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Author Topic: Rome II  (Read 18750 times)

Martok

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on: August 28, 2021, 04:56:55 AM
(Wow, I can't believe we didn't already have a dedicated thread for this game.  Yes, I also realize I would've been the one most likely to have started it if we did...) 




I know at least a few of us still play Rome II.  It remains my favorite of the "modern" Total War titles, just ahead of Thrones of Britannia.  I'm an absolute sucker for the time period, and while the game's launch was a shit-show, it has (fortunately) come a very long way since then.  The fact that it received 3 more DLC's -- including 2 entire campaign packs -- a good five years after its release was an especially pleasant surprise.  (I really dig Rise of the Republic -- long live Syracuse!) 



All that being said, the main reason I'm posting now is because the team behind the excellent Divide et Imperia mod has officially released version 1.2.8, as of yesterday: 


https://divideetimperamod.com/divide-et-impera-1-2-8-released/

(Note:  It appears existing saved-games should still work, they'll just be affected by the changes going forward.) 


There are an absolutely stupid amount of patch notes, but here a few of the highlights: 

- Stamina Abilities for units have been removed, as this was causing significant lag and performance degradation during battles, especially on lower end systems. 

- Greek colony factions have received a major overhaul. 

- Random disaster plague events have been removed (yay!). 

- Upkeep bonuses in the Military Management technology tree have been replaced with population bonuses. 

- Victory conditions have been majorly revised.  They're now generally shorter, more consistent, and varied between victory types (also yay!). 



I'd kinda been holding off on diving back into Rome II until this update was out, so I guess it's time now.  :D 



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


Undercovergeek

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Reply #1 on: August 28, 2021, 11:22:22 AM
I’m finding some amazing stuff that I want to play in my back catalogue - this now too - that far exceeds any need to purchase anything new until a few anticipated gems are released



Gusington

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Reply #2 on: August 28, 2021, 12:59:32 PM
Damn you people...

Always do what you feel is best.


thecommandtent

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Reply #3 on: August 28, 2021, 02:20:19 PM
Thanks for the info, I was wondering why Rome II was updating :)



bayonetbrant

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Reply #4 on: August 28, 2021, 02:32:08 PM
Damn you people...

Like you weren't going to buy it anyway or something  ;D

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Martok

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Reply #5 on: August 29, 2021, 05:03:57 AM
^  I'm sure he would, if he didn't already own it.  Gus is just mad because I've now added to his (already extensive) backlog of stuff to play -- a problem I fully sympathize with.  :P 




I’m finding some amazing stuff that I want to play in my back catalogue - this now too - that far exceeds any need to purchase anything new until a few anticipated gems are released

Heh, indeed! 



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


Gusington

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Reply #6 on: August 29, 2021, 02:23:22 PM
According to The Steam I have 209 hours invested in Rome 2. I'm currently playing a modded version of The Attila: Total War Charlemagne campaign as the 'Byzantine Expedition,' reconquering the boot of Italy for its rightful owners.

I got persnickety above because I just actually uninstalled Rome 2 and whatever version of the DEI mod I had loaded because my reading and curiosity trailed off to the Byzantines. If I were retired and could do whatever the hell I wanted to I probably still wouldn't feel like I had enough time to game.


Always do what you feel is best.


Martok

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Reply #7 on: August 29, 2021, 04:46:09 PM
I'm currently playing a modded version of The Attila: Total War Charlemagne campaign as the 'Byzantine Expedition,' reconquering the boot of Italy for its rightful owners.

Sounds interesting!  What mod is that? 



If I were retired and could do whatever the hell I wanted to I probably still wouldn't feel like I had enough time to game.

Yep, same here.  ::) 



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


Undercovergeek

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Reply #8 on: August 29, 2021, 05:46:00 PM
Are we talking ye olde Rome 2 or the new fancy one or do the mods work with both



Gusington

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Reply #9 on: August 29, 2021, 09:00:14 PM
I think mods work with both ye olde version and the Emperor Edition as well.

Martok look up Byzantine Expedition in the Attila TW Steam workshop section and you’ll find it. It’s out of date but works fine for me.

Always do what you feel is best.


Martok

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Reply #10 on: August 29, 2021, 11:53:09 PM
Are we talking ye olde Rome 2 or the new fancy one or do the mods work with both

The Remastered version (if that's what you're referring to) is for Rome 1 only.  If you're referring to Rome II: Emperor Edition, then your copy of Rome II should already be updated to that version whenever you last installed it (or will when you install it again). 




I think mods work with both ye olde version and the Emperor Edition as well.

Martok look up Byzantine Expedition in the Attila TW Steam workshop section and you’ll find it. It’s out of date but works fine for me.

Ooh, cool.  Looks like they have a new version, too... 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1202449125



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


Undercovergeek

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Reply #11 on: August 30, 2021, 03:40:25 AM
I did indeed think the new remaster was for 2 🤦‍♂️



Gusington

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Reply #12 on: August 30, 2021, 09:05:56 AM
That's the one, Martok. It's updated as of a few years ago so it shows up as outdated in my mod manager.

UCG I don't think you can go wrong with the new remaster or with modded Rome 2. There's potential to play for 10s of 1000s of hours and never have the same game or even session twice.

Always do what you feel is best.


Sir Slash

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Reply #13 on: August 30, 2021, 12:11:50 PM
I cringe every time they update the DEI Mod out of fear it will kill all my old Saves. So far though, the Mod Team has been great at avoiding this and the updates have only made the mod better. One of my favorites.  :bigthumb:

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Martok

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Reply #14 on: February 25, 2022, 05:26:51 AM
Holy crap!  The Divide et Impera team just released their 1.3 update... 


https://divideetimperamod.com/divide-et-impera-1-3-released/




Just reading the patch notes has me salivating.  Sounds like now would be an especially good time to try out a "barbarian" faction! 

Spoiler: ShowHide


Divide et Impera 1.3 Overview

After half a year of work and testing, we are happy to announce our latest update to the mod! Many of you have probably already seen some of the previews posted here and we are all very proud of the team’s work over the autumn and winter. This update includes an overhauled Grand Campaign with many new features, an expansive Barbarian overhaul for many factions, reorganization and rebalancing of the character skills and traits systems, battle updates and much, much more! Thanks to everyone who helped to test and give feedback over these months, we all appreciate it!

You can head over to our Download Page to get the latest update. Steam will update automatically. It is save compatible. We will be working on submods as we can, please be aware some Steam submods have moved to new locations.


Patch Notes

New Grand Campaign Overhaul
– Completely redone grand campaign from the bottom up!
– New Building Slots – Every region now has either 4 or 6 slots available.
– New Starting Buildings – Updated and added various new starting buildings, all factions now start with a barracks for better AI recruitment.
– New Wonder Buildings that represent the various regional world wonders.
– Return of the Roman Families – Rome’s political parties are now the families again!
– New Culture – Numidian – Found in Western Africa.
– New Starting Characters/Family Trees – New royal families and historical characters.
– New Starting Diplomacy/Situations – Lots of new situations for starting factions.
– Extra Moddability – The startpos kit files are available in our TWC submod forum for submodders and going forward we have a lot more options for the main mod as well!

Barbarian Overhaul from Q_Sertorius and CEMN
– Massive overhaul of most barbarian rosters that focuses each faction on specific advantages and disadvantages, updates all the visuals, trims various rosters and redoes the barbarian factions into more coherent options.
– Updated unit cards (thanks Summary!), visuals, stats, descriptions, names, reforms, etc. Too much to detail in these notes!
– Overhauled factions include Arverni, Galatia, Boii, Scordisci, Iceni, Caledones, Iweriu, Suebi, Lugii, Ardiaei and Cimbri.
– Odryssia has also been added to this overhaul from KAM.
– Huge thanks to Q and CEMN for the tireless efforts for many months doing all the tough work and testing on this massive endeavor!

Skills, Traditions, Ancillaries & Traits Overhaul
– Incorporated the great work of Q_Sertorius with re-organizing the structure and effects for the character skill trees to add trade offs and better options. Most skills have either been redone or been moved in the trees.
– Reworked various tradition and ancillary effects to be more balanced and add more specific choice for the player.
– Character traits have been heavily redone. Most traits have had their effects trimmed down by a large margin to get rid of the effect spam. Personality and background traits now have trade offs and matter a lot more.
– Faction Leader effects now apply even when the leader is not in the capital. New effects have been added to better go with the various trait types.

Battle Changes
– Added new “Reform the Line!” ability for infantry with special formations
– Tweaks to morale thresholds for specific status like confident/wavering/broken
– Adjustments to phalanx units
– Fixed stats of Marian and Imperial cavalry
– Fixed cavalry stats when dismounted
– Lowered iphicratean javelin damage
– Fixed numerous disciplined attributes on units
– Changed minimum ranks for infantry from 7 to 6
– Slightly adjusted spotting distance in open terrain
– Minor tweaks to ranged/melee damage

Loyalty Changes & New Government Technology effects
– Lowered loyalty bonus from empire government type.
– Loyalty negatives from imperium begin earlier and are slightly worse.
– Lower loyalty from early political ranks.
– Added positive and negative loyalty effects based on tax level in a province.
– Various philosophy and economy technologies now have effects based on certain government types for specific cultures.
– Barbarian cultures have a tech that reduces upkeep when they are a tribal confederation.
– Ptolemies, Seleucids, Baktria, Pontus and Eastern factions have a late tech that adds recruitment slots when they are a kingdom.
– Greek factions, Rome and Carthage have military techs that lower loyalty as a Republic but a philosophy tech that increases it as a Republic.
– All factions have late technologies that improve happiness and slave unrest as Empires.

Major Changes
– Campaign performance should be improved due to script changes that have reduced some turn and load times.
– New Graphical overlay map for the campaign to better represent province, city and road locations thanks to Summary!
– Added new Pirate factions for Arabia, Illyria, Britannia, Germania, Cicilia, Thrace, Pontus and Carthage. Added new pirate spawns thanks to Q for use of his submod!
– Fixed a battle crash when fighting the Carnute faction
– Updated General appearances for over 60 emergent factions.
– Changed Faction leader effect to always be on rather than be dependent on faction leader being in capital. Changed effect types from generic good/bad to more specific ones.
– Reduced resource production from main city building lines.
– Grain resource buildings now produce supplies.
– Enabled dignitaries for the AI only on hard+ difficulties.
– Made the “Brawler” Trait easier to increase. Made Triumphs and Triumph trait progression from the Education/background trait slightly easier to achieve
– All factions can now achieve victory conditions of region ownership if area is controlled by a client or vassal. Excluded spice from victory condition requirements.
– Increased base foreign pop settlers and slightly lowered negative from culture.
– New culture icons and updated faction flags from Jake.
– Added levy tier designation in unit strength/weakness details panel to help distinguish which units benefit from levy only effects.
– Overhauled visuals for most late Seleucid units and Bronze shield units.
– Rebalanced major city variants to offer more variation and choice between the three options and lower overall income modification from higher tiers.

Other Fixes/Changes
– Fixed Rhodes campaign select faction trait text
– Fixed Pontus unique library having 2 tech requirements
– Fixed Colony factions missing access to Athens special port.
– Moved Chalybes AOR unit to Caucasia.
– Changed some incorrect effects for slave forum building chains.
– Reduced effect of Befriend Gallic Chieftains tech in CiG campaign.
– Changed some effects for Bosporan tier 5 unique buildings to better match their chains.
– Fixed HaTG and CiG Massalia missing resource buildings.
– Immigrant chain buildings now use slightly less food but produce slightly more foreign culture.
– Increased speed for Cimbri Wolf Warriors
– Fixed Geometer ancillary not always working.
– Fixed Saba levy unit missing from recruitment for campaign
– Fixed one loading screen, added 2 others
– Changed naval recruitment points effect to be visible.
– Changed shield value for Meroe pikemen
– Fixed tier 2 Armenian temple having wrong upkeep value
– Fixed wrong unit requirement for chapter 7 ardiaei chapter mission
– Fixed Carthage mercenary barracks having wrong t4 effect, added silver required text.
– Changed Massalia special port to be named Lacydon.
– Fixed Carthage/egypt tower ships missing towers
– Fixed 2 Cimbri shield wall units having expert charge defense
– Changed Arabian camel spearmen to 3rd class.
– Fixed Dart throwers being wrong AOR class for greek factions.
– Fixed some Ardiaei reform units not being properly hidden
– Fixed tier 2 colony barracks having wrong tech requirements
– Fixed fire arrows for longbows having wrong damage
– Fixed Levy hoplites recruitment missing from some minor town building types.
– Changed Pontos to greek supply units to fix recruitment issues.
– Slightly bumped up some region growth rates for historically fertile areas.
– Changed Alalia to have more industiral potential from its region effect.
– Fixed Assault Tetreres ships missing from tier 3 large military ports.
– Fixed barbarian olive town having wrong sanitation effects.
– Fixed some Roman spear auxiliaries missing from roman unit sets (effects were not being applied to them properly)
– Increased Belgian AI recruitment priorites for cavalry.
– Changed Boii faction trait to be morale against Germans rather than Romans
– Fixed Scythian morale trait not properly working
– Fixed tier 4 Athens port missing squalor effect and supply effects
– Fixed bugged animation entry for Marcomanni unit.
– Higher tier Carthage and Alexandria ports provide extra naval recruitment slots.
– Moved Indian veteran spear unit to tier 2 barracks
– Moved Custom Battle Dart Slingers from Syracuse to Macedon roster
– Fixed incorrect name for Commercial Massalia when occupied by Romans.
– Removed Qunquireme from Sparta custom battle roster.
– Moved champion unlock earlier for Pontus in the tech tree.
– Reduced tax negatives for Raetia et Noricum region effects a bit, previously they would stack to cause 0 income.
– Fixed barbarian tier 4 tribal city building missing squalor effect
– Fixed some agent and barbarian background traits not being applied to characters.
– Changed some chapter mission settings for Arverni, Macedon and Seleucid
– Changed political party names for Lugii to match new barb roster revisions (thanks Q!)
– Fixed IA Petra having wrong city culture type (new campaign only)
– Changed Barbarian great hall to have negative food rather than squalor. Slightly reduced PO negative.
– Added cultural conversion to tier 2 Melqart Carthage temple.
– Added AOR Tarantine cav unit to Epirus custom battle roster.
– Fixed Bosporan Lancers missing shoes.
– Changed Hispania Arse region to have positive industrial region effect
– Changed RoR Veneti to have celtic culture (new campaign only)
– Renamed “Carthage in Syracuse” event
– Fixed “Rome Secures Magana Graecia” message sometimes firing after Rome is destroyed.
– Removed Indian elephants from normal Hellenic barracks.
– Fixed bugged vanilla effect text for marriage loyalty
– Fixed Lugii missing chapter 8 mission description
– Added 3/4 class pop growth to Carthage mercenary barracks.
– Removed snipe/stalk from all non-Numidian cavalry
– Fixed bugged civil wars for various custom playables in DLC campaigns.
– Changed throwing axe graphical impact size.
– Added Greek biremes and triremes to Thracian rosters.
– Fixed Greek colony factions missing permissions for Athens special port.
– New standards for Armenia, thanks skillfultree!
– Fixed merc iberian champ shield entry
– Changed Arabian Levy spear to 300 men
– Switched bow entries for Arabian archer spearmen and Sabaean archers.
– Added seasonal requirements for floods & fires.
– Added factional mercenary for Suebi
– Fixed cappadocian cavalry appearance
– Fixed wrong armour entry on Xystophoroi
– Fixed speed entry of Parthian axemen
– Updated color scheme of Parthian faction
– Fixed vanilla bug with Armenian technologies
– Fixed bugged food consumption effects for various horse building chains

Credits
– Q_Sertorius for all the crazy hard work for months on large portions of this update. Attention to detail and work ethic second to none!
– CEMN for tirelessly working on all the great visual updates and continually addressing all the little issues that pop up there!
– KAM for all his work at all times
– Jake for the great icon and flag work yet again
– Summary for the amazing unit card work and the map, top notch!
– Skillfultree for use of the Armenian flags!
– TheCzarsHussar for lots of model editing work, thanks a ton!





"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike