Dev Diary 92: Remastered/new art, Arvernian and Salluvian missions and Germanic tree revamps
Salvete!
Today we’ll be talking about several pieces of remastered art by Pureon and new art by Aquizar, new trees for Arvernia and Salluvia and a revamp of many of the Germanic trees.
To present everything i’ll hand you to over Zorgoball.
Hello everyone, it’s Zorgo with a bunch of neat stuff to show off today, so let’s get right into it. First thing on today’s menu is from Pureon and Aquizar, two master chefs that have been working hard at creating new art. Pureon has been remastering and reimagining images with great success, as seen in the “city on fire” event;
And here’s another image that uses a vanilla military tradition picture for its inspiration.
In addition to all of the awesome event artwork that will be in the next update of Invictus, there will also be 40 remastered treasure icons, all thanks to Pureon.
So good! The next update will also have awesome new mission headers from Aquizar, with a few examples given here to whet your appetites.
Of course, we are leaving more for you to discover on your own. But now it’s time to talk about a brand new “mechanic” that I added for migratory tribes; the ability to raid a neighboring country. If you have enough political influence and you haven’t raided a neighbor in the last five years, your Tribal Chief will be able to lead a warband into the land of your enemies in hopes of acquiring ill-gotten gains. Some of you might recognize my handiwork from the fantasy overhaul mod
Chronicles of Omniluxia, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t, but this is a more souped-up version of what I made over there; I doubled the events and changed how everything works. Let’s return to those scoundrels the Androphagians and follow Samcite on his adventure and hope it works out for him.
You will be presented with a list of countries within diplomatic range that you can choose to raid. But please don’t forget that you are the Tribal Chief of a savage and powerful migratory tribe, so if you chicken out at the last minute, your kinsmen won’t appreciate your cowardice and your reputation will take a hit.
Good luck, lads…
What happens next is up to RNGesus; your Tribal Chief might be a mighty warrior with a martial score of 20, but even a lion can fall to a pack of dogs, as they say, and nothing is guaranteed when you launch a clandestine raid against an enemy. Raiding is inherently dangerous, after all, and out of the twenty possible outcomes, there is a very, very small chance that your Ruler could be injured, or even worse, killed, so keep that in mind before you start gallivanting around in the lands of your enemies.
Most of the time things should be fine, however, and you might even have some really good things happen to your Ruler. Let’s roll the dice and see what happens to Samcite and his boys when they try to sneak into Scythia to attack the locals.
This event will literally steal a pop from one of their territories and move them to your capital. Here’s the event that fires for Scythia if they are the target of a successful raid;
As you can see, there are repercussions to launching sneak attacks on your enemies, so it might not be worth antagonizing a powerful neighbor. And in case you are worried about being constantly raided by nomads - a historically accurate scenario, to be sure - it wouldn’t be very fun gameplay to constantly receive notifications that one of your provinces has been raided, so the ability has been restricted. You will only be able to raid once every five years, and a country that has been raided cannot be raided by anyone else for five years.
But onward with our narrative. The annoyed Scythians might decide to raid the Androphagians soon thereafter, and yes the AI will use this interaction so have fun with that. There is a 1/50 chance a ruler death will happen, but thankfully for the purposes of my demonstration, I got this event to fire without having to reload too many times. Needless to say, the Scythians aren’t having a very good game.
Losing the manpower will be a harsh blow, especially for smaller tribes, so you might not want to raid if you are worried about your levy strength. But on the other hand, you will have the potential to make your year’s income in a single event, so it's very tempting to consider raiding as a way of supplementing your income. Just remember that you could also be destabilized and suffer dire consequences and you'll be fine.
You will get a slightly different notification if your warriors kill a neighboring ruler in one of these rare outcomes, which is a nice touch, if I say so myself.
For this last example, the Borysthenians will end everything where it all started and raid the Androphagians.
A bit of gold, a new character trait, and some popularity - not too shabby at all. So yes, this exciting new feature will only be available to migratory tribes…except that it won’t. If you have been waiting to try a pirate-themed campaign in Invictus, then you might want to hold out a little bit longer and wait for the update, because yes, pirates will also have the ability to raid. The Illyrians, for example, will be able to unlock this skill if you double down on the pirate’s life and take this optional task.
Again, this could be dangerous for your Ruler - you might get banged up a little and receive the Wounded trait, or you could even get seriously hurt and lose an eye - but it will make for amazing storytelling and memorable campaigns.
While we are on the topic of new mechanics, I have also added to what we refer to as the “bankruptcy buttons”; if you are cash strapped in the next update of Invictus, you will be able to neglect your religious duties in order to keep your treasury afloat. Ah, glorious icon symmetry at last!
An event will be added to the random bankruptcy events to match.
Let’s talk about another small quality of life thing before moving on to the new content; the slight overhaul of the Germanic missions. Many of the trees that were made for the Germanic tags are amongst the earliest that were made for Invictus, and many haven’t been touched or looked at since our first updates, and the differences in quality and content are noticeable.
And so a handful of new missions have been added to some trees, and the loc has been refreshed and updated to be more flavorful and appealing. Everything was done with a very light hand, keeping the vision of the original developer in mind, but if you replay certain tags like the Vandals or the Frisians, you might notice things look a little different than they used to. The largest improvement are the tooltips, as all confusingly-worded task requirements have been clarified; here’s an example from the Haria tree.
A little more colorful, with some new mission rewards and modifiers sprinkled throughout. While we are on the subject of tribes, let’s head over to Gaul and see what is going on over there. We will start with a tree for the Salluvians, which has content from myself, OmegaCorps, and rutabega. Here is a look at their heritage to set the scene;
What will the Salluvians do? Will they remain on friendly terms with the Greeks in their backyard, or will they double down on their own traditions in the face of threats from foreign foes? In the small regional tree “Swords of Salluvia”, you will get to choose the future of your kinsmen. With the usual caveat that ‘localization and modifiers can and potentially will change from now until release’ in mind, we dive in.
Here’s a look at some of the tasks available to you. It might be a good idea for you to strengthen the ties that you have with the Ligurians living within your borders, so you will be given the option straightaway in hopes of increasing relations between your people.
Of course, there will be infrastructure tasks, such as taking advantage of the farmland available to you.
The wealthy cities on the coast will tempt your Ruler into attacking them in hopes of adding their wealth and technological innovations to your own. In the end, you will destroy them and take their place as the wealthy powerbrokers of the region.
Will you be the one that forms the mighty Salluvian Confederacy? All signs point to yes. Stick a pin in the Salluvian Confederacy, by the way, because we will be coming back to them in a bit.
Thanks to rutabega for making the formable.
The lands needed to form the Tier 1 tag. You can expect a nice regional playthrough that will see you build up your lands rather nicely, with the option to become a nuisance after taking over the Hellenic harbors and markets if you want to play with some of our new mechanics.
The next update will not only have a Salluvian tree, but one for the Arvernians - at long last, Gaul content for Invictus! I present to you the “Protectors of Gaul”, with a small disclaimer to follow before we take a deeper look at what you can expect.
So, first things first. Is this a Vercingetorix larp tree? Not exactly. The famous events involving the Arverni and Julius Caesar happened hundreds of years after the game starts, and we aren’t going to railroad the player down a certain historical path that might not be able plausible in your campaign. There will be no Alesia sieges and double walls with this tree, but with that being said, there are certainly many historical nods and allusions throughout the course of this mission. There is absolutely the possibility that a mighty warrior named Vercingetorix will be leading an Arverni army against Roman Legions. Here’s a picture of the tree, which is more about seeing the shape and header artwork than reading the individual tasks.
The first thing on the agenda will be defeating the enemies to the south and taking over the vast majority of the Arvernia province, but, just like the distant Androphagians, there will be outspoken Tribal Chiefs amongst your own people that will shape the discourse and outcome of certain events.
The rivalry between the Arverni and the Aedui was legendary, something that you will have to deal with.
The Haedui are not going to take this provocation sitting down, however, and if your Ruler decides to stir up old tensions, a special event will fire for them.
Maybe resuming hostilities wasn’t the best idea. Startled by the arrival of powerful Germanic mercenaries in the Aeduian capital, your Ruler will seek out strong allies of his own, starting an arms race in central Gaul that could potentially cause a massive war between multiple tribes.
Hmm, maybe things won’t be too bad after all. Keep on eye on Celtillus, by the way, as he seems ambitious…but back to the Haedui. If you are able to destroy them, then you will decide what happens to their city of Bibracte.
As always, tasks to build up your economy while expanding your borders.
One of the cool things that the Arvernians will be able to do involves forming feudatories. Historically, they eventually ruled over a sizable bit of land and accepted tributes from their neighbors, and you will be given the option to emulate their example in your own way. After you have taken over your home province, you will be given three options for expansion; you can conquer the Arvernian-cultured countries to the west, you could move against the Volcaeans to the south, or you could swing towards the coast and subjugate the Salluvian tribes first.
Here’s the promised second appearance of the Salluvian Confederacy formable that rutabega made. Let's look at what your borders might be after a handful of successful wars, and then we will see what happens if you take the decisions to release the feudatories.
You should always expect disagreements from your Tribal Chiefs, who have only grown more powerful as your borders have expanded.
Your feudatories will keep your same country color but remain distinctive entities, albeit with an Arvernian twist - they’ll have new flags based off of your own colors, which is neat.
These two formable tags, Volcaea and the Salluvian Confederacy, were added by Invictus, so the Arvernians basically get the chance to form two Tier 1 tags and rule over them in the course of their own tree, which is a pretty fun way to demonstrate their growing tribal hegemony. Once you hit certain requirements, you will even be able to proclaim your own league.
If you continue to acquire more subjects, your reputation throughout the land will grow. Instead of fearing your expansion, everyone will start to view you as the natural Protectors of Gaul; a friend and not an enemy.
Your people will require a proper capital, and so you will begin the process of building up Gergovia and moving to your historical seat of power.
Gergovia is located in the forests near the inaccessible Arvernia highlands, and there will be tasks allowing you to build up the fortifications that lead to your new capital.
There might be some fun event chains sprinkled here and there.
You’ll have to wait to see what they give you, but there are multiple options and they are all very nice, so the choice will be difficult - good problems to have. At this point in your campaign, you will have dominated your neighbors, built a majestic capital, and have improved the lives of your people through careful investments. It should come as no surprise to hear that this road leads to a monarchy, with a brand new formable available for the future Arvernian Kings.
After having built up a successful kingdom, your Ruler will be able to spend their final days in peaceful contemplation, secure in the knowledge that their accomplishments have…oh, what’s that? Italy has been unified by a rampaging Republic and is now a scary red color?
In a salute to the historical conflicts between the Romans and the Arverni, there are special missions that only appear under a certain condition; if Rome, be it player or AI, completes their first mission tree, then Arvernia will be alerted to the growing strength of the Roman Republic and given tasks to help prepare for the inevitable invasion.
Your King might be pursuing a vanity task, such as building a magnificent marketplace in the Arverni capital, when the mission tree suddenly changes its shape and five new tasks appear.
The last option allows you to speak to the Romans directly in order to see what their intentions in Gaul might be.
Let’s just say that there are a bunch of options available to you, including some that will bypass this Roman mini-tree entirely if you decide to submit to them, so that’s on you if you take the coward’s way out!
There will be a race against time as you try to shore up your defenses - you will need to build up the fortifications leading out of Transalpine Gaul in hopes of keeping the Legions from advancing into your cities.
With many important port cities in your possession, you will also have the choice of expanding your navy.
If you are willing to pay tribute to the Carthaginians, then you might be able to secure a valuable ally, but only if the city of Qart Hadasht is ruled by an AI - if you need allies against the Romans in an MP game, then you can ask them yourself. If Rome’s great rival Carthage doesn’t own their capital city anymore, the conquering power that has taken over will still share local knowledge with you, but you won’t be able to ally them.
Just a small bit of flavor that adds to the variety of a playthrough.
Once you have built up your defenses and have built a proper navy worthy of the name, then you will be able to launch a surprise attack on the Romans when they least expect it. The best way to deal with their growing power is by crippling them.
The last task of this optional side branch is stretching things to their larp-iest limits, but I had to do it; if you end up getting a good warscore against the Romans, then you will have the option of imprisoning their Consul - your warriors will ambush a Consular army and successfully capture their leader.
Do you want to use your war score to take over their territories, make them release feudatories etc? Then go for it - you can end the scripted war that fires however you want. But if you decide to use your war score to enact the ultimate revenge against the Romans, then you can stage your own triumph in your capital, where the Consul will be paraded through the streets before receiving judgment from your Ruler - Vercingetorix would be so proud of you.
Well, wouldn’t you look at that - the same Consul that gave you absurd terms during your diplomatic meeting was captured by your armies. What happens next is up to you, and your Ruler will receive various rewards depending on what he or she decides to do.
The Romans will receive an event informing them of this calamity, as shown here from a different test run.
So there you have it. Both the Salluvian and the Arvernian trees would lead rather nicely into a future Gaul tree, which is the plan. There is no Gaul tree being worked on at the moment, but we hope to give them their own tree some day soon.
Before I go, I want to remind everyone that ModCon 2025 is right around the corner, so don’t forget to check it out - Invictus will have its own presentation with exciting news. In a teaser of a teaser, there will be BRAND NEW MISSION TREES shown off in the ModCon trailer that haven’t ever been mentioned before in any Dev Diaries, so be sure to tune in if you want to find out what they are!
