Balkans Mod Preview – joint project of Hardradi and Descartes

[Hardradi]

Balkans Mod Preview – joint project of Hardradi and Descartes

Balkans Mod is a stand alone mod. It will also ultimately form part of Imperium.

The mod covers a vast swath of territory from northern Italy in the west, through to the Crimean Peninsula in the east and the northern borders of Macedonia in the south. Like Africa Mod, Balkans Mod mainly focuses on including historical nations, characters, families, war’s and alliances. All new flags and title graphics will also be included.

The lands to the north of Macedonia will never look the same again.


New Features

1) The Epigone (the heirs) – attempt to re-found the glory of Diadochi, by reconstituting the kingdoms of:

i. Antigonus Monophthalmus through the Antigonid Dynasty​

ii. Antipater through the Antipatrid dynasty​

iii. Lysimachus through the Agothoclid dynasty​

2) Re-live Pyrrhus’s march on Sparta, with a new decision where you can instal your own Spartan king (from house Agiad or Eurypontid).

3) The owner of Argolis province will have a swag of decision choices:

i. Instal a tyrant of your choosing in Argos and release the nation​

ii. Instal a tyrant of your choosing in Corinth and release the nation​

iii. Release Athens as a democracy​

iv. Release Athens as an oligarchy​

4) Reform state decisions for greek nations and leagues

5) New Tribal Confederacy government including conversion decisions to/from

6) New nation formation event in a barbarian province


New Nations

- 39+ new nations, 11 of these are for decision purposes​

- A broken Macedon at the start of the game, Antigonos Gonates vs Ptolemy Keraunos​

- A bag full of new greek leagues that the player can reconstitute as new nations​

- Accurate reflection of the break up of Dacian Kingdom after the death of Burebista​

- New nations from many different cultures​

- Missions for the new nations​

ETA of release – 1 to 2 months…

 

[Hardradi]

Some of the new decisions:

Effect of installing you own tyrant:

The view north:

New greek leagues:

Break up of Burebista's Kingdom:

 

[Descartes]

I would like to point out that my contributions are limited to graphics only. Hardradi stands for all research, coding and text.

 

[Kanaric]

nice mod, was waiting for something like this for a while... something to simply add nations to the dacians area. However you have gone beyond that and I can't wait for this to come out.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Very nice.

I do have a few questions though:

1) Epirus's march for Sparta. Sparta, the nation i prefer playing usually already has a rockhard time early on. Ending up a prime target of Epirus early on and getting swarmed by it's might will just make it near-impossible to play it. As my AAR indicates early on, i'm quite fond of a good challenge but Sparta already has it's 'beep' in the grinder.
2) By shredding Macedon won't that cause some of the main powers to become even more dominant overall? Granted it'll be easier for one of the small states (like Aetolian League, Sparta etc) to become dominant in the region, but on the other hand it may affect gameplay overly much.
3) Will the Greek World be finetuned in this mod title wise? If so any chance i'll get a hint at what is to come in that regard? I'd especially like to see the number of titles one can give raised.
4) Any chance for a redo for a redo of all mission of the Greek states and perhaps some National Ideas?
5) Will you try to artificially slide the A.I. into using a lot of the new options such as leagues?


Overall i'm highly positive about the purpose of this mod. The Greek World could use a good overhaul. Might also sit well within the 'Magna Mundi' EUR project later on if it gets of the ground.

 

[Descartes]

I think I can answer the second question:
Macedonia isn't splitted into different countries, just two civil war factions. Normally, the civil war ends before any of the neighbours can take advantage of the situation.

 

[Hardradi]

Very nice.

I do have a few questions though:

1) Epirus's march for Sparta. Sparta, the nation i prefer playing usually already has a rockhard time early on. Ending up a prime target of Epirus early on and getting swarmed by it's might will just make it near-impossible to play it. As my AAR indicates early on, i'm quite fond of a good challenge but Sparta already has it's 'beep' in the grinder.
2) By shredding Macedon won't that cause some of the main powers to become even more dominant overall? Granted it'll be easier for one of the small states (like Aetolian League, Sparta etc) to become dominant in the region, but on the other hand it may affect gameplay overly much.
3) Will the Greek World be finetuned in this mod title wise? If so any chance i'll get a hint at what is to come in that regard? I'd especially like to see the number of titles one can give raised.
4) Any chance for a redo for a redo of all mission of the Greek states and perhaps some National Ideas?
5) Will you try to artificially slide the A.I. into using a lot of the new options such as leagues?


Overall i'm highly positive about the purpose of this mod. The Greek World could use a good overhaul. Might also sit well within the 'Magna Mundi' EUR project later on if it gets of the ground.

Thanks Kanaric and Darth

Good to see some intersting questions.

1) The Epirus march on Sparta decision, shouldn’t affect game balance at all, unless I put it in as a specific mission. It is more of a bonus for the Pyrrhus fan but it will be available to all Greek/Macedonian nations. Cleonymus the Spartan exhile/adventurer was the Agiad member with Pyrrhus. It is simply handled. If you have a Spartan exile from either of the royal families in your country and you own Sparta you can place them as a monarch and release the nation. The benefits for the player are - the new Spartan ruler is your friend and you get great relations with Sparta. (My understanding is that diplomatic options are currently very limited for the modder and this is the best that I could think of).

2) State of Macedonia - yes, she is in a real bad state at the start of the game, a civil war, Celtic horde, etc. Click a few years ahead when Antigonus Gonates has taken power and it will be normal. The play testing I have done so far shows that the new tribes to the north generally have had little effect on Macedonia, they are often busy squabbling amongst themselves (but this is pre mission implementation)

3) I haven’t really focused to much on the Greek states. If I followed the way I have done Balkans Mod and Africa Mod it would be a massive task. It would take a huge amount of reading from the sources.
Perhaps in the future but Spain needs a bit of loving first and then the east to weaken the Seleucids. I am a big Sparta fan to, maybe I could look at one country at a time. There are at least three new in game Greek states in Balkans Mod, one in Greece two on the Black Sea coast. There will be two new Macedonian titles. I might recycle the horesmaster title from Africa Mod into Balkans as well. I have a text (or seen one) which maps out a bit of a cursus honorum for the Macedonians, that would be nice to implement at some stage. It might also be applicable to the Seleucids and a modified for the Ptolemies.

4) As above

5) AI on Greek league decisions - at the moment I think I have it as 50:50 or 100%. It’s a good point, I might see if I can implement an AI thought chain based on:
- stability;
- # of allies/tributaries; and
- gold.

Someone smarter than me might be able to get the "release" decision going for non-specific nations, based on using cores and Descartes trade system. I havent tried but I can visualise it.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Thanks for all the replies!
I like the way you tackled things.
And i won't stop you to focus on Sparta first if you get to the Greeks.

 

[The-Doc]

This sounds great! The Balkans were so ahistorically empty I was about to start filling them in myself, but looks like you are doing all the work for me

A small thing that you may consider, I believe the area referred to as Paeonia was part of the Roman province of Macedonia rather than Moesia Superior. So since the regions are based on the Roman ones it may as well be corrected for this mod.

 

[Hardradi]

Thanks for pointing that out, I havent even considered the regions.

I will add it to my to do list.

Yes it will be good to get this one up and running. I am interested to see the sort of power blobks that form north of the Danube.

 

[adonys]

may i ask which one of you gentlemen is romanian?

 

[Hardradi]

may i ask which one of you gentlemen is romanian?

Sorry, not me. I am Australian.

 

[Descartes]

And not me, I'm Swedish.

 

[Puppets]

If this is done can I use those new countries and flags for my Latinia Universalis mod ( link in sig )? It will greatly decrease the time I need to put in the next version.

 

[Descartes]

You can use the flags for sure.

 

[Puppets]

You can use the flags for sure.

Can't you send me the current version in a .zip file via email (mickschot@hotmail.com) or PM?

I am not really into EU:Rome and practically only need the nations and flags for this mod.