Suggestions for v0.81

To change, I've got a suggestion that is not about gameplay.

We all agree that a major quality of EB is the educational aspect. I love the buildings' descriptions, and the unique building's one are very interesting to figure the background of a region.

Here is my suggestion : would it be possible to include such descriptions for important cities ? For exemple, some may be surprised to find out that Massalia is a greec city inside a celtic country. Some may love to know more about the city of Pergamon (I know there is a text about it in the Eleutheroi section of EB's site). A brief ingame text about the foundation and history of the city may explain those things and help the player to know what exactly the city he've just sacked is.

The addition of those text would be possible through indestructible buildings, like for some unique buildings. I understand this would be a big job (even if it is only for "important" cities), but I think it would be a great addition.

PS : Blacksnail, why can't I access the MIC Cost/Build times and EB Building Summary sheet linked in your sig ?

That's a great idea Salinoc, but unfortunately we are unable to do so with the RTW engine due to the limits we have with building complexes. However, it may please you to hear that we are looking to do exactly this for EB2.

As for the links, they are inaccessible because they are Backstage. I use them so much and access the Org from so many different computers that I needed a quick link I could pop to from anywhere. When I have some solid time to convert it for public use I'm going to post it to the Mod subforum, but I've been too busy lately to do so.

Salinoc, the year in history traits are also great and educational and I heard that the team are making more of them and perhaps enhancing the way they show up.
Are they still through traits, or did you manage to make another way to show them? Because sometimes I miss them because I don't check the Faction announcement or my faction leader that often or carefully, having a 50+ provinces empire with a lot of family members can have that effect.

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Originally Posted by blacksnail

That's a great idea Salinoc, but unfortunately we are unable to do so with the RTW engine due to the limits we have with building complexes. However, it may please you to hear that we are looking to do exactly this for EB2.

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That's great news ! Thank you for the info.

Actually we are doing this for some settlements by adding traits to the general who conquers those. It has low priority though.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Actually we are doing this for some settlements by adding traits to the general who conquers those. It has low priority though.

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Yeah, try playing as Makedonia (and some other Greeks). Nearly every city you take give a trait that has no bonuses but has a long description of the city and territory you just took.

EDIT: I created a new thread as bovi suggested for the coversation that was \/.

I think pursuing cavalry should always get a speed increase compared to routing cavalry, so that there's a chance that you can actually KILL their general (and normal routing cavalry, of course).

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Originally Posted by I Am Herenow

I think pursuing cavalry should always get a speed increase compared to routing cavalry, so that there's a chance that you can actually KILL their general (and normal routing cavalry, of course).

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Not possible, AFAIK. Anyway, the number of kills inflicted during pursuit is already unrealistically high, and I think that a general ought to be hard to catch.

Hello to everybody !!! Well today i was playing my Makedonian campaing and i noticed in one unit of misthophoroi pezhetairoi that i had them in normal formation (no phalanx) were hiding in tall grass and you know how the grafic skeleton is in this position.. they act as they were covered behind their shield while enemy archers shooting arrows at them..now this is my suggestion if it is possible. While in normal formation piked phallanxes attacked by missile troops the defensive position that the phalanx units take is it possible to be the hiding move? sorry for my english:beam:

I am afraid not. Although it would make sense for troops to crouch when under missile fire with no enemies nearby, but the R:TW engine does not allow you to create extra animations or specify different conditions for existing animations.

You could maybe reanimate the "ready" formation, but that would mean that all your troops kneal down in capitulation whenever the enemy comes near them.

Hmm ok then ...but it would be a great site to see phalanx pikemen kneel and hide behind their shields too bad .. anyway thanks for your time guys..

Is there something similar in M2TW?Do the soldiers rise their shields to protect from arrows?If so it would be great to see!

Hello everybody. I would like to ask if there are some plans for the new model of general for Sauromataes, Sakas and Lusotananns? Now they share this same model (I think that its the model of Briton general from Vanilla RTW) and altough I would like to try the nomads (sauromatae or sakas) I am thinking that if there will be a reskin for their generals I would probably rather wait and play with the new skin when it is done. (and in meantime I could try some other faction/s - So far I have played for Aedui and Baktrians - both were great and wonderfull campaings)

And also I would like to ask if it wouldnt be better for Lustonanns to have an infantry unit for their generals (fammily members) instead of a mount one. In some future build. (if someone could consider this). I think that since those guys liked the ambusehes so much that it would be not abberant to have them this way (from historicall point of view). And also It could give (i think) a more variety to overall gamplay (it would be nice to see another infantry familly member unit next to already existing Sweboz and Koinon Helenon). And from technicall point of view it wouldnt be a difficult taks, since there already are those two simmilar units : one is Lusotannan Elite Medium Cavalry "Ambakaro Epones" (currently serving as a fammily member bodyguards) and the other is Lusotannan Elite Shock Infantry "Ambakaro". They look simmilar and I think that it would be sweet to switch them.

New generals for Sarmatians are done I think. I believe the Saka one is under development. I don't know the status of the Lusitanian one. Parthian one is done I think too. Pontos' new general was previewed the other day of course.

If you're still having problems with overgrown settlements, I recommend reducing the health bonus of the first level sewers/soap makers and healers from 2 to 1, so they won't give a full 1% growth bonus, but a 0.5% bonus. I've been testing this in my campaign and in the year 245 BCE most steppe settlements are large towns. Only Carthage, Alexandria and Seleukeia have grown to huge cities. Rome, Capua and Antiocheia are large cities, and the Roman cities are constantly recruiting troops that they are sending against me, which keeps their population level in check. Looks a lot better to my eyes at least.

I got the idea for this from the "Should we include Imperial legionaries?" thread, and I rather like it, so I'll voice it here too:
Thesis:
Since there are more regional units than unit slots, and many juicy regionals get left out, maybe we should ditch the mercenary concept (which is defective in RTW anyway) and convert all our mercenary units into regionals.

Rationale:
The Mercenary system in RTW is kinda messed up- first of all there were not huge professional armies wandering around, just waiting for hire. Moreover, it unbalances the game since the AI will just spam huge armies of elite mercs along with weakish faction troops. I feel the team must agree with me on some level, because in the case of Carthage, their "mercenary" armies are really foreign levies. Surely this should be the same for other nations too? If Carthage's mercs are really levies, why should anyone else's mercs be...mercs?

Just imagine how many new units we could have if we left behind most mercenaries (which are usually just copies of other factions' core troops) and let regional units symbolize foreign levy and mercenaries!

I agree with you , Imperator...If anyone did got to hate that file (mercs), that would be me ...:dizzy2:

Only problem is..AI cannot manage to recruit enough units to be any challenge to anyone...I was toying with that idea and after i tried it, it just doesn't work.Even Seleuks with 20+ provinces cannot manage to muster more then 3 stacks in whole teritory, and cover their losses in fight with other factions and rebels...

In our new mod that Redmeth and i just finished , AI is getting way more money then in original EBBS file , and yet we had to double(or more then double it) the numbers from my last modified file just to keep AI floating.

I do support your idea , as long there is a way to provide AI with enough units..Oh god , trust me if anyone does , i do..:yes:

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Originally Posted by Imperator

I got the idea for this from the "Should we include Imperial legionaries?" thread, and I rather like it, so I'll voice it here too:
Thesis:
Since there are more regional units than unit slots, and many juicy regionals get left out, maybe we should ditch the mercenary concept (which is defective in RTW anyway) and convert all our mercenary units into regionals.

Rationale:
The Mercenary system in RTW is kinda messed up- first of all there were not huge professional armies wandering around, just waiting for hire. Moreover, it unbalances the game since the AI will just spam huge armies of elite mercs along with weakish faction troops. I feel the team must agree with me on some level, because in the case of Carthage, their "mercenary" armies are really foreign levies. Surely this should be the same for other nations too? If Carthage's mercs are really levies, why should anyone else's mercs be...mercs?

Just imagine how many new units we could have if we left behind most mercenaries (which are usually just copies of other factions' core troops) and let regional units symbolize foreign levy and mercenaries!

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It has some disadvantages:
1) There really aren't that much mercs to begin with, so it won't be effective.
2) Continuing your line of thought the AI will field subsequently less powerful armies - and then we're onto the dreaded all-militia armies again...
... BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY...
3) We haven't reached our unit limit yet. Okay, some may have to be left out since there are internal limits per culture to keep balance between cultures.
4) History has provided quite a few examples of generals hiring mercenaries...
5) Mercenaries serve as a pool to fuel uprisings - though this may result in bugs from time to time... (but only because of maintainance issues with .txt files)

I didn't mean to lose ALL our mercenaries, just maybe half or three-quarters so there are still some mercs around to help the AI, just not enough to allow the AI to summon instant-armies, while also increasing unit diversity.
Sounds like a good deal to me...:juggle2:

By the way- how many free unit slots are there? And for that matter, how many unit slots are taken up by mercs? If there are about 50 unit slots devoted to mercs (I have no idea if that's right or not) then we could take just 25 or 30, and that number goes a lot farther if you add 25 more regional MIC troops!

Hi all! I recently installed EB , although i play the TW series since MTW was released, and i think is the best RTW mod so far...

However, there i have some remarks to make about the names of some Hellenic units and buildings. For example; In game we have the "Agrianikoi Pelekophoroi" or the "Ippeis Thessalikoi" .Instead, it should be "Agrianes Pelekophoroi" and "Ippeis Thessaloi".

Also, there are names of buildings that have letters missing or wrong spelling. I'll try make a list.

There are things called alternate spellings. Different variants of pretty much the same thing. Thessalikoi is an alternate to Thessaloi. Agrianes is an alternate to Agrianikoi. Seems especially common with adjectival forms of town names like we are talking about.

This idea might not necessarily be possible because of the hardcoded limit but Ive been reading up on the carthaginian military recently because im an ancient military history buff and i thought of the idea of Carthaginian reforms

Before 256/255 B.C the Carthaginian main troops (poeni-libyan phalanx) fought and were armed in the style of the Greeks and syracusans (i.e 8-foot spear, hoplon shield etc.). But after the Roman Generals Vulso and Regulus landed near carthage in 256 B.C they realized that their carthaginian militia was not in good fighting shape so they hired a Spartan mercenary named Xanthippus. He reformed the Carthaginian phalanx military to fight in the Macedonian Phalangite style as opposed to the Greek Hoplite style. Yes I know their is the elite african phalanx but the reform wasnt limited to just the Elite troops but also the evryday groundpounder. That being said the Libyans still fought in the style of the theurorpi (bad spelling). But the main troops, phalanx troops, were reforemd as Hannibals carthaginian troops 40 years later still fought in the macedonian style.

Thats just my 2 cents...

How interesting.

I never realised Hannibal's rank-and-file were phalangists - I always thought they were "generic infantry" - i.e. armour, shield, sword.

I'm not involved in making the mod BTW - I only posted because I found out something new for myself :beam:

technically most of Hannibal's army was made of Celts, rebellious Italians and Iberian natives but his carthaginians were outfitted in and fought in the style of a Macedonian phalangite

I will say that the Punic phalangite matter is not without some controversy. :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

I will say that the Punic phalangite matter is not without some controversy. :laugh4:

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How diplomatic.:book:

At the moment I have a "dangerously mad" faction leader in my Romans game. Despite being dangerously mad, and over 90 years old, that does not stop him from being a consul and a blatant adulterer. And his wife is already dead for a couple of years as well.

Perhaps the adultery family of traits should have an age cap, or at least check for the death of the Mrs.?

I don't think the IsMarried conditional is smart enough to detect if the guy is a widow. Might be worth testing though.

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I will say that the punoc phalangite matter is not without some controversy

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Touche. But at least Peter Connolly (in Hannibal and the enemies of Rome) and Fritz Heichelheim (in A history of the Roman People)
coroborate this matter in their respective books.

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Originally Posted by d'Arthez

At the moment I have a "dangerously mad" faction leader in my Romans game. Despite being dangerously mad, and over 90 years old, that does not stop him from being a consul and a blatant adulterer.

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Does he have an ancillary called "The best PR guy ever"?