Hello everyone,
I'm a long time RTW veteran (as well as an avid player of all things M2TW, especially over at the Throne Room) I've long been delaying my head-first plunge into EB. Several things had me thrown off - it looked visually very different (darker menu, changed sea water), the campaign map performs somewhat poorly on my stellar PC (dual quad-core I7, 16 GB ram, GT 570 etc.) and the traits system and government system seemed so radically different from vanilla that I simply said "to hell with this" and just devoted time to M2:TW. Oh, and the historically accurate names did not help either, especially the Greek ones.
I am however, a great history enthusiast so I've decided to take time and learn the traits system, the unit names etc. and to make myself feel comfortable playing EB since it's basically the Stainless Steel of RTW as far as historical accuracy and depth is concerned. I have a couple of questions however:
1. I see conflicting opinions on what difficulty I should play on. In vanilla I could take any faction on VH/VH and win, probably even with Numidia if I bothered with them. What of EB? I tried VH/VH with the Romanii (since I'm now reading "The Enemies of Rome" by Philip Matyszak) but the rebels at Segesta and the town west of it cut my Principes to shreds and a charge by my Equites Consularii and Equites Romanii directly at their backs accomplished little. I have heard of people beating a VH/VH EB campaign so if it's indeed not that hard let me know what I'm doing wrong. I started a second campaign, VH/M last night and I just sat back for 3-4 turns building economy buildings, temples to Mars and training Pricnipes before catching Epeiros with their pants down, but still I'm reluctant to continue if VH/VH is viable. I don't like feeling that I'm taking it easy on myself.
2. Is there any way to make the campaign map perform smoothly like M2TW does? It gets choppy when i scroll the map and switching between cities gives me some delay.
3. Which are the HA factions in the mod? I'd assume Scythia (called the Getae here?) and Parthia exist. Who else gets HAs? Does the AI use them well? What of the overall unit balance? In vanilla the Romans steamrolled everyone eventually due to their unrealistically high stats - an Urban Cohort with upgrades can just charge trough a phalanx of Spartans and smash them to bits. However the chariots, cataphractoi, HAs and elephants all were very strong as well, especially in the hands of a human player. The phalanxes pretty much sucked unless they were Spartan/Armoured or Sacred Band.
4. Is anyone interested in a Succession game where each player plays out the term of the faction leader and when he dies, the save is passed on to another one? With roleplaying the FL according to his traits, making historical choices for expansion and diplomacy, setting faction goals etc. We could even have one or two players as the Consuls and the rest of us as the Senate.
5. Where can I make suggestions based on historical sources I've come across? For example I read an interesting bit about Carthage's surrounding farmlands, which made the city independent for it's food supply unlike Rome which had to import. I don't know what farming level the city has been given in EB but if it's anything lower than or equal to Rome then values must be changed. That's just an example though.
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