(Still on my Parthia kick, even if I slightly miss the ability to form a remotely effective infantry line compared to hoplite-style lines, since their very utmost are 60 defense, 65 armor and 35 health... 40 attack/50 damage, but still)

Co-op with my brother again, and he started as Egypt. As things are, he started with 6, and has 14 provinces right now. I started with Parthia's 1, but have 25 provinces...

The faction summary is reasonably accurate, that the pre-existing road system really helps them move along. That, and starting with access to Heavy Cavalry and pretty darn useful Parthian Horse Archers is nice. In fact, while I plan to research for Eastern Cataphracts and Noble Horse Archers after my next tech, the only military tech I've even gone into a tree to research so far, is to unlock creating Champions.
(minor irony, as I think I might have trained two Champions early, but I currently command 10/3 of them, while I still only have 3/3 for Spies and Dignitaries)

That, and the free wealth-from-commerce that they get in Eastern settlements (50/lvl capitols and 25/lvl minor), and innate +10% commerce wealth from being Parthia, really adds up. We both pay around 6~6.5k in military upkeep at the moment, but while he has ~5k net income, I have ~13.5k net income. Just started upgrading to level 3 settlements last turn, too.

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On a completely unrelated note, does anybody know of a quick fix to the fact that my game is apparently refusing to pan or scroll camera with keyboard commands or mouse-at-edge-of-screen? I can click on the minimap and screen to move the camera focus, but it won't even rotate the camera right now either.
It just started this now, or perhaps shortly before I stopped last night.

Also, it shouldn't need to be said, but just in case, Mouse Scroll option is still toggled as being on.
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Well, the Home and End keys at least do their job, but I would like to rotate at my leisure, and actually pan/scroll the damned thing properly...

 

That actually depends on what culture you play. I thought the same when I played with Rome but now I did a run as Pontus (I have yet to find out how to use pikemen against nomadic enemies... their archers always slaughter me) and found them quite useful.

And they should give Egypt and Carthage some NAP with a few neighbouring states... they have the best starting positions but always get overrun within 10-30 turns. (In my opinion all "major" factions could use some tuning... they die pretty fast and never really expand)

 

Patch 3 information has been released.

On a related note, I wonder if it was a delayed part of the most recent patch, or pre-emptive from the upcoming, but my encyclopedia today now shows tier 4 buildings as having -10 for food/squalor, rather than -12. It didn't yesterday/the-day-before after Patch 2.

Change for the Qanat growth building adding food now will be nice, since Parthia doesn't get aqueducts for massive growth bonuses, and have to resort to either Qanat-line buildings, which eat food, or relying on settlements/food-surplus/happiness-bonus. To be fair, I've done fine relying on the latter, but it would be nice for Qanat to be a good alternative.

 

In my opinion they should remove the squalor on all the main city buildings or perhaps even give them a bonus on order because that is what kills the AI in the game. It expands every building endlessly and is too dumb to manage its own troops to defend against the revolutions that start inevitable. That is also the reason why the barbaric cultures expand more and are more stable than the other ones, they have more garrison troops and as such survive the rebellions more easily.

Of course it would be better to simply have a smarter AI which is able to manages its cities properly but somehow I am sure I will not see such a thing this year.


Because I would really love a game where Carthage and Egypt survive for more than 15 rounds and Rome manages to expand anywhere.

On a different note... I am currently playing as the Averni and really miss my stable provinces. I think I have exactly one province with a positive public order and the rest is in various states of unrest but thx to the massive garrisons I can ignore pretty much every rebellion. Still it is annoying especially because I see no way to avoid it, any tips on that front?

 

Well, I've played my Epirus game a fair bit more. The AI, both in campaign and battle is consistently terrible. The larger nations like Rome and Carthage actually proved to be the easiest fights I had. Rome had wasted most of its strength fighting Carthage and its client states and the Etruscans, so when I moved in, they had nothing on the peninsula except for a few garrison armies.

The hardest war I had was actually against Tylis, a city state north of Macedon. They had the largest and most highly advanced army I've yet to encounter. A large number of Thracian Warriors, with a good mix of cavalry and ranged units backing them up. They're also the only enemy I've met so far with a full 20 stack army.

I'm still enjoying it quite a bit though. I really like the themed sub-missions for the main missions that you get. They give me a bit more direction and focus in my campaign, which helps keep it entertaining.

Also, are hoplites OP, or is the AI just terrible at using its own forces against them?

 

Hmm, I've frequently seen armies nearly full, and seen several full armies as well. In my current game, the largest AI that I know the territories of is probably Athens. Although Mascat controlled the Arabian peninsula, and the south of Mesopotamia, for a good while.

That said, The barbarian factions, Rome, all of t...hmm, I think the only playable faction that might not still be around in my game is Epirus? I would have to check again by ending the turn, but I'll do that later.

 

Strange.. I had 10 or so games that passed the 50 turns and I am pretty sure that Carthage, Epirus and Egypt (that one often comes back only to get attacked by every greek state) died every time, Iceni, Averni and Parthia died at least half the time and that no civilised faction ever had more than 2 provinces.

 

I think Athens has 12-14 right now, at turn 57. Of course, they just took a territory that my co-op partner was going to take, so he declared war on them and called his allies, which forced me into it, since co-op allies can't break alliance.

They were my second most lucrative trading ally =/. At least none of their allies went to war with me, so I kept trade routes with them. Running around 13.5k trade income right now, once I got access to the Mediterranean and the numerous trading partners within. (I was only around 6k trade income before that)

 

Hmm, problem is that in my game, I'm the cause of death of most of the playable factions in the Med; Sparta, Athens, Macedon and Rome. The Iceni and Averni are still going strong, but I think the Suebi are dead. Carthage spent most of the past 30 turns trying to stay alive with even one region, but eventually died, leaving Nova Carthago at war with everyone in the western Med. Egypt died and came back against Cyrenaica and Pontus has been annihilating the Seleucid Empire and its client states. All this by around turn 65 I think?

On the other hand, in the short game I tried as the Iceni first (about 20-25 turns?), Epirus died very fast, with Carthage and the Suebi following soon after. I stopped playing that game, but from the looks of it, AI Epirus can't survive the early aggression in Greece and without me distracting them, Rome can quite easily mop up Carthage.

 

I know I'm necroing, but the Nomad Culture Pack is out, and until October 29th, it's free on steam.

Since I'm postiing anyway, might as well say what I wnat to say about the game. The game is quite the disappointment, the AI is retarded, the game is too damn easy, full of glitches and again the agent and general aren't something I can get attached to, unlike in Rome or Medieval II, even Shogun II had it better. But the units have a huge variation, the units are beautiful, the naval-land battles are awesome, the garrisons add a new (good) twist to the game and they were balanced, the new agents are much more useful.

Now, what is annoying me most, is that the CA fucked up something, and Rome II can't read my dedicated graphic cards, only the onboard one. And thar gives me a very ugly game. Bu that could be (mostly) solved by ticking the Unlimited Video Memory, until Patch 5. The same one that gave us Seleucid also made impossible for me to tick it, and so I'm stuck with a very ugly game. Does anyone here also has this problem? Even better, the solution?