Suggestions for v0.8

[khelvan]

Our next version is almost certainly going to be v0.8, based on the progress we have made. This will include at least 20 new units, and probably we'll be moving to RTW v1.5, if things continue to go well.

Please feel free to provide suggestions regarding this new version.

[cdbavg400]

If the move to 1.5 goes as anticipated, will the Yuezhi be replaced for another faction?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I'd look for Yuezhi to hang around a little longer. Even if there is another faction in the future, it won't happen overnight. It would take a while to get things in order (you can probably tell the Yuezhi were our newest faction anyway - as they had lots left undone).

[Ambiorix]

If you are porting I guess we'll have to wait a long while for it then =( In any case I was wondering if ethnicities for the Sweboz and Carthage will be in .8? Unless they are already in right now I haven't checked yet.

[Cheexsta]

Since 1.5 (or was it 1.3?) introduced the ability to change the name of a settlement you owned (it's a rtw\preferences\preferences.txt option), would it be possible to have the advisor pop up and tell you what that settlement was called by your faction once you conquer it? For example, if Rome was to conquer Kart-Hadast, Victoria would pop up and tell you that the Romans referred to it as Carthago and would tell you how to change the settlement's name.

Also, I know that you guys make your own formations files, but would it be possible to look into using a (modded, obviously) version of Darth's latest formations? I haven't actually checked them out yet, but they seem like a vast improvement over previous versions...

And how about night battles?

[Christianus]

This realy is a wonderfull idea indeed!

[cunctator]

Since 1.5 (or was it 1.3?) introduced the ability to change the name of a settlement you owned (it's a rtw\preferences\preferences.txt option), would it be possible to have the advisor pop up and tell you what that settlement was called by your faction once you conquer it? For example, if Rome was to conquer Kart-Hadast, Victoria would pop up and tell you that the Romans referred to it as Carthago and would tell you how to change the settlement's name.

Wow, great idea. I didn't know that this is possible with 1.5

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Scripts often need to use the visible variant of a town's name - so I'm wondering if this would change or negatively affect anything we would do with scripts?

[Slider6977]

I wanted to know whether or not it would be possible to have regular armies (ie without a Family Member) build forts and watchtowers. Is this at all moddable or is it a hardcoded feature. I just find it unrealistic that an amry could not be able to build battlements without a "general". Not to mention I always like to see every inch of my provinces, so I always build watchtowers. And having to march around a family member instead of having him concentrate on being a Governor or fighting in battles is really annoying.

Sometimes is works out, as you can build towers on your way to conquer other provinces, but usually this is not the case. I don't like playing with FOW off, so I wanted to know if this is at all possible. I don't mind the fact that you must have a Family member to hire mercenaries, but it seems unrealstic to not be able to build a fort when you have a full stack army that just happens to not have a general.

[Teufel]

On that note, is it possible also for captains to receive the same penalties and bonuses as generals do while on campaign? Because it seems strange that an army led by a captain shouldn't receive moral penalties from rationing, etc.

[Foot]

On that note, is it possible also for captains to receive the same penalties and bonuses as generals do while on campaign? Because it seems strange that an army led by a captain shouldn't receive moral penalties from rationing, etc.

That is, unfortunately, impossible as all the penalties and bonuses are got through traits and captains cannot be given traits.

Foot

[khelvan]

All of the above are tied in the system to named characters, and we cannot fool the system into thinking that a captain is a named character, sorry.

[redplague]

Is it possible to tune down the upkeep the parthian horsemen a bit? Their upkeep cost in the current version is so high that I can only afford foot soldiers, which is ahistorical, or maybe it's simply because I suck at playing parthia. Though it could make much sense for the parthians to have much lower calvary upkeep than say, the romans.

[oudysseos]

Question/Suggestion re population growth-
Would it be possible to add the ability to move population around between settlements- like sending colonists? Greek cities in the classical age often eased overpopulation in this way.
Another point is that if you take slaves when you conquer a settlement, wherever they end up they'll be foreigners/minorities. A large population of minorities in a city would probably tend to increase unrest. Is it possible to represent ethnic and class related problems in city management- maybe the more your empire grows outside of your homeland territories the higher percentage of foreigners you have in your big cities and the more open they are to unrest/revolt.

[oudysseos]

I'd also be interested to see more impact on civilians from miltary reforms and campaign development. As Athens built the Periclean navy of 200 triremes, the old-school aristocratic hoplites lost influence to the lower class 'thetes' who provided the bulk of the oarsmen for the navy. This had serious impact on the balance of power in Athenian politics. Or the Marian reforms of allowing the 'head count' to serve in the army had long-reaching consequences. A major factor in some of the civil wars (Sulla v Marius, Casear v Pompey) was the need of a general to provide land for his troops after they mustered out, and to do that he needed to stay in power.
I know that a lot of this stuff is unfortunatley beyond the scope of RTW, but I do think that some the impacts of military reform could be put in: if you build a large navy, for instance, unrest should increase because of the agitation of lower-class rowers for more political power. If, after the Marian reforms, you disband some of your legions then they'll want land- maybe this could lead to a spawn of rebels in your home territories. If you don't disband them then their morale shoud go down.

[oudysseos]

Something I think the campaign map really needs is some regional/national labels. The city names are shown but I'd like to see province names, rivers, even geographical features like Mount Olympus, Thermopylae and the various (strategically very important) mountain passes named (like the Cilician Gates). Definitely rivers- it would really help place yourself in the period. If it doesn't appeal to everyone maybe you could make it optional like the city/character names. I think it would also be fun to have historically important cities named on the map even if they can't be included as playable settlements because of the game limits- they could just be part of the scenery, so to speak.

[Trithemius]

I know that a lot of this stuff is unfortunatley beyond the scope of RTW, but I do think that some the impacts of military reform could be put in: if you build a large navy, for instance, unrest should increase because of the agitation of lower-class rowers for more political power. If, after the Marian reforms, you disband some of your legions then they'll want land- maybe this could lead to a spawn of rebels in your home territories. If you don't disband them then their morale shoud go down.

It'd be quite neat to see a structure that mirrors the "other side" of the current colonies. The existing colonies are built in large settlements and represent people being sent away, but perhaps the Romans (and others who might develop similar ideas - perhaps Epeirotes and Makedonians?) can also build a structure in type ii and iii areas that represents demobilised veterans establishing themselves there? Perhaps with some public order bonuses, or xp and/or morale bonuses to locally recruited troops (veterans might serve as a cadre, or just instill esprit de corps in descendents)?

[Cheexsta]

Scripts often need to use the visible variant of a town's name - so I'm wondering if this would change or negatively affect anything we would do with scripts?

Are you sure? Looking over EBBS, it looks like they only seem to use the internal names of the cities, which stay the same when you simply change the name of a city.

At least, that's what I assume. You guys are the ones who made the script, so I may be wrong. I hope not, though

Edit: as an aside, I believe a similar suggestion has been made to the RTR boys for 7.0, regarding a script to tell the player about the settlement names. Just clarifying before people start crying foul

[econ21]

If v0.8 ports over to 1.5, then that would be enough to justify a patch on its own. I think the AI would improve a fair amount and I can't wait to adjust the rebel spawn rate right down.

20 more units would be icing on the cake.

However, if forced to recommend suggestions, there are two cosmetic changes I'd like to see. Firstly, switch the Roman general portraits and speeches back to Roman from Greek - I think Qwerty said this was intended for 1.5 anyway. Secondly, replace the peasant "placeholder" unit card graphics. You have nice pictures for each unit on the unit details, so hopefully minaturising them or something related can be done.

[GMT]

Would it be possible to limit population growth and squalor, maybe you can create a building that has massive population growth penalties/squalor bonus once a city gets above the 24k level?

Also the distance to the capitol penalty still seems pretty excessive, I'm playing a Seleukid campaign right now and it's really a pain, like 80% in some cities!

GMT

[Quintus Curiatius Trigeminus]

Add the centurio and the signifer to the hastati
Add the centurio to the principes
Change the name of Cnaeus Scipio Asina to Cnaeus Cornelius Scipio.
Is the problem with roman children resolved? The son of Cornelius Scipio will be a Cornelius Scipio or will he be a "something else" Scipio?
Please forgive me my English
pozdrawiam

[PseRamesses]

1. Regarding formations vanilla had a neat feat that has long been gone and I´ve missed it since. Selecting several diverse units in an specific order then press single line the units forms into a single line in the exact order that they where selected in. As now the AI seem to "group" them together.
Ex. If I want to create a sinle line like this: Triarii, Principie, tirarii the line will probably look like TTP or PTT but with vanilla and I choosed the units like this: TPT they would form up in a line as TPT.

2. A hold formation command should always mean hold formation. As it is now when a unit gets engaged from the side it will start rotating towards the agressor. This is specially annoying when you have a line of spears/ phalanxes and an enemy unit marches up towards unit A but just before engaging unit A it turns and engaging unit B. Unit B now will rotate towards the enemy thus exposing its flank. A line formation put on hold formation command should be static.

3. Same thing with the phalanx formation plus that they break up into an obscure mass of individual soldiers. Breaking a phalanx´ formation is only about mass. A single phalanx unit will hold formation against another unit but faced with several units pushing towards it it should succumb.
Is it just me or does anyone else agree that a cavalry charge head on into a phalanx unit should not be able to break it?! As for now the cavalries easily penetrates a phalanx or spear unit and a head on charge will only cause minor casualities to the cavalry unit - it´s just ridiculous!

[nikolai1962]

I've been playing a lot of vanilla 1.5 as part of testing the EB buildings for the port. I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to tinker with the formations in the 1.5 version as the patched vanilla battle ai, formations and *especially* army composition is much improved. Or it might all be due to the much better army composition. Hard to say.

Either way some of the stuff people have done to mod the formations files will be based on work-arounds for the weaknesses of the earlier vanilla game which might not work the same way with better ai armies.

(Plus the EB formations work very well imo.)

[Geoffrey S]

It'd be quite neat to see a structure that mirrors the "other side" of the current colonies. The existing colonies are built in large settlements and represent people being sent away, but perhaps the Romans (and others who might develop similar ideas - perhaps Epeirotes and Makedonians?) can also build a structure in type ii and iii areas that represents demobilised veterans establishing themselves there? Perhaps with some public order bonuses, or xp and/or morale bonuses to locally recruited troops (veterans might serve as a cadre, or just instill esprit de corps in descendents)?

This, I like. Some kind of building representing the movement of veterans into colonies, thereby raising growth but adding more experience/better units to the settlement could be good.

[Teutobod II]

I got a translation for the Sweboz granery :

*skammjō_, *skammjō n? meaning storehouse as a single building

according to this dictionary
http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germwbhinw.html

[Ludens]

Also, I know that you guys make your own formations files, but would it be possible to look into using a (modded, obviously) version of Darth's latest formations? I haven't actually checked them out yet, but they seem like a vast improvement over previous versions...

To be honest, I am not sure that the EB team has actually done much with the formations. I might be mistaken (it is so much time ago I used them), but I recall Darth Formations 8.5 working far better.

1. Regarding formations vanilla had a neat feat that has long been gone and I´ve missed it since. Selecting several diverse units in an specific order then press single line the units forms into a single line in the exact order that they where selected in. As now the AI seem to "group" them together.

Darth Formations used this as well, so I assume there is some reason for this. However, it still is a bloody nuissance, and I seriously consider putting vanilla formation files back.

[john289]

Well, this is the biggest pet peeve about EB of mine and it's not even really a big one, but, it just pisses me off how Hayasdan expands over the steppe/Russia like crazy, and the Sarmations just get rolled over every single time. I'm not sure what could be done about this, but I do understand that Eb's script adds money to a faction once they're under a certain mark in the treasury. Maybe add more money to the Sarmations so there's a bit more fight in them?

[oudysseos]

Grain Supplies:

I'd like to see some kind of scripting that makes control of a major grain producing region a prereq or trigger for advanced growth and/or high income.
What I mean is The Athenian Empire of the 5th century BCE was predicated on control of trade with the Black Sea and its grain supplies, and Roman expansion came to rely on controlling Egypt and Sicily as major grain producing regions. Without steady supplies of grain neither Rome nor Athens could have grown to anything like the size they did. Could there be a limit to city expansion based on the availability of food supplies? Technology developement follows on: it takes a big city to build advanced MIC and train advanced troops. Without control of the necessary resources it can't be done.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, this is the biggest pet peeve about EB of mine and it's not even really a big one, but, it just pisses me off how Hayasdan expands over the steppe/Russia like crazy, and the Sarmations just get rolled over every single time. I'm not sure what could be done about this, but I do understand that Eb's script adds money to a faction once they're under a certain mark in the treasury. Maybe add more money to the Sarmations so there's a bit more fight in them?

There will be big changes in the way the sarmatians' buildings evolve in a later build. But I think something else needs to be done to help them more in regards to their starting economic situation. When I test them currently I totally disband every last unit I have, then sit and build for about 7 years with taxes on low in every town and sending diplomats to get trade status with all factions I can, and then I finally can get the towns to 2000 people and upgrade and start building ports and markets. The AI doesn't have a chance under those conditions compared to armenians. We won't fix this quickly, but it will get better - you can be sure of that. Plus Pontos will pose more of a threat to armenians in the future too and keep them bottled up a little better when more pontos units come into thegame.

[Foot]

There will be big changes in the way the sarmatians' buildings evolve in a later build. But I think something else needs to be done to help them more in regards to their starting economic situation. When I test them currently I totally disband every last unit I have, then sit and build for about 7 years with taxes on low in every town and sending diplomats to get trade status with all factions I can, and then I finally can get the towns to 2000 people and upgrade and start building ports and markets. The AI doesn't have a chance under those conditions compared to armenians. We won't fix this quickly, but it will get better - you can be sure of that. Plus Pontos will pose more of a threat to armenians in the future too and keep them bottled up a little better when more pontos units come into thegame.

Noooooooo, not my precious Armenia! I must say though, it would be nice if Armenia was more concerned with Sophene and Lesser Armenia, its original lands, and less concerned with the lands above the Caucaucas (how do you stop spelling that) Mountains. Ah well, we can but wish. Though I have noted in one game I played that Armenia actually took on pontos as was doing quite well, they had driven Pontos out of Sinope and made it all the way to Nikomedia.

Foot