Imperator III - Dev Diary Pt I

While developing Rome II Total Realism I am also in my free time try to develop my own personal mod which is actually developed when we were discussing which era should we mod for the game. For me personally, unlike the original Rome Total War, I find that I can very much play the vanilla Total War Rome II fine without needing any mods and in fact I have completed 4 or 5 campaigns (still playing my vanilla Iceni campaign from time to time) any my take about modding this time is rather that what needs to be changed I find the newer games now is more about what else can I change.

Imperator III is actually part of my old series of mod for Rome Total War back when I have a lot of free times (read 6 or 7 years ago). The first, Imperator I is base of another mod, the original Rome Total Realism Gold developed base on RTW 1.2 (before Barbarian Invasion was released. When the game itself was patched together with the release of the expansion pack, I have created Imperator II which is quite popular once especially with the RTR crowd back in the days. Both mods only features a single playable Roman faction and the main sellout point was that each legions have their specific names, according to the historical Roman legions name.

Main Screen

Originally I planned (and announced) that Imperator III will be base on the Year of the Four Emperors campaign but then decided that the name itself fits for Imperator IV (which I will announce soon) and since the second triumvirate period is about the three triumvirates of Rome then I guess that fits the theme perfectly. This was all before Creative Assembly themselves announced and release the Imperator Augustus campaign (I'm pretty sure they originally intended to sell that as DLC but maybe decided not to because of the general acceptance of the game was not pretty good initially). 

Faction Selection Screen

Like the original Imperator mods, this mod will also make Roman factions playable. While the screen shows four options for the various Roman factions, the release version will only feature two options. There are the Triumvirates, featuring Octavian and Marc Antony factions and the Liberators, featuring Brutus and Cassius factions. Yes, there are only four playable factions on offer though there are a lot more non-playable Roman factions like the Senate, Lepidus, Sextus Pompey and some other Roman provinces. Unlike vanilla Imperator Augustus campaign which start after the Treaty of Brundisium, this mod will start when the Second Triumvirate was formed on November 43bc and Triumvirs are already at war with the Liberators.

Faction Selection Screen

There will be some new features added (and currently being tested) where there'll be more diplomatic options rather than all out war. A Triumvir may want to break the triumvirate to form his own empire and demand other Roman factions to join him (might need a lot of bribes) to fight other Romans.

More to come when the real preview is ready.

Reviews, benchmarks and modification were done with Intel CORE i3-2100 @ 3.1 ghz, Foxconn H-67M, 2x2GB CORSAIR PC1333, Sapphire R7 260X 2GB GDDR5, FSP SAGA II 500w, 1x Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB, 1x Western Digital 500GB, Windows 10 Home Insider Preview Build 10130 and projected with Acer S220HQL 21.5" 1920x1080 monitor.