@Ganossa, Is there a way to see a unit roster for the different factions?

Oh, I think it is actually very close now to the Attila UI, especially when compared to vanilla. Isn't Attila UI bars even smaller?
But yeah, flags are useful to see when units are close to routing (though you could also watch the moral bar)

Alright, I guess I'm not using the UI like you do. I prefer the Attila/ToB look of UI, so no banners for me in that game (Vanilla). And going with the icon for routing and wavering.
The changes you made gives us fewer choices for our preferences and different ways to play. But like I said, I really like the look though. Just wish it could be functional without the banners.
Oh and iirc it's a 27" screen. The dots for the general are just four pixels wide. But maybe I just need to be used to it.

Thanks, I think it does look as intended and banners should be on, since they will indicate when a unit is wavering.
Not sure how big your monitor is but the icons above units are roughly 1/3 of the size in the unit card.
Banners are not scaling with distance anymore (I cannot get them scale same for enemy and player) and are only to see the white flashing and for flavour.

Here, some screenshots:

1440p max scaling
1440p 120%
1440p 120% with no banners

So yes it scales but not that much. Max scaling looks good to me for 120%. It would be my preferred way to play.

Was the settlement auto-captured the following turn or did you just get the message? Without unit attrition it shouldn't get captured but I might need to blacklist that notification.

The breakdown of diplomacy I decided to keep for now and in the last update expanded it to also joint wars (which were a way to avoid it before). It is useful to give time for hostilities.

Especially early game, it is all a balancing act. Most factions aren't at war yet and everyone is essentially sitting on a powder cake. Same happens every time your neighbors conclude their hostilities and are looking for new potential enemies. The player needs to carefully monitor the surrounding diplomatic situation and adapt a strategy.

AI has a bonus of units in their pool at turn 1. It is made transparent now with the citizen tooltip. That early bonus needs to decline in war/battles first and you can monitor it now easily.

The AI seems to have no problem to build up their outpost. I was attacked and rallied everything to beat off and invade an enemy who had 14,16,12 ect garrisoned troops in addition to the two armies it fielded. One ambush and 6! decisive victories in two turns to capture a settlement.

The battleworn effects are to harse, thankfully it affects the enemy as well.
I understand the philosophy behind these mechanics, and it is a step in the right direction, but it is in my honest opinion too much, too slow and too punishing.

Best regards

I have played quite a bit of your mod this last week, and its the first mod for the game that I feel is going in the right direction and i have enjoyed it and been frustrated the whole time.
Some critical feedback-

As others have pointed out, to be singled out and attacked for a few resources is extremely frustrating. All the buildings are too expensive, income is too low.
It is simply not fun spending alot of time every turn trading for resources going back and forth, and then more than often lack what you need and potentially getting attacked by other factions.
Building is fun, having everything tier 1 or vacant is not after 40 turns.

Thank you for quick reply. I should have been clearer. My units under siege are not taking attrition, but I got a warning that my settlement will capitulate next turn. It was my impression that this does not happen to the AI. I think it should, but siege times should be long. Sieges sometimes went on for years and was a big part of warfare in this era, in mesopotamia at least.

Regarding negotiations, I was the agressor.

@Atlantern, both -player and AI- should not take any siege attrition. I checked.

@Daroya, they do actually scale with the ingame setting, but it might not be enough for you. I run on 4K settings with 130% UI. Can you share a screenshot of how the battle UI looks for you, just to see for me if its unexpectedly different?

@brandonwg, Agamemnon is already the easier start, as long as you manage to defeat corinthians with only few losses. It can become difficult if you then get into war with boetians or aeolians.
An easier one might be the elam faction in the far east corner of the map. Without spoiling, it has some nice regions to start with.

@Atlantern, right after a war declaration, it isn't possible to negotiate but if you weaken the enemy, that will change quicker. I will change this to only be the case if the enemy declares the war. (if that isn't the case already)
I think both sides shouldn't be able to starve the other, I will check.

I agree with @Elusive about the unit status battle UI, it's so small and do not scale with the ingame options. I had the banners deactivated before (I don't like them) but needed to, to see something. I like the look of yours but it's really really small

Same campaign, the Ai can starve my big region city to submission but I cant?

Playing as Asyria and at war with Nirbu and I cant negotiate with them whatsoever?

Hey, thank you very much for taking the time to respond to each of my points. Do you have any suggestions for a decent learning faction to start as? I'm more than happy to give it another shot, given your responses.

For reference, I have tried Agamemnon and Amenmesse (I think; the larger Nubian faction that starts with a lot of gold mines in vanilla). I have played each to around turn 20, managing to take one settlement each, and colonise a destroyed one in Egypt.

Though I'm still not sure I agree re: post battle routing. But I also much better understand the reasoning and purpose.

P.S. Sorry for overwhelming your thread with my long winded beefs.

Regarding economy and early game threats:
Simply said, rich and weak will become a target. So you cannot be both, as long as you have potential enemies around.
Trade settlements, make strong allies, do not hoard, use research to spend for profit.
Do not wait for generating all resources yourself for a building but trade tin/copper for getting missing stone/wood/food, then construct. This wiil reduce most resources in a turn and remove that target from your back.
Also check your neighbor diplomatic situation. If many aren't at war, you are more vulnerable.
This will all get less eratic as you power growth (though AI will have other reasons for war then).

Regarding reinforcements/replenishment:
This is a complex one. Yes, individually this takes time and it increases with every tier.
First point I want to address is loss of units. Your goal will be to upgrade your units or get "lucky" in getting a higher tier unit in the pool. This will get easier as the game goes on.
What you will notice eventually is that higher tier shielded units can get really tanky, which will help significantly to reduce casualties and allow longer and longer "campaigns". Also, make use of the supply & equipment that you can get post-battle.

Recovering losses of lower tiers you do by either recruiting units you gained when taking a settlement or potential growth from enslaved enemies (especially if only one owned settlement in a province).
When a "campaign" is over is when you return to rebuild the army or send them over with a second general.

Regarding Sieges:
This is only really relevant for major settlements, so roughly 1/3 of your settlement battles.
Here is the complicated case of siege battles (AI vs AI and AI vs Player):
- AI will want to sally out most of the time, preventing to ever see a siege battle
-> AI is in most cases prevented by me from sallying out
- AI will take attrition and no siege will be fought or really trivial
-> attrition is disabled to allow for proper siege battles
- defending player might stall siege
-> settlement attrition remains, damaging economy, empire happiness and eventually causing rebellions

The task of the player for a siege is to come with large enough and well stocked army.

Buildings very slowly auto-repair by the way (one-by-one though).

Regarding routing armies:
The main reason to reduce the post-win chase time is to make it more fair for AI that exits the battle right on a win.
You are still getting most kills from battling routing units, both, during battle and after the win.
The second by-product is the -after accepting the time chase- to actually wasting less time watching units chasing to the edge of the map.

So you armies still get most casualties during unit routes (they are really weak when routing) and the loosing side -even if surviving- has to recover those losses. The AI has a number advantage especially early game, but that advantage will run out and war attrition is a real thing, even for larger AI empires. You can see that now more transparently with the region reinforcement/citizen tooltip.

A lot of the problems you seem to have are specific to smaller factions (so most factions) in their early game (which can often last up too 100 turns).
These type of starts will need some strategy and game/mod knowledge to get out of often and with that meantioned learning curve it can take some attempts to manage. Even as the mod creator, I can 75% of the time fail/give up on those attempts.
You would know but the point I would see why someone wouldn't like the mod is if they don't like to loose some campaigns. (doesnt really sound like thats your point though).
Anyway, I will get more into your specific point with some tips in above comments.

Thanks a lot for that lengthy feedback/explanation. It helps a lot to understand your point and some of it does sound reasonable and even familiar.
I do think the mod is indeed not everyones cup of tea but I have a hunch that it still might be yours.
Partially due to missing guides, descriptions and notifications, the mod has a steep learning curve, which can repell a lot of people.
However, a lot of added difficulty comes from the choice of faction and it's starting situation.

- The resource management system seems really great, and I am certainly interested in how it leads to a global market and impacts diplomacy. However, it is almost impossible to get to that point, since all your neighbours declare war on you as you try to save your meagre turn-by-turn resources. I had every one of my neighbours declare war on me by turn 5 because I was saving for some tier one buildings. This, combined with the first point, means it is nearly impossible to expand, and almost impossible to turtle and grow tall.

- The minimap seems to have been removed from the battles, which means you can't see, at a glance, where any units are, nor can you plan for reinforcements.

- What is the point of the agents? Only for exploring? I don't see them mentioned anywhere in the description and cannot figure out their use.

Again, I really appreciate the effort and I really like some of the changes you've made, but I guess this mod just isn't for me.

- The reinforcement system, as I alluded to above, takes forever, meaning that the one or two good units you are lucky enough to get end up slaughtered by the fourth battle, even with extensive micromanagement. And even the grey-tiered units do not seem to regenerate with any speed. Sitting in a newly captured settlement for three turns, in a province I otherwise completely own, with extra population and several recruitable tier-one units, they just... stay the same size. It's more like Rome 1 rather than any of the newer titles. This is again, very unhistorical and too difficult: its essentially making it so you have to physically return an entire army to longer-held regions (within the same province) to reinforce your units. I guess new recruits can't walk towards the larger army? How does that make sense?

- Sieges seem to have lost their use, as from what I can tell there is no point where the settlement will surrender. This means yet another way for you to lose your precious units. Encircling a minor settlement for a year should probably mean that the garrison shrinks to nothing and/or the town surrenders, but that does not seem to be the case. The settlement does sustain damage, but that means that when you do eventually attack and take it, all the buildings are damaged (and seem to disappear?)... and given the resource constraints, good luck repairing them.

- Exceptionally short post-battle time to chase down routing units. This is completely unhistorical, as during a rout was when the vast majority of casualties were sustained. In this mod, due to the slow and unwieldy reinforcement system, this means that many of the inevitable weaker enemies can simply attrite your faction's armies, without any hope of you maintaining a qualitative or quanititative edge because any decent units you get cannot regenerate. It's death by a thousand cuts, and you can't get rid of any single knife without allowing the others to sink into your underbelly.

Thanks for taking the time to make this mod, and I see what you're going for. I was quite excited to play it, and I get that this is probably user error on my part and this is the mod working as you have intended it to, but I can't bring myself to have any fun. It's just the worst of both worlds (a-historicity and maximum but still gamy difficulty) in my opinion. I really want to like this mod, since I very much prefer to play slowly, methodically, and using diplomacy as much as the game allows, but it is both too challenging and too unrealistic; pick one or the other.

Some specific problems I have:

Can you share a screenshot of the battle UI you see and difficulties that you got?
In general, unit type information moved from top to the right side.
There is an orange half circle around that to indicate hover or selection.
Below are two squares, of which left indicates stamina and right one indicates armor.
A small dot on top indicates how well the unit is doing in melee.
State indicators have for the most part replaced with easier to read/distinguish letters.
H - hidden
F - firing
U - under fire
R - routing
S - shattered

thanks for your reply mate. any reply for the HUD/UI for units during battles? its changed since the new update

I'm playing as the faction that starts on Cyprus (cant remember the name) and have built a strong economy around exporting copper. Alliances are something i have not thought about so will try that. I tend to enslave when i defend and execute when progressing a military campaign. The biggest issue i have is sustaining armies, they just do not replenish fast enough to keep up with current wars. I think i will have to try trading regions and making alliances to take the weight of me in wars. Thanks for the help!

One more tip, don't shy away from region trades, they can get you almost any deal. If possible, even capture a region you plan to trade for a potential ally.

Which faction did you play as?
You are probably missing some things that could help you improve the outcome, since there are a lot of things at play.
I too loose campaigns here and there, mostly due to having made the wrong decision(s).
Currently I am on an Athens (hard) campaign close to turn 100 and with 7 settlements it is going well.
Here are some tips:
1. Make strong allies at some point. To reduce number of enemies and to have backup/less frontline.
2. Try not to hoard resources early on, as other factions might take it as invitation to war.
3. Kill captured enemy units after battle to gain their supplies/equipment and generate momentum.
4. Keep outpost and recruitment pool unit numbers low with low public order to avoid rebellions

@Ganossa, Might just be me but i am finding it almost impossible to expand. I can only field a certain number of units because of food, which the ai seems to match or have more despite less lands. Also taking any region is such a drain because of outposts that by the time you have conquered 1 you cannot continue with war but cannot make peace. This is made worse by ai teaming up bringing in multiple stacks to your undefended land. I know the mod is supposed to be hard which is why i love plating it, but i am turn 200 and have only taken and held 4 cities. Mostly through save scumming XD. Am i missing something here?

Minor Change Agony 1.2.4a

- appoint scion to character that got married into family only if no scion appointed yet
- limit AI region trade to not allow lowly developed regions to be traded (AI otherwise undervalues those)
- disable region trade during AI turns

Thanks but I do not think it is possible to enable region trade for more regions at once. (at least not as I am aware of)

hello, love this mod only ever played with in on. one thing, since the new update the unit HUD during battle is so hard to see and monitor. i have no idea if my units are tired, its hard to give an attack enemy unit order because its difficult to click on the unit. anyone else experiencing this?

also i love this mod. Do you think you could add in the possibility of trading more than one region in the same deal?

Thank for enjoying it and if you do play multi-save, just make sure the save game folder keeps being relatively clean, so maybe indeed keep only 2x saves at a time.

Also Since now i have played this mod for 200 plus turns, I am eligible for a review.
I love this mod and it is a must try, it truely adds that historical feel that many believe is missing in pharoah. The population system works great and so does the addition of new resources, every action at the end of the battle is useful in someway even in mid to late game which i feel isnt in vanilla pharoah, every ruler[ even the kid of the main ruler] feels significant because there is so little a ruler can achieve in their life due to the pacing and when someone takes a great city say babylon, it makes him important to me.
In this mod you cherish each and every settlement you take. That itself is very special.

thank you so much for your support in this, it cant be saved then this means :[
so if i start a new campaign, should i play multi save so that if one save is corrupted, o can load the next one?

Once, your file is corrupted, it unfortunately cannot be fixed anymore without CA help. You can load it but for some reason not save it anymore.
I asked CA for help but they cannot support mod issues like that.

yeah some of my older campaigns, i just deleted their saves and it doesnt seem to work :[

This might be single save but are there any other save files in that Dynasties save folder?

"your moddata appears to be corrupted, all mods have been deactivated" this is just an issue currently with the mod manager. It should be no problem, just happens if loading the mods gets stuck.

Once a save file is corrupted, you need to load an older save cause the corrupted one crashes on saving.

i have a single save campaign.

when i open the mod menu, it says "your moddata appears to be corrupted, all mods have been deactivated"

Save games can be corrupted and the likely cause is too many save files in your save folder. You need to clean up the save folder (have max 2 or 3 save files there).

When you arrange a diplomatic marriage with a foreign general, you need to afterwards recruit that general and in the same turn arrange the marriage to him with that wife you chose. That way he will join your family and stay alive.

Also, currently the game isnt working at all for me, it crashes at end turn, it crashes at start battle, hell its very choppy even at the mod menu right now. is it because of the new update or something? I am very attached to my campaigns so please help me if you can.:]

In my case i married the daughter of my faction leader to someone else's general but he didnt show up in the dynasty menu but was present in general recruitment, now because of this she cant bear any children hence cant give me new general and is of no use to me, i tried marrying her again to someone else's general but it didnt work again[ he didnt show up in dynasty] now she was married to 2 generals at the same time but i needed her children so i tried to have are married in my own faction i.e arrange marriage button. Thats when it crashes and only crashes for her.