Suggestions

[khelvan]

With respect to the homelands system won't restricting where assimilation and integration takes place to where it happened historically give advantages to the more historically successful factions? While the aim of the EB mod is historical accuracy, its goal isn't to make RTW into a historical simulation that merely reenacts history in the manner it happened. After a long period or Roman rule and successful Romanization it would seem only logical for it to be possible to recruit Roman Legions there, as happened, for example in Illyricum after Tiberius’ invasion and its subsequent Annexation.

I think I may have misstated things. We're not restricting recruitment only to factions that were historically successful. We are, for the most part, making units available where they were raised historically. Granted, some factions will have specific units available to them when conquering other areas (such as the Romans and Carthaginians) that other factions will not, but the fact is that we are not attempting to balance the factions in our mod. Some are simply going to be easier to play.

Would it be possible for the EB mod to extend the period of time during which RTW takes place? I for one would like to be able to play into the 2nd or 3rd centuries A.D and the height of Imperial Rome.

I don't believe this has been decided. However, I do not believe we will be extending the date, given the amount of work we would need to do to correctly depict the later armies. We are already struggling against the 300 unit limit, having defined about 250 new units so far.

I also find the fact that a bribed army (if its not made up of troops that your faction uses) disperses.

Bribed armies will not simply disperse, except in very limited circumstances. Removing the faction colors is a part of this, as is making the units available to be used (but not recruited, necessarily) by all factions. You will be happy here.

Is it possible to reduce the distance to capital penalty?

Not unless you can reverse engineer RTW.exe, change the appropriate hard-coded information, and recompile it. If you can do that, I'll be your best friend!

The system of population and cities in RTW seems to tell us that everyone in the ancient world lived in urban centers.

While you make good points, we can only change what has been exposed for us by CA, and the mechanics of both the squalor system and the city/province depiction are definitely not exposed.

Finally, sorry about the length of this post, could you briefly explain what EB’s plans for dealing with Roman factions are.

In short, we have not decided yet. We are discussing and testing several different options.