Cicero 1.2 Update 4 is now live!

[Jamey]

How are people finding the pirates? I did not enjoy the implementation in the last beta, and it seems from the patch notes like they are less frequent but use the same mechanics (i.e. unguarded port seeking missiles that you cannot reasonably block without building a fort on every single port).

 

[Todie]

How are people finding the pirates? I did not enjoy the implementation in the last beta, and it seems from the patch notes like they are less frequent but use the same mechanics (i.e. unguarded port seeking missiles that you cannot reasonably block without building a fort on every single port).

They also fixed a bug that made pirates multiply, especially on load.

Fleets on automated independent op / recon are helpful vs pirates. Thr raid-debuff is miniscule given that its additice and not multiplicative.

... unless there are still bugs with this, it shouldnt be seen as any major issue right now IMO.

 

[Drogan]

AI is terrible at trade. on my observe game rome starves to obliteration while importing 7 wine... why are they not importing grain?

 

[George_L]

Old beta saves combatible?

 

[Ragu]

looks like food storage in occupied province broken
because it sets to 0, and all provinces (even if you have positive food income!!!) start to starve with -5% per month
so after some years it will be uncolonized "desert" without population

 

[JC_von_Preussen]

I'm curious to see how this will play...

 

[TheWorstPro]

- Prove Legitimacy interaction now gives bloodlines to character's descendents, if discovered

I was hoping for something like this. Time to create the ultimate dynasty!

 

[UlrichVonBaden]

It was a rough start, but you guys have really pulled this one out of the bag!

 

[Jamey]

They also fixed a bug that made pirates multiply, especially on load.

So, another change that results in less pirates.

Fleets on automated independent op / recon are helpful vs pirates. Thr raid-debuff is miniscule given that its additice and not multiplicative.

... unless there are still bugs with this, it shouldnt be seen as any major issue right now IMO.

As Egypt, I found automated fleets useless against pirates because:

1. All fleets would seek the first pirate spotted, ignoring other pirates.
2. All fleets would return to port in Alexandria, rather than their origin port

In a roughly starting Egypt sized empire, I found no way to make pirates less annoying besides building forts in every single port (which is quite expensive given all the ports in the Nile delta).


I find the current implementation of pirates to be the most annoying whack-a-mole I've encountered in a Paradox game (and I dealt with on map partisans in HOI3). I'd prefer that they entirely remove pirates from the game rather than simply decrease the spawn rate for the pirates with the current implementation. That said, I want Imperator to succeed (because I've paid for it and I am semi-obsessed with this era), so I'd like to try the new beta, but I'd also like some confidence that I'm not going to quit in annoyance in a couple of hours like I did last time.

 

[Todie]

So, another change that results in less pirates.


As Egypt, I found automated fleets useless against pirates because:

1. All fleets would seek the first pirate spotted, ignoring other pirates.
2. All fleets would return to port in Alexandria, rather than their origin port

In a roughly starting Egypt sized empire, I found no way to make pirates less annoying besides building forts in every single port (which is quite expensive given all the ports in the Nile delta).


I find the current implementation of pirates to be the most annoying whack-a-mole I've encountered in a Paradox game (and I dealt with on map partisans in HOI3). I'd prefer that they entirely remove pirates from the game rather than simply decrease the spawn rate for the pirates with the current implementation. That said, I want Imperator to succeed (because I've paid for it and I am semi-obsessed with this era), so I'd like to try the new beta, but I'd also like some confidence that I'm not going to quit in annoyance in a couple of hours like I did last time.

I remember having this exchange before...

This is your past experience though? Several pirate fleets trying to raid at the same time should be a rare occurance, likely related to that bug before.

I will say, I have also observed fleets returning to same port when automated.

If there are still issues i bet they will ve ironed out ib the weeks ahead. Maybe at least now, pirate fleets wont grow projibitively large.

Maybe youncsnt always catch them, but the debuff your port city gets is very insignificant, and the notification can be disabled. Its vy no means a core game mechanic.

 

[Yuanshu]

- Remove deprecated "lucky_nation" bonus for Rome, Bactria and Parnia.

What would this "lucky_nation" bonus be? quoted here could someone explain?

 

[Todie]

looks like food storage in occupied province broken
because it sets to 0, and all provinces (even if you have positive food income!!!) start to starve with -5% per month
so after some years it will be uncolonized "desert" without population

This is a very significant thing.

Food reserves on the province level serves as a buffer against starvation and attrition.

So i can understand, when it does run out, the negative growth should be higher than before.

This is literally 100x higher though. Are migration parameters similarly affected?

... from what i understand, war exaustion hasnt been tweaked yet?

I can see it being problematic to teach the AI to deal with this, especially weighting cost/risk/benefit of prolonged warfare through starvation.
... players can stall wining wars and turn provinces into literal wastelands in a matter of years destroying coubtries without annexation.

.... maybe starvation-penalties could be diversified, like applying lasting debuffs to growth and output while not killing pops quite as fast when food first runs out ?

 

[Denkt]

Is there historical precedent? Why would a ruler want to raze his own cities and demote them to settlements? I think demoting cities should only be allowed against enemies.

It was sometimes done as punishment so it should probably give alot of tyranny and maybe demote all pops into slaves and spread them out.

- Food is now produced in all owned territories, the amount is dependent on the local terrain. Food is consumed by Pops and Military units that would otherwise take attrition. Any surplus food is stored in the Province. A large food store will increase population growth and local defensiveness. A depleted food storage results in starvation and lowered defensiveness.

Are units supposed to take attrition if they have access to food when being over the supply limit because they currently do that even if they eat food which they also do.​

 

[Jamey]

I remember having this exchange before...

This is your past experience though? Several pirate fleets trying to raid at the same time should be a rare occurance, likely related to that bug before.

I will say, I have also observed fleets returning to same port when automated.

If there are still issues i bet they will ve ironed out ib the weeks ahead. Maybe at least now, pirate fleets wont grow projibitively large.

Maybe youncsnt always catch them, but the debuff your port city gets is very insignificant, and the notification can be disabled. Its vy no means a core game mechanic.

Upon further review, I still greatly dislike the current the pirate mechanics.

My problems:

1. The only way to prevent pirate raids is to have forts in 100% of port provinces. That is simply too expensive to be viable.
2. AI control of fleets is somewhat effective, but has problems if you have a larger empire (all fleets targeting the same pirate fleet and fleets tending to return to your capital instead of having a home base)
3. AI control of fleets still requires you to micromanage aspects of this (rebasing fleets, remembering to turn AI control back on for rebased fleets, stripping out excess crappy ships captured in pirate engagements to maintain your income)
4. Pirates can raid your port while you have a fleet stationed in that port. 65 warships did nothing to protect Baelo from 15 pirate ships because I forgot to set them back to AI control after rebasing them back to where pirates are active.
   
5. Once I have been raided, I cannot find a way to determine which pirate port sent out the fleet to raid me.
   
6. The Anti-Piracy Casus Belli is weird. I can declare a "Show Superiority" war versus a neighboring country which has a pirate haven without a no-CB hit, but countries that are not neighboring cannot be targeted without a no-CB hit. Both seem likely to be able to send pirates to my shores given similar distance from my raided port.
7. The Anti-Piracy CB does not provide the ability to threaten a smaller nation to force it to get rid of its pirates.
8. There is no way to force (or convince) your subjects to get rid of their pirates.
   
9. There is no way to determine which pirate havens are capable of sending ships to raid your ports.
10. If you are a minor power, you cannot support enough ships to defeat a typical pirate fleet, especially if the RNG gives them a godlike martial admiral. This causes major problems for nations like the Bosporans, who rely on straits for transiting their territory.

In short, the current pirate mechanics are whack-a-mole with no compelling addition to the rest of the game.

I still feel that Imperator would be a better game if they removed pirates entirely and put them back into the game at a later point when the mechanics of pirates are well thought out and complement the main game play loops. As it is, the current pirates (and the 1.0 pirates) are annoying distractions from the important parts of the game.

 

[Trompuz]

Now when I found a city in a settlement where I have my culture as the dominant culture, the graphical culture still becomes the non-existant original culture. I have destroyed these barbaric people, I don't want their filthy huts on my lands. Come on my boys at paradox, plz change it, I love you <3

 

[geoaraujo]

Fix for the game actually work on GNU/Linux via Steam. When?

 

[nikkythegreat]

I love how assimilation from tyranny is now halved

Also Egyptian heritage now sucks. That 2% population capacity is too low, its less than half the Maurya bonus and like a single Civil level minus the commerce bonus. While the -25% assimilation hurts too much.

Please give them either a 5% population capacity or a 5% bonus food production. Which is historically accurate since the nile delta has always been a bread basket of any empire that occupies it back in antiquity.

 

[Ankios]

I love how assimilation from tyranny is now halved

Also Egyptian heritage now sucks. That 2% population capacity is too low, its less than half the Maurya bonus and like a single Civil level minus the commerce bonus. While the -25% assimilation hurts too much.

Please give them either a 5% population capacity or a 5% bonus food production. Which is historically accurate since the nile delta has always been a bread basket of any empire that occupies it back in antiquity.

I agree.

I also saw the entire Egyptian kingdom become fully Macedonian in less than a 100 years. That bothers me to be honest but this is probably temporary as they are still hard at work to balance it.

 

[sr999]

A new version of the beta for the Cicero Update has been set live. Here is a short list of changes.
Most important changes relate to food and cities.

Spoiler

To access this beta:

Steam

Right-click the game in your library

Open `Properties`

Select the BETAS tab

and select `1.2-beta - Cicero Beta`

GOG

Open the game's page on the launcher

Select More button

Go to Settings > Beta Channels and on the right select On

In the channel list, select '1.2-beta - Cicero Beta'


###################
# New Features
###################
- Split cities into Cities, Settlements and Metropolises, collectively known as territories. Only Cities and Metropolises are now represented by 3D buildings on the map.
- Settlement is the basic owned territorial unit. A settlement has lower population cap than a city and can only have one building. Settlement buildings are different from those available in cities and focus more on production and output.
- A city can be founded in a settlement for a cost of Gold and Political Influence. A city can have multiple buildings and will have a higher population cap than a settlement. In cities more slaves are required to produce surplus goods.
- A Metropolis can be upgraded from a provincial capital city with high population. City buildings are still available but it will have a higher migration attraction, and more building slots than a city.
- 15 building types are available to develop your cities.
- Added 5 new buildings for Settlements.
- Food is now produced in all owned territories, the amount is dependent on the local terrain. Food is consumed by Pops and Military units that would otherwise take attrition. Any surplus food is stored in the Province. A large food store will increase population growth and local defensiveness. A depleted food storage results in starvation and lowered defensiveness.
- Surplus Trade Goods can now also generate food, these can be imported to feed big cities.

###################
# Gamebalance
###################

# Characters
- The Ruler of a Tribe will no longer make or keep retinues.

# Units
- Increased Price of Light Cavalry from 6 to 7.
- Reduced Mercenary Maintenance from +300% to +25%.

# War & Peace
- Pirate Raids slightly less frequent.

# Technology
- Invention costs are now base on cost of X gold per pop in your country.
- "Prestigious Trade Goods" invention now increases export value instead of lowering Trade Route cost.
- "Regulated Money Lenders" invention now increases import value instead of Global Commerce.

# Heritages
- Tartessian heritage now increases build cost by 5% instead of 10%.
- Thracian heritage now reduces Civic Provincial Investment cost by 10% instead of 1%.
- Byblos heritage now reduces Pop Assimilation Speed instead of Manpower Recovery Speed.
- Arvernian Heritage now reduces Heavy Infantry Maintenance instead of Slaves needed for Surplus.
- Rural Heritage now decreases cost to found cities instead of the cost to build roads.
- Armenian Heritage now reduces subject opinion instead of siege speed and increases manpower recovery speed instead of Hostile Attrition.
- Seleukos heritage now increases ruler popularity gain by 0.04 instead of 0.02.
- Ptolemaios heritage now decreases population assimilation instead of reducing diplomatic reputation.
- Added Kushite Heritage.
- Added Dahae Heritage.
- Added Helot Heritage.
- Added Kalingan Heritage.
- Added Nabatean Heritage.

# Mercenaries
- Halved the mercenary debt threshold for recruiting.

# Pops
- Overpopulation no longer reduces Population Growth, instead it reduces migration attraction and Pop Happiness. Overpopulation modifiers are now scaled to how many pops you have over Capacity rather than scaled to total population.
- Starvation now more harmful to Population Growth.
- Climate now has a smaller effect on Population Capacity but also affects Food Output.

# Tradegoods
- Removed Growth Category for Trade Good, replaced it with a Food category.
- Surplus of Grain, Fish, Livestock and Vegetables now generates food.
- Salt now increases Population Capacity locally, Surplus of Salt increases Food Storage Capacity.

###################
# AI
###################

# Economy
- AI will consider building economic buildings where appropriate based on scripted weights
- AI will consider changing governor policies periodically based on province needs

# Diplomacy
- Rewrote defensive league formation logic, they will now primarily grow in response to a common threat.

# Military
- AI will now assault given breaches and sufficient manpower


# Antagonist System
- Countries can now be defined as Antagonists, which gives them mechanical benefits against other AI countries, and also higher bonuses at higher game-difficulties.
- Rome, Carthage, Macedon, Thrace, Parnia & Arverni are now Antagonists.
- Remove deprecated "lucky_nation" bonus for Rome, Bactria and Parnia.
- All antagonists use the previous Roman Aggressiveness.


###################

# Interface

###################

- Default for trade options is now auto-accept trade, and never give up capital surplus.
- Reworked Buildings Interface
- Added outliner category for citybuilding/improvement.

##############################

# User Modding

##############################

# New Functionality
- Prices can now be scripted to be based of "gold_per_pop".

# Triggers
- Added 'is_antagonist' trigger for country scope.

###################
# Setup & Script
###################
- Rebalanced the Earthquakes so the killed numbers of pop should be more correct to the amount given in the tooltip, and reduced the cost of paying to take care of the affected provinces
- Prove Legitimacy interaction now gives bloodlines to character's descendents, if discovered
- The "A Mediterrenean Capital" decision now moves your capital for you and gives a better modifier than before to the new capital.


#######################

# Bugfixes

######################

- Migrations now use migrating speed and not conversion speed for pops.
- Pops will no longer migrate into Volcanos or Wastelands.
- Mercenaries are no longer caught in an endless loop between two cities after employment.
- Imprisoned disloyal characters can no longer start a civil war
- Fixed city dominant culture not being recalculated as it should
- Fixed bug that made pirates sometimes multiply (especially when the game was reloaded).

Excellent changes. Territories and food are whole new dimensions, hope they work as intended - food imports ooh ah! Antagonists good idea so Rome can monster us better. Light Cav nerf good. Heritages look improved, especially Armenian, Arvernian, Seleukos, and Ptolemaios. Mercenaries now look far more cost-effective and affordable for their long pre-battle morale recovery. AI "dynamic" governor policies good. Invention costs change looks an excellent buff for smaller or more efficient nations. And even more reason for players to work obsessively on proving their legitimacy!

I trust that "rooting out pirates" unit functionality now works better (or is being worked on), and that pirate migration to the Iranian plateau next to Tehran (as at least two players have noticed for the same province) is no longer a thing, despite Tehran's migration/raid attraction? And I expect I'll still have to nerf promotion, unless the new settlement system mitigates those issues.

 

[DCT1080]

Hey there, I've been playing 1.2 since it came out, it's a huge improvement over the base game, but I am noticing a few problems with the latest version regarding food.

1. Hostile attrition is definitely much more worse since the patch, armies sieging now die so fast it's not funny.

2. If you are at war long enough, pops in occupied territory die so quickly that the territory can become unowned.

3. supply is now lower everywhere than before?