[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[Dresden]

Unfortunately I believe the only script check that exists in the game is majority culture, not cultural %

[Matt Slow]

It's been a long time since playing the POR beta versions, but finally I could not resist enjoying your masterpiece once more.

I totally did enjoy the new starting date, having the opportunity to play the Pyrrhic War and Etruscan conquest is something really new and a lot of fun for Rome players, also it does give some headroom when being on the opposite side of Carthage. I also enjoyed the Imperator Augustus map. Fantastic work done, once more.

The new banditry system seems quite unconnected atm and also I do not really see any pros and cons encouraging change of government, but I guess this is CA coding and still needs time for cultural integration into DEI.

Ironically I did struggle with some supply settings. Maybe I never did really leave the area of my supply pits, but I still was waiting to see where baggage trains and supply ships show up as supply icons and/or giving benefits. Probably my empire management is always just too tight and planned ahead for really relying on ships and baggage trains (I really never liked the latter for their increased movement penalty anyways).

Stability wise it is just fine except for very rare freezes, mainly when hoovering over unit cards/talents. I noted some odd issues with recruiting Tarantine Cavalry in Italia/Magna Graeca as the Romanized version was not available on all levels of auxiliary camps and seemed to disappear on upgrades. Also, I had some Leuce Epos recruitment in Aquitania for a '0' price tag which looked buggy. I could post some screenshots on this in bug reports, if needed. Also I noted province name in missions do not always match names on map.

Using the lower cost submod, I think there is a great balance between economy and options for big battles. Maybe I should also go for faster movement, but historically this seems fine to me.

Still the biggest problem seems unmoddable, which appears to be campaign AI. As Rome you may go as historical or ahistorical as you want, so it makes some sense. On the opposite side, one of my rare Carthage campaigns, there are doubts if Rome ever will become more than a city. Endless wars with next to all neighbors, some early steamroll into Greece and Raetia (probably forced by me due to pacts with Massalia and Syracuse, but also Athens and Sparta), but also sudden rollbacks. Finally a brainless DOW on me without any legions down south and presenting Tarentum open to a 40 ship fleet invasion on auto-resolve... At least the AI should be smart enough dedicating troops when DOWing a major faction, and they already had been warned by blocking their trade unopposed for several turns. Still ahead of Carthaginian reforms it really is frustrating if your opponent does not even show up and now is just available for early destruction on the fly.


Still DEI is an amazing masterpiece and there are new features to integrate into DEI, so I hope the road still goes on for you guys. A while back I passed the magical 1000 hours in Rome and this is solely due to your work done.

KUTGW

[john909]

Yesterday I had a battle with a 18 units army against two roman armies, one full stack and the second with 8 units but 7 of them heavy infantry. In short:

- used the Horse Archers to disrupt his advance selectively shooting marching units on their back or skirmishing on their generals and so on
- used the levy spearman units in a longer but thinner line so that they cover more in the front, their role was to pin down enemy heavy infantry
- the levy hoplites were put as a point of extra defense on the left, center and right
- the germanic and briton swordsmen were the final wave and added in the pinning of the roman infantry giving me precious time to make some maneuvers with Maedi Peltasts, the general and the Horse Archers

I expected a heavy defeat as the Romans were superior in numbers and quality (by far) but those 300 men units fought like lions. I forgot to take a replay but out of memory one of the levy hoplites unit had 450 (!) kills. I am not commenting over this negatively just want to report it.



PS: Campaign AI madness going on.

Turn 79: I opted to liberate Tarentum to Magna Graecia, in the next turns I liberated the rest of Italia. Only one of those liberated states was willing to join my effort against Rome, instead they attacked each other, ruining my diplomatic reputation totally while doing so. After each conquest I was asking Rome for peace, not the slightest chance getting there.

Turn 84: Rome AI creates a legion defending Rome by event, it is being annihilated alongside the Rome Garrison army by two armies with surprisingly modest losses. Especially the hoplites can render AI Rome next to useless, and I start the siege in the same turn. I offered peace again while Rome has two shattered units left for garrison. Again no peace, so I went for a next to lossless attack.

No further comments on CA programming here... Basically this is game over in turn 84 without any intention on my part getting there. Of course you have to consider the starting position for Carthage is a lot easier than Rome, but this still is an appalling performance of CAI. Too bad CA did not give you modding tools here.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Yesterday I had a battle with a 18 units army against two roman armies, one full stack and the second with 8 units but 7 of them heavy infantry. In short:

- used the Horse Archers to disrupt his advance selectively shooting marching units on their back or skirmishing on their generals and so on
- used the levy spearman units in a longer but thinner line so that they cover more in the front, their role was to pin down enemy heavy infantry
- the levy hoplites were put as a point of extra defense on the left, center and right
- the germanic and briton swordsmen were the final wave and added in the pinning of the roman infantry giving me precious time to make some maneuvers with Maedi Peltasts, the general and the Horse Archers

I expected a heavy defeat as the Romans were superior in numbers and quality (by far) but those 300 men units fought like lions. I forgot to take a replay but out of memory one of the levy hoplites unit had 450 (!) kills. I am not commenting over this negatively just want to report it.



PS: Campaign AI madness going on.

Turn 79: I opted to liberate Tarentum to Magna Graecia, in the next turns I liberated the rest of Italia. Only one of those liberated states was willing to join my effort against Rome, instead they attacked each other, ruining my diplomatic reputation totally while doing so. After each conquest I was asking Rome for peace, not the slightest chance getting there.

Turn 84: Rome AI creates a legion defending Rome by event, it is being annihilated alongside the Rome Garrison army by two armies with surprisingly modest losses. Especially the hoplites can render AI Rome next to useless, and I start the siege in the same turn. I offered peace again while Rome has two shattered units left for garrison. Again no peace, so I went for a next to lossless attack.

No further comments on CA programming here... Basically this is game over in turn 84 without any intention on my part getting there. Of course you have to consider the starting position for Carthage is a lot easier than Rome, but this still is an appalling performance of CAI. Too bad CA did not give you modding tools here.

Υοu're having lots of fun as it seems...

[Matt Slow]

Υοu're having lots of fun as it seems...

Note totally sure why you merged my post with john 909's. The text below the picture was mine...

[Theon Greyjoy]

Hey Strategos are there plans to add a system like Hellinika has for pahalingites/hoplites?
Where they have a "formation" button that replaces the double click so the whole line advances together instead of getting all messed up after clicking on a unit to advance.

I believe that is the only downside to Greeks since it's hard to really advance like the awesome shock troops they are meant to be without screwing the entire line up. Double clicking works only when the enemy is in front of multiple units otherwise they are safer to just sit there.

[broodwarjc]

I would like to suggest a rework of Roma's Quest line. I find that many of the bonus objectives overlap (I know they are optional, but that some should be completed for earlier quests is weird). Also I find that many of the later quest main objectives are immediately completed after the previous one. For example Quest VII is to have 120 units... by this time in my game I was at Imperium level 5 and was able to have 14 armies and 7 fleets. I had over 200 units and the quest was immediately completed after the last one not even giving me a chance to look at the bonus objectives. Also by this time you should have conquered all of Gaul, Britain, Carthage, and the Selucid Empire based off the earlier Quests bonus objectives. Just from having all that territory you would be at Imperium level 7+ and should easily have more than 120 units.

I know many players quit a game after less than 100 turns, but I feel that a better quest system could help extend games as "checkpoints" for a player to reach. Right now they are so hollow and the bonus objectives so overlapped that the quests feel tacked on and undeveloped. I am not sure if you can rework the existing questlines, but, IMHO, it woudl make campaigns more enjoyable and encourage players to stay with a game longer.

[Dresden]

Hey Strategos are there plans to add a system like Hellinika has for pahalingites/hoplites?
Where they have a "formation" button that replaces the double click so the whole line advances together instead of getting all messed up after clicking on a unit to advance.

I believe that is the only downside to Greeks since it's hard to really advance like the awesome shock troops they are meant to be without screwing the entire line up. Double clicking works only when the enemy is in front of multiple units otherwise they are safer to just sit there.

Not sure I understand, they do have a formation?

I would like to suggest a rework of Roma's Quest line. I find that many of the bonus objectives overlap (I know they are optional, but that some should be completed for earlier quests is weird). Also I find that many of the later quest main objectives are immediately completed after the previous one. For example Quest VII is to have 120 units... by this time in my game I was at Imperium level 5 and was able to have 14 armies and 7 fleets. I had over 200 units and the quest was immediately completed after the last one not even giving me a chance to look at the bonus objectives. Also by this time you should have conquered all of Gaul, Britain, Carthage, and the Selucid Empire based off the earlier Quests bonus objectives. Just from having all that territory you would be at Imperium level 7+ and should easily have more than 120 units.

I know many players quit a game after less than 100 turns, but I feel that a better quest system could help extend games as "checkpoints" for a player to reach. Right now they are so hollow and the bonus objectives so overlapped that the quests feel tacked on and undeveloped. I am not sure if you can rework the existing questlines, but, IMHO, it woudl make campaigns more enjoyable and encourage players to stay with a game longer.

Its mostly vanilla chapter objectives I think for Rome, but yeah they can be changed pretty easily.

[Matt Slow]

Another update: finally after conquering all of Latium, Rome was dedicated enough to send two entire legions combined and fully fledged. Maybe since POR I rarely use this amount of brutal raw power before imperial reforms and stick to one siege/auxiliary legion plus one regular at maximum, so this really is impressive even in the hands of AI.

They crushed my armies decisively, and neither hoplites nor ballistas would save me, but campaign AI failed to exploit this victory. It's a bit sad as fighting Rome on a balanced base would have been the great game challenge, just AI would not give me this opportunity while I was trying to get there.

[Theon Greyjoy]

Not sure I understand, they do have a formation?

Sorry bout that, allow me to clarify. They still have the "phalanx" button and formation but they also have an additional "ability" button that is blank but operates the same way as your double click. The difference is you can activate it across your entire line so they advance the 2 steps forwards together instead of just going all >^ when you double click on an enemy unit.

So Instead of having to double click on an enemy and risking this whole center looking like ^\/^, you could select all your phalingites and press the blank button which would make all of them advance two sreps forward without risking the entire line going wacko....which should be like ^^^^

This would allow a hoplite and phalanx center to be more aggressive and represent that hold and push.

I do apologize for before and seriously amazing work you guys have put in over the years in between life and such.

[Sarkiss]

PS: Campaign AI madness going on.

talking of stupid game design choices, how on earth do i give region away? sent a 'diplomat' to Pergamese Usurpers and they gave me (Hayastan) Nikomedia. why on earth would they do that?! quite an immersion-breaker, actually. Nikomedia is on the other side of Anatolia and i have no intention of keeping it but cant figure out how to get rid of it either. no way to raise taxes for that settlement only? any other way? i destroyed all building trying to induce rebellion but each time it happens Usurpers send army in and crash rebel stack before it can grow in size. so im stuck with as im not at war with anyone atm?

next time i sent one of my historical characters on a diplomatic mission he got killed.who on earth designs these 'features'?


edit: to clarify, i realise these are vanilla issues. still any advice on that settlement issue would be appreciated.

[Dardo21]

Rome gave me ariminium after turn 5 :p. I just reloaded the save :p.

[broodwarjc]

Its mostly vanilla chapter objectives I think for Rome, but yeah they can be changed pretty easily.

Awesome, I know I suggested Roma, but in a future patch maybe extending the Quest system for each playable faction (maybe even redoing the reward system to something instead of straight money, maybe timed bonuses FE: 20 turns of -10% Empire Maintenance) could be a great new feature that would hook players into spending longer on their campaigns. I think it is somewhat of a physiological factor, we now live in a world of instant gratification. F2P games are based around giving out rewards at certain intervals to fuel our sense of accomplishment. Social media pushes us to post often to continue to get likes on our funny pictures/videos to stay on the front page.

talking of stupid game design choices, how on earth do i give region away? sent a 'diplomat' to Pergamese Usurpers and they gave me (Hayastan) Nikomedia. why on earth would they do that?! quite an immersion-breaker, actually. Nikomedia is on the other side of Anatolia and i have no intention of keeping it but cant figure out how to get rid of it either. no way to raise taxes for that settlement only? any other way? i destroyed all building trying to induce rebellion but each time it happens Usurpers send army in and crash rebel stack before it can grow in size. so im stuck with as im not at war with anyone atm?

next time i sent one of my historical characters on a diplomatic mission he got killed.who on earth designs these 'features'?


edit: to clarify, i realise these are vanilla issues. still any advice on that settlement issue would be appreciated.

Yeah, the gaining settlements through Diplomats thing is probably vanilla BS. I try and uses diplomats to get small bonuses and improve relations with factions that are not as happy with me and then BAM I get some settlement in the middle of nowhere I have no interest in at that time. Sometimes, it is even a very valuable resource settlement that leads to that faction losing a war they are in! For example, I got Arveni's Gold producing settlement and shortly after they lost a war they were fighting with the Nervi.This might be another feature that could be turned down to not having the diplomats convince factions to just hand over territory.

[Bertie the Bunyip]

Is there a way to either darken or change the yellow color that is displayed when you press the space bar to show unit orders? It's very pale, and hard to see. Also, can the same thing be done for the yellow background that appears when you select a unit card?

Thanks

[Falco]

Sorry bout that, allow me to clarify. They still have the "phalanx" button and formation but they also have an additional "ability" button that is blank but operates the same way as your double click. The difference is you can activate it across your entire line so they advance the 2 steps forwards together instead of just going all >^ when you double click on an enemy unit.

So Instead of having to double click on an enemy and risking this whole center looking like ^\/^, you could select all your phalingites and press the blank button which would make all of them advance two sreps forward without risking the entire line going wacko....which should be like ^^^^

This would allow a hoplite and phalanx center to be more aggressive and represent that hold and push.

I do apologize for before and seriously amazing work you guys have put in over the years in between life and such.

That would be really cool to see in DeI!

[JCB206]

That would be really cool to see in DeI!

I agree!

[Alannon]

I've been talking about that button for hoplites for a while too. I think Kam said he'll look into it but maybe forgot. It'd make hoplies far less irritating to manage. And it does work.

[Gyan avspar]

A small request, is it possible to create a unit of macedonian's ''Agema'' as a sword unit? I dont want to use them only in phalanx and if I use them out of formation their 80 hp and 256 number feels wierd. I do know that Agema were confident enought to fight hand to hand without forming phalanx, like the royal peltasts but while the second have a sword unit to represent that, the agema sadly dont. What do you think about it team?

In adition could ''Thorakitai agematos vasilikou'' of seleucid's be an upgrade of ''hypaspistai agematos''.While hypapsitai agematos are elites phalanx by themselves, thorakitai agematos vasilikou outperform them. Also it is worth mentioning that The firsts are getting outdating later on, so i suggest letting hypaspistai agematos be able to get reqruited early but in very limited number, maybe 4-5 units and later on replacing them with thorakitai agematos vasilikou who clearly are inspired by the roman influence.

[KAM 2150]

Macedon already have such unit, Hypaspistai Agematos, who outside of phalanx fight with swords. They are the non pike version of pike Agema.

As for Seleucid unit, isn't it working like that already? I think that was the plan.

[Dresden]

I've been talking about that button for hoplites for a while too. I think Kam said he'll look into it but maybe forgot. It'd make hoplies far less irritating to manage. And it does work.

I hadn't heard about the button, but I like the sound of it.