EB v.80 - First Impressions?

[Kull]

Just what it says. What was your gut reaction as EB v.80 loaded up and you launched your first game(s)?

edit by TA: Make sure you've got your speakers on and turned up too!

[Constantine the Great]

I'm almost finished downloading, so we'll see in 15 minutes or so.

[aecp]

First of all I'd like to thank all of you in the EB team who have worked so hard for so long to get this out. Second of all, it was well worth the wait, the way I see it EB 0.8 is so polished and full of new and original content that it would be well worth paying the price of a full game for. I just hope that you get the recognition you deserve some day, I could very well see EB being for the Total War franchise what Counter-Strike has been for Half-Life, if only the same support was available from the developers.

Anyways, on to my impressions of the game. As of yet I've only played a few custom battles and the first few turns of a campaign, but everything looks beyond great. The new music, voicemods and GUI make it feel like a completely new game. Very impressive. I tried three campaign battles and none of them crash, so i guess that fix worked out wel? There were a few pleasant suprises in the unit rosters aswell, (altough i havent had time to check them out closely) the spartiatai, Lusotanan units and many others look stunning.

I guess the highest praise I can give you is that i have an exam in five hours and should be sleeping right now. Anyways, thanks again. It feels like robbery getting something this good for free.

[Antagonist]

It's taken so long to download and install it that I pretty much have to sleep without taking a good look, but I've looked through some things, especially the Custom Battle roster.

I see a lot of new units, all of which look really good. I'm pleased to see an increased number of "AoR" units of particular peoples/tribes/cities which give more flavour to "rebel" areas of the map in particular. Cool new Indians, a number of Baltic units, which look interesting, and the Goidils have been raised almost to a demi-faction with 5 or 6 units. Unfortuntely I don't have time to actually play a battle but I'm looking forward to seeing the new units, especially for the Sabeans.

BTW, any chance of a definitive list of the new units? I think I caught most of them, but the chaotic nature of the roster makes it difficult to be sure.

Looking forward to further exploration.

Antagonist

[Big_John]

I guess the highest praise I can give you is that i have an exam in five hours and should be sleeping right now.

go sleep! EB will be there in the morning.

[Spidey]

Well, since you asked for my first reaction . . .

I downloaded the game (at my university job on the fastest line possible - took fifteen minutes to download). Copied it to my zip drive and headed for home.

I had a clean install waiting. Installed it. My fingers were trembling and my mouth was dry. I reached for the mouse and . . .

CTD.

Cr*p. Did a repair install. Tried again.

CTD.

Was about to try a third time when I realized I was a complete idiot. I had tried to install EB v. 8.0 over (and this is the truth) a clean install of my RTW v. 1.0. Yeah. Right.

Anyhoo, I straightened out the mess and am now waiting for the game to install on my RTW Gold v. 1.5.

I wouldn't waste your time, but Kull did want our FIRST impressions . . .

BTW, and this probably isn't the place to ask this, but isn't there supposed to be MORE factions with EB. I read somewhere that, by utilizing a top secret scientific process known only to TEAM EB, NASA and MIT, there are now something like 39 or 78 or 45,000 factions?

Hmmm . . . thought I read that somewhere?

Spidey

[Teleklos Archelaou]

RTR is doing something like that for their next release and it will be very interesting to see how it works out. There are going to be more faction options, but once you start a game, there are still only 21 factions in any one game.

[Dram]

go sleep! EB will be there in the morning.

qft

[pezhetairoi]

Was about to try a third time when I realized I was a complete idiot. I had tried to install EB v. 8.0 over (and this is the truth) a clean install of my RTW v. 1.0. Yeah. Right.

EB 8.0? Be still, my pounding heart! If only it will come to that one day... Hopefully before I die! If only!

[Dooz]

Well folks, I've been blown away. This is just a previous incarnation of me typing what you see. It's absolutely incredible. Still a bunch of missing unit cards, that's about the only downside I've seen in my first two years of a Carthaginian campaign. Visually stunning of course. Battles are pretty fun, and seem to last a good while. I love the traits! Missed those buggers from back in the 0.74 days. Bt perhaps my favorite part about this mod is the economic balance. The very high prices of units and buildings, really establishes a perfect pace for my taste. Oh and the music... breathtaking.

I'm curious about something. It seems there is some form of perfect spy script active in the game, is this true? I can see the exact units and everything for any settlement or army that is within visible range. This kind of makes spies less important, I suppose.

[Zero1]

Downloading now, I can't wait to see what the finished .8 looks like ,

And on a side note I'm proud to have been part of the closed testing team, and hope I served you well

[Teleklos Archelaou]

You did Zero. We are quite thankful for your work. You'll have one of the earliest accounts for the eb forum when it goes public too btw.

[Zero1]

Awwwe, shucks

[Spidey]

Okay, before I give my serious first impressions, some background:

I've had RTW for about five months. I have the original (like 1.0) and the Gold Edition (1.5). I've completed three campaigns [one long - Julii, and two short - Julii, and Macedonia]. I play three mods: vanilla RTW 1.5 with the magnus map; RTR Platinum, and RTW Darth Mod (this one not so much).

This will be my fourth mod.

After I pulled my head out of my backside and managed to get the game installed correctly, it worked fine. Slow load on the first frame, very slow load on the campaign map. Slow loads on battles. But no crashes. That's a good thing.

Decided to try out the Makedona (Macedonia, for us don't make a habit of Latin) Campaign. Played ten years like I normally do. And what a decade it was! Why, I managed to reduce a first world empire to a third world pile of rubble in no time. Afterwards, here are my thoughts:

Music: Okay, it's truly great. Wonderful. Outstanding. You get it.

Graphics: Again, very well done. That load screen (the first screen you see) may be a slow load, but the graphic is much nicer than old red and black screen in vanilla RTW. Ditto for all the backgrounds. Exceptional work. In fact, there are no shortage of great graphics in this game.

The exception might be the campaign map. Because I'm new to EB, there's a lot of stuff there that looks like it might be out of place. Circles of stone (on the Macedonian map, for example), new mines (they look like holes in the ground?), etc. It's okay, and I'll probably figure it out eventually, but it just feels a bit strange.

Units: Didn't get far enought into the game to see anything "wild." Seemed pretty standard . . . unless I'm missing something . . .

Economic System: Okay, just kill me now. Seriously. Take me down. Holy financial recession, Batman! Even with my cities taxed out to the max, I lost buckets of money my first turn. I mean, it just evaporated. Why? Well, being a sharp governor, I looked into that. Units. Paying soldier's salaries. And, I had a lot of units. Why, I could start a war if I wanted! Make some money . . . which leads me to . . .

Battle System: Yes, well, the battles are a bit slower. I had some time on my hands during the battles. (By way of comparison, I usually play the battles in RTR at 2x or 4x the speed, because they also tend to be slow). This is okay. It will make the game last longer. This fact, combined with the new campaign map (which is the largest I've ever seen), means campaigns will really go on for awhile . . . I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The battles do seem more realistic. Read this as: I can't get away with the old tricks I used in vanilla RTW. That makes for more fun. Also means I loose more battles. Not so much fun.

Gameplay: Okay, this is where you're eyes start to whirl. Today, in another post, Teleklos Archelaou said

Seriously guys, what we have at this point is incredibly complex. We lose more members to just being overwhelmed (new ones mostly) than to anything else I would hazard.

I can believe that. The EB Team didn't mod RTW; they created a whole new game. Someone at CA or Activision should cut these people a check because this is not RTW but it's what RTW could have been.

Seriously, cool graphics and units and music mean nothing if the game is the same at the end of the day. Such mods are, frankly, window dressing. The EB Team changed the game. And, I suppose, until you get the hang of it, it's a bit overwhelming. Quite a bit, actually.

A couple of quick examples:

One of my favorite tricks in the Macedonian campaign is to build up my roads in the first decade. I couldn't even build roads--they're simply not available, let alone traders or anything else . . . the economic and politcal systms are completely different.

Another trick is to blitz my neighbors (usually those pesky Greeks). But the new battle system (slow and difficult) combined with a different economic and political system, makes a blitz practically impossible.

Overall: I can see that this is a great strategy game. It would be really nice to have a strategy guide forum (like the one for RTW) since there isn't a user guide. Just something to help those of us that are still newbies to RTW or for whom EB 0.8 is a new mod.

Otherwise, this is an incredible accomplishment. I am, frankly, amazed the EB team pulled this off.

Spidey

[Ypoknons]

1. Simply incredible interfaces. The Greek Mosaic simply captures the feel of the era so well.
2. Great new units cards.
3. Woah, new units. Me = happy.

I honestly didn't want EB to surpass M2TW in my mind, but right now it seems that it might. It's mighty interesting how the Spartans are utterly average units as well. The best unit, I suppose, must be the Hellenic Levy Hoplites: relatively they're poorish units, but at 10 mnai, great units!

[oudysseos]

Didn't have chance to play before I had to go to work, just installed and looked at the loading screen and menu. Almost peed my pants!! (That's a good thing). Just wondering if there are any good source books on the Saba that ye are aware of?

[Mujalumbo]

First impression? Slick.

So slick, I almost slid off my chair.

That was my first impression - everything seemed to be a lot more polished and put-together than the previous releases. Unfortunately, I'd have to say, "slow." Initial loading screen takes a min or two, but it's fine after that.

The music really is something else. Can't really imagine what it was like before. ;) That and the voices, incredible work.

Oh, and those Celtic Slingers are a damned pain in the @$$. And the charge value works! Yay! Means you know have to make sure your cav is lined up and charging properly. But when it works, hoo-boy!

I'm busy getting out of debt as the Aedui, and it looks like those Romani dogs are already sniffing around at my borders...

Congratulations, EB team, you're doing incredible work. Do keep it up. :)

'Ta for now.

[Demivrgvs]

Few words...EB ROCKS! Go for the eyes Boo!!

Only minor glitches so far...Classic Hoplite using sword instead of spear,italian cavalry without any weapon in hand,Prom cities missing...but they mean nothing compared to the colossal work EB represent: A WHOLE NEW GAME! And a much better game experience than MTW2!!

[Aranor]

OMG that was sooo worth the wait! I was blown away when I first loaded the game!

[QwertyMIDX]

Just wondering if there are any good source books on the Saba that ye are aware of?

Not really, you have to read archeological studies (different ones in English, French and German) to really get good information. There are a few books on ancient south arabia that are ok though (lots of bad information in sprinkled in all of them, but it's a very difficult field that lacks agreement on lots of things, and they're all a bit dated). Try Klaus Schippman's Ancient South Arabia.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, we should mention Breton's Arabia Felix especially since it is pretty new and about $15 USD on Amazon.

[Lusted]

First impression: oooh, pretty.

Second impression: blimey there are a lot of units in custom battles.

Third impression: Failed to find texture eb\data\models_unit\textures\unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga(this is one fo the default textures used by a few units in RTw which means that a unit does not have a correct texture entry for it)

I was doing a big custom battle to decide which faction to use first but it crashed on me. Ill put the unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga.dds file in the folder it is looking for it in, then see which unit loads with it.

[Krusader]

First impression: oooh, pretty.

Second impression: blimey there are a lot of units in custom battles.

Third impression: Failed to find texture eb\data\models_unit\textures\unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga(this is one fo the default textures used by a few units in RTw which means that a unit does not have a correct texture entry for it)

I was doing a big custom battle to decide which faction to use first but it crashed on me. Ill put the unit_barb_infantry_dacia.tga.dds file in the folder it is looking for it in, then see which unit loads with it.

Ah crap. Could you check if its the Baktrioi Hippeis? for Baktria ofc.

[Lusted]

Yup its the Baktrian Hippeis. I also noticed that with the Baktrian Agema one of their lods is messed up and has a shield in the air or something, likely the low/med lod.

also the hellenic heavy spearmen have the spears going through their heads.

EDIT: and nice work on all the Hellenic units and officers, they are really nice looking. Im currently torn between choosing Baktria and Makedonia for my first campaign, and the Romani of course.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Look for lots of unit fixes and hopefully the rest of the unit cards in the upcoming patch - that is pretty much all it will be about. Fixes for those type things. We thought we got that Baktria Hippeis one but it must have slipped through.

[Lusted]

Just a wild guess here but im guessing that the Baktria family members are not meant to have Iberian generals bodyguards to start out with.

[blacksnail]

Just a wild guess here but im guessing that the Baktria family members are not meant to have Iberian generals bodyguards to start out with.

No, that's accurate. According to Livy (IV, 238.4) there was a large exodus of Iberian nobles in 292 BC which encountered fierce resistance as they fought their way across much of modern-day Europe. Eventually defeated in Baktrian lands, they were given the choice of subjugation or eradication. However, the Baktrians were impressed with their ferocity in battle and over time they grew to positions of great prominence. It became fashionable to employ these Celtiberean "giants" as guards amongst the Baktrian elite, leading to the quote by Baktrian basileos Hartabarxes III: "Oskonsantos Lusotan proximus e vamenos." ("The mountains of Lusotan ever surround me.")

...just kidding. Sounds like an error. Please post in the bug-fix thread.

[Dayve]

Seleukid and Roman flags are mixed up.

Oh wait... That was 0.7654321...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Are they mixed up somewhere Dayve? I don't understand. This thread is for first impressions. Is that it?

[Bonny]

Overall: I can see that this is a great strategy game. It would be really nice to have a strategy guide forum (like the one for RTW) since there isn't a user guide. Just something to help those of us that are still newbies to RTW or for whom EB 0.8 is a new mod.

Otherwise, this is an incredible accomplishment. I am, frankly, amazed the EB team pulled this off.

Spidey

Hi,

if you need help look into the gameplayguide subforum
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=128

There are some old guides (from 0.72 but the economic situation at the start was not different) a new one for 0.8 and guides made by other players for several faction and many hints and tipss.
I would recommend to reduce the battle difficulte to medium or hard, on very hard the ai is been given large stat bonusse (afaik +7/+7 and morale) which imbalances the game very much (for exmaple javelins are almost useless against the AI on vh) and is mnaking the elite units you encounter later in game almost invincible (Gesetae)
The Battle AI will remain the same on all difficult levels (easy not sure).