Announcing: Europa Barbarorum

[khelvan]

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.

[Pycckuu]

sounds awesome! great work EB team

[AntiochusIII]

Short and simple: Hooray!

Edit: Oh, and I support the Era's system. It's a great system, if anything.

[Kraxis]

Hmmm... Sounds rather interesting.

And yes, go for the eras. As far as I understand such a thing should be a cakewalk for the likes of you.

[Valens]

Public beta!? Yay!

[Armchair Athlete]

Awesome! Great work guys, should be an excellent mod

[Han]

hmm looks very promising, I bet theres lots of people thats just looking on, but supporting =)

[Kull]

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.

I too have been quietly following this project, and it's nice to finally see the EB kimono open up a tad. The lead post was most informative, and it seems the team has a great handle on almost every aspect of the mod - except the conundrum of what to do with tri-partite Rome. Your three choices to date seem to have been political parties, social classes, and now geographic expansion zones. For a group with so many historians, I can see why the EB Team would be eager to cast aside the "three families" pablum offered by vanilla RTW, but the alternatives look pretty unappetizing. Aside from the brief era of triumvirates during the end-of-republic times, most of Rome's history has been more dualist than anything - exemplifed by the twin founders (Romulus/Remus), the annual power sharing between two consuls, and the fundamental Patrician/Plebeian divide. But even this doesn't carry over to a game which insists on three permanent factions whose sole raison d'etre is to expand geographically. There's just nothing historic about that! So I empathise with what must be a sisyphean task.

So. In the spirit of no boundaries, no preconceived notions, pure Brainstormery (sic), lets look at some other options - not all of them new or original (and by all means, don't be gentle in your critiques):

1) Another group of factions gets the Senate: I've seen this discussed in many other threads, so the concept isn't new. And maybe there's a fundamental hardcoding which prevents alteration. But if not, the idea of a Council governing the Gallic tribes or the Greek Factions has more historical relevance than the way in which the current model constrains Rome.

2) Two weak factions, one strong: That appeared elsewhere in this thread, and may reflect current EB Team thinking. It has the benefit of preventing the unified Rome bugs that are paramount in your thinking ("first, do no harm"), but there's an air of artificiality about this too. Definitely worth fleshing out a bit, though.

3) Etruscans/Romans/Samnites: This might be a problem if you implement the "three era's" concept, but otherwise it offers an intriguing way to spice up the opening phase of the game. Here's how it would work: The game begins with the "Civil War" already under way, except it's not really that. The Senate has outlawed the Etruscans and Samnites, meaning that Rome begins the game at war with both (this may not be pure historic truth, but Rome was in more or less perpetual war with it's neighbors throughout it's formative years). The struggle for Italy consumed Rome's early history, and now you can simulate that, AND do away with the artificial "three factions" constraint. This also offers players the option of selecting a "Roman" faction (i.e. Etruscan or Samnite) that is fundamentally different from the existing "me-too" factions. A little spice is nice, plus it fulfills the dreams of those "what-iffers" who wonder what a non-Roman Ancient Italy would have looked like. Of course there's one major question - can you open the game with the Civil War underway? And if not, can it be "worked around" to achieve the same (or similar) result?

4) Romans and 2 Native Italian factions: A more detailed variant of concept #2, but the basic premise is to cripple the Italians so they can't be succesfull in expanding beyond Italy, leaving the "Romans" as the only ones who can build an empire outside the "boot". Ideally, you would have something akin to three Senate factions who maintain the kinds of tough armies that would hinder those seeking to invade Italy, while staying contentedly home until the Civil War, at which time they become a real pain - but only within Italy. This means the Civil War would be confined to a small number of intense, painful battles, locally confined. As opposed to the current ahistorical "World Wars" (yes, many - maybe even most - Civil War battles were fought outside Italy. However, they tended to be few in number and usually involved the faction leaders, and loss of the battle often meant loss of the war - none of which is currently true).

5) Senate = Religion: This is just wayyyyyyy out there, but would it be possible to take all the senate missions and pronouncements and give them a religious twist? So instead of pleasing the People or the Senate, the goal would be to increase the level of Divine Approval (maybe two jealous gods must be equally propitiated). I haven't even begun to think this one through, but it's pretty "outside the box", and might enable a different approach to the three faction problem.

Well, just some food for thought, and certainly I invite others to toss in ideas of their own. It sounds like a great mod, and my congratulations to the EB team for their already impressive list of accomplishments.

[khelvan]

Personally, I tend to favor the "two consular armies" idea, with the third faction being Socii. But that's just me. Crippling a faction so that it won't expand outside of the peninsula is rather easy, actually.

[Kull]

Personally, I tend to favor the "two consular armies" idea, with the third faction being Socii. But that's just me. Crippling a faction so that it won't expand outside of the peninsula is rather easy, actually.

What about the role of families? You still have fathers passing the office on to their relatives, plus there's the issue of "conquest permanence" - lands captured by Consul #1 always remain under the control of Consul #1, and his family. So it seem that all you've done is to remove the name of the family, while retaining all the other ahistorical features.

[khelvan]

We will have "family members" with surnames that do not match, and can change the text associated with faction leader advancement and the UI around the "family tree" to describe something different. Of course we will still have people being born, but the text at least will be different.

We're also examining how we can, if possible, have the Senate demand land from the factions under its control.

[eadingas]

What about the role of families? You still have fathers passing the office on to their relatives, plus there's the issue of "conquest permanence" - lands captured by Consul #1 always remain under the control of Consul #1, and his family. So it seem that all you've done is to remove the name of the family, while retaining all the other ahistorical features.

Exactly! You tell them, Kull :)

(this has been a sneak peek into internal struggles of EB team ;)

[Southern Hunter]

Kull,

Great brainstorming. I particularly like suggestions #3 and #4.

They seem really good ways to handle the inherent 3 families mechanic, if it is possible to go to war with these other factions?

Cheers,

Hunter

[Kull]

(this has been a sneak peek into internal struggles of EB team ;)

And not having been a part of those struggles, I'll make every effort to avoid criticizing that of which I know not!

But it does seem as if the EB Team has been very successful in weeding out most of the blatantly ahistorical aspects of RTW. And further, they have sought to stretch the limits of the game wherever possible. So I would just encourage the team to take a VERY hard look at ALL the possible alternatives to a tri-partite Rome. Your reach has been impressive, the existing achievements and insights likewise - so why not "go the last mile" and seek for a truly revolutionary solution to this conundrum?

You know what you want - a bug free, un-Senatized, unified Rome - so go ahead, reach for that star!

[Davros Vader]

Drool............can't wait to see the beta, great work guys

[Ferocious_Imbecile]

Yeah, me too...I'm not playing RTW until the Europa Barbarorum Team fixes up the mess that Activision made of what should have been the greatest game of all time.

Great work guys. It's inspiring to see so many extremely intelligent people from all over the world just spontaneously come together and take on a project like this in an orderly and competent manner.

Thank you all.

[Pintaphilly]

this mod looks fun im lookin forward to it i still don't understand the goverment thingy.

[GoreBag]

Your posts reminds me, Ranika. I watched something on TV the other day where an archeologist unearthed a series of bodies in Turkey, attributing them to be Galatians before they settled down in the Galatia area. However, one grave held the bodies of many young animals, women and children. Somehow, she equated this with the idea that these Celts were cannibals. I dismissed the idea, but I'm still curious; have you heard anything about this?

[Ranika]

Your posts reminds me, Ranika. I watched something on TV the other day where an archeologist unearthed a series of bodies in Turkey, attributing them to be Galatians before they settled down in the Galatia area. However, one grave held the bodies of many young animals, women and children. Somehow, she equated this with the idea that these Celts were cannibals. I dismissed the idea, but I'm still curious; have you heard anything about this?

I had heard about it (or something similar), but it seems he was actually a member of a specific Gallic cult that buried one's slaves and livestock with them when they died.The whole cannibal thing seems tacked on, I find it highly unlikely, and I doubt the individual who found them is much trained on Celts to initially suspect cannabalism as opposed to a type of ritualistic burial common in parts of Gaul.

[Mongoose]

can u guys send me the link to the beta if its alrdy done, if its not done, then whe will it b?

WHEN IT'S DONE

Nothing personal, i just love posting that . I can't wait either.

No one really knows...modding is slow and somewhat unpleasent.