Alright. Thanks for the fast answer, good luck with the work
Alright everyone, 2.02b released - with a slew of fixes and a few more changes.
EDIT: Sorry, one more change to make, will be back shortly.
Last edited by QuintusSertorius; May 18, 2015 at 07:43 AM.
Just tried again playing custom battles, I noticed that cavalry charges are astonishingly strong. I tried testing Hetairoi vs Phalangitai, vs Thureoporoi, and vs Hoplitai and the charges kills (in large settings) 53 including general in a frontal assault to my phalangitai, 99 Thureoporoi, and 55 Hoplitai. Its very high maybe due to the increase in lethality. The pevious settings in EDIT12 was actually the best so far, and skynet is working marvelously Ive seen a lot more flankings. Good update on BAI but probably lethality should be toned down, good update.
EB2 is already great, thank you all - by far the best game I never paid money for - AND THERE'S BEEN PLENTY.
Are characters meant to move quite so far on the campaign map?
Looking forward to seeing 2.01 levels of lethality again.
a small bit of feedback regarding recruitment:
I think you may want to limit the recruitment of the elite hypaspistai just like you did for the phalangitai across the hellenistic east. I noticed for instance that whereas phalangitai are not available in Babylon, hypaspistai actually are... perhaps there are other units which might need to be likewise limited.
Btw it's a nice feature... it forces the faction to use more of "local manpower" in its armies.
Yes, it helps the CAI if the AI factions are able to move a decent amount. If it becomes problematic, we can review.
Lethality should be fixed in the coming update.
I've just done almost exactly that. Factional government buildings for Hellenistic factions only provide elites at the top tier now. You have to use polis, colony or Allied Government for main recruitment.
There is no download link for EB2.02B or am I missing something?
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/23.jpg></a></p>
Great work Quintus. A question though. If you currently have 2.02a, will you just need to drag the new folder onto data and overwrite, or, will this involve also deleting the map.rwm and then starting a new campaign.
I'd been longing for that! Had little reason to use my local troops when proper phalanxes were plentiful during my Pontos compaign, this is great to hear.
Ah I figured. I can see how it would help - was pleasantly surprised when a rebel stack came out of nowhere to attack me as I was besieging a town of theirs back when I tried this in the latest version of 2.01 campaign AI. It certainly makes things more unpredictable but, I feel, ultimately meaningless when anyone can be almost anywhere at any time - something that will never benefit AI more than it will the player: using one army to destroy many, pooling resources (swapping stacks from one garrison to another, making riots an unlikely event, not having to worry from which side the enemy might strike and whether to reinforce one front at the expense of another - when all fronts are within immediate reach), dodging past enemy stacks to snatch undefended towns far behind the front lines, etc.
What the AI will be able to do is nothing in comparison to what the player will, which I suppose isn't an issue if one is big on house rules. Still, beyond the power imbalance I think the biggest reason I prefer reduced movement distances is one of immersion: Why are you just letting me walk through your entire kingdom? I hope some middle ground can be found! Incidentally - and I don't know whether this is the place to ask this, but does the AI move its spies before its armies? If not, can it be made so? (This might be already the case, impossible to achieve or painfully obvious - in which case have a French apology)
That's great to hear, thank you!
On the topic of AI, today I experienced the most intense battle I'd had in a decade of playing Total War games. It was an hour of wheeling what was left of my three Illyrian phalanxes around to meet Roman cavalry charges, cursing my Lustoannan allies for pursuing a routing Roman army right into the second one, rushing my Sweboz bodyguard to whichever flank was about to break, seizing on lulls in the melee to tighten the ever thinning line, keeping my worn down elites spaced out enough as to encourage my troops to keep fighting, forcing an opening through their ranks to save my encircled Boii noble spearmen, holding back a dozen Getai stratiotai from chasing a hundred and twenty fleeing hastati (relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raF9wfPxir8), LAUGHING LIKE A MANIAC when Iberian horsemen came crashing back into the Roman flank, and finally, reduced to the last two hundred men of the two thousand I began with, allies dead or gone, enemies on all sides - I spotted their general in the thick of the fighting and forced my handful of bodyguards through the melee towards him, disregarding all else.
They killed him and within seconds the Romans broke and ran. Everyone was too tired to give chase.
IT WAS GREAT. Thank you Europa Barbarorum II.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I've just tried the experiment of deleting all of the strings.bin files and creating empty ones in their place - for all .txt files, not just the ones that are usually missing. It worked fine. The .bin files seem to have been filled in by the program and all the text in the game was there on the first run. If it also works on an installation hasn't been having this problem then it seems that the mod could be distributed with a set of 0KB strings.bin files in the text folder, which will also save the user having to delete them.
The only files that remain at 0KB are audiotest_regions_and_settlement_names.txt.strings.bin and credits.txt.strings.bin, but I don't see any ill effects from it. The credits still work fine and I have no idea what the other file is meant to do.
I've made mods for other games in the past. I know little about modding the TW series, however....
Take a deep breath. Take your time. We can wait an extra day if it means fewer last second tweaks and patches. Thank you for your work. EB2 is great and still improving.
Aye, I can look into a balance for that- it will probably be only in the next release though. Either 2.02 if there is another 2.02 or 2.1.
Although as a temporary (but non-savegame compatible) stop-gap for the more hardcore players this is what I developed http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...HSM&p=14521015
The AI Workshop Creator
Europa Barbaroum II AI/Game Mechanics Developer
The Northern Crusades Lead Developer
Classical Age Total War Retired Lead Developer
Rome: Total Realism Animation Developer
RTW Workshop Assistance MTW2 AI Tutorial & Assistance
Broken Crescent Submod (M2TW)/IB VGR Submod (BI)/Animation (RTW/BI/ALX)/TATW PCP Submod (M2TW)/TATW DaC Submod (M2TW)/DeI Submod (TWR2)/SS6.4 Northern European UI Mod (M2TW)
I'm quite happy with the movement distances. Yes, it has it's problems but so does restricted movement.
In the end extremely restricted movement is inherently unrealistic and immersion breaking.
Sneaking behind the lines and attacking a town becomes only problematic if the AI is doing nothing about it.
If they don't, and just sit there, and watch the player take the town, it's problem with the AI, not with movement points.
Is it possible to prioritise defending towns and breaking sieges with field armies for AI?
Now, this doesn't mean that movement points can't be toned down somewhat but I hope there will be no drastic changes.
Last edited by Trax; May 18, 2015 at 05:36 PM.
Unfortunately that part is likely based on calculations within the exe which are broken at the moment. While theres still much more freedom within xml than without- it's limited in the sense the actual number crunching and programming within the exe will decide to do what it's programmed to prioritize/recognize (in terms of the root language in xml files)- therefore adding completely new code without an actual basis (anotherwords an underlying foundation of pre-existing code+programming, which can sometimes if applicable be intelligently re-purposed) telling the exe what's up in regards to the new commands will not do anything of note.
There are commands that do exist- especially one that may prove to be very useful but I have not tested it yet. It's on my to-do list but as I have to cover battle & campaign AI alongside pathfinding- I haven't had as much time as I'd like. Thanks for reminding me to check it out- I probably would have completely forgot about it by now as I already redid several factors related to that. (Made it more inclined to defend it's frontline along with breaking it's sieges more frequently)
As it stands I'm currently testing something in which cavalry armies will have a significant amount of mobility compared to infantry based armies. I'll try to balance infantry armies too but would also like to point out that infantry armies were much easier to intercept (a potential reason their movement points could be lowered in comparison to cavalry armies).
Last edited by z3n; May 18, 2015 at 05:24 PM.
The AI Workshop Creator
Europa Barbaroum II AI/Game Mechanics Developer
The Northern Crusades Lead Developer
Classical Age Total War Retired Lead Developer
Rome: Total Realism Animation Developer
RTW Workshop Assistance MTW2 AI Tutorial & Assistance
Broken Crescent Submod (M2TW)/IB VGR Submod (BI)/Animation (RTW/BI/ALX)/TATW PCP Submod (M2TW)/TATW DaC Submod (M2TW)/DeI Submod (TWR2)/SS6.4 Northern European UI Mod (M2TW)
And remember, a professional force can only move as fast as its scouts (and spies) can forge a relatively safe path ahead.
You could possibly have some kind of traits that only appear in human controlled armies that limit our reach while keeping the AI with a longer reach. If you are wanting to limit it,