Hi,
I don't know how far into the development stage of the Romani the EBII team is, but I just thought I would make some minor suggestions to improve gameplay and realism.
The first is regarding recruitment of scorpios, catapults, and both types of ballistae. It seems a tad unrealistic and frustrating they can only be recruited in Italy proper. The knowledge to build these machines was something carried by the Romans to wherever they went, much like any other knowledge a legion possessed, such as bridge, road and fort building for example. A lot of this would be built in situ in case of a siege, and from locally available materials, in which case only wood, horse hair and bronze would be required, plus the necessary knowledge which off course the romans possessed. I find it highly unlikely (and unrealistic) that the romans would import all their siege machinery from Italy to far flung provinces for battles and sieges. This is very frustrating at later stage of the game, I'm now at 133 B.C and would like to expand eastwards, but bringing all this stuff from Italy is extremely time consuming and annoying.
So my suggestion would be that either certain cities spread accross the world map either have a hidden resource for siege machinery (good examples would be Massilia, Syrakuse, Alexandria, Sidon, Carthage, Trapezous, and maybe Olbia) - cities with a good Greek population and thus in theory the knowledge of making such machines, or that the Romans be able to train them at any city with type 2 government and full barracks built. The advantage of having certain cities be able to construct them is that they are widely spaced throughout the game map, so to expand into Gaul and Ibeia one can use Massilia, to Africa one uses Carthage, to the Steppes Olbia, and eastwards Trapezous, Alexandria, Sidon, etc. Secondly, this can also be expanded to other factions also, which I suspect suffer from the same problem (so include for example Carthage, Greeks, Seleucids, Epeiros, Ptolemies, etc etc etc) giving factions with an awarenesss of siege machinery equal coverage throughout the world map.
My second suggestion would be to slightly tweak the Marian reforms so that the second trigger be changed from ''or either conquer 90 settlements'' to ''or either conquer 75 settlements''. The reason for such is that, from my experience, and broadly following Roman historical expansion, eg, having annexed Gaul, Iberia, parts of Germania, Greece, Anatolia, Illyria, Thrace and Dacia, I should be able to have access to related auxiliary units which are available with those reforms. Instead I found I had to expand further to Britain, Egypt, Armenia and Crimeia to fulfil the conditions. Ahistorically, and unrealistically, I had to conquer these areas with armies of triarii, principes, hastati, pedites extraordinarri and italian cavalry when this was not the case, and nor should it be.
So there it is. Let me know what you think.
EDIT: A similar argument can be made perhaps for the Evocati, who could be recruited maybe through the colony building or a certain level of regional barracks? Only 60 years after the time frame of EB the Evocati were called upon to help defeat Boudiccas uprising in Britain, so its not far fetched to have them available for recruitment outside of rome.
I don't know how far into the development stage of the Romani the EBII team is, but I just thought I would make some minor suggestions to improve gameplay and realism.
The first is regarding recruitment of scorpios, catapults, and both types of ballistae. It seems a tad unrealistic and frustrating they can only be recruited in Italy proper. The knowledge to build these machines was something carried by the Romans to wherever they went, much like any other knowledge a legion possessed, such as bridge, road and fort building for example. A lot of this would be built in situ in case of a siege, and from locally available materials, in which case only wood, horse hair and bronze would be required, plus the necessary knowledge which off course the romans possessed. I find it highly unlikely (and unrealistic) that the romans would import all their siege machinery from Italy to far flung provinces for battles and sieges. This is very frustrating at later stage of the game, I'm now at 133 B.C and would like to expand eastwards, but bringing all this stuff from Italy is extremely time consuming and annoying.
So my suggestion would be that either certain cities spread accross the world map either have a hidden resource for siege machinery (good examples would be Massilia, Syrakuse, Alexandria, Sidon, Carthage, Trapezous, and maybe Olbia) - cities with a good Greek population and thus in theory the knowledge of making such machines, or that the Romans be able to train them at any city with type 2 government and full barracks built. The advantage of having certain cities be able to construct them is that they are widely spaced throughout the game map, so to expand into Gaul and Ibeia one can use Massilia, to Africa one uses Carthage, to the Steppes Olbia, and eastwards Trapezous, Alexandria, Sidon, etc. Secondly, this can also be expanded to other factions also, which I suspect suffer from the same problem (so include for example Carthage, Greeks, Seleucids, Epeiros, Ptolemies, etc etc etc) giving factions with an awarenesss of siege machinery equal coverage throughout the world map.
My second suggestion would be to slightly tweak the Marian reforms so that the second trigger be changed from ''or either conquer 90 settlements'' to ''or either conquer 75 settlements''. The reason for such is that, from my experience, and broadly following Roman historical expansion, eg, having annexed Gaul, Iberia, parts of Germania, Greece, Anatolia, Illyria, Thrace and Dacia, I should be able to have access to related auxiliary units which are available with those reforms. Instead I found I had to expand further to Britain, Egypt, Armenia and Crimeia to fulfil the conditions. Ahistorically, and unrealistically, I had to conquer these areas with armies of triarii, principes, hastati, pedites extraordinarri and italian cavalry when this was not the case, and nor should it be.
So there it is. Let me know what you think.
EDIT: A similar argument can be made perhaps for the Evocati, who could be recruited maybe through the colony building or a certain level of regional barracks? Only 60 years after the time frame of EB the Evocati were called upon to help defeat Boudiccas uprising in Britain, so its not far fetched to have them available for recruitment outside of rome.
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