Idea: Boost the Sarmatians

[Quinn Inuit]

Two questions:
1) Are there a lot of Sarmatian players out there?
2) If so, do they frequently play games that get beyond 100 years?


My guess is that the answer to one or both of those questions is "no." Therefore, I propose that we use the Sarmatians to represent later-game nomadic incursions. Give them an un-capturable city (to keep them going), spawn armies occasionally, as well as a large army to represent the Sakae incursion into Bactria. What do you think?

[Turk]

Good idea
but we can spawn them as rebels too

maybe we can replace the sarmatians with a other faction

[hellas1]

Hi Q.I.,

I was a Sarmatian player and boy, those steppe warriors were NOT, IMO, strong enough.
One would think that the steppe area would breed MANY horses, right? Yes and tough people as well.

If you want historicity then keep them but PLEASE make them stronger.

Steppe peoples caused much damage to cultures historically, due to hit and run missle cav & reg. cav. attacks.
Steppe infantry of that time period seems to have been minimal but it existed (Useful for sieges).

hellas1

[Maximus Lazero]

I may be wrong here, but as I recall, the Sarmatians can't be much powerful than, say, the Parthians. Both only have 3 basic units: archers, horse archers, and Kataphractoi (although Parthian kataphracts are a bit stronger)

Despite this, I've seen the Parthians spread some against the Seleucids.
The Sarmatians, AI wise, aren't expansionist, and I've only ever seen them die, true, but I've seen the Parthians be crushed as well...all it takes is for a nation to concentrate all their efforts onto them. The Seleucids can't do jack squat the the Parthians 'cause they're too busy fighting off the Egyptians.

Perhaps the main problem is that the Sarmatians don't have a strong starting position, and they're path to riches is impeded by the nations which, when left to the AI, repeatedly squash them.


And if you still don't like it, you can probably go into the game files and edit the Sarmatian merc units to be recruited as Sarmatians from the start.

[Czrasai]

Why not just make all the factions equal strenth, not.

[Morte]

Two questions:
1) Are there a lot of Sarmatian players out there?
2) If so, do they frequently play games that get beyond 100 years?

Yes and no. I've played them a few times, and I expanded OK. It's not so tough once you learn the HA siege tricks. But I got bored, because pretty much all the battles were the same. You keep your distance, fire lots of arrows, charge with the heavies if there's an opportunity, and repeat about four thousand times. I guess I never kept going long enough to get substantial AOR units.

But I think the fundamental problem with the Sarmatians and all the other barbarian factions in a long game is that they don't have the tech tree for a big empire (roads, health, happiness) and they don't learn. If conquering ten provinces with paved roads etc taught you to build the things, I'd be more inclined to play long games with barbarians.

[Matt]

I completely agree with Morte about the barbarian tech tree.

[Salvor Hardin]

Yes and no. I've played them a few times, and I expanded OK. It's not so tough once you learn the HA siege tricks. But I got bored, because pretty much all the battles were the same. You keep your distance, fire lots of arrows, charge with the heavies if there's an opportunity, and repeat about four thousand times. I guess I never kept going long enough to get substantial AOR units.

But I think the fundamental problem with the Sarmatians and all the other barbarian factions in a long game is that they don't have the tech tree for a big empire (roads, health, happiness) and they don't learn. If conquering ten provinces with paved roads etc taught you to build the things, I'd be more inclined to play long games with barbarians.

I put a premature end to my Parthian campaign for the same reasons. All the battles were the same and I finally got stressed having to control 10 horse archer units scattered around the battlefield.

And concerning the second reason, I cannot but agree. The impossibility of upgrading the infrastructure tends to kill the interest for Barbarian factions. But if we stick to history as we must as we are Total Realism, we must admit that precisely the lack of ability of the Barbarians to learn was what led Europe to the collapse of the Middle Ages.

[hellas1]

Hey all,

The steppe factions: Scythians and Parthians should be addressed srength wise and culturally in a historical manner using historical texts like Herodotus and texts by more modern authorities like Rene Grousset.

Period.

hellas1- Steppe warriors were NOT weak chumps.

[Morte]

And concerning the second reason, I cannot but agree. The impossibility of upgrading the infrastructure tends to kill the interest for Barbarian factions. But if we stick to history as we must as we are Total Realism, we must admit that precisely the lack of ability of the Barbarians to learn was what led Europe to the collapse of the Middle Ages.

Funnily enough, I talking to the Europa Barbarorum guys about this recently. I said I thought their mod was historical (what happened) rather than realistic (what might have plausibly happened). One of their guys agreed, but said they did it that way because it'd be a nightmare to decide what's realistic. I have to give him that, imagine the flame wars over "could and would the Epirotes have built arenas if they'd conquered Italy".

But it would be nice if there was a looser mod out there as well as RTR and EB, which kept all their good stuff and let people play "what if" with units and buildings a bit more.

[AngryTitusPullo]

Two questions:
1) Are there a lot of Sarmatian players out there?
2) If so, do they frequently play games that get beyond 100 years?


My guess is that the answer to one or both of those questions is "no." Therefore, I propose that we use the Sarmatians to represent later-game nomadic incursions. Give them an un-capturable city (to keep them going), spawn armies occasionally, as well as a large army to represent the Sakae incursion into Bactria. What do you think?

Well, you can take the ideas from the original RTR 6.0 (not Gold) where with low upkeeps (or non-existance ?) the Sarmatians ruled the world...

[Maximus Lazero]

Heh, well, for realism, at least inaccuracies in RTW didn't make the game ridiculously stupid, like CoD2 >_>

[dharos]

i'm currently finishing up a minimod for rtrpe exrm in which i give the barb factions a somef upgrades but not too many, try to balance this with high requirements for things like paved roads and dockyards, etc. i also adjusted a lot of unit sizes and stats but not in a severe way, so far it seems pretty balanced in overall gameplay. if i ever finish fixing the embarassing little quirks i might release it with a list of what i changed. (madecon and seleucids have been neutered somewhat too, but not in a lopsided way. also adjusted some provinces to give them realistic access to ports, and am realigning/retouching some of the province borders so they follow some of their geographical natural boundaries more accurately.

and i love playing sarmatians, but they do get monotonous. try playing them with a joint sarmatian/thracian aor unit army, pretty fun.

[Darviathar]

Realize I'm reviving an old post, but its near 3 AM, I can't sleep, and if I turn my game back on, I"ll not sleep at all....


I am not in favor of strengthening the Sarmatians. From what I know, they simply weren't a major player in this time period, and the idea of making them a juggernaut based on what steppe peoples would accomplish around 600 years later simply doesn't make sense for a historical mod. It would be about as inaccurate as putting the BI Hun faction in the 280 BC game.

If you want to strengthen a faction artificially then by all means make it the PARTHIANS!

About 15 years ago I played a little game called Centurion: Defender of Rome. The Parthians were the hardest faction to beat in that game! The one you needed to save until the end to deal with. I would like to see this better reflected in RTR.

I've never played the Sarmatians myself, but I've never seen them eliminated. In most games, they are simply left alone. In my current one, they are reduced to the Crimean cities, and at war with superpower Pontus, but I've been keeping an eye on the area, and it doesn't look like Pontus is going to bother putting them out.

[Quinn Inuit]

I agree about the need to boost Parthia somehow.

As for the Sarmatians, that wasn't quite what I had in mind. I figured that, since almost nobody actually plays with them, I would turn them into more of an AI faction. I could give them control of the far eastern city, so they couldn't be easily killed off, and every now and then give them a spawn army to represent the occasional horde incursion. (I wouldn't actually make them unplayable, but more geared to AI play.)

For instance, one idea I had was to give them a few spawn armies in 125 B.C. on the other side of the Bactrian landblock to represent the Saka, and also give them the goal of capturing the far southeastern Indian area (so those armies follow the right path).

[Darviathar]

That would be fine with me. I like their cavalry units (as mercs) for my Roman legions as we enter Thrace, but probably not enough to ever really sit down and play them. Too many factions ahead of them on my list of things to do.

[Darviathar]

I looked up the Sarmatians on Wiki today and read that they were wiped out by the Huns, but could find little information about anything they did during the time period of the ExRM campaign. Did they ever fight any of the factions represented in our game for any amount of time?