FoG Empires Suggestions AFTER fresh Suicidal turn 100 Carthage 3x Win
Posted: Wed May 01, 2024 9:34 pm
So as you can guess from the title I did it to take important notes on every turn to help developers for the last Empires patch. I can post the entire save archive for the end of every turn if someones is interested. I chose Carthage for 3 reasons:
- some folks complain that its the weakest faction out of the major ones;
- developers put a lot of time and effort into big factions;
- to examine a practical trade min maxing from the get go;
I already did AAR on Burgundi conquering most big players of Classical era WITH Exported battles. Game wasn't balanced for that so this time its all about flexing strategy muscles. Instead of boiled down recap I tell you the meta on how the game plays, and how to improve higher difficulty AI for the sake of regular and efficient players. Without further ado lets briefly examine four main interactive systems and how to improve AI around them:
1) Economy & Trade
2) Doom Stacks & Force Compositions
3) Diplomacy & Wars
4) Decisions & World Building
Since they are all interlinked and I can write tomes upon tomes on optimization I would rather get you condensed information and if you disagree I can elaborate on each individual question:
-----------------
First block covers the reasons for giving AI bonuses from the start, specifics of these bonuses and the effects of proposed rather simple value changes for the patch:
-----------------
- AI bad at developing non-plain non-hill regions. That steams from them not using proper optimized pop allocation and Infrastructure siphoning. Instead of reweighting the whole system one simple fix to make Infra pulling work exactly like Food. More averaged out output help AI. And then when Dynamic bonuses based on the Legacy difference kick in they would catch up to the player. Introduction of this change makes Provincial AI helper more useful, since it not required due to his inability to understand the pulling rules. Otherwise it makes pretty decent choices for what region needs right now. If thats possible AI should get bonuses from the get go for Swamps, Deserts and Mountains or do reweights since they put too much POP on food. Increase AI growth rate via hidden Health bonuses.
- AI on the highest level in constant struggle with resources. This happens in many 4X and Strategy games, therefore the solution is often to give them flat resources every turn and more importantly increase their income. The biggest bonuses should come to food and commerce. That would make AI properly focus on Infrastructure and Culture. In turn that would improve Trade System, which is struggling right now for the reason that there simply not enough call in Import resource buildings built by AI even on turn 100. Talking about buildings. AI weight for Walls, Roads, Equipment structures and Ports should be increased heavily. Decrease level 1 food buildings and level 3 infrastructure buildings. Increase AI weights for the Tier 2 Military, Commerce, Culture and Health buildings, and thats what gonna be composing most of their regions. AI can't be aggressive enough without amping up their ability to maintain multiple Doom Stacks.
- I think lack of resources is the driving factor in weird Peace Deals between the nations. Even 2 nations with big Manifest Destiny scores like Maurya and Seleucids can fight down to the last 2 regions. Both empty on resources and lost their Doom Stacks already. The one calls for forces to protect their nation (increased Land Power rating) combined with War Weariness score procs the peace deal where resources and Provincial Units War Score is overrated. This scenario ends up with Maurya holding only 1 conquering region, getting 2 provincial units, gold and metal. That pattern repeats for many nations big and small until Dynamic Difficulty and Manifest Destiny kick in really hard when your Legacy lead skyrockets. So combining flat bonuses, income increase (esp. for Manpower) and tripling the size of free supported units (reduced upkeep) for AI is the solution to all 4 factors.
- More gold, tier 2 buildings and higher civilization levels means that AI gets better National Decisions, more dynamic and logical expansion, and serves as the sizable threat to the player. On top of that conquering their regions would be more rewarding. Right now it makes sense to hunt down for World Wonders (Military or Diplomacy way), Hellenic population and Provinces that can produce Archers and Light Horses. Furthermore, I'm a player who plays with Fog of War, but looks all Combat Reports and changes around the world. Thats one of the ways how I notice AI specific behaviors. The lack of Economy and Doomstacks often leads to neverending wars between the same nations since their economy in the ditch, and when they fight each other their Land Power goes down the drain. More nations pile up, but they don't have Doomstacks to finish off even one nation for good. The best part is when Doomstack in the garrison getting besieged by another Doomstack with -6 Siege score. Thats one of few times when their resources can lift up from the bottom for more action in the future.
This game eliminated nations and causes for their death in order to give you some ideas:
- Belgae killed Parisii because Galii & Parisii exchanged their Doom Stacks and Belgae surviving one moped up;
- Rome killed Tarentum and Tarentum started this war when Rome and Senones exchanged their Doomstacks when Rome failed the assault of Senones. Tarentum Declared war on them, lost their stack in assaults and Rome simply rolled them to the completion this time due to them having proper bonuses to rebuild and maintain Doom Stacks out of the gate;
- Seleukos killed off Orsoene instantly since their Doom Stack was in vicinity when Antigonids created that faction;
- Arvenni Killed off Aquitanni in the volatile exchanges common for barbarians and unwalled nations. And the only reason why is Aquitani stack activating Independent Germanics in one of the combat retreats that spawned neutral stacks for many turns that actually killed Aquitanni last region.
- Rome killed Senones using Doom Stacks they created for Tarentum;
- Nubia killed Blemmies after Egypt lost many regions to them, signed peace giving them resources and leaving with a single starting region plus 1 region they reconquested from the rebelion. Nubia simply killed two regions in one turn since Blemmies exchanged their stack vs Egypt Legacy event stack;
- Seleucids killed Armenia, but only because every single nation dogpiled on them. That elimination was rather swift. That happened after Seleucids got temporary peace with Antigonids and were able to commit their Doom Stack to smaller nations;
- Ethruscii I had great relationships with and signed an early Allience to prevent their destruction by Rome, and deny Rome great Medium Infantry become Client State of Rome and 5 turns later without typical absorption region by region got instantly eaten alive;
- Seleucos Wiped Media that had 2 regions one of which was lost to Rapinoe;
- Eprirus killed Illyria in 2 turns when they lost their Doomstack and didn't trigger Legacy Nation Protection;
- Egypt killed Cappadocia that for some weird reason got into war with them without big enough Doomstack. I guess their limited vision of low pop Egypt region, Egypt involvement into many wars, their empty coffers lead to the random War proc chance;
- Saba killed Quataban after Quataban reduced them to a single 3 POP region, peaced out giving them everything back, and then paid for that in dozen of turns. Ofc Rapinoe helped;
- Rapinoe killed Arahosia which was very funny since it lived only 3 turns after diving from Seleucids, but being scared to DOW them;
- Nasamones killed Garamantes, who stuck in a single region of their origin due to not owning big enough Stack from the start. They start accumulating, which engaged both nations into staredown until Nasamones pulled the trigger.
- Dacia killed Thracia after Lysimacos fallen apart. They exchanged multiple smaller Doom Stacks and repelled one of the lethal attack by the fact that Legacy army spawns before impulses and combats.
- Parisii killed Britanii. Parisii rebirthed on Britain peninsula and resolved many long lasting conflicts there by owning the healthiest economy and Doom Stack. They lived in peace with Picts until my Declare War On finally gone through.
- I can go and one, but you got the point. Many other conflicts were often resolved by immersion breaking peace treaties. There should be a 50% per each occupied region that nation accepting the peace deal keeps them regardless of the conditions of peace for AI's. Similar to how to get special Client State absorption checks. Dynamic Difficulty and Manifest Destiny should kick in earlier on higher difficulties.
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Second block is specifics per each system:
-----------------
- Unlike other bonuses early Decadence and Loyalty boosts work for AI from turn 1, but they can't focus their culture to squeeze you out in the bottom tier forever. Decadence stops being a problem about on turn 8 and never becomes ones if you manage your empire properly.
- Loyalty is not an issue at all similar to Decadence even on the highest level if your manage your Empire correctly and stay as Civilization Level 2 Glorious until the earliest victory trigger. And in case you go for something else can rotate in the loop of level 2 according to your current goals. Actually its rather hard to provoke Revolt in opponent Just Conquered region if you won't pull out to let them retake it to get that Under Pacification + Just Conquered mix combined with buildings Disassembly (and low upkeep ones don't create that much unrest either).
- Provinces should increase Administrative Burden instead of reducing it since there are currently no downsides into making the province. If you can come up with one let me know. Argument about separate equipment queues for military units on frontier doesn't fly here, since for the most part game resolved at Doom Stacks level. Supporting stacks perform harassing/delaying role. Either garrison improvers or cavalry/light horses harassers. There are siege harassers Im gonna talk about below.
- Dynamic Difficulty should kick in strong when you are in top 10 of Legacy. About the same level as it does when you x1.5 Legacy ahead of number 2 at the moment.
- Manifest Destiny and Economy factors should have higher weight in AI decisions to Declare War.
- Add +2 to default AI vision, which gonna improve the game instantly combined with the suggestions from the first block. If thats possible put player on the bottom of Impulses order list.
- To make skirmishers more useful in attacking role compared to light horses and archers they should have the increased chance to draw opponent ranged units fire.
- National Decisions based on the number of regions with building X should cost more.
- Increase the chance of all random regional and world map events at least two folds, maybe more. Most casuals play like 200 turns of a given Campaign before starting a new game. Relationships should increase and degrade faster.
- Peace Treaties should do proximity checks for regions as well. As I said unwalled Barbarians are very volatile. Especially when you do mix in Slaves, Rebels and activated Independents. In my game Gothones ended up in Sarmatians and Scyths territory. Many river traveling nations had absurd region placements. The problem is when Peace occurs rarely nations keep conquered regions, so many disjointed nations stuck in the endless wars until someone with bigger bonuses comes in like Rome you boosted by gaining Legacy. More details in block 1. The funniest part is when faction fights with 2 others, makes peace with the 2nd ones that had regions in the middle separating them from the 3rd nation that joined the fray cause the original nation had too many active wars, lost doom stack and their economy was weak. Yea, original nation still fights with 3rd, but divided in half now.
- Need the option of Passage rights without cheesing Alliance plus Insults. Or having Cooperation with almost everyone, so Alliances are free and mostly tool to create passages to desired goals. Passage should be similar to Alliance, but if you not Allied to the nation you signed Passage with and got into a new war no matter how the right will be immediately canceled.
- By being in Peace deal with nation your current opponent is close to you can use them as free launching pad for the attacks and tactical retreats to restore your Fatigue and HP if needed. When peace deal ends pushback can even make 1 skirmisher conquer region with no walls without fighting. Same happens with stacks retreating from combat when their natural path is blocked by bad weather or Alpines.
- Pushback bug also sometimes happens in Alpines when you use Retaliate and Assault Order at the same time. You can get pushed back even 2 regions back out of the mountain chain completely. But this bug is so rare doesn't even worth fixing it.
- Insults better be limited by cooldown like Diplomatic messages. Impose the range limit of 8 range as well. It shouldn't be impossible to insult faction with x1.25 Legacy points higher than you. Insults power increased by endless wars quirks. As Carthage I was able to get Insults to 50 into Cooperation into 100 Relationships with Rome by constantly insulting Senones Rome lost their Doom Stack against. There were many nations with 1 or 2 regions left in War with everyone, but unable to die off providing constant source of free Relationships all over the world.
- I didn't abuse it this time, but Region Trading for Units or less Developed Regions plus Gold or Metal can easily gain you distant regions. Or you can give away bad regions for free to serve as buffers and points of buying better provincial units for your upcoming conquests. Similar to insults should be limited by range 8 and Legacy Points Difference of x1.5 this time.
- Potentially higher relationship penalties from breaking the Client State or going into the war from the 50 Current Relationships. I won't even talk about Client State abuses here to not spread this information. It safe to say that I didn't use them.
- Diplomacy screen should take you to the nations who rejected your proposal. Also need to see what your proposal was. Its harder request, but can be done similar to transaction left column where you have to click to see who wants what. Rejected proposals are better that way in a sense that you actually want to teleport the camera there to create a new proposal or repeat the last one.
- Another similar QoL request is when you press on good in Trade ledger that good should highligh automatically. Now you have to press T to enter trade menu of the region, click on the good, close ledger and Trade and press Shift + 2 to see the range of imports to gauge your prospects against someone else providing that resource. And the fact that AI is bad at building Tier 2 structures creates less Call In Import places plus certain goods like Iron, Salt, Leather & Wood being overpowered. Trade display doesn't always show all resources produces and imported when sorted by one good, where big icons stand for production and small for imports. Trade menu rarely makes mistakes, but those are negligible.
- Message about upcoming weather move into Standard category. Same for Nations that cancel Alliance and Cooperation without notifying you like they love to do. Messages about Nations progressing or regressing, starting wars, making peace deals, leaders dying/parties changing, civil wars and slave rebellions have to make into player message pool since they are not spammy and important as well.
- AI should gain huge bonuses to Military Expertise to make their Doom Stacks fight better and mainly improve garrisons Combat Rating. So AI can feel relatively free committing their stacks to attacking instead of protection. And Player can simply stomp them with Light Horses + 0-2 Medium Cavalry stacks (no walls or lvl 1 walls) or Veteran/Elite Heavy Infantry backed up by archers (decent walls) and potential preemptive assault by skirmishers/archers and light horses or heavier assault by sacrificial cavalry + archers or Naval Support regional decision (superb walls). Especially when you put low quality generals on those stack to kill them off faster.
- Should specify in the win conditions that Legacy check only procs when counter says turn 101.
- Ships don't restore HP from an ally when all conditions are met.
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Block 3 - New National and Regional decisions
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The only thing this game misses is Spying system past the reports that provide very detailed information. I usually scroll through the whole world maps with reports of the combats at highest detail, check my neighbors objectives locations (if there are new ones added for my territory) and check the weather forecasts every turn.
But the game would definitely benefit from more interactivity and interwoven dynamics between various resources and facets. Those should be easy implement since its mostly value changes or have analogous decisions in the game already.
First of all National Decisions on the level of ideas without concrete numbers:
1) Based on region with Granaries for all Civilization levels:
- Base Loyalty Cap increase for the purposes of Welfare Loyalty calculation and Health increase;
- Food percentage decrease in exchange for manpower generated from the region population big percentage bonus;
- Food to Supply rate 1 to 2 and slight Commerce increase.
2) If Military Expertise 3 or more AND City Guard is 2 or more for all Civilization levels:
- Get penalty on Metal and Infrastructure penalty for Increase in Manpower generation for every region with any military tier 2 structure built;
- Culture penalty for X turns and Decadence gain for Conquest lowered for Y turns, where Y > X;
- Increase of Alliance and Passage Rights chance in return for Gold and Decadence increase.
3) For regions that have Tier 2 Commerce building and Civilization lvl 2 or 3:
- Tax Rate lowered, but Commerce and Acumen increased by a lot, loyalty % generated goes up a little;
- Diplomacy chances and Cooperation increased, but Administrated Burden and Loyalty % penalties increase as well.
4) Having at least 1 Tier 3 Military building in the nation and Civlization lvl 2 or 3:
- Military Experience increase, widened General Pool and lessened Revolt chance. Pay for that by manpower and gold percentages;
- Metal production gets boosted and Equipment cost lowered for every unit type plus XP requirements for the level up threshold are decreased. Penalties in Health and Gold;
- Increase Manpower percentage for loyalty and culture percentage decreases.
5) For Civilization level 2 or 3:
- Increase the chance of Food buildings related to Papyrus production showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of Legal buildings and lvl 3 Commerce buildings showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of tier 2 Health and tier 3 Culture Loyalty reduction buildings related to sports showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of Roads, Military Ports and Walls showing up in the queue.
Regional Decisions Region Related:
- Migration: Each aligned region with above 50 Loyalty has 25% chance to share its pop with the select region;
- Gather food: Pool 15% of food stockpile from the aligned regions and the forage values on top of that;
- Religious Ceremonies: increase the chance of positive random events including new pop birth;
- Kill 1 POP for decent boost of Manpower generation per said region;
- Kill 1 POP for flat gold amount (e.g. sell into slavery), but decadence small flat increase;
- Kill 1 POP for flat infrastructure boost (e.g. new permanent jobs), but slight commerce penalty;
- Garrisons and Ships in Garrisons with Ports restore 1 HP and 1 Effectiveness.
Regional stack decisions related for small and medium stacks, has the cap on the upper stack size and general availability with combined rating of 1:
1) Spy poisoning the well that destroys forage value of the region and has a chance to reduce affected stack fatigue by 2 checked separately for every unit.
2) Spy has a chance to kill opponents stack current assigned general.
3) Spy has a chance chance to frame that decreases their relationships by 5 with aligned nations.
4) Spy has a chance to drop Loyalty by 15 and increases Revolt risk by 5% for 3 turns.
5) During siege spy can drain percentage of food stockpile and has a chance to incur 1 effectiveness hit rolled for every separate unit.
6) Spy has a chance to get small amount of gold and destroy random military building similar to Raid, but checked against the abstract chance not taking into account opponent garrison and present stack,
7) Spy has a chance to destroy Public or Regional roads;
Spy has a chance to of incurring Unrest status or Negative random event increase;
9) Spy prevents the chance of your leader being killed (reduces to 0 for wins or draws);
10) Spy drains 2 effectiveness of the naval stack;
11) Spies trying to create a new objective with rather low chance;
12) Spy increases vision radius by 1 for 2 turns;
13) Spy temporary increase army Power Score to prevent AI from aggressive actions and defend better against raids, or force AI into garrison;
14) Spy increases the forage value of region 2 times for 2 turns and prevents bad rolls from happening;
15) Spy increases chance to absorb Client State region if all other conditions are met;
16) Spy lowering Ethnicity converting percentage for 5 turns;
17) Spy chance to kill your own bad general;
18) Spy spawn 1 light ship in nearby water body to potentially block the port on this or the next turn
Ships should be able to receive motivation similar to land troops
As a bonus picrelated
- some folks complain that its the weakest faction out of the major ones;
- developers put a lot of time and effort into big factions;
- to examine a practical trade min maxing from the get go;
I already did AAR on Burgundi conquering most big players of Classical era WITH Exported battles. Game wasn't balanced for that so this time its all about flexing strategy muscles. Instead of boiled down recap I tell you the meta on how the game plays, and how to improve higher difficulty AI for the sake of regular and efficient players. Without further ado lets briefly examine four main interactive systems and how to improve AI around them:
1) Economy & Trade
2) Doom Stacks & Force Compositions
3) Diplomacy & Wars
4) Decisions & World Building
Since they are all interlinked and I can write tomes upon tomes on optimization I would rather get you condensed information and if you disagree I can elaborate on each individual question:
-----------------
First block covers the reasons for giving AI bonuses from the start, specifics of these bonuses and the effects of proposed rather simple value changes for the patch:
-----------------
- AI bad at developing non-plain non-hill regions. That steams from them not using proper optimized pop allocation and Infrastructure siphoning. Instead of reweighting the whole system one simple fix to make Infra pulling work exactly like Food. More averaged out output help AI. And then when Dynamic bonuses based on the Legacy difference kick in they would catch up to the player. Introduction of this change makes Provincial AI helper more useful, since it not required due to his inability to understand the pulling rules. Otherwise it makes pretty decent choices for what region needs right now. If thats possible AI should get bonuses from the get go for Swamps, Deserts and Mountains or do reweights since they put too much POP on food. Increase AI growth rate via hidden Health bonuses.
- AI on the highest level in constant struggle with resources. This happens in many 4X and Strategy games, therefore the solution is often to give them flat resources every turn and more importantly increase their income. The biggest bonuses should come to food and commerce. That would make AI properly focus on Infrastructure and Culture. In turn that would improve Trade System, which is struggling right now for the reason that there simply not enough call in Import resource buildings built by AI even on turn 100. Talking about buildings. AI weight for Walls, Roads, Equipment structures and Ports should be increased heavily. Decrease level 1 food buildings and level 3 infrastructure buildings. Increase AI weights for the Tier 2 Military, Commerce, Culture and Health buildings, and thats what gonna be composing most of their regions. AI can't be aggressive enough without amping up their ability to maintain multiple Doom Stacks.
- I think lack of resources is the driving factor in weird Peace Deals between the nations. Even 2 nations with big Manifest Destiny scores like Maurya and Seleucids can fight down to the last 2 regions. Both empty on resources and lost their Doom Stacks already. The one calls for forces to protect their nation (increased Land Power rating) combined with War Weariness score procs the peace deal where resources and Provincial Units War Score is overrated. This scenario ends up with Maurya holding only 1 conquering region, getting 2 provincial units, gold and metal. That pattern repeats for many nations big and small until Dynamic Difficulty and Manifest Destiny kick in really hard when your Legacy lead skyrockets. So combining flat bonuses, income increase (esp. for Manpower) and tripling the size of free supported units (reduced upkeep) for AI is the solution to all 4 factors.
- More gold, tier 2 buildings and higher civilization levels means that AI gets better National Decisions, more dynamic and logical expansion, and serves as the sizable threat to the player. On top of that conquering their regions would be more rewarding. Right now it makes sense to hunt down for World Wonders (Military or Diplomacy way), Hellenic population and Provinces that can produce Archers and Light Horses. Furthermore, I'm a player who plays with Fog of War, but looks all Combat Reports and changes around the world. Thats one of the ways how I notice AI specific behaviors. The lack of Economy and Doomstacks often leads to neverending wars between the same nations since their economy in the ditch, and when they fight each other their Land Power goes down the drain. More nations pile up, but they don't have Doomstacks to finish off even one nation for good. The best part is when Doomstack in the garrison getting besieged by another Doomstack with -6 Siege score. Thats one of few times when their resources can lift up from the bottom for more action in the future.
This game eliminated nations and causes for their death in order to give you some ideas:
- Belgae killed Parisii because Galii & Parisii exchanged their Doom Stacks and Belgae surviving one moped up;
- Rome killed Tarentum and Tarentum started this war when Rome and Senones exchanged their Doomstacks when Rome failed the assault of Senones. Tarentum Declared war on them, lost their stack in assaults and Rome simply rolled them to the completion this time due to them having proper bonuses to rebuild and maintain Doom Stacks out of the gate;
- Seleukos killed off Orsoene instantly since their Doom Stack was in vicinity when Antigonids created that faction;
- Arvenni Killed off Aquitanni in the volatile exchanges common for barbarians and unwalled nations. And the only reason why is Aquitani stack activating Independent Germanics in one of the combat retreats that spawned neutral stacks for many turns that actually killed Aquitanni last region.
- Rome killed Senones using Doom Stacks they created for Tarentum;
- Nubia killed Blemmies after Egypt lost many regions to them, signed peace giving them resources and leaving with a single starting region plus 1 region they reconquested from the rebelion. Nubia simply killed two regions in one turn since Blemmies exchanged their stack vs Egypt Legacy event stack;
- Seleucids killed Armenia, but only because every single nation dogpiled on them. That elimination was rather swift. That happened after Seleucids got temporary peace with Antigonids and were able to commit their Doom Stack to smaller nations;
- Ethruscii I had great relationships with and signed an early Allience to prevent their destruction by Rome, and deny Rome great Medium Infantry become Client State of Rome and 5 turns later without typical absorption region by region got instantly eaten alive;
- Seleucos Wiped Media that had 2 regions one of which was lost to Rapinoe;
- Eprirus killed Illyria in 2 turns when they lost their Doomstack and didn't trigger Legacy Nation Protection;
- Egypt killed Cappadocia that for some weird reason got into war with them without big enough Doomstack. I guess their limited vision of low pop Egypt region, Egypt involvement into many wars, their empty coffers lead to the random War proc chance;
- Saba killed Quataban after Quataban reduced them to a single 3 POP region, peaced out giving them everything back, and then paid for that in dozen of turns. Ofc Rapinoe helped;
- Rapinoe killed Arahosia which was very funny since it lived only 3 turns after diving from Seleucids, but being scared to DOW them;
- Nasamones killed Garamantes, who stuck in a single region of their origin due to not owning big enough Stack from the start. They start accumulating, which engaged both nations into staredown until Nasamones pulled the trigger.
- Dacia killed Thracia after Lysimacos fallen apart. They exchanged multiple smaller Doom Stacks and repelled one of the lethal attack by the fact that Legacy army spawns before impulses and combats.
- Parisii killed Britanii. Parisii rebirthed on Britain peninsula and resolved many long lasting conflicts there by owning the healthiest economy and Doom Stack. They lived in peace with Picts until my Declare War On finally gone through.
- I can go and one, but you got the point. Many other conflicts were often resolved by immersion breaking peace treaties. There should be a 50% per each occupied region that nation accepting the peace deal keeps them regardless of the conditions of peace for AI's. Similar to how to get special Client State absorption checks. Dynamic Difficulty and Manifest Destiny should kick in earlier on higher difficulties.
-----------------
Second block is specifics per each system:
-----------------
- Unlike other bonuses early Decadence and Loyalty boosts work for AI from turn 1, but they can't focus their culture to squeeze you out in the bottom tier forever. Decadence stops being a problem about on turn 8 and never becomes ones if you manage your empire properly.
- Loyalty is not an issue at all similar to Decadence even on the highest level if your manage your Empire correctly and stay as Civilization Level 2 Glorious until the earliest victory trigger. And in case you go for something else can rotate in the loop of level 2 according to your current goals. Actually its rather hard to provoke Revolt in opponent Just Conquered region if you won't pull out to let them retake it to get that Under Pacification + Just Conquered mix combined with buildings Disassembly (and low upkeep ones don't create that much unrest either).
- Provinces should increase Administrative Burden instead of reducing it since there are currently no downsides into making the province. If you can come up with one let me know. Argument about separate equipment queues for military units on frontier doesn't fly here, since for the most part game resolved at Doom Stacks level. Supporting stacks perform harassing/delaying role. Either garrison improvers or cavalry/light horses harassers. There are siege harassers Im gonna talk about below.
- Dynamic Difficulty should kick in strong when you are in top 10 of Legacy. About the same level as it does when you x1.5 Legacy ahead of number 2 at the moment.
- Manifest Destiny and Economy factors should have higher weight in AI decisions to Declare War.
- Add +2 to default AI vision, which gonna improve the game instantly combined with the suggestions from the first block. If thats possible put player on the bottom of Impulses order list.
- To make skirmishers more useful in attacking role compared to light horses and archers they should have the increased chance to draw opponent ranged units fire.
- National Decisions based on the number of regions with building X should cost more.
- Increase the chance of all random regional and world map events at least two folds, maybe more. Most casuals play like 200 turns of a given Campaign before starting a new game. Relationships should increase and degrade faster.
- Peace Treaties should do proximity checks for regions as well. As I said unwalled Barbarians are very volatile. Especially when you do mix in Slaves, Rebels and activated Independents. In my game Gothones ended up in Sarmatians and Scyths territory. Many river traveling nations had absurd region placements. The problem is when Peace occurs rarely nations keep conquered regions, so many disjointed nations stuck in the endless wars until someone with bigger bonuses comes in like Rome you boosted by gaining Legacy. More details in block 1. The funniest part is when faction fights with 2 others, makes peace with the 2nd ones that had regions in the middle separating them from the 3rd nation that joined the fray cause the original nation had too many active wars, lost doom stack and their economy was weak. Yea, original nation still fights with 3rd, but divided in half now.
- Need the option of Passage rights without cheesing Alliance plus Insults. Or having Cooperation with almost everyone, so Alliances are free and mostly tool to create passages to desired goals. Passage should be similar to Alliance, but if you not Allied to the nation you signed Passage with and got into a new war no matter how the right will be immediately canceled.
- By being in Peace deal with nation your current opponent is close to you can use them as free launching pad for the attacks and tactical retreats to restore your Fatigue and HP if needed. When peace deal ends pushback can even make 1 skirmisher conquer region with no walls without fighting. Same happens with stacks retreating from combat when their natural path is blocked by bad weather or Alpines.
- Pushback bug also sometimes happens in Alpines when you use Retaliate and Assault Order at the same time. You can get pushed back even 2 regions back out of the mountain chain completely. But this bug is so rare doesn't even worth fixing it.
- Insults better be limited by cooldown like Diplomatic messages. Impose the range limit of 8 range as well. It shouldn't be impossible to insult faction with x1.25 Legacy points higher than you. Insults power increased by endless wars quirks. As Carthage I was able to get Insults to 50 into Cooperation into 100 Relationships with Rome by constantly insulting Senones Rome lost their Doom Stack against. There were many nations with 1 or 2 regions left in War with everyone, but unable to die off providing constant source of free Relationships all over the world.
- I didn't abuse it this time, but Region Trading for Units or less Developed Regions plus Gold or Metal can easily gain you distant regions. Or you can give away bad regions for free to serve as buffers and points of buying better provincial units for your upcoming conquests. Similar to insults should be limited by range 8 and Legacy Points Difference of x1.5 this time.
- Potentially higher relationship penalties from breaking the Client State or going into the war from the 50 Current Relationships. I won't even talk about Client State abuses here to not spread this information. It safe to say that I didn't use them.
- Diplomacy screen should take you to the nations who rejected your proposal. Also need to see what your proposal was. Its harder request, but can be done similar to transaction left column where you have to click to see who wants what. Rejected proposals are better that way in a sense that you actually want to teleport the camera there to create a new proposal or repeat the last one.
- Another similar QoL request is when you press on good in Trade ledger that good should highligh automatically. Now you have to press T to enter trade menu of the region, click on the good, close ledger and Trade and press Shift + 2 to see the range of imports to gauge your prospects against someone else providing that resource. And the fact that AI is bad at building Tier 2 structures creates less Call In Import places plus certain goods like Iron, Salt, Leather & Wood being overpowered. Trade display doesn't always show all resources produces and imported when sorted by one good, where big icons stand for production and small for imports. Trade menu rarely makes mistakes, but those are negligible.
- Message about upcoming weather move into Standard category. Same for Nations that cancel Alliance and Cooperation without notifying you like they love to do. Messages about Nations progressing or regressing, starting wars, making peace deals, leaders dying/parties changing, civil wars and slave rebellions have to make into player message pool since they are not spammy and important as well.
- AI should gain huge bonuses to Military Expertise to make their Doom Stacks fight better and mainly improve garrisons Combat Rating. So AI can feel relatively free committing their stacks to attacking instead of protection. And Player can simply stomp them with Light Horses + 0-2 Medium Cavalry stacks (no walls or lvl 1 walls) or Veteran/Elite Heavy Infantry backed up by archers (decent walls) and potential preemptive assault by skirmishers/archers and light horses or heavier assault by sacrificial cavalry + archers or Naval Support regional decision (superb walls). Especially when you put low quality generals on those stack to kill them off faster.
- Should specify in the win conditions that Legacy check only procs when counter says turn 101.
- Ships don't restore HP from an ally when all conditions are met.
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Block 3 - New National and Regional decisions
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The only thing this game misses is Spying system past the reports that provide very detailed information. I usually scroll through the whole world maps with reports of the combats at highest detail, check my neighbors objectives locations (if there are new ones added for my territory) and check the weather forecasts every turn.
But the game would definitely benefit from more interactivity and interwoven dynamics between various resources and facets. Those should be easy implement since its mostly value changes or have analogous decisions in the game already.
First of all National Decisions on the level of ideas without concrete numbers:
1) Based on region with Granaries for all Civilization levels:
- Base Loyalty Cap increase for the purposes of Welfare Loyalty calculation and Health increase;
- Food percentage decrease in exchange for manpower generated from the region population big percentage bonus;
- Food to Supply rate 1 to 2 and slight Commerce increase.
2) If Military Expertise 3 or more AND City Guard is 2 or more for all Civilization levels:
- Get penalty on Metal and Infrastructure penalty for Increase in Manpower generation for every region with any military tier 2 structure built;
- Culture penalty for X turns and Decadence gain for Conquest lowered for Y turns, where Y > X;
- Increase of Alliance and Passage Rights chance in return for Gold and Decadence increase.
3) For regions that have Tier 2 Commerce building and Civilization lvl 2 or 3:
- Tax Rate lowered, but Commerce and Acumen increased by a lot, loyalty % generated goes up a little;
- Diplomacy chances and Cooperation increased, but Administrated Burden and Loyalty % penalties increase as well.
4) Having at least 1 Tier 3 Military building in the nation and Civlization lvl 2 or 3:
- Military Experience increase, widened General Pool and lessened Revolt chance. Pay for that by manpower and gold percentages;
- Metal production gets boosted and Equipment cost lowered for every unit type plus XP requirements for the level up threshold are decreased. Penalties in Health and Gold;
- Increase Manpower percentage for loyalty and culture percentage decreases.
5) For Civilization level 2 or 3:
- Increase the chance of Food buildings related to Papyrus production showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of Legal buildings and lvl 3 Commerce buildings showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of tier 2 Health and tier 3 Culture Loyalty reduction buildings related to sports showing up in the queue;
- Increase the chance of Roads, Military Ports and Walls showing up in the queue.
Regional Decisions Region Related:
- Migration: Each aligned region with above 50 Loyalty has 25% chance to share its pop with the select region;
- Gather food: Pool 15% of food stockpile from the aligned regions and the forage values on top of that;
- Religious Ceremonies: increase the chance of positive random events including new pop birth;
- Kill 1 POP for decent boost of Manpower generation per said region;
- Kill 1 POP for flat gold amount (e.g. sell into slavery), but decadence small flat increase;
- Kill 1 POP for flat infrastructure boost (e.g. new permanent jobs), but slight commerce penalty;
- Garrisons and Ships in Garrisons with Ports restore 1 HP and 1 Effectiveness.
Regional stack decisions related for small and medium stacks, has the cap on the upper stack size and general availability with combined rating of 1:
1) Spy poisoning the well that destroys forage value of the region and has a chance to reduce affected stack fatigue by 2 checked separately for every unit.
2) Spy has a chance to kill opponents stack current assigned general.
3) Spy has a chance chance to frame that decreases their relationships by 5 with aligned nations.
4) Spy has a chance to drop Loyalty by 15 and increases Revolt risk by 5% for 3 turns.
5) During siege spy can drain percentage of food stockpile and has a chance to incur 1 effectiveness hit rolled for every separate unit.
6) Spy has a chance to get small amount of gold and destroy random military building similar to Raid, but checked against the abstract chance not taking into account opponent garrison and present stack,
7) Spy has a chance to destroy Public or Regional roads;
Spy has a chance to of incurring Unrest status or Negative random event increase;9) Spy prevents the chance of your leader being killed (reduces to 0 for wins or draws);
10) Spy drains 2 effectiveness of the naval stack;
11) Spies trying to create a new objective with rather low chance;
12) Spy increases vision radius by 1 for 2 turns;
13) Spy temporary increase army Power Score to prevent AI from aggressive actions and defend better against raids, or force AI into garrison;
14) Spy increases the forage value of region 2 times for 2 turns and prevents bad rolls from happening;
15) Spy increases chance to absorb Client State region if all other conditions are met;
16) Spy lowering Ethnicity converting percentage for 5 turns;
17) Spy chance to kill your own bad general;
18) Spy spawn 1 light ship in nearby water body to potentially block the port on this or the next turn
Ships should be able to receive motivation similar to land troops
As a bonus picrelated