Some suggestions

[Jamey]

I made a simple change to the Germans on my installation which made a notable improvement in their early game success. The Germans start with several settlements with enough population to be Large Towns but without the palace buildings built. I changed descr_strat.txt to upgrade those Towns to Large Towns and replaced the palace with the appropriate one. I've found that by 260 BC in a couple of games, the Germans tend to have captured 2-3 settlements, making them much more active and much more able to handle contact with another nation. I think that this change should be made in the main ExRM line.

Bactrian generals seem to have a strong alcoholic bent. Every starting family member has the Drink trait and many of them have Wine Steward ancillaries. I was wondering if there is a historical reason for this. If not, I'd remove Drink from some of the FMs because it is one of the runaway traits that can go very bad quickly.

[Quinn Inuit]

Yeah, the drinking trait is definitely ridiculous. The progression of it and the superstitious trait need to be massively slowed down. I'd like to leave Bactria with the wine bent, though. The Chinese even noted their impressive stores of grape wine.

Good idea about upgrading German towns. Any recommendations as to which ones?

[Jamey]

Yeah, the drinking trait is definitely ridiculous. The progression of it and the superstitious trait need to be massively slowed down. I'd like to leave Bactria with the wine bent, though. The Chinese even noted their impressive stores of grape wine.

Interesting. I've never read much history on Bactria. Of all of the remnants of Alexander's empire, only Ptolemy gets much press in history classes.

Discussion of Superstitious moved to a Character Traits discussion thread.

Good idea about upgrading German towns. Any recommendations as to which ones?

The regions I changed are Tribus_Chattii, Tribus_Saxones, and Germania_Inferior. I just changed the 'level' parameter from 'town' to 'large_town' and the palace from a 'governors_house' to a 'governors_villa'.

[Quinn Inuit]

I upgraded Tribus_Chattii and Tribus_Saxones, but I left the last one so the player would have something to do.

That's interesting about the Superstition trait. Those are certainly reasonable triggers. Are there any others, though? I've noticed the same thing you have as far as characters getting it. Specifically, I've noticed that characters who do a lot of campaigning and fighting are almost certain to pick it up (usually just after battles), but characters that stay in the city almost never do.

[Jamey]

Are you sure you're noticing the Superstitious trait? There are several other religion related traits, including Pious, ReligiousMania, and PublicFaith off the top of my head. Precision is key here, and the names can be similar.

I haven't noticed it being tied to battles. In my current game, 3 of 4 family members who are Superstitious have never fought in a battle.

[Wien1938]

The javelin system does need to be revised. Units such as Theurophoroi are given armour piercing javelins but historically used normal skirmishing javelins.
As I said: only the pila (used by Roman and Italic troops) and the all-iron Iberian javelins should have the AP trait.

Food for thought, eh? Like the new forum. Neat.

[Jamey]

I'm curious what you're doing with the Greek economy, Quinn. In my Roman game Greece controls what was originally Greece and Macedon as well as Crete, Rhodes, and Maronia. It has fed 7 full stacks into my Roman meatgrinder in 10 turns.

I think I'm finally making an impact on Greece's war machine. The last army I massacred was half levy hoplites and half mercs. Soon they'll run out of mercs and then I'll go on the offensive in the Peloponnese. After a punitive raid, maybe they'll stop spamming so much.

[Quinn Inuit]

Superstition discussion continued elsewhere.

The javelin system does need to be revised. Units such as Theurophoroi are given armour piercing javelins but historically used normal skirmishing javelins.
As I said: only the pila (used by Roman and Italic troops) and the all-iron Iberian javelins should have the AP trait.

Food for thought, eh? Like the new forum. Neat.

Glad you like the new forum!

Ok, I'll take a new look at who gets AP javelins. Was anyone else using iron javelins at the time?

I'm curious what you're doing with the Greek economy, Quinn. In my Roman game Greece controls what was originally Greece and Macedon as well as Crete, Rhodes, and Maronia. It has fed 7 full stacks into my Roman meatgrinder in 10 turns.

I think I'm finally making an impact on Greece's war machine. The last army I massacred was half levy hoplites and half mercs. Soon they'll run out of mercs and then I'll go on the offensive in the Peloponnese. After a punitive raid, maybe they'll stop spamming so much.

Yeah, I noticed that the Greece nerf was insufficient in late games, and overdone early.

My solution for 3.3.4 (which I've not yet tested) is to replace the 40% tax penalty with a -2 trade income penalty. I think the latter will roughly match the tax penalty's effects in mid-game, be less oppressive early on, and scale more effectively toward the late game. What do you think?

[Lateinshowing]

I don't want to start another thread just because of this, so I'm posting it here. Are you going to include, in version 3.3.4, the new unit pack with all of the adjustments (cost, upkeep, ect.)? It might add a little more flavor to the game, but how should I know, I haven't tried it yet.

[Jamey]

Insomnia is winning tonight, so I'm playing a bit of my Roman campaign. I just thought that I'd add a couple of thoughts here.

1) The change to Sveaby really needs to happen. I just used move_character to take a legion up to Sveaby to unstick the two nearly full stacks standing next to Vicus Cimbri.

2) In several campaigns, I've seen Sarmatia take Olbia (probably 4 times). I've only once seen it keep it instead of having it revolt and bounce to Greece. When that happens, Sarmatia tends to stall or go down in flames to someone who decides they really want a lot of steppe real estate. I've just shipped a partial legion over to Crimea to take it from the Greeks and give it to Sarmatia. I hope the stinking barbarians are grateful. I don't have an easy answer to helping Sarmatia hold onto Olbia. I think that what is happening is that the population is large (near growing to a Minor City) and the garrison is very small because archers in bulk don't tend to autoresolve well. Probably when the AI exterminates or enslaves it will hold onto the settlement. When it doesn't, it loses it. But I'm just guessing there.

[Quinn Inuit]

I don't want to start another thread just because of this, so I'm posting it here. Are you going to include, in version 3.3.4, the new unit pack with all of the adjustments (cost, upkeep, ect.)? It might add a little more flavor to the game, but how should I know, I haven't tried it yet.

What do you mean? I don't understand.

Insomnia is winning tonight, so I'm playing a bit of my Roman campaign. I just thought that I'd add a couple of thoughts here.

1) The change to Sveaby really needs to happen. I just used move_character to take a legion up to Sveaby to unstick the two nearly full stacks standing next to Vicus Cimbri.

2) In several campaigns, I've seen Sarmatia take Olbia (probably 4 times). I've only once seen it keep it instead of having it revolt and bounce to Greece. When that happens, Sarmatia tends to stall or go down in flames to someone who decides they really want a lot of steppe real estate. I've just shipped a partial legion over to Crimea to take it from the Greeks and give it to Sarmatia. I hope the stinking barbarians are grateful. I don't have an easy answer to helping Sarmatia hold onto Olbia. I think that what is happening is that the population is large (near growing to a Minor City) and the garrison is very small because archers in bulk don't tend to autoresolve well. Probably when the AI exterminates or enslaves it will hold onto the settlement. When it doesn't, it loses it. But I'm just guessing there.

I just made a note to myself to fix Sveaby. It'll definitely be in the next version.

Sarmatia has, I've noticed, lots of problems hanging onto conquered territory of any sort. The AI seems almost incapable of doing it. Should I give them an automatic unrest reduction?

[Jamey]

I just made a note to myself to fix Sveaby. It'll definitely be in the next version.

Excellent. We need more German involvement in Northern Europe.

Sarmatia has, I've noticed, lots of problems hanging onto conquered territory of any sort. The AI seems almost incapable of doing it. Should I give them an automatic unrest reduction?

I had two theories on this. The first was incorrect, but I'll toss it out there anyway. This theory was that the AI was putting the capital someplace dumb to compensate for Campus Massagetes being waaaaaay far away.

My second theory is more interesting. What if the maintenance on the units being spawned in Bactria is resulting in Sarmatia going broke around the same time it is finally completing a conquest? It wouldn't be able to afford to buy new units in the area where it needs them. The settlement would revolt, and their money problems get even worse. Why don't you try making some zero upkeep units for Sarmatia solely for the purpose of being spawned in Bactria (don't make them buildable at all). Replace the existing scripted units with these zero upkeep units and see how it changes the results for Sarmatia.

[Lateinshowing]

To Quinn: Never mind. I just looked in depth at the description, which is on the Rome: Total War Heaven site, and it says it's for the original game (1.5 Rome: Total War, unmodified). Sorry for bringing this up when it wasn't necessary.

[Wien1938]

As far as I am aware, Quinn, the Iberians and Celt-Iberians used the soliferrum/saunion javelin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliferrum), and other troops using the pilum should have armour piercing.
Also, long thinking about the Theurophoroi. These ought to be using spears, not swords as their secondary weapon.

[Jamey]

As far as I am aware, Quinn, the Iberians and Celt-Iberians used the soliferrum/saunion javelin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliferrum), and other troops using the pilum should have armour piercing.
Also, long thinking about the Theurophoroi. These ought to be using spears, not swords as their secondary weapon.

This external link from wikipedia has pictures of archaeological finds of some Iberian weapons. My Latin and French even lets me understand a fair bit of what is in Spanish on the external site.

[mcantu]

As far as I am aware, Quinn, the Iberians and Celt-Iberians used the soliferrum/saunion javelin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliferrum), and other troops using the pilum should have armour piercing.
Also, long thinking about the Theurophoroi. These ought to be using spears, not swords as their secondary weapon.

thureophoroi used both swords and spears for melee weapons (or i should say, did not use one exclusively over the other). the RTW engine does not allow for 3 weapons so a decision has to be made how to represent the thureophoroi. in RTR-TIC you see both represented...

[Quinn Inuit]

i ve never noticed the greeks going wild...
i just added some landblocks myself (basically to exclude the sarmatians [i never play them and they dont ever seem to invade anyone at all, making them useless] completely from the game, and blocking off all the steppes, so the thracians cant go north and have to face the macs, and the germans cant go east), and now i m only looking for a way to kill the yellow death (black death seems to be okay in the last versions of this game, so far)
i didnt know the ptolies were such a world superpower at those times i dont mind the seleucids getting gangbanged by all their neighbours, it was a dying empire anyway, but its a bit pointless to see the ptolies taking all their provinces in 10-20 years and owning most of asia...

one bug i noticed, still some unidentified armies running around, as roman i often couldn't play a fight against the macs on the battlefield because they had 1-4 units peltastai and Athenian Hoplites (athenian hoplites?? for the macs?) without a unit card in them. looks like a script-spawned army? but then intended for the greeks not the macs.

Yep, that's definitely a bug. It should be thoroughly fixed in 3.3.4.

Blocking off the Sarmatians isn't a bad idea. I just wish I could make them more competitive. I'd like to see people having genuine trouble with steppe raiders.

As for the Ptolies, they shouldn't do that in every game. In fact, Big Blue does quite well sometimes.

oh and i was wondering, quinn, (or anyone else), do you know if its possible to make the AI build siege equipment from the first turn? now they wait for 2 turns, so the AI never gets to conquer any of your towns (you can always get enough troops on location if they give u 2-3 turns!)
that would make it a much bigger challenge

I have no idea how to do that, but would love to learn.

Well, the Theurophoroi can wait. The essential fix is the javelins.
Cheers, Quinn.

Done. I just made the fix.

thureophoroi used both swords and spears for melee weapons (or i should say, did not use one exclusively over the other). the RTW engine does not allow for 3 weapons so a decision has to be made how to represent the thureophoroi. in RTR-TIC you see both represented...

That's interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks for explaining!

[Jamey]

Blocking off the Sarmatians isn't a bad idea. I just wish I could make them more competitive. I'd like to see people having genuine trouble with steppe raiders.

I'm curious to see what making the Bactrian raiders low maintenance will do.

Beyond that, the other change you might consider is giving Sarmatia Tribus Sakae at the start. It's the largest of the steppe settlements and develops into a pretty reasonable trade port once the others are up on the Caspian.

As for the Ptolies, they shouldn't do that in every game. In fact, Big Blue does quite well sometimes.

I've seen Big Blue and the Ptolies both become dominant. In my current game, Big Blue, Greece, and Bactria are the big powers besides me. Big Blue is by far the strongest. There's a lot of chaos in the Asia Minor and areas. How they settle out tends to determine the course of the game.

Which reminds me, I should post the 250 BC screenies I took last night.

EDIT: Quinn, why isn't the Tarentine Light Cavalry retrainable? It looks like you were adding that to the EDB but then commented it out. Was there some problem with adding a Tarentum AOR? I love the look of that unit, but I don't use it much because I have to baby it because of the lack of retraining. The unit description says that it was a highly sought after unit, which makes it sound like it should be an AOR unit for various (maybe most) factions.

[Quinn Inuit]

Lateinshowing: Oh, ok. Don't worry about it.

Wien1938: Ok, I'll fix those jav units. I don't know if I can fix the Theurophoroi, though. I'd need a texture with the spear weapon instead of the sword. I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise anything.

Jamey: Interesting idea. And, 'cause I'm lazy, I think I figured out a way to fix it. I've reduced the upkeep on the revolt HA, and I'll just give them revolt HA in the spawn instead of normal. That should cut over 500/turn in upkeep.

[Woestelingh]

oh and i was wondering, quinn, (or anyone else), do you know if its possible to make the AI build siege equipment from the first turn? now they wait for 2 turns, so the AI never gets to conquer any of your towns (you can always get enough troops on location if they give u 2-3 turns!)
that would make it a much bigger challenge