[PUBLIC BETA] 1.2.5c Released! (Updated June 26)

[Dresden]

Update


Naval Overhaul Alpha Summary from Demosthenes26
- Ramming speeds, acceleration, and base ramming damage have been increased to make ramming more effective. Most ships can sink a ship of the same type in two rams. This makes double-teaming a great tactic, as a follow-up ram from a short distance has reduced force.
- Updated the recruitment templates for all AI Hellenic factions, reflecting battle fleets and patrol fleets with historical faction considerations. Generally an "early" and a "late" version of each, with the late version given preference once those ships are available.
- More Scorpions added on Tetreres level ships and up.
- Lighter vessels now have further campaign movement range than heavier vessels, allowing for patrol vs battle fleets.
- More Hellenic factions can recruit Hexaremes and Hepteres, with variation depending on the faction.

Battle Changes
- Rebalanced missile damage, it should be less lethal overall while slightly tweaked between unit tiers
- Archer/Spear hybrid units got own ranged weapon entry with a bit weaker ranged stats
- Small increase to cavalry mass but also to bracing bonus of infantry
- Galatian Thureos Spears (Galatia & Egypt) have higher speed and combat stats
- Fixed horse entry for Sarissa cavalry
- Fixed bug with how game calculates expert charge defense which caused rear charges to deal more damage to cavalry than charging braced spears.

Unit Additons/Changes
- Added new Greek Officers and Standard Bearers
- Changed visual and stats of Camillian Equites and Campanian Cavalry
- Added Mercernary Cretan Infantry (new campaign only)
- Changed visuals of Syrian Elepehants
- Changed some Median unit names for more fitting one (thanks to Shapur e Sassani)

Other Changes
- Fixed technology issues where media couldn't research certain technologies
- Added new Persian culture emblem from Jake
- Added some emergent factions to confederation options for Media
- Lowered chances for some more ancillaries that happened too often
- Fixed incorrect upgrade chains for Hellenic iron main city buildings.

Credits
- Demosthenes for all the work on the naval changes.
- Celticus for the new sword model
- Shapur e Sassani for help with Median names

[Fluke]

Some solid updates to the beta, especially the naval updates. Thanks guys!

[malachi82]

Thanks!!!

[Iskandar]

I'm into an Arverni campaign atm, and I notice that they have several +sword damage ancillaries, army traditions that are + sword damage instead of +infantry damage, yet aside from one AOR mid-tier unit (settlement lvl 3 required) and one merc low-tier unit, both only in Galia and Aquitania, they have no swordsmen until after the reforms and even then it's only two pop 1 elite units. Given that the Gauls are often described as favoring the long slashing sword by contemporaries, shouldn't there be at least one low- or mid-tier unit available in their base roster? All other Gallic factions seem to have access to some kind of swordsmen from the get go. Will there be one added to the Arverni as well in the future?

The same question can be extended to the Carthaginian mercs - they have in fact no Gallic swordsmen (in the merc barracks at least, I can't recall if there is anything in the special mercs pool). And no Gallic heavy cavalry either, which was a staple in Hannibal's army, at least as long as he had access to his Gallic allies.

[KAM 2150]

That is due to misconception that swords were popular weapons among Celts while their actual weapon of choice was spear. Which is why swords are reserved for more noble units. Hence why Carthaginian Celtic units are swords.

As for Gallic cavalry, I will think of that, just dont want it to be too similar to what they already have.

[malachi82]

Man, Sparta sure became a fun faction to play in the last couple of updates. Dunno when you guys introduced the three new units (Neodamodes and Trophomoi) but they´re an awesome addition to the roster - especially for the campaign.
Just had a couple of custom battles with Sparta and the combination of a rock solid battle line with stealthy hit-and-run units for flanking provides pretty interesting gameplay. And they have some of the best looking units in the game on top of that.

[skillfultree]

That is due to misconception that swords were popular weapons among Celts while their actual weapon of choice was spear.

Tell that to the Nervii. Their entire roster is filled with swords. Fact of the matter is Averni are the exception not the rule. Every other Celtic faction has a mid tier sword unit. I've had this issue with the Averni for years but it's a gameplay one, not based on history. But all other Celtic factions DO have mid tier sword units. Having the Averni be able to recruit their general unit as a regular unit so their cav is actually great (as it's meant to be) would go a long way too. I think you promised that at one stage but I don't think you delivered. (I need to recheck).

All in all I think the Averni deserve a mid tier sword unit, even if it's kinda trash. Purely for flexibility.


edit: Also Noble Swords are completely redundant. Only being recruitable after reforms but being completely inferior to Oathsworn. Maybe they have a historical precedent but I can't see a reason to ever recruit them. Actually just remembered they take precious 1st class pop which makes me actually discouraged from ever recruiting them because it's such a waste of something so rare.

[Iskandar]

That is due to misconception that swords were popular weapons among Celts while their actual weapon of choice was spear. Which is why swords are reserved for more noble units. Hence why Carthaginian Celtic units are swords.

As for Gallic cavalry, I will think of that, just dont want it to be too similar to what they already have.

I think you meant spears.

Regarding Gallic Cavalry - the Arverni noble cav has + 3 bonus vs cav, the Carthaginian Iberian heavy cav has +2 vs infantry and + 1 vs cav. Maybe specialize one against cavalry and the other against infantry?

Tell that to the Nervii. Their entire roster is filled with swords. Fact of the matter is Averni are the exception not the rule. Every other Celtic faction has a mid tier sword unit. I've had this issue with the Averni for years but it's a gameplay one, not based on history. But all other Celtic factions DO have mid tier sword units. Having the Averni be able to recruit their general unit as a regular unit so their cav is actually great (as it's meant to be) would go a long way too. I think you promised that at one stage but I don't think you delivered. (I need to recheck).

All in all I think the Averni deserve a mid tier sword unit, even if it's kinda trash. Purely for flexibility.


edit: Also Noble Swords are completely redundant. Only being recruitable after reforms but being completely inferior to Oathsworn. Maybe they have a historical precedent but I can't see a reason to ever recruit them. Actually just remembered they take precious 1st class pop which makes me actually discouraged from ever recruiting them because it's such a waste of something so rare.

They both are pop 1 tier, Oathsworn routs against Noble swords with about equal losses, but wins clearly if put in disciplined formation (I just did a quick test). The Nobles are indeed a bit redundant. If we had them as very heavy spearmen (with or without special formation), Arverni would have quite the versatile roster.

Maybe one possible solution is to just switch the places of the axemen and the AOR sword unit - axes become AOR in Galia and Aquitania and swords become basic roster unit, available from Barracks level 2.

[Basilius]

Good stuff. Any news on when Athens may get some love? There were hints of things to come when the Sparta touch-up was released last year.

[Dresden]

Good stuff. Any news on when Athens may get some love? There were hints of things to come when the Sparta touch-up was released last year.

Its currently in the works. I can't promise anything and it may be the update after this one or a fix update for this one that brings it.

[Big_guy_4_you]

Just a personal note, the Mauryan version of the Yarvana Heroic Cavalry is WAY overpowered, they have huge stat advantages over the Median Cavalry which cost about 300 more and the Baktrian Equivalent unit which has worse stats, costs 500 more and the Indian version has the 120 unit size of other Eastern Cavalry factions.

[fishboy7]

Great update overall, thanks for the work! I've been having a strange bug with my Atropatkan campaign, each summer and fall in the Media province is "scorching hot" (extreme) and "early" (bad) respectively. For the first 10 or so turns I thought it was bad RNG but its happened every summer and fall, only in Media, for over 20 turns. I started a new campaign and get the same thing.

[Dresden]

That is odd, it is random and shouldn't be predictable like that. I will check it out.

[RollingWave]

Some feedback, played a Media game (though before the latest patch) and one for Nervi (that i lost) and one for Syracuse and one for Sparta and one for Saba

1. The Peltest type units, especially the heavy once, tire way too much after they use their ammo, to the point where they're other function is really compromised, I guess this might be a hard coded problem but if possible having fatigue more tied to time fired rather than portion is much better, or just remove those limitations for the dual purpose unit types. For example, the Syracuse crossbow guys (aka 131 pieces of running ballista.) fire their whole stock and still won't tire either.

2. There's some serious issue with Saba that you need to look at, aside from their roster being attrocious (which is actually still manageable because they're in a spot where most nearby region have good mercs and AOR units. and have at least useful if not great cavalry units. ) their problem is that the supply system basically make them impossible to play at this point, as even just one army will cause your supply to go to the negative in a hurry with no way out, and within 20~30 turns your population would be close to zero due to massive supply penalty.

3. Nervii start is by far the hardest, makes Syracuse looks like a cake walk in comparison. I dunno why Ai Nervii seem to always do pretty well, the only problem with Syracous isn't fighting Rome and Catharge at the same time (that's actually manageable.) it's that on hire settings you'll suddenly get random huge fleet of Egyptians trying to attack your other settlements as well, ack.

4. Atrophakan is now really strong, though they were certainly winnable even before this.

5. I haven't played Roma in forever in DEI, but it seems to me that only their units now have inspire? that seems ... over the top, especially given that their base morale was already the best to begin with.

(Also, you guys seem to have said that the skill tree for generals and agents were changed for different culture, I can't seem to notice and I play very diverse set of factions.)

[Ptolemaios Soter]

2. There's some serious issue with Saba that you need to look at, aside from their roster being attrocious (which is actually still manageable because they're in a spot where most nearby region have good mercs and AOR units. and have at least useful if not great cavalry units. ) their problem is that the supply system basically make them impossible to play at this point, as even just one army will cause your supply to go to the negative in a hurry with no way out, and within 20~30 turns your population would be close to zero due to massive supply penalty.

The flip side of this is that it's really hard to invade Saba. And honestly I really really enjoyed that challenge in my Ptolemoi campaign. I think your mistake is thinking that the Arab factions are for human players ; )

But in seriousness, yes, it is a challenge that the provincial capital doesn't have (to my knowledge) a building that increases the supply generate rate. You can manage regional supplies pretty easily if you pay attention to the system during the campaign by moving your armies regularly, particularly in less fertile regions (like, you know, Arabia). However for single-city starting factions it would be tough. It may be that Saba is frankly the only faction this applies too, so maybe give their unique aqueduct building some regional supply generation? In all minor provinces you can just build a farm and/or fish port and that's usually enough to cover it.

[Big_guy_4_you]

Some minor balancing change suggestions

>Increase Stamina of Pontic Thuerophoi to match other Thureophoi units, theres really no reason this shouldn't be the case
>increase stamina of the Galatian Warriors for Pontus by a bit
>Median Cavalry Reformed are hopelessly outclassed by Diqhan in almost every way
>Parthian Noble Horse Archers have low Stamina like many other heavy-ish archer cav, but Diqhan have good stamina?
>Already mentioned problems with the Mauryan Indo-Greek cavalry
>Low tier horse archers like the Parthian Horse archers and other Steppe nomadic HA are too expensive. They could use a price drop of about 200.
>Also why are Dahae Riders so cheap?

[Dumanthis]

It seems that Arche Boshporus does not have access to AOR Scythian horse archers while for example Atropatkan has in the same territories (Bosphorus province). This might be the case also with some other AOR units as well.

[KAM 2150]

Some minor balancing change suggestions

>Increase Stamina of Pontic Thuerophoi to match other Thureophoi units, theres really no reason this shouldn't be the case
>increase stamina of the Galatian Warriors for Pontus by a bit
>Median Cavalry Reformed are hopelessly outclassed by Diqhan in almost every way
>Parthian Noble Horse Archers have low Stamina like many other heavy-ish archer cav, but Diqhan have good stamina?
>Already mentioned problems with the Mauryan Indo-Greek cavalry
>Low tier horse archers like the Parthian Horse archers and other Steppe nomadic HA are too expensive. They could use a price drop of about 200.
>Also why are Dahae Riders so cheap?

1. Thanks, I will take a look.
2. Noted
3. That is becasuse Reformed Median Cavalry upgrades into Dahiqanan so during campaign, you can't have both at the same time. Dahiqanan due to being their upgrade are better.
4. I will check, depends what horse they are using.
5. Noted.
6. Already done for next patch.
7. Already fixed for next patch. Their cost formula was not pulling equipment properly.

Some feedback, played a Media game (though before the latest patch) and one for Nervi (that i lost) and one for Syracuse and one for Sparta and one for Saba

1. The Peltest type units, especially the heavy once, tire way too much after they use their ammo, to the point where they're other function is really compromised, I guess this might be a hard coded problem but if possible having fatigue more tied to time fired rather than portion is much better, or just remove those limitations for the dual purpose unit types. For example, the Syracuse crossbow guys (aka 131 pieces of running ballista.) fire their whole stock and still won't tire either.

2. There's some serious issue with Saba that you need to look at, aside from their roster being attrocious (which is actually still manageable because they're in a spot where most nearby region have good mercs and AOR units. and have at least useful if not great cavalry units. ) their problem is that the supply system basically make them impossible to play at this point, as even just one army will cause your supply to go to the negative in a hurry with no way out, and within 20~30 turns your population would be close to zero due to massive supply penalty.

3. Nervii start is by far the hardest, makes Syracuse looks like a cake walk in comparison. I dunno why Ai Nervii seem to always do pretty well, the only problem with Syracous isn't fighting Rome and Catharge at the same time (that's actually manageable.) it's that on hire settings you'll suddenly get random huge fleet of Egyptians trying to attack your other settlements as well, ack.

4. Atrophakan is now really strong, though they were certainly winnable even before this.

5. I haven't played Roma in forever in DEI, but it seems to me that only their units now have inspire? that seems ... over the top, especially given that their base morale was already the best to begin with.

(Also, you guys seem to have said that the skill tree for generals and agents were changed for different culture, I can't seem to notice and I play very diverse set of factions.)

1. I will be changing it for next patch. It works in a very weird way as I had a test where I had 3 exact same archer units doing exact same amount of volleys, 2 of them were winded while 3rd was very tired. While it was fun for a bit to have ranged units suffer fatigue, sadly seems game does not like it very much.
5. Inspire is removed for most of units, even in case of Rome only few of them have it, like Eagle cohort and triarii for early period. I could remove it from triarii, it was there to make them more useful.

Just a personal note, the Mauryan version of the Yarvana Heroic Cavalry is WAY overpowered, they have huge stat advantages over the Median Cavalry which cost about 300 more and the Baktrian Equivalent unit which has worse stats, costs 500 more and the Indian version has the 120 unit size of other Eastern Cavalry factions.

I will look into it.

I think you meant spears.

Regarding Gallic Cavalry - the Arverni noble cav has + 3 bonus vs cav, the Carthaginian Iberian heavy cav has +2 vs infantry and + 1 vs cav. Maybe specialize one against cavalry and the other against infantry?



They both are pop 1 tier, Oathsworn routs against Noble swords with about equal losses, but wins clearly if put in disciplined formation (I just did a quick test). The Nobles are indeed a bit redundant. If we had them as very heavy spearmen (with or without special formation), Arverni would have quite the versatile roster.

Maybe one possible solution is to just switch the places of the axemen and the AOR sword unit - axes become AOR in Galia and Aquitania and swords become basic roster unit, available from Barracks level 2.

haha yes, I meant spears. Arverni were overhauled a bit later than most of other Celtic faction, hence they are more spear focused and have more disciplined units. Their early nobles can also work as sword units when used out of shieldwall.

Noble swords and Oathsworn are always a mess to balance since they are both elite units. But I also know Ritter did a lot of research on this so I dont want to move away from his vision. One thing that comes to my mind is that Nobles could be a bit lighter, weaker units but faster compared to Oathsworn. Nobles would be the less disciplined but impetous sword unit, perfect for charging and flanking but worse when it comes to prolonged melee or defence compared to Oathsworn.

[RollingWave]

The flip side of this is that it's really hard to invade Saba. And honestly I really really enjoyed that challenge in my Ptolemoi campaign. I think your mistake is thinking that the Arab factions are for human players ; )

But in seriousness, yes, it is a challenge that the provincial capital doesn't have (to my knowledge) a building that increases the supply generate rate. You can manage regional supplies pretty easily if you pay attention to the system during the campaign by moving your armies regularly, particularly in less fertile regions (like, you know, Arabia). However for single-city starting factions it would be tough. It may be that Saba is frankly the only faction this applies too, so maybe give their unique aqueduct building some regional supply generation? In all minor provinces you can just build a farm and/or fish port and that's usually enough to cover it.

I think the general problem is that supplies in a region can go into negative, the other parts I can live with, this I can't, for example even after I leave all armies from the capital, because the supply was say... -80, and the Saba capital area has a meager +8 supply base, this ended up meaning that even if no armies enter for the next ten freaking turn, the area will have a -10% population growth every turn, that takes your population easily from say.. 20,000 down to the low 1000s, which is extremely difficult to recover from.

Also, even their outlying region like Muscat, with fishing port and a farm, you're still in the red with just one army there, that's a bit much.

So I'd think at the very least you need to cap region supply at 0 (like it is with storage supplies.) so as soon as you leave that region with no army the damage stops.

[malachi82]

Been playing around with Athenai for the last couple of days (when became their roster that good? :p), here are some suggestions/observations:


- the last upgrade for the Athena temples is the Akropolis. Imo it would make more to sense to call it Temple of Athena Parthenos or just Parthenon. And it seems that the temple looses it's research bonus, which may make the upgrade rather detrimental.
And I don´t know if it´s possible, but it would be nice if the last upgrade could be branched out into Athena Parthenos and Athena Nike (giving military boni)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- is it possible to add the Theatre of Dionysos the corresponding Agora tree (after the Hippodrome) ?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- the Mistophoroi Epilektoi have the same unit card as normal Thureophoroi, while sporting much more armour (and being awesome in general )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- the Mistophroi Thorakitai are the only hellenic thorax unit (IIRC) to have 'Disciplined Formation'. Not that I'm complaining, but is this working as intended?

- Athenai Mistophoroi Epilektoi seem to be a veteran hoplite unit, but have thorax/thureophoroi unit card and description.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- the Logades elite hoplites look a bit...bland compared to their non-elite brethren (and curiously have more phrygian helmets than attic ones)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Logades on the right side, normal hoplites left. Speaking of the basic athenian hoplites, they have the generic hoplite unit card.



Anyway, the beta has been a blast to play so far, keep up the good work and thank you so much guys!!!!