State of the Mod Address, Fall 2013: We're Almost There

[Biggus Splenus]

Into the 7th, and it looks like the last, year of dev! Well done EB2 team, can't wait to play this master piece

[abou]

Aw man, now why did you have to go and say that? I forgot how long we've been working on this.

[Thuycidides]

EB1 is perfect. I never saw the need of an EB2, because I don't care about graphics and all the cultures I wanted were in EB1.

Well, I did merge in the RSII environments, but otherwise I agree completely. I'm very curious to know how EB2 can improve on EB1. If it were the same thing but without the ctds I would be very happy.

FWIW, I reinstalled EB and tried the earlier advice about the path names...I still have the occasional ctd.

[alin]

FWIW, I reinstalled EB and tried the earlier advice about the path names...I still have the occasional ctd.

Sorry to hear that, it was assumed that it probably was the cause for RTW too in most cases.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Sorry to hear that, it was assumed that it probably was the cause for RTW too in most cases.

Sadly, I think ctd of RTW is one of those cases that we cannot do anything about, now... Except maybe completely recoding the core of the game.

It's out since 2004... Lots of people worked on them, including a lot of real nice scripters...

It's sad but it is like that.

[tobymoby]

So excited!

[V.T. Marvin]

Personally I can live with bugs and CTDs in the first couple of releases.

What worries me a little though is the amount of missing features, declared as 'not yet in the game', e. g. Marian Reforms etc.
I consider those core features of the mod. I'd rather have all features implemented at the first release and 2000 bugs and CTDs every other turn than having a pre-release that lacks a lot of features.

I don't want to sound negative or make a prejudgement, but from what I've read it sounds like you're going to release a WIP.

It will be WIP, that is for sure. But our WIP will already include more features than many "finished products".

And also it gives us opportunity to provide plentiful DLCs, the community loves them!

Or so I heard on RTW2 forum...

[GeorgiBG]

DLC? Better not say this or I will run away (and many more)!

For the moment what I can see which is better than in EB I is...more factions. Of course better graphics. We will see how well the barbarian world can adapt in medieval one.

[Dominatrixx]

What I'm concerned about for now is how EB2 will handle MTW AI (both in campaign and battles) which is definitely not the brightest and for example worse than RTW: Alexander one, as bad AI can badly affect even the perfect product... Will there be any AI tweaks/sub-mods used maybe?

[alin]

Yes, we're studying community based AI mods and tweaking them for our setting to include in the first release.
It should be better than the vanilla, to what extent we will let you be the judge.

[Sint]

What I'm concerned about for now is how EB2 will handle MTW AI (both in campaign and battles) which is definitely not the brightest and for example worse than RTW: Alexander one, as bad AI can badly affect even the perfect product... Will there be any AI tweaks/sub-mods used maybe?

It's not that bad I just had a battle(StSt 6.4 ) with my allies(no siege equipment ) against a fortress and they reused MY siege equipment to attack the second wall.

)

[escho]

Yes, we're studying community based AI mods and tweaking them for our setting to include in the first release.

XAI on the list? for me, with some tweak is the best.

[Aenima]

Just a quick question - how differently do battles play versus vanilla, or even modded M2TW? I mean in terms of unit speed - M2TW has always seemed quite "sluggish" to me in terms of unit responsiveness and move speed. This isn't too bad in and of itself, but it's just that I've always found archers/skirmishers/missile cavalry often get caught out when trying to back away from enemy units thanks to the mentioned slugishness of M2TW.

Is that something that can/has been fixed, or is it an inherent engine thing?

Into the 7th, and it looks like the last, year of dev! Well done EB2 team, can't wait to play this master piece

Wow, it's been that long? I couldn't legally get my drank or freaky time on when development on this started...I feel old now, despite still being young.

[locoace3]

Just a quick question - how differently do battles play versus vanilla, or even modded M2TW? I mean in terms of unit speed - M2TW has always seemed quite "sluggish" to me in terms of unit responsiveness and move speed. This isn't too bad in and of itself, but it's just that I've always found archers/skirmishers/missile cavalry often get caught out when trying to back away from enemy units thanks to the mentioned slugishness of M2TW.

Is that something that can/has been fixed, or is it an inherent engine thing?


Wow, it's been that long? I couldn't legally get my drank or freaky time on when development on this started...I feel old now, despite still being young.

This, i played just recently and saw that the men are real slow when they go. especially cavalry, i was using hobilars and i expected something akin to my lovely thrakian light cav chasing down routing enemies, and it felt more like watching skirmishers running.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Just a quick question - how differently do battles play versus vanilla, or even modded M2TW? I mean in terms of unit speed - M2TW has always seemed quite "sluggish" to me in terms of unit responsiveness and move speed. This isn't too bad in and of itself, but it's just that I've always found archers/skirmishers/missile cavalry often get caught out when trying to back away from enemy units thanks to the mentioned slugishness of M2TW.

Well... Actually I always found the RTW units "blockish" :p True, I found the cohesion between all the soldiers too tight, too rigid. As if the whole would move as one and stay in sqare etc.
I greatly prefer M2TW formations/cohesions. It actually feels like we are commander real people, not machines, not programs. They take time to execute, they don't do it at once, etc.
The only problem I find is that when one soldier of an unit is attacked, the whole unit feel the need to go to contact, even if you gave the order to fall back. It doesn't help much and can kill an entire strategy.

[alin]

XAI on the list? for me, with some tweak is the best.

Yes.

Just a quick question - how differently do battles play versus vanilla, or even modded M2TW? I mean in terms of unit speed - M2TW has always seemed quite "sluggish" to me in terms of unit responsiveness and move speed. This isn't too bad in and of itself, but it's just that I've always found archers/skirmishers/missile cavalry often get caught out when trying to back away from enemy units thanks to the mentioned slugishness of M2TW.

Is that something that can/has been fixed, or is it an inherent engine thing?

Not sure here as I haven't played M2TW in a while and I don't know if it's possible via some .txt files.
However I think it's not possible easily, only by completely redoing all of the animations.

Maybe another member can give a clearer answer.

[BRKMS]

Can't wait. There's probably going to be a lot of people let down by Rome II that would want to give EBII a go, the more the merrier.

[Achilles Lacedaemon]

Sadly, I think ctd of RTW is one of those cases that we cannot do anything about, now... Except maybe completely recoding the core of the game.

It's out since 2004... Lots of people worked on them, including a lot of real nice scripters...

It's sad but it is like that.

There is a way to sttle down the CTD's a bit, simply by removing quotes ( yes it sounds ridiculous, but it works )

When ending/starting a battles/game/etc the game is processing too much things off screen, and sometimes for it to just pick a quote in a large list may require even more processing, resulting in crashes sometimes. If you let only 1 quote for every time there's a loading screen, crashes can be settle down more often ( this is confirmed ).

[johnny_b_good]

How hard scripted mod will be? I can't play SS mod because its heavily scripted and turn times are 5 minutes long on my crappy pc.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

There is a way to sttle down the CTD's a bit, simply by removing quotes ( yes it sounds ridiculous, but it works )

When ending/starting a battles/game/etc the game is processing too much things off screen, and sometimes for it to just pick a quote in a large list may require even more processing, resulting in crashes sometimes. If you let only 1 quote for every time there's a loading screen, crashes can be settle down more often ( this is confirmed ).

Yeah, I've tried it and it works, relatively. I had the infamous "Say NO to CTD's !" Julius modification (I found it easier to dowload the file than to do it myself but I still have from time to time ctd's. Actually there are lots of things that can be done, and I listed them and after that stated what you quoted. Precisely because even with those things, RTW engine is still unreliable.

How hard scripted mod will be? I can't play SS mod because its heavily scripted and turn times are 5 minutes long on my crappy pc.

I must say he got a point. EBI is (at last) quite fast now, with new machines and all. But I tried some hugely scripted mods ( de Bello Mundi...) and it was really a game-killer how this game is slow while turns are going. I just bring us back to the old EB1 script (before it was cleaned up) with old machines... Quite hard to comming back to that rythme !