Imperator: Rome Developer Diary - 9th of November 2020

[AppoX]

Great changes, probably one of the best dev diaries I've read, in regards to what you are intending to bring to the game.

 

[LSF]

I disagree, one of the things that drew me to the initial premise of the game was seeing it described as a hybrid of CK's character politics with more conventional nation management, so I'd love more depth to the former.

It is already a hybrid. There are characters I have to take care. That is enough for me. I want I:R to be a strategy game, something CK games are not IMHO.

 

[Ornlu Wolfjarl]

OK, after a whole year, I am finally intrigued to return to Imperator.

Now @Trin Tragula you need to do this for navies as well. Each port city should provide a naval levy of small-medium craft, while each state maintains a very expensive, but relatively small specialized military fleet. If you want your fleet to grow, then you need to pull it from patrolling the ports for pirates and smugglers, or being used by your merchants which cuts into your profits.

 

[Trin Tragula]

is there anyway we can only raise a portion of the levy, or split the levy?

What you can do to affect how many of your pops are raised is change your economic policy for your armies, these can increase or decrease the portion of your integrated population that you call to arms.
Laws also affect the percentage of people levies, with republican laws especially allowing you to levy a larger part of your population, should you so wish. Each tradition tree also contains a 5% levy size buff should you choose to go for it.

Lastly Rome rather famously was able to raise quite big armies from its citizens, this is reflected in an additional levy size % boost for the Roman heritage in particular, which is part of the big levy you can see the in the screenshot. It is a bit of a double edged sword as you say

 

[LSF]

Why is this DD not showing in the Forum's front page? The newest news there is Stellaris console from Friday. I always take a look at the front page to see what is happening and got here only by chance. I suppose many others are like me. Please leave all DDs in the front page.

 

[AHumpierRogue]

One thing I think should be important is levies should not by default be inferior to professional troops. This shouldn't be the difference between levies and retinues in CK3 for example. Rome got quite far on what is basically this game's levy system after all, and the greek citizen levy, even if they were militia were by no means poorly trained or inadequate for fighting. Inadequate for long campaigns perhaps but for the actual fighting they were quite adept. Honestly I am not quite sure how to best represent troop quality, but I hope it';s not just "Professional>>>>Levy". While Professionals should of course have some quality aspects to them(if you want them to) I think one of the major benefits should just be that you can design your own army rather than relying on whatever you can muster. Beyond that, and in terms of differentiating levies I am unsure on how to do that, I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable members of the community/the devs.

 

[Sarges]

OMG! This looks great! Thank you guys!

 

[fabius]

From lock down

 

[Rabid]

One thing I think should be important is levies should not by default be inferior to professional troops. This shouldn't be the difference between levies and retinues in CK3 for example. Rome got quite far on what is basically this game's levy system after all, and the greek citizen levy, even if they were militia were by no means poorly trained or inadequate for fighting. Inadequate for long campaigns perhaps but for the actual fighting they were quite adept. Honestly I am not quite sure how to best represent troop quality, but I hope it';s not just "Professional>>>>Levy". While Professionals should of course have some quality aspects to them(if you want them to) I think one of the major benefits should just be that you can design your own army rather than relying on whatever you can muster. Beyond that, and in terms of differentiating levies I am unsure on how to do that, I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable members of the community/the devs.

Strong agree with this, levies should be able to be very effective, the main advantage of legions should be that you can entirely dictate their composition.

 

[LSF]

One thing I think should be important is levies should not by default be inferior to professional troops. This shouldn't be the difference between levies and retinues in CK3 for example. Rome got quite far on what is basically this game's levy system after all, and the greek citizen levy, even if they were militia were by no means poorly trained or inadequate for fighting. Inadequate for long campaigns perhaps but for the actual fighting they were quite adept. Honestly I am not quite sure how to best represent troop quality, but I hope it';s not just "Professional>>>>Levy". While Professionals should of course have some quality aspects to them(if you want them to) I think one of the major benefits should just be that you can design your own army rather than relying on whatever you can muster. Beyond that, and in terms of differentiating levies I am unsure on how to do that, I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable members of the community/the devs.

I think the quality difference between them can come from the drilling. I assume the same as you, same type cohorts should be of same quality, be them either levies or legions. But the legions can drill so they can have more experience points.

 

[fabius]

I really hope they implement some sort of Legion Builder- bit like the Hoi4 Division builder. Where certain ratios of light to heavy, mixed arms will give a benefit

 

[diglosgr]

Will trade goods of the area also affect the composition?For example if Macedon raises levies from Thessaly which has horses will they raise more light and heavy cavalry even if they dont have nobles?

 

[Valentinius]

Excellent.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

What you can do to affect how many of your pops are raised is change your economic policy for your armies, these can increase or decrease the portion of your integrated population that you call to arms.
Laws also affect the percentage of people levies, with republican laws especially allowing you to levy a larger part of your population, should you so wish. Each tradition tree also contains a 5% levy size buff should you choose to go for it.

Lastly Rome rather famously was able to raise quite big armies from its citizens, this is reflected in an additional levy size % boost for the Roman heritage in particular, which is part of the big levy you can see the in the screenshot. It is a bit of a double edged sword as you say

Thanks for replying so late! I really appreciate it. When I asked my question, I was thinking of splitting only due to supply problems, then I remembered this isn’t EU4 and there are donkeys for that purpose haha. Thanks for clearing it up

Would there be any way we can influence the composition of our levies in each province?

 

[Synen]

When you raise levies that will also call together a number of supply cohorts. These aren't really dependent on the culture of the pops you're raising though unlike the other units. It is just dependent on the size of your levy

Wouldn't this cause problems and frustration in multiplayer? You can't resupply in allied provinces and allied occupied provinces. Also multiplayer wars last a lot longer then singleplayer wars. For multiplayer it would be a lot better if you can build them yourself rather then them being part of the levy.

 

[Lyyr]

God I hope so perhaps not 1 on 1 but having armies wiped out should cost your nation dearly.

Why though? Its not like the nobles' entire families were drafted, they had children at home. And it's not like every single adult male was sent to war, too.
I used the nobles as example.

I think it is meant to be a numeric abstraction and I agree with it. If a large number of heavy cavalry is wiped out that is essentially a large number of your citizenry being wiped out. Makes sense to me.

 

[LiberiusX]

Wow this diary has me really interested in the next update. Can’t wait to play!

 

[Wagonlitz]

Looks great! Hope to see a new feature in the future that would make it harder for Rome to take lands on the other side of the Rhine. Can't wait to get back to Imperator!

Why should it be intrinsically harder for Rome to take lands on the other side of the Rhine?

IRL it didn't happen as those lands were largely undeveloped and there were no cities there.

Rome generally expanded due to trade and hence generally expanded in the dirction of trade and larger cities.
But if Germania devloped to be rich and with cities why should Rome then see herself stopped at the Rhine?

After all she had no problems crossing it many times IRL and also did pretty much conquer the area twice. In both cases abandoning it not as much due to military losses, but because it wasn't financially viable due to the lack of development.

The Augustus expeditions recently were found, through archeological digs, to basically have set things up as a province with coloneias so with more interest in teh area due ot it being more valuable then I don't see why it wouldn't become a province. The Elbe is just as good a border river as th Rhine, after all. The Vistula would be one too (or the Oder).
And Marcus Aurelius basically took Bohemia and had it set up, before his successor then decided to abandon it, again for financial reasons.




So instead of it being hardcoded that it's tough to expand in certain areas, then it rather should be such that expanding into poor areas is harder than expanding into well developed ones due tot he well developed ones having lots of trade/etc. which pays for the administration and upkeep of teh province, wheras the undeveloped areas just are money sinks.

 

[master_kong]

I think it is meant to be a numeric abstraction and I agree with it. If a large number of heavy cavalry is wiped out that is essentially a large number of your citizenry being wiped out. Makes sense to me.

Yes, that should be a possibility.

As their name implies, equites were liable to cavalry service in the legion of the mid-republic. They originally provided a legion's entire cavalry contingent, although from an early stage (probably from c. 400 and not later than c. 300 BC), when equestrian numbers had become insufficient, large numbers of young men from the first class of commoners were regularly volunteering for the service, which was considered more glamorous than the infantry.
The cavalry role of equites dwindled after the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), as the number of equestrians became insufficient to provide the senior officers of the army and general cavalrymen as well.

 

[Vityviktor]

I could kiss the screen right now, oh boy.