What are the main things you want to see fixed from EB1 in EB2???

[Ca Putt]

ah ok those, yeah the EB team often chose the most armored variant thinkable. personally I could never actually befriend myself with the fact that EB-Peltasts are fairly heavy. and(like you) I'm sure through the variation possible within a unit they'll "fix" alot of these issues.

I was just curious on what you suggest. no need to discuss

[TheLastDays]

Well I never experienced the EB Peltasts as extremely heavy... there is definitely an increase in "heaviness" going from peltastai to thoureophoroi to thorakitai

[geala]

I'd rather see a source for the extreme missile range they have in EB I.

I only know one for the contrary, I would also like to have a source cause I'm especially interested in Cretan archers. On the other hand, you can change it very easily yourself. I'm too dumb to create a new sprite/texture however, I can perhaps alter unit info pictures, but not more.

Which unit are you referring to? Akarnania doesn't have a regional special unit in EB I as far as I'm aware of. Perhaps you mean Agrianian?

Exactly. Thank you for the correction. I should start a new campaign and don't trust my bad memory.

Well I never experienced the EB Peltasts as extremely heavy... there is definitely an increase in "heaviness" going from peltastai to thoureophoroi to thorakitai

It is really ok for game reasons, a steady development. But I think the "peltasts" of the 3rd c BC were thoureophoroi (which means nothing more than bearer of a thureos), mostly without armour and with more than two, but lighter javelins. They were often named peltastes which sometimes seemed to become a synonym for soldiers outside the phalanx (or even professional soldiers/mercenaries). I never recruit EB thoureophoroi because there is no real historical background for such a Roman style soldier with a javelin-before-attack setting. And in the game the peltastes can more or less do the same as the thoureophoroi, shielding the flanks of the phalanx. The EB thoureophoroi are in fact thorakitai (user of thorakes because they have a linen or leather thorax) and I don't see the sense in the distinction. Better to combine peltastes and thoureophoroi to one unit and spare a slot.

[moonburn]

there´s an hyrkanian unit when playing as the seulecids around the caspian sea

for the thureporoi and peltastai all i can say is that throkitai are my favourite unit in the game i even stoped playing makedonians because they lack those heavy batle line holders so we can imagine a kind of transition from peltastai (wich actually means pelt carrier and a pelt is a small shield not the thureos they wear) to thureporoi and eventually to thorokitai

[fomalhaut]

don't forget that peltast eventually just became a blanket term for a mercenary or non phalanx light infantry...


also there is one thing i REALLY wanna see in EBII, Agryaspides who are old!. It is stated in their description but not in their render that the silver shields were old veterans, and the silver shields who betrayed eumenes were in their 60's. with the new tools available in MTWII i hope to see old grizzled representations of these feared pikemen

[Constantius III]

also there is one thing i REALLY wanna see in EBII, Agryaspides who are old!. It is stated in their description but not in their render that the silver shields were old veterans, and the silver shields who betrayed eumenes were in their 60's. with the new tools available in MTWII i hope to see old grizzled representations of these feared pikemen

Yeah, but those were the "original" silver shields, all of whom had died by 272. I'm pretty sure that the units of silver shields that were created by later rulers weren't comprised purely of sexagenarian veterans, since their sexagenarian veterans wouldn't have served with Alexander.

[fomalhaut]

but wouldn't the tradition, and practical purposes remain, that the silver shields be composed of the oldest and best veterans who seemingly have nothing better to do than be elite pikemen? I know the unit was reformed after the originals were essentially sent to die to remove them politically, but still..

[stratigos vasilios]

Yeah this isn't something I'd like fixed (and probably a little off topic), but I wouldn't mind seeing unique individual ancillaries associated with each city. Similar to the ancillaries given in DLV, eg. Govenor of Roma +3 management etc, Govenor of Baktra +1 Command + 2 Influence etc. This would be very low priority though, could possibly be an idea for a sub mod too.

[TheLastDays]

Well there are, for the Romani St least, the "Provincial Governor"-ancillaries...

[war is hell]

One thing I'd like to see fixed is the A.I. recruitment patterns. Why do the Romans field stack after stack of foreign mercenaries? They're not Carthage. I can only annihilate so many of them before it becomes obnoxious. The factional troops they do field usually end up wondering around aimlessly in small groups that are easy to pick off. That applies to most factions. Getting the A.I. to simply field real armies would go a long way to making the EB/TW experience more enjoyable. If there was one thing I could change about RTW it would be that. Sorta related but my favorite fights are with the roving defenders, simply because it's a formidable opponent but not in an annoying way.

[TheLastDays]

Yeah the roving defenders are definitely fun ^^

Well yeah the reason I didn't mention campaign AI is that in RTW it's hardcoded if I understood that correctly. In MTW it's somewhat moddable so we might see an improvement. And recruitment pools might also make things more balanced - I have high hopes :)

[XSamatan]

Both CAI and the AI's recruitment were hardcoded in RTW, both will be changed in EB2 within the limits of MTW2'S engine.

XSamatan

[LusitanianWolf]

-> More Factions (check :) )

- > No more clone wars and lots of diversity (check from what I've seen from the amasing previews ^^ )

-> AI factions acting more historically at least at the early campain (you know, romans fighting carties or at least conquering sicily instead of early Holy Roman Empire with Extraordinary spamming)

-> More flexibility for the player do recreate history (no being able to recruit lusitanian units outside iberia is a late campain disrupter, maybe some kind of slow colonial building that can recruit some of the more iconic factionals or "what if" reforms?)

- > Less Spamming and more historical compositions (check from what I know from M2TW's unit replenishment rate)

-> Economic Warfare being usefull (dunno if will be possible with AI limits and script needing )

-> Less Siege Total War ( I gess that's impossible due to engine )

- > Field Battles more relevant to campain development (unit replenishment rates will help but if possible, a script that decreases happiness from losing side settlements making some rebel would make them much more interesting. Romans didnt need to siege the whole seleucid empire to disrupt it, same for Alexander's conquests, but again don't know if that is possible ). Spoils of war should also help (some cash bonus to represent at least taking weapons from dead enemies and suply apropriating).

[Nightbringer]

What I want is less stack spam and more historical army composition (or at least less stacks of all elite troops from the ai). That will make me very very happy and it should work out well since m2tw AoR makes this possible to do.

[war is hell]

It's weird you guys get elites spamed at you. In my Casse campaign all I've done is fight Roman and Gallic rabble, usually ahistorical mercenaries for the Romans. Finally Carthage shipped over a couple of elite african stacks onto the Italian peninsula which is making for a good fight.

I think we would all like to see less, but more meaningful battles with huge armies. Losing a field army should be devastating, settlements should be more willing to surrender if the odds are overwhelmingly against them so you don't have to siege the entire Arche Seleukeia like LW said.

There is nothing I find more obnoxious than getting depleted rabble thrown at me from all directions at every turn. 2-3 depleted merc units over here, 2-3 levies over there, 2-3 units of rabble try to siege x settlement with overwhelming odds against them etc.

Of course the EB team can only do so much and we thank them for their hard work and dedication.

[fomalhaut]

i will never forget when Byzantion was besieged by, literally, wait for it... 6 Syrian Archers. 7 total with general... so a Syrian Rock Band and their manager came and besieged the most heavily defended city in my Confederacy...


and yeah in my ongoing Aedui campaign Suebii is throwing nothing but garbage at me, i spend more time cleaning up than maneuvering. I want to fight lines of Pikemen, scary werewolves, black painted dudes, whatever. but nope, levy spearmen... 5000 of them... every turn... ughhhh.

but these issues will be fixed, the recruitment system is much better. most of the time spent probably is the debates and tweaking on how often a certain unit should respawn, from where, why, etc. a very fine balance must be kept.

[TheLastDays]

the thing is... for example, when I play a Romani campaign and start campaigning against the Gauls I get to fight a few (2-3) strong armies, they include spears, plenty of swords, Gaesatae, Solduros, some of those druids... fun stuff... I defeat these 3 armies and continue campaigning. Now, if I just rush over them now, what do you expect? They throw plenty of levies against me, spearmen of course, that's actually to some extent, historically accurate. If the standing soldiers of a nation/people were defeated and killed/captured, what do you expect? Where should new elites come from, in reality? They can't come out of nowhere, so if a people like the Gauls isn't ready to submit after their standing or elite armies are defeated they would raise those farmers, workers, etc. and send them to battle with a spear, which is relatively cost effective and it's all you can do, if your enemy doesn't give you room to breathe...

Now, I'm not saying the recruitment system of EB I is perfect, it has major flaws (most of them coming of the RTW engine) but it's not THAT bad and big armies of levies coming from a practically defeated foe is actually historically more accurate than elite spam stacks ;) - and with the possibilities of M2TW it should get better, so let's be positive :)

[fomalhaut]

that's definitely true and i agree, but this was a Suebii at the height of their power, not a desperate last stand...

[Ichon]

The map plays a large part in the early expansion... having enough settlement in the right places and some parts of map more difficult to get to from others would help but not sure what EB2 map looks like in close details yet. From what I understand AI often decides on expansion by distance as calculated by the engine which results aren't as obvious as it sometimes seems looking at the map. That would do wonderfully to help make it more fun. I've so many times seen factions reach areas which would be very weird in history. Of course things will go off track eventually but its annoying when its only turn 20. The new economic and colonial system might help there.

Also I really hope they make all factions re-emergent factions if rebellion happens in their core territories.

[TheLastDays]

I think they have already ruled out reemerging for all factions

[Horatius Flaccus]

Apparently it is possible to let all factions be re-emergent.

[TheLastDays]

Yes but for some it wouldn't make sense. The Ptolemaics for example were rather foreign rulers themselves and in a rebellion of native egyptian population it is highly unlikely they would reinstate the greek rulers...

[Horatius Flaccus]

True, but for a lot of factions it would make sense. There are only a few factions where there are foreign rulers ruling a native population (Ptolemaioi, Seleukia and Pontus are the only ones I can think of right now).

[Ichon]

Even in the cases where foreign based culture ruled larger population of natives and were themselves in turn conquered it wouldn't be surprising that the first rebellion was led by a member of the former ruling caste unless a total purge was done... but that is difficult as often the former rulers intermarried with the locals and the former 'foreign' systems seem more familiar to the people who are rebelling than the new imposed ideas of the latest rulers.

So the example if Ptolemaioi were conquered by Rome... then a core region revolts- that chances that it is a totally Egyptian revolt without any Ptolemaioi influences seem very slim. With Seleukia and other descendents of Alexander's empire its more difficult because which regions should count as "core" and most of the culture had some influences from language and culture from Alexander but after 100 years of foreign rule (non-Greek) and then a revolt... would Seleukia really be restored? In that case it seems questionable but that makes it more a matter of time than potential and since the timeline is relatively short for EB2 and the time from when Ptolemaioi or Seleukia might be conquered to the end is even shorter so I don't see why not.

[fomalhaut]

sounds far too complicated.

something more significant than roving bandits should be implemented though, i auto_win aphistemaioi because i know they are totally artificial, there as a throwaway game mechanic left over from RTW. if my actions lead to a legitimate revolt or uprising then it would have significance and impetus to get rid of it. aphistemaioi just don't cut it.

[Cybvep]

Let's hope that the new "unit replacement" system will limit the elite stacks of doom somewhat.

[fomalhaut]

it will. they will have a long replenishment rate, i'd guess at least 8 seasons

[moriluk]

I do not know about "fixed". Perhaps wrong word. But my main gripe about eb is that Pontos can not recruit phalanx in Pella. & Segesta should be harder to take.

Moslty my complaints about EB are things the team can do nothing about, like sick generals making ships slower, that sort of thing.

[Ichon]

sounds far too complicated.

something more significant than roving bandits should be implemented though, i auto_win aphistemaioi because i know they are totally artificial, there as a throwaway game mechanic left over from RTW. if my actions lead to a legitimate revolt or uprising then it would have significance and impetus to get rid of it. aphistemaioi just don't cut it.

Its actually not that complicated. Just deciding which core regions qualify and which factions should be re-emergent. With MTW2 might even be able to add a counter so if a region hasn't changed hands in 100 turns its now effectively assimilated and there is nothing to inspire a revolt.

Seems better than larger empires losing a couple provinces here or there and always quickly recapturing them. At least some spawned larger stacks and renewed faction would be much more interesting and in more cases than not seems plausible for the span of EB2.

[Ca Putt]

like sick generals making ships slower, that sort of thing.

+1 ever circumnavigated Arabia with a FM who got all of those Traits just after passing Mecca -.-