What is this for?
The summer release will include new units and new features such as reform events. Invariably these are complicated things with a lot of toggles and settings which need to be calibrated correctly for the gameplay experience the team desires to give everyone. We won't necessarily get that right the first time, which is why we're pre-releasing some of those features, in a format compatible with 2.01. This means it's accessible to everyone, without releasing a complete update of the whole game.
What we want people to do is play some campaigns with these new features and give your feedback. Obviously we want the usual feedback on bugs or errors, things you like and don't like, things that can be improved. But more specifically we want feedback on:
- Campaign AI behaviour - does the AI combine armies properly and attack with large stacks; move with purpose; respond appropriately either to attack or defend; conduct diplomacy consistent with it's military activities; use balanced armies; use it's navies appropriately; does each faction feel like it is acting according to it's own agenda, not all following the same script?
- Campaign AI economics - harder to discern, but does the AI seem to have unlimited money, throwing stack after stack at you, or it is more constrained than it was; is the replenishment rate change noticeable?
- Early campaign difficulty - are the Rebel garrisons in particular appropriately daunting, or are they too big? How quickly to AI factions expand?
- Battle AI behaviour - does the AI hold a line, execute a plan of it's own rather than trying to "match" your movement, try to turn your flanks with cavalry and light infantry?
- Unit performance - does cavalry move at a realistic speed and have the right impact when charging; does infantry move at a realistic speed and keep their formations when moving and fighting; do skirmishers use their missiles properly and seem effective against unarmoured targets and from the rear; are elephants effective and realistic-seeming; do units generally have a feeling of weight and solidity to them, not like two blobs brushing against each other? When feeding back here, be specific about which units you observed.
- Family dynamics - is the reduction in the Coming of Age noticeable, and how does it impact play?
Note, "give me new units" or "dude, where's my Romans?" is not the sort of feedback we're seeking here - you'll get those in the summer release.
What's changed?
An awful lot. What we've done is mimic, as far as is possible without compiling a completely new installation of the game, the current mechanical state of the development build. To summarise:
- The export_descr_character_traits.txt hotfix is included, so there's no longer a need to download that separately.
- Battle AI, pathfinding, formations, and campaign AI have been completely reworked. The AI should be much more active and consistent in its behaviour.
- Diplomacy has been reworked, with individual faction-based AI, each with it's own goals.
- As an optional add-on, Force Diplomacy has been included - you don't have to use it, but it's there if you want to.
- Unit stats and physics have been completely overhauled, almost every unit has been updated. Skirmishers will throw their javelins, cavalry will charge effectively, phalanxes keep their formations, cohesion should be improved, elephants will behave appropriately. On the physics, it should feel a little more like RTW in the solidity of the units.
- Projectiles have been reworked, missiles are now effective, but not overpowered.
- A small potential bug with quotes has been fixed.
- Bosporans can now recruit units from the Hellenistic Poleis building, just like the other Hellenistic factions, an omission now fixed.
- Hellenistic Poleis now allows the recruitment of levy-grade Greek troops at all levels.
- Three settlements; Massalia, Baktra and Oskobara; have had their culture mix altered slightly.
- The placement of Hellenistic Poleis and Colony buildings has been adjusted. Emporion, Arbela and Sousa lose their Poleis building; Rhegion, Messana and Chersonesos gain one.
- Mazaka and Khiva have gone Rebel, to more accurately reflect how they should be represented. Both have powerful independent rulers.
- Garrisons and armies have been updated; they have been made more varied and more regional in nature. Furthermore, Rebel garrisons have been increased across the board, which should make the early game more challenging and AI expansion slower.
- A bonus to recruitment replenishment rate for the Hellenistic factions when played by the AI has been removed.
- Huge cities have been disabled for the time being, given the lack of battlemap models for most cultures.
- Coming of Age has been reduced to 14 as a trial to see how that impacts play. There are a handful of new FMs at the start of the game as a result.
- Akus Eporedoi's display name has been fixed.
- Huge changes to the campaign script; most significantly the money script has been completely rewritten. The differences between human and AI players' economies should be less unbalanced. Hopefully that should help address the "one province, four full stacks" issue.
- A new pseudo-reform event takes place in 257BC, bringing in Euzonoi, Thureophoroi and Machairophoroi, which are no longer present or available at the start of the game. There's no notification, just a change to recruitment options. This applies to mercenaries as well as recruited troops.
- Mercenary rosters have been altered to reflect the absence of two of those units at the start. Machimoi Phalangitai are also not available as mercenaries initially. Italic units will disappear in 100BC if you're still playing by then.
Given the updates to the AI behaviour and bigger Rebel garrisons, we'd recommend you play on M/M difficulty; the AI won't need statistical assistance to be a challenge.
How do I install this?
This is an incremental update to Europa Barbarorum II version 2.01. You need a clean, unmodified installation of 2.01 (from
here if you don't already have it). That means if you've been using b0Gia's submod compilation, for example, you will need to uninstall and re-install 2.01. These changes are not compatible, but b0Gia's later modpacks, issued after this update will be.
1) Download the zip containing all the files, attached here:
EBII 2.02 Update.zip.
2) Open the zip file, drag and drop the \data\ folder onto [your M2TW folder]\mods\EBII\ folder - say yes to overwrite everything it queries.
3) Go to [your M2TW folder]\mods\EBII\data\text\ and sort by type. Highlight all the .bin files and delete them. Don't worry, the game will regenerate them.
Optional: We'd also recommend you install the
vegetation and lighting graphical enhancements, which is compatible with this.
4) Run the game, starting a new Grand Campaign first, even if you don't save it. This step is vitally important as it generates a new map.rwm.
5) Enjoy!
What about the "summer release"?
We're still working on it, don't worry. You'll hear more about it when we are able to share more.
As ever, thank you for your support and remember to read more history!