Rise of the Republic 1.2 - Northern Wars Update release blog

August 01, 2022

Hurry up admiral, the fleet is awaiting your command!

Today 224 years ago the Battle of the Nile started. Is there a better day to release Imperial Splendour - Rise of the Republic v. 1.2?

So here it is, after 3 years of hard work, Rise of the Republic 1.2 - Northern Wars Update.

Download RotR 1.2 here

Just install the mod by following the installer / the instructions provided and let the first turn of a campaign pass without doing anything. That's important as the game grooves itself in!

So what's in it? Of course the 3 Northern European factions: Sweden, Denmark and Russia. Everything done on them is already disclosed in the previous blogs. So if you want to have a look, scroll through our blogs or this one might be a bit crowded.

But not just that, the whole AI got a rework. Also, the armies of Spain and Austria partly await your command!

Here is the Austrian army:

And the Spanish (without colonial units, note that the rooster is in an early stage, models and texture can change with the next updates):

As the Hanoverian army is one of the oldest in the mod, it got a full rework with improved textures and models.

We also wrote tons of descriptions. In total descriptions numbering around 50.000 words were added. Furthermore, hundreds of new generic portraits have been added. Have a look at them below:

New building chains and buildings are also part of the update which help you to balance your economy, armed forces and happiness. Also, the new models simply look better! Here is an example:

Arts and Science building chains by QuintusHortensiusHortalus on Sketchfab

Staying for a moment with the campaign, we change the possession of regions in order to create a historically accurate world. Many regions have changed ownership mostly in the Americas:

But we didn't only add new stuff. Many things from the previous version had to be fixed and we did. So no more weird textures, no more canons turning black when destroyed and weird fire drills.

The soundtrack is completely reworked too. The soundtrack is still a Classical music soundtrack and uses calmer music for the campaign (mostly Piano music), more vivid (for example two marches from Beethoven) and full orchestra music for the land battles and finally mostly string quartets/quintets for naval battles. Overall the soundtrack was expanded with much more pieces than before. You can find a full list of used tracks below.

Last but not least:

The navies got a huge rework. Every major naval faction now has specific new ships and designs for you to construct and rule the waves. There's so much to say about each individual nation that the best might be too left to you to explore.

Most notably we have added not only classes of ships but also a few singular ones, all based on historical records. Some unique ships are already built and sailing at the start of a campaign and aren't recruitable at all (they are older ships), like HMS Victory and Santísima Trinidad. If you don't want to lose them forever you better take good care of them.

Ships are divided as in the "common" system of rates but some of the ships aren't on their historical rating because of balancing reasons, like some heavy third rates being classified as second rates on our mod. Each rate has "heavy", "normal" and "light" variants of HP, usually also tied to firepower but in more than one case you can find a really weak but sturdy ship or a powerful but lighter one.

Speaking of firepower, you'll find all ships carrying historical load-outs of cannons on their decks and some of them even are upgradeable! For this to happen you should develop the "New Cannon Boring Techniques" technology from the naval tech-tree, it will upgrade your cannon's calibre to the one specified in the ship's unit card description. (just take into account that in very few instances your ship might get lighter cannons as is the case of HMS Victory going from 42 to 32 pounders, in any case, this might decrease overall firepower but increases damage per minute as those cannons reload quicker). Also, take into account that each rate has a designated armour thickness value so lighter cannons (say, an 8-pounder) won't pierce through bigger ships (say a third rate). But you can always work your way by demasting and stern raking, the last having a vast effect on morale.

You must take a deep look into each ship's stats to notice the different HP and firepower values. In the case of durability the unit card now has an icon with an "H", "N" or "L" to ease the process while you can find accurate firepower values in the unit's card description Also: Do not trust the unit card's firepower number as it has never provided the correct number, not even in Vanilla...

Furthermore, we have divided the naval gameplay into two periods:

And this is really important.

The early period goes from the campaign start, up to the year 1790.
The late period starts at 1790 and goes up until the end of your campaign.

When periods change you'll lose the ability to recruit most older ships, but will (hopefully, depending on the nation) gain brand new ones (you won't lose already built ships but construction of ships of the previous period will stop). Some nations have a strong early game, others are strong only past 1790', some (like Britain) will always be strong... You should take this into account and (especially if it's your first campaign with a nation) try and recruit everything you really care for before 1790.

The naval tech tree has been completely reworked but the essential part to know is that some ships require more than one tech to be unlocked. The most important one would always be your "special" tech, which varies depending on the nation and (especially if you're playing France) will be essential to keep a navy in shape. Then the "1800's advances" together with the "carronades" techs will allow you to build some of the strongest ships the world has ever seen! (and if you're playing a nation like Sweden some that in fact, the world never saw).

Last but not least: As has been mentioned earlier, it's important that you pass the first turn without doing anything special. The scripts that control naval gameplay start working after the first turn so in the very first turn of the campaign you might find available for recruitment of all of your faction's ships (even the post 1790' ones). If you start building some of those the construction will stop the next turn anyway, but also ship recruiting prices are somewhat bugged the first turn so instead of paying too much or too less extra money, just pass the turn. Land gameplay also needs this turn to work so use it only for diplomacy.

The following music is included:

Here is the changelog.

Thank you for your patience!

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Hurry up admiral, the fleet is awaiting your command!

Download RotR 1.2 here

Main menu:

Campaign music:

Loading Screen:

Battle Land:

After Battle Land:

Battle Naval:

After Battle Naval:

Here is the changelog.

Thank you for your patience!