Imperator - Development Diary #19 - 1st of October 2018

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Johan

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Hi and Welcome to the 19th development diary for Imperator! This time we delve deeper into the concept of Loyalty.


Unrest
So, let’s recap what we mentioned talked briefly about unrest in the 16th development diary, and how unrest in cities affected the loyalty of provinces. Unrest also have two other direct impact, the first is the reduction of commerce, tax, manpower and research from the city, while when it reaches the threshold of 10 unrest, you can no longer recruit regiments in the city, build buildings,or interact with the population.

Unrest is generated through unhappy pops, low stability in your country, war-exhaustion, governors policies and corruption. It can also be reduced by various laws, positive stability and by assigning armies to the local governor.

The happiness of a pop depends on its culture and its religion compared to the country’s religion and culture. Different pop-types also want different civilization levels to be happy, while a tribesman want it as low as possible, the citizens want it rather high. Different laws makes different types of pops more or less happy as well. Access to different goods in the city will also make pops happier.

If a pop has less than 50% happiness, they will contribute to the unrest of the province.


Now let’s talk about loyalty. There is three types of loyalty we’ll talk about today, as the loyalty of subjects is a subject for another diary. (And I just wanted to type that sentence..)

Province Loyalty
Each province have a loyalty value to the country. If it goes down to 0, then that province is basically 100% autonomous and provide nothing to you. They will cancel all trade to other parts of your country and every city will be acting as it had at least 10 unrest.

If enough provinces are disloyal, they will either start an independence war, if the dominant culture is not your primary culture-group, or a civil war if they are of your culture-group.

There are alerts if your provinces are disloyal, or if you risk a civil war or major revolt.

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Cohorts Loyalty
Each cohort in an army can become loyal to a single person. This depends on the charisma of the commander during a battle or a siege.

When a cohort is loyal to a character the country pays less maintenance for it, as the commander of the unit it is loyal to, starts paying the unit him or herself.

There is a slight drawback or two to having cohorts loyal to a character instead of the country, like for example, a cohort that is personally loyal to a character will not allow it to be transferred away from the unit in any way. Also, a character with cohorts loyal to him tend to become more disloyal over time.


Character Loyalty
Characters loyalty to the Country is one of the more interesting aspects to manage, as disloyal characters is a huge risk, as disloyal characters will refuse to abandon their armies or provinces, and if enough are disloyal they will form a block together to form a civil war.

Some forms of government, a few inventions and some ideas increase loyalty of all characters. Giving people titles and offices will increase their loyalty, but removing them decrease their loyalty. Characters of the same faction as the ruler tends to become more loyal over time, while friends and rivals of the ruler will see their loyalty go up and down as well.

When the loyalty of a character is below 33%, that character is considered disloyal.


Civil Wars!
While a major revolt is not different from having a large nation revolt from you in other games, civil wars are dramatically different.

The threat of a Civil Wars will start as soon as either 33% of the army is controlled by a character that is disloyal OR 33% of all provinces are disloyal to the country.

During the threat of a civil war, a small timer ticks up each month, where the civil war will break out after a year. During this time you have an alert so you can see that you have a risk of it. Of course, there are alerts as soon as a single province is disloyal or a general is.

When the Civil War starts, all disloyal characters and provinces will join them.. And possible friends and families as well.

A civil war is a war-to-the-death, where provinces automatically switch owners when you occupy them, and if you lose the civil war, it is basically game over.

And always remember.. Tyranny is not a help when it comes to get loyalty. Sic Semper Tyrannis!
 
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So governor loyalty and province loyalty are too different things, right?

Can disloyal governor of your culture also seek independence instead of civil war?
 
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Very interesting, this will be interesting to manage
 
Is the happiness of some pop classes more important than other classes? Do different cultures have different needs to generate pop happiness (apparently not)?

Also, Civil Wars sound really, really interesting, but I'm worried that character loyalty management could turn into a massive bribespam (like getting vassals out of factions in ck2). I hope not.
 
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Unrest without rebels is certainly something I am looking forward to see how it plays out in practice! I always felt unrest had very little consequences if you had a strong army in most games. A proper civil war sounds more exciting (and dangerous) than a couple of rebel stacks too, reminds me a little bit about how CK2 handles it.
 
Are major revolts going to be an ACTUAL threat? A big issue with EU4 is that revolts never actually DO anything. They sorta-kinda drain your resources and that's it. They're tedious and forgettable.
 
provinces automatically switch owners when you occupy them, and if you lose the civil war, it is basically game over.

Two questions

1. So in a civil war, I go about occupying on the *provincial* level? or city by city, like other wars

2a. Basically game over? or booted to the main menu game over

2b. How do I choose sides in a civil war?
 
Is the happiness of some pop classes more important than other classes? Do different cultures have different needs to generate pop happiness (apparently not)?

Also, Civil Wars sound really, really interesting, but I'm worried that character loyalty management could turn into a massive bribespam (like getting vassals out of factions in ck2). I hope not.

Not really possible to spam them all.
 
Why losing a Civil War is game over? Won't the country still exist after as in EU4 or your character be alive as in CK2?

No. You have been annexed then.
 
Two questions

1. So in a civil war, I go about occupying on the *provincial* level? or city by city, like other wars

2a. Basically game over? or booted to the main menu game over

2b. How do I choose sides in a civil war?

1 - like normal wars.
2a - end game screen.
2b - you are always the loyalists.
 
Hello Johan, it looks great. Giving armies to provincial governors seems like a great idea to induce some instability and fun internal mechanics. I have one question though, will it be possible to give multiple provinces to one governor or something like that? The amount of provinces is so large that by the time you have conquored Greece and Italy you are probably looking at 30 or so sepatate provinces and governors to deal with allready. I feel that to keep governors meaningfull and powerful as individuals it would be best to keep the number of them at 20 maximum or something like that. Especially with allocating armies to them and prevent to much micro management it should be possible to create something like stellaris sectors or so
 
I'm a bit disappointed with the "Civil War countdown" mechanic. It feels very... sterile and impersonal.

I can't help but feel that this game, which I was so excited about, is straying quite far from what I hoped it would be. I appreciate that it my problem rather than the game's, but it makes me sad.