First impressions

[edyzmedieval]

Well, he are my first impressions about EB.

Firstly and foremostly, it's a great mod. I'd give it a 9.30 even as a beta.
Great graphics and modelling, and the units are great. I'm in 270BC, had a lot of trouble with the rebels.

Ok, now the bad parts.

-building time is waay too much
-no stables(wtf?!)
-no archery range(wtf?!)
-takes a much time to load(although it takes much time to load, it's really very good at the campaign map...no lag for me!)
-lots of missing cards and leftovers(ok, pass that, it's BETA)

Overall, a very good mod.

[Radier]

I do not have such long loadingtimes... weird.

Edyzmedieval remember that this mod has four turns a year and I think building a port or large building in two turns is a alittle to extreem. I like the buildingtimes and I love the fact that almost every settlement differe from eachother.

Love this mod...

[edyzmedieval]

You are waaay to in love with this mod.
You're making too many spelling mistakes!!!

Anyways, it's good. Now it's my first battle, and on the maximum details, it's really fluid.

[Mongoose]

It's great! the New morale system is the best part so far.

[Geoffrey S]

-no stables(wtf?!)
-no archery range(wtf?!)

I haven't had time to play the Beta yet, so I may not be correct, but aren't the various different unit types (ranged units, cavalry, various infantry) all trainable once the appropriate level of barracks has been constructed? If so, this makes more sense to me, as the necessity to construct different buildings for the various troop types struck me as unrealistic, whereas a single building representing a city's ability to train units of a certain level seems more plausible to me.

[Ludens]

-building time is waay too much
-no stables(wtf?!)
-no archery range(wtf?!)
-takes a much time to load(although it takes much time to load, it's really very good at the campaign map...no lag for me!)
-lots of missing cards and leftovers(ok, pass that, it's BETA)

1) That was done intentionally. You should not try to build everything everywhere, instead specializing cities (I admit I have not mastered this skill yet ).
2/3) In EB, as in history, to make recruitment possible one does not construct specific training buildings, but instead establishes a militrary infrastructure (the military-industrial complex, or MIC-buildings). All units are recruited through these.
4) The game information files are huge compared to what CA used, so your computer has to absorb a lot of information. However, the team appears to be working on this issue, but don't expect miracles.
5) You said it yourself. This version is not for playing but for testing. There is a huge amount of bugs, typo's, missing features. Whenever you find one, check if they are already listed in the collected bugs thread and if not, post it there.

[edyzmedieval]

I've already spotted some bugs, which haven't been found out yet....
I posted them.

More to come as my game progresses. Go Seleukia!

Oh BTW, some leftovers are really funny.
I like the Gesetae, the naked guys. Psycho's description is faaar awwaaaay...

[Divinus Arma]

I find that the build times and costs make your cities much more valuable. Sucks big time to have a city lost with a homeland govt (20 turns = 5 years).

[Dayve]

I think someone didn't understand the concept of this being a realism mod, as well as a beta...

[ScionTheWorm]

yes edyzmedieval is complaining about some weird stuff

[Dayve]

Just out of curiosity Scion... What does 'arbeit macht fleisch' mean? It bears a striking resemblance to a message written over the gate of a certain infamous 'camp' in Poland...

[The_Mark]

"Work makes meat" - No, wait, fleisch is not a noun as it's lowercase, so it must be "Work makes meaty". Yes. That must be it. Having a job makes the food meaty.

[Mujalumbo]

Build times are OK. Something that takes twenty turns is only five years.

I've hardly touched vanilla RTW, so I can't comment on how different the battle system is. The reason I bought RTW was because of the pretty pictures I saw for RTR and EB.

I like how there are a myriad of buildings that provide public order bonuses. Relieves the need to have all these armies sitting around in cities just to keep public order.

[ScionTheWorm]

Blood, sweat, toil, tears,
Arbeit macht fleisch.

Directly it means that work gives food. Or maybe rather working your ass of. For the record I'm not "into" that infamous camp of yours

[Dayve]

No no i meant no offense or anything i don't understand German much and i was just wondering if it had anything to do with... Well.. You know what, i won't say it incase it offends anyone as i know it offends easily.

[ScionTheWorm]

oh no offense taken - that actually came out wrong, I meant it but it wasn't meant to sound harsh. anyway I believe it is related to the text above the gates. nobody have taken offense by it so it can't be that bad

[Ulfang]

1) That was done intentionally. You should not try to build everything everywhere, instead specializing cities (I admit I have not mastered this skill yet ).

First off I'm really enjoying this mod and i'm not making any complaints. I am playing as Rome as i'll be damned if I can afford to buy ANYTHING
I'm struggling quite a bit but loving every min of it but when my loyalty gets low there's no way I can afford to but morale boosting facilities. Its cheap troops or nothing :)

I have spent most of my time battling Rebel armies in Italy and haven't been able to take more than one City and am in the early 250's BC now.
C(K)arthage keeps popping across from Sicily but i've not had enough time or troops to deal with them and lost one of my northern cities to bribery and almost went bankrupt

I like it though as this presents a more realistic expansion time. I might conquer Sicily by 1AD

Actually thinking about it I may not be in the 250's just assumed I was but forgot there are more than one turn a yr now :)

[Yun Dog]

Just finished Torrenting it last night,

had a quick look before bed

first impressions:

LOVED IT !!!

this was the game rome was meant to be

the units look great

conratulations and thanks to all the team

BRAVO

[Geoffrey S]

My first impressions are good. The new building system is excellent, and the units look great. The Rebels don't seem as active as I've heard others claiming yet, but I'm sure that'll happen at some point.

Were the new formations included in this beta, though? I don't seem to have the option to choose an echelon formation or the quinqunx formation for instance, nor do I see my opponents using them; rather, they're still in the usual RTW straight line a lot of the time. Yesterday I ended up fighting an Epirote army made up of hoplites and peltasts (approximately 10 units), where the peltasts and hoplites were kept in one line with skirmishing units right in the center.

[LestaT]

I'm very² impressed with the whole idea of the mod. I like the usage of ancient languages in naming units etc though honestly since it's a beta I didn't play much. Start few turns with few factions (roman mostly and few others) but I guess I can't comment much.

I guess I'll wait for at least the text description and units cards has been completed (maybe EB 1.0 ?) before trying a full Romani campaign.

p/s: and also the sloowww.. loading been fixed.. :-)

Cheer...

[The_Mark]

Were the new formations included in this beta, though? I don't seem to have the option to choose an echelon formation or the quinqunx formation for instance, nor do I see my opponents using them; rather, they're still in the usual RTW straight line a lot of the time. Yesterday I ended up fighting an Epirote army made up of hoplites and peltasts (approximately 10 units), where the peltasts and hoplites were kept in one line with skirmishing units right in the center.

That certainly doesn't sound right, though hoplites and phalangites are supposed to be in a straight line, but never with a skirmisher center. Formation work has unfortunately been neglected in favor of scripting lately (and not-so-lately), so everything that was supposed to go in didn't make it, like most of group formations. I still doubt that it'd be feasible to add a complete cuinqunx or echelon, the group forms will stay quite simplistic.

[toughguy80]

This has the potential to be an awesome mod!!! All of those involved in the making of this did an amazing job and I congradulate you.

I must say however I'm also not a big fan of the long build times. For me it's not the fact that it takes 5 years to build such a large building, but when you now have 20 turns to get there, it just seems to drag. For instance I just tried playing as the Yuezhi. You start out with a town able to recruit archers. You also get about 1/2 a stack of combined units up north of this town. I took that army and captured a town north of my original town. I found that town had no recruiting ability. So at my original town, I start building barracks to give me infantry(takes 5ish turns), while at my new town I start to upgrade the settlement(8ish turns). So I'm sitting there clicking the hourglass with nothing else to do. My barracks get built and I can then build another upgrade to get horse archers(another 8ish turns!). I clicked the hourglass a few more times but quikly lost interest and quit. I'd be willing to sacrifice the 4 turns per year for a quicker build time.

Now as Rome this wasn't such a problem because I already had some starting units to choose from. But if you want to play as a more underdeveloped faction, IMO you have a lot of boring clicking and waiting to look forward to.

This isn't meant to put down anyones work. But this is my 1st impression of it. I know you went for realism, which is done amazing well but it is a game after all and sometimes you gotta bend the rules a bit to make the fun factor go up. Like I said, this is an awesome mod and I will probably play this from now on and look forward to the updates. But trying to play for an underdeveloped faction as of now is very time consuming and uneventful. 1 suggestion, if I may, is maybe make building times less for the more "barbaric" faction. Barracks and training grounds for the Yuezhi probably aren't going to be as elaborite and well built as the romans for instance. Maybe some balance along those lines would help? Anyways, just wanted to say thanks for the great mod and I look forward to playing the other factions.

[khelvan]

We can't change build times by faction. They are set per building.

[Dayve]

Don't change them anyway... They're perfect and realistic, if the odd person doesn't like them they can always go into the text file and make the build times a little less themselves..

[Slartibardfast]

Well I've had time to finally play around with EB and my first impressions,
Tactical : This Rocks! Except for a few minor graphical glitches whilst running it's hard to fault. The models/skins/unit types and assigned arms and equipment are all supurb (both astetically and historically). The EB team "certainly earnt their case of beer for that one."
Even on medium dificulty settings Infantry melee seems to last far longer with less casualties until a unit actually breaks and tries to head for the hills. Cavalry melee though quicker is similar and Cavalry head on with matched Infantry gets what it deserves. The unit statistical number crunching seems fairly spot on.
As a comparison to the old tabletop rules EB is more WRG's 6th edition as compared to 5th edition. Combat engagements seem to be more cautious, static, better balanced and just feels "more realistic".
Tactically EB is the game RTW could of been and I love this aspect of the mod. Definately more memorable battle moments per gaming session. Top Stuff!
Strategical: The map is glorious, factions and province allocation definative, and some interesting ideas. AI military unit manouvering seems a lot better, more " ! this might not be good!" moments and a strong need for good tactical abilities to pull your factions nether regions out of the strategical fire. Very promising indeed!
My own impression is that the Diplomatic and especially the Economic systems are the two areas that need the most tweaking to achieve that ellusive overall "game balance", though I realise that a lot of these problems are the result of RTW's hardcoding.
I look forward to EB getting bigger, faster and better!
Excellent mod.