Zarax
Legionary
posted 24 February 2010 16:35
EDT (US)
151 / 188
Scythia soon will be Sarmatia and they will definitely get more infantry to boot which should balance their cavalry craze.
I'm also considering cutting the enlarged units for them as they are too big of an advantage when they are added to their factional bonuses.
About heavy swordsmen, did you get the marian reforms? They appear only after those (gaul).
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 24 February 2010 17:31
EDT (US)
152 / 188
i think the best solution for scythia would be to give them more infantry and remove missiles from light cav - for the purpose of ranged attacks they already have cav archers for a quite nice price but 70 missiles per throw from 2-3 exp point cavalry is very devastating
a few times scythian and parthia declared war in the past
thrace isnt really strong - their expansions are limited by scythia, germans and macedon and as soon as macedon took out the greeks and the independent greek cities they wipe the floor with thrace
spain ofc is a quite different issue - their roster is quite strong with their missile infantry - i think the main problem is that carthage is too weak to hold their 2 settlements for a long time and after that they are unrivaled their and they never have to go into a 2 or more frontier war
@zarax: 2 postings above you said heavy sword- and pikemen are available for gaul pre-marian because
whats the EDU you mentioned before btw?
Zarax
Legionary
posted 25 February 2010 05:41
EDT (US)
153 / 188
Read again, I did say post reform.
EDU is export_descr_units.txt, which is the text file where most unit balancing work is done.
Iberia is strong because they basically have a barbarian version of the roman roster, however with the temple rebalance in delta they will have a harder time expanding.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 25 February 2010 10:30
EDT (US)
154 / 188
ok my fault, i probably mixed up pre and post because i wouldnt have expected you to say that explicitly
i wonder what is the purpose of heavy swordmen after reforms when you can get chosen swordmen already before?are they available on a lower tier?in all my campaigns the romans were never able to reform because i destroyed them too early because i didnt want to keep them alive just for this purpose
Zarax
Legionary
posted 25 February 2010 15:02
EDT (US)
155 / 188
Heavy swordsmen are lvl3 which allows you to benefit from an unit able to go toe to toe with principes and standard legionaries without going bankrupt between high barracks penalties and elite upkeep.
Keep in mind however that if you allow AI to build up too much you'll be in trouble with barbarian factions as lvl5 economy is able to compensate for barbarian upkeep advantage plus your lvl4 units will have trouble against lvl5 counterparts.
There is little point in not being explicit, we try to make the code as mod friendly as possible so that the mechanics are always understandable.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 25 February 2010 15:45
EDT (US)
156 / 188
from my overall experience, most done on vh/med is that you can take out the romans with all civs in europe before the reformations
i also think there is no necessity to keep the romans alive just to get 1-2 units
as the gaul for example my primary weapons are always heavy cavalry and javelin chariots, else i just use light cavalry and swordmen to extend my armies so i never build lvl 5 barracks anyways because i dont really need chosen swordmen and noble cavalry which btw are very hard to retrain
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 26 February 2010 07:44
EDT (US)
158 / 188
i still prefer killing the romans and forming the main lines of regular swordmen which can be retrained with a level 2 barrack
one thing i realised today as carthage: lancers in spain and sacred bands have almost the same stats but their prices are quite different and both seem to be elite units(tier 4 barracks)
playing as carthage turned out to be quite funny since you have to build other troops everywhere so in spain you need spanish infantry and in italy you should rely on african units so i really like them
on a sidenote i really appreciate the tech tree in xc because you dont have to make 3 military buildings if you want to get another single unit and the converting feature is quite demanding in terms of strategical planning
Zarax
Legionary
posted 27 February 2010 02:32
EDT (US)
159 / 188
Carthage got a lot of effort in XC to try and represent its uniqueness.
They have one of the best AOR selections of any factions and with their troop variety can pull off lots of diverse tactics.
A mix of african and iberian troops is usually deadly as you get both heavy swords and spears with the addition of balearic slingers and numidian cavalry to support them.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 28 February 2010 20:06
EDT (US)
160 / 188
but why are sacred bands so much more expensive than lancers and marines compared to numidian archers?
Zarax
Legionary
posted 01 March 2010 04:41
EDT (US)
161 / 188
Because they are on different levels so their base price (and stats) are calculated on a higher level plus carthaginian units tends to be richly equipped (read: heavier armour and shields) and that's got a hefty price.
Take into account that barbs get a base discount and a small stat bonus and they end up being much more cost effective.
Luckily for you, carthies balance this by having an extremely good economy once they get the ball rolling.
That said, the higher costs are also meant to encourage the player on making realistic armies instead of the elite stack fest that most late games end up with.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 01 March 2010 07:17
EDT (US)
162 / 188
ok i understand the difference now but it will end up that ill never produce any sacred band cavalry nor marines because
since i dont produce a lot of other units too i wouldnt mind but these 2 are carthage's own troop types
Zarax
Legionary
posted 01 March 2010 09:37
EDT (US)
163 / 188
Well, as both are "luxury" units you are supposed to recruit them only after you get a large empire and historically those were rarely used.
Personally I keep mostly AOR unit plus a "royal" army where there is one unit from both sarred bands.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 11 March 2010 10:12
EDT (US)
164 / 188
what exactly is the effect of military colonies?it says -1 to farming and giving land
im playing macedon atm and they have 2 different buildings named like this
the other building is like another tier of auxiliary barracks but doesnt seem to give anything more than than the tier 3 one
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 11 March 2010 13:09
EDT (US)
166 / 188
ok im a fool then, i was quite annoyed about getting good troops as carthage only in spain lol
Zarax
Legionary
posted 12 March 2010 05:23
EDT (US)
167 / 188
Carthage gets Libyans, not iberians.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 13 March 2010 12:16
EDT (US)
168 / 188
some recent impressions
i discovered that the price gap between balearic and rhodian slingers is huge but they are basically the same unit(i think 280 upkeep for balearic and 850 for rhodian)
kestros and chosen slingers are a bit too costly in my opinion compared to regular slingers - these two and chosen archers have quite low ranged damage but a quite high melee damage and im wondering why - shouldnt they be specialists rather than general units?
its also quite funny that the melee weapon of chosen archers is a huge battle axe
regular archers should get a slight range increase because slingers are by far more effective - available on low tier, bonus vs armour and against unarmoured units they still do well
two handed axes are imo a quite pointless unit since there are so many missile units in this game and their purpose of being effective against armour is already covered by berserkers which take now only one turn and are available way earlier
in my opinion it would be better to give the germans a unit that fits between axemen and post-marian chosen axemen - maybe a heavy swordmen unit
Zarax
Legionary
posted 15 March 2010 11:17
EDT (US)
169 / 188
Kestros, Rhodian and chosen slingers are well equipped veterans that can double up as light infantry, while the balearic slingers were recruited shepherds, hence the wide gap.
Chosen archers are already a personal gripe of mine but will take long time to be fixed until a modeler will pay attention to it unfortunately.
Germans use 2h axes to be kept different from gauls but mostly because we don't have modelers and skinners to replace them with something more accurate.
I'm also working on another missile rebalance for all unit types but regular archers having lower range than slingers is accurate indeed as only high quality eastern bows could outrange slings and paid that by having a much lighter bullet.
Crusiminator
Legionary
posted 15 March 2010 18:24
EDT (US)
170 / 188
even more when they are veterans, they should be more effective within their speciality than overall
if ill be hunting for my entire life i will surely be more skilled than untrained units at range but i will also lack in close combat due to no practice
im just wondering how you were able to release so many versions recently if you lack of staff and what exactly is your part in game design?
Zarax
Legionary
posted 16 March 2010 07:45
EDT (US)
172 / 188
Veteran and specialist are not exactly the same thing.
Ranged units do take a melee penalty though and their lower numbers plus lighter armour makes them a relatively poor choice in melee.
That said, as soon as we'll have a more stable help in the artwork department quite a few units will be reviewed both for balance and realism.
As for my part, I work on historical research, game balance, advanced features and unit roster cohordination.
Zarax
Legionary
posted 16 December 2010 02:00
EDT (US)
179 / 188
There is a government system now and most building depends on that and colony level.
Gloss files are used on certain units to make them look shinier, it's not used widely though.
Zyraxes
Legionary
posted 16 June 2011 18:07
EDT (US)
182 / 188
I don't knew if someone is still reading this topic CaesarVincens I wannt to ask you XC those it have
export_descr_unit_enums.txt cause I can't found it,please help
Zarax
Legionary
posted 17 June 2011 01:46
EDT (US)
183 / 188
The enums_files are not used by the game anymore as per RTW patch 1.5
SongsOfBeitar
Legionary
posted 21 August 2012 15:17
EDT (US)
185 / 188
I would like to say how obsessed with this mod right now. It's a real improvement to the gameplay. Almost everything is more challenging and therefore, victory, more satisfying.
I decided to play as pontus because they were so small (one region). I definitely feel like I'm sitting in a political mess with greek cities, macedon, the eastern kingdoms, celts, and the mighty Seleucids. I'm playing on Hard/Hard and I've actually had to retreat from one of my settlements to try and regroup my armies against the Seleucid invaders. Very well done, thank you for the mod.
P.S. how exactly do I send my people to academies?
SongsOfBeitar
Legionary
posted 22 August 2012 12:03
EDT (US)
187 / 188
oh, is that a vanilla feature (which I didn't know I could anyway)? I was referring to these seemingly random messages about schools popping up in different cities presumably meant for educating family members.
Zarax
Legionary
posted 26 August 2012 14:24
EDT (US)
188 / 188
Cities with historically important academies will give further bonuses if developed.