A plea...

[Dayve]

Please let us recruit generals in 1.5... I hate having cities with no governors... Every city had a governor and i always end up running out of them. Please let us recruit them!

[Krusader]

Please let us recruit generals in 1.5... I hate having cities with no governors... Every city had a governor and i always end up running out of them. Please let us recruit them!

Romans will by 99% chance be able to recruit generals...other factions though...

We are basically seeing if it would be historically & gameplay feasible to recruit generals for some factions.

[Weisthor]

hm... sounds like a good idea ....
never thought about it ...
but Dayve is right.... i always have 30 citys and 12 generals or something like this^^ they all die too fast and don´t want to make children :)

[Geoffrey S]

I prefer it the way it is. Keeps me shuffling governors about to where I need them most, and at least makes me think about who should go where.

[Weisthor]

hm... yes.... that makes the game more interessting, thats true ... but its a bit unrealistic, as every city had a gouvernour .... hm....
i am undecided ^^ perhaps the EB team could do something that there are some more children born.

[Foot]

hm... yes.... that makes the game more interessting, thats true ... but its a bit unrealistic, as every city had a gouvernour .... hm....
i am undecided ^^ perhaps the EB team could do something that there are some more children born.

Though of course every city had a governor, not every city had a governor who was a Family Member. I don't see the problem, if you don't like having your cities controlled by the AI you can turn it off when you start a campaign.

Foot

[Ludens]

hm... yes.... that makes the game more interessting, thats true ... but its a bit unrealistic, as every city had a gouvernour .... hm....
i am undecided ^^ perhaps the EB team could do something that there are some more children born.

I am afraid that is not possible. The game tries to have about one family member for two or three cities. If the number exceeds that, no more suitors/adoptees are offered and no more children are born. This cannot be modded.

[Dayve]

Well i have a good idea.

Make it so that every general who is in a city for more than say, 10 turns, get traits that give severe battlefield penalties, like inexperienced, no taste for blood, no desire for war, has a taste for the high life, or something like this. That way our governors will stay good governors but crap as battlefield generals, and battlefield generals good at battle with high influence, but low management skills because they have known nothing but war all their life.

[paullus]

It often does turn out that way. I have a general who was attuned gov for a while, but he's a Persian, so he got sad when I had him leading an army, got happy, then luxurious, then uppity in a city, until now he's practically in rebellion (speaking of which, I had an idea!).

'Rebellious' Family members -- can develop over time with a governor in a city, who develops along certain lines (selfish, pessimistic and an adoptee for starters), and basically gives him 0 movement points and increases the cost of soldier recruitment by a whole lot. Of course, removing him from power would be difficult, as you'd have to either wait him out (to die), or kill him with an assassin. That could be a pain, but it could add an interesting twist. Or perhaps you just need to move the faction leader or heir, and that would restore his loyalty. Feasible?

PS--A general got the "wilderness prophet" ancillary the other day. I love how I keep discovering new things in EB.

[Dayve]

Yes EB's traits are certainly the best part about EB... The fun never ends, every turn i seemed to discover a new trait... It was like my generals were real people... So much depth in them there traits.

But the rebellious thing is a good idea too... I doubt it can be implemented though... And if it could be then governors should only become rebellious very much later in a Roman campaign, like around the time that the first emperors started to show, which was what, 30BC or something like that? But why would a city governor become rebellious? He would have no battle experience and probably not a good strategist... And to sieze power in Rome the two things you need to succeed are an army of extremely dedicated men and a good strategic mind... Governors i don't think would have either...

Are there any records of governors ever being rebellious back in the day?

[orwell]

I don't know about paullus' idea, but there is loyalty in 1.5, I think. So you'll probably see the disloyal trait become much more important in the next build. Or I hope you will, I like the idea of certain generals who think they are above the senate, or ruler of the faction, and will become rebels who will attack. Or if your at war with a faction, maybe they could convert to that faction instead?

[sithlord85]

Or if your at war with a faction, maybe they could convert to that faction instead?

Yes that would awesome like they were traitors or something.......
______________________________________
"I dont' fear the dark side as you do Obi wan"

[paullus]

I'm trying to find some examples, but I know I've read before of "rebellions" by local rulers/governors. And I don't mean by this rebellions aimed at overthrowing the ruler; it was more common for a ruler to just sort of start ruling for himself.

For ex.: adopted family member has ruled a province himself for 10 years or more, hasn't left, probably does a pretty good job. Why should he keep serving you? He hasn't seen a field army in his province in years, yet you always ask for him to raise new troops. So he stops raising troops for you, stops sending in money, and he keeps that up until you do show up to set him straight.

Now I think about it there are a few examples in Josephus' Antiquities, and it was part of the problem for the Seleukids in maintaining real control over their whole empire (and for the Persians before them).

[Cheexsta]

I'd like to see recruitable generals as well, depending on their historical availability of course. And loyalty (which can definately be added to 1.5 mods, TFT has done it) would also be a nice touch, but have loyalty points hard to lose, unlike in BI. A general with the "Disloyal" trait, for example, should still have a decent amount of Loyalty points, but should have an increased chance of gaining other disloyalty traits based on other factors (how well their troops trust them, whether the Marian reforms have passed or not, how many other disloyal generals there are in that faction etc). Proper civil wars should be relatively rare IMHO, since they weren't really *that* common in history - certainly not every couple of years like in BI.

Just my 2c.

[Trithemius]

I am afraid that is not possible. The game tries to have about one family member for two or three cities. If the number exceeds that, no more suitors/adoptees are offered and no more children are born. This cannot be modded.

Does this mean that if I recruit generals in 1.5/1.6 then I will not get as many "naturally occurring" family members? Or does the game track recruited generals seperately from family members?

[Dayve]

I've never run out of family members in BI when you could recruit generals and i've played some pretty long campaigns... I played a WRE campaign once where i stabilized all of the WRE, conquered all of Britain, all of the Germanic tribes, the mormoloid people doods from the south west of the map where the Numidians used to be, and held it all until the very end of the campaign... I recruited generals for every city that didn't have a governor and even for battles and i never once stopped having children born.. Even if it was only 1 every 20 years it never stopped.

[Tanit]

I agree that generals should be recruitable but they might also be available as mercenaries. I remember one Xanthippus hired by Carthage turned the first Punic war around. Of course hiring them could merely represent this.

[edyzmedieval]

What about for the Ptolemaioi? The guys liked to reproduce themselves.

[Kull]

One of the big concerns - and it's not really a secret since it should be obvious to experienced BI players - is that recruitable generals use the same "bodyguard unit" as family members. And right now, those have free upkeep.

Adding recruitable generals and not changing the upkeep invites a pretty nasty exploit. So the choices are to add upkeep to all bodyguard units (could affect game balance, especially for weaker, one province factions) or to create a separate set of expensive-upkeep-bodyguard units for the recruitable generals (forcing us to eliminate 20 or so of the planned units, since RTW has a max of 500 and all slots are already allocated). Or possibly some mix of the two.

I only mention this so you realize it's not a "no brainer". Unfortunately.

[orwell]

How severely would it affect game play balance do you think? One province nations probably didn't have many generals in the first place. I would think the system would balance itself out if they were prohibitively expensive.

[Kull]

How severely would it affect game play balance do you think? One province nations probably didn't have many generals in the first place. I would think the system would balance itself out if they were prohibitively expensive.

I'm not talking about the mid-to-late game. That's not the issue. Think about the start of the game. Think about a faction like the Casse. Already in dire financial straits, now add something like 350-400 per unit per turn for each family member (@4 at the start). So now they are losing an additional 1500 or so per turn? That's crushing. I'm not saying we couldn't "figure it out", but this is just an example of the kind of headache this causes. It's not a no-brainer.

[Slider6977]

One of the big concerns - and it's not really a secret since it should be obvious to experienced BI players - is that recruitable generals use the same "bodyguard unit" as family members. And right now, those have free upkeep.

Adding recruitable generals and not changing the upkeep invites a pretty nasty exploit. So the choices are to add upkeep to all bodyguard units (could affect game balance, especially for weaker, one province factions) or to create a separate set of expensive-upkeep-bodyguard units for the recruitable generals (forcing us to eliminate 20 or so of the planned units, since RTW has a max of 500 and all slots are already allocated). Or possibly some mix of the two.

I only mention this so you realize it's not a "no brainer". Unfortunately.

Unfortunately I did not play a lot of BI, but I would like to suggest something. First, a question: am I to believe that, while it is consider an exploit for human players, that the AI does not take advantage of this, except in dire need? If this is the case of the 'exploit', I would suggest that any faction deemed a 'family member rich' faction (in my opinion factions such as Rome, Carthage, most successor states, and possibly to some extent the gual factions) could be given a boost in family fertility, much in the same way it was limited for some factions in 7.4.

I think this is especially critical for Rome, who always had nobles ready to stand forth against enemies, even when many generals and prominent politicians/tacticians where killed in battle or seige (obviously second punic war stands out, but there are plenty of other examples of this throughout their history). Anyway, just a thought, as I would also like to see recruitable generals, makes battles more fun knowing "yea my guy may die, but I will have another possibly just as good general ready to take his place". And it still does not make good generals or good governors expendable, just lesser generals somewhat more of an asset on the battlefied, as you can put him in harms way more, not shelter him away until you HAVE to use him, or just to run down routing enemies. And in many ways, it is more historically accurate: you still protect your best generals and governors, as you do not want them to be killed, but you are less worried about others who can just as well die for their country.

[Kull]

First, a question: am I to believe that, while it is consider an exploit for human players, that the AI does not take advantage of this, except in dire need?

The exploit is this: If generals have "free" maintenance, and you can recruit them at will, what's to stop the player from buying them instead of regular "heavy cavalry"? In EB, the best Heavy Cav has maintenance of between 500-700 mnai per turn. If you could recruit basically the same unit and have FREE maintenance, why ever build regular cavalry? Do the numbers. Even if it cost 5000 to recruit a general, it would pay for itself in 7-10 turns. Plus, it REGENERATES! So no more of those expensive replacements. The only downside is when the General dies, you lose the whole unit.

Anyway, "free" generals are likely to be unbalancing unless we make them hideously expensive. And then you'll hardly ever use them, so what's the point? Again, the answer isn't easy or obvious.

[orwell]

I'm not talking about the mid-to-late game. That's not the issue. Think about the start of the game. Think about a faction like the Casse. Already in dire financial straits, now add something like 350-400 per unit per turn for each family member (@4 at the start). So now they are losing an additional 1500 or so per turn? That's crushing. I'm not saying we couldn't "figure it out", but this is just an example of the kind of headache this causes. It's not a no-brainer.

I thought the recruitable generals were treated as a separate unit, and just functioned as family members. Ok..... maybe take them out and increase fertility? Can you control man of the hour events? I don't like the idea of losing 20 units just so factions can have more generals on call. Worse to worse, I'm for voting them out. If there are any diadochi units, where I would expect it to be most common anyways, that are essentially duplicates could they be removed and then make them recruitable only for certain factions with the upkeep similar to that of a elephant? The governors of rome, at least after the second punic war, certainly extorted and spent on games or other frivilous expenses. I might recruit them if I need a novus homo on the frontiers. Maybe they could be built in settlements that have any sort of recruitment building at all, whether enemies or yours at any level?

[Trithemius]

Perhaps make bodyguard units cost *some* amount, but also make them take quite a long time to build (4 turns perhaps?). This would mean that while it would be possible for people to try and replace cavalry with generals it would take a long time and require a major investment in cash.

In order to mitigate the effects of this on poorer factions, perhaps their troops could have their upkeep costs reduced? This might even allow them to support bodyguards at their full upkeep?

On a semi-related issue: wouldn't this require the Traits system to be tweaked so that generals did not pick up wives and fertility related traits, etc?

[Wardo]

Oh what the hell, screw the player!

If he wants a General Army with only bodyguards let him ruin his game experience with it.

[Dayve]

Oh what the hell, screw the player!

If he wants a General Army with only bodyguards let him ruin his game experience with it.

Exactly. If people want to use armies of generals or armies of triarii then they shouldn't be playing EB in the first place. EB is for people who appreciate historical accuracy and a good challenge. If you want armies of triarii and an easy ass game where you can conquer all of Gaul in 10 turns, then you should be playing RTR.

[Trithemius]

... then you should be playing RTR.

Hey, that is not nice! How about you try to keep the comparisons technical and dispassionate - just for something novel?

[Dayve]

Hey, that is not nice! How about you try to keep the comparisons technical and dispassionate - just for something novel?

Would you like to tell me which part of what i said was unjust? The current build of RTR is immensely easy, there's no disputing that. Even on VH/M i need only conquer 2 cities and the world is pretty much mine for the taking. That said, i enjoy RTR. I've been playing 6.0 since the day it came out and it's great fun, but it's just too easy.

There are two types of people who play RTW. There are history fanatics who want to play RTW as historically accurate as a mod will ever get, (EB) and want a challenge whilst doing so, and there are people who want an easy ass game where you start off with tons of money, a large army and can conquer the entire Roman empire at its height by 240BC, and the game for these people is RTR.

[stalin]

Jesus Dayve you really need to see past the it's "either black or white" bit. I don't care for the accuracy as much as for the gameplay. All I want is a challenging game that has me sweating while being fair (not having to play the battles on very hard) and comes out before the relaease of MTW2 which really ends it for me since the inherent bugs and shortcomings of it's (RTW) AI won't keep me playing if there is something just as stupid but way prettier to play with.