[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/7564110/007e737b2e18ea45a1a15e935772d710aeae1501.jpg[/img] [b]Let Us Entertain You: Expeditions: Rome Gets Gladiator-DLC "Death or Glory"[/b] Vindobona, Noricum / Hafnia, Daniae, Aprilis XII, MMXXII: "Ave Imperator, Morituri te salutant!" ("Hail, emperor, those who are about to die salute you!") - a sentence shouted by the warriors, who were about to risk their life not for their country or a greater cause but for glory itself: The Gladiators! In ancient Rome, it was all about "panem et circensis" (~ "bread and games") to entertain the masses and to keep them satisfied with the current rulership. With its brand new DLC "Death or Glory", the critically acclaimed CRPG Expeditions: Rome will bring the feeling of these ancient roman games to your PC by introducing a new class - the Gladiator - and adding arenas to the different regions, you've visited throughout the campaign. You can now prove the combat prowess of your praetorian guard in the sands of the arena and fight against various enemies, including ferocious lions and very talented champions - will you claim their titles for yourself? The new DLC is out today and a legion of other additions are coming along with the Gladiator-class, and its unique set of 24 skills. There are the new arenas, new weapons, new armours, new crafting recipes, and new enemies as well as new customization options for your legion and your praetorians. The DLC content will be included into the campaign or can be accessed directly by starting the game in the new "Gladiator Mode". https://store.steampowered.com/app/1805540 The Launch Trailer for Death or Glory on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BBcgZz2-BUs The Expeditions: Rome DLC Death or Glory launches today, April, 12th, 2022 on PC at an SRP of $ 9.99 | € 9.99 | £ 7.99 and comes with a 20% release discount. Try before you buy? Download the Expeditions: Rome demo now on Steam, you can even continue playing from your savegame if you get the full game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/987840/ [b]Twitch Drops are back![/b] To celecbrate the arrival of the new DLC, Expeditons: Rome is offering a new set of Twitch-Drops for the next 2 weeks. The campaign will start April 12th at 6 AM PDT / 3 PM CEST and run till April 25th at 6 AM PDT /3 PM CEST. There will be 3 differents drops to obtain: [list] [*] 1st Drop is a new color scheme, which you will receive after watching 1 hour of a participating channel [*] 2nd Drop is an unique emblem, which you will receive after watching for 1.5 hours of a participating channel [*] 3rd drop is a new trophy pack, which you will receive after watching 2 hours of a participating channel [/list] Enjoy & stay tuned! Note: This update will reset your input settings. If you have any custom key bindings, you will need to manually restore them after installing this update. This update contains several major changes to class skills, including one skill for the Princeps and one for the Veles that have been replaced entirely. When you load an old save after this patch, you will be offered a one-time opportunity to refund all skill points and reset the skill trees for your entire party. New Content and Features: ● Added 3 new dagger-dagger combo weapon skills for players who want to go full Duel-Wielding Rogue. ● Added 2 new female and 2 new male hairstyles to character creation based on certain available portraits. ● Liviana’s and Claudiana's portraits will now reflect the skin color of the Player Character. No more "adopted" status effect. ● Archelaus, Theophilus, Damianos, and Warmaksan now have character portraits. ● Added four new unique Roman armors with associated new charms that will drop randomly throughout the game. ● Added a charm to the Boar Talisman as it was the only unique item that didn’t have one. ● Added some new branches of camp dialogue for all the companions throughout all three campaigns. ● Added new camp dialogue for all companions reacting to your chosen romance. ● Added new camp dialogue for most companions reacting to a certain choice in the quest End of the Aedui. ● Added companion banter after the Ambiorix’s Warning encounter in case you win, so the quest doesn’t end as abruptly. ● Added a warning message on screen during the preparation phase whenever the enemy will get the first turn in an encounter. ● Added a warning message if you attempt to load into a level without a full party (you can still enter, you’ll just be warned that it may make things too difficult). ● When attempting to load into a level where a certain character is required to enter but that character is currently assigned to an outpost assignment, an option to remove the character from the outpost assignment has been added. ● Similarly, updated the Siege Follower Selection so that any character assigned to outpost assignments will be unassigned, allowing them to be chosen for the siege. ● You can now add followers to the party by double-clicking on them when selecting which members to take in the follower selection UI. ● Added an option to show or hide the UI so you can take prettier screenshots. ● It's now possible to target characters by clicking on their character portraits on the HUD during an encounter. ● Pacification quests are now automatically tracked when received. ● The wardrobe in the player’s bedroom in the villa in Rome can now be used to replenish tactical items if the legatus tent is upgraded to at least level 1. ● Added a new tutorial about Morale that will trigger the first time a character breaks. ● Added an option to permanently dismiss the VIP recruits from the Barracks. Bug Fixes: ● Fixed an issue with the Berber headband clipping through Bestia’s head. ● Fixed a flicker in the facial hair of Dumnorix. ● Continued game stability improvements (crash bugs). ● Fixed an issue with a water jug being out of reach in the family villa during the Res Publica quest. ● Fixed an issue with the autosave icon not going away during the Awjila siege. ● Fixed a nonfunctional ladder in Mytilene. ● Fixed an issue in the Smuggler’s Cave with a couple of hexes that would cause the character’s legs to not animate correctly. ● Fixed an issue with Legio Victrix getting stuck at the Lugdunensis outpost under certain conditions. ● Fixed an issue with equipped unarmed weapon skills being replaced by newly unlocked ones. ● Fixed an issue with the character’s legs not animating correctly on a certain hex in the Hidden Roman Campsite level. ● Fixed an issue where under certain conditions the crafting times would not be reduced when a Praetorian with the Crafty trait was assigned to the armory. ● Fixed an issue with Gracing Shot getting removed after its first shot and made it a toggle. ● Fixed an issue with the character’s legs not animating correctly on certain hexes in the Chalkedon siege. ● Re-positioned some characters that were positioned at bad spots during the Last Stand quest. ● Fixed an issue with hired praetorians losing their custom names when rehiring them in the barracks. ● Fixed a rock in the Gaul Creek Camp pacification level that the player could fall through. ● Ficker a flickering texture issue with the POI UI graphic on the world map when using the “hold to move” method of moving the character. ● Fixed a bug where you could open menu screens while a legion battle was pending. ● Fixed an issue where the character’s legs were not animating correctly on certain hexes in several levels. ● Fixed an issue where some stats on the legion stratagems would not appear when clicking between the different tabs of the workshop UI. ● Fixed a minor jitter of the weapon swap button on the character’s weapons in the inventory UI. ● Fixed an issue in the Troas Fishing Village where a rooftop wasn’t completely fading away. ● Fixed some pathfinding with the hexes in the Senate. ● Fixed an issue with Caeso not staying down after the encounter in the Senate. ● Fixed an issue with the Lunge skill not adding critical damage from helmets. ● Fixed an issue with the Legio Ferrata emblem not unlocking. ● Fixed an issue with Rousing Speech having a 1 second linger at the start of its animation. ● Fixed Alexander’s Spear making stunned and knocked-down enemies stand up and run away. ● Fixed an issue on the Cliff Pass Overlook level where players could get stuck in place if they happen to be standing on a certain hex when the encounter is over. ● Fixed a minor collision issue in the Memphis level. ● Fixed a fence you could walk through in the Coastal Village level. ● Fixed an issue where the Tax Collectors side quest could be accessed slightly before it was intended to be. ● Fixed a pathfinding issue with a bad hex in the Alesia siege. ● Implemented a retroactive fix that will fix some save files where the legion was stuck during legion missions due to navigation issues (the navigation issue was fixed on a previous update). ● Fixed an issue with some male NPCs in the Africa region missing an arm. ● Fixed an issue with the +Armor Shred buff from the Shredder passive skill getting removed when playing through multiple encounters. Also restored the ability to existing save files. ● Removed broken Erithas Medallion upgrade which required the unique material and therefore was not possible. ● Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck on a certain hex in the Gaul Cave level. ● Fixed a translation issue for the subtitles on the opening cinematic in Spanish. ● Fixed some translation issues. ● Fixed an issue with the health bonus from Dumnorix’s shield not applying the health boost. ● Fixed an issue with the movement bonus from the Ancile shield not applying to characters. ● Fixed an issue where in certain levels ally characters were not added to the correct team (in the background) so their damage numbers could be affected by the game difficulty setting. ● Fixed an issue with the Sunder class ability still being able to be used even if the character was disarmed. ● Fixed the charm on Caeso’s armor describing the wrong effect for the Indomitable status. ● Fixed an issue with the Herding Cats quest being able to be improperly completed. ● Fixed an issue on the second encounter in the Alexandria Siege that could cause the player to get stuck on the map. ● Fixed an issue with Turius Orestes’ dialog involving more than 1 Pacification quest when only 1 Pacification quest is active. ● Added an option to delay the Alexandria assault in Turius Orestes’ dialog in case you still have pacification quests left to do. ● Fixed a potential issue where the VIXI ambush in the Cliff Pits level might retrigger but not be allowed to actually start a 2nd time, causing you to load into the level with no enemies around and be able to just leave again immediately. ● Fixed the Beach Village being called “Rural Village” in the pacification tutorial. ● Fixed an issue in the Chalkedon siege where under certain circumstances characters who had not been part of the previous encounters would not start with full health. ● Fixed an issue with the Rhianus NPC during the Divide and Conquer quest with some of his dialog not matching the scenario outcome. ● Fixed an issue with Meddur having dialog related to Sekkura before speaking to Lunja about it first. ● Fixed an issue with Suppressing Shots not consuming an action point under certain conditions. ● Fixed an issue with possibly getting stuck on the Greece world map, near the Nikomedeia area. ● Fixed an issue with world map POIs appearing when the POI is on cooldown. ● Fixed an issue with characters not getting incapacitated if enough stacks of Burned was placed on them. ● Fixed an issue with mission timers sometimes not being correct. ● Fixed an issue with some decals on the Gravesite level not displaying correctly. ● Fixed some overlapping UI text in various languages. ● Fixed an issue with Julia’s unique armor rolling base stats instead of affixes. ● Fixed an issue with Caeso’s helmet not having any affixes on Tier 3. ● Fixed an issue with Dumnorix’s shield Piercing resistance not being correctly applied when equipped. ● Fixed an issue on the Beach Village pacification (release captive legionarii) with certain hexes having cover when they’re not supposed to. ● Fixed a bug where the "pick-up" step of "A Better Lorica" quest would not complete if you directly dismantled the armor in the chest. ● Fixed an issue with weapons not being properly positioned in the character’s hand under certain conditions. ● Fixed an issue with a door not having collision in Alesia. ● Fixed an issue with Spin Attack only hitting a knocked down enemy once instead of five times. ● Fixed the charms of Caesar's sword, Meddur’s shield, and Tutankhammon’s Dagger not working if moved to other items via crafting. ● Fixed an issue with the auto-level button on the skills page not allocating points to some skills when used. ● Fixed an issue with Hortensius and Corvinus using invalid weapons during the Ambiorix’s Warning quest. ● Fixed an issue with the Boar Whisperer using invalid weapons during the Boar Whisperer pacification quest in Gaul. ● Fixed an issue with Julia’s “shooting” animation not playing correctly in some situations. ● Fixed a harmless but rather alarming issue with some hexes catching fire again when loading a save file in the family villa during the Res Publica quest. ● Fixed an issue with the Temple Fire side quest not working correctly under certain situations. ● Fixed an issue with the “You have unspent skill points” still appearing on screen after disbanding the legion in Rome. ● Fixed an issue where the Arcana Imperii achievement would not unlock in some of the dialogue branches that led to the player being made Proconsul of Egypt. ● Fixed an issue with the damage previews displaying on friendly characters under certain situations. ● Fixed an issue in the Troas Fishing Village where the player could get stuck between two wooden planks ● Fixed a progression blocker during the “In This Mess” quest under certain situations. ● Fixed a progression blocker involving the Alexandria siege with Raia under certain situations. ● Fixed a progression blocker on the Tiny Desert Camp pacification under certain situations. ● Fixed an issue with fleeing enemies not counting during encounters with “reduce enemies” conditions. ● Fixed an issue in the Collegium Bacchus that could potentially cause a weapon to get deleted if assigned to Deianeira before visiting the level. ● Fixed an exploit with the cancel movement option which could be used to avoid Attacks of Opportunity. ● Fixed the enemies being too low level in the hostage holdout in Lungundus Village. ● Fixed an issue with the staff weapon skill Shove not displaying any info in the combat log when used. ● Made it possible to walk between two of the tables in front of the barracks in all the outpost levels that you previously had to walk around. ● Fixed some minor rock collision issues in the Tiny Desert Camp level. ● Fixed an issue where the player character themselves could be assigned to go hunting in the Menhir Merchant travel event. ● Made some updates to address an issue with the controls not being functional on the worldmap after exiting a legion battle (please let us know if this still occurs). ● Fixed an issue in legion battles that could block progression if the enemy manpower reached 0 during the battle. ● Fixed one of Lurco’s triarii in the Ambiorix’ Warning encounter wielding veles equipment, and added a few more skills to some of his party members. Updates: ● Updated Corvinus in his boss fight to only camouflage when he is hit and gave him Tactical Advance to avoid Attacks of Opportunities. ● Added an auto-save trigger at the start of the 3rd encounter during the Awjila Siege. ● Translated some Roman Numbers to the appropriate Chinese symbol. ● Updated the Rousing Speech skill to make characters cheer, similar to Rally (with a 60% chance to cheer). ● Made some tweaks to the falling rubble in the Senate encounter for better animation, physics, and collision. ● The POIs on the world maps for repeatable legion missions will now disappear when the mission is on cooldown and then reappear when the mission is available to be done again. ● Minor art improvements in the Regia level. ● Minor art improvements in the Chalkedon siege. ● Lowered the POI icons for milestones on the world maps to be a little closer to the object. ● Moved the point of no return warnings from the Assault Alexandria and Besiege Alesia goals to their respective preceding briefing goals since it is already too late once you get the former. ● Added similar warnings to the end act 1 and end act 2 goals in Rome. ● Tactical items now show their charges in the inventory UI. ● Added action points display to encounter tooltips for characters that have more than 1 action point, so players can see that bosses have more movement and can possibly do two actions in a turn. ● Changed Secundus' portrait to the tan version to match his skin color. ● Made several changes to the “Social” perk: ○ Added unique notifications to the “Bath” assignment in that you will now be told which legion gained Morale and how much. ○ Updated so that it cannot increase Morale anymore if the legion has more than 25 Morale. ○ Increased the task duration from 32 to 35 hours. ● Set up the recruits in the barracks so that recruits that use a character portrait from the character creation pool will have their skin color randomized (less likely to match a portrait used by the main player character). ● Added a new goal to the quest “A Carpet Befitting a Queen” to explain that you must complete the quest “Diplomatic Distractions” before handing over the carpet to Cleopatra if “Diplomatic Distractions” is started while “A Carpet Befitting a Queen” is active, since Cleopatra leaves the Court of Heaven at that point. ● Added Scaevola (in the background) to the Senate during the Spoils of War quest if certain story decisions are made. ● Increased soundtrack variation by using the more “intense” music tracks in more places: ○ The Insidiis track now plays during the Mytilene siege, the Corvinus and Cassius fights in the Fishing Village, the Theophilus fight, both Forest Caravan pacification encounters, both Mountain Camp pacification encounters, the Fallen Tree, the Life or Money fight, and the main Warehouse encounter. ○ The Bellum combat track now plays during the Alexandria Assault, Festival Riot, VIXI (Decimus) outpost, Gravesite, the Aqueduct, Field of the Dead, Dangerous Dunes, Mirage Warriors, and all VIXI ambushes. ○ The Ingentia track now plays in Ambiorix Warning, Sacred Grove, Woodsman’s Cabin, Tribes marching, Forest Fire, Roman Hunters, and the VIXI ambushes. ● Tweaked the reverb effect in the player’s villa and the Smuggler’s Cave. ● Updated the icon for the Gracing Shot status effect. ● Updated the amount with which the approval ratings for Praetorians adjust when selecting dialog choices. This should make the approvals for Praetorians swing a bit more as you play. ● Daggers can now roll with a higher number of skills. ● Updated the encounter during the A Bouquet of Red Flags side quest to behave more like the practice fight in the outpost. ● Updated the Eagle Eye class skill: Your next bow attack cannot be resisted, will ignore shields, and has 2 charges. ● Updated the logic during the Assault on Alexandria mission to keep Raia from speaking if she dies during any part of the fight. ● Updated the description of Calida’s armor charm to say it works for any skill charge. ● Removed regular item crafting schematics from loot tables as they seemed like superfluous clutter. ● Updated Barrage to not say that it requires an action point in its tooltip. Made it so the skill cannot be activated if the character is missing an action point, since it would just be wasted. ● Updated the Tactical status effect and Tactical Advance tooltips to mention that they prevent trap activation. ● Updates to make sure Raia does not appear in certain areas and isn’t mentioned in the dialog if she is not in the party. ● Updated Ranging Shot to reveal traps; should reveal traps when an arrow hits an area similar to how it reveals Camouflaged characters. ● Updated Mark Target skill: Can be used on any spotted target. Marked has no duration (lasts forever on the target) and will spread to the nearest enemy if the character is killed by any ranged attack. Increases damage to the target by 25%. Upgrade to 50%. ● Oil thrown onto bonfires will now catch fire. ● The door in the Proconsul’s Villa in Africa will now automatically open after the encounter if the player did not open it. ● Updated some dialog in the Temple of Apollon if the player opens the chest near the temple before speaking to Theophilus. ● Updated the localization for the names of a couple of characters. ● Adjusted the position of some of the items in the inventory and skill UIs. ● The Lucullus’ Warcamp outpost has been renamed to “Eresos”, since it was weird that it was still called Lucullus Warcamp after his legion moved to another outpost. ● Updated Feint skill tooltip to mention that it is usable on friendlies. ● Added a status effect display for the Quick Feet passive skill. ● Swapped around cavalry breakpoints 6 and 9 in the new legion battle system, as it made more sense in terms of the use of those breakpoints. ● Added a 5x speed setting for the world map. Balance: ● Updated the Tier 2 and Tier 3 Pila to always shred 2 Armor points and only gain +1 Shield and Health damage from a tier upgrade. ● Updated tacticals which deal damage to not be able to inflict critical hits. ● Updated loot based on feedback: ○ Fewer item crafting materials (such as bowstrings) dropped from loot tables and from dismantling items. ○ Increased drop chance of good and pristine salvage when dismantling items. ● Adjusted the balance of multiple Legion Missions in regards to the amounts of rewards given (most noticeably food) and reduced slave cost. ● Updated Reaping so that it does not reset the cooldowns of tactical items, does not trigger when tacticals are used, and only triggers on melee attacks. Yes, it’s another Reaper nerf! You have only yourselves to blame ;) ● Added affix ranges for Bludgeoning Damage for swords, and also removed the upgrade set of Penetrating Damage tier l, so you can no longer acquire tier 2 or 3 versions as they gave the same stat range to roll anyway (less clutter). ● Made a small update to the Accuracy affix stat ranges. ● When Morale gets broken, it is updated so now it removes all Shield Strength from the broken character. ● The Lure class ability now has 2 charges instead of 1. ● Overdrawn Shot was too much of a no-brainer; now it applies Fatigued to self which reduces accuracy by 20% and crit chance by 10% for 2 rounds. Stacks 3 times. ● Updated the Ranging Shot skill as follows: ○ Double Accuracy range. ○ Spotted lasts 2 rounds. ○ Duration of the Ranging Shot zone is reduced to 2 rounds. ○ It is now a Free Action with 3 charges. ● Blood Thirsty now only grants a 10% increase in damage on its upgrade. ● Born Ready now gives flat starting amounts of focus max (4, 8, 12). ● Warhorn now has a smaller radius but will increase with upgrading. ● Updated Tactical Advance to apply Coordinated rather than trying to restore 3 movement through the Tactical Advance upgrade status. This is more intuitive and eliminates stacking with Logistics. ● The upgrade to the Deathblow skill no longer increases its damage multiplier from 50% to 100%, but instead allows the skill to combo with Stuck and Crippled as well. ● Lowered the Max Health multiplier from Calida’s unique armor base stats. Also its charm now only grants a 20% chance to refund skill charges instead of 50%. ● Bestia’s armor grants 15-25 --> 40-50 --> 65-75 Focus Max now, depending on the tier. ● The Reckless ability has been updated to increase damage by 25% and then 50% upon upgrading. ● Reduced the number of enemies in the Corvinus fight during Act 4. ● Gave Corvinus the Eagle Eye ability and added Ranging Shot to the other archer in his group. ● Updated the charm of Achilles’ Spear so it no longer has a 5% chance to retrigger on every turn. ● Legion battle balance tweaks: ○ Increased attrition (from 1% of strength to 2% per tick). ○ Increased cooldown of attack events by 1 day so they don’t happen as often. ○ Made travel events not trigger when close to a friendly outpost. Attack events and quest events will still trigger, however. ● The Rallied damage buff from the Banner of Mars has been reduced from 25% to 20%. Known Issues: ● In certain situations, some of the Archers in the Africa Arena can go idle. ● When equipping the Gladiator Trident, the Retaliation Chance stats fail to be added to the player’s stats. ● The Hunting Traps will be unable to be placed in some narrow places even though it appears they can. ● When upgrading/unlocking buildings in the outpost, the Barracks tent can sometimes go missing. Reloading the outpost will fix this. ● Two characters can occupy the same hex if their pathfinding is interrupted. ● There are some ladders in the game that can’t be interacted with. ● Movement points can be lost if the character walks into a camouflaged enemy in the Amphitheatre. ● The Distracting Blow Unarmed Weapon Skill fails to prevent Lions from performing Attacks of Opportunity ● Some of the takedown animations play awkwardly when performed on a NPC in the Amphitheatre.