Imperator Dev Diary - 23/10/19

[Lord Finnish]

Another fantastic dev diary.

 

[The Imperator]

I like the idea of Statemanship. However, since there is so much options to gain it (if I understood correctly, character need to have office to gain it and it is cap accordignly to certain office) I suggest an education system like in CK2? Also, offices under governor caped very low but enough so character can gain some statemanship? Maybe giving those office would come with an incrase of loyalty toward the governor of the province?

In any case, those changes seems very promising and a good base for the next stage of development for the game!

 

[Agnate7]

A few people have mentioned it already, but I'd like to add my voice for a mapmode that shows which provinces are cities and metropolises.

 

[Palaiologos]

While too early to bitch about something, I hope the pace of statesmanship growth factors in character stats, otherwise you will have your mongoloid heir running the country smoothly just because he served as a governor of some province for 5 years.

 

[Bovrick]

If you have suggestions for new map modes that you would like to see, we would love to hear them

I think I've mentioned it before, but I'd really like a Map Mode that shows power blocs, for any diplomatic relations that form closed groups (Defensive Leagues appearing as one; Client States/Vassals appearing under their top-level overlord). It would make it a lot easier to assess the territory of each real sphere of power.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

While too early to bitch about something, I hope the pace of statesmanship growth factors in character stats, otherwise you will have your mongoloid heir running the country smoothly just because he served as a governor of some province for 5 years.

If your character has 0 in every stat, having 100% statesmanship won't make him better

 

[Bananson]

I couldn't not notice Venedians in the east. Could you shed a light on any new cultures in this region? proto-slavic perhaps?

 

[We Who Are About 2 Die]

The update itself will not come with any new map modes but now that we have a Map Mode manager we hope to add new ones in future updates when we see the need for it.

If you have suggestions for new map modes that you would like to see, we would love to hear them

City Map Mode (quickly showing Metropolis, cities, settlements in different colors)
Income Map Mode
Commerce Map Mode
Terrain (complicate terrain; Hills can be forested, etc.)
Climate Map Mode (allow easy viewage of storms as well)
Food Map Mode

I find it hard to believe that, with EU4's wealth of maps, the development team thought that maps presented in I:R were enough.

 

[Palando]

Hibernia & Caledonia:

Not much is known about the island today known as Ireland at Imperator’s start date. Nonetheless it is certain that the island was not devoid of political entities and @Snow Crystal has given it a second go through and added a number of playable tribes here. This increases the dynamics of politics and warfare, even if migration and colonization are still necessary to control the island. Modern Scotland has also been a facelift.


Baltics:

Another area revisited is the Baltic coastline of modern Lithuania and Poland, adding both more colonizable land and more tribes to the dynamics in northern Europe.

@Snow Crystal could we get to know the reason why you put all the Hibernian tribes along the eastern coastline of Ireland? I find this odd, as Ptolemaios's Ireland wasn't really far off from the real Ireland; coastlines were also far easier to explore, so the information was accessible enough. Will there also be a formable Hibernia tag?

Could you also rename Coritania to Corieltauvia based on this thread?

I also wonder whether or not you'll touch the Germanic tribes; especially given that you accepted Ptolemaios's depiction of the Lithuanian tribes as valid. Why not take Ptolemaios's tribes for the Scandinavian peninsula instead of Jordanes's tribes (who lived over 400 years later) and maybe add Tacitus's Suiones (for all those Swedes ...)? I really dislike this mixture of different sources and different ages in such a random fashion.

 

[Jamey]

Well, we're back after a hectic week of PDXCon and office relocation. Those that were able to attend PDXCon were able to play the Livy update in its current state, and there are a number of interviews and articles emerging that contain snippets of information on the various upcoming mechanics that will be appearing soon.

Thank you for taking the time after PDXCon for the DD.

Statesmanship grows at a different rate depending on which job a character currently holds, with 'lesser' jobs such as governorships and technology offices acting as lower-level training positions. The effect of tech officers will not be scaled by statesmanship for balance reasons, and characters holding one of these offices will plateau at roughly 25% statesmanship, over a period of time.

I'm somewhat concerned by this unless there are new lower level offices being created for stats other than Martial and Finesse characters (presuming that Generals and Adminrals also get some statesmanship).

The minor event queue, shown above in the bottom right corner of the picture, is a first step towards delineating between content that we want to interrupt the player with, and content that we consider optional or of low importance.

This sounds excellent.

Navigable Rivers

The Pompey update added a number of Navigable rivers to the game and the effect these have had on both land and naval warfare is something we have found very beneficial to the game. The Livy update will therefore add navigable zones to a number of rivers that did not have them before:

I like this. I'd also like the team to take a pass and look at the "nearby river" modifier along non-navigable rivers, as it seems to be randomly sprinkled along the length of every river in the game.

I'd also like to see at least Coastal (and hopefully also Ports!) on major seas like the Caspian, even if ships can never be built there.

A common request for improving the UI of Imperator has been the addition of new Map Modes. We generally agree that map modes can be a very useful way to show information, the map is after all the main interface that our game is played on. At the same time Imperator had quite a few map modes already, too many to add more in the row that is constantly shown above the mini map.

In order to accommodate more Map Modes the Livy update comes with a map mode manager, which lets you open any map mode that exists in the game, and if you so wish, drag and drop it on the bar of map modes above the mini map for quick reference. The map mode keyboard shortcuts will now point to the slots in the map mode bar rather than to specific map modes.

The update itself will not come with any new map modes but now that we have a Map Mode manager we hope to add new ones in future updates when we see the need for it.

If you have suggestions for new map modes that you would like to see, we would love to hear them

As others have noted, a cities map mode would be superb.

Also a buildings map mode so that I can find the freaking Tribal Settlements and Provincial Legations I want to remove after conquest.

Lastly, it would be awesome if a a primer on creating map mode mods could be written. A couple of us looked at making map modes and were unable to figure out how or get any assistance on it in the mod subforum.

 

[Gurkhal]

The only thing I have to say is: Oh, yeah!

 

[Agamidae]

Government type mapmode! And show it on the starting screen, so it's easier to choose a country.

I would also like mopmodes for different types of pops. So if you want more citizens, you know who to attack, and you can see how your population is changing.

 

[Hanako Seishin]

Suggestion: instead of showing the graphical progress bar for statemanship in the government screen, make it show like 3/7 for 3 current used rating out of 7 max, that would be more relevant and still give the rough estimate of statemanship as the progress bar does while the exact percentage would still be in the tooltip, but now you won't need the tooltip to see the character's own stat.

 

[Siegfriedfr]

Imperator dev diaries are always so exciting to read. I do think it is the most innovative of paradox's games.

But heres an example of why people say it feels the same playing no matter where you are:
This statemanship mechanic feels like it fits well in a civilized empire like rome, or greece, or other civilized places like that. But it feels out of place with tribes in northern europe. While i'm sure experience makes for better leaders in tribes, too, something called "statesmanship" has feeling of an ill fit.

But other than that, it does seem like an exciting development

1) Yes, my take on the daring changes made to imperator is they are using it as an experimental lab for future games (especially CK3 and EU5); they probably sold it to the higher up as "the game was destroyed on release, there is no chance we will sell enough DLC to keep it up for years, so since there is not much to loose, let us totally redraw the game". Which would be why we see all those exciting community-driven updates.

2) and yes, one lesson they didn't learn, for now, is that the homogenization of mechanics/UI is a terrible design idea. But i also believe that for now, they are working on improving the mediteranean gameplay rather than the "barbarian" experience. Once and if the base mechanics stabilize into a more exciting gameplay, they'll probably overhaul the gameplay for tribes.

 

[KingBuzzo15]

Like the look of the update. Is there a beta on the way?

 

[omega20056]

@Arheo

This is more of a quality of life feature for the future, but could we get a search box for cultures in the setup editor? I like to use it during gameplay to create certain scenarios or correct mistakes and finding specific cultures is difficult considering how many there are.

 

[CMDR_HERNE]

1.3 Livy bring it on (in good time and when it's ready)

 

[impcaeaug]

Ah... I like reading a full and satisfying dev diary.

 

[Cedwig]

For governors, maybe Statemanship should increase at a different rate based on the population of the region they control compared to, maybe, the population of the capital region: it's weird to see the governor of NoWhereLand (maybe having only one or two cities in that region or just one single province) getting the same bureaucratic skills as the governor of Magna Graecia or Italy etc etc.
As I said, this would do the trick also for little countries like future Ireland's, or England's, as the factor is the quotient between the population of a certain region and the pop. of the capital region.
It should also consider (the Statemanship growth factor) the type of government you have: a Republic is much more complicated to control than a tribe.

Thought exactly the same thing. The govenor of Magna Graecia should be one of the most prestigious offices in the Roman Empire and not on the same level as the governor of Britannia for example. This would also make switching govenors more a thing.
Of course they first would have to cancel the policy switching after a governor change, which is my most disliked "feature" by far at the moment. Instead every govenor should propose a policy switch from time to time and you should be able to decide to go along with it or persuade him (at the cost of loyality and/or PI) to don't do the change.

 

[TomTeki]

Thank you for nice DD...
My suggestion for Statemenship aka Roman Cursus Honorum

1. The Real CH - from Wikipedia

Spoiler: The Real CH

2. Current Situation in IR:

Government: Consul and Co-Consul + 2 Candidates
Standard 8 offices + 4 researchers, no social classes

3. My Suggestion

Thank you for reading, waiting for opinions.