Fixing PD?

[Endoperez]

Pythium with improved prov. defence:

#modname "Pythium Defence"
#description "This mod improves the provincial defence of the nation Pythium. This mod might work.




This mod was put together by Janne Joensuu, known in Shrapnel Games' forum by the name of Endoperez"
#version 001

#selectnation 2 -nation number, with abysia 0, atlantis 1... machaka 16
#defcom1 "Theurg" -base def commander
#defunit1 685 -first def unit, Alae Legionnaire
#defmult1 10 -defmult1 / 10 * pd = number of defunit1
#defcom2 "Arch Theurg" -commander on pd 20
#defunit2 688 -units gotten from pd 20 upwards, Triarius
#defmult2 20 -defmult2 / 10 * (pd-19) = number of defunit2
#end

They get 2 triarii for each point of prov. def. after 20 as it costs lots of gold. The second unit is triarii, because I think they are troops that have already retired and are given land in conquered provinces. If you wanted them to be units recruited and paid just for provincial defence, they could be hastati or principes.

ANYONE can easily mod the province defence. However, the modder should remember to try to follow the general guidelines - Pythium should have weaker prov. def., so maybe only Velites and Alae Legionaires & Theurg Initiates and Theurgs, while Jotunheim might have defmult1 15 Jotun Militia and Jotun Javelinists as second troops.

The problems:

Themes' pd cannot be modded to differ from that of base nation (Ulm/Black Forest, Broken Empire/Ashen Empire, Pangaea/New Era...)

Beating prov.def. of weak Astral nations would be easy with an S3+Skullcap mage teleporting around and scripted to [Magic Duel, Magic Duel, Magic Duel, Cast Spells].

[Verjigorm]

Does Pythium really need 20 gold Arch Theurgs in their province defense? Since an Arch Theurg is Capitol only, however, i feel it's a poor commander choice thematically. IF that's the way it goes though, you could give Man Tuatha/Crones/Knights of Avalon, Abysia could have Demonbred (although with blood nations, they'd be less useful without blood slaves). How much is too much though? Upping all of the province defenses makes bigger castles viable, but at some point the cost-efficiency optimization makes them so useful that it's more important to max out PD than to make a castle there or station mobile forces in the province's vicinity for additional protection and it reduces the value of ranged summons. Adjusting DOM-2 appears to me as a similar conundrum to passing laws in a real nation -- everytime you "fix" one thing, you "break" something else.

[Arralen]

Endoperez said:
This mod might work.
..
#selectnation 2 -nation number, with abysia 0, atlantis 1... machaka 16
#defcom1 "Theurg" -base def commander
#defunit1 685 -first def unit, Alae Legionnaire
#defmult1 10 -defmult1 / 10 * pd = number of defunit1
#defcom2 "Arch Theurg" -commander on pd 20
#defunit2 688 -units gotten from pd 20 upwards, Triarius
#defmult2 20 -defmult2 / 10 * (pd-19) = number of defunit2

Does this actually work?

Last time I tried to mod the PD of a nation, it turned out that it wouldn't work unless I used the (how is it called?) .. commmand that erases all nations buildable troops, so I had to put the whole lot in again "by hand".
And IIRC there was some issue with the defmult as well, can't remember exactly what it was. something about the numbers/level, of which only some worked, and others not...

[Endoperez]

I tried it, could recruit troops as Pythium and my home was defended by Alae L. and Triarius. I changed them to be from Pythian, nor Ermorian, legions but that shouldn't have broken anything. I haven't tested if the numbers of defmult1/2 actually work.

Besides, I have a bunch of mods in which the national troops have already been put in by hand... So if you want to mod PD, you can mod it through my Nation Replacement mods.

[Boron]

I completely agree with Panther on this issue .

Especially nations like Machaka are pathethic . You get only Militia as PD-Troops . Even if you buy 50 Pd you then have something like 120 militia which can't even beat 1 sauromancer or 1 false horror spammer normally .

The 2 Main issues with PD are Caelum Raiders and later Ghost Riders .

Another good idea imo would be to cap the costs at 20 Pd . Every additional Point then costs only 20 Gold also .
But this can't be modded Illwinter would have to do that by themselves .
Another idea would be that all nations have the same PD , hired mercenaries .

Cause PD can differ a lot . While Marignon PD is quite good Machaka PD just sucks .

[Oversway]

I think it would help much if one could script PD. To not get bogged in micro there could be a nationwide PD-script to be applied to every province.

I like this idea.

It would be nice if the unit ids for PD were seperate from recruitables (I think they are the same now, right?). That way people could play around with modding the pd levels to balance to their taste.

[Endoperez]

Oversway, please look my post on the earlier page. I modded Pythium's provincial defence. It is not balanced, but it CAN be balanced doing what I did.

[Oversway]

Yeah, I saw what you did, that is cool. Although there was another post that claimed it was only working if you rebuild the entire nation?

[Endoperez]

It works for me. PD has changed, and the recruitable units are still there.

[rabelais]

This a fabulous idea, especially given the ongoing controversy about SC's with life drain.

The complete lack of defense after the early game is an enormous issue for me. Even "good" PD (Jotun Marignon etc) isn't cost effective.

The castling strat is a direct response to the futility of defense.

This would go a long way torward making the game more perilous for the SC weenieness that dominates MP.

Let's Overdo it, and then scale back to balanced? I dont trust the SC-mongers to stay cowed.

PD would need to be scriptable to make this truly formidable though. (Good idea anyway)

Yeah, Panther!

Rabe