RSII "Five Good Emperors" Questions, Suggestions & Discussion

[Ballacraine]

This is looking extremely promising, Chris.

An ambititious sole undertaking, with which you appear to be coping admirably.

As an Old School Blood, Snot & Guts Grognard, I heartily approve of what you are trying to do.

I do also offer a word of caution though.

Be very careful with the balance.
There is a very fine line between granite hard & futile.

During the beta testing of RS2 there were times when turn after turn I was getting the same settlement beseiged by full stacks of Arverni.
IIRC it went on for 20 odd game years.
Needless to say, it got satisfactorilty rebalanced, by the bosses.

Gawd bless 'em, each & every one!

Balla.

[military tribune]

nice map and glad to hear you are in testing run. btw, what happened to the terra incognita?

[chaplain118]

Have you considered using something akin to the RTR regions concept where only key cities are capable of producing high quality troops while other cities can only make levies? And in conjunction with the garrison script so that when you take insignificant cities far away from the enemy's key cities, the garrison will spawn some very weak troops, but the closer you get to the enemy key cities the better troops are spawned until elite troops are spawned at the key cities. That way, it would put a damper on AI stack spamming as well as throw in an element of strategy when the player wages war.

[chris10]

Have you considered using something akin to the RTR regions concept where only key cities are capable of producing high quality troops while other cities can only make levies? And in conjunction with the garrison script so that when you take insignificant cities far away from the enemy's key cities, the garrison will spawn some very weak troops, but the closer you get to the enemy key cities the better troops are spawned until elite troops are spawned at the key cities. That way, it would put a damper on AI stack spamming as well as throw in an element of strategy when the player wages war.

ummmm....having in mind 12.000 script lines written mostly manually it is a bit late for considerations
as we speak about a 1Turn recruitment campaign weak garrisons are not an option as the AI can not field troops quick enough once the player is on the offensive...only way to stop a steamrolling is having beefy garrisons.
And there we are...the Garrisons...I think nobody who never edited a Garrison script by hand can imagine the amount of work as all Settlements can have various possible owners and the AI is so unpredictable in what it will do and who goes on conquest and who got eliminated quick.
I have carefully choosen and edited all garrisons..there are faction default ones, area specific ones and capital elite garrisons but making it dependant on the distance of a capital would be far to much...apart from that in 50% of all times they wont be in the hand of their original owner anyway once the player get there and the amount of work to be invested in this is far to big compared to the stategic impact such setting would provide in a campaign.
Iam testing the campaign at the moment and believe me...you wont be short on the strategy element...in fact if you not plan your conquest carefully and assure logistic you are going to loose for sure...
if the RTW enigne would be a bit more flexible a lot of cool things could be done but with a 200 province cap there is not endless room for in depth grand strategy unfortunately....

nice map and glad to hear you are in testing run. btw, what happened to the terra incognita?

Its blue ...Roman Rebels territory...noticed it when I toggled fow...Its Spartans666 edited Map which inlcudes a few great tiny changes...

This is looking extremely promising, Chris.
An ambititious sole undertaking, with which you appear to be coping admirably.
As an Old School Blood, Snot & Guts Grognard, I heartily approve of what you are trying to do.
I do also offer a word of caution though.
Be very careful with the balance.
There is a very fine line between granite hard & futile.
During the beta testing of RS2 there were times when turn after turn I was getting the same settlement beseiged by full stacks of Arverni.
IIRC it went on for 20 odd game years.
Needless to say, it got satisfactorilty rebalanced, by the bosses.
Gawd bless 'em, each & every one!
Balla.

Thnx...you are right with the balance...although lets not forget this is 1Turn. So there is a natural limit on how much troops the AI can field in a certain amount of time....
I play a test campaign on H/H at the moment....Its insane but fun ...maybe its best played on H/M but I suppose everything depends on how much veteran somebody is

[chris10]

A few shots on how things going
I take the opportunity to make a few essential statements on how to's ...

1. Building necessary Infrastructure before thinking about Marian Reforms. There wont be generic Legionarys to fill the gap.


2. Recruit Local Allied Troops for North Italy defense They are cheaper than Polybians but very good,too


3. Scipios Grandson ...Doin a fine job holding back the Averni with local Massalian Troops while the Republic masses troops in Carthago Nuevo to conquer Spain. EDIT: ...lost him and 80 % of the army in 611AUC due to the ing plague ...grrrrffftttjjjjxxxxx


4. Dont be to selfconfident ...You will need all those. Spain will be a hard nut to crack. There is a revolt waiting for you and an emergency arises somewhere else Any less on troops will result in the entire loss of the Invasion Force.Before I go attacking I will add 2 further levies Armys from North Africa...mainly Light Lybian Spearmen and Skirmishers...cannon fodder...but I think I need them

[wardyuc]

Hey i posted before. Maybe you didnt see, maybe you saw and ignored. But how hard would it be to make this 0 turn?

[Nota']

Late libyans? cannon fodder? They are the best pro soldiers carthage has without going elite?

[Imperator_OfRome]

Read it again.. It actually says Light libyan

[Ballacraine]

Looking at the last posted screenshot, Chris.

You have a lot of full stacks there, especially for one turn.

Surely the upkeep of those is going to be a major drain on your economy, even without developing your regions?

Balla.

[chris10]

Looking at the last posted screenshot, Chris.

You have a lot of full stacks there, especially for one turn.

Surely the upkeep of those is going to be a major drain on your economy, even without developing your regions?

Balla.

massing forces for the blow on the Gallaeci....trust me,you need those....

this is part of the concept...creating enough resistance to force the player to concentrate on one theatre...with that the player has no ability to fight all over the places and steamroll......
yes..its draining on the economy...without proper city developement this is not possible
Iam in 611AUC and yet to deliver the blow against Spain...from there I transfer all forces to take Greece to finally be in place for the Reform around 640 AUC...

after all....this has to provide a challenge for the most experienced players otherwise It would be a useless concept, wouldnt it ?

[Ballacraine]

I take it you are going for the hammer blow method then.

Would grinding attrition not work?

That is the way I normally expand.

I appreciate your point that the Gallaeci are rock hard though.
I learnt to respect the Arevaci Spearmen a long time ago!

Balla.

[chris10]

I take it you are going for the hammer blow method then.
Would grinding attrition not work?
That is the way I normally expand.
Balla.

I know...it ever worked in 1Turn like that but the normal ways wont work here anymore and this is on purpose...
It was time for something new and unexpected...unfair for eveybody new to RTW but a fresh brise of air for every real veteran RTW player.
There are beefy Garrisons spawning and dont forget about the Counterattacks on taking certain citys and as I said before...there is a hidden revolt in Spain and an emergency will arise somewhere else ...going there with 3-4 Legions would mean loosing them all and all Settlements too
Everybody who will play this the old way will have a bad surprise...
New strategys are requiered as the ususal attrition will not work as before (mainly due to the fact that the AI will sent 1 or 2 silver chevron units against you) as casualties are far more on par so when you get a bad streak the attrition is the same for the player and you get draining your citys which will have a fairly negative impact on your tax income

[Ballacraine]

I can appreciate what you are trying to do & I approve of that.

Where possible though, do leave options for the player.

It is making the choices of how, where & when that make the game interesting.

I can think of a few mods that at various times railroaded the player into playing in a fixed manner.
It wouldn't be fair to discuss them, but I think it is a situation worth avoiding.

Balla.

[chris10]

I can appreciate what you are trying to do & I approve of that.

Where possible though, do leave options for the player.

It is making the choices of how, where & when that make the game interesting.

I can think of a few mods that at various times railroaded the player into playing in a fixed manner.
It wouldn't be fair to discuss them, but I think it is a situation worth avoiding.

Balla.

No..there is no fixed way of doin things..player can start with conquering Greece or Gaul or whatever he finds convenient...only thing is that players have to concentrate on 1 theatre at a time or they will probably fail as they will lack the forces and/or the economy to deal with more than one enemy at a time...like in real world: wars on more than 1 front are difficult to win

[Sephiroth88]

I have a question about this mod that I could not find and answer to (I didn't read all the thread tho so if it was already said somewhere I'm sorry). Once it is released and installed, will we be able to continue to play with the normal RSII campaign if we install it in the same folder, or will we need a different installation to be able to play both?

[chris10]

I have a question about this mod that I could not find and answer to (I didn't read all the thread tho so if it was already said somewhere I'm sorry). Once it is released and installed, will we be able to continue to play with the normal RSII campaign if we install it in the same folder, or will we need a different installation to be able to play both?

I provide the entire Play_Rome_One_Turn folder...
People can make a copy of the original folder and swap in and out replacing the entire campaign folder to play either vanilla or the expansion

[Ballacraine]

Neat!

Just watch those savegame files if you swap 'em though.

Balla.

[S6k6l6v]

Players have to be a lot smarter in this Campaign as they will have to overcome various problems like being outnumbered, unexpected setbacks, economic inability to fight in more than one theatre at a time and maybe entirely lost invasion forces who need to be replaced.

I'm having all these problems in my current RSII campaign, so I don't think I'm yet veteran enough for this beast, still this looks great

[DarthLazy]

Is the Spain Revolt imitating Quintus Sertorius???

[chris10]

Is the Spain Revolt imitating Quintus Sertorius???

not really ...it was more a dramatical measure to simulate a last rear up of the Gallaeci tribes before their inevitable conquering and by doin this it fitted another purpose related with another emergency somehwere else...

Hey i posted before. Maybe you didnt see, maybe you saw and ignored. But how hard would it be to make this 0 turn?

This is already near to impossible for 1Turn when playing on H/H. I hardly can imagine that it would make the 0Turn game better then it actually is..the 0Turn dynamic is very different to the 1Turn mechanic.
I answered the same question from somebody else in post 71 an thought you had seen it ....
At this moment Iam not thinking of porting it to 0Turn but if there are enough people asking for it I would consider it.