Sparta

Sparta Mission 1 - Spartan Restoration

Sparta Mission 2 - Protector of the Peloponnesus

Sparta Mission 3 - The Second Peloponnesian League

Sparta Mission 4 - Ancient Rivals

Athens

Athens Mission 1 - Athens in Chains

Athens Mission 2 - Restoring Attica

Athens Mission 3 - Democracy in Athens

Athens Mission 4 - Restoring the Delian League

Hello there!I have the pleasure of bringing you this week’s Dev Diary, and will try to make the most of it. Today we are going to take a look at two other missions sets we are bringing for the upcoming content pack - Sparta and Athens. I want to stress that what you see here is still work in progress, so things might change before they go live.For our start date, Sparta and Athens’ glory days are long over, with Sparta losing their allies and subjects after the battle at Leuktra in 371BCE, and Athens losing theirs after their loss in the Peloponnesian War (though they had another smaller league later on).We will be starting with Sparta, who have lost their Messenian lands to the freed Helots, and parts of Cynuria to the Argives in the east. Their missions will be focused on taking control of the Peloponnese, building up that land, and potentially taking a stab at Athens, Thebes, and Macedon.The first mission is focused on Laconia itself, the old heartland of Spartan power and influence in the Peloponnese. After the Thebans invaded and shattered the Peloponnesian League, Sparta was left in a weakened position in-between the Arcadians to the north, Messenians to the west, and Argives to the north-east.The path on the right-hand side let’s you focus on improving your starting land, whereas the left-hand side is focused on retaking the lands of Messenia. If you are to take the lands of Messenia before you start the mission, the mission will instead focus on developing your western holdings as well. As a stand-alone task, you have the possibility of trying to convince the Skiritai (a small rural tribe at the border between Arcadia and Laconia) to rejoin your side, and permanently improve your Light Infantry troops.Another thing of note in this mission is the task to unlock the deity ‘Artemis Orthia’, on the right hand side. She was historically an important deity in Sparta, and her sanctuary was rebuilt in the 3rd century BCE.The second mission for Sparta will focus on taking your conquests and efforts beyond Lacedaemonian lands, to the rest of the Peloponnese. You have the Arcadians who have gathered in a defensive league to the north, the ancient rival in Argos, and the Eleans and Achaeans to the far north and north-west.As you can see, we have an optional far-left path that focuses on the Eleans, whereas the rest focuses on the rest of the Peloponnese. The missions focuses on taking Arcadian, Argive, and Achaean lands, and gives you optional tasks if you want to improve these lands afterwards. Similarly to the first mission, you will get alternate development focused tasks here, if you already own some of the land when you start the mission.To show some examples from the optional tasks:The third mission for Sparta also focuses on the Peloponnese, similar to the second mission, but this time we are prioritizing development and taking control of whatever subjects you may have in the area.At first you have a small optional route, where you will be able to liberate parts of Greece still owned by foreign Diadochi. Then later on you have an optional route where you can focus on expanding the largest cities in the Peloponnese.The main task will focus on rebuilding the Peloponnesian League, and restoring Sparta to her former glory. At the end of it, you will get some nice permanent bonuses, in addition to a name and flag change.The final mission for the Spartan will focus on moving beyond the borders of the Peloponnese, to Athens, Thebes/Boeotia, and Macedon.The right-hand path focuses on Macedon, the middle on Athens, and the left-hand side on Thebes/Boeotia. Every path focuses on taking the main cities (see Athens, Thebes, Pella/Thessalonike), and then developing and taking advantage of them. At the end of the Athenian path, we have an optional task for introducing a new Athenian deity (and an effect from an Athenian mission task) in Sparta as well.Athens will be focused on breaking free from their Antigonid overlord, developing Attica, and restoring the Delian League once more. At our start date, Demetrius is invading Greece and wrestling control of the city-states from Macedon, and though he was originally accepted by the people of Athens, his treatment of their city quickly soured his relationship with the citizens.The first mission for Athens will be focused on wresting control of the nation from its foreign overlord in Syria, or accepting their domination for some nice bonuses.As we can see here, the mission is split into two routes, one loyalist and one independence-seeking path. In the mission you have one great family in the nation that promotes each of the paths, and you will interact fairly heavily with them to finally get to the end of the route. The winning family will eventually banish their rivals, and either lead Athens to freedom, or to oligarchy.As one of the richer regions in Greece, Attica was the home of several rich silver mines, as well as a large population and several cities under Athenian influence. The second mission for Athens focuses on expanding upon your local powerbase, before you look outwards at new potential conquests.At the top we have tasks focused on the basic infrastructure, like owning all of Attica, building up Athens, and an optional task to expand upon the silver mines. For the second half of the mission, you will have two paths focused on the Mysteries in Eleusis and the Academy of Athens, giving different kinds of bonuses (among them the character bonus you saw earlier in the Sparta mission as well).The third mission for Athens is focused upon the local democracy of Athens itself, an institution famous long after its fall.This mission is split into two different options. On the right-hand side you can choose to abandon democracy and become a new tyrant of the republic (a bit like Lachares did in the early 3rd century BCE). Whereas on the left-hand side you can hold on to your ancient ideals and focus your efforts on improving the democratic institutions of the city-state, to get some permanent boni to the republic-related actions in the game.The fourth mission for Athens focuses on restoring the Delian League to its former glory, taking the place of the current decision that already exists in the game.In the mission you have two paths, one focused on the Aegean Islands, and one focused on the more distant city-states that used to be part of the ancient league. For most of the conquest tasks you will have an optional development focused follow-up task (e.g ‘By the Strymon River’ which gives you the task of taking Amphipolis, and then ‘Amphipolian Goods’ which has you expand upon the local mines). These will vary somewhat based on who owns it (you or a subject), and if it is a city or a settlement.When you finish the mission, you will get a new name and flag (similar to the end of the third Spartan mission), as you triumphantly restore the Delian League.Hopefully you found this little glance at the new missions for Athens and Sparta interesting, and we’ll have more to show you next week!