Solutions done :
1- Siege preperation is now 33% longer
2- Fortifiacation advantage is now higher especailly if attackers started assault with less siege equipments. (It was 2.5-3x now it is 3.5-4x for less number of siege equipments)
3- Because fortification advantage is higher now attackers do not start assault with 0-1-2 equipments generally. So defenders reach with higher probability and attackers lose more men during sieges.
4-Leaving army crash when army is at settlement is fixed also. (not related topic)
These will slow down snowballing a bit but real solution is related to war and peace algorithms. I will focus this next week.
These fixes (1-2-3) will be ready this evening with hotfix and they will be added 1.4.3 (beta) with flat item price fixes explained here
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/almost-no-income-from-workshops-and-caravans.427992/
This is great, thanks!!
Concerning war/peace algorithm, here you can check a screen for a 71-day campaign. As you can see, Western Empire is totally gone. This time it has been WE, but NE is usually the bigger offended.
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The reason for this is pretty simple, Aserai and Northern Empire making peace since day 1 and then 1 or 2 factions getting massive war declarations (plus the issue you have already fixed related to fast sieges). I have been reporting this issue for a lot of time but without luck for the moment. Avoiding this maybe won't magically solve all the issues and some factions still can get a lot of wars declarations, but it is not comparable having 3 wars against factions with only one war ongoing or having to fight 3 wars against factions with also are fighting other wars.
Plus there are other important things to have into account like map design and try to balance the game around it. For example, Vlandia and especially Kuzhaits have a great map position (same for Aserai to a lesser extend), but at the same time, they are the safest factions involved in a fewer amount of wars. My suggestions for fixing snowballing:
- Most of the snowballing occurs in the first 100 days and I think it is something related to starting armies and garrison composition, please check it and change it if necessary.
- Rather than Sturgia and Aserai going to war 99% of the time, would be great if Aserai and Kuzhait would fight more often (replace Aserai for Southern Empire if it is a better idea).
- Is cavalry still getting 20% bonus in simulated battles? If it is the case, please remove it at least in sieges.
- Make AI less likely to declare wars if the faction is already fighting one (especially if the kingdom is fighting 2 wars). This does not happen too often but sometimes I have seen some factions declaring wars when they are already fighting two.
- In a future, introduce revolts/rebelions and give Vlandia a hard time with this.
I know that balancing and fixing snowballing is a really hard task but there are easy fixes that would probably improve the situation a lot which are being ignored currently (especially Aserai and SE making peace at day 1).