Preview: Mamleket haHashmonayim

[Lysimachos]

It is probably too late for that, but I just wanted to say that for representation of historically little numbers I actually prefer smaller units instead of higher costs. Why? In every campaign comes the point where costs don't really matter much anymore. It isn't really important for the player if he can afford 60 or 80 units, but it always will be important - regardless of the royal purse's size and from the very start to the very end - whether he can control three or four thousand men on the field.

[anubis88]

The elite units will be small in numbers as well, don' worry :)

[Shadowwalker]

Heya there,

thanks for these clarifications/the additional informations.
It infact relieved me to read it.
(And I realized that I maybe should stop reading about the Merovingians/Carolingians for some time and read some more about earlier times again...)

As said - thanks, much appreciated.
With these statements I can comfortably go back to to "wait patiently, cross fingers and look forward"-mode.

P.S.: anubis, I wasn't talking about the faction description. That one is infact close to the ones we all know (and love) from "vanilla" EB. Which means it's good.
Oh - one last thing: I don't care too much about balance if the presented situation and/or the unit stats are historical (as far as possible; it's a pity that we never found an ancient source telling us the exact stats ). This is an EB mod and not some mass-appealing RTS-nonsense.

[anubis88]

Well, the trick is to balance things historically :) Don't worry, i think you are going to love the result. We are driven by EB standards, so worrying that we will balance things at the cost of reality is wrong. The Hasmoneans may have strong units, but they will be bloody hard to recruit and very few in numbers. Trust me, you won't have the time to build "superarmies" since you'll have a superpower on every border.

And imagine this. You start great, crush the Nabateans, hold the Armenians at bay, manage to raid a few Ptolemaic cities... And what's your reward? The superpowers Rome and Parthia come knocking on your border . So yeah, i wouldn't worry about the Hasmoneans being overpowered. They're elite units will be very expensive and very few in numbers, like it was said before, and they will probably have the toughest starting position of all.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :)

[Gaius Sempronius Gracchus]

Hi. Firstly, well done to EBNOM for making such good (and good quality) progress. I have been following this mod for some time (and my apologies for not being able to help as I had wished, with real life taking a toll upon my time) and I am pleased to see that it is bearing fruit as I suspected it would.

I have to say that upon reading this faction preview my nerves became a little fraught. Thankfully Anubis and others have assuaged the fears that this faction might become ahistorically overpowered. I, like Shadowwalker, have no problem with the 'in-character' faction description, the 'Why the Hashmonayim?' section, however, is very..... jarring in places.

I believe that this faction ought to be in at this time because in terms of the political geography it is important. As to the why of that, I consider the reasons given here as a little too personal/biased - hence the worry engendered in some quarters.

This is not the place to address the issues regarding that section but it might have been better to have replaced that part of the preview with a more 'rounded' evaluation based upon the team's thoughts. But, if one simply sidesteps that section and understands that the new (and impressive) units will be implemented wisely (as it has been demonstrated that they will) then this is a welcome new faction.

Looking forward to this. Keep up the good (nah, let's be honest, great) work.

[Blxz]

Mr Gracchus makes a good point. I'll take it even further and suggest that removing that particular part completely is a good idea. It is really only directed at abou's comments and doesn't add much to the description for any other reader. It has already caused a little bit of concern among some people. Is it really needed?

[anubis88]

Well, keravnos clearly states that what he writes about is his own personal opinion. I also find the statement they were more important than the Romans completly untrue for example.

But i definetly agree that the Hasmoneans were a power to be reckoned with, and a very special faction as well, so they definetly deserve a faction spot in our timeframe.

And, like i mentioned before, don't be fooled by their great unit roster. They will probably be the toughest faction to play with in EBNOM