Please don't tune down Condi renting for VH in 1.19

[puddingkip]

certainly the sizelimit doesnt need to be there.
Perhaps give them an additional 50% extra available mercs?
That would however take away from the whole 'ausblutung' feels we get when we finally bleed that 1 giant AI dry. I like those feels :>
However I do think it would be both for the AI's sake and my sanity be good if there was a cooldown after a wipe.
I remember literally destroying the entire hungarian army twice over cuz they insta hired out new ones.
That can't be a good thing i mean they couldve gotten dowed right then and there; imagine if they were an opm with no forts!
But yeah I think on everything else we are in accord

I'd say more something like 50% increased condo limit on hard and 100% on very hard. A general +Merc bonus would bring other things with it that are more annoying than challenging I fear. Maybe combined with a 1 year limit.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Please don´t get me wrong but if what we want is extra "difficulty", what is the difference between the 1.18 massive condottieri renting on VH and having to dow a small/medium sized coalition? My point is that if we want a more "difficult" experience we can always provoke a small/medium sized coalition to deal with extra troops (not that we need to make a special effort to provoke it given the scale of the AE generated at VH and the changes of 1.19 wrt brot and vassal nerf).

Edit: I know, I know extra truces but I guess it might be an option.

 

[Frogbait]

Yeah those situations made v.h. condotierri really cool and interesting. It also made the game a bit harder.
However what I perceived as a big problem was the fact that they almost instantly re-rent the condotierri after you stack-wiped them.
So for example hungary would rent 20k against me. I wiped it in pest and as I leave his country he rents out a second stack a month later in vidin; consequently I march over there and wipe it and BAM a new merc stack was hired in Pest and they rent out that.
I really did like the condotierri in 1.18 but this condo spam didn't make it harder it just made it really annoying so as far as that's concerned I think i'm happier with the current state of things.
IF there was a 1-2 year cooldown on renting out condotierri's against or for the same country then I'd be delighted to see 1.18 condi's back but for now the extra condi's aren't worth a game of whack-a-mole imo.

Disclaimer - may have quoted the wrong post here, response is more in line with yours + atwix's convo.

Increased condi stack sizes would be nice as a default but I do agree with putting a limit on renting. Imo it should be 1 condi rent to a nation every 18 months (18 months being the already existing condi recall limit in the game). But that said, I think it'd be pretty cool if every 18 months if their previous condi stack wasn't already wiped out they could lend out another stack. Basically would be the reverse of length of war modifier - the longer you don't deal with a problem, the more difficult it gets kind of deal?

Anyways, thanks for your feedback. It's nice to see the VH community's input on this so far.

Please don´t get me wrong but if what you want is extra "difficulty", what is the difference between the 1.18 massive condottieri renting on VH and having to dow a small/medium sized coalition? My point is that if we want a more "difficult" experience we can always provoke a small/medium sized coalition to deal with extra troops (not that we need to make a special effort to provoke it given the scale of the AE generated at VH and the changes of 1.19 wrt brot and vassal nerf).

Edit: I know, I know extra truces but I guess it might be an option.

Personal opinion / thought on this - basically AI renting condi is a way for them to add to the difficulty of a war without they themselves risking any land, unrest, etc... in it. Basically the AI gets to keep its peacetime status while more or less still giving the player somewhat of a coalition to deal with.

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This all said, another thought did just strike me. I think it was Chain who mentioned it in here, but I could be wrong and it could be Gnivom or someone else mentioning it in another thread. But the AI currently doesn't coordinate with each other in wars due to the community backlash of "AI cheats" that it would be accused of. What if this got added to VH? Wouldn't think likely make the AI quite a bit more difficult for the player to deal with?

Thanks again for everyone who's participated in this thread with meaningful feedback

@DDRJake some input from you on this would be nice as mentioned previously in here.

 

[alexti]

I usually never engage condottieri, as they move around VERY defensively. The condottieri aren't very bold, and flee easily.

I see condottieri more as merc ctacks that raid your supply lines so to speak. If they atack, repel them. If they siege something, let them do so until they reach positive siege chance.

I do the same - there isn't really much incentive to engage condottieri. In truth, when regular enemy armies behave like condottieri there isn't much reason to engage them either. I found that in 1.18 I often win wars without a single engagement.

Please don´t get me wrong but if what we want is extra "difficulty", what is the difference between the 1.18 massive condottieri renting on VH and having to dow a small/medium sized coalition? My point is that if we want a more "difficult" experience we can always provoke a small/medium sized coalition to deal with extra troops (not that we need to make a special effort to provoke it given the scale of the AE generated at VH and the changes of 1.19 wrt brot and vassal nerf).

Edit: I know, I know extra truces but I guess it might be an option.

Coalitions tends to destroy diplomatic game, so condottieri scheme is better in my view. But I wouldn't be opposed to making coalitions more likely, perhaps by increasing AE a bit, though this increase in difficulty is somewhat orthogonal to what condottieri do (at least what they would do if they acted more intelligently).

This all said, another thought did just strike me. I think it was Chain who mentioned it in here, but I could be wrong and it could be Gnivom or someone else mentioning it in another thread. But the AI currently doesn't coordinate with each other in wars due to the community backlash of "AI cheats" that it would be accused of. What if this got added to VH? Wouldn't think likely make the AI quite a bit more difficult for the player to deal with?

I don't remember it being said by developers, but it certainly matches my observations. This lack of coordination is the main reason why condottieri underperform. I would certainly want to see better coordination between AI nations. I am not sure that this situation due to the community backlash though, it might be not that trivial to program because your enemies in the war don't all have the same objectives, so they should only coordinate when it's mutually beneficial. Compare this to how HP coordinates with AI allies - sometimes humans don't cooperate for the best of the alliance because they have their own reasons...

 

[bbqftw]

I found that in 1.18 I often win wars without a single engagement.

Are you doing this by parking gigantic armies on sieges that the enemy is unwilling to engage (since they are very loath to stack up to match you) or am I missing something?

 

[alexti]

Are you doing this by parking gigantic armies on sieges that the enemy is unwilling to engage (since they are very loath to stack up to match you) or am I missing something?

In most cases I am actually parking armies in front of sieges - basically I am trying to find a hole (or punch one) and circle around so that I am effectively sieging the forts behind my front line. In many cases you can also prevent condottieri stacks from joining other forces (through positioning), even when they try to do so.

 

[Frogbait]

I do the same - there isn't really much incentive to engage condottieri. In truth, when regular enemy armies behave like condottieri there isn't much reason to engage them either. I found that in 1.18 I often win wars without a single engagement.


Coalitions tends to destroy diplomatic game, so condottieri scheme is better in my view. But I wouldn't be opposed to making coalitions more likely, perhaps by increasing AE a bit, though this increase in difficulty is somewhat orthogonal to what condottieri do (at least what they would do if they acted more intelligently).


I don't remember it being said by developers, but it certainly matches my observations. This lack of coordination is the main reason why condottieri underperform. I would certainly want to see better coordination between AI nations. I am not sure that this situation due to the community backlash though, it might be not that trivial to program because your enemies in the war don't all have the same objectives, so they should only coordinate when it's mutually beneficial. Compare this to how HP coordinates with AI allies - sometimes humans don't cooperate for the best of the alliance because they have their own reasons...

A dev or former dev in the case of Chain did state what I said, I just can't remember where

 

[Florryworry__]

Are you doing this by parking gigantic armies on sieges that the enemy is unwilling to engage (since they are very loath to stack up to match you) or am I missing something?

The AI is a complete female small cat in this patch which is to say least really annoying, what they'll do if you're stronger is just guerilla it up and run around in circles trying to force you to chase them to the ends of the earth.
Which is both clever and a good buff to forts so it's definitely the right way to go but MAN it's gonna take some getting used to