Suggestions for v0.81

[Teleklos Archelaou]

The old thread was well over 1000 posts and needed to be retired for forum issues. Here is a new one for the same topic.

The end of the last suggestion thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=62652&page=37

The old one will be locked and destickied at this point also.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Shouldn't it be "Suggestions for v0.82"?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, they are suggestions to improve our current build, so "for" would work in that sense. We actually don't know what the next build number is going to be at this point, so leaving it as 0.81 won't hurt anything I don't guess. The suggestions part is the main point anyway.

[Eduorius]

I would suggest to make the download more noob user friendly ;)

I edit to say I love the walls in the campaign map, the new KH general on foot, and also the new Hellenic standard bearers. Great work =)

[MiniMe]

1. Thanx a lot for the patch, great job, no problems yet;

2. Suggestions/questions about numbers:

2.1. Cretan archers (0.80 ) 80 => Cretan archers (0.81 ) 60
Why? What was wrong with previous amount?

2.2. Sphendonetai (0.80) 60 => Sphendonetai (0.81) 80
Slingers were the most deadly missile unit before, why make them even more stronger?

2.3. Thorakitai (0.80) 80 => Thorakitai (0.81) 100
Torakitae are my favourite infantry, but 100 is too much, I'm afraid.

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

2.5. Thorakitai Argyraspidai now take just 1 turn to produce. After having a serious war with Seleucid in 0.80, I'm not sure, this is a good idea. Perhaps 2 turns would be better.

3. And please, don't ban me for my next question, but when are you going to release 0.82 with new elephants? =)

[L.C.Cinna]

I started a new campaign as Makedonia and I have to say no problems so far.

Only thing I would maybe think about is whether adding stone walls to Pella or give it a slightly stronger garrison. The Epirote army is right in front of the town and will attack it in the 1st turn. they don't even need siege equipment because their elephants can do the job on the wooden walls. So Makedonians don't even have the time to prepare before they lose their capital.

It's not so much because of me. I'll take it back, but I think this breaks the AIs neck if the player is some other faction. Dunno if it already was like that in 0.8 as I played SPQR there. I just noticed that Makedonia was crushed by Epiros and KH in that campaign pretty soon as well. I just think the AI will not be able to recover from such an instant blow as you can't recruit any good troops in any of the other towns.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

The macedonians were almost entirely driven out of Macedonia in 273 by Pyrrhos. It is their capital, but their default base of operations was Demetrias at that time. Instead of consolidating his gains and taking Pella itself and the rest of Macedonia, Pyrrhos decided to bring more of his enemies under his control in 272 and went to the Peloponnese before the year was out. The Macedonians should just barely be holding on to Pella in 272, but be in a strong position to take Athens and fairly capable of holding Corinth also (and in no danger in Demetrias).

[Tellos Athenaios]

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

2.5. Thorakitai Argyraspidai now take just 1 turn to produce. After having a serious war with Seleucid in 0.80, I'm not sure, this is a good idea. Perhaps 2 turns would be better.

3. And please, don't ban me for my next question, but when are you going to release 0.82 with new elephants? =)

1) You mean the Klerouchioi Agema? The Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx?
2) All successor elites now take just one turn to recruit.
3) Ah... theoorakia (if I remember correctly)...

A suggestion for future installers:
rather than having one hughe installer consuming dito memory, what about having multiple installers? They have to named accordingly, of course, so you can see what goes first - but still this allows for users with the not so powerfull computers to handle the installation process more easily.

[MiniMe]

1) You mean the Klerouchioi Agema? The Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx?

Yes

[Fondor_Yards]

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

Ditto. As of right now Pezhetairoi and Klerouchikoi Phalangitai have better stats then the Kleruchoi Agema, which makes zero sense.

2) All successor elites now take just one turn to recruit.

Well after a quick check, all units only take 1 turn to recruit, elites or not, not just for the successors. Well, execpt elephants, but those are elephants after all.

[russia almighty]

Something needs to be done about german lancemen . I'm seriously thinking that they do need some phalanx formation .

[Olaf The Great]

Something needs to be done about german lancemen . I'm seriously thinking that they do need some phalanx formation .

Germanic lance-men just use pikes, but not in a cohesive way such as a phalanx. If your Use BI exe a shield-wall makes sense.

[Dumbass]

I think epeirus are too strong; as the maks I kicked them out of Greece, they then manage to go from just taras to taking rome and capua. The seleucids may be a bit too strong too(or ptolemaioi too weak) because they've already taken alexandria and memphis (by 264) leaving ptolemaioi in the desert. Maybe you could make factions like pontos, pahlav, hayasdan stronger to increase the pressure for seleucids. However I love the knew ways the ai advances; rome now advance south taking rhegium, carthage take sicily which means there is a epic battle for rome (carthage + rome against the epeirotes).

Edit: Could you make the casse family members a infantry unit instead of chariots, because chariots are really a special unit like elephants and shouldn't really be used as family member units as they are very inconvenent. Anyway I read in a thread beofre that the casse generals didn't actually fight on chariots but just used them for transport.

[d'Arthez]

I think epeirus are too strong; as the maks I kicked them out of Greece, they then manage to go from just taras to taking rome and capua. The seleucids may be a bit too strong too(or ptolemaioi too weak) because they've already taken alexandria and memphis (by 264) leaving ptolemaioi in the desert.

That may be a fluke.

I think it is a good idea, that people post faction progression, including pictures of the map. Same thing as was done for the 0.80 release. That will give the team more feedback.

[Grand Lord of Poop~]

well, it really depends. there is a saying among TW gamers that every campaign is different, you know?? just take a look at the faction progression thread and you'll see tons of people complaining that ptolemaios is too strong.

[Grand Lord of Poop~]

can the EB team please, please, please limit the custom battle unit roster to faction-specific?? because at the moment, every faction's unit roster seems like a junk pile scraped together, it takes me like 30 minutes just to choose the units i want!!

thanks in advance

[Tellos Athenaios]

AFAIK: the way you recruit your units in the EB campaign directly affects your unit roster in the custom battles.Thus you can't really clear things up there without having to abandon the EB recruitment system - something which I my opinion is more valuable than cleaned up roster.

[Foot]

can the EB team please, please, please limit the custom battle unit roster to faction-specific?? because at the moment, every faction's unit roster seems like a junk pile scraped together, it takes me like 30 minutes just to choose the units i want!!

thanks in advance

We already have done. You need to swap out the single-player edu and replace it with the multiplayer edu. This is the only way round the problem, due to the complexity of our recruitment system.

Foot

[Orb]

Antioch too easy for the Ptolemies to take

It fell on turn 3 to my forces, the Seleucids haven't really got the ability to do anything effective anymore...

[d'Arthez]

Antioch too easy for the Ptolemies to take

It fell on turn 3 to my forces, the Seleucids haven't really got the ability to do anything effective anymore...

I am currently auto-running a 0.81 game. In 50+ turns, none of the AS / Ptoly cities have been won or lost by the other side. When I wrote that the Ptollies lost Tarsos to the AS - who have lost 3 cities in the East through rebellion.

The human player is a big advantage. In my last 0.80 AS campaign, I was able to reduce the Ptollies to Ptolemais-Theron in about 30 turns - it was the only war I had to fight. And the AS was hardly in the position to do well when run by the AI.

[Lovejoy]

I suggest a script who gives the AI the amount of money it gets by playing VH. What I actualy suggest is to make hard the standard diffculty. Not VH. This is becasue I think the AI is somewhat boring on VH. Have you ever get an pro, no matter what, on VH?

I were just playing a saba campaing, on VH, and the Selue just kept sending stack after stack after stack against me, its no fun. They did all they could to conquer some poor arabians in the dessert. Never mind the phtolemoi. Or anyone else for that matters.

As I see it VH brings nothing good. Bad diplomacy and worse prioritys. Why is VH standrad anyway? When H is the standard you always have the choise to play VH, for that extra challange you know. :)

Sry I sound so harsh. I realise this is mainly CA is prob/fault.

And, well, maybe there are a reason for having VH as standard. I just havent found it out yet. If thats the case, nvm what i just said.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

People who want a real challenge should make a minimod where they give better MIC's to every province (better starting MICs) so that they would face tougher enemies from the very start. Just a suggestion.

[Dumbass]

well, it really depends. there is a saying among TW gamers that every campaign is different, you know?? just take a look at the faction progression thread and you'll see tons of people complaining that ptolemaios is too strong.

Yes I know about the faction progression thread, but I'm talking about 0.81 not 0.8, the factions have been rebalanced, some strengthened, so there may be a possibility that because of all the complaints of the ptolemies being too strong; the EB team weakened them, but maybe a bit too much in which they get destroyed too quickly. But you're right in the aspect that every campaign is different, and faction progression pictures for 0.81 will probably soon be posted, so we can see from average how the campaign can be rebalanced.

Also I'm curious into what a campaign would be like on hard, but the ai gets the same amount of money as VH. Just like Lovejoy suggested.

I have a grudge against the lover of beauty trait and would EB consider making it less common and only for the city dwellers to get? It really ruins generals and the point of command stars. But for the time being could someone tell me how to delete the trait so it appears on no one?

[bovi]

Lovejoy, the AI is something no mod can change. Most people find the AI to be fairly easy to overcome but dislike unfair AI bonuses in battle, and therefore the suggested difficulty is VH/M. The AI gets as much extra money regardless of difficulty setting, AFAIK.

No one is forcing you to conform to the suggested difficulty though, play it the way you like it.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

It seems the unit stats should be looked again and corrected. I support the fellow members who suggested some specific changes.

[Thaatu]

How about removing all buildable roads from the eleutheroi. It would somewhat restrict AI expansion to north-east europe, if the rebels wouldn't build road systems to all the steppe and backwater provinces.

[Foot]

How about removing all buildable roads from the eleutheroi. It would somewhat restrict AI expansion to north-east europe, if the rebels wouldn't build road systems to all the steppe and backwater provinces.

Unfortunately we cannot do that. The Eleutheuroi's building capabilities are not defined by "slave" but by their faction creator (or controller or something).

Foot

[Teleklos Archelaou]

There are also some provinces where you cannot build roads and some where you cannot build paved roads. Mostly desert areas. Arabia for example.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

There are also some provinces where you cannot build roads and some where you cannot build paved roads. Mostly desert areas. Arabia for example.

I think all desert (EDIT: that is all desert that is landlocked) and maybe the steppe should be added to that.

But here is my suggestion:
Change the population bonuses on grainaries to happiness bonuses. The people are happy that they have food. Something like 5%Happiness for the first one, and 10%Happiness, and 5%Health for the second one. The health would both give a little population growth and represent that people eating well are less likely to get sick than the malnurished. This would primarily alleviate some of the population explosions.

[Thaatu]

Also you might consider removing/modifying some growth related traits and/or ancillaries. Like an overseer is something that is pretty much included in farming upgrades and doesn't really need to be part of governers' retinue. Since the minimum bonus that any trait/ancillary/building can give is 0.5% (which if you think about it is huge, considering it is for a season), some of the smaller bonuses could be scrapped. Just a suggestion if all else fails.

On this note, Sardinia and Corsica are huge by 234bc. Almost gave me a heart attack when I seized them with my not so masculine forces.