Suggestions for v0.8

Just downloaded EB and first off, fantasic job. Blows vanilla out of the water and then beats it to death.
Don't know if if would be possible, but here goes. Whenever I was playing RTW vanilla as the barbarians and establishing empires that stretched from britainnia to greece to north africa, it annoyed me that, even though the barbarians were conquering and subjegating their more technologically advanced neighbors, they didn't learn a darn thing from them. It made them seem stupid, and they were far from it.
I think it would be really cool - and hopefully, maybe realistic - if there was a chance for certain barbarian factions to learn from conquering more advanced factions. Not too much, of course, but little things would be cool -like AS coming into contact with cataphracts and learning to train them.

FOR EXAMPLE, if the Casse happened to take and hold Roman provinces with highways, there could be a chance, over time or whatever, that they learn the basics of these things, and be able to build paved roads in their provinces. Or learn to build stone walls, or a slightly more efficiant government building - just little things, though. No barbarians rampaging across the map with gold armor and heavy artillery and super-advanced economies.
These things could take loads of time, that's fine - paved roads could be a lot more expensive/time consuming for barbarians or whatever. It might be too complicated for you guys to tackle, but it sure would be neat to play.

I mean, once the Casse Empire wipes out the Romans and goes to war with Carthage for twenty years, it is pretty much extremely accurate historical fiction, is it not?

It is complicated to do those things. If they got access to them in our game's time period, then we try to work out something (like the AS cataphract development), but if they didn't, and we just have to presume a casse empire stretching across Europe would have done X or learned Y, then it's much harder for us to rationalize doing it. Why? Because why not give the Parthians access to the best Iberian stuff or the best Carthaginian stuff too by some mechanism, if they conquer them? Why not give the Ptolemies nomadic steppe buildings if they conquer those places too? There's just way too many variables. But like I said, if there's evidence that a culture *did* have (not "well maybe they could have had") something in our time period, then we will work to get it in. Just too much work and too many variables to make more paths and possible options and such.

(celtic factions will get paved roads by the way after their highest level of markets has been built I believe in our next build, but this is because of the arguments of our celtic historians on the presence of paved roads in celtic territories in our time frame - and we aren't talking about roman ones :grin:)

Were the persian royal roads just a basic paved road like any other except well known? Or were they actually improved roads that were somewhat similar to the Romans highway system? I'd like to see the civilized factions eventually learn how to create highways. Possibly through coming in contact with roman culture similar to how the cataphract is learned, or occupation of a italian province for a turn similar to what must be done for Alexanders body? A ludus magna in several cities?

Again... We know the Seleukids did have the cataphracts in our time frame after coming in contact with the Parthians' versions. It is speculation that other cultures would come up with other things. Why not have Casse cataphracts if they meet the parthians? Or Roman Hetairoi? Or Sweboz elephants? We can't spare the unit space for additional unit theorizing and are building complexes are already way more complex (way way way) than any other mod would think about. We can't keep adding possible things that we just have "in case" some of these adaptations would have occurred.

As for the Persian Royal Road, it was not created by any of the factions in the game - it predates them all - and is just a unique building that gives trade bonuses from our point of view. Read the description in the game for more information.

The cataphract thing was just an example of how to acquire it, I don't really care about acquiring new units. I'd like to read the description, but can't get access to the game. I think EB did a fine job with the unit roster, what I was asking about was making highways available for civilized factions. I don't think, as far as my understanding goes, that it would take any more trouble than to add a few lines of code to what the factions can build since your just adding another branch to the existing tech tree, unless it takes up a space reserved for something?

you can't branch the road building or any building that interacts with what you see on the strat map - like the roads or the walls - we can do it with the ports, but there are side effects we don't like too.

Here is an example of the roads requirement line:

roads requires factions { occultus, barbarian, romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, } and not hidden_resource noroads or factions { pontus, armenia, } and building_present_min_level minimumbuilding pastoralism and not building_present_min_level nomadcamp warlordm and not hidden_resource noroads

And paved roads
paved_roads requires factions { romans_brutii, egypt, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, parthia, romans_scipii, } and not hidden_resource nopavedroads or factions { gauls, scythia, } and building_present_min_level market forum and not hidden_resource nopavedroads

I don't think there is any way at all to give another faction paved roads with some other set of requirements, especially one that deals with traits and a scripted set of invisible reform buildings (which they require, and which take up a whole other complex slot).

It might have been said already but ancient cities were rarely able to sustain their size on their own. Without constant emigration from the countryside, and other centres, they would atrophy at a surprisingly high rate.

I like to imagine that the growth bonuses from markets and temples reflect enhanced emigration rather than "magical fertility" effects (which might be what the EB designers intended them to represent).

If city's grow to fast for some people, perhaps the effects of squalor and plague could be increased? This would probably work to keep populations lower - although it would be important to ensure that plagues strike cities that are not already Huge in size.

As an aside: is it possible to have devastation have an effect on population growth (representing disruptions to emigration) as well as to provincial income?

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Originally Posted by Discoskull

JFOR EXAMPLE, if the Casse happened to take and hold Roman provinces with highways, there could be a chance, over time or whatever, that they learn the basics of these things, and be able to build paved roads in their provinces. Or learn to build stone walls, or a slightly more efficiant government building - just little things, though. No barbarians rampaging across the map with gold armor and heavy artillery and super-advanced economies.

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I thought that the Casse could ALREADY get gold-rated armour (from their three smith-god temples), whereas I have not been able to with the Romani. :o

I agree with Teleklos, just because a faction could have had a unit doesn't mean they should. Not only because of limited unit space but simply because there an infinite number of possible units, if we give the Casse cataphracts in case they reach Parthia then we need to give the Parthians a Barbarian infantry in case they ever get invaded by the Casse. Besides that's sorta what the AoR troops were for, to represent a nation using local troops and technology to their advantage.

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How can we nerf growth while still letting all cities have the potenial to become huge? By a late campain, the AI will turn them all into huge cities.

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well, if the team nerfs growth as aggresively as I'd like them to (no growth bonuses except for farms and granaries) then it'll be a struggle just to keep growth rates at .5% or 1% and you'll have cities, yours and AI's actually LOSING population. That way rich or important cities will grow to become large, but 99% won't.

So basically you want to condemn the fate of the Saka-Rauka to something similar to the Yuezhi's? Bankruptancy or lack of any supporters.

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So basically you want to condemn the fate of the Saka-Rauka to something similar to the Yuezhi's? Bankruptancy or lack of any supporters.

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I've got a two answers to that:
1) in EB .7x the Steppe people are pretty much screwed, without my suggestion What makes you so sure the Saka-Rauka will magically be better than the Yeuzi?

2) I admit that if this proposal adopted, certain tweaks will need to be made to EB. But said tweaks would to have needed to be added anyway. The Steppe people already suck, my plan just makes them suck a little more. Is there really an outragous difference between the Sarmatians being destroyed in 260 or 250? Either way the Steppe factions need help.


I've done some thinking about my proposal recently. While I still stand by it, I admit that it would be too hard on the AI barbarians, if what Fonder_yards said about the script is true. I thought the script did to population what it did to the treasury- give it a HUGE boost every time it sank too low in a given settlement. If that's not the case, all we need to do is be a more generous with growth bonuses for the barbarians than the civilized factions. :2thumbsup:

Take a look at the nomad preview. When you conquer a province you have to build the migration building, which gives you a good population boost until you upgrade migration into either pastoralism or nomadism, then the initial boost stops. A minor boost in population also occurs when you first establish caravan route scouting parties and knowledge spreads of your province's interest in caravan trade, but that boost goes away when you will actually then build the caravan itself. That first level is there so that we can give nomads a different type of caravan progression from regular factions (only seleukids and baktria and parthia get caravans anyway actually, and then only in a few select provinces, and only one level I think).

i know shifty157 did some work on steppe town plans, and EB people have mentioned other settlements too...any chance we'll see any other altered settlement plans in .8? I'd really like to see an akropolis in greek cities, and a mix of eastern and greek buildings in the eastern greek settlements, stuff like that.

We've got nothing like that yet. We are still working on the nomad stuff. Shifty has had RL stuff take over much of his time and hasn't been able to do much lately. He has worked on one other thing non-nomadic, but we won't talk about that just yet.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

And paved roads
paved_roads requires factions { romans_brutii, egypt, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, parthia, romans_scipii, } and not hidden_resource nopavedroads or factions { gauls, scythia, } and building_present_min_level market forum and not hidden_resource nopavedroads

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What about pontus, they aren't in there. They should be able to build paved roads *as a mix of both perisa and greece, who could both make them* and they already have the building describition and pics for it.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

......
I think another point to consider is that a city in EB does not represent one city, but a population center. There were no big cities on the steppe, or in northern and eastern Europe. However, those areas could field sizeable armies when required; the population was just spread over the country side. Similarly, a city the Arabian penninsula may well represent several cities spread over the coast. None of them was as big as Rome, but put together they could hold significant population.

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THis is why I think the population growth of cities should be LEFT ALONE and not messed around with.

The Suggestions I have would be with:

A- Limiting the number of settlements that can build Epic and Huge walls. The X settlement can have a really high population, but just not be able to make those types of walls, because that X settlement never had them. (wheather hard-coding issues will allow this I don't know)

B- When building a Type 4 gov't type have the player access to the "medium" troops the conquered faction settlement can provide.
For example: Say as the Aedui you take a over Pella (capital of the Makedon) and you build a Type 4 gov't. As a result you have access to training "Taxeis Phalangitai" and "Hippeis" too. Instead of only being able to train Taxie Hopplie, Peltals, and slingers, and akonstintai (sp).

Somebody's mentioned, somewhere, trying to put in female leaders for the Casse, since they had those and all.

I understand that it's impossible to completely overhaul their government and give them female leaders (which would be kind of stupid anyway), but wives appear as traits for their hubbies, right? Sickly wife, happy wife, etc.
How about if the Celts' (or at least the Britons') wives had the possibility of being far more useful to their husbands? Like helping to manage a province (+1 management), or implimenting their husband's battle tactics (+2 command), or giving her husband more influence if she's family and he's married in as a foreigner (Gaul/Caledonian)?

Example: "warrior wife" or something like that (obviously switched for a much more imaginative or well-researched title). She could give him extra command stars, extra hitpoints, attack, whatever. Or even appear on his chariot with him in battle...? If that's even possible, which it probably isn't.

Just an idea, sorry if I come off as a rambling ignoramous.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

(celtic factions will get paved roads by the way after their highest level of markets has been built I believe in our next build, but this is because of the arguments of our celtic historians on the presence of paved roads in celtic territories in our time frame - and we aren't talking about roman ones :grin:)

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This makes me happy.:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Discoskull

Somebody's mentioned, somewhere, trying to put in female leaders for the Casse, since they had those and all.

I understand that it's impossible to completely overhaul their government and give them female leaders (which would be kind of stupid anyway), but wives appear as traits for their hubbies, right? Sickly wife, happy wife, etc.
How about if the Celts' (or at least the Britons') wives had the possibility of being far more useful to their husbands? Like helping to manage a province (+1 management), or implimenting their husband's battle tactics (+2 command), or giving her husband more influence if she's family and he's married in as a foreigner (Gaul/Caledonian)?

Example: "warrior wife" or something like that (obviously switched for a much more imaginative or well-researched title). She could give him extra command stars, extra hitpoints, attack, whatever. Or even appear on his chariot with him in battle...? If that's even possible, which it probably isn't.

Just an idea, sorry if I come of as a rambling ignoramous.

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This would require a remodel and reskinning of the unit which isn't going to happen, though the wife playing a larger role in traits is plausible.

I'm pretty sure its been mentioned before, but a search didn't turn up anything relevant. Will all landbridges be removed in .8?

I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civillised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land mabye the infuluence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conqured factions and their faction. The same could hapen with the greeks or carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completly new cultire from the mix. Would this be possible?

Like how the romans took on the greek architecture.? Sounds great atm i think barbarians are a bit bad in the campaign although allowing them to take on certain extra buildings by way of scripting (or troops) that can be recruited nationally not just in one province would be nice. Although maybe only make it local factions. (Like how the selecuds can use kataphraktoi). So maybe just basic stuff like perhaps the getai can build hippeis nationally if they conquer pella. Perhaps that is a bad example but paved roads imo shouldnt be cos of market the faction should have to conquer a city of influence (rome, pella, alexandria) etc and then they can build paved roads. Or even better (not sure if this is possible) let characters get retainers called architects or advanced architects that they need to build certain buildings.

An end to large unrealistic AI Uber-armies, like Roman armies 80% Triarii and 15 unit Gallic ones comprising solely of Soldurii, Geastatae and nobs on horses.

Is it possible that this might be overcome by not recruiting and paying for individual units but instead "unit groups" that take two to four turns each for these in time to recruit.

Republican Rome, post the Cammilian military reformations would say, pay for a "Maniple" costing the appropriately calculated highly expensive EB recruitment fee, taking four seasons to recruit and making available 60 Velites, 120 Hastate, 120 Princeps, 60 Triarii and 24 various assorted nobs on horses, once recruited.

If something like this was implemented and linked to each cities population recruitment limit, then the composition of the AI factions military would also recover just that little slower and therefore more realistically after a major military disaster.

That way large civil population based factions like the Romans, Greeks and Successors can eventually recover given a few years.

Other more rural and nomadic population based factions such as the Iberians, Gallic, Germanic and Steppe tribes
with a bad enough military defeat a decade or more of unmolested military recovery would be needed, and if strategically decisive as when the Cimbric sojourn into Gaul ran into Marius, extinction.

Would all add a little more historically based campain balance and give those Heroic Victories the much needed space to actually follow up on and make decissive.

Also If "Magicians" and its ilk get into 0.8 can we have some druids?

You know a unit of real ones with Horn blowers, pipers drummers sitting in a semi-circle with a Bard leading the war chant wilst a couple of Samadhi examine the entrails of a goat . Like at Telemon!

The Didjereedoo like drone of the horns during the Chieftains speach giving way to bodhrans and a kettle drum ripping into a 6/8 , the pipes wail and the end trill finishing on a crack of a thousand spears on shields and a single unanamous chant, deafening to all ears "Raaahhhhh-hoooousssssss!"

Cue "Lifting the Cattle" as your tatan clad chums march of to follow your orders.

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Originally Posted by Matthius Julius

I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civillised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land mabye the infuluence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conqured factions and their faction. The same could hapen with the greeks or carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completly new cultire from the mix. Would this be possible?

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Dido.

While messing around with scripts i noticed that you could have a trigger that is when an AI is planning to attack a city. I think that sometimes in MTW if you had a spy do a certain thing cant remember what that they will tell you if an enemy is planning to attack. Perhaps if a really expert spy is put into the enemys capital they will warn of an attack? Thats just a suggestion for something interesting to do with traits/scripting.

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Originally Posted by Matthius Julius

I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civillised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land mabye the infuluence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conqured factions and their faction. The same could hapen with the greeks or carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completly new cultire from the mix. Would this be possible?

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Aren't some of the type 3's supposed to be something basically along these lines?

What happened most often historically was that, after a land was conquered, the settling populations (usually far smaller than the conquered population, but militarily superior) often pick up a good bit of the local culture. For instance, many of the Galatians in Anatolia adopt Hellenic or Phrygian names and/or cultural practices, even while maintaining a good bit of their own culture (primarily in the military dimension). I'm not sure what that means for how you depict these things in-game, but I do know that most cultures can appropriate pieces of new cultures, and can do so surprisingly easily.

On giving factions access to things when they conquer other areas-

I will post again what I said in post 482 above on this exact matter:

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It is complicated to do those things. If they got access to them in our game's time period, then we try to work out something (like the AS cataphract development), but if they didn't, and we just have to presume a casse empire stretching across Europe would have done X or learned Y, then it's much harder for us to rationalize doing it. Why? Because why not give the Parthians access to the best Iberian stuff or the best Carthaginian stuff too by some mechanism, if they conquer them? Why not give the Ptolemies nomadic steppe buildings if they conquer those places too? There's just way too many variables. But like I said, if there's evidence that a culture *did* have (not "well maybe they could have had") something in our time period, then we will work to get it in. Just too much work and too many variables to make more paths and possible options and such.

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This is not magic. It is a complex code but the the code itself has many many many limitations. We can't have reforms for every faction for conquering other factions and triggering availability for other buildings. This is absolutely crazy and if you ask for it on other mods you'll get the same answer. We try our best to do it very selectively with a few things we know factions got access to during our timeframe, but that's the best we can do. Our building code is already by far the most complex (maybe too complex) of any mod out there for this game. I don't mind answering this issue, but right after I answered it it is annoying to have to answer it again.

Cavalry, infantry flanks and rears, and "Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!".

Cavalry.
Is it part of the hard code that all cavalry charge and fight hand to hand until told otherwise?

Apart from cataphracts, who basically walked the horse every where anyway, and full on H2H/rear charges this is just daft.

Is there someway to programme cavalry formations when charging from the flanks to charge on an angle each take two or three swipes and bugger off as a collective group a bit more quickly to do so again and again? Didn't CA crap on about this in the RTW promo's?

Talk to any living cavalry officer (military or police) and this is pretty much what they do to this day. This is because horses are hopefully intelligent by nature and criminally insane at best and trying to get a horse to charge directly at anything is impossible. They run for the gaps and turnaway, rear or jump if a real collision at pace is on the cards.

Just something to think about.

Flanks and Rears.
EB has done a wonderful job on making matched infantry engagements drag on if no sudden advantage is immanent.

It may be just the Triarii in my present Averni campaign but it does seem anyone with a 24' or longer spear can instantly turn to the rear in formation to face a cavalry charge without being immediately cut to pieces by the 6' naked infantry swordsmen they are already holding off and turning their backs on.

For pikes and thrusting spears formation is everything, so I feel there needs to be some tweaking here.

I've noticed that these pike dudes are always generally "steady"or even "impetuous" when this happens.

Is there some way to make pikes (or any unit) struck by cavalry in the rear emmediately "shaken" to reflect the fact that their fighting formation is pretty much now up the Khyber and they have a very long 16 pound useless stick in there hands?

"Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!".
Speaking of troops being "shaken", and I take this as meaning just having been so scared half of them are reaching for clean toga's, is there some way to programme "Shaken" troops to only skirmish or avoid combat. It just seems it would be a priority to change ones underwear before charging into more certain death if one was to do so at all.

In my present campain I've just knoked off a junior Roman nob and made the senior Roman nob run away and had the majority of the rest of the Pax Romana Appreaciation Society on the hop. But two units of this supposedly innitially superior army were holding out.

Both where almost surrounded by 3 of my units each and they where both "steady".

This brought up the "Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!" facter which seemed to not trouble these guys at all and eventually held out for several more minutes and half my meagre cavalry.

Is there a way to have an army, player or AI, become demoralised by obvious loses say 60% of original units in rout that everyone, exept fanatics, will start to see the benifits of descretion over valour.

Just the end of my wish list.

Some other wish lists raised quite a number of interesting ideas for consideration as well.

If all the various bugs and graphic glitches that seem to be mentioned in the threads are fixed and the game balance keeps improving as it has with previous releases,
0.8 is looking good and hopefully will up the anti once again.

One day I was reading a (very boring book) and then I suddenly got a great idea. Why not remove any aspect of a family member system for the romans (as in family trees, heirs e.c.t.) and just have the senate as your rulers. And as it would have been ahistorical to have Roman generals rule provinces have the senate elect Pro-Consuls for every region. The Pro-Consul would be a stationary individual that could not move from town to town or become a general and lead an army (unless he mabye gained a certain trait). And mabye (if possible) have the senate electing suitiable generals (that can get traits) to lead armys (the senate electing a general per 20 units of men). Also you mabye you could introduce Roman Rebels (like RTR is for version 7.0) to stimulate civil wars such as Sulla vs Marius and disloyal genrals revolting (like in BI) e.c.t. And would it also be possible to have more senate offices open (e.g. two Consuls e.c.t.) I know that this would be at best VERY hard to do, but is it possible to do at all

And about what I said before...

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I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civillised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land mabye the infuluence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conqured factions and their faction. The same could hapen with the greeks or carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completly new cultire from the mix. Would this be possible?

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I think it's a shame about this idea being impossible. I would have though it would have added a new level of realism to the mod (and the game). What the CA neeed to do is ask the community first before they create any new TW games asking what the community want rather than creating something that quite alot of people are resonably dissapointed with.

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Originally Posted by Slartibardfast

Is it possible that this might be overcome by not recruiting and paying for individual units but instead "unit groups" that take two to four turns each for these in time to recruit.

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Part of it has been done in the RES GESTAE mod, the 'recruiting and paying for groups of units' (being a complete army) was achieved through scripting: everytime you gained yourself a new general in your capital you got an army too. But the possibility of recruiting individual units was kept. However this script focussed solely on Roman factions.

So the answer to this is, if the Europa Barbaorum team is prepared to invest lots of time in this idea, yes.

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Originally Posted by Slartibardfast

Cavalry, infantry flanks and rears, and "Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!".

Cavalry.
Is it part of the hard code that all cavalry charge and fight hand to hand until told otherwise?

Apart from cataphracts, who basically walked the horse every where anyway, and full on H2H/rear charges this is just daft.

Is there someway to programme cavalry formations when charging from the flanks to charge on an angle each take two or three swipes and bugger off as a collective group a bit more quickly to do so again and again? Didn't CA crap on about this in the RTW promo's?

Talk to any living cavalry officer (military or police) and this is pretty much what they do to this day. This is because horses are hopefully intelligent by nature and criminally insane at best and trying to get a horse to charge directly at anything is impossible. They run for the gaps and turnaway, rear or jump if a real collision at pace is on the cards.

Just something to think about.

Flanks and Rears.
EB has done a wonderful job on making matched infantry engagements drag on if no sudden advantage is immanent.

It may be just the Triarii in my present Averni campaign but it does seem anyone with a 24' or longer spear can instantly turn to the rear in formation to face a cavalry charge without being immediately cut to pieces by the 6' naked infantry swordsmen they are already holding off and turning their backs on.

For pikes and thrusting spears formation is everything, so I feel there needs to be some tweaking here.

I've noticed that these pike dudes are always generally "steady"or even "impetuous" when this happens.

Is there some way to make pikes (or any unit) struck by cavalry in the rear emmediately "shaken" to reflect the fact that their fighting formation is pretty much now up the Khyber and they have a very long 16 pound useless stick in there hands?

"Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!".
Speaking of troops being "shaken", and I take this as meaning just having been so scared half of them are reaching for clean toga's, is there some way to programme "Shaken" troops to only skirmish or avoid combat. It just seems it would be a priority to change ones underwear before charging into more certain death if one was to do so at all.

In my present campain I've just knoked off a junior Roman nob and made the senior Roman nob run away and had the majority of the rest of the Pax Romana Appreaciation Society on the hop. But two units of this supposedly innitially superior army were holding out.

Both where almost surrounded by 3 of my units each and they where both "steady".

This brought up the "Bugger! Every one else has scarpered!" facter which seemed to not trouble these guys at all and eventually held out for several more minutes and half my meagre cavalry.

Is there a way to have an army, player or AI, become demoralised by obvious loses say 60% of original units in rout that everyone, exept fanatics, will start to see the benifits of descretion over valour.

Just the end of my wish list.

Some other wish lists raised quite a number of interesting ideas for consideration as well.

If all the various bugs and graphic glitches that seem to be mentioned in the threads are fixed and the game balance keeps improving as it has with previous releases,
0.8 is looking good and hopefully will up the anti once again.

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Now i know giving units with small sheilds might be unrealistic to alot of people but this is the way RTW works. (Im allmost certain defence skill is only applied from the front so plz correct me if im wrong)
Defence total (used for melee from the front)
Armour+sheilds(used for ranged attacks from the front)
armour(used for ranged attacks from behind)
So therefore decreasing armour and increasing shield on units (even for units without sheilds) for heavily armoured units would be more realisitic IMO. Cos no matter how much armour your wearing if your vsing 3 ppl then one is gonna grab a knife and find a slot in your armour (or just strangle you). That would meen trarii being attacked from the front have the exact same losses. Trarii being attacked from the front and back would have quite a bit more. and trarii stretched out thinly enough that its only 1 unit per column and are being attacked from the front and behind are gonna die very fast (just as they would) Changing armour to sheild will also make ranged attacks from behind more devastating (but then ofcourse if the units sorrounded anyway thats gonna be painfull for your units) which since there was armour bad enough to stop the weakest of ranged attacks is a bit unrealistic but it weighs itself out to be better in general.