Observations

[Sardaukar One]

I have played three campaigns so far. Each one has lasted awhile.
The first was with Greece, the second with Numidia and the third with Epirus.
In addition, I played three or four turns with a number of other factions just to see what they are like.

CARTHAGE

Carthage got stuffed two out of the three campaigns.
In PE as the Numidians, you have to go after Carthage right away, otherwise you are done. I saw no reason to change this strategy and I went after them as soon as I could get the bulk of my troops massed in one army.
To my suprise, Carthage put up very little resistance.
It wasn't until I played a few turns with Carthage that I found out why.
Carthage goes broke quicker than anyone else I have played with so far.
After one turn, they have no money to fight back with. And I think they lose close to 10 k per turn. Thats tuff!
Their army in Sicily sieges Agrigento and gets defeated when the rebels sally(saw it happen in both my Greek and Epirote campaign).
Not sure if that happened in my Numidian campaign. But presumably it did otherwise they would have shipped some troops to Africa to fight me no?
I would add that booting them out of Sicily as fast as possible may have something to do with their outcome. As the Greeks, I did this pretty fast and they ended up beating Numidia. As Epirus I left them alone and they ended up commiting a number of armies to fighting me. And lost them.
Numidia waxed them pretty quick. They still have the islands. But thats it.
Still, I think Carthage has really been clipped.
As Carthage, I had to take Sicily just to stop losing more money.
Ouch!

ARMENIA

I played a few turns with them and I am little unsure why Artaxarta has been swapped with Van. Putting Van so close to the border with the Seleucids is just asking to be attacked. And thats exactly what happened.
If the AI acted normally, this might not be such a big problem, but with the AI's prediliction to attacking the player at the expense of its territory elsewhere, this seems like its going to hamstring Armenia. Both legs.
The one thing going for Armenia in PE and if I'm not mistaken, history, was that Armenia was some way off the beaten track.
You used to have a little time to organize an army to defend vs an approaching Seleucid army.
Presumably this is a move to whittle down the Seleucids?
I think Armenia could very well be the hardest faction to play.
They are going to get attacked almost right away by the Sels and they don't have enough troops to defend Van and to expand.
They also lose money, so I think it could be tough to play Armenia.


THE SELEUCIDS

To my suprise, these guys actually made a little money after one turn.
1100 I think.
They are my favourite faction in every RTW mod I have played.
I have yet to play them properly in Extended Realism so far but they are next up for me.
In any event, they seem to get into wars with everyone in the east.
The Ptollies seem to take em out every time.
The Seleucids seem to try and hold onto Asia Minor at the expense of everything else.
In my Epirus campaign, they were losing Asia minor to Galatia and Pontus.
Macedon took out Galatia and replaced Galatia in Asia Minor.
While this makes playing the Sels a very tempting proposition for a player, hoping to fight the Sels later on in a campaign as someone else seems a forlorn wish.

ROME

Unless you play a faction close to Rome in the early game so you can crimp them, they seem to just go banannas.
I saw them rock Gaul and Illyria with half stack armies. They would take a city, leave one unit and move on.
Thats kinda raw when I have to leave at least three or four units plus a family member to control a newly taken city.


GREECE AND NUMIDIA

Both need to be downgraded to medium for campaign difficulty.
Carthage has no money to fight back vs Numidia. Its a cakewalk for Numidia.
As Greece, in turn one I took Chalcis(no walls) and sieged Corinth.
Turn two I took Corinth. This gave me a nice little bottleneck at Athens to defend.
Macedon made peace with me and this enabled me to ship my army to take Crete and get them back to Greece in time for cornflakes.
Thermon was the only stretch point.
It took awhile for Macedon to get an army together. They attacked and it resulted in me taking Larissa. With Larissa in the fold, it made defending Greece and Thermon much easier.
In Sicily, it was really a matter of time. I didn't know if I would have time to build up vs Carthage and Epirus.
I did get the time, and took Sicily. Carthage, despite having no army in Sicily, blockaded Syracuse as soon as I took Agrigento. So of course I took Lilybaeum. Then Messana.
Basically, you can take Corinth and Chalcis before Macedon can do anything about it and this gives you a very, very defensible position.


In both my Epirote and Numidian campaign, the Greeks seemed obsessed with taking Malta. In my Epirus campaign I held Malta, in my Numidian campaign I did not.
They have sent about four full stack armies that have all been sunk at sea in my epirote campaign.
Whats up with that?

Love the fact that the armies are much better balanced. Light troops, cavalry etc. Great.
Really great!

I found it impossible to make cities rebel. I assassinated an epirote family member in Malta, leaving the city without a garrison. I had upto 20 spies in the city plus five assassins sabotaging the city.
Yet no revolt.
I wanted to take the city without starting a war with Epirus.
They eventually shipped some units out and I gave up attacking the city this way.
Presumably the AI won't let the city revolt?

The snowball effect doesn't seem to be as prevalent in ER as it does in PE.
But if a faction loses a couple of cities, they do seem to be basically finished.
And you are back to the haves and have nots again.
When I took Larissa from Macedon, they basically became impotent for example. They have five cities only.

Macedon seem to be reasonably well neutered in the game.
In one campaign they are doing good, in another they are almost insignificant.
Gotta like that.

I haven't seen much in the way of heavy cavalry however.

Overall this is great stuff. Fighting balanced armies is much more fun.
And this alone really makes the mod worthwhile.
I like Epirus, though they need more elephants. Galatia looks interesting, but I hate Barbarian factions. I gotta have roads. Sorry, but thats just me.
Great work guys. Really great work!

[Quinn Inuit]

Thanks for the thoughts, and I'm glad you're enjoying this.

Couple of quick thoughts:
Carthage--I didn't realize they had money troubles. I'll look into that.
Armenia--Moving that settlement down was a calculated decision. They usually do ok when not played by a human (the AI doesn't go psycho on them). I did that because otherwise Armenia tended to expand toward Sogdiana, which is almost comically ahistorical. At least this way they tend to go in the correct direction.

[Donten]

Yep like this mod, with increased costs and build times etc. Actually I think you can go further, Building a Academy for eg may only take a year, but the good that comes from it may take several years...etc (as you've done with citizenship buildings etc_)

I also found there is still the problem, (what I see to be a problem) of AI factions expanding beyond any kind of historical reference.

Not to be too much of a whiner, but for eg. By 240bc Macadon owns all Greece and Thace and heading into Samatia...Ptollies (or Sulis) take most of Asia etc. In some extreme versions Rome is attacked by Pontus,-Via Germany 200bc.

Basically when a faction passes a particular limit, it becomes an unstoppable monster, without any restriction of maintaining original borders only.

So, as a fix, I increased the maintain cost of generals to 1000/turn, for all factions (save the human player which was set at 400, just so the faction was playable). After 40 yrs a check of the overview graph showed a much more stable world.
From the graph I worked out a handy-cap system reducing the cost to between 700-900D for those factions that were really struggling to keep their heads above water.
I found this helped give the game a more realistic pace.

any thoughts?

[Quinn Inuit]

I think we're going to reduce the superpower aspect of the game with some other tweaks in the next version. However, I am still concerned about the speed at which the game progresses, like you mentioned.

Reducing the superpower aspect may help keep things balanced longer, as might the reintroduction of a money script. As someone noted in another thread, the AI seems to stall out when it loses a single major province. If we can keep that from happening, we may be able to make the factions last longer. 4tpy doesn't help in this regard, since it doubles the rate of growth and income.

I don't like the idea about tying the money drain to the generals. It just seems too arbitrary to me, since their number may change a great deal from turn to turn. Have you tried just attaching a drain on the government buildings, with each faction losing a certain amount of tax or trade income per turn?

[Donten]

Quinn

I used the generals mainly because it was a quick and easy adjustment, (and one I knew) and the potential link to growth and the proportionality aspect, (the more a faction expands, the more generals you get the more it costs you...?)

Just an idea anyways.

[Quinn Inuit]

That makes sense. I do like tying things like that to gov't buildings, though. It takes more tuning, but you get bonuses or disadvantages scaling in a manner that IMO is much more stable. If you poke around in the EDB you'll find I've tied several things to gov't buildings.

[Lord Dakier]

Wow you lose money with Armenia and cant build an army... thats amazing considering I have after about 20-30 turns 100,000 Denarii with them. Cant build fast enough... you use your starting army and park them on the edge of your boarders to make the AI turn back. Obviously your not very good at budgetting yourself or playing with Easteners if thats the case as I dont think im that good but I still get heroic victorys and beat Sels.

Best thing to do is hold them off, ally yourself with Greeks, Parthia and Sarmaetians. Youll notice how Parthia help you out 'IF' they start war against the Sels.

[Donten]

Quinn

Also I like the Idea of Epuris and Galacia faction. Think this helps keep more sizeable AI factions.

Maybe delete the Britons, as they don't really expand...at all, and split another largeish faction....?

[Pat89]

He's already working on that... Britons will be replaced for the Cisalpine Gauls and the Illyrians will be replaced for Pergamon

[despot_of_rhodes]

I´ve got a question about recovery - the Gauls seem to have none of the retineus, except the "herbalist", which i seem not to get during my whole game - is that right? Playing on H/H vs. Romans and Germans, my causalities are quite high.

Also, the choosen spearmen and choosen swordmen of Gauls are not really good balanced, in my humble opinion. The c. swordmen may be quite expencive in recrutment and maintaince, but i find 2 turns for training not fair. I would say, if they are so expensive, though they dont really stand a chance against princeps ( their roman equivalent ), they should at least take only 1 turn. If one takes in account, that c. swordmen are not trained from the scratch, but actually are former swordmen, wich became elite ( at least that´s what i imagine ), they should cost a lot, since this guys know their value, and they demand lots of gold for their duties, but they should maybe even be a "0" recrutment unit.

In case of c. spearmen its quite the opposite. This guys are nobles. They should be very expensive and also take 2 or even 3 turns to train them, but their maintaince should not be very high, since, once they´ve been convinced by a warchief to join him, they are loyal and reliable. What about making them a General unit instead/along with the horsemen. This way, they would play their role ase nobles. Taking Gallic Noble Cavalry out, and increasing the bodyguard numbers of the recrutable generals at the same time, would give one the feeling this guys are really no commond warriors, but something special ( only available to Gauls, underlining their tribal character ? ). So, this cavalry unit would be definetly superior to the other´s, giving the Gauls ( and probably also the Germans in case of cavalry ) an overwhelming advantage towards Romans for example ).

The Veneti warriors could be kind of AOR Unit for Gauls, since they are a maritime tribe ( like they discription says ). So, why not make them available only on Atlantic coast and maybe the Northern sea? ( if this would be historicaly correct, of course ).

And finally, one word about skirmisher generals. Well, yes, they do not charge straight ahead in a phalanx any more, but they flee all the time from a fight with my warlord, or even heavy cavalry. This makes it very easy, to drive them away from their troops, reducing the moral and finaly catching them even with light cavalry, folowed by a heavy cav. charge ( or a warlord ). I know, i don´t really have a better suggestion about this for now, just wanted to share my expirience

[Quinn Inuit]

I´ve got a question about recovery - the Gauls seem to have none of the retineus, except the "herbalist", which i seem not to get during my whole game - is that right? Playing on H/H vs. Romans and Germans, my causalities are quite high.

Not sure about the retinues. Jamey would be the one to ask about that. I think I've seen AI generals get retinues, though.

Also, the choosen spearmen and choosen swordmen of Gauls are not really good balanced, in my humble opinion. The c. swordmen may be quite expencive in recrutment and maintaince, but i find 2 turns for training not fair. I would say, if they are so expensive, though they dont really stand a chance against princeps ( their roman equivalent ), they should at least take only 1 turn. If one takes in account, that c. swordmen are not trained from the scratch, but actually are former swordmen, wich became elite ( at least that´s what i imagine ), they should cost a lot, since this guys know their value, and they demand lots of gold for their duties, but they should maybe even be a "0" recrutment unit.

Chosen spearmen and swordsmen are actually on the way out of the game. They're going to be replaced with more accurate counterparts from TIC. There was a long discussion on this a couple of months ago. Not that I expect you to have read it, of course. I'm just mentioning it.

In case of c. spearmen its quite the opposite. This guys are nobles. They should be very expensive and also take 2 or even 3 turns to train them, but their maintaince should not be very high, since, once they´ve been convinced by a warchief to join him, they are loyal and reliable. What about making them a General unit instead/along with the horsemen. This way, they would play their role ase nobles. Taking Gallic Noble Cavalry out, and increasing the bodyguard numbers of the recrutable generals at the same time, would give one the feeling this guys are really no commond warriors, but something special ( only available to Gauls, underlining their tribal character ? ). So, this cavalry unit would be definetly superior to the other´s, giving the Gauls ( and probably also the Germans in case of cavalry ) an overwhelming advantage towards Romans for example ).

We may do something similar to that, but at this point we're probably going to leave the Gallic cavalry setup much as it is.

The Veneti warriors could be kind of AOR Unit for Gauls, since they are a maritime tribe ( like they discription says ). So, why not make them available only on Atlantic coast and maybe the Northern sea? ( if this would be historicaly correct, of course ).

I thought Veneti warriors _were_ AOR troops.

And finally, one word about skirmisher generals. Well, yes, they do not charge straight ahead in a phalanx any more, but they flee all the time from a fight with my warlord, or even heavy cavalry. This makes it very easy, to drive them away from their troops, reducing the moral and finaly catching them even with light cavalry, folowed by a heavy cav. charge ( or a warlord ). I know, i don´t really have a better suggestion about this for now, just wanted to share my expirience

I thought I took them off skirmish in the most recent patch. Eh, it's a trade-off. At least they don't suicide immediately as often. Honestly, I think there's no good solution to this problem.

[Jamey]

Not sure about the retinues. Jamey would be the one to ask about that. I think I've seen AI generals get retinues, though.

As far as I'm aware, barbarians are getting retinues.

I thought Veneti warriors _were_ AOR troops.

Nope. The condition on "gaul night fighters" is "and not hidden_resource aor_galat", which I believe makes them recruitable outside of Galatia in Asia Minor.

I thought I took them off skirmish in the most recent patch. Eh, it's a trade-off. At least they don't suicide immediately as often. Honestly, I think there's no good solution to this problem.

I haven't seen any skirmish mode generals in the latest patch.

[Quinn Inuit]

Thanks for clearing that up.

The Veneti aren't AOR? I'll put that on the To Do list.

[florin80]

Alternatively, if you`re short of hidden resources, you could make the veneti a faction unit by removing the veneti from the name and description. Warriors with short celtic swords and round shields don`t need to be specific to the veneti.

[Jamey]

Alternatively, if you`re short of hidden resources, you could make the veneti a faction unit by removing the veneti from the name and description. Warriors with short celtic swords and round shields don`t need to be specific to the veneti.

Both RTRPE and ExRM already have sword warbands for the Gauls. The Veneti are special because they have the frighten_foot attribute. Though, truthfully, the Veneti are pretty much a flavor unit because the Gaesatae/Naked Fanatics are better in every way but cost (and the cost difference isn't all that large).

I think that we should do something to make the Veneti more interesting, perhaps giving them an AOR and making them a size 60 base unit. I'm open to other suggestions, though. That's just the first thought that came to my mind.

[despot_of_rhodes]

Why not give them a couple of javelines, to spice the unit up?

About reducing their numbers: the barbarians already get quite massacred, because they cheaper units don´t have any armor - so reducing Veneti´s numbers would just make them quite unusefull, especially if they going to be an AOR unit, wich needs to be retrained somewhere on atlantic coast, don´t you think?
Edit: Sorry, Jamey, i think i missunderstood your proposal on the numers. "60" means 120 on large and 240 on huge, i guess...

To the skirmisher generals: all of my own generals do have the skirmish ability, so seem the others to have, since they mostly trying to avoid the direct combat, fleeing away.

@Quinn: I could have "borrowed" the idea of foot generals ( nobles ) from that thread, just wasn´t aware of the fact, that you were planing to implement them in the next ExRM version

And last but not least: I´m still having problems with saving games, though i followed all the advices Bladerunner, Jamey or others have spoken out

[florin80]

Both RTRPE and ExRM already have sword warbands for the Gauls. The Veneti are special because they have the frighten_foot attribute. Though, truthfully, the Veneti are pretty much a flavor unit because the Gaesatae/Naked Fanatics are better in every way but cost (and the cost difference isn't all that large).

True, there are other swordsmen for the celts and this is the reason why removing the veneti was asked a number of times before. Even when the first versions of Platinum were in development Crymson wanted them axed for being "redundant". The reason they were kept was because MC wanted Platinum to be nothing more than a port of Gold and not change "historical" realities from it. You don`t have restrictions like that to deal with.

I think that we should do something to make the Veneti more interesting, perhaps giving them an AOR and making them a size 60 base unit. I'm open to other suggestions, though. That's just the first thought that came to my mind.

About the aor units though. Please don`t think I`m trying to mess with your idea simple because it isn`t mine. But the problem with making tribal units, imo, is where to stop. Because unless something makes them(historically) out of the ordinary and their style of fighting was considered peculiar even by that time, there`s nothing to recommend them as a separate unit given the limited space in DMB and also the limited number of regions where you can recruit the unit(and retrain it) from. Because you could make different swordsmen for the aquitani or boii or insubri or rhaeti etc. What reason do you see to make a specific unit for the veneti?

[Jamey]

True, there are other swordsmen for the celts and this is the reason why removing the veneti was asked a number of times before. Even when the first versions of Platinum were in development Crymson wanted them axed for being "redundant". The reason they were kept was because MC wanted Platinum to be nothing more than a port of Gold and not change "historical" realities from it. You don`t have restrictions like that to deal with.

The Veneti unit is certainly redundant in the Gallic unit list.

About the aor units though. Please don`t think I`m trying to mess with your idea simple because it isn`t mine. But the problem with making tribal units, imo, is where to stop. Because unless something makes them(historically) out of the ordinary and their style of fighting was considered peculiar even by that time, there`s nothing to recommend them as a separate unit given the limited space in DMB and also the limited number of regions where you can recruit the unit(and retrain it) from. Because you could make different swordsmen for the aquitani or boii or insubri or rhaeti etc. What reason do you see to make a specific unit for the veneti?

I'd say that the Veneti mode should stay (perhaps on another unit) because they have a stylish black outfit and pigtails.

A lot of units in RTRPE and ExRM are tribal for the barbarian factions (especially Germany's unit list). I'd agree that they are likely to be arbitrarily chosen to add units to certain factions rather than chosen for historical consequence. I can live with that. I'd also be fine with removing the less historically significant tribal units and replacing them with more global unit variety for the factions. Honestly, I don't know enough about the Gauls to have an opinion on the significance of the Veneti.

[florin80]

Well, the germans are another matter. Honestly, those should be faction units too. The germans were designed by Hormiga much as I remember(hope I`m not wrong) and were among the latest units/factions to be done for RTR 6 iirc. And the idea behind lots of their units being aor was to simulate the state of disunity that existed among them. And to stop them from expanding ahead of time(historically speaking). But leaving this last reason aside, think about it. This logic is fine or wrong only if you extend it or not to other barbarians who form a single faction. The gauls weren`t united either, but they have all faction units in RTRPE. Same for the other "barbarian" factions. But because of the way you are using the hidden resources you won`t afford to splash 4 on the iberians and 10 on the gauls and so on. So imo, the germans should lose this faction-aor recruitment system too. Why would the gauls be able to recruit archers in Greece and the germanics not? Sure, some tribes excelled in some styles, but over all why would only some qualify for faction units and others not?

[pannonian]

The Veneti unit is certainly redundant in the Gallic unit list.


I'd say that the Veneti mode should stay (perhaps on another unit) because they have a stylish black outfit and pigtails.

A lot of units in RTRPE and ExRM are tribal for the barbarian factions (especially Germany's unit list). I'd agree that they are likely to be arbitrarily chosen to add units to certain factions rather than chosen for historical consequence. I can live with that. I'd also be fine with removing the less historically significant tribal units and replacing them with more global unit variety for the factions. Honestly, I don't know enough about the Gauls to have an opinion on the significance of the Veneti.

The Senone slingers are probably the most redundant of the lot. Without looking at the exact stats in EDU, the unit card stats are exactly the same as Gallic slingers, which are widely available.