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229 BC: Paced campaign (DEI)

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This mod pace campaign difficulty to better suit early, mid and late game, as-well as introducing more strategic campaign aspects to the game. Overall, it is harder than vanilla DEI and should provide a more challenging campaign experience.

Features:

Start date is 229 BC.

The campaign is set during the first Illyrian and Cleomenean war and shortly before the Gallic and 2 Punic war breaks out. Reforms occur later, but closer to the their historical implementation.

- Rome has secured the Italian peninsular and established a foothold on Sardinia and Sicily.
- Rome have negotiated trade with Pergamon and non aggression pacts with Massilia and Veniti
- Ardiaei, now led by queen Teuta is at war with Rome and have forced Epirus into allegiance.
- Carthage, now led by Hannibal Barca and his brothers have been focused on consolidating their gains and influence on the Iberian peninsula and are are moving north.
- Macedon have expanded and are at war with the Aetolian league who is allied with Sparta.
- The Seleucid Empire have seized Syria, but has lost influence in Anatolia.
- Relations between Pergamon and Galatia have deteriorated which has led to war.
- The Boii tribe have migrated southwards and secured relations with the the Raeti, Insurbres and Liguria and are mustering somewhere in Cisalpine Gaul.
- Baktria and Parthia have expanded and consolidated their possessions in the far east.
- Many major and strong/connector factions start with more developed armies, capitals, economy and technologies

Roman Polybian reforms will occur at turn 2 (228 BC), Marian reforms at turn 400 (128 BC) and imperium level 6, Imperial reforms at turn 800 (28 BC) and imperium level 8. Cleomenean/greek thureos reforms occur at turn 20 (225 BC), greek thorax reforms occour at turn 220 (174 BC). Global thureos reforms occur at turn 40 while global thorax reforms occur at turn 240. All other faction reforms have been changed accordingly, everything can be reviewed in game in the technology tab for each faction.

Building/Tech cost and time have been altered so starting building and techs will be quicker to finish while later buildings and techs will take longer to finish.

- Consistent economy with dynamic campaign challenges

Building effects have been revised, less focus on public order penalties, more focus on squalor, banditry and building upkeep. Many additional effects/modifiers have also been introduced.
As an example, food buildings will no longer cripple provincial public order, but can incur banditry and squalor penalties that will have to be mitigated. In general it should be more possible to compliment various building types with each other. Growth and replenishment are now more tied to seasons/PO/buildings/stances and more.

The initial empire maintenance debuff is less significant, instead corruption gets more impactful with expansion.

Low, minimal and normal tax rate will have less PO penalties, high tax rate will suffer more penalties, and extortionate tax very hard to maintain without having local armies present with investments towards PO.
Banditry have also been directly tied to tax rate which means that maintaining high taxes for long periods increase the chance that taxes and food will be stolen at provincial levels.

- Army, governance, seasonal and provincial public order effects

There are more penalties and benefits associated with seasonal and provincial PO effects, e.g. now winter and harsh seasonal condition will have a bigger impact on replenishment, growth and public order, food among other things, while PO in provinces affect banditry, tax, upkeep and more to a higher degree.

Imperium and government effect have been redone and there is now more emphasis on a balancing corruption with unit upkeep. Imperium effects from 1-5 are less harsh but when reaching imperium level 5 they will start to become considerable more impactful. As a faction grows it will become harder to avoid secession or all out civil war, while also more beneficial to change governance later in the campaign. In this regard, there are more choice/benefits for government types to suit militarist, tradecentric or expansionist governance styles.

Logistics and Army stances now have a bigger impact on army upkeep among other things. Armies encamped in friendly territory will be cheaper to maintain and feed than armies on enemy territory with unsecured supply lines. This effectively means that campaigning is much more expensive now.

During the roman era, rapid fort construction were a vital part of Roman warfare and one of main reasons the Romans were so successful in both conquering and holding new territory.

To mimic this, the fortifications and the fortify stance in particular is now more useful, both in defensive and offensive actions. This include significant upkeep/logistics benefits in fortify stance as-well as placeable fortification being made available in most other stances. Army stance effects are also more varied across cultures. Additionally, deployable fortification walls have been made impervious to fire which result in less fps drops.

- Turn based recruitment

Units will take between 1-4 turn to be recruited depending on type and occupation, levy and peasant units will take 1 turn to recruit, dedicated warrior units 2 turns, elite units 3 turns and royal/top tier units 4 turns. There are a number of exceptions to this logic however.
For example auxiliary and and area of recruitment elite units will generally be faster to recruit than dedicated factions elite units. Also certain units like volunteer legionaries will be faster to recruit.

Unit upkeep and recruitment cost have been adjusted overall. Elite and general units are now much more expensive to employ and maintain compared to levy troops. Mercenaries are now cheaper to employ but more expensive to maintain compared to regular troops. Additionally, AOR and AUX troops will be cheaper to employ and maintain compared to faction troops

Units will become more capable as they earn chevrons, however, promotions will be gradually slower as units earn more chevrons. Additionally replenishment is slower and tied to provincial, seasonal and other effects as-well. This means that loosing a substantial amount of highly experience units will have a much greater effect of the effectiveness of that unit both short and long term, thereby increasing the risk/reward of committing experienced units to dangerous/critical engagements.

Additional changes

- New auto Resolve script modified from AoH details can be found in changelog 3 Jan 2025.
- Roman/Greek world equipment influence: Most Roman+aux/aor and Greek units include varied Roman/Greek equipment.
- Unit revisions: Roman marian/imperial military units have slightly better morale, gladiators are few in number but lethal shock troops.
- First cohorts and praetorian are much more expensive (twice the men/greedy bodyguards) but are also more capable compared to regular legionaries.
- Hastati now upgrade into volunteer legionaries while rorarii upgrades into vigiles.
- Better garrison units: More morale and defence for all garrison units, more so high tier garrison units
- Ammo and damage changes: Javalin units have less ammo but do more damage including ap (good short term shock damage) bow/slinger units have more ammo (more dangerous attrition units)

- Many other balance, qol changes

Complimentary mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2629312123 (Better general recruitment)

Credits:

Seleukos.I.Nikator for the Seleucid Rebel Script and Auto-Resolve Bonus Script.
Profundis mod for inspiration and some revised tables used in this mod.
DEI Mod team especially Dresden and Jake Armitage for their campaign creation tutorials and general expertise.