270BC - Official Thread

redrum

270BC
Make yourself an empire around the Mediterranean Sea (the known world), in the era when Hellenes, Romans, and Phoenicians ruled. Choose from a arsenal of legionaires, hoplites, onagers, cataphracts, triremes, war elephants, and many more. Territory names are based on cities at the time give or take 500 years.

Originally by Doctor Che
Updated by redrum

Original map thread: http://tripleadev.1671093.n2.nabble.com/270BC-updates-can-someone-make-a-relief-image-td7582022.html

Proposed Changes (Open to Discussion)

Cernel mod

Removed from levis and axeman the ability to be supported
Added to swordman and phalangite the ability to be supported
Removed from chariot the ability to support
Added to psilos the ability to support
Changed warelephant attack/defense to 4/4 and standard support only (attack only), to 2 supportable units
Added to levis the ability to place fort like legionary
Lowered psilos attack to 0
Increased ballista defense to 1
Increased chariot attack to 2
Increased trireme cost to 8 (also, I've increased barbarian cost to 5 and given it the ability to be supported)
Disallowed city placement in production 0 territories
Allowed blitz in Neutral territories
Removed 1 spearman Thapsus
Added 1 spearman Lilybaeum
Added 1 archer Cyrene

Ice

up fort to cost 5
add 2 peltasts to corinth MACADONIA (almost same result as before, little pro macadinia)
add 1 peltasts and 1 hoplite to sardis SELUCID (same result as before)
add 1 bireme to sz 70 MACADONIA, result will be that macadonia will have choises in its phurcase
add 2 cavelry to thaspus CARTAGE
add 1 archer to leptis magna NUMIDIA
add 1 spearman to palma CARTAGE
add 1 hoplite to hatra SELUCID (result for defending selucia if they choose)
add 1 hoplite to emesa SELUCID (to defend vs early egypt assaults)
add 2 peltasts to antioch SELUCID

Changes

v1.7

Added custom dice images
Updated unit images
Added PU image
Updated game notes
Removed connection Larissa - SZ 70 and updated polygons

redrum

v1.7 is released

Added custom dice images
Updated unit images
Added PU image
Updated game notes
Removed connection Larissa - SZ 70 and updated polygons

Special thanks to @Hepps for the unit and dice images.

Cernel

@redrum @Hepps Now that the stuff is on GitHub, I will update the variants the same way when I do the next update of it (I hope soon, but not promising). About that, the current list of changes for my variant is obsolete; so until then.

Some considerations though (just personal considerations, mind you):

The white border in all the flags is really too much, and emphasize the flags themselves a lot. I think flags in units are, in cases like this, a necessary evil, but I would much prefer them being more discrete, without the while highlighting borders, or at least a thinner one. It would be of course cool if the user could switch the flags on/off, as now they are not actually needed, all units being different (of course, not very good for new people, until you have memorized all them).
I would prefer the Neutrals having no flags at all, as they don't need any, and, this way, I feel it would tell they are not active/controlled. Also, in the moment Romans have the flags on the left and Anti on the right, that seems telling the Neutrals are on the side of the Romans.
I wonder if you didn't take the milestones PUs images because you like the old ones better or just missed them, cause I like the old ones (that are just smaller versions of the TWW ones) a bit more, but both are cool; so either ways it is fine.
Wasn't there a custom cursor?

Personally, I don't think the board needs any updates (someone might do something better, but it's already very good, so I'd not risk it). It is too small no doubt, but it is bearable, since this game offers few different units per player. Just the units were sub-par with it, and now all is pretty much high quality.

Any interest in changing units names the same way as the variants, even tho that is compatibility breaking and would require deleting, thus substituting or remaking, the legend on bottom left (that also anyways substantially makes impossible to change any units stats)? I personally prefer no legends or credits on map (this is why I changed it to just the title in the variants).

redrum

@Cernel I can only answer for what I brought into it as Hepps did all the original image work.

I think the milestones are too large for the 270BC map. Better to keep PU images small and clean given the small map size.
There was a cursor image but I didn't copy it over. I've seen very mixed feedback from players around custom cursor images.

I looked at your variant changes for names and such. I didn't really think they are really that much better and not really worth all the changes and breaking compatibility.

Cernel

@redrum I especially dislike the "legionaire", that I don't believe it is even a word in any language, and the absence of the quinquereme, plus the fact that there are two units, slingers and peltasts, that are exactly the same.

Since this appears to be open to units stats changes, what do you have in mind to do with the legend bottom-left about that?

redrum

@Cernel Legionnaire is definitely a term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaire_(disambiguation). But I believe the correct term for a Roman infantry was legionary.

Yeah, I don't really understand why there are slingers and peltasts when they are identical. Maybe previous versions had different stats or something?

If we do make unit stats changes then we'd either have to update the legend image or remove it like you did in your mod.

Hepps

@redrum I have the Legend image in a layered format. So changes are possible if wanted. It may take me some time due to real life demands... I would be happy to make any changes when time becomes more available.

redrum

@Hepps Great. I know you are busy so if you can post it here or send it to me that would be helpful. Whether I can figure out what to do with it is another matter entirely

Cernel

@redrum "Legionnaire" is a French word (in a map where there is not a single another French word, by the way), bu "Legionaire" (with one "n") is not a French, nor an English, nor a Latin word.

But actually, the number 1 problem I have with units names is that there is not the quinquereme.

Slingers and peltasts are the same thing in 300BC, that is the early (and very unbalanced in favour of AntiRomans) version of 270BC, so I guess they have always been the same unit. Side note, they and "velites" are the only plural names, where everything else is singular. Also in 300BC there were other cases of differently named units being exactly the same.

Also for other reasons, my new names I used in the variants are much better than the ones of original, but of course this means breaking compatibility and likely trashing the bottom-left legend on the board. Also having the same names in all cases for both the original and the variants would be good in itself.

Talking about redundant units, I also think I'm going to remove barbarian in my variants, next time I update it, substituting them all with swordmen. Practically, the Neutrals could be reduced to 3 units only, from the current 6, but I guess it is good to keep some pseudo variety, for flavour, but rather only if not unique.

Cernel

To be clear, renaming both "slingers" and "peltasts" to just "psilos", as in the Cernel variant, is more than just a rename, as it implies to refactor the xml to have only one of these two. Also totally removing the barbarian, as I intend to do at my next release (that I'll try to get done fairly soon, as I'm certainly happy to import those skin changes), would imply a similar work.

On top of that that that would require cutting two units out of the legend in bottom left, that would look a bit strange with the current format, as you would remain with only 1 unit entry in the fourth column of it.

Going back to changes, I'm not sure it is possible doing any gameplay changes at all to 270BC, as it looks to me that really nobody likes, or at least plays, this game, at least when I'm online. I don't remember the last time I saw anyone playing 270BC in lobby, and I'm pretty sure I've not seen any known experienced players playing it for many years, by now, since me and ice stopped.

EDIT: Also me and ice (and actually many good players (soulfein, ajmdemen, guerrilla_J...) played the version before Veqryn did any changes, that, if I recall correctly was the 1.3.1 (Elephants 4/4 no support, etc.). Then, after Veqryn (and me, but in a minor role) did the changes, I don't think the new (now old) versions, after 1.3.1 were ever seriously playtested by any experienced players at all. On the side of ice, he mostly stopped caring about 270BC because he got his Rome Total War map done. Then, eventually, I got my variants done; so from them on really 270BC was not played by anyone known at all (unless I'm missing something).

Cernel

Also, I've seen you have decreased the units zoom to 75%. I believe it is better as it was at 87.5%, for the new units, as well. There is indeed some excessive overlapping in a few places (that maybe can be solved by redefining the placement coordinates), but the units look really way too small and indistinctive at anything less than 87.5%. Of course, this is just my personal preference.

redrum

@Cernel I had played around with the unit zoom but had decided the same thing that 87.5% was still the best and I think that is what I left it as: https://github.com/triplea-maps/270bc/blob/master/map/map.properties

Cernel

Posting here the units folder of the planned future 270bc_variants map, once I'll eventually update it (not sure when that will happen):

units.zip

Meaning, these are the players and units names changes that I'm suggesting here for the original 270BC too (so that both maps would have the same units folder), and, until I don't update the variants, people playing them can have the new 270BC units by unzipping the 270bc_variants folder and unzipping, renaming to "units" and adding this folder in substitution of the one currently in the map folder.

To know where your maps are, click on Game/Engine Settings/Folders.

EDIT: units folder updated 2019/07/07

Cernel

@Hepps I think you have unintentionally inverted the colours of GreekCityStates and Egypt for the big ships, on the sails, at least.

Cernel

After playing a couple games with the new stuff (with my 270BC 40% with the added stuff, actually) have to say that the new units are definitely a blast. Now this is definitely one of the best looking TripleA map, and really feels like a full fledged game on its own. Kinda sad all might be for nothing, if nobody plays it anyways, but could be that now it looks so good people will get hooked.

Hepps

@Cernel I'm sure renaming a couple of units is well within the skill-set of you fine folk.

Cernel

@Hepps For the small ships, maybe yes, except that one would also need to cut and swap the roundels they have between the two, but, for the big ones, the Egypt ship has the Egypt symbol on the sail of the main mast, but it has the colour of GreekCityStates, vice versa for GreekCityStates.

Here it is a screenshot of the "270BC 40%" game I'm playing; look at those ships in the Aegean sea.

Hepps

@Cernel Don't hold your breath, this is so minor. I am hard pressed for time right now and that does not crack the top 50 of what I am wanting to work on ATM.

Cernel

@Hepps You didn't give flag assets to the neutrals. This means that you see the (inconsistent) default neutral flag (that currently is the Swiss flag) in places like the territory tab, the battlecalculator and when enabling unit flags (there should really not be that option available for this map).

@redrum You haven't fixed all the skin elements related to the removed connection Larissa - SZ 70. I've already detailed the matter in that pull request (guess you didn't notice).

Hepps

Just add that to the game file.