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

[ziegenpeter]

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?)

I totally agree with that!
Or at least some more higher tier regional units, maybe with a very low replenish rate?

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).

I don't know. I guess if the occupant screws up, some macedonian noble offspring, who claims to be a ptolomaic descendant, can seize the moment?

With Seleukia and other descendents of Alexander's empire its more difficult because which regions should count as "core".

I'd say Anticheia, Seleukeia and perhaps a few other cities in syria.

[fomalhaut]

i'd say the factionals outside of homeland should be dealt with very carefully, i agree with the concept i realllllly do, but it should be super low replenishment rate for scortamareva just even outside the Pyrenes

[TheLastDays]

Yeah, you'd have to migrate an entire population to effectively be able to recruit armies from a place where none of your people have lived before...

And about reemergence... it depends on what regions you would count as core... for teh Romani for example, if Rome would fall to, say, Gaulish hordes and a few decades down the road the Samnites revolted against the barbarian overlords it's highly unlikely they would reinstute Rome after winning their independence from the Gauls.

[Ichon]

Rome it might be enough to have Rome and just 1 other region able to be the trigger for re-emergence. As it might not be necessary to have exact survivors but the descendents of some survivors who use the displeasure with current rulers as a bid to power based on old legends. Conquered peoples in revolt often adopt legends of more victories ancestors even if they weren't exactly the same people. Realistically the rebellion is likely to still be put down but at least its going to be more difficult than a single siege when a faction which can recruit its own troops and move aggressively out from its region is the revolter compared to rebels.

What are the most famous revolts against Rome? Slave Revolt, Jewish Revolt, Boudicca Revolt, Palmyra Revolt, Arminius and Teutborg Forest... probably more but that is just a short list that could somewhat justify at least some re-emergent factions. Slave Revolt and Jewish Revolt excluded they could be represented as regular rebels I suppose.

Some other factions that didn't historically might well have had been conditions right. Since we are talking about break down in order and revolt anyway we are assuming conditions are right or more so than they were historically where Rome for the span of regions and eras it ruled actually faced surprisingly few revolts at least until later years.

As for factional units outside of the factions birthplace... I think if certain level of colonial building is reached it makes sense. It might not be actual people immigrating but locals trained in the way of the conquers fighting style. Which seems more plausible than large migrations over entire continents.

[moonburn]

Some other factions that didn't historically might well have had been conditions right. Since we are talking about break down in order and revolt anyway we are assuming conditions are right or more so than they were historically where Rome for the span of regions and eras it ruled actually faced surprisingly few revolts at least until later years.

yeah right thats why caius julius complained about the lusitanians every year going on the warpath 100 years after they had been oficially subdued
roman propaganda where everyone is happy doesn´t mean it was like that for every rebellion they admited it was to glorify someone or badmouth others teutenberg was considered a backstab and the same for the palmyreans the romans didn´t had nominal control over the chattii or the palmyreans

the maccabian revolts glorified flavius spartacus revolt glorified the 3 great generals fighting against him crassus pompeii and gaius julius and so forth

[Ichon]

So you are supporting re-emergent factions?

[TheLastDays]

The Team already said there will be reemergent factions, just not all of them

[Ichon]

The Team already said there will be reemergent factions, just not all of them

Right... this is just discussing what the criteria should be for which ones can re-emerge? Personally I think nearly all of them should be able to at least for a certain length of time. I can see the point of arguments that if foreign rulers had been replaced by new ruling caste why would a revolt re-install formerly foreign rulers but that seems less of an issue than it might seem initially due to above points.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The Team already said there will be reemergent factions, just not all of them

I didn't know that we had? Or did we?

[fomalhaut]

i don't recall that and i'm pretty keen on my EB lurking. i think it's been said "we're looking into possibilities"

[TheLastDays]

Ah well you guys play tricks on our mind, I wouldn't be surprised if you went back to your old posts, edited something into or out of them just for the laughs of confusing us :-P

Anyway... Ichon, I'm not sure if it's possible to give reemergence a time limit, like "this faction is only qualified for reemergence for 20 turns after being destroyed"

[bobbin]

It is entirely possible as the only way you can have faction re-emergence is through scripting, which allows us to control lots of things.

[stratigos vasilios]

Bobbin will 'The People in Flight' option be used? Or will it be dependent on the faction similar to the discussion we're having on re-emerging factions?

[Populus Romanus]

I doubt they will use The People in Flight. It sounds very ahistorical to me. On another note, can reemergent factions be forced to attack the settlement whose province they spawn in? It would be pretty stupid if the Makedonians revolt only to ignore Pella and go after Serdike. Also, how strong would reemergent factions be? I assume pretty weak. And finally, is it possible to make the spawning armies smaller the longer the province has been occupied?

[bobbin]

Bobbin will 'The People in Flight' option be used? Or will it be dependent on the faction similar to the discussion we're having on re-emerging factions?

Unlikely, it's the single most hated feature of the horde mechanic among the team.

I doubt they will use The People in Flight. It sounds very ahistorical to me. On another note, can reemergent factions be forced to attack the settlement whose province they spawn in? It would be pretty stupid if the Makedonians revolt only to ignore Pella and go after Serdike. Also, how strong would reemergent factions be? I assume pretty weak. And finally, is it possible to make the spawning armies smaller the longer the province has been occupied?

Yes they can. I cannot answer any more because we haven't worked on reemergent factions yet, all I am doing is telling people that it is possible and that we will want to include it in EBII.

[econ21]

The main thing I am looking forward to improving in EB2 is taking advantage of the better AI potential of M2TW. The team could change nothing in EB1 and just switching the engine would make the port totally worth it. If it is more stable, that will be a plus too.

Beyond that, one thing I would like but probaby won't get is a reduction in the proportion of sieges to field battles. I just don't find TW sieges - at least as the attacker - as fun as field battles. I don't know how you could go about this, except by lowering the density of settlements. The BI map had fewer settlements and seemed to lead to more of an emphasis on field battles.

[Rahl]

With all the permanent stone forts representing smaller cities, sieges will probably become even more numerous. Though EB is about realism and ancient warfare was more about sieges then about field battles.

[moonburn]

actually rahl one field batle and the wars would be over most of the times sieges were not cost effective and unleass some "cheating" appeared for the taking (like spies opening the gates) most of the times the only reason to besiege was to force a field batle win the day and present the terms

even when you managed after much sacrifice to take over a city you would need to spend fortunes bribing important people and expend alot of humanpower resources to keep the city under control that was one of the antigonid problems when they faced the romans they had too many garrisons scatered around places like athens and whatever

in medieval total war the rate of sucefull sieges is a disgrace in rl it was very rare for a castle to fall because of a direct attack or even a walled city it was starving and using the catapults to send dead animals into the place hoping that disease made them surrender before the disease caught your own men and you would be forçed to pull back for health reasons

[Ca Putt]

tho I wonder how they will handle PSF in detail it could be that they repreent them without walls eg.

And I would not worry toomuch about PSFs, in my brittannia campaign they were empty most of the time and I was the only one actually careing about them.(ok they were not empty all the time and gave the AI lords shelter while I conquered all of their Settlements :D, but the important ones were empty long enough to sneak in a lord and some mercs ^^)

[ziegenpeter]

actually rahl one field batle and the wars would be over most of the times sieges were not cost effective and unleass some "cheating" appeared for the taking (like spies opening the gates) most of the times the only reason to besiege was to force a field batle win the day and present the terms

What??? Is this a troll attempt?

[Ichon]

There are enough mechanics in place that if you don't want many siege battles that are decisive there are quite numerous ways to avoid them in MTW2. AI likes to station an army outside walls which can draw out enemies, etc.

Though it would be nice to have the length of time a city can withstand a siege be dependent on more buildings than just the walls. Basic walls should give very limited extra time to a siege defense before forcing surrender. Higher port facilities, grain, and water storages that can be built should make more of a difference. Even with how slow armies move sieges over 12 turns being common to force a field battle is too much. 3-6 turns should be more than enough without concentrated building program of storages.

Many of the regions being represented as a single city is also misleading when the battle for the province actually takes several fights. Playing on VH with the AI getting decent bonuses the majority of decisive battles occur outside of cities for me. Of course that is by my choice sometimes where I simply don't attack well garrisoned cities unless absolutely necessary but that means having to destroy the AI in the field. In most cases that also means meeting attacking enemy armies in the field and not waiting for them to lay siege where I find the mechanics greatly favor the player. Siege battles for attacking AI are greatly unbalanced in favor of the player.

[FinnishedBarbarian]

Concerning siege battles/open field engagements ratio on eb1, the mechanic which gives rationing/starving trait on enemy territory should be applied also to the armies on friendly territory. Supplying armies with thousands of men and animals is great challenge even on friendly territory. Armies on friendly province should lose well supplied trait after 2 turns rationing should come after 4 and so forth (stainless steel has this feature).

Problem with sieges lies also in (hardcoded?)mechanics which don't take into account the size of the besieged army, for example the Caesar's victory in alesia might have been utter defeat had the besieged gallic force been smaller and the roman's unable to defeat the garrison and the gauls besieging themselves.

Assaulting city was dangerous game which rarely led to success this has been mentioned about 1 billion times, but in total war games it's something of a necessity, therefore defenders morale should be greatly reduced and towers made even deadlier to simulate the great losses but also giving attacker a chance to succeed on assault given that besieger has usually numbers/quality edge.

Now the situation favors sieged side (well atleast human player) whose troops morale remains as high as in field engagement. Assaulting cities should usually be pyrhic victories where you gain territory but risk losing great part of your forces and at worst case scenario being besieged in city you just took with great losses!

[Populus Romanus]

Hello FinnishedBarbarian!

[FinnishedBarbarian]

Oh forgot to mentioning that being my first post, so hopefully it had some value to discussion.

More what I hope to see on eb2:

Hopefully team has considered implementing some mechanics which would cause unrest in certain recruitment cases for example machimoi and over recruitment of regional troops. Although the recruitment pools are going to be great help in stopping spamming elites the restrictions shouldn't be applied to aforementioned cases, both machimoi and regional levy troops were raised in great numbers, but at cost of unrest when they were used to other than defence of their homelands. So you should be able to still raise great numbers of these un-reliable units, but at cost of risking a revolt in regions from which they are recruited.

Well there's about 10 bigger problems I'd like having different from eb1 (which is modification masterpiece even with those faults that are mostly caused by hardcoding). I have high hopes that majority of problems will be solved, but being realistic I expect that couple of annoing features can't be fixed.

Hello FinnishedBarbarian!

Thanks for the welcome!

[vollorix]

Don´t know about MIC´s in EB2 on MTW2 engine, but won´t happieness/law penalties to "auxilla" buildings do the job? The AI will recruit units, doesn´t matter how you punish it; also, if those punishments aren´t implemented in the game engine, but simply scripted, the AI won´t "understand" why this is happenning, and therefore continue to do as programed.

[FinnishedBarbarian]

Don´t know about MIC´s in EB2 on MTW2 engine, but won´t happieness/law penalties to "auxilla" buildings do the job? The AI will recruit units, doesn´t matter how you punish it; also, if those punishments aren´t implemented in the game engine, but simply scripted, the AI won´t "understand" why this is happenning, and therefore continue to do as programed.

Yes, I thought about the option of adding happiness/law penalties to auxilia buildings, but that wouldn't really fix the problem 'cause it makes no sense to give penalties for mere ability to raise local troops. Unreast caused by recruitment happened more often in ancient times after the locals had seen some service in conquerors armies and achieving necessary skills to resist forced recruitment/trying to free themselves from oppressor.

Good examples would be batavians and machimoi who revolted only after gaining skills necessary to attempt overthrowing ptolemy's, batavians revolted after romans disbanded some veteran batavi (emperors bodyguard unit?) and romans started to demand more auxilias than the arrangement they had made stipulated the batavi had to provide.

If mechanics prevent unrest caused by recruitment I would suggest script which would create rebel troops (maybe even fullstack next to city) in provinces where regionals have been over recruited this would way both player and AI would be punished from recruiting fullstacks of regionals.

Well maybe the recruitment pools are enough to address this problem, although I suspect then the problem would be goverment system which would need to recognize difference between client kingdoms abilities (clients would be more willing to raise armies than occupied locals whose lands are being distributed amongst settlers) to recruit locals compared to direct governing of province.

Also the garrison bonus to cities happiness should be raised if anyway possible, apperantly it is hardcoded feature 'cause of the way the bonus is determined (how many % garrison is of city's population). This is only problem in recently conquered provinces which are occupied (not reducing population) and have huge population/high squalor/belong to different culture, extermination was quite rare in antiquity and cities didn't need to be garrisoned with tens of thousands of troops. One way to address this problem would be adding trait to general conquering city which would help to stabilize the province.

[Kleitos]

* the giant Trees.
maybe my concern is anyway not a problem with using the M2TW engine...don´t know M2TW and only would buy it for running EB II - and i´m soo curious about it.

but will those dense forests with those giant trees (bigger than horses) dissappear in EB II?
..i know there is an interesting way to get rid of them for EB 1.2 too - from Centurio Nixalsverdrus - but again started a campaign and dont want to try this out in the middle of a campaign.

* another thing which i find a bit annoying: (e.g. in my last KH campaign) when i had to ship important Generals to somewhere - the travel time was on sea extended to such an extent as well as on land. (winter campaigning restricted for all KH family members) ..so the duration of sea travels was really much to long. don´t know now if this is resolvable.? ..dont no nothing about programming and whatnot.

besides - EB is the greatest pc game i ever played - and can only thank you guys for this great work.

[Ca Putt]

restricting Navalmovement in winter is actually not that unreasonable. As winter was also known as stormyseason and everyone who had the option avoided seafareing during winter. - Hegemony makes great use of this by simply damageing all ships that are on open sea or moveing during winter.
Alas you're totally right when consideringother factions have summer as "stay at home"-season, there it really gets silly. And much more annoying is that a generals Health also affects seafareing, which really is silly. I'm not exactlysure how it's done in M2TW but imho itwould be best to just have the acting admiral influence the speed of a navy.

[vollorix]

The "move_character" cheat should help you out of all those problems, don´t you think? And since those are "admirals" you are moving around there shouldn´t be any problem with names.

[Kleitos]

@Ca Putt - well yea that is definitely a point - winter is no season for sailing ..but i remember a sea travel (just because of the winter campaigning restriction of that one fella ..maybe there was also some "tired" character trait or something like that involved) like from Athenai to Syracousai..it took more then a year ...not to speak from a journey to massalia.

without family members - is no problem. but one would need them too. ...specific character traits of FM´s are in that case i find just disturbing ...i mean when they only sit in the fleet - why should they affect the duration of the journey.

yes only the admirals influence for the speed would be nice.

@vollorix - hm, i never used "move_character" ..how does this work? ..like beaming one character from one moment to the other to any place? ..or can you do this then for a "normal" travel duration?
i meant that as some thing (if resolvable) that would be nice to think over it to change.
actually dont wanna use cheats (except for avoiding CTD´s like decrease population in rebellious settlements)