BETA TESTERS

[macsen rufus]

If all goes well, I'll get a beta-install ready for the weekend. I think I've managed to play every faction in RoP to victory, but of course this has been done at different stages of development. I can only test-play at the expense of development time, so a few beta-testers would come in handy.

The beta release will not be public, but anyone who is interested can PM me with their email, and once it's ready they will be able to grab a copy. I might set some 'homework' in terms of factions I need to be looked at first

So far I have a list of one two three:

• Dimitrios the Samian, whose first task will be to play the Ionians
• Western, well, we need someone to start at the opposite end of the map, too, so how about the Gandharans?
• Leith, clearly has an affinity with the hoplite class, so a choice of Sparta, Athens or Argos
  

Just to be clear: the install will require a clean copy of MTW:VI, v2.01

[dimitrios the samian]

Awesome Mac .... Samos is/was Ionian back in the Ancient days .
cheers

[macsen rufus]

Exactly

I thought your local knowledge would help

[dimitrios the samian]

[Leith]

Good news, Macsen! Count me in! (Please choose an interesting faction for me to try)

[macsen rufus]

Stand by your emails in about 5-6 hours

[Leith]

That's good to hear, Mac! However I will be in bed then Anyway I won't be able to do much before tomorrow's evening. That said, I am quite pleased I will spend a whole evening tomorrow playing Eastern Empires

[macsen rufus]

The original plan was for me to finish this off over the weekend, then decided it was time to draw a line and get it out so the beta-team had some weekend left to get started

I know the custom battles aren't fully squared up yet - it's just a tedious job I haven't got round to yet...

The file is currently uploading. When it's done, you'll all receive an invite from wetransfer.com to downlaod it. My mobile internet connection is a bit slow tonight, so can't be sure when it'll be ready.

THINGS TO LOOK FOR:

• Please start with the factions listed above, this allows for fastest 'discovery' of the map between everyone
• I know I said dead bodies were fixed, but it turns out not to be 100% - please make a note of any units you spot not leaving bodies behind (I'm close to finding them all, but more eyes will help narrow down to where it's breaking down)
• ALEX is included, fully playable, but is not complete by a long way - I'm actively working on that - feel free to play it, but it's not beta-test material yet.
• Please keep an eye on neighbouring factions - especially note whether Greek factions are building the AGORA and how soon into the game - if you can afford to send out agents to check, so much the better
• If you should suffer any CTDs, please let me know the circumstances (though I've only had the sort of CTDs I get when playing Vanilla - eg if the game's been running for quite a few hours or I get an audio problem....)
• Make sure you set the 'non-critical messages' flag when you begin, as I just realised it doesn't have all the coloured info-pics (because I always turn off non-critical messages and never see them myself, and forget they even exist....)
• Above all, have fun

EDIT: Successfully uploaded, check your inbox

[dimitrios the samian]

Downloaded smoothly ..
Well done Mac ,I'll install it on Sunday & begin my Ionian campaign .
Notes will be taken & updates done in the coming days .
cheers

[western]

[IMG][/IMG]

OK - I'm attempting to post a screenshot of the Medes having been done over by the Gandharans. The year is 206 and I have a lot of money. Played on hard and was never short of money - I could build/recruit in every province every turn, which I think is a bit too easy. I made straight for the coast at the outset, only to discover that Hindush has no trade goods so that was a waste of time. I churned out huge numbers of pretty low grade troops (the best available as I teched up, but I never got teched up very far). The Medes sensibly gathered a huge 4 stack army in their capital province and came for me, but got a bit stuck in Parthia while I danced around them, took less guarded provinces and started a Median civil war. I never had to fight that main army - just call me spear-Guderian. So:

- stability good. I had one startmap crash around 182 when I captured (on auto) a Median castle. Reloaded,played a bit different and it crashed again at the same point. Reloaded a second time and before I could pin down exactly who and where was crashing, I was past it. No more crashes. I will have to be a bit quicker next time with pinning down, but the stability over about 40 turns is good

- AI good. The Median armies were better quality than mine and the AI was doing the right thing in battle and on the strat map until it got stuck. I wonder if there are a few too many connections between provinces? The 4-way junction between Carmania, Drangiana, Parthia and Gedrosia allowed me to dance round the Parthia road block. Should Drangiana and Carmania be connected when they barely touch? Babylon was spreading via sea movement along the Persian Gulf, which was interesting. I abandoned the sea when I couldn't make any money from it. Media was building fair sized fleets on the Caspian and heading north (away from me). This is pretty ahistorical and not good for gameplay so you might want to make a bit harder

- visually good. The only thing I really didn't like was the dead elephants which looked like massive cowpats (it didn't help that they died on a bridge and everyone else then had to climb over the brobdinagian cowpats)

- one day you/we might want to clean up the map a bit so province boundaries stand out more. This is really being fussy, but there are a fair few Alexandrias we could get rid of since they wont be created for several centuries yet.

That was a rush through just to get a feel. I will play other factions and post more detailed thoughts. Congrats on creating a really fun game!

[macsen rufus]

Thanks, Western - that's a great report - certainly seems like you've learnt how to drive Gandhara pretty quickly

I haven't seen any dead elephants since I sorted out (most of) the deadpage, so will have to take a look see how they can be improved.

re the economy - yes, it can be easy for humans, but unfortunately the AI still manages to starve to death, so bit of a quandry there.

re the crashes - do you remember the province? And did it involve a Median royal? I do sometimes get crashes after a king is killed in a siege assault, even in vanilla, but if it's something we can track down and squash, so much the better

I'll also take a look at those borders around Drangiana - those corner-corner ones could be closed off, perhaps.

re all the Alexandrias - the map was chosen for its relevance to the Alexander campaign, and will also be extended into the Diadochi era, so the anachronisms for Rise of Persia are a by-product of that. Being as new maps are a lot of work (and I haven't got back up to speed on that side of things yet) I'm regarding it as a necessary compromise....

And trade goods in Hindush -- this is exactly why I need beta-testers -- I still haven't got around to putting ivory into the trade goods. It's in the 'to do' list, waiting to be done. By the way, did you find the sea route to Egypt?

The Caspian is bugging me - it is really useful to have a couple of ships there for the short-cut between north and south, but some factions just take Hyrcania and spam ships there until they go bankrupt (Persia, I'm looking at you!)

Nice to see your LUKUP map in the corner - seems like history has evolved differently to any of my games. I've also found AI-Gandhara canbe very unpredictable. Often see it just sitting in the home province with wads of cash and few troops, but in the last game I tried it had taken Hindush and Syrastrene in about 15 years...

[western]

[IMG][/IMG]

The family are away so I had another go! This time I knew what I was doing so I won a bit quicker - but it was tougher at first. I rushed ahead and actually lost early in second attempt because rebels in Hindush were really good. I faced 3 successive rebellions, all with varied and good troops, and managed to lose both king and heir in a final attempt to crush them - score 1 to the AI. So what I have posted is attempt 3. Good rebels are rare, so this was a real plus. I met good rebels again later in Albania and the most eastererly Indian province - so not just Hindush.

Also I fought on 2 maps in Hindush that looked new to me - a river joining the sea, with 2x interesting terrain. And later in Albania I think that might have been a new map too - a mountain pass. The old maps get tired so, if I'm right, new, less generic maps are a really good feature.

Again, the Medes spammed ships on the Caspian, which helped me. But it's also interesting and pleasing how different this second (we won't count the early defeat!) playthrough was. Persia got going this time. And those Babylonians were crazy for sea movement as the minimap shows - they got everywhere except the Persian Gulf, where they went last time.

The Medes were resilient and hard to kill. They ended up as 2 lively halves - one east of Caspian and one north of Bactria. I had to pause and recruit to finish them off, so certainly no pushover. (I think it helped them when they lost their shipbuilding province on the Caspian!)

No crashes at all. Noticed 3 units with no dead bodies - my bodyguard, Isvasa and Median camels. Also I should say a lot of the units are really fresh - the cards may look like traditional MTW, but the units they refer to usually are not.

[macsen rufus]

Good to hear you're having fun with it - that's the real acid test, I guess

It's really interesting to see how different the north-west corner of the map is in your two campaigns as well. The Babylonians like their Phoenician Warships, and seem to ALWAYS take Iberia in my games.

I have had bit of a play with with the 'rebel troop mix' column, and it looks like it's paying off for the effort. On one of my Greek campaigns I let slip my iron control of 'Aetolia' and was duly rewarded with a stack of Theban Sacred Band, Athenian Hoplites and Enomotia hoplites (can't remember now if it was rebels or loyalists, though...). I had to hide in the castle and counterattack with reinforcements next turn. Makes a change from the big stacks of slingers that usually crop up in the original HTW rebel mix.

On the battle maps, most of them are from HTW, but I think there are a few of my own in there still. Certainly the one that comes up for Lower Egypt (at least for sea invasions) is mine - and it defeated my Athenian army recently - they basically died of exhaustion and couldn't catch all the rebels before timing out. But I still reckon the HTW battle maps are the best I've seen in any mod that I've tried. (You might have noticed I messed up a bit when I originally ported in the HTW maps, and the castles especially can throw up quite the wrong mini-panorama image before battles - I need to sort it all out, but it is a humungous job...)

Re the unit icons, there are still quite a few placeholders in there, but I have a list. I'd really like to get my hands on GDS again, I found that the easiest way to do the battle LBMs. UP works, but I'll only have thirty uses in shareware mode, and PSP will expire after 30 days - and it also fails to index properly. I've forgotten all the old tricks from before my last PC died Looks like I'm going to have to save up a big wodge of BMPs and do a massive conversion session to save on UP uses.

And noted on the dead bodies - looks like the hitch is well down in the unit_prod, so should be able to pin it down in the morning now.

I'm surprised how well the Egyptians do, considering how weak a lot of their units are - if you fancy a change of scenery, they're worth a play, and there are features I've implemented which need a second pair of eyes on them.

And with that, I'd better turn in, it's gone 3am again....

[Leith]

Hi guys! I have played the Athenians for a hundred turns and here are my observations:

1-The Spartans and the Argives were very passive. They both built a couple of full unit stacks and then stopped doing except offering to ally with me and with each other. At one point the Spartans had at least 8-9 units of Spartan hoplites who could have taken out the Argives easily but instead they remained passive all the way.

2-The Macedonians attacked and tried to expand but were eventually crushed by the Lydians and the Illyrians. At least they tried!

3-The Agora's review panel is black.

4-The Egyptians lost after round 30 turns because the king died and had no heirs! However after a while they re-emerged and dominated the map.

5-The unit icons really need some work! The same icons are given to multiple units,e.g Theben, Athenian and Argive hoplites have the same uninspiring icon.

6-Unit animations are the same with one exception but I'm hoping this will change with the final release and with the completion of the unit roster,

Overall I had fun but I would have had more if the Ai had been more active. The game has been very stable with no crashes at all.

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for that, Leith

1) It seems about 2 out of 3 games they are like that - occasionally aggressive, but often quite passive. If the Spartans have 8 or 9 units of Spartan Hoplites, then they are bankrupt, so you'd expect them to be desperate to grab more income... I'll try a starting attitude of 'expansionist' instead of 'isolationist' for Sparta, but doubt it will make much difference - after all, the Argives start as 'expansionist' and Athens is set to 'naval expansionist', but AI behaviours change throughout the game.

2) Macedonia/Illyria/Thrace make an interesting threesome up there in the corner - you never know which one will come out on top...

3) Umm. That's weird - shows up fine in my beta re-install - let's wait to see how Dimitrios fares with the Ionians, he'll need to build one too. Might be an MTW version or hardware issue? Might be worth seeing if you can open it up with BifReader and see how it looks to you there?

4) That's just careless of them, they start with two princes in the pipeline

5) Yes, as mentioned to Western, some are placeholders, some still just have the HTW icons, but I have a list for what needs updating once I have all the tools sorted.

6) Animations are in hand, given the very few folders we have left

Good news about the stability and I'm sure by the time it's 'finished' (haha, mods are never 'finished'....) the AI could perk up a bit.

Thanks for the report, some useful stuff coming in to keep me busy next week

[western]

[IMG][/IMG]

In the pic above there is something wrong with the Babylonian army in Susiana (their last province). Whether I invade from Media or Babylonia, and regardless of which troops I invade with, the result is the same: strat map moves are taken and we flick through the kings: the last one lights up (Media) and then long pause, message "working" and then crash. We never get as far as the battle loading up. I don't know how to use the command cheats on steam, so I can't become Babylon and go into the army to look at its composition (is there a way)?

That aside, playing as Egypt was fun. I had no other crashes and an epic struggle to extinguish the Babylonian fleets, but

- too much money so I can always build everything
- I couldn't get the Red Sea to give me any sea trade
- Aramea provides a very easy desert back door into Babylon. I fatally wounded Babylon early on by taking a huge army thru lightly defended desert provinces and catching Babylon before it was ready. Bit of an exploit and I would bt tempted to break the connection between Aramea and Nabatea so you have to footslog along the coast as various pharoahs attempted: none of them ever found a back door to Babylon
- do you need to have the Medean camels available through north africa and judaea? Seems a bit odd and there are alternative local camel units available
- would be good to give Cyrenaica a greek character. It was intermittently an independent greek kingdom at this time, with a fortune founded on the now extinct silphium, which would make a unique trade good!
- you mentioned trade with Egypt. I didn't encounter that as India, nor the reverse as Egypt. I imagine it's a building localised to those provinces, but I had a quick look in building descriptions and couldn't see anything there. It would be a nice bit of colour (and make both Persian Gulf and Red Sea more worthwhile fighting for access to). I'm sure it's there and I'm just missing it.

Hope that's all helpful. Let me know if there is any way (on steam) to get into that Babylonian army. I have the game saved just in case.

[western]

I should have taken fog of war off so you could see whole map. Here it is. The Gandharans are doing OK without me and interestingly the Caspian is empty!

[IMG][/IMG]

[macsen rufus]

Thanks, Western, more good stuf in there!

First off, I don't even know what Steam is, let alone anything about it

OK re the crash... I can't imagine what it would be, but at that point it's often a building or something in the province you are about to invade - but it looks like you can see into the province with your watchtower, so that can't be it this time. Are you able to see all the units in the stacks without it crashing? It can't be a facshield issue as all the folders are safe now the factions are up to FN_20 only.... hmmm When you say the battle doesn't load up, do you mean you don't even get as far as the pre-battle parchment?

I think you've made a good case to turn down the starting treasury - I'll try that out to see how things go.

You need to keep looking very closely at the sea around Arabia And make sure you have deep-sea ships.

Re Aramaea - probably a good idea, though better would be to split Aramaea into two provinces with no connection between them... I'll mull it over. After all, Babylon was often invaded by Aramaeans etc. But that would mean changing the map, which I don't want to do yet...

Cyrenaica does have a tinge of Greekiness to it, but you only see it in high era unless you are playing a Greek faction

Median Camels aren't available there - they need the Khorasan Highway to train them, and that can only be built in the correct provinces. I could set the region requirements in the unit_prod so they don't show up on the building info parchments elsewhere, though.

Yep, you're missing something - see above

What did you think of the Egyptian temple system, by the way?

[western]

OK, I remembered how to do the -ian switch and get into those Babylonian armies. My crash in 179 is a completely reliable crash, relating to the battle but happening even before the pre-battle screen comes up, and happening whether I invade Susiana as the Egyptians or the Persians - I must have made it crash 30 times while I experimented with different units. In the end it turns out - very surprisingly - that it is the babylonian heavy missile slingers who are causing the crash: 2 units of slingers, and if they are included (even just one of them) there is always a crash; if they are disbanded before I end turn, never a crash.

There is nothing wrong with the unit per se. I've gone back to the start and fought battles with them fine. My theory is that something about their dismountable nature makes the computer unable to decide where to put them in the reinforcement order and so it crashes when it is trying to present that pre-battle screen including reinforcement order. So it only becomes a problem when - as here - you've got 30 plus units, requiring the surplus to be placed in reinforcement tables in quality order. To test that, I disbanded enough units for the slingers to be in the opening line up with no reinforcements - and bingo, no crash. Ditto no crash when I do an attack out of Susiana with a smallish army including heavy missile slingers.

Are they actually dismountable? The unit-prod says so, but in battle they don't behave as though they are (no "change battle mode" option).

This whole idea of infantry dismounting to be other infantry is new and I'm not sure any mod has tried it for real rather than in theory. If I'm right about the slingers, we may need to look at other infantry:infantry instances of dismounting to see if they have the same issue.

I stand corrected on the Median camels - I never tried to build them, just noticed I kept getting messages that they were available in my African provinces.

I didn't really investigate egyptian temples. I noticed they were worth building because of big morale bonuses, but didn't look into it more than that. I will do so next time. And thanks for the pointers re India-Egypt trade.

Re money, I offer as an idea a really simple change I use in various mods to prevent money getting too plentiful. We all know money gets more and more abundant as the game goes on, so I have a tech penalty built into the build_prod file (call it maintenance or whatever). The castle line is labelled as giving cathedral income, and given minus value income so that as you step up you get an increased penalty (12 steps, so say a sliding scale from -25 through to -300). I think it's better than reducing starting income, because a tech penalty tends to penalise the human player more (inveterate builders) and it deals with the late game riches problem. It's really easy to do - just a set of minus numbers in one column of one row of build_prod.

Interested in your thoughts on my heavy slingers and dismounting theory. It isn't so easy to test definitively because you would need to engineer a big clash of two armies with reinforcements, both before and after changing the unit prod. But regardless of that, it's a plain fact that I can't "dismount" the heavy slingers even though the unit prod suggests I should be able to.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western,

Lots to think about in that post.....

First off, I'd say the idea of putting negative cathedral bonuses on castles has legs and well worth a look Though I might try it on other buildings too....

Re the slingers - that is totally ing weird !!!

I've not encountered any trouble with 'dismountable' infantry at all, and I have used quite a lot in my mods to date, such as Tribal Spears/Tribal Missile Spears, Heavy/Light Slingers, Nakhtu-aa Heavy Infantry/Nakhtu-aa Javelin Infantry, and various Roman units 'dismountable' to use pila, to name the few that come to mind through the fog of a few pints of Marston's Pedigree And PMTW uses this a lot as well - the term 'dismount' is a real misnomer, because the original MTW only foresaw people getting off their horses, which is why I borrowed Cegorach's terminology and went for 'Can change battle mode'.

It really shouldn't be an issue as the AI NEVER dismounts. I'm perturbed by the fact you saw no 'Change battle mode' option, they really should be able to change mode. Weirder and weirder..... (bear in mind the unit_prod calls the heavies 'LT_slingers' because I never got around to changing the HTW terminology... can I confirm they were definitely heavies with the darker tunics, and not the lights with the lighter tunics on the review panel icons?)

Hmmmmm, I'm getting more and more mystified by this. Could it be differences in MTW versions, or thie Steam thingy? As you have an Egyptian campaign, can you check the Nakhtu-aa guys, and see if they dismount properly? Have you had any other 'dismount' trouble?

Egyptian temples also give titles, and it's where Egyptians get their agents from, as I removed brothels from that morally upright civilization...



Come to think of it, could you email me the .cpg file, then I can find out a bit more?

[dimitrios the samian]

Hello Macsen & other guys ...
Im itching to load up & begin my campaigns , but time restricts me .
( my wife is leaving for her home country again as her visa expires & we are still waiting for her permanent residency )
So focusing on the beta is somewhat difficult time wise .( as time is thin at present)
I still spend a few hours ( 10&15 min spurts) doodling on the troops im working on , so progress is being made !
I have read each & every one of the reports so far & Western yr good mate & so are you Leith .
Macsen , I have no idea what Steam is & to be honest , I hope it does not deter us from modding .
Anyway , I will re read the reports as I have some ideas & comments

[western]

Hi Macsen
I've sent you the save. Can't dismount is a red herring (I must have been going goggle eyed) - but I still maintain that it is the heavy slingers (named as LT_slingers) who are causing the crash, but only when they have to be ranked as reinforcements

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - no worries - as and when you have the time
@western - thanks for the update. I've grabbed the save file okay, but not sure when I'll get to look at it - got a lot of work on this week (makiing hay whilst the sun shines etc etc...)

I've tried cutting out the borders we discussed, and that's worked ok on the map. Haven't tested long-term impact yet.

ALSO fixed the dead bodies - if you want to mend your own copy, open up deadpagecoords.txt and change 'Pers_Archers' to 'Pers_Archer' - yep, another single-character error ramifying throughout the ranks! Must say it's been hard on my troops - picking out various units and sending them to their death just to see if they leave bodies behind... Whilst I was doing that, I saw the AI-Gandharans had teched up enough to train elephants in Syrastrene, though it took quite a while (game year ~240).

Decided simply to remove the musterfield from the build requirements for Median Camels - that way they'll only show up on the Khorasan Highway info page.

[macsen rufus]

Ok, so I couldn't resist the temptation

Alas, the mystery merely deepens, because it did not crash in my beta-reinstall. As I was expecting the crash, I just chucked in a single stack from Media (with the 6-star general) and the Persians also decided to join in. The slingers were there in the Bab reinforcements, and we managed to fight the battle successfully (well, it was more successful for the Persians as they got the province...)

Here's a screenie of the carnage, just as the slingers are joining the battle.

[western]

That's disappointing because I just tried the exact same thing. 6 star general from Media, Persians also invade, crash before battle screen appears. Then I went in as Babylon, disbanded the slingers, and invaded as Egypt: no crash.

I don't think it's the computer not being up to the job. It can handle larger battles without the slingers. But two additional points:
- the computer does grind a bit before it crashes
- I can never properly see recruitment screens - only half the first recruitment screen and then the second half of the screen is black with a couple of unit icons on it.

[IMG][/IMG]

That ain't right - I remember being able to scroll thru recruitment screens in the old days. This is most likely a Steam issue and nothing to do with you. I tried XL mod and the same thing happened with recruitment screens - they did various graphic "fixes" when they rereleased MTW1 thru Steam

[dimitrios the samian]

wow Mac , that's an awesome picture , great job that map

Western , Is it possible for you to install MTW the traditional way again ? ..... it be worth it ,
as it runs so smoothly without this .............................. Steam ??

I have no idea what Steam is or what the advantages are ?

btw , great bug busting

Keep on rolling on guys , im making progress whenever possible & the African Hoplites are looking really nice (mean)
cheers for now

[macsen rufus]

Hi both,

I tried a second time, just to be sure the first time wasn't a fluke, and ths time I chucked everything into Susiana that I could (well, I left a few governors out of the fray, even though I'm not playing the full campaign...) This time I outnumbered the Persians, but the battle played fine again (well, it was a bit laggy with about 8000 troops involved, with lots of missiles to boot, but no crashing though).

I'm beginning to suspect that the issue does have something to do with Steam, then. We could probably narrow that down a bit by getting the save game file to both Dimitrios and Leith - I gather Leith has a Steam install, and Dimitrios is 'old school' like me. It could also be related to the problem Leith reported with the agora info pic being black, further up the thread. Perhaps you could check that, Western? It would give us another data point for triangulating on the problem.

I'd like to know what all those graphic 'fixes' were! (Apart from the obvious 'If it ain't bust....' qualifier.) Wonder if the parchment sizes have been changed or tiled, or is it something deeper like image formats being changed? Anyway, I have never seen a reinforcement panel looking like that before, Western - and your memory serves fine - there's usually no trouble scrolling through screens and screens of reinforcements. I'm assuming you've not had any similar problems with the unmodded Steam MTW/VI?

Slightly off topic but related: I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but I only discovered it recently - if you fight a battle with an ally whose army is big enough for reinforcements, you can actually order those reinforcements the same as you can for your own army. How this is related, was that in the battle for Susiana I shuffled the Persians' one-star Shah down to the bottom to let one of their four-star princes take command.

And keep plugging away at those African hoplites, DTS - mean-looking is just the ticket


EDIT: One off-the-wall idea, Western - what resolution are you playing in? Just been skimming some Steam-related stuff, and wonder if trying it in old-fashioned 800x600 res may help?

[western]

Macsen
Please accept the accolade of genius. It hadn't occurred to me to play around with game resolution. Resolution was set to 800x600, when really the fixes that came with Steam were designed for play at higher resolutions. So I boosted up to the higher resolutions and found the crash problem disappeared and the reinforcement screen displayed correctly. So simple! Your off the wall idea was the correct one, though the reverse approach, of raising the resolution, was actually the key.

Why heavy slingers in the reinforcement screen interacted so badly with Steam I will never know and I no longer need to care. Now on to the next problem!

[dimitrios the samian]

Great news western .......
Keep on bug busting mate , your good at it !
Just a thought !! ..... for a more difficult game , can a player use the ian & get factions to begin hostilities on each other on the 1st turn & then just play out the game as normal ?
I imagine playing as Persia & having most of the other factions hunting you down !
This would really be Total War
.. im in & out as time permits .

[western]

Thanks Dimitrios. The brainwave was Macsen's, but I will agree that comparing notes often shines new light on a problem.

In regard to -ian, I think you can do as you say - so for example if you want to fight as Babylon, you could start as Persia, begin a war with Babylon, and then jump to be Babylon but now with a war on their hands. Jumping is very simple - and I think all the factions are open to -ian except the Medes. If Macsen wanted to use a vacant slot to bring their number down from FN_20 then they should become accessible too.