Europa Barbarorum 2.08e is released!

[Genghis Skahn]

One more test I'm running right now, if it does what I expect, 2.02b will be coming shortly.

So for those of us who made the mistake of installing 2.02a, will we have to uninstall or anything else to properly update? Or will we simply need to update and overwrite the defunct files?

On another note, and I know this should be probably fixed with the next update, as the CAI wasn't properly implemented from what I've read among these posts, some of the eleutheroi might be too powerful for the AI to consider attacking (I was playing as the Boii on M/M). While I do adore the powerful eleutheroi in greater germania, and the baltic areas, for about 100 turns the swebozes(who expanded rapidly in EB1, and decently in my other playthroughs with earlier versions of EB2) just sat guarding their own territory, never even trying to assault any of the nearby towns. The Aedui also did a similar thing. Minor settlements(which are a cool implementation, but are really a deathtrap bug for the military advancement of the AI) still seem to completely derail military progress by entering and exiting settlements again and again. To date: the epirotes, KH, Aedui and probably many more factions were just entering and exiting minor settlements mindlessly, despite there being no real advantage to occupying those areas for as long as they did.

I really like the idea of the AI with a slow build, instead of everyone just bumrushing you from the start(which, for the Boii, is a real problem). However, it is quite sad and boring to see large stacks of AI armies just sitting in their home territories for generations, without ever even TRYING to expand. The AI's failed assaults on cities(when/if they do happen) can also be a great opportunity for a player to snatch the town for themselves, which can be fun, and makes the player feel like he isn't doing all the work and that he isn't the center of the universe. Only certain factions had moderate success expanding(over generations, which is cool) but unfortunately these often stagnated after a certain point. Epirus only captured Dalminion, the Averni captured 3 neighbouring towns but then stagnated for turns on end, despite there possibly being easy pickings for assaults. The Arevaci, Lusotannan, Sweboz, Hayastan, Pontos and Pergamon all failed to expand on any level after sufficient time had passed (~100 turns). Conversely, Baktria captured Dahyu haomavarga, dayuan, dahyu maszakhata(however you spell it), prophasia and went to war with the seleukid empire afterwards, though I'm unaware of any territorial gains for either side.

AI armies often got stuck in foreign eleutheroi lands, without ever trying to assault towns, despite being capable of doing so(reminiscent of the earlier release without the new and improved CAI) 2 epirote armies sat in dardonia aimlessly while they could have been attacking makedonia, or at least besieging Naissos. Likewise, 2 Roman stacks sat in Liguria aimlessly, until a random roman fleet dropped off another full stack who then FINALLY decided to besiege and capture liguria.

I can also confirm the overpowered nature of the cavalry charge. This might have something to do with Medieval 2 engine itself. Vanilla Medieval 2's cavalry charges were devastatingly overpowered at times(I found), it might take some tweaking to really come close to the balance and power that EB1's cavalry had(I loved the way you guys tweaked cavalry in EB1, it made so much more sense than vanilla R:TW). I do understand that this will be addressed in the update and I hope that the adjusted kill rates work well.

Looking forward to both the update and the summer release. I'm a relatively new fan of EB and EB2(only started played EB1 about 1 and 1/2 years ago) but I can't tell you enough how much these mods have made me interested in history and positively impacted my life.

Keep up the great work guys.

[QuintusSertorius]

So for those of us who made the mistake of installing 2.02a, will we have to uninstall or anything else to properly update? Or will we simply need to update and overwrite the defunct files?

It'll be an overwrite. You won't even need to delete strings or anything, I've automated that part.

On another note, and I know this should be probably fixed with the next update, as the CAI wasn't properly implemented from what I've read among these posts, some of the eleutheroi might be too powerful for the AI to consider attacking (I was playing as the Boii on M/M). While I do adore the powerful eleutheroi in greater germania, and the baltic areas, for about 100 turns the swebozes(who expanded rapidly in EB1, and decently in my other playthroughs with earlier versions of EB2) just sat guarding their own territory, never even trying to assault any of the nearby towns. The Aedui also did a similar thing. Minor settlements(which are a cool implementation, but are really a deathtrap bug for the military advancement of the AI) still seem to completely derail military progress by entering and exiting settlements again and again. To date: the epirotes, KH, Aedui and probably many more factions were just entering and exiting minor settlements mindlessly, despite there being no real advantage to occupying those areas for as long as they did.

I really like the idea of the AI with a slow build, instead of everyone just bumrushing you from the start(which, for the Boii, is a real problem). However, it is quite sad and boring to see large stacks of AI armies just sitting in their home territories for generations, without ever even TRYING to expand. The AI's failed assaults on cities(when/if they do happen) can also be a great opportunity for a player to snatch the town for themselves, which can be fun, and makes the player feel like he isn't doing all the work and that he isn't the center of the universe. Only certain factions had moderate success expanding(over generations, which is cool) but unfortunately these often stagnated after a certain point. Epirus only captured Dalminion, the Averni captured 3 neighbouring towns but then stagnated for turns on end, despite there possibly being easy pickings for assaults. The Arevaci, Lusotannan, Sweboz, Hayastan, Pontos and Pergamon all failed to expand on any level after sufficient time had passed (~100 turns). Conversely, Baktria captured Dahyu haomavarga, dayuan, dahyu maszakhata(however you spell it), prophasia and went to war with the seleukid empire afterwards, though I'm unaware of any territorial gains for either side.

AI armies often got stuck in foreign eleutheroi lands, without ever trying to assault towns, despite being capable of doing so(reminiscent of the earlier release without the new and improved CAI) 2 epirote armies sat in dardonia aimlessly while they could have been attacking makedonia, or at least besieging Naissos. Likewise, 2 Roman stacks sat in Liguria aimlessly, until a random roman fleet dropped off another full stack who then FINALLY decided to besiege and capture liguria.

A very big part of this issue, even besides the garrisons was that two parts of the money script in 2.02a were firing incorrectly. AI factions are supposed to get some additional economic assistance at the start of the game, and their more general debt relief assistance (king's purse) too. Neither of these were working, and as we know, AI goes passive when in debt.

CAI has been through a couple more iterations of amendment since 2.02a as well, so hopefully the difference will be noticeable.

I can also confirm the overpowered nature of the cavalry charge. This might have something to do with Medieval 2 engine itself. Vanilla Medieval 2's cavalry charges were devastatingly overpowered at times(I found), it might take some tweaking to really come close to the balance and power that EB1's cavalry had(I loved the way you guys tweaked cavalry in EB1, it made so much more sense than vanilla R:TW). I do understand that this will be addressed in the update and I hope that the adjusted kill rates work well.

No, it was a missing number in the battle_config.xml. It meant instead of only treating the later bits as BAI triggers, it took them as actual values. This is fixed in 2.02b.

Looking forward to both the update and the summer release. I'm a relatively new fan of EB and EB2(only started played EB1 about 1 and 1/2 years ago) but I can't tell you enough how much these mods have made me interested in history and positively impacted my life.

Keep up the great work guys.

Welcome to Europa Barbarorum!

[Kickaha]

Small point, but there's an invalid line in export_units.txt: '{celtic_infantry_uirodusiosAgosepanoi Combaro'. The closing brace after 'uirodusios' is missing.

[QuintusSertorius]

Small point, but there's an invalid line in export_units.txt: '{celtic_infantry_uirodusiosAgosepanoi Combaro'. The closing brace after 'uirodusios' is missing.

Akus Eporedoi had one too, thanks for letting me know.

[Genghis Skahn]

Thanks for the quick reply!

[QuintusSertorius]

At long last, Europa Barbarorum v2.02b is released!

[Trax]

Can you give a short description of what these numbers actually mean?

The certainly look very bizarre.

<melee-hit-rate>0.3
<cavalry>3.50</cavalry>
<elephants>1.5</elephants>
<melee-infantry>0.3</melee-infantry>
<cavalry-vs-phalanx>0.0000001</cavalry-vs-phalanx>
<phalanx>0.0001</phalanx>
</melee-hit-rate>

Moreover, how does the engine even know what is phalanx when there is no phalanx in M2TW?

[QuintusSertorius]

Can you give a short description of what these numbers actually mean?

The certainly look very bizarre.

<melee-hit-rate>0.3
<cavalry>3.50</cavalry>
<elephants>1.5</elephants>
<melee-infantry>0.3</melee-infantry>
<cavalry-vs-phalanx>0.0000001</cavalry-vs-phalanx>
<phalanx>0.0001</phalanx>
</melee-hit-rate>

Moreover, how does the engine even know what is phalanx when there is no phalanx in M2TW?

The only number the engine pays attention to, as far as kill rates is the first number - that's the 0.3 that was missing before that caused the excessive cavalry impacts. The other numbers afterwards help inform the BAI as to how it should use units, but don't impact the actual kill calculations at all.

As I understand it, the phalanx references are for unused bits of code in the executable - z3n could explain much better, he's the expert on CAI/BAI.

[Trax]

The only number the engine pays attention to, as far as kill rates is the first number

Thank you, it's useful to know.

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

Maybe the phalanx is leftover from rome total war.

[QuintusSertorius]

Just as an aside, has everyone found installation straightforward? I included a load of blank files that would overwrite what was there, so that the game would regenerate them. It worked on my machine, I was curious if it was doing the same for everyone else.

[z3n]

Phalanx is leftover from rtw and used as an internal exe reference regardless of the external reference 'spearwall'

By the way, as bai is controlled via internal calculations the goal is to make the exe avoid phalanxs when using cav except as a last resort.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm playing my first ever Epeiros game (without migrating them somewhere else), 14 turns in. Took Dalminion early (didn't take Pella), then marched into Makedonia to try to force peace (without using FD). Didn't work so now Pyrrhos is off to conquer Magna Graecia. He doesn't hang around anywhere for long, too much to do!

First AI faction off the conquest starting block: Koinon Hellenon. Who took Korinthos off Makedonia. And are currently besieging Demetrias. EDIT: Which Makedonia responded to by gathering an army and breaking the siege. Well done, z3n, that's definitely a result on the CAI.

[Kickaha]

Installation worked perfectly. The game regenerated all the files except audiotest_regions_and_settlement_names.txt.strings.bin and credits.txt.strings.bin, but it doesn't seem to use those anyway.
Question: a number of units in the EDU have the attribute 'frighten_horse' - is this an EB-specfic thing? All the documentation says that it should be 'frighten_mounted'. If you check the in-game descriptions of units with the 'frighten_' attributes, 'frighten_foot, frighten_horse' says it frightens nearby enemy infantry. 'frighten_foot, frighten_mounted' says it frightens nearby enemy. 'frighten_mounted' on its own says nothing.

[turbo4400]

tried playing a game as koinon hellenon and on the first turn i was supposed to go into the red after spending all my money to take out macedonia quickly, but i got 5k in "additional income". Should that be happening?

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

Text works correctly now. No sign of dread or florins. Huzzah!

[josnika]

I'm playing as Macedonia, this first turn I besieged the two cities in Epirus. Their garrisons sally forth and are defeated leaving me in control of both cities. The next turn Pyrrhus show up with his army. However he doesn't besiege either city despite outnumbering me. His army just kinda sits there for a couple turns and then proceeds to head north (presumably through Illyria to get back to Tarentum by land. This does not seem like a smart move.

[z3n]

Hmm, can you describe the quality/quantity of the troops in the city? Also the Epeirote fleet problem again- really not sure I can make Epeiros ,specifically, work well as the CAI will prioritize the territory it still wants to hold (for example taras) as a defensive priority especially if it thinks it will lose too much of it's military strength taking back it's cities... I had to go for a 'balance' there and also a balance in terms of sieges- I wanted the besieging army to try to outnumber it's enemy still by an ok margin with reinforcements instead of going for 1:1 ratios (which is a gamble and historically inaccurate anyways) or thereabouts unless necessary and also remember to defend it's own cities/fronts of war.

I presume when they sallied forth they outnumbered you? This new sally forth is to prevent the surrenders without a fight sort of thing that happens all too often although I made the ratio so they would outnumber the besiegers unless on their final turn before surrender. I could likely raise the ratio of sieges yet again- but the balance of reinforcing armies when available may be affected... Hence my on the conservative side- attitude, but that is not to say that there is not an overall ratio up in terms of the CAI besieging as evidenced by my own testing/others.


Just to clarify- an enemy army will besiege settlements if it is at 125% strength or above of the army within the settlement. This is (in my opinion) the lowest I could go without destroying historical accuracy and also keep the reinforcement rate for besiegers decent.

[madmatg]

Just to clarify- an enemy army will besiege settlements if it is at 125% strength or above of the army within the settlement. This is (in my opinion) the lowest I could go without destroying historical accuracy and also keep the reinforcement rate for besiegers decent.

Does the AI calculate in multiple stacks if it has them? Or if you had full stack in the city the ai would never siege it because it couldn't get to 125%?

[Bernardius]

Great guys! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!