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Johan

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Hi everyone, lets continue talking about currencies and how to balance games, and Imperator in particular.

So the design we’ve been working on right now have been to remove the four types of monarch power from the game, and replace their costs with other impacts, and also introduce a new currency which we call Political Influence.

Political Influence is gained by how loyal your characters in your government is, so that if all 8 are 100% loyal, you gain a maximum amount, and if all are at 0% loyal, you gain nothing. Then of course there are other aspects that impact how much influence you get. If your Co-Ruler is disloyal, or you are in a deficit you will get far less.

This will make it not just an easy choice of who to pick for a government position, by just picking whoever had the highest ability in the relevant field, but you also have to consider how loyal there are, so you can do certain actions.

Now of course, not everything has been changed from using monarch power, but only a few actions will be changed to use political influence, but the rest will be using tyranny, stability, aggressive expansion, gold, manpower or war-exhaustion.

Some examples of price changes includes the following.
  • Getting an Invention will cost 4 months of income.
  • Enacting a Law costs some political influence, but also reduces stability by 25.
  • Fabricating a Claim costs some upfront Aggressive Expansion
  • Endorsing a Party is merely a small hit on stability and tyranny.
Military Traditions would work entirely differently, in that you would unlock a new slot every 20 years. We talked about tying it to tech, but that would put us in the same situation as ideas were in EU4, that it would hurt barbarians way too much. The 20 year value may change as we keep testing the game though.

Now while we have talked about some aspects being moved to being a nudge over time like stability and legitimacy, some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.

Cheers everyone, and tomorrow I’ll go deep into more flavor and fun in a new development diary..
 
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So the design we’ve been working on right now have been to remove the four types of monarch power from the game, and replace their costs with other impacts, and also and also introduce a new currency which we call Political Influence.

Now we are talking. Precisely what I would have done, so I am an happy camper, so far.
 
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Well done Johan, this sounds like an excellent middle-ground solution, thanks for this.
 
Military Traditions would work entirely differently, in that you would unlock a new slot every 20 years. We talked about tying it to tech, but that would put us in the same situation as ideas were in EU4, that it would hurt barbarians way too much. The 20 year value may change as we keep testing the game though.

I think it can be intersesting instead of having some flat 20 years to have a base 20 years and according to skill of ruler or government number could change. By investing in it or making /winning wars it could help.
This way we can really invest in having a high military tradition countries without having every countries evolving the same way.

EDIT: average skill of general might impact length as well
 
Now while we .ave talked about some aspects being moved to being a nudge over time like stability and legitimacy, some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.
Thanks for this great changes,but is there any plans for rework the manual promotions of pops in a future patch?I can understand you won't have the time for make it for the 1.1 patch.But the automatic promotion of pops,their needs,and their migrations,are my favorites features of Victoria 2 and Stellaris,so i hope you will rework them later.Thanks for reading and keep up the good work.
 
Wow.

I don't have a problem with monarch points personally, but I have to give respect for taking fan response so seriously, even if it might sometimes go against your own vision for the game.
I'll be very interested to see how this goes, I do like the look of it so far. :)
 
Thanks for this great changes,but is there any plans for rework the manual promotions of pops in a future patch.I can understand you won't have the time for make it for the 1.1 patch.But the automatic promotion of pops,their needs,and their migrations,are my favorites features of Victoria 2 and Stellaris,so i hope you will rework them later.Thanks for reading and keep up the good work.

Its understandable PDS have schedules and programmed stuff but it would be nice to get a confirmation that in the future one could expect the rework of the manual promotion of pops.
 
Well that script I was writing for a video about my problems with mana and my proposed solutions... burn it. It's useless now.

remove the four types of monarch power from the game
Wow. I am incredibly surprised and also elated at this! This is huge! I think this is step 1 in the process of making Imperator the best Paradox Game. Thank you for having the bravery to make such a drastic change to your game. I am 100% behind you.


some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.
Personally I would just say removing the button to do the instant action would be a big improvement, but I can understand that if you have something planned for the future that you won't have time for, it would be silly to change it now and then change it again later down the line.
 
What Will the ruler do now when their current use is gone?

It may impact political influence gain, too. It's reasonable to expect the ruler influence this currency.
 
NOW! FINALLY! This is brilliant. What was then all the stuff with the poll from yesterday and not knowing how to find a middle ground from yesterday all about? I dont believe you have come up with this brilliant system to remove dreaded mana in one day.


Political Influence is gained by how loyal your characters in your government is, so that if all 8 are 100% loyal, you gain a maximum amount, and if all are at 0% loyal, you gain nothing. Then of course there are other aspects that impact how much influence you get. If your Co-Ruler is disloyal, or you are in a deficit you will get far less

This is just genious. The perfect way to remove random magic sources and tie it to characters in a way that it interacts with the world and the player strategy and way to play the game adding strategy to it. Im surprised, again, that yesterday you didnt have a clue as to how to change the system, and just in a day you've come up with this genious idea. Its just brilliant.

Getting an Invention will cost 4 months of income.

How are you going to balance this with the current gold spam? You dont even need to reach the last great power tier to be flooding in money. Money does need to become scarece for this change to make sense or inventions will cost as much as nothing, as gold stops from being an issue from mid game onwards if you blob.

  • Enacting a Law costs some political influence, but also reduces stability by 25.
  • Fabricating a Claim costs some upfront Aggressive Expansion

YES! I love it. It makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Endorsing a Party is merely a small hit on stability and tyranny.

Well, precisely POLITICAL influence is something you would need to endorse a party and sway senators your way, isnt it? Although I'd just remove the button entirely and give the player more options to increase political party influence over time to maybe get a majority.

Now while we have talked about some aspects being moved to being a nudge over time like stability and legitimacy, some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.


Good. I still think it should cost something, though. ALL the players in the world getting it automatically at the same time...hm...Doesnt help make feel every country different. I dont know if it should cost poitical influence, money, both, or add modifiers from laws and things like that reduce or extend that 20 years period.

Now while we have talked about some aspects being moved to being a nudge over time like stability and legitimacy, some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.

If its just a decision based on time limitations and not design so the rework can come later on, Im fine with that. Removing auto buttons for promotion, assimilation and conversion is what along with this rework, would take the game to be near perfect. So very much looking forward to it and I gladly accept its postponed for time limitations as long as you are opened to rework it and eliminate insta buttons replacing it with deeper dynamic mechanics later in the future.


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Can I suggest a tiny thing? For diplomatic actions, please no mana use. Use characters which success depends on their loyalty (if their are not loyal they wont work for you but against your interests) and their charisma or finess.
 
Political Influence is gained by how loyal your characters in your government is, so that if all 8 are 100% loyal, you gain a maximum amount, and if all are at 0% loyal, you gain nothing. Then of course there are other aspects that impact how much influence you get. If your Co-Ruler is disloyal, or you are in a deficit you will get far less.

Thank you so much Johan! This looks like a step in the right direction and adds more complexity which i was hoping for in imperator. We influence our nations political gain and we suffer our actions rather than events thrusted upon us. it makes the game feel more real in a way, than the old eu4 ruler mana system. Plus it will make it more fun for role-play reasons
 
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That's a bold move and I guess this is going to make a lot of the forum happy. To be honest I myself am not entirely sure. The 4 powers for me gave quit a nice amount of flavor and could easily be attached to character talents in a common sense way. I didn't like entirely how you spend them as money instead of relating them to the government as a way of where to spend your power in a more upkeep way.

That being said, this is a strong step towards creating a system where the players choice is more integrally linked to stability, unrest and loyalty.
 
Now the question is: When Will the patch release?

I think there will be a consensus within the community if it is released later than announced...