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Thread: General impressions

  1. #31
    Member Member I_damian's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by bovi View Post
    Because the loading times are... not the best, particularly when starting the game, I believe most people will want to have it windowed so that they can do other stuff while it's loading.
    You're joking aren't you? It's one of the fastest loading games I've played. My specs are quad core i5 processor (3.4 GHz), 8gb RAM and 4gb GTX 770, just a basic 1TB hard drive and no SSD. Or in other words... a fairly standard gaming PC by today's standards for under £900.

    The first thing about EB2 that delighted me was how fast it loaded. It was pretty much instant, both loading the game for the first time and loading after picking a faction. It loads way faster than Crusader Kings 2, way faster than Europa Universalis IV... in fact I've recently installed and been playing Galactic Civilizations 2 (not 3, not the new one, the old one...) and it loads about as fast as that does.
    EBII has finally released. All hail the EBII team!

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  2. #32
    Peerless Senior Member johnhughthom's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by Skoran View Post
    It looks great, it feels great, it plays great.
    Encoutered some bugs but nothing mayor.

    Couple of questions:
    - Is their a way to remove the HUD with 1 key? It was possible in EB
    - Can you remove the banners that float above the soldiers?
    - How do you remove the cutscenes (like gate breached and stuff)?
    Screen lock removes the HUD. The other two should be fixable through the EBII config file in the EBII folder, but it appears the game overwrites it, so I'm not sure it's changeable at the minute.

  3. #33
    ΤΑΞΙΑΡΧΟΣ Member kdrakak's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Just ran a test campaign with Takshashila. Now that I know what to expect I can prepare myself for Indian domination! Great script with the Mauryan tribute! I don't know how it ends yet but it feels role-playing-y!
    A beautiful game guys... congrats!
    -Silentium... mandata captate; non vos turbatis; ordinem servate; bando sequute; memo demittat bandum et inimicos seque;
    Parati!
    -Adiuta...
    -...DEUS!!!

    Completed EB Campaigns on VH/M: ALL... now working for EBII!

  4. #34
    Member Member Docus's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    My first impressions so far:

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #35
    Member Member Aneximanes's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Amazingly smooth install (even with the steam version).
    Loadingtimes are fast as hell

    My god, I love it!

  6. #36

    Default Re: General impressions

    Install was a doddle, loading time is remarkable. The map is absolutely beautiful, the battles are a challenge and even as Rome it's a struggle to hold my nascent Italian empire together - I also like the fact that realistically (with the battle being as they are) I pretty much have to use only generals with Imperium. Absolutely engrossing...can't praise you enough for what you have produced.

  7. #37

    Default Re: General impressions

    Absolutelly Loving it so far!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Only troubles I've run into so far:
    Skirmishers just hanging around and not throwing their javelins when they should.
    Kinsmen cavalry miss texture parts (you can see throught them) if we lower texture quality.

    Besides that have been lots of fun, thank you so much!
    Last edited by LusitanianWolf; 08-27-2014 at 02:06.



  8. #38

    Default Re: General impressions

    I had some trouble with the install but that was due to another launcher mod I had and some of my own stupidity but after that the load times were fantastic, the game ran smoothly while some other ambitious mods have some issues, I haven't had a single crash, the textures are amazing and I have only played as the Koinon Hellenon thus far and beyond the unfinished parts which were to be expected this is perfect and even better than I thought it would be

  9. #39

    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by kdrakak View Post
    Just ran a test campaign with Takshashila. Now that I know what to expect I can prepare myself for Indian domination! Great script with the Mauryan tribute! I don't know how it ends yet but it feels role-playing-y!
    A beautiful game guys... congrats!
    Very glad to hear that! The Mauryan tribute script was built in for the very purpose of giving some extra imersion, and giving the player a feeling that the world does not end only because the map does.
    Just a question, did you try not to pay the tribute, or are you remaining loyal?

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  10. #40

    Default Re: General impressions

    After playing about 4 hours into my Boii campaign I feel it's time for a first statement here.

    So far I am really hugely impressed! The immersion is great! You really feel like a tribe in the slightly remote central European forrests and you know all around you, there are potential foes and you try to find out what they do. I went south taking the provinces north of the alps and am now eagerly watching the Romani and Aruernoi trying to subdue Northern italy and constantly wondering "should I raise more troops, just in case...but then the econmy will suffer...hmm...". At the same time there are fierce wars going on in the south-east (Greece) and I'm looking forward to whoever wins and might eventually come north. And in the east and North are even more potentiall foes slowly expanding in my direction(and one ally so far, the Lugiones). In the west all is quiet thanks to an alliance with the Aedui.

    The recruting is really fine, a huge amount of diversity is available! Battles are really nice. They tend to be slower than EB I but that doesn't really bother me. I always had a bit more trouble to keep the ovwerview in a battle in Vanilla M2:TW than in RTW, this is the same with your mod, but maybe it's just me who is not capable. and not having everything under control adds actually a bit to the realism.
    Concerning the battlefields I was especiallly impressed when storming a rebel nomad camp which proved to be a really beautiful hillfort!

    I had hoped for a bit more ethnicity traits, at the moment all my fm/generals are simply Boii, but I think this might change when I expand further outside of their "core" territories. Also one more thing, do you plan to implement the "client ruler" thing in further releases? It always added to the feeling to have a "foreign" general with his local bodyguard in EB I.

    All in all, I really love it and I really have to restrict myself so I spend enough time learnig for university exams instead of playing EB. Thank you so much once again EB Team!

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  11. #41

    Default Re: General impressions

    this is great. can i ask something. for greeks can you build laarchia in every non greek culture? 1 as epeiros i conqeured a roman town north of taras and it wasnt availiable on building browzers
    . 2second in native colonial building it say among others it needs 40% eastern culture

  12. #42

    Default Re: General impressions

    Not normally someone to participate in the forums, but having seen the quality of this beta, recognition of how well polished it is even at this stage is needed. Well done!

    So far have gone through 150 turns with an Areuakoi campaign, with only 1 CTD. Far far far less than EB1. So I figured I'd pass on the feedback from it.

    No real bugs experienced that haven't already been identified (skirmishers, roman settlements, agent unit cards..)with the AI showing a better grasp then I expected. It still doesn't understand the fort system properly though. Some cavalry corpses had black squaring sprites viewed only from a distance (not sure if experienced by modders or others), not something experienced on my Asus laptop with any other game/mod which can play R2 even if it only was for 50 minutes before it got canned.

    The Lusotannan stacks had me glued to the screen each turn praying that nothing came towards the Pyrenees. Once or twice though it did lift sieges where it should have pushed and taken them as they had the forces and on VH/VH I expected no mercy, and after about 50 turns had turned an 6 to 7 stack v 1 to 2 stack disadvantage to an all brown 'Roman eagle standard' ;) Spain just as the Arverni and Rome (who also assassinated my leading general) declared war on me in the north.

    The only faction destroyed not by my hand is the Arverni, which was a Gallic power broker at 100 turns and then demolished from all sides.

    The economy even though at times a little limited in building selections and variety, something I am sure will develop further in the future, has played exceptionally well, ebbing and flowing and causing all sorts of headaches as is expected.

    Battles are great, loving how the cavalry works, much more realistic then the bulldozers of vanilla. Loving the break and reforming moral. Loving the slow speed and melee, much more of the Last Kingdom mod feel to the battle which is brilliant at showing IMO a better representation of the engine.

    In terms of going forward I would personally love to see more of the detail that came from EB in the role playing scripts (something I hope to see come in later), from the cannot declare war on X rebel settlement without X declaring war, mission scripting (if it can be at all separated from the generic med2 files), and more of the traits and ancillaries. I only got notifications of starving, never the belts tightened etc from EB that I loved, showing the progression. Also would love to see some of the economic scripts incorporated from other mods etc and altered to flesh that dynamic more, but that's being uber critical of what I am already ecstatic about.

    Some of the siege path finding still needs a focus as units (although playing on huge) cannot be controlled with any flexibility. And yeah fully aware of time and numbers etc plus using DBM models etc so not being negative but such aspects will only further enhance this aspect and immersion.

    Also is the Celt-Iberian skirmish cav supposed to use the but of the spear attacking hand to hand in its animation? I almost posted it as a bug but then though actually its a quite practical alternate swing of a spear so I thought I'd just ask. Have a screenshot if need be.

    Lastly out of curiosity are people involved fans of or using files from Legion Gold, or 0 AD? I ask as some of the building models and voice files seem to be the same, to which I love as both are quality attempts at attempting to provide historical RTS.

    Again so far blown away by the quality of this product. To think R2 could have potentially have been this with nice shinny graphics by just involving the community. Well done to all involved! You have exceeded all expectations!
    Last edited by Shikari; 08-28-2014 at 00:13.

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  13. #43
    ΤΑΞΙΑΡΧΟΣ Member kdrakak's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by Mithridates VI Eupator View Post
    Very glad to hear that! The Mauryan tribute script was built in for the very purpose of giving some extra imersion, and giving the player a feeling that the world does not end only because the map does.
    Just a question, did you try not to pay the tribute, or are you remaining loyal?
    Started a thread on that before I saw your post. Maybe I missed it but I never saw how to reject. I just got a "receipt"!
    -Silentium... mandata captate; non vos turbatis; ordinem servate; bando sequute; memo demittat bandum et inimicos seque;
    Parati!
    -Adiuta...
    -...DEUS!!!

    Completed EB Campaigns on VH/M: ALL... now working for EBII!

  14. #44
    Bored Member Tux's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Thanks everyone for the feedback! That's what we need to make Eb2 better.

  15. #45

    Default Re: General impressions

    Played a bit more where I can mainly just doing the first couple of turns for some factions to get an idea of what is going on.

    Love the pace of the campaign and the battles. I do like the way it takes a while to pacify a new region.

    Mainly been doing seige battles but that is standard for TW games.

    Not sure what to make of missiles as they do very llittle damage but if that is the way it was I will adapt. Happy with the cavalry though.

    The only thing I would like to complain about is the campaign map looks a bit flat to me and it is a shame that some areas of cities look open but they are not.

    Also when you nominate a new heir apparent the music is the same as an old Civilization game I used to play which is no bad thing. Is that on purpose. And I hope Frankie Howard gets in this build like in EB1 as the comedian.
    Really happy with it all especially the pace of battles.

    Thanks again as it is what I hoped for.
    Last edited by olly; 08-28-2014 at 13:50.

  16. #46
    Member Member I_damian's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Played about 20 hours now so far, mostly the first 10-50 turns as various different factions so no in-depth campaigns yet.

    Much as I love the slow pace of battles, I think it's way too harsh in sieges. I assaulted a city that had just one unit of Hoplitai (Greek classical Hoplites) as its garrison. It sat in the town square. I attacked it from in front and behind with two units of Principes. Both unleashed their javelins first and both charged and completely surrounded the Hoplites. This battle took more than 10 minutes to end and that was with battle speed on 6.0x. Siege assaults are quite painful to play through due to the time battles take. I don't even bother to assault cities anymore, I just besiege them until they give up or sally out to attack me.

    Also I think the happiness of conquered cities is too harsh as well. In a Rome game I conquered Tarentum on turn 4. I had my faction leader and 19 units garrisoned there, allied government + allied democracy governments built, level 3 temple (15% happiness) and I still had to have low taxes and an enormous garrison like 20-years later. I'm scared to even imagine what this will be like toward the middle of the game when every city has max population.

    Bug - if you're besieging a city and the enemy attacks you with an army and the garrison of the city joins in, if you win this battle the game crashes.

    Bug - Persepolis (the wonder) isn't in Persepolis, it's in Halicarnassus. (Or the city next to it, one of those two in the very south-western tip of Anatolia that are under Ptolemaioi control at game start).
    Last edited by I_damian; 08-29-2014 at 00:03.
    EBII has finally released. All hail the EBII team!

  17. #47
    master of the wierd people Member Ibrahim's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    many things to note: will be fixing them.
    I was once alive, but then a girl came and took out my ticker.

    my 4 year old modding project--nearing completion: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=219506 (if you wanna help, join me).

    tired of ridiculous trouble with walking animations? then you need my brand newmotion capture for the common man!

    "We have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if we put the belonging to, in the I don't know what, all gas lines will explode " -alBernameg

  18. #48

    Default Re: General impressions

    So I am now about 120 turns into my campaign as Rome. There are a couple things I wanted to mention.

    Campaign AI does seems a bit passive (only dl the new CAI just now), I was never attacked at all until my last 5 turns, but that may be because I made sure to place lots of troops in my border settlements and "minor settlements" so the AI was probably hesitant to attack.

    Problem I see with making the CAI more aggressive is that by the time I am ready to expand beyond my next door cities in any campaign I am afraid it will all be taken up by other factions. Not once have I been able to attack Syracuse when it was rebels, Carthage takes over all of Sicily within 40 turns every campaign and leaves me having to immediately start the Punic Wars when I am still struggling to maintain control over southern italy filled with greek citizens.

    I know that the command stars might be bugged, and I dont know if it has been affecting the AI generals as well. But I would say that if you are going to make the CAI more aggressive, (which it should be just a tad more) try to make certain rebel cities that have a history of independence have generals with lots of command stars.

    I would say to not change in any way the current happiness of recently conquered cities, because otherwise the campaign would be too easy (in terms of choices) and would be over very quickly. See, I feel like there is a point in having the campaign be 1000+ turns, if campaigns are only going to take 100-400 turns then just cut the time period down anyway because otherwise its a waste of resources. That was actually my biggest complaint in EB1 actually was that there wasn't enough penalties for conquering other cultures, so I could have taken the known world as Rome before Caesar was even born. The choice between military occupation/assimilation and allied state depends on CAI to a large extent, too aggressive or too passive makes the decision a non-choice.

    Ideally I would want to see a campaign AI that attempts to take over cities more frequently but is constantly losing and regaining control over border cities as people of different cultures rebel and slowly acclimate to spheres of influence over long periods of time. Otherwise, I would say design wise, its wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. The factions you have chosen seem to balance each other out wonderfully. It's funny because I actually like sending my expensive spies out into germania just to keep an eye on the three way battle between the Boii and Sweboz and Adeui. They all like to go for cities just north of the Alps.

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  19. #49
    Speaker of Truth Senior Member Moros's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    So I am now about 120 turns into my campaign as Rome. There are a couple things I wanted to mention.

    Campaign AI does seems a bit passive (only dl the new CAI just now), I was never attacked at all until my last 5 turns, but that may be because I made sure to place lots of troops in my border settlements and "minor settlements" so the AI was probably hesitant to attack.

    Problem I see with making the CAI more aggressive is that by the time I am ready to expand beyond my next door cities in any campaign I am afraid it will all be taken up by other factions. Not once have I been able to attack Syracuse when it was rebels, Carthage takes over all of Sicily within 40 turns every campaign and leaves me having to immediately start the Punic Wars when I am still struggling to maintain control over southern italy filled with greek citizens.

    I know that the command stars might be bugged, and I dont know if it has been affecting the AI generals as well. But I would say that if you are going to make the CAI more aggressive, (which it should be just a tad more) try to make certain rebel cities that have a history of independence have generals with lots of command stars.

    I would say to not change in any way the current happiness of recently conquered cities, because otherwise the campaign would be too easy (in terms of choices) and would be over very quickly. See, I feel like there is a point in having the campaign be 1000+ turns, if campaigns are only going to take 100-400 turns then just cut the time period down anyway because otherwise its a waste of resources. That was actually my biggest complaint in EB1 actually was that there wasn't enough penalties for conquering other cultures, so I could have taken the known world as Rome before Caesar was even born. The choice between military occupation/assimilation and allied state depends on CAI to a large extent, too aggressive or too passive makes the decision a non-choice.

    Ideally I would want to see a campaign AI that attempts to take over cities more frequently but is constantly losing and regaining control over border cities as people of different cultures rebel and slowly acclimate to spheres of influence over long periods of time. Otherwise, I would say design wise, its wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. The factions you have chosen seem to balance each other out wonderfully. It's funny because I actually like sending my expensive spies out into germania just to keep an eye on the three way battle between the Boii and Sweboz and Adeui. They all like to go for cities just north of the Alps.
    It seems you and us have the same goals.

    Thanks for trying out the mod and giving some constructive criticism. I hope you post again after trying out he new CAI, mate!

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  20. #50

    Default Re: General impressions

    Everything looks amazing, you've done a great work. But I have a couple complaints:

    -Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating.

    -Elefants. They are as expensive as a whole army but they don't make much damage. Pretty underpowered.

    -Pikemen. They are incredibly overpowered. You cant killed em with cavalry (of course), nor with infantry nor attacking with projectiles.

    I suppose all these are minor changes than can be overhauled with submods. Cheers! :D

  21. #51

    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeboix View Post
    Everything looks amazing, you've done a great work. But I have a couple complaints:

    -Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating.

    -Elefants. They are as expensive as a whole army but they don't make much damage. Pretty underpowered.

    -Pikemen. They are incredibly overpowered. You cant killed em with cavalry (of course), nor with infantry nor attacking with projectiles

    Yes, I subscribe to this oppinion. Also, I must say I'm a bit unhappy that the Getai doesn't have some of their important settlements, such as Argedava or Porolissum (which later become important roman garrison), Piroboridava... And another thing I must say is that I been a bit sad and dissapointed that Pahlavan didnt have the iranian voices... Hope you'll once again use iranian voice sounds for them like in the first EB.


    Anyway, its just a 2.0 release, I am optimistic because I see you guys really are serious because you didnt let this awesome mod to slowly die and perhaps you lost time from your life giving us the most waited mod.
    Last edited by Sand Dweller; 08-29-2014 at 11:30.

  22. #52
    EB annoying hornet Member bovi's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeboix View Post
    -Battles are too long.
    Try to tweak the values at the top of mods/EBII/data/battle_config.xml, they are global lethality ratios.

    Having problems getting EB2 to run? Try these solutions.
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    I do NOT answer PM requests for help with EB. Ask in a new help thread in the tech help forum.
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  23. #53

    Default Re: General impressions

    -Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating.

    -Elefants. They are as expensive as a whole army but they don't make much damage. Pretty underpowered.

    -Pikemen. They are incredibly overpowered. You cant killed em with cavalry (of course), nor with infantry nor attacking with projectiles.
    1.Well that's probably a matter of preference I like them,but yes cavalry could be a bit stronger when charing the rear of an engeaded unit.But I have to disagree you can rout units qute quicky when charging them ,even "pikemen".Two or three times should do the job unless they have a really good general.
    2.Never tried them.
    3.Are you attaking them on the front..?Because that's not very smart ,pin them down, press them of the flanks with mobile units and then charge your cavarly.

  24. #54
    Speaker of Truth Senior Member Moros's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    [QUOTE=mikeboix;2053613111]
    -Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating./QUOTE]

    Try this: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...9&goto=newpost

  25. #55
    Terrible Tactician Member Shadowwalker's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    I finally had some time to play EB 2.0 and would like to give you a (not so) brief feedback about my experiences and share my opinion about that first release of EB 2.0.
    Two warnings I have to give though.
    First: Caution, wall of text incoming. I simply don't think that a two-line post would do justice to this game. Not after the team spending almost 8 years on developing it.
    Second: I am biased. I have never waited for a game for such a long time, neither did I ever feel such an overwhelming joy about a release. So while I am not blind to the things that aren't perfect or aren't working well (yet), you'll probably notice a tendency to be forgiving.

    Anyway. I decided to split my "review" in several parts, just to make it easier for you (to read) as well as for me (to not forget important things I want to mention).

    Technical part (download, installation, stability, performance)

    Nothing much to say here - other than this: The download worked absolutely perfect. It could have been a bit faster, admittedly, but I won't complain about that, especially not since I don't use torrents (by principle). And since I slept & then was at work while the download was done, I didn't waste any time anyway.
    The installation worked like a charm, too.
    So: Perfect delivery, as far as I am concerned.

    I encountered exactly two crashes so far - and both of which are not due to the mod as far as I'm aware. I had some buttons/images suddenly showing parts of unrelated graphics (like a part of a building description replacing a unit card or a part of a unit card replacing a button image). This is something I have encountered in various M2TW mods before (worst in Das Heilige Römische Reich), so I am used to the workaround: quicksave as soon as it happens (it only ever happens on the campaign map during the players turn anyway, so you don't lose any progress), logout (during the logout M2TW crashes), start the game again, load Quicksave. No trouble.

    Other than that the game has been perfectly stable for me. And since the common after-battle-crashes of EB I were in my book the biggest annoyance of that mod, I'm very much pleased this time.


    Next thing I need to mention is the performance. And once again I am absolutely stunned. There had been several topics in the various forums about the requirements for EB 2.0 and they left me with increasing worry. I have a really old machine with only 2 GB RAM and a graphics card with even less memory. So imagine my surprise when I realized that EB 2.0 actually loads about as fast as it's predecessor on this computer.
    Even better - I play the mod with all details on max and huge units, and I rarely have any lag, not even during large battles. The only thing I am not able to use is Tux' Graphic Enhancement Mod, this one has a severe negative impact on the performance, unfortunately.

    Main menu and strat map graphics

    After the loading process I was at first much surprised, almost shocked about the rather minimalistic main menu graphics. But after several more game starts I consider this very much fitting, to be honest. Infact I have come to love the main menu in the meantime.

    The map is . . . . how to put it? Perhaps this way:
    Gods! I thought I had been prepared for an awesome campaign map by the dozens of screenshots you guys posted during the last months, but it is a real difference to just see that map on your own screen.
    I started a Sabaean campain, so South Arabia was the first thing I saw. After a few moments I couldn't resist any longer and used toggle_fow. And then I spend almost half an hour (!), just scrolling over the map and grinning like an idiot. Until that moment Paeninsula Italica II had (in my opinion) the most beautiful campaign map of all TW mods. Now they are second to yours. The EB 2.0 map is not perfect, if you ask me (since I miss the wonderfully high mountains - the Caucasus, for example, almost looks like a hilly rather than mountaineous area), but it's close. And not only the map itself, the strat map models, too. Simply love it and can't think of many ways to improve it:

    (1) Would love to see the higher mountains from EB 1 back
    (2) Would love to see more Minor Settlements - since they aren't provoking siege battles anymore, I can't see any disadvantages to that.

    Other than that I can't think of much at the moment, there are so many little details to see, so many nice touches that make a campaign more immersive. Be it the ressource models, the diplomat/spy/assassin characters that are so wonderfully unique, the General/Captain models, the buildings (settlements, mines, ports, watchtowers). I could go on an on, praising so many things here.

    As I have said many times before: One of the first games I ever played was Civilization I and I am still very much obsessed with nation building and therefore campaign maps. And EB 2.0 has - to me - set a new standard in this regard.

    The Unit Cards needed a bit of accustomization though, admittedly. I am still used to EB I and it's "polished"/"clean" unit cards and the new ones have (of course) a completely different style. There are some that I instantly loved (East Coast Levies, the Sabean Noble Infantry or Ethiopian Spearmen, for example), others are "just" nice.

    The building icons on the other hand are simply exactly what I hoped for. I always loved the building icons from The Last Kingdom, and yours are on the same quality level. Simply wonderful.

    Battlemap graphics

    Haven't seen many different battle maps yet (fought 3 siege battles in South Arabia when the enemy sallied forth, one siege battle where I attacked and 3 battles in the Sands of Arabia so far), what I saw made my battles last even longer though, since I had to pause the game ever so often to just look at the beautiful units and the equally beautiful surroundings. I'm very much looking forward to see other battlegrounds (won't start custom battles though, I just never play custom battles because they seem - due to the lack of a surrounding campaign - pretty pointless to me).

    Gameplay mechanics

    I know, there are more features missing than implemented at the moment, but what I saw so far made me grin once more. Although I have to admit that I was like "wtf?!" when the culture of my little kingdom suddenly changed. (well, suddenly for me who had completely neglected a certain hint in a certain government building description )

    There are a lot of things I don't understand at all yet, but it was the same with EB I years back and I don't worry too much about that. Learning by doing - the next Saba campaign will be a bit less chaotic.

    I'm very much looking forward to additions to the strategic part of the game. Oh, and hopefully more buildings, too. I am about 150 turns into that campaign and Maryab already grew to huge and has not that many buildings left to construct.

    More buildings - and less units per turn, too, if you ask me. I started a Pergamon campaign recently (without any battles so far, just sitting in Pergamon and building up ). And this one town has a recruitment pool of 8 (!) phalanxes (which also need only one turn to be replenished). I'm talking a bit further about this below (in the "Issues, questions and things I just don't understand" section).

    Battle mechanics

    Frightening. That's perhaps the best description of my first impressions. I tried to do what I usually (in EB I) do in a new Saba campaign - siege and the next turn attack a nearby settlement to get rid of the negative income. So I recruited the Ethiopian Spearmen, combined all my units into the very first "Royal Sabaean Army" and laid siege on Timna, building three rams.
    Next turn I attacked from three different gates. And got completely slaughtered. Not even my generals were able to fight their way through one of the densely packed spearmen formations (several units each) the defenders used to block every entrance to the town plaza. The archers behind their lines decimated my troops (not that they killed my men quickly, but they had devastating effect on the morale of my soldiers). And in the end the Sabaean King, his heir and their once proud army ran away from Timna, having lost about 60% of their troops.

    Since that experience I haven't attacked another town, I now just wait until they sally. That way I still suffer heavy losses, but I at least win the battle.

    To tell a long story short - I haven't got a grip on EB 2.0 regarding to the battles. My usual tactics don't work anymore and I lack the cavalry to try something completely different.

    Issues, questions and things I just don't understand

    Of course EB 2.0 isn't perfect yet. You know it, you told us so way before release and it would have been utterly stupid to not believe you on this (after all it was not only Moros who said so. We all know that Moros likes a good deceive ). And before I start the ranting I just want to make clear once more that I very, very much enjoy the game in his current state.
    That said - here's the (not complete) list of things I wonder or mutter about at the moment:


    (1) There are - for my taste - way too many stacks around. Nabataea for example has 2 cities (Rekem, Bostra), but 4 full stacks and a half stack in each city. Pergamon has 2 full stacks with Pergamon alone, Makedonia has like 5 or 6 fullstacks and some halfstacks with 4 settlements. And so on.
    During my brief glance at Pergamon I noticed that this may be because of several things working together:
    - the units are a lot cheaper than in EB 1
    - the replenishment rates of certain units (the phalangitai for example) are really high
    - the maximum recruitment pools are really high as well (the mentioned 8 phalangitai in one single city are a good example)
    - the money script for the AI means that they have a lot of free money to spend each turn

    I expect this to change during the further development since you guys mentioned that the campaign balance has been very basic at best for the first release.

    (2) My generals never get any loyalty, they only ever lose it. I usually get characters come to age with 1-3 points of loyalty ( one had 4, one had zero, all others were within the mentioned range). I instantly send the to my Capital Maryab where both a school and the faction leader are. And when they reach the age of 20, they have 2 points loyalty left at best, in most cases they have zero. Which means that they rebels as soon as they spend a single turn outside of towns. Is this intended? If not - what am I doing wrong here?
    Same is true for command, confidence and influence by the way. I consider myself lucky if they have 1 point left in each attribute after some years, many of them have no single point in any attribute.
    And to make things worse, I don't even see them getting any traits that would explain that. My generals usually get the Mistress ancillary and the Arabian Falconer ancillary. And the only traits I can remember to have seen (aside the "Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous", "[season]", "unschooled" and "governor" traits) are a trait that raises construction costs by 5% and the equivalent that lowers the costs by 5%. I have never seen a single trait changing any of the confidence/loyalty/influence values.
    (I did see one or two that add or substract authority (like "established ruler") but they have apparently no influence on the other generals' loyalty.)

    Are all of these traits hidden by chance?

    (3) I don't understand the culture system to be honest. Saba is Eastern Tribal at first (or am I wrong about this?). And according to a post by Moros (over at the TWC, iirc) temples of Almagah raise the "Eastern Imperial" culture level. But why do my cities then have ever lower Eastern Tribal level while Arid Nomadism is rising?
    (Looking forward to Moros' guide on this and expect to learn a lot by reading it.)

    (4) How to convert a nomad camp into a settled community?

    (5) Why does every unit that could with some imagination count as a hoplite style unit have a more devastating charge than Cataphracts? Sure, a Hoplite phalanx charge was a terrible thing for their enemies (the persians at Marathon could tell a story or two about that, for example ), but 28? Or even 31, like the Shipri Tukul (which have a new name, I know )?
    Also: why do very similar units have so very differing prices?


    Okay, these things are probably my main concerns at the moments. More may follow as I advance in the campaign.



    tl;dr:
    Thanks a lot for a very enjoyable first release, looking forward to the further improvements.
    Finished EB Campaigns: Kart-Hadast 1.0/1.2 | Pontos 1.1 | Arche Seleukeia 1.2 | Hayasdan 1.2 | Sab'yn 1.2 | Makedonia 1.2 (Alex)
    Lost Campaigns (1.2, Alex. exe): Getai | Sab'Yn
    Ongoing campaigns (1.2): SPQR (110 BC) | Sab'yn (217 BC) | Pontos (215 BC)
    from Populus Romanus

    "The state of human ethics can be summarized in two sentences: We ought to. But we don't." (Tucholsky)

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    Tux 


  26. #56
    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Don't take Pergamon as a model for all settlements, in EBII's world there are few provinces that are capable of growing to Hellenistic Metropolis level and also have military colonies. Thus these "power-houses" so to speak are regions to be cherished and capable of supplying a large amount of troops...

    But such provinces are not that common, nevertheless with a larger amount of feedbacks thanks to the release we will be able to spot how this effects the gameplay and tweak accordingly :)

    As for the replenishment rates, Phalangitai are pretty professional and take time to train, they are not levies and now you should understand the importance of Machimoi and Pantodapoi ^^

    While for the different prices, without specific examples it is difficult to answer. However in EBII social status is also reflected in the pricing so that might be it...

    Almost forgot sorry, to convert into a settled community you will need to lower Nomadism, but I don't know at which percentage sorry, and afterwards you should be able to build the "walls"...
    Last edited by Arjos; 08-29-2014 at 18:58.

  27. #57
    Terrible Tactician Member Shadowwalker's Avatar
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    Default Re: General impressions

    Quote Originally Posted by Arjos View Post
    Don't take Pergamon as a model for all settlements, in EBII's world there are few provinces that are capable of growing to Hellenistic Metropolis level and also have military colonies. Thus these "power-houses" so to speak are regions to be cherished and capable of supplying a large amount of troops...

    But such provinces are not that common, nevertheless with a larger amount of feedbacks thanks to the release we will be able to spot how this effects the gameplay and tweak accordingly :)
    Good to know that it's not the case with every province :)

    Quote Originally Posted by Arjos View Post
    As for the replenishment rates, Phalangitai are pretty professional and take time to train, they are not levies and now you should understand the importance of Machimoi and Pantodapoi ^^
    I may have worded it in a way that can be misunderstood. I know that Pezhetairoi are professional troops that need a lot of time and effort to be trained. That's exactly why I wonder about the fact that you can recruit a unit of them each turn in Pergamon. I would have expected it to be 4 (or 12 ) turns before a full unit is replenished.

    Quote Originally Posted by Arjos View Post
    While for the different prices, without specific examples it is difficult to answer. However in EBII social status is also reflected in the pricing so that might be it...
    I'll come back to this as soon as I see the units again, can't remember the details at the moment, only know that I saw it with javelin cavalry and spearmen.
    Finished EB Campaigns: Kart-Hadast 1.0/1.2 | Pontos 1.1 | Arche Seleukeia 1.2 | Hayasdan 1.2 | Sab'yn 1.2 | Makedonia 1.2 (Alex)
    Lost Campaigns (1.2, Alex. exe): Getai | Sab'Yn
    Ongoing campaigns (1.2): SPQR (110 BC) | Sab'yn (217 BC) | Pontos (215 BC)
    from Populus Romanus

    "The state of human ethics can be summarized in two sentences: We ought to. But we don't." (Tucholsky)

  28. #58

    Default Re: General impressions

    It's pretty okay.

    No real installation problems. Haven't played enough to comment on stability, although it did crash once when I tried to start a campaign, citing an 'unspecified error'.

    Skirmishers basically don't work and cavalry is ineffective. In my test battle, the skirmishers on both sides usually ran away from each other before they fired a volley, had a very slow rate of fire and didn't seem effective against the slow-moving phalangites either. They may as well have not even been there.

    The big problem, as I see it, is that there are no unit flags so it's really difficult to tell what is going on zoomed out, or if you're fighting a faction similar to yours. When you select a unit, it isn't highlighted in any way, making it even harder to tell what's going on in a battle. I can't even imagine how much of a pain in the ass a siege battle, woodland map or any situation where your forces are unevenly distributed would be to play because of these issues.

    Overall, the mod shows potential but the visibility issue is a big one which turned me off playing it.
    Last edited by musty; 08-29-2014 at 19:28.

  29. #59

    Default Re: General impressions

    After a brutal assault on the walls of Athens involving 4 siege towers and barrages of missiles from both sides followed by a very, very slow and bloody advance through the streets with my Makedonian phalanxes, I managed to pin the Koinon forces in the city square from multiple sides and destroy them to a man, including 4 of their faction members, destroying their faction in the process.

    It took over an hour and 20 minutes in total, and it was probably in my top 10 battles in the whole TW series, ever.

    If I was to make a suggestion, maybe the lethality of combat needs to be increased a bit. But other than that...It's amazing.

    Thank you for all your hard work.
    Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit.
    Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.
    Marcus Tullius Cicero

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  30. #60

    Default Re: General impressions

    First impressions (as Pergamon)
    Within the first rounds, I had secured my southern borders by forming an alliance with the AS. Next, I got a "mission" from my AS allies to invade Bythnia. Said and done, all armies merged into one and laid siege to Nikaia.

    The defenders had been reinforced from the countryside, and they sallied forth. The odds were 3:5 to my disadvantage, and the battle was long and I was on the brink of a complete rout when my light lancers (loving this unit, by the way) charged into the enemy general and he was killed. The enemies fled and I was victorious. The battle was one of my greatest EVER in the combined history of EB1 and EB2.

    Loving this game!
    Likstrandens ormar som spyr blod och etter, Ni som blint trampar Draugs harg
    På knä I Eljudne mottag död mans dom, Mot död och helsvite, ert öde och pinoplats

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