By PF2K on Feb 15, 2020 at 9:31 AM
  1. PF2K

    PF2K Lead Developer
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    Header_-_Week_30.png
    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. This week, we are revealing the Roman Advisors that will be launching with the civ.

    Roman Advisors
    ===============

    Each of the original six civs have three Legendary Advisors plus at least three non-Legendary Advisors that are exclusive to each civ. Therefore, we are creating that many Roman Advisors. Though the exact details are subject to change, we do not expect many changes:

    Julius_Caesar.png
    (PF2K's Personal Note: Before you go crazy over this guy's stats, do realize that unlike War Elephants and Berserkers and similar units, Legionaries do not have Area Damage, so their DPS output in large numbers isn't as high as a bunch of grouped of Berserkers or Elephants or units like that. Rest assured that there won't be overpowered or power-creep content for the Romans! Also remember that these stats aren't final and totally subject to balance testing.)

    Pompey_The_Great.png
    (PF2K's Personal Note: As one of Rome's greatest generals of all time, Pompey was famous for his military genius. but "Above all, he was often able to adapt to his enemies.". I believe that bonus damage protection is a good way of showcasing adaptability in AoEO which is why I went for this effect for Pompey.)

    Crassus_The_Rich.png
    (PF2K's Personal Note: As my favorite Advisor in the set, one of my biggest inspirations for this Advisor's effects was the fact that he made a substantial amount of his fortune through production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases. I think in terms of AoEO mechanics, this is as close to manifesting this historical fact as it gets, right?)

    ===========​
    In addition to the three Legendary Advisors, the Romans will launch with three non-Legendary Advisors, one of which will be in Age IV and two of them will be in Age III:

    Mark_Antony.png
    (PF2K's Personal Note: You might be wondering why someone who looks as Roman as Mark Antony would affect Gallic Horsemen and not another Roman unit. Mark Antony lived in Gallic lands for over a year while being under the command of Caesar, after helping him conquer them. Therefore he's our best candidate for an Advisor who would affect Gallic Horsemen. You can read more about this HERE.)

    Senator_Octavius.png

    Gladius_The_Glorious.png

    We have been incredibly fortunate to locate a fair amount of the original artwork for the Romans, including the art for all of these Advisors (except for Crassus, which is the work of PF2K). Though none of these artworks were available in the form of Advisor cards, so PF2K had to create those as well.

    Some of these Advisors will also find their way into the game in the form of Roman Quest Givers. We plan to launch with at least seven Roman Quest Givers (found in your Roman Capital City, the City of Rome, and elsewhere around the game). Quest Givers always have a 3D model plus three separate two-dimensional images. We have the images for Roman Quest Givers but need to create the 3D models.

    We are just now creating those models, and we will wait until they are closer to completion before revealing them to you. (Of course, we also need to decide exactly what new Quests those Quest Givers will be giving you.)

    Other than working on Quest Givers, this week our 3D team has been continuing to iron out a number of kinks in the core civ. We still have many weeks to go troubleshooting.

    Recommended Advisor Loadouts
    ==============================
    As you know, players are able to equip one Advisor per Age in their Advisor Hall before heading into their questing adventures. These are 4 loadouts that we recommend you to try when you get the chance to play the Romans.

    Loadout_1_-_Caesar.png

    Loadout_2_-_Pompey.png

    Loadout_3_-_Crassus.png

    Loadout_4_-_Mark_Antony.png
    These loadouts are certainly not the only good choices and we are confident that you guys in the community are going to be coming up with the most optimized builds and Advisor combinations. You can check out all Advisors HERE. Which Advisor loadouts would you go with, and why? Let us know in the comments below! We are excited to see what you guys can come up with.

    Meanwhile, we have also formally begun playtesting with our PvP Balance Team. We will spare you all the gory details and spare the Balance Team the awkwardness of having their decisions picked apart publicly. But in broad strokes, in the first week of balance testing, they’ve focused mostly on the early game, such as the civ’s Age 1 starting resources and the power dynamics through Age 2. The Decurion (our Age 2 cavalry unit) is still going the bruiser we always described him to be, but he needed a bit of calibration to his build limits, HP, speed, and cost. He’s now a little less expensive and a little less overpowering, but still will be noticeably both of these things.

    Not surprisingly, the Engineer continues to be the focus of lots of playtesting discussion. The Balance Team was instrumental in the design of this unit throughout the last year, and they are still working on getting him tuned up. Notably, we have been grappling with finding a way for players to locate their Engineers easily. They are not Villagers and so are not linked to the Idle Villager button. But since they construct Buildings like Villagers, it’s natural to want to find him quickly and not let him stagnate. We are unable to create an Idle Engineer hotkey or UI button, so we are experimenting with some other ideas to make him easily located on the screen. Once we decide on a final version, we will share it with you.

    At any rate, the Balance Team is continuing to work through the Romans, and we will keep you all up to date here. Once we are more satisfied with the balance of the Romans, we plan to bring in some additional players of all skill levels to help stress test their tuning. In meanwhile, we hope to read your thoughts below!

    ========
    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!

    ========
    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.

    Read every Romans related blog HERE.

    Tell your friends! Join our Discord HERE.
    ========
     
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Comments

Discussion in 'Romans' started by PF2K, Feb 15, 2020.

    1. Aman

      Aman Woad Raider

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      Amazing work; and very thematic decisions - Crassus also reminded me of a previous blog that mentioned he had a private fire brigade that would "coincidentally" appear when fires broke out, exchanging valuable services for coin :D

      The load-outs seem solid... I do see myself slotting Pompey at IV across the board, but Ceasar also looks great and I agree that he will counterbalance the lack of cleave damage that is necessary very often... Maybe then Cowardly Colonel at III to focus on infantry, and probably Slave Driver at I cause Rome and slaves, you know :p

      Great work, keep it up :)
       
    2. MechSmith

      MechSmith Champion

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      Not gonna lie, Marc Antony there is looking a lot like Jamie Lannister, and somehow the more i think about that, the more i think it fits him perfectly.

      Ah, the Romans are shaping up so well, and these advisors are no exception.
       
      kyogo likes this.
    3. ZeZo

      ZeZo Long Swordsman

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      Great work, the diverse effect of the advisors is a good decision.

      I still think Ceasar will most likely be too strong since armory tech gives 42% infantry armor and by ignoring them you will get ~75% increase in effective damage and with the 20% damage increase it is nearly 100% damage increase.
      As for the area damage, I don't think it will be big deference since lancers and immortals have a single target attack and they are still powerful.

      with the start of pvp testing, it looks like Rome is coming.
      I hope you haven't forgotten the fact that most of the main units used in pve have been nerfed in pvp which means you might need to consider a pve balance as will.

      Great job and thank you for your efforts.
       
    4. Unknown Maniac

      Unknown Maniac Berserker

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      I like the advisors alot, Mark and Octavius make great combination for the horseman, I love Ceasar and Pompey, both can be very useful, Crassus is good for gold but that brings question: 'which units are gonna cost tons of gold?', also the carry capacity is not that great since you need a distance to use it. Gladius... well, I just can't wait to use some siege.
      For loadouts, I think movement speed is gonna be great so Andrasta sounds pretty strong, health regen for me doesn't sound good (well I play a lot of legendaries) and I would rather have training time reduced or something else. Also I don't like Zephyros.
       
    5. ZeZo

      ZeZo Long Swordsman

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      Maybe making Ceasar give a small cleave attack to legionaries instead of ignoring armor would be better?
       
    6. Pharos

      Pharos Champion

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      First of all Thansk for your hard work !!!

      Now some feedbeck from me:

      About Caesar: Considering, that Legionaries are age 2 infantry and comparing them to another (strongest atm) age 2 infantry unit Long swordsman I have a doubt that +20% dmg wouldn't be enough buff, (however dont know how its gonna work with ignoring armor) based on Garshasp advisor 20% not effective even for Cataphracts...

      About Crassus: Personally I have never used any other gold/trade related advisors (Beorix, Tahmineh, Zeno) other than Dumnorix simply bcoz with Dumnorix u dont rly need any... since advisor slots are very important especially age 4 advisor slot, imo it would not be worthy to use Crassus when u can easily substitute him by making other ingame decisions...

      About Pompey: not surprised he copied Caesar's ability! Pathetic! we dont need another military/damage focused advisor.. :mad::p:D

      Now if serious I would modestly suggest to make them:
      • Caesar Military focused
      • Pompey Technology focused
      • Crassus Economy focused
      P.S *Subject to Change

      With Respect!
       
      bbgambini, RacketyPurse and R3xjEe like this.
    7. Aryzel

      Aryzel Immortal

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      Advisors look cool, almost over powered compared to advisors in other civs, but testing will show that up and can be tuned
       
    8. R3xjEe

      R3xjEe Villager

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      fantastic work again lads really good work you dev's are doing.
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
    9. Fraxure022

      Fraxure022 Berserker

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      Very cool.

      I am in the camp that feels Caesar may be overpowered, but I see the intent here. I think he’s a solid design, and time will work out any kinks he may have. Legionaries are the signature unit of Rome, it’s important that they are viable in most quests.

      I am not crazy about Pompey. There’s no denying his effectiveness, he just doesn’t seem Legendary to me. Powerful but unexciting.

      Crassus is one of my favorite advisor designs in the game. I love him. So. Much.

      The other three are really solid designs, excellent work.

      If one of the signature mechanics of Rome is the officer system, perhaps one of the advisors should lean into that and make them better somehow?

      EDIT: Fixed my incomplete thought
       
      #10 Fraxure022, Feb 15, 2020 at 3:23 PM
      Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
    10. Aryzel

      Aryzel Immortal

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      To echo here something that Exalted said on discord, suggest for Crassus that the more gold be changed to caravan move speed (and lower % obviously) as more gold menchanic requires a particular market placement which means you either position for the extra gold and be less effienient in age 2-3, or need to re-position in age 4 and fix any broken caravan pathing. Also just finding the correct position is a pain as caravans don't linearly gather more gold with distance. So doing move speed means you get more gold, but don't need to learn extra market positions for romans
       
      bbgambini and PF2K like this.
    11. RacketyPurse

      RacketyPurse Champion

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      some new Roman Advisors or for example Marco Antonio being the mistress of the Egyptian Cleopatra, it would have been cool if with his use he would have been able to train elephants or camel-riders from the Roman fortress, it seems right to me that even the Romans have their support units like all other Advisors of other civilizations
       
    12. bbgambini

      bbgambini Hippikon

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      Shhhhh, can you guys hear that?

      The Romans are coming!! great job once again dev team!!
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
    13. ZeZo

      ZeZo Long Swordsman

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      I think the problem with age 3 and 4 economy advisors is that when you reach those ages your eco will be already good so you wouldn't need to improve it more especially age 4.

      So, maybe if Crassus reduce the cost of all units he would be more effective?
       
    14. ZeZo

      ZeZo Long Swordsman

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      Another possibility is for Crassus to increase the officers build limit since with his vast wealth he can hire more officers
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
    15. Lucas Augusto Silva

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      I hope it is not too late to make a suggestion, but many civilizations have advisors that allows them to train a new unique unit. Why not apply something similar to the Romans? You had to cut some units to balance the game, but I think it would be a good idea to use some advisor to include the velites, for example
       
    16. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      We aren’t turning those cut units into advisor units because the time required to make each unit does not justify the relatively small usefulness of advisor units.
       
      Lucas Augusto Silva likes this.
    17. RacketyPurse

      RacketyPurse Champion

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      it could be feasible and it could be a good thing to be able to share all the advisors that allow you to train a specific unit not only in the civi of origin but who may have the possibility of being trained by all civilizations as an example the mercenary Hippikon, without any discrimination so that all have their mercenaries
       
    18. MatrixSoft

      MatrixSoft Champion

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      Good morning guys, just for a bigger brainstorm, I would like to see the trebuchet, because we have Helepolis by the Greeks.
      Not only for the Romans of course, but I know that this is a lot of work for the gain, I agree with @Andy P XIII
       
    19. MechSmith

      MechSmith Champion

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      Trebuchets are medieval, and all of the civs are ancient, there's at least a thousand years between most of the civs and a trebuchet. it would be like seeing vikings with cannons or knights with machineguns.

      Also, advisor units tend to be tailored to their civilisation's unit lineup, for a unit to be even close to viable on all Civs, it would have to be overpowered on some.

      I would like to see Romans get access to Hastati, Principes and Triarii in some form, but i must admit that the devs decision to not do that is quite reasonable- they're not the right period for the rest of the roman civ, and advisor units are incredibly rarely used, because the regular unit rosters are varied and well balanced without them.
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
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