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Game News Europa Barbarorum II released

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It's a piece of shit. Like every Medieval 2 mods. There's no reason to use this sorry excuse of an engine who's collision mechanism fell on itself. Play Europa Barbarorum on Rome 1 like it's intended to. A much superior engine.
 

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It's a piece of shit. Like every Medieval 2 mods. There's no reason to use this sorry excuse of an engine who's collision mechanism fell on itself. Play Europa Barbarorum on Rome 1 like it's intended to. A much superior engine.

Dude, the engine with the catastrophic collision mechanics started only with Empire (and they still use it today, motherfuckers...)

Anyway, some impressions after playing about a 100 turns with Pergamon:
  • Game is quite stable for an alpha release, few crashes (about one every two hours I'd guess) and no game breaking bugs that I've found (only experienced a couple of UI glitches)
  • Battles are really fun, I've had some crazy ones against Epirus where after 10 minutes of slogging match I'd finally manage to create a breach in their line and ram their phalanx in the back causing a mass rout. AI does a decent job at protecting its flanks and rear with skirmishers, so it's not as easy as it was in EB1.
  • Combat balance is still a bit in the air as they are constantly tweaking it. Sword unit should really chew up phalanxes flanks and rear way more quickly than what they are doing now. Cavalry units (not just cataphracts mind you) have way to much of an easy time charging Hoplites fronts scott-free.
  • The AI has so far been decent (for CA games of course). I builds good enough stacks and doesn't send random unit everywhere like it did in M2TW. It's battle performance is good enough and supposedly has been really imrpoved with the recent 2.02c patch.
  • Diplomacy is generally stable. After beating down the previously mentioned Epirus for example we signed a peace treaty and it's still holding up 40 turns later. No hyper aggressive diplomatic AI either (except for the Romans declaring war and then just blockading some port for a while).
  • It is still an alpha and it shows in the unit department. As Pergamon I have no access to elite units and the roster is really small in comparison to EB1. Romans don't have Polybian units yet and nations like Armenia are lacking in everything. The announced summer patch should fix that thought.
All in all it should be quite fun once they figure out the battle balance and add the promised features like the reforms listed here http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?148141-Reform-requirements which for now don't do much if they even work at all (I'm looking at you Pergamon reform :argh:). I'm going to wait for the summer patch before going back to it. What's the point of playing a EB game if I can't have my argyraspides squaring off against Polybian legionaries (both those units aren't in game yet)?
 
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It's a piece of shit. Like every Medieval 2 mods. There's no reason to use this sorry excuse of an engine who's collision mechanism fell on itself. Play Europa Barbarorum on Rome 1 like it's intended to. A much superior engine.

Dude, the engine with the catastrophic collision mechanics started only with Empire (and they still use it today, motherfuckers...)



The vast majority of you popamolers didn't play anything before Medieval 2 so you have no idea how much of an horrifying bugfest the release was, and the decline in the battle engine from Rome 1, itself a decline from medieval 1.
 

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The vast majority of you popamolers didn't play anything before Medieval 2
Are we going to compare dick sizes when we discovered the TW series? (for that matter my first one was M1TW)
you have no idea how much of an horrifying bugfest the release was, and the decline in the battle engine from Rome 1, itself a decline from medieval 1.
Good thing that was only at launch and the EB team is using the patched Kingdoms expansion then, isn't it?
 
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What part of the battle engine and collision is terrible does your tiny britbong brain have trouble understanding.
 

Andnjord

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Please then illuminate my microscopic Brittbong brain and explain how was M2TW engine so drastically inferior to the RTW one. I shall allow you to even link to a relevant video or article detailing your points in case you haven't got the time to stoop yourself to the low level of a Brittbong brain or you've never bothered to develop them out your own majestic dick-brain.

That is of course assuming you haven't just watched this video and then conflated Empire with M2TW
 
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I know the person who made this video, personally, and I've seen it. Yes he is right.

No Medieval 2 was awful. Medieval 2 had broken soldiers movement, that made every cavalry charge completely worthless unless on a flat plain, head on with a long time to form a straight line. Not broken because of some realistic unit cohesion physics, but because of an unrealistic constipation of every single man that makes them stop and move as slow as possible everytime a single soldier of the unit is engaged. This constipation also applies to attack animations, which means you end up with absurd cases where a single unit of peasant can take down an army of Knights coming out of the tower. Because they're stuck in gelatin, their trajectory of climbing a tower to a wall being too complex for the engine to handle.

Rome suffered from this but not as much. Why it was worse in medieval is probably because of the new combat animations they introduced. Rome had only one animations and soldiers didn't need to individually lock on to initiate it. Medieval had several custom animations for one soldier, needing two soldiers to be locked into it. Or perhaps it's because of the computing power new animations required, that led to a bad optimization where soldiers AI slows down to allow the software to handle it.

The death animation was not added in empire. It's bullshit. The problem was already in Medieval 2. I do believe suppressing collision was their work around this, and it failed. It certainly took a huge load off the engine, which they probably needed for the tons of new animations and bigger units.

Total war is one of the few games who can turn your CPU into a bottleneck, for all the soldiers coordinates and actions are handled by this part.
 

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There, much more civilized and productive Mr Rex. Let me address those points as they stand in EB2 (discussing M2TW would not be interesting, this is a EB2 thread after all).

that made every cavalry charge completely worthless unless on a flat plain, head on with a long time to form a straight line.
This is something they have improved in EB2. As long as they are a minimum distance away cavalry units will receive their charge bonus. Being in a straight line makes it more effective as you have more guys hitting at the same time but not indispensable. And terrain is quite generous, I've managed to break phalanxes with flank charges while charging through woods on a slight uphill slope.

Not broken because of some realistic unit cohesion physics, but because of an unrealistic constipation of every single man that makes them stop and move as slow as possible everytime a single soldier of the unit is engaged.
Again something they have improved in EB2, with the exception of phalanxes. As it stands they are the only type of unit that behaves in a glitchy manner because of a problem with their unit leader and standard bearer (but they are supposedly working on it)

This constipation also applies to attack animations, which means you end up with absurd cases where a single unit of peasant can take down an army of Knights coming out of the tower. Because they're stuck in gelatin, their trajectory of climbing a tower to a wall being too complex for the engine to handle.
This I disagree with. Maybe it happened at launch (but that was 6 years ago, not going to remember that anymore), but it has been improved in subsequent patches of the vanilla game.

Medieval had several custom animations for one soldier, needing two soldiers to be locked into it. Or perhaps it's because of the computing power new animations required, that led to a bad optimization where soldiers AI slows down to allow the software to handle it.

The death animation was not added in empire. It's bullshit. The problem was already in Medieval 2.

You are mistaken here. While it is true that combat animation were slower and more complex than in RTW, they didn't lock 2 soldiers in a choreography. Multiple soldiers could still engage a single one and take him down faster, none of the single guard unit taking down endless militia bullshit because they can't be attacked simultaneously that started with Empire.
 

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so you are gonna deny yourself the pinnacle of da TW mods cause "colision" issues?

are ye sure you just cant get into "olde grafik"?

Well, for one it is not the pinnacle of TW mods (that honour goes to EB1, maybe once EB2 will be finished). And if you have a look at the video I posted above (starting at about 20 minutes), collision issues can have real gameplay consequences.
 
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There, much more civilized and productive Mr Rex. Let me address those points as they stand in EB2 (discussing M2TW would not be interesting, this is a EB2 thread after all).

that made every cavalry charge completely worthless unless on a flat plain, head on with a long time to form a straight line.
This is something they have improved in EB2. As long as they are a minimum distance away cavalry units will receive their charge bonus. Being in a straight line makes it more effective as you have more guys hitting at the same time but not indispensable. And terrain is quite generous, I've managed to break phalanxes with flank charges while charging through woods on a slight uphill slope.

Not broken because of some realistic unit cohesion physics, but because of an unrealistic constipation of every single man that makes them stop and move as slow as possible everytime a single soldier of the unit is engaged.
Again something they have improved in EB2, with the exception of phalanxes. As it stands they are the only type of unit that behaves in a glitchy manner because of a problem with their unit leader and standard bearer (but they are supposedly working on it)

This constipation also applies to attack animations, which means you end up with absurd cases where a single unit of peasant can take down an army of Knights coming out of the tower. Because they're stuck in gelatin, their trajectory of climbing a tower to a wall being too complex for the engine to handle.
This I disagree with. Maybe it happened at launch (but that was 6 years ago, not going to remember that anymore), but it has been improved in subsequent patches of the vanilla game.

Medieval had several custom animations for one soldier, needing two soldiers to be locked into it. Or perhaps it's because of the computing power new animations required, that led to a bad optimization where soldiers AI slows down to allow the software to handle it.

The death animation was not added in empire. It's bullshit. The problem was already in Medieval 2.

You are mistaken here. While it is true that combat animation were slower and more complex than in RTW, they didn't lock 2 soldiers in a choreography. Multiple soldiers could still engage a single one and take him down faster, none of the single guard unit taking down endless militia bullshit because they can't be attacked simultaneously that started with Empire.

1. The issue at hand is that the cavalry charges typically turned into 4 cavalry men charged the enemy, while the rest of the unit was spread behind like some trail and not doing anything.

2. Phallanxes have been broken in every mod they've been introduced in. I know that a decade ago, a modding genius broke down the engine code of Medieval 2, which allowed a multiplication of mods that few other games have. Third age made custom settlements possible, but to think that someone fixed the unit cohesion mechanism? I will have to see it for myself because I don't believe it.

3. It still happens regularly, even in the latest patch (there were only about 3), the unit movement around walls in completely broken. Soldiers get stuck and come out of the siege tower slowly and one by one. The attack speed of the heavy soldiers is still broken as far as I know. The animation takes too long to fire off and as long as they are outnumbered, they are stopped in every attacks.

4. Medieval introduced the lock down. That several units can lock down one is true, which causes the problem of heavies being too easily swarmed, but to initiate the animation itself their coordinates become linked for a time. This was here in Rome 1 but to a lesser extent because the animation was one fast simple attack with a single flinch animation on the side of the enemy. The medieval 2 animations could be long-winded and result in defensive animations.

In empire Shogun 2, multiple soldiers surrounding one results in a massive penalty for this one soldier. That an elite guard can take down several cheap levies makes sense, in medieval we have the opposite where as long as you have 3 peasants surrounding a knight, he's dead, because he will never get to initiate his animation. I never played Empire more than 2 hours, I have no idea whether this fix was there or not.
 
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so you are gonna deny yourself the pinnacle of da TW mods cause "colision" issues?

are ye sure you just cant get into "olde grafik"?

Medieval 2 is the pinnacle of Total War graphics. The game runs smooth, the soldiers look solid without their own equipment half clipping into them, and detailed enough too. Only Shogun 2 comes close, because of it's colors and attention to detail. Stainless steel and Third age have lovely unit models.
 

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1. The issue at hand is that the cavalry charges typically turned into 4 cavalry men charged the enemy, while the rest of the unit was spread behind like some trail and not doing anything.
I haven't seen it happen in EB2 yet, except in a couple of cases, when their cohesion was already broken due to constant disengagements and charges.

2. Phallanxes have been broken in every mod they've been introduced in. I know that a decade ago, a modding genius broke down the engine code of Medieval 2, which allowed a multiplication of mods that few other games have. Third age made custom settlements possible, but to think that someone fixed the unit cohesion mechanism? I will have to see it for myself because I don't believe it.

They work reasonably well in EB2 as long as you don't make them run around like headless chicken whilst constantly making them go in and out of phalanx mode. They are a more static than in RTW and EB1 but I think they are workable (except for those unit commanders, but that only shows up when you make them sprint). I agree it gives a different gameplay as it is slower one.

3. It still happens regularly, even in the latest patch (there were only about 3), the unit movement around walls in completely broken. Soldiers get stuck and come out of the siege tower slowly and one by one. The attack speed of the heavy soldiers is still broken as far as I know. The animation takes too long to fire off and as long as they are outnumbered, they are stopped in every attacks.

Yes, I'll agree that wall movement is pretty bad as it stands. Siege towers on the other hand tends to work well once they actually decided to climb it (which problematically they sometimes don't).
As for the attack speed of heavy soldiers I think you're referring to the two handed bug and it was indeed a problem. Feudal knights equipped with swords and shields for instance never had that problem. The attack speed of two handed troops was too slow and as a result they were constantly interrupted. As far I'm aware though, it's been
fixed with the Kingdoms expansion (and thus in EB2).

in medieval we have the opposite where as long as you have 3 peasants surrounding a knight, he's dead, because he will never get to initiate his animation.
I'll have to disagree with you here as this has not been my experience. Neither with Kingdoms (the one where I actually played recently enough to remember it) nor with EB2.
 
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The two handed bug happened with my aragorn unit and another nasgul unit in Third Age. Several times. Based on Kingdom. I doubt it's been fixed because it's not a bug. It's just that their animation is slower, and it's something only medieval 2 had, and it's retarded. Rome's attack speeds were mostly the same jerky trust, and later titles had the choreography.

They still exit siege towers like slugs, compare it to Rome 2 where they at least make a more convincing push.

When I said unit cohesion mechanism I wasn't speaking of Phalanxes. That they made Phalanxes not completely broken I can believe. That they fixed the issues I mentioned, I don't think so. I remember on their official forum, users asking them a similar question. In their own words because the problem is hard to describe. One of the modders was clueless as to what they were asking (typical imbecile who shuts down his critical mind completely when playing), the other seemed to have understood but said they weren't focusing on this.
 

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The two handed bug happened with my aragorn unit and another nasgul unit in Third Age. Several times. Based on Kingdom. I doubt it's been fixed because it's not a bug. It's just that their animation is slower, and it's something only medieval 2 had, and it's retarded. Rome's attack speeds were mostly the same jerky trust, and later titles had the choreography.

My Trakians Peltastai fighting two handed consistently destroyed other non elite units, so something must have been fixed I guess
One of the modders was clueless as to what they were asking (typical imbecile who shuts down his critical mind completely when playing), the other seemed to have understood but said they weren't focusing on this.
These two guys: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...Updated-Pathfinding-Campaign-AI-and-Battle-AI and http://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-quot-fixes-integrated-and-many-other-changes seem to be working on it. Not sure how much of an improvements they make since I used them straight away, but my experience with unit cohesion has been satisfying. That being said siege path-finding was quite terrible most of the time (especially with regards to gates) and walls.
 
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By pathfinding, they mean the AI unit as a whole, or the individual soldiers in the unit? Because that's not the same thing.

The problem with siege is part of the bigger problem, that soldiers drag down the unit, and it's made worse with the obstacles and doorways in a siege. If it isn't fixed, then normal battles probably still suffer it.

How are the custom settlements? Did they make the Roman ones? How many types have they done.
 

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By pathfinding, they mean the AI unit as a whole, or the individual soldiers in the unit? Because that's not the same thing.

I think they actually include both. The mods are very badly presented in their OP, but I remember reading in the discussions that they improved both (or at least they are addressed each in a different one). Worth noting that both mods have been applied into the latest patch (mid May)

The problem with siege is part of the bigger problem, that soldiers drag down the unit, and it's made worse with the obstacles and doorways in a siege. If it isn't fixed, then normal battles probably still suffer it.
While you are right on this, in field battles the problem is far less noticeable and damaging. It's not perfect but from memory it works better than vanilla M2TW did.

How are the custom settlements? Did they make the Roman ones? How many types have they done.
Settlements are one of the big incomplete parts for now (which I forgot to include in my previously written impressions). You get big empty spaces where they haven't done the models for the buildings for example, and the customization is... spotty at best. Not much variety to be found yet.


EDIT: Something that I'd forgotten to mention and that is quite annoying, is that phalanxes don't have secondary weapons due to harcoded limits. Quite the tragedy actually.
 
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