Expeditions: Rome gets free update soon, get into the beta today

Patch 1.6 - Patchnotes

Ave Legate! Bet you weren’t expecting a patch for Expeditions: Rome, but here we find ourselves never-the-less. Though it’s nearly Halloween, there is nothing spooky about this update. 

Motivated by a surge in discussion on the forums after a recent sale, we’ve put together a small but substantial patch to address the issues we’ve seen reported most frequently. While we were rummaging around in the project files already, we made a few improvements to the gameplay, most notably changing the way pacification missions are started so it matches what’s happening in the fiction (you’re sending people to handle it, not going there yourself) and adding an option to disable them completely – particularly handy for second or third playthroughs when you just want to get on with the story. 

You’ll also notice new colours and emblems in your customisation menu. On release, we had themes that were designed for specific streamers or Twitch promotions, which could only be unlocked by connecting your Twitch account and tuning into those streams. Since such promotions are now in the distant past, we decided to just let everyone have them by default. We even added a handful of new themes that were never released before! Enjoy these fancy new styling options for your praetorians and legionaries. 

 

How to get the update: 

This update is currently available on Steam on a beta branch. To access this branch and switch your game to the new version 1.6, please open your Steam library, right-click on Expeditions: Rome or the Expeditions: Rome Demo, and choose “Properties”. Switch to the “Betas” tab and enter the following code into the “Private Betas” text field: 

Full game: Opuna4Irik44 
Demo: rgTTGnf9sh4G 

Once you’ve entered the code, press “Check Code”. You should get a message about a new branch being added. Click the blue button to switch to the new branch. You can also select between available branches by clicking on the dropdown in the top right corner of the screen. 

After the update is applied and you’ve started the game, you should see a new version number in the main menu, beginning with 1.6. 

Gameplay improvements: 

No unique items drop randomly anymore. The handful of unique items that formerly did so are now spread across Act 1 and the first half of Act 2. Additionally, some predetermined Linen drops have been added as well to increase the availability of that resource. 

Changed the flow of Pacification missions so you no longer have to run your world map avatar to a level entrance point: When you retrieve a Pacification mission, you now get to assign the Companion and Praetorians directly from the conversation with the Primus, which will start a timeline event. You can then proceed as normal, and when the timeline event triggers, the selected party will enter the pacification level. 

New Game Option: Disable Pacifications. This option disables turn-based pacification missions (except the first tutorial pacification), forcing all pacifications to be of the Legion mission type. 

New Game Option: Auto Praetorian Management. This option disables the need to manually equip gear and select skills on non-companion praetorians and automatically handles this for the player. You will still need to manage your own character and main companions. 

Adjusted Rural Village pacification “Burn Lumber” to only require you to burn 9 of the 12 stacks of lumber. 

Adjusted the Rural Village pacification “Save Legionarii” to be slightly easier. 

Adjust the Forest Caravan pacification “Protect Official” to be slightly easier. 

 

Customisation unlocks: 

All themes, emblems, and trophies from Twitch drop campaigns are now available by default for everyone. 

Added one additional colour theme unlock for players who also own Expeditions: Viking. 

Added one additional colour theme unlock for players who also own Expeditions: Conquistador. 

Added one new colour theme unlock to each of the two primary Act 4 paths. 

Added  the THQN theme and emblem as a default unlock. 

 

Fixes: 

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze after starting Act 4 on the Die is Cast path (previously, this freeze could be resolved by pressing escape twice and waiting 10 seconds). 

Fixed a mistake that caused the unique item Spectacle to drop as only a schematic instead of the actual item. This fix is retroactive: When loading an existing save, if you have the schematic, you will now receive the actual item. 

Changed the piercing damage affix of Tutankhamon’s Dagger from a % modifier (that didn’t do anything on this weapon) to a corresponding flat addition modifier. Note: in existing save-games you will need to dismantle and recraft the weapon for this to take effect. 

Fixed a bug that caused the Gracing Shot skill to receive its accuracy penalty twice. 

Fixed a bug where a specific sequence could cause you to get stuck in the Golden Wolf quest during the step where you must talk to Lunja. Existing saves stuck in this state should also now resolve themselves upon re-loading in the new version. 

Fixed an issue where in most cases you were unable to craft Tier 2 and 3 version of the Cocles unique armour. 

Fixed a bug where observatories could sometimes spawn unreachable loot. 

Minor tweak to the navigation mesh in the Africa world map. 

Added missing male snoring sounds to ambient sleeping animations.