PAE VI Patch 6.3

[pie_at]

thx Carlo, I've noticed the three points.

thx Antigenes, also the Egypt Hypaspist

What a great mod.

Some critics :

- The mod is too easy. I won easily on Deity/Quick speed on some scenarios (War of Diadochi). The A.I is dumb.

throug the modding years, I've learned a game must be winable on highest difficulty otherwise the difficulty would be senseless AND a game shall be more fun than challenging.

- Too much micro management. Each turn you have to manage lot of things : slaves, units, units formation (I don't underestand because when you pick a formation, all units on the group has to have the same).

Micromanagement is NOT necessary in PAE. Perhaps on higher difficult levels but not to win in a lower level.

- The main problem is the fact you can't have 0 % science. It force you to constantely sell units over and over. And selling units give much more gold than producing gold/science directly. Not logical I think. And why a people would be happy if 50 % of the ressources go to "science", but not if the ressource simply go into your treasure?

This mechanic seems realistic but create big macro economic problem you are constantely forced to solve.

Yes I know, this is a strange feature (50% of the taxes go into the kings wallet, but how else shall I implement a "too high tax" feature if not like this?
It's bad to get all taxes without upsetting the people.

I do not understand fully how to exploit the trade system. I want the trade roads, but even if I send 3 merchants, they are very very slowly build.
I understand that the main function of the merchant, is to grab a ressource you really want, then to copy it with your specialised food charriot.

Intended. this is random. and yes, the more you trade the higher the chance of getting a road. that's why it seems you get short distance roads quicklier than long distance roads (because of movement limits and turns)

A last thing about the trade roads : According to what I see, it's really better to have a short trade trip, because your merchant will reach it and come back much more frequently, than to have a long road, but win a bit more gold.

Yes. as you like. keep a short trade road for money purposes or try to get a long distance trade road for better army transfer too.

 

[Antigenes2]

Should dogs give a defensive bonus against spies? I'm just throwing that out there. Dogs were always used as a warning system against strangers. Just a thought.

 

[pie_at]

They do. bCounterSpy is activated for all dogs. so they can help throwing enemy spies out from territory like other spies.

 

[Antigenes2]

Oh, excellent.

Once again I have the foghorn bug. It only ocurs on some screens and on some maps. I think I have located the culprit (but there are thousands of sound files so it could be a similar-sounding file). It's a vanilla file called malihorn.001. Unless anyone knows differently I assume it's bug in the SDK so nothing to be done about it.

EDIT: I beg your pardon, it's malihorn.000. Renaming it seems to work but if that leads to problems editing the wav file and reducing the volume or just turrning it to silence should work. No-one else seems to get this bug but I don't see why it would be just me. I'm now getting an error message that the file malihorn.000 can't be found, which confirms the culprit. Something is calling
it. It doesn't crash the game but I'll edit the file to eliminate the message.

 

[pie_at]

Ah ok.... I've now searched for malihorn in the audio files. What happens, if you change the AudioDefines.xml in PAE/Assets/XML/Audio the SND_MALI_HORN?
eg instead Sounds/Units/MaliHorn into Sounds/Units/MaliBeads ?

Isn't it also used for the dec of a war?

 

[Antigenes2]

I don't know I'll have to check tomorrow.

Edit:

There's a DeclareWar.wav and a TheirDeclareWar.wav (and a TheirAlliance.wav which is the same as TheirDeclareWar.wav). I assume these get called under differing circumstances. They are both different to MaliHorn-000 or MaliHorn-001.

I changed SND_MALI_HORN to MaliBeads to no obvious effect, but the bug is intermittent. I thought I heard the beads once but it could have been my imagination. How does the game know which MaliHorn file to use, or is it random? That might account for me thinking it was MaliHorn-001 at first. The question though is why it gets called at all/what is it used for? So far, silencing the wav file has worked and not (yet) introduced any noticeable problems, but time will tell.

Also, I just noticed that Xerxes starts with the Ruler Cult civic (I don't often play the Persians). Is that intended? It's on all types of game so I don't know where it's set.

 

[pie_at]

Yes for Xerxes, this is intended.

 

[Antigenes2]

Has anyone mentioned religion spread in the current patch? It seems some religions spread too easily and so get adopted by all and sundry. In my current game eveyrone (I've met) has adopted Phoenician gods except Egypt, including Rome, Greeks, Libyans etc. Also Rome doesn't switch to Roman gods sometimes.

 

[The Fool King]

Not sure whether this is a bug:

I kept promoting my Legionaries in my provincial capital (with Military Academy) all the way through the optio and centurio ranks. At Primus Pilus (XI) I get both the green "upgrade to officer" button (which I now can't click unlike with the upgrade to the optio and centurio unit) as well as the "train with gold button" (which I can click, but nothing happens: the unit stays at Primus Pilus rank).

I know this is the point where the unit becomes a mounted unit (line officer) so I edited in a horse resource plus stable ... but apparently that's not what I was missing.

Is this a bug or am I overlooking something (the documentation on the ranking system could use some work. )?

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EDIT: Thanks to the green circles I found out what the mechanic was: line officers can only be promoted in the capital.
Different question though: Can the Equites not be promoted through the military academies (as I don't get the option)?

On a side note: I am a bit sad that line officers automatically become mounted units (thus making them suddenly less useful as city attackers, so you basically have to stop promoting them at Primus Pilus). I am not quite sure why you made that design choice, as while the officer may have been mounted, his troops certainly have not. It takes the fun out of the late promotion system a bit, when before every earned promotion felt gratifying. In the same vein Legio Imperialis is also slightly worse at attacking cities than their predecessor (losing the +10% against slingers and archers.
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EDIT 2: If I am not mistaken Praetorian units are not part of the ranking system. This effectively makes them less powerful units as legions get promoted and not in any way an elite unit. (I very much wish I hadn't "upgraded" my Legionaries to Praetorians forsaking all those juicy +strength modifiers you get from the ranks.) Was this intentional?





Btw - just a random thing; Cilician Pirates have no inflation per unit modifier (+X% for every further unit) atm and are thus quite cheap to build en masse ... I am guessing that's not intended.

 

[pie_at]

Has anyone mentioned religion spread in the current patch? It seems some religions spread too easily and so get adopted by all and sundry. In my current game eveyrone (I've met) has adopted Phoenician gods except Egypt, including Rome, Greeks, Libyans etc. Also Rome doesn't switch to Roman gods sometimes.

I don't know

Not sure whether this is a bug:

I kept promoting my Legionaries in my provincial capital (with Military Academy) all the way through the optio and centurio ranks. At Primus Pilus (XI) I get both the green "upgrade to officer" button (which I now can't click unlike with the upgrade to the optio and centurio unit) as well as the "train with gold button" (which I can click, but nothing happens: the unit stays at Primus Pilus rank).

ah thx, yes this is a bug. I will disable the button, when the legionary becomes XI. then it has to win at least a battle to be able to upgrade to an officer (capital).

Different question though: Can the Equites not be promoted through the military academies (as I don't get the option)?

No, they can't. Intended. They just start as a higher level soldier.

On a side note: I am a bit sad that line officers automatically become mounted units (thus making them suddenly less useful as city attackers, so you basically have to stop promoting them at Primus Pilus). I am not quite sure why you made that design choice, as while the officer may have been mounted, his troops certainly have not. It takes the fun out of the late promotion system a bit, when before every earned promotion felt gratifying.

But this is the best way, to simulate a ranking system. Officers don't rush into cities as first line.
Their part is to follow fleeing units or to flank them. or just to do the finish move after a siege

In the same vein Legio Imperialis is also slightly worse at attacking cities than their predecessor (losing the +10% against slingers and archers.

Yes, they losing the 10% against slingers and archers, but get 10% against axe and sword. So you should use them both. In the Roman army both types were used. the segmented armor was only a short test in Roman history. Not worth to keep this expensive system.

EDIT 2: If I am not mistaken Praetorian units are not part of the ranking system. This effectively makes them less powerful units as legions get promoted and not in any way an elite unit. (I very much wish I hadn't "upgraded" my Legionaries to Praetorians forsaking all those juicy +strength modifiers you get from the ranks.) Was this intentional?

Yes. But they are not really less powerful with a standard strength of 12 instead of 10. They also should be used different. The Praetorians shall better defend. Eg as garrison for strongholds. The veteran Praetorian can become the famous Praetorian Guard which is still stronger in city defense. Another use for Praets is the Villa Rustica; a better improvement for farming plots. so you shouldn't upgrade all your veteran legionaries to Praetorians. So only if you need to for other projects (Villa Rustica, City/Forts Defense).

Btw - just a random thing; Cilician Pirates have no inflation per unit modifier (+X% for every further unit) atm and are thus quite cheap to build en masse ... I am guessing that's not intended.

hm... in my version they have +50% penalty. Perhaps I had changed that meanwhile.

 

[The Fool King]

Yes. But they are not really less powerful with a standard strength of 12 instead of 10. They also should be used different. The Praetorians shall better defend. Eg as garrison for strongholds. The veteran Praetorian can become the famous Praetorian Guard which is still stronger in city defense. Another use for Praets is the Villa Rustica; a better improvement for farming plots. so you shouldn't upgrade all your veteran legionaries to Praetorians. So only if you need to for other projects (Villa Rustica, City/Forts Defense).

I don't see how their mere strength compares. The sum of all those rank strength bonuses is pretty powerful. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head but a centurio (Primus Pilus) has a lot more strength through his ranks bonuses than a Praetorian with his extra 2 base strength. I like the idea that they are better as defenders, but I wonder: shouldn't they get some inherent defensive bonuses then?

I have to confess I never saw the point of "wasting" a Praetorian (getting veteran Legionaries takes a while) on a Villa Rustica upgrade which consumes him. I love the concept of the late game Villa Rustica improvement chain, but at that point in the game so very little is gained by that improvement upgrade that it never feels worth sacrificing a powerful unit for (not to mention how long it takes to build the base unit at that point (or buy it through a Shieldbearer upgrade). That essentially makes the Villa Rustica a flavor thing to make the map pretty or play out the story of your empire in a certain way. Would I prefer a different mechanic (not consuming the unit but making the improvement much more expensive for example)? Sure ... but then this mod offers so much that I am certainly not going to gripe about this one small design choice.

Btw, thanks for all the fun - been enjoying the mod since since PAE III.

 

[pie_at]

Yes, I could give him city a city defense bonus like the guard. then it would be more understandable.
for the Villa Rustica: yes, I don't make this a global thing. it should be special. And praetorians shouldn't be overcrowded. So I like the idea to waste this unit to limit it in a special way.