Rome Era Chapter V: Restitutor Orbis – Aurelian and The Crisis of the Third Century

This mod is the fith part of a Mod series called "Rome Era". The main objective of these mods is to reproduce the most important events of Roman history.

YOU HAVE TO LOAD THIS MOD BEFORE THE OTHER TWO.

Compatible with Radious

You need the desert DLC to play as Palmyra.

YOU REALLY DONT NEED THE ATTACHED MODS TO PLAY THE CAMPAING, YOU JUST NEED THEM FOR THE SKINS AND THE UI CHANGES.

Historical Context:

The Roman Empire in the 270s

In 248, Emperor Philip the Arab had celebrated the millennium of the city of Rome with great and expensive ceremonies and games, and the Empire had given a tremendous proof of self-confidence.[35] In the following years, however, the Empire had to face a huge pressure from external enemies, while, at the same time, dangerous civil wars threatened the empire from within, with usurpers weakening the strength of the state. Also, the economic substrate of the state, agriculture and commerce, suffered from the disruption caused by the instability. On top of this an epidemic swept through the Empire around 250, greatly diminishing manpower[36] both for the army and for agriculture.

The end result was that the Empire could not endure the blow of the capture of Emperor Valerian in 260 by the Sassanids. The eastern provinces found their protectors in the rulers of the city of Palmyra, in Syria, whose autonomy grew until the formation of the Palmyrene Empire, which was successful in defending against the Sassanid threat. The western provinces, those facing the limes of the Rhine, seceded to form a third, autonomous state within the territories of the Roman Empire, which is now known as the Gallic Empire.

In Rome, the Emperor was occupied with internal menaces to his power and with the defence of Italia and the Balkans.

Conquest of the Palmyrene Empire

In 272, Aurelian turned his attention to the lost eastern provinces of the empire, the Palmyrene Empire, ruled by Queen Zenobia from the city of Palmyra.[40] Zenobia had carved out her own empire, encompassing Syria, Palestine, Egypt and large parts of Asia Minor. The Syrian queen cut off Rome’s shipments of grain, and in a matter of weeks, the Romans started running low on bread. In the beginning, Aurelian had been recognized as Emperor, while Vaballathus, the son of Zenobia, held the title of rex and imperator ("king" and "supreme military commander"), but Aurelian decided to invade the eastern provinces as soon as he felt his army to be strong enough.

Asia Minor was recovered easily; every city but Byzantium and Tyana surrendered to him with little resistance. The fall of Tyana lent itself to a legend: Aurelian to that point had destroyed every city that resisted him, but he spared Tyana after having a vision of the great 1st-century philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, whom he respected greatly, in a dream. Apollonius implored: "Aurelian, if you desire to rule, abstain from the blood of the innocent! Aurelian, if you will conquer, be merciful!"[41] Aurelian spared Tyana, and it paid off; many more cities submitted to him upon seeing that the Emperor would not exact revenge upon them. Within six months, his armies stood at the gates of Palmyra, which surrendered when Zenobia tried to flee to the Sassanid Empire.

Eventually Zenobia and her son were captured and made to walk on the streets of Rome in his triumph, the woman in golden chains. With the grain stores once again shipped to Rome, Aurelian’s soldiers handed out free bread to the citizens of the city, and the Emperor was hailed a hero by his subjects. After a brief clash with the Persians and another in Egypt against the usurper Firmus, Aurelian was obliged to return to Palmyra in 273 when that city rebelled once more. This time, Aurelian allowed his soldiers to sack the city, and Palmyra never recovered. More honors came his way; he was now known as Parthicus Maximus and Restitutor Orientis ("Restorer of the East").[34]

The rich province of Egypt was also recovered by Aurelian. The Brucheion (Royal Quarter) in Alexandria was burned to the ground. This section of the city once contained the Library of Alexandria, although the extent of the surviving Library in Aurelian’s time is uncertain.

Conquest of the Gallic Empire

In 274, the victorious emperor turned his attention to the west, and the Gallic Empire which had already been reduced in size by Claudius II. Aurelian won this campaign largely through diplomacy; the "Gallic Emperor" Tetricus was willing to abandon his throne and allow Gaul and Britain to return to the Empire, but could not openly submit to Aurelian. Instead, the two seem to have conspired so that when the armies met at Châlons-en-Champagne that autumn, Tetricus simply deserted to the Roman camp and Aurelian easily defeated the Gallic army facing him.[citation needed] Tetricus was rewarded for his part in the conspiracy with a high-ranking position in Italy itself.

Aurelian returned to Rome and won his last honorific from the Senate – Restitutor Orbis ("Restorer of the World"). This title was first assumed by Aurelian in late summer of 272, and had been carried previously by both Valerian and Gallienus.[24] In four years, Aurelian had secured the frontiers of the Empire and reunified it, effectively giving the Empire a new lease on life that would last 200 years.

Changelog:

1- Roman units, emperors and generals total reskin

2- Size increased( Startpos and campaign,Infantry 400 cavalry 200)

3- The starting position of some barbaric kingdoms has been changed to represent a more historically accurate scenario. The northen african tribes are now puppet states of rome in order to give stablity to that region. Some of the puppet states of sassanids are in war with them in order to represent the civil war of that period. All the puppet state of th ehuns are now in war of them in order to reduce a lot their power and their impact in the campaing.

4- Diplomatic effects have been changed so now small factions will respect bigger ones, getting into deals easily. This wants to reproduce the real situation of the epoch where the small barbarian kingdoms tended to respect the more powerful Rome even if they had periodic wars.

5- Ai improvement, more changeling campaign where the Ai will be more aggressive. Nevertheless, this in hand with point 4 will reproduce in global, harder wars with the Ai but less common. So to win a war against will be harder than in vanilla but you will have wars with fewer factions( if you use diplomatics wisely)

6- 12 turns per year

7- New battle system with more realistic morale system as well as slower combat. The spacing of the German factions has been increased and the one of the Romans decreased, trying to reproduce a more historically accurate situation. I have just transpose one of my battle mods to this one, you can see the entire battle changelog here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2204246229&searchtext=realistic

Recomended alternative music mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2343508169&searchtext=rome

Credits to celticus