Suggestions for v0.81

The old thread was well over 1000 posts and needed to be retired for forum issues. Here is a new one for the same topic.

The end of the last suggestion thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=62652&page=37

The old one will be locked and destickied at this point also.

Shouldn't it be "Suggestions for v0.82"?

Well, they are suggestions to improve our current build, so "for" would work in that sense. We actually don't know what the next build number is going to be at this point, so leaving it as 0.81 won't hurt anything I don't guess. The suggestions part is the main point anyway.

I would suggest to make the download more noob user friendly ;)

I edit to say I love the walls in the campaign map, the new KH general on foot, and also the new Hellenic standard bearers. Great work =)

1. Thanx a lot for the patch, great job, no problems yet;

2. Suggestions/questions about numbers:

2.1. Cretan archers (0.80 ) 80 => Cretan archers (0.81 ) 60
Why? What was wrong with previous amount?

2.2. Sphendonetai (0.80) 60 => Sphendonetai (0.81) 80
Slingers were the most deadly missile unit before, why make them even more stronger?

2.3. Thorakitai (0.80) 80 => Thorakitai (0.81) 100
Torakitae are my favourite infantry, but 100 is too much, I'm afraid.

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

2.5. Thorakitai Argyraspidai now take just 1 turn to produce. After having a serious war with Seleucid in 0.80, I'm not sure, this is a good idea. Perhaps 2 turns would be better.

3. And please, don't ban me for my next question, but when are you going to release 0.82 with new elephants? =)

I started a new campaign as Makedonia and I have to say no problems so far.

Only thing I would maybe think about is whether adding stone walls to Pella or give it a slightly stronger garrison. The Epirote army is right in front of the town and will attack it in the 1st turn. they don't even need siege equipment because their elephants can do the job on the wooden walls. So Makedonians don't even have the time to prepare before they lose their capital.

It's not so much because of me. I'll take it back, but I think this breaks the AIs neck if the player is some other faction. Dunno if it already was like that in 0.8 as I played SPQR there. I just noticed that Makedonia was crushed by Epiros and KH in that campaign pretty soon as well. I just think the AI will not be able to recover from such an instant blow as you can't recruit any good troops in any of the other towns.

Originally Posted by MiniMe

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

2.5. Thorakitai Argyraspidai now take just 1 turn to produce. After having a serious war with Seleucid in 0.80, I'm not sure, this is a good idea. Perhaps 2 turns would be better.

3. And please, don't ban me for my next question, but when are you going to release 0.82 with new elephants? =)

1) You mean the Klerouchioi Agema? The Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx?
2) All successor elites now take just one turn to recruit.
3) Ah... theoorakia (if I remember correctly)...

A suggestion for future installers:
rather than having one hughe installer consuming dito memory, what about having multiple installers? They have to named accordingly, of course, so you can see what goes first - but still this allows for users with the not so powerfull computers to handle the installation process more easily.

Originally Posted by MiniMe

2.4. As I've already mentioned somewhere before, something's need to be done with Kleruchoi Phalangitai stats. They are elite or what are they?

Ditto. As of right now Pezhetairoi and Klerouchikoi Phalangitai have better stats then the Kleruchoi Agema, which makes zero sense.

Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

2) All successor elites now take just one turn to recruit.

Well after a quick check, all units only take 1 turn to recruit, elites or not, not just for the successors. Well, execpt elephants, but those are elephants after all.

Originally Posted by MiniMe

2.3. Thorakitai (0.80) 80 => Thorakitai (0.81) 100
Torakitae are my favourite infantry, but 100 is too much, I'm afraid.

Agreed, I'd say, increase Thureopholoi numbers to 100 and decrease Thorakitai to 80. Thureopholoi should be the standard, not the Thorakitai. They definately seem somewhat neglected to me. Also, Thorakitai can beat Imperial Legionaires which seems a little off balance.

Also, since you took off hoplite swords, what about hypaspistai?

Something needs to be done about german lancemen . I'm seriously thinking that they do need some phalanx formation .

Originally Posted by russia almighty

Something needs to be done about german lancemen . I'm seriously thinking that they do need some phalanx formation .

Germanic lance-men just use pikes, but not in a cohesive way such as a phalanx. If your Use BI exe a shield-wall makes sense.

I think epeirus are too strong; as the maks I kicked them out of Greece, they then manage to go from just taras to taking rome and capua. The seleucids may be a bit too strong too(or ptolemaioi too weak) because they've already taken alexandria and memphis (by 264) leaving ptolemaioi in the desert. Maybe you could make factions like pontos, pahlav, hayasdan stronger to increase the pressure for seleucids. However I love the knew ways the ai advances; rome now advance south taking rhegium, carthage take sicily which means there is a epic battle for rome (carthage + rome against the epeirotes).

Edit: Could you make the casse family members a infantry unit instead of chariots, because chariots are really a special unit like elephants and shouldn't really be used as family member units as they are very inconvenent. Anyway I read in a thread beofre that the casse generals didn't actually fight on chariots but just used them for transport.

Originally Posted by Dumbass

I think epeirus are too strong; as the maks I kicked them out of Greece, they then manage to go from just taras to taking rome and capua. The seleucids may be a bit too strong too(or ptolemaioi too weak) because they've already taken alexandria and memphis (by 264) leaving ptolemaioi in the desert.

That may be a fluke.

I think it is a good idea, that people post faction progression, including pictures of the map. Same thing as was done for the 0.80 release. That will give the team more feedback.

well, it really depends. there is a saying among TW gamers that every campaign is different, you know?? just take a look at the faction progression thread and you'll see tons of people complaining that ptolemaios is too strong.

Originally Posted by Dumbass

I think epeirus are too strong; as the maks I kicked them out of Greece, they then manage to go from just taras to taking rome and capua. The seleucids may be a bit too strong too(or ptolemaioi too weak) because they've already taken alexandria and memphis (by 264) leaving ptolemaioi in the desert. Maybe you could make factions like pontos, pahlav, hayasdan stronger to increase the pressure for seleucids. However I love the knew ways the ai advances; rome now advance south taking rhegium, carthage take sicily which means there is a epic battle for rome (carthage + rome against the epeirotes).

This is so true. Seleucids become a unstoppable monster in few turns due to other small kingdoms weakness. In my few Pontos campaign experiments they crushed me to pieces while i was setting up my economy. I had only Amaseia and Sinope plus a small army because of financial limitations. I'm sure of that other fellas such Hayasdan, Pahlava etc is not so different. For a real challenge and oppurtunity you may give something to small eastern kingdoms.

The Ptolemaioi, Seleukid thing seems quite ok imho. I read from several people here that AS is the uber-monster. Others said that the Ptolemaioi crush the AS. What I noticed is that it often seems to depend on Carthage. If Carthage attacks the Ptolies AS will become the strongest faction there, if the Ptolies are left alone they will crush AS.

I played 3 campaigns with the Romani now. In the first 2 I captured the islands from Carthage and went to Africa. In those games the Ptolies took Cyrene and then crushed the AS completely. this time I attacked Spain after taking the islands and left Carthage for some time until I had captured Gallia. They went east and took all of Egypt. The Ptolies were on the run and AS regained lots of territory until I attacked Carthage and the Ptolies could take back Egypt. then they went to exterminate the AS. Bactria helped in all my campaigns to kill the AS.

I think Ptolies and AS are actually pretty balanced. if AS is weakened more they will be crushed in every campaign. It all depends on where the player sits. If you're in the west and fight Carthage the Ptolies will nearly always win. So maybe the thing which would help is making Cyrene harder to access for Carthage, then the Ptolie/AS fight in the east is a pretty ballanced thing.

My suggestion: reassign the creator/founder/culture of Persia so that the Seleucid territories that rebel go to Parthia, no matter the upgrade level of the settlement.

How about some traits for governers when they govern a city for awhile that would show some history about that City+province.

Suggest (respectfully) nerfing the triggers for the "Supervisor" trait. Once the empire (and the imperial family) gets to a certain size, having to worry about each and every family member sitting too long in one place gets a little . . . tedious. This can ruin an experienced general sent into (temporary) garrison to produce offspring.

Can I request that the prevalence of traits and retainers be reduced please?

While greatly appreciating the work that has gone into traits, and the wide variety of interesting things going on, it seems that the likelihood of acquiring traits and additional retainers is so high that it becomes a bit of a blur.

I have generals with long, long lists of traits, which, rather than giving them character, make them almost inpenetrable and hard to know what their character is. It would be sweeter if each new trait was 'hard won' and they had only enough that I could actually remember and use each one.

Similarly with retainers, it seems easy to get a whole retinue, such that swapping them between generals is scarcely necessary, just wait and get a new lot.

Thanks,

Hunter

I like plenty of traits, I love nurturing and watching my generals become glorious, wrecks or insane. I don't know if you or I are alone in our views though.

However, traits are awarded based on a percentile chance, given that some other conditions are fulfilled. If you want to reduce the likelihood, you can rather easily reduce all chances to half or whatever you'd like (I'd leave 100% chances alone though). The relevant file is eb/data/export_descr_character_traits.txt.

I think pursuing cavalry should always get a speed increase compared to routing cavalry, so that there's a chance that you can actually KILL their general (and normal routing cavalry, of course).

Originally Posted by I Am Herenow

I think pursuing cavalry should always get a speed increase compared to routing cavalry, so that there's a chance that you can actually KILL their general (and normal routing cavalry, of course).

Not possible, AFAIK. Anyway, the number of kills inflicted during pursuit is already unrealistically high, and I think that a general ought to be hard to catch.

Hello to everybody !!! Well today i was playing my Makedonian campaing and i noticed in one unit of misthophoroi pezhetairoi that i had them in normal formation (no phalanx) were hiding in tall grass and you know how the grafic skeleton is in this position.. they act as they were covered behind their shield while enemy archers shooting arrows at them..now this is my suggestion if it is possible. While in normal formation piked phallanxes attacked by missile troops the defensive position that the phalanx units take is it possible to be the hiding move? sorry for my english

I am afraid not. Although it would make sense for troops to crouch when under missile fire with no enemies nearby, but the R:TW engine does not allow you to create extra animations or specify different conditions for existing animations.

You could maybe reanimate the "ready" formation, but that would mean that all your troops kneal down in capitulation whenever the enemy comes near them.

What about a tool to check your kills?

And something to make you a) list your cities alphabetically
b) list your generals who are in a town but not
that city's governors (to find them easier!)

And I would say that many of us would love it, if their was no limit to a character's ancillaries

Plus: How the hell can my generals get a triumph? I had someone like young Cotta who was a super-hero, a great vanquisher and so on, and squashed the Carthies in Sicily and Corsica and Sardinina, and I had that announcement that he needs to be proclaimed by the Legions to earn his triumph, and I went on winning battle after battle but he never made it to a triumph- what went wrong?

And, by the way, at certain points of history, my EB ctd over and over again - winter 199 bc for example, and I can't seem to find a way out of that, mind you, that's when I've already conquered a conspicuous part of Old Europe :)))

So I guess I'll give a try to SPQR whilst waiting for the new EB release.

In my opinion, EB is the greatest strategy game EVER!!!

PS: Being a Roman myself, I can't play another faction wholeheartedly

PPS: How are factions like Pontos and the Arabs meant to make it anywhere without enough dough?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man...

I'm not part of the mod, but I can help the last post:
There is already a "List" feature you can access by right clicking on the "Army, Buildings, Agents" tabs.
b) cannot be changed by EB as far as I know.

Earning a triumph in EB is extremely difficult: you have to be named Conqueror of... and Imperator. The first trait is easy, the second, nearly impossible. You should fight battles with the odds stacked against you, but you'll see that you need many such battles. For now, the trait is broken in EB. Until the next update, I guess.

The CTDs can maybe be solved if you ask the people at the appropriate forum, that is the Bug Reports forum.

we are currently looking into making triumphs easier, and adding more depth. Seeing as how there were TONS of triumphs over this foe and that foe, they shouldnt be as rare as they are currently.

I don't know if this has been suggested before, so my apologies if it has.

I suggest creating another character trait for Roman generals called "Spolia Opima", acquired when a Roman general's unit kills the enemy general in combat.

Historically, the Spolia Opima, or Rich Spoils/Spoils from the General, were claimed by one General who killed the other, usually in single combat. They were traditionally dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius at Rome. Winning this honour made the man legendary, and so I think the character trait should read as follows:

Spolia Opima - This man has killed an enemy general in combat, and despoiled him. It makes him famous. (+2 Influence, +1 Troop morale on the battlefield, +1 Hitpoints your general can take before dying)

I really hope to see you guys use this one, as it will add to the historical accuracy you've tried so hard to maintain.