Imperator - Development Diary - 25th of February 2019

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So what exactly is the advantage of letting foreign families join your realm, anyway? What incentive is there to do that?

More people. A larger pool of characters to use for positions as generals, admirals, governors, ministers, etc.
 
Funfact: Conqueror of Rome and the First King of Italy, Odoacer, was propably of Herulian origin. I know now which country I will play as first :D
 
@Trin Tragula I hope you'll reconsider the Herulians and Burgundians (see my last posts about those) and I'm disappointed that you added more trines that were never attested by ancient authors and rather added medieval petty kingdoms like in Norway. Ptolemaios still had three more tribes and Tacitus another one you could've placed in Sweden and Norway.
 
Hoping we get India or Dacia/Illyria next week. Great DD, I continue to become more and more hyped for this game! If only we still had old Pyhteas's notes. It's a real tragedy those are lost.
 
So this is a bit unclear:
Are there still any connections between a foreign family in your country, and the same family in their home country? Like, could I have the Seleucids as a family in Rome/Macedonia while the Seleucids in the Seleucid Empire are still around, and would that influence my countries relationship with the Seleucids? (Same question for non-ruling families, etc., just wondering if families can become international entities or if they are basically treated like different families with the same name.)
 
I'm curious to know how often "familiy managing" will really come into play, and whether it will always be the same story or if each family will have its own "traditions" and interests (for example, some Roman families prefered to accumulate wealth at the orders of others, some families had a tradition of being very reactionary, were others were more hellenized, some families had a lot of great generals while others had philosophers and patrons of art...). In the same way, will there be familiry rivalries?
 
I'm not sure what other Paradox games - if any - have that trait, and it seems pretty anathema to their ethos as a developer and basic replayability.
EU1 and 2, Victoria, to name three. Old school PDS in other words. Before historical plausibility .
 
Sounds cool so far. Are there any mechanics to avoid the amount of families in your empire becoming unmanagable?

Stellaris has this problem with species and planets, where playing around with 10 of them is quite engaging, but you just lose interest once you have to manage 50 or more.
 
What's the point in playing a game if the same thing happens every time? Just watch a documentary then!
I am so tired of this argument. What's the point of calling it historical if everythign that happens is just random. The point is to try to make subtle changes to history and how those over time affects the outcome. What if Carthage beats rome is an intresting enough scenaro without the danes becoming the dominant people of Sweden.

Real history is a complex sequence of events and forgive me for wanting to step into them and make a change at a later date and wanting the world to behave somewhat consistently up until that point. Take Rome for an example, what if the Gracchi had suceeded is a great alternate history, but the Gracchi wont even exist since they were not nobiles at the start of imperator.

It wouldn't be so bad if the course of events in game was an intresting and complicated as it was in reality, but it never is. It pretty much always boils down to "and then this family reigned for the rest of the game and won every war and conquered everything (unless they ran out of time before they could)". And that's not remotely interesting.

I'm not sure what other Paradox games - if any - have that trait, and it seems pretty anathema to their ethos as a developer and basic replayability.
Vic2 sort of is, it's a lot less random than the other games. Also HoI has the options of historical focuses.
Svea Rike, the grandfather of Euorpa Universalis was like that too, and I spent a lot of time playing that game.

Would be interesting to know if a Civil War happens and you win it if you can also get rid of the families who started the Civil War.

Might be a good way to occasionally streamline your Empire. Insult some and fight a CW like when you can't expand because AE has to tick down and such. Get rid of the weeds occasionally.
I do like the option to force families out through civil war, I always liked the idea that fighting civil wars should be something you ought to do on a regular basis because in reality they did happen fairly often.
A game where the same thing happens everytime sounds crazy boring.
Not the same thing happens every time but the game at least allows for that happened historically to happen. I might even argue the historical being the likeliest outcomes. But at the very least the initial conditions that led to the historical outcomes ought to be represented.
 
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What's the point of calling it historical if everythign that happens is just random. The point is to try to make subtle changes to history and how those over time affects the outcome. What if Carthage beats rome is an intresting enough scenaro without the danes becoming the dominant people of Sweden.
It's called historical because it takes place at a point in history. It's not a history simulator. It's still a video game before it would ever be a historically accurate "what if" simulator.
 
So does this mean you effectively have a limit of 50 employees?
Families tend to be larger than a single individual, so no.

Your realm can include any number of different families, with a large number of members.
The result of not employing them to keep them happy will be discontent, unrest, lost loyalty, rebellion, etc.
If they are small, weak and insignificant, this is ofc not a problem.