Ode to Europa Barbarorum - Version 1.1 Released (Compatible only with Field of Glory: Empires Version 1.3.4)

[FrenchDude]

Ah nicely spotted! Next I’ll probably change the Boioi to the Celtic Culture (currently they are Germanic) and make the Triarii recruitable for Rome. Also need to change the Hellenic infantry image from an Hoplite to a Thureophoroi.

In my opinion, the Triarii do not need to be individually recruit able : they are already represented inside the « Legion » unit. The legion’s line infantry of the republican era is made of Triarii, Hastati, and Principes. In FOGE, the « Legion » unit represent all of these units.
If you export a battle to Field Of Glory 2 playing as Roma, you’ll see that your FOGE « Legion » unit is converted to « Hastati/Principes » and to « Triarii » FOG2 units

Making the Triarii individually recruitable in FOGE would be redundant

[Bercor]

Ive managed to change all of arabia to semitic, including the rebel armies that are in them (and also 3 regions in lower egypt to nubian, instead of desertic).
However, Himjar, Saba, Adramitae and Homeritae i have not managed at all to change their pop culture and the culture of the rebel army (all in yemen). The text corresponding to the files in those regions i have changed but it seems they are not working for some reason. I attempted to change both the scenario REGION.csv , and the main one in data, but neither worked for these 4 regions...

REGION.csv (d310GrandCampaign specific) https://gofile.io/?c=MO5iSa

Hmm... I’ll try to fix that!

In my opinion, the Triarii do not need to be individually recruit able : they are already represented inside the « Legion » unit. The legion’s line infantry of the republican era is made of Triarii, Hastati, and Principes. In FOGE, the « Legion » unit represent all of these units.
If you export a battle to Field Of Glory 2 playing as Roma, you’ll see that your FOGE « Legion » unit is converted to « Hastati/Principes » and to « Triarii » FOG2 units

Making the Triarii individually recruitable in FOGE would be redundant

Actually, if I’m not mistaken, the vanilla Legion unit converts in FoG II to only Principes and Triarii. It is the Alae, the unit supposed to represent the italian allies, that is converted to the Hastati. This makes little sense given that: 1. The Hastati and the Princeps were much more similar in both equipment and fighting style, so it should be the former grouped together with the latter, not the Triarii; 2. The Hastati are supposed to represent Romans, not their allies.

As such I was planning changing the conversion of our Hastati-Princeps unit in FoG II to precisely just that and create a Triarii unit that would also be converted accordingly. Of course this should also mean that former unit should be nerfed (which is in order for most roman units anyway, in my opinion).

What do you guys think?

[FrenchDude]

You are mistaken. The current FOGE/FOG2 unit conversion for Roman units works this way :

FOGE Roman Legion = FOG2 Veteran Hastati/Principes + Triarii

FOGE Alae Legion = FOG2 Hastati/Principes + Triarii

Hastati and Principes are, given the scale of the battle, represented as a single unit comprising multiple maniples of both Hastati and Principes, both for the Roman and the Alae legions. Roman FOGE legions translate to veterans Hastati/Principes to differentiate them from the Allies legions, and to show the superior quality of Roman troops compared to their allies.

In my opinion, Rome’s unit do not need a lot of modding, other factions (such as some Greek cities for exemples) could use more attention, with the addition of more units

[Bercor]

You are completely right about the conversion, my bad! I had even forgotten FoG II doesn't have separate units for Hastati and Princeps.

However, I would still argue some modding is in order. First, I would prefer converting the vanilla Legion unit to an Hastati/Princeps unit, not veteran, because it makes no sense that what may be newly recruited unit in Empires may translate to a superior veteran unit in FoG II, which also gives the Romans an enormous advantage (as if they needed another one!).

I get your point about trying to show the superior quality of the roman units compared to their itallic allies, however that difference could still be kept by converting the vanilla Alae unit to the Italian Foot unit in FoG II, which would be a more sensible way to differentiate them, in my opinion.

[Yaitz331]

For consistency, if you're going to switch country names to more native ones, you should also change "Judea" to "Yehuda".

[Wulfburk]

Done!

[FrenchDude]

You are completely right about the conversion, my bad! I had even forgotten FoG II doesn't have separate units for Hastati and Princeps.

However, I would still argue some modding is in order. First, I would prefer converting the vanilla Legion unit to an Hastati/Princeps unit, not veteran, because it makes no sense that what may be newly recruited unit in Empires may translate to a superior veteran unit in FoG II, which also gives the Romans an enormous advantage (as if they needed another one!).

I get your point about trying to show the superior quality of the roman units compared to their itallic allies, however that difference could still be kept by converting the vanilla Alae unit to the Italian Foot unit in FoG II, which would be a more sensible way to differentiate them, in my opinion.

Yep you’re right ! Could be a nice option, and would make Roman legions less powerful. But what about the « Veteran Hastati/Principes » FOG2 unit then ? Is it going to disappear entirely ?

[Bercor]

Yep you’re right ! Could be a nice option, and would make Roman legions less powerful. But what about the « Veteran Hastati/Principes » FOG2 unit then ? Is it going to disappear entirely ?

Well, the ideal solution would be to convert an experienced Roman legion in FoG Empires into a Veteran Hastati/Princeps in FoG II. However I don't think that is possible, given how the conversion works.

At the same time, a well experienced Roman legion unit in Empires will most probably (unless the enemy general is much better than the roman one) convert to a superior Hastati/Princeps unit in FOG2, which is, in everything but name, a veteran and powerful unit in the battlefield!

[Bercor]

Been working on adding new unit models/textures to the various factions with the intent of adding more variety between ethnicities and improving the historical accuracy of the unit's look (too many reused units in vanilla).

Here's a small preview of the Caledonian and Armenian new units' textures:










I plan to have a complete rework of all faction's units in the next release.

All credits go to Paul59 for letting me use his beutiful textures and units from his amazing TT Mod for FoGII.

[FrenchDude]

Wow dude this is looking amazing ! Such a nice work done in such a short time ! TT Mod’s Textures look amazing, can’t wait to try these new units that you created ! Do you plan or reworking the FOG2 unit conversion too ?

Congratulations for your work

[Bercor]

Wow dude this is looking amazing ! Such a nice work done in such a short time ! TT Mod’s Textures look amazing, can’t wait to try these new units that you created ! Do you plan or reworking the FOG2 unit conversion too ?

Congratulations for your work

Thank you! Well, I'd love to remap the unit conversion to the TT Mod so you could also play the converted battle with the same units in FoG II. However, I'm afraid I don't really have the knowledge to be able to make it work. Maybe if Paul59 ever decides to make his mod work with FoG Empires I could help.

[FrenchDude]

I remember that Paul59 mentionned in his TT Mod topic in the FoG2 forum that he might have found a way to make it work with FOGE, nothing is certain though. I think that he’s currently working on the next Tabletop mod update for FOG2. A TT mod for FOGE coupled with your EB mod would be fantastic !
However your EB mod itself looks very nice even without the TTmod, the unit variety you’re adding to FOGE makes the game look much nicer than vanilla ! I’ve always been a big fan of historical overhauls mods, especially EBII and divide et Impera

[Bivox]

Tried your mods . Really good ideas and good build . But I noticed something after your nation reach a certain size the decandence start to increase exponentially no good management or development of culture and structures that reduce decadence can help.

[Bercor]

Tried your mods . Really good ideas and good build . But I noticed something after your nation reach a certain size the decandence start to increase exponentially no good management or development of culture and structures that reduce decadence can help.

We didn't really changed anything in relation to decadence or nation management from the vanilla game, so that's really how the game really works right now.

[Bivox]

well now Decadence with lack of diplomatic options and tools to control it is very annoying . i hope the Dev are working on some sort of fix for the prob.

[FrenchDude]

Bercor, about the modding of the Roman unit roster : If the FOG2 « Veteran Hastati/Principes » isn’t used, perhaps that you could create a new FOGE unit named « Evocati » (translating as a « Veteran Hastati/Principes » FOG2 unit), representing the veterans voluntarily re-enlisting in the army for new campaigns.

This unit would have a much higher price than the regular Roman legio, and could have a scaled price just like the Carthaginian sacred warband. So this way you have more unit diversity while still being historical !

[Bercor]

Bercor, about the modding of the Roman unit roster : If the FOG2 « Veteran Hastati/Principes » isn’t used, perhaps that you could create a new FOGE unit named « Evocati » (translating as a « Veteran Hastati/Principes » FOG2 unit), representing the veterans voluntarily re-enlisting in the army for new campaigns.

This unit would have a much higher price than the regular Roman legio, and could have a scaled price just like the Carthaginian sacred warband. So this way you have more unit diversity while still being historical !

That’s a pretty good idea, yeah! I’ll definitely add that unit on a later stage of the mod. Right now I’m concentrating on (mostly) cosmetic changes from vanilla and I’m not too eager in messing with the unit balance and costs at this stage, as having to test it would take just too much time from the actual modding.

[FrenchDude]

Alright ! If you need help testing features from your mod at a later stage, don’t hesitate to ask help from the community, I’m sure that plenty people would be glad to help

[Bercor]

Alright ! If you need help testing features from your mod at a later stage, don’t hesitate to ask help from the community, I’m sure that plenty people would be glad to help

Well, from my personal experience, most people who volunteer to beta-test mods are more interesting in getting the mod earlier than actually give helpful feedback.

With that said, if you want to help me with balance send me a pm and we can talk personally!

[Paul59]

Wow dude this is looking amazing ! Such a nice work done in such a short time ! TT Mod’s Textures look amazing, can’t wait to try these new units that you created ! Do you plan or reworking the FOG2 unit conversion too ?

Congratulations for your work

Thank you! Well, I'd love to remap the unit conversion to the TT Mod so you could also play the converted battle with the same units in FoG II. However, I'm afraid I don't really have the knowledge to be able to make it work. Maybe if Paul59 ever decides to make his mod work with FoG Empires I could help.

Hopefully, I will be posting links to the new version of the TT Mod sometime today.

I will try to quickly produce a Global Mod version of the TT Mod for Empires modders to work with, along with some brief instructions on how to use it with a modded version of Empires. I am a bit concerned that many players will think this will just magically work with the standard version of Empires, and will start complaining when their games start crashing to desktop! So there will have to be a lot of warnings in big red font!