LusitanianWolf
05-03-2011, 21:27
Introdution (skip this is you want to waste less time)
I still remember the first time I had contact with RTW (and TW series). I was completely atonished at watching hundreds of greeks soldiers screaming battlecries while preparing to assault the HUGE walls of a HUGE city with equaly HUGE siege towers. This was 7 years ago and since then I've never stopped playing TW games for a long time (specialy after I found EB). In the first times I realy loved sieges, specialy winning them with exploiting tactics like the famous phalanx "noob box" in the square or in wall unrepaired gaps or, in BI never upgrading stone walls from large so I could defend my cities from large armies with just 2 or 3 lombard archers as guarrison.... But, after some time, siege battles get a little boring, specialy because they are the ones that realy matter (no mater how many heroic victories you win if you cant siege their cities). So, I remember some of my latest vanilla games, using The Greek Cities and bribing everything so I never had to do sieges and other boring battles. :laugh4:
With EB, things aren´t so simple. Not only is much harder to bribe or autoresolve as we also have realism to think about.
And, I think it has already been discussed, "Siege Total War" is neither fun, neither very realistic, especialy because the AI will never starve and allways procede into assault and boring (and somewhat unrealistic) siege battles while field battles wont hurt much because of the money script, specialy in big empires (in EB2 this may change a little due to limited unit pools, but still).... I almost never play with eastern factions because of the endless AS spamming, no matter how many stacks you crush.
Before Flamming
Well, this is surelly not a main concern since there is much to be done (and I unfortunly cant help much, I even tryed moding and skining but wasnt tallented enought neither I do have enought time atm) but since EB aims for perfection (at least while the engine allows it) there's no harm in give sugestions, even if the team don't have time to it now, if the idea seems interesting, it could be done later, or even applied as a unofficial mod to EB1 by someone out of the team with the enought skills and interest...
I dont know much of scripting and have no idea if this would work, just sugesting.
SUGESTION
While answering to the "What are the main things you want to see fixed from EB1 in EB2???" topic I wrote this:
-> Less Siege Total War ( I gess that's impossible due to engine )
- > Field Battles more relevant to campain development (unit replenishment rates will help but if possible, a script that decreases happiness from losing side settlements making some rebel would make them much more interesting. Romans didnt need to siege the whole seleucid empire to disrupt it, same for Alexander's conquests, but again don't know if that is possible ). Spoils of war should also help (some cash bonus to represent at least taking weapons from dead enemies and suply apropriating).
And have been thinking since then how this could be applied. And then I remembered that the EB script produces government buildings because of the AI not building them (am I wrong)?
So, could be possible to link a script to heroic victories/crushing defeats to create buildings in the faction settlements and traits in the non envolved family members? Probably the answer is NO and you can leave this topic but at least I tried, lol
BUT, if that is possible, my idea was a script that, when a Heroic Victory/Crushing Defeat happens would create/destroy buildings (just like the government ones) that would increase/decrease settlements happiness (making the less loyal ones to rebel) and drasticly the cost to bribe (so that bribing would be possible/impossible, the AI tries to bribe many times at least in RTW) and traits in less loyal family members that reduce/increase loyalty and personal security).
So, when you win a Heroic Victory, you could expect your enemy to be greatly damaged with some of their settlements being perceptive to rebelion or bribing while your own ones would be less, BUT, if you have a Crushing Defeat, BE AFRAID, cause it'll hurt you seriously!
So, if that works, it should make field battles much more decisive and Agents and happiness buildings much more usefull, while reducing the need of siege battles)!
Some possible issues I can think of
1 - That would make Blittzing very easy for the player and big empires!
Well, it will BUT settlements and family members captured this way should remain very unstable for some turns so they will be very vulnerable. You will be able to conquer large masses of land, but keeping them is another issue, you'll have some difficult turns where you'll need to effectivly protect the new adquiring lands and build up infraestrutures quickly.
2 - That would make small factions very vulnerable!
The core settlements (with govenment 1 or 2) and FMs of each faction should be much less affected by this (unique buildings/bonus giving bonus to happiness and loyalty to the original faction). In the other way, border territories and mercenary FMs would be much more vulnerable.
3 - That would make the game much harder to the not so inteligent AI
Ofc the bonus to the AI should be greater than the players (that should also have to deal with heavier penalties) just like the normal EB script. The player should have to act strategicaly while the AI would as allways need some script help and luck XD
4 - Some people won't like the idea/this will make the game very heavy and slow
It could be an optional script/unoficial mod ;) So if you want siege total war or a more stable campain don't install/activate it.
5 - That will take lots of time and the team has other priorities (if you want to see EB2 in your lifetime).
Of course I'm not telling to anyone do this now, lol! I want to get my hands on a working EB2 as soon as possible, and I've being following it since this forum was made (as a invisible lazy lurker, mostly)! I'm just giving an idea hoping that some day someone with enought skills and spare time may give this a try or at least some thoughts
This, of course if it's by any means possible and if there are people that share my point of view on "siege total war". I'm ready to accept a single "NO" as an answer (I've seen Team members do it before :laugh4:). But at least would be nice to see some feedback on this matter since this would possibly solve two of the things I most hate in RTW - Sieges all the time and fighting endless stacks.
And ofc, thanks for reading, I hope it wasnt wasted time (especialy the precious EB Team time, if my idea sucks just warn so they can spend their time in more produtive matters). :yes:
I still remember the first time I had contact with RTW (and TW series). I was completely atonished at watching hundreds of greeks soldiers screaming battlecries while preparing to assault the HUGE walls of a HUGE city with equaly HUGE siege towers. This was 7 years ago and since then I've never stopped playing TW games for a long time (specialy after I found EB). In the first times I realy loved sieges, specialy winning them with exploiting tactics like the famous phalanx "noob box" in the square or in wall unrepaired gaps or, in BI never upgrading stone walls from large so I could defend my cities from large armies with just 2 or 3 lombard archers as guarrison.... But, after some time, siege battles get a little boring, specialy because they are the ones that realy matter (no mater how many heroic victories you win if you cant siege their cities). So, I remember some of my latest vanilla games, using The Greek Cities and bribing everything so I never had to do sieges and other boring battles. :laugh4:
With EB, things aren´t so simple. Not only is much harder to bribe or autoresolve as we also have realism to think about.
And, I think it has already been discussed, "Siege Total War" is neither fun, neither very realistic, especialy because the AI will never starve and allways procede into assault and boring (and somewhat unrealistic) siege battles while field battles wont hurt much because of the money script, specialy in big empires (in EB2 this may change a little due to limited unit pools, but still).... I almost never play with eastern factions because of the endless AS spamming, no matter how many stacks you crush.
Before Flamming
Well, this is surelly not a main concern since there is much to be done (and I unfortunly cant help much, I even tryed moding and skining but wasnt tallented enought neither I do have enought time atm) but since EB aims for perfection (at least while the engine allows it) there's no harm in give sugestions, even if the team don't have time to it now, if the idea seems interesting, it could be done later, or even applied as a unofficial mod to EB1 by someone out of the team with the enought skills and interest...
I dont know much of scripting and have no idea if this would work, just sugesting.
SUGESTION
While answering to the "What are the main things you want to see fixed from EB1 in EB2???" topic I wrote this:
-> Less Siege Total War ( I gess that's impossible due to engine )
- > Field Battles more relevant to campain development (unit replenishment rates will help but if possible, a script that decreases happiness from losing side settlements making some rebel would make them much more interesting. Romans didnt need to siege the whole seleucid empire to disrupt it, same for Alexander's conquests, but again don't know if that is possible ). Spoils of war should also help (some cash bonus to represent at least taking weapons from dead enemies and suply apropriating).
And have been thinking since then how this could be applied. And then I remembered that the EB script produces government buildings because of the AI not building them (am I wrong)?
So, could be possible to link a script to heroic victories/crushing defeats to create buildings in the faction settlements and traits in the non envolved family members? Probably the answer is NO and you can leave this topic but at least I tried, lol
BUT, if that is possible, my idea was a script that, when a Heroic Victory/Crushing Defeat happens would create/destroy buildings (just like the government ones) that would increase/decrease settlements happiness (making the less loyal ones to rebel) and drasticly the cost to bribe (so that bribing would be possible/impossible, the AI tries to bribe many times at least in RTW) and traits in less loyal family members that reduce/increase loyalty and personal security).
So, when you win a Heroic Victory, you could expect your enemy to be greatly damaged with some of their settlements being perceptive to rebelion or bribing while your own ones would be less, BUT, if you have a Crushing Defeat, BE AFRAID, cause it'll hurt you seriously!
So, if that works, it should make field battles much more decisive and Agents and happiness buildings much more usefull, while reducing the need of siege battles)!
Some possible issues I can think of
1 - That would make Blittzing very easy for the player and big empires!
Well, it will BUT settlements and family members captured this way should remain very unstable for some turns so they will be very vulnerable. You will be able to conquer large masses of land, but keeping them is another issue, you'll have some difficult turns where you'll need to effectivly protect the new adquiring lands and build up infraestrutures quickly.
2 - That would make small factions very vulnerable!
The core settlements (with govenment 1 or 2) and FMs of each faction should be much less affected by this (unique buildings/bonus giving bonus to happiness and loyalty to the original faction). In the other way, border territories and mercenary FMs would be much more vulnerable.
3 - That would make the game much harder to the not so inteligent AI
Ofc the bonus to the AI should be greater than the players (that should also have to deal with heavier penalties) just like the normal EB script. The player should have to act strategicaly while the AI would as allways need some script help and luck XD
4 - Some people won't like the idea/this will make the game very heavy and slow
It could be an optional script/unoficial mod ;) So if you want siege total war or a more stable campain don't install/activate it.
5 - That will take lots of time and the team has other priorities (if you want to see EB2 in your lifetime).
Of course I'm not telling to anyone do this now, lol! I want to get my hands on a working EB2 as soon as possible, and I've being following it since this forum was made (as a invisible lazy lurker, mostly)! I'm just giving an idea hoping that some day someone with enought skills and spare time may give this a try or at least some thoughts
This, of course if it's by any means possible and if there are people that share my point of view on "siege total war". I'm ready to accept a single "NO" as an answer (I've seen Team members do it before :laugh4:). But at least would be nice to see some feedback on this matter since this would possibly solve two of the things I most hate in RTW - Sieges all the time and fighting endless stacks.
And ofc, thanks for reading, I hope it wasnt wasted time (especialy the precious EB Team time, if my idea sucks just warn so they can spend their time in more produtive matters). :yes: