PE for EB

[kalkwerk]

I understand that EB will not make this for BI, but move directly on to M2TW after finishing this one (?).

As RTR 7.0 took much longer time as initially presumed some made RTR PE, utilizing BI with night-battles, cultures, formations, swimming units, hordes, new factions. I turned out to be a great success. Any plans in the community for making such a "mini"-mod for EB?

[MSB]

There is already an EB mod for BI sire. Thing is you have to create it yourself

To play EB on the BI.exe follow this guide.

I am also quite sure that R:TR PE was for R:TW 1.5. Night battles can be placed in R:TW 1.5 with a small amount of modding and they will be in the next EB build (0.81). I don't think that swimming or hordes can be added however. You will need confirmation off an EB member to make sure.

[oudysseos]

I think that's a great idea. On the other hand, RTR platinum came out AFTER RTR was finished, whereas EB is still in Beta, so it's a little premature.

The minimod I most want to see is a BI port with a conversion of Religion to something more interesting, such as culture or ethnic demographics. What I mean is that each city will have a 'Demographic' breakdown based on the indigenous population plus any additions due to gameplay, so Rome might be 60% Roman, 10% Samnite 10% Greek 10% Gaul and 10%Egyptian. The demographic compostion of a city would affect the kind of troops that can be recruited there and the kind of gov buildings and so on that can be built. If Carthage, for example, conquers Rome, after a long enough time and enough investment in the build tree, they should be able to recruit Sacred Bands there, when the Carthaginian component of the Demographics is over 80% or so. It's only an accident of history that it went the other way round.

Another good thing would be Loyalty. I know that EB has eliminated the possibility for counterfactions, but a Family member with low enough loyalty could always join the Rebels. That, I think, would bring a whole new dimension to the gameplay aspect of EB. You'd have to be a lot more careful who you send off with a full stack on an extended campaign. He just might come back sooner than expected!

But seriously guys, think about it. The greatest achievements of EB are not on the battlemap- sure battle are prettier and more authentic sounding and looking, but it's still basically an RTW battle. EB has had most impact on the campaign play, bringing a whole new dimension to the economic, political and demographic model of the period. Sadly the RTW frame, even in 1.5, is very limited. Some of the functions of BI properly exploited could improve on even the giant leaps that EB has made.



The balloon is just a little token of my esteem.

[kalkwerk]

Another good thing would be Loyalty. I know that EB has eliminated the possibility for counterfactions, but a Family member with low enough loyalty could always join the Rebels. That, I think, would bring a whole new dimension to the gameplay aspect of EB. You'd have to be a lot more careful who you send off with a full stack on an extended campaign. He just might come back sooner than expected!

Well Ive tried out some of those mods with loyalty (TFT, I think Imperator 2 has it too) and Im not that impressed I must say. You dont really have a possibilty to influence it and the tendency it that it goes down to nil without you got the feeling why. Thats rather frustrating imho. Maybe it could be modded in a reasonable way though, but i got my doubts.

As BI came out I was so interested in loyalty because I remembered how it worked in Medieval. But I must say that I never had the feeling that this feature really added to gameplay. Those rebellions could be triggered without it.

[Pode]

"The minimod I most want to see is a BI port with a conversion of Religion to something more interesting, such as culture or ethnic demographics. "

IIRC, any religion after the third in the list causes no unrest, so the full effect of multiple religions is hardcoded to the first three only. I would <dearly> love to see an EB BI feature the "religions" of republicanism, imperialism, tribalism, and apathy (obviously apathy comes fourth in the list and thus causes no unrest). My understanding is that Rome, Carthage, and the KH would start with republican populations, perhaps the Ionian greek territories also, and the rest of the world be either imperialist or tribal. Trade buildings generate apathy, MICs generate imperialism for civilized or tribalism for barbs, and so on for each building set as most appropriate for that faction. Priest units get replaced by orators. The idea is that as the republican factions take more territory and get richer they get pushed towards imperialism via "religious" effects and traits, so that civil war becomes likely. Other factions are affected less, but still face very serious revolt risks in lands with different "religions". It would add back the roman civil war dynamic, as well as generally making for slower conquests, bigger garrisons required, and the real possibility of multi-province revolts. Obviously this would mean devoting 2 faction slots to the republican factions (second one for their imperialist shadow faction), so it's an EB2 thing, when more faction slots come available.

[Zaknafien]

I would love to see the EB community start working on their own mini-mods and PE type versions, with specific builds for certain favorite factions for example. Im all for a "roma" type mini-mod for EB focusing on the Romani with expanding building/unit lists, ancilliaries, etc, at the expense of some other factions.

[MSB]

The bad thing is that EB doesn't have an awful lot of mini-mods for it, but the good thing is that the wondrous EB is almost perfect as it is, we don't really need mini modifications as nothing can really be improved much further than it already has been.

[Zaknafien]

I disagree, say, you always play one faction, like Macedon, for example. There are plenty of extra buildings, units, traits, ancilliaries, etc you could add in for that faction if you were willing to remove some from all the other factions. EB has to be fair to every faction, but if you wanted a "custom edition" of your EB for your favorite faction, thatd be a mini-mod id love to play.

[Dumbass]

"The minimod I most want to see is a BI port with a conversion of Religion to something more interesting, such as culture or ethnic demographics. "

IIRC, any religion after the third in the list causes no unrest, so the full effect of multiple religions is hardcoded to the first three only. I would <dearly> love to see an EB BI feature the "religions" of republicanism, imperialism, tribalism, and apathy (obviously apathy comes fourth in the list and thus causes no unrest). My understanding is that Rome, Carthage, and the KH would start with republican populations, perhaps the Ionian greek territories also, and the rest of the world be either imperialist or tribal. Trade buildings generate apathy, MICs generate imperialism for civilized or tribalism for barbs, and so on for each building set as most appropriate for that faction. Priest units get replaced by orators. The idea is that as the republican factions take more territory and get richer they get pushed towards imperialism via "religious" effects and traits, so that civil war becomes likely. Other factions are affected less, but still face very serious revolt risks in lands with different "religions". It would add back the roman civil war dynamic, as well as generally making for slower conquests, bigger garrisons required, and the real possibility of multi-province revolts. Obviously this would mean devoting 2 faction slots to the republican factions (second one for their imperialist shadow faction), so it's an EB2 thing, when more faction slots come available.

This idea sounds really good, rather than having religion, which didn't really actually cause as much unrest as intended in Barbar, you have political situations. I don't know where you're going with the faction slot idea, even though Med 2 has 10 more faction slots I think that many people would rather see 10 new factions like "helvetti" or "pergamum" than "Roman rebels" (I think this is what you mean in what you said).

[Pode]

Where I was trying to go to with shadow factions was to allow for republican vs imperialist civil wars within the factions that started as republics, especially Rome. If the player pushed too hard for one political system before converting the population to support it, having the other system as a shadow faction would mean an organized rebellion against him would form and contend with him for control, where normal rebels are pretty passive and would just wait to be picked off individually. The biggest gripe I can make against EB is that there doesn't seem (so far) to be a structural provision for Roman civil wars. I'd gladly settle for only 7 new factions instead of 10 if it meant that in exchange I got the equivalent of Pompey vs Caesar and Antony vs Octavian.
As for the social class thing, I think that's much better modeled by the recruitment pool mechanic of M2TW, where the pool of elite units is smaller and refreshes slower than lower class units. You could tie recruitment to the percentage of a "religion" present in a city, but I think it would still end up being a binary allowed / disallowed thing instead of being limited to a given number of units. Maybe vai script you could make the percentage of equites "religion" in a city go down every time you recrutied a cavalry unit until it dropped below a threshold percentage and no more cav could be recruited. Can you put a religion percentage conditional on unit recruitment in EDB?

[Zaknafien]

Yes, but why make other factions suffer at the expense of one faction? there are lots of factions with viable reasons for counter-factions. A fair portrayal of every major culture/regional power is better suited to EB, I think.