Existing saves are compatible.

Changed the recruitment of some Roman units. Praetorian Cavalry and Praetorian Cohorts are no longer trainable from military buildings, instead they are recruited from an Imperial Palace, but only in the city of Rome. Praetorian cavalry is just a little too strong, Rome historically had rather weak and small cavalry forces yet in the game they have a unit basically as good as cataphracts. Instead of removing that unit, it is now just rarer, plus it fits thematically.

Urban Cohorts are now only recruitable in Italian regions, but first cohorts of both types are recruitable from any barracks, not just Rome. This may not actually even be a nerf, as 300 Legionary Cohorts have on average better stats than 200 Urban Cohorts.

A new save will most likely be required

Changed the “faction creator” entries in descr_regions and descr_strat to be consistent with each other

Renames Thrace to the more historically accurate Odrysian Kingdom

Made Bosporus, Carthage, Britons, and the Greek Cities prefer naval invasions in descr_sm_factions, hopefully this will make them use navies a little more

Adjusted core_attitudes for all factions

Edited some AI personalities – there is now a fairly even spread of all the building/military priorities the AI can have

Makes rebels spawn a little bit less – I have tripled the default spawn value for brigands and pirates (a higher spawn value actually means they spawn less)

Made minor adjustments to the map

Included correct map.rwm

Removed general_unit attribute from the 2 Egyptian units no longer used as generals

Removed incorrect ancillaries/traits for characters that were the wrong culture for them

Fixed incorrect names assigned to faction characters at start

Increased Nabataen Noble Axemen attack and charge by 1

Increased Eastern Swordsmen defense by 1

Gives level 3 and 4 health buildings to Eastern and Carthaginian factions and gives Carthage Highways

Fixed incorrect name for Eastern level 4 stables

Nerfed siege towers; now their arrows are not as strong and do not fire as fast.

Fixed missing unit card for Mercenary Nubian Spearmen

Increased the cost of all buildings by 25%. Building times are unchanged. Money is already very easy to come by, especially with so many new settlements, so a raise in the onetime expenditure to build buildings doesn’t make too big of a dent.

It doesn't increase costs as much as you might think - a level 1 building that costs 400 gold will now cost 500 gold, and a level 5 building that costs 9600 gold will now cost 12,000 gold. By the time you are upgrading huge cities, the extra 2,400 should not be that much.

Existing saves should work just fine and reflect all changes.

Made Generals recruitable from huge cities

Removed ability to train Praetorian Cohorts from Imperial Palaces (they have been added to the barracks)

Increased Cataphract/Cappadocian Cavalry primary attack by 4 and secondary attack by 2 (4 for Cappadocian Cavalry because they are not armor-piercing)

Reduced Nabataean Noble Axemen armor by 1

Made Spartan Hoplites take 3 turns to recruit to compensate for the big buffs they received. They can only be recruited by one faction from one settlement; I figured they should be more useful given how rare they are.

Corrected wrong texture on Dacian Horse Archers

Corrected wrong texture on Spartan Hoplites

Update. Existing campaigns should be able to be continued, but many of the changes will not take effect until a new campaign.

Unit changes:
Nerfed Wardogs - they have a powerful charge, but their base attack and defense is much weaker, so they can still do some damage but they are not as powerful over time. The AI would spam them and they were simply too strong, making things unfun.

Adjusted the stats of several units - some nerfs, some buffs. Nothing very drastic.

Increased base amount of druids and berserkers in a unit by 10

Reduced base amount of elephants in a unit by 10

Slightly increased the cost and upkeep of elephants

Halves the recruitment cost and upkeep of all peasant units. Peasants are so useless that 100 upkeep is too expensive

Increased the arrow count of Persian Cavalry and Cataphract Archers from 30 to 40

Renamed Macedonian Cavalry for Greece to Greek Heavy Cavalry

Renamed Pontic Heavy Cavalry for Parthia and Armenia to Eastern Heavy Cavalry

Adjusted several units’ stamina and formation cohesion, an overall increase in hardiness and training level

Added a total of 8 new mercenary units. Adjusted mercenary pools to include them; made mercenaries more available while increasing their cost and upkeep slightly

Buffed the Amazon Chariots and added more of them around Themiskyra, these units were always something of an easter egg so I have turned them into a fun little late game challenge, send your armies against them and see if they can win

Building changes:
Changed the effects of Dacian Temple of Battle

Foundries and Dockyards now give a 10% bonus to trade income

Increased the trade bonus for caravans by 10% at each tier so it now progresses 30-40-50 and gave the Seleucids and Egyptians the ability to build them

Made taverns able to recruit Night Raiders

Made Scythia able to recruit barbarian cavalry from level 1 stables

Faction changes:
Renames The Greek Cities to Peloponnesian League. Considering that all Greek family members start the game with the surname “of Sparta” and that the faction starts with Sparta and can recruit Spartan hoplites, I felt the specific name worked better than the generic “Greek Cities.” I know that in real life the Peloponnesian League was destroyed by Philip II and did not reform after that, but this is Total War; it is not too much a stretch to imagine that a great general (you) manages to reform the League and lead Sparta to glory.

Gave Carthage 2 new settlements and 5 new ports and buffed their starting navies – Carthage is supposed to be a legitimate rival of the power of Rome, and a nation wealthy from sea trade. These changes are to reflect that.

Gave Scythia one more town to start with and added level 1 stables in all their settlements– with the new threat of Bosporus to the south, this should give Scythia a little boost to stand against them without being too much

Gave Nabataea the region of Nabataea – they start out in a pretty tough spot, as their closest neighbor is the powerful Ptolemaic Kingdom, with the Seleucids to the north. This should help them a bit.

Gave Numidia a port at Tingi – Meant to give them the option of invading Spain early on

Slightly adjusted start position and buildings of Britons

Changed the starting level and garrison of the 3 new Italian settlements

Changed Athens to a large city and adjusted the buildings and garrison present, in an attempt to make it seem more like a mini-faction – a valuable target especially in the early stages of the game, but well defended

Slightly reduced rebel spawn rate – the game starts with more rebels, but in the long run will have less

Adjusted the AI personalities

Fixed an issue that prevented the campaign from starting.

Changed Bull Warriors from hardy to very_hardy.