Announcement: Europa Barbarorum II 2.2r released!

[Rad]

No, I couldn't have done a peaceful early campaign in the previous versions, because of the massive debt in the beginning. One had to take not 1 or 2, but 3 or 4 or even more cities to stabilise the situation. I remember Epeiros campaigns where one had to take out Makedonia, mainland KH and two rebel Illyrian provinces before making any profit decent enough for a stable growth. That's 7 new provinces in the blitz train. Celtic factions felt even worse, with their 1 starting poorly developed city and relatively massive armies. Don't lie to me. I still remember the bad feeling I had when I was forced to chase city after city to get out of debt.

When I do get out of debt, I don't go postal on the AI. I invest in it. I let it grow so I can fight more battles wih it later on. I give it time to build up armies. Also, I don't use overwhelming force. I have 2 field armies, with a 3rd one levied once my faction gets big and moving troops from one corner to another becomes time consuming (roughly 40+ provinces). Since I usually try to fight 2 factions at a time, I rarely combine them, so that force multplier is lost on me. I avoid mercenaries and don't use the extra cash to pummel the AI. In my last campaign, I was making 15-30 thousand mnai per turn, I never bothered to raise more troops. More field troops means more micromanagement, which is annoying.

If your play style relies on overwhelming the AI with army after army, and you can't resist the urge to have 10 stacks, stick to Vanilla.

Once again, I applaud the decision made by the EB team.

[Deinomenides]

Would you be so kind as to provide us a link for 2.2d2? Turn times are just too much for me I'm afraid.

[jamminj]

so its a works in progress, that's good news...
it seems the switch back and forth between the positive n negative happens to suddenly.. (useless input i know.. ) -))

anyway, keep up the great work

[Daniel the Finlander]

Thanks, Quintus, the mod is working now.

However, I've already noticed something which might be a bug: broken units are prone to fight to the death instead of fleeing, even when not surrounded. They just stand there and die slowly. It doesn't always happen, but it's pretty common.

Also, 5 peace treaties were signed in one turn, which was odd but only happened once.

[Deinomenides]

While playing as Nabatea, I get 3000 mnai classified as "additional income" , is this normal?

[Begeta]

[Porphyrogenita]

Played to turn 133 as MAK:
Much more civilized starting - no need to blitz to get out of debt. [Recognising that this seems to provoke strong opinions on the subject.]
There seemed to be an initial rush of attacking the Barbaroi by the AI but this slowed down after c20-40 turns.
There was also a brief but limited spell of conflict between some AI factions but this also seemed to peter out until the balloon really went up on turn 101.
By this time the AS and Carthage had cemented their positions and both by turn 133 were on the march. This seemed to bear out my thoughts that the additional units would favour the already large factions.
It did however significantly strengthen the Romans who did much better than usual (which is a big plus from my perspective!).
Many more battles as could be expected - but the down side is more multi-stack battles which are difficult to fight (ie armies appearing everywhere and more importantly, really stretching GPUs even with everything turned right down).
This can be toggled on and off via the max units on battlefield setting? resulting in sequential battles instead?
Overall I quite like the new feel - with some fine tuning/toning down it could be really good - maybe x 2/3 of the maintenance costs in 2.2d instead of x 1/2.
Here is the world map at turn 133:

Regards
P.

[Kaskad]

with some fine tuning/toning down it could be really good - maybe x 2/3 of the maintenance costs in 2.2d instead of x 1/2.

Seems a good compromise indeed

[Hummer]

The problem with that map is that there's no rebels left. I thought one of the objectives was to have rebels last awhile.

[romanius24]

I would expect that progression around turn 300 not 133. Very fast expansion.

[Kaskad]

Instead of pushing, why don't you give an hand to the modders ?

[Porphyrogenita]

Is the rapid expansion a product of modified CAI or is it just the cheaper upkeep?

[QuintusSertorius]

Is the rapid expansion a product of modified CAI or is it just the cheaper upkeep?

Neither, it's the larger starting armies. Most of the CAI decisionmaking revolves around comparisons of their strength relative to their opposition. With more troops at their disposal, they're more aggressive. I'm looking at reducing them, though retaining standardised numbers, based on number of starting provinces.

Cheaper upkeep just slows the rate the AI drains their treasuries (and so they'll lean less heavily on scripted financial support). I've already revised it up a little, to 3/16th recruitment (ie halfway between the original 1/4th and the trial 1/8th), but that's more about longer-term economic balance rather than AI behaviour.

[Porphyrogenita]

Thanks for explaining that:
Here is a graph of the 5 richest faction at turn 133:

As you can see some are fabulously wealthy!
Regards
P.

[QuintusSertorius]

That shouldn't even be possible, there's a script creaming off anything over 30k.

[Porphyrogenita]

My "Diplomats" confirm that their wealth is "Extreme or "Boundless" - I personally suspect insider trading!

[Gunydii]

First up I'll be frank I've not played any of the recent mini updates, but I've been keeping an eye on this thread and I had some thoughts/questions. First two points are stuff I think the team is likely aware of but I thought I’d just ask;

Back when the tutonic family tree was a thing and factions kept disappearing is it possible the problem was the AI didn’t want more FMs due to lack of finance and this problem may now have gone away with lower upkeep generally?

I don’t know what witchcraft has been used but playing DaC for third age the northern Northern Dúnedain Aragon’s infant son is listed as the faction heir. IDK how this plays out in a regular game (if this facility would pass onto an infant son of Aragon’s son etc) but I thought this was interesting if it’s new.

Finally just a random opinion re the principle of factions starting with large deficits. IMHO moving toward more balanced starting economies would feel less ‘gamey’ the necessary early blitz for some factions or the ‘delete half your army’ starts for others has always struck me as strange in the broader context of the mod. I’m looking forward to my next start as Bosporans where I wont have to treble my holdings within 18 months for my economy to ever work. Whilst there may be some tweaking needed to find the sweat spot, I personally think this could be a beneficial change of direction.

As ever huge thanks for the hard work.

[ImperatorMaximus]

So after a while without playing I tried this new patch in the weekend and started with a few factions to see what's new, there seems to have some bugs:

- Epeiros: In Taras it seems we can't recruit now Hastati Sabelli, at first I thought it was just the factional administration but looking at the possible governments to build apparently none of them give any units including the Native Administration nor the Supervised one, also apparently now we can build the Supervised right away bypassing the base Native Administration (I think I've seen that while starting as Ptolemies). So are these bugs or is supposed to be like that and now we can't recruit the italic troops as Epeiros?

- Makenodia: At start for some reason couldn't recruit any units in Thessalia although on the second turn the bug solved itself, on the positive side it seems it fixed not being able to build Basilike Patris since now I can see it in the buildings roster as Makedonia.

- Rome: I noticed that for some reason the description on the special building "Lake Avernis" disappeared and don't give any bonus, also in the place of the name it's now "NONE", I dunno if this happened to more special buildings.

Also I've realized most special buildings now say something like "TC bonus if required:" without anything. Regarding that "Autonomous Greek Cities" with negative low order in the Provinces as Hellenistic Factions, I think Koinon Hellenon (made a start with it too) shouldn't be affected since technically it's supposed to be an alliance of independent Greek City States isn't it? Something I notice is that turn times seems to have increased (I say this compared with 2.2b not versions without the limitation script), although I understand the first turn since seems to happen a lot of stuff in the first turn now, but even after the first it seems to be a bit slower, more AI stuff happening I guess. But anyway I like the diplomacy more now and the upkeep cost for the armies.

[QuintusSertorius]

First up I'll be frank I've not played any of the recent mini updates, but I've been keeping an eye on this thread and I had some thoughts/questions. First two points are stuff I think the team is likely aware of but I thought I’d just ask;

Back when the tutonic family tree was a thing and factions kept disappearing is it possible the problem was the AI didn’t want more FMs due to lack of finance and this problem may now have gone away with lower upkeep generally?

I don’t know what witchcraft has been used but playing DaC for third age the northern Northern Dúnedain Aragon’s infant son is listed as the faction heir. IDK how this plays out in a regular game (if this facility would pass onto an infant son of Aragon’s son etc) but I thought this was interesting if it’s new.

Finally just a random opinion re the principle of factions starting with large deficits. IMHO moving toward more balanced starting economies would feel less ‘gamey’ the necessary early blitz for some factions or the ‘delete half your army’ starts for others has always struck me as strange in the broader context of the mod. I’m looking forward to my next start as Bosporans where I wont have to treble my holdings within 18 months for my economy to ever work. Whilst there may be some tweaking needed to find the sweat spot, I personally think this could be a beneficial change of direction.

As ever huge thanks for the hard work.

I don't think the issues with the Teutonic system were anything to do with money, it was simply broken. The Family Tree system gives a lot more FMs, as well as avoiding the strange disappearance bug.

So after a while without playing I tried this new patch in the weekend and started with a few factions to see what's new, there seems to have some bugs:

- Epeiros: In Taras it seems we can't recruit now Hastati Sabelli, at first I thought it was just the factional administration but looking at the possible governments to build apparently none of them give any units including the Native Administration nor the Supervised one, also apparently now we can build the Supervised right away bypassing the base Native Administration (I think I've seen that while starting as Ptolemies). So are these bugs or is supposed to be like that and now we can't recruit the italic troops as Epeiros?

Neither of those things are bugs. Oscans (ie the Sabellian units) don't come from that far south, the recruitment in Taras/Rhegion is Greek, and you don't get Greeks through a Native Administration. You get Italic troops as Epeiros by moving into central Italy.

You've always been able to bypass the Native Admin and go straight to Supervised Native; however it's not necessarily a good idea, given the order boosts of the former over the latter.

- Makenodia: At start for some reason couldn't recruit any units in Thessalia although on the second turn the bug solved itself, on the positive side it seems it fixed not being able to build Basilike Patris since now I can see it in the buildings roster as Makedonia.

Not a bug; Makedonia and Thessalia were depleted of manpower thus they start the game with empty recruitment pools. You have to rely on mercenaries and Korinthos for troops early on.

The only reason you can now see the Basilike Patris is that we added a helcol_one to Pella. Nothing has been "fixed" there, its just closer to meeting the basic requirements. Where before when it lacked one, it wasn't even on the path.

- Rome: I noticed that for some reason the description on the special building "Lake Avernis" disappeared and don't give any bonus, also in the place of the name it's now "NONE", I dunno if this happened to more special buildings. Also I've realized most special buildings now say something like "TC bonus if required:" without anything.

Not sure what's happened there. I haven't really touched uniques in the 2.2e EDB, they've been overhauled in 2.3. I'm not going to spend much time on them either, so best ignore that for now.

Regarding that "Autonomous Greek Cities" with negative low order in the Provinces as Hellenistic Factions, I think Koinon Hellenon (made a start with it too) shouldn't be affected since technically it's supposed to be an alliance of independent Greek City States isn't it? Something I notice is that turn times seems to have increased (I say this compared with 2.2b not versions without the limitation script), although I understand the first turn since seems to happen a lot of stuff in the first turn now, but even after the first it seems to be a bit slower, more AI stuff happening I guess. But anyway I like the diplomacy more now and the upkeep cost for the armies.

KH don't get the penalties from Hellenic Autonomy; but they do still get penalties from Stasis (internal conflict) unless they install either an Allied Government, or have their final, post-reform governments.

[Kull]

I'll comment since these are my areas:

Rome: I noticed that for some reason the description on the special building "Lake Avernis" disappeared and don't give any bonus, also in the place of the name it's now "NONE", I dunno if this happened to more special buildings.

We've completed a TOTAL review of the unique buildings, as there were vast inconsistencies in the benefits they awarded, and not always a clear linkage between the unique and the benefits. As part of that, some were moved to a different building or level, which is exactly what happened with Lake Avernus. Keep in mind that these incremental updates are primarily text file changes, which means the 2.2e Lake Avernus tga file probably has the wrong name - plus there may be other disconnects that keep it from working properly (although only in these incremental test releases, they all work perfectly in the dev build). As for uniques in general, there are now more, and we're beginning to update the strategy section in the description so the player will know if they only work for certain factions and/or cultures.

Also I've realized most special buildings now say something like "TC bonus if required:" without anything.

Do you remember the "good old days", when the text told you that a particular building gave an "increase in Trade Goods"? How many exactly were you getting? No idea, right? Also was it an increase OR maybe a DECREASE?! Because you got the SAME text either way (many of the high end temples that you probably thought were giving extra trade goods are actually taking them away). And why was there sometimes a building group name appended to the text? Sometimes it was there other times it wasn't. And how come sometimes you would get multiple rows of "increase in Trade Goods" text? Who could possibly know?

Anyway, all that has changed. Now the first line of text ("Trade Good bonus:") tells you exactly how many extra trade good are coming.....or going. And the next line, "Requirement for TG Bonus (if necessary)" tells you if there's a building requirement in order to get the extra trade goods. We are limited in what can be presented via this text - the display of building type is hardcoded, and if there isn't one, it will just appear as a blank. But even so, now you know. Likewise the multiple lines now have more information, both in terms of building requirements and count of trade goods (this is just a +/- value to show relative increase or decrease, not a hard-and-fast count of actual trade goods)

So not only is none of that a bug, the EB2 team has taken a hidden bonus and made it explicit.