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Imperator Dev Diary - 20/03/23

Good day folks!

We’re now a week away from release, and you’ve seen most things that we have to offer in the Archimedes update and Magna Graecia content pack.

What we haven’t covered yet, of course, are the myriad balance changes and tweaks that accompany any major patch. Next week’s dev diary will contain a comprehensive list of patch notes, though there are a couple of things I’d like to draw attention to, which can heavily affect the game world.


The starting technology situation is no longer the same throughout the world.

Certain greek states, the diadochi, and various others, will begin at a higher tech level than their neighbours.

Subunit Deployment has received a lot of attention in the Archimedes update.

We’ve taken a long look at army deployment, particularly with the advent of supply trains. Combat deployment should now act in a much more predictable manner, allowing you to determine more accurately where your units will appear when using the preferred flanking/secondary/primary selector. Additionally, we’ve added a special ‘supply phase’ once all fighting units are eliminated in a combat, where the victorious troops will begin laying waste to enemy supply trains.

Loyalty modifiers have received a full rebalance as part of the loyalty rework.

Harder to pinpoint this one, but the effect is noticeable in-game. To put things more subjectively; you should begin to notice that individual powerful and disloyal characters are much more likely to stick around as a thorn in your side. Loyalty management has become more integral, and adds more permanence to your decisions. The difficulty level of internal management has taken a step up.

Forts are now ‘easier’ to siege.

The addition of food supply resulted in a significant bonus to the defender in a siege situation. This is still preserved, however, we’ve reduced the siege phase timer to 25 days to compensate, and reduced the number of soldiers required per fort level from 5k to 4k. A highly developed fort territory should still prove a significant challenge to invaders.

Heritages Galore

As part of the Archimedes update, we’ve added roughly 30 heritages to Greek minors, giving some variety to playthroughs in the area. Here are a few examples:


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Pig stabbing replaced with a more general solution for monotheistic religions.

Both the sound and icon for increasing stability, have been changed in the Archimedes update. The religion focus of the update seemed like a good opportunity to give our monotheistic religions some care.

Pop Resource changes

Tax income has been slightly reduced overall, and is now split between freemen and slaves. Slaves will still provide the lion’s share of tax income. Citizens research output has been increased to make it slightly easier to retain optimal research ratio.

Religious Conversion Speed much reduced

With the other religious changes in the works, base religious conversion speed (and speed from policies) has been significantly reduced. This is intended to both encourage you to engage with the new mechanics, and to stress the importance of hybridization and syncretism in antiquity.

New Loading Art

All players will be treated to new splash screen art in the Archimedes update, depicting the siege of Syracuse:

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Not every DD can be akin to Homer's Iliad, I'm afraid - yet you may prepare yourselves to receive the full (huge!) list of patch notes next week.

/Arheo
 
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More uneven tech certainly sounds nice. It always struck me as a bit odd that even the most barbarian of barbarians didn't lag behind.

Also, not sure if it has been caught internally, but there's a "pihlosophers" in the Ionian heritage screenshots.
 
The starting technology situation is on longer the same throughout the world.

Certain greek states, the diadochi, and various others, will begin at a higher tech level than their neighbours.
Cool but do it make sense they get ahead of time penalty?
 
Will assimilation speed be reduced as well?

Also could you add a quick mention of a country's unique mechanics in their Heritage description as a lot of the player base are not following the dev diaries and such a small description would help them know that there is one and that its available because of the tag.
 
I'm very curious about the balance changes. Stuff like the loyalty changes to make it more impactful sounds really great to me. I still think that's one of the biggest issues with Imperator atm.

Also glad about the freemen change, even if it's not massive I think it'll make them feel better than just man makers :p.
 
Pop Resource changes

Tax income has been slightly reduced overall, and is now split between freemen and slaves. Slaves will still provide the lion’s share of tax income. Citizens research output has been increased to make it slightly easier to retain optimal research ratio.
That sound nice, however don't that mean freemen become like tribesmen? Maybe freemen should be more like research/Manpower to make them a bit different? Adding research to freemen would probably make the Tech situation better and make the gap between tribes and civilized more significant.

It could be like this:
  • Slave = Tax + goods
  • Tribesmen = Tax + manpower
  • Freemen = Tax + Manpower + research
  • Citizens = Commerce + research
 
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Have new tech levels been added to make up for the difference in starting tech (either some lower levels that barbarians still need to catch up with, or some higher levels for more advanced starts to get to before the game ends?). And echoing the question about how this works with ahead-of-time penalties.
 
Looking forward to the updates!
 
Have new tech levels been added to make up for the difference in starting tech (either some lower levels that barbarians still need to catch up with, or some higher levels for more advanced starts to get to before the game ends?). And echoing the question about how this works with ahead-of-time penalties.
I think like Tech 5 should be considered the starting Tech level with barbarians start at Tech 0 and thus get a behind in time bonus while the greeks research start at no penalty or bonus at Tech level 5. It don't make much sense that the nations that start at the highest Tech level should have the ahead in time penalty.
 
Syracusians wearing British WWII helmets before they were cool.
 
Nice to see more things falling into place!

So, starting tech differance. What does that mean for inventions? Countries that start with higher tech - do they start with the corresponding inventions all baught out?

Btw, im sure some inventions were tweaked, but were there more added? More inventions with some exclusivity maybe? (Greek?)

i look forward to the notes and patch next week!
 
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So, starting tech dofferance. What does that mean for inventions? Countries that start with higher tech - do they dtart with the corresponding inventions all baught out?
It is a good question, maybe giving them Everything free would make them too strong, but on other hand they may miss out on some key inventions. The greeks should be strong in the early game but should fall behind Rome by the mid game, which right now do not really happen even though rome pretty much destroyed the Macedonian style phalanx without too much issue during the conquest of Macedon so by that time it is probably fair to say that Rome was quite well ahead in terms of military technology.

The current system don't really allow for Rome to get its technological advantage and that is maybe a reason why it underperforms and I don't have a good solution for it other than make rome cheating or something.
 
It is a good question, maybe giving them Everything free would make them too strong, but on other hand they may miss out on some key inventions. The greeks should be strong in the early game but should fall behind Rome by the mid game, which right now do not really happen even though rome pretty much destroyed the Macedonian style phalanx without too much issue during the conquest of Macedon so by that time it is probably fair to say that Rome was quite well ahead in terms of military technology.

The current system don't really allow for Rome to get its technological advantage and that is maybe a reason why it underperforms and I don't have a good solution for it other than make rome cheating or something.
one thing is at backward on technology and another one is be stuck at one battle formation as the Phalanx one. The Greeks were still pretty advanced technology speaking.