothing bad come out of it since the general still alive. The casualties and how i got it(charging enemy cavalry with my bodyguard) is what annoys me.

[William the Silent]

Been having a bad victory. Enemy cavalry being cheeky to flank charge and kill my expensive infantry and my general lost much of it's bodyguard after charging enemy cavalry. Again. Seriously charging cavalry with cavalry or cavalry combat are just bad idea as it make your rare and expensive knight gone in an instant

Use javelin infantry/cavalry to back up your expensive infantry on the flanks. They kill cavalry quickly.

Bodyguard will have casualties against fresh bigger number of cavalry.
I tried to kill enemy generals with my cavalry many times, but often the general escapes alone. So they are tough to kill most of the time.

[JB59114]

Received a weird event playing as the Zengids, I think it's originally related to Hungary.
https://i.imgur.com/H3b2VJk.jpg

[Jurand of Cracow]

Received a weird event playing as the Zengids, I think it's originally related to Hungary.
https://i.imgur.com/H3b2VJk.jpg

yep, there was a bug. fixed. Oxes are nice, aren't they?

[eyelurker]

My HRE have been suprisingly going well. Income is in 60000(of course with embezzlement while controling very small army for HRE size so i get like 35000) (Edit: whoops. I'm exaggerating. My income is around 35000 without embezzlement) and my reputation thanks to slow expansion, battle and release a lot and build chariry and church my reputation sits comfortably in immaculate and i have ally all my neighbor except Italy more specificly Venice who got so aggresive especially against me that they are excommunicated. I'm planning to invade Venice with a crusade than a normal expansion. All of this in turns 40.

I'm wondering how my reputation got this good as HRE. I don't my Zengids are as good even with more battle, maybe because i ransom a lot so no reputation up and fighting rebel which will not increase my reputation and not much fighting faction to release them.

[Belovèse]

It seems the player receives two different financial aids when playing Portugal:

1. If choosing yes to the financial aid, you get the regular money from the believers event + extra 5000 each turn.
2. Even if choosing no, you still get the 5000 each turn. Checking from console it seems like this extra 5000 could be faction-specific aid for the AI, perhaps not meant to activate when faction is player-controlled?

Thanks for the report, there is indeed some typo (a pesky little capital letter) in the code. It doesn't explain why you get 5000 each turn though, unless you lost control of your capital (coimbra)?

EDIT: it is fixed, it will be working as intended in the next release

[Waluk]

If anyone is interested, here is my 400+ turn Serbia campaign save. Forgot which difficulty, but it's not VH/VH. There were a couple of crashes, 3 - 5 maybe. Noticed most of them happen when playing straight for hours, the most annoying ones happen when loading out of battle. You can avoid those by playing for 20 or so turns, or not fighting more than let's say 5 battles in a row. Campaign was fun, the only event that kept popping up repeatedly was, as others have mentioned "inviting Saxons". The campaign map changed quite a bit throughout, at one point HRE has almost won, then the Pope conquered all of HRE, then the French conquered all of Papal lands. Hungary had it's moments too, conquered all of Poland and southern Baltics, most probably because me playing as Serbia didn't allow the Byzantines to spread to the north, like they always do. Finances were tough, often had to decide whether to build armies or buildings. Population growth was slow, for the first 300 or so turns, had only towns, cities came later. Fun times, keep it up SSHIP team!

https://mega.nz/file/WhkHmISa#gZ07lU...lf-RYxt1KB5jrk