A Thought on Units and Reforms.
So, I was thinking about the Roman unit roster in EB1 and vanilla and how it advances throughout the game similar to how it would in reality, when I noticed that few of the other factions advance in quite as thorough a manner (with exceptions being mainly the Hellenic factions and a few other factions like Saka, oddly). Now, I know there are tech trees and also reforms for most factions, but what I'm not sure about is if these factions are advancing at a rate proper to their hypothetical dominance. I also know that there are definitely attempts in EB to show how a faction's hypothetical dominance would play out through regional units; however, it doesn't seem like these are always enough.
To put it another way: we know that Rome achieved dominance throughout the Mediterranean and so we pretty well know what their soldiers looked like at height of the Roman empire and during its stages; however, in games like RTW, otherwise smaller, less successful factions can raise to the same height of dominance, but so often their units and advancements are not depicted as going through similar motions, and understandably so, for we do not have the same direct historical measuring stick that we do with the Romans. For example: the Aedui going through the Time of Soldiers reforms and getting different units is one thing, but even if they go on to conquer all the lands the Romans did and hold those lands, they do not experience quite the kind of unit shift one might expect of a far-reaching empire.
I don't know... maybe factions could receive an additional reform once they reach a certain huge size in order to simulate the hypothetical changes that one would expect be brought on by the wealth and power of a large empire that may not have existed?
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Imo yours is too much a "romanized" view of an empire: for example the Pahlava found they couldn't rely too much on their hellenic subjects and sticked to their own warfare...
Persians earlier on, exploited subjects' capabilities to their fullest...
Not to mention those roman reforms, came from disastrous defeats and not due to power (well not directly), besides it's not like they revolutionized warfare, they simply adopted better ways, something all those "lesser" factions already had, but lacked either wealth or political unity...
The only reform for those factions, that I could think of, is a centralization or confederation of power, coupled with the adoption of administrative/bureaucratic apparati (but it's something that happened, but usually ended with the death of its artificer or the people just rejected, so it's something that the team has to decide whether to script both, make a choice or avoid it completely :P)...
Bottom line, reforms happened in times of crisis and not of success...
What we have in the game, is land and resources in surplus, that enables the factions to implement expensive equipment in greater numbers...
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arjos
Imo yours is too much a "romanized" view of an empire: for example the Pahlava found they couldn't rely too much on their hellenic subjects and sticked to their own warfare...
Persians earlier on, exploited subjects' capabilities to their fullest...
Not to mention those roman reforms, came from disastrous defeats and not due to power (well not directly), besides it's not like they revolutionized warfare, they simply adopted better ways, something all those "lesser" factions already had, but lacked either wealth or political unity...
The only reform for those factions, that I could think of, is a centralization or confederation of power, coupled with the adoption of administrative/bureaucratic apparati (but it's something that happened, but usually ended with the death of its artificer or the people just rejected, so it's something that the team has to decide whether to script both, make a choice or avoid it completely :P)...
Bottom line, reforms happened in times of crisis and not of success...
What we have in the game, is land and resources in surplus, that enables the factions to implement expensive equipment in greater numbers...
Last paragraph really is something that is so obvious when you think about it. You don't change something that's working, change is dependent upon failure in some way.
Also, what you say about power being centralised is demonstrably true. There may be occasions when confederations and alliances were formed because of a shared enemy, but by and large once that enemy was dealt with old rivalries would raise their head. Rome seems to have remained relatively unified - at least until their power was pretty much unassailable, and also seem to have been very good at utilising those rivalries to their own advantage.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
the romans where just lucky as hell their had so many able man in the 200 years they took to conquer men like marius sulla lucullus pompey or cesar or dentatus if one was to replay the roman history without their luck they probably would have been cornered down beteween the samnites and carthies as they where a few times but they had the great man to lead them and give them a path and those same men unbending and unrellenting moral strenght (but then again religious conservative men always are in some ways )
also everyone keeps forgetting that altough the romans hated the kelts and promissed revenge the trufh of the matter is that without brennus sacking and destroying rome´s enermies in the 4th century rome would have never been able to beat the etrurians or gain the aura of the shield against the kelts that enabled them to gain so many allies in italy and gave them thus the critical mass they needed to become a regional power
even in their civil wars they where always extremly lucky that their best didn´t ended up poisened (most of the times at least) and most of their men became stronger thanks to so much fighting
because the roman army everytime they went inactive for a while and became lazy as everyone else does they suffered tremendous defeats
rome only real advantage against all the other factions was their sheer moral resilience to never give up all they rest they borrowed from others and/or where just lucky to find the right leader for the right situation (example given cesar i doubt anyone else would have been able to beat the gauls win a few victories sure ofc but winning the way he did time and time again thats something special that no other could have done)
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
moonburn
the romans where just lucky as hell their had so many able man in the 200 years they took to conquer men like marius sulla lucullus pompey or cesar or dentatus if one was to replay the roman history without their luck they probably would have been cornered down beteween the samnites and carthies as they where a few times but they had the great man to lead them and give them a path and those same men unbending and unrellenting moral strenght (but then again religious conservative men always are in some ways )
also everyone keeps forgetting that altough the romans hated the kelts and promissed revenge the trufh of the matter is that without brennus sacking and destroying rome´s enermies in the 4th century rome would have never been able to beat the etrurians or gain the aura of the shield against the kelts that enabled them to gain so many allies in italy and gave them thus the critical mass they needed to become a regional power
even in their civil wars they where always extremly lucky that their best didn´t ended up poisened (most of the times at least) and most of their men became stronger thanks to so much fighting
because the roman army everytime they went inactive for a while and became lazy as everyone else does they suffered tremendous defeats
rome only real advantage against all the other factions was their sheer moral resilience to never give up all they rest they borrowed from others and/or where just lucky to find the right leader for the right situation (example given cesar i doubt anyone else would have been able to beat the gauls win a few victories sure ofc but winning the way he did time and time again thats something special that no other could have done)
Other than Dentatus I don't see how those on that list could be described as "religious conservative men " :clown:, but I take your point about 'luck' being a factor. But, was it 'luck'? The luck was surely in formenting a governmental system which encouraged the competition that Rome's system clearly did, and encouraged that so that martial and political skills were necessary tools of the job. Within the Roman political structure there was then a continuum of talented generals and astute politicians, so that 'luck' played less and less a part of Rome's success.
If I take Gaul as an example, YES Caesar was a talented commander, but Gaul had been weakened by Rome's interference and manipulation. In the same way that Rome played one Greek faction off against another (utilising their natural hostilities toward each other), so they played it in Gaul. While retaining the Aedui as friends and allies they, upon defeating the Arverni and Allobroges, left the Arverni as an independent 'state' - unlike the Allobroges. Why? Well, it makes sense in terms of not allowing the Aedui too much power within aul. The Arverni were their most implacable enemies, so by having both 'states' as friends and allies, well... their hands were tied; they could not chose one side over another. And then, when the Aedui were again so powerful within Gaul that the Sequani (with their allies the Arverni) brought in aid from the Sweboz, the Romans (and it seems that Caesar himself was involved in this) - instead of coming to the aid of the Aedui, instead made Ariovistus another friend and ally of Rome. It all worked out rather well for Caesar, of course, who was 'lucky' that the original recipient of Transalpine Gaul should die before he took his province, and that he knew so much about the goings on in Gaul...
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
@Kikaz
The overriding problem with any reforms for other factions is that such reforms need to be historically accurate, otherwise it wouldn't really be EBII. Hopefully the work we have done on the Celtic reforms in EBII should be an improvement over those in EB. Thanks to the MTWII engine it is now possible to illustrate the Celtic reforms better than was possible in EB. EBII will have three stages of reform (the one you start with and then two which will occur if you complete certain criteria). Thus you will see you armies become more heavily armed and armoured as time passes, also in order to better reflect the changes in Celtic society your armies composition will also change. There will also be a substantial amount of information to accompany each Gallic and British reform which should hopefully illustrate that Celtic armies did undergo substantial changes, in some cases as dramatic as those of the Roman military (said the researcher with a sense of arrogance). There will also be changes in the way your Celtic families are organised; some will become monarchies, thus you will need to ensure you mark out which FM you want to inherit the throne, whilst others will rely on FMs having certain characteristics to ensure that they become the FL (thus character development will play a larger part in Celtic factions than it previously had done).
I hope that helps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
moonburn
brennus sacking and destroying rome´s enermies in the 4th century
Finally, some recognition. :p
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
@
Kikaz
The overriding problem with any reforms for other factions is that such reforms need to be historically accurate, otherwise it wouldn't really be EBII. Hopefully the work we have done on the Celtic reforms in EBII should be an improvement over those in EB. Thanks to the MTWII engine it is now possible to illustrate the Celtic reforms better than was possible in EB. EBII will have three stages of reform (the one you start with and then two which will occur if you complete certain criteria). Thus you will see you armies become more heavily armed and armoured as time passes, also in order to better reflect the changes in Celtic society your armies composition will also change. There will also be a substantial amount of information to accompany each Gallic and British reform which should hopefully illustrate that Celtic armies did undergo substantial changes, in some cases as dramatic as those of the Roman military (said the researcher with a sense of arrogance). There will also be changes in the way your Celtic families are organised; some will become monarchies, thus you will need to ensure you mark out which FM you want to inherit the throne, whilst others will rely on FMs having certain characteristics to ensure that they become the FL (thus character development will play a larger part in Celtic factions than it previously had done).
I hope that helps.
Finally, some recognition. :p
This all sounds very interesting. Makes me look forward to EBII even more. Is the monarchy thing a possibility rather than a set thing? (he says trying to pry information out..)
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus
This all sounds very interesting. Makes me look forward to EBII even more. Is the monarchy thing a possibility rather than a set thing? (he says trying to pry information out..)
The changes in government are certain. MTWII Kingdoms uses different types of inheritance for different factions thus we are adapting one of these types for the Celtic factions. One faction will not undergo changes in government structure as there is insufficient historical data to suggest they did however the rest will, although in different ways. Thus in some cases your FL will be the FL because his father/uncle was, however later on your FL will be so because he has proven himself in some respect. However this will not be the case for another faction.
I can't really say much more than that for fear of ruining the surprise later on... and incurring the wrath of other team members.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
The changes in government are certain. MTWII Kingdoms uses different types of inheritance for different factions thus we are adapting one of these types for the Celtic factions. One faction will not undergo changes in government structure as there is insufficient historical data to suggest they did however the rest will, although in different ways. Thus in some cases your FL will be the FL because his father/uncle was, however later on your FL will be so because he has proven himself in some respect. However this will not be the case for another faction.
I can't really say much more than that for fear of ruining the surprise later on... and incurring the wrath of other team members.
That all sounds very good, the Gaulish factions were always something I wanted to play but found too frustrating (having to play like the Romans, for example), so this makes me very hopeful.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Hopefully the Gallic factions will be slightly easier to play as you won't find yourself locked in the "Vice of Death" as in EB. The Aedui and Arverni start at peace with one another, the Aedui don't have Mediolanum under their control so as to entice the Romans north, and the presence of the Boii and Lugiones should stop the Sweboz from doing a Blitzkrieg dash to the Rhine.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
as everything about germans you should never trust the shouldn´t and the blitzkrieg thingie shows clearly 20/21th century prejudice against the german warmachine they where less stressed back then so they liked to take their time i mean why use precision and technology to kill an enemy in x amount of time when it´s so much fun to bash his head 50 times until he stops moving and then bashing it 25 times more just to be sure (and ofc for the extra fun of hearing/feeling things cracking under your club) even if it takes 2/7 seconds before every swing of a true manly club or why use a far more manouverable sword when the flashy and the bling bling attitude is to use a massive unwealdy axe that makes you look far more manly for the 15+ old girls (remember no touching girls before they´re 15 or her dad will cut your manhood off )
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
Hopefully the Gallic factions will be slightly easier to play as you won't find yourself locked in the "Vice of Death" as in EB. The Aedui and Arverni start at peace with one another, the Aedui don't have Mediolanum under their control so as to entice the Romans north, and the presence of the Boii and Lugiones should stop the Sweboz from doing a Blitzkrieg dash to the Rhine.
Are you sure that there's no other faction to stop the Sweboz advance to the Rhine? Some people on whose land much chocolate is enjoyed today? Hint hint.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arjos
Imo yours is too much a "romanized" view of an empire: for example the Pahlava found they couldn't rely too much on their hellenic subjects and sticked to their own warfare...
Persians earlier on, exploited subjects' capabilities to their fullest...
Not to mention those roman reforms, came from disastrous defeats and not due to power (well not directly), besides it's not like they revolutionized warfare, they simply adopted better ways, something all those "lesser" factions already had, but lacked either wealth or political unity...
The only reform for those factions, that I could think of, is a centralization or confederation of power, coupled with the adoption of administrative/bureaucratic apparati (but it's something that happened, but usually ended with the death of its artificer or the people just rejected, so it's something that the team has to decide whether to script both, make a choice or avoid it completely :P)...
Bottom line, reforms happened in times of crisis and not of success...
What we have in the game, is land and resources in surplus, that enables the factions to implement expensive equipment in greater numbers...
In real-life yes, that is mostly when reforms happen, not so in RTW/EB (which aren't always "reforms" per se). However, my point is that a faction would seek to use better equipment as it becomes more available and affordable (or even the opposite for that matter).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
@
Kikaz
The overriding problem with any reforms for other factions is that such reforms need to be historically accurate, otherwise it wouldn't really be EBII. Hopefully the work we have done on the Celtic reforms in EBII should be an improvement over those in EB. Thanks to the MTWII engine it is now possible to illustrate the Celtic reforms better than was possible in EB. EBII will have three stages of reform (the one you start with and then two which will occur if you complete certain criteria). Thus you will see you armies become more heavily armed and armoured as time passes, also in order to better reflect the changes in Celtic society your armies composition will also change. There will also be a substantial amount of information to accompany each Gallic and British reform which should hopefully illustrate that Celtic armies did undergo substantial changes, in some cases as dramatic as those of the Roman military (said the researcher with a sense of arrogance). There will also be changes in the way your Celtic families are organised; some will become monarchies, thus you will need to ensure you mark out which FM you want to inherit the throne, whilst others will rely on FMs having certain characteristics to ensure that they become the FL (thus character development will play a larger part in Celtic factions than it previously had done).
I hope that helps.
Well, a game like EB isn't actually going to be historically accurate unless the player really wants it to; it's the environment that's historically accurate, and when an environment changes in an ahistorical way through gameplay, there should be some change that could be added with a disclaimer like "well based on X, if Y were to happen this would likely be the result (X being a historic example, Y being a likely alternative event that results from player-intervention)."
But, getting to the meat of your post, what you've said here sounds like very good news! I think I had forgotten about how the armor upgrades from MWII would be utilized by the team; and beyond that it looks like the team is using the other additional features of MWII to full effect, the family member changes particularly.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kikaz
However, my point is that a faction would seek to use better equipment as it becomes more available and affordable
But that's already the case, even in EBI, pretty much :)
I really don't understand what kind of "reforms" you had in mind...
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
The biggest problem to 'what-if' scenario's is that there are a few barriers that you run into. First is a thing like a unit limit, second is time for the team to prepare and make these new units. If there was an infinite amount of moddability (and no engine limits) and the team had an infinite amount of time and resources with which to concept, design and create these alternate things then we could see everything from Saka using gallic weapons and heavy infantry tactics in the west, through to different iterations and buildings and mega reforms for all factions based on individual criteria and technological progress.
As it is, they are working out the most historical and likely scenarios and balancing history with what the game can handle and designing that (with a bit of leeway for an early marius or united celts).
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Is the "apache reform" system going to be used; encountering different units precipitates different units to become available.
Edit; sorry about my poor english.
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
could be cool to borrow units from other factions if you played against them enough times in some ways like the seulekids catraphacts or the tab´s wich you get after getting your ass handled to you a few times by parthia
Re: A Thought on Units and Reforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arjos
But that's already the case, even in EBI, pretty much :)
I really don't understand what kind of "reforms" you had in mind...
Well yes, regional units do tend to mitigate the situation.
The sort of "mini-reforms" Brennus had described sound a lot like what I had in mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Blxz
The biggest problem to 'what-if' scenario's is that there are a few barriers that you run into. First is a thing like a unit limit, second is time for the team to prepare and make these new units. If there was an infinite amount of moddability (and no engine limits) and the team had an infinite amount of time and resources with which to concept, design and create these alternate things then we could see everything from Saka using gallic weapons and heavy infantry tactics in the west, through to different iterations and buildings and mega reforms for all factions based on individual criteria and technological progress.
As it is, they are working out the most historical and likely scenarios and balancing history with what the game can handle and designing that (with a bit of leeway for an early marius or united celts).
Well, as usual it seems my grievances come down to the limitations of the engine; not that I really expected otherwise, I had just hoped for ways around it, and it seems the team has been able to make marked improvements in this area with the newer engine.
