Feature Requests

[Zarax]

Barbarians have enough heavy cav as it is, the problem would be mostly differentiating it.
The only "barbarian" cavalry we are missing is the iberian elite lancers, aka iberian katanks.
They would be a quite nice addiction to the iberian/carthaginan roster...

[Kara Kolyo]

Sorry i wasn't clear - heavier barb cavalry as AOR unit. not just the light ones like it is now

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Played XGM tonight for the first time in a while.

I had forgotten that lurch you get in your stomach when you fight the Macedonians. My jaw definitely slackened when the phalanx, which outnumbered me about 1.5:1 lowered and locked their spears while their cavalry support took up flanking positions.

I looked at my spear warbands and thought,

"You know what? This plain needed fertilizing anyhow."

The poppies on that field grow more beautiful than ever before.

Please, please, please don't get rid of Lesbos! I know that by the game's timeframe it wasn't a big player, but in Ancient Greek culture it was most certainly relevant, and the island itself is quite large and agriculturally significant.

Feel free to axe Euboea though. The Med needs rebalanced, to be quite sure, and coastal regions on it aren't very interesting. Islands are interesting though.

West India/The Stans could use another province or two though. Some cities of the Kushan empire might do nicely, as would some Tocharian-style units (webbird's scythians, reskinned would look nice).

I've been toying with making elite phalangites like the agyraspids stand in tighter formation and have slightly smaller unit numbers. Without changing any other stats, you can immediately pick them out in a line, even from a long ways off. To a human player, that makes all the difference; Agyraspids are scary.

[DimeBagHo]

Dulce_et_Decorum_Est: I'm afraid the fate of Lesbos is all but sealed. Sitting right next to Pergamon it's the worst offender in terms of crazy trade values.

I agree about making the elite pike units stand out a bit more though. Especially the Seleucids - even up close it can be hard to tell the Agyraspids apart from regular Pikemen.

Zarax: Iberian Cataphracts would be a nice replacement for the current Iberian Noble Cavalry.

[Zarax]

You could give elite phalanx something different than linothorax, usually they wore chain (greek/mak) or scale (epeiros/seleucid/ptolemaic) mail...

[brandbll]

I have a question that somewhat relates to the whole steppe siege problem. This problem that i find is burning down cities. As a HA faction your not really equipped to take the bigger cities in Total war. So for the most part your best option is to just hold the siege and wait for a surrender or for the AI to try and throw your siege. So of course this has led to the new dismounting argument(which i am in support of).

So my point is we need another option. I think a good one would be if we could somehow burn the streets with flaming catapults. As it stands using flaming catapults has seemed to be worthless to me. You just burn down buildings and nothing happens to your opponents army. If we could figure out a way to burn certain parts of the streets that got hit, you could trap the enemy on the outer parts of the city. Of course they could fall back to the middle to avoid this, but atleast it would be an extra strategy. Is thsi at all feasible?

[DimeBagHo]

brandbll: Unfortunately I don't think that can be done.

[LucretiusTC]

I´ve been rethinking about those 2 possible new settlements at the Black Sea coast from Bithynia to Colchis. Then the situation would look something like this:

Nicomedia (Bithynia) - HERACLEA PONTICA (as a new settlement or as a new port for some inland settlement in Paphlagonia e.g. Gangra) - Sinope (as it is at the moment) - Amasia (a capital of Pontus and Amisus as its new port) - TRAPEZUS (a new settlement; an important Greek town) - Phasis (Colchis).

Here´s some background information to those suggestions:

http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/...lagonians.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclea_Pontica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lazicaandersen.jpg


One thing that worries me a little bit with those possible map changes is that connection between Tarsus and Ipsus even if I am not the payroll for the Seleucid or Pontic cause......that general question of power balance in Asia Minor..:hmmm:...but I am sure the right solution can be found...


Luc.

[Hippias]

Any chance of more wooded areas (impassable and ambush sized) for the northern part of the map? I pictued Germania as being one vast forest, where every battle (or at least 90% of them) would be in a forest.

Current any invading civilized army has no trrouble finding a nice open field to stand and fight in.

Cheers

[Maraxus]

In Redfox's Diadoch, he split up Achaea into 2 regions. I really think this is a good idea, I would suggest renaming Achaea to Corintha or Arcadia and making the north and west coast of Corintha the new Achaea. Achaea could have Patras as a capital. In diadoch Redfox made it Sicyon, which may be more historically accurate, but Sicyon is way too close to Corinth to fit on the map, Patras was also significant enough to be a capital and is far enough away from Corinth to appear on the map. Cyllene would be a great candidate for the new Achaea's port.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patras#Antiquity

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eloponnese.jpg

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/fallof...loponnesus.jpg

[RedFox]

Heh, I hoped nobody would realize I misplaced Sicyon over 300km on purpose
Achaeans had to have it as a capital, but for the sake of breathing space I moved it to Olympia. It works well though and would be a very good addition to XGM in the future, though the farming and trade levels have to be cut down, or you'll be making way too much money...

[Zarax]

Currently it's way too easy to get tons of money for most mediterranean factions, even cutting down farming levels doesn't make much difference for greeks, romans or carthage

[RedFox]

Well, then just raise the upkeep levels and decrease trade income, by reducing the hidden resources in a region, right now every region has like 3-4 hidden resources, which gives way too much income, judging that most of them are basically copy paste versions.
It would solve the problem I think.

[Zarax]

That will be up to DBH, my only aim was to slow down the AI growth enough to push marius back to at least 200BC

[RedFox]

Well, less money = slower progress (which I love btw). I'll have a go at diadochi descr_regions and see if I can fix those horrifying trade incomes, some cities make so much money from sea trade that it doesn't make sense.
Hopefully it will slow down player expansion also...

[Zarax]

I posted some stuff in the XGM slow mod thread if you need...

[RedFox]

Thanks, I'll take a look at them.
Mind making a complete list of what you altered?

I still think the best way would be to properly manage hidden resources. No more than 2 resources per region at best, or none at all - this would seriously balance things, because having a lot of resources means that it gets a lot of cross-income around the Aegean.

[Zarax]

I just cut down farming levels and the crazy cost and time bonuses AI got with the founding monuments...

[RedFox]

crazy cost and time bonuses AI got with the founding monuments...

I left the cost bonus, but removed the construction time bonuses ages ago.

[Zarax]

I prefer to have the structures giving financial help rather than a flat cost cut, it's more flexible imho...