What are the main things you want to see fixed from EB1 in EB2???

[SlickNicaG69]

I got the idea for this thread from a poll I started regarding the making of EB2. Naturally, it developed into a discussion about the things in EB2 and how it will be different from EB1. Thus, with people so focused on the new things that will be present in EB2, I thought it would be productive to talk about the old things in EB1 that people are uncomfortable with, or dislike, and would like to see fixed in EB2. For is it not that things are made better by improving upon them and adjusting that which contains problems, rather than trying to make something completely new and different? So what are they?

To make things more clear, list your items and, if you want, explain your reasoning for such opinions after the list. Try to be specific. These are mine:

1) Battle Map Fighting (Yea they are elite, armored units, but come on, they are not supermen!)
2) Campaign AI (I offer an army-less, money-less, territory-less faction peace for nothing and they refuse with the attitude that they can still kick my @$$!)
3) Ending Date/Time period (Personally, I wish EB2 would be more "Imperial" than "Republican," but if it must be, at least go into it, don't stop at it's beginning)
*I think this one is especially relevant, for Rome did not stop growing until Trajan's days...
4) Illyria (Like Aristotle used to say, if Gaul, then why not Illyria???)
5) Or for that matter Numidia, Mauretania, Belgae, Aquitainia, Dacia, Scythia and Thrace! (These were all unique people with unique customs and heritages - I wouldn't put such "tribes" as Massalia, Crete, Rhodes, etc. as a faction because they only really comprised 1 single province/town and were part of a greater culture, not its embodiment)
6) New/more formation alignments... would be great to be able to deploy in triple line, or alexanders cavalry/phalanx, with a simple click... as the real generals of old used to do!

[Tellos Athenaios]

(1) What exactly? One-on-one units tend to last quite a while; but the right `push' or `shove' crushes even elite units like they're simply not there.
(2) Not our bug, essentially. It is a problem deep down in the core AI which is largely unaffected by what we can mod*
(3) Not going to happen; in fact if we are really pressed for unit slots we'd probably drop Imperial units altogether. As it is, Imperial reforms pretty much marks the death of the Republic as we know it in EB. No faction is remotely accurate in 14 AD as it is portrayed in EB: expansion, for one thing, is all wrong; and for many factions the depiction of internal structure and culture would be anachronistic (as these developed much more in the real world than is possible within the game) not to mention that units would be outdated, too.

[Arkhis]

1) Battle Map Fighting (Yea they are elite, armored units, but come on, they are not supermen!)

What do you mean by this?

2) Campaign AI (I offer an army-less, money-less, territory-less faction peace for nothing and they refuse with the attitude that they can still kick my @$$!)

Diplomacy in M2TW is still as shit as in Rome: TW, so it won't be any better, I fear it's hardcoded. That's why people use that forced diplomacy mod.

3) Ending Date/Time period (Personally, I wish EB2 would be more "Imperial" than "Republican," but if it must be, at least go into it, don't stop at it's beginning)
*I think this one is especially relevant, for Rome did not stop growing until Trajan's days...

The game is not about Rome alone ;). Besides, it already has over a thousand turns, that's REALLY long.

4) Illyria (Like Aristotle used to say, if Gaul, then why not Illyria???)

They're still working on the new factions, though I doubt any Illyrian tribe will be playable. You should look for the criteria for faction-inclusion on these forums and see if they fit any of those.

5) Or for that matter Numidia, Mauretania, Belgae, Dacia, and Thrace! (These were all unique people with unique customs and heritages - I wouldn't put such "tribes" as Massalia, Crete, Rhodes, etc. as a faction because they only really comprised 1 single province/town and were part of a greater culture, not its embodiment)

Again, they're still working on new factions, but you should read the previews, 'cause then you'd know that: Numidians are in, represented by the Kingdom of Massylia, and Dacians and Thracians are already in EB1, just check out the Getai.

Factions are political units, not cultural.

6) New/more formation alignments... would be great to be able to deploy in triple line, or alexanders cavalry/phalanx, with a simple click... as the real generals of old used do!

Hardcoded again, I fear.

Personally, the biggest issues I have are with the AI, and those should've been fixed by CA, but alas, the AI is still bad :(.

[athanaric]

Diplomacy in M2TW is still as shit as in Rome: TW, so it won't be any better, I fear it's hardcoded. That's why people use that forced diplomacy mod.

Actually, it's better. I've been playing TATW for some time and when I really started to beat up an evil faction, they came suing for peace despite still bordering me (didn't help them as their last settlements were taken by the AI Dwarven Empire, hehe).
M2TW's AI is still retarded but believe me it's an improvement over RTW's, at least on the campaign map.

[Epimetheus]

I'd like to see some improvements on the map in the middle-east. Specifically the incorrect locations of some of the settlements, such as Susa or Mazaka, as well as some geographic improvements to the Atropatene province. But this is mostly just nitpicking by a map freak.

[Foot]

I'd like to see some improvements on the map in the middle-east. Specifically the incorrect locations of some of the settlements, such as Susa or Mazaka, as well as some geographic improvements to the Atropatene province. But this is mostly just nitpicking by a map freak.

If you can be more specific and post your evidence that we got it wrong, that would be great. Note that translating a world that is not flat onto a map that is never going to be correct. But if you don't tell us how we've got it wrong (and back that up with some good evidence) then how are we going to know we got it wrong. Its all well and good for you to say "fix it", but we need to know what to fix and also the reasons why you think it needs to be fixed.

Foot

[Cyclops]

Nothing broken in EB1 that isn't broken in RTW really, pretty much the best possible effort.

Happy to see the "experience problem" for militia units seems to be solved with seasonal/annual/whatever-it-is disbanding. I stil RP disbanding non-elites especially non-elite missile troops. Gold chevroned slings are the HMG of EB.

Also happy to see unit balance will be addressed with recruitment limits. The AI will still try to spam I guess but now they will more likely spam nicely mixed stacks (rather than the endless triarii I fought as the Carthies recently-I've come to hate the triarii unit, its approaching pathology with me).

Maybe they will even be able to use the unique unit feature from Crusades for some awesome fun kick-ass historical units. Maybe AS stormtroopers could be souped up even more if there was just one of them innthe game at a time? Maybe an Iberian faction could have the Vasci shockers if it was just one unit in the world?

[athanaric]

Also happy to see unit balance will be addressed with recruitment limits. The AI will still try to spam I guess but now they will more likely spam nicely mixed stacks (rather than the endless triarii I fought as the Carthies recently-I've come to hate the triarii unit, its approaching pathology with me).

You think Triarii are nasty? Well, I recently disabled Elite African Pikemen (except for my Roman and Carthaginian campaigns) because there basically were several full stacks of them screwing everything in Italy. That happened in at least two recent campaigns. In fact, it happens all the time unless the Romans manage to throw Carthage out of Sicily early on.

[paleologos]

Nothing broken in EB1 that isn't broken in RTW really, pretty much the best possible effort.

Happy to see the "experience problem" for militia units seems to be solved with seasonal/annual/whatever-it-is disbanding. I stil RP disbanding non-elites especially non-elite missile troops. Gold chevroned slings are the HMG of EB.

Also happy to see unit balance will be addressed with recruitment limits. The AI will still try to spam I guess but now they will more likely spam nicely mixed stacks (rather than the endless triarii I fought as the Carthies recently-I've come to hate the triarii unit, its approaching pathology with me).

Maybe they will even be able to use the unique unit feature from Crusades for some awesome fun kick-ass historical units. Maybe AS stormtroopers could be souped up even more if there was just one of them innthe game at a time? Maybe an Iberian faction could have the Vasci shockers if it was just one unit in the world?

"RP" and "HMG" what do they stand for? Personaly, I like the veteracy system as it is in RTW, though I admit missile units beggin to act like AP once they are experienced enough. Still do you really think that realism and historical accuracy should outweight gameplay in what is a game?

Also it would be nice if recruitment of units drained the population. In M2TW it did not.

Also I remember in M2TW it was possible to capture routing troops. I assume this will be unchanged in EB II and I would like to see the option of selling POWs in slave markets in the case of the AI refusing to redeem them. As a matter of fact it should not be an option. I find it annoying that redeemed POWs would be returned with their full panoply. They should only be sold and never killed and their numbers adding to the population of the nearest friendly settlement.

[Epimetheus]

If you can be more specific and post your evidence that we got it wrong, that would be great. Note that translating a world that is not flat onto a map that is never going to be correct. But if you don't tell us how we've got it wrong (and back that up with some good evidence) then how are we going to know we got it wrong. Its all well and good for you to say "fix it", but we need to know what to fix and also the reasons why you think it needs to be fixed.

Foot

Well, in some cases it wasn't that you guys got it wrong, they're simply errors that it appears were never corrected from the original RTW map when EB modded it. Mazaka, the capital of Kappadokia, for instance, remains unchanged from it's location in RTW, where it is depicted as being north of the Halys River, however, this is clearly inaccurate, as the city of Mazaka still exists to this day, albeit under a different name. Mazaka's name was changed to Eusebia during the reign of Ariathes V, and later to Caesarea Cappadociae. which became corrupted in Turkish to Kayseri. Now, if one looks at a modern map of Turkey, one can see that Kayseri is clearly south of the Halys River.



Compared to the EB/RTW location, it would be the red dot on the EB map:



The other obvious error that sticks out, is the location of the city of Susa. This one appears to be a case where the EB team got it wrong. On the EB map, Susa is depicted as being located in the Zagros Mountains, which is inaccurate. Susa, like Mazaka, is a city that remains inhabited to this day, as the city of Shush in Iran, and it's location is easy enough to pinpoint on a modern map as being in the plains south of the Zagros.



Compared to the EB location, it would be the red dot on the EB map:



These are my main quibbles with the EB1 map. If necessary, I can provide more evidence for these changes. There are also a few seemingly anachronistic city names, such as Asaak, or Arsakia as the Greeks called it, in Astabene, which, as far as I can tell, wasn't known as such until it was conquered by Arsakes I, roughly thirty years after the beginning of EB. The portrayal of the province of Atropatene, or Adurbadegan as it is called in EB, is also highly dubious to me, but I'd have to do a lot more digging in order to properly address that issue.

[plutoboyz]

some new faction like Numidian, Bosporan, etc... and unit voice. hearing Hindus Pattiyodha speak greek accent is just weird. and Nomad Unit vioces. saka have their own language, many HA don't have voices.

[SlickNicaG69]

Actually you're wrong about the formations being hardcoded... Rome Total Realism actually doesn't even have the default formations with exception of the single line formation... they have real, set formations such as triple apex, macedonian phalanx, etc... The reason I bring these things up is because I feel that if EB had the same type of Battle map style as RTR it would be nearly perfect. Also, RTR is much less laggy, which I think should also be improved in EB.

[jirisys]

What do you mean by this?


Diplomacy in M2TW is still as shit as in Rome: TW, so it won't be any better, I fear it's hardcoded. That's why people use that forced diplomacy mod.


The game is not about Rome alone ;). Besides, it already has over a thousand turns, that's REALLY long.


They're still working on the new factions, though I doubt any Illyrian tribe will be playable. You should look for the criteria for faction-inclusion on these forums and see if they fit any of those.


Again, they're still working on new factions, but you should read the previews, 'cause then you'd know that: Numidians are in, represented by the Kingdom of Massylia, and Dacians and Thracians are already in EB1, just check out the Getai.

Factions are political units, not cultural.


Hardcoded again, I fear.

Personally, the biggest issues I have are with the AI, and those should've been fixed by CA, but alas, the AI is still bad :(.

When in doubt... use

~Jirisys (dang science fair project! come on college!)

[Olaf The Great]

EDIT:Changed point of post

I has idears

1)Use a similar campaign AI as Graculs, Lusteds, etc from Stainless Steel
2)Remove Merchants, don't even think about them
and a question

What are you going to do with princesses? As I understand it there were some princesses being married off between the hellenes.

[fomalhaut]

my absolute biggest complaint is that i never feel like i am doing damage to an enemy due to their self destructive A.I but i guess that's just an A.I. problem.

The spamming of elites reallllly makes killing them not as a great achievement but as a chore. When you see Agema on the battlefield you should say "woah", and to rout an enemy agema or similar elite should be a relatively big accomplishment. in EB its nothing but Extraodinarii/Hanupim/Agema/Silver Shield/Bronze Shield/Epilektoi Hoplite and really takes down the value of these elite units.

I do like the way the MTW system is being used to make the process of arming your citizens and sending them to war (citizens being quite rare) by limiting recruitment of elites and such.