Suggestions? oh..and praise

**mw1776** · December 06, 2008, 11:37 PM

First off let me just say that I love IB:RR. I found it a few weeks ago and I've been playing it non-stop (even giving up Fallout 3 to start up a new WRE game). It's an awesome, atmospheric mod from a team that clearly loves the era of late antiquity.

I do have a couple of questions/suggestions. If there's a better place for this sort of stuff let me know and I'll repost there.

1)Movement Rates - I understand the no roads around Ravenna but the absence of other roads is odd. How come there isn't a road between Mediolanium and southern Gaul? There are places on the map where it can take up to 5-6 turns to move an army.

2)I love the unit diversity for the Roman factions. I can really put together some accurate and fun armies. However all the different shield/model patterns make it really hard to retrain units once my economy is up and running. It's also slightly frustrating to start with some units in regions that cannot retrain them, ex: Legio Comitatenses units in N. Africa or Legio Lanciarii/Equites Sagatarii Graves in the WRE.

3)I played a brief Sassanid game to try something different but couldn't read most of the background text for units because of the light gray on tan unit cards. Anyway to revert to standard for them?

4)I CTD when I try to fight a battle in both North Africa and Anatolia.

5)How are the various Notitia Dignitatum ancillaries triggered? I lost my magister peditum early on and I haven't been able to get the ancillary back.

6)Is there a more in depth description of the scripts option? The player's guide has the minimum but doesn't go into detail about some of the scripts. I mostly want a forced diplomacy script, but something that puts some teeth into the Saxons would be nice as well.

Anyway, thanks again for this wonderful mod. I've played most of the big ones for RTW and this one is definitely my favorite.

**master88** · December 07, 2008, 04:33 PM

1) Make map a tad bit bigger not TOO big.

2) Dont forget the double wall of Constantinople.

3) Edit the info of Legio Plubmatraii (forgive me if it's spelt stupid)

4) Darker and paler clothes colours for the barbarian, nomad, low class and mid class military units of civilzed factions.

5) Fix the skins of the vandals and ostrogoths generals. The shield or skin of itself tends to "come out" at certain angles.

6) If you are going to put cities make them large cities (except for capitals) or increase the amount of time and money it takes to get a large city palace & huge city palace (cause those things cost money...alot of it)

7) Able to recruit elephants (for eastern factions) in regions that has them (I noticed that some regions in 7.03 that can sustain elephant life and have a stabel or higher I can't recuit elephants

)

8) Increase the strength of wall attack if your not going to put back the physical size of the "huge wall" or "Large wall".

9) Change the shield pic of the comiensties that has adapted to eastern warfare. I can understand you have that weird looking pic in medieval 2 total war mod, due to one or 2 of them may have it but it doesnt look to good when its a "clone unit".

10) Why is it that the more sophisticated a barracks are the less barbarian troops you get? Foedrati units should still be recuited even when you have legio barracks (in the provinces that romans historically had and only roman factions could get).

11) Rebels appear way too often, increase the number by 25 (in the 7.03 rebel spawn rate was at 10. In my personal modifications I put it at 35 and it was descent enough. Still had tough units in the group, but they didnt spawn all over the place every turn)

12) Saravan Knights and some cavalry of the Sassininds cost to low, increase prices of them and upkeep abit.

13) I f possible please create some U.I buildings and implent them on the battle map. E.g - Luprina, Statue.

Well those are my things that I saw in the game that may need a change. I know many things are impossible to do or would take a long time to do so most of these things may not be implemented or would just be a patch, which is still cool.

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · December 08, 2008, 08:02 PM

1)Movement Rates - I understand the no roads around Ravenna but the absence of other roads is odd. How come there isn't a road between Mediolanium and southern Gaul? There are places on the map where it can take up to 5-6 turns to move an army.

I think that the lack of a road to connect those two points and the overall layout of the roads makes the movement of armies more 'confrontational'. I mean. If you want to go from Italy to Spain by land, for instance, there is only one route, so an enemy army going the opposite direction will be forced to walk the same road, making a fight inevitable. This is just my opinion, of course.

2)I love the unit diversity for the Roman factions. I can really put together some accurate and fun armies. However all the different shield/model patterns make it really hard to retrain units once my economy is up and running. It's also slightly frustrating to start with some units in regions that cannot retrain them, ex: Legio Comitatenses units in N. Africa or Legio Lanciarii/Equites Sagatarii Graves in the WRE.

Those were the same recruiting problems that the Roman empire faced. Welcome to the Roman nightmare

!

3)I played a brief Sassanid game to try something different but couldn't read most of the background text for units because of the light gray on tan unit cards. Anyway to revert to standard for them?

ibfd > options > INTERFACE. Pick one!

4)I CTD when I try to fight a battle in both North Africa and Anatolia.

Did you try to revert the strat map models?

5)How are the various Notitia Dignitatum ancillaries triggered? I lost my magister peditum early on and I haven't been able to get the ancillary back.

I'll try to find out

6)Is there a more in depth description of the scripts option? The player's guide has the minimum but doesn't go into detail about some of the scripts. I mostly want a forced diplomacy script, but something that puts some teeth into the Saxons would be nice as well.

:hmmm:To me, it gives enough information. If you have any questions, the answer to which are not very clear though, you can ask and we'll try to help

. The forced diplomacy script is included in the 'full script' option, but be aware that it may cause CTD's at this point.
[/quote]

**charles the hammer** · December 08, 2008, 08:55 PM

I would like to see either a seperate forced diplomacy script or a fix of the full because i would like to be able to end wars with hordes by giving them land but theyll never accept that on their own .

**master88** · December 09, 2008, 06:56 AM

Yes indeed. I would really like to end wars with the ai, but as usual they wont, but after a while of CUTTING THEIR BEHIND, they want to end wars with you......sad, stupid ai.

**mw1776** · December 09, 2008, 10:34 AM

Thanks for the response.

I was mostly wanting detailed descriptions of things like the Limes, Saxon/Hephthalite Reinforcements, and Partisan scripts. But either way I can't use the Full script option due to frequent CTD's. Is there no separate Force Diplomacy option like other RTW mods have?

I hear what you're saying about the comitatus troops being difficult to upkeep. I'm not saying that it should be easier to recruit/maintain them overall, but that I shouldn't be hindered by not having shield option A (for example) anywhere in Gaul when I retake it. Again, in my personal opinion all the various comitatenses soldiers (all shield/model options, all weapon options) should be available past a certain barracks level and let it be my financial conditions that dictate how I recruit them. It's not a huge deal, the mod is still awesome, however.

As for the roads I just wish it didn't take over 4-5 turns to move an army or an agent from one provence to the next.

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · December 09, 2008, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by mw1776

As for the roads I just wish it didn't take over 4-5 turns to move an army or an agent from one provence to the next.

Ramon thought it convenient so that mountain passes and things like that could have some strategy importance for the armies, otherwise they simply go around them when they are blocked by an enemy army. You can, of course, edit those files like I did. That's something I can help you with!

. Go to the data folder in your ibfd one. Scroll down and click on the descr_character txt document. Once there, scroll down just a little bit until you find the line starting_action_points. I think that the default value in there is 60, change it to a higher value depending on how much you want to increase the movement rate, and voila!! I hope this helps

.

**mw1776** · December 10, 2008, 01:38 AM

Excellent suggestion. I'll have to try it out.

One more thing. Is there any way to make the AI more aggressive? No matter what faction I play (on Hard) the AI just kind of sits there and doesn't really press an advantage. If I toggle_fow I'll see that with the exception of the Franks most barbarian factions just sit around and do nothing. If they do manage to horde they might sack one settlement or two but mostly just wander. The Hephthalites don't attack the Sassanids, the Saxons chill out in their home regions, the Huns constantly ask for ceasefire, and the Visigoths take their one scripted settlement and then just sit there.

Is there any way to give the AI some juice?

Edit: Apart from the included and ctd causing force diplomacy script

**master88** · December 11, 2008, 10:22 AM

Well I dont know really but this is my theory. If you make it very hard, they look like any city they see there goin to besiege it (even if they have a small army) and you can easily defeat them or keep it as it is and they just wonder around doing nothing much, until you provoke them.

**mw1776** · December 12, 2008, 03:23 AM

I'm talking more about AI aggressiveness to other AI factions. For instance, in one game I'm the ERE with Lahkmids, Armenia, and Hephthalites as allies. Of those the Hephthalites and Lahkmids are at war the the Sassanids. I'm fighting the Sassanids as well working my way down the Euphrates and across Media to capture my two objectives. I'm mostly winning but the AI keeps throwing stacks and stacks of heavy cav armies my way. It'd be nice if my AI allies who are also at war with the Sassanids put some pressure on them, particularly the Hephthalites.

Same goes with the Saxons. The Romano-British always end up wiping out the Picts by the 420s because the Saxons leave them alone. Although I do understand that the AI has a serious problem with naval invasions.

It's great for me. I'm usually caught in a web of alliance and counter-alliance, betrayal, victory and defeat. But then I toggle_fow and see that all the other factions are just sitting there with regards to themselves.

**Joar** · December 20, 2008, 07:19 AM

About movement rates for generals, captains, ships, diplomats etc. It's easily changed and is save game compatible ( but always make a back up of the files anyway ). Just do as PSEUDO ROMANUS wrote. I personally have my rate at 140. It's quite a drastic change but very good, and realistic I think, especially for ships. But it's of course a question of personal choice.