Aucta Vanilla – Campaign
A comprehensive but "lite" campaign overhaul mod for vanilla R2:TW that can be easily overwritten by other mods in the load order.
The purpose of this mod is create a much more dynamic, difficult and persistent campaign, with players having to give a much greater consideration to the quality of their generals, economics, diplomacy and politics. Keeping an empire will just as challenging as creating it.
Features
– Better persistence, you will still have challenges 200+ turns into your campaign.
– Banditry and plagues for all campaigns.
– 12 turns-per-year for all campaigns. Population growth is slowed to fit.
– Families overhauled to fit 12 TPY. Characters can have more kids and are more likely to have kids, and child mortality rates are reduced to realistic levels. Character experience is also adjusted appropriately.
– Army, general, and agent experience thresholds increased to better fit the 12 turns per year system, however each level unlocks 3 skills so that the maximum of 27 can be filled.
– Romans and Greeks can recruit male spies.
– No regional culture for realistic Palestine simulation.
– Difficulty level now only affects AI finances by modifying them. Easy has no modifiers, Legendary will take a player of Caesar’s caliber.
– Reduced income to Rebels, to make them less OP for small AI factions.
Economy:
– No more Skyrim economy. Money matters now. You will often begin a game with no food and little or even negative income. You will have to use your wits to survive this world.
– No base income. All income in the world come from assets of the world, which are vulnerable to attack.
– Trade can give as much income as taxes. Instead of thoughtlessly bowling over the AI in a mad power run, you are forced to cultivate allies and fight proxy wars to defend them in order to retain your income.
– Seasonal effects for all campaigns that also affect the economy as well as soldiers in the field.
Politics:
– Unlimited edicts with new effects, but some of those effects are negative such as tax use or corruption.
– Revamped political and imperium effects. The bigger you get and the more powerful your party is, the more you become the subject of discussion by your inferiors on those Friday night barstool ramblings. Civil war IS coming and it can be delayed but not prevented.
– Expansionism diplomacy penalty exponentially increases with higher imperium.
– Revamped government effects. A republic, for instance, favors diplomacy, trade and volunteers while an empire emphasizes tax revenue, loyalty and a professional standing military. As your size increases and you run out of public order and have to deal with miscreant parties it will be beneficial to switch from one to the other.
– Public order can affect replenishment, loyalty, taxes, and other effects.
– Public order drift: The higher your public order, the more negative it incurs, and the lower it is, the more positive it incurs.
– No female politicians and generals for Rome. No female generals for Greek cultures. Female character spawn rate reduced by half.
– All diplomatic options for all factions including confederating.
– Cursus Honerum levels now have their historical Roman age requirements; 20, 28, 36, 39, and 42 respectively.
Military:
– 100% artillery capture chance.
– Attrition is generally lower but units can be fully destroyed by attrition.
– New stance effects: stances affect things like sight range, replenishment, morale, etc. Double time/forced march is actually useful now.
– Armies have poorer morale in foreign territory and higher morale in garrison.
– No ‘continue battle’ button. If the AI can’t hunt you down and slaughter you at the end of a battle, you can’t to them either. Yes, I know that most casualties were historically incurred in a rout, but you can do that later on the campaign map if you are a good strategist.
– Campaign map movement revamped: slower movement means more protracted conflicts and more field battles.
– Besieged units take more attrition than the attackers, like in Rome 1. You know, like starvation and stuff.
– Autoresolve favors AI slightly to force you to play the more decisive battles.
– All occupation options for all factions.
– Replenishment based on multiple factors such as food, politics, and the environment. Cities that can recruit a unit will be to replenish significantly more than those that cannot recruit it.
– Sacking, looting, blockading, raiding are all much more fiscally beneficial. If you can’t afford to hold it but need to pay for that 20 stack and deal some serious damage too, then total war is viable.
– Max cap of of armies and navies increased.
– Unit upkeep standardized to 20% of their recruitment cost, this is close to vanilla but helps with balance.
– Both mercenary recruitment costs and upkeep costs are much lower than vanilla. Mercenaries are cheaper to recruit than native troops but have double upkeep of native troops. They are good to keep around for the duration of a war but not as a standing peacetime army.
– Campaign map terrain attrition removed. This is something I am testing as of right now. I like the mechanic but the minimum attrition thresholds the game can read are too high for my liking and AI like to suicide their armies.
– Army professionalization: Troops gain experience over time. Your army composition, particularly with a republican government, will likely evolve around keeping a small, professionalized core with "levies" that can be raised to supplement in the event of a war.
Compatibility:
This mod and its updates are fully save game compatible. Can be overwritten by pretty much any other mod. Not advised to run with overhauls like DEI and Parabellum for balance reasons.
Thanks to Kookie55768 for the extensive playtests on this mod. He has done a Grand campaign up to 700 turns and completed the victory conditions for nearly every campaign with multiple factions.
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
