Suggestions and requests

[Anakarsis]

great job, and so fast! you did not changed the model?

[Zarax]

I used the steppe hunter model, it was the closest one to EB's.
As a bonus, parthian HA are bow/spear now, although no real chargers

[Silver Legionary]

Oh god.
What charge bonus(and lethality) do they have?
This could be bad for future Seleucid campaigns.

[Zarax]

Quite small charge, 4 or 5 as I'm still balancing.
Lethality as for short spears is 0.325.

All in all, slightly more melee attack for less defence. Using them in melee should still be a last resort as they won't last long.
BTW, I also gave ballistaes 50% extra engines, meaning that now they can take down small stone walls.

If you're using senate I'll post some files for you guys to test.

[Shadow_LT]

Impressive.

[Anakarsis]

I made some tests, i think that the number of engines is OK, why don´t you better increase the ammunition of each unit? As the ballistas are now, its just matter of time to break off the Biggest walls (And take into accout that i increased the Str of the wall in my copy). Just be sure that the machines do not run off of ammunition. After all, breaking the walls in a siege should NOt be an easy thing, giving the few examples of these type of battles until at least the age of Trajanus (the siege of Masada was done with rams, not onagers, as far as i know)

[Zarax]

Well, 50% extra ammo or 50% engines is the same against walls, just a bit quicker.
In battle the two extra ballistae could be handier imho.
I won't increase the ammo to allow the player to knock down reinforced walls with one unit of ballistas, if you want to play medieval style you need to sacrifice an extra slot for more artillery.

I just wish the rams could be modded to attack stone walls but so far haven't been successfull.

EDIT: the good news is that I discovered it can be done, the bad one is that I can't do it as I'm not a modeler...

[Silver Legionary]

Wait a minute, rams CAN be modded to attack stone walls?
Pretty intense.
Just out of curiosity, historically, how big were the most common
rams for
attacking walls directly? Just to get a
sense of scale.Half as tall as
the walls sounds about right, but, I'm
just guessing.

[Zarax]

Height wasn't the matter but rather lenght.
The longer the ram, the more powerful blow.
RTW size rams are ok but they'll most likely take a while to batter down a wall, making it an expensive choice IF somebody will change the wall models to allow that.

[Anakarsis]

I normally play waiting the surrender of the city. I like to use a lot of cavalry and the war machines slow down the army too much to my tastes. I prefer to use that time sieging and gaining XP. Howver, in my tests, against a Str-3 wall 4 ballista units of 4 each broke the wall without trouble.

[Zarax]

2 units can break a str3 wall without problems, with the new settings one is enough.

[Stilgar CG]

Any chance we can see introduction of a new faction in the nearest future. I advocated introduction of Illyrian Kingdom in DTW quite recently, but DTW is set for now in that respect. As is XGM, I guess. I wonder if the XC team would be open to discuss for such a suggestion? I see plenty of reasons to introduce Illyrians as a faction and I will be willing to bring the discussion forward again. Extending cultures in XC would be one of them, wouldn't it ?

ME

[Zarax]

Well, the price of such a thing would be loosing another faction.
It would be easier in XGM as the roman rebels have no good purpose, but XC uses that slot for the carthaginian senate.

Our other great limit is resources.
With only a very part time modeler/skinner creating a set for a new faction would tie in huge resources and take forever.

That said, never say never. After the release of XC4 we may reconsider this although it will be an heated debate.

[Stilgar CG]

I understand, Zarax. Just let's keep it in mind. Here is the thread from DTW forum on the issue (for those curious). Many considerations are valid for XC as well. Well, Saba would be the faction to go for me. Addmitedly, this would create a gap on the map, but more action in central Mediterranean would make up for it IMHO.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=214746

[LucretiusTC]

If there are any plans to change the current Scythian Faction to the new Sarmatian Faction, here are some background information for that purpose. In this case we don´t need to sacrifice the Scythian Faction all the way. For instance those basic Scythian Horse Archers could become slightly better Sarmatian Horse Archers after the Marian reforms.

Here you can find some collected ideas for Sarmatian basic roster (e.g. Steppe Herdsmen as a garrison unit, Sarmatian Archeresses as female foot archers and Sarmatian Argagantes as a post-Marian elite shock cavalry) and some new AOR units like Maoetian Warriors as heavy spearmen that are recruitable from Tanais and Phanagoria:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=267494

Sarmatian Pantheon with suitable temple descriptions:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...120148&page=30


Luc.

[Zarax]

Thank you, LucretiusTC

[Anakarsis]

Please also consider this for the Sarmatian Pantheon, specially to replace "foreign" gods...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nart_saga

[Ull The Skull Collector]

How about making it so that the Berserker types berserk? Cheap, I know, but it's so fun...

[Zarax]

I would but unfortunately it's impossible to remove the "launching" attribute which makes them overly silly.
They get a quite big attack bonus, insane morale and the ability to frighten infantry instead, making them a pretty dangerous enemy.

[Ull The Skull Collector]

Yeah, they are pretty killer still (And I guess they're better in a sense because you are always in control of them). But at any rate I got obliterated playing as the Germans at about 230 by the Macedonians, Thrace, Gaul, and Scythia (I think they were all allied with each other too...). Carthage took all of Italy but didn't advance further into Macedonian territory (And that was for about 20+ turns until I got defeated). I also noticed Iberia wasn't trying to advance any further either. Was wondering if that's just bad luck or something was wrong, because I think it was a feat for me to survive as long as I did... :/