[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[FlashHeart07]

Ok thanks will check it out

Remember that 1st tier temples shouldnt have a public order. In order to make it more beneficial to upgrade.

[Dresden]

@Kolaris I don't know why under siege is listing as positive, its actually a large negative. And so is foreign army presence. I will have to look into why thats showing up in the UI that way. I think there is a limit on how many modifiers we can show in the window.

Beseiged is class1/2/3/4: -3/-5/-7/-10
foreign army is -2/-2/-2/-4

[servent9]

just 1 question. what is the subjects mean in Hellenic faction? it mean normal people + slaves? or something

[Vishar]

Quick note from the Kartli campaign: the Subeshi Archer is more expensive than the Scythian Archer, but yet there is no difference in their ranged stats, and the Subeshi Archer is inferior to the Scythian Archer in melee stats. Is there any reason for this?

[Dresden]

All unit prices are based on formulas. So they have something thats better like armor or probably have something that isn't seen like accuracy or another stat.

[RollingWave]

I think we need more follow / items for the agents, right now there's really limited options, at least that's my impression playing through the more barbarian oriented factions.

Also, will Galatians be playable in the future? feel like that's one of the more interesting challenges.

Also playing as Royal Scythia... how exactly am I suppose to get the improved units? it seem to suggest that it's fighting / taking over other / merging with other nomads am I correct to assume that?

[Dresden]

Galatians are playable they just require DLC

[rbt]

Few things about Medewi faction gameplay:
Blemmyai Toxotai unit - doesn't have Resistant to Heat
Kulus Bomani (580 gold) has better stats then Bilit'ti Sayif (715 gold), so why should I use Bilit'ti Sayif unit?
What port building should I build to have ships? At level 1 and 2 I can't recrut any ship and don't have ships in garrison.

[leonardusius]

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".

1. I agreed. Chain routing are real and good implemented. Only my 50's cent: lower a bit in a next version; too quick chain-routing. Maybe a ''personalized' chain routing (I don't search in databases yet to see if it can work), depending the quality of the troops.
2. Agreed also.
3. Same.
Apropo, mi se pare mie ca esti roman care joaca SERIOS RTW 2 ? Credeam ca sunt singurul.

I think Iberian temples are lacking in public order. Every culture has at least one temple which dedicated to public order. For example, sacred grove. However, I cant find the same kind of temple as Edetani.

Agreed. And not only one in reality.....

[whitegamebox]

Do you guys have any plan about changing the Imperial Legionaries scutum? (That has more curve like this)
Xardovany's Screenshots: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=840299268

And about adding formations for roman units, too.
It's just a question, so please don't feel offended.

[AugustusRoman]

I have played more than 4000 hours in Rome 2 (especially DEI), and most of it in multiplayer campaigns.

Feedback
1) Baracks/Temples/Any_other_building with % maintenance should be replaced with minus 500 talents (or whatever you like)
Explanation why: In most cases you want your baracks to be in a province with 4 cities (extra recruitment). These provinces thought, like Syria/Italia/Thrace, are the richests in the game. So -15% is a lot of money.

2) Cities lvl 3 or 4 should not have that extra corruption. Farms and Delicatessen should not give any public order penalties (all levels). If you want lvl 3/4 cities you need farms and there are too many PO penalties already!!

3) Garrisons do not take the best units from buildings (in my Macedon campaign)

4) Remove poison, it helps only the player!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Requests

1) Imperium/Armies
I play on VH/VH. The first 40 turns are difficult, but after that the game is too easy.
What makes the human stronger than the AI.

a) The human focus to a single enemy.
b) The human sends all his forces (2 - 3 stacks at least)
c) The AI is wasting time doing nothing with its armies, especially when the AI has many armies
d) It is harder to kill a fation with 1 cities rather a AI with an Empire!
I has fighting as Macedon against Seleuids and Egypt at the same time (VH campaign) and I was beating them like they were nothing!!!

Solution

Instead of having many armies like 2/4/8/12 etc etc (it depends by imperium), you could have less armies per imperium like this
Imperium I - III > 1 army for human, 2 for AI
Imperium IV > 2 armies for human, 3 for AI
Imperium V > 4 armies for human, 5 for AI
Imperium VI > 6 armies for human, 8 for AI
Imperium VII > 8 armies for human, 10 for AI
Imperium VIII > 12 armies for human, 16 for the AI

However the armies will have 40 units instead of 20. (If it is not possible we could use a tool for that). Moreover, garrisons will be reduced significantly like 5 units.
Unique garrisons for Rome/Pella/Carthage/Antiochia/Rodos/Alexandria/ or any other city that you want to have more units.
(More realistic since you bring at least 2 armies in most cases and during battles you have to waste time waiting for the reinforcements).
Garrison unit will be provided by main_building, baracks and ports.

With less generals you will not be able to "cheat". For instance, siege a city with one general unit and attack the rest of the enemy's army that stands outside from the city.

At least, you will not be able to do it in early game. The AI will become more aggressive, since the cities will have less garrisons, which means the AI will expand easier.
The AI will be able to "think" a plan easier if you have less armies (in theory at least)

Fleets (especially) and armies should not cause PO. Armies should give PO even if they are not inside the city (for the AI).
Increase the logistic costs a little bit, so the human will be forced to have wagging trains.

Obviously, politic ranks should change overtime without winning battles, since you will not have many generals in the field.

Fight at night should be removed or given after years of experience. It helps only the human.


2) Recruitment and upkeep
To make the follow happens you will need to increase a little bit the wealth of building (probably).

1) It will be possible to recruit as many units as you like in one turn.
2) Recruitment time will take more turns.

Levies like slingers militia hoplites: 2 turns
Medium units like hastati should take 3 turns
Heavy/Cavalry like veteran_legionaries, royal pikes units should take 5 turns

Calculate cost of recruitment:
Levies: 50 talent for the men + 100 for equipment + 100 for the 2 turns of training = 300. If the levy unit is a missile unit then - 100
Medium: 150 talent for the men + 300 for equipment + 450 for the 3 turns of training = 800. If the unit is a missile unit then - 200. If it has a horse + 400
Heavy: 200 talent for the men + 300 for equipment + 1000 for the 5 turns of training = 1500. If the unit is a missile unit then - 500. If it has a horse +500

Calculate cost of upkeep:
Levies: 150 or 100 for missiles
Medium: 300 or 400 for cavs
Heavy: 500 or 700 for cavs

Navy: Just increase it by 20% and it is ok.

Example. You are SPQR. You want to recruit a legion of 5 missles, 8 hastati, 8 principes , 4 triarri 5 equites and 6 auxillary spear units.
You can recruit all of them, in 5 turns (assuming you have the money), since a cav units needs 5 turns. Therefore, after 1 turn you will have no units. But after 2 turns you will have the missiles and proably the auxillary (assuming they are levies). In the 3 turn you will have hastatis and principes and after 2 more turn the triarri and the equites.

Make sense right? Losing or disbanding an army is not good anymore for the player! Do not forget only the human player disband units and he is doing that to benefit himself, something that the AI does not know how to take into consideration.


3) Buildings/Culture

Instead of taking cities and convert them in 6 turns to your culture, the following could happen:

1) Covert a building would take 16 turns for cities and 1 turn for the rest (farms, ports etc)
2) Coverting a city would be expensive like 15k.
3) Cities would provide culture like +2 +3 etc.
4) Reduce cultural conversion from technologies.
5) Make a little bit slower to convert people to your culture.
6) Cities will give more money.

The idea is to make harder to expand and it make the game a little bit more realistic. (Less 1 and 2 class to fight for you in the conquered provinces). But PO from presence of other cultures should be a little be less.

I hope all the above makes sense!!


Let me know what do you think!!!
Request 1-2-3 can be combined.

[hippacrocafish]

Still feel like the Caledonians (and maybe the Britons in general) need a little work. I could deal with being at war with literally every Britannic tribe (which is inevitable) but their units just don't stand up to even the most basic units that their neighbors get. I had much of the same problem with Scordisci's really weak starting units, but they're in a much less awkward starting position and don't have nearly as horrible a faction penalty as the Caledonians. I'll just list a few things I think could make their campaign more fun, and maybe improve playing the Britons in general:

-Champions and Teceitos (Caledonian or otherwise) should be recruited further up the barracks tree, or maybe a 3rd-level settlement. Having to fight an army of 2-3 champions + 4-6 Teceitos with unarmored, low morale clubmen is just not doable.
-Caledonian militia and Caledonian Spearmen need more melee defense. The AOR unit Pictones Lugoae that Iweriu gets from the start like 20-25 more melee defense than both of these units, even though the Caledonian unit does have like 3-4 more attack they are pretty bad in melee. Hell, the Irish Raiders skirmisher unit is a better melee unit than the Caledonian spearmen.
-Iweriu should get Irish swordsmen before Irish Veteran warriors; Caledonians should get Caledonian swordsmen before Teceitos/champions. I think this just makes sense whether you are playing Kaledones or Iweriu. Every faction gets more basic, cheaper units first so the player doesn't have to cripple their economy to win battles.
-Allow recruitment of Balroaes and/or Caledonian hunters sooner. They only get one mediocre javelin unit in the beginning, which is heavily outclassed by Brittanic slingers and Iweriu skirmishers, both of which they get almost immediately.

EDIT: I noticed that Iceni Kluddobro get javelins, significantly higher melee defense, and are cheaper than the Caledonian equivalent. This does seem to me like their units are just weaker in general with the only advantage being 2-3 points of melee attack over other units. It may be worth making them more like these other units, or give their units a more dramatic advantage in attack + morale. Otherwise, I don't see how the Caledonians are supposed to stand up to the rest of the Britannic units.

[RecKooo]

I have played more than 4000 hours in Rome 2 (especially DEI), and most of it in multiplayer campaigns.

Feedback
1) Baracks/Temples/Any_other_building with % maintenance should be replaced with minus 500 talents (or whatever you like)
Explanation why: In most cases you want your baracks to be in a province with 4 cities (extra recruitment). These provinces thought, like Syria/Italia/Thrace, are the richests in the game. So -15% is a lot of money.

2) Cities lvl 3 or 4 should not have that extra corruption. Farms and Delicatessen should not give any public order penalties (all levels). If you want lvl 3/4 cities you need farms and there are too many PO penalties already!!

3) Garrisons do not take the best units from buildings (in my Macedon campaign)

4) Remove poison, it helps only the player!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Requests

1) Imperium/Armies
I play on VH/VH. The first 40 turns are difficult, but after that the game is too easy.
What makes the human stronger than the AI.

a) The human focus to a single enemy.
b) The human sends all his forces (2 - 3 stacks at least)
c) The AI is wasting time doing nothing with its armies, especially when the AI has many armies
d) It is harder to kill a fation with 1 cities rather a AI with an Empire!
I has fighting as Macedon against Seleuids and Egypt at the same time (VH campaign) and I was beating them like they were nothing!!!

Solution

Instead of having many armies like 2/4/8/12 etc etc (it depends by imperium), you could have less armies per imperium like this
Imperium I - III > 1 army for human, 2 for AI
Imperium IV > 2 armies for human, 3 for AI
Imperium V > 4 armies for human, 5 for AI
Imperium VI > 6 armies for human, 8 for AI
Imperium VII > 8 armies for human, 10 for AI
Imperium VIII > 12 armies for human, 16 for the AI

However the armies will have 40 units instead of 20. (If it is not possible we could use a tool for that). Moreover, garrisons will be reduced significantly like 5 units.
Unique garrisons for Rome/Pella/Carthage/Antiochia/Rodos/Alexandria/ or any other city that you want to have more units.
(More realistic since you bring at least 2 armies in most cases and during battles you have to waste time waiting for the reinforcements).
Garrison unit will be provided by main_building, baracks and ports.

With less generals you will not be able to "cheat". For instance, siege a city with one general unit and attack the rest of the enemy's army that stands outside from the city.

At least, you will not be able to do it in early game. The AI will become more aggressive, since the cities will have less garrisons, which means the AI will expand easier.
The AI will be able to "think" a plan easier if you have less armies (in theory at least)

Fleets (especially) and armies should not cause PO. Armies should give PO even if they are not inside the city (for the AI).
Increase the logistic costs a little bit, so the human will be forced to have wagging trains.

Obviously, politic ranks should change overtime without winning battles, since you will not have many generals in the field.

Fight at night should be removed or given after years of experience. It helps only the human.


2) Recruitment and upkeep
To make the follow happens you will need to increase a little bit the wealth of building (probably).

1) It will be possible to recruit as many units as you like in one turn.
2) Recruitment time will take more turns.

Levies like slingers militia hoplites: 2 turns
Medium units like hastati should take 3 turns
Heavy/Cavalry like veteran_legionaries, royal pikes units should take 5 turns

Calculate cost of recruitment:
Levies: 50 talent for the men + 100 for equipment + 100 for the 2 turns of training = 300. If the levy unit is a missile unit then - 100
Medium: 150 talent for the men + 300 for equipment + 450 for the 3 turns of training = 800. If the unit is a missile unit then - 200. If it has a horse + 400
Heavy: 200 talent for the men + 300 for equipment + 1000 for the 5 turns of training = 1500. If the unit is a missile unit then - 500. If it has a horse +500

Calculate cost of upkeep:
Levies: 150 or 100 for missiles
Medium: 300 or 400 for cavs
Heavy: 500 or 700 for cavs

Navy: Just increase it by 20% and it is ok.

Example. You are SPQR. You want to recruit a legion of 5 missles, 8 hastati, 8 principes , 4 triarri 5 equites and 6 auxillary spear units.
You can recruit all of them, in 5 turns (assuming you have the money), since a cav units needs 5 turns. Therefore, after 1 turn you will have no units. But after 2 turns you will have the missiles and proably the auxillary (assuming they are levies). In the 3 turn you will have hastatis and principes and after 2 more turn the triarri and the equites.

Make sense right? Losing or disbanding an army is not good anymore for the player! Do not forget only the human player disband units and he is doing that to benefit himself, something that the AI does not know how to take into consideration.


3) Buildings/Culture

Instead of taking cities and convert them in 6 turns to your culture, the following could happen:

1) Covert a building would take 16 turns for cities and 1 turn for the rest (farms, ports etc)
2) Coverting a city would be expensive like 15k.
3) Cities would provide culture like +2 +3 etc.
4) Reduce cultural conversion from technologies.
5) Make a little bit slower to convert people to your culture.
6) Cities will give more money.

The idea is to make harder to expand and it make the game a little bit more realistic. (Less 1 and 2 class to fight for you in the conquered provinces). But PO from presence of other cultures should be a little be less.

I hope all the above makes sense!!


Let me know what do you think!!!
Request 1-2-3 can be combined.

All the changes you proposed in terms of armies limit would just make the game ridicolously frustrating and unplayable until Imperium V. So, you make it even harder in the beggining and change nothing in the late (you said yourself that it is the late game that needs to be made more challenging, we all agree on that but your ideas miss the point).

The recruit/upkeep cost is fine as it is imo. The system designed by creators guarantees quite high level of balance I think.

Your ideas on Buildings / Culture are quite interesting but one thing needs consideration - Less 1st and 2nd class in conquered provinces makes replenishing pretty hard (just frustrating, not challenging).

[Pegassos]

Good mod, but too hard to play, because the poor income. No money means passing by turns! Tihs is the main problem: some factions have not enough money!

[Ostrogoth]

Good mod, but too hard to play, because the poor income. No money means passing by turns! Tihs is the main problem: some factions have not enough money!

Yes, in previous version it was considerably easier to play as small faction because of default income. But now, the "free" money is removed and it makes things very difficult. Lack of funds and AI's love of attacking small, weak factions make early game fight for survival for small factions. Small factions with specific diplomatic penalties are especially hard at the beginning. For example Caledonians and Colchis.

[Gusten Grodslukare]

Are you planning on making some kind of unit library/unit list one can go to when it's time ti recruit new units and choose which buildings to construct? The different local names sometimes makes it hard to know what kind of units they actually are (spearmen, medium or heavy, sword or axe fighters, medium or heavy and so on)

[Dresden]

Still feel like the Caledonians (and maybe the Britons in general) need a little work. I could deal with being at war with literally every Britannic tribe (which is inevitable) but their units just don't stand up to even the most basic units that their neighbors get. I had much of the same problem with Scordisci's really weak starting units, but they're in a much less awkward starting position and don't have nearly as horrible a faction penalty as the Caledonians. I'll just list a few things I think could make their campaign more fun, and maybe improve playing the Britons in general:

-Champions and Teceitos (Caledonian or otherwise) should be recruited further up the barracks tree, or maybe a 3rd-level settlement. Having to fight an army of 2-3 champions + 4-6 Teceitos with unarmored, low morale clubmen is just not doable.
-Caledonian militia and Caledonian Spearmen need more melee defense. The AOR unit Pictones Lugoae that Iweriu gets from the start like 20-25 more melee defense than both of these units, even though the Caledonian unit does have like 3-4 more attack they are pretty bad in melee. Hell, the Irish Raiders skirmisher unit is a better melee unit than the Caledonian spearmen.
-Iweriu should get Irish swordsmen before Irish Veteran warriors; Caledonians should get Caledonian swordsmen before Teceitos/champions. I think this just makes sense whether you are playing Kaledones or Iweriu. Every faction gets more basic, cheaper units first so the player doesn't have to cripple their economy to win battles.
-Allow recruitment of Balroaes and/or Caledonian hunters sooner. They only get one mediocre javelin unit in the beginning, which is heavily outclassed by Brittanic slingers and Iweriu skirmishers, both of which they get almost immediately.

EDIT: I noticed that Iceni Kluddobro get javelins, significantly higher melee defense, and are cheaper than the Caledonian equivalent. This does seem to me like their units are just weaker in general with the only advantage being 2-3 points of melee attack over other units. It may be worth making them more like these other units, or give their units a more dramatic advantage in attack + morale. Otherwise, I don't see how the Caledonians are supposed to stand up to the rest of the Britannic units.

Thanks for the feedback, I will look some more into their recruitment. I thought I made some of those changes in an earlier update but it sounds like some more are needed.

I have played more than 4000 hours in Rome 2 (especially DEI), and most of it in multiplayer campaigns.

Feedback
1) Baracks/Temples/Any_other_building with % maintenance should be replaced with minus 500 talents (or whatever you like)
Explanation why: In most cases you want your baracks to be in a province with 4 cities (extra recruitment). These provinces thought, like Syria/Italia/Thrace, are the richests in the game. So -15% is a lot of money.

2) Cities lvl 3 or 4 should not have that extra corruption. Farms and Delicatessen should not give any public order penalties (all levels). If you want lvl 3/4 cities you need farms and there are too many PO penalties already!!

3) Garrisons do not take the best units from buildings (in my Macedon campaign)

4) Remove poison, it helps only the player!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Requests

1) Imperium/Armies
I play on VH/VH. The first 40 turns are difficult, but after that the game is too easy.
What makes the human stronger than the AI.

Solution

Instead of having many armies like 2/4/8/12 etc etc (it depends by imperium), you could have less armies per imperium like this
Imperium I - III > 1 army for human, 2 for AI

2) Recruitment and upkeep
To make the follow happens you will need to increase a little bit the wealth of building (probably).

1) It will be possible to recruit as many units as you like in one turn.
2) Recruitment time will take more turns.

3) Buildings/Culture

Instead of taking cities and convert them in 6 turns to your culture, the following could happen:

1) Covert a building would take 16 turns for cities and 1 turn for the rest (farms, ports etc)
2) Coverting a city would be expensive like 15k.
3) Cities would provide culture like +2 +3 etc.
4) Reduce cultural conversion from technologies.
5) Make a little bit slower to convert people to your culture.
6) Cities will give more money.

Thanks for your detailed feedback. It sounds like you are an experienced player, so realize that there are plenty of others who find DeI very hard right now. I can answer some of this in turn:
Feedback
1. We tried a negative income but it causes a bug in the system that ends up multiplying itself into massive negatives
2. You are arguing that its too easy and yet you are saying there are too many PO penalties? Those are what cause the player to have to consider and balance building options
3. I am not sure what you mean by this, but are you saying that worse units are overriding better units? If so that is a bug, I will check it out thanks.
4. Poisoning armies should be removed already.

Requests
1. Imperium caps are set for both player and AI in the game.
2. The AI doesnt handle recruitment over multiple turns very well.
3. Conversion time is a single variable that gets multiplied. If we changed that, it would be just better to destroy and rebuild every time. It would make razing the only real option.

In terms of making the late game more difficult, we are always trying to work on that. Its very hard in a TW game to stop a player who has got themselves properly setup and going. The population system should slow down the steamroll somewhat, and we are working on an idea for a tribal unification thing for player invasions to make it more difficult later.

Do you guys have any plan about changing the Imperial Legionaries scutum? (That has more curve like this)
Xardovany's Screenshots: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=840299268

And about adding formations for roman units, too.
It's just a question, so please don't feel offended.

We had Roman formations but since the only real formation behavior the AI will use is the pike behavior, it made the Roman units act poorly. I realize its not a perfect solution but for now its what we are going with due to the battle changes. The shield question is being discussed in another thread I think.

Few things about Medewi faction gameplay:
Blemmyai Toxotai unit - doesn't have Resistant to Heat
Kulus Bomani (580 gold) has better stats then Bilit'ti Sayif (715 gold), so why should I use Bilit'ti Sayif unit?
What port building should I build to have ships? At level 1 and 2 I can't recrut any ship and don't have ships in garrison.

Thanks, I will fix that unit and I think meroe is missing navies right now. All unit prices are based on stats through formulas. So I have to assume something is better like armor.

Are you planning on making some kind of unit library/unit list one can go to when it's time ti recruit new units and choose which buildings to construct? The different local names sometimes makes it hard to know what kind of units they actually are (spearmen, medium or heavy, sword or axe fighters, medium or heavy and so on)

Yeah, we would like to create our own encyclopedia one day but its a huge task and its not really possible to link to from in game without some invasive workarounds.

[Kolaris8472]

That's disappointing that fixed upkeep didn't work out. It doesn't make much sense that you want these expensive building chains in the poorest provinces.

[maniac1094]

Could you give fleets transporting armies increased movement per turn? It took me around 12 turns to sail my siege army from Byzantion to Syracuse when Rome declared war on me. I have nothing to base this off of but that seams excessive.

[Gusten Grodslukare]

Yeah, we would like to create our own encyclopedia one day but its a huge task and its not really possible to link to from in game without some invasive workarounds.

If you have time, there's no need for an encyclopedia. It's enough if we can find the information about units, and maybe even buildings and their effects, within spoilers in the main thread about Divide et Impera 1.2 so we have some reference to what to recruit, and maybe what to build.