Announcing: Europa Barbarorum
Greetings, Europa Barbarorum fans!
We have some very exciting news for you this week. As you know, the Europa Barbarorum team has been conceptualizing the mod we wished to create since January of 2004. In September of 2004, we began to move toward making our grand vision into a reality. While we have always shared knowledge that can assist the modding community, much of what we have been working on has been kept out of the public view. The team feels that many of the conditions that initiated this no longer exist, so this is about to change.
First, we are sure you will be pleased as we announce that the upcoming beta, planned to be a closed beta, will in fact be open to the entire public. We expect to have a smaller group of individuals we have picked for their contributions to the mod in our public forums, or a specific skillset, provide more controlled and focused feedback. This smaller group will have access to future planned closed betas past the mod's first release. This open beta may possibly be in your hands within a month. *
Now, we would like to introduce you to many of the concepts that we have been hard at work on over the past few months.
Economy and population dynamics
EB is severely limited in the changes it can make to the economy, due to the hard code that surrounds it. We have to represent many things as abstracts. However, in general the population growth will be slower than in vanilla RTW, and the economy will better reflect the economic realities of the classical age.
- Trade ports will be limited in size based on the natural harbor present.
- Resources will be tweaked to better represent classical value, and distribution.
- Wonders will be removed from the campaign map (including the severly over-balancing faction-wide wonder effects). Instead, we will have unique, historicaly famous (and accurate) buildings and structures in many provinces.
- Income is being tweaked to, as best as possible, reflect a standing army ratio based on our research. That is, given a certain number of cities, a faction should be able to support a given size army.
- Individual factions will have individual economic effects per building. Tax rates and other effects will vary by faction, based on historical attributes.
- A complete new religious system will be in place, based on the principle of 'patron' deities, and including as much of faction pantheon diversity as possible.
- An entire new building system is being implemented, with much variety between factions.
Expansion and the military
The military is probably one of EB's brightest achievements. While limited by the 255 model limit, and the 500 unit limit, we are quite proud of our achievements. Aside from removing the ahistorical units, and the units sparsely used and not deserving of a unit or model slot, EB has researched and devised a complete new military for each of our factions. In addition, many groups which do not fall under the faction banners will be included as regional troops, many available to varying factions should their areas be conquered.
All unit recruitment is defined on a per unit basis. This will vary greatly between factions. Some factions will be more difficult to play than others, reflecting the way in which those factions saw conquest of other areas. In general, units will not be as readily available as they are in vanilla, and it will be more of a challenge for the human player.
Our fleet system has been in development for some time. The ship names we released are not going to be represented as individual ships, but rather navies that are comprised of different types of ships based on the faction that builds them.
As a faction expands, in general each faction will have different building choices which represent how the faction governs the conquered province, or deals with the conquered people. These will differ based on how a faction historically treated conquered people, and will result in different recruitment options, as well as other effects upon order and the economy.
- Faction unit lists with about 15 unique, EB-created units each.
- Over a hundred regional/rebel units.
- Military ports will be limited based on historical factors.
- Siege weaponry will be vastly different than in vanilla RTW.
- Unit stats are heavily tweaked to reduce combat speed & lethality, and allow for true maneuvering on the battlefield.
- Unit stats are balanced across the whole system. Units are given historical strengths, no parity is attempted where it did not exist.
- Unit costs are abstracts, being balanced to encourage realistic unit recruitment (within the economic system outlined above). Armies should not consist solely of elite units.
- Units are given recruitment areas on a per-unit basis.
- Faction unit recruitment is based on historical areas, and the faction's method of interacting with conquered areas.
- Recruitment possibility of regionals is based on historical availability, faction attitude towards alliance/subjugation, governing building choice, and other factors.
- Rebels for areas will have appropriate names, unit composition, and some may even be especially recognizable.
Campaign map and strategic UI changes
You have seen a preview of our campaign map. Some changes will be made to what you have seen, and some cosmetic improvements will be made.
- A new scale of river will be used, based on topographical area maps.
- Resources and other map icons will be improved, with new models and textures.
- Terrain and climate is being heavily adjusted based on our research.
- Faction icons are being completely redone.
- The user interface for each faction will have a new feel.
Voices, sounds, and multimedia
As you are probably aware, the Voicemod is now a part of EB; The members have joined the EB team and are assisting in other areas of the project, and the EB team is lending its expertise to the voicemod. In addition, the EB project has a professional music composer working on a new score.
Unfortunately, we currently believe that music can only be adjusted on a per (hard-coded) culture basis, rather than a per faction basis. This may also hold true for the voices as well, which will make our plans to extend the voicemod to all factions moot. We are still searching for someone skilled in manipulating the sound files to assist us in this effort.
- All unit, province, city, and building names will be in the appropriate, ancient language.
- Family trees are fully researched, family names are being fleshed out with appropriate names.
- All six cultures (if not each faction) will have new voices and music.
- New splash screen, loading music, and a greatly expanded repertoire of historical quotes.
- New faction videos for each faction (where the capability exists)
Rome
Until such time where a unified Rome solution that is proven to be bug/nuisance-free exists, EB will continue to search for a solution that includes three Roman factions. Our previous implementation included Optimates, Populares, and Socii. These were abstracts, where the 'leaders' of these factions represented influential members of the particular political group within the Senate, and not an actual political leader. So the Populares faction leader was not actually the political leader of the "Populares" group in the Senate.
Since then we have gone through other ideas. The three factions may be called "Army Groups," or Proconsulates, or Consulates, or two of an above choice and the Socii. Our current implementation in 0.5 is going to be a test of a complete abstract - Dominium Romanum Borealis, Dominium Romanum Australe, and Dominium Romanum Orientalis. These represent, simply, an arbitrary, abstract breakdown of Rome's provincial holdings. Comments are welcome.
Should we continue with this sort of faction division, the Senate seats will be greatly adjusted, for both number and effect.
Proposed future enhancements
EB team members have proposed several enhancements to the EB project, to be decided and worked on once we have the basic EB release closer to complete. We have worked out details of these ideas, but are not yet ready to commit to them or begin work.
- Period adjustments, much like MTW's "early," "mid," and "late" eras.
- Redone and expanded historical battles.
- Multiplayer cost balancing patch.
We hope you are as excited by our plans as we are!
Cheers,
-the EB team
You can find more information about Europa Barbarorum in the following places:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=70
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showforum=60
* Note: All dates provided are very rough estimates, and not intended as a predictor of any sort. EB reserves the right to adjust this date based on our own schedules, real life interruptions, bugs encountered, whimsical musings, or for any damn reason we please. Complaints that we have not met an expected date will fall on deaf ears, and will likely result in derision and ridicule.
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Originally Posted by Sarcasm
Can't wait!
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