Europa Barbarorum 2.08e is released!

[Thuycidides]

That is strange then. I uploaded the campaign script from a fresh 2.01 install when I shared that with you before. There must another file that affects it.

P.S. the congress appeared after capturing Korinthos, which is a metropolis. But the reform is only supposed to be available with a total of 3 metropolis, not just 2.

[QuintusSertorius]

That is strange then. I uploaded the campaign script from a fresh 2.01 install when I shared that with you before. There must another file that affects it.

P.S. the congress appeared after capturing Korinthos, which is a metropolis. But the reform is only supposed to be available with a total of 3 metropolis, not just 2.

Looking at the requirements for the kh8 (Member State Admin) in the EDB, it requires an event counter to be set to 3 - but the EDB only recognises counters at 1 (or not at 1), so it's impossible to build at present. We've had some progress on untangling this one, so I'm hopeful we'll have it working properly soon.

[TinyGeneral]

Currently re-downloading MTW2 + EB2, that changelist looks exactly like what I've been hoping for thx guys!

[cih]

Just a quick question - can I copy & paste some CAI file from a prior version into this one as to allow AI factions to grow while waiting for 2.02d, or is it more complicated than that? No problem if so.

Concerning battle AI (which is still the best I have ever faced in a Total War game - it only took ten years for cavalry to learn to attack me from behind): infantry with javelins still gets caught 'reloading' in melee for extended periods of time, hardly fighting back. I'm guessing this is an unavoidable Medieval Total War 2 bug?

Something on skirmishers: it takes a LONG time for units to 'settle down' when ordered to move somewhere and they will not 'throw at will' until their last unit has reached its position usually. When dealing with skirmishers I move them into position then CANCEL their order BEFORE they are entirely ready - allowing them to throw their javelins long before the enemy does. It's a minor issue, but perhaps there is a way to make unit 'placement' faster/more lenient?

Thank you again!

[QuintusSertorius]

Just a quick question - can I copy & paste some CAI file from a prior version into this one as to allow AI factions to grow while waiting for 2.02d, or is it more complicated than that? No problem if so.

I'm not sure it will work for a simple reason: we moved all the BAI/CAI stuff to the background script alone in 2.02; the older CAI edits used both background and campaign script. If the prior version has a different campaign script, you'll lose all the changes made, such as fixing the Hayasdan Reform.

It's an unknown, really, you may get different CAI, but lose other features. Depends on which files you change.

Concerning battle AI (which is still the best I have ever faced in a Total War game - it only took ten years for cavalry to learn to attack me from behind): infantry with javelins still gets caught 'reloading' in melee for extended periods of time, hardly fighting back. I'm guessing this is an unavoidable Medieval Total War 2 bug?

Is this non-skirmisher javelin infantry?

I suspect this might be animations, like with the skirmishers. I wonder if we need to standardise their animations on the most efficient ones, like we did with skirmishers?

Something on skirmishers: it takes a LONG time for units to 'settle down' when ordered to move somewhere and they will not 'throw at will' until their last unit has reached its position usually. When dealing with skirmishers I move them into position then CANCEL their order BEFORE they are entirely ready - allowing them to throw their javelins long before the enemy does. It's a minor issue, but perhaps there is a way to make unit 'placement' faster/more lenient?

Thank you again!

Sounds like cohesion again; one for z3n.

[cih]

I'm not sure it will work for a simple reason: we moved all the BAI/CAI stuff to the background script alone in 2.02; the older CAI edits used both background and campaign script. If the prior version has a different campaign script, you'll lose all the changes made, such as fixing the Hayasdan Reform.

It's an unknown, really, you may get different CAI, but lose other features. Depends on which files you change.

No worries then, thanks. While I'm at it: back when I was playing 2.01 with all latest official fixes I emigrated as Sweboz down to Getai land and noticed that one or several of the Sweboz migration buildings was giving me Eastern Imperial culture - as far as I understand it the migration buildings give a big chunk of culture right from the start, then slow down dramatically around 30% right? From that point onward I'd gain roughly 1% every two or three years, but I hear this can be helped with influential faction members managing these cities - is that right? In any case, has the Eastern Imperial bug been corrected? Sorry if it's been addressed, didn't see anything on it in the change log and haven't got that far in my present campaign.

Is this non-skirmisher javelin infantry?

I suspect this might be animations, like with the skirmishers. I wonder if we need to standardise their animations on the most efficient ones, like we did with skirmishers?

Yes, non-skirmisher units - I've seen it occur with hastati, the most common Gallic spearman unit (the ones with the crazy hair - sorry, can't remember the name), the Dacian elite infantry - I don't think I've seen it happen with javelin equipped Germanic infantry, I guess they must use different animations?

On that note: the skirmishers running forward to throw then running BACK is absolutely amazing. They still keep edging forward so perhaps they could run back a little further but it's hardly noticeable. In any case I love this animation.

Sounds like cohesion again; one for z3n.

To be honest I don't think I've ever seen units 'stop' responsively in a Total War game - I always had an advantage by FORCING them to when they were almost in position but still shuffling. I'm pretty sure the few soldiers that AREN'T in their correct positions tend to move there regardless of what the rest of the unit is doing, for instance throwing, eventually - but I can often get two volleys off in the mean time.

Perhaps AI skirmishers would throw their javelins faster were they assigned targets, rather than positions to hold? If I order my unit to move to one position with fire at will activated I will have to wait until it is done shuffling, as will AI. If I order it to attack the unit it is facing, as far as I understand, it will start throwing as soon as it's within reach without wasting time on 'forming' - maybe this is one solution?

It really isn't a huge issue, just thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

Thanks again.

[Darkan]

Something I've noticed with the phalanx unit (playing as Pergamon), is that when I order them to move, the standard bearer gets left behind. Everyone walks in unison but the standard is apparently very heavy. Over shorter distances it's not really a problem, but the longer the distance they have to march, the more he gets left behind.

[QuintusSertorius]

Something I've noticed with the phalanx unit (playing as Pergamon), is that when I order them to move, the standard bearer gets left behind. Everyone walks in unison but the standard is apparently very heavy. Over shorter distances it's not really a problem, but the longer the distance they have to march, the more he gets left behind.

Good catch, I'll look into it.

[HaHawk]

Something I've noticed with the phalanx unit (playing as Pergamon), is that when I order them to move, the standard bearer gets left behind.

Yes, this seems to be a known bug. Actually, one of the real bad side effects of this issue is that the officer is also often the last one to get away from the enemy when withdrawing from an engagement -- he gets stuck fighting while the rest of the unit retreats. This leads to the captain/general dying more easily than he should.

In the meantime, we'd still appreciate feedback on the battle mechanics, recruitment changes and so on.

Will the devs be doing any more balancing of the units? Some of the values seem out of the ordinary (abnormally high defense or charge values, for example). And in other cases superior units are much cheaper than poor quality units for some reason.

One issue I have noticed is that Gallic Cavalry are able to win in close melee against hundreds (300 - 400) of spearmen. I was under the impression that cavalry are somewhat vulnerable when they are stationary and have no room to maneuver (i.e., city streets or in a forest after finishing a charge and being surrounded). During a recent siege battle, two enemy units of Gallic cavalry were nearly able to crush half my army in a pure war of attrition (for every 10 or 20 spearmen they killed, perhaps only one cavalry was taken down)...

Perhaps some more testing is in order. In the M2TW engine, it seems that "defense is king" when it comes to the dice rolling. For example, AFAIK, a unit with 5 attack and 15 defense will always win against a unit with 15 attack and 5 defense. Due to the discrepancies between certain cavalry and infantry, it makes little sense to bring any infantry to a battle since the cavalry are only ~50% more expensive upkeep and yet outperform by 200% or 300% or even more.

Example 1, Noble Cavalry vs. Fast Horsemen:






Example 2, Lugian skirmishers vs everyone:


9 melee attack and 5 charge bonus on a 240 unit of skirmishers?? Compare to some of the following:


Germanic skirmishers -- 3 attack, 3 charge


I've found these units to be basically worthless. They have low morale, low troop count, low charge, low attack, no ranged weapon, etc. I recommend either increasing their troop count to the maximum (240), and/or increasing their attack + charge bonus. At present they don't do anything that cheaper units can do better. For example, compared to skirmishers, they have 67% manpower, 90% defense, 66% charge, 85% defense skill, and upkeep is 200% higher. And of course the skirmishers have tons of javelins to use before going in to melee. So why ever use this unit..?


(Early) Levy spearmen: 5 attack, 1 charge bonus


(Late) Levy spearmen: 7 attack, 1 charge bonus
Notice that the later, more advanced spearmen have less defence skill than the early spearmen for some reason.

These are just a few things I've noticed with the stats so far. Unfortunately, I have limited experience with units (I've only seen Boii, Aedui, Lugian, and Suebian units in battle).

One last issue with battles that I am curious about, however, are phalangites (pikemen). I've played a few custom battles and also the historical Battle of the Nile map, and I feel that the pikes currently suffer too much from the "original M2TW pikeman issue" (pike units quickly switch to their secondary upon engaging with the enemy and suddenly lose their entire purpose).

In my own testing, I have completely revamped all phalangite units including removing the secondary weapon. So far, the results have been very promising — elite phalangites can hold their own head-on against almost anything, whereas the weaker phalangites can still do very well but remain vulnerable against elite assault infantry and heavy cavalry after they become exhausted. I am planning on releasing a submod for this soon in case anyone is interested in doing their own tests!

[HaHawk]

Also, when saving the above screenshots, I had to adjust the contrast in an image editor in order to make the text legible. Will the next update include black text so it stands out from the background? My apologies if this is the wrong thread to have this discussion!!

Edit:
This is what the text looks like in-game:

[Thuycidides]

One issue I have noticed is that Gallic Cavalry are able to win in close melee against hundreds (300 - 400) of spearmen. I was under the impression that cavalry are somewhat vulnerable when they are stationary and have no room to maneuver (i.e., city streets or in a forest after finishing a charge and being surrounded). During a recent siege battle, two enemy units of Gallic cavalry were nearly able to crush half my army in a pure war of attrition (for every 10 or 20 spearmen they killed, perhaps only one cavalry was taken down)...

I agree that bodyguard cavalry are very powerful in EBII, definitely more powerful than in EBI. The hellenic bodyguard cavalry are even more extreme than the Gallic cavalry:

stat_pri 10, 21, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr ap
stat_sec 7, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, sword, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr ap
stat_pri_armour 9, 12, 0, flesh

[alin]

Very good points HaHawk, thanks!
I've forwarded them to the rest of the team.

[Anubis88]

Hi HaHawk,

we are aware of the unit price issues, and they will be looked into very soon. It will have to be balanced as well with unit availability (some units might be cheaper then a worse unit but harder to come by for example). I do believe it will be looked into and "resolved" by the summer release though

[QuintusSertorius]

HaHawk - be very wary of using the unit cards as a measure of unit stats, they're often wrong. For example, check the data\export_descr_units.txt which the game reads for unit stats.

The "abilities at a glance" section is almost certainly going to be wrong.

Maldais have an attack of 3 and charge value of 2 (though their defensive values are correct) - they use a long knife
Jugunthiz have an attack of 2 and a charge value of 3 (again defensive values correct) - but they use a spear
Slaganz have an attack of 5, not 6 (though the size may indeed need reviewing)
Gaizafulkan Frijato Early have an attack value of 5 and charge value of 5
Gaizafulkan Frijato Late have an attack value of 6 and charge value of 5. They have a lower defensive skill because they have a better shield, and the overall impact is they have higher defense.

Stats aren't the only considerations here. Availability is another consideration, and units aren't only included because of their effectiveness. Some levy units aren't very good, but they're cheap and easy to get hold of. If you're building up a historically accurate/credible force, you'll include a lot of them, because that's what was on offer.

Costs are supposedly outside my remit, but I'm thinking I need to make it so, since no one seems to be claiming ownership of it.


I'm not sure what you mean about pikemen switching weapons - none of them have secondary weapons any longer. They've been disabled since some of my earlier testing EDU files, are you sure you're using 2.02c?

Come to think of it, you shouldn't be seeing long unit names, only native ones, that was one of the edits I included in this pack. What version of EBII are you running? Many of your issues sound like 2.01 problems.

[HaHawk]

I'm not sure what you mean about pikemen switching weapons - none of them have secondary weapons any longer. They've been disabled since some of my earlier testing EDU files, are you sure you're using 2.02c?

Thank you for the detailed reply! No, I am not using 2.02c. I had planned to finish my latest campaign before updating. But I guess now I will have to get the latest update before I make any more critiques! Hopefully I wasn't too redundant

I am very eager to see what changes were made to the phalangites aside from removing their secondary. I noticed in my own testing that pikes became almost god-like with their original stats untouched after removing the secondary. It took a lot of experimentation to tone them back down and ensure realism.

Anyway, I will get the latest update and report back with my findings

[QuintusSertorius]

Thank you for the detailed reply! No, I am not using 2.02c. I had planned to finish my latest campaign before updating. But I guess now I will have to get the latest update before I make any more critiques! Hopefully I wasn't too redundant

I am very eager to see what changes were made to the phalangites aside from removing their secondary. I noticed in my own testing that pikes became almost god-like with their original stats untouched after removing the secondary. It took a lot of experimentation to tone them back down and ensure realism.

Anyway, I will get the latest update and report back with my findings

Possibly a little redundant, mostly very confusing!

You had me doubting whether I'd changed the things I know I'd changed, but it's a big relief that you're not using 2.02c and seeing those thing. Yes, I'm afraid most of the comments about battle mechanics, referring to 2.01, are almost completely irrelevant; virtually everything has been changed. By everything, I mean javelineer skirmishers, precursor javelin users, secondary spear users, all missiles, phalanxes, elephants, all cavalry, the list goes on. It was an instructive reminder of all the things that have been improved, though.

Your point about costs, however, is spot on, that's about the only thing I haven't yet touched. I think I'm going to claim unit costs.

[HaHawk]

Possibly a little redundant, mostly very confusing!

Heh heh. Well, I did have one of the battle updates installed — the one that fixed javelinmen and the traits fix. But somewhere along the line I had to stop updating so I could finish my campaign

Your point about costs, however, is spot on, that's about the only thing I haven't yet touched. I think I'm going to claim unit costs.

Be careful! You break it you buy it!

[jordiebenardus]

I just wanna say z3n did an amazing job on pathfindings and BAI, I regret I didnt activate FRAPS just now when an Elephant "drags" and charges from the sides smashing phalanx like that scene in the movie Alexander when the elephant charges from the sides and breaks the sarrisa's tips. That is astounding because in 2.01 I only saw elephants ran away or charge head on. Totally love Hoplitai Haploi with z3n battle cohesion (currently my favorite unit). In terms of CAI I really enjoy the slow build of the AI afterall many factions remains "passive" allowing an enjoyable play of slow build instead of blitzkrieg trying to avoid stack spams.

[QuintusSertorius]

Turns out there's already an approach on updating the unit costs, it just doesn't look to have been applied yet. So I'll make sure that gets into the next update of this (and will obviously be in the full summer release).

[Cohors_Evocata]

A quick report on my experiences with the AI on 2.02c; I'm 80 turns into a Saba campaign (which I picked mostly since they're rather isolated, thus allowing the CAI to do its job without my interference) and I've toggled the fog of war off on turns 50 and 80 to check how everything had progressed at that point.

By turn 50, relatively little had changed compared to the starting positions. Rome had taken Taras from Epeiros and the KH had steamrolled Makedonia out of Korinthos and Demetrias. Two additional wars had been started (between Rome and Carthage and AS and the Parthians respectively), which hadn't led to any territorial changes however. A few (1 or 2) Seleukid regions had gone rebel and Sogdiane had seceded from the Baktrians as well.

By turn 80, things were much the same as well. I received a message that Pergamon had been destroyed on turn 54 and the region is now controlled by rebels. According to the faction rankings the Ptolemaioi had gained one region, likely from the Seleukids, who lost one or two more.

I myself have expanded rather steadlily over the past 80 turns and I now control seven settlements, which together constitute most of Arabia. I haven't been very active diplomacy-wise and the only diplomatic relations I'm engaged in at the moment are trade contacts with the AS and the Ptolemaioi (apart from the standard war with the rebels). I've intentionally left the region south of the Nabateans be, to see if they would expand in that direction, but to my disappointment they haven't so far. None of the one-settlement factions have seen any territorial changes in fact (apart from Pergamon, which has disappeared entirely).

If I'm allowed to speak my mind, I would like remark that I think the current AI behaviour is too slow. 80 turns is the equivalent of 20 years and in my opinion that should be more than enough time for a few alliances to be forged and wars to be started. I also think it's enough time for some more territorial changes to have happened. Browsing across the map with the fog of war turned off, I've spotted quite a few army stacks (a large amount of which full ones), so the AI is certainly building up its forces, but it doesn't seem to be using them much. Perhaps I'm somewhat of a blitz player, but I don't consider myself to be one, as six captured settlements across 80 turns seems to be a reasonable rate of expansion to me.