Weekly Blog #35: Roman Campaign Details - Part 3

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Nice to hear the next patch! Keep up the hard work!

 

when will come rome ?

 

when it is possible that a demo of a quest will be released such as:
it would be very useful and instructive to learn about troops and structures

 

when it is possible that a demo of a quest will be released such as:
it would be very useful and instructive to learn about troops and structures

The Romans will have a full tutorial like Greeks, Egyptians and Celts and therefore will not have a demo quest like the pro civilizations.

 

Plot twist: Evil Druid IS Augie the Augur!!!

For real though, sounds like you all have a ton on your plate but it sounds amazing so far. I like the novel approach P is taking with 1 quest map for 3 quests. Keep taking as many novel approaches as possible!

Also the Etruscans look amazing even for a minor faction, and man I am more hype than I should be for Norse and Babylonian trade docks. Will we be able to build them in the capital like Celt ones?

 

Yessss! These types of quests remind me a lot of how AoE:II quests worked. Replaying historical events, following an historical character as they garner support...awesome stuff; I'm excited.

 

¡YEY! MORE AUGIE-LIKE QUESTS!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS I LOVE THOSE ONES!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!

I'm also looking forward to the Brennos' quests owo.

I know I'm probably being repetitive but you guys are simply amazing. Not only from a development perspective but also at handling communication (which is nice as a change of pace from commercial developers) keep up with the good work

 

Awesome work all, excited for Brennos and Rome is going to be crazy good!!

 

I asked this before but nobody answered so I'm going to ask it again.

every civilization has its own unique soundtrack, so will the Romans have their own soundtrack, or do you not have someone who's good with music?

 

when will come rome ?

I asked this very question a while ago and a dev answered me, I was told it would be released Sometime in late summer.

 

I asked this before but nobody answered so I'm going to ask it again.

every civilization has its own unique soundtrack, so will the Romans have their own soundtrack, or do you not have someone who's good with music?

They will.

 

It is known that before the Marian reforms, the Roman infantry was divided into hastati, princeps and triari, and it was only after these reforms that we had the standard soldier (legionary). I would like to know if this could be reflected in the appearance of the equipment used by the legionary, for example the copper gear look like a hastati, bronze gerar look like a princeps, and the iron onwards like the legionnaire after the Marian reforms ...

 

Shields tend to stay overall the same regardless of what you unit you put it on, will you be making a new Roman Style Shield to fit in with the other Shield styles?

 

Not trying to be a wet blanket on all the FANTASTIC work y'all are doing, but...

Your original post states: "The plan is for the main questline to follow the early Roman Republic from about 509 BCE to 395 BCE." Though I am excited about the selection of the era and the content, the quest map reads: "Travel across Italy and help Caesar rebuild the Roman Empire."

Maybe I'm missing something, but what role did Julius Caesar (or later Caesars) play in the early Roman Republic? Julius Caesar was assassinated MUCH later, in 44 B.C., and the Roman Empire did not rise until the rule of Augustus Caesar in 31 B.C. (Battle of Actium) or 27 B.C. (declaration as princep, never emperor). This seems a historical mix-up.

I noticed many of the units, buildings, and advisors are from the later Roman Empire. Is this historical mash-up intentional? Sorry, Latin scholar here. Ab ovo usque ad mala...

 

Have you recorded the voice clips for the Roman units or are you leaving that as a later step.

 

Not trying to be a wet blanket on all the FANTASTIC work y'all are doing, but...

Your original post states: "The plan is for the main questline to follow the early Roman Republic from about 509 BCE to 395 BCE." Though I am excited about the selection of the era and the content, the quest map reads: "Travel across Italy and help Caesar rebuild the Roman Empire."

Maybe I'm missing something, but what role did Julius Caesar (or later Caesars) play in the early Roman Republic? Julius Caesar was assassinated MUCH later, in 44 B.C., and the Roman Empire did not rise until the rule of Augustus Caesar in 31 B.C. (Battle of Actium) or 27 B.C. (declaration as princep, never emperor). This seems a historical mix-up.

I noticed many of the units, buildings, and advisors are from the later Roman Empire. Is this historical mash-up intentional? Sorry, Latin scholar here. Ab ovo usque ad mala...

There are Norsemen invading Greece, Celts wielding long swords before they were invented, and Egyptians around Argos fighting sea people, I'm pretty sure historical accuracy has always been taking a backseat with this game. Try thinking of Age of Empires Online as A historically inspired Game.

 

Hey, early Celts wielded longswords! "Longsword" is a pretty ambiguous term which historians retroactively apply to several types of swords from a variety of different periods.
In this case, it refers to the Celtic Hallstatt-era sword, which the Celts used in the earlier half of the 1st millennium BC.
It was considerably longer than anything anyone else used in the period, hence the name.

The Celts at the very least did invade Greece (and further), and Germanic (Norse) tribes rampaged around Europe from time to time as well. We do have a few records of late Bronze-age societies supplying each other with troops or fighting abroad against the Sea People in at least a limited fashion, though there probably wasn't any Egyptian-Greek alliance (that I know of).
So while some of the quest packs are partly fictional, most aren't necessarily improbable.



More to the point though, it seems to me like the timeframe of the unit roster doesn't need to match the timeframe of the quests.

For example we see the same with the Greeks: the unit roster includes hoplites (developed from the 8th-6th Century BC), peltasts (adopted 5th Century BC), gastraphetes & ballista (invented ~400 BC), and various Hellenistic-period (4th Century BC) advisor units.
Meanwhile the Greek campaign is set in the Trojan War, usually dated to the early 12th Century BC, 800 years before the invention of ballistae or gastraphetes.

EDIT: My point being, a Roman building/unit roster based on what seems to be roughly the 2nd Century BC-1st Century AD, but the campaign being around the 5th Century BC, isn't out of place with the rest of the game. It is in fact less of a discrepancy than the Greeks have.

 

Hey, early Celts wielded longswords! "Longsword" is a pretty ambiguous term which historians retroactively apply to several types of swords from a variety of different periods.
In this case, it refers to the Celtic Hallstatt-era sword, which the Celts used in the earlier half of the 1st millennium BC.
It was considerably longer than anything anyone else used in the period, hence the name.

The Celts at the very least did invade Greece (and further), and Germanic (Norse) tribes rampaged around Europe from time to time as well. We do have a few records of late Bronze-age societies supplying each other with troops or fighting abroad against the Sea People in at least a limited fashion, though there probably wasn't any Egyptian-Greek alliance (that I know of).
So while some of the quest packs are partly fictional, most aren't necessarily improbable.



More to the point though, it seems to me like the timeframe of the unit roster doesn't need to match the timeframe of the quests.

For example we see the same with the Greeks: the unit roster includes hoplites (developed from the 8th-6th Century BC), peltasts (adopted 5th Century BC), gastraphetes & ballista (invented ~400 BC), and various Hellenistic-period (4th Century BC) advisor units.
Meanwhile the Greek campaign is set in the Trojan War, usually dated to the early 12th Century BC, 800 years before the invention of ballistae or gastraphetes.

EDIT: My point being, a Roman building/unit roster based on what seems to be roughly the 2nd Century BC-1st Century AD, but the campaign being around the 5th Century BC, isn't out of place with the rest of the game. It is in fact less of a discrepancy than the Greeks have.

Well I feel fairly embarrassed. regardless your response to my comment is very well written and I actually gave it a like.

 

Well I feel fairly embarrassed. regardless your response to my comment is very well written and I actually gave it a like.

Ha, thanks, but I actually agree with your standpoint though.
Historical accuracy takes a bit more of a backseat in this game than in other Age of Empires games I think.

Was just sharing some information that I thought might be interesting.