Imperator Dev Clash - Tuesdays 15:00 CET

[master_kong]

It seems money converting into mana also will be removed. Exploiting this mechanic results in monarch point overflowing a bit, thus it makes possible to manage most internal struggles with ease. Monarch points are so valuable(unfortunately) that any extra source -even with a conversion- might break the immersion or game balance.

 

[Karkento]

We just have to wait for Meiou and Taxes of Imperator to fix things.

In all seriousness, the merc spam and endless wars are definitely a concern though. Both sides should be much more drained than they are, and not fielding armies of increasing size.

I really like the ideas of manpower deficits/losses limiting population growth nationwide. I also think that war exhaustion should be through the roof for both of sides.

As for truce-breaking, the claim and casus belli followed by truce system is one that I think fit best in CK2 and EU4 and that the large-scale conquests of this era are harder to model with that system. In a more homogeneous society (like Medieval Europe) where everyone agrees to play by the same rules it makes more sense. But when it is Britannic tribesmen fighting Italian citizens this breaks down.

I also think that people are asking too much of the players to play like AI. Of course they have created a coalition against KJ to try and stop him. People were yelling at them for weeks to do so before they did and not that they are, people are yelling at them for doing that exact thing. The players have meta knowledge of history and the game that allows them to band together in potentially ahistorical ways because they are not beholden to that reality. I think there is a problem in that people expect the players to play optimally but also complain when that optimal play doesn't make for the most entertaining content. We, the audience, want a great story from this devclash. Most of us will never play multiplayer and so this is our way to get those great multiplayer narratives that arise when we have human's playing each other. I for one support when players make choices that make for the most interesting viewing experience because that's what I'm here. So the grand coalition against KJ is thrilling because it is balanced on the knife's edge right now. We are in a deadlock that could tip either way. That's more interesting than waiitng for the end-game and hoping the Indians, Persians, and Egyptians are enough to hold out a fully formed Roman Republic. We get conflict and engaging wars know. Has this meat grinder of a conflict made obvious some major balance/design issues concerning long-term conflicts? But better that we have than continue watching KJ steamroll everyone. I personally am glad that he rose to such heights to give us this conflict.

 

[kirell]

The homelands are secured yes(well, you could argue that part of gaul has become part of pritains homeland by now, but let's just ignore that).
But you might want to take a look at the casualty numbers. The war with the eastern alliance had more than 1 million casualties on each side. You might not have enemies burning down your core lands, but I'd still be pretty sick of that war if half my family died in it, especially if the war isn't very decisive either

Many of the casualties were Mercs, but i guess they too have families. But what is the alternative ? The non-roman allies can only make peace for a time till they are conquered separately. If the peace lasts for the full duration of an (enforced) peace deal, the next war will only be worse. Also, there is no christian (or muslim) religion that has "love your enemy" or "do not kill" tenants. Nor does the idea that all men are created equal, equal rights etc. have traction. Citizen soldiers means the father was also in the army + is a military man. The enemies are "barbarians" and won't stop until rome is utterly destroyed. And Rome had a far worse time in the 2nd punic war actually (armies completely routed, large parts of the heatland conquered, 100s of towns destroyed). One could argue the manpower levels & army sizes are too high for the time of course (i would have to agree). But i doubt a warrior culture like the romans would have a rebellion (against whom, really. Its not like an imperator is in power, yet) because too many sons have died. Might be different if the war was actually only about the wargoals, but its not. Both sides fight for survival.

 

[Orkonkel]

Why do you even get stab loss for declaring war on that one guy that's eating everything in his path? People complain about truce break. Without truce break, all clay would be Roman. I prefer the former over the latter.

 

[Darth.]

Why do you even get stab loss for declaring war on that one guy that's eating everything in his path? People complain about truce break. Without truce break, all clay would be Roman. I prefer the former over the latter.

Because truce breaks are truce breaks no matter whom you do then against? The game can't detect that it's being done against a blobbing player? To curb the dogpiling of multiple players on a single one? As the dev clash shows, even the stab hits aren't actually enough.

 

[R.Graymarch]

Like many others in the thread, I have significant concerns on some game mechanisms : War exhaustion removal, manpower, merc, truce break.
That being said, I enjoyed the session. I totally understand why coalition tried to put an end to Rome's snowballing. Maybe some opportunitistic players in the East will benefit from this eventually but at least they do something against the Roman threat and don't wait to be slaughtered one by one (or to hope for a third or fourth place at best at the end of the game).
And I also understand Kaiser Johan who fights back with passion. He is the best villain of the clash and his continuous ability to fight human players on so many fronts continues to impress me.

 

[blackninja9939]

I fear we are going to see the exact opposite.



One of the only things that really needed mana in EU4 was tech and ideas. Every other system modders had figured a way of removing that crutch. And now Imperator proves that tech doesn't need to be tied to mana either. The only thing I can really see NEEDING mana is some of the character interactions, as a way of simulating your rulers gravitas and political currency. I don't think anything else really needs it and I do firmly believe that the game would be better were the crutch of mana removed.

Every game has mana in some form, CK2 is full of mana, so is Vicky 2 despite what people like to claim.
Based on most posts about mana I have seen the only differences between a game "currency" people like and "mana" they dislike is how much stuff do you spend the one currency on and how realistic it's sources are for the representation of that value.

Gold generally gets a pass because its a pretty realistic representation, shocker money did in fact exist, but then when people want to use it for everything with sliders it becomes a problem of it being used on too much stuff using one thing and not being fun too use or too balance, not to mention that generally people will not fine tune their sliders it will be extremes or mid level.

Piety and prestige in CK2 are like the pure definition of mana, they are a magical currency that you gain for doing things and spend for doing things and represent nearly every single cost in CK2 outside of gold. They don't really represent how well known or religious your ruler is despite their names because you can gain them from so many things and spend them at will for things that wouldn't really make your ruler suddenly less known or religious.

Vicky 2 is the granddaddy of mana with its diplomatic points, leadership points, research points etc. They can all generally only be spent on one thing so people accept them despite them being a mana in every other way. Now sure Vicky 2 does have some stuff good there with how you gain some of those point such as literacy tied to generating research, but that is not itself unique to Vicky 2 and other games can and do use that, for example your research points in Imperator are partially based on the portion of citizen pops you have.

Can you make fun and engaging systems without mana? Absolutely.
Can you generally get a better and more consistent balance when you've got some unified currencies? Absolutely.
Can you go overboard with a currency doing too much stuff? Absolutely.

Its a matter of finding the right middle ground as opposed to just out of hand dismissing the entire concept of such a system especially when most times people's replacement idea is "I don't have an idea", "gold and 100 sliders" or "a currency unique to each system".

// Word vomit over

 

[Lord Lambert]

Its a matter of finding the right middle ground as opposed to just out of hand dismissing the entire concept of such a system especially when most times people's replacement idea is "I don't have an idea", "gold and 100 sliders" or "a currency unique to each system".

For sure, and I have generally refrained from criticising mana in other games as I think that to criticise something you should have a vague idea at least of something that could be better. With Imperators characters, however, I think an argument can be made that some of the mana systems could be replaced. I have no idea how you could replace mana for technology in EU4, so I don't criticise it for using it.. but with Imperator technology is dictated by your citizens and characters, 2 things that EU4 lacks, and does not need mana. I feel like this concept of using characters and pops could be expanded. Not everything has to be cash and sliders, I completely agree there, and as I said in my comment you quoted, I think a few things should still use mana points.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Every game has mana in some form, CK2 is full of mana, so is Vicky 2 despite what people like to claim.
Based on most posts about mana I have seen the only differences between a game "currency" people like and "mana" they dislike is how much stuff do you spend the one currency on and how realistic it's sources are for the representation of that value.

Gold generally gets a pass because its a pretty realistic representation, shocker money did in fact exist, but then when people want to use it for everything with sliders it becomes a problem of it being used on too much stuff using one thing and not being fun too use or too balance, not to mention that generally people will not fine tune their sliders it will be extremes or mid level.

Piety and prestige in CK2 are like the pure definition of mana, they are a magical currency that you gain for doing things and spend for doing things and represent nearly every single cost in CK2 outside of gold. They don't really represent how well known or religious your ruler is despite their names because you can gain them from so many things and spend them at will for things that wouldn't really make your ruler suddenly less known or religious.

Vicky 2 is the granddaddy of mana with its diplomatic points, leadership points, research points etc. They can all generally only be spent on one thing so people accept them despite them being a mana in every other way. Now sure Vicky 2 does have some stuff good there with how you gain some of those point such as literacy tied to generating research, but that is not itself unique to Vicky 2 and other games can and do use that, for example your research points in Imperator are partially based on the portion of citizen pops you have.

Can you make fun and engaging systems without mana? Absolutely.
Can you generally get a better and more consistent balance when you've got some unified currencies? Absolutely.
Can you go overboard with a currency doing too much stuff? Absolutely.

Its a matter of finding the right middle ground as opposed to just out of hand dismissing the entire concept of such a system especially when most times people's replacement idea is "I don't have an idea", "gold and 100 sliders" or "a currency unique to each system".

// Word vomit over

I generally agree with this post , but when losing nearly a million of your youngest men (WW1ish form of casualties) in the Ancient Era seems to have no effect on the players economy or their internal politics, u will tend to scrutinise the reasons why. And the modifiers that would simulate a collapse in such systems (war exhaustion) can be easily suppressed by mana.

And we do have suggestions, even in this thread, in how to solve these issues (losing pops during battles, tying the manpower/cohort system to pops) it’s just it’s not being replied on. To say that no one can come up with solutions is a little ignorant. So I bought have a question, have u seen player feedback on this, and have u responded to such suggestions? Pease point me to it if so, I will be intrigued to see it

We have a new, exciting pop system that is dynamic and can simulate something similar to that of a manpower pool. Why not use it, rather than jerking back to systems of old?

 

[KHK001]

Why do you even get stab loss for declaring war on that one guy that's eating everything in his path? People complain about truce break. Without truce break, all clay would be Roman. I prefer the former over the latter.

we can the same for Pritannia if Rome didn't attack Ser Roger he is the one who'll be eating all the player, so truce breaking must be more punishable.

 

[Manbearpig]

Let’s not get hasty with the nerfs. After all the dev clash is a pretty unusual situation and the “great war” started because the players yolo’d.
I don’t want my SP experience suffer in the name of MP “balance”.

No one should be able to do what they are doing in the dev clash under any circumstances.

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

Keep in mind that most of the casualties in these wars have come from mercenaries, so having battle deaths effect pops or cause more war exhaustion would do little.

Also, the intention seems to be that it is difficult to get war exhaustion when fighting a defensive war, which Rome has been doing.

 

[otaman1]

Is the AI smart enough to do what the devs are doing? Like hiring tons of mercs, endless war with a million casualties, forming a coalition against a growing threat etc. If not then single player would be too easy. Look how KJ has stalled expansion for at least a century cause of all the coalition wars. I just hope the AI is smart enough to stop the player or another AI from getting too powerful

 

[Palando]

Keep in mind that most of the casualties in these wars have come from mercenaries, so having battle deaths effect pops or cause more war exhaustion would do little.

Also, the intention seems to be that it is difficult to get war exhaustion when fighting a defensive war, which Rome has been doing.

This is why mercenaries should become more and more reluctant the more of them have already died, i.e. the maintenance should go higher because the risk of ending up in the meat grinder gets higher.

 

[Superdark33]

Mercenries in this game have a LOT of potential:

Theresbalready mechanics for playing a migrant landless horde, so why not a mercenry company?

Why not have them compete for cities to live in and have them get a regular living by doing odd jobs in localities? Having to mamage their manpower by stealing from wherever they live in, having to pay rent even

 

[Superdark33]

Mercenries in this game have a LOT of potential:

Theresbalready mechanics for playing a migrant landless horde, so why not a mercenry company?

Why not have them compete for cities to live in and have them get a regular living by doing odd jobs in localities? Having to mamage their manpower by stealing from wherever they live in, having to pay rent even

 

[mavregade]

Every game has mana in some form, CK2 is full of mana, so is Vicky 2 despite what people like to claim.
Based on most posts about mana I have seen the only differences between a game "currency" people like and "mana" they dislike is how much stuff do you spend the one currency on and how realistic it's sources are for the representation of that value.

Gold generally gets a pass because its a pretty realistic representation, shocker money did in fact exist, but then when people want to use it for everything with sliders it becomes a problem of it being used on too much stuff using one thing and not being fun too use or too balance, not to mention that generally people will not fine tune their sliders it will be extremes or mid level.

Piety and prestige in CK2 are like the pure definition of mana, they are a magical currency that you gain for doing things and spend for doing things and represent nearly every single cost in CK2 outside of gold. They don't really represent how well known or religious your ruler is despite their names because you can gain them from so many things and spend them at will for things that wouldn't really make your ruler suddenly less known or religious.

Vicky 2 is the granddaddy of mana with its diplomatic points, leadership points, research points etc. They can all generally only be spent on one thing so people accept them despite them being a mana in every other way. Now sure Vicky 2 does have some stuff good there with how you gain some of those point such as literacy tied to generating research, but that is not itself unique to Vicky 2 and other games can and do use that, for example your research points in Imperator are partially based on the portion of citizen pops you have.

Can you make fun and engaging systems without mana? Absolutely.
Can you generally get a better and more consistent balance when you've got some unified currencies? Absolutely.
Can you go overboard with a currency doing too much stuff? Absolutely.

Its a matter of finding the right middle ground as opposed to just out of hand dismissing the entire concept of such a system especially when most times people's replacement idea is "I don't have an idea", "gold and 100 sliders" or "a currency unique to each system".

// Word vomit over

All the mana in imperator couldn’t put blackninja together again.

 

[blackninja9939]

I generally agree with this post , but when losing nearly a million of your youngest men (WW1ish form of casualties) in the Ancient Era seems to have no effect on the players economy or their internal politics, u will tend to scrutinise the reasons why. And the modifiers that would simulate a collapse in such systems (war exhaustion) can be easily suppressed by mana.

And we do have suggestions, even in this thread, in how to solve these issues (losing pops during battles, tying the manpower/cohort system to pops) it’s just it’s not being replied on. To say that no one can come up with solutions is a little ignorant. So I bought have a question, have u seen player feedback on this, and have u responded to such suggestions? Pease point me to it if so, I will be intrigued to see it

We have a new, exciting pop system that is dynamic and can simulate something similar to that of a manpower pool. Why not use it, rather than jerking back to systems of old?

Multiple of those suggestions are about the specific issue of mercs and their impacts which is something we've already noticed from the dev clash, not really applicable to the wider point I was making. Manpower is partially tied to pops already the amount you get is based on pops, sure more stuff can be added to tie them closer together, is that necessarily good or fun is a different question.

You call me ignorant yet you seem to think that if we don't respond to something (which nobody has time to do for every post cause its not actually part of our jobs unless you are Rod) we are not thinking about the issues and that we are ignoring all these player ideas to solve the problem, especially when I can go through this exact thread for the last few pages and find multiple places where people say to get rid of mana and do not give any form of a solution or one that has problems already mentioned in my other post

 

[Crunbum]

Multiple of those suggestions are about the specific issue of mercs and their impacts which is something we've already noticed from the dev clash, not really applicable to the wider point I was making. Manpower is partially tied to pops already the amount you get is based on pops, sure more stuff can be added to tie them closer together, is that necessarily good or fun is a different question.

You call me ignorant yet you seem to think that if we don't respond to something (which nobody has time to do for every post cause its not actually part of our jobs unless you are Rod) we are not thinking about the issues and that we are ignoring all these player ideas to solve the problem, especially when I can go through this exact thread for the last few pages and find multiple places where people say to get rid of mana and do not give any form of a solution or one that has problems already mentioned in my other post

What I think everyone is trying to say is that the last dev clash has made several issues with the current game design quite evident and those issues are:

1. Mercenary spam making manpower essentially redundant past midgame, because as long as you have enough gold, you also have an endless supply of potential soldiers too, all available for hire with a click of a button.

2. Lack of real war exhaustion accumulating on either side of a giant war that spans the whole mediterrenean and lasts for half a century, if not more. Not only is internal stability of most countries involved not threatened, there are no signs of real economic consequences of such a war. Yes, the economies have largely stagnated, but they haven't regressed and are in fact, still slowly getting better, which, considering the scale of those wars, is a glaring problem.

3. Lack of consequences of enormous casualties on country populations. If Rome alone has lost 4 million soldiers, their population should most definitely not have grown, yet it has. That is 4 million people we're talking about, and likely far, far more, due to the famines, diseases and general devastation that'd occur due to such a war. There should, imho, be some mechanics that'd result in pop numbers declining sharply due to all the deaths, either through a reduction of pop growth or through outright pop deaths and it could be tied to either manpower, war exhaustion, or to both.

Now, whether any of those have much to do with mana or lack thereof - I believe there's no real reason to hate on that mechanic, as abstract as it is. It is just a matter of fine tuning everything so that it works fine together, and, whether you replaced mana with money, some sliders, or anything really, it'd still need to be balanced to work well with everything else.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Multiple of those suggestions are about the specific issue of mercs and their impacts which is something we've already noticed from the dev clash, not really applicable to the wider point I was making. Manpower is partially tied to pops already the amount you get is based on pops, sure more stuff can be added to tie them closer together, is that necessarily good or fun is a different question.

You call me ignorant yet you seem to think that if we don't respond to something (which nobody has time to do for every post cause its not actually part of our jobs unless you are Rod) we are not thinking about the issues and that we are ignoring all these player ideas to solve the problem, especially when I can go through this exact thread for the last few pages and find multiple places where people say to get rid of mana and do not give any form of a solution or one that has problems already mentioned in my other post

Thank you for answering my post. Perhaps ignorant was too strong a word and I sincerely apologise, it wasn’t done with malicious intent or ridicule of u and the devs hard work in creating this game Sorry

I just think in terms of some mechanics that can be reduced with mana like war exhaustion, it can be seen as abit gamey that decades of war, casualties can be reduced so quickly, hence we would not get to see the effects or the simulation of such devastating wars, and therefore will come to the conclusion that mana is not a good Mechanic.

The post above me is a golden post, and I really hope u look into this