First Impressions of EB 1.0?

[Oleander Ardens]

WOW

So far, so very nice

Of coursed I loved the regional Rhaetian units, very nice skins... but now back to playing

Cheers
OA

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

WOW

So far, so very nice

Of coursed I loved the regional Rhaetian units, very nice skins... but now back to playing

Cheers
OA

Nice to hear from you, Oleander Ardens. Everything fine with you?

Nice that you liked the Rhaetic units.

[Kurulham]

Okay, after playing all weekend with no Internet I can finally post my impressions.

LOVE the clouds in the water. Looks beautiful; unfortunately it does make trade routes a little hard to see due to low contrast, but I can totally live with that.

Sounds like the voicemod team paid more attention to accents and diphthongs with this recording (at least from what I've heard, mostly the KH and Makedonian VMs). Expression of strong approval on that score. (An aside about language - shouldn't it be "Iphikratou Hoplitai" or "Iphikratides Hoplitai" instead of "Iphikratous Hoplitai"? I note that the voicemod is saying "Iphikratides"...)

Still getting the rebelling-city CTD, alas.

I really like the Pahlava intro video, but the timing of the text could use some work - there's such a long split between the penultimate and ultimate text splats that I forgot what the sentence was saying by the time I saw the end. Though perhaps I was just distracted by the ooooh shiny.

Looking back over this I note that it looks more like a litany of what's wrong than my actual first impression, which was OOOOOOH SHINY WHAT DOES THIS BUTTON DO OOOH IS THAT GREEK I LIIIIIIIKE THIS.

Or something like that. I forget. It was so many decades ago, and I've killed so many Makedonians since then...

[Kampfkrebs]

I really like the Pahlava intro video, but the timing of the text could use some work - there's such a long split between the penultimate and ultimate text splats that I forgot what the sentence was saying by the time I saw the end. Though perhaps I was just distracted by the ooooh shiny.

Its because of the gay program Ive used for this intro (Ulead Media Studio 7).
The settings are completely retarded, and there was nothing I could do against it

But Ive changed the program to Adobe Premiere, and everything is ALOT better now. Prepare for the next intros

[iamphet]

Great work, guys!
As techie, I was uncomfortable with EB putting some its files into vanilla Data folder (some of them used to have identical names with those from EB\Data making me wondering which one is effective). I see you even managed to put custom loading progress bar into EB\Data.
No more missing cards, UI colors are readable, v 1.0 is a well-deserved name.
Time to spend some months playing EB, he-he.

[Juvenal]

I decided to go back and see how the Casse campaign has changed since 0.80. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I was really pleased to see that the Casse start with units they can actually build with their starting MIC.

I disbanded my fleet and most of my army and started building my economy. This was made harder by unattractiveness of Casse maps and alliances to the rest of the world. My diplomat was lucky to get room and board from declarations of eternal brotherhood and friendship with a succession of stuck-up Hellenic successor factions (must be some in-breeding going on here).

I had a hard time beating off the (I assume) scripted early attack on Camulosadae with just two infantry units plus my extended family. However, in this first battle I got to see what the EB team has done with Briton chariots. They are much improved over 0.80 - they are less fragile, but still need to stand-off most of the time, and the steady drip-drip of javelins against the rear of the engaged enemy had the desired effect. The enemy (Calaedonian skirmishers) broke and ran, and the Casse proto-empire was saved.

The regular Year in History pop-ups are a splendid addition. It took me until 261BC before I had enough savings to buy a half-stack and enough income to avoid going into mega-debt, so I had plenty of time to read them.

Just as my precious army began marching north, plague struck at Camulosadae. Still, no going back, I laid siege to Ratei with an inferior force and waited.

When the Eleutheroi finally sallied, I had a nail-biting battle with my melee infantry holding the battle line in guard mode, and my slingers and family members providing flanking fire.

I am very happy to see how slingers have been changed. They still pack a big punch, but greater spacing in their formation makes them more vulnerable to melee and harder to guard. It also limits the firepower you can apply with slingers to a single point.

I haven't come across any enemy cavalry yet - but I still think I will be able to use my slingers if I keep an extra family member or two in the army to supplement their spearman escort.

I can't wait to invade the continent and get to grips with the Gauls. I want to see Oppida and find out if I can mix it with Gaesetae and Gaulic cavalry.