First Impressions

[Suraknar]

Ok, first off, why tweak the economy? Is not the AI dumb enough, and easy enough to totally squash already? Do you need to give yourself unholy amounts of cash? Are you bad at the game?

If so I suppose then there might be merit in helping yourself out. You're going to tweak the work of dozens of hard working people to make the game easier? It's already pretty darned easy especially with the Koinon .... just disband some units, or attack with the ones you have and conquer, in a short amount of time you will be making money, without cheats, spoils or tweaks that will ultimately screw up the entire game for you in the long run, trust me.

Resist the urge to tamper with a proven product just because it doesn't give you 5 million gold pieces at the start

Thank you for misunderstanding my intentions :P but its oki.

I do play this series since Shogun, over the time I have seen more and more and more added to each release, which is based on player feed back and of cource to he desire o bring the series up to par and keep it competitive in the market.

However, many of the old players will also say that the game lost some of its magic here and there due to the constant push for technological advances.

Its like if we are evolving one side of it by sacrificing another.

See M2TW came with a 2 year per turn by default, althought I do not have direct evidence, I do play many games of various genres and seen the current trends on players, from taht I extrapolate that this decision may have been based to player feedback that the game is good but tends to be too long.

I personally Like the long campaigns, like hard Strategical and Tactical chellenges, yet, there is an aspect that I find long in the series and that is the time it takes to devellop specific settlements.

See I dont find the game "Long" in its intirety, I play a campaigns for weeks at a time, the same campaign.

Yet it feels like something is missing, I am not sure how to discribe it further, its a feeling. I therefore try to improve it in my own game through moding, try different configurations etc.

As for being good or bad, that is irrelevant, I am nor here to impress nor to prove anything, I play games to have fun, it is what games are for, this is not a contest to see who is better and who beats the game first.

And as each person has a different definition of their own fun, my fun is focussed on 2 areas.

Building wise, the decision making required for each different settlement, as terrain populations, religion, trade and other considerations require planning, deciding what to build at a given settlement and at what order, and each settlement presents its own challenges, that part is fun for me.

Same of cource for the military aspect, what units would make a better stack for sieges and mixture of units would make a better stack for Homeland defense, for Offense, hen what stacks would faire better in Hills what others in deserts or snow etc.

Since these two aspects are what gives me more fun, on top of the actuall battles taking place the Diplomacy, and overal strategic planning of expansion at the desired pace and at the proper opportunities, I perceive the Financial aspect of it all as a Haslle really. Which prevents me access to the tools I will use to attain the 2 points that I mentioned above.

So I am seeking a proper balance that streamlines the flow of thegameplay. I am not seeking to cheat my way to victory. The Journey is as important as the destination for me, yet when that journey becomes more like work and less like a game that is where I start having problems with the overal design.

So I tweak the design to keep a fine line that is both challenging and requires some effort yet it also provides gratification on a step by step basis to make the journey fun.

I hope that explains, from where I am comming from with this :)

Given the Great work everyone has made here in this Mod, I am just excited about it all and motivated to dig in and Tweak. if it was not that good I would not bother tweaking it ;)

As for the 5 mill, well I always do that in my first campaign, its how I learn the game, since I prefer hands-on learning to reading the instructions manual, and eleviating a portion of limitations permits me to well experiment and understand the mechanics. Additionally when I do that I always play at VH-VH. Once I have the mechanics all ironed down then I start a normal Campaign with default economy.

Now, @Teleklos Archelaou and @Foot

I want to make clear that I am not pushing for any changes on the mod you have made. I have in the past been in your position with Bigger mods of other games, and I know what it is to have the Fans all want everything changed to their liking, "And why cant it do this and that" and n top of it want it yesterday. I sence your feelngs.

I am merelly expressing feedback, own impressions and thoughts, wither it is taken under account, evaluated deemed valid or invalid in keeping with the version of gameplay that you have chosen to offer here, it is intirelly up to you and your prerogative.

So no need to emphasise the fact that you dont intend on changing anything!

I know How long it touk for EB to come to fruition, I been here the whole time, reading. I dont post often in all the years that I have been member of this forum as my post count shows, preciselly because I am not here to interfear with any visions anyone may have or "burst their bubble" if you will in the way they choose to have fun. Everyone is intitled to have fun as they see fit.

And the gameplay you have chosen to Offer, the gameplay experience of EB, is your vision of it all, and I respect that.

So if you see any comments from me, please take em as they are meant, positive and constructive critisism, this is not meant to critisise anyone in any negative manner.

Like the hellenic recordings. I had the opportunity to live in greece in my youth for a couple of years, althought I was excempt from being evaluated during Greek Literature cources (Philologia), Greek not being my first language and all (I am French Canadian), I did nevertheless stay in class during these cources and it was at the time when cources were given in ancient Greek before they changed the books to modern Greek, but it was a while back and I dont remember the Phonetics of the "oi" being pronounced as "coin".

On the other hand, I agree that, in the Mod it certaintly gives Ancient Greek flavor to hear Greek not being spoken as Modern Greek, it sets the proper atmosphere! :) And no its not "that" pronounced either.

@Foot
Yesterday I changed the settings for only one faction to test economical tweaking, in terms of the Unit upkeeps. The Idea is to change this for All the factions to keep relative balance, so once I am done, then yes I can certaintly release it as a modlet. For anyone that would want to take a crack at it :) Thank you for making that invitation.

@AM

You'll be rolling on doh before you get to Byzanton if you cut upkeep by 25% unless you really like big stacks. :-p

Yes Sir! I do like Big stack combat! And I also like to have three to five Field armies(depending on the size of the Empire), not unlike the Hight of Rome when it had several armies, "Armies of the North, the East etc", even if I play other factions than Rome.

Finally, I am sorry for the long post I thought better to be specific here and eliminate any misunderstanding from the get go :P

Cheers all! Duty calls!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, no need to get into the politics or details or whatever, but I'll just say that we do realize many modern greeks consider the classical pronunciation of 'oi' as well as other vowels (and consonants occassionally) to be different from what you will find in other European and American texts, and indeed more like modern greek, though not the same for sure.

[NeoSpartan]

My prefered Strategy for playing KH:
-with the lil money you start with buy some Pezhetaroi (sp) mercs or train a few good units.
-Use ur boats to bring troops to the mainland. Leave 1 cheap unit in Rhodes.
-Disband boats,
-Start kicking A#$!!!!!!
-And don't stop unit at LEAST Makedonia, or Epiros, (or Both) are dead and you have too few troops to continue the fight.

[Suraknar]

Thank you NeoSpartan

I'll give it a try your way aswell :)

@Teleklos Archelaou

On the "oi", after playing more and more, I am somehow getting used to it. I thinkit work mainly because the accent was given to the "ee" part of the "oi", and not the "o" part.

It is very possible that through time the "o" part was droped phonetically all together and the "ee" part remained.

One question thought, how would you prononounce the "oi" preceding the actual word.

Like "Oi Toxotai" how according to you they pronounced that plural form "the" back then. Did they do so as "ee" or same as the ending one "o-ee"

In any case, it workes well in the Mod as you have it, I am only asking on a spirit of exchanging ideas here.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

The same 'boy' or 'coin' sound even when it's by itself as an article. There is very little doubt about this that I have seen - greek words rendered in Latin also invariably use their 'oe' (pronounced the same way) to get the sound across. In Attica the change from ai to e (the monophthongization of ai) appears to begin around the 2nd century AD, and may reflect the conservatism of spelling habits there, but it's interesting that in Boiotia the monophthongization of oi started much earlier. They had other vowel differences and had a need earlier to make the change where the Attic and Ionic dialects did not. "Boiotian anticipated the Attic-Ionic monophthongization of oi by more than six centuries." For Attic, we see evidence of the change in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, when we have Y and OI being confused in a few inscriptions in Athens. Lower time limit is here, but most of the change for this particular sound took place in the Byzantine period.

Hellenistic and Roman Greece as a Sociolinguistic Area by Vit Bubenik (1989, part of the series "Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science") is excellent on this and incredibly thorough.

[Suraknar]

Ahh, Thank you!

[Suraknar]

Alrighty, now that i have a better idea of all the new buildings what they do etc.

I started a new campaign with default economy as you guys disigned it.

Used many of the suggestions here, disbanded boats, raised taxes, and went on the offensive :)



By 263BC this is where I am at, and staying afloat on the positive :)

Thank you all, this will be most enjoyable!

Ahh yes, I got a building at the bottom of the description said: Beta Error MCII something... is this something that needs to be documented?