Dynamic Difficulty – Adaptive AI Bonuses
TWW2 is no longer getting patches or DLC, so my mods are also considered final and will not receive any more updates. Therefore I disabled comments on all of them to avoid constantly getting notifications for the same dumb questions that have been answered a thousand times already. Any comments or announcements I might make in the future will be posted under my collection here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1766089433
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Makes campaigns start easier and then become harder over time, compared to the unmodded game.
Campaigns can be quite challenging at the beginning because the bonuses the AI gets from higher difficulties are static throughout the game. But after the player has mastered the initial challenges, the static bonuses then are not enough to make the AI still challenging in the later game.
This mod tries to smoothen the difficulty curve by reducing the static AI bonuses but then adding dynamic, adapting bonuses for the AI as the player expands and becomes more powerful. The AI bonuses eventually become considerably stronger than in the vanilla game – but still depending on your diffculty level, so Easy or Normal will still be much easier than Very Hard.
List of changes to static difficulty bonuses for the AI:
-static bonuses to AI unit (NOT lord/hero) xp gain removed (that’s what creates all these gold-chevroned units that have never seen combat)
-bonus to character and unit replenishment reduced to what it is on Normal difficulty for all difficulty levels (which is basically the same bonus the player gets)
-all upkeep reductions removed and replaced with dynamic tax income bonuses
-extra recruitment points (local recruitment) sharply reduced on H/VH/L
-static growth bonuses reduced
-recruitment costs discounts reduced
The upkeep cost reduction removal is mainly because giving the AI any kind of upkeep discount causes a bug where the AI creates several armies at one settlement but then fails to actually recruit many units into those armies, leaving them with two or more half-empty stacks. Giving them more money via tax income instead does not seem to cause this bug.
List of the dynamic, scaling bonuses the AI gets from this mod:
-bonus tax income from their provinces that starts small but scales up very high to improve their economy
-bonus growth that gradually brings their extra growth to vanilla levels and eventually even exceeds it
-extra income from post-battle loot (starts at zero and gradually scales up)
-xp gain per turn for units (gives them back their vanilla bonus but only starting in the later game)
-gradual increase to replenishment and recruitment (only on H/VH/L and it’s optional, disabled by default to make the game less grindy on VH/L)
The tax rate bonus is quite large to make up for the missing bonuses to upkeep reduction and the decreased bonuses to recruitment and construction costs. Those cannot be buffed dynamically because you’d inevitably end up with values larger than 100, making recruitment and construction completely free for the AI.
So what determines the strength of AI bonuses? It depends on the player faction. For most standard factions, simply the number of regions owned makes the AI buff level go up. There are several exceptions to this though:
-for Chaos and Beastmen, making more hordes increases AI bonuses
-for Nakai, making more hordes increases difficulty, but to a lesser degree. The number of regions owned by the vassal faction also increases difficulty but those regions count only for half as much as owned regions for a regular faction
-Skaven are mostly normal but any established undercities contribute as half a region
-for Vampire Coast only their hordes count (not the normal armies), and their owned regions count slightly less to make up for it. Any established pirate coves also count as half a region
-for Norsca, owned regions in Norsca count only half because of their low economic value. Settlements outside Norsca count as normal, and every additional army also counts (but far less than for horde factions)
-for Wood Elves, their core settlements count triple because of their very high economic value, but outposts count only half
Keep in mind that no amount of bonuses can make the AI smarter and teach it how to execute a proper multi-pronged assault or anything like that, so the possible improvements are limited. I suggest also approaching the problem from the player’s end by using something like my Progressively Harder Expansion or Progressively Harder Battles mod.
Savegame-compatible. Compatible with all mods except those that also overwrite the vanilla handicaps table.
Thanks to Venris who gave me the general idea of AI dynamic bonuses.
RECOMMENDED OTHER MODS
I recommend using this mod with all others that are currently in my collection, or at least those in the collection that were created by me. Although my mods also work separately, I use all those that are in my collection together, and in my opinion only together they reach their full potential improving and rebalancing the game.
Required items:
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Mod Configuration Tool || The Vandy Library — Steam Workshop
