Imperator Dev Diary - Heirs of Alexander

[Paghalay]

At least velites and legionnaries are visually distinct, which is my #2 consideration (after being reasonably era appropriate). Not sure the Hastati examples above provide that distinction - though I appear to be in the minority opinion there.

I was thinking the same thing. It should be easy to tell at a glance if it's a levy of a legion, Velites do make it easy to tell at a glance which I do think is more important than being 100% accurate here.

 

[Palanthis]

i agree this is important.
But i my opinion, since the models provided so far are really top quality (kudos to the devs), i'm confident a hastati model could be really distinguishable from the legionnary, which has a really heavy armor by comparison.
Also, they could give the legionnary a more "officer" or professional look (from my point of view, that's exactly what's the current legionnary's model is reflecting), while the hastati could have a "ordinary citizen / more mundane" look.

 

[Aigle édenté]

While there is yet more to come regarding Marian military matters, today I’m here to announce that the content pack, ‘Heirs of Alexander’, will be released in conjunction with the Marius update.

As befits our 2.0 statement, the Heirs of Alexander content pack will be the largest yet; encompassing mission trees and flavor events for all the Diadochi nations, as well as the ability to customize and build a large variety of Great Wonders as detailed in the Vitruvius dev diary.

You guys from Paradox should make this Marius 2.0 update and other important ones charged on fee. I know it may seem masochistic, but I think your considerable work deserves proper reward and backing...

 

[Ketchup & friends]

oh dear, how the heck did I forget about the $15 ($18 if you didn't preorder) scam that was the Hellenistic states content pack? like for real, that thing was just swept under the rug; I completely agree here, it should get a touchup, like the Epirus one

It wasn't a scam at release. Just as raw and poorly implemented as most of 1.0 .

But Hellenistic World IS the diadochi flavour pack, it was and still is sold and is part of the new physical edition.

But it will become a scam IF the unique focus trees for Seleucids, Antigonids, Egypt, Macedon and Thrace are put in any other DLC.

 

[AggaWackTan]

Yes, to have Magna Graecia, Epirus, Hellenistic City States AND Heirs of Alexander (all Greek DLC's) and seperate with their own price tags to patch up the Greek World to what it should have been at release is outrageous.

 

[Mirtmania]

wow cant wait for this

 

[master_kong]

You guys from Paradox should make this Marius 2.0 update and other important ones charged on fee. I know it may seem masochistic, but I think your considerable work deserves proper reward and backing...

This is not Kickstarter or something like that. The money you spend on this game doesn't have a direct effect on devs who work on this game. Therefore paying for DLCs isn't a proper rewarding for people who did the job. As a company, Pdx did a bad job releasing an unfinished, unambitious game therefore it needed so much work to fix it. Kudos to the people, the devs who did an amazing job on that, but paying extra bucks on a DLC that contains stuff you already paid for(Hellenistic World Flavor Pack) has nothing to do with this. How long will it take people to understand this separation I really don't know.

 

[CPU Taro]

Much happier to see the wonders DLC ('Vitruvius') merged into something more intrinsically worthwhile in itself; it's better as a little side perk than something sold as standalone.

In general everything I hear about 2.0 itself is exactly what I wanted this game to be. Thanks for maintaining that (historically apt!) vision, @Arheo. <3

 

[Don Wing]

At least velites and legionnaries are visually distinct, which is my #2 consideration (after being reasonably era appropriate). Not sure the Hastati examples above provide that distinction - though I appear to be in the minority opinion there.

About this issue:
- There is a pattern in wich there is a Heavy infantry ( armored) as legion and a light infantry (melee) as levy
-The velites were skirmishers, mostrly in the ranged category thaan melee
- The model is quite good, historical and beautifull, but not immersive as levy, perhaps as ranged troop.
- A commonly hastati, princeps or triarri, perhaps with less armr would be much ore accurate.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

Yes

Unrelated, but this is probably the last chance to ask, as the dev team will surely move on from focus on Hellenistic world after this update. Please, I beg you, add Acropolis to Athens and the Oracle of Delphi! Those wonders needs to be in a base game! (The great circular harbor of Carthage too, but probably too late now). This needs to happen! Parthenon is only the most iconic Greek structure still standing from antiquity. While the Oracle of Delphi, was the center of Hellenistic religious world.


The Orcacle of Delphi can have a very fun mechanic added to it, which would be historically accurate. Treasury. Each Hellenistic state or Polis, can compete with each other over annual donations to the treasury at the oracle for religious or stability bonuses. The treasure accumulates in the Oracle. Greeks can't raid the treasury ever, unless they change religion to something other then Hellinism. A none greek can raid the Oracle, like the ultimate treasure chest. For the Roman's that could be a difficult decision, stability drop and whatever. But for those outside of Hellenistic world, only a diplo penalty. Thenever any Hellenistic state, Polis or Empire has any significant event: battle, war, peace, natural disaster, change in leadership, so on, they will send a small donation to the Oracle as well, further increasing the amount of stored wealth at the Oracle in Delphi (and at temple of Zeus in Olympia, which had a famous treasury from all the Greek states too). For players playing for Hellenistic civs, additional source of small perks in exchange for gold; for Gallic and Germanic tribes... a dream; a literal pot of gold, just asking for it. The bonuses Hellenistic states get depend on size of donations; but nothing game braking. Ranging from say 0.01% stab increase from a small donation, to a whole 1% for a really massive one. AI could be scripted from making any particularly large donations, unless they have a large treasury, to make sure it's not a balance problem. A flavor thing; though for a raiding tribe or Eastern Empire, raiding accumulated wealth would be a major way to get rich quickly; at the cost of permanent, or long term serious negative diplo debuff with all Hellenistic states. Anyway, just an idea. I'll be happy with two wonders as is, with no special mechanic if u guys make it. Cheers!

 

[Saulman]

I'm looking forward to seeing the Scythian tribes' new unit models, maybe it would befit the steppe migratory hordes to have unit models as cavalry.

 

[Jack]

Any word how long we have to wait for 2.0? It sounds promising.

 

[Gutie]

Dear @Arheo , here's an explanation why we've voted to rate your part of the DD with angry and @Snow Crystal 's post with Love:

Some very important things:



The content (as described by @Snow Crystal ) looks Excellent but you’re going got put it into the WRONG DLC which is a very bad idea. Dear @Arheo , we urge you to reconsider this.

The Hellenistic World DLC (upgrade) is already supposed to provide additional content for the main diadochi states and the wars between them (flavour events, unique units models etc.).

Their unique missions should also be part of that DLC (especially, because some of the events and decisions are replaced by new missions, e.g. the Seleukid Mediterranean capital.)

Otherwise the content would be spread across 2 DLC. those players who have only one of them would get an inferior experience. Prepare for a wave of bad reviews after 2.0!

even without these missons the Heirs of Alexander DLC would have a lot of stuff:

• buildable Great wonders
• legion honors and dishonors
• additonal content promised by @Arheo

If you think that the new DLC needs some missions, here are some quickly gathered alternate ideas what you could add:

• a generic regional integration mission? inspired by the Seleukid missions but dynamic for dealing with a new region with other cultures and religions.
• Missions for the minor Diadochi states (e.g. Bactria, Arachosia, Cyrenaica, Ionia, Atropatene) (@Seleukos.I.Nikator @Arch-Heretek and @APC999 have proposed missions for Bactria above)
• A mission to get a conquest wargoal (would be similar to the Legacy of Alexander):

Perhaps you could make a generic mission to get such a Great conquest war goal that works like that but would be available for any nation that completes a special mission (start Great conquest?).

Would buy at a full price if this were the case. The above with alluded to future content to flesh them out makes them worth bothering, otherwise I can just use mods for a better experience anyhow (to be honest).

I already have preexisting DLC for IR, but I kind of feel it's lacking as it seems to be proposed, but isnt fully clear what falls where from my view as well. I say this knowing full well some content will be part of the patch itself, but the additional content in the DLC as seems to be implied doesn't move the needle for me, and I'm sure many others (even those of us typically prone to collecting icons like pokemon... i say this with multiple pdox titles in my steam cart rn, lol).

 

[Svenska Super]

Would buy at a full price if this were the case. The above with alluded to future content to flesh them out makes them worth bothering, otherwise I can just use mods for a better experience anyhow (to be honest).

I already have preexisting DLC for IR, but I kind of feel it's lacking as it seems to be proposed, but isnt fully clear what falls where from my view as well. I say this knowing full well some content will be part of the patch itself, but the additional content in the DLC as seems to be implied doesn't move the needle for me, and I'm sure many others (even those of us typically prone to collecting icons like pokemon... i say this with multiple pdox titles in my steam cart rn, lol).

paradox should make a clean slate with the new dlcs regards to IR. They can easily do this as luckily i saw today in the steam store, dlcs until now have not been priced outrageously high, or confidently priced.
i could have developed them a dlc model, as what would been possible with games like empire total war.
That way they earn more and the customer is more satisfacted, i hope they see the latest warning signs that their dlc policy costs them money.
if they continue this path, this means that the any game released is apparently a huge profit margin on.
but one day this advantage will disappear.
to me it is also amazed how bad rookie mistakes are made, as such with the to be released gangster game empire of sins

 

[MrReaper182]

This is not Kickstarter or something like that. The money you spend on this game doesn't have a direct effect on devs who work on this game. Therefore paying for DLCs isn't a proper rewarding for people who did the job. As a company, Pdx did a bad job releasing an unfinished, unambitious game therefore it needed so much work to fix it. Kudos to the people, the devs who did an amazing job on that, but paying extra bucks on a DLC that contains stuff you already paid for(Hellenistic World Flavor Pack) has nothing to do with this. How long will it take people to understand this separation I really don't know.

Paradox should be able to make lots of profit on things they make if they make it well. This game is going to get even more awesome so they should be able to charge for the DLC what ever they like to make lots of profit for them on a job well done. First and for most Paradox exist to make lots of profit on every game they make. Why don't people like you understand that?

 

[Karlingid]

Might be a nice time to reconsider the overtly Hellenistic appearance given to Judea and Samaria. Pretty sure they use Levantine/Carthaginian architecture, but Greek units, even though this is not truly accurate. Although Josephus tends to use terms familiar to Greeks and Romans, this is generalization, and archaeology indicates a very different picture that I will outline in a spoiler so as to not consume too much space.

Spoiler: Judean military equipment

So, the first thing to note is that the Judeans famously used slings and bows, and both are rather atypical of Greek warfare which prefers javelins. Slings are a bit more known, but the Judean slinger was a famous fixture of Jewish society. The special thing to note here though is that arrowheads recovered from the Hasmonean and Herodian eras are trilobate, meaning pyramid-shaped, rather than the more familiar leaf-shaped arrowheads most think of. These arrowheads are considered characteristically Iranian, associated with Persian and Scythian archaeology, rather than European. Not all were made of iron, either - bone arrowheads (even painted bone weapons) have also been recovered from Hasmonean sites.

For armor, the single most visible component of a soldier model, the evidence skews heavily toward Eastern design. While Judea is often stereotyped as being overly Hellenistic, we can see plenty of references to indigenous fashions overwhelmingly surviving in the Talmud - written at a time when Hellenization of the Levant was actually at its peak, and synagogues were often adorned with Greco-Roman art. Once again, we should always remember the principles of interpretatio that the Greeks and Romans use, and which writers use to appeal to them, meant to invoke familiar concepts rather than strict and nuanced accuracy. Judean fashion was not really all that Hellenized at this time, and recovered bits of armor are, as far as I've managed to find, overwhelmingly of the iron scale variety. One could mention that the linothorax has a scale component, yet in another archaeological dig, a full scale cuirass was found. Seeing as Levantine auxilia in later eras were still known for scale armor, this should not be entirely surprising.

On a side note to the scales, some larger scales thought to belong to horse armor were also found in the dig - a possible remnant of the ancient Babylonian Cavalry utilized by the Judean monarchy, named after the Babylonian Jews that made up much of its base.

The sword of choice is interesting primarily for the reason that it was a gladius, rather than a Greek design. Even in the Roman era, it was the Greeks who are traditionally thought to have been the foreign culture of choice in the Levant - but Roman swords were preferred nonetheless. Perhaps this owes to the alliance the Roman Republic made to the Jews, or perhaps the simple spread of Iberian-type weaponry across the Mediterranean through both Rome and Carthage - the latter possibly having some Levantine trade connections still.

Spears were very typically Mediterranean, leaf-shaped with a broad central ridge. Josephus describes Judean thureophuroi, and might have been implying that your average Jewish spearman would've been lightly armored or totally without and bearing a similar and familiar spear to Greek use, as well as a less-than-fancy shield - though I do not recall the thureos actually being provably used in Judea. Again, Josephus was writing for an audience and using familiar terms, not writing in a strictly accurate fashion.

More accurate depictions of historic Judean warriors or soldiers would be like the following:

And here are images from archaeological remnants of military equipment:

Including Egyptian-style cart fitting at top, iron scales, reeded scabbard mount, frog (harness clip thing), and pieces of a Hellenistic spear

Ballista bolt, slingshot, detached handle, bone arrowhead, and Aucissa Fibula

In summary, Judea has a very unique blend of sources for its military historically, but Eastern influences tend to dominate into even the era of Roman domination. While I think unique Hebrew-culture models would be great, the use of Persian/Aramean units (as seen in some mercenaries floating around the area) or Arabian units would probably be the best stand-ins for the general vibe. The popular Nabataeanizing fashions of the day offer a bit of extra support to the latter conceptually, even as the archaeology favors the former.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Paradox should be able to make lots of profit on things they make if they make it well. This game is going to get even more awesome so they should be able to charge for the DLC what ever they like to make lots of profit for them on a job well done. First and for most Paradox exist to make lots of profit on every game they make. Why don't people like you understand that?

They (gaming companies) already make a huge margin out of gaming products. This is what most people do not understand, money goes to the stakeholders. I do not get why people get upset about other people who finds these games infinite dlcs' price too high, let them be. Like if lower prices for overpriced products would damage you in any way. They make profits charging poor countries 1/4 the price in richer countries...
In the end what matters is that paper sings, running after people complaining about the game's price like a good corporate bot does not really matter.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

They (gaming companies) already make a huge margin out of gaming products. This is what most people do not understand, money goes to the stakeholders. I do not get why people get upset about other people who finds these games infinite dlcs' price too high, let them be. Like if lower prices for overpriced products would damage you in any way. They make profits charging poor countries 1/4 the price in richer countries...
In the end what matters is that paper sings, running after people complaining about the game's price like a good corporate bot does not really matter.

It's just ppl don't understand capitalism and/or entitled. Like it? Buy it. Don't like it? Don't buy it. No one is forcing anyone to buy anything; plenty of alternatives (market is literally oversaturated with entertainment products for any price margin), and no one is entitled to labor of others; simultaneously in capitalism, we are free to sell our labor for as high or as low as we want. I'm dying to get CK3. I can't afford it. I'm literally dying to play it. CK2 is the greatest game of my whole life. I can cry, I want it so badly. But covid-19... fiscal issues. I'll be lucky if I can afford it by next September. Well, tough effing luck. It's not Paradox fault. I'm not entitled to CK3.

 

[IsaacCAT]

ppl don't understand capitalism

EDITED: Just for clarification, it is not capitalism but market economy. It is capitalist market economy, you were right.

Market economy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Mastah Jedi]

Just for clarification, it is not capitalism but market economy.

Market economy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

lol. That assumption some ppl have on the internet, what only they have access to wikipedia always gets me. U made me laugh; thx.