Slitherine

As time passes, lack of units and generally generic factions are becoming bigger issue for me

i'd completely Remove following factions
1.Arabs (non existant roster)
2.Armenians (non existant roster)
3.Slave Revolt
4.Atropatene (another generic faction without any role)
5.Bythnian (roleless)
6.Bruttian or Lucian
7.Campanian
8.Brutian
9.Ligurian
10.caucasian
11.Iberian "or" colchian (not spain)
12.Illyrian
13.indo Greek
14. Indo Parthian
15.Indo Scythian
16.kapadokian
17. Kushan
18.lybian
19.Mountain indian
20. Indian
21.Numidan Or moorish
22. Roxholani
23.scots irish
24.scythian
25.Spanish
26.Gauls
27.germans
28.Umbrian
29.britons
30. anything that says 'scots-irish'
31. Greeks
(might have forgotten some other factions)

i'd Keep and slightly to considerably Increase (and refine names) number of unique Units for:
1.Antigonids
2.Seleukids
3.Ptolemaics
all need better representation of phalanx

4.Attalids (need different roster)


5.Carthaginians (lacking some units)
6.Parthians (need considerably larger roster)
7.Saka (same)
8.Pontic (slightly more units)
9.Phyrric (slightly more units,better phalanx representation,not in the same way as other legit diadochi kingdoms)
10.Rome (they are fine)

11.Syracusan
12.Thracian (need complete rework)
13.Dacian (slight to considerable increase)

and ofcourse

The Jews
(sources are scarce, but i doubt they used phalanx anyway)

Factions to Create:

One indian tribe

Baktria


Arverni
Helveti
Boii
casse
belgae
Lusitani
edetani
cantabri

(at least 1 gaulish ,1 iberian 1 germanic 1 briton tribe of your choosing)

Massalia
Sparta
Athens

eventually some of the factions from "removed' List, as long as they feel like real factions





i really love fog II, but currently there are couple playable (not great) factions:
1.Romans
2.Diadochi (each of them is fine, since their significance and territorial coverage is large)
3.(either gauls,germans,spanish or britons, only 1 of those, cos they are same)
4.Nomads (only 1 faction cos they are all the same)
5.Carthage
6.Greeks (even tho they 'd be separated into distinct factions in my mind)


Units to be removed:
Armoured Cavalry

each faction should have specific cavalry
i cant really believe that arabs have "armoured cavalry" which look exactly the same as roman armoured cavalry and use same equipement.
thats really a placeholder , not an unit worth using and unacceptable. sorry for sounding like i am attacking you, but i dont know how to say this in a different way

Pikes: too generic. there are materials from which to draw a more realistic picture

Warband: Each faction (previously mentioned) should have its warband (it doesnt even matter if they are same , at least name should be different,if you really cant find any difference between them)


Light horsemen


Others things:
Xystophoroi should only be one of the units in diadochi armies (no need for 30 different cavs, but few more are lacking,ofc in appropirate time periods)

Add: elite macedonian peltasts
Add: Various regional units from bythnia to baktria


in general: far less universal units like armoured cavalry, even changing the names and (if possible skins) would be great

i cannot understand what anyone sees in 30 same factions who use same generic units like rabble and lancers. i 'd rather have 10-20 factions than Various loosely named culture groups

AFAIK you can mod the names, skins, and stats of all the units, so you’d better get busy!

While i agree that some of the factions might seem a bit generic, I think it is a bit much to expect the game to depict each tribe’s (which is basically what you’re asking) dress and weapons with great accuracy, and many of the differences in weapons/armor would be pretty much indistinguishable at the scale of the game.

But luckily for people who really care—presumably including you!—the modding capabilities in the game will allow you to tinker to your heart’s content. In a year i bet there will be lots of excellent modded content...

76mm wrote:AFAIK you can mod the names, skins, and stats of all the units, so you’d better get busy!

While i agree that some of the factions might seem a bit generic, I think it is a bit much to expect the game to depict each tribe’s (which is basically what you’re asking) dress and weapons with great accuracy, and many of the differences in weapons/armor would be pretty much indistinguishable at the scale of the game.

But luckily for people who really care—presumably including you!—the modding capabilities in the game will allow you to tinker to your heart’s content. In a year i bet there will be lots of excellent modded content...

i see, but at most i can manage to change the names. i dont dare touch models or skins, or godforbid stats

Personally, i'd like to see more faction-specific units.. like Extraordinarii with Romans (elite Socii infantry typically serving as shock troops, which were commonly detached for "special missions"), Campanian cavalry, Iberian Caetrati, Celtiberian infantry, Peltasts ("reformed" Helenic troops trained as phalangites and as heavy javelinmen using Macedonic Pelta shield), Celtic Gaesatae - naked warriors (got wiped out at Tellamon) etc etc

JaM2013 wrote:Personally, i'd like to see more faction-specific units.. like Extraordinarii with Romans (elite Socii infantry typically serving as shock troops, which were commonly detached for "special missions"), Campanian cavalry, Iberian Caetrati, Celtiberian infantry, Peltasts ("reformed" Helenic troops trained as phalangites and as heavy javelinmen using Macedonic Pelta shield), Celtic Gaesatae - naked warriors (got wiped out at Tellamon) etc etc

Me too. They might be planning to add those as DLC though.

I really like this big amount of armies, it reminds me of DBA and DBM; indeed you might have "sea people" army full of psiloi, but for a narrative feeling (and thanks to the sandbox campaign there is such feeling) they are really charming.
And the generic army lists here in FOG2 are an excellent way to have many different armies (indeed you might mod them)

This was a design decision. We did not want to have multiple copies of a unit that had the same abilities because of differing nationalities. E.g. If there were 1-2 Bosporan Slingers and 1-2 hill slingers, we combined them to 2-4 slingers. It makes it easier for new players to understand and easier for everyone to manage their army. These could easily be modded back in for flavour.

Cheers

Iain

IainMcNeil wrote:This was a design decision. We did not want to have multiple copies of a unit that had the same abilities because of differing nationalities. E.g. If there were 1-2 Bosporan Slingers and 1-2 hill slingers, we combined them to 2-4 slingers. It makes it easier for new players to understand and easier for everyone to manage their army. These could easily be modded back in for flavour.

Cheers

Iain

in that case i cant understand why do we have 20 same factions . too many confusing names for new players

anyway i tortured you guys enough. i ll try to mod it myself

lapdog666 wrote: i see, but at most i can manage to change the names. i dont dare touch models or skins, or godforbid stats

But don’t despair—from what Ive seen of modding communities there are some people who love tweaking the skins or stats but find the necesssary research boring, and some people who are vice versa. If you hang out in the modding forum and present some quality research I’d be surprised if you wouldnt find someone ready to domthe technical stuff...

i would say we can live without bosporan slingers, but certain specialist units are really missed.. Caetrati are quite commonly mentioned by ancient historians to be quite formidable skirmishers, with both Romans and Carthaginians were using them in their armies. Similarly, there was Tarentine cavalry (light javelin horse) and Numidian light horse. while Tarentines were usually of very average quality, Numidians were exceptional horsemen.. its kinda shame both these are represented by average quality light javelin horse unit...

anyway my biggest complain so far is with historical campaigns.. these feel way too generic, i would expect to fight historical battles in them, not battles fought on randomly generated maps.. They are not that different from sandbox campaign, except for named generals..

I quite like how the armies and units are in the game. I hope nothing gets removed.
I'm always happy to have more though if they add in more stuff.

I couldn't mod to save my life, the camera zoom is about it. However it is always great to see new content added, so long as it's historical. Please no "fantasy units" which are so prevalent in a the Rome total war workshop. But like most folk I would love to see more content for some of the factions lacking units. I do think we have done very well to have what we have so praise must go to the Dev team for going to so much trouble providing us the massive amount of content for the base game.

There are lots of talented modders who will no doubt provide us with even more in the future, also probably a DLC or two. The game has after all not been out a week, and already we are seeing user content being added. I would say the future looks very good for this game, and the players.

btw, what is the reason behind unit called "javelinmen" to be a medium infantry instead of protected skirmishers? Unit look suggest these should be Iberian or Numidian javelinmen, they carry light shields and javelins, i think they would be better of in their primary skirmishing role than as low quality medium infantry... Besides, if I can chose between them and Scutarii, i always take Scutarii...

JaM2013 wrote:btw, what is the reason behind unit called "javelinmen" to be a medium infantry instead of protected skirmishers? Unit look suggest these should be Iberian or Numidian javelinmen, they carry light shields and javelins, i think they would be better of in their primary skirmishing role than as low quality medium infantry...

Because they don't represent skirmishers, they represent "hillmen" type tribesmen, Numidian (failed) attempts at developing close-fighting foot and other similar ineffective cannon-fodder.

However, if you want to make them light foot in your mod, you can of course do so.

The more factions the merrier. Despite repeating units.
Within these factions are subtle differences in unit proportions. Evolving technology through time. Geographic location plays a role on who fights who (I like to restrict matches by timeframe and geography). And there will be people will want to play obscure factions and see if they are able to bring them glory in a campaign.

Another thing thats starting to bugging me is how some factions have quite unbalanced and unhistorical armies.. like for example pre-Marian Romans when player by AI, always end up having like 95% heavy infantry and just 1-2 units of Velites or slingers.. Velites should be a lot more numerous, they were as numerous as Hastati and Principes... and same thing with Italian factions.. they are way too one sided, too many infantry with very limited light infantry or cavalry. i would be fine with Celtic faction being like that, because they were well known to be focusing on infantry and didnt usually bring any specialized skirmishers, but with Italic armies its quite unrealistic.

but worst of all is to see Roman AI deployed in 6 ranks at the start... WHY?