[Small Preview] 1.2.3 Campaign & Building Changes

[Dresden]

1.2.3 Campaign & Building Changes

Campaign Stuff!
No, it's not the Roman Preview (yet...) but this is a little treat for those of you who enjoy the campaign side of the game. In 1.2.3 we will be making a few useful and fun additions to the campaign and building systems. I thought I would highlight some of the biggest ones.


Change Capital System
- There is now a button that will allow you to change your capital to any region on the map at any time! You will find it next to your faction emblem. Thanks to Litharion for working on this really easy to use and intuitive system.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

New Resource: Spices
- An all new resource has been added to the Grand Campaign and Imperator Augustus Campaign - spices. This resource has a different system from our normal resources because it comes from region effects in capital regions. It is only produced in the starting capital regions of the Baktrian and Mauryan factions, simulating the Indian spice trade, and in the Sabaean capital simulating their ocean trade with the east.
- Eastern factions' spice trader forum building and the Seleucid/Baktria Satrapy Palace forum building now require spices to be upgraded past tier 2. However, they also now produce spices after tier 2.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

New Special Capitals
- Pella and Bibracte have been added as new special capitals for new Grand campaigns.
- Bibracte is the first barbarian special capital and has some unique bonuses for them as well as becoming more civilized looking as it is upgraded.
- All special capitals now have a barbarian version so that the proper siege engine size is used in battles. This won't change how they function or look, its more of a technical change to allow for proper ladder/tower size, etc. It also allows us to add different effects for when a special capital is barbarian, like Bibracte.
- We also added new faction specific garrison units to most special capitals when they are owned by the original culture. These include Rhodian slingers for Rhodes, Cretan Archers for Knossos, Athenian Hoplites in Athens, etc.


New Provincial Capitals
- Provincial capitals for all cultures now have new names that reflect various government types and allied state options in their provinces in the spirit of Europa Barbarorum. For example, Rome can choose between a Provincial Roman Capital, a Latin Rights Colony or an Allied State (Amicus Populi Romani). This varies by culture type.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

New Foreign Quarter Buildings
- Foreign settlements are now available in various regions that are specific to the culture from that area.
- These are only in the Grand Campaign for now and are buildable by factions of a different culture. For example, Rome can build a Greek Settlement in Greece, but Greek factions cannot. Some factions, like Egypt and Carthage, can build all settlement types.
- These buildings improve relations and spread the local culture but also have a negative if dismantled. They are relatively inexpensive and quick to build. Also, various AOR units now garrison these foreign settlement chains.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mercenary Recruitment Changes
- Mercenaries now have 25% higher recruitment and upkeep cost than normal troops. This effectively is a large increase to their cost but a decrease to their upkeep compared to our current system.
- We made this change so that mercenaries would be less of a temporary hire/drop unit and more of a permanent option as they were historically.


New Population Effects
- Some technologies now increase population growth. These can mostly be found in the economic and construction tech trees. Some factions like Carthage, the Successors and Rome also have bonuses to auxiliary and mercenary population types in their military tree.
- Various cultures now have different base population growth bonuses. For example, Greek cultures get a small base bonus to 1st and 2nd class, while Rome gets a bonus to 2nd and 3rd. This should help add some differentiation between the cultures.

[hoho96]

For example, Rome can choose between a Provincial Roman Capital, a Latin Rights Colony or an Allied State

Role Playing Intensified

[black_Viking]

great job guys as always here have a reo

[ThePoshBarbarian]

BARBARIAN SPECIAL CAPITALS!!!!
LET'S GET A RAIDING LADS!!!!

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Very nice! Good to see whats been cooking.

With the specialization of Bibracte, will there be a shake-up in the playable Gallic factions?

[Dresden]

No, its just a big incentive for the Arverni to take out their arch rivals

[Falco]

Great ideas, really looking forward to them!

[zogg513]

Woo! Nice addition. The moving capitals bit will be especially fun for the Diadochi factions.

Neat little fun fact for any Antigonid players. Antigonos I Monophthalmus, the one who founded the Antigonid Dynasty, made his capital Antigoneia in Syria. After his defeat by the other dynasts, Seleucus moved the inhabitants of Antigoneia to Antioch, a city he founded. This'll be a fun way to take back their ancestral capital.

[JCB206]

Great job team! I like them all! No questions, just ready to play!

[Satansblofish]

That small preview packed one helluva punch!

[Irishmafia2020]

OOOOHHH! This next update will literally be a game changer! Changing capitals is a nice addition for a small faction that turns into an empire. Does the capital location actually matter though? Are there bonuses available only in the capital region? I remember way back in Medieval TW2 and Rome 1 that the capital had effects on the public order, so moving it to a central location was valuable...

[Dresden]

Faction capitals matter a bit. The capital determines your trade routes, for example Sparta can't get trade unless it owns Athens - but now it could change capitals to a new region. There are population bonuses at faction capitals and your base income bonus is applied there, so its your largest money making region usually (at least early on). Your faction leader gives bonuses when stationed there. There are a probably a few other things it does too I am forgetting.

Its also just fun for immersion/RP value.

[Irishmafia2020]

I see - trade routes are a big deal - that could make a big difference! There are factions that I barely play because of their capital location and it's impact on trade (Sparta comes to mind, but also Armenia) so I see this as game changing!

[lequintal69]

By special capitals, you mean cities with special bonuses only? In the battle map it won't change anything right?

[Dresden]

We have various special capitals in the game - Rome, Carthage, Antioch etc etc. Yes they are campaign buildings only.

[Frosthammer]

Changing Capital is a great idea! I thought is impossible to do.

[Slaxx Hatmen]

Yeah this'll be great for factions that start out with sub-par capitals but can conquer walled,(and for RPers, more historically prestigious) cities like the Averni/Bibracte, Pontos/Ankara, Parthia/Ecbatana etc.

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

For a campaing-roleplaying freak like myself these are indeed some really important additions. I like obviously the feature of moving the capital to another city and the new building chains look also very appealing. That brings the memories of the EB campaign gameplay style and it's a great step forward for the mod, I believe. Congratulations!

Regarding the campaign gameplay changes, there is only one things I would like to ask about. You haven't, by any chance, figured out, yet, how to transfer regions from one faction to another via diplomacy panel?

Neat little fun fact for any Antigonid players. Antigonos I Monophthalmus, the one who founded the Antigonid Dynasty, made his capital Antigoneia in Syria. After his defeat by the other dynasts, Seleucus moved the inhabitants of Antigoneia to Antioch, a city he founded. This'll be a fun way to take back their ancestral capital.

Antigonos Monophthalmus had never actually been the ruler of Macedonia, and it wasn't until the rule of his grandson, Antigonos Gonatas, that the dynasty was firmly established in Macedon. In strictly historical terms there is thus very little connection between the Antigonids and Syria, just for the record.

[H-Khan]

Looks great! With Persians being able to leave their 3 plot capital, their arrows might just blot out the Rome itself! And with control of spices they might also control the universe, that stuff must flow. Well later on with Romans it might come in handy aswell, with Rome plots taken with the lvl5 special buildings you could fit your military academy into Byzantine and smooch out that experience. Also handy for merged factions like Hellenic league maybe.

[boblikesoup]

Change Capital System


New Resource: Spices


New Foreign Quarter Buildings


Mercenary Recruitment Changes
- Mercenaries now have 25% higher recruitment and upkeep cost than normal troops. This effectively is a large increase to their cost but a decrease to their upkeep compared to our current system.


New Population Effects
- Some technologies now increase population growth. These can mostly be found in the economic and construction tech trees. Some factions like Carthage, the Successors and Rome also have bonuses to auxiliary and mercenary population types in their military tree.
- Various cultures now have different base population growth bonuses. For example, Greek cultures get a small base bonus to 1st and 2nd class, while Rome gets a bonus to 2nd and 3rd. This should help add some differentiation between the cultures.

SO happy to see these changes! Thank you DEI Team you made my day!


Mercenaries
The biggest for me is mercenary changes. It finally makes sense to have mercenaries in an army for more than 1 turn. Does the 25% higher upkeep make the new total:
20% (base) + 25% = 45% upkeep (good imho)
20% * 1.25 = 25% upkeep
1.25 (higher recruitment cost) * 20% * 1.25 = 31.25%.

I must say that a 25% higher upkeep is not much compared to the prior 400% higher upkeep (and some people would still pay that).


Spices
Very cool to simulate wealth from the spice trade. This should also give those weak factions a boost.


Change Capital
Yes... Sparta, Pontus, and other land-locked factions musn't be forced to murder their neighbors for trade. Also good for Multiplayer - a faction like Seleucids are easy to eliminate bc their capital is so vulnerable.


Foreign Quarter Buildings
Great idea, but these effects seem pretty weak to me. I would never build these buildings.
The idea of anything hurting culture repulses me because it is so hard to convert as-is. Is there a bug with it? Can we maybe lower penalties? I own all 3 regions in Thrake w/ City as a client. I have a temple and x3 dignitaries spec'd for cultural conversion, they have nothing to improve culture. I am at like 45% culture and only gaining a net + 1.2%.

New Population Effects
Happy to see this. As Greeks I always have a huge shortage of higher tier population no matter what I do, and I'm not even building many elite troops. Also helpful to recover when cities are getting sacked.

My Wishes
-A little easier / more forgiveness to government type changes (-110 PO, 10,000 gold, and -20 loyalty). Kingdom seems waaay objectively worse giving a net -7 PO compared to another one. Hard to be a military faction when your expansion is so slow due to artificially enhanced PO problems (needing temples instead of military buildings, lingering armies....).
-Buffs to the useless agent skills. A lot of cool ones that never get used - would make me happy to be able to build and use agents in more ways.
-If AI traded with each other more that could be a good way to naturally balance out how the player can snowball mid-game when they have like 20 trade agreements for massive income + friends everywhere.
-Revisit to the military chain with the Training Field and naval researches. It seems to be so far underpowered that nobody I know ever even touches it. The buildings and bonuses alike suck. In general it feels like civic researches are better than military ones: can we increase the barely noticeable buffs or at least remove the upkeep increases.
-Lower upkeep costs for navies. They aren't that useful compared to armies. IRL a ship costs more to build than maintain relative to a soldier.