April 15th Public Beta: GENERAL FEEDBACK

[unmerged(28966)]

Just finished a good session on the new patch. It's (so far) been totally stable so long as I have auto=save off. (super stable if I INSTALL it properly...)

There are still somewhat implausble muslim invasions of far off places, as others have noted. There's more inter-christian fighting which makes it more interesting. Overall, wars are fundamentally strange affairs because they are effectively demesne vs demesne which creates some bizarre looking situations. But that's just how it is.

Iberia is more balanced. The Muslims don't always get completely hammered, but generally the Spanish christians do much better. France Germany and Byz are fairly cohesive. I think the Italian Franks are a bit whimpy. The Seljuks are still fairly well impotent, it'd be nice to see them move at Byzantium or someone at least.

I could be dreaming, but it seems that the cost of running an active army is much greater than it has previously been. I think that's a distinct improvement - means u can't keep armies in the field for unfeasibly extended times, and if you do prepare for big prestige hits from the new events.

I got a strange bug that I haven't noticed before. When I upgraded myself from a Count to a Duke, my negative cash flow ceases to effect my cash balance... it just stayed on '0' while should have been going down, and then started going up from '0' when the my cash was positive again.

The new sets of events add a lot of flavour to the game, it's great work. The events for when your laws are different from your leige read a bit confusingly - look like they have been changed to effect you from your liege - could do with a slight rewording?

I also got an event for the end of a revolt or some such where I got the opportunity to give the peasants some assistance back onto their land. I was expecting to get a little piety for this, and earned a whopping 400. This must be a typo... 40 or something would seem a bit more like it.

I haven't played long enough to see how things shape up over the longer term, but am looking forward to playing a few games through - hoping that CTD's don't start to overwhlem me again (so far so good though).

All up, much credit to Mr T, Johan and all contributors all the for a fantastic improvement in the game over the last few months. (OT I wish Creative Assembly had a similar approach.)

 

[lenny]

I got a strange bug that I haven't noticed before. When I upgraded myself from a Count to a Duke, my negative cash flow ceases to effect my cash balance... it just stayed on '0' while should have been going down, and then started going up from '0' when the my cash was positive again.

You need to save-reload whenever you upgrade your title. Otherwise, the engine will consider you as AI, so you might notice different grab title cost, no debt from negative income (but still from event effects), and (iirc) no loyalty modifiers from bad reputation.

 

[richvh]

After playing 100+ years of reconquista... not a single province was assimilated culturally... all of them converted to catholicism, though.

Yes, the MTTH still needs tweaking in event 9007. You might want to contribute to the thread devoted to that event's redesign.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Can movement problem be solved by a tech? Give us a fictional tech that is required for sailing at the open sees. In official path this tech is given to all the countries satisfying Johan's principle of fair play but also gives modding community ability to do what we like.

I'll look into this.

 

[Damocles]

Overall, wars are fundamentally strange affairs because they are effectively demesne vs demesne which creates some bizarre looking situations. But that's just how it is.

I wonder if it would be possible for all of a King's subjects to join in a war when one is declared against a rival kingdom? That would make it far more realistic and solve that problem. Afterall, Counts and Dukes were ready to pillage and enlarge themselves on a moment's notice. The human player is still able to steal sieges wherever he wants due to his King character, and he can always do a grand mobilization first or individual mobilization, to control those regiments. The provinces just won't be immune from enemy attack.

The Seljuks are still fairly well impotent, it'd be nice to see them move at Byzantium or someone at least.

I can verify this as well. In my game as a French count on vhard/normal, the Seljuks failed to do absolutely anything except lose a province or two to their neighbours. In reality, they should have at least a 50/50 chance each game of disembowling the Byzantium Empire and ripping out a good chunk of Anatolia for themselves. This could be done in a number of ways...Including just upping what has already been done and including an event for the Byzantine Emperor to declare war on the Turks. Since thats pretty much how it happened.

 

[Damocles]

Just to give another opinion on the max regiment size matter, IMHO it makes the game easier now on VH.

Previously, it halved your regiment strength while providing a boost to the AI. This resulted in a considerable disparity. Take any two counts or duchies and pit one against the other, and there would be no way of winning. Even playing as the Kingdom of Aragon (or any other smaller kingdom) was hopeless simply from a numerical perspective.*

About the only countries that were playable were the Kingdoms, simply because it was on such a vast scale of maneuver that human skill once more came into the equation and could tip the odds.

I started as the Count of Dauphine Viennoise and was able to conquer the Sicilian Muslims within 20 years without problems. Granted, the Count is probably the richest in Western Europe, and I got very lucky with a brilliant strategist as marshal

If it is any consolation, the vastly poorer, but also martially gifted Count Roger Hauteville managed the exact same conquest of Sicily in 20 years as well. That is a remarkable coincidence.


* I play without reloading, and saving only once a year in case the game crashes. I believe thats how the game was designed to be played and that saving and reloading is as much cheating as editing yourself gold or higher traits. In a perfect world, I'd play without pausing too and simply adjusting speed, but I enjoy rummaging through my court too much...

 

[unmerged(1923)]

Playing Apr. 15:

Templar Order became muslim.

I started as Kappodokia; Diogenes became emperor and changed the laws; I got one of the Civil-War type events and took a claim on EoB; Then as a Duke, I took 12k+ troops out of Alexandria and took Romanos' 3 demense provinces and took the Tile Emperor of Byzantium (as well as count of Byzantion). I was able to claim King of Venice (???? 360 prestige ????) and took both Venetian provinces and the King Title.

I had a severe shortage of Male courtiers; for a long time I had no marshal or diosese bishop. When I finally did get male courtiers, I got a rush of muslims from the final fall of the Fatimids. I still have never had a bishop - I've had too few legitimate sons, and bastards are not for the church.

The set_to_realm_religion part of the ecclesiastical education still does not work, so my court has a flush of young muslim courtiers that well outnumber my orthodox christians.

 

[lenny]

Previously, it halved your regiment strength while providing a boost to the AI. This resulted in a considerable disparity. Take any two counts or duchies and pit one against the other, and there would be no way of winning. Even playing as the Kingdom of Aragon (or any other smaller kingdom) was hopeless simply from a numerical perspective.*

About the only countries that were playable were the Kingdoms, simply because it was on such a vast scale of maneuver that human skill once more came into the equation and could tip the odds.

I totally agree that playing a relatively poor count on VH was indeed very hard in previous patches. In fact, expansion by conquest was quite difficult, if not impossible. However, inheritance is another very nice way to get land, and once you grew a bit, also conquest became a viable option. Now I fear, (and the above mentioned game is the only one I played with the April 15th beta and I have only reached 1100,) life will become a bit too easy once you assembled a decently sized realm.

If it is any consolation, the vastly poorer, but also martially gifted Count Roger Hauteville managed the exact same conquest of Sicily in 20 years as well. That is a remarkable coincidence.

Actually, I wanted to give Roger a try, but his fertility is rather bad and he is already married at scenario start. Also, it would be a bit more difficult given that your liege is closer and hence it is more likely that he will steal a siege.

BTW, continuing the game I became King of Jerusalem within 30 years of game play, by picking on Fatimid vassals breaking free in the Levant and finally taking on the Fatimids themselves, as they were weakened by rebellions and wars with Syria, Bohemia and Castile. (The later two took Egypt, which was then mostly re-conquered by the Zirids.) IMHO, that was way too easy.

* I play without reloading, and saving only once a year in case the game crashes. I believe thats how the game was designed to be played and that saving and reloading is as much cheating as editing yourself gold or higher traits. In a perfect world, I'd play without pausing too and simply adjusting speed, but I enjoy rummaging through my court too much...

I make extensive use of the pause function, as the game runs rather sluggish on my system with the debugger on. However, I also refrain from reloads, except the save-reload routines necessary, (i.e. when upgrading my title, or every few years to reset the debug log,) or to correct annoying anomalies like disappearing regiments after a save-reload.

 

[unmerged(42609)]

When a courtier demands money and threatens to defect, the action for defection shows the name of the ruler of the target nation.

In the events that use more than one random_whatever in same action, probably meaning to target more than one different targets, instead target the same one multiple times.

In the event of happiness due to feudal contracts, it uses worst_vassal to target a vassal for improving relations. However, it appears to mean the one the liege considers worst, not the one who has the lowest opinion of the liege. This may be WAD, but I'd like to know why, as currently it seems pointless.

Also, when you are nearing 200 vassals, the above event happens all the time, racking up prestige (25 a pop), and guaranteeing the Just-ness of the liege.

 

[Lord Prime]

Actually, I wanted to give Roger a try, but his fertility is rather bad and he is already married at scenario start. Also, it would be a bit more difficult given that your liege is closer and hence it is more likely that he will steal a siege.

Actually i think that Roger de Hautevilles fertility seems to be quite high, however he seems to produce almost only daughters, with 4 wives he had a total of 9 children, of which only 3 were sons and only 2 survived to adulthood. One can almost understand Henri VIII when trying to get an heir and the wives just keep on giving birth to girls.

 

[unmerged(7667)]

(please ignore if these things have been mentioned before, just mentioning some things in case it helps)

Once today I had an army of mine traveling through a neutral province that I had no connections to. It was under siege by someone with whom I also had no connections to. (no war, alliance, vassals or even dynasty) Suddenly my marshal gets the "shall we storm the castle now?" type of event and has to choose something. Nothing changed in the relations before or after, though my marshal prefered becoming a coward rather than risk dying at the time as there were bigger fish to fry.

Playing as Kiev forming into Lithuania first and then Rus I have not seen anything of the Teutonic Order though I hold all provinces in the area. But any one vassal holding the county of Livs has been peculiarly rebellious, wich feels kinda curious. Three times in a row now my vassal holding Livs has attacked me and been put down, without being in the bottom of my vassal relations list wich I keep good track of. Twice a prince and once a count. Now the fourth time just happened and I decided to let the vassal keep Livs to see if something happens there later. Perhaps just a freak occurrance and I would rather have TO forming there than rebellious vassals.

Stability has been very good with this version. Love the updates. Thanks!

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Ok, played 200 years. Stability has indeed improved, but I still have a very occasional CTD. Still... it seems the cultural conversion even is yet cursed. After 200 years of being under my benign rule, not one of my demesne provinces, not even my capital in Valencia, has changed from arab to catalan culture (and I'm talking here about being the king of Aragon). Sigh. One would say 200 years would be enough.

 

[unmerged(20604)]

Experienced something strange today:

Playing the 1066 on Very Hard/furios (april 15th beta, with corrected bugs) started as Duke of Sjælland now King of Denmark, Napulia and Poland.

The tech Large Castles as spread around to Denmark, the Problem is just that the Tech Medium Castles hasn't.... That means that my provinces all has tech level but not level 3...

It should be implementet that a tech cannot spread unless they have the tech below as in you can't have tech level 4 without level three....

Another thing.

Sometimes when playing on Very fast and Extremely fast (sometimes beloW) i get an error message in windows something with C++ etc. don't know excactly what is says, but it isn't a major problem, I just need to remember to slow down before it autosaves.

But else a very stable patch.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

It should be implementet that a tech cannot spread unless they have the tech below as in you can't have tech level 4 without level three....

There was a discussion a while back in this subforum and it is WAD.

 

[unmerged(1923)]

I got the King is a coward event. I was pissed.

Yes, I was at war.
No the idiots I was at war with would not make peace.
The only way I could keep my Emperor in action was with the Byzantion Regiment - but at 12500 men and the continuous "raiding by infidel" events I was running a negative budget.
Since these idiots were at the far end of the mediterranian (Morroco) and were losing badly to someone else, I decided to disband the Royal regiment.

And then I get called a Coward.

Look, when your court is large enough you cannot have your ruler lead *any* regiment other than your capital regiment. I had earlier passed up taking out a one-province Chiefdom because the cost of shipping 12-15k men around was too much; combine that with mostly muslim male courtiers, and I was not going to allow any of my courtiers to take the province and become counts.

Since the event will almost certainly *not* be changed, I would request a change in the game engine:

Could it at least be possible to force a regiment to be lead by the realm ruler (if available) by using a shift-click instead of a click to mobilize.

(This still leaves the problem that some counts have - their army is just too large to support - and they may not need the whole thing anyways. But that requires a more involved solution - perhaps a way to leave part of the regiment behing when calling it up ctrl-click perhaps?)

 

[Zander]

Can the base cost for excommunications be raised? It's currently at 1 Prestige, which is way too low - children (or young adults with an ecclesiastical education) can be excommunicated by the bushel, practically for free. In fact, an easy way for the Papal Controller to inherit ANY Catholic title is to marry into one part of the family, no matter how remote, and then excommunicate children (possibly even dozens of children, of many different lords) until all other candidates are removed.

 

[Andrzej I]

Yeah, I recall excommunicating twelve children (if i recall right) as the Duke of Brandenburg in order to have my grandson become king of the Germany. Some of the twelve were even over 16 and counts. Even those still costed a pathetic amount of presitge, like 20 or so if you hit them early enough, or 50 if a bit later.
Currently, there's little need for assassination when you could just excommunicate them. That's how I inherit most of my lands .
So, I'm sure many people would appriciate having the prestige cost for excommunication raised a bit. Either way, another excellent job with the new Beta.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

There needs to be peace events for muslims the same as there are christians. This is one of the reasons even with the breakup events, Iberia conolidates itself. When it conquers a nation it doesn't have a claim to, a muslim one, it sits and waits building up prestige till it can afford to buy the claim. Meanwhile that nation is doing nothing except building up gold it can't use, even if its pilliaged usually. I have seen them wait 50 years and outlive 2 monarchs just to do this.

Also, i think some of the intial use of creating tons of bastards (and thus bogging down the system) could be dropped by adding some extra muslim wives. They can and often did have their max of 4. If some non-muslim rulers are allowed more than 1 wife to start with, i can't see a justifiable reason not to give muslims what they could historically have when its possible. This may actually go a long way to not needing as many bastards overall as each wife could potentially produce children at the same time and those children could produce more.......

 

[Styrbiorn]

If some non-muslim rulers are allowed more than 1 wife to start with, i can't see a justifiable reason not to give muslims what they could historically have when its possible.

I don't think anyone has two wives at startup. Some may seem to have, but one of the marriages are ended.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Well its not impossible to do, quite historic and very gamebalcing since MrT wants to use gavelkind law to breakup them and less resources intensive than creating many new bastards otherwise.

The only downside is the need to add new female characters for each ruler. That just takes some time.