Increasing the Influence Cost of Armies?

[Blood Gryphon]

Yeah, the biggest problem is that it costs a lot more influence.



That's right, as far as I've seen. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing though.

Honestly that fine if there is less frequency of Armies, honestly I think grouping up into armies can hurt a kingdom more than if they have their individual parties running around. If your parties are constantly in armies you can have massive swings in power as they barely recruit and when they lose you lose everything.

This is controversial but I think too many soldiers survive from being wounded instead of killed on the winning side of battles. Like I've seen 1k vs 1k armies fight and the winner maybe loses 200 troops to death and another 300 wounded but the loser loses all 1k troops. So in the end one side sacrifices their whole army while the other side loses barely anything after they've had time to heal up all the wounded troops.

Also definitely not a bad thing, I think armies should throw themselves at settlements a few times until they've weakened it either by multiple sieges or they've raided/starved the area out for so long its an easy win. The AI need to be more strategic than, create deathball until success is guaranteed.

 

[Apocal]

Honestly that fine if there is less frequency of Armies, honestly I think grouping up into armies can hurt a kingdom more than if they have their individual parties running around. If your parties are constantly in armies you can have massive swings in power as they barely recruit and when they lose you lose everything.

I do too, but I was referring to players who, for whatever reason, have issues generating more influence. They still have clan parties for free but if someone isn't knowledgeable about certain game mechanics, they'll seriously struggle to get enough influence to form an army capable of taking a well-defended town quickly (without knocking down the walls, in other words). Maybe that's an acceptable tradeoff, I'm not sure.

This is controversial but I think too many soldiers survive from being wounded instead of killed on the winning side of battles. Like I've seen 1k vs 1k armies fight and the winner maybe loses 200 troops to death and another 300 wounded but the loser loses all 1k troops. So in the end one side sacrifices their whole army while the other side loses barely anything after they've had time to heal up all the wounded troops.

Yeah, this is a separate issue but I think it is dumb as hell that the AI never actually tries to withdraw or retreat from battle with the player Against one another in autocalc one side will sometimes break away, but usually with so many wounded they get caught again and annihilated anyway. If armies/parties were more resilient and less likely to be outright annihilated, it would solve almost all the snowballing issues right then and there.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I do too, but I was referring to players who, for whatever reason, have issues generating more influence. They still have clan parties for free but if someone isn't knowledgeable about certain game mechanics, they'll seriously struggle to get enough influence to form an army capable of taking a well-defended town quickly (without knocking down the walls, in other words). Maybe that's an acceptable tradeoff, I'm not sure.

Yeah we would definitely need to see some balancing on influence gain, especially because there are some policies that can rob low level clans from influence. But I think it would make sense that higher tier clans and the ruler clan would be the ones to be leading armies.

Yeah, this is a separate issue but I think it is dumb as hell that the AI never actually tries to withdraw or retreat from battle with the player Against one another in autocalc one side will sometimes break away, but usually with so many wounded they get caught again and annihilated anyway. If armies/parties were more resilient and less likely to be outright annihilated, it would solve almost all the snowballing issues right then and there.

This is such a solid point. Maybe some kind of movement penalty when a certain % of enemies get away so they can get a head start on the world map? I wonder if this is part of mexxico's upcoming fixes

 

[FEARtheMoose]

I dont see the issue with some factions gaining dominance over time. This increased influence method only serves to keep the factions relatively stagnant the entire time, which is boring. No end game challenge of having to take on a couple powerful foes. If it was like this you would be able to rofl stomp everyone bu the time you reach barely mid game. Also after 20 years i want to be having battles in the many many thousands, not still fighting armies of a few hundred.

the only change i think is required is to make it so its more random which factions end up becoming dominant in the end game. Its less fun if you know your always going to be fighting the same faction late game.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I dont see the issue with some factions gaining dominance over time. This increased influence method only serves to keep the factions relatively stagnant the entire time, which is boring. No end game challenge of having to take on a couple powerful foes. If it was like this you would be able to rofl stomp everyone bu the time you reach barely mid game. Also after 20 years i want to be having battles in the many many thousands, not still fighting armies of a few hundred.

the only change i think is required is to make it so its more random which factions end up becoming dominant in the end game. Its less fun if you know your always going to be fighting the same faction late game.

The problem isn't that some factions gain dominance over time, but how long it takes. Right now the game last at most 20 years before half of the kingdoms are gone and its down to 2-3 giant kingdoms that actually don't fight too often. The point of this would be to extend the amount of time it would take to get to this point, thus giving you the opportunity to actually have generational gameplay.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

@Apocal Do you mind posting a world map of one of the playthroughs if you still have it? Just curious to see how it all played out

 

[FEARtheMoose]

The problem isn't that some factions gain dominance over time, but how long it takes. Right now the game last at most 20 years before half of the kingdoms are gone and its down to 2-3 giant kingdoms that actually don't fight too often. The point of this would be to extend the amount of time it would take to get to this point, thus giving you the opportunity to actually have generational gameplay.

isnt 20 years ingame atleast like 100+ hours IRL?

thats an extremely long time for 1playthrough to be fair

 

[Apocal]

Also after 20 years i want to be having battles in the many many thousands, not still fighting armies of a few hundred.

Fair enough.

isnt 20 years ingame atleast like 100+ hours IRL?

thats an extremely long time for 1playthrough to be fair

It depends on your pacing. For me, it is more like twelve to twenty-five hours.

 

[Apocal]

@Apocal Do you mind posting a world map of one of the playthroughs if you still have it? Just curious to see how it all played out

 

[Blood Gryphon]

God Damn this is a nice map. Honestly it looks similar to the one Mexxico posted. It will likely be awhile before you could test your changes with 1.5.6 but now im super interested to see the impact of your changes with Mexxicos (assuming he didn't make any related changes to what you did)

 

[Apocal]

God Damn this is a nice map. Honestly it looks similar to the one Mexxico posted. It will likely be awhile before you could test your changes with 1.5.6 but now im super interested to see the impact of your changes with Mexxicos (assuming he didn't make any related changes to what you did)

His changes are almost certainly different and probably better. His map has different factions winning for a change and the Khuzaits actually lost one of their cities, to the Sturgians. Which means the Sturgians are going to have some access to high-quality and numerous cavalry to help balance out their autocalc woes.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

His changes are almost certainly different and probably better. His map has different factions winning for a change and the Khuzaits actually lost one of their cities, to the Sturgians. Which means the Sturgians are going to have some access to high-quality and numerous cavalry to help balance out their autocalc woes.

Oh no doubt, I just meant he likely didn't change the influence cost of armies at least to the degree you did. You thinking he made smaller factions focus on getting higher tier troops so their smaller number count for much more, thus Sturgia would actually have access to a decent amount of mounted brigands?

It seems the biggest thing he did was allow weak factions to come back, which was desperately needed. You can even see that Khuzait clearly destroyed Sturgia at some point and stole at least two of the sturgian clans (look at Husn Fulq and Lycaron), but Sturgia have made their way back. 1.5.6 cant come soon enough.

 

[mexxico]

If you increase cost of forming armies it is normal snowballing happens less because ai form armies up to x influence cost. Means that AI do not increase influence amount they will use according to influence formula. Assume they are spending 100 influence for forming armies if they have 300-400 influence, similarly they spend 200 if they have 700-900, they spend 300 if they have 1000-1500, and max 400. Formula is something like this. Not exactly but similar. So if you increase influence cost 2x they will form armies including 3-4 parties in average not 6-7 like now. This will slow down snowballing because game will have smaller armies, so they usually will not be as strong as to make successfull sieges so armies will start making more raids or visiting settlements or patrolling. Similarly if you make militias 2x snowballing will be less too like making 2x influence cost, armies will not make siege again.

Fix of snowballing should not be like this. I know currently in 20 years two factions (usually battania and khuzait) are having 50-60 fiefs (towns counted 2) and 2-3-4 factions (usually ne, se, sturgia) are eliminated or left with 1-2 towns but this will be fixed soon, I will open a post at friday about developments to fix this snowballing problem.

At first months of Early Access snowballing was biggest problem (in first 10 years 1-2-3 factions was eliminated) it become better with war peace developments at 1.5.1 next developments (will be at 1.5.6) will solve problem nearly completely.

In addition, nice work @Apocal. When you first messaged me about this I could not think of reason and warn you sorry for this.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

If you increase cost of forming armies it is normal snowballing happens less because ai form armies up to x influence cost. Means that AI do not increase influence amount they will use according to influence formula. Assume they are spending 100 influence for forming armies if they have 300-400 influence, similarly they spend 200 if they have 700-900, they spend 300 if they have 1000-1500, and max 400. Formula is something like this. Not exactly but similar. So if you increase influence cost 2x they will form armies including 3-4 parties in average not 6-7 like now. This will slow down snowballing because game will have smaller armies, so they usually will not be as strong as to make successfull sieges so armies will start making more raids or visiting settlements or patrolling. Similarly if you make militias 2x snowballing will be less too like making 2x influence cost, armies will not make siege again.

Fix of snowballing should not be like this. I know currently in 20 years two factions (usually battania and khuzait) are having 50-60 fiefs (towns counted 2) and 2-3-4 factions (usually ne, se, sturgia) are eliminated or left with 1-2 towns but this will be fixed soon, I will open a post about developments at friday.

At first months of Early Access snowballing was biggest problem (in first 10 years 1-2-3 factions was eliminated) it become better with war peace developments at 1.5.1 next developments (will be at 1.5.6) will solve problem nearly completely.

I'll save questions for Friday, but thanks for the in-depth explanation!

So really what I'm reading between the lines is we need to find a way to scream loud enough about the khuzait cultural bonus, huh?

 

[mexxico]

I'll save questions for Friday, but thanks for the in-depth explanation!

So really what I'm reading between the lines is we need to find a way to scream loud enough about the khuzait cultural bonus, huh?

New developments can hold Khuzait in 40 fiefs in first 20 years like in @Apocal ’s tests. So even Khuzait’s OP faction bonus remained and even armies consist of 1000s troops as current version game will be more balanced “soon”

Of course game needs better faction fonuses for other kingdoms but I cannot do anything for them. I told this problem to related people and wait a solution. It is not my area.

I will post lots of charts and graphs and data. We can discuss this problem and fixes deeply.

 

[sniparsexe]

New developments can hold Khuzait in 40 fiefs in first 20 years like in @Apocal ’s tests. So even Khuzait’s OP faction bonus remained and even armies consist of 1000s troops as current version game will be more balanced “soon”

Of course game needs better faction fonuses for other kingdoms but I cannot do anything for them. I told this problem to related people and wait a solution. It is not my area.

I will post lots of charts and graphs and data. We can discuss this problem and fixes deeply.

It is good to know this, thanks for explaining

 

[Blood Gryphon]

New developments can hold Khuzait in 40 fiefs in first 20 years like in @Apocal ’s tests. So even their OP faction bonus remained and even armies consist of 1000s troops as current version game will be more balanced “soon”

Of course game needs better faction fonuses for other kingdoms but I cannot do anything for them. I told this problem to related people and wait a solution. It is not my area.

Oh we know its out of your hands, from what you've said it seems you've outdone yourself with these fixes. Can't wait to hear more about it on Friday, if you get too busy to visualize some things just post the data and you know I'm more than happy to do it.

 

[mexxico]

In this block? No, it doesn't control troop wages. It is very focused -- on the influence cost (not denars) of pulling another lord's party into your army. Troop wages are somewhere else. Probably somewhere really easy to find, I just haven't yet gone looking for them.

As for your request:

隐藏: Standard influence costs and 20 year armies

Armies are bigger, but not quite as big as I remember them being at 20 years (1104). Maybe they've already done some balancing there?

	Control
Aserai	24
Battania	59
Khuzait	65
Northern Empire	6
Southern Empire	2
Sturgia	1
Vlandia	15
Western Empire	1

This is current status of snowballing problem at 1.5.4. It can be good if any of you can make 2 tests more to see situation in 3 different tests. So we can compare old and new situation in 3 tests when 1.5.6 is at beta. Collecting these kind of datas will help development. I already did lots of tests but if you do also it will be better.

 

[Dabos37]

@mexxico not sure if you are in charge of this area but, do you know if there is plans for decreasing the amount of days per year? Maybe you have plans to reduce it once death and aging bugs get totally fixed. I think we are missing a huge part of the fun currently because we stop playing campaigns before being able to play with our sons. Sorry for the off topic.

BTW, thank you very much for working on snowballing, this will be a great improvement for the game.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Here's a 20 year test I ran today

隐藏

Control
Aserai	16
Battania	59
Khuzait	58
Northern Empire	1
Southern Empire	0
Sturgia	8
Vlandia	2
Western Empire	25

Fix of snowballing should not be like this. I know currently in 20 years two factions (usually battania and khuzait) are having 50-60 fiefs (towns counted 2) and 2-3-4 factions (usually ne, se, sturgia) are eliminated or left with 1-2 towns but this will be fixed soon

This is exactly what happened lol, I'd say your tests are accurate.