Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

Folks, the patch is up and link updated in the 1st post. I hope installation will be ok. Sorry for the delay.
Asclepius, got your (half) vote That brings us to 1.5 (def3) vs. 2 (def4) if I don't mistake, without me voting right now.
Jobiwan, I am going to test your units today. Thanks guy!
For your problems, normal vanilla legionaries with Cleopatra will do fine, Incursore can be just three disruptores, and Mithridates 3 Sarmatian Swordsmen.

testing now... though it does take a long time to start a new game in the beginning

Yes, I know. I had to restart the game at least 7 times before getting the advances boxes at the right place

pinktilapia said:

For your problems, normal vanilla legionaries with Cleopatra will do fine, Incursore can be just three disruptores, and Mithridates 3 Sarmatian Swordsmen.

Click to expand...

OK, I'll start working on that.

pinktilapia said:

Yes, I know. I had to restart the game at least 7 times before getting the advances boxes at the right place

Click to expand...

That can't be fun!

hey pink, i notice that my legionaries seem to be losing a lot more this time around... just luck or did i miss something?

also, are bellatores too powerful do you think? i mean they are so much better than the legios

Finally, here are the last two units.

First are the fearsome Incursores! I made this unit a while ago, so there's an extra person. I hope that is OK.

Secondly, I have Mithridates!

Enjoy!

VERY EXCITED. THANKS

First thing- maybe I did something by accident, since no one else is commenting...but the scenario is in DEBUG mode, when first downloaded? Easy to fix, just surprised me at first...
Glad to see the Hidden Nationality not in effect on barbarians... I LOVED the idea at first, but after testing it, used on all the barb. units... it really bogged the game down and only at the 2nd Punic War- maybe from all the fighting between barbarians... still gotta solve how to get them to come at Rome, without making it too crazy... I'm all about the Barbarians (writing a book set in Dark Age Germany/Scythia), so I would love for that part to be played out right... yet look at the Firaxis scenario =)P

Before I test .7 - I have an idea... Since you got rid of the useless desert tiles near the Caspian Sea, which is good for game speed (I totally agree) even if the map looks wierd... then why keep the Arabian Pennisula tiles that aren't used, or if were used, wouldn't matter? I think the potential for the Ptolemies to go wandering in that desert area is too much, besides any overall game speed effects....

also- are Velites suppose to be able to join a city? They don't cost any population and therefore do nothing when one accidently clicks to join city...

Thanks Jobiwan, that was so fast I can't believe it! I let you know when I get the units installed and be sure they should be in next patch.

Er now... did I forgot Debug on...? My bad.
I have done some thinking between two rushes on how to simulate the barbarian invasions:

All core barbarian cities are on marshes; all Roman units can spot invisible units

1. Sassanid Empire (if we need to make them stronger)
- Reducing the cost of their late unit, the cataphract-equivalent

2. Scythia
- Attila's Horse is still generated by wonder by 350AC, is of Hidden Nationality (HN) and Invisible (INV), they HP are increased even more to the equivalent of a 3-units army (12-15 HP), and they can enslave Huns from defeated enemies. As such, only one of this unit can wreak havoc in Roman territory on its own, adding progressively an army to escort it, and without being at war with Rome.
- Hun are buildable, equally of HN and INV

3. Germania
- Incursores (and their great new graphics!) are now only wonder generated aby 400AC nd similar to Attila's Horse with massive HP, HN and INV. They enslave marauders.
- Marauders are buildable, cheap, also spawned by a wonder in each city (Incursio Magna), INV but without HN

--> For the Germanics, this should help having a minor invasion (led only by a few incursores, which conquered city can't be taken back by the Roman without a war) and massive invasion (War bwteen Germanics and Romans) with all the massed marauders attacking in one time.

@Blietzkrieg: yes, HN should only be given to all these unit late in the game, when Rome is huge at the AI territory greatly reduced. Likely, slow-down shouldn't be an issue by then. I am really going to focus on this issue since it seems other problems are getting fixed at last. A book hu... any chance we could have a sneak preview ?

About Arabia becoming a sea, well, the map will really look odd after that. Also, that desert can populated by 'real' civ barbarians which greatly help at keeping camels dying and control Egypt's army size. If you give a try, let me of the results (especially on game speed).

@Randy: Pictii will be reinforced as well since loosing their INV advantage. I rather won't add a resource to strengthen their economy, maybe just reduce the cost of the Pictii unit, or give them a unit-spawning wonder? Might add HP to their unit as well.

@Coltrane: I tried to make the barb more powerful, with reduced cost and better stat. Since you shouldn't be at war with them before having consular legions at hand, it should be ok. Besides, Rome really feared these guys until Caesar's campaign. So now, YOU WILL FEAR THEM lol. This could be another argument to give these early legio their D4. Otherwise, I just added BOMB2 to these legio, so they should be better of than before vs. civilized opponents (phalanx were stenghten a bit, but lost their HP bonus).

Ok, I look forward on your comments on this version and hope we can get to something like a v1.0 after next patch !

blitzkrieg80 said:

also- are Velites suppose to be able to join a city? They don't cost any population and therefore do nothing when one accidently clicks to join city...

Click to expand...

Ah! They did cost pop in a earlier version but it seems I didn't unchecked the box right. Will be fixed in next patch (you know the song )

Jobiwan! I was looking at the units files (not in-game yet, that will be for this evening). Is the incursore you made is composed of gallic swordsmen? These are the Praedatores in RFRE (that make me a unit for a massive group of raiders, which I could add now that I have another great unit ) but could you make another one composed of Play the World's Berserkers (which are the actual disruptores in RFRE) to be used as the Incursore unit? Thanks

I think Hidden Nationality later on sounds really good... It's too bad Hidden Nationality can't work ealier - I had some interesting experiences (repeatedly) with the Auriga Celtic chariots invading Northern Italy at just about the time they did historically while Rome was becoming great... I tried just giving 2 movement units Hidden Nationality... but like mentioned- game speed... I think its true that once Rome is on their border, then there is no worry of interbarbarian warfare to weaken themselves... although I have a Q - Do AI players who are in a Locked Alliance still attack each other with Hidden Nationality units?
Also- even if a Hidden Nationality unit is invisible, won't it attack the nearest city?

Hooray! The patch is out!

blitzkrieg80 said:

Also- even if a Hidden Nationality unit is invisible, won't it attack the nearest city?

Click to expand...

No, it will attack the closest thing that it can see and kill. Like with the Pictii in N. England that I had to deal with in my last game; I had built fortifications along the southern border of Scotland and threw some archers and legions up there. When the Picts finally built one of those Pictish Warriors, they could've easily just snuck through my fortifications and attacked the weak city right by them. But instead, they started attacking my legions and archers in the fortifications.

Okay, here's that list I promised you, pink. This is just from looking at the new biq.

- Croton could use some kind of resource down there to help it actually have some production. I just added an Olive resource on the hill just south of it.

- Diocese are just improvements that can be built anywhere now? Intended? Also, neither Renovatio Diocletiani nor Diocese require Absolutism as government.

- You forgot to add the anchor for Hadrian's Wall. I also reduced the cost to 2 (= 20 shields) so it won't still take forever to create. Corruption is always huge in that city (i.e. only 1 shield per turn).

- costs of Crux lesi and Bibla need to be reduced...again a corruption problem. Recommend reducing both wonders down to 2 (=20 shields).

- for my testing purpose, I increased the min tech rate up to 12. I'm going to look at how many techs there are now, again, to re-calculate whether I'm going to have to adjust that to keep Rome from advancing too far ahead.

- the "Limes xxx" wonder's prices still need to be greatly reduced, esp. the ones that have an anchor. I wouldn't even bother building the ones that have anchors with their current prices. I reduced the non-anchored one to 10 (=100 shields) and the anchored ones to 5 (=50 shields).

- I'm implementing the Civil War as a transition government idea into this patch as well. Reducing all Civil War wonders and the Civitas' costs to 0. Also removed Forced Resettlement from Christian Principate since the Forced Resettlement from going into Civil War as a transition government will be enough. Also removed Religious trait from Romans so that Civil War will last more than 2 turns.

- reduced Edictum Mediolani's cost to 20 (=200 shields), again, because of massive population losses during this time period.

- raised the early Legio's defense back up to 4 and made the Hoplites Alarii have no population cost (they are representative of using allied Italian nation's troops, and not troops consisting of your own Roman citizens, after all). I know, I know, I've said it a billion times. But I just had to put it in.

- reduced the Roman's Castrum Numidici to 5 (=50 shields) because of corruption problems that will exist in the city it must be built in.

- in the game's current state (no changes made by me), there's really no reason to switch over to a Christian Principate gvt instead of a Principate gvt later in the game. There's really no advantage of switching over to the Christian Principate over the normal Principate or Absolutism other than the Minimal corruption, which is only minor when you have so many cities. Maybe make some special wonder that can only be created in Constantinople under a Christian Principate government that makes a good number of citizens happy or something.

- the only effect the Roman player gets from building Persecutiones Christiani is putting a building in all cities that removes 2 culture per turn. I don't think anyone would want to build something like that. So instead, why not make Persecutiones Christiani add 30 or 60 culture per turn to Rome (where it must be built, because it can require the Rome resource anchor) every turn to make Rome the "great" city that it was cultural-wise. And then just keep everything else the same.

- reduced the cost of Via ad Orientum wonder to 10 (=100 shields) because of corruption problems that will occur in the city it must be built in.

- increased the value of mining hills from +1 to +2 for the much-needed production boost.

- added a Game resource in the forest north of Barium to help with growth and production problems in that city.

- implemented the later invisible/hidden nationality barbarian units + all Roman units having Detect Invisible idea.

Phew! I think that's everything!

pinktilapia said:

Jobiwan! I was looking at the units files (not in-game yet, that will be for this evening). Is the incursore you made is composed of gallic swordsmen? These are the Praedatores in RFRE (that make me a unit for a massive group of raiders, which I could add now that I have another great unit ) but could you make another one composed of Play the World's Berserkers (which are the actual disruptores in RFRE) to be used as the Incursore unit? Thanks

Click to expand...

Sorry! I'll finish that later today.

Did you want just berserkers? Or do you want me to combine the berserkers and gallic swordsmen? I could do that, too.

Alright, so I downloaded this awesome looking MOD and the corresponding patch, got them where they needed to be, and started the campaign. The loading time is huge, but I guess that's to be expected. Anything I can do to speed that up?

More importantly, when I begin, there is NO fog of war, period. Is that correct?

Finally, all the menus are filled with additional text. For example, when I go into diplomacy with another nation, there is text next to say "Good Bye" with something along the lines of "PLAYERQUITNEG". Instead of Rome - Republic for eg, it's DEBUG - Republic.

Any pointers on what I need to do in order to get everything above back on track so I can enjoy this cool looking MOD?

Thanks in advance,

~Jaden~

You are in "debug mode." To return to the normal game, open the Mod in the Editor, go to "Properties," and find where it says "debug mode." Un-check the box and save.

Jaden said:

Alright, so I downloaded this awesome looking MOD and the corresponding patch, got them where they needed to be, and started the campaign. The loading time is huge, but I guess that's to be expected. Anything I can do to speed that up?

More importantly, when I begin, there is NO fog of war, period. Is that correct?

Finally, all the menus are filled with additional text. For example, when I go into diplomacy with another nation, there is text next to say "Good Bye" with something along the lines of "PLAYERQUITNEG". Instead of Rome - Republic for eg, it's DEBUG - Republic.

Any pointers on what I need to do in order to get everything above back on track so I can enjoy this cool looking MOD?

Thanks in advance,

~Jaden~

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Pink accidentally left the newest patch in Debug mode. Just go tothe editor and undo the debug mode option--it's under scenario properties.

Great new patch!!

Brilliant. Thanks. guys. Had my knowledge of the Editor been even remotely decent, I'm sure I could have figured that out. Thanks again.

~Jaden~

Okay, here are the. . .uh. . .even more fearsome Incursores! (with Berserkers)

Enjoy!