If you have not yet seen EB,

[Simetrical]

Just because EB has chosen to announce something now does not mean we haven't been working on it for a very long time.

I never implied otherwise, and nor did I intend to. I just wanted to make it clear that we didn't steal the idea from EB (and that there was no reason to think we did, since it was invented repeatedly by different people). Unfortunately, I inadvertently came out as sounding like I was saying "yeah, but we came up with it first."

I see no reason for this to have turned into a pissing match.

I'm sorry. I didn't intend my comments to be taken as confrontational. I intended them from the start to merely point out that the type-of-government concept was not unique or special to EB, as Divinus Arma seemed to think. De facto, this meant that it looked as though I was slamming EB, and in a way I was; this was unavoidable if I wanted to correct Divinus Arma's error, but in retrospect I could have probably phrased my post to make my intent clearer.

I'm sure we can agree that it's acceptable for anyone to correct misconceptions about a mod per se, even if the misconceptions are positive and even if the corrector is on the team of a competing mod. It's just that in such a case, tact is critical, and I'm afraid I failed on that count.

Besides, why would you two mods even care to fight each other?

Unfortunately, tension usually exists wherever there's competition, and RTR and EB are in direct competition for those players who seek realism. Some people on each side dislike the other mod for reasons real or imagined, but always strongly influenced by the mods' competition. Even beyond that, perfectly innocent comments can easily get misunderstood as being attacks when they aren't, which leads to further acrimony. This is unfortunate, but inevitable. All we can do, fans and modders alike, is try to tread carefully when it comes to others' mods.

-Simetrical

[Craterus]

what does EB do? apart from making the barbarian factions more civilised. (isn't that unrealistic because many of them were uncivilised, i don't want to start an argument so don't take any of this as an insult!)

[Simetrical]

EB's goals are much the same as RTR's: basically, making the game more realistic. It started out dedicated to researching barbarians, hence the name, but it quickly grew into a general historical research team, and upon the game's release, a historical mod team. For more info, go to the forums linked above.

Anyway, most barbarians really weren't as barbaric as they're often portrayed. None of them matched the discipline of "civilized" armies, but then, arguably nobody did again after the fall of the Empire until the mid-medieval times. Barbarians also didn't match civilized architectual achievements, and their societies generally had less bureaucracy and the like, and they usually read and wrote a lot less; but their metalworking was certainly just as good, their educational system was often as good, etc., and they weren't stupid or anything.

-Simetrical

[Craterus]

I haven't visited those forums but I'll do so now. I didn't say they were stupid but I don't think they're armies should have an increase in discipline because the Barbarian Armies of that age weren't disciplined at all.

[Khorak]

What Simetrical is trying to say, is that the 'barbarians' were every bit as culturally and technically advanced as the so called 'civilised' states. Although they didn't leave the lasting infrastructure and architecture the Romans and such left behind after their demise, they also had highly developed societies and had their own technical brilliances (such as metalworking).

Hell, it should say something to you that Rome, for all its civilisation and supposed advanced nature, never truly managed to pacify its barbarian opponents. Got a damn good drubbing when they started sniffing at northern Europe beyond Gaul.

[Craterus]

yea i know lol, i think the gauls had it coming though..

[khelvan]

As I told Divinus in the EB forums, the "governments" idea is nothing revolutionary. It is simply using buildings to add various bonuses and penalties, allow the building of other buildings, or the recruitment of units. Certainly creating new buildings is not a new idea, and calling it a 'government' building is nothing special.

We feel it adds value to the EB mod, and has been in the works for a while. Perhaps Divinus thought we had made some great discovery; if so, it would have been shared in the general modding forums. EB shares all of its technical discoveries there. We make no claim to have done anything first, though all of the ideas we put into the mod are original.

Many people have posted that they will download EB and then use the skins to play SPQR, RTR, or vanilla; they will be in for a rude awakening when they find that we've completely tossed out all the vanilla units and created our own. They won't be able to stick our work into another mod - EB is a total conversion, and I doubt that when the final release comes out that there will be a single data file untouched. It is hard to accurately describe EB; we are remaking the campaign to be more fun, challenging, and of course historically accurate.

"Barbarians" each have their own culture, organization, and militaries. Some "barbarians," such as the Celts, had cultures that rivalled the Greeks and Romans, though of course in different ways. All of the factions will see changes.

I did not mean to post in an aggressive manner. I meant no offense.

Edit: We're still on track for the public, open beta to be released in April.

[Craterus]

Sounds good, I'll head over to the EB forum for some more info, thanks.

[Brighdaasa]

just one question: how does the EB mod tackle the battle ai? cause that's the real problem with the vanilla version imo (assuming you managed to balance the factions you recreated)

[khelvan]

The battle AI is hard-coded.

[Randal]

assuming you managed to balance the factions you recreated

As far as I know, EB is not planning to balance the factions it creates. Realism is the name of the game, so if one faction was historically much stronger than another, or had far more powerful troops, then that's what the mod will feature. Balance be damned.

[Benny Moore]

I cannot wait! Still, please take your time.