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Imperator Dev Diary - Heirs of Alexander

Greetings all,

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.

Included alongside this will be a variety of additional content that you have grown to expect from content packs, including new event pictures, music tracks, and more.

As time goes on, we will introduce more specifics surrounding the content you will receive in the HoA pack, however, as a small addendum to last week’s diary, I would like to clarify that the Legion Honors that you encountered in the Legions feature reveal will be part of the HoA pack.

With this announcement out of the way, I’ll detail a few more changes you can expect in the Marius update!

Legacy of Alexander

This Diadochi-only wargoal has been refactored to use a mechanic similar to that of Civil Wars. What this means, in essence, is that occupying a territory belonging to the target war leader during a Legacy of Alexander war will result in the immediate cession of said territory to the opposing war leader.

Every territory that changes hands this way will add a small amount of war exhaustion to the war leader that gains the territory, resulting in wars in which large amounts of territory can change hands, whilst also reaching an organic ‘end’ point, at which both sides are weary enough to make peace.

We are also looking at making a similar wargoal available in other circumstances, particularly for situations in which it makes historical sense to do so, for example, the expansion of the Parthian state.

Legion/Levy Indicators

As hinted at last week, there will be a visual distinction between Levied units and Legionary units. The 3D unit models used to display levies and legions will use light and heavy infantry, respectively.

This distinction is a highly important gameplay factor, and as such, the large variety of new unit models will be included as part of the Marius update. @Katzura, as someone with a greater aesthetic eye than myself, has prepared a variety of screenshots to give you a preview of some of the unit models coming in 2.0!

We’ve included a side-by-side of the Levy and Legion models; some will be familiar to you, and some may be new. While we’ve tried to respect the period in which Imperator is set, in some cases we’ve had to use a little imagination, particularly for graphical cultures in which the distinction between levy and legion is not always clear.

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Legion:Levy - Arabian group

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Levy:Legion - Celtic Group

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Levy:Legion - Greek Group

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Levy:Legion - Roman

Next week we’ll have more legion/levy 3d models from other graphical culture groups to show you.

And now on to Snow Crystal’s Seleukid missions!
 
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Will we ever see a mechanic where children married into other families maintain their place in the line of succession (like CK)? Marrying say one of Ptolemy's daughters should still be something more than merely gaining a wife. That simple because a character marries another monarch shouldn't totally remove them from the line of succession. If anything it should be a factor that would lead to civil wars. Not just Diadochi, but them in particular.


(Idea/Suggestion?):
If say a daughter/son marries into a foreign monarchy but is still the most preferred heir by some, it would be good to have the ability where an event fires of loyalists to the child of their king/queen who dies appeals for them to take the throne instead of the other, and an option to press it triggering a civil war, where the monarchy allied to they married into is on the side of the loyalists to the spouse. Should they win, obviously they take the throne then it is annexed (with option to either switch tags or remain the same, with strong bias towards switching tags to the contested nation's tag for the AI) or is under either a client/puppet/etc status if a lesser power. If a Diadochi/Great Power nation that becomes the the faction they assume control (tag switch and annex the old) of (unless also a Diadochi nation).

I'm confident that the capability for such a mechanic exists or could be made to within the mechanics of the game, I'm just not sure why an heir gets totally removed from the order of succession in the first place? I think such things give more life to the contested thrones/civil wars.

It could also be a thing where if a potential heir become friends with a foreign ruler, that they could be a factor in their "power base" calculations, in that they would be willing to go to war to help their friend take the throne in a civil war (in which depending on various factors, they could promise a parcel of territory or some of their personal wealth/estates in exchange for the aid if won, and refuge for they and their followers should they lose, with a CB to invade as long as the friend or a child of theirs lives).
 
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Nice to see this game heading in the right direction, just like Stellaris and EU4 after their terrible launches (now look at them lol). Not sure if this update along with the two previous ones will be able to elevate this game that far. But unlike the previous religious update which I personally feel was unwarranted (at least not as much of a priority). These new changes are interesting. I'm definitely looking forward to try them out, and to see what more is improved!
 
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i wonder if the civil war mechanic will give us some bad bordergore.
 
Am I the only person who is extremely unclear about which content mentioned in this DD is going to be part of the HoA DLC and which is part of the free update? Usually Paradox are pretty good with this sort of thing and distinguish between them by explicitly refering to features as either being part of the "x update" or as part of <DLC Name> during their DDs.

Every feature mentioned in either post of this DD (except for Legion Honours) is described as part of the "Marius update" which would usually mean that they are not part of the DLC. However, this includes mission tree improvements which are refered to in the original post specifically as being part of HoA...

Based on this I'm greatly concerned that the "Legacy of Alexander" CB change will be locked to the DLC, which would be a terrible example of locking a major gameplay improvement behind DLC (it would also presumably give some serious issues with differing AI balance for both systems). Similarly, though on a slightly lesser note, if the visual distinction between legion and levies is supposed to be significant, then having the new models used as part of this system locked to DLC would also be an issue.

Is it possible for a dev to clarify this?
 
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I am one of those more critical of the changes to the UI. I just wanted to post the old and the new mission interfaces side by side so we can discuss the changes. Personaly I prefer the old one.

Why have the arcs above the statues been removed?

People have already stated a dislike for the basic arrows in inventions trees.

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View attachment 655134View attachment 655135

Agreed. While I generally like a lot of thing about the new AI, the Mission window looks worse imo. The "shrines" looked very good, while these dont seem to seperate very well from the background. I personally dont have a problem with the arows being red, but they look very basic when compared to the old ones, which had a real structure to them. They also go directly into the graphic, which looks strange imo (looking at that poseidon at the "Dynastic Cult" Mission) but that could be remedied by reintroducing the "shrines" which would make sure that all graphics are of the same height
 
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I swear whoever does the models (they look great btw) and assigns them to a specific unit NEEDS to read some history books. Like several people pointed out, It's not hard to find out what all the different units looked like back then and what was their role. Levies are farmers. I just can't imagine several thousands of these common folk wearing wolf pelts. Hastatii would be the better choice IMO.
 
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I don't actually hate the Velite for levies because, afaik, Velites were often drawn from Auxilia which could be culturally diverse which fits the concept of levies.
 
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i wonder what the amount of border gore this new Diadochi system is going to create
 
I swear whoever does the models (they look great btw) and assigns them to a specific unit NEEDS to read some history books. Like several people pointed out, It's not hard to find out what all the different units looked like back then and what was their role. Levies are farmers. I just can't imagine several thousands of these common folk wearing wolf pelts.

it's here where prdx can make the differnce, the ultimate verdict i only trust from a person dedicated historian who researched whole his life about romans and is than also second opioned by a second person from asia, eg. chinese/ japanesescientist. its than we have a conclusive answer. this are the investments that are needed, of course more can be asked from historian, eg. things about economy and buildings, etc. etc.
 
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it's here where prdx can make the differnce, the ultimate verdict i only trust from a person dedicated historian who researched whole his life about romans and is than also second opioned by a second person from asia, eg. chinese/ japanesescientist. its than we have a conclusive answer. this are the investments that are needed, of course more can be asked from historian, eg. things about economy and buildings, etc. etc.
That would work, I suppose. I feel like the person who designed the models and then assigned them to a role did so without having historical accuracy in mind. Maybe they chose volites because they thought it looked cool in the game? I can't tell. Makes me also wonder why Paradox stopped working on cavalry units smh
 
With how big 2.0 is, they need to recoup the costs somewhere. Locking some flavour behind a pay wall is significantly less obstructive than locking core mechanics behind a pay wall (like EU4's province development buttons).
I dont know, man, I bought this on day one and havent played it in months (or even a full year), like many others. Following the dev diaries, It felt like buying a mid-high priced early access game.
I'd say they got their money already, lets not get too cocky.
I am pissed they are blocking the legion traits behind another paywall after we already paid for their early access and I will not buy any dlc for this game unless on a decent sale.
 
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That would work, I suppose. I feel like the person who designed the models and then assigned them to a role did so without having historical accuracy in mind. Maybe they chose volites because they thought it looked cool in the game? I can't tell. Makes me also wonder why Paradox stopped working on cavalry units smh
i start to assume prdx do want to please its fans as forum members. but the deal is really simple, they (higher managemet), btw i dont really know or agree with policy of new ceo. Should invest more in some games and not endlessly mistaken explore new paths.
i predict gamers worldwide become cautious in how and where they invest their money, what i tried saying out of frustration many years to prdx is that not good management or even bad management creates a lot of hidden costs, HIDDEN COSTS
this is a term few managers nowadays now, but actually is so damaging to a business over time

what now is huge revenue drain on anyone releasing a medium to high priced average community gauged game is the massive release of ps5xbox and later this year cyberpunk.
Soon an industry shake out will happen and having cash reserves was not the answer, the asnwer was to have invested earlier into customer loyalty
 
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@Arheo At some point, is it possible to update migration mechanics?

Like more international migration.
Tribes and population were constantly moving around in this period. Due to warfare or famine.

This would also allow folks to play tall in different ways.
It would make sense that foreign pops should naturally move into our territory. (If you have high stability, large cities, more integrated cultures, and are generally at peace.)

An update like this would help, since it's hard to play tall for long since other countries focus only on expansion.
 
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Any love for Bactria in this patch? Not quite Diadochi but an important part of the initial seleucid realm and succession wars.
 
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@Arheo At some point, is it possible to update migration mechanics?

Like more international migration.
Tribes and population were constantly moving around in this period. Due to warfare or famine.

This would also allow folks to play tall in different ways.
It would make sense that foreign pops should naturally move into our territory. (If you have high stability, large cities, more integrated cultures, and are generally at peace.)

An update like this would help, since it's hard to play tall for long since other countries focus only on expansion.
what is missing also is thay if you are the ruler of the nation, like with stellaris xeno etc. must be able to choose your direction regarding this. and to make things easier on prdx is to overhaul massively the pop system for IR. to make real numbers, the advantage is with this that smaller values like say having 1000 people of a minority being in your nation doesn't cause to trigger any problem as they are to smalll of a group to cause any significant impact.
i saidd many times, the pop system only works well for stellaris, not for IR, all games in the long run CK4, EU5 will benefit from that change.
 
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Will there be a Bactrian mission tree?
 
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I am one of those more critical of the changes to the UI. I just wanted to post the old and the new mission interfaces side by side so we can discuss the changes. Personaly I prefer the old one.

Why have the arcs above the statues been removed?

People have already stated a dislike for the basic arrows in inventions trees.

...
View attachment 655134View attachment 655135

I feel like they are taking this whole "Less clutter, more putting of UI Design Science into practice" a little bit too far in some aspects.
 
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Finally - this is the DLC I have been waiting for since release! Can't wait for the Diadochi to behave like the Diadochi

Might I suggest taking this as an opportunity to rename "Thrace" to the Lysimachid Kingdom? Bottom line, nobody really liked the rather arbitrary rule that all countries should use place names and not dynastic names. Especially since no Thracian state existed after Lysimachus' death, can we please just acknowledge that this is just the land that this particular warlord happened to hold. Macedon makes sense. Egypt is okay. But "Thrace" is almost as bad as "Phrygia" was. It's almost like calling the Seleukids the Persians
 
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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 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.

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):
We are also looking at making a similar wargoal available in other circumstances, particularly for situations in which it makes historical sense to do so, for example, the expansion of the Parthian state.

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?).
 
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