By PF2K on Nov 9, 2019 at 12:30 PM
  1. PF2K

    PF2K Lead Developer
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    Header_-_Week_20.png
    Part 20: Enneris and Roman Warehouses

    As we develop the Romans, each week are revealing them to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are. This week, we are finally revealing the final ship of the Roman navy, the mighty Enneris. We will also reveal the first two Roman Warehouses.

    Enneris
    ========
    Enneris_Closeup.png

    Roman Enneris with Epic Gear

    The Roman navy gave us fits, and we have discussed it at great length. So if you would like a deeper dive, here’s a link to Blog #12, when we revealed the Age 2 Liburnian.

    You will recall that the original Roman navy included up to six different Ships (Fishing Boat, Merchant Transport, Age 2 Trireme (Basic Warship), Age 2 Liburnian (Small Warship used for Scouting), Age 3 Quinquereme (described as an anti-ship Ram Ship), and Age 4 Enneris (Siege Warship). Because no other civ has more than five ships and because the Roman navy was historically pretty middle of the pack, we knew we needed to make some cuts.

    We arrived at cutting the Trireme and going with the weaker Age 2 Liburnian. We also cut the Quinquereme but turned the Enneris into an interesting kind of hybrid ship that appears in Age 3 and counters ships with low range fire and then in Age 4 upgrades to give it a ballista that it will do siege damage at long range, effective mostly against Buildings.

    Enneris_Spotlight.png

    This mechanic will be almost identical to that of Sessrúmnir, the unique warship featured in the Realms of the World Quest Pack. So the Romans will end up with a Siege ship, but in a very Roman way that will keep their navy from being too overpowering.

    With that said, you have now seen every ship and boat in the Roman Navy. So let's take a look at all of the together, shall we?

    Roman_Navy.png
    PF2K's sidenote: Notice a new building here? It will be showcased in another blog soon!

    Because the Roman navy was originally designed to be supremely overpowerful, we are pleased to tell you that we had a chance to present our revised design to the original designer of the Romans, and he agreed with us on these judgment calls. In his words, “I think trimming down the navy is a good call […] I think we can both agree that when we think Romans, we don’t associate them with naval superiority.” He also liked our decision to give it a ballista-trireme style of upgrade later.

    Now, this may be just the opinion of one person. But to us in our quest to bring to you the Romans as close as possible to what the original Developers had in mind, you can imagine how nervous we get when tinkering around with those designs. So it is an unspeakable relief to have the guy who set those designs in place bless our decisions and agree that some of his own units would not have made it into the Romans. We owe the original Devs so much, and so we sleep a little easier knowing we aren’t letting them down.

    Ships are about as complicated of 3D models as we have. Not only are they large and complex, but we also do multiple versions of the ship for each level of gear plus multiple sails. At any rate, we are pleased to announce that we have finished the last of our ships and can move on to other things.

    To wrap things up with the Roman Navy, here's a lineup of all of the ships and boats available in the Roman Dock, divided by the Age they're available in:

    Roman_Fleet.png

    Vault Versa and Praetorium Emporium
    ==================================
    Warehouse_Closeup.png

    Every civilization has five unique warehouses. The largest is a floating ship called a Grand Warehouse that has 24 slots. Then there are four buildings that range in size from 8, 12, 16, and 20 slots. As you have almost certainly noticed, they all have a very strange, playful naming system. Fortunately, we have great concept art for all of our Roman Warehouses, so Happy Smurf and Chaos had a great head start. The challenge here really was not to come up with compelling 3D models, though our boys did tremendously as always in that department.

    C2C_8_Slot.png

    The challenge, believe it or not, ended up being the naming system. AoEO warehouses all have incredibly cheesy names. The names are always some kind of play on words regarding the concept of treasure or storage or something like that. Meanwhile, their names are somehow obviously tied to the civilization. And they are just kind of goofy in that way only Age of Empires Online is.

    8_Slot_Lineup.png

    So finding that perfect zone of clever-but-cheesy can be harder than it looked. Some examples of existing warehouses whose flavor we were trying to match: Storagorium and Lotsastuffopolis (Greeks), Ra's Basement, King Tut's Attic, and Storecauphagus (Egypt), Perstockolis and Repersiatory (Persia), Storehenge and Boudicca's Bounty (Celts), Gilgashed and Nebuchadepot (Babylonians), and Lokeep, Storagnarok, and Vaulthalla (Norse). You can see what we were up against.

    12_Slot_Lineup.png

    Making puns about the ancient Romans and storage feels like the nadir of AoEO nerdiness. But we did our best and came up with more than we care to list and then narrowed it down to about 14 before arriving at the final four. Actually, that is not true. PF2K almost instantly spouted one off that we quickly assigned to the 20-slot granddaddy warehouse. So really we were just on the hunt for three more. They were elusive.

    Chart_1_-_Warehouse_Names_List.png
    Here are some of the names we came up with but ultimately we cast aside: Storage Quo, Inventorium Emporium, Ad Infinitum, Imperial Materials, Caveat Emporium, and Vault Populi.

    We made our list way back in February -- we had a lot of energy and knocked out a ton of miscellaneous projects early. It may seem trivial for us to spend so much time on silly details like this, but we see our spending so much time on trivial details as what may end up being the difference between the Romans feeling authentic and not slapped together by volunteers. At any rate, we set to work, made tons of terrible puns, came up with our final names, and moved on to the next task. Then about six months later deep in the files we stumbled on all of the actual Roman warehouse names that the original developers came up with. For a minute there we considered throwing away all of our hard earned terrible Roman storage puns and just adopting theirs. But we sincerely think ours are better, and we are going with our guts.

    For those who are curious, the Roman warehouse names from the original Devs were the Lootorium, Collectorius, Massokoles, and Caesarium.

    We like our final four better, so these are the ones that will be in the game: Vault Versa, Praetorium Emporium, Add Nauseum, and Caesar's Palace. We will show you two largest ones, Add Nauseum and Caesar's Palace, later. But for today, here is Vault Versa and Praetorium Emporium!

    Thank you so much for your support,

    Project Celeste Development Team

    What do you think about this week's blog? 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.
    =========
     
    #1 PF2K, Nov 9, 2019 at 12:30 PM
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2019
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Comments

Discussion in 'Romans' started by PF2K, Nov 9, 2019.

    1. JoshTheAspi

      JoshTheAspi Long Swordsman

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      You guys accidentally replaced "Stashur" with another "Gilgashed". Also I love the way the roman ships look.
       
    2. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      Thanks! I fixed that now.
       
    3. Alzerus

      Alzerus Champion

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      Truly amazing work on the ships in particular the Enneris, I love the design, really unique. The forward sail and their design look fantastic. Really look forward to seeing the Enneris in action. The warehouse designs look great also and am obviously looking forward to the larger ones that will be forever present in my City and love the names attached to each and can only imagine the fun you guys must have had, trying to decide on a final name on these.

      It's think it's fantastic that you guys have good relations with some of the original developers and chit-chat about some of the designs and I can only imagine the nervousness when tinkering around with some of their original plans and ideas, but have to say that what is and has been presented so far, I'm pretty sure that the original developers truly admire and are probably very proud of the direction and the attention to detail this great civilization has taken thus far and also to be continually consulted on it's progress must be a great feeling also.

      Well Done guys! :)
       
      #4 Alzerus, Nov 9, 2019 at 1:31 PM
      Last edited: Nov 9, 2019
    4. Kulcsos12

      Kulcsos12 Hippikon

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      So, Age 3 Enneris stats are (roughly):
      • 10 attack range
      • x2 bonus damage vs ships
      And the Age 4 Champion upgrade give:
      • +400% attack range
      • x4 Bonus damage vs buildings
      • remove bonus damage vs ships
      This is what we will see in game?

      Also, why is it get an Arrow gear? I see it is a subject to change but Throwing Arms and Arrows combo will give a nice range and damage advantage compare to the other Siege ships. Is it not easier to balance if the Enneris use the same ballista weapon at short range in Age 3 and buffed to long range with the Champion upgrade in Age 4? Using arrows as an "Age 3 anti-ship weapon" is a little bit funny, in my opinion.
      But, really nice work on the 3D models. I like those sails. ;)
       
    5. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      No, not at all. You will just have to wait and see.

      The anti-building and anti-ship attacks are completely separate.
       
      MatrixSoft and Exclusive0r like this.
    6. Daantjuh-NL

      Daantjuh-NL Woad Raider

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      How do you still have time for these blog posts, when you're enjoying RDR2 so much lol. Anyway great post as always
       
      Andy P XIII and happysmurf like this.
    7. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      tenor.gif
       
    8. RASPUTINPRIME

      RASPUTINPRIME Champion

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      Wow. I am blown away at how outstanding the Enneris looks! I think the decision to limit their navy was the right one. Can't wait to set sale with them in 2020!
       
      PF2K and Andy P XIII like this.
    9. TheSpaniard

      TheSpaniard Berserker

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      I wish Ad Infinitum had made it in hahahaha
       
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    10. millard

      millard Villager

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      The work on the Roman civ is looking incredible guys. Out of interest what were the original names of the warehouses intended to be?
       
    11. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      “For those who are curious, the Roman warehouse names from the original Devs were the Lootorium, Collectorius, Massokoles, and Caesarium.”
       
      MatrixSoft and Exclusive0r like this.
    12. ΚΛƬΛ

      ΚΛƬΛ Spearman

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      It looks beautiful , I like the storehouses as well , the fact that they are a beautiful addition to the city and not only a practical building makes me really happy.

      I like to decorate my capitals even if I suck at that , and the fact that I have to spend empire points in city vanity is not something I'm a fan of , having the storehouses being beautiful by themselves without investing any EP makes me impressed , intrigued about how the Caesar Palace will looks like and really happy.
       
      happysmurf likes this.
    13. Exclusive0r

      Exclusive0r Immortal

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      Looking Great !!!! The Navy is something to dream about. :):):):)
       
    14. MatrixSoft

      MatrixSoft Champion

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      ;)
      Oh and Enneris was amazing, too eager to play with him, the warehouses looked great and the impressive capital dock, and as we can see only the Celtic commercial dock can be put in the capital, I know we have Egypsia and Greek on missions Gisa and Delphi limestone, i wait may be available for the reciprocal civs, and maybe we will have the other missing, as always great work, continue firm, and if I'm useful somehow just call:D
       
      #15 MatrixSoft, Nov 10, 2019 at 9:03 PM
      Last edited: Nov 13, 2019
    15. ByFstugan

      ByFstugan Immortal

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      About warehouses... I wonder if it's possible to give all civs possibility to replace ALL the warehouses so that ALL civs in the end can have only 24-slots. It can hardly ruin anything in the game-design and only be a matter of changing the code for the original warehouses.
       
      Kulcsos12 likes this.
    16. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      That would take some extra coding and would be a bit power creepy, though I agree as a player it would be nice. The argument against it: (1) The economy depends on us having limited storage. When we run out of storage, we have to sell on the market to make space. This keeps the supply of goods high, which puts a check on prices from rising too high, and ultimately helps new players with limited coins looking to equip their civs. Having to manage your civs with just the slots available is a challenge (and yet another reason why we prohibit people using multiple accounts). (2) We are all getting another 100+ storage slots when the Romans arrive, so we don’t really need to put dev time toward increasing existing storage.
       
      TheSpaniard likes this.
    17. ByFstugan

      ByFstugan Immortal

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      Well ... many many players, myself included, already gives away for free gear we find that was useful in the start but no longer has any value to us. We don't sell it, if anything we vendor it when noone takes it. New players generally find a very generous and helpful playerbase in this game.

      Most gear isn't worth selling, or giving away, we vendor by far most we get - and get close to nothing for it. Far to few spots are available to try and sell most things on the Global Marketplace also to use that for all small things. Most stuff has a value of sub 1k to about 3k and VERY few items has a noticable value at all.

      Also, the game has still FAR to few new players and far to few players over all, so to sell things are often a challenge where the reward rarelly gives back the effort. More often than not I vendor even before tryin, as said above - even things that COULD be sold.

      For myself almost half of the storage on each civs is filled up with old/alternate gear that I MIGHT wanna change to, I don't just have one setup for the Palintonons for example, sometimes I might prefere damage over silly range. Also consumables I have 5-10 slots used on each civ for. So many slots are not for regular storage, but for citybound gear - hence I think a bit more space would be fair.

      Romans will be great, looking forward to it - but still hope that all warehouse some time in the future was replaceable also, it's not like it's "either/or". And we would not by this be given silly many extra slots that will ruin the game economy, it's just 8 for the regular civs and 12 for each pro-civ, so about half what the Romans alone will give but for all civs.
       
    18. MatrixSoft

      MatrixSoft Champion

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      It would be interesting to increase the Empire Vault limit, and another useful thing about the vault would be the ability to order items. searching for items is efficient but seeing the mess that gets left over there, it would be great to be able to sort by name or type of item or both, and what tab selection does
       
      ByFstugan and bbgambini like this.
    19. bbgambini

      bbgambini Hippikon

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      At this stage of the game we can all nick-pick at convenience updates that do make sense but the devs have their hands full with all the new content they are adding/creating.
       
      MatrixSoft and TheSpaniard like this.
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