RS2's Future and Mod Ideas:

[20ninescene]

Epirus was already dead at the start of RSII

[FOR GONDOR]

You've got a point there but I fear they'll have to remove units from the game in order to include those african elite troops in RSII

Yeah they might but that might not be such a bad thing as there are several units in RSII that are blatant copies and have no iduvidualness to them, take for example celtebrian spearmen.. they look exactly the same as Arvecii spears, same stats, same cost, pretty much some everything, as well as there are other units that are the same as those, so thats 3 units that are basicity the same exact unit, thus making it redundant you could turn it all into one unit calling it "Heavy tribal Spearmen" or something along those lines. as well as with the greek factions there are a lot of units that can also be turned into a single unit, for example Throkati units, they are pointless in my mind, as well as thueropori (literally probably one of the most useless units) there are a variation known as Macedonian Thorkati, thueropori, why don't they just go with the same thing as using "Greek thorkati" thus freeing up a few more spaces for newer more substantial units that would make the game more challeneging (like the elite african units) I am sure there are other units that are pretty much the same throughout the game that have no reason to be their own separate entities.

[20ninescene]

Yeah they might but that might not be such a bad thing as there are several units in RSII that are blatant copies and have no iduvidualness to them, take for example celtebrian spearmen.. they look exactly the same as Arvecii spears, same stats, same cost, pretty much some everything, as well as there are other units that are the same as those, so thats 3 units that are basicity the same exact unit, thus making it redundant you could turn it all into one unit calling it "Heavy tribal Spearmen" or something along those lines. as well as with the greek factions there are a lot of units that can also be turned into a single unit, for example Throkati units, they are pointless in my mind, as well as thueropori (literally probably one of the most useless units) there are a variation known as Macedonian Thorkati, thueropori, why don't they just go with the same thing as using "Greek thorkati" thus freeing up a few more spaces for newer more substantial units that would make the game more challeneging (like the elite african units) I am sure there are other units that are pretty much the same throughout the game that have no reason to be their own separate entities.

Those units you mention do make historical sense, for example thorakitai where a later development on thureophoroi

[FOR GONDOR]

Those units you mention do make historical sense, for example thorakitai where a later development on thureophoroi

No what I mean is that take for example Macedonian Throkati, Spartan Throkati, and Greek Thorkati, they are all around the same in stats so why not just combine them all into just one unit called Thorkati.

[20ninescene]

Post 1:

Historicaly the spartans never used thorakitai (alrough they were planned), so you could remove that unit in RSII and fill the same slot with elite african pikemen for carthage

Post 2:

Another unit you could add are hysteroi pezhetairoi phalangites. They were a later development of the pezhetairoi and wore chainmail instead of linothorax armour and they had wooden shields instead of bronze shields. They were also better trained. btw: I also thought about giving the eastern late legions lorica squamata (scale armour) instead of lorica segmentata. Historically they used this kind of armour in the east because after the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae the romans realized that lorica hamata (and later lorica segmentata) didn't provide enough protection against parthian arrows (which could penetrate mail and plate armour). The roman scales from the imperial era also provided more protection in melee combat because they had locking scales (in contrast with the lorica squamata used in the republican era, which provided even less protection in melee than the lorica hamata). Here's a pic of an eastern legionnaire https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...f9c5b9dc8e.jpg

[Iskandar]

I think having the same units stats-wise but with different skins and names contributes to the diversity and immersion factor of RS 2. After all, those examples you guys mentioned were similarly trained, had similar equipment and yet were part of different tribes/faction. But just imagine if you had only one (!) unit of celtic spearmen for all the celtic/celtiberian tribes - that is from half Iberia through most of western and central Europe...


And another thing, on what historical evidence are you basing your proposal for Carthaginian pikemen?

[20ninescene]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar..._of_Xanthippus

[dvk901]

It would really do no good to change any of the units mentioned, since both the DMB and EDU are maxed out. All of those units use a similar model...removing 'a' unit that uses the model wouldn't remove the 'model'...it would just reduce the variety. Besides, as best we could, all of these units were historically represented...even to the point of archeological museum pieces. The 'elite african' unit is mentioned nowhere except on TWC or the Org...AFAIK, it is a made up unit. Even Carthage's 'Sacred Band' units, at the time RS2 starts, are a 'stretch' and may not have (probably did not) existed in 217BC. Still, they are 'elite'...how much more elite can you get?

Also, many units in RS2 were used to create small 'mini-factions' in that they have a few troops available in a small area that surrounds their region. This was done to create a bit of diversity, and since RTW can't have more than 21 factions. It was also done so that various swap factions could be created so you could actually play them.

I think having the same units stats-wise but with different skins and names contributes to the diversity and immersion factor of RS 2. After all, those examples you guys mentioned were similarly trained, had similar equipment and yet were part of different tribes/faction. But just imagine if you had only one (!) unit of celtic spearmen for all the celtic/celtiberian tribes - that is from half Iberia through most of western and central Europe...
And another thing, on what historical evidence are you basing your proposal for Carthaginian pikemen?

It is a fact that Carthage's soldiers were trained by Greek (Macedonian) officers around this time.....which is one reason Rome and Macedon were not best friends. So the use of pikemen is quite plausible, since Macedon still used this antiquated form of military doctrine.

[jrhindo]

Hey Wraith of eternal doom are those pictures of yourself you have as avatar?

[FOR GONDOR]

The biggest thing is the Reforms that I mentioned in the last page and what I suggested about the greeks, Units are not as big of a concern.

[dvk901]

So I have been reading through this thread (at the moment I am on page 12 as I write) and I just wanted to put a few things down

In the beginning there was a lot of talk about why the reforms for the romans were necessary, and that they had to reform to deal with ever more powerful enemies. well I think I have thought of a solution.
Give reforms to everybody in some shape or form.

For example: Carthage can have a reform later in the game after winning a set number of victories against the romans or barbarian culture thus unlocking higher tier soldiers for the carthaginians to field like the late libyian spears, as well as unlocking the potential to train up perhaps newer more unique soldiers (carthage has a rather limited roster aside from mercanaires)
the more Gallic and spanish tribes could have reforms similar to EB in which they reform based upon a set amount of buildings, so then when the reform hits they now have access to those more heavily armored units and in the beginning they can field more medieum armored troops.
if more factions have reforms then that gives the player more incentive to reform because if everybody else has and suddenly they are being swamped with higher stacks they now might see the benefit in reforming the armies.


anouther suggestion that I have would be to also merge the "Free Greeks" faction with the "free cities" faction as lets be realistic here, they are basicity a third rebel faction for most people, I certainly don't treat them anything more than the rebel faction because thats what they kinda are, so if they are merged with the Free cities faction that will open up a slot for a new faction to be implemented, like perhaps a british faction or maybe numidia, or something, or you could also merge Sparta with a corinth and olympia to form a League and a few other greek cities into a new league with would be more benificial and add in some diversity, as I have played as the "Greek Cities" faction and its just really all over the place, there is no cohesion to it, hence why I personally treat it like its a rebel faction. you could perhaps make athens its own faction, or add in Epirus. Maybe even Thrace. also sorry for posting so much lately I have just been thinking of many ideas.

Ok, I will rspond to this...didn't see it before. First of all, reforms. The game mechanics for reforms in RTW is very poor. There is only one 'mechanism', and that was called the Marian Reforms, a reform triggered by building an 'Imperial Palace' in a specific city, and all units with a 'conditional': and_not_marian_reforms, would then disappear from recruitment, and those with 'and_marian_reforms' would then appear. There was\is no other way to create a reform other than through a building. Traits don't work....nothing does, except a building.

I wanted to implement reforms for the Greek factions, and 'sorta did' simply because they had too many units in the cues and they were causing CTD's in the later buildings. But there was opposition from some on the team who said...rightly...that a lot of people preferred and expected to play with pikemen and older units. So where possible, I left them in and let the player make the choice of what he wanted to play with.

Carthage, on the other hand, was not truly 'Greek', and not Roman, of course. Their military was based on 'whatever they could pay for', and was almost entirely mercenary. Furthermore, Carthage wasn't really an infantry based power..they were a sea power, and that's where their citizens who DID fight, largely fought. But even then, an troops on ships were still mercenaries. And lastly, Carthaginian armies were commanded, of course, by Carthaginian Generals...but also by Greek officers largely provided by 'sympathetic' Macedonian Greeks. These officers trained in what they knew....pike-phalanx warfare. Macedon never changed this...to their doom, as the Romans crushed them with cohort Legions. In RS2 we give all Greek factions 'reform' units...as many actually did try to match Rome's style of warfare...but in truth, only a few really used them...Seleucid, Pergamon and perhaps Pontus.

The reforms of EB....and forgive me, I am not being critical...simply were not a historically based 'occurrence'. It's one thing to to give a player a more powerful and heavily armored unit than the one you could recruit in the previous building, but that is not a 'reform'...that is a 'game mechanic'. A reform is when an entirely new way...or military doctrine of how to fight a battle, is implemented. Therefore, Rome pahsing from pike-phalanx warfare (at which they sucked) to the 'maniple' Legions. And then from the maniples to the cohorts...completely different styles of fighting and formation\military organization. The Greeks..in particular, Seleucid, attempted to do this by implementing more Roman-style units, but by then it was too late for them. Rome had had years to master it.

In terms of the two 'Free People' factions...the Free Barbarians and the Independent Greeks...a LOT of people have said 'why did you do that?' Why not make them some cool faction like (insert name)? Well, for one reason, I wrote RS2's code with swap factions in mind...so if I wanted, I could add almost any faction that people really wanted. For another, these two factions are a powerful balancing factor in RS2. You could remove the two and add a couple factions, but they would have a minimal effect only in the area where you put them. The two Free factions (other than the 'slave' faction), on the other hand, have a much greater effect on the whole map, and they slow expansion of AI factions considerably. They can even slow the player as well. AND, it is these two factions that represent all of the 'mini-factions', with units that can only be recruited by them in certain areas. So even if we couldn't add them as 'factions', per se, we did add many of their units.

Finally, please bear in mind that we did our level best to make RS2 'as historical as possible', and still provide an enjoyable game\mod. Epirus and Thrace were long gone by 217BC...which is why they were not even considered. Likewise, merging regions with others to form non-existent 'Leagues' is, well, just a sort of CA thing.
Great for a game, but not much on the history part.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your ideas and I know they are just what you would like to see. I really appreciate your interest in RS2, and keep thinking of things. There is much I would still like to do with this old girl.

[FOR GONDOR]

What I mean is that you have the free greeks, athens, corinth, and so on, then you have the free barbarians, and then also free cities, it just seems pointless to have such a large amount of baisicly rebel factions, the Free Greeks faction is too large to be effective, and as previously mentioned having leagues doesn't make sense as the greeks were too combative with each other to make them last very long, so having them all as one faction make no sense because then it seems like they are all under one king and what naught, what could be done is transfer them into being an actual rebel faction, thus adding in a single faction slot, that can as well act as a swap out faction, like say you add Athens as its own playable faction, it can then be anouther swap out so you don't need to swap syracuse out when playing a syracuse campaign, or what would be better would be to add in an English Tribal power as the Belgae are not actually british tribe but a gallic one who expands into britain, this would then give them a challenge for the expansion into England, or you could add in anouther faction to fight with the camber so they are not the only german faction, what the best option would be though would be adding in Thrace itself.

[Iskandar]

It is a fact that Carthage's soldiers were trained by Greek (Macedonian) officers around this time.....which is one reason Rome and Macedon were not best friends. So the use of pikemen is quite plausible, since Macedon still used this antiquated form of military doctrine.

Well, actually there is no mention of change in equipment regarding Xanthippus' reforms. There is, to my knowledge, no mention at all of Macedonian phalanx during any of the three Punic Wars. What we have is "phalanx", which is a general term (and is several times applied to the roman legion as well), and "longchophoroi" which refers to spear in general and not the sarissa in particular. Further, there is no physical evidence of sarissas being used (and remember, Rome captured Carthage's armory after the city's capitulation).

Xanthippus was a Spartan mercenary, not a Macedonian. Greek factions started reforming and adopting Macedonian phalanx around the time of the 2nd Punic war, not the 1st. I find it hard to believe that he would champion such a reform overseas, before it has made it's way in his own native Greece. Combined tactics on the other hand - certainly, that was the trend that Iphikrates, Philip and Alexander introduced.

One other thing to consider is the manpool for this Macedonian phalanx. With Carthaginian military being a general mix and match between mercenaries and local tribesmen, it's kind of hard to find a dedicated manpool for a phalanx, the way the Diadochi had them. Your only option is basically the citizens of Carthago herself, and once again, there is no mention of them fighting in such a style.

[20ninescene]

Post 1:

Hey Wraith of eternal doom are those pictures of yourself you have as avatar?

Yeah, why? btw: this is off-topic so you should ask this in pm or on my profile


Post: 2:
Why don't add religion to RSII? You could add paginism/politheism (whatever you want to call it, historically polytheistic religions often adopted gods of eachother or had a different name for a similar god(des) and this was one of the reasons that different poletheistic religions were relatively tolerant to each other, so it would be a good idea to have them represented as one religion), and also Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Also making a version of each campaign with hording enabled for barbarian and nomad factions would be great.

[dvk901]

What I mean is that you have the free greeks, athens, corinth, and so on, then you have the free barbarians, and then also free cities, it just seems pointless to have such a large amount of baisicly rebel factions, the Free Greeks faction is too large to be effective, and as previously mentioned having leagues doesn't make sense as the greeks were too combative with each other to make them last very long, so having them all as one faction make no sense because then it seems like they are all under one king and what naught, what could be done is transfer them into being an actual rebel faction, thus adding in a single faction slot, that can as well act as a swap out faction, like say you add Athens as its own playable faction, it can then be anouther swap out so you don't need to swap syracuse out when playing a syracuse campaign, or what would be better would be to add in an English Tribal power as the Belgae are not actually british tribe but a gallic one who expands into britain, this would then give them a challenge for the expansion into England, or you could add in anouther faction to fight with the camber so they are not the only german faction, what the best option would be though would be adding in Thrace itself.

Well, as I mentioned elsewhere, Thrace was gone. Adding them as a faction would be unhistorical. You do have a point about making Athens a playable faction. That could easily be done through the 'swap faction' process we used to get around the faction limitations of RTW....RS2 actually provides a way to play 25 different factions, just not all at the same time.

Well, actually there is no mention of change in equipment regarding Xanthippus' reforms. There is, to my knowledge, no mention at all of Macedonian phalanx during any of the three Punic Wars. What we have is "phalanx", which is a general term (and is several times applied to the roman legion as well), and "longchophoroi" which refers to spear in general and not the sarissa in particular. Further, there is no physical evidence of sarissas being used (and remember, Rome captured Carthage's armory after the city's capitulation).

Xanthippus was a Spartan mercenary, not a Macedonian. Greek factions started reforming and adopting Macedonian phalanx around the time of the 2nd Punic war, not the 1st. I find it hard to believe that he would champion such a reform overseas, before it has made it's way in his own native Greece. Combined tactics on the other hand - certainly, that was the trend that Iphikrates, Philip and Alexander introduced.

One other thing to consider is the manpool for this Macedonian phalanx. With Carthaginian military being a general mix and match between mercenaries and local tribesmen, it's kind of hard to find a dedicated manpool for a phalanx, the way the Diadochi had them. Your only option is basically the citizens of Carthago herself, and once again, there is no mention of them fighting in such a style.

If I said 'Macedonian Phalanx'...I misstated myself. I meant they were taught the phalanx style by Macedonian officers. But, as you mention, not necessarily with the actual weapons associated with it. Just like the Romans, the phalanx 'formation' could be used with anything long and pointy...even a pilum.

Post 1:

Yeah, why? btw: this is off-topic so you should ask this in pm or on my profile


Post: 2:
Why don't add religion to RSII? You could add paginism/politheism (whatever you want to call it, historically polytheistic religions often adopted gods of eachother or had a different name for a similar god(des) and this was one of the reasons that different poletheistic religions were relatively tolerant to each other, so it would be a good idea to have them represented as one religion), and also Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Also making a version of each campaign with hording enabled for barbarian and nomad factions would be great.

I have toyed with it...even have a campaign in which I was starting to work on it, before I got caught up in changing all the settlements.

[20ninescene]

I have toyed with it...even have a campaign in which I was starting to work on it, before I got caught up in changing all the settlements.

I can do the settlements for you, I implemented religion in EB before but I never released it. It seems a lot of work but it's actually not that hard. edit: if you want just send me a list with all things that need fixing and I'll fix them for you btw: I noticed that some unit sounds in RSII are missing, maybe you could fix that

[Sint]

pike-phalanx warfare. Macedon never changed this...to their doom, as the Romans crushed them with cohort Legions

That was less the problem of pikes than that of them not using enough support troops and cavalry wasn't it...?The phalanx itself was still effectiv when used right.

[dvk901]

That was less the problem of pikes than that of them not using enough support troops and cavalry wasn't it...?The phalanx itself was still effectiv when used right.

In a nutshell, yes.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

In a nutshell, yes.

The Pyrrhic War(s).....

The tactical flexibility of the manipular legion proved ultimately decisive and more effective overall in many battlefield situations (ie against more than phalanxes). It's a case where, it would seem from what's available, that rigorous training, discipline and organised tactical control was an effective counter against the, almost irresistible, force of the advancing phalanx. The phalanx, however, as it always was (Greek hoplite onwards), relied upon cohesion of the battle-line. Once broken, things tended to unravel.

Those wars, in particular, were very bloody - the phalanx did not just rollover and play dead!

[FOR GONDOR]

i do like the idea of adding those phalanx units as an upgrade to the Agema Phalanx units, as they were the final evolution of the pike phalanx, especially if they would wear thracian helmets, which could be accurate as they also recruited these types of phalanxes from more than just greeks, it became a "we need everyone right now" type of professional phalanx.