Suggestions for v0.8

[silverster]

No no no, I did meant that, I meant that there should be a bit of difference from the rich classes's textures to the cheap classes of roman citizens, IE: the breast plate, or in princep's case the chain main armor.

for example:

I understand that in some drawings the legions only wear a white overall, but if i am from the rich classes, I would at least have a brestplate wouldn't I?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The Polybian Hastati look almost exactly like that guy.

[Schatten]

Hallo, first i´m from Germany so sorry for all mistaken in the article now ;)

So i have now play both mods, RTR and Barbarorum and at last Barb. ist the better one but should have some changes (if possible).

First it were nice to import a change like the RTR Naval and City Mod, that allows to build warships only in few Ports and more important that allows only very few Citys to reach the highest Level as it was in the real World at this time.
So removing from Wall´s from most City´s and allow only few really important City´s to build them were ok.

Since the City´s in Barb. grow really to fast, after some time you have overall Lv 5 City´s....not very realistic.

Next were the Goverment form...1&2 are ok so but 3&4 are not, 99% People take Goverment form 3 except 4 if the the only allowed so 4 ist really useless in this form.
Maybe it were possible to leave Goverment 3 as only possibility for Outlaying Region´s and install Allied Goverment 4 as a true Allied Goverment.
If you Conquer a Region you dont wish to take ( as i have play Roman i have had to conquer the whole Swaboz(German´s) since the dont stop to attack me and so, to avoid attacks with full stacks ever turn, i have conquer City after City until Swaboz collapses and i have found myself at Baltic Sea....i never wish to go so far North and have had much small Barbarian City´s that have make only anger!...so back to Goverment ;) ) and you want those Region only as a Puffer (dont known the english word for this...a form of Neutral Zone from Star Trek^^) between you and you Enemy or Barbarian´s so maybe it were possible to install here a true Ally Goverment 4 that is you Client, hast to pay you Contribution etc. but rules his City for himself, defend it etc. this were a really good Idea for Goverment 4 i think.
This would allow you to save much cash and troops that you would need for the City but give you still much profit from Trade, Taxes etc. like it was in old times too.

Naval Siege´s of Harbor´s....as i have hear the AI cannot end a turn with Debt and a cheat allow´s the AI to have everytime enogh Cash to maintein Troops so Naval Siege´s from Human Player v AI useless...you dont stop his Cashflow, AI can still Build ships....
Mayby ist possible to change the Script in the way that ships dont allowed to build under Siege of Harbor (like Troops in the City) or maybe a Siege should make a hard pressure v AI to offer Ceasefire....

At last the whole Turn Recruit System from Command&Conquer....so stupid as it war in ever Game ;)
Maybe it were Possible to change the Recruit System from Build Units to draft People (like it is in Reallity)....you draft People (or Mercenarie´s for Merc Units etc.) in a Pool and Armouries no longer imporve the Armor but build Armor´s and Equipment in a Pool too.
So you set a Legion in let´s say Galien...now you put as exempel 10 Cohortas Leginaires, 4 Cavallery, 2 Archer´s etc. Now every turn Soldier´s, Mercenary´s, Ballaista´s etc (depend of what for Units you want have inside) flow from the overall Pool into the Legion...as better you Streets, higher Law in the Province, no Enemy Units betwen you Legion and the next City as more People and Equipment will come every Turn....same way after battle to refull Casaulties....

This would allow to hold the Legion´s really in the field or Camp´s as it was in reallity i think and make the draft and replacment system much more realistic and Comfortable as those "Unit Building/Turn"

So now Enough ;) thank´s you for a great Game

[cyberVIP]

2Teleklos Archelaou
From TWC we`ve known about plans of romoving epic walls in ff EB 0.81
Can it be another solution like to rise construction time&cost (for ex: Kart-Hadastrim mercantile ext docks with ~60trns) or lower damage from towers. We all like them for our capitals - U know :)

[sages]

I think that .81 was just a rumor started by my girlfiend to keep me from playing EB during my week off at Christmas. But moving on...

EB is the best mod I've ever played; it's tied for first with the original Aliens total conversion for DOOM II (some few of you may know what I'm talking about). That said, it's not perfect. Things that *I* think *might* make EB a better game. I'm sure some people will disagree with some or all of these points, but here I go anyway:

1) Ditch seasons and go back to 2 turns per year. I think that the game play is too slow at 4 ypt, personally speaking. It's not that hard to acheive many factions goals by 200 b.c., meaning that much late game development has been wasted. OR, add in a 'late game start' that would commence around 120 b.c.?

2) Beef up chariots a bit. I tweaked them to 2/3 hitpoints and more armor and they STILL suck. Or give the casse an infantry-based leader (preferred).

3) Increase the cost and upkeep of both assassins and diplomats. They are too cheap, IMO, for the revised enconomy that EB has.

4) Remove spies from the game or increase cost and upkeep quite a bit (not my idea, but it's a good one). This will force you to use light cavalry for screening and scouting. This is good. The downside -- I'm not sure the AI will handle this properly...

5) Increase the quality and cost of the levy's / crappy troops somewhat. This will help the AI, which tends to over recruit cheap troops.

6) Nerf Gaesatae a bit at the same time. They don't need 2 hp, IMO. Blood loss will incapacitate even the most motivated of fighters. I think that morale and defensive skill are a sufficient measurement of motivation.

7) Decrease the initial recruitment cost of all troops. Increase the upkeep cost of all troops. In every historical text I've read, raising armies isn't terribly difficult, but maintaining them in the field is enormously expensive. If the game system had a way to limit the numbers of special troop-types (triarii, gaesatae, whatever), I would be in favor of reducing the delta between least and most expensive troops (since I don't believe that was historically the limiting factor for fielding high vs. low quality troops).

8) If it's possilble in scripts, calculate some of the upkeep cost for units that are garrisoned in cities, and refund it to the faction treasury. Might max at certain level depending on size.

9) Poorly supplied troops in the field could suffer casualties, similar to when being be-sieged. Could they be given the 'plagued' or 'besieged' state via scripting without actually starting major plagues?

Don't kill me, these are just my random ideas, and I make no warranty of quality. :=)

Sage

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hallo, first i´m from Germany so sorry for all mistaken in the article now ;)

So i have now play both mods, RTR and Barbarorum and at last Barb. ist the better one but should have some changes (if possible).

First it were nice to import a change like the RTR Naval and City Mod, that allows to build warships only in few Ports and more important that allows only very few Citys to reach the highest Level as it was in the real World at this time.
So removing from Wall´s from most City´s and allow only few really important City´s to build them were ok.

Since the City´s in Barb. grow really to fast, after some time you have overall Lv 5 City´s....not very realistic.

Next were the Goverment form...1&2 are ok so but 3&4 are not, 99% People take Goverment form 3 except 4 if the the only allowed so 4 ist really useless in this form.
Maybe it were possible to leave Goverment 3 as only possibility for Outlaying Region´s and install Allied Goverment 4 as a true Allied Goverment.
If you Conquer a Region you dont wish to take ( as i have play Roman i have had to conquer the whole Swaboz(German´s) since the dont stop to attack me and so, to avoid attacks with full stacks ever turn, i have conquer City after City until Swaboz collapses and i have found myself at Baltic Sea....i never wish to go so far North and have had much small Barbarian City´s that have make only anger!...so back to Goverment ;) ) and you want those Region only as a Puffer (dont known the english word for this...a form of Neutral Zone from Star Trek^^) between you and you Enemy or Barbarian´s so maybe it were possible to install here a true Ally Goverment 4 that is you Client, hast to pay you Contribution etc. but rules his City for himself, defend it etc. this were a really good Idea for Goverment 4 i think.
This would allow you to save much cash and troops that you would need for the City but give you still much profit from Trade, Taxes etc. like it was in old times too.

Naval Siege´s of Harbor´s....as i have hear the AI cannot end a turn with Debt and a cheat allow´s the AI to have everytime enogh Cash to maintein Troops so Naval Siege´s from Human Player v AI useless...you dont stop his Cashflow, AI can still Build ships....
Mayby ist possible to change the Script in the way that ships dont allowed to build under Siege of Harbor (like Troops in the City) or maybe a Siege should make a hard pressure v AI to offer Ceasefire....

At last the whole Turn Recruit System from Command&Conquer....so stupid as it war in ever Game ;)
Maybe it were Possible to change the Recruit System from Build Units to draft People (like it is in Reallity)....you draft People (or Mercenarie´s for Merc Units etc.) in a Pool and Armouries no longer imporve the Armor but build Armor´s and Equipment in a Pool too.
So you set a Legion in let´s say Galien...now you put as exempel 10 Cohortas Leginaires, 4 Cavallery, 2 Archer´s etc. Now every turn Soldier´s, Mercenary´s, Ballaista´s etc (depend of what for Units you want have inside) flow from the overall Pool into the Legion...as better you Streets, higher Law in the Province, no Enemy Units betwen you Legion and the next City as more People and Equipment will come every Turn....same way after battle to refull Casaulties....

This would allow to hold the Legion´s really in the field or Camp´s as it was in reallity i think and make the draft and replacment system much more realistic and Comfortable as those "Unit Building/Turn"

So now Enough ;) thank´s you for a great Game

Naval stuff, I suggest you give it closer look:
1) By far the most coastal provinces can't even build warships at all...
2) If I'm not mistaken, due to the way RTW works you are only prevented to recruit, anything, when a settlement is besieged...
Recruitment: requires a script like RES GESTAE got, and that's just Roman only... It would be hughe, and as far as I know EB members have stated that such things are not to be expected soon... Besides, EB has nearly reached it's building limits, and so I guess the focuss would be on factional buildings of unfinished factions, but that's just me...
Government: suggest you try different factions, because government bonuses & such depend on what faction you're playing, if I'm correct. Also, type 4 & 3 are not meant to be 'nice', they're meant to be a 'make do solution'. 4 is especially good for your coffers...

[silverster]

How about adding a Legio banner as an Ancillary?

I mean if your character is marching an army for more than, say 2 turns or so, It would be great to have a legio banner under the character along with the veterans and sheild holders would be cool.

[QwertyMIDX]

1) Ditch seasons and go back to 2 turns per year. I think that the game play is too slow at 4 ypt, personally speaking. It's not that hard to acheive many factions goals by 200 b.c., meaning that much late game development has been wasted. OR, add in a 'late game start' that would commence around 120 b.c.?

Unfortunatly for you, you're the odd man out on this one, almost everyone loves the 4 turns per year. Also we've been trying to slow things down in other ways, so hopefully things aren't gonna to be as fast in the next build, and even slower in the one after that, etc. I don't know if we can do a late start, I don't think we can. If you like I can try and get a scripter to tell you how to turn off 4 turns per year in your game though.

2) Beef up chariots a bit. I tweaked them to 2/3 hitpoints and more armor and they STILL suck. Or give the casse an infantry-based leader (preferred).

As of .8 chariot stats weren't done, hopefully we get them to work better in .81. TK is working on it.

3) Increase the cost and upkeep of both assassins and diplomats. They are too cheap, IMO, for the revised enconomy that EB has.

4) Remove spies from the game or increase cost and upkeep quite a bit (not my idea, but it's a good one). This will force you to use light cavalry for screening and scouting. This is good. The downside -- I'm not sure the AI will handle this properly...

Haven't really gotten a chance to deal with agents yet, we'll see what happens as we move foward.

5) Increase the quality and cost of the levy's / crappy troops somewhat. This will help the AI, which tends to over recruit cheap troops.

They're already pretty decent and fairly expensive. Under the right circumstances levy troops can kick ass (the huge unit sizes don't hurt), but I don't think we're going to make the stats unbalanced historically just to help the AI, if you want that just play on hard or very hard battle difficulty.

6) Nerf Gaesatae a bit at the same time. They don't need 2 hp, IMO. Blood loss will incapacitate even the most motivated of fighters. I think that morale and defensive skill are a sufficient measurement of motivation.

Not motivation, drugs. Like a guy on PCP today, can take a bullet to the heart and run for minutes afterwards. After the battle they'd probably die, but not after killing ten enemies after they should have been dead.

7) Decrease the initial recruitment cost of all troops. Increase the upkeep cost of all troops. In every historical text I've read, raising armies isn't terribly difficult, but maintaining them in the field is enormously expensive. If the game system had a way to limit the numbers of special troop-types (triarii, gaesatae, whatever), I would be in favor of reducing the delta between least and most expensive troops (since I don't believe that was historically the limiting factor for fielding high vs. low quality troops).

Maybe in the future. Although massing an army wasn't cheap or easy (it took a long time and depending on the type of solider and could cost a lot of money, depend on who paid for equipment, the state or the solider). Currently the intial recruitment cost is 4 times the upkeep, essentialy every year you pay for the unit over again, pretty expensive really. The problem here is that RTW is built as though every faction was made up of professional, state-armed troops in a standing army. Of course this isn't the case for most units in EB, but we're kind of limited here as to what we can really do. The fact that the AI is designed to handle the original RTW recruitment system doesn't help either...

8) If it's possilble in scripts, calculate some of the upkeep cost for units that are garrisoned in cities, and refund it to the faction treasury. Might max at certain level depending on size.

Why? Garrison troops were just as expensive as any other kind. Often more expensive, troops on campaign could live off the land and plunder to some extent, if you didn't want the people bieng garrisoned to turn against you it was wise not to force them to feed, cloth, and house their oppressors entirely out of their pocket.

9) Poorly supplied troops in the field could suffer casualties, similar to when being be-sieged. Could they be given the 'plagued' or 'besieged' state via scripting without actually starting major plagues?

Hell, well supplied troops in the field suffered causalities from sickness, accidents, and desertion. For most of history death or injury in battle was generally the least of the circumstances that whittled away an army. Unfortunately the boys at CA didn't give us anyway to make that happen, the best we can do is sap their morale via traits, which we do. We can't make the game think they're undersiege, and plauges are pretty much random events (IIRC if we know character names we can do something, but we'd only be able to do it for the first generation of characters and I might even be wrong about that). Scripting can do a lot for us, but this is beyond even that.

[bovi]

7) I was thinking earlier to only allow recruitment of poorly trained troops, and given time campaigning, stationed in a garrison or doing battle they would upgrade into experienced and elite unit types (at increasing rates later in the sentence), with better equipment bought with their wages, looted from the enemy or bought in exchange for loot. Unfortunately there is no way to store such variables on units, as far as I know, and the idea was quickly shot down as unfeasible due to hardcoding, and historical reasons (which were not specified but I'm sure there are some) as well.

Limiting the amount of elite troops versus poorly trained ones would be easier with MTW2's recruitment system, as elites could become available again only a good while after recruiting one, and poorly trained troops would be more readily available. It's a long way ahead to EB2 though...

9) So there is no API to find whether an army is besieging an enemy, or there is no API to do stuff with the troops when you do find they are doing it?

[Gazius]

Is it possible to add loyalty for certain factions only? Or else manipulate it so that it only works for certain factions? Having the Aedui/Arvernii loyalty waiver so that a unit might change hands would be rather interesting, or else, if the loyalty requires a shadow faction, make the Arvernii one?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Loyalty doesn't actually do anything for 1.5. We wish it did, but...

[Dumbass]

How exactly does loyalty work in barbar? Do you need a shadow faction?

[Tuuvi]

Loyalty doesn't actually do anything for 1.5. We wish it did, but...

So are you saying that it worked for 1.2 but it doesn't work for 1.5?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

No, it's listed as a bonus (when the game first came out it was in a list of bonuses), and although we have had it as a bonus for a while with our govt buildings, it apparently does nothing in the game itself. We still used it, hoping that it had a benefit we didn't see somehow, but in the most recent changes in unique buildings I'm doing I have removed it.

[Foot]

So are you saying that it worked for 1.2 but it doesn't work for 1.5?

loyalty never appeared in 1.2, its a BI thing only.

Foot

[sages]

Hi Qwerty --

Thanks for the response to my like spew.

I'd definiltely like to see the game slowed down in terms of development and pace, I just want to see 2 ypt. That said, I already stripped out the scripting for this in my game, so I'm not too worried. :=) I wasn't able (errr... too lazy) to find a way to keep the winter and summer effects for arid and cold regions. Meh, no biggie.

Reg. garrison troops, I think that MOST garrisoned troops would actually have been semi-self sustaining when in garrison for more than a year or so. They would have vegtable gardens, being doing work for the civilians as crafts people and so forth. Some troops (i.e. levies) should be almost free because they probably don't must more than once or twice a year to stomp around on empty fields and drink beer. But, thus your point about RTWs army modeling. :=)

Best,

Sage

[CountArach]

An idea for a trait that struck me:

"Writer of Tactics"

Basically this would be reserved for highly intelligent generals who have reached a decent command star level and have the trait "Grizzled". It would allow for people like Phyrrus, who wrote books on Tactics and warfare.

I suppose for effects it would provide influence and perhaps a command star.

[bovi]

Good one Arach, I second that! Also, possibly give a slight increase in chance of younger generals learning tactics in school when you've had such a general? Although, rather than a command star I'd give him +1 (or 2?) to morale; he doesn't really get better by writing but his troops would know they were led by a great and famous general.

[russia almighty]

Speaking of the class divide in the hastati , princepe's ect , would a rich hastati probably be wearing chain mail and not just a heart protector?

[swhunter]

When are the new updates ?

think the saprtans hemets could be changed.
see hellenic art .com
the thess. helmet is cool 200 b.c.
and the athans helmet in later years.

maybe lose the beard ? or not?
thks

[ForVictory]

Pls make the info descriptions of some units and especially buildings shorter... I'd like to learn history but this is just too much for a game where i just want o continue playing with this great mod and its even already a very slow process with the 4 seasons.

I'd like to see all units that can throw spears actually carry them as well cause some units only show up with there swords and u can forget about them having an missle attack sometimes and it would also be more realistic ofcourse.

I think it would be better if cities have less buildings at the start of the campaign so u can build and follow them urself better.

[Gazius]

Will anything be implemented in the game to let you know of special city alliances, or of the missions you can do such as Makedonia restoring Alexanders body? Speaking of that mission specifically, could it be expanded to have a new unique building show up to honor his corpse?

Or is there stuff there already for both that I've just missed?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I'd like to see all units that can throw spears actually carry them as well cause some units only show up with there swords and u can forget about them having an missle attack sometimes and it would also be more realistic ofcourse.

Hi,
All units that can throw javelins carry them either attached onto their sheild or somewhere on their armour/body. Some units which can throw javelins as their primary weapon, for example a skirmishers, do actually carry them in their hands until they run out. After that they carry their secondary weapon, their sword or their secondary spear. Cheers!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

A few replies:

-We won't be shortening the building descriptions. Sorry, but it's easy to skip over them if you think they are too long. You can usually gather the basic information you need in the first line or two from them, or just from the name.
-A building to house Alexander's body in Pella would be cool, but we are really really short on building space, especially for Greek and EastGreek factions. *Especially* for those.
-Most people on the team are very happy with the 4 turn a year situation. I can't imagine that being changed.
-We also are very happy with pilos helmets for Spartans (and their accuracy) and won't be changing those.
-Having less buildings in cities also probably won't happen. We have to give them fewer than they really had to encouraging the "building up" part of the game, but we want to get them balanced to show what cities really were powerful in 272 (Alexandria for one, for example) vs. those that were not.

[blacksnail]

loyalty never appeared in 1.2, its a BI thing only.

There are two kinds of loyalty - the BI character trait for family members and the Population Loyalty bonus, which does not actually do anything. I think Dave and Lignator are referring to the latter.

[Tuuvi]

I was talking about the loyalty trait. I always used to worry about having unloyal family members as governors and generals but I guess I don't need to anymore, although it is fun to roleplay.

[ForVictory]

-Make your mercenaries have a moral penalty when fighting against someone who has the same culture as theres

- have 3turns instead: 8th month; augustus(summer), 12th months december(winter) and april spring... cause 4 turns is really too much of good.

I also noticed units get exhausted very fast, pls make it slower cause its easy to cheat on that because the ai cant handle fatigue very good unlike the human player.

And for the love of god please fix the right pictures of the units in the next mod...

[Gazius]

There's no way to give merc's a morale penalty when fighting the same culture as theirs, unless their lead by a general, and there's no way to force the AI to use generals.

The four turn yea is too good? It extends the campaign out too long? The idea is to have a very long campaign, although I agree that more could be done to make the 4 turn year matter more, such as a large campaign map, but that won't be implemented in EB1. It might for EB2.

The units getting exhausted quickly means you need to try more tactics, use a more varied army to get the most out of your units.

.81 will likely be the end of the grey peasant.

[sages]

I'm a big fan of the fatigue penalties. It makes using a multi-layered army with lighter troops in front and triarii or elites in the rear a very viable tactic. The light troops fight until they need to be rotated out.

[Gazius]

-A building to house Alexander's body in Pella would be cool, but we are really really short on building space, especially for Greek and EastGreek factions. *Especially* for those.

This is why I strongly suggest dropping the blacksmith tree. It'd free up to, if my understanding is correct, 9 more spaces for unique buildings, or else another building tree, though I think what EB has already is fine for constructable buildings. I'd suggest maybe something to combat squalor, but if the growth rates are to be fixed eventually, then its pointless.

Currently the blacksmith is able to give new equipment to any soldiers that come to request it, but, and if there is founding for it I'm curious, was there really any smaller towns who would equip a entire army with better gear than what the finest troops got from the best garrison/recruiting stations in the empire? My suggestion for the integrated effects, unless the new conditions upon the building cause a problem, in which case I still would support scraping the blacksmith, would be:

Level 4 faction MIC bronze
Level 5 faction MIC silver
Level 5 region MIC bronze

On capping growth, for the barbarians I would suggest capping it rather lowly, and then using scripts to replenish the source to model how they recruited not from large cities like the civilized factions, but from peoples out in the country.