Imperator - Sunday Morning Design Corner - May 5th 2019

[DukeOfValois1]

All your previous games,HOI4,EU4,CK2,Stellaris and even your more older games like VIctoria 2.

Pretty much this. Even Stellaris had more relative depth.

 

[Denkt]

Will you change invention system so it use all four powers and increase cost of inventions as they are underpriced in the current version compared to other stuff. Paying 100 power for an invention is much better than paying 20 power to move a single pop, even the 5 power to move a slave is very expensive compared to the global bonus of an invention.
Also it don't make sense that invention only cost civic power, why should military inventions for example cost civic power instead of military power.

Ability to develop inventions should also be tied to research efficiency in some way as currently you can instantly develop stuff as soon as the tech is researched.

Last the inventions are clearly unbalanced, some stuff is simply much better than other so having a tiered cost for inventions would be nice with weak ones being cheap and the best ones being most expensive.

Military traditions feels lacking, I think you should get them from battles like you earn military tradition in EUIV and also it should be possible to develop traditions from other trees, maybe at a higher cost so you have more options such as going with legionaries as a greek nations or phalanx as Rome if you choose to do so.

Not being able to ever develop good heavy cavalry because you are Rome feels very strange and in the game it is predetermined already in 300 bce that Rome should never be able to develop good heavy cavalry even if they fight others who have good heavy cavalry.

 

[cristofolmc]

We need factions. Well, more factions. Even monarchies had factions, not support X heir but pushing the monarch to DO something for them. I want to have a temple system I have to appease. An actual group of generals that demand to be used in war, and push you, or stop you, from going to war. A group of rich families that want simple tax breaks. A city or two that are pissed at me converting them.

Yes, I've been saying this. This game wont have a good character system until we get a faction system like in CK2, in which characters gang up together to ask you for stuff and stronghand you into doing things. It's vital for the future of the game that they introduce something like this.

Right now, characters feel like they go on their own doing their stuff despite the rest of the world. It doesnt make much sense that a character that hates you wont join a civil war started by a general, or support a rebelion of a part of a territory against you. Instead, he'll wait to start a different revolt or just disapper for some reason (unclear to the player, you just get a pop up saying hes disbanded, even though hes still at 0 loyalty. Probably because hes out of money maybe).
Which results in very easy civil wars that are against a province/s without initial armies, because no character participates on them as they do on CK2, or because its just against ONE single General. When Julius Ceasar waged war on the republic, not only him and his army rised. The country was split in half. All character that supported him went with him and all the characters that hate Ceaser, didnt just stay there doing nothing, they joined the other side.

For this, the best and most UI friendly system I can think of, is to bring the factions system from CK2. @Johan I hope you consider it for future updates. It doesnt matter if you reinforce characters power base, if instead of interacting between them and acting and plotting together, they act alone and independently. They are NEVER going to be a threat against the state. (Sorry for tagging you so much Johan. I just have loads of ideas I want you to read if it helps you get inspiration)

 

[Bugnr01]

First of all, thx @Johan for your post(s)! Nice to see you comming so open to the froum in an not easy situation.
I do enjoy the game and its the best (from a technical point of view including AI behaviour) release i have ever seen from paradox. What i do lack is diving into it and lose myself how im able to do it with others of your titles at the moment, but i cant specify excatly why this is.
One point may be the instantanious actions (no planig ahead needed / no time requierd). I prefer the govenor conversion (culture and religion) because it feels more natural, takes time and has drawbacks.
The same is with pops for me and as @Sigrak pointed out allready i am missing a govenor policy too.

Hi Johan,

2. I can manually convert pops to my culture or to my religion. I can also do this via governor policies. I can also manually move pops, however I cannot move them through governor policies. Have you considered adding governor policies for that? Personally I would consider an "urbanization" policy (whereby the governor would slowly move pops to the capital city of a province so that the majority of the province lives in that city) and a "ruralization" policy (whereby the governor would slowly spread pops out across the province to ensure every city is about as populated as every other city). Especially the latter policy is something that I would appreciate given the influx of slaves your capital province can experience.

I would go further and let you flag citys in the province to give the govenor (AI) an idea what you want, whats the porpose of the city. (numbers could be inproved)

• Local Capital / two times the size of the next smaler one, Pops evenly spread (well rounded City)
• Traiding City / half size of the capital, citizen and slaves half/half (income generation)
• Uptown / half size of the Traiding City, only citicesn (tech generation)
  
• Rual City / half size of the Traiding City, heavily focus on slaves with some freemen to balance it (trade good production)
  
• Garnison City / half sice of the Traiding City, focus on free men maybe fort defense bonus or increased enemy attrition (menpower generation)
• Tribal village / Half the size of a rual city where you can transfer tribal pops from other citys till they get civilised.
• not flaged -> dont medele with the pops there

 

[NovaCameron]

I have EU:R and I don't remember it....

Also polytheistic religion is probably one of the best types or religion to be modeled. It could practically be a game within the game. Since all monotheistic religions came from polytheistic religion. So many cults and priests wanting attention, endorsement, power, wealth...

It is basically twelve or so monotheistic religions acting in one.

 

[cristofolmc]

And why do you get tirany for telling your governors to change policies? It's kinda their job to obey the ruler... Bribes should cost money LOOL
The senate could be something more in line the conclave in ck2, it's so easy to bypass and ignore the senate... Beter and diferent religions, there should be no instant conversion, culturally or religiously... idk so many it could be done xD
I want a beter game and the potential for it is there =D

It makes sense the governors give you tyranny for changing the policy. They were supposed to be almost like Kings, it was very decentralized and they did what they saw fit on their provinces as long as they were loyal to the republic and answered the Consuls call in times of war (and some times they didnt even do that).

But maybe, instread of giving tyranny that affect the whole country and pops, maybe it should just give a -30 loyalty to the governor or something.

 

[___Vardan]

Missing UI / Bad UX
I agree that there are things in the UI that is suboptimal. Some screens are bigger than they could be


Content
We will continue to add more content at each update, with a nice chunk on focus on Italy in 1.1
/Johan

Yes, when you click on an army the window that opens takes 1/3 of the screen, it is very annoying.
And please, don't neglect rest of the world so heavily. There are tons of Rome oriented games, so let us play one that offers different states not being generic.

 

[DukeOfValois1]

Yes, I've been saying this. This game wont have a good character system until we get a faction system like in CK2, in which characters gang up together to ask you for stuff and stronghand you into doing things. It's vital for the future of the game that they introduce something like this.

Right now, characters feel like they go on their own doing their stuff despite the rest of the world. It doesnt make much sense that a character that hates you wont join a civil war started by a general, or support a rebelion of a part of a territory against you. Instead, he'll wait to start a different revolt or just disapper for some reason (unclear to the player, you just get a pop up saying hes disbanded, even though hes still at 0 loyalty. Probably because hes out of money maybe).
Which results in very easy civil wars that are against a province/s without initial armies, because no character participates on them as they do on CK2, or because its just against ONE single General. When Julius Ceasar waged war on the republic, not only him and his army rised. The country was split in half. All character that supported him went with him and all the characters that hate Ceaser, didnt just stay there doing nothing, they joined the other side.

For this, the best and most UI friendly system I can think of, is to bring the factions system from CK2. @Johan I hope you consider it for future updates. It doesnt matter if you reinforce characters power base, if instead of interacting between them and acting and plotting together, they act alone and independently. They are NEVER going to be a threat against the state. (Sorry for tagging you so much Johan. I just have loads of ideas I want you to read if it helps you get inspiration)

Characters are *very* static and boring. They really don't do much, and yet they should do more. They might as well just be a name and numbers like they are in EU4. It might just me, this is somehow affecting my perception of portaits of all things. I know that they're static in both CK2 and Imperator, but for whatever reason the *better* portraits in Imperator just seem more lifeless in comparison to CK2s even though they're both static.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

I just want to say, I enjoy the game as it was released even if I have a tendency to agree with the complaints you listed here. What you’ve detailed here about how you want to address them is going to do so much to bring this game up from good into the realm of great! Thank you so much!

 

[LeSingeAffame]

It makes sense the governors give you tyranny for changing the policy. They were supposed to be almost like Kings, it was very decentralized and they did what they saw fit on their provinces as long as they were loyal to the republic and answered the Consuls call in times of war (and some times they didnt even do that).

But maybe, instread of giving tyranny that affect the whole country and pops, maybe it should just give a -30 loyalty to the governor or something.

It used to have one, but was removed during development

Each region, unless its your home capital region will have a governor assigned to them, while each province have its own possible governor policy.

Changing policies no longer impact the loyalty of the governor, as it turned it into a non-choice in most cases, but instead have a oratory power cost that is the same whether its a governor or your rulers directly controlled provinces.

Here

 

[FaceDancer]

What I really miss in the UI is the province overview. I would like to click entire province, not single town and see a whole spectrum about pops in there. I would like to see how many pops of different categories, religion, culture is in it so I can use my governors adequately. It is really annoying clicking on every town in a province to check how many different culture pops left. Also some minor things like when I hover over a unit for example Hastati I would like to see how much that unit type is costing me in maintenance, because right now I see only stats. I see how much the whole army is costing, but to show different unit costs I have to go to building menu and compare it from there.

 

[NovaCameron]

Characters are *very* static and boring. They really don't do much, and yet they should do more. They might as well just be a name and numbers like they are in EU4. It might just me, this is somehow affecting my perception of portaits of all things. I know that they're static in both CK2 and Imperator, but for whatever reason the *better* portraits in Imperator just seem more lifeless in comparison to CK2s even though they're both static.

Probably because they look so good you expect them to act like Ck2 characters and they don't so you are let down and think them to be worse.

 

[SithHacker]

Johan - I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. I've enjoyed the game right out of the box and am optimistic of all that it will become. Despite all the negativity there are still those of us that believe in you.

 

[NovaCameron]

Oh, also can we get a 'family member not married' notification? That would help immensely. As well as events when other families get married? I want to give them a gift so they like me more.

 

[Pirex]

That's why
You aren't asking them nicely, you're forcing them to
Doing it once or twice isn't a problem, but if you do it as well as other tyranicall actions, then you'll get a problem

Im prety sure in all history almost the entirety of governors were apointed to do the state job, either to convert, assimilate, exploit, conquest and expand, however some might had gone rebelious like julius ceaser, most were loyal and carry on the state apointed goals LOOL and didnt outright consider their state tiranical for being told to enforce whatever policies they wanted.
And if that was the case, you can exploit and pause the game, select and keep changing the governor until the policy you want appears for free Now that way isn't tiranical LOOL i know it's a bug probably reported alraidy but still.. Governors should abide by the state, and sure some flavour and events for some rebelious governors or whatever would be nice. Or going against the senate wishes for a particular provice gaining tirany... sure it would be fun. Bot for normal governors doing the state apointed duties should not xD

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Im prety sure in all history almost the entirety of governors were apointed to do the state job, either to convert, assimilate, exploit, conquest and expand, however some might had gone rebelious like julius ceaser, most were loyal and carry on the state apointed goals LOOL and didnt outright consider their state tiranical for being told to enforce whatever policies they wanted.
And if that was the case, you can exploit and pause the game, select and keep changing the governor until the policy you want appears for free Now that way isn't tiranical LOOL i know it's a bug probably reported alraidy but still.. Governors should abide by the state, and sure some flavour and events for some rebelious governors or whatever would be nice. Or going against the senate wishes for a particular provice gaining tirany... sure it would be fun. Bot for normal governors doing the state apointed duties should not xD

Doing it once won't make you a bloody tyrant who'll crush anyone in his way
It's doing it over and over again that will

 

[NovaCameron]

Correct. Even Persian satrapies had to take orders from the king. Even though they were near kings in their own right. Sure they were left alone most of the time but if the king said 'gimme 500 horses a year' or 'please do this one thing and focus on that' they did so.

Otherwise the king sent a royal inspector over who reported back. And if he wasn't doing it... Expect a visit from the king at the head of an army asking for answers.

 

[Krozam]

My personal experience is that this game isn't as bare-bones and unpolished as other Paradox games I've played at launch. It still needs a lot of polish, but the base is solid, so I have a favourable impression of the game at this point, knowing that you'll keep improving it with the player feedback as your guideline. The problem is that it's not very innovative: as it's a crystallisation of what you've learned from your earlier grand strategy games, it's not very different from them, and as such it doesn't feel very fresh. If it's not innovative, it's should be greater, outdoing the old games in their own fields, which it does not at this stage do. This leads to unfavourable comparisons to the old games that have had years of polish put into them. I do believe that with another year of development, a couple of expansions and a number of patches later, the player impressions will improve considerably. I just hope this will be enough to wipe out the bad initial impressions so many players seem to have.

ATM, what I personally consider the topmost important thing to improve (aside from bug fixes and QoL improvements), I think the game needs more events. In about 100 years of play, you see some events fire a dozen of times or more. Could definitely use more variety.

 

[vyshan]

Buildings need to have a purpose though, and a benefit to be built.

Aside from raising civilization power, there are other effects that buildings can have. Here are just a few example

• Libraries: help with research and increase in civilization value
• Theaters and other different entertainment buildings - province happiness and/or lowered revolt risk
• Temples - omen power(especially if in capital) and maybe a small other bonus dependent on the god or goddess being offered. So a city whose most prominite temple is dedicated to say Ares, then you might have a tad more manpower from that province or if the main temple in a city is dedicated to Hermes then a small commerce boost from that temple.
  
• Dockyards - boost to naval warfare and a boost to commerce; could even split it off into docks(focusing on commerce) and Shipyards(focusing on naval warfare)
  
• Aqueducts - a boost to population growth
• Baths - Population happiness
• Plantations - resource production improvement

 

[Searry]

And what is the difference you like between lets say Saxony and Aragon in EU4 that you can't find between Tartessos and Suionia in Imperator?

I'm genuinely curious.

I think it's the lack of difficulty I am referring to and lack of risk as well. For example, Phrygia is surrounded by enemies on all sides but it's extremely easy to do what you want.
In EUIV there's always big risks involved in your next step, be it with Saxony or Aragon.