EB2 discussions.............bigger map?

[Lovejoy]

Qwerty: Ah I see, I didn't know they such an impact on the faction surrounding that area.

The quetion is maybe: is it enough? (Enough for a "half faction"? :P) Greeks turning buddist maybe is something for the script-guys? Were the wars big enough?

I leave that to the guys who know. As you might have guessed, I'm no expert.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Yes, the battle of Talas, in nowdays Uzkekistan, in 751. Easternmost Arabian army vs Westernmost Tang incursion in Central Asia. The Arabs indeed won, although this says nothing about their alleged military superiority.

As a result Central Asia definitely staid in the Arabic-Persian-Turkic cultural area.

An other important consequence of this encounter lies in that Chinese prisoneers taught the usage of paper in Samarkand, allowing the technology to spread in the Muslim and then later on Christian worlds, ushering in a major technologic revolution comparable to the press printing.

Oh, but thats AD750, I was thinking more 300BC.

[CaesarAugustus]

This discussion is largely asinine. Firstly, the Chinese were technologically different from the ancient Mediterranean, but not superior. I would certainly argue that the Hellenic kingdoms were technologically superior, and that rome was fairly similar.

You have to take it into several dimensions.

1) Logistics. Ancient Chinese states may have had armies of 1 million, what have you. They could hardly have fielded that many troops at one time. The largest army in the same place before the early modern era was at either Gaugamela or at Cannae. You cannot feed that many men in one place for long.

2) Fighting styles. Asiatic armies generally fought in a pre-military horizon style. Even the vaunted samurai still did this. They fought individual duals on the battlefield, and did not generally work as cohesive units.

3) the 'crossbow'. The Romans and Greeks had a similar device, the belly bow, and even then, it was found wanting. Crossbow bearers could fire one volley before the Romans returned fire with pila, cutting the lightly armored chinese down in kind.

Don't listen to everything you hear in video games and on the history channel. It's unbecoming and makes for horrible argument.

Also, the halberd... This is just silly. Falx, Rhomphaia, etc. There are hundreds of weapons the far east doesn't have.

Oh, and by the way. Those 'million man armies' got smashed by 30,000 or so mongols with no better technology than the ingame Sarmatians.

That was very well put Urnamma, great research. I will also add that in that general time period Chinese blacksmiths used new bronze forging methods to produce even longer blades to be used in the army. These blades of course would be horribly ineffective against the Roman scutum-and-gladius combination, which would mean heavy casualties for Chinese infantry. The Chinese also carried no shields, mostly relying on armor.


However, i do think that historical realism should come before a bigger map in EB, and China would just make it more complicated. EB already has a great amount of diverse factions, and I would rather keep the same old map and instead have it made even more detailed, using the new faction slots to fill out the rebel spaces.

One idea though is that the discovery of the new world mechanism could be used for the discovery of the Far East (unlikely), or the Mogol invasion that takes place part way through the game could be made into a Chinese/Xiongu invasion. Neither of these are really historical, i guess, but could be interesting if added.

(For example, the invading Mongol armies coul be changed in to the army of Ban Chao, who took 70 000 men all the way to the Caspian Sea before turning back in the year 97).

[scourgeofrome]

However, i do think that historical realism should come before a bigger map in EB, and China would just make it more complicated. EB already has a great amount of diverse factions, and I would rather keep the same old map and instead have it made even more detailed, using the new faction slots to fill out the rebel spaces.

the Mogol invasion that takes place part way through the game could be made into a Chinese/Xiongu invasion. Neither of these are really historical, i guess, but could be interesting if added.
(For example, the invading Mongol armies coul be changed in to the army of Ban Chao, who took 70 000 men all the way to the Caspian Sea before turning back in the year 97).

Okay,thats fine too.A what if thing.But all I'm asking is if theres a way to make a faction appear in custom battle but not the campiagn.OR you could make them mercenaries for the WAY eastern lands (like border lands) in small numbers (like maybe 1 or 2 every few turns).With custom battles now (in .74), mercs appear on the unit selection screen.So in theory by allowing rare Chinese mercs,the human could make an opposing all-Chinese army to fight with.

[iberus_generalis]

put it simple the chinese had the quantity over quality... soldiers as far as the eye can see, nice techonology, but poor metals, and armors.... the roman had some quantity and extreme quality, organized soldiers... great armors and nice metals for them, and above all supreme tactics.... the chinese wouldn't stand much of a chance... its like the barbarians against the romans...great numbers but low quality gear against the legions....=) and the romans had the Know-how... and had slingers....and Cretan Archers!!!=)

as for the chinese units present in skirmish, and custom battles, is quite possible and fastly done... just get the Zhan Guo mod and rip the models and textures into your EB install...i've made it for 48 units already, and intend to do it for much more=)

[Conqueror]

Mogol invasion that takes place part way through the game could be made into a Chinese/Xiongu invasion. Neither of these are really historical, i guess, but could be interesting if added.

Or, you know, they could use it for the Yuezhi migration which would actually be historical

The bad side to this is that it leaves one less slot to use for the playable factions.

[Urnamma]

put it simple the chinese had the quantity over quality... soldiers as far as the eye can see, nice techonology, but poor metals, and armors.... the roman had some quantity and extreme quality, organized soldiers... great armors and nice metals for them, and above all supreme tactics.... the chinese wouldn't stand much of a chance... its like the barbarians against the romans...great numbers but low quality gear against the legions....=) and the romans had the Know-how... and had slingers....and Cretan Archers!!!=)

as for the chinese units present in skirmish, and custom battles, is quite possible and fastly done... just get the Zhan Guo mod and rip the models and textures into your EB install...i've made it for 48 units already, and intend to do it for much more=)

It's not even that. FYI, the 'barbarians' like Celts were just as advanced and disciplined as the Romans militarily. Never assume that someone will win automatically based on a few variables.

The Celts didn't always outnumber the Romans, despite what the Romans themselves say. Herodotus claims that the persians had a 2.5 million man army that marched overland too ;)

[scourgeofrome]

as for the chinese units present in skirmish, and custom battles, is quite possible and fastly done... just get the Zhan Guo mod and rip the models and textures into your EB install...i've made it for 48 units already, and intend to do it for much more=)

Any chance you could convince the EB team to make it an optional add on?

[Anthony]

It's not even that. FYI, the 'barbarians' like Celts were just as advanced and disciplined as the Romans militarily. Never assume that someone will win automatically based on a few variables.

I'd note the battle of Telamon. Outnumbered, ambushed Gauls lost, but not due to a lack of discipline (to the contrary, the Romans were unnerved by their level of organization and discipline). When ambushed, their command structure for large unit tactics was good enough to swiftly draw up into two lines facing both sides of the ambush. The Romans didn't bowl over Gaul, they had a large number of Gauls fighting for them as well, and Gauls didn't always have numerical superiority, and still put up a tremendous fight. Mind that at the same time, they were in a civil war, what governments were still in place collapsed over arguments of to ally with the Romans or not, and they were being attacked by the Germanic tribes to their east. They still managed for a while in the most terrible conditions politically and militarily; most of their actual soldiers were dead or had allied with the Romans or fled to Britain and Ireland. Defeating barbarians for the Romans involved many factors, not a handful of advantages, which weren't necessarily all that advantageous compared to their opponents.

Consider the Gallic charge. It was precipitated by a rain of javelins and sling bullets to disorganize the enemy and cavalry would wheel around the opposing flanks. The charge was intended to hit about the same time the enemy order broke. It was Romans who took the Celtic large unit command structure (the standards and horns, which allowed for fast command of large numbers of soldiers, since each company and regiment knew their standard, and each standard bearer knew the horn commands), though their officers were based on Greeks as I recall. Cunliffe is a nice place to start reading about how they fought, and he quite handily dispels the myth of 'large utterly disordered numbers'. It's quite plain they knew how to fight as a unit, even based on what their ancient detractors said (though a lot of them would say deriding things shortly after, like...what's his name, I think Urnamma would know; he said Celts fought harder and longer than any other mercenaries, and not a few sentences later called them lazy).

[Anthony]

Damn, double post.

[Kushan]

Personally I would argue against expanding the map any further. I could see maybe expanding it a little into India but even that would be a maybe as (as Lovejoy I believe pointed out) we dont want to have any "half factions.

I would rather us get rid of some of the "rebel" factions and add them in as an actual faction, even if some of them were small kingdoms, they could be a way of offering an alternative history...or more likely, more cannon fodder for the legions lol.

Kushan

[Simmons]

I would rather us get rid of some of the "rebel" factions and add them in as an actual faction, even if some of them were small kingdoms, they could be a way of offering an alternative history...or more likely, more cannon fodder for the legions lol.

Kushan

You mean cannon fodder for the Hetairoi and Pezhetairoi right Kushan

[Kushan]

I stand corrected lol

Kushan

[Obelics]

Oh, and by the way. Those 'million man armies' got smashed by 30,000 or so mongols with no better technology than the ingame Sarmatians

that was not a fine comparisons in my opinion, the chinese that were doomed by mongols ordes, were the chinese of the Sung dinasty, this was a sort of a Great Reinassence Period for the Chinese, it was comparable at somethink like Florence in the '400, or more generally at the italian states of the '400, their culture reached one of the most fine form of expression, and even the plastic arts, still now the masterpiece of chinese ceramics for example, are the Sung period, not the Ming in the view of a chinese, and there were an explosion of the commerce and of the "financial" activity, there were cities like HangZhou who was considered "urban cities" in the actual meaning of the term, the life was very "urban" for much men, and as counterpart, they were not a fine military power.
I can recall, that the most used form of war, by the Sung emperors, was the corruption, they just tryed to buy the enemies or to make some commercial treaties, to make them calm, so in definitive i dont see all this military power for Sung China. There is a plenty of books on the Sung Period, and you can make an image of what it was, and how they were bad on the military side. There were corruption in the generals and even the "baojia" sistem of recruitement was very ineffective, since it was based on the recruitement of militia peasants, and the urbans class and financial class didn't have interest on fighting, even a lot of what we "Western" can call nobles, were absorbed in the financial activities, and even the confucian funtionaries, despite the confucianism, "officially", hated the merchant class.

but I agree that a comparisions between roman army and Han army (around 1 century b.c) is stupid, but not cause what you call the "individual" and "duel" style of fight of the chinese, remember that china was never and i say never a feudal state as we intend in the West, it was almost always a "burocratic" state even in his worst "dark ages", yes if you think of the Tang there were a sort of feudal nobless, but it was quicly absorbed in the functionary class, and it lost fast its power as the economy had its bump.
Returning to Hans, im not an expert of military history, but ive never heard of individual fighting style etc. The chineses have nothinkg to share with the japanish samurais...
The real power in china in all its confucian history, was never of the warring nobles, but of the functionaries (chen), and if a noble wanted to have some effective power, he has to become a functionary.

the main difference is resumed (with all the limitations of labels) by this two charachters: WU (martial) for the Japanish and WEN (cultur) for the chinese.

It could sound strange, but japanich had an history more comparable to that of our westerns, than the hystory of china, that is a long history of burocracy... and this is not only due to the "confucian" substrate, but even to the "legist" (or "legalist" i dont know what is the correct english word) substrate of the Qin period.

PS do not confuse, the "individual and duellant" image that can give some movies like "Hero, of Zhang YiMou" or some litterature, i think for example to the "ShuiHuJuan" (the border of the river), or even the nasty brigands who follow the monk Xuan Zang in his travel in the West, XiYouJi) and all the successfull genre WuXia (martial) with the effective chinese armies, who were imperial amies, of levies.
The genre of the individual heros, and of the picaresque brigands who had some individual and heroic skills, was developed as a counterpart of the strong burocratic empire. And this individual and duellant heroes often fight against the Empire, or against what they see as an usurper dinasty... because in the optical of the confucianism you can't fight against the official power. So it often happen that these individual hero and their bands, fight against what they reputes usurper etc.

[Anthony]

I'm not sure how you mean by legal, and mind that the west, at the time, had few unifying cultural aspects but what were necessity, which was mostly military aspects; governance varied widely (in southern Greece alone, there was philosophy driven proto-democratic Athens practically side-by-side with militaristic proto-socialist Spartans, a vastly different society). In terms of legality, the Celts would then probably be comparable, in that their problems mostly stemmed from advanced (as opposed to primitive as is often assumed) concepts of law. They were obsessed with it utterly, to the extent that it was the holy aspect of the society. Why were Celtic gods worshipped? Because they made the first laws and had legal recourse. Who was the most powerful person in any Celtic society? A judge, he even held legal authority over kings. Certainly, a king had military authority, but if he acted without accord of the judges in his realm, you can bet your ass he'd be fined, even if he was acting against an enemy (which was part of the problem; a well meaning king might have wanted to act again his X enemies who threatened his people, but judges might quickly find his actions illegal and punish him, making him need to consider it, and probably opt against illegal actions). The Aedui had ruled Gaul with extremely legalistic magistrates, which had been part of why Germans and Belgae had proven a threat, and led to the collapse of Gaul when people saw the Aedui as too weak to protect Gaul. Beuracracy was a terrible problem for them. Even in the more monarchist Arverni regime, judges held enormous authority and forced nobles into very uncomfortable positions (actually more uncomfortable, because, at least with Aedui, kings could empathize with the king of the Aedui, he was as much under the thumb of the magistrates of any of them, but for the Arverni, their high king was less in their power, though he still was).

[Obelics]

"legism" was the official political doctrine in the period of the QinChao (the Qin dinasty, the First Empire) and even in the last period of the warring states. It was substituted by "confucianism" in the Han period, but its substrate never disappeared, even in the actual china.
I can summarize it saying that it was the power of the regulamentation, and of the "written law", everythink had its regulament and in our modern vision we could say that "it was not the law at service of the men" but "men at services of the laws", it was even a philosophical doctrine, and there were plenty of "legist" or "legalist" philosopher in that period, the Legism was one of the so called "100 schools" but it had its primal importance in that period, i.e. the last warring states and the Qin period. It was not any comparable to any western doctrine of that period in the West, and it posed the bases of the chinese burocratic state. Actually it is a questionable doctrine, cause in the modern vision the laws should be at the service of the men and not the opposite.

While you can find somethink like that in some centralized western state of the ancient time, or even in the celts as you do, there were nothink so organized under the philosophical, doctrinal, political, and idiological side as it was for the Qin, and it pheraphs conducted to the fall of the dinasty and to the raise of the confucianism.

PS i just tryed to google "legism" and there are some artichles, so it is the correct english translation i realize, and there are more specifical infos to find even under the voice "legalism"
If you are interested try to google "chinese legism" it should appear some results. Hope it helps!

[scourgeofrome]

Heres an idea for allowing Chinese units in the game.In the year whats-his name marched to the Caspian Sea,one of your This Year in History (correct me if thats the wrong name for it) pops up.ANd for several turns Chinese mercs appear in the region for recuitment (I mean come on.If a 70000 man army marched across Asia and back someone had to desert).

[Dumbass]

I was thinking not so much expanding the map, but enlarging it, adding more distance between provinces and cities.

[Obelics]

well, this should be a good idea even for me, to keep the map as it is, and enlarge it to max possible, one think i dont like of RTW is that you can conquest 2 or 3 city with one only army in one turn... it should be nice to not see "towns", just as checkpoints for your army battlefest... anyway in EB it is a bit better, cause there aren't very "town crowded" places as in other mods

[iberus_generalis]

to make an add on with the chinese for EB, i would need to have the permition from both teams to do it, then i would also need to ask permition to the artists who made the skins and models of the chinese, i would also need some time to make the entries, tweak and balance them, beta test them so the add on could be safely released upon the comunity.... it's really easy to do, but it takes some time to do it right, and the permition of the respective teams... time speacily is something i have really short right now... i m owing a scan of a picture to Sarcasm but alas i have'nt had much time to mod, and even play in the last few months..busy with school and Real life... i only came to the forums yesterday after a disappearance of almost two months...but by december 8th i'll be back live and kicking mixing mods, moding my own things into RTW(as we can't as of yet mod M2TW) wich i plan to release as soon as possible(hint, i plan on doing a texture overhaul to the textures of RTW.... some of this works may already be seen in the screen section of this sub forum in my posts....)

but this add on is quite doable easy, and moderatly fast to complete, as all i need is already done...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

and even the confucian funtionaries, despite the confucianism, "officially", hated the merchant class.

Merchants were the lowest people, they didn't add anything to society (no goods or services), they just make profit off other people's work.

Heres an idea for allowing Chinese units in the game.In the year whats-his name marched to the Caspian Sea,one of your This Year in History (correct me if thats the wrong name for it) pops up.ANd for several turns Chinese mercs appear in the region for recuitment (I mean come on.If a 70000 man army marched across Asia and back someone had to desert).

Mercenaries can't change based on time, there is a set list list for each reason that is the same throughout the game. Thus if they were mercenaries they would have to be there dispite the time frame.

I was thinking not so much expanding the map, but enlarging it, adding more distance between provinces and cities.

I don't like the idea of a large scaled map. Not only does the penalty for distance from the capital skyrocket, but cities will only trade a certain number of "squares" and trade would suck.

[-Praetor-]

I don't like the idea of a large scaled map. Not only does the penalty for distance from the capital skyrocket, but cities will only trade a certain number of "squares" and trade would suck.

That`s not neccesrily true. I played Darth Mod the last 3 months (I`ve uninstalled it a month ago in expectation for EB 0.8), and in one of it`s campaigns it has a pretty large scaled map. Actually it`s huge. The trade routes are just the same as in other mods, even with larger distances, and I`ve noticed no mayor problems with unrest... at least for me, my distant colonies have normal unrest and distance-to-capital problems...

Here are some shots of the map:

Sicily is pretty huge now.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pannonia woodlands and plains, a pretty large pasteurland.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Macedonia and the how-was-its-name trident peninsulae.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Latium, Umbria and Etruria... compare Darth`s Latium with the vainilla map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Actually, it`s pretty fun playing with a large map.

*It slows down the game, delaying the steamroll effect, since armies take more time to get to their objective.
*It doesn`t affect trade in any way
*It multiplies the battlefields available in an area. For instance, if you`re taking Tarentum, or you`re fighting in a limited area such as Liguria, you don`t get the feeling that you`ve battled in that exact field before.
*In battle map, the hills and mountains aren`t so ridiculously steep, the hills have more gentle slopes.
*I dunno if it affects unrest. I haven`t felt that effect...

Off course, is a matter of personal taste and choice. For me at least, I find unquestionably better to fight in a bigger scale map.

But that`s something that we cannot ask to the team for 1.0... they`ve got much more important things to do...

Perhaps for EB2 ... anyway, that`s for the team to decide. And it`s certainly too soon to discuss it.

Cheers!!!!!!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Looks nice. I like the scale. All of the things we've got in the map and tweaks and such certainly prohibit anything major changed in EB1.0 though. I love big maps though for sure. Maybe if MTW2 is able to be modded they can do something really big.

[Obelics]

Merchants were the lowest people, they didn't add anything to society (no goods or services), they just make profit off other people's work.

well, if this was a sort of ideological sentence, i could be agree, i like this words... but i have to admit that it was not so, and it depends on the period, for example in the Sung period, the society was very "mobile" according to the standards of the age, expecially in the big cities, there were merchants who were respected as functionary, and functionaries who were merchants (but not officially). The Empire was strongly centralized (from a burocratical side) and the Permanet Imperial Army was heavy reduced. It was under the Sung that starts the raise of the prestige of the merchant class (this obviusly was mainly for the big merchants). Some of them spend their capitals even in assistential services, or at last of general interest. In this period there were the increasing of the monetary economy, and all the monetary systems of the previous regimes, was unified. Someone speaks of commercial revolution...

PS paradoxaly, i could say that the china of Sung was very similar to the actual one:
official it is a Communitst State again, but everyone is trying to make money with the Market
the China of the Sung, officially it was a Confucian state, but everyone was going in the Commerce

PPS ehi! But that Sicily is deformed! (talking of 1 or two post above), or is it just my bad perception of the forms...

[Tanit]

Looks nice. I like the scale. All of the things we've got in the map and tweaks and such certainly prohibit anything major changed in EB1.0 though. I love big maps though for sure. Maybe if MTW2 is able to be modded they can do something really big.

I agree, I really like the feel of the bigger map. I definitely think that EB2 should try for a bigger scale map....If M2TW can be unpacked that is....

[Foot]

If a bigger map is possible, I would also request that movement turns be increased accordingly, it should not increase the time it takes to traverse the map. I would hate to spend years crossing a province, for example.

Foot

[-Praetor-]

If a bigger map is possible, I would also request that movement turns be increased accordingly, it should not increase the time it takes to traverse the map. I would hate to spend years crossing a province, for example.

Foot

Hmmmm

But one should also consider that the team has already increased the distance an army can travel, by increasing the number of turns per year, from 2 to 4. Actaully, with the 4TPY change, the army can travel twice the distance in one year than with the 2TPY...

So enlarging the map would adjust things to the vainilla parameters of distance/time...

But as I said, it`s a matter of personal tastes.

Cheers

[Foot]

Hmmmm

But one should also consider that the team has already increased the distance an army can travel, by increasing the number of turns per year, from 2 to 4. Actaully, with the 4TPY change, the army can travel twice the distance in one year than with the 2TPY...

So enlarging the map would adjust things to the vainilla parameters of distance/time...

But as I said, it`s a matter of personal tastes.

Cheers

I know, and I don't want vanilla parameters, they sucked! It took about 10 years to get from carthage to alexandria. Thats absurd! I would certainly hate it if we went that way!

Obviously realistic marching times would be absurd as well, we can't simulate all the possible ways that an army can be slowed down, so I am not advocating that armies should march at realistic speeds. Current EB speeds are good (though I would prefer something slightly further, particularly with quite a few traits slowing down armies), and if we did increase the size of the map I would like speeds to rise accordingly.

Foot

[keravnos]

The map we have is perfect for the number of provinces the game allows.

If we were to be allowed more provinces per map then we could...

a) either enlarge the map and have more of Asia, for example Both the Mauryas and Qin (which I would love to, if only to explore the possibility of themVSUs...

b) keep the map the same but increase the provinces in it, along with the factions making it much more interesting, albeit in a different way.

But, a bigger map without more provinces would be next to useless because we would have to "sacrifice" less important regions to make more provinces.. and who could be considered "less" important? Not an easy choice... Same limit map and more factions would possibly create TOO MANY one province wonders without many chances for survival, even if it would take a SUPER general to wade through that.

But, hey, that's what YOU eb player are here for....!

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

(though I would prefer something slightly further, particularly with quite a few traits slowing down armies)

Second.