First Impressions

[Suraknar]

Excellence!

Really impressed by all the novelty. governement types systems, new buildings, prerequisites, major reworking of units and strategy-tactics variety... it is a new game!

The new Music I really Love!

All in all, I am awed by your work & effort here, and I am going to be playing this for much longer than originally anticipated. I have even put the whole thing in my memory bar and will be very strongly suggesting it to many of my friends.



Only one thing stinged me - hehe..the economy!

I started a campaign with the Greeks Cities (Koinon), and after 1 turn I found myself in the negative.

I am sorry to say, that althought I understand you have pured much effort on historical accuracy, this accurace , in this case, works counter-productivelly towards gameplay enjoyment.

So with all due respect to the effort and all the work done for this mod, I am going to spend a couple of days fiddling the files and fixing the economy towards less historicall and more fun oriented gameplay.

Because, your work here will be generating countless hours of fun playing this new game, as it merits 100 fold!


Thanks again, for bringing this Mod to fruition and to the RTW community!

[Rilder]

One step cloesr to world domination: Europa Barbaroum...

As for Koinon money problems, did you raise taxes and disband a few units to get ahead of the money loss? My Koinon game didn't have any problems with economy when I started it...

[Suraknar]

Well, disband? No...

There is a Macedonian guy by Athens, my first turn was to take the army from sparta by boat and place them in Attica...just in case that guy decided to attack athens...since, i noticed we start already at war with other factions...which I like...yet disbanding was not an option I considered under the circomstances...war and all.

I would be more inclined to disband armies during peace time not during war time...logical no?

But its oki..I just touk a look at the files, Barracks_A.._B _C etc etc...this is going to take me a while to make tweaks to..hehe

So, I really want to play a campaign and discover everything right now rather than go through a mirriad of files...so I just had Koinon start with 5 mill gold....so I can start a campaign without financial headache explore all possibilities...and understand the inter-relationships of the new content and systems before starting to tweak here and there for a more fun economical curve.

Dont take me wrong here, I admire the work that has been put in to this mod, yet I do play games to have fun and satisfy that kid in me...

Playing a simulator just takes the kid out of the picture...and Real Life is already one simulator too much as it is :P

Cheers! And happy Conquering!

[Dooz]

Well, I suppose everyone has their preference in how they play. If you do decide to play it with the upped difficulty after experimenting without, try to storm Korinthos on the opening turns and the province east of Athens soon after. You should start making some money. It does keep you on your toes the first 5-10 years, as I have been in my recently started KH campaign.

In any case, have fun! EB is indeed great and you'll enjoy all the content however you choose to get to it.

[Thaatu]

Most factions have a huge army upkeep to help AI, which gets money bonuses, expand. However I do hope they get somewhat balanced in the future, maybe by the rumoured improved farming system... (Just a rumour.. or is it?)

[Lovejoy]

I like the way the start is balanced. It gives you two options: disband much of your units and bulid up your economy, or take your units and conquer until you're out of the red.

[Suraknar]

Thank you for the sugestions guys :)

I really want to give this a fair play...

Its just me I guess, I donno, I keep thinking from the gameplay perspective here.

I mean, here we have a great Mod that adds so much, and so many new things and on the other hand a Sharpened knife(steep economy) preventing us from having it!

I just went throught the building file (wow its big), and added a few bonuses here and there,

Academic buildings: (I had done that in vanilla too)

They are suposed to help in runing Cities better since the population is more educated etc.

As such, gave it low Bonuses in 3 key areas, Commerce, Health, Law.

Farms: I am approaching this from the angle that better farms produce better harvest and as such more surplus opportunities which in turn raises Commercial opportunities.

So gave farms incremental increased bonuses of Trade.

-- I will continue testing how all that goes --

The Goal is to have a positive starting economy, right now as it is, KH starts with 3000 mnai, and at turn 0 if you open the financial status to see projected income for next turn it has a nice -2100 aprox...and nothing has been built, recruited or hired.

Which I not only find very strict from a gameplay perspective but I think also non-historical.

As I do not think that in that particular year, everyone was starving globally...as it is if you dont choose warfare you starve to death.

And disbanding units while starting during a war simply does not make sence...

So bringing that -2100 to probably a +50 to + 200 maybe, I think that would be a better starting economical position both gameplay wise and historically wise.

I read in the FAQ that Balancing Economy is something that is being looked at, so here, constructive suggestions. That Financial situation if it can be brought to +50 for the second turn...I think that would be very balanced and keeping it at a high difficulty seting as was desired by the creators.

So, Suggestions as requested :)

I am going back to Testing...Cheers!

[antisocialmunky]

I've found the KH fairly simple, I actually think Macedon has the harder position because it has to fight both Epeiros and the KH from the start and is divided up into about three different, unconnect parts.

1) Destroy you boats to save about 2000 mnai / turn.
2) Take Korinth.
3) Destroy the large army around Demetrias or Athens.
4) Take out Chalkis and Pella
5) Take Thermon
6) Invade to Byzanton
7) Attack Ambrakia and take over its level 4 MIC and push the Epeirotes out of the Balkans and let Rome deal with them.

Then you'll probably want to fight the Getai or the Seleukids and wait for Rome to get big enough to be interesting. You'll definately end up in a war against Pontus because of Sinope.

You don't really have to worry about Athens, I've never had it sieged first turn because of the Epeirote army outside of Pella that needs to be dealt with. If you have Korinth than you can break a siege on Athens. The last siege of Athens I played was a piece of cake and got me a Heroic Victory because all the Maks burned themselves to death running through the gates. Also, slingers are your Sparta-trained friends. I keep four in my armies and they tear apart everything.

[Rilder]

Yea boats can be a real bad money sink if your not carefull. cheapest per turn naval unit ive seen was those Celtic boats that have 1 attack 1 defense, and there like 700 which is still alot during early game.

[Suraknar]

Thank you AM :) I shall follow these instructions, destroying boats to save money is a good Idea.

(Yet again you see, we given plenty of units to play with and we are being denyed to play them)

To be honest here, this kinda reminds me of Shogun...for what its worth :) Its a good thing I think! You guys did a great job on the battlefield, I just had the best battles I ever had in RTW!

Economy tweaks:

- I kept the above mentioned bonuses for farms and academic buildings

- slashed unit upkeeps by 25%,

- left unit construction costs the same,

- building construction costs the same,

- salaries the same.

Now... by raising taxes of all 3 settlements to Very High (thanks ridler) the starting economy is better.

Tada! (god I just love that new music, I am singing while managing settlements lol)

----

Finally... who recorded the voices for the hellenic Troops? I am not sure if you are pronouncing certain words on purpose like you do or not.

But, "oi" in Greek is pronounced like "e" (english) in the word "eel", and not "oi" like in the word "void"

It is the plural form.

Like:

"O Misthophoros" (Singular - A mercenary),

"Oi Misthophoroi" (Plural - The mercenaries).

usually, if singular ends with -os- the plural is -oi- and if singular is -is- the plural is -ai- pronounced like the "e" in the word "Perl".

So,

"O Toxotis" (Singular - An Archer), would become "Oi Toxotai" (Plural - The Archers).

But the "ai" is good in the game, it is the "oi" that I emediatelly noticed because of the "oyoyoyoy" phonetics...that is not characteristic of Greek Language.

But it is a minor thing, the gret thing is that even details like that you guys worked on :) Its amaising!

Going in for the long haul now, just wanted to share these new suggestions

[antisocialmunky]

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

[Foot]

I'll let the greek guys answer your questions on the greek language mod. It may sound odd because we are not using modern pronunciation, but the best approximation to the ancient pronunciation.

As for the economy, it is meant to be difficult - have you ever kept an army on the field? It costs a bit. Obviously we are restricted by the RTW engine, but this is the route we've taken. EB has been designed for the slow player (for example I never - unless forced - assault cities, I always seige them out). A slow economy is an important part of this; in RTR you can often field multiple field armies at once, even for the poor factions, in EB we've taken a different route. Although we are still tweaking the economy, we will not change our stance on how we want it to play - money should be difficult for those it was difficult, and for others it should be easy.

Glad your enjoying it though, and if your willing why not release your changes as a minimod so that others can play around with them. As I said we are still tweaking the economy and we always love feedback from fans, particularly those who have modded the game slightly. If we feel a fan-made system is better than our own we are open to replacing it.

Foot

[Brightblade]

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

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We're using classical attic greek pronunciations. A few of the 'oi' endings are a little exaggerated, but most of them are good. They will definitely not be changing to 'ee' type endings though, but will remain as they currently are.

"A diphthongal pronunciation is clearly indicated at least until Roman times. The most obvious interpretation would be as 'oi' in e.g. English toy, coin; but in some Greek dialects there is evidence which seems to suggest that, by a process of assimilation, the first element of the diphthong had been fronted, giving something of the type 'o-i', approximately as in French feuille. There is no direct evidence for this pronunciation in Attic..."

[antisocialmunky]

Here's a question, can you script the Ptolomies to give you some cash (less than 1000 to represent their half hearted support) or just have the script give a few coins to the KH and attribute it to the Ptolomies a few times since historically they support the KH against Macedon a little bit.

[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?

[Dooz]

Sounds great Suraknar! Glad you're giving it a try, I'm sure you'll find it most enjoyable. It's definitely a lot more satisfying and fun when you do it the hard way, and encounter success. Have fun! Keep us posted.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

That text at the bottom of the MIC is just there to let us know what MIC exactly it is in case you run into a problem. Don't worry about it. Just enjoy!

[Brightblade]

thats the point brah (Surak) the game AI is dumb enough, the only way for a challenge to find yourself somewhattt handicapped at the start. Note somewhat.

You'll find money is easy to come by in due time, I just started a KH campaign as well and just took Byzantion and Epirus just declared war on me... I just crushed their first huge army. you'll see how it falls into place. best of luck

[Suraknar]

Well, the normal gameplay reminds me of Shogun TW. Waiting each end of season and hoping to get a good harvest to generate some more Koku.

Since MTW however, I opted for VH-VH gameplay with some changes I made myself...VI same, RTW same...till EB...I am enjoying playing with EB the old fashioned way...I guess I missed it but was too used playing it my way since I had done so for so long.

The issue is not that I find it hard, the issue is that I was used to play it harder in a specific way. But, with EB I welcome the overal hard once more.

Even inspired me to make an AAR, and I never though to being excited about making one...I am currently taking notes for the next chapter as I continue the campaign :)