Hey, all.

I have recently been enjoying the Divide et Impera supermod for Rome II Total War and I know many of you are big Total War enthusiasts. I am curious, has anyone else here tried this mod? If so, what were your impressions?

I'm still getting my feet wet in TW with Warhammer 2, but I do have Rome 2. After playing the opening of the campaign just to get a taste of it, I'm thinking I'll give it a whirl when I tire of WH. I know it's a total overhaul mod, but what kind of things does it do?

It's a major rework of the game. Probably the hardest thing, for me, was realizing that I couldn't play it like vanilla Rome II. I had to start it over a few times as I re-learned the mechanics. It is much more in depth. Much more a true strategy game. Everything seems to matter now...the politics, diplomacy, and whatnot. Before they were more interesting flavor. Now they are critical to success.

There are a great deal more unit types, many available by region. The visuals of the units have been reworked as well.

One of the biggest changes is to recruitment. Recruitment is now tied to region population, which is broken down by class. You have to have sufficient numbers of the required class to field the corresponding unit. Additionally, replenishment of losses is tied to these numbers as well.

There are now four turns per year, broken down by seasons, which have various effects on each region and also the units contained within them.

There is a supply element that must be considered when executing your campaigns.

The various reforms for the Roman faction are present and provide interesting variety to your tactics and upgrades for your units. (Polybian, Marian, Imperial reforms).

I have only really played through the initial Roman Italian campaigns versus the Samnites and Pyrrhus of Epirus. What used to be an insignificant early portion of the grand campaign was now very engaging and challenging. I feel like this is probably what Rome II Total War always should have been. I have a degree in History, with an emphasis on Classics, and a minor in Latin. I say that to illustrate I have spent a long time reading ancient sources about this period and am very familiar with it. It is interesting to me how much the changes from this mod have changed the way you play the game, and kind of forced you into the shoes of the ancients...it's really remarkable.

I am interested to see how the gameplay progresses as I try to negotiate the First Punic War. I'm also interested in the impressions you guys have, when/if you try it.

For more reading: Divide et Impera Mod

The addition of the a supply line is intriguing . . . that is definitely one of the major omissions of vanilla Total War games to date. How does the AI handle the supply rules?

As far as I can tell the AI is bound by the same supply limitations as the player, though I'll freely admit that my experience has been limited to this point. There are several new units (supply ship and supply train) that can assist your campaigning efforts. It is also possible to provide supplies from your navy (with a supply ship) to an army ashore. There are also new supply building options that must be developed if you want to ensure your advancing armies remain in supply.

I'm gonna have to check it out at some point. Thanks for the info on it.

Thanks for the info VM downloading it now

You’re welcome, guys. I hope you enjoy it!

I have over 3,200 hours in Rome 2 according to Steam and all of it is without any mods.

This mod does sound interesting though so I may try it out.

I love the global scope of Empire TW but the game needed a lot more polish and the lack of a cooperative MP mode was a huge minus for me. Maybe one day CA will make an Empire 2 and correct those mistakes? We can hope.

Yeah PM Empire could use some polishing,,But then most of the games I own have rough edges..Especially some that I bought this year PG2..UOC II CC the Bloody first..Those are getting patches but I wish Empire could be remade,,I'll play Rome with the mod eventually,,Good thing for me I don't do MP

I could sure use some help from folks who know what they are doing..It kept crashing on me last night when trying to start a game..
Installed Rome II Rise Of The Republic Downloaded the two parts and have two folders with a .prg and a .pak file..
Went to their site and only install instructions I could find read and that was for a 1.25 version

Installation Instructions
1. Download the pack from one of the links above. Place that pack in your Rome 2 data folder.
2. When you load the game, click Mod Manager. Make sure the fix pack is listed above the main mod files and that the fix pack loads first. For now this is not available on Steam.
Do I just put the four parts into the data folder or do I need to do something else ?? I found TW Rome II Mos Manager 2.0 is this what I install ??
Any help is appreciated kind of want to give Shogun2 a break Thank you for any help to get this right

Sorry to hear you are having trouble, RWatson. I didn’t have to do all that because I installed it and run it through Steam. Here is the link to DEI in the Steam Workshop

Sorry VM I don't have the steam version

I thought Rome 2 was only available via Steam? I guess I was wrong!

Think you are right PM..Like a dumb Arse I installed the first Rome game off a cd I had,,Now got to dig through the archives and find Rome II..And if steam adds the mod that's great..
Found it in my steam library..uninstalled it a few years ago i guess but ,it's there..Didn't think to look on Steam

My concern would be does the AI know how to use these new units?

I remember some mods for Napoleon: Total War that made both the campaign map and tactical battle unit behaviors and movement speeds more realistic, but the AI could not cope with it, and it gave the human player an advantage.

Heck, I've seen bizarre AI behavior in the 3D battles under the un-modded versions! The most hilarious example I can remember is the AI using its unsupported mounted general unit to do a suicide charge against my defending spear/pike men in TW: Attila.

I am not far enough along in the game to know whether everything works as it should. What I have experienced, though, has been that the AI is very good. It will punish you if you aren't paying attention. I would say it is certainly better than the stock game.

I have only really seen one instance where the AI made a boneheaded move...they sailed a full stack army out to try and take on a smaller fleet of warships, and were destroyed.

So far, it has been really challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable.

Well, in fairness, the stock R2TW campaign AI did that as well, so nothing new I guess.

Does it reduce the number of female characters/leaders back to a historical level, especially for the non-Greco/Roman cultures?

Let’s hope so. That move by CA was purely done so they can be hip with the SJW crowd. I could imagine the absurdity if they ever made a US Civil War game with both female and black generals.

I actually haven't seen any female characters from other cultures. The only females I have dealt with have been Romans. Each of the four factions have influential members. Some of those are your generals and admirals, while others are considered politicians, and they can be given command of forces as well. Generals and admirals can revert to politician status if you disband their forces. When raising new forces you can reinstate them with all their perks and buffs, as well as reinstate the legacy of the disbanded command with its buffs as well. Very cool feature. The females are influential women from those factions. One thing I figured out only today is that you can seek a spouse for your daughters and other influential women in your party and it will give you more influential men from which to draw leaders.

I am significantly into this campaign now and can offer some more insightful observations. Diplomacy is very useful and fun. It progresses in a predictable way and allies actually treat you like a friend and will send forces to assist you. I have enjoyed nurturing alliances and tip-toeing through a few precarious points where factions friendly to me went to war with each other.

The recruitment system is awesome and really adds a lot to consider on the strategic level. It forces you to lean on foreign auxiliary troops to augment your Roman legions, and students of the history will immediately recognize a similarity to what's recorded from antiquity. The supply system also adds an interesting strategic element that causes you to plan your campaigns more carefully and also informs your building strategy for your towns.

Battles are very fun and last significantly longer than stock Rome II battles. Usually, for me, the stock battles were 12-15 mins and these are around half an hour. Because of the recruitment system I've found I am much more careful with my units, trying to limit casualties, and fighting in different formations than I would in the stock game. It has become important to cycle troops into the fight instead of just leaving them there to grind it out. Due to the scarcity of upper class folks, you'll want to especially be careful with cavalry and upper tier troops. I am not sure if this is new or not, but I had a battle tonight where I fielded 11,027 troops vs. their 2,823. Obviously all of those were not rendered at the same time, but I still had one full, and two partial armies on the battle map.

The four turn per year system is great, in my opinion. The flow of the game is nice and slow and you have the time to develop your characters and get a lot of use from them before they die of old age. Seasons impact your economy, public order, and replenishment/attrition (for armies). All told, the progression of the game feels just right to me. I suppose you're always going to be "painting the map" in Total War games, but this feels much more deliberate and I find myself doing extensive planning prior to executing my campaigns, and virtually every region acquired has been a very deliberate affair.

If you haven't yet checked out this mod, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's free, after all.

Yep; I have it installed and will give it try . . . it is going to force me to relearn a lot of things in regard to TW games, it seems.

You are right, this thing is much harder (though in a realistic way), that default . . . the Etruscans ran me over the first time out . . . . need to rethink how I fight with a Camillian legion.

You definitely need to play thorough and methodical turns, pretty much every turn. I was used to being able to basically ignore certain aspects of the game, such as politics or diplomacy...maybe not the whole game but certainly didn't check those tabs each turn. But in DEI, all of those features matter. It's a much slower game progress, with four turns per year. What I noticed was a lot more strategy required to execute campaigns and, early on, you don't quite have enough legions to counter all the immediate threats. It makes for a great challenge. I'm glad you found it harder in a good way. Please, continue to share your insights as you play through it.

Anyone still playing this? I saw it recently underwent a 'major upgrade' and I am am very interested in this mod, having just finally pulled the trigger on Rome 2. Matter of fact, the praise this mod gets was part of my decision to get Rome 2. I plan to play a stock campaign or two then give this a go as it sounds really good, sort of in the same vein as Stainless Steel was for Med 2.

DBond,

Sorry it took a while to reply. Yes, I am still playing this mod, and I still love it. I didn't know about the "major upgrade." I'll have to look into that. Do you know what changes were made? After getting used to how Rome II works with DEI it would be really hard to go back and play it another way. It just feels right to me in all the right ways, lol. A very rich gameplay experience, to be sure!

You know, it's funny...the biggest struggle I have in my campaign right now is one that doesn't even factor into stock Rome II: how to field my four legions without overtaxing the resources of the regions they occupy. I am working my way north from Italy, subduing the barbarians who have not allied themselves with me. It's been great fun!

Hey man, how have you been?

These are the patch notes from what is described as the major update (Feb 2021)

https://divideetimperamod.com/divide-et-impera-1-2-7-released/

From this link

https://www.pcgamesn.com/total-war-rome-ii/mod-divide-et-impera-1-2-7

I nearly installed this last night. I intend to do so eventually.

I've been great! Just working and raising my little family. Occasionally stealing away for some time in my favorite PC games

How about you??

The patch notes sound nice...clearly a lot has been fixed, though I have not personally run afoul of any of those issues (at least that I realized.) I highly recommend the mod. It really takes the game to a whole other level.

Doing fine thanks.

I like the vibe I get from the mod description. Like I said earlier it seems to be in some ways a spiritual successor to the Stainless Steel mod for Med 2. Things like logistics, supply lines, replenishment and recruitment and that sort of stuff was redone to make it feel a little more realistic, at least as I see it. I think I would like it and plan to give it a go at some point. I finished two Rome 2 campaigns, one in the GC as Baktria and one in RotR as Taras. So maybe it's time to give DEI a go. Though I still have Hannibal at the Gates to play. I only bought those two campaign DLCs. Does DEI work with the DLC campaigns?

Unfortunately I haven't tried any DLC out while using DeI, so I don't know for sure. I think it ought to be fine, though. If you try it, report back whether you ran into any problems!

Thanks, and it's not important. I'll get around to it eventually. Most of the changes sound good.