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in Britain Belgae tribe is present twice on the map, if you can substitute one of them with the tribe of the Regnenses, a tribe situated near to the Cantiaci tribe, if you can also add in the northern Britain the tribes of the Smerti and Decanzi.
 
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Dev Diary 9: Gods of Iron Age
Dev Diary 9: Gods of Iron Age
Hello everyone. In today's short DD I would like to inform you that all religions are finally working.
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Many elements like treasures still need some polishing, but the main religious mechanics work. I learned a lot, for example Tocharians were of Indo-European origin, but their pre-Buddhist beliefs were heavily inspired by the early polytheistic form of Tengrism. A particularly popular goddess in this area was Gun Ana.
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Another interesting religion that I came across is the faith of the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka called Vedda people. Namely, they believe in the so-called nae yakka, means spirits of ancestors summoned by shamans in order to, for example, ensure successful hunt. They also have more important spirits whose worship is more widespread in the island like Kande Yakka (demon of the mountain).
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I tried to reflect the smaller cults too. For example, the pre-Buddhist beliefs of Burmese (who could at that time be found in the area east of the Ganges) had a similar cult to Veddan people with the difference that those who died a cruel and unjust death could be deified after death. Today there is a pantheon of about 37 nats (those deified spirits) that Burmese worship. The problem is that it was codified around the 10th century AD (and most of them passed away around that time). So I've added a few of these nats for now, and then I'll think about what to do next. I was honestly wondering whether, as a thank you, I should give them the names of Snowlet and others who sent, for example, maps that I used or provided the code, but I do not know if it would not be a bit improper (I think it's better to add them as in-game characters) so if you have any idea what to do with it I'm open to sugestions.
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Each religion has two positive and one negative trait, but the modifiers still need some thought and are not final. Since I should have given some release date for the mod, I decided that on October 30th the mod will be released and I'm going to make sure it does. There are still units and traditions to be done which must be done for alpha which should take a week or a week and a half. Then I'll finish cosmetics. Thanks for support.
 
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Dev Diary 10: War Never Changes
Dev Diary 10: War Never Changes
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Hello everyone in todays Dev Diary. I would like to inform you that we have a total of 22 combat units. At one point I realized that it might be a bit of an exaggeration for the alpha version, but since I have already programmed it, I think that this is enough to reflect the diversity in the way Iron Age cultures waged their wars. I will only mention that the balance of units will change until October 30, so do not attach importance to the numbers. However, your suggestions will of course be taken into account.
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Rulers did not immediately abandon bronze for iron. It is used in the military to this day (apparently it does not cause sparks, so they use it to produce explosives). Therefore, I decided to add a new commercial product called tin and convert base metals into copper, i.e. metals that were used to produce bronze (tin replaced arsenic because it is poisonous). The largest ancient concentrations of this mineral were in Spain and Afghanistan. The Hittites, Elamites, Nuragians from Sardinia had smaller mines (which explains their exceptionally good equipment in the paintings from the time of the Fall of the Bronze Age). If the player has access to tin and copper, it will serve him instead of iron (at first iron was not somehow more durable, rather it was chosen because it was more common).
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One of the changes will be the division of chariots into heavy and light. I know that light chariots were the favorite weapon of the Egyptians, but the Akkadians preferred the heavier ones. I've also added slingers and skirmishers. The slingshots from that period are not like ours. Those were made of a piece of leather into which a specially selected stone was inserted and spun to give it the speed of the bullet. Infantry units will be divided not only into light and heavy but also into spearmen, swordsmen and footmen. The latter unit is intended to serve as a visualization of better-equipped Imperial troops (such as Egyptian and Assyrian visible on reliefs) equipped with short swords specifically for close combat. Of course, I have not forgotten my promise.
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And here I have a problem, because for greeks elephants were slightly exotic animals and according to what I have read, they defined African elephants as one species, and there are at least two. Forest elephants, occurring in Egypt and those in the West in the service of the Libyan Phoenicians. The forest ones are smaller than the Indian ones, as reported by the Greek sources, so no wonder that they were afraid of their Indian cousins, but the African ones are a bit bigger, so under Raffia Ptolemy used most likely the forest specie from nubia. Of course, I added the appropriate goods to reflect the presence of these animals. I will have to think about it little bit more.
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As you can see, not all traditions are ready yet, but I should be able to finish them next time. There are still modifiers and other cosmetic stuff (maybe I'll have some heritages for next Saturday). I think the mod will be finished on time. Take care.
 
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Beautiful. Can't wait to play through the beginnings of Iron Age society, birthing great empires from societies that historically wavered and smothering some of histories first empires in the crib.
 
Will the provinces be altered?
Well, as you can see in one of the previous screenshots about Egypt, I removed the Pharaohs' Channel because it was buried during this period (it operated earlier under Queen Hatshepsut, and under Ramses II it did not work for some time). As for the rest of the changes, for now, I will focus on what I talked about before (completing traditions, region descriptions and heritages), and then maybe I'll start with southern Mesopotamia. Until 30 I think it will not be possible, but let's not lose hope.
 
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So are there any formables at the moment? In the ashes of dozens of civilisations and the primordial ooze from which new civilisations might arise there's a wide range of possible interesting titles that could be formed.
 
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So are there any formables at the moment? In the ashes of dozens of civilisations and the primordial ooze from which new civilisations might arise there's a wide range of possible interesting titles that could be formed.
In fact, I was wondering whether I should give a few decisions that form countries the possibility of changing the form of government as it was in reality. For example, historically the Persians gained a lot from capturing Anshan. Contact with more prestigious Elamite culture raised their rank and they began to be recognized in the correspondence of the Assyrian Empire as a kingdom worth remembering (Kingdom of Anshan). I've had a lot on my mind lately, like changing jobs, so if I didn't throw in DD today, I'll do it on Sunday. Hopefully all this confusion won't affect the alpha release date.
 
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It's cool. The mod isn't any more important than your private life so you're entirely within your rights to take deving at your own pace.
Decisions that reflect your accomplishments, can be rather fun. Giving people goals to pursue and accomplish rather than purely pursuing military expansion would be cool. Maybe even some ahistorical decisions, for example, forming an Aramean-Hittite Kingdom, could also be interesting. Offering avenues beyond the historical reality to pursue.
 
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It's cool. The mod isn't any more important than your private life so you're entirely within your rights to take deving at your own pace.
Decisions that reflect your accomplishments, can be rather fun. Giving people goals to pursue and accomplish rather than purely pursuing military expansion would be cool. Maybe even some ahistorical decisions, for example, forming an Aramean-Hittite Kingdom, could also be interesting. Offering avenues beyond the historical reality to pursue.
Thanks for the words of consolation, because I did not manage to release Dev Diary this week. However, the work is still moving, although of course at a slower pace. I already have most of the Traditions and each of them will have additional descriptions so that the player knows how different troops were organized (which takes a bit, because I have to read a lot of things and all the confusion of the last days does not help). Thanks again for your understanding.
 
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Will you release the mod tomorrow? If yes can you share the hour it will release? If this isn't the case it's not a problem, as one other guy said above the mod should be less important than you own private life, is just that I'm very curious to play your mod.
Also another question: have you planned to add some mission tree for any nation in the release version? If this isn't the case do you plan to add them in the future?
Sorry if I'm being too anxious
 
Will you release the mod tomorrow? If yes can you share the hour it will release? If this isn't the case it's not a problem, as one other guy said above the mod should be less important than you own private life, is just that I'm very curious to play your mod.
Also another question: have you planned to add some mission tree for any nation in the release version? If this isn't the case do you plan to add them in the future?
Sorry if I'm being too anxious
To be honest, I must have exaggerated a bit with the scale of the project. If you are modding a paradox game, it is best to take a map fragment, such as the Middle East, and do it bit by bit. I don't think I will release the mod tomorrow. In addition to what I have already shown, I have to finish traditions, heritages, descriptions for the start (events for the start of the game) and decisions that form countries. As I said, I was a bit ambitious, for example, there will be 24 traditions in total, which should be ready by tomorrow, so I will summarize the changes in the military. Missions for the most important factions region by region will be added in the next update after the alpha is released.
 
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perchance will you release the mod between today and tomorrow ?
Not really because due to the holiday and changes in my private life, I was delayed for over a week. But I also have good news. Right now, after many hardships, I dug out of military units and traditions, which means that the base systems of the game should work properly, and thus there are only cosmetic matters like heritages, events and generally things that take up 1 to 2 game files. Not counting bugs :)
 
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Dev Diary 11: After a break
Dev Diary 11: After a break
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After a fairly long delay, it's nice to see you back. As I said yesterday, the tradition system works and only cosmetic work remains until it is released. In this DD, I will talk a little about the idea of the whole system and the differences between the factions. There is a lot of it and the time is short, so I will be brief.
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In fact, in short, the fighting style in each culture depended on the conditions in which the local people lived. Inhabitants of open areas preferred more mobile and ranged forms of combat, and where the terrain became tight and limited the room for maneuver, infantry formations were placed. Peoples with a long coastline had naturally developed sailing abilities. The first mentions of Illyrian pirates date back to the 10th century BC, and Illyria quite strongly resembles Greece, so it is no wonder that both of them had colonization impulses.
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As I promised, the great majority of cultural groups have their own traditions, although some of them share them with two to three others. I will look at it from time to time so I did not know if it is worth showing you everything one by one, and a lot can change anyway. I would like to add that each tree has from 12 to 16 traditions with short descriptions. For example, you will be able to find out what the Kassites were known for in antiquity or where the Blade called Sica came from to end up among the Judean partisans (hence their name Sicarians) fighting Rome.
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And here is the table of units from which I got neurosis yesterday :) Going from the beginning we have: Axmen with long and short axes, camels, heavy cavalry, horse archers and light cavalry, then heavy and light chariots, elephants in African, forest and Indian versions, infantry in the form of better armed soldiers, spearmen and swordsmen in the heavy and light versions, archers, skirmishers and slingers.

Since I did not mention it earlier, I will mention Battle Axes, because they are not such an ordinary weapon. Their range makes it possible to defend themselves against the attacks of the cavalry, however, it requires a lot of skill in the use and mainly that is why it was rare. The Egyptians probably had one such unit in Pharaoh's personal guard. However, among the Germanic tribes, its popularity was high and it can be seen in the reliefs from the era where the local elite is depicted with them. Another unit are chariots, which in the heavy version were used to break the opponent's formation, and the light ones were such a worse version of horse archers.

A lot of changes are ahead of us, so don't get too attached to the numbers. I hope there will be no more delays and I can finish the project smoothly. Take care while I get back to work.
 
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Can't wait to see how this is on release. What will you be doing in cosmetic work?
Heritages (one for a cultural group to start with), startup events for regions explaining the political situation and countries to form (decisions). For this purpose, you do not need to open 20 files at once (as in the case of modifying units and traditions), so I called it cosmetic works.