Changing starting year?

[lenin96]

It's good that it's staying the same because otherwise the EB team would have to find out about where people were in 273 BC, so the EB team doesn't have as much researching to do.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The start date will remain the same. The main reason: the starting positions of factions, their territories, and their armies will not have to be reresearched for EBII.

There are many reasons for 272BC. Under Pyrrhos, Epieros still has a chance to become a power. Antigonos could go either way into defeat or victory. The Syrian Wars were underway, with the chance of either the Seleukids or the Ptolemaioi becoming dominate in the east. The Punic Wars were not yet unavoidable, allowing Karthage and Roma a chance to still be friends.

[Connacht]

IMHO I don't think that only one or two years may drastically change everything, from positions to diplomatic situations between major empires (i.e. AS vs Ptolemaioi), causing only and only a lot of trouble for fixing the game.

[Macilrille]

Other suggestions;

One thing I would love would be the possibility to play different campaigns (possibly with different victory conditions), IE starting at other dates than 272 BC. Possible start dates could be:

264 BC 1st Punic
218 BC 2nd Punic
201 BC Macedonia and AC allied against Ptolomai, Rome on the verge of entering the fray.
~110 BC, Numidia, Pontos, Germans all flexing muscles.
59 BC, First Triumvirate expands Roman dominion, Germans threatening the Averni/Aedui, the latters' last chance of nationbuilding.
31 BC Augustus, can Germans and Getai resist? Ptolomai remain independant after Actium? Parthia beat Rome in the East?


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New factions would be nice as well, though I am aware there is no room.

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Civil Wars, like in BI or possibly even with playable rebel factions.

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City States like Massilia and Syracousai, Pergamon, Cyrene and even Ptolomai Egypt changing from Rebel/neutral to Allied/Buffer/protectorate state if neighbouring faction is powerful enough.

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Enforcable Peace, Second Macedonian War came about because Philip IV refused to cease hostilities against "Konion Hellenion" (sp?) and Ptolomai. Gaius Popillius Laenas drawing his circle in the sand comes to mind as well as being the most famous enforced peace ever I think (you gotta love that incident. That is confidence in one's own power and power politics for you).

As you can see I am Roman-centric, others may have other campaign suggestions as well.

[Tellos Athenaios]

It will likely not happen. Making EB 2 for X start dates essentially boils down to X versions of EB 2.

That said there may be remods of EB 2 to achieve just that (up to the fans).

[palmtree]

I've actually been thinking about modding EB1 to make a later start date campaign. Simple reason, waiting 400 turns for the Marian reforms to kick in got pretty damn dull and if you haven't conquered half the known world in 400 turns as the Romani you're not really trying.

Since it would involve a lot of work and it was way easier to just change the event trigger for the reforms to let them start early I decided against it.

I'd probably give it a go for EB2 though. I'd like to see an EB campaign with advanced starting positions. Less Eleutheroi, built up cities, most or all reforms active.

[Banzai!]

I think EB2 should be released iteratively as each faction is completed in the form of provincial campaigns. These campaigns should be set at different critical points in history, eg Pyrrhic Wars, Wars of the Diadochi. This will all culminate in v1.0 with the Grand Campaign release. Thus a completed EB2 would end up as "definitive" Classical-era mod that allows players to recreate many points in history.

I believe this has several advantages:

• Players can begin playing earlier
• Text men (EDB, EDU, traits, scripters) can work in parallel with the content creators (modellers/skinners), instead of twiddling their thumbs at present (and creating a serial delay overall).
• Text men can extensively test out their ideas in the provincial campaigns (including trying out different concepts in different provincial campaigns) and receive lots of feedback from the public.

I do not believe provincial campaigns will require much extra work as:

• The map can simply be cropped parts of the main campaign map.
• Because map regions are a subset of the Grand Campaign, EDB, Traits, text elements do not need to be changed.
• The only thing that needs to be done basically is plonking stuff down onto the stratmap

I propose these provincial campaigns to go with factions as they are done:
Campaign Order - New Factions Completed - Campaign
1st Campaign: Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucids Gaza Campaign
2nd Campaign: Rome and Epeiros Pyrrhic Wars
3rd Campaign: Makedon and Koinon Hellenon Macedonian Wars
4th Campaign: Carthage and Iberians 2nd Punic War
5th Campaign: Pahlava, Hayasdan and Baktria Wars of the Diadochi (I would love to play as Eumenes and kick some Macedonian butt)