Suggestions for future versions

[Nero666]

With ROP v2.2 released, we have opened a new suggestions thread, which is accessible here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=164846 Keep 'em coming!

Please only post here if you want to discuss previous suggestions posted in this thread; for new ones please use the new thread

[Paul d]

I palyed as the Athenians and i had a generals bodygaurd in a battle i thought they would be uber like in vanilla, but to my surprise they couldnt even beat javelin cavalry. is this realistic, or are you guys still balanciing it? and i noticed that the rebels in greek areas are way too numerous and it is especially hard to expand the first 10 turns or so. and are you guys gonna do seperate skins for each greek faction?

[irishron]

Just played about 17 years as Sparta. I noticed no mercs. Is peninsula this crowded on purpose? Are you going to do multiple temples? Otherwise a great job.

[Jerloi]

I would like to thank you for creating such a great mod but i have suggestion could you change the unit's dress color especially the PERSIAN when I was playing your MOD last night they were like assorted candies it is 2 bright. I think this MOD is buggy and it needs to be fixed ASAP. I cannot play huge also because frame rate drastically slows down. thank you very much . I'll wait for the patch before I play this game again

[Jlop985]

You should change certain characters' ages in order to be more historical, and the game be more enjoyable. Specifically, Cyrus is 60 in this beta, and about to die, while in real life he was around 31 in 559 BC. It's a nice job you are doing, and the campaign promises to be a fresh alternative to the 270 BC campaign.

[Zenith Darksea]

Well, characters haven't actually been implemented yet. As for the clothing of units, we have gone for historical accuracy and so this will probably not be changed.

The Peloponnese is quite crowded at the moment. The idea was that, with lots of rebels and cities, the Greek factions would be forced to expand much more slowly (as in history), though if you do gain hegemony over Hellas, you will be very powerful.

[hellas1]

Howdy ROP team!

I have a nice suggestion:

Why not implement historical battles?

Ain't it a wonderful idea?

Thanks, hellas1

BTW, keep on keeping it historically accurate and keep the units as balanced as a realistic mod with the actual unit strengths should be, ie. infantry toughness=Sparta, archers= Low melee strength, etc, for each faction, Pleeeaaasssseee!

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

Constructive criticism---don't be offended:


There's very very little variety in units among the Greeks, and a very very low selection of units and factions to use in battle

All the Greek factions seem to have is the basic "Hoplite" "Better Hoplite" "Faction-specific Hoplite", then "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" along with maybe some flowery addition or colorization.

The Thracians also seem to have the basic barbarian units "Warband" "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" "Better Warband" and such.

You also can't play as many factions such as Makedon or Indians and such? Why? Not even in custom battles! Were they made as rebels? You have like 20 faction slots to use and you only use half that?


Also, the battles are an absolute disaster. I was playing as the Spartans against rebels, I had all only Hoplites, and two Better Hoplites, and a general with 48 other bodyguards on horseback. The rebels had pretty much the same amount, save for two lines of archers. As soon as the two lines engaged, one of my hoplite lines began to rout! Within two minutes, casualties on both sides mounted heavily, then in another minute, my entire ARMY routed!


I'd say that this mod is nowhere near finished. The battle settings for morale and discipline need vast improvement, to make them into actual battles, rather than the slaughterhouses of RTW where basic Hoplites have at best "Fair Morale"

The unit selection is another; it needs improvement, and variety. The Greek factions are almost all identical save for appearance---much like Warcraft 2 in which both Humans and Orcs are exactly alike in everything save for appearance and magical spells.

I'd think that because of the extreme lack of morale, Persia would be impossible to beat on Very Hard mode without cheating or praying to all the Gods that none of your neighbors turn on you

[Sammur-amat]

Constructive criticism---don't be offended:


There's very very little variety in units among the Greeks, and a very very low selection of units and factions to use in battle

All the Greek factions seem to have is the basic "Hoplite" "Better Hoplite" "Faction-specific Hoplite", then "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" along with maybe some flowery addition or colorization.

The Thracians also seem to have the basic barbarian units "Warband" "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" "Better Warband" and such.

Hmmm...How To Explain This One To You...The Greeks
Were Adopted Hoplite Style..Didn't Use Their Large Aristocracy As Cavalry....And The Peltasts Are Ussually The Missile Units With Idea To Grow Up And Become Hoplites...

Thracians Are One Nation Divided Among Itself In Tribes...Only Difference Is Where They Reside And How Greek They Become...


To The ROP team...RTR & EB Should Be The Best Examples Of What Mod Should Have....Just ReAdopt The Basics And Go From There ...

[Zenith Darksea]

All the Greek factions seem to have is the basic "Hoplite" "Better Hoplite" "Faction-specific Hoplite", then "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" along with maybe some flowery addition or colorization.

The Thracians also seem to have the basic barbarian units "Warband" "Archer" "Skirmisher" "Cavalry" "Better Warband" and such.

Well, I'm afraid that's just history. This is a historical mod, so that's what we do. If you don't like it, go back two and a half thousand years and complain to the Greeks and Thracians.

You also can't play as many factions such as Makedon or Indians and such? Why? Not even in custom battles! Were they made as rebels? You have like 20 faction slots to use and you only use half that?

That's because we haven't made them yet, as we have already stated. They will be in future versions.

Also, the battles are an absolute disaster. I was playing as the Spartans against rebels, I had all only Hoplites, and two Better Hoplites, and a general with 48 other bodyguards on horseback. The rebels had pretty much the same amount, save for two lines of archers. As soon as the two lines engaged, one of my hoplite lines began to rout! Within two minutes, casualties on both sides mounted heavily, then in another minute, my entire ARMY routed!

Yes, battles are still being fine-tuned.

I'd say that this mod is nowhere near finished.

I suppose that's why we called it a 'beta'. Mods that aren't finished and are still being tested are generally called 'betas'. What else do you expect from one?

Don't ask for too much, too soon, please.

[rez]

You also can't play as many factions such as Makedon or Indians and such? Why? Not even in custom battles! Were they made as rebels? You have like 20 faction slots to use and you only use half that?

I believe the main misunderstanding is that you thought we had declared the mod finished.

We are in no way complete so please take our released work as a taster rather than the be all and end all.

Criticism appreciated though and we'll be looking into the balancing.

[Jlop985]

I don't know if you had noticed, but Athens and Sparta (and maybe some others) run a huge loss starting off. Their economies need to be balanced. Corinth is also not in the map. I think it's deliberate, and if so, I respect the decision, but Corinth was pretty important at that time. I also want to know, is it deliberate that the hoplites don't have the phalanx ability, or is it just that is has not been implemented yet?

[Stalins_Elite]

RoP team. I love it, love it, absolutely love it.

I like the way you guys have given the Hellenic factions (Sparta/Athens) with the powerful hoplite armies a limited starting position of 1 or 2 provinces. It forces them to develop they're economy and slowly expand as they don't have the manpower reserves to throw massive armies in the feild straight away and blitz the map. The eastern factions have larger kingdoms and better economies at the start, but there units aren't as strong,
hence making the rebels more of a challenge (not that rebels are really a challenge in any rtw vanilla or mod). Most of them ie:Kemet/Bab'Ilu, don't start getting access to good troops until they're second or third city/barracks upgrade.

I like the masses of rebel navies in the Med Sea in the original release, I didn't notice them in your latest patch. The reason I like them is because it really makes you invest into a strong navy if you want to expand and take the rich island provinces like Cyprus/Crete. It also stops the likes of say Lydia making a small navy and sailing straight over to Greece and taking out a 1 province Sparta or Athens. The massive Rebel armies in Greece itself I think is also good. As each city was an idependant city state which was continuously warring with the others. So anyone playing Sparta or Athens really has to budget their economy and military expansion well.

I am playing as Lydia and am roughly 20 to 30 years into the campaign. I have just managed to secure most of modern day Turkey, and have been fighting a war against Bab'Ilu for about the past 15 years. I have been playing on H/M and have just gotten the upper hand against Bab'Ilu by taking 3 of they're major coastal provinces. The ai has been making massive stack armies with some battles having upto 3000 men on each side (I am playing on huge units), so my campaign has been costly both economically and manpower wise. It is good to see that the ai is making me bleed and work hard for my spoils.

On a finishing note. I can't wait for Media to be preveiwed. Are you guys going to release another beta with some more factions or just release them faction at a time in a patch style upgrade? Out of every Mod I have played (and there has been quite a few), this is one that I just can't hit the 'quit game' button on. Bloody good work, keep it up!!!

[Hobo]

I've played most of the factions, some for quite a while.
I'm not going to mention the things you're working on, this is a Beta after all - and a damn good one.

I generaly do H/VH for campaigns. One thing, Persia is damn hard! Third attempt and I've had to make battles easier and not invade the province at the mouth of the Euphrates/Tigres in order to survive from Babalon - thier Nas-somthing proper spearmen are v.good and no Persian unit can meet them toe-to-toe ona level playing field - I like it! v.hard atm, fighting of strong Mahgda to the East {taken the two easter provinces of start + closest arabian one at straights, slowly fighitng w/ natuive aux. to hold back the saba} Also the...um...'brown' barb faction tot he North {fighting over the province NE of capitol} and letting the tealish one take the heat from the Babalonians {who've invaded Lydia! Those chariots are damn powerful}

Babalonian civ is v.gd and about right, Persia have to realy use experianced units and tactics to overcome them, you have to command the major battles.
I can just muster 3 full stack persian armies and a half one, not when at war with all my niebroughs but easily when trading with them all.

The Spartan hoplites should be stronger in my view, or you should start out with no other units but a few exp. Spartans.

Khemit is useualy swallowed up by Kryne in my games, rarly holds out and if so useualy in the South against the Kush but reliant on uber-exp generals. Good army set up for them, and love the Kryne army.

Lydia is prob the most enjoyable one to play for me, since the mix of units and make up of your armies is both made up for local troops and those u need to counted the local threats, you can have an army suited to deal with Thracian barbs, Greek hoplites and Babalonian forces in every theatre and use the strenghts and mix of units availible to best effect against different civ's. Damn good job!



One general criticism, and I don't know if it's because you've not come to it yet, is that the battles are all the same, one long thin line that iether remains in place {indian armies being cut to ribbons by Persian arrow fire} or charges straight at you - though there have been 2 battles where a general have divided into 2 and surrounded my centraly focused army.
Are you able to incorperate a simple formations mod into yours at all?
Just to make it less uniform all over the world you've made.

Tara's seems never to expand, sometimes wiped out.
Makedon has a similar problem though occasionaly begins to take settlements but is often wiped out.
Illria always does alright, comes into conflict with the Scynthians {orange}
Athens of Sparta generaly take control of the mainland at the death of one or the other.
Bessoi iether don't realy expand much {v.rarely, useualy coupled w/ a Lydian invasion of Europe} or do quite well and threaten Makedon constantly.
Ionians general, when playing against, give a hell of a fight when coupled with pressure from Babylon if you're not fast enough, but when observed they get crushed by Lydian Chariot armies - they are 2 strong on the campaign map but seem fine in battles.





Just got the final recruiting leg of my tech tree for Persia, and have been able to hold off the surrounding Empires so far {key to last defeats was expanding to quick with armies that relyied on the new income but due to geog couldn't defend and if crushed once led to all those around taking a slice of my lands}, and by not expanding near Babylon havn't drew thier all-conquering wrath - hopefuly with the new 2 units i'll be able to fight a full stack army toe-to-toe and not have them sweep over me with those spearmen. So, I'll be finding out what the 2nd phase of the Persian game is like, the key to the first seems to keep your expansion modest and build up farming and economy till you can create the best units, play defencive only after taking whats free, now Persia's got the financial backbone to fund the creation of the full armies I'm looking to replace/merge the current 3 and send these out campaiging - hopfuly they'll be able to do so unsupported for a while - against the northern half of which the Persians are the other, then to push back the Mahgda, then the brown barbs in/around Adfganistan, and as soon as the they begin it against Babylon...
...looking forward to getting to Greece, I imagine Lydia will be a hard fight with those hoplite heavy armies. Shame Khemet won't be around to be fought.



All round, what's done or almost done is V.gd!
Great work so far, you should be proud.
The Persian Campaign is fantastic, and this is only the beta.



One Q - Could you PM me with were you got all those quotes from? I'd like to use some of them and was wondering if they can be attributed to any particular oral culture or if they were out of some book called 'Eastern Wisdom' ?

Cheers.

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

It doesn't seem fair to force nations like Athens and Sparta (at this time, Athens was on the way to its height, as Rome was circa the 290s BC and such) to not just have one city, but to have meager little armies, hardly any buildings built, and rebel armies with nearly full stacks wandering around the territory.

This isn't 1200 BC... it's only like 550 BC... Greece (and specifically Athens and Sparta) were a lot stronger than they are made to be here... especially the Spartan Hoplites were überpowerful, as this was only some 60 years before Thermopylae and the Persian wars.

I understand that a beta means not finished, but what I say is that some of the incompleteness renders it unplayable... such as the battles. I couldn't do much with the campaign with the Spartans having a meager little army of essentially militia rout-in-three-minutes hoplites and rebel (independent) cities having a full stack in Thebes, wandering around Lakedaimonia, and me having to stretch my little militia between Sparta and Elis (had taken Elis to boost my economy, which was very crippling at the time) meanwhile Athens was preparing to attack me, it seemed, but was literally forced back by the strong-as-hell independents and had their one settlement under siege.


As for the Hoplites, I realize that they shouldn't have much difference with regards to variety, but appearance-wise, there seems to be little to no specific differences between them,



See these pictures? The ones on top are based off the variety of Hoplites found at the battle of Thermopylae (not too soon after the mod's campaign begins) and I see a lot more variety in colors among them than in the mod. The lower picture also shows variety in shields, and considering how many different Greeks are taking up faction spots, I think there should at least be more variety among them (not talking about the Lambda on Spartan shields)


This above pic is once of my favorites. Those are all Greek Hoplites armed the same way, but they all look so different and unique from one another---as the Greek city-states were





I don't know if these are historical or not to the time period of 559 - 400 BC, but I'd say they are damn close, and can't all be complete BS (like showing Imperial-era legionaries fighting in the Second Punic War)

[FliegerAD]

First, you need to realise (I mean it!) that this mod is stretching to 490BC, not 400BC. Hence all military development of the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, the Anabasis and so on are not part of our mod.

Although those re-enactment pictures are not as wrong as Legionaries for our period, they still represent later hoplites. A few hints, in our period:
- muscle cuirasses were not yet developed in that form
- pteryges were not yet attached to them
- Korinthian Helmets were not yet developed in that form (with the check pieces extending to the throat, going straight down; no ear holes)
- Chalkidian helmets were extremely novel in our period
- The pictures depict the greaves strapped on the leg. In reality they were clipped

Some literature:

Kunze, Emil: Korinthische Helme, in: Kunze, Emil / u.a. (Ed.): 7. Olympiabericht, Berlin 1961, 56-129 [on the development of the Korinthian Helmet]
Kunze, Emil.: Chalkidische Helme, in: Kunze, Emil / u.a. (Ed.): 8. Olympiabericht, Berlin 1967, 135-183 [on the development of the Chalkidian Helmet]
Snodgrass, Anthony M.: Arms and Armour of the Greeks, London 1967 [general overview]
Snodgrass, Anthony M.: The Hoplite Reform and History, in: JHS 85 (1965), 110-122 [some aspects of hoplite development]
Franz, Johann P.: Krieger, Bauern, Bürger. Untersuchungen zu den Hopliten der archaischen und klassischen Zeit, Frankfurt 2002 [very recent, best overview]

I am yet to see an excavation report on the armour found at the Thermopylai… however I did not look after it, so if it exists, please show. You can trust us, that our historical advisors have read a lot more than a few puny Osprey books (sorry, compared to academic literature they are often puny).

Actually I am yet to see two identical hoplites in our mod, too. Although a number of models are shared among the Greek factions – after all, they all used the same equipment more or less (Korinthian helmet, Argive Shield, bell-cuirass etc.) – the skins are always different. No shield blazon can be found twice apart from the popular Gorgonaion, and even that is made in different artistic styles reflecting the different origins.
We can’t make diverse skins within one unit: hard-coded is the word.

Again, it needs to be stressed that the Greek warfare was not sophisticated at all in 559BC. To be correct, there was not much apart from a single hoplite line.
The hoplite “units” in game represent the different social levels in Greek society. One thing they had in common very often is a horse owning nobility, the so-called Hippeis (Knights), thus you will see them quite often.
And again, we could have made a single hoplite unit and would be still representing Greek warfare quite good, especially if it’s after Persian perceptions. However, we decided using the different social levels for different ‘bodies’ of hoplites. Which is a viable way used by most mods.

As for the strategical strength of Athens and Sparta, both were city states, minor compared to giants like Media. It would be ridiculous giving them cities or territories they didn’t posses or an army exceeding their number of population from my point of view. Their economical weakness will be discussed and addressed as it is not intended.


When reading your description of the Thrakians I asked myself, what you actually played! Warbands… Archers… Skirmishers… Let’s bring some order in that.
Skirmishing is a style of warfare, archers are a branch of arms, warbands are a term of social history.
In the aspect of social history, all of them are warbands, following the leader into battle when called upon. As for the style of warfare, all Thrakian warriors that time skirmished, so all of them are skirmishers. Yet all of them use different weapons in that style. Some javelins, some bows, some slings. All of them are represented with their indigenous names.
Although we could have built some more ‘units’ based on other tribes and we discussed warrior women. However, we only represented a single tribe, which the Greeks called Bessoi.

I may quote ZD for truth, “if you don’t like it, go back two and a half thousand years and complain to the Greeks and Thracians”

I however agree, there is something to do in balancing the battles. The Lydian chariots e.g. are clearly bugged if they have 5 HP…

[Paul d]

i noticed something silly. the kyrene hippeis cost 650 but normal ones cost 550 and the kyrene ones are weaker. ummmmmm can u guys change this. also, when i play m/m thrake always crushes makedon and kyrene totally annihilates kemet also maghada always kicks persias ass. also it very hard for greeks to expand and are often in the negatives when it comes to money

[svramj]

i noticed something silly. the kyrene hippeis cost 650 but normal ones cost 550 and the kyrene ones are weaker. ummmmmm can u guys change this. also, when i play m/m thrake always crushes makedon and kyrene totally annihilates kemet also maghada always kicks persias ass. also it very hard for greeks to expand and are often in the negatives when it comes to money

I've been wondering abt this

[Ramesses the Great]

Hi there
I have been playing RoP for some time now and love this mod and I’m looking forward to see it finished. However, I have a question I would like to see answered. Why do Egyptian chariots (htr) fire javelins instead of arrows? The chariots have the animations of firing arrows (using a bow) but instead of seeing arrows flying I see javelins. Is this a bug or I was just unlucky? Did this happen to anyone else?

[Hobo]

Have an unknown CTD on the Persian campain, after the flood event in S.arabia. Seems to be a time delay after a battle is fought in the province below the one below at the straights south of Persian coast.


Can someone tell me the website where you can upload smallish files so I can post a link? Been an age since I've done it and forgotton