Inspired by Tanelorn and Fairline's superb ancient units I decided to update the graphics for Aeterna Civitas III which is a project on hold after Agricola's playtest highlighted some major flaws. After starting to tinker with the scenario a little I had one of those brain thingies (I call it an idea storm) and I'm suddenly feeling the creative juices flowing through me again.
My concept for ACIII was to use the ToT events to create a very challenging scenario. What I think I actually made was a 400+ turn slog which would only appeal to the most patient Civer. I took on board Agricola's invaluable feedback and I have made major changes to the units movement speed, the length and speed of the scenario and the economic system. As well as this I have had some great new ideas about the objectives, unit production, the economy and the AI events.
MOVEMENT and GAME LENGTH:
The scope of the game is now only from 281BC to 106AD (the end of the Dacian Wars) and the turn year increment is now two, making the game 193 turns long instead of 481. I have doubled the movement speed of all ground units and added 2 moves to all cavalry. I'm also thinking about ways to get the engineers working faster to speed up the road building process. I hope this will lead to a snappier, more action packed game with new wars coming thick and fast. I will need to play test it once the alterations have been made and if it is still too ponderous I will tweak the values again.
LEGION EVENT SYSTEM:
One idea I had was about the creation of a Legion as a whole unit. For instance an event creating perhaps 14 units in Rome comprised if 3 Velites, 3 Hastati, 3 Principes and 3 Triarii and 2 Cavalry. To trigger the event the player would have to build a Legion unit which would then go to Rome where it would destroy itself against a (barbarian) training camp unit. It will be very, very expensive to buy the Legion unit and I hope this encourages the player to set more of their cities to producing taxes so that a few major cities can build the Legions. Hopefully this will mean less micromanagement of cities is required and more time can be spent conquering. This idea is borrowed from Komnenai by Heresson.
TRADE and SLAVES:
I would like to alter the economy so that less time is spent shipping traders around and the focus is kept on expansion. I want to make the economy work by constant expansion. City captures bring in money and slaves. Slaves can be disbanded for their high shield value to help build new Legions or city improvements. I think traders also need to be created via events after cites are captured. To make this work I will need to make the economy easier to manage. My old concept of a very tight financial situation led to an over emphasis on trade just to balance the books.
OBJECTIVES:
I want to try and steer the gameplay along historical paths without stifling the players urges to try new things. My concept is to announce a new objective via an event. This new objective will have a set time limit to be completed in. If it is not completed in time there will be dire consequences, such as a major civil war or invasion by the enemy that will practically wipe out the player. Once an objective is achieved the penalty event will be switched off via flags and the player will reap the rewards of their victory. For example, an objective could be to take Sicily from the Carthaginians. I can focus the events to assist the AI Carthaginian resist the Roman attack on the island. If Rome fails to take its objectives then a large Carthaginain army will land near Rome or a civil war will erupt across Rome in which most of its major cities will be lost. These events will be complex, but I think it is possible.
Its funny how I always feel more creative just when the weather starts to turn nicer, exactly when I should be spending less time on the PC and more time outdoors!
Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.
) so hopefully you can get your hands on it soon. It helps that I'm modifying a working scenario rather than starting from scratch. 
