Emperor Edition + free DLC announced (RELEASED)

[Hooahguy]

BETA RELEASED! Go to post 12 in this thread for the change notes!

Big news!

The Emperor Edition will be released September 16th.

Watch the official trailer!




Watch the Rally Point episode!



So for those at work or cannot see it, I will sum up: the Emperor Edition is simply all the patches and free DLC wrapped into one, but more importantly, all players will be getting a new campaign, one dealing with the civil war between Octavian and Mark Antony. They also changed how building chains work so Im eager to see how this will work.

But the biggest change is that politics and the civil war are being redone! Instead of just a bunch of armies appearing out of the blue, entire armies and regions will rebel, and can happen multiple times throughout a campaign. Civil wars are no longer unavoidable. Gravitas is important because you need to balance it to stall the civil war occurring. Overall, very happy with these changes. There will also be a beta for this which we can participate in.

[edyzmedieval]

So yes, they've pretty much confirmed the R2TW Emperor Edition, which is free for all existing owners of the game.

The main change is the Augustus DLC - a single player campaign that covers the Wars of August. The Rally Point covers all of the details. I pretty much like the idea of more content for R2TW, it's shaping up nicely, it's pretty much turning into a complete game with all of the extras.

That being said, I hope for more content.

Thoughts?

[Hooahguy]

And here is a FAQ posted by Jack Lusted over on the TWC:

If I buy ROME II today (or at any point up to the launch of Emperor Edition) will I still get the free upgrade to Emperor Edition when it launches?
Yes.

What platforms will Emperor Edition be available for?
Mac and PC via Steamplay, buy it once and play it on both platforms.
If you already own ROME II, you will be granted a Mac version of the game for free, again via Steamplay.

Does the Emperor Edition contain all DLC?
The Emperor Edition contains all Free-LC and content updates that have been applied to ROME II since launch , including but not limited to Pontus, Seleucid, Getae and Baktrian factions, Wonders & Seasons, touch controls, twitch.tv integration, roster updates for Carthage, Epirus and Suebi, additional units (Hexbearers, African Elephants, etc, etc), new achievements, Battle of Pydna, new seasonal festival events and so forth.

If you already own ROME II and have updated it to the latest version via Steam, you will already have access to this content.

The Emperor Edition will also include the new Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack DLC. This is a brand new Campaign Pack DLC launching at the same time as the Emperor Edition.
All other paid-for ROME II DLC is not included in the Emperor Edition, but is compatible with it.

I already own ROME II, how do I get the Emperor Edition and the Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack DLC when it releases?
On launch day, your version of ROME II will automatically update to the Emperor Edition like any other update or patch (as long as you have set the game to auto-update via Steam) and the Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack will become available for you to download.

When will the Emperor Edition launch?
Very soon, follow us on Facebook, Twitter or check on the official forums for the release date announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Does this mean that once the Emperor Edition is launched, there be no more DLC or Free-LC for ROME II released?
No.

What will happen to the original version of ROME II once the Emperor Edition is released?
There will no longer be an original version of ROME II, all versions on sale will be the Emperor Edition. If you find an original version of ROME II on sale in a shop at any point in the future, bring it home and install it, it will be upgraded via Steam to the Emperor Edition.

What ‘s this about a beta?
There will be an experimental beta released soon that will test SOME of the features going into the Emperor Edition. If you are interested in trying it out follow us on Facebook, Twitter or check on the official forums for news as it breaks.

So Imperator Augustus Campaign Pack, what’s in that?
Like Caesar in Gaul and Hannibal at the Gates, it’s set on a new version of the Campaign Map (biggest yet for a Campaign Pack, with the most playable factions), and it’ll put you in the midst of the Triumvirate War that originally lead to the enshrinement of Rome’s first Emperor. Will you recreate that incredible feat or usurp that outcome? We will be letting you know all the details and features shortly, keep an eye on the forums and Facebook, also our Twitch Channel for some up-coming streams.

Some retailers are listing the wrong details for Emperor Edition?

All legitimate retailers have been contacted well before now and told to correct their information. If you have ordered from a retailer and you have questions about the details they are listing, please contact them.

And just to clarify, Jack also said that the politics changes will apply to all campaigns except for Caesar in Gaul, not just the new one.

[easytarget]

Sorry if this was mentioned somewhere and I missed it, but when is this coming out?

[Hooahguy]

They haven't said precisely when, but they said somewhere that it is very soon.

[Sp4]

Oh it looks like Rome 2 is finally coming out of Beta.

[Hooahguy]

Also it seems like the new campaign will be what the grand campaign is except at a later start date so same map and everything but just some new factions and stuff like that. Not sure if the Romans will start with an empire but we will see. There's a screenshot floating around somewhere, I'll try to find it later.

Edit: here is a screenshot.

[Sp4]

That is not how the CW is going to work in the vanilla game though, is it?

[The Outsider]

Yes it will replace civil war in grand campaig as well. I really hope that we don't get disappointed again.

[Hooahguy]

Politics and the civil war will be changed in all campaigns except for the CiG campaign as it has it's own unique way of handling the CW, apparently. That's what CA said.

[Sp4]

Yes it will replace civil war in grand campaig as well. I really hope that we don't get disappointed again.

Politics and the civil war will be changed in all campaigns except for the CiG campaign as it has it's own unique way of handling the CW, apparently. That's what CA said.

That seems pretty neat, but yes. I will be careful about getting my hopes up at this point.

[Hooahguy]

Ok so Patch 15 which includes the new edition is now in beta!

The change notes:

The headline changes in this beta are:

• Politics and civil war improvements
• Overhauled building chains
• Special regions
• Campaign balancing changes
• Land battle changes
• Naval battle balancing changes
• Politics and Civil War Improvements
• Civil wars no longer inevitable, instead they are now based on your level of support. Based on your support you can end up having a high, medium or low chance of a civil war occurring each turn. You’ll get warning messages when you reach those levels (currently a few bugs related to that). When a civil war occurs, all the generals and admirals not of your family will go over to the civil war. As will any agents in their armies and the regions their standing in. All other agents and regions then have a chance to join the civil war faction.
• Multiple civil wars can occur through the course of a campaign. There are now political support effect bundles. Based on the support for your party you will get an effect bundle that affects your faction. Very low support and you’ll get penalties to morale, public order, research. Very high you’ll get big faction wide bonuses but you’ll also run a higher risk of civil war occurring.
• Political action costs reduced.
• New effect bundles based on your Imperium level that increase political action cost and political incident occurrences, as well as giving your party more support each turn past level 4 Imperium. The effects of technologies that reduce political action cost have been increased.
• Effects of political promotions improved to give gravitas per turn and better bonuses.
• The first level political promotion no longer has any requirements so even basic statesmen can accumulate gravitas and contribute to the political game. Core general skills also give gravitas per turn. Want to keep politics balanced? Make sure generals from all the parties are fighting and gaining skills.
• The effects of wives have also been increased.
• New effects from Imperium that increase political action cost and political incident frequency as you gain more power. You will also gain more influence for your party automatically as you get bigger, making it harder and harder to avoid civil wars. So now it is perfectly possible to avoid civil wars if you manage politics right. You do that via actions, getting promotions or by having generals win battles and skilling up. But as the game goes on and you expand it will be harder and harder to avoid civil wars.

Overhaul Building Changes
The Aim
The aims for these changes are simple:

• Provide more building options for all cultures and more interesting building combinations.
• Make resource regions more important.
• Improve the balance of the late game economy.
• Balance food/squalor so buildings can be upgraded further.

THESE CHANGES DO NOT APPLY TO EXISTING SAVE GAMES
In order to not break/soft-break save games, the new building changes are only available when starting new campaigns.
Universal changes
These changes affect all cultures.

• Resource chains – have been renamed and their effects improved to make them more important.
• New amber resource chain – appears in some regions in German. Amber will not be a tradeable resource, but the chain will provide a good amount of income.
• Removal of military equipment chains apart from siege engines. Weapon and armour upgrades now come from iron regions. New horse resource chain added to buff cavalry units which is also exclusive to some regions.
• Universal minor industrial chain now only has mine line of buildings. This change has been made because of other chain changes for each culture that have added more industrial focused buildings.
• Splitting of industry and culture income types into manufacturing/mining and entertainment/learning respectively. This is taken advantage of with many of the new building bonuses. For example Gold resource chain gives mining income, and the Roman goldsmith lines gives manufacturing income and a bonus to mining income for the province.
• Garrison units now come from the core settlement building, ports and military chains only. The core settlement chain garrisons have been improved and all now include at least one good quality unit.
• No longer any difference in port and religious chains in major/minor settlements.
• Coffee machine now works.
• Negative bonuses now apply from level 2 in a small form so you can see what those are earlier
• Food penalties removed from lowest level core settlement buildings.
• Number of religious chains has been reduced for all factions so the remaining ones can provide better bonuses.

Barbarians

• Province capital core chain now splits at level 4 into 3 options which allow you to focus the speciality of a province more.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 4 for the same reasons as above.
• New Warrior Lodge chain added for province capitals. The goldsmith building line and tavern building lines have been moved here and a new proving grounds line added. This chain provides income/happiness along with providing buffs for your units.
• Artisan chain split into artisan and craftsmen chain.
• Artisan chain has bronze workshop, new coin maker and new horn maker lines. Bronze workshop line provides recruitment of all melee/spear infantry.
• Craftsmen chain has clay pit, brine distiller and woodworker lines. Woodworker line provides recruitment of all ranged infantry/siege units.
• Both of the above can be built in major and minor settlements. Changes should keep the barbarian flavour of recruiting from diverse chains, but having recruitment focused onto a few lines instead of being so spread out as it was before.
• New minor sanitation chain added, has 2 lines that can be upgraded to level 3.
• Storage pit line now provides a replenishment rate bonus for the province.
• Research chains moved from agriculture to commons chain.

Eastern

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the Royal and Satrap lines. The Royal will be more expensive once costs are added in.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 2: trade and garrison lines.
• Infantry military chain merged into one line to make infantry recruitment simpler.
• New military buff chain added, with ranged and cavalry upgrade lines which go to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted so it has 3 lines: adobe, new weaving, and new mint ones.
• New water chain, using existing windcatcher and fountain lines, available in major settlements only.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and game field lines.
• New tax chain added for minor settlements. Splits into tax and road lines. Focused on tax and agent bonuses.
• Herding and granary lines added to agriculture chain. Granary line gives replenishment bonuses.

Greek

• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and gymnasia lines.

Roman

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the civic and garrison lines.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and theatre lines. Special Regions

A new thing that has been introduced are special regions.Effectively regions now have effect bundles that give them certain bonuses. Currently Roma, Carthago, Pella, Pergamon, Antioch and Baktra have these effects. Rome for example gives +2 recruitment slots in that province for owning it and +15% to all income. Carthago has a bonus to commerce income.
Other Campaign Changes
Alongside the extensive building changes are a bunch of other balance changes for the campaign.

• Core income for all factions reduced from 3000 to 1500
• Playable factions get different bonuses to core income. Sparta gets 500 for example, Macedon 1000, Rome 1500. So overall Sparta will have 2000 (1500 base + 500 extra) and Rome 3000 (1500 base + 1500 extra).
• Post-battle settlement occupation options rebalanced.
• Iceni, Roman, Eastern and royal Scythian faction traits adjusted. Iceni captive reduction replaced with small negative to morale in enemy territory. Roman experience bonus for infantry replaced with +1 recruitment slot in all regions. Eastern experience bonus for missile units replaced with +25% ammo. Same for Royal Scythians.
• Besieger attrition reduced.
• Replenishment rates reduced.
• Biephi faction renamed to Apulii.
• Fixed inconsistent messages/outcomes for subjects (faction screen dilemmas).
• Fix for not all factions getting missions, subjects, incidents or dilemmas in all campaigns.

Land Battle Changes

• Units with precursor weapons can now fire at will when stationary.
• The pace of battles and combat has been reduced, and morale values adjusted so battles last longer and are more dynamic.
• Axe and shield animation set based on existing animations added to the game.

Naval Battle Balancing Changes

• Speed of all ships reduced.
• Ship artillery accuracy reduced.
• Transport ships ramming damage significantly reduced.

This is a ton of changes, this is crazy! Gonna have to wait on the beta though as it will break all my mods.

[edyzmedieval]

Hats off to them, they delivered on their promises to fix the bugs and do the fine tuning.

[Hooahguy]

Im still waiting to see what people are saying about the changes and how they were implemented. Though the announcement and beta release was only about three hours ago so I imagine the jury is still out.

EDIT: people have only positive things to say about the changes. Ill post a few testimonials from the reddit thread on this.

Playing from the campaign map feels mostly the same except for the fact that now I'm frantically checking politics every turn or two.
Civil war sucked before with a random mega army spawning with very little warning. Now with the prospect of actually losing my legions to the civil war, it's actually more terrifying.


Definitely rethinking my strategy. Used to, as Rome, I made clone legions, with all legions more or less the same, perhaps differing in regional support units. Now I'm strongly considering a mix of primary legions (under my family's command) and support legions (weaker, under other faction's command) so that, if I can't avoid a civil war, I at least lessen the impact thereof.


The implications will be different still for other factions where I have different army makeups. When I play the Greek factions I would have two types of armies: Spear wielding field armies, and sword wielding siege armies. Not sure how this will change things in that regard for me. Still processing things.

You've got to be more active now - the AI utilizes its infantry's javelins with a deadly skill. Playing CiG and getting stomped as usual. The new building chains made me think, though that might be due to novelty. A big up for the city lvl 4 requiring timber (barbs) and finally meaningful garrisons - even smaller settlements get a unit of chosen swords.

The new building chains are definitely a neat addition but for me ... The battles are massively improved. Hoplites don't feel quite so useless now that they have the time to react to enemies trying to flank them. Same thing for Pikemen and other slow defensive units. At the same time, fast moving sword units feel like you really need to conserve them until just the right moment. I really like this change, it all feels much more strategic.

Also the new Royal Scythia ammo bonus is amazing. Arrows for days, arrows for fucking days. You have enough ammo to kill their entire force twice over if you're fielding an all horse archer army. I love it!

With a single mod (Traits and Toadies, still compatible it seems) I had a battle of 2 full stacks vs 1 stack at a river ford (I was a single stack) that lasted 21 minutes. 21 minutes for around 5000 total casualties? Thats about the speed I like tbh

So for now it seems like its all good.

[Sp4]

So far it feels really really good. I like the new building chains and how it actually makes sense to upgrade a lot of things now and how the PO penalties aren't ridiculous at stage 3 and 4 anymore but kind of gradually get worse.

I've played a few turns in a Suebi campaign with a friend and I've noticed that I can now recruit all the DLC units, which I guess is a bug cause I've not bought any of the DLCs. I suppose this will be fixed in the full release though ^^

[hoom]

Very excited to try this out.
Some of these changes like structure trees, proper political features & battle mechanics/balance improvements are sounding really good.

Basically this Emperor edition = Rome2 as it should have launched if they'd waited a bit.
Giving it a bit of a PR push & new name for a 'relaunch'.

Hopefully it'll actually be enough improvement to get people playing it properly.

[Hooahguy]

They should call it Rome III.

[al Roumi]

This sounds really good but I'd like to know more about the politics side and how the player interfaces with it. Some of the changes to faction buldings and bonuses should translate to clearer and more meaningful decisions for the player - e.g. streamlining eastern recruitment to 2 (inf + cav) trees rather than 3 (inf + light + cav) and increasing the horse peoples' ammo (so you don't have to replay each battle).

If this proves to be everything it promises, will it be enough to salvage perceptions of the TW franchise and CA's reputation?

[Kamakazi]

I like the idea

[Sp4]

This sounds really good but I'd like to know more about the politics side and how the player interfaces with it. Some of the changes to faction buldings and bonuses should translate to clearer and more meaningful decisions for the player - e.g. streamlining eastern recruitment to 2 (inf + cav) trees rather than 3 (inf + light + cav) and increasing the horse peoples' ammo (so you don't have to replay each battle).

If this proves to be everything it promises, will it be enough to salvage perceptions of the TW franchise and CA's reputation?

I believe you can get a lot of ammo for archers and horse archers with various technologies and maybe temples or industrial buildings. I have not played Eastern factions yet, maybe I should give it a whirl.

[Hooahguy]

I believe you can get a lot of ammo for archers and horse archers with various technologies and maybe temples or industrial buildings. I have not played Eastern factions yet, maybe I should give it a whirl.

Yup, I read that now nomadic factions can get basically endless ammo, which solves the problem of them running out for large battles.

[Hamata]

They should call it Rome III.

:P

[Riekopo]

I don't know why they're acting like the patches and free content is a package. That's nothing special. I'm glad we're getting a free campaign. The building and politics system really needs completely scrapped and redone, but tweaking it is better than nothing I guess.

[hoom]

Coffee machine now works.

Perhaps CA has discovered a Caffeine related variant of the Ballmer Peak http://xkcd.com/323/

Though, I thought it was fairly well established already that Programmers mainly live off Coffee & Pizza...

[dge1]

Great news. Really looking forward to getting it.

[Hooahguy]

So this was posted on reddit:


Now that is a civil war! The guy said that 8 of his 10 legions rebelled. Just managed to grab victory from the jaws of defeat.

[Slaists]

gave the new version a try last night. playing on legendary, it is ridiculous how easy it is to keep happiness up...

[Hooahguy]

Can you go into more detail? Is it because of buildings that give happiness or is it just general happiness not dependent on buildings?

[Hooahguy]

Also there's a new update to the beta:

General Improvements

Adjusted pike balancing.
Tweaked mercenary and auxiliary unit multiplayer caps.
Fix for Hoplite wall exploit.
Added mercenary Dacian spears to Odrysian multiplayer roster.
Halved based political action costs, but doubled the increases from Imperium.
Armies on ships will now join civil wars.
When deploying troops on a land battle with snow, the markers indicating where individual soldiers will stand are now displayed correctly in yellow instead of white.
Increased melee cavalry attack.
Light Peltasts and Bactrian Peltasts morale changed to 50.
Removed happiness bonus from military recruitment buildings.
Adjusted the stats for the branches of the Roman city, Eastern city and Eastern generic town chains to give more clear differentiation between the choices.
Fix for Epona religious chain for Iberians giving the wrong culture type.
Fixed an issue related to politics that could cause an end turn crash.
Improved Campaign AI army management and recruitment.

I'll try to format that better later after work.

Also I think they fixed your happiness problem.

[Slaists]

Can you go into more detail? Is it because of buildings that give happiness or is it just general happiness not dependent on buildings?

OK, I rolled as Egypt, legendary difficulty (just to stay out of the way of Roman AI to see if they expand properly now). Within 20 turns, my PO surplus is +25 in all provinces even the freshly conquered ones; and I have barely any temples anywhere. On top of that, I am running taxes at very high...

I see that the new mini-patch removed happiness from military recruitment buildings. I only had 1 in my campaign so that was not really the source of the overall happiness.

I suppose, a big part of my empire's overall happiness comes from the popularity of the ruling party (at least +10 from that).