EB v1.0 Released

[King Philip II]

Just a quick note to thank you for a brilliant expansion to RTW. I was really pleased to see that v1.0 had been released since I got fed up with M2TW - EB has so much more to offer on all shelves IMO.

My favourite faction is probably the Romani, but I'll postpone that campaign until someone makes a mod like the old "Roma" mod, since there is very little challege as it currently is. Hayasdan, Pahlava and Pontos are simply brilliant campaigns - a really good challenge. My only problem is that it takes me forever to progress through a campaign, since I simply have to read all the descriptions.

My only comments are regarding the high costs for markets and port upgrades. I always do a quick cost-benefit analysis before building economic buildings, and in most settlements it's just not worthwhile building anything beyond the 2nd level of merchants when the payback is 100+ turns. Each level gives only +1 in trade base bonus, which is the same you get for many government structures, temples, Large Granery, River Port etc., so the benefit of the trade base bonus is actually "depreciated" when so many other buildings provide this benefit as well.

I'm surprised that some ports have 4 or more trade fleets available (up to 8 IIRC), when the maximum number of export fleets is 3. I might be wrong on this, but in all the years of playing RTW I've never seen more than 3 export fleets (same issue applies to M2TW btw). It seems a little steep to pay 30,000 mnai for something that adds no benefit :)

Thanks again for a great mod!

regards,
KPII