Eeeeh feedback for open beta here?

[CorporateSlave]

Hi, great mod! I have been following it since last year, but never posted. Everything looks pretty amazing, however I do have a few questions:

- First season, Sweboz are paying tribute of $30,000. I realize that this must be a gameplay device to ensure that finances stay low for a while, but I am not sure how historical it is. Were these tribes paying tribute to anyone in those days? Historical record on Germanic tribes prior to Caesar is very scant, I am not sure they would even have so much gold even if they had to pay. Is there a way to eliminate the "tribute"? Maybe by waging war on the faction that we are paying tribute to?

- What historical records is the starting royal family for Sweboz based on? I would love to know more, just because I always thought the early days of the Germanic tribes will always remain hidden to us, due to the scarcity of sources. The website mentioned that all starting families are based on sound historical research.

- Considering that the gameplay device listed above ensures that barbarians have no money for a while, shouldn't the barbarian units be made cheaper? This would play into the tactic of disbanding units after each campaign to save money, as was mentioned before in this forum, as well as be more historically accurate: I presume Germanic people did not have a standing paid army in those days, but was limited to small bands of professional soldiers, who lived by plunder and tribal warriors (farmers, etc) who'd join the bands for the season or the campaign and return to the fields afterwards. Maybe I am wrong, but charging a small amount of gold for these troops would be more appropriate, IMO. Although I do realize that cheaper units may unbalance the game by producing lots of available troops all the time...

- Ships appear to have strangely alongated sails. Is that intentional? They look like they are about to topple.

By the way, I hope this post is not seen as hostile, I am very excited about this mod and the developers deserve every praise, I just offered my feedback. It would take time to truly get into the mechanics of new campaigns and battles, so my feedback is limited to first impressions.

Take care

CS

[Teutobod II]

"Also, I don't believe any faction is 'too hard' when it comes to the economy. You just have to realize how they actually worked the economy. Celts didn't keep big standing armies around; most people didn't. It's too expensive. Disband every unit that you are not using to attack or defend with. Excess units should be culled to save money. You cannot afford many large armies or navies. That's the idea; that's really how they worked. The economy is supposed to be difficult. That was always one of the greatest problems of any kingdom or empire; keeping the treasury in the black"

now he tells us - I had -10000 with my Sweboz in no time

damn realistic :-)

[The_Mark]

-First season, Sweboz are paying tribute of $30,000. I realize that this must be a gameplay device to ensure that finances stay low for a while, but I am not sure how historical it is. Were these tribes paying tribute to anyone in those days?

It is not a tribute as such, and it applies to all factions. All factions start with an amount of extra cash, and then we take the extra away from the player at the start of the game. The display problem will be fixed.

[Zastrow]

Here is some of my thoughts:

The triats and qualities of the family members for the factions are amazing, i love reading them, considering I've only played Pontos and Baktria so far, I got alot more reading to go before I experience all the cool little facts in the traits.

The map is superbly done, it blows RTR's map out of the water, not necessarily because of its shape or such, but because you guys didn't overload it with tons of mountains or make it a maze of passes like RTR's eastern part of the map is. I hated playing Baktrians in RTR, it was simply a maze of mountain passes, but your map is logical and well designed, kudos to the map makers.

The Battles are lacking, archers are incredibly overpowered, I mean rebel levy Persian archers or some Dahae cavalry archers will eat through anything, its forcing me to rely on archer power extensively myself, archers and cavalry together can destroy anything in the game. I gotta give RTR kudos in this field, their battle-setup was very well done and balanced, I'm sure it comes after a year of balancing and development, but i was hoping EB would take a page from RTR and make battles balanced. At the moment its super easy to route enemy troops or just shoot them to pieces with arrows, or alternatively get my entire army shot to pieces by 4 units of scythian horse archers that wander into my Pontic kingdom. Its frustrating to have your Kingdom destroyed by 4 units of Scythians, because units are expensive (at least beyond the levies) and buildings take awhile, making recovering from even one disaster nearly impossible. It makes it difficult, but I think there are better ways of making the game more difficult, such as making morale higher so the AI doesn't break and run on a dime like they do so much. Of course my experience is limited to the Eastern parts of the game, things may be different in Gaul and such. My simple suggestios are tone down archery, or make then shoot slower or something, right now horse archers are simply unstoppable, and while they were a pain historically, I don't consider them the epitome of warfare and capable of killing anything. I think they should be used for harassment (killing a few), wearing down and exhausting formations not shooting them to pieces.

The building setup is superior to RTRs, there are more buildings and its a bit confusing with all the Greek everywhere, but I think its a bit more original than "AOR building 1", which is just gamey, I really like the three buildings for Baktrians, Satrapy, Semi-Autonomous and Allied, really makes you have to decide between money-saving temporary measure (allied) or expensive but more permament Satrapy level, It makes me feel like I really have to make decisions in the administration of my fledling Kingdom.

Expenses I got mixed feelings on, stuff seems awfully expensive, I miss huge RTR armies! While I can see maybe your trying to force the player to be economical, at this rate I'll never get to some of the more powerful Baktrian units, and never get many of them, and those Agema and Cataphracts look badass, I gotta get some of them!

Skins/Animations are overally high quality, the new cavalry animation for Cataphracts is killer looking, when they lower all those spears my heart skips. Some of the skins seem rather dull and boring, but I imagine its largely because the majority of the world's people were poor, nomadic or levied and not everybody came to war with strapping leather pants and elaborate armor and shields. I prefer RTR's skins for the Romans, but your Romans probably are far closer to reality, however much I hate losing those massive plumes. The gamer part of me dislikes it, titantic battles with purty units is the best, the history guy part of me loves it, but overall good work on the skins. One final thing, the large size of the Gesatae and shock Gallic units is a bit ridiculous, it just looks wierd and ungainly. I dunno what the height of the average unit translate to in real life, but all your Celts look like 7 and a half feet tall and double the shoulder width, I know Celts and Northerners were bigger men on average and such, but it just looks ridiculous ingame at the current difference. I think you should tone down the height difference a bit.

In all truth, I think the mod is completely opposite of RTR. RTR is bells and whistles, alot of eye-candy, alot of glamour, but not much beyond the surface. A pretty shallow modification with a dull campaign. EB I find not that eye-catching with many of the units, not that glitzy or full of glamour but the campaign is amazing indepth and full of little things that make my nerdy history part of me smile with glee. I hope this helps you guys out some, and thanks for all the hard work.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

One final thing, the large size of the Gesatae and shock Gallic units is a bit ridiculous, it just looks wierd and ungainly.

Hehe. Hehe. (sorry)

[khelvan]

Hehe. Hehe. (sorry)

[Divinus Arma]

The large size? I thought that they were rather small. Even for the cold weather. hm.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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You haven't seen them after...hmmm...playing blackjack.
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[Zastrow]

I can see we have post-OB giggles among the EB team.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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And yet you can't see what's happening at the hidden boards.
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[QwertyMIDX]

The numbers of bodyguards for named characters is something we can't really change. However, if any particular bodyguard unit is too large and powerful, we can cut it down.

Unfortunately, the system decides which named characters get increases in bodyguard levels. So we could reduce the bodyguard unit number there, which would bring the faction leader and heir to reasonable numbers, but other named characters would drop really low.

I'm not sure which is the better course to take.

I actually want to cut the body guard size down so that the general has to play the role of a moving morale booster rather than a battle unit.

[King of the dutch]

Hello again

I am playing as the the ptolemaics. I lowered the difficulty somewhat to see if my economy was going to be slightly better and it is. Couple of things though. The pandopai(?) you know the basic spearman unit are missing their spears. Also the phalangites. The ones that use their spears with both hands have problems getting in formation again when i take them out of phalanx formation and then putting them back again. They jump(!) up and down and get their spears down. THey have axes as secondary weapons. I don't mind just running it by you to check if that should be the case. I never before saw a phalanx armed with axes. Apart from that the seleucids are bribing a dsettlement every turn. At first i was pleasantly surprised that the computer bribed someone but its getting slightly overdone. Maybe bribing settlements should be a bit harder?

grtz

[QwertyMIDX]

They're supposed to have axes.

[Malrubius]

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And yet you can't see what's happening at the hidden boards.
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No fun there, it's all work, never ceases.

Apart from that the seleucids are bribing a dsettlement every turn. At first i was pleasantly surprised that the computer bribed someone but its getting slightly overdone. Maybe bribing settlements should be a bit harder?

grtz

Yeah, diplomats are dangerous! For now, I advise assassins to kill them as an offensive measure. For defense, a loyal family member or a good diplomat in a settlement can stop bribery. I've added a little tweak to the first patch that should make bribery a little harder (but still not impossible!) if you post a diplomat in a settlement.

[King of the dutch]

Hello,

Played as Armenia for a bit. Here are some things i saw/noticed.

• The Armenians are rather roman. Roman voices and buildings and stuff
• ayrudzi netadzik have a peasantcard in the unit description window

No CTD's to report. Although after a while the game becomes a bit laggy. My mouse pointer will sort keep hanging. Maybe thats my comp.

Here are some things:

• There is a spelling mistake in the equites description. The word 'wass' should be 'was'. (there is also one in the armenian apset description but i forgot exactly what. i'll get back on that)
• The roman and Seleucid stuff is switched around. When you dont have a spy in a seleucid settlement and you see a flag hanging above the settlement its the roman one. (but i think you allready know this)
• The Yeuzhi are you're enemy. It doesn't matter much but its a bit weird
• When i got man of the hour my new genereal got an instant 100 bodyguard. It kept rising and was bigger than my faction leader's.

leyder