Comments - Naattari

Any future plans on doing something like Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion Enhanced?

3rd page

-Parthia should get some infantry as the eastern infantry and hillmen are decent for the first 20 years of the game but they lose their purpose after that and are worse in hand to hand combat than archers, which replace them as they are just as good in close combat and are able to shoot distant targets, there is no use for infantry after you get your first archers as they are cheaper and the upkeep is the same. Cataphracts as main battle force, Presian Archers as support, regular Archers used as city defense and sappers and thats all you need to win the game, if you do it anyway else you will not become a great empire. and that's why i suggest bringing some units from the Barbarian invasion from the Sassanid faction, and giving the stats that the can at least manage against Swordsmen, Night riders and other decent infantry. OR taking some inspiration from Medieval 2 and giving Parthia units like dismounted Cataphracts riders with spears, maces and shields, and the become available same time as regular Cataphracts, a other unit could be dismounted Persian archers that have better armor and long range arrows. and if they would get this they could siege cites like every other faction instead of ramming the gate or sapping walls and rushing in with Cataphracts ignoring enemy units that are defending the city walls and just waiting for that 3 minutes to pass so you can claim the city. The large selection of mercenaries you get when reaching Germania and other barbaric lands is really good, but it did not help me at that point of the game when i got there as i did not trust them enough to send them on top of the walls and try to get them from some urbans defending them.

-some of the roads on the campaign map disappear when looking at certain angles, (i noticed a lot of weird stuff as i played the whole campaign without the Fog of War (you can disable it by typing ''toggle_fow'' in the console commands) just because i wanted to see what the AI was up to and how did they fight against each other, and because the AI always knows where your army/or navy is going regardless how sneaky and faraway you are trying to evade their line of sight. they know everything.

that's about everything i had in mind at the moment, i'am done with my Parthia Campaign, it ended at 171.BC and all it took was 1200 Cataphracts. and countless archers defending my 180 settlements. next up i am trying a different faction as i really like this mod but i am hoping to see a change in the diplomacy so i don't have to conquer it all again, as i was hoping id have to hold my homeland against the Roman invasion but it got out of hand as i had to destroy every faction next to me and i ended up invading Rome.

Thanks for the mod i really do like it. 9/10 would play.

2nd page

-the AI on the campaign map has a really bad hatred against the player, starting a war immediately when the player captures a settlement that touches their border, even when they are fighting another war elsewhere, (this war ends magically and peace settles down) this happened to me when Egypt was fighting Carthage, (the diplomacy at the time was: i was allied to Egypt, i was in war with Seleucid empire, so was Egypt, and Egypt was fighting Carthage at the same time) so Carthage was capturing a city from Egypt and was winning, at the same time i captured Babylon from Seleucid empire, next turn out from the clear sky Egypt starts a war with me laying siege at Babylon and ending hostility with Carthage, and for the rest of the game Carthage's invasion forces wait at the border of Egypt waiting for 30 turns untill i take a city from Egypt that touches hes border and Carthage starts a war with me next turn. this happened to me with India, Macedon, Rome and Britannia as well, and it turn bad for them every time, and never agreeing to ceasefire, i wanted to test this so i did it with every faction i fought against, every time asking for ceasefire when i was laying siege at their last city, they never agreed, and after that 10 seconds later they were no more.
and i played a little bit with Germania and creating an alliance with the Gauls, it was great we had trade rights and shared map information, it was awesome, we were neighbors, the trade was favorable and our people flourished, then Rome attacked Gaul, i wanted to help my friend and send a diplomat to make a deal, military access for military access and we both would attack Rome, they agreed they said it was noble deed to help them, after that i send my army to attack a roman army that was laying siege at Gallic settlement we were victorious, the Romans were pushed back by the end of the turn and i started to prepare for war, between the next turn Rome had settled peace with the Gauls and next turn asked me the same thing and i agreed because the gauls agreed and i thought could this get any better we would have peace again and and our lives would return back to normal, but then when i ended the turn and Gaul attacked my city and started war with me, i thought: ''how can this be we were brothers, were happy and we both profited from our alliance and they just throw it a way like its nothing.'' and then Rome attacked me and Gaul both, i tired to get peace with Gauls but they did not agree, then i just left it there and went back to play with Parthia as all the fun was gone from that campaign was gone. i just want an alliance that would last and that i would not have to destroy a faction just because the don't know what they just started. and when they start the war the don't have the man power to fight against mine, Britannia started war with my after i captured the city that they were trying to capture for 15 years, and it ended up in their defeat in under 10 turn.
so the diplomacy is non-existent in my opinion, it should have some impact how the AI acts towards me

Final report from the Kingdom of Parthia.

1st page

-Campaign ended as it should, with both victory screens and without crashing.
(the scroll you get after reaching campaign objective and the scroll after you hold every settlement)

-Crashes were a non issue, only crashing hew times when fighting Macedon (when loading a campaign battle) but far less than fighting Baktria.

-the balance meter on campaign map did not ''work'' right in my opinion, forcing me to fight every single campaign battle my self when the balance of the forces was almost the same, (for this campaign i had to result in ''unit spam'' as it was the only way to assure victory for example 20 units of Persian cavalry in an ''army'' and other army containing 20 Cataphracts, as Parthia lacks decent infantry) the AI allways sends horse archers and foot archers to close combat and that way killing 50-75% while leaving enemy 15-40% of their forces if it results in a win, when playing my self i win the battle killing 90-100% of the enemy troops while losing 0-15% (depending what troops the enemy has and if i run out of arrows before enemies), and cataphracts were really good but resulting in 1-10% lost when fighting Rome as they lacked spearmen and worked well against factions like Macedon and Carthage usually losing 5-25% of the troops on average enemy losses ranged from 85% to 100% when playing my self, but AI usually loses 40-60% of my troops while only killing 60-80% of enemy troops, forcing me to play almost every late game battle my self, and i had to fight 5-20 battles per turn so it prolonged my campaign a lot while killing my motivation at the same time, as there was no ''flow state''. Its pretty complicated to fix i can imagine, but i am hoping for the best.
-Roman legionaries on the campaign map had a pretty large effect on balance meter resulting Britannia (forgot what they were called in the mod, sorry) to keep losing to 2-8 units of legionaries holding a city 10 times, while having 20 units of chosen swordsmen/archers and chariots mixed, preventing Britannia from expanding after spending 75 years on their homeland.

-the AI on the campaign map almost never uses all of their military power against other faction, almost like trying to get a ''fair'' fight, for example Rome had 10-15 armies when invading Spain, (forgot again what they were called sorry) Spain had 5 armies, and they fought 1v1 every time it was possible (and usually Spain lost these 1v1) and when they were trying to kill a army containing 5 units they tried to kill them with other 5 units and losing and then bringing a other 5 units and doing this untill they ran out of men or winning, the invasion of spain lasted 50 turn and by that time i had destroyed Egypt, Pontus and Macedon and was half way done with Rome untill Rome was able to destroy spain and turning their forces against me. (at that point it was too late to stop 15 armies of cataphracts, its around 9000 men) what they should do is: if it is possible to fight the enemy with more men they should use those numbers to their advantage, gathering their forces before attacking.

seleucids have the flag issue as well, i think this might be affecting all factions.

Ok, some reports from the great Kingdom of Parthia:

- There seems to be some problems with Baktria as when loading a campaign battle it crashes on the first try but loads without problems next time.

- I don't know if this was intended this way, but some of the Indian cities have a huge population growth: +10% per turn, what is something that is hard to control.

- Parthia has house of Julii flags on their stone walls.

- when looking at city streets there are wondering horses walking around the streets, some of them had someone leading them, (either that or they had the same path that they walked and it just looked legit) but it still was great. if you are willing to improve on this i have some suggestions:
Some men standing at gates/walls acting as guards.
Some patrols walking on the streets, 2-10 man strong (town watch/town militia something like that).
Some action on markets and men practicing at barracks, archery ranges and some horses on stables would make the city look more alive.
People walking in and out of city.
If there is a enemy spy in the city he could be seen skulking around the city.

- When in multiplayer lobby all player names and chat messages appear black what makes them hard to read as the background is black/red.

I will bring more news from the fronts when i get them and bring them to you.

is there a way to get the Enhanced hoplites from the mod and get them to the non modded RTW? as i really like what you have done to them, they look beautiful, the way they hold their spears. like if there is a file that alters the way they use their spears, and that could be just dragged to the non modded RTW files and if you need to play multiplayer it could be deleted from the files to play non modded multiplayer. is there a way to accomplish this?

IT WORKED! you are simply the best, i can not say it better. My most humble thanks.

ok now i've done it... (i have steam version of RTW) i installed RTWE+ (plus) and it ran with out problems, and i could play non modded RTW as well. Then i wanted to install RTWE, i installed it and tried to run it but it kept crashing before the intro, then i looked up the ''how to install'' folder, it said: ''delete the folder called ''RTWE'''' so i thought ''Aah you cant have RTWE & RTWE+ at the same time, oh well guess ill uninstall RTWE as it does not work.'' so i went to ''control panel'' (my computer is in finnish so i just google translated what it say's) and tried to uninstall RTWE it tried to uninstall it but it did not delete it from my computer, so i uninstalled RTWE+ that it did delete/uninstall. then i thought ''oh ok that works too'' --> tried to run RTWE and it did not work. i tried window's ''troubleshooting''. (again google translated) it only made it worse. the screen started flashing black over my desktop (like it was trying to run the game it every 0.5 seconds) i only managed to stop it by shutting down my computer... then i just gave up and tried to play the non modded RTW (steam) and it too started flashing like crazy, i shut down my computer started it again and uninstalled RTW from steam, then i was able to uninstall RTWE via the control panel, i reinstalled RTW, i made sure that everything was intact and RTW gold folder did not contain anything from the enhanced mod, everything checked out. i tried to run RTW it showed me in the bottom of the screen RTWE/RTWE+ logo ( not the original RTW logo ) and the screen started flashing again, i tried to uninstall and reinstalling the RTW but it keeps doing the same thing again and again... some times it says that it needs directx9 but i tried to install that too but i cant as i have windows 8.1 and it wants windows xp or something older than W8.1. now i need help to restore RTW to working order, and then ill try to install RTWE+ back, as i really like this mod. plz help i just want to play RTW :(

i tested this on an older version of the mod... but if it crashes while loading a battle in campaign. i just started the game again and tried again and it usually worked that way, i tried it 1-2 times and then it ran perfectly, this usually happens when you fight a ''new'' faction in your campaign. so it might crash every time you fight a ''new'' faction. hope this helped.

And what i could see happening that would make some sense is if you take a region from the enemy, there could be a rebel/or the facton that it belonged to uprising as there will be pepole that not happy with their new masters, this i could see happening very often. But a uprising in your own land/iland that happens in every 2-7 turns? This i dont understand. Eaven if my ways as the king of that land has been peacefull... Btw that brings me to my next topic why cant as king order my armies to execute pepole in my settlements if they are rioting ( i usaly do this with chets and explain it that way that i simply ordered my soldiers to go around the streets and execute all who were not happy(this might explain why there are those random rebel armies spawning all the time... Who knew? :D )) but i dont do this in every game tho.

This i did not know. But rebels can conquer a settlement but it has only happenend to me in very hard difficulty as there is a random chance/event that will provoke them, i have lost a game due to this happening while i was playing parthia in the non modded RTW. And i can understand pirates at sea. But what i see as the problem is the rapid spawn of these rebel armies, that break the flow of the game, as i recall from the older version of the mod was that the rebels actually recruited their armies over time in their settlements and then send them out for war, this i liked a lot more, but eaven this could get out of hand from time to time. As i have commented this before.

in version 2.1.4 why is there the feature that random rebel units just emerge out of nowhere, as i don't remember that happening in the older version of the mod. it was and is the most annoying feature in the game, i just wish to know was this added back to the mod at some point or was i just super lucky and did not get them in any of my saves in the older version, and if it was added back to the mod i wish to know how to turn it off or get a optional mod to turn it off. as random rebel armies emerging out of thin air just in the way of my army. or even worst next to my poorly defended city that has nearly nobody defending it as my main army is fighting real factions elsewhere. its not even that bad if it would be some bad units (aka bandits) that would not poses any real threat, but they can and will spawn in very huge numbers and with superb units that need all of my attention to get rid of. so what i want/ask is: 1.was this feature added back to the mod at some point or was it there all the time? 2.is there any way to get rid of this feature a optional mod/patch mayby. ((as it does not seem realistic)''in 239BC when Sparta finaly fell to the hands of the Romans, some random army spawn right next to Rome and conquered it and there was nothing the Romans could have done'')

some opinions of the mod:
yes i know these might not have any impact on the mod in the future, but i still hope it does.

Pros:
-love the new hoplites as they seems more realistic this way
-the new campaing map gives more options how you want everything to play out
-Rome seems more ideal as it is 1 faction and don't steam roll over europe as fast as brutii/julii/scipii used to do
-barbarians get more unit types (Suebi gets more than others which is great)

Average:
-Macedonia is easy to massacre with greek cities as it has no walls and no out standing troops like the greek cities has Spartan hoplites, takes under 5 turns to wipe out macedon from the game (this is not good nor bad)

Cons:
-the phalanx has only 3 spear deep spear wall which seems underwhelming as i am used to 5 spear poking our from phalanx, they did deploy 3-5 spears deep spear walls but i would still prefer the orginal 5. ( mayby a separate mod for the phalanx would be a good compromise? )
-independent's have a bad habit to make troops way beyond what i was expecting.
the lesbians had 3 full armies on the little island what was a bit of an over
kill (it is good however that they do some troops but i should have a limit,
this might be due that they have so many settlements that they can make their
own profit.
-there still seems to be some unbalance between Egypt and The Seleucid Empire (this might have to do something with chariots as they usaly flip the balance of the battle way up while in reality on the battlefield chariots get annihilated by the phalanx,) and this on the campign map will result in seleucid defeat rather quickly, this could be fixed by campaign map nerf so they don't apear more powerfull as they realy are if they are against pikemen.

But nevertheless i like this mod
9/10 would play

ok i found the easiest way (with out any file surfing) to unlock all PLAYABLE factions for campaign: !STEP 1! start campiang as ROME and play SHORT CAMPAIGN. !STEP 2! when on campaign map, press § to open RomeShell.(§ should be on the left side of 1 on you keyboard and below ESC) (you need RomeShell open when i say to type) !STEP 2.1! type: toggle_fow (toggles fog of war, on/off)-- (this part is not needed you so can skip this step (2.1) if you want, but it makes it easier) !STEP 2.2! type in: surrender_regions gauls (no capital letters and no _ (underscore) between regions and gauls) (step 2.2 forces ''gauls'' or ''arvernis'' to leave their cities/towns thus destroying the faction. First condition for Roman victory is complete now you will need to hold 15 region/settlements or cities/towns... whatever you call them) !STEP 3! now you will need to move any unit to nearby town/city (for example take a unit of ''Town watch'' from Arretium and attack the town of Bononia) then lay siege to the town and commit an assault (this should result in 3% chance of victory BUT NOT TO WORRY) !STEP 3.1! while on the pre battle scroll, open RomeShell again and type: auto_win attacker (if you are attacking. when under attack type: auto_win defender. this command can some times results in a draw when trying to break AI's siege but you can still try again and again untill you win) anyway... when you have typed the command, then press automaticly resolve battle to gain your victory. then attack all other nearby settlements to get those 15 regions you need for victory. should take about 2 to 5 turns depends how you do it (i managed to do it in 2 turns) when you get the campign victory scroll just quit the campign and start a new one with the factions you just unlocked