[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hello all. I am 257 turns into a Roman campaign and I think the two researches consensual contracts and legal institutions are over powered in terms of what they do to your loyalty. Between the two researches you get +30 loyalty from them. I am sitting with loyalty of my 3 parties at 28, 30, and 70 at imperium level 5. I I have not interacted at all with the politics system in some time due to these researches and if I did I think I could quite easily push these parties loyalties even higher. I do not see any chance of a civil war being even remotely possible in my campaign.

Also I think the expansionist character trait might be bugged because it says it can give you max +15 loyalty but I am getting +25 loyalty from it. (Note this trait is with the party that has +70 loyalty so going from +25 to +15 would still leave it with +60).

Politics system is under observation for now. We could also take a look at the traits as well.

[thesmoosh]

Read the download post please. It has a section on mod compatibility. There's also a sub mod forum and a list of official submods you can use.

If you violate the recommendations in the download post, you really can't report bugs because you'll never know if it's actually a bug or just a mod conflict and the last thing you want to do is waste the DEI team's time.

I also suggest checking out the FAQ and the tips on the main menu, I personally found them really helpful, because one of the things they say is that unit mods are not compatible with DEI due to the vast number of changes made to the combat system.

[Dardo21]

"Focus Fire" ... the AI does a great job of focusing it's fire upon your front line .. which leads to alot of dead dudes

The mod that adds pikes is really simple .. it looks like the pike units were included in the original DeI mod file but never enabled for Carthage .. don't think it does anything with javelins at all.

Maybe there's a historical precedence for giving all units javelins .. When a 300 sword unit of barbarian heaves them it hurts no matter how you cut it.

I'll try it with a clean install of the mod

Do you have a link to the Pike mod? Or did you make it yourself?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

"Focus Fire" ... the AI does a great job of focusing it's fire upon your front line .. which leads to alot of dead dudes

The mod that adds pikes is really simple .. it looks like the pike units were included in the original DeI mod file but never enabled for Carthage .. don't think it does anything with javelins at all.

Maybe there's a historical precedence for giving all units javelins .. When a 300 sword unit of barbarian heaves them it hurts no matter how you cut it.

I'll try it with a clean install of the mod

We have removed pikes for Carthage for various reasons. You'll be surprised what a little mod could do to compatibility though. You're best bet is to use just official or already checked submods with DEI.

[Raum ul Amon]

Thanks for the replies ...

I've deleted all mods and have re-downloaded only the DeI .. Ill try the battle again

[Bless]

Hi guys, have decided to try DEI again after hearing a lot of people recommend it (im skeptical of overhaul mods so that's why i was reluctant to play it), and felt like coming here to give some feedback.

First i must say that the mod really improves a lot of things from the vanilla game, the population system makes you really want to avoid suffering losses because each man will be hard to replenish on the frontier, it also encourages to mix professional soldiers with local levies which is historical and something that i always felt lacking in vanilla.

The reform system also is a big improvement from vanilla. The supply system i didn't quite understood and just ignored for the most part.

Combat is amazing and you really are rewarded when you do it right, so its not like whoever send the better infantry is automatic winner like in vanilla; that opens the possibility to make factions that rely on cavalry actually work against heavy infantry focused factions.

The units look awesome and the sheer variety of them amazed me. And the slower paced campaign really makes it a better experience, each region conquered is valuable, you feel your empire growing slowly and that feels awesome.

There is also a lot of other improvements but these ones are the ones i enjoyed mostly.


Now the critiques:

What mostly annoyed me was the buildings, they don't made much sense to me and felt unbalanced. I mean, sanitation buildings are on the industrial chain on the capitals and on the farms in minor settlements, that didn't made much sense. Some buildings don't seem worth building, the yellow chain offers a lot of variety but some are clearly worth more than the others and i ended building the same few everywhere. Also, when playing as Kartli i noticed that some tier 4 buildings lost most of their effects on tier 4, maybe a bug?

Sanitation buildings still aren't worth building, by just researching the construction techs you can get 18 sanitation which is enough to cover the squalor of most settlements, the problem i find here is that one of the things that Romans are famous for are the aqueducts everywhere that really improved the foreigner acceptance of their rule and made them happier overall, i feel like sanitation buildings should be more important and relevant to reflect that. This is a problem in vanilla too btw.

Eastern factions were also missing livestock buildings, don't know if intentional.

One of the things i like mostly when playing total war games is to develop and build the empire after conquering it, so maybe that's why these bothered me so much. I must say however that the way you guys handled resource buildings is pretty nice.


Combat has some problems too, phalanx units can still hold quite a bit even if attacked from the rear with quality units, i understand and agree that they should be an semi-immovable wall from the front but, if you guys watched 300 even the Spartans fell immediately when surrounded.


When playing as Epirus i retreated my elephant and went to micro somewhere else, and surprisingly the ai charged some spear units at them, when i saw that they were in combat i looked at them and told them to retreat, but they immediately started to die incredibly quick. I understand and agree that spears should be a counter to them, but the quickness which they died was a surprise in the slower paced combat of DEI and felt out of place. I understand tho that this may be hard to fine-tune so its not a critique, just a note.


And to end this long post, a request:

In vanilla Rome 2 there is a bug where the AI almost never proposes marriages so if your generals don't spawn with a wife they will die single, that is not realistic. This seems to persist in DEI. From what i know it is something really hard to mod and fix and the best i've seen people do was to make every general spawn with a wife. But you guys are competent and creative so maybe you can have an ingenious solution to this, if possible. Thanks in advance if you guys implement this.

That's it guys, thanks for the mod and congratulation on your good work.

[thesmoosh]

What mostly annoyed me was the buildings, they don't made much sense to me and felt unbalanced. I mean, sanitation buildings are on the industrial chain on the capitals and on the farms in minor settlements, that didn't made much sense. Some buildings don't seem worth building, the yellow chain offers a lot of variety but some are clearly worth more than the others and i ended building the same few everywhere. Also, when playing as Kartli i noticed that some tier 4 buildings lost most of their effects on tier 4, maybe a bug?

...

Eastern factions were also missing livestock buildings, don't know if intentional.

One of the things i like mostly when playing total war games is to develop and build the empire after conquering it, so maybe that's why these bothered me so much. I must say however that the way you guys handled resource buildings is pretty nice.

I agree with this, as well as the positive comments. I found the fact that Parthia can't build livestock buildings especially odd given the area's culture/history.

[CadetNewb]

I wanted to ask, what are the stat differences between auxiliaries' javalins and legion's pilum? I know the latter does more damage, but by how much, and is there a difference in AP too?

[Dresden]

I believe pilum do slightly more AP damage, have less spread but only 1 volley.

[KAM 2150]

Regular javelins or auxiliary troops have 11 damage and a bit bigger spread while pilum, depending on reform level have 3 AP damage for all levels and from 11 to 13 regular damage and better accuracy. There will be some tweaks to those soon.

[Colest]

Anyone know if it's possible to tie a unit state into stances like fatigue penalties for raiding and forced march for Atilla?

[MrMerisi]

Generic Italian Swordsmen (garrison).

These guys early game look like Marian Legionaries. Curved shields, chain mail armor, gladius. What are they supposed to be based on and are there any plans to change garrison composition in the future?

In my most recent battle, I had 2 of these units come in as reinforcements and they racked up over 600 kills between them vs Epirus hoplites and other infantry. Perhaps there is a way to introduce them only after Polybian reforms?

[KAM 2150]

They look like Principes. There is an issue with how garrison units works so you need to have units there that fit for all reforms. Making them look like Principes is the best way to handle that in case of Rome as other factions have lesser changes.

[MrMerisi]

Ah OK so they're basically Late Principes? I thought the curved shield looked more Marian. Cheers.

Nvmd - I had another look and the curved shields are pretty similar.

[KAM 2150]

It is hard to give them a proper unit in that place as like I said, they need to have one unit that fits all eras. They could have just some random javeliners and town watch with spears but it would mean they have no good quality units.

[Kidoki]

Hey! If this isn't the right thread for this, please tell me.
This has probably been discussed already on the miriad of Pike threads, and since i didn't feel like creating yet another one (and haven't found what i specifically searched for), i'll ask here:

How exactly should i use Short Pikes to bring out their maximum effectiveness? They bring a risk with their higher attack, which is the fact they generally seem to take higher casualties than their long counterpart. They don't fair as well against hoplites in my experience (they tend to take medium losses because they have to get closer and into range of some hoplites, or the AI rushes through some pikes before actually issuing an attack order), and obviously lose on a Short Pike vs. Long Pike matchup.

Also what exactly determines their push power? The shorter pikes don't seem to push as well as the long ones, and since they're shorter i see a lot of them pulling out the swords constantly.

I'm not complaining or saying they are bad (i mean, i really like when they start racking up kills like crazy aginst some sword unit after a double click), i'm really just trying to understand and learn some of these mechanics. Thanks!

[Vardano]

I should agree that most of time I also end up building same buildings from yellow chain as some of them are clearly better than others. Mostly because negative aspect of some buildings are more crucial than positives.

I was playing a lot of custom battles lately and should say that pilum even of regular legionarie is much more deadly weapon than javelin of other heavy infantry, but Kam said he knows about it.

[Ampraciotis]

Guys could you please add the Aetolian and Achean League in the Macedonina wars campaign with a proper overhaul?They were active at the time and rising and they are not even playable in the game.. I could also do the research for you if you like.

[Falco]

Guys could you please add the Aetolian and Achean League in the Macedonina wars campaign with a proper overhaul?They were active at the time and rising and they are not even playable in the game.. I could also do the research for you if you like.

What do you mean with a proper overhaul, exactly?

[Don_Diego]

They all have unique variants of Greek units now, but as they are a minor faction they will not have an in depth rooster like a playable faction has. There are not any current plans to work on them, but a submod could always be made. Seen some excellent ones already like the Cyreniaca faction submod.