Suggestions for v0.8

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Originally Posted by Hannibal99

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Slider6977

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

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

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My mistake i never really focus on navy:sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Hannibal99

My mistake i never really focus on navy:sweatdrop:

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Why would you need stronger ships then? :dizzy2:

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

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

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

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

great work !

greetz

Weisthor

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

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Originally Posted by aecp

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

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

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Originally Posted by aecp

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

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

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Originally Posted by Weisthor

and something else .. is there perhaps anything you could compare to rtr´s aor (area of recruitment) so that you can recruit some units only in some regions etc .... i mean, if you play the romans for example, are you able to train some germanic or other units after conquering, too?

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Sure. If you conquer German lands as the Roman (or as almost any faction), you can use German units. However, it does depend on which faction you are playing (Nomad factions have less local units to recruit) and which governement you install. If you try to assimilate the area to your culture (type I or II governement), then you won't have many local units. However, if you leave their culture intact (type III or IV governement), you will be able to recruit local units.

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

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

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

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

Weisthor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H.

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Originally Posted by orwell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by aecp

As far as i know the imitation concerned mostly basic equipment (short swords, big shields), tactics and formations.

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

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I don't think that the mentioned factions tried to emulate the pre-marian roman legions in methods of recruitment, but rather used existing troops with new equipment and tacitcs.

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

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I'm not sure to which extent these imitations were implemented and how succesful they were. Perhaps not significantly enough to merit taking up two or more unit slots.

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ludens

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

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

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Originally Posted by aecp

But wouldn't the numidians be able to equip their soldiers like the romans even if the latter were a citizen levy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by orwell

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

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

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

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Yuezhi are out and have been replaced.

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

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

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Originally Posted by Angadil

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

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

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

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

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

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Originally Posted by tk-421

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

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Well, you've been certainly clearer now and there's merit in your suggestion, though armies travelling through both friendly and enemy land in the same turn may be tricky to deal with. However, lthere's a more basic problem, I think. Like everything that requires subtle, sensible tinkering with movement that can only be done through traits and, as we all know, traits only work on FMs. While players are generally careful to make FMs lead their armies, the AI isn't nearly as good and you often see captain-led AI stacks. Therefore, such a change would mean just another extra way for the player to outwit the AI without even trying.

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

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

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

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

I hope that was clear enough.

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

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

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