Category Archives: Previews

Previews and Sneak Peaks for upcoming content.

1.3 Barbarian Overhaul – Galatian Roster Preview!

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The Galatians

Greetings everyone, we have another treat today from Q_Sertorius and CEMN – a Galatian preview. These units and roster revisions will be featured in our upcoming 1.3 mod update and can also be tried ahead of time in our current Barbarian submod beta pack. Check out our discord for details!

The Galatians were a Celtic people from Central Europe who invaded the Balkans during the 270’s BC, before eventually crossing to Asia Minor and settling in the Anatolian high lands. Having carved out a territory for themselves, the Galatians remained a player in Anatolian politics for nearly three centuries. They were originally composed of three tribes: the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii (a fourth tribe, the Aigosages, later joined them). They were closely related to the Scordisci and Boii, but their tribal connections extended even to southern Gaul, where a branch of the Tectosages lived (Roman authors reported finding loot from the Celtic invasion of Greece in temples belonging to the Volcae Tectosages). Due to their central location in the heart of the Hellenistic world and their constant interactions with the rival Hellenistic powers, the Galatians absorbed a great deal of Hellenic cultural influence, despite remaining culturally Celtic for much of their history.

In terms of their roster, the Galatians are strongest in melee infantry. They are brawlers par excellence, being the only playable Celtic faction which can recruit large units of Third Class swords. The Galatians are also one of two Celtic factions to get access to chariots (these are based upon Lucian, an ancient source of suspect reliability, but a source none-the-less). If nothing else, this gives them a way for their warriors to die in style. But, bold players will note that chariots can be utterly devastating against lightly-armed levies, which form substantial parts of early eastern armies. The Galatians are respectable in several other key areas, but players may quickly notice a relative weakness in long-ranged missiles and heavy cavalry, particularly in comparison with their eastern neighbors. These weaknesses are, however, easily addressed by careful augmentation with mercenary and Area of Recruitment troops (AOR) from nearby areas. A player who chooses not to rely heavily on AOR units is likely to experience quite a challenge.

The Galatians benefit a great deal from other cultural reforms as well – gaining access to experienced soldiers who have served in other Hellenistic armies at the Thureos and Thorax reforms. Thus, the Galatian roster presents the interesting historical reality of Celtic soldiers fighting for Hellenistic rulers, learning new skills and gaining new equipment, then returning to fight for their own faction. Due to their historically-attested Roman influences, the Galatians also gain access to very capable legionary units.

Galatia draws many aesthetic influences from the Hellenic world, which is reflected in unit equipment obtained through raid, trade, or even service in Hellenic armies as they often were historically. But, there are also hints of other influences having migrated through the Balkans, Thrace and settling in diverse Asia Minor. Finally, due to the warm climate of Asia Minor, many Galatians choose to go shortsleeved or even without wearing pants – perhaps inspired by their new neighbors…

1.3 Celtic Overhaul – Boii Roster Preview!

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The Boii

We are back with another DeI preview, once again brought to you by Q_Sertorius and CEMN! This preview features their Boii roster revision for the upcoming 1.3 update.

The Boii were a Celtic people from Central Europe, who, like many other Celtic people, migrated widely across Europe. Starting from their homeland near what is now Prague (modern Bohemia takes its name from them), they spread down into Slovenia and across the Alps into Italy. Like many other Italian Celts, they sided with Hannibal in the Second Punic War. At one point, they successfully ambushed and massacred an entire Roman army! In the 190’s BC, however, the Romans decisively defeated them and forced them out of Italy. They settled in northern Pannonia. However, in the mid-First Century BC, the Dacians forced them to migrate again. They joined the Helvetii in their attempt to migrate through the Roman Province, were defeated, and leave the historical record as clients of the Aedui. They fought alongside Vercingetorix in his great uprising against Caesar.

In terms of their roster, the Boii are designed to focus on melee troops, with strong archers in support. Although they are relatively weak in phalanx units and cavalry, which may make popular hammer-and-anvil army compositions less powerful, the diversity and quality of their melee troops more than makes up for these weaknesses. The Boii are designed to be able to form a melee unit mainline throughout the game. At the outset, they have surprisingly powerful and cost-effective clubmen. As they progress they also gain strong line-breaking units, due partly to having the strongest axe units among the Celtic factions, but also due to their unique Sword Masters. The Boii have the distinction of having the only two-handed sword unit in the Celtic playable factions. These units are based upon some interesting archaeological discoveries in the Czech Republic, where several swords of above average size have been uncovered. While speculative, this forms the basis for a unique and powerful unit. The Boii roster also includes excellent naked champions and other sword units.

Excellent two-handed sword units and naked champions, are, however, very vulnerable to missiles. Consequently, the Boii roster includes the best archers in the Celtic world as a means of quickly and efficiently countering enemy missile units. In keeping with the Boii focus on melee combat, the Boii Night Warriors are both excellent archers and solid in melee.

Aesthetically, the Boii are inspired by their historical migrations around and across the Alps, from Gaul to northern Italy and their in-game starting location in Germanic borderlands. Their units are inspired by these different sources and they are generally warmer clothed than most other Celts. The Freeman and Warrior classes primarily draw from their Germanic neighbors due to intermingling and trade between the two peoples, whereas the Nobles primarily draw from the Alpine and northern Italic regions, from which many have acquired equipment and fashions through raid and trade.

1.3 Celtic Overhaul – Arverni Roster Preview!

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Overview

As the DeI team gears up for another update coming this winter, we have targeted some upcoming changes for new beta submods that are already available to try out! One of those submods is the Celtic Overhaul from Q_Sertorius and CEMN. The main goal of this specific new beta is to revise most of the Celtic faction rosters in order to streamline and improve them both mechanically and aesthetically. We will have previews for these various roster changes, starting with the Arverni!

Celtic Overhaul by Q_Sertorius and CEMN

For the overall revision of the Celtic rosters, we wanted to provide a justification to hire each unit, at least at some point in the game. We also wanted to give each Celtic faction unique strengths and weaknesses, rooted in what historical and archaeological records we have, in a way which promoted good gameplay for each faction. In terms of unit power, we wanted to make the appearance match the stats, rather than the stats match the appearance. To that end, we took a close look at every unit’s stats to ensure that there were logical progressions. We removed a couple of units in order to reduce the bloat and repurposed others to give them more interesting roles.

Arverni Roster

In terms of roster design, we did not want to fundamentally change the Arverni roster. They were, and still are, a faction with relatively strong spear/phalanx and cavalry units. They were, and still are, relatively weak in melee infantry units. This does not mean that all their cavalry is the best in the game, nor does it mean that their melee infantry is terrible. Rather, they get great cavalry from Second Class population. They get good melee infantry from First Class population. This is the way the DeI team originally designed the Arverni and we saw no reason to change this approach. In terms of historical justification, this is driven by the fact that while swords may be the iconic Celtic weapons, spears are far more common in the archaeological record.

The boldest roster change was the decision to add actual short pike units to the Arverni late game roster. This built on their factional strength in phalanx units. While we know from Caesar that the Gauls employed Shield Walls, which were fundamentally similar to Mediterranean phalanx units, there is no direct evidence for these short pike units. It is justified by the discovery of a large number of rather large spearheads in First Century BC contexts. While this may seem to be relatively weak justification for such units, it is similar in evidentiary strength to the Boian two-handed sword units. There is some evidence to justify what makes for good gameplay. They are a logical extrapolation from the limited records we have. The result is a faction which, throughout the game, can maintain a strong mainline of phalanx units, protected on the flanks by great spear units, with slingers as their primary missile weapons, and widely-available cavalry to provide the hammer blow.

Aesthetically, besides an improved variety and visual quality of assets, one of the main goals has been to make sure unit visuals properly represent the stats and the class of the unit. For example, an armor value of 20 represents a helmet plus a leather cuirass, which will be the most common setup for that unit. But for variety, some warriors might want to showcase their bravery by not wearing a helmet or lighter armor, while another yet might wear reinforced leather or scale. But, the unit average will even out.

As for class, bright colors typically represent wealth as dyes could be expensive. Therefore, the Freeman class typically wear less colorful clothing and very basic armor and are generally shaggier and more unkempt than the Warrior class, who are a clear step up in terms of displayed wealth and equipment quality. Naturally, the Nobility carry the very best in arms and armor and flaunt their wealth with fine colorful textiles, silver and gold jewelry and eye-catching helmet decorations. Finally, Gallic art from around DeI’s timeframe depicts clean shaven men, something also mentioned by Caesar. Therefore, most Arverni nobles and a few of the warrior class won’t have any facial hair.

The Arverni reforms now lead to increased uniformity due to a powerful, centralized Celtic polity that could mass-produce simple equipment or mandate the wearing of helmets. But, all of that goes for Celts across the board. The Arverni particularly stand out as extra extravagant, with their cavalry being the fanciest of all.

We will have more previews to come as we approach 1.3 this winter. Make sure to check out this and our other beta submods on our Discord!

1.2.8 Upcoming Changes & Ideas

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Upcoming Mod Changes

Greetings everyone, its been awhile since I posted and I apologize! We took a small break for a few weeks after we had our last release but got right back to work on our next update.  We hope to have a beta to try out in the next couple of months and then a full mod update this summer.

As a sneak preview, I wanted to list some ideas we are currently working on implementing:

  • Reworked rosters for various factions including updated visuals and/or new units for Colchis, Bosporus, Massalia and Athens. The Greek colonies may also be receiving some custom culture and building changes.
  • Battle Lag Fixes will be implemented. Thanks to Benjin’s discoveries and some internal testing, we have found some unintended side effects of a few aspects of DeI that will be changed to help reduce battle lag, especially for lower tier systems. Some of you may have already tried out KAM’s submod that does this and those changes will most likely be fully added to the mod.
  • Around 90 new AI only units from Ritter-Floh that will round out many of the barbarian rosters and make them more unique. Rather than constantly fighting the same old generic celtic, germanic, iberian, thracian or british units, you will find some more specific tribal units when you go up against various AI factions.

  • Totally revised victory conditions by Q_Sertorius, a new team member who has changed the various conditions to be a lot more reasonable (and in some cases shorter) for many factions and standardized a lot of the requirements. Also, there will be variation between the victory types and cultures.
  • Amber & Spice Buildings have been added to the main cities of those resource areas. Rather than having them be regional effects, they will have their own custom building lines. This also will fix the bug where those resources sometimes disappear the first turn after loading.
  • Squalor Changes: The sanitation portion of squalor will be slightly more important and the massive public order negatives from higher tier buildings will be toned down.
  • Major & Minor fixes and updates – A whole lot more fixes and ideas are also being worked on and the list grows daily. A few major changes are also being tested which include reducing AI agent spam, changes to gravitas and population economic effects being properly implemented.

We also have some other major ideas still in the works that we are not 100% done with conceptualizing yet. So, I didn’t want to include those. However, expect many more changes to be included in the summer update! We hope to have more previews soon.

Website Changes

We have also decided to dedicate more time and resources to improving the website as we originally intended but life (and modding) got in the way! The Population and Reforms guides have been updated to reflect the most recent mod changes and more guides will be updated as we are able. In the future, we hope to have even more features such as a units database, a better regions guide/map and other ideas. Along with these changes, we have also implemented some light ads on the site. Our goal is to have the website eventually support itself for its long term viability and sustainability (and so we can keep working on deeper features for it!). Thanks for your support!

 

1.2.7 Campaign Features Preview

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Many new features and UI changes have creeped their way in to our latest mod effort. Although this won’t cover them all, this preview is an attempt to highlight and explain the great new changes coming to DeI campaigns.

Population & Supply Systems

New UI Updates
– The Settlement panel has been restructured so that it now displays more information properly, doesn’t bug the growth bar and shows the original settlement building slot points. The population total number has been moved to the right top of the panel and there are updated supply and population hover buttons for their relevant summaries.

– Units now show their population class, unit type and manpower size when you hover over them in an army. This can be useful for disbanding and replenishment information.

Baggage Trains
One major request over the past 5 or more years has been to make baggage trains more useful, these changes aim to do that.
– Baggage trains now lower the population requirement for an army to begin replenishment. This means that less available troops will be required in a region in order for replenishment to be allowed. For example, if normally 20 troops were needed to replenish in a region, 10 would only be needed instead. Also, this is the first time that these units have interacted with a system other than supply.
– Baggage trains now give missile and artillery units 15% more ammunition in an army.

– Armies with a baggage train unit now use less supplies in foreign territories for longer periods of time.
– Nomad baggage trains now provide food to your faction when in foreign lands and have cavalry campaign movement.
– Roman Marian and Imperial baggage trains now have infantry campaign movement.

Disbanding & Population System Bugs
– Fixed a major, old disbanding bug that would cause massive decreases in population levels. This especially affected first and second class population when disbanding whole armies or generals.
– You can now disband a whole army or multiple units at once and get back the proper population amount without having to do each unit one at a time.
– Population levels should also report correctly the same turn you disband.


New Belgic Dual Culture & Temples
– Belgic cultures now have a dual culture system that spreads both Celtic and Germanic cultures. They have a primary culture (Celtic) but also have to deal with the presence of Germanic culture as well.
– New temples that give both Celtic and Germanic culture to go with their new dual culture system have been added. These temples are based on historical research and local cultural gods.

Faction Flags & Emergent Factions
– New & Reworked flags for most factions and emergent factions to better fit with the overall aesthetic. Most flags should now match and have their own unique look that relates to that faction. Also changed many emergent faction names to have more historical and less generic names.

Credits
– Jake for all the great flag work and UI work!
– Jake and Augustus for the work on emergent factions
– Thanks to DMW and great research from the folks over at https://senobessusbolgon.wordpress.com/ for the new belgian temples!

1.2.7 Unit & Battle Preview

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This patch is unusual as it did not bring full factional or combat overhauls but had lots of hours put into updating, polishing or filling lackluster areas of the mod.
In Total 160+ units, generals and officers got their visuals updated, including new models added to DeI!

Below are certain key points:

1. Two handed and axe units
Their role as shock troops is more prominent, especially two handed units should move faster around the field, making them a threat if spotted on the flank!
One handed axe units got their stats adjusted, while their defence is still rather low, their charge more lethal than it used to be.

2. Thorakitai & Late Hellenic heavy sword infantry
Late Hellenic sword units got their stats overhauled, exchanging defence for higher attack. Thanks to that, spear and sword thorakitai are more distinct units with one being better at holding ground while the other is better at offence.

3. Syracuse units and city features overhauled
Syracuse melee units had an issue of having rather bland and similar stats. All of it has changed and their units not only stand out more from the other but also help this faction differ more from other Greeks.

Main building chain of Syracuse now also functions as workshop, allowing you to recruit siege weapons and crossbows without a need to build anything in other slots. If other Greeks conqer the city, they also have access to this benefit.

4. AOR unit cap overhauled
Area of recruitment units got their campaign caps changed so to be better aligned with their actual quality.

5. Dismounted cavalry stats
Now while fighting on foot, cavalry units should have more appropriate stats, some of them might even perform well as heavy shock troops if situation is dire.

6. Animation updates
Spear cavalry has new overhand charge animation added for more variety! Hoplites in back ranks will no longer stand idle but now they also stay braced. Bug with hoplites in back ranks “dancing” due to changing position constantly should be gone or less noticeable thanks to tweaks to transition times. After this patch will be out, we will also start new submod to check hoplite overhand animation to check if it can be added to main mod

7. Artillery ships have their range reduced and projectile size decreased. While they will be still extremly useful in naval battles and city sieges, they should be more balanced and won’t be able to snipe enemy units standing behind buildings on the other side of the city

8. Scythia updates
Scythian units got their stats updated, certain units were overhauled to different function, with some being specialized in certain roles.

9. “Two” Tarantines
Tarantine cavalry got overhauled to be more in line with historical records. Their role is still debated but it seems there were two version of this famed cavalrymen. “Original” Tarantines fought as light cavalry, that relied on their shield for protection and deadly skills with javelins for the kill but were unable to put up a fight in melee, often not even bringing melee weapons for smaller skirmishes as they were expected to just fall back to the camp. Later “national” Tarantines seem to be different type of units, probably just bearing “Tarantine” name as style of combat than ethnicity of the soldiers. While still rather light, they were more of a shock units, famed for being able to throw javelins during charge and switch to spears before going into gaps created by their projectiles. Both styles are now reflected in DeI, “original” Tarantines can be recruited as AoR or Mercenary troops, performing a role of elite, light skirmishers while ‘national” Tarantines are deadly, light shock cavalry with javelins that have ability to disrupt enemy formation for short time.

Original Tarantines (Left) and National Tarantines (Right) side by side:

10. Numidian elephants
Numidia finally gets very own elephant corps, rather than just having AoR/Merc ones. Their unique feature is their reformed elephants unit, while not heavily armoured, they have 25% more elephants per unit.

11. Bactria and Indian units
Bactria now is able to recruit Indian Longbowmen and Indian Guild Warriors from Thorax reform to represent their conquests which led to creation of Indo-Greeks.

12. Illyrian Sica Bearers
Illyria got two of their sword units changed into sica bearers as they were the ones who invented it. This also makes them a bit better against armoured enemies.

13. Full list of combat changes and tweaks can be found under detailed patch notes of Beta patch.

Unit and visual updates


1. New, highly detailed helmet for Bactria

2. New Macedonian and Ptolemaic units
Sacred Squadron regiments can now be recruited, instead of being just general bodyguard.
Late Sacred Squadrons are brand new units, that fight as heavy shielded lancers. While their charge is not as strong as dedicated lancers, it is still very high and their equipment allows them to be better in melee or if harassed by missiles.
Their Agema pikes also got brand new models and textures!

Late Antigonid Sacred Squadron:

Late Ptolemaic Sacred Squadron:

Antigonid Agema

Ptolemaic Kleruchoi Agema

3. Scythian Medium Infantry and updated visuals
Scythia received new medium infantry unit, while no match for Western heavy infantry, they are still solid shock troops, especially seeked out during sieges. Many other Scythian units got their roles changed to make their army more varied and others got visuals updates.

Medium Infantry:

Examples of other changes:

4. Pontic units
Pontus got 2 new units, Late Pontic Infantry, based on Mithridratic troops assembled and trained to resemble Roman fashion, placing them between thureophoroi and thorakitai in terms of performance. Another one is Bosphoran Horse Archer, coming from later state of Mithridratic kingdom where both Pontus and Bosphorus were under his rule. In addition, their early and late lancers got new look!

Late Pontic Infantry:

Bosphoran Horse Archers

Early & Late Lancers

6. New Spartan Cavalry
Picked Ionian Lancers are new unique unit of Sparta, they represent specific way of how Sparta used to recruit cavalry starting from Agesilaos. Initially made of Ionians, these soldiers had to go through strict recruitment process before being admitted to the unit. Due to that their regiments were small but of very high quality, at one point even beating Thessalian cavalry at their peak.

7. Kartli and their new ranged cavalry

Light Cavalry

Medium Skirmishers, they are expert at ambushing enemies and their horses, while light, allow them to ignore ground penalties.

8. Athenian cavalry bodyguard

9. Saka, new units and visual updates

Saka Assault Infantry is using short spears in two handed fashion and is equipped with heavy armour and bucklers. Despite using spears, they are more of a melee infantry but great if city needs to be taken!

Yuezhi Heavy Infantry, elite and heavily armoured heavy archers of Yuezhi tribes, also able to deal good amount of damage in melee.

Yuezhi Noble Cavalry, heavy horse archers, while not the deadliest when it comes to charge, they are very fast for such heavily armoured unit and their skills with bow are superb.

Updated late Cataphracts

10. Roxolani, new units and visual updates

Sarmatian Warriors, these medium infantry unit is solid but not exceptional melee unit. They come from more settled Sarmatian tribes.

Elite Sarmatian Archers, another unit coming from more settled Sarmatian tribes, these skilled archers can also fight as infantry if required.

Sarmatian Armoured Lancers

Sarmatian Noble Lancers

11. AoR & Mercenaries
Due to amount of changes, here are just selected few that got updated.

Mercenary Veteran Hoplites

Egyptian Infantry, Levies and Cavalry

Germanic Axemen

Assyrian Infantry (Previously Akkadian Infantry)

Babylonian Heavy Spearmen

Mesopotamian Spearmen

12. Parthian Noble Horse Archers, Heavy Infantry & Alan Noble Cavalry

Heavy Infantry

Noble Horse Archers

Alan Cavalry

13. Dii Sword Masters, one if not the most warlike of all Thracian tribes, now joining ranks of Odryssian Kingdom

14. Syracuse melee units

Samnite Medium Infantry

Sicillian Footmen

15. Seleucid Royal Peltasts & Late Companions

16. Arverni Veteran Freemen and Heavy Axemen

17. Dozens of officers recieved new look, with new textures, models and details, here are some examples.

Parthian

Nomadic

Pontic

Germanic

18. Parthian, Spartan, Persian and Pontic generals updated.

1.2.6a Preview – UI Features & Economic Changes

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Overview
We had originally planned on a small fix update after our large summer release of 1.2.6. However, as work continued on our upcoming “hotfix”, the features and new changes kept expanding. So, this new update will be a rather large affair. Whereas the previous update over the summer was primarily focused on battle changes and various new units, this patch is mostly focused on some new campaign changes and features. Highlights include new UI features, new faction traits, new buildings, region effect and edict changes, economic changes and many other changes and fixes.

New UI Features
Thanks to great help from DETrooper, Jake, and Daruwind, we have some wonderful new UI fixes and new features to show off.

The first new features are two new information hover text buttons for the supply and population systems. These will help both new and veteran players be able to access the information about a region’s supply and population status in an efficient and summarized manner. The more detailed breakdowns for these systems will still remain in their current locations:


The second isn’t a new feature but it is a fix that has been long desired by everyone. Rather than having Province effects limited to 6 slots and, therefore, unable to display most region effects, the new limit has been raised to 12. This will allow players to see all the local effects going on in their regions and provinces:


Finally, the last change is the presence of aqueducts for Roman players on the campaign map. Due to a vanilla bug/oversight, aqueducts were never displayed properly on the Augustus campaign map (which is used by the Grand Campaign, Augustus Campaign and Empire Divided Campaign). Now, they will properly be displayed:


New Faction Traits
Like last patch, we are continuing to overhaul the faction traits for various cultures, specifically ones who received the more generic or boring traits (or had copied traits). For this patch these include the Nomadic, African, Arabian, Illyrian, Dacian, Cimbri, Irish and Thracian factions.

New Buildings
A few new buildings have been added to the mod with this update. These include new amber/spice trader buildings in the regions that produce those resources and a new special faction trait Getae-only building, which goes with the new faction trait overhaul.


Region Effect, Edict & Economic Changes
– Region Effects have been fixed since many effects were not working properly. New effects have been added, especially ones that affect edicts so that they will be different based on the region and province.
– The Agriculture economy has been reworked to make it more effective when compared with the trade and tax economies. This rework includes changes to buildings, region effects and the export and import food edicts to make them more viable and to make certain buildings more helpful for them.
– More information on the many changes this will entail to various buildings and other systems will be included in the upcoming patch notes.

Smaller Fixes & Release
A lot of smaller fixes and changes will be included in this patch as well, including those for battles. We plan on releasing this patch in the next couple of weeks.

Credits
– Huge thanks to DETrooper for the Region effect UI change!
– Thanks to yaxl3y for finding the issue with regional tax effects.
– Big thanks to Daruwind, DETrooper and Jake for the new UI buttons to use!
– Thanks to DMW for the research for faction traits yet again!