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Hello EB2 fans,
hopefully your download and installation proceeded without too much trouble. Now we are eager to hear about your first impressions from playing the game for the first time. Your feedback is important for us to fine-tune various gameplay mechanics in order to provide even better experience in our next official release. So have fun and share your thoughts! :bow:
Alright, been playing for 2 hours, though the vast majority of it was spent reading unit/building descriptions. First of all, I had no problems installing and I love everything. It's perfect.
The loading times are really fast, faster than I expected. I don't have an SSD but they're really fast compared to EB1.
I love how every province has a region description detailing the geography and history and any wonders there. I spent about an hour reading these alone!
In vanilla M2TW there was a feature in battle where you could "ping" all friendly and enemy troops, highlighting them. It's gone in EBII (unless I just can't see it) and I'd really like it back if possible. With each unit having so many different types of soldier (this is great) it can get really difficult sometimes to see who is who.
Bug - in battle, when sending a second unit up a ladder after the first unit has gone on the wall, the second unit stands on the parapets of the wall but does not move down on to the wall to fight. They get stuck as far as I can tell.
Just got done installing it. Got it running im installing your grahp mod. Game starts at first with small screen went to options changed it to my resolution. Restarted game after applying changes game starts full screen now. I have 2 crossfire 7850 amd and this may be exclusive to dual graph set up but nothing thats hard to fix.
second update. Game crashes for me at custom battle. odd. But oh well.
Everything is up and running. Im playing along in my campaign as Saka Rauka. Im hoping for indo greek units. But i doubt they are in.
Game is running great no slow time speed or nothing and im not even on SSD. Thank you very much EB 2 team i am really enjoying it. You guys are great at this modding.
4th Update. As of playing a battle and using campaign map. I have to say the blur from the EB 2 grahpics submod is too much for me to handle.
nope... here is what I gotAttachment 14151
Kingdoms disk in DVD drive. Correct Kingdoms install path... I guess
I didn't install to kingdoms path, just the M2TW path (the one already in the box in the installer). Also you don't need the Kingdoms disk in the drive, just the normal M2TW disk.
Try this.Quote:
Originally Posted by kdrakak
Runing it for about 10 mins... this mode... everything Rome 2 should have been.
Tried Tutorial campaing, it crashed. :)
Grand works perfectly.
That seems actually wrong damian. You DO need the Kingdoms CD. Bovi Thanx for the fix. That worked. Had grant write permissions to the EBII folder to extract there. But it worked. I think I'll enjoy my drink now, seed, catch up on a sitcom or other series. I can play EBII... the world is now right (more or less) and I need to change me signature. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by I_damian
Yeah I just realized I have the M2TW GOLD edition, so one CD which is both M2 and Kingdoms. Glad you got it working!Quote:
Originally Posted by kdrakak
and now for the general impression: I think I am in love again but dont tell my wife plz. Played the custom battle. Completely out of my element in MTWII battles after so many years on EBI. Played as the Kelts (yes Brennus... the Kelts) and won but I really had very little control of what was going on. I need to readjust my tactical awareness skills. Having a buzz going didn't help... or did it?
All hail the EBII team!!! in deed damian.
This game is trully beautiful
BIG thanx from all of us... really.
Hilarious - completely forgot that we left the Tutorial campaigns in there. It was an idea whose time never came - Not sure if they ever worked! Thanks for spotting that, will make a note to remove theseQuote:
Originally Posted by Tonno
Hey guys, first of all thank you for all your efforts over the years. The mod is great. It installs and runs fine, however, for some wierd reason it runs in a small window, not full screen. I tried changing video settings but it doesnt help. I have installed the graphics sub mod so maybe thats the problem though i dont know how to uninstall it. Any help would be appricieted. Thanks again.
Wow im at a loss for words guys (for once lol). Install went smooth as silk. Played a few custom battles with my sweboz against boii and others and was like wow this is what i really was waiting for when i bought rome2. Now Im only a few minutes into the grand campaign but its just so rich and polished...i like the intro movie at the beginning of each campaign. Great job guys. I had 1 ctd so far but it may be related to clicking too many faction icons like someone else already said. You boys did good :2thumbsup: Thank You All again. Now to disappear for a few days into my mancave.
Its just beautiful.
Smooth install.
The real EB feel.
Working so far as I can see.
Thank you EB team for yet another brilliant mod!
(steam user)
ugh, download speeds are slow and i don't torrent, guess i'll have to wait till tomm to see it, oh well, can't wait
I love it! Installation went smooth. The campaign map looks gorgeous. I do have some issues though:
- Ephesus uses Latin spelling in a sea of Greek spelled cities.
- I am not sure if it is working as intended, but running Phalangites are very slow and the running animation for them looks a bit odd in my opinion.
We made some mirrors:Quote:
Originally Posted by easytarget
http://www.moddb.com/downloads/europ...-first-release
http://www.gamefront.com/files/files/24436562/EB2.zip
Enjoy!
Tux. I believe you may want to let the Users know that by turning off their google chrome or web browser and just let the game download the speed increases drastically. I was going a steady 50 kbps untill i turned off steam and google chrome and was getting 500 kbps.
It's amazing, so nice to have this game back. I haven't noticed any bugs yet, it's far more stable than EB1's beta...
I think it's just great. I play the Pritanoi and had no crashes or the like.
First impression is that this is more amazing than I imagined. So much text to read brings out the uniqueness every region and makes me feel for the people living there.
I have played for about an hour and the only thing to suggest so far is tweaking the temple bonuses to make them more diverse and specialized.
This happens, but requires the higher level of temple buildings.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Due to missing this last night I only managed to play twenty mins before work so did a quick turn as pergamon as it is new and small.
Loved that you could recruit some elite units from the start and also the music was marvellous. Not sure what to do with those minor settlements though, are they just forts?
Played one battle against rebels and that seemed good but I play on a laptop so the controls were not right and I need to sort that out next time which may not be for a day or two. At a distance the units all looked brilliant.
Install was the easiest I've seen on a mod and I am playing on Steam. The intro video was brilliant as well.
All in all it is a fantastic game I'll drop more hours into then I can remember.
Also I started reading more history when I start playing EB1 (a lot more) and not sure I can increase the ammount again unless the descriptions in EB2 are included. If not please suggest a good book about the successor kingdoms which is affordable!
Thanks again it's brilliant!
I spent 2 hours mostly reading province and building descriptions. Brilliant stuff.
Because the loading times are... not the best, particularly when starting the game, I believe most people will want to have it windowed so that they can do other stuff while it's loading.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Outsider
I think you should be able to get it fullscreen by editing M2TW/mods/EBII/EBII.cfg, and setting windowed = 0 instead of windowed = 1. But we've got an issue with the game overwriting the changes you do, so it may not work. Hopefully we can get rid of that problem soon.
I just fought a battle on the campaign map as Ptolemaioi against an equal force of Nabataens (Med./Med. difficulty). I'm very happy that most of the time I didn't know whether I'd be winning, though I started out on a low hill and shamelessly took advantage of the higher ground. But even then, it was a hard fight! Some units of mine were routed, and equally some of the enemy's. Battles seem much more exciting now! What an advancement!
Regarding the game's look, all the buidlings, the government system and appointing philoi and all that, you have surely done well. I like it very much so far!
Now... give me Kataphraktoi and Argyraspides!
I crashed to desktop while clicking through all factions in the campaign menu, and the game froze/didn't react anymore (but surprisingly wasn't listed as "not responding" in the task manager) after much clicking of mine through settlement menus. This was a Seleucid campaign. The icons were replaced with some other picture files (perhaps a unit or menu background/icon? I saw grass and spears where the "settlement details" and other buttons were supposed to be) just before. I try to make a screen when it happens again, reminded me of the blank unit cards of RTW which here were filled out with something.
I've had the same freeze, except mine was when I was clicking on factions in the screen where you select which faction to play as. I clicked on them really quick to look at their position on the map (was trying to find Pergamon) and it froze. Perhaps it's due to clicking on too many things, too many times, too fast?
Siege battles take a looooooooooooooong time. I just took Rhegion as Roma. They have 4 units of Samnite Hastati, a Leves and a Toxotai. I had a full legion... took me like an hour to take the city. That was even with attacking the town center from 4 directions and speeding the game up to 6x speed.
It looks great, it feels great, it plays great.
Encoutered some bugs but nothing mayor.
Couple of questions:
- Is their a way to remove the HUD with 1 key? It was possible in EB
- Can you remove the banners that float above the soldiers?
- How do you remove the cutscenes (like gate breached and stuff)?
Played further as the Seleukids - couldn't resist. And I now see how you made it difficult for them, I think... relations get worse and worse... and I refused to give up settlements... let's see who is the mightiest king! I first invested in shrines to keep up order at reasonable levels. Then I got into debt. Into debt! I cannot remember when this had happened last. I wasn't prepared for it happening and only realised the red number a few turns later. One really has to take decisions on what to build and where. I did not disband many units as I thought I'd rather use them, but I guess one could have an easier start if one does - at a reasonable scale - and then invest the thus gained surplus into economy. Anyway, I'm building a Didaskaleion in Antiocheia now in the hope of gaining better traits and more profit by that for my philoi and other generals and family members.
Further remarks:
1. Eastern skirmishers seem quite expensive in relation to other units, how comes that? I can imagine they are more useful now, but is their upkeep intended to be as high as it is now?
2. I'm rather confused by the public order value. It seems far less affected by garrisons than in RTW, I knew that from plain MTW2. But I still don't know what affects it most. Is public unrest caused mainly by the different culture value? Because I placed spies in some towns who frequently rebel, but it seems not to have any impact.
3. Forgot the most important thing: it's great fun to play, thank you all very much, and I didn't have another crash! It was well worth waiting for wonderful EB2.
I just put in about an hour or so with the Bosporan Kingdom. Looks nice. Coming from EB1, it was easy to sort things out. Fought a few minor battles, built a few structures, nothing major.
I do have a criticism of the UI: it's all but impossible to read your treasury balance on the main screen if it's negative(i.e. red text) because it's on a reddish-brown background(at least with whatever UI the Bosporan Kingdom uses). I either need to strain my eyes to read it, or crack open the treasury page. The yellow text for a positive balance shows up just fine though.
Other than that, it seems pretty great.
You're joking aren't you? It's one of the fastest loading games I've played. My specs are quad core i5 processor (3.4 GHz), 8gb RAM and 4gb GTX 770, just a basic 1TB hard drive and no SSD. Or in other words... a fairly standard gaming PC by today's standards for under £900.Quote:
Originally Posted by bovi
The first thing about EB2 that delighted me was how fast it loaded. It was pretty much instant, both loading the game for the first time and loading after picking a faction. It loads way faster than Crusader Kings 2, way faster than Europa Universalis IV... in fact I've recently installed and been playing Galactic Civilizations 2 (not 3, not the new one, the old one...) and it loads about as fast as that does.
Screen lock removes the HUD. The other two should be fixable through the EBII config file in the EBII folder, but it appears the game overwrites it, so I'm not sure it's changeable at the minute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skoran
Just ran a test campaign with Takshashila. Now that I know what to expect I can prepare myself for Indian domination! Great script with the Mauryan tribute! I don't know how it ends yet but it feels role-playing-y!
A beautiful game guys... congrats!
My first impressions so far:
https://i.imgur.com/lzwtMYr.gif
Amazingly smooth install (even with the steam version).
Loadingtimes are fast as hell
My god, I love it!
Install was a doddle, loading time is remarkable. The map is absolutely beautiful, the battles are a challenge and even as Rome it's a struggle to hold my nascent Italian empire together - I also like the fact that realistically (with the battle being as they are) I pretty much have to use only generals with Imperium. Absolutely engrossing...can't praise you enough for what you have produced.
Absolutelly Loving it so far!!!!!!!!!!!! :2thumbsup::2thumbsup::2thumbsup::2thumbsup::2thumbsup::2thumbsup:
Only troubles I've run into so far:
Skirmishers just hanging around and not throwing their javelins when they should.
Kinsmen cavalry miss texture parts (you can see throught them) if we lower texture quality.
Besides that have been lots of fun, thank you so much! :bow:
I had some trouble with the install but that was due to another launcher mod I had and some of my own stupidity but after that the load times were fantastic, the game ran smoothly while some other ambitious mods have some issues, I haven't had a single crash, the textures are amazing and I have only played as the Koinon Hellenon thus far and beyond the unfinished parts which were to be expected this is perfect and even better than I thought it would be
Very glad to hear that! The Mauryan tribute script was built in for the very purpose of giving some extra imersion, and giving the player a feeling that the world does not end only because the map does.Quote:
Originally Posted by kdrakak
Just a question, did you try not to pay the tribute, or are you remaining loyal?
After playing about 4 hours into my Boii campaign I feel it's time for a first statement here.
So far I am really hugely impressed! The immersion is great! You really feel like a tribe in the slightly remote central European forrests and you know all around you, there are potential foes and you try to find out what they do. I went south taking the provinces north of the alps and am now eagerly watching the Romani and Aruernoi trying to subdue Northern italy and constantly wondering "should I raise more troops, just in case...but then the econmy will suffer...hmm...". At the same time there are fierce wars going on in the south-east (Greece) and I'm looking forward to whoever wins and might eventually come north. And in the east and North are even more potentiall foes slowly expanding in my direction(and one ally so far, the Lugiones). In the west all is quiet thanks to an alliance with the Aedui.
The recruting is really fine, a huge amount of diversity is available! Battles are really nice. They tend to be slower than EB I but that doesn't really bother me. I always had a bit more trouble to keep the ovwerview in a battle in Vanilla M2:TW than in RTW, this is the same with your mod, but maybe it's just me who is not capable. :clown: and not having everything under control adds actually a bit to the realism.
Concerning the battlefields I was especiallly impressed when storming a rebel nomad camp which proved to be a really beautiful hillfort! :yes:
I had hoped for a bit more ethnicity traits, at the moment all my fm/generals are simply Boii, but I think this might change when I expand further outside of their "core" territories. Also one more thing, do you plan to implement the "client ruler" thing in further releases? It always added to the feeling to have a "foreign" general with his local bodyguard in EB I.
All in all, I really love it and I really have to restrict myself so I spend enough time learnig for university exams instead of playing EB. Thank you so much once again EB Team!:2thumbsup:
this is great. can i ask something. for greeks can you build laarchia in every non greek culture? 1 as epeiros i conqeured a roman town north of taras and it wasnt availiable on building browzers
. 2second in native colonial building it say among others it needs 40% eastern culture
Not normally someone to participate in the forums, but having seen the quality of this beta, recognition of how well polished it is even at this stage is needed. Well done!
So far have gone through 150 turns with an Areuakoi campaign, with only 1 CTD. Far far far less than EB1. So I figured I'd pass on the feedback from it.
No real bugs experienced that haven't already been identified (skirmishers, roman settlements, agent unit cards..)with the AI showing a better grasp then I expected. It still doesn't understand the fort system properly though. Some cavalry corpses had black squaring sprites viewed only from a distance (not sure if experienced by modders or others), not something experienced on my Asus laptop with any other game/mod which can play R2 even if it only was for 50 minutes before it got canned.
The Lusotannan stacks had me glued to the screen each turn praying that nothing came towards the Pyrenees. Once or twice though it did lift sieges where it should have pushed and taken them as they had the forces and on VH/VH I expected no mercy, and after about 50 turns had turned an 6 to 7 stack v 1 to 2 stack disadvantage to an all brown 'Roman eagle standard' ;) Spain just as the Arverni and Rome (who also assassinated my leading general) declared war on me in the north.
The only faction destroyed not by my hand is the Arverni, which was a Gallic power broker at 100 turns and then demolished from all sides.
The economy even though at times a little limited in building selections and variety, something I am sure will develop further in the future, has played exceptionally well, ebbing and flowing and causing all sorts of headaches as is expected.
Battles are great, loving how the cavalry works, much more realistic then the bulldozers of vanilla. Loving the break and reforming moral. Loving the slow speed and melee, much more of the Last Kingdom mod feel to the battle which is brilliant at showing IMO a better representation of the engine.
In terms of going forward I would personally love to see more of the detail that came from EB in the role playing scripts (something I hope to see come in later), from the cannot declare war on X rebel settlement without X declaring war, mission scripting (if it can be at all separated from the generic med2 files), and more of the traits and ancillaries. I only got notifications of starving, never the belts tightened etc from EB that I loved, showing the progression. Also would love to see some of the economic scripts incorporated from other mods etc and altered to flesh that dynamic more, but that's being uber critical of what I am already ecstatic about.
Some of the siege path finding still needs a focus as units (although playing on huge) cannot be controlled with any flexibility. And yeah fully aware of time and numbers etc plus using DBM models etc so not being negative but such aspects will only further enhance this aspect and immersion.
Also is the Celt-Iberian skirmish cav supposed to use the but of the spear attacking hand to hand in its animation? I almost posted it as a bug but then though actually its a quite practical alternate swing of a spear so I thought I'd just ask. Have a screenshot if need be.
Lastly out of curiosity are people involved fans of or using files from Legion Gold, or 0 AD? I ask as some of the building models and voice files seem to be the same, to which I love as both are quality attempts at attempting to provide historical RTS.
Again so far blown away by the quality of this product. To think R2 could have potentially have been this with nice shinny graphics by just involving the community. Well done to all involved! You have exceeded all expectations!
Started a thread on that before I saw your post. Maybe I missed it but I never saw how to reject. I just got a "receipt"!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithridates VI Eupator
Thanks everyone for the feedback! That's what we need to make Eb2 better.
Played a bit more where I can mainly just doing the first couple of turns for some factions to get an idea of what is going on.
Love the pace of the campaign and the battles. I do like the way it takes a while to pacify a new region.
Mainly been doing seige battles but that is standard for TW games.
Not sure what to make of missiles as they do very llittle damage but if that is the way it was I will adapt. Happy with the cavalry though.
The only thing I would like to complain about is the campaign map looks a bit flat to me and it is a shame that some areas of cities look open but they are not.
Also when you nominate a new heir apparent the music is the same as an old Civilization game I used to play which is no bad thing. Is that on purpose. And I hope Frankie Howard gets in this build like in EB1 as the comedian.
Really happy with it all especially the pace of battles.
Thanks again as it is what I hoped for.
Played about 20 hours now so far, mostly the first 10-50 turns as various different factions so no in-depth campaigns yet.
Much as I love the slow pace of battles, I think it's way too harsh in sieges. I assaulted a city that had just one unit of Hoplitai (Greek classical Hoplites) as its garrison. It sat in the town square. I attacked it from in front and behind with two units of Principes. Both unleashed their javelins first and both charged and completely surrounded the Hoplites. This battle took more than 10 minutes to end and that was with battle speed on 6.0x. Siege assaults are quite painful to play through due to the time battles take. I don't even bother to assault cities anymore, I just besiege them until they give up or sally out to attack me.
Also I think the happiness of conquered cities is too harsh as well. In a Rome game I conquered Tarentum on turn 4. I had my faction leader and 19 units garrisoned there, allied government + allied democracy governments built, level 3 temple (15% happiness) and I still had to have low taxes and an enormous garrison like 20-years later. I'm scared to even imagine what this will be like toward the middle of the game when every city has max population.
Bug - if you're besieging a city and the enemy attacks you with an army and the garrison of the city joins in, if you win this battle the game crashes.
Bug - Persepolis (the wonder) isn't in Persepolis, it's in Halicarnassus. (Or the city next to it, one of those two in the very south-western tip of Anatolia that are under Ptolemaioi control at game start).
many things to note: will be fixing them. :yes:
So I am now about 120 turns into my campaign as Rome. There are a couple things I wanted to mention.
Campaign AI does seems a bit passive (only dl the new CAI just now), I was never attacked at all until my last 5 turns, but that may be because I made sure to place lots of troops in my border settlements and "minor settlements" so the AI was probably hesitant to attack.
Problem I see with making the CAI more aggressive is that by the time I am ready to expand beyond my next door cities in any campaign I am afraid it will all be taken up by other factions. Not once have I been able to attack Syracuse when it was rebels, Carthage takes over all of Sicily within 40 turns every campaign and leaves me having to immediately start the Punic Wars when I am still struggling to maintain control over southern italy filled with greek citizens.
I know that the command stars might be bugged, and I dont know if it has been affecting the AI generals as well. But I would say that if you are going to make the CAI more aggressive, (which it should be just a tad more) try to make certain rebel cities that have a history of independence have generals with lots of command stars.
I would say to not change in any way the current happiness of recently conquered cities, because otherwise the campaign would be too easy (in terms of choices) and would be over very quickly. See, I feel like there is a point in having the campaign be 1000+ turns, if campaigns are only going to take 100-400 turns then just cut the time period down anyway because otherwise its a waste of resources. That was actually my biggest complaint in EB1 actually was that there wasn't enough penalties for conquering other cultures, so I could have taken the known world as Rome before Caesar was even born. The choice between military occupation/assimilation and allied state depends on CAI to a large extent, too aggressive or too passive makes the decision a non-choice.
Ideally I would want to see a campaign AI that attempts to take over cities more frequently but is constantly losing and regaining control over border cities as people of different cultures rebel and slowly acclimate to spheres of influence over long periods of time. Otherwise, I would say design wise, its wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. The factions you have chosen seem to balance each other out wonderfully. It's funny because I actually like sending my expensive spies out into germania just to keep an eye on the three way battle between the Boii and Sweboz and Adeui. They all like to go for cities just north of the Alps.
It seems you and us have the same goals.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Thanks for trying out the mod and giving some constructive criticism. I hope you post again after trying out he new CAI, mate!
:bow:
Everything looks amazing, you've done a great work. But I have a couple complaints:
-Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating.
-Elefants. They are as expensive as a whole army but they don't make much damage. Pretty underpowered.
-Pikemen. They are incredibly overpowered. You cant killed em with cavalry (of course), nor with infantry nor attacking with projectiles.
I suppose all these are minor changes than can be overhauled with submods. Cheers! :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeboix
Yes, I subscribe to this oppinion. Also, I must say I'm a bit unhappy that the Getai doesn't have some of their important settlements, such as Argedava or Porolissum (which later become important roman garrison), Piroboridava... And another thing I must say is that I been a bit sad and dissapointed that Pahlavan didnt have the iranian voices... Hope you'll once again use iranian voice sounds for them like in the first EB.
Anyway, its just a 2.0 release, I am optimistic because I see you guys really are serious because you didnt let this awesome mod to slowly die and perhaps you lost time from your life giving us the most waited mod.
Try to tweak the values at the top of mods/EBII/data/battle_config.xml, they are global lethality ratios.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeboix
1.Well that's probably a matter of preference I like them,but yes cavalry could be a bit stronger when charing the rear of an engeaded unit.But I have to disagree you can rout units qute quicky when charging them ,even "pikemen".Two or three times should do the job unless they have a really good general.Quote:
-Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating.
-Elefants. They are as expensive as a whole army but they don't make much damage. Pretty underpowered.
-Pikemen. They are incredibly overpowered. You cant killed em with cavalry (of course), nor with infantry nor attacking with projectiles.
2.Never tried them.
3.Are you attaking them on the front..?Because that's not very smart ,pin them down, press them of the flanks with mobile units and then charge your cavarly.
[QUOTE=mikeboix;2053613111]
-Battles are too long. Troops have lots of points of defence and a few of attack. Cavalry charges, even charging from behind and using the best horsemen units, don't make much damage. A bit frustrating./QUOTE]
Try this: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...9&goto=newpost
I finally had some time to play EB 2.0 and would like to give you a (not so) brief feedback about my experiences and share my opinion about that first release of EB 2.0.
Two warnings I have to give though.
First: Caution, wall of text incoming. I simply don't think that a two-line post would do justice to this game. Not after the team spending almost 8 years on developing it. ~:)
Second: I am biased. I have never waited for a game for such a long time, neither did I ever feel such an overwhelming joy about a release. So while I am not blind to the things that aren't perfect or aren't working well (yet), you'll probably notice a tendency to be forgiving.
Anyway. I decided to split my "review" in several parts, just to make it easier for you (to read) as well as for me (to not forget important things I want to mention).
Technical part (download, installation, stability, performance)
Nothing much to say here - other than this: The download worked absolutely perfect. It could have been a bit faster, admittedly, but I won't complain about that, especially not since I don't use torrents (by principle). And since I slept & then was at work while the download was done, I didn't waste any time anyway.
The installation worked like a charm, too.
So: Perfect delivery, as far as I am concerned.
I encountered exactly two crashes so far - and both of which are not due to the mod as far as I'm aware. I had some buttons/images suddenly showing parts of unrelated graphics (like a part of a building description replacing a unit card or a part of a unit card replacing a button image). This is something I have encountered in various M2TW mods before (worst in Das Heilige Römische Reich), so I am used to the workaround: quicksave as soon as it happens (it only ever happens on the campaign map during the players turn anyway, so you don't lose any progress), logout (during the logout M2TW crashes), start the game again, load Quicksave. No trouble. ~:)
Other than that the game has been perfectly stable for me. And since the common after-battle-crashes of EB I were in my book the biggest annoyance of that mod, I'm very much pleased this time. ~:)
Next thing I need to mention is the performance. And once again I am absolutely stunned. There had been several topics in the various forums about the requirements for EB 2.0 and they left me with increasing worry. I have a really old machine with only 2 GB RAM and a graphics card with even less memory. So imagine my surprise when I realized that EB 2.0 actually loads about as fast as it's predecessor on this computer.
Even better - I play the mod with all details on max and huge units, and I rarely have any lag, not even during large battles. The only thing I am not able to use is Tux' Graphic Enhancement Mod, this one has a severe negative impact on the performance, unfortunately.
Main menu and strat map graphics
After the loading process I was at first much surprised, almost shocked about the rather minimalistic main menu graphics. But after several more game starts I consider this very much fitting, to be honest. Infact I have come to love the main menu in the meantime.
The map is . . . . how to put it? Perhaps this way:
Gods! I thought I had been prepared for an awesome campaign map by the dozens of screenshots you guys posted during the last months, but it is a real difference to just see that map on your own screen.
I started a Sabaean campain, so South Arabia was the first thing I saw. After a few moments I couldn't resist any longer and used toggle_fow. And then I spend almost half an hour (!), just scrolling over the map and grinning like an idiot. Until that moment Paeninsula Italica II had (in my opinion) the most beautiful campaign map of all TW mods. Now they are second to yours. The EB 2.0 map is not perfect, if you ask me (since I miss the wonderfully high mountains - the Caucasus, for example, almost looks like a hilly rather than mountaineous area), but it's close. And not only the map itself, the strat map models, too. Simply love it and can't think of many ways to improve it:
(1) Would love to see the higher mountains from EB 1 back
(2) Would love to see more Minor Settlements - since they aren't provoking siege battles anymore, I can't see any disadvantages to that.
Other than that I can't think of much at the moment, there are so many little details to see, so many nice touches that make a campaign more immersive. Be it the ressource models, the diplomat/spy/assassin characters that are so wonderfully unique, the General/Captain models, the buildings (settlements, mines, ports, watchtowers). I could go on an on, praising so many things here.
As I have said many times before: One of the first games I ever played was Civilization I and I am still very much obsessed with nation building and therefore campaign maps. And EB 2.0 has - to me - set a new standard in this regard.
The Unit Cards needed a bit of accustomization though, admittedly. I am still used to EB I and it's "polished"/"clean" unit cards and the new ones have (of course) a completely different style. There are some that I instantly loved (East Coast Levies, the Sabean Noble Infantry or Ethiopian Spearmen, for example), others are "just" nice.
The building icons on the other hand are simply exactly what I hoped for. I always loved the building icons from The Last Kingdom, and yours are on the same quality level. Simply wonderful.
Battlemap graphics
Haven't seen many different battle maps yet (fought 3 siege battles in South Arabia when the enemy sallied forth, one siege battle where I attacked and 3 battles in the Sands of Arabia so far), what I saw made my battles last even longer though, since I had to pause the game ever so often to just look at the beautiful units and the equally beautiful surroundings. I'm very much looking forward to see other battlegrounds (won't start custom battles though, I just never play custom battles because they seem - due to the lack of a surrounding campaign - pretty pointless to me).
Gameplay mechanics
I know, there are more features missing than implemented at the moment, but what I saw so far made me grin once more. Although I have to admit that I was like "wtf?!" when the culture of my little kingdom suddenly changed. (well, suddenly for me who had completely neglected a certain hint in a certain government building description :rolleyes: )
There are a lot of things I don't understand at all yet, but it was the same with EB I years back and I don't worry too much about that. Learning by doing - the next Saba campaign will be a bit less chaotic. :laugh4:
I'm very much looking forward to additions to the strategic part of the game. Oh, and hopefully more buildings, too. I am about 150 turns into that campaign and Maryab already grew to huge and has not that many buildings left to construct.
More buildings - and less units per turn, too, if you ask me. I started a Pergamon campaign recently (without any battles so far, just sitting in Pergamon and building up :laugh4: ). And this one town has a recruitment pool of 8 (!) phalanxes (which also need only one turn to be replenished). I'm talking a bit further about this below (in the "Issues, questions and things I just don't understand" section).
Battle mechanics
Frightening. That's perhaps the best description of my first impressions. I tried to do what I usually (in EB I) do in a new Saba campaign - siege and the next turn attack a nearby settlement to get rid of the negative income. So I recruited the Ethiopian Spearmen, combined all my units into the very first "Royal Sabaean Army" and laid siege on Timna, building three rams.
Next turn I attacked from three different gates. And got completely slaughtered. Not even my generals were able to fight their way through one of the densely packed spearmen formations (several units each) the defenders used to block every entrance to the town plaza. The archers behind their lines decimated my troops (not that they killed my men quickly, but they had devastating effect on the morale of my soldiers). And in the end the Sabaean King, his heir and their once proud army ran away from Timna, having lost about 60% of their troops.
Since that experience I haven't attacked another town, I now just wait until they sally. That way I still suffer heavy losses, but I at least win the battle. :laugh4:
To tell a long story short - I haven't got a grip on EB 2.0 regarding to the battles. My usual tactics don't work anymore and I lack the cavalry to try something completely different.
Issues, questions and things I just don't understand
Of course EB 2.0 isn't perfect yet. You know it, you told us so way before release and it would have been utterly stupid to not believe you on this (after all it was not only Moros who said so. We all know that Moros likes a good deceive ~;p ). And before I start the ranting I just want to make clear once more that I very, very much enjoy the game in his current state.
That said - here's the (not complete) list of things I wonder or mutter about at the moment:
(1) There are - for my taste - way too many stacks around. Nabataea for example has 2 cities (Rekem, Bostra), but 4 full stacks and a half stack in each city. Pergamon has 2 full stacks with Pergamon alone, Makedonia has like 5 or 6 fullstacks and some halfstacks with 4 settlements. And so on.
During my brief glance at Pergamon I noticed that this may be because of several things working together:
- the units are a lot cheaper than in EB 1
- the replenishment rates of certain units (the phalangitai for example) are really high
- the maximum recruitment pools are really high as well (the mentioned 8 phalangitai in one single city are a good example)
- the money script for the AI means that they have a lot of free money to spend each turn
I expect this to change during the further development since you guys mentioned that the campaign balance has been very basic at best for the first release.
(2) My generals never get any loyalty, they only ever lose it. I usually get characters come to age with 1-3 points of loyalty ( one had 4, one had zero, all others were within the mentioned range). I instantly send the to my Capital Maryab where both a school and the faction leader are. And when they reach the age of 20, they have 2 points loyalty left at best, in most cases they have zero. Which means that they rebels as soon as they spend a single turn outside of towns. Is this intended? If not - what am I doing wrong here?
Same is true for command, confidence and influence by the way. I consider myself lucky if they have 1 point left in each attribute after some years, many of them have no single point in any attribute.
And to make things worse, I don't even see them getting any traits that would explain that. My generals usually get the Mistress ancillary and the Arabian Falconer ancillary. And the only traits I can remember to have seen (aside the "Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous", "[season]", "unschooled" and "governor" traits) are a trait that raises construction costs by 5% and the equivalent that lowers the costs by 5%. I have never seen a single trait changing any of the confidence/loyalty/influence values.
(I did see one or two that add or substract authority (like "established ruler") but they have apparently no influence on the other generals' loyalty.)
Are all of these traits hidden by chance?
(3) I don't understand the culture system to be honest. Saba is Eastern Tribal at first (or am I wrong about this?). And according to a post by Moros (over at the TWC, iirc) temples of Almagah raise the "Eastern Imperial" culture level. But why do my cities then have ever lower Eastern Tribal level while Arid Nomadism is rising?
(Looking forward to Moros' guide on this and expect to learn a lot by reading it.)
(4) How to convert a nomad camp into a settled community?
(5) Why does every unit that could with some imagination count as a hoplite style unit have a more devastating charge than Cataphracts? Sure, a Hoplite phalanx charge was a terrible thing for their enemies (the persians at Marathon could tell a story or two about that, for example :laugh4: ), but 28? Or even 31, like the Shipri Tukul (which have a new name, I know ~;) )?
Also: why do very similar units have so very differing prices?
Okay, these things are probably my main concerns at the moments. More may follow as I advance in the campaign. ~;)
tl;dr:
Thanks a lot for a very enjoyable first release, looking forward to the further improvements. :2thumbsup:
Don't take Pergamon as a model for all settlements, in EBII's world there are few provinces that are capable of growing to Hellenistic Metropolis level and also have military colonies. Thus these "power-houses" so to speak are regions to be cherished and capable of supplying a large amount of troops...
But such provinces are not that common, nevertheless with a larger amount of feedbacks thanks to the release we will be able to spot how this effects the gameplay and tweak accordingly :)
As for the replenishment rates, Phalangitai are pretty professional and take time to train, they are not levies and now you should understand the importance of Machimoi and Pantodapoi ^^
While for the different prices, without specific examples it is difficult to answer. However in EBII social status is also reflected in the pricing so that might be it...
Almost forgot sorry, to convert into a settled community you will need to lower Nomadism, but I don't know at which percentage sorry, and afterwards you should be able to build the "walls"...
Good to know that it's not the case with every province :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjos
I may have worded it in a way that can be misunderstood. I know that Pezhetairoi are professional troops that need a lot of time and effort to be trained. That's exactly why I wonder about the fact that you can recruit a unit of them each turn in Pergamon. I would have expected it to be 4 (or 12 :creep:) turns before a full unit is replenished. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjos
I'll come back to this as soon as I see the units again, can't remember the details at the moment, only know that I saw it with javelin cavalry and spearmen. ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjos
It's pretty okay.
No real installation problems. Haven't played enough to comment on stability, although it did crash once when I tried to start a campaign, citing an 'unspecified error'.
Skirmishers basically don't work and cavalry is ineffective. In my test battle, the skirmishers on both sides usually ran away from each other before they fired a volley, had a very slow rate of fire and didn't seem effective against the slow-moving phalangites either. They may as well have not even been there.
The big problem, as I see it, is that there are no unit flags so it's really difficult to tell what is going on zoomed out, or if you're fighting a faction similar to yours. When you select a unit, it isn't highlighted in any way, making it even harder to tell what's going on in a battle. I can't even imagine how much of a pain in the ass a siege battle, woodland map or any situation where your forces are unevenly distributed would be to play because of these issues.
Overall, the mod shows potential but the visibility issue is a big one which turned me off playing it.
After a brutal assault on the walls of Athens involving 4 siege towers and barrages of missiles from both sides followed by a very, very slow and bloody advance through the streets with my Makedonian phalanxes, I managed to pin the Koinon forces in the city square from multiple sides and destroy them to a man, including 4 of their faction members, destroying their faction in the process.
It took over an hour and 20 minutes in total, and it was probably in my top 10 battles in the whole TW series, ever.
If I was to make a suggestion, maybe the lethality of combat needs to be increased a bit. But other than that...It's amazing.
Thank you for all your hard work.
First impressions (as Pergamon)
Within the first rounds, I had secured my southern borders by forming an alliance with the AS. Next, I got a "mission" from my AS allies to invade Bythnia. Said and done, all armies merged into one and laid siege to Nikaia.
The defenders had been reinforced from the countryside, and they sallied forth. The odds were 3:5 to my disadvantage, and the battle was long and I was on the brink of a complete rout when my light lancers (loving this unit, by the way) charged into the enemy general and he was killed. The enemies fled and I was victorious. The battle was one of my greatest EVER in the combined history of EB1 and EB2.
Loving this game!
I haven't played them yet but do you have more than one buidling that let's you train them?Quote:
I may have worded it in a way that can be misunderstood. I know that Pezhetairoi are professional troops that need a lot of time and effort to be trained. That's exactly why I wonder about the fact that you can recruit a unit of them each turn in Pergamon. I would have expected it to be 4 (or 12 ) turns before a full unit is replenished.
Ok just started a test campaign I could only recruite them every 4 turns.
Had something simliar with the Saba:The enemy sallied out and after a long fight their numerical superiority got me and most of my units routed,I managed to use my general to rally most of them and formed a second line of defence and I was actually winning.Quote:
The defenders had been reinforced from the countryside, and they sallied forth. The odds were 3:5 to my disadvantage, and the battle was long and I was on the brink of a complete rout when my light lancers (loving this unit, by the way) charged into the enemy general and he was killed. The enemies fled and I was victorious. The battle was one of my greatest EVER in the combined history of EB1 and EB2.
Then most of his routed men turned back from the city square and the battle was in their favor again....and again my most of my men routed.But I managed to form a another line and fought back.
I still lost but I retained half of my army while 70% of theirs was defeated,I would have probably won if I had cavalry and if was a really epic battle.
@musty the battle visibility can be changed by editing the EBII.cfg file in your M2TW/mods/EBII folder.
under the [game] section change
disable_arrow_markers = 0
and if unit banners aren't showing up add
show_banners = 1
Enjoying a H/M game as Hayasdan with the campaign AI fix. I like how the Seleukids don't instantly wipe you out now. I was able to get an alliance and trade rights with them right at the start and they've left me alone for 50 turns. I turned off FOW to see how they were doing though and they aren't losing any provinces, they're actually growing... which is scary because I'll have to fight them eventually.
I have to say though, skirmishers are more or less useless. Archers can be okay in siege battles when you're defending. They can also inflict minor damage against unarmoured enemy units like other archers but beyond that they're a waste of a unit slot. Javelin-throwing skirmishers such as the very basic Akontistai and the like are totally useless. A volley of javelins from those guys won't kill a single enemy soldier, even if thrown at another unit of Akontistai. Likewise, the javelin-throwing cavalry are useless when used to throw their javelins. Even when thrown into the back of an engaged unit they do no damage.
I don't think cavalry is useless at all though, despite what a lot of people seem to be saying. Their charges aren't devastating, true, but their effect on enemy morale is massive when you charge them into the flank or rear. They're also really good at taking out enemy light troops, like they should be. They're even good against the heavier type of skirmishing troops, such as Euzenoi.
Haven't had a chance to post because of moving into the university, and I don't have my game with me unfortunately, but I did get to play for some time, and there were quite a few moments when I was like "yes, Rome II as it was meant to be!!!"
I understand that not all of the features are in the build yet, and some are incomplete. But aside from some small errors (which are unavoidable when working on such a huge work of ART like this) I've had no trouble with the game. Not once did it crash on me, nor did it ever cause any disappointment. For all that has been done, I'm impressed, and that is saying a lot, considering how high my expectations were for this mod.
Also, all of the features from EB I that were implemented (the phalanx, overhand spear animations) seemed greatly improved in the Medieval II engine, and I was especially impressed with how the pike formations pressed really hard and had a tendency to get compact and disorganized in a way that felt more natural, other than on the RTW engine, which always felt more like a glitch than a mechanic. That behavior seemed more realistic to me, as far as my knowledge goes, so good job on that one! And, not to mention, those new javelin throwing animations, where the soldiers run forward and throw their javelins (with a higher velocity, it looks like?) are cooler than any other basic innovation I've seen in a while.
I noticed during my Pergamon and Pritanoi campaigns that some horses (from different units) are of varying sizes, which I appreciate, since not everyone was riding the same breed of horse. Good choice on that one.
As has been said already, skirmishers of any type don't work very well, but I never really used them for anything other than garrison troops so I'm okay with that.
Although one thing I did notice was that during some of the death animations(the long, cinematic styled kill sequences) the dying soldier would spazz out, then lay still as normal once the animation was finished.
I've only been able to play a little bit, but something struck me in the one siege battle I did.
As Pritanoi I attacked a nearby rebel town and the rams weren't able to knock down walls... only gates. Is this a bug?
Also, once inside the city the lanes were very narrow, but not visually. It looked like there was a large open space to fight in around the main square but the area was impassible, forcing the battle to be fought in very narrow lanes hemmed in by invisible walls. I really do hope that this is a bug and not a desired feature.
Been an EB player and fan for years, can't wait to play more of EB2!
Hey guys I gotta say that the game is spectacular. I've started three campaigns to get a good feel for it and am really liking what I am seeing. I only have one real problem and that is money bonus for the AI. As Pergamon I have most of Asia Minor and the Levant, but I'm having trouble scrounging the money together to field more than four armies while Makedon with only four provinces has around six or seven. Same with Koinon Hellenon and Epeiros; really any faction within the game. Even Kimmerios with one region has three full armies. Besides that though I am loving it and agree with many that Rome 2 should have been more like this.
Side-note: Do I just keep building Hellenic infrastructure to increase Hellenic culture?
Excellent so far! Everyone's providing in-detail reports so far and I feel I have little to contribute :P In fact, the only complaint I have at the moment is the color of the Boii line when you click on Faction Rankings. It's so white I can barely see it lol.
You may want to try the new campaign AI that Granto made available. They are more likely to spend their troops quickly then, instead of turtling up and building up a lot of passive stacks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antinous
Colonies are what will convert culture I believe.
disable_arrow_markers=1 is you get a selected unit to be highlighted on the battlefield. I thought is wasn't exactly clear from your post. I had to test it to verify. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by joshmahurin
Actually I have indication that this type of unit (the indian variant) is a decent unit to attack elephants with.Quote:
Originally Posted by I_damian
Culture conversion can be a pain - eventually you'll get the option to build a colony which will give a 1% bonus to culture conversion. To build the colony I think you need to build a road and that fort & waystation building, then you get the option to build a colony.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antinous
I've been wondering about that colony feature. Thanks for explaining is Damian and I'll try the new AI Bovi!
For a beta release this thing is incredible. I loved eb 1 so much and this is the worthiest successor to one of the best mods in history. of course there are some issues but for me they are mostly engine related (units not following orders, path finding) and some random crashes main menu. and there are some minor things (Sacred band infantry has a lower upkeep cost than liby-phoenecian hoplites?) But overall its just awesome.... its already awesome and i haven't even tried one of the new factions haha. Thank you eb team. thank you for all your hard work and the love you put in to this project. thank you thank you thank you. it was worth all the wait.
This mod makes me happy. There are a few minor weird things with the anims, but in general, playing it is like a dream.
I'll try to be more critical next time, just like in constructiv cristicism, but right now, the result easily meet my expectations, which were huge :verycool:
Roy Orbisson used to sing : " In dreams I play EB 2 ". Well, I play it for real.
I wanted to say I played as Hayasdan and the General's bodyguard and the Caucus Spearmen were breathtakingly good. Also the music was very atmospheric and made it feel like it was a battle rather than a soundtrack.
Everything else is still a wonder and really liked the Averni's rams. Oh and my wife really liked their campaign map music.
Thanks again and AI seems much improved for the campaign.
Seems good so far, all of my problems (projectiles feel weak, units feel just unresponsive enough to make it annoying, you can put a unit on two sides of a tower like you could in rome, when dragging to position units in cities you cant go close to buildings for some reason which is very annoying) has to do with medieval 2 rather than the mod itself, though it would be nice if you could fix those though.
Also, KH went from being one of the hardest starts economically to you literally swimming in mnai, earned more per turn than when playing as carthage.
Download speed using the torrent link via my DSL connection was great, completed in 33 minutes the day after release and I have been seeding since then.
The install under the default Sega location went smoothly, but I had to add the launcher fix and edited the windowed and window_border to false so get around the start-up and screen resolution glitches. My MTW2/Kingdoms are retail U.S. disk versions, fully patched.
I am very happy to be back in EB-world and like the changes to the interface. As others have pointed out some of the UI text fields could use better contrast colors.
Played Sabeans nearly 60 seasons, applied the CAI patch around turn 15 and regenerated the map and the save-game loaded fine. I haven't seen to much aggression since then as most of the Eleutheroi had been cleansed from my regions, but I recently took a town in SE Africa that neighbors the Ptolemaioi, so they may come calling soon.
I alt-tab in and out a lot and haven't had any issues around that. I have had one CTD that occurred when I was looking at an enemy generals stack from the battle dialog and right-clicked on one of their units to see information on the unit type.
All-in-all this is a very impressive initial release and I will even say that it was well worth the wait.
Do you happen to know what unit it was?
I've noticed something that (I think) is new, that we can now retrain some mercenary units. That is... really nice, to be able preserve and cultivate units' gained experience.
While I'm here, I noticed something else - I took Pella as the Epirots, and I destroyed the Makedonian royal tombs so to reap an enormous amount of much-need cash. Thing is, I was expecting that that would really piss off the population, but it didn't. They seem quite happy to be ruled by iconoclastic, Adriatic "Greeks". Hm.
For them to get mad we'd need a script to check whether the uniques get destroyed and then script rebellion or unhappiness. However as these buildings are currently bugged in the release and will change into different buildings when settlements are sacked. The only solution is to make them indestructible, sadly putting an end to looting.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmlax999
On the positive side, the Nabataeans have some very lovely Horse Archersi ~;)