Imperator - Development Diary #12 - 13th of August 2018

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Johan

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Hello everyone and welcome to the twelth development diary for Imperator. This time we look into the technology system of the game.

First of all, there are four different technology field you advance through, where each level gives you a higher bonus in that category. The research of technology is automatic, and depends primarily on your citizens. Inventions and access to certain trade-goods will increase the speed with which you research, while the total amount of pops you have determines the cost.

Each technology-field can have one researcher assigned to it. The finesse of this character impacts the speed with which research is done in that field. This character gets prominence from holding the position, and gets permanent prominence from each month holding the position. Changing researcher increases loyalty in the new researcher, and dramatically drops it in the one being replaced.

advances.png


Research a level takes about 15 years if you are at 100% efficiency, which can obviously be faster or slower, depending on the setup of your nation.

Each level researched in the four technology fields reduces invention costs by 5%, and they have the following individual bonuses.

  • Martial Advances :+10% Naval Morale, 10% Land Morale, -25% Military Tradition Cost
  • Civic Advances: +2% Commerce Income
  • Oratory Advances: +1% Civilization Level
  • Religious Advances: +2% Omen Power


While the advances are tied directly to your nation’s progress, and is a slow progress through the years, there is also inventions around, that you can spend civic power on to get immediately.

There is always seven inventions to pick from, from a total of over 200 different ones. Each of them have a tech-level they are most likely to appear at, so you can’t stack or get all discipline bonuses in the first decades of the game no matter how lucky you get.

invention.png


Each invention costs you 50 civic power, but for each invention you have taken, the cost goes up by 20%, while as we mentioned earlier technology advances reduce it by 5% each.

Civic Power is primarily used for three things, Setting up Trade Routes, Moving Pops & Buying Inventions, so it’s a hard choice between global weaker bonuses, or stronger local bonuses.


Stay tuned for next week, when we go into politics, and how fun Republics have with their Senate.
 
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The "from citizens" bonus to research speed seems unnecessary. Surely it would be best to avoid the snowball effect where the largest states are always ahead in tech?
 
The "from citizens" bonus to research speed seems unnecessary. Surely it would be best to avoid the snowball effect where the largest states are always ahead in tech?

You missed this:

while the total amount of pops you have determines the cost.

So it is not the total amount of civic pops that matter but I'd say it's more what portion of your population is civic, I feel that's going to be a bit easier to achieve wit small nations rather then large to be honest.

In all it looks like a neat system that's pretty straight forward but gives enough angles to approach it as well as a healthy amount of drawbacks and choices to be made. Looking forward to see how it's going to play out.

Next week is when it's going down I reckon. The Senate is what is going to make or break this game. I can't wait to learn more about it!

Stay tuned for next week, when we go into politics, and how fun Republics have with their Senate.
 
I think tying tech cost to pop count is an excellent idea. Its actually something that Stellaris did really well and allowed playing tall to be a viable option there.

Are the inventions that are rolled also weighted based on government type?
 
The "from citizens" bonus to research speed seems unnecessary. Surely it would be best to avoid the snowball effect where the largest states are always ahead in tech?
the total amount of pops you have determines the [technolocy] cost.
Citizens are only a fraction of your total pops. And I believe as you expand, you mostly attain other types of pops.

What is "civilization level" though and what does it do?
 
Seems great, just wish there was another way to get inventions beyond 'civic power'. Perfidious mana. Blech.

Stay tuned for next week, when we go into politics, and how fun Republics have with their Senate.

Oh this is going to be either one of the best Dev Diaries, or one of the worst. I actually can't wait.
 
Nice system but can you give us better screenshots than text only please Johan?

Yeah! I want to see the entire window!
I need the window!
 
There is always seven inventions to pick from, from a total of over 200 different ones. Each of them have a tech-level they are most likely to appear at, so you can’t stack or get all discipline bonuses in the first decades of the game no matter how lucky you get.
this part seems abit vague, i can't really visualize it. Does it mean you can only have one invention per tech level out of seven. I'm very confused. Amazing DD can't wait for next week.
 
Can we expect to salvage some enemy inventions from raiding their capital?
I'm asking this because I just read about that Roman Senate ordered the retrival of Mago's agricultural writings from Carthage, and paid for its translation into Latin after the Third Punic War.
 
Ok, looks like an upgrade to the original EUR system. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping we'd be able to move away from a 'centralised technology' model where you have specific research characters. It's just a little hard to reconcile with history.
 
I'm not really keen on how centralized the idea of technology and research is. This game would have benefited from a tech system more similar to CK2 than Stellaris.
 
I'm out of the loop, what's the 'Omen Power' supposed to be?

It's a feature from EU:Rome. There, you can invoke an omen to a god that has a certain chance of success. If it succeeds, you get a bonus (depending on which god you selected), otherwise you get a penalty. Omen Power defines how strong the bonus or penalty will be.
 
I don't think I am currently understanding how the military tech works, could you perhaps elaborate on this? Is it +10% naval & military morale per level? Ain't that very strong?