Europa Barbarorum 2.08e is released!

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm sorry but you misunderstand: it's not that they're easy to deliberately assimilate, but that their culture is at risk of vanishing on its own. It's not too bad while they remain rebels (it declines, but slowly in my game as Saba) but as Pontos with an allied government and client ruler their culture is collapsing fast, 2% a year or more it seems. As I understand it, being bordered by a lot of Eastern Tribal and Hellenistic provinces has an influence on culture as well, though from what you say perhaps not using the client ruler would slow their cultural loss?

As an aside, it's a nice touch that EBII assigns the correct ethnicity to client rulers. Although it's sad the ethnicity trait doesn't seem to affect cultural conversion (hardcoded limitation maybe?).

As you've correctly identified, Galatia specifically is suffering from the effect of being surrounded by places with a different culture. I could possibly tone down the "nearby province" conversion effect some.

It's not a historical issue, though. Historically troops didn't die fighting very much, they were run down during routs, disappeared after a defeat (or just a long campaign), or died of disease much more often. Of these only the pursuit is shown is shown at all, and not very completely, in the game, so abstractions have to be made anyway. I also think you're way overestimating how overpowered cavalry charges would become; this is the M2TW engine still, with charges not always working in the first place I appreciate it's hard to work within the limitations, but I still think the lethality (or attack values maybe) should be turned up at least slightly.

Cavalry charges in M2TW take a lot of practise to pull off correctly - certainly harder than it was in EB1. Often what's needed is more distance. With practise, I find virtually any cavalry with a spear can perform pretty devastating charges to the rear - especially when repeated. Any higher than 0.35 and sword-armed cavalry will be able to do the same and any distinction would be lost. Plus as I said, it tips the balance away from stamina and morale having a meaningful impact.

Unless I'm misinterpreting descr_projectiles it seems Toxotai are slightly more accurate than Cretans and just as deadly. The Cretans have 3 more arrows, which is not that much of an advantage, and they are less terrible in melee but uh, I'm not buying archers to serve as assault infantry. Certainly this is born up by my ingame experience: Cretans archery isn't better. They have longer range, but that doesn't stop the Toxotai from emptying their quivers.

Archery duels are only really relevant against horse archers and such. Even then, I don't see the point in Cretans when Eastern archers have the same range, and some have shields too. You need screening infantry for them anyway. Cretans will certainly do better on their own, but even the AI now avoids throwing unsupported archers around

Finally, I don't see a synchronised volley special ability in the game if it's a passive thing, I'm not noticing much synchronisation from my archers and even less from the AI's.

So, I still don't find the Cretans (or even the Persians) living up to their reputations in-game. Certainly, historically, archery depended a lot on how many arrows you could put in the air, but quality of the archers seems to me to have been more important than I find it to be for most of the in-game archers (if only because of something hard to model in TW, but better trained archers could shoot faster and be less tired by it).

I'll get someone to have a look at the respective properties of the light_arrow and medium_arrow projectiles - that may be an error.

I also wonder if levies using self bows (Toxotai, Celtic Archers, etc) should have their attack lowered - again I'll raise it for discussion.

Also, I've noticed missile attacks don't scale with experience like they did in Rome. So you could possibly up them a bit without risking gold-chevroned archers getting silly strong, as was the case with EBI.

Experience doesn't work the same in M2TW; only the 1st, 4th and 7th chevrons actually do anything, as I understand it. Hardcoded in any case.

Oh okay, that makes sense, and is even hinted at in the description (although it could be made clearer)

Since it seems there are plans for non-merc Ekdromoi, are there plans to reintroduce heavier merc hoplites? It would seem to me that in both cases, it was largely the same men who would lighten their gear for mobile actions and then wear the heavier armour if they expected a pitched battle, so it would make sense for the player to have the choice of which style to recruit. Besides, mercenary hoplites have always been useful in the game for factions with a hard time getting heavier line troops

No non-merc Ekdromoi - the historians are pretty clear that they only make sense for mercs. For the rest of the world, things have moved on - there's the Hemithorakitai Peltophoroi (coming in the autumn release) who are eventually replaced by the Thureophoroi as "lighter than Hoplite" units.

Regular ones won't get heavier - the heavy hoplites are elites (Hypaspistai, Epilektoi Hoplitai, Carthaginian Sacred Band). No plans for heavier mercenaries either.