Europa Barbarorum 2.08e is released!

[QuintusSertorius]

I remember a while back people were complaining that Carthage had no free upkeep. Turns out it was a twofold problem; almost none of their roster had the attribute, but more fundamentally, they have no buildings which provide the slots. Looking into free upkeep right now, before releasing 2.02d.

Elephants have changed formation, to make use of the special AI that applies to them, but it does mean they're now a blob rather than an ordered square. They still seem to do as they're supposed to, and hopefully that will mean they work in sieges. Not sure how they'll handle pathfinding inside settlements, though.

I've finished the great recosting. Everything is now consistent with each other, based upon the same formula looking at status, equipment and training. Talking of elephants, African elephants have come down a little, so they're cheaper than Indian, since they're smaller and weaker. Elephants in general are still extortionate, though. :)

Armour upgrades have also been implemented, for those units which already had skins for them.

The importance of Makedonian Phalangitai has been reinforced still further - the mercenary phalanx uses weaker stats, though they are a little cheaper to hire than Phalangitai are to recruit.

[Saigrin]

Toxotai Aithiopikoi do not open formations

[QuintusSertorius]

Toxotai Aithiopikoi do not open formations

Intentional; not all units have loose formations. They specifically don't.

[Saigrin]

Oh thanks Quintus :D, I didn't knew it.

One question, is more people experiencing the "lazyness" of the CAI, apart from "QWE_asd" and me? I mean, they only attack neighbors, if they do, and never risk their armies against rebels.

[QuintusSertorius]

Oh thanks Quintus :D, I didn't knew it.

One question, is more people experiencing the "lazyness" of the CAI, apart from "QWE_asd" and me? I mean, they only attack neighbors, if they do, and never risk their armies against rebels.

Yes, we've updated and changed the CAI for 2.02d, which is coming soon.

[QuintusSertorius]

Just doing some pre-release testing of what will now be called 2.03 given the myriad changes from 2.02c.

Amongst the other things in there, it has Tux's text/UI legibility upgrades bundled in.

[madmatg]

Woohoo!

[QuintusSertorius]

2.03 released, install as usual, start a new campaign. As always, not savegame compatible. Changelog has been updated with all the new and improved things.

[Tux]

Changed the title to 2.03, where's my beer?!

[QuintusSertorius]

Changed the title to 2.03, where's my beer?!

I was expecting stealth-Ludens to have done it.

I owe you at least three, now.

[QuintusSertorius]

Update to diplomacy coming shortly, everyone.

[QuintusSertorius]

Indeed. Now updated to 2.03a - thank you for the quick feedback everyone, and thanks to z3n for the rapid turnaround.

If you were finding the pace of change too fast before, I'd recommend going back to Medium campaign difficulty, I suspect there's some hardcoded general aggressiveness at work there.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'd like people's observations on morale and it's impact on battles. I've seen a number of reports of mass routs, and I've seen some myself as well.

In 2.01, morale was too high. By the time routs occurred, very late in the battles, units were so depleted that they'd flee without rallying. I believe the number remaining has an impact on their likelihood to rally - ie return to the battle after breaking.

In 2.03, morale is generally half what it was in 2.01. Units rout earlier, but because they retain more men (if you don't immediately jump on them, hard to do in bigger battles if other parts are still fighting), they rally and return to the fight. I think this is particularly significant in the case of line infantry, cavalry feel fine for the most part.

I don't want a return to 2.01 where morale was basically irrelevant until it was a foregone conclusion. But I do think they're routing a little too early in 2.03. What I'm thinking of is a formula for consistent application of morale across all units (or at least for line infantry) where it would be a point or two higher than it is at present, but nowhere near as high as it was in 2.01.


I also want views on unit cohesion. It might just be me, but it seems to have changed recently. Does anyone with experience of 2.02 and my testing EDUs see anything different?

[Gaius Sempronius Gracchus]

I started an Epirote campaign with 2.03,nly siege battles so far so not sure if morale works differently on walls than in open battle. Both sides' morale only collapsed to routing after they were massively depleted (so for my - attacking - units there was no rallying).

What I did notice was that my units would run the siege engines or ladders up to the walls and then.....stand back, disengage from the siege engine and admire it, so that I had to re-order those units to make an attck on the units on the wall. Don't know if anybody else has had that problem.

[QuintusSertorius]

I started an Epirote campaign with 2.03,nly siege battles so far so not sure if morale works differently on walls than in open battle. Both sides' morale only collapsed to routing after they were massively depleted (so for my - attacking - units there was no rallying).

What I did notice was that my units would run the siege engines or ladders up to the walls and then.....stand back, disengage from the siege engine and admire it, so that I had to re-order those units to make an attck on the units on the wall. Don't know if anybody else has had that problem.

Sieges make morale irrelevant for the defender if they're in the "town square", which causes an auto-rally as soon as they reach it. So it's field battles we need feedback from, as far as morale goes.

Siege pathfinding is problematic at the best of times, as long as you can get them to actually execute an order, even if it takes multiple attempts, that's a result. If they abjectly refuse to do something, then we may have a bug.

[Ozonius Tomicus]

I played Bosporans for the first time with 2.02c so opted to try them again with 2.03a. As of turn 10 there have been two battles thus far -- both attacks by Rebel governors when I began siege on their towns. I only had about half the size army as the garrison in each case -- but decent hoplite infantry, a unit or two of skirmishers and my general's cavalry.

Rebel aggression with the immediate sally seemed appropriate given the numbers. Both garrisons had hoplite-class infantry, missile cavalry, and bow and javelin skirmishers. I pulled my troops back into a defensive line with cavalry screening the redeployment and chasing off the lighter cavalry harassers.

With the greater distance to attack my position the various foot troops definitely get spread out, so only attacked my defensive line with 1-3 units at a time. This gave me opportunities for local superiority with 2-3 of my units counter-charging each enemy in turn. The resulting melees did not seem any shorter than in the previous version of the mod, but units were definitely recovering and coming back for more punishment more quickly than before.

Most of the units available to the faction at start remain the same, though some names have changed. The starting forces did include a sphendonetai slinger unit and those had not been available to the Bosporans when I played them before.

No new family members yet though there should be one in a couple more years. Both games as the Bosporans I have started with a 65-year-old heir, so expect him to keel over any day now. Hopefully new FMs will not go starving the turn after they appear as they all did in my 2.02c game. Also no sign of bad traits yet -- in the previous game the great majority of FMs accumulated 4-6 traits apiece from bumpkin, self centered, rumormonger, toady, repulsive, and shameless -- even with schools in all towns.

[Saigrin]

Hi people!

I am playing a new campaign as Bosporans, just like Ozonius Tonicus, and the changes in unit upkeep are really noticeable.

I must insist, as its my main observation, that, at turn 40, the AI is still not fighting the rebels, only their neighbors. The other kind of aggression I've seen is port blocking, but not disembarks or other strategies like I remember in previous releases, or an unnofficial release of the CAI.

Have a good day ;)

[madmatg]

I just amphibious land at epidamnos with a full stack and sieged it, the epirotes had 2 full stacks sitting at and near the minor settlement in that region and neither attacked me on their turn

[edyzmedieval]

Are there any CTDs on the End Turn period in 2.03?

[QuintusSertorius]

Are there any CTDs on the End Turn period in 2.03?

Not that I've ever encountered.

[Ozonius Tomicus]

Update on my Bosporan M/M campaign at turn 45.

Still only at war with Rebels. The town at eastern end of Black Sea captured after an expiration sally. The garrison contained a large proportion of "poor morale" troops and by the time they reached my defensive line they were pretty-much breaking at contact.

Aside from my capitol all three of my other regions have been offered settlers. I never saw these in my earlier Bosporan campaign that went several times more turns. I'll have to try some of these out.

The elderly heir finally shuffled-off this mortal coil in his early 70's -- his equivalent in the 2.02c game dropped dead after only a few seasons. The remaining FMs should have a lot of years left. No new FMs have gotten the "starving" trait after appearing in a town, so that is good. Only one FM has been slowly acquiring negative characteristics (tier-2 bumpkin, toady) so that is no longer as overwhelming as the earlier game.

Also I haven't seen it mentioned but in the diplomacy sub-dialogs the Accept/Cancel buttons are switched -- showing "X" for accept and check for cancel. in other dialogs a green-highlighted check is accept and a red X is cancel. The UI overall does have better readability, which my eyes appreciate.

No factions eliminated yet and I think that aside from the usual Grecian brawling and AS/Ptolie dust-up everyone seems to be concentrating on Rebels. The Sarmatians took the place east of Azov and have been tentatively sniffing around my capitol from across the strait.

I have only seen a few naval units , one Epirote ship by Histria and AS/Ptolie/QS navies along the North African coast.

Only a couple of CTDs at all thus far, and those might have been hardware cooling-related with our local temps rising.

[edyzmedieval]

Not that I've ever encountered.

Cheers, I'll give it a try to see how it works.

[QuintusSertorius]

Cheers, I'll give it a try to see how it works.

I'd hold off, we're not long off 2.03b, with a fair few campaign mechanics actually fixed (colonies, reform events, etc) and updated battle mechanics.

[QuintusSertorius]

Update incoming with 2.03b: we've fixed the Koinon Hellenon Reform.

[QuintusSertorius]

Just doing some internal testing on 2.03b, but by way of preview while that's happening, here's the changelog:

• Updated CAI to increase consistency and focus, better naval invasions and revision of diplomacy. More aggressive use of the resources the AI has.
• Working colony scripts, courtesy of V.T. Marvin. Updated closing monitors for Hayasdan and Saka Reform.
• Koinon Hellenon Reform working as intended, it is now possible to take the faction from the start to finish of this unique series of events.
• Added horse archers to Hayastan government building recruitment - they're a temporary stand-in until they get native horse archers. Also added slingers and javelineers.
• Persepolis replaced with Antiocheia in Hayastan reform conditions.
• Removed the ability of Koinon Hellenon to found new polis buildings - this was never intended to be the case, their colonisation phase has ended by 3rd century BC. Changed the minimum KH government building required for a number of construction choices, to take into account the non-linear nature of them.
• Koinon Hellenon governments now have a conversion bonus, up to 50% Hellenistic Polities. This means converting Small Hellenistic Poleis buildings into Hellenistic Poleis buildings will happen faster than usual.
• Added the requirement of a Game Field to the pre-requisites for a helcol_two - settler-soldiers need somewhere to train together, after all.
• Altered the cultural conversion bonus of the Native Garrison so that it only applies in the east.
• Added three new pools to the Native Garrison - Galatia (only for non-Hellenistic factions), India and Italy. Added Pantopdapoi to Eastern pool and Uazali to Anatolian pool.
• The numidia4 government has had it's recruit_pools revised - no more Balaeric slingers and Kretans on tap across a wide area, you have to go to the source to get them.
• Slight reduction of Rebel garrisons globally, to encourage AI expansion. Moved some Rebel armies to the script, so they spawn when a particular faction is played by the human player, rather than all the time, again, to encourage the AI.
• Flash flood disabled - hope to find a more permanent fix in a later release.
• Increased melee kill rates from 0.3 to 0.35, which improves cohesion. Increased morale by 1 point for all units and doubled infantry shield values to compensate.
• All javelineer cavalry set to skirmish mode by default (inconsistent before).
• Some non-skirmisher javelineer units now have a heavy javelin instead of a light one.
• Incorporates HaHawk's Realistic Dust Mod.

[Ice]

A couple comments on 2.03a m/m as Romani:

-AI doesn't really expand and attack rebels. It's 250 BC and 90% of the AI factions ha vent even conquered a single settlement. I see you have tweaked this in 2.03, but this should be a major area of focus. The game isn't remotely challenging.
-Assassins are way too powerful. I've assassinated countless high ranking generals with ease. I believe this needs to be tweaked to make it more difficult.
-Diplomacy doesn't work. It's now a hassle to get things as simple as trade rights from the AI. It wasn't even this bad in EB I.

The good things:
-Battles are much better. Missile and Calvary units seem to function correctly.
-The trait system seems to be working much better.
-Cultural conversion bonus buildings (colonys) seems to be working much better

[QuintusSertorius]

2.03b released, changes from last time:

• Updated CAI to increase consistency and focus, better naval invasions and revision of diplomacy. More aggressive use of the resources the AI has.
• Working colony scripts, courtesy of V.T. Marvin. Updated closing monitors for Hayasdan and Saka Reform.
• Koinon Hellenon Reform working as intended, it is now possible to take the faction from the start to finish of this unique series of events.
• Added horse archers to Hayastan government building recruitment - they're a temporary stand-in until they get native horse archers. Also added slingers and javelineers to reflect the missile-focus of Armenian warfare.
• Persepolis replaced with Antiocheia in Hayastan reform conditions.
• Removed the ability of Koinon Hellenon to found new polis buildings - this was never intended to be the case, their colonisation phase has ended by 3rd century BC. Changed the minimum KH government building required for a number of construction choices, to take into account the non-linear nature of them.
• Koinon Hellenon governments now have a conversion bonus, up to 50% Hellenistic Polities. This means converting Small Hellenistic Poleis buildings into Hellenistic Poleis buildings will happen faster than usual.
• Added the requirement of a Game Field to the pre-requisites for a helcol_two - settler-soldiers need somewhere to train together, after all.
• Altered the cultural conversion bonus of the Native Garrison so that it only applies in the east.
• Added three new pools to the Native Garrison - Galatia (only for non-Hellenistic factions), India and Italy. Rejigged existing pools to make more sense for the regions they are in.
• Alteration to Numidian factional government building trees - both upgrade path and costs/building times. The numidia4 government has had it's recruit_pools revised - no more Balaeric slingers and Kretans on tap across a wide area, you have to go to the source to get them.
• Slight reduction of Rebel garrisons globally, to encourage AI expansion. Moved some Rebel armies to the script, so they spawn when a particular faction is played by the human player, rather than all the time, again, to encourage the AI.
• Flash flood disabled - hope to find a more permanent fix in a later release.
• Increased kill rates from 0.3 to 0.35, which improves cohesion. Increased morale by 1 point for all units and doubled infantry shield values to compensate.
• All javelineer cavalry set to skirmish mode by default (inconsistent before).
• Some non-skirmisher javelineer units now have a heavy javelin instead of a light one. All infantry skirmishers slowed down slightly.
• Assassins nerfed so they are not as powerful as before.
• Includes HaHawk's Realistic Dust Mod.

[QWE_asd]

CTD on menu screen, am I missing something?

09:25:24.773 [script.err] [error] Script Error in mods/EBII/data/export_descr_unit.txt, at line 4024, column 1
Could not find soldier battle model for unit type 'Triarii_Polybian'.

09:25:24.773 [data.invalid] [error] DATABASE_TABLE error found : error reading record from file mods/EBII/data/export_descr_unit.txt.

[QuintusSertorius]

Sorry everyone, entirely my fault, I put the wrong EDU in the zip. I've updated and it should work now.

Peril of working on both 2.03b and the development build at the same time, with each a subfolder in the same place...

[QuintusSertorius]

Right, if you downloaded before now and haven't started yet, I'd recommend re-downloading. I've now fixed the issue with incorrect bodyguard units for FMs (barring a few generals I left as they were), this was particularly problematic for Aedui and the Getai, none of whom were using the correct unit, but other factions had some with expensive, regular units. This matters because the designated guard units have an upkeep 1/10 what it would otherwise be (and 1/20 of the equivalent recruitable unit).