First Impressions of EB 1.0?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We had a good thread on this for 0.8, so I'm sure the team members are curious as to what first catches your eye or your interest in 1.0. Little things to big things to whatever.

[johnhughthom]

I like the difficulty levels on the faction select screen, not sure I agree with them all though.

[madmatg]

i know its a small thing but i really like having the difficulty levels on the faction descriptions!

[Dooz]

I think the unusual levels of inactivity on the boards speaks for itself. Everyone is busy playing. :D

[johnhughthom]

I think the unusual levels of inactivity on the boards speaks for itself. Everyone is busy playing. :D

Too true, I'm just waiting for my defrag and virus scan to finish then I'm off into a Saba campaign.

[Manstein16]

I'd like to play. Unfortunately, even after two completely fresh installs, I get a crash to desktop during the initial loading screen. This is quite frustrating.

[Kull]

I'd like to play. Unfortunately, even after two completely fresh installs, I get a crash to desktop during the initial loading screen. This is quite frustrating.

I assume you are loading EB onto a clean RTW v1.5 build? And you ran the vanilla RTW to make sure it works and is in fact v1.5 (as decribed in the readme)? If installed onto a previous EB build, v1.0 will crash.

[Centurion Crastinus]

So, you have to delete everything and start afresh? Is that the catch?

[hoom]

Its using more resource. Is taking over a Gig of RAM on my PC & turns are definitely slower.
Thats ok though, my PC is man enough for the task :)

The cloud reflection on the water is very pretty but pretty distracting too, could possibly do with a bit of a toning down?
I keep finding myself looking at the clouds going by when I should be moving my armies, plotting assaults, looking after my cities etc

I like the new Eleutheroi general, should fit in pretty well everywhere

Lovin' my KH Somatophylakes :D

The trading card images directory is a bit messed up, the backs are divided up into region & named but the fronts are all just lumped into one directory & numbered :-/

Again with the clouds, the in-battle skies are great

Some very cool new loading screens

[Redmeth]

Check the TWC announcement for more from Caratacos' masterpieces.

Now I'd like to say a few things the Eleutheroi are definitely more powerful so I suggest not going above medium battle difficulty unless you're very good and playing a powerful faction, you might not make it out the first turns.

Don't be shy to play on hard strategy map difficulty, the AI is more reasonable and thanks to the money script the factions' economies are in good shape even without those extra 10k they receive on VH.

[Kull]

So, you have to delete everything and start afresh? Is that the catch?

If your only RTW directory contains an earlier version of EB, you are probably best off deleting it and just reinstalling everything. If you already have a *clean* vanilla RTW directory installed, it's best to make a copy of that and install EB onto the copy.

[Dram]

well im just going through the unit lists on the website and im really impressed by all the new units and reskins, i'm seeing all sorts of amazing new units in areas i never expected. i think its great how there is more city/region specific units since it gives more meaning to capturing certain areas.

[hoom]

One brickbat: Why are missile trails still in? They can be removed & it looks better when they are.

[Manstein16]

I assume you are loading EB onto a clean RTW v1.5 build? And you ran the vanilla RTW to make sure it works and is in fact v1.5 (as decribed in the readme)? If installed onto a previous EB build, v1.0 will crash.

Yes. After two failed attempts I uninstalled everything and made a clean install on a different hard drive. v1.5 ran fine. I installed EB, only to have it crash as soon as the loading screen popped up. Perhaps the Filefront download is corrupt; I'm going to try again in the morning with the torrent instead...5 straight hours of installing and uninstalling isa bit much for one night

[Dram]

Yes. After two failed attempts I uninstalled everything and made a clean install on a different hard drive. v1.5 ran fine. I installed EB, only to have it crash as soon as the loading screen popped up. Perhaps the Filefront download is corrupt; I'm going to try again in the morning with the torrent instead...5 straight hours of installing and uninstalling isa bit much for one night

i just installed the filefront version and its working fine for me. my file is aprox 652,441 KB , so if your file is smaller in size than that it could be incomplete or corrupted.

[MiniMe]

We had a good thread on this for 0.8, so I'm sure the team members are curious as to what first catches your eye or your interest in 1.0. Little things to big things to whatever.

Well, the first thing that I've mentioned is that you guys for some reasons constantly redraw Epeiros and Ptolemaioi Peltastai, they have new skins every major release
Ok for me anyway, I find these guys very good infantry and treat them with respect they deserve, so, if they are that obsessed by ancient haute couture, I don't mind

2. I like the idea to give Spartiatai bodyguards to the KH spartan starting generals very much.

3. phalanx stats rebalance -

4. (should be number one, actually) - Fantastic new campaign terrain, sea, rivers and clouds!

5. o so Precious own medium infantry for Pahlavans Finally these guys don't have to sacrifice zillions of peasant levies in their attempts to storm a decent stone wall

I could continue for hours
Best regards,
MiniMe

[Bactron]

I just returned home from school. So I havn't really played it yet. Expect for a short while in morning after waking up and instaling the downloaded precious EB.

So I started a campaign in morning to see the new textures, map etc. And I have to say that I like it very much - those new campaign map water areas with shadows of clouds are really great. And I really dig those two added new cities Babylon and Utica - they were really good choice.

I just wants to ask about those planned portrais for famous faction family members from previews. Will they be added later at some point?, I know that its a minor thing and you surely had tons of major things to take care of. But I think that those portraits for Arsaces and Antiochus looked really great in previews. And it also was very neat idea.

And now gentelmans if you will excuse me I am going on my EB junkie-fest. Which will last probably till monday early morning hours.

[Karo]

I'm loving it, played for four hours straight stopping for a fesw hours to work a little bit for school and than go back and conquer the last two settlements in the Caucasus. Hayastan rocks

[Tellos Athenaios]

The trading card images directory is a bit messed up, the backs are divided up into region & named but the fronts are all just lumped into one directory & numbered :-/

Arkatreides explained a bit about this elsewhere already; but allow me: the reason that they are numbered this way is to allow a tool you get to use them too....

[tynnmahn]

Just started a new Romani campaign last night. I really like the "this day in history" thing that has been added. The clouds over the water is a nice touch. I noticed a few new buildings as well.

One thing I noticed is, the main intro has been put back. Why is that? I guess it doesn't matter because you can skip it with the esc, but .8a didn't have it. It went straight from the splash screen to the main menu screen.

Anyway, it's friday and I can't wait to get home from work and rebuild my Roman empire to the economic poser house it was in .8a. (which was a piece of work I might add) Then when I have plenty of money to field monster armies, I'm going to smash down some new barbarian walls :)

I am anxiously awaiting eb2 ONLY because I hope that the MTWII engine will run more smoothly on my machine. I generally don't have issues on the battle map, but the campaign map sometimes boggs down.

Good job and keep up the good work.

[Elminster12]

Yeah, in my eagerness to play, I kinda botched the install process twice, so it took me a good two hours to get it working. Too excited...

All I did was play a short Romani campaign before going to bed. Like the gens and the new strat map....oh, and the new trees. I could actually see what was going on when the Epeirotes ambushed me....

[Watchman]

I've yet to get around to playing mine, but I did already engage in my usual pasttime of going through the skins and the EDU out of sheer curiosity. Remains to be seen how the new approach with spear infantry works out, but I'm pretty sure there's been a mix-up in the African elephant stats and for some strange reson a couple of units had their weapon type defined as "siege"...

...who are you calling compulsively pedantic ?

[Landwalker]

Its using more resource. Is taking over a Gig of RAM on my PC & turns are definitely slower.

Indeed. So far my only complaint is that it takes a year and a day to load anything, and alt-tabbing is only advisable if you need a few minutes to go take care of something else. And my computer's no slacker, either.

Cheers.

[Tellos Athenaios]

My first impression?

The installer is a helluva lot faster than it used to be.

[naut]

Do you have to reinstall RTW and then install EB, because if so I don't think I could be bothered. Would deleting the EB folder and then installing EB suffice?

[Foot]

Indeed. So far my only complaint is that it takes a year and a day to load anything, and alt-tabbing is only advisable if you need a few minutes to go take care of something else. And my computer's no slacker, either.

Cheers.

Put -ne into the target line of the shortcut and it will run in windowed mode. If you make sure that the resolution you play EB at is the same as your desktop it will look fine.

One thing I noticed is, the main intro has been put back. Why is that? I guess it doesn't matter because you can skip it with the esc, but .8a didn't have it. It went straight from the splash screen to the main menu screen.

We did this so that you can play the pahlava intro (before we had -nm in the shortcut which stopped all movies from playing). Eventually we will have our own intro.

I've yet to get around to playing mine, but I did already engage in my usual pasttime of going through the skins and the EDU out of sheer curiosity. Remains to be seen how the new approach with spear infantry works out, but I'm pretty sure there's been a mix-up in the African elephant stats and for some strange reson a couple of units had their weapon type defined as "siege"...

I believe the african elephants did have a small problem with stats, but I'm not sure if they were swapped by accident.

The units with "siege" weapons must stay like that. They are reform units, and thanks to the work of Dol Guldor and others we are able to do something pretty cool with them. Basically we make the building a reform unit is recruitable give a weapon bonus of -1, this makes that reform unit unrecruitable. When the reform happens we place a marker in that province that gives a weapon bonus of 1 (negating the -1), which then allows that unit to be recruited.

Foot

[antisocialmunky]

Wow, that's pretty cool. I'm going to try it out with BI in a bit, has anyone on the team tried it with BI?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Do you have to reinstall RTW and then install EB, because if so I don't think I could be bothered. Would deleting the EB folder and then installing EB suffice?

Yes. To quote abou "bad things will happen" (CTD's, weird bugs etc.) if you don't.

Main reason is that 0.81a had more leftovers in the base RTW\Data folder than 1.0 has. That may interferre with the workings of 1.0.

Hence simply deleting the EB folder WILL NOT suffice. If you won't to de-install EB quickly you could check my guide. (Shameless self-promotion alert! )

Anyhow you will find that the new installer is a LOT faster than previous versions... So it won't be a real pain.

Alternatively you can just copy a back up of RTW 1.5 (if you had any) to a new location; and install 1.0 on top of that one.

[Lovejoy]

LOVE IT!

The new camp-map is fantastic! The new sweboz units are fantastic! Everything is fantastic!!!

And I reeeeeally LOVE that new loading screen with the Galatikoi Kleruchois slaughtering does selue Pantodapoi Phalangitai. Is there more loading screens like it?

Now I cant remember his nick, but the guy who painted it(and much more), he is great. EB most be very happy to have him!

[mighty_rome]

First let me say that RTW with EB is one of the best games I have ever played. I have spent hundreds of hours playing it and I never get tired of it, because it is one of the deepest games out there.

I do have to say that I am a little concerned about some of the unit stats in 1.0 though. It appears Samnite Heavy Infantry have been seriously weakened (defense went from 28 to 20, I believe). Also, the elite Roman infantry just isn't in the same class as that of the other factions. Cohors Praetoriana are far weaker than elite units from virtually all other factions. And, some Carthaginian heavy infantry have been weakened considerably too. Dorkim Aloopim and Cohors Imperatoria just seem average.

I just want to know why some units that seemingly should be very powerful have been weakened, while others were left untouched. The Hellenistic elites are still incredibly powerful...Thorakitai Agema are virtually invincible yet they cost basically the same amount as the now-average Cohors Praetoriana. it just seems unbalanced to me. I was very happy with the unit stats in EB 0.81. Given the stats the Seleucids have now, they seem invincible compared to the Romans, and we all know they weren't.