RSII "Five Good Emperors" Questions, Suggestions & Discussion

[wardyuc]

thnx for your words

1 and 2. well..there are lots of unrealistic things in RTW due to engine limitations...Towns with 400 people are one of them because the AI recruited all population or undefended Towns ( one of the most annoying things). Garrisons are there to help the AI and to avoid the Player steamroll in a even more unrealistic manner. In 0Turn this is not much of an issue as the AI can train a complete army in 1Turn in another city but in 1Turn this is a big problem. Just because there pops up a Garrison the AI will not go bancrupt as the AI trains units anyway and the script helps the AI with + money should it go into the negative at end turn.
To assure that the Garrisosn will pop up they will not be deducted from the population (how you wanna make 12 units pop up if the Town is down to 400 pop ?) neither it is possible to un-train them (that would make the script far to long)...Player should pay attention every time he gets near a city he will give the enemy half an army...

3. Legion Ancillarys will come with patch 2.2 as a default. As for the other features. This expansion has been developed for 1Turn to adress the two main flaws of 1 Turn : The lack of resistance and pressure on the Player. In 0Turn there is plenty of pressure and tension and Iam not sure that more pressure would make the game better.

Being a 0 turn player myself, who likes to have a very slow expansion to give the maximum challenge out of the game. I think it would be great if you could release a 0 turn version of this.

What you have done would make the game more than perfect

[mgabor27]

There is only one thing that is not clear for me
If this mod will be playing in the times of the mentioned five good emperors, why the Spartacus rebellion is in this mod? It had happened long before this timeframe

[rometotal]

i'm so excited , when shall this mod be released ?

[chris10]

i'm so excited , when shall this mod be released ?

Iam running a test campaign at the moment. Looks good so far but Iam still only 30 years into the game.
Everything depends on how much time I have during this week to push the campaign forward and if I find any sloppy oversights or bugs

[drecie14]

Read the posts again my friend...
It doesn't move the timeframe to the Five Good Emperors
It merely adds to the timeframe to encompass the Five Good Emperors

[mgabor27]

Mea Culpa, mea maxima culpa

[rometotal]

here in Vietnam we have a group of 6 people who are watching every progress of this great mod , please be quick

[chris10]

Progress in Test Campaign...600 AUC , huge settings, dificulty H/H
1. Important to know is that I did not hold back at any moment...I used all I had from the beginning to expand but this is insanely difficult ...I have to fight to death for every square meter...
2. Casualties are a lot higher and a lot more realistic on the players side which makes the logistic part a lot more important and obviously more difficult to hold new grounds ...
3. Players citys grow slower as more soldiers have to be trained..all in all...it feels a bit more natural now...
4. I had to stop building in lots of citys at more than one ocasion as I needed the funds to retrain units.
5. Garrisons are beefy: An unexperienced allied Legion got shredded in the attempt to conquer Apollonia against the experienced Greek Garrison ...brrrr...next time I know better...
6. Without proper city developement Player is inevitably doomed to fail as strong economics are the key factor
7. Same goes for military infrastructure
8. I implemented a few scripts to help the AI counterattack the AI to keep a few Factions more or less where they are.....looks not to bad but it seems there will never be a reliable method to let them stay put more or less...

[DeWitt8]

can't wait for the release...!

[military tribune]

nice map and glad to hear you are in testing run. btw, what happened to the terra incognita?

[chaplain118]

Have you considered using something akin to the RTR regions concept where only key cities are capable of producing high quality troops while other cities can only make levies? And in conjunction with the garrison script so that when you take insignificant cities far away from the enemy's key cities, the garrison will spawn some very weak troops, but the closer you get to the enemy key cities the better troops are spawned until elite troops are spawned at the key cities. That way, it would put a damper on AI stack spamming as well as throw in an element of strategy when the player wages war.

[chris10]

Have you considered using something akin to the RTR regions concept where only key cities are capable of producing high quality troops while other cities can only make levies? And in conjunction with the garrison script so that when you take insignificant cities far away from the enemy's key cities, the garrison will spawn some very weak troops, but the closer you get to the enemy key cities the better troops are spawned until elite troops are spawned at the key cities. That way, it would put a damper on AI stack spamming as well as throw in an element of strategy when the player wages war.

ummmm....having in mind 12.000 script lines written mostly manually it is a bit late for considerations
as we speak about a 1Turn recruitment campaign weak garrisons are not an option as the AI can not field troops quick enough once the player is on the offensive...only way to stop a steamrolling is having beefy garrisons.
And there we are...the Garrisons...I think nobody who never edited a Garrison script by hand can imagine the amount of work as all Settlements can have various possible owners and the AI is so unpredictable in what it will do and who goes on conquest and who got eliminated quick.
I have carefully choosen and edited all garrisons..there are faction default ones, area specific ones and capital elite garrisons but making it dependant on the distance of a capital would be far to much...apart from that in 50% of all times they wont be in the hand of their original owner anyway once the player get there and the amount of work to be invested in this is far to big compared to the stategic impact such setting would provide in a campaign.
Iam testing the campaign at the moment and believe me...you wont be short on the strategy element...in fact if you not plan your conquest carefully and assure logistic you are going to loose for sure...
if the RTW enigne would be a bit more flexible a lot of cool things could be done but with a 200 province cap there is not endless room for in depth grand strategy unfortunately....

nice map and glad to hear you are in testing run. btw, what happened to the terra incognita?

Its blue ...Roman Rebels territory...noticed it when I toggled fow...Its Spartans666 edited Map which inlcudes a few great tiny changes...

This is looking extremely promising, Chris.
An ambititious sole undertaking, with which you appear to be coping admirably.
As an Old School Blood, Snot & Guts Grognard, I heartily approve of what you are trying to do.
I do also offer a word of caution though.
Be very careful with the balance.
There is a very fine line between granite hard & futile.
During the beta testing of RS2 there were times when turn after turn I was getting the same settlement beseiged by full stacks of Arverni.
IIRC it went on for 20 odd game years.
Needless to say, it got satisfactorilty rebalanced, by the bosses.
Gawd bless 'em, each & every one!
Balla.

Thnx...you are right with the balance...although lets not forget this is 1Turn. So there is a natural limit on how much troops the AI can field in a certain amount of time....
I play a test campaign on H/H at the moment....Its insane but fun ...maybe its best played on H/M but I suppose everything depends on how much veteran somebody is

[chris10]

A few shots on how things going
I take the opportunity to make a few essential statements on how to's ...

1. Building necessary Infrastructure before thinking about Marian Reforms. There wont be generic Legionarys to fill the gap.


2. Recruit Local Allied Troops for North Italy defense They are cheaper than Polybians but very good,too


3. Scipios Grandson ...Doin a fine job holding back the Averni with local Massalian Troops while the Republic masses troops in Carthago Nuevo to conquer Spain. EDIT: ...lost him and 80 % of the army in 611AUC due to the ing plague ...grrrrffftttjjjjxxxxx


4. Dont be to selfconfident ...You will need all those. Spain will be a hard nut to crack. There is a revolt waiting for you and an emergency arises somewhere else Any less on troops will result in the entire loss of the Invasion Force.Before I go attacking I will add 2 further levies Armys from North Africa...mainly Light Lybian Spearmen and Skirmishers...cannon fodder...but I think I need them

[wardyuc]

Hey i posted before. Maybe you didnt see, maybe you saw and ignored. But how hard would it be to make this 0 turn?

[Nota']

Late libyans? cannon fodder? They are the best pro soldiers carthage has without going elite?

[Imperator_OfRome]

Read it again.. It actually says Light libyan

[Ballacraine]

Looking at the last posted screenshot, Chris.

You have a lot of full stacks there, especially for one turn.

Surely the upkeep of those is going to be a major drain on your economy, even without developing your regions?

Balla.

[chris10]

Looking at the last posted screenshot, Chris.

You have a lot of full stacks there, especially for one turn.

Surely the upkeep of those is going to be a major drain on your economy, even without developing your regions?

Balla.

massing forces for the blow on the Gallaeci....trust me,you need those....

this is part of the concept...creating enough resistance to force the player to concentrate on one theatre...with that the player has no ability to fight all over the places and steamroll......
yes..its draining on the economy...without proper city developement this is not possible
Iam in 611AUC and yet to deliver the blow against Spain...from there I transfer all forces to take Greece to finally be in place for the Reform around 640 AUC...

after all....this has to provide a challenge for the most experienced players otherwise It would be a useless concept, wouldnt it ?

[Ballacraine]

I take it you are going for the hammer blow method then.

Would grinding attrition not work?

That is the way I normally expand.

I appreciate your point that the Gallaeci are rock hard though.
I learnt to respect the Arevaci Spearmen a long time ago!

Balla.

[Sephiroth88]

I have a question about this mod that I could not find and answer to (I didn't read all the thread tho so if it was already said somewhere I'm sorry). Once it is released and installed, will we be able to continue to play with the normal RSII campaign if we install it in the same folder, or will we need a different installation to be able to play both?