Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

I have never experienced either problem with the current version of the mod. Usually I have a devil of a time repelling the hordes of quality troops the AI throws at me.

I am also finding it curious that the AI gets bankrupted by the gold troops unless we're talking about heavy astral nations using enslave mind, or R'lyeh in the EA.

I've never seen the problem behavior, but if the people who have can think of a workaround, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

Hi Edi which version of the mod do you use?

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

The one that's behind the download link on my home pages, 2.1

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

Oh sorry I meant resource, gold, or both?

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

I've used both of them, no problems, as well as the combo one.

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

I really like this mod and the idea behind it. Removing these suboptimal choices ahead of time is a great way to make the AI perform better.

Right now modded units have a couple of worrisome potential/theoretical issues. If you (or an AI) somehow acquires them, the upkeep on 9000 gold units is ruinous. Similarly, the AI is feared to be (or perhaps demonstrably) foolish enough to clog its queues for practically forever with 800 resource units, if given the opportunity.

This probably isn't a new idea, but another approach to this mod, that removes these concerns I think, would be to remove the bad independent choices by turning those units into clones of a unit effective enough to stay unchanged currently. This means all of the choices would be available everywhere, but none of the units would be totally ill-advised options for AI to pick.

This wouldn't have to be some super creative balance mod to work. For example, just make all the lousy guy-with-a-stick variants into copies of the reasonable Light Infantry w/Javelin. Tribal and light cavalry variants could all turn into cataphracts or good heavy cavalry.

This solution isn't necessarily any better than what you have already. It would change the look and difficulty of a lot of the independent poptypes significantly. Game balance as a whole would change more, since good (or at least ok) units would be recruitable everywhere. Although on the bright side, you wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of clogged AI recruitment queues or bankrupting yourself with enslave.

Anyway, you asked for ideas so I thought I'd throw it out there. :)

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

So having become weary of the AI recruiting hordes of ridiculous independents, I added this mod. But it doesn't seem to work right for me. No matter which of the three mods I use, none of the independents in the territory are available at all, either at the amped up gold and resource costs or otherwise. The recruiting page is just empty of options in all non-castle territories. What gives? I'm using version 3.23b of the game (which is the latest patch) and 2.1 of the three mods (gold/resources/both). Kinda stumped!

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

Also I have no other mods so that's not it.

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

You sure that you're not playing a "no-independents" map? Those have the independents eliminated by map commands.

Re: Better Independents v2.1
 

This seems to hit the problem right on the nose, Snacktime. There are two ways of removing independents: By this mod, which restricts their availability via prohibitive cost, or by map commands (which requires a specific map file and eliminates ALL independents by assigning invalid poptypes to all provinces).