Preview: The Areuakoi

[Brennus]

An Appeal from the Europa Barbarorum II Team

And thus concludes our preview of the Areuakoi and mini previews of the new Settlements and Resources which will be in Europa Barbarorum II. We hope that the wait for these previews has been worth it. It is the subject of waiting which we would like to discuss with you now. As stated many times before, Europa Barbarorum II is a non-profit project; our aim is to provide the most historically accurate representation of the period 272 BC to AD 14 possible. We undertake this challenge for one person, you, the fan. Several years have passed now since we announced the development of Europa Barbarorum II. In that time a variety of other modifications for Medieval 2 Total War have been released by other teams, and indeed the Creative Assembly has released several titles. This has led to criticism from some fans that we are not working fast enough. We would like to stress that every member of the Europa Barbarorum II team is a volunteer. We have lives outside of Europa Barbarorum II which require our attention. Although Europa Barbarorum II enables many of us to share our research or improve upon our modding skills, it cannot feed us, look after our families or become a full time occupation, as much as we would like it to. We want to see Europa Barbarorum II finished as much as you do, and using this message we would like to appeal to the one group of people we need more than any other in order to speed up our efforts.

The paradox of Europa Barbarorum II is that, for a mod focusing on historical accuracy, we don’t actually need that many historians. Historians provide the information with which we fuel the mod. However, it is the programmers (scripters and coders) who actually engineer the Medieval II Total War engine to run on this fuel. Withoutprogrammers there is no. Europa Barbarorum II. This is where we need you help. Lately many team members who were responsible for programming have, for a variety of reasons, have ceased to contribute to the development of Europa Barbarorum II. As a result, and as you have noticed, the engine has slowed down. No matter how much fuel we may have, it is no substitute for the vital work produced by the programmers.

The remaining EBII programmers have graciously agreed to continue working on the mod. But the workload they have to deal with is such that, without help we cannot say when Europa Barbarorum II will be complete. Like you, we want to see a day when the Europa Barbarorum II forum is full of screenshots, AARs and discussions about the campaign, rather than simply speculation. But for that to become a reality we need experienced programmers. We need:
- scripters for tackling the large amount of traits in EDCT and ancillaries in EDA
- scripters for coding the buildings trees and complex recruitment options in EDB
- scripters for coding the campaign_script, where all the historical accuracy of EB II comes to life
It is important to have modders with experience in the M2TW engine, for this assignment, especially for the traits, which are extremely complex. We need people who are willing to spend several hours a week tackling these issues. We must stress we need experienced programmers; we do simply do not have the resources available to tutor people in scripting.

In the grand scheme of things, Europa Barbarorum II is only a modification, it is not an endangered species or a nation’s economy. But we think it would be a great shame to see so much hard work wasted, especially considering how much you, the fans, have supported us over the years. So please, help us.

Thank you for your time

-The Europa Barbarorum II Team