New Faction Ideas

[ServiusTheGreat]

i remember the roman rebels thread a whil back and i want to know whats going on with that.

but if we get rid of the roman rebels why not get rid of the indie greeks that would let you make another faction like pergamum or syracuse, you could replace pyhrros with a rebel general or make epirus or even put him into the gcs.

what do you guys think

[Zarax]

ICS just like the independent gauls serves many purposes, mostly to give a starting challenge to the player.
Roman rebels could be replaced on the other side, the last word is to DBH as usual...

[Scutarii]

Indie Greeks are quite a useful factions, as Zarax said. But I agree the Roman Rebels are quite useless, they'll probably be converted to another faction eventually, but DBH is only one man.

[Spartan198]

I agree both ways. The indie Greeks are good, but the Roman rebels could be removed in favor of a faction like Syracuse, Pegamon, or Epiros (of which I'd personally pick Epiros out of the three).

But, like everyone else says, DBH is the man who decides it.

[TM Is Back]

but DBH is only one man.

Not always, sometimes he is a machine

[DimeBagHo]

The independent Greeks are here to stay, but the Roman rebels are likely to go (at which point I will probably ditch the loyalty mechanism entirely). Won't happen for a while though.

[ServiusTheGreat]

i know but as the title says im just puttung this out there

[cherryfunk]

dbh, any thoughts on what you would add?

I wonder if another German or steppe faction might have the greatest impact on the game...

[Ferrus]

Recently in my campaigns the sarmatians are rolling across thrace and macedon. How bout another speed bump faction to slow them down? =)

[cherryfunk]

In RS 2 we've split the Scythians and Sarmatians into 2 factions. We still don't have a working beta to see how it goes, but in theory it should result in awesome steppe wars...

[DimeBagHo]

Splitting the Scythians and Sarmatians is historical, but I'm disinclined to add another horse faction to XGM. The horse factions in XGM are really designed to be a scourge for heavy infantry cultures like the Greeks. I think they perform that function well, but it does make the horse-faction rosters less interesting, and the campaigns less interesting to play.

Epirus is a possibility - it's roster would not be all that different from the other Greek factions, but it's position further west might make the campaign sufficiently interesting. Of course I wonder how much fun it will be to play a campaign where you have to beat the Romans right at the start, and everything is pretty easy after that.

Pergamum, or Massilia, are also possibilities, though all three of these (including Epirus) could be done just as easily as provincial campaigns.

[Zarax]

Massalia would be the most interesting along with Emporion, they would be a really nice multicultural faction...

[Dom9127]

Massalia is interesting as a faction but I feel that they are too minor, however Pergamum would great faction to add.

[Scutarii]

What about the Bosphorans? People talk about a speedbump for Scythia, there in a great position to do that, provide an interesting player campaign (go west or east, your choice, create a black sea empire, whatever you want), and adding another city east of Pantikapaeum would give them enough financial base to be a realistic faction... I wouldn't agree with Pergamum just because its so important to the GCS. They can't function well without it, its a great cash maker. Macedon would just crush them off the bat, they would have no where to expand. Although a Massilote provincial campaign would be nice too, eventually.

[cherryfunk]

Pergamon makes the most sense for a new Greek faction, the others are too minor (though they could be provincial campaigns). But if you want to get technical about it, the 'Greek Cities' faction isn't really accurate, it might become Pergamon itself, still leaving a slot open.

[Stilgar CG]

I agree with Scutarii. The Bosporan Kingdom could be an interesting Hellenic faction. They could get 2 settlements in Crimea; the third could be still Indi Greeks). To survive they have to overrun Scythia and unite the local Greek cities (same culture). If that is achived, the Bosporan's could advance into Europe or Asia, or combine both. Not historically correct, but from the point of view of gameplay will be plain fun. Perhaps, the units roster will be hellenic with some eastern/stepe "flavour", e.g. a la Pontus.

Some afterthoughts of my raving mind ...
Options for balancing the AI gameplay: (i) Scythia still overruns Bosporan, but this will keep them busy for longer than in current XGM version (which is good); (ii) Bosporan could be given a good chance to take over Scythia; in this scenario Bosporan should be made more aggressive towards Parthia perhaps. An important thing to do, IMHO, is to limit Bosporan access to AOR HAs (2-turns recruitment; high cost; high-level barracks).

Edited: The Bosporans could have a weaker Greek units line (e.g., no phalangits in level three barracks, or no hoplites, or units with poorer stats etc.), so they have to compensate this by relying on AOR units heavier in early/mid game. Interesting unit combination could emerge in combined Greek-, Stepe-, -Thracian armies.

[Zarax]

Bosphorans could be a total counter-horse faction, based on hoplites, heavy archers and steppe cavalry units.

[cherryfunk]

Now you guys are just copying Roma Surrectum

[Unknown Soldier]

yes cf but does it have a good installer like xgm?

[Scutarii]

^^I think so... At least 1.5 does. The old installer drove me up the wall.

Cherry: We'd be copying RS with Pergamon too.