Huge Multiplayer Overhaul

Huge Multiplayer Overhaul or ‘HMO’ is a mod that, well, does exactly what it says, overhauls Imperator: Rome solely for multiplayer. What does this entail? Overhauling as much as the game as we can to have a mod that will create a fun, engaging and balanced game for multiplayer while taking the setting and history as inspiration for our many new additions.

This mod is intended for Multiplayer use only, you can use it in Singleplayer but the AI is never taken into consideration for our changes and sometimes we may even ‘gut it’ in order to add mechanics to the mod for players. It is currently only localised to English due to the small team and majority being English speakers only.

HMO has been given permission to integrate the following mods:
-Field of Mars (Built off of)
-Commander Kings
-Great Wonders Refined
-Bloodlines 2.0
-Imperator Navigable Rivers
-Legion Distinctions Overhaul
-Map Modes Enhanced and Clear Skies

Main features of 1.0 release build:

Terrain Combat modifiers – All units now have modifiers for combat ability on all terrain types to create more asymmetrical warfare. In this mod archers can crush Heavy Infantry in rough terrain like mountains, forests and marshes whereas Heavy Infantry and Cavalry will dominate in the flat terrain like farmlands and plains. We have done this to break up the stagnant multiplayer meta of Heavy Infantry spam while also adding a fun layer of historical relevance to where units excelled.

11 New Military Traditions – We have added into the game 11 new military traditions to add more variety and gameplay opportunities across the map for the players. Two of these new traditions are Persian and Levantine that have been completely rebuilt to take into account the many new traditions around the map and the remaining vanilla traditions have all received small reworks and balance changes.

New Formable Nations – There have been countless formable nations added into the game to spice up gameplay with such formables as Italia for non Roman Italian nations, Anatolia for Antolian nations etc. There have been too many to list added across the map varying in all shapes and sizes alongside ‘easter egg’ nations of historical or fantasy nations. (Visigothic Kingdom anyone? Indo-Germanic Empire?)

Monarchy to Republic – We have added a mission tree to allow all Monarchies to attempt to become a republic, it wasn’t fair that it was only one way right? This should allow more fluidity in the game so players can really pick and choose what government type they want to be and are not restricted to a monarchy from game start.

Culturally Unique Innovations – Dozens of new innovations have been added in for specific cultures, tags and even government forms to better enhance cultural diversity and history. Arabian nations now have access to innovations that showcase the Monsoon Trade with India, boosting their economies and naval range, Egypt has many new innovations surrounding the Pyramids, Nile food production while the Punics have access to innovations to showcase the serial production of their ships and huge trading empire.

Cultural Decisions – Many new cultural decisions have been added to encourage players to not mass assimilate everyone. Now to get new traditions you must enact a decision on the culture and keep them integrated to continue to learn from their tradition tree, this also works for culturally unique innovations. On top of this you may also ‘recruit talent’ or ‘promote commander’ to spawn in high stat characters, if RNG is on your side.

Towns to cities – The territory tier system of territories, cities and metropolises didn’t quite sit right with city spam becoming the meta in multiplayer so we have created a new mechanic to make territories much more valuable, towns. A ‘Town’ is a new territory building that replaces the Provincial Legation and grants many bonuses to the territory however unlike normal buildings once this territory reaches 10 citizens an event will pop up allowing you to upgrade your town into a city OR a new unique building type that can only be gained through this system. These buildings are towns on steroids that grant bonuses based on the trade good or geographical location of the territory. Vineyard, Industrial Town, Market Town, Fishing Port and many many more.

Arabia Rework – New life has been breathed into Arabia with the entire Southern Coast now colonisable and passes added to the middle of the Peninsula for more interesting gameplay. On top of this many of the nations in Southern Arabia are no longer tribes to better reflect history with more pops being added to help bolster the underappreciated area.

Caste System – The religions of the Indian Subcontinent have been slightly reworked to better reflect the caste system and slow down the Indian blob that unbalances games. Hindu nations will find themselves struggling to promote their many new pops and begin to buckle under over expansion. To combat this the players will have to institute reforms in the forms of laws to negate some of the drawbacks.

Overhaul of Regions – To help balance out multiplayer ALL regions have been adjusted and several broken up with many new regions added to better balance the game. With this new system all regions are now competitive in pop sizes for legion creation, there are still a few standouts for players to fight over though.

Complete Rebalance – The entire game has been rebalanced with multiplayer in mind from buildings to heritages to technology and units. This is also an ongoing progress as we aim to make all areas of the map, all government forms and all cultures viable AND competitive for multiplayer.

Link to the 1.0 Change Log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eU9LeFv-HooD9f7frq5BFfflYg_UkhPIzuxjhSpv3Ew/edit?usp=sharing

Future plans?

We won’t be stopping just here, we have a huge catalogue of ideas that we are wanting to implement alongside what we already have. Our plan is to do small periodic updates to coincide with the start/end of the Molon Labe Grand Campaign (discord linked below), this way we can focus on areas of the game and continue to have fresh and interesting new flavour/mechanics at a regular pace. As a tease for 1.1 we are looking to rework a certain religion and the toll warfare has on a country.

HMO Discord Link: https://discord.gg/u6zdjmNecx
If you have any suggestions, want to check up on development or chat with the Devs here is the place to be. We are also planning on hosting our own multiplayers in this server at some point in the future.

Molon Labe Discord: https://discord.gg/b65GEmM
This is the discord that the Shattered World map and Field of Mars mod was born from. They host multiple games a week suiting all time zones and regularly have 20+ players. Be sure to join here to get involved in multiplayer and chat with other keen players.