Dev Diary 57: Sardinian/Nuragic missions
Salvete! Today Zorgoball will be presenting two mission trees for the Sardinians, with the second tree also available to the Gymnaesians of the Balearic islands.
Next week we'll be presenting another mission tree and some QOL changes, but for now i'll hand you over to Zorgoball.
Greetings and salutations! Zorgoball at your service, and I am here to talk about two brand new mission trees that you will be able to play in the upcoming update. As you might recall from Dev Diary 54, we are going to be releasing a new mission tree for the Eastern Mediterranean nation of Gymnaesia, “The Balearides”, that lets you conquer the nearby islands while establishing a new monarchy for yourself - quite an accomplishment for those renowned slingers when all is said and done. However, the Talaiotic tribesmen won’t be the only members of the Occidental culture group to receive their own tree(s) sometime in the future; their distant cousins across the water in Sardinia, the Nuragic branch of their family, will have the aptly-titled “Reclaiming the Nuragic Homeland” mission available to do just that.
There are four Nuragic tribes present on the island of Sardinia - Coracensia, Celesitania, Luguidonensia, and Rubrinsia - and this tree is available to all of them. Things have been hard for the tribesmen as of late, and perhaps there is no one better to tell you of their plight than one of their own chieftains, Korbis, the ruler of Coracensia.
Realizing that the moment has come to fight for freedom, you will be able to call the other tribes for a meeting, but don’t expect them to be of any help; if you want to reclaim your island for yourself, you will have to go it alone. When the Tribal Council inevitably falls apart due to petty squabbling, you’ll be given claims over your brethren, unifying your people for the gargantuan task of expelling the Carthaginians from your island. The left side of the tree has two special tasks to help in this endeavor, but first, you’ll need to ensure that your army has enough grain to get them through the difficult seasons ahead.
Having no cities of your own at start, it would be a boon to be able to capture one from the city-building Carthaginians, and considering that Qart ‘Onim is isolated from her sisters in the south, it will become the first city to fall to your forces. You will need to catch up with your enemies as fast as possible when it comes to technology, so rampaging their port cities could lead to many wonderful discoveries, like free innovations…or perhaps even entire navies that were hastily abandoned in the haste to vacate the path of rampaging tribal armies.
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While you are busy fighting tooth and nail to recover your homeland, you will also have opportunities to build up what you recover. Your ruler will eventually take a personal interest in the fertile farmlands of Karli in the south, where a new city for your people will be planned; this will eventually become the capital of your future unified nation. And once you have a navy of your own, you will be able to reach out to your Talaiotic cousins across the water, the dread Pirates of Mago, Terror of the Fleets traveling the Mare Sardoum, and ask them if they’d like to join forces - the port city of Cornus on your eastern coast would be a perfect location for them to expand their franchising opportunities. And our people will certainly not find these uncouth Pirates to be bad house guests… no, we are positive that all will go swimmingly.
15 tasks and 15 events await, and once you complete the “Reclaiming the Nuragic Homeland Tree”, you will be able to unlock the second tree, “Return of the Sea Peoples”, which will also be available to Gymnaesia once they finish their “Balearides” tree. Long ago there were stories told of strange, mysterious sea raiders that made life miserable for the civilized peoples of the East, and all signs are pointing to the ascendancy of their descendants and heirs…
Believing themselves to be the descendents of the “Sherden” of old, the Sea Peoples rumored to have once lived on the island of Sardinia, this tree will allow you to expand eastward, taking the major islands in the Mediterranean for yourself. Let’s take a look;
The ancient Egyptians wrote of the Sea Peoples, lamenting their presence on their coasts and describing their numerous confrontations with the raiders. Some of the nations the Egyptians listed on their stela - the Shekelesh (Sicily), Peleset or Caphtorim (Crete), the Denyen (Cyprus) and a few others - will all be targets that you can eventually acquire, allowing your fleets to occupy the strategic waterways in the Mediterranean. The tree on the right will give special bonuses to your capital city, building up its naval infrastructure and allowing you to project your power farther and farther from your ports. You can continue to grow until you hit a Roman roadblock, but more on that later…
The central tree will guide you along this ambitious road, but before your ships sail too far, you must contend with your two neighboring powers. First and foremost are the Carthaginians, who are in possession of many of the islands that you will need and will soon become your avowed enemy - the struggle between the two of you will be fierce and savage.
The other great Western Mediterranean power, the Romans, will not watch you idly grow stronger and stronger in their backyard, operating as a base for pirates. As you might imagine, this will eventually lead to some problems, and surprise attacks on their unsuspecting navies might be the best way to keep them from your coasts.
Once you have broken the Carthaginian and Roman resistance to your marauding fleets, you will first move through Sicily, then Crete, but conquering these places will not be enough. The native inhabitants of these places will not be thrilled by their change in circumstance, and it will require time and effort to pacify the locals. .
The tree on the left is a fun, optional exploration path, one in which you will send your fleets out to travel as far as they can and report back as to what they can find. Some of these tasks will take a while to complete, but it will be worth it to see what happens.
I could go on, but with 25 tasks and events, we will leave some things for you to find for yourselves. See you next time!