Imperator: Rome Developer Diary - 12th of October 2020

[KHK001]

It's not about the naming, it's because of the unfitting of such a pop type at all in the current pop system. And as @Paghalay already mentioned, we already have researchers. Why not increase their importance and function in the game, if needed?

then we'll have to wait patiently for upcoming DD

 

[Lord Lambert]

There are already trade-lines - this is not them. In the interests of expectation management: trade is not the focus of the 2.0 update. The scope of this update is pretty huge as it is.

damn it man can't you say these things earlier so they can make it into the video >.<

 

[cloudwasher]

I’d been looking to get back into Imperator at some point and it looks like 2.0 will be that point... Obviously they haven’t put out an exact release date but anyone know what kinda timeframe we’re looking at? 3-6 months?

 

[ComradeEZ]

I think the teaser might refer to a Governership overhaul.

The highlighted settlements mostly correspond to the province capitals and this is a province mapmode. However, for the capitals that have a temple, the name of the capital is replaced with the name of the temple, such as: City of Susiana is the capital and has Temple of Daniel so shown with temple's name but Qom is the capital of Media Ch. but has no temple so shown as Qom. Meanwhile other temples such as Temple of Aqola or Temple of Eridu are not shown. So this is not a religious sites mapmode but a province mapmode.

From this point on I will be very speculative but this might indicate some provinces headed by a civil settlement while the others a religious settlement as it is the case for Crusader Kings. So, maybe they add a system where you can have different types of governors/vassals such as feudal and clergy.

 

[Decius]

I’d been looking to get back into Imperator at some point and it looks like 2.0 will be that point... Obviously they haven’t put out an exact release date but anyone know what kinda timeframe we’re looking at? 3-6 months?

I would say something about 2-4 months. End of november would be the earliest release date and the begin of february being the latest in my opinion.

 

[Svenska Super]

i they are putting now up a serious effort, i like it

paradox management should not forget again that any gameplay advance inno can be ported to a next title a la vic 2

 

[Jays298]

The biggest drawback of the old system was not knowing what came before nor what comes ahead. Trees are great, and can flow in different directions, and be a little different for each state.

This is great.

 

[arktky]

Is there still tech that can be unlocked by controlling certain locations on the map? Like controlling Syracuse?

 

[The Keeper of the Links]

You know, the 2.0 update is when I really started to enjoy Stellaris, really starting to look like the same will be true of Imperator!

 

[Ares Enyalios]

The Idea is nice but i hope the innovations have real impact and are not only stat modifiers as they are mostly right now. The good thing within the Stellaris research is that you really get some nice stuff like new buildings, weapons and ships. Further one of the most awarding tech systems in my opinion is in Three Kingdoms Total War because you mostly get really cool things like a new building, a new unit etc. In this case i really can't wait for the innovation to unlock. In the previous versions i couldn't care less in Imperator except for the roads or so.

 

[ZeLL!]

The last picture sort of looks like the silk road trade route? but I'm probably bigging it up too much here.
Nvm just read Arheos posts ignore meee.

 

[Siegfriedfr]

Way way way too much clickable content. Its cool to organize the invention system which is a complete mess of random upgrades, but you also need to trim it down.

IR campaigns are rather short, therefore it would be better to have less more impactful inventions, rather than a boatload of them.

Also, some types of inventions could benefit from an investment system where you devote a small fraction of money, political power, manpower, whatever ressource etc in order to increase the effect of a certain type of inventions, or to invest into upgrading a certain type of inventions.
The goal would be to instead of paying a flat sum to "buy" an invention, that you slowly invest toward improving certain aspects of you technology (think of a bar to fill instead of a button to click).

Also, you should tie it to civilization levels, and allow "barbarians" to catch up on technology when conquering cities of more advanced civilization and choosing to "conquer" instead of "pillaging".

 

[htimsnivek]

trade is not the focus of the 2.0 update

@Arheo can we please at least patch up the broken parts of trade? Trade just needs some minor fixes to take out the annoying parts and leave the fun. The trade route micro-management is horrendous and really limits my enjoyment of the game. There have been multiple suggestions to make trade routes more durable so you don't have to redo them all the time. A trade route should stick with the province even if it changes hands in a war. Governors should take care of their region and renew trade routes and feed their people if there is an available route. Trade only needs some minor improvements to make it immensely better. Please consider improving the current trade system for 2.0! All of these players listed below would greatly appreciate it!

Oct 4, 2020 - @Ketchup & friends suggested having governors arrange trade routes.

Outside the capital region, Governors should arrange all trade routes.
But the player should be able to override them, as it's already done with province policies.

Sep 28, 2020 - @intelstyle does not want to spend any more hours manually creating trade routes.

I cannot play anymore, had an Egypt campaign where I took over most of the Med Ocean area, all Egypt, Rome, Greece, and up into the Crimea... too many trade routes, I must have had 100 trade routes. By the time I set up all trade routes, others disappear. Every time I finish a war i check trade, and 30 routes are missing! I cannot spend any more hours manually setting up trade for all my territory. We need auto trade! Have the AI trade anything so long as the trade routes get full. Let me manually trade for things i may need, like food in an are that needs it, or strategic good for the capital...

Sept 17, 2020 - @LordJimmehFace wants governors to generate trade but give the player the ability to add trade contracts on top of automated trade.

I’d love to see new features for:

4. Governors automatically... setting up trade routes unless you tell them not to (or better yet the idea could be local merchants set them all up and you have to pay for like a two year trade good contract if you want to intervene - perhaps government policy controls it). I think that could make for interesting character interactions...

Sept 14, 2020 I suggested a few improvements in my 2nd place SPQR post Improve the trade goods import window (with example UI)

• Trade routes shouldn't immediately cancel during occupations, civil wars, etc to reduce micro-management.
• Have the governor try to automatically import the same trade good from another location if a route is cancelled to reduce micro-management hell.
• Have the governor automatically import food if there is an open trade route and a food shortage in the province. A baby step to governor led trade automation.
• Consolidate the numerous export request alerts for a single trade good into one alert showing the resource they all want and giving you a list of countries to choose from

Aug 26, 2020 @intelstyle reported that microing trade routes is his biggest issue with trade.

While the changes to trade in 1.5 were very beneficial for player experience, some tedious elements still remain.

The biggest issue with trade right now is microing trade routes. It’s annoying and frustrating. When land gets conquered or revolts, you’d lose the trade route and have to set it up again- the price wasn’t the worst thing, although it was annoying- it was all the clicking.

So I have a simple suggestion. Whenever land changes control via revolt or conquest, the trade route remains in place- the nations doing the trading changes. That’s it. The exception would be if the new nation refused to trade with you (bad relations, such as war). Then it gets cancelled.

I like a lot of aspects about Imperators trade system. But the micro currently involved due to conquest and revolts is too high as is and whether we get a new system or the current one gets brushed up on, I think it’d be nice if the devs removed a lot of the tediousness from it and put the complexity/intricate elements related to the trade system not in clicking buttons, but in setting up and maintaining flow of goods/commerce.

Aug 22, 2020 - @Cervantes reported the hassle of renovating routes that get canceled.

After several hours of playing the new update, I can not stop to notice that many times my trade routes disappear (due to AI, provinces revolting, war, etc.), and although I love trade in this game, renovating the routes has become somehow of a hassle. Thus, I have thought that maybe regions governed by other characters should manage their own trade, with the ruler being able to interfere. This would remove a task to the player that is not the most engaging experience, while making them feel that governors actually do something. What do you all think?

Aug 12, 2020 - @Bananson requested a trade good renewal popup to renew a trade route that is broken.

When a trade route is broken a popup apears. It would be nice to have there a list of possible new trade routes with the same good and to the same destionation as before.

June 16, 2020 - @Álvaro Núñez de Lara dropped his campaign because of the trade micro-management.

Dear devs, for the love of God, would you be so kind as to implement a simple QoL feature so you can toggle on certain goods in certain provinces so as soon one is available you will buy it automatically and you can set how many units of it?

I've just dropped my campaign because trade routes are broken all the time and you have to go province by province trying to track down everything you had and needed and redo all the trade deals ALL the time... Tiny details like this keep people away from the game because its just painful to play.

 

[sante10]

Finally a new invention system!

 

[Malivamar]

This looks amazing! I really hope you guys do some good marketing for this update kinda how it happened for Stellaris way back when it got its huge overhaul. Wouldnt want the update to not get players due to them not knowing about it.

 

[Limak]

Very excited about the tech overhaul. I just hope you will get rid of the gold cost and replace it with something similar to what you did on Military experience. An organic resource you accrue with your playstyle. It could an urbanization rating that increase with cities/roads/settlement buildings being built. Just an idea.

 

[Tardigradus]

I've been playing this game since launch and it wasn't until this Dev Diary that I understood that the gold cost associated with inventions was you implementing them.

Same. But if this is really the case, why can't you implement any invention you have unlocked and have instead go in order from the newest?

 

[Jiben]

will certain countries start with some techs unlocked? or will countries who start at tech 1/2 start with 1/2 innovations available?

 

[Samitte]

But inventions sjut the name for tech system in Imperator. Who cares what they call it. Point is how I see it, is that Tech itself is kinda like a measure of how advanced the nation is on itself, while invention are an actual implementation of those technologies in society. Hence the cost. I think only thing they gotta add is tech spread, kinda like Institutions in Eu4 and it'll make everything more organic. Just in my view. Obviously im not dev, just a consumer.

Yes but thats just the thing, whatever its called, an invention tree, tech tree, innovation tree, its an illogical at its core, super gamey system that in my opinion only is an improvement when you have no system at all. If the old invention/tech/advancement/whatever system was improved upon it could avoid the big problems a tech tree has without being this wierd, gamey, ahistorical mess and create something new (haha...) inventive. The invention system had issues but it was at least more interesting then a tech tree.

 

[adil3tr]

This looks really good, although obviously I hope the UI for this is good. Will there be any thing like trade routes spreading innovations?