Review(?) about the DLC campaigns in DEI

[riaxi]

I'm writing this post not really as criticism or anything, but more as "reviews" (?) and something I would have liked to have when I started playing the DLC campaigns with DEI.


Rise of the Republic


It works, but that seems to be about it. For example, Rome is completely lacking its pre-reform units and start with Triarii, Principes and so on. I understand some dude is working on fleshing this submod out tho. The main team does not consider it a priority, and you know, fair enough.


Less understandable are some other changes: the Iolei, for example, have had their unique buildings, tech tree and garrisons replaced with Celtic ones for some reason. Dunno whats up with that. Several factions also lacks their RotR specific tech tree, with had wonderful descriptions.


My recommendation would be to play this only if you are desperate to kill Samnites and Etrsucans as Rome and are okay with no early units.

Wrath of Sparta


The campaign that was remade into the Macedonian wars, because apparently Rome needs to be in every campaign. At least the team were kind enough to leave a submod to play the vanilla campaign.


With DEI this campaign is a very mixed bag.


On the one hand its actually a challenge to play as Athens now, at least early to mid game. And the reskinned units, with accurate pilos helmets for the Spartans is very welcome, even if you can also find helmets that probably belong in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Sparta will now recruit, even on Normal, like 2 full stacks easy. If you played WoS before and found it too easy, you might be tempted to up the difficulty to Hard. I did that, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you know what you're doing.


Sounds great so far, right? Sadly there are a number of blemishes on this campaign as well.


There are some strange changes. IRL Pericles of Athens had a son also named Pericles. This younger Pericles was present in the vanilla WoS, yet is completely absent in DEIs WoS. Sokrates has his unique trait and description in vanilla, which is replaced with a bland as hell trait in DEI.


Also, bugs, though thankfully most are merely irritating and not major. All the generals you can recruit are named Xanthippus and Ariphron. All the spies and dignitaries are named Agariste. You start with buildings that you cannot build. The descriptions won't always tell you what a tier 1 building does, but will show a description for a tier 2 building. Sometimes the AI (all greek city states) will build Egyptian quinqueremes. The message about tyranny and hegemony is unchanged from the Macedonian wars one, so it'll list Pella, Rhodes and Pergamun as cities not to ocuppy. Its wrong, you do actually get the penalty if you occupy the old capitals (Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth)


Even so, its still definitely the best version of WoS. Ands thats both hilarious and sad.

Ceasar in Gaul


I imagine for a Ceasar campaign this one is great. I chose to play as the Averni and was rather dissappointed. RNG means that the AI might, or might not, do well. Once Massilia overran all of Transalpine Gaul before I got to fight Ceasar.


They also disabled, or at least made it extremely difficult, to reach the escalation event. This I kind of get, but I felt that even playing suboptimally and giving Ceasar plenty of time (and even money) to expand the AI really does need all those doomstacks to be a proper challenge for the endgame. My most fun campaign as Averni was my second vanilla one on VH, not any of the DEI ones. Especially since the supply system is very forgiving on this map.


Honestly? Just play a VH vanilla campaign, unless you really love the pace of DEI battles + manpower and all that.


Imperator Augustus


One of the campaigns that felt the best for me with DEI. Miracle of miracles, Anthony actually had decent armies when I invaded Greece! He sure as hell didn't manage that when I played vanilla. For that alone it deserves a thumbs up. I recommend playing with reduced garrisons submod tho, there's really nothing to be gained from endless battles in hamlets with 20 units. Otherwise, quite good!


Hannibal at the Gates


Also worked really well, I felt. The supply system adds a great deal for a Hannibal campaign. Rome AI can be a bit dissappointingly passive and cautious when it comes to committing to battles, but then thats kind of historically accurate innit? Other AI factions (Syracuse, Massilia, and a little bit of Samnites) did the bulk of attacking my holdings as Carthage.


Empire Divided


Just play Attila.

[Dumanthis]

Cool review bro though I am afraid I disagree with pretty much all of the above. True that some DLC campaigns could use more love from the DeI team. But their focus has always been on the grand campaign.

Rotr is actually pretty great and fast becoming my favorite map in DeI. Only campaign that I consider not in a enjoyable playable "DeI experience" state is Empire Divided but that is a well known fact. For me Attila is not an option though because it lacks basic total war features like the defence stance.

Some campaigns are more plausible for MPC games while some are less. But that is just me who is a devout DeI MPC player.

[Dresden]

Thanks for the feedback. Our focus is indeed the Grand campaign but we try to make the DLCs at least work properly and be as fun as we can within our time frame.

RoR has a few idiosyncratic parts but should be pretty good for the most part. Empire Divided hasn't been worked on much, if at all. The units are mostly vanilla since it is outside our designated mod time period.

[Dumanthis]

Actually if I have one wish for Christmas considering DeI that would be RotR All factions playable mod. That would explode the MPC possibilities

[arsenal61095]

Are there any unit imbalance in Empire Divided campaign?, because i noticed all the vanilla units have DEI stats but some stats feel off, like a Praetorian Guard only has 9 atk 15 def, barely higher than any other Roman low tier units

[KAM 2150]

There was no real balancing done in Empire Divided.

[arsenal61095]

Did you guys edit the startpos of Empire Divided and other armed citizenry tables to change all 3C Roman garrison to the GC Italic garrison? Why though? I'd prefer the Levies and Vigiles as garrison in vanilla for more historical accuracy.