Imperator - Development Diary - 13th of May 2019
- Thread starter Johan
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YES, this Johan. Why can Monarchies get cool features like war council but repiblic just get a couple mana for bonuses buttons? The Senate has loads of potential. Please, make it a bit more like Conclave in CK2. With debates on laws and senate factions lobbing you to do stuff or to changes laws you dont want to (the tribune plebis should also be able to do it), and if you rejct it you wll get a big loyalty and tyranny hit.
The Senate is the government form with the most potential and youre wasting it. I hope its because your holding off for future patches and DLCs.
Ixal, above, describes "accumulating mana points and then pressing a button" - points that are accumulated and an effect generated through a button click are 'mana' by that understanding of mana. So it isn't clear to me that it matters where they come from.
This is clearly different than your definition of 'mana', so I'm curious what that is. (Also, I'm not sure what the difference between currencies generated by pops, like money or suppression points, and currencies generated by characters, like monarch points, really is in your estimation).
Because if civil war doesnt mean end game the power base mechanic becomes useless, as civil war becomes a minor temorary setback you will recover back again in no time. Its like death of the dynasty in CK2 not meaning end game. Why would anyone care what happens to your family if youre gonna be able to keep playing?
I would not label them mana per say, though they are in a similar vein. I also don't call diplomats mana.
No mana as the forum so loves to point out constantly is usually referring to "Abstracted values used as currency generated by RNG from the current ruler." That makes it quite clear what is and is not mana. And many issues with Mana are yes accumulating because many systems run on Mana forcing the player to slow down arbitrarily.
Both are influenced by the player actions and are really only used for creating Kingdoms it's not a cost to fabricate per say more of a penalty of doing so. Even then it's so rarely used it doesn't matter.
You mean the like the dozens of threads and steam reviews constantly bringing up reasons it's bad such as Strategic failures in the system and the bad ways of implementation. These threads keep popping up as well so it's not like these complaints aren't seen often.
About consorts whose son isn't the primary heir: could you give them a great likelyhood of trying to murder the current heir and give the player an option to influence the likelyhood that the murder is successful? (I'm looking at Berenice and the useless Ptolemy Keraunos, of course)
This is all nice and very good, but what the game really needs is something that makes the game more challenging in the mid to late game because right now the early game is fine, but once you become a major power nothing can stop you, you have no challenges, the other major powers don’t expand and/or ally each other, also the various smaller tribes put up a good fight due to the fact they ally and have the retinues but when you are a major you can kill them without problems. Are you doing something to address this problems? Maybe something that you can’t tell us because will be revealed in a future dev diary? I really hope so because I don’t like how I struggle the early game only to find no challenges in the mid to late game.
There indeed seem to be different competing definitions of "mana", mine is "currencies not generated from the map / game board, but externally from it". Thus, Imperator research is a mix of mana (laurel wreaths) and non-mana (citizens).
Mana is not one of my problems with Imperator, though. This diary makes some steps to alleviate my main issue of having a fairly complex character system with nothing for these characters to do, but it's still a long way.
On steam u guys laughed that Stacey said in what magical way did that happen. Well this is firsts ''historical game where her point was really true. u guys are so oppressed with mana system that it really was magical. dozen of unnecessary mechanics what effect things what sometimes are hard to even follow. there is just too much small unnecessary modifiers tied to everything. And if that wasn't enough u guys also are heavily focusing on multiplayer competitive balance what is totally bad idea. Not only my previous statement already says that game cannot be balanced for it because of too many random mechanical modifiers tied to game but quite a lot of them come from random events or your starting nation what complete ruins competitive plays. But that's how it should be because in history nothing was balanced. FFS advanced civilizations were multiple times brought to they're knees like barbarians in rome or even better kagans versus civilized world like ERE. And because you guys are so heavily focusing on these mechanics u basically ruin Role playing fun and realism. basically every reason i started paradox in firsts place and why i only play CK2 and stellaris and Knight of honor in these days. Even though this time period is so full of opportunities u guys messed it up following EU4 example.
Stellaris: Influence (especially since Cherryh), and since Megacorp I'd also count the market here
HoI4: Political Power, Army/Naval/Air Experience
CK2: Tech, and for some cultures/governments also Prestige and Piety, Societies ... so basically every resource that isn't Gold.
Vicky2: Tech and Influence, if I'm not mistaken
Almost all of these are instant effects. Mind you, EU4 and I:R definitely use it more "uniformly" in the sense that the various mechanics are all simply tied to a different colour of mana, but it's rather ridiculous to claim the other games don't rely on spending points from nowhere on instant effects just as much.
I hope you have rebalanced the source of happiness now. By mid game, you get so much from inventions all the pops are 100% happiness. Even foreign ones, so you dont even need tradegoods for the population. And you wont have much incentive to use this ability either.
I completely agree that the biggest issue with imperator right now is the character system with nothing for characters to do except rebel occasionally.
That makes sense as a definition of mana (and I prefer it to the one give by Dusty242 in reply to my other post). I'm curious whether if once characters have something to do and feel like an integrated part of the world if monarch points will no longer feel external to it.
...so, pay paper mana to spend less leaf mana. fun?
These interactions are more interesting when the unlock something unique (the monarchy ones for example are fantastic). This one seems particularly lack luster, both in usefulness and in that it does not let you do anything you could not do already. What if the mercantile faction increased diplomatic range temporarily? Allowing you to establish trade routes you couldnt otherwise. Or simply gave you a trade willingness boost for goods with AIs so that you might have a chance to get a good or two that countries were not williing to trade before. This would have a noticeable, unique effect.
Will I be able to “campaign” in the senate to try and get them to approve of my actions? Or at least be able to understand why the senate won’t do what I want/how many votes I need to get the thumbs up? Because I’m at a complete loss for now.
Have you considered having (more) of these abilities tie into the stats/traits/loyalty/etc. of officeholding characters? So demanding an Oath of Alegience might be more effective with a popular ruler backed up by a couple effective (and loyal) "cabinet" members. If it isn't already factored in, have the War Council's ideas are based on character traits and stats -- your crafty, high finesse advisor might offer claims on a couple easy targets, while your high martial, high zeal lunatic master of the guard thinks your city state can totally eat half of Phrygia.
Just one point about the consorts for monarchies: You probably mainly looked at the Ptolemaeans where the Consort was at time actively involved in governing but except a few queens they usually stayed out of doing politics. I think it would be better too have the primary heir or whoever you want to be the future king to have in that place. Almost every Seleucid King for example made his firstborn son co-ruler and gave him kingship as well. Demetrios and Antigonos took the Diadem at the same time.
I think in the case of women there need to be general improvement how wifes affect their husbands because right now they don't except fertality traits.
I think in the case of women there need to be general improvement how wifes affect their husbands because right now they don't except fertality traits.
You count the market? Also most of those are used for specifics the game is not based nor balanced around them and the player heavily influences the production and use of these allowing for strategies around them.
It's almost like I never made that claim, in fact my very words were that those games had abstractions but the games were not balanced around them nor used to this extent. They straight up don't rely on them nearly as much, you can play an entire game of CK2 spending very little prestige or piety, Stellaris you only need influence for claims and by the end game the total casus belli fixes that. HoI4 even in this changing units can be ignored but again the way you gather all of these are better than the RNG of Eu4 and Imperator and their uses are niche within the game. You do not need Prestige for friendships in CK2 nor do you need bird mana for opinion in Eu4.
The main issue continues to be the production of mana and its use in game rather than its existence as a whole so please do not misconstrue my argument here Cruelar.