Makedonia EBII impressions

Hello all, some of you may remember me from the old Hamachi days from the first summer tournaments on EBI.
Anyway, as a longtime EB and Makedonia player, I had a shot at this.

One word: GLORIOUS.

Compared to EBI, it's head and shoulders above.
1. Pikes are done excellently. Gone is the robotic style of phalanxes from EB1, everything is much messier which I like, formations can break up despite the pikewall, and turning a formation in combat is still possible but far less effective and can lead to serious casualties if the enemy reacts. Not sure if this is all inadvertant from having to jury-rig a better phalanx system from the M2TW one (which was horrendous), but well done lads.

2. Goodbye annoying Pyhrros on my doorstep on turn 0, hello cheeky manoeuvring to capture Athens and Sparta. Though Athens is now pretty much compulsory for Makedonia to possess because of its Megapoleis building and large population.

3. Cavalry types are all present and accounted for, and work better in every way bar charging (which I understand is something to be fixed).

4. More interesting things to conquer: Pergamon, Ptols closer to Greece, Pontus not ending up dead quickly or hulking out, Getai building scary armies worthy of attention, and even the Romans dicking around the Adriatic. All very good stuff. The Bosphorus boys are bordering me now on the current campaign as well, looking forward to feeding them their own teeth.

5. The villages: Makes it far more easy to wipe out armies rather than have survivors skulk off, as if you catch an army in one, you can fight it to the death. Beautiful stuff. Though I had it turned on me as well. Plus the added bonus of being able to stick elite units in them for free upkeep as reserves for the homeland defence is excellent. Both of which makes the war for supremacy in Greece both more interesting and less frustrating. The villages are well placed in the region as well.

6. Government system and culture: Very good stuff. Wish I could recruit a few Companions in the capital without having to have a fully developed Hellenic colony + government with that, but the light lancers and generals do the job.

The game is very playable so far.

TLDR: Bravo Team EB, bravo.

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Originally Posted by IrishHitman

3. Cavalry types are all present and accounted for, and work better in every way bar charging (which I understand is something to be fixed).

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In the meantime, cavalry have been tweaked in my unofficial hotfix. I'm assuming you haven't made much use of Akontistai/Euzonoi, or Hippakontistai, because they've all been fixed so that they actually work, too.

Thank you IrishHitman, for the comments. I'm glad its been enjoyable. I'm pretty pleased with most of how the phalanx works; some of our guys have done an incredible job, and are still working on it. As for the hetairoi, I get your position, but we had even considered making them exclusively a bodyguard unit. Making them recruitable at such a high level was basically a compromise solution. And it'll be more palatable when we get shielded cavalry added.

man come back to EB Online!

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Originally Posted by QuintusSertorius

In the meantime, cavalry have been tweaked in my unofficial hotfix. I'm assuming you haven't made much use of Akontistai/Euzonoi, or Hippakontistai, because they've all been fixed so that they actually work, too.

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I'll have to look at that, javelin troops seem very underpowered to boot.

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As for the hetairoi, I get your position, but we had even considered making them exclusively a bodyguard unit. Making them recruitable at such a high level was basically a compromise solution. And it'll be more palatable when we get shielded cavalry added.

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Hetairoi are my favourite unit is all, having them on the roster as an independent unit at all is good enough. Besides, it gives me a lot of motivation to claw my way up the government and building trees with haste.

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Originally Posted by IrishHitman

I'll have to look at that, javelin troops seem very underpowered to boot.

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It's not so much underpowered as "won't throw their javelins". Have a look at how much ammunition Euzonoi, Akontistai and Hippakontistai have left at the end of a battle, compared to Thureophoroi or other precursor javelin-users.

Never really paid attention to if they were throwing their weapons or not, was too busy micromanaging phalanx movements and cav charges. It does go a long way to explaining why they weren't killing much though.

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As for the hetairoi, I get your position, but we had even considered making them exclusively a bodyguard unit. Making them recruitable at such a high level was basically a compromise solution. And it'll be more palatable when we get shielded cavalry added.

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I'm glad to have recruitable hetairoi, so I can have an elite cav on each flank without putting 2 generals. Obviously, if a player puts 5 hetairoi by army it's too much easy, but having 1 unit is pretty reasonable.
About others cavalry, are you talking about lonchophoroi ? Thessalikoi ? Prodromoi ? (In these, AFAIR, only lonchophori is shielded though)
I can't wait !

The recruitment rate for hetairoi is so low that you're not going to be able to field 5 in one army unless you contrive to have none in other armies, unless we're talking family members.

It depend of the country and the time in the campaign. Seleukeia starts with 2 basilike patris fro example., and on latter stages it becomes easier to build them

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Originally Posted by bisthebis

It depend of the country and the time in the campaign. Seleukeia starts with 2 basilike patris fro example., and on latter stages it becomes easier to build them

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Seleukid players have to deal with multiple fronts that are geographically dispersed, so they need the extra capability for heavy cav production anyway.

Indeed.
Though in my last seleukid game, eastern front didn't move much :(