Few issues

[Ravenic]

Hullo.

I successfully installed EB 1.1 last night (a chore unto itself with how much I've modded R:TW and screwed with the registry and everything), and I can't help but notice a couple of things that are truly...well...annoying.

For one, movement speed seems painfully slow. To the point where my armies can't move between my cities in Greece in one turn (and lets all remember how densely-citied Greece is!), and I find myself wondering how an army could possibly move so slowly, in a span of three months when the distance they traveled should in reality only take a week or so. Keep in mind that I've made sure none of my generals have any gratuitous movement decrease traits. I find myself sighing as all I do in one turn is move my army a few more spaces, watch my building queues tick one more turn off, and then contemplate the A.I.'s movement in the three or four minutes I need to wait between my next equally brief and uneventful turn.

Is that normal? When I played previous versions of EB it didn't seem *that* bad, but perhaps I'm just nostalgic? Could anyone tell me where I could maybe go to say...double...movement speeds? If I already hate the slow movement as a nation like Macedon I can't imagine how being the Parthians will be.

Secondly, it seems like the debt-factor is so high at the beginning that its ridiculous. I mean I disband the navy, disband expensive units and everything and still its just a crushing financial burden to maintain anything besides a couple of levy units. God knows how Alexander and Phillip managed to field thousands of professional soldiers, with a core of elite troops and the world's finest cavalry with just Pella and Demetrias. Perhaps I should turn down the difficulty a bit?

And thirdly, do we honestly think that most of the world existed without roads, basic farming, or civic structures at this point in time? I realize that's a gameplay decision but Jesus, on top of everything else!

Sorry for whining. I guess I just had to emote. Mostly, I would appreciate a little tip about movement speed.

[Foot]

To change movement speed you need to edit descr_character.txt

The reason speed is much slower than the distances that could be traversed in 3 months is for gameplay reasons. When dealing with turn based strategy, increasing movement seriously damages any potential strategies as you and the ai have no chance to react to anyone's movements. Staging an interception for an enemy army is thus impossible because he would already have reached your walls before you had a chance to stop him. We have not changed movement values from vanilla.

Maintaining a standing army or navy was prohibitably expensive if they are not on campaign. This is not entirely fair as of course a campaigning army could be raised, if needs were high, in a far shorter period of time then we can represent in game (though EBII will change some of these problems). If you aren't on an active campaign, either for conquest or riches, then maintaining an army makes for poor fiscal management. Large Empires of course need and can sustain large standing armies, but smaller kingdoms cannot do so.

Roads, for example, don't actually represent roads in any particular sense, but rather represent a road network and all that entails. For example the Rome province starts with simple roads, whereas, of course there were some quite large paved road systems there, however these paved road systems were not the major road systems and did not connect the entire province together. The same occurs with farms, ports, military, etc. Basic farming doesn't represent the actual existence of farms in a province, but rather the trade network that allows for a concentrated and centralised distribution of produce to the benefit of the entire province.

Foot

[Ravenic]

edit descr_character ... *writes it down*

I of course take your point about intercepting armies and all, but it does make it tedious when you aren't trying to intercept forces and are simply trying to get from point A to point B.

Maintaining a standing army or navy was prohibitably expensive if they are not on campaign. This is not entirely fair as of course a campaigning army could be raised, if needs were high, in a far shorter period of time then we can represent in game (though EBII will change some of these problems). If you aren't on an active campaign, either for conquest or riches, then maintaining an army makes for poor fiscal management. Large Empires of course need and can sustain large standing armies, but smaller kingdoms cannot do so.

While this is true, and understood, if I were to disband armies in-between 'campaigns' that would mean that it would take another two or three years just to beef the army back up again, which of course is insanity. Naturally you're correct about EB2 helping correct that, with M2TW's engine and all.

I guess I'll just have to wait it out.

[/Bean\]

To be honest, the movement speed really isn't that bad. As Foot said it hasn't changed from Vanilla, and it would be ridiculous to be able to move your army huge (gameplay huge, realistic normal) distances in one turn, since it's a strategy map and not real time. Armies would realisticly be able to march as their enemies were, to follow or intercept them, but it's extremely unlikely they would all stand still while enemy armies marched huge distances at will.

Also, I do agree with the slow raising of an army annoyance. But this is something that needs to be blamed on the R:TW engine. EB 1 can do nothing about it seeing as its using that engine. There was a thread or two where people were changing the recruitment time from 1 to 0 in some cities, which as long as you don't overuse it should solve that problem.

Just try to think of it as EB needs to make the balance between historical accuracy and good gameplay. They cannot be one without ruining the other so what they must do is make a compromise. This of course does mean that some essences must be sacrificed, but overall it's about enjoyment, and EB as a game is meant to be fun.

Hope this helped

[konny]

@ Ravenic

Which faction are you playing? The economy in EB needs much more attention than the economy in RTW or most of the other mods due to the high upkeep, low farming levels and comparable smaller cities on game start. I would therefore recommend to start EB with a faction that has (after disbanding uneeded ships and very expensive units like Elephants) no serious financial problems on game start and no major campaigns going on. That would be SPQR, Karthago or the Casse.

As for your specific question on the situation in Greece: Alexander's army was not only paid for by Makedonia and Thessaly but also by the Greek allies. When you control all of Greece in EB, including Makedonia and Epeiros, you'll make tons of money out of mining (very important in EB!) and sea-trade. The towns in Greece are so small and underdeveloped to represent the situation after the Galatian invasion that brought a lot of desctruction to those lands. Playing Greece, Epeiros or Makedonia is therefore not recommended for beginners.

[Ravenic]

I've been playing EB since 7.2..or was it 7.4?

I basically realize how everything works, I just took this moment to complain about what I thought was a bit silly. Plus, I just came back from Roma Surrectum, which has very big movements, 0 turn recruitment, etc. Basically what I ended up doing was going into the files and almost doubling the character's base movement.

It's simply too much of a hassle to try and get from point A to point B while your character is getting sick every step of the way because he's just *so* tired from taking three months to get halfway from Athens to Thessaloniki.

Meh...I'm having fun now. Turns out that playing in Windowed mode significantly reduces lag too, for some reason, which has always plagued me when it comes to trying to manage the campaign map, a problem with admittedly exacerbated my frustrations back before I'd editted move speed because it took me literally five minutes to get to the next turn.

[mcantu]

are you talking about turn time, how far units can move in a turn or or the speed that AI units move if you watch them between turns?

i'm not having the movement issues you seem to be. i can move units from Athens to almost Pella easily...

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Ravenic.. Are you playing as KH? If so then you should know that KH have Spartans as their general bodyguards and they are on foot. So this might be the problem why it would take so long to get from one place to another.