Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[thesheeep]

Please tell me something is being done about the initiative order determining 90% of how the battle will go...

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Lokiamis]

yeah I guarantee it's not going to have a "huge impact"

 

[Larianshill]

Probably not huge impact, but it's fair to say it will have some impact. Vikings was often colored by the gender of your protagonist, you were disrespected far more often by the likes of Leofric and Asleifr.

 

[Infinitron]

Devstream #1: https://www.twitch.tv/thqnordic

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't really get the way they are trying to set up a "Expeditions" game in the Roman Period.

Trying to let the player roleplay a Julius Caesar stand-in seems to not really fit the series strengths.

Conquistadors and Vikings both reflect a scenario when a small group of soldiers can have an outsized impact.

The many thousand strong Legions of Republican Era guys like Caesar/Pompey/Marius/Sulla seem like a poor fit.

Imagine trying to replicate feel of the Battle of Pharsalus or the Siege of Alesia with the player limited to controling about a dozen dudes...

I mean technically speaking, conquista of the Americas took hundreds/thousands of Spanish and Portuegese explorers/troops. Cortez was massively outnumbered, but he still had a few hundred soldiers probably. And the Viking conquest of Britain, while it started with individual ships, the Great Heathen Army, portrayed in the game, consisted of thousands of northmen. So I don't see this as a major issue, obviously these games were never going to be fully historically accurate. It's just about combining the gameplay of rpgs with a strategic historical overlay, and it's a damn fun combination.

 

[Avonaeon]

Second part of the stream after it got cut off:

 

[Mark Richard]

Takeaway:

• The story is roughly 20 years of history condensed down to a 10 year period.
• Better equipment becomes available as Roman technology progresses.
• Companions have unique questlines and story arcs with multiple endings.
• Camping is now more of a choice than a necessity (to craft equipment for example).
• Jonas is a cat person, and that will undoubtedly manifest within Expeditions: Rome. Another promising game ruined by politics.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Jonas is a cat person

Really because I couldn't tell. lol
That's his forum avatar btw.

 

[Grim Monk]

If tasked with creating a squad based RPG in the Roman Empire an interesting choice would be to set it around a group of Speculatores/Frumentarii/Agentes in Rebus.
(Those are the names of various iterations of the Imperial Secret Police.)

It would complement the gameplay of solving of problems with the use of small elite fighting group without trying to awkwardly represent events involving the massive numbers of Legionaries with a dozen fighters.

You are basically playing as manifestation of the far reaching “hand of the emperor” keeping things working smoothly with your unsung adventures…

• Curtail the activity of Bandits and Pirates whose depredation make undermine the citizens trust in the Pax Romana.
• The corruption of Imperial officials from their duty to the Emperor to the interests of Trade Collegiums poses a grave economic threat.
• Perhaps a surreptitious finger must be placed on the scales in the succession struggle in one of the client kingdoms to make sure that interests of Rome stay protected.
• Will this new chieftain riling up the barbarians in the woods require the time and resources of a full scale military intervention, or is there possibly another way...
• And there is also always is the eternal matter of checking up on just how "loyal "are the Emperor's "Loyal Pretorian Guards".

The needs peace and stability calls men to do their duty in all the provinces, and even beyond the borders themselves.
And who says the Empire in a time of need can’t make use of loyal subjects of the fair sex as well?

A glamorous Lady showing up at the feast could be just the thing to get close and deliver the “point” of the Imperial displeasure to the Provincial Governor over his intrigues with Parthian Emissaries.

Even a common "servant girl” can have unique opportunities to hear/see/do things and reach places that might cause problems to others...

 

[Barbarian]

A shame the dev team is insisting on this ahistorical contemporization of putting "gender equality" where and when there was none.

No Roman legion would accept to be commanded by a woman. And none were.

Though I do admit that in this day and age they probably have to do this if they don't want the cancel corps to come knocking.

 

[MrMarbles]

I don't really get the way they are trying to set up a "Expeditions" game in the Roman Period.

Trying to let the player roleplay a Julius Caesar stand-in seems to not really fit the series strengths.

Conquistadors and Vikings both reflect a scenario when a small group of soldiers can have an outsized impact.

The many thousand strong Legions of Republican Era guys like Caesar/Pompey/Marius/Sulla seem like a poor fit.

Imagine trying to replicate feel of the Battle of Pharsalus or the Siege of Alesia with the player limited to controling about a dozen dudes...

"The Eagle" (2011) made it work

 

[Barbarian]

I don't really get the way they are trying to set up a "Expeditions" game in the Roman Period.

Trying to let the player roleplay a Julius Caesar stand-in seems to not really fit the series strengths.

Conquistadors and Vikings both reflect a scenario when a small group of soldiers can have an outsized impact.

The many thousand strong Legions of Republican Era guys like Caesar/Pompey/Marius/Sulla seem like a poor fit.

Imagine trying to replicate feel of the Battle of Pharsalus or the Siege of Alesia with the player limited to controling about a dozen dudes...

I mean technically speaking, conquista of the Americas took hundreds/thousands of Spanish and Portuegese explorers/troops. Cortez was massively outnumbered, but he still had a few hundred soldiers probably. And the Viking conquest of Britain, while it started with individual ships, the Great Heathen Army, portrayed in the game, consisted of thousands of northmen. So I don't see this as a major issue, obviously these games were never going to be fully historically accurate. It's just about combining the gameplay of rpgs with a strategic historical overlay, and it's a damn fun combination.

Yes, both the first and second game were competent in making a historical party based rpg representing events which were actually performed by hundreds or thousands... with the player controlling a group of a dozen or dozen.

Roman legions might be a bit too much though.

 

[getter77]

I always figured some kind of sprawling Silk Road Intrigue could work out for them---but I'm still inclined to give this a fighting chance as, in theory, if they can keep at this then eventually they'll get to pretty well all the ripe periods to adventure within.

 

[Starwars]

As loaded as the whole gender issue is nowadays, it's not like it's any kind of surprise given the history of the series. You've always been able to play a female character, you've always been able to take on female characters in your party. I think there were homosexual romances in Viking (if I remember correctly). The series has always had modern sensibilities in them, while also trying for historical accuracy in others.
It's not anything new and it's hardly the devs being "pressured" into it.

Personally, I like my historical games to feel as historical as possible. But, I'm also glad that they seem to be hyping up the fact that there will be differences in playing a male and female character. I hope they try to go all-out on it. If it's gonna be included, then make it matter and make it feel different. Make it a good roleplaying game.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

GOG?

https://www.4players.de/4players.ph...h_auf_den_Spuren_von_Gaius_Julius_Caesar.html

...
Expeditions: Rome wird im Laufe des Jahres für PC in digitaler Form erscheinen, sehr wahrscheinlich auf Steam, GOG.com und im Epic Games Store. Der Preis steht noch nicht fest, aber THQ Nordic schätzt zwischen 40 oder 50 Euro.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yeah bro, phalanx is a strictly Greek thingy. People should not use it in Roman context.



This - I wasnt too bothered with female companions in Viking as they didnt really look that much out of place. Having the "Amazon princess" in Conquistador also wasnt that terrible, since Cortez himself had this local girl who he fucked (in fact their children were apparently the first mestizos) and used as translator and negotiator when dealing with various tribes that he wanted to unite against Aztecs. Even that girl who LARPs as a soldier on the first island (Isabela?) wasnt too bad, the game gives you an option to kiss her hand instead of saluting her when you first meet and generally treat her in a realistic way ("Yeah girl sure, you are a real fighter haha") if you want to.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche
Liberals mourning the repressed role of women in history always forget the example of La Malinche, one, because she doesn't fit the agenda, and two, because she rose to her position by supplying hawt Aztec sex to the Conquistador-in-chief. "Conservatives" never remember her, because they didn't see a meme about her in 4chan.

 

[HoboForEternity]

codex incels upset over what has been a feature since conquistadors. you had like female led conquistadors, don't forget the all female village in that game too. female vikings are also unlikely the game have always put historical accuracy second to game elements.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Honestly I think it makes more sense to take the Expeditions series as a low fantasy version of historical events (hence the posibility of female leaders and such), it works much better that way.

 

[Alphons]

Considering all the magical artifacts and living gods, yes.

 

[CaesarCzech]

so apparently unlike with Conquistador and Viking where they could get away with female PC being just cosmetic change here in Rome they are actually tackling just how unusual would Female Roman leader be.

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/expeditions-rome-preview-gender

 

[Larianshill]

But there's a female roman companion, we see her in the trailer. How unusual can it be in the game world?

 

[Barbarian]

Conquistador had a female spanish commander, not to mention quite a few female soldiers. Vikings likewise. Both viking and anglo saxon armies were full of females.

If it is a just one off thing where you can choose a female protagonist and the world will interact on how unusual it is, than it would be quite ok. An improvement if you say.

 

[Dodo1610]

Devdiary 2 is out.

https://community.expeditionsseries.com/index/dev-diaries/devdiary-2-core-combat-r8/

DevDiary 2 - Core Combat
Ave! Welcome to our second DevDiary for Expeditions: Rome. In our previous DevDiary (link here), we covered the vision for Rome and what the game is about overall. We also discussed this live in our first DevStream which you can watch a replay of here (link here). For DevDiary 2, we’re going to get a little more specific and take a deep dive into our core combat system. So gear up and let’s get started!

Combat in Expeditions: Rome is predominantly expressed through turn-based tactical gameplay. While the legions fight the bigger battles for you on the world map, you and your elite team of praetorians will engage in tactical close-quarters fights on a hex-grid layout using a variety of skills and items.


Let’s start with the basics: Turn-based combat starts when you encounter enemies, so you can explore the area in real-time after any fight, and often before a fight begins as well. Once a fight starts, the very first turn of combat is what we call the preparation phase, where you can strategize and position each of your combatants on the hexes that are available before initiating combat. Once you’ve chosen where your characters will start, it’s time to get into the fight.



During combat, you can move each character, activate skills, and use any tactical items you have equipped. The amount of movement a character can make is based on how much armor they’re wearing, which grants them a certain number of movement points. If a character wants to move farther, they may have to sacrifice their ability to take certain actions.



Most character actions are executed via skills that are made available by either their weapon or their class. Unlike our previous Expeditions games, we no longer have basic “white” attacks. Instead, every attack is executed through a skill, and each weapon has a collection of skills it can roll with. This means that you can acquire two different Gladiuses, for example, and the skills available can be completely different, providing a ton of variety.




Additionally, class skills are unlocked through each character’s skill tree by spending skill points after leveling up. With each class having three distinctly different skill trees, there is a wide variety of active and passive skills to experiment with.


We’ll talk more about all of the skills and classes in a different diary, but it’s important to understand the basics here to provide context for how core combat functions. Each character can equip a set of weapon and class skills based on what’s available to them, and these skills determine which actions they can use in combat. These actions, in turn, have many different synergy opportunities that bring out the tactical diversity of our combat system.




For a more specific example: the Sagittarius class is a ranged-combat class, and there is a class skill in the sniper tree called “Ranging Shot,” where a Sagittarius can apply the status effect “spotted” to a small group of clustered enemies, eliminating the damage drop-off that takes place when executing ranged attacks at long distances. This is an early skill for archers and can be super useful when keeping your ranged combatants at a long distance without reducing their damage potential. This does, however, require the archer to setup their targets a turn early, as “Ranging Shot” does cost an action point. In other words, it takes two turns before the archer can start dealing that full damage. Where it gets really interesting is if you find a bow with the skill Overdrawn Shot, which guarantees a critical hit but reduces your range by 50% - if you’re using Overdrawn Shot to hit a “spotted” target, that penalty is negated.

However, you might run into a melee pike weapon usable by the Triarius class that rolls with the weapon skill “Marking Strike,” which does a decent amount of piercing damage, but also applies the “spotted” status effect to a single target. This opens up new options – instead of having to use “Ranging Shot” as a debuff action before being able to apply the full damage of your long-distance archer, you could now move up a character with the “Marking Strike” skill equipped, do a one-two punch with “Marking Strike” to soften up the enemy first and apply the “spotted” status effect, and then use Overdrawn Shot with the archer at range, guaranteeing a critical hit at full strength, all in one turn! This is just one of countless ways different skills can be combined together to open up limitless tactical options.






Another critical component of core combat is shields, which can only be used by the Princeps class. Shields are an off-hand weapon that provide an additional pool of health to the character using it. When a shielded character is attacked, damage is applied to the shield first, unless the skill used has a special modifier that ignores shields. Shielded characters also cannot take damage from archers until the shield is depleted, making them critical for the front line. When a turn begins, shields automatically recover some of their hitpoints, serving as an automatic source of regenerating defense.

Shields also have skills that can be used, like buffs that can increase the total hitpoint pool of the shield for the rest of the fight, or even attacks that use the shield as a weapon to do damage and apply different status effects. We hope you can start getting the picture here, where options of moving up defensive or offensive built Princeps can change how other characters work together with those skills.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to core combat - there’s way too much to discuss in one DevDiary, and some of it we’re excited about you discovering on your own! We haven’t even touched on the two tactical item slots every character has, which allow them to expand their tactical options even further. The layout of our hand-crafted combat spaces also play a huge role in combat, including how characters can use cover to reduce their exposure to ranged attacks or exploit choke points to keep more vulnerable characters protected behind a tanky, shield-bearing Princeps. Don’t worry though, we’ll continue to share more of these details in future DevDiaries, and if you join us for our DevStreams, you may get some sneak previews at some of these features when we show off the game.



Speaking of DevStreams, we hope you’ll join us for our second DevStream coming up on Wednesday June 2nd at 1:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM GMT on the THQ Nordic Twitch Channel: http://twitch.tv/thqnordic, where our Senior Producer Brad Logston will be talking with Creative Director Jonas Wæver and Combat Designer Hans Emil Hoppe Rauer to chat about core combat in real-time. We’ll also be taking questions directly from this DevDiary and answering them on-stream, so get your questions in early and tune-in to hear the answers directly from the development team!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this second DevDiary and hope you’ll join us in a few weeks when we’ll change gears and open up the book on our game’s story. Mark your calendars, that’ll be dropping on June 21st.

Until then, Vale!

 

[Shrimp]

I'm pleased to hear of the decision to do away with white damage such as regular attacks that ultimately don't do anything outside of dealing damage.
I feel like far too many RPGs with so-called "tactical" combat quickly deteriorate into doing nothing but controlling your dudes one at a time to perform your one (1) action per turn. An action that more often than not ends up being "reduce the target's health value and do nothing else" which in the long run does get boring.