Some quick questions

[TheLastDays]

Hey!

First of all, I've been a huge fan of EB1 years ago, played it for hours on end. I just now came to look back at this and found out it has been released a while ago and have now sunk a few hours into it already.
I'm having a blast, so thanks to everyone on the team for making and working on this!

I just have a few quick questions, coming up on my first playthrough:

1) What campaign difficulty would you guys suggest? I looked at the player guide (the PDF) and it stated easy is the best for roleplaying purposes and I picked that because I like to roleplay my campaigns but I feel like the AI is extremely passive in this or raher incapable. The Gallic factions have barely done anything. I have a spy there and see them repeatedly try to take the same Eleutheroi town with half a stack and fail while they have two full stacks standing around in the next province. Then they don't do anything forever. A) I guess I should play my next game on hard for a more active AI? B) Is there a way to help the AI get more active in my current game?

2) During the last couple of turns the game has gotten stuck during the AI turns, always during the Arche turn. Is there a known bug with the Arche that might cause that and can I do something about that? I'd really like to finish this playthrough.

3) I'm playing as the Romans and am trying to field mixed armies but the allied units in the Polybian era just show up so slowly. What's my best bet to get more Pedites Extraordinarii and the other allied Infantry maniple unit? I've been keeping three of my Italian cities without colonies and Ius Latinorum - building those would remove the allied units altogether, right? Is there a way to make them recharge faster?

I'd be grateful for any insights or tips!

[Hirtius]

1. I recommend Hard/Hard. Hard campaign makes the enemy willing attack you but not hate you so much as to be completely irrational. Hard battles might shift it a bit in favor of the enemy, but it's somewhat necessary since the AI is fairly easy to beat. It adds some difficulty without being that unfair. Make alliances, as allies won't backstab you like in EB1, but allies are sometimes hard to make. Hard might be a bit of a learning curve from easy, but the AI does a lot more and often makes things more interesting.

2. I might have come across it once. I thought it was the game freezing, but after quitting and reloading the game a couple times I let it sit for a few minutes and it eventually continued. Leave it for a while, if that doesn't work I don't know.

3. You might know this, but I didn't and it was a game changer. There isn't a way to make them charge faster, but disbanding units in provinces where they can be trained will add their number to the recharge the next turn. If your unit is badly beaten and is taking up upkeep and space, disband it and it will speed up when the full unit can be recruited. Disbanding over the limit will add to the maximum number of those units available. If I had a max of 2 phalangitai recruitable in a province (the recruitment pool being full), disbanding 4 units of phalangitai will bump the pool up to 6 phalangitai. The cap for this is usually 7 or 8 for most units. Keep in mind that the maximum would still be 2, so when you when you recruit them the recruitment pool will only start to create more once it falls below 2. This is useful for when you have a lot of units you need to disband for financial purposes, and allows for the quick recruitment of a quality army. Make sure it is in a province where that unit is recruitable, disbanding them elsewhere doesn't seem to do anything.

Hopefully the description of how that works right, but it makes a difference. When I played a Pergamon campaign, I had 8 phalangitai in the recruitment pool at Pergamon due to disbanding, so that does work. As for the recharge times, disbanding can drop it from over 20 to only a few turns depending on how big the unit disbanded was. If it has enough men to fill up the pool, then it should just be retrainable (if you want to keep the unit), but retraining takes out of the recruitment pool.

[QuintusSertorius]

1) Hard/Medium is the recommended difficulty. On a campaign difficulty less than Hard, the AI doesn't hire mercenaries, leaving them as a free extra resource only for the player.
2) What do you mean "stuck"? The game hardly ever freezes, it either crashes, or it's doing something. Most likely, a faction had turned into a horde, which means you need to leave the game alone and let it finish, which could take anything from 10-30 minutes.
3) Colonies don't affect the refresh of those units, which can't be "sped up", but it does up the rate of cultural conversion, which will make them disappear altogether over time. The only way to get more allied units is to put Allied Governments in place, instead of your factional one (for example when you take Taras and Rhegion).

[TheLastDays]

Thanks for the quick replies, some of that will already help a lot. I will definitely play with a higher campaign AI in my next playthrough. QS, I am trying a modified approach to what you suggested (a long time ago) in your guide to conduct like a proper Roman, where I don't do pure offensive conquering but rather react to the AI to things that would threaten Rome so that's why a passive AI is a bit problematic of course. Funnily enough the most active AI in my campaign when it comes to expanding is the KH gave me a few good excuses to wage war over there to save Makedonia and Epeiros from KH dominance.

2) I didn't know about the horde thing,, that's very good to know, will just let it compute the next time it happens. Can the Boii turn into a horde? I think they are on their last settlement in a war with the Sweboz.

3) Thanks for the suggestions. I should have probably specified, I am looking specifically for the Italian allied troops, Pedites and the Medium Allied Infantry Maniple. I did have both Taras and Rhegion as allied states at first, converted Taras to a Socii government when the client ruler died, Rhegion is still allied. I can recruit PE and the Allied line infantry in Taras and the town north of it. Capua and Arretium have only Roman troops available (I built my Latin colonies in those two cities first so I assume that's because the culture there has already become too much Latin?) and Ariminium has PE but not the Allied Infantry maniple. So... am I right in assuming that the Polybian reform Italian allies are only available in a Socii government as long as Latin culture isn't too high already? And the infantry maniple is just not in the recruitment pool of Ariminium? ( I can still get PE there so culture should still be fine, unlike Capua and Arretium)

If that's the case I could still get a little more Italian allies once I convert Rhegion from client state to Socii government right? The client ruler there is getting old...

[QuintusSertorius]

2) The Boii can horde, I was suspecting it to be the Nabatu, since you said it was on the Seleukid turn.

3) Yes, Pedites Extraordinarii only come from the Socii government. No, you don't get Cohors Sociorum further north.

[TheLastDays]

Thanks for the replies! And again, great work on the mod!

I wish there was a game/mod that paid the same attention to detail and had the same scope with the possibilities of the newer TW engines (like sacking cities but leaving them in the owner's hands, etc.)
Not a suggestion, I know the newer games aren't moddable enough and I guess the audience for something like EB isn't big enough for a game company like CA to put in the necessary work for something like this. Just wishful thinking basically.