Imperator: Rome Developer Diary - 15th of June 2020

[Efimer]

... Athenian can promote to a fully integrated Macedonians...

The athenians of the time would prefer to assimilate to roman than to fancy themselves as macedonians, imo.
This problem would be avoided if the target of the integration was the whole cultural group, I don't think the romans could or bother to tell apart athenians from argives or rhodians.

 

[WhapXI]

So I've had a thought in my mind about how this cultural integration system works with assimilation for a while now and haven't seen it addressed in the course of the diaries anywhere so I figured I may as well ask it myself. I figure I'm probably too late to get a dev response but regardless!

Basically, how nuanced in the system of cultural assimilation? Will foreign pops convert only to my primary culture, or will they be able to convert to integrated cultures as well? Say I'm playing as Rome and conquer the whole Medd. I decide to integrate Punic and Macedonian. Makes sense, they're big groups with lots of pops. However, will my Phonecian pops in Tyre and Tylos simply convert directly to Roman, or will they try and adopt the similar and socially acceptable Punic culture first? Will the Atticans of Athens adopt the styles and culture of their Macedonian cousins to fit in and get ahead under Roman rule, or would they rather just drop Greek identity altogether and dash straight into being Roman? And finally, the Massylians of Africa, will they adopt the neighbouring Punic culture, considering the geography involved, or will they simply become spontaneous desert Romans despite little realistic scope for cultural interaction with Rome when compared to the neighbouring integrated Punics?

Like the big problem with the current culture system is that in 50-100 years all of the land you conquer becomes this mono-cultural wasteland. Which is up there with the outlandish army sizes for ahistoricity. While I like this new integration system, I'm sort of afraid that it'll just sort of partially mitigate this issue without solving it. With a blanket 5% happiness malus, I get the sense that you really don't want to integrate more than 2-5 foreign cultures at any one time. Like, integrate the largest few cultures and let the little ones convert away. And with that few accepted, I suspect those cultures will just become coloured islands in the same otherwise mono-cultural wasteland as before.

 

[Arbus]

Will foreign pops convert only to my primary culture, or will they be able to convert to integrated cultures as well? Say I'm playing as Rome and conquer the whole Medd. I decide to integrate Punic and Macedonian. Makes sense, they're big groups with lots of pops. However, will my Phonecian pops in Tyre and Tylos simply convert directly to Roman, or will they try and adopt the similar and socially acceptable Punic culture first?

I believe they'll always assimilate into the primary culture. I say this because the devs have never indicated otherwise, and it's much easier to code that way. In gameplay terms, if cultures integrated into one of your integrated cultures, instead of your primary, you would only want to have one integrated culture per culture group, and all smaller cultures would assimilate to the larger ones. You would have a Roman Empire with a Macedonian East, Punic Africa, random Iberian and random Gaul tribe. This wouldn't be very historical and kind of defeats the purpose of integration mechanics as a careful choice you have to make.

Like the big problem with the current culture system is that in 50-100 years all of the land you conquer becomes this mono-cultural wasteland. Which is up there with the outlandish army sizes for ahistoricity. While I like this new integration system, I'm sort of afraid that it'll just sort of partially mitigate this issue without solving it. With a blanket 5% happiness malus, I get the sense that you really don't want to integrate more than 2-5 foreign cultures at any one time. Like, integrate the largest few cultures and let the little ones convert away. And with that few accepted, I suspect those cultures will just become coloured islands in the same otherwise mono-cultural wasteland as before.

Absolutely, and as far as we know, this is exactly what will happen. Greece will turn red, but Macedonians will stay in the north and other pockets. Africa will turn red but Carthaginians will still be happy and ennobled members of Roman society. Iberia will be red except for that one tribe you decided to integrate mid-game for some reason. I think this is very silly but that's where we're headed.

PS: I like everything else on the DD and I think more cultural nuance is great, but I'm very skeptical of this implementation.

 

[herrickrcw2]

I find it strange that the Seleukid empire turns into the Persians empire. With that name it seems that it loses its Hellenistic culture.

Is there a way to change the name?

 

[Trin Tragula]

Pops of non integrated cultures still assimilate to your primary culture. Assimilation rate has however been greatly reduced.
Only a few cultures will be integrated and made part of your country’s elite, this is true, but don’t expect all the other cultures to just disappear. Assimilation does still happen and there are things you can do to speed it up but overall it’s not nearly as quick as it was, it’s more similar to religious conversion after last update.

There are on the other hand also options for keeping non integrated cultures happy without letting giving them equal rights to your primary culture. For this you have cultural decisions described in previous diaries which will let you grant various minor rights to make a culture happier.

 

[CaptinObvious]

I find it strange that the Seleukid empire turns into the Persians empire. With that name it seems that it loses its Hellenistic culture.

Is there a way to change the name?

IIRC, the name changes if they lose to a revolt (civil war), I don't know why it's detached from the family of the ruler of the revolt.

 

[Svenska Super]

ok here i come a not so beloved prdx product usrr. Look;

ir gon tho shts. Why not experiment with it and make a true pop system which has numbers like in real life. An EU5 would need this as well.

Things need to be way more accurate and realistic, if u not do it someone else will

please also revamp combat and economy system. i ha te to see a region producing one good dunno if this is realistic. this must be done more different, same for need of producing weapons and armor

plz step up!

 

[R Rex]

talking bout culture, why is culture in the balearic islands all punic? Ibiza sure big time punic island whatever u want Formentera as well I even concede you Cabrera island. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE Gymnesian Islands (Mallorca, and Lil Mallorca)? The East big boy islands were in fact home ruled by the natives(til conquest by romans), sure with trade with the punics, but also the greeks (who gave the islands the 'gymnesian' name which means naked cause i guess they were naked all the time or maybe played a prank on the outsiders by being all naked to weird them out . Why are you even reading this and not implementing this in the game right now? , its pretty cool i know) . That is what modern historians call the talaiotic (look it up is in the books and internet, crazy) culture and they were the 360 no scope slingers who headshoted everybody in the mediterranian into oblivion so hard they were employed as mercenaries by many mediterranian powers at the time. You see this people apparently didn't use any currency so they pay the balearic mercenaries in a combination of wine, women and goats. SO YOU GO DESING A SLINGER/GOAT HERDER WARLORDS CULTURE OR YOU WILL HAVE A MERE SHADOW OF WHAT THE GAME COULD BE. Thank you in advance

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Dear devs, it's nice to see that you're incorporating many proposals from the community.
What about these two:

- Make Messenia part of the Mantinea’s defensive league.
Reason: Sparta can (and often does) easily overrun and annex Messenia within A FEW YEARS. This lets them snowball far too easily. Historically, Messenia had good relations with the Arkadian city-sttaes in order to keep Sparta in check. Sparta only managed to briefly occupy Messenia a century into the game's time, and theyt were quickly expelled by Megalopolis IRL. An OP Sparta is boring to play and annoing if controlled by AI.

and incorporating the Spartan Two Kings mod made by @Axis89 and @PaulusMaximus.
any chance to see these things in 1.5?

Nobles are base -50%
Citizens are base -34%
Freemen are base -20%
Tribesmen are base +16% (but civilization value still reduces their happiness)
Slaves have a base of -30% Happiness.

Why are citizens and tribesmen using these values (instead of more neat ones)?

 

[pengoyo]

Pops of non integrated cultures still assimilate to your primary culture. Assimilation rate has however been greatly reduced.
Only a few cultures will be integrated and made part of your country’s elite, this is true, but don’t expect all the other cultures to just disappear. Assimilation does still happen and there are things you can do to speed it up but overall it’s not nearly as quick as it was, it’s more similar to religious conversion after last update.

There are on the other hand also options for keeping non integrated cultures happy without letting giving them equal rights to your primary culture. For this you have cultural decisions described in previous diaries which will let you grant various minor rights to make a culture happier.

I hope there is a possibility for any of your accepted cultures to spread. There many examples of non-primary cultures spreading in the ancient world, for instance the Persian empire helped spread Aramaic a d Greek continued to spread even after the Romans conquered the eastern Mediterranean.

From a gameplay perspective you could make it so cultures not in your culture group are more likely/more quickly convert to an accepted culture if it's in the same culture group as the non-accepted culture.

 

[AdmiralJC]

The game is getting better and better...

My only concern is about the integration and assimilation stuff. My question is why the integrated cultures are not assimilating, while in reality they were assimilating much faster. Think of the outcome of the Civic War or the Caracalla Edict. Especially the urban population... And there goes a bigger matter of cultural assimilation ability of each culture, which of course needs a lot of work. The assimilation ability of Greeks or Romans should be better of that of Germans or Scythians, for example. Probably a cultural "tech" tree can be a good solution for the future.

P.S.: Will we get any new achievements?

 

[Jehzir]

I find it strange that the Seleukid empire turns into the Persians empire. With that name it seems that it loses its Hellenistic culture.

Is there a way to change the name?

You can mod change the name. Depending on when it is formed it is "partly" accurate, as the Persis as fragment of the Achaemenid Empire, yet not blood related to any royal line, did reform in the 280's the empire after ousting the Selecuid line. I think that the game is changing the name to signify that the bloodline has ceased to exist in game. At least that is my observations.

 

[Daniel the Finlander]

1.5 is what the game should’ve been like on release. So many good changes and fixes. Also press F for Phrygia haha

 

[bigdaddytyrone]

1.5 is what the game should’ve been like on release. So many good changes and fixes. Also press F for Phrygia haha

They’re still around. Just renamed. The provinces/region are also still there so that’s to remember it.

 

[Daniel the Finlander]

They’re still around. Just renamed. The provinces/region are also still there so that’s to remember it.

Well obviously. I meant F for the name, I remember people complaining about it since it was first shown about two years ago. I suppose it’s an F for those complaints as well.

 

[Riekopo]

Roman troops in that Cappadocia revolt event popup lol. This game has changed so much since release last year. It's crazy.

 

[Seabear69]

Please add name randomization for your kids , like how it works in EU4 and Ck2 please.

 

[TheMind]

the more aggressive expansion you acquire the harder it will now be to keep Stability at or above the 50% mark, leading to a slow rise in dissent the more aggressively you act.

Romans would be happier to have more and more territories, as well as other aggressive-minded populations. This should be taken into account.

 

[Telenil]

All these changes sound great! Looking forward to trying them!

 

[Efimer]

... There are many examples of non-primary cultures spreading in the ancient world, for instance the Persian empire helped spread Aramaic and Greek continued to spread even after the Romans conquered the eastern Mediterranean...

I think that is questionable.
The use of the aramaic as a lingua franca and a prestige language in a large part of west Asia is well known but it's a language, not a full culture (this should be considered in the culture system, btw).

Aramaic - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The romans didn't encourage the spread of hellenic culture in the eastern Mediterranian, they tried to spread their own latin culture (with little success) and, after the split of the empire in two halves, the Eastern Roman Empire (aka Byzantine Empire) adopted hellenic as primary culture (Basileía Rhōmaíōn).

Byzantine Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org