Beermug's AI and Campaign Rebalance 2.0

[beermugcarl]

Not exactly related to your question, but I've noticed that the neutral/ally AI often tends to send a small army (1-5 units) far away from their own borders in order to explore (?) settlements in the vicinity of the player, especially during the early game. For example during my most recent game as Egypt I noticed Venice and the Mongols both had sent a tiny army into my lands that didn't do anything except walking around for 10-20 turns after which they seemed to wander off.
I initially assumed the AI was trying to snipe settlements with a weak garrison but they never even attacked me which is why it seemed so odd.

Is this a known occurrence? What causes it?

heh, this seems to be the side effect of the ai being coded to snipe rebel settlements if they aren't at war with anybody.
I have for instance seen the Mongols walk across the entire world to take arguin.
it's an unfortunate side effect of what is necessary coding.

Sometimes as well they will march into your land if you are at war with their ally because they are scripted to support allies in war. but then they have a little hissy fit because they aren't at war with you yet and don't want to declare war.
oof.

either way, sad bugs that are side effects of necessary features. i hope it's not too frustrating.

[Ensyvtre]

Don't worry, I can definitely live with it, especially if it's an unavoidable side effect of tampering with the AI. I was just wondering what caused it.
That being said, would it be possible to make the AI more inclined to declare war on you if you are at war with one (or several) of their allies? If the AI is trying to support their allies but doesn't want to declare war on you the notion of supporting their allies does seem a bit hollow, doesn't it?

[Cokjan]

How about Serbia? They could well serve as an enemy to both Venice and Hungary. And an orthodox ally to Byzantium.
Also I kind of agrees with a second Moorish faction, but there are already too many Muslim faction. A pagan Indian faction, would be interesting though. (Don't know if only reskins are possible with that though)

Also some other ideas, if possible, could you make another separate Native American religion? It's too easy if you play as Norway to have good public order in the Americas when you choose the pagan religion.

[Alondite]

Actually I have an idea, though not vanilla at all, but how about faction ability?

For example, France has exp bonus for new recruited heavy cavalry, Venice has more trade income, Byzantium get free-upkeep slots from city_hall buildings, so in EDB we have :

"heavy_cavalry_bonus bonus 2 requires factions { france, }" and
"trade_base_income_bonus bonus 1 requires factions { venice, }" added to each core building (e.g. wall),
"free_upkeep bonus 1(or more) requires factions { byzantium, }" added to city_hall buildings...etc

Now total vanilla beyond 3.1 has reach the limit of 128 building trees, but these changes do not require any new buildings.
I think these must be fun to be play with, and not too complicated for players. (we can edit expanded.txt to tell the players what ability does a faction own)

[4zumi]

@alondite

that is a really good idea, to make the factions more distinct. But there has to be kept an eye on balancing too. If Venice earns more money they will built more troops, so they have a very distinct edge over factions thats give just an xp bonus.

and just a short notice from me. the free upkeep bonus does not work like this, as fas as i remember. It does not add up. So if you have already 5 slots, you cant get a sixth by adding a +1, you would need to give a building a +6.

[Alondite]

@4zumi

Hmmm yes I know balance will be a problem, but what I said is just an example. I think we can try multiple capabilities and different values for balance, such as the French also has higher farming_level of farms, just for example, of course, so in EDB we have :

farming_level 1 requires faction {[every faction except france],}
farming_level 2 requires faction {france,} for farms
farming_level 2 requires faction ([every faction except france],}
farming_level 3 requires faction {france,} for farms+1...etc

This may be a method to apply addition to some property which cannot be added up (while I don't know whether farming_level can be used like "farming_level bonus 1"), though this cannot work in different buildings.


And as far as I know, adding up free_upkeep bonus does work, as screenshots shown below (free upkeep bonus 3 for town hall). Were you referring to recruitment_slots or something else?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You can see 5+3=8 units of byzantium spearmen are free-upkeep.

Actually in your mod additive free_upkeep bonus work as well in many wonders, such as Hofburg in Vienna. I remember I had 11 free_upkeep slots in Vienna when I played this mod as HRE a couple of months ago.


Get back to the problem of balance...I think M2TW is never perfectly balanced, as there're always some factions a little bit challenging to be played as, while some factions are more likely to be friendly for noobs. What we can do is just doing our best preventing some factions from obviously too strong or too weak, with different bonus values, multiple capabilities for one faction, even different character traits for different factions. There are always lots of dimensions that we can try...

[Cokjan]

"heavy_cavalry_bonus bonus 2 requires factions { france, }" and
"trade_base_income_bonus bonus 1 requires factions { venice, }" added to each core building (e.g. wall),
"free_upkeep bonus 1(or more) requires factions { byzantium, }" added to city_hall buildings...etc
Now total vanilla beyond 3.1 has reach the limit of 128 building trees, but these changes do not require any new buildings.
I think these must be fun to be play with, and not too complicated for players.

Sounds like fun! Definitely would love to see that in TVB. And I'll add that Venice would probably end as superpower with that trade. Perhaps it would be best to add navy rank bonus?

[4zumi]

@alondite

ah, yes. you are right. i mistook the free upkeep for the recruitment slots.

[Alondite]

@Cokjan


I didn't choose navy_bonus for Venice as example because I want that for Portugal (navy_bonus combined with recruitment_cost_bonus_naval, I think). But it's just my opinion, if you guy really want navy_bonus for Venice, navy_bonus will go to Venice.


Since you all think Venice with trade "trade_base_income_bonus bonus 1" in every settlements too op, here are two ways to weaken it : (though buffing other factions may be a balance as well)
1. "trade_base_income_bonus bonus 1" only added in ports instead of core buildings
2. "extra income_bonus bonus x" only added in ports (now we can easily control the value of x for balance)

[Cokjan]

I see, navy bonus go to the Portuguese then. Venice with a trade base income bonus coming from ports might be a good idea, to make Venetian players the incentive to build coastal cities just to build a merchant's wharf etc.

I do have other suggestions, as you know, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are not connected to each other, and most importantly, not to the Mediterranean. Even though they are a trading hub to spices from the East (India, etc?), they produces so little income. Is it possible to have an extra money coming from specifically those ports by modding it?

[Alondite]

I do have other suggestions, as you know, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are not connected to each other, and most importantly, not to the Mediterranean. Even though they are a trading hub to spices from the East (India, etc?), they produces so little income. Is it possible to have an extra money coming from specifically those ports by modding it?

A simple method to do so is to add a new hidden_resource "spices" to those regions (e.g. Shiraz, Multan, Basra, Masqat, Mecca, Medina, Cairo, Luxor) in descr_regions.txt.
Then in EDB, for example we can add

"trade_base_income_bonus bonus 2 requires hidden_resource spices" to sea_trade buildings (e.g. merchants_wharf, warehouse...etc)

Of course we have to declare spices as hidden_resource first at the top of EDB, and we can try "trade_fleet x", "trade_level_bonus bonus x" or "income_bonus bonus x" as well to get the effect you want.


But the problem is that TVB 3.1 has reach the limit of 64 different hidden_resource, so if we add spices as the 65th hidden_resource it will cause CTD.
However this can be avoided by modifying the declaration of hidden_resource in TVB : (It's okay for those who cannot understand this.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For example, there are 6 hidden_resource "tripoli", "muscat", "venice", "lisbon", "stettin" and "bruges" used in order to apply wonders(?) "tripoli_port", "muscat_port", "venice_port", "lisbon_port", "stettin_port" and "bruges_port".

Now instead of declaring these 6 hidden_resource directly, we can declare 4 hidden_resource "port_wonder", "port_a", "port_b" and "port_c".
And in descr_regions.txt, these 6 regions now have hidden_resource

Tripoli : port_wonder
Muskat : port_wonder, port_a
Venice : port_wonder, port_b
Lisbon : port_wonder, port_c
Stettin : port_wonder, port_a, port_b
Bruges : port_wonder, port_a, port_c


So back to EDB we have
hidden_resource tripoli → hidden_resource port_wonder and not hidden_resource port_a and not hidden_resource port_b and not hidden_resource port_c
hidden_resource muscat → hidden_resource port_wonder and hidden_resource port_a and not hidden_resource port_b and not hidden_resource port_c
hidden_resource venice → hidden_resource port_wonder and not hidden_resource port_a and hidden_resource port_b and not hidden_resource port_c
hidden_resource lisbon → hidden_resource port_wonder and not hidden_resource port_a and not hidden_resource port_b and hidden_resource port_c
hidden_resource stettin → hidden_resource port_wonder and hidden_resource port_a and hidden_resource port_b and not hidden_resource port_c
hidden_resource bruges → hidden_resource port_wonder and hidden_resource port_a and not hidden_resource port_b and hidden_resource port_c

The function is the same, but number of hidden_resource required is 2 less then before.
Now we only have 62 hidden_resource, and can feel free to add "spices" as the 63rd.

[Artorius Ensiferus Victor]

Hello, I would like to download the first file from the first post (the AI one), but the link seems to be not working, can someone help me with that please?

[4zumi]

I think only beermugcarl could help you with this.

But a word of warning. I think he made this version for the TVB 3.1 and it may not be compatible with 3.2 anymore.

[Artorius Ensiferus Victor]

Mmh got it, thank you, and congratulations on your mod, is my favourite among all, and I'm very interested on the new one you're making too

[Dominick]

A question for beermugcarl when he comes along.

What are your experiences with editing the AI's behavior using and working around permanent stone forts? Many say it is impossible, but are there some workarounds possible? For example if the PSFs are fixed from the beginning of the campaign, can certain coordinates on the campaign map be marked as key strategical positions to control?

I would love to hear your insight and thank you in advance!

[beermugcarl]

I've updated the mod, also radically increased the stability as I noticed a stupid error I had made.

The ai link should also be working now.

A question for beermugcarl when he comes along.

What are your experiences with editing the AI's behavior using and working around permanent stone forts? Many say it is impossible, but are there some workarounds possible? For example if the PSFs are fixed from the beginning of the campaign, can certain coordinates on the campaign map be marked as key strategical positions to control?

I would love to hear your insight and thank you in advance!

The reason that I personally remove forts is because the AI has no idea how to handle them.
You could try with scripts to force invades on the forts, but i don't think that's an ideal situation.

[sullivanclan1]

where is the link?

[beermugcarl]

where is the link?

Mediafire links on the first page.

[Virian]

Does this submod require the original mod to be installed?

[Joe Hander]

Hi beermugcarl, thxs for the submod. I just notice the Georgia units missing textures.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vZz...ew?usp=sharing