Thread: [Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

  1. #3221

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Colest View Post
    The one I saw hadn't been updated since 1.1

    Since it everything short of sacrificing a chicken to the warscape gods to get the steam version of DEI to run on my comp without freezing at the launcher I'm hesitant to try out a mod that is likely out of date. If you think it still works though I'll try it.
    Well, a mod like that only needs to change one variable in the game's tables, so it should be fine. Probably hasn't needed to be updated since then (though it is possible that I'm wrong). It's not a DeI-specific mod, is it? You'd just have to make sure it's named higher alphabetically than the DeI mod files. Also I do recommend using the 2-part standalone version of DeI over the Steam version. It's the same mod, but 2 parts instead of 8 means that it's a bit more stable.

  2. #3222

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Iridium31 View Post
    Fair enough.

    The issue I have with the historical narrative of recruitment boils down to what would and wouldn't be possible. Take any unit really. They were trained in a certain fashion, equipped in a specific way, fought in a specific way, etc. The reality is there isn't much difference if you take another person, regardless of culture, ethnicity, place of origin, what have you, and train and equip them the same way. A Macedonian trained and equipped as a Bronze Shield isn't functionally different from a Persian trained and equipped as a Bronze Shield. Same training, same equipment, same unit. Giving it a different name to mark the distinction between Macedonian and Persian is utterly irrelevant. Outside of differences in morale due to social pressures anyway .

    Now, getting the infrastructure up to train and equip those soldiers or convincing them to fight for you in far away lands is another matter. I suspect most of the historical reasons are more related to the latter of the two, or reasons completely unrelated to whether they had the ability to field faction specific equipment/training to foreign people (many of which would likely be looked upon unfavorably by many modern cultures).
    I like where your mind is going. The individual can be trained, in actuality, however you want. In many cases, the individual is the same, but there are small cultural differences in my opinion that could change over time. (These could be techs to allow you train non traditional units maybe.)

    Example: The Persians vs Macedon during Alexanders invasion: The Persians had a very good military that gets little credit by many part-time historians. Their cavalry and archers were very good and sometimes elite.

    The vast majority of their infantry were archers, some with shield men in front and near worthless levy javelin men (the same as most of these "light" troops in other armies, which would cook or man the baggage train and "fight" as light troops in battle). These archers wore little or no armor for speed and maneuverability. In their element they were superb. Yes, you can train a spear man to fight in different fashions as the Persians did with Cardakes. They trained their own "hoplite" infantry, to combat the greeks, and their battle success was terrible. Who knows how good they would have became if they didn't get ended so quickly. The Persians still had to recruit very large numbers of Greek mercenary hoplites to support their infantry forces.

    When they came to grips with an infantry force whose culture were more adapt to hand to hand combat, and that was arguably one of the best infantry of all time, they had to give ground. This would not usually be a problem because they usually had cavalry superiority, which was not usually the case against the Greeks. Most of their cavalry (that fought Alexander early in his campaign) fought with javelins and retained one for hand to hand combat but were some of the best horsemen on earth at the time. The heavy cavalry under Alexander came from a lifetime (and generations) of hand to hand combat, which adopted true formation shock combat, proved to be their undoing. The Companions were possibly the first true shock cavalry in history. IMO great cavalry is raised, not trained. If there is not a strong cavalry tradition, then it is unlikely you will become great cavalry even some training. Rome did not train Numidian cavalry, but relied on allied or mercenary Numidian Cavalry (and gaulish, germanic, etc).

    So yes, if you had men that were used to fighting in hand to hand combat, you could train them in all manner of weapons, be it a sarrisas, or a bit harder train them as swordsmen (closer combat). So culture does make a difference. Its hard to take Rhodian slinger, who grew up "having to knock bread from a tree limb to eat with a sling" (may or may not be true and may have been Balearic ?) would not make a great hoplite at first. Training a man for a few months to fight as a hoplite is different than enlisting one that knew from an early age that knew he would one day take is place in a hoplite formation and had trained as an early age how to use a shield and spear. It took near 3 years to train the persian levies into macedonian style infantry and they seemed to have pretty good success in their battles, though ancient historians (Macedonians and Greeks mostly) tend to rarely mention them. So men could be trained to all manner of weapons, but if men were available that may already have the ground work laid are available, you use them first. The Successors settled men of Hellenic, Thracian, Pisdian, etc. culture so they could train their sons in that culture and of course because they would have little love for the local inhabitants.

    When Alexander came to grips with Horse Archers and heavier cavalry (early cataphracts) in the eastern provinces, he adopted them into his cavalry forces. He of course didn't train Macedonian horse archers, as his limited supply of men had a different niche. He also didn't seem to incorporate javelin cavalry into his forces though his successors at some point (maybe Phyrrus in Italy) decided that javelin cavalry was more useful since their cavalry numbers were dwindling from the constant wars and the migrations of nobles to Asia.


    In regards to the temples, I don't consider it gamey at all. It could easily be argued the temple building represents a major temple, with new regions keeping smaller, more local places of worship around after the building itself is gone. It could be argued it's not an actual physical building at all, but the infrastructure designed for the purpose of indoctrinating the local populace. Plus, they're not exactly free to put up and tear down. I always keep one there in one of the regions too, usually the main region in a province.
    I tend to use that word a lot and it was the incorrect term. Gamey IMO is anything that kills immersion, but I guess the better word is "exploitation" of the game engine and AI. The AI will not build 2-4 temples in a province to increase conversion and then destroy all but one. You (everyone likely has, including me) has used this exploit to increase conversion and PO (and other bonuses). I like the idea of "infrastructure" to increase conversion of the province to your culture, but this would not just be building a temple or not building a temple and would likely stay there for a very long time or be the main city/town building.

    This would be you making a direct attempt at destroying their culture, not waiting for them to see the benefits in yours. When kingdoms or empires tried to force this on inhabitants it would be through mandates, destroying their local temples, etc. which would cause huge PO problems and not make the populace happy in any sense of the word. Kind of like changing a government type to Empire in game and having large PO problems that would dwindle with time. But you would not want to do this immediately (instant rebellions in newly conquered provinces) or at all (content people pay taxes, provide AOR troops, and don't revolt).

    You would want the region/province to settle down and become happy with your rule, then you could decided to force them (integrate the province into one of your core provinces; expensive and HUGE negatives at first) or let it happen slowly. As of right now, it is just another way for us turn out perfect provinces, with happy people, generating thousands of denarii, willing to fight and die for us. None of this need to affect the AI, as they are getting huge PO, money, food bonuses already. JMO and I apologize for not using the correct, conventional term.

    Thanks for reading.
    Last edited by JCB206; February 18, 2018 at 03:21 PM.

  3. #3223

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Augustusng View Post
    Well, a mod like that only needs to change one variable in the game's tables, so it should be fine. Probably hasn't needed to be updated since then (though it is possible that I'm wrong). It's not a DeI-specific mod, is it? You'd just have to make sure it's named higher alphabetically than the DeI mod files. Also I do recommend using the 2-part standalone version of DeI over the Steam version. It's the same mod, but 2 parts instead of 8 means that it's a bit more stable.
    Yeah but... then I have to manually update it every time

    I didn't know that the manual one was more stable. I'll keep that in mind if I come across stability issues.

  4. #3224

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I made that statement to point out how the inability to field "faction units" in foreign lands was probably often more related to societal reasons rather than functional reasons. You could conceivably go over to Celtic lands as Rome and train and equip the locals as Romans and declare them Hastati/Principes/legions/whatever. Unfortunately, that might tarnish the greatness of Rome. Much of the soldiery classifications were entirely based on "these guys are bigger special snowflakes than these guys". This mindset likely played just as much of a role in where the "true" units were fielded.

    Getting to how this applies to a campaign... I'd wager virtually zero campaigns play out historically. Most aren't even close. Being a historical mod it should certainly try to make many elements line up with what we believe to be historically accurate. In other cases I think it's reasonable to let the player decide based upon their choices in a campaign. I think the way things stand now it strikes a decent balance between the two. Whether it's too easy to reach the point of assimilating a foreign region is subjective. I'm sure there are submods around to push that aspect one way or the other.

    None of this is to say there is no possibility for improvement, or no legit reason to discuss how the system works.

    In response to the temples, eh... Given the limitations of the AI it could be argued most stuff is exploitative. Most of that is also subjective and, once again, should probably be up to the player. I'm not claiming you're wrong, just that it doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.

  5. #3225

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Iridium31 View Post
    I made that statement to point out how the inability to field "faction units" in foreign lands was probably often more related to societal reasons rather than functional reasons. You could conceivably go over to Celtic lands as Rome and train and equip the locals as Romans and declare them Hastati/Principes/legions/whatever. Unfortunately, that might tarnish the greatness of Rome. Much of the soldiery classifications were entirely based on "these guys are bigger special snowflakes than these guys". This mindset likely played just as much of a role in where the "true" units were fielded.
    I don't think you read everything I wrote. I gave an example of a failure to train men as Cardakes (hoplites) and how persian men were trained as Macedonian style troops. It took much longer to train them. The Cardakes are thought to have been raised not long before Alexander's invasion. The persian men trained on Alexander's orders had taken 3 years from the time of the order and they met the field army. Now I'm sure they had to identify them, organize them, put them through a boot camp, maybe even do some fighting against rebels, and catch up to Alexander's Army before the Indian campaign. I have every reason to believe these men had a very good tract record. They must have fought in most of the great battles of the Successors with more being trained continuously. Maybe the greatest battle of Diadochi involved 70-80,000 Macedonian style pikemen. I was saying that if these "persian pikemen" had done ANYTHING to bring discredit to themselves, these Macedonian and Greek historians would have brought to the forefront like that of the Cardakes causing the Persian king to lose the Battle of Issos. They must not of and they just left them out. So you could train them, just not quickly.

    I also stated, "So men could be trained to all manner of weapons, but if men were available that may already have the ground work laid are available, you use them first."

    If the men were there as AOR troops, you would use them first before spending large amounts of time training men to fight in ways they were not accustomed to. But it could be done. Train men from Celtic lands to fight as "Hastati/Principes/legions/whatever". No problem. Those men's culture had plenty of men accustomed to hand to hand contact. The Romans adopted many war items (mail shirts) from the Celts. After the Marian reforms, some generals would raise troops locally to fight as legionaries as Caesar did in Cisapine Gual. You can raise troops from anywhere and declare them anything you want. In that case, he raised men that had probably fought before (men in this area fought alot like roman infantry) and armed and trained them as he saw fit. They went on to great success.

    But you don't take Sarmation HAs and train them as swordsmen when you have more suitable manpower sources and you don't train Roman citizens as HAs in a couple of weeks.

    I stated that "IMO great cavalry is raised, not trained." You don't take a man that has never sat a horse and train him as jav cavalry IF you had Numidian cavalry that could be raised as allies or mercenaries. My comment had nothing to do with infantry. Cavalry take a MUCH longer time to "train" as most would have been riders for a very long time and usually from childhood. Thats why cavalry come from nobles in game.

    Getting to how this applies to a campaign... I'd wager virtually zero campaigns play out historically. Most aren't even close. Being a historical mod it should certainly try to make many elements line up with what we believe to be historically accurate. In other cases I think it's reasonable to let the player decide based upon their choices in a campaign. I think the way things stand now it strikes a decent balance between the two. Whether it's too easy to reach the point of assimilating a foreign region is subjective. I'm sure there are submods around to push that aspect one way or the other.
    Yes there are, though none that yet fit what I am describing and thats fine. I was giving my input to how we can make the mod more historical and you keep looking for ways that I am trying to change how you expand your empire in the game. Of course the campaign doesn't play out historically. Every choice we make, changes history and thats the fun part. We can abandon Rome and take your armies to Antioch and conquer the East and forget the Mediterranean Empire. Fun to try, but your army would eventually look much different than the western mediterranean one that it became. Much as the Seleucid armies had many Eastern components.

    None of this is to say there is no possibility for improvement, or no legit reason to discuss how the system works.
    This is all we are doing and the mod team can decide if they could change something that would be more historical and create more immersion. The byzantine army looked much different than the western empire due to its contact with the east.

    In response to the temples, eh... Given the limitations of the AI it could be argued most stuff is exploitative. Most of that is also subjective and, once again, should probably be up to the player. I'm not claiming you're wrong, just that it doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.
    It is up to the player in some sense. But if you DON'T build the temples you will likely face revolt. Most of the great Empires; Romans, Persians, even the Mongols later, allowed their people to worship their own gods and the provinces didn't revolt until the empires became corrupt and they couldn't protect them. You are saying your play style is to build lots of temples and mine is to let your culture naturally seep into the region as it usually happened. But, in game, you are rewarded with a building that has zero negatives and I just have to deal with it. Thats not leaving it up to the player.

    I am enjoying this conversation greatly and hope I am not offending anyone. I love this mod because historical accuracy is encouraged and the DEI team is by far the VERY BEST at looking at historical accuracy, as well as gameplay. They actually take this conversation into account when its possible. It has the very best features (like AOR) that allow for greater immersion and your army can look very different as time goes along by incorporating foreign troops into your armies (until the foreign population runs out in some cases).

    As far as the AI goes, most of my ideas are only if it helps the AI. Thanks for the chat. Again, not trying to offend anyone by mentioning ideas that increase historical accuracy but may go away from concepts that are a part of every Total War game.

  6. #3226
    FlashHeart07's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    @JCB206 , discussions like this is always good And you dont offend anyone by discussing history and propose possible changes to the mod as long as people take into consideration (you seem to do this), that we are in many aspects limited by the game engine and the AI when it comes to all of this.
    There are a lot of good ideas concerning diplomacy, many which Greek_Strategos and I have discussed, ideas that Dresden have already tried and fiskes due to game limitations. Its sad but its what we got

    But dont be discouraged. Keep discussions going


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  7. #3227

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I don't know if these issues have been already discussed, but I'm sick and tired of tweaking settings with the PFM everytime a DeI update comes out:

    1. The barbarian research building, the loremaster's hut - why those small research points for barbarians? 2, 4 and a "whopping" 8 points for a level 4 research building?? It's almost not worth building the damn thing! Oh, and I know that non-argument: "the barbarians were not as civilised and learned as the greeks, the romans and the eastern factions". Why it is a non-argument? Because the barbarians have their own tech tree, which is different from the one for greeks, the one for romans and the one for eastern factions. The way it is right now, it looks like they're slow and stupid to research their own means and technology, which is really absurd and unfair not only gameplaywise, but also in a historical perpective. Please fix it.

    2. The second issue relates to the first one: why the research building for Rome, the scriptorium and such, costs food (I'm speaking about level 3 and 4 research buildings)? Because the greeks' research, the lykeions and such, don't cost any food, eastern factions research buildings don't cost any food and, the irony, not even the loremaster's hut of the barbarians, which I addressed above, costs any food. Why these strange stats?
    Last edited by Vladdy Daddy; February 19, 2018 at 07:36 AM.

  8. #3228
    FlashHeart07's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Vladdy Daddy View Post
    I don't know if these issues have been already discussed, but I'm sick and tired of tweaking settings with the PFM everytime a DeI update comes out:

    1. The barbarian research building, the loremaster's hut - why those small research points for barbarians? 2, 4 and a "whopping" 8 points for a level 4 research building?? It's almost not worth building the damn thing! Oh, and I know that non-argument: "the barbarians were not as civilised and learned as the greeks, the romans and the eastern factions". Why it is a non-argument? Because the barbarians have their own tech tree, which is different from the one for greeks, the one for romans and the one for eastern factions. The way it is right now, it looks like they're slow and stupid to research their own means and technology, which is really absurd and unfair not only gameplaywise, but also in a historical perpective. Please fix it.

    2. The second issue relates to the first one: why the research building for Rome, the scriptorium and such, costs food (I'm speaking about level 3 and 4 research buildings)? Because the greeks' research, the lykeions and such, don't cost any food, eastern factions research buildings don't cost any food and, the irony, not even the loremaster's hut of the barbarians, which I addressed above, costs any food. Why these strange stats?
    As it seems like we havent touched those entries for some time, you shouldnt need to redo the edits everytime we release a new update. At least not if you create a submod automatically overwriting these entries.

    Considering the amount of building entries in the mod, it wouldnt surprise me if these things have simply gone unnoticed and the same thing most likely applies to your, if any, earlier posts regarding this issue.
    Consider your observations noted
    And indeed these and other buildings need minor changes.

  9. #3229
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Well...there is around 20k manually tweaked building effect entries and there is only one person working on them so easy to miss.
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  10. #3230

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Thank you. I've posted those issues because they're very old and because it seemed to me that nobody cared. Anyhow, I would suggest assigning 5 research points to level 2, 10 to level 3 and 20 research points to the level 4 research building for barbarians, just like the romans and the eastern factions have them (I think in the vanilla version they had them assigned this way as well, but I can't even remember playing Rome 2 without DeI).

  11. #3231

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by JCB206 View Post
    I don't think you read everything I wrote. I gave an example of a failure to train men as Cardakes (hoplites) and how persian men were trained as Macedonian style troops. It took much longer to train them. The Cardakes are thought to have been raised not long before Alexander's invasion. The persian men trained on Alexander's orders had taken 3 years from the time of the order and they met the field army. Now I'm sure they had to identify them, organize them, put them through a boot camp, maybe even do some fighting against rebels, and catch up to Alexander's Army before the Indian campaign. I have every reason to believe these men had a very good tract record. They must have fought in most of the great battles of the Successors with more being trained continuously. Maybe the greatest battle of Diadochi involved 70-80,000 Macedonian style pikemen. I was saying that if these "persian pikemen" had done ANYTHING to bring discredit to themselves, these Macedonian and Greek historians would have brought to the forefront like that of the Cardakes causing the Persian king to lose the Battle of Issos. They must not of and they just left them out. So you could train them, just not quickly.

    I also stated, "So men could be trained to all manner of weapons, but if men were available that may already have the ground work laid are available, you use them first."

    If the men were there as AOR troops, you would use them first before spending large amounts of time training men to fight in ways they were not accustomed to. But it could be done. Train men from Celtic lands to fight as "Hastati/Principes/legions/whatever". No problem. Those men's culture had plenty of men accustomed to hand to hand contact. The Romans adopted many war items (mail shirts) from the Celts. After the Marian reforms, some generals would raise troops locally to fight as legionaries as Caesar did in Cisapine Gual. You can raise troops from anywhere and declare them anything you want. In that case, he raised men that had probably fought before (men in this area fought alot like roman infantry) and armed and trained them as he saw fit. They went on to great success.

    But you don't take Sarmation HAs and train them as swordsmen when you have more suitable manpower sources and you don't train Roman citizens as HAs in a couple of weeks.

    I stated that "IMO great cavalry is raised, not trained." You don't take a man that has never sat a horse and train him as jav cavalry IF you had Numidian cavalry that could be raised as allies or mercenaries. My comment had nothing to do with infantry. Cavalry take a MUCH longer time to "train" as most would have been riders for a very long time and usually from childhood. Thats why cavalry come from nobles in game.
    I get what you're saying. I'm not disagreeing with the notion it takes time to convert a foreign people to a completely different approach to war. It's my understanding for much of antiquity armies weren't exactly what we would classify as professional, however. They didn't have extensive formal conditioning, training, equipment provided by the state, etc. It's less about the training and more about the way ancient cultures approached war before the advent of systems designed to create a more organized, formal approach to it (not to mention cultural/societal views on different forms of combat, other cultures, war in general and a million other things, many of which we probably don't even know about).

    It stands to reason it would take some time for local Persians to gain access to Macedonian phalangite style equipment and get enough exposure to all of the nuances of such an approach. Especially if their "training" is taking place in their spare time between doing their routine tasks, or briefly before they march off to war.

    Let me put it this way.... It's hard to ask Romans to fight as Sarmatian HA's if those Romans don't have horses and had limited exposure to fighting in such a fashion. If you decided to give them Sarmatian horses, Sarmatian equipment and formal training fighting as Sarmatian HA's the results would be different. It's not going to take 20-30 years for them to learn how to perform sufficiently as Roman HA's. They may not be up to par with the Sarmatians but they would at least be functional.

    Quote Originally Posted by JCB206 View Post
    It is up to the player in some sense. But if you DON'T build the temples you will likely face revolt. Most of the great Empires; Romans, Persians, even the Mongols later, allowed their people to worship their own gods and the provinces didn't revolt until the empires became corrupt and they couldn't protect them. You are saying your play style is to build lots of temples and mine is to let your culture naturally seep into the region as it usually happened. But, in game, you are rewarded with a building that has zero negatives and I just have to deal with it. Thats not leaving it up to the player.
    I mean, diplomats with +PO traits, generals with +PO traits/ancillaries, armies on patrol and admin missions do far more than a few level 1 temples to thwart rebellions. Even diplomats and generals with the right traits can contribute far more to cultural conversion compared to a few temples. Besides, something has to take the place of that barracks/stables/workshop the AI spams in every region .

    I usually play on VH campaign, so without all of the above and aggressive looting it's a good bet the province is going to chain rebel every turn or so for 10+ turns, whether level 1 temples are in each region or not.

    Except it is up to the player. You said yourself you used to take such an approach and later chose not to do so.

    Quote Originally Posted by JCB206 View Post
    I am enjoying this conversation greatly and hope I am not offending anyone. I love this mod because historical accuracy is encouraged and the DEI team is by far the VERY BEST at looking at historical accuracy, as well as gameplay. They actually take this conversation into account when its possible. It has the very best features (like AOR) that allow for greater immersion and your army can look very different as time goes along by incorporating foreign troops into your armies (until the foreign population runs out in some cases).

    As far as the AI goes, most of my ideas are only if it helps the AI. Thanks for the chat. Again, not trying to offend anyone by mentioning ideas that increase historical accuracy but may go away from concepts that are a part of every Total War game.
    No offense taken. It's a discussion on a forum . Ideas to create a more immersive and realistic experience are always welcome.

  12. #3232

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by Iridium31 View Post
    I get what you're saying. I'm not disagreeing with the notion it takes time to convert a foreign people to a completely different approach to war. It's my understanding for much of antiquity armies weren't exactly what we would classify as professional, however. They didn't have extensive formal conditioning, training, equipment provided by the state, etc. It's less about the training and more about the way ancient cultures approached war before the advent of systems designed to create a more organized, formal approach to it (not to mention cultural/societal views on different forms of combat, other cultures, war in general and a million other things, many of which we probably don't even know about).
    We are on the same page here. The conversation about professionals and militia has been had. The team decided that the difference in pay and stats between levies, regular troops, and elites signified this enough for the game system.

    The the 3rd Century BC, the Hellenic Kingdoms/Empires were issuing equipment and training by the state. Carthage was likely doing this with their Libyan subjects. I'm sure there are other examples, though the majority of kingdoms could not afford to do this. Yes, it was about their culture and the martial prowess they were brought up with. I doubt a Carthaginian merchant would fare well against a Macedonian phalanx without extensive training. (Yes, I know that some Carthaginians would do just fine.) No arguments in this paragraph, we agree.

    It stands to reason it would take some time for local Persians to gain access to Macedonian phalangite style equipment and get enough exposure to all of the nuances of such an approach. Especially if their "training" is taking place in their spare time between doing their routine tasks, or briefly before they march off to war.
    The ones I was talking about were not training on their off time. They were trained by state, by order of the king. I doubt they had day jobs. Because their numbers were already very high vs Greco-Macedonians, I doubt the Successors trained any more, until the time the Egyptians did it. It wasn't a new concept.

    Let me put it this way.... It's hard to ask Romans to fight as Sarmatian HA's if those Romans don't have horses and had limited exposure to fighting in such a fashion. If you decided to give them Sarmatian horses, Sarmatian equipment and formal training fighting as Sarmatian HA's the results would be different. It's not going to take 20-30 years for them to learn how to perform sufficiently as Roman HA's. They may not be up to par with the Sarmatians but they would at least be functional.
    We agree. Most of them could do it and it would take awhile and they would likely be inferior and rather expensive. Better to hire Numidians or levy some Tarintine cavalry from allies to fulfill their role. Men that had been likely riding and learning for most of their lives.

    I mean, diplomats with +PO traits, generals with +PO traits/ancillaries, armies on patrol and admin missions do far more than a few level 1 temples to thwart rebellions. Even diplomats and generals with the right traits can contribute far more to cultural conversion compared to a few temples.
    I gather how to keep the populace happy and convert them. What I am saying is why do I have to gain majority culture to stop rebellions? I move in governors and spam temples for 5-6 turns and viola, its another Rome! I can build a barracks, or convert one, and get right back to what I was doing. Granted you may have to a few turns to do anything more than replenish. Within 20 turns or so and the foreign populace will dwindle to pathetic numbers, so you better recruit a whole army of those AOR troops because soon they will only be available in small numbers. The provinces lose their flavor.

    Besides, something has to take the place of that barracks/stables/workshop the AI spams in every region .
    That is the only way they operate. They can't handle the system and it needs to be simplified, starting with getting rid of those building chains IMO.

    I usually play on VH campaign, so without all of the above and aggressive looting it's a good bet the province is going to chain rebel every turn or so for 10+ turns, whether level 1 temples are in each region or not.
    I play on VH too and yes, you might get a rebellion, but it can curbed by the yellow line vs the temples, but I'm sure you know that. But if you loot them, you deserve it! Haha.

    Except it is up to the player. You said yourself you used to take such an approach and later chose not to do so.
    I still build one because of the huge PO penalties,, to get them under -10.

    No offense taken. It's a discussion on a forum . Ideas to create a more immersive and realistic experience are always welcome.
    Very happy to hear it. Thanks

  13. #3233

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I don't remember last things which you guys stated about it but is there chance to increase building slots somehow? It would help AI so much that it could be nothing less but amazing. Maybe we can somehow contact CA so they can help? That change should not hurt them when we talk about their future sales of new titles...

  14. #3234

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    I think it's only possible for Warhammer, not sure though.

  15. #3235
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by JCB206 View Post
    You still have to develope your towns to support your war machine. And make no mistake, the 3rd Century was about war. Rome and Carthage put the entire Western Mediterranean through war from 264 B.C. - 146 B.C. The entire Eastern Mediterranean was engulfed in the War of the Successors from 323 B.C. to 275 B.C. Then when they stopped trying to reunite the empire, they fought and exhausted themselves waiting on the Romans to take over.

    Some of the greatest soldiers of antiquity fought during this time and you should have them. Starting off as a small one region territory with terrible PO, food shortages, two building slots, and having mostly levy troops for the first few turns (getting the units sooner than before. Thanks DEI team!) in the capitol of one of the great Hellenic Kingdoms, is a little Civ like to me. There are some Capitals that need some glory. Some have gotten a little love. Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, etc.

    There are many building trees and they need to offer better things to replace the excitement for those new units. Not sure what those would be ATM. But don't worry, the barracks line is not likely going anywhere. It's such a central part the game in players minds. And apparently the AIs too! Remember to look next time you take a province from the AI which has 3 barracks, 2 horse studs, a siege workshop, a trading ground and no food or PO buildings.
    You are of course right, historically. The 3rd century BC is one of the most interesting in antiquity, mainly because a lot was still to be decided at the start.

    But DeI is a TW game, and as such not a historical simulation. There are strong artificial elements, about development mostly, which for me create a part of the fun in the campaign.

    I don't think we should trick ourselves. A lot of the troops we use are only partly historical, even in such a detailed game as DeI. We have a lot of units which never were used presumably and a lot of guesses. A lot of differentiation between units is for fun in the game, not for historical accuracy.

    We know for example astonishingly few about hellenistic soldiers and units of the 3rd c. BC (for a lot of other factions it is even worse). As far as I remember there are two lonely sources which mention thorakitai but in the game they are there in abundance later in the campaign. Probably the thoureophoroi did not wear body armor but in the game they have it, for balancing reasons (thoureophoroi with armor would be thorakitai).

    I greatly doubt that any Greek peltast (the javelin type) ever wore body armor but in DeI they have arm7 (the same as hoplites), for legit game reasons (first thing I change in my game, but does not matter). Or one of my favourite units, Cretan archers (I reenacted one long time ago), we have one 4th c. BC source telling us they wore no armor and at least one picture from the 3rd c. BC showing one without armor but in DeI they have armor, because they are better troops.

    What I'd like to say, I don't want to overdo it with "historical accuracy", in a game with lacking AI, strange naval behaviour, no correct cavalry combat, certain artificial recruitment mechanics and so on and on. DeI makes the TW experience so much better but it should/has to remain a TW game in certain parts in my opinion. I don't want to start with good troops, I want to slowly suffer my way through the game.

  16. #3236
    Nordling's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by geala View Post
    You are of course right, historically. The 3rd century BC is one of the most interesting in antiquity, mainly because a lot was still to be decided at the start.

    But DeI is a TW game, and as such not a historical simulation. There are strong artificial elements, about development mostly, which for me create a part of the fun in the campaign.

    I don't think we should trick ourselves. A lot of the troops we use are only partly historical, even in such a detailed game as DeI. We have a lot of units which never were used presumably and a lot of guesses. A lot of differentiation between units is for fun in the game, not for historical accuracy.

    We know for example astonishingly few about hellenistic soldiers and units of the 3rd c. BC (for a lot of other factions it is even worse). As far as I remember there are two lonely sources which mention thorakitai but in the game they are there in abundance later in the campaign. Probably the thoureophoroi did not wear body armor but in the game they have it, for balancing reasons (thoureophoroi with armor would be thorakitai).

    I greatly doubt that any Greek peltast (the javelin type) ever wore body armor but in DeI they have arm7 (the same as hoplites), for legit game reasons (first thing I change in my game, but does not matter). Or one of my favourite units, Cretan archers (I reenacted one long time ago), we have one 4th c. BC source telling us they wore no armor and at least one picture from the 3rd c. BC showing one without armor but in DeI they have armor, because they are better troops.

    What I'd like to say, I don't want to overdo it with "historical accuracy", in a game with lacking AI, strange naval behaviour, no correct cavalry combat, certain artificial recruitment mechanics and so on and on. DeI makes the TW experience so much better but it should/has to remain a TW game in certain parts in my opinion. I don't want to start with good troops, I want to slowly suffer my way through the game.
    You, sir, deserve a cookie. Great summary and I agree with wholeheartedly. We are all here (at least I think so) more or less interested in ancient history and military (I think that ppl who just wanna kill things & build big kingdoms go for vanilla R2TW or Warhammer) and enjoy greatly that the mod put such strong emphasis on being true to history, but it still must be TW because there's simply no other way to go. And we must accept that the game is 5 yo and has its own limitations. Add into the mix CA's lack of will to work on polishing its games and you are steering into the rocks. DeI team skillfully gave the game a new life but it's still Total War (albeit CA should really be ashame if itself).

  17. #3237

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    This may seem like an odd request, but can the capture zones for gates be made a bit smaller? Just enough so that the enemy can't start capturing them until they're actually inside the perimeter? Right now, the actual capture zone begins shortly after the gates themselves, somewhere under/within the wall's archway itself. Because of that, the gates can only pour so much oil on top of their heads before it's decapped from the defender's control. I've found that I can get around this by carefully timing a counter attack so my own units are holding in front of the capture semi-circle but before the oil, but this is pretty tricky at times.

    I just feel that if anyone goes through the front gates, they should be punished pretty badly by the hot olive oil. Well, I assume it's olive oil.

  18. #3238
    ♔Greek Strategos♔'s Avatar THE BEARDED MACE
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    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Quote Originally Posted by CadetNewb View Post
    This may seem like an odd request, but can the capture zones for gates be made a bit smaller? Just enough so that the enemy can't start capturing them until they're actually inside the perimeter? Right now, the actual capture zone begins shortly after the gates themselves, somewhere under/within the wall's archway itself. Because of that, the gates can only pour so much oil on top of their heads before it's decapped from the defender's control. I've found that I can get around this by carefully timing a counter attack so my own units are holding in front of the capture semi-circle but before the oil, but this is pretty tricky at times.

    I just feel that if anyone goes through the front gates, they should be punished pretty badly by the hot olive oil. Well, I assume it's olive oil.
    Maybe it was 100 organic-biological olive oil.
    Haven't checked the oil thing for yrs though I believe it's editable. Ι could take a look later and let you know.
    Last edited by ♔Greek Strategos♔; February 21, 2018 at 09:23 AM.

  19. #3239

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    Does anyone know what tables i have to edit to mess around with the public office rankings? I want to tweak the public office ranking age requirements.

    Cheers
    "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true" ~ Aristotle

  20. #3240

    Default Re: [Feedback] Impressions, Critiques and Requests for 1.2

    cursus_honorum_level_requirements I believe.

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