Looking for 2.1 Let's Plays

[Ragox]

I couldn't find a single one for version 2.1 yet, is anyone planning to make some?

I'd really love to see someone else's gameplay of this amazing new update

[jesrivjr]

Well, I thought I'd give an update on the current state of the series I started! Ep 2 is up and away after about a week of not posting anything! I gave a big thank you to everyone that took part in this thread in EP2! You guys seriously rock and gave great feedback and advice! Thank you so so much! I'll be doing episodes more frequently as well!


For those confused, since the roll back happened, my Let's Play video was shared in this thread. ^_^ I'd repost it, but I feel weird about posting my own video, ha. I'm probably just being insanely silly, but I don't want it to feel like spam. >.<

[Moros]

You mean this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5-Eod34wc

[Shadowwalker]

Heya jesrivjr,

you seriously surprised me. I didn't expect to see you actually switch the faction and start playing as the Sabaeans. Great and wonderful surprise!
Thank you as well for for the kind words in the video.

But now I feel obligated to give you a few words of feedback once again.

units and army composition

The Sab'Yn in EB 2.1b are still a very much infantry-based and rather skirmishing-focused faction.
You have access to a whole lot of levy, medium and elite archers, some of them even capable of excelling at melee.
You lack heavy assault infantry, hoplitai-style infantry, granted, but you Royal Infantry corps is - unless you send it head-on against Hoplitai or Phalangitai - well able to make enemy units suffer.

If you want more melee staying power I'd recommend to recruit Ethiopian Spearmen (the guys whose unit cards show green tunics). They are way more resilient than you levy spearmen. You can get two of them at turns one (one at the capital, one from the mercenary pool) and you can (and should) use them to guard both flanks of your battle line.

Since EB 2.1 you even have access to some very welcome light cavalry - Bedouin Cavalry. In the beginning of a campaign you'll see them available as mercenaries only but they add a whole new layer of tactical options. I'd recommend to hire them. They're even able able to do charges although they definitely need to be used with caution as these guys are fragile if caught by enemy cavalry or, even worse, spearmen.

You can get horse archers, too - Nabataean Horse Archers. If you are capable of using them, they make for a great addition to your army as well. I am not used to horse archer warfare so I usually have at best one of them in my armies and use them for hunting down fleeing enemy units only.

With the Sabaeans I usually set up a rather simple battle formation [*], something like this:

ES ---(several units of) SCM --- ES

Kh -------- SabA/FM(s) -------- Kh

SCL -------- BC/NHA --------- SCL

Legend:
ES - Ethiopian Spearmen
SCM - Sabaean Citizen Militia (Levy Spearmen)
Kh - Khamis
SabA - Sabaean Archers
FM(s) - Family Member(s) (which bodyguards are Khamis, too)
SCL - Saba Commune Levy (Levy Javelineers)
BC - Bedouin Cavalry
NHA - Nabataean Horse Archers

This setup allows for quite a bit of flexibility.
A battle in the desert (and this kind of engagement will dominate your early game) will usually start with a rather extensive archery duel. Your complete second battle line consists of archers. If you concentrate their fire on selected enemy units you can more or less destroy them with two or three volleys, especially if you have the high ground. (Yes I usually prefer fighting defensively.)
If the enemy army lacks cavalry you could swap lines 1 and two and have the archers in front, retreating them when the enemy infantry closes in.

The Ethiopian Spearmen hold both flanks of your spearmen line just because they are able to defend against Nabatean lancers, too (which are pretty frightening enemies for your poor Levy Spearmen) - and you want to hold your flanks, right?
The FM(s) are there to step in should you levy spearmen are under attack of superiour enemy infantry. Not only do they inspire their comrades (which helps with maintaining morale) but they are also swordsmen which can do wonders in plugging gaps in your battle line.

The Khamis are usually the second to flank the enemy once the battle lines clashed.

The second?

Right, because the first are the Javelineers. Javelins fired into the back of a cavalry (or heavy infantry) unit are devastating in EB 2.1.

And the third and last attack comes from the Bedouin Cavalry (which is also there to - together with the Horse Archers) intercept and/or distract enemy flankers).

One last word - don't forget to ALT-click if you want your archer units (which often are your best melee troops) to attack in melee...


Okay, that much about battles, a (very) few words about

the early strategy

The Nabataeans will come down towards Najran sooner rather than later, therefore I'd recommend to go for Najran first... a little late, I know.

Timna and Shabwat are safe from enemy attacks for the first at least 100 turns (if not more), Najran is not. And it has the best mine around - 1225 mnai.
Make sure you grab that settlement before the Nabataeans do.

Also make sure to build mines in Maryab (only 455 mnai but you can build the deeper mines there - which you can't at Najran because it is a (non-convertible) camp.) By the way - you cannot convert camps at all with the Sabaeans so don't get confused. It's intended.

The Sabaeans have reforms by the way, don't want to spoil too much but if you want them, build temples of Almagah rather than Athtar ...


That's all from me for the moment - looking forward very much to follow your progress. Your channel is bookmarked.


[*] I'm not good at battle tactics, to be honest I'm terrible - so the statement that this battle formation works at H/M means something I suppose.

[Moros]

When conceiving armies for Saba some historical house rules could be:
-Not let armies be led by FM's younger than 30
-To not use nobles unless being attacked or in a defensive war or matters of serious urgency
-limit cavalry, especially before the conquest of Najran, where you should be able to recruit them.

[HaHawk]

What do you guys enjoy most about a let's play — especially for EBII (or other Total War games)?

I recorded my first ever LP about a week ago and was going to post it, but unfortunately I ran into a recording issue half-way through (during a long 70+ minute long siege battle!) and lost most of the battle footage. Looks like TWC wasn't the only one to lose their data!

Before scrapping it, I watched what I had recorded a couple times and took some notes. I noticed that, at least during the battles, I didn't talk very much. For a game like EBII, is minimal commentary a bad thing? I'm planning on re-doing the "first episode" since I really want to share this game with others, especially TW players who haven't tried EBII yet (a lot of people are intimidated by the scope of EBII or don't know how to play M2TW mods, especially younger players).

As for me personally, when I watch a let's play, I mainly look for good real-time battles (not 3:1 odds in favor of the player all the time!). I also don't mind if the player isn't very talkative. Maybe that just reflects my own playstyle, though? My main goal for my LP will be to not rush through everything and make battles fun to watch by showing close-ups and static angles as much as possible in consideration of the viewer. Thoughts?

Edit:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Poppis]

Well for me personally, if the youtuber isn't talking, then I'm not watching. It just seems so pointless, like watching a movie on mute without subtitles. I need to hear what's going on in his head. What's he doing? Why is he doing that? Why's he not doing this instead? What is he planning to do next etc.

[delra]

I'd like to see a hardcore roleplay historically accurate OCD lets play with one of more remote factions, like Pahlava for example.

[Moros]

Well for me personally, if the youtuber isn't talking, then I'm not watching. It just seems so pointless, like watching a movie on mute without subtitles. I need to hear what's going on in his head. What's he doing? Why is he doing that? Why's he not doing this instead? What is he planning to do next etc.

Yeah in a strategy game I like to hear about what strategy and tactics the player is using and plans on using, the reasons (pro's and cons),... games that are really skill driven or story driven a more silent player is not a worry. But in a strategy game it's fun to think with the player and while doing that learn more about the game as well.

edit: yeah the occasional close up during battle is a must.

[jesrivjr]

Best of luck, mate! Let's Plays are pretty darn fun! I look forward to seeing yours whenever it goes up!!

Now, personally, I watch Let's Plays more for the player than the game. I want to see what is going on, but what is also going on in their head as they play!

Again, best of luck!

[Moros]

Jesrivjr you should talk about why you build the buidlings you build and also, 5 turn episodes without battles are too short to be my fix! I want more!

Also Hahawk, what's keeping you? I want to see more Let's plays!

[HaHawk]

Also Hahawk, what's keeping you? I want to see more Let's plays!

Here is my first LP! (be sure to watch 1080px60fps, if YouTube will cooperate!)

I've been super busy this past month with work and also a mini-vacation. Also, I underestimated how much effort it actually takes to record a let's play.



Maybe now that I've got the recording and editing part down, it will be easier to upload subsequent videos. At least that is the plan! Future uploads will probably be around 30 to 60 minutes each; in my first video I ended up assaulting a settlement which, uh, took a while

Edit: Also, can anyone tell me what happened with the potential successor bug? It happened in another test campaign I started the other day.

[z3n]

You can't use your Faction Heir for that. Nice job, my only suggestion is that you should feel free to use the dev build as well.

[CenturionMarius]

Here is my first LP! (be sure to watch 1080px60fps, if YouTube will cooperate!)

I've been super busy this past month with work and also a mini-vacation. Also, I underestimated how much effort it actually takes to record a let's play.



Maybe now that I've got the recording and editing part down, it will be easier to upload subsequent videos. At least that is the plan! Future uploads will probably be around 30 to 60 minutes each; in my first video I ended up assaulting a settlement which, uh, took a while

Edit: Also, can anyone tell me what happened with the potential successor bug? It happened in another test campaign I started the other day.

Awesome graphics in the let's play! What mods did you use?

I think you can't select your faction heir as a potential successor, the potential successor would replace the faction heir if somehow the faction heir was killed. Or when the Faction heir becomes the leader but he have no eligible heir the potential successor would become the heir.

[HaHawk]

I think you can't select your faction heir as a potential successor, the potential successor would replace the faction heir if somehow the faction heir was killed. Or when the Faction heir becomes the leader but he have no eligible heir the potential successor would become the heir.

You can't use your Faction Heir for that. Nice job, my only suggestion is that you should feel free to use the dev build as well.

Thanks guys! Yes, someone explained the "choose faction heir" issue to me on the YouTube page as well. Makes perfect sense now (and it is explained in the game — I just missed it). My thought process was that I didn't want to give the trait to anyone else, so I should assign it to the default FH; but as it turns out, if that is the case, you can just close the window to dismiss the option altogether... You learn something new every day.

Awesome graphics in the let's play! What mods did you use?

The graphics mod is called ReShade. Same as some screenshots I posted a while back (which were lost in the TWC forums crash). I'll have to re-post those again I plan to eventually make a thread to share some of my settings in case anyone else is interested in trying them out.

Anyway, be sure to let me know if you have any advice for the LP. How is the audio balance between voice over and in-game audio? I'm a "slow and relaxed" player at heart but for the video I try to keep everything going at a steady pace, especially in the campaign map. And of course I am working on being a better narrator, seeing as it's my first time.

When I'm not recording, I often read EB2's descriptions and stare at building trees for minutes at a time... lol... Nice and relaxing but it wouldn't make for a very entertaining video.

[CenturionMarius]

The graphics mod is called ReShade. Same as some screenshots I posted a while back (which were lost in the TWC forums crash). I'll have to re-post those again I plan to eventually make a thread to share some of my settings in case anyone else is interested in trying them out.

Anyway, be sure to let me know if you have any advice for the LP. How is the audio balance between voice over and in-game audio? I'm a "slow and relaxed" player at heart but for the video I try to keep everything going at a steady pace, especially in the campaign map. And of course I am working on being a better narrator, seeing as it's my first time.

When I'm not recording, I often read EB2's descriptions and stare at building trees for minutes at a time... lol... Nice and relaxing but it wouldn't make for a very entertaining video.

It looks interesting, as the units fades a bit in the distance. Does it have major effects on performance of the game?

The Let's Play is great (though 1:30:00 is a tad bit too long) would like to see how fate would allow the Aedui to sack Rome. One thing I noticed in your video is that you didn't put guard mode on the Spearmens, I usually use the levies (Uassoi) to block certain routes or exhaust enemy forces, placing them in guard mode will lower their kills but you will lose far more less men (even without guard on they could only kill around 70 people). The Donno Epodoroi is a very potent unit in the battlefield, they would tear through Bataroi, even in siege battles. By reading the description you could plan your long term strategies and probably share some details about it in the video. Great vids none the less!

[jesrivjr]

Here is my first LP! (be sure to watch 1080px60fps, if YouTube will cooperate!)

I've been super busy this past month with work and also a mini-vacation. Also, I underestimated how much effort it actually takes to record a let's play.



Maybe now that I've got the recording and editing part down, it will be easier to upload subsequent videos. At least that is the plan! Future uploads will probably be around 30 to 60 minutes each; in my first video I ended up assaulting a settlement which, uh, took a while

Edit: Also, can anyone tell me what happened with the potential successor bug? It happened in another test campaign I started the other day.

Looks awesome man! Great job! Really enjoyed it! Heh, the length might be a tad long, but if that's what you're going for than great! Everyone has their preferences! Look forward to seeing more!!

Jesrivjr you should talk about why you build the buidlings you build and also, 5 turn episodes without battles are too short to be my fix! I want more!

I've been debating about increasing my self imposed cap! I may start aiming for 8-10 turns an episodes with battles. We shall see! The last few episodes haven't had much happening, which is why I'm considering it!

I will also start talking about why I'm building what I'm building. heh, I tend to gloss over it and move on... Pretty bad at that! So, I will for sure slow down and explain more of the building side of things on top of my ambitious future plans of expansion!

[Epic28]

Nice LP's. Def something I am watching on my downtime waiting for 2.2 to release.

[Boogie Knight]

Watching HaHawk's Let's Play now; loving it so far! As for what I look for in a Let's Play, I'm probably in a minority but I do enjoy hearing about the history. Whether it's the faction being played, the faction being fought against and the relationship between the two, or a brief talk on the history explaining why you're building a certain temple where, etc. But that's just me.

Honestly I'd love to do a Let's Play series myself, but I don't have a computer that could handle either the demands of video recording software or a graphics quality level worth watching.