Announcing Roma Universalis: The Tribal Update! news

Hey there everyone!

Lead developer of Roma Universalis here, and I am proud to announce the next major expansion for the Europa Universalis IV total conversion mod Roma Universalis: we call it the Tribal update!

The game focuses mainly on adding some flavor to the tribal/barbarian nations of the world, which includes most of Gaul, Germania, Britannia, Iberia, and Scandinavia and much of the Russian and Eastern European region.

Scandinavia

We have added a plethora of new nations to the Scandinavian Peninsula, most being Scandinavian Germanic tribes with unique national ideas that give them an edge in building and fighting with ships/naval vessels.

We are also planning on giving one or two of the Scandinavian nations unique national ideas that set them apart from the surrounding nations. We are also contemplating adding unique events and country modifiers that encourage the expansion of tribes through conquest, raiding, pillaging, and war.

Mainland Europe

We have implemented a ridiculous number of new tribes in Gaul, Germania, and the Iberian Peninsula to spice up the competition for diplomatic alliances and resourceful vassals, buffer states, and reluctant subjects. War is, as it was historically, a mainstay of continental Europe as Germanic and Gaulish tribes came into frequent contact with eachother over foraging grounds, good locations for settlement, and natural defensive terrain. We are considering adding in events and country modifiers concerning the early migration of Gaulish, and a bit later Germanic, peoples across the continent of Europe.

To expand on this historical event a bit, Germania is a very convoluted and divided region; most of Southern Germany and modern-day Austria is inhabited by Gaulish tribes who practice the Celtic religion. In the north, Scandinavian and Germanic tribes inhabit the region and practice the Germanic religion. In addition, whereas the Gauls usually possess a despotic, monarchical form of tribal government, there is a tradition of confederal government in the Germanic region: most Germanic tribes have a ruler who is chosen from the men of the tribe, but the position is not hereditary and most rulers are chosen not only for their valor but for their abilities to be prudent and decisive in tribal affairs. Elders and councils were common in Germanic society, and there will be new government forms in the mod to show a progression from early Gaulish and Germanic government to more modern and sophisticated institutions that resembled early feudal and Middle Age government in the regions of Gaul and Germania.

India

While there have been no new nations added to India, there has been a rework of the cultures present on the Indian subcontinent:

In addition, we are pondering adding some unique national ideas to several of the smaller Indian kingdoms to spice up game play in India a bit.

Other changes

Apart from many of the aspects we've touched on up above, a plethora of other changes have made their way into the mod, some including:

• A significant development boost to almost all portions of Europe, the Middle East, and East and North Africa
• A plethora of bug fixes
• An assortment of changes to many various nations to make the game more historically accurate (for example, the Duchy of Cyrenaica in North Africa is now Greek tech, religion, and culture instead of Libyan and Egyptian religion)
• Renamed various elements of the game and nations, like changing the "Greek" tech group and culture to "Hellenistic", in tune with the definition of the era as the "Hellenistic" era where independent Greek states and the influence of the Greek civilization had a final hoorah before the rise of the Roman Republic and Empire
• Various national ideas balancing
• Changed several nation flags
• Removed some redundant cultures
• New culture groups
• Added a few new nations

In addition, still much more is on the way with a focus on national events and decisions, national ideas, and probably some of the most significant changes will be events for the rise of the Roman Republic and Empire, the Punic Wars, and the Pyyhric War and clashes between the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

There is no current release date for the patch, so expect more developer diaries soon!