Merchant ,Priest and Princess in EBII

[geala]

I would not deny the agents already, I'm happy with what Foot said. Merchants in M2TW can be useful if given a little love. Princesses were often a tool of politics and there was an influence on the relations. Of course some improvement above the vanilla M2TW must be done. To the spies: one of the better ways to take a town in the ancient times was to conspirate with a faction within the city; success was quite often, so see the spy + open gates as a symbol for treachery.

[kalkwerk]

i think the papal states can be used to simulate casus belli and balance of power.

[Bellum]

I think merchants can be quite interesting in EB, particularly if you can mod resources to give other advantages besides cash; I'm fairly sure you can.

It can be used to represent an active attempt by the ruling class to improve infrastructure and such, which is especially important, I think, for the success of the less developed factions.

There are already buildings to do this, sure, but if you're trying to get rid of some buildings to free up some slots for other factions... The only thing, though, I love reading descriptions. For me, it's an important part of the atmosphere in EB; puts thing into perspective. It'd be a shame to see too many missing.

[Patriote]

I like the idea of Bellum of resources giving bonuses others than just cash. I'm only afraid that this will end up as, in M2TW, where 10stars merchant eliminating all of the player's merchants (at least mine...)

However, maybe making merchants less expensive(maybe) and by giving resources specific bonuses then it won't just end up as a war for the more lucrative resources while cheap ones are left wasting on the map.

And I am sure to that this can be done because I was already the case in BI where land with abundance of grains(a resource) received a bonuses to the population growth.

As if this could a global bonus for the faction or only for the region, I don't know the limitations to this modding

[Anthony]

Princesses for Celts would be fine, and presumably Germans. Ariovistus had a wife who was the daughter of the king of Noricum (at the time a Roman client state).

[Charge]

All new agents can find its use in EB2, you only need to correctly implement them( first suggestion is strongly limit their amount to prevent flooding map with them).

[HistoryProf]

I agree with an earlier post that one of my least favorite things about MTWII are the innumerable characters one has to keep track of. And merchants create incredible amounts of cognitive dissonance for me: something as endemic and pervasive as trade is going to be summed up in a few merchants? Not bloody likely. Better to use them for something else, if at all. Perhaps they could be used as Regents? They were fewer and had more impact politically, afaik. Double as diplomats?

Princesses I can get behind. <ahem> Marriage-created alliances I think can be proven to have been very important diplomatic efforts, successful or not. Not to mention the off-spring caused huge upheavals in the transferring of power.

Priests, my secular humanism aside, are particularly troubling. Someone lamented earlier at suffering the use of them merely to watch some numbers move. I concur. Perhaps they could be changed into philosophers? A good example would be Archimedes at Syracuse: +3 morale for the garrison, +2 stars for the general, etc. It'd be like a moveable ancilliary.