So, I haven't been that thrilled with the changes to the Levy system in 2.0. I gave them a shot, waited through the various iterations of patches that came out, and finally came to the conclusion that for me, the game just wasn't as much fun as it had been. My main issues were:
1) The game went from "too easy" (counts/dukes) to "too hard" (expanding kingdoms) to "too easy" (empires with plenty of retinues to crush anyone that rose up). In my view it suddenly meant that as a count or a duke you could easily have more troops than your liege, and it was rare that I had less than 50% of my liege's total troops, regardless as to which level I was playing at. Sorry, but small entities are supposed to have fewer troops than big ones...
2) The levy mechanics meant that I played every game a specific way. Save money and technology points until you captured the capital duchy where you wanted your empire to be, only expand in the du jure empire (and kingdom, if possible) until you've maximized your levies from that, no expanding at targets of opportunity outside your empire, etc.
3) Vassals are to be kept as weak as possible. Previously I wanted strong, rich vassals because they'd give me more troops. Now that most of my fighting was done via demesne levies and retinues, strong vassals were far more of a threat than an asset. There's no reason to have an "outside-your-du-jure-empire" King of France when he'd grant you at *most* a couple thousand troops. It just wasn't worth it.
4) Vassals are to be kept only as happy as they need to be to not revolt. Previously happy vassals meant vastly more troops. A vassal at 100 opinion gave double the troops than one at 50. That meant a lot when that a vassal king was responsible for 50k men. Now that it's 2500 vs 5k who cares? Keep them in the 50s with higher taxation and you're fine.
5) Money vs Levies. There's really no reason to have "max feudal levies" anymore, since you get so few vassal levies anyway. It's far better to reduce that to minimum and increase taxes on everyone. Those taxes can pay the absurd amounts that your ~20k demesne levies cost to fight a war.
6) Retinues were now so overpowering that there was no strategy needed anymore. 15k Skirmish/Longbowmen destroyed everything they came up against, so there was no reason to agonize over retinue composition.
So, based on that, I set out to change the levies back to being somewhat closer to what they were previously. They're all easily adjustable in the defines file (just edit via Notepad++), and it doesn't break Ironman mode either. Here are the changes I made:
So what I did, was first get rid of the 50% vassal levy nerf. It seemed to be the main source of the problem, as every vassal's political power was effectively doubled. A duke that provided you with 10% of your forces (theoretical maximum, before area levy nerfs) would have 20% faction power. It's why a handful of dukes could easily get up to 50% of your troops and almost guaranteed civil war.
Next I modified the area levy nerfs. I kept the buff for the capital county/duchy, so that it does give your vassals increased power over what they had previous to the 2.0 levy system. Just not as much as post-2.0. Otherwise I eliminated any nerf for within your Capital Empire (reduces the need to focus on where your capital is, and enables things such as Scotland or Ireland remaining the capital of a British Empire). Outside your du jure empire, I reduced the penalty to provide 80% of the normal troop levels, as opposed to 15% (?). So there's some penalty for troops outside your empire, but nowhere near as bad as it was before.
Lastly, I increased the event troops to 1.5x their strength. I'm still playing around with this and might increase it to 2x, but overall it seems pretty good. No idea if this affects Mongols (haven't gotten to that point in a play through yet) and so I might end up facing 200k doomstacks. For liberation and religious revolts, this seems fine.
Results - WOW, lots and lots of troops!! Big kingdoms and empires now raise massive amounts of troops (again), and retinues/mercenaries are pushed back to being only a small part of your overall army. My ~15k Housecarls got stomped by a huge HRE doomstack and I had to frantically raise and manage vassal levies in order to win (owned Scandinavia and France). Vassal kings are now a vital part of your empire, as you'll end up using their levies to fight most of your battles. Factions still fire, but the requirements for them to do so are greater because of the elimination of the vassal levy nerf. Now 30% of your dukes joining a faction against you only results in 30% faction power (instead of 60%, or more).
As far as playthrough and strategy, it seems like the anti-blobbing aspects of v2.0 still work fine. Earlier Crusades/Jihads/GHW mean that if you expand too quickly you'll face a LOT of troops, and the reduced importance of Holy Orders means that they're not necessarily going to save you... Hungary doesn't take Greece now, although I did see them use their armies to expand Eastward instead in one game. Arabia and the Byzantine Empire usually fight it out, with a 50/50 chance of either of them expanding massively into the other. Set one game on Observe from the 867 start, and here are the results:
Link to big image
Link to big image
Link to big image
Link to big image
(ok, then I got bored and actually started playing a game.
)
Obviously, this isn't for everyone, especially anyone overjoyed at the changes to the Levy system. So please, don't start arguing about how I'm wrong and that the new levy system is the best thing ever. This is just something that I did to make the game more fun *for me*, and I figured I'd throw it out there for anyone else who isn't thrilled with the changes and wants to modify the game to better suit their playing style. Otherwise I'd love to hear what people think?
edit: By the way, the defines file has a TON of things that you can change. Basically if you're unhappy with any part of the game, there's probably a pretty good chance that you can change it in the defines file. Anything from retinue upkeep (yep, you can make retinues have a monthly upkeep beyond reinforcing) and how many retinues you get for what holding, to the starting technology and tech spread, to what warscore (and how long) enemies will accept a White Peace, to the ages at which characters die a natural death. It's pretty fascinating.
1) The game went from "too easy" (counts/dukes) to "too hard" (expanding kingdoms) to "too easy" (empires with plenty of retinues to crush anyone that rose up). In my view it suddenly meant that as a count or a duke you could easily have more troops than your liege, and it was rare that I had less than 50% of my liege's total troops, regardless as to which level I was playing at. Sorry, but small entities are supposed to have fewer troops than big ones...
2) The levy mechanics meant that I played every game a specific way. Save money and technology points until you captured the capital duchy where you wanted your empire to be, only expand in the du jure empire (and kingdom, if possible) until you've maximized your levies from that, no expanding at targets of opportunity outside your empire, etc.
3) Vassals are to be kept as weak as possible. Previously I wanted strong, rich vassals because they'd give me more troops. Now that most of my fighting was done via demesne levies and retinues, strong vassals were far more of a threat than an asset. There's no reason to have an "outside-your-du-jure-empire" King of France when he'd grant you at *most* a couple thousand troops. It just wasn't worth it.
4) Vassals are to be kept only as happy as they need to be to not revolt. Previously happy vassals meant vastly more troops. A vassal at 100 opinion gave double the troops than one at 50. That meant a lot when that a vassal king was responsible for 50k men. Now that it's 2500 vs 5k who cares? Keep them in the 50s with higher taxation and you're fine.
5) Money vs Levies. There's really no reason to have "max feudal levies" anymore, since you get so few vassal levies anyway. It's far better to reduce that to minimum and increase taxes on everyone. Those taxes can pay the absurd amounts that your ~20k demesne levies cost to fight a war.
6) Retinues were now so overpowering that there was no strategy needed anymore. 15k Skirmish/Longbowmen destroyed everything they came up against, so there was no reason to agonize over retinue composition.
So, based on that, I set out to change the levies back to being somewhat closer to what they were previously. They're all easily adjustable in the defines file (just edit via Notepad++), and it doesn't break Ironman mode either. Here are the changes I made:
Code:
LIEGE_LEVY_SIZE_MULTIPLIER = 1, -- The Size of the liege levy will be the total troops in the vassal subrealm * this
and
CAPITAL_COUNTY_VASSAL_COUNT_LEVY_MULT = 1, -- Used instead of CAPITAL_COUNTY_LEVY_MULT for vassal counts
CAPITAL_COUNTY_VASSAL_LEVY_MULT = 1.25, -- Used instead of CAPITAL_COUNTY_LEVY_MULT for non-count vassals
CAPITAL_COUNTY_LEVY_MULT = 1.5, -- Multiplier to direct levies in the capital county
CAPITAL_COUNTY_LIEGE_LEVY_MULT = 1, -- Multiplier to liege levies in the capital county
CAPITAL_DUCHY_VASSAL_LEVY_MULT = 1.15, -- Used instead of CAPITAL_DUCHY_LEVY_MULT for non-count vassals
CAPITAL_DUCHY_LEVY_MULT = 1.25,
CAPITAL_DUCHY_LIEGE_LEVY_MULT = 1,
CAPITAL_KINGDOM_LEVY_MULT = 1,
CAPITAL_KINGDOM_LIEGE_LEVY_MULT = 1,
CAPITAL_EMPIRE_LEVY_MULT = 1,
CAPITAL_EMPIRE_LIEGE_LEVY_MULT = 1,
OUTSIDE_LEVY_MULT = 1, -- Multiplier to direct levies outside all capital regions
OUTSIDE_LIEGE_LEVY_MULT = 0.8 -- Multiplier to liege levies outside all capital regions
and
EVENT_TROOPS_SIZE_MULT = 1.5, -- Applied to match_mult to determine size of troops spawned from events & historySo what I did, was first get rid of the 50% vassal levy nerf. It seemed to be the main source of the problem, as every vassal's political power was effectively doubled. A duke that provided you with 10% of your forces (theoretical maximum, before area levy nerfs) would have 20% faction power. It's why a handful of dukes could easily get up to 50% of your troops and almost guaranteed civil war.
Next I modified the area levy nerfs. I kept the buff for the capital county/duchy, so that it does give your vassals increased power over what they had previous to the 2.0 levy system. Just not as much as post-2.0. Otherwise I eliminated any nerf for within your Capital Empire (reduces the need to focus on where your capital is, and enables things such as Scotland or Ireland remaining the capital of a British Empire). Outside your du jure empire, I reduced the penalty to provide 80% of the normal troop levels, as opposed to 15% (?). So there's some penalty for troops outside your empire, but nowhere near as bad as it was before.
Lastly, I increased the event troops to 1.5x their strength. I'm still playing around with this and might increase it to 2x, but overall it seems pretty good. No idea if this affects Mongols (haven't gotten to that point in a play through yet) and so I might end up facing 200k doomstacks. For liberation and religious revolts, this seems fine.
Results - WOW, lots and lots of troops!! Big kingdoms and empires now raise massive amounts of troops (again), and retinues/mercenaries are pushed back to being only a small part of your overall army. My ~15k Housecarls got stomped by a huge HRE doomstack and I had to frantically raise and manage vassal levies in order to win (owned Scandinavia and France). Vassal kings are now a vital part of your empire, as you'll end up using their levies to fight most of your battles. Factions still fire, but the requirements for them to do so are greater because of the elimination of the vassal levy nerf. Now 30% of your dukes joining a faction against you only results in 30% faction power (instead of 60%, or more).
As far as playthrough and strategy, it seems like the anti-blobbing aspects of v2.0 still work fine. Earlier Crusades/Jihads/GHW mean that if you expand too quickly you'll face a LOT of troops, and the reduced importance of Holy Orders means that they're not necessarily going to save you... Hungary doesn't take Greece now, although I did see them use their armies to expand Eastward instead in one game. Arabia and the Byzantine Empire usually fight it out, with a 50/50 chance of either of them expanding massively into the other. Set one game on Observe from the 867 start, and here are the results:
Link to big image
Link to big image
Link to big image
Link to big image
(ok, then I got bored and actually started playing a game.
)Obviously, this isn't for everyone, especially anyone overjoyed at the changes to the Levy system. So please, don't start arguing about how I'm wrong and that the new levy system is the best thing ever. This is just something that I did to make the game more fun *for me*, and I figured I'd throw it out there for anyone else who isn't thrilled with the changes and wants to modify the game to better suit their playing style. Otherwise I'd love to hear what people think?
edit: By the way, the defines file has a TON of things that you can change. Basically if you're unhappy with any part of the game, there's probably a pretty good chance that you can change it in the defines file. Anything from retinue upkeep (yep, you can make retinues have a monthly upkeep beyond reinforcing) and how many retinues you get for what holding, to the starting technology and tech spread, to what warscore (and how long) enemies will accept a White Peace, to the ages at which characters die a natural death. It's pretty fascinating.
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