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.