[MOD] Imperator Invictus

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 77: Venetian missions
Salvete!
Today derekmark, one of our new devs, will present a new large mission tree for Veneto that will arrive in the 1.7 update and as such i'll hand you over to him.

Hi! derekmark here. Today we’ll be seeing some of the flavour that will be coming to Italy soon in the next update.

First off, a little bit of context. The Veneti were an Indo-European people (very likely Italic) living in the North-Eastern coast of the Italian Peninsula, with their lands partially overlapping with the modern day region of Veneto in Italy.
In the timeframe of Imperator, the Veneti were under heavy pressure from many of the Gallic tribes of Cisalpine Gaul, being one of the only areas of the Padan plains that had not yet come under Celtic control, with constant assaults leading the Venetic cities to develop a society with a strong martial culture (heavily focused on their cavalry). In real life, when the Roman Republic reached the borders of Venetic territory, they allied with the Romans for protection and quickly accepted Roman dominion over their lands, with the Veneti also sharing their experience in fighting the Gauls and serving as Auxillia for the Roman Army for several centuries before gaining Roman citizenship in 49BC.

Playing the Veneti in Imperator, you therefore find yourself straddled in between the Lepontic Celts of Cisalpine Gaul to the west, the ancient Raeti to the north, and the aggressive Carni to the east (who in real life invaded Veneto, making a settlement in what would become Aquileia, before being beaten back by the Romans). But while in our timeline the Veneti sought the protection of Rome for security, you may want to secure the borders of Veneto through more expansionist means.

The new mission tree for Veneto is therefore divided into two mutually exclusive paths, one focused on a more diplomatic play, and the other more bellicose. I’ll talk about the more diplomatic path first.

This path starts off with Veneto first finding allies amongst the Celtic tribes of Cisalpine Gaul. While many tribes regularly attacked the Veneti, others had close relations with them, like the Cenomanni. If Veneto is to protect itself, it is important that it strengthens these good relations with alliances.

As you can see, being allied to Cenomannia, while not strictly necessary, means that they may break their alliance with the Lingoni, for reasons that we will get into later. Taking this route will also give you a modifier to discourage expanding aggressively.
In addition to this, forging good relations with the Cenomanni will also allow you to encourage them to create settlements in Veneto (as they did in real life), and (upon integrating the Lepontic culture) have the Veneti adopt many aspects of Celtic warfare, allowing them to develop tactics to better fight against hostile Gallic tribes.

Next, it is up to the Veneto to decide what to do about the powers rising out of central Italy. Now, while the Veneti historically decided to ally the Romans against the Gauls (and will be more inclined to do so under ai) , the Etruscans present another option for a strong alliance, in case you wish to partner with them against the Roman war machine.

After having secured a strong alliance, it will then be necessary to consider your role in relation to your newfound ally, for if the power balance is significant, they will likely simply toss you aside once your mutual enemies are defeated. Here you are presented with the option to appease you ally, and submit to their greater power (becoming a tribal vassal), as the Veneti did, or choose to declare your sovereignty non negotiable (beware, for this option will give you a bit of aggressive expansion and damage your relation with your ally).

Once done, the player may then receive Diplomatic Reputation for having successfully established a stable diplomatic position, although if you had selected the ‘Venetic Supremacy’ task you will first have to repair your damaged relations with your ally.

In addition to diplomatic reputation, Veneto and its ally will also permanently increase their opinions of each other by 50 (though losing said alliance for a protracted period of time will remove this opinion buff).

Once your diplomatic position is secured, you will have options to increase your population through foreign settlement or urbanisation (according to what path you have chosen diplomatically), though having submitted to the Romans will also give you the option to adopt Roman culture, along with the Hellenic faith.

You likely won’t remain tribal for long under the Romans, for they will eventually pressure you to become a more ingrained vassal as a feudatory.

Accepting will reform your government into an Aristocratic Republic, as well as changing your name and flag (to Venetia et Histria if you have conquered the Histri, and Venetia if you haven’t), also making you a feudatory of Rome.

Having chosen to preserve your own sovereignty however, while endangering you to either Roman or Etruscan expansion, presents many more opportunities.

Having taken a path of superiority over your neighbours, it will be the ambition of Veneto to incorporate as many key cities or countries as possible into your domain. Having just emerged from a precarious geopolitical position itself, this will be done through the guise of extending the protection of your Venetic state over those city states and tribes unable to do so themselves.

The two first steps will be to try to gain control over your (perhaps former) ally of Cenomannia, and over the Greek city-state of Chersos. In the case of Cenomannia, it is clear that a power imbalance will have arisen between you, and of course, being in a position to better protect your neighbour then they could hope to do so themselves, is it not selfless to offer even greater protection?

Should they accept, they will become your feudatory. And though there is a chance they refuse, you will still gain claims over their lands to take them the old fashioned way.

For Chersos on the other hand, this Greek state at your end of the Adriatic is an annoying competitor to Venetic trade. The Veneti, like their later Venetian descendants, were a very trade oriented culture, being situated in the perfect position to mediate trade from in between the amber routes of Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean world. A competitor to this trade on Veneto’s doorstep is therefore unacceptable, and you will be able to send Chersos an ultimatum for them to submit to your rule, rectifying the situation.

If they accept, they will become a league city subject of yours. If they refuse, war will break out.

After handling Chersos, Veneto must turn their attention to the Western side of the Adriatic, where the port of Spina lies. A valuable export hub, Spina was historically one of the principal Adriatic ports through which goods from Northern Europe travelled to the rich states of the Mediterranean. You may have already taken Spina during your war with the Lingoni, but if this isn’t the case you need not worry! For you will now have the opportunity to purchase Spina from it current owner, providing you have good relations with them.

Further along the Adriatic coast lies another important city for local trade. The Greek city of Ancona may have a proud history, but with the rise of powerful local states, the Anconans now find themselves on the short end of the stick. This is the perfect situation for Veneto to take advantage of, and with a small monetary incentive you may convince Ancona (or the state controlling Ancona) to cede the city to you as a league city subject, for the sake of Anconan protection.

In parallel to your actions in the West, Veneto also has tasks to expand in the East coast of the Adriatic, starting off with a task to procure lands along the coast for which to create mercantile colonies (emulating the success of the Greeks and Phonecians).

Here, Veneto must improve relations with the Illyrian tribes that currently possess the land, and shore up funds to purchase it. Once the task is completed, Veneto will send offers to purchase land across the Illyrian coast. Supposing that all possible territories are controlled by tribes with a high opinion of you (though there is no guarantee of this happening), and that they all accept to sell you land, the coast of Northern Illyria should now look like this (though beware, each territory will cost 65 gold to purchase so you may go into debt if you haven’t accumulated enough funds):

Once you have colonies in the Illyrian coast, Veneto will seek well guarded ports closer to the markets of Greece, from which they can build a base of operations for their Eastern trade, with the area of Illyria Graeca, being defended by the surrounding Albanian Alps and choking any trade into the Adriatic, being an ideal area to take control of.
As such, if you are to accumulate sufficient funds, you may send a payment to the principal controller of Illyria Graeca, in exchange for control over the entirety of their lands in the region.

In addition, Veneto also has the option to bring the Raeti up north into their sphere of protection (after having allied them in a previous task).

Finally, for this path of the tree, you will have greatly expanded your Venetic state, bringing numerous peoples under your wing for the sake of mutual protection and economic prosperity. Having reformed your government (an option also present in the tree, that I’ll get into later) you are in a position to declare a trans-Adriatic league under your Venetian Control, and form the Venetic League.

Upon doing so, any subjects of yours that are not League Cities will become so (and yes, that includes tributaries, so getting as many as possible is a good idea), and any existing League City subjects will become directly integrated into your League.

One final aspect of this ‘diplomatic’ path of Veneto’s tree are three colonisation tasks. While you may not expand your borders greatly through war down this path, it does allow Veneto to focus on stimulating internal population growth. This can be done depending on if or not you decided to submit to your large Italic ally, with two options for inviting settlers from either Rome or Etruria.

However if you had decided to remain independent, you will instead be able to implement policies of increasing urbanisation, remodelling the Venetic style of urban centres after the larger Italic cities of your ally.

But as you have seen earlier, this isn’t the only option for Veneto to take in this tree, and you may instead decide to secure Veneto’s position primarily through force.

But before I dive into the bellicose path of the tree, I’ll first talk about a small event chain that will trigger for Veneto in the first few years of the game, involving the Spartans.

Around 303.bc (one year after the game start), the Spartan prince Kleonymos (or Cleonymus to the Romans), the first son of the former Spartan king who had been passed over for the throne on account of his aggressive nature, participated in a large expedition against the Lucani in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy) and Corcyra, though he was forced to turn back. However the following year he would launch another expedition in the peninsula that would put him into contact with the Veneti.

Once again in 302.bc, Kleonymos would return to the peninsula at the helm of a massive army, on a final grand expedition to Italia, and maybe even visioning conquest of the Italic lands. His first stop was Apulia, where he took the city of Thuriae, before being driven out by the threat of the Romans.

Leaving Magna Graecia for the second time, he would then try his luck in Veneto, where he sailed up the river Adige in an attempt to seize Patavium. While he burned many local settlements, his army was ultimately defeated by the Venetic Patavii after having split in two, with his fleet being almost entirely sunk upon his attempt to escape (though he would manage to return to Sparta to influence politics there for years to come).

Ingame, Kleonymos will launch his second expedition around 2 years after the game start, and will land in Patavium with 9.5k troops in an attempt to seize it from Veneto.

Playing as Veneto, you should have enough levies to crush his army. Forcing him to retreat to Sparta with his tail in between his legs as the Veneti did to him in our timeline.

Beware not to enter wars where your levies will be occupied elsewhere during this time though, for if Kleonymos holds Patavium for 3 years you will be forced to either pay him off with an exorbitant amount of gold, or cede Patavium to him as a Spartan Colony. An unthinkable option for such an ancient Venetic city.

Now onto the Bellicose path of the Veneto tree!

If you want Veneto to head on a more expansionist route, you will need to break with several centuries of primarily defensive methods undertaken by the Veneti in relation to their neighbours, a societal shift that will lead to short term instability.

Your next step will be to break relations with the Cenomanni tribe, and rival them. While Veneto may have had good relations with them in the past, they hold key centres in the region, such as Verona, that would serve you well under Venetic control.

After having conquered the Cenomanni, Veneto will be able to both redirect its forces into Northwestern Illyria and Chersos (though this will require completing a task in another branch of the Veneto tree first), and into the old Etruscan cities of the Padan Valley in the West. Focusing first on western expansion, Veneto’s targets will be primarily focused on opportunities to further Venetic commerce through war. In the case of the Etruscan cities of the region, these are the principal commercial hubs of the amber route into Italy. It is therefore of great interest to Veneto to seize these hubs to further monopolise the amber trade into the region, and increase Venetian profits.

Next, Veneto will turn to seek greater controls of the import routes of amber into the country, leading it to carve a path through Raetia in order to better access the trade directly through the Alps.

Doing so will result in an increase short term in profits for Veneto.
However the Rhaetians and other alpine people's won't take this incursion lightly, and the threat of raids will continue to endanger your Alpine imports of amber. The only way to counter this will be to push your border from the edges of the Alpine path that you've carved out.

But this won't be the end of your actions in the region, for the northern feet of the Alps, Noricum Ripense, is also a valuable target for the Venetic realm. With rivers flowing through the area, it holds many prime trading hubs for the amber trade before the route enters the Alps and is readily accessible for foreign merchants, meaning greater commercial reach into Northern Europe for whoever controls it.

Turning back to the east, Veneto will first have to conquer the area of Histria not yet under its control, along with the city of Chersos that, as we've said before, is an unacceptable commercial competitor.

Next the question of Illyrian piracy will have to be dealt with. The Illyrians made the Adriatic waterways a dangerous place with their insistence on piratical lifestyles, greatly reducing the safety of Adriatic trade. As a mercantile oriented country, you'll want to take care of the situation as soon as possible by conquering swathes of the Illyrian coastline from which the pirates emerge. Doing so will, as well as better secure the sea for your merchants, increase the popularity of your ruler (as he will be responsible for the reduction of piracy in the region).

In addition you have two extra tasks related to further conquering the lands of the Illyrians, and making Illyria a core extension of the Veneti lands.

Going further down south, it would definitely be in the interests of Veneto to secure trading hubs in the region of Illyria Graeca, from which to expand trade further into the Mediterranean. Doing so would cement your hold over all trade into the Adriatic, as well as allow you to make a move on Greece.

Next you must make a move on Epirus. This kingdom was once high and mighty under Pyrrhus, but it now pales in comparison to your burgeoning empire. If you play your cards right, you can exploit the new power imbalance to pressure for colonies in Epirus.

Now Veneto has made it to the edges of Greece itself. The Greeks have long been the centre of the Mediterranean world, but since the Peloponnesian wars, and the conquest of the Macedonians, the majority of Greek city states have played second fiddle to stronger outside powers. But now Macedonian control is waning, and as a rising newcomer, Veneto is in a perfect position to become the new hegemon of the region, provided they establish a small foothold.

Success in convincing the Greeks to swear fealty to you over their current/former overlords will depend on both how powerful you've become, and how weak/disunited Greece is.

(an example of very successfully pressuring the Greeks, with all of the Greek states having their starting borders)

Your final target for expansion (in this path of the tree) will be the advantageous island of Crete.
Situated south of mainland Greece, and not too far from the Markets of Egypt and the NearEast, setting up commercial ports in Crete would greatly extend Veneto's commercial reach, and allow all sorts of goods from the East to enter the country. And you will receive a temporary modifier to reflect this.

Finally, having expanded your state from a disunited group of towns and cities, on the brink of destruction by surrounding tribes, to a vast mercantile realm, stretching from the northern lands of Noricum, to the far off Island of Crete, you will be in the perfect position to declare your state a Venetian Empire (also doable by decision if you fail to do so in the tree).

While we're done looking at our two main paths, this isn't the end of Veneto's new tree. For, as you might have noticed from some of the above images or mentions, the tree also contains more minor side branches (4 in total), for you to complete in parallel to your main path of external policy.

The first of these branches is focused on both expanding your immediate borders and building key fortifications, both for the sake of defending your core Venetic lands.

I have already indirectly referred to two of these tasks while explaining other parts of the tree. Remember when I mentioned that allying with the Cenomanni has a chance to break their alliance with Lingonia? Well, the reason for that is that your first task down this side branch will be to retake one of the Venetic cities that the Lingoni hold, Adria.

Founded by the Veneti, Adria rose to prominence as a result of Greek settlement in order to compete with Spina, before falling to the invading Cisalpine Gauls. As a key Venetic city right on your border, it is of the utmost importance that it is reincorporated into your lands.

You might have already noticed, but to this end, both starting tasks of the 'diplomatic' and 'bellicose' expansion paths result in claims over the rest of the Olena region not already under your control, including Adria.

(Olena claims effect in the Ally the Celtic Tribes task)

(Olena claims effect in the Preemptive Expansion task)

Next you must handle your Histrian cousins to the southwest. The Histri were a Venetic group under the helm of a kingdom of Istria in 304 bc. While in many ways similar to the inhabitants of Veneto, they were much more influenced by the Illyrians, often engaging in piracy themselves. It will be up to you as Veneto to bring them back into the fold, and turn them away from their piratical ways.
(The conquer Chersos task in the 'bellicose' path requires you to have completed this task)

While handling the Histri, you should also fortify your core lands by building defences in Ateste, as well as pushing into Carnia to build a key fortification there.

And after having greatly increased your number of fortifications:

Moving onto the second side branch, we will look at Veneto’s options at governmental reform. As I’ve already mentioned, forming either the Venetic League or Venetian Empire will require Veneto to have transitioned to a non-tribal government, but how can this be done without a separate mission tree? Well fear not, for Veneto has a path for centralising its autonomous urban centres into a single centralised state.

In this path, you will have to bring your country together, gathering the support of the nobles and populace in your country, to reform your administration into a mercantile oriented system of governance. Here, you may choose to either form into a plutocratic republic, empowering your merchant class, or give power to your Rakos* (possibly the Venetic equivalent of Rex or King/leader) and become a plutocratic monarchy.

Having centralised the cities into a single, efficient, administration will also have the benefit of improving conscription for the Veneto, giving you a much needed boost to manpower that will help you in your external endeavours.

Finally in this branch, provided you have formed either the Venetic League or Venetian Empire, you will have a chance to overshadow the power of Carthage as the imperial master of Mediterranean trade, which will result in a large boost to your naval capabilities as a result of your new thalassocracy.

Once you have consolidated the Venetic cities together (doable in the first task of the above branch) another side branch will be available to complete. Here, you will focus on building up Veneto’s urban centres, and investing in local growth and infrastructure.

You will first be required to invest in turning at least one Venetic settlement in your core lands back into a city. In real life, Venetia held various Venetic urban centres, principal of which were Ateste, Patavium, Opitergium, Altinum, Akelum and Belodunum, with Patavium being one of the oldest cities in western Europe!

Next, you must invest in local production in both key cities of Patavium and Ateste. For Ateste, investment into expanding the production of their famous situlae (highly decorated bronze buckets) will result in a boost to local goods production.

Patavium, on the other hand, will have a focus for cloth production. In real life, Patavium was unimportant for the production of cloth in 304 BC and was greatly overshadowed in this aspect by centres such as Adria, however that would change as time progressed and the city made use of the abundance of nearby wool production to specialise in the trade. By the time of Augustus, Patavium was the principal producer of cloth in northern Italy. Here, you will be responsible for heading this shift.

Next, you will want to expand an outpost around Belodunum that was heavily used by Venetic merchants on their way up the Amber route towards the Alps, where they would pray to a local god called Trumusiate before making their way over the Alps.

You will then need to invest in increasing Veneto’s existing infrastructure to allow for a greater amount of exports and trade through the country. With the few existing ports, it is clear that any expansion in Venetian trade will only be faced with bottlenecks in the transport of goods. Rectifying this situation through the construction of ports will also lead to the construction of roads throughout Venetia and Olena, connecting the key trading cities with the new ports for easier export of goods.

You will also have to make investments in building a grand temple for Altinum’s patron god, Altino, and establishing more facilities for local representation in Patavium.

In addition, having allied the Romans earlier though the diplomatic path will allow you to call their help in investing in what will be Aquileia. In our timeline the Romans founded the city on top of the former Carnian settlement of Akileja, in order to protect the Veneti from eastern incursions.
Here, you will be able to convince the Romans to settle the region, and build Aquileia as a fortified city for your own protection.

Finally, building many marketplaces throughout Venetia will allow Veneto to become a centre of trade for merchants all over Europe and the Mediterranean, making the region the true core of the now extensive Amber trade routes.

Now we have one final side branch for Veneto, this time focused on both growing the Venetian navy and improving your army.

With Venetic trade routes extended across the Adriatic, part of the wealth that keeps Veneto afloat stretches across the sea. As such, maintaining a well sized fleet will be key to secure Venetian commerce.

Of course to house a large fleet one needs sufficient naval facilities to hold all those Venetic ships. You will therefore need to expand the existing harbour in Atria to accommodate expanding Veneto’s navy (obviously you will need to have taken Atria first), as well as building a harbour in Altinum.
Once you have done so, you will be able to expand Veneto’s navy into a truly formidable force.

Next Veneto must focus on its army. As I have previously mentioned, one of the main notable aspects of Veneto’s military force was its cavalry, with the Veneti having a long tradition of breeding horses to such excellence that they were widely sought after by both the Greeks and Romans, especially for racing. You will therefore have the opportunity to further bolster the quality of Venetian horses by investing in a breeding program to increase the speed and durability of your famed horses. This will of course come at the cost of upkeep.

Finally, you can reform the Venetian Ekupetars*. The Venetic cavalry class, or Ekupetars* (Horse-Lords), were the most notable aspect of ancient Venetian warfare, with the Veneti being an important source of cavalry-based Auxilla for the Romans during many of their conflicts. While this tradition of having a horseback social class is likely to be behind many Venetic military successes (such as against Cleonymus, as we’ve already seen), that’s not to say that it can’t be improved.

The final task of this part of the tree is therefore to invest in procuring heavier equipment for the Ekupetars, so that they may form into well armoured shock-cavalry, comparable with the Macedonian Companions or Persian Cataphracts.
Although such a change to an aristocratic military tradition will mean that you will need to have your nobles on board with the change.

And with the final sidebrach covered, that’s finally about it for the new Veneto tree. I hope that you’ve enjoyed seeing the possibilities that you will have playing this small, yet hardly insignificant, tribal nation, though it’s just a small fraction of the flavour that will be coming to the region in the new update, and there’s still much much more to come! I’ll be off to have a well-deserved cup of coffee, but before I go I’ll just reintroduce some flags made for Veneto shown off by Zorgoball a couple of Dev Diarys back:

• New Veneto flag:

• Flag for Venetia/Venetia et Histria:

• Venetic League flag:

• Flag of the Venetian Empire (slightly redesigned since last showed):

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 78: Getia

Salvete! Today Zorgoball will be presenting our upcoming Getia content for which i'll now hand you over to him.

Hello everyone, Zorgoball here with a brand new tree to show off. As you might recall, we recently had an AAR contest, and I am happy to reveal that the winner, Gladius, chose the nation of Getia to receive a mission tree. Let’s dive into “The Sword And Shield Of The Dacians”!

The presence of the Greeks in the Pontus Euxinus has caused some concern amongst the Elders in your tribe, and this has become a problem that cannot be ignored any longer. On the left side of the tree, you will have two mutually exclusive paths; will you seek the friendship of the Greek city states on the eastern banks of the Ister, or will you conquer them outright in a sign of strength? Carefully consider your options, as there are circumstances that are difficult - the cities on the coasts might be easy to take, sure, but what about their overlord, Thrace? There will undoubtedly be forces sent north from Lysimacheia to relieve any pressure you put on their vassals…
Each path will have some neat rewards, so the choice is ultimately up to your Chief.

Let’s follow the advice of Bikilis first and try to make friends. Outside of the fortified walls of the city of Orgame, there is a port in the settlement of Halmyris that has caught the eye of your Chief. If you are able to make friends with the local governor and spread some coin, you might be able to win some trading concessions for your tribesmen - an important first step in what could become a close relationship.

Once you have your trade hub established, your Ruler will need to invest in a naval fleet that will be able to transport your goods far beyond your shores. Sornus would be an excellent location for a port, as it is situated close to the river crossing at Piephigia, and if you are able to fund the construction of a harbor, there will be other lucrative opportunities that eventually present themselves.

As Sornus continues to prosper under the stewardship of your leader and the fortunes of your people and the Greeks grows ever more intertwined, your neighbors will propose that they be given citizenship rights in Getia - a bold request, yet one that reflects their outsized influence in your nation. If your Chief agrees to invest in the region while assuring the Greek population of their rights, then they shall build a city for you, a place destined to become a center of learning.

But what happens if you decide to conquer the cities of the Greeks, driving them out of the province of Scythia? Before you draw up your war plans, you will want to make sure that your manpower reserves are full and that your forces have some experience - you don’t want to send untested troops out on such an important military campaign. Once these basic goals have been met, you will finally be ready for war, but the Tribal Chiefs are in disagreement when it comes to strategy. Nevertheless, you will prepare claims through the ‘Carpian Corridor’ that stands in your way, and you can even plan for contingencies if you have enough in your treasury.

The wars for the province of Scythia will be devastating, and if you somehow come out on top, then the rewards will be worth the costs.

You will then continue your wars down the coast, attacking the other Thracian vassals, and once they have submitted to your forces, you will then lay claim to the capital of Lysimachus himself, ending the wars between your peoples once and for all.

And now a closer look at the right side of the tree, where you will focus on forming Dacia and improving the holdings of the Getae.

The left branch has some of the same tribal tasks that you will have encountered if you have played other nations, like Caledonia - fun flavorful barbarian stuff, like going on hunts and dueling other Chiefs.

The central path will concentrate on improving your country’s infrastructure; you will be tasked with building mines and training your forces as you continue to push eastward, conquering the smaller tribes that cannot hope to stand against your forces.

If your Ruler constructs a fort city at the impressive site of Sarmizegetusa, then there is a chance that the gods will visit in a dream, showing your baffled ruler a disturbing glimpse of a future that could be…

This dream will cause your Ruler to become obsessed with building a network of fortifications throughout your country, forging a shield that will protect your nation from invaders.

You will also be able to construct a Great Wonder in Helis, the Tomb of Sveshtari that dates from this time period. What a fitting legacy for your Ruler, who has accomplished so much for your nation!

You will also have the opportunity to forge the Silver Hoard of Pelendava (the Craiova treasure in real life), thanking the gods for their generosity towards the people of Getia.

It will take patience and effort to form Dacia, for there are many tribes in the east that stand in the way and many sparsely-inhabited territories that need to be colonized with Getian settlers. But once this is accomplished and Dacia stands proud in her mountain kingdom, the name of your Ruler shall remain upon the lips of the faithful for countless generations to come - for only a god could do such a thing.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 79: Albania and the Hurrians

Salvete!
Today we'll be talking about the Caucasian country of Iberia, the possibility to revive the Hurrian religion but first another by Zorgoball.

Hello there!
Zorgoball popping in with a small announcement; as of today, we are starting another AAR contest! Come to our Discord and tell us the epic stories of your glorious campaigns in our #challenges-aar channel. The grand prize winner of the AAR contest will get to work with the Invictus dev team to help us design a mission tree for whatever tag they choose. We had a tremendous run last time and are excited to see what tales you have to tell!

Now onto Omega and the Caucasian country of Albania!

Omega here with an update on the team’s foray into the Caucasus, which some of you may recall was leaked as PDX’s next planned content pack before cancellation of development. We hope you have been enjoying the Caucasian Iberia mission tree developed by the amazing Zorgoball, because I have come to tell you that the Iberian taste was but a morsel of what is to come.

This is a shameless spoiler, but content is in various stages of planning and development for most every tag around the Caucasian Mountains. The list includes, but is not limited to:

• Iberia (adjustments/additions)
• Albania
• Kolchis
• Armenia
• Gordyene (I’m counting it as Caucasus…close enough)

Some other countries may get content in the form of mission trees, cultural innovations, unique decisions, and, of course, cultural-specific deities, as we have multiple researchers working on deities related to:

• The Kolchians
• The greater Kartvelians
• The Albanians
• The Lupenians
• The Lezgians
• The Abkhazians
• The Svans
• And more !!!

For now, I will be discussing Caucasian Albania and what is in store for its content and mission tree.

Albania:
Mentioned only in passing by Greco-Roman authors ranging from Herodotus to Arrian to Strabo, the Albanians lived near the edge of the knowable world from the perspective of the Mediterranean civilizations. Even to the Achaemenid Persians and their Median predecessors, the Albanians were northern anomalies, best used as sources of tax revenue and army-filling.

Passersby have remarked that one could hear over 26 distinct languages among the tribes of Caucasian Albania, but it is likely that these 26 (or more) consisted of many dialects, sub-dialects, and language groups—some of which may have been inter-intelligible, while others were more alien to that of their neighbors. This is, after all, the eastern Caucasus, a messy puzzle of isolated cultural and linguistic groups.

With most writing on their dynastic tradition, consolidation, faith, and geography coming from later medieval sources, Albania at the time of 304 BCE is quite the enigma. Either by this time or during the 3rd century BCE, the Albanians consolidated into a semi-loose confederation of tribes with political centers based out of fortified settlements. While one of the most impressive sites to excavate and read about in sources has been that of Qabala, many sites around modern-day Azerbaijan have proven to be budding urbanization centers during at least the middle-3rd century BCE if not earlier.

In much the same way the medieval Britons and Saxons of Britannia were left with Roman infrastructure and the relics of Roman art and rule, so too were the Albanians graced with empty summer palaces and satrapy citadel fortresses along the Kuras and Araxes river from the time when the Achaemenids administered the land extensively.

Over the course of the mission tree for Albania, you will have the chance to explore those Persian relics and follow the dream of an Albanian Empire. Conversely, if you wish to follow a more historical approach, another branch of the mission will walk you through the difficulties of tribal power struggles and ruling over entrenched chiefdoms. Many of the cultural groupings of ancient Caucasian Albania were so strong that groups such as the Udi-speakers (at that time, speaking a theorized proto-Udian) continue to inhabit their traditional lands to the modern day. The Lezgi (Legians), too, were at times a part of the ‘Albanian’ group in the eastern Caucasus, and your mission will see you interacting them, but we felt it was best to leave Legia as its own, independent nation at game-start which will get its own limited content in the future.

A new cultural setup in Albania:

• The Caspian tribes (for whom the Caspian Sea is named) have been added, whom the Albanians will be able to interact with, for good or bad, as part of the new Albanian Mission.
• The Sasperians have been added to represent both their own Saspeires tribes as well as other related Southern Caucasian tribes practicing Caucasian-style burials, linguistics, and architecture.

As previously mentioned, Caucasian Albania was a land of many peoples and languages. It is tough to parse out what really counted as ‘Albanian,’ and so we’ve diversified the Caucasus range overall, adding in new cultures to show the more granular nature of this region. The Caspians, especially, will figure into the story of your playthrough—will you choose to work with them, or will you give them justification to stab you in the back?

Be warned, the choices you make as a ruler could potentially balkanize the cultural landscape of Caucasian Albania even further…

As one of the more dominant tribal groups mentioned in both Greco-Roman and medieval Armenian and Apostolic Albanian sources, the Lupenians (or Lpin) and their capital in the modern area of Shamakhi may pop into your playthrough given the right push.

Our only known native writing from Caucasian Albania survives in the form of a supposedly ‘Albanian’ script written on the Albanian Palimpsest found in Egypt. However, it is clear that the Albanians were heavily influenced, at different times, by Kartvelian and Iranian languages, so you will have the chance, in your mutually exclusive mission branches, to invent the administrative Albanian alphabet.

On your journey towards greatness, you will likely come into conflict with the Iberians and the Armenians. Both of these groups currently hold rightful Albanian land (as determined by the game’s arbitrary region borders), so you must clearly take it back.

If you don’t feel particularly confident in conquering those pieces of land via conventional means, “there are alternatives to fighting”

• Ben Kenobi, Ep. 4

Just don’t get too carried away with your ethno-nationalism…this isn’t supposed to be a real-life simulator.

Will you become…the greatest of Albanians?

Or will your people, provoked by your method of rule, rise up against you in various forms…?

With this mission tree, we wanted to give you as many chances as possible to mess up, make a lot of enemies, start a lot of painful wars, and achieve the worst possible border gore. The challenge: can you upset every single major tribal group within Caucasian Albania enough to cause a 4-way Imperator: Rome battle-royale on the level of the Diadochi but with a lot of crappy Light Infantry? This is your new AAR challenge.

(Yes, we thought democracy in the Caucasus was a hilariously fantastical idea as well)

It is recorded that, when Alexander was completing his Sogdian campaign, messengers from the king of Chorasmia (Khwarezm) arrived from beyond the desert and desert-steppe horizon, from the land of the 50 fortresses, to pledge fealty to Alexander. The king of Chorasmia only asked that he could assist Alexander in conquering the kingdoms and people of the Caucasus region, his rivals to the west.

Well, the Albanians caught wind of this…and they want to set things right. Not only is the Caspian sea a vital trade lane which the Albanians can profit off of, but it’s one major step on the way to conquering and permanently deleting Chorasmia from the face of the earth. Will your Albanian armies have the stamina to nearly circumnavigate the Mazandaran Sea and conquer the Oxiana river’s rich pasturelands and fields?

And, finally, we wanted to give you a rough estimate of the total land required in your conquests if you completed every possible task in the mission tree. But we know you… it’s never going to look like this. We look forward to seeing the very-messed-up borders you create and the incredibly blood-infused children you rear. And for you blood-sucking eugenicists out there, Albania adds one more bloodline to the collection. I’ll let you figure out whose it is and how to get it.

Till the next time, where we’ll have more updates on:

• Deities
• Flavor Decisions
• Map Setup changes (yes, we will explain why Armenia got a lot smaller)
• Other Mission Trees

Till then, I was OmegaCorps, your legally Caucasian but not ethnically Caucasian host, and this was… Caucasian Albania.

Hey there, Izn here. Which meannnns, religion stuff! This time, I’ve got a dying religion on the table, one that is barely alive at game start but will have revival content in the future. The Hurrian religion!

Disclaimer, Hurrian is not a game start religion. This image is a mock-up.

This religion is based on three sources: pure Hurrian deities, Syrio-Hurrian deities, and Hurrio-Hittite deities. Because of its nature as a faith made to be revived, there are deities to be found from all the way back in the bronze age, but the most popular deity that was worshiped even till antiquity was Teshub. Hurrian Mythology revolves around Teshub and the so-called Kumarbi cycle. The cycle is divided into 5 primary ‘songs,’ which represent different parts of the cycle, and deities come with each song.
The song of Kumarbi, or the song of Emergence, starts the cycle. The god Anu, who is overthrown by Kumarbi, and has his testicles bitten off in the process. This would result in Kumarbi spitting out the semen of Anu onto a mountain, which in turn births the god Teshub.

Next tells of the song of Lamma or song of Kal. In this song, Teshub and his sister Shaushka are defeated by the god Lamma (side note, Lamma is not the name of the Hurrian god, however we do not know the proper name, only how it was spelled in Sumerian cuneiform, which was not pronounced the same nor represented the same thing in the Hurrian language.)

The next song is the song of Silver. This song is about the boy named Silver who is bullied, however he learns that he is actually the sibling of Teshub and Shaushka. This part of the myth is poorly attested and thus will not have any deities coming from it in Invictus. However, here’s a picture of a better attested deity who is also the sibling of Teshub and Shaushka called Tasmishu.

Next we have the song of Hedammu. This song speaks of Kumarbi fathering new gods in order to defeat Teshub. However, this is so destructive that Enlil intervenes in order to save mankind from annihilation. Prominently featured in this song are the sisters of fate, Hutena and Hutelluri.

As a side note, keep in mind that these omen effects are reduced significantly as the mock-nation I’m using has 0% omen power!

The final myth is the song of Ullikumi, in which Kumarbi attempts to destroy Teshub with the help of the stone giant, Ullikumi. They hatch a plan together for Ullikumi to hide until he is strong enough to defeat Teshub, and sure enough, this works and Teshub is defeated, and his wife Hepat is captured and imprisoned. Teshub recruits his former adversaries in the primordial gods Enlil and Ea. With his new allies he is able to finally defeat Ullikumi and return to him his wife. It is implied that Teshub becomes the king of the gods from henceforth.

With that synopsis over, it seems there are only a few gods, and many of them are straight from Chaldean mythos! However, rest assured, there is a full pantheon of gods. 23 different gods all fit into this mythical cycle, and I hope you take the time to read the deity descriptions. The descriptions mostly talk about which songs they fit into, their relation with Kumarbi or Teshub, and the details that I selectively skipped over in the summary above. Although some are unrelated and have their own unique piece to the Hurrian religion, like one of my favorites, Allani, the queen of the Dark Earth..

Thanks for reading all that, I know it was a bit wordy, but I think the mythos is fascinating and I had a fun time representing it via deities. That’s all I’ve got for today, I hope you look forward to trying to revive this ancient, yet still living, religion!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 80: Caucasian rework, Gordyene tree and a new Nexusmods page

Salvete!
Today we’ll be talking about the upcoming update’s changes to the Caucasus overall as well as giving a sneak peek at 2 new Caucasian missions coming with the next update.

But first i'd like to talk about the new Nexusmods page: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1
From the Nexusmods you can download ALL versions of the mod without needing to use the Workshop, the installation is very easy. All you have to do is extract the archive in your Documents\Paradox Interactive\Imperator\mod folder directly. (Remember to Endorse the mod.)
From now on, all old versions of the mod you can use to continue old saves will only be uploaded on the Nexus. The Steam Workshop will only be used for the latest version. You cannot use both the Workshop, and a Nexusmods versions of the mod.

Now onto OmegaCorps!

Omega here with an agenda on how to show you what we’ve done to better-represent the greater Caucasus region in geographical, political, cultural, and other senses. In this endeavor, I cannot thank the likes of Izn, Juto, and Zorgoball enough for their scripting, localization, and research assistance in regards to this region. I also want to give a shoutout to Samitte, who committed a lot of time to creating a Caucasian region-reform guide a few years ago on the PDX Imperator forums - the provided bibliography and notes have been an invaluable foundation to work off of.

The New Caucasus:

While Armenia in the vanilla-setup was surely a juggernaut, we wanted to give its environs more character and depth. The mission(s) for Armenia are not done yet, but its story as a growing power historically becomes intertwined with its related/subject kingdoms: those of Lesser Armenia, Sophene, and the Gordyene Kingdom of the Karduchoi tribes who swore fealty to Armenia for a time.

It is not an exact science, determining when Armenia’s subsidiary kingdoms and polities split off from it, but the Armenian realm’s separation from Seleukid obeisance is thought to have been a time of fragmentation, especially within the Orontid dynasty’s cadet branches. Rather than hinge the existence of Lesser Armenia, Sophene, and Gordyene on the playing of an Armenia tree and a scripted event the player would control, we preferred to have all the options on the table at game start, and to let the player write a different narrative for each entity. At the moment, the mission tree for Gordyene is nearly finished and Armenia is in-progress. It is not certain whether Sophene and Lesser Armenia will have full mission trees by this coming update, but they will surely have a full package of content by the following update. One piece of content which both Lesser Armenia, Sophene, and Armenia will have is a cultural decision to form “Greater Armenia” with a new, unique flag and color (WIP).

For information on Sophene, Gordyene, and a future content-candidate, Adiabene, much information has been gleaned from Micha Marciak’s Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene, Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West (Impact of Empire: Roman Empire, C. 200 B.C. -A.D. 476, 26).

Gordyene:

As the first to be focused on for a short mission, Gordyene now has a working flag and map-changes in terms of borders and trade goods. The Kingdom of Gordyene, as it was referred to by the 3rd-2nd century BCE, stretched from the Bitlis Pass by Armenia proper to around the northern borders of Adiabene. These borders were fluid, and the Karduchoi built their greatest cities and settlements both along the Tigris river in order to control trade and along the southern Armenian Mountain range for a defensible backbone. Behind them lie the legendary Mt. Niphates where Noah’s ark is said to rest and Mt. Masion of the Tauros Range.

Just north of the well-endowed city of Nisibis, the Karduchian capital of Pinaka, a 3-citadel city straddling the Tigris, was home to a decent Syriac-speaking and Assyrian population. It was also said that many Euboeans lived among the Karduchoi in the time of the Achaemenids, so those have been represented as well. Many important figures from the land of Qardu have been noted by scholars as having semitic names, especially those later recorded by the church at Nisibis, so it is fair to say that Aramean and Syrian language as well as culture populated the region.

Similarly, while Greco-Roman authors claim that the Hurrian god Teshub was worshiped by the Karduchoi, and evidence of primordial Hurrian deity altars has been found, the Karduchoi shared the most culturally with other peoples of Mesopotamia and shared in their gods as well. The exception was a strong Armenian influence in the north, such as at the Bitlis Pass and in the up-and-coming city of Tigranakert (which was by this time already a city, and was simply added on to in the time of Tigranes). For these reasons, Gordyene will start with Chaldaean as the national religion, but have a great deal of local mixing in its provinces.

Master craftsmen, the Karduchoi and their homeland were known for rich minerals, metals, a seductive set of spices known as ‘Amomum,’ and the mineable jewel called Giganitis, which turned lizards and other critters away when burned for medicinal or crafting purposes. The wine and pasturelands of the Tigris were also noted by historians both contemporary and modern, so all these components have been reflected in the trade goods produced in the land of Qardu.

Gordyene has access to a small but regionally-impactful mission. The right-branch sees you develop their rich homeland for economic prosperity.

The left branch sees you attend to their great building projects and raising the historical cities along the Tigris that used the local geography to take advantage of regional trade and act as hubs of economy.

The people of Gordyene have long needed to swear some oath of allegiance to a great northern or southern power. At game-start, you are a subject of Armenia and, by proxy, a subject of the Seleukids. As the greater powers around you spin the dial of Fortuna and Armenia breaks away from the Seleukid sphere of influence, it will be up to you to block the Bitlis Pass and scream in your war cries, “NO MORE.” Once you have thrown off the yoke of tribute, your ambitions over the Upper Tigris domain shall guide you. Biting off chunks of the Seleukids in their period of decline will remain a challenge, and you must watch for your southern regional rival, Adiabene, which historically fought against Gordyene on multiple occasions for economic and political control of the river-region.

This image provides a rough estimate of the bare territory that the mission requires you to conquer, comprising the general Upper Tigris. Mission Tasks might also see you conquer some parts of southern Armenia, Adiabene, and other borderlands around the Tigris which might increase your regional economic and political control. This tree is not meant to be a world-conqueror...but should lead to the creation of an influential regional power under the rule of a unique people. Not pictured here, but this mission (like that of Albania), will include an option to reform a Hurrian-worshiping kingdom and will have unique cultural innovations characteristic of its historical achievements. One such example will be the “Karduchian Longbow.”

More awaits you when the full package of Gordyene’s content launches with the coming update. I want to leave you with 1 final note about this nation:
- The Karduchoi/Qardu are not, in fact, related to the modern-day Kurds despite what many sites claim. There is a lengthier scholarly explanation found in the book referenced above, but a shorthand is that the Kard/Qard beginning of the name has an Eastern Semitic origin or connection and does not develop linguistically into ‘Kurd’ as might be assumed - Qard refers to ‘strong’ in Akkadian/Semitic forms. The more likely ancestral origins of the Kurds can be found in a similar migratory/predatory group: the Kyrtioi/Kurtioi, for whom the western Zagros mountains were their home. Kyrt/Kurt→Kurd has been accepted as a more plausible linguistic evolution and lacks a clear Semitic or otherwise Mesopotamian connection, which is more inline with the Kurds’ linguistic Western-Iranian nature. In this mods, the Kyrtioi do not currently exist, nor would it be realistic to give them a tag at game-start, but we may consider spawning them and other predatory tribes in through a triggered event to add some dynamism to the game or as part of a tree down the road - more to come, but it could be fun.

And, while we’re on the topic of misconceptions…

This is modern “Albania”

And this is “Caucasian Albania”

These are not the same…The term Albanoi, is given by the Greeks in both instances, to the ancient Albanoi Illyrian tribe and the Albanoi of modern Azerbaijan. They have no other connection and are not part of some migratory conspiracy. However, we may add a decision where you Albanian nationalists can create modern Albania with ancient Albania…maybe.

A few things we did not cover in the last Developer Diary on Albania:

The trade goods of many territories throughout the Caucasus have been adjusted or rearranged based on researching both ancient and modern sources. In the case of Caucasian Iberia and Caucasian Albania, there were many ancient tales of healing crystals and icy dreams brought on by crystal rituals, so we are looking at adding decisions and events related to those, in order to provide content outside of missions, but, for now, we have made C. Albania more of the rich mineral and pastureland that the Kura-Araxes basin and Caucasian range was in those times—Albania was known for being rich in a similar manner to Colchis (which has also been ‘goldified’ to fit its historical and legendary symbolism). The Cinnabar in C. Albania should also help add to the map’s short supply of the rare resource, and you may have the opportunity to expand the search for more deposits along the mountain range.

And, of course, we failed to cover what is closest to an overhaul of the Armazic religion in the last Developer Diary because we were too busy showing off the Hurrian deities. On the surface, it would seem like little is known of Caucasian ritual and faith, but a collection of ancient sources, archaeology, medieval sources (which tell of a legendary past society before Christianization/Islamization), and modern study have shed light on many deities which populated this culturally bizarre region. Our team has relied heavily on JUTO for being our native Georgian translator in order to read Georgian literature and scholarship which has yet to be translated into English or other common Romance languages.

In both the west, the east, and the north of the Caucasus, we have made a great effort to give many deities holy sites where they will buff the territory and give visual life to the region. In the area of C. Albania, many of the deities come to us from Medieval Christian depictions within the family of the Biblical Togarmah. Like many biblical figures (Ex/ Lilith), Togarmah and his children are connected to the Abrahamic ‘God,’ while still being the genesis-figures for local tribes. We have included deities such as Heros, Bardos, Movakanos, Lekos, and Durdzuks in this situation.

We have also added many deities from the tales of the demonic Devi vs the Heroes of ancient Georgian folklore.

Other deities are locked behind certain cultures within the Caucasian Culture Group, such as the Suani (modern Svans), Abasgoi (modern Abkhazia), Legians, Albanians, and Laz peoples.

Many of the pre-Christian deities of the ancient Caucasus have pastoral elements (fertility deities in part or in whole) and have Greek elements or comparisons. This was especially true for Kolchis, where there was an entrenched Greek cultural hold and religious pervasion. Cities such as that in the Vani archaeological site and Rhodopolis and Phasis sent Greek pottery, wine, crafts, weapons, and ideas up the river towards the Colchian hinterlands. Phrixus, Lekothea, and the Dioscuri were worshiped by Caucasian peoples here.

Kolchis itself shall be discussed in the next Developer Diary but, before we go for today, I wanted to also show off some of the new flag art that our wonderful artists, Derek and Retcon, have been able to make for tags both new and old.

That is all from me for now. Next time, await the unveiling of Kolchis’ new mission and all the juicy content that comes with it.
I was OmegaCorps, your legally Caucasian but not ethnically Caucasian host, and this was…Gordyene and the greater Caucasus.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 81: the converter, Yaudheya, Tartessia and the Western Greeks

Salvete!
Today we'll be talking about 2 new missions for the Tartessians leading to the unification of the Iberian peninsula, a big rework of the vanilla missions for the Western Greeks, a full new mission tree for Yaudheya and more content for Pentapotamia.
But first, let's go over the updated Imperator to CK2/3 converters by the amazing converter teams for those who love a megacampaign.

Imperator To CK3 9.0 Titus:
Compatible with Imperator: Rome 2.0 and Crusader Kings III 1.9 - 1.11.
The latest version can be downloaded here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-to-ck3-release-thread.1415172/post-29272151
Imperator: Invictus saves are recommended. Support for vanilla I:R saves is deprecated.
Compatible with CK3ToEU4.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in any form!

Imperator to CK2:
Compatible with Imperator: Rome save files from versions 1.3 to 2.0.4 and with Crusader Kings 2 version 3.3. Compatible with Imperator: Invictus and the unofficial CK2 to EU4 converter.
The latest version of Imperator: Rome to CK2 can be downloaded from the Paradox Forums: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-to-ck2-release-thread.1496613/
Help in any way is always appreciated, and if you'd like to join the team or would like to give suggestions, feel free to hop on over to the development thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...pment-thread-not-for-troubleshooting.1294757/
And thanks to all those who contributed, without whose help this project would not have been possible: https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Imperator_To_CK2_Converter#Credits


Now onto the missions.

Greetings and salutations, Zorgoball here with a bunch of brand new mission trees to show off today. But first, a reminder that our AAR contest is still ongoing. https://discord.com/channels/839056459202953237/1110215875912536115 We have some outstanding entries already; tales of Monapian expansion, the Boiian menace, the rise of the Sea Peoples, and Carthaginian shenanigans are all keeping us entertained and excited for the next chapter. The contest ends in December so there is still plenty of time for you to write your story.
But now…let’s start breaking down some of the new content. We are going to start by examining a vanilla tree that has been completely reworked, but before I begin, I want to thank our very own Herodotus for suggesting this idea in the first place; if not for his exceptional vision, this undertaking would have never happened! First things first - let’s compare the vanilla “Far From Home” tree to its new version.

The size of the tree has basically doubled, and while the bones of the original mission are still there, you will now have some side quests to assist with your efforts to rebuild the Phocaean League. Massalia, Emporion, Elea and Hemeroskopeion all have access to this mission, and each have their fair share of regional tasks for times of peace and war. As a quick side note, Elea starts off as a tributary of Lucania, so if you want an exceptional challenge, you will have to liberate yourselves before you can begin the FFH tree…fingers crossed you will be able to do so before the Roman wolf turns its attention towards your borders. The AAR for Elea from our tester Salt was a gripping read, all but guaranteeing that you will have an exciting campaign as you struggle for Massiliot supremacy.
Because FFH is a vanilla tree, I will not spend as much time as I normally do explaining what happens with the mission, but I will show off some of the new tasks right now before we turn our attention westward. After you conquer your immediate region, your ruler will hear the call of the ocean and will want to pragmatically secure the nearby islands. Some old friends will make an appearance right off the bat; if you have played a campaign as Gymnaesia or one of the Nuragic tags, then you will already be familiar with the Pirates of Mago. Perhaps the two of you can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement?

Before you reconquer the old Massiliot colony of Alalia, you can explore some business opportunities on the island, and once the friendly climate is secured by commerce, your settlers will have a much easier time colonizing the shores of Corsica. Many of the new tasks sprinkled throughout the tree are focused upon building up your economy, as we shall see below.

The virgin forests of Corsica are destined to be the source of lumber for your Massiliot fleets.

The wildlands will not be the only targets of your Massiliot surveyors; the rich cities of the coast, with their thriving workshops, will also receive upgrades.

As your engineers and architects work diligently to expand your industrial capacity, all roads will be leading towards a Grand Marketplace that will be built in your capital - the crowning jewel of your economy and a testament to your domination of the lands that surround you.

As you conquer more and more territory, your levies and legions could potentially adopt some of the traditional martial techniques of the native inhabitants.

As usual, I will leave a few surprises for you to find on your own. The time has now come to set sail for the south of the Iberian peninsula, where the descendants of the proud Tartessians are seeking to reforge their broken polity. In the brand new mission “Heirs of Tartessia”, you shall guide one of the Turdetanian tags as they attempt to consolidate into Tartessia!

This mission tree is available to seven starting tags - Onubaia, Orippaia, Hastaia, Karmoia, Urso, Kartubaia and the brand new OPM Astigi, and each has a slightly different path to wander down. For the purposes of this DD, we will be looking at Onubaia, but let’s take a peek at the variations available to you. I would also like to give a very special thanks to our dev Olivenkranz for helping with scripting and design; without his help, these first trees would have had no variety. We will compare the vanilla map setup to the newly expanded layout before diving in.

Now it is time to take a look at some of the unique tasks, and we shall do so by starting in reverse order. This last mission, available for Hastaia, gives you a special branch on the left wherein you can embrace the Punic religion that has taken hold of your capital. This religious initiative will bring you closer to the Carthaginians, who will seek to expand their influence throughout your nation by building up your trade connections.

While the Hastaians are keeping themselves busy making money, their neighbors to the north, Karmoia, are attempting to annex the nearby cities of Urso and Astigi, finishing off their regional rivals once and for all. Your ambitious leader has a few diplomatic tricks in store, however…

It will take some time and effort to dispel the rebellious sentiments found within your latest conquests, but with the right attitude, all things are possible.

I will let you discover what other fun problems await you, but for now, a whistle-stop tour through the shared tasks in which claims over the former Tartessian lands are given…

There is a small complication, however; not everyone within your nation will be on board with your Chief Magistrate unilaterally setting themselves up as the new King of Tartessia. Will your leader acquiesce to the demands of the Tribal Elders, or will the dark shadow of civil war taint the rebirth of your nation? If you want to rule unopposed, then you will have to shed Turdetanian blood.

Regardless of whatever decision you take, once you have settled this political distraction, the “Conquerors of Iberia” tree will be unlocked as your fledgling nation attempts to unify the entire peninsula.

Iberia has five regions; Baetica, Lusitania, Contestania, Gallaecia and Tarraconensis, and there will be claims and tasks for each of these theaters. Before you lead your forces northward, however, pragmatism dictates that you take all of Baetica first.

Before you move into another region of Iberia, you will first need to control the borderlands of the frontiers.

Each region will need to be developed, naturally, so we will briefly look at some of the tasks that your Tartessian governors will be entrusted with.

In addition to expanding and developing your Tartessian holdings in distant lands, you will be tasked with growing the capital region. Much of the material wealth of Tartessos was guaranteed by the thriving mining network built throughout its mountains, and the first step in emulating the glory of your ancestors involves restoring this long-neglected infrastructure.

Once a steady stream of ore is headed to your capital, you will then be able to rebuild your nation’s industry in earnest.

As the capital expands its capacity, specialized workshops will augment the abilities of your fighting forces as your blacksmiths begin to craft Turdetanian armor.

There are a couple of very special tasks that will only appear if certain conditions are met, and one of them, “The Wandering Strategos”, will tell the story of a friendship forged in the fires of war. A stranger, a refugee from the Galatian invasion of Anatolia, will show up at your city gates dressed in a battered suit of Turdetanian armor, and for a brief moment in time, you might be able to persuade this general to stay. And yet if the wars to destroy Galatia resume, then the Strategos will leave Iberia forever, hoping for one last chance to avenge his fallen brother…

You will be able to develop trade with both the Punics and Greeks, who will happily invest in your nation as long as you enjoy good relations with each other.

The culmination of your efforts to build the preeminent civilization in Iberia will see your capital turned into a metropolis, and as word spread far and wide of your accomplishments, another secret task could reveal itself…if the Sogdians have lost their homeland, they might end up on your doorstep.

A petition from the recently-conquered Hemeroskopeion will unlock a couple of tasks that will allow you to develop your feudatory.

Taking specific cultural inventions will also open new paths for you to explore…

One of the final branches we will be looking at will be available to you if you have kept true to the Iberic Faith, so you should avoid converting to Punic in your first tree if you want to indulge (sorry, Hastaia). Your zealous ruler will drive out the Punics and Druids from Iberia, destroying the abominable shrines of the foreigners and spreading the true faith throughout your country. A very special thanks to our scholar Tudhaliya for coming up with the initial sketches of this idea.

So much more awaits you in the Conquerors of Iberia tree! I now will turn things over to Izn.

Holy Ishtar in Nineveh, isn’t Zorgo the best? Hard to follow up that, but I’ll try so anyways. I’m surprisingly not here to talk about religion at all, but actually my own mission trees. First off, a tree for the people of East Punjab, you (don’t) know ‘em, you (don’t) love ‘em, Yaudheya! Before I get into it, here’s my sales pitch: it is the Sparta of India but a republic.

The Yaudheya Confederacy, or the Yodheya Gana, was a militaristic Kshatriya republic that stood in opposition to a state like Paurava, a wisdom-focused monarchy. I saw this and realized this is literally like an Athens VS Sparta type rivalry but the governments are reversed. Seeing this, I decided to completely rework Paurava in addition to adding a tree for Yaudheya. Without further ado, here’s the look of the new Yaudheya tree.

The ‘Lone Republic’ tree is unique among trees I’ve created. People who have played my trees will certainly note that I include many tags on religion. Not this time, it simply doesn’t fit with the narrative. Religion is more something those stuck up Pauravans like to debate about, in Yaudheya, it’s the god of war, Kartikeya, or feel free to die in the battlefield without his blessings.

The tree revolves around two separate themes. While one theme is more about conquest under the Mauryans, the second theme is specifically about building up cities. I’ll start with the city focused tasks.

The reason I’ve decided to have such a focus on these cities in particular is because the Yaudheya Confederacy was hardly one entity. Rather, it was a group of about three republics, all of which spawned on the corpse of the ancient Kuru Kingdom. Regardless, together they formed this confederacy. Think about it like a league formable. Thus, each republic within the confederacy had their own capital, administration, and way of life. Finally, within the borders of Yaudheya lay Sthanishvara, the future first capital of the Pushyabhuti dynasty almost 900 years later! It’s also been given a spotlight foreshadowing its eventual rise to stardom.

These four cities here are located outside of Yaudheya’s starting borders, and so have been placed apart from the rest. You will likely notice these cities as major cities within the Paurava tree. My favorite of these tasks is Nokhar’s development, which highlights the growth of the Loh-Kot fort in the Luhwar district, which would eventually become the city of Lahore, the walled city.

Now, onto the conquest portions of the tree. Like Paurava, you begin as a vassal under Maurya, but your situation is a bit different. Unlike Paurava, the Yaudheyans have been loyal and willing subjects. This isn’t unique in Yaudheyan history, they always willingly served as an elite unit in whoever dominated the region. So, even if you don’t play as Maurya, you might want to keep Yaudheya as a vassal in order to utilize a special decision.

This is a theme you’ll see throughout the tree. Warrior code, trust in the warriors, these men are loyal, disciplined troops ready to serve Maurya. Those who have played Paurava or Nabhapakti know that those nations’ trees act as poison to the Mauryans. The Yaudheyan’s however are in a sort of symbiotic relationship with them. Yes, you will grow in power and ask Maurya for land, but you will also be encouraged to stay loyal till the collapse.

Of these tasks, my favorite is ending the Kingdom of Porus. It uses a special pseudo-mechanic that goes rather in-depth with the choices. You have to meet with Chandragupta himself and convince him of why you should be able to attack their other subject.

However… let’s say you are abysmal in your charisma, you won’t be so convincing.

Or what if you have a lisp?

There are more options too, hidden away depending on your traits! So take care of your ruler traits, perhaps it’s best to wait for the next election for someone better at talking, or perhaps you can’t wait and go ahead with the risks.
Success means that you will be able to hit the mission task that allows you to declare war on Paurava.

This is a good intro to the concept that this tree will be interactive with Maurya and Paurava both. I did this all with multiplayer in mind! I hope that those who play in multiplayer give this trio a try. I can just imagine the squabbling Pauravans and Yaudheyans trying to gain an advantage over one another while the Mauryan player gets a headache having to listen to their whining while managing more important issues. Historically, it would be Yaudheya that conquered Paurava, but that certainly doesn’t have to be the case.

The final task I want to talk about in this tree is the Panchanada’s Panchnagara task. Let’s assume you have managed to conquer all of Panchanada. The many cities will want to be able to rule themselves, after all, as a republic people tend to have more voices than in monarchies (at least sometimes). While you can indeed keep your land to yourselves, you’ll also have the option to create this cute little vassal state. Panchnagara, aka, the Five Cities League.

The… borders are much to be desired, but you can always establish some nicer borders yourself, maybe by making more republics or maybe by expanding the Panchnagara League. Oh, and for multiplayer, perhaps if Yaudheya ends up winning, you can still have the Paurava player exist via this subject state?

Speaking of Paurava, let’s finally move onto the rework of the Paurava tree.

You’ll notice it’s a lot wider but overall shorter. Don’t worry! Paurava will be blessed with a second tree as well based on the India-focused part of the original tree. It’ll act as a middle-tree before forming Bharat. For now, I’ll mention some of the differences.

Four new development tasks exist now, emphasizing the importance of Nokhar, Mallia, and wheat. These tasks resemble some of the tasks you’ll find in the Yaudheya tree. After all, they’re both Punjabi tags, thus there should be some crossover despite the vast majority being quite distinct.

Replacing the old task that allowed you to gain independence from Maurya, these two will break it down some and add for some interactive gameplay with Yaudheya and Maurya. Paurava is undoubtedly the harder of the two, but Yaudheya has to be much more loyal to Maurya as they were historically. Paurava will be dealing more in demands, which can have dire consequences if you’re not careful.
And To Kill an Empire is probably my favorite of the new tasks to Paurava. In it, you get a very powerful modifier for 3 years, and then you’re out of luck! It’s a very difficult objective, one that perhaps equals that of Porus’ attempt to defend against Alexander! Perhaps the Mauryans will treat you with similar honor and respect if you manage to beat one of their armies. Or perhaps you can defeat more than just an army and actually manage to take all of Gandhara.

“But what about Pentapotamia!?” Pentapotamia was by far the most popular part of the Paurava tree, but as I played through it, I realized I wanted to expand it. I loved the idea of a ‘Reverse Okeanos,’ and becoming a strange Indo-Greek state that’s really more Indo than Greek. So it’s now become it’s very own tree, accessible by either Yaudheya or Paurava, each with their own special variant in narrative. Paurava-Pentapotamia will focus on claiming a ‘Diadochi’ status through the idea of Porus being a rightful successor to Alexander. After all, King Porus was indeed a governor of Alexander’s Empire. Yaudheya-Pentapotamia on the other hand will seek justification through inspiration of the Spartans, gaining the ability to adopt a Spartan Diarchy as they near their very very distant cousins. While I don’t have either variant done yet, I do have the designs for the first Pentapotamian tree.

The first part here is about hybridizing your culture. In this, you’ll be able to convert to Hellenic optionally. You will have to take a very nasty modifier, but you’ll be able to dispel it in the task ‘A True Yavanaraja.’

The other side of the tree meanwhile is about conquests and development, showing you both can earn the right to go for a Reverse Okeanos as well as are worthy to carry on the legacies of both Raja Porus and Alexander the Great. In fact, the Blood of Alexander mission will allow you to claim yourself as a Diadochi successor, citing Raja Porus as a worthy contender for the Indian parts of the Empire. You will optionally get to change your name to the Poravid Kingdom/Empire, echoing the style of the Diadochi, but either way, your rather shaky claim has to be proven worthy quickly, which brings me to the next half of the tree.

This part of the tree above is all about the actual act of Reverse Okeanos. It’s a lot more in-depth than the original tree was. Reverse Okeanos has to be completed in just 30 years! But don’t worry, you get a pretty nice modifier and each task will net you either a reduction in AE, a stability bonus, or a cultural bonus to keep pops happy… just don’t fail because all those rewards you get to help you will be taken away, including the AE reductions, meaning you will surely crumble like Alexander’s Empire did. Good luck forming the funkiest Diadochi claimant!

I wish I could show more, but it is simply not done yet. The last thing I can talk about before signing off though is a little easter egg formable I’ve added for Persian speaking nations that land themselves in Panchanada. Of course, five rivers is easily translated into any language, but Persians hold a special honor giving the region’s modern and most popular name of Punjab.

Hope you’re excited as I am about the Punjabi content comin’ your way! And hope you enjoyed me not talking about religion for the first time ever. Until next time, that’s all from me, folks!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 82: Raetia, Messapia and Kolchis missions

Salvete!
Today we'll be presenting 3 new mission trees, one for Raetia, one for Messapia and one for the Kolchis.
To start, i'll hand you over to Derekmark for Raetia.

Salve everyone! Derekmark here with a new tree, this time for the northernmost Italic nation of Raetia.

An ancient people, the Raeti were the Pre-Indo-European inhabitants of the central Alps, distantly related to the Etruscans. Once, long ago, their presence extended towards the Padus (the Po river), with the ancient Camuni and Eugani tribes possibly having been related peoples, or even Raetic tribes themselves. Nevertheless, the Rhaetian tribes remained in their mountain home for millenia, mixing with incoming Celtic peoples, such as the Vindelici, before being conquered by a Roman expedition in 15 B.C.E.

Under Roman domination, the Rhaetians would lose their language, becoming assimilated into the empire. However, in-game, things could go very differently.

In Imperator, Raetia finds itself as a uniquely cultured nation nestled within a mostly Celtic mountain range. If Raetia is to become powerful enough to resist titans of the classical world, it must first consolidate a fragmented and diverse region. If the player succeeds in doing so, then you should be just about sufficiently equipped to defend against the threat of more powerful states to the south, providing the player is shrewd enough to outmaneuver strong and numerous enemies.

To achieve this, the tree that Raetia receives will include tasks to push you to expand in multiple directions, as well as develop a population base in your mountain home, taking full advantage of your geography to make it untouchable.

Starting off this tree, Raetia will first have to consolidate the Rhaetian tribes of which the federation already consists of to gather the will of the tribes so that you may both expand and build up your country (though this won’t take long).

Once done, you will be free to consolidate the surrounding area, bringing surrounding valleys, where Rhaetian presence was felt, directly under the control of the tribes. (With the many tribes united together, the Rhaetians will reform into a true Tribal Federation, changing your government)

But the Raeti weren’t alone in their area of the Alps, together with the Rhaetian tribes lived those of the Vindelician Celts. In fact the ample mixing of these two groups lead some writers to view them as indistinguishable from one another. With such fraternization, it would be useful to absorb these tribes into your own Rhaetian realm to increase its power.

With the Vindelician tribesmen held within your borders, you will be able to fully integrate them into your society, giving you a few bonuses to cultural happiness, and a precious boost to Levy size.

Along with the entrance of Celtic individuals into Rhaetian society, there was also the influence of Celtic religion, with the Raeti having practiced magic rituals involving Celtic gods and traditions. If you are to bring at least two Druidic deities into Raetia’s pantheon, you can reflect this religious syncretism, with permanent bonuses to boot.

As well as the integration of the Vindelicians, you must also deal with other surrounding peoples, either through diplomacy or conquest. To your immediate west lies the Lepontii, of which you will have already fought for control of the Rhaetian Alps by this point. If you have not already completely conquered them yet, now will be your chance.

Beyond the Lepontic Alps reside the Helvetian Celts. While these fierce people must be brought into your realm, if you are to have dominance over the region, it is your choice whether to do so through diplomatic means or by the sword.

Meanwhile, you will be expanding Raetic influence east as well, pushing your borders further and further until all of the Alpes Carina is under your control. And once the Alpine Noricans have been conquered, it will be time to push North, into the commercially opportune lands of Norica.

With most of the Alps under your control, you will finally have the opportunity to reorganize your state into a grand confederation of Alpine peoples. An Alpine Confederation.

And with the reform of your federation into a much larger state, a reform of your governance will be necessary too!

But is this the extent of Raetia’s expansionist ambitions? No, for to your south you must deal with the old tribes of the Po Valley.
As I have briefly mentioned, the area of the Padan plain directly below the lands of the Rhaetians were historically inhabited by peoples called the Camuni and the Euganei. The former having left only a few inscriptions, and the latter being a semi-mythical people that once reached across the Western Veneto region. Though we aren't quite sure of the identity of these peoples, there is a possibility of them having been tribes of Lowland Raeti. As such, this will be your justification to enter into these lands, to take control of these areas back from the hands of those who invaded centuries ago.

Once you have managed to completely control the historical regions of the Camuni and Euganei, you may re-establish these long lost tribes as Rhaetian feudatories. Though if you are feeling selfish, you may as well keep these lands for yourself.

On the subject of looking southwards towards the Padan, you may also want to look towards the shores of the Adriatic. The Raeti had little prospect of obtaining precious salt from the Alps, so it would be opportune to do so from Veneto's coast (as they did through trade).

But now, with your limited foothold in this fertile river plain, you must expand quickly to establish a Rhaetian repopulation of the region, failure to do so could result in the endangerment of your subject tribes to local powers.

Finally, with the complete consolidation of the Po Valley, you can encourage further colonization of the region, and claim dominion over the rest of the Cisalpine Gaul region.

In addition to the paths that I have already explained, there are a couple more branching tasks that give Raetia the opportunity to expand into Carina, and even to cross the Alps into southern Gaul. Raetia is not, however, the ‘biggest fish in the pond’ so to speak, especially so close to the ascendent Romans.
As such, we must turn our focus to the left side of the tree, which will focus on defending and building your central lands up, so that you may look to match larger states coming from all sides.

First off, you must gather funds to pay for defenses in your capital province. You are surrounded by many other tribes that may make your capital their principal target for raids or other attacks, so defense here will be your first priority.

Next, you will need to fortify the Reschen Pass to your West. In real life, a Roman army, under the leadership of Drusus, marched through the pass on their way to conquer the Rhaetians, before quickly annexing them. To avoid this fate, you must quickly construct fortifications in the pass.

Of course, with the powerful Cisalpine Gallic tribes to your south, you should also protect the only pass directly into your lands from there as well.

With this focus of fortifying the Raetic lands, Raetia will need to look to the techniques employed by Celts (such as the Vindelicii) in making both walled cities and fortifications, and apply them to mountainous terrain and existing Rhaetian methods.

However this still may not be enough. Raetia must therefore put into practice a prioritization on manning its fortifications (in practice, diverting manpower to garrisons), though this will put a temporary strain on your manpower.

The final step of your defense-oriented reforms will be to attune Raetic warriors and tactics to specialized Alpine warfare. Beware of having a war for at least a year though, as such a shakeup will certainly negatively affect fighting spirit in the short term.

Though these reforms and defenses will certainly aid in your goal in uniting the Alps under Raetia, you will still need a worthy capital to project Rhaetian power from. At the game's start, your capital province starts off as a rural settlement with only a small capacity for holding a sizable population, and you must therefore change this by establishing a city there.

While their population never reached the highest of quantities, the Raeti did reside in houses that were remarkably well adapted to the frigid cold of the Alps. With this in mind, the new Rhaetian capital at Sublavione must make good use of unique local techniques to make a well acclimated, yet grand, city in the middle of the Alpine mountains.

Finally, with all of Raetia’s growth and expansion, into a grand confederation of Alpine peoples, headed by a grand and guarded city, the state formed by Raetia will be ready to dominate their surrounding area. However with the numerical advantage of the Italic states to the south, and perhaps even of the Gauls, Raetia cannot afford to have its homeland breached. Your final task will therefore be to block off all entrances to the Alps, spending extra funds to make every pass as treacherous as possible to any invading enemy so that they may never reach your main population centers in the center.

Will you be able to act quickly as the Raeti, and forge a grand, mountain-based state, or simply fall to more numerical powers or tribes? That will depend on your ability to manage Raetia’s early wars, and take advantage of the area’s unique geography to build defenses quickly, before great empires arrive at your doorstep.

Well I hope you enjoy this tree, and good luck!

Also, for who’s interested, a couple of new flags:
Rhaetia:

Alpine Confederation:

Camunia and Euganeia (mission task feudatories):

Guess who’s back, back again! (It’s me Izn). Today I’m presenting the Messapia tree! This tree was one I worked on with Olivenkranz together. Here’s the look before we get into it.

Now, before the tree even begins, we have a war to fight! Historically, the Messapii tribes were involved in a war against the Lucani and Samnites, on the side of their age old enemy, Tarentum. However, the war ended up being… more or less nothing in terms of land acquisitions. The Spartans arrived, and the Lucani gave up. So this war is handled entirely through event chain, done by Olivenkranz.

The chain has quite a few outcomes and involves several powers in the region. Now then, let’s look at the first parts of the tree.

Your initial tree is all about diplomacy. Whether you are Apulia or Messapia proper, you will be able to peacefully unite with your Iapygian brothers. The task ‘Pyrrhic Plans’ is designed to give you an alliance with Epirus in order to join Pyrrhic War against Rome using the systems of alliance in game rather than adding you to the war directly. You can also net yourself a nice bloodline using this task, or you can choose to ignore it if you’d rather not ally Epirus.

After this initial bit of diplomacy, you will have to take out your spears and go to war! But Messapia’s place in the world is at quite a crossroads. Between three cultures, Italian, Greek, and Illyrian. Between many government systems; the Roman Republic, the Etruscan League, the Itallian tribes, the Illyrian tribes, the mainland Greek republics, the Epirotes and their Diadochi monarchy, the Syracusians and their monarchy, and the many city states of Magna Graecia. Point is, you have a lot of choices to expand, and regardless of where, you’ll be taking on different influences. I think this makes this tree rather replayable.

The right side of the tree is all about those conquests, and while it is interesting, I think I’ll leave most of that side for you to discover. I will point out the Marulum Nostrum end task though, because it is quite cute! It effectively means Mini Sea, and I think it’s quite obvious what that ‘Mini Sea’ represents. But if not, here’s a highlight of the territory you can expect to go for.

Anyways, onto the part of the tree that makes it unique!

This here is all based on who you conquer and which traditions you adopt. As Messapia or Apulia centralize, you will have many options as previously stated.

Once you’ve decided which influences to take on, you will finally be able to centralize into one of nine different government types depending on your choices.

Now, there’s also the faith aspect to this, and I don’t want to say too much, but I will highlight the Illyric path.

I’m very excited about this path in particular because Illyric, in most of my research, revolved around three cults: Sun, Snake, and Thracian Horseman. However, in Italia, the Iapygian/Messapian speaking Illyrians would eventually adopt a cult of wolves. This was a belief unique to the Messapians, particularly the Daunian Iapygians to the north, but the idea of wolf worship is a very Itallian one in nature. Thus, the wolf cult is born in Invictus as a new choice.

On the topic of new Illyric Cults, there is one more cult I decided to add to the other Ilyrian tree.

This cult is a bit more fictional, however, I find it quite logical and a fun easter egg for those who are interested in it. I will also point out that the Monthly Ship Repair at Sea is a very unique modifier as well, one that is all but banned to use due to its powerful nature, so don’t scoff at the 0.01+ modifier! Additionally, the cults have been slightly rebalanced so that they are more equal in value.

Ah, I’ve gotten quite off topic, this is supposed to be about Messapia! I’m pretty close to finishing my teasers on the tree, but I’d be remiss to talk about the ending. After having decided your government, your religion, and having conquered your Mini Mare Nostrum, you will be able to finish the final task and be rewarded with a mission formable.

Annnnd, for those who don’t like the name Magna Illyria, I decided to put in an alternate name being Magna Messapia. It’s purely an aesthetic choice, but if you’re like me, aesthetics matter a lot!

The formable’s aesthetic is meant to mirror that of Magna Graecia. You’ll even notice that the flag is loosely inspired from Magna Graecia’s.

That’s all I have to share today, folks, so I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that ya’ll will give a try to the newest contenders for Italian domination; the unlikely and unique Illyrians of Italia.

Omega here with yet another update on the Caucasus. I come with good news and bad news.
The bad news: while it was hinted at earlier, Armenia content has been delayed until the next major update so that an Armenian content package can be released with missions for Armenia and a mission for Sophene and Lesser Armenia individually. This news will disappoint some, but the delay is to make sure that the missions for all Armenian tags can be interactive and fully-researched. I have collected many monographs to make sure we design the missions with the most up-to-date information.

The good news: today I’m here to talk about Kolchis and everyone’s favorite Argonautic tale!

The new Caucasian Cultural Setup:

While previous Dev Diaries have discussed and hinted at the new cultural setup in the Caucasus, we now provide you the full picture. While Iberic, Albanian, and Legian remain the same, many small cultures have been added to represent the very diverse nature of the region, and some cultures have been converted into the Caucasian group.

Mentioned by Herodotos and other historians, the Sasperies don’t have an exact location, and appear somewhat migratory, but their culture here represents several smaller groups of peoples in the southern Caucasus who dwelled among the lower Caucasus range and infiltrated much of the Armenian sphere.

To their east are the Caspians, whom I have already covered in Albania’s Dev Diary, and represent the so-called Caspian tribes whose horses were valued as chariot-pullers and cavalry beasts by Cryus and his descendants.

The Colchians, the ruling culture and class of the kingdom of Kolchis, the likely Mingrelian-speakers, still exist all along the domain of the Colchian delta, but are joined by many other groups as well.

The Suani, modern Svan people, have long inhabited the northern Caucasus range, and were famed for their goldsmithing and mining practices. They have been added throughout the mountains, the Colchian heartland, and the ports where they would sell their goods from workshops. The Suani, should you take control as their culture, have a unique formable:

Another new culture added to the Colchian area is the Laz or Lazi people. Fans of Imperial Rome might remember the kingdom of Lazica in the region formerly known as Kolchis. The Lazi once roamed in the northern reaches of the Colchian coast but, by the time of the game-start, they had mostly migrated to the southeastern Pontic coast where modern remains of the Laz language still exists. The Laz culture represents the Lazi themselves as well as the individual tribal groups mentioned in ancient sources such as the Mossynoechi, Macronnes, and others. For those eager enough, Lazica can be reformed by the Lazi.

The last culture added to the Colchian lands is that of the Abasgoi.

Representing the ancient predecessors of the Abkhazians and other tribes in the region, the Abasgoi lived between the Northern Caucasus range and the coast, with nobles in the capital and major cities of Kolchis itself and the Greek cities along the northern Pontic coast. Like the other added cultures, the Abasgoi get a formable.

As part of the upcoming update, and following it, the team will be adding cultural innovations and other unique content to these cultures to make them worth integrating and engaging with beyond assimilation.

The last major cultural change was to flip the Sindian and Maeotian cultures from the steppe cultural group of the Sarmatians into the Caucasian culture group. While the Sindi (especially if you just read the wiki page) seem to take a lot of influence from the Siraci and other steppe groups, they themselves are closely intertwined and were likely just the most dominant faction of the many diverse Maeotian tribes along the lake Maeotis (the Azov Sea). What little archaeology we have from the area in terms of burials and settlement post-holes indicates a lifestyle that was uncharacteristic of steppe populations in the northern Caucasus, and many fort towns, similar to oppida, were located in the region. Materially, the Maeotians/Sindi also shared much artistically and in trade with the Suani and northern Caucasian groups. For this reason, and because many theories still exist regarding a much larger ‘Caucasian’ archaeological/cultural complex stretching down to northern Mesopotamia before and during the early periods of the Bronze Age, I have added them as members of the Caucasian culture group. This change will also help balance the population count of the culture groups, seeing how small the Caucasian group was in the vanilla setup. Of course, as the Maeotians join the Caucasian Culture Group, they earn a formable…

As a bonus, to represent the intense level of Hellenization which occurred in Kolchis between the fall of the Achaemenid Empire and the wars of the Diadochi (and afterwards), Pontic, Bosporan, and other Hellenic pops have been strewn about the lands of Kolchis, especially at cities like the archaeological site of Vani, where a greek archon of the is known from inscriptions and there were many Hellenic temples and public buildings with many Hellenized or Greek-origin names appearing on ostraka.

Now, to the mission everyone has been clamoring for - Kolchis’ pinnacle mission.

While it may appear small, it is quite mighty, and quite flavorful.

Resources consulted in the making of this mission and the cultural setup included but weren’t limited to: Christoph Baumer’s The History of the Caucasus, Strabo’s Geographica, Herodotus' Histories, David Braund’s Georgia in Antiquity, and The Georgian National Museum of History’s Iberia-Colchis: Researches on the Archaeology and History of Georgia in the Classical and Early medieval Period Essay Collection.

Besides the mission itself, flavor in the form of deities (as has already been shown in previous Dev Diaries), unique decisions, and event chains will be added to cultures and countries in this area based off of the above-mentioned resources. As an example, the Iberians were said to have believed in white crystals from the northern Caucasian range having the power to conquer nightmares and end all bad dreams…

For the Kolchis Mission, the narrative involves:

• Developing the land of Kolchis itself
• Engaging with the historical ties between Kolchis and Pharnavaz I’s Iberia
• Negotiating between the many different and relations-tense tribes in the eastern Pontos Euxinos
• Rediscovering and engaging with the legendary history of Kolchis
• Expanding Kolchis’ trade and military domain to eventually cover the entirety of the Black Sea

Dioscurias, modern Sokhumi, was a very cosmopolitan trading hub, renowned for its salt deposits and its centrality when it came to migrants and merchants from the 4 corners of the Caucasus. This mission task sets you about dealing with the politics of this city, its many neighbors (such as the Heniochi tribe to the north), and the trade benefits of the town.

Who could imagine that one lone city could be so…eventful…

Few have not heard the tale of the Golden Fleece and the exploits of Iason and the sailors of the Argo. Yet, few do know the historical realities that may have led to threads of the tale. While Kolchis has always been a region rich in resources—the burials of commoners could be found littered with golden foil and fragments, it was their method of collecting golden flakes in the river Phasis (which flowed from the favorably rich mountains) by dredging sheep’s wool through it that led to the image of golden wool. You have the ability to profit off of the river Phasis’ trade and deal with the many peculiarities of the body of water.

Not so much a political reference as it is a physical obstacle, the swampy nature of the Colchian delta both characterized the cultural development of the place while also hindering its ability to become a more powerful kingdom. The people of Kolchis were forced to settle upon artificial mounds and high places in the topography, while they sailed along a dense network of canals in the delta region—a unique and awesome image, but not efficient for empire-building. Draining this swamp with engineering solutions won’t be easy, but it’s well-worth the price.

What could top all the Kolchis content presented so far better than a new Great Wonder in the game, and having it be the palace of king Aeetes himself. While the myth of the Argonautic tale has no precise geography, and archaeology cannot conclusively determine the existence of an ancient palace or its whereabouts (the region of Kolchis before the time of the Achaemenid empire was most likely a dizzying array of small and medium-sized kingdoms and chiefdoms controlling sections of the delta and mountainous lands), the palace of Aeetes is thought to coincide either with the town/area of Phasis, where the Argonauts entered the kingdom of Kolchis, or up the river at the site of modern Kutaisi (possibly called Aea/Aia in antiquity). For the purpose of the mod, and flavor around the town of Phasis, we have chosen to make the palace a Great Wonder that can be constructed in Phasis, which will later give you the option to move your capital to Phasis and rule from the wealthy coastal port city.

The Georgian Chronicles and other mostly Medieval sources record a long history between Kolchis and Caucasian Iberia under the Kujid and Pharnavazid dynasties. While much of it (especially the story of legendary Pharnavaz I) is drenched in retroactive narrative-creation and influence from Persian epic forms of storytelling, there are few other sources on the individuals living at this time, so we enjoyed running with the stories and allowing you to follow them as they are told or completing diverting towards your own path. As told in the chronicles, Kuji of Kolchis married the sister of Pharnavaz I after he supported Pharnavaz’s overthrow of the supposedly Macedonian puppet king Azo. Here, the player will be able to marry one of Pharnavaz’s sisters (realistic Cacuasian and Median-Persian names have been chosen because his mother was said to have been from Aspadana). However, if you buck the narrative expectations and marry Pharnavaz I’s own mother, you get access to her Acahemenid bloodline trait, taking into account her supposed status as a daughter or relative of Darius III, the last Achaemenid king of kings.

The narrative after this marriage allows you to become an equal of Pharnavaz’s Iberia, a willing puppet, or the a-historical dominant player in a partnership—choose your narrative.

Define your position in the Caucasus with the Caucasian Union task, where the subsequent events will shape the look and play of the Caucasus irreversibly.

Many other secrets and unique moments await you in the Kolchis mission, but the overall conquest goals largely encompass: every coastal territory in the entire Pontos Euxinos, and a majority of the middle Caucasus region encompassing Kolchis, Caucasian Iberia, and Caucasian Albania.

We look forward to seeing what spells you cast and what narratives the fates weave for you.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 83: 1.7 Vesuvius release + Etruria, Samnium, Umbria and 3 other missions

Salvete!
With Saturnalia now over, we have come with a late gift.
The 1.7 - Vesuvius update is out now on the Steam workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348 and on our Nexusmods page for every non-Steam user: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1
(Endorsements on Nexus and likes on the Steamworkshop are greatly appreciated by us if you feel the mod to be worthy.)
For those of you who want to continue your old saves, you can download and install the 1.6.1e version from this Nexusmods link, installation instructions match the normal nexusmods instructions on the main page: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=files&file_id=1
(While we will continue to upload to our PDXmods page, that version has caused so many issues we can’t recommend you use it and we recommend you instead unsubscribe and switch to the Nexusmods version.)

We also have a thriving Discord community everyone is welcome to join: https://discord.gg/5K9fd3qSjx

As for the changelog:

Spoiler: Changelog

V1.7 - Vesuvius (breaks saves, use nexusmods 1.6.1e version to continue old saves)
New/expanded mission trees:
- New content with 2 missions each for Etruria and Samnium
- Integrated Allis Ubbo mod's mission tree by Pureon (available to switch to as Carthage when owning Porto)
- Added a regional tree for unifying Tartessia and a tree for unifying Iberia as Tartessia
- 12 New mission trees for: Albania, Aryavarta, Colchis, Getae, Gordyene, Kios, Messapia, Pentapotamia, Rhaetia, Umbria, Veneto, Yaudheya
- Reworked mission tree of the Western Greek countries

Added content:
- Reworked Caucasian and Egyptian culture setup
- Added event to simulate the Roman evolution from Italic to a more Hellenic pantheon
- Added Italic, Nuragic and Hurrian religion
- Added 100+ new deities across a variety of religions
- Added Italia, Scandia, Greater Arachosia, Punjab and several mission related-formables
- Added dozens of decision relating to Pentapotamia and Aryavarta missions and formables
- Reworked the Armenian religion
- Added several dozen new flags
- Added new naming scheme to several Italic cultures
- Added lots of new event pictures from the Allis Ubbo mod
- Added pirate crown on characters unlocked in the Nuragic mission tree
- Added events about several historical conflicts in Italy
- Added Castrated trait
- Added some new bloodlines related to the new Indian content

Changes:
- Renamed Cybelene to Anatolian religion
- Countless changes have been made to provide clearer tooltips, especially in missions
- Added/Updated heritages to the Caucasus and Italy
- Rebalanced AI early-game aggression in Italy
- Increased AI naval budget cap to 35% total income (from 25%)
- Added 35% naval maintenance cost reduction to Punic Republic
- Tweaked some levy templates
- Numidia now properly colours in
- Added 5 new inventions to Georgians and North-Africans
- Reworked the Upper Egyptian revolt
- Updated dozens of deity triggers
- Updated several formables to not require 100% of the territories
- Several formables now annex all needed land to form it when they're owned by a subject
- Changing governor policy cost has been reduced to 5 from 10
- Manual divorce has been disabled in republics for now
- Updated internal tags so no country has a tag of X00-X99
- Added a softer variant to change religion in specific circumstances
- Changed Fruits second modifier to local tax
- Updated a number of traits to account for Spearmen
- Made dozens of minor adjustments to various modifiers
- Etruria can now form Corsica when only owning land in Corsica/Sardinia
- Added scripts to fix holdings not being transferred upon conquest, causes slight delay at gamestart

Bugfixes:
- Fixed every reproducible, reported bug for every mission and event in the game too many to list
- Fixed unit abilities becoming locked out when unlocking a new military tradition
- Fixed a lot of duplicate names
- Fixed a dozen bugs related to the Cappadocia mission tree
- Fixed Carthaginian mission bypasses
- Founding cities through missions now properly updates civilization value in neighbouring territories
- Fixed a number of missing icons
- Fixed governors going for conversion policy despite having the major syncretism invention
- Updated localization in all languages for improved grammar and general fixes

Some highlights include ~17 mission trees including new ones for the main Italian powers of Etruria, Samnium, Umbria and more; a new Italic religion and a variety of other content for the Caucasus and more. Great effort has also been put in to fix the reported bugs that were reproducible.
And the updated missions map:

As for the rest of the Dev Diary, we will be presenting the new Etrurian, Samnite, Umbrian, Pentapotamian, Aryavarta and Kios missions, the new Italic religion but before I hand you over to present Etruria, Juiss, a member of the community made a list of every invention unique to the Invictus mod and is worth checking out: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rnfoNPF9CxC45PZhXcXyRe51KacF5c1gcYFo4o1GIg/edit?usp=sharing.

An update to our AAR contest; for the first time in Invictus history, we have had a tie between two of our entries. The winners of the contest are supermash “Monnapia; the League of the Islands” and Ratatosk “From Across the Sea”! Congrats and we will reach out to you very soon to start discussing your mission trees. All stories submitted were fantastic, absolutely top notch, and have inspired us to run yet another AAR contest, so stay tuned for that information…

Now onto Etruria:

Greetings everyone, it's Zorgoball with a look at the first two of eight planned missions for Etruria. We were considering waiting on releasing our Etruscan content until more missions were completed, but since Etruria is one of the most highly-requested tags for flavor, we couldn’t sit on these any longer - Vesuvius is erupting and the Italy update is here! Most of today’s DD focuses on the content we are bringing to Italia, in fact. These initial two Etruscan trees combined the efforts of myself, OmegaCorps and Typhion, and we are very pleased to finally reveal these missions. The first one available to you, “The Roman Incursion”, will deal with the elephant in the room; the unsettled business between you and your long-time rivals to the south.

The time has come to push back against the Roman aggression that has wounded your pride and taken your lands from you. But before your armies gather for battle, there will be a series of events that will help you prepare for the tough days ahead.

Will you lead your people in rebuilding your nation, or will you let revenge guide your hand? Will you be bold enough to aid your kinsmen who are suffering under the Roman yoke? How are you going to avenge the fall of Veii, which weighs upon the minds of your people and stains their honor? Nothing is set in stone, and there are many options with various outcomes for you to explore.

The main paths deal with what you might expect; defeating Rome once and for all. But before you strike out against an enemy that has already bested your armies once before, it is imperative that you make alliances and have the necessary manpower reserves and military expertise to achieve victory.

Success on the battlefield has been known to forge many friendships, and the soldiers that survive the onslaught of battle together will be brothers forever.

Your leadership will not be afraid to dirty their hands when it comes to subduing the Roman state.

I will let you find out what happens when it comes to the final war with Rome and what the outcome will be, because now it’s time to look at Etruria’s second tree “Western Markets”.

This is a tree that will focus on adventure and your economy as your fleets are now free to sail to explore and conquer distant lands. Make sure you have a proper navy before you send your sailors out into the great unknown - your prosperous trade lanes are threatened by piracy and there is danger out on the waters.

A grateful merchant class might be willing to invest in your capital if you are able to safeguard their fleets. But are the pirates potential partners as well? They know the western waters better than your sailors do now, and there is much that they could teach you.

Be careful with whatever decision you make, as each Admiral has…unique…talents that you won’t want to waste. As your fleets make contact with other nations, there will be opportunities for your people to draw closer together in unexpected ways. The Ligurians to the North have always been reliable trading partners, but could they perhaps be something more? It will remain up to your Consul to see how far these connections will go.

An important part of this tree involves building up your holdings on Corsica. Its position is ideal for becoming a trading hub, but its local infrastructure is poor, especially when compared to the many cities of the Etruscan coast - your enterprising Consul will take care of this, however.

You will become familiar friends with the elites living in Alalia, the most important city in Corsica, and it is from this provincial capital that your efforts to develop the island will be located. Whether it is directing the local investments or dealing with the local tribesmen, Alalia is sure to see its fair share of action.

Will you ultimately build up Corsica, bringing the backwater island into the glorious light of civilization? Or will your baser instincts guide you as you allow piracy to spread unchecked through the waterways that you control? There are rewards and options for whatever path you decide to take.

But did you know that your ruler secretly sympathizes with the pirates, and oftentimes wonders what his life might have been if the circumstances of his birth were different?

If you are able to free yourself from Etruria and unify Sardinia under your banner, you will have access to the Sea People tree, so that’s fun. A final peek at a couple of event chains before I hand things over to olivenkranz for a bit - I’ll be back later to show you some more missions.

Hello all, today I (olivenkranz) present to you the 2 trees for Samnium, with scripting by yours truly and featuring localization from our writer NPK. The first is a comparably short tree, designed to be done in about 10 years, give or take. This tree is all about defeating the Romans in the upcoming 3rd Samnite War.

The only task not related to Rome at all is the one about the war of 303 BC. This war was already mentioned in the last DD when Izn talked about Messapia. In this war, Tarentum with the help of Messapia, Apulia and Sparta opposed Lucania who was supported by Samnium. That event happens entirely via an event chain, and at the end of it, depending on the outcome, you will get different small rewards.

The tree as a whole is designed in two halves, a “pre-war” half with tasks such as requiring allies to stave off Roman aggression, sending a spy to Rome to sabotage or trying to convince one of Rome’s feudatories to betray them and join you.

The tasks after the war are all “clean up” so to speak.
You can either force-vassalize Rome as an opm or burn Rome to the ground. The other tasks are about subjugating the remaining Socii, if any remain, as well as dealing with Neapolis, the city that caused the outbreak of the second Samnite war that just ended at game start.

Importantly, while at war, you will get a couple of events the choice of which will impact what the second mission tree will look like. If your nation becomes too traumatized by constant, generation-long warfare it might become a warmonger just like Rome has been historically. Or, maybe you can fulfill the needs of your people in time and simply be a slightly larger regional power - of course, all your neighbors pay tribute to you.

The second tree will have another, larger, part next to the one about conquest and outer relations which is all about the interior affairs.
With the conquest of Rome and the larger seaports, the Hellenic culture and religion have grown in presence and importance. The rich elites of Samnium especially like this new culture, with the wealth and inventions that it brings with it. Other forces fear that the traditional way of life is about to die out due to the pressure of the new (on the left you can see the edge of the military path).

As you can see, this tree is rather large, But fear not, this tree is replayable! The three branches are all mutually exclusive. And combined with the 2 different options for the conquest path, you can have 6 different playthroughs from the mission tree alone.

On the left, you will embrace the Hellenic influences and convert to their religion. More trade, civilization and much more await you on that path, such as a visit to the Greek world or starting to truly urbanize and becoming the centre of civilization. In the example below, our Consul has decided to take a trip to Greece and will sail for Athens.

I’ll leave Gaius’s meeting with the Pythia private, but let’s just say your Consul is in a good mood afterwards and doesn’t seem to mind taking his time heading to Athens - there are many famous cities in Greece that have captured his interest.

(And yes, there's a typo here and there but keep in mind that's one of the last things we fix ). The city of Athens surpasses Gaius’s expectations, but time is limited as his duties call him back to Samnium. What should he do while he is there?

Most of the time you will get home just fine, but there are always dangers that are associated with long trips…

But I digress. In the middle branch of your mission, you will find the path of the opposition, the path where you will purge Italy of any foreign influences and implore traditional, Italic rule again. Living your rural lifestyle marked by pastoralism and transhumance, your people will be able to live and grow as the gods intended.

On the right is the path that comes closest to the historical outcome for the Samnites within the Roman Realm. Syncretising elements from the Hellenic Culture and Religion will change your identity, yet the core, such as the strong rurality will remain almost untouched.

Since burials were an important part of their culture and their form often dictated by religion and the understanding of death, so did their burials change when influenced. For that reason, each branch has three different tasks relating to the changing burial practices. All three tasks will trigger an event on ruler death (or some other overly important character if it’s a republic as well) that was inspired by the “Sky Burial” of CK2. You will have to choose how to bury the deceased character, impacting the relations with the deceased. You could even grab the funds set aside for the burial for yourself. What will the family think of that?

Each of the three branches will unlock a unique option besides the basic ones, for a more distinguished funeral, based on the changing burial practices.

Another new feature for not only Samnium but all Sabellian countries (that is the primary culture of Samnium) is a decision to call for a “Ver Sacrum”, or “Sacred Spring”. The remnant of a Bronze Age migratory ritual, when a Ver Sacrum was called, the newborn (humans and cattle both) of the following spring would be “devoted” to a deity and considered under that deities protection. When these children and cattle were grown, they would be expelled from the home community and expected to either subjugate a settlement somewhere else or to found a new one. This was most likely done to alleviate pressure of overpopulation.
In the game, the decision requires the following: you have not called for a sacred spring for some time (15 years at the time of writing this) and you have a larger settlement that is at least 95% full. In addition that settlement needs to be dominant italic and your culture. What the decision does is migrate some pops of that “Overfilled” territory to an UNOWNED territory, giving you a claim on it as well as some stability. That is to represent the expelling of the “devoted” generation as well as the invading nature of the practice on neighbouring tribes and states.
In the syncretic path and the path opposing foreign influences, there are tasks that will increase the rewards of the decision, in one case it is some military experience and in the other some political influence.

I also added this fun little event for Sabinia, and even though they don’t have a mission tree, this might make it interesting to start as that challenging nation. It is a little bit of flavour after all
And for Rome players, beware the fall of the Eternal City to those who you once betrayed.

As always, all numbers are subject to change.

And as promised, it’s Zorgoball returning with a sneak peek at a few more mission trees scattered about the map, but before we leave Italy, we will travel north from Samnium and check in to see how the Umbrians are doing. Thanks to Derekmark for bringing us another exciting tree for the Vesuvius update!

Umbria lives in a dangerous neighborhood, surrounded by potentially hostile Republics like the Etruscans to the west and those populated by Latins to the south, and the ever-present threat of barbarian invasions from the north have caused the Umbrian elites to lose sleep at night as they fret over your long-term security. You will be tasked with protecting your people moving forward, but as always, the path that you take will be a winding one, with various roads that ensure multiple playthroughs. Let’s look at the Etruscan options first; will you pursue friendship with your neighbors with diplomatic gestures, or will your messengers be carrying proclamations of war?

What does the path of friendship look like? Here are a couple of examples;

Of course, warfare can be very lucrative, and there are many treasures stored within the walls of the Etruscan citadels - why let the Romans have all of the fun when it comes to sacking Etruria? It would be wise to wage a western war…

Regardless of whether you choose battle or pursue your partnership with the Etruscans, don’t sleep on the Latin threat - it will be best to move from a position of strength by seizing the initiative from your enemies. A resurgent Umbria can afford to be bold and brash and besides, you have scores to settle.

Hopefully our levies will make short work of these fools. As your victorious forces continue to move south, there will be glorious opportunities to humble the vicious Roman wolf.

Fingers crossed that these Latins are smarter than the Sabines. But what about the barbarians to the north? There is so much to be uncertain about these days.

Naturally, there will be many optional tasks to keep your people busy during times of peace - let’s look at a few together.

Where does all of this lead Umbria? To becoming the Hegemon of Italia, where new formables await you if you choose.

I’ll save some surprises for you, but mostly because we have a boat to catch - we are leaving sunny Italia for the distant port of Kios. Dementive has reworked some of the vanilla events and brought us a new mission tree for the Mithridatids, so without further ado, let’s take a look at what you can expect. But first, a history lesson/reminder to set the scene…

Mithridates will flee in the dead of night, striking out for the fortress Kimiata in hopes of not succumbing to the forces of the Antigonid “Empire” that are threatening to blow up his way of life.

Our leader, exhausted by the events of the past few weeks, will accept the offer that is given to us - we will take the time to lick our wounds and plot for our wars ahead.

If you are able to defeat the many enemies that surround you, there will be opportunities to embrace your new circumstances wholeheartedly.

While you will certainly have your hands full with war preparations, there are always things to do with any excess treasury that you might have - your new homeland needs investment!

There will be options, as always. In the course of your missions, if you decide to pursue Median culture and religion, you will eventually have access to the “Form Media” tree for Atropatene that was made by OmegaCorps once this initial tree is complete, but if you go the Pontic route instead, you'll gain access to the brand new to Invictus “Pontic Hegemon of the Euxine Sea” made by RetconCrisis!

There will be many more building initiatives for your nation; now that you have conquered by land, the time has come to master the sea. Pontus has need of a navy, but thankfully, you have some of the best coastlines in the world as potential sites for your harbors - the city of Trapezous is an excellent candidate for a Pontic Shipyard.

With a proper navy at your disposal, you will proceed with your dreams of expansion.

You will have vicious tribes to contend with, as well as squabbling Greek city-states and kingdoms that are none too pleased to see your presence in the region. Rest assured that there are a variety of tasks that will help you with all of the above.

Certain issues will arise over the course of the campaign, like the status of the Greeks that you will have conquered - do they not deserve the same rights as their kinsmen back home? The debates are sure to be contentious, but your ruler will ultimately have the final say.

There is so much more in this update, but I will leave you to your adventures - happy campaigning! Before I go, I would also like to mention that many of the old trees have been looked at, adjusted here and there with new tasks and events added, so some of your old favorites might be worth checking out again. In addition to slightly adjusting some existing missions, some cosmetic surprises have been added, like this crown that will be available to both the Sea People and the Illyrian Pirates at various points in their trees - special thanks to Pureon for implementing.

Oh, and since I am thanking Pureon, I might as well offer him gratitude for allowing us to incorporate his Allis Ubbo mission into Invictus (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2443657504), which will be a decision for Carthage to tag switch over once you have conquered the necessary territory. A quick peek at the tree before I vanish;

As for other surprises you might find in 1.7, go find out as the update is already out!

Heyo, it’s Izn. New religion dropped, meaning it’s my time to introduce it. Though, I’d like to make a disclaimer that this religion has been in development since before I even joined the team! Anyhow, let’s take a look at the religious map.

The native religion of the Italian peninsula has been added. This religion is a very decentralized one. The religion in the northeast resembles that of the Illyrics, and the religion of the Etruscans and Rhaetians too are a bit more distinctive. Meanwhile central Italia has a mix of native and Etruscan, while as you move south you have less Etruscan influence. All in all, the religion needed to have a lot of deities. That’s why I… added over a hundred deities for this religion.

The sheer amount of deities means that I won’t be able to show you all of them, but, I will note that Etruscans and Romans have access to the most deities with somewhere around 35 and 30 respectively. A whole host of holy sites will be coming with these many deities too.

And here’s a picture of the modifiers for this religion.

This religion will have a special conversion mechanic to become Hellenic, as even Rome will be starting as Italic. The history of Roman religion is a much more interesting one that many would have you believe! It definitely isn’t just a one to one copy of Greek religion, and hopefully this new Italic religion will help inform our players of that simple but often misunderstood reality!

I also have got to show you the new trees I finished up for the patch. Of course, there’s Pentapotamia.

To form Pentapotamia, there’s one simple requirement: as Paurava, have any Greco-Indian pops and then integrate them! Now, this does mean that Maurya has to collapse to spawn said pops, but I hope the development tasks I added to Paurava will let you play without waiting too too long. Here are the exact requirements to form Pentapotamia.

You’ll notice in green it says you gain access to a new mission tree. I talked about that before, so let me show you the completed product.

Part one here should be pretty recognizable. This is effectively a mix between a custom nation creator and extreme larping. Here, you’ll set up things like what religion you want to be, what culture you’re going to be, and rp wise, how you’re going to claim to be a Diadochi. You can choose any Shramanic religion, Vedic, or Hellenic; and culturally you’ll be able to stay your current culture or adopt Greco-Indian culture. Either way, the narrative specifies that the culture your forging is unique, even if there’s no new culture to paint onto the map.

And now here comes the second part of the tree. The tree was pretty hard to organize, but I decided to highlight via icons which tasks are relevant for Okeanos and which tasks are ‘optional.’ I’ll remind players that this needs to be done within 30 years! So don’t dilly dally too much.

Seriously though, the negatives are… quite brutal. It’s designed so you will have a somewhat ‘natural’ yet sudden collapse that is sure to leave players in shambles when they fail.

BUT, you’re a god at the game, so let’s talk about the positives! There are 3 kinds of tasks in the second part of the tree. Claim tasks that facilitate claims for your future conquests, Alexander’s Step paths which directly push you towards Okeanos, and Alexander’s conquest paths which will push you towards reforging his empire in its entirety.

Example of a claim task.

Example of a step task.

And an example of a conquest task.

The ultimate goal of the tree actually comes before the end of it, so you could stop once you achieve Okeanos.

Or you can choose to continue conquering all the places you chose to skip, or going beyond Okeanos and capturing Egypt, Anatolia, and Greece. The rewards for the latter are… nonexistent however, so do keep in mind that the bulk of the content is for reaching Okeanos.

That said, you will receive a reward for completing the missions allowing you to access another mission tree and continue Indo-Hellenizing the world. In addition, if you chose to keep your original culture, you’ll still be able to form the Hellenic Empire and access the tree that way.

Ah, and I do have to mention that the Yaudheya version of Pentapotamia… is delayed. Sorry, but I just procrastinated way too much to get out that tree. I hope you’ll be satisfied with this though; a new formable and tree for said formable. The land of the Aryans, Aryavarta!

Aryavarta is heavily inspired by Dementive’s fantastic Tamilakam tree, but each task is flavored towards a Pan-Aryan idea.

The first part of this tree has two branches to speak of. The left side is about your conquests. You’ll be uniting the core lands of Aryavarta, those lands being highlighted in green here.

But, the narrative talks about increasing what Aryavarta means, expanding through legitimization via conquest. Eventually, you’ll end up unifying every Aryan in North India. However, Aryans have long since migrated past the Satpura. Let’s touch on the right side of the tree first before we move further south.

This side is probably the most heavily inspired from the Tamilakam tree, the structure being almost exactly the same, however, the nature of that tree allows for me to have a unique Aryan flair to these development tasks.

The temple tasks are also uniquely selected based on places of worship for Aryans rather than the Agamic areas in the Tamilakam tree. Some of the deities are indeed different too, but I implore you to read some of the writing in the tasks because I think they read quite nicely!

Finally, let’s move on to the final part of the tree.

This section of the tree is about walking into the south of India and establishing Aryavarta beyond the heartlands. I think by far the most important task is getting spices for Aryans.

We’re still a few millennia away from curry, but pre-Colombian exchange spices still hit different.

Once you reach past the continuous Aryan culture group, you’re met with two interesting areas, Sri Lanka and the Dravidians. Instead of directly annexing them, you’ll have options to make them into different vassal types. I’m quite proud of the rather ironic name of Dravidavarta.

Last thing I’ll mention is that Yaudheya and Paurava have their own color and flag for Aryavarta since, frankly, their flags are much cooler. Paurava will be given its own unique task as well, while Yaudhyea’s vassal options will be varied to fit a narrative of Imperial Republicanism instead of establishing monarchtic vassals. Here’s a snapshot of Yaudheya’s unique color for Aryavarta as well as their special version of the Lankan vassal you can make; Sri Lanka.

I quite love the red, don’t you? There are certainly more things to this tree, but you’ll have to play them to find out! I’m quite literally out of time to talk about more, so I’m signing off. Enjoy the new update!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 84: Ides of March update, Spartan colony, Fugandulu and Albion tree

In preparation for the Ides of March, March 15th - 16th, we present to you the largest bug fixing update we have ever done 1.7.1 which is out now. All of this made possible by the Imperator-Tiger tool made by Dementive.
The mod can be found on the steam workshop, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348 and on Nexusmods, https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=files.
Further in the Dev Diary we will be presenting a future tree for a Spartan colony in Veneto, Fugandulu which is out right now and an upcoming Albion tree.

This update however will partially break savegames, especially characters looks will be broken in most countries. So to continue older savegames, please use either:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3181950031 or https://www.nexusmods.com/Core/Libs/Common/Widgets/DownloadPopUp?id=67&game_id=5831 (extract in your Documents\Paradox Interactive\Imperator\mod folder directly. When using the Nexusmods version, you will have to unsubscribe from the workshop steam page as you can only have one version with it.)

Now onto the changelog highlights;
V1.7.1 - Ides of March:
- New mission tree for Fugandulu
- Added Vindelicia formable
Out of Sync message no longer shows PC username
- Democrats and Traditionalist will have slightly higher senate support for you now
- Added round tribal house as city centre for Celtics
- Added more round tribal houses to first tier for Celtics
- Olives are now a food tradegood, swapping places with Honey
- Removed Food tradegoods from non-Oasis Cities
- Parthia will now randomly decide which religion to adop
- Roman names should now keep more accurate count of Ancestors
- New namelists for Sabellian, Siculian, Lucanian/Bruttian cultures\n- Added a number of flags, mainly to Iberia
- Fixes to uv mapping of other houses
- Fixed Egyptian model textures
- Fixed Rome not unlocking the Greek military tradition
- Fixed Fezzani not getting their inventions
- Countless nerfs around the mod to overpowered modifiers
- 1000+ fixes to scripting all around the mod, all thanks due to Imperator-Tiger by Dementive
(Due to the massive amount of fixes, it is practically impossible to include in the changelog)

And now i’ll hand you over to Derekmark to present his Spartan colony tree.

Derekmark here! This time making my own little contribution to the second Imperator Rome day by presenting a little more content for northern Italia! (Regretfully though, this particular tree will not in fact be released in time for the day itself)

Now, you may remember from many dev diaries ago that we added an event chain that simulates the incursion of the Spartan prince Cleonymus across eastern Italia, where there exists a chance of his seizure of the Venetic city of Patavium as his own. Well a certain individual on the Paradox forums had asked if the new resulting realm of the prince would receive its own content - a comment that served as an excellent suggestion.

As such, if Veneto fails against the Spartan invasion (which the Venetic Patavi defeated in real life), and decides to relinquish control over their ancient city to Cleonymus, they will now be given the option to switch to playing as Cleonymus’ Spartan Patavium.

But all is not well in the prince’s new realm, and Patauion will start off weak, with a less than desirable heritage, and with few prospects for rapid growth.

To change your starting situation, Patauion will receive a small mission tree focused on stabilizing this nascent kingdom, and deciding the direction that your newfound realm will take.
This tree is not long, and should take you a little less than 10 years to complete, but heed my warning not to spend an excessive length of time in finishing it (for you will need to reform your realm as soon as possible not to fall prey to your neighbors).

Beginning the first task, sets you up for the trials to come for your kingdom, as you begin with little legitimacy, as well as a city state ruled by a foreign aristocracy reviled by the populace. As such, you will receive three crippling debuffs that you will have to rid yourself of by progressing through the mission tree.

Next down the tree is a small section focused on gathering support for your new government, both internal and external. Here you will focus on both uniting your Hellenic aristocrats against the dangers posed by your own populace, and seek foreign realms to court for aid.

Luckily for you, if you manage to bring your nobility together, they will pledge their complete loyalty to Kleonymos, with full knowledge that they can’t hope to stand alone against the barbarian hordes that they rule over.

As for the three tasks focusing on gathering foreign support, you may pursuit looking for help from a nearby fellow Hellenic state, or may try to court one of the barbarian Cisalpine realms, or even shun any attempts at such diplomacy, though this last option will cost a bit of stability.

Once your realm is sufficiently stable, you will be able to start deciding what path the Patauian Kingdom should take.

Here, an event will appear, giving you a choice on whether or not you will keep Cleonymus as the leader of Patauion. He may have led your people to your city, but he is also set in his ways, and is determined to recreate the Spartan Kingdom that he once left. Taking a different route from that set out by the prince therefore requires his removal from power.

The choice you make will be of paramount importance, for it will not only determine what path you will take in your tree, but will change the tasks available in your next mission tree as well.

The final section of this tree is split into two small branches, each guiding the reform of the Patauian Kingdom based on the choice you will have made in the previous task.

Let us first suppose that you have chosen to keep Kleonymos as your ruler, swearing allegiance to he who founded this kingdom. The Patauian upper class may be ferocious Spartan warriors, but they are so utterly outnumbered that they hold little hope of controlling your populace.

The solution lies in the way in which the conquest was first made, with the assistance of hired soldiers of fortune.

Here you will gain a temporary discount to mercenary maintenance, as well as remove that negative modifier draining your taxes (for extra hired guards are great for extracting tribute from a discontent populace).

As well as dealing with your manpower shortage, you must also permanently deal with your rebellious underclass, once and for all. Here, you will attempt to recreate that social structure that your nobles had known in Sparta, by making the native Patavi into Helots.

Beware though, for the proud Patavi have never before been subjugated in such a manner, and will not take such an infringement sitting down. Enslaving them will therefore trigger a massive slave revolt that you must put down if your Kingdom is to survive, failure will result in the Spartans of Patavium being overthrown, and slaughtered (if you fail against the revolt you may choose to continue to play as the freed Patavi, though they will receive no unique missions of their own).

Having subjugated the Patavi as Helots, you will then be free to restructure Patauian society to fit that that was established in the old kingdom, and make Patauion into a true Spartan society, ending this tree (as well as removing your final debuff) and giving you a new heritage and a few good modifiers!

But let us now suppose that Kleonymos was removed from power to make way for a more flexible route of adapting your state to its current situation, here you will focus on trying to appease the locals, and attempt to approximate the upper class to them to form a more cohesive society.

This will start off with the creation of institutions that allow them to feel better represented by the state (a task that will require you to construct a couple of buildings), and will serve as an act that will vent the frustrations of the Patavi into debates and civil input, rather than the rebellious activity of withholding precious tax.

The other task you must take here is to give the Patavi greater civic rights (represented by requiring you to take cultural decisions for Venetic). In doing so, you will put these natives into far greater contact with your culturally distant aristocracy, facilitating cultural exchanges, and beginning the process of cultural integration of these Patavian Veneti.

Finally, with the natives content, and the nobility having already made great strides in reform, upon having the Venetic culture integrated, you will be able to reform your Kingdom into one in which the two, formerly antagonistic, peoples of the Patavi and Hellenes are melded into one. A state that combines Spartan resolve with the ancient ways of the locals.
In addition to a new heritage, you will switch to a new hybrid Veneto-Spartan culture as well.

Regardless of the path that you have taken, your city will be reborn anew, ready to deal with your external situation with renewed vigor, leading you into your second, larger, tree.

Likely to your dismay, by the time in which you will have been focused on quelling internal strife, your distant neighbors will have grown and become powerful threats that Kleonymos could not have foreseen when leading his warriors across the Adriatic. But with the tasks present in your tree, and with your great effort in leading your realm in wars most difficult, you will be able to grow your kingdom to eclipse those states that currently threaten you.

(Please note that some of the tasks here are exclusive to having chosen to keep Kleonymos in power)

This tree presents three main paths of expansion, focusing on the regions of Italia, Cisalpine Gaul, and Greece, as well as a couple of unique tasks dependent on the kingdom your forged in the previous tree:

*Extra tasks you’ll have if you kept Kleonymos in power:

*Extra tasks you’ll have if you removed Kleonymos from power:

Let’s look at how you will expand in Cisalpine Gaul first:

Having gained claims over Olena upon completing your first mission tree, your immediate task will be to expand your borders outwards from the city of Patauion itself, for what hope do you have to defend Patauion in the traditional Spartan way if you have no fields in which to conduct battles before enemy armies reach your gates?

Next, you must turn east, and deal with the remnants of the independent Veneti once and for all, putting an end to their barbaric ways of governance. Once dealt with, you will have the option to allow the cities of Venetia autonomy, being able to establish a multitude of loyal poleis as a way of bringing the successes of the old Hellenic political systems to these Venetic lands.

As well as adding a bit of variety, this will also allow you to have the option to play with a small vassal swarm to assist you in your upcoming trials, though you can simply choose to keep all these lands under your direct control.

(A Patauion in which all available cities have been given autonomy)


The next tasks will push you to rapidly expand westwards across Cisalpine Gaul, with the ‘Mastery of the Padan’ task rewarding you with conversion buffs across the Celtic lands of the region, and the ‘Subjugation of the Ligures’ task resulting the the enslavement and redistribution of many of your ligure culture pops after conquering their lands. For your growing Spartan state could surely do with many more helots.

Now focusing on your actions in Italia, you must first start off by removing the threatening Senonnes, providing that they have not already been conquered, lest they turn their plunderous wrath against your city as they have already done to Rome.

The Senonni out of the way, you will be able to push downwards, subjecting those Italic tribes of the defendable Apennines such as the ancient Umbrians and strange Picentines, before moving onto the more central Italic lands.

Your primary concern however, will be whatever massive state that will have consolidated Italia by the time that you have managed to bring your realm together and enter the region (most likely the Romans). Regardless of your Spartan might, the fight ahead will be extremely tough, with the odds stacked against your, but are you to channel the spirit of Ares, and defeat the military might of those Italic barbarians, you will be able to lay waste to the lands of your enemies with terrible Spartan wrath, and plunder all of the lands that you have occupied from the enemy in Italia.

Having captured the enemy capital, you will be able to use the next task to burn it to the ground, crippling them with a temporary debuff and mitigating the threat that they pose to your state. Beware though, such wrathful actions are bound to mire your Kingdom in infamy, at least for a time.

Now that the Italic states have been conquered or crippled, and most of the region lies in Patauian hands, Patauion will be able to declare Hegemony over Italia, sending request of submission to all independent neighbors in the region, and giving you claims over much of Magna Graecia.

The final branch of this tree is the largest, and focuses on your preparations for your glorious return to Hellas, as well as the invasion itself.

You must begin by improving the legitimacy of the rulers of Patauion, doing so will allow you to look back on the old Kingdom of Sparta that their ancestors used to possess, and will give you claims over the throne of which their right to sit upon has been so far denied.

Next you must begin to build your invasion fleet, a task that will give you claims on ports throughout the Adriatic (for you are in need of docks to boost your newfound flotilla). Your initial navy will not be very large, however you may use a task to try to purchase some extra ships (of a higher quality than your own) from one of the neighboring Illyrians, provided you manage to get them on your side.

Now, in the second expedition of your founder Kleonymos, prior to reaching Patavium, he seized the Apulian city of Thuriae before being driven out by the Romans. While this incursion was a failure, the geography of Apulia remains an advantageous staging post for any activities to be taken across the Adriatic Sea.
Your subsequent action will therefore be to produce both the manpower and funds to stage a second invasion of Apulia, whereupon you will annex much of the coastline (if any small nations have their capital where you would otherwise take land, you will end up in a state of war with them).

Next up on your invasion path towards Hellas is the island of Corfu (or Korkyra), that like the coast of Apulia, provides an invaluable outpost for the invading Patauian fleet, upon which Kleonymos had exerted his conquering abilities during the Lucanian war.

Now so close to the coast of mainland Hellas, it is time for the Pataui to begin their incursion.

The first task of this final part of this mission branch will give you claims over much of the coastal peloponnese upon making shore, whereupon you will gain different task rewards for the different important areas you manage to conquer.

Once the pretender kings of Sparta have been done away with, you will be able to declare Patauion as the true inheritor of the old Spartan traditions (also allowing you to change your name and capital if you had gone down the Kleonymos route in tree 1), after which you can declare yourself as the master of the peloponnese (giving ultimatums for feudatory status to any independent poleis still around in the center of the peninsula, and giving you claims in much of Greece).

(A name-change option you may choose in this task if you had earlier kept Kleonymos and gone down the Spartan Kingdom path in the first tree):

(The name-change option you may choose in this task if you had earlier ousted Kleonymos and gone down the Patavi-Doric city path in the first tree):

(Master of the Peloponnese task, and result):

Finally, your Kingdom has reached unimaginable heights in a short period of time. From straggling adventurers heading across the sea, to an empire spanning from Hellas to across Italia. You dwarf any of the small states in Hellas, and have eclipsed the accomplishments of your ancestors, second only to the Macedonians. Noone in Greece can doubt your supreme hegemony now, let them bow to the great military might that is Patauion!

The tasks ahead of you are monumental, but are you ready to fight tooth and nail against powerful enemies in order to restore the true heirs of the Spartan throne, all in the name of Ares?

To all those willing to take on this challenging city state, good luck!

Hello everyone, it’s Zorgoball, and I am here to show off a new mission tree for Fugandulu that we are releasing for Imperator Day 2! One of our favorite things to do is adding flavor to the regions that previously had none, so today we will be traveling to the very edge of the world in Invictus, the Irrawaddy Valley, to play as the only Mon culture in game. Here is a reminder of where they are on the map before we dive into their mission tree “Doorway to the Lands of the Pyu”.

The Irrawaddy Valley is inhabited by settled tribes when the game starts, and there is no love lost between the dominant Pu culture and Tibetans that live amongst them. The Tibetans have brought their Bon faith to a land that is traditionally Natic, and the tribes that live on the coast have converted to the Vedic faiths that they learned about from merchants, which adds religious tension to the region. Needless to say, there are plenty of political opportunities that you will be able to exploit to your benefit.

Once you have conquered your immediate neighbors, your ambitious Chief will direct your forces to expand as far north as they possibly can - the rest of the valley must be yours, and that includes the uncolonized regions at the very edges of civilization. You will also be given the opportunity to push westward, attacking the tribes in the Arakan province in order to gain access to the sea.

Over time, your military conquests will require you to form Pugramadvara, a tier 1 tag that encompasses the entire region of Burma. But along the way to eternal glory, you will not only be tasked with developing the infrastructure of your country, but also restoring the traditional Natic faith to the Irrawaddy Valley.

In a travesty for the Natic believers, the holy site for the Irrawaddy Valley, located in the region’s only city of Halin, is held by the Bon faithful. But thankfully Kuji’i Nat, the Nat of War that is worshiped in the swamps of your settlement of Taledan, will be with your armies if you honor his ways. Perhaps one day, Kuji’i Nat might even lend you the deadly sap of the Upas tree for your archers…the time has come to lead the Natic faithful into battle!

Over time, your relationship with Kuji’i Nat will continue to grow, with greater rewards being given to those that show him the proper reverence. And those that are in communion with the Nats, the mysterious creatures that are worshiped by the true believers, might even be able to unlock access to new deities - not another Nat of the marshlands or a Nat of the Valley, but a Nat of Kingdoms.

But what else can you do? If you pursue peaceful means, deciding to form Pugramadvara diplomatically instead of annexing your neighbors after a war, your Chieftain will gain important diplomatic experience that will be useful in the days to come.

Your ruler must be a wise caretaker of the land, recognizing opportunities when they present themselves and taking full advantage of them. The rare jade mineral that is found within your region should be exploited to the fullest, and your Chief knows this.

Two more things before I go, as it is always good to leave some surprises in the tree for you to discover, but these events are too fun not to mention. The city of Gramera in the Kamarupa province is known throughout your corner of the world for the elephants that it has, and your ruler will have a chance to go to the city to study the ways of war with the legendary mahouts that live there.

The last thing I will show is a trade related task. Once you have taken the ports of the Arakan province, you will have access to the wider world, but only if you build up your ports. Your people already have the rare trade goods that are desired by the peoples to the west, but if you invest in your local infrastructure and build a city for merchants on the coasts, you will begin to make a name for yourself - your country will become known as a place that is truly worth visiting. Not only will trade become easier for your people, but you might even make friends abroad that could turn to you in their hour of need.

Thanks for reading, and now I’ll hand things over to supermash for his first appearance in a dev diary.

Hello everybody,

Let me introduce myself. I am Supermash and I have been an Imperator fan since I joined after the 2.0 patch in March 2021. I work in informatics and I wanted to join this amazing team on their incredible adventure to make this game even better. That’s why I joined the team in December 2023 and immediately started working on my favorite area; the Britannic island with its ultimate formable, Albion.

As you may know, the Britannic island is very underrated in both single and multiplayer. If you play single player and unite the island from any starting tag, you will lack personal objectives after that.
And in multiplayer, as most games are centered around Rome or Diadochi nations, you are far away from everything, so this area is not as fun to play because of that. Even if you play well and unite the island quickly, the lack of cities and pops makes any multiplayer game almost impossible for an Albion player, especially against tags like Rome or Carthage.

This time of being forgotten is over - in a revolutionary act, the distant Britannic isle has received its own mission tree containing 69 tasks!

In this presentation, I will use the term Britannic to refer to all of Albion, but in the game you have two distinct regions; Caledonia ( actual Ireland and Scotland) and Britain (actual Britain and Wales). Just keep in mind that each time I talk about the Britannic region, it is the fusion of these both regions. And, as always with anything presented in a dev diary, this tree is still in development and the values and mission requirements aren’t final yet. Let's jump into this mission tree !

This set of missions will be available to all Britannic nations, as long as you formed one of the intermediate formables such as Pritannia, Hibernia or the Caledonian Federation. Also, if you own at least 100 provinces in the Britannic region and you are of the Britannic culture group, you will be able to unlock this mission tree as well.
Here a first look of the Albion mission tree:

I know I know, we can barely see anything, so that’s why we will advance through this tree step by step.
The mission tree starts with a classical conquest of the island. You will get claims over all your rivals and your goal will be to make them your subject or simply annex them.

But not only you will need to conquer the island, you will have to assert your authority by creating 3 regional capitals;

One in Hibernia (actual Ireland), utilizing its abundant forests and timber to create an important port in this area.

One in Caledonia (actual Scotland) that will protect your people from any barbarian incursions, especially from the remnants of some indomitable Caledonians. For this, you will have to create a defensive place in a strong hill or forest to protect the area.

And lastly, you must use the wealth of Britain, with its farmlands and existing cities, to create an important city focused on trade. Choose carefully where you want to place these regional capitals, as an auspicious location will be required for what you hope to accomplish.

Once you finish all of these conquest missions and create your three regional capitals, you will have the “final” task of this branch allowing you to colonize the remaining lands, and to annex all your subjects in this region.

It will be a major time saver in your campaign to not have to colonize each remaining piece of land on your island. Because - if you didn’t know how to form Albion, you have to own all the island. ALL of the island. This decision will not not work if a tiny settlement or island off the coast somewhere is uncolonized, so most of the time, AI and beginning players are not able to form Albion.
But a second requirement is needed; you need to not be a tribe and have started your political modernization. That’s why a second branch optional is available if you aren’t yet a monarchy or a republic.
Here’s a little look :

This side branch is similar to the vanilla mission tree to reform your tribes, but with specificities allowing you to reform faster with some temporary bonuses.

You will have to manage your internal tribes and choose to put the nail into the idea of tribal modernization, keeping your old ways a little bit longer. The choice is yours.

At the end of this side branch you will choose whether you want to be a monarchy or a republic. I know that most of you will probably choose monarchy, that's why a little easter egg is present at the last mission for monarchy “Throne of Albion”. I won’t say much more so as not to spoil you. But one ring to rule them all!
Once you are reformed into a monarchy or republic, and have conquered the totality of the island, you can finally get his wonderful color and name!

You will be able to complete the unification mission and get this tasty modifier for 100 years.

And on that exciting note, it is the end of the Albion mission - thanks for reading and don't forget to log in for Imperator Day.

Wait no, it is only the beginning! What would be the interest in stopping just when you gained the respect of other nations? It is now time to show your power and create a powerful country! That’s why you have 55 more missions to do and discover!

So what to do next? Let’s see.
Just after the unification, you will have two important tasks; after that you will be free to go whenever you want too.

First, you will have to stabilize the country by having a normal income and stability in your land, because without that, it could be very complicated to go any further.

But most importantly, you need a navy. Even if Celts were not great naval travelers and never got a powerful navy, historically, if a nation like Albion formed on this island, they would focus on navy, at least for troop transports and trade protection.
I mean, isn’t that what Great Britain has been doing for the last millennia ? Anyways, if you build at least 100 ships, we will consider you to be the master of the Albionic Channel.

Not only will your fleet finally be able to reach the entrance of the Mediterranean without suffering large casualties, but you will also be able to diplomatically reach any major nation at the center of the Sea, like Carthage or Rome - you will be able to impact the world.

Maybe now the Brittannic region will be playable in a multiplayer session? Maybe players will eagerly seek this new naval power as an ally? Or perhaps they will fear them as a potential colonizer and threat that they need to manage!

You can unlock the “Wood wall” decision available only for Albion, allowing you to focus even more to your naval armies but at the detriment of your land forces.

This decision is possible to revert at any time if you feel your navy is no longer your priority and that each man should serve the army instead of enrolling into your navy.

Moving forward, you have a lot of opportunities to explore.

We were on naval focus, so why not continue on that? Having some bonuses and a large navy is important, but still probably insufficient to compete with naval powers on this point. That’s why you can continue to focus on your navy. Why not make it a professional fighting force (for the time)? Wish granted.

Choose what focus you want your fleets to have.

Will you save your ships or sink your opponent's quicker?

Let’s talk about infrastructure now. After all, what would be an empire without a proper capital that will stand the test of time?

First, you can decide to move it to a better place.

I said earlier that you should choose your regional capital in the conquest of the Brittanic island in a good spot - it is now this moment.
The Island of Mannavia would be proud to receive these investments, but what about the farmland of Londinium? Nobody will remember Londinium as a city in this alternative timeline, I guess…it's up to you.
What dream does every greedy sovereign have? They want more land! Wish asked, wish granted.

So what to conquer next? The answer is pretty simple; your brother in language and culture, the Celts in Gaul.

Starting from your coast in south Britain, you will get claims on all the Albionic channel coast. Your main goal will be to conquer; first from the coast, then all the Armorica and the Belgica Region. After that, we can consider that the Albionic Sea will be protected from everything.
But that’s not all; you can decide to go deeper and deeper in Gaul, upsetting even more your neighbors and other potential powers such as Rome.

At the end of the conquest branch, you will have to deal with Romans directly; will they be friends or foe?
Both options unlock different rewards. Depending on what you focus on, it might be interesting to ally and protect Rome for the moment…

In this Gaulish conquest branch, if you conquer all Gaul and create a powerful metropolis there, you will get some powerful modifiers. Might be interesting looking for expansion-minded players looking at a world conquest.

What next? Maybe you don’t like conquest and you wanna play more around with infrastructure and isolationism. Then this part is for you.

Here a little look of the 10 missions focused on development in the Britannic area.

The first task is a Development Focus, and as the task name suggests, is a reward to improve your country's infrastructure and development.

It requires you to get some technology levels in the civic branch. Remember, you started as a tribe and so your technology level isn’t very high yet - you will have to improve your research rate if that is not already the case.

As you can see, it is also a very powerful modifier to build cities. Britannic regions have very few cities to count, so this modifier, combined with some technologies and military traditions, may cure this problem. Use it well and your country will feel better.

Next mission will be to improve your resource production. The west side is aiming at improving material production, such as wood or iron, and the second branch is focused on feeding your people.


The Horse of Bremenium is a mission representing the importance of religion, as Bremenium was a sacred site for the goddess Brigantia, a goddess of victory.

To represent this ability, exploit the local traditions to your advantage. You will restore the city of Bremenium to its height!

At the end of this optional task, you will get the possibility to import and produce resources you didn’t have before, such as wine or spices, making your island even more independent.
What’s next in this Developer Diary ? Because yes, we have only covered half of the tree so far.
So if you don’t want specifically to focus on external expansion, on internal development or on the navy, why not go on a colonial adventure ?
Rumors of hostile but open land went to the ears of your leader. This land is in the far east, requiring at least one week, maybe two, of naval travel. Where is it ? It is your job to uncover these lands and launch a naval expedition !

They call these lands Scandinavia, but maybe you should claim it for the honor of Albion? Something you might do for the price of some political influence.

Unless you prefer to restrain your colonist ambition and trade with the natives. Both options are viable and give two different play styles; tall or wide colonies? It is your job to write the story of this region, so why not do some roleplay and chase after some personal goals ?

While the exploration and colonization is ongoing, why not develop your capital? After all, a solid empire needs a solid capital, a city where every noble and citizen wants to live. For this admirable goal, 9 missions are at your disposal to help you achieve this objective.

After relocating your capital as we saw before, you will have to improve it by increasing the standard of living. To become the new Rome ( or even better), your capital needs to attract more citizens - nobody likes a ghost capital!

Next, you will focus on the social aspect of your city, then your political infrastructure inside of it. And lastly, you must improve the trade of the city. The mission “A New Justice” asks you to create a court of law, academy and a great temple to reform the administration inside your capital.

In the end, completing the last mission will be enough for your capital to be a true pearl of the ocean, something that conquerors and invaders will try to steal from you. But the barbarian invasion era is not here, so this is for another story and time.

We now approach the end of the Albionic mission tree. After what you saw, you have at least a whole playthrough to do with Albion and do whatever pleases you. But the last, and biggest, part is now.

Here is the final part of the mission tree.

These are 14 missions ready for you to explore.
But what is it? A new conquest? More development? A new, new colony ?
No, it is the main core of this mission tree and it will be your modernization ability. Will you embrace the ways of other civilizations by emulating their traditions, armies tactics and architectur ? Or will you fully embrace your own Celtic culture and be the beacon and defender of the old ways?

This all starts from a strange dream. Your ruler remembered that this island was once frequently visited by foreign travelers, such as Carthaginians or Massalians. They did not maintain their footholds very long but their impact was very noticeable (even historically, we uncover this now with archeological excavation). And that’s how we get the first written note and history of the Brittannic island long before Roman Arrival. .
And so your ruler, with this new fleet and financial abilities, will want to send explorers and traders back to the cities of these past adventurers.

You will have the possibility to refuse this, of course, and spend the money into even more infrastructure development (like would do any rational person) but you will miss something big.
I won’t spoil it for you again, but this is more than 30 events in preparation for your travel around the Mediterranean Sea with a lot of modifiers and missions awaiting you.

I will assume you will want to push your luck and travel around the Mediterranean. From here, you will have two mutually exclusive parts.
Reform the country with foreign tactics and you will be able to choose a model to follow. Or be the light inside the darkness for the Celtic people.

If you did not travel, only the Celtic option will be available.
So here is a look at the modernizing branch.

While being simple, these missions will have adaptive requirements depending on what nations you want to be inspired by.

You will have a military mission, an infrastructure mission and a social mission.
If you try to adopt the Roman ways for your armies, then you will have to raise an army composed mainly of heavy infantry and cavalry.
On the opposite if you prefer the Punic war style, then you will have to have units such as elephants or spearmen.
Each type of mission will have its own different requirements, allowing you to replay Albion and personalize it even more.

When you complete these 3 missions you will unlock one military tradition tree from your model. So if you felt stuck before with your military points, why not invest into these new foreign traditions?
But be aware, these changes are not to the taste of everyone inside your country…

If reforming your country with foreign traditions is not the idea for you, then you can do the opposite branch.

On this part you will have to truly embrace your Celtic tradition, with Celtics armies comprised of archers and chariots. You will focus on your cultural system to make oral traditions the standard of education. Teach your children how the sky can fall upon us, by Toutatis. The world will fear your world-famous Britannic chariots and respect your knowledge and religion !
We are now at the end of the mission tree (finally, I can honestly say). And if you accomplish most of the mission tree, your country is now a capable one, ready to fight and survive every danger that can threaten them…your manifest destiny is fully accomplished, my Lord...

And on that, it is really the end of the Albionic mission tree; yyou started from a simple tribe and grew to be a very powerful mid and late game nation. Thank you for reading my first developer diary and hope to see you soon for another mission tree.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 85: 1.8 Midas update, Finnic and Algerian map expansion, Siculian tree

Salvete!
3 years ago, the Invictus mod was released. To celebrate that, we have for you all the 1.8 Midas summer update, a map expansion and a look into the just released Siculian tree.
You can find the mod and us at:
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348
Discord: https://discord.gg/5K9fd3qSjx.
Paradox forums: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-imperator-invictus.1473328/
Nexus mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=description

To continue older saves, use the 1.7.1.1 version from the Nexusmods link.

Now onto the patchnotes:
V1.8 - Midas (breaks saves, use nexusmods 1.7.1.1 version to continue old saves)
New/expanded mission trees:
- Added large mission tree for Albion
- Added mission trees for Arseka and Paphlagonia
- Added small mission tree to Siculia
- Added 2 new trees for Patauion, the Spartan colony (can spawn with the eventchain you get as Veneto)

Added content:
- Expanded the map into several Finnic areas like the Baltics, and into Algeria
- Added new Ilmaric faith for the new Finnic areas
- Added 3 new deities for the Cybelene faith
- Added flags for Gadir, Vasconia, Oretania, Eburania, Contestania, Tectosages and 20+ more
- Added new bloodlines to Paphlagonia, Saba and Odrysia
- Added new Clothes for important Roman women by Nerdman3000
- Added more coloured clothing variation
- Added a dozen new inventions to Caucasians and several tags around the world
- Added Indo-Parthian, Phocian Confederation, Pong, Tocharia, Tylis, Volcaea, Greater Armenia, Caria, Delphic Anmphictyony, Locrian League, Scythia and Turan formables


Changes:
- Made it so that Colonies, Tributaries and Tribal vassals are able to declare wars for claims thanks to 2.0.4
- Subjects have reduced aggression to accompany the change that allows them to declare war
- Updated vanilla food tooltips to clarify the effect of seasons
- Implemented the new Wrong Religion modifier in appropriate places
- Eumeneus footsteps achievement is now achievable as the Eumenid kingdom path in Cappadocia
- Ported over several minor changes and fixes we contributed to 2.0.4 that weren't in Invictus yet
- Updated the modifiers for a dozen deities
- Moved Androphagian to the new Finnic culture group
- Updated several cultural naming schemes
- Added and reworked dozens of heritages
- Rebalanced the Monarchy Contract laws
- Revamped the Iberian military traditions
- Revamped parts of the Venetian missions
- Replaced global_cohort_start_experience with global_start_experience
- Rebalanced countless modifiers
- Slightly buffed Chariots against Heavy Cavalry
- Slightly buffed several historical wonders
- Made AI slightly more capable at unlocking new military tradition groups
- AI Seleukids will now only form India if they lost control over Babylon
- Added several missing modifier and Trait icons
- Made the decision to restore the Argead dynasty only available to Macedonian cultured countries
- Implemented Dementive's improvements to the Portrait Editor
- Removed remaining food tradegoods from cities

Bugfixes:
- Stopped Theban revolt from firing multiple times
- Fixed Cincinnatus achievement being unobtainable
- Prisoners, Heads of Families and Mercenary leaders can no longer be send to the Olympics
- Added several QOL changes to Albanian missions
- Made many smaller fixes to most trees in the mod
- Made dozens of smaller fixes thanks to Dementive's Imperator-tiger parser
- Fixed 'destroy pirates' objective not working properly
- Fixed the exploiting slaves character ambition not cancelling properly
- Fixed efficient forts not being flagged as a military great wonder effect
- Fixed spawned wonders not being tier 4 despite being unupgradeable
- Fixed Antigonid missions becoming available when you have the Antigonid bloodline
- Cleaned up and fixed several vanilla Carthaginian mission tasks
- Fixed several cultural province names not being localized
- Fixed military colonies unit ability not properly unlocking
- Fixed military traditions not properly being locked when unintegrating a culture
- Fixed Persian formable not applying the correct flag and adjective
- Made 100+ minor localization adjustments and typo fixes

Next i’ll hand you off to Shocky, who’s developed the just released map expansion.

Finnic Tribes Map Expansion and a bit more Africa: This update we are bringing many of the Finnic tribes introduced in Terra Indomita to Invictus! While the map does not go much east of the Ural Mountains, there was plenty of space to the west in parts of modern Russia, Belarus and the Baltics to add a number of Finnic tribes. During this time, Finnic tribes were expanding west and north from the Urals into the Baltics Sea and Southern Finland, and some new tags based on archaeological cultures such as Dyakovo, Dnieper-Dvina and the Ilmandu have been added. Tribal names are taken from some slightly later sources in the first few centuries A.D. as there are no sources on tribal names before that. Take on the challenge of building an isolated northern tribe into a powerful confederation to dominate the northern wastes, or migrate to the more temperature and hospitable lands to the west and south.

Additionally, some new provinces have been added in Africa, south of Lake Tritonis. Here, the Melanogaetulian tribes inhabited the many oases of the rapidly desiccating Northern Sahara, where horsemen would regularly raid northward throughout the centuries to supplement their livelihoods in this harsh environment. The new area will provide more room for the tribes below Carthage to move east to west, consolidating tribal power before taking on behemoths such as Carthage, Egypt or the powerful Numidians.

Hello, this is Dr. Dudelsack. I normally make formable nations, such as the tier 3 Germania and the upcoming tier 1 Pong, but for this patch I decided to create a mission tree for an obscure tribe wedged in-between Carthage and Syracuse called Siculia.

The Siculians were the inhabitants of Sicily before the arrival of Hellenic and Punic colonists, and are thought to have spoken a language in the Italic family, which includes Latin and Osco-Umbrian. 150 years before the game's start, a man named Ducetius managed to successfully unite the various Sicel tribes under his banner and began to conquer land held by Greek colonists, and at one point even forged an alliance with Syracuse. However, the Syracusans were concerned with his growing power, and eventually betrayed Ducetius in order to aid Acragas in their war against him, crushing the pan-Sicel army at the battle of Nomae, burning the capital city of Palice to the ground, and shattering the Sicel federation. Now, forced into the remote interior, the Siculians are the last of the Sicels, hanging onto a thread, and historically would end up getting completely annexed by Syracuse shortly after the game's start. Although incredibly daunting, in their twilight years, there is still a remote possibility for another great leader to come forth and lead Siculia from the brink of destruction by avenging Nomae and kicking out the foreign colonists once and for all.

As Siculia, your situation is dire, and to preserve the difficulty, no direct military bonuses will be given until after you have won your wars! Instead, the first few tasks of the mission tree guide you to having the best possible chance at survival, starting with Prepare for War, which requires you to use some of your starting innovations and ensure that you have a surplus in your capital for iron or base metals. Forging New Alliances will reward you with an extra alliance slot and diplomatic reputation for gaining two or more allies, helping to offset your numerical disadvantage. If you are feeling bold enough or sense an opportunity, Strike Acragas and Betray Calactea & Tyndaria will enable you to declare war on your neighboring city-states before Syracuse can claim them for itself, however, such wars will be incredibly difficult, and are completely optional. After building up a warchest, Save Money for Mercenaries will grant a mercenary cost and maintenance cost reduction, helping to further offset Syracuse's and Carthage's numerical superiority. Finally, you have tasks allowing you to attack Carthage and Syracuse, so whenever you feel your preparations are complete and that there is an opportunity, you can wage your war for survival. If you lose, it is game-over, but if you can come out on-top, the next part of the mission tree opens up.

If you can defeat Syracuse and avenge Nomae, you can choose how you want to treat your arch-nemesis: Will you show mercy and spare Syracuse from destruction, or will you choose the path of vengeance and burn the city to the ground, as they once did to your capital many generations ago?

Sparing Syracuse will allow you to bury the hatchet between your two peoples (wise, considering that the majority of your population will be Siciliote), enabling you to adopt the Hellenic faith and tolerate those that follow it. You will then be able to become a bastion of Hellenic knowledge, gaining a +10% research speed modifier and attracting a skilled philosopher to join your court after building libraries across your cities. Ducetius, after all, was educated in Greek and was fond of their culture.

Choosing to raze the city to the ground, however, will yield considerable loot which you can then use to invest elsewhere, but many pops will die and the city will be reduced to a mere settlement. By forgoing Hellenization or any reconciliation, you can focus your efforts on reviving your unique Siculian traditions and customs, starting with employing a high-skilled high priest to assist with conversion. The Siculian/Sicel language has been on the decline over the centuries as Hellenic culture began to take hold over the island, but by building Siculian-language academies throughout your major cities, you can stop the Greek tide and assimilate your reclaimed lands back to your culture.

Most interestingly, is the task called “Remembering our Matriarchal Customs;” as alluded to by your heritage, long-ago, the Siculians had matriarchal customs in which women had substantially more rights and influence, but which had subsequently been forgotten as Hellenic culture became entrenched. Since you have now defeated the Greek colonies, you can restore this ancient tradition, allowing you to become the only Italic nation in the game with gender-equality, enabling women and men to hold office equally.

If you defeat both Syracuse and Carthage, however, a more-radical third option appears: Instead of synchronizing with the Greeks, you can learn from the Punic settlers on the island, allowing you to formally adopt the Canaanite religion. Naturally, this is a much harder sell to your people, so you will need to ensure the undying, unquestioned loyalty of your major heads of family, which will then stifle public opposition to your reforms. To prove the benefits that such a marriage can provide, you will then need to build up the infrastructure in your newly-acquired port cities, enticing between 3 and 12 Punic merchants to set up shop in your country. Then, with enough stability and a Canaanite god in your pantheon, you can formally proclaim your new religion to your people. Siculia can later go on to form Italia, making this one of the few ways to do a Canaanite Italia run.

Speaking of formables, once you unite the whole island under your control, as in versions past you can formally unite Sicily. However, instead of getting the typical Sicily flag and yellow map color, doing so as Siculia now will grant your country a unique flag, burning orange map color, and the traditional name for the island, “Trinakie.”

And after forming Trinakie, to cap off the tree, you have an important choice to make; do you become a republic, like most of the city-states you conquered, or do you consolidate power in one person and become a monarchy? Becoming a republic is relatively straightforward, since giving away power is a relatively easy thing to do, and will simply require your characters to be loyal and for there to be enough civilization in your capital. If you went down the Canaanite path earlier, you will adopt the special Punic Republic government form.

Becoming a monarchy, however, is a bit more-involved, since you will be stripping power away from your tribal chiefs and consolidating it into yourself. To do this you will need to place your loyal family members into key positions of power within your government, have an influential, civilized capital, and secure enough popularity to proclaim yourself Rex over all of Sicily. Your chiefs may object, but they will not be in a position to oppose you.

Finally, you can rebuild Ducetius' capital of Palice and choose to relocate your center of government there.

Siculia is one of the most challenging starts in the game, certainly up there with Tylos and Ibasim in difficulty. If you do try out this peculiar nation, may the odds be ever in your favor.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 86: Ionian and Miletos trees, Turdetanian and Cyrenaican expansions and more!

Salvete!

It’s been awhile since our last Dev Diary but we have some exciting stuff to show off today including but not limited to, Cyrenaican content, revamps to the Hellenistic empire and Antigonid trees, trees for the Ionians and Miletos, reworked and expanded Turdetanian trees and tweaks to the Diadochi CB.

But first, as a reminder, a save breaking update will release the 23rd-24th of December including a ton of bugfixes, all content shown off today and more!
This will not yet be the patch that makes use of the new 2.0.5 features, that will come at a later date

Now onto the Dev Diary!

Hi everyone, I’m Peterson, new dev on the team. Some of you may remember that the original Cyrenaica plans involved an additional path in the first tree - takeover of Egypt via civil war. As Cyrenaica is probably my favourite country to play, it’s only fitting that for my first task on the team that I made sure this is now in-game.
But this isn’t your standard civil war - once Ptolemy is dead, you can choose to go for it (or not and do a standard Cyrenaica playthrough) and then you’re set on a timer (slightly more than a year) to civil war.
You’ll have decisions to e.g. choose and secure areas that’ll defect to you on civil war start, entice Ptolemaic troops and characters to defect, extend the timer, or even call Kush or Seleukids to bail you out (not for free, mind you).
And you’ll need to decide how to handle the question of rulership after this usurpation. Young Ptolemy Philadelphus, scion of both houses: Lagid and Magid, would make an excellent choice. Or would you rather have Magas try to stake his own claim to the throne immediately?

Now, the million dollar question - why would I be playing this Magid-Ptolemy hybrid instead of just the Ptolemies? Well, if added challenge and mechanics don’t cut it, then maybe (rather large) bonuses from Cyrenaica’s conquest of Egypt path being given here will suffice. If not, you have 4 vanilla Ptolemaic mission trees+one available Cyrenaican to go through. Overall this gives in my opinion a comparable alternative to “normal” Cyrenaica, and neither option should be clearly superior balance-wise, with both of them stronger than starting Ptolemies to reward you for picking a smaller and more difficult start.

One more thing I completed from original plans for this tag is the event chain for the conversion to Buddhism - and I hope everyone agrees that a Buddhist Diadochi sounds like the most amazing thing ever. The idea for it is descended from historical interactions, like Buddhist missionaries in Egypt and Cyrenaica being mentioned in Ashoka’s rock pillar edicts. If you have Hegesiad as a national philosophy from the Jewel of Libya tree (also available for new path above), maybe you’ll get more interested in Jainism.
So after Ashoka begins his reign over Maurya and you’ve conquered Egypt, look for this option.

I added some tasks to the Hellenistic Empire mission tree so you’ll have something to do after winning the civil war for a bit, and that bonus for winning the civil war and creating universal Hellenic culture won’t go to waste because of an already won campaign.
Gimmick here is that some of the tasks above, if you meet strict criteria, give a challenge worthy of Alexander himself, or you can always just take limited claims if you want to end the campaign with a more compact empire.

Yep, have fun with that. Also you might notice that I gave an option should you want to keep your dynastic name after forming Hellenistic Empire or get that new name.

Also I reviewed the Antigonid flight-to-Greece mission trees, existing Cyrenaica trees and made some minor QOL changes here and there so hope y’all will enjoy it. Ahura Mazda willing, you’ll be hearing from me again.
Ionian Mission Trees

Hi Everyone! I’m Duart, coincidentally also a new dev on the team, and I’m here to talk about new culture-wide content for one set of the Greeks: the Ionians!

Now most of you would probably know them from their swirling columns, or the fact that they’re one of the most famous Ancient Greek sub-groups, but I do feel a short introduction is in order. They migrated into Greece along with the other groups, but they fled across the sea from the more militaristic Dorians after they invaded, so you won’t be too surprised to know that they preferred to spend their time on culture, philosophy, science and the arts. The great center of Ionian culture was Miletos, visible above in blue (with famous sons such as Thales, THE Aspasia and Anaximander), but we’ll get to it later on.

The content we’ve done is two trees available to all Ionians (and Halikarnassos and Kaounos, both Carians), plus a special one for Miletos after the first Ionian one. This was developed by Olivenkranz (the tasks and overall structure of the trees), myself (the mission and event text, and some events), and Derekmark, (some more tasks, setup and loc on the second Ionian tree). Unfortunately, the second Ionian tree isn’t quite finished yet, so I won’t be able to show its contents today, but here is the general structure:

The First Ionian Tree

As all Ionian tags start as subjects, and have been that way for a while (read the text above!), the first tree is focused on helping the cities help each other break free from the yoke of the Diadochi, who probably will be getting up to some very bellicose shenanigans very soon, and help the cities take their first steps into some much-needed cultural and economic renovation.

Here’s the tree:

Like most independence trees, it is manifestly quick to get through, to get you onto some much wanted fun gameplay and away from that damn Kýklōpes to the east.

A small easy task will see you begin the works to renovate your capital, which then lets you begin some… underhanded activities elsewhere.

Later on, you’ll even be able to give a tour of your city, much in the style of 2010’s story flash games (the participants are oblivious to whatever that means, though.), to hopefully leave them in (a modest amount of) awe at your (once) splendorous (but now wonderfully renovated, at least) capital.

These efforts all tie into asking your neighbours to help you should it be necessary to smash some Macedonian shields.

Once you hopefully succeed, you’ll get an interesting visit, which I’ll let you see in full on your playthroughs:

Depending on which Ionian (or other) tags helped you in war, after you’ve ground the Antigonids down to a halt, they will get the option to join your new league or not, so you will not come out of this completely toothless. In my game, Knidos and the Nesiotic League joined me, so I looked like this at the end of the tree. Not great, but you’ll usually come out in a better position than me.

Just look at that beautiful name! And that absolutely, absolutely amazing color! You’ve just formed the Pan-Ionian league! Congrats! Hopefully the content of that formable’s tree will be ready soon (if you want to have access to the Milesian tree and not the Pan-Ionian one you cannot form Pan-Ionia).

The Milesian Tree

This tree is formidable, without a doubt. Our main guiding principle for it was the fact that tiny little Miletos popped out colonies like rabbits do their young, with over 90 confirmed ones where they were the main city involved! Here’s a map of their colonies in the Black Sea and Propontis only, just so you get an idea:

So, naturally, the first task sees you, Miletos, determine how you want to address your wayward children. You might want to subjugate them, or let them be as feudatories, up to you.

The tree will have you learn about many aspects, including the buildings, of the ancient city, such as here:

A very small example, but I also don’t want to spoil the best ones, so here you have the appetizer: a mention to the real life Lion Harbour of Miletos.

You’ll also come into contact with loads of characters, mostly the ones who hold government offices, and see how they end up interacting with the ship of state. Here, for example, your ol’ Strategos is feeling quite loose about the restrictions to his power.

Here you also interact with a somewhat weird man, one perhaps familiar to some who care to pay attention to his name. He suddenly appears in Milesian high society out of nowhere, with a mysterious demeanor, a huge fortune of no discernible provenance, hidden motives and, weirdly enough, amazing seamanship! Well, he surely is no Sinbad the Sailor…

The conquest branch of the tree will have you reclaim your old colonies in Asia Minor, Pontus (in this game????), Greece, Egypt (well, technically just Naukratis), Colchis and… Italy! (I won’t blame you for not guessing). This comes with the added feature of establishing, well, even more Milesian Colonies! How do they even have enough people for this? Regardless, here’s an example of it:

This part of the tree is probably my favorite. Just after the start of the cultural/economic path, we have a deep dive into Miletos’ greatest minds, and how their teachings can be implemented in the present; then the main gods of worship in the city are introduced, along with the great shrine of Didyma (sadly inside Miletos’ tile in-game), which is the main religious centre there (and the second most revered one to Apollo, right after Delphi), and you amp up the possibilities for their worship there (hope to Gods they favor us).

A bit further into the tree, after you’ve taken control of all of Asia, you’ll also be able to form the Milesian League and customize your own flag, a beautiful one (you chose it, of course). Here’s how it’d roughly look like:

This would be if I chose the blue option out of these 4:

Next, we have the trading part of the tree:

Which will have you develop your goods production throughout your possessions, culminating in you establishing yourself as the premier trading power in the Mediterranean and, possibly, the world. And so ends the Miletos tree, and my contribution to this DD with it. Thanks for reading!



Hello everyone, Supermash here.

Today we will improve the Alexander Casus Belli for the initial Diadochi wars a little bit, based on the idea of our new developer Peterson.

In Vanilla, the Alexander Casus Belli immediately annexes every territory you siege. In Invictus, on the other hand, we previously added the possibility for the entire area to flip immediately if no enemy armies, forts or anyone else controls a Diadochi territory in the area. In this scenario, if you or the AI left your borders unguarded, you’d be punished hard and fast.

To make this work, we created a script to check all these conditions above, and it applied the base amount of Aggressive Expansion and war exhaustion you’d get if you conquered the place. However, it wasn’t taking in consideration your AE reduction modifiers, leading to some crazy levels of AE, usually way above what would be expected for normal wars.

So, you’d end up with 200 Aggressive Expansion, like in the picture below:

In this example, I conquered everything pretty quickly without losing territory. So if you lose and retake or fight a very long war, the value could get way, way higher.
But if you did the same thing in Vanilla, or without activating the rule in the settings (because you can change this rule before starting a campaign), you would get way lower amounts because in base Imperator, AE reduces heavily when you are at 80 or above.

So now, thanks to Peterson’s idea, now we calculate the aggressive expansion modifier you should get for each territory annexed by the script, from a list of all modifiers we have in Invictus.
It is not perfectly accurate and doesn't take any value modified by other mods, but it will make your Diadochi war easier and more manageable.

Here’s a screenshot with the new script in action:

Annexing all of Alexander’s Empire should stay capped at around 120 Aggressive Expansion. It’s still a massive challenge to survive this (without using exploits or temple destruction), as intended, but you won’t land at the insane amounts of 200-ish or more AE.

Also, to finish your opponent with this CB now, you need to annex their last 10 territories one by one, which now also fires the annexation event correctly. Thus, it adds a bit more of a challenge, sort of a cat and mouse game, especially challenging in multiplayer.

But that’s not all. With the incoming 2.05, we will be able to directly extract values like your aggressive expansion modifier. So a new, improved version will come once 2.05 is out of beta.

New Turdetanian Content
Salvete! I’m @Tudhaliya the Hittite, the Iberian dev of Invictus. You may remember me from the Invictus Turdetanian setup and the content for the Iberians a long time ago, and, if you were interested in Iberian content prior the creation of Invictus, I’m the dev of the Iberian Flavour Mod. Well, I’m here to talk more about Turdetanians!

Since the last update I did to the region, I have been investigating and trying to portrait the best I can the situation of Turdetania in the 4th century (and we still have so much work ahead of us). That’s why the Turdetanian region has changed a little. Let's jump into it!

Our friend Kartubaia is no longer with us… but don’t worry! The city of Kartuba will be pretty important in the new content for the region! You may notice the addition of two new tags, and the change of name on others. Astigia and Iliplaia have been added to the grind! Iptuccia has substituted Orippaia and Kartubaia is now Eporaia. Now a little context to the region. The wealth of the western states of Turdetania are primarily linked to the extraction of minerals of the Sierra Morena mountain range, lately in decline but still lucrative. On the other hand, the eastern states are focused on agricultural power, making use of the greatly fertile lands of the Baetis valley. Do you want to know more about them? Read their new heritages!

The terrain map has been modified too, trying to do our best representing the region. New farmlands have been added, linked to the Middle Baetis and Anas rivers, marshlands around the Lacus Ligustinus as well as more hills around the Sierra Morena mountain range. Someone may notice the addition of marshlands in the lands of Edetania… that’s a hint for the future!

Aside from that, the Turdetananians will enjoy new Treasures to put in their Holy Sites! As well as new special modifiers for particular territories. The Mines of Tharsis modifier has been changed into the “Iberian Pyrite Belt”, debuffed for balance reasons and scattered into different territories. We added the “Mines of Castulo”, for Oretania, “The Gadeiras”, to help Gadir defending itself (and due the fact the Gadeiras were an archipelago, not connected by land as it is wrongly portrayed in the game) and for special territories with important Punic presence but not under a Punic administration, we added the modifier “Punic Outpost”:

Along those changes, the Punics living inside the Turdetanian states will start with the Right of Intermarriage and the Right to Enter Contracts, to represent the close ties between both cultures. And the same is applied to the Turdetanians in Gadir!

In the year 237 BC, the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca attacked Turdetania, an event made the warring states of the Baetis river unite in a coalition. This event has been added to the game to avoid an early blob of Carthage into the region.

But if you are Carthage, fear not! Because the Turdetanians aren’t a unified people, always fighting each other, so, if you have good relations with them or they hate each other more than they fear you, they won’t answer to the call of arms!

And for you, Gadir players… Gadir is always in danger. To give Gadir a little more time to do…at least something aside from being eaten early (while the real Gadir endured until the Roman invasion of Iberia), we gave Gadir an opportunity to see the light for another day! At least for the early game! If Gadir is losing a war against a Turdetanian state, they will have the chance of ending the war with a white peace in exchange for a good sum of gold. That’s a win/win situation! Note the event description is still a WIP:

This is just the peak of the iceberg! We have new Missions for the Turdetanians! More content! For those who remember the 80th Dev Diary, when Zorgoball and Olivenkranz presented the Turdetanian Missions, the previous Two Missions have been expanded into Three! The First one has been totally remade and will be a general Mission for all Turdetanians, focused on the more grounded and historical plausible events that could happen, the Second one will be veeeeery spicy, only for a unified Turdetania, but still very linked to the essence of Turdetania and Ancient Tartessia and then, the Third one, a modification of the actual Second Mission with the objective of conquering all the Iberian Peninsula!

The First Tree: Sons of Baetica

This Mission will be divided into three branches: The Military branch, The Economic and Diplomatic Branch, and the Political and Cultural one. The first task a Turdetanian should do is “The Turdetanian Struggle”, where the player will choose the approach the country will head for:

The Military branch, as the name suggests, has as its goal assert dominance among your peers, dominating the main Turdetanian cities. The Economic branch will seek to improve the economy of your state, making use of the agrarian and natural resources of Turdetania. During those economic expansions, you may convince the Oretanians for a Royal Marriage if you are lucky enough! As well as the institutionalization of the Harvest Festival!

The Political branch will address the situation of the Punics within your realms and the fate of their religion, so important for the creation of the Tartessian and Turdetanian civilizations. Some religious people may come to preach…
In this branch, you will have to make a very important decision. The Task “Matters of Authority” will decide the future of your state at the end of the Mission:

At the end of this Mission, you will demonstrate you are the greatest Turdetanian state and turn into a Democratic Republic or a Despotic Monarchy! As you may notice, we have not made any mention to Tartessos, that’s because the Legend of king Arganthonios of Tartessos was a Greek Myth, maybe lightly grounded on a real event, but we don’t have evidence the Turdetanians were aware of that myth. And with that we are led to the second mission.

The Second Tree: Heirs of Tartessia
In this tree you will find juicy content and the tree may look different if you are a Monarchy or a Republic. There will be special tasks for each government type (On the left monarchy version and on the right republican version):

Just at the start of this Mission, an interesting event will pop out:

This will be the first contact with the myth of King Arganthonios! This curiosity will lead the people of your state to try to know more about that figure! More about that later on.
This Mission will be divided into three branches too. The Left one will be the State Affairs branch, with the objective of centralizing the state, ending in the codification of the Tartessian Laws:

The Right branch will be the Navy branch, in which the player will seek to build a navy to compete against Carthage and dominate the Mediterranean and Atlantic trade. In this branch, a Turdetania that adopted the republican ideals will have the choice to adopt the Punic Republic, being the only non-Punic country that has access to it. That’s thanks to the close ties between the Turdetanian and the Phoenician civilizations!

Finally, the Central branch, the bigger of the three. This branch will lead to the investigation of the mythical figure of King Arganthonios, as well as expand into and develop places that were once part of the Tartessian civilization, as well as uncovering mysteries that were forgotten… When Turdetania learns about Tartessia, they will have the option to adopt this new identity or keep its own. Depending on your government type, the new Tartessia will be different:

The discovery of the myth makes a great opportunity for a ruler to use it on his/her advantage, enjoying the authority and might of that name. You can even say you are his descendant… no one can prove if it’s not true!

If you are up to the latest discoveries in the field of Tartessian civilization, you will find very familiar references we hope you enjoy! But I don’t want to spoil all the fun! Go play it to discover the rest of the mysteries!
I will leave these images here…

Finally, the Third mission has been adapted but mainly left as it was, adding some quality of life features and alternatives for some tasks. Zorgo did a great job indeed! The starting event of the last Mission Tree and an example of the modifications:

With this, I say goodbye! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 87: 1.9 Thales Update + Presenting Bosporan Kingdom, Armenian, Phoenician and ionian trees and lots more

Salvete!
The 1.9 Thales update is out now, changelogs can be found below.
This Dev Diary will also cover the new mission trees for the Bosporan Kingdom, Armenia, Phoenicia and the Ionians, a rework to the Turdetanian trees, some map changes and more!

Important note, to continue old saves, you’ll have to use the Nexusmods 1.8.0.2 version from: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=files
AND unsubscribe from the workshop version as you can’t have 2 versions of the mod at the same time.
For those of you who don’t have a Steam version, you can also download the latest version from the nexusmods site and to update, just delete your old mod files and download the new ones.

Links:
Discord: https://discord.gg/5K9fd3qSjx
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348
Nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1

The changelog for 1.9 below:
V1.9 - Thales (breaks saves, use Nexusmods 1.8.0.2 version to continue old saves)
New/expanded mission trees:
- Added 2 new full mission trees for Turdetanians and reworked the tree they already had
- Added 2 full mission trees for the Ionian cultured tags
- Added full mission tree for Armenia, Bosporan Kingdom, Miletos and the Phoenician tags
- Expanded starting Cyrenaica tree and added a new path
- Expanded Hellenistic Empire tree

Added content:
- Added several new Phoenician tags and reworked their borders
- Added new and reworked Turdetanian tags to better represent the situation in the 4th century Baetica
- Added Androphagian migratory tag
- Added Oracle of Delphi and the Asklepion Epidauros as Great Wonders at gamestart
- Added several new formables like, Aeolia, Ionia, Troas and Hellespontine Phrygia
- Added lots of new events concerning relations between Diadochi and various historical situations that happened
- Added new Local Modifiers arround Baetica, like The Gadeiras or the Iberian Pyrite Belt
- Added unique Heritages to every Turdetanian tag
- Added historical Great Families to some Turdetanian tags
- Added the Turdetanian Coalition Event Chain if Carthage launches an invasion of the region, referring to the the 237 BC Invasion of Hamilcar Barca
- Added character interaction to grant a clan autonomy
- Dozens of custom flags have been added and reworked
- Expanded namelists for several cultures and groups
- Added and reworked triggers for a dozen deities around the world
- Added Arganthonios bloodlines for Iberians seeking to prove their legitimacy through the Turdetanian Missions
- Added dozens of predefined rulers and families to tags around the world

Changes:
- Reworked the borders in Persia
- Slightly reworked who gets what in the Antigonid collapse
- Made several small adjustments to unit counter stats buffing the weakest units slightly
- Delayed Diadochi aggression allowing the scripted Diadochi wars to more consistently take place
- Carian culture is now in the Hellenic group
- Updated claims you get from the Diadochi mission claims
- Granaries now give slightly more local monthly food modifier 1% -> 2%
- Added levy size modifiers to Levantine and Greek military traditions
- Reworked several modifiers in the Iberian military traditions
- Slightly reworked and nerfed the starting Etrurian missions
- Buffed Mercenary Reliance military law with an extra 1% levy size modifier
- Gallus trait is now given through a character interaction
- Recoloured Punic Republic government type
- Reworked and added a dozen Heritages
- Reworked who can become a Satrapy
- Reworked Pops in Iberia, specially in the Baetica region, adding more density in Baetica and more Punic presence in the region
- Changes in Terrain types and tradegoods in Iberia, specially in Baetica region
- Updated the various Cyrenaican trees
- The Anglo-Saxon mission tree now rewards you with a new Coat of Arms and map colour
- Changed Antigonid mission trees to account for subject owned lands
- AI Carthage can now buy Corsica potentially like a player can
- Made several minor tweaks to area borders
- Added Anglesey/mon and Kallion territories
- Rebalanced dozens of modifiers from missions
- Tweaked dozens of minority pops around the world
- Changed dozens of localization texts both to be more accurate, expanded or fix spelling mistakes

Bugfixes:
- Fixed wrong namelist entries
- Fixed broken senate objectives for Carthage
- Made tons of minor fixes to a dozen mission trees in the mod
- Fixed bonus from Hattic religion being 10x what it should be
- Fixed Eccentric trait not appearing in the technology GUI
- Fixed almost all bugs reported to us since last update, can't write them all down but it's hundreds of varying sizes

Hope you enjoy the update, Happy Holidays, and onto the Dev Diary.



Hello everyone, it’s Zorgoball and I’m here to show you a brand new mission tree for a tag that has sorely needed content for a good while now; the Bosporan Kingdom. Let’s not waste anymore time but jump right into things - a look at the tree itself, with twenty six missions that explore the decisions made by the sons of Spartokos I, the mercenary turncoat that is your ancestor and the reason that your family is in power.

Before we get into the tree, we will briefly discuss the captivating story of the Bosporans and give you an idea of what’s been going on in their neck of the woods for the last few hundred years. I do them a disservice by just outlining the broad strokes of their very interesting history, but we have a lot to look at today and so we need to keep moving forward. But the basic rundown is as follows;
Greek cities, like Miletus, started founding colonies in the Black Sea a couple of centuries before the game starts, and it was there, on the outskirts of civilization where Greek, Thracian and Scythian interacted regularly, that the Bosporan Kingdom first emerged. Various families known to history ruled over the Bosporan city-states and occasionally, these scheming nobles caused small regional wars as they tried to capture cities from each other. It was one such noble house, the Archaeanactids, that entrusted their power into the hands of a mercenary named Spartokos in the hopes of defeating their rivals.
As these things sometimes go, the future Spartokos I seized control from the Archaeanactids and founded his own dynasty, the Spartocid, and they have held onto the throne for about one hundred and twenty years now. The first few Spartocid rulers of the Bosporans were pretty solid, with their mighty ruler Leukon taking them to their heights, and everything was going reasonably well until the Basileus Paerisades died in 310 BCE. His reign of some thirty years had been a prosperous one, and the issue of succession had long been settled between his three sons Satyrus, Eumelus, and Prytanis. Or so he thought.
And so, as these things sometimes go, one of the brothers was unhappy with the arrangement and decided to rebel. The middle child Eumelus even sought the aid of the Sarmatian tribes living nearby, asking for their assistance in taking the throne from the rightful heir Satyrus. Eumelus and his barbarian allies would lose some important battles, but at the end of the day, Eumelus came out on top, with his siblings all dead and his rule unchallenged. The Scythians had definitely helped him in his hour of need, and the barbarian presence and influence within the Bosporan Kingdom will be an issue that future Rulers will have to contend with.
But now that he was in charge, Eumelus was finally able to pursue his policies, which included rebuilding the country and attempting to destroy all of the pirates in the Pontus Euxinus. Unfortunately for Eumelus, the gods that had granted him victory would not give him a long life. Eumelus ruled for a short five years before perishing in a prophesied accident, and his successor, Spartokos III Spartokid, became ruler a few short months before the game begins. The kingdom is still suffering from the aftermath of the civil war, even though it only lasted one year, and there is much that needs to be done. The new Basileus has big sandals to fill, and he will need to prove himself both in battle and politically if he hopes to hold onto power.
Some of the first tasks involve fulfilling one of the dreams of Eumelus - the desire to defeat all pirates living in the Black Sea. The “Battle of Gorgippia” will see your ruler personally attacking the raiders that are operating near one of your cities. This event chain will be one of the first battles that your ruler can take part in and will offer some valuable military experience.

By the time your soldiers destroy the nearby pirate haven in the settlement of Pityous for the next task, they will have unlocked a new ability; the Legacy of Eumelus, which will grant your units the ability to destroy pirate havens on the map and take plunder and slaves.

Future tasks will reward you for killing all of the pirates in the Black Sea, naturally, and you might even be able to declare yourself Hegemon of the Black Sea.

Let’s look around the tree a little bit more. There are your usual conquest tasks that will see you expand throughout your home province of Taurica, with some interesting twists sprinkled throughout as you expand to the north and the west. Once you have taken the Bosporan cities of Kerkinitis and Chersonesos, your Basileus could be persuaded to form the Bosporan League if you take over the highlighted territories.

Of course, the bedrock of any good league or monarchy is a stable economy, and there will be tasks that focus on developing your ports and exporting grain to other cities around you, just like the Bosporans did in real life. Your kingdom was one of the breadbaskets of the ancient world, and trade ships filled with Bosporan grain were a welcome sight in many Greek cities.
One such place was Athens, and your grandfather Leukon had established a thriving trade with them before the Antigonids took over everything for themselves. Demetrios personally managed the trade for Athens, but when he died, the Bosporans revived the connections that Leukon had made and began to ship grain south - you will have the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of history and do the same, but it is important that you have the infrastructure to support trade year-round.

As you progress through the tree, you will, at various times, fight against the steppe nomads, trade with them, and perhaps even welcome some to your capital as client kings. All of these events underscore the influence that the barbarians have on your kingdom; their presence is inescapable, and it will be up to you to take this relationship further.

Under the rule of the Spartocids, the Cimmerian Bosporus will overtake the Thracian Bosporus in wealth and prestige.

There’s so much more that I want to show you for the Bosporans, but considering that the update is about to be released momentarily, I invite you to check them out for yourselves. Will you defeat the scourge of piracy in the Mediterranean and make the sea safe to travel? Will a mighty Bosporan Empire project power from the Pontus Euxinus or will they be content to stay within their own waters? Only time will tell.

Hello hello, it is me, Santa Clauskranz, bearer of gifts - today I bring you Armenia’s Mission tree, which I scripted and features localization from Duart, Zorgo and myself. This mission tree has 40 tasks in total, which should occupy you quite a bit as you find your footing in the world.

A recurring core theme is the progression of the Armenian culture. Should Armenia keep the native traditions alive? Or maybe the meteoric rise of Alexander indicates that Hellenization would be a beneficial process? Or should Persian influences be promoted instead? You also have the option of engaging all cultures to any extent and be more multicultural. This also means that you will NOT be able to complete ALL tasks in any given run (but you can certainly try to maximise the amount). And sometimes, you might not even want to complete a task even though you could…

While not all mission tasks require and/or grant cultural points, about half do (this is a rough estimate). The tasks vary from “Inviting Greek Architects” over “Requiring A General” of a certain culture to “Purging All Foreign influences” entirely. There is also a conquest branch that will require you to form Greater Armenia; this is also the task that will allow you to complete the mission tree, so you are free to interact with the culture aspect as much as you (don't) want.

Sometimes, a modifier will also have some negative effects, but we all know that you can’t make everyone happy at the same time.

There are also some other interesting things in this tree, such as the cultivation of apricots and wine or that the Orontids originally came from Bactria.
Here you get to see one of those tasks.

Sadly, the apricots need to be abstracted as fruits, but that’s still sweet!

I will let you discover the tree in its entirety on your own. Enjoy!

Conquerors of Iberia
Salvete! I’m @Tudhaliya the Hittite again! Last DD I showed you the new content that will be released for the Turdetanian tags and I mentioned the actual second Turdetania Mission Tree, “Conquerors of Iberia”, had been adapted to its new role as a late-game mission. Some requirements have been changed entirely and some tasks have been revamped to accommodate the new content that has been added to the region! Unlike the two previous missions, this mission was never intended to be historical (as historical as a fictional Tartessian revival can be, of course - we are in a videogame after all), so this mission is meant to give the player some fun for the Late Game and rule over the entirely Iberian Península!
First, a quick look to the new distribution of the missions in comparison with the previous one:

First, one can notice that the tree starts with three branches! The Left branch is the religious one, and you will have the option to convert to Canaanite or Iberic in case you changed your mind over the previous Missions with some tasks surrounding it. Some of those tasks were previously blocked by very specific barriers, but have been made more easily accessible.

The Right branch is the Economic one, where your people will use new advancements to boost your production, as well as developing your cities and settlements.

The Central branch is the expansion one. First, you need to ensure no other state will attack your homeland of Turdetania! From this, you can expand into the North of the river Anas, with the objective of conquering Gallaecia or to the East of Oretania, looking to reach the Pyrennes and annex the lands of your fellow Iberians and the Greek colonies of the Iberian Levant.
During your expansion into Lusitania, you may want to develop professional Military Harbors, specially in the mouth of the Tagus river, thanks to their fantastic position to receive the goods from the interior. And who knows, you may want to embrace the pirate’s life!
And, as the rule of the lands of Contestania, you may want to develop the Levantine Road, connecting the main cities of the Levant! And you will be tasked with creating a loyal subject that will please the Greeks within your country.

But you know the goal! Go conquer the Iberian Peninsula and become Greater Iberia! Hope you enjoy all the new content for the Turdetanians and thanks for reading!

Greece and the Diadochi
Hello everyone, Two-Coops here! Today, I’m thrilled to share some exciting updates in this dev diary. I’ll be diving into several key features, but the highlight of the day is the new Phoenician setup and the introduction of the "Sons of Phoenix" mission tree. First however, I’ll talk about some Diadochi changes.

A while back, the decision was made to spin off southern Arachosia into Gedrosia. This split was predicated on the belief that doing so would be more grounds that Arachosia was bigger than the satrapy historically was and separating off Gedrosia would be more accurate. However, since the Partition of Babylon, Arachosia and Gedrosia were jointly governed by Sibyrtius. Furthermore, the ruler of Gedrosia in game, Tlepolemus, was actually the satrap of Carmania, not Gedrosia.

To rectify this, most of Gedrosia's lands was been returned to Arachosia since Sibyrtius ruled over both satrapies (and Arachosia was the most important of the two). The remaining portion of Gedrosia was retooled into Tlepolemus's actual satrapy of Carmania, with small land transfers from Persis and the Seleucids.

Historically, Qeshem (Oarakta) formed part of the District of Tylos and the Isles. It housed a Seleucid garrison and its port provided a key resupply point in the Persian Gulf. It has been transfered from Persis to the Seleucids, extending their naval range into the Gulf of Oman, performing its historical function.

Greece has seen slight improvements to its setup.

Kefalonia and Zakynthos did not join the Aetolia league until the 220s, so Kephallenia has been created as a new tag. A crossing has been added between Kranioi and Zakynthos.

Kallipolis has been readded and given Aetolia. Kallipolis used to be a province in vanilla, albeit much larger before more mountains were added in Greece. Seeing as Pausanias and Stephanos identify it as the capital of the Ophionians and the easternmost city of Aetolia, it seemed fitting to restore it. This also cleans up the Aetolian/Macedonian border.

Additionally, Hydrea (the small island beneath Troizen has been transfered from Hermione to Trozien. Hydrea, which was sold to the Troizenians by Hermione, was a part of Troizen in earlier versions of the game but was errantly given to Hermione when that was split off as a separate province.
Opus was the main town of the Epicnemidii (Eastern Locrians), which included both the inhabitants of Nikai and Opus. While Nikai Lokris did house a Macedonian garrison, so did Opus which is a Macedonian feudatory. The most sensible solution was to rename Opous to "Locris" and give it Nikai Lokris so that both provinces to be ruled by the same tag.

The Asklepion of Epidaurus and Oracle of Delphi have been added as wonders. The Asklepion of Epidarus uses an awesome model made by MattAlexi "TheLegoman." A decision has also been added to renovate the Temple of Athena Illias (construct a new wonder).


When the Antigonids collapse, there is supposed to be an event to grant Pleistatchus control of Caria; however, its been broken since release. This has been addressed and expanded upon. Macedon will get an event where (if the conditions are right) the Diadochi agree to let Pleistarchus take a satrapy of his own. He can be given Caria or Cilicia, becoming a satrap subject to Macedon, and Macedon gets some former Antigonid subjects in the area they choose. Another of the Diadochi can appoint a satrap to the province not given to Pleistarchus (or annex it outright). However, Pleistarchus can also be given the independent governorship of both Cilicia and Caria as a Macedonian ally. There’s a tag switch for it, but no content yet. This is the path I’d choose to make a mission tree about.

In preparation for an eventual Pleistarchus tree, I advocated for moving Carian into the Hellenic culture group. We held a vote and the change passed with a substantial majority. These were my some of basic arguments for the change:
- Material Culture: Archaeological evidence indicates that Carian material culture, especially by the time of the game, was indistinguishable from that of contemporary Greeks.
- Gameplay Consistency: From a gameplay perspective, the Carians should absolutely have Greek-styled cities (which are tied to culture groups). Their archeological remains are indistinguishable from those of contemporary Greeks. Similarly, they should also receive Greek cultural inventions and probably military traditions. Putting Carian in the Hellenic group avoids making a weird niche case where they get traditions/inventions from outside their cultural group and have the wrong architecture.
- Language: Greek was the dominant language in Caria by the end of the fourth century, and we have almost no archeological evidence of the Carian language from the Hellenistic Age. Kuanos is the only place scholars have definitively asserted to have found written Carian produced during the period; however, there might be some more in Chrysaoris/Stratonikeia and Hyllarima, but the dating of these inscriptions is uncertain.
- Precedent: Language is not used as the exclusive determiner of culture groups in-game (ex: Etruscans in the Italic group). Pamphylian was moved into the Hellenic group by Invictus in part because the Pamphylians spoke a dialect of Greek. The most common language in Caria at the time was Ionian Greek.

Modern References
- Cook, J. M. “Greek Archaeology in Western Asia Minor.” Archaeological Reports, no. 6 (1959): 27–57..
- Bienkowski, Piotr; Millard, Alan Ralph (2000). Dictionary of the Ancient Near East. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press
- Piras, Daniela. “Who Were the Karians in Hellenistic Times? The Evidence from Epichoric Language and Personal Names”. Pessac: Ausonius Éditions, 2010.
- Henry, Olivier. “Hekatomnos, Persian Satrap or Greek Dynast? The Tomb at Berber Ini”. Pessac: Ausonius Éditions, 2010.

There’s quite a lot more flavor in store for the Diadochi like the establishment of Tylis, Pharaonic marriages, satrapal appointments, but you’ll have to discover that for yourselves.

(Yes, the typos you see above have been fixed)

Sons of Phoenix

Hello everyone, its Two-Coops again. Here, I’ll discuss the new Phoenician setup and the "Sons of Phoenix" mission tree in some depth.

The Phoenicians have long been a cornerstone of ancient Mediterranean history, yet their representation was previously overlooked. One of my major goals with this update was to overhaul the vanilla setup for Phoenicia, which had been significantly inaccurate in its depiction of the extent of Phoenician cities' holdings. I’ve recreated a setup that reflects the territories and influence of cities like Tyre, Sidon, and Arados more faithfully. This reconstruction relied heavily on the work of historian Josette Elayi, alongside other renowned scholars such as Rawlinson and Lipiński, as well as primary sources from antiquity, notably the Periplus of Pseudo Pscylax commissioned by Phillip II. While the early Hellenistic period left the Phoenician cities relatively autonomous, notable changes and gameplay concerns, like the status of the Plain of Sharron, Alexander’s grant of land to Sidon, and Tyre’s diminished influence, have been accounted for.

Of course, the Cypriot cities have all received new startup events to accompany their missions.

Right out of the gate, I’ll address a question I know many of you might have: “Alexander destroyed Tyre, didn’t he? Why did you add it as a tag?”
Great question. French scholarship, particularly, the works of Josette Elayi and André Lemaire, proved to be quite helpful in settling the status of Tyre at the time.
It’s true that Alexander’s siege of Tyre in 332 BC was one of the most grueling and iconic military campaigns of antiquity. The seven-month siege culminated in significant casualties for the Tyrians—sources like Arrian estimate 8,000 killed, while Quintus Curtius notes 6,000 killed and 2,000 crucified. However, Diodorus notes that a significant portion of the population had already been transferred to Carthage. Moreover, we are informed that, in addition to the 15,000 Tyrians saved by the Sidonians, Alexander “spared the Carthaginian envoys” who were visiting the city, as well as the Tyrian king Azemilkos, who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Melqart. The ancient accounts suggest that the epic tone of the siege narratives should not obscure the underlying reality: they emphasize the technical feat of bridging the island to the mainland more than the Tyrians’ resistance to Alexander. It is worth noting that, during their initial encounter, the Tyrians had shown a friendly disposition toward Alexander, presenting him with a golden crown and provisions from the city. Unlike cities razed to the ground in ancient warfare, Tyre was not obliterated. Although heavily damaged, its strategic importance ensured that it recovered quickly. Justin notes that “The Tyrians, being thus settled under the auspices of Alexander, quickly grew powerful by frugality and industry.” For example, by 315 BC, Tyre was strong enough to withstand a fifteen-month siege by Antigonus. In his seminal work, History of Phoenicia, George Rawlinson wrote of Tyre that “though no more than eighteen years had elapsed since its desolation by Alexander, had, like the fabled phoenix, risen again from its ruins, and through the recuperative energy of commerce had attained almost to its previous wealth and prosperity." Even after the siege, Tyrian mints continued to produce coins with in the name of and year of its king, Azemilkos. We have a series of coins probably minted in Tyre between (309–305 BC) with regnal years and a "," presumably for Azemilkos, Abdimilkos, Azarmilkos, or a similarly named king. We chose to represent André Lemaire’s hypothesis that this "" was the previously unnamed son of Azemilkos who became his co-regent in 316/5 BC, at which time Azemilkos, in his 32nd year of reign, would have been quite advanced in age. Although we do not know with certainty what this kings name was, we chose to make him Azemilkos II since familial name repetition (papponymy) was common in this period.


The Sons of Phoenix mission features some interaction with the Wars of the Diadochi.
Tyre and Sidon were far more heavily involved in the Wars of the Diadochi than their northern neighbors: Byblos, Tripoli, and Arados. To represent this, Tyre and Sidon have been made Antigonid feudatories. While feudatories typically have to be the same culture group as their overlord, not all feudatories at the start are of the same culture group as their overlord. Yaudheya is one such example. They would function equally well as client states, but this would require canceling the Antigonid guarantee on Aetolia as we did with Boeotia so they would not exceed their diplo limit. Regardless, Tyre and Sidon fit the wiki’s description of feudatories as privileged subjects, albeit with large obligations.

The other Phoenician tags: Byblos, Tripoli, and Arados have access to the “War Profiteering” task where they can attempt to sell military access to one of the Antigonid’s enemies.
As an aside, Arados is no longer an Antigonid tributary since they evaded Antigonid rule.

We are aware the subjects can be annoying in Imperial CB wars like the scripted Fourth War of the Diadochi, so Tyre and Sidon have been given events tailor made to alleviate this frustration. If one of these cities is occupied when the Antigonid’s collapse, the occupier gets an event to transfer the subjects over to themselves.

If unoccupied, the Seleucids or Ptolemies (random chance) receive an event where they can try to demand/try to buy Tyre and Sidon from Demetrius like Seleucus historically did.

However, even though the deal seems reasonable, Demetrius’ pride is likely to get the better of him.

While Sidon and Tyre start off somewhat more restricted than Byblos, Tripoli, and Arados, they can complete tasks to grow closer to their overlord and eventually convert their subject status into an alliance.

The “Taking Thasos” and “Capturing Kythera” tasks allow you to attempt to acquire control of Greek islands with historic ties to Phoenicians. If successful, they will be released as colonies and gain a special modifier.

However, the canny Greeks might decide that the Phoenicians were onto something and bypass the middle man…

Here’s a rough approximation of what the Levant would have looked like in the late Persian-period/time of Alexander. The most obvious difference between the above image and the situation at the startdate is the status of Cyprus.

• Before the death of Perdikkas (321BC), Ptolemaios had secured an alliance with Nikokreon, the most prominent of the Cypriot kings. By 316 BC, Cyprus became a battleground between Ptolemaios and Antigonus for control over the Mediterranean. During the Third War of the Diadochi, Antigonus found eager allies among the Cypriot (and Phoenician) kings. While Nicokles of Paphos, Androkles of Amathus, and Pasikrates of Soli sided with Ptolemaios, other cities like Kition, Marion, and Lapethos allied with Antigonus with more defecting as war raged on the island. Ptolemaios's military intervention under the command of his brother Menelaos proved successful in quelling rebellious kings. In 312, Ptolemaios ousted all the Cypriot kings with the exception of Nikokreon of Salamis (and perhaps Eunostos of Soloi). Ptolemaios married his daughter Eirene to Eunostos shortly after Eunostos's father died to ensure that the new king of a leading Cypriot kingdom would remain loyal. Nikokreon's domains were greatly expanded; he was appointed as the chief Ptolemaic officer on the island and named the strategos of Cyprus. Though Nikokreon was favored by Ptolemaios, his death (potentially by compelled suicide) in 309 BC led to a direct Ptolemaic administration of Cyprus and the abolishment of remaining independent Cypriot kingdoms. Ptolemaios's brother Menealos assumed Nikokreon's role; he was made king of Salamis and Satrap of Cyprus. The usurper, however, would not hold his power for long. In 306 BC, Antigonus dispatched his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, to wrest the island back from Ptolemaic control. Demetrius' naval forces annihilated Menelaos' fleet, dealing a devastating blow to Ptolemaios. Menelaos, outmatched and cornered, was forced to surrender, and Cyprus came under Antigonid occupation.

My personal favourite part of the tree is the “Crisis in Cyprus” event chain where you can attempt to foment rebellion on Cyrpus, encouraging descendants of deposed monarch, influential magnates, and self-styled princes to take up arms against their occupiers.

An extraordinarily successful Antigonid Kingdom may choose to relitigate the status of Cyprus with the “Cypriot Princes” decision.

They can choose to do nothing, restore Cyrpus to its position before the wars of the Diadochi (minus Soloi) or follow the Ptolemaic model and invest one king with authority over the whole of the island. Not all of the Cypriot Kingdoms will be Hellenic; Kition and Lapethos will have Phoenician as their primary culture.

The Cypriot Kings decision available to the Ptolemies should they retake Egypt allows them to restore the status quo to pre-306 or administer the island differently.

While one may be tempted to give Eunostos Soloi as an OPM feudatory or split the island between Eunostos and Menelaos, granting the rule of Cyrpuis to one man has certain benefits…

Leaving Eunostos in charge unlocked the fabled Blue Cyprus.

Speaking of Cyprus, Phoenician tags construct the Kothon of Kition, a new naval foccused wonder.

All told, there’s 34 tasks in the mission tree and 61 events. Naturally there is a lot more to the Sons of Phoenix mission tree, but I’ll only touch on a few more points here and leave the rest for you to discover for yourselves.

By the middle of the third century BC, the Phoenicians had shifted away from monarchy towards councils of elites and elected magistrates. In Phoenician tradition, the shopets, or magistrates, were elected officials who governed as stewards of the city-state, ensuring accountability and collective decision-making. While this system of governance was most prominent in Phoenician colonies like Carthage, Tyre briefly adopted shopets after the city came under the influence of the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II. Shopets were typically chosen from the city's aristocracy and ruled in tandem, often for limited terms, ensuring that power was not concentrated in a single individual.
To represent this shift, a “Republican Reforms” task has been added for all Phoenicians, but Tripoli (which starts as a republic) which allows the player to become a Punic Republic.


The Blood of Dido can be attained by proving (fabricating) a lineage that stretches back to Pygmalion of Tyre, the brother of Queen Dido.

There is a Hellenization branch which sees you adopt Greek customs (and maybe even syncretize your cultures)

This is the approximate extent of required expansion in the mission tree, although some areas like Philistia and Cilicia can be released as subjects.

Although you are free to form Phoenica as normal, successful completion of the mission tree grants the choice to embrace your syncretic identify and become Syria.

Main Modern Sources:
- The History of Phoenicia by Josette Elayi
- Lords of the Sea by John R. Hale
- Itineraria Phoenicia by Edward Lipiński
- History of Phoenicia by George Rawlinson

Various papers:
- "Studies in Phoenician Geography during the Persian Period"
- "Gerashtart, King of the Phoenician City of Arwad in the 4th Century"
- "Studies in Phoenician Geography during the Persian Period"
- The Phoenician Cities in the Persian Period
- Philocles of Sidon Revisited by Hans Hauben
- The Coinage of Tyre and the So-Called Coinage of Akko in the Second Half of the 4th Century BCE
- The Phoenician Cities: A Case-study of Hellenisation

Ancient Sources (pretty standard classical authors):
- Pseudo-Scylax, Periplous
- Herodotus, Histories
- Strabo, Geography
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History
- Josephus, Against Apion and Antiquities of the Jews
- Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander
- Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica

The Pan-Ionian League

Hello. Derekmark here! Today I’ll be presenting the tree available to you upon forming the league of Pan-Ionia (briefly shown in the last dev-diary), developed by our Duart and olivenkranz.

As shown in last week’s DD, the Ionians start off with the task of finally breaking free of foreign domination for the first time in centuries, upon which, you will be given the option to form the Pan-Ionian League. Now, as the Pan-Ionian League, your objective will go from seeking liberty to establishing hegemony.

Provided you’ve completed the first Ionian tree, and you’ve opted to form the Pan-Ionian League upon its completion (in which case, no unique Miletos tree), you will have access to the wonderful tree below.

Having finally freed yourself from the Antigonids, your position remains precarious as you remain boxed in along the coast. Regardless of which Ionian state you have started off as, your mission will be the same: take complete control of the Ionian coast lest your, as of now small, league is rendered a short footnote in history.

With the Ionians united, and your position a little more secure, you will have many other means to grow your great league by force.

Going into your paths for expansion, before we talk about the slightly more development focused tasks available to you, your country will be encouraged to delve deeper into Anatolia, pushing pack your borders past the various Macedonian and Anatolian realms in Asia Minor.

Conquer the Lycians, those rebellious tribes to the south (whom you will have the option of giving autonomy as a puppet). Take the land of Phrygia, home to the famous city of Gordion, and push eastwards into Cappadocia.

As for southern Anatolia, the coast is an obvious target, being the site of many trade points that will be of great interest to the mercantile Ionians. However it isn’t enough to simply take the coastal lands, for they must be secured against the Isaurians, the troublesome tribes that make prey of merchants passing through the region!

Here, you need not necessarily conquer said lands, for the homeland of the Isaurians is hilly, and tricky to subdue. If you decide to simply occupy the lands of Isauria and Pisidia, you must decide whether to spare the inhabitants, or punish them for their violations against Ionian commerce.

Along with the other rewards you will gain through these tasks (province modifiers, the possibility to quickly obtain Anatolian military technology and more), consolidating most of Asia Minor will leave the League lying vast and powerful, a true force to be reckoned with among the mightiest powers of Asia.

While in the East you must contend with your former overlords, the Antigonids, to the west lies the kingdom that kept you in chains after the conquest of the Persians, the Macedonian Kingdom.

Though on the way to Macedon, you may want to seize the lucrative Bosphorus strait, the funds of which will greatly increase your coffers.

With the momentum of westward expansion towards Pella, it is also time to show those upstart cities back in Greece who will be the new Hegemon of Hellas.

Now Greece is under your control, and the Macedonians have been crushed, once and for all. The Pan-Ionian League reigns supreme.

With Anatolia and Hellas completely the domain of the League, you ought to build a fleet to keep total control of your newfound thalassocracy. Doing so will give you a nice permanent modifier, to reward your ascension.

But expansion isn’t the only concern for the Ionian league.

Elsewhere in the tree, you will be tasked with building up the League’s army and navy, seeking colonies and trade posts in the Western Mediterranean, and going so far as to seek direct trade with Britannia and India, as well as founding a new grand academy, such that the cities of Ionia were famous for.

After establishing outposts in much of the Western Mediterranean (most of which - in Corsica and Africa - you are encouraged to obtain diplomatically), you will have the option to take your, now sizable, navy, and seize the gates of the Mediterranean from its current, likely Punic, controllers.

Careful though, for if that nation that you seize the strait from is disproportionately more powerful than you, they will likely demand that you leave immediately, lest they take their land back by force.

If the local powers start to issue threats however, it may be possible to placate them with a sizable monetary compensation…

With the Punic monopoly of trade beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) broken, you will be free to sail up to Dumnonia (Cornwall) and seek out their valuable tin, and if you so choose, seek an alliance with your new Brittonic trading partner.

But through the red sea too does Ionian commercial ambition extend, and here a simple seizure of land to the Sinai will open up a rich commercial route, allowing you to begin direct trade with the kingdoms of India.

Eventually, you may even reach the shores of Persia, poised to take revenge against their initial domination of the Ionian cities.

The final branch of the tree relates to the religious monuments present in Ionia, with such famous sites as the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of Diodorus’ seven wonders of the world.

Here you’ll have a few tasks reliant on local province investments and temple building, resulting in omen modifiers and other rewards. A fun bit of flavour to invest in while you seek to dominate the Mediterranean.

And here you can see one of the events from these tasks, that of the Temple at Ephesus.

You may have brought the Ionians to freedom, but can you take them to true wealth and splendor? I hope you all have fun with this tree, and enjoy yourselves as befitting this holiday season!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 88: 1.9.1 - Sophia update, a major AI upgrade and XP tweaks

Salvete!

Today we'll be talking about the amazing AI work done by Anbeeld for the new update along with various tweaks being done to the XP system by Supermash.
But first, as of this Dev Diary, the 1.9.1 - 'Sophia' update is out now and it includes all of the stuff from the Dev diary and more.
While not all changes will be effective on old saves, the update itself should be entirely save-compatible.
Now onto the patch notes:

V1.9.1 - 'Sophia' update, a major AI upgrade: (save-compatible)
Major changes:
- Completely reworked how AI countries choose inventions by setting various situational priorities to all the important ones thanks to Anbeeld
- Completely reworked how AI countries choose what to build by setting various situational priorities to all the buildings, except forts due to logic behind them being hardcoded, thanks to Anbeeld
- Replaced rarely fired and pretty basic vanilla event for AI city founding with a more sophisticated custom script. (AI still does not cheat, they pay the same cost as a player with the same requirements)
- Increased unit XP gained from battles
- Nerfed various XP decay modifiers
- Removed several sources of starting unit experience
- 100% unit XP now gives only 25% decrease in damage taken instead of 30%
- Increased minimum length a levy raised before the unit XP gives military experience upon being lowered from 8 to 12 months
- Tribes receive reduced experience decay and decentralized tribes gain increased starting unit experience
- AI is now slightly more likely to train its legions
- Small adjustments to AI triggers to national ideas to decrease likelihood of very suboptimal choices

Net effect of these changes is a vastly improved AI economy, research and military

Changes:
- Adjusted several countries starting monarchy type (Cappadocia is now a stratocratic monarchy for example)
- Fixed a number of bugs in the Turdetanian trees and added several tasks
- Moved several modifiers to more appropriate locations, effect remains identical for gameplay
- Cleaned up several redundant files
- Buffed Androphagian heritage, now gets 10% extra food instead of smear character cost modifier
- Reintroduced the vanilla stability decay from having prisoners abroad due to the bugs related to it being fixed in 2.0.4
- Bad monsoons now have a greater impact

Bugfixes:
- Fixed Bactrian traditions not properly unlocking military colonies
- Fixed Greater Arachosia locking out the Indo-Greek formable
- City of angels decisions should now only be takeable once per game
- Fezzani mission tree should no longer break upon forming Fezzan
- Fixed several small bugs in the Phoenician tree and formable
- Fixes several bugs related to the Diadochi collapse and the rise of new countries like in Cyprus
- Made several spelling adjustments and added some missing localization
- Updated partially Spanish and German translations
- Added many sanity checks to prevent error log spam


As always, you can download the mod either automatically from the steamworkshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348
or update manually using the nexusmods version: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=files.
Enjoy! And now onto the Dev Diary:

Teaching the AI to make the right choices​

Hello there! I’m Anbeeld, best known for my previous modding work for Victoria 3, where I’ve been writing economy AI from the scratch and implementing a stockpile system. Nice to meet you!

As an avid Imperator: Invictus player, at some point this January I suddenly felt the urge to pay the team back with my labour, and was very much welcomed by the wholesome fellow modders. Unsurprisingly, improving the AI (which seemed dusty, frankly speaking) is where I ended up landing.

This patch there are 2 big systems where I cooked basically full reworks of AI decision making, which is buildings and inventions, along with some smaller changes. Both these systems work by the AI choosing one option out of many similar, which we can manipulate by setting certain AI weights to them.

Deep dive into AI weights​

When I was working with Victoria 3, I actually ended up completely disabling vanilla AI for internal country management, replacing it with my own implementation. This allows for much better control and can lead to impressive results, but is very intensive in terms of labor and performance, and thus leads to many headaches for other developers in the team and some unrest from the players.

But in Imperator the economy and adjacent systems are much less complex, and the same goes for the AI that controls it, which in the end makes it much easier for us to manipulate it into doing one thing rather than another. Shoutout to my fellow Victoria 3 AI modders, who went the path of adjusting AI weights and had a whole lot of fun with that, because of how many of them there are and their effects being quite soft.

After some initial testing I was able to conclude that big numbers are larger than small numbers, but most importantly that the Imperator AI realizes this as well.

This conclusion moved me out of AI programming to… human programming. Consider this. You have some hundreds of inventions, and you need to attach some AI weight to many or even most of them. You draw some big picture in your head and start working. For “just ok” inventions you set a weight of 100, then for “pretty good” it may be 200 already, with “very good” going somewhere into 500.

But then it doesn’t really work.

At first these values may seem both significant by themselves and having enough difference to guide the AI into choosing one or another, but for a randomized system that chooses from dozens of inventions every time they really are not. Absolute best picks having only 5 times higher AI value than just average ones means they don’t get chosen reliably at all in the system with so many variables.

And I don’t mean this as an insult to you, dear reader, because in fact this is the issue that I myself stumbled upon at first – as I haven’t worked with AI weights previously that much. Folks much stronger in anything math related than me probably figured it all out before I even started explaining, but for me it required some additional steps to find out the way around it.

So I moved my “pretty good” inventions into thousands, while the “very good” tier went over 9000 already. This ended up working reliably enough, but then I realized I’m sitting in front of invention files filled with magic numbers of various magnitudes.

Even I myself started to lose track of which values I consider to represent what tiers of invention importance. An outsider coming in a year later to fix something in my priorities or to add a new invention will be forced to spend quite some time to find out that AI weight of 500 is apparently quite a small one, and even more time to understand what value he should put in to represent the “pretty good” tier.

Human weights for AI weights​

The simple AI weight system with absolute values means the weights are not tied to anything, other than possibly some idea in a brain of one person (red flag for maintenance), and they also have no limits, except for int64 max value or whatever Paradox used in this case. This makes things incredibly hard when we are talking about manually setting weights for dozens or even hundreds of cases.

The way you can fix this is by introducing some abstraction, a measurement system. Like rating movies by a scale out of 10 instead of giving The Prestige a rating of 500, then some 1000 to Inception, and ending up with 999999 for Oppenheimer a few years later, because you just need it to be higher than the previous ones, but you don’t quite remember which values you gave back then and have no time to check.

After some brainstorming I made up a system called relative chance. Imagine the AI has 20 inventions to choose from out of all the trees and stuff. Now imagine you want one particular invention to have a 35% chance to get chosen, like it's a pretty good invention, not insane but still useful. To achieve this you just need to apply IRC 35% (which stands for invention relative chance) to it in a form of script value irc_35, which under the hood is a number generated by a formula that I’ll show you later:

ai_will_do = {
modifier = {
factor = irc_35
}
}

So the relative chance is basically how likely an option to get chosen if all the other options are at base AI weight. Naturally, it can’t be higher than 100%, and by default there are generated values using the step of 5%, with the exception of 99%.

Of course, if you would then add a second invention to the picture with e.g. IRC 75%, both of them being in the pool simultaneously means their actual chances to get chosen are lower than advertised. But there’s nothing bad about this, because we still reached our goal. AI weights that we apply this way are now limited to some scale based on probability, so it works well with choosing out of many options, and you can easily tell how large the value is relatively and globally.

This is of course just a fancy 1/x under the hood, as base AI weight is 1:

IRC x% = (poolSize - 1) / (1 - x / 100) - (poolSize - 1)

In the case of Invictus the pool size is actually hardcoded for performance reasons, e.g. for inventions I just chose a certain number similar to how many inventions you can usually choose from at any given time on average. This lowers precision against base weight options, but between multiple options with relative chance attached it stays pretty accurate, so we are fine with that.

For example, with a pool size of 20 the value behind IRC 35% would equal 10.2308, while IRC 75% would be 57. This is just a fraction of the scale, but there’s already a higher difference by multiplier than between 100 and 500 – which, coming back to psychology, a human could expect to be enough for representing the entire scale.

The value of IRC 95% is 361 here, 35.2857 times higher than IRC 35%. Considering that 35% does not translate to 100 from absolute values examples below, but rather something like 250, you would need to type a value around 9000 (literally) to get the same effect when operating absolute values. This would be a borderline uncomfortable thing to do, while with irc_35 and irc_95 it’s much simpler and clearer.

Discipline and National Tax​

The entire endeavor actually started with the observed issue where AI countries haven’t picked inventions that give discipline bonuses almost at all, leading to significant disadvantage against players, as if there’s not enough of it already. This became my playground, and for a few days the AI was the most disciplined ever.

This approach, sadly, is not sustainable, because apparently there are other things to take care of as well. Economic inventions increase the income of AI countries and thus are very important. For monarchies Proscribed Canon is a huge assimilation boost – and the AI struggles a lot with it otherwise. Then there are a lot of lesser priorities: siege capability, special city buildings, additional army boosters like Auxiliary Recruitment and Divinely Guided, maximum research efficiency, Formulaic Worship, City (or Rural) Planning, culture specific trees, and many more.

The thing I like about the Imperator system is that you are not really meant to research all the inventions, on the contrary – you are limited to getting only a fraction of them in most cases. At the same time, you are not restricted with what exactly you will research, and there's relatively easy access to most of the inventions, besides the ones at the very bottom. But this also means there are straight up more and less important inventions, based on what the country is strong at.

The other thing to consider is that AI is not as good at keeping research efficiency as high as possible compared to players, and it also won’t make good use of certain types of inventions. Because of this, it’s even more important to provide the AI with a clear separation between must-haves and clearly secondary priorities, for example inventions related to diplomacy and navy.

In the end I checked basically every invention in the game, deciding for each of them if they have particular importance for AI. But just giving some IRC to the invention itself is not enough. Instead in most cases it was distributed in the form of trees, where a target invention and all the inventions leading to it get the same priority. This way the AI gradually researches them, eventually reaching that very important invention – but also benefiting from all the others in the tree, of course.

At the same time I tried to avoid making it all strictly railroaded and min-maxed. While there are clear layers of priorities and certain trees will almost always get researched before the others, inside of these layers I tried to preserve a healthy bit of randomness. Every AI country knows that discipline and national tax are both very important, but the values attached to them are close enough so that some countries will learn more about war science, while others – more about that legal robbery, finishing these trees at different points of the game.

What freemen? We need nobles!​

AI decision making for buildings works through weights as well, so I’ve used the same relative chance system described above, with the shorthand of BRC this time.

Many buildings had some conditional AI weights even before I touched anything, but they weren’t detailed much. I also brought a whole new philosophy with myself, so I ended up starting from scratch. The Invictus team helped me a lot with the vision, naturally, guiding me towards the end result we would collectively agree on.

Building system, as we have it in Invictus, is full of interesting choices, especially in cities. The most curious part of it is the “ratio” buildings: Academy, Court of Law, Forum and Mill. These affect the desired pop count of nobles, citizens, freemen and slaves respectfully, along with bonuses to their happiness and other modifiers. But the thing is, you can actually harm your country by making incorrect choices here.

The most obvious example would be overbuilding Mills in cities where most pops are integrated, or even worse, have noble rights. Skewing ratio towards slaves would mean losing research due to the amount of nobles and citizens getting reduced, but also having less levies, as slave pops don’t count towards them. Other ratio buildings have similar side effects, although not as strong as the ones of Mills. AI countries are a bit weak at research, so I made them prioritize building Academies when possible. If the territory's culture can’t produce nobles, other options will be considered.

As you see, there’s plenty of decision making to be implemented for the AI already. But that’s just the start. You also have “modifier” buildings: Library, Training Camp, Market and Tax Office. These can further increase what the city is already good at, be it research or taxes or something else. But how do you achieve that in the first place? Right, through ratio buildings. Looks like the AI should build these first and only consider modifier buildings after that. And not just any, but focusing on the ones fitting what the city outputs the most already.

But then there are non-cities as well! And these are very important, as Mines and Farming Settlements will provide the country with more goods to trade, and for more expensive ones getting some extra of them may be even more important than building up the cities. It seems logical to secure higher treasury income before we’ll start spending it on all these fancy buildings for the nobility.

For tribes, non-cities are all they usually have – but don’t worry, the logic for other settlement buildings is provided as well. It’s pretty simple, to be honest, just like these buildings are themselves. We want the AI to build Slave Estates when there are important trade goods not suitable for Mine or Farming Settlement, or when there’s a lot of slaves in general. We want some Barracks here and there to raise manpower, but Tribal Settlements are handy as well for tribesmen-heavy territories.

Back to cities, the AI also got some knowledge on how and where to use unique buildings. Foundry is a good investment in cities producing expensive trade goods. Great Temple helps with speeding up pop conversion, so it has priority for cities where a large percent of pops don’t follow the state religion. Same goes for Grand Theatre and assimilation, and in this case it’s even more important, as assimilation is generally much harder and slower to do than conversion.

Less small ports, more big ports​

The logic for building forts sadly is hardcoded. There are some variables exposed to affect their placement, but it’s a completely different thing in a technical sense than all the other buildings, so I haven’t touched the forts for now. Maybe one day.

Instead, I’ve had a lot of fun with ports. It seems like the ports are the most annoying building in terms of logic, as it was the same in Victoria 3. There was even a patch where devs themselves made some mistakes around it, so the AI would constantly delete ports, making the great British Empire ruin itself without foreign interference. Luckily, there was a certain mod that had its own logic for all the building management and thus avoided the problem…but enough of that.

I’ve tried to implement conscious port management by AI countries, for the first time in the history of Imperator or something like that. First, they now want only 1 or 2 ports per state, depending on what percent of it is coastal, with the exception of every city also having a port, which may increase the total number of them per state. Everything else is getting deleted, fixing tribes having a gazillion ports one next to another as a byproduct of them doing some conquering of each other. This frees up building slots that could be used for more useful buildings, as well as some gold.

The non-city territories with trade goods suitable for Mines and Farming Settlement are now heavily considered in port logic as well, so the AI would avoid building ports in them when it’s possible. AI countries can now even delete the port to free up the building slot in such territories, if they know they are able to rebuild the port in some other less important territory of the same state.

The other important thing is high level ports. As you may know, medium ships require a level 3 port to build and repair them, while for heavy ships a level 5 port is needed. I’ve implemented a logic where AI countries want a certain amount of such ports, based on country size, and vulgarly named them “mega” and “giga” ports respectively in the code. The latter, a level 5 port, is on the table only for the countries that unlocked a military tradition that allows them to build heavy ships.

Everything else, mainly level 2 ports, is downscaled to level 1. While there are small benefits to having more port levels outside of thresholds, other buildings offer much higher reward for that same building slot, and most AI cities don’t have a lot of them.

So… just some meta build order?​

Oh, for Rome’s sake…

Yes, all of this means making the AI play the meta quite a bit. But one could argue that’s basically synonymous with it being competent. We are not building some kind of machine learning model here that could analyse the game itself, so the only alternative is to provide the AI with the information about what's gonna benefit it and under what conditions. It needs to be told that 5% discipline is just better than 1% global monthly food in almost all cases, or that Academies are good when you have low research efficiency; there’s no other way around it.

But it’s not a strict order or script. Both invention and building systems make use of randomness, so while some choices are heavily weighted to be picked over the others, there usually are multiple “good” choices at the same time, having equal or very similar relative chance values attached to them. This means there’s no strict order on how the things are done, so the AI country would end up making slightly different choices compared to other similar countries, and even to the same country in your next playthrough. The most rigid thing is ratio building choices, based strictly on territory culture and trade goods, but it’s still a dynamic decision making.

Yes, slightly is an important word here – it’s pretty unlikely that Rome will randomly ignore all the military inventions, though not impossible. But I’m not sure it would be a good thing for this to happen constantly, as it would return us to a feeling that the AI is just dumb, which is what I’m trying to avoid with my changes. Your AI rival enslaving half its core population by building Mills everywhere might look funny, but for me it wouldn’t be as satisfying to beat the opponent that isn’t trying his hardest.

Don’t stick your city in steppe​

There’s one more thing I’ve touched in this patch, which I generously called a “smaller change” in the beginning of the diary. During oh so many observer tests I’ve noticed that AI countries don't seem to create many new cities. Turns out the way they do it is just some rarely fired event with not so detailed conditions.

To fix this, I’ve implemented a new script for that matter and presented it to the team. For some reason they didn’t like migratory tribes creating Mesopotamia 2.0 in Germany and asked for changes. Literally 1984.

In the end I added a lot of restrictions to the script, especially for tribes, so the amount of new cities won’t be much higher than before, although still noticeable. But the conditions behind choosing territories for them are much more well thought out now: steppes are prohibited (thematically and due to -50% population capacity), capital is the first priority, high amount of integrated population is more important than ever, losing trade goods should be avoided, coastal and river territories are considered high value, same goes for “good” terrain types, and more.

As a player you can expect some of the larger non-migratory tribal nations to turn their capitals into cities, and if they would reform into monarchy or republic – a few more territories will follow the case. Small non-tribal countries that don’t have a single city will also fix this problem of theirs as soon as they’ll be able to pay the price. But creation of cities is not allowed until all the existing ones are somewhat developed, so it won’t affect larger empires that much, though in the late game a certain degree of further urbanization will probably take place.

But I don’t want the AI to smash me!​

Don’t worry, it won’t… yet. Getting more useful inventions and buildings might make your late game fight with Rome a tad harder, but it’s only a part of what constitutes the power of AI countries.

For my taste, they don’t spend enough on buildings as of now, and thus are not fully benefiting from changes, but adjusting budget spending is an entirely separate issue that I haven’t touched yet, at all. Maybe I’m completely wrong and spending more on buildings will make them too weak militarily – no way to know without diving deep into adjusting and testing and then again.

There are also other issues like not keeping high enough stability, lack of proper law management, and even things like not manually moving pops into cities when it would be very beneficial. Grand strategy AI is a very complex problem.

But there’s only so much time for side projects like this, so for now, I limited the scale of my work to just a few systems so I could get them right. Hopefully I’ve succeeded at that at least, but I’m of course open to make adjustments in the patches to come based on your feedback, which I’ll be very interested in.

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to some more fun stuff in the future.






Hello Everyone, Supermash here.

Today I will talk about an important mechanic in Imperator, one untouched by both Developers and Invictus modders since 1.0. This mechanic is the Experience System, and it is a core system for many meta players, for both damage reduction and generation of military experience.

For players who aren’t familiarized with the experience system, here is a small explanation of how it actually works.

Each unit, in both the army and the navy, has an experience value. It is an important value and you can see it in the unit tab of armies or navies where you can find it here in the middle value of the screenshot.

This experience value determines an individual damage reduction to the unit and gets its max efficiency at 100%. If the unit belongs to a levy and you disband the levy, you get some military experience from the remaining experience.
And finally, the average experience of your armies will add a passive military experience bonus. To gain experience, you can fight battles, siege territory and train legions.

To counterbalance the experience gain, you have the experience decay decreasing your experience depending on the value of experience and the value of your decay. The base experience decay is 4.5% so if you have nothing reducing it, a unit at 100% experience will lose 4.5% the month. And a unit at 50% experience will lose 2.25% experience.

But there are 3 major flaws in the system.

First, the early decay is very fast because the base value of 4.5% is preventing us from retaining most experience. So most armies and navies will stay at 0% experience in the beginning.

Second, it is possible with some optimization to have 0% experience decay for the army after 60 to 100 years of game. So all armies can reach 100% experience, leading to massive military experience generation for players.

Lastly, tribes are totally hamstrung in terms of experience; they don't get access to legions and thus their late game is very weak. Most experience decay modifiers are from legions and technologies, after all, and these are two things that tribes lack.

To resolve this situation we have two options:

• Reduce the base decay and reduce the modifiers associated to it
• Increase experience from battles

After an internal debate, we went with the second option to invite players and AI to fight more battles and to be active in wars.

Here is a screenshot of a battle between Rome and the Etruscans.

In Invictus and vanilla, a large battle would generate around this amount of experience.

But with the updated version, we will generate much more experience. Here is the same battle result.

As you can see, the difference is 10% of experience for a large battle, and the amount of experience now varies depending on different factors such as the size of the battle, its duration and the balance of the battle of each side.

Before, a large balanced battle could give up to 15% experience, but now this gain can be up to 25%. For navies, the numbers have the potential to be almost twice as large, so huge, epic battles at sea - those pivotal clashes wherein the futures of empires and kingdoms are decided a la Actium or Salamis - can bring your fleets up to 40% experience after one battle.

Battles overall will be more impactful and units will become veterans faster. However, to compensate for the fact that units will gain more experience, the experience will give less damage reduction and will make late game battles a bit quicker.

I talked about two other flaws with the experience system. To resolve 0% experience decay, some modifiers were nerfed. It will be harder to have experience decay reduction in the late game.

And for our dear tribes, my friends? They will now get a 1% experience decay reduction and centralization value that gives starting experience at negative centralization. Watch out for those migratory tribes! They will be very strong when they start to move.

To conclude this “experience system fixes” section of the dev diary, one final and important adjustment has been made; we know some players like to raise and disband their levies fast in hopes of cheesing experience - a disappointment to the gods of war that we felt obliged to address. Disbanding levies in this manner will now generate less military experience with a longer cooldown. Unfortunately for your soldiers, if they want military experience quickly, they'll have to do more than just show up dressed in armor before heading home - they'll have to go out and fight!

To be sure, I will be watching very carefully for your feedback, both for your single and multiplayer games. Depending on the results, I will continue to work to add more modifiers and battle mechanics in order to shake up the meta a bit. But the opposite by reverting these changes is also a possibility - just let us know what you think! Don’t hesitate to share your feedback on our Discord, on Reddit or on our Steam page - I will take into consideration all of your valuable opinions.

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 89: AI rework part 2, the Man-eating Androphagians and the Ides of March 1.9.2 update out now

Salvete!
Today we'll be talking about more great AI work by Anbeeld surrounding laws, national ideas and stances along with new content in a later update for the man-eating Androphagians and some more pirate content.

But first!
Happy Ides of March, the game is 70% off on Steam right now if you haven't purchased and have been waiting to check it out. Let's get player numbers up today, perhaps leave a good review if you're so inclined, and show Paradox that we still love our favorite grand strategy game.

As a reminder you can download the Imperator: Invictus mod from the following sources:
Steam workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348 (Recommended as it will auto-update, only for Steam players)
Nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/imperatorrome/mods/1?tab=files (Contains all old-versions of the mod too, does not auto-update but is available for everyone, delete your old mod before installing the new version)

Now with these ides of march, the 1.9.2 save-compatible patch is out now containing:
Major changes:
- AI countries are now able to properly change laws. (Previously they couldn't do it at all, outside of events and alike. This especially affects Tribes who can now go down either Centralization or Decentralization)
- Implemented proper logic for state investment in AI countries and removed them ignoring the scaling gold cost
- Improved AI decision making regarding commerce economic policies.
- AI now properly bribes, gives free hands, gives out subsidies in order to prevent civil wars (they do have restrictions for roleplay purposes and to prevent them never having a civil war)
- AI now has to actually pay for character interactions like players do (AI is still far better at it than before)
- AI now has proper strategies for choosing diplomatic stances, they'll no longer swap constantly which caused them to waste Political Influence
- AI now no longer cheats to reform from being a tribe (combined with the new AI law strategy they'll still be able to reform)
- AI now has proper strategy for picking national ideas
- AI now properly performs sacrifices if they are below 50 stability (AI did not do it always before, and now they'll spend their excess Political influence on it)
- Many minor tweaks to the AI strategies introduced in the previous updates improving them even more, all thanks to Anbeeld

AI will now perform considerably better in several areas, will no longer cheat and performance remains the same.

Changes:
- New Coat of Arms, mainly for Iberians: Garmania, Oppidania, Mantasia, Lobetania, Deitania, Bardulia, Cempsia, Elbocoria, Mastia, Cynetia, Locri, Hipponion, Achola
- Made many improvements to the German translation of the mod
- Yuezhi now use the Sogdian levy template
- Military service law now only gives 7.5% levy size modifier instead of 10%
- Mercenary reliance now gives 4% levy size instead of 3.5%
- Noble retinues now give 15 cohort start experience instead of 10
- Carthage's Xanthippan Reforms law now no longer gives an extra 5 cohort start experience
- Mercantile stance now gives 20% commerce modifier instead of 25%
- Domineering stance now gives extra 25% tribute income modifier and integration speed increased to 0.35 from 0.25
- Nerfed many of Nepals modifiers and its Fiefdoms
- Italic and Puntic religious modifiers are now inline with other religions
- Forming Thessalian League now requires being of the Hellenic culture group
- Prevented tradegood events from firing for tradegoods that are not actually available in your country
- Slave revolts now properly keep track of amount of slaves that joined and are defeated

Bugfixes:
- Fixed dozens of smaller errors mainly causing error log spam
- Fixed a vanilla bug also affecting several mission trees breaking svalues (the numbers being checked in mission tasks would occasionally be wrong)
- Fixed misuse of the religious unity trigger
- Yuezhi should now always properly declare on a country when their invasion starts
- Fixed the Belgae civil war having a wrong name
- Fixed several modifiers not being actually given decide appearing in the mission task
- Fixed several spelling errors


Now onto the AI work by Anbeeld, all of which is in the update which just came out!

Filling in the missing pieces of AI​

Hiya! Once again, Anbeeld there, continuing AI work described in the previous dev diary. In this patch I worked on a number of systems one could call less significant, but together they lead to quite an impact: laws and tribal reform, diplomatic stances, state investment, character loyalty, economic policies, and more. Let’s dive into it!

Wild West? Wild Gaul!​

I’ll start with a confession. Not only am I a tall player, but I’m a tribe player. I love to build tribal utopias. I think Rome is beautiful for tourism. So naturally, I appreciate tribal laws, with how many of them are there and how impactful some of them are.

But as it turns out, some players are not aware of tribal laws' existence at all. And first and foremost, I’m talking about all the AI countries in your games. This terrible realization struck me when I happened to check the law panel of various AI tribes, only to find out that it’s almost empty for all of them!

The horror didn’t end there. I started to dig deeper, and found monarchies and republics completely depending on rare occasions of laws changing in random parts of the code as their main source of directing the country’s course. This is where it became obvious to me.

Wow. There’s simply no system of AI enacting laws in the game. It doesn’t exist.

Okay. No big deal. That’s why I’m here. I’ll just create one of my own.

Being a tribe enjoyer, unsurprisingly I started with their laws, which is a joy considering how much freedom they have with changing them left and right. As I mentioned before, their law panels were almost empty – there are some events with options to change laws, which were the only source of bringing law to tribal lands, most notably the one leading to widespread disease of Adopt Human Sacrifice.

Instead of AI ignoring these events, I decided to make them part of the bigger question of choosing centralization vs decentralization. For those who don’t know, tribes can go one of these two paths with their laws, each giving completely different benefits. Centralization leads to higher civilization, more research points and eventually the ability to reform into a monarchy or republic. Decentralization is all about staying as a tribe and dragging others into the mud, thanks to levy size and morale bonuses, as well as the ability to migrate with minimal stability costs.

At the start of the game every tribe has a certain centralization value. To keep things simple, I designed their law management in a way that most of the tribes will double down on it, going negative or positive all the way depending on the starting value. There are exceptions, of course, like tribes that start with 0% centralization. These will have a chance to go either path, thanks to the law events that I mentioned earlier and events that give ticking (de)centralization modifier, bringing in an element of randomness.

As most of these laws offer quite good bonuses, on average tribes will be slightly stronger now compared to their Wild Gaul version where they had almost no laws. Good news for civilized nations is that there are barely any direct military bonuses, it’s all about internals like income, happiness, stability and so on.

Unless we are talking Steppe Horde.

Good luck for those in a way of a large horde. Until it collapses by itself, that is.

Tour de France with training wheels​

As usual, such a drastic change led to even funnier things floating to the surface. Turns out, to compensate for AI tribes inability to found cities and enact laws, they had special decisions to reform into monarchy or republic with drastically lowered requirements compared to what players go through in the tribal reform mission tree. And now that they learnt to play properly, they abused it really hard.

Snowlet, the lead of the Invictus team, seemed somewhat unhappy about tribes mass reforming barely 100 years into the game. I love this guy, but he’s such a cold ice and constantly stops me from turning the game into Stellaris 2! Ugh.

So I fixed the issue by forcing the AI to meet all the same requirements as players do to reform the tribe, including stuff like ruler popularity and correct law corresponding with going monarchy vs republic. Some additional requirements were added as well, for example having a rank of at least regional power, to avoid AI countries looking like they are being played by an average OPM enjoyer.

In the end there are still tribes that reform naturally without help from cultural decisions and mission trees, but it’s more of an exception, which makes more sense historically than half of Europe turning into monarchies somewhere in 200 BC.

Just download more army, bro​

While laws of monarchies and republics have much less going for them in the context of the AI, they too benefit from having an actual law changing system. Previously inventions that allow to enact new laws contained special effects for AI countries, where they would be forced to change towards them, because otherwise it would have never been done. This could lead to big problems with stability – if it happened to be already low by the moment of researching the invention, now after paying the price to change a law it’s gonna be put six feet under.

But in this new system stability is a key factor, and laws are only enacted when it’s high enough to not ruin the whole country by doing so, with thresholds varying depending on the importance of the specific law we’re looking forward to.

So after dealing with some funny things, like the monarchy.101 event apparently enacting Royal Army for every single monarchy that has the required invention, I managed to provide civilized AI countries with the logic for the most important law group, which is of course military reforms.

The main elements here are levy size and the ability to raise legions, so the AI will consider all the factors and choose what fits it the best. For example, a country that has most of its levy population inside the capital region doesn’t want a law that allows to raise legions outside of it, even if the country has the required invention, because it will lose the levy size bonus and thus its army will only get weaker.

Then there are military laws that are only useful as a part of a certain strategy, such as laws with mercenary bonuses, but we can’t rely on the AI making use of them, so instead it will prefer raw army numbers.

Me monarchy, me assimilate​

Monarchies also have the very important Conversion Policy law group, unlocked with Proscribed Canon invention. It has insane value for any country with subpar cultural and/or religious unity, providing best in class bonuses for assimilation or conversion, depending on what law you’ll choose. The best strategy would be going for conversion first, as it’s a faster process overall, and then switch to assimilation – which is basically what I told AI monarchies to do.

This can lead to countries like Diadochi states becoming proper raid bosses by the very late game, granted they won’t get smashed into the ground before it, as increased percent of integrated pops means higher stability and much larger army. Beware!

Most other monarchy law groups are locked behind inventions. Some of them are just generally useful and thus AI countries will look to enact something in them after reaching the required invention, while others have drawbacks and again require some conscious strategy to make use of them, so the AI won’t bother with it.

As for republics, they have a fair share of law changes going on through events, which is why for them the system only touches military laws. Otherwise there could be conflicts, leading to losing stability without any value gained. Besides, while effects of republic laws are nice to have, there’s nothing comparable to the mighty Conversion Policy, for example. I may look into it a bit more in the future, but for now that’s how it goes.

Wanna some trade routes?​

Another borderline shocking discovery I made is that not only AI barely uses state investment mechanic, but they also play darts with what exactly they will invest in. Literally! While usually there are at least some barebones conditions, for investments the AI weights looked like 1 and 1.5, like that’s it, just some number. This is no fit for state investments, where most of them are actually highly conditional – it’s only trade routes that you can spam and always gain at least something from it.

First I was forced to move all the logic around in the files, because it was glued to GUI, and there’s no proper way to control how often and under which conditions the AI presses the buttons you want it to press, in fact usually it prefers to ignore them. Just Paradox modding things.

Then the actual fun started, where I was making the AI realize that military investments help with fort limit and don’t do much otherwise, that you need some real overcrowding going on to make use of civic investments, that religious investments are only impactful when you have multiple built up cities, and on the contrary that trade routes are just good – so when in doubt, go for oratory investments.

Then there is another layer of limiting how eager AI countries are to invest in their states. They should do it only if they have some otherwise unused political influence on their hands or there are free investments, but also I limited how much investments they can get by a combination of country government type and state population, so we don’t end up with small German tribes having dozens of them.

And it worked, I guess? Said German tribes don’t invest into city building slots anymore, instead spending their few investments towards more useful things. Small Greek states with multiple cities, on the contrary, are likely to get some of these religious investments, allowing them to construct more nice buildings. Finally, all of them are now united in thinking that investing in the capital state is good, so they could better develop it and import more strategic goods.

Oratory investment with its trade routes really is a base option for the AI, so with the balance shifting towards it, the average AI country will have slightly higher income thanks to higher numbers of both imports and exports. Unfortunately, I’ve met a harsh limitation there, as it turns out AI trading is very heavy on performance. Because of this oratory investments are allowed only if the state has some trade routes already from other sources.

On this note, I’ve also adjusted AI logic for country commerce policy. Previously every country above city state defaulted to Free Trade for export income, but now they actually check if they have enough exports to make use of it. If not, they will use Trading Permits for 2 more capital import routes, leading to another small boost in AI trading capabilities. Again, because of performance concerns this has the same limitations as described above.

Keeping inner demons at bay​

If you are tired like me of re-adjusting your trade routes because Carthage has a civil war again, you’ll love this segment. Inability of the AI to press these shiny “fix loyalty” buttons finally got me, so they received some lessons here as well.

AI countries were pretty ok at bribing people already, although it looked like they did it without a specific idea. But when more drastic measures were needed, they couldn’t do anything, falling into civil wars they could easily avoid. Turns out, they were not paying political influence for bribing and persuading! Life definitely gets easier when you cheat the system like this.

When I started to write my own AI logic for fixing loyalty, this became a big issue, as I needed to make up some random rules for them to not exploit this free bribing left and right. We decided to remove the cheating, because combined with improved decision making this could lead to overly high internal stability, and the need to pay political influence is an important factor by itself for designing the logic.

Now the AI is not only capable of making bribes just to keep loyalty at a decent level, but is also well equipped to combat civil wars. If bribes are not enough, free hands will be given – and revoked somewhere in the future, with governors having strict limits on corruption due to its impact on province loyalty. Where everything else fails, subsidies will be given to families, granted there’s enough gold in the treasury.

This doesn’t mean AI countries won’t have civil wars. While they are now better at dealing with disloyalty, I haven’t touched anything regarding what causes it, like improper management of offices and power base in general. And that’s completely fine – the government is often a synonym of corruption and incompetence, no reason to make it different here.

We also added some additional limitations to avoid AI countries being too stable. For example, none of the loyalty fixing can be applied to rivals of the current ruler, unless there’s stuff like the country facing an existential threat. In some cases this will result in civil wars, but this time – as the result of an actual political struggle, instead of any light breeze and the AI just not pressing the buttons for no reason as it was before.

The school of diplomacy​

Another system that saw some improvements is diplomatic stances. We’ve adjusted the balance between them and added new modifiers in this patch, so it must be important to make the AI aware of these changes, isn’t it?

In vanilla every stance has its AI weight increased or decreased by small values under many different conditions. For me it looked shaky, with potential for close or even equal weights leading to switching back and forth. I reworked it into exclusive logic with a bit more elaborate, but still simple decision making. Now at any given moment the AI may want only one specific stance, and there are buffers in action to prevent it changing way too often.

High AE and is not attacking anyone? Appeasing until low enough.
Big war? Bellicose for lower war goal costs and AE impact.
Going really hard on subjugating other countries? Domineering.
Low on diplomatic relations or political influence? Neutral.
Old good money printing? Mercantile.

What a national idea!​

For a long time there was a belief that we can’t control which nationals ideas the AI would pick, as no syntax was provided for that in the corresponding files. That is, until I semi-randomly tried to use the same syntax as we have in other systems… and it worked.

After realising this we discussed what national ideas would serve AI countries better, and implemented this in the form of AI weights. Unfortunately, it seems that the AI doesn’t update the ideas over time, instead sticking to the ones it got after initial setup, and there’s no workaround we could find. A pity, considering that late game ideas are substantially stronger.

Still, countries that changed their government type can benefit from this, as this process wipes one’s national ideas. Revolts start with them being blank as well, so civil wars can bring some fresh ideas to the table. Otherwise I just hope some way to fix this issue will be found in the future.

A few more bricks in the wall​

As you can see, it’s nothing mind blowing. Some better law management, some smarter investments, a few civil wars prevented. But all this and other small fixes combined should further improve internal development of AI countries, so they could pose more challenge to you, the mighty player.

That’s it for today! Thanks for reading this one, and I hope to continue bringing you good news in the future.


Now onto the content side of things as presented by Zorgoball.

Hello everyone! Zorgo here with a peek at some of the new things I’ve been working on. Before I reveal the brand new tree, let’s take a look at something small but impactful that I recently added; in the next update, certain army units will have the ability to construct Pirate Havens.

Will this ability be available to everyone? No - it will only be unlocked via mission or event. I have gone through some old trees and added this ability where it makes sense, and because you’ll have to wait for a future dev diary to see *new* trees where this fun “mechanic” has been implemented, we return to that old chestnut, Pirate Illyria, to demonstrate.

Of course, your neighbors won’t really like you building Pirate Havens in your ports, so there will be a little bit of AE added every time you send the boys out with their pickaxes and bulldozers…but you don’t care about international opinion, you just want those sweet local taxes and population growth modifiers, don’t you?

I should also reiterate that adding this ability has certainly got the creative juices flowing on the dev team when it comes to new content, so definitely stay tuned for missions that will see the scourge of piracy become worse than it has ever been.

And now, on to the main course…I hope you're hungry! The next update of Invictus (not today’s update, as it was an AI focus - massive shoutout to Anbeeld) will have a tree for the migratory Androphagians, or “Man-Eaters”, entitled “Day Of The Cannibals”. Special thanks (in no particular order) to Shinymewtwo for fun flavorful suggestions, Julia for scripting assistance and to Mateusz/Snowlet for some excellent general feedback. Here’s a peek at the tree itself before we dive into the nitty gritty. Instead of rehashing what I’ve already written, we will let some of the in-game localization fill you in on a little bit of the tribe's history.

More on that tortured relationship with the Scythians later, but first, let’s discover one of the things that will make an Androphagian playthrough unique…

About those health risks…there’s an 80/20 chance that you’ll contract a random disease from eating someone alive. Oh, and if you thought your neighbors would be upset by you building Pirate Havens, they are really not going to like it when you eat prisoners alive. But your kinsmen will be happy and you'll be the most popular cannibal in the tribe! Good for you, upholding those traditional Androphagian values. In the end, “Devour” is basically a flavorful variation of the “Sacrifice” character interaction with some different rewards, but it makes the Androphagians feel unique and allows for some pretty fun campaigning.

Each potential illness that you can get from eating humans has its own localization, adding a bit of flavor to the rich fabric of your Ruler’s life story. The worst afflictions are rare, but please keep in mind that there is a chance you could get really, really sick. To get the above outcome to fire, I had to eat about twenty people, but I was very unlucky - this is one of the worst outcomes available. But let’s move on to the mission.

When the game starts, you only have three territories to your name and two Tribal Chieftain counterparts that don’t always agree with what you propose. At various points in the tree, you’ll have to make sure that both of these grouches are content in order to proceed, so have fun with that. The first task will see your leaders gathering to discuss the future, and two options will be presented; one Chief will want to migrate west, to the amber-rich and uninhabited territories of the coast, whereas the other will want to see you devastate and destroy the tribes living close to you.

You will, of course, have to do both and so much more in the course of the mission, but depending on which branch of the tree you want to explore first, you’ll get some bonuses to help get the ball rolling. Or, if you don't feel like choosing, you can petition the gods to make the selection for you, which will be revealed via dream in about one month’s time. But make no bones about it; one way or another, you will have to destroy your neighboring tribes while building up a coastal seat of power that is focused on exploiting the amber trade. Let’s ask your Chieftains what they’d like to do first.

Let’s take the less bellicose option for now and see what awaits you in the uncolonized wilderness where amber can be found. As you might imagine, once you start to settle the Ilmandu Superior province, there will be some tasks that will help you build up the infrastructure of your new home. Doing things like constructing ports and a road network will increase your centralization, but don’t worry - your greatest triumphs as a migratory tribe are still ahead of you. But do be mindful that some optional tasks will require you to have a certain amount of decentralization, so you'll have to choose your task order wisely, depending on what you want to do first. You will be faced with a small conundrum of sorts; will you start to centralize and get those sweet mission rewards, or will you explore some of the smaller branches that reward you for staying decentralized before settling down? I'll let you ponder the future as your tribesmen start rolling up their sleeves and get to work building up the amber trade.

If you want, you can select one of your new western territories to be your new capital.

As a madness for amber seizes your people, roads will be built in order to facilitate easy trade between your settlements.

Eventually, you’ll want to take this franchise to the seas, and ports will be built in the far north. As your fleets begin to explore the Oceanus Sarmaticus, there will be plenty of opportunities to raid and pillage the unsuspecting tribes living around you…especially those that produce amber, which by right should be yours! You have a good thing going with your monopoly on amber, and a hostile takeover of your competition is the best way to consolidate your bottom line. And you wonder why everyone hates the Androphagians.

Imagine the look of horror on the faces of the Germanic tribesmen as fleets of woad-streaked cannibals descend upon their settlements…*shudder*. The “Rightful Dominion” law requires -80 Centralization, however, and is one of those optional tasks that I mentioned, so don’t worry - you won’t be forced to expand into Scandia if you don’t want to, but the opportunity to raid far and wide will be there. We will naturally leave a few surprises for you to discover on your own in the Amber Coast, so let’s switch gears and see what happens if you start your campaign by waging war against the Scythians and the other tribes living to the south.

Even though you will probably have a dismal diplomatic reputation, it is in your best interest to find an ally to help you in your initial wars - the Melanchlaenians, your closest neighbors, are much stronger than you and will be jumping at the chance to destroy the cannibals on their borders.

Of course, when you do inevitably conquer them, you will have to decide what to do with the influx of foreign tribesmen living within your borders. Their levies would definitely augment your strength, but this approach might be decidedly un-Androphagian…as always, dissension amongst the Tribal Chiefs will have ramifications for your politics.

Arjune must’ve been a popular Androphagian name in the 340s BCE.

The Melanchlaenians also possessed one of the only iron-producing settlements in your neck of the woods, and your levies will benefit from exploiting the natural resources.

There are other development tasks involving your levies and pops - things like building farms so your diet won't subsist entirely of subjugated slaves, or training your cavalry to move swiftly through the forests of your homeland - but I’m not here to give it all away, just tease you with the promise of fun things to come. But rest assured that you’ll have things to do besides enslaving and destroying - like building your first true city, a proper capital.

You’re growing. You’re conquering. You’re enslaving. You’re eating good. Your reputation is spreading around the civilized world, as more and more people become aware of the growing threat from the migratory cannibals in the far north. Once you hit a certain milestone, the gloves will really come off and the dreaded Crimson Horde will be proclaimed.

Thanks to Shiny for making both of the flags for Androphagia! Once you’ve embraced your destiny as a horde, then it will be time to do horde-y stuff.

As it so often happens, one thing will lead to another, and your tribesmen will decide to take advantage of the chaotic wars in Anatolia in order to personally profit. I will say that, in my own playthroughs of the tree, it’s been tremendous fun running amok and causing pandemonium throughout the civilized world. So many superiority wars declared, so many enslaved pops…

By the by, something that we are testing at the moment and that might not make it in the final release is the chance of Pillaging allowing you to kidnap and imprison characters from a nation. There are some voices arguing that this is terribly broken and will be prone to abuse (and they’re probably correct) but boy is it fun eating random characters that you've yoinked from an enemy nation. I mean, you could do the nice thing and ransom them, but you aren’t truly living life until you’ve eaten a Bosporan Greek that you've kidnapped from his villa on the coast.

Sorry, Chairestratos…

You’ll burn, pillage and raze your way across the civilized world, absolutely wrecking Greece and making big stacks along the way. You’ll not only steal their wealth but also their technical know-how, something that they will never forgive you for. So many superiority wars declared, so many enslaved pops…

But let’s return to the thorny question of the Scythians, one of the most powerful tribes in your region when you first start and a true threat to your hegemony.

When the Achaemenids under Darius invaded their land, they cried out to you for help - which you declined - and now, two hundred years later, you’ll finish the job the Persians started and utterly destroy the Scythians and their allies before turning your eyes to the east. Your Chieftain, at this point drunk on power and seeking to destroy any challengers to your Androphagian supremacy, will launch a Grand Invasion of the Steppe in order to shatter the power of the Horse Lords. Your migratory ways will come to an end once you form a Steppe Horde, but at this point, your people will be ready to hang up their traveling shoes and settle down - what's the point of destroying the world if you can't enjoy the stuff you've taken? You'll be tasked with destroying the tribal confederacies that stood against the Persians and then look east in order to make sure that no one else seeks to emulate your example.

I could talk about the some of the Ilmaric religious tasks and even show you the Great Wonder that you will construct in honor of the Moon Goddess, an important deity in your pantheon, but instead, I’m going to show a little peek at an event chain that you’ll have the option of pursuing.

Your tribesmen might be bloodthirsty cannibals but they aren’t dumb, and they are very aware that you are not as technologically advanced as some of the kingdoms and empires that you are raiding. In order to rectify this, a fleet of Androphagian ambassadors, headed by your Tribal Chief, will sail around the Mediterranean in hopes of finding tutors that you can hire to teach at your newly-constructed academies. Make sure you have plenty of money, as well as the ability to follow the stars back home, before you go.

Oh, the adventures you’ll have! A swashbuckling tale of intrigue and mystery awaits you. Here, you’ll get to experience the ramifications of all of those Pirate Havens that people are building.

You’ll go on a shopping spree in the marketplaces of Carthage once you grease some palms…

You might even attend a philosophical lecture in the agora of Athens…

Anyways, that’s it from me - talk soon and see you in a future diary!

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 90: Nartic faith, Blemmian, Legian and Zygian mission trees

Salvete!

Today we'll be talking about a new religion being added to the map, Nartic, and 3 new mission trees which will arrive in the summer update for Blemmia, Legia, And Zygia.
To present all of this, i'll hand you over to their developer, Omegacorps. Enjoy!


OmegaCorps here with an update on a new religion and some mission trees coming next update:

While the Invictus Team has worked hard to build up the level of detail and content within the Caucasus region at large, in-lieu of the once-rumored Caucasian DLC Imperator Rome might have gotten, there is still much work to be done, and it remains ongoing.

To that effect, a new religion has been added: the NARTIC religion/faith. While the Southern Caucasian mountains, notable for the Cholchians, Caucasians Iberians, and Caucasian Albanians, revered a diverse set of deities and mythical tales, the geographic boundary of the mountains themselves gave rise to unique cultures north of the peaks of Kavkasos: the likes of the modern Circassians, Abkhazians, Ubyks, Ingush, Cechens, and so forth. Colonized/imperialized/centralized by Russia late in the relative historical timetable, and only partially islamized before that entities such as the successive Iranian empires, the individuals of the Northern Caucasus have retained much of their oral tradition and cultural values dating back to early recorded history. Chief among those, a trend of Nart-worship, through variations of the Nart Sagas, displays strong connections to other Indo-European mythologies of antiquity, such as that of the Greeks and the nomadic steppe-iranians of modern-day Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Below I’ve pasted pictures of the dominant and diaspora spreads of Nartic (still a WIP), so that it can effectively act as new content for multiple nations and releasable-nations (through mission trees).

A significant caveat to this religion is that, due to its oral nature, the limiting amount of English-language academia about the Caucasian region in general (most is in Russian), the general lack of significant scholarship about these peoples when it comes to the age of Antiquity, and the lack of significant, contemporary, primary sources from that era prevents us from having a crystal clear idea of what Nart-worship looked like to the tribes of the time, or how some of the now-recorded stories might have evolved between Antiquity and the first time they put on paper in the 1800s or later. With that in mind, to balance the need for a viable selection of deities, have significant enough spread for gameplay purposes, and develop content inspired by the variations of the Nart Sagas, I have chosen to be less restrictive with adding deities or divine entities which we still have names for (this includes animals and plants, given that Tree-worship was and remains a significant aspect of polytheistic belief systems in the area).

For those interest, references for Nartic worship and the Nart Sagas include:

• Nart Sagas: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Circassians and Abkhazians by John Colarusso
• Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians, by John Colarusso
• The Circassians: A Handbook (Caucasus Worlds: Peoples of the Caucasus) by Amjad Jaimoukha

Some may be confused by the reference of the “Ossetians” in one of the above sources, and also why this religion is applied to Siracia, a Sarmatian-culture-group country in the Northern Caucasus region. As mentioned, the Nart Sagas retain ‘native,’ Greek, and steppe-Iranian characteristics, and several of the characters and story tropes draw upon similar mythology as the Scythians and Sarmatians. Given that, during the periodic but ever-continuous east-west migration process of the steppe-nomad groups, the Scythians had dwelled in the Kuban river valley area (leaving many royal kurgans), and the Sarmatian tribes had moved in by the time of the game’s start date, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the mixed faith system, drawing influences from successive steppe groups as well as the coastal Greek civilizations of the Black Sea, would span the entire Northern Caucasus by this point. Therefore, I have made its religion spread to match such a possibility.

Here are a few of the deities to look forward to including in your pantheon:

With that said, which countries on the map have obtained some additional content in tandem with this religious reshuffling?

To start: LEGIA

A tribe left to ad-hoc mentions by historians of the era, rarely mentioned even in Pompey’s foray into the Eastern Caucasus, the tribes of Legia most closely correlate to the Lezgic tribal groups of modern day. Their mission tree has been based off of their long-standing oral traditions, deeply rooted cultural values, and their history of contact between the steppe, Iranian, and Caucasian worlds.

The mission tree provides the option of going the traditional tribe→monarchy route, federalizing, or releasing a tribal tag and switching to it which represents the Galghai peoples, an antique form of the early Ingush and Chechen tribes whose tower-based architecture traces back through and beyond the medieval era. Collectively known in academia as the Vainakh (or Nakh) peoples, the Ingush, Chechens, and other neighbors exist as a potential obstacle or ally to the Lezgi. The centralization route of the mission allows players to explore the complex social structure of the Lezgic tribes, between families, villages, clans, and so forth as they centralize. Furthermore, the key city of modern Derbent serves as the main economic artery of the Eastern Caucasus, so it figures heavily into the mission tree! Expect to invest as much into it as you do your own capital:

While not perfect, the following picture represents the general directions/areas of conquest dictated by the mission:

The mission will also make invading your neighbors more fun with unique raids and wars of rebellious populations!

For those who’ve played the Colchis mission tree before and remember the option to create a type of Caucasian Union, a similar option exists at the end of the series of mission tasks involving Legia and Caucasian Albania due to their shared population similarities and demographics.

Also similar to previous Caucasian content additions, new cultural innovations have been added which are culture or culture-group specific. Some of these may be particularly useful within the mission trees…

Anyway, you can play the mission tree to find out what I haven’t revealed yet. Onto the next country

ZYGIA

An incredibly small and unassuming country on the game map, Zygia is the first nation to fully integrate and utilize the Nartic faith within the requirements and rewards of its mission tree. Although it is characterized as simply a pirate haven in contemporary sources, the city of Torikos/Nikopolis evolves over time into an important trade hub while the Zygii tribe themselves take on a more geopolitically relevant landmass and influence up until the medieval period. It is theorized that the Zygii correspond to an early tribe of proto-circassians, and so we wanted to represent them in-game with more than a superficial touch.

Building on both the new pirate mechanics and options developed in the Illyria and Bosporan Kingdom trees, the Zygia mission attempts to make pirate havens, pirate fleets, and piracy more than just a hassle to remove from the map - it will be a narrative means of success for the opportunistic tribesfolk. Conquest-wise, we’ve added some reasonable mini and macro land goals with quirky names and even some titles dredged from the annals:

Your final formable depends on whether you would like to pursue a more traditional or zealous route in your journey from broke pirate to ruler of the region.
You may even begin:

Several of the Nart-centric mission tasks will involve recreating, exploiting the popularity of, or feeling the effects of a significant Nart Saga

In what ways shall the Narts guide you to ultimate victory, *cough* I mean… map-painting?





For the final mission tree I’m about to present, we’re going to take a rather drastic detour from the Caucasus region. However, you may wonder: “is this the end? Will that be all for the mountain countries?” No, no it will not. While not enough is complete yet to show off, content is in the works for Maeotia, Sindica, and Heniochia, with future plans for at least Siracia. The area will keep getting updates and a denser package of content as time stomps onward, don’t you worry.

Anyway, now to BLEMMIA

Yes, in the hot sands, cliffs, and barren hills of the Egyptian Red Lands, half-mysterious, half-plain-mythological Blemmian tribes have finally gotten a mission tree which will allow them to balance between the major powers of Ptolemaic Egypt as well as the Nubian Kingdom of Kush.

Inhabiting wadis, wastes, and carved cliff-dwellings, the Blemmians/Blemmyes/Blemmyans (nomenclature varies between scholarly sources), the tribes of the Red Lands control a wealth of natural luxuries, such as gold and jewels while they themselves must rely on other, more structures civilizations to import and process those natural blessings. The mission tree revolves around economic development, diplomatic ties/conflict with the major powers of the region, and establishing the greater realm alluded to in later Byzantine sources.

As with the Zygia and Legia missions, Blemmia will have access to unique and assisted raids against the likes of Egypt and Kush, with a focus on the city-dense region of Dodekaschoinos. Historically, the Blemmians vicariously held the island and temple complex of Philae and areas around it, dedicating their own shrines and such but also frequently being pushed out by the Egyptian forces. It will be important to take that middle section of the Nile to support a growing population and to fuel further conquest.

Likewise, to pay for such costly military affairs, you will need to capitalize on your natural wealth, including the emerald mines of Mons Smaragdus.

While contemporary sources from the Hellenistic Period and Early Roman period provide inconclusive testaments to the social structure of the Blemmian tribes, analysis of their extensive, numerous, and surprisingly complex city and town-sites throughout the region, as well as the later usage of a royal insignia on maintained mines indicates that the tribes functioned through a system of lesser and greater kings or rulers with a chain of command, likely beholden to a royal line. Similarly, like the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace, the Blemmians seasonally migrated between ‘royal’ staging grounds and cities, so there was no single, ultimate capital like could be found in a centralized imperial or monarchic state such as those of the diadochi.

For those familiar with taboo-type creatures of legend in Antiquity, from the dog-headed cynocephali to the griffons guarding gold in the Central Asian region, accounts of ‘Headless Men’ would seem not all too unfamiliar. Indeed, the term ‘Blemmyes’ also referred to men with faces on their chests both in the antique and medieval periods, causing great confusion with the actual historical tribes of the same nomenclature. To my own personal amusement, and hopefully your fun, I have included some truly barbaric content to showcase these mysterious historical rumors…

While the mission tree does not actually ask you to conquer the entirety of Egypt, given that development, religious, and diplomatic content will focus on the Upper Egypt, Dodekaschoinos, and desert areas, here is a rough estimate of the territory you will conquer and expand your domain to over the course of a playthrough:

Without going on too much longer and making this developer diary burdensome, I will leave it here and just say that this summer’s update will definitely reinvigorate the game with new content, religions, mission trees, and general flavour all over the map so that everyone, no matter their preferred arena of choice, can have something to look forward to!

Do keep in mind, all pictures represent WIP material, so numbers and text are subject to change.

That’s all for now, but in the next dev diary, we will be returning to Africa to discuss two brand new mission trees with a whopping 76 tasks and 100+ events between them…

 

[Snowlet]

Dev Diary 91: 2 Large Macrobian trees and Remastered Event Art

Salvete!
Today we’ll be taking a look at some remastered artwork by Pureon greatly expanding the amount of event images we can use along with presenting 2 new expansive mission trees for the Macrobian tags.

But first, due to a gifted Steam key by Poros. We're holding a small raffle which anyone can enter for a free key for Imperator: Rome.
You can enter here: https://forms.gle/GktYXcoKJDDfLkX58

Let us now take a look at what Pureon has been up to - remastering artwork!

As you know, Invictus recycles a lot of vanilla event art to use in places where it wasn’t originally intended - for example, we might use the icon artwork from a military tradition for a flavor event, but there has always been a problem with this approach; many of the pictures were drawn at a smaller size and look washed out when used for events. Some examples of what I am talking about below…

Literally unplayable.

It was a noticeable drop in quality that was semi-immersion breaking, but we were grateful to have artwork in a vanilla style that we could use. But thanks to Pureon, this has all changed; in the next update of Invictus, most of the flavor artwork will be upgraded and refreshed, and the worst offenders, the biggest eyesores, will be removed - no more washed out images. By the way, Invictus has a “No AI” rule that we abide by, and we are proud that this has not changed; all of the artwork was manually created and edited by Pureon himself. Let’s look at some examples!

While all of this was happening, Rutabega discovered an interesting fact; a lot of vanilla deity icons were cropped from larger images that have otherwise been unused since the earliest versions of the game came out. We were sitting on a gold mine - I’m talking about stuff like this…

Guided by this revelation, Pureon went back into his lab and came back later with EVEN MORE ARTWORK.

Again, we would like to give our thanks to Pureon for making this possible. And since I am in a gratitude mood, I’d like to give a shout out to fellow devs Shinymewtwo99, Snowlet and Two-Coops for giving me some excellent ideas and suggestions for the trees I’m about to show you, Rutabega and Izn for their help with flags and deities, Julia for making the super cool cultural point “mechanic” that is used in Tree Two, and last but not least, an extra special thanks to Salt for their help with testing both missions. Drum roll, please…

In the next version of Invictus, there will be two trees available for the Macrobian tags in the Horn of Africa. The first tree is regional and available to any tag with the Macrobian culture, and it will lead you to a massive second tree. The last time we visited the Macrobians was in Dev Diary 48, so the region is definitely overdue for some more flavor.

Not the easiest picture to read, I know, but you will have the tree’s shape in mind as we look at some of the individual tasks. The purpose of the first tree is to build a powerbase within Africa as you expand to points of interest within Southern Arabia and Southern India. By the end of this first tree, you will have conquered the trade routes, consolidating its unimaginable wealth for yourself - that’s the plan, anyways.

The first thing up today is the optional task “A Lack of Faith”, which is only available if your starting Ruler has a terrible martial stat. Keep in mind that all of the stats for the Macrobian rulers are randomly generated when the game initializes, and the sight of a leader on the battlefield with a martial score of 0 is rare, but not unheard of, as awful as that sounds. As a tiny city-state locked in a struggle to the death with your neighbors, can you really afford to have a general with a score of 1 leading your troops? If you don’t think so, you can take the stability hit and spend some political influence in hopes of finding a more worthy candidate, but they might not be amazing either - such is the luck of the draw.

Whether or not you keep your starting King will be up to you, of course, but there is only one road forward - all of the Macrobian cities must be united under your rule, and from there, you will eventually be guided towards forming Punt, a Tier Two formable that is the crossroads of commerce and a formidable power in its own right. But forming Punt will require you to control a vast amount of territory, so there will be intermediate steps along the way to help you to get there.

Will you be the one to finally unite the powerful Macrobian city-states under one banner? All of the territories of the “Cinnamon Horn”, a region hailed for its production of the rarest of spices, will be fair targets in the wars to come, and you’ll lay claim to them all. And don’t be fooled by the name “Macrobian League” - your ambitious ruler will remain the power behind the throne, with a regime that is supported by the rich merchants living within your borders.

I’ll take a brief detour here to remind you that many of the Macrobian tags have fantastic heritages thanks to OmegaCorps, so you will really be able to focus on the exact playstyle that you want from this campaign. Here are a few interesting starts;

So much flavor already - and speaking of flavor, it will be a desire for spices that sends your armies throughout eastern Africa.

If Waaq is truly with you, then slowly but surely you will gather the resource-rich Macrobians together, consolidating the production of myrrh, incense and spices into the hands of your greedy merchants. At first, you will only conquer parts of Africa, but your economic interests will be threatened by the rising Arabian powers, and you will have to take the necessary steps required to make sure that you stay on top.

In addition to the tasks focused on warfare, there will be the usual infrastructure and development missions. Some of the historically important trade cities along the coast will be targets for your engineers, as well as your capital itself, so there’s plenty of work to be done.

You will even be able to take advantage of another natural resource that you have in abundance; elephants.

Over the course of the tree, your connections with Arabia and India will continue to grow, and your bold sailors will sail farther and farther into the Mare Erythraeum as they become more comfortable navigating its expansive waters.

Contact with the pirates living in the Maldives might prove to be a bad thing, but it all depends on how you look at it.

While all of the overseas expansion is taking place, your Ruler will take the time to honor Waaq, building a temple for the god and celebrating the traditional religious festivals of your people - it is important to remember what is truly important in life.

As the trade revenues continue to flow into your capital, it will become known by a new name, one that reflects its status as the heart of an economic empire.

By the end of the first tree, not only will you have formed Punt, but you will have conquered parts of southern Arabia and have taken over the Lankan island of southern India. A grandiose kingdom such as yours deserves a more fitting name, and in a salute to your humble beginnings as the Macrobian League, the “Erythraean League” will be proclaimed - a kingdom centered around the Mare Erythraeum that connects your lands together.

Leaving, as always, some surprises for you, we are going to start looking at the second mission tree, “The Erythraean Empire”.

This tree is the second in Invictus to utilize the cultural points system found in the Armenian tree made by Julia. Here’s a quick refresher of the concept, as well as a look at the tree itself.

This next image was definitely made on a phone, but will show you the various branches of the tree - green is Arabic, orange is Indian and purple is African.

“The Erythraean Empire” will allow you to focus on an individual part of your realm at the expense of the others; will you remain a mighty kingdom based in Africa, or will you build up your Arabian holdings and make the peninsula the center of your empire? You could even move the capital across the ocean to the fertile farmlands of India, if that’s the route that you choose. But focusing on one part of your realm to the exclusion of the others might have some ramifications down the road…

The missions on the far left side of the tree are available to everyone, regardless of which of the three paths you focus on, so we are going to look at those first, starting with “Warriors Of The Desert Hills”.

With Arabian manpower garrisoning your towns, you will be able to expand and hold onto territories far from your capital, and you will be rewarded once you can claim to rule over one hundred cities.

Over the years, as your countrymen intermingle and your population numbers grow, a new culture and levy template will be created, the Erythraean - one that reflects that fusion of the various peoples living within your realm.

With the Erythraean culture established, you could choose to end the mission tree here, as it counts as a final task - you won’t be obligated to commit to any of the permanent choices that are presented to you later in the tree, and could just do the tasks that appeal to you before calling it quits. Think of this as the “cultural victory” path, one without bloodshed and civil war…so I guess that makes it the good ending?

Let's look at some more tasks. The first branch we will take a look at will be the Arabian path. In the first tree, there is a task that deals with colonizing or conquering the island of Sarapis, which lies off the southeastern coast of Arabia. In the second tree, this port will grow in importance, becoming one of the most important cities within your empire.

Just like in the Armenian tree, certain missions will increase the costs of completing other tasks; if you start to invest heavily in building up the Arabian peninsula, for example, the cost of doing business within nearby Africa will increase.

As Sarapis grows in importance, it will begin to affect trade in other parts of your realm - a decision that your King must be ready to make.

As the Macrobian elites intermingle with Arabian royalty, the chance to join households will be presented.

With the waters of the Mare Erythraeum being yours to control, your Ruler will begin to interfere with the shipping lanes coming out the Sinus Persicus by aiding and assisting the pirates in the north - if you desire to expand towards the rich cities of the Persians, then this is the way.

As the power and influence of the Arabians living within the Erythraean Empire increases, your Ruler will decide to convert to the traditional gods of the Arabian pantheon.

If your King fully embraces his new faith, he will even be tasked with destroying the Temple to Waaq in Mosylon that your ancestors built in the first tree - a true display of your ruler’s religious fervor and a sign that the times have changed.

The next task features something that all three branches will have in common; choosing the location of the Erythraean Grand Bazaar. Once you have accumulated enough points, you will be able to construct a giant marketplace in one of your territories, and in Arabia’s case, it will be on the island of Sarapis.

The importance of Sarapis makes it a natural capital of your nascent empire, and it is a fitting choice; an island at the center of your realm that is home to the largest marketplace in the entire world, easily defendable and with an important military harbor - there are many reasons that have persuaded your Ruler to move there permanently. Moving the capital from the City of Coins to Sarapis will unlock a new heritage for your realm, one that reflects the importance of Arabia for your people.

So, here is where it gets interesting. By choosing to make one part of your kingdom more important than the others, your Ruler will cause some long-simmering tensions to erupt to the surface. There’s no way to avoid the civil war; if you want all of the benefits of having a multi-cultural empire, then you will have to deal with the attempt of some rebels to break free from your grasp.
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I left plenty of surprises for you in the Arabian branch, but now it’s time to look at the Indian content. The first tree took your armies and navies to the Maldives, where you quickly and rudely interjected yourself into the world of Indian politics by seizing territories for yourself. Your presence in India will grow even greater in the second tree as you build up the diamond-producing cities that you have conquered. There is a hunger back home for the gemstones that are found only in India, and as the middleman controlling their flow into Africa and Europe and beyond, you have every reason in the world to increase production by every means possible.

The more territory you accumulate, the greater the rewards.

As the religious traditions of your various cultures intermingle, your Ruler will eventually come to understand that Waaq and Brahma are one and the same, unlocking a new deity for your pantheon. Although you will embrace the religious traditions of India, you will never forget this divine revelation.

Your armies will eventually learn the fighting techniques and tactics used by the Indians, unlocking two new military traditions that will make your levies the deadliest in the world.

One of the most important market cities within India, Bharukaccha was a point of departure for many trade ships sailing west - thus, a natural target for your soldiers. Conquering this magnificent trade hub will allow you to build a second Erythraean bazaar, something only available in the Indian branch.

There are plenty of other tasks in India that are waiting for you, but we will look at the task that unlocks the Indian heritage before returning to where it all started; Africa.

The African branch sees you doing more of what you did in the first tree; making your homeland an economic powerhouse that is the envy of the world. If you stay in the same capital city for the entire campaign, the City of Coins will absolutely crush with all of the bonuses that you will stack from both trees, truly living up to its name. A peek at some African tasks;

If you remain faithful to Waaq in the face of many temptations, then the rewards will be well worth it.

Because the City of Coins rules the coasts and the waves, your Ruler will develop Aksum as a second capital, one that is inland and defends your interests and projects your power within Africa.

Once you have built up the infrastructure of your African holdings, you will turn your eyes northward, hoping to capture all of the important trading cities within your sphere of influence.

One of the rewards for completing the African branch is an increased mercenary limit, allowing you to always have an army in the field no matter where they are needed.

Here’s the heritage that you can unlock in the African path. Building the Grand Bazaar in the City of Coins will be quite the accomplishment!

We will take a quick look at some of the infrastructure tasks available to everyone that involves the development of your Erythraean culture. You will create a new written script to capture the complexities of your merging dialects, and you will even mint coins in an effort to standardize trade within your sphere of influence…there’s so much I am leaving out! It’s also very fun to see the various systems we have already added interact in ways that make it feel like a story is being told, like in the event below.

That’s it for now, so thanks for reading and talk soon - we are working on some very exciting content that we can't wait to reveal!

 

[Snowlet]

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!