Will EB consider making 'custom' variations?

I was just wondering if, after release, EB might consider making a few variations on their campaign to suit individual tastes and so on.

For example, I would much rather play a campaign but both the Aedui and the Arvenii than with Pontus- who, fascinating as their emergence is, I consider rather pointless as a faction- another phalanx based anatolian successor state- I mean I'm sure you've made them a unique and diverse faction with some beautiful units, I just a great civil war between the great gaulish confederacies is more interesting and more exciting and important for ancient history.

HOWEVER, I'm willing to bet money that there are people out there who would scream and shout at me that in fact I'm wrong, there are too many barbarians, and they're only downloading it so they can play as Pontus which is their favourite faction in the whole world etcetc.

Soo, would you consider making (or at least endorsing) a few custom variations, for example maybe another where Corinth and Athens are seperate factions for the Greek-lovers out there- or a reemerged scythian faction and the bosporans for those who love the steppe tribe kingdoms?

I'm sure other people will do the things I'm talking about, and alter EB, but I'm afraid without the EB logo (do you have a logo yet?) I just won't be confident that it's historically accurate (which has started to bug me more now than it used to back when I bought Rome.)

P.S, I'm not talking about new units, I imagine that given the trouble you've gone to to create really accurate rebel units, you wouldn't have to create new ones, which *might* make it multiplayer compatible

what is this sudden burst of 'all teh successor states are the same' ?? im not an EB member but if you llook at teh previeuws, and if even half of what eadingas is saying is true, then: NO FACTION WILL BE THE SAME. all 'bararians' will have a different roster. as you might see (i'm guessing here) the Sweboz were more skirmishers, wiht almost every unit carrying a javalin and teh Aedui almost ahd no armor what so ever.

The same is for teh succesor-states Ptolomaics will have some 'native' units. Seleucids will get some persians. every unit roster is different!

but back On-topic: If it takes EB a full year to deliver teh full mod (worst-case scenerio) how long woudl it take to make such custom-mini-mods? it really doubt EB will have teh time. my guess is when there is a finished product EB will split up and do their own mods/ideas

mmmm, you misunderstand. This isn't an 'all successor states are the same- (seleucid empire s probably my favourite preview so far) it's just a 'different people have different interests and like to focus on different areas' post.

I don't want you to ever do this if it takes hours and hours, but I'm sure the team has a wealth of information on- to use my previous example- the territory of the arvenii. If the team even gave an indication of the territory they would have given to the arvenii if they'd had a slot, and the units each region would have received, then other people could do it.

All I'm asking for really is for EB to indicate after release the kinda territories that certain big but not included factions would have held so that those of us who would rather have them than one of the presently included factions can implement them in an historically accurate way. (or for EB to do it for us, if they were in a good mood that day ~:) )

Remember that with this new map- stuffed to the brim with new territories, you're never ever ever gonna get to see the whole map unless you're a big conquor-it-all freak.

I understand, and I would personally like to see some minor changes in the faction setup too, like removing thrace and the multiple roman factions in favor of for example the Nabateans, or the Bhosporians.
I might make some of these changes myself, but probally not :P

There have been on and off talk of 'side' projects, but really, it's all totally speculative at the time. It's all simply too complicated at the moment, as we already have a huge deal of work to do as it is. Maybe once the mod is finished we'll talk more, but that's a purely 'wait and see' situation.

On the topic of creating entirely new factions for mod variations: certainly not. At least not until the entire mod is complete - and then I think it would even be pretty suspect. Too much work honestly. But after the mod is done you never know what individual folks will get the drive up to do.

Maybe these can be indepedent mod projects for people who want to make provincial campaigns for EB. That would work out best, wouldn't it?

i too would love to see the arverni replace someone.. maybe ranika can lead a small team after EB is complete. :grin:

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Originally Posted by Big_John

i too would love to see the arverni replace someone.. maybe ranika can lead a small team after EB is complete. :grin:

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Who are arverni? Just curious.

edit: crap I see some information on them now. hah! sorry for the ignorance. (thanks anyway king)

Arverni were the other major Gallic confederation apart from the Aedui, weren't they? I don't think they will be in EB.

Edit: Wait, you're an EB member, so I don't think I need to explain the last thing to you. :)

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Originally Posted by NeonGod

Maybe these can be indepedent mod projects for people who want to make provincial campaigns for EB. That would work out best, wouldn't it?

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Amen. Given the massive re-visioning that is EB, it's almost a different game. And what could be more natural than people independently modding a "new game"? ~:cheers:

Modding a mod... there is a fine line between offense and compliment to the EB team to walk for the brave entrepreneurs that decide to undertake that, if you catch my drift ~;)



~Wiz

I would hope that any team would only be complimented by the fact that someone took so much interest in their mod to produce a further modification of it themselves. I would certainly hope that EB fans do so and that the team will aid their efforts in the same (or greater) way that CA encourage the RTW modding community (though obviously not to the extent of putting an official 'EB' seal on them).

I think the primary point here is that RTW was designed to be a moddable game (no, really) and so the programmers left a certain amount of spare capacity within the game files. In trying to mod EB that space will be largely taken, so it will be very difficult to add anything new without taking something else out.

I think NeonGod hit it on the head best with his talk of provincial campaigns. As we know, the official provincial campaigns in RTW never made it to the final version. With something like EB there's huge potential to leverage what the team have created in writing additional provincial campaigns which focus down on a smaller portion of the history of the period. Just like with the prologue, a new map, new characters, new starting positions, new events, a new script maybe, custom tiles, can all go together to deliver really satisfying spin-off campaigns based on the EB engine. And as they can be small and self-contained they'd be easy for a single person with only a few modding skills to complete and publish.
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