JakethX said:
...You haven't been banned yet? No offense, but it's mildly annoying to see threads cluttered by what is functionally spam.
Another problem is that vassal states or tributaries are allowed to do anything and everything they want and their masters in Rome and Carthage, can't do anything to stop them.
The main problem with that is, how does Rome or Carthage really "know" what is in their own best interests? The AI doesn't seem to look very far ahead, and long-term planning is needed for Rome to know whether it ought allow Massilia to undertake a certain action. I assure you, Rome would have loved to see Massilia expanding into Spain, to deny the region to Carthage; likewise, they would likely have disliked seeing Massilia expanding into France and Germany.
Overlords like to see their tributaries grow, so long as it doesn't outpace their own growth, or cut into their own powerbase; the problem is, the AI has little concept of what their powerbase and rate of growth is, and so cannot choose a proper time to apply pressue to their tributaries, even if the mechanisms were in place.
Rome denying Massilia the right to grow at all is more ahistoric, in my opinion, than a Massilia that expands too readily (if the Liguria problem that prevents Rome from expanding at all is resolved, of course); after all, Massilia was a key Roman ally in dealing with Carthage, a fight that could easily have ended in Rome being crushed. Would Rome really cripple a key ally in such perilous times?
And afterwards, Rome owned Spain herself, effectively ending Massilian expansion without the need for blanket declarations of "no colonization".
Now, this isn't the only instance of tributaries, obviously, but it's the one most pressing to your concerns; how would you strike the balance between ensuring the growth of a key ally at the expense of an enemy, while avoiding cutting off your own personal growth? And while representing it in terms that the game can understand. The closest I can come is "Don't expand into territories adjacent to myself". What should AI Rome be encouraging AI Massilia to do? Well, assuming that it all develops according to history, Massilia should be claiming Spain for herself and Rome, and afterwards be attending to internal affairs, excepting times that it raises a military force to participate in the frequent, indecisive wars with Carthage.
But, how do you represent that in the game? And how do you represent this when history is blown off-course?
It's easy to say that tributary behaviour is broken, but it's not an easy question to resolve, and near impossible to accomplish while the AI isn't looking ahead. But let's remember that tributary and overlord aren't (usually) enemies, aye? Draconian pronouncements from the get-go aren't the solution; better to tailor solutions to the most problematic areas first (Liguria going to Massilia completely cutting off Rome), to get a feel for the extent of the problem, and work from there. Because whlie Massilia might be a huge in-game annoyance, we ought remember that they were an ally of Rome before Rome was a superpower, and that Rome would have treated them as such.
...I think I repeated my point about five times in there, but I don't really have the time to rewrite it now ^_^0 . So you're stuck with the results of my ill-timed post
.
Why should modders solve the fundamental flaws of the game?
...Prestige? Glory?
Having a really fun game at the end?
Look, it's the only decent strategy game with a character system and an event system that I know of outside of Crusader Kings, and CK annoys me a bit too much to play
. Why shouldn't I dance in it?
these responses are depressing :-(
I was hoping it would be deeper than colonizing and waging war.
anyway, I guess i'll just buy In Nomine.
I'll hold off a little longer on this one.
Come back in two months, and I'll likely have diplmacy and internal politics polished a bit more for you ^_^ .
