ahowl11's VE Mod (Main Discussion) v19 New Map, New Factions & Unified Rome

[ahowl11]

as a side note: Did you consider a VE "lite" mod? I am thinking of: map, units, Egypt fix, start positions, possibly level 4 buildings, but vanilla culture? Also, do you plan to fix Barbarian invasions at some point? (I always liked BI better then RTW, just curious)

Thanks!

I did and I started making one but I lost interest. For a vanilla light mod download and play v9. I’m not interested in the BI timeframe but on the discord there’s an amazing mod being made called Scorched Ground, it’ll probably be one of the best BI mods ever made.

[shikaka]

I did and I started making one but I lost interest. For a vanilla light mod download and play v9. I’m not interested in the BI timeframe but on the discord there’s an amazing mod being made called Scorched Ground, it’ll probably be one of the best BI mods ever made.

Thanks a lot, you are very helpful as always

[Kartaen]

Is it ok that there almost no mercenaries avaiable to hire compared to previous version? For example, cant hire italics for Romans, cant hire numidians for Carthage... Is it supposed to be like this or something wrong?

[ahowl11]

Is it ok that there almost no mercenaries avaiable to hire compared to previous version? For example, cant hire italics for Romans, cant hire numidians for Carthage... Is it supposed to be like this or something wrong?

It’s been like this for a few versions now and it’s supposed to be. Romans can recruit and retrain italics which are the same as the mercs. Carthage should still be able to hire Numidian cavalry but they can recruit everything else so no need to hire mercs.

[Kartaen]

It’s been like this for a few versions now and it’s supposed to be. Romans can recruit and retrain italics which are the same as the mercs. Carthage should still be able to hire Numidian cavalry but they can recruit everything else so no need to hire mercs.

The problem is that Carthage cant hire (at least I cant) Numidian cavalry, Carthage can hire only libyan skirmishers in native region...

[ahowl11]

The problem is that Carthage cant hire (at least I cant) Numidian cavalry, Carthage can hire only libyan skirmishers in native region...

I will look into it

[shikaka]

Hi,

After three test campaigns, I would like to share some observations, hopefully it is useful for you.
I played a short one as Britannia, and two longer (40 turns or so) with Persia and Germania.

Start:
1: the starting economies are non-existant in both cases
2: rebel garrisons are strong in all areas
3: the player cannot get a starting army rolling without going into debt (with Parthia, it is a turn 3 bankruptcy if you don't disband)
4: there are many empty provinces in the map

In my case the result:
- it is quite some time until "first contact" with the real factions (except for Parthia)
- while rebel stacks are challenging in this mod, their rosters are not as diverse as real factions, so the initial battles are quite similar to each other
- with Germania and Britain, the romans/greeks are very far away (province count-wise), it takes lots of turns to battle anything else then other barbarians. This is not the case with Parthia, which was the campaign I liked the most. (diverse enemies from the get go)
- until you add 5-6 settlements to your faction, you cannot finance a stack of regulars and make improvements
- this also means that the bodyguard units you get without investing in infra are very good. In my opinion the optimal decision is to use them in one cavalry army to conquer. I regularly sieges settlements with 6-7 bodyguards and 1 skirmisher to push the ram. I had a bad feeling about this, unhistorical an all, but since regular armies are so expensive, I really didn't have any other choice. (except with PArthia: I love when I siege with 3 horse archer, and the defenders charge out)

While the outcome is easy for me (return to v9), I still have some thoughts for v18:
- I think it would be nice to have less provinces in barbarian areas (you can meet civilized armies sooner, which is fun)
- alternatively, the factions could start closer to civilized lands (maybe keep a northern "outpost province", similar to German Dacia if a player wants to get Denmark to)
- less provinces in general would do good for the mod. Especially Greece and Sicily is problematic. Lots of sieges, battles are not decisive. It feels not really historical that a great defeat doesn't mean anything, since you still have ~8-10 settlements to siege.
- in the Seleucid area, lots of settlements have strange base culture. With Parthia, I was not surprised that when going north, I encountered 100% barbarian settlements. But it was strange that I saw roman culture when I conquered Seleucid cities.
- some factions could use an army/economy overhaul. Especially Parthia (from the 3 I tried). You are bankrupt nearly instantly, even if you disband the two starting cataphracts, which I did. (conquering doesn't help either, because the culture of the settlements is not eastern, so you need money for a colony)
- there was a seleucid settlement I couldn't conquer (top right for Seleucids, don't remember the name), as I always got an occupy/exterminate CTD after I won the battle. I didn't encounter this with Germania/Britons
- I really miss head hurlers

I still love the units, the inclusion of culture, the faction makeup, and the campaign map graphics. But v9 is the version I like the most. (maybe v10, I will have to check that)


Once again, this is not to push you into a direction. But I guessed that you might be interested in observations from a casual player. Hopefully you found something useful in this post.

[ahowl11]

Hi,

After three test campaigns, I would like to share some observations, hopefully it is useful for you.
I played a short one as Britannia, and two longer (40 turns or so) with Persia and Germania.

Start:
1: the starting economies are non-existant in both cases
2: rebel garrisons are strong in all areas
3: the player cannot get a starting army rolling without going into debt (with Parthia, it is a turn 3 bankruptcy if you don't disband)
4: there are many empty provinces in the map

In my case the result:
- it is quite some time until "first contact" with the real factions (except for Parthia)
- while rebel stacks are challenging in this mod, their rosters are not as diverse as real factions, so the initial battles are quite similar to each other
- with Germania and Britain, the romans/greeks are very far away (province count-wise), it takes lots of turns to battle anything else then other barbarians. This is not the case with Parthia, which was the campaign I liked the most. (diverse enemies from the get go)
- until you add 5-6 settlements to your faction, you cannot finance a stack of regulars and make improvements
- this also means that the bodyguard units you get without investing in infra are very good. In my opinion the optimal decision is to use them in one cavalry army to conquer. I regularly sieges settlements with 6-7 bodyguards and 1 skirmisher to push the ram. I had a bad feeling about this, unhistorical an all, but since regular armies are so expensive, I really didn't have any other choice. (except with PArthia: I love when I siege with 3 horse archer, and the defenders charge out)

While the outcome is easy for me (return to v9), I still have some thoughts for v18:
- I think it would be nice to have less provinces in barbarian areas (you can meet civilized armies sooner, which is fun)
- alternatively, the factions could start closer to civilized lands (maybe keep a northern "outpost province", similar to German Dacia if a player wants to get Denmark to)
- less provinces in general would do good for the mod. Especially Greece and Sicily is problematic. Lots of sieges, battles are not decisive. It feels not really historical that a great defeat doesn't mean anything, since you still have ~8-10 settlements to siege.
- in the Seleucid area, lots of settlements have strange base culture. With Parthia, I was not surprised that when going north, I encountered 100% barbarian settlements. But it was strange that I saw roman culture when I conquered Seleucid cities.
- some factions could use an army/economy overhaul. Especially Parthia (from the 3 I tried). You are bankrupt nearly instantly, even if you disband the two starting cataphracts, which I did. (conquering doesn't help either, because the culture of the settlements is not eastern, so you need money for a colony)
- there was a seleucid settlement I couldn't conquer (top right for Seleucids, don't remember the name), as I always got an occupy/exterminate CTD after I won the battle. I didn't encounter this with Germania/Britons
- I really miss head hurlers

I still love the units, the inclusion of culture, the faction makeup, and the campaign map graphics. But v9 is the version I like the most. (maybe v10, I will have to check that)


Once again, this is not to push you into a direction. But I guessed that you might be interested in observations from a casual player. Hopefully you found something useful in this post.

Thanks for the feedback, it does give me some ideas. Also, you are playing as some of the hardest factions in the mod, so you can expect great difficulty.

[ahowl11]

A patch is out everyone, please take a look! The log is in the description
https://www.moddb.com/mods/ahowl11s-...#downloadsform

[shikaka]

Thanks for the feedback, it does give me some ideas. Also, you are playing as some of the hardest factions in the mod, so you can expect great difficulty.

I think it is managable, but since I could not finance a half stack, I decided to use the bodyguards. I know it is an exploit, but the mod is quite hard as is, they are free to hire, don't require investing in infra, and I didn't have other chances anyway Even weakened by v18, they are the best troops you have in the early game by far. Getting an infantry or two with similar strength takes ~20 turns minimum.
To be honest sieging with 3 horse archers (and forcing the defenders to sally to their doom) feels like an exploit too I think. But I guess you wanted the players to use these dirty tricks, no?

Once I had 5-6 settlements, I could start the real part of the campaign. Luckily, the mod is very good with limiting active stacks on the campaign map. I had two half stacks, mostly junk, but the AI had similar armies, so no problem.


The campaigns were fun, but the the interesting battles (against not rebels/other barbarians) happen earlier in the game if I play v9.


[off]This is the reason why the vanilla BI map is the favorite of mine, despite being ugly, and having unnatural province borders. There are fewer provinces (long campaign is 15/20 provinces for most factions!), most factions start with one province, and even big ones, like Sassanids start with 5. This means less sieges, more field battles, more mobile warfare on the campaign map. Also, the field battles are more important: if you manage to defeat the army of the oppostion, they will not be able to replace losses from their 1 or 2 provinces. (which they will, if they still have 10 provinces after their defeat) I think the pace is more believable, in this era it was not rare that one couldn't bounce back from a catastrophic defeat.[/off]

[ahowl11]

I think it is managable, but since I could not finance a half stack, I decided to use the bodyguards. I know it is an exploit, but the mod is quite hard as is, they are free to hire, don't require investing in infra, and I didn't have other chances anyway Even weakened by v18, they are the best troops you have in the early game by far. Getting an infantry or two with similar strength takes ~20 turns minimum.
To be honest sieging with 3 horse archers (and forcing the defenders to sally to their doom) feels like an exploit too I think. But I guess you wanted the players to use these dirty tricks, no?

Once I had 5-6 settlements, I could start the real part of the campaign. Luckily, the mod is very good with limiting active stacks on the campaign map. I had two half stacks, mostly junk, but the AI had similar armies, so no problem.


The campaigns were fun, but the the interesting battles (against not rebels/other barbarians) happen earlier in the game if I play v9.


[off]This is the reason why the vanilla BI map is the favorite of mine, despite being ugly, and having unnatural province borders. There are fewer provinces (long campaign is 15/20 provinces for most factions!), most factions start with one province, and even big ones, like Sassanids start with 5. This means less sieges, more field battles, more mobile warfare on the campaign map. Also, the field battles are more important: if you manage to defeat the army of the oppostion, they will not be able to replace losses from their 1 or 2 provinces. (which they will, if they still have 10 provinces after their defeat) I think the pace is more believable, in this era it was not rare that one couldn't bounce back from a catastrophic defeat.[/off]

The next version will have a much larger map scale. So cities won’t be on top of each other, there will be a lot more space in between. I cannot play on the vanilla map.. it’s too quick and not historically accurate for me. I do see your points though. Also I highly recommend joining the discord, you’ll get to give feedback there and talk to others who play the mod as well as follow progress. There are other mods there for you to try as well.

[shikaka]

The next version will have a much larger map scale. So cities won’t be on top of each other, there will be a lot more space in between. I cannot play on the vanilla map.. it’s too quick and not historically accurate for me. I do see your points though.

Even if I wanted to, it would be hard to argue with your points. To be honest I was looking for a streamlined vanilla campaign, which v9 is, so I can only thank you for that one Please keep it online for casual players

Also I highly recommend joining the discord, you’ll get to give feedback there and talk to others who play the mod as well as follow progress. There are other mods there for you to try as well.

I made a point last year to minimize the time I spend online, to focus on other things. Twitter, reddit, facebook, discord, etc. accounts were deleted, I only kept some old school forums (like this one).
Thanks a lot for the kind invitation though!

[ahowl11]

It’ll definitely be kept online, glad you’re enjoying it!

[Cyprian2]

Just dropping by to say great work, ahowl and team. Always great to see new progress!

[Kuwait]

Hi, GREAT job!!! this mod is amazing!! i only have 1 question. What are the requirements to build a colony level 4? Because i play with germania and i can´t recruit bersekers, batavian infantry, chatii warriors, harii, chosen swordmen or pikemen. TY

[ahowl11]

Hi, GREAT job!!! this mod is amazing!! i only have 1 question. What are the requirements to build a colony level 4? Because i play with germania and i can´t recruit bersekers, batavian infantry, chatii warriors, harii, chosen swordmen or pikemen. TY

Should be level four government and then you can build the colony. Some units need the barracks and some need the tavern.

[Kuwait]

Hi, the last patch fix the problem. The lvl 4 colony now is available for Germania.

[ahowl11]

Hi, the last patch fix the problem. The lvl 4 colony now is available for Germania.

Okay great!

[Harry-TW]

Rome total realism not stable so i give chance your mod, and so far good job. No 1 crash. I play Armenia. I'm surrounded by enemies, but I'm doing well and making my way to Egypt. I am defending against pontand the Sarmatians. Sorry for retarded english ^^I will keep you informed about bugs if they are found and test version 19

[ahowl11]

Rome total realism not stable so i give chance your mod, and so far good job. No 1 crash. I play Armenia. I'm surrounded by enemies, but I'm doing well and making my way to Egypt. I am defending against pontand the Sarmatians. Sorry for retarded english ^^I will keep you informed about bugs if they are found and test version 19

Sounds good, join our discord if you want to follow closely!