First Impressions of EB 1.0?

[PigLatin]

I haven't gotten too far into a campaign yet however from what I've seen it looks great. There seems to be a ton more polish to it than previous versions and as someone else pointed out the water looks fantastic although I think it's causing a bit more lag than the old blue carpet. The music as always is amazing and the new unit skins I've seen so far are incredible. Whoever did the art for some of the loading screens also did an amazing job.

When I have more time to play (all weekend!) I'll be sure to heap some more praise on you worthy individuals. The fact that a group of people with enough dedication and knowhow can produce such a fantastic mod is simply astounding.

I do have one question though. After taking Taras (I play as the Romani) I had a pop up helper thing tell me to go after Rhegion next. After taking Rhegion and slaughtering it's occupants I got another pop up saying something about Rome's reputation. Is this new? I don't remember it from previous versions. Does it have any affect on the game or just a cool immersion factor type of thing?

[Landwalker]

I do have one question though. After taking Taras (I play as the Romani) I had a pop up helper thing tell me to go after Rhegion next. After taking Rhegion and slaughtering it's occupants I got another pop up saying something about Rome's reputation. Is this new? I don't remember it from previous versions. Does it have any affect on the game or just a cool immersion factor type of thing?

I also got an interesting reputation-based question as I marshaled my Epeirote army on the northern border of Attica, preparing to invade the Peloponnese (and specifically Corinth). It had something to the effect of how attacking a Greek city-state would not be looked on favorably by the others, blah blah blah. So, off to Corinth I go, regardless.

Does something like this have any in-game diplomacy effect (e.g. attacking a Greek city in Hellas will make the Koinon Hellenon more hostile to you, etc.), or is it just there for immersion's sake?

Cheers.

[gurakshun]

I also got an interesting reputation-based question as I marshaled my Epeirote army on the northern border of Attica, preparing to invade the Peloponnese (and specifically Corinth). It had something to the effect of how attacking a Greek city-state would not be looked on favorably by the others, blah blah blah. So, off to Corinth I go, regardless.

Does something like this have any in-game diplomacy effect (e.g. attacking a Greek city in Hellas will make the Koinon Hellenon more hostile to you, etc.), or is it just there for immersion's sake?

Cheers.

i got a similar message when i attacked sinope as pontus, i believe that the effect is that the threatening civilization may or may not declare war (there is a probability to this, i think). i know KH has declared war immediately on me next turn some times, and then sometimes just ignored it and asked for ceasfire/trading rights

[Fearless Samnite]

I began my journey with the romani in EB 1.0 in the land of ecstasy. First season i put taxes at very high, and put one Rorarii in each of my settlements as a garrison. Second Season, i made peace with the Aedui and forced tribute of 5k for 2 seasons, and stacked all my generals together and fought off the first wave of Epeiros as i plowed through them with tact and sheer solid hooves and spears. Another Season rolled on by and i besieged an Epeiros settlement on my mainland, all i had was my generals...they thought i was small and easy prey. I also made peace with Arverni and forced tribute of 10k. I demolished all temples in my settlements and placed mars priority as my capitol and juno as all my other settlements. My First priority was Growth with no governors, Second money, but while i was doing that i signed construction orders for my next barracks upgrade so i could recruit Pedites Extraordinarii and amass legions of them too attack north. Another season rolled by, Epeiros sallied forth from their settlement and i quickly crushed them from both sides as they marched out of their gates with calavry charge after charge sometimes forming a circle around an emerging enemy only to charge to the center....heroic battle after heroic battle.....my proud yet old leader was quickly making waves politically and wealth as he massacred rebel province and enemy provinces alike. After i crushed the following rebel province, i was declared imperious (sp) by my men! My leader and his grouped generals of his family carved a bloody path with the same method. They always sallied and i always conquered them the next turn. Then it was i and KartHadastim, head to head...first i stepped on Sicily, provoking them to betray us. Our great destiny was at hand! I besiged and destroyed the sallying army of both rebel cities and then crushed the first wave of KartHadastim. Their City fell soon after, All acomplished so far but nothing then our proud family members and generals. At this point i was creating a great network of trade agreements for the future of the republic. Years passed, my construction of an upgraded barracks at my capital finished and i began amassing legions of Pedites Extraordinarii. Meanwhile Me and my family members board ships and set sail to the isles of KartHadastim....

the game crashed after 6 hours of non stop gameplay
played on:

Romani
Very Hard Campaign
Medium Battle (only because units were meant to be coded this way :P )


im going back to my conquest of an ancient world to change history!

[Sakkura]

I finally got EB1.0 running too!

First impression: I started up a campaign as Pahlava, who I have never tried before. I just had to see the intro video, which is pretty neat stuff. Would be great if every faction eventually got one.
Their starting position is nasty by the way. I didn't expect to get bushwacked by a big stack of Eleutheroi horse archers that wiped the floor with an army of like 90% of my forces.

Next I think I'll go check out KH, to see what all this agoge and stuff is about. Man, there's so much cool new stuff to explore!

[Beefy187]

Just to see the intro I went for Pahlava. Then I changed my mind soon as the game loaded and moved to Casse. Casse is alot harder now. Ill eventually have to work out diffrent tactic. Those rebel army are quite tough and my Casse general seems even weeker then before.

I then tried Makedon after getting pwned in my Casse campeign. 2 turns after I captured Athens I got PLAGUED. Athens had one uber Thracian/Hellenic family member in it. 17 year old and his already the best administrater in my family getting plagued.. I hope he doesnt die on me.

[hoom]

So far I've had two very well balanced Macedonian armies give me some serious grief as KH, has something been done to help with army composition?
Similarly they kept formation right up to contact causing more grief, again is this new intentional work or just luck?

Had some custom battles testing out the much awaited romphaiophori & I'm so planning a Getai campaign soon

[Watchman]

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

Far as I can tell they've got the crews' and eles' defense scores (ie. primary and secondary) swapped. It's actually even in the unit cards (compare to the Indikoi eles that follow right after). Weird.

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.

Whoa, now that's some arcane stuff. One question though; doesn't that also mean they'll never be qualifying for blacksmith weapon bonuses ?

[Tristuskhan]

My first impression is that my P3 1.6ghz, nvidia gforce4 and 256 ram won't run it What a pity! and I don't know wether I should invest one month of wages to get a new one or give up and play good old Sudden Strike 2. Probably I'll go for the first solution after reading a few AARs.

[The_Mark]

My first impression is that my P3 1.6ghz, nvidia gforce4 and 256 ram won't run it What a pity! and I don't know wether I should invest one month of wages to get a new one or give up and play good old Sudden Strike 2. Probably I'll go for the first solution after reading a few AARs.

Get more RAM. It's cheap, and it should work - I had an equivalent computer (AMD 2000+ at 1.6GHz with geforce 4 MX 440, an infamous piece of equipment) which ran EB (0.8, admittedly) bearably, the only difference was that I had 256+512 MBs of RAM.

[sgsandor]

Last night i almost cried because after all the downloading nothing worked (urgh!) However after deleting and removing everything and reading the install guide and four hours of waiting, defraging and restarting I got to PLAY.
AND IT WAS WORTH ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!! I started as SPQR and didnt expect much except the new type IV govners but oh no......IT WAS EVEN beter then i could have hoped! New mercs and regionals a smarter AI (no not running with bi) that uses its navy effectivtly (Carthage making some nice moves) Just too awesome i played for 6 hours myself and it is 5 am eastern time here while i write this, I started playing at 8 or 9 pm. Wow if any Eb memember is ever in NJ i ll buy u a drink or 2 or 3 for sure wow!!!! I cant wait to burn some cities to the ground!

[Tristuskhan]

Get more RAM. It's cheap, and it should work - I had an equivalent computer (AMD 2000+ at 1.6GHz with geforce 4 MX 440, an infamous piece of equipment) which ran EB (0.8, admittedly) bearably, the only difference was that I had 256+512 MBs of RAM.

Well I had 512 mb ram but one half collapsed (Is it the ram itself or is it the slot? Does ram dies?). I'm still able to run 0.81 with slow loading. Very slow: before a battle I can do the washing up, prepare some tea, have a phone call, play with the cat... and not get addicted to the game (I have to work anyway).

[konny]

After taking Rhegion and slaughtering it's occupants I got another pop up saying something about Rome's reputation.

Never slaughter or enslave the people of conquered homeland territories.

[Zaknafien]

why not? Anyways, for places like Rhegion and Taras you should always first install a Type IV gov and work your way up progressively III to II finally to I after many years to simulate the integration to Roman society. At least that's how I do it. We're looking at ways in EB II to portray a city's place in society as well as its size and military output.

Besides, sacking the city is the only reward the citizen militia legionaries get, its the least you can do for these guys before sending them back to their farms. ;)

[Janius]

Had some troubles getting the game up and running, but it was well worth the trouble

Haven't played it that long, but from what I've seen, you guys surpassed yourselves (again)

Congratz to the team for this piece of art

[konny]

why not?

Isn't there a negative trait for "enslaving your people"? I rember something from another campaign. Then again, yes, those rebellious cities in the South reward a little burning, butchering, raping and plundering here and there. On the other hand, it's difficult to convince them of Roman superior leadership when the lads do not behave much better than any barbarian or mercenary mob. Anyway, I made it a rule to just occupy homeland cities (what will happen later, for example, down there in Syracusae is another story...).

Anyways, for places like Rhegion and Taras you should always first install a Type IV gov and work your way up progressively III to II finally to I after many years to simulate the integration to Roman society. At least that's how I do it.

I usualy start with gov. IV (what just brought me my first puppet ruler! But beware, he is able to move only in his first turn, so don't move him outside the town). I advance the Italian towns to gov. I after Polybian reforms. The colonies outside Italy will get a gov. III then and under Marius II.

With the new puppet ruler system I will probably change that house rule to gov. III after the ruler has died.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You are talking about Enslaved Own People & Exterminated Own People. Those are about peoples who've allied with your faction but are due to engine limitations represented as Eleutheroi.

(E.g. Pantikapaion should not be sacked by the KH else this trait will appear with the general who's leading the looting.)

[Praxil]

Man god damn! Just look at that campaign map, its ****ing beautiful! Oh man, M2TW has nothing on this. Of course, the land has better textures in M2TW, but the overall feeling and atmosphere is far better in EB. The reflections of clouds on the water are ****ing impressive. I saw screenshots before, but it looks so much better in motion. Those who made that should be very, very proud now. That's some sweet talent right there I think, or it was quite easy to make (I don't know anything about it LOL).

[konny]

You are talking about Enslaved Own People & Exterminated Own People. Those are about peoples who've allied with your faction but are due to engine limitations represented as Eleutheroi.

Ah, that's not everytime in homelands?


Good for the people in Rhegion that I took it before reading the above.

[kambiz]

Hi EB team
First impressions ! Well ,I prefer to talk about those thing I don't like instad of many great things and lots of enhancements

1st Custom battles ;I checked several (Not all) faction rosters in custom battle and I found out that each factions I checked has several missed units in its Custom battle roster. For instance Romani (Which we know them well) ,No principes/Hastatii or none of the legionary units are in the "Romani Custom battle roster" and other factions as well !!!

2nd I've began a Pahlava campaign ,And I shoud admit that it is sooo difficult I used blitzkrieg tactic and invaded Selukid territories immediately. However ,After taking majority of Iran (Pars ,Susa ,Kermana and...) I still have negative profit consider that I'm still fighting with my starting unit and trained no new units yet. And this new Pahlava building system is another problem ,It's confusing I've got two options : remove all of my units and retreat from captured territories and waite untill I gradually gain some incomes Or Cheating
Also "Parthian cataphract" and "Parthian noble Cataphract" have exactly the same states while have different coasts !

Regards

[Zaknafien]

Hi EB team
First impressions ! Well ,I prefer to talk about those thing I don't like instad of many great things and lots of enhancements

1st Custom battles ;I checked several (Not all) faction rosters in custom battle and I found out that each factions I checked has several missed units in its Custom battle roster. For instance Romani (Which we know them well) ,No principes/Hastatii or none of the legionary units are in the "Romani Custom battle roster" and other factions as well !!!

2nd I've began a Pahlava campaign ,And I shoud admit that it is sooo difficult I used blitzkrieg tactic and invaded Selukid territories immediately. However ,After taking majority of Iran (Pars ,Susa ,Kermana and...) I still have negative profit consider that I'm still fighting with my starting unit and trained no new units yet. And this new Pahlava building system is another problem ,It's confusing I've got two options : remove all of my units and retreat from captured territories and waite untill I gradually gain some incomes Or Cheating
Also "Parthian cataphract" and "Parthian noble Cataphract" have exactly the same states while have different coasts !

Regards

Ah, apparently you are another soul that doesnt read the dreaded "readme" files..

[kambiz]

Found it
Thanks Zaknafien

[V.T. Marvin]

First impression??? ..........AMAZING!!!!

- It came much sooner than we expected.
- It took less than half an hour to download for us.
- It installed smoothly and so far runs without any CTDs on BI.exe.
- It fulfilled all the expectations aroused by the teasers. (and our expectations went really high, I can tell you )
- The Pahlava intro did not work for us, but it does not matter, we watched it off-game - and its really great
- The game just FEELS great overall, and we are considering taking a few days leave at work just to play.

And who are "we"? A lucky couple who got the most beautiful gift to their 4th wedding-day-anniversary from the EB team. Thank you, guys!!! V.T. Marvin and Kari

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

P.S.- Though you have probably ruined our family fife for several moths to come. Have mercy on us - no EB 1.1. please!

[Gaias]

Ah, apparently you are another soul that doesnt read the dreaded "readme" files..

Maybe you should make the readme file as the intro for EB. I think it could save alot of time and grief down the road.

[Bonny]

Does something like this have any in-game diplomacy effect (e.g. attacking a Greek city in Hellas will make the Koinon Hellenon more hostile to you, etc.), or is it just there for immersion's sake?

Yep, it immidiately takes effekt, its scripted ;-). It was always a feature of EB (sinnce 0.72) but it has been increased in 1.0 with the Rhegion event for the Romans.

[pezhetairoi]

And who are "we"? A lucky couple who got the most beautiful gift to their 4th wedding-day-anniversary from the EB team. Thank you, guys!!! V.T. Marvin and Kari


Wow, we have a married couple playing EB together! How sweet!

[Chronos]

This is my first post hear, so, first I want to say, "Great work guys, this EB version is F*#%in Awesome" ...I'm a 20yrs Totalwar veteran (started on a board game) and have played all the total war games but this V1.0 is by far the best Total war game I have played...

I played 1 game of EB back when it was for RTW v1.2 platform and enjoyed it...I started a second game of EB last week with V0.81, playing as "Rome"...After two days of establishing a small empire, I realized that V1.0 was out...Hmmm, do I abandon my new game 2 days into it or keep playing...

I obviously abandoned my new game and tried EBv1.0...

I played as Pontus (near on impossible) playing on all the hardest settings I could think off ...I wasn't sure how long I would last but luv a challenge, so, I Immediately rose an army with all I had and took my first city by the coast and then went straight for Byzantium and took that...By now, I am in dept $55,000...So, I take on some surrounding rebels and use up my army until I had no army left, not even a defensive force...This was the quickest way to pay my dept off and it still took over 20yrs (I was careful not to attack another nation and stuck to rebel cities)...During that 20 yrs of dept recovery, I sent an emissary and spy out to spy the world and build as many alliances as I could...By the time I was out of dept, I spent another 20 yrs building my 3 cities up to produce decent soldiers...I then build an army and took 2 more rebel cities...I quickly paid that dept of again and now I am left with 5 cities, 1 third of Anatolia...If my alliances hold up for a few years, then I am now in a position to win the game!!!

Because I am new to EB I can't pick up to many things right or wrong with it but hear is what I did notice after swaping from 2 days of v0.81 and then 1 day of v1.0;

Firstly, I downloaded this v1.0 release at my full speed of 1.1m...I Had it in 15 minutes and installed on RTW v1.5 I have saved and had it running within half hour of finding it released...That was awesome to start with but then;

1. The 3d army battles are by far the best quality and fastest/smoothest running battles I have ever played on Totalwar games...This is even better than v0.81...This was very noticeable to me and it was satisfying to find such a great running game play with no lagg at all....

2. EB is can be hard at times and that is a great plus, considering how easy RTW is...EB v1.0 offers a great challenge...I played Pontus on all hard levels with RTR and walked over the game like I owned it but this EB v1.0 game, well, it has been the hardest Totalwar game I have played ever. I even doubt I will win. I have survived 1 day as Pontus but if Antiochus even so much as turns my way within the next few years, then I will be screwed...

3. I found that it loaded the game slower but this was a minor thing in comparison to having faster/smoother (no lagging) game play...It seemed to me that the game play was so much better than what I am used to...Did you guys work on that???

All I can say is "Thanks EB Crew for your labor of love"..."No financially built game can even nearly match what you guys have produced hear"...

"This is a masterpiece"...

--edited comments on religion that started very off topic discussion-- (Teleklos Archelaou)

[mcantu]

Chronos,

The recommended difficulty setting are VH campaign/M battles

[Chronos]

Chronos,

The recommended difficulty setting are VH campaign/M battles

mcantu, Are those settings universal or just for Pontus??

If I put battles on Medium for Rome or Macedonia, it would be far to easy, so I am assuming your recommendation is just for Pontus...I think you are right on that also because I doubt I will last to much longer without stronger armies...

When I said I set my game on the hardest levels I knew, I also took into account the preferences...Things like large units, limited Ammo, Moral, Fatigue, unlimited men on Battlefield and anything else to make sure it wasn't affecting real time outcomes...

It was very hard to keep alive but still enjoyable!!

[mcantu]

mcantu, Are those settings universal or just for Pontus??

If I put battles on Medium for Rome or Macedonia, it would be far to easy, so I am assuming your recommendation is just for Pontus...I think you are right on that also because I doubt I will last to much longer without stronger armies...

When I said I set my game on the hardest levels I knew, I also took into account the preferences...Things like large units, limited Ammo, Moral, Fatigue, unlimited men on Battlefield and anything else to make sure it wasn't affecting real time outcomes...

It was very hard to keep alive but still enjoyable!!

Medium battles is recommended for all factions. A lot of work went into balancing the unit stats and anything but medium does nothing but give the AI attack and morale bonuses without a smarter AI.