Sincere review

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

0.80 was a slight dissapointment to me, in the sense that i was tottaly unable to make it run on my install, despite following the instalation instructions to the letter. Battles would go fine, but campaign not. So, i was not at all tempted to download the 0.81 version, believing that it would just simply kill my time...

Howewer, i decided to give it a try. So, i prepared the "clean install", and so on, and suprisingly, it did start well. True, until the game starts you can make some cleaning in the house or so... takes time to generate map.rwm, but nevertheless. Then, i attempted to start a campaign...and surprisingly, it worked ! The first turns where a bit slower.... in fact, it goes very slowly until you load the script, but after 2 -3 turns is as smooth as vannila.

I played a little bit with Carthage (my favs), and Getae. I was surprised by the depth of the campaign game, by deep traits system, by everything. It is deffinetly one of the best mods so farr - despite the fact that all this incredible amount of depths comes at a price - slower loading times, etc, despite the fact that the battles are extremely smooth (smoother then those from RTR, for example).

I think the single thing wich limits the posibilities of this mod is the RTW engine itself... indeed, my ears are a little hurt by the gallic language spoken by my Getae ancestors, or by the fact that i would prefere to listen an unique music designed for each factions, that is sometimes miss the RTR`s music of Vlad Kuryluk etc. But even this short and unimportant limitations pale to the significance of the mod`s greatness.

I also like very much the campaign game... cash is little in the beggining, in fact - you are very likely to enter in big debt early on. There is the time for hard decisions : you attempt to conquer something, or do you disband the armies ? Hard times, indeed ! This kind of decisions can affect the entire future gameplay, and this is all very realistic indeed, as in real life.

The greek factions are more than a pleasant surprise... despite their similar way of warfare, they are all different... there is a huge unit varyety, plenty of Zones of Recruitment, plenty of mercenaries. Not to mention the traits system.

Anyway, i`l give a 10 out of 10 to this mod.
Truly, this is the way RTW should have looked like from the begining.
Congratulations ! :2thumbsup:

[Caratacos]

We in the team very much appreciate sincere and in depth reviews such as this, Rex. And we are glad you enjoy the mod :2thumbsup:.

I myself love the make or break start that most factions face at the start, too. Definitely spices things up.

The team is working (and has worked) very hard on the voice aspect of the mod. Many of the cultures are yet to get their own voice so they use the most suited placeholders available.

[paullus]

Thanks for the review, Rex, I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I'm sorry we have no Getic voicemod at the moment, but considering the big fat question mark beside "Getic language" in academia, there's not a whole lot to go on. That said, there is indeed a little to go on, and we're working with that.

[Laman]

Downloaded this yesterday. Have only played a little with the Romans (and my brother has played a little with the Makedonians), so while it may be too early too say much, I can atleast say that I really like it this far. No CTDs or weird bugs for me yet :2thumbsup:

[Cronos Impera]

"De la roman la roman" thanks for your imput Rex.
Well, the Getai voicemod is still underway as we're having troubles with the conventional phoenetics system. The closest to the Getai language would be Greek and even that is far from a perfect choice.
The greatest problem with the Getai languge is the fact that we have to rely solely on bulgaro-romanian research and some generic "Western" studies as no ancient author "except Strabo or Ptolemy" has delved into the Getai language. There are rumours that Ovid might have written some verses in Thracian but so far it hasn't been discovered yet and if it ware discovered it would have certainly vanished like so many other relics from Romanian museums (the Treasury wasn't the only thing to have vanished in recent history).
But it will be done nevertheless with the few (undisputed) words on the existing voicemod.

BTW: Good luck with your Inca Mod.

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

I am currently in the news with the newest theories about the Getae language (i am working in real life on this), and it seems that what happened after they where conquered by the romans was quite different than what "official" history says at the moment.

But even so, i strongly am against using references from Savescu`s stupidities, or from the Sinaia Lead tablets for getae language (altough someone is pushiung me to make a unit lists from the language taken from them...), and so... ~:) And in the Getae descriptions there are two things wich do not have suitable references : the reference with "Sarmis Vasil" (i have seen images with the respective coin having this inscription, but it is likely an austrian XVIII century fake), and the one with Pavel-Ter (taken from a heroic fantasy book about the Dacian Kingdom).

Also, the names are made with the composition "per", wich is not quite accurate. I have seen genuine dacian inscriptions on small idols (book of Silviu Sanie), and the names where not composed with "per". "Per" probably meant "son", supposed cognate with the latin "puer".It appears only in that instance, on that big wessel from Sarmizegetusa.

Pozition of Kogaion seems quite dubios, considering the fact that the story of Zalmoxis took place probably sometime before the VIth century BC, while the earlyest forms of habitation in the Orastie Mountains are dated during the time of Burebista. There are arhecologicall layers in Sarmizegetusa wich could be dated older than Ist century BC. I would suggest moving Kogaion to southern Getae lands, somewhere where the modern Bucegi Mountains are.

Dacian shrines looked differently, there is one made by romanised dacians used as an auxiliary cohort in Brittain (dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus but made in dacian style), and the shrine is simple, made by stone, above a celtic cross, and to the right and left of her, two zvasticas (solar simbol). The large ones from Sarmizegetusa Regia looked like greek temples, except they were made of wood. Howewer, i know that due to RTW engine limitations, they cannot be included.

Regarding what happened after the roman conquest, seems that it was not a language dissaperance,but rather a strong "infestacion" of the daco-getae language with latin elements, up to the point that it became a romanic language. Christianity also vas very important in the romanization process.

The romanian substratum words are more than 160, they could be well around 1000 or so... I recommand the book of Mihai Vinereanu (good linguist) wich classifies most of these newly descovered words. Howewer, he also falls prey to exagerations, so you should be carefull.

Albanian language might be usefull, as it is very likely that it developed out of a thracian or illiryan language.

Using albanian and romanian substrat words, i think reconstructing getae language up to some simple words on the battlefield, would be possible to a large extent.

[Cronos Impera]

My greatest problem so far has been filtering protochronist crap from our "dacologists" and real scientific surveys.
I devised the Getai names with "per <<name dava>>" as it was the safest option for the Getai surnames. When I think of "per" I think of "of".
You'll have Decebalus per Scorillo "Decebalus of Scorillo" because in early Romanian "of" meant "son of" (eg: "Ion a Glanesteanului"- "Ion, fiul lui Glanesteanu"). Similary you'll have "Ladislau al Ungariei" and "of" would change its meaning to a broader sense than a direct lineage. Porus was the word used for son. (Pieporus, Notoporus). The other option involved converting the dava into dama or Greetian ( A blend of Dacian and Greek)

Frankly, I am sick of the current romanian historical academia. Biased latinists and dacologists tear eachother while archological sites lie in ruin.Regarding all inscriptions and lingvistics I think the whole system should be reformed. Just look at the www.dacia.org forum. Whenever a new inscription emerges from the first millenia "dacologists" immediately jump in and declare it dacian as they don't think about other possibilities.
Egiptologists get respect because they go out in the field and analize all finds in a professional academic way. Dacology is still run by amateurs (Savescu and co.) and protochronist poets.I am ashamed to show romanian sources because of the bad reputation Savescu has given to the Romanian historia.

Delve into the Romanian linguistics and you'll soon find yourself in a contaminated Uranium mine. Therefore I distrust linguistics when it comes to the Dacian language. Doing so would mean that
"Dacia" = "Givency" (dac = to give -Polish).
And my theory is that the Albanians are descendants of Ilyria. I can't use the Romanian substratum because it is too heavily contaminated to be used as a source for the mod.

Can you PM me? I would like to discuss some of your sources and compare some ideas.

[RabbitDynamite]

Hi guys! I've lurked on the org forums for a while, but after DLing EB to provide a stop-gap while M2 is patched up, I've found it's propelled my Total War enthusiasm to new heights, and signed up mostly to give the EB team a big, fat thank you.

THANK YOU :2thumbsup: :applause: :applause:

This mod is simply stunning. The presentation and style is very slick and atmospheric, the music, especially the menu music, is excellent and gets you going. There are enough rough edges to the game you can tell it's a mod, like the sheer amount of info crammed into the traits list, but they never detract from the game. The changes to the campaign, particularly the pumped up eleutheroi and financial constraints make for a much for challenging game, which offers far more of Miyamoto's "interesting decisions" and makes the player feel all hard nosed and strategic. The faction list is very impressive also, although I haven't played many yet.

The units are excellently modelled, and the realistic look makes the battles look much better as opposed to the cartoonish feel vanilla's colour co-ordinated units sometimes give.

Above all what's amazing is the sheer amount of work you guys put in. This really is a whole new game, and besides the sheer hours that must go into the skinning, modelling, concepts, programming testing, the sheer amount of historical accuracy is... gah. I do history at A-level (UK higher exams), and it's hard enough to find good info on stuff like World War II. I can only imagine the amount of research that must be needed to form of a coherent picture of the military and cultural practices of some semi-obscure 3c BC tribes. I didn't know there were people who put intense work into researching the pronunciation of the ancient Dacian language, let alone as a significant part of a videogame. Being 18, I consider myself reasonably intelligent (and being 18 I'm probably wrong) but you guys stun me.

Thanks thanks thanks again to the EB team for turning out this fantastic mod, putting in so much work so slobs like me can have a better play experience. :bow:

[Lysander13]

EB sinks it's claws into yet another...:beam:

[edyzmedieval]

The EB Grim Reaper rapes another poor soul... :beam:

[RabbitDynamite]

But they sink so nice...

[Karielle]

I loved every second of my sinking.. :beam:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Appreciate the kind words Rabbit. Hope you keep enjoying it here. :grin: