[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[KennyTheKlever]

Did you get the January 10th update to the mod? I lowered overcrowding's affect a bit on pop class 1 and their minimum bonus should be 40 not 20 now.

Yeah I have it, but I'm still playing the campaign I started after the very first public release of the beta, so maybe these population adjustments didn't take effect? I'm playing as Taksashila, so it is the arya population in the city of Pura that I'm referring to. They certainly aren't receiving +40 in the settler mechanic, and so it probably stands to reason that your overcrowding tweaks haven't taken effect in my game either.

[hippacrocafish]

Not sure exactly why, but my Scordisci campaign went a lot better after updating to the latest version. AI seem more willing to fight each other rather than just build up stacks to stomp on me, so that may have had something to do with it.

[KAM 2150]

That was one of the points of last update.

[FlashHeart07]

Amazing how we consider the feedback. Cant wait to actually play this mod.

[Fequois]

Hey. I was playing a little bit with 1.2 this morning and started a new grand campaign as Rome. I quickly discovered that I must be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what!

Basically, the problem I'm facing is that hoplites are immortal. It's happened in several battles now that, for example, there is one enemy hoplite unit deployed and it remains their last unit on the battlefield—which is fine. However, each time I've also had some 8 hastati or higher units surround and attack it, but the hoplite doesn't go down. Instead, it kills my units off one by one.

It's not until the hoplite unit's morale breaks, when it's alone against 2,000 soldiers and after a considerable amount of time spent slaying my soldiers, that I can win the battle.

So I have to ask: a) 300 indeed the most historically accurate movie ever, b) am I doing something wrong, c) or is this an issue with DeI?

[KAM 2150]

They should rout rather fast and from rear attack alone. What hoplites and what difficulty level?

[FlashHeart07]

Odd. Most people are saying that hoplites break too quickly.
a) It is not a movie, but a documentary. And yes we based this entire mod on that.
b) You are most likely doing something wrong
c) It could be, but I somewhat doubt it considering the amount of hours KAM has spent on the battle system.

What difficulty are you playing on?

edit: You are simply to quick for me KAM. You and Augustusng should have a "who is the fastest at replying" contest.

[Augustusng]

Well this time I'm not fast enough.

But I would just like to note: 8 units piling into one enemy unit are not going to kill it any faster than using just 2 units, one in front and one behind. The rest are wasted, since they can't really get into the fight anyway. Also cycle charge with one unit while you keep the enemy pinned with the other.

[Fequois]

Thanks for all the replies.

@Augustusng: I only use this tactic because the only way to win the battle is to break the unit's morale. Thanks for the tip though!

@FlashHeart07: Normal difficulty. Yes, I know, I suck.

@KAM: Normal difficulty. I'm not sure which hoplite units I've encountered (I'll try to remember to check this evening). It's very early in as Rome, and I've battled Epirus and Veneti, so it would have been some of their starting units I'd imagine. They literally do not rout, and take near zero damage from flanking attacks.

I forgot to mention, though, that I'm really loving this version overall. It's huge.

[gornoviceanu]

OK, so I am back with more impressions after playing Epirus.

1. Combat with "civilized" heavy infantry based armies is amazing. Top notch, the troops that should hold can hold and the killers can sure kill. Pikes and hoplites are great and both hold lines very reliably. Routing time is also on spot. I also am absolutely in love with the way chain routing works now. The eager Romans saw their left flank breaking and all of the sudden their whole army starts wavering and breaking. Do not ever remove chain routs like these, please!
2. I am liking the population system more and more as I play.
3. I really liked I could take and liberate Rome and turn them into "the senate".

Which leads me to the campaign itself. It's really interesting, I don't know what you did but the map feels more alive. Syracuse and Carthage are at it in Sicily since I started the campaign. Up north in Rome, I liberated the city and created a buffer state. Now "the senate" faction is fighting Rome. Just when things started to look good the Ariadei took Apolonia from me which I considered to be pretty safe since Macedon was the dominant power and my friend. The war in Sicily is waging on and I am spread thin into helping Syracuse and the SPQR faction so I can protect and develop my small region. I have to chose between taking Sicily alongside Syracuse or take back Apolonia and conquer Illyria. I am actually waiting for favorable odds to develop so I can do either of those. It's great, I think it's the first time the "map" develops itself so nice up until now.


Long story short, my campaign experience was great up until now. Also, no more crazy AI logic loop holes in this patch.

On another note, I still think "naked" troops like Meroe's die like flies and should get a little buff, but only those type of troops. Otherwise, light troops like Peltasts perform good.




PS: is it possible that historical characters like Pyrhus get a few ranks at the start of the campaign? I mean he starts out at 41 or 42 years, it's pretty silly a great commander like that is only rank 1 at his age.

[son of romans]

I like very much new improvements of the campaign but still I can't say that I like new pike and hoplite balance...I was in love how they worked in 1.05 and in 1.1...they can be your best unit and they can become a bad investition...all depends on you...now...in phalanx hoplites don't make any damage on heavy infantry..and I should use them as swordsmen...pikemen are ranking even fewer kills and can be beaten in frontal which is something new... and I can't make their effective attack when double clicking attacking the enemy...maybe I am too used to those invincible units...but as I remeber this units have slain the mighties empire of ancient world, Achamenid empire...

[hippacrocafish]

There may be an issue with the balance between javelin-armed infantry and javelin-armed skirmishers, IMO. It seems like infantry just absolutely destroy skirmishers once they are in range; 300 javelins being thrown at 175 dudes (probably with worse armor) seems like a pretty lopsided fight. and since they now basically function the same way it seems like you would be better off with javelin-throwing infantry over skirmishers 9 times out of 10. Maybe the ranges on skirmishers should move up a tier? Or the fire rate?

Speaking of, the soulferra throwers that Edetani gets are nuts. I wouldn't necessarily say overpowered, but they are fun as hell to use.

[Augustusng]

Javelin-armed infantry only have 2 volleys usually. Anyway it's best not to send your skirmishers into frontal combat with units like that. Javelin-armed skirmishers are best used on the flanks, where you can take advantage of all the extra ammunition they carry without worrying as much about return volleys.

[KennyTheKlever]

The arab garrison horse skirmisher unit - I think they're just called "Local horse skirmishers" - need tweaking because they only wear ordinary clothing and have like 12 armour, which is ridiculously high.

Edit: Now that I look at the tables, it seems that most of the "local_horsemen" garrison units have very high armour values. If it is the case that all of these are visually unarmoured horse skirmishers then these tables should be looked at imo.

[Dresden]

Looks like I misread your previous answer. My rusty English is playing tricks on me from time to time . However, I have one question. Will the Rome-Carthage War script still trigger if Carthage or Rome will not capture Syracuse but instead "liberate" or subjugate it.

No, only if Rome/Carthage captures syracuse.

I was playing a bit as the Breuci, just as I had done in DeI 1.1 when this beta version came out, and read a "This year in history" about the year 276 and Samnites fighting the Romans. So I got curious and checked on internet. It seems that the Samnites, although already being subjugated by Rome around or after 290 bce, allied with Pyrrhus and Hannibal in their wars against Rome. They were apparently quite successful during the Pyrrhic war and won a battle against Roman legions. It was only after Pyrrhus had left Italy that they were subjugated again. Around 82 bce the troublesome Samnites suffered from an ethnic cleansing by the Romans and more or less disappeared.

Would've been fun if you had pictured that situation with the Samnites siding with Rome's enemies by having an emergent faction (called Safinim/Samnites) control the Samnite town Beneventum and fight on Epirus side in the start of the campaign and later on when/if the Roma faction are at war with Qarthadastim they could emerge in Beneventum again and this time fight on the side of Carthage if they manage to land troops on Roman soil. The Roma faction seems a bit too strong and could deserve a bit of challenge.

There is an emergent faction for Samnites there. It depends on the campaign, but plenty of times I have seen a rebellion or the Epirus faction liberate them and then they come for Rome. Rome is not an easy start like it used to be. And, yes, Rome AI faction is really good and nasty and it expands - as we designed it to. One of the common complaints of vanilla Rome 2 is that the big factions, especially Rome, never survive or expand.

Yeah I have it, but I'm still playing the campaign I started after the very first public release of the beta, so maybe these population adjustments didn't take effect? I'm playing as Taksashila, so it is the arya population in the city of Pura that I'm referring to. They certainly aren't receiving +40 in the settler mechanic, and so it probably stands to reason that your overcrowding tweaks haven't taken effect in my game either.

If you are using the new version, it should be showing 40 settlers and an improvement on the pop 1 overcrowding. Make sure you properly overwrote the part 1 of the pack. It is save compatible and should be affecting your save game.

PS: is it possible that historical characters like Pyrhus get a few ranks at the start of the campaign? I mean he starts out at 41 or 42 years, it's pretty silly a great commander like that is only rank 1 at his age.

They already do. If you check him he is a really nasty commander - he has high rank and other good traits. Many characters start out at higher than rank 1.

[KAM 2150]

I like very much new improvements of the campaign but still I can't say that I like new pike and hoplite balance...I was in love how they worked in 1.05 and in 1.1...they can be your best unit and they can become a bad investition...all depends on you...now...in phalanx hoplites don't make any damage on heavy infantry..and I should use them as swordsmen...pikemen are ranking even fewer kills and can be beaten in frontal which is something new... and I can't make their effective attack when double clicking attacking the enemy...maybe I am too used to those invincible units...but as I remeber this units have slain the mighties empire of ancient world, Achamenid empire...

What you describe is exactly how it was not working in 1.05 and 1.1 where units were routing pikes frontally and hoplites due to animation bug were not able to score kills. It is the opposite in 1.2 where pikes are pretty much impossible to rout frontally and hoplites, if given time and commanded properly (not rushed too fast or not left in defence, well, same for pikes) will hold the ground while light troops and cavalry make the decisive manouver. I find your report hard to comprehend since you stated that pikemen are ranking even fewer kills while I know for many hours of testing that they can get huge amounts of kills but they need time, although they still perform much better kill wise then hoplites. Also if you send them into attack mode right away, they will take casualties. Read the battle preview, all is explained.

There may be an issue with the balance between javelin-armed infantry and javelin-armed skirmishers, IMO. It seems like infantry just absolutely destroy skirmishers once they are in range; 300 javelins being thrown at 175 dudes (probably with worse armor) seems like a pretty lopsided fight. and since they now basically function the same way it seems like you would be better off with javelin-throwing infantry over skirmishers 9 times out of 10. Maybe the ranges on skirmishers should move up a tier? Or the fire rate?

Speaking of, the soulferra throwers that Edetani gets are nuts. I wouldn't necessarily say overpowered, but they are fun as hell to use.

Only Iberian and Germanic infantry with javelins have more then 1 ammo per default. Although that can be a bit unbalanced later on when units get ammo bonuses from different sources, which I forgot during the process of balancing. From what I tested, regular javelin units will still be a lot better then infantry as infantry scores only few kills from ranged attack while javeliners score dozens of kills. Also obviously regular infantry scores more kills if enemy is closer as volley from close range and long range are two different things. Overal, javeliners are able to score multiple times more hits then infantry but I also never send them in the front line but more on the flanks which was where they would have been used anyway. I might lower range of infantry javelins but I also don't want to break new BAI ; P

[Geffalrus]

Ptolemoi Campaign Stuff:

1) Alexandria is a pretty cool region/city, no argument there. And I don't know if this has been there before, but kudos to whoever decided to put that Lord of the Rings quote in there. Definitely earned a big smile when I first saw it.

2) What's the reasoning behind the Alexandria trait that allows them to recruit Ptolemoi Hetairoi from turn 1? I don't think it's that unbalancing, per se, but it does give the Ptolemoi a potentially huge heavy cavalry advantage in the early game. Is that to help the AI, or something for the player? I was just rather massively surprised to see a heavy cavalry option for mass recruitment on turn 1. I can't think of another faction with that possibility on turn 1.

3) Machimoi Phalangitai. What's the long term plan with these guys? Are they going to remain the only Hellenistic levy pike available early/all game? Is there anyway to at least tie them to a research technology? Considering that they draw from the gigantic Subjects population instead of the much smaller Katoiki and Eugenis classes, I'd argue they're useful all game regardless of their combat stats.

[Elin4Lyfe]

Just wondering, what is the current reform triggers for parthia? It used to be Imperium 5 and 120 turns, I'm just wondering if its still the same.

Edit @ above post: I could recruit early grivpanvir (cataphract) shock cav out of Parthia turn 1, though it was prohibitively expensive in terms of recruit cost + upkeep. Dunno if that's intended (the ability to recruit them, not their cost).

[KAM 2150]

Ptolemoi Campaign Stuff:

1) Alexandria is a pretty cool region/city, no argument there. And I don't know if this has been there before, but kudos to whoever decided to put that Lord of the Rings quote in there. Definitely earned a big smile when I first saw it.

2) What's the reasoning behind the Alexandria trait that allows them to recruit Ptolemoi Hetairoi from turn 1? I don't think it's that unbalancing, per se, but it does give the Ptolemoi a potentially huge heavy cavalry advantage in the early game. Is that to help the AI, or something for the player? I was just rather massively surprised to see a heavy cavalry option for mass recruitment on turn 1. I can't think of another faction with that possibility on turn 1.

3) Machimoi Phalangitai. What's the long term plan with these guys? Are they going to remain the only Hellenistic levy pike available early/all game? Is there anyway to at least tie them to a research technology? Considering that they draw from the gigantic Subjects population instead of the much smaller Katoiki and Eugenis classes, I'd argue they're useful all game regardless of their combat stats.

Like it was said, Hellenic factions will get their overhaul. No details yet but all stuff regarding current pike units will me more or less changed.

[Dresden]

@Geffalrus Antioch and Alexandria have partial barracks recruitment for those factions, so yes they get some bonuses there. Rome and Carthage also have that. To a lesser extent, some of the other special capitals do also.

@Elin the reform numbers are all the same for all factions. Parthia may start with a stables? I cant remember, so thats why they can recruit that. Overall, we like to have recruitment be available a bit earlier in terms of buildings but be limited by economy. This makes it so that the AI builds more elite armies rather than all levies to start. Since the AI doesn't disband troops, Rome 2 would suffer from mid-late game AI armies of levies that they had recruited early on still running around.