View Full Version : How good is EB?!
edyzmedieval
12-27-2005, 23:24
Eh, we waited very much for this mod.
How good is it?!
Taliferno
12-27-2005, 23:37
So good I'd sell my grandma for it.
Taliferno
12-27-2005, 23:37
*Double post sorry*
I'd say that this mod does for RTW what butter does for bread... It's absolutely wonderful... And i can only imagine what the finished product would be like... I remember when my honeymoon period with RTW wore off about 2 months after playing it... I started to jot down all the things i would do to it if i knew how, to make it my perfect strategy game... And EB has done everything i jotted down on that list and more... The unit skins are great, the cost of units i find is great, although some may disagree... Defeating a large enemy army now actually has an impact on your enemy... It will be a good few turns before he can raise another one as large as the last, and the same goes for you...
I also think the high cost and build time of buildings is wonderful... This coupled with the high cost of units means that it will be a long long time before you have money to burn, and even then it will be only a small surplus of money... Not the 2 million denarii you had spare in vanilla campaigns... Also losing a city actually matters now... You will put a lot of time and money into developing a city and it's population... To lose it then would be a blow... If not to your economy then simply because of the time and effort you put into building it up...
Generals traits are so much better than in vanilla and other mods it really is unbelievable... It's like you can get to know the character... All the personal information in his trait list and on some characters even a history of what they really did in the Roman empire in the time they existed... You can't just send any old family member to command an army... In vanilla you could simply find a family member, command stars or no command stars, stick him in an army and conquer 5 cities one after the other, retraining all your best soldiers as you go... Putting a crappy no command stars general in an army in the EB mod will likely have disasterous consequences, as i found out earlier when i lost 3 quarters of an army trying to take a city from some smelly barbarian rebels, some of who weren't even wearing underwear!
Navies... By god they're expensive and time consuming to build and upkeep, but just like armies and cities, a 'naval army' is now a valuable piece on the chess board...
I could go on i suppose but i only came here to post a basic error i had found in the game... And now i'm going to go back to conquering... :gring:
ScionTheWorm
12-28-2005, 01:45
I've played on Very Hard/Very Hard with Casse and Getai now, and it has only been a world of hurt coming my way. :hide:
Massive agressive armies quickly forced me to find another way to play than the rtw/rtr agressive mode (which always worked before).
Reqruiting is so incredibly hard with the factions I've tried to play as. Actually I cannot imagine how to get established with any of these factions since their economy is going down. I just try to block the negative balance from my brain, and hope for a miracle.
and in addition, I feel like the AI is vastly improved. but that's probably just my imagination
awesome
Actually i feel that the AI is improved when i play... Especially in battles... Gone are the days (and mods) where you could win any battle and lose only one 7th of your army... If i fight against an enemy of similar numbers to mine then i take considerable casualties, sometimes so high that the army has to be brought back to the nearest capable city of retraining them... It's great fun i tell you, well worth the long wait.
Teleklos Archelaou
12-28-2005, 02:39
I'm wondering when folks will start posting about successful olympic competitors, about successfully breaking away from the Seleukids, about returning Alexandros' body to Pella, about successfully achieving triumphs, about having troubles maintaing good relations in Greece because of multiple factions continually breaking peace over Delphi or something else, about special traits they get for conquering a monument their ancestors had lost, about all these cool things that are hidden in here that folks still aren't even getting to yet!!!~D
infierno
12-28-2005, 02:58
yes AI is better, imo it looks like BI's AI (for me VERY GOOD)
BI's AI + better ai armys + better stats = perfect :)
anyway the load times are ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz and it were always fine with rtr and rtw...
how can i fix this? buy better PC or wait to the final release?
Teleklos Archelaou
12-28-2005, 03:02
I don't know that the load times will get faster. There are thousands of more lines of text added into various files - the huge amount of new text descriptions for buildings, units, and just about everything else just slows things down. All those new traits and the way they interact; the enormous scripts to get so many extra little things into the game; all of this stuff just slows things down some. It's a little slow for me, but I play with the -nm and -ne tags so I just pop over to mozilla while it's loading. And on the computer I'm currently using it flies by (but it's a pretty fast cpu).
I don't know that the load times will get faster. There are thousands of more lines of text added into various files - the huge amount of new text descriptions for buildings, units, and just about everything else just slows things down. All those new traits and the way they interact; the enormous scripts to get so many extra little things into the game; all of this stuff just slows things down some. It's a little slow for me, but I play with the -nm and -ne tags so I just pop over to mozilla while it's loading. And on the computer I'm currently using it flies by (but it's a pretty fast cpu).
What do the -nm and -ne tags do? And by popping over to mozilla, you mean the internet browser while the game loads?
Big_John
12-28-2005, 03:08
imo, it's pretty awesome so far! i have played a few hours. admittedly, i'm basically just paying for fun and not testing. i haven't run into any crashes yet, though. i saw a bug where unit portraits were not showing (just a white box where they should be) but it disappeared when i went to another city, and i wasn't able to duplicate it.
anyway, i started as the karthadastim. i didn't read the gameplay guide so things were a bit strange to begin with! let's just say that by 270bc i was ~130,000 mnai in debt. read the guide, and after much disbanding i was back in black by 260bc baby! ~D
very early in my game, i beat up on brigands mostly and sieged and took rhegion with relatively little effort. now i'm looking at expanding my african domain.. is this called an 'anti-barcid' approach? hanno was getting bored lepki and i thought i would have him sweep across northern africa and solidify my punic dominance in that region. ran into a little hitch named "eshmunamash" in kirtsan. killed the bastard, but now i have to wait for reinforcements before i continue my march to tingus.
the seige of kirtsan was probably the first "average victory" i've ever had. and i had the superior troops too! ~:eek:
loadtimes aren't that big a deal to me. maybe i don't have a beast pc (amd 2500+, ati 9800pro, 1 gig ram), so maybe i just don't mind these loadtimes. i've been playing a lot of civ4 recently (now that's some serious slowdown!), maybe that's desensitized me to loadtimes. also, i haven't played rtw in a long time.
anyway, it all looks freaking great so far. my generals get bored very quickly and i think they all have the "light sleeper" trait.. i hope they don't get stressed out. :rtwyes:
Teleklos Archelaou
12-28-2005, 03:11
What do the -nm and -ne tags do? And by popping over to mozilla, you mean the internet browser while the game loads?
They cut off the movies (which slows you down a bit) and make it where you can alt-tab over to other windows more easily (I believe). Yeah, I jump over to browse in between turns. makes it harder to catch when CTD's occur though :grin:
infierno
12-28-2005, 03:47
well i have a 1.7 512 ram 9600pro i think a gameboy could do bett... well no ;) but still is crap
i just realized that flank a unit and shot it by the back with skirmishers like velites has little impact... in large scale firing into the back an enemy unit engaged into melee with other of my troops kill like 2-3 guys per volley :/ at a range of 10 meters or less
i dont know but even the best phalanx troops enganged into melee cant handle a volley coming by the back...
the second thing is in a custom battle making a 1 unit of archers Vs 1 unit of archers; the enemy archers:
A) just melee me, they dont fire, just get closer to me under arrow rain
B) come closer to me, then fall back, then shot me 1 or 2 times, then rout
try the custom battle, use the default armys, and select the "desert" archers ( i dont know its name), they have long range and dress like desert ppl
test 2 or 3 battles and tell me
in the other hand, horse archers seems very clever
Teleklos Archelaou
12-28-2005, 03:57
In my list of things above that I'm looking forward to players enjoying the most I almost forgot to mention the ethnicities. Some folks have mentioned that they really like the traits, but keep an eye out on ethnicities (some factions don't have them yet but most do). Some are fairly simple, but some are very complex. They don't always force a character to be a certain type of guy, but they do increase chances for certain trait or tempermant acquisition.
They're just another one of the amazing things the trait team has gotten into the open beta already at this stage. :rtwyes:
This is the coolest mod ever! It is incredibly challenging. I am playing as Koinon Hellenon. I took Corinth by diplomacy and got a ceasefire with Macedon. A turn later a message popped up telling me to go to war with the Macedonians because they did something to Delphi. I actually lost a battle and now ultra-agressive Macedonian armies are attacking me and blockading my ports. This is so much fun. No CTDs yet, either.
Prior to my CTD, the Sweboz campaign was probably one of the most rewarding games I've played.
The battles see more intellgient too, I love how archers stay in loose formation, running about firing at your flanks.
Calvary, imo, is perfected. They are not too slow or weak (rtr) but not over powered either. It's so well balanced, I tip my hat to the guy who is responsible for the stats.
If you're looking for a real challenge. I suggest Casse on VH/VH settings. I'm not even sure if it's possible to win! The rebels are VERY aggressive up there, attacking one settlement prompts all of the rebels to gang up on you.
PS- Those Saminite skins are brilliant!
It is possible with the Casse, but intentionally very, very difficult.
SWEBOZ are hard too. Don't count on making money for the first 12 turns. The battles are very important, don't plan on automating out of laziness.
EB forces you to do things that are unfamiliar. I like it!
Kampfduck
12-28-2005, 14:05
i think eb is very good, it just feels right, but, of course theres always something to say, and this is my part.
I think they should use the zor system like RTR does, recruiting kind of troops only availeble in parts of different countries, also the ability to recruit specific kind of units for one place, like for example, cretan archers from crete, this was used a lot in RTR, and i think it gives a good bonus in gameplay and also more diversity in the armies that you use.
At this moment the sort of troops that you can use are too little.
But the ones that are made for each nation are very good made.
So my question is: will there be more sorts of units in future eb versions?
keep up the good work! :ave:
They've already said that there will be more units and many many changes to lots of things in the coming patches and the final version.
Kampfduck
12-28-2005, 14:15
great news, im just new on this forum, already was reading some of the post but didnt noticed the one that says something about the amount of unit types. :gring:
great news, im just new on this forum, already was reading some of the post but didnt noticed the one that says something about the amount of unit types. :gring:
there's already something like that in place, I believe, but much more complicated than the ZOR of RTR. :elephant:
Since you are new Kampf - i will say that you have to understand that this is just a beta version.. It's unfinished... The only reason they have released it to us is so we can play it and find bugs for them that they haven't found, and the more people that play, the more bugs we will find for them... Lots of things are currently missing like unit descriptions, unit cards, building descriptions, building pictures, some units haven't been included yet, and there are bugs... Some minor and some possible game breakers... It's our job to tell them everything we find so they can fix it and release a proper version that is polished and stuff...
Divinus Arma
12-29-2005, 00:13
The recruitment system in EB is based upon regions and types of governments. It is still being tweaked, but it is quite complex. It is an essential component of EB and was a nightmare to build. I only had a very very small hand in it, and I spent many an hour just looking at spreadsheets and text code. Big props to Khelvan, as this is his baby.
Thorn Is
12-29-2005, 01:13
i just realized that flank a unit and shot it by the back with skirmishers like velites has little impact...
I noticed that too, but I was at the recieving end of it. I wasnt paying attention and I charged into the enemy's infantry with mine managing to let some peepsqueek rebel faction flank me with their peltists, and to my surprise my infantry came out with very little damage. I thought after a volley like that I would be in trouble...
I like how the battles play out in the beta
its a great mod, except for the fact that i cant understand any Building/unit names ~:( SPEAK ENGLISH .... lol
Teleklos Archelaou
12-29-2005, 03:33
I noticed that too, but I was at the recieving end of it. I wasnt paying attention and I charged into the enemy's infantry with mine managing to let some peepsqueek rebel faction flank me with their peltists, and to my surprise my infantry came out with very little damage. I thought after a volley like that I would be in trouble...
I like how the battles play out in the beta
I know sometimes the skirmishers seem weak, but...
It was a freak thing, but using one unit (no upgrades) unit of akontistai (those lowest level skirmishers) for the Maks, I totally annihilated in one volley (yes, that's right) an entire other unit that was at full strength. The thing was that they were close by but further up a hill, and exactly 90 degrees to the right of the advancing (about to be destroyed) unit. 240 javelins came raining down from close by and almost directly down upon this poor unit.
I'll not say what the other unit was, but I was absolutely shocked. :grin: As I said, it was a freak thing.
ScionTheWorm
12-29-2005, 03:41
do you regard the difficultysettings as right, that easy=easy, hard=hard and so on? and are there any unit size one should prefer to get the most out of it?
Thorn Is
12-29-2005, 04:23
It was a freak thing, but using one unit (no upgrades) unit of akontistai (those lowest level skirmishers) for the Maks, I totally annihilated in one volley (yes, that's right) an entire other unit that was at full strength.
wow... that sounds great...
personaly I just fought one of the best battles ever. :gring: Have to rank it in at least my top 5. I lost it, but it was a truely amazing experience. I find the battles go by very quickly. I have to pay attention all the time. In the vanilla i used to be able to check their infantry with mine and fight a second battle (ie against reinforcents or trying to get to the center of a city) but I find if I stop paying attention to one end of the battle things could get really bad really fast... lol
Divinus Arma
12-29-2005, 15:08
wow... that sounds great...
personaly I just fought one of the best battles ever. :gring: Have to rank it in at least my top 5. I lost it, but it was a truely amazing experience. I find the battles go by very quickly. I have to pay attention all the time. In the vanilla i used to be able to check their infantry with mine and fight a second battle (ie against reinforcents or trying to get to the center of a city) but I find if I stop paying attention to one end of the battle things could get really bad really fast... lol
Hmmm. My impression is that battles are slower, not faster. Play EB for a while, then play a straight vanilla game. You will be shocked at how ridiculously fast vanilla is.
anyone else find the new "default" battle formations kick-ass?
oh how much fun it was smashing that celtic attack wedge into the tips of my phalanx spears, watching their entire army break under the weight of my companions
<3 EB
Best mod so far. They eye the modders had for detail is stunning. Now the trait system makes sense. You cannot execute complete cities anymore without having negative effect on some of your generals. You need to pay far more attention to it, which give the game a much deeper 'feel'.
A good governer gets you more money, which is hard to come by anyhow.
Strategic level is very good, much harder opponents as said by others. I started as Seleucids, and boy was I in trouble. Lost large part of my empire.
Ai is more aggresive as well as rebel armies. It picks better armies.
The amount of different units combined with the new recruiting system makes the armies very diverse, it will take a while before that gets boring, if at all.
Units graphics look beautiful. Battle AI is very good. Finally no AI who charges with missile units but uses them properly.
I was kind of bored with the game, but it feels like a complete new game now.
9.8 out of 10!
Birka Viking
12-29-2005, 17:45
I can only agree..This mod is avesome..Play as romans and they kick as...*lol*:ave:
Just played EB for the first time today. Wow, is the only word for it, and this is just the open beta. Been experimenting around, tried some custom battles with the greeks and macedonians and the romans and some barbarains. I really like the way the battles are balanced. Cavalry in particular. Companions for example feel exactly like they should, you have to be careful but man can they slaughter. Having all the human troops (at least from what I've seen) have one hit point makes the game much more balanced, ranged units do as they should and it makes the animations a little more realistic (eg you won't see the same unit get up 2 or 3 times after getting stabbed). The AI over vanilla 1.2 seems improved, maybe not as good as 1.5 but a challenge nonetheless. The New animations are terrific. I tried some casse two handed swordsmen (forget name) against some barbarian spearmen (forget name) and you could actually see the two handed swordsmen parrying blows and the first few lines seem to mingle which i felt was realistic for barbarian units and something I never noticed in vanilla (except with cav).
Started a compaign on vh/vh with makedonia. Btw, is there a recommended difficulty level (eg one its been more thoroughly tested on?) About ten turns in.
I only disbanded some of my army keeping large portions of it including cavalry. Naturally, I went into debt. However on the battlefield my army has been extremely succesful. The greeks just can't seem to counter the hammar and anvil tactics which lead to them mass routing. I took athens and sparta in several pitched battles, and finally had thought I had pushed the hellenes from the peninsula. I made peace with Epirus to guard my flanks. My army was much larger than any single army the greeks threw against me...leading my general to get the "likes easy battles" trait. Haha I laughed when i saw that. Very cool. I like how in winter marching is very difficult. However it only seems to be for the general you can still march your troops without the general a fair distance. Battles are a perfect length, not too long and the morale seems appropriate, although in one battle when I killed the enemy general there entire army routed which consisted of three phalanx units not yet engaged and 4 peltasts who were skirmishing with my troops. That seemed a little bizarre. Although my six groups of cavalry were all in flanking positions, and i have seen peltasts and other skirmishers break by just moving my hetaroi to there flanks especially if they have taken casualties.
Another question...are barbarian factions affected by the winter as much in terms of marching distance?
Now after seizing Sparta, and crushing the greeks, I thought yay I was finally in the positives...time to chill for awhile paying of my debt (almost 60000). Just getting ready to disband some troops when the Greeks landed a 3/4 stack with cavalry, 8 phalanx units, a good general (faction heir) and theuropoai (sp?). This won't be easy. I was very impressed with the fact they landed such a well organized and elite army to counter me taking two of their best cities.
Anyhow overall extremely impressed. I am gonna get back to playing it. :loveg:
Big_John
12-29-2005, 23:01
hey bean_22, let us know how the greek counter attack goes. ~:)
Mujalumbo
12-29-2005, 23:03
So good, I had to smack my momma.
I've not played much or followed EB developement over months, but It's realy a great mod, in terms of gameplay ) it's realy cool, each battle feels important, I like the building system and all the descriptions, new units, real improvement of barbarian factions they're realy fun to play (especialy Casse). In EB you've the feeling that you're a small nation like many others and that you're unable to conquer the world easly as it was in vanilla. Finaly the traits, this is surely the best thing, caracters are moore deep and with the four turns a year the last longer.~:cheers:
AggonyDuck
12-30-2005, 01:13
It's great, especially the traits and ancillaries increase the enjoyment level a lot. Atleast the generals have got so much more depth to them.
For example in my game as Carthage one of the least likely family members to be a general, became my top general, pretty much out of necessity.
Aderbal the Ugly, who started out as Dull/Uncharismatic/Vigorous and Unselfish/Pessimistic/Loyal. He's currently still has about no Command, Management or Influence, suffers from a lot of pessimism, but that hasn't stopped him from winning his battles. The thing that really has made him successful is the fact that he's one insanely tough sob and that he has his merry band of veteran Libyan Spearmen. ~D
Hey Big John, I attacked them as they landed before they had a chance to beseige at settlement.
One of the best battles I've had in Rome total war. Outnumbered almost 2:1 with mostly militia hopilites and hetaroi and the really bad skirmishers the makedonians get. I know the hetaroi would be the key. 5 groups of them including my general (faction leader). I knew they were my only chance. I quickly elimanted their light cavalry with my hetarois. There phalanx line advanced and met mine. (note they kept realitively good formation-better AI?). I pounded there more numerous (and better) infantry with my hetarois in the charge and retreat fasion. I broke some of there units but were never able to achieve a mass rout. Meanwhile hetaroi casaulities mounted (they were being bombarded by peltasts too). Finally my weakened left flank collapsed (one unit had taken heavy casualties in pervious battles broke) leading quickly to a mass route with my phalanx line. I sacrificed two skirmisher units and continued to pound them with my cavalry. 2 hetarois broke and my general nearly died killing the enemy general who stayed back the entire battle (it was a last ditch effort by me win. Two skirmisher units were annihilated holding the enemy from killing my routed phalanx line but some of hopilites were able to escape plus 2 damaged hetaroi groups and my general. Overall not a bad battle killed 75% more enemies than lost despite routing and more importantly there 4 or 5 star faction heir.
They seiged my garrison at sparta but the remnants of my army and the garrison sallied and defeated there army with not too bad casualites
The first time you load this baby up, it really is a "whoa" moment. I was playing the Casse on VH/VH and was shocked at the state of our finances. Realizing that only more cities could save the day, I dropped my diplomat onto the continent, disbanded the fleet (@ 1/3 of the military expenses), and marched an army north to siege the Rebel city of Ratae. As per usual RTW strategy, I brought along a slightly larger group of units than were being sieged, and settled down to attrit them and force a final battle. Bad plan. Two turns into the siege, a large rebel army attacked - and with the forces from Ratae the odds were about 3-1 against. I was shocked into disbelief....for the first time in all my RTW experience, my army was forced to retreat from a siege without even a thought of giving battle! Which is when things got worse.
Because those evil buggers followed after us! They couldn't reach our army on the the same turn, and with winter taking effect on the next turn I couldn't get back to our capital city. No problem. Although a bit unsettling, the obvious strategy was to retreat further to the west and set up an ambush in the woods on the HIGHLY unlikely chance that a Rebel army....mind you, a REBEL ARMY.....will pursue. Which they did. Worse yet, my ambush was discovered.
So there we were, 5 Casse infantry, and two chariots facing a force twice our size. But I had a plan. The infantry were arranged at one end of the map, forcing the Rebels to march all the way across to reach them. The chariots would then circle around, looking to draw off the inevitable pursuers in small groups, allowing me to whittle them down enough to make the final battle a little more even. Except the AI refused to bite. They ignored the chariots and marched the entire rebel army in a disciplined formation (!!!) right towards my overmatched infantry. Eventually I resorted to hit and run chariot tactics at the rear of the Rebels, to little avail. First off they wouldn't pursue in small groups. Secondly they hurled MASSES of javelins and just wasted my guys away. After three charges my faction leader was dead and his son - the only survivor from two chariot units - routed off the map. Whereupon the Eleutheroi turned their entire attention to the infantry and ground them to dust.
Easily my most humbling experience ever in RTW.
QwertyMIDX
12-30-2005, 22:43
Calvary, imo, is perfected. They are not too slow or weak (rtr) but not over powered either. It's so well balanced, I tip my hat to the guy who is responsible for the stats.
Thanks, trying to make them work without an effective charge bonus was awful.
the_handsome_viking
12-30-2005, 23:20
in a few words, The Europa Barbarorum mod is like diving into a pool of historical facts and good wholesome fun.
Things like not being able to fight in certain seasons while playing as the Casse, and the inclusion of historical figures with their biographies and individual objectives, were just a wonderful thing to discover.
It might come over as a bit sad to say this but... the mod has actually made me feel a bit more connected to the land and the people that have existed on it throughout history, and I think in many ways thats one of the reasons why people are so attracted to history in general.
I can only agree. THIS IS AWESOME! Congratulations!
But I had several crashes to desktop (randomly), I noticed that sometimes if i reloaded the game and turned the campaign script on later, then I could overcome these crashes, so there must be something in the campaign scripts. Do you guys have crashes as well, or is it something with my computer?
Thanks
Jadam
Hmm no crashes for me yet...about 20 years in.
Its amazing and so challenging especially on vh/vh. Good work EB!
I've had random CTD's... Always during Carthage and Seleucia's turns... Then when i reload (i've been saving at the start and at the end of each turn) the save i made just before hitting end turn and end the turn the game doesn't crash... So it's not just you no i've had a couple.
edyzmedieval
12-31-2005, 16:39
Ok, you got me over.
I give up. You conquered me. I was very skeptical with the mod, I recognise. But since everyone says it's great, and you guys did a wonderful job with the historical research and graphics, I'll try the mod.
Hurray for the EB team. :balloon2:
Yeah it's great. So much detail, and nearly every settlement has it either it's own unique units or unique buildings, or both. Ten points to this mod. :2thumbsup:
pezhetairoi
01-01-2006, 02:52
Shan't say much--i'm too busy indulging myself in EB's wonders. It's everything I've hoped for and more.
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