Increase AI GDP and Research Budget

[Baetle]

Dear fellow players,

I would like to make the campaign harder so I do not crush every AI fleet with just 1 battleship. I think the most effective way is to increase the AI GDP and Research Budget.

So far I found out that I can edit params, but since my experience with programming is very limited I don't know what to search for. I think it might be >>ntech_budget_max,50,"maximal amount of budget spent on research, percent",50<<, but even then I don't know which number to modify.

I played a game with NAR as Spain, where I was always behind research wise, which was not quite hard enough, but I don't even know if NAR changes anything in that regard.

I Hope someone can help me out here.

BR

[XerMGGW-2]

When you want extra difficulty and already been to a modded game, try 

 for this tournament balance mod also specializes on adding a new higher difficulty level to the Campaign, and is compatible with DIP ship pack made by Community which allows AI to sometimes have good player-designed ships when set at Selective, download that one on BrotherMunro's Nexus.
Instead of reinventing the wheel yourself and spending your precious time poking at multitudes of different values which actually have very little effect.

[Baetle]

I already tried this mod and liked most of it. The change of accuracy and range values felt satisfying. Sadly with this mod activated the AI really likes to use Guns with -30% length a lot which prevents them from hitting anything before being destroyed. Also the AI uses a higher number of barrels as soon as it is available, while the lower barreled gun would be the better choice.

But I will give it another try together with the ship pack. Although in the past I always felt like the AI doesn't use the shared designs all too often.

Edited June 9 by Baetle

[XerMGGW-2]

Interesting, thank you for feedback. The only parameters accessible to mod are the preferences of "the biggest number of barrels" and "the biggest caliber guns" in ship designs. (Note that this same parameter applies to Torpedo Launchers) The debuff that the multibarrel turrets get right upon being researched has been severely lowered, being -10% at most in values (though I did notice that it works very weirdly in shipyard stats, not reflecting reality of TextAssets whatsoever?), but the base inaccuracy that any more-than-one-barrel turret gets did end up being increased, -30% for twins, -45% for triplets and -55% quads due to uncontrollable air blast distortion, which can be seen to the left in battle on accuracy list, applicable to Main Caliber guns only, so it's barely an inconvenience to use them early if one doesn't mind nerfed reload. And I was getting single-barrel cruisers and destroyers at a respectible rate on my part, I guess RNG for you. Using lower amount of barrels doesn't reduce the chance to flashfire (this can be modded to be otherwise), the only factor increasing flash chance is increasing the caliber size.

The short barrels indeed don't get any ridiculous accuracy buff over same range unlike they currently do in vanilla, just like in any other mod, (here they have almost same accuracy per same range as long ones) but it may appear that devs did themselves change something internally in ship gun design for AI to prefer shorter barrels and outplay unknowledgeable players that way?  They're still very cheap and light and have quite the RoF. Do you simply outplay them by overarmouring your battleships and them not yet having ballistic caps in earlier times, without giving AI enough time (like 10 years) to ramp up that research of torpedoes, hulls and shells or just humongous guns, all of which I made them very keen on doing if you're using Historical admirals? What country and throughout what years did you play as in this instance?
 

Edited June 10 by XerMGGW-2

[Baetle]

I started my new Game as Japan in 1890 on nightmare. I again won basically every battle with just one battleship with single barreled 12" guns, because

• I shot farther than their short barreled guns (maybe it would be possible to remove that option alltogether?)
• I shot more accurate than their short barelled, twin guns
• I didn't get pushed at all by TBs or CLs

This way I was able to drive in circles around them just destroying them or dealt enough damage or flooding to reduce their accuracy further.

Even with max. double-barrel tech the double-barreled gun hardly seems worth it, escpecially considering the weight.

I kept my research budget at 80 because of the somewhat higher budget constraints of the difficulty, but still outpaced every other nation by 1894. I personally think it is absolutely necessary for a somewhat challenging experience that the tech of the AI is higher than yours. Otherwise you probably never fight any fight on an equal basis, because

• their designs are worse
• they don't replace their ships as often as the player
• they perform worse in battle

Here are a few more things I found a little weird:

• The basic armor tech seems too powerful to me. -30% weight and -10% flaws allows you to effectively have the same armor as compound per weight, but for a lower price and less flaws
• Because of the many more "negative" (relationship-wise) events after 5 years every nation was in multiple wars, which never seemed to end. This lead to them driving around with a multitude of small or 1-ship-fleets. Therefore I had a low amount of engagements other than the AI doing a drive-by of my transports, which my ships could not protect even in the right stance.
• Early in the campaign I had some bigger battles, in which I noticed that the CLs and TBs of the AI just seemed to drive away from the engagement.

I will start a 1900 Japan Campaign tomorrow and see how this develops.

Also sadly the newest ship pack mostly does not work, because the placement is wrong or the weight too high a lot of time. I edited all designs for a NAR playthrough a week ago only for the AI to not use the designs, so I did not edit them again this time.

Would you like to move the discussion over to the HIP thread?

Edited June 11 by Baetle
Added table

[XerMGGW-2]

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

Would you like to move the discussion over to the HIP thread?

No need, thank you.

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

Even with max. double-barrel tech the double-barreled gun hardly seems worth it, escpecially considering the weight.

 

However do consider that multi-barrel guns have their accuracy become rather irrelevant at close range, which is quite decent when given time to aim, and how little space they take up. Great for close-up combat and Won't need to waste additional money and weight on superimposed barbettes, too. Are you sure about your calculated values that the double barreled tech was indeed maxed out? I did notice that there are some sort of "ghostly" multi-barrel upgrades over the years to these guns completely out of textasset countrol, perhaps that's what you see in campaign? I've just booted the game to see the stats of a gun in 1911 (when first triplet should unlock and twins gotta be maxed out by all means):
Simple German mk3:
9"x1 ~900/21.1=42.65
9"x2 ~900*2/28.5=63.15 — a 50% increase. The tournament balance is based on maths, and they do appear to add up here.

And then accuracy, less of a factor to me, when Cordite I and Hexanite, 35% at 5km for x1 and 29% at 5km for x2. — The actual increase of unaimed shots nearing 25%. For -30% barrel length.
When +15% length as erosion ramps up especially for these high velocity shells components used, the actual unaimed increase is like 20%.

Using singlets in early era is a great idea. You're basically doing a battlecruiser strategy, outpacing the enemies out of their optimal range (which they try to maintain closer than in vanilla, but further than in DIP, according to DIP comments), and simultaneously stunlocking them with your fat hits preventing them from taking aim at you, despite damage instability dissipating faster than in vanilla, flooding giving more inaccuracy instead. And yet AI doesn't succeed at torpedoing you either, especially China's historical admiral ai? Nice!

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

I didn't get pushed at all by TBs or CLs

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

Early in the campaign I had some bigger battles, in which I noticed that the CLs and TBs of the AI just seemed to drive away from the engagement.

This one is interesting, I should check up again on torpedo-wielding ships' AIs, they should be sometimes so aggressive that they tend to even ram damaged ships. Or did you just escape them by landing flooding hits?

Perhaps spamming "no retreat" flags in Battle Types might help to do what they want but can't out of healthy reason... if only I remembered how.

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

Also sadly the newest ship pack mostly does not work

Quite expected considering that in HIP, upgrading citadel increases hull weight instead of armour weight, which doesn't make it a must-have for unarmoured ships and a hindrance for armoured ones for no reason, and that belt armour isn't quite as light, but also interesting because all big turrets in HIP are generally much lighter especially the larger ones, fuel is lighter, and base boiler weight is much lighter for ships with standard or high beam/draught, meaning that only ships which tried to abuse minimum beam/draught and very modern cruisers suffered especially those that had engines without boilers. Apparently there just isn't that much heavily armed ships in that pack, but extremely armoured ones instead? Especially those that armour up their barbettes, which is also the heaviest part about the turret armour now. I agree on some ships breaking when some hulls became stretchier according to vanilla displacement, RIP.

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

The basic armor tech seems too powerful to me. -30% weight and -10% flaws allows you to effectively have the same armor as compound per weight, but for a lower price and less flaws

It's only good until you have more than like two turrets to armour up, or when AI finally obtains a rangefinder for their mk2 mains to hit at high range sometimes. Because it only reduces belt armour weight. 

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

Because of the many more "negative" (relationship-wise) events after 5 years every nation was in multiple wars, which never seemed to end. This lead to them driving around with a multitude of small or 1-ship-fleets. Therefore I had a low amount of engagements other than the AI doing a drive-by of my transports, which my ships could not protect even in the right stance.

The bigger cause is likely the fact that AI is only willing to go for peace now when it racks up 45k VP difference, which is more than twice the vanilla difference. The war itself shouldn't cause that much of GDP shrinkage, only inflation... whatever that does. The negative effects might appear quite unfortunate, but in maths it's only like additional 5—10 net negativity extra per year.

 

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

I kept my research budget at 80 because of the somewhat higher budget constraints of the difficulty, but still outpaced every other nation by 1894. I personally think it is absolutely necessary for a somewhat challenging experience that the tech of the AI is higher than yours. Otherwise you probably never fight any fight on an equal basis,

On 6/11/2024 at 1:46 AM, Baetle said:

I will start a 1900 Japan Campaign tomorrow and see how this develops.

1890 start does tend to be quite easy if you rush researching rangefinder and make ship armour adequate, none of which dump ai can consistently do. However, please fathom this:
Nightmare difficulty already has 60% more AI tech advantage boost than Legendary boost!
This is far more than vanilla or any other mod. 
4 years is generally not enough for AIs to ramp up the arms race, expect 10 years instead.
Agreeably, 1900 is the most fun start.

Edited June 13 by XerMGGW-2