Saba issues

[pgt1027]

Hey, great mod, but I noticed what I are some issues when I was playing Saba

As anyone who's played Saba knows, you start out with a single city and one of the first things you do is attempt to capture the city just adjacent to yours.

So, my first battle was a siege using one of the Arabian town models

1. There seems to be noticeable invisible walls along the alleyways of the town, maybe caused by the doodads along it. The effect was that, when my men were fighting their way through the streets, they were all very unnecessarily crowded together like a can of sardines right int he center of the street while the sides of the street were completely empty

2. Either battles are lasting too long or my troops are tiring too fast. The siege took hours to finish. I mean, I put it up to x6 speed and it still took what at least felt like an hour. This may be partially due to the fact that my men had to fight through a strange invisible bottleneck.

3. The enemy noble guard/militia doesn't seem to run out of arrows. The fight lasted at least an hour or two and they were continuously firing arrows throughout it. They only stopped firing arrows when they were shaking hands with my men.

4. After I had captured the town, I tried to put up a Saba administration, and I noticed that the requirements for that include having at least 30% Eastern Imperial culture, but it looks like the Saba are Eastern Tribal States, not Eastern Imperial.

[Cryoshakespeare]

Yes, I began a Saba campaign just this morning, and I'm into the 100th turn or so. I'm enjoying the game a lot, but there are a few things I'd like to give my opinion on.

Firstly, melee battles are slow. Now I recognise that perhaps that's intended, you're given more time to make tactical decisions. But in that first siege that the OP was describing, I found myself too having x6 speed and still feeling that the battle was excessively drawn out. I had set three breach points and had my men fighting in three alleys leading towards the town square. This is about as tactical as I could be. Yet it still was a lengthy haul.
I think I preferred the increased damage-vs-defence skill relationship going on the EB II. My reason for that is because it makes stamina a very important factor in determining the eventual outcome of a battle, as (correct me if I'm wrong) a unit's defence skill seemed to decrease significantly at low stamina (and possibly their attack too). I think fresh Drapanai should have a much merrier time cleaving through some exhausted Komatai who are engaged with a guard-mode light phalanx than they currently do. In general, it feels like the soldiers lack any vim and vigour that fuels their offensive capabilities - an example coming to mind: My Ethiopian Spearmen have no armour but excellent stamina and good attack, yet they still die relatively slowly and kill relatively slowly.

Now aside from all that, I'm enjoying the game a lot. But the combat needs some major tweaking in my opinion if it is to be made to feel alive again. Really awesome job in general guys, I'm greatly looking forward to the further tweaks and releases!

[Yuko]

Saba seems to be made to slowly evolve into eastern imperial culture (can't stay as a tribe forever) and the battles being way too slow is an issue with the entire mod.

[Moros]

Saba starts out as eastern tribal but can evolve to eastern imperial, though you can choose to keep tribal as well.
You have two types of government, both can be upgraded. One is tribal the other imperial, as the Sabaean federation was a mix of both. You choose whether to let the allied tribes govern the settlement and when ready allow it to be part of the allied tribes (upgrading it if an amount of eastern_tribalism is reached). If you choose imperial you will have complete direct control, but unless you get your province to assimilate with your imperial culture, (so that you can upgrade your royal admin), you will not be able to gain troops there. You can fasten and/or improve these processes by building the right temples. A hint Almuqah is the god of the Sabaean dynasty, while Atthar is a widespread god in South Arabia. Do note that the higher levels of government, especially in the royal branch of government, might be geographically limited. Also the higher levels of royal governments, which will provide you with the khamis units, need high level of farms (royal ones to be exact as they lived of the personal farm lands of the Malk).

Also I'm writing a guide on the government system. I'll post it within a week.

[bovi]

If you feel the combat is too slow, one fairly easy thing to tweak is the values at the top of mods/EBII/data/battle_config.xml. Experiment to find the pace you prefer.

[Moros]

If you feel the combat is too slow, one fairly easy thing to tweak is the values at the top of mods/EBII/data/battle_config.xml. Experiment to find the pace you prefer.

Yes indeed.

I've set them to

  <combat-balancing>
    <missile-target-accuracy>
      <infantry>0.5</infantry>
      <cavalry>0.55</cavalry>
      <elephants>0.66</elephants>
    </missile-target-accuracy>
    <melee-hit-rate>0.44</melee-hit-rate>
  </combat-balancing>

Which to me feels better. Still slower and more realistic than vanilla, but not going overboard. It also make missiles more effective.

[Wulfburk]

So its safe to say you guys will change those numbers (bring them up a bit) for the next patch as well? (and not just do in your own build hehe)

[Moros]

So its safe to say you guys will change those numbers (bring them up a bit) for the next patch as well? (and not just do in your own build hehe)

At the moment there's some discussion about it, but no final decision. Either way, if things don't go to my liking I'll have to change it in my build and will probably share my edits over here in case people want a similar gaming experience.

[Hectic32]

How does the evolution from tribe to imperial work? Also, is there any kind of wiki-like information base to read in depth on mod features and mechanics? Like a lot of people I've been waiting a long time for this mod and am very familiar with EB1, but through the first few turns of EB2 I feel lost in the features I don't know.

[Moros]

How does the evolution from tribe to imperial work? Also, is there any kind of wiki-like information base to read in depth on mod features and mechanics? Like a lot of people I've been waiting a long time for this mod and am very familiar with EB1, but through the first few turns of EB2 I feel lost in the features I don't know.

There isn't a wiki. If there's ever to be one fans will have to make it though as we have so much to do already.

For the Sabaeans a guide will be coming soon.

[Cryoshakespeare]

Great, I'm going to try to tweaks now Moros

I have to admit, an EB II wiki would be awesome...

[Theodotos I]

Hey, great mod, but I noticed what I are some issues when I was playing Saba

As anyone who's played Saba knows, you start out with a single city and one of the first things you do is attempt to capture the city just adjacent to yours.

So, my first battle was a siege using one of the Arabian town models

1. There seems to be noticeable invisible walls along the alleyways of the town, maybe caused by the doodads along it. The effect was that, when my men were fighting their way through the streets, they were all very unnecessarily crowded together like a can of sardines right int he center of the street while the sides of the street were completely empty

2. Either battles are lasting too long or my troops are tiring too fast. The siege took hours to finish. I mean, I put it up to x6 speed and it still took what at least felt like an hour. This may be partially due to the fact that my men had to fight through a strange invisible bottleneck.

3. The enemy noble guard/militia doesn't seem to run out of arrows. The fight lasted at least an hour or two and they were continuously firing arrows throughout it. They only stopped firing arrows when they were shaking hands with my men.

4. After I had captured the town, I tried to put up a Saba administration, and I noticed that the requirements for that include having at least 30% Eastern Imperial culture, but it looks like the Saba are Eastern Tribal States, not Eastern Imperial.

As far as the invisible walls, chalk that up to the custom town models. It's just an unavoidable side effect--but hey, at least you don't have to fight Roman-era battles in medieval towns, right? Small blessings.

[pgt1027]

Saba starts out as eastern tribal but can evolve to eastern imperial, though you can choose to keep tribal as well.
You have two types of government, both can be upgraded. One is tribal the other imperial, as the Sabaean federation was a mix of both. You choose whether to let the allied tribes govern the settlement and when ready allow it to be part of the allied tribes (upgrading it if an amount of eastern_tribalism is reached). If you choose imperial you will have complete direct control, but unless you get your province to assimilate with your imperial culture, (so that you can upgrade your royal admin), you will not be able to gain troops there. You can fasten and/or improve these processes by building the right temples. A hint Almuqah is the god of the Sabaean dynasty, while Atthar is a widespread god in South Arabia. Do note that the higher levels of government, especially in the royal branch of government, might be geographically limited. Also the higher levels of royal governments, which will provide you with the khamis units, need high level of farms (royal ones to be exact as they lived of the personal farm lands of the Malk).

Also I'm writing a guide on the government system. I'll post it within a week.

Hey, speaking of which, do you know when you can set up a Saba government in a town?

The city directly above Maryab (can't remember its name right now) only had an alliance available after I conquered it. I'd like to turn it into a proper Sabaean state, but I'm not sure how.

[Moros]

That means you need eastern tribalism to rise before you can build it in Qarnawu (that's the name ). Either you wait after you conquer or let the rebels build the village up for you.

It might also be that they have to upgrade from village to town. I usually conquer it last of all the Yemen-South Oman provinces. By then the settlement tends to have walls, but as it has a relatively weak garrison and since your economic power should already have grown, I prefer that option. Usually when I conquer it I should be able to build the first levels of both the tribal and the royal government building.

[Trym]

Does anybody have the time to explain how to change to Eastern empire culture?
I understand it has something to do about the culture?
What do I have to do exactly to get the reform triggered? I have build the royal temples in all my settlements.

Regards

Trym

[Funeh]

It happens around turn 130... Just keep building Imperial buildings (read description - even the lore and history description might help) and it will happen I guess when you have certain levels of Imperial culture..

[Moros]

imperial governments and temples of Almuqah should help gain imperial culture. If a certain threshold is gained you will gain the ability to updgrade your government buildings (requiring you have build up your farms enough). If you keep increasing imperial culture the refroms will unlock after a certain amount.

[Trym]

Hm, I got the imperial culture now, but I don't see much change? Was thinking maybe some new unit types or something?
What is the advantage of getting Imperial?

[Moros]

Hm, I got the imperial culture now, but I don't see much change? Was thinking maybe some new unit types or something?
What is the advantage of getting Imperial?

It should allow you to build the highest government building in certain regions which has the best benefits and will allow you to train khamis unit there (in a way it allows you to spread culture and your factional imperial units in a limited area). Currently the effects aren't as big as there aren't many tribal units currently in the game. They will be in the next big release (not hotfixes or patches), which will allow us to differentiate between royal and tribal governments more as well as making the reform more effective. Were you able to build khamis in other provinces (except Saba) before the reform? If that's the case, there might be some errors in recruitment. If so I'll fix them ASAP.

[Trym]

I don't think I was able to recruit them in other than in my capital. Now my empire culture is rising nicely and I am able to build better government buildings as you said.

What is the best way to rise my culture in cities without enough tribal or empire culture. I need one of them above 25% it seams to build culture rising buildings?
I conquered a couple of cities in India, but I can only select allied state type governments
Will bringing my faction leader bring up my culture levels?

Trym