General impressions

[Thoras]

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.

I haven't played them yet but do you have more than one buidling that let's you train them?
Ok just started a test campaign I could only recruite them every 4 turns.

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.

Had something simliar with the Saba:The enemy sallied out and after a long fight their numerical superiority got me and most of my units routed,I managed to use my general to rally most of them and formed a second line of defence and I was actually winning.
Then most of his routed men turned back from the city square and the battle was in their favor again....and again my most of my men routed.But I managed to form a another line and fought back.
I still lost but I retained half of my army while 70% of theirs was defeated,I would have probably won if I had cavalry and if was a really epic battle.

[joshmahurin]

@musty the battle visibility can be changed by editing the EBII.cfg file in your M2TW/mods/EBII folder.

under the [game] section change

disable_arrow_markers = 0

and if unit banners aren't showing up add

show_banners = 1

[I_damian]

Enjoying a H/M game as Hayasdan with the campaign AI fix. I like how the Seleukids don't instantly wipe you out now. I was able to get an alliance and trade rights with them right at the start and they've left me alone for 50 turns. I turned off FOW to see how they were doing though and they aren't losing any provinces, they're actually growing... which is scary because I'll have to fight them eventually.

I have to say though, skirmishers are more or less useless. Archers can be okay in siege battles when you're defending. They can also inflict minor damage against unarmoured enemy units like other archers but beyond that they're a waste of a unit slot. Javelin-throwing skirmishers such as the very basic Akontistai and the like are totally useless. A volley of javelins from those guys won't kill a single enemy soldier, even if thrown at another unit of Akontistai. Likewise, the javelin-throwing cavalry are useless when used to throw their javelins. Even when thrown into the back of an engaged unit they do no damage.

I don't think cavalry is useless at all though, despite what a lot of people seem to be saying. Their charges aren't devastating, true, but their effect on enemy morale is massive when you charge them into the flank or rear. They're also really good at taking out enemy light troops, like they should be. They're even good against the heavier type of skirmishing troops, such as Euzenoi.

[Centurio]

Haven't had a chance to post because of moving into the university, and I don't have my game with me unfortunately, but I did get to play for some time, and there were quite a few moments when I was like "yes, Rome II as it was meant to be!!!"

I understand that not all of the features are in the build yet, and some are incomplete. But aside from some small errors (which are unavoidable when working on such a huge work of ART like this) I've had no trouble with the game. Not once did it crash on me, nor did it ever cause any disappointment. For all that has been done, I'm impressed, and that is saying a lot, considering how high my expectations were for this mod.

Also, all of the features from EB I that were implemented (the phalanx, overhand spear animations) seemed greatly improved in the Medieval II engine, and I was especially impressed with how the pike formations pressed really hard and had a tendency to get compact and disorganized in a way that felt more natural, other than on the RTW engine, which always felt more like a glitch than a mechanic. That behavior seemed more realistic to me, as far as my knowledge goes, so good job on that one! And, not to mention, those new javelin throwing animations, where the soldiers run forward and throw their javelins (with a higher velocity, it looks like?) are cooler than any other basic innovation I've seen in a while.

I noticed during my Pergamon and Pritanoi campaigns that some horses (from different units) are of varying sizes, which I appreciate, since not everyone was riding the same breed of horse. Good choice on that one.

As has been said already, skirmishers of any type don't work very well, but I never really used them for anything other than garrison troops so I'm okay with that.

Although one thing I did notice was that during some of the death animations(the long, cinematic styled kill sequences) the dying soldier would spazz out, then lay still as normal once the animation was finished.

[Blooo]

I've only been able to play a little bit, but something struck me in the one siege battle I did.

As Pritanoi I attacked a nearby rebel town and the rams weren't able to knock down walls... only gates. Is this a bug?

Also, once inside the city the lanes were very narrow, but not visually. It looked like there was a large open space to fight in around the main square but the area was impassible, forcing the battle to be fought in very narrow lanes hemmed in by invisible walls. I really do hope that this is a bug and not a desired feature.

Been an EB player and fan for years, can't wait to play more of EB2!

[Antinous]

Hey guys I gotta say that the game is spectacular. I've started three campaigns to get a good feel for it and am really liking what I am seeing. I only have one real problem and that is money bonus for the AI. As Pergamon I have most of Asia Minor and the Levant, but I'm having trouble scrounging the money together to field more than four armies while Makedon with only four provinces has around six or seven. Same with Koinon Hellenon and Epeiros; really any faction within the game. Even Kimmerios with one region has three full armies. Besides that though I am loving it and agree with many that Rome 2 should have been more like this.

Side-note: Do I just keep building Hellenic infrastructure to increase Hellenic culture?

[Biowulf]

Excellent so far! Everyone's providing in-detail reports so far and I feel I have little to contribute :P In fact, the only complaint I have at the moment is the color of the Boii line when you click on Faction Rankings. It's so white I can barely see it lol.

[bovi]

Even Kimmerios with one region has three full armies.

Side-note: Do I just keep building Hellenic infrastructure to increase Hellenic culture?

You may want to try the new campaign AI that Granto made available. They are more likely to spend their troops quickly then, instead of turtling up and building up a lot of passive stacks.

Colonies are what will convert culture I believe.

[kdrakak]

@musty the battle visibility can be changed by editing the EBII.cfg file in your M2TW/mods/EBII folder.

under the [game] section change

disable_arrow_markers = 0

and if unit banners aren't showing up add

show_banners = 1

disable_arrow_markers=1 is you get a selected unit to be highlighted on the battlefield. I thought is wasn't exactly clear from your post. I had to test it to verify. :)

[kdrakak]

Likewise, the javelin-throwing cavalry are useless when used to throw their javelins. Even when thrown into the back of an engaged unit they do no damage.

Actually I have indication that this type of unit (the indian variant) is a decent unit to attack elephants with.

[I_damian]

Hey guys I gotta say that the game is spectacular. I've started three campaigns to get a good feel for it and am really liking what I am seeing. I only have one real problem and that is money bonus for the AI. As Pergamon I have most of Asia Minor and the Levant, but I'm having trouble scrounging the money together to field more than four armies while Makedon with only four provinces has around six or seven. Same with Koinon Hellenon and Epeiros; really any faction within the game. Even Kimmerios with one region has three full armies. Besides that though I am loving it and agree with many that Rome 2 should have been more like this.

Side-note: Do I just keep building Hellenic infrastructure to increase Hellenic culture?

Culture conversion can be a pain - eventually you'll get the option to build a colony which will give a 1% bonus to culture conversion. To build the colony I think you need to build a road and that fort & waystation building, then you get the option to build a colony.

[Antinous]

I've been wondering about that colony feature. Thanks for explaining is Damian and I'll try the new AI Bovi!

[alexkon3]

For a beta release this thing is incredible. I loved eb 1 so much and this is the worthiest successor to one of the best mods in history. of course there are some issues but for me they are mostly engine related (units not following orders, path finding) and some random crashes main menu. and there are some minor things (Sacred band infantry has a lower upkeep cost than liby-phoenecian hoplites?) But overall its just awesome.... its already awesome and i haven't even tried one of the new factions haha. Thank you eb team. thank you for all your hard work and the love you put in to this project. thank you thank you thank you. it was worth all the wait.

[Alcibiade]

This mod makes me happy. There are a few minor weird things with the anims, but in general, playing it is like a dream.

I'll try to be more critical next time, just like in constructiv cristicism, but right now, the result easily meet my expectations, which were huge

Roy Orbisson used to sing : " In dreams I play EB 2 ". Well, I play it for real.

[olly]

I wanted to say I played as Hayasdan and the General's bodyguard and the Caucus Spearmen were breathtakingly good. Also the music was very atmospheric and made it feel like it was a battle rather than a soundtrack.

Everything else is still a wonder and really liked the Averni's rams. Oh and my wife really liked their campaign map music.

Thanks again and AI seems much improved for the campaign.

[cahtush]

Seems good so far, all of my problems (projectiles feel weak, units feel just unresponsive enough to make it annoying, you can put a unit on two sides of a tower like you could in rome, when dragging to position units in cities you cant go close to buildings for some reason which is very annoying) has to do with medieval 2 rather than the mod itself, though it would be nice if you could fix those though.

Also, KH went from being one of the hardest starts economically to you literally swimming in mnai, earned more per turn than when playing as carthage.

[Ozonius Tomicus]

Download speed using the torrent link via my DSL connection was great, completed in 33 minutes the day after release and I have been seeding since then.

The install under the default Sega location went smoothly, but I had to add the launcher fix and edited the windowed and window_border to false so get around the start-up and screen resolution glitches. My MTW2/Kingdoms are retail U.S. disk versions, fully patched.

I am very happy to be back in EB-world and like the changes to the interface. As others have pointed out some of the UI text fields could use better contrast colors.

Played Sabeans nearly 60 seasons, applied the CAI patch around turn 15 and regenerated the map and the save-game loaded fine. I haven't seen to much aggression since then as most of the Eleutheroi had been cleansed from my regions, but I recently took a town in SE Africa that neighbors the Ptolemaioi, so they may come calling soon.

I alt-tab in and out a lot and haven't had any issues around that. I have had one CTD that occurred when I was looking at an enemy generals stack from the battle dialog and right-clicked on one of their units to see information on the unit type.

All-in-all this is a very impressive initial release and I will even say that it was well worth the wait.

[Moros]

Do you happen to know what unit it was?

[adishee]

I've noticed something that (I think) is new, that we can now retrain some mercenary units. That is... really nice, to be able preserve and cultivate units' gained experience.

While I'm here, I noticed something else - I took Pella as the Epirots, and I destroyed the Makedonian royal tombs so to reap an enormous amount of much-need cash. Thing is, I was expecting that that would really piss off the population, but it didn't. They seem quite happy to be ruled by iconoclastic, Adriatic "Greeks". Hm.

[Moros]

I've noticed something that (I think) is new, that we can now retrain some mercenary units. That is... really nice, to be able preserve and cultivate units' gained experience.

While I'm here, I noticed something else - I took Pella as the Epirots, and I destroyed the Makedonian royal tombs so to reap an enormous amount of much-need cash. Thing is, I was expecting that that would really piss off the population, but it didn't. They seem quite happy to be ruled by iconoclastic, Adriatic "Greeks". Hm.

For them to get mad we'd need a script to check whether the uniques get destroyed and then script rebellion or unhappiness. However as these buildings are currently bugged in the release and will change into different buildings when settlements are sacked. The only solution is to make them indestructible, sadly putting an end to looting.

On the positive side, the Nabataeans have some very lovely Horse Archersi

[adishee]

On the positive side, the Nabataeans have some very lovely Horse Archersi

Sigh. I think they need a little more work.

[Ibrahim]

Sigh. I think they need a little more work.

in what way?

[Ozonius Tomicus]

Do you happen to know what unit it was?

Sorry, no -- for what it's worth (probably not much I know) I've only fought the Eleutheroi around the southern part of the Arabian Peninnsula, and the town of Axum in Africa. Checking unit descriptions is something that I do often especially with so many unit updates and it was so sudden I didn't even realize what happened right off.

[Alcibiade]

There's a placeholder for Segesta or it's a bug ? Do you need somebody to write it ?

[Fabio Scevola]

Hello all.
First to all thank you for this great work! You are my heroes.
Have only played initial campaigns for aedui and pritanoi on M/M and I have these comments:
Arveni initial province has not description.
Loading times are really short! was expecting 1 minute or more but my laptop takes 20-30 sec at campaign start and 10-15 sec in AI turns.
Had 2 CTD, one going first to setup a custom battle and then clicking grand campaign, the second one clicking faction simbols before starting a new campaign, both of which I had seen with Med II and other mods before.
Stonehenge is in the wrong province, should be west from current province ( according to google maps at least) :).
Battles do take long, no too much but longer than EB 1, specially sieges, I even lost a siege battle because of the timer to 15 spear retainers, having killed 1000 enemies and with 1000 soldiers of mine alive.
Some pritanoi units ( foot general bodyguards, some retainers) do not reflect their armor stats in the model, they look too unarmored.
Spearmen seem a little overpowered (as other have said)
Chariots are perfect, not overpowered tanks nor paper units, just good skirmishers and enemy lines distruptors.
Unrest is in deed low, I conquered the 2 southern brithish provinces, built the military ocupation , high taxes and only needed 2 units if one was a general (or 3 if not) to have more than 100% happiness.

Hope this will be helpful.

Also what is the recommended difficult settings?
Regards.

[mikeboix]

Why almost all the infantry and cavalry units have throwing spears or javelins? I think it's pretty annoying always having to use alt+click to order my infantry to melee attack :P

Did really the spearmen and falanges throw javelins on ancient wars?

[Ibrahim]

Why almost all the infantry and cavalry units have throwing spears or javelins? I think it's pretty annoying always having to use alt+click to order my infantry to melee attack :P

Did really the spearmen and falanges throw javelins on ancient wars?

you exaggerate: only 80% of the units do that!

hey, hellenistic period warfare for you. I didn't make this up

[brodinis]

So Hello,

I must say i love Europa Barbarorum. I have been playing mods for total war series many years now. Fluid install for EB2 was very refreshing. But i must say that this is good for beta version( as a first release )

First off all, i played few campaigns very hard/ very hard and i can say that AI is completely dumb and unresponsive. Even rebels ( eleutheroi ) WILL NOT attack your almost undefended settlement. The AI wages war on themselves, but they DO NOT touch you. Example is my Britons campaign where i have 140 turns into the game and nobody attacks me. Even if you attack first some random faction, they DO NOT defend their settlement. My Nabateans campaign is the same 100 turns in, and no response, I attack Ptolemais and they refuse to fight me. For me seems like Rome 2 scenario at their first release. AI is very passive regarding the players side. Sure they wage war on themselves- yes. But they do not attack YOU. And if you look how germanian( sweboz ) faction reacts to the full flag surrounding settlements at their campaign start, you will obviously see that the AI is afraid to attack full flag settlements of rebels and players alike, hence if you had 1 squad of units into your settlement, they still do not attack..

When i saw the 2.7 GB download, i understood that this is far from full game(mod) release. I must say some factions and some units are more full, others may not be designed that good, for example the Baltic faction ( lugioni or so ) If you see their unit roster, you will not see much, and some units are terribly designed too, for example those skirmisher levies, they look awful compared to hellenes skirmishers. Talking about skirmishers, their use in this mod is really terrible. For spearmen you did very good job hastening or so their jav throw speed, so they loose a lot quicker. For skirmishers you did not the same thing. And for that they seem like cannon fodder. They do not loose their missiles quick enough, look at the Third age Total war mod, they made skirmishers very useful with less missiles but very good sinchronisnized and methodical throw speed with all unit models throwing at the same time.

To add more, saw some faction reform bits and pieces, but not done yet. Some unit upkeep costs not logical and so on. I hope mod will be better with time. and wish you good luck. And i love the history you written, not every province got description, but it is ok, and for ending i wanted to ask you what are your plans for next patch releases/steps? Because this game is only 50 % done in my opinion. Do not be mad at me guys, i love what you do. Just wanted to write my true opinions about the release( ofc its beta).
Have a good day ;)

P.s mod sometimes crashes to the dekstop with no reason/message. it can crash from campaign or custom battle alike.

[brodinis]

Wait when you conquer another culture city, you will see the real unrest. you conquered only british villages that have same culture as you, try conquering hellenes city or so ;)

[joshmahurin]

Also try the new campaign AI