u/Parmelion

The new Bulgarian mission tree begins with a small conquest branch available from the start. Once you conquer Tsarigrad, you will be able to choose Bulgarias future path by selecting one of three branching options, each of which massively expands the conquest branch in a different direction. The choices are:

• Illyrian & Western Path — Forge Illyria into the beacon of South Slavic unity, bring Italy under your heel, westernize the nation, encroach upon the Empire and force it to embrace Holy Orthodoxy as its official faith.
• Slavic Path — Eliminate the Magyar threat, revive the spirit of Moravia, complete Lendia’s Christianization mission, and unite all of Rus' under the banners of the Tsardom of Slavia.
• Eastern Roman Path - Put an end to the decaying Byzantine Empire and take its place as the leader of the Orthodox world. Slavicize the Greeks and launch a campaign to reclaim all the lands lost by Christendom over the centuries.

The final part of the mission tree will consist of tall missions that are likewise shared by all three paths.

Although active development of the EU5 version of Ante Bellum has been paused and most of the team has moved back to EU4, some work is still being done behind the scenes. Recently, we finished this abomination: the country setup for the Western Frankish region.

I would like to inform you that I have started working on the Bulgarian mini-update. I have given Bulgaria two new achievements and I'm currently working on a draft of their mission tree which will include 3 branching paths.

On another note, I've found out that there is so much missing localization in 1.10 that even if script wise we were to finish the update today, it would still take like 2 to 3 months to finish all the remaining localization. Due to that, I would like to remind you of an indefinitely open ⁠recruitment of Locmasters. If you'd like to help us with the update and become a member of the team, gaining early access to 1.10 among other perks, please read the information in the recruitment channel on our Discord server and consider applying. Thank you!

Hello everyone. I would like to inform you that we have decided to indefinitely pause the active development of Ante Bellum for Europa Universalis V. While this decision might come as a surprise to some of you, for many who have been following our development and the wider EU5 community, it will likely come as no shock. Before I explain the reasons, I would like to assure you that this does not necessarily mean the end of Ante Bellum in EU5. We will likely still keep working on some setup related aspects of the mod, hoping that we may be able to return to active development in the future. Since I want to be very transparent with you, let me explain the main reasons that led to this decision:

• Three months ago we held a community vote regarding the future of the mod with thousands of votes in which 79% of the participants voted against us continuing development of AB for EU5. This was a very clear indication of the level of interest in EU5 among our community.
• EU5 has not had a higher player count than EU4 for almost three months, and we have very little reason to believe that this will change significantly in the near future.
• Likely the biggest concern is the amount of system/mechanic reworks either already done or announced in the roadmap. Repeated reworks of core mechanics means that there is a significant risk that any content we create will need to be completely reworked or scrapped after future patches. This makes it extremely difficult for a small team such as ours to justify the time investment.
• Similarly, we are concerned about EU5s approach to balance, since we feel that the balance of the game is handled as if it were an online competitive moba rather than a long term strategic game, with patches often dramatically shifting meta, which again carries a significant risk. If patches with reactive and short term balance changes completely alter the viability of mechanics or entire systems, we would once again be forced to completely rework content that we might have spent months developing.
• One of the most anticipated content delivery systems for EU5 has been delayed by a year and a half.
• We are a very small team with only one official content designer and roughly 15 people in total actively contributing across lore, localization, editing, and playtesting. We have already invested months of work into EU5 and unfortunately, this has massively contributed to delaying the release of 1.10 by several months. Looking back, I am convinced that prioritizing the EU5 port over 1.10 was probably the biggest mistake we have ever made since the release of the mod.

For now, our priority will be to return our focus to EU4, since that is what most of you are interested in anyway. If the situation surrounding EU5 changes in the future, we will very likely return to active development. We know that many of you were genuinely excited about AB in EU5 and we are very sorry that we will not be able to deliver on those expectations for the time being. Thank you for your understanding and for continuing to support Ante Bellum!

Most of Andalusian and Iberian government reforms were added to the mod in the 1.4.5, which was like 6 years ago. For 1.10, we did a quality pass on them to ensure that they have varied modifiers, are situationally good, and ideally, have some custom attributes where it makes sense.

All of the Iberian government reforms also had their requirements changed - they no longer require you to be Iberia the tag, and instead they are available to all Iberian Christian nations from the beginning.

Hey guys, we would like to ask for your help brainstorming additional diplomatic actions for the Islamic Caliph. At the moment, the Caliph's only unique diplomatic action is declaring Jihad, and we'd like to expand that with at least 3–4 more options. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know in the comments!

Once all missions are done script-wise, we will have to finish missing localization and implement some minor features. After that, the update will enter the last phase of internal playtesting. Once we are confident with the state of the update, we will be ready to finally announce the release date!

I would also like to remind you that patrons of all ranks will gain early access to the full version of Sword of Islam two weeks before release.

If you guys like replayable nations, then Algeria in 1.10 will be the perfect nation for you. Their branching missions allow you to pick between Westernized and Mamluks path, but this choice is not only reflected in the branching missions. Selecting a path will affect virtually the entirety of your mission tree, including mission titles and descriptions, rewards, flavor, and so much more!

The new mission tree of Algeria is now fully available in early access for testing.

The first part of the new Andalusian mission tree is now available in early access. The missions shown on the screenshot only make up about a third of the entire mission tree. The full mission tree will likely turn out to be the largest mission tree ever added to Ante Bellum.

In order to participate, please join our official Discord server!

https://discord.gg/gSYPFHX4Mk

One of the core parts of the new Algerian mission tree are their branching missions, which allow you to either westernize or form the Mamluks. Picking a branching path will however also change the rewards of your remaining missions, and in some cases, even their titles and descriptions as this mission tree utilizes dynamic localization probably way more than any other mission tree in Ante Bellum. Examples of dynamic localization of mission titles in the Algerian MT:

• Unrestricted Raiding (Fallback) | Expand the Slave Raids (Mamluks) | Rehabilitate the Pirates (Western)
• Golden Age of Piracy (Fallback) | Terror of the Mediterranean (Mamluks) | Marauders to Merchants (Western)

As the winner of the second round of the voting poll, Bulgaria will be the scope of our next mini-update. Since the development of the mini-update will only begin after the release of 1.10, there is a lot of time to incorporate your wishes and ideas into our content planning. Due to that, I have created the #bulgarian_suggestions channel on our Discord server where you can let us know what you'd like to see in the update.

Looking forward to your ideas and suggestions. Thank you!

I havent posted any updates in quite some time, and so I just wanted to assure you that the remaining mission trees for 1.10 are being actively worked on, and I expect them to be available in early access for testing soon.

It's been a long journey but we are very close to the finish line. Stay tuned!

From the ruins of Byzantium rises a reborn Hellenosphere, unshackled from decay and destined to bring the world to its knees. The phoenix shall not rise again, and from his ashes, the heirs of Hellas march to surpass the eternal glory of Alexander the Great himself.

• Modernized Nicene mission tree with enhanced rewards, new interactions, and new branching missions. Restore the Greek world to its former glory and surpass even the legendary conquests of Alexander the Great!
• Upgrade your Nicene Militarization mechanic with two new tiers, unlocking new scaling modifiers and government interactions.
• Restore the Hellenosphere with new naturally spreading Greek cultures, including Griko, Antiochene, Aigyptos, or Greco-Bactrian.
• Two new releasable nations - Seleucia and Bactria - including the ability to play as them. This option is also available to the old releasable of Egypt.
• New streamlined event chain that should make converting to Hellenic both easier and less opaque.
• Reduce enemy fleets to burning wrecks with the new Greek Fire naval doctrine.
• New unlockable Grand Tactician ruler personality.
• New unlockable Hellenic deities.
• New events including access to the Guns of Urban, new dynamic province names, new achievements, revised startup screens

...and much more!

Now available on the Steam workshop and in the ⁠manual_download channel on our official Discord server.