How good is EB?!

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 12-29-2005, 03:33

Originally Posted by Thorn Is

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** · 12-29-2005, 03:41

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** · 12-29-2005, 04:23

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

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

**Divinus Arma** · 12-29-2005, 15:08

Originally Posted by Thorn Is

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

Hmmm. My impression is that battles are slower, not faster. Play EB for a while, then play a straight vanilla game. You will be shocked at how ridiculously fast vanilla is.

**mike^_^** · 12-29-2005, 15:37

anyone else find the new "default" battle formations kick-ass?

oh how much fun it was smashing that celtic attack wedge into the tips of my phalanx spears, watching their entire army break under the weight of my companions

<3 EB

**Mordred** · 12-29-2005, 17:21

Best mod so far. They eye the modders had for detail is stunning. Now the trait system makes sense. You cannot execute complete cities anymore without having negative effect on some of your generals. You need to pay far more attention to it, which give the game a much deeper 'feel'.
A good governer gets you more money, which is hard to come by anyhow.

Strategic level is very good, much harder opponents as said by others. I started as Seleucids, and boy was I in trouble. Lost large part of my empire.
Ai is more aggresive as well as rebel armies. It picks better armies.

The amount of different units combined with the new recruiting system makes the armies very diverse, it will take a while before that gets boring, if at all.

Units graphics look beautiful. Battle AI is very good. Finally no AI who charges with missile units but uses them properly.

I was kind of bored with the game, but it feels like a complete new game now.

9.8 out of 10!

**Birka Viking** · 12-29-2005, 17:45

I can only agree..This mod is avesome..Play as romans and they kick as...*lol*

**bean_22** · 12-29-2005, 22:47

Just played EB for the first time today. Wow, is the only word for it, and this is just the open beta. Been experimenting around, tried some custom battles with the greeks and macedonians and the romans and some barbarains. I really like the way the battles are balanced. Cavalry in particular. Companions for example feel exactly like they should, you have to be careful but man can they slaughter. Having all the human troops (at least from what I've seen) have one hit point makes the game much more balanced, ranged units do as they should and it makes the animations a little more realistic (eg you won't see the same unit get up 2 or 3 times after getting stabbed). The AI over vanilla 1.2 seems improved, maybe not as good as 1.5 but a challenge nonetheless. The New animations are terrific. I tried some casse two handed swordsmen (forget name) against some barbarian spearmen (forget name) and you could actually see the two handed swordsmen parrying blows and the first few lines seem to mingle which i felt was realistic for barbarian units and something I never noticed in vanilla (except with cav).

Started a compaign on vh/vh with makedonia. Btw, is there a recommended difficulty level (eg one its been more thoroughly tested on?) About ten turns in.

I only disbanded some of my army keeping large portions of it including cavalry. Naturally, I went into debt. However on the battlefield my army has been extremely succesful. The greeks just can't seem to counter the hammar and anvil tactics which lead to them mass routing. I took athens and sparta in several pitched battles, and finally had thought I had pushed the hellenes from the peninsula. I made peace with Epirus to guard my flanks. My army was much larger than any single army the greeks threw against me...leading my general to get the "likes easy battles" trait. Haha I laughed when i saw that. Very cool. I like how in winter marching is very difficult. However it only seems to be for the general you can still march your troops without the general a fair distance. Battles are a perfect length, not too long and the morale seems appropriate, although in one battle when I killed the enemy general there entire army routed which consisted of three phalanx units not yet engaged and 4 peltasts who were skirmishing with my troops. That seemed a little bizarre. Although my six groups of cavalry were all in flanking positions, and i have seen peltasts and other skirmishers break by just moving my hetaroi to there flanks especially if they have taken casualties.

Another question...are barbarian factions affected by the winter as much in terms of marching distance?

Now after seizing Sparta, and crushing the greeks, I thought yay I was finally in the positives...time to chill for awhile paying of my debt (almost 60000). Just getting ready to disband some troops when the Greeks landed a 3/4 stack with cavalry, 8 phalanx units, a good general (faction heir) and theuropoai (sp?). This won't be easy. I was very impressed with the fact they landed such a well organized and elite army to counter me taking two of their best cities.

Anyhow overall extremely impressed. I am gonna get back to playing it.

**Mujalumbo** · 12-29-2005, 23:03

So good, I had to smack my momma.

**Narakir** · 12-30-2005, 00:04

I've not played much or followed EB developement over months, but It's realy a great mod, in terms of gameplay ) it's realy cool, each battle feels important, I like the building system and all the descriptions, new units, real improvement of barbarian factions they're realy fun to play (especialy Casse). In EB you've the feeling that you're a small nation like many others and that you're unable to conquer the world easly as it was in vanilla. Finaly the traits, this is surely the best thing, caracters are moore deep and with the four turns a year the last longer.

**AggonyDuck** · 12-30-2005, 01:13

It's great, especially the traits and ancillaries increase the enjoyment level a lot. Atleast the generals have got so much more depth to them.

For example in my game as Carthage one of the least likely family members to be a general, became my top general, pretty much out of necessity.

Aderbal the Ugly, who started out as Dull/Uncharismatic/Vigorous and Unselfish/Pessimistic/Loyal. He's currently still has about no Command, Management or Influence, suffers from a lot of pessimism, but that hasn't stopped him from winning his battles. The thing that really has made him successful is the fact that he's one insanely tough sob and that he has his merry band of veteran Libyan Spearmen.