This seems to be beyond fantastic

[Newtothegame]

Thank you for the ExRM-Mod, that I just downloaded! The first thing I did was taking a look at the splendid looking units. Damn, I have never seen such a beautiful armor! Of course I'm talking about any type of Greek hoplites, that have been modded the most.

I have a couple of questions concerning the mod:

1. Why don't Hoplites wield their spears in the uphand-style, I thought that would have been part of ExRM!? The same thing goes with phalanxes: Weren't they supposed to carry those long spears with 2 hands?

Well, seems I have to wait for RTR VII to receive that last piece of perfection... Or don't I?

2. As I've only played 2 custom battles so far, I'd like to know wether any faction will become a Macedon-like nuisance in every campaign.

2-3.
I don't want to fight against a carpet of full-stack armies every turn that are totally similar.

3. I've also noticed, that the army composition of the Seleucid empire didn't experience any changes. Does that mean 20 stacks of Chrysaspides per army? PLZ deny that!!!

4. Are there still any Cyrtians for Parthia? They were unavailable in the custom battle. Does that change in the real campaign? I don't like full missile armies. There MUST be some idiot to hold the enemy in place!

5. Did you take any faction out of the game? There are 2 new ones. 1 of them can replace the second Roman faction. But which other was thrown out in order to integrate the Kingdom of Epirus? I somehow don't miss any...

Newtothegame

[decimator22]

Well Quinn & Jamey can explain it alot better but I'll try.

1.) There hasn't been any real desire to include that animation for the greek hoplites however their speak staying up in the back rows is a left over from vainilla phalanx. I beleive the RTW engine won't let the diadochi pikemen carry the spear with 2 hands.

2.) Well just Ptolemaic sometimes, but this has already been seen upon and is being fixed.

3.) To what I know every faction has had rebalancing to produce mixed stacks and not just spam a unit. (Jamey is inchagre of this.)

4.) In custom battles you can't see all the army so I'm sure in the GC you'll be able to recruit them as auxiliars.

5.) No faction was taken out of game the new ones are:
Brutii - Galatia
Scipii - Britons
SPQR - Epirus (might be wrong in this one.)

Enjoy your gaming experience in ExRM, Regards Decimator22

[Quinn Inuit]

Thanks, decimator! You're pretty much spot-on.

Hi, Newtothegame! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I think I can answer all of your questions, but in return you have to tell me what you're going to do about your name when you've been playing for a few months and aren't new anymore.

Thank you for the ExRM-Mod, that I just downloaded! The first thing I did was taking a look at the splendid looking units. Damn, I have never seen such a beautiful armor! Of course I'm talking about any type of Greek hoplites, that have been modded the most.

I have a couple of questions concerning the mod:

1. Why don't Hoplites wield their spears in the uphand-style, I thought that would have been part of ExRM!? The same thing goes with phalanxes: Weren't they supposed to carry those long spears with 2 hands?

Well, seems I have to wait for RTR VII to receive that last piece of perfection... Or don't I?[/quote]

Yes. I'm looking into making changes to the hoplites, but I want to make sure the animations look good. As for the phalangites, I don't know of any animations that allow for that, so that probably won't be implemented.

2. As I've only played 2 custom battles so far, I'd like to know wether any faction will become a Macedon-like nuisance in every campaign.

The Ptolemies are a bit of a pain sometimes, but they're not as bad as the Macs used to be. You might want to send the occasional boatload of pain their way to keep them under wraps. We're going to try to balance them down in the next version.

2-3.
I don't want to fight against a carpet of full-stack armies every turn that are totally similar.

3. I've also noticed, that the army composition of the Seleucid empire didn't experience any changes. Does that mean 20 stacks of Chrysaspides per army? PLZ deny that!!!

Don't worry about that. We've done a lot of price balancing, and as a result you get much more interesting armies from the AI. And with increased upkeeps, stack spamming is pretty hard.

4. Are there still any Cyrtians for Parthia? They were unavailable in the custom battle. Does that change in the real campaign? I don't like full missile armies. There MUST be some idiot to hold the enemy in place!

Yes, there are definitely Cyrtians. Most of the AOR units aren't available in custom battles, but you can change that by deleting the no_custom tag in the EDU.

5. Did you take any faction out of the game? There are 2 new ones. 1 of them can replace the second Roman faction. But which other was thrown out in order to integrate the Kingdom of Epirus? I somehow don't miss any...

Newtothegame

See Decimator's list.

In the next version, Pergamum will replace Illyria and the Britons will be replaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, although PatricianS showed me how to do a Provincial Campaign that would still have the Britons in it.

[decimator22]

Thanks, decimator!
In the next version, Pergamum will replace Illyria and the Britons will be replaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, although PatricianS showed me how to do a Provincial Campaign that would still have the Britons in it.

No problem Quinn, and thanks for keeping the Britons alive with a provincial campaign .

[AqD]

Yes. I'm looking into making changes to the hoplites, but I want to make sure the animations look good. As for the phalangites, I don't know of any animations that allow for that, so that probably won't be implemented.

I have modified RTR models for 2handed phalangites and overarm hoplites, using EB's animations. If you want you could just copy them from my mod

The 2handed phalangites look imperfect though - the hands don't hold spears tightly because in RTW long_pike spears are replaced by a (incorrectly positioned) hardcoded model rather than the original ones in unit models. I checked EB and their own phalangites have exactly the same problem. I found a solution later by extending arms but it's only applied to the new pontic brazen shield I made.

Here is the problem I'm talking about (mine and EB's):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Newtothegame]

Once again thank you all!

"I have modified RTR models for 2handed phalangites and overarm hoplites, using EB's animations. If you want you could just copy them from my mod"

How do I do that?

"Here is the problem"

I don't really find that too annoying. I got used to those small clipping and positioning bugs in any version of Rome i've played so far!

"Hi, Newtothegame! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I think I can answer all of your questions, but in return you have to tell me what you're going to do about your name when you've been playing for a few months and aren't new anymore. "

My name is referring to Starcraft: Let me play a match against a Persian peasant from 300 BC (that is obviously dead now) and I will somehow manage to lose against him! I'm serious... xD Actually I've been playing vanilla RTR for about a year now . I don't regret anything!

"I want to make sure the animations look good."

They do! I always noticed that super-frequent shiver that came upon single soldiers when they were in combat, it looked as if the unit would start attacking 7 times but always abort that until it decided to do rest too, if you know what I mean. That didn't happen in the battles I had with ExRM!

"Don't worry about that. We've done a lot of price balancing, and as a result you get much more interesting armies from the AI. And with increased upkeeps, stack spamming is pretty hard."

That's exactly what I wanted to be answered *lucky*.

"Yes, there are definitely Cyrtians. Most of the AOR units aren't available in custom battles, but you can change that by deleting the no_custom tag in the EDU."

I know about that, but I didn't remember before I had already switched of my PC! Sorry and thank you anyway...



One last thing... It's an annoying terrifying bug that started occuring when I first used my new video card (ATI HD 4870).
It only happens with Rome or its mods; all my other games work just excellently!

Sometimes, after an irregular amount of time (not always!!!), on the campaignmap or during siege battles, I get a total crash of my system. It's not a bluescreen, but it's similar.
I get a screen of vertical orange and yellow stripes and manually have to restart my computer to play until it happens again 30 min later!

This somehow never appears in custom battles, nor in field battles nor when I do a certain action. I don't see the regularity behinf those crashes!

I'm pretty sure my (modern) video drivers are to blame, but trying older ones didn't help either, instead it seems to reduce video quality a lot!

Is that a known bug? Do others know that? Can you advise me how to solve it? It will be able to almost ruin my ExRM-games!

Well, I'll try my first campaign this evening and see if the bug occurs, it did in FATW and RTRPE 1.9...

Newtothegame

[AqD]

Once again thank you all!

"I have modified RTR models for 2handed phalangites and overarm hoplites, using EB's animations. If you want you could just copy them from my mod"

How do I do that?

Well, if you're not a modder, you would need to read several modding tutorials. Check EDU and DMB, copy related .cas files and sprites files, .... I'm hoping that ExRM devs would consider to use them.

"Here is the problem"

I don't really find that too annoying. I got used to those small clipping and positioning bugs in any version of Rome i've played so far!

Heh, I played too for a year but I'm getting more and more intolerant of these little bugs. DAMN BUGS!


No idea to your crash problem though. My nvidia card is also crap and unreliable.

[Quinn Inuit]

Thanks, aqd! I'll take you up on that. Have you tried S1's overhand hoplite animations? If so, what do you think?

Once again thank you all!

"I have modified RTR models for 2handed phalangites and overarm hoplites, using EB's animations. If you want you could just copy them from my mod"

How do I do that?

"Here is the problem"

I don't really find that too annoying. I got used to those small clipping and positioning bugs in any version of Rome i've played so far!

Agreed. I've made a note to add that animation to the next version. Now if I could only find time to work on it. Been very busy at work lately.

My name is referring to Starcraft: Let me play a match against a Persian peasant from 300 BC (that is obviously dead now) and I will somehow manage to lose against him! I'm serious... xD Actually I've been playing vanilla RTR for about a year now . I don't regret anything!

Oh, ok. That's cool.

"I want to make sure the animations look good."

They do! I always noticed that super-frequent shiver that came upon single soldiers when they were in combat, it looked as if the unit would start attacking 7 times but always abort that until it decided to do rest too, if you know what I mean. That didn't happen in the battles I had with ExRM!

Good, I'm glad. That's probably the better ai_formations file helping out. An improperly written one causes the AI to fight with itself about courses of action.

"Don't worry about that. We've done a lot of price balancing, and as a result you get much more interesting armies from the AI. And with increased upkeeps, stack spamming is pretty hard."

That's exactly what I wanted to be answered *lucky*.

I'm glad. We worked hard on the cost balancing, and we're really happy with the results.

I know about that, but I didn't remember before I had already switched of my PC! Sorry and thank you anyway...

It's cool.

One last thing... It's an annoying terrifying bug that started occuring when I first used my new video card (ATI HD 4870).
It only happens with Rome or its mods; all my other games work just excellently!

Sometimes, after an irregular amount of time (not always!!!), on the campaignmap or during siege battles, I get a total crash of my system. It's not a bluescreen, but it's similar.
I get a screen of vertical orange and yellow stripes and manually have to restart my computer to play until it happens again 30 min later!

This somehow never appears in custom battles, nor in field battles nor when I do a certain action. I don't see the regularity behinf those crashes!

I'm pretty sure my (modern) video drivers are to blame, but trying older ones didn't help either, instead it seems to reduce video quality a lot!

Is that a known bug? Do others know that? Can you advise me how to solve it? It will be able to almost ruin my ExRM-games!

Well, I'll try my first campaign this evening and see if the bug occurs, it did in FATW and RTRPE 1.9...

Newtothegame

That's odd. It definitely sounds like a hardware video acceleration issue. I've never heard of that. Have you tried loading setting specific to RTW? Some drivers have them. Also, you might try turning off anti-aliasing in your video settings and seeing if that makes the problem go away.

Could it be a heat issue?

[AqD]

Thanks, aqd! I'll take you up on that. Have you tried S1's overhand hoplite animations? If so, what do you think?

They look great. But with short_pike the hoplites act very weird - sometimes they try to attack with the middile part of spear It might be just due to the hardcoded short_pike model, which is wrongly positioned. I haven't tested it without short_pike though.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hmmm...that's no good. Short_pike has really great effects on unit organization. I think if I had to choose between overhand attacks and short_pike, I'd go with the latter.

[AqD]

Hmmm...that's no good. Short_pike has really great effects on unit organization. I think if I had to choose between overhand attacks and short_pike, I'd go with the latter.

Ummm.... what effects?? :hmmm:

[Quinn Inuit]

I'm actually not the best person to answer that. I commend this thread to your attention: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=138190

[Jamey]

Hmmm...that's no good. Short_pike has really great effects on unit organization. I think if I had to choose between overhand attacks and short_pike, I'd go with the latter.

I'm actually not the best person to answer that. I commend this thread to your attention: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=138190

TWFanatic's screenshots show his hoplites with the short_pike attribute fighting with an overhand motion. It clearly can be done.

[Newtothegame]

I started my first campaign on H/H today playing Greece, since I love the different types of Hoplites. My campaign is going well, I am about to finish off the Macedons. They were clearly chanceless from the beginning.

It's approximately 274 BC now, that I control a nice empire and one full stack army aswell as several smaller ones. My family members are few, so I was offered some garrison commanders and "men of the hour". They all were young having awesome traits so I accepted the adoption. I won't run out of FMs that early!

Greece has no heavy cavalry which is something totally new to me (besides from Numidia, but I expect Numidia to suck). The Royal Hoplites are good troops too, so I didn't have to struggle with that problem very much.

My cities are small and controlable, my armies are superior and I'm having an absolutely good time playing. But one thing is bothering me, that is not the bug I talked of, it didn't appear at all after 4 hours of pure gaming :

This is too easy! There are no full stack armies and the enemy has nothing to throw against my forces. I get lots of money and things are alright! I'd like the game a little harder.

Of course it's just 275 BC, so I expect my enemies will extremely grow in strenght soon (will they?).

And I know, that everything is less easy to manage if supply routes get longer.

And I also hope that one day all those rebel settlements will get conquered by a "real" faction that will greatly increase it's income by doing so (once again: Will they?).

But so far it is not significantly harder than RTRPE 1.9, I think.

I must admit, that enemy army compositions look interesting and that AI seems to have improved, but thats pretty much all so far.

I like the fact, that you don't have to fight 10 000 soldiers per turn.
But one great hostile army every 4 turns would be nice. Will these be built later on?

I don't want to whine around or complain about the definitely excellent work that made this mod what it is.
I am just curious if the things I dislike a little will get better when the time played has grown to some more hours.

Newtothegame

[pannonian]

I like the fact, that you don't have to fight 10 000 soldiers per turn.
But one great hostile army every 4 turns would be nice. Will these be built later on?

A certain amount of stack spam will appear once you meet Big Blue or the Yellow Horde. As Greece, you can preempt it by taking Anatolia, but if you delay, it's a common theme to fight near endless battles on the approaches to Tarsus and the east, until you decapitate them by bypassing the pass and taking the Levant and Cyprus by sea.

[AqD]

hmm I tested and EB's overhand animation does work fine with short_pike and modded RTR hoplite models. But short_pike is supposed to revert the model changes I made...

[Quinn Inuit]

aqd: That's interesting. I think I'll give the overhand animations a try then and see how it goes.

Pannonian's right. It takes awhile to for the big enemies to find you in Greece. That faction is too easy right now, but it's going to be made more difficult in the next version (as is Macedonia, although the Greek units will be nerfed, too). I think Greece is also too wealthy ATM even with the income nerf, since by that time it was becoming more of a backwater. You'll get in more trouble as you attempt to spread out, too.

If you want a more serious challenge, try uprooting yourself and playing as the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus, or just a normal game as Pontus. You get a lot more unwanted attention in Anatolia.

And I'm glad that bug's not appearing!

I think in the next version we may need to cut the Greek Cities down to just Athens and Sparta (it's about the right time for the Chremonidean War). Any thoughts? I'm concerned that will make the AI less aggressive toward the Egyptians (without the border in Crete) and also make Sicily too easy.

[despot_of_rhodes]

I haven´t played Greeks in 3.3.4 yet, but in 3.3.3 i was quite rich after steamrolling over Macs. But i played Epirots in 3.3.4 and, besides the fact, that i managed to conquer Romans within the first year ( yes, not really fair, steamrolling the AI with elephants and using night battles, but well... ) i had a walkover with Greeks and Macs, mostly because there was no culture penalty at all! I think, RTR Epirote campaign was the only one i ever finished since playing Rome at all

I wouldn´t bash AI by taking all their settlements except Sparta and Athen. I think, Greeks and Macs are doing quite well, but the problem is, that you can conquer all way long through till Babylon, without need of huge garrisons, good gouverneurs etc. I noticed, that most of Illyrian towns got 15% unrest, no matter, what you do, it remains ( i first thought that was an incredible spy, but i was mistaking, it seems to be implemented, right? ). Maybe one could implement a similar "feature" to some other cities, wich where known as historically "rebellios", but let it work only in the beginning, so that in a while, it should dissapear ( maybe 25% extra unrest in the beginning and keep bout 5-10% after the assimillation ). It would be great, if one could give each faction a different unrest, if it conquers that town, and/or if one could combine this unrest with some buildings, i.e. farms or severs, an avesome temple of choise, or maybe the third upgrade of the gouverment building. But not the standard auxilla buildings, because thats what AI is trying to build first most of the time - and this exactly causes the full stack spamm after 20-30 years, ignoring any normal development of the towns.

[Jamey]

I think in the next version we may need to cut the Greek Cities down to just Athens and Sparta (it's about the right time for the Chremonidean War). Any thoughts?

:sparta:

Wait, did you want substantive comments?

I'm concerned that will make the AI less aggressive toward the Egyptians (without the border in Crete) and also make Sicily too easy.

We're definitely changing the interactions between Epirus, Macedon, Greece, Thrace, Galatia, and Ptolemy. If we put in the landbridge, we can throw Rome into the mix as well. There will be a lot more rebel on the map in that area, which will certainly change early game behavior.

One thing we do know from experience is that very small factions tend to have trouble expanding at the beginning of the game (see the barbarian factions). If most of Greece and Macedon is rebel, that's going to dramatically reduce early trade income for that region, so if those factions start small their per settlement income is also going to be small. Balance is going to be interesting.

[Quinn Inuit]

I haven´t played Greeks in 3.3.4 yet, but in 3.3.3 i was quite rich after steamrolling over Macs. But i played Epirots in 3.3.4 and, besides the fact, that i managed to conquer Romans within the first year ( yes, not really fair, steamrolling the AI with elephants and using night battles, but well... ) i had a walkover with Greeks and Macs, mostly because there was no culture penalty at all! I think, RTR Epirote campaign was the only one i ever finished since playing Rome at all

I wouldn´t bash AI by taking all their settlements except Sparta and Athen. I think, Greeks and Macs are doing quite well, but the problem is, that you can conquer all way long through till Babylon, without need of huge garrisons, good gouverneurs etc. I noticed, that most of Illyrian towns got 15% unrest, no matter, what you do, it remains ( i first thought that was an incredible spy, but i was mistaking, it seems to be implemented, right? ). Maybe one could implement a similar "feature" to some other cities, wich where known as historically "rebellios", but let it work only in the beginning, so that in a while, it should dissapear ( maybe 25% extra unrest in the beginning and keep bout 5-10% after the assimillation ). It would be great, if one could give each faction a different unrest, if it conquers that town, and/or if one could combine this unrest with some buildings, i.e. farms or severs, an avesome temple of choise, or maybe the third upgrade of the gouverment building. But not the standard auxilla buildings, because thats what AI is trying to build first most of the time - and this exactly causes the full stack spamm after 20-30 years, ignoring any normal development of the towns.

Sounds a lot like the culture penalty, really. The Illyrians are probably set up to be more rebellious, which is moddable and probably a lot easier to make a constant than to try to script a gradually disappearing one.

:sparta:

Wait, did you want substantive comments?

That works, too.

We're definitely changing the interactions between Epirus, Macedon, Greece, Thrace, Galatia, and Ptolemy. If we put in the landbridge, we can throw Rome into the mix as well. There will be a lot more rebel on the map in that area, which will certainly change early game behavior.

One thing we do know from experience is that very small factions tend to have trouble expanding at the beginning of the game (see the barbarian factions). If most of Greece and Macedon is rebel, that's going to dramatically reduce early trade income for that region, so if those factions start small their per settlement income is also going to be small. Balance is going to be interesting.

Good point. I think Epirus and Rome start off slowly enough that they won't steamroll the Greeks and Macs, but you're right that this is going to be interesting. Adding Pergamum into the general area will only make it moreso, too. Maybe we should just take Aetolia away from the Greeks and leave it at that.