Imperator DD #101 - A Most Auspicious Number

[Trueno33]

I still hope to see a dark mode in I:R!
I am not a developer but wouldn't it just add a filter to decrease the brightness of UI elements?

I don´t think they shall develop an alternative mode, but my eyes would really be grateful. My vision is not that good and I always choose dark uis whenever I can. Honestly, it´s one iof the reasons I can´t play the game, the strain in my eyes. The changes will help though, methinks

 

[Seleukos.I.Nikator]

I like the new UI, but I always wondered why so many complained about the light theme in particular, why do so many prefer dark themes? I think it fit nicely into a classical era game, being such a golden age of culture.

The darker colours are overall less strenuous for the eyes. It's quite common in software development to have an option to switch to the darker UI, see the Office, for instance.

Another thing is that the general appearance of the antiquity as marble-white is quite misleading. All those statues used to be painted in very vivid colours and the ancient cities were much more colourful that we normally imagine.

 

[Ipsissimus]

This is so good! Thanks

 

[Basileus2]

An opportunist and an enemy of the republic. Shameful patch naming.

Marius saved the Republic, you Sullan ignoramus!

 

[Spike05]

Is this game dead?

 

[svalan_i_dalen]

Marius saved the Republic, you Sullan ignoramus!

You cannot save the republic by betraying it's core values.

 

[Nufan]

I really like this in general but I gotta admit I have concerns about the UI aesthetics as well. I'll be constructive.

1. A lot of the colors are strongly accentuated and contrasted which makes the game look visually noisy. Biggest culprits are red vs cyan and the alert flags.
2. There are clashing art styles which make the game look cobbled together and janky. For example character art vs the backgrounds and washed out white silhouettes in the characters screen (spouses, children, etc.) vs. character portraits themselves.
3. The sidebar buttons are very functional and minimalist but lacking in flavor/immersion compared to the old top bar. Yes, the top bar buttons are kinda bad and it's hard to say what's what but the problem here isn't the art style but the images themselves not conveying their function well.

Maybe it'll look different when it's finished and in-game as opposed to a screenshot. I don't hate it but am not quite on board.

This! Especially the clashing art styles part struck me a lot and I couldn't get used to it by re-examining the images. I think a rather simple solution might be fitting the (further improved) colour scheme with the old style of UI background/icons, instead of this mix of mono-colour and detailed parts.

Pacing

I want to achieve a more consistent and choice-based progression to the flow of the game. As of right now, much of what the game offers you is available to you from the very beginning, and there are fewer ways to customise your playstyle than I would like. We’ll be looking at overhauling the inventions system and the military traditions system in order to effect a more intuitive system of progression that allows for a sense of advancement and identity to develop over the course of a game.

This doesn’t solely mean gating existing mechanics, however, this will also tie strongly to new features and additions coming in 2.0.

Warfare

This is a pretty big one. I’ve never been happy with the military recruitment and army mechanics being almost entirely divorced from historical reality and being largely set apart from the many other systems in our game. Our main military focus for 2.0 will be on tying the recruitment system(s!) into the rest of our simulation, as well as adding a much larger recognition for the cultural diversity of military forces in different parts of the map.

Several astute forum users have noticed that we’re going to be removing the Raise Levies unit ability. I’ll leave you to ponder over how that might be related.

There are of course many additional improvements coming to the warfare aspect of the game, from forts and sieges, to wargoals and cohorts.

Will the change of pace include several daily ticks to fit in yearly consuls, more realistic battle lengths, more important characters due to "increased" lifespan e.t.c.?

I'd like to add a lot on the military/technology side of things but I'll try to keep it short.

1. Inventions/traditions, or whatever their replacement(s) might be, could be dynamically spreading over the map. This would add immersion especially for the authenticity-minded player. Would also help differentiate tags by region even if they have the same culture, while allowing what-if scenarios due to ahistorical conquests. For example some steppe nomads could start with access to Cataphracts (unit or modifier, preferably the former). The Seleukids which border them can reasonably get Cataphracts a lot faster than Macedon, which might get easier access to an Illyrian Auxiliary (unit or modifier). Later techs could appear at semi-random, appropriate time and space. Or when an eligible state first discovers them (possibly the, old, EU Rome kind of way).
2. Chronological sense and no arbitrary tiers. Not in the strict, railroaded sense. But no 50-100 years to unlock something that was historically available at game start or having it locked behind some unrelated tradition. There could be either some investment towards unlocking a new tech faster (if the new tech tree ends up smaller than the current invention count), some effect from neighbouring states/regions having it, some from research level/output, some randomness or any combination of those.
4. Let the (hopefully coming) levies be pops, not just tied to pops, to make the battles decisive and have the player feel the impact of a disastrous war. Let them be resettled elsewhere (maybe under conditions/laws) to influence conversion/assimilation while establishing military colonies with eligible soldiers near frontlines.
5. Units could have default terrain bonuses. I think it's reasonable and would make all unit types viable.
6. Terrain altering battlefield size. What if in mountains only 10 units could fight at the same time? Let us imagine epic last stands or holding a mountain pass with a small but powerful army against numerical odds.
7. A redesign of the tactics system. Could include generals picking tactics themselves according to their traits and situation, (maybe excluding the state leader?). Or something more radical/realistic with "real" formations like declined flank(s), thinner centre etc.

Bonus:
1. Trade could be tied to the building system. Want cavalry available? Build stables. This imports automatically the cheapest source of horses in trade range, for a cost. If no horses are in range or no one wants to trade them with you, you still can build those stables but with an upkeep larger than having to maintain a trade route. Local horses on the other hand would allow stables for little or no upkeep cost. The benefits of this could be a rather intuitive and realistic building system, that also affects gameplay more than stacking modifiers and buildings of the same type. Also, begone trade spam, if willingness to trade (and export prices?) are handled automatically by state relations (and maybe leader traits). *This idea, (along with some of the previous) is not originally mine.
2. Please replace that "marble?" click sound

Overall, nomater the specifics, the direction of this update looks like the most promising so far.

 

[NilsFabian]

Thanks for your work on the game. Much appreciated.
If there is one UI I'd love to see, copy the UI of CK3 if possible. far and wide the best and most intuitive UIof all PDX Games so far.

 

[wraithwon]

Wow thats exciting. Please while you're focused on the UI.. add in a little code to make long-taps work as right click on Windows touch screens. This game is so close to playable entirely with touch, long-tap is just treated like a normal tap.

 

[lingo74]

WOW this just got me excited about Imperator again, I'll admit I gave up for awhile but this might be just what I need to jump back in.

 

[Cadzon]

Also big of you to shout out the better ui mod and not being thick headed. "that guy did like this, now we must make it our OWN way bc we are better!" which might be worse. <3

 

[TheMadEmperor]

Will the change of pace include several daily ticks to fit in yearly consuls, more realistic battle lengths, more important characters due to "increased" lifespan e.t.c.?

There is a very good and game-changing suggestion in the SPQR sub-forum by @Ketchup & friends in this direction that I would love to see implemented in the game.

 

[Wagonlitz]

If there is one UI I'd love to see, copy the UI of CK3 if possible. far and wide the best and most intuitive UIof all PDX Games so far.

While it is good, then the lack of a minimap means that it can't be the best. That just is too glaring an issue.

 

[RonBurgundy]

While it is good, then the lack of a minimap means that it can't be the best. That just is too glaring an issue.

Arheo mentioned a few pages back that the mini-map was still there, it was just minimized in the screenshots.

 

[RonBurgundy]

While it is good, then the lack of a minimap means that it can't be the best. That just is too glaring an issue.

It's just minimized, fear not

here it is

 

[tpapp157]

Imperator doesn't give any of these feelings at all, besides which colors the map is now painted in, you'd be hard pressed to see any real change to the world.
Perhaps one or two big cities have emerged somewhere, perhaps a lot of roads have been built, but in practical terms, nothing really has changed in a palpable way.
This gives me a big hit to engagement through a campaign tbh, to see a world this static (it was much, much worse before 1.2, granted, where even pops couldn't move on their own), though I'm not sure if that'd be just me.

One of the problems is that these sort of changes of this magnitude didn't really take place during this time period. The way nations organized and managed their population, the way armies were raised and maintained, in a general sense didn't really change. Sure, individual nations could change quite a bit but in terms of the general trends of human civilization the ancient world was relatively static.

It's important to remember as well that the Roman Republic/Empire was quite an outlier in many ways that makes it not a good reference for how things were managed more generally. The Roman Empire was incredibly decentralized like all empires in this era but at the same time it was far more centralized than any of its peers. Rome spent an absolutely enormous amount of money maintaining its military bureaucracy which is the primary reason why the empire was so stable for so long. Outside of China at a few points in its history, this level of bureaucracy would not be seen again until the British Empire in the 1800s (and since ~1900 of course every developed nation now has an extensive centralized national bureaucracy). My point being that even though Rome brought enormous political changes to the areas it controlled, those changes were uniquely peculiar to Rome itself and not indicative of the general trends of the era. And even here it's worth also noting that most of the reforms we associate with Rome actually only came about during the very late Republic and early Empire which occur after this game's timeline. The administration of the Republican Empire during this game's timeframe wasn't too different from the administrations of its peers (extremely decentralized network of client states).

It wouldn't be until the mid-late Roman Empire that actual real structural changes to how people were administered took place. The two most prominent being the creation of the Christian Church bureaucracy (which would remain the largest and most powerful administrative structure in Europe until the early modern era), and the institution of a variety of legal restrictions to population movement, property ownership, and occupational employment which would over time form the basis of the Feudal system. These of course wouldn't begin to take hold until ~300-500 AD.

 

[Nufan]

There is a very good and game-changing suggestion in the SPQR sub-forum by @Ketchup & friends in this direction that I would love to see implemented in the game.

That one is (partly) what I had in mind

 

[Inspecta]

The new UI looks so much more beautifull with this hellenic scroll style, than with the white marble, that was before. And functionality, throne rooms, colors... oh my, oh my. I want to know more about 2.0, especially about military and inventions overhaul.

 

[merulaalba]

So where to start?

This is such an unexpected surprise. I played Imperator at a friend's place. Several times. And each time I came with a decision not to buy the game.
Why? Because it did not leave me with the feeling that I am leading an ancient civilization, but a bland generic state that is roleplaying as an ancient civ.

The issues were numerous (and they still are, with Menander complicating things even further), and I was thinking that it is over. That this game is beyond saving.

But according to this dev diary, I might be wrong.

Why? This dev diary addresses some of the crucial issues that I (and many others) had with the game. Let me also add that I deal with this period (working on a PhD in Roman history), so I would really like this game to work.

Pacing - until now we did not have the idea that our civ is progressing. That there is any meaningful change from the start date to the end date (except map painting). Hopefully, this will make playing smaller (non-expansionistic states) a more pleasing experience. World conquest should not be the aim of this period. When only two empires (Rome and Persia) could claim to be universal empires. I am hoping to see meaningful progress in several aspects - from technology, and culture, to military

Military - in Imperator, there are different features that get activated after investing in a tradition. But at the start, every military is the same... which is weird, and off-putting, and helping in making that feeling that we are roleplaying as ancient civ, and not playing like one. Also, the ability to get the same units for every civ is weird. I am hoping to see smaller (but professional) standing armies - more expensive, but also more disciplined, and lethal. And larger levy based armies that trade the experience for numbers. Having specialist troops able to be raised in particular regions (something like in R2TW) would also be great and encourage practical and rewarding expansion.

UI - this is a big one. I would just say that I am amazed at how good it looks like. That white marble was not only bland, but it was also wrong. As if we want to recreate the flavor, stark colors are the way to go. White marble is the invention of the 18th and 19th centuries, classicism and neoclassicism. Roman towns (as well as Persian or Carthaginian, or Greek ones), were all but white. They were quite eclectic looking, and vibrant, with the mix of colors that could cause epilepsy. Obviously, the devs should avoid that
But bringing more colors, and possibly color coding different civs, would be quite helpful in making the world more believable and unique.

With this being said. I would like to see the improvements for families and internal interaction. This could be great especially for Rome, where great senatorial families tailored the fate of the Republic for centuries. Also, we need a change in decision making and the way how the ruler interacts with the government (being it senate, or a boule or something else). As becoming a tyrant because you actually listen to the demands of the aristocracy, is extremely off-putting...and frustrating.

I have several more ideas. But as this is dev diary about those three crucial things, I 'll leave it here.

This game has great potential, and now it could actually fulfill it. Which makes me cautiously optimistic.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Arheo mentioned a few pages back that the mini-map was still there, it was just minimized in the screenshots.

I know. He mentioned it as a reply to my original post about the minimap.

I was replying to the claimt hat the CK3 UI is the best ever. Considering that CK3 has me constantly be annoyed whenever I need to e.g. move from Syria to Italy, then I can't agree to it being the best UI ever.