Islam is the Light: Azerbaijan Paradox Mega-LP

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Let's Play! > Islam is the Light: Azerbaijan Paradox Mega-LP

LordBaxter: Sep 7, 2009; I finally managed to make everybody like me, if only for one day

Nakar posted:

Generally with the whole balance of power thing it's not worth it to min-max. Battles are almost always won more by leadership and who has more men, with three potential exceptions:

1) Royal Prerogative and heavy Nobility skewing. This will produce a shitload of Knights. If you have enough Knights, you can beat superior forces in appropriate circumstances pretty reliably.

2) Popular Law and anything, although a Burgher/Clergy skew is good too. This is a weird setup because unlike all the other types of law, you can't get any Knights; instead you'll wind up with Light Cavalry and Heavy Infantry. The upshot is that you won't get Light Infantry, aka peasant levies, aka the idiots with pitchforks and spears who break and run at the slightest whiff of battle. A Popular Law army is more balanced, with more Heavy Infantry and Pikemen (good at absorbing casualties) and lots more Archers and Light Infantry (good at inflicting them).

In the right circumstances a fresh-faced Popular Law army will surprise sex an army with sufficiently large amounts of LI because your professional troops will eat the initial skirmish with minimal morale loss while inflicting heinous morale damage on the enemy Light Infantry. With luck, that steamrolls and you win.

The major, major downside is vassals loving hate Popular Law and will whine constantly asking you to change it. Popular Law also has some funky financial slider choices which make it harder to switch off all your forces and go into full-on peacetime economy mode like Royal Prerogative.

3) Mongol Horse Archers, who are just brutal.

Thanks for that, I think I'm going to try the first option for the moment (with scutage set to 0%). Does the deus vult-EU3 converter take into account the balance of power in provinces to determine starting sliders?

# ? Aug 15, 2011 06:51

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# ? May 22, 2013 23:58

NihilCredo: Jun 6, 2011; iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Yes, the Nameless Brethren must abso-j�vligt-lutely be modded into the EU3 starting scenario.

A less anachronistic comparison could be to the Waldensians, which in fact survived to this day despite having had a loving Crusade called upon them in the late 12th century.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 07:03

Patter Song: Mar 26, 2010; Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.

The chances of at least one ruler brought into EU3 being an Unnamed Infant aren't too terrible. Since there's a whole bunch of Unnamed Infants in Osterreich, including one Count, and every child a male Unnamed Infant has becomes an Unnamed Infant himself, they can infect the families of Europe like a virus.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 07:26

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; What?

I like how after generations of Ildeguzid men, hopping all around the eastern Mediterranean, and hundreds of thousands of commoners killed to satisfy the pride and greed of the nobility, we are essentially right back where we started.

This is the best game.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 07:30

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010

1stGear posted:

I like how after generations of Ildeguzid men, hopping all around the eastern Mediterranean, and hundreds of thousands of commoners killed to satisfy the pride and greed of the nobility, we are essentially right back where we started.

This is the best game.

Welcome to european warfare circa 1200-1800. That's pretty much how the vast majority of wars went before the age of mass conscription and total war.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 07:40

AgentF: May 11, 2009; They went to Equestria and all they brought me back was this lousy flag

Patter Song posted:

The chances of at least one ruler brought into EU3 being an Unnamed Infant aren't too terrible. Since there's a whole bunch of Unnamed Infants in Osterreich, including one Count, and every child a male Unnamed Infant has becomes an Unnamed Infant himself, they can infect the families of Europe like a virus.

Probably why Wiz had them all eradicated.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 08:02

NihilCredo: Jun 6, 2011; iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

"The common Ummah pray for rain, healthy children and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high emirs play their game of caliphates, so long as they are left in peace. They never are."

# ? Aug 15, 2011 08:08

Rejected Fate: Aug 5, 2011

The Nameless Bretheren actually seem like a pretty drat cool religious sect.

And finally we have our throne back! Now to wait and see our vassals go crazy due to our prestige and a child Sultan.

Still, we've left a strong Egypt behind and a Syrian ally. All three of us might be able to slowly chip away some of the Il-Khanate's lands. And there's those brown territories and Cuman right next to us, who look quite ripe for the picking, after we rest for a bit.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 08:19

nimby: Nov 4, 2009; The pinnacle of cloud computing.

Are the mongols still ruled by the blind crazy man?

# ? Aug 15, 2011 12:04

Klowns: May 13, 2009; Laugh At Me Will They?

Was the nameless thing caused by a game bug or something with your mod?

Either way, it's pretty funny that you can have a ruler with those stats. Might be a fun handicap.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 14:34

Cowcatcher: Dec 22, 2005; OUR PEOPLE WERE BORN OF THE SKY

Pakled posted:

If he was in the Serbia LP he would have been elected Emperor in a heartbeat.

In Serbia LP, the entire coast of Pommerania was noculture, the proud progeny of Austrian nones and bad event coders

# ? Aug 15, 2011 14:51

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; Some missions, you just can't get rid of a bomb

Wiz, what do you use for finding brides? CK's ledger only ever looks at Catholic and Orthodox women, or are you just role-playing it enough that you don't care about stats?

# ? Aug 15, 2011 15:40

az: Dec 2, 2005; If the husband insists on sleeping with his wife by force, it would not be considered rape since this is a right granted to him

How can you influence how quickly you get military units, and what kind?

# ? Aug 15, 2011 15:54

Tomn: Aug 23, 2007; I never realized why I was a stupid newbie.

As far as I know, for the size of military units, get a richer province. Simple as that. Mo' money, mo' soldiers. Others have already explained how to jiggle troop composition (and why it doesn't usually matter).

# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:19

Frionnel: May 7, 2010; Friends are what make testing worth it.

No no no no no! Tell me this is just a bad dream and you didn't destroy them all!

Wiz, you just went from best to worst Lper.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:26

Rejected Fate: Aug 5, 2011

Frionnel posted:

No no no no no! Tell me this is just a bad dream and you didn't destroy them all!

Wiz, you just went from best to worst Lper.

Shh. It's okay. Now they are one with God.

We can only envy them now.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:28

Patter Song: Mar 26, 2010; Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.

Guys, this doesn't remove Osterreich and its Nameless Count from the main LP any more than the Bhutan updates removed Bhutan from Hohen. Even if it did, the unnamed courtiers would just flee to courts around Europe.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:36

Tomn: Aug 23, 2007; I never realized why I was a stupid newbie.

Patter Song posted:

Guys, this doesn't remove Osterreich and its Nameless Count from the main LP any more than the Bhutan updates removed Bhutan from Hohen. Even if it did, the unnamed courtiers would just flee to courts around Europe.

If you strike down the No-names, they shall only emerge stronger and more powerful than ever before.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:45

Klowns: May 13, 2009; Laugh At Me Will They?

Yes, the Spy Master Unnamed Infant wouldn't be killed so easily.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 17:05

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Tomn posted:

As far as I know, for the size of military units, get a richer province. Simple as that. Mo' money, mo' soldiers. Others have already explained how to jiggle troop composition (and why it doesn't usually matter).

Yep. Manpower has nothing to do with anything but wealth in CK. This is in contrast to EU3 where you can have a lovely poor province that is loaded for bear with warm bodies to serve in the military. Russia pretty much gets by on that.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 17:13

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; Man you spin around on the roof of a building couple of times and people going to think that some other news company is trying to ape Daily Planet

This LP is the most insane rollercoaster I've been in.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 17:39

Wiz: May 16, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

Wiz, what do you use for finding brides? CK's ledger only ever looks at Catholic and Orthodox women, or are you just role-playing it enough that you don't care about stats?

Yeah, I don't marry for stats. I marry for inheritance chances or I just marry women in court.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 18:59

Wiz: May 16, 2004

Nakar posted:

Yep. Manpower has nothing to do with anything but wealth in CK. This is in contrast to EU3 where you can have a lovely poor province that is loaded for bear with warm bodies to serve in the military. Russia pretty much gets by on that.

Not entirely right, there's a lot of buildings that increase the amount of troops a province can muster (training grounds, castles, templar house, grand palace, war academy etc).

# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:01

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Wiz posted:

Not entirely right, there's a lot of buildings that increase the amount of troops a province can muster (training grounds, castles, templar house, grand palace, war academy etc).

Many of which are tied to the inherent wealth of the province as to whether they can be built at all.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:21

John Dough: Oct 30, 2004; There is nothing quite as wonderful as money, money, money...

Klowns posted:

Yes, the Spy Master Unnamed Infant wouldn't be killed so easily.

He's so mysterious no one even knows his name

Also Frisia owning the Baltic is pretty awesome.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:29

Wiz: May 16, 2004

Nakar posted:

Many of which are tied to the inherent wealth of the province as to whether they can be built at all.

Only two of them are tied to wealth: Grand Palace and War Academy. You can effectively double or triple the soldiers from a poor province by tricking it out with castles.

Of course wealth is still the most important factor, but it's not the only one.

Wiz fucked around with this message at Aug 15, 2011 around 23:00

# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:12

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Wiz posted:

Only two of them are tied to wealth: Grand Palace and War Academy. You can effectively double or treble the soldiers from a poor province by tricking it out with castles.

Of course wealth is still the most important factor, but it's not the only one.

I thought there was a requirement on castles that prevented building the best one too in some cases.

Is it terrain rather than money? I think that might be it. Again, fucks over the Desert provinces, but there are some pretty rich Mountain provinces that just happen to be screwed over by that.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:51

Wiz: May 16, 2004

Nakar posted:

I thought there was a requirement on castles that prevented building the best one too in some cases.

Is it terrain rather than money? I think that might be it. Again, fucks over the Desert provinces, but there are some pretty rich Mountain provinces that just happen to be screwed over by that.

Yep, terrain. I don't remember the exact limits on terrain types off hand though.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:11

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Wiz posted:

Yep, terrain. I don't remember the exact limits on terrain types off hand though.

Certain provinces obviously can't get the forestry/lumber mill. I think mines are also restricted somehow. I'm pretty sure Desert/Mountain/Swamp can't get the top tier castle.

The main thing is that Desert is lovely and most of North Africa is given Desert terrain and low base tax values, even though I'm pretty sure there are parts of North Africa that weren't that bad in the 1200s. And then you get provinces like in Ireland that are so poor they can't build anything to make money and can't raise any men besides. I'm sure there's a way to fix it but since it isn't a Clausewitz engine game it's probably tedious and stupid.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:14

Kanthulhu: Apr 8, 2009; "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order"

Here's the song for our last update: Endless Nameless

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:18

Wiz: May 16, 2004

Nakar posted:

Certain provinces obviously can't get the forestry/lumber mill. I think mines are also restricted somehow. I'm pretty sure Desert/Mountain/Swamp can't get the top tier castle.

The main thing is that Desert is lovely and most of North Africa is given Desert terrain and low base tax values, even though I'm pretty sure there are parts of North Africa that weren't that bad in the 1200s. And then you get provinces like in Ireland that are so poor they can't build anything to make money and can't raise any men besides. I'm sure there's a way to fix it but since it isn't a Clausewitz engine game it's probably tedious and stupid.

Not too hard to fix. I was planning to play a bit with province values before I release my CK scenarios.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:22

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Wiz posted:

Not too hard to fix. I was planning to play a bit with province values before I release my CK scenarios.

Some things I would recommend:

Ease some of the terrain requirements, especially on deserts. They're pretty unfairly penalized in what they can build, so if 90% of Africa and the Middle East is going to be Desert, it needs to be more fair.
Raise base values universally because some areas are just poor for no reason.
Replace some +% values on economic buildings with straight +1 income bonuses. One problem with developing poor provinces is that you can't make them any better if the +1s you get from a Mine and whatever else gives straight income isn't sufficient to bump you over the requirements to build other improvements. And obviously +% buildings just increase the disparity between rich and poor provinces as they make high-base-income provinces insanely better and do nothing for poor ones. I don't know the ideal balance here but you probably can figure it out.
Possibly make the province's prosperity modifier more important than its base income, so that a "poor" province at ++ is still doing fine but if Alexandria gets plagued and looted down to -- it isn't still better than a prosperous average province (though still probably better than a poor one).

These are just thoughts. It's kind of boring not to be able to build certain structures because the province will simply never be able to afford it no matter how rich you are. I can understand some things being physically impossible to build (forestry in a desert) or simply impractical (mega-castle in a mountainous area), but the notion that you can't build a brewery to improve the local economy because the local economy is too poor to allow it just isn't fun.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:48

tombom: Mar 8, 2006

Nakar posted:

I'm sure there's a way to fix it but since it isn't a Clausewitz engine game it's probably tedious and stupid.

It's actually pretty easy. Check db\provinceimprovements.txt. The first 3 of your requests can be done there.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:50

Klowns: May 13, 2009; Laugh At Me Will They?

Nakar posted:

I'm pretty sure Desert/Mountain/Swamp can't get the top tier castle.

When I started here, all there was was swamp. All the kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.

I know, so unoriginal to quote MP, but it fit.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:17

telcontar: Dec 8, 2006

Wiz posted:

Only two of them are tied to wealth: Grand Palace and War Academy.

DVIP adds wealth requirements to a few other top-tier buildings. The only one I can remember off-hand is the university, which has an insane requirement of 15, meaning that almost every province that historically had a university can't actually build one.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:21

Wiz: May 16, 2004

telcontar posted:

DVIP adds wealth requirements to a few other top-tier buildings. The only one I can remember off-hand is the university, which has an insane requirement of 15, meaning that almost every province that historically had a university can't actually build one.

I'm only talking about troop-producing buildings.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:23

telcontar: Dec 8, 2006

Oh, that'll teach me to read the thread.

I agree with Nakar's suggestions.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:29

Viola the Mad: Feb 13, 2010

Kavak posted:

This is now canon for this LP. I expect them as a religion springing up during the reformation, or at least a faction of heretics.

drat straight. The Nameless infant sect will survive for hundreds of years underground, until the time is ripe for them to spring forth from the ground like a...um...spring.

Hey, it's not entirely unrealistic. A number of Spanish and Portuguese converso families kept practicing Jewish rituals in secret for centuries, even when they forgot the reasons behind their old family customs. Hell, the Belmonte Jews even managed to maintain their sense of community into the present day!

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:38

Gregoriev: Nov 5, 2010

Viola the Mad posted:

drat straight. The Nameless infant sect will survive for hundreds of years underground, until the time is ripe for them to spring forth from the ground like a...um...spring.

It wouldn't be a spring, that has a name.

# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:49

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# ? May 22, 2013 23:58

AgentF: May 11, 2009; They went to Equestria and all they brought me back was this lousy flag

The sect will spring forth from the ground like a thing that springs in a similar manner to that which they will.

# ? Aug 16, 2011 01:28

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