A few Points About Economy of Bigger Nations in Imperator:Rome.

[MykMykMyk]

Hello Everyone !

After finishing my last campaign where I was playing wide (conquering everything) I realized how annoying building economy as big blob is. Unfortunately because of many factors, getting bigger doesn’t make you richer, sometimes even you loose money when you conquer more provinces for some reason.

Don’t get me wrong, I love tall building aspect of this game, but I think we cannot ignore the fact that when nations with half your population make nearly same amount of NET income.

It is influenced by many factors, but I wanted talk about some of them, which I consider most important.

Wages must be reduced.

Spoiler: Wages

First of all why you have to pay mercenary leaders another wage, when they already are getting paid monthly (you can see it on the screen above) – it got to so ridiculous level, that when I reduced mercenary maintenance to 0 (funny thing, you should try that ) I had to pay them absurd amount of money anyway. (Of course 0 maintenance merc are stupid, pls patch this )

Spoiler: Wealth of Emperor

Obligatory “Tax”

When you add all % of obligatory offices of nations income (ruler 4% , consort 2%, heir 1% , 9% from gov. offices [for some reason one of them gets 2% instead of 1%)] , 4% from 4 researchers ) you get 20%. And on top of this each general takes another 1% and governor 0,2%. Of course bigger countries suffer from this much more because they need much more money to invest in their own cities and settlements. This over 20% obligatory “tax” (remember before any corruption!) with other factors, makes you feel like you cant do much to actually increase your income because if you earn more you just pay more.

Also it’s very annoying when you see your ruler have more money than your nation and you cant do anything with this. What’s even funnier this money generally (random events are exceptions here and im not sure if those events can affect ruler) disappears after his death for some reason. Make it go back to national treasure and descendant in some proportions like 50% nation 50% split between descendants or something like this. ( I’m nearly sure it disappears because there were situations when my heir took power, and had no, or little money )

Trade

Trade is the reason I actually wanted to post this suggestion. Currently trade favours small nations much more than big ones, mostly because of 2 things:

Internal Trade Penalty

When you import trade good from your own province into your own province, you get only 20% of income you would normally. Ofc. it adds to 40% because you earn money both on export and import. In my opinion this penalty is too big. In mid game, when most smaller nations disappear from map, the total amount of trade routes also disappear. This fact force you to trade with yourself. Because of this sometimes it feels like your trade income actually doesn’t grow, even if you export and import lot more than before.

Penalty obviously should be reduced drastically. In my opinion from 20% even to 60% – 70%. I think player should be rewarded for creating internal trade system not punished for this mostly because of the effort it takes to generate any trade routes in non-capital provinces.

Also make auto trade in provinces actually import trade goods from your provinces. Currently, when system cannot import anything from other nations it doesn’t import at all.

Trade Routes in Provinces

In my opinion, a great way to stimulate trade in Imperator would be to give all provinces at least one trade route instead of none. For example you would get 1 for controlling all territories in 1 province.

Also trade routes could be generated by all pops in province, not only by citizens and nobles. (of course they still should generate more of them than the rest)

I think both this changes would greatly benefit trade system as a whole. It would encourage players to actually make balance in your county between generating trade routes and producing trade goods. Currently it takes to much effort to generate trade routes in non-capital province, only to see you earn only 40% of money you could and again this money would be reduced by obligatory 20% wages tax.

Tax and buildings

Building in settlements are useless. They cost tons of money and you get back nothing from them.
For example slave estate. It increases output of slaves by 30% and increases civilization level by 5%.

By why I would want to build this if my slaves already have 220% output ? Another ~35% just gives you about 16% increased tax income only from slaves only in this territory. All other building have same problem. Why I should build mine if I already have tons of trade goods that I produce and nobody import them ?

Please make them to at lest give back money you invested on them in for example 20 years. Right now they are doing nothing at all. AND WHY I HAVE AN OPTION TO SORT THEM BY INCOME IF ALL OF THEM GIVE ME 0 INCOME ANYWAY!?

Spoiler: Builder is healpful

Random stuff than I think should be also mentioned.

• Option to take loans – I don’t want to have to wait for money when I need it most.
• Governor policies when you have many provinces are annoying as hell. Especially when you pay Political Influence to change them only to see governor of this region dead 2 months later. Of course next governor change them back and make you pay again or take the loss. (in my opinion policies should be free to change but with 10-20 yeas cooldown, or at least make them not spam local autonomy everywhere)

In summary, I think all of this suggestions would greatly improve the joy and satisfaction of playing Imperator.

Big thanks to everyone who took the time to read all of this. Also I wanted to apologize for any mistakes but I'm not native English speaker.

(All screens were taken from my WC campain)

 

[IsaacCAT]

First of all why you have to pay mercenary leaders another wage, when they already are getting paid monthly

Then It would be more efficient to have mercs than legions.

This over 20% obligatory “tax”

The people in power take their cut. But It would be more realistic if some of the wealth from distance provinces would be for the governor instead of the capital. Probably more than 30-40% of tax revenues should be lost, something that is already happening if we take into consideration corruption.

I believe in equalizers for small countries with big countries.

In mid game, when most smaller nations disappear from map, the total amount of trade routes also disappear.

Indeed, this is expected. But you could choose not to make them disappear instead. If you choose a WC this is a consequence of it. The game can be enjoyed without absorbing everyone else.

Also trade routes could be generated by all pops in province, not only by citizens and nobles. (of course they still should generate more of them than the rest)

Not agree. All pops generate demand, but only citizens and nobles are able to create the trade routes necessary to import goods.

For example slave estate. It increases output of slaves by 30% and increases civilization level by 5%.

Slave estates should be reformed but you use them as an example to boost income. In my opinion settlement buildings have more important functions than increase income: they should do more to retain their POPs as they have tried now and settlements should allow production from freemen besides slaves, with better rations for freemen. But this is another suggestion.

Governor policies when you have many provinces are annoying as hell.

You are right. There is this suggestion from @Herennius that is quite interesting:

Idea for reworking automatic and manual assignment of governor policies

How it works currently: - A governor you install will decide for each province in his/her governorship based on this list: https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Province - those initial choices will never change... -...unless you fire/replace the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Your suggestion has been very interesting to read, thank you.

 

[Baldamundo]

Think this is entirely wrong-headed tbh. The game already over-incentivises blobbing & snowballing - it doesn't need to be made any easier for large empires imo.

Although I agree that the distinction between the nation treasury and the ruler's wealth is a bit weird and arbitrary and not necessarily modelled in the most intuitive way.

 

[Zymes]

The game doesn't need to be easier to blob, rather the other way around.

 

[Decius]

Although I agree that the distinction between the nation treasury and the ruler's wealth is a bit weird and arbitrary and not necessarily modelled in the most intuitive way.

It feels weird, but at least for Rome this is true, where some senators and some other wealthy people had more money than the nation. Many wealthy people spent their money for the public to gain popularity and influence in politics. Corruption (and maybe even some benefitial laws for office holders) made this possible.

 

[Nostalgium]

I, for one, like that I still run the risk of dipping into the red despite owning most of the Mediterranean. If there's one change I'd like to see done, though, it's seizing assets and private wealth from your characters (proscription etc) or else taking out loans from them for political favours, to be repaid in estates, etc.

 

[Baldamundo]

It feels weird, but at least for Rome this is true, where some senators and some other wealthy people had more money than the nation. Many wealthy people spent their money for the public to gain popularity and influence in politics. Corruption (and maybe even some benefitial laws for office holders) made this possible.

Sure - I'm not saying there shouldn't be any distinction, just it's not very clear how it's drawn in-game, what the criteria are for why some actions use nation treasury, others use ruler treasury, etc. Particularly for monarchies.