Campaign Questions

[Ilhan Bey]

I've been playing EB for a while now and it's been great overall! However, in preparing to start a campaign as Makedonia there are a few lingering issues I thought I would ask about and see if anyone had any solutions. I was not sure if this was the right place to put it, since it is not a bug or anything, so I dropped it here.

1) Is there any way to lower or (better yet) remove the "Distance to Capital" public order penalty? I know that I could move my capital around but changing it every time I capture a city just seems no fun (and I tend to enjoy a roleplaying aspect to a campaign, so it just makes no sense to move it for no reason like that). Given the objectives for a Makedonia campaign, Pella sucks as a capital.

2) Playing around Vanilla Rome for a little while, I noticed that phalanx units will sort of shove their pikes forward to attack enemies, and in doing so they will do a fantastic job of killing anything that attacks them from the front. This is especially noticeable if you defend a bridge with some Royal Pikes or Silver Shields. However, defending a bridge with pezhetairoi in EB, ten times out of ten in my experience, merely results in the enemy waltzing right through the sarissas to engage my soldiers up close; the phalanx will not do any of that 'shoving'. Is there any way to get that feature from Vanilla back in the game (perhaps with reduced effectiveness)?

Thank you for any help you can give.

[Randal]

The first I'm pretty sure can't be done.

The second sounds like it might have something to do with the mass of the attacking units and the properties on the phalanx. In EB most phalanxes have the "Light Spear" property. Maybe in vanilla they had "spear" which offers greater pushing power.

Maybe try and see if the same thing happens with Klerouchoi Phalangitai? Those, for some reason, still have the "spear" attribute.

If that gives the result you want, you could then swap the properties around in the EDU.

[Arche4Ever]

You can increase or add law and happiness bonuses to your faction's buildings (export_descr_buildings file in data folder). For example:

building core_building
{
    levels governors_house governors_villa governors_palace proconsuls_palace imperial_palace
    {
        governors_house requires factions { saba, slave, barbarian, armenia, romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, pontus, }
        {
            capability
            {
                agent diplomat  0  requires factions { barbarian, armenia, pontus, romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, saba, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, }
                law_bonus bonus 3 requires factions { armenia, pontus, }
        law_bonus bonus 4 requires factions { "EB name of your faction here", }
happiness_bonus bonus 1 requires factions { "EB name of your faction here", }
                recruit "generic militia" 1 requires factions { saba, slave, barbarian, armenia, romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, pontus, }
            }
            construction  2
            cost  800
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
                governors_villa
            }
        }

1 stands for 5% bouns and 4 for 20% (I think).

Unfortunately, the problem with this solution is that you get extra money from your far away settlements because of higher stability. And if you overdo it your game will become trivial (tons of money and no revolts) in a very short time. In short, it unbalances the game.

[Ilhan Bey]

I might give those a try when I overcome my newest problem: the game script won't activate, and is greyed out even when I click on the advisor's face, no matter what faction I play.

I think I know what the problem is, but I have no idea why that is the problem. Specifically, I had been editing the export files to let the Makedonians recruit Galatian Heavy Swordsmen (they look neat, why should the Ptolemies have all the fun?). That went over just fine; I can recruit them, they have their UI picture and correct model in battle and everything.

However, despite not opening the EBBS_SCRIPT file at all during this process, it has become corrupted. Specifically, I get an error message upon quitting the game informing me of a Script Error at line 185998, column 1. And if you go into the file and go to that line, it's obvious why there's an error:

console_comm
0 @ Š :P_ª#—ÿŸ¨’ÿ‹¿ÄÿxÌåÿjÎùÿdÈýÿ`¾üÿ\³ðÿZ§ÛÿR”ÂÿF€ªÿ=qœÿ;mšÿ 8j˜ÿ/]ÿ9q¢ÿd¯Õÿ9L[ÿ6IPÿK^dÿCOWÿ6@Dÿ&8Aÿ )ÿ$,/ÿ!"ÿÿ
ÿ
ÿ%;Gÿ,7m
 ƒ ‰  .>vX…›ÿtàøÿqäýÿtÞøÿyÜõÿyØõÿxÖõÿvÐõÿqÇõÿj¾êÿg¸ãÿ`«áÿQ•ÏÿB� ��¿ÿ4x´ÿ<…ºÿl±ÏÿK_iÿ<HOÿ?LTÿEV_ÿ-9?ÿ+8=ÿ!%ÿ #ÿ")ÿÿ
ÿ ÿé „ ‰
# # #1:Æ\›¸ÿ•ôüÿ˜ôõÿ”óõÿðõÿŠìõÿƒåõÿƒäõÿŠèöÿŠä÷ÿ~Õ÷ÿnÄ óÿf½òÿY®äÿHŽÁÿBmŽÿET\ÿYmxÿ\nxÿ4>Dÿ,=Dÿ-0ÿÿ".0ÿ +,ÿ#%ÿÿÿ–

„
 ‹ 
-.?JëÆÛÿ¦üûÿžõõÿ”õõÿ‹ñõÿŠêõÿ‰ãõÿ‚Üõÿ{Øõÿv×õÿmÏôÿ`½íÿ KÔcter, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 40, , x 122, y 174

The error message I get when closing EB says it doesn't recognize the token "console_comm," so I am assuming all that moonspeak is the reason my script is not activating. Would anyone be willing or able to post for me to see line 185998 of their script, or do I need to do a clean reinstallation?

[Sapper]

Rather than removing or changing the "Distance from Capital" penalty why not just build the phrourion (garrison) line of buildings. They have been added to the building trees in EB specifically to offset the effects of distance to capital, which admittedly has been increased as a result of there being more regions. Of course lots of other buildings help public order too and distance from capital has never been an insurmountable problem in any of my campaigns (onVH/H generally), just something to be dealt with as part of my overall building programme.

[Randal]

I always thought those garrison buildings only added 5%/10% to law respectively.

Nice bonus, sure, but it doesn't compensate for the 80% capital-distance penalty.

Do the buildings do anything besides that?

[vollorix]

Garrison buildings can go up to +20 law, iirc ( maybe 20 is only for macs, since their garrisons are the most effective ). Corruption is an essential part of the game, removing distance from capital feature you would also neglect corruption as such completely, which seems very unrealistic to me. The combination of all available law buildings with a good gouverneur should lower the corruption level significantly ( up to 25% for gouv.temple line + 5% for public baths, +5% for walls, +15% for garrison, +5% for roads will give you 55% in total; now, put a capable gouverner with "superb admin" trait ( + 15% ) and you will allready have 70% law bonus vs. max. 80% penalty through the distance to your capital. With some additional good traits you will actually be able to get rid of corruption completely, but that seems quite realistic when you take into account that only "honest" and capable leaders can grant you what you seek.