Imperator DD : Civilization, Buildings and Macedon

[MohawkWolfo98]

Not sure about this. This might sound in theory better than it is in practice. Thinking of how many buildings and cities exist, stone could be way too valuable and important than other trade goods. Also this might be too restrictive and tedious, even if you can build more than one aqueduct per stone. Also other buildings would then require stone, making building even more painful or it's strange, if only aqueducts would need stone. I think Great Wonders requiring trade goods is already a good solution of tying trade goods to buildings.

This. Remember when suggesting alternatives that the game has hundreds of cities for us to manage by the middle game. Having ratios, or tying it to trade goods or similar mechanics to keep pops happy will be a micromanagement hell which we are trying to eliminate. I already wonder if governors with money should be able to invest in their provinces. Really interesting mechanic tho, and I wonder if a similar but less micromanaging mechanic can be implemented

I completely agree that having 3000 pops in a city or having like 80 aqueducts is unrealistic, and there should be mechanics to discourage such behaviour. However, as some people do like to play tall, the option should be there for them too.

 

[master_kong]

A nice meaty dev diary, also it's nice you guys are back in business. Finally, I was able to read it despite sickness(a scary word nowadays!).

Now, I don't have enough knowledge of the game's current state to evaluate the changes to buildings properly but I can say I was never fond of unlimited buildings. And apparently, they are partially here to stay. Even though a more simple, linear upgrading system for buildings like in EU4 looks inferior and less flexible to this system, I find it healthier and less chaotic. Therefore I'm hoping for a buildings rework in the future. Though it's nice that you tweaked the current system for the better until the rework arrives.

I didn't like the new happiness indicator for pop types I hope it's not final. Maybe with a bar, it would look better but I don't know if I'd ever get used to it being vertical

It seems the background landscape image for character portraits is changed. And it looks so much better! Really liked it, in fact, I was secretly hating the old one before It was like a default Windows background image without a distinctive look.

 

[Herennius]

For the fact that buildings aren't a focus of 2.0, I'm satisfied with the amount of love they get. Surely some issues will remain, but my feeling is that they will be overall in a much nicer shape after release. The end of library-spamming and a Foundry finally worth to built are my personal favorites.

Edit: One further thought on future building changes - maybe the addition of maintenance cost to some buildings or at some building levels would help to delay the overboarding gold wealth in the late game, if this is still an issue after 2.0.
Also seeing for a couple of buildings some building branches would be cool and would add a level of decision, what do you want to focus on in a city (if you build a certain branch, you cannot get the other ones in the same city at the same time - this would also help from a UI perspective as not more slots are needed than now)

I made a suggestion about this around a year ago:

Add a monthly maintenance fee for all buildings | Paradox Interactive Forums (paradoxplaza.com)

Building maintenance is surely not a cure for everything, but IMO worth to consider as a intuitive money sink.

 

[Spike05]

I'm not a mac user myself (happy Linux user here) but I see a lot of hate and bad reviews on steam coming from unhappy catalina users who can't play the game anymore since the (last?) menander update.
they are very very vocal and outspoken, and somewhat "rightly" so, since IR theoretically support their system.

is there any official word for a fix to show them so that they'll calm down until the release of 2.0?

btw great work here, can't wait to put my itching hands on IR 2.0!

 

[IsaacCAT]

I made a suggestion about this around a year ago:

Add a monthly maintenance fee for all buildings | Paradox Interactive Forums (paradoxplaza.com)

Building maintenance is surely not a cure for everything, but IMO worth to consider as a intuitive money sink.

I do not want to do necrophagia (*) of and old post, so I will reply here: maintenance is a good idea in its own as you describe in your old suggestion, not only as a money sink. But I will add a goods maintenance as well. Not 1:1, for example:

Up to 10 libraries in the whole province you need the following trades on your province: 1 stone, 1 wood, 1 papyrus
Up to 20 libraries in the whole province you need the following trades on your province: 2 stone, 2 wood, 2 papyrus
Etc..

If you loose the trade, the building works inefficiently. Without the trade you cannot build new ones. Of course, this should go with a trade system revamp.

This may require a suggestion....

* I know its not this word, but I love the irreverence and the sound of it

 

[Troyen]

I'm not a mac user myself (happy Linux user here) but I see a lot of hate and bad reviews on steam coming from unhappy catalina users who can't play the game anymore since the (last?) menander update.
they are very very vocal and outspoken, and somewhat "rightly" so, since IR theoretically support their system.

is there any official word for a fix to show them so that they'll calm down until the release of 2.0?

Afaik, the latest word is 2.0 "should" fix the most common crash stacks for Mac users, but obviously no way to know for sure until it's out.

 

[maxk94]

I don’t remember Rome having 10 aqueducts in just it’s one city.

that's true, rome had at max 9!

 

[PDX_Chop]

In this case, it might be better to tie them to the Macedon tag (form Macedon and unlock 2 missions. Allow Thrace, Egypt and Seleukids to take that decision).

If you are playing as Thrace, Seleukids, Egypt, Antigonids, or another Macedonian nation, own Pella, and Macedon no longer exists, you already are Macedon, and limiting content for people who want to retain their starting tag's identity seems unfair.

Looks like another possible problem. Would a player-controlled Athens be abel to prevent this?

As with other content, we take into account when a player is involved

And what about other concerns raised by the screenshots?

Will you also fix Paeonia’s culture (give them an own) in 2.0?

I can say we will try to address almost all of your concerns, if we can

 

[grandad1982]

With regards to buildings would an eu4 system of upgrades work?

So for example, 1 tax office give a base boost, level 2 maybe gives a percentage boost, level 3 does xyx etc etc. Tie upgrades to tech, pop count, civilisation value etc etc.

This might also make implementing culturally linked developments more interesting to implement.

 

[Fregator]

But this doesn't change something about the necessity of building a lot of aqueducts in order to increase pop capacity, which is required to gain more building slots? So if I want more buildings, I have to use most of the slots for aqueducts, what leads having less slots for other buildings, what leads to cities with a lot of aqueducts and a few other buildings.

I fully understand that 2.0 isn't about buildings and I'm very happy with the changes we get for the Marius update, but please keep it in mind for future updates and ideally one of the next after 2.0

I wrote in an earlier post in this thread, that maybe detaching the increase of pop capacity from aqueducts (giving the aqueduct new bonuses and maybe a small percentage bonus to pop cap) and tie pop cap more to the other current factors and/or add a new factor, how pop cap is gained. Of course this needs to be balanced and take some work, but my suggestion is meant for another update and not 2.0.
I guess there are multiple solutions for this issue, but I'm just suggesting one.

But this is already a mistake. People still spamming aqueducs in 1.5 missed the changes basically. It isn't the meta and especially is not in region with lots of cities. The only places were it makes sense is in low city density region like the Iberia, Gaul, Germany as you need to get ltos of pops into one city. I have seen many attempts at meta with 1.5 in mp but aqueducs spamming never bore fruits.

 

[Decius]

But this is already a mistake. People still spamming aqueducs in 1.5 missed the changes basically. It isn't the meta and especially is not in region with lots of cities. The only places were it makes sense is in low city density region like the Iberia, Gaul, Germany as you need to get ltos of pops into one city. I have seen many attempts at meta with 1.5 in mp but aqueducs spamming never bore fruits.

Why isn't it in MP viable anymore with 1.5?

I know about aqueducts providing less pop cap than in earlier versions, but in Singleplayer I know that meagcities are still pretty much op - there are even youtube videos that proof it and threads with screenshots and discussions here on the forums.

 

[Fregator]

Why isn't it in MP viable anymore with 1.5?

I know about aqueducts providing less pop cap than in earlier versions, but in Singleplayer I know that meagcities are still pretty much op - there are even youtube videos that proof it and threads with screenshots and discussions here on the forums.

They actually aren't OP. People are stacking pops and calling it megacap. But what made megacap op was that you could easily get to 150% pop cap by 500 for no ivnestment and by the end of the game yo uwere at 250% allowing to have megacaps with 40 trianing camps 40 academies and producing 80% of state output. Now you can still get a city with lots of pops but it isn't as productive as before.

So basically what define megacap in my eyes:
- Huge concentration of population in one city
- exponential return on each pop the bigger the whole pop gets

1.5 changed nerfed this to the point it isn't worth the risk by nerfing farmland and warm climate 40% and 50% pop cap buff and the trade route buff to pop cap for each trade route active (which was 2% if I recall and was super synergetic cause you had to spam trade investment to feed the city). So the previous method were you stacked 40 training grounds isn't achievable as easily and even when you can reach aqueduc that return 11 pop cap you will need 10 aqueduc to have 1 training ground. So you get way less training ground and you have to basically spam the pop cap investment all game to approach the exponential returns and by this time game has ended.

Before they required almost no investment to get going and the more you spammed trade route investment the more op they got. Now they require campaign long investment and tending to get a tenth of the return.

The glaring weakness in mp is so much stronger now too. A city with 1k pop is 200 slaves waiting to be taken in one quick assault. It is a country were you will have to keep half your army to prevent that at home when at war. And if you achieve it, it will be much later into the game and require so much more investment that it leave you as a siting duck until 650 were your capital is then somewhat worth something (and even then it is still low). This was already a weakness in 1.4 that was already overlooked by many as basically you either were the top dog and were somewhat safe (except from coalitions), or you were gonna get sacked or blockaded to cancel food trade if war happened. It was inducing a passive gameplay into mp that I am glad is somewhat less prevalent now.

The only exemple I saw of a working megacap (still weaker than the 1.4 ones) was from a tribe in Varendra abusing the pillage mechanic to farm province investment of pop cap with 40 surpluses of elephant in roder to get get a good pop output and thus actually scale on the number of pop you got. This was indeed a superstrong city (albeit still weaker than 1.4 megacap) but it required the exploitation of the pillage interaction to farm PI in a city rich region (India), the buying of basically all elephant produced worldwide (so if everybody goes for it, everybody get worse version of it).
The best capital region setup I have seen on 1.5 rely more on high city density regions like Sittacene, Latium and Western Delta were you spam the religious investment to get 20 building slots which allow to get for exemple 20 academy or 20 training grounds to get highly specialized and productive cities. But you still don't get the exponential growth of megacap of old. And even then the focus of players now is more about countrywide development and research is ongoing on how to try to extract the maximum out of pop growth and commerce modifiers to get to high income.

Hope this answered your enquiry

 

[Decius]

@Fregator Thank you for the explanation. I already thought that it is risky in mp, but if you don't get raided it would be worth the effort. I know that mega cities are weaker than pre 1.5 and it takes longer for them, but they are still immersion breaking as hell and to some extent op as you can concentrate e.g. research gain. And you don't get punished in SP for the in MP risky megacity. With 2.0 the issue will get even smaller and I'm curious how it turns out, but at least the aqueduct spam may still be a problem. But megacities getting definitely less of a thing with the latest and upcoming updates.

 

[Fregator]

@Decius I mean there is a point in game knowledge were honestly anything can work in sp. And honestly if people goal of a camapign is to invest everything to build a 1k city then let them be. At least know you can ignore this knowing that it isn't a good strategy and that it is just a gimmick. And it is a constant of all game mechanic that they can be exploited to create unrealistic results. But I agree with your conclusion and share the optimism, it was somewhat solved, will be probably even more solved later on.

My only concern right now is the state of tribes. Their biggest strength (retinues) was removed and they are left with hard to get tech, hgih PI cost of foundign cities and basically a state of being wanna be civilized nation stopped half backed. But I beleive this is enough work for a full DLC later on so I accept them being a bit shitty for a while comapred to republics and moanrchies.

 

[Decius]

I mean there is a point in game knowledge were honestly anything can work in sp. And honestly if people goal of a camapign is to invest everything to build a 1k city then let them be. At least know you can ignore this knowing that it isn't a good strategy and that it is just a gimmick.

Problem is, that it is currently still the better strategy and not the worse, even with the nerfs of 1.5. I already saw the evidence - e.g. on the youtube channel "coffee cup" from the user religiousphanatic. There will be always exploits, but why keep one, if it's well known and immersion breaking. Who wants to dispense the better strategy, when you know it, even if it's immersion breaking? And why not make changes to the game, which create the outcome of more immersive city management being without doubt the superior strategy. Don't get me wrong - should large cities be still possible and viable - yes, should ridiculous megacities be viable - no.

But I agree with your conclusion and share the optimism, it was somewhat solved, will be probably even more solved later on.

Absolutely agree. The devs are going in the right direction and megacities become more and more an immersion question than a balance question. With 2.0 maybe just the high number of aqueducts are a problem for immersion reasons.

My only concern right now is the state of tribes. Their biggest strength (retinues) was removed and they are left with hard to get tech, hgih PI cost of foundign cities and basically a state of being wanna be civilized nation stopped half backed. But I beleive this is enough work for a full DLC later on so I accept them being a bit shitty for a while comapred to republics and moanrchies.

I absolutely agree again! Tribes need definitely some love. I guess they get a rework soon after 2.0, maybe alongside of a "barbarian" factions DLC.

 

[Fregator]

Problem is, that it is currently still the better strategy and not the worse, even with the nerfs of 1.5. I already saw the evidence - e.g. on the youtube channel "coffee cup" from the user religiousphanatic. There will be always exploits, but why keep one, if it's well known and immersion breaking. Who wants to dispense the better strategy, when you know it, even if it's immersion breaking? And why not make changes to the game, which create the outcome of more immersive city management being without doubt the superior strategy. Don't get me wrong - should large cities be still possible and viable - yes, should ridiculous megacities be viable - no.

But I just explained to you why those city are less productive Why you do this, why you say yes and then still go back to this. All post I have seen about megacap still existing in 1.5 only consider pop number but completely ignore how easy they were and howm uch more productive they were. Right now, you are better off not doing a megacap in 1.5, it isn't the best strategy, it is a gimmick. Just worse strategy.

EDIT: By the way I see in his videos a guide to dictatorship as Rome. Why do people still try to go monarchy when it is inferior to republic in almost any way right now?

 

[Bovrick]

I may be wrong, but to play devil's advocate:

You don't get the same levels of efficiency per-Pop any more, but my impression was that the Migration Attraction alone from super-Aqueducts was a huge weapon - having another Pop generally is better than boosting the output of a Pop because the benefits of buildings are so small in smaller cities. You need quite a lot of buildings to make output effects worth more than simply more pops, but to get enough buildings in any particular territory you need plenty of Pops and a high PopCap there anyway.

Large ciites are also pretty trivial to keep happy as they're swimming in Trade Routes, and Happiness from trades becomes more efficient the more people are in one place still.

Plus you're draining the economy of everyone around you by pulling their Pops to you, in excess of what you're getting from warfare.

 

[Decius]

But I just explained to you why those city are less productive Why you do this, why you say yes and then still go back to this. All post I have seen about megacap still existing in 1.5 only consider pop number but completely ignore how easy they were and howm uch more productive they were. Right now, yo uare better off nto doign a megacap in 1.5, it isn't the best strategy it is a gimmick. Just worse strategy.

EDIT: By the way I see in his videos a guide to dictatorship as Rome. Why do people still try to go monarchy when it is inferior to republic in almost any way right now?

I agree to the risks in mp, but I saw different things in the videos, screenshots and discussions and also created somewhat decent megacities on my own (but nothing compared to the one of the youtube videos). I wrote it goes in the right direction, but not that we are already there - so I wouldn't say, I'm not consistent in my words. With the explanations of Arheo, I'm optimistic we getting with 2.0 in a very good spot, from where we might need more a fine cut and immersion improvements than further major balancing - but lets wait and see. And with several adjustments coming in 2.0 it's just more evidence that megacities are still a thing. If it wouldn't be so strong and one-sided or the better strategy, why are there upcoming nerfs and so much discussions of 1.5 megacities ongoing?

EDIT: By the way I see in his videos a guide to dictatorship as Rome. Why do people still try to go monarchy when it is inferior to republic in almost any way right now?

It's out of fun and it's currently hard to achieve, if you don't know how the mechanics behind it. So people wanted to know, how you have easier access to dictatorship.

 

[Fregator]

I agree to the risks in mp, but I saw different things in the videos, screenshots and discussions and also created somewhat decent megacities on my own (but nothing compared to the one of the youtube videos). I wrote it goes in the right direction, but not that we are already there - so I wouldn't say, I'm not consistent in my words. With the explanations of Arheo, I'm optimistic we getting with 2.0 in a very good spot, from where we might need more a fine cut and immersion improvements than further major balancing - but lets wait and see. And with several adjustments coming in 2.0 it's just more evidence that megacities are still a thing. If it wouldn't be so strong and one-sided or the better strategy, why are there upcoming nerfs and so much discussions of 1.5 megacities ongoing?

We agree on the fact the problem is solved or getting solved so we are running circles. But for me why there is so much iscussion about 1.5 megacities is that people don't understand what they were and don't actually monitor the result and compare investment to the yield.

You don't get the same levels of efficiency per-Pop any more, but my impression was that the Migration Attraction alone from super-Aqueducts was a huge weapon - having another Pop generally is better than boosting the output of a Pop because the benefits of buildings are so small in smaller cities. You need quite a lot of buildings to make output effects worth more than simply more pops, but to get enough buildings in any particular territory you need plenty of Pops and a high PopCap there anyway.

You actually do'nt cause of how pop ratio work. For exemple if you build 4-5 academies in a city you will get the noble ratio to 25% which is enough to produce high tech efficiency. And it only cost 40 gold each. You are comparing that to a strategy that ask from you to dump all your PI into pop capacity development and thus involve high opportunity cost where for exemple you can't convert your country as fast or yo uaren't using religious investment which if yo uahve 5 cities in a province represent a lot of potential scaling. I think you are better off investing instead on moving pops of your culture into your cities to get nobles/citizen everywhere. and lots of 60-100 cities with mostly building that give buff isntead of spending 150 years building aqueducs and spamming one button to maybe reach the same effect by 650 and get more efficient by 700.

And with 2.0 as you get rid of the 75% pop output from the fact the city is your capital you get even less of upfront buff on those megacities.

Large ciites are also pretty trivial to keep happy as they're swimming in Trade Routes, and Happiness from trades becomes more efficient the more people are in one place still.

The best way to keep everyone happy right now is to mass convert and have unified pantheon. And it is nto that hard right now to get pops happy with some trade in each province, high civilization and religion converted. Obviously all this balance will change in 2.0 apparently but as there is even mroe nerfs on capital I expect megacap to stay a gimmick as it is now and grow weaker even.

 

[nikkythegreat]

Speaking of buildings I think buildings that give manpower like barracks should be reworked a bit due to the livy update.

From what I understand manpower would not be used by levies but will only be used by legions this rendering them a bit useless until late game since you would most probably have more than enough manpower to supply one legion.

So I suggest giving them an additional benifit of increasing the levy size of a particular territory. So thing like the Barracks would also give +20% levy size or the recruitment ground giving +10% levy size as well. Thus they would still be useful at the early game.


Also with regard to civilization. There was this one mod in steam that made it reduce the desired Tribesmen ratio while giving Tribesmen a base desired ratio for all settlements.

Something similar would be nice to have in base game. Give different terrain types different base desired Tribesmen ratio, jungles and mountains would have higher while farmlands and planes would have lower. And Civilization would lower their desired ratio. Maybe something like 20 civilization for farmlands to get 0% Tribesmen ratio whomile something like 40 civilization for forests to reach 0%.