[EB] Discussion about Standard Rules

[Cute Wolf]

Correction Vartan, that was not a presumtion. It has already failed epicly. Theres not a single reply at the post I made about EBonline. While RS2, which MP was crafted by a clannie, GalvanizedIron got alot of popularity.

wut? 240 men for each cavalry unit? archers rout on contact, and totally useless light infantry? not to mention altered the unit lists so badly and become unnatural selection of units?

yeah.... those are for vanilla minded players, not historical minded ones. (I've try play RS II multi, and I must say... it bring back vanilla games under RSII Skins)

EB allready has it's own MP community, and we're going fine. Face it.

[Lazy O]

That Is Flaming , not discussion. Only idiots play huge scale. Play normal. So far only vartan has replied seriously.

[VikingPower]

I think it is rather strange how few players there are here playing online and how there is little activity here in the MP threads. For there are a lot of people playing the Campaign and sending threads about the in-game issues. But even that you win 1000 battles against the AI then you do still never learn anything from it.

Since this a a historical RTS game then people should focus most upon the art/science of tactics by fighting against human players.

Everything is great about the rules and such issues, but the MP part of the game needs more publicity in reaching to other players.

[Lazy O]

I think it is rather strange how few players there are here playing online and how there is little activity here in the MP threads. For there are a lot of people playing the Campaign and sending threads about the in-game issues. But even that you win 1000 battles against the AI then you do still never learn anything from it.

Since this a a historical RTS game then people should focus most upon the art/science of tactics by fighting against human players.

Everything is great about the rules and such issues, but the MP part of the game needs more publicity in reaching to other players.

You just nailed it. I nominate you for president. Just to let all the haters here know, I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST THE CURRENT RULES. But if we are to bring more people to the game, and competent ones, these will not work. Mark my words

[The Celtic Viking]

The good thing is that rules are flexible. And, for anyone who manages replay archives, a lifesaver because changing rules doesn't screw up your replay viewing experience, changing the EDU does. But I think it's always good to be open to change (else we wouldn't have come to where we are). Sometimes I wonder how a "CWB Modified Rules" game in RTW would turn out--don't want to get nostalgic about RTW now!

I am open to change, but I would've liked to have seen some reason why we should change to the proposed ones beyond "because I say so", which was utterly lacking in this thread up until, well, the post just above this one. This is extra important when we're not just talking about building upon the rules we have, but replacing them completely.

Anyway, because my question for reason and clarification was apparently deemed as "not serious", here are some general critiques of the proposed rules:

I mean the same units that are available in x different forms be removed. Im saying change since this will not work with the broader community and will fail epicly.

What do you mean, "same units (...) available in x different forms"? Obviously, when you refuse to answer the question I made, and just repeat what I wanted you to explain in the first place, it leaves me no wiser than I was before. However, assuming I was correct, then this rule is as arbitrary as it's dumb. Yay for forcing even more clone-like armies than ever! Diversity in armies is our biggest obstacle to enlarging the community!

No Elephants (sohuld be changed or else Saba would die)

Nah, lets just allow elephants as normal. It's not like people ever bring them anyway.

With this said, I seriously doubt that the rules are to blame for the fact that the community isn't bigger than it is. Changing them is not likely to bring in more players (nor would I really see that as a sufficient reason for this kind of change anyway).

[vartan]

Correction Vartan, that was not a presumtion. It has already failed epicly. Theres not a single reply at the post I made about EBonline. While RS2, which MP was crafted by a clannie, GalvanizedIron got alot of popularity.

Do not judge a scene by how much talk there is about it. Some scenes happen to be more low-profile than others. Great example: the EB scene (esp. MP).

That Is Flaming , not discussion. Only idiots play huge scale. Play normal. So far only vartan has replied seriously.

Plenty of serious folk on these forums, actually. To others, let's keep it calm 'n steady.

I think it is rather strange how few players there are here playing online and how there is little activity here in the MP threads. For there are a lot of people playing the Campaign and sending threads about the in-game issues. But even that you win 1000 battles against the AI then you do still never learn anything from it.

Since this a a historical RTS game then people should focus most upon the art/science of tactics by fighting against human players.

Everything is great about the rules and such issues, but the MP part of the game needs more publicity in reaching to other players.

I hope SP players are reading this, because I say this with confidence: my honest belief as to why EB contains such a vast base of campaign players (over the years, not necessarily concurrently) while it contains so few concurrent MP players is due mostly to a fear of the unknown, of what an experience in EB MP would feel like. This is in turn, I think, due to the fact that EB is the antithesis of RTW in that RTW's community has the sense of multiplayer gameplay engraved, while EB's playerbase has not a sense of MP, as EB is, arguably and as a matter of speaking, "a single player game," for lack of a better phrase. This is why I regret not starting EB Online in 2009.

You just nailed it. I nominate you for president. Just to let all the haters here know, I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST THE CURRENT RULES. But if we are to bring more people to the game, and competent ones, these will not work. Mark my words

Mark the following words my dear friend. Today was the first day I played Scrabble. To top it off, it wasn't just any game of Scrabble. It was Scrabble in English but using IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet. For those who don't know it and don't wish to look it up (don't waste your time), and to put it simply, it is both a curiosity as well as a pain in the sense that we are used to the English alphabet when constructing words, not an alphabet of sound-corresponding symbols. Anyway, I found the rules of Scrabble to be frustrating, at least in that if I wanted to create a new word but some of my tiles would touch other words, then the intersections would necessarily have to themselves be valid words or else I could not create my new word at all. Being the more open-minded and self-trained person I am (in the art of Frustration Level Reduction--I suppose that is what I would call it), I learned in minutes to collect myself and convince myself quite successfully that the game was fun--and it was fun! Although I didn't win, I had a great time.

The lesson? No matter if you are dealing with people, board games, video games, or any other entity of some sort who or that functions in ways other than how you would have them function, try actively to bring yourself to a level of contentedness with that entity before giving up and calling for a change that would, truth be told, alter the entity to your tastes, to something you are more familiar and hence more comfortable with. As you know, humans are most comfortable with what is most familiar, most of the time. It is said, after all, that we fear the 'unknown', that we fear change. Just some food for thought.

I am open to change, but I would've liked to have seen some reason why we should change to the proposed ones

Me too.

With this said, I seriously doubt that the rules are to blame for the fact that the community isn't bigger than it is. Changing them is not likely to bring in more players (nor would I really see that as a sufficient reason for this kind of change anyway).

The rules are not to blame for the small community. Here is why. Firstly, think on what Viking said. After all, there is a large number of players of the mod Europa Barbarorum. It is not as if there are very few people who ever played the game. So there is already a recruitment base or pool, so to speak. Secondly, changing rules is not necessary nor is it sufficient for enlarging the number of online players. If we modified EB's models and stat values so that they became identical to RTW's, and created a standard rule set identical to the (in)famous CWB rule set, would we still be justified in calling our system "EB Online"? or would we have strayed so far from our original goals that we would have created a new monster, one unrecognizable? Remember that as a mod that was created with historicity in mind, it is only logical, at least to me, that the multiplayer be formed with the same in mind. Considering the current rule set on the EBO website, we have not created much complication at all. Don't let the small font size fool you. What I would call over-complicated would be if there were limited army compositions for each group of factions (whether regional or cultural), or even each individual faction. And, don't be surprised, but individual army compositions were actually very seriously proposed not too long ago on these forums. There are extremes on either end, and moderation, as we've learned, is the key to an experience that is more enjoyable than it is frustrating. No outcome will be perfect, but many refinements we have gone through.

Excuse my long-windedness (that's the word, right?). It's been a long day. Or maybe I've quoted too many posts. Thank you all for your discussion by the way; it is always appreciated.

[Lazy O]

Well no point really needed in this thread now. As this has failed . But I have my clans support and the struggle will resume during summer.

Ludens please lock

[Galvanized Iron]

What heresy does my left eye behold?

wut? 240 men for each cavalry unit? archers rout on contact, and totally useless light infantry? not to mention altered the unit lists so badly and become unnatural selection of units?

yeah.... those are for vanilla minded players, not historical minded ones. (I've try play RS II multi, and I must say... it bring back vanilla games under RSII Skins)

EB allready has it's own MP community, and we're going fine. Face it.

Hehe funny guy. I especially liked your joke about light infantry being useless, considering how a phalanx army in RS II that doesn't use a protective screen of light infantry gets absolutely mutilated by javelins from an enemy who got them.

240 men cavalry isn't something I pulled out of my arse. The cavalry comes in double units to counter cavalry spamming, it's difficult to spam your army with cavalry when they have to be purchased in pairs. This also have added gameplay benifits of preventing unrealistic stacking of cavalry in one spot and also means that you have to pick your targets more carefully when the cavalry can't be everywhere at the same time. Its simply a good example of how you can edit restrictions into the game rather than having to impose a massive list of rules.

Archers rout on contact becuase its realistic, they were not equiped or trained to fight in close combat and thus they have to fold when charged by close combat experts. I'd say morale levels are much more realistic in RS II, a unit sent on a suicide mission will quickly turn tail, whilst a non-flanked battle line will fight on even under heavy casualties (thanks to a combination of lower morale and slower kill speeds). Archers have extra low morale also due to gameplay reasons, in vanilla archers tend to stick around for hit and run tactics even if the main battle line has been shattered, this unrealistic behavour was one of the first things I purged from RS II.

As for the rosters it is a matter of personal preference. I prefered to reward a player for using light and regular units by making these much more cost effective than the elites, it appears you prefer to make up armies consisting entirely of elite units which means I can unfortunately not help you as it goes against the as realistic as possible approach of the RS II MP.

The units themselves are designed to all have counters so that balanced armies always have the upper hand, basicly:

Skirmishers counter phalanxes, elephants, chariots.
Archers counters skirmishers, phalanxes, light cavalry, slingers, elephants.
Slingers counters phalanxes, heavy cavalry, elephants, chariots, heavy horse archers.
Phalanxes counter medium infantry, spearmen, cavalry, elephants, chariots.
Heavy infantry counters phalanxes, light cavalry, skirmishers, medium infantry, chariot, archers, spearmen, hoplites.
Medium infantry counters lack of numbers.
Hoplites counters cavalry, archers, medium infantry, skirmishers, chariots, elephants, spearmen, phalanxes.
Spearmen counters cavalry, elephants, chariots.
Specialist infantry counters different things.
Light cavalry counters skirmishers, archers, slingers, heavy horse archers and heavy cavalry.
Heavy cavalry counters skirmishers, archers, slingers, medium infantry, heavy infantry, heavy horse archers.
Javelin cavalry counter phalanxes, elephants, chariots, light cavalry, medium infantry, horse archers.
Horse archers counters archers, skirmishers, medium infantry, spearmen, phalanxes.
Heavy horse archers counters archers, skirmishers, medium infantry, spearmen, phalanxes, light cavalry, javelin cavalry.
Chariots counter cavalry, archers, horse archers.
Elephants counter cavalry, heavy infantry, medium infantry.

Comparing RS II with vanilla is insulting considering all effort that has gone into making it as balanced as possible whilst at the same time remaining realistic and creating long hard fought battles. Only thing that doesn't work as planned with RS II really is that the launcher often have trouble loading the right EDU.

[vartan]

The godly nature of the RS II MP EDU notwithstanding, can we turn on arcade mode when playing online? I ask because I'm sure it would help that 24-way-rock-paper-scissors thing you have going on in the second-to-last paragraph.

[The Celtic Viking]

The godly nature of the RS II MP EDU notwithstanding, can we turn on arcade mode when playing online? I ask because I'm sure it would help that 24-way-rock-paper-scissors thing you have going on in the second-to-last paragraph.

Unlimited arrows + unlimited stamina + nomad horse archers =

[Galvanized Iron]

The godly nature of the RS II MP EDU notwithstanding, can we turn on arcade mode when playing online? I ask because I'm sure it would help that 24-way-rock-paper-scissors thing you have going on in the second-to-last paragraph.

Is this a question or are you trying to be ironic?

RS II MP is designed for competive play, playing on arcade mode would seriously tip the balance in favour of missile heavy factions, ie cataphract archers of death.

[Galvanized Iron]

Anyway I don't want to imply that EB MP is inferior, I just don't see why I should have designed RS II MP to be a clone of EB MP, what would be the point of having 2 different mods if they were both the same? EB MP has the advantage of having bigger unit selection and gives you more free hands since units are more confident if left unsupported whilst RS MP is more tactical and competive (RS units do stand and fight for a veeeery long time when close to the main battleline, but rout quickly if you send them alone on suicide missions. Some people have complained about the unit morale, but they all had in common that they were not properly supporting their units). Only problem I see with EB MP is that its easier to exploit spam tactics to win and thus apperently need these fairplay rules to stop phalanxes from trampling everything etc.

[vartan]

Is this a question or are you trying to be ironic?

My line was a critique of the seeming rock-paper-scissors nature of your approach to MP. I'm from those who don't believe all competition need be implemented in such a fashion, and that innate advantages and disadvantages and other nuances should underly gameplay.

Anyway I don't want to imply that EB MP is inferior, I just don't see why I should have designed RS II MP to be a clone of EB MP, what would be the point of having 2 different mods if they were both the same? EB MP has the advantage of having bigger unit selection and gives you more free hands since units are more confident if left unsupported whilst RS MP is more tactical and competive (RS units do stand and fight for a veeeery long time when close to the main battleline, but rout quickly if you send them alone on suicide missions. Some people have complained about the unit morale, but they all had in common that they were not properly supporting their units). Only problem I see with EB MP is that its easier to exploit spam tactics to win and thus apperently need these fairplay rules to stop phalanxes from trampling everything etc.

The discussion is regarding the "Standard Rules" and the EB MP EDU (which needs a re-haul; I admit this before Day 1 of EB Online). Not EB/RS parallels or lack thereof. I'm grateful LazyO brought you to share your insight, because a variety of thoughts are better than few.

Regarding your approach, would it entail a re-examining of all costs of the units in MP, or is it a matter of features (e.g., wedge formation), statistical changes (e.g., morale, atk/def) and rules? Thanks again for your input.

[Galvanized Iron]

My line was a critique of the seeming rock-paper-scissors nature of your approach to MP. I'm from those who don't believe all competition need be implemented in such a fashion, and that innate advantages and disadvantages and other nuances should underly gameplay.

All units don't fall under rock scissor, but yeah overall the MP follows a kind of rock scissor formula, though some units like hoplites don't fully fit into that, phalanx is also something of an exception that its more geared towards strong early push followed by dissolving and weakening as battle prolongs.

The discussion is regarding the "Standard Rules" and the EB MP EDU (which needs a re-haul; I admit this before Day 1 of EB Online). Not EB/RS parallels or lack thereof. I'm grateful LazyO brought you to share your insight, because a variety of thoughts are better than few.

Regarding your approach, would it entail a re-examining of all costs of the units in MP, or is it a matter of features (e.g., wedge formation), statistical changes (e.g., morale, atk/def) and rules? Thanks again for your input.

Well I had a couple of game with LazyO and the mod was enjoyable as such, though the mod strongly seems to favour large blocks of infantry, was very easy to field armies that have unbreakable morale that way.

One good thing that I implemented in RS was that I greatly boosted the lethality of their primary attack whilst strongly diminishing their defense skill and secondary attack, that way the spears themselves act as a strong defense whilst the formation becomes almost impotent against units attacking where the spears are not pointing. This is also counter-acts boxing since if you press on a corner the phalanx will quickly be forced into using secondary attacks and so will reinforcing units do to the chaos.

Wedge formation as such is a very exploitive formation that even at minimal lethality are able to wipe battle lines in one charge as such its for the better that it is not in the mod. However the EB cavalry may need some sort of boosting, but wedge is not the solution. Its a bit awkward right now that the secondary lethality of the cavalry is so much lower than the primary, I know the secondary instead have higher attack speed and better hit chance, but overall cavalry using the primary attack seem to win over cavalry using the secondary attack.

Lowering morale would increase use of flank manouvers, aggressive tactics and such, but in a way I like the suicidal morale as it gives some variations from my games in RS and especially instant rout vanilla. No need to make every mod the same!