I did see it, but now that I'm reading through it again, think I never really looked much at it.

Yeah Reikland is notorious for being a bad start for the AI, which is why I gave them 3/4 of Reikland to begin with and slightly better starting units, which seemed to improve the issue.
As it seems, I forgot to remove some units from the Secessionists, when I added some unique starting units to them, so those should soon be a bit weaker, making the Reikland start hopefully even easier for the AI.

I'm always looking to further improve the starting situation of the campaign, although that can be quite challenging to do due to the randomness involved. For example, Reikland sometimes confederates Wissenland within the first 10 turns, sometimes never. Vlad and his faction sometimes die at turn 2, sometimes they conquer most of Sylvania by turn 5, so it can be quite difficult to know what to best do to not upset the existing balance too much.

Of course due to the upcoming Norsca stuff and Total Warhammer 2 coming out as well, I probably won't have much time to focus on the starting situation for a while anyways.

Now that I have properly read through at least the initial post in that reddit thread, it does sound quite similar to various reports I have heard, both modded and vanilla.

Theoretically I could solve at least the Empire issue, mostly by doing the same I did to ensure that Kislev has a better chance to survive than Erengrad - by conditionally spawning a second army for the faction, but only if they are AI-controlled.

So for example I could spawn a second army lead by Volkmar right away next to Karl Franz, which the player will never see if they choose Reikland themselves and which should make them much stronger from the start without requiring much more modifications.
The same may also work for other factions, possibly Greenskins as mentioned in the same thread.

The confederation stuff may be more complex, but somewhat fixable as well.

Thanks for the response!

Wait? Secessionists have more units than intended?
I knew something is off there with them starting with so much stuff you need sheer luck of them doing something stupid (or getting the early witch hunter event, got one on turn 5 once, and that's just insane XD) or else you get bogged down with them for a long time.
Just thought it was an intended challange, rather than a mistake (the town they always take T1 seemed almost like cinematic to me, as you can hardly even damage their vastly superior army, let alone have a chance to win)

@Runix
Do you have any specific suggestions from that thread or otherwise that you think I really should implement?


@BoomWolf
Well, by default each faction starts with 5 or 6 units alongside their general and to keep this number intact while adding unique starting units to each faction, I add mine and then remove the same number of units that I added from the vanilla army, but in the case of the Secessionists I forgot the removing part. I'll fix that with the Norsca update.

Although they still start with two armies which is intentional and as per vanilla. I won't remove the second one, although I may make them a bit smaller if it is required for balance.

For the player it certainly is meant as an intended challenge, although sadly it is not something that the Empire AI can handle at the moment so I'll need to tweak something about that.

The fact that you own most of Reikland but one or even two of your towns get attacked right away is meant to better reflect the state of rebellion in your province, rather than how vanilla does it.

Pretty themathic for the whole civil war thingy, I agree, just a nightmare to recapture Helmgart because the rebels start with a far superior army right now.
Thier secondary army is not much of an issue-it tends to get mauled turn 1. (at least when player controlled, don't have a clue what the AI does there.) you might not outright destroy the army, but you cripple it and feed XP off it while taking little to no losses..


Well then, moving on to the main topic of how to make the AI empire not suck as hard.
Removing the excessive starting units of the rebels is a good stard.
The second empire army if AI controlled would also work well. if that army is small, yet starts garrisoned in Helmgart, it might cause the empire to more quickly eliminate the Secessionists and start growing. taking away thier early mess of actually unifiying riekland would go a long way to help them.

Don't know if its possible, but if you can make Altdorf itself start slightly more built if AI controlled could also be quite a buff.
Or give karl a bigger army if he is AI controlled, that could also be rather useful.

The key is to make them start better off, because the reason the always fall is that they tend to have a "late start" of sorts, and that stops them from expanding and gathering power. if they get a better starting position, they can rank up a decent position before everyone else start knocking on their doors. (and EVERYONE is knocking on thier doors...)

Anyways, it might all chance once the norsca update hits, as it is also said to contain some stuff for vanilla races-so who knows what will happen then?

Another idea.
The mipre and wissenland are supposed to be very friendly to each other lorewise, no?
Maybe if both are AI controlled they start the game as military allies? (or outright confederate under the empire?)

My main suggestion for Empire would be as others have suggested, trimming units off the Secessionists start. The main issue for Empire is that they have to spend forever and a day just consolidating their starting province.

It may also help to slightly increase the frequency of Underdog trait for Empire minor powers, if that's something that can be tweaked. Conversely, Underdog should be less frequent for the stubborn Dwarf minor powers so that Karaz-a-Karak doesn't just snowball its way to inevitable victory through easy confederations. If Underdog frequency isn't easy to tweak, maybe slight upward adjustments for relations between Reikland and the other Empire powers, and slight negative adjustment for Karaz-a-Karak and the other Dwarf powers.

@BoomWolf
Well, Eilhart is the only city that they start out with and it is their landline to Middenland, which supports the rebellion, so of course it is meant to be a challenge to get. Either way, I will see about improving the situation for both the AI and players with the Norsca update.

Theoretically I could improve Altdorf like that, but I doubt that this is necessary or would help them much.

I did try to have the Empire and Wissenland as closer allies, that just made them confederate essentially immediately, which is far from what I want. They still do it fairly often and quickly even without that.


@Runix
Well, once the Empire is fixed, don't forget that there are plenty of other factions around with their own issues, the Empire just being the worst. I'm not sure what I can do about the traits, but quite honestly I prefer having them very randomly spread as it makes for different playthroughs every time, with sometimes one, sometimes another faction becoming a powerhouse instead. Just because Reikland is meant to be the most powerful one, there is no reason why say, Talabecland, Middenland or other can't absorb it and become The Empire instead, even with Karl Franz as their army leader.

Tweaking it for the Dwarfs makes more sense in that regard, although Empire factions are known to be brewing their own soup just as much as Dwarfs and thus should be fairly independent or at least have a chance to be.

I think Empire honestly just needs a +faction rep trait like Brettonians and Dwarves have to push them more towards confederation mid game, and just need stronger starting units to survive early game (and push the seccessionists out).

AI-controlled Reikland now already started with a full province and I removed their war with Skullsmasherz so they can focus more on high priority targets, so they should be in a good place.

I think removing the war will Skullsmasherz is important for them getting a good start. With the war, they would just sort of stand around since they didn't have direct access to their territory; and meanwhile, the Skullsmasherz could do quite a number on Reikland territory if they were occupied elsewhere. Good change.

Yeah, I did that with the current update as I saw that as a useful suggestion on reddit.
That way they focus more on real threats like Beastmen and Skull-takerz, especially because Skullsmasherz are now more of a Bretonnian initial enemy anyways.

Marienburg should also dominate less now, as they start with a tier 2 city now instead of tier 3 as per vanilla, reducing their early income significantly and giving them less building space.

Just to confirm: the Skullsmasher starting at war is only disabled on AI-Empire, not Player-controlled Empire?

Both, the player can always just start it again if they want to.