any update to dlc Aurelian?

[Happy_Gilmor]

Why not mix rectangular and oval shields into the same unit? That way, I think, would better simulate the phasing out of old equipment.

[Ahiga]

was an option but it would lead to differing shield-designs within a unit, which I think some people aren't a fan of. That being said I was going to do that for Vexillatios, so I'll see how that looks.

Ahiga's FOTE units were gorgeous. I bet these will be equally so. Just man, send us more screenies and spoilers! I'm ever curious to see what choices you make.

Thanks! Funnily enough I don't own Empire Divided Yet, I figure I will wait to get it on sale since I don't want to play it until my reskin is done. However I should still be able to jerry-rig up a testing unit_variants file in DEI for promo shots. At least temporarily they'd end up with DEI officers and standard bearers but I intend to do new officers, too. I updated the Transversal crests with a shinier metal base, alpha channeled out the little square affixture so it looks like it naturally rises out of certain helmets better. I prob will have centurion types wearing either transversal/horizontal crests, the shiny vertical metal crest (Though in an elite unit that may be worn by regular guys) and attila-CA's ornate ridge helmets (berkasovo and the others I forget the name of).

[zig&sharko]

DLC devided Empire is still unplayable...still hellenistic mercenaries in the III century next to late legionary.

[Satansblofish]

DLC devided Empire is still unplayable...still hellenistic mercenaries in the III century next to late legionary.

Oh dang. When you noticed that, did your client close or screen go black or something?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

DLC devided Empire is still unplayable...still hellenistic mercenaries in the III century next to late legionary.

I assure you it's pretty much playable for now. Do you have any ctd's or something ? After the patch 18 the DEI team updated the main campaign with new features and more a balanced battle system.
The new dlc's campaign will take sometime to be adjusted. I have played a bit though and it's quite enjoyable.

[Ahiga]

It'll take time to update the new auxiliaries and mercenaries. We can port over DEI ones, certainly, but even those would need to be eventually adjusted given areas that were only just taken by Rome in the 1st century AD become thoroughly romanized by the 3rd century. Honestly it might be a situation where "iberian Auxiliaries" or "Thracian Auxiliaries" are simply your standard Romanized Roman Auxiliaries with only cosmetic differences of shield emblem (and ethnicity). No falcata armed scutarii or Thracian Peltasts.

[Dresden]

DLC devided Empire is still unplayable...still hellenistic mercenaries in the III century next to late legionary.

I am pretty sure I removed a lot of the anachronistic ones already, mercenaries will only change in new campaigns. I am sure there are a few here and there floating around. When someone says unplayable I usually stop reading.

[Alannon]

Is there a plan to cosmetically overhaul the AOR though too? As I think sarmatians for instance or said auxilaries do have a bit outdated equipment for that time period. Or at least they don't have the more common stuff for that century.

[Ahiga]

Yeah I will deal with them too. My plan was to go Aurelian Rome then Palmyrene Rome or Gallic Rome then whichever of the two I didn't do, then the other playables and once all the assets for playables are done go ahead and do the AOR. It makes more sense to do the AOR last because the alternative would be "Go and do Sarmatians after Aurelian Rome, then return to the Sarmatians when I do the Alans/Sarmatian faction".

[Ahiga]

Preliminary test ingame. Cohors are going to be recast as Vexillatio Cohors (however you spell it) - polygot Vexillationes grabbed pell-mell in the chaos of the 3rd century. Those above them will be single units and thus single shield emblems. These are all Aurelian Roman.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

T1 Levies swords:


Gotta figure out why the guy is missing helmet/hat, that is not intentional. The decorative oval is smaller than I remember, and smaller than the "numidian" oval scutums next to them. They are numidian scutums by design, it's just one I did for the Numidians ages ago. I have diff scutums at diff sizes, need to figure out if that Numidian size one has no issues with clipping and so on, if so I can use that.

T2 Cohors Swords, now Vexillationes:

The same color as a primary seems to make it look pretty good for multi-symbol units. So Gallic Rome and Palmyrene Rome will have a similar predominate color for their vexillationes.


Going to be butts having to get sprites to work right. For some reason they are more noticeable in Rome 2 than in Attila.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

@Ahiga
Cool stuff mate.

[Happy_Gilmor]

Looking good man, I think the mix of oval and rectangular shields works well Though isnt it still a bit early for the wide use of ridge helmets?

[Ahiga]

The ridge helmet is dated to the 3rd century, I forget when therein but the Sassanians seem to have had it by mid century at Dura Europos. I tend to take a view of before and after for an archaeological find - Whatever the date is to you can safely assume it was used well before and long after the fact. For the latter I follow a rationale from how in the 20th century despite modern industrial outputs we still have guns upwards of a century plus in age still being used in combat conditions. I recall in Hugh Kennedy's Armies of the Caliph's book that mail hauberks were of a transgenerational nature - Marwan II's follower at Tell Kushaf in 750 says his sword and mail was inherited from his father, his grandfather, and his grandfather's grandfather. Meaning the mail and swore was in use before the coming of Islam and over 100 years old. I think in the 3rd century when the Goths invaded Greece Athenians took arms from a museum or collection, that or it was a similar but different case of barbarians obligating bringing out really old gear.

When it comes to the ridge helmet being used too early, I don't have as strong of an argument/evidence for it. My thought is it's safe to assume the relic isn't the very first example of it and you can safely assume at least 20-40 years before the date. So if the ridge helmet was in use at least by 299AD (since people say it's 'third century'), that would mean at least 260AD. I assumed the ridge helmet would be used more abundantly by those with rapid turnover of helmets from use/battle fatigue/travel. Part of the appeal of it being it was cheaper. Hence itm ight be more prevalent among the Vigiles, Leves, Vexillation Cohorts and less (but still used) among the Legio Cohors, Evocati, Herculiani and Juliani and Praetorians.

It also fills the gap because most literature describe the Niederbieber and similar one piece helmets being early to mid 3rd century, while they'll call spangenhelms and ridge helmets late 3rd century. So it begs the question what fills in the gap. I also take a liberal view on the ridge helmet because it's ultimately a kind of two-part spangenhelm, not an altogether complex or very distinct design.

I'm not averse to declining how many in those pics use it, I just figured they'd look more the part of a poorer class with them. I'm doing a bit of an arbitrary design choice to help differentiate ranks/tiers of units - I read that romans used a lot more pteruges for their mail/scale in this period because the mail/scale was often shorter (when it was longer in the skirt in the 4th century there was less need to augment the protection). So in theory the Cohors Vexillatio should have the pteruges. But I like making it feel like each successive tier is heavier, thus I have Vexillatio Cohors having just mail/scale, Legio Cohors having mail and scale with pteruges and long sleeve hauberks, Evocati/Elites having manicas and greaves. Even though you would have Vexillatio with greaves, Legios with Manica, ect.

Aurelian currently called by CA "Roman Legionary" Unit (T3). Representing a unified cohort rather than a collection of vexillations as in the case of the T2 Cohors unit. Emblem is custom design inspired by re-enactor and artwork depictions inspired in turn by the Dura Europos scutums. Evocati will have a design inspired by Parthica II with a bull and centaur shield decoration and are forthcoming. As always ignore officer and standard bearer, they are not done yet. As always it's a collaborative project with some armor by avetis, niederbieber helmet not by CA done by Caesar, Counterpoint of Taleworld's forum having still the best deir-el-medina spangenhelm model I've ever seen and included here, CA's own stuff, my body armor textures, ect.

The forehead issue persists because I forget to remove a certain face from coif-wearing VMD sections but I am going to fix that now. Coif references are inspired by re-enactors (who were inspired by) as well as the Dura Europos graffiti and later 4th-5th century Vergilius Vaticanus. Clearly that's a few centuries ahead but Dura Europos (3rd century in make) demonstrates it already existed by this time: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...le-The_Ark.jpg . The fresco I'd say is mail rather than scale but re-enactors have shown scale coifs are technically possible.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[thesmoosh]

Holy crap. I knew the DEI team cared about historical accuracy but this is a whole other level. Exciting stuff.

[Alannon]

Damn, Attila looks gorgeous compared to Rome 2. Look at the lighting and shaders. <3 Wish FOTE was finished as well as Empire Divided overhaul here, Ahiga.

[Ahiga]

That (both the previous preview and that last one) are actually in Rome 2 rather than Attila. I just ported over a selection of german/roman faces and used attila era models (but they didn't really have a major difference in polygons, just girth) as the bases. Far as I can remember I just use for lighting/visuals:

I'll finish FOTE too, it's just a case of having to sit down to do the not-fun and tedious work versus the more fun tedious work for doing VMDs.

ReShade - SweetFX Digital Vibrance - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...?id=1128847808
D.E.I - Graphics Enhancement MOD - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=734310078
R2:TW GEMFX - Graphic Enhancement Mod 1.0.9 - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=187199741

It looks like I didn't have the DEI one enabled so it was just the first and the last. You can also use that HD mod but my system isn't up to snuff to handle it. Kind of why the screenshots seem to be lower quality than what I saw on my screen at the time, oddly.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Evocati, with shields inspired by Parthic II so far as the centaur and bull. They are up-armored from the legionaries with greaves, manicas or long sleeves and/or double-layer. Long sleeve mail and scale is attested in period art, double layer (mail and then a scale cuirass on top) by re-enactors mainly. No real evidence for mail with segmenta that I know of but no harm in it, either.

Clearly in reality only front rankers would have greaves and such and regular Vexillation Cohorts and legionary cohorts (not just elite veterans) would have them. We can't depict via the game such a front rank bias, and I feel like there needs to be a more distinct visual cue between at least the Vexillatio Cohors (T2) to Legionary (T3) to Evocati (T4) than just something small like more crests. Past Evocati and the main visual distinction is going to be:

Praetorians - fancy raised crests, cloaks, and the little 3rd century pectoral (a'la https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/8e...47bf7ad612.jpg ). Possibly thematically making them all wear only scale. I'm a bit inspired by https://pre00.deviantart.net/8871/th...vs-dayxbsk.jpg with my attempt at that shield style (not the same, my lion is some scrublord copy from an ancient roman mosaic) and they'll wear different length and brass vs iron scales. They also have some of those fancy 3rd century helmets I forget the names of. Thiefhofen or something. One has the fake face on top, one is a dark iron with a dark brass and a knob crestholder.

Joviani and Herucliani - Probably largely the same as Evocati generally look but clearly with their respective shield designs. Which are not based off the N.D. but rather the Arch of Galerius:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://lukeuedasarson.com/NDiovianiSeniores.html
"The "original" Ioviani legion was a Tetrarchic creation of the last quarter of the 3rd century; Ioviani refers not only to the god, but also the senior emperor, Diocletian (in much the same way Herculiani refers to not only Hercules, but the junior Augustus, Maximian). Interestingly, the Arch of Galerius (another of the Tetrarchs, who was identified with Mars), shows two shield patterns that apparently belong to the Ioviani and Herculiani units: one shows an image of Hercules (readily identifiable by his club and lion skin); the other, depicted below, shows an eagle." - His Herculiani page has the Herculiani photo I used in this pic

Depictions of the shields when I have a reference as here for Joves and Herks is limited by: My photoshop abilities to manipulate photos or mosaics and the like to make them look painted, the availability of ancient Roman (or Greek if passable) images to use, and also just how well I think it looks. I jazzed up the Herculiani because of how bland just hercules naked (which is itself is https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ini_MC1265.jpg manipulated to look flesh-painted with a beard to match the Galerius arch), and I will probably do the same for the Jovians for how plain just an eagle with thunderbolts is.

I don't know what the inspiration for the artist was for the Praetorian shield, like I mention I might shift them back to a more authentic 1st century AD design and save that neat design for another unit, but I am not inclined to do so at present. If someone has a sense of what a 3rd to early 4th century Praetorian shield might have looked like I am all ears.

Also the more oval and smaller shield proportions are ultimately a compromise due to animations in R2/Attila. Any larger on a width axis and any time the soldier is combat-ready (hunched over, sword held ready for battle) the sword or spear will clip all the time with the shield. Plus I can't access 3dsmax anymore so I can't edit the shield shape if I wanted to.

I am also about to make the coifs a bit less abundant. VMDs tend to only draw from 5 VMDs per category. So if you have a slot = helmet, you are limited to 5 Sub VMDs. I have three soldier VMDs within the Evocati VMD at present - one is coifed armor, one is segmentata/longsleeve scale/longsleeve mail, one is 2 shortsleeve scale/2 shortsleeve mail/1 longsleeve mail. Meaning 1/3rd of all guys in that screenshot are coifed. I'm going to change it so 1/5 are coiffed, the rest are helmeted.

[Dardo21]

Damn, looks great, and I love the idea of combining mail with scale/segementata, reminds me of medieval knights too.

[MRV92RUS]

Man, it is great! Really great! Can not wait for this. I'll just wait for update with this cool stuff then I 'll play dlc. I hope it will be not so long) Thank u & good luck!

[Geralt of Rivia]

Hello Ahiga! Your works is masterpiece! I really want to play ED with your reskin.

And I have a question about equipment. What about this type of shield? Will you use it?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Jason Wolf]

Are there plans on making numbered Legions?

Are there plans on making numbered Legions?

Sorry for the double post.