No Independents - Modded Solution

[MaxWilson]

No, they have to resolidify in order to fight. It's used as a mode of transportation, and quick retreat from battle when overwhelmed. It would be better if flying made them disappear for a turn before reappearing on the battle map, but that's just how flying works in Dom3.

BTW, with the NI mod I'm seeing LA Agartha build a fair number of Cave Knights and fair numbers of Umbrals (15+ umbrals vs. maybe 10 Cave Knights and 100 regular troops). I don't know how much of an improvement that is over the "regular" AI but supposedly the AI hasn't usually summoned large numbers of Umbrals.

-Max

[Sir_Dr_D]

Wouldn't getting rid of independents like that make it even harder for water nations to get on land and viceversa?

[MaxWilson]

One of the advantages of the modded solution over the map solution is that selected independents can be left in the game. Ichthyids are still in the game. Some kind of tritons are still in, and mermen are in. It's a little bit harder to get into the water because you have to hope that you get recruitable mermen in the first couple of provinces, but, well, the improvement in the AI's performance makes it worth it in my eyes.

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

The same could be done with maps if its by poptype. You can only assign certain poptypes to the game. Probably easiest if done my a program to modify the .map file but we already have about a dozen of those so its no big thing. Or do you mean breaking it down within poptype? One that offers 3 troops and one commander, you want to remove one troop type?

Seperate question:
What about the game settings? Not as extreme but easier for someone to try. Apparently the mod that changed resource costs didnt help? So playing the game at 50% resources wouldnt affect the AIs choice of troops?

[Edi]

We would need poptype modding for that, Gandalf. Then we could get rid of the pesky types and only have decent indies. Of course, the AI would still recruit them and we'd get the faceless indie horde of <insert nation name here>.

This mod will make things more difficult for water nations that do not have amphibious troops, but I do not play them very much and the land nations get more play. Not all the indies are disabled either, you still get the good heavy infantry and cavalry, for example.

[MaxWilson]

Gandalf,

True, you could assign poptypes, but then you'd have to assign indies as well and re-randomize every game, whereas the NI maps just take the braindead approach of assigning invalid poptypes to every province. It is the NI map approach I was referring to as the "map solution."

Edi,

The AI seems to recruit only small numbers of e.g. ichthyids under the resource mod, so maybe you wouldn't get a faceless indie horde if you only assigned recruitable poptypes to e.g. 15% of the map. Overall I like the modded solution better, though.

-Max

[Edi]

The No Independents mod has been updated, details in the mod subforum thread.

[Edi]

The independent improvement mod has been updated. See the mod forum thread for details.