Information about developments at snowballing problem

[niekdegrijze]

or keep his idea and have the AI hire companions as was intended.
maybe buff medicine to compensate.

Could medicine not be detrimental for fixing the big difference between the winning side and the loosing side? If the medicine skill is to high A winning army recovers most of the lost soldiers and can carry on conquering

 

[Dabos37]

Or simply just a better autocalc battle system. If the player outnumber looters 5:1 or more is pretty much different than 1000 men fighting 800 and these 1000 just getting a few men killed. I mean, these are pretty much different situations.

 

[Apocal]

Anyway, do you know how to mod this? I could try it for myself and test the result. If I like the result, I will apply it just in my games because I rarely kill looters. But yes, I can understand that it could be frustrating for other players.

Those codes are beyond my understanding. Maybe @Medivhtratos knows?

 

[mexxico]

I read all comments. Sorry for late response, I was working on these 4 changes. I will try to add these to 1.5.7 :

1-Some policies are so unbalanced. Thanks for noticing OP of policy Khuzait's have as default. Effects of policy "Grazing Rights" will be changed to "+0.5 loyality & -0.25 hearth" was "+1 loyality +1 militia"

2-Wounded troop ratio is high as several of you noticed. I think too this damages game's balance. @Apocal did not wanted this change but @Dabos37 and @great_khan are right about this imo. I am not real owner of these codes and previously because of same reason I reduced this ratio (about 1.4.3 imo) but after your comments I checked numbers and this ratio is still high as you noticed. I will reduce survival change a bit more. You can see my comment there which I added previously in previous reduce (part marked with 2). Also as you see at method if troop took its last hit by a blunt blunt weapon he is 100% wounded (part marked with 1). I think it is high too but I did not changed it for now. Only reduced survival change when hit by other 2 damage types. You can see changed part marked as (2) at image. I reduced that 0.03 to 0.02 so there will be a bit less survival change.

For example :
survival change of level 26 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 26 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.78 = about 44% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 26 x 0.02)) = 34%,
survival change of level 16 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 16 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.48 = about 33% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 16 x 0.02)) = 25%,
survival change of level 6 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 6 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.18 = about 15% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 6 x 0.02)) = 11%.

These are lowest values. You can increase these chances with perks and skills. Do not forget still all troops are wounded if they took their last hit by blunt weapon and 25% of troops take their last hit by blunt weapon. So they (25%) directly be wounded currently. Imo overall wounded ratio will reduce to 34%s from 40%s after this change.

3-Preliminary phase will be 30% longer now at sieges. So there will be a bit less successful sieges. It increases probability of defenders to reach sieged settlement.

4-Hearth values of several Khuzait villages will be reduced. (I think its effect will be so minor because they become so rich easily because of their speed advantage (they are decider at meetings at map, they can catch weak enemies and they can run away stronger ones), they sell gained loot, they plunder money of caught enemy lords, most of their income come from loot / plundered money and capturing enemy settlements and having more settlements and tribute payments (because they are strong)).

For ones who will ask will these fix Khuzait OP, answer is no. It will only help others to cope with Khuzaits a bit more. We still need a big negative faction bonus for Khuzaits. Because as mentioned previously their small speed advantage which comes from their high cavalry ratio effects balance of game so much badly. However things are becoming better for other factions in each patch.

 

[whentheragequithappens]

We still need a big negative faction bonus for Khuzaits.

AI need horses to upgrade? Probably hut khuzaits more than others.

 

[mexxico]

AI need horses to upgrade? Probably hut khuzaits more than others.

I suggested adding this 2 months ago but rejected. Its work & risks was a bit much compared other solutions still imo its benefits could be more and we could get rid of one AI cheat.

However here problem is Khuzaits are richest faction because of several reason mentioned at previous post and they can buy more horses compared to others. So even we add this probably will not be enough. Still I am at side of getting rid of this AI cheat.

 

[Pejot]

What can be done :
1-We should increase cavalry ratio at other factions. I am not saying all should same but if Khuzaits have 32% cav ratio others should have 15-20% not 12%.
2-We should lower 60% mounted units speed bonus to 40% or 50%. 60% is so much and so OP.
3-We can give several disadvantages to Khuzaits like less recruits or something else.

I think that a solution might be raising influence costs for Khuzaits. They are more of a tribal faction than a kingdom so raising an army and making other lords follow should be more expensive for them and I'm talking like 2 or 3 times more expensive. Also kohession should drop really fast in their case. They have speed bonus so they can capture fiefs fast but if their kohession drops faster they will loose the possibility to take many fiefs in single run while keeping the advantage of mostly cavalry composed army. I hope that a mechanic to plunder a city instead of taking it will be implemented so nations like Khuzaits will do this instead of owning half of the map.

 

[Dabos37]

I read all comments. Sorry for late response, I was working on these 4 changes. I will try to add these to 1.5.7 :

1-Some policies are so unbalanced. Thanks for noticing OP of policy Khuzait's have as default. Effects of policy "Grazing Rights" will be changed to "+0.5 loyality & -0.25 hearth" was "+1 loyality +1 militia"

2-Wounded troop ratio is high as several of you noticed. I think too this damages game's balance. @Apocal did not wanted this change but @Dabos37 and @great_khan are right about this imo. I am not real owner of these codes and previously because of same reason I reduced this ratio (about 1.4.3 imo) but after your comments I checked numbers and this ratio is still high as you noticed. I will reduce survival change a bit more. You can see my comment there which I added previously in previous reduce (part marked with 2). Also as you see at method if troop took its last hit by a blunt blunt weapon he is 100% wounded (part marked with 1). I think it is high too but I did not changed it for now. Only reduced survival change when hit by other 2 damage types. You can see changed part marked as (2) at image. I reduced that 0.03 to 0.02 so there will be a bit less survival change.

For example :
survival change of level 26 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 26 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.78 = about 44% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 26 x 0.02)) = 34%,
survival change of level 16 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 16 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.48 = about 33% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 16 x 0.02)) = 25%,
survival change of level 6 troop was 1 - (1 / (1 + 6 x 0.03)) = 1 - 1 / 1.18 = about 15% now it is 1 - (1 / (1 + 6 x 0.02)) = 11%.

These are lowest values. You can increase these chances with perks and skills. Do not forget still all troops are wounded if they took their last hit by blunt weapon and 25% of troops take their last hit by blunt weapon. So they (25%) directly be wounded currently. Imo overall wounded ratio will reduce to 34%s from 40%s after this change.

3-Preliminary phase will be 30% longer now at sieges. So there will be a bit less successful sieges. It increases probability of defenders to reach sieged settlement.

4-Hearth values of several Khuzait villages will be reduced. (I think its effect will be so minor because they become so rich easily because of their speed advantage (they are decider at meetings at map, they can catch weak enemies and they can run away stronger ones), they sell gained loot, they plunder money of caught enemy lords, most of their income come from loot / plundered money and capturing enemy settlements and having more settlements and tribute payments (because they are strong)).

For ones who will ask will these fix Khuzait OP, answer is no. It will only help others to cope with Khuzaits a bit more. We still need a big negative faction bonus for Khuzaits. Because as mentioned previously their small speed advantage which comes from their high cavalry ratio effects balance of game so much badly. However things are becoming better for other factions in each patch.

Thank you very much Mexxico for changes and for the info.

Concerning Khuzaits still OP, what about spawning template for Khuzaits lords after defeats, are they maybe getting too much mounted units for free when respawning after defeats?

Not sure if troops level is being taking into account for simulated battles, but as it was mentioned before, Khergit Khanate units have lower level than other kingdoms units, probably to help with balancing, because they are also pretty fast in Warband. I am not fan of this change because it looks a bit ugly but as last resort it could help.

I think that a solution might be raising influence costs for Khuzaits. They are more of a tribal faction than a kingdom so raising an army and making other lords follow should be more expensive for them and I'm talking like 2 or 3 times more expensive. Also kohession should drop really fast in their case. They have speed bonus so they can capture fiefs fast but if their kohession drops faster they will loose the possibility to take many fiefs in single run while keeping the advantage of mostly cavalry composed army. I hope that a mechanic to plunder a city instead of taking it will be implemented so nations like Khuzaits will do this instead of owning half of the map.

What about raising influence cost for all big kingdoms? If a kingdom is getting too big, influence cost for calling lords gets increased. It also could feel “realistic”, lords getting stronger with more fiefs are harder to call and cost more influence.

 

[Bummerlord]

I suggested adding this 2 months ago but rejected. Its work & risks was a bit much compared other solutions still imo its benefits could be more and we could get rid of one AI cheat.

However here problem is Khuzaits are richest faction because of several reason mentioned at previous post and they can buy more horses compared to others. So even we add this probably will not be enough. Still I am at side of getting rid of this AI cheat.

How about splitting the khuzait faction in two? I know that would be a huge change, but that would solve the steamrolling as well as make a lot of historical sense. While the Mongols did start steamrolling everyone in their time, being united under a great Khan was kind of exceptional.

 

[mexxico]

By the way today I noticed several perks giving too much xp to troops (daily 15-30 per troop) and 50% of troops at world at tier-5 at mid and late game. Did you feel a change there in latest patches (1.5.5-1.5.6) This also triggers povetry of kingdoms which is bad for snowballing. Also it can be hard for player to pay wages because they have so much high tier troops before they develop their economy.

 

[Dabos37]

By the way today I noticed several perks giving too much xp to troops (daily 15-30 per troop) and 50% of troops at world at tier-5 at mid and late game. Did you noticed a change there in latest patches (1.5.5-1.5.6) This also triggers povetry of kingdoms.

Yes, some players (included me) have been complaining about this. It is too easy to get tier 5 and tier 6 units. I think that experience required for upgrade t1, t2, and t3 units is ok but +T4 units should be harder to get. We can get a bunch of legionaries in some few days which feels weird.

On the other hand, I have also noticed that for some reason after some time (day +1000 or so), some kingdoms start having unstoppable armies able to conquer fiefs pretty easy, but not sure about the reason. I have seen how Khuzaits declare war on Sturgia and take 3 or 4 fiefs really really fast for some reason. This only happens in late game as far I have seen.

 

[Noschkov]

How about giving them a worse calculation for entering a siege. So they are more determined to siege even stronger defended Keeps(where they loose many men and have a real chance of gettin destroyed) instead of only picking sieges they win without any problem. This would give them more identety as a very aggressive Faction that is strong on the open field bug has some problems when they try to take settlements. Also perhaps giving a malus for cav in sieges while they have their auto-calculation buff in the open field. So you could show that real infantry that is trained in melee combat has an advantage over people who trained all the time on horseback.

 

[Pejot]

It also could feel “realistic”, lords getting stronger with more fiefs are harder to call and cost more influence.

It won't work cause if You connect it to number of fiefs owned than it won't change much. In my 2 long playthrough strongest faction lords owned same number of 1-3 fiefs as weaker ones. If You make it higher based on total number of fiefs than You will stop any progress of a faction after certain point.

 

[froggyluv]

How about giving them a worse calculation for entering a siege. So they are more determined to siege even stronger defended Keeps(where they loose many men and have a real chance of gettin destroyed) instead of only picking sieges they win without any problem. This would give them more identety as a very aggressive Faction that is strong on the open field bug has some problems when they try to take settlements. Also perhaps giving a malus for cav in sieges while they have their auto-calculation buff in the open field. So you could show that real infantry that is trained in melee combat has an advantage over people who trained all the time on horseback.

Agree for gameplay sake but funny enough just read that the real Huns were experts at siege due to many of them serving in Rome's Legion. Man they were some tough basterhds to deal with. Seem their really only tactical defeat had to do with a ridged slope plain and an allied enemy of roman and visigoth

 

[Blood Gryphon]

We still need a big negative faction bonus for Khuzaits. Because as mentioned previously their small speed advantage which comes from their high cavalry ratio effects balance of game so much badly. However things are becoming better for other factions in each patch.

Maybe we can hit them where their lore weakness is in sieges like others are saying. Even with the new negative effect for cav during sieges its not enough to stop them when they can amass such large armies. Maybe the way to do it is to significantly increase the time it takes for khuzait to siege compared to the other factions,

3-Preliminary phase will be 30% longer now at sieges. So there will be a bit less successful sieges. It increases probability of defenders to reach sieged settlement.

so bump this up even further for Khuzait and give their enemies more time to respond and defend. Maybe this is something you can test out to see if it actually impacts anything?

 

[Pejot]

Maybe we can hit them where their lore weakness is in sieges like others are saying. Even with the new negative effect for cav during sieges its not enough to stop them when they can amass such large armies. Maybe the way to do it is to significantly increase the time it takes for khuzait to siege compared to the other factions, so bump this up even further

I think that big army is not a problem here. The problem is number of big armies they can create at the same time. There should be some limit to this. Warband had it better since only one army could be raised cause only one lord had the right to do it. Here we can have 5-6 big armies from one kingdom. Maybe some limit on the number of armies depending on number of lords or clan tiers. Or a requirement for army that it should have at least 10 lords to be raised.

 

[Noschkov]

Agree for gameplay sake but funny enough just read that the real Huns were experts at siege due to many of them serving in Rome's Legion. Man they were some tough basterhds to deal with. Seem their really only tactical defeat had to do with a ridged slope plain and an allied enemy of roman and visigoth

Let's just say the Empire in BL never liked them and denied them any training with siege weapons. Or implement alliances in the game but i think the first option is the faster and more realistic fix^^

 

[Dabos37]

Maybe we can hit them where their lore weakness is in sieges like others are saying. Even with the new negative effect for cav during sieges its not enough to stop them when they can amass such large armies. Maybe the way to do it is to significantly increase the time it takes for khuzait to siege compared to the other factions,

so bump this up even further for Khuzait and give their enemies more time to respond and defend. Maybe this is something you can test out to see if it actually impacts anything?

I think that increasing siege preparations is a good change overall. As far I have seen, Vlandia, Battania and Aserai are also able to snowball in some campaigns. Concerning Khuzaits this change maybe do not change much but I think it could be overall a good one, as long as it does not make Khuzaits stronger (I think it won’t be the case).

 

[Apocal]

So I got a new laptop and let a few tests run while I was out partying.
(p.s. holy **** it is nice to be able to get these done in like an hour and change per instead of half a day)

	Test 1	Test 2	Test 3
Aserai	25	23	21
Battania	10	27	26
Khuzait	56	53	35
Northern Empire	11	6	19
Southern Empire	4	4	14
Sturgia	17	10	9
Vlandia	36	5	28
Western Empire	14	41	21

Idk, personally, I think this Khuzait problem is going to be a constant issue that may take more than just a few updates like we've been getting. It might screw the entire game altogether. I don't understand why its this complicated, to me it seems simple. Just reduce the ****ing stats for Khuzait's horse archers in simulations and outside of them. To me, that sounds stupidly easy that it's aggravating that it's being made a big deal out of.

Autocalc doesn't care about stats, only tier and being mounted. We tested with the mounted autocalc bonus disabled. It didn't matter. I tested with the mounted autocalc bonus AND the Khuzait cav speed bonus disabled. It didn't matter. I got around to stripping the entire cavalry map speed bonus but 1.5.6. dropped before I could get enough tests done (I was testing on a ****ty laptop; it took several hours per test) so I didn't say anything until @Dabos37 mentioned he wanted to know how to disable the cav speed bonus.

The whole of the Khuzait problem is a confluence of factors but really comes down to small, specific advantages from early adding up into a general advantages (troop numbers, clans, influence, money) that are insurmountable for the AI. And then there are other issues with the Khuzaits, namely that a lot of people don't like fighting horse archers, which get thrown in when they are unrelated.

By the way today I noticed several perks giving too much xp to troops (daily 15-30 per troop) and 50% of troops at world at tier-5 at mid and late game. Did you noticed a change there in latest patches (1.5.5-1.5.6)

I noticed it. It came with the perk changes in Leadership in 1.5.5 so I assumed it was intentional, since so many players complained about the daily gains being much lower than Warband (going from 0 to 100 Swadian Knights in 10 days, no combat necessary) and having to fight to level them up.

Does the AI still get daily cheat XP?

I think that big army is not a problem here. The problem is number of big armies they can create at the same time. There should be some limit to this. Warband had it better since only one army could be raised cause only one lord had the right to do it. Here we can have 5-6 big armies from one kingdom. Maybe some limit on the number of armies depending on number of lords or clan tiers. Or a requirement for army that it should have at least 10 lords to be raised.

Making it dependent on clan tier would give an advantage to factions that win early battles and sieges; AI clans tier up just like the player. And making armies have a minimum size (although they kinda already do) would cause defections to hurt factions even worse than they already do. Since clans tend to wind up permanent members of the snowball faction, it would make the strongest faction even stronger. Well, it already does but you're just stacking another advantage on top of being able to field +3 parties with every defecting clan that comes to them for a fief.

 

[D0c1]

I suggested adding this 2 months ago but rejected. Its work & risks was a bit much compared other solutions still imo its benefits could be more and we could get rid of one AI cheat.

However here problem is Khuzaits are richest faction because of several reason mentioned at previous post and they can buy more horses compared to others. So even we add this probably will not be enough. Still I am at side of getting rid of this AI cheat.

loot gives too much gold. it's the main source of income.
battles shouldn't be the main source of income imo. taxes should.