Imperator: Rome Development Diary - 27th of January 2020

[MiniApple3AM]

I appreciate this trend toward breaking up the empires into their more true and decentralized forms. These empires weren't some uniform and centrally administered monolith, they were in fact loose federations of client states and tributaries ruled by local nobles and nominally loyal to a common overlord. Most of these client states were watching for the slightest sign of weakness in their overlord so they could stop sending their regular tributes and quietly slide into de facto independence. The Satraps in Mesopotamia and Persia were notorious for this and "empires" in the region would in practice dissolve and reform in a very fluid way based on how powerful the current overlord was in any given year even though nominally they had all sworn fealty. Persian emperors for millennia spent most of their waking hours fretting about subject loyalties and playing Satrap whack-a-mole year after year.

I could not possibly agree more.

 

[Denkt]

The Roman empire also had some massive stability problems, it was basically a military dictatorship there the only reason needed to become emperor was from the army, which I think they tried to solve by basically returning to consular armies (with emperors instead of consuls) but it simply caused new problems.

The assassination of Caligula was probably open up the first cracks because it kinda legitimized the killing of an emperor which is not a good thing in the long run and much worse stuff would happen later on.

The problem is that an empire require some decentralization to manage it and defend its borders but at the same time it is only an empire if there is some central authority and balacing between the two is pretty hard. Giving alot of Power to the generals and governors may be a good thing up to they find out they can use that Power to size Control over the empire.

 

[Denkt]

I wouldn't break up the Seleucid Empire into a massive blob of playable Satrapies as that really prevents it from being an actual Empire. The early Seleucid Empire was stable and powerful enough that Satrapies weren't revolting against Seleucid rule and they weren't disloyal enough to be considered de facto independent.

It did start to decline rather early in the game timeframe, like 150 years into the game it had already lost large amount of its territories.

 

[Shibby14]

Map changes in India is all good, but when are you adding ability to release nations and demand money in peace deals? Surprise surprise - the game is still shit and requires a lot of minor and frequent patches.

 

[Denkt]

Map changes in India is all good, but when are you adding ability to release nations and demand money in peace deals? Surprise surprise - the game is still shit and requires a lot of minor and frequent patches.

People combined want like everything in the game, but that don't mean everything is good for the game

 

[tpapp157]

I wouldn't break up the Seleucid Empire into a massive blob of playable Satrapies as that really prevents it from being an actual Empire. The early Seleucid Empire was stable and powerful enough that Satrapies weren't revolting against Seleucid rule and they weren't disloyal enough to be considered de facto independent.

This is the wrong way to look at it. Loyalty has no bearing on administrative autonomy. Empires throughout most of human history were extremely decentralized by practical necessity and emperors had very little actual control over how their various territories were administered. As long as regular tributes of money and men were delivered and they weren't causing problems like supporting pretenders, most emperors couldn't care less about how their far flung territories were administered and largely left day to day management to the pre-existing local nobility. In return, as long as the emperor's demands didn't get too overbearing and they were largely left alone to rule their territory as they saw fit, most subject nobles were fine to remain loyal subjects. The true challenge for all emperors was never something like external threats and foreign relations, it has always been how well they can manage this internal balance.

Persian emperors for example often took the title of "King of kings" to emphasize just this fact. This title signifies that the status, legitimacy, and administrative and judicial authority of the local nobility was not reduced in any way as subject states. They were still kings that ruled their own kingdoms. They simply now had an overlord king that required regular tribute.

With that in mind, rather than representing the Seleucid Empire as a giant single blob it would be far more accurate to represent them as holding their core territories in Mesopotamia and all the rest being a large assortment of vassals, client states, tributaries, and puppet states because that's what they were in practical administrative terms.

 

[tpapp157]

It did start to decline rather early in the game timeframe, like 150 years into the game it had already lost large amount of its territories.

150 years after the start date, The Seleucid Empire had already been reduced to just Syria and portions of southern Anatolia. It would mount a few successful campaigns in places like Judea and Mesopotamia but it would never expand again. For a long time it would persist as a Roman puppet state and form a convenient buffer between the Romans and the Parthians but as soon as the Romans no longer had a use for this they officially incorporated the territory into the empire.

The actual breakup of the Seleucid Empire began as soon as 50 years after the start date. The Parthians, Bactrians, and various other smaller states in central Asia and Anatolia all declared official independence in a short time period. It would take the Seleucids another 40 years until they could muster the power to march East and defeat the Parthians and Bactrians and nominally return them as subject states. Of course as soon as the Seleucid army marched back West, you guessed it, they declared independence again. Over the next 50 years, the Parthians, Bactrians, and Armenians (among others) would conquer everything that was once part of the Seleucid Empire East of Syria.

 

[Belryuminus]

Nice news !
Any input on the stuttering problem ? Seems like a bunch of players are still affected and i'm part of it when 1.2 was running up and good.