The Roman Empire mod

[von altair]

I am thinking about Roman empire mod. Is anyone doing that already? If yes I would like to hear about it. If no, I would like to know if someone here likes to join and we could do it together.

I have few basic things how to build this mod:

This mod contains 2 people + 1 event race. Romans and Barbarians. 1 vs 1 pvp or Roman player against AI Barbarians.

No point to build up historical situation, as we don't know too well how things went in those times. Idea is to build system which will give the right feeling, and will fit in theme and AT engine.

Roman special things:
- The best heavy infantry around.
- Unique ability to build forts which have ability to produce supply for 1 Legion
* Basically Romans are fighting against barbarian hordes and get surrounded quite often. There is 2 kind of forts. So called light forts which are cheap and will be used in defensive purposes only. Larger Stronghold is needed for Legion to survive in conquered land and keep it in Roman empire
- Roman player can have new HQ and Legion containers only from event cards. Only limited amount of them available. Roman player will have limited amount of unit containers, but all of them may and will be tough ones.
- Ability to build ballistas and catapults
- Supply wagons and ability to build roads. Roman player can achieve victory only
by keeping his army supplied and have to defend all occupied territories while other legions conquers more. This will be hard task, when the empire is getting larger.
- Will test how pp income via killing barbarians works out (The Senate awarded good generals with more units)
- Basic tactic is to conquer barbarian lands one by one and prevent them to grow too much.
- The Rome will win, with 100vp. Each barbarian Capital will give 20vp. Roman player will need to hold them all. As long as one of those Cities are free, Barbarians will be around.

Barbarian special things:
- No unit counter limit. There will be a lot of them.
- Barbarian player will start as Germanic horde . Player will have access to event cards which allows activation of Gallia, Britain, Macedonia or Greece, Egypt and/or Carthage. This can be also timed system, which will be easier for AI. Unless the Romans don't declare war against them first
- All these minor Barbarians will bring few special units along with them. Together they will form a good combination of units which can beat the Romans. (Egypt - Chariots, Carthage - Elephants, Germans - Axemens, Gallia - light cavalry, Britain - Longbows, Greece - Spearmens/Phalanx).
- Barbarian player can also start rebellions behind Roman lines
- Clear resource advantage and weaker units. There will be a lot of them.
- Basic tactic is to surround and break Roman supply lines, units and forts. Then kill all legions one by one and free conquered lands back to barbarian brethren!
- Barbarians will win the game by capturing the Rome.

If someone would like to join, please let me know. Also good maps are welcome. This needs a lot of work and even more work to balance things out. All ideas are welcome.

[BULLDOGINTHEUK]

Sounds interesting. I am not aware of anyone else doing this kind of mod. I would suggest that you use the massive Europe map that was posted a few weeks ago and can be found on the mod topics forum here. Alternatively you could use the Diplomacy map already on the disc.
 
I would suggest also perhaps having more than 2 players and mod the game similar to Rome Total War, having Greek Cities, Celts, Germanic States, Moors, etc...
 
Good luck.

[zook08]

Great idea! Just my 2 cents on this:

Auxiliae: "By the 2nd century, the auxilia contained the same number of infantry as the legions and in addition provided almost all the Roman army's cavalry and more specialised troops (especially light cavalry and archers). The auxilia thus represented three-fifths of Rome's regular land forces at that time."
You may need some manpower restriction for Rome, so that only a limited number of legionaries can be built, but lots of auxilia. Italia has the Roman people with higher Morale/Combat stats, everybody else is Barbarian. You could steal the Manpower system from WaW.

No strategic transport/transfer. New legions can be built in Rome, and have to march to the frontier.

Persia: always a problem. Make them a powerful, sleeping AI regime, and count Roman garrisons on the border (again, steal the German/USSR garrison system from WaW). If the Romans fail to maintain their garrisons, the East is overrun by Persians. Lots of them.

SF types I can think of:
Heavy Infantry (Legions)
Light Infantry (everyone else)
Cavalry (for the Romans, Auxiliae only)
Archers (Rear area SFType) (BTW, longbows are medieval)
Siege Engines (sloooow)
Fleets
Elephants, of course. Can only be built in Carthage.

To make the Legions more powerful, grant them high XP values (if you make them buildable with Action Cards, you could give them e.g.80 XP). Lower the XP Growth Modifier, so that all troops gather XP only very slowly. That way, the Legions will be very powerful, but losing them will hurt a lot. You could allow building some Legion replacements, but they'd start at 0 XP.

Pirates! Losing control over the Mediterranean trade routes should hurt the Romans badly. Most cities outside Rome should produce only supplies (to feed Rome), so the Anti-Supply system is just what you need.
Storms! A small chance for each fleet not in port to just sink, or lose a random amount of ships.

Winter effects would be nice to have, too. Make each turn three or four months long.

Civil war! Give the Emperor some status points for victory in battle, conquering cities, or for PP spent on expensive bread & games. His status is modifed randomly ech turn, but generally drops slowly. If his status drops below 0, there is a chance of an uprising in Rome, with a new AI regime taking over the capital. That way, the player needs to play agressively.

[von altair]

Thank you for very good ideas. I already took that awesome large map and rescaled it smaller. Also going to use Ricks realmod, to make it look better. While I rescaled map, I found a bug in editor (I think someone else found it too). Reported it to Vic, and for my supprise he fixed it right away! Havent seen this kind of things never before!

I already founded many good graphics for Roman units and going to use them. Still looking for good pictures for barbarian side. Then Have to make new unit icons and, start balancing things out.

[zook08]

Very low auto-entrench values for non-Legions, high ones for Legions.

Very short HQ bonus ranges.

Romans can build new cities (requiring lots of PP).

Distiguish between fortified and unfortified cities. To capture a fortified city, you'd better bring siege equipment (which is basically useless in field battles).

Good/bad omens could lower Roman or Barbarian readiness for a turn.

[SMK-at-work]

Depending on era Auxilia was either an auxiliary arm (duh!!) or formed much of the elite field army!!
 
So what era are you going to set it it?
 
The Early Empire is the one of Trajan and Germanicus, the conquest of Britain and Dacia, and Mesopotamia from the Parthians, but largely peaceful elsewhere.  Legionaries wear Lorica Segmentata, and carry large curved mainly rectangular shields.  In this era Auxilia are definitely less important than the legions and are often put in front of them to take the initial shock.
 
By the the century the elite troops are now the Palatine units - mostly auxilia with a few legions.  Legions are mainly rated "Comitatensis" - they are troops of hte line and there are many Auxilia units at this rating too.  border guards aer sometimes "raised" to "pseudo-comitatensis" status for temporary assignment to a field army.  Infantry wears little or no armour, the shields are large flat ovals and circles, the pila and gladius have long since disappeared and been replaced by various spears and het spatha - the longer sword originally used by cavalry.
 
Most of the elite units are raised from "barbarians" - and contrary to popular belief there is no evidence that htey fought any worse than roman citizens, and AFAIK not a single case of them known to have deserted (unlike, say, the Batavians in 69AD).
 
Cavalry also changes - the standard Italian, Gallic, Spanish, Nth African and German cavalryman for hundreds of years had a shield and a couple of spears or javelins.  Rich ones wore metal armour.  Parthian and especially Hun influences on eth cavalry saw teh adoption of the composite bow as the standard weapon of Roman cavalry in the later empire (and on into the Byzantine era), while unarmoured javelin skirmishers retained titles such as "Mauricii" (ie moors - numidians, refering to them being unarmoured javelinmen as the Numidians had once been, not necessarily being recruited from there) and "Illyricanii" (after similar troops from Illyria).
 
Heavier cavalry is introduced after contact with Sarmatians and Parthians - lancers armed with the long Kontos sometimes used 2 handed - initially probably jsut "normal" cavalry equipped with the weapon, but later often on fully- or partially armoured horses and sometimes perhaps also equipped with bows.
 
So there's a lot of possible variety!!
 
 

[von altair]

I am going to use "Reconstruction of the World map according to Pomponius Mela (ca. 40 A.D.)"
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/116.html

40AD is good time to start up. However, Romans will only have Italian area at start. Historical or no. It is better setup for the game.

Barbarian Countries:
Germania - Start country for Barbarian Faction -
Britannia  - Can be activated by event card
Gallia      - Can be activated by event card
Hispania  - Can be activated by event card
Mauritania - Must be attacked by Rome (to earn vp)  - or activated random chance by event
Numidia    - Must be attacked by Rome (to earn vp) - or acitaved random chance by event
Egypt      - Must be attacked by Rome (to earn vp) - or activated random chance by event
Armenia   - Can be attacked by Rome - or conquered by Persian, which will be aggressive to the Rome
Thracia / Illyria / Sarmatia - Will compare power to Roman east Garrison and attack if getting bigger (not yet sure about this)

[zook08]

ORIGINAL: von altair

I am going to use "Reconstruction of the World map according to Pomponius Mela (ca. 40 A.D.)"
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/116.html

Why such a weird map?

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: zook08

ORIGINAL: von altair

I am going to use "Reconstruction of the World map according to Pomponius Mela (ca. 40 A.D.)"
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/116.html

Why such a weird map?

Hah, I am NOT using that map tightly, only picking up country names and positions from it

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: von altair

Thank you for very good ideas. I already took that awesome large map and rescaled it smaller. Also going to use Ricks realmod, to make it look better. While I rescaled map, I found a bug in editor (I think someone else found it too). Reported it to Vic, and for my supprise he fixed it right away! Havent seen this kind of things never before!

I already founded many good graphics for Roman units and going to use them. Still looking for good pictures for barbarian side. Then Have to make new unit icons and, start balancing things out.

I think you mean Nicks Realmod.

Rick

[zook08]

There is a Cyberboard gamebox of Imperium Romanum II:
http://www.yodellingcrickets.org/cb/cbIndex.html

It contains a hexmap with borders, ports, cities, information about which provinces had roads, which cities existed in which period, etc. etc. Everything you need.

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: zook08

There is a Cyberboard gamebox of Imperium Romanum II:
http://www.yodellingcrickets.org/cb/cbIndex.html

It contains a hexmap with borders, ports, cities, information about which provinces had roads, which cities existed in which period, etc. etc. Everything you need.

Great! I sended you a mail with stuffs you missed.

About 80% Roman graphics are ready. 20% Roman unit icons are ready. Is there anyone who are specialized with those unit icons? I got a job for you! Also graphic material from barbarians would be great.

[von altair]

90% Graphics ready (Anyone have good graphics about barbarian archers and/or chariots/elephants?)
85% OOB ready
70% New map ready (had to change an old map to smaller one)
 
Going to finish those and then handling action cards + events.

[Joshuatree]

Sounds great, when do you expect to release a beta? Two weeks?

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

Sounds great, when do you expect to release a beta? Two weeks?

As soon as possible. Can't promise anything

This mod is quite hard to balance. It needs a lot of betaplaying and testing. I am going to use quite large stack limits (mayby 400), so army size can be bigger. Also side bonuses are small or I will take them out totally. Ancient battles were always "prepared" battles. Two huge army face to face in open field.

[Joshuatree]

"Ancient battles were always "prepared" battles. Two huge army face to face in open field"
 
Yeah maybe, but I do remember battles where surprise attacks did influence the  battle. So you could at least give cavalry or fast units a bonus. 

[von altair]

The Game is 90% ready. Finishing events and action cards. Then it needs some testing and balancing.

[zook08]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

"Ancient battles were always "prepared" battles. Two huge army face to face in open field"

Yeah maybe, but I do remember battles where surprise attacks did influence the battle. So you could at least give cavalry or fast units a bonus.

In 9 CE, three legions were destroyed in an ambush in northern Germany (http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg05.html). So this should at least be possible, even though it was a rare event.

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: zook08

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

"Ancient battles were always "prepared" battles. Two huge army face to face in open field"

Yeah maybe, but I do remember battles where surprise attacks did influence the battle. So you could at least give cavalry or fast units a bonus.

In 9 CE, three legions were destroyed in an ambush in northern Germany (http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg05.html). So this should at least be possible, even though it was a rare event.

Heh good timing. I just read about that battle as well, when I was looking for good heros.
Arminius is added in now. There is 6 named heroes already.

Currently I am using max 50% side bonus, 400 stack limits, short HQ bonus range with intresting supply system. Going to make political options, which will give
many different tactics. 4 Games in row and everyone will most likely be different one.

This mod has taken a lot of time, but its all quite fun and rewarding. After looking a bit deeper in the game's editor/event possibilites, I can only say "this is awesome game". I am an old MUD wizard and this event system allows quite nice tricks as did LPC before

[BULLDOGINTHEUK]

Heres a quick one I started, needs to be resized.