Historical Accuracy proposals

[Kirila the Kitten]

What about Dacia,
Theoretical, dacians were thracians. But Dacians were stronger and richer, they should start with Sarmiszegetusa and also make a city like Buridava, Piroboridava or anything with -dava cause dava means city in dacian as I remember.
Herodotus said that Dacians were the most brave and powerful from the many people of thracians. They should have more armour and no romphaias cause this were moesian. Some units like Tarabostes( heavy cavalry) , Drapanai(falxmen) , armoured falxmen, or Komati ( skirmishers)

[Zarax]

Thrace is supposed to represent both.
Early faction represent Odrysian thrace, while post reform it's supposed to be more Dacian in focus.

[Kirila the Kitten]

I didn't know that Odrysians were so powefull...
What about the units?

[Squigg_XXIII]

Sinope was conquered later on, in 275 Pontus was pretty much confined to the area around Amasia.

The sacred band were definitely heavy hoplites ("armed in the greek manner") and while it was never mentioned anymore as a unit it represents the cream of the citizen militia, which fought intensively in the truceless war (likely in the classical form) and the 3rd punic war (where it was likely reformed in the thorakitai style).

The switch towards heavier liby-phoenician units is represented in game, both early with lesser quality civic units and later with them replaced by liby-phoenicians.

If you wish to discuss historical accuracy issues then you should also provide sources to support your point of view

Plutarch's Life of Timeleon documents the battle but after re-reading the source I evidently misread the piece

[Zarax]

Plutarch is right about the battle, however the citizen army rose again out of dire necessity after the 1st punic war.
There is no direct mention of the sacred band, however under a skilled general like Hamilcar they managed to beat the cream of the crop of the punic mercenaries, veterans of the 1st punic war that turned against their former employer.

If you're interested about it, this is an excellent book: http://books.google.it/books/about/T...0C&redir_esc=y

Cristixe, here's a quick read about the Odrisai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odrysian_kingdom

[Archesel]

Another addition that could be right: Scytian/Sarmatian standard horse archers are half-nude, like they were in vanilla, aren't they? So knowing how the climate is in the steppe, maybe add them a shirt (like in RTR, EB...)?

[Kirila the Kitten]

Another addition that could be right: Scytian/Sarmatian standard horse archers are half-nude, like they were in vanilla, aren't they? So knowing how the climate is in the steppe, maybe add them a shirt (like in RTR, EB...)?

I agree with this!
Actually no more half-naked guys except Naked fanatics.
They weren't so tribal keeeeee

[Archesel]

+1 cristixe. I live in what was Northern Gaul at the time, and i'm saying you how cold it can be

[Stath's]

I also agree to less naked units.

[Zarax]

It is possible of course but we're quite short on manpower, especially on the artwork side so we cannot promise anything fast.

[debux]

Sorry for the necroposting, but maybe you might want to consider asking for permission to use Diadochi TW's barbarians (you can see a few here)... from what I remember, most of them used shirts, no need to retexture what already has been textured (although there is a difference in colour intensity)

[romanius24]

Thoughts on the berserkers? The vanilla model is too cartoony for the game IMO.
Some mods use specialists to represent such fighters. Like RS's Wolf Warriors (stealth light infantry) and Bear Warrior(Heavy melee based infantry).

Also any chance to change some of the remaining pink parthian units? Most of the mod has neutral colored units but Parthia still has pink uniforms and even some pink sprites one white units.(like that sparabara one)


Happy new year! RTW 2017!

[Zarax]

Unfortunately artwork is something we're very short on manpower and what little we have right now is focused on building icons.
We'd like to give more attention to it but right now it will come after building trees reorganization and unit roster refresh.

[romanius24]

I think there are some unit variants already in that can replace the models for the pink ones.(Horse archers, spearmen)

Are you planning to make the starting recruitment more accurate? In XC4 lots of factions start with very limited units even though based on their history they should have access to some better units by that point in history.
Perhaps starting with just the capital but some units like Hypaspist, Hetairoi, Triarii, Elephants, Hoplites and others were already 'recruitable' and have fought in battles before the start date.

I think there is some balance to be found between gameplay progression and historically accurate starting recruitment.

[Zarax]

I'm taking this into consideration, however it won't be easy to implement.

Two possible roads:

1) The simple way would be to give high level barracks in the capitals at start
2) Massive rebalance of both units and recruitment that would entail the following:

- Flattening base unit stats so that units would differ mostly in equipment rather than skill at start
- Barracks system would have to give experience bonuses rather than recruit new units at higher levels
- To further differentiate and keep a semblance of realism we'd have to increase recruitment times so that for example cheap levies would be 0 turn and elites 4-5 but this has its own set of issues.

There's a possible alternative that I'm trying to design that would work like this:

1) Barracks would stay more or less the same as now
2) The requirements for building higher level barracks (and their upkeep) will become more complex, making harder to build them
3) This will however be compensated by a new local society system that would allow you to recruit local or factional elites in smaller numbers as general units.

Advantage: It would keep the best of both worlds
Disadvantage: You would have to check the bodyguard of each recruited FM in order to see their bodyguard unit

[romanius24]

I think the units could be split in tiers when it comes to balance.
Levies - available everywhere from the starting barracks: Light infantry, cheap cavalry, slingers, archers, skirmishers.


Professional - available after some conditions have been met.(having the right government type, blacksmith, food building training field, pastures for cavalry).
This would be the second tier barracks and should require multiple other buildings but it should open up recruitment to everything except the faction's elite units.
Elite - should be restricted and require specific a government so that they can only be recruited in the native lands.

Another option which would be interesting is to split cavalry into its own building so that the player has to decide between improving farms or using the land for pastures. A decision that had to be made historically by the leaders.


I think the stats would need to be rebalanced so that the difference isnt that big between the different tiers and has mostly to do with equipment and morale/skill. Units upkeep and prices would also help a lot to keep things balanced.

The advantage of something like this is that it would get rid of the unnecessary barracks buildings that just add 1 or 2 extra units.
It can also still work with the decision to have an allied government or factional. It would just give access to 3 different buildings that give either natives or factional units.



I dont think using generals as units is a good idea. I remember a mod trying to do that but they eventually decided against it after they tested it.

[Zarax]

Yes, we do have in plan a whole socio-economic system regarding recruitment and economy in general, in which you can choose between a stronger famer-warrior class and a semi-feudal society.

As for the barracks proposal:
3 levels imply longer building times for the elites in order to maintain balance and some historical accuracy, I'm not sure many players would like that.

BTW: There is no such thing as cheap cavalry, with the partial exception of the nomadic factions.

[romanius24]

I wonder if instead, the elites could be balanced with high upkeep or price instead of turn time. In any case they shuldnt go past 2 turn times for recruitment.

[Zarax]

Unfortunately that would simply cripple AI...

[romanius24]

Are you doing anything different with the merc pools in XC5?
I played a Bactrian campaign recently and the Seleucids were basically using the large unit pools and their income to stack spam.

I am not sure if its a good idea to offer more than 1 of any unit even if its just levies. The instant recruitment time is simply too powerful for any kingdom with a large economy.
Is it possible to start the game with mercs depleted? I think some AI factions spend their starting money on mercs.