Conquerors Thread (New World, Expansion, Trade Company, et al)

[SultanRedSnake]

(Placeholder post to indicate the obvious that this thread is to act as a focused collection of all things related to any Conqueror Army script)

Mongols - For now I'd just submit for reconsideration the Contact Trigger for Mongols against Byzantium. With far greater distance between Central Asia and Anatolia on new map , this has had the result of Mongol armies spawning in Anatolia long as much as a century before the Iranian Plateau script date.

Seljuks - A similar outcome applies for the Turks, who routinely get their scripted Anatolian armies before having time to conquer either the Near East or Caucasus.

Ottomans - The common situation which ensues is a chaotic mess, and then in the middle of all these shenanigans the Ottomans spawn. A common scenario is for the Ottos to recklessly declare their Expansion war, get rinsed by the heavily accumulated Mongol forces, followed swiftly thereafter by a Mongol collapse that leaves sufficiently stout Indie/Barb cities behind to be unapproachable by Ottos. Therefore in addition to the above and for other reasons I'd like to second the proposal of @Nikas Kunitz to move Ottos to later date, even if only a few decades.

Portugal - repost of suggestion in other thread to amend war map to favor East Africa and Malabar coast over Malay Peninsula.

Dutch - more emphasis on island of Java. Consider adding more Fluyts to script to facilitate transport in the archipelago. In fact, consider extending this to all TC scripts.

England - greater focus of army spawns on the subcontinent. Trend has been scattered spawns (one in the Indus delta, one or two in the Gages delta, etc.) that has severely reduced their overall effectiveness.

 

[SOVNARKOM]

I think the current birth time of Ottomans is good,just need to ensure that the AI conquest war against the Ottomans cannot happened during their protection period.
Although perhaps the Byzantine rebirth time should be allowed to be extended back to 1450

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I think the current birth time of Ottomans is good,just need to ensure that the AI conquest war against the Ottomans cannot happened during their protection period.

That is already the case.

 

[SOVNARKOM]

As one of the few colonial power in India's AI that primarily competes with the Mughal , Britain's performance seems to be very poor. I often see them being driven out of India by the Mughal (both sides are AI)
The expansion of France, Dutch, and Portugal in South India has been smoother

 

[brett0007]

I think the current birth time of Ottomans is good,just need to ensure that the AI conquest war against the Ottomans cannot happened during their protection period.
Although perhaps the Byzantine rebirth time should be allowed to be extended back to 1450

From what I've seen playing in that timeframe the issue is more often than not you have a near intact veteran mongol conqueror stack that can easily chew through the Janisseries on the defensive.
The scenario goes like this;
Byzantines trigger mongol doomstacks.
Mongols take Levant+Anatolia which is at this point is just independent/barbs so there doomstacks are near intact.
Byzantines and or mongols collapse.
the entire middle east is now garrisoned by a mongol doomstack
Ottomans spawn and finish off Byzantium if it hasn't already collapsed
Magudai/keshik goes burr.
Ottomons get at most Antioch and northern Iraq in exchange for their starting stack.

The issue isn't conquest wars its that the collapse of the Mongols more often than not leaves the army spawned to combat the Byzantines in defense of a mishmash of independent and barbarian cities in the Levant and Middle East that the AI Ottomans cannot overcome. My idea would be to make the mongol invasion of Byzantium conditional, if they ahistorically own cities in the Levant or central/south Anatolia then the mongols invade with scaled armies depending on the number of cities to clean the slate for the Ottoman spawn. So you don't end up with an entire mongol stack only to invade Iconium/Antioch.

 

[Leoreth]

The Ottoman Empire actually looked fine in all of my test games. How many games have you observed since I posted my latest update?

 

[SultanRedSnake]

From what I've seen playing in that timeframe the issue is more often than not you have a near intact veteran mongol conqueror stack that can easily chew through the Janisseries on the defensive.
The scenario goes like this;
Byzantines trigger mongol doomstacks.
Mongols take Levant+Anatolia which is at this point is just independent/barbs so there doomstacks are near intact.
Byzantines and or mongols collapse.
the entire middle east is now garrisoned by a mongol doomstack
Ottomans spawn and finish off Byzantium if it hasn't already collapsed
Magudai/keshik goes burr.
Ottomons get at most Antioch and northern Iraq in exchange for their starting stack.

The issue isn't conquest wars its that the collapse of the Mongols more often than not leaves the army spawned to combat the Byzantines in defense of a mishmash of independent and barbarian cities in the Levant and Middle East that the AI Ottomans cannot overcome. My idea would be to make the mongol invasion of Byzantium conditional, if they ahistorically own cities in the Levant or central/south Anatolia then the mongols invade with scaled armies depending on the number of cities to clean the slate for the Ottoman spawn. So you don't end up with an entire mongol stack only to invade Iconium/Antioch.

This pretty much filled in the details my post left out.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

The Ottoman Empire actually looked fine in all of my test games. How many games have you observed since I posted my latest update?

Collecting more data now. Indeed this was quite an expansive update and my OP hadn't yet factored it in.

 

[banzay13]

Is it intended, while conquer event active (at war) all Mughals and Tamils city, if they collapse - switch to England? (didn't noticed it with other conquers civ)

 

[SultanRedSnake]

Is it intended, while conquer event active (at war) all Mughals and Tamils city, if they collapse - switch to England? (didn't noticed it with other conquers civ)

This phenomenon isn't exclusive to Conqueror civs but a function of the Secession.py code and relates to War Maps so in principle applies universally. Leoreth recently edited the code with the intent to reduce the severity of city flips but its still being tuned. Might as well upload screens/save because they're likely to be requested (I'm curious to see the outcome as well).

 

[banzay13]

IIRC, within 2 turns Mughal collapse, and after 6-8 turns Tamil collapse too.
And British Empire collapse to England within 20 turns, coz OE

 

[Derdan]

Why do those city names have (!!!) in them?

 

[Lilna]

Why do those city names have (!!!) in them?

It's the turns required to grow. (!!!) indicates that the city is starving and will shrink next turn.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

Turks are listed as an Expansion Civ but don't have an Expansion area. Bug or design? Either way, I'd propose Persia (Period Core area) be made an Expansion area to address what in my view is a tendency to collapse too rapidly as a result of population loss in their new core cities which also lack the food resources to recover with any haste. Soliciting other opinions/observations on the matter. It might also be worth considering adding Artashat as a target for 1000AD Persia Conquerors to help connect Anatolia to their domains and make the situation more sensible for want of a better phrase. Also, presuming a design goal is to realize the Great Seljuk Empire, it would follow for Mespotoamia to also be a Conqueror area, but I'm not of a mind to do this absent other considerations as the sudden addition of extra armies would no doubt present even further balance problems to deal with.

Minor note about Ottomans: the culture clearing mechanism deprives them of a non-city Indy tile in their birth area to enter for purposes of inducing hostilities with Indy civs during their critical first few turns. While this would present no insurmountable issue to the player, the AI can't seem to deal. This too often leads to a situation in which Constantinople is ignored for several decades if not more. My proposal would simply be for the Ottos to spawn at war with Indy civs.

 

[TheCleanerDragon]

Turks are listed as an Expansion Civ but don't have an Expansion area. Bug or design? Either way, I'd propose Persia (Period Core area) be made an Expansion area to address what in my view is a tendency to collapse too rapidly as a result of population loss in their new core cities which also lack the food resources to recover with any haste. Soliciting other opinions/observations on the matter. It might also be worth considering adding Artashat as a target for 1000AD Persia Conquerors to help connect Anatolia to their domains and make the situation more sensible for want of a better phrase. Also, presuming a design goal is to realize the Great Seljuk Empire, it would follow for Mespotoamia to also be a Conqueror area, but I'm not of a mind to do this absent other considerations as the sudden addition of extra armies would no doubt present even further balance problems to deal with.

I've looked at 1.17 and seen that the Turks had an expansion area back then, encompassing the Levant, Anatolia, and Persia. If it's completely disappeared in 1.18, it's likely a bug.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I've looked at 1.17 and seen that the Turks had an expansion area back then, encompassing the Levant, Anatolia, and Persia. If it's completely disappeared in 1.18, it's likely a bug.

I thought so too so I switched to 1.17, loaded 600AD, and was flummoxed when no expansion areas were present. So I ran a 3000BC start as a hedge and upon spawn the expected expansion areas were indeed present. A moment later the solution to this discrepancy became apparent: the Expansion mechanic is a function of the Rise programming, and since the 600AD Turks already exist as an outcome of the Scenario file, there's no means by which their Expansion areas can be implemented. How'd I do Leoreth?

Naturally I'm going to switch back to current Git version and run from 3000BC. EDIT: Confirmed. Same state of affairs in new versions: 3000BC Turks get Expansion, 600AD Turks do not.

 

[TheCleanerDragon]

I don't think the Turks being on the map at the start of the scenario is the problem. In the 600 AD scenario the Arab and Tibet rise and expansion areas are on the map right from the start, and in the 1700 AD scenario Germany has it's rise area even though it's on the map at the beginning of the scenario. I think the more likely explanation for the absence of the Turkish expansion area is that it is simply an oversight.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I don't think the Turks being on the map at the start of the scenario is the problem. In the 600 AD scenario the Arab and Tibet rise and expansion areas are on the map right from the start, and in the 1700 AD scenario Germany has it's rise area even though it's on the map at the beginning of the scenario. I think the more likely explanation for the absence of the Turkish expansion area is that it is simply an oversight.

Interesting. In that case my hands are in the air on the matter. Therefore I'm gonna shush and wait for the big guy to tell us what's what.

 

[Leoreth]

A tile can only be in one player's expansion area. I think the reason is that the Arabian expansion area supercedes the Turkish one. In the 600 AD scenario they are applied at the same time but still in the order that the civs would spawn.

 

[SultanRedSnake]

What would others think about a script for the New World Conquerors that resembles the one in place for the Trading Company? At least in principle for now.