Conquest-A Complaint

[Brihentin13]

I think that public order penalties are too strong, especially in Greece. Even with a client governor and a full stack, the provinces are prone to rebellion. Order has finally stabilized around 70% in Athens, but, very often, dips into rioting or even civil revolt. Then I have to go kill the KH AGAIN(wiped out three times now). I know the explanation is "historicity", but it makes for bad gameplay. I basically have to keep a full-stack on reserve to go fight the Greeks over and over again. If there's going to be this level of resistance, then can you at least add a genocide button? Really, if we're going to use history and roleplay as excuses for this, then here's my roleplay: after the Greeks revolted for the third time the king of the Boii had enough and killed every man, woman, and child in the mainland Hellas.

"Well, then don't invade Greece as a foreign faction."

Greece attacked me. What would you have me do, just sit there at the border fighting stacks until they get bored and go home? Make them a vassal? Oh, that's right, that doesn't work without forced diplomacy.

I have to disagree heartily with the direction this game is taking. All of these features used to add "challenge" to the game are more annoying than fun. This is a game called "Total War". People conquer and get conquered. Adding huge unrest problems in areas outside of the "historical scope" of a faction limits where you can expand, leading to every game with a given faction to turn out about the same. Some of the most fun I had in EB 1 was my grand wars with the Seleucid Empire to the East. My faction? The Arverni. Yes, I conquered all of Europe and then fought my way across Asia against a rival superpower. At no point did I need to stop for fifty turns in order to try in vain to stabilise the Hellas. Now, after my empire expands to its easy, homeland and expansion areas, I consider starting a different campaign to just not deal with the annoyance of progressing any further. Historicity is important, but gameplay has to come into consideration at some point. I shouldn't dread playing part of a video game.

[myarta]

Fighting the same thing over and over would get very annoying, yeah.

Do you have a spy in the each Greek city? It may be that the other factions have left their own spies there which will drive up unrest, and recruiting some of yours will help detect them and kick them out.

[nvm]

I think Public Order might still be not quite balanced yet as Greece is difficult to conquer and hold for pretty much anyone. Also Client Rulers are not always that good for pacifying foreign areas as the game would suggest - I've had found it literally impossible to hold Rhegion without red public order, and he even gained a trait saying he hates Greeks with unrest +3. But when I put one of the amazing family members there instead, everything worked out.

Also, since you in fact get a lot of Public Order from buildings, constantly exterminating or sacking a big city will only make it harder to hold as these buildings get destroyed. I think it also increases unrest, meaning at some point abandoning the region might be your only option. Or try harder to force vassalization, it's not always that hard.

Or you know, just move your capital closer to Greece. Easy and cheap solution!

[Kilo11]

Also, since you in fact get a lot of Public Order from buildings, constantly exterminating or sacking a big city will only make it harder to hold as these buildings get destroyed. I think it also increases unrest, meaning at some point abandoning the region might be your only option. Or try harder to force vassalization, it's not always that hard.

I did not know that sacking or exterminating had any impact on the infrastructure of the territory being sacked. I always thought it just had to do with killing more/less of the inhabitants and taking their , but not doing anything to the public buildings. Do you have any idea what the actual impact is in general (i.e. which buildings are destroyed, why those ones, etc.), because that is a serious thing to bear in mind when taking new settlements. Especially as I am now moving onto the Punic heartland, and would like (ideally) to be able to hold it. I had thought to burn Qart-Hadast to the ground and start anew, but it seems that might be a good way to never hold it in the future. Hmm...

[nvm]

I did not know that sacking or exterminating had any impact on the infrastructure of the territory being sacked. I always thought it just had to do with killing more/less of the inhabitants and taking their , but not doing anything to the public buildings. Do you have any idea what the actual impact is in general (i.e. which buildings are destroyed, why those ones, etc.), because that is a serious thing to bear in mind when taking new settlements. Especially as I am now moving onto the Punic heartland, and would like (ideally) to be able to hold it. I had thought to burn Qart-Hadast to the ground and start anew, but it seems that might be a good way to never hold it in the future. Hmm...

I can't really narrow it down, some buildings go down a level, some two, some do not. I would presume that after five exterminations you would have to rebuild almost everything from scratch.

But in general it should be safe to exterminate it once, especially if you don't think you will get the full garrison bonus with your army. Then destroy markets and other population growth and public order reducing buildings if you deem it necessary to keep the city.

[Hellenikon]

Deal with it.

All you described is historical and it's purpose is to discourage ahistorical expansion. The greeks would never easily bow down to a boii ruler. Be ready to use exterminate liberally, or just put up with being unable to do ahistorical stuff on EB2.

[wermez]

What would Alexander the Great, Sulla or Morgoth do?

[QuintusSertorius]

Conquest of a completely alien culture is difficult and takes generations, or even ultimately fails? That sounds like many, many examples from history. I'm not going to apologise for each faction having particular spheres of influence where they can relatively easily take control, then everywhere else is more difficult. If you'd taken the Arverni into north Africa, you'd find the same problem.

As has been mentioned, if you've sacked places, you've broken them. We can't do anything about the hardcoded impact of sacking, which downgrades buildings, but as soon as you do this, you're in a downward spiral that will result in you never being able to control a foreign settlement over a certain size. There's also nothing we can do about the apparent hardcoded bonus the AI gets to order, which the player doesn't enjoy.

"They attacked me" isn't an excuse to destroy a faction. We went to a lot of effort to put a variant and switching CAI in that should accept defeat and change its behaviour. The proportionate response to being attacked is to destroy their armies, not blitz their entire territory so they can never attack you again. Especially if it's a region of a wildly different culture which would take a lot of effort to hold.

One last thing, to be blunt I couldn't care less what was possible in EB1. We are not trying to re-create it (or it's terrible AI). Historicity is a part of the gameplay, by creating challenges and channelling play in particular ways, it stops the game being bland. Which is what you get if any faction can expand anywhere and meet little resistance. Defeating armies and taking settlements is the easy part; getting the natives to accept their new rulers is a different matter entirely. If dealing with the real challenges of conquest aren't your idea of fun, then maybe EBII isn't the mod for you. There are lots of other choices out there.

[parthian8]

I've been playing both a KH and a Macedon campaign in recent weeks. As Macedon, I've followed Antigonus's policy of installing tyrants in conquered cities, and have found these rather more popular than they were historically, while retaining a very useable chunk of the building tree. And I've seen Ambrakia settle down quite meekly under a Boii invasion. It only seems to get really bolshy if Epirus has been wiped out and is trying to re-emerge. And my subjugation of Athens at the end of the Chremodian War has also led to the fairly resigned acceptance of a bloody tyrant. What I'm not doing is wiping Greece out, burning it's cities to the ground and moving my entire army to the next city up the coast on the following turn ad infinitum thinking "well, what could possibly go wrong there"

[parthian8]

Brihentin

This isn't a game called Total War. It's a modification called Europa Barbarorum and it was designed with historicity in mind to serve a loyal and supportive audience that was crying out for such a game. Those people want something more thoughtful and challenging than a slash and burn game, which is why they choose to play this one. There are plenty of slash and burn games to choose from. Wouldn't it be better if you simply chose one of them?

[myarta]

Whoops, I didn't realize Sack removed buildings or kicked them down a tier. Sack does that, the middle option? And Exterminate, the bottom option, does it even worse, I imagine?

For some reason, I've found Sack to be the best, even despite the building loss I didn't realize was happening (I rarely am risking spies at the 60% success rate to inspect their full building tree in advance). For some reason, peaceful occupation can result in a red face and after a sack it's yellow or green. I haven't compared the component parts of that PO score in a while, but I think sacking temporarily removes a lot of the unrest (afraid to speak out?). I know the lower population would also reduce the famine score and thus the unrest from famine, but it seems to be more than just that.

[Poppis]

For some reason, peaceful occupation can result in a red face and after a sack it's yellow or green. I haven't compared the component parts of that PO score in a while, but I think sacking temporarily removes a lot of the unrest (afraid to speak out?). I know the lower population would also reduce the famine score and thus the unrest from famine, but it seems to be more than just that.

The "occupy" option causes 30% temporary unrest. The other options don't seem to affect it.

[Hummer]

I've always preferred sack as well. Maybe I'll rethink that.

[Colos1987]

I do not think sacking do that, but extermination surely do. You can see that when a city with port is exterminated: said port is reduced to a fishing village. EBII uses 'enslave' instead of sacking, and 'sack' instead of exterminate, btw. The effects are the same, just the name changed.

[I_Damian]

If you conquer a city and exterminate... I could understand unrest and rebellion. But after 3 times... isn't the population now settlers from your own lands...?

[Ivir Baggins]

If you conquer a city and exterminate... I could understand unrest and rebellion. But after 3 times... isn't the population now settlers from your own lands...?

Main problem with that is that the hardcoded unrest from the city level far outstrips the unrest due to population. So a Large City with 400 pop will have little if no less unrest than a Large City with 14000 pop, but exterminating down to the former would get rid of every happy/law building in the city.

Basically, blame The Creative Assembly.

[Pherion]

Mate, forget it. These people have thrown gameplay out the window long time ago. This mod is a niche, a niche within a niche I would say. So besides a handful of people(yes, 10k or 20k or even 50k players playing this is still a handful compared to millions, Although I think not even 5000 play this mod). And as such projects they are only aimed for a tiny, tiny, tiny minority.

The people here don't want a video game, they want an "interactive history book", and that's what they have. And don't try to argue with these people here, hardcore fanboys will shoot you down without hesitation.

If you want my 2 cents, go to EB1 like I did. It is a better game and a worse "interactive history book", because I too enjoy conquering the world with whatever I please and change history how I please. That's the fun of Total War, the fun of rewriting history with civilizations/countries you love and do crazy with them. Not to do everything that has already been done before in the past, I'd rather just read up a book in that case.
And this mod SPECIALLY punishes you for wanting to do something as daring as conquering the world with the Arverni, because the devs don't want you to do that. They want you to do exactly what happened or just expand in "likely ways it could've happened" which is boring. They are effectively placing shackles on you.

[Kull]

These people have thrown gameplay out the window long time ago.

[Slaytaninc]

And this mod SPECIALLY punishes you for wanting to do something as daring as conquering the world with the Arverni, because the devs don't want you to do that. They want you to do exactly what happened or just expand in "likely ways it could've happened" which is boring. They are effectively placing shackles on you.

A game that purports to historical accuracy within the confines of what M2TW allows and you're upset that unrealistic actions are really hard? Man, I'm not sure what you were expecting.

[Colos1987]

Who said it was impossible to conquer the world with the Arverni? It is possible, but really, really hard, and will probably take maybe a 1000 turns to complete... But I personally do not mind that, as it is not a matter of histroicity, but a matter of realism.

If you want to conquer the whole map by turn 100, then fine, go and play another mod. No one will be mad at you, and you will not have to deal with us, blind fanboys