Divide et Impera

Divide et Impera
Platform	Total War: Rome II
Mod Type	Overhaul
Era	Classical Antiquity
Mod Leader	Selea
Release Status	Version 1.2
Forum / Thread	Here

Divide et Impera (DeI) is a complete overhaul for Total War: Rome II that aims to create a more historically accurate, realistic, and fun experience for players.

History

The mod started out as a companion mod for Ars Gratia Artis (AGA) in battle mechanics and unit textures, until the the team realized that it has become more than just a companion mod. It had become a fully fledge project with the same dedication, and passion that other highly-esteemed Total war mods are known for. It released its first version on November 18th 2013.

Description

Divide et Impera(Divide and Rule) brings a lot of changes to Total War:Rome 2 by altering the battle, and campaign mechanics. With better graphics, a new reform system, faction overhaul, longer and intense campaign, realistic unit behaviour and an emphasis on strategy. It is not compatible with mods that change battle dynamics, campaign dynamics and external unit packs.

Features

DeI allows users to make any changes to the mod to suit their taste. It uses its own version of TTT, and gives a graphic overhaul to the units to potray a more accurate appearance during the era. Thanks to the new battle mechanics the AI will appropriately use unit formations when necessary to attack the player while getting rid of the "arcade" abilities. Making strategy essential for victory.

• The unit size has been increased with the ability that every infantry unit that can throw javelins will now have an option to direct where they can throw their javelins.

Unit throwing javelin

Campaign

• Seasons are implemented with a four turn per year. It affects the general's army by inflicting a harsh movement penalty. Each province has a random chance of getting good, bad or normal seasons whith each season's effect varying depending on the location the army is on the map.

• Resources such as wine, timber and salt and many more are acquired through either trade or conquest depending on the land they are in. This allows the construction of resource buildings.

• Having only a general garrisoned in a province will not cause any negative public order, but if an army is garrisoned in a province it will cause more negative public order the bigger the army is. Although the cultural-make up will determine the impact of the army has to the public order.

• Generals now have special effects on a province it is in that brings special bonuses depending if he is liked or if his personality is believed to have good traits or bad. Due to the lack of appearance in generals, there will be an addition of more generals specific to the Hellenistic factions, and Thracian factions to bring more personality and make them be more distinct that the rest of the generals. More generals will be introduced with more updates to the mod.

• Dignitaries can now act as governors, and be deployed in provinces to increase their skills and help improve public order, cultural conversion and many other aspects.

• Reform system affects the type of units that are available for recruitment and change depending on the Imperium level, and the number of turns. Each faction has a certain target in order to trigger a unit/culture reform (Polybia --> Marian --> Imperial), once reached the old units will no longer be available for recruitment. This is INDEPENDENT from the tech tree.

• Recruitment of certain units are only available in certain regions and require a definite amount of your faction's culture. The exception are regions that are historically that culture such as Greek troops. While mercenary units can be recruited by any faction, although Carthage and Egypt have special privileges for factional mercenaries that they can recruit anywhere.

• Culture has been introduced in v1.0 with every faction have their own culture depending on their culture historically in order to bring a more realistic and complex campaign expeirence making available new temples, but now a character (Agent, general, etc) has to be in the region of the certain culture for them to receive the special traits that the culture has to offer.

• To make the game more informative, text will now appear on major historical cities giving information about the city about who conquered it in what year and its significant role it has played throughout Classical antiquity.

Siege

Siege has been greatly improved making it more exicting and realistic so that players can now look forward to a siege as the AI now mantains siege for 2 turns with a ton of siege equipment. With the New Barricade system, there can now be more deployables be placed in strategic points so that the AI does not crush through through the walls.

The auto-resolve mechanism has been revamped making the attacking army lose less of their men towards attrition, while the defenders lose more than the attackers as the more turns the attackers lay siege, the greater the chance of the attacker winning through autoresolve.

A new technology tree has been introduced known as "Better Siege Tactics" that replaces the old "Battering Ram" tech. This reduces the time for a hold-out which increases for every tier in the Siege technology.

Siege equipment are now harder to ignite and to destroy, but the durability of the walls and gates have also been increased while the damage of the watch towers has been reduced although the frequency of the fire is increased. It now takes longer to capture the gates, and towers.

Factions

There are 25 playable factions with their own strength, and weaknesses as well as its own fighting style where the stances of the army (Offensive or Deffensive) affect the battle's pace. Therefore it is best to learn every faction's strength as each battle will not be the same. Each Faction have their own specialized UI, known as Culture UI, in both Campaign and custom battles that fits the factions colors and culture

Main screen

Rome

• Rome has one of the biggest rosters in DeI, making them balanced overall in units. Their main strength are their melee infantry as they have good morale, armour, and attack against other infantry. With their cavalry being better (not the best) when compared to other faction's cavalry. They are easy to micromanage making them more responsive to orders being given. They need a combination of melee infantry, skirmishers, and cavalry to be successful.

• During early Campaign, Rome is a mixture between the Greek hoplites, and the Samnite maniples. This makes them spear infantry, so they are not as good as their future replacements, but are still one of the best units early in the campaign. Apart from recieving extra income when they are the AI, Rome will spawn a defensive army once one of their starting regions have been taken. This is implemented to demonstrate Rome's ability to muster numerous troops in historical times.

Greek City States

• The Greek city states include Sparta, Athens, Syracuse and other "one-city" Hellenic factions. They have a wide variety of spearmen who are slower and are primarily a defensive unit as they are able to form a phalanx that greatly increases their defensive capability.

• It is best to have a balanced and organized method of warfare. Although there is emphasis on the battle terrain that you choose as slopes and irregularities weaken the army. So it is preferably to fight on plains and flat lands. But are not completely dependent to the terrain. It's preferably to use javelins early in the campaign, and once given the chance recruit/invest in archers. This is because the hoplites are not so mobile as the Romans, and javelins have a harder time retreating behind the hoplites.

Macedon, Successor Kingdoms

• Similar to the Greek states they suffer from a lop-sided roster, which is compensated with a wide variety of pikemen and cavalry units. Pikemen are slower than hoplites and cannot withstand a fight against melee infatry compared to the hoplites, and take greater damage by missiles if left on phalanx mode compared when they do not have phalanx mode on. They are considered to be more dependent on terrain and can easily be caught off formation with tactful maneuvers. They are decent at holding long enough for their cavalry to take the initiative, allowing the cavalry to make hammer and anvil tactics. It is best to maintain a cohesive force as pikemen are vulnerable when left by themselves.

Barbarian Factions

• Quite balanced like the Romans, but are best used in ambush tactics and fighting in numbers. They have a good variety of spear and me-lee infantry and good cavalry. But lack a good defense and therefore, a stretched out battle/skirmish can work against them.

• They need to use their superior charge bonus and surprise tactics to create maximum demoralization to the enemy. Even their cavalry has one of the highest charge bonuses in game. Making them the best at ambush.

• The barbarians are not at their best in open fields as they are better fit at night in a forest where they excel at stealth. Demoralizing is the best tactic for a barbarian faction. Fighting in forests is used for two purposes; incoming enemy projectiles, and bait the enemy for an ambush. If unable to fight in a dense forest, keep your army near a batch of trees.

Nomadic Factions

• Nomads have a very lop-sided roster. Mostly cavalry melee, schock and missile with very few infantry units, and even those infantry units can't compete against other infantry units from other factions. They are best used in open space, but are the worst at defending a city, and taking a city. But even then they are still a force to be reckoned with.

Graphic Overhaul

All units from each faction have been improved to have more variety and realism with more faces, skins and cultural outfits for the units. This includes garrisons as well where the barbarian factions will have a mix of men and women defending a city.

DEI v 1.0 introduces Shield Extravaganza to its mod that replaces all the shield designs in the vanilla game of Total War: Rome II which has a total of 150 shield designs making the majority of the units have a different shield design. AS well the team has redone the unit cards completely going back to the previous unit cards of the Total War franchise with each card demonstrating what the unit really looks like during battle.

New textures created by Meneros is used for in DeI which replaces the armour textures for the majority of all units.

The Team

• Meneros (Lead; Texture, Model and Unit)

• Ritter-Floh (Texure, Model and Unit; Animator)

• Don_Diego (Texture, Model and Unit)

• Ahiga (Texture, Model and Unit)

• Dresden (Lead; Compilation and Tech/Debug; Campaign Systems and Gameplay Design)

• Litharion (Compilation and Tech/Debug; Lead in Scripting; Campaign Systems and Gameplay Design)

• KAM 2150 (Lead; Battle Systems)

• Gunny (Battle Systems)

• m_1512 (Campaign Systems and Gameplay Design; UI and Art)

• Moonhoplite (Animator)

• Rafkos (Translator)

• Idreaus (UI and Art)

• Leving (UI and Art)

• Summary (UI and Art)

• Epic28 (UI and Art)

Visual Material

Unit Previews

Greek Hoplites

Roman Triarii

Hellenic Generals

Shield Extravaganza

Unit Cards

Campaign Map

Resource map

Area of Recruitment

Culture UI

Egypt Culture UI

Carthage

Celtic

External Links

• Forum
• Main thread
• Download thread
• Official Manual