Imperator - Development Diary #1 - 28th of May 2018
- Thread starter Johan
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It is not just "too much work" that is the reason. It's a combination of the amount of work vs the actual amount of use said work will see. The devs have said time and again that their data shows that the overwhelming majority of players only use the earliest start dates in their games. As such, all the time, money, and manpower that went into those later dates were effectively wasted.
This was nor a decision Johan and the rest came to out of "laziness", but out of a pragmatic realization that their energies were better spent elsewhere.
So while you might not like it, the fact is for the vast majority of people who are going to buy the game it just doesn't matter.
And note, I'm saying all this as someone who would LOVE to see additional start dates for all of the conflicts you just rattled off. But the fact is that the cold hard numbers are against the adding them in.
But if it really is a make or break feature, well, no one is holding a gun to your head. Just, please don't go around claiming this is done because Johan or any of the others working on the game are lazy, or that missing bookmarks will mean it will be a "shit game". That is frankly childish and does nothing to convince others to listen to your side. Be better than that.
You're partially right. Though the Lacus Ligustinus didn't silt up completely like how you describe until the Medieval period, it isn't 100% like the proper sea/lagoon it once was at this point.
Strabo described how during low tide cattle could walk across to islands in the Lacus, but would then drown as high tide came when the Lacus became more like a proper sea. So it was partially silted up but still a proper lagoon during high tide.
Note that Strabo writes during the Augustan period, ~300 years AFTER the start of the game, so we need to substract 300 years of silting from what Strabo writes.
~300BC I expect it to be more than significant enough to be represented in game. Not least of all because, regardless of exactly how low the water was during low tide at that point (which is a bit guesswork, but significantly higher than what Strabo describes since it's 300 years earlier), it wouldn't be feasible to march an army across it at any rate.
So the marching time across the province would also be more accurate if the army went through Seville rather than cutting straight across where the Lacus would have been, and then if you show the Lacus on the map in some way, shape or form it'd give the player some visual feedback on why the army is taking what would otherwise be a weird detour.
So I'd say throw the Lacus in, without a doubt. The Ebro delta is more minor in comparison, but would ideally be fixed too.
Not too long after Imperator time frame (but not soon after), The Tang Dynasty was not "forced by western powers" in their conquest of parts of Central Asia, effectively beginning a war against the Umayyad Caliphate. They were not forced by western powers to trade with the Middle-East and Mediterranean powers during the Antiquity and the Middle Age (the Silk Roads existed long before the Mongol Empire).
Why such a Western-centrist comment?
There are SO MANY exemples for China interacting with the western world before western imperialism was a thing.
Read a book, man. Like, any book that touches even tangentially on China.
Well if you really want some proof, for the timeframe of the game, in 139 BC Han Wudi sent an emissary under Zhang Qian to the west. They finally returned in 126 BC, having visited the Tarim basin, Dayuan in the Fergana valley and Bactra, the capital of Baktria, on their way. (All these regions are in the current map).
From 133 BC onwards the Han dynasty was fighting a huge war with the nomadic Xiongnu tribes in the north. In 121 BC the Han army seized the Hexi corridor, thus gaining access to the Tarim basin. By 102 BC Han influence in the region was such that they were able to send a huge expedition of 80000 men to Dayuan, and forced its King to surrender after a 46 day siege. Dayuan, BTW, might have been a more or less Hellenized country because Zhang Qian said of them to be "having the same custom as Baktria".
After this Han gradually secured its control over the Tarim basin, and trade flourished along the silk road from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Chinese influence in Central Asia was maintained more or less until the rise of the Gokturks hundreds of years later.
There are also a lot of nomadic movement from East Asia, such as the Yuezhi/Rouzhi, who were defeated by Xiongnu and Wusun in the 130s BC and ended up conquering Batria and contributing to a great Saka migration/invasion into Parthia.
From this I think it would be good if China and the refugee mechanics could be done like it was in CK2. But I guess we'll see how the dev thinks of it...
The problem to make China like in CK2 is... at the ONLY start date 303 BC there was no united China. There was the Warring States. Which of them should represent THE China?
It makes on map way more sense.
Well, by the mechanics in CK2, China would be in a "civil war", with the King of Zhou nominally ruling, and incapable of doing anything outside of China. Or they could make diplomatic interactions with China impossible at first, but become possible after an event fires randomly, to model the historic sudden Chinese expansion (I think this is a better idea actually, because the Chinese imperial dynasty system was created by Qin after Zhou). I think the CK model is good because it made everything easier,and with some polishing I think it can become one of the best ideas PDX has ever come up with.
Of course if devs decide that it is a good idea to add in China, it would be even better, aside from possible game running too slow issue...
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Most of the Spanish silver from America ended up in China. Do the math.
I think that if they don't expand the map to include China, they'll incorporate them in as something more like the Mongols or the Turkic adventurers, as a kind of emergent power in the mid to late game. A CK2-style approach just wouldn't be appropriate for anything earlier than circa 150 BC.
I have two questions based on the games accuracy to Roman history as that was my biggest problem with the first. Will the old Citizen, Freedmen, Slave system be changed to something more historically accurate(even if it's a simple linear system a more accurate groups at least for Rome would be Citizen, Provincial, Slave.) and would the old Optimates being good and Populares being bad system be changed, as both had good and bad in them. In broad terms the Populares seeked necessary reform for personal power, while the Optimates refused any reform to keep the wealth and power they already had(The exception being Cicero and Cato the Elder). Sorry for rambling, I just wanted to air the greviences I had with the last game.
The things of EU:Rome that I didn't like were
The good requirements to build things
The trade mechanics
The naval invasions mechanics
And the bugs
Mainly because they were unrealistic or arbitrary
I liked the Religion system.
I'm remembering another thing that I disliked: the large bonuses to the historical great nations, especially Rome
The good requirements to build things
The trade mechanics
The naval invasions mechanics
And the bugs
Mainly because they were unrealistic or arbitrary
I liked the Religion system.
I'm remembering another thing that I disliked: the large bonuses to the historical great nations, especially Rome
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Happy to see that India is included in Imperator Rome. I myself come from this place in Eastern India, where we are all like extremely poor. Mughals, Brits, and the the Baguettes all took their time systemically looting and pillaging Orissa (that random nation in EU4). There was one era, though, where we weren't doing that bad. Around 0 AD, a guy name Kharavela took Kalinga (what Orissa was called back then) and transformed it into an Indian superpower. Before that, Kalinga had been an average sized maritime kingdom, that was very influential in trade. It was also notable for the Kalinga War (262 BC), where Ashoka took out the kingdom to finish his pan-Indian empire. 50 thousand Kalingans died under Ashoka's hands. The encounter had such an impact on him that it turned him into a peaceful Buddhist. Anyway, when I looked at the Imperator Rome map, I was EXTREMELY surprised when Kalinga was actually included in the game. This just completely transformed my views on Imperator. When it was first announced, I started taking anti-depressents from lack of Victoria 3, but now I am actually excited for the game.
So I guess what I want to say is thank you, Imperator Devs, for being so focused on details to add an Indian nation that many people have no clue about.
So I guess what I want to say is thank you, Imperator Devs, for being so focused on details to add an Indian nation that many people have no clue about.
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