Imperator DD: Important balance changes and missions

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Oh man, end game missions are a great idea! I hope every nation / culture group eventually gets one. Brilliant stuff guys!

Also, 'Planning Mode' filter on the technology screen? Was that previously teased before? I feel like I'm seeing it for the first time right now. Love the hard work going into the UI in 2.0 Marius.

Lastly - @Arheo, with all the benefits of being a civilized nation and the fact that some regions / nations start off with some technologies already researched, I'm quite worried the tribes will be pathetic compared to civilized nations. You may have already covered this off, but is there any offset to the seeming massive overpowerdness of "civilized countries" for tribes if I or an AI decides to try to conquer them? As we all know, the "civilized" countries of the ancient world rarely strayed from the civilized regions but those that did try often suffered for it (*cough Varus, *cough Cyrus the Great).
 
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I wasnt sure to get the heirs of Alexander DLC at first but that last mission tree convonced me holy shit, that final mission sounds so cool, even having treasure collecting and all its all so good, thank you for your hard work its so amazing and cant wait for 2.0 to drop, this kind of alternative history mission trees seem veey fun

I however wanted to share an suggestion, the inclusion of a new unit type, the pikemen, i want to lead great armies of hellenuc phalangite soldiers across conquests, please, it would bring a lot to the distinct flavor of warfare to greek, macedonian and hellenic nations and would be perfect for the coing update

overall great work to the devs, cheers
This is the final thing I think they missed in the War update. Unique military units, such as Cretan archers, Numidian Calvary. A combined arms Alexandarian phalanx. These were all vital in the ancient world, particularly the calvary for Rome - there was a reason why both Carthage and Rome desperately needed their support. I strongly urge for this to be ingame.
 
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I like almost all of this. Though, I can only hope that the functionality of levies and their direct interaction with pops does indeed make the manpower-economy in 2.0 thoroughly more interesting / dynamic than it is in 1.5.

If I have understood correctly, making use of levies halts the productivity of pops and can have some of them end up killed in battle, but legions are not tied to pops in those ways.

I suspect it will likely still be possible for a player to more or less trivialize the manpower resource after a certain point.

.. I expect, there will be a massive difference in the manpower-cost of warfare between different situations.

on one end, closely matched high-stakes wars that feature a lot of levies can go on for a long time, incurring both direct manpower-loss, pops killed “in battle” and a lot of indirect reduction in manpower regrowth while the pops are tapped with levies. (+pops killed/ enslaved in occupationlike before)

... on the other end, carefully planned conquests winning decisive battles with good generals / troops / overwhelming force to secure quick victories - and maximizing the use of legions when that becomes possible - raising less levies or disbanding them more quickly.

I guess the worst case scenario derived from the above would be for players to end up with manpower pool of 500k+ that is never at risk of becoming strained, and being able to perform conquests using only legions and levies from low-priority regions, while having no concern for manpower lost in the field.

(though its clear that even this worst case is significantly better than in 1.5, as the number / size of legions will be limited)

... All in all its very hard to speculate before playing it, especially given the changes to the expenditures available for gold...
 
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when?
 
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This all seems great.

One question, in patch 1.5 a vassal mechanic was going to be introduced and in the end it was not incorporated, this will be in version 2.0?

Will it work as before or will it be implemented through technologies?
 
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I think the only thing war related you still haven't talked about is experience, are there any major changes about that?
 
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I don't think lack of manpower blocking your expansion is a bad thing. It makes battles, planning, etc more meaningful.

What is a bad thing, is getting 15K manpower a month as moderately sized Carthage - I seriously doubt WW1 Germany had those numbers;)
 
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Hey nice DD ;)
 
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Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the more significant balance changes coming to the game with the advent of the 2.0 release.

I did not notice this the first time I read the DD, this sentence is a confirmation of what many of you have said about an imminent release.
 
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I don't think lack of manpower blocking your expansion is a bad thing. It makes battles, planning, etc more meaningful.

What is a bad thing, is getting 15K manpower a month as moderately sized Carthage - I seriously doubt WW1 Germany had those numbers;)
to big nations, sure, but to the little one? it is a hell to them to regain manpower, and require a lot of years after integration and buildings took effect, they will be more vulnerable to the largest nation in the time period we start, they could easier generate more manpower that a city-state that expands for example to barbarian lands.
 
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Can you please just stop making focus trees and make full system overhauls as the DLC. I know some people are giga hyped for mission trees and flavor like this, but it does nothing for me. I still want to support the game financially however so its core systems can get the love they need. The current financial system does not allow me to show this however. If I pay for flavor I'm supporting more time investment from the devs on flavor in the future, instead of updating core game mechanics. If I don't pay I'm not supporting a game I have spend 500 hours in and I want to continue supporting. It's just a lose lose for me this way, I'd rather have 2 years without updates if that means we get dynamic cultures and religions instead of what we have now, even if that means a 40 euro dlc. I'm going to vote with my wallet and not buy 15 euro mission tree packs, even though that's the only way I could support this project, it just feels bad.
They are doing "full system overhauls", and it will be FREE.
Tying mechanics to DLCs has proven to be a terrible choice in other PDX games, because it makes them not very consequential and integrated with other systems (as the game has to remain playable without it), and devs won't be able to iterate and improve those systems later (seeing as they are tied to paid content).
But the DLC has to have something, so the specific flavor for specific nations seem to fit the bill there.
In essence, the mission trees are funding your beloved mechanic changes, allowing them to be better and free.
I see no downsides to this.
 
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I'm a a little hyped up for I:R 2.0. Don't screw this up. Take your time with development. I want to test bug free and balanced version. That's your last chance to regain my trust after so many disasters.
 
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Thanks @Arheo for this amazing DD.

I'm quite happy to see these changes, especially regarding Holy Sites and Treasures. Does this mean we will see less or no razing of temples by same-religion factions?

It's quite frustrating in most of my playthroughs that in less of 10 in-game years the temples of Delphi and Olympia don't exist any more (destroyed by other Hellenistic factions).
 
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Ave again, this time we’ll be taking a look at the last mission coming with our expansion Heirs of Alexander, a shared Diadochi mission designed by @TrinTragula which is available to all five Successors when they complete two specific missions from their unique set (e.g. Egypt must complete Eastern Border and Thalassocracy).

What does that entails to for the Antigonids in case their cause doesn't waver (and therefore if they only have access to the Antigonos Vision mission tree) ?
 
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It's quite frustrating in most of my playthroughs that in less of 10 in-game years the temples of Delphi and Olympia don't exist any more (destroyed by other Hellenistic factions).

It also makes no sense. The holy site is still there. A holy site is not the same as a temple after all. Holy sites being easily destructible and movable makes little sense, and the AI is incapable of handling it properly. Since as you say, they happily destroy holy sites left and right and hardly ever rebuild them.
 
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I’m admittedly not sure what to think about the name Macedonian Empire. While not calling it Argead Empire makes sense if you don’t have the Blood of the Argeads trait, it feels odd to have Macedonian Empire be a universal name if all the Diadochi form it.

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I find the idea of Egypt reconquering Alexander’s Empire but then calling themselves the Macedonian Empire to be rather weird. I feel like each of the Diadochi should either have a unique Empire name if they retake Alexander’s Empire, or it should just be called the Diadochi Empire or Hellenic Empire rather than Macedonian Empire.
 
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