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As we develop the Romans, we are showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are. Though we have finally revealed every Roman Unit, Building, and Technology, we are continuing to present all of their miscellaneous extra features as we design them.

We don't have anything big this week, so let's just check in on everyone and see what's going on.

Up first, Happy Smurf has been busy working on the City of Rome. He hosted a Developer stream on Monday where he streamed his modeling of the Imperial Palace, which is going to amount to a cluster of unique buildings and monuments unique to that region. He plans another stream this Monday and hopes to work his way to the Circus Maximus. Tune in and feel welcome to ask him any questions you have.

Happy Smurf has also been busy in other areas. From an animation perspective, our Legionary model was not up to our standards and had been giving Phillus fits. So Happy Smurf gave him an overhaul. This change will likely be unnoticable to players, but it amounted to a fair amount of work and should make for a stronger unit.

Meanwhile, Chaos has fashioned together two new Capital City Buildings for two existing civs. As it turned out, in the apparent haste of building the Babylonians and the Norse, the original Devs neglected to make Trade Docks. So Chaos has fixed this mistake.

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This week, Chaos also has built the Etruscan Town Center, which should complete Etruscan Buildings. As mentioned earlier, this minor faction will be featured generously in the main Roman Questline.

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Speaking of the Roman Questline, we presently have 20 quests blueprinted and in some state of development. (The number is actually a bit higher because one of those quests is a challenge quest that will have 7 different, increasingly more difficult, versions.) Andy has been working on the blueprinting. The plan is for the main questline to follow the early Roman Republic from about 509 BCE to 395 BCE.

The Quests will bring players through the early Republic by following the stories three different heroes from those early days -- Horatius, Cincinnatus, and Camillus. Horatius was one of Rome's very first heros and is best known for his bravery in holding back the invading Etruscans in the years immediatley following the founding of the Republic.

Cincinnatus lived a couple generations after Horatius and was revered for centuries as the archetypal selfless Roman. Twice granted supreme power as dictator of Rome, he held onto his power for not a day longer than absolutely necessary. Cincinnatus twice snatched Rome from the jaws of defeat, led it to victory, and humbly set down his sword and picked up his plow to return home to his farm. His legend extends into modern times, most famously by Americans who refer to George Washington as a modern day Cincinnatus for his role in commanding the Continental Army and serving as the first President before relinquishing his power for the good of democracy.

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Finally, Marcus Furius Camillus, who lived a couple of generations after Cincinnatus is best known for his title as the Second Founder of Rome for his victories in driving out the invading Celts to secure Rome's permanent freedom.

While the main Roman Questline will follow along with the historical narrative, we are also working on dozens of side quests that will touch upon all sorts of other areas.

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Along these lines, PF2K has been making a series of Challenge Quests featuring Cincinnatus that follow the spirit of the Augie the Augur Quests from the Celts. PF2K has taken a novel approach to these quests: he has built a single, large quest map that will house all three quests. Each quest, however, will use only a portion of that map. So as the player progresses through these miniquests, each quest will use different (and sometimes overlapping) portions of the larger map.

In the quests, Cincinnatus first needs to raise an army of Legionaries located in small camps across the first map, which he will use to help defeat the big white Wolf summoned by the Evil Celtic Druid. Once the white Wolf is slain, they then attack a nearby Celtic village guarding the passage to the Evil Druid's lair, up high in the Alps mountains. After securing the Village, Cincinnatus tells his fellow troops to go back home while he deals with the Evil Druid alone.

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Once in the Alps, the harsh winds of the cold mountains will continuously damage Cincinnatus, so he will need to take shelter at the nearby Tents to warm up, regenerate his health and then continue his journey. On this final map, the disciples of the Evil Druid are constantly performing rituals to conjure more wolves to attack Cincinnatus, so he will need to take those out before going for the final battle.

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These side quests are based less on history and more on gameplay. Generally, they harken at Rome's overall hatred and fear of the Celtic boogeymen who lived just north of them.

This brings us to JilgueriN, RecoN, and lead Devs Ryddag, Kevsoft, and PF2K: we are very pleased to finally announce that sometime this week, we will be releasing the long awaited Adventures of Brennos and Commontorios. This patch not only includes this new (and rather large) questpack, but also a slew of Quality of Life changes and a new PvP Balance Patch.

We know you all are waiting patiently for the Romans, and we appreciate your continued support. Again, we have only so many hands, only so many hours, and a ton of projects in the air. We hope these new quests will continue to keep you busy while we keep working away on the Romans. We will be back with another blog as soon as we have more to share. (Hopefully that will be next week, though we reserve the right to take a week off.) See you soon, and remember to watch Happy Smurf's next Dev Stream! You can find him streaming HERE.

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Thank you so much for reading, and we will see you all next time!
Project Celeste Development Team

What do you think about this week's blog? What would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments below!

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Missed the Roman Civilization's announcement? Find out about it HERE.

Project Celeste is completely free and always will be. However, we gladly accept donations for our overhead costs, which are larger than we have budgeted. If you want to support us, you can do so HERE.

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