Europa Barbarorum Status
The Trivium Organization is proud to present: Europa Barbarorum, a complete conversion for Rome: Total War.
Europa Barbarorum is a modification for Rome: Total War based on the desire to provide RTW players with a more fun, challenging, realistic, and historically accurate gaming experience. Contrary to popular opinion, Europa Barbarorum is not solely focused on barbarian factions (though the name was derived from a desire to portray barbarians more accurately). EB takes great pains to portray all factions correctly, including Rome.
Europa Barbarorum is a community modification that has been in existence for many months; research began long before the release of RTW. All of us work on the mod according to our skill, ability, and desire. We have members who do historical research, make modifications to the map or economic system, create new unit models and skins, and a host of other tasks. If you are interested in joining this effort please let us know - all who have the desire to make the game better, more challenging, and more accurate are welcome.
Internal build v0.3a has been distributed to the testers. This release may be found in the EB protected forum. We will only release a polished product to the public; this includes enough content to significantly enhance gameplay, eliminate ALL bugs, and in general be playable and enjoyable. We do not believe in releasing versions that are "works in progress." To wit, we cannot give you a date for our first public release. However, we are closing toward that goal day by day.
Map progress:
Our current internal version is nothing more than a rearrangement of some of the geography features, the addition of less than ten new provinces, and several name changes and such to make things more accurate. Our new map should be released for internal testing in the next week or two. This map is both much larger and more realistic than the current map, having been expanded both north and east, with a large number of new provinces that should better portray the faction and tribal reach c. 270 BCE.
Those wishing for an even bigger map will be disappointed, as we will almost certainly not be extending it beyond the Indus. However, we are already rushing headlong toward the 200 province limit, and compromises must be made because of this. Our information comes from satellite photography, topographical maps, period maps, primary sources, and secondary information regarding the change in climate and such over the past 2500 years. All aspects of the map are looked at, including mountains, forests, the placement of rivers and fords, resource placement, and more.
Faction progress:
Our current internal version contains mostly cosmetic changes to the factions, including making the provincial holdings more accurate, several name changes, minor changes to family trees, name lists, and starting armies. In the near future we will be replacing two factions with new factions, one of which you may be familiar with, one you may not be (sorry, we're keeping this a surprise for the moment). In addition, we have plans for revamping the Roman structure to be more realistic.
We have made a decision not to fudge with the game mechanics too much in the case of Rome. Since CA decided to hard code the interaction between the Senate and the three Roman factions, changing this relationship causes very real issues, and we cannot replace the roman factions with others due to this hard code. However, we recognize that the patrician family system is nowhere near historical, and so we have a system we feel will be a passable stopgap until we can truly change the way Rome is depicted. CA needs to open up more to modders to make that a reality, however. Keep your hopes up, we are.
In general, not a single faction will be the same once we are through with them. A great deal of progress has already been made in overhauling them.
Unit progress:
We are creating an entire new set of units. We will be using every single one of the 300-unit limit, and even then we have had to make compromises about what makes it into the mod, and what does not. (Rest assured that all the fantasy units got the axe very quickly.) About 75% of these units are made from scratch, we've trashed over 200 existing units, and every single one we kept is getting a new model, skin, name, or all of the above. Nothing will be the same.
The release going out for alpha testing this week includes approximately 50 new units. Most of the factions have at least a good portion of their units defined. By defined I mean a name given, description created, equipment and clothing noted for our graphics folks, and historical info recorded. Our unit list for units waiting to be created may have reached 200 by the time I post this. Note that this does not only mean the units slated for each faction. You see, our groups have responsibility over certain areas/ethic groups, and we are defining new merc and rebel units for these areas. Some of these may be used for future factions when we have the ability to add them, but some are simply there to properly depict rebels from certain areas, or tribes that are outside of the factions we have made/will be making. As you can see we are leaving no stone unturned.
Building progress:
Our tireless mod team has defined an entirely new building system. While the way cities, provinces, and the economy is portrayed in RTW is very abstract, and very hard to make realistic due to so much hard code, we feel we're coming close. While we have defined a new set of buildings I am very sad to say that no work has been done in creating them, since we have no one willing and able to do the 2D and 3D work on our new buildings. So please, if you can do this and are willing to work hard, we need you!
Recruitment system progress:
We have designed and tested a recruitment system that allows us to define an area where troops can be recruited on the individual unit level. Thus we are able to make the creation of units entirely regional, except for certain factions that raised foreign armies. Originally born of the "homelands" concept from Wes's MedMod (we have several members who worked on the MedMod project), we are refining this to be as true to life as possible.
Naval system progress:
There is lots of hard code to deal with here, but we are working on an idea we think will make navies more realistic, and give the AI less of a hard time. Bear with us as we work out the details.
Multimedia progress:
Recently, the Voice mod team merged with EB, and became active members. This is fortuitous for both projects, as our skills and knowledge are complementary. I am happy to report that since this merger, Shigawire has been able to find people from EB to fill in many of the gaps he had as far as languages are concerned. There is still work to be done, but things are looking bright! Just wait until you hear a barditus!
We have a musician doing custom work for EB. We are providing him with samples of period instruments from the different ethic groups/cultures of the time, and he is putting together music. We are very excited by this. In addition, we have an artist working on a custom splash screen picture. We have not yet begun it, but we will have a custom intro video, as well as new videos for each faction.
Economic system progress:
This is tough going, because of the limitations CA has placed on us through not exposing the AI routines, and hard-coding much of the economic interactions such as resources, base farm levels, trade routes, and so on. We really need CA to open some things up for us to truly make this better and more challenging. We're doing our best, but the reality is that we may need to make one provincial campaign per faction for the human player to have a truly challenging experience. Unless, of course, CA helps us out in one of their upcoming patches. Keep your hopes up!
A bit of history:
Europa Barbarorum was conceived during the development of Rome: Total War, in the calendar year 2003. Members of the EB project wanted to gather historical information about the factions and units RTW was to depict, in order to help CA portray them accurately. Given information that had come out regarding the completely baseless portrayal of barbarian factions, the members had hoped to provide enough of a research base to make a difference. No one listened. So, the group took it upon themselves to make a modification using this information, and more. This project is the result of that determination.
In all things we do, the primary focus of EB remains historical accuracy. We believe that realism and fun can, and will, go hand in hand. Whenever possible, we do not compromise historical accuracy - we have found that so far, this enhances both immersion and gameplay.
Our end product will be historically accurate enough to be used in the classroom as an educational tool. The campaign will be both an extremely fun experience and full of information geared toward introducing new persons to the rich history of the factions of the classical age.
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Re: Europa Barbarorum Status
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
theres no deadlines or advertisement expenses running. 
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