Announcement: Europa Barbarorum II 2.35 released!

[Roma_Victrix]

Just coming here to say that I think it's great that there are no pathways through the middle of the Alps anymore, and that you actually have to go around them to conquer. For the AI, this makes for more sensible and historically realistic pathways of expansion and conquest. Since I'm playing as the Romani faction now, at over 400 turns I'm finally moving into northern Europe, but I had to do a lot of conquering before then to get to that point. The Alpine barrier also means that my northern Italian possessions were relatively safe from harm, so that I could focus my energies elsewhere.

I guess the trade off here is that Bagiennorum in Liguria is a horribly unruly settlement, but I've managed to quell the riots and develop it as a province. I had to get rid of the original allied government because that was simply not enough. I needed more public order bonuses with amphitheaters and daily games, and a permanent string of successive governors with good traits and lots of green laurel wreath influence to gradually convert the culture to mine.

[Palaiogos]

I'm wondering why there are so many scripted revolts? Maybe if a province goes below a certain amount, it should immediate revolt, but not have a lot of revolts every turn for 10 turns. If you watch Legend of Total War, he also has that problem.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm wondering why there are so many scripted revolts? Maybe if a province goes below a certain amount, it should immediate revolt, but not have a lot of revolts every turn for 10 turns. If you watch Legend of Total War, he also has that problem.

He's conflating bandit spawns with scripted revolts, I just watched his stream. There aren't any exampes of "revolts evey turn for 10 turns", if order is low, you'll get rioting until you sort out the underlying issue.

The essential issue was that he was blitzing and had no decent governors left, and didn't bother sending anyone to Rome to get elected and thus gain imperium.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I hoped Legend would stumble playing EBII. Otherwise, with his blitzing style, had he have a good time, it'd be a shame for the EBII. Anybody can sum up his experience? I'm not really into watching that 6 hours...

[Roma_Victrix]

I hoped Legend would stumble playing EBII. Otherwise, with his blitzing style, had he have a good time, it'd be a shame for the EBII. Anybody can sum up his experience? I'm not really into watching that 6 hours...

I feel out of the loop now. Who is this legend you speak of here? Link?

[Cohors_Evocata]

I hoped Legend would stumble playing EBII. Otherwise, with his blitzing style, had he have a good time, it'd be a shame for the EBII. Anybody can sum up his experience? I'm not really into watching that 6 hours...

In summary, he said he was disappointed and preferred EB I. But he also said he wouldn't stream it again and there's a second stream on his channel, so yeah.

I feel out of the loop now. Who is this legend you speak of here? Link?

Legendoftotalwar, a total war youtuber. For his first stream, see https://youtu.be/FlcT2-7crj0

[Raiuga]

I think he was doing the second live stream because he wants to review the mod (he has a series about mod's review). He said that he spent some time reading the player guide and other information on the mod and gave it another chance.

To be fair he said that its a question of peoples own perspectives if they like it or not. From what I saw he wasn't liking it, mostly because it doesn't fit his playing style and must not be the most profitable mod for views. His reasons were (I only saw a bit of the second stream) the slow battles and scripted stuff.

He seems to have a very "direct" personality so I don't expect a very good review from him, not that it should matter really.

Yet, this brings a question if EBII gameplay is appropriate for the mainstream "Let's Play" on youtube, and it seems it isn't, at least for the "popular" total war streamers.

Again, not that it matters really.

[Cohors_Evocata]

I think he was doing the second live stream because he wants to review the mod (he has a series about mod's review). He said that he spent some time reading the player guide and other information on the mod and gave it another chance.

To be fair he said that its a question of peoples own perspectives if they like it or not. From what I saw he wasn't liking it, mostly because it doesn't fit his playing style and must not be the most profitable mod for views. His reasons were (I only saw a bit of the second stream) the slow battles and scripted stuff.

He seems to have a very "direct" personality so I don't expect a very good review from him, not that it should matter really.

Yet, this brings a question if EBII gameplay is appropriate for the mainstream "Let's Play" on youtube, and it seems it isn't, at least for the "popular" total war streamers.

Again, not that it matters really.

If his review were to boil down to "many people will not like this mod, it's too niche-oriented", as mentioned in his stream, I'd personally be fine with it. EB II's propably never going to be something with mass appeal, nor do I think the slower intended playstyle will ever be attractive to youtubers and such; it's just not the most engaging for an audience to tag along with. I would be somewhat disappointed if he took these points as evidence that the mod is bad, but I think he's reasonable enough to recognize the difference between these things.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I've just watched the end of the video - good work, EBII team!
I've expected exactly that he'd be disappointed with slow battles. I regret he's not furious at the unrest and the character-related issues. However, he's "frustrated" - it's exactly how it should have been! (the crash at the end looks a bit worrying, but it's just one after 6 hours and in big battles, it's passable)
However, irrespectively of the easiness of playing the Romani faction, I still think he should have been more punished by the game than he was. He was so reckless and yet he made fast quite big gains with little hiccough.

[Raging_Ferret]

He lost my interest when he said 'what are triarii'. Sorry but he is testing something he did no research on, ignored the whole point of the mod and tried to play it like most total war players in expecting continual gratification and success. His catch phrase should be 'legend of total war my ass'.

[Lusitanio]

I watched a bit of the beginning and went straight to the last 30 minutes of the stream. The guy doesn't know or understands the basic mechanics of the game, blames the team for not including things that are actually implemented in the game but limited to some units (like the free upkeep units), keeps trashing the music of the game despite it being historical (what's the point of playing an historical mod if the game has rock music from the 80's? xD), doesn't even bother to read the game notifications or buildings, and in general, he wants a quick blitz campaign in a game where that style of playing is something you shouldn't really do unless you want an absurd amount of rebels in your regions and almost no troops to recruit in the newly conquered cities (at least for some turns). He also doesn't understand that always clicking on your troops to run makes them get tired a lot quicker and it reflects on battles. Lastly, he keeps saying that he wants a reward, for what? You already conquered the regions, what more would you want? Maybe he wants a candy?

To conclude, LegendofTotalWar stream is the proof that wanting to play an historical accurate mod that has a slow empahis and requires a good amount of time dealing with your characters traits and managing your empire with a fast pacing sandbox blitzing game mentality with dumbed down mechanics does not work at all.

BTW: I also don't quite "appreciate" the music in the mod but I understand the reasons on why that type of music in the game and instead of complaining, I just use Roma_Victrix music submods.

[Roma_Victrix]

Legendoftotalwar, a total war youtuber

Thanks!

To conclude, LegendofTotalWar stream is the proof that wanting to play an historical accurate mod that has a slow empahis and requires a good amount of time dealing with your characters traits and managing your empire with a fast pacing sandbox blitzing game mentality with dumbed down mechanics does not work at all.

I'm not even going to bother watching his video. He sounds unbearable. I play EBII for 700 to 900 turns and although I may blitz across some regions once my empire is already huge and can afford it, with tons of capable family members to boot, you just don't do that in the first 200 turns or so. It's not even feasible.

BTW: I also don't quite "appreciate" the music in the mod but I understand the reasons on why that type of music in the game and instead of complaining, I just use Roma_Victrix music submods.

I actually still love the original EBII music, but I create soundtrack submods for myself and others when it along with any other soundtrack eventually gets stale after hearing it year after year. Having new music in general livens things up. That obviously has nothing to do with the quality of the original score.

Anyway, I'm just going to put this here for everyone's enjoyment and to change the subject since this Legend guy is not worth our time:

https://i.imgur.com/0tTVOtu.jpg

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Marvzilla]

You might want to put that into a spoiler haha.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Could someone tell me what this sword type is based on or what it is ? The Aswar i Mad and Regalin are you using it.

[Lusitanio]

I actually still love the original EBII music, but I create soundtrack submods for myself and others when it along with any other soundtrack eventually gets stale after hearing it year after year. Having new music in general livens things up. That obviously has nothing to do with the quality of the original score.

Anyway, I'm just going to put this here for everyone's enjoyment and to change the subject since this Legend guy is not worth our time:

https://i.imgur.com/0tTVOtu.jpg

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There is no problem in conquering all the map in EBII but complaining that the game does not allow you to do it in like 100 turns or something is wrong, EBII is built to be a long term campaign experience, not an easy 150 turns short campaign...

I like the music in EBII, what I meant is that, while the music is good and my current build does't have any modifications to the original music, I do love to play with the musics from old RTW and M2TW, they are just that good. That's why when I do long campaigns for fun and not testing, I change the music files.

Btw: Do not make fun of Sakarbaal! That's an ancient game practiced by the Carthaginians!!! And that image is awesome, where can I get the original?

[Der Böse Wolf]

To each his own I say.

I am the total opposite to "Legend of Total War" when it comes to gameplay and expectations.

He is all about exploits, impressing his fanbase on what " a legend he is" and getting views.

I am all for learning history, reading about it and if a game allows me to dwelve into it, then I'm all for it.
Hence why I appreciate all the work the EBII team has put into this.
The goal is not to conquer the world.

Anyone can outsmart the AI, this is no big deal.

If that's the objective , then one might as well stick to Vanilla M2TW.

With that said, I understand why this "Legend of Total War" didn't appreciate the game.
But what bothers me is him not explaining CORRECTLY why HE did not like it, instead of criticising the game itself.

[Cohors_Evocata]

Guys, can we keep it civil please? Discussion of the streams mentioned here is fine, but if it turns to simply bashing the streamer (which, to be clear, it hasn't so far) I'm going to exercise moderator privileges.

You might want to put that into a spoiler haha.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Could someone tell me what this sword type is based on or what it is ? The Aswar i Mad and Regalin are you using it.

The unit concepts mention that they should be using makhairai, though those perhaps ought to be curved forewards a bit more.

[Marvzilla]

Isnt Maikhaira just the Greek word for any kind of sword ? So they would be wielding a local variation of the Kopis ?

[Roma_Victrix]

There is no problem in conquering all the map in EBII but complaining that the game does not allow you to do it in like 100 turns or something is wrong, EBII is built to be a long term campaign experience, not an easy 150 turns short campaign...

I like the music in EBII, what I meant is that, while the music is good and my current build does't have any modifications to the original music, I do love to play with the musics from old RTW and M2TW, they are just that good. That's why when I do long campaigns for fun and not testing, I change the music files.

Totally agreed.

Btw: Do not make fun of Sakarbaal! That's an ancient game practiced by the Carthaginians!!! And that image is awesome, where can I get the original?

It's a time-honored Carthaginian tradition!

The original image is actually a promo image painting made for Rome II Total War, showing Rome besieging Carthage in the Third Punic War.

[QuintusSertorius]

I was on the second of Legend's streams, answering some questions in the feed people had and trying to address some of the things he raised. I think it came to a complete mismatch in expectations and play style. He wanted EB1 ported to a new engine, that's expressly not what EBII is for. All his points of comparison were about why we'd "changed" things from EB1 (never mind that it's a different engine). There's no way you could do EBII justice in any game of less than 100 turns, and even then you'd be better off playing more than one faction to get a broader perspective.

Then he blitzed his way around, no sooner had he taken a settlement than he was looking to mobilise a new army to take somewhere else. Unsurprisingly, because he didn't use any Allied Governments (or get any FMs elected to magistracies), he ran out of competent governors and struggled to hold Liguria.

What summed up why his was a futile task was in one action at the start: he didn't even bother reading the cursus honorum popup explaining how the Roman faction's most important mechanic works. Thus didn't understand why no one had imperium.

[Jurand of Cracow]

no sooner had he taken a settlement than he was looking to mobilise a new army to take somewhere else

Yeah, irrespectively from the Legend case (and I'm very negative on his assessment, as I've put here) a question arises: what a player should do after conquering a settlement?
He doesn't suffer many losses so he doesn't need to wait for reinforcements. The unrest rarely forces him to keep many units in a settlement (unlike in the other mods, as I like to point at). Disbanding troops doesn't make sense as the upkeep costs are 3/16 (with significant upkeep it might have been different) or recruiting plus you don't get back the reserves. A client ruler is recruited so there's nothing to do for a Family Member (unless you're of Romani faction, I guess).
So what to do and why? Even with role-playing? I'm following a few home-rules but they still don't provide for any challenging gameplay...