First Impressions

**maidros** · 12-30-2005, 12:04

I started playing with the Yuezhi and my first impressions are recorded below - I shall probably be adding to and editing the post as I continue with my campaign.

1) The first thing that struck me is the movement of pure cavalry based armies on the campaign map. It struck me as way too low. On my second attempt at playing the Yuezhi, a rebel army stack of 6 units spawned right next to my capital on the second turn, proceeded to assault it and took the city before I could rush my reinforcements from the north - Game over. Given that the capital is denuded of all troops - except for a family member and with the outrageous rate at which the city is making loss, it is not possible to train many additional troops. My suggestion would be
a) Improve the rate at which cavalry based armies move on the campaign map - given the rate of movement of cavalry on the campaign map, it will take at the least 25 unhindered turns to move from the Sulek to Antioch - which means some six years, given the 4 seasons year. This is not historically correct, is it? Note: Even infantry movement points may need to be modified - I have not tried with infantry.

b) Why is it that the capital is completely denuded of troops at the beginning of the game? What is worse, given the rate of movement, there is no way to move troops in time, even between neighbouring cities. This needs to be modified. I would suggest that the two archers units start in the capital. Time enough to move them to assault a city if necessary. It should be a choice for the player to make.
Regards,
Maidros

**Shrapnel** · 12-30-2005, 16:52

Yes, I too agree that movement range needs to be drastically altered for a greater distance.

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 12-30-2005, 17:29

In regards to b: Keep in mind that the Yuezhi are the least developed faction in terms of units and pretty much everything else. I actually asked on the internal boards if we wanted to make them unplayable for the open beta, but most everyone said we should keep them as playable for it. Their status in the game is being debated actually.

**infierno** · 12-30-2005, 22:11

my flaws are:

still for me short battles

skirmishers attack even firing at the back are USELESS

-lomg loadig times* this is not really a flaw but a temporally issue

**QwertyMIDX** · 12-30-2005, 22:13

In regards to a) I don't think that is even possible.

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 12-30-2005, 22:16

Originally Posted by infierno

skirmishers attack even firing at the back are USELESS

infierno - this totally varies depending upon the unit attacked and their armor, the terrain, the distance, the direction the attack comes from, etc.

I have done it and seen other people talk about how skirmishers (even very light ones) will totally destroy entire units if you get them in the right place at the right time. To make them all stronger would totally unbalance things. Please post details of a battle where they make no difference at all or where they are useless like you said. There has to be a reason for the attack to fail.

**jerby** · 12-30-2005, 22:58

indeed...i had a 2 units of akontistai (low skirmishers, nothign fancy) utterly destroy and rout a unit of (basic) hoplites with spending about half their ammo...
they were attacking downhill at the hoplites, who were running about, clueless wich direction to pick...(there general was in battle with another unit of akontistai h2h. and their skirmishers beign slaugterd by my cav. they didn't knwo wich to choose..)

but, like you. i emptied 3 peltastai on soem hypaspistai from the (shield-sided) flank...3 kills tops...

**pezhetairoi** · 01-01-2006, 02:54

I say the only thing that spoiled my first impression was the loading times. Urgh. Is it because of the extra weight the scripts place on the game?

**Reddington** · 01-01-2006, 06:39

I've only played as Rome thusfar but I like how far units can move per turn on the campaign map. The current speed makes the campaign map more strategic. The EB mod requiers you to really consider weather you should try to invade a city becuase each city is so vital and every unit is so expensive to replace.

As a whole I like that EB slows the game play down and makes every decision count. In vanillia RTW losing a city or an army wasn't as costly as it should have been, IMVHO.

**khelvan** · 01-01-2006, 08:43

Originally Posted by pezhetairoi

I say the only thing that spoiled my first impression was the loading times. Urgh. Is it because of the extra weight the scripts place on the game?

There is an issue with campaign_descriptions.txt which is causing an addition of over one minute to the load times for some machines.

Mine doesn't have the problem, but I haven't figured out if this is due to the installer changing something in the file format, or me just having a 1337 machine.

**Big_John** · 01-01-2006, 08:48

Originally Posted by khelvan

There is an issue with campaign_descriptions.txt which is causing an addition of over one minute to the load times for some machines.

Mine doesn't have the problem, but I haven't figured out if this is due to the installer changing something in the file format, or me just having a 1337 machine.

couldn't you test this by emailing your version of campaign_descriptions.txt to someone who is having long load times (assuming you are using the same beta version)?

**TB666** · 01-01-2006, 14:06

renaming the campaign_descriptions.txt file to campaign_descriptions_bak.txt or something like that will increase your loading time to the main menu dramatically(almost instance actually) but will remove the campaign descriptions when you wanna pick a faction.
The huge loading time to the campaign map still exist tho but atleast it is something.