Suggestions for v0.74/0.8

[khelvan]

Please post suggestions for the next version of EB here. All complaints, comments, tech support issues, and discussions which do not pertain to the next version of EB should be posted elsewhere.

[basics]

Dear EB Team,

The obvious would be to carry on into the next period but as that has been done by RTW and no doubt you will bring out a better version, why not go in the opposite direction. Is it possible to start Rome under Aeneas and or begin with his flight from Troy to Rome and then build around the conquests and alliances down to the time of 7.3. The time factor would more than cover for the lack of opponents as each ruler would be included and the game could only continue as each overcomes his enemies. The idea comes after playing Slitherine's terrific new game Legion Arena. Am I asking too much or do I underestimate the genius of you guys?

Yours,
basics.

[soibean]

maybe you could make a mod with that in it, but as you said thats the total opposite of what they're trying to accomplish right now...
if I'm wrong, then I apologize, but I think they enjoy their set start and end dates and wish to progress with said time period before looking elsewhere.

[Kull]

Khelven isn't talking about "EB 2.0", but "EB .74". That means what do you think we should include in the next patch/version? Not stuff that's broken or obviously missing, but new concepts or ideas.

[tk-421]

If its possible, I'd like to see some sort of scripting that would direct computer-controlled factions to expand as they really did.

[Foot]

I would really love to see more sprites. It's not really important gameplay wise, but it really does change the beauty of the EB models when they all appear the same from far away.

Foot

[basics]

Sorry,
Got the wrong end of the stick there. It's old age I'm afraid.
Yours,
basics.

[paullus]

Sprites, the new units, some of that new beautiful vegetation people have been making, and anytime you can add more to the traits and scripting (the coolest part about EB to me) that's a good thing.

Is the plan to add a new faction in the next build, or is it further down the line?

[nemesisvsbrad]

I want assassins to take out my mother-in-laws. They have been letting down my generals, embarrassing. Also, the adoptees or son-in-laws usually have unwanted traits, is there some way to make them little better. My daughters reach 40's and still have no husbands. So far (240bc) no CTD, I am very happy about everything in EB except my mother-in-laws.

[Iskandr]

Well, the mother-in-law thing, I assume is just their focus on realism

Iskandr

[Reenk Roink]

If its possible, I'd like to see some sort of scripting that would direct computer-controlled factions to expand as they really did.

Touche, I really think this is the most important thing to do next.

With this...

man...

EB would be...

*dies*

[paullus]

whats the low down on the farming script?

[khelvan]

I don't understand, what do you mean expand "as they should?"

[BerkeleyBoi]

I'm not sure historically how they were used, by roman slingers seem to be the most useful unit in the early game. I began by building slingers as cheap garrison units in all my cities and attacked with all the other units I had, but after my main army was wiped out in an attack on a northern rebel city, I decided to throw all my slingers with a couple hastati and principes at a full stack rebel garrison.

Surprisingly, when the rebels attacked my sieging army, my slinger army killed 60-75 percent of the rebels coming out of the gates, making them easy prey for my four infantry units.

So... my suggestion is to tone down the power of the slingers. They seem to be able to kill way too many soldiers, especially for their cheap cost. (also, I'm not sure why they're so powerful, their attack rating is a '1'...)

[Reenk Roink]

I don't understand, what do you mean expand "as they should?"

If you are refering to tk-421's suggestion, what I think he means is that the factions should expand in the game like they did historically, and not like what we have been seeing in 0.7.2. However, what I had heard earlier is that this was well near-impossible to control. Then again, the EB team has amazed us before .

[khelvan]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

[Trithemius]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

In this vein, I was wondering if the triggers for the Roman military reforms were still linked to dates or have they been changed to "game factors" for this build?

If they are still date-linked, then please consider associating them with game factors for the subsequent builds, as I think this further plays upon the alternative history aspect of the game.

[Reenk Roink]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

Very well, but can you tell us if you have made the AI factions to expand as they do, or is it just a mystery of the hardcode?

[khelvan]

I doubt it is possible.

[Malrubius]

AI factions prefer attacking rebel cities to other factions' cities. That seems to be the primary determinant.

I don't see how you would script a campaign like ours to have the AI attack specific cities. In a campaign designed around a single faction or for some type of short campaign, I could see this being possible.

[SwordsMaster]

Hey, this is more of an error than it is a wish for the next build, but nonetheles...

Playing Romani, date irrelevant. If my diplomat gets the +5 to diplomacy trait by attempting to bribe a carthaginian (haven't tried with others yet) army, the message about the trait expansion shows up. All good and normal until here.

If in subsequent turns I try bribing (unsuccessfully) other carthaginian armies, the message for the +5 trait aquisition appears again and again.

This is not a game breaker, but it is slightly annoying. Otherwise great job. I like the classical GUI.

[khelvan]

Keep in mind, folks, these are the "beta" GUIs we had installed in the 0.72 version of EB. We just didn't know how to "activate" them until now. Teleklos and others have worked hard on updating them; these are very early versions.

In the next full release you'll see much prettier versions of them.

[Simmons]

Some way to represent dynastic infighting perhaps if a first born son is passed over he can feel resentful creating unrest in cities? that kind of thing

Also and I don't know if this is as much of a suggestion but I still find population growth excessive. I don't feel a city should be able to go from a small village to a huge city in a matter of a decade or two at least not without bringing people in from other cities.

[QwertyMIDX]

whats the low down on the farming script?

Waiting for information on about 75 provinces, if you want to help I can give you the list of provinces that need research .

[oudysseos]

I'd like to see the whole logistics element expanded- I've seen some references to this but I'm not sure how it works yet- what I'm wondering is will it be possible to restrict army stack movement away from supply lines? You could consider a conquered city as a supply dump and limit the radius of movement points or limit the number of turns an army can spend in the field. I know that there are some traits coming that apply to logistics but I'm not sure if that'll actually prevent an army from moving past its lines of supply. If it's not possible to limit an army's movement, then how about a 'Living off the Land' trait that increases unrest or increases the chance of a rebel spawn?

[Geoffrey S]

Some of Duke John's beautiful agricultural techniques.

[Sdragon]

3 problems I've noticed since I installed the patch and fixed the wall issue myself.

1. Forests in and around Italy are insanely dense. I get mega lag as well as major pathfinder issues since troops keep getting stuck.
2. Had lots of fights no problem. But fighting out of Italy I get CTDs about 50% of the time when battles are just about to start. Reload fixes this but its killing ai expansion even more.
3. AI is dead, it can't beat the rebels. Every rebel city has a full stack in it.

Edit: Oh yeah what's up with the money now? As Romans I'm playing how I always used to, I have all of Italy and I've got 100,000 in the bank. Granted I only have 1 proper army and no navy.

[nikolai1962]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

Sort of related to this but not in the same way. One of the things i thought about when i first got the vanilla game and played it half-heartedly while thinking how it could be much better was how historically different groups expanded in very ways, organisationally I mean. The Romans were one of the few groups who had a borg style cultural assimilation method whereas most other historical empires were client/tributary kingdom type empires.

EB is obviously moving in that direction with the government type idea but my suggestions below are about taking it further and accentuating the differences between factions so that playing them *feels* very different. (Some of these ideas are probably already going to be future versions if they can be coded I guess.)

1) Roman borg style expansion.

Homeland expansion in italy broken down into stages with upgraded homeland governments. Should take a lot of years to get to the final stage but broken up into steps so you got the alae troops earlier just with big morale penalty that gradually improves, *much* larger unrest penalty initially, reducing with each stage constructed as the italian cities were constantly rebelling.

Provincial expansion broken into steps too. Again much worse unrest and morale penalties initially, gradually tapering off. Final stage would be provincial capital that was tied to certain regions that were historically the capitals of the roman provinces or some way to restrict it to a limited number with the provincial capital providing actual bonuses instead of penalties.

2) Barbarians.

More geared to the tributary type arrangement. Much more limited in homeland expansion as simulating lots of independent minded tribes who share a common culture and not neccessarily a common loyalty to anything except a particular king/leader. (Most empires fell apart when the creator died or not long after). Expansion type governments even in most of their cultural homelands. The casse for example maybe just homeland in their staring province and client/allied in the rest of Britain. The barbarian cultures however would be used to this sort of thing and used to fighting for the guy who beat their army and barb tributary tribes/kingdoms would have less morale penalties maybe. Expansion model for barbs being more like a horde thing to simulate the times when they did just take over a new area and displace/enslave the original inhabitants. Possibly a "horde" building like the colonia which when complete allows a homeland government.

Outside their cultural homeland much more of a client kingdom/tributary/protection racket type deal. So for example a civilized city recruits only garrison quality troops with huge morale penalty but big trade bonus to simulate the basically protection racket type arrangement.

3) Trading Colonizers (Greeks and Carthaginians)
A lot of the history I've read speaks of greek and carthage colonies being basically trading islands in a sea of local tribes as they didn't seem to have the same desire as the romans to control everything. So for the greeks, outside of greece, and carthage pretty much everywhere except carthage itself, a government model that simulates this. Lots of unrest penalties to simulate the local tribes outside the walls, ability to hire local troops, big problems building your own troops to simulate the small numbers of your citizens available. In tandem you have the colonia building, broken into stages, which gradually counter-balance the big unrest penalty and whose final level is a condition for a colonized_homeland government so the condition for a homeland government would be precursor1 or colonia_stage4 (or something).

Secondary to this I always wanted to see something for the greeks (outside of greece) and carthage that simulated the sea trade aspect of their expansion so that for example the huge unrest penalties of their expansion type of government could only be offset by happiness buildings that required a port i.e coastal provinces would be the easiest places for them to expand.

4) Persian successors.
All the empires that took over from the persians seem to have collected some of their know-how vis a vis controlling huge chunks of that part of the world. The seleucids and maybe the ptolemies could start with that know-how, simulated with the hippodrome i.e making it basically impossible to control large empires without some particular mechanism. Simulated for the romans with their arena buildings, the seleucids with the hippodrome and the greeks with their theatres (where there are enough greek colonists i.e colonia levels).

Other factions would either have to rely on a much looser and more fragile empire of client states and tributaries unless they *learn* a mechanism. This brings me to some more general suggestions. But basically what I'd like to see is the player having to expand very differently depending on the type of faction.
~~~

Non-military reforms.

Factions like pontus, armenia, baktria etc could have a reform mechanism to learn from the seleucids how to manage a big empire, simulated by becoming able to build hippodromes and stage races.

Barbs could learn stuff from conquering i.e creating tributary/allied governments in civilized regions e.g mining improvements or road improvements.

Like a previous poster I think pop growth is too fast (as it is is in the vanilla game and all the mods i've played). One of the reasons isthe number of buildings with pop bonus or health bonus and the large values they have. I much prefer the idea of generally slower pop growth. As the script gives pop back to the ai when it builds troops this would give the player something to have to think hard about when it came to where and when to raise units.

One thought i had was to make some of the buildings require non-military reforms e.g farming levels, improvement of health buildings, granary buildings etc. So for example farms+2 wasn't available until x date or maybe certain things could be triggered by building academy type buildings.

Other thoughts on the population thing are:
1) Reduce base fertility of provinces.
2) Spread building levels out more according to city size.
3) Historically certain cities became very large for reasons sprcific to their location (usually). Obviously if a big empire wanted it's capital in a particular spot you should be able have (expensive) options but generally the reasons would be geographical.

One thing would be take the pop growth bonus off the market line of buildings that can be built anywhere and put it on the port line. Especially if you have the sytem where not every coastal province can build the shipwright and dockyard levels. If the provinces that can build the bigger ports are the historically famous trading places then having the pop growth on the port buildings would simulate the fact that it was often the major trade hubs that grew large. Similarly with the unique roads or at least the terminus regions of the unique roads.

Generally my suggestion is to make base pop growth much slower except in areas with natural geographical advantages or heavy player investment. I'd like to see most regions stagnate at around city size (or even large town) with some large cities and huge cities only possible *naturally* in very few places. Though with some very expensive mechanism for doing it unnaturally to simulate a big empire just deciding it wanted a big city in a particular place. A grain_import line of buildings for example.

~~~

Connected to all this is the desire to accentuate differences between regions, expansion models and how each faction plays. One of the things i noticed in the short games I've been playing was how as macedon i didn't want to build troops in my mak cities as the pop was low whereas i could just build a quick allied government in athens which had a high pop. The allied government gave an xp bonus of 1 and a morale penalty of 2. IIRC what each chevron of xp gives is +1 attack, +1 defense skill and +2 morale. So even if the morale penalty works (never tested it myself but generally in the game i think bonuses don't often work negatively) minus 2 is not very much given how much higher most mods set base morale.

So it made more sense to me to just build all my beginning troops in athens. I think the morale differences between the different faction government models and the conquered cities should be much starker. In the worst case I'd want allied/subject troops to have vanilla type morale to make the game much more of a juggling match between harbouring your homeland population and really flaky allied troops that you are always worrying about. So you'd have penalties like -10 or -12 or something. Less for subject barb tribes who were generally warlike.

Generally make the government types more extreme.

There were some more things i thought of but that will do for now :)

edit: Another reform idea was romans not able to build greek-style theatres straight away but learning it either as a reform event or a general's trait as I think rome got more hellenized after they conquered greece. Maybe other hellenization things too.

edit2: Temporary wave of unrest for king type factions when king dies.

edit3: Maybe just a personal thing but i never liked bring able to pick up cretan archer type mercenaries while wandering around the countryside. I'd like units like that to be recruitable through ports instead. 4-6 turns to build, expensive but retrainable.

~~~

None of this is criticism btw. I love the government idea and just want to make it even more distinctive between the factions and the effects of the player's government choices more of a headache.

[tk-421]

We will never try to get the factions to expand as they did historically. We are not trying to recreate history here, but to rewrite it.

I don't mean that you should try to make each faction expand exactly as they did. That would be impossible and probably wouldn't make for a very fun game. I would just like to see expansion a little bit more realistic. I think you should, if possible (most of it probably isn't), with scripting and other means, make
1. most Eleutheroi harder to conquer
2. Rome stronger
3. Carthage concentrate more on Iberia and Sicily than the Sahara Desert
4. Direct Carthage and Rome to war
5. Ptolemies and Seleucids fight each other more instead of conquering Arabia
6. Direct Parthia and the Seleucid Empire to constant wars that the Parthians will usually win


On an unrelated topic, there are too many people on this thread with the british desert warrior guy for an avatar so I'm going to change mine.

[khelvan]

1. most Eleutheroi harder to conquer

Specifically, have you had problems with this?

2. Rome stronger

Stronger how?

3. Carthage concentrate more on Iberia and Sicily than the Sahara Desert

The Sahara is one province, easy to conquer, and gives little benefit. They don't exactly concentrate there. We let Carthage expand whichever way it wants to. Sometimes that is Iberia, often it is towards Egypt.

4. Direct Carthage and Rome to war

We don't want to do this.

5. Ptolemies and Seleucids fight each other more instead of conquering Arabia

I don't know that we want to direct them to fight each other, honestly. Even if we could.

6. Direct Parthia and the Seleucid Empire to constant wars that the Parthians will usually win

We certainly don't want to do this. The Parthians may or may not go to war with the Seleukids, and they may or may not win. All of that is ok with us, whatever path they choose.