Suggestions for v0.8

[edyzmedieval]

And replace them with other provinces...
But, what provinces?

[MaximianusBR]

And replace them with other provinces...
But, what provinces?

The provinces EB team resolve to include...:2thumbsup:

[edyzmedieval]

Come with some suggestions, and I'll be happy to include them. :2thumbsup:
If not in EB, then in my MapMod. :book:

[Slider6977]

Not sure if this has been brought up, as I have not been reading this entire thread. One suggestion I have, if it is possible, is to have the Well Supplied trait extend to Allied faction provinces of which you have military access. I'm guessing this may been an issue that the triggers can't decided between ally or foe, only whether or not it is your own factions' province. However, if it is possible, I must strongly advocate this change. Traveling through allied provinces for which I obtained Military access should net me supplies that will keep my armies sustained. After all, they are my friends. This possible or not.


Can someone clarify this subject, because I can not find the triggers for this trait. If you are in allied territory for which you have military access, do you still continue to decline in this trait until your men are starving or is this offset somewhat? Perhaps I will test this to make sure. However, if this is the case, I must readmit this as a suggestion.
Found the triggers but it is as I thought, there seems to be no trigger for letting the engine know that you are in allied territory with access. Unless I am wrong, this is probably not possible. Anyone wanna give me a definite?

An additional one would be to make the Warmonger trait an anti-trait to restless sleeper, instead of heavy and light sleeper. I got this trait as a result of massacring two settlements, but I already have the warmonger trait. As I see it this is not as much connected to light and heavy sleeper as it is to settlement conquering. Therefore, if my general already enjoys the slaughter of war, why would his dreams haunt him about the people he has killed.

[soibean]

don't know if this has been covered before but I've noticed that as the romans, for each level of a temple you build your governor receives a "worshipper of _____" trait
My faction leader had been in Segesta (or maybe Segestica I get those confused) since I began building its temples and currently has 3 Worshipper of Ceres traits
was it meant to be this way to show that he continues to get better or was this just an accident from scripting

[stalin]

Therefore, if my general already enjoys the slaughter of war, why would his dreams haunt him about the people he has killed.
It is called conscience

[edyzmedieval]

don't know if this has been covered before but I've noticed that as the romans, for each level of a temple you build your governor receives a "worshipper of _____" trait
My faction leader had been in Segesta (or maybe Segestica I get those confused) since I began building its temples and currently has 3 Worshipper of Ceres traits
was it meant to be this way to show that he continues to get better or was this just an accident from scripting

Ooooh.... 3 Worshipper traits? That's a big bug.

Malrubius might know more about this.

[Dayve]

I thought that might have been a bug... I've had generals with like 5 different kinds of priests in their retinue... Making them awesome when really they should be crap... This is an urgently needed fix in my opinion.

[orwell]

A completed building browser would be nice, it seems like its missing a lot of stuff.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Building browser will never work as it should. If you include any 'and not' requirements in a level of a building (e.g., and not hidden resource X, and not building present min level Z, etc.), then that level just disappears in the broswer. It's incredibly stupid that these options exist for us to limit and make more realistic the construction of buildings but if you use it the building disappears in the browser. And as complexes are shared between factions (because of Hardcoded limits to complex numbers), we have to have lots of these conditionals I'm afraid.

[edyzmedieval]

It's really frustrating and dissapointing really. ~:(

[Voevod al Moldovei]

hey i was looking at trajan's column and no one is wearing trousers or fighting in phalanx where did you get these ideas

[Geoffrey S]

All right, so the following idea is ripped from Caius Britannicus' Crusades mod; but a damn good idea it is, and it could work rather well in EB.

Now to the armies. As mentioned earlier there is only one army model. Captains and Generals look the same on the map and there are no banners to indicate army sizes. You'll also notice that armies don't look like a single person anymore but instead look like a medieval army marching with banners and spears.

There are no army and garrison flags denoting the strength of the armies. This is done for a reason. The Crusades is all about gameplay and difficultly and now agents will play a more important role than ever. Simply glancing at the campaign map will not be enough anymore. You will have to use your spies to check garrisons, the size of enemy armies and even the skill of an enemy general or if its even a general (as captians and generals look the same on the campaign map). Your spies can travel and see farther as well as being cheaper to buy and maintain (allowing you to keep more of them in the field). A strong and reliable spy network is more important then ever.
Screenshots of the armies can be seen here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61093). I think it'd work great in EB, and would prevent the player from rushing in. For decent planning, spying is necessary and would reflect the necessity of good information in a campaign better than the current system.

[orwell]

Seconded. I'd love it if the characters you can recruit played a larger role. Anything to improve the planning you need to do ahead of time to be success is a improvement. Improving the assassins effectiveness would be nice since it would make it viable to have one around, instead of just being a wasted character as they seem to be now as well.

[N. Tollus Galicus]

All right, so the following idea is ripped from Caius Britannicus' Crusades mod; but a damn good idea it is, and it could work rather well in EB.


Screenshots of the armies can be seen here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61093). I think it'd work great in EB, and would prevent the player from rushing in. For decent planning, spying is necessary and would reflect the necessity of good information in a campaign better than the current system.

To my opinion, current system is just as realistic as it can. Without spying or being close you only know approximatively the size of the army (wich is obvious... a full state army doesn't look same as a small raiding party... even at 10's of km) and the number of unit but not the exact composition. Being totally blind would be more difficult but certainly not more accurate... I think (or at least, I hope lol) most players make a full use of spy, whatever... because you have to know what is in front of your army in order to tweak it a bit (one or two more archers units vs elephants, more spears against cav, etc...) and that was precisely what a general made at this time (and still make nowadays)...

[edyzmedieval]

The EB fighting and recruiting system is good, I doubt there's the need for improvement, unless you want micro-management in battles. :inquisitive:

[Geoffrey S]

To my opinion, current system is just as realistic as it can. Without spying or being close you only know approximatively the size of the army (wich is obvious... a full state army doesn't look same as a small raiding party... even at 10's of km) and the number of unit but not the exact composition. Being totally blind would be more difficult but certainly not more accurate... I think (or at least, I hope lol) most players make a full use of spy, whatever... because you have to know what is in front of your army in order to tweak it a bit (one or two more archers units vs elephants, more spears against cav, etc...) and that was precisely what a general made at this time (and still make nowadays)...
Not necessarily true. Many a campaign was doomed due to a lack of even basic information about what too expect. Hannibal repeatedly made use of the Roman's lack of good scouting to deliver nasty surprises, such as at Trebia and Trasimene. Or how about Crassus, getting lured into an inescapable position by Surena?

Frequently armies would march at quite a pace until they were certain the enemy was fairly close by, or they were near the last known position. It was remarkably difficult to pinpoint the location until the last minute, let alone the exact composition. Caius Brittanicus' method reflects this better than most mods, and it'd be a great addition to EB.

[Ludens]

To my opinion, current system is just as realistic as it can. Without spying or being close you only know approximatively the size of the army (wich is obvious... a full state army doesn't look same as a small raiding party... even at 10's of km) and the number of unit but not the exact composition. Being totally blind would be more difficult but certainly not more accurate... I think (or at least, I hope lol) most players make a full use of spy, whatever... because you have to know what is in front of your army in order to tweak it a bit (one or two more archers units vs elephants, more spears against cav, etc...) and that was precisely what a general made at this time (and still make nowadays)...
I agree, but you will still be able to bring up the army detail panel and spot how many units the enemy army contains, so you won't be completely blind. Also, I think several EB members have already stated the intention to change the current army representations to something more like an army. They already did this with their navies, and I would like it if my Macedonian armies resembled a real phalanx instead of a gaint Hetairoi.

[N. Tollus Galicus]

of course.... I was not oposed to a graphic change....
I was only sceptical concerning blindness.... ;-)

[HamilcarBarca]

Some Thoughts as I play EB (VH/H);

1. It takes a long time to get going! I just played a game as Carthage, this time determined to start the First Punic War in 264BC. I have yet to play a EB campaign as Carthage and actually fight Rome. Again, it was impossible! I couldn't take Messana (one attempted siege failed), and Rome couldn't take Rhegium (Rom tried but failed on many defeats)! Its now 250BC and that's still the case. While I like the EB approach to expensive builds, I feel that its TOO HARD. It will be along time yet before I can afford the luxury of buying an elephant. Perhaps if the game started in 280BC? Perhaps the MIC constructions should take less time?
2. Ptolemy is overpowered. Every time I've played (4 times) Ptolemy has embraced a two front war - vs. Carthage and the Seleucids. And I find that they usually win on both fronts (unless Carthage ignores Sicily and Spain, and accepts its role to spend endless years fighting in the sands of Libya!). Its phalanx units are strong and its Galatian swordsmen are invincible sardaukar (to borrow a term from Dune). If a single unit of Galatians reach a city wall then its curtains for that particular city. In 250BC I have yet to build a royal barracks (20,000 mnai and 20 turns!), so I can't yet create a unit that can match these Ptolemy units (perhaps there aren't any?). On a open field I have a chance; in a siege battle I'm defeated before I start. I have now lost Leki twice - that's what prompted me to write this post. 85 Galatians got onto my walls via ladders, then destroyed a unit of Gallic swordsmen (about 150), then some cheap phalanx militia (about 120), and finally a mercenary sarissa-wielding phalanx (about 200). Those Galatians just stormed Lepki single-handed! I assume that some major league Galatian fan has made these myrmidions standard foot for Ptolemy - and they are over-powered. I sent a family member to Gaul, hired some Gallic infantry (at 2500 mnai a throw), brought them back to Carthage, re-equipped them, and then fielded them thinking that they would be able to match the Galatians. Wrong. Those linen trousers from the looms of the Nile and those shiny new Greek-style helmets transform Celtic warriors into TERMINATORS. My Celts barely killed a single Galatian.
3. Sicily needs a factional presence other than Carthage. Its too boring. Hiero was a general of Phyrrus before he made himself King of Syracuse. Lets bite the bullet and add Syracuse to Epirus. As it is, Rome seems to occupy Taras a.ka. Tarantum without raising a sweat. Either make a challenge of it or get rid of the pretence at all.
4. I have watched my poor AI allies struggling unsuccessfully in western France (I always ally with them with an eye on Rome - but of course I am yet to have a war with Rome, because I'm tied down in Chad!). The Aedui have failed to add any provinces to their holdings, and they appear to regularly besiege neighbouring provinces with inadequate forces, suffer defeat, and then do it all over again.

I think EB is a great Mod - even if I'm a little frustrated at the minute! But I think these kind of balancing issues are critical for the future of the Mod.

H.

[Lusted]

hey i was looking at trajan's column and no one is wearing trousers or fighting in phalanx where did you get these ideas

Erm, Trakans colum depicts the Emperor Trajan's conquest/genocide of the Dacian tribes in the 2nd century AD, the troops depicted on the coulmn are later roman legionaires quite a bit out of the EB time period.

[edyzmedieval]

It depicts the CONQUEST of the Dacian tribes, not the genocide. There's no evidence which suggest a genocide and extermination of the Dacians. :skull:

[Ludens]

Erm, Trakans colum depicts the Emperor Trajan's conquest/genocide of the Dacian tribes in the 2nd century AD, the troops depicted on the coulmn are later roman legionaires quite a bit out of the EB time period.
Since the early legionaries do not wear trousers either I presume he is talking about the Getai faction.

[tk-421]

Its phalanx units are strong and its Galatian swordsmen are invincible sardaukar (to borrow a term from Dune). If a single unit of Galatians reach a city wall then its curtains for that particular city. In 250BC I have yet to build a royal barracks (20,000 mnai and 20 turns!), so I can't yet create a unit that can match these Ptolemy units (perhaps there aren't any?). On a open field I have a chance; in a siege battle I'm defeated before I start. I have now lost Leki twice - that's what prompted me to write this post. 85 Galatians got onto my walls via ladders, then destroyed a unit of Gallic swordsmen (about 150), then some cheap phalanx militia (about 120), and finally a mercenary sarissa-wielding phalanx (about 200). Those Galatians just stormed Lepki single-handed! I assume that some major league Galatian fan has made these myrmidions standard foot for Ptolemy - and they are over-powered. I sent a family member to Gaul, hired some Gallic infantry (at 2500 mnai a throw), brought them back to Carthage, re-equipped them, and then fielded them thinking that they would be able to match the Galatians. Wrong. Those linen trousers from the looms of the Nile and those shiny new Greek-style helmets transform Celtic warriors into TERMINATORS. My Celts barely killed a single Galatian.

The Ptolemaic Galatian Kleruchoi are an excellent unit, but they are hardly invincible. I admit that it seems rather odd for a single unit to capture a walled city, but there are two reasons why it happened:

1. You had no good Galatian-countering units. Basic Gallic units (Bataroas, Botroas, Mala Gaeroas, etc.) don't stand a chance against the elite Galatians. The punic militia phalanx unit will lose to almost anything, especially when out of formation on a wall. The elite African pikemen unit can beat those Galatians, but only if in a phalanx and if the Galatians are force to stay in front of the pikes. If the pikemen are attacked by Galatians out of formatian, on a wall, or are flanked, they will be slaughtered.

2. The difficulty setting is too high. Playing on hard or very hard will give the AI stat bonuses, making an already great unit better.

The best Carthaginian unit to fight the Galatians is their elite African unit that is equipped like a Roman legionary. Most of the elite Gallic units (Cingetos, Arjos, Solduri, etc.) should be able to stand up to the Galatians.


those shiny new Greek-style helmets
I'm pretty sure that the helmets are Celtic. They are identical (except in color) to those worn by the Gallic Neitos.

[paullus]

Speakin of which, can't we let the Ptolemies get gaesatae? About half the Galatians depicted in Ptolemaic art (that I have seen at least) are nude. On the other hand, Galatians never numbered as much of the Ptolemaic armies as what usually happens with AI Ptolemaic forces...increase the upkeep maybe?

[Mithradates]

I think that the sahara should be made very hard to march across or at least find some way for the Ptolemys to stop pestering the Carths. All i wanted to do was fight Rome yet im stuck fighting with Ptolemies who should be more peaceful. Also it would be much more realistic if they sent the armies by sea as i doubt they would be interested in the non coastal cities.

[Slider6977]

Having to do with all this Ptolemai vs Carthage argument: you don't even have to defend Lepki, at least not as a city seige. All I do is put one, maybe two Elite african Pikemen or the greek mercenary pikemen unit at the furthest river crossing (currently though, I have stationed a group of two Elite African pikemen, one sacred band cavalry and one 3 experience unit of greek pikemen mercenary units at the crossing; the sacred band so that I can ride them down and make sure no part of their army survives). As long as you do not advance south past the western provinces, they will not be a real threat with a river defend point.

I have never taken southern african provinces past Kirtsan. And as a result, if the Ptolemai want to attack me, they usually attack from the east, having to march across these rivers. I find that even if I have only one pikemen unit is enough to defeat an ENTIRE STACK of Ptolemaic soldiers, although the Galatian sordsmen are by far the toughest adversary, able to usually break my phalanx and kill many of my men in hand-to-hand before I reform and destroy them. Which is why I took precaution and reinforced my lone pikement unit. Not to mention, there is virtually no benefit of marching armies south as Carthage. Very little income compared to a lot of resources in amry cost and loses, which does not net anything other than recruitment of forest elephants, which can be recruited in Siga, Ippone, etc, which you either start out with or can conquer much more easily.

Just defend the rivers, the AI is not smart enough to attack from the south, and the rivers are so easy to defend. I have never lost Lepki in every campaign I have played.

[HamilcarBarca]

If you just defend Lepki then Ptolemy will do the following (and I know because I've tried);

a. take Garama
b. take Raphasa/Sahara (which must be the biggest province in the game)
c. take Tuat

then, one of two things will happen;

1. these provinces will rebel from ptolemy, and suddenly join Carthage
2. Ptolemy will hold these provinces, and start invading the Algerian & Tunisian coastline from the south.

The Galatian swordsmen should be mercs, not recruitable troops. That would limit there numbers by both availability and cost.

The greatest challenge that faced the historical Ptolemy regime in Egypt was internal order. The combination of dynastic quarrels (leading to the episodic revolt of Cyrenaica and/or Cyprus by royal figures), internal revolts (natives vs. Hellenes) and confrontation with the Seleucids in Coele-Syria was enough to bring Ptolemaic Egypy to stagnation.

In EB there are no dynastic quarrels, there appear to be no native revolts, there is simply a rich super power that than recruit locally both elite Keltoi troops and elite Macedonian style troops, when, in history, both of these military types were extremely LIMITED in number because there was not the Celtic or Greek population in Egypt to sustain large numbers.

This is why Ptolemaic Egypt is over powered.

H.

[edyzmedieval]

Hmmm... I play on VH/VH with the Ptolemies(my favourite guys) and I am at war with the Seleukids. Man, even with Pezhetairoi and Kleruchoi Agemata I get defeated. So, why are they easy?

Every faction in the game has 90 million denarii so we won't have rubbish armies. That's really something good, as the Seleukids have Pezhetairoi and Carthage(ally) is pumping Liby Phoenician infantry and some Elite African Infantry. :balloon2:

[tk-421]

Hmmm... I play on VH/VH with the Ptolemies(my favourite guys) and I am at war with the Seleukids. Man, even with Pezhetairoi and Kleruchoi Agemata I get defeated. So, why are they easy?


The reason your pezhetairoi and Kleruchoi Agemata are losing is because you are playing on very hard, which is, as the name suggests, very hard. The AI is still terrible, but the computer controlled enemies receive a rather large stat bonus. If you played on medium (I think that there are no stat bonuses for the player of computer), you would see that the elite Ptolemaic units are some of the best in the game and can be difficult to defeat. I don't think that there is anything wrong with the elite units, what is wrong is that too many of them can be trained.

[HamilcarBarca]

Its 242BC and I am officially abandoning my fifth and final EB campaign as Carthage (H/H).

It will be the last EB campaign I play until the next (8.0?) version is out - which I am looking forward to very much.

By 242 BC my game had gone as follows;

1. I had progressively occupied Sicily without any interference from any faction. Rome had not yet even taken Rhegium. I had never fought a battle against Rome. They had been nuetral to me throughout the campaign.
2. My position in Spain had been slowly nurtured so that I had added two provinces to my original two, and was making good $$ on mining, and recruiting good local troops. Iberia had captured no provinces, nor had they lost any. They were at war with no other faction, and allies of mine.
3. I had occupied Siga, Tingis & Cirta in North Africa.
4. In around 255BC the Ptolemy faction finally betrayed me. They always do. Ptolemy took Garama, but then it revolted to me, and I occupied it.
5. In a long, grinding war, my forces held Lepki and Garama against a constant stream of excellent Ptolemy units - Agema phalanxes and Galatian swordsmen being prominent.
6. One Ptolemy force crossed Garama without pause, and captured Raphsa/Sahara. I sent in spies. Within only a few turns, they were recruiting Galatian swordsmen and Agema phalanxes there! Well, who knew - there was a Celtic and Macedonian population located deep in the Sahara! You live and learn.:furious3:
7. Now, its just too boring. My whole economy is geared towards replenishing my war effort in Libya and Chad, so that I can one day hope to storm my way into the Nile Valley. It would take me years no doubt. I feel like Rommel rather than Hannibal Barca:help:

I hope that EB finds a fix to this problem. Here's some ideas to consider;

* eliminate the bottom 20% of the map - and that means the Sahara, Ethiopia and perhaps even all those provinces at the southern end of the Arabian penninsula. These provinces only create trouble, not gameplay. You don't want factions expanding into the Sahara. Ethiopia only serves as a safe Ptolemy backwater. The historical fact that the Ptolemy dynasty struggled to have its authority recognised at Thebes let alone in the highlands of Ethiopia won't matter here. And it gives you about 8-10 extra provinces to place somewhere useful!
* the force pools need a re-think. Galatian mercenaries should be found at Alexandria, but not 'recruitable' at every Ptolemy city. That's true for Macedonian units too.
* the historical struggle for Greek and Macedonian manpower by the Successor Kingdoms was all about them lacking a domestic populace that could sustain the formations of Alexander the Great. That is why the Successor Realms turned to innovations like recruiting locals, importing barbarians, buying elephants, making chariots, etc. So many Macedonians were lured into immigrating into the Near East that by 220BC the Macedonian Kings struggled to maintain their own levy in Macedonia! On the eve of the battle of Raphia, on 22 June 217, the Ptolemaic army mustered 70,000 foot, 5000 cavalry & 73 African elephants; 20,000 of these foot were native Egyptians armed in the Macedonian style (Polybius V.65.9;82.6;85.9). The significant taxes required to support this army eventually triggered revolt. These population pressures doesn't exist for Ptolemy, Seleusis or Bactria in EB. The Successor Realms can recruit an endless number of Greek and Macedonian troops. They need never worry about recruiting the less reliable "natives". There needs to be a limit to this recruitment of Greek units in Egypt and the Seleucid & Bactrian Kingdoms. Perhaps it should require the presence of a hidden 'Greek' resource which can only be found in a few provinces? This would mean that the battle for GREEK population would be as as important to the Successors in EB as they were in history! For example, outside the Greek colony of Alexandria, not many Greek/Macedonian folk lived in Ptolemaic Egypt.
* there needs to be unrest in Egypt. A lot. Many serious uprisings of a scale that threatens the Ptolemaic regime. In history, the Egyptian revolts against their Ptolemaic masters were very serious. In the north of Egypt there was a revolt by disaffected local military forces against the Hellenes; a vicious 'partisan' war ensued during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (219-217). By the end of the Third Century BC these revolts reached the point where a rebel 'pharaoic state' was established in the south of Egypt, the Thebaid, backed by military assistance from Nubia, and led by Herwennefer as Pharoah. It survived there against the Ptolemaic regime for 20 years (206-186)! Thebes itself was only recovered in 199/8.
* the nuetrality between Carthage & Ptolemaic Egypt endured. Carthage did not meddle when Cyrenaicia became the base of estranged members of the Ptolemaic royal family (Magas, the brother of Ptolemy II, declared himself King of Cyrenaicia in the 270s. He marched on Alexandria, gained support from the Seluecids, but was defeated because of a revolt of Libyan nomads in his absence. Ptolemy couldn't puruse Magas because of a revolt of his Celtic soldiers! Egypt and Cyrene were reconciled in the 250s.). Egypt remained nuetral during the Punic Wars - unlike the last priest-king of the Siwah oasis, who in 207 was a general in the Punic army (Silen. XV.672f). This nuetrality must be made to endure. In RTR there are "land block" mods that can make this happen; its unsatisfactory, but it works. EB needs something similar.

H.

[orwell]

with 1.5 isn't there loyalty? It seems like it would be fitting to keep loyalty low as it was and to make Africa slightly more interesting, though this part will probably never happen, give the natives a faction of their own. It, as far as I can tell is rich region deserving most of everything it has now, but it should have more to contend with than a overstretched seleucid empire and a empire it shouldn't be fighting, Carthage.

As far as getting the two to stop, would it be possible to redesign the sahara so that its either unconquerable or it's in a winding path that is more than 50 tiles away? and spikes north to create a border between the two. I don't particularily like the idea of a province wasted to separate the two by being unconquerable, but I think its a better solution than Ptolemy and Carthage fighting.

[Greek_fire19]

um..How would removing the saharan provinces stop Carthage and the Ptolemaic empire fighting? It seems to me it would actually hasten a war between the two as at present they both have some rebel settlements to divide up between them before they start duking it out for control of africa. Without these they'd be at each others throats within a few years.

[paullus]

Hamilcar, some of your ideas make sense. I think Greeks should be limited to some key areas, forcing factions to recruit local troops. I also agree about the Ptolemaic unrest, and I hope that EB is working on some sort of scripted rebellion sequence for the upper nile provinces.

As far as how Greek (and Galatian) troops should be limited, the Ptolemies had access to these troops through the kleruch and katoiche systems (govt type 2 in the EB Ptolemies, I think), so it does make sense that any location with these settlements could raise Makedonian or Galatian soldiers, as they were settled in these areas on land plots. The problem isnt so much that they could be raised: its more that its too easy to raise large numbers, which isn't realistic. So I suggest a POSSIBLE SOLUTION: a) if you can, raise recruitment costs in type 2 gov'ts, or b) add a trait to Ptolemaic type 2 gov'ts, which increases unit recruitment costs. There's still the problem that Galatians in particular were never settled (by the Ptolemies I mean) outside of the Nile provinces.

And while you point out that 20,000 natives served in the Raphia campaign, an even larger number of Makedonians served: according to the ancient numbers, more middle to upper class Makedonians lived in Egypt than in Makedonia.

And it would be nice to cut off some of the southern map, gaining extra territories for other portions of the map...unless of course one of the new factions will go in this region? hmm?

[HamilcarBarca]

A possible 'minimalist' solution to the Sahara problem would be to have the majority of the Sahara as a single province (that is, at least amalgamate the existing provinces of Tuat & Rahpsa), and then have that province's city located at an unreachable point at the far south of the map (in sub-Saharan Africa).

That would mean that the area became an unconquerable region that still served up the occasional nomadic raider as rebels and brigands.

In addition, if this proposed "unconquerable" province was designed so that it "spiked" northwards and a small portion of it actually lay between Lepki and Cyrene, so that these two provinces did not border each other, then that may help too.

If the AI Ptolemy or AI Carthage never believe the other is a "neighbour", then they may not go to war. It seems to me that the AI always turns on its immediate neighbours - its just a matter of time. I've noticed that if I don't want to go war with a faction, the key is to never share a border. So I'm thinking that at least part of the solution to the endless Carthage-Ptolemy Wars is to prevent them ever being neighbours.:laugh4:

"And it would be nice to cut off some of the southern map, gaining extra territories for other portions of the map...unless of course one of the new factions will go in this region? hmm?"

Unless a new faction in this region is either a Nubian or Ethiopian one (to balance Ptolemy and compete for the Nile Valley), it will just add insult to injury. Our Africa problem will become worse - with additional factions fighting over the sand sea.

H.

[orwell]

What determines the elephants ability to knock down a gate? Could this be given to axe wielding units at a reduced rate?

[oscar.k]

why not making ijsland on the map wite city and a normal site
and the position can not by correct
and more of east azie

[orwell]

why not making ijsland on the map wite city and a normal site
and the position can not by correct
and more of east azie

Er.... What?:inquisitive:

[Ludens]

why not making ijsland on the map wite city and a normal site
and the position can not by correct
and more of east azie
IIRC Iceland was uninhabited at this time of history. Adding more of East Asia would inevitable include China, which, in turn, would require even more factions to be added. This is not an option.

Since we are talking about the map, are there any plans for changing the mini-map? I recall seeing a mod (Mundus Magnus?) that had changed it to resemble an ancient map (albeit one that was far more accurate than ancient maps usually are). I think this would fit the general theme of this mod better, and it would be far more accurate than the current one, which looks like a satellite-picture.

[Kull]

Its 242BC and I am officially abandoning my fifth and final EB campaign as Carthage (H/H).

It will be the last EB campaign I play until the next (8.0?) version is out - which I am looking forward to very much.

By 242 BC my game had gone as follows;

1. I had progressively occupied Sicily without any interference from any faction. Rome had not yet even taken Rhegium. I had never fought a battle against Rome. They had been nuetral to me throughout the campaign.
2. My position in Spain had been slowly nurtured so that I had added two provinces to my original two, and was making good $$ on mining, and recruiting good local troops. Iberia had captured no provinces, nor had they lost any. They were at war with no other faction, and allies of mine.
3. I had occupied Siga, Tingis & Cirta in North Africa.
4. In around 255BC the Ptolemy faction finally betrayed me. They always do. Ptolemy took Garama, but then it revolted to me, and I occupied it.
5. In a long, grinding war, my forces held Lepki and Garama against a constant stream of excellent Ptolemy units - Agema phalanxes and Galatian swordsmen being prominent.
6. One Ptolemy force crossed Garama without pause, and captured Raphsa/Sahara. I sent in spies. Within only a few turns, they were recruiting Galatian swordsmen and Agema phalanxes there! Well, who knew - there was a Celtic and Macedonian population located deep in the Sahara! You live and learn.:furious3:
7. Now, its just too boring. My whole economy is geared towards replenishing my war effort in Libya and Chad, so that I can one day hope to storm my way into the Nile Valley. It would take me years no doubt. I feel like Rommel rather than Hannibal Barca:help:

I hope that EB finds a fix to this problem. Here's some ideas to consider;

* eliminate the bottom 20% of the map - and that means the Sahara, Ethiopia and perhaps even all those provinces at the southern end of the Arabian penninsula. These provinces only create trouble, not gameplay. You don't want factions expanding into the Sahara. Ethiopia only serves as a safe Ptolemy backwater. The historical fact that the Ptolemy dynasty struggled to have its authority recognised at Thebes let alone in the highlands of Ethiopia won't matter here. And it gives you about 8-10 extra provinces to place somewhere useful!
* the force pools need a re-think. Galatian mercenaries should be found at Alexandria, but not 'recruitable' at every Ptolemy city. That's true for Macedonian units too.
* the historical struggle for Greek and Macedonian manpower by the Successor Kingdoms was all about them lacking a domestic populace that could sustain the formations of Alexander the Great. That is why the Successor Realms turned to innovations like recruiting locals, importing barbarians, buying elephants, making chariots, etc. So many Macedonians were lured into immigrating into the Near East that by 220BC the Macedonian Kings struggled to maintain their own levy in Macedonia! On the eve of the battle of Raphia, on 22 June 217, the Ptolemaic army mustered 70,000 foot, 5000 cavalry & 73 African elephants; 20,000 of these foot were native Egyptians armed in the Macedonian style (Polybius V.65.9;82.6;85.9). The significant taxes required to support this army eventually triggered revolt. These population pressures doesn't exist for Ptolemy, Seleusis or Bactria in EB. The Successor Realms can recruit an endless number of Greek and Macedonian troops. They need never worry about recruiting the less reliable "natives". There needs to be a limit to this recruitment of Greek units in Egypt and the Seleucid & Bactrian Kingdoms. Perhaps it should require the presence of a hidden 'Greek' resource which can only be found in a few provinces? This would mean that the battle for GREEK population would be as as important to the Successors in EB as they were in history! For example, outside the Greek colony of Alexandria, not many Greek/Macedonian folk lived in Ptolemaic Egypt.
* there needs to be unrest in Egypt. A lot. Many serious uprisings of a scale that threatens the Ptolemaic regime. In history, the Egyptian revolts against their Ptolemaic masters were very serious. In the north of Egypt there was a revolt by disaffected local military forces against the Hellenes; a vicious 'partisan' war ensued during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (219-217). By the end of the Third Century BC these revolts reached the point where a rebel 'pharaoic state' was established in the south of Egypt, the Thebaid, backed by military assistance from Nubia, and led by Herwennefer as Pharoah. It survived there against the Ptolemaic regime for 20 years (206-186)! Thebes itself was only recovered in 199/8.
* the nuetrality between Carthage & Ptolemaic Egypt endured. Carthage did not meddle when Cyrenaicia became the base of estranged members of the Ptolemaic royal family (Magas, the brother of Ptolemy II, declared himself King of Cyrenaicia in the 270s. He marched on Alexandria, gained support from the Seluecids, but was defeated because of a revolt of Libyan nomads in his absence. Ptolemy couldn't puruse Magas because of a revolt of his Celtic soldiers! Egypt and Cyrene were reconciled in the 250s.). Egypt remained nuetral during the Punic Wars - unlike the last priest-king of the Siwah oasis, who in 207 was a general in the Punic army (Silen. XV.672f). This nuetrality must be made to endure. In RTR there are "land block" mods that can make this happen; its unsatisfactory, but it works. EB needs something similar.

H.

I won't reply in detail, but can tell you that:

1) We won't be changing the map significantly. Certainly not lopping off the bottom half. It might not be a bad idea, but not at this this stage.

2) The "Sand War" between Egypt and Carthage. I completely agree - ahistorical and mind-numbingly boring, too boot. We have some comparatively simple fixes that should eliminate the desire of either the Qarthadast or Ptolemaic AIs to war with one another. If you as the player choose this option? Good luck Mr. Rommel!

3) Successor Greek Recruitment. Hmmm. You may be right. I'll post something to this effect for the team to consider.

4) Egyptian Revolts. Man. This is the one feature of RTW that most people HATE, and you want more of them? I'm not sure how we could script in something special for the Egyptians. The real issue is that RTW doesn't model large Ancient Empires very well. Historically, most were undone by some form of internal problem, exacerbated by revolts or external invasion. But in RTW, other than the mostly annoying rebel pop-ups, your only danger comes from external invasion. So chalk this up to the engine (if we DID script in lots of revolts and rebel invasions in Egypt, it would probably just annoy people so much they wouldn't play them anymore.)

[Kull]

A response on the issue of Greek recruitment:


Some comments:
1) I think Hamilcar Barca overstresses the paucity of available "Greek" manpower to some extent. The 20.000 Egyptian natives at Raphia seem to have been a largely unique instance and The Seleucids were consistently able to deploy a 30.000-40.000 strong "Makedonian" phalanx in the royal armies they fielded. According to Bar-Kochva in "The Seleucid Army" the role of native auxiliaries was very secondary and he considers that the Seleukid system of military colonies was successful throughout most of the empire's history.

2) At a certain point I was involved (with Mike) in the definition of recruitment areas for Greek units. I seem to recall it usually came to around 40-something provinces for things like Phalangitai, Thureophoroi and similar. Has this been increased? Otherwise I think it's sort of reasonable. Some trimming might be possible, though, and I, for one, wouldn't mind it, but I wouldn't expect anything terribly drastic from the available evidence on, for example, the location of Seleukid katoikiai.

3) Might Hamilcar Barca be considering things called "Pantodapoi" as "Greek" troops? They have Greek names and things like Pantodapoi Phalangitai, which look quite Hellenic, are more widely available (som 60-ish provinces, IIRC?). I wonder if that may contribute to give an impression of increased availability of Greek troops? However, they represent exactly that recourse to native manpower that Hamilcar Barca mentions.

4) The "alternate history" factor. I think this is an important consideration here. The "rewrite history, not replay it" thingie...This can work in two main ways:

a) The player might squeeze more Hellenic manpower from the areas with historical Hellenic populations than the historical states. This can happen in two ways:

i) The player might be more successful at maintaining control of the recruiting areas than the historical models. For example the Seleukid phalanx at Raphia was "only" 30.000 strong, instead of the "expected" 40.000 that they fielded in other ocassions. That was due to rebellions in Asia Minor that cut them off for a time from their very important military settlements there, which seem to have provided some 10.000 phalangites. If the player manages to control more of the areas that historically recruited Hellenic troops than the Successor states he should face less problems in that department.

ii) The player might invest more resources/attention/effort into recruitment policies and be more successful at them than the historical models. Historically, there seem to have been differences in the success of recruitment policies between Successor states. For example, Bar-Kochva contrasts the reasonably fortunate Seleukid system against the not-so-good Ptolemaic one in the book mentioned above and advances some reasons for this. If the player devotes resources to establishing type1 and type2 govts. and building the MICs up to the level where the Hellenic troops are built he, again, should not suffer from excessive restrictions based only in the argument that "historically they weren't as good as that"

b) The player might expand into areas that the Hellenes didn't conquer in history, but that would have been perfectly suitable for the establishment of military colonies. Based on the geographical distribution of Seleukid katoikiai, Bar-Kochva (once again) suggested that sufficiently rich crop-land and absence of very hostile/ rebellious natives were the main conditions for a newly conquered area to receive military colonies. According to that, some provinces that historically never had substantial Hellenic populations might have been allowed to provide such troops if a Hellenistic power conquers them and takes the adequate steps (building the right gvt).

[HamilcarBarca]

A response to Angadil on Greek recruitment in Asia.

I don't believe I am exageratting the paucity of Greek numbers in Ptolemaic Egypt - or the Seleucid empire either for that matter.

Have a look at pp. 108-141, C T Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World, Ares Publishers, Chicago, 1934 - which, together with J Lesquier, Les institutions militaires de l'Egypte sous les Lagides, Paris, 1911, are the classically authorative texts on this subject.

In brief, this text reveals that there were three types of troops in the Ptolemaic army, "Macedonians", mercenaries and Egyptians; the evidence for these forces includes literary evidence, the evidence of Polybius as to the army at Raphia, and the papyri.

1) The Ptolemy regime in Egypt never had large numbers of Macedonian or Greek (hereafter collectively called Macedonian) manpower at its disposal. At the outset Ptolemy came to Egypt in 323BC with no soldiers, and found there only a small garrison (of Greek mercenaries led by the finance minister Cleomenes). At the battle of Gaza (312BC) only about 25% of the 22,000 men deployed by Ptolemy were "Macedonian"; thereafter deserters, defections and prisoners of war (such as 8,000 after the battle of Gaza) were important sources of Macedonian manpower. By 305BC the army of Ptolemy can have contaiend only about 5000 Macedonians, the remainder of his army being Greek mercenaries and Egyptians; after this date no king of Egypt could ever recruit directly from Macedonia again. In the Second and Third Centuries BC the system of military settlers was established, organised into military divisions (hipparchies & chiliarchies) and received kleroi of varying sizes, from 100 acres downwards; the majority of these were Greek and Macedonian, but the next largest group were Thracians, and other barbarian settlers are known also (including relatively small numbers of 'Galatians'). The military purpose of the kleroi was to found a community capable of supplying the reliable army upon which a military monarchy must depend. The system failed. The twenty years of peace (241-221BC) appear to have been the period where the kleroi became better farmers and worse soldiers. "In time the Macedonians had become Egyptians". The preparations prior to the battle of Raphia (217BC) reveal that Ptolemy now had to rely upon a "phalanx" recruited among native Egyptians and mercs - the Graeco-Macedonian 'kleroi' only accounted for 15,000 (the royal guard 3000, the phalanx proper 5000, the peltasts 2000, household cavalry 700, and 4000 of the 6000 Gauls and Thracians. Note how few the Gauls and Thracians were!).
2) While many Greek mercenaries were settled as kleroi, the use of mercenaries could never be abandoned; particularly after the kleroi system decayed. The great Ptolemaic empire required a garrison of professional soldiers for its provinces and garrisons, and in times of danger new mercenaries were recruited from Greece and elsewhere. There was a very heavy reliance on mercenaries by the Ptolemy dynasty, and after Raphia the mercenary army concentrated around Alexandria became the army of Egypt;
3) The Egyptians were used not only for transport & commissariat, but, at least after Raphia (217BC) also organised into a phalanx, 20,000 strong, trained by Greek officers, and equipped in the Macedonian manner, recruited from the population in general, and not from a closed class or order. It proved an error of policy; teaching a subject people they could fight as well as their masters!

Money was at the root of the highly artificial military system in Egypt. The dynasty constantly recruited mercenaries from Greece and elsewhere to compensate for its inability to build a national army.

Ptolemaic Egypt could never establish a national army. The army was most reliable when it could be recruited from a "Greek" population, and this population was always small, and could only be rienforced by mercenaries. The loss of the empire overseas to Phillip V, the collapse before Antiochus IV in 170BC, and the subsequent dependence upon Rome in questions of foreign policy all argue a military weakness that couldn't be overcome.

So, in EB terms, I would say;

* to have a limitless supply of so accomplished a domestic soldiery as the existing kleroi phalanx is simply not historic, and a dramatic exageration of a system of soldier-settlers that must be judged a failure; and
* to have a limitless supply of so accomplished a domestic soldiery as the Galatian swordsmen is bordering on fantasy.

So, I stand by my contention that EB should scrap the Galatian swordsmen as 'recruitable' infantry, and convert them to mercenaries found in the Nile Valley, AND that the kleroi forces should only be found where there is a 'Greek population resource', and that should be confined to Alexandria.

If you want to be historic, then the Ptolemaic player must learn to rule an empire that is money rich, rebellious and heavily reliant on Greek mercenaries to supplement a VERY SLENDER local supply of Graeco-Macedonian stalwarts.

H.

[Kull]

You are undoubtedly right on the Galatians (probably just a recruitment error - god knows we have enough of those in v.74), but as to sources? I'll go with our guys who have access to modern scholarship.

[edyzmedieval]

Hamilcar has a very strong point. :book:

Maybe you can limit the recruitment of Kleurochoi Agemata and Basilikon Agemata just to Memphis?

The province of Memphis included the Fayuum Region, which was responsible for the recruitment of the guys.

[Angadil]

Hamilcar,

In a nutshell: I mostly agree that the Ptolemaic system largely failed in history, but I don't see that it was *necessarily* doomed to fail. For example, the Seleukid one, not really that different, did reasonably well. It seems that the Ptolemies eventually mismanaged a system that, otherwise, could work (it worked for others). Hence, we believe that the player is entitled a shoot at doing better in this aspect.

Now some specific comments:


The preparations prior to the battle of Raphia (217BC) reveal that Ptolemy now had to rely upon a "phalanx" recruited among native Egyptians and mercs - the Graeco-Macedonian 'kleroi' only accounted for 15,000 (the royal guard 3000, the phalanx proper 5000, the peltasts 2000, household cavalry 700, and 4000 of the 6000 Gauls and Thracians. Note how few the Gauls and Thracians were!).

Sorry, but 5.000 Makedonian settler phalangites can only be postulated by purposefully disregarding the actual evidence in Polybius. Why don't we take a look at what Polybius *actually* wrote?:

"Eurylochus of magnesia commanded about three thousand men of what were called in the royal armies the Agema, or Guard; Socrates of Boeotia had two thousand light-armed troops under him; while the Achaean Phoxidas, and Ptolemy the son of Thraseas, and Andromachus of Aspendus were associated in the duty of drilling the phalanx and the mercenary Greek soldiers on the same ground,--Andromachus and Ptolemy commanding the phalanx, Phoxidas the mercenaries; of which the numbers were respectively twenty-five thousand and eight thousand. The cavalry, again, attached to the court, amounting to seven hundred, as well as that which was obtained from Lybia or enlisted in the country, were being trained by Polycrates, and were under his personal command: amounting in all to about three thousand men. In the actual campaign the most effective service was performed by Echecrates of Thessaly, by whom the Greek cavalry, which, with the whole body of mercenary cavalry, amounted to two thousand men, was splendidly trained. No one took more pains with the men under his command than Cnopias of Allaria. He commanded all the Cretans, who numbered three thousand, and among them a thousand Neo-Cretans, over whom he had set Philo of Cnossus. They also armed three thousand Libyans in the Macedonian fashion, who were commanded by Ammonius of Barce. The Egyptians themselves supplied twenty thousand soldiers to the phalanx, and were under the command of Sosibius. A body of Thracians and Gauls was also enrolled, four thousand being taken from settlers in the country and their descendants, while two thousand had been recently enlisted and brought over: and these were under the command of Dionysius of Thrace. Such in its numbers, and in the variety of the elements of which it was composed, was the force which was being got ready for Ptolemy." (5.65.1-11)

If you take the time to add up all the units' strengths you'll end up with 69.000 infantry, which matches very well with what Polybius says once again:

"Ptolemy accordingly set out from Alexandria with seventy thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and seventy-three elephants" (5.79.2)

Very clear, I'd say. After having been allowed to fall into disrepair, as was widely recognized, the Ptolemaic system still produced 25.000 men for their phalanx.

I know some scholars choose to disregard Polybius' figures and go for 25000 for the settlers+egyptians phalanx. Their argument largely being that, 45.000 thousand phalangites would make the Ptolemaic army far stronger than the Seleukid one. To me, preferring that sort of speculation to straightforward, cosnsistent textual evidence is very poor scholarship. Moreover, with a 25000 total Ptolemaic phalanx the argument swings the other way!. That would make the Ptolemies very weak! The Seleukids, plagued by revolts in Cyrrhestica and Achaeus revolt in Asia Minor (both important recruiting areas, that could provide some 6.000 phalangites each) still showed up with 10.000 argyraspides and a 20.000 settler phalanx *and* 20.000 Asian auxiliaries (10.000 Arabs, 5.000 Medes & al. 5.000 Karmanians & al.) *and* 5.000 Greek mercenaries to form their main battle line. The number (and proportion) of Seleukid Asian auxiliaries is *very* high and could well suggest an effort to compensate for the missing settler troops and be able to face the expected numbers of Ptolemaic infantry. However, note that even if not at full strength the Makedonian Seleukid phalanx still outnumbered the Asian, battle-line auxiliaries (30.000 vs. 20.000).


3) The Egyptians were used not only for transport & commissariat, but, at least after Raphia (217BC) also organised into a phalanx, 20,000 strong, trained by Greek officers, and equipped in the Macedonian manner, recruited from the population in general, and not from a closed class or order. It proved an error of policy; teaching a subject people they could fight as well as their masters!At Raphia, yeah. After Raphia? Where were those Egyptian phalangites at Panion, the battle that eventually settled the fate of Koele-Syria? They are not mentioned as part of the Ptolemaic army there.

EDIT: all of the above notwithstanding, restricting the Agemata units to a single province as edyzmedieval suggests, could be a sensible move, IMO.

[Trithemius]

More dynamic scouting would be neat.

I don't know if it is possible but basing detection on both range and army size (so that small forces - these raiding parties - would only be detected at close range or by skilled scouting generals, while larger forces can be seen from miles away) would be extremely neat.

It also occurs to me that having forces pillage the enemy hinterland perhaps should provide some small income as well as damaging the economy of the enemy province.

[HamilcarBarca]

Angadil,

You are right to say that I am disposed to thinking that Polybius figure of a phalanx of 45,000 (Macedonians + Egyptians) at Raphia is incorrect; I am swayed by the argument that the conduct of the battle (Ptolemaic tactics don't suggest an advantage in phalanx forces of 45,000 to 20,000) and its later description as an "egyptian victory" mean that Polybius 'muddled the two Ptolemaic phalanxes when he was getting out his figures: the combined phalanx was 25,000, of which 20,000 were the new Egyptians' (Griffith, p. 123).

But, of course, we will never be able to resolve that particular debate.

It seems we agree, however, that it would be more accurately "historical" to limit Ptolemaic access to kleroi forces - to an 'Alexandria' and/or Memphis/Fayuum province as Edyzmedieval suggests.

What is your reaction to the Galatian swordsmen? Would you be inclined to retain them as kleroi or are you persuaded that Keltoi/Gallic warriors should only be found in the Nile Valley as mercs?

Also, what is your reaction to the "domestic unrest" element in Ptolemaic Egypt. How can this be replicated in-game? There is good modern scholarship on this subject; I recommend Chapter 5, "Domestic resistance and the Pharaonic state in Thebes (206-186)" in Gunther Holbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, Routledge, 2001.

I agree with your fundamental point about the Seleucid empire; its 'soldier-settler' system was more successful. But nonetheless, Seleucid armies in EB continue to have too many Graeco-Macedonian recruitable troops. I think the notion of a "Greek population resource" should apply to the Seleucids also - they should just have more of them.

I also believe this innovation will be good for gameplay.

Now we can see why the Seleucids fought so hard in Asia-Minor - it was an important source of their being able to renew their Graeco-Macedonian soldiery! Unlike the Ptolemaic empire, the Seleucids struggled to remain 'in direct contact' with Greek population sources, that is, the Ionian coastline of Asia-Minor.

The military strength of the Seleucids was built on the foundations established by Alexander the Great and Antigonus "one-eye" - and that means the Graeco-Macedonian military colonies. These Hellenistic military colonies were a source of Graeco-Macedonian manpower - but they were limited in both location (i.e. the Hellespont, Antioch and others in the Orontes Valley in Syria) and the number of formations they could sustain.

The Seleucid regular army lasted much better than the kleroi army of Egypt; the Seleucids needed mercenaries, but, unlike the Ptolemaic dynasty, they did not need an army of mercenaries. The "Macedonian" phalanx lasted through the centuries - but it still only numbered 20,000 of 62,000 foot at Raphia (217BC) and 16,000 of a total of 70,000 at Magnesia. There was always a heavy reliance on Greek & Cretan mercenaries, and "barbarian" mercenaries and subjects like the Thracians, Medes, Persians, Arabs (incl. Nabateans), Galatians, the Scythian Dahae, Cilicians and Jews.

H.

[paullus]

Would it be possible to handle elite recruitment in the way that follows?

1. For Player faction: scripted recruitment options, a la the mercenary recruitment system in ChivTW, so that you can effectively limit the numbers of hypaspistai/klerouchoi agemata, etc, and the player would have the option to not take up that financial burden.

2. For AI factions: still scripted recruitment, but the AI factions (for whom finances are not the burden they can be for the Player) receive their elites automatically.

Perhaps you could still tie the script to a certain level of MIC, such that reaching lvl 3/4 whatever unlocks a key unit.

And I wouldn't restrict recruitment of Galatians, etc based on location. Both Ptolemies and Seleukids relocated settler populations to useful areas: so useful in lower Egypt to reinforce the homelands, useful in upper Egypt, or in parts of Asia Minor, to quell dissent. There are very clear evidences, in both papyri and inscriptions, for katoikoi settlements in upper Egypt, including Makedonians, Kretans, Thracians, and Galatians.

Now, as another thing, since the Ptolemies will have both kleruch phalanxes and pezhetairoi, would it be possible to make the pezhetairoi available in Alexandria, but not Memphis?

[Angadil]

Hello Hamilcar, paullus et al.


Angadil,

You are right to say that I am disposed to thinking that Polybius figure of a phalanx of 45,000 (Macedonians + Egyptians) at Raphia is incorrect; I am swayed by the argument that the conduct of the battle (Ptolemaic tactics don't suggest an advantage in phalanx forces of 45,000 to 20,000) and its later description as an "egyptian victory" mean that Polybius 'muddled the two Ptolemaic phalanxes when he was getting out his figures: the combined phalanx was 25,000, of which 20,000 were the new Egyptians' (Griffith, p. 123).

But, of course, we will never be able to resolve that particular debate.

Well probably not ~:) , but I'm surprised that you find that the events at Raphia support a total Ptolemaic phalanx of 25.000. I think it's rather the opposite. We could take a look at the battle. First, I am giving the disposition of units (excluding cavalry and Cretans and neo-Cretans) and their numbers, as given by Polybius, for both armies.

From the seaward side of the battlefield (Seleukid right, Ptolemaic left) to its landward end (Seleukid left, Ptolemaic right), we would have:

Seleukid
....5000..........5000......10000....20000.....10000..5000....3000....1500
Mercenaries Karmanians Argyr. Settler Phal. Arabs Medes Persian Lydians

Ptolemaic
Agema "Peltasts" Libyans Settler Phal. Egypt. Phal. Mercenaries Gals&Thrac
..3000....2000.....3000.......250000.......200000.........8000.........6000

From Polybius account we know who engaged who and we can establish the sea and landward ends of the main battle line (italics indicate my comments):

"Ptolemy's guard [Agema] gave way before the rush of the animals [fleeing Ptolemaic elephants]; while Antiochus, wheeling his men [cavalry] so as to avoid the elephants, charged the division of cavalry under Polycrates. At the same time the Greek mercenaries stationed near the phalanx, and behind the elephants, charged Ptolemy's peltasts and made them give ground," (5.84)

and at the other extreme:

"Echecrates the commander of the right wing [Ptolemaic] waited at first to see the result of the struggle between the other wings of the two armies: but when he saw the dust coming his way, and that the elephants opposite his division were afraid even to approach the hostile elephants at all, he ordered Phoxidas to charge the part of the enemy opposite him with his Greek mercenaries; while he made a flank movement with the cavalry and the division behind the elephants; and so getting out of the line of the hostile elephants' attack, charged the enemy's cavalry on the rear or the flank and quickly drove them from their ground. Phoxidas and his men were similarly successful: for they charged the Arabians and Medes and forced them into precipitate flight." (5.85)

So, the main battle line for the Seleukids goes from the Greek mercenaries to the Medes and would total 55.000 men. For the Ptolemies, it would go from the "Peltasts" to their own Greek mercenaries. With Polybius numbers they would have been 58.000 thousand men against 55.000 Seleukids. With the evidence-less, "Polybius-must-have-got-it-wrong", figures it's 43.000 thousand against the Seleukid 55.000. *Nothing*, nothing at all in the subsequent development suggest the Seleukids had such a substantial numerical advantage in the infantry clash (which they *lost*). If we discount the already engaged/routed units we would have 35.000 Seleukids vs. 48.000 thousand Egyptians according to Polybius, or 35.000 Seleukids vs. 28.000 Egyptians if we go with the "must-have-been" figures.

We know the Seleukid battle line crumbled quickly in the phalanx clash ( "the division of Nicarchus [Seleukid settler phalanx 20.000 strong] quickly broke and fled" (Pol. 5.85)). Now, the "Polybius-is-wrong" set of numbers would require that those 35.000 Seleukids, comprising 20.000 settlers and the 10.000 *elite* Argyraspidai, all of them with recent battle experience (winning experience, btw) in the suppression of Molon's revolt in the upper satrapies were easily and quickly defeated by a Ptolemaic phalanx that was not only numerically inferior, but with at least 20.000 (maybe even 23.000) of its supposed 28.000 men seeing battle for the very first time!. Personally, I find that a healthy Ptolemaic advantage in numbers in the final phalanx slugfest (48.000 vs. 35.000) explains very well the quick Seleukid rout *and* does not need to resort to the "Polybius has to have been wrong" claim. Honestly, I can't see how the battle account can't do anything but confirm that Polybius numbers are right indeed.



It seems we agree, however, that it would be more accurately "historical" to limit Ptolemaic access to kleroi forces - to an 'Alexandria' and/or Memphis/Fayuum province as Edyzmedieval suggests.Hmmm... Not really. There is evidence of the Ptolemies establishing a chain of military settlements in the Jordan valley and the eastern plateau and, west of the Jordan, in Samaria. Eventually, these fell into Seleukid hands after Panion, but that raises the question, what happens if the Ptolemies conquer areas where, let's say, the Seleukids had military settlements? The evidences shows that when a Successor state conquered the military colonies of another it proceeded to use them without much trouble. For example, we know that after Magnesia the Pergamene Attalids gained control of a good chunk of the Seleukid recruiting grounds in Asia Minor and quickly incorporated those troops into their forces.

What is your reaction to the Galatian swordsmen? Would you be inclined to retain them as kleroi or are you persuaded that Keltoi/Gallic warriors should only be found in the Nile Valley as mercs?One of the Polybius passages I posted very clearly states that 4.000 Galatians and Thracians came from settlers in the country and, as paullus has pointed out, there is abundant additional evidence of Galatian kleruchoi.


Also, what is your reaction to the "domestic unrest" element in Ptolemaic Egypt. How can this be replicated in-game? There is good modern scholarship on this subject; I recommend Chapter 5, "Domestic resistance and the Pharaonic state in Thebes (206-186)" in Gunther Holbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, Routledge, 2001.I fully agree that domestic unrest was a huge problem for the Ptolemies. Now, I need to remind you all that EB's purpose is to allow a "sensible" rewriting of history, not just a mere replaying of it. Therefore, when we look at such historical phenomena and its relation with EB, we need to answer a number of questions. We begin with the following set, which we consider critical ones: Why did the unrest appear? Was it "unavoidable"? Was it the consequence of specific policies? Did the Ptolemaic rulers had the "tools" to do things differently and solve/avoid the problem? How could they have gone about it?

So far, our analysis of Egyptian unrest does not indicate that it would have been there no matter what the Ptolemies did. Thereore, we are trying to strike a balance between what you could call the "base unrest level" that would be present no matter what and we need to implement and allowing the player to do sensible things that the Ptolemies may have done, but didn't do. Sometimes it seems you guys are too focused into what actually happened and not into what *might* have happened, but the "what if's" are central for EB (or any mildly serious historical simulation). We look at the actual events, of course, but we need to pay as much attention to the conditions that led to them. It's the conditions that we really want to bring into the game. Then, ideally, according to the player decissions, history will be reproduced or entirely rewritten.


Now we can see why the Seleucids fought so hard in Asia-Minor - it was an important source of their being able to renew their Graeco-Macedonian soldiery! Unlike the Ptolemaic empire, the Seleucids struggled to remain 'in direct contact' with Greek population sources, that is, the Ionian coastline of Asia-Minor. The military strength of the Seleucids was built on the foundations established by Alexander the Great and Antigonus "one-eye" - and that means the Graeco-Macedonian military colonies. These Hellenistic military colonies were a source of Graeco-Macedonian manpower - but they were limited in both location (i.e. the Hellespont, Antioch and others in the Orontes Valley in Syria) and the number of formations they could sustain.You need to add a bunch of places to that list. We know there were sizeable military colonies as well in, for example: Cyrrhestica (6.000 phalangites), the northern Euphrates, Media around Ecbatana (founded by Antigonos. His son, Demetrios, in his invasion of Syria was trying to get there in search of support from the soldiers his father had settled in the area and they provided the heavy core of Molon's army in his revolt), Persis to a lesser extent (but it still could provide 3.000 Thracian and Makedonian infantry and a similar number of cavalry) and Elymais around Susa. That is just for the Seleukids, we know there were also military settlements in areas that eventually came under the rule of the Graeco-Baktrians, too.

Additionally, we know the Seleukids could recruit troops from areas which had had Hellenic population from old. So, our historical evidence points out towards a potentially large pool of manpower. An astute player should be able to tap into it.


The Seleucid regular army lasted much better than the kleroi army of Egypt; the Seleucids needed mercenaries, but, unlike the Ptolemaic dynasty, they did not need an army of mercenaries. The "Macedonian" phalanx lasted through the centuries - but it still only numbered 20,000 of 62,000 foot at Raphia (217BC) and 16,000 of a total of 70,000 at Magnesia. Hmmm... you keep leaving out the 10.000 Arygraspidai who were present at both battles and that originated from the same source of manpower. Therefore, the military colonies turned out *only* 30.000 phalangites of 62.000 at Raphia and 26.000 of 70.000 at Magnesia. However, you need to remember that the infantry of an Hellenistic army was not supposed to be composed of phalangites only. For example, Alexander had some 40.000 infantry at Gaugamela, but only 15.000 were Makedonian, sarissa-armed phalangites. And that may be actually inflating their numbers by accepting the theory of 2.000 men as the strength of a Makedonian taxeis and counting the hypaspists as part of the phalanx. If we go with the classical 1.500 strong taxeis that'd be only 12.000 men out of 40.000 total infantry.

Moreover, at neither Raphia nor Magnesia were the Seleukids operating at their potential maximum or even close to it. At Raphia, the rebel Achaeus controlled the military colonies of Asia Minor, the Cyrrhestians were also in revolt and Molon's insurrection in Media had just recently been subdued, but presumably the area still needed garrisons and the loyalty of some troopers from there might have been suspect. At Magnesia, the Seleukids had just lost 18.000 phalangites in the expedition to Greece that ended up in the defeat at Thermopylae. Therefore, under reasonably ideal conditions (which a player may be able to attain) you could expect the Seleukid system to yield in excess of 40.000 phalangites (Argyraspidai included) for a royal field army. That's a lot of phalangites.


There was always a heavy reliance on Greek & Cretan mercenaries, and "barbarian" mercenaries and subjects like the Thracians, Medes, Persians, Arabs (incl. Nabateans), Galatians, the Scythian Dahae, Cilicians and Jews. Yes of course. No one is denying that, but reliance on mercenaries and subject contingents does not necessarily equate with shortages in military settler manpower. For example, mercenaries were abundantly employed for garrison duty, as the settler troops were not adequate for that task. The katioikioi were landlholders and would want/need to go back home to take care of their katoikia during peacetime. Additionally, some of those contingents performed necessary or desirable specialist roles that the settler troops could not provide: missile troops, light infantry... You don't compensate a lack of phalangites by recruiting Dahae horse archers...

If anyone has had the patience to read up to here, I will add now that I am not personally certain of all the nittty-gritty details of our current Successor recruitment. Diverse problems have prevented me from having RTW in my current computer. However, I will take a look at the code and will encourage the true Hellenistic experts to do the same (I'm just one of the chaps that tries to make sure EB has enough Horse Archers...) to make sure that we have not inadvertently gone overboard at some point.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

heres my suggestion: Stronger ships for Carthage. Ive been reading about Carthage and found out it was founded by Phoenicians. These peoples were seagoing and had a very strong navy. Since Carthage was a Phoenician colony why not give them a strong navy?

[Slider6977]

heres my suggestion: Stronger ships for Carthage. Ive been reading about Carthage and found out it was founded by Phoenicians. These peoples were seagoing and had a very strong navy. Since Carthage was a Phoenician colony why not give them a strong navy?

Have you played Carthage yet? They have a very good selection of naval units. And while I mostly agree with your argument, I must also point out that Carthage was not just considered a naval superpower because of her military fleet. In fact, Carthage and its Phoenican ancestors, in my view, were much more superior in naval technology in the form of trade and exploration. But certainly at times they commanded an incredible fleet of warships (start of this game being one of those times no doubt). However, they have a very powerful selection, probably the best in the game.

However, I would suggest a decrease in upkeep for Carthage naval units. I think this would reflect their great intellectual naval superiority in the way of construction and maintenance. But considering this would force a split between Carthage and all factions that can co-produce the same ships, I believe it will be too much work for the EB team to consider at this time.

[orwell]

I don't think the ships carthage has access to are different from any other naval super power faction, so a decrease for them would be for all. I think you could give the carthagian ports a requirement and resource so that it would provide 10% off or however much. Though I don't think this will go in either way, it'd be nice to give the incentive to the player to maintain a accurate fleet.

[aecp]

I have a suggestion that I haven't seen brought up before, but it's quite possible that I've missed it since this thread is rather large. Anyway, here goes.

From what I've read (and I'm by no means an expert) it seems that several nations (Pontus, Armenia and Numidia, to be more specific) tried to emulate the roman legions in response to defeats suffered at the hands of the romans. My question is if this could be handled in the same way as the Cataphract reforms for the eastern kingdoms, with a "intrigued by legions"-trait? The trait could be triggered by significant defeats against the romans.

Furthermore, I've read that other, more "barbaric" peoples (the Pannonians for example) among whom many had served as roman auxiliaries also emulated the roman way of fighting. Perhaps this could be simulated by a trait wich signifies that the owner has fought together with the romans. It could be triggered by fighting a battle along roman allies. One big problem with this is that I have absolutely no idea which faction, if any, it would be applied to.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Have you played Carthage yet? They have a very good selection of naval units. And while I mostly agree with your argument, I must also point out that Carthage was not just considered a naval superpower because of her military fleet. In fact, Carthage and its Phoenican ancestors, in my view, were much more superior in naval technology in the form of trade and exploration. But certainly at times they commanded an incredible fleet of warships (start of this game being one of those times no doubt). However, they have a very powerful selection, probably the best in the game.

However, I would suggest a decrease in upkeep for Carthage naval units. I think this would reflect their great intellectual naval superiority in the way of construction and maintenance. But considering this would force a split between Carthage and all factions that can co-produce the same ships, I believe it will be too much work for the EB team to consider at this time.


My mistake i never really focus on navy:sweatdrop:

[Trithemius]

My mistake i never really focus on navy:sweatdrop:

Why would you need stronger ships then? :dizzy2:

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Well i just wanted it to make it more historical and also i do use navy in troop landings and naval battles. Its just i dont use them all the time.

[Weisthor]

hi to all,
i´am totally new to europa barbarorum, i didn´t even know something about it till now :) i found a link in the rometotalrealism-forum and i just tried it for fun cause i was bored ;) but know i am heavily impressed by this mod and can´t wait to test it !!!! great stuff here ! ( pls excuse my english if it appears to be not the best :) ) i was playing rome total realism all the time and really enjoyed it, but know i wanted to test something different ... and was searching for other mods in the rtr-forum and found this link ... and i´m really glad i did !

my suggestion for 0.8 would be to add some features some rtr-mods had .... i think about the metropolis & navy mod which changes some builidings, economy, the navy and most important: it removes the walls from a lot of minor cities and villages....
it would be really great if you could remove them too... not every single wall... citys like roma should have one, but sieges can be very annoying if you make a sally ... you have to move all your troops out of the city, place them were you want etc... thats a lot of wasted time ....a lot of people hate that i know ...... without walls the enemy can straight walk into your city, which causes great battles !
and something else .. is there perhaps anything you could compare to rtr´s aor (area of recruitment) so that you can recruit some units only in some regions etc .... i mean, if you play the romans for example, are you able to train some germanic or other units after conquering, too?
this would be awesome!

don´t know if this is already implemented, but i hadn´t had the time to read everything here in the forum.

great work !

greetz

Weisthor

[Weisthor]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, i forgot: there should perhaps be something that fixes the size of the trees... in rtw vanilla they were much much too big as you surely all know.

[Ludens]

From what I've read (and I'm by no means an expert) it seems that several nations (Pontus, Armenia and Numidia, to be more specific) tried to emulate the roman legions in response to defeats suffered at the hands of the romans. My question is if this could be handled in the same way as the Cataphract reforms for the eastern kingdoms, with a "intrigued by legions"-trait? The trait could be triggered by significant defeats against the romans.
I am not so sure about Armenia, but Numidia and Pontus did acquire Roman instructors at some point. However, I don't know how far these instructions went, so did they really create imitation legionares? In the case of Numidia this is doubtfull, since we are talking about the Pre-Marian era, when legionares were Roman citizens.


Furthermore, I've read that other, more "barbaric" peoples (the Pannonians for example) among whom many had served as roman auxiliaries also emulated the roman way of fighting. Perhaps this could be simulated by a trait wich signifies that the owner has fought together with the romans. It could be triggered by fighting a battle along roman allies. One big problem with this is that I have absolutely no idea which faction, if any, it would be applied to.
Interesting idea, but exactly what would be the effect of this trait? I don't think the Germans changed their way of fighting much, even though many of them served in the Roman army.


and something else .. is there perhaps anything you could compare to rtr´s aor (area of recruitment) so that you can recruit some units only in some regions etc .... i mean, if you play the romans for example, are you able to train some germanic or other units after conquering, too?
Sure. If you conquer German lands as the Roman (or as almost any faction), you can use German units. However, it does depend on which faction you are playing (Nomad factions have less local units to recruit) and which governement you install. If you try to assimilate the area to your culture (type I or II governement), then you won't have many local units. However, if you leave their culture intact (type III or IV governement), you will be able to recruit local units.

BTW, I would like to see something like the Metropolis mod as well. However, there may not be a building complex avaible to implement this. EB has used them all.

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

[Weisthor]

thx for your answer :) sounds good so far .... i will test it tomorrow, can´t wait ^^

i really hope they at least remove the walls ...
sieges as defender (sallys) are the main reason for me to lose the motivation for this game ... and i know there are many others ....

Weisthor

[orwell]

A minimod could be developed to remove all walls but personally I want them in there. Maybe limit the development of them as well as cities to be accurate, but other than that most of what the metro mod had to offer that I liked is included.

How rampant were pirates during the time period? by the time the romans had mare nostrum, was it mostly stamped out? I was thinking that if EB decides to go with a hard to reach/unconquerable province that spikes to create a ptolemy/carthage block, giving them a sea port as well to allow pirates to remain a part of the game would be a good idea. Don't they only spawn if they have a port? Or do they still show up randomly?

[HamilcarBarca]

I have noticed that as an AI faction, Rome begins to field armies that are very non-historical. It has a bias towards fielding armies that are a mixture of triarii and barbarian auxiliaries - hastaii, velites and principes appear to have been abandoned.

I assume this is because the AI is recruiting the best troops it can - and that means exclusively triarii from its Italian provinces - and then adding them to its recruits from its non-Italian provinces in the Po Valley etc. The result is that Rome fields Triarii-Gallic armies that bear no resemblance to the actual Republican-era Roman armies/legions.

When considering this, I was reminded that the Ptolemies have a similar problem, in that as the game progresses their armies become comprised of only kleroi agema and kleroi galatians - the "cheaper" troop types are abandoned.

What is to be done? As a matter of game mechanics, I note that RTR does not have this problem. The AI factions continue to field armies that remain filled with historically accurate contingents as the game progresses; for instance Roman armies in the 'middle' RTR game do better resemble Republican-era armies than in EB.

Of course, the problem in RTR is that the troop builds are so cheap that AI (and player) factions can field too many armies, diminishing the significance of major battles and campaigns, because every faction can sustain so many simultaneous operations!

So if EB can get its "army composition" problem fixed, it will be close to perfect!

H.

[O'ETAIPOS]

I don't think the ships carthage has access to are different from any other naval super power faction, so a decrease for them would be for all. I think you could give the carthagian ports a requirement and resource so that it would provide 10% off or however much. Though I don't think this will go in either way, it'd be nice to give the incentive to the player to maintain a accurate fleet.

Carthage ships are already cheaper than greek ones and waaaaay cheaper than roman ones. (this works only for big ones - 4's and 5's though)

We do not have so many free unit slots to give Carths completely unique ship list (and the slots we have could be put to better use).

[Weisthor]

i don´t talked about removing ALL walls .... don´t get me wrong. i only mentioned to remove the walls of minor city... not the ones of major citys like roma or athens etc ...

if it would be possible to make a minimod that removes the most walls ( not all of course !), that would be really great ;)

i prefer straight battles, i don´t like endless sallys all the time.
if sallys would not be as common and boring as they are by now, they would gain a lot of fun back i think.

[aecp]

I am not so sure about Armenia, but Numidia and Pontus did acquire Roman instructors at some point. However, I don't know how far these instructions went, so did they really create imitation legionares? In the case of Numidia this is doubtfull, since we are talking about the Pre-Marian era, when legionares were Roman citizens.

As far as i know the imitation concerned mostly basic equipment (short swords, big shields), tactics and formations. I don't think that the mentioned factions tried to emulate the pre-marian roman legions in methods of recruitment, but rather used existing troops with new equipment and tacitcs. I'm not sure to which extent these imitations were implemented and how succesful they were. Perhaps not significantly enough to merit taking up two or more unit slots. And I don't think the Numidians should be an issue at all, since they neither a) exist as a faction in this mod or b) equipped soldiers as legionaries during the timeframe of this mod.


Interesting idea, but exactly what would be the effect of this trait? I don't think the Germans changed their way of fighting much, even though many of them served in the Roman army.

Maybe the trait could give an advantage when facing romans on the battlefield? I think Arminius is a good example of this (although it didn't help him much against Germanicus)

[Ludens]

As far as i know the imitation concerned mostly basic equipment (short swords, big shields), tactics and formations.
Interesting. Do you have any easily accesible sources? I am still unsure about Armenian legionaries because the only place I have ever seen them was in vanilla R:TW.


I don't think that the mentioned factions tried to emulate the pre-marian roman legions in methods of recruitment, but rather used existing troops with new equipment and tacitcs.
No, I meant that when Numidia received Roman instructors the Roman legionary wasn't a profesional soldier, but a citizen levy. Mithradates of Pontus got Roman trainers after the Marian reforms (and after getting trashed by Roman armies), so the pre-Marian argument does not apply to him.


I'm not sure to which extent these imitations were implemented and how succesful they were. Perhaps not significantly enough to merit taking up two or more unit slots.
Mithradates used his new model army to defend himself from more Roman incursions. It was not very succesful at that, but then Pontus was targeted by two of the most formidable Roman generals in history: Pompey the Great and the oft-forgotten Lucius Lucullus.


Maybe the trait could give an advantage when facing romans on the battlefield? I think Arminius is a good example of this (although it didn't help him much against Germanicus).
Possible, but I would think that "familiarity with faction X's way of fighting" should be implemented for all factions, not just the Romans. Also, allied battles are rare, so this trait would be very hard to obtain. Perhaps it should be possible to adopt characters with a trait "served in Roman army" (or any other faction that made regular use of foreign auxillaries)?

[paullus]

Perhaps it should be possible to adopt characters with a trait "served in Roman army" (or any other faction that made regular use of foreign auxillaries)?

Now that is an interesting sort of idea! I don't know what difference it might make for the candidate/family member, but it would be cool nonetheless!

By the by, could the Pontic legionaries have been EB's great-looking Pontic thureophoroi? If Pontos began fielding large numbers of thureophoroi to go toe-to-toe with legionaries, it doesn't seem too much to me to construe that as an attempt to mirror the legion.

[aecp]

Interesting. Do you have any easily accesible sources? I am still unsure about Armenian legionaries because the only place I have ever seen them was in vanilla R:TW.)


I can't seem to find the exact quote at the moment. But i read it in Adrian Goldsworthy's In the Name of Rome. I'll try to find the exact quote and his sources.


No, I meant that when Numidia received Roman instructors the Roman legionary wasn't a profesional soldier, but a citizen levy. Mithradates of Pontus got Roman trainers after the Marian reforms (and after getting trashed by Roman armies), so the pre-Marian argument does not apply to him.

I'm not quite sure I understand (which might have more to do with my grasp of the english language than anything else). But wouldn't the numidians be able to equip their soldiers like the romans even if the latter were a citizen levy?


Mithradates used his new model army to defend himself from more Roman incursions. It was not very succesful at that, but then Pontus was targeted by two of the most formidable Roman generals in history: Pompey the Great and the oft-forgotten Lucius Lucullus.

I agree completely. Against less capable commanders it could have been a completely different story.


Possible, but I would think that "familiarity with faction X's way of fighting" should be implemented for all factions, not just the Romans. Also, allied battles are rare, so this trait would be very hard to obtain. Perhaps it should be possible to adopt characters with a trait "served in Roman army" (or any other faction that made regular use of foreign auxillaries)?

I think that sounds like a very good idea. It could perhaps also be augmented by ancillaries representing for example roman trainers and specialists (as in the case of Pontus, Numidia and Decebalus of Dacia.)

[Ludens]

But wouldn't the numidians be able to equip their soldiers like the romans even if the latter were a citizen levy?
My apologies, I did not explain myself clearly. What I meant was that at the time the Romans did not have uniform training or equipment (instead it was based on wealth and experience). Also, I doubt there were sufficient Numidians that were rich enough to afford themselves quality equipment in the Roman style (e.g. chainmail, scutum, greves, helmet and gladius), or that the Numidian kings were capable of paying for a large force of such troops. So the Numidians could not switch to an army consisting of mainly heavy-infantry like the Romans used, and it would have made more sense for them to have a small cavalry elite than to have a small infantry elite.

[tk-421]

I've always thought that armies move to slowly in the campaign map. It takes over a year to march from Rhegium to Ariminum. I know that it wouldn't have taken that long for an army to march that far through friendly territory. The problem with increasing movement to realistic levels is that factions would expand way too quickly. But what if movement points were increased for an army in its own territory but kept at current levels for enemy territory? That way it wouldn't take frustratingly long amounts of time to march across your own territory but you wouldn't be able to blitz the heck of enemies either. It seems reasonable that it would take longer to move through enemy territory. There would be supply problems, the natives probably wouldn't be so friendly, the geography would be relatively unknown, etc. I am fairly certain that this would be possible through scripting since you have have varying movement points based on seasons and there are supply related traits that generals get related to whose land they are in.

[Angadil]

Factions might expand too quickly, yeah, but increasing per turn movement rates has some more undesirable effects. For example, it would likely seriously skew towards sieges/assaults. Remember that the campaign map isn't actually true real time. You can't move your armies and intercept enemy armies while they are moving in the AI's turn. You have to wait to your own turn to go after them. If everyone can move more in a given turn it becomes generally easier to reach and assault an enemy settlement within a single turn. You would end up fighting more sieges and less field battles.

[edyzmedieval]

Think the movement like this: An army marches through a part of the map in 3months. This is antiquity, not modern world TK. It took them a lot of time to march from one point to another.

[orwell]

What time were the yuezhi around? Does 1.5 have the emerging faction ability? Or is that only for BI?

I was thinking, they don't necessarily have to be removed if they came in a later time period. Certainly some factions will die out during the course of the game, and if you play long enough hopefully all. Would it be possible to script a way to replace factions that have been crushed with a new faction that became a factor as time went on, not at 272? Would it be possible without having BI if it requires it? While having them playable would make for a better game, I'd rather have them as a emerging enemy to keep the late game more interesting than not at all. The yuezhi come to mind since their already in, but I imagine there's more than just these people who came to power during this time period. If scripted faction exchange is plausible, this could lead to some very interesting changes. And if the project moved onto BI, hoarding would allow for rogue generals such as spartacus, the socii wars, rogue generals among other peoples and cultures. I hope its something EB will at least keep in mind, unless its out right impossible, in which case, I hope the late game is as lively as the beginning in other ways.

Also, could units who carry axes be allowed to chop down wooden gates and walls at a slower rate than a ram can bash through?

[Krusader]

What time were the yuezhi around? Does 1.5 have the emerging faction ability? Or is that only for BI?

I was thinking, they don't necessarily have to be removed if they came in a later time period. Certainly some factions will die out during the course of the game, and if you play long enough hopefully all. Would it be possible to script a way to replace factions that have been crushed with a new faction that became a factor as time went on, not at 272? Would it be possible without having BI if it requires it? While having them playable would make for a better game, I'd rather have them as a emerging enemy to keep the late game more interesting than not at all. The yuezhi come to mind since their already in, but I imagine there's more than just these people who came to power during this time period. If scripted faction exchange is plausible, this could lead to some very interesting changes. And if the project moved onto BI, hoarding would allow for rogue generals such as spartacus, the socii wars, rogue generals among other peoples and cultures. I hope its something EB will at least keep in mind, unless its out right impossible, in which case, I hope the late game is as lively as the beginning in other ways.

Also, could units who carry axes be allowed to chop down wooden gates and walls at a slower rate than a ram can bash through?

Yuezhi are out and have been replaced.

Porting to BI has been discussed and will probably happen should some EB members have little to do. And on a related note, we will not script certain events, like Maccabean revolt, Spartacus, appearance of Hannibal etc.

We might encourage Punic Wars to happen, Syrian Wars to continue etc. but it's not on "EB's agenda" to have historic events happening without the conditions for them happening are in.

[tk-421]

Factions might expand too quickly, yeah, but increasing per turn movement rates has some more undesirable effects. For example, it would likely seriously skew towards sieges/assaults. Remember that the campaign map isn't actually true real time. You can't move your armies and intercept enemy armies while they are moving in the AI's turn. You have to wait to your own turn to go after them. If everyone can move more in a given turn it becomes generally easier to reach and assault an enemy settlement within a single turn. You would end up fighting more sieges and less field battles.

I'm not sure if you understood what I was trying to say or perhaps I did not make myself very clear. I proposed only increasing movements points for armies in their own territories and not to fully realistic levels, just enough so doesn't take forever to travel short distances within your own lands (it should not take three turns to get from Rhegium to Capua, etc). I would like to keep movement points for armies in enemy territories at current levels so that, like you said, there won't be too many sieges and factions won't expand too rapidly. I would think that my idea might actually produce more open field battles because defending armies would be able to intercept invaders a little bit faster. This would also give an advantage to defenders.


Think the movement like this: An army marches through a part of the map in 3months. This is antiquity, not modern world TK. It took them a lot of time to march from one point to another.

I understand that armies were pretty slow back then. I'm just saying that I don't think that it would take over a year to march from one end of Italy to the other or from Sparta to Thessaly.

[Angadil]

I'm not sure if you understood what I was trying to say or perhaps I did not make myself very clear. I proposed only increasing movements points for armies in their own territories and not to fully realistic levels, just enough so doesn't take forever to travel short distances within your own lands (it should not take three turns to get from Rhegium to Capua, etc). I would like to keep movement points for armies in enemy territories at current levels so that, like you said, there won't be too many sieges and factions won't expand too rapidly. I would think that my idea might actually produce more open field battles because defending armies would be able to intercept invaders a little bit faster. This would also give an advantage to defenders.Well, you've been certainly clearer now and there's merit in your suggestion, though armies travelling through both friendly and enemy land in the same turn may be tricky to deal with. However, lthere's a more basic problem, I think. Like everything that requires subtle, sensible tinkering with movement that can only be done through traits and, as we all know, traits only work on FMs. While players are generally careful to make FMs lead their armies, the AI isn't nearly as good and you often see captain-led AI stacks. Therefore, such a change would mean just another extra way for the player to outwit the AI without even trying.

[Tanit]

This has probably been mentioned before but it would be great if I had the assurance of knowing that Pantapadoiai will have spears in the next mod. Men jabbing with the sides of their fists don't look all that impressive.

Another thing, I respectfully request that more care to ethnicity be given in regards to the numidian javelinmen that keep showing up in the middle east, I assume their just acting as placeholders for something else there but it still bugs me for some reason.

[soibean]

I noticed the talk about increasing the movement and that turning into Siege Total War and I was wondering
has EB fixed the AI first turn siege problem? Let me explain what I mean...

The player begins immediate construction of his/her siege equipment the first turn of the siege, but I have never witnessed an AI besieger building any sort of weaponry until the following turn. This gives the player an addition turn to pump out men/bring in reinforcements/whatever.

I hope that was clear enough.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Roman armies were known to march 20 miles a day... just like modern armies.

Granted, there must be some give-and-take, since there obviously wasn't motorized transport back then, and since not everybody had the benefits of Roman roads, but the discrepancy between marching times then and now is probably not as great as you might think...

[Magister Militum]

Indeed the roman army walked about 25 kilometers in 5 hours while carrying about 40kg on their back. So it's indeed very unrealsitc how slow they move from one point to another, and it really irritates me.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

This has probably been mentioned before but it would be great if I had the assurance of knowing that Pantapadoiai will have spears in the next mod. Men jabbing with the sides of their fists don't look all that impressive. Well, there was an error with the .cas file. Version 0.74 had an older version of the .cas with a new texture with different mapping coordinates, so it produced such an error. It's been corrected now with the proper .cas file.


Another thing, I respectfully request that more care to ethnicity be given in regards to the numidian javelinmen that keep showing up in the middle east, I assume their just acting as placeholders for something else there but it still bugs me for some reason.Well, you'll be pleased to hear that such placeholder no longer exists... :wink:

[Tanit]

Well, there was an error with the .cas file. Version 0.74 had an older version of the .cas with a new texture with different mapping coordinates, so it produced such an error. It's been corrected now with the proper .cas file.

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that such placeholder no longer exists... :wink:

Very excellant.:2thumbsup:

I also have some complaints about the represtation of Africa. Your sahara is far too big. I took a look at a map of Africa and it looks like Timbukto should be well within your current parameters.

I would also like to respectfully request that the EB map be put farther west to include more of the African coast, the canary islands and more of the fertile Africa just below the sahara. If major research would need to be done I'd do it myself. I also noticed that the Canary islands were explored by a Mauretanian sholar-king within the time frame of EB. around 5BC or something like that. Any effort there would be great.

[Tanit]

If at all possible I Would also like to see some unique Mauretanian units, I know they're not hugely different from the Numidians but it would still be really cool.

This is a quote on Mauretanians by Herodotus,
"Although the Mauretanii inhabit a country, the greatest part of which is very fertile, yet the people in general continue even to this time to live like nomads. They bestow care to improve their looks by plaiting their hair, trimming their beards, by wearing golden ornaments, cleaning their teeth, and paring their nails; and you would rarely see them touch one another as they walk, lest they should disturb the arrangement of their hair. They fight for the most part on horseback, with a javelin; and ride on the bareback of the horse, with bridles made of rushes. They have also swords. The foot soldiers present against the enemy, as shields, the skins of elephants. They wear the skins of lions, panthers, and bears, and sleep in them. These tribes, and the Masaesylii next to them, and for the most part the Africans in general, wear the same dress and arms, and resemble one another in other respects; they ride horses which are small, but spirited and tractable, so as to be guided by a switch. They have collars made of cotton or of hair, from which hangs a leading-rein. Some follow, like dogs, without being led. They have a small shield of leather, and small lances with broad heads. Their tunics are loose, with wide borders; their cloak is a skin, as I have said before, which serves also as a breastplate....

Now there are lofty mountains there, and a level space near the foothills of the mountains, where the Mauretanii had made preparations for the battle and arranged their fighting order as follows. They formed a circle of their camels, just as, in the previous narrative, I have said Cabaon did, making the front about twelve deep. And they placed the women with the children within the circle; for among the Mauretanii it is customary to take also a few women, with their children, to battle, and these make the stockades and huts for them and tend the horses skillfully, and have charge of the camels and the food; they also sharpen the iron weapons and take upon themselves many of the tasks in connection with the preparation for battle; and the men themselves took their stand on foot in between the legs of the camels, having shields and swords and small spears which they are accustomed to hurl like javelins. And some of them with their horses remained quietly among the mountains. . . .

black-skinned like the Mauretanii"

It would be cool also to see the capital of Roman period Mauretania.
"This inscription was found at Cherchel, Algeria. Cherchel was known as Caesaria, the capital of Ancient Mauretania, in the Roman Empire."

[Kull]

I also have some complaints about the represtation of Africa. Your sahara is far too big. I took a look at a map of Africa and it looks like Timbukto should be well within your current parameters.

I would also like to respectfully request that the EB map be put farther west to include more of the African coast, the canary islands and more of the fertile Africa just below the sahara.

We won't be making any major changes to the map. You will see some new borders and a few towns moved and/or renamed, and many glitches cleaned and fixed, but the E-W and N-S dimensions won't change at all.

P.S. I also thought that the Niger river belonged in the bottom corner, but our mapping gurus have assured me that it's tilted northwards just enough that only desert can exist there. I was disappointed too!

[Tanit]

We won't be making any major changes to the map. You will see some new borders and a few towns moved and/or renamed, and many glitches cleaned and fixed, but the E-W and N-S dimensions won't change at all.

P.S. I also thought that the Niger river belonged in the bottom corner, but our mapping gurus have assured me that it's tilted northwards just enough that only desert can exist there. I was disappointed too!

That's a pity.

Another point that has probably been addressed already is the inclusion of Balearic islanders and Libyans. I was told they would be in this mod but I just wanted to make sure.

[orwell]

Did galatia lose enough of its barbaric culture that it was generally a hellenic people? Could the ability to build a lower level government be extended to other barbarians as well?

[Warlord 11]

How about when they are still small (under say 40 cities), if you or the AI, when playing as Rome or Carthage, loses Rome or Carthage, they are destroyed? I can't really remember, but didn't the Romans send a army to attack Carthage durring the 1st Punic war, as they knew that if Carthage fell, the Carthaginian Allies would surrender.

[edyzmedieval]

It would be too unrealistic Warlord.
I conquer Rome and the Romani are disolved? Nah....

[Warlord 11]

Maybe just for the human then? To give more importance to the capital? I have difficulty seeing the Romans continuing to fight after Rome has fallen.

[orwell]

The entire people dissolving seems a bit too much, but I like the idea that the capital plays a more important role. Maybe a bonus to whatever faction conquers the capital of another country? I know there's imperator for Romani but could something similar be extended? If a faction loses its capital, or moves it, could there be a moral loss or something along those lines? I could see several traits being attached to it similar to how carthagians get a trait for hating romans and vice versa.

Will the capital of Ptolemy be moved to Alexandreia as it was instead of memphis? In "A History of Rome" by M. Cary and H. H. Scullard it states that Alexandreia was the capital. "...the dynasty of the Ptolemies ruled over Egypt, Cyrene, Cyprus, the greater part of Syria and a chain of maritime stations in the Levantine and Aegean seas; their capital was established at Alexandria, the greatest of Alexander's colonies in the East." Could they be given influence in the Aegon as well? Possibly a second town on the island of Crete, or a city on one of the many islands off of Chalkis?

[edyzmedieval]

The Ptolemies will be definitely improved, at least in my MapMod. Since they are my favourite faction, I'll do some radical changes to their arrangement. ~:)

And Alexandreia is their capital at the start.... :inquisitive:

[orwell]

Are you sure? Start a brand new campaign with them and it'll be Memphis. Either that or I've got a weird error that sets it to Memphis.

[Krusader]

Alexandria will be capital in next build. If not a screw-up.

Kleruchoi Agemata will be limited to Nile provinces with much probability, along with Basilikon Agemata and Kleruchoi Cavalry & Hetairoi.

Basilikon Agemata stats will be increased making them better than Kleruchoi Agemata.

Upkeep prices for Kleruchoi & Basilikon Agemata will probably be slightly increased to see if it reduces the probability of stacks of them coming at you.

Sand War between Carthage & Ptolemies will be fixed most probably, resulting in far fewer wars and only if Carthaginians conquer Cyrene.

[sithlord85]

Sand War between Carthage & Ptolemies will be fixed most probably, resulting in far fewer wars and only if Carthaginians conquer Cyrene.

Carthaginians conquer Cyrene....dirty fools wouldn't dare!!!!!!!!!:furious3:
______________________________________
"I don't fear the dark side as you do Obi wan"
https://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i285/sithlord86/newozzsig8gt.jpg

[edyzmedieval]

I have Kyrene and I'm still very good allies with the Carthaginians. :inquisitive:

The Kleruchoi Agemata and the other guys MUST be limited to Memphis, because Memphis has the Fayuum Region, from where the guys were recruited. :book:

[paullus]

Geez Louise, they weren't all recruited from the Fayum, and they certainly didn't all settle in the Fayum after their service. And as the EB peeps have stated before, the game is a "what if" scenario. IF, say, Ptolemy III had maintained control of Babylon and Antioch during the 240's, don't you think he could have (almost certainly would have) settled some of his veterans in the fertile plains near both cities, in order to increase loyalty/security? All the Ptolemies needed for klerouchoi were kleroi (land allotments), and they could get kleroi wherever there was even semi-arable land. So there's no "MUST" to the recruitment situation, as I see it.

[Trithemius]

Geez Louise, they weren't all recruited from the Fayum, and they certainly didn't all settle in the Fayum after their service. And as the EB peeps have stated before, the game is a "what if" scenario. IF, say, Ptolemy III had maintained control of Babylon and Antioch during the 240's, don't you think he could have (almost certainly would have) settled some of his veterans in the fertile plains near both cities, in order to increase loyalty/security? All the Ptolemies needed for klerouchoi were kleroi (land allotments), and they could get kleroi wherever there was even semi-arable land. So there's no "MUST" to the recruitment situation, as I see it.

Sounds totally reasonable to me! I certainly favour the verisimilitudinal "what if" approach to restrictive historical recreation on a turn by turn basis.

[orwell]

Why isn't Thessaly in? Why do we have nowheresville in northern europe. I generally like the city distribution but this seems like a rather.... poor decision of the EB team. You can recruit thessalian calvary, but you can't visit the city its from. Were those cities in northern europe really that important compared to some of those found in the greek peninsula? Or along the eastern med? Some breaking up of the monotony of desert on the eastern coast of the med would be nice too, just one more city along the coast.

[Foot]

Why isn't Thessaly in? Why do we have nowheresville in northern europe. I generally like the city distribution but this seems like a rather.... poor decision of the EB team. You can recruit thessalian calvary, but you can't visit the city its from. Were those cities in northern europe really that important compared to some of those found in the greek peninsula? Or along the eastern med? Some breaking up of the monotony of desert on the eastern coast of the med would be nice too, just one more city along the coast.

They were important for the region - northern europe - they inhabit. That the classical civilisations did not write great reams on the importance of nowheresville means only that it was not important to them. To those people who do inhabit northern europe the settlement was important and thus appears in game.

Foot

[paullus]

Demetrias was the leading city of Thessaly during the reign of Antigonos. The city was--someone correct me if this is wrong--founded by Demetrios Poliorketes, the father of Antigonos, a couple of decades or so before the start of the game. Whether it was the largest city in Thessaly at the time, I do not know, but it would have been the military and administrative center, and the Thessalian city most closely identified with the Antigonid (Makedonian) dynasty.

[Tanit]

Geez Louise, they weren't all recruited from the Fayum, and they certainly didn't all settle in the Fayum after their service. And as the EB peeps have stated before, the game is a "what if" scenario. IF, say, Ptolemy III had maintained control of Babylon and Antioch during the 240's, don't you think he could have (almost certainly would have) settled some of his veterans in the fertile plains near both cities, in order to increase loyalty/security? All the Ptolemies needed for klerouchoi were kleroi (land allotments), and they could get kleroi wherever there was even semi-arable land. So there's no "MUST" to the recruitment situation, as I see it.

I agree that EB is very much a what if situation. I thus would like to ask again forLibyan and Carthaginian chariots. Plutarch records that the Carthaginians used chariots only fifty or so years before the game and if some Carthaginians decided they didn't like the unpredictability of elephants they would know how to build chariots for certain, just like the penteconteres in the Carthaginian navy, old but possible. Also the Libyans of that area were traditionally carioteers according to Plutarch and he mention Agathocles recruiting them maybe only twenty years before the game start time. If not the Carthaginian vhariots then at least the Libyan ones as it makes sense that a society would't change its traditional arms in just twenty years. The only reason possibly that these chariots weren't mentioned in the Mercenaries war by Polybius is the overall lack of knowledge about that war. Polybius simply stated that between the Libyans and mercenaries they had cavalry and infantry.:book:

[The Spartan (Returns)]

many units dont make big charges,celebrations,or taunts. to do that, here's my tutorial (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=65900) give romans a "roman" culture. they have greek type walls, agents, member portraits, greek charges and more. give all roman units a latin voice some use regular english voice. and some greek cultured units have latin voices too. just give them the vanila "greek type voice".
probably this has been already mention eh?

[paullus]

some things I'd like to see:

triggered garrisons for besieged cities, to represent the phrouria; nothing huge, but a few more units to make the siege a little more demanding for the besieger.

new vegetation (Prom's grass?) a la the palms

more rebel field armies in rebel provinces, and more accurate garrisons in the rebel provinces' cities.

more interesting rebels. could there be some way to script where, under certain conditions, a usurper pops up, with an army? If possible, it could add an interesting dimension to maintaining control of your territory, but less annoying than the incessant 4-6 unit rebel armies. i hope that the smaller rebels' frequency will be reduced (right now i get a rebel army in about each province at about 1 per year).

i'd like to see an acropolis in greek cities (this would be some awesome)

more diversity in the results of the different gov't systems (eg., nominal independence (most type 4's) should cause a big jump in happiness, but a corresponding drop in law).

[Tanit]

I would like more territories. I think this makes the game more realistic. It always took a lot of sieges to conquer a province in history. Besides, the shahara for one is way too big. One way to alter this is the fact that the Air Massif was a sacred site and there would always have been tribesmen there, hence its own province. I would also like to beg the mapping gueros of EB to take another look at the south africa section of the map after checking over longtitude and latitude reveals that the Niger river should make an appearance, and a province, in the south western corner of the map. Please.:help:

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I would like more territories. I think this makes the game more realistic. It always took a lot of sieges to conquer a province in history. Besides, the shahara for one is way too big. One way to alter this is the fact that the Air Massif was a sacred site and there would always have been tribesmen there, hence its own province. I would also like to beg the mapping gueros of EB to take another look at the south africa section of the map after checking over longtitude and latitude reveals that the Niger river should make an appearance, and a province, in the south western corner of the map. Please.:help:We are currently at the max provinces possible (200). No way to get more as it is hard-coded.

[tk-421]

I had this idea a couple of days ago and I think that its good but it may not fit in with EB's alternate history thing and it may not be possible. The Colossus of Rhodes was destroyed in 225ish (226?) BC by an earthquake. I was thinking that it would be cool if there was a scripted event that destroyed the Colossus and gave the Koinon Hellenon player an option to rebuild the Colossus or let the ruins sit there. If the player chooses not to rebuild than a new building called "Ruins of the Colossus" or something would replace the old building. If the player chooses to rebuild than they would be charged an exhorbitant price and wait 10 or so years for the building to be reconstructed.

[edyzmedieval]

I had this idea a couple of days ago and I think that its good but it may not fit in with EB's alternate history thing and it may not be possible. The Colossus of Rhodes was destroyed in 225ish (226?) BC by an earthquake. I was thinking that it would be cool if there was a scripted event that destroyed the Colossus and gave the Koinon Hellenon player an option to rebuild the Colossus or let the ruins sit there. If the player chooses not to rebuild than a new building called "Ruins of the Colossus" or something would replace the old building. If the player chooses to rebuild than they would be charged an exhorbitant price and wait 10 or so years for the building to be reconstructed.

Sound idea TK. :thumbsup:

@Tanit

One idea would be "erasing" some cities in Arabia, and adding more in Sahara.

[cunctator]

Besides, the shahara for one is way too big. One way to alter this is the fact that the Air Massif was a sacred site and there would always have been tribesmen there, hence its own province.


The sahra is intentionally as big as it is, it's not that we don't know settlements to put there. Earlier versions of the map had provinces there, but it was decided to use the province slots for more important and more densely populated areas.



I would also like to beg the mapping gueros of EB to take another look at the south africa section of the map after checking over longtitude and latitude reveals that the Niger river should make an appearance, and a province, in the south western corner of the map. Please.:help:

That's was one of our mapper has said about it:



The map, doesn't go anywhere near Niger in this part. It's heavily skewed south-west, and so the south-eastern corner is much fuirther north than south-western one. It's still deep in the middle of Sahara.





One idea would be "erasing" some cities in Arabia, and adding more in Sahara.


Why should we remove important places from arabia to make it one overly large unrealistic province just to cover more saharan oasis's?

[Obelics]

hallo, i dont know if this is the right place to put this, anyway i never tryed romans as a faction until now, well, i tryed it a bit in custom battle to look at the units, and as usually great work, but here we are:

reading the description for a lot of unit i found the use of the adjective italian very much used, well it sound very strange referred to peoples and tribes etc.
I think we all know what is the difference in english between the adjectives "italian" and "italic", so i think it should be corrected (where it occurs) in "italic people" for the next beta (and not italian people, it is like to read "Quintus Sertorius had a very good relations with spanish people" it is just strange...).

Also referring to Samnite swordsmen description i found an "italian Social War", linguistically speaking there never was an "italian social war" there was just a "social war" so it is needed to delete that "italian", bytheway if you want to explain that war was fought in italy, you must use a paraphrasys, example:

"this men fought well during the Social War, fought between rome and her italic socii (or socii italici) etc etc", since italian social war is so strange, it is like to read: "the french war between the french tribes of the Arverni and aedui lol"

so i think this should be corrected in the 0.8, and i really care of this, since this sound a bit hilarous to me.
please there seems no other mod that want to be historical had care of this, and in other mods i found some ridicoulous "italian spearmen" and "italian cavalry" directly from the modern warfare... but this is not the case of EB that as i sayd in other posts is the most enjoiable Wikipedia of the ancient world...

greets

[cunctator]

Your point is surely worth discussing, but I think there is one major difference to your examples. Spain/spanish and france/french are both more modern names while the peninsula was called Italia during our timeframe as it is today.

Should we also use "romanic" instead of "roman" in the description to distinguish between ancient and modern romans? But otherwise I've used germanic instead of german by myself to distinguish between modern english word for germans in ancient inhabitants of germania.

Probably we will change all names and this kind of adjectives into latin. It's still easily understandable, more authentic and will increase atmosphere.

[Obelics]

Your point is surely worth discussing, but I think there is one major difference to your examples. Spain/spanish and france/french are both more modern names while the peninsula was called Italia during our timeframe as it is today.

Should we also use "romanic" instead of "roman" in the description to distinguish between ancient and modern romans? But otherwise I've used germanic instead of german by myself to distinguish between modern english word for germans in ancient inhabitants of germania.

Probably we will change all names and this kind of adjectives into latin. It's still easily understandable, more authentic and will increase atmosphere.

thanks for the answer, anyway
i wasnt as you can see above, referring to geographic names, since the peninsula was called "Italia", i wasn't referring to the substantive, but to the adjective as you can read.
So as i have sayd this is not a matter of history, just a matter of english, so you know the difference between italic and italian, italic is referred to ancient italian people as an adjective so when you speak of ancient italian people "in general terms" you should use "italic"

"Romanic" is not exemplary, cause it in english (and in italian too) has the connotation of an architechtural style and it has enlarged his semantic field from the architectural style even to the whole culture spreading around 1000a.c.

there is no need to call all in latin to bypass the misunderstanding, cause if you want to speak in general terms, we have the adjective "italic" and it is well defined in modern english and in a lot of other language (romance language too like french and italian)

regarding the question of the "italian social war" i think it is just a question of good common sense, and i really care abaut it, reading "italian social war" it seems to me to read somethink abaut the post indipendence age or even the fascist age. And as i said in the roman age there were not an "italic social war", but just a "social war" and you should use a paraphrasys if you want to specific it was fought in italia.

regarding french/spanish, it has no importance what word is more ancient or more modern, in modern language, the word "italian" has the same "feeling" as the word "french" and "spanish" while the word "italic" has a more ancient connotation like the word iberian and gaul and germanic, celtic etc. So that's it

Hope a good common sense make you to change it, cause as i sayd when i read that in the description i had a coup dans le coeur and all the historically accuracy seems to vanish just for that little particular.

So as i have feith that EB is far more conscient of other more amateur mods, i really hope you at last will take care of this.

thanks!

Post Scriptum: i dont know, sorry if im a bit aggressive to this matter, pheraphs it is due to the fact that being italian, it is soo natural for me to "feel" the difference between the two words that i think every body should feel.
Remember, i dont know from what country are you, but imagine you to be a french and playing EB read: "the Leuce Epos was one of the best light cavalry among the french people", for me it is the same, when i was playing RTR for example, when i had a charge with my "italian cavalry" it was just hilarous for me, since it seemed to play a napoleonic war mod. Now this isn't the case of EB since you haven't (thanks the god) "italian cavalry" and "italian skirmishers", but if you can correct a bit the description it should be perfect...

So this is the point:

-- just change all the "italian people" in "italic people"

-- "italian social war" just in "social war (fought between romans and the socii italici)" or if you prefer in "social war (fought betwen romans and the italic socii)"

-- leave all the reference to "italia" as they are, it is correct

-- if there is some reference to "italians" (i havent controlled) this should be changed in "italic people", because in this case also the substantive at the plural cant be italians neither italics.

Post Post Scriptum:
here's another point: the word "italic" in modern languages like english, dont means "italians" but just the ancient peoples that were inhabitans of the peninsula like Osci, Samnites, Umbri, Etruschi, Latins etc. They are excluded the greeks and the gauls. So when you want to refer to the ancient people who were "indigenous" or "aborigines" and you dont want to be specific but just general, you have the word "italic peoples"
If you want to include the greeks and the gauls then you should use paraphrasys again: "all the peoples that settled in Italia in the ancient time" etc.

[cunctator]

there is no need to call all in latin to bypass the misunderstanding, cause if you want to speak in general terms, we have the adjective "italic" and it is well defined in modern english and in a lot of other language (romance language too like french and italian)

The use of latin is not to bypass missunderstanding, but to make the roman unit descriptiopns consistent with EB policy to use the names the current faction have used. (Also I am not sure how many descritpions are written this way). Since you are right and all roman descriptions have to be touched again to replace italian it's simply a good opportunity to do this now. Originally I used simplier english names (which is not my primary language) when I wrote the roman unit descriptions, except the two for both samnite units and wasn't sure if I should insert latin names later, that perhaps can confuse some people, but they really should have them and I think now they that they will only improve atmosphere in game and educational value.


For example how it will look, here is a finalized part of a description for a ptolomaic unit. As you can see greek names are used, Romaioi instead of romans, Karchedoi instead of carthaginians etc.



Historically, the Pezhetairoi are the classic Alexandrian phalanx. They were used to great effect against the Persai, Medoi, Baktrioi, Indoi, Phoinikoi, and many, many others. They are an effective force and have not changed much over the centuries. The Romaioi were able to defeat them as easily as they did for two main reasons. One, the Romaioi army was at a high state of readiness and tactical prowess after defeating the Karchedoi. Two, the heavy cavalry arm of the Diodochoi armies had degenerated to the point where they were no longer able to field significant numbers to fulfill their part of the hammer and anvil tactic of Alexandros. There were also many lesser reasons, numbering among them the misuse of the Thureophoroi, the under use of Peltastai, and the lax state of warfare that the Diodachoi states were used to. In any case, the phalanx was not as anachronistic or inflexible as widely believed; it was simply misused and under-supported. In the thirteenth century and onwards, pikemen in similar formations were able to work wonders with more capable generals and a better cavalry arm. Do not under appreciate pikemen, for they are still a war winning force.

[Trithemius]

13th century onwards? Really? :/

[Obelics]

@cuntactor

ok thanks i see there is people of good sense here in EB, so i will look forward to the new 0.8 descriptions!

anyway EB is the less affected by this problem, cause it is only in the description as i sayd, other mods (i dont say what mod) have some amazing Italian Cavalry leading the 3 colour banner on the battlefield and singing the Mameli hymn (Brothers of Italia) while charging LOL, no just kidding

greets

[Tanit]

@Obelics
Long live Italy! I'm a Canadian Italian myself, but I've been to Naples once.

@EB
I was wondering if it would be at all possible to have musicians in units. They already have standard bearers for the most part but I think it would be even cooler to see musicians as well and this would also explain the ease with which orders are given in EB. Historically a lot of different peoples used trumpeters or flutes for marching or for signals.

I was also wondering if more detail was going to be put into the Italic peoples such as the samnites. I was reading about Pyrrhus' invasion of Italy and it mentioned Samnite horsemen(also seen on 3rd century grave wall paintings), as well as Lucanian spearmen. It would also be nice to some Etruscans, though not a kingdom they were still a unique people recently conquered, and Mamertines. Those Mamertines were so prominent in the early years of EB that they can't be left out with good conscience.

Although gladiators were never used by the Romans in war, they would make great rebel units representing events like the slave revolt led by Spartacus.

Its a pity that all the map slots are used up, oh well.:no:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It means using model slots that we aren't willing to sacrifice (using them for musicians would keep other units out in other words). Same thing for any other very very rare units.

[edyzmedieval]

I suggest upping the experience of mercenaries to at least 2 chevrons. Mercenaries were actually veterans who left the normal military service. They had vast experience, so therefore, they were battle hardened soldiers.

Maybe they should have 3 bronze chevrons?

[paullus]

they weren't all battle hardened soldiers, though. A good many were men who couldn't make a living--or at least a satisfactory one--back at home, farming or whatnot. Service as mercenaries was a rather common fact of life for young men in certain areas of the hellenistic world.

[stalin]

I want a cheese helmet

[Trithemius]

I want a cheese helmet

And I want to know who was using massed pikes in the 13th century.

[Warlord 11]

And I want to know who was using massed pikes in the 13th century.
Your mom:laugh4:

I believe Swiss Mecinarys durring the late 13th century used pikes. But I am probably wrong.

[Angadil]

And I want to know who was using massed pikes in the 13th century.
It would all depend on your exact definition of "massed pikes", but the Scots were using schiltrons in the late 13th cent, the battle of Courtrai is 1302 and the Flemish actions there may suggest some previous experience with the use of pikes.

[Trithemius]

Your mom:laugh4:

Awesomely lame.


I believe Swiss Mecinarys durring the late 13th century used pikes. But I am probably wrong.

Yes indeed you are. The Swiss got started using halberds some centuries later; even later Swiss were often formations of mixed pike and halberds.

[Trithemius]

It would all depend on your exact definition of "massed pikes", but the Scots were using schiltrons in the late 13th cent, the battle of Courtrai is 1302 and the Flemish actions there may suggest some previous experience with the use of pikes.

I didn't think that the schiltron had much in common with the types of formations used by ancient pikemen; the urban and communal militias might have been similar but in a fit of pedantry I have to point out that places them (just) in the 14th century. :book:

[Angadil]

I didn't think that the schiltron had much in common with the types of formations used by ancient pikemen; the urban and communal militias might have been similar but in a fit of pedantry I have to point out that places them (just) in the 14th century. :book:
I would say that it all depends on your level of detail. I see a general resemblance (numerous guys fighting with long spears/pikes in close order), but, of course, a closer look reveals many obvious differences (for the Flemish militias too, with their goedendag wielders interspersed with the pikemen/spearmen). But I think the point the description is making is that bunches of guys with reasonably long pointy sticks are not just a Hellenistic oddity and a generally bad idea, but that variations on that basic theme have appeared at other points in history and have been reasonably effective. In that general sense, I'd say schiltrons qualify and the (late) 13th century is a reasonably mark for the start (not the heyday, of course) of a certain re-emergence of pikes/spears.

[Warlord 11]

[QUOTE=Trithemius]Awesomely lame.
I know. I just had an urge to say it. :sweatdrop:

[edyzmedieval]

Most of the mercenaries were experienced men. Take for example the retired Roman Legionaries. They were battle hardened soldiers, but they wanted to earn more money. So, they hired themselves as mercs.

Therefore, mercenaries should have at least 2 bronze chevrons as experience from the start.

[Trithemius]

I would say that it all depends on your level of detail.

Quite true! I'd probably use the Swiss re-emergence though - it is more widely known and also had a greater impact (in my opinion) than the communal and urban pike(-ish) formations of the Low Countries and Germany.

[sedlacekj]

Roman armies were known to march 20 miles a day... just like modern armies.

Granted, there must be some give-and-take, since there obviously wasn't motorized transport back then, and since not everybody had the benefits of Roman roads, but the discrepancy between marching times then and now is probably not as great as you might think...


Having been a non-commissioned officer in the infantry recently, I can concur. On "gravel" roads, it was normal for us to march 25 miles in one day. Without roads at all, it was normal to do about 20, and if the terrain was rugged, we would do 12 or maybe 15 in a day. We typically carried more that the Roman Legions as well. (about 65 - 80 lbs) The distance the soldiers in the game can move in 3 months or even 6 months is pitiful. I think there must have been some other historical reason why armies did not expand their respective empires more quickly. If rebel groups were to spawn every turn in every province, that would slow down troop movement. They wouldn't have to be large groups, but let's say that 3 to 4 groups appear in each province each turn, but if left alone 2 or 3 turns they would combine into a large army, then the player would be forced to use the garrison troops to fight rebellions every 3 to 6 months. This would prevent "overnight" expansions, and would force the player to stay busy keeping the trade routes open rather than only using the military for expansion.

[tk-421]

I think there must have been some other historical reason why armies did not expand their respective empires more quickly. If rebel groups were to spawn every turn in every province, that would slow down troop movement. They wouldn't have to be large groups, but let's say that 3 to 4 groups appear in each province each turn, but if left alone 2 or 3 turns they would combine into a large army, then the player would be forced to use the garrison troops to fight rebellions every 3 to 6 months. This would prevent "overnight" expansions, and would force the player to stay busy keeping the trade routes open rather than only using the military for expansion.

It's not a bad idea, but I've rarely seen two small rebel armies combine, let alone three or four. Also, I think that there already plenty (maybe too many) rebel armies popping up already on the suggested very hard difficulty setting.

[stalin]

[QUOTE=sedlacekj We typically carried more that the Roman Legions as well. (about 65 - 80 lbs) [/QUOTE]
I think the packing of the infantrymen is the same as it was in the roman times 35 kg

[Avicenna]

The amount of rebels present in VH is already too much to deal with... at least for the 1 province factions such as Baktria and the Casse.

[Equilibrium]

Baktria is currently starting with 3 provinces(internal version of course), but this will probably change later because our baktria group has problems with the accuracy of borders in this map area, but probably in 0.8, baktria will start with 3 provinces like they do now.

[sedlacekj]

I think the packing of the infantrymen is the same as it was in the roman times 35 kg

My bad, I misread a post on pg 11 which stated 40 kg. I thought it said 40 lbs. Thanks for the correction.

[sedlacekj]

It's not a bad idea, but I've rarely seen two small rebel armies combine, let alone three or four. Also, I think that there already plenty (maybe too many) rebel armies popping up already on the suggested very hard difficulty setting.

The armies could be one unit armies at lower difficulty settings, and that would still force players to move around a lot internally within their province each turn. I say give the troops a proper 3 month movement allowance that makes sense with what we know about troop capabilities and map distances. Then raise the province income some so the player can afford a province garrison. Lastly, give the player a reason to keep the garrison within the province most of the time. This "reason" could be multiple rebels, or perhaps something to do with trade. Let's say that if a unit owned by the player does not "secure" the trade routes and port each turn, then the player suffers a percentage of trade income that turn. The reality is that someone would have to have "eyes on" the routes at least once every 3 months in order to keep them free of robbers. I don't think it is enough to have the city or watchtowers doing the job. The reality is that armed forces have to patrol constantly to keep open trade routes or supply lines.

[Sdragon]

That’s a disgusting amount of micro management to expect a player to do. I’d rather play RTW Vanilla than play EB like that.

[paullus]

Yeah, I'd rather let lower movement distances stand for whatever you want: dealing with rebels, keeping supplies intact, whatever.

And 3 provinces for Baktria? Wow, quite an increase. Wouldn't it make their campaign easier though? And as for borders, you could put rebel armies in the far reaches of territories, outside of proposed Baktrian borders, and let their "devastation" value balance out the extra territorial space. To be honest, in my Baktrian campaign, I control the cities of India, but not the land...could it work like that for the starting positions of .8?

[Trithemius]

I assume that improved roads include things like wardens and waystations and so on - in the same way that the Persian Royal Road did. Part of the reason that they increase trade is because they allow speedier travel and another part is because they supress banditry.

I like this "background" approach better than having EVERY brigand manifest as a tiny Aphistamenoi stack. Only large groups should appear, just like only large fleets of pirates appear.

[Trithemius]

And 3 provinces for Baktria? Wow, quite an increase. Wouldn't it make their campaign easier though? And as for borders, you could put rebel armies in the far reaches of territories, outside of proposed Baktrian borders, and let their "devastation" value balance out the extra territorial space. To be honest, in my Baktrian campaign, I control the cities of India, but not the land...could it work like that for the starting positions of .8?

If it cuts out the waiting that I have been sitting through as the Casse I'd be glad of it! Some people might think its fun to sit about waiting for your economy to sort itself for 11 years, but I sure don't. I'd rather "skip ahead" to the horrible warring and conquest. The poor Casse don't seem to have enough troops to do this alas. I hope the Casse are getting some more initial provinces.

[sedlacekj]

One reason I like to see more rebels along with a greater movement allowance is the realism.

One reason for the greater economy is that with more rebels, the economy would end up being the same unless the player agressively deals with the rebels. If you want to, just ignore the rebels, it will not change the gameplay. One of the other reasons I would like to see more rebels spawn along with the increase in economy is that your troops will gain experience faster. I've played Sweboz, Romani, Makedon, Iberia, and Yuezhi, and after ten years most of my units have one maybe two orange chevrons. This doesn't feel realistic to me. One other way to compensate for this is to earn more experience with each fight. I've tried to allow units to engage the enemy in unfavorable circumstances to see if they would gain experience faster, but they do not seem to. This way, if you want a better economy and more experienced troops, and the ability to move troops over long distances realistically in emergencies, you can get it all.

Another thing I would like to see is the ability to recruit more than one unit at a time. In other words, whatever the time is to build a unit, it would get built exactly that many turns later regardless of where it is in the Que. It doesn't seem realistic to pay now for something that will not begin training for several years. Maybe have a level 1 government build one at a time, a level 2 government build two at a time, and so forth. Or maybe use the barracks level instead, or the population size. Just a thought.

[Foot]

Another thing I would like to see is the ability to recruit more than one unit at a time. In other words, whatever the time is to build a unit, it would get built exactly that many turns later regardless of where it is in the Que. It doesn't seem realistic to pay now for something that will not begin training for several years. Maybe have a level 1 government build one at a time, a level 2 government build two at a time, and so forth. Or maybe use the barracks level instead, or the population size. Just a thought.

Hardcoded, sorry.

Foot

[Teleklos Archelaou]

One problem is that we want to force Baktria to generally head towards India, but with the change to have them controlling AE and Marakanda too at the start, they too often move into the steppe and forget India till much later. We have been experimenting with different ways to help push them the other way (they never expanded into the steppe historically), but we might not have it all straightened out perfectly by the 0.8 release though. So bear with us there.

[Tanit]

I was wondering, for the unit and faction files, are they just alternate versions of the existing files, or completly separate files? Cause if they were seperate it might be possible to change them into units and factions for EB. Just a thought.

I had a recruitment idea, What if each race, I berians, samnites, galaitians, etc.. was a resource like elephants or steeds. Then you could only recruit those troops in the provinces that have that resource. If these resources work the same as slaves then you can add them to provinces that don't have them already, possibly with colonies. For example. SAy that Iberia and Carthage ally against Rome. Iberia conquers Attium(?) and builds an Iberian colony government or structure there, the city can now recruit Iberians. Then say it revolts to Eleutheroi and Carthage takes it, now Carthage can recruit Iberians there. No more cities that can't recruit anything!:2thumbsup:

Reasons that many empires didn't have overnight expansion are because of rebels yes, but also the politics of it. Worrying about state alliances with ither Kingdoms and worried about the ramifications of starting a war with another Kingdom, or just having a population that doesn't want you to go to war.

[paullus]

"I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business." - B. Franklin

TA, is that your EB motto? It seems it would be good to be the man of more than "tolerable" abilities...that way you can get distracted.

Speaking of which, how about calling the Indo-Greek hoplites "yavanas," or at least a Greek way of saying it (which might be more accurate anyway), like Indohellenikoi hoplitai/stratiotai.

And another thing! Whatever happened to the Lykians that were previewed all those months ago?

[Angadil]

Speaking of which, how about calling the Indo-Greek hoplites "yavanas," or at least a Greek way of saying it (which might be more accurate anyway), like Indohellenikoi hoplitai/stratiotai. They are (will be) in fact called Indo-Hellenikoi Hoplitai...


And another thing! Whatever happened to the Lykians that were previewed all those months ago?They are getting the axe, most likely. We are not too proud of them as we don't think we got their appearance right. They may be eventually replaced by a more adequate Lykian unit.

[paullus]

They are getting the axe, most likely. We are not too proud of them as we don't think we got their appearance right. They may be eventually replaced by a more adequate Lykian unit.

Great news! (to me, at least, as I come from a long line of Lykians, tracing our lineage back 60 generations to Sarpedon):no:

[Avicenna]

:shocked:

Is this the Lycian king Sarpedon?

[orwell]

Can the Family Retainer be given a +1 to management as well if he's wise as it says in the description? Right now it seems more like a wasted ancillary slot since you almost never have to deal with assassins. If not, is there a quick way to do it?

[morse]

All sound good. I looking forward to the new relise and i am pleased you will be able to play it with the 1.5 patch.

I looking forward to the new faction. Will they be added in the new beta? It would be good if some more of the building descriptions could be finished and appropriate pictures added for certain buildings(many have the roman barraks pic)

Also have you any idea when the new relise will be out. Just a genreal idea would be nice.

Thanks. Regards Morse

[orwell]

Will .8 include the difference between a naval harbor and a naval port?

[Sarkiss]

Will .8 include the difference between a naval harbor and a naval port?
i'll second that.
remove Epic walls please.
what about leaving the ability to build large stone walls for capitals and historically aproppriate cities only?

[orwell]

remove Epic walls please.
what about leaving the ability to build large stone walls for capitals and historically aproppriate cities only?

Having epic stone walls for the major cities makes sense, but every city, where culturally appropriate, should be able to build stone walls. There weren't just 200 cities in all of eurasia and africa, those were just the most important of the time. Every city was historically important, if not for the 'civilized' factions then one of the barbarian peoples.

If you really wanted epic walls removed, I don't think it takes much to remove them from the game. Though, this should only be done with starting a new game, I don't know what would happen if you did it half way through. Go into export_descr_buildings in the data folder and simply delete/back-up elsewhere the information for epic stone walls. Having large stone walls for only the appropriate cites, is beyond my knowledge besides having scripted placement of them and not having them buildable, if through the simple trick of upping the building price to a unrealistic billions of mnai.

[Sarkiss]

Having epic stone walls for the major cities makes sense, but every city, where culturally appropriate, should be able to build stone walls.
yep, but not the Epic or large IMO.
agreed with you about included cities.
the reason i mentioned the epic wall is that AI is unable to besiege them and having them built would make you invencibile, which ain't realistic.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Will factions have the correct culture in 0.8?
i.e. Will SPQR be roman rather than seleucid?

[orwell]

I think so, but I can't say for sure. Also, will the GUI's be totally completed? I thought there was only the Roman ones left to implement?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

There may be a few little things to tweak on the GUI's, but they will all be changed. It won't be 1.0 though, so we still have the ability to change stuff up some more if we find little problems and such.

The Romans have their own culture group now - they are entirely on their own.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I've noticed that the Custom Battles sometimes 'lack' roads as part of the terrain. For example: the battle surroundings near the Colossus don't inlcude roads where it's obvious these should be there (I mean a port without roads...). Will this be 'fixed' with .8?

[Tanit]

As the Yuezhi are being removed, will the eleutheroi still have yuezhi type units to keep the culture in the area?

Its probably impossible but has anyone considered writing some sort of petition/plee to the RTW/CA guys asking very nicely if the could make a patch that removes the unit cap and other frustrating little hardcoded things like that?

"I was wondering, for the unit and faction files, are they just alternate versions of the existing files, or completly separate files? Cause if they were seperate it might be possible to change them into units and factions for EB. Just a thought."
by:Tanit

I meant to say the unit and faction files for Barbarian Invasion, are they seperate from the regular RTW ones?

[Cybvep]

Quick question: What about army-like "campaign icons"? Has the team considered putting them in?

[Tellos Athenaios]

On battles:
I've noticed that the custom battle interface is quite different from the campaign battle interface. I mean when playing a custom battle I saw a restyled interface whereas the campaign battles feature the Vanilla interface. And the icons are different too. Will the .8 version have the same interface and icons for both custom and campaign battles? (To me, the custom battle style is better.)

On loading screens:
In my opinion, it's a pity that apparently the way quotes appear during the loading process has not been taken into account during the designing process of the EB loading screens.

To clarify myself: if we look at Vanilla loading screens we can clearly see that they are a true background and more specific they are the background for some quote to appear on. This doesn't mean you should design your loading screens the way CA did, you can for example leave a part of your images for quote appearance only: just like Prometheus did with his RES GESTAE loading screens. The way quotes appear means also that your good looking loading screens are spoilt all because of the fact that the quotes don't 'fit' within the picture.

And to get to my point: will the .8 version have loading screens that aren't spoilt by the way quotes appear on screen?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

(on Cybvep's question) Thought about it. Further discussion was put on the back burner for now though I believe while we take care of more urgent concerns. Might come back around to it eventually *if* we think we can do it well and make them look right.

As for loading screens - yeah, it's a shame they don't work right - but as long as some of our quotes are, we'd have to give up a huge part of the screen. I don't know that we are willing to sacrifice that much of the screen, to just leave blank basically or one color or something. It's something we might come back to later also I think once some of the most important stuff is taken care of.

[Ludens]

Its probably impossible but has anyone considered writing some sort of petition/plee to the RTW/CA guys asking very nicely if the could make a patch that removes the unit cap and other frustrating little hardcoded things like that?
CA is well aware our frustration with these caps, but decided not to change them.


I meant to say the unit and faction files for Barbarian Invasion, are they seperate from the regular RTW ones?
Yes, they are seperate. BI does not change the faction or unit limits.

[Tanit]

Yes, they are seperate. BI does not change the faction or unit limits.

But is it possible to make the BI files accessible by EB? Using some sort of export and maybe even copying all of the cd files off of BI.

Also, will the new features of BI be present in .8 such as loyalty, swimming, hordes for barb factions, etc..?

[Orb]

I think there are a couple of problems with them:

Loyalty - shadow/rebel factions take up faction slots.
Hordes - I don't think it correctly represents the factions and it's generally overpowered.

[orwell]

I *think* loyalty can lead to whoever you choose it to be, it doesn't have to be a shadow faction. It doesn't make sense if you can't set it to the slave faction, rebels. Hordes, I believe, is a 1.6 feature only, along with swimming? I know night battles are, though there is a way to get them in 1.5.

[Ludens]

But is it possible to make the BI files accessible by EB? Using some sort of export and maybe even copying all of the cd files off of BI.
Yes, by copying them into the vanilla data folder. That means overwriting the vanilla data files, so you still end up with 21 factions. Both .exe-files look for their factions into their own respective data files, and these don't allow more than 21 factions. You can't tell them to look in two places.


I *think* loyalty can lead to whoever you choose it to be, it doesn't have to be a shadow faction. It doesn't make sense if you can't set it to the slave faction, rebels.
Unfortunatly, that doesn't seem to work.

[Mithradates]

Has there been any work on formations ie making the AI stick to them etc. Much like work in the darth mod?

[Dayve]

I have a suggestion regarding stone walls, large stone walls and epic stone walls. My suggestion is this: Remove them.

My reason for suggesting this? Because if you don't, then every faction other than barbarians will build a stone wall for every city they own eventually, and every city on the map will have at least a stone wall, and walls are bugged. The missle towers can fire sideways despite there being no holes for them to fire through, and when the walls are huge, the repeating towers will destroy you on the walls firing sideways, even through there are no holes for them to fire through.

I've had campaigns where i played to 200BC, lifted the fog of war to see what was happening only to find, to my horror, that Greece, Northern Africa, Egypt, Asia minor, all of Seleukia and Bactria, have all built stone/large stone/epic stone walls for every city they own, which totally ruins my Roman campaigns as i'll have to conquer every city in Carthage, Greece, Egypt and Asia minor with stone walls... And it's unrealistic i tell you, only important cities had stone walls.

[Foot]

The settlements we have on the map are the most important settlements for the provinces they inhabit and stone walls were a common site for these big cities. Understand that most seiges did not end in assaults by the main army and instead the defending army was either relieved by an assisting force or they were starved into submission. Assaulting stone walls was not meant to be anything less than a slaughter for the attacking force. However I do agree with you with the Epic Stone Walls, they just feel too skyscraper-ish.

Foot

[Geoffrey S]

I'd agree that epic stone walls should be removed, mainly due to their ridiculous scale; or perhaps limit them to the (initial) faction capitals of relevant factions?

But other stone walls should remain. As Foot said, assaults did have a very high cost for the attacker, even great generals such as Scipio Maior and Hannibal would rather avoid an assault. It's only in the later roman army that the balance shifted to the besieger due to their expert siegecraft. Starvation is a much better approach for larger cities.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I keep saying we need to remove them too. Oh well.

[Megalos]

I see that the SPQR mod uses something called the "garrison script" that causes an army to be spawned inside a settlement whenever an enemy army approaches it.

I kinda like this feature, as it represents the local or levy force more accurately not to mention making siege assaults a whole lot harder!

I'd really like to see this implemented into EB, but is it possible to make the levy units dissapear if the enemy army moved away from the settlement?

regards

mega

(p.s sorry if this has already been mentioned, as I've not read the whole thread!:shame:)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I honestly don't know the order of events, whether we started thinking about it at the same time, or whether it was his idea but he posted it in the EB internal forums, or whether we all talked about it together, or what. But I will definitely say that we have thought and talked a lot about it, but not lately. Kudos to LT for getting it implemented in SPQR.

[Dayve]

Ok then, if the cities represent the most important in the province, remove large and epic walls since it is they that have the supremely unrealistic repeating ballista towers.

And by the gods that reminds me... Siege towers have to have their gatling guns removed.

[Tyfus]

So I've thought of a couple things I haven't really seen discussed so I thought i might as well just through them out there.
first of all when playing as the Casse i noticed that when the warcry ability is used the units do their whole shield banging thing but I only hear about 1 or 2 guys actually yelling whereas in vanilla it actually sounds like all the men in the unit are letting go with the most vicious warcry's they can think of. If this could be fixed that would be cool because I really like hearing those barbarians scream.
I just realized that this might be only a problem on my game so if it is, some help with fixing it would be appreciated.

second I think it would be really cool if on the battle field you and the AI can only see what is within the line of sight of the units in the respective armies. baiscally what this would mean is that if a unit were behind a hill the opposing army couldn't see it and therefore it would making flanking manuevers and traps much more possible by using the terrain to hide your numbers from the enemy.

This is probably not possible now i think about it because normally a unit must be stopped for it to be hidden, but if it is possible I think it would be a great addition to the battle experience.

keep up the great work.

[Slider6977]

Do you have the Restrict Camera option selected in the battlefield settings? The reason it is there is to solve the exact problem you describe. Therefore you can not simply roam the entire battlefield with the camera.


Ok then, if the cities represent the most important in the province, remove large and epic walls since it is they that have the supremely unrealistic repeating ballista towers.

And by the gods that reminds me... Siege towers have to have their gatling guns removed.

Epic stone walls are the only ones with Ballistas. Large stone walls do not and are only capable of shooting arrows out the sides of the tower. I don't think this is a big deal. I'm positive that historically these type of towers built on a stone wall would have ablility to fire in all directions, with enough archer windows to provide this. Just because the windows are not shown on the actual structure is not a big deal. I'm sure ballista towers would be hindered in this way, so if there were a way to keep them but limit firing of ballista rounds only to the direct front of the tower, that would be excellent. But Im positive that is not possible, just as removing archer fire from the seige towers is not possible. Which, again is historically accurate. The Romans even used to load repeating ballistas in their large towers. My only problem with that is the accuracy of the arrows.

[Tyfus]

I understand that the idea behind the restricted camera is to give the smae effect but it is so unwieldy and it doesn't actually give the same sight as your units and it certainly doesn't stop the AI from seeing your units. what I'm talking about is invisiblity of the unit if it is not in the line of sight of any enemy unit. As if it were hiding in a forest or skirmishers in long grass. the unit would not even been shown on the map to the enemy.

[Foot]

I understand that the idea behind the restricted camera is to give the smae effect but it is so unwieldy and it doesn't actually give the same sight as your units and it certainly doesn't stop the AI from seeing your units. what I'm talking about is invisiblity of the unit if it is not in the line of sight of any enemy unit. As if it were hiding in a forest or skirmishers in long grass. the unit would not even been shown on the map to the enemy.

That unfortunately is impossible to mod, but i completely understand what you mean.

Foot

[Tanit]

I've just thought of something. One reason that peasants and units like the Urban cohorts were not included was that they would never realistically leave their city. Should EB ever have the unit slots to include them it could be done by giving their campaign map equivalent a movement value of zero so that once raised in a city to defend it, they could never leave. Just a thought.

[Markus_Aurelius]

What i would really like to see in the upcoming release is a bigger effect of climate on all units. An army of the Aedui would never stand a chance in a desert region when fighting the desert folke. As it is right now you could do as you please and you wouldnt notice a thing. Also desert warriors owning germans in the snow is not realistic.....

[Tyfus]

[QUOTE=rcross]first of all when playing as the Casse i noticed that when the warcry ability is used the units do their whole shield banging thing but I only hear about 1 or 2 guys actually yelling whereas in vanilla it actually sounds like all the men in the unit are letting go with the most vicious warcry's they can think of. If this could be fixed that would be cool because I really like hearing those barbarians scream.
I just realized that this might be only a problem on my game so if it is, some help with fixing it would be appreciated.QUOTE]


I know this is a small problem and possibly only on my comp but is there any kind of a fix for it and will it be addressed in .8:help:
It's just kind of a pet peeve for me.

[Markus_Aurelius]

i remember a good old mod for rtr that made barbarians scream like crazy. It probably is compatible with EB

[Tyfus]

i remember a good old mod for rtr that made barbarians scream like crazy. It probably is compatible with EB

Any additional info would be great. I'm not terribly slick with modding the game myself and I don't want to screw it up because of my lacking skills:embarassed: . Is this problem noticed by others on their versions of EB?

also is there any plan to incorporate the sheild wall ability into the barbarian tribes or would that be historically inaccurate?

[Markus_Aurelius]

Oh yeah the mod is called WarCry mod, it was first made for spqr mod, ill test it soon and tell you if it is compatible, if you want to download it just do a google search or somthing along those lines

[Tyfus]

Thanks, I'll try messing with it a bit after I back up my files.

[Markus_Aurelius]

i cant get this to work sry there looks like it aint compatible, it doesnt ctd it just wont make the sounds....

[Tyfus]

Bummer...
EB members, is there any way you could improve the warcrys for the next version I think it would be really popular...:eyebrows:

Thanks for trying though Markus

[Markus_Aurelius]

I think the the reforms of certain nations, such as the Carthiginians, who modled there late units after the roman style,were gained by lets say recieving a crushing defeat by roman poliybian legions. It would be much the same as the cataphract reforms of selucia. The General would get lets say "Intrigued by roman tactics and equipment" trait and this would unlock the late carthaginian mail wearing liby spearmen and pikemen. It would have to be after the polybius reforms because this is when roman chain mail was introduced

[Sdragon]

Problem is that will leave the player stuffed if he destroys out Rome before that happens. Won’t get any of the cool units then!

[Sarkiss]

The settlements we have on the map are the most important settlements for the provinces they inhabit and stone walls were a common site for these big cities.

yeah these are the most important ciites but:
1. there is still a difference between them. you cant have 199 Romes on the map, can you?
2. removing epic walls you'd still have stone and large stone walls left. imo, thats enough of a variation.
remove skyscraper please:horn: :embarassed:


Problem is that will leave the player stuffed if he destroys out Rome before that happens. Won’t get any of the cool units then!
and he shouldn't get them if that's the case.

[Markus_Aurelius]

Problem is that will leave the player stuffed if he destroys out Rome before that happens. Won’t get any of the cool units then!

As we all know EB is based on utter realism (at least i believe). If the player/computer does beat up the Romans than like sarkiss said they should not get them. Now lets move into some basic Historical common senses. If the carthiginians, in reality, defeated the romans in all there battles or maybe only losing a few close battles, than what need would there be of a reform? If there forces were beating back the romans on all fronts than why bother with all the hastle and expenses to develope new armour and weapons and than distribute them.

[Sdragon]

There are more than just Romans who could cause a problem that could realistically result in the reforms. Anyway it's not very realistic for Carthage to take all of Italy and leave a single city for Rome because they want to see what nice toys their enemies will make for them to copy.

[Markus_Aurelius]

maybe (if this was included which 99.99 out of 100 chances it will not be) than maybe the crushing defeat is a bad way to get it. Instead maybe just a couple of plain losess, close or clear defeats. I just think this would be a much more interesting way of gaining the reforms. it may be a complete idiodic idea, but we would never know if it was never tried.

[Tyfus]

Attention!! EB modders could some one please check out this thread in the bug reports and technical problems forum it's called,

Re-enforcement deployment Problems

I think. So far no one seems to know why we are having this problem and if anything is known by the more knowlegable members it would be nice to have some feedback. Alternatively, if no one at all knows about why we are having this problem then could something be done about it because it really interferes with the enjoyment of the gameplay.

thanks to all

and even though everyone has said it before, this mod is totally AWESOME!

[NeoSpartan]

OK I was thinking.... I remember reading that Roman Reforms were going to take place as a result of a "Trigering Event" rather than waiting a longgggggg time to get them.
Is that going to be implemented in EB version 0.8????

oh and if it is.... Have you guys made unit card for Legions with Lorica Segmenta (bacame standard issue around 5AD). I really miss it.

[orwell]

OK I was thinking.... I remember reading that Roman Reforms were going to take place as a result of a "Trigering Event" rather than waiting a longgggggg time to get them.
Is that going to be implemented in EB version 0.8????

Yes.



oh and if it is.... Have you guys made unit card for Legions with Lorica Segmenta (bacame standard issue around 5AD). I really miss it.
I imagine if it was going to happen, it would occur with the augustan reform.

[Ceasar14]

You guys should get some skins and models from Res Gestea. They have the best looking models I have ever seen. They use the ununified Rome so thats why they have different colors. You Devs should look into it and maybe include some.

Take a look at these Roman ones.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50286

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50654

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=51033

Heres the homepage.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=149

[Avicenna]

Ceasar: EB's focused on realism, with the units being as accurate as possible, meaning plain coloured clothes for the Camillian Roman soldiers.

[cunctator]

Prometheus, the creator of Res Gestae already made most of our roman units. However we use lower res textures than RG to increase performance on slower PCs, so our roman won't look as petty, also we can't always use the same models as in RG, due the 255 models limit and finally our campaign starts earlier and ends 55 years before the RG campaign, so we can't use all the imperial style units/skins.




OK I was thinking.... I remember reading that Roman Reforms were going to take place as a result of a "Trigering Event" rather than waiting a longgggggg time to get them.
Is that going to be implemented in EB version 0.8????

oh and if it is.... Have you guys made unit card for Legions with Lorica Segmenta (bacame standard issue around 5AD). I really miss it.


There will be no Lorica Segmentata unit in EB, it was only introduced at the very end of our timeframe and much to rare to justify a largely identical legionary unit just with another kind of armour instead of a more common and diverse unit for late romani.

[Avicenna]

Now for an idea I just came up with:

what about giving Krete the Knossos palace as a unique building?

[Imperator]

I got an idea from a mod for RTR where only strategically/historically important cities could get past the third tech level (ie minor city) and build walls (as well as revamping the farming system). I think parts of this should be added to EB. I always hate to see in the late game the whole map COVERED in Romes, Alexandrias and Antiochs. I think most cities should be restricted and only important ones allowed to grow to a large/huge cities.
This would not only make certain cities VERY important strategically and financially and accurately convey how important certain cities were to trade and political control but also keep every city from building 'epic' stone walls (AKA 150-foot uber-walls that have gattling guns built in the towers). I'm not sure how to do that though, I'm no modder myself:sweatdrop: what do you guys think?

[paullus]

Slowing down population growth should help with the mega cities, though you're right that the epic stone walls are a little ridiculous.

And a thought I had recently, which happens to be related: could you make wall upgrades, which could grant arrow ability to towers, and then ballista abilities with another upgrade? Or would that require building room that EB does not have?

[Avicenna]

I got an idea from a mod for RTR where only strategically/historically important cities could get past the third tech level (ie minor city) and build walls (as well as revamping the farming system). I think parts of this should be added to EB. I always hate to see in the late game the whole map COVERED in Romes, Alexandrias and Antiochs. I think most cities should be restricted and only important ones allowed to grow to a large/huge cities.
This would not only make certain cities VERY important strategically and financially and accurately convey how important certain cities were to trade and political control but also keep every city from building 'epic' stone walls (AKA 150-foot uber-walls that have gattling guns built in the towers). I'm not sure how to do that though, I'm no modder myself:sweatdrop: what do you guys think?

The squalor would be ridiculous though, and new cities can become important. Anyway, EB already has made them very important, as only key settlements, such as Alexandria, Athens and Rome, will pop out lots and lots of juicy ancillaries for your characters to get. Also, larger naval ships are only available in certain provinces too.

[Imperator]

he squalor would be ridiculous though, and new cities can become important. Anyway, EB already has made them very important, as only key settlements, such as Alexandria, Athens and Rome, will pop out lots and lots of juicy ancillaries for your characters to get. Also, larger naval ships are only available in certain provinces too.


actually, I think they way the modder did it was to force the population of cities to stop at 6000 for all but select cities so I don't think squalor will be a huge problem...but I might be wrong, it's been a while since I played that mod (and with the RTR forums down I can't check and find out for sure :shame: ) and I think certain cities should have real importance -it should be a catastrophe if you lose your biggest cities. Besides, most cities COULDN'T become Romes or Athens's because of geographical or demographic restraints. Cities like Rome and Carthage were exceptionally good spots for human settlement but I find it unrealistic that just about any city, regardless of resources or location, can grow to become an Ancient Equivelant of New York City :dizzy2: .

[Ceasar14]

Can't you increase the timeline than to about 100 years. Right after Julius Ceasar died and Augustus and Marc Antony took power, thats when Rome started to become an empire.

[Avicenna]

Imperator: in my RTR PE campaign, the cities keep on increasing in size, but some can''t advance very far, which is a pain, since enslavement means massive population booms at around 8% growth per turn.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Now for an idea I just came up with:

what about giving Krete the Knossos palace as a unique building?If it was being used in any way really, we might be able to find a way. I don't know if it was though. If it's just ruins and no one was using them, then it won't happen. Earlier ruins are in our game if they are still being used for some reason or way.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I always mod my own game to allow only certain cities to be large or huge. Rome, Athens, and Alexandria are the only huge ones I allow with places like Damascus, Antioch, Capua, etc being large. It is quite easy as long as there are less than 64? hidden_resources used in the given mod. I usually end up editing some base farming in some areas to prevent squallor as well.

I agree that EB should consider city size restriction in some way.

[Avicenna]

The thing is.. EB is an alternate history, meaning that things which didn't necessarily happen in history can happen in EB, including certain cities' rise to prominence.

Anyway, Athens should be a pretty large city. Same with Carthage. If I remember correctly, Ctesiphon was the largest city on earth at one stage during ancient history.

[Imperator]

The thing is.. EB is an alternate history, meaning that things which didn't necessarily happen in history can happen in EB, including certain cities' rise to prominence.

that's true, but it's also true that certain (or most) cities because of demographic, geological, or meteorological circumstances couldn't become financial or political hubs. Look at the Arabian cities, if I capture them I can grow them to become as big as Alexandria or Antioch, although that would be impossible historically. For a city to become what is represented in the game as a 'huge city' or even a 'large' city it had to have been very important and wealthy for financial, political, or military reasons. As things stand, every city will enevietably become a huge city (ussually by year 100, especially with the 4tpy) and thus no city is really much more valuable than another in the late game. This is one of the most ahistorical 'features' you can find left in EB.

The best way, IMO, to solve this would be to make growth rates MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, lower. (ie, one would have to struggle to keep them above 1%). This would introduce several elements to the game:

1) the loss of a large army would not only mean the loss of money from retraining, but population from your cities. Most nations feared the loss of their citizens and soldiers more than loss of property, after all, what good is a lot of money if there's no one alive to defend it?
2) fertile lands would be much more valuable and farming would become as important as trade to a stable economy
3) Only rich/important cities could grow to become large while the others would remain relatively small, without the need to impose city limits

Right now, it is a given that all your cities' population will grow, the question is at what rate. This is innacurate. The player should have to work to keep the population growth positive, it's not that farfetched that a city should have a negative population growth, in fact it's profoundly realistic. A poorly-managed or impoverished city WOULD be losing population, not gaining. All the EB team has to do is (aggresively) slash all the growth rates of buildings and voila! Certain cities WILL prove to be strategically vital to your country (when the Romans lose Rome, they should FEEL it, when the Ptolomaics lose Alexandria, it should hurt) and an added element of historical accuracy and gaming difficulty would be added in the form of population management.


oh, and sorry for the essay :sweatdrop: , I'm just kinda passionate about this. Nothing in the world bugs me like a map at 100 BC with huge cities all over the map :wall:

[Fondor_Yards]

The best way, IMO, to solve this would be to make growth rates MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, lower. (ie, one would have to struggle to keep them above 1%). This would introduce several elements to the game:

1) the loss of a large army would not only mean the loss of money from retraining, but population from your cities. Most nations feared the loss of their citizens and soldiers more than loss of property, after all, what good is a lot of money if there's no one alive to defend it?
2) fertile lands would be much more valuable and farming would become as important as trade to a stable economy
3) Only rich/important cities could grow to become large while the others would remain relatively small, without the need to impose city limits


And it would kill Barbarians who's towns start off between 1000-2000 people. The ai would burn throught those numbers in probably 5 years at the most even with the script's boosting of AI population when they recruit troops. German towns already start with like 1% population growth on normal taxes, any lower and they won't grow at all.

[Imperator]

And it would kill Barbarians who's towns start off between 1000-2000 people. The ai would burn throught those numbers in probably 5 years at the most even with the script's boosting of AI population when they recruit troops. German towns already start with like 1% population growth on normal taxes, any lower and they won't grow at all.

I thought there were EB scripts that kept the AI from completely depopulating its cities by giving them an influx of pop. every time a town went below a certain point, like with their treasury. Am I wrong? :inquisitive:

and an early population crisis should be part of the Barbarian campaign, no? Playing as one Celtic tribe out of many, you SHOULD have population problems, a big part of the reason Celtic Europe remained so devided was the fact that no single tribe had the capacity to overwhelm its foes, probably due to numbers. One tribe controlling 6 others isn't easy, it ought to take the Sweboz years to slowly gain control of Germany

[Musopticon?]

The reason why none of the tribes stayed in central power between others for long was because there was constant infighting.


I don't think it's a good idea to cut the population, while AI cities do get a population boost everytime they go low, ours don't and Sweboz are having it real bad up in the north.

[Avicenna]

Apart from farms, most buildings that help the population only give a 0.5% bonus when built, so it would be hard to 'slash all growth rates', as there's no point in having the building if nobody would build it. Would you build a granary if it gave -5% public order and nothing else?

On the fertility, I think EB already has that implemented.

[Imperator]

Apart from farms, most buildings that help the population only give a 0.5% bonus

that's the thing. Certain buildings (farms, granaries, etc) SHOULD help population growth, but all other buildings shouldn't. I know you can rationalize anything (ex-trade buildings increase wealth which stimulates growth) however the problem is that the RTW-platform simply doesn't represent population management well. A decline in population doesn't have to mean the city is a gutter, but just that the birth-rate is lower than the death-rate. Since there is no death rate (your cities are populated by ageless people, I suppose:shame: ) the only way to keep growth rates accurate and an actually requiring management is to allow no buildings besides farms and granaries to improve population growth.

I know this would make life as a Barbarian hard, but if EB wants each faction to represent one tribe, then they have to reflect the difficulty facing a single tribe trying to dominate all of Germania/Gaul. It would also add another level of city management to worry about (of which there is lots in EB :juggle2: ), but as far as I can tell, EB players enjoy challange and realism and that's exactly what this brings to the table. A few changes in the EDB folder will not only make EB harder, but prevent every city from becoming a little Roma or Carthago on the map, allow certain cities to become trade hubs without the need to impose city restrictions, and bring a whole new depth to city management and army recruitment.

[Sarkiss]

A few changes in the EDB folder will not only make EB harder, but prevent every city from becoming a little Roma or Carthago on the map, allow certain cities to become trade hubs without the need to impose city restrictions, and bring a whole new depth to city management and army recruitment.
i absolutely agree.
why a town located afar from the trade routs and rich lands would gain a population? realisticaly it would lose it. people would leave to the bigger cities in search of a better life.
the way i see it, there is nothing wrong with certain cities losing population.

[Fondor_Yards]

that's the thing. Certain buildings (farms, granaries, etc) SHOULD help population growth, but all other buildings shouldn't. I know you can rationalize anything (ex-trade buildings increase wealth which stimulates growth) however the problem is that the RTW-platform simply doesn't represent population management well. A decline in population doesn't have to mean the city is a gutter, but just that the birth-rate is lower than the death-rate. Since there is no death rate (your cities are populated by ageless people, I suppose:shame: ) the only way to keep growth rates accurate and an actually requiring management is to allow no buildings besides farms and granaries to improve population growth.

I know this would make life as a Barbarian hard, but if EB wants each faction to represent one tribe, then they have to reflect the difficulty facing a single tribe trying to dominate all of Germania/Gaul. It would also add another level of city management to worry about (of which there is lots in EB :juggle2: ), but as far as I can tell, EB players enjoy challange and realism and that's exactly what this brings to the table. A few changes in the EDB folder will not only make EB harder, but prevent every city from becoming a little Roma or Carthago on the map, allow certain cities to become trade hubs without the need to impose city restrictions, and bring a whole new depth to city management and army recruitment.

Well first, your cities aren't populated by agesless people, just more people are being born or moving into the city then are leaving/dieing. Death rate is there just not stated since it doesn't need to be. And it would make life as a barabarian more then hard, if those were the only things to increase pop growth the AI could possable destory your whole population by training if your gaul and they are rome. Even just start a celtic or germania or getai campain to see what I'm talking about. I've had cities stall in growth before hitting 6k untill I built some health buildings. This would be equaly desvasting to the Sarmatians and later, Saka. The population growth in the steppe is very low as well. They need all the help they can get.

[Imperator]

just more people are being born or moving into the city then are leaving/dieing

who says? why would EVERY city have more people born/moving in than dying? it's not a given now, and it certainly wasn't a given back then. It SHOULD be an administrative problem: how to keep growing. Why did the Marius reform take place? Because of low population in Italy, not because the Romans just decided "hmm, let's reform! why not?" Population was an important variable on every level of empire management: military, financial, political, and technological.

There is no good reason not to add it, besides the fact that Barbarian campaigners will have trouble with population, and I repeat my point: WHY WOULDN'T THEY? A single tribe trying to unite all of Gaul/Thracia/Germania/Brittania? it's supposed to be tough and the rebels are supposed to represent other tribes that have just about equal military power! The Sweboz ARE competing with 3 or 4 other tribes that are just about equal in manpower!


EDIT: I just came up with another beniefit: Disbanding troops after a long campaign suddunly becomes an attractive concept! It wasn't uncommon for nations at that time (and now too) to keep a small, constant army and when war came up, draft more soldiers. Nations didn't keep proffesional armies really until Imperial Rome, ussually they had small standing armies and when war came to draft up more young men. Why keep all your young men constantly in camp? Get them back home to make money/babies!! ;)

[Avicenna]

The Marian reforms took place mainly because it was just something inherently wrong with the system: you buy your own equipment, go campaigning for, if you go to a long campaign, up to 5, 10 years? Then, you return home. What happens? You haven't payed your rent, you get evicted. What for? For risking your neck for the Roman system. Marius changed this so the troops would be more loyal to him, as they'd be happier, and staying loyal to him gave them a real reward in the end: a plot of land, citizenship and money.

You know, if we're being completely realistic, we might as well have the pre-Marian Romans to get free troops with free upkeep, since they supply themselves. This probably happened with most of the other factions as well. It would just ruin the whole game, though.

Just think of the ageless soldiers as replacements, and they keep the original soldiers' experience because those soldiers had some kind of a mentor relationship with them, teaching them the tricks of the trade, if you like.

[Imperator]

Just think of the ageless soldiers as replacements

?!? It's the ageless civilians that peeve me, not soldiers...I've got no major bone to pick with the army system, just the city population :laugh4: .


You know, if we're being completely realistic, we might as well have the pre-Marian Romans to get free troops with free upkeep, since they supply themselves. This probably happened with most of the other factions as well. It would just ruin the whole game, though.

except for training the soldiers and providing their food and supplies for their camp...


The Marian reforms took place mainly because it was just something inherently wrong with the system: you buy your own equipment, go campaigning for, if you go to a long campaign, up to 5, 10 years? Then, you return home. What happens? You haven't payed your rent, you get evicted.

the result? a huge loss of available soldiers. City population in RTW is just the number of trainable men in the city, but by then so many small farmers or landowners had become jobless urban proletariats, the number of recruitable men plummeted (there was a property requirement to join the army as well as financial and age). Or, in game terms: not enough men available to be trained in Italy, which means a population decline in your cities.


all in all, I've yet to hear a single good reason, historical or otherwise, NOT to reduce population bonuses universally. I've brought up several points, including gameplay benifiets as well as increased realism from demographic, political, military, and economic perspectives and increased challange for all campaigns (barbarians especially). What I want to know is, what part of that doesn't fit in EB? People play EB for all those reasons: hard, in-depth gameplay, intense realism, and to (finally) play a game where the AI stands a chance at BEATING the player!

sorry if I seem a little aggressive, like I said, this is a big deal to me :sweatdrop:

[Fondor_Yards]

You only gave examples for the roman system. There was not the same as others. You can't 1 out of 21 faction's recruitment/army system to affect all the others. Let's use carthage as an example. Almost all units carthage can "build" are mercenary, every not libyan,levy, or carthagian troops. So if your raiseing an good quailty iberian army, your not taking away all the farmers and reducing population. Your taking away all the well trained profession soldiers who were just sitting around picking their noses. The only unit that would really do what you said was recruitment of large numbers of not african levies. Liybans were pesants, there was always a place for them on the estates when they were disbanded. They had everything *weapons, food, armour* provided by the state, so even the poorest could serve. And the other carthagian units were either made up of
A. Really rich nobles would could afford to spend the rest of their lives not working and still be rich and

B Elite troops support by the extremely rich priesthoods of Baal and Astrate, so money was again no problem.

So unless your pumping out huge numbers of the totaly useless Poeni Citizen Militia, so won't be facing those problems. I doubt others, like the germans, getai, steppe people, have to worry about their lands being taken away while on long campains.


who says? why would EVERY city have more people born/moving in than dying? it's not a given now, and it certainly wasn't a given back then.
Why wouldn't they be growing. Unless your recruiting a huge number of men, there's something major going wrong*so people leave* or a plaque, there shouldn't be a reason for it not to be growing.

All the point are good and all, but ONLY for reducing the population growth for Rome. You havn't given any reason to reduce the population growth for all factions. Your agurement for reducing the growth for barbarians is simply "because it will make the campain harder".

[Ludens]

except for training the soldiers and providing their food and supplies for their camp...
Pre-Marian Roman soldiers received their training on-the-job. They were supposed to be prepared for war by the family. They had to provide their own equipment, and quite often had to forage for themselves as well. Supply trains are generally something of professional armies.


the result? a huge loss of available soldiers. City population in RTW is just the number of trainable men in the city, but by then so many small farmers or landowners had become jobless urban proletariats, the number of recruitable men plummeted (there was a property requirement to join the army as well as financial and age). Or, in game terms: not enough men available to be trained in Italy, which means a population decline in your cities.
You are completely right, but I think you miss the point. There was no shortage of recruitable men in Rome, there was a shortage of recruitable men who could afford to equip themselves as heavy infantry. Population had little to do with it: it was the disappearance of a social-economic class. Marius solved that by recruiting from another social-economic class and paying for equipment himself. In R:TW this cannot be simulated as there is only one recruitment pool.

I think another point to consider is that a city in EB does not represent one city, but a population center. There were no big cities on the steppe, or in northern and eastern Europe. However, those areas could field sizeable armies when required; the population was just spread over the country side. Similarly, a city the Arabian penninsula may well represent several cities spread over the coast. None of them was as big as Rome, but put together they could hold significant population.

[Imperator]

You only gave examples for the roman system. There was not the same as others. You can't 1 out of 21 faction's recruitment/army system to affect all the others. Let's use carthage as an example.Almost all units carthage can "build" are mercenary, every not libyan,levy, or carthagian troops. So if your raiseing an good quailty iberian army, your not taking away all the farmers and reducing population. Your taking away all the well trained profession soldiers who were just sitting around picking their noses. The only unit that would really do what you said was recruitment of large numbers of not african levies. Liybans were pesants, there was always a place for them on the estates when they were disbanded. They had everything *weapons, food, armour* provided by the state, so even the poorest could serve. And the other carthagian units were either made up of

True, but the population of the city represents the fight-capable men of the city. (ie, those who were able to fight and could afford weapons) The only thing my suggestion would affect is population universally- how does this change the Carthage's recruitment system? Fewer men to train, true, but Carthage's military streangth wasn't exactly limitless manpower. Not to mention the number of stacks around will be reduced globally, so it won't really be a problem. I don't understand what this is about, I'm not proposing to alter the recruitment in any way, just to make population growth lower and harder to maintain. All the arguements have been about recruitment but the only affect my changes will have will be to force people to recruit less, and be more careful with armies. Pardon if I sound rude, but it seems people are barking up the wrong tree completely. :juggle2:


There was no shortage of recruitable men in Rome, there was a shortage of recruitable men who could afford to equip themselves as heavy infantry.
....exactly. Population represents people WHO CAN BE ENROLLED AS SOLDIERS.


Look, I've been argueing this case for a long time but it doesn't seem to be terribly popular. (not a tragedy, I could always alter the EDB myself...) I still don't see why, however. All I suggested was to decrease population growth bonuses for every building besides farms/graneries. How this turned into a debate as to the causes of the Marian reform is just a little beyond me. It has nothing to do with it. I suggested it because (read earlier posts) it would put a stop to the late game problem that was every city turning into a Rome. It would also allow certain cities to become trade hubs and important, key cities without needing to impose city limits. That is not only historically accurate, but vastly improves gameplay.


All the point are good and all, but ONLY for reducing the population growth for Rome. You havn't given any reason to reduce the population growth for all factions."

?!? Yes, I have! Look at average city growh of today's cities. They are ussually just about 0% or increasing or decreasing slightly. The thing that stimulates growth is wealth, and wealth is NOT a universal constant, so why would growth be a universal constant? Balancing and maintaining a strong workforce and population base was a HUGE administrative task (it is today too). Why shouldn't you, as the leader of your people, have to worry about your kingdom's population? What nation enjoyed such perpetual prosperity that they never had to worry about loss of manpower? MANPOWER MATTERED. Rome's superior, almost inexhaustable manpower was part of her survival of the Second Punic War after defeat after defeat. Carthage couldn't keep up. SUFFICIENT MANPOWER SHOULDN'T BE A GIVEN, ESPECIALLY AS A BARBARIAN.

I'm sorry for my shrillness, but it's a fact! Why would the Sweboz magically have more population than all her neigbors? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in 272 she wasn't so much larger than her neigbors, but in EB, she is, and she easily outgrows them.


However, those areas could field sizeable armies when required; the population was just spread over the country side. Similarly, a city the Arabian penninsula may well represent several cities spread over the coast. None of them was as big as Rome, but put together they could hold significant population.

are you telling me that in 100 BC the inhabitants of Modern Day Yemen out-numbered the inhabitants of Latium, or even came close? I'm sorry, but that's not possible.


I've not been given a single historical fact as to why population SHOULDN'T be a concern for the administration of any given nation, or why having 199 Alexandria's on the campaign map by 100 BC is OK, or why building armies SHOULDN'T tax local populations. All people have done is attack minor points, like the real causes of the Marian reform or say "but then the Casse will be too hard!" I don't care if people disagree, but please, for God's sake, disagree with my idea, not my examples! Prove to me that every city always had unlimited manpower, or that dusty desert-towns in the middle of Arabia rivaled Antioch for population and I'll change my mind!

[Fondor_Yards]

I was using carthage as an example of why they population wouldn't be suffering the affects of lost men due to have large armies campaining.

It turned into a debate about the Marian reforms since you brought them up :laugh4:


?!? Yes, I have! Look at average city growh of today's cities. They are ussually just about 0% or increasing or decreasing slightly.
I don't know what stats your looking at, but cities are not at 0% growth.


The thing that stimulates growth is wealth, and wealth is NOT a universal constant, so why would growth be a universal constant?
Then why is there such large population growth in the africa and the poor regions of asia? Growth tends to slow down with wealth, look at europe. While wealth is important for the training of elite units, is it not for all. Many units are armed with a few spears, a shield, and a helm, thats it. You don't need to be a noble to have that.



Why shouldn't you, as the leader of your people, have to worry about your kingdom's population? What nation enjoyed such perpetual prosperity that they never had to worry about loss of manpower? MANPOWER MATTERED. Rome's superior, almost inexhaustable manpower was part of her survival of the Second Punic War after defeat after defeat. Carthage couldn't keep up. SUFFICIENT MANPOWER SHOULDN'T BE A GIVEN, ESPECIALLY AS A BARBARIAN.

I'm sorry for my shrillness, but it's a fact! Why would the Sweboz magically have more population than all her neigbors? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in 272 she wasn't so much larger than her neigbors, but in EB, she is, and she easily outgrows them.

You do have to worry about your population as some faction. For the first 50 years at least for the Sweboz, you have to be careful not to recruit too many troops or you will burn your cities dry. The same goes for the getai for first 10-20 years. *Also carthage didn't loss because of a lack of manpower, they lost because the senate didn't send Hannibal the support he needed, but this is another topic in it's own.*
And the Sweboz doesn't magically have more population then her neighbors. They have the same amount or less. Have you ever played a Sweboz campain? And why shouldn't a barbarian have sufficient manpower?


Have you taken the "dusty towns of arabia" and held them to 100 BC? In fact, the yemen and other coastal areas of arabrian where very rich from trade with egypt and india. They were a very important trading partner between Egypt and India and all the goods there. This was their golden age, they were very strong and were very rich. Yes, there very well might have been more people in one of the yemen proviences then in latium. Have you played a campain as one of the poorer population wise factions such as half the barbarians and the steppe people? Why do you think the Sarmatians are rolled over in every camapain by the armenians. It because all their towns but 1 start with about 450 people and population growth of 1%-2%. Population growth IS limited a lot of proviences, it only the rich good farmlands become large cities.

Your right I havn't given you historical evidence, but I HAVE given you gameplay reasons why not to do this. And EB is about a mixture of gameplay and history.

[iberus_generalis]

i have a suggestion to EB 0.8..
my sugestion is to add the ability to have more than 1 settlement per province...
it's possible...it's been done by ppl in the community..the thread is - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41715

this would add a much deeper strategic sense to the planing of the development of a province...to be a mining province+agricoltural, or a agricoltural+agricoltural province...and if it would be possible to restrict the building of mines to specific provinces...or hiding the name of the metal mined, so that ppl can't know what is mine here or there..so that one can choose to build mines, or build farming settlements, and have no ill efects to gameplay...its a question of advantages and disadvantages that a player should ponder..e.g. farming settlement+farming output, bigger popular growth, - squallor no in put that would be received from mining activities.... mining -population growth(do to polution and reducing of space to expand) bigger income(like it's now),reduced farming income(a bit less than in provinces with mines), +squallor... and who talks of this two types of settlements can talk about diferent kinds of settlements like the already existing colonias(making them appear in Strat map..) and so on...

personally if this is not implemented in future versions, i'm thinking about doing it myself...although i don0t know how..

as for 0.74 i'm gonna try it...

[-Praetor-]

It`s like the metropolis mod in RTR...

Pity that those settlements cannot be conquered, or represented on the battlefield map. Now THAT would be a huge strategical breakthrough.

[Ludens]

I've not been given a single historical fact as to why population SHOULDN'T be a concern for the administration of any given nation, or why having 199 Alexandria's on the campaign map by 100 BC is OK, or why building armies SHOULDN'T tax local populations. All people have done is attack minor points, like the real causes of the Marian reform or say "but then the Casse will be too hard!" I don't care if people disagree, but please, for God's sake, disagree with my idea, not my examples! Prove to me that every city always had unlimited manpower, or that dusty desert-towns in the middle of Arabia rivaled Antioch for population and I'll change my mind!
I apologize if I appeared hostile; I just wanted to point out some things which I considered revelant. Actually, I agree that not every town should become a megapoleis.

I think the general argument of the team against this was that it arbitrarily caps the growth of many cities just because they never became big in history. However, this cities that have been mentioned sofar (Rome, Alexandria, Csetiphon) also became big because they were the hub-cities of large empires. Suppose the Casse succesfully expanded out of Brittain and created a Celtic empire, wouldn't Camulosadae become a megapolis too? There was no lack of arable farmland in Brittain and it was the hub of trade routs between the continent and the Brittish isles.


....exactly. Population represents people WHO CAN BE ENROLLED AS SOLDIERS.
But since Marius recruited anyway there was no shortage of people who can be enrolled as soldiers. The recruitment pool hadn't been depleted, just a certain section of it.


i have a suggestion to EB 0.8..
my sugestion is to add the ability to have more than 1 settlement per province...
it's possible...it's been done by ppl in the community..the thread is -https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=41715
I would like to see this too, but I think this was proposed before and the EB team declined because there is no building slot available for this.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

One thing I think Oetairos (maybe with others) thought up was using forts to represent small cities. The settlement plan could be altered and a family member could be given an immobile trait. Maybe even diplomats could be continuously spawned every 60 years there or so. The cities wouldn't be permanent, but they would be there as long as the soldiers weren't all destroyed. Still it was intriguing, but we would lose forts, so we dropped it. Those cities actually would show up on the battlemap then. And on the strat map too.

[Imperator]

You do have to worry about your population as some faction. For the first 50 years at least for the Sweboz, you have to be careful not to recruit too many troops or you will burn your cities dry. The same goes for the getai for first 10-20 years. *Also carthage didn't loss because of a lack of manpower, they lost because the senate didn't send Hannibal the support he needed, but this is another topic in it's own.*
And the Sweboz doesn't magically have more population then her neighbors. They have the same amount or less. Have you ever played a Sweboz campain? And why shouldn't a barbarian have sufficient manpower?


A) the fact that population is tough for the barbarians at first is a good sign. That's how population management should be universally
B)I didn't say that's why carthage lost. I said that's part of the reason Rome survived the loss of army after army
C)I didn't say the Barbarians should have insufficient manpower. I said they should have to struggle to maintain it


I think the general argument of the team against this was that it arbitrarily caps the growth of many cities just because they never became big in history. However, this cities that have been mentioned sofar (Rome, Alexandria, Csetiphon) also became big because they were the hub-cities of large empires. Suppose the Casse succesfully expanded out of Brittain and created a Celtic empire, wouldn't Camulosadae become a megapolis too? There was no lack of arable farmland in Brittain and it was the hub of trade routs between the continent and the Brittish isles.

I agree with every word you just said :2thumbsup: . That's why my suggestion was to nerf growth universally, not impose caps. That way all cities can become huge cities, but most won't. Just as it was historically.


It turned into a debate about the Marian reforms since you brought them up
oh....so I did:sweatdrop:


Why do you think the Sarmatians are rolled over in every camapain by the armenians. It because all their towns but 1 start with about 450 people and population growth of 1%-2%. Population growth IS limited a lot of proviences, it only the rich good farmlands become large cities.

Your right I havn't given you historical evidence, but I HAVE given you gameplay reasons why not to do this. And EB is about a mixture of gameplay and history

but what about the AI population scripts? I thought those kept the AI from having lower than X population, and would give them a little "transfusion" when their cities got too empty. If I'm wrong, then yes, we have a problem. (The AI wouldn't be able to cope with limited population, the player can, if he's smart) Am I wrong about those scripts?

and what are the gameplay issues? If the AI doesn't get population bonuses from the script, then yes, there's one. But what are the others? Tougher Barbarian campaign doesn't strike me as being a game-killer, nor does the prospect of having to manage my cities population.

[Fondor_Yards]

From what I remember, I think the script gives an AI city 100 men if it recruits 120, and so on. So their cities still lose people, but not by much. Another reason why it's meant for large, if you get a 240 sized unit they will still only get 100. At I think thats how it works... and maybe I jumped the gun before. My last post seems a little too defensive without considering all the facts. Most barbarians/steppe don't have access to many pop boosting buildings, only tier 2 farms and baths anyways. And I don't even know if the Sarmtians get those.


I agree with every word you just said . That's why my suggestion was to nerf growth universally, not impose caps. That way all cities can become huge cities, but most won't. Just as it was historically.

How can we nerf growth while still letting all cities have the potenial to become huge? By a late campain, the AI will turn them all into huge cities. If this could work I'd be for that. The only way I can think is have hidden resorce in all starting capitals and major cities military and economic wise, that lets you build like tier 3+ health/farming/whatever buildings to boost population that you can't normaly build. You wouldn't have an aquaduct running to the large towns, you'd save them for the big ones. I would suggest a new building line but I think they maxed out on the building types.

[Discoskull]

Just downloaded EB and first off, fantasic job. Blows vanilla out of the water and then beats it to death.
Don't know if if would be possible, but here goes. Whenever I was playing RTW vanilla as the barbarians and establishing empires that stretched from britainnia to greece to north africa, it annoyed me that, even though the barbarians were conquering and subjegating their more technologically advanced neighbors, they didn't learn a darn thing from them. It made them seem stupid, and they were far from it.
I think it would be really cool - and hopefully, maybe realistic - if there was a chance for certain barbarian factions to learn from conquering more advanced factions. Not too much, of course, but little things would be cool -like AS coming into contact with cataphracts and learning to train them.

FOR EXAMPLE, if the Casse happened to take and hold Roman provinces with highways, there could be a chance, over time or whatever, that they learn the basics of these things, and be able to build paved roads in their provinces. Or learn to build stone walls, or a slightly more efficiant government building - just little things, though. No barbarians rampaging across the map with gold armor and heavy artillery and super-advanced economies.
These things could take loads of time, that's fine - paved roads could be a lot more expensive/time consuming for barbarians or whatever. It might be too complicated for you guys to tackle, but it sure would be neat to play.

I mean, once the Casse Empire wipes out the Romans and goes to war with Carthage for twenty years, it is pretty much extremely accurate historical fiction, is it not?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It is complicated to do those things. If they got access to them in our game's time period, then we try to work out something (like the AS cataphract development), but if they didn't, and we just have to presume a casse empire stretching across Europe would have done X or learned Y, then it's much harder for us to rationalize doing it. Why? Because why not give the Parthians access to the best Iberian stuff or the best Carthaginian stuff too by some mechanism, if they conquer them? Why not give the Ptolemies nomadic steppe buildings if they conquer those places too? There's just way too many variables. But like I said, if there's evidence that a culture *did* have (not "well maybe they could have had") something in our time period, then we will work to get it in. Just too much work and too many variables to make more paths and possible options and such.

(celtic factions will get paved roads by the way after their highest level of markets has been built I believe in our next build, but this is because of the arguments of our celtic historians on the presence of paved roads in celtic territories in our time frame - and we aren't talking about roman ones :grin:)

[orwell]

Were the persian royal roads just a basic paved road like any other except well known? Or were they actually improved roads that were somewhat similar to the Romans highway system? I'd like to see the civilized factions eventually learn how to create highways. Possibly through coming in contact with roman culture similar to how the cataphract is learned, or occupation of a italian province for a turn similar to what must be done for Alexanders body? A ludus magna in several cities?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Again... We know the Seleukids did have the cataphracts in our time frame after coming in contact with the Parthians' versions. It is speculation that other cultures would come up with other things. Why not have Casse cataphracts if they meet the parthians? Or Roman Hetairoi? Or Sweboz elephants? We can't spare the unit space for additional unit theorizing and are building complexes are already way more complex (way way way) than any other mod would think about. We can't keep adding possible things that we just have "in case" some of these adaptations would have occurred.

As for the Persian Royal Road, it was not created by any of the factions in the game - it predates them all - and is just a unique building that gives trade bonuses from our point of view. Read the description in the game for more information.

[orwell]

The cataphract thing was just an example of how to acquire it, I don't really care about acquiring new units. I'd like to read the description, but can't get access to the game. I think EB did a fine job with the unit roster, what I was asking about was making highways available for civilized factions. I don't think, as far as my understanding goes, that it would take any more trouble than to add a few lines of code to what the factions can build since your just adding another branch to the existing tech tree, unless it takes up a space reserved for something?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

you can't branch the road building or any building that interacts with what you see on the strat map - like the roads or the walls - we can do it with the ports, but there are side effects we don't like too.

Here is an example of the roads requirement line:

roads requires factions { occultus, barbarian, romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, } and not hidden_resource noroads or factions { pontus, armenia, } and building_present_min_level minimumbuilding pastoralism and not building_present_min_level nomadcamp warlordm and not hidden_resource noroads

And paved roads
paved_roads requires factions { romans_brutii, egypt, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, parthia, romans_scipii, } and not hidden_resource nopavedroads or factions { gauls, scythia, } and building_present_min_level market forum and not hidden_resource nopavedroads

I don't think there is any way at all to give another faction paved roads with some other set of requirements, especially one that deals with traits and a scripted set of invisible reform buildings (which they require, and which take up a whole other complex slot).

[Trithemius]

It might have been said already but ancient cities were rarely able to sustain their size on their own. Without constant emigration from the countryside, and other centres, they would atrophy at a surprisingly high rate.

I like to imagine that the growth bonuses from markets and temples reflect enhanced emigration rather than "magical fertility" effects (which might be what the EB designers intended them to represent).

If city's grow to fast for some people, perhaps the effects of squalor and plague could be increased? This would probably work to keep populations lower - although it would be important to ensure that plagues strike cities that are not already Huge in size.

As an aside: is it possible to have devastation have an effect on population growth (representing disruptions to emigration) as well as to provincial income?

[Trithemius]

JFOR EXAMPLE, if the Casse happened to take and hold Roman provinces with highways, there could be a chance, over time or whatever, that they learn the basics of these things, and be able to build paved roads in their provinces. Or learn to build stone walls, or a slightly more efficiant government building - just little things, though. No barbarians rampaging across the map with gold armor and heavy artillery and super-advanced economies.

I thought that the Casse could ALREADY get gold-rated armour (from their three smith-god temples), whereas I have not been able to with the Romani. :o

[Imperator]

I agree with Teleklos, just because a faction could have had a unit doesn't mean they should. Not only because of limited unit space but simply because there an infinite number of possible units, if we give the Casse cataphracts in case they reach Parthia then we need to give the Parthians a Barbarian infantry in case they ever get invaded by the Casse. Besides that's sorta what the AoR troops were for, to represent a nation using local troops and technology to their advantage.


How can we nerf growth while still letting all cities have the potenial to become huge? By a late campain, the AI will turn them all into huge cities.
well, if the team nerfs growth as aggresively as I'd like them to (no growth bonuses except for farms and granaries) then it'll be a struggle just to keep growth rates at .5% or 1% and you'll have cities, yours and AI's actually LOSING population. That way rich or important cities will grow to become large, but 99% won't.

[Avicenna]

So basically you want to condemn the fate of the Saka-Rauka to something similar to the Yuezhi's? Bankruptancy or lack of any supporters.

[Imperator]

So basically you want to condemn the fate of the Saka-Rauka to something similar to the Yuezhi's? Bankruptancy or lack of any supporters.

I've got a two answers to that:
1) in EB .7x the Steppe people are pretty much screwed, without my suggestion What makes you so sure the Saka-Rauka will magically be better than the Yeuzi?

2) I admit that if this proposal adopted, certain tweaks will need to be made to EB. But said tweaks would to have needed to be added anyway. The Steppe people already suck, my plan just makes them suck a little more. Is there really an outragous difference between the Sarmatians being destroyed in 260 or 250? Either way the Steppe factions need help.


I've done some thinking about my proposal recently. While I still stand by it, I admit that it would be too hard on the AI barbarians, if what Fonder_yards said about the script is true. I thought the script did to population what it did to the treasury- give it a HUGE boost every time it sank too low in a given settlement. If that's not the case, all we need to do is be a more generous with growth bonuses for the barbarians than the civilized factions. :2thumbsup:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Take a look at the nomad preview. When you conquer a province you have to build the migration building, which gives you a good population boost until you upgrade migration into either pastoralism or nomadism, then the initial boost stops. A minor boost in population also occurs when you first establish caravan route scouting parties and knowledge spreads of your province's interest in caravan trade, but that boost goes away when you will actually then build the caravan itself. That first level is there so that we can give nomads a different type of caravan progression from regular factions (only seleukids and baktria and parthia get caravans anyway actually, and then only in a few select provinces, and only one level I think).

[paullus]

i know shifty157 did some work on steppe town plans, and EB people have mentioned other settlements too...any chance we'll see any other altered settlement plans in .8? I'd really like to see an akropolis in greek cities, and a mix of eastern and greek buildings in the eastern greek settlements, stuff like that.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We've got nothing like that yet. We are still working on the nomad stuff. Shifty has had RL stuff take over much of his time and hasn't been able to do much lately. He has worked on one other thing non-nomadic, but we won't talk about that just yet.

[Fondor_Yards]

And paved roads
paved_roads requires factions { romans_brutii, egypt, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, parthia, romans_scipii, } and not hidden_resource nopavedroads or factions { gauls, scythia, } and building_present_min_level market forum and not hidden_resource nopavedroads


What about pontus, they aren't in there. They should be able to build paved roads *as a mix of both perisa and greece, who could both make them* and they already have the building describition and pics for it.

[NeoSpartan]

......
I think another point to consider is that a city in EB does not represent one city, but a population center. There were no big cities on the steppe, or in northern and eastern Europe. However, those areas could field sizeable armies when required; the population was just spread over the country side. Similarly, a city the Arabian penninsula may well represent several cities spread over the coast. None of them was as big as Rome, but put together they could hold significant population.

THis is why I think the population growth of cities should be LEFT ALONE and not messed around with.

The Suggestions I have would be with:

A- Limiting the number of settlements that can build Epic and Huge walls. The X settlement can have a really high population, but just not be able to make those types of walls, because that X settlement never had them. (wheather hard-coding issues will allow this I don't know)

B- When building a Type 4 gov't type have the player access to the "medium" troops the conquered faction settlement can provide.
For example: Say as the Aedui you take a over Pella (capital of the Makedon) and you build a Type 4 gov't. As a result you have access to training "Taxeis Phalangitai" and "Hippeis" too. Instead of only being able to train Taxie Hopplie, Peltals, and slingers, and akonstintai (sp).

[Discoskull]

Somebody's mentioned, somewhere, trying to put in female leaders for the Casse, since they had those and all.

I understand that it's impossible to completely overhaul their government and give them female leaders (which would be kind of stupid anyway), but wives appear as traits for their hubbies, right? Sickly wife, happy wife, etc.
How about if the Celts' (or at least the Britons') wives had the possibility of being far more useful to their husbands? Like helping to manage a province (+1 management), or implimenting their husband's battle tactics (+2 command), or giving her husband more influence if she's family and he's married in as a foreigner (Gaul/Caledonian)?

Example: "warrior wife" or something like that (obviously switched for a much more imaginative or well-researched title). She could give him extra command stars, extra hitpoints, attack, whatever. Or even appear on his chariot with him in battle...? If that's even possible, which it probably isn't.

Just an idea, sorry if I come off as a rambling ignoramous.

[Discoskull]

(celtic factions will get paved roads by the way after their highest level of markets has been built I believe in our next build, but this is because of the arguments of our celtic historians on the presence of paved roads in celtic territories in our time frame - and we aren't talking about roman ones :grin:)

This makes me happy.:laugh4:

[orwell]

Somebody's mentioned, somewhere, trying to put in female leaders for the Casse, since they had those and all.

I understand that it's impossible to completely overhaul their government and give them female leaders (which would be kind of stupid anyway), but wives appear as traits for their hubbies, right? Sickly wife, happy wife, etc.
How about if the Celts' (or at least the Britons') wives had the possibility of being far more useful to their husbands? Like helping to manage a province (+1 management), or implimenting their husband's battle tactics (+2 command), or giving her husband more influence if she's family and he's married in as a foreigner (Gaul/Caledonian)?

Example: "warrior wife" or something like that (obviously switched for a much more imaginative or well-researched title). She could give him extra command stars, extra hitpoints, attack, whatever. Or even appear on his chariot with him in battle...? If that's even possible, which it probably isn't.

Just an idea, sorry if I come of as a rambling ignoramous.

This would require a remodel and reskinning of the unit which isn't going to happen, though the wife playing a larger role in traits is plausible.

I'm pretty sure its been mentioned before, but a search didn't turn up anything relevant. Will all landbridges be removed in .8?

[MSB]

I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civillised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land mabye the infuluence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conqured factions and their faction. The same could hapen with the greeks or carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completly new cultire from the mix. Would this be possible?