Project Balance

[Meneth]

You can take courtiers too. You can also kill everyone at court, if you're so inclined. For everyone having problems with this, if you want the event to pop, lead your army yourself, or you don't get to pick afaik.

As long as you've got someone leading the army (except a merc commander) you should be getting the event as long as the enemy hasn't hidden.

Meneth: I don't know if you have an opinion on this already, but I think Mongol balance needs work. In my Persia game, when the Ilkhanate attacked me, they got 100% warscore for Khiva and peaced automatically before I could even gather a stack. I doubt it would have mattered though, as they had 130,000 troops. I held all of Khiva, Persia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, al-Jazira and Arabia, and could not muster more than 100,000 including hiring every mercenary available.

The very first invasion is supposed to be huge AFAIK.

How can I conquer Genoa, since you can't fabricate a claim on a merchant republic capital, and you can't get it de jure either since it's king-level ?

If you hold the empire of Italia you can push dejure claims on them I think.
If you're a merchant republic, you can take the capital once that's their last holding and they've got no trade posts left (except for one in their capital).
If you're the Byzantines, Imperial Reconquest works.

If none of those are the case, then you shouldn't really be conquering Genoa.

 

[lord_hur]

Right, forgot about imperial reconquest. I never managed to get a ruler who can actually use it... Which is perfectly fine given how powerful it is.

 

[chemical_art]

Meneth, when was the last time the various vassals focuses have been examined?

The reason why I ask is that, from a balance perspective, the current focuses seem to favor one slider over another too much.

I think that "normal" ones should be (by a very mild amount) most efficient across the board, even if for each value they have different values. So for example a "normal" focus for a feudal vassal would give less tax and more levy then compared to a city one. However, I think that the sliders should reflect more fully the "effective" value of the sliders. For example, if you ask for max levies from feudal vassals, those who provide most of your troops anyway, then you should only give a mild increase in troops in return for sharply reduced taxes. In contrast, for city vassals, asking them to focus on taxes should only provide a mild increase in taxes in return for sharply reduced levies. Right now, the focuses are no-brainers from their already given values. I think there should be more "cost" for focusing on something completely.

***To clarify, since feudal vassals give so_little_taxes anyway, having them sharply reduce taxes for increased levies is a no brainer. In contrast, since cities give so_little_levies anyway, sharply reduced levies isn't enough. So, perhaps, increased focused out of the normal should have a different "cost" for it to be meaningful. Perhaps a penalty to opinion?

 

[Meneth]

Meneth, when was the last time the various vassals focuses have been examined?

The reason why I ask is that, from a balance perspective, the current focuses seem to favor one slider over another too much.

I think that "normal" ones should be (by a very mild amount) most efficient across the board, even if for each value they have different values. So for example a "normal" focus for a feudal vassal would give less tax and more levy then compared to a city one. However, I think that the sliders should reflect more fully the "effective" value of the sliders. For example, if you ask for max levies from feudal vassals, those who provide most of your troops anyway, then you should only give a mild increase in troops in return for sharply reduced taxes. In contrast, for city vassals, asking them to focus on taxes should only provide a mild increase in taxes in return for sharply reduced levies. Right now, the focuses are no-brainers from their already given values. I think there should be more "cost" for focusing on something completely.

***To clarify, since feudal vassals give so_little_taxes anyway, having them sharply reduce taxes for increased levies is a no brainer. In contrast, since cities give so_little_levies anyway, sharply reduced levies isn't enough. So, perhaps, increased focused out of the normal should have a different "cost" for it to be meaningful. Perhaps a penalty to opinion?

The only type that actually starts at the balanced level is temple vassals. Nobles start at entirely levy focused, while burghers are entirely tax focused. And they're of course meant to be the best in that area respectively.
I suppose there might be some point to pushing them both a notch towards the center as the default, but I'm not sure that would really accomplish much.

 

[chemical_art]

I suppose there might be some point to pushing them both a notch towards the center as the default, but I'm not sure that would really accomplish much.

Right now, the result is that vassals provide their "strengths" with minimal costs.

So I get huge amounts of levies from those who provide most of the levies to begin with. I get huge amounts of gold from those who provide most of the gold to begin with.

That is NOT balanced, because there_is_no_choice.

Balance would be the reverse, so there could be some value sometimes in having those who provide gold to instead sacrifice that gold for levies, and those who provide levies to provide gold. (That doesn't happen in the current system, you ALWAYS want the default values, which, in effect, makes those values meaningless.)

 

[chemical_art]

Addendium: If one vassal type provides 75% of my levies, and 20% of my gold, under what situations should I have them lose 40% of their levy to get 30% of more gold (or, in effect, that vassal is transfered to giving 45% of my levies 39% of my gold?). You don't. If a levy provides a majority of a resource, you want them to maximize that resource.

Similarly, if cities provide 50% of your gold and 10% of your levies, when would you want to have those cities provide half as much gold for twice the levy? You don't.

 

[Meneth]

Right now, the result is that vassals provide their "strengths" with minimal costs.

That's essentially how the Feudal contract worked though; nobles provided their troops but little to no tax. Cities provided money but few troops. Clergy were at some point in-between, but their loyalty was fleeting (giving money to religious head).

So I get huge amounts of levies from those who provide most of the levies to begin with. I get huge amounts of gold from those who provide most of the gold to begin with.

That is NOT balanced, because there_is_no_choice.

Balance would be the reverse, so there could be some value sometimes in having those who provide gold to instead sacrifice that gold for levies, and those who provide levies to provide gold. (That doesn't happen in the current system, you ALWAYS want the default values, which, in effect, makes those values meaningless.)

There is a choice. Take Feudal focus for example.
You can sacrifice about 10% of your levies to get 5% tax from them; not an insignificant amount. It seems well balanced to me.
The burgher focus seems to have the wrong values currently, I'll get it fixed.
I think I need to balance the clergy values a bit better as well.

 

[Meneth]

I've pushed a commit to the beta branch that makes the Burgher and Clergy sliders more balanced.
The burgher slider now gives 5% more levies for 5% less tax for each level.
The clergy slider now gives 3% more tax for 5% less levies for each level.

 

[G.Strategos]

Is it possible for you to tune it a little more??? Cause in a very long time haven't seen anyone hidden...maybe once in over 60 sieges...
EDIT:I'm talking about Orthodox vs Catholics wars mostly...

Meneth???

 

[Meneth]

Meneth???

By the base chances:
25% chance of hiding no one
50% chance of hiding one's family
25% chance of hiding everyone

Note that that's modified by traits like brave, craven, etc. But you should be getting everyone in a holding hiding relatively often, which is what I've experienced as well.

 

[chemical_art]

That's essentially how the Feudal contract worked though; nobles provided their troops but little to no tax. Cities provided money but few troops. Clergy were at some point in-between, but their loyalty was fleeting (giving money to religious head).

In game though, that isn't balanced. If feudal vassals provide the vast majority of your levies due to how they are made, and cities provide the vast majority of gold, then having them sacrifice the sliver of the other resource to increase that which they provide already is game wise ideal.

There is a choice. Take Feudal focus for example.
You can sacrifice about 10% of your levies to get 5% tax from them; not an insignificant amount. It seems well balanced to me.

If cities provide 2/3 of my gold, and feudal vassals provide 2/3 of my levies, then it would seem silly that to have them effectively sacrifice their larger value to provide the lesser one. So for your values if my feudal vassals sacrificed 10% levies for 5% tax, then in effective values I lose 6.7% of my levies (10% feudal levies * 67% total levies) for 2% increased taxes (5% increased taxes * 20% of my total taxes.)

To summarize, if feudal vassals provide most of my levies and few of my taxes, then the values influencing them need to be opposite for them to be worthwhile. Meaning it should you get 10% increased taxes for 5% lesser levies. They HAVE to, otherwise in game you want to maximize that which already is the majority of a resource, whether it be gold or levies.
[/QUOTE]

The burgher focus seems to have the wrong values currently, I'll get it fixed.

Look forward to seeing this, right now it is far to easy to get gold from my city vassals.

I think I need to balance the clergy values a bit better as well.

I actually think they are fine. The problem is the city and feudal focuses. Since feudal vassals provide such a tiny amount of gold and so many levies, their focuses need to make the amount of gold gained for losing levies a LOT more. For cities, the opposite needs to be done, since they provide so_much_gold relative to levies, you need to get a LOT more levies to compensate for losing gold.

 

[Meneth]

<snip>

Hmm, you might have a point.
I'll amend Burghers a bit further, giving 7.5% levies for 5% lost tax.
And Feudal to give 7.5% tax for 5% lost levies.

Does that sound reasonable?

 

[chemical_art]

Hmm, you might have a point.
I'll amend Burghers a bit further, giving 7.5% levies for 5% lost tax.
And Feudal to give 7.5% tax for 5% lost levies.

Does that sound reasonable?

A lot better, yes :happy:

 

[Meneth]

A lot better, yes :happy:

Go test it out for yourself if you want; it's been pushed to the beta branch.

I'll continue with the idea of the AI never using the focus sliders though. But it's always nice to give the player a bit of choice.

 

[chemical_art]

Go test it out for yourself if you want; it's been pushed to the beta branch.

I'll continue with the idea of the AI never using the focus sliders though. But it's always nice to give the player a bit of choice.

I shall test it out to see how it affects my game, I may ask it to be pushed a bit more (losing 5% of a major resource to gain 10% of a minor one) but I didn't ask for more to see how it affects games. I do like incremental changes.

As for the AI, that is of course fine. That AI is so...finicky. :glare:

 

[chemical_art]

For ease of use, can you provide a beta link on the front page please?

 

[Meneth]

For ease of use, can you provide a beta link on the front page please?

Done.
The GitHub repo is in my signature though.

 

[G.Strategos]

Y

By the base chances:
25% chance of hiding no one
50% chance of hiding one's family
25% chance of hiding everyone

Note that that's modified by traits like brave, craven, etc. But you should be getting everyone in a holding hiding relatively often, which is what I've experienced as well.

Ok...Thanks...

 

[Redwallzyl]

I keep having a problem where almost none of the provinces have anything in them. running the PB PB+SWMH AND SWMH. any idea whats wrong? with all DLC except sunset invasion.

 

[Meneth]

I keep having a problem where almost none of the provinces have anything in them. running the PB PB+SWMH AND SWMH. any idea whats wrong? with all DLC except sunset invasion.

Make sure you've got PB, PB+SWMH, and SWMH enabled.
Are you running any mods beyond those?