AOR/ZOR

[Zarax]

I'm starting to work on a full AOR system for BI-XGM (MM-XGM requires a lot more work and will be implemented later) so that more customization avenues and working rebels will be a possibility...

Actually we have hellenic (all historical greek colonies), iberia (spain), italy, africa and lately eastern plus a few other single city zones.

Easy add-ons could be celtic (gaul and england), german, tracodacia, maybe persia (for a few eastern possible AOR units like companions and median cavalry) and sarmatia (if we want recruitable sarmatian mercs).

Now, what are your ideas? Do you think more zones are needed? What provinces should be in each zone?

The scope of this thread is to make a detailed list of what zones every province should belong, so that the final result will be the game province list with the zones for every one of them.

The List

Stuff in bold has already been implemented. The unit lists are tentative. I think we should aim for maybe one or two units in each area.

africa: Desert Infantry, Numidian Cavalry.

italy: Early Italian Infantry (Hastati), Late Italian Infantry (Legionaries)

hellenic: Greek Mercenaries

crete: Cretan Archers.

rhodes: Rhodian Slingers

palma: Balearic Slingers

illyria: Illyrians

cilicia Cilician Pirates

galatia Galatian Swordsmen

iberia: Scutarii, Celtiberian Cavalry (probably longshield)

eastern: Eastern Infantry

barbarian: Barbarian Infantry, Barbarian Cavalry, Barbarian Swordsmen (?)

steppes: Horse Archers, Scythian Axemen (?), Scythian Lancers (?)

thrace: Thracian Peltasts

media: Median Cavalry

[zodmaner]

Can you provide us with a full list of a current system? (What unit belongs in what region, etc.) That would make it alot easier to give comments.

I have a suggestion for Italy AOR (if it hasn't been implemeted yet )

Latin Infantry (NOT the renamed Samnite infantry.)

-Will be recruitable in: Italy regions (namely, all Roman provinces in Italy.)
-Will be a pre-marius unit: A same kind of infantry as those of hastati and principes with a slightly lower status and no pillums. (We can use a modified skin of hastati or principes for this unit.)

Latin Legionary

-Will be recruitable in: Italy regions (namely, all Roman provinces in Italy.)
-Will be a post-marius unit: Similar to Roman legionary but have lower status and quality. (Don't have excellent moral and stamina, no pilums and no ablility to make a testudo formation.) For this one I think the skin for early legionary would be perfect, you know the one that use lorica hamata-chainmail thing instate of lorica segmentata.

This two unit represent the possibility of what would happen if the Roman regions got capture-that even though some of the Roman military system and tradition survive the occupation, they have declined from their former glory, result in troops that, while still retain the charecteristic of Roman legion, have lower quality and discipline. Since most of this is pure guessing I'll appreciate any feedback you have. This two units should have status lower than their counterparts, but should be about equal to most of sword infantry found in civilized factions. (With Latin Legionary maybe slightly better then most run-of-the-mill sword units.)

This two units would act as a kind of "reward" for having conqured the Romans, especially for the barbarian factions who is in a dire need of a quality heavy infantry. And while most civilized nation, especially the Greeks , won't be needed them that much anymore in XGM compared to vanilla , could still use a good heavy infantry.

For the east I would like to see some kind of horse archer in an AOR (be it samatian or eastern or anything.) This would greatly benefit the Seleucid player who don't have a counter unit for them.

[DimeBagHo]

The latin infantry sound like a good idea. I also want to move away from using merc units and merc skins for local levies. I think one way to do this would be to use the slave skins and colour scheme. This has several advantages: (1) Less work because many of the low level units already have slave skins. (2) The slave skins actually look pretty good (well, a lot better than the merc ones anyway). (3) Keeps things close to the vanilla look and feel. I know some people regard this as a minus, but I still find it immensely useful. (4) Any new skins could be used to expand the recruitment options for the slaves/rebels.

[Zarax]

I completely agree with DBH, I also wouldn't mind using the slave skins for merc units when possible, as they are quite better looking than the vanilla ones...

DBH, could you please post the latest descr regions code so that we can use it as base template here?

[DimeBagHo]

I have attached the most recent descr_regions.txt for the vanilla map. Here's a list of the hidden resources currently in use (larissa is no longer used for anything, nobuild is used to block the construction of certain buildings):

athens corinth sparta crete rhodes syracuse illyria larissa rome italy africa iberia carthage palma hellenic eastern alexandria silk_road nobuild

I think we should start working out a tentative list of regions and units. I'll start adding one to the top post.

[zodmaner]

The latin infantry sound like a good idea. I also want to move away from using merc units and merc skins for local levies. I think one way to do this would be to use the slave skins and colour scheme. This has several advantages: (1) Less work because many of the low level units already have slave skins. (2) The slave skins actually look pretty good (well, a lot better than the merc ones anyway). (3) Keeps things close to the vanilla look and feel. I know some people regard this as a minus, but I still find it immensely useful. (4) Any new skins could be used to expand the recruitment options for the slaves/rebels.

Agree, using vanilla skin with saves us a huge amount of work and time.

I've to say, DBH, after I've seen and play with what you have done with the egypt. I start to have a change of heart with the vanilla skins: they can look good if used correctly.

Glad that you guys like my idea about Latin infantry. I intended the Latin Legionary to be a replacemnt for Latin infantry if you conqured post-marius Romans, that's why I think it should be a little stronger than Latin infantry. Latin infantry is a shadow of pre-marius Roman military might while Latin Legionary is a shadow of post-marius Roman Legionary.

[DimeBagHo]

I've to say, DBH, after I've seen and play with what you have done with the egypt. I start to have a change of heart with the vanilla skins: they can look good if used correctly.

I'm glad you like them. I've just started a major war with the Egyptians in my current campaign and I have to say I like crushing the new units.

On the subject of horse archers - historically the Seleucids never did come up with a counter to Parthian horse archers, and they never managed to hire enough of their own. That's actually what killed them in the end. Maybe we need a Persia region that would be the very east of the vanilla map, and of course a larger area on Mundus Magnus (wouldn't hurt to add a bactrian region even further east on Mundus Magnus).

I think one western barbarian region would do, and maybe one north-eastern one for the steppes. A thracodacian region sounds like a good idea, and I think it would also be good to replace the Thracian Illyrians with a Thracian Peltast unit that they can recruit in their starting territory.

[Zarax]

Well, Seleucid got the perfect horse archer killer in XGM... Gastraphetes.

More than horse archers I think the seleucid could benefit more with a single turn recruitment medium/heavy cavalry, and median cavalry seems an excellent candidate as it can be implemented using a modified cappadocian cav model with axe (and AP attack) and shield so that they got a versatile unit that can take on infantry and heavy cavalry alike, especially if we equip them in a similar way to the EB unit...

[DimeBagHo]

Median cavalry sound like a good idea to me. The Seleucids made extensive use of them before they started to get over-run by the Parthians. *Edit* Adding a Numidia region might be good as well - in north-west Africa. *Edit 2 * I've done a small trial with Illyrian Peltasts, and everything seems to be working as expected. There will probably be a handful of other local levies available when 3.6.0 comes out.

[DimeBagHo]

I am thinking about making Balearic Slingers, Rhodian Slingers, and Cretan archers recruitable by anyone in their home regions (maybe just the civilised factions). If I do I will probably scratch the two unique GCS units. BTW, the top post has been updataed with some of the units that are already done.

[zodmaner]

A suggestion for regions in Italy AOR:

Etruria
Umbria
Latium
Apulia
Campania
Bruttium

This 6 provinces will include Italian Infantry (can be recruited by all factions), Latin Infantry and Lation Legionary (both of which can only be recruited by non-romans.)

EDIT: Suggestion for regions to be included in Iberia AOR:

Gallaecia
Lusitania
Baetica
Celtiberia
Taraconenis
Hispania

...and will included all the units listed above in Zarax's post.

[DimeBagHo]

The ones in bold are already done (Africa, Italy, Hellenic, Illyria, Iberia, Eastern). The ones that need to be done are: Barbarian, Steppes, Thracodacia, Persia, Media.

Barbarian should cover the western barbarian areas: Briton, Gaul, Germany, and maybe some bits around the edges. It might be good to split this up if we can come up with some good ideas for local units.

Steppes should cover the far north-eastern barbarian areas (i.e. Scythia, and surounding regions).

Thracodacia should cover the starting regions for Thrace and Dacia - maybe a bit more.

Media and Persia should be in the far south-east. On the vanilla map I think they should be just one province each, on the edge of the vanilla map. On Mundus Magnus they could cover a larger area.

[Zarax]

Hey, could anyone post with the code tags what has been done so far? I'm finally back from abroad and able to work on XGM again!

EDIT: I'm downloading 3.6.3, did you actually put out GCS cretans and rhodians?

[DimeBagHo]

Welcome back Zarax. In the end I decided to keep the GCS versions of Cretan Archers and Rhodian slingers (renamed to Picked Cretan Archers and Picked Rhodian Slingers) but the mercenary versions are now AOR units recruitable by any faction. The list at the top is up to date The region names are the ones used in the code, and the stuff in bold is what has been done so far.

[Zarax]

Thanks DBH, I'm going to test the new build and let you know if I can come out with some new ideas...

[DimeBagHo]

I've made a few changes to the list. Clician Pirates recruitable in Cilicia have been added. I've also made a few changes to the unit as well.They no longer have horde formation (which is just too much of a pain to use) and they get more harpoons with a lower attack. I still can't make up my mind what unit to use for the hellenic region. Levy hoplites don't seem right. They require too much state organisation, so factions which don't have their own levy hoplite units shouldn't be able to recruit them. Hoplites are too good, and it would be weird if non-Greek factions could recruit them when the Greek factions themselves can't. Thorakitai are a possibility, although few other factions would have that much use for them.

[Kara Kolyo]

what about recruitable merc hoplites? right now for me they are single battle unit. and they were used quite extensively, at least in the period right before the game starts. not shure what was the situation after that. this will represent quite well the hellinisation of the region they are recruited, maybe they should just become more expencive and 2 turns to get? so they won't be that easy to get in big numbers?

[Zarax]

Recruitable greek mercenaries, available with city barracks for greeks too, after all GCS employed lots of mercenaries in that timeframe, and hoplite style units weren't faded out (after all a thorakitai is still quite similar to old style hoplites only with improved armor and tactics)... Pretty much balanced for the level and not so cheap to maintain.

All in all a solid defensive unit that will be outclassed by more advanced oppontents in time... Maybe you should tweak thorakitai stats a bit in order to make them more competitive, after all they were an high class (if not elite) unit.

[DimeBagHo]

I've made hoplites the hellenic AOR unit, and increased the cost, and the recruiting time to 3 turns. In some future version I will probably do a fair bit of rebalance (especially with unit costs) and that time might come down, but for now I want to keep them in short supply.

[Zarax]

That's good, are there any missing areas after last update DBH? I'm finally able to work again on XGM...