Pode said:
cost jump between lvl 26 and 27 units, at least for the Anglo-Saxons, was to encourage the creation of Saxon swordsmen and Angle spearmen by giving them some reason to exist. If the cost is competitive, why wouldn't I promote only Saxon spearmen and Angle swordsmen instead for the better eventual tier 5 units?
Hmm, this is a good point. I did it mainly for the AI (it was hammering their finances a bit too much, because the jump is fairly severe, especially given how autocalc works). I will take a look at their unit stats and the cost differences, and think about what needs to be and can be done.
Absent other ideas, I might restore it as player only, as much as I am usually against those differences. I had to leave the AI premium for mounted/mercs at 1.2x or so, despite the player going up to 1.5x and 2x, for similar reasons of not having certain units be a drain on their finances in a way that doesn't help them enough.
I do have some thoughts on why it might be ok, let me know if either is convincing:
1) the tier IV unit isn't that much better than its counterpart, the real difference is at tier V, and those units cost the same anyway, and by being a lower level, the level 26 worse unit will be able to promote to the higher tier in larger numbers as a consolation (not much though, about 1.2x I think).
2) In other changes I'm trying to reduce incentives for "around the world" recruiting tours more generally:
- once you have a fief you get serious bonuses to recruiting within it. So if you are an Angle and have an angle fief, you will find it much easier to simply recruit them. The bonus is dramatic, +0-60 for village, + 0-10 for town castle to base numbers (base number reduced if getting higher tier, though at villages that still means +0-30 extra units of tier II, hopefully making villages compete for possible player control as a great source of peasants for your armies). Not reduced by religious differences. Vanilla was +0-2, so it is now 30x or 5x as influential being a lord to recruiting compared to vanilla.
- local relations are much more influential in recruiting success, and the jump to higher tier base is also much more tied to high relationship, with only a few recruits of higher tier at low relationship, so if you build up with a city, you will get their spearmen and swordsmen. Though even at max, it is slightly above 1/2 base recruit numbers if getting the higher tier (there has to be some reduction in numbers if rolling tier III direct, vanilla was giving you the same exact number for towns and castles). Still with relations giving much faster bonus to base numbers, that will compensate a great deal. Villages always give 1/2 base if upgraded tier, because the difference between tier I and II is far less dramatic than II and III.
- religious differences kill recruiting much more effectively, with all sorts of modifiers reduced by local faith. Now, the only way you can overcome religious difference and get some recruit is local relations to the center (this mostly targets Norse bodyguards/Saxon noble silly armies, if someone wants to do that they are going to at least need very high relations.)
- you now have to actually work for your local relations more. Before tournaments gave +6 per win up to 30, now it is the reasonable +1 (no cap) and you have to do quests the rest of the way
I'm hoping this leads to less pick and choose in general, especially as keeping a village allows a player lord to opt into the ability to swell their ranks with troops of a culture at the financial costs of the better fiefs. But maybe players are just going to keep 1 each of Saxon and Angle towns and villages, and pump relations with each. Though maybe then they are expressly opting into that kind of army distinction and working hard for it, and would probably do the same even if the costs were a bit higher, and might as well let them.
Please do give any further thoughts on this, and I'll look into reverting that further as well.
Pode said:
Somewhat concerned that there may be hidden engine effects of campaign AI setting, but agree you've got to pick one to save testing.
It is possible, but I have reason to think it isn't so.
The campaign AI effects I have seen have been terribly structured. Things like: let's cheat for the player kingdom on information radius for campaigns, whether on normal or hard, just slightly less pro player cheating on hard. Let's make the AI other kingdom lords more willing to join campaigns on hard, exclude the player kingdom, but then give a huge bonus only if the player is the martial.
Basically, it was often working out to--make the player kingdom lords more useless, often still help the player himself, and so make campaign AI a distinction in whether you are actually going to play a cooperative victory with your lords or are going to become even more the star.
The fact that I'm seeing so much AI decision influencing aspects makes me think there aren't a bunch of hidden engine ones,
Basically, I see how Warband makes the AI "smarter" on higher difficulty (expands their information, helps them join the marshall), which makes me think there aren't a lot of hidden influences doing the same.
Btw, the new normal should often be harder, since I am removing pro player cheating that even occurred on hard.
But really difficulty is about army composition more than anything. The recruiting costs for normal will mean they are building back up a more slowly (but that is more about how many times you beat them, less about whether you can beat them), but I am helping their finances enough to compensate, and they should often just let less rents accumulate this way to be taken by the player.
It should take a couple months for AI lord armies to get on board with the new recruiting templates fully, but once they do there should be a great deal more challenge. Let me know if it doesn't work out that way and we can even consider switching the recruiting costs down or something.
But in general I expect 5.0 on Normal to be much harder than vanilla on Hard, as the armies you face will be geared to stand a chance.
Notably, the real difficulty settings in the game are the VC added ones, now that I have bugfixed hardcore finance to work correctly. Strategic difficulty in Warband is about the comparison of armies, and hardcore finance and leveling turned on will do much to keep the player closer to AI army composition, especially combined with the buffs I did to their army templates and the increased cost and rarity of the better mercs. So players who want a more difficult game should use those options, and let the resulting less elite player army create the difficulty.
Pode said:
I'm Eric on reddit and Pode on Steam, so that should save you a line in any future credits
Yes, thank you! I did realize, I just try to be careful not to "out" people's identities on different forums, even when obvious like this,
Pode said:
You're doing the Lord's work here.
Ah, well YOU will be doing the lord's work, a bit faster, as I am going to slightly alter the conversion balance in favor of christians. They already get the occasional bonus from close by monasteries, but I think I will increase their conversion effect form buildings to happen a bit more frequently than pagan shrines.
It is pretty clear that Christianity is much more effective at spreading itself than Norse paganism in the real world. I'll start with a very small +0-1 increase in Christian conversion building effects, and that might be all that is needed. Oh, I also might go ahead and make conversions from Christian to pagan much less common for lords than the reverse--I don't know that we even have many examples of that occurring.
Combined with the army template changes to make the Norse more fierce, should lead to an interesting and realistic dynamic--feared pagan armies but a Christian religion that can potentially conquer them even as they conquer Christian lands.
In general, anyone who has read the changelog and has feedback, please raise your thoughts as Pode did--now is the absolute best time to complain of things, as it is very easy for me to change.
A release tonight, probably, but my wife has been a bit neglected in these recent 10 hour modding sessions of late, so tomorrow is also possible. Sorry guys, on the plus side, the delay is only because more things are getting improved, I am commmited to testing extensively to ensure everything works right.