EB v.80 - First Impressions? [Archive]

aecp

12-06-2006, 03:25

First of all I'd like to thank all of you in the EB team who have worked so hard for so long to get this out. Second of all, it was well worth the wait, the way I see it EB 0.8 is so polished and full of new and original content that it would be well worth paying the price of a full game for. I just hope that you get the recognition you deserve some day, I could very well see EB being for the Total War franchise what Counter-Strike has been for Half-Life, if only the same support was available from the developers.

Anyways, on to my impressions of the game. As of yet I've only played a few custom battles and the first few turns of a campaign, but everything looks beyond great. The new music, voicemods and GUI make it feel like a completely new game. Very impressive. I tried three campaign battles and none of them crash, so i guess that fix worked out wel? There were a few pleasant suprises in the unit rosters aswell, (altough i havent had time to check them out closely) the spartiatai, Lusotanan units and many others look stunning.

I guess the highest praise I can give you is that i have an exam in five hours and should be sleeping right now. Anyways, thanks again. It feels like robbery getting something this good for free.

Antagonist

12-06-2006, 03:56

It's taken so long to download and install it that I pretty much have to sleep without taking a good look, but I've looked through some things, especially the Custom Battle roster.

I see a lot of new units, all of which look really good. I'm pleased to see an increased number of "AoR" units of particular peoples/tribes/cities which give more flavour to "rebel" areas of the map in particular. Cool new Indians, a number of Baltic units, which look interesting, and the Goidils have been raised almost to a demi-faction with 5 or 6 units. Unfortuntely I don't have time to actually play a battle but I'm looking forward to seeing the new units, especially for the Sabeans.

BTW, any chance of a definitive list of the new units? I think I caught most of them, but the chaotic nature of the roster makes it difficult to be sure.

Looking forward to further exploration. :book:

Antagonist

Big_John

12-06-2006, 03:56

I guess the highest praise I can give you is that i have an exam in five hours and should be sleeping right now.go sleep! EB will be there in the morning. :sleep:

Spidey

12-06-2006, 05:53

Well, since you asked for my first reaction . . .

I downloaded the game (at my university job on the fastest line possible - took fifteen minutes to download). Copied it to my zip drive and headed for home.

I had a clean install waiting. Installed it. My fingers were trembling and my mouth was dry. I reached for the mouse and . . .

CTD.

Cr*p. Did a repair install. Tried again.

CTD.

Was about to try a third time when I realized I was a complete idiot. I had tried to install EB v. 8.0 over (and this is the truth) a clean install of my RTW v. 1.0. Yeah. Right.

Anyhoo, I straightened out the mess and am now waiting for the game to install on my RTW Gold v. 1.5.

I wouldn't waste your time, but Kull did want our FIRST impressions . . .

BTW, and this probably isn't the place to ask this, but isn't there supposed to be MORE factions with EB. I read somewhere that, by utilizing a top secret scientific process known only to TEAM EB, NASA and MIT, there are now something like 39 or 78 or 45,000 factions?

Hmmm . . . thought I read that somewhere?

Spidey

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 06:01

RTR is doing something like that for their next release and it will be very interesting to see how it works out. There are going to be more faction options, but once you start a game, there are still only 21 factions in any one game.

Dram

12-06-2006, 06:08

go sleep! EB will be there in the morning. :sleep:

qft :book: :whip:

pezhetairoi

12-06-2006, 06:17

Was about to try a third time when I realized I was a complete idiot. I had tried to install EB v. 8.0 over (and this is the truth) a clean install of my RTW v. 1.0. Yeah. Right.

EB 8.0? Be still, my pounding heart! If only it will come to that one day... Hopefully before I die! If only!

Dooz

12-06-2006, 07:12

Well folks, I've been blown away. This is just a previous incarnation of me typing what you see. It's absolutely incredible. Still a bunch of missing unit cards, that's about the only downside I've seen in my first two years of a Carthaginian campaign. Visually stunning of course. Battles are pretty fun, and seem to last a good while. I love the traits! Missed those buggers from back in the 0.74 days. Bt perhaps my favorite part about this mod is the economic balance. The very high prices of units and buildings, really establishes a perfect pace for my taste. Oh and the music... breathtaking.

I'm curious about something. It seems there is some form of perfect spy script active in the game, is this true? I can see the exact units and everything for any settlement or army that is within visible range. This kind of makes spies less important, I suppose.

Zero1

12-06-2006, 07:25

Downloading now, I can't wait to see what the finished .8 looks like ~D,

And on a side note I'm proud to have been part of the closed testing team, and hope I served you well :bow:

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 07:33

You did Zero. We are quite thankful for your work. :2thumbsup: You'll have one of the earliest accounts for the eb forum when it goes public too btw. :grin:

Zero1

12-06-2006, 07:41

Awwwe, shucks :embarassed:

Spidey

12-06-2006, 08:17

Okay, before I give my serious first impressions, some background:

I've had RTW for about five months. I have the original (like 1.0) and the Gold Edition (1.5). I've completed three campaigns [one long - Julii, and two short - Julii, and Macedonia]. I play three mods: vanilla RTW 1.5 with the magnus map; RTR Platinum, and RTW Darth Mod (this one not so much).

This will be my fourth mod.

After I pulled my head out of my backside and managed to get the game installed correctly, it worked fine. Slow load on the first frame, very slow load on the campaign map. Slow loads on battles. But no crashes. That's a good thing.

Decided to try out the Makedona (Macedonia, for us don't make a habit of Latin) Campaign. Played ten years like I normally do. And what a decade it was! Why, I managed to reduce a first world empire to a third world pile of rubble in no time. Afterwards, here are my thoughts:

Music: Okay, it's truly great. Wonderful. Outstanding. You get it.

Graphics: Again, very well done. That load screen (the first screen you see) may be a slow load, but the graphic is much nicer than old red and black screen in vanilla RTW. Ditto for all the backgrounds. Exceptional work. In fact, there are no shortage of great graphics in this game.

The exception might be the campaign map. Because I'm new to EB, there's a lot of stuff there that looks like it might be out of place. Circles of stone (on the Macedonian map, for example), new mines (they look like holes in the ground?), etc. It's okay, and I'll probably figure it out eventually, but it just feels a bit strange.

Units: Didn't get far enought into the game to see anything "wild." Seemed pretty standard . . . unless I'm missing something . . .

Economic System: Okay, just kill me now. Seriously. Take me down. Holy financial recession, Batman! Even with my cities taxed out to the max, I lost buckets of money my first turn. I mean, it just evaporated. Why? Well, being a sharp governor, I looked into that. Units. Paying soldier's salaries. And, I had a lot of units. Why, I could start a war if I wanted! Make some money . . . which leads me to . . .

Battle System: Yes, well, the battles are a bit slower. I had some time on my hands during the battles. (By way of comparison, I usually play the battles in RTR at 2x or 4x the speed, because they also tend to be slow). This is okay. It will make the game last longer. This fact, combined with the new campaign map (which is the largest I've ever seen), means campaigns will really go on for awhile . . . I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The battles do seem more realistic. Read this as: I can't get away with the old tricks I used in vanilla RTW. That makes for more fun. Also means I loose more battles. Not so much fun.

Gameplay: Okay, this is where you're eyes start to whirl. Today, in another post, Teleklos Archelaou said

Seriously guys, what we have at this point is incredibly complex. We lose more members to just being overwhelmed (new ones mostly) than to anything else I would hazard.

I can believe that. The EB Team didn't mod RTW; they created a whole new game. Someone at CA or Activision should cut these people a check because this is not RTW but it's what RTW could have been.

Seriously, cool graphics and units and music mean nothing if the game is the same at the end of the day. Such mods are, frankly, window dressing. The EB Team changed the game. And, I suppose, until you get the hang of it, it's a bit overwhelming. Quite a bit, actually.

A couple of quick examples:

One of my favorite tricks in the Macedonian campaign is to build up my roads in the first decade. I couldn't even build roads--they're simply not available, let alone traders or anything else . . . the economic and politcal systms are completely different.

Another trick is to blitz my neighbors (usually those pesky Greeks). But the new battle system (slow and difficult) combined with a different economic and political system, makes a blitz practically impossible.

Overall: I can see that this is a great strategy game. It would be really nice to have a strategy guide forum (like the one for RTW) since there isn't a user guide. Just something to help those of us that are still newbies to RTW or for whom EB 0.8 is a new mod.

Otherwise, this is an incredible accomplishment. I am, frankly, amazed the EB team pulled this off.

Spidey

Ypoknons

12-06-2006, 09:13

1. Simply incredible interfaces. The Greek Mosaic simply captures the feel of the era so well.
2. Great new units cards.
3. Woah, new units. Me = happy.

I honestly didn't want EB to surpass M2TW in my mind, but right now it seems that it might. It's mighty interesting how the Spartans are utterly average units as well. The best unit, I suppose, must be the Hellenic Levy Hoplites: relatively they're poorish units, but at 10 mnai, great units!

oudysseos

12-06-2006, 09:46

Didn't have chance to play before I had to go to work, just installed and looked at the loading screen and menu. Almost peed my pants!! (That's a good thing). Just wondering if there are any good source books on the Saba that ye are aware of?

Mujalumbo

12-06-2006, 10:07

First impression? Slick.

So slick, I almost slid off my chair.

That was my first impression - everything seemed to be a lot more polished and put-together than the previous releases. Unfortunately, I'd have to say, "slow." Initial loading screen takes a min or two, but it's fine after that.

The music really is something else. Can't really imagine what it was like before. ;) That and the voices, incredible work.

Oh, and those Celtic Slingers are a damned pain in the @$$. And the charge value works! Yay! Means you know have to make sure your cav is lined up and charging properly. But when it works, hoo-boy!

I'm busy getting out of debt as the Aedui, and it looks like those Romani dogs are already sniffing around at my borders...

Congratulations, EB team, you're doing incredible work. Do keep it up. :)

'Ta for now.

Demivrgvs

12-06-2006, 11:48

Few words...EB ROCKS! Go for the eyes Boo!!

Only minor glitches so far...Classic Hoplite using sword instead of spear,italian cavalry without any weapon in hand,Prom cities missing...but they mean nothing compared to the colossal work EB represent: A WHOLE NEW GAME! And a much better game experience than MTW2!!

Aranor

12-06-2006, 12:22

:jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jumping: OMG that was sooo worth the wait! I was blown away when I first loaded the game!

QwertyMIDX

12-06-2006, 14:17

Just wondering if there are any good source books on the Saba that ye are aware of?

Not really, you have to read archeological studies (different ones in English, French and German) to really get good information. There are a few books on ancient south arabia that are ok though (lots of bad information in sprinkled in all of them, but it's a very difficult field that lacks agreement on lots of things, and they're all a bit dated). Try Klaus Schippman's Ancient South Arabia.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 15:11

Well, we should mention Breton's Arabia Felix especially since it is pretty new and about $15 USD on Amazon.

Lusted

12-06-2006, 15:17

First impression: oooh, pretty.

Second impression: blimey there are a lot of units in custom battles.

Third impression: Failed to find texture eb\data\models_unit\textures\unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga(this is one fo the default textures used by a few units in RTw which means that a unit does not have a correct texture entry for it)

I was doing a big custom battle to decide which faction to use first but it crashed on me. Ill put the unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga.dds file in the folder it is looking for it in, then see which unit loads with it.

Krusader

12-06-2006, 15:19

Lusted

12-06-2006, 15:30

Yup its the Baktrian Hippeis. I also noticed that with the Baktrian Agema one of their lods is messed up and has a shield in the air or something, likely the low/med lod.

also the hellenic heavy spearmen have the spears going through their heads.

EDIT: and nice work on all the Hellenic units and officers, they are really nice looking. Im currently torn between choosing Baktria and Makedonia for my first campaign, and the Romani of course.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 15:38

Look for lots of unit fixes and hopefully the rest of the unit cards in the upcoming patch - that is pretty much all it will be about. Fixes for those type things. We thought we got that Baktria Hippeis one but it must have slipped through.

Lusted

12-06-2006, 15:59

Just a wild guess here but im guessing that the Baktria family members are not meant to have Iberian generals bodyguards to start out with.

blacksnail

12-06-2006, 17:11

Just a wild guess here but im guessing that the Baktria family members are not meant to have Iberian generals bodyguards to start out with.
No, that's accurate. According to Livy (IV, 238.4) there was a large exodus of Iberian nobles in 292 BC which encountered fierce resistance as they fought their way across much of modern-day Europe. Eventually defeated in Baktrian lands, they were given the choice of subjugation or eradication. However, the Baktrians were impressed with their ferocity in battle and over time they grew to positions of great prominence. It became fashionable to employ these Celtiberean "giants" as guards amongst the Baktrian elite, leading to the quote by Baktrian basileos Hartabarxes III: "Oskonsantos Lusotan proximus e vamenos." ("The mountains of Lusotan ever surround me.")

...just kidding. Sounds like an error. Please post in the bug-fix thread.

Dayve

12-06-2006, 17:27

Seleukid and Roman flags are mixed up. :thumbsdown:

Oh wait... That was 0.7654321...

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 17:36

Are they mixed up somewhere Dayve? I don't understand. This thread is for first impressions. Is that it?

Bonny

12-06-2006, 18:55

Overall: I can see that this is a great strategy game. It would be really nice to have a strategy guide forum (like the one for RTW) since there isn't a user guide. Just something to help those of us that are still newbies to RTW or for whom EB 0.8 is a new mod.

Otherwise, this is an incredible accomplishment. I am, frankly, amazed the EB team pulled this off.

Spidey

Hi,

if you need help look into the gameplayguide subforum
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=128

There are some old guides (from 0.72 but the economic situation at the start was not different) a new one for 0.8 and guides made by other players for several faction and many hints and tipss.
I would recommend to reduce the battle difficulte to medium or hard, on very hard the ai is been given large stat bonusse (afaik +7/+7 and morale) which imbalances the game very much (for exmaple javelins are almost useless against the AI on vh) and is mnaking the elite units you encounter later in game almost invincible (Gesetae)
The Battle AI will remain the same on all difficult levels (easy not sure).

Dan.o6

12-06-2006, 21:09

Haven't played EB but the amount of hype going around about this release has made me re-install RTW and try it out :D It looks and sounds good, hopefully it will defy my expectations.

khelvan

12-06-2006, 21:34

Oh? Where may I find some hype? I like reading hype!

Aside from this forum, of course.

Anthony

12-06-2006, 21:50

Hi,

if you need help look into the gameplayguide subforum
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=128

There are some old guides (from 0.72 but the economic situation at the start was not different) a new one for 0.8 and guides made by other players for several faction and many hints and tipss.
I would recommend to reduce the battle difficulte to medium or hard, on very hard the ai is been given large stat bonusse (afaik +7/+7 and morale) which imbalances the game very much (for exmaple javelins are almost useless against the AI on vh) and is mnaking the elite units you encounter later in game almost invincible (Gesetae)
The Battle AI will remain the same on all difficult levels (easy not sure).

I believe the recommendation has always been to set battles to medium and campaign to very hard.

GiantMonkeyMan

12-06-2006, 22:04

its very cool (blatent understatement)... good work EB team :2thumbsup:

i was trying to start campaign as the saka rauka (sp?) to test the new nomadic system but annoyingly the only troops i can train are these sythian noble type guys that cost over 2000 and i am barely scraping in enough to keep the pittiful army that i have at the moment... what do i have to build to get some cheap troops? or is there a problem with the recruitment? (i hope not)

looking good but i'll probably start a Makedonian campaign (good ol' maks!)

Eberhard

12-06-2006, 23:08

Job well done!

First thing I did was start up a big custom battle between the Casse and Aedui to hear the new Celtic voice mod and see the new units. The voice mod just makes everything sound better. Instead of hearing some generic "barbarian" guy, you hear a convincing language. Excellent job on the acting!

The grass looks sweet as hell, and the units all look better for some reason. I'm very impressed, and can't wait to get farther in my Casse campaign.

To tell you the truth I don't care too much for the music, but that's not too big of a deal. Not to make anyone feel bad, because I know all of the work that went into it.

Once again, couldnt ask for a better improvement on an already great mod. :yes:

Dan.o6

12-06-2006, 23:13

Just played it for a bit, and first impressions it looks a great mod indeed. I will play it more tomorrow when I have time and probably start a campaign also.

Helgi

12-07-2006, 00:38

Had no problem really loading EB, a tad slow, but that's ok. Had too reload RTW and remove EB0.74, after reloading RTW and EB 0.8, I read the boards to see if anyone had any issues with 0.8. Clicked the EB button instead of the Rome button and it came right up without any incident and played the Romani. The only issue was speed, and that is not much of an issue for me. EB has put out a very good mod:rtwyes: :rtwyes: ~:yin-yang: :rtwyes: :rtwyes:

Imperator

12-07-2006, 00:54

I can offer some perspective, from a (recently converted) RTR fan.
I tried .74 but was chased off by the 1.2 build, and rough appearance (I admit it! I'm shallow! :clown: ) and preferred RTR's shiny, less complex and historical veneer to EB's rough, kinda buggy, but complex and super-accurate look. Now, however, when I started EB up, the first thing I noticed was a sort of intangible feeling of completion- it seemed like I wasn't dealing with a beta but a mod that was much closer to completion. Sure there are a few bugs I noticed in my Romani campaign (equites extrodanarii don't have spears- just air and Prom's cities don't quite work) but then I've stopped calling RTR more finished than EB. EB has a few peasant skins but have you seen RTR's Gauls- not exactly heavily modded. I'm not saying one is better- I liked RTR a lot more than EB for a long time. But now, for me, EB has caught up with RTR in terms of completion and is better in terms of accuracy, balancing (no uber-nations like Macedon), depth, and now even eye-candy.

I cannot begin to fathom the amount of work that it took to make this game- it must have been staggering and I've seen mod teams crumble under only a fraction of the problems EB pulled through. They made the most extensive, exhaustive, realistic, balanced and deep mod despite having more problems and troubles than almost any other mod team- you are all worthy of congratulations indeed.

All in all, from my limited experience, .8 is the best mod I've ever played. In any other mod, I've been interested in 1 or 2 factions- I've only ever been able to play as Rome or maybe Carthage in RTR- but in EB there isn't a single faction I wouldn't want to play as. There is so much flavor I feel like I'm really there! When I'm on the strat map, I see city names in native languages, I see the natural and man-made resources of each province and I can role-play effortlessly with your incredible trait system. On the battle map I feel like I'm really there- I hear Romans calling out in Latin and fighting Epirotes- all deliciously accurate in every sense of the word and I just burn up with pleasure! :dizzy2: :balloon2: :beam:

Thanks EB, for a mod so great it only took an afternoon to totally convert and rapture me, and is only getting better as I go into my campaign, into other campaigns, and as future releases get closer and closer!

Julian the apostate

12-07-2006, 01:22

The change in how moral affects the game seems huge especially for some of the light infantry starter units. got a big suprise when every unit but my general pannicked and ran against an inferior army, i'm guessing exhaustion factors in more now cuz they were tired.but wow fantastic map fantastic game

Grimmy

12-07-2006, 02:17

First impressions:

I only got so far as picking a faction (Romani) and looking around the map area local to them and checking out some of their cities.

and, so far...

Wow. Ok, new game. I mean, new game to learn to play and enjoy so just added another multiplier to the bang/buck ratio of RTW. I feel like a parasite. Y'all do all this work and I just get to play with it.

Specifics, so far. The GUI looks very Roman. I'm not a fan of big UI with lots of unused realestate and overly large buttons and drill down, but none of that is y'all's doing. The changes you made look good and add to the imersion.

Music... umm... ok, it actually fits what my brain tends to make up for itself when I have my Roman army out and about marching its way to some conquering.
Matter of fact, it was a bit distracting. While I was browsing the building and unit browser, my mind kept drifting to the image of a cobble paved road, shaded by old growth olives and an approaching Roman army marching along on a victory procession.

All in all, so far, extremely well done. I'll be spending another couple hundred hours playing this mod to the ol' RTW instead of the M2TW campaign currently on hold.

Yeah, that's right. At least in one verified case, you managed to put RTW back in front of the newer M2TW.

Now I'm gonna spend the rest of tonight reading up on this mod and the hints and tricks stuff so I dont feel so numbskulled when I start my Romani campaign tomorrow.

Sol Invictus

12-07-2006, 05:17

I have been waiting for two years to play this mod and finally jumped into it tonight as the Romani for about ten turns. I am absolutely stunned by the amount of work this must have required. It is a very impressive accomplishment and I think I will play a campaign of EB before I play MTW2; even if/when the patch comes out. I salute you.~:cheers:

Dram

12-07-2006, 08:10

my impression is basically that of being overwhelmed by the new content and amount of choice/direction avaliable, as well as being blown away by the quality and polish already evident, even in a beta!

the music in particular blends in so well with each culture and adds an epic, cinematic feel to the game. :beam:

overall im really amazed and very respectful of the amount of work put into it all. :thumbsup:

MarcusAureliusAntoninus

12-07-2006, 08:52

My first immpressions were somewhat tainted by anger/annoyance. Turns out if you copy the RTW folder then uninstall, it removes the original as well as the copy (and the mod with saved games therein). :shame:

But once I played the game I thought, "Wow, shiny!" I had never downloaded the Rome UI or the resources addons, so that plus everything new was a real change (for the good).

Second immpression was remembering how long the battles could go without anyone dying...

...

...

Overall: :rtwyes:

nikolai1962

12-07-2006, 11:44

It's lost that beta feeling for sure. I only meant to play a few turns before going back to modding but ended up spending hours trying to get to the Getai guy's Unifier trait thingy. Big thumb's up.

philos

12-07-2006, 12:21

Great job guys... the game looks great and seems a lot more historically accurate than the vanilla version...

However, since this is a beta version... there are some things that require improvement:
- the game is a lot slower than rtw (I switched the game options to "fast" but the game still requires a lot of time to load); I managed to play the battles at a decent level by reducing the unit size to small (which is ok but it ain't fun at all having 15-20 military/unit)
- bugs regarding units and buildings. Eg: independents' light cav units appear w pezzies icons; the regional getae rax (or whatever the name is, I cannot remember the exact name) does not have a description and it does not produce any units at all; most unit descriptions have extremely large fonts with the name of the unit which partially gets on top of the unit description and stats (which are at normal font size) etc etc

Gazius

12-07-2006, 13:30

My first impression. Oh. My. God. Is that.... could it be? The perfect game?! Wait, no, there's a screw up. That seems wrong. Why is that there? Look at that graphic display. The text needs darkened there. Can't that guy spell anything? What is that supposed to be, a knight in shiny peasant robes? Wait, that's his skin. So what does the unit look like? Who is this unit anyways? WHERE ARE THE PANTS?! CAN WE GET THE MAN SOME PANTS?! Much better. Ok. That's a bit TOO realistic, but hey, its the thought that counts.

But it'll get there! I highly suspect that EB 1.0 will render almost all other games simpy not worth the time to load them. Nothing comes close to the awesomeness contained in a single mod. Sure, CA provided the base, but they left so much potential unused that this would appear to be just another game, ableit with a delightful set-up of strategic and tactic elements.

Oleo

12-07-2006, 13:47

First impression was terrible. I was shocked at how much I had accustomed to the M2TW look, which is of course superior to any RTW look.

But that feeling was gone after two turns and one battle. This is so much better than M2TW. Now I am loving it, I can finally play RTW again, without getting bored cause either there was a) the save and load bug of 1.2 or b) it wasnt EB-RTW and any other RTW is simply boring after you've played EB.

philos

12-07-2006, 13:54

oudysseos

12-07-2006, 14:21

I can't say much that hasn't already been said, except 'Thank You'. My kids are thrilled (they're RTW fans) and the whole EB development process has been a great way to interest them in history and language- my 13 year old girl now wants to study Latin.
It is the little touches that make the most difference- EB has added content in areas that most mods, hell most commercial games, wouldn't bother or dream of doing. Keep it up! This is an accomplishment that you all can be proud of for the rest of your lives.

The O'Toole family, Dublin, Eire.

Karo

12-07-2006, 15:55

I'm now in class and haven't downloaded it yet I want to play eb so much that it hurts but I have tomorrow examens and need to study tonight :furious3: :wall: and I must wait till tomorrow night so I can play eb and pray to all the gods that my french examen will be ok and i'll give you my impression tomorrow

Sol Invictus

12-07-2006, 16:15

KtotheC, you were wise to stay away from EB until after your exams. Last night I inteneded to just take a look at the map and mess around a bit, but I ended up playing about ten turns. I was really impressed when I checked out the Ptolemy Faction and the interface changed to a papyrus look. I couldn't believe the attention to detail that this mod includes.

Tellos Athenaios

12-07-2006, 16:53

First impression: is the slogan altered? :inquisitive: And I'd say I liked the old 0.7.4 loading screen, that with Europa Barbarorum Quisqe est etc. more. But maybe, probably, it's just getting used to it.

Second - I'm back to standard monitor settings. That's not so nice if you just find out, but hey I can alter that soon enough. It has also a side effect, it's rather quicker to load which is nice.

Third new campaign map - whoa: it's just so much better.
Fourth new loading screens - hey I can't read them! They're gone before I actually realise what the first few signs mean. So I really must work out how to speed up reading the loading screens properly, and still enjoying them. It's nice to see new ones though!

Fifth - the game, the battles, the unit's themself. Well, I can't say anything for now as I haven't tried them out yet.

quende

12-07-2006, 17:02

Well I'll have to jump the train as the posters before me and say that my impression is darn good. Have not played much jet, but struggles on my first campaign as the Hayasdan, playing hide and seek with my mortal enemies the Seleukids.

The mod is looking better and better and is the only reason that I still have many copies of RTW on my harddrive. Beeing interested in history and liking the slower pace of EB than RTW and MTWII, just adds up to the high score. :2thumbsup:

And kudos to all developers an the like that has dedicated I don't know how many hundred hours of their time to create and offer this free mod to the community.

Quende Forum Lurker

Red_orbiT

12-07-2006, 19:02

I can't seem to get the installation file to work :(
When I start the EB08-setup.exe it starts saying checking integrity, then it starts unpacking, and then, when the unpacking is done, it complains about a file that it cannot find:

c:\Documents and Settings\ägare\Application Data\Europa Barbarorum\install\6DAEAD9\eb08take2.msi

... and then promptly shuts down. I have installed a fresh 1.5 rtw. I also looked in the Europa Barbarorum folder that the installer complains about not finding files in, and all I find is another folder called Europa barbarorum wich only contains an empty folder called install. It is nowhere nere to the folder where I have rtw installed. Does anybody know what the problem could be? Corrupted EB08-setup.exe? Bad rtw installation?
I really want to play this mod. Any help would be nice.

Tyfus

12-07-2006, 19:33

I've played a few hours with the Casse and I would just like to say that thus far EB .8 is feeling like EB 1.0! The music is INCREDIBLE, I LOVE IT! I have had no problems with freezes or CTD's. the units look great and I simply can't wait to play with all the factions so I can se all the great improvements you guys have been working on. After seeing this release I have 10 times the respect for what you guys are doing, and I already thought you were heroes so that's saying something. Be proud, be very proud, you've done something pretty special IMO. EB should stand for Everyone Bow-down.

blacksnail

12-07-2006, 19:45

the lvl 1 regional rax doesn't produce anything in a homeland prov with gov't type I. Is it a bug or is it the way it's supposed to be? (m playing the getae and built the regional MIC in the starting prov but it's useless)... also, in the description it doesn't say what troops it will produce
We may remove the capability to build regional MICs from Homeland provinces in the next build, but for some factions (Seleukeia in particular) they do have a few units available at level 1 in the Homeland. It's something we'll need to revisit and test behind the scenes.

However, as the strategy text says, if you don't see a unit at level 1 there probably won't be any units available if you build it. We might need to make that more prominent in the building card.

Count Belisarius

12-07-2006, 19:52

First impression: great work, and a HUGE improvement over an already-pretty-darn-good product in 0.74. Downloaded 0.8 last night, and was *just* about to finish installing, when the little woman "interrupted" me - sorry guys, as wonderful as EB is, there are some things worth stopping for. :yes:

Got up early this morning, finished installing, and thought, "Yeah, sure. I'll just play a couple of rounds and then head into the office." TWO HOURS later (!), I'm calling my boss and faking like I had a doctor's appointment. Rolled into work after 10:00 - more EB tonight!

MSB

12-07-2006, 20:48

Basically they were good. The music entertained me while I waited for five long minuites for my campaign to start and the text about the units gave me something to read too. The only thing that I didn't like was the way the quotes were sometimes too large. It stops you from reading all the text about the units.

Wardo

12-07-2006, 21:14

My first impression was depressive. I can't play with the Romans so that made me mildly sad. However, the greatness of the other factions quickly cheered me up and I'm currently enjoyning a game as Carthage but crazy to go try Baktria.

Although the Roman UI is great the background texture on the scrolls has to be changed. Maybe it could be made lighter while the text is darkened. Anyway, here's what I'm talking about:

Roman scroll background - light grey text over dark/light grey background, completely unreadable, saddening, depressing, eye-tiresome, disencouraging:
https://img47.imageshack.us/img47/8862/screenshot1sa5.th.jpg (https://img47.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot1sa5.jpg)

Carthaginian scroll - darker grey (almost black) text over very light pink background, completely readable (got the wrong link so no mini-preview):

https://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot2wp3.jpg

Open both, Roman first, and read the stuff in it for a while. City info, unit description, whatever else. Then switch to the Carthaginian and tell me that one isn't alot easier to read.

Grimmy

12-07-2006, 22:02

There is that issue with the Romani UI text being too light to read comfortably. Is that something we can adjust for ourselves without a lot of problems?

Teleklos Archelaou

12-07-2006, 22:13

Text color cannot be adjusted from what we know. If someone figures it out, please let us know. Right before the release I lightened that Roman menu background up even more than it was before. It would have to be lightened further if you still think it's too dark.

Imperator

12-07-2006, 23:03

sure the Romani GUI is harder to read, but I can still read it effortlessly- I didn't even notice until you mentioned it...

blacksnail

12-07-2006, 23:08

Ack, Dave, I have a hunch. I'll test when I get home.

PigLatin

12-08-2006, 00:10

First post here so hello everyone.

Anyways, on to the question. My first impression was "Oh great, now I need to change my shorts". Seriously though, thanks a bunch to the EB team for this fine mod. Every version gets better and better and you have yet to fail in exceeding any expectations I have had.

I've devised a little scoring section below to further illustrate my love:

Models/Skins - 10 - I was playing around with a custom battle just to see all the units and must say they look fantastic.

Music - 10 - WOW! I'm not sure if Morgan Casey or Nick Wylie will ever read this but they did a fantastic job. To get the full experience I threw on some headphones and jacked up the volume to 11. It's amazing how much music can add to a gaming experience, especially when it's good music.

Gameplay - 10 - The unit and building descriptions were a bit easier to understand this time around (I'm playing the Romani). I'm only a few turns into my campaign but already having a blast.

Historical accuracy - N/A - I'm no historian so I can't really make any type of educated asessment here. I can say that I read these forums often and do learn quite a bit.

Again, big thanks for delivering a top quality product, you guys rock!

Obelics

12-08-2006, 01:20

well i passed almost all the evening here to try it, i can give only a superficial overview for now:

the music starts: incredible, i was so used to eb0.74 (and i really loved it with all its little defects)... well, that music add so much more... cant believe before it could be so much important, my compliments to the musicians!

then i started a pahlava campaign, i noticed some polished units card (finally) and some new units (that foot-skirmishers are really usefull at start). And well, i dont know if it is just the 1.5 engine, but the graphic in the battlemap look more bright and better in general.

fighting with the Pahlava faction with the music volume to max is a real experience, you get really excited to see at your cavalrymen riding with that music on... thanks.

the bodyguards are still the pontic/persian bodiguard, but i like them.
cant say more of this faction (my preferred) since i gave a quick look to every faction.

So talking in general it was a great wow!

i think the roman GUI is the Best, and even the nomad one (saka-rauka/sauromate)
i noticed even that the "cool" factor (spartans?) is increased, so i think this will attract more fans i suppose...

now im so fond of EB that im not a good critician, but i have only this small iussues:

1) the greek are become brown!!! (why? why???) i loved that orange, i think this faction deserve a brighter color, that orange was so "solar"... this is the point that make me disappoint.
(but i like the new ptolemaioi color)

2) where are my daha skirmish cavalry? they are changed, they are not more them anymore... RIP! you have killed them.
I loved them so much, and even that so dirty cloth they had was aimable, also the face of the guys is similar but it isn't the same (the color of the hairs is different and even the face despite similar has somethink of different), it seems like i lost a good friend...

3) why a minor faction like Armenia seems more finished than pahlava? (sorry for the Armenia friends, im a big fans of Armenia and my preferred singer of all the times is Charles Aznavour, i have a cult for him, and i love him at the same level of George Brassens), but i was a bit disappointed to see at the bodyguards of the armenia, but i think this is just due to a manpower problem.

and one last think, trying the romans i noticed the unit spelling:
SAMNITI
not
SAMNITES

now i have a catch-cold (38, im strange even with 36.5 i feel like a TIR is passed on my body), and i have not the force to go in the other room to check my latin dictionary (and my highschool latin is died in the dust), is "samniti" the right spelling? if so i can sleep in peace...

anyway if you dont answer no problem, tomorrow i will go to check that dictionary and im sure it was my mistake.
or could it be you have used the "vocative" person?

sorry if this is confused, now go to bed, and sorry if i called armenia a "minor faction" it was just cause i was disappointed for that chataphracts, and i know the armenian friends are so patrioctic (and they have all the rights to be patriottic cause they are a small isle in an sometimes hostile Ocean, and they preserved their culture for so long time)

so i dont know why i started this armenian discussion, could be cause i have currently playing the song "hier ancore" of the old Charles (could you live forever my friend)

Salut!

PS i forget the last think: I loved mush more the old description, i dont like the english ones under the originals... the old system seemed much more "hardcore", just like that old shoot-em that they dont do anymore from when they started to do this games with the save states. ok i dont want to start a discussion on the old classics shootem ups (go to bed)

Shigawire

12-08-2006, 01:30

You are right, Samniti is wrong. It should be "Samnites"

CrownOfSwords

12-08-2006, 01:39

Well samnites is english, Samniti could may be the plural in latin i havent touched a latin book in a few years but i believe thats correct.

Shigawire

12-08-2006, 02:15

Nope, it's samnites in Latin also.
I can tell and admit that it is wrong.

So I will record those for 0.9 , also for the Lucanian infantry..

soibean

12-08-2006, 02:27

I was just thinking about forced warfare like in the case of Pontos attacking Sinope and going to war with koinen hellenen (sp?) because of it being a colony or whatever
so on that train of thought, wasn't the (first?) punic war began because carthage expanded throughout sicily and threated an area under the protection of rome? Since, correct me if Im wrong, 1.5 allows for factions to be more focused on naval invasions, so carthage has little where else to go but sicily, spain, or west africa.
Could you script a war with Rome if Carthage attacks one of the towns in Sicily? I dont know which area the original feud sparked up over but I thought that'd add a nice twist. And vice versa of course.

by the way, well done on the game
tip of the cap to you all
Im not really noticing the charge bonus, as I posted elsewhere in the mod, but apart from that it's gorgeous

khelvan

12-08-2006, 05:36

3) why a minor faction like Armenia seems more finished than pahlava? Because we lost our Pahlava researcher and no one else wants to help us with them.

BerkeleyBoi

12-08-2006, 05:43

I've been playing for a few hours now and I have to say that so far it's a lot of fun. The units look really nice, the economic side of the game seems pretty well balanced, and the AI in 1.5 works a little better than 1.2.

My favorite thing though has to be the traits and ancillaries. All the cool new pictures of general's retinues, all millions of different kinds of traits... it's pretty fun just reading about your characters. I'm gonna go play more and feed my addiction now, thanks EB!

Oldgamer

12-08-2006, 06:11

Although I've been playing M2TW since its release, you can be sure that I will also play EB. The new version is absolutely the best mod for RTW, and the development team deserves a check from CA for what they have done.

Also, one of the most interesting things are the results of the upgrades to my computer, in preparation for M2TW. I can now play EB on the highest settings, without the slightest bit of lag. The skins, buildings, and vegetation look absolutely spectacular.

Fine job gentleladies and gents!

EDIT: The music is great. At least for now, I feel no need to add Miklos Rosza's music to the game. The Romani have a wonderful feel of being "imperial" and "Roman".

Birka Viking

12-08-2006, 08:56

Aymar de Bois Mauri

12-08-2006, 16:26

~:rolleyes: Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...:bow:Yes, all our new resources have made the faction's income soar. It was not planned. The faction's income is being ajusted now for the next few patches.

Dr Jacob

12-08-2006, 18:13

I feel that too , money easier = easier campaign , but why didnt all the playtesters u have didnt notice that !!!!!!!

Can we have 0.81 quick patch fixing it and some other bugs?

Dram

12-08-2006, 18:22

NeoSpartan

12-08-2006, 18:25

I have played a bit on a sweboz campagne and I have just started a Lusotannan also... and I must say that it has been realy good experienses both the campagnes..:2thumbsup: This modd is simply the best!!!!!!!!!!..

~:rolleyes: Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...:bow:

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsdown:

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.

blacksnail

12-08-2006, 18:28

I feel that too , money easier = easier campaign , but why didnt all the playtesters u have didnt notice that !!!!!!!
Our closed playtests focus much more on game-killing CTDs which prevent you from playing the game period, UI issues, etc. We rely on our many beta-testers (such as yourself!) to inform us of any gameplay issues such as these.

Remember, this is not a finished product and we rely on your feedback to make this a better game. Otherwise we'd never make it to 1.0.

Aymar de Bois Mauri

12-08-2006, 18:58

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsdown:

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.Cool. It's mainly focused on the later game economics and the richest factions.

Birka Viking

12-08-2006, 19:07

Yes, all our new resources have made the faction's income soar. It was not planned. The faction's income is being ajusted now for the next few patches.

This sounds realy good man!!!:2thumbsup: And if I dont remember wrong from the 0.74 beta it was around 24 turns to finish build a mine ...and now its only 4 or in some case 10 turns...

Birka Viking

12-08-2006, 19:12

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsdown:

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.

Well man if u have get broke when u play as the sweboz thats realy impressive:sweatdrop: ....Becouse I cant figure out what I shall do with all my money..lol...But I havent played the other barbarian nations so I dont know of this is only for the sweboz or not???:dizzy2:

Caratacos

12-09-2006, 02:07

Man I am soooo in love with this mod. Speaking of money-- I just started playing (as Averni) and I after like 3 or 4 turns I am already 9k in the red. I'm beseiging the Aedui capital but i'm not sure if i'll be able to do anything with it if i capture it. I've noticed that the units are really expensive. But again I've only just downloaded it so I'm trusting that the economy is balanced accordingly. Though i guess that by starting off as a faction with no access to ports or mines my economy is going to be a bit stressed.

But from what i've seen... Best mod EVER!

Dayve

12-09-2006, 02:20

I can't read the writing for the Romans... Which sucks because Romani is all i ever play in RTW/EB... :embarassed:

Teleklos Archelaou

12-09-2006, 02:27

Dayve, will you just relax and actually try to enjoy it?

Dayve

12-09-2006, 03:57

Foot

12-09-2006, 04:05

I am enjoying it...

What's with this sudden bad attitude you've decided to take with me? I don't recall doing anything to you...

The thread is entitled first impressions... My very first impression when i loaded up the game was "I cannot read the writing here..."

That was the only first impression!? Wow. Wouldn't like to be you. Perhaps you could tell us what you like about the game and what you don't like about the game, so we could perhaps improve it.

In addition, your attitude on these forums is not the most amiable we've encountered, and we often find you embroiled in some folly or other. And no I'm not going to name threads, this is a general opinion that I've come to concerning you (and others have to). Perhaps if you could be more constructive less, aggressive and slightly more amiable, we would get a long better.

Just my opinion.

Foot

Teleklos Archelaou

12-09-2006, 04:37

Four of last five posts:

Oh... I seem to have been unbanned after my little rift with the moderators in the MTW section... Wonderful.

This is great news! Unfortunately i've just become hooked on WoW, (I know, i know... WoW of all games) so i probably won't even play it much for a few months... Why couldn't you have released it before i got addicted to WoW!

Seleukid and Roman flags are mixed up. :thumbsdown:

Oh wait... That was 0.7654321...

Awesome... None of the download links work. :thumbsdown:

I can't read the writing for the Romans... Which sucks because Romani is all i ever play in RTW/EB... :embarassed:

I just said relax and try to enjoy it a little if you've found time from your WOW playing. That's good advice man. Not a bad attitude.

Dayve

12-09-2006, 04:56

Well, my first impression was it's awesome, just like 0.7 was...

But i only played it for an hour due to me being tired as hell, and all i did was read building/unit descriptions... Which are wonderful i must saym and during that time my eyes began to ache... So i decided i would post my first impression in the 'first impressions' thread.

I'm sorry, i'll try to be as least constructive as i possibly can in the future.

Shigawire

12-09-2006, 05:18

oudysseos

12-09-2006, 09:45

I'm playing KH on H/H, 265 BC, taken Corinth, Chalkis, Demetrias, besieging Thermon.
My impressions are that a) I have a lot of money and b) the other factions are pretty inactive.
I haven't gotten very far into the build tree yet, and I only have 1 field army, and both my high level managers are still alive, so I'm thinking that the money will not be so easy later on. But I've got a couple of spies in Thrace and Epiros, and the Getai and Epirotes are just sitting there with a couple of full stacks each, doing nothing. Granted, I'm allied with Epiros, but they're not attacking the Maks, who themselves aren't giving me a whole lot of trouble.

Is this solely due to my choosing H over VH in the campaign? I didn't want to go VH because in previous versions that tends to be a rebel spam fest. I also don't want to start over, so I am really hoping that the campaing toughens up once I spread out from Greece proper. I did choose Greece because I find dealing with the negative cash flow of someone like the Parthians a real pain in the ass.

AI on the battlefield isn't abysmally stoopid, but not brilliant either. At least they seem to keep formation, although they don't seem to know what to do with skirmishers.

Visually the mod is a work of art, a feast for the senses, just a joy to watch. The role playing elements and historical immersion work flawlessly, making EB truly almost a whole different game than RTW.

Minor quibble- some of the campaign map characters and anims need work. The new resources look fab, but the blockade and siege stuff is messy. ChivTW and CrusadesTW have done some great work on campmap characters, as I am sure you are all well aware. The ChivTW armies really worked for me and I think that they would fit very well into EB. I know that this kind of thing hasn't been a priority.

Last thought- 'Europe of the Barbarians' as a title has been somewhat surpassed by the scope of the mod. EB covers 3 continents and Europe isn't even the biggest part of it: Asia is. And many of the factions were never considered barbarian. I know that it'd be practically impossible to change th name at this point, but what if you came up with something that was still 'EB', just not Europa Barbarorum? In greek instead of latin?

Sdragon

12-09-2006, 11:06

This version is a huge step up from the last one. The whole atmosphere has become stronger thanks to the music and interface, and the units are great. They add more flavour and fill in gaps that some factions had that needed to be filled. Such as none Companion cavalry for the Selucids and a cool Archer unit with the Syrians. The battles seem to last longer as well or is it just me? They feel just right and I like the new unit balance. Was worried when I saw the silver shields had 240 men but they don't feel uber from what I've used of them.

Playing as the Seleucid and the mines are making it far too easy. The year is 266BC(roughly) I'm raking in 28k a turn, pushed Ptolemy back to Alexandria, invading Bactria, beat off the Persians, and in the past 3 turns I've ordered mines that bring in 10k, once they are done I'm invincible. The game was hard as it should be at first, but once the mines started to get done... The empire seems easier to hold together as well due to a number of factors.
1. 2 most eastern provinces are Bactrian now, no worries trying to keep the people happy.
2. No longer in contact with the North East Steppe faction.
3. Cities grow slower (thank god) so you don't waste all your money keeping the peeps happy.

Persia and Bactria are far more aggressive though, in the last build it took them ages to bother me, this time Persia was hitting me after the first few years and Bactria has recently attacked. Rome seems to be the only faction really doing anything. Sabea, Casse, Getei, Iberia, both Steppe factions and Pontus have done nothing. Seems if they don't do well in the first few years the rebels end up with full stacks and the AI can't do anything. Eperos, Greece and Macedon are really digging into each other though, its far from one sided, it could go either way at this point. I'll keep playing and hope that the other AI s wake up. This is probably my fault though since I'm playing on m/m. Hate the rebel spams and the stupid ai diplomacy so I avoided VH this time. Still got around 2 rebel armies per province since I've yet to fight them, just sick to death of dealing with them in every RTW game.

A few things of note.
Babylonian spear men are mercenaries? I've yet to see them in the MIC buildings, are the supposed to be recruited this way or were they added in quickly due to lack of time? Their cheapish cost seems to be unmerc like.
Selucids don't have regular Hyspatis(sp)?
Spartans fight with a sword and a spear at the same time, in the same hand.
I started with a unit of Native spear men in Arabia for some crazy reason. :)
I had a Greek spy next to Babylon at the start, I assume the script forgot to take him out.
The news Steppe faction is already a client kingdom of Bactria.
Jewish spear men seem to have really high mass, either that or my Hellenic spear men have it very low. They got squished against a wall and slaughtered.
I like the way the classic hoplites work, they move more like how they should. Noticed that the Mejin(sp?) kingdom hoplites primary weapon is a sword. Doesn't that make them NOT hoplites?
Rome isn't spamming Triarii! Hurray! They are heavy on the Rorii though, but they do use some heavier infantry, a step in the right direction.
At the start of the game most enemy forces rely on little but skirmishers and other junk troops. Bactria has yet to send a pike man unit at me.

As a whole I'm truly impressed and will continue to look forward to the final product that's no longer 'if' but 'when'. :)
There was more I wanted to talk about but I can't remember off the top of my head... Pretty sure the post is big enough anyway. :P

khelvan

12-09-2006, 13:19

Sorry, Europa Barbarorum is who we are, not what we do.

scourgeofrome

12-09-2006, 13:40

My first impression so far is that it is AWESOME.Looked at my favorite faction from EB.74 (Bactria,and I should've checked the Sweboz but didn't get the chance) and the UI was great.Then went and tried out the new faction.Have to say Arabia was very lonely,but they are one of my favorite factions (I don't really know why).Now if only my computer would stop randomly crashing.Then I might be able to try them out and give it justice.

Dayve

12-09-2006, 15:21

Empathy is key. Understand how you yourself are percieved by others. Try to fold space and... sorry heh wrong meeting. Just try to imagine you are somebody else reading the post that you are writing.. it may help you.

It's ok to note your instant first impression whether good or bad though.. at least I don't think that's wrong. But we who make the mod are humans too, and sometimes need both positive and negative feedback.. Not consistently negative. And when it IS negative, it need to be so in a constructive way. :smash:

Well like i said, i've only played an hour due to tiredness, and because i only played an hour i didn't notice a while lot different other than a couple new buildings, so i'll post more first impressions later.

One thing i can say is that the battle time now is brilliant... Battles take ages, which is how it should be. I was playing a siege battle last night and i battered 3 of the walls down with rams and sent in two Samnite spearmen and 1 Samnite swordsmen, it took a good 5 minutes before they broke the eenmy and i was able to properly move my army inside...

One question though... It may be because i've been playing M2 lately, and the campaign map on that is kind of dark and gritty, but has the RTW campaign map always been this bright? It seems to look a lot smoother and brighter, but it maybe just because i haven't played RTW for months.

Septimus

12-09-2006, 16:16

With 0.8 being the first time I've ever played EB I have only one thing to say: Wow. This is what I've been hoping for with every single TW game since I first played Shogun - that is, something so realistic, so immersing, and astonishing that I can't stop playing for hours despite the fact that I have an Ancient Philosophy paper due date in less than a week. I want to congratulate, and again congratulate the EB staff, I would give you the highest award if only I had awards to give out.

Ajantis

12-09-2006, 22:29

Its beautiful... :dizzy2: :dizzy2: :dizzy2:

Zastrow

12-10-2006, 05:02

Tried my hand at the Baktrians for about 20 odd turns. Overall I'm quite impressed, the load times for such a massive addition to the game aren't that bad really, no worse than .74 versions.

The graphics and music for Baktrians make them incredibly cool, even more so from the original. Mosaics, Eastern Greek music, GUI, it all blends together into an incredibly well done and thought out picture. It brings immersion up to a whole new level.

New units and buildings here and there, some nice additions, and Baktria with three provinces is a whole lot easier, not to mention the Saka are much nicer neighbors to have the the Yeuzhi, they actually do stuff! It'll take some time for me to find out the new units and how they fit into my traditional Baktrian Army setups, but I noticed myself having larger, more "eastern" style armies than so many phalanxes and archers in .74. They new setup for Baktria's armies is more realistic and expansive, kudos.

I fought a couple of battles against rebels, sporting all forms of cavalry and light infantry, thank god the massive stacks of horse archers are gone. Now they actually are balanced armies that give battle instead of running around the map shooting at my men.

I love how about an hour of gameplay left me feeling like I hadn't played anything yet, there is so much more out there to try. I have an itch to try my hand at my Carthaginian campaign again, with their new voices, GUI, music and units.

Overall great work, and quite amazing a group of amateurs (if only because they aren't paid for it) can keep together and be organized enough to produce something like this. The wait was long, but you produced a fine product worthy of much praise. If I was incredibly rich, I'd be sure to pay all you guys to do this stuff full time. We need more strategy games with this much depth. :beam:

nikolai1962

12-10-2006, 05:20

Comment on the mines thing. As mentioned the value you get when they're built is different to what it says on the card (always is in RTW for some reason edit: checked vanilla, same value there, just a lot of mods the two values are different for some reason) e.g Mastia for carthage, the card says 3000, the settlement details say 1650.

Also, taking lilybeo as an example:

Start of game, pop: 3190--brings in c.2500 in tax, farms and trade
6 turns later, (finish bigger port), pop: 4096, c.2,900 income
8 turns after that (finish temple with trade bonus), pop: 5551, c. 3300 income

So after 14 turns and a couple of good buildings lilybeo's income has increased by c. 800 i.e half a mine. Most of this is because of the port upgrade but there is a steady increse too because of the pop growth.

The point being mines are more noticeable--partly because you just notice more when you build a mine for some reason but also because of the wierd way the game shows a higher value on the building card. Much less noticeable but just as significant is how your income is also increasing quite rapidly from other things.

Population growth has a steady increasing effect on income but more importantly it allows the jumps to different city sizes which give access to new buildings which give big jumps in income.

The amount of money in the game plateaus eventually but with high pop growth you hit that plateau quite fast and the balance of unit upkeep and income that worked well at the beginning gets imbalanced very quick.

(Hence my mega hordes of komatai stacks :) )

Personally, I like it at the moment because by endlessly spamming hordes of komatai i can keep the AI factions from bothering me, which gives me time to read all the unit/building/trait descriptions lol. But if EB decides to tweak down the economy I think the start population and population growth rates are just as significant as the mines, just less noticeable.

Obelics

12-10-2006, 17:17

i've read somewhere in this forum or in the rtr one, that the Roma GUI will be changed a bit, pheraphs in the colors? If so please it is perfect, a masterpiece.

Living here i can say i grown with a lot of roman ruins here around, and frequented a lot of museums, i know it doesn't means nothink, and im not specialized in roman hystory, but i can say the feel is exactly that.

So i post just here to say this GUI is perfect (even the colours and the graphics) in my opinion. And that pompeian red is great.

I hope you will not go to change what was already good in the next patch.

I also read around that the money are a lot more easy to gains, thanks mines etc. I can't confirm this cause the only faction i tryied more extensively is pahlav and it is still difficult as usually. But if so (money=easy to gain) than please dont try to make happy everyone (making this mod easy) . I think it is very good that some people dont like EB, and there is no need to want to have everyone become a fan.

Please dont think this post as "i want to teach you somethink" kind of post, i was just a bit worring about this money affair, and the roma GUI that i found is simply the best in the mod.

salut!

Teleklos Archelaou

12-10-2006, 17:46

There will definitely be some changes in the mines, but I don't know what they are at this point.

The Roman GUI will be tweaked a bit in future builds, to make the message background lighter so the text is easier to read, but there won't be big changes in it.

khelvan

12-10-2006, 18:43

Money is more free now as an unexpected consequence of some changes we made. We have always been very proud of the fact that in our mod the player really has to choose between spending money on buildings or units, and that the player cannot always field a strong army. The mod will reflect that again in the future, though how we get there is still up for debate.

Aymar de Bois Mauri

12-11-2006, 00:33

Has anyone ever tried this?

https://img142.imageshack.us/img142/825/gateshc3.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

QwertyMIDX

12-11-2006, 00:41

Yeah, it was a great way to blitz with Carthage in vanilla.

MarcusAureliusAntoninus

12-11-2006, 01:14

I've noticed some pathing errors with elephants attacking walls (way back in vanilla, I don't remember the patch #). They just would walk back and forth along the length of the city/fort and get attacked by towers/archers. I don't try anymore.

Tuuvi

12-11-2006, 02:54

I love it! The first faction I played was the Saka, They are my favorite faction now, but I am waiting for a patch to play them for better recruitment. The only problem I had was that the music was too repetitive, after a song was done playing the same song would start playing over again, once it repeated like 5 times. The barbarian music kinda bugs me, but I love all of the other music.

Chester

12-11-2006, 03:33

Some of these first impressions are hilarious. People will load up the game, minimize it, then quickly post here on how slow things are, I mean come on.

"you said first impresssions!" Smeg off.

Tuuvi

12-11-2006, 05:03

I've been playing for a couple of days...

Zastrow

12-11-2006, 05:58

Trying my hand at the Carthaginians, love them! They were fun in .74 but now they are a blast in .8! I love their music and the Carthaginian names, new traits, etc everywhere. So immersive! I find myself envisioning the great harbor of Carthage and the magnificence of the city every time I click on it! I keep building ports so I can have more little boats to graphically represent my mighty commercial empire! Excellent work mates! :2thumbsup:

Shigawire

12-11-2006, 06:40

Carthage will be even better with a Punic voice-mod. :yes:

Noir

12-11-2006, 06:50

Greetings EB team,

just a regular congratulations after a year of playing, EB 0.74, lurking in these forums and waiting for the current build.

.8 is very stable in my machine and plays great. The amount of detailed work in the interfaces, skins and descriptions is amazing; the factions play great too.

Just to report that the casse chariot sprites have a problem from medium distance (they look higher than they should) and also to comment that katafraktoi could have benefited from secondary weapons after the charge (swords or maces). I am well aware that this is a labor of love and a beta, i just report my observations/opinions.

The music is inspired but it fails to function as a long term back round piece; imo a slow repetitive & catchy piece is needed to fill in the gaps for the campaign.

Again congratulations for all the hard work, that pays off not only in terms of satisfaction for us players but also as a landmark work in terms of inspiration, direction and quality for the community.

Well done.~:cheers:

geala

12-11-2006, 08:58

It is just great.

I was a fan of MTW but RTW disappointed me a bit and I stopped playing TW games for a longer time. Came back because of M2TW and saw EB by coincidence. Tried it and have problems since to decide whether to play M2TW or EB 0.8. It will depend on my momentary interests for the periods I think. At the moment I stick with the ancient times.

Being totally new to EB there is still a feeling of disturbation. What shall I build, what shall I recruit? It's great fun to try.

I played a few days and I am very pleased. It is the atmoshere I had hoped to get from RTW. In RTW the Seleucids were my favorits but the abundance of cities is too much for me now.:laugh4: Instead I took the Ptolemaeans which no longer being like bronce age egyptians are great fun.

I like the units, the different government styles, the mercenaries and and and. Kind of epic battles may be back again, too. I will wait and see.

Next I will try the Lusitani. Should play the German tribe but I don't like barbarians with trousers.:yes:

HamilcarBarca

12-11-2006, 13:04

Sarkiss

12-11-2006, 13:43

Carthage has no elephants!

I am up to 230 BC. I have built everything at Carthage. Everything. No elephants. I have taken Cirtan and built everything there. No elephants. The elephant resource is found throughout North Africa. But, you guessed it, no elephants.

Any answers or fixes?

H.
hm, that's weird.

mod is awesome!
excellent music, beautiful skins, and map, outstanding work on traits, ancillaries... forgive me if i missed something. government system is revolutionary!
the only things i wish the mod had are BI's new features, loyalty, religion (maybe converted to cultures) new unit abilities. but that is a different story and would require porting to BI, i guess.
the deepest mod that was EVER, EVER built for RTW!:yes:
congrats EB team! truly an outstanding achievement!
thank you guys!

Numahr

12-11-2006, 17:46

Hello,

After playing a few hours as Pontus, I've just though it was about time to report my first impressions...

Overall, I am amazed by the team's work. It it hardly believable and really impressive to me that the EB team could reach this level of profesionalism and level of quality. Excellent organization, skills and working spirit.

The version is very stable and I exeperienced no bug except for a graphic glitch I reported.

The game in itself is wondeful. I like very much the overall feeling. In particular, the trait system, the government/recruitment system and the diversity of local/ethnic troops make this mod outstanding to me, and contribute to the general immersion feeling.

As Pontus, I appreciated all the Role-playing elements offered by the ethnicities of my characters. I enjoyed the realistic feeling of the landscapes, that I never saw in the other MODs (I traveled to Amasya and the Black Sea, worked in Kayseri i.e. nowadays Mazaka... what I saw of the Anatolian steppes in game really looks like my real-life experience, and this was very important to me).

Compared to 0.74, I enjoyed more the battle dynamics. The strategic composition of AI's armies together with the AI tactical behavior result in wonderful battles! I have to say by the way that the AI formations seem to work very well. Compared to 0.74, battle physics seem to have more effect: heavy infantry pushing lighter ones etc.

The money is maybe too easy to win, as some say... although when you actually rule the tiny Pontic kingdom, you never have too much money against such neighboors as the Seleucid Empire!

I am impatient to have more time to play and to go on in the game....

Congratulations to the EB team!

Teleklos Archelaou

12-11-2006, 17:57

Thanks again for the kind words guys. It really is the only payment we get for working on this, besides our own personal enjoyment in playing. And believe it or not, a number of members, even some directors, have never even played the mod yet! :laugh4:

Conradus

12-11-2006, 18:58

Then, TA, I can only advise those members and directors to play it asap. It's in advantage too, I think they'll double their efforts for a definite version then (if that's humanly possible ;))

Played some hours the last two days with the Getai and I must say it's beautiful, though on my ageing comp, it goes slower then the 0.74 version, but I'm glad you could finally port it to RTW 1.5 so that I could play it again.

Kull

12-11-2006, 19:25

Then, TA, I can only advise those members and directors to play it asap. It's in advantage too, I think they'll double their efforts for a definite version then (if that's humanly possible ;))

Some of those people wouldn't play a computer game if you put a gun to their heads. They are doing this because they are historians or archaeologists or have some esoteric skill they'd like to see "brought to life". In short, everybody brings something different to the table.

fallen851

12-11-2006, 20:43

Teleklos Archelaou

12-11-2006, 20:58

Dayve

12-11-2006, 21:40

Well after playing now for 3 days nonstop i have to say everything is brilliant, except for the Roman background colour which makes it difficult to read the writing and the music which i cannot find it within me to like at all, but that can be changed once i figure out how.

Very well done...

adishee

12-11-2006, 22:12

As far as art and music, amazing, as stated many times above.
Had a couple bad crashes (not just CTDs, froze the whole box) at first, now its stable and solid as a rock, havn't had one crash after the first day.
Have to agree with the economy nerf, though. It's still not terrible, not as bad as other mods. But playing as Romans, year..254 I think, I manage to spend all my money every turn, but sometimes on frivalous things. I have every city building something all the time, two full and very well equiped armies in the north (on in illyria and one causing trouble in cisalpine gaul), about one and a half in the south holding up messina, and a number random troops in italy. I really just havn't felt too threatened, despite carthage's and aeudi's stats being much higher than mine. I feel like I could just stop building and steamrole over all of carthage and gaul at the same time (VH/H). Battle AI is a bit better, nothing great ofcourse. I'm hoping it will get harder. We shall see. Excellent work nonetheless.

Kugutsu

12-11-2006, 22:29

fallen851

12-11-2006, 22:44

Do I have to change my usertitle then? I play the hell out of EB. But I'm always only getting a decade or so in before I want to try out another faction to test something out, or am anxiously awaiting someone else's updates to see something new. In comparison to others then, I suppose I'm not a real modder. ~:mecry:

No it is ok, there was actually a double meaning to game when I said "real modders don't play games". We are all ok (except me cause I never get to play).

Moros

12-11-2006, 22:55

I have to say I havent noticed this overly generous resource thing. Im playing a campaign with Hayasdan, and its all I can do to field about 5 units of horse archers to harass the argyraspids and pezhetairoi the Seleucids keep sending against me.

On the subject of harassing, a valid HA tactic is to stay back and unleash arrows at stuff, while staying out of reach of any attempted counterattack. While this is all fine, and works perfectly, my HAs seem to run out of arrows long before they have done any significant damage. Generally I have to withdraw and have another go every turn to have any effect. Is there any way to mod it so HAs can somehow replenish their arrows, or at least not withdraw so far, and be allowed to attack again the same turn? Im sure that in real life the HAs wouldnt just call it a day when their arrows ran out, and push of home for the rest of the year, but would instead either go back to camp for some more, or even have an extra supply with them on or near the battlefield... (I dont realistically expect EB to do anything about this, I just like the idea of harrassing stuff from horseback, wittling them down and sapping their will to fight)
Annoyingly the Seleukids also seem to respawn units I wiped out, so every battle there will be a remnant of perhaps half a dozen men, which I need to waste arrows on to kill again...
I'm playing as Hayasdan too. I conquered two rebel provinces, build them up. Than the Sels attacked and well I took 3 of their towns (one of them is Seluekeia). Anyway with these towns I have enough money to substain 3 full stacks and some garrisons. You'll see that once you completed your mines and conquer a few big settlements money isn't that much of a problem anymore. Also I found that some of the cheapest units work the best. Archers tanvare ... and slingerers are really effective against the slow Sel units. Espacially the slingerers as they can even kill Agyraspidai at a respectable rate. Combined with some cheap infantry to keep them bussy, Horse archers and you bodyguards, you have quite a strong army which is not so expensive compared to other factions. I think I can handle the Sels now, without even recruiting new armies as they are so effective. Tough that might change if they start using more and more elites. But at this moment they are dead meat.

Kugutsu

12-11-2006, 23:17

Dont get me wrong, I like the way it plays - the little kingdom in the mountains, fighting by guerrilla warfare against the superpower trying to invade them. Marching to the heart of the Seleukid empire seems a bit out of character, at least for the moment. I want to stick to the mountains for a little while longer. Then come storming out with a host of cataphracts and horse archers to crush my tormentors!!!

Foot

12-12-2006, 00:17

On the subject of harassing, a valid HA tactic is to stay back and unleash arrows at stuff, while staying out of reach of any attempted counterattack. While this is all fine, and works perfectly, my HAs seem to run out of arrows long before they have done any significant damage. Generally I have to withdraw and have another go every turn to have any effect. Is there any way to mod it so HAs can somehow replenish their arrows, or at least not withdraw so far, and be allowed to attack again the same turn? Im sure that in real life the HAs wouldnt just call it a day when their arrows ran out, and push of home for the rest of the year, but would instead either go back to camp for some more, or even have an extra supply with them on or near the battlefield... (I dont realistically expect EB to do anything about this, I just like the idea of harrassing stuff from horseback, wittling them down and sapping their will to fight)
Annoyingly the Seleukids also seem to respawn units I wiped out, so every battle there will be a remnant of perhaps half a dozen men, which I need to waste arrows on to kill again...

You can either give the horse archers far more arrows (for that you will need to edit their edu entry), or you can turn on unlimited ammunition in preferences.txt in the eb/preferences/ folder.

Also, remember that the best way to use HAs is surround the enemy by using 3 HAs at once, thus whichever way the unit turns it always has its rear to at least one unit. Obviously this requires a lot of micro-management, but it does secure a victory. The best way to do this is to destroy any phalanx support (skirmishers/cavalry) with some medium/heavy cav of your own. Then send in your HA's to mop.

One tactic that I've thought of (but I don't know if it will work) is to split up your HA army into two or three forces, and then have each force attack the enemy seperately but in the same turn. So the first attack would come from the front, and then the second would come from the front also, and include the first as reinforcements (I don't know if that will work, but I hope you get the idea).

Foot

PantsToucher

12-12-2006, 09:13

Overall, my first impression is that the mod is very impressive. It took about a day to figure out how to fully un-instal RTW 1.2, but it was totally worth it. I've been trying to play the Averini, and have been getting owned every time. Strangely I'm not even mad, I'm just happy that a version of RTW is actually hard for once. Also, pretty much everyone who I've showed this mod to has been very impressed, particulary by the music and voice mod.

Great work!

Subedei

12-12-2006, 09:36

Yes, I finally installed EB 0.8.

Thank you guys for this mod developement. The sound is brilliant [Nomad theme kicks ass], the native voices create atmosphere and the units are very various [can I say that?!?] and beautiful, incl. the various merc units.

The gameplay is in my opinion just right. Wide areas to discover & conquer, beautiful map with all the mines, farms, tents & lots of other blingbling. :laugh4: The battles are balanced and just right timed. Economy is fine. Just gotta get into the gov building system, so some reading for me. Checked the nomad system [saka rauka] and it does add extra feel to the horseymen.
And I just can´t wait to see the new factions on the battlefield.

Oh I just love it. One thing only: the loading takes quiet a while on my computer...but well it´s worth it. Man, one learns a lot about histroy in this mod, maybe you guys could franchise it for history classes....:book:

Very very good job!!! RESPECT and Thanks to the EB team!

HFox

12-12-2006, 16:55

OK

Spent about 8-10 hours on each playing Sabean, Baktria and Luso and can only say I have enjoyed it greatly.

There are still some placeholder issues and minor tweaks needed but in terms of a progression from .74 it is a very large, well thought out progressive step.

Many thanks :2thumbsup:

Namenlos

12-12-2006, 23:55

Good evening,

here some annotations (mostly) to the historical accuracy of EB from a "Carthagian" perspective:

a) Overall - very impressive; the most satisfying gaming experience I enjoyed so far with RTW. Ex. g.: You are really using words like "Mahanat"=army or "rab"= leader or commander? That's not simply doing homework, that's thorough research most commercial games are not willing to offer because of budget restrictions (I think we all know the exception - a Roman city builder game, but the price (in lack of game depth) you had to pay for this experience speaks for itself - doesn't it?). If I'm not mistaken - I sometimes hear an Arabic "Yalla" during battles, but that's forgiveable due to the continuity of certain words (like b't = house) in Semitic languages for now nearly 2500 years ... In addition, the mod features two main advantages in comparison to its competitors:
aa) The economic system you created is most convincing: Whoever is responsible for the implementation of the different states of political organization for the Punic colonies deserves my admiration.
ab) I don't know why, but I found the tactical AI more challenging.

b) Some mild :balloon2: suggestions:

ba) Don't like the current chosen location for the Port of Carthage: In fact it's place on the map is known in our times as "Cape Bon". It is known, that this area had seen several punic settlements in ancient times (like Kelibia or the famous Kerkouane, destroyed in the wake of the Regulus-Invasion to never be rebuild again). So is it possible to move the port nearer to its historical place?

bb) Imho, the initial background information given to the Punic player is based too much on hindsight. In 272 bC there were simply no reasons for the Carthagians to assume Roman "infidelity" (in contrast to the proverbial "fides punica") because then the two nations could proudly look back to a common history as an "entente cordiale" for over 200 years. In fact, modern historians explain the lame Punic reaction to the Roman intervention in Messana with a misinterpretation of the Roman strategic goals by the Carthagian officals on the eve of the First Punic War.

bc) Yes, I think we all love the superb reconstruction of the two Punic ports in Peter Connolly: Hannibal and the enemies of Rome (Btw: The picture even made it to a modern Tunesian banknote). But it seems, that there`s a rather sobering news: This arrangement can only be traced back to the time after the Second Punic War. This interpretation brought forward by the British archeological expedition makes sense: You only have to consider the stark limitations the Romans forced on the Punic state in the corresponding treaty to understand why the Carthagians were so eager to hide the actual strength of their fleet. On the other side, I have read somewhere that the military harbour of Motye on Sicily shows an similar arrangement (although smaller in scale).

bd) How could you dare ~:) to "forget" Utica (the older sister, second only to Carthage itself) or Sicca Veneria? :wall: Yes, I want the real temple prostitutes! :yes:

be) Oh, in general I love the new skins of the Punic soldiers (favorite: the Sacred Band a la Richard Hook). Only the Balearic slingers I find rather uninspiring...

bf) There is a lack of a strategic challenge to Carthage. Ok, the description of the Punic hinterland in North Africa or Spain as disorganized ressembles pretty much the historical setting, but...

Lbnl: Keep up the good work. Best wishes - PTB

PS: Oh - according to Delbrück the axe in the Germanic armoury made its first appearance in the Third Century AD.

QwertyMIDX

12-13-2006, 02:00

Utica is one of the contenders for the province slot (or maybe slots) that will be freed up by the re-arrangement of the Sahara. You may yet see it in game, but the 300 province limit forces us to leave out lots of important cities so we'll see.

Aymar de Bois Mauri

12-13-2006, 02:19

Only the Balearic slingers I find rather uninspiring...Did you expected them to have gold enbroidery in their vests? :inquisitive:

Philippe

12-13-2006, 02:32

You can either give the horse archers far more arrows (for that you will need to edit their edu entry), or you can turn on unlimited ammunition in preferences.txt in the eb/preferences/ folder.

Also, remember that the best way to use HAs is surround the enemy by using 3 HAs at once, thus whichever way the unit turns it always has its rear to at least one unit. Obviously this requires a lot of micro-management, but it does secure a victory. The best way to do this is to destroy any phalanx support (skirmishers/cavalry) with some medium/heavy cav of your own. Then send in your HA's to mop.

One tactic that I've thought of (but I don't know if it will work) is to split up your HA army into two or three forces, and then have each force attack the enemy seperately but in the same turn. So the first attack would come from the front, and then the second would come from the front also, and include the first as reinforcements (I don't know if that will work, but I hope you get the idea).

Foot

Horse archers in antiquity did not have an unlimited supply of arrows.

The challenge is to think like a nomad and use horse archers in combination with something that can charge home from an unexpected quarter after their target is already out of formation. You're usually trying to break up a superior infantry formation, and it's not enough to just assume that you can simply pepper the enemy infantry with arrows until they collapse. Nomads are much more clever than that, and only one general in antiquity was ever really successful at beating them at their own game using an infantry-based army.

If you want to understand why the simple form of the archery tactic isn't always enough read Xenophon's Anabasis for how an infantry force can get itself out of the heart of enemy cavalry country without getting shot to pieces. Xenophon ended up making his escape in a hollow square, complaining the whole time that he needed more archers, slingers, and some cavalry of his own.

Shooting off all your arrows at a semi-stationary opponent will cause some casualties and will certainly get your enemy annoyed with you, but if he outnumbers you two or three to one it won't be enough to win a battle. What the nomad needs to do is to get the infantry army to break formation, and one way to do this is to seem to charge and then run away. This is where the notorious Parthian shot comes in -- the horse archers are still shooting as they retreat while drawing the infantry out of formation, and when the pursuing infantry is sufficiently scattered and exposed (and probably winded), then you hit them in the flank or rear with a heavy cavalry charge. The same tactic gets used on the infantry force's supporting cavalry (just make sure you draw them far enough away from the main body before you close in).

One famous general in antiquity understood this, and when tasked with stopping a Roman army that outnumbered his own several times over he took the highly unusual step of equipping his army with a corps of camels -- whose sole function was to carry extra ammunition for the horse archers. Surenas in effect turned off the limited ammunition switch, but for his side only and for one battle only. The result was Carrhae, one of the worst defeats in Roman history. Unfortunately the TW model can't really handle this battle because it was fought on the march over several days (a bit like Teutoburger Wald with sand, only worse). As far as I know the Surenas supply train maneuver, in spite of being successful, was never used again.

J.Heinrichs

12-13-2006, 18:41

Dear Mod-Team.

I just wanted to thank you for producing such an enjoyable Mod. A few weeks ago I bought M2TW, my first TW game. Sure it is a great game, but I thought it would be a bit more historical. Besides that, I had to get some strategic tips, so I googled and found this board. Here I read about your mod and said to myself: That’s the game I was looking for. Yesterday I bought RTW, downloaded your mod, registered at this forum just to say THANKS FOR ALL. :cheerleader:

-sorry for my bad English-

spirit_of_rob

12-13-2006, 18:57

Glad you like it :)

and your english is fine mate dont worry about it

-Praetor-

12-13-2006, 19:33

I first wanted to wait a bit before giving my opinion, in order to play a while and get a better holistic vision of the mod. I tried a lot of factions, amongst them Makedonia, Koinon Hellenon, Aeduii, Romani, Baktria and Lusotannan.

The mod is great. In every respect.

The lusotannan units, the new greek units and the reskinning of older ones, together with the already beautiful old units... everything regarding to modelling and skinning is awesome.

It gives you an inmersion atmosphere that is unsurpassed by any other mod. It even leads to some psichotic behaviour (very obsessive in fact), since I missed some of my obligations in order to play some more hours of the game.

The music is unique. At first I didn`t understood it much, but now, with the game, it sounds great.

You know that what you`re playing is serious. Ther`s serious work behind, a unconmesourable work of research, gathering of information, and all to make the most faithful representation of ancient history, considering the inherent limitations of the RTW engine.

It`s no comic book. It`s something that even the most grognard player can demand of a historic game, because it was made by the most grognard modders and researchers that exist on the RTW comunity. (Definition of Grognard (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Grognard))

The fact that the team managed to stay cohesionated during all that time, even with all the bumps in the road and all the mayor difficulties it had to face, is a testimony of the effort and dedication that the team has for the proyect, and ultimately, for the comunity.

You all are worth your weight in gold. Just don`t start to get arrogant about it. :grin:

And for all that: THANK YOU. :medievalcheers:

Cheers.

Shigawire

12-14-2006, 02:05

Did you expected them to have gold enbroidery in their vests? :inquisitive:

At least! And they should be hurling fireballs! :laugh4:

We have some rather specific detailed information about how balearic slingers looked. Balearic slingers carried three slings wrapped around their heads – a long slim sling for long shots, a short one for close targets and a middling for medium distances.

scourgeofrome

12-14-2006, 02:52

RAndom Impression:Was doing a custom battle to test ancient Roman tactics I've been studying and was suprised to find the Romans already set up in a Manipular Legion formation.Thanks EB for that time saving feature.

Kralizec

12-14-2006, 23:42

In short: despite some bugs wich I'm sure will be ironed out, 0.8 is a MASSIVE improvement over the already enjoyable 0.74.

The only two factions I've played (in campaign mode) so far are KH and Casse, wich I hadn't played before so I can't compare it to 0.74, but I enjoyed both, especially the Casse (I now realize they might very well be the most unique faction in the game)
Lot's of new, great stuff: the voicemods, new units, new skins for old units, etc.
I've played a lot of custom battles, and I noticed that some of the stats were wrong or strange. THe elephants and chariots obviously with their 1HP, but also for example the fact that Spartiate Hoplitai are rather weak compared to other infantry. The shield bonuses are also wrong in some places. Phalangites get 5 shield points and classical hoplites only 3 (I think). Hoplitai Ippikradithes (sp) and Thureophoroi use the same shield, but the first gets 5 and the second only 3.

Aymar de Bois Mauri

12-14-2006, 23:45

In short: despite some bugs wich I'm sure will be ironed out, 0.8 is a MASSIVE improvement over the already enjoyable 0.74.

The only two factions I've played (in campaign mode) so far are KH and Casse, wich I hadn't played before so I can't compare it to 0.74, but I enjoyed both, especially the Casse (I now realize they might very well be the most unique faction in the game)
Lot's of new, great stuff: the voicemods, new units, new skins for old units, etc.
I've played a lot of custom battles, and I noticed that some of the stats were wrong or strange. The elephants and chariots obviously with their 1HP, but also for example the fact that Spartiate Hoplitai are rather weak compared to other infantry. The shield bonuses are also wrong in some places. Phalangites get 5 shield points and classical hoplites only 3 (I think). Hoplitai Ippikradithes (sp) and Thureophoroi use the same shield, but the first gets 5 and the second only 3.Some of those are mistakes, others we have reasons to do it like that.

QwertyMIDX

12-15-2006, 00:14

Units in phalanx get a bonus to their shield stat at the expense of other defensive ratings.

Sdragon

12-15-2006, 09:55

Elephants show as 1HP but they got more. Had too shoot the heck out of a bactria squad with 6 archer units to take them down.

QwertyMIDX

12-15-2006, 13:42

OK, this Elephants with 1 HP has gone on way too long. A couple of people have mentioned this, but I will do so again and hopefully I will do so with enough completeness and clarity to resolve this issue. This is the EDU entry for the weakest unit of Elephants:

;129
type african elephant forest
dictionary african_elephant_forest ; African Forest Elephants
category cavalry
class heavy
voice_type General_1
soldier african_elephant_rider, 6, 6, 1
mount elephant forest
mount_effect horse +3, chariot +4, camel +3
attributes sea_faring, can_run_amok, frighten_foot, frighten_mounted
formation 7, 9, 13, 13, 1, square
stat_health 1, 4
stat_pri 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 0 ,0.1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 5, 47, no, 0, 0, melee, other, blunt, none, 0 ,0.1
stat_sec_attr area, ap, launching
stat_pri_armour 1, 5, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour 15, 0, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 0, 0, -4, -2
stat_mental 8, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 2, 10450, 2613, 270, 400, 10450
ownership egypt, numidia, thrace, romans_julii, romans_brutii, slave, seleucid, pontus, saba

Now we all know that stat_health is where we find Hit Points, but apparently no one has read the CA provided instructions for why there are two numbers in that line, it reads:

stat_health Hit points of man, followed by hit points of mount or attached animal (if applicable)
Ridden horses and camels do not have separate hit points

So these elephants actually have 4 hit points, not 1.

Anthony

12-15-2006, 13:45

I enjoy Casse. The Britons have a unique set up, in that, midland (that is to say, non-Gallic) Britons are generally lower morale units, but combined with their 'champions', they can still be very potent; a unit of Calawre coupled with Lugoae and other militia units can even damage a legion, or outright defeat them with clever tactics. They require special tactics though, but that's part of the fun of playing the Casse. Due to their small starting area and the need to build their economy initially, it's hard to keep many high quality units, but their highest quality are totally worth it. The allied morale bonus is incredible; properly used you can keep units from breaking till they're all dead, which is pretty impressive.

Casuir

12-15-2006, 13:53

Gaestatae eat them up though, and midlanders and goidils are a pain in the arse to retrain. Are any more units planned for the casse?

Anthony

12-15-2006, 14:02

They'll eventually have midland axemen and naked spearmen. The latter are not like Gaesatae, but do lower enemy morale (their real use will be to weaken enemy morale; used properly with superior units, it can be like a hammer-and-anvil on morale), and should have high morale to help do their job. The axes will give them some afforadle AP, necessary for defeating some of the heavier soldiers (if you hadn't noticed, the Casse are armor light, yet have to fight through the Gauls, who, late game, are actually pretty well supplied with armored troops). There are some others being tossed around, but you'll need to wait for much to be solidifed before that can be revealed.

Kralizec

12-15-2006, 15:01

Gaestatae eat them up though, and midlanders and goidils are a pain in the arse to retrain. Are any more units planned for the casse?

The Casse get Kludargon (sp?) after the first reform, wich will chew through anything no matter how well armoured. And a unit that's pinned on spearmen and attacked by Kludargon in their rear is routed in no time. I'd say that compensates pretty well for any inadequacies...

Anthony: I noticed in the custom battle setup that there's a midlander spear unit, but I haven't been able to build them in my campaign. Do they require the foreign MIC to be trainable? If so, why doesn't the same aply for the Cymwr (sp- the midlander heroes)

Anthony

12-15-2006, 15:08

They don't require a foreign MIC. Local MIC in the midlands, after the first reforms. And the Kluddargos are second reform, if they appear in the first reform, it's a bug.

Kralizec

12-15-2006, 15:26

I haven't had the first reform yet, either. I thought that they were available after the first reform, but I don't remember why.

This bit is from the FAQ, concerning the reforms:

Celts (Aedui/Avernii): 2
the first 220BC and the second 120BCis going to become dynamic triggers , too.

I assume this applies to the Casse as well. If they're not dynamic yet, I'll have achieved my victory conditions long before I get those Kludargon, maybe even before the first reform...well I guess that means I'll have time to spare to maul the Sweboz and the Lusotannan as well.

Anthony

12-15-2006, 15:29

It's Kluddargos, and they are pretty late game units, fun though. They'll eventually be remodelled however.

Kull

12-15-2006, 18:56

I haven't had the first reform yet, either. I thought that they were available after the first reform, but I don't remember why.

There's a confusion factor involved in the use of "Reform". Even on the team, we use that word interchangeably with "Period", and they really aren't the same thing. For example, Camillan is the first Roman period, while Polybian is really their first reform.

Thus Kluddargos are both a first reform and a second period unit. So you and Anthony are saying the same thing.

-Praetor-

12-20-2006, 23:43

First Impressions?

:dozey: Well, mine was something like this:

LINK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_phU1coQCU&eurl=)

:grin: BLASTOISE!!!!!!!! :grin:

Shifty_GMH

12-21-2006, 17:15

Great mod. I really like the map and your units. Good job on the level of historical research and accuracy you guys achieved.

For what it is worth I give you guys a 4.5 out of 5.

Mooks

12-22-2006, 01:19

My first impression is...well pretty sad. :embarassed:

The first screen that you see when you load the game up lasts there pretty long; 1:39 seconds to be exact. I start a roman campaign up (I couldnt chose, they all looked so good. So I just went Roman) and the game crashed on me. Re-started my computer and looked around on the romans...so many units! Got up the next day and started a armenian campaign, saw that the armenians start off -5300 on their only city, which makes no sense. Started a new roman one, all the buildings are extremely expensive. The units have lengthy descriptions (which isnt bad, I like to read the history of the units). but you cant tell what the hell they do unless you read most of the description (I know most of the roman units by heart, im talking about the armenian and spanish campaigns I started). The loading times are soo slow (Could just be my computer, im suspecting viruses). After I completed a turn, I pressed the end button, it crashed.

Not a good first day at all :sweatdrop:

paullus

12-22-2006, 02:00

Mooks

12-22-2006, 03:16

hey holybandit. sorry you've had a sad time of things.

odd you're getting the ctd's. it sounds like your computer may be having a hard time processing everything, or perhaps something messed up in the install. have you turned off other processes running in the background so that EB gets to use as much processing power as possible?

as for your specific comments:

initial load-up: the first time is the longest. it gets better after that.
"in the red" at start-up: you start off with a larger military than you can support. you can either disband them and get into the black quickly, or try to take a region or two. this also helps the AI factions.
expense: the game's supposed to be hard. you wouldn't want to be able to build whatever you want whenever you want to, now would you?
unit uses: the unit translations (under the native language name) should help you get an idea of what a unit should be used for. besides, once you've read the history of the units once, you've got it learned and can move on. in some sense, isn't it nice that you need to take a little time to get to know your soldiers before sending them out?

anyway, i hope things get better with the game.

I re-downloaded everything before I downloaded this mod. So there shouldnt be any download problems. Im cleaning out my entire computer (Was going to do it in the morning when I was at school, unfortunately my little brother is a complete idiot and exited out of everything before I got home). Im defragmenting right now, and have 46% extra space (In contrast to 40% I had a few days ago with BI and chivarly installed).

I hope it gets sorted out. Everyone says this mod is awsome, and I do love historical accuracy.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-22-2006, 06:02

We do have to make the initial start situations more difficult for you as a human faction to overcome the other AI factions, so when you start out you may have more forces than you can sustain unless you disband some of them and your ships. We don't give you more troops than you may initially need for no good reason. :grin:

Mooks

12-22-2006, 12:31

I finally got it to work. I did 5 turns as the romans, outmanuevering the southern people at the boot, but it crashed at the seige. Though this will go away im sure.

Once you get the feel of it, this game realllly get good.

Mooks

12-22-2006, 21:13

I loaded my old game up. I didnt do the seige but waited for the releiving army to force me into the field. Huge victory, killing 800 and lost 63. As soon as I accepted the "accept victory" button the game crashed, shortly after I said a few things im not allowed to repeat in this forum.

GodEmperorLeto

12-22-2006, 22:53

The economics of the game are different from the previous incarnations of EB. I've gotta say, I was shocked to find that watchtowers were 2000 gold, but forts were free. Money runs out fast, faster than I remember in the last build.

Are you guys sure the watchtowers are supposed to be that much?

Zaknafien

12-23-2006, 00:45

mAIOR

12-23-2006, 02:16

I like this game better as time goes by... I just spent 45min making a battle... WOW it was really a long and intensive battle I had one full stack (KH) and the enemy (Mac) had one stack plus 3/4 of other stack and atacked me as I was sieging Pella (3 family members). Let's just say, it was intense all around fighting non stop... I didn't even get a breather as I was finishing their full stack (with 260 casualities from my side) and I see a huge force of enemy cavalry rushing across the field... their 3/4 stack arrived and my archers had no more arrows... eventually I won the day with little over than 500 casualities for 2200 killed (I play on large as I don't like huge because of the sieges)... it was a clear victory... what do I need to get a heroic victory these days... In vanilla it was easy, 3 units of urban cohorts and send them anywhere...

Cheers...

scourgeofrome

12-23-2006, 03:18

Great Mod.Of course,I just got MTW2,but won't be able to use right away because of visiting family.Of course,the .74 downlaoded there so I can upgrade and play.1 more guarenteed week of EB.Whoo hoo.

GodEmperorLeto

12-23-2006, 05:37

yes--and they dont represent a watchtower anymore, its more of a series of guardposts and border checkpoints, with men to garrison them, administration costs, etc.. I believe the idea of changing the graphic to a series of watchtowers or chain or something has come up.

I assume forts are free now because a) they aren't permanent, and b) if you are roleplaying historically, an army in the field will build one every season (as per armies on the march), or to winter away from a settlement?

It actually really changes the strategy dynamic now. I've noticed that the AI never uses forts, by the way.

Anyway, all of the new changes are positive, in my opinion. Although I do miss the Yuezhi, I still like the Saka, and love the addition of the Sabaeans. The Macedonians do seem to have been nerfed a bit, the wars over the Balkans are no where near as intensive as they were in .71. Playing as Rome, watching the Greeks tear each other up for decades was fascinating, but now, the dynamic is different, and it actually encourages me to intervene more often in order to maintain a balance of power. I actually keep ending up getting sucked into Hellas just like the Romans actually did--not aiming to conquer but ending up doing so just to keep the place from tearing itself apart.

All-in-all, great mod. No complaints whatsoever. Not even about loading time. I just figure it is all worth the wait.

...Actually, I do have one complaint. When the hell is the EB team going to get hired by Activision? Because you guys deserve it.

Slartibardfast

12-25-2006, 01:21

Back with limited net access after all my troubles with, and the outrageous pricing schedule of, Telstra, (anyone from Colorado can tell you what a job Sol Treheo did on telco services there).

Downloaded 0.8 the night before last and, despite being a lifetime member of the PFJ, had a good play with the Romani.

Loved every minute of it.

Though still having several smaller bugs and other minor issues EB still flies head and shoulders above the competition in my books. Glad I could help out in my limited alien way with the beta testing.

10,000 downloads in 10 days is absolutely gobsmacking. "Come in here dear boy, have a cigar, your'e going to go far, you'll fly high.........."

Well done chaps. After playing the MTW2 demo I will be continuing to play EB until such times as EB and OR have working builds for MTW2 up and available to the public.

A merry if somewhat cynical Christmas to one and all.

blank

12-25-2006, 03:33

...Actually, I do have one complaint. When the hell is the EB team going to get hired by Activision? Because you guys deserve it.
I presume most of the devs already have jobs... :2thumbsup:

Anyway, i started my first camp as the Lusotana, but didn't play for long because of their somewhat unfinished state.
My second camp i chose Karthadast, it's going well (they have piles of money and some of the best varied units :beam: ).
No CTDs so far, some unit card inaccuracies (short pike phalanx shields), otherwise brilliant :smash:

Shigawire

12-25-2006, 13:02

...Actually, I do have one complaint. When the hell is the EB team going to get hired by Activision? Because you guys deserve it.

You are indeed evil if you think we deserve Activision :skull:
Why can't we have SEGA like CA does?

Just look what wonders SEGA did for CA.. they are a company worthy of praise again. Treating modders the way they should etc..

Activision and Electronic Arts = :skull:

GodEmperorLeto

12-27-2006, 04:48

You are indeed evil if you think we deserve Activision :skull:
Why can't we have SEGA like CA does?

Just look what wonders SEGA did for CA.. they are a company worthy of praise again. Treating modders the way they should etc..

Activision and Electronic Arts = :skull:

I was thinking CA, but for some reason wrote Activision because they produced the game. Duh for me, then.

geala

12-28-2006, 09:35

I played as the Ptolemaioi, Lusotannan and am playing now as Epiros. I never finished a game (victory screen) because of time and my defensive (phlegmatic) stile of play.

But that was not necessary. The pleasure comes not from victory but from playing/surviving. I stopped playing M2TW since the first time I saw EB 0.8 (did not know EB before) and don't regret it. No more need to be said, the game is great.

Some (very) small annotations I would like to make since my last post:

1. I had some CTDs but I cannot combine it with a special situation. After restarting the game everything was fine again. (may be not very helpful for you:no: )

2. With some Epirote generals in certain areas (Pella province in this case and that northeast of it, Tylis ?, and also Crete) mercenary recruiting is defective. Not the chosen unit is recruited but that unit which is in the right of it in the recruitment window. Sometimes recruiting is not possible at all: I choose the mercenary unit, it appears with the general in the UI window but not on the campaign map. Maybe that was reported before, didn't search for it.

3. Why is it not possible to build forts in a foreign country which I try to conquer? Happened yesterday with all my three generals near Byzantion. I like the feature that forts are free because many armies built a fortified camp each evening. But if I can do it only in my countries (where it was possible) it makes less sense.

4. Why has every Epirote government setting except No. 1 negative effects to public contentment? No. 2 -4 each adds 5% to public unrest. As far as I remember some form of Ptolemaic government from No. 2 – 4 lowers public unrest.

5. I am a bit disappointed that there are no Rhodian slingers but I know about the unit number restrictions.

6. I had to convince Makedonia and Koinon Hellenon that it is best for them to suffer, äh, live under my generous rule. While doing this I studied their units with pleasure. Nice.

What I cannot accept totally is the description of armour for the Greek Ekdromoi. The distinction between missile weapons effects and hand held weapons effects is a bit artificial. That composite armour of the Ekdromoi sounds interesting but not convincing if you be aware of the very fact that linen armour is quite effective against missiles. I can imagine that you have sources for that composite armour however.

7. It's a pity that the Epirote armoured elephants have the same appearance than normal elephants (on the battlefield). I assume that will be changed as soon as the other placeholders (it is a beta I know, but such a good one that I often forget it:yes: ).

Btw I don't think elephants are worth their money. Bring a cavalry unit and you have better fighting options. But maybe I just cannot use elephants the right way.

8. I don't cherisch these "independents" who live and walk around. They are impudent. One of the Eleutheroi (don't know of what tribe/nation) fleets near Spain sank my ship (with the crappy general) that I sent the long way to Eire for recruiting some of the presumably funny indigeneous troops as mercenaries. So I think I have to play the Casse to see Ireland. Remove the Eleutheroi!:clown:

UglyandHasty

12-28-2006, 15:14

To the EB Team

Great job with the mod gents. This mod is an all around success. Didnt have a single C2D. Battle are fine. You did a heck of a job since the last release. Overall this is what RTW should have been !

*bows*

MiniMe

12-28-2006, 16:54

It's a pity that the Epirote armoured elephants have the same appearance than normal elephants (on the battlefield). I assume that will be changed as soon as the other placeholders (it is a beta I know, but such a good one that I often forget it:yes: ).
1. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=75431
2. https://www.europabarbarorum.com/p/3D/sel-elephant.jpg
=)

Btw I don't think elephants are worth their money. Bring a cavalry unit and you have better fighting options. But maybe I just cannot use elephants the right way.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. They certainly are worth their money, just have to keep in mind couple of things:
Elephants are to be used with other units, they are not standalone heroes. They are to be used with infantry and with slingers (slingers are for shooting down Akontistai/Peltastai, that’s very important).
The best is to have two units of them, guarding the flanks. Only when enemy’s engaged in melee with your infantry line it’s the time to use elephant_charge =)
Like all cavalry, elephants are not melee units. Charge, withdraw, charge,..
Armoured elephants are immortal monstrosities. Used wisely, they don’t need reinforcements, which is also very important, once your assault stack is far away from Ambrakia.
Every unit of mine Epirote armoured elephants kills about 200 (corrected - 150)enemy’s units per battle, and I’m not talking about some trash units =)
If you have armoured elephants in your stack, your horse_cavalry’s only purpose is to pursue routing units. This means they also don’t need reinforcements =)

Mine Epirote assault army consists of:
1. 1 General;
2. 4 Toxotai Kretikoi - available for recruitment in city of Kidonia, have nice armour;
3. 2 Prodromoi - fast, funny helmets;
4. 10 Illyrioi Torakitae - I hate phalanx, these guys are so much better;
5. 2 Elephantes Kataphraktoi Indikoi – because of these no more Makedonia, Romani, Getai, Koinon Hellenon :yes:

blacksnail

12-28-2006, 17:00

Hi geala, glad to hear you're enjoying EB. I'll address the questions I can answer below.

3. Why is it not possible to build forts in a foreign country which I try to conquer? Happened yesterday with all my three generals near Byzantion. I like the feature that forts are free because many armies built a fortified camp each evening. But if I can do it only in my countries (where it was possible) it makes less sense.
It should be possible to build forts in foreign lands - however, the RTW engine can decide for various reasons that a fort cannot be built at a certain location. If you're too close to a city or a port, for example, it won't let you build it. Also some terrain is too rough for a fort.

However, if for whatever reason you can't build a fort anywhere in a foreign land, even on clear, flat ground nowhere near a city, then that's a problem. Would you mind loading up a save game and sending a general around to try to build forts in enemy territory? If you can reproduce the effect, please create a new post in the EB Bug Reports forum so we can track it.

4. Why has every Epirote government setting except No. 1 negative effects to public contentment? No. 2 -4 each adds 5% to public unrest. As far as I remember some form of Ptolemaic government from No. 2 – 4 lowers public unrest.
I haven't played the Epirotes since 0.74 so I'm not entirely sure why that is the case, but my gut instinct says to check their government description. I seem to remember that being explained in the write-up.

blank

12-28-2006, 18:08

1.
Like all cavalry, elephants are not melee units. Charge, withdraw, charge,..
Armoured elephants are immortal monstrosities. Used wisely, they don’t need reinforcements, which is also very important, once your assault stack is far away from Ambrakia.
Every unit of mine Epirote armoured elephants kills about 200 enemy’s units per battle, and I’m not talking about some trash units =)
If you have armoured elephants in your stack, your horse_cavalry’s only purpose is to pursue routing units. This means they also don’t need reinforcements =)

:inquisitive:
I may be mistaken, but don't all the elephant units have the same stats (except for charge)?
Anyway, one battle where i was fighting massively outnumbered against Iberian rebels my african elephant cohort saved my ass :beam:
Only 1 elephant was left at the end, but they sure massacred the rebels :2thumbsup: (sorry if this was off topic :juggle2: )

Jarardo

12-29-2006, 02:07

The game seems a lot more polished, which is nice.

It's nice to have the functionality of 1.5(And the cheat/edit/console capability)

There seems to be a lot of gameplay changes, ie the turns needed to build a lot of things seems to be much lower, and I seem to have waaaaaaaaaaayyyy more money than I'm used to with EB.

I've only played Makedon so far, nice to have more detailed units.

Good trait improvements, biogrophies, etc...

Woohoo! First Total war I've played for a few months.

Have you guys added in all the sprites? Some of the units look like they don't have generated sprites?

MarcusAureliusAntoninus

12-29-2006, 04:20

It should be possible to build forts in foreign lands - however, the RTW engine can decide for various reasons that a fort cannot be built at a certain location. If you're too close to a city or a port, for example, it won't let you build it. Also some terrain is too rough for a fort.

However, if for whatever reason you can't build a fort anywhere in a foreign land, even on clear, flat ground nowhere near a city, then that's a problem. Would you mind loading up a save game and sending a general around to try to build forts in enemy territory? If you can reproduce the effect, please create a new post in the EB Bug Reports forum so we can track it.

I'd also like to add you can't build a fort/tower next to and enemy/neutral/ally army/agent/fleet. And remember that spys and assassins can be invisible to you but still stop you from building a fort because they are ajacent to your army.

MiniMe

12-29-2006, 07:30

I may be mistaken, but don't all the elephant units have the same stats (except for charge)?
What you see on the screen are in fact stats of elephant_riders, not elephants, except for the charge =)
To find out their real stats, you have to open file export_descr_unit.txt (eb\Data folder) and search for Indian and African units.
Indian Elephants stat_sec_armor – 15
Armoured Indian Elephants stat_sec_armor - 25

export_descr_unit.txt contains many other things, that you'd like to know =)

olly

12-29-2006, 11:46

Hello

Finally got a new computer yesterday which can actually handle EB so after having a go on RTR's Imperator Mod I gave EB a crack. I've played about three hours of the greeks (H/M on BI).

First off very very very good. A hell of a lot of detail, a mind boggling selection of units, and all in all exactly the kind of mod I am looking for. I can't praise you enough for all your effort and a wonderful game even at the beta stage.

I will be giving some other factions a go later (no internet conection with my present PC as yet) to see what they are like and also because it seems as soon as I took Corinth I was loaded (rich). I have easily kept the Macedonians at bay with enough troops to defend while building in all my cities. Thank god for Thermon being a complete sod to take. I think I saw the economics need to be balanced in future versions so nevermind.

One other thing is why can you not build Spartans in Sparta? I have been used to the RTR style of play where you can build historical armies from the start with all the units available. Just curious as to why you went a different way. Great for gameplay. And I love what you did with government.

But anyway. The game is smashing so here is a selection of smilies to show what I think. ~:cheers: :charge: ~:grouphug: :jawdrop: ~:wacko: :jumping: :cheerleader: :dancing: :knuddel:

Oh and no CTD's and I am sure that is because I now have a good computer as the other one I had was rubbish and CTDed all the time with EB. Good loading times too.

Ludens

12-29-2006, 17:42

Have you guys added in all the sprites? Some of the units look like they don't have generated sprites?
Bactrian Hippeis lack sprites, but all other units should have them. If you see any others missing them, please report so at the bug report forum (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=127).

blacksnail

12-29-2006, 18:48

Hi olly! Glad to hear you're enjoying EB.

One other thing is why can you not build Spartans in Sparta? I have been used to the RTR style of play where you can build historical armies from the start with all the units available. Just curious as to why you went a different way.
There is a long, frequently contentious, and very boring debate about this subject across many older threads deep in the bowels of the EB forum. ~:) The eventual result of that debate - and to any regulars with an opinion on this issue, I'm simply reporting this as I understand it, not offering it as an excuse to repeat the beating of a very, very dead EB horse - was that by 272 BC there were no armies composed of "Spartans" as you would think of them from earlier eras. Consequently there is no special "Spartan" unit recruitable in Sparta. However, there are mercenaries available who cultivate the Spartan imagery, and I believe you can recruit them in that region.

the_handsome_viking

12-29-2006, 20:27

I could type at length as to why I like v.80 but i feel it would be much more logical to just point out this...

Medieval 2 was really good, I really enjoyed it and completed it, I'm now playing Europa Barbarorum again.

When you choose an older game over a very good newer game that older game has to have a lot going for it.

EB's nothing short of brilliant and I look forwards to starting the campaign all over again.

geala

12-31-2006, 13:23

1. Forts
I tested it and for the most time I can build forts in foreign country. Unfortunately there is a lot of foreign country at the moment. If I can not build a fort it seems only due to the landscape. So working as intended, I think.

2. Elephants
Thank you for your hints, MiniMe. At the time of my last post I was a bit shocked of a) an unit of Eastern Skirmishers killing 2 of my 6 armoured elephants with only one volley and b) the failure of my elephants to trample down 10 fleeing archers.

Since then I had to engage the Ptolemaioi and the elephants are bitter needed to shatter their bloody elite phalanxes from behind. My heaviest cavalry alone is rarely able to break these phalanxes even with often repeated rear attacks .

3. Cretan archers
Kydonia was the first town I took after bringing "peace" to mainland Hellas. But till now I could not recruit cretan archers. Strange. Do you recruit them from the normal MIC or the MIC for foreigners? What government type do you have?

I use lots of mercenary cretan archers. Slingers are more deadly but they need more micromanagement - even with this they sometimes get involved in close quarter combat which is not very good for them.:no:

Zaknafien

12-31-2006, 15:43

I think it requires a local MIC level 5, i use a type III on Kydonia and produce nothing but Cretan archers there, and place two units in each of my consular armies until i get Syrian auxilliaries.

Kull

12-31-2006, 18:46

3. Cretan archers
Kydonia was the first town I took after bringing "peace" to mainland Hellas. But till now I could not recruit cretan archers. Strange. Do you recruit them from the normal MIC or the MIC for foreigners? What government type do you have?

I use lots of mercenary cretan archers. Slingers are more deadly but they need more micromanagement - even with this they sometimes get involved in close quarter combat which is not very good for them.:no:

Toxotai Kretikoi are recruited from the Level 4 MIC. If you have a Greek Faction, that will be a Faction MIC. Other cultures will recruit them (same level) with a Regional MIC.

olly

01-02-2007, 11:40

Hello again,

Just thought I'd post again to say I'm really enjoying the mod especially now I am playing on the recomended settings of VH/M. I'd always wanted to avoid VH campaign settings as there are too many battles but with EB's economic model it makes sense (although I don't think that it is possible to survive with Hayas... err Armenia :wall: ).

Very nice. The only mod apart from RTR (I'd say I like them both equally) which I can see me playing for a long time. Thank you.

Oh and thanks for the explanation about the Spartans blacksnail.

MiniMe

01-02-2007, 13:00

Kydonia was the first town I took after bringing "peace" to mainland Hellas. But till now I could not recruit cretan archers. Strange. Do you recruit them from the normal MIC or the MIC for foreigners? What government type do you have?
Goverment type II, level IV normal MIC

I use lots of mercenary cretan archers. Slingers are more deadly but they need more micromanagement - even with this they sometimes get involved in close quarter combat which is not very good for them.:no:
I have to admit I'm a little bit disappointed with cretan archers, so I switched back to slingers. They're cheap, they're available everywhere, they require level II MIC only and they are deadly =)
Slingers: range 180, ammo 40;
Cretan Archers: range 176(merc), ammo 25.

Kugutsu

01-02-2007, 13:21

Personally I hope to see Rhodian slingers in the game one day.
According to Xenophon they have twice the range of persian slingers due to the fact they use lead bullets instead of 'fist-sized stones'. I would guess that lumps of lead would do more damage too, due to being denser, moving faster and being smaller, so applying a greater force to a smaller area. Bring on the carnage...

The advantage of Cretan archers seems to be their high defence rather than a higher missile damage compared with other archers. This makes them semi-useful in melee, so they wont get slaughtered instantly like most archers would.

-Praetor-

01-02-2007, 14:31

The advantage of Cretan archers seems to be their high defence rather than a higher missile damage compared with other archers. This makes them semi-useful in melee, so they wont get slaughtered instantly like most archers would.

Notice their Xiphos sword too...

That`s a helluva long sword for a ordinary archer to have... :rolleyes:

MiniMe

01-02-2007, 14:45

2. Elephants
Thank you for your hints
Here's a cheat hint -
1. Open EB/Data folder
2. Open file export_descr_unit.txt
2.1. find string
;130
type indian elephant standard
2.2. in the text that follows, replace string
soldier african_elephant_rider, 9, 3, 1
with strings
;soldier african_elephant_rider, 9, 3, 1
soldier african_elephant_rider, 15, 3, 1
3. Open file descr_mount.txt
3.1. find string
type elephant indian
3.2 in the text that follows, replace strings
riders 3
rider_offset 0.0, 1.225, 1.306
rider_offset 0.0, 1.1, 0.5
rider_offset 0.0, 1.1, -.25
with strings
;riders 3
;rider_offset 0.0, 1.225, 1.306
;rider_offset 0.0, 1.1, 0.5
;rider_offset 0.0, 1.1, -.25
riders 5
rider_offset 0.0, 1.335, 1.45
rider_offset 0.25, 1.165, 0.42
rider_offset -.25, 1.165, 0.42
rider_offset 0.25, 1.165, -.25
rider_offset -.25, 1.165, -.25
Enjoy =)
(it won't cause the game to crash, been tested)
((sorry for my English))
(((before modifying, back up both files)))

Kugutsu

01-02-2007, 14:59

MiniMe: What effect will those changes have?

K_raso: Im not sure the sword has any significant advantage:

Toxotai Kretikoi
stat_pri 4, 0, arrow, 153, 25, missile, archery, piercing, none, 15 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 9, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 0 ,0.04
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 7, 8, 1, flesh

Normal Toxotai
stat_pri 2, 0, arrow, 128.7, 15, missile, archery, piercing, none, 15 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 8, 0, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 0 ,0.4
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 2, 6, 0, flesh

There is only one extra point in melee damage, plus one charge point, however the lethality drops from 0.4 for a normal archer to 0.04 for a cretan archer. The biggest difference (apart from range) is the amount of armour/defence

Triglav

01-02-2007, 15:18

Amazing!

All I can say.
I've been glued to the comp since I DL'd this mod a week ago.

Though it's still work in progress it's deep, intriguing, difficult as hell, which I like a lot, and totally immersive!

Congrats and thanks to the team for the great effort put in this!
(Being an occasional game modder myself I can imagine how difficult it is to pull off large projects like this one.)

MiniMe

01-02-2007, 15:25

MiniMe: What effect will those changes have?

2 archers => 4 archers =)

Sarcasm

01-02-2007, 16:59

Notice their Xiphos sword too...

That`s a helluva long sword for a ordinary archer to have... :rolleyes:

Actually it's a pretty short sword...it's like 30cm shorter than a medieval arming sword, which professional archers would use.

-Praetor-

01-02-2007, 17:45

Actually it's a pretty short sword...it's like 30cm shorter than a medieval arming sword, which professional archers would use.

Yes, yes, I know that the Xiphos is a short sword, along with the kopis, falcata, gladius, etc.

But compared with the swiss army knife that other archers have (together with the arkontistai), that thing looks like a Zweihänder!!! :grin:

QwertyMIDX

01-02-2007, 20:35

Yun Dog

01-05-2007, 06:38

Intial impressions - better late than never eh

The look
Love the look feels like reading a really old book, even the strat map appears to have a more 'brushed' softer appearance. The playing it is like examining exquisite tapestrys
Playing as the Ptolomaic vh/vh :egypt: - love the mosaic textured displays

as said by others the mod now appears to have a much more finished look to it
very professionally done boys - congrats

State of Play
early days in my campaign - The selucids have launched a major offensive against me - having to fight them off with the cheap native spearmen - ugghh where will I find the money :juggle2:
They are seiging 3 of my towns and blockading most of my ports - DAMN THEM

already lost a settlement west of Alexandria to a large well motivated and well led band of brigands.

Love the new music
cant leave without mentioning the wonders/great building etc - fantastic - learning new historical facts (which I can bore my wife with) everyday, so detailed and informative - forget a degree in ancient history at college - a semester of EB 101 is all you need
:2thumbsup:

those Cav the Ptolomaic get with the masks - look nightmarish - I love them :2thumbsup:

Bugs (small one)
The Jewish spearmen dont hold any spears - looked in the bug forum but was just too massive to search

Only about 10 turns in - love your work

kings to you :yes: :2thumbsup:

DXL

01-07-2007, 23:09

As the amature historian and "roman army and its foe nerdling" I am I loved RTW but something was missing...

Now I know what was missing.
Now it really feels like I am uniting the tribes and once that is done... the world will be mine for the taking.
Everyone else in this thread have already said what I´ve been thinking and I am no man of the word, so all thumbs up, this is great.
I would gladly pay for this game.
:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

kalkwerk

01-10-2007, 11:31

Yes I followed this mod for about a year, but didnt play it because I was scared off about those CTDs reported. So I thought I might as well wait for something more finished.

Well the mod of course is nothing but excellent. Although there are much less ships, I really like the naval system. Because of the costs naval warfare is really something you have to plan or it will ruin your economy early on. The better warships easily take out the worse, not only number decides. And playing with BI.exe as Rome on VH/VH it has been crucial to control the sea because Carthage was absolutely über and kept on landing forces on the baleares, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Italy. Excellent! So at the end of 2nd punic war I decided to pillage Carthage and destroy their Naval Base to simulate their handing out of their fleet. ~D

Just two questions for future releases:
1. Will you include navigable rivers? Not that important for gameplay, but its still a cool feature.
2. Is there going to be ancilliaries for the legions like in Camillus leadership mod or like its been done recently in most M2TW mods? I miss those a bit.