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.

[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!

[Dram]

go sleep! EB will be there in the morning.

qft

[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!

[Oldgamer]

Although I've been playing M2TW since its release, you can be sure that I will also play EB. The new version is absolutely the best mod for RTW, and the development team deserves a check from CA for what they have done.

Also, one of the most interesting things are the results of the upgrades to my computer, in preparation for M2TW. I can now play EB on the highest settings, without the slightest bit of lag. The skins, buildings, and vegetation look absolutely spectacular.

Fine job gentleladies and gents!

EDIT: The music is great. At least for now, I feel no need to add Miklos Rosza's music to the game. The Romani have a wonderful feel of being "imperial" and "Roman".

[Birka Viking]

I have played a bit on a sweboz campagne and I have just started a Lusotannan also... and I must say that it has been realy good experienses both the campagnes.. This modd is simply the best!!!!!!!!!!..

Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...

Yes, all our new resources have made the faction's income soar. It was not planned. The faction's income is being ajusted now for the next few patches.

[Dr Jacob]

I feel that too , money easier = easier campaign , but why didnt all the playtesters u have didnt notice that !!!!!!!

Can we have 0.81 quick patch fixing it and some other bugs?

[blacksnail]

I feel that too , money easier = easier campaign , but why didnt all the playtesters u have didnt notice that !!!!!!!

Our closed playtests focus much more on game-killing CTDs which prevent you from playing the game period, UI issues, etc. We rely on our many beta-testers (such as yourself!) to inform us of any gameplay issues such as these.

Remember, this is not a finished product and we rely on your feedback to make this a better game. Otherwise we'd never make it to 1.0.

[Birka Viking]

Yes, all our new resources have made the faction's income soar. It was not planned. The faction's income is being ajusted now for the next few patches.

This sounds realy good man!!! And if I dont remember wrong from the 0.74 beta it was around 24 turns to finish build a mine ...and now its only 4 or in some case 10 turns...

[Dram]

I have played a bit on a sweboz campagne and I have just started a Lusotannan also... and I must say that it has been realy good experienses both the campagnes.. This modd is simply the best!!!!!!!!!!..

Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...

mines dont actually give you what they report, generally its somewhere between 50-40% of the figure stated. i havent seen any mod that has gotten mining profits to pay what is reported.

[NeoSpartan]

I have played a bit on a sweboz campagne and I have just started a Lusotannan also... and I must say that it has been realy good experienses both the campagnes.. This modd is simply the best!!!!!!!!!!..

Its only one thing that have concerd me realy much...Its that u make to much money to quick from the mines.Maby instead of making 3000 per turn u should make only around 1000 to slow things down and also a much longer build time on mines should also help much..I hope u can fix this to the next version so its realy become a big challenge...

I cant thank u enough for this awsome new game....I bow for u all EB gods...

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.

Cool. It's mainly focused on the later game economics and the richest factions.

[Birka Viking]

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need the Money, I need the Money!!!!!!!!!! As broke down poor barbarian who's towns have simple economy buildings and MIC1-2 and started to fend off the Romans (have MIC3-5 already) I NEED $$$$$$. The Reasorces joint is OFF-DA-HOOK don't F* with it. Eventhough I am already getting a 9k profit I can only train levies for the next 2 years (8 turns) when in 1 TOWN I will get Botroans and the like. So in the meantime I need to hire mercs!.

--IF you want to make some chages please give us broke barbarians a couple of better economy buildings.

Well man if u have get broke when u play as the sweboz thats realy impressive ....Becouse I cant figure out what I shall do with all my money..lol...But I havent played the other barbarian nations so I dont know of this is only for the sweboz or not???

[Caratacos]

Man I am soooo in love with this mod. Speaking of money-- I just started playing (as Averni) and I after like 3 or 4 turns I am already 9k in the red. I'm beseiging the Aedui capital but i'm not sure if i'll be able to do anything with it if i capture it. I've noticed that the units are really expensive. But again I've only just downloaded it so I'm trusting that the economy is balanced accordingly. Though i guess that by starting off as a faction with no access to ports or mines my economy is going to be a bit stressed.

But from what i've seen... Best mod EVER!

[Septimus]

With 0.8 being the first time I've ever played EB I have only one thing to say: Wow. This is what I've been hoping for with every single TW game since I first played Shogun - that is, something so realistic, so immersing, and astonishing that I can't stop playing for hours despite the fact that I have an Ancient Philosophy paper due date in less than a week. I want to congratulate, and again congratulate the EB staff, I would give you the highest award if only I had awards to give out.

[Ajantis]

Its beautiful...

[Zastrow]

Tried my hand at the Baktrians for about 20 odd turns. Overall I'm quite impressed, the load times for such a massive addition to the game aren't that bad really, no worse than .74 versions.

The graphics and music for Baktrians make them incredibly cool, even more so from the original. Mosaics, Eastern Greek music, GUI, it all blends together into an incredibly well done and thought out picture. It brings immersion up to a whole new level.

New units and buildings here and there, some nice additions, and Baktria with three provinces is a whole lot easier, not to mention the Saka are much nicer neighbors to have the the Yeuzhi, they actually do stuff! It'll take some time for me to find out the new units and how they fit into my traditional Baktrian Army setups, but I noticed myself having larger, more "eastern" style armies than so many phalanxes and archers in .74. They new setup for Baktria's armies is more realistic and expansive, kudos.

I fought a couple of battles against rebels, sporting all forms of cavalry and light infantry, thank god the massive stacks of horse archers are gone. Now they actually are balanced armies that give battle instead of running around the map shooting at my men.

I love how about an hour of gameplay left me feeling like I hadn't played anything yet, there is so much more out there to try. I have an itch to try my hand at my Carthaginian campaign again, with their new voices, GUI, music and units.

Overall great work, and quite amazing a group of amateurs (if only because they aren't paid for it) can keep together and be organized enough to produce something like this. The wait was long, but you produced a fine product worthy of much praise. If I was incredibly rich, I'd be sure to pay all you guys to do this stuff full time. We need more strategy games with this much depth.

[nikolai1962]

Comment on the mines thing. As mentioned the value you get when they're built is different to what it says on the card (always is in RTW for some reason edit: checked vanilla, same value there, just a lot of mods the two values are different for some reason) e.g Mastia for carthage, the card says 3000, the settlement details say 1650.

Also, taking lilybeo as an example:

Start of game, pop: 3190--brings in c.2500 in tax, farms and trade
6 turns later, (finish bigger port), pop: 4096, c.2,900 income
8 turns after that (finish temple with trade bonus), pop: 5551, c. 3300 income

So after 14 turns and a couple of good buildings lilybeo's income has increased by c. 800 i.e half a mine. Most of this is because of the port upgrade but there is a steady increse too because of the pop growth.

The point being mines are more noticeable--partly because you just notice more when you build a mine for some reason but also because of the wierd way the game shows a higher value on the building card. Much less noticeable but just as significant is how your income is also increasing quite rapidly from other things.

Population growth has a steady increasing effect on income but more importantly it allows the jumps to different city sizes which give access to new buildings which give big jumps in income.

The amount of money in the game plateaus eventually but with high pop growth you hit that plateau quite fast and the balance of unit upkeep and income that worked well at the beginning gets imbalanced very quick.

(Hence my mega hordes of komatai stacks :) )

Personally, I like it at the moment because by endlessly spamming hordes of komatai i can keep the AI factions from bothering me, which gives me time to read all the unit/building/trait descriptions lol. But if EB decides to tweak down the economy I think the start population and population growth rates are just as significant as the mines, just less noticeable.

[Obelics]

i've read somewhere in this forum or in the rtr one, that the Roma GUI will be changed a bit, pheraphs in the colors? If so please it is perfect, a masterpiece.

Living here i can say i grown with a lot of roman ruins here around, and frequented a lot of museums, i know it doesn't means nothink, and im not specialized in roman hystory, but i can say the feel is exactly that.

So i post just here to say this GUI is perfect (even the colours and the graphics) in my opinion. And that pompeian red is great.

I hope you will not go to change what was already good in the next patch.

I also read around that the money are a lot more easy to gains, thanks mines etc. I can't confirm this cause the only faction i tryied more extensively is pahlav and it is still difficult as usually. But if so (money=easy to gain) than please dont try to make happy everyone (making this mod easy) . I think it is very good that some people dont like EB, and there is no need to want to have everyone become a fan.

Please dont think this post as "i want to teach you somethink" kind of post, i was just a bit worring about this money affair, and the roma GUI that i found is simply the best in the mod.

salut!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

There will definitely be some changes in the mines, but I don't know what they are at this point.

The Roman GUI will be tweaked a bit in future builds, to make the message background lighter so the text is easier to read, but there won't be big changes in it.