Eleuthorii (never how you spell it) and me

[LuciusCorneliusSulla]

The Eleu... Eleuth... the rebel factions (i'm aware are they are essentially one faction, but you've managed to make one city have a different policy to a major faction than another). Can they be given diplomatic ability? I've been an Empire-Builder fan from Shogun, to BOTF, to Masters of Orion, and the two factors which most interested me were Assimilation (not trekkie style, I mean the way you take over a civ or faction and adopt some of their units or technology, or can use their buildings in unique ways) and Minor Races/factions.

Now if my history isnt too rusty, Massilia joined Rome, it wasnt taken. The same with Rhodes, and Pergamon. They had a long standing alliance and eventually were phased in. So what if in EB, you could make alliances, bestow gifts or tribute and after a long period of time could offer them 'membership' of a kind. Back end this would be just represented by the settlement being handed over and the units within too, it would be nice to be able to use the local units that were already spawned.

Then I would push the bar and see if the rebels can be modded any further. What about alliances meaning something, like if you're Rome allied to Massilia and you attack the Aedui then the status for the rebels changes to War too. Can they issue an army for intentional attack?

Another question, do they have a working family-tree, births etc.?

[Pharnakes]

Sorry, No to everything.

If you want to play historicaly, bribe them, is the best you can get.

[burn_again]

So what if in EB, you could make alliances, bestow gifts or tribute and after a long period of time could offer them 'membership' of a kind.

That worked fine in Europa Universalis 2, but I don't think this is possible with the RTW engine, diplomacy is hardcoded.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

I don't think we can modify RTW diplomacy itself.

[Danest]

Isn't diplomacy easier on an easier campaign difficulty? That would make the easier levels actually pretty lucrative in my mind. The wave of grey and gold stacks are, I think, forcing me to wage a blitz, much faster than I'd like to conquer. I'd play on easy just for the diplomacy, but then that makes the eleutheroi into pacifists or something (I wonder if that aggression hardcoded?)

[Geoffrey S]

Pacifists, and if I'm not mistaken they don't get cash bonuses; it'd upset the money balance of EB.

[konny]

The Eleutheroi get money by the script. Actually they are the only "faction" that does not really money because they can't train anything and will spend that money only on improving their towns for the next invader.


I would also advice to play on nothing stronger than M/M: the AI has hughe problems to deal with rebells of any kind.

[burn_again]

The Eleutheroi ... can't train anything

Well, I think they can, at least they do in my campaigns.

[lobf]

Rhodes sure as shit didn't "join" the Roman Republic.

[Redmeth]

Well, I think they can, at least they do in my campaigns.

They sure can train, it was my first task for EB and I spent a lot of time testing and trying stuff out, that's why in some towns especially in the east there are 2 sometimes 3 types of MICs placed to ensure the rebels train...

[Callicles]

Yeah, I've seen the rebels train too.

[burn_again]

it was my first task for EB and I spent a lot of time testing and trying stuff out

You did a good job then, I was quite surprised when the weakened garnison of Kophen was refilled with Parthian Horse Archers after a few turns. In general the rebels seem to recruit a lot if they are left alone long enough, I've also seen it in eastern Europe and India.

[konny]

Honestly, I have never seen the rebells recruite or retrain a single unit. Don't they on M-difficulty level? Also, when I rightclick a MIC in a rebell settlement I am never shown any recruiteable units.

[Tiberius Nero]

I would also advice to play on nothing stronger than M/M: the AI has hughe problems to deal with rebells of any kind.

Isn't EB designed for VH/M? That's what I remember. On M campaign the AI probably doesn't get much money, so if they lose the first battle against the neighbouring rebels they will end doing nothing possibly for the rest of the game.

[burn_again]

Don't they on M-difficulty level? Also, when I rightclick a MIC in a rebell settlement I am never shown any recruiteable units.

I don't know if they don't recruit on M since I usually play H or VH.
Its true that you cannot see recruitable units on rebel MICs, but they can still use them.

[konny]

Isn't EB designed for VH/M? That's what I remember. On M campaign the AI probably doesn't get much money, so if they lose the first battle against the neighbouring rebels they will end doing nothing possibly for the rest of the game.

The AI gets the same amount of money (by the EB script) on every level of difficulty. The AI gets an additional 10,000 bonus every turn (hardcoded) on VH. On VH the AI is also usually not open to any kind of at least the little reasonable diplomacy it shows on M. The default setting for RTW is M/M. EB isn't "designed" for anything different because everything that has to do with the difficulty levels is hardcoded not moddable.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

if they lose the first battle against the neighbouring rebels they will end doing nothing possibly for the rest of the game.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case. In the early turns of my M/M Lusotannan campaign the Arverni spent decades to take Burdigala in vain. The rebels repelled their assault/sallied and replenished their rank every time. Similar things have happened with other settlements as well.
.

[bovi]

I made the money assistance with loaded dice for the Eleutheroi with testing assistance of Redmeth, but unfortunately a lot of changes were made to the garrisons after that, disturbing the balance that was found (that is, the garrison changes were good, but you know what I mean).

The reason why it is randomized is that they will spam cheap troops in a few settlements when having a steady flow of cash, while they will recruit pretty much everywhere and upgrade buildings if they only have enough money in a given turn. Getting some sudden injections of wealth makes them upgrade their infrastructure and not over-recruit (spilling into the countryside) at the same time. Garrison costs seem to be deducted after the script is run, so the late adjustments making larger garrisons in many places makes them have less money in general. But they'll have plenty of troops to defend with, as I'm sure you've noticed.

[konny]

Yes, I was wrong they do raise new units. But that's so rare that I had never noticed before. BTW, with the ALX.exe they also do retrain sometimes and those defensive stacks are very acitve, sometimes moving across several provincal borders: for example the rebell army near Pergamon just made it to Pella, while I was suddenly encountered in central Armenia by one of the rebell armies that are meant to block the Pontic from going East.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Which isn't restricted to Alex, btw. Saw similar things on test versions of 1.0.

[burn_again]

Yeah, I had that too in 1.0, the scripted army from Numantia attacked me at Tolosa once.