Paradox's Upcoming Game - Imperator: Rome ...Excellent News!

[Anguille]

We have to hope they won't give up on Imperator like they did with EU:Rome...i wish they would have released the Alexander Addon they were working on after Vae Victis....

[JasonPratt]

EU:R:Vae Victus didn't have the ginormous profit potential of 5 years of DLC incoming.  >:D

I don't resent that, except with the expansions break the game. But I think we're past the time of Vicky2 getting a few extra DLC starts and contents and then moving on.

[W8taminute]

Rimmy, usually a humorous game player, takes time off from joking around to give his opinion that the 'mana' system defeats the strategic design of the game.

(There's still some humor on occasion.)

That's actually a great review and kind of echoes what ArchWarhammer was ranting about but in a more civilized manner.  Thanks for sharing!

[bboyer66]

I'm sure anyone who has played EU or it's ilk knows this, but for others: keep in mind that you unlock many options as you advance in your various "tech" fields. This is particularly true with buildings and such I believe. So an initial play through may seem like there isn't much to do but eventually, things open up.

On another note, I took over a neighboring minor power. I had the options of killing, improsoning or banishing their noble families (among other options). I chose to adopt two of the families into my empire due to some pretty decent characters. Crucified the rest...obviously. Also tried to convince an enemy general to come to my side but I don't think his loyalty was quite low enough. I'm interers to see if he brings the army with him or just loyal units

That brings up another feature. As a general stays in command over time, certain units in the army will become loyal to him. Normally, that just means they can't be removed from the stack while he commands it; BUT, if his loyalty goes....or he gets a better offer from another empire, he can revolt and all those loyal units stay with him. So rotate leaders folks...don't be a Roman Consul and let your general conquer and reward units with wealth so they become loyal to him!

See!....there's cool stuff in there

The loyalty of leaders hardly fluctuates. If you place a leader with good loyalty in charge of the Army to begin with, you rarely will have any problems. The one time I did have a general whose loyalty was getting low, I just held some party in his honor, which shot the loyalty back up into the 80s.

As far as what to do with noble families, I just kill them all. Fact is I have like 30 plus families already, with so many damn people that it's not even worth keeping track of them all. Plus their are only so many jobs to go around, so you really don't need them.  Maybe if an empire gets EXTREMELY large you might need to start adding families??

[HoodedHorseJoe]

I keep having to grant citizenship to families from countries I've annexed, as my current family stock just keeps running thin.

I like the mechanic, but there's not much too it right now.

(Was playing Rome)

[Anguille]

EU:R:Vae Victus didn't have the ginormous profit potential of 5 years of DLC incoming.  >:D

I don't resent that, except with the expansions break the game. But I think we're past the time of Vicky2 getting a few extra DLC starts and contents and then moving on.

Yes. But they are going to do this only if the game sells well and i am not sure right now if it will recover enough.

[mikeck]

I'm sure anyone who has played EU or it's ilk knows this, but for others: keep in mind that you unlock many options as you advance in your various "tech" fields. This is particularly true with buildings and such I believe. So an initial play through may seem like there isn't much to do but eventually, things open up.

On another note, I took over a neighboring minor power. I had the options of killing, improsoning or banishing their noble families (among other options). I chose to adopt two of the families into my empire due to some pretty decent characters. Crucified the rest...obviously. Also tried to convince an enemy general to come to my side but I don't think his loyalty was quite low enough. I'm interers to see if he brings the army with him or just loyal units

That brings up another feature. As a general stays in command over time, certain units in the army will become loyal to him. Normally, that just means they can't be removed from the stack while he commands it; BUT, if his loyalty goes....or he gets a better offer from another empire, he can revolt and all those loyal units stay with him. So rotate leaders folks...don't be a Roman Consul and let your general conquer and reward units with wealth so they become loyal to him!

See!....there's cool stuff in there

The loyalty of leaders hardly fluctuates. If you place a leader with good loyalty in charge of the Army to begin with, you rarely will have any problems. The one time I did have a general whose loyalty was getting low, I just held some party in his honor, which shot the loyalty back up into the 80s.

As far as what to do with noble families, I just kill them all. Fact is I have like 30 plus families already, with so many damn people that it's not even worth keeping track of them all. Plus their are only so many jobs to go around, so you really don't need them.  Maybe if an empire gets EXTREMELY large you might need to start adding families??

I decided to adopt the families for role playing...not really out of need. My general? Well, apparently the family was pissed because they dont get enough money and aren't important enough. Then there was an event and his loyalty dropped...a lot. He had abouy 7 units loyal to him. I chose the option to have the state buyout the veterans and then s***-canned him

I WAS incorrect about buildings....there are only 4 which is indeed disappointing. I'm enjoying it but I can see how in 2 years and 3 DLCs, I'll be wondering how the hell I played it before. I don't find it to be barebones...but maybe a bit malnourished

[HoodedHorseJoe]

Oddly enough, I'm finding the various building types build themselves without me needing to worry about it (other than forts).

Like, all I do is plonk down Forts where I want them, but sometimes I will mouse over a city and find it's got some of the other buildings built (which wasn't me, because I tend to ignore the buildings atm).

[devoncop]

Oddly enough, I'm finding the various building types build themselves without me needing to worry about it (other than forts).

Like, all I do is plonk down Forts where I want them, but sometimes I will mouse over a city and find it's got some of the other buildings built (which wasn't me, because I tend to ignore the buildings atm).

Hotfix just landed stopping the automatic building of forts (you still get a free Level 1 fort in your capitol)

The stuttering issue that affected quite a lot of people appears also to be sorted.

Note any Iron man saves are NOT compatible with the patch.

[Grim.Reaper]

Johan's take on state of things.....

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/imperator-sunday-morning-design-corner-may-5th-2019.1174494/

Hello!

It is been a rocky launch in some aspects, with part of the community unhappy. While it is not Hoi3, there are still issues, and I want to make sure you understand that we are looking at them.

Technical Issues
It looks like we have addressed most of the incompatibility issues, and that the game had heavy stuttering on some machines. It is something we will continue to fix immediately as they prop up.

Barebones Games
This is the feedback that I just do not understand. I took everything we had in Rome I, and made every mechanic deeper and more complex, while adding lots more new mechanics to make it into a game. This game was developed the same way we did EU4 and HOI2, the previous games I've been most satisfied with, where we used all the original gameplay code of the previous game, and just built upon that.

I've not cut away anything when making Imperator to add into future expansions, and every game-mechanic, and lots more, we had planned was in the original 1.0.

I have said before launch that this is the best game I've made, and I stand by it still. 1.0 of Imperator is the best 1.0 we have ever made of a game.

Missing UI / Bad UX
I agree that there are things in the UI that is suboptimal. Some screens are bigger than they could be, like the province interface, and some do not have all the information you may need. We are all working on improving that. Some UI I deemed as optional as we ran lower on time, and I wanted to prioritise the gameplay experience, so those will come in patches.
Multiplayer Chat will eventually come, but not in 1.1
Ledger, I regret cutting it, but there will be a first version in 1.1
Macrobuilding functionality: While we hadn't planned diplomatic or army template macrobuilder for 1.0, we should have focused on having better interface for impact of what you are building.
Colonisation & Pop Management. It is functional, but not optimal. We definitely need to improve here.

Bad AI
Ironically, this is the game we spent the most resources in writing AI for, both in time and people. Instead of a basically reactive AI, that had no goal, and reusing old mechanics, we decided to write this AI as a new proactive system working with plans.

I understand that effort and intent is not the same as result, but AI was something we did focus a lot on.

Power / Abstracted Currencies
I understand that there is a part of the community that dislike abstracted currencies like prestige, monarch power, influence or political power, they do make it into games that are possible to balance and

In 1.1, with us adding stability, war exhaustion, aggressive expansion and tyranny to the price structure, you could make a really good mod, replacing all power costs with impacts on those attributes. Such a mod could also completely make the instant culture conversion of a pop cost tyranny instead, making it something you do not want to do in bulk, or you could make changing an idea cost 5 stability, which is not much in direct cost, but limits you in other ways.

The base game will continue to use these currencies, as they make for a better game, but I acknowledge that there is a group of people who dislike them, and prefer another experience, so we will improve the game, to be able to support it.

Lack of Flavor
There has been a lot of feedback of the game about how most countries just feel the same to play, and there are no variations. While most people appreciate that there is enough difference between settled tribes, migratory tribes, monarchies and republics, there is not much difference between the different tribes other than their starting location.

While we did not view this is a flaw, we hear you, and will add some distinct flavor to 1.1, some new to our games, and some familiar.

First of all, we are adding bonuses to each religion, so that different religions have different impacts. That in itself does not make the game suddenly great, but it gives a bit more flavor.

Secondly, we are diversifying Omens, so that different religions, or even different countries can have unique omens for them. We will go into more details on this soon.

Finally, we are adding something we call Heritages to countries. This is something they start with, which gives 2 bonuses and 1 drawback. There will be lots of "generic" heritages for countries, which depends on their geography, but we aim to add as many unique ones as possible in 1.1, and then keep adding them.

Percieved Shallowness
A lot of the things that happens has not been visible enough to the player, like you don't see the things characters do with each other. This will be changed for 1.1, where you will be able to always see what a character is up to, besides just an ambition.

Another thing is that the game has been tuned so a lot of the mechanics is not required to think about, especially when you are a big power. I've seen a lot of comments about how great the game is when you play smaller, compared to Rome where you just rofl-stomp everything, and don't have to care about any challenges. One thing we are reworking in 1.1, is how a characters "power base" is calculated, which is the amount of troops, holdings, wealth or territory he or she may hold, and that power base will have much more impact.


Content
It is hard to compare content between various games, but Imperator shipped with the same amount of events as Victoria 2 with expansions, and more than any game had at release besides CK2.

We also had more character interactions than CK2 at release, and a similar amount of diplomatic actions and relations as EU4 had at release.

Of course, when you have been playing games that have 5-10k of events,dozens upon dozens of unique systems, any new game, no matter how much content they have, will feel light.

We will continue to add more content at each update, with a nice chunk on focus on Italy in 1.1, but it will take years of expansions and patches until Imperator reaches

Cheers everyone, and tomorrow Trin Tragula will show off what we have been doing for 1.1.

/Johan

[mikeck]

I love the game a lot. I just wish some of the "we are adding" was "we did add" in 1.0 since they seem to be things common in previous Paradox Clausewitz games

[ArizonaTank]

A half dozen hours in...I am enjoying the game so far.

I think it has to be sipped slowly, not gulped.

[Grim.Reaper]

I like it too...the only surprising thing I learned from Johan is they basically built it based on the first Rome...which is OK, but I would have thought they would have also incorporated some of the learning from the other games too.

[Anguille]

I like it too...the only surprising thing I learned from Johan is they basically built it based on the first Rome...which is OK, but I would have thought they would have also incorporated some of the learning from the other games too.

I still feel there are many differences. I've been playing EU:Rome for the last two weeks. There's isn't so much mana things in the game for example and you can build more than 4 buildings in a province. Of course, they have added a lot of other things in the new game.

[Pete Dero]

Wow : right now only 40% positive reviews on Steam and still going down  :hide:  :pullhair:.

The game isn't perfect but the Paradox hate is strong there !