OK...phewww!!

[dvk901]

Well, that's a load off my mind!! Congradulations to all for a great update!

I got all wrapped up in my own Roman campaign...dang, I should've played M\M. This is hard as hell! Thank you, all of you wonderful guys!!

[tone]

I've just started one on H/H as well. Too hard?
BTW some of the small unit cards for new slave units are the old ones.

[pseudocaesar]

i think, for the general populace, we've gone too hard, in all honesty...people dont want to have to spend half an hour on every battle, and seeing as though there is so many free stacks laying around thats alot of half hour battles. im not bagging, just play on easy if they want, but it may be a putoff for people?

[Spartan_Shame]

Uh, DVK do we have a special thanks section? Just remember Alletun did the Rome sig for us, and I used the rim he made to make the rest, so when we use the Faction symbols, can we thank him?

[Turk]

what will we do now?on what will the next patch focus?

[tone]

Hopefully Hellenic and Eastern factions from the skins point of view - that's my thought anyway.

[cherryfunk]

Everyone deserves a pat on the back, this team did some great work over the past month or so! Most especially dvk, tone and angel -- their last-minute work on the stats and 'slave' units drastically improved the mod.

As for it being too hard, I think it depends on the faction. I've tried three campaigns on H/H: the Bosporans and the Getai were very difficult. Pergamum actually seemed pretty easy, at least the first 20 turns. I was able to autoresolve all battles, and it makes a ton of money. Perhaps it could be throttled back a bit.

Let's listen to what the fans say about the difficulty and maybe reduce the slave spawn rate again if they're complaining?

Over the next few weeks I personally plan to work on the Celtic and Getic factions; I'd like to give tone the info he needs to get the Arverni, Belgae, Boii, Cimbri and Getae units ready. I think the next major upgrade will be adding the Boii, if I heard dvk correctly, and since they'll share some units with the other Celts it would be good to figure out what each of those factions will look like in 'final' form.

[Drtad]

Over the next few weeks I personally plan to work on the Celtic and Getic factions; I'd like to give tone the info he needs to get the Arverni, Belgae, Boii, Cimbri and Getae units ready. I think the next major upgrade will be adding the Boii, if I heard dvk correctly, and since they'll share some units with the other Celts it would be good to figure out what each of those factions will look like in 'final' form.

Adding the Boii would be good, but shouldn't all of the factions that have been neglected be done first? The ones already in the mod? From my point of view the Celts actually look great, especially the captains.

[cherryfunk]

When you say 'all of the factions' are you saying maybe... Armenia?

I think the Boii are important for game-balance purposes, to keep the Romans from invading Sweden... plus we can add them without changing anything else, since they'll use the Senate slot.

[Drtad]

No, in fact I am not only saying Armenia, I am referring to all of the East in general. Maybe the Boii could be added and the East could be redone for the next patch?

[dvk901]

As I've stated elsewhere. we need to focus on what we have now. Egypt, Macedon, Armenia, Parthia, Pontus, Seleucid....they all suck. We've got a mod out there that needs to be continually updated. We can add things as we go, but if we lose focus on what we have for what doesn't even exist yet, we're never gonna get finished.

The Boii can be added, but I don't see this as the prime focus of what we need to do.

[cherryfunk]

Not what 'we' do, but obviously we can and will be focusing on a dozen different things at the same time, that's why we have a team, no?

And you're the one who said we should put the Boii in soon! I'm just following your lead...

[dvk901]

Well, you have me walking a tight rope with that...I did say that, didn't I? It's not like I'm ignoring it, because that's one of the next things I'm going to do is remove the Senate...or change it to the Boii.
However, since I'm not the skinner, I can do anything I like with the code, and add them with no problem. The question is: where does Tone want to focus his skinning? Afterall, I'm pretty much a 'captive' of what he and AE provide...so if they give me Boii units, then that's what I put in. If they give me Eastern units, then I put them in.
I'm just expressing my thoughts that almost no attention has been given to the East, and it needs it. But in the end....I put in what I'm given.

[cherryfunk]

Well, we could use the current Gallic unit roster for the Boii, change a few names and keep them mostly the same for now, maybe with 1 or 2 special units like an elite infantry and an elite cavalry.

We should think about it, though -- we can add one new faction to our current release. We have 3 new factions we're planning to add: Belgae, Boii and Scythians. Which one should go in first? Which would be easiest from a skinning perspective? Which would generate the most 'buzz'? Each of the three would be unique to Roma Surrectum and might bring in new fans just because it will set us further apart from other mods. Maybe we shouldn't do a quick 'rush' job on the new faction, but take some time and give it a unique set of units with new skins?

[Drtad]

Well, we could use the current Gallic unit roster for the Boii, change a few names and keep them mostly the same for now, maybe with 1 or 2 special units like an elite infantry and an elite cavalry.

We should think about it, though -- we can add one new faction to our current release. We have 3 new factions we're planning to add: Belgae, Boii and Scythians. Which one should go in first? Which would be easiest from a skinning perspective? Which would generate the most 'buzz'? Each of the three would be unique to Roma Surrectum and might bring in new fans just because it will set us further apart from other mods. Maybe we shouldn't do a quick 'rush' job on the new faction, but take some time and give it a unique set of units with new skins?

I think that the Boii should be added after the Eastern factions are "fixed" . Having a new faction with unique units would be great, especially the Boii, but having them at the expense of keeping the East and Macedonia crappy is not a good idea.

[dvk901]

Exactly....we have a bunch of factions (greek) that are fairly 'cloned' right now. I really hesitate to add another one. But given the way Tone punched out all those slave and free units, maybe he can punch out a bunch of Boii units the same as Gaul's but different....Hee. I'll use Gaul as a template.

But all things considered, the way the fans are raving about those City Hoplites, I don't think they care about the rest of them!! They're like 'Greek Legionaries'!

Did you guys notice I changed all the Slave banners? Really makes them look a lot better, but eventually I want to use something other than BI copies and such. That can be one of my little skinning projects, unless somebody else wants to work on them?

[cherryfunk]

But all things considered, the way the fans are raving about those City Hoplites, I don't think they care about the rest of them!! They're like 'Greek Legionaries'!

It's amazing what an impact one or two unique units can have -- especially when they look cool! The difference between playing with a generic hoplite unit vs. one that specifically represents your faction -- even though there's no actual gameplay difference, it 'feels' so much more fun.

Did you guys notice I changed all the Slave banners?

Yes, just before I died with an arrow through my neck!

Speaking of unit cards, here are two that we need to fix quickly because they look really out of place:


It's the 'Greek Infantry' on the right -- which I thought we were going to rename as something historical? -- and the Hamippos Light Infantry on the left (which seem pretty useless to me anyway).

Oh, and here's an example of what I said about Pergamum having too easy a start, this is my Pergamum kingdom in 272BC, playing H/H:




I captured Nicomedia, Byzantium, and Mytilene very quickly just by autoresolving, had really no challenge at all. I think you should reduce the infrastructure of Pergamum a bit, don't give them so many units to start with, and beef up Nicomedia, Byzantium and Mytilene.

Also, Nicomedia should just be 'Nicomedia' not the 'Kingdom of...' since once you capture it, it's not the kingdom of anything anymore

[dvk901]

Pergamum, like all the 'little factions' does have a bit of a good start if you are the player.....but they also have a very small economic and military AOR.
I think. As an AI faction, in my campaign, they've done nothing. In 256BC, they still only have Mysia, and that's it.
It may 'seem' they are too easy, but I'd rather wait and see how someone does with a prolonged campign with them before I go nuking them. They have no better buildings or units than Bosporan does, or GCS or anyone else really. It's just that they start with one region and a lotta cash at first.

Now, that's '0' turn I'm talking about. It could be that their economy is a little too good in '1' turn. I have to admit that I have tested '1' turn much less. But I basically adjusted everyone for '1' turn by cutting the same percentage of economy and population growth off the '0' turn settings.

Those two unit cards you mentioned...yeah, they're whacked. I'll see what I can do to at least make them look better.

[cherryfunk]

Oh, one other unit we should so something about is the Light Cavalry (visible in that shot above), it's a vanilla unit with a vanilla unit card and it's ALL OVER the place, both in factions and in slave armies. If we could reskin it to make it look better, it would have a big impact across the whole game.

[dvk901]

It's not a vanilla card, or it would be unglier than that!! LOL. That was one of my hand painted ones way back when. I just used it because the old one was so bad.