First, a foreword: this will be a sub-mod for Rio's VGR. It will rely upon the user downloading and installing the
Notitia Dignitatum Project and no other submods; in no way do I claim ownership of any part of IB, Rio's VGR, or the author of the N.D.P. Full credit will be given to all of these assets once a workable test version is produced.
The goal of ultimate apocalypse is to make public a home-brew modification for my favorite IB mod. I make this set of tweaks for almost every total war game I play, and as I prepared to start a fresh ERE campaign in VGR, I decided I might make it into a fully fledged free mod project.
The main crux of this mod will be to create an arcade-like experience in VGR while not removing any of its complexity or cheapening its mechanics. It is intended to provide for fast fluid and chaotic campaign games ratcheted 'up to eleven' and change the traditional campaign experience to feel new and fresh. In terms of battlefield mechanics, this modification will have only slight changes, mostly to enable either slightly longer or shorter battles, based on feedback recieved in this thread (see below).
The primary change ultimate apocalypse will have will be as follows: Every single unit will have zero army upkeep; recruitment costs will be raised to be twice OR three times their present values in exchange. Recruitment time will be overhauled to favor a pseudo zero turn recruitment system whereby certain units of lower quality will be able to be mass-produced whilst regular professional units will take increasingly high periods of time in turns to produce. Unit hitpoints *may* be raised generally to 2; in cases where unit HP met or exceeded the value of two, individual consideration will be made as to whether the value will be raised in accordance. Battlefield morale will be overall made more manageable, with more units providing inspirational buffs to fellow soldiers. Forts, if unable to be constructed, will be buildable barring any serious script related issues. Unit sizes will be increased, favoring levy and professional units, whilst largely leaving elites 'as-is'.
Functionally this will mean that your RTW campaign's greatest expense has been wiped away, and now the primary currency of the day is time; valuable units are paid in turns to recruit; turns which may be being spent by your enemies building massive stacks. It will hopefully encourage the use of levies as delay forces built in bulk and exported to frontier garrisons (in emulation of a limitanei system) while more elite Comitatenses units take time to nurture (a first cohort would probably take 3-4 turns to make on its own; basic comitatenses would take zero turns, but more elite options, like palatina or Immunes, will take between 1-3). All turns-per-year modes will be playable on the first release, future releases may be in favor of 4tpy.
Certain factions will have unique characteristics which will help define them to players. Goths, for instance, will likely have zero turn recruitment for all of their infantry, partly because I love age of Empires, and partly because having traits like these will make replaying Ultimate Apocalypse fun.
This is intended as a sort of ridiculous 'hollywood' version of VGR; not for the faint of heart, or the weak-machined.
Known problems with this formula:
*Garrisons are now highly positive, as they cost nothing and are powerful defensive assets. Players will actually be rewarded for making elite troops garrisons. To prevent this, siege engines might be greatly buffed, and the public order bonus from garrisons nerfed across the board, meaning that rebellions will remain an important element to a WRE/ERE run; possibly even more-so; if this is a popular concept, rebellions will be re-examined and made considerably more dangerous and frequent, and distance to capitol penalties may be increased, if possible. Garrison scripts, if present in VGR, may also need to be either removed to prevent AIs abusing it against themselves, or improved/added, to give players a better challenge with many more military resources at hand.
*Large empires benefit hugely, especially factions like the ERE, and the Sassanids. Hopefully this will be balanced by making smaller factions have better units available for zero turn recruitment than their larger competitors, allowing them to survive. Buffs may be given to barbarians over larger faction rosters to compensate.
*VGR is built on the idea of massive army upkeep. Future versions may need to significantly tone down the economic bonuses offered by Rio's mod. Money will be in vast supply regardless
*Related to the above, with so much money the player will suffer from huge corruption. This isnt much of a problem in my mind, but some may find it distasteful.
*The main attraction of the horde mechanic is lost. Hordes are now much weaker. Hopefully a series of barbarian buffs, horde buffs, and script buffs will soften the blow here, but it is true; horde factions *MUST* settle as soon as humanly possible to prevent immediate death. If possible, in much later versions a horde resurrection script could be implemented to give dead factions a second chance based on various conditions. I am a poor scripter, though.
*With so many more armies FM's will be spread thin. If VGR does not already have recruit-able generals, I will swiftly implement them to squash this.
*Wide borders will become nightmarish to defend. This is actually intentional and wont be changed. Roman players especially will be damn well required to establish systems of forts for both frontier and interior armies. This is a feature I am very excited for! Hopefully it will also make roman games more interesting as well.
TL;DR: this is the big American cheeseburger of mods. It is not really historically accurate, its flashy, and it will burn down many a good honest laptop. Sounds like fun, right?
What are your thoughts? Would you like to see this get a release here?