Let's all vent about EBII!

[Sarkiss]

I didn`t realise just how much QS is doing for us in keeping this mod ongoing....

QS is phenomenal. yes, sometimes individuals dont get along but objectively, regardless our personal feelings towards QS, the amount of hours this guy puts into this mod is insane. he is more akin a full time employee. full ing time and some. i dont know how he simultaneously manages to have a life (RL) and keep all of this going. without this superman the mod wouldnt be where it is now, not even close.

in a great scheme of things, we are a really small community, band together by a combination of love for ancient history and gaming. all in all a small group in a big world of things. when looking at it from this perspective, the companionship of like-minded individuals can be seen as of a remarkable value in and of itself. its therefore a real shame to see such fallouts unfold. hopefully, though, the things that unite this community will outweight the potential causes for conflict.

[Roma_Victrix]

Wow. There's a heated argument going on and I am not in the middle of it. Wow.

I know right? I was just as surprised as you. This one had Rad written all over it, but nope. You were nowhere to be found. You're slacking, rad. You're slacking. Don't be a slacker. Be an attacker! It's time to start another debate about helmets. Your move, Rad.

You are responsible for this entire storm! Shame on you!

BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE HERETIC!

Not the part of the conversation I started talking about, but really, that's not realistic at all. You look at OVERALL battle casualties for say, the hoplite battles a bit before the game, or ones like Pharsalus, Thapsus, Philippi, Apelaurus, Stratus, Menalaion, Leontium, Raphia, or Nemea; all of which are in the time the game covers, and none of them even have 50% overall casualties to the losing side, even after routs and chases.

Even professional soldiers (hardly the norm) will break and run at way less stress than 50% losses.

Actually, come to think of it, you're right. I've heard before that most casualties happen after one side breaks and attempts to flee, not during the actual staged melee with both sides staring each other face to face. Then again not every battle is the same. This was not the case at Cannae, where most of the casualties occurred with men being trapped and flanked on all sides, fighting to the death.

[Shadowwalker]

Oof. It's always a shame when there are a disagreements on a team for a mod as stellar, content-rich, and competent as EBII.

All I can really say is that I've been playing EBII since 2.1 (and EBI long before that) and I personally consider the current build EBII to be an improvement over its predecessors in every way. EBI never really lived up to its promise of being "historical", imo. I'd never finish a campaign because it would turn into a hideous slog, my cities depopulated, every border town ravaged by war, just endless stack after stack of enemies. I think I loved EBI as a concept more than I loved it as a game.

Whereas EBII is actually fun to play for me - I don't need to have apocalyptic depopulating battles of annihilation every single turn to wage a successful military campaign and my realm doesn't need to expand constantly to remain viable and interesting. Yes, some of the micro can be tedious, but by and large I personally consider the mod to be an improvement over its predecessor. Ofc this is all a matter of opinion - I understand some people prefer the EBI style. Lord knows there are enough mods like Roma Surrectum that positively drown you in a tide of blood.

Ultimately, it's a shame that there's bad blood between some team members but I hope I speak for a good chunk of EBII players when I say that the mod is a really solid piece of work and everyone who's worked on it should feel proud of their accomplishment.

I'm in 100% agreement with every single word you wrote there. Very well said.

In the interest of total honesty, the Irish/Seleukid Tanks and the Irish Hammerbros were removed, but the Lugian/Casse Sword Champions and the Iberian Cataphracts were still in EBI as of 1.2: I've fought all three as Aedui. Unless by Iberian Cataphracts you and QS meant something different than the Iberi Lancearii.

Re: comparing EBI to EBII, I have to thank whoever decided to make the financial elements of EBII more forgiving than EBI. The two gripes I'd have about EBI were the inter-faction diplomacy (or lack thereof) and the way that (player) factions only had two development patterns early on: to go on a massive blitz with an oversized starting army, or to disband virtually everything and be helpless for several years. In EBI, if you bordered a faction, they would declare war on you, and would virtually never agree to peace unless you somehow managed to interpose another faction between you and them. This made the Central European factions particularly irksome, since you pretty much had to create a Charlemagne-esque blob just to survive the stacks of (depending on your faction) Sweboz, Aedui/Arverni, Romani and/or Lusotannan troops that would inevitably attack from all directions. I've found the EBII AI a lot more reasonable: I've actually forced the AS to make peace, twice, in one campaign! I think I've gotten peace with the AS twice in all my time playing EBI. In the previous major patch, I actually had long-lasting peace with the Arverni as Aedui: that would've been impossible in EBI: I tried, believe me.

(Full disclosure, I haven't played the latest build, obviously). Regarding unit morale: maybe it's too low for experienced players, but in the experience of a casual player like myself, the AI is able to pull some surprising victories. In my long-running Pontos campaign, I remember at least two really significant defeats in major battles. The first one was fairly early on where I got cocky and sent my FH with a half-stack to try and sack at least one of the Ptolemaic holdings in Ionia and Pamphylia, and got stomped hard by a slightly-larger Ptolemaic force led by an FM. The second was when my primary army (fullstack) had my first run-in with a Getai Fullstack near Olbia, and got completely mauled because they Just. Wouldn't. Rout. Both of these defeats really hurt, since it took multiple turns to replace my losses and get another army back into position (In the case of the Getai, it completely stopped my campaign to conquer the Western Coast of the Black Sea. Twenty in-game years later, and I'm still not in a position to take those cities). These are just the flat-out defeats of major armies that I remember, not counting the occasions when I lost a city because I figured that I couldn't fight the attacking army with the forces in range, and had to wait for reinforcements.

Now, I'm not sure how much these changes are because of the differences between the MedII engine and the RTW engine, and of course, I don't know what changes have been made between the release of 2.3 and whatever the next version is going to be, but EBII seems to be in a much better place than EBI, even in its unfinished state. Just having a semi-functional diplomacy makes the experience much richer, and the battlefield AI seems competent enough to a non-pro like myself: obviously, it's not perfect, and even I can defeat it fairly reliably, but it's not a pushover by any means, and I'm only on H/M difficulty: I figure H/H or H/VH would be even more brutal due to AI morale bonuses. I'd hate to see EBII go down the TATW route, where diplomacy doesn't matter and fighting an enemy fullstack goes from "a major event" to "something you do twice a turn."

That said, I haven't played any of the micro-heavy factions: I haven't touched SPQR or Qarthadast, and in my abortive Sauromatae playthrough, I think I completely failed at the Bala system. So it could be that I've simply avoided many of the issues that Mr. Gustave finds wanting.

TLDR: Please leave room for crappy, casual players like me.

And I have to agree here, too. Especially the summary in the last sentence.


Now for my own two cents.

It's shocking to see /read such dirty laundry being aired here.
As long as I play EB (which will be 10 years soon) one of the things I always appreciated was the amount of professionalism the team showed in public.
Sometimes the forums at the ORG and here gave a glimps of struggle - but not more. The team was always exceedingly diplomatic. Even if there were arguments going on (and hells! What a lot of arguments have been taken place in these forums!) the worst thing I remember were a snarky comment and/or a deletion of a post or two to calm things down.

It's not a pleasant thing to read a bitter argument like the one we have to watch here.
(And I can only imagine how much more bitter it must be to be involved in it.)

It's especially sad since its between two members of the team that have both proven to be excellent, highly important team members.
The mod lost so many brilliant members over the years already ...


That being said - although EB 1 is probably still the game I sunk more hours into, EB 2 is an improvement in almost every imaginable way.

(1) graphics

Infact this is where EB 1 is closest to his successor in my opinion. Not because the graphics were not improved in EB 2 (they are improved by oh so much!), but just because the graphics part is the first importance for me.

Graphics were not what made EB 1 stick out of the RTW mods for me.
(I always considered EB 1 pretty, don't get me wrong! But RS for example had way better battle surroundings and it was a real boon that the RS team allowed the usage of them in other mods).
And graphics are not what makes EB 2 my alltime favourite TW mod.
(Although, again, EB 2 is incredibly beautiful! Units, strat map, 2d art - simply stunning.)

(2) strategy part of the game (CAI, gameplay features, reforms - just everything)

EB1 was great - achieving Polybian Reforms was a wonderful feeling, for example.
But once I was 150+ turns in (regardless of the faction) I often stopped playing, grumbling frustratedly.
Why? RTW problems. Frequent after-battle-crashes, frequent-nonsense-battles, 3-battles-per-turn-syndrome .... I don't think that *anyone* here wants to have that back.
I also don't need the blitz-as-blitz-can-starts back that I had to do with the majority of factions.
And - on the other hand - the oh-no-another-100.000-mnai-what-the-hell-shall-I-do-with-it-situation of turn 150+ I do not really need again, either.

EB 2 has offered me campaigns without a single fatal crash ("fatal" meaning "losing something that I have to re-achieve with another hour of playing", like an after-battle-crash after narrowly winning a battle I should have lost by all probabilities).
I of course have the graphics crash on the campaign map from time to time, the one that all M2TW mods are suffering. But you can always save and reload when it happens, you never lose anything.

EB 2 has reforms that make a lot more sense than the ones in EB 1 (Makedonian reform dependent on the SPRQ Marian reforms anyone?) - and no, I do not blame the EB 1 team for the way those reforms were implemented. They worked with what they had (RTW, that is) and did the best they could.

EB 2 offers me Hayasdan campaigns without the need to blitz!

And a system for Carthage to actually do what they did historically - overusing mercenaries to fight their wars. (In EB 1 the mercenary pool was always empty due to very active AI, in EB 2 the colony system adds an own, exclusive pool for Carthage that cannot be "stolen" by an AI having too much money.)

EB 2 is on the way to provide a less frustrating financial situation early on - and in exchange raising the bar later on, which is great!

I tried Roman campaigns already (around 200 turns), Carthage ones, too (400+ turns). And the tedious micromanagement Gustave is mentioning .... yes, it is poentially there.
But you can ignore the most parts without the campaign becoming unplayable.
So EB 2 actually manages to appeal to both RPers and "pure strategists" - and to everyone in between these extreme points of view, too.
Great thing in my opinion.


(3) battle part

I'm still not a master of the TW battles. I never was, I never will be.
And for someone like me who is not able to win heroic victories against the Mongol Horde in vanilla M2TW, using peasants and being restricted to the general camera, EB 2 is hard enough in terms of battles.
I lost several battles already (something that is way more devastating now than back in EB 1, thanks to the limited availability of replacements), even as Romans.
I am suprised by returning light cavalry units (hitting my archers) frequently, I shudder in horror when Parthias armies are knocking at my doors in a Baktria campaign.

Whereever these "way too easy battles that stop EB 2 from being good" may be - I haven't found them yet.
Especially not if I'm using accurate armies that do not consist of a dozen elites and 6 heavy caralry units.


In conclusion I cannot find anything that puts EB 2 behind EB 1.
(I could name a lot of things that put EB 2 below "perfect game" level, mind you, but most of them are due to TW itself, not the EB approach to TW.)



Now I wrote a bit more than I originally wanted.
In summary three sentences probably are enough:

Please stop arguing, Gustave and QS.
Both of you have been crucial to the EB development and I would very much prefer to see both of you continuing to work on EB 2 together.
In a world not exactly flooded with exceptionally talented/dedicated M2TW modders, the loss of either of you may very well be a fatal blow to what is one of my three most favourite games in my entire life time.

[Sarkiss]

Actually, a lot of the micromanagement on the campaign map has been removed, given how there are no more princess, merchant, or priest agents like in most M2TW mods, and there's no jihads/crusades let alone papal missions (or in the case of the original RTW game, missions handed to you by the Roman Senate). That's one the major reasons I love to play EBII more than a medieval-themed mod like Stainless Steel SSHIP; it's a lot less of a hassle and everything is more focused on conquest. You no longer have to worry about if that merchant you have placed in the Balkans selling amber is about to be retired or put out of business by a rival merchant. You no longer have to worry about priests battling heretics and moving them all across the campaign map to change culture (something that both certain buildings and high-influence governors now handle in EBII). Unless you're playing with the princess sub-mod, you also no longer have to worry about beefing up your princess's positive traits as a diplomat before marrying her off to the right guy (either someone in or outside of your faction) at an appropriate age.

interesting observation. i feel the exact opposite. these have never been a hassle for me but added to the immersion and complexity. roughly, there are three dimensions to what M2TW offers: city management, armies and agents. and whilst EB2 greatly added to the first two - reforms, extra building chains units etc - it undercut the agents. it feels its been streamlined, RTW-ised, potential features were stripped instead of been creatively made use of. one of the reasons EB2, for all its glory, started to feel somewhat underwhelming (i stopped playing it quite a while ago). it is like you said - you can focus on conquest. the issue is, the everlasting land-grabbing just isnt good enough anymore. players mature, i guess. im still interested in EB2 as a historical project, but much of the passion for it as a game has gone.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Well, let's be clear : Quintus can be a little harsh and I have seen first hand how he was answering to constructive criticism and sometimes it is with a lot of patience some other times it is with high degree of anger.

The problem is that once is enough. Once is too much. Respect is the very first base of team building. Recruiting is nothing when you can't manage everyone with respect. It achieves nothing. Gloating doesn't help.

BUT.

Removing oneself from a team because one find himself too important to be talked in that kind of way is hubris. It is not constructive, it is a waste of the time you spent the last seven years whatever your reasons are. And it is a waste of your talent.

You both are not the only one here. You are a team. Whatever the time it took you to work here, you are not alone and your decisions, from both of you, impact each and everyone.

The question should be spoke between you all, and decisions should be made collectively. Because if not, this will not be the last incident and there will be more and more consequences.

Of course you two should sort it out but collective decisions should be made regarding this and you should both accept this collective decisions even if it doesn't favour you the way you want it.

Team work will never be about what you want personally, it is about what you all want and how to have some constructive advance from there together.

The best of the two evil is better than nothing at all, and a more simulationist game or a more rp game is better than an unfinished project with all you want (personally) in it.

EB II is not the best mod but it is an unique mod with a lot of potential and no other mods managed to do what you did.

You can decide to remove yourself from it because it doesn't suit you and be forgotten like many others, you can decide to let your pride and hubris talk and stop being part of the project, or you can give those years meaning.

But nothing is achieved by those who think they will have everything they want.


Never.

As historians, we all should know that.

Take care and know that (for what it's worth) I respect you both, whatever the names I gave you earlier.

[BHL 20]

It's pointless taking the morale high ground against Gustave and QS. Modding is an enormous amount of work that you get nothing from. The only reason to do it is if the direction of the mod aligns with your vision of what the perfect mod is. Otherwise, it's impossible to be motivated. The only way for them both to keep working on the mod is to find a compromise that appeals to both sides. But with their views being so divergent, that may not be an option.

[Arsaces II]

Hi there!


Former team member here, seeing how the things went in this thread, I really thought it would be unfair towards you guys, EB Community, to remain silent, because as of now this thread gives the impression that Gustave is not right, yeah... y'know at least not entirely. But the thing is the other person, oh, no, sorry "The Person", "The One", "The Leader", "The Great Leader", anyway, is really a manipulative p...type of a person. Please, don't think I came to support Gustave's side or something like that, I simply had that nasty experience to understand his mind. About two years have passed, so I don't recall all the details, but when I was leaving the team I had very sharp and clear disgust feeling about him. Without going into much details his behaviors was smth like this "you always do what you're told to and I'm watching you all the time, I'll always tell you, what is right and what is not and if you dare not to agree with that situation, I'll overtalk you, I'll bury you with word-vomit, again all the time, non-stop", no need to go far, just compare Gustave's and his post's lengths, lol. Also, during the time I was in the team I can clearly say that I'd would be more productive and would make more units, if he had kept his mouth shut at least from time to time.


I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU(I MEAN PERSONALLY YOU)'RE GOING TO REPLY


For the rest all the best,
Sincerely,
Arshak


Bye!

[Baharr]

Oh, I don't know if this bitterness is of any use.

I've personally worked with people (professionally) who weren't shy with criticism and feedback and that rubbed plenty of folks the wrong way. Over time these working relationships often deteriorated into feuds. I don't know if that's what's happened here or what, only the people involved will know for sure.

Point is that I've never actually met anyone who did anything creative or difficult (like creating a mod) out of spite or whatever, everyone, I think, does their best, and this is particularly obvious with EBII since it so clearly a labour of love. I'm not sure being rude helps. Sometimes there are differences in vision or personality and sometimes, sadly, those differences are irreconcilable. Doesn't make anyone a bad person.

Of course it would be best if differences could be reconciled but, well, people are only human, sometimes I too feel like I would rather gnaw off my own foot while standing naked in front of my own grandmother than apologise to someone I don't like

[Cryoshakespeare]

I think it's good that all the ranting is clustered to this thread, and that it hasn't been locked or anything. While heavily inflamed, the discourse at least is still reasonably civil, and maybe it's good that more people are aware of these issues inside the team (even if the means of learning about these issues is through heavily biased personal grievance and reply posts).

That being said, time to throw my needless opinion in the pot! My impression of Quintus has always been that he seems... brilliant, definitely has done incredible work and is honestly worthy of admiration and respect, but I can definitely see why people would cite a lack of respect. Posts by Quintus are essentially all entirely factual, rarely much humour, not really any hints of a personal side. Not that I'm saying that's wrong, and hey, he does his job well and has really stimulated the revival of this forum and the game. Still though, there's something a little disconcerting about how objective focused he is rather than person focused (a reading I will admit that just comes from having seen many of his forum posts over the years, please do remember I mean this in the spirit of a thought-rant and not as something I'm proffering as unbiased wisdom/insight ). And I can see how what appears to be his apparent blindness to the human side, the softness required to dismantle the armed bomb of a person who feels disrespected or offended, could definitely cause tensions in a team environment.

And really, this is not an indictment of QS's character, but if you note even in the way he has responded to Gustav here, it's all entirely about a calm and thorough rebuttal to the factual arguments that have been presented, and little to no element of personal outreach. And I would say it's this tendency, which I have seen as a consistent pattern through all of QS's posts over the years, that probably makes him tricky to resolve a personal disagreement with, just because a part of you never feels like you're actually being listened to (that is the underlying, emotional, irrational yet important nature of how something has made you feel), rather it's simply your words that are being replied to.

Humility disclaimers once again, yadda-yadda-yadda... but I will admit a certain narcissism in that I think I'm a pretty good read of character xD Hopefully I have not boiled anybody's kettle (in the bad way) with this psychoanalytical overreading c:

Edit:

Oh, forgot to mention my tribe. I love the current state of EBII, way better than EBI, and anyone who disagrees with that better fite me irl on twitter m9 O.o

[Roma_Victrix]

interesting observation. i feel the exact opposite. these have never been a hassle for me but added to the immersion and complexity. roughly, there are three dimensions to what M2TW offers: city management, armies and agents. and whilst EB2 greatly added to the first two - reforms, extra building chains units etc - it undercut the agents. it feels its been streamlined, RTW-ised, potential features were stripped instead of been creatively made use of. one of the reasons EB2, for all its glory, started to feel somewhat underwhelming (i stopped playing it quite a while ago). it is like you said - you can focus on conquest. the issue is, the everlasting land-grabbing just isnt good enough anymore. players mature, i guess. im still interested in EB2 as a historical project, but much of the passion for it as a game has gone.

To be honest I don't see how the priest agent is relevant in an Antique setting. The merchants and princesses you could argue for, but even then princesses don't make sense for republics like Rome, Carthage, and Koinon-Hellenon's Greek city-states. The game still has diplomats, spies, and assassins, all of which have their own unique traits, ancillaries, and career paths.

I think it's good that all the ranting is clustered to this thread, and that it hasn't been locked or anything. While heavily inflamed, the discourse at least is still reasonably civil, and maybe it's good that more people are aware of these issues inside the team (even if the means of learning about these issues is through heavily biased personal grievance and reply posts).

That being said, time to throw my needless opinion in the pot! My impression of Quintus has always been that he seems... brilliant, definitely has done incredible work and is honestly worthy of admiration and respect, but I can definitely see why people would cite a lack of respect. Posts by Quintus are essentially all entirely factual, rarely much humour, not really any hints of a personal side. Not that I'm saying that's wrong, and hey, he does his job well and has really stimulated the revival of this forum and the game. Still though, there's something a little disconcerting about how objective focused he is rather than person focused (a reading I will admit that just comes from having seen many of his forum posts over the years, please do remember I mean this in the spirit of a thought-rant and not as something I'm proffering as unbiased wisdom/insight ). And I can see how what appears to be his apparent blindness to the human side, the softness required to dismantle the armed bomb of a person who feels disrespected or offended, could definitely cause tensions in a team environment.

And really, this is not an indictment of QS's character, but if you note even in the way he has responded to Gustav here, it's all entirely about a calm and thorough rebuttal to the factual arguments that have been presented, and little to no element of personal outreach. And I would say it's this tendency, which I have seen as a consistent pattern through all of QS's posts over the years, that probably makes him tricky to resolve a personal disagreement with, just because a part of you never feels like you're actually being listened to (that is the underlying, emotional, irrational yet important nature of how something has made you feel), rather it's simply your words that are being replied to.

So basically what you're saying is that Quintus is a terminator robot, a cybernetic organism with living tissue, without fear or pity or real emotions of any kind, with pre-programmed responses to questions about EBII's historical accuracy, scripting, and unit modelling, and that Cyberdine has infiltrated and taken over the EBII team. Come with Quintus if you want to live, and all that.

Edit:

Oh, forgot to mention my tribe. I love the current state of EBII, way better than EBI, and anyone who disagrees with that better fite me irl on twitter m9 O.o

I'll fight ye on the seven seas. Prepare to be boarded!

[bob124]

I've seen many a mod die in the throws of petty infighting amongst the mod team. Sad to see.

[Sarkiss]

To be honest I don't see how the priest agent is relevant in an Antique setting. The merchants and princesses you could argue for, but even then princesses don't make sense for republics like Rome, Carthage, and Koinon-Hellenon's Greek city-states. The game still has diplomats, spies, and assassins, all of which have their own unique traits, ancillaries, and career paths.

yes, thats RTW 'leftovers'. religious agents etc wouldnt be appropriate for Hellenistic period but there are other ways to make use of whats given by vanilla. as for princessess, they were always an integral part of dynastic politics. the latter are virtually totally absent, iirc (aside from standard diplomacy), especially when inter-dynastic relations are concerned. you still get a princess born into a family and a random offer to marry her off to one of your own. the 'agent' princessess offer possibility of sealing special marriage alliances with other monarchies. indeed, we have scripted events that represent results of such ties but not the actuall princesses that player can take charge of (i tried to mod them in myself but havent quite managed and then RL intervened).

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

It's pointless taking the morale high ground against Gustave and QS. Modding is an enormous amount of work that you get nothing from. The only reason to do it is if the direction of the mod aligns with your vision of what the perfect mod is. Otherwise, it's impossible to be motivated. The only way for them both to keep working on the mod is to find a compromise that appeals to both sides. But with their views being so divergent, that may not be an option.

I don't agree with you and strangely enough I think you don't even agree with you yourself.

You can't have two different ways of seeing perfection and find a middle ground. It is impossible.

The point is precisely the opposite : accepting that the perfect project that will correspond to our own conception doesn't exist when a project asks for more than one person to be completed.

It should be understood by team members of any project and also by leaders (when leaders there are) because both can fall in the obsession to try to enforce their own point of view without any regards for the other members of the teams.

I have participated in a lot of non remunerated projects, sometimes as a team member, sometimes as a leader and we all did what we could to works things out not because we wanted perfection, but because we wanted a quorum, and even sometimes unanimity.

The resulting project was never exactly what I wanted, as a leader or as a team member, but it can never be unless you are paying people to do exactly what you want and nothing more or if you are alone.

Regarding princesses.

Hellenistic world was full of diplomatic actions with princesses. I am thinking of relations between Macedonia and Ptolemaic empire or between Ptolemaic empire and Seleucids. Harbouring or marrying a daughter of a family could bring wealth and diplomatic influence, and sometimes territories.

I am not a fan of the princesses gameplay in m2tw but we must admit they were used (against their will or not) to allow diplomatic actions all over the world that concerns us here.

From Roman princesses proposed to Parthians, from the whole hellenistic world to Celtic diplomacy, saying that it was not of influence is not historically accurate.

It doesn't mean that ebII is better with or without.

[gustave]

I'm afraid the only mask that's slipped here is the team's image of unity and professionalism. Let's remember how this particular event began; I questioned your opinion on an unit's equipment, contrasting to the ones that had gone before and were planned. You flipped out that I should dare venture a contrary opinion, then threatened to leave unless I did. After a little while, you decided that the court of public opinion was a better venue to air your grievances, and thus we have this thread. You seem determined for this to be some sort of personal feud, but as far as I'm concerned, we've simply disagreed on some stuff. That happens, and I don't think it's a big deal. It's disappointing that you want to debate this in this way.

This issue was just the last straw, and you know it very well.

When I invest in a project, that commitment comes with a level of ownership of the whole. If there's a job that needs doing, even if it's an unglamorous and tedious one, I will step up if no one else will. It's part of doing necessary things for the good of the team. No one "forced" me to, but the alternative was to leave critical things left undone. Would you have preferred that no one integrate your work?

I didn't find it exhausting, even if it has involved large volumes of tedium at times, and I don't quit just because something is difficult.

Let me repeat then : no one forced to take this level of commitment, so you don’t have the right to complain about it. You volunteered for this, you’re not getting a medal.

You nearly didn't survive after 2015, when I joined the team at that time, EBII was almost dead. This forum was a ghost town, the internal forum had no activity to speak of, everyone was quite certain it would never be finished. A huge volume of community engagement - through the testing patches, recruitment drives, answering bug-related issues and simply getting involved in discussions played a large role in fixing that. Where do you think my post-count on TWC came from? I don't frequent any other forum on this site (bar occasionally the Mod Workshop), that was all time invested here.

You know that before you joined in 2015 a lot of work was done without you right ? And that without it you would not even have a mod to work on ?

Correction: I've raised the prospect of using placeholders quite a few times, when opportunities have arisen to make use of them, and asked whether they might fit. I don't need anyone's permission to keep trying to find ways to break the unit-creation bottleneck, or to ask questions. In three notable cases, that suggestion was accepted by the historians. I'd love to know what your alternative is for regions in which we simply don't have any units. Should we have empty rosters with nothing to recruit? For the longest time, Egypt had a whole bunch of Greek units, until the Machimoi roster was finished; I didn't see you complaining about those placeholders.

The only "mixing" of artists work I've done is adding a single officer to a number of units. I'm afraid I don't have the technical skill to mix and match model parts or textures. So what other mixing have I done?
Which are the units that were created just to fill gameplay roles?

You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your constant interference in unit creation created a lot of friction and not only with me.

Units don't rout immediately, not even if they're Captain-led (there was an issue with Rebel FMs not getting AIGeneral that we've since fixed). You don't even have to take my word for it, I haven't seen any examples of this in charlieh's excellent

Ptolemaioi Let's Play.

I had a good laugh on this one. This was just the lamest, most boring let’s play ever made. Basically after 100 turns of game the guy didn’t conquer a single city, for “roleplay reasons”. But I have to admit it’s a perfect illustration of your vision of EB2.
Also if you were really watching it you’d have noticed that the channel was deleted.

You completely missed my point. No one is disputing your artistic talent, longevity or the volume of excellent work you've created for EBII. However, you've had the luxury of only working in the area you want to, on the topics you like, at the pace you're comfortable with. How often have you stepped outside of unit creation to do something unrelated, because it was something that needed to be done? Did you volunteer to pick up unit integration when it became available? You didn't, so I'm afraid you have no right to complain that someone else stepped up to take that necessary task on when neither you nor anyone else was interested in it.

Yeah you didn’t disputed my work, just used a passive agressive tone to say that I was not doing enough work, which is just plain retarded considering all I’ve done for this project. But again you were not here before 2015 so you don’t know much.

There is no compulsion in any part of this mod, but again if you approach the mod with a sense of ownership, you take responsibility when it's needed. No one forced me to work towards reviving the community here, but it bore fruit in new team members and all this activity, so it was worth it. There are always (at least) two choices when things come up that need doing - you can shrug your shoulders and ignore it, or you can step up and take it on. I would add, at no point have I complained about doing the work, only the unwillingness of people to volunteer. That last has eased more recently with the return of some team members.

I think we got your point : you do all the work, the rest of the team is a bunch of lazy asses. Thank you oh great saviour.

Again, tell us which units were "added for gameplay reasons only"? If it's so self-evident, you should be able to name them specifically and it will be clear to everyone that they're lacking in historical merit.

Again you know exactly what I’m talking about.

edit : formatting is all messed up for some reason.

[XSamatan]

This 'discussion' is not helpful at all.

Either try to clear it in private or both sides should step down their accusations.

Regards,
XSamatan
(not an active member)

[Cryoshakespeare]

So basically what you're saying is that Quintus is a terminator robot, a cybernetic organism with living tissue, without fear or pity or real emotions of any kind, with pre-programmed responses to questions about EBII's historical accuracy, scripting, and unit modelling, and that Cyberdine has infiltrated and taken over the EBII team. Come with Quintus if you want to live, and all that.

Well you see, the brilliance of my analysis is unquestionable. In fact, my current intent is to infiltrate the team as a new skinner, gradually curry favor with the old guard and new blood, then stage a coup and depose the current de facto leader and cybernetic rival Quintus. Having done that, I will create the new position of Human Resources Executive Overlord (backed by my unfinished degree in psychology), and institute a new reign of terror, where all work done for the team will be judged on the merit of how I think it reflects their internal psychological workings.

[BHL 20]

I don't agree with you and strangely enough I think you don't even agree with you yourself.

You can't have two different ways of seeing perfection and find a middle ground. It is impossible.

I don't see it that way. I see the 'perfect' mod as being a mod that has the general feel you want and is of high quality, rather than a mod where every single detail is dictated by you. The latter would be quite neurotic.

The point is precisely the opposite : accepting that the perfect project that will correspond to our own conception doesn't exist when a project asks for more than one person to be completed.

Why? A mod should be made by a group of people with a similiar vision coming together. Hence everyone gets their 'perfect' mod. Why else should people work?

[QuintusSertorius]

This issue was just the last straw, and you know it very well.

I don't know it very well when you barely communicate. Worse still when you choose to take offence at using the medium of the internal forum to try to work through disagreements.

As a team we disagree about things all the time. I can think of quite a few major disagreements which were resolved to the satisfaction of both parties by talking about it.

Let me repeat then : no one forced to take this level of commitment, so you don’t have the right to complain about it. You volunteered for this, you’re not getting a medal.

Not everyone approaches an activity with a view to only doing what is narrowly and explicitly their own responsibility. When I look at all the past authors of the names.xml, I don't think any of them were any more pleased than I was to put hundreds of entries into the thing. There wouldn't be a mod if people took the attitude that they're only going to do the things they like. As adults, bearing responsibility for things we don't particularly want to do, but are necessary, goes with the territory.

You know that before you joined in 2015 a lot of work was done without you right ? And that without it you would not even have a mod to work on ?

Quite aware, I never said otherwise. I said if I hadn't joined, it's quite likely that's where the mod would have ended. I can see the entire SVN logs for everything that was done since Foot put down the Barebones version 1 on 18th November 2007. I necessarily go through them quite regularly, either to try to discern intent when the forum isn't helpful, or just to see if there are any old ideas that might be worth resurrecting. It can even produce statistics for us:



That shows the number of Commits (ie changes to the build) by date. Notice the significantly greater volume of changes (and thus activity in general) on the build since 2015. The foundation of the mod was laid down in those earlier years, but much of what is seen in the current state of the mod is more recent. Your own reworks of textures are a good example of the more recent activity.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your constant interference in unit creation created a lot of friction and not only with me.

We're in a public forum engaged in an open debate you initiated; quit insinuating and implying and substantiate exactly what you mean. There are lots of people who have no idea what you're talking about.

If you want to have a private conversation with me about it, we have both an internal forum and a PM function for that.

I had a good laugh on this one. This was just the lamest, most boring let’s play ever made. Basically after 100 turns of game the guy didn’t conquer a single city, for “roleplay reasons”. But I have to admit it’s a perfect illustration of your vision of EB2.

Also if you were really watching it you’d have noticed that the channel was deleted.

Very kind of you to demean the efforts someone else made to share their enjoyment of our work and aiding in spreading awareness of the mod.

It's good that he was able to find things to do besides conquer cities, because if that's really the only thing you think signifies a "good" game, that's pretty one-dimensional. Once you've conquered the whole map, then what? It's pitifully easy for the human player to blitz their way across the whole map in a couple of hundred turns. Then what do they do with the remaining 900+?

I haven't watched it recently, I followed it into the mid-40s or thereabouts.

Yeah you didn’t disputed my work, just used a passive agressive tone to say that I was not doing enough work, which is just plain retarded considering all I’ve done for this project. But again you were not here before 2015 so you don’t know much.

No, I said quite clearly that if you don't pick up outside tasks, you have no right to be offended when someone else picks up those tasks you didn't want to do.

You didn't want to do unit integration. That's fine. But you can't then complain about me picking it up when you never wanted to do it.

I think we got your point : you do all the work, the rest of the team is a bunch of lazy asses. Thank you oh great saviour.

Clearly you didn't get my point. I said people don't want to do things outside their area, that has nothing to do with how they're working within their chosen remit.

Again you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Again, insinuation isn't good enough; tell us which are those units only added for gameplay reasons.

This 'discussion' is not helpful at all.

Either try to clear it in private or both sides should step down their accusations.

Regards,
XSamatan
(not an active member)

Good to see you again!

I would gladly have this conversation in private. I've tried a number of times.

[charlieh]

From a personal perspective, I do not feel it fitting to comment upon the characters of different team members, or, anyone, I do not know well. I would like to say, however, that I had a brief spell as team member (regrettably brief, due to real life); just in the position of a proof reader and I was always treated with civility and gratitude. Throughout my experience with EB2, I've always looked forward to reading new posts from QS, on the mods progression, and admiring the unit previews, in which Gustave, obviously, was an integral part. Without seeming selfish, a small note on my Let's Play and deleted channel. I understand, why Gustave and others may have viewed it in a negative light, and I respect that. That being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. EB2, in my opinion, allows for a myriad of different styles and play-throughs, and this praise cannot be bestowed on many a mod. I am in the process of starting a new channel, hence the deletion of the old. In addition, I shall be doing another Let's Play, in the future, since I was inspired by the work of Hound EFU's 'At World's End.' That being said, I shall post it in a sub-section of the forum. To get back to the issue at hand. Overall, in my opinion, it would be very sad to see this mod compromised, in any way, as it's content reflects everything that I consider admirable about Total War modding.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

I am presently in Athens.

Next street, some guy shout at some other about something.

The guy answers with the same tone.

Someone passing by just interfere and takes position.

The whole steet start to shout at each other, deciding who is wrong and right and other people passing by build up the phenomenon.

A lot of things are said, and at the end everyone goes back to their home, tuned down and almost happy about all this.

I come here to the EB forum and see this.


This is almost magic :p

And clearly more healthy than what I have then habbit of seeing.