How To Improve EB

[Space_Ed]

They did this on the original Shogun Total War game and it was a much better game for it...

Aswell as having the game start at 272BC I think the game would be much improved if you could start at different points. I think I read somewhere on the forum that someone had done something similar. If someone has already done it I think that if the saves are good enough they should be incorporated into the game proper.

I'd love to do some Roman arse kicking with Parthians but it just ain't gonna happen with the AI. Not unless you're lucky. Yeah so just like the normal game where you can choose factions in the same manner from the start wall etc etc but the added extra of starting at, say, 250BC, 200BC, 150BC, 100BC, 50BC, 0AD aswell as 272BC.

Those were just dates off the top of my head. I'm sure historically significant years would be good. Such as when Hannibal was about to set off on his alpine adventure.

So if anyone knows of anything like this please could I have a link to the download? And like I said before, if this hasn't been done already, it would make the game even better and give the player even more options. It really would kick ass if it was done well by the amazing folks who work on this fantastic game.

(Please don't suggest I do it. It is far too much of a learning curve + time and effort when I'm already studying pharmaceutical chemistry for a degree with Italian along with it. Cheers folks. Otherwise I'd happily geek myself up for hours and hours doing it.)

[Space_Ed]

Forgot to add that at later dates some factions could be replaced. There could be a teutonic set-up for example. This could definately be done as some factions, e.g. Carthage, would be wiped out by that year.

[||Lz3||]

that would be soo awesome... and as far as I know is posible

[Foot]

The hours involved in researching a start date makes the making of multiple start dates impossible for the EB team to achieve. If we did you wouldn't see EBII at all.

Foot

[Celtic_Punk]

hmmm you do have a pretty good idea. They might be doing this with EBII but i doubt this will be done with EBI...

by the way... i hope your not going to get yourself hired on by the evil pharmaceutical companies. They are worse than street pushers.

[||Lz3||]

The hours involved in researching a start date makes the making of multiple start dates impossible for the EB team to achieve. If we did you wouldn't see EBII at all.

Foot

I'm sure that you have seen this right
http://www.worldhistorymaps.info/

if not for EB1, what about EB2? multiple start dates for EB2

[Space_Ed]

LOL I'm not sure yet. I might end up working in research which definately isn't evil. It's the sales and marketing departments of the drugs companies that are the evil ones. Regardless I shouldn't have anything to do with that side of it and so should hopefully be able to keep a clean conscience.... :D

(To Foot) Ah thats a shame, it would be so awesome. They gonna do it for EB2? That would be aaaammmmaaaazzziiiinnnnngggggggg

[Foot]

Do you want to see EBII? There is no way we can do it with multiple start dates, I'm sorry. The Late Period Project was an attempt but died without ever being properly released.

Foot

[Space_Ed]

Eh well if you can't you can't. I'm sure it is enough trouble as it is. Maybe the idea could be kept for later versions of EB2? Perhaps when everything is up and running properly and theres a good functioning game then perhaps the later dates could be added... You know like when EB2 is at the equvalent stage to where EB1 is now. Basically a bug-free masterpiece.

[Aemilius Paulus]

How to Improve EB?!?

I quite honestly don't think you could do so, especially when you consider all of those hardcoded limits (culture limit, unit limit, province limit, etc; faction limit - not a problem with M2TW/EB II is it?) If anything, EB II, on my opinion, would be simply giving slightly better graphics to EB and a couple of more factions, but less units (more factions-less units due to the 500 unit limit) and for some reason, I just do not get the same good old RTW/EB feeling when I look at the EB II skins, I mean they just look so, well, Medieval!

EB I is my absolute favorite computer game. I have played it longer than any other game I have ever tried. From what I have seen, the sequel is almost always worse than the original, especially since the EB sequel is going to be on the exact same topic. It would be difficult to recreate a masterpiece like EB I.

I wish the EB team could make something like EB, but with the M2TW engine and during Medieval times, but I know that the historians that make up the EB team are not Medieval historians and therefore it is impossible. M2TW doesn't really have any good mods, especially mods that have strong team working on them as well as strong support. However, EB II sounds too much like a simple repeat. I am looking forward to Asia ton Barbaron very much and I do wish the EB team would shift their efforts there and make EB II a secondary project. Asia ton Barbaron is something new and fresh. However, once again, most of the EB historians do not specialize in Far Eastern (India, China) History, do they?

[craziii]

why come into a mod forum and demand a feature? if you want it that badly, mod it up your self. I for one wants eb2 on m2tw engine + geting rid of the script!

I would like my 5 second AI turns!

[Aemilius Paulus]

why come into a mod forum and demand a feature? if you want it that badly, mod it up your self. I for one wants eb2 on m2tw engine + geting rid of the script!

I would like my 5 second AI turns!

If you were talking to me, then don't get me wrong. I am not demanding anything, just suggesting or expressing my opinion if you will. By no means am I trying to get the EB team to do as I have said. Simply an opinion, that's all.

[Apgad]

How about a savegame file exchange?

You say what you're looking for (faction, time period, general world conditions) and if someone has a game that's close to that they post the savegame file.

Or people post files at an "interesting" point of their campaign, and provide a brief description of where it's at.

It could be a bit like personals...
Fun-loving 100BC Marian Romani (NS SD) seeks reformed Sweboz for some heavy infantry action in forests, vtcd.

[Nachtmeister]

Hmm, this may be a bit off topic regarding previous posts but it fits the thread title (for those, if any, who like the idea, anyway):
I noticed that the "Emporiai" building (trade colony) apart from other benefits "redirects" some of the city's population; in game this is so far done by subtracting a percentage of the population growth.
Effectively, that population just goes - nowhere in particular.
In most of my campaigns, at some point or another I begin relocating population from overcrowded cities to under-developed cities with all buildings available at current level constructed by mass recruiting large size cheap levies and moving them to the under-developed city to be disbanded there.
an interesting feature for the trade or military settler colonies or whatever they are called for different factions would be the ability to set a destination for the population, actually having the .5% population have an effect on the game - just not where they are generated but where the player specifies, KH-example: relocate from Rhodos (which has far more population than it needs and still keeps growing) to Sparte, Chalkis or Thermon (which all are out of new buildings fast and need to grow but don't do this fast enough for continuous construction to take place even with low tax rates and maxed civic structures, especially Chalkis). I would argue that this could be seen as historically "feasible" as Megas Alexandros did this in the later stages of his campaigns in persia; not only did he settle his veterans and greek mercenaries there but he also called in civilians from Hellas proper iirc (albeit mostly with the intention to be able to recruit fresh forces from their number as they were trained in the traditional hellenic ways of warfare which he wished to establish also in Asia).
Read this in "Nicholas Hammond - Alexander the great" (german translated edition).
Is it possible with RTW? Does anyone approve of the concept?

And then, the culture-penalty thing: Is it possible to actually have it not apply so much to the "builder faction" of certain buildings in a city but to the actual population (ethnicities in city populations) and, if majorities change (emporiai in athens and rhodos both placed in - say - Syria (Antiocheia) and local granaries destroyed or city sacked upon conquest; thus gradually culture "penalty" decreases and suddenly you no longer have a "Choma Kapelikon (eastern Greek)" but a "Choma Kapelikon" with the "western" graphics?
-Ok probably not due to engine limits but not knowing for sure I thought it would be nice to have.
Conquering Rome after it has become a "huge city" and being stuck with the culture penalty *sucks*... Especially if I burned and pillaged it. Same goes for any other place. And getting your public order up would at the same time be somewhat more realistically complex than reaching a certain population size and just building a new palace.
If not possible - then maybe changing governor's housings like governments? Or replacing both by governments with several (buildable) stages of development (Spartan Agoge Klerouchy lvl1, 2, 3, ..., 5); city description on campaign map solely derived from actual population present (that way, cities could also "shrink"?

Oh and some Greek English unit names - "HellenISTic Mercenary General" among some others: I believe it should be just "Hellenic" without the "-ist-" in between; no doubt most Hellenes of the time were proud of being Hellenes and could thus also be called hellenistic, but the unit name rather describes the cultural group, not the ideology of the unit...? The term "Hellenism" as I learned it was coined some time after the advent of gunpowder when people like Goethe started romanticising the ancient Greeks as *the* "perfect (nudist) society"... Minor thing of course, and maybe I am not exactly correct about this. Sorry about nagging with it if I'm in the wrong here. :sweatdrop:

[bovi]

I'm afraid that all you propose is impossible on the RTW engine.

[Foot]

Hellenistic is not used as a direct translation but is used to describe the differences between the old world hellenes and the new world hellenes. This was, after all, the hellenistic era, after the age of Alexander. The greek title is what they would call themselves, the english title is a loose translation to help the player classify them.

Foot

[Nachtmeister]

Thank you for the quick update, bovi and Foot.
Probably my proposals would have uprooted the game experience somewhat and made it less fun for
others anyway.
Something to try by self after completing the "informatik" courses. If time ever permits it.

[Space_Ed]

How about a savegame file exchange?

You say what you're looking for (faction, time period, general world conditions) and if someone has a game that's close to that they post the savegame file.

Or people post files at an "interesting" point of their campaign, and provide a brief description of where it's at.

It could be a bit like personals...
Fun-loving 100BC Marian Romani (NS SD) seeks reformed Sweboz for some heavy infantry action in forests, vtcd.

Thats actually a pretty good idea.

[keravnos]

How to Improve EB?!?

I quite honestly don't think you could do so, especially when you consider all of those hardcoded limits (culture limit, unit limit, province limit, etc; faction limit - not a problem with M2TW/EB II is it?) If anything, EB II, on my opinion, would be simply giving slightly better graphics to EB and a couple of more factions, but less units (more factions-less units due to the 500 unit limit) and for some reason, I just do not get the same good old RTW/EB feeling when I look at the EB II skins, I mean they just look so, well, Medieval!

EB I is my absolute favorite computer game. I have played it longer than any other game I have ever tried. From what I have seen, the sequel is almost always worse than the original, especially since the EB sequel is going to be on the exact same topic. It would be difficult to recreate a masterpiece like EB I.

I wish the EB team could make something like EB, but with the M2TW engine and during Medieval times, but I know that the historians that make up the EB team are not Medieval historians and therefore it is impossible. M2TW doesn't really have any good mods, especially mods that have strong team working on them as well as strong support. However, EB II sounds too much like a simple repeat. I am looking forward to Asia ton Barbaron very much and I do wish the EB team would shift their efforts there and make EB II a secondary project. Asia ton Barbaron is something new and fresh. However, once again, most of the EB historians do not specialize in Far Eastern (India, China) History, do they?

EB2 will be A LOT better than EB1. It will take time, but it will be.
Now, so far as how good or not EB1 is, well, thank you for your kind words.

[Col.Kurtz]

How about a savegame file exchange?

You say what you're looking for (faction, time period, general world conditions) and if someone has a game that's close to that they post the savegame file.

Or people post files at an "interesting" point of their campaign, and provide a brief description of where it's at.

It could be a bit like personals...
Fun-loving 100BC Marian Romani (NS SD) seeks reformed Sweboz for some heavy infantry action in forests, vtcd.


This really is a good idea - 75 percent of the times I disband a campaign is because I'm just not pleased with the AI sides developement!!

Why don't start such a sticky or whatever ?

[Skandinav]

Such a thread already exists, go here for EB 1.1 :

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=102489

[Apgad]

Great! Can that be stickied?