King Baldwin of Jerusalem AI preparations

[PitchNeeded]

This issue is for the plans for the new historical AI me and @Lolasik011 are planning and creating: King Baldwin of Jerusalem.

About King Baldwin: 'King Baldwin' was historically the name of several kings of Jerusalem during the Crusades and in general the kings of the kingdom of Jerusalem took part in more action than Western European based kings such as Richard the Lionheart and Phillip. So I think it would be good to have King Baldwin in the game.

My idea was for Baldwin to build cross shaped castles to fit his status as the king of the Crusader kingdom. They have lookout towers at the front part of the cross with ballista towers at the sides. He uses good fear factor, ale and religion and has a quite fast recruitment interval of 2.

King Baldwin uses slower units, these being crossbowmen, monks and swordsmen. The monks represent the horde of religious warriors that joined the Crusade and the swordsmen the heavier armed Templar fighting experts. I was tempted to make him use knights but enough AIs raid with them already and I liked the idea of an AI raiding with groups of European swordsmen:

Here is King Baldwin's main attack. He will also train some pikemen if he has to dig up a moat, and pikemen are also used for his counterattacks.

Castle features:

• 3 breweries and 3 inns
• 3 armourers and 3 blacksmiths
• 2 poleturners
• 6 fletchers
• 4 tanners
• 1 cathedral and 1 chapel
• 1 apothecary
• an oil smelter and boiling oil engineers on walls
• 2 water pots and 1 well
• 11 houses
• some lookout towers and two big square ballista towers, all with crossbowmen on them
• good fear factor
• 2 trebuchets at the front of his castle

Speech files: We can use good_soldier for the binks, and the speech files will be from the advisor from the Stronghold Crusader 'Crusader States' campaign.

[PitchNeeded]

@Lolasik011 You said you think the cross shaped design is too similar to Abbot. I don't mind your square design:

But he needs something unique to distinguish him from other AIs i think like the use of a few lookout towers (as crossbowmen would work well with lookout towers).

I will take a look at your AIV and see what I can do with it.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Ok...

[PitchNeeded]

I have done some work on your AIV and made it more unique for this new AI, King Baldwin's style will be a mix of lookout towers and big square towers. His crossbowmen will also be very effective way up on those lookout towers!

Here's it with him sending out his siege force

Here's his AIV, as you can see he has a moat around a lot of his castle but not all of it, I had the idea that the parts he doesn't have a moat around should have a Sheriff style pitch ditch (behind a low wall the enemy has to get through before the pitch is activated) which can be set on fire by his oil engineers.

This is his biggest castle, we need to do some slightly smaller ones

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Can you give me an AIC file. Please... And please give me a new Edited AIV file.

[PitchNeeded]

@Lolasik011 Here you go:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10meMK8rWkqixNYsjZjfWKRcWX8KQJqyf

The AIC settings for Baldwin have replaced Rat in this output file.

Also have a look at my AIV structure to see how to order your building better for AIVs in future.

[PitchNeeded]

I am just thinking whether I should get rid of his moat and pitch in my AIV though as I worry he may be too powerful compared to Wolf, Frederick and Lionheart with it. I know the kings of the kingdom of Jerusalem like King Baldwin were quite strong though, so he is supposed to be a hard AI.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Thankyou.

[Lolasik011]

My Version King Baldwin!!!: King Baldwin By Lolasik011.zip

He turned out a bit Cruel :D P.S I see him like this ... This is my personal opinion...

[PitchNeeded]

Excellent, but do you think he should use archers as well as crossbowmen then? I was thinking he would be better just having slow units, so crossbowmen, monks and swordsmen (and pikemen if he has to do some moat digging). Not having archers defensively (and only crossbowmen) could be one of his weaknesses to not make him too overpowered, so he is still strong but he is a little bit vulnerable to slave attacks on buildings. He would be more unique from abbot too not using archers.

I will do another AIV for him soon.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Thank you for your opinion . I know that there must be a balance. But I wanted to experiment.

[PitchNeeded]

Here's my next castle for him. I think his castles don't all need to be square or rectangular, as long as they have the mix of lookout towers and big square towers

And if you look at the keep, monks and swordsmen go together so well aesthetically too don't you think, as they both have crosses on their uniforms!

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded I like. But I like my version too ...

[PitchNeeded]

@Lolasik011 I will do an AIV more like your design next for him

Could you make another castle for him too, a medium sized castle this time.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Ok.

[PitchNeeded]

After we do King Baldwin we should help finish off the evil historical Crusader lord Reynald of Chatillon https://github.com/Sh0wdown/UnofficialCrusaderPatch/issues/302 and then we can both plan the the troops and castles for a historical Arabian AI - either Sultan Nur El Din (positive fear factor) or Sultan Baybars (negative fear factor).

UPDATE: I have done King Baldwin's third castle:

and his fourth one:

[PitchNeeded]

I have now done his fifth castle :D

I have tested him on 2000 gold and as his castles are expensive to build, he takes a while to become strong, a bit like Sheriff, but after a while he can resist quite big Lionheart attacks.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Good Castle ! Could you share your Castle?

[PitchNeeded]

@PitchNeeded Good Castle ! Could you share your Castle?

I will upload all the castles to google drive and share the link here once they are all done, along with the English version of the quotes for King Baldwin which I shall be working on soon. So @Sh0wdown can use them to create an installer option for this new AI once his audio extractor is ready.

Could you make another castle for King Baldwin, @Lolasik011 ? Medium size ideally.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded ok i will create a new castle

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded My New Castle King Baldwin !

King Baldwin EXP.zip

P.S Excuse me for size :D

[PitchNeeded]

Thanks :D That looks brilliant. I will have a look at it in the AIV editor and see if the build order is OK.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Fully revised version !!!! :

King Baldwin EXP V3 By Lolasik011.zip

[PitchNeeded]

Wow you created a great castle Lolasik, it looks like a big fortified city, like Jerusalem itself during the Crusades! It reminds me too of Emir's biggest castle. I notice for some reason there are two round big towers at the sides instead of big square ones but I am going to keep it like that as I like it.

I am looking forward to having King Baldwin in the game, I think I prefer him to Lord Woolsack even! I will have to get started with his quotes soon.

[PitchNeeded]

I am a bit worried he is a little bit overpowered though because, a. he gathers so much gold with this castle even with a fast recruitment speed (although many of his other castles aren't quite as good economically) and b. those crossbowmen are lethal with a +5 fear factor bonus. I could reduce the number of iron mines to 3 instead of 4 and reduce the number of swordsmen and increase the number of monks he sends in attacks to balance him a bit.

[Lolasik011]

I am a bit worried he is a little bit overpowered though because, a. he gathers so much gold with this castle even with a fast recruitment speed (although many of his other castles aren't quite as good economically) and b. those crossbowmen are lethal with a +5 fear factor bonus. I could reduce the number of iron mines to 3 instead of 4 and reduce the number of swordsmen and increase the number of monks he sends in attacks to balance him a bit.

I agree.

[PitchNeeded]

I had 5 iron mines for him, oops, reduced that to 4 now so that should be fine. He now has a max of 35 swordsmen in his attacks instead of 45 as before and has a max of 40 crossbowmen in attacks instead of 24 which he had before, which will work better as crossbowmen aren't so strong in attack plus the crossbowmen advance first anyway like with Wolf, and that makers them vulnerable.

And I think its OK he has slightly different strength economies in different castles, it means when you load him as an AI how strong he is can depend on the castle he builds which provides a bit of interest.

I would like to see you do another good King Baldwin castle Lolasik, different to any of your other ones for him but with tower 1 and tower 4. Medium sized.

[Lolasik011]

I would like to see you do another good King Baldwin castle Lolasik, different to any of your other ones for him but with tower 1 and tower 4. Medium sized.

I will try to make a new castle.

[PitchNeeded]

I have done the English quotes and timestamps for King Baldwin so @Sh0wdown can add him as an AI once he does the audio extractor. I could find anything for sending goods so he will just have to use 'my master requests the following goods' for that. But for everything else he has speech files. For the 'extra' quote I wanted to have something mentioning the kingdom of Jerusalem as he is the king of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem after all.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4ngeSzssfdBiKb4VTtXY7uhEqdYt7sOq-W4fCTOMxg/edit?usp=sharing

I believe the correct binks to use are good_soldier_nervous.bik and good_soldier_taunt.bik.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded My Russian audio files King Baldwin ! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rPDo4fdPnmJous_6sqLw1_pAQLZHZq2A3hr1JKq5A84/edit?usp=sharing

P.S Thank you for your table. She was my guide.

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded New Castle King Baldwin! King Baldwin Prototype V3.zip

[PitchNeeded]

Thanks a lot for the Russian quotes and the nice looking castle, which I will have a look at in the AIV editor soon and see the build order. Then just one more castle to do.

We just need German quotes now, hopefully someone can help with those?

[Lolasik011]

@PitchNeeded Sorry but I don't know German ... We can wait can someone help

[J-T-de]

@PitchNeeded @Lolasik011 I know German, I could do it but it will take some time as I am rather busy atm. If someone else wants to do it I am perfectly fine. Else I will do it some time in the future (maybe I get more motivated, if the actual tool for the sound extraction gets released :D ).

[PitchNeeded]

@PitchNeeded @Lolasik011 I know German, I could do it but it will take some time as I am rather busy atm. If someone else wants to do it I am perfectly fine. Else I will do it some time in the future (maybe I get more motivated, if the actual tool for the sound extraction gets released :D ).

Thanks, if you do have the time to help out, the help would be very much appreciated! It might take a while before Sh0wdown updates the patch or creates the sound extractor as he is also very busy at the minute studying I believe, so there is no rush.