I heard so many raves about EB, so I decided to download it and try it myself. I gotta say, truely a fantastic job of overhauling the game system, representing provnices, units, characters, etc. It really is quite a breathtaking achievement. There is one part of it where I really felt it fell flat though. I know there are lots of fans of this mod, and I am not trying to be a jerk here, but the way battles play out is really quite unrealistic. Archers are undervalued, cavalry is almost completely useless, damage is quite off, and the AI does some random and pretty ridiculous things. Now before you rip me apart for stating my opinion, let me clarify something. I am not an ignorant noob who wants ridiculous tank cavalry that can roll everything like in RTW, and I am not clueless as to weaponry of the time. In fact, quite the opposite. Apart from having read a vast variety of sources on the subject, I have created and used my own archaic weaponry and armour. While not an expert, and not everything I have made has turned out, I none-the-less have a working knowledge of ancient equipment.
For example, let's take slingers. A good slinger could outrange the average bowman at this time, and be quite a bit more accurate. There are lots of good sources that cite the accuracy and range of slingers, but the best IMO is the Bible (I leave it up to you whether to accept this as a creditable source or not). I forget in which book of the Bible it says that the slingers of Benjiman could hit a bird in flight from some (I forget exactly) very long range. I made and have used a sling (three in fact) myself, and while I remain very unskilled with it, I have gotten a taste for its power. My biggest objection with the slingers lies in the description. The description says that they fling rocks at the enemy. Most Hellenic slingers at least at this time used lead bullets, not stones. They flew faster, with more accuracy, and could cause devestating damage - easily being able to kill an armoured man without even necassarily damaging his armour. While many peasants used smaller slings and stones to herd sheep, and often only brought that into battle, more professional slingers had more professional equipment, with hemp slings and lead bullets. I decided to have a unit of Rhodian slingers pour into a units of unshielded infantry and LO AND BEHOLD! About FIVE darned men dropped dead! WTH! They would have destroyed the entire first row and reaked havoc on the rest. Slingers were limited because of the nature of their weapon, but when used correctly they were extremely devestating, their long range could keep archers and horse archers away, and they slaughtered armoured soldiers. They are just one example of how horribly wrong battles play in EB.
*rant over*
Sorry if I ranted too much, but trust me, the reason for my abject disappointment with this aspect of the game is my love of other aspects of it.
I will still play the mod, but just auto resolve battles. Overall I think the mod is excellent, and I assure you that I will be doing my best to rebalance the battles myself.
Good luck on part 2, I will play it.
Vuk
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