@Johan please, please, please add names to the government UI. Half of the time, I don't even know who these guys are or to which family they belong to, especially with hairy, hat-wearing tribesmen. This needs to be visible at first glance.
Imperator - Development Diary - 13th of May 2019
- Thread starter Johan
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This looks great, but I hope you take an extra look at the bonuses to the republic. They seem a bit underwhelming compared to monarchies and tribes.
Mana for me is a abstract currency no one really knows what it actually is (or can you say what mouth mana actually is) which can be spend on several totally unrelated things by pressing a button and magically things happen.
In a more Vicky 2 like system people want you increase research by educating your population, you upgrade them by improving their economic situation and paying higher wages for what position you want them to convert to (at least thats how it theoretically should work) and you would encourage migration by creating jobs to make a region more attractive. A clear cause and effect. You have to decide what you want to achieve, start working towards that goal and reap the rewards years later.
In I:Rs mana system you do not need such a long term planning, or any idea what you want to do. You just accumulate abstract mana points and when you want something to happen you press a button. It doesn't really matter much if the magic happens instantly or over time, until you press the button you can cast any spell you want with your mana. No need to start working on improving your internal trade routes over other issues, just store enough laurel wreaths and when you need a new trade route or invention you press a button and it is there.
In a more Vicky 2 like system people want you increase research by educating your population, you upgrade them by improving their economic situation and paying higher wages for what position you want them to convert to (at least thats how it theoretically should work) and you would encourage migration by creating jobs to make a region more attractive. A clear cause and effect. You have to decide what you want to achieve, start working towards that goal and reap the rewards years later.
In I:Rs mana system you do not need such a long term planning, or any idea what you want to do. You just accumulate abstract mana points and when you want something to happen you press a button. It doesn't really matter much if the magic happens instantly or over time, until you press the button you can cast any spell you want with your mana. No need to start working on improving your internal trade routes over other issues, just store enough laurel wreaths and when you need a new trade route or invention you press a button and it is there.
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I'm liking the changes so far but would also like to see some changes to inventions.
I'm not a fan of spending civic power for inventions currently as the choice just feels bad to make. I'd prefer a 1 invention per level system. This means that an advance in all 4 categories gives 4 total invention points to pick 4 out of 12 inventions at that level. This would give the option of still picking mostly military inventions or spreading them out between the categories.
On top of that I wish the levels were a little more balanced and less random.
For example a new military tech level gives the option of picking between 5% discipline to light inf/heavy inf/light cav instead of a seemingly more random assortment. I think this would atleast make it feel like I'm picking a direction for my country instead of just picking whatever seems good.
Obviously civic power costs for other things would need to be balanced. I'd suggest making province focus cost civic power to change and hopefully if you add city focuses they should also cost civic power.
I'm not a fan of spending civic power for inventions currently as the choice just feels bad to make. I'd prefer a 1 invention per level system. This means that an advance in all 4 categories gives 4 total invention points to pick 4 out of 12 inventions at that level. This would give the option of still picking mostly military inventions or spreading them out between the categories.
On top of that I wish the levels were a little more balanced and less random.
For example a new military tech level gives the option of picking between 5% discipline to light inf/heavy inf/light cav instead of a seemingly more random assortment. I think this would atleast make it feel like I'm picking a direction for my country instead of just picking whatever seems good.
Obviously civic power costs for other things would need to be balanced. I'd suggest making province focus cost civic power to change and hopefully if you add city focuses they should also cost civic power.
I really like the Research system of Stellaris where you research certain projects so that you can specialize can choose what to research. Right now all got the same and its all just stats. I want to research things that unlock or have an visual consequence. Those massive ships we get in Pompey: Don't give them per Military tree, let us research them and if i want to have them as rome i go for big ships and ignore improving small ones.
Additionally, and maybe I'm just dumb, I find it difficult to distinguish characters who are not citizens and need to be made citizens. They are greyed out in the Generals screen, but there is not distinguishing marker in the characters screen (unless I just don't see it).
Absolutely love the direction IR seems to be going. Hope it eventually sits high up there in the regular playing charts.
Buildings, we need buildings to improve our empire, culture, religion, trade, armies, navies etc. And what about a feature from EU Rome, I think,when some buildings in a owned province spreads its influence in the adjacent ones?
Would this not mean that players get too many power points to spend on assimilating pops for example? This would need a rebalance of all power costs surely?
Still really new to IR. Love it, but have 1 small request. We really really need a map mode that shows us where our fabricated claims are, like we have in EU4....
Looks great so far, Johan! I hope your team can handle the stresses of post-launch and keep shaping the game the way you have invisioned
I already modded to start as jewish Vasconia ruling over basque lands, Krete and Cyprus because lolz, with my own family as an aristocratic republic, where I rule as a pro-civic and my wife is pro-mercantile. Can't wait to June to sit her as co-consul.
Crazy as it sounds sometimes people come over and ask whether any given patch is free.
I blame mobile gaming. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's just loaded talk. Here's what it looks like when you oversimplify like you do with I:R
In a more Vicky 2 like system, you increase research by clicking on the robe guy in some provinces to reach an arbitrary percentage of some arbitrary number. You upgrade them by putting the cursor of a slider on the right side. If you want more of them, you can also spend some pound mana to increase the available jobs number. When you want something, you do your stuff, but instead of getting what you want, you must first roll your thumbs for a few years, then it magically happens.
I'm sure we could have much smarter discussions if we could stop with all the dumb rhetoric. In the end, every videogame can be described as just pressing buttons.
The non-Europa Universalis games have some mana, but gameplay doesn't revolve around it. It only has limited uses and/or isn't needed for almost every action in the game
In HOI4 political power and experience are only used for a few systems. In Stellaris Unity only interacts with traditions and ambitions. Influence is mostly used for expansion, claims, treaties and edicts, but there is still plenty to do without it. In CK2 prestige doesn't really matter much for larger feudal characters. Piety is only really important for Muslims and tribals who want to reform a religion; otherwise you are never limited by it.
In EU4/I:R, however, the mana currencies are at the core of the entire gameplay. Or just look at how religions are supposed to be made "distinct" in the future. By adding different mana bonuses. Not actual gameplay mechanics
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Looks great so far, although the only thing I'm not completely sure about is the republic's government abilities. They feel very bland and lackluster in comparison to the monarchy - pay sun mana in order to use less sun mana for conversion is probably the cherry on top of the cake here.
I think people here already suggested it, but could we instead pay that sun mana to have some sort of conversion over time, civilisation increase, less tyranny, more popularity or anything like that?
Also scroll mana for cheaper trade routes is something I see myself never using because I use scroll mana for claims and I usually have enough salad mana to spare in-between techs with useless inventions to get my capital trade routes. This was already suggested - instead give us more diplomacy range to be able to import some exotic trade goods from faraway lands or perhaps even turn it into some mission where we get to choose a good to import for a specific amount of time?
I could go on forever here, but I hope we get more than what is in this DD for republics.
I think people here already suggested it, but could we instead pay that sun mana to have some sort of conversion over time, civilisation increase, less tyranny, more popularity or anything like that?
Also scroll mana for cheaper trade routes is something I see myself never using because I use scroll mana for claims and I usually have enough salad mana to spare in-between techs with useless inventions to get my capital trade routes. This was already suggested - instead give us more diplomacy range to be able to import some exotic trade goods from faraway lands or perhaps even turn it into some mission where we get to choose a good to import for a specific amount of time?
I could go on forever here, but I hope we get more than what is in this DD for republics.
I'm not sure what 'mouth mana' is, but oratory power (scroll mana?) is an abstraction of a the ruler's ability to drum up support for political and personal initiatives and convince others to go along with them. Military power (armor mana?) is an abstraction of the ruler's ability to understand and conduct efficient military operations and to innovate in the field. Civic power (wreath mana?) is an abstraction of the ruler's ability to tweak the strings of government in order to rule efficiently and promote civic innovation. Religious power (sun mana?) is an abstraction of.... Actually I'm not sure about this one to be honest.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that these things do need to be abstracted and 'mana' is one way to accomplish that. That said, this is in NO WAY meant to be a defense of the way this system is implemented. I agree that it's a bit of a ridiculous Schrodinger's cat situation where if I press the fabricate claims button it turns out my ruler was spending the last two years drumming up support for a foreign war, or alternatively I could change a law in which case my ruler was spending the last two years campaigning for legal reform. Or maybe I save up and do both clicks at the same time, in which case my ruler was spending four years doing both. Which is it? It's both, neither, and all of the above until I press the button!
To take your research example, I actually think that in the abstract the current system makes more sense than such a Vicky 2 system would (bear with me, please! Also the key phrase is 'in the abstract', not 'as implemented'). It makes sense to me that citizens (an abstraction of the class who are politically involved and probably have free time on their hands) promote research and that the more common citizens are the more that new ideas are able to blossom (ie, research is faster). If you want to increase research speed, you need more citizens. But for people to become citizens you need to pass reforms granting them that legal involvement in the political process, maybe some land of their own, etc. Hence you spend oratory power (an abstraction of your ruler's ability to drum up support for political initiatives) to promote legislative reforms that have the effect of turning a freeman (plebeian) pop into a citizen pop, at which point those citizens start doing citizen-y things like participating in innovation.
To me, the issue with this is still the strange Schrodinger's cat problem, which is an issue with the implementation, not the concept.
Basically, yes. I think we agree completely on this point!
Edit: I am in large part trying to get at the point made by this poster:
There are a lot of abstractions in any game. If we want I:R to improve we need to make an effort to understand what the game is trying to represent with its various mechanics so we can think about and make suggestions for how those things could be better represented.
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