How good is EB?!

[edyzmedieval]

Eh, we waited very much for this mod.

How good is it?!

[Taliferno]

So good I'd sell my grandma for it.

[Taliferno]

*Double post sorry*

[Dayve]

I'd say that this mod does for RTW what butter does for bread... It's absolutely wonderful... And i can only imagine what the finished product would be like... I remember when my honeymoon period with RTW wore off about 2 months after playing it... I started to jot down all the things i would do to it if i knew how, to make it my perfect strategy game... And EB has done everything i jotted down on that list and more... The unit skins are great, the cost of units i find is great, although some may disagree... Defeating a large enemy army now actually has an impact on your enemy... It will be a good few turns before he can raise another one as large as the last, and the same goes for you...

I also think the high cost and build time of buildings is wonderful... This coupled with the high cost of units means that it will be a long long time before you have money to burn, and even then it will be only a small surplus of money... Not the 2 million denarii you had spare in vanilla campaigns... Also losing a city actually matters now... You will put a lot of time and money into developing a city and it's population... To lose it then would be a blow... If not to your economy then simply because of the time and effort you put into building it up...

Generals traits are so much better than in vanilla and other mods it really is unbelievable... It's like you can get to know the character... All the personal information in his trait list and on some characters even a history of what they really did in the Roman empire in the time they existed... You can't just send any old family member to command an army... In vanilla you could simply find a family member, command stars or no command stars, stick him in an army and conquer 5 cities one after the other, retraining all your best soldiers as you go... Putting a crappy no command stars general in an army in the EB mod will likely have disasterous consequences, as i found out earlier when i lost 3 quarters of an army trying to take a city from some smelly barbarian rebels, some of who weren't even wearing underwear!

Navies... By god they're expensive and time consuming to build and upkeep, but just like armies and cities, a 'naval army' is now a valuable piece on the chess board...

I could go on i suppose but i only came here to post a basic error i had found in the game... And now i'm going to go back to conquering...

[ScionTheWorm]

I've played on Very Hard/Very Hard with Casse and Getai now, and it has only been a world of hurt coming my way.

Massive agressive armies quickly forced me to find another way to play than the rtw/rtr agressive mode (which always worked before).

Reqruiting is so incredibly hard with the factions I've tried to play as. Actually I cannot imagine how to get established with any of these factions since their economy is going down. I just try to block the negative balance from my brain, and hope for a miracle.

and in addition, I feel like the AI is vastly improved. but that's probably just my imagination

awesome

[Dayve]

Actually i feel that the AI is improved when i play... Especially in battles... Gone are the days (and mods) where you could win any battle and lose only one 7th of your army... If i fight against an enemy of similar numbers to mine then i take considerable casualties, sometimes so high that the army has to be brought back to the nearest capable city of retraining them... It's great fun i tell you, well worth the long wait.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I'm wondering when folks will start posting about successful olympic competitors, about successfully breaking away from the Seleukids, about returning Alexandros' body to Pella, about successfully achieving triumphs, about having troubles maintaing good relations in Greece because of multiple factions continually breaking peace over Delphi or something else, about special traits they get for conquering a monument their ancestors had lost, about all these cool things that are hidden in here that folks still aren't even getting to yet!!!

[infierno]

yes AI is better, imo it looks like BI's AI (for me VERY GOOD)

BI's AI + better ai armys + better stats = perfect :)




anyway the load times are ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz and it were always fine with rtr and rtw...

how can i fix this? buy better PC or wait to the final release?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I don't know that the load times will get faster. There are thousands of more lines of text added into various files - the huge amount of new text descriptions for buildings, units, and just about everything else just slows things down. All those new traits and the way they interact; the enormous scripts to get so many extra little things into the game; all of this stuff just slows things down some. It's a little slow for me, but I play with the -nm and -ne tags so I just pop over to mozilla while it's loading. And on the computer I'm currently using it flies by (but it's a pretty fast cpu).

[Dooz]

I don't know that the load times will get faster. There are thousands of more lines of text added into various files - the huge amount of new text descriptions for buildings, units, and just about everything else just slows things down. All those new traits and the way they interact; the enormous scripts to get so many extra little things into the game; all of this stuff just slows things down some. It's a little slow for me, but I play with the -nm and -ne tags so I just pop over to mozilla while it's loading. And on the computer I'm currently using it flies by (but it's a pretty fast cpu).

What do the -nm and -ne tags do? And by popping over to mozilla, you mean the internet browser while the game loads?

[Big_John]

imo, it's pretty awesome so far! i have played a few hours. admittedly, i'm basically just paying for fun and not testing. i haven't run into any crashes yet, though. i saw a bug where unit portraits were not showing (just a white box where they should be) but it disappeared when i went to another city, and i wasn't able to duplicate it.

anyway, i started as the karthadastim. i didn't read the gameplay guide so things were a bit strange to begin with! let's just say that by 270bc i was ~130,000 mnai in debt. read the guide, and after much disbanding i was back in black by 260bc baby!

very early in my game, i beat up on brigands mostly and sieged and took rhegion with relatively little effort. now i'm looking at expanding my african domain.. is this called an 'anti-barcid' approach? hanno was getting bored lepki and i thought i would have him sweep across northern africa and solidify my punic dominance in that region. ran into a little hitch named "eshmunamash" in kirtsan. killed the bastard, but now i have to wait for reinforcements before i continue my march to tingus.

the seige of kirtsan was probably the first "average victory" i've ever had. and i had the superior troops too!

loadtimes aren't that big a deal to me. maybe i don't have a beast pc (amd 2500+, ati 9800pro, 1 gig ram), so maybe i just don't mind these loadtimes. i've been playing a lot of civ4 recently (now that's some serious slowdown!), maybe that's desensitized me to loadtimes. also, i haven't played rtw in a long time.


anyway, it all looks freaking great so far. my generals get bored very quickly and i think they all have the "light sleeper" trait.. i hope they don't get stressed out.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

What do the -nm and -ne tags do? And by popping over to mozilla, you mean the internet browser while the game loads?

They cut off the movies (which slows you down a bit) and make it where you can alt-tab over to other windows more easily (I believe). Yeah, I jump over to browse in between turns. makes it harder to catch when CTD's occur though

[Dooz]

I see, thanks .

[infierno]

well i have a 1.7 512 ram 9600pro i think a gameboy could do bett... well no ;) but still is crap



i just realized that flank a unit and shot it by the back with skirmishers like velites has little impact... in large scale firing into the back an enemy unit engaged into melee with other of my troops kill like 2-3 guys per volley :/ at a range of 10 meters or less
i dont know but even the best phalanx troops enganged into melee cant handle a volley coming by the back...


the second thing is in a custom battle making a 1 unit of archers Vs 1 unit of archers; the enemy archers:
A) just melee me, they dont fire, just get closer to me under arrow rain
B) come closer to me, then fall back, then shot me 1 or 2 times, then rout


try the custom battle, use the default armys, and select the "desert" archers ( i dont know its name), they have long range and dress like desert ppl
test 2 or 3 battles and tell me


in the other hand, horse archers seems very clever

[Teleklos Archelaou]

In my list of things above that I'm looking forward to players enjoying the most I almost forgot to mention the ethnicities. Some folks have mentioned that they really like the traits, but keep an eye out on ethnicities (some factions don't have them yet but most do). Some are fairly simple, but some are very complex. They don't always force a character to be a certain type of guy, but they do increase chances for certain trait or tempermant acquisition.

They're just another one of the amazing things the trait team has gotten into the open beta already at this stage.

[tk-421]

This is the coolest mod ever! It is incredibly challenging. I am playing as Koinon Hellenon. I took Corinth by diplomacy and got a ceasefire with Macedon. A turn later a message popped up telling me to go to war with the Macedonians because they did something to Delphi. I actually lost a battle and now ultra-agressive Macedonian armies are attacking me and blockading my ports. This is so much fun. No CTDs yet, either.

[Chester]

Prior to my CTD, the Sweboz campaign was probably one of the most rewarding games I've played.
The battles see more intellgient too, I love how archers stay in loose formation, running about firing at your flanks.

Calvary, imo, is perfected. They are not too slow or weak (rtr) but not over powered either. It's so well balanced, I tip my hat to the guy who is responsible for the stats.

If you're looking for a real challenge. I suggest Casse on VH/VH settings. I'm not even sure if it's possible to win! The rebels are VERY aggressive up there, attacking one settlement prompts all of the rebels to gang up on you.

PS- Those Saminite skins are brilliant!

[Ranika]

It is possible with the Casse, but intentionally very, very difficult.

[Chester]

SWEBOZ are hard too. Don't count on making money for the first 12 turns. The battles are very important, don't plan on automating out of laziness.

EB forces you to do things that are unfamiliar. I like it!

[Kampfduck]

i think eb is very good, it just feels right, but, of course theres always something to say, and this is my part.

I think they should use the zor system like RTR does, recruiting kind of troops only availeble in parts of different countries, also the ability to recruit specific kind of units for one place, like for example, cretan archers from crete, this was used a lot in RTR, and i think it gives a good bonus in gameplay and also more diversity in the armies that you use.

At this moment the sort of troops that you can use are too little.

But the ones that are made for each nation are very good made.

So my question is: will there be more sorts of units in future eb versions?

keep up the good work!

[Dayve]

They've already said that there will be more units and many many changes to lots of things in the coming patches and the final version.

[Kampfduck]

great news, im just new on this forum, already was reading some of the post but didnt noticed the one that says something about the amount of unit types.

[Moros]

great news, im just new on this forum, already was reading some of the post but didnt noticed the one that says something about the amount of unit types.

there's already something like that in place, I believe, but much more complicated than the ZOR of RTR.

[Dayve]

Since you are new Kampf - i will say that you have to understand that this is just a beta version.. It's unfinished... The only reason they have released it to us is so we can play it and find bugs for them that they haven't found, and the more people that play, the more bugs we will find for them... Lots of things are currently missing like unit descriptions, unit cards, building descriptions, building pictures, some units haven't been included yet, and there are bugs... Some minor and some possible game breakers... It's our job to tell them everything we find so they can fix it and release a proper version that is polished and stuff...

[Divinus Arma]

The recruitment system in EB is based upon regions and types of governments. It is still being tweaked, but it is quite complex. It is an essential component of EB and was a nightmare to build. I only had a very very small hand in it, and I spent many an hour just looking at spreadsheets and text code. Big props to Khelvan, as this is his baby.

[Thorn Is]

i just realized that flank a unit and shot it by the back with skirmishers like velites has little impact...

I noticed that too, but I was at the recieving end of it. I wasnt paying attention and I charged into the enemy's infantry with mine managing to let some peepsqueek rebel faction flank me with their peltists, and to my surprise my infantry came out with very little damage. I thought after a volley like that I would be in trouble...

I like how the battles play out in the beta

[Rilder]

its a great mod, except for the fact that i cant understand any Building/unit names SPEAK ENGLISH .... lol

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I noticed that too, but I was at the recieving end of it. I wasnt paying attention and I charged into the enemy's infantry with mine managing to let some peepsqueek rebel faction flank me with their peltists, and to my surprise my infantry came out with very little damage. I thought after a volley like that I would be in trouble...

I like how the battles play out in the beta

I know sometimes the skirmishers seem weak, but...

It was a freak thing, but using one unit (no upgrades) unit of akontistai (those lowest level skirmishers) for the Maks, I totally annihilated in one volley (yes, that's right) an entire other unit that was at full strength. The thing was that they were close by but further up a hill, and exactly 90 degrees to the right of the advancing (about to be destroyed) unit. 240 javelins came raining down from close by and almost directly down upon this poor unit.

I'll not say what the other unit was, but I was absolutely shocked. As I said, it was a freak thing.

[ScionTheWorm]

do you regard the difficultysettings as right, that easy=easy, hard=hard and so on? and are there any unit size one should prefer to get the most out of it?

[Thorn Is]

It was a freak thing, but using one unit (no upgrades) unit of akontistai (those lowest level skirmishers) for the Maks, I totally annihilated in one volley (yes, that's right) an entire other unit that was at full strength.

wow... that sounds great...
personaly I just fought one of the best battles ever. Have to rank it in at least my top 5. I lost it, but it was a truely amazing experience. I find the battles go by very quickly. I have to pay attention all the time. In the vanilla i used to be able to check their infantry with mine and fight a second battle (ie against reinforcents or trying to get to the center of a city) but I find if I stop paying attention to one end of the battle things could get really bad really fast... lol