Thoughts after 2.0.4

[Imp0815]

I gave it a spin yesterday because I'm burned out on everything else and thought, "Why not?"

I played IR around its release and did not enjoy it. But it was so long ago that I did not remember why.

This time I had more insights and really gave it a chance. As almost everyone recommends, I played with Imperator Invictus with the extra content.

Here are my thoughts in no specific order after 6 hours of a Rome campaign:

• The military system is a nightmare—it's as bad as Vici 2 or EUIV, and I'm not even in the endgame. I just declared war on my neighbor, and 20 stacks of 1000-3000 size popped up everywhere, and any form of transparency or readability was gone. I did not get what was going on and I realized why I just love HOI IV and hate the whack-a-mole chess game the other PDX titles have. Luckily, there is an option to just hand this stuff over to the AI, so I don't have to play this or try to compare ten map modes to win a minor conflict (this is going to be a theme). After I did this, all future conflicts were just background noise, and I realized it had no downsides to giving it to the AI, and it prevented all the frustration that comes with the basic military system of old PDX titles that are not HoI. It felt bad; I had the feeling I was not properly playing the game, but the alternative was working (work to play a game!) on how the different rulesets and integrated systems work with the military and positioning. I'm really near my first legions and i somewhat dread it because then i have whole new level of tables and numbers and % modifiers to worry about.
• Trade—I saw multiple tutorials that just said, "Check this box and ignore it," so I did. Another system handed to the AI, and it worked better than I ever could. My shallow attempt to understand how this works was prevented by an intransparent UI and explanation of how it worked. As I understand, it's just importing a resource token into the capital to create a small percentage buff for my country? Feels a bit weak and not worth my time.
• Navy—build 20 ships, automate, be done with it.
• Politics/Characters—this was one part I could not automate. Overall, I like it; it feels really neat that the families are there and have demands and such, but it takes so much time of my life to read all the nested tooltips on abilities, which can really hamper your slowly collecting mana generation if you get THAT TRAIT. Otherwise, I do not see any impact of the stats of the characters; I was just thinking "Bigger number = Better," but I saw no impacts of that anywhere. Corruption was bad for province loyalty, but that's it. It mostly became a game of checking family expectations and spreading their influence evenly without really caring for stats or traits, as it was firstly not worth it to check all the traits and stats and secondly too cumbersome. I know my basic Roman lore, so seeing some familiar family names was fun and immersive. Most characters died off so fast I cannot name any of them I encountered in my playthrough. They have such a large system and in-depth traits and connections, but overall, I assign them and most often forget them until they die, and when they die, I do not get any useful hint what they did or where they were located. Oh, and the loyalty system is somewhat nice, and I had fun with one general who did not want to disband their levies; he died of old age, which is my preferred method of dealing with disloyal characters.
• Province management and building—Imperator Invictus introduces a new food mechanic which I like but mostly ignored, as I can't do much about it besides building farms and granaries, which somewhat make the system trivial but the impact is heavy as so many pops starve and die quickly in the winter. But not much I can do about it but build granaries and farms. Maybe I missed something? I do not understand the different wording about local modifiers; is it provincial or for the region or whatnot? It's intransparent for me. Overall, this led to not building anything else or having a choice in buildings as I was trapped in an infinite loop of building granaries, which supported more pops, which then needed more food. I once built some markets and a fort because it burned down in an event—building and province management is also quite a chore as the transparency of what is needed where and what is a good idea to build, besides granaries, is really hard to grasp.
• Events—oh my God, they are plentiful with II and also annoying as hell; most of my money and influence was just burned up in events and took any sense of control out of my hand. I think I could just automate this. At some point, they died down a bit, especially during wartime, but overall, I do not enjoy them. They add flavor and context but feel rather cumbersome as it takes so much time out of my gameplay to read up on all the characters, check up on all the actions and government screen. It came down to really sighing at all events as they often evolve into a bureaucratic task of reading tables and sheets and triple nested tooltips.
• Culture and Religion—I fully ignored it; I did not understand the impact, nor did I feel it, maybe because I was in Italy and everybody there is Italian. I took a look at it and it felt like busybody work, so I kept ignoring it until I thought it was important. Omens were ok.
• Diplomacy—I just used the Casus Belli creation button + Declare War button and some opinion improvements and integration things.
• If I did not mention anything else, I ignored it and it had no impact on my game whatsoever.

And that's it. The game boiled down to declaring opportunistic wars to gobble up land, assigning governors, building granaries and farms, and letting the game run on max speed. Wait on money and research and hope that most events are not just decisions between plague or cholera.

This sounds all salty and negative, but I had an EUIV experience here; the game seemingly boils down to painting the map without any in-depth decisions or alternative ways to play, while also most systems and interactions feel like a convoluted chore and work.

So, it's not like I just want to be a party pooper; I want to enjoy and like the game! So, I hope that some of you have a constructive explanation for my experiences and can provide some guidance that might lead to the secret holy grail where the enjoyment is found in this title that motivated so many YouTubers to band together to promote this dead game.

 

[olivenkranz]

That's an interesting perspective, but what it shows primarily imo is that it is necessary to understand a Paradox Game to know what to do, which is when you start actively having fun. Typical for PDX though, you have to invest some runs where you figure things out before knowing what is better or more fun. I personally anjoy building up my country quite a lot and seeing your primary culture go up in numbers is sexy.

 

[Jamey]

If you’d like a few suggestions:

1) In Invictus, the winter malus is a problem because the AI doesn’t understand it with the trade AI. You need to occasionally override the auto trade and import grain (The automation AI won’t cancel trade routes, so if you set them up from somewhere stable, they’ll exist forever).

2) As a corollary to that, be sure to make buildings to add trade routes where you need them.

3) Culture and religion are very important for stability and expansion. If you understand how to convert and assimilate (and integrate), you will make a much more sustainable empire.

4) War can be frustrating for the reason you describe. I mix manual and automated armies for that reason.

 

[Imp0815]

If you’d like a few suggestions:

1) In Invictus, the winter malus is a problem because the AI doesn’t understand it with the trade AI. You need to occasionally override the auto trade and import grain (The automation AI won’t cancel trade routes, so if you set them up from somewhere stable, they’ll exist forever).

2) As a corollary to that, be sure to make buildings to add trade routes where you need them.

3) Culture and religion are very important for stability and expansion. If you understand how to convert and assimilate (and integrate), you will make a much more sustainable empire.

4) War can be frustrating for the reason you describe. I mix manual and automated armies for that reason.

Thank you!

I did not grasp the concept of trade yet. It seems i control only the capital import routes or do i have to set routes manually for each and every province?

I did not find any evidence what different types of resources do besides the little buffs they give. Does importing more than one grain does anything in terms of food production and how would i see that? Is grain the only way to get Food?

So religion and culture determine my stability income? How would i see that?

On War - I'll keep that in minde if i ever come to a point where i want to engage in it(or can).

 

[Imp0815]

That's an interesting perspective, but what it shows primarily imo is that it is necessary to understand a Paradox Game to know what to do, which is when you start actively having fun. Typical for PDX though, you have to invest some runs where you figure things out before knowing what is better or more fun. I personally anjoy building up my country quite a lot and seeing your primary culture go up in numbers is sexy.

Thanks for the idea; I'll try that if I come to a point where I find enjoyment in the rest of it. And I want to add I would never claim to fully understand PDX games, but for most of the titles like Vici, CK, Stellaris, and HoI, I have a very good fundamental understanding of what to do and what can be fun. But sadly, the more I delve deeper into these games, they show their flaws. Being confronted with seeming flaws in the first 6 hours is rather upsetting if the other titles took me several hundred hours before I was enlightened, but maybe that says more about me than the games, lol.

Jokes aside, I appreciate any form of constructive feedback to understand the game better because I think I would like it more then(And i still want to!). Or did I skip the understanding phase?

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Thank you!

I did not grasp the concept of trade yet. It seems i control only the capital import routes or do i have to set routes manually for each and every province?

You can see trade import routes for any of your provinces. You can automate any of them.

I did not find any evidence what different types of resources do besides the little buffs they give. Does importing more than one grain does anything in terms of food production and how would i see that? Is grain the only way to get Food?

You can get Food (or Food modifiers) from... all the trade goods in the Food section of the Trade Goods window:

This version of the window might have been created from the Better UI 2.0 mod. If you are not playing with it, you should be; it's almost as standard as Invictus now. The tooltips show what each trade good provides:

Importing more than one Food good (a varied diet, if you like), doesn't provide any extra benefit directly. However, if your province has over Food inputs over 100, then a 3% modifier becomes better than +3.00 Food. And different food types come with geopolitical baggage. E.g. if you are a Scandinavian tribe, Olives might not be available to you at all, or only available from Rome, and you might not want to be making Rome any stronger by trading with them.

So religion and culture determine my stability income? How would i see that?

I think @Jamey meant small-s stability, not the game concept called Stability, which was perhaps confusing. Religion and culture have a major affect on the Happiness (or unhappiness) of your pops. Unhappy free pops don't work as hard, unhappy slaves are more likely to rebel, happier characters are more loyal, and unhappiness generates bad events. So a disunited realm will be an unhappy one, and that is small-s destabilizing. Capital-S Stability adds Happiness.

I have run out of time for now to reply in detail to the points in your OP, but I think the critique is unfair. You are ignoring all the non-map-painting parts and then complaining that the game is just a bad map-painter. You also don't understand some of the Imperator-specific mechanics. So I'd encourage you to read the wiki and learn more about it.

 

[DukeLeto42]

This is a compounding problem you've created for yourself:

1. First, you put armies on autopilot. Now, yes, I:R can ask you to keep track of things into the double digits, but challenging every army isn't your goal - sieges are. The AI is fine for basic carpet sieging, but figuring out where and when to take a battle is something you as a player could be much better at. You'll just have to take some time to get to understand what those values mean - it's not half as hard as HOI, and by the end of it you'll also have the knowledge base to parse EUIV.
2. Then, you automated trade. Provincial trade can be automated fine, but capital trade is important and those "small percentage buffs" are anything but (get stone. GET STONE).
3. Again, take some time to actually understand the system, and you might find it's simpler than HOI.
4. Stats and traits are extraordinarily relevant, from what makes characters loyal or disloyal to using specific stats for your researchers. Remember, "I don't immediately understand" is not the same as "it is a black box." As for governors, 2 of the states (green and red) are absolutely critical - green covers their abilities as a governor, which effects your income as well as the speed of governor actions, while red is their skill at commanding their levies.
5. You're partially right that starting in Italy allows you to ignore conversion and assimilation... for a while, at least. You'll discover those mechanics once you get further into the campaign. You need conversion for keeping your provinces loyal and facilitating assimilation, which also reinforces province loyalty and increases your levy size.
6. If you went to Casus Belli creation as your first resort, you ignored the mission system. That's fair - missions do prompt you poorly - but you're also missing a core component of the game.

This brings us back to events. Your complaint here is that this is all there is and it's bad, when in fact events are meant to punctuate all these other aspects of gameplay. This is not the game's problem, but rather a symptom of you trying to automate the game away and run the whole thing on full speed.

 

[klopkr]

I understand your perspective. This game has a really steep learning curve. But as others mentioned you've automated away some of the most important parts of the game and of course you aren't as successful or having fun with them.

You only need to focus on your capital trade goods. This game is all about tiny modifiers that all add up and are actually absolutely crucial.

You should be looking for output and happiness bonuses in the trade view and food of course. Some of the good bonuses are food trade goods so they're a double whammy!

The AI armies might do well against much smaller states but absolutely are not good enough for most big wars. It's not as deep as it seems either. For the most part bigger armies beat smaller armies, unless you're tribal and they're someone like rome. Once you get to legions (which is later in the game for most states) then you can do some basic composition, but you may as well just pick one of the stronger troops you can afford and mostly make those (with supplies and sappers). Then just focus on their bonuses. In history heavy infantry kind of won out so you really can't go wrong with them.

This game is a map painter and a civilization builder primarily. You should be focusing on either of those. Or try out the migratory tribes and abuse them until you can absolutely paint the map with your massive migratory armies for a more "tearing down" gameplay style.

I 100% agree on the events though. Most of them have one less bad option. And any involving money or influence are basically highway robbery. My preference is the following: Stability > 10x your money > Influence >>>>>> Tyranny (if you already have too much otherwise it's kind of good) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else.

 

[Nemostill]

SO，this game is not dead?

 

[Imp0815]

You can see trade import routes for any of your provinces. You can automate any of them...

This is a compounding problem you've created for yourself...

I understand your perspective. This game has a really steep learning curve. But as others mentioned you've automated away some of the most important parts of the game and of course you aren't as successful or having fun with them....

Thank you all for providing helpful information.

I'll try again with this hindsight.

Some questions i still have are:
I did not find any mention that importing more than one good does anything besides the buff.
For Example:
If i have one(1) Olive imported that provide 3 Food, does importing another one make it 6 food in that province?

Is there a copendium what the wordings mean? Many buildings and events have the term "locally" in it but it's never stated what this means. Is this per Province or per Region or (i don't know what the smallest tiles are called)?
This is really important as all buildings are constructed in the smallest tiles and if they only provide them locally(?) it would mean a feedback loop between Aqueducts and Granerys to grow cities...

 

[olivenkranz]

Thank you all for providing helpful information.

I'll try again with this hindsight.

Some questions i still have are:
I did not find any mention that importing more than one good does anything besides the buff.
For Example:
If i have one(1) Olive imported that provide 3 Food, does importing another one make it 6 food in that province?

Is there a copendium what the wordings mean? Many buildings and events have the term "locally" in it but it's never stated what this means. Is this per Province or per Region or (i don't know what the smallest tiles are called)?
This is really important as all buildings are constructed in the smallest tiles and if they only provide them locally(?) it would mean a feedback loop between Aqueducts and Granerys to grow cities...

For the trade goods, yes, the local buff stacks. Two olives give you 6 food.
Local means on the territory. If it says province gets local xy, then all territories in that province get it.
Some modifiers are always on the province, such as food capacity or province loyalty.

 

[Imp0815]

For the trade goods, yes, the local buff stacks. Two olives give you 6 food.
Local means on the territory. If it says province gets local xy, then all territories in that province get it.
Some modifiers are always on the province, such as food capacity or province loyalty.

So the smallest tile in IR is a territory? And territories can be cities or villages? And if something says "locally" it only affects that small territory?
So to grow a city, which is a territory and thus "locally" for example you actually need to stack Aqueducts and Granaries?

 

[Mööpelitintti]

I had my first ever experiences with Imperator in the last couple of days and I've been playing a LOT this weekend, with a short-lived Sparta attempt and a surprisingly succesful run as Thebes since I'm a bit over-ambitious and maybe a masochist... I managed to become a regional power with over 800 pops as Thebes though so I think I've grasped the game well enough.

Here is some of my input (playing with invictus mod):

Warfare: I personally like the traditional paradox "whack-a-mole"- system better than the vic3 system where there is just nothing to do. It's fun to rampage around the enemy lands and fund your mercenaries with plunder. As far as I understand, armies going on expeditions, seeking or avoiding decisive battles etc. is also historical and suits the era well. It can be overwhelming with a large empire but it also forces you to choose your battles.

UI: Somewhat confusing and annoying even if aesthetically nice, which made pops/trade optimization harder and more frustrating. Had to look wiki often. This is something paradox has improved upon with their newer titles, I'd love if this could get an update in imperator too. I mostly automated trade but that's just to avoid having to learn all at once. More buildings and refined economy compared to ck3!

Characters: Don't seem to matter much before they start to cause trouble, which is kinda good. I want to focus on other things but disloyal governors/commanders can clearly give an extra challenge.

Overall I really like the game. For me the best parts are:
1. information obscurity (not sure if invictus or vanilla feature) but not knowing how many troops your threatening neighbour has creates a sense of tension and urgency to strengthen your base, optimal choices aren't obvious, which makes assessing risk from limited information more fun.

2. Mission trees:
In a sandbox game it is hard to know what really counts as an achievement. Missions give little "story lines" to follow and help to split the game into stages.

3. Blobbing and falling enemies:
In ck3 there are usually so many alliances and they change so often based on marriages that there rarely is any sense of an emerging, consciously and constantly expanding threat. (Or if there is, in a desperate situation you can swear fealty them and try to work your way up from the inside which makes the doom feel less imminent.) In vic3 the focus is on other things and probably rightly so, but I as Italy for example would never be afraid of being completely swallowed by France. But in Imperator I can feel the impending doom of an ever growing Rome (or in my game Thrace too), and trying to be cunning and opportunistic in that world is fun.

Main criticisms I have are with confusing UI and occasionally unclear mechanics, and diplomacy could be made deeper too, but as a first impression it certainly isn't worse or less captivating than other big paradox titles.

 

[DukeLeto42]

So the smallest tile in IR is a territory? And territories can be cities or villages? And if something says "locally" it only affects that small territory?
So to grow a city, which is a territory and thus "locally" for example you actually need to stack Aqueducts and Granaries?

Ok, let's break it all down:

1. The smallest unit in I:R is a territory, which can be a "settlement," "city," or "metropolis" (the 2nd and 3rd are largely the same, but a metropolis is just a better city).
2. All local effects occur in that territory, with the exception of values that only exist on a per-province basis (loyalty, food, etc.).
3. You can stack granaries to boost population growth, but because it's based on "months of food" it's an escalating cost just to get a very modest benefit. Far more valuable is keeping pace with population capacity with aqueducts while building temples/theaters to boost conversion/assimilation, foundries to increase pop output, and so on.

 

[Grandpa Maur]

That was surprising. I mean, HOI4 is more complicated and less transparent than IMP, and yet

 

[Imp0815]

That was surprising. I mean, HOI4 is more complicated and less transparent than IMP, and yet

Maybe it comes down to realize what things really matter and what can be ignore. Cynical as i am i think in Hoi it often comes down to "good enough" interactions and planning and not much micromanagement. Often it is good enough to know: 2 25-40 width divisions per tile and waiting for max planning to push and sometimes a double down on core tiles to get a supply depot or encirclements. Just look at the bubble colors and you'll be fine. Everything else is busy work.

 

[Mööpelitintti]

Maybe it comes down to realize what things really matter and what can be ignore. Cynical as i am i think in Hoi it often comes down to "good enough" interactions and planning and not much micromanagement. Often it is good enough to know: 2 25-40 width divisions per tile and waiting for max planning to push and sometimes a double down on core tiles to get a supply depot or encirclements. Just look at the bubble colors and you'll be fine. Everything else is busy work.

I have no experience with HOI4 but at least in imperator it seems there is plenty to consider. In my Thebes run I've expanded to macedonian lands in Thessaly and kept wondering why I gained so little levies from my new governorship. After reading wiki I realized culture integration affects whether a population even provides levies!

I had some issues with a corrupt governor of Thessaly seeking for civil war, so I decided eventually to postpone integrating macedonians, even if they're my biggest minority culture . Instead I integrated Euboeans and probably next Athenians to gain more levies for my King's own army in the capital province.

 

[Grandpa Maur]

Maybe it comes down to realize what things really matter and what can be ignore. Cynical as i am i think in Hoi it often comes down to "good enough" interactions and planning and not much micromanagement. Often it is good enough to know: 2 25-40 width divisions per tile and waiting for max planning to push and sometimes a double down on core tiles to get a supply depot or encirclements. Just look at the bubble colors and you'll be fine. Everything else is busy work.

You seem incredibly laid back for Pdox player

But yeah, it's true. Otoh, much depends on starting pick - and Rome is probably easier than any choice in HOI4? Playing something small needs direvt control unless you want to be extinguished (likely by Rome...), and there are no big boys like HOI faction leaders to ride on to victory...

Oh, and i was also surprised at your praise of characters. It's by far the least developed of IMP systems, but maybe you have not played CK2?

 

[Imp0815]

I have no experience with HOI4 but at least in imperator it seems there is plenty to consider. In my Thebes run I've expanded to macedonian lands in Thessaly and kept wondering why I gained so little levies from my new governorship. After reading wiki I realized culture integration affects whether a population even provides levies!

I had some issues with a corrupt governor of Thessaly seeking for civil war, so I decided eventually to postpone integrating macedonians, even if they're my biggest minority culture . Instead I integrated Euboeans and probably next Athenians to gain more levies for my King's own army in the capital province.

Interesting points. So, there is a decision of ignoring, integrating, or assimilating to be made about cultures? I mean, these things are all present in HoI, but they do not warrant much attention.

Oof, I don't know what it is directly, but IR is eluding me. It does not come naturally to me what and why to do things. I think logically I need to do things I can't. I think this is may be my main gripe; in HoI, if you need more guns, you build more gun factories. If you need more food in Imperator Rome, you don’t just build more farms as there is only one farm allowed per grain and grain is a thing that pre-exists on the map and cannot be grown anywhere else. Is it just unintuitive?

 

[Mööpelitintti]

Interesting points. So, there is a decision of ignoring, integrating, or assimilating to be made about cultures? I mean, these things are all present in HoI, but they do not warrant much attention.

Oof, I don't know what it is directly, but IR is eluding me. It does not come naturally to me what and why to do things. I think logically I need to do things I can't. I think this is may be my main gripe; in HoI, if you need more guns, you build more gun factories. If you need more food in Imperator Rome, you don’t just build more farms as there is only one farm allowed per grain and grain is a thing that pre-exists on the map and cannot be grown anywhere else. Is it just unintuitive?

Yes there is exactly that choice! Integration (granting citizen rights without assimilating) is quick but your primary culture pops tend to dislike having others promoted to equal status.
Assimilating is slower but seems probably better if you're not starving for new recruits.
Ignoring cultures is ok when the opportunity cost of investing on assimilation is too much.

As for goods production, you can improve trade routes to import or transfer slave pops from one territory to another. With enough pops a given farm settlement will produce two units of resource instead of one.