Transactions for Regions

[Morbio]

In a few games I'm noticing that the AI can be very generous to the sale of regions, which I don't think would be the reality. I can see that remote regions, or regions not in a province that are rebellious or accumulating decadence might be good regions to sell. I can also imagine that a nation very short of one or more resources (gold, manpower or metal) may be open to selling a region to solve a resource problem. But...

I'm finding that I can buy who chunks of friendly or allied land beyond what would seem reasonable.

In one MP game I'm allied to a country whose player has been absent for a while, so the AI is running the show, I made an offer for a region to complete a province for me, so far so good. I was absolutely overflowing with gold and doing well on metal, so I offered to buy a couple of provinces, which was happily accepted. Next turn I offered to buy every region they had and, you guessed it, this was accepted too! My ally had a few armies dotted all over my land, but no land! Until... A nearby neutral AI controlled region rebelled and my ally came back with some land, so I bought this as well!

I find that if I concentrate on making gold, making alliances and becoming friendly with neighbours, then I can more easily acquire land I'd struggle to achieve in war.

Surely there must be a better decision making process rather than the simplistic mathematical model that gives a region a value so that it is sold if this is met (or exceeded).

[desertedfox]

I have found this exact thing as well. Another player in a game commented on how easy it was to buy allies and then buy their land.

[jimwinsor]

I agree the process may be too easy in the late game, due to the overflow of money you can get then. But I will disagree slightly on the mechanic being totally unrealistic.

There have been times where entire provinces and even countries were peacefully acquired. The Pergamum bequest gave Rome the entire Asia province, for example. And it did indeed consist of an entire country. Bithnyia, Cyrenaica and Libya were annexed in a similar fashion. So, “buying” a province in game could be looked at as the effort being spent to engineer these dynastic acquisitions.

The problem is, there is so much money sloshing around late game that there is nothing better to do with the cash than to buy entire countries. Thus these “bequests” happen too frequently. I’m in a PBEM game right now, as Armenia, and so far I’ve managed to annex all of Arabia, Egypt and Iran, and I have 100% offers out to buy half of India and Nubia as well. This is possible due to my having an net income of around 15,000 money a turn.

So like I said, I don’t really have a problem with the diplomatic mechanic here. The best solution, IMO, would be to somehow tackle the excess money issue (a much trickier problem).

[Quivis]

I completely agree. The game needs some serious rebalancing. I’ve just bought all provinces from my client state, i.e. Rome (including Rome). Why they agreed to be my client state – while being my ally and the second biggest nation in the game – is a different story. Moreover, currently there is too much snowballing which leads to too much of everything (money, manpower, metal, food, supplies, armies … everything) after the first 100-200 turns.

I think that some buildings should cost money to build and maintain (not only if there is not enough trade goods) – maintaining great temples in the middle of the desert provinces shouldn’t be a no-brainer. Right now I don’t see a reason not to build everything everywhere all the time, which simply doesn’t feel right from the gameplay perspective. Cultural/Governmental buildings should cost a lot. Not every province in the world should be a well-developed region.

But it’s not only a matter of resources. Let’s take a look at the huge 500-1000 stacks roaming in the middle of nowhere in the mid-late game. There is too much food in the late game which has no visible limits, and thus I only really pay attention to the supply situation when I want to take an island. The in-game combat engine isn’t really made for such huge battles either, it doesn’t feel right when 90% of your army doesn’t even fight (and I’m not talking about mountain regions).

Don’t get me wrong, I really like this game, and that is why I hope we’ll get some badly needed changes which makes the game more interesting after your empire is already stable and defeated the initial enemies. I hope the Devs will pay more attention to the game after the first 100-200 turns.

[poesel71]

On which difficulty level do you play?

[Quivis]

Me, on difficult, though I admit I mostly play big countries such as Rome, Seleucids, Carthage, Macedonia. I’ll go "insane" next and see the difference.

[ess1]

I’m going insane in my MP game trying to increase my manpower
Apologies for butting in.
Keep well all.

[dodgy]

I think the middle to later game issues are mainly a product of excess population growth.
Typically from the start to late game regions have something like a tenfold increase in population or more. Historically over this period population did increase in many areas but it would probably have been more like a two or three fold increase (and less growth in some areas like the steppes).
If populations were much lower later in the game than you would see far less money & huge armies sloshing around, building and maintaining structures would be relatively more difficult and you would not have every region ending up so developed.

To me, a reasonable compromise would be if it was about twice as difficult as now to get an extra population - the growth rate would still be higher than historical but it would be a playable, enjoyable game.

[Pocus]

Measures have been taken, believe me. Administrative Burden, a penalty to growth past some level, etc.

To figure out what can be done for the late game without disturbing the early to mid game, I would need saved game (SP only) from players with a thriving Empire, so I can appreciate what insane level of resources we are talking about!

You can post there directly with a wetransfer link for example, or another mean of your choice.

[Quivis]

Measures have been taken, believe me. Administrative Burden, a penalty to growth past some level, etc.

To figure out what can be done for the late game without disturbing the early to mid game, I would need saved game (SP only) from players with a thriving Empire, so I can appreciate what insane level of resources we are talking about!

You can post there directly with a wetransfer link for example, or another mean of your choice.

Thank you. Here is my Macedonia game just after Rome agreed to sell me its most valuable provinces: https://we.tl/t-xgMJnVl55X

[Gray Fox]

Rhodus starts with a -35% manpower national trait and Carthage -50%. It took me 26 turns to get a Sarmatian region from 1 pop to 3. If it took 52 turns or if some factions were stagnant, then these would not be playable or enjoyable. Besides a faction can make a ton of money with the right buildings and have huge mercenary armies sloshing around. Rome was a city of perhaps a million people during the time of the game. My grandmother had ten children. That's what people used to do.

[Morbio]

My money wasn't insane, it was a mere 20,000 gold and I was earning about 700g per turn (IIRC).

Maybe you consider this insane, but it wasn't considering what I'd invested in my commerce.

By the time I'd bought my neighbour's empire I was down to 1,000g or so. I was hoping that when I bought the empire I'd get his treasury too, and allow me to recoup my expense, but sadly that wasn't to be

[Johnnycai]

Yep, this is really blocking any further progress, need to shed some provinces I guess.

FoGE.PNG (240.3 KiB) Viewed 1768 times

That's some penal 'Burden' gents.

[Pocus]

That a lot of AB indeed. Having it above what you earn in commerce means you have a lot of underdeveloped regions.

Got your Macedonia save, Quivis, thanks.