General impressions

[Alcibiade]

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?

If you don't like it you should consider playing in another timeframe (no offense) because yes, it was very commonly used. Especially in the western half of the map. One of the advantage was to make the schields of the opponent unusable.

But you know, most of them just throw a couple of javelins and then charge, you don't have to systematically alt-click :-) Only if you don't want them to theriow anything.

[olly]

Hello again. I just wanted to say the economy seems to be a lot easier to manage than it was in EB1. It may be my memory playing tricks as it has been a few years since I have played it but I did like it to be harder to raise funds.

Did anyone else think that or is it just me? Also the CAI, which I know is still in development as is everything else, could be more aggressive to me.

Thanks

[adishee]

Noticed another great touch: I'm playing as Epiros, and defending one of my northern cities with an almost-all-Illyrian army of levies, and I get Barbarian battle music instead of Greek. It's the little things like this... (I love the Barbarian and Roman battle musics which sound like actual battle music, not so much the Greek which sounds more like a soundtrack.)

[Friendly Sword]

I just want to share a small anecdote. I have been playing as Pontos on M/M and am seventy turns in with my only inter-faction wars being two brief quarrels with KH and Pergamon. I have thus spent 90% of the game militarily interacting with the eleutheroi of northern Anatolia and I am *still* having a blast.

Note: part of the reason for this is that I am expanding to former Seleukid territories that have rebelled. What a familiar tale. ^^

[Blovski]

10 turns into Bosporan campaign (H/H, new CAI v2). Had fun battles. Enjoyed my liminal position. Got a couple of cities. Diplomated a bit. Learned a bit of history. Started feeling the vibe of the faction. It's awesome. Look forwards to many more turns.

As an EB 1 vet, the little settlement fort things are a wonderful idea, allowing you to keep a standing army while mobilising properly is still dead expensive. The individual province descriptions are also a thing of beauty. The rest I will comment on when more informed.

[alex16]

в модефикации eb 1 у фалангистов были мечи а в eb 2 их нет почему?

[Arjos]

потому что в M2TW когда фаланги с мечами трогают врага, они уронят пики.

Простите, что я плохо говорю по-русски.

[GenosseGeneral]

So I could spend my first couple of hours with EB2 today and can now provide my first impressions

I started a brief campaign as Ptolemaioi on H/M, I am not sure whether I was using the new AI or not since I had briefly started a game before installing it, but without deleting the map.rwm in between. I also installed one of the quicker battle submods, for increased lethality. I have played now a bit more than 40 turns in a mildly aggressive playing style, conquering Damaskos and now heading for a campaign to capture Sardis.

Since the 2 posts above were about Phalangitai, I will start my comment with them. They have certainly changed a lot, in my eyes it is a major improvement over EB1.2 that the phalanx is not the static square anymore it used to be. Instead, the formation can bend, be disrupted etc... I really like, how the EB team has managed to overcome the aweful performance of the original MTW2 pikemen. However, this came at a price as they lack the dagger. Even in EB1.2 Phalangitai were not exactly effective when fighting on walls or in closed quarters, but the sheer numbers, good morale, high pushing power and decent armour of Pezhetairoi/Klerouchoi Phalangitai meant that they could at least be of some use in sieges. In EB2, there seems to be only one use for pikemen: Being the anvil in pitched battles. Thanks to their formation, they take little causualties, but they do not cause any amongst their enemies in turn. In fact, I felt like someone had taken the points from their sarrisae, as I watched two units of Phalangitai fight each other for about 20 mins (on 6x speed!) on the city square of damaskos. Another unit was unable to take out the enemy general, I had to throw my own general's BG cav into the fight in order to finally kill theirs. But I guess this is something that I can easily fix myself, by changing some stats.

Another thing I have noticed, is the somewhat lower overall level of morale, compared to EB1.2. It is not as low as in MTW2 vanilla, but I have never seen a Hoplite unit routing from a fight on walls after taking little more than 50 per cent causualties, not being encircled, while they actually won the fight. Again, something that can easily be tweaked by changing the stat files.

What also caused trouble for me was the enhanced graphics mod, as it caused the loading times to become endless, despite switching it off in menu and campaign map as recommended. In battle, it just blurred my view. I guess I will have to give another try after reading a bit more about recommended settings and see whether it still causes hobbles my game experience.

I love the new culture system, since it gives way more flexibility and choices when it comes to empire building. Especially playing as the Ptollies, I can literally feel how important the degree of hellenisation was for the Eastern successors since only hellenised provinces can be developed and only hellen colonists can provide me the loyal troops my kingdom needs. I think this system really overcomes the somewhat static system of EB1, in which for instance the Ptolemies were never able to raise Hetairoi in Antiocheia (unless capturing the city with a developed MIC), simply because it was only a type 2 region, regardless whether it was under their control. I hope this also somewhat fixes the yellow fever/silver death, since the 2 cannot anymore spam Klerouchoi phalangitai from every single city under their control. Instead of just building one rather abstract building, the player now truly has to develop his provinces, with certain governments requiring certain civic structures and cultures. That adds a lot of immersion to the game and it is a great mechanism, especially since the "empire building" of EB1.2 was always a bit less developed than I would have liked it to be. Great job, really a MAJOR improvement!

Also, the PSFs add to the same effect: In peacetime, the army can disperse and the the klerouchoi can work at their estates. When the king wishes to campaign, he has to gather them first - and pay, since it is not cheap to keep an army in the field! Another detail which illustrates how much thought has gone into the recruitment/army management system of this mod are the increased number of recruitment slots in winter season. All in all, I think EB2 does a great job in that section!
As announced, one thing that is lacking yet is the enormous number of regional and factional units one could raise in EB1.2. That system will possibly even more profit from the new culture system... after all, one can only raise Parthian archers if there are Parthians to recruit!

After all, this unfinished mod done by enthusiasts seems to be more finished on many aspects than many "finished games" thrown onto the market for 50+ euros at release, then delivering the lacking units etc. as DLCs.

PS: After reading the whole text I just wrote, it sounds a bit harsh to me, since it contains so much criticism... but I know you guys have been working hard on this and this can be seen in every detail of the game!

PSS: Wow, that is a long text. I hope someone reads it to the end :D

[Ibrahim]

Another thing I have noticed, is the somewhat lower overall level of morale, compared to EB1.2. It is not as low as in MTW2 vanilla, but I have never seen a Hoplite unit routing from a fight on walls after taking little more than 50 per cent causualties see my comment , not being encircled, while they actually won the fight. Again, something that can easily be tweaked by changing the stat files.

just for the record: Hoplites =/= Japanese soldiers from WW2. 50% casualties is pretty high by any standard. yes, this was on purpose.

Though I do see a reason to change the battle_config, as well as some other stats.

[Nightshift]

Hi there, first of all thanks for the release! I was really surprised by it. Been waiting for years and when I saw the twitter post I was so grateful.. started downloading, reinstalled M2TW and everything worked from the start. Installed the new CAI right away. First campaign was Sweboz but after 15-20 turns I had ctd after allmost every turn. Can't possibly tell the reason for it yet. After that I started campaigns for some of my other favourites but only to have a look at their starting positions and troops. Now I restarted a new Sweboz campaign but so far only until turn 8 or so..

Disbanding my horse troops right away helped alot to get out of the red. I have to say I like the pace of the battles alot. Any spear units fighting against each other wrestle for inches of ground with very low casualties. When they tire out and some unit is avaiable like archers or skirmishers that have no more ammo they fall into their sides or back. Sometimes thats just enough to break enemy morale and when they start to run you have to decide to either follow them and kill as much of them in the process until they are driven off the map or have your units help with the rest of the battle. If you leave them running they will come back but you can deal with them with your troops beeing more coherent. I think this is a good representation of warfare at that time where its about breaking the enemy formations rather than killing them all off (Hannibals deeds where exceptional thats why the became historical).

Since I started that campaign twice and attacked the same settlement twice (just south of my starting position) I can say the following:
(With battle timer enabled) The first time I had much higher casualties really pushing into the settlement which I have to say was not stupidly defended by AI. The second time I was much more hesitant trying to use every advantage of having multiple units going against the enemy and have those involved before letting rest. Casualties were much lower (still 50%) but time was running out and just seconds before the time was out the last of them was killed. Very exciting!!

Bowmen could use just a bit more ammo for my taste and javelins could do a bit more killing at least from the back. Havent tried the slinger units yet but I guess they should be more usefull than bowman at that timeframe (except specialists like kretan bowman).

I am very happy having now two new and interesting neighbors in vicinity so sweboz is not as lonely now. Haven't found the family tree yet, maybe because I didn't play for a long time but could imagine it's a design choice. Loved the news that my faction leader gained authority (wich was almost nil at the start) just because he was holding onto power for an amount of time which is not easy within those tribes :). Great roleplaying little thingies! The tribal system in general is great! Noticed that my faction leader has all kinds of good battle traits but still had zero star ranking.. although that was in my first camaign have to check that out again. But I like that characters from tribes that are more administrative do better as gouvernors..

Looked like those guys in southeren arabian peninsula can build ships now - big improvement!! They could use some more units though I hope thats work in progress or just because they need some builings..

Oh well I have to play a lot more before writing here I guess-sorry for the long text full of assumptions.

Again thanks for the nice work. Thanks for developers and all the people in the forums who contributet with knowledge and pics and so on for example at the wonders project. All those years of waiting were not wasted-not at all. I'm looking forward for the mod beeing fleshed out.

I don't need to read more history - I'm playing EB again!!

P.S. In battle I once noticed a guy beeing midget sized dancing around for a couple minutes should I see that again I'll screenshot him..

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok after another session I realized why there is no family tree for sweboz and most likely for some other factions.-->Ok next time I'll read bug forum first :) -->and will try windowed mode now instead..

Getting more interesting with every turn now :)

[Shadowwalker]

I've started a couple campaigns (Rome, Boii, Brits) and more or less given up on all of them because I can't give anyone that's not my faction leader an army. They always end up defecting if they're away from a city for more than a turn or two. There seems to be no way to raise loyalty and I've never seen a family member that had more than 4 loyalty ring thingys.

Meanwhile I've seen multiple AI family members with mostly full ranks in every stat.

I have found that with the "Positive Traits" submod by Goth the situation improves quite a bit - but for certain factions only.

As the Romans for example I have never had a Praetor/Propraetor/Consul/Proconsul defecting anymore, since all of them have at least 5 points of loyalty. If I move armies around I always assign a family member who is at least Praetor. And the armies who are out to conquer usually stay 5 turns + outside cities because I always starve out garrisons. I simply can't storm cities due to the new combat system and the better BAI. )
I didn't play a prolonged campaign with them yet, though (just unified Italy from Rhegion to Medilanon, turn 82), so maybe it's different in later stages.

With the Aedui on the other hand I can have only one army in the field, and it has to be led by the faction leader. I have about 20 family members in that campaign, plenty of them had 4, 5 or even 6 points of loyalty when they were adopted. But within a few years they all drop down to one or at best 2 points. And none of them gave me a hint about why it happens. Maybe I'm just blind, but I read their trait descriptions (the usually have 0 or 1 ancillary only, so not that much to read in that part, hehe) several times and didn't find anything that would explain that. So I'm as clueless as probably everyone else about it. The traits and ancillary files didn't enlighten me either.

The campaigns are still very playable, though (and fun, especially with the Aedui I had recently a lot of fun unifying Gaul, just because their units are so beautiful). They're just slow. Which is not a bad thing in any case. If anything I'd just like to see the possibility to have a few more commanders with a bit of loyalty, so that I can have field armies defending my borders (Ilibarri/Tolosa/Massalia/Medilanon and the Rhine). At the moment I have to put a full stack in each of the border cities to defend against the bloody Qart-Hadashtim which continue to attack Massalia and Tolosa and the Boii who attack the provinces just north of the Alps.

Having large walls (awesome sight by the way!) doesn't help as much as I hoped since the range of celtic slingers and archers has been cut down so severly (and the damage they deal, as well, although I already raised the hit rates to 0.30, don't want to go higher because the casualties started to really grow already with this change).

I'm pondering about giving the celtic slingers their EB I range of 160+ again (since other slingers got a way better range too, compared to EB i - Shepherd Slingers and Balearic Slingers have 190 for example).

I would also like to ask if there really is no possibility anymore to raise faction and regional troops at the same time in a given province anymore. As the Aedui I can build either the Confederation chain (or better, that government is available in all of Gaul and most of Britain right from the moment I conquer the settlement) or the "Allied" chain. And therefore I either have the complete Aedui factional roster available or (in Massalai for example) hellenic troops. I miss the often mentioned new government complex options, as it stands I am able to build a gov I or a gov III (speaking in EB I terms) in any given city, and that's it. I can't help the feeling to simply play the whole "government" part of the game wrong.

Related to that: I suppose that the availability of regional troops will be reconsidered for all factions once there are more units available?
At the moment every faction has the same regional troops in any given province as far as I saw, and that feels a bit odd. Understandable of course, given the number of missing units, but still a bit . . . well, odd.

Unrelated: Settlements grow much too fast still for my liking. In the mentioned Aedui Campaign (turn ~170) Gergovia, Bibracte, Massalia, Uiennos and Uesontio already have the largest walls and are nearing the last construcable building.

[Hm, I shouldn't have started writing this before I have to leave to work . . . a longer, more detailed post will be added once I get home again. ]

[Mithridates]

Spent a few hours playing various campaigns (Kart Hadast, Pergamon, Takshishilia) and a few things jumped out at me:

First the problems:

1) something is up with unit stats. I'm not sure if the numbers mean nothing or if they mean more or less what they meant in EB I, but they're off. For instance, the charge bonus on the Akkadian Infantry (mercenaries) is about 30, while for most cavalry units it's under 10.

2) archers and javelins are more or less useless now. In EB I they were a mainstay of my army, usually about 1/4 to 1/2 of the army (esp against lightly armored troops). In EB II, my archers can't even kill half a dozen unarmored enemies before running out of arrows.

3) lethality is a bit low. I like realism as much as the next person, but 90 minute battles are a bit much. I know there is a mod for that, but I don't know where to find the mod files (not mod savvy)

4) trade by sea seems significantly nerfed. Trade in general seems nerfed. My poor Kart Hadast campaign saw me with 1-2 units in each city and one half stack army barely pulling in 5000 mnai per turn while having trade agreements all over the place. In EB I, I would be pulling in 10-20k and have a nice economy going by turn 50-75.

5) Peragmon seems overpowered for its size. I was able to take almost all of anatolia within 75 turns and my revenues are between 10-30k per turn depending on how many armies I have going. That's the kind of economy Kart Hadast should have given its historical significance and position.

6) the AI is either too timid (the Seleucids and Egyptians let me take their cities in anatolia without a single counter-attack) or too hell-bent insane on destroying you (the Lustoann and new celtiberian faction for Kart-Hadast). I'm not sure if there's a way to rebalance this or if it's just hard-coded.

7) Diplomacy is still awful although people do actually ally with me. I'm thinking diplomacy is hardcoded and that's why we get the forced diplomacy mini-mod.

8) the cultures thing is confusing and so is the government types. I'm not sure what each will allow you to do (i.e. oligarchy vs. democracy) in terms of development of a city (unit recruitment seems fairly straightforward).

9) character traits are nerfy. My top general gets 2 stars after winning every single battle then gets fat and lazy and loses them five turns down the line. Again, I know there's a mod for this, but I wouldn't even know where to find the file to edit for this.

Now the good stuff:

All that aside, the mod is awesome.

For being the beta release, it's very polished.

Seems that a lot of the descriptions could be dropped from EB I directly into EB II, if that's possible.

The Indus cities look incredible and I'm very happy to see that elephants are actual tanks now as opposed to being death fodder and backfiring like in EB I.

The mining, industry, and farming income almost makes up for the nerfed trade if you can focus on those areas.

Not sure what the small towns are supposed to do (or if it's not implemented), but having static forts in territory adds some strategic depth as the AI likes to hole up in them after I take their cities.

The scripting for the Mauryan empire's punishment was brutal, but awesome. The only thing is that the stacks were way off in the Himalayas and striking at nothing then suddenly (with the same strike animation) attacking my cities. I was hosed since my army was in the field trying to engage the stacks in the alps.

All the new factions look very interesting and I'm looking forward to trying them out. I especially like the Bosphoran kingdom and Maessylia (though I imagine having to fight Kart Hadast with mostly skirmishers will be awful given their low kill ratio).

Thanks for the awesome mod. And thanks for EB I. I've logged more hours on that game than probably any five other games in my life combined.

[Ibrahim]

1) something is up with unit stats. I'm not sure if the numbers mean nothing or if they mean more or less what they meant in EB I, but they're off. For instance, the charge bonus on the Akkadian Infantry (mercenaries) is about 30, while for most cavalry units it's under 10.

the low charge bonus for some cavalry has to do with the way they use their spears (and it should be ~11, not under 10: add it to the attack, and you get the total charge). other cavalry have the higher charge bonus, and on top of that the ap and power_charge attribute.

as to the akkadians: that is on purpose, and you'll find it with almost every hoplite style army (I suspect you'll realize the intent there). might have to lower though if it proves too strong. let me know: This is still in the testing stage, and I do have a backup value in case it is too high (in this case, around 11).

2) archers and javelins are more or less useless now. In EB I they were a mainstay of my army, usually about 1/4 to 1/2 of the army (esp against lightly armored troops). In EB II, my archers can't even kill half a dozen unarmored enemies before running out of arrows.
3) lethality is a bit low. I like realism as much as the next person, but 90 minute battles are a bit much. I know there is a mod for that, but I don't know where to find the mod files (not mod savvy)

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...or-EB-2-0-0%29

yeah, I agree: it might have worked a bit too well in this department on the original settings

[Kολοσσός]

Love the game but it's highly unstable on my current rig. Will not play until patched. Strategic map is stable, but trying to enter a real time battle mode causes crashes to the desktop. The crash rate is like 50%, if not worse...

[Thoras]

The crash rate is like 50%, if not worse...

Not for me.

[Gneisenau]

hello to all .. due to work commitments, and sea, I have not had much time to play and I have not written just my opinion ...

your work was superb, extreme care in details, beautiful unit, beautiful animation, and it's really convincing way in which the new factions have integrated the balance of the campaign! one of the things that surprised me most was how the fact that the minor settlements provide 1 free upkeep unit, has revolutionized their strategic utility and roleplayng in the game

I played the first version of vanilla, 100 turns with saba, vh / vh,
then 80 turns with Pergamon, vh / vh, with the second version of the CAI, faster battles, and positive characters.

now I'm playing a Roman campaign, using the AI piter, the BAI, positive characters, fastest battle, but I've only played a few turns and a few battles.
# I will speak only of the campaign with Pergamon (the saba was less convincing)

do not take it as a wild critical to your work, but as a starting point to improve a game that I love, but I would love more;)

here's what I do not like:

1) economic management too easy
2) battles too easy (in clashes at par my losses are about one tenth of those of the enemy)
3) system of agents unnerving (for spies is impossible to enter enemy cities, and each round had to cope with two assassins attempts against my FM, from ptolemaics) edit. and each turn i kill the 2 assassins with mine!
4) enemy factions too passive
5) some units have an upkeep cost too high in relation to their effectiveness
6) morale too low

i also hope in future, in a chavalry charge a little more effective!!!

sorry for my english

PS no encountered ctd!

edit: i suggest, for increase the difficult and the realism (simulating the high cost of a war campaign), one script like in bellum crucis, that generate an another special upkeep cost for each army in enemy territory (600 mnai/turn), and one special upkeep for each army sieging (2000mnai/turn)

[joshmahurin]

Love the game but it's highly unstable on my current rig. Will not play until patched. Strategic map is stable, but trying to enter a real time battle mode causes crashes to the desktop. The crash rate is like 50%, if not worse...

This is not usual for most people, you should open a thread in the bug reports section so that we can try to help you figure out what is wrong. For your initial post I would try to make it crash again and then paste your log file into the post (your log file being in C:\(wherever you installed M2TW)\mods\EBII\logs\log.txt

[moriluk]

I like that you have not changed too many things, you have simply added more (even if the game is incomplete with reforms and other bells and whistles). You have fully captured the essence of the original game. I have only played about 100 turns with the British faction, I wanted to watch the AI unhindered by human distractions.

Here are some of my observations:

Benefactors always start off starving.

Even without a family tree, I do wish I could select/change faction heir at my leisure.

I do not think disbanding my armies puts them back in the population of the cities (this may be a me2 thing though)

Early British armies are very weak and population growth is slow. I am assuming I will get better troops at some point but it may take a while, and while this may stop me from unrealistically conquering an empire easily, I fear that AI controlled Briton will be easy to steamroll with a mainland army be it whatever faction (I have spied most of the worlds armies and they are all vastly superior thus far).

Many diplomats conglomerate at the English channel and walk back and forth as though they are trying to figure out how to get to Briton.

Briton seems to be missing one or two cities. Eremos is the region in south Ireland and also the uppermost part of the Briton and I can find no cities in either province with that name (I found only one city in Ireland).

Hayasdan makes more of an attempt to expand their homelands and expand south, unlike eb1 where they blitz north.

There are ample naval invasions. Carthage has made two into Spain but both times could not pull off long term occupation. Rome has set up a base of operation in Thermon. Saba invaded Axum. I wonder too, if someday someone decides to invade the little paradise up north.

I am hoping, if it is possible, we can see a return of the Isle of Darkness training. Also, most of the unique buildings in Briton offer no bonuses (at least not in description). I would also love to see the return of unique troops for Ireland and the various regions of Briton.

I am still getting used to ME2 battles. I think the troops sometimes respond slowly and the battles are very long. I have appreciated the faster battles mod. Also (and this is more of an ME2 problem) I am sad I may have to bring back the ugly green arrows for in rtw games your troops still light up when you select them and here they do not making it difficult to understand what is going on, especially at the center of town.

I love that every province has a write up.

I am still ignorant of all the nuances of recruiting but I feel like there will be less spamming and perhaps a deeper campaign can be enjoyed.

I am watching Rome's legions and while I still see some armies of randomly selected troops, I am seeing a decent amount of armies that, to some degree, can pass as a roman legion (this may be to the different recruitment system which I am thinking may be superior). Same goes for Makedonia and Epeiros whom both (along with Rome) were guilty of putting up some very unrealistic/historically inaccurate armies in EB1. This should lead to better battles.

I have only had one CTD and that was on the faction screen menu. I had my game freeze once during end turn, I went back one turn, it happened again, then I went back a few more turns and it did not happen again. The only other times I had problems with when I alt/tab (windowed mode does not always seem to work).

It would have been easy for me to be disappointed as I was never a big fan of ME2 (always felt like a clunky version of rtw with better graphics) and my excitement of this release has somewhat subsided the last few years. I am not disappointed. Thanks.

So now I am wondering if you have worked out a preliminary release date for EB3? I hear Khelvan is currently dismantling Rome 2 as we speak. Just kidding.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

The Eremos region is a "wasteland" region that incorporates parts of the map that are either uninhabited/very sparsely populated, ungovernable, or of very Little importance during our timeframe. Thus, apart from parts of Ireland and Caledonia, this also includes the Arabian and Saharan deserts, the Horn of Africa and Finland/Scandinavian inland. The capital of the province is Therazza, which is imposible to reach, and located deep in the Saharan desert.

The crash on the faction selection screen is a known M2TW bug, that occur in most mods that have many factions and a dynamic map on the faction selection screen. It occurs if one clicks too many faction Icons in one session. It can be avoided by going back to the main menue within regular intervals in looking at the factions. This bug should really be in the "known bugs" section, @Kull, if it is not already there, due to its pervasive nature.

[adishee]

So now I am wondering if you have worked out a preliminary release date for EB3? I hear Khelvan is currently dismantling Rome 2 as we speak. Just kidding.

[Kull]

The crash on the faction selection screen is a known M2TW bug, that occur in most mods that have many factions and a dynamic map on the faction selection screen. It occurs if one clicks too many faction Icons in one session. It can be avoided by going back to the main menue within regular intervals in looking at the factions. This bug should really be in the "known bugs" section, @Kull, if it is not already there, due to its pervasive nature.

Item #14. Added it yesterday!

[Docus]

I would have posted my impressions of EB2 earlier, but I've only just gotten around to finally playing the beloved mod I waited so long for. Let me start by offering my thanks and congratulations to the EB2 team for their fantastic work. EB was, for me, was one of those few gaming experience that actually shaped me as a person growing up. Thanks to EB I acquired my taste for the wonderful world of history - a hobby and passion that has enriched more than just my vacations; it gives me unique perspective on modern life that most people don't experience. EB2 shows amazing promise to be just as brilliant as its prequel. In this post I'll limit my feedback to ONLY the stuff that I feel I've tested/played enough in order to critique, which is mostly the battles on the battle map. Alright, on to the game!

version:
- current EB2 release
- graphics enhancement mod installed
- improved CAI
- improved BAI

The first part of the gameplay I noticed was the slow pacing. I love this for the simple fact that it gives the player time to devise and execute thought-through tactical manoeuvres, instead of the manic 3 minute victories of vanilla M2TW. The pacing makes it much more enjoyable to play in generalcam, which has been my preferred way of playing EB2 so far. In depth tactical decision making, maximum immersion, nail biting 45 minute long battles. Many people are calling out to speed up the killrate. In this post I'd like to come out as a SUPPORTER of the current battle pacing, due to the reasons listed in this paragraph. Please don't speed it up (too much)!

In the graphics department, all I can say is gosh, wow! My jaw dropped to the floor when I first laid eyes on the beautiful units and buildings. The graphics really make the battles come alive, they suck you in to the gameplay experience and make you forget that you're playing a computer game. Whoever designed these models and textures really did a fantastic job.

About the AI: I'm an enthusiastic role-player when it comes to Total War games. I always try my hardest to avoid gamey techniques that maximize the kill/death ratio and play silly tricks on the AI. The battle AI seems to have gotten a lot harder to outsmart compared to vanilla M2TW and RTW. It uses good formations, logically defends walls and generally doesn't bug out as much. Realistic enemy behaviour makes it a lot easier to get a good roleplay going.

The AI behaviour of the units themselves seems to be bugged, however. The unit behaviour of skirmishers and cavalry is plagued by some very annoying quirks. Skirmishers often refuse to throw their javelins, and require constant player intervention to 'correct' buggy behaviour. Also, horsemen charges look awful: when charging an enemy, the whole unit suddenly stops in its tracks right when it reaches the enemy line instead of penetrating a couple of ranks. This behaviour was part of the original game but seems to have gotten worse in EB2.

And lastly, I'd like to say something about balance. Allow me to state that I am NOT one of those 'eternal complainers' who constantly complain on the internet about units being too weak/overpowered. I never blame the video game when I lose. Developers think very consciously about the roles each unit is designed to fill, and certain units being stronger than others is just part of their vision of how they see their own game. I try to respect that and play the game how the devs meant for it to be played. I know that good balancing is always hard to achieve on first release. But in this game, skirmishers and horse archers are so weak as to be entirely useless on the battlefield. Tactically relying on skirmishers is impossible because their arrows/bullets/javelins simply don't cause enough damage to the enemy. I sincerely hope future releases will take care of this imbalance. Please keep in mind that it doesn't come easy for me to complain about stuff 'being OP/nerfed' on the internet; this is literally the first time in my life I've ever complained about stuff like this in a forum post.

In closing, thanks again for the wonderful work on this mod. It has all the promise to have all the qualities EB had and more, not least being the amazing graphics and improved AI. I haven't had the timer to really get into the strategic campaign side of things, but it's definitely on the menu. Also, this is just down to me and my PC setup but EB2 seems much more stable now than EB1 ever was. Don't even have to wait 30 seconds after a battle to go back to the campaign map, which is GREAT! The only issue I've had was the shared.txt bug, which was easily solved.

[Candiano]

This is just amazing. What a good job !! It's simply great and I must confess that I switched from Rome II to EB II without any regret at all. I'm using the disc installation (Steam sucks) and it's working fine and fast except that I have to use Kingdoms. The system refuses MTWII. Not a big deal. I'm playing a campaign for a day now and it works perfectly. However it's impossible to play the tutorial. The screen freezes. And also, giving One Point experience to ships equipped with canons might not be a good idea :-)
Again, congratulations and thank you

[Ludens]

Glad to hear that you are enjoying EB2.

Docus: there is a partial fix for the skirmisher problems. You can find it in this thread.

Candiano: actually, there is no tutorial. The team just forgot to remove the tutorial from the menu, hence the crash . And what do you mean with "ships with canons"?

[Nightshift]

Me again. Installed on a much older PC but WinXP and had not a single crash now in my Sweboz campaign after 150 turns. Even Alt-Tabbing diddn't cause much problems (in fullscreen) except ones when pics and colors got messed up. Took me almost 100 turns to understand the camp vs town thing not because I didn't read in game texts but because I thought of them beeing placeholders, the nomad buildings I mean.

After that I could imagine how my tribal society was settling and transforming, but before I guess I was irritated by descriptions like for caravan routes which were depicting steppe plains. Thats why I thought they were more like beeing missplaced. Hope this makes sense?!

I was a bit afraid after conquering what I would call my good starting position, because I thought the campaign could become too easy. But when I realised what needed to be done and build for a good economy I thought of raiding some towns for money. So I send out spys to get a better idea of what was going on around me. Well from that point on I was kind of overwhelmed with everything going on and didn't know what to do first - which is the best thing ever happened to me in a TW-game.

The Boii capital I wanted to raid was allready taken by my Lugioni allies, Roman armys were allready patrolling north of the alps, the gallo-celtics were closing in on my western border.. I had slept in my dark forests for too long.
Turned my raiding party to the last very big settlement controlled by rebells which bribed them away from me after a short siege. (Its now a stronghold defended by 2 full army stacks and samller patrols good buffer though )
Build another one to raid Britain wich was cut off after landing there by a pirate fleet. Now british troops are coming after me with their gallic allies, familly members are beeing assasinated, a plague decimated half of my capitals population and every turn I have to carefully think about wether to raise more troops or finally transform that gouvernment so that I don't need to be afraid of rebellions in my backyard..

Ok before this turns into an AAR, just wanted to tell how much I like it. Again pace of battle is just right for me except lethality for javelins and archers, wich makes some of the factions unplayable for me like: Numidieans, Sauromatae and Saka and Saaba so every faction that relies heavily on them. (don't have too much problems with skirmishers not throwing spears-just that they don't kill anything)

Again thx so much for this gem, looking forward for first patch allready ;) keep up the good work!

[Cybvep]

I'm using the more aggressive campaign AI, the skirmisher fix and a custom kill ratio (the middle ground between the unofficial fix and the mod's vanilla settings) and I'm enjoying the mod immensely. It's surprisingly stable for the first release - I've had no CTDs during the first ~55 turns in my Romani game so far. The mod is also very immersive, just as EBI was. The AI is better than in RTW, but obviously it needs some work and I'm sure that it will become better in the future.
Some battle balancing is needed, too. With the kill ratio change and the skirmisher fix the projectiles are ok-ish, but cavalry charges are extremely weak in terms of casualties they inflict, even when the enemy is charged from behind. The morale effect is just right, though :). The elephant units needs a buff, too. It's good that they are easy to kill by skirmishers, but they just don't have enough of a punch when they trample the soldiers, which shouldn't be the case. Also, while I'm glad that the phalangites are no longer invulnerable when they are attacked from the front, I think that the damage they inflict is too low.
I autocalc most sieges, because IMO they take too much time, involve annoying pathfinding issues and are rather boring, but it's typical for TW games, so nothing new here and not really the mod's fault. The good thing about this is that the game becomes a bit more challenging, because the casualties are usually higher in the autocalced battles than in the manually played ones, although sometimes I use the auto_win command when the garrison is pathetically weak and the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

The mod was well worth the wait :). Cheers.

EDIT: BTW, I think that the number of movement points on the campaign map should be a little bit higher. It takes too long to move units and leaders around, which is both annoying and unrealistic, considering that 1 turn is 3 months. I understand that fully accurate values could be very unbalancing due to the turn-based nature of the game and the AI's response time, but still, current values are too low IMO.

[Nightshift]

Could you please explain where to change kill ratio if possible for javelins and arrows because I could only find accuracy and range numbers, it's the first time I'm actually looking into these files.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Ok took a look into the descr_projectile and a tutorial I found: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Projectile-txt

What I dont understand is why there are two values for accuracy:
;accuracy_vs_units 0.035
accuracy_vs_units 0.09

and wich value actually increases kill ratio? Also how are things regarding beeing shot in the back or beeing hit from right side as opposed to left side if target yields a shield?

If someone could provide a quick fix for arrows and javelins I'd appreciate a lot!

P.s. Are there certain special archer units that have composite bows - I mean not really but coresponding to this file just have better bows? And how does it relate to the ingame description of missile attack beeing 2 or 3?

[Cybvep]

I changed the same file which was changed here - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...or-EB-2-0-0%29 . I'm using 0.29 for melee and 0.33 for missiles.

[Nightshift]

Great thx alot will try changing missiles only as I like melee the way it is. I suppose javelins and arrows are handled both under missiles here.

Totally different question: Would it be possible to delay the question for a backup heir for a couple or at least one turn? As I dont know right at the start wich would be the best candidate (usually better traits go along a higher age and other factors).

Anyway thx for the battle_config solution! Will try around a bit and start a new campaign with one of the factions I had to neglect before!

P.S. Do you have the 0.33 value for infantry, cavalry and elephants or are you using different values for each?

[Cybvep]

I'm using 0.4 for elephants, because they have a higher value in the vanilla version of the mod, too, so I guess there is a reason for that.