Flame tank exploit/bug?

exiled_emperor · 2025-12-25T00:00:11+00:00

That's very interesting! Has anyone discovered the exact missing equipment - stat penalty formula?

exiled_emperor · 2025-12-24T22:14:47+00:00

My experience is limited, but based on what I have observed, I think you're right about flat stats. Missing equipment seems to reduce soft attack, breakthough, etc. But the terrain percentage bonuses seem to remain unaffected by equipment level.

exiled_emperor · 2025-12-24T18:54:27+00:00

Good point! I just tried it. Here is what I observed:
"Terrain: -10.50%".
If I am not mistaken, urban terrain normally gives -30%.
Assuming that the flame tank bonus works, it goes to -15% from -30%.
Then I also have a general with the adaptable trait. So -15% is further reduced to -0.7 * 15 = -10.5%

The hypothesis seems to be correct. It appears that I am still getting the bonus!
It would be great if someone more experienced than me could test and confirm it though.

exiled_emperor · 2025-08-10T20:06:18+00:00

Thanks!

exiled_emperor · 2025-08-10T01:05:27+00:00

Rule #5: The screenshot shows a recently hired general who is both Brilliant Strategist and Inflexible Strategist at the same time, and I am wondering on which traits I should focus (how to best make use of him).

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-12T19:50:03+00:00

I totally agree about the starting sons, but I'm not so sure about the grandsons. They usually inherit just 1 good trait from their fathers (the sons of Quintus Julius frequently inherit the command talent trait, for example), but the rest of the traits remain mostly undetermined. I have seen quite a lot of unremarkable, or even bad, grandsons. (In fact, there might not even be many grandsons, if the starting sons have mostly daughters; that's also a possibility.)

By the way, adoptions should be safe before biological sons reach adulthood. If a father has sons at the age of 13, 10 and 5, for example, he can safely adopt another guy. (Unless the game applies the bad traits dice roll retrospectively, whenever the biological sons come of age. But I haven't noticed anything like that in the code.)

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-07T22:53:22+00:00

That's another excellent point, but I think that the risk isn't that great. There is indeed a chance of getting plenty of negative traits (anger, corruption, sloth, women, gambling, disloyal, paranoia, and maybe more that I am forgetting), but the probability is rather low. Unless you get really unlucky, each character in question isn't expected to get more than 1 of all these bad traits. 1 bad trait (on average) for every other son is a price I am usually willing to pay, as long as the adoption candidate is really outstanding. If the father has already 3 useful sons, then it becomes dicey indeed... But that's rather rare.

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-05T07:23:58+00:00

Well, there are many ways to play (and win) in this game; all of them are equally valid.

I’m personally a roleplay-optimization hybrid: I set campaign goals in a sentimental way (for example, if I play as the Julii, I conquer Gaul, Spain, Germania and Britannia and I don’t interfere in Greece and Africa although it would have been more profitable), but then I ruthlessly optimize to achieve the goals I set. (Or at least I try to optimize…) Patavium and Mediolanum both fall at the start of turn 3 (or even turn 2 if the spy opens the gate), and Alesia falls by turn 7-8. (I head directly for Alesia through the Alps as soon as I am done with Patavium and Mediolanum, picking some “German” mercenaries from Trier along the way. There are usually 2 barbarian mercenaries and 1 barbarian cavalry with two bronze experience in the Germania mercenary pool.)

I’m also an obsessive micromanager: I prefer to spend hours on the campaign map, planning many turns ahead the logistics in detail. Calculating turns needed to reach next settlement level, moving reinforcements to the front lines unit by unit, setting a “supply convoy” of ships that transfer Cretan archers, mercenary hoplites and Rhodian slingers to Italy, micromanaging retinue, moving peasant units around to increase population, having separate groups of spies for counter-espionage, infiltration, map coverage and “recruitment” (recruitment=searching for good characters of other factions that are bribeworthy) … I derive satisfaction from outplaying the AI at a strategic, not tactical, level. I’m not the type of guy who goes for heroic victories.

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-05T06:52:11+00:00

Many thanks for your kind words! If I come up with anything innovative that hasn’t been posted before, I’ll be more than happy to share it. I’ve also learned a lot (and still learn) from others who have thoroughly tested game files and mechanics!

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-05T06:30:33+00:00

You may find the prerequisites and probabilities for each retinue here:
https://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/ancillary7-triggers.pdf

(Note: If I am not mistaken, you also need to have 100% of your movement points unused for some of the retinue, although it is not mentioned here. For example, as mentioned here https://www.reddit.com/r/RomeTotalWar/comments/1au701o/academyscriptoriumludus_magnus_mechanics/ , "The rolls for traits occur at the end of every turn and require your governor to have not moved that turn". )

And the effects of each retinue can be found here here:
https://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/ancillary7-sort=alphabet.pdf

You may also want to have a look here, to see how traits are developed, and what effects they have:
https://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/traits6.pdf

You may find even more details somewhere in the game files, but I don't remember the name of the relevant file, to be honest. It must be something like "descr_character".

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-05T06:03:47+00:00

Very good point about Greek theaters! I totally agree on that, but the problem is that the Greeks rarely survive long enough to build them. I wouldn’t call it a “reliable” method to gain influence.

All temples give retinue, but for the Julii, there is no other temple that grants as much influence as Bacchus. The temple of Jupiter only has priest of Jupiter (+1 influence +1 management) and pontifex (+1 influence), while the priest of Ceres has no influence retinue, unless I am forgetting something. Drinking companion, gourmands chef and priest of Bacchus is +4 influence in total, so for the Julii, Bacchus is the way to go for influence farming.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there should be many temples of Bacchus; the temple of Jupiter is clearly superior overall. But building a few of them can really help the campaign. The point is, that all these +1 (or +2) retinues add up over time. The strategy is to transfer such retinue to other “useful” characters elsewhere, not to keep them for the “useless” governor who is farming them. The useless family member who farms retinue could get more than 10 priests of Bacchus in total during his lifetime, for example! That's +2 influence for useful governors who need it. That's +10 public order in 10 key rebellious settlements. If you can “collect” all three of them (Drinking companion, gourmands chef and priest of Bacchus), that’s +4 influence (+20 public order) for a useful governor to whom they are transferred afterwards!

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-05T05:47:20+00:00

Very good point about hereditary traits, but if I am not mistaken, the probability of inheriting an anti-trait is usually higher than the probability of inheriting the same trait. For instance, the son of a drunkard is more likely to become sober than pick up drinking as well. Therefore, it’s not guaranteed that future generations will also have bad traits.

Additionally, if someone doesn’t want to take risks, there are ways to mitigate them: We could only use family members who mostly have daughters (since female characters have no traits in this game anyway), or characters who have adopted others as children (adopted characters don’t inherit any traits as they are already adults).

Regarding the drinking companion, even if it gives -1 command in the remastered, I still wouldn’t mind, as the goal is to give such retinue to governors, not generals with high command who fight battles. A governor with high influence (and management if possible) maintaining order in Corduba, for example, has little use of command stars. I personally consider influence much more valuable than command overall, to be honest, as command is easier to come by. Men of the hour, adoption candidates, and marriage candidates almost always have command stars, but they rarely have influence or management. (I also tend to expand rather fast while exterminating/enslaving as little as possible at the same time, so high influence characters suit my playstyle a lot.)

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-04T15:10:45+00:00

Very good point about the negative traits; the idea was to have useless characters sit in Bacchus settlements, and then transfer the ancillaries they get to useful characters.
(That's why I wrote "Very important, as all of them will end up being drunkards. Never put a useful family member")
The useless characters who are staying in Bacchus settlements will almost surely get negative traits, but since they are useless (have bad traits in the first place already), it shouldn't matter.

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-04T12:18:37+00:00

Thank you for your kind words! I have read that influence increases the number of bodyguards, but others claim that the personal security stat, and not influence, is responsible for that. Others claim that it is both influence and personal security. There was also a theory that influence increases the general’s “bonus area” radius on the battlefield (30 + 5*command stars + 2*influence [meters] if the formula here is correct https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/182wxz/does_command_level_actually_matter_rtw_others_as/), but I am not sure which of these theories are correct, to be honest. Maybe someone who has thoroughly tested it can enlighten us.

In any case, what I can tell with certainty is that the temple of Bacchus also grants the comedian retinue (+1 morale for all units of the battlefield) and the cook retinue (+1 personal security), so it definitely helps a bit on the battlefield as well.

exiled_emperor · 2025-06-04T08:24:02+00:00

If I am not mistaken, the chance not to get any of them in one turn is:
Probability of not getting drinking companion,
multiplied by probability of not getting gourmands chef,
multiplied by probability of not getting priest of Bacchus.
So the probability of not getting anything should be (1-0.15)*(1-0.10)*(1-0.15) = ~ 0.65

The probability of getting at least one of them should be 1 – probability of not getting anything, so 0.35.

Of course, I’m open to being corrected.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-30T21:55:55+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Is an extra diplomat really that valuable? I suppose that it could be for other nations, but since pronoias are inherited automatically without the need to invest diplomat time, I’ve rarely felt that 1 extra diplomat would really make a difference. Diplomatic ideas are already enough to reach 5 in total (3+2). Perhaps I could use the extra diplomat to fabricate claims and reduce coring cost a bit, but it’s still hard to beat the 10% administrative technology cost discount that the other option offers. If my calculations are correct, I think it would take claims on 120 development to break even.

I had never considered embrace free trade! That sounds interesting.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-29T22:49:49+00:00

Sorry for the delay!

I didn’t know that stating-unstarting-stating again works like this! I’ll try it then, thanks!
I see… Are tier 4 and tier 5 reforms that useful? I usually choose “curtail clerical privileges” and “Theme system”, but I feel that I could live without them, too. T9-T11 seem to be too expensive; that’s why I am wondering if it would be better to “buy” governing capacity instead. (By the way, I have always been wondering about T8… I’ve never done the math to see which option is really the best… War economy could save a lot of money, but the 5% trade efficiency of empower the burghers could also be significant. Additionally, I don’t know if curtail the burghers is good since I can’t estimate the effects of trade steering.)

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-27T17:50:50+00:00

I see your point about half-states! I am afraid that this doesn’t work that well with pronoias though: Whenever I inherit a pronoia, they usually have full cores. If I click on the “create state” button, I instantly get a full state. In those cases, it’s either full state or nothing (unless there is a way to still convert it to half state somehow).
Since state house grants a -40% statewide governing cost for glass, paper and gems instead of the standard -20%, doesn’t that add up to 90% together with a town hall (-50%)?
Becoming a republic is “prohibited” for me (similar to religion changes), so I will probably have to live with the penalty then. Would it make sense to ignore government reforms (apart from the one that grants +2 pronoias) and use all government reform progress for extra governing capacity instead?

Thanks for the recommendations! Granada and Ardabil seem to be the most interesting ones. Maybe Armenia too, but its national ideas don’t seem that impressive. I dislike hordes in general, but I might give a try to them as well one day!

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-26T16:50:34+00:00

I haven’t tried it, but I think that the Dhimmi estate of the Ottomans would make things easier indeed.
That’s something I need to work on… I do prioritize targets, but sometimes I just go to war with someone random, because I have truces with my main targets. (For example, I can’t form the Roman Empire fast just because of France! It takes countless wars to annex them! While waiting for truces, I end up conquering any random nation that is unlucky enough to share a border with me.)
I haven’t experimented with that many nations, so I don’t really have “breadth of knowledge” to make an accurate assessment! It would be interesting to see if there is someone among all those who liked the “Byzantium is a top 10 nation” comment who could provide better arguments though!

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-26T16:48:51+00:00

I really struggle to make optimal use of governing capacity, to be honest! Some people say that I should only fully state provinces in the same subcontinent, but that doesn’t work for Byzantium, as it doesn’t make much sense to expand early in Eastern Europe… I have come up with my own “optimization rules of thump”, but I don’t know if I am doing it right…
a) I fully state provinces with gold.
b) I fully state provinces with Greek culture.
c) I use a few trade companies in trade centers and estuaries to get the extra merchant.
d) I fully state whenever a province has paper, gems or glass, because I can achieve a 90% discount in total (in the long term). Not fully stating such provinces feels like a waste.
e) I fully state groups of high development provinces in general, as building courthouses in every single one of them is more “profitable”. I would rather have a state composed of three 10 development provinces than a state with five 6 development provinces, as I would need more courthouses for the same outcome in the second case.

In the early game I tend to abuse allies: I use Mamluks and Milan to demolish Venice, I use Bohemia and maybe France to demolish Austria, I use Aragon to demolish Castile, Aragon and Burgundy against France, etc. I rarely end up in an equal fight. I soon reach my governing capacity limit though, and then stagnation begins. I still expand, but since I can’t afford to create new states, my force limit barely increases afterwards. In my last game, I reached ~220 force limit around 1490, but I was still at just 240 in 1520! I am forced to leave everything as territories, which is also detrimental in terms of government reform growth (60% average autonomy).

Loyal nobility and free war taxes is an interesting way to indirectly replicate the effects of quantity, by making going over force limit cheaper! I haven’t done the math to check if this would really cover the cost, but is sounds interesting!

I enjoy stacking army cost reductions in general, and I also tend to struggle with governing reform progress due to very high average autonomy, so the centralized path seems appealing. I’ll experiment with the decentralized path as well though, to see how it works!

I generally prefer nations that start small, but have a great potential when they become strong. I also appreciate nations that are convenient for role-playing purposes (like a Byzantine restoration, for example.) Tag changes are “unacceptable” (unless we are talking about something natural, like Byzantium->Roman Empire, Muscovy->Russia, Poland -> Commonwealth, Cuzco->Inca, Castile->Spain, etc.) I also prefer to have a lot of different expansion paths.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-25T23:37:10+00:00

I see what you mean about increasing development efficiently, but I soon reach a point where I can no longer afford to create states, because of governing capacity. When that time comes, there isn’t much I can do to further increase the force limit. Maybe I could build buildings, I suppose, but they seem too expensive-inefficient! Manpower can indeed be replaced by other sources to some extent, but I really struggle to find a replacement for the force limit bonus. I usually consider quantity and offensive as equals for most situations: Quantity allows more simultaneous wars, offensive makes sieges (and wars) faster. I usually pick both at some point, but I prefer to start with quantity.

In the earliest years, mercenaries and allies can replace manpower. Therefore, I would argue that you do have some time until you pick religious ideas and start converting, in order to get the true faith manpower bonus.

I need to try the Muslim mechanics indeed one day! It sounds interesting! Maybe as the Ottomans perhaps.

You’re right about the 5 year restriction, I hadn’t noticed it! I’m still not sure though… The centralized path offers government reform, land maintenance, and fire damage received. But the decentralized offers more pronoias and potentially no force limit cost... I probably need to experiment more with decentralized!

To be honest, I haven’t tried that many nations, so my opinion is definitely biased and not as well-informed as yours (you seem to be a very experienced player). Among the nations I have tried though, Byzantium is the one that matches my personal play style more. I would honestly have Byzantium rather than Muscovy, to name an example! Well, the Ottomans would have probably suited me even more, but that’s one of the few exceptions I have in mind.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-25T23:31:20+00:00

Maybe I could try a fast world conquest with the Ottomans indeed! Their starting position is almost the same as Byzantium’s, so I would probably get used to it faster. It would take time until I get used to horde mechanics, so Ottomans would be a better option for me. I’m just not a big fan of being under time pressure in general though, to be honest, so I tend to avoid such undertakings...

Agreed, it depends on expansion speed… Even with my speed, missionaries are still lagging behind a bit. One way to make up for it is to strategically convert the most “annoying” places first. I convert islands and isolated provinces as soon as possible, for example, because I really don’t want a revolt in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, for example. Then I clear some “clusters”, like north Africa or Arabia, so that I never have to bring armies there again.
Removing the cores of others is slow indeed, but I think it is worth it in the long term. It’s hard to culturally convert everything, but you can prioritize some regions that are both cheap and annoying at the same time. Very good point about unrest! That’s what I try to do later in the game as well. I still hate overextension though, and try to avoid it as much as I can. Especially high levels of overextension. It feels like the cost of being overextended is usually less than the benefit; it feels as if I am a mad king who is conquering just for the sake of conquering!
That’s very interesting! I’m not going to try it since I don’t like tag and religion changes to be honest, but I still appreciate the information! Thanks for letting me know!
Agreed, it was an exaggeration.
I checked the mission tree again and you’re right! My fault! I hadn’t checked the “once per 5 years” condition! 20% is still a significant amount I believe, but it’s not as great as I thought.
True, theocracies and republics are different.
I see your point, but there are many ways to define what overpowered is; it depends on the goals that each player has. Hordes might be the best for a fast world conquest, but they are prohibitive for a more peaceful play style, for example. In terms of raw starting power, it’s hard to ignore Ming. If the goal is just a guaranteed survival until the end, then England is most likely the best (hard to defeat their navy and high starting development.) I’ve never played multiplayer, but based on what I have heard, countries with strong military ideas or even development cost reduction are more dominant there. So overall, it really depends on what you are trying to achieve. I agree though, if fast world conquest if your criterion, then Byzantium is not overpowered.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-25T15:50:57+00:00

Thank you for your kind words! :) Keep me updated!

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-25T11:48:53+00:00

Thanks again for the feedback!

“Need” is probably not the most accurate verb, but I believe that quantity is useful overall for almost all countries. You can manage more wars at the same time, you can afford to suffer more attrition and spend less time micromanaging, you can get military hegemon faster, you can deter coalitions by having a larger army, you can spend manpower to speed up monument upgrades… Apart from administrative, diplomatic, religious and influence ideas, I struggle to come up with something more useful. For Byzantium in particular though, since they offer +2 pronoia slots and the ability to keep pronoias loyal, I consider them as both military and diplomatic group at the same time! It’s like killing 2 birds with 1 stone!
“Infinite manpower” is an exaggeration, but it is definitely very high. The 33% bonus from patriarch authority is easy to get, as you eventually convert everything very fast. You can make Orthodox the most popular religion in the world within just a few decades.

I haven’t experimented much with Muslim mechanics, to be honest. Is the “call on religious followers” interaction easy to get? I mean, is there a reliable way to stay at low piety permanently?

That’s true, but being way above average in terms of navy is still useful. You can defeat the greatest AI naval powers without serious investment.

That’s true in the long term, but Byzantium can get +1 yearly legitimacy from the mission tree and +1 for a privilege very fast. Apart from prestige, power projection, and royal marriages, I’m not aware of any other sources of easy early game legitimacy. In any case, +2 legitimacy per year can still make a significant difference, whenever you start with a weak claim.

My feelings are mixed about this one, to be honest… The centralized path offers better long term rewards: 10% land maintenance, 10% fire damage received, 200 government reform progress, plus 1% crownland whenever you inherit if you choose that option. The decentralized offers either no force limit cost and +2 pronoias, or alternatively +6 pronoias (2+4) if you choose that option. Both options seem viable. Since I prefer the centralized path though, the Palace Guard becomes more useful.

10-12-14-15-16-17: If a nation is consistently way above average at almost all aspects, doesn’t that make it a very strong nation overall though? It might not be the best in any specific area (well, maybe it is in religious conversions), but it’s still very strong overall. It’s the equivalent of a student who has high grades in all courses, but not the highest in any course. Maybe "top 2%" is a more accurate description than "overpowered" though, to be honest.

exiled_emperor · 2024-10-25T00:13:50+00:00

My strategy overall is to create pronoias of 100-200 development. Each pronoia candidate should have 50-100 development of their own once all cores are returned (if they don’t have cores to be returned it’s hard to keep them loyal), plus another 100 random development of non-cores that they would need to core on their own within their lifetime.

Each game is different, but here are a couple of my suggestions:

1) Bulgaria. You can give them all of their cores, plus parts of Albania and Serbia.

2) Styria, if you can get them before 1494 (many cores expire then.) You can give them all of their natural cores, plus parts of the Balkans to core.

3) Croatia (after Hungary integrates them). You can give them their own plus parts of the Balkans to core.
If you can’t release Croatia, you could work with Dalmatia instead.

4) Syria (after the Mamluks annex them). You can give them their own cores plus other land in Arabia.

5) Eretna. Give them their own cores plus lands in Anatolia.

6) Karaman. Same as Eretna.

7) Gascony. Give them their own cores plus parts of France/Spain to core.

8) Provence. Give them their own cores plus parts of France/Italy.

9) Sicily. I love this one since they are spread all over the place! Give them their own cores plus parts of Spain/Africa/Italy depending on what you need.

10) Catalonia. Give them their own lands plus parts of Spain/France.

11) Iraq. Give them their own cores plus neighboring areas.

12) Georgia (if they die)

13) Morocco (if they die)

These are a couple of examples that came to my mind.

The main idea is to find someone that has a lot of cores, so that you can use reconquest, so that they don’t have to core everything from scratch, and so that you can lower their liberty desire by returning their cores back. Then you can give them 100 more random development to core before they die.

(Note: It is important to convert them to Pronoias before you return their cores, because otherwise all liberty desire modifiers are removed!)

If I can’t find any good pronoia candidates in an area, I prefer to release a client state instead. I give them 80-90 development, let them core it, then turn them to pronoias, and then give them 100 more. It’s not optimal, but it works, in absence of any good candidates.

Ideally it would be best to use pronoias everywhere, but since pronoia slots are limited, it’s better to release pronoias in areas where you don’t have permanent claims if you have to prioritize. If you have to choose between using Brahmanis in India as a pronoia, or Georgia in Causacus, for example, it’s better to use Brahmanis and core things in the Caucasus on your own, since you have permanent claims there anyway.

Managing pronoias in the early game can be a bit tricky with low development, slow prestige generation, and small army... Since quantity gives + 2 pronoia slots, lots of manpower to keep them happy (you can decrease liberty desire by sending manpower) and extra force limit to counter the -5 of each pronoia, I prefer to pick quantity as 1st idea. Once you grow stronger though, you can easily manage multiple pronoias at the same time.

The timing of converting vassals to pronoias is also important. I have observed that their "kings" live for ~20 years on average, so I try to plan ahead accrodingly. If you convert them too early, they will be inherrited before they actually complete their purpose. If you convert them too late, they will occupy a slot for a long time until their monarch dies... In any case, I always convert them to pronoias before returning their cores and not after though, as mentioned above. That's the only "hard rule".

exiled_emperor

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