New Update

[gdrover]

I love the new update. Tougher to win now.

One question though: Did you make assaulting the Roman walls impossible?

I had a Carthaginian army of approx. 40 within striking distance of Rome and the Romans left only 2 regulars + 8 garrison. In the past, an attack ratio of 3 - 1 could almost always carry the walls in an assault. This time, though I got hammered and had to withdraw. Later in the same game, I was sieging Rome and was attacked by a sally. On the first 3 battle turns, the Romans were HAMMERING me, despite the fact that I had superior attack ratings and Hannibal's Leadership advantage.

Second question: Do the Romans get some sort of attack advantage when sallying out of Rome.

P.S. I was able to squeak out a win despite the 2 nasty surprises, but Hannibal had only 2 units left outside Rome when it capitulated. whew!

[mercenarius]

I didn't change the values in those battles. The only thing that I changed for any of the battles was setting the base leadership bonus for camp battles at 10 percent, instead of 20 percent for other field battles. Well, I also adjusted slightly the values for pursuit when both sides have cavalry present and pursuit is relevant.

The AI deploys its units and chooses its losses better in city battles now. This is particularly true at the "Normal" and "Hard" levels. This mostly matters when there is an external garrison as you had in your battle. Even though it was small - two units - the AI now does a better defending cities, particularly Rome. Previously it didn't use the Urban legions or the city militia as well as it could have done. It's somewhat smarter now.

There is no advantage in sally battles for the Romans except that Hannibal can't use his Punic Tricks, as you already know, of course. The AI also does a better job of deploying units and choosing losses in sally battles as well. This will mostly show up when the garrison of Rome sallies, because the AI has more to work with there.

[gdrover]

I guess it was an anomaly then. Good to know!

Thanks James. Great game. I enjoy it quite a bit and play it often.

When is the next one possibly available. I'd buy every one in the series. Some possibilities with the engine:

Alexander
American Civil War
American Revolution
Napoleonic Conquest of Europe