Couple minor questions

[kingjoe]

Long time RTR PE 1.9 player here (just started playing again after almost 3 years). I got sick of Macedon and Greece having 9351535 stacks of armies and decimating the east, so I figured I'd give this a shot. Is this mod more balanced or will I see the same power armies to the east (when I play as Rome) after about 50 or 60 years?

I really want to play a long drawn out campaign that is balanced and not have one faction destroying the rest so quickly.

Thanks

[Wien1938]

We're currently waiting on 4.0 (Quinn has a real life ) but 3.5 is fairly well balanced.

[Quinn Inuit]

Heh, yeah, it's been a big project. If it weren't for all that Carados has done, the release date would still be "sometime after Duke Nukem Forever come out."

You'll see a few powerful armies, but I've tried very hard to minimize it. I hate dealing with full stacks of hypaspists every turn. Really, really hate it. So it's harder for the computer to maintain armies that size, and the ones it does build are generally well-balanced between light/heavy and cavalry/infantry/skirmish types. Macedon tends to build a lot of prodromoi early on, but that sorts itself out after a bit.

btw, the first-ever bit of modding I did was to help the RTRPE project. They had completed the v0.1 port to RTW 1.5, but there was one last CTD that kept striking after a few turns. They wouldn't listen to me when I said I thought I knew what it was, so I figured out how to fix it, posted the corrected file, and I'm pretty sure that file made it into the final release of 1.0 unchanged. It was only a little thing, but I'm very proud of it.

[kingjoe]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I've played quite a bit of the Roman campaign today and it seems fairly balanced (playing on M/H). I'm a little over 30 years in and the Ptolemaic Empire is the top dog right now. They've brought the Seleucid Empire down to about 8 territories while they're somewhere close to 40. Macedon looks to be taking off as well. The nice thing is that they don't have 10000 full stacks roaming around. I noticed the stables and practice ranges are insanely expensive? I assume they serve no purpose since the Barracks give you all the troops?

I haven't had any big battles yet really, but I've had some good skirmishes while kicking Greece out of Italy. The Gauls have finally decided to attack as well, so my northern front should start picking up too. I have one full stack up there waiting for them to attack. Great mod, guys! Can't wait for the Marian Reforms!

[Quinn Inuit]

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Yeah, the stables and practice ranges are completely unnecessary in that version, but removing them was so complicated that I just left them in. They're completely gone in 4.0 ATM.

It sounds like the Ptollies are getting a little out of control. I'd recommend launching some pre-emptive strikes on them, or maybe giving their current enemies a few thousand denarii to help their war efforts.

Big Blue is a difficult balancing act. Too strong and they conquer everything, but too weak and they don't last very long. I think that 3.5.3 is balanced decently insofar as you never know which is going to happen. I suspect 4.0 will be more stable in respect to their performance, though.