yeah an early version of CK2 crossed with a watered down version of EUIV. They probably thought that this was a save bet. They were wrong. It appears to me that they have become risk averse as successful companies often do. I didn't say that it would be easy to create one successful and beloved game after another. If it were easy to be successful anybody would be.
Imperator - Sunday Morning Design Corner - May 5th 2019
- Thread starter Johan
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Whether you said anything I agree with or not I wish every developer was this candid with the community
Ok - I looked backed on Johan's OP for this thread and I picked this out (coloured text is my emphasis). Rome I aka Europa Universalis Rome was an offshoot of EU3 (and an early EU3 at that). Now I am old enough to remember this one and although I bought it the gameplay never really captured my imagination. Which is odd as I specialised in Classical History in my degree
As Rome I is the basis for the Imperator game this means that the base game is over 11 years old. Now that is ok - some reboots work really well. But the problem here is whilst the mechanics have been improved and the map and graphics are beyond all recognition, the gameplay aspect is still essentially unchanged IMHO. I can see the potential for the new mechanics to radically alter the way the game is played but superficially the current game is more like early EU3 than late EU4. And that's clearly a little disappointing to some purchasers.
I hope that the early negativity will be overcome as I would really like to see a series of flavour DLC to round out the game like CK2 got.
That is the problem. Imperator: Rome was handled as if all the games that came later plus all the endless amounts of DLC never happened. If you look at steam it is now around 2 to 1 negative reviews.
Stellaris worked for me because it was a completely new setting. Space, and planets but most importantly it had exploration. Something that none of the PDX games had. The soundtrack was good. I actually played vanilla for quite a bit.
Imperator: Rome doesn't do anything new, considering the mechanics in EUIV and CK2 it feels like a step back and to be honest the comments of Johan do not fill me with confidence. Maybe he has become blind to certain things. It happens to people who are creative and at the same company for too long. I guess he will get another shot at another game but if that goes awry too, then he is probably out.
I think shallow is relative and any game that takes place over 2 continents and three hundred years is likely to be difficult to fill with content in a year of development.
My greatest gripe is characters. Would it be possible to play as a family like CK2 and deal with provincial/tribal affairs once those have been deepened? Right now I don't care about individual progression because I'm never given any reason to do anything other than suppress upstarts.
My greatest gripe is characters. Would it be possible to play as a family like CK2 and deal with provincial/tribal affairs once those have been deepened? Right now I don't care about individual progression because I'm never given any reason to do anything other than suppress upstarts.
Not sure a family view is necessarily the best way to view the game but absolutely there should be more to characters than if loyalty<50 then bribe (somehow)
In that case it may be that many people understand the context of Aragon. EU4's nations are more or less alien past the big 5.
That being said there is a massive difference between France and England in EU4 from launch. One a colonial and trade superpower the other a fearsome land warrior capable of ruling over European politics for centuries. Trade was a different concept for Britain which could not fight France playing like France. I can't say the same about Rome and Carthage at the moment..... maybe I haven't gotten good enough at the game yet to tell the difference.
I think what makes Roman History fascinating is tales of senatorial conspiracy and the effect of an absolute power given to say one as unfit as a caligula.
But it never comes to pass. I'm genuinely impartial to the whole affair because I've no stake in what happens after succession.
Who wins consul? Who cares, so long as he has half decent stats and isn't populist. Not using subject matter to its potential.
Not really though. I mean I know where America is. It is not really exploration. In stellaris I found strange new worlds , aliens and crazy events.
I agree here - as the player you should have the Senate (or the Court) nagging you for favours and influence. This shouldn't be a one off event but a repeated choice each year with insufficient goodies to keep everyone happy. The scorned family concept is great except that it affects so few families that it doesn't really do anything. I have too much "stuff" to give away in terms of offices and bribes to keep all but the most fractious government in check.
In addition to everything Centuria said, I think an important difference between Saxony and Aragon is not in where they begin, but in what they can become, via the mechanism of Idea Groups. While each could take the same groups, doing so would have different impacts on each.
In IR, countries can start out somewhat different (though not to the degree of even v1 EU4), but as the game goes on they become more alike. I’m currently playing as Mosylon, which I’d hoped to turn into a maritime trading power - but there isn’t really an option to do that. So now I’m just another Rome, but based on the Arabian Sea instead of the Med.
Completely agree. Post 609, pag 31 I wrote a similar comment and gave my ideas on what could be done better. Curious to hear your ideas about it.
Compelled to point out that no company truly acts like the customer is always right, for multiple reasons perhaps the most important of which is what happens when customers want two opposite things? They quite literally cannot both be right. Steve Jobs (you may have heard of him) is famous for deriding market research and listening to what customers want, because he believed people had no idea what they really wanted or what was possible. If the customer was always right, Apple should listen to me, right? Because I don't really like Apple products or the Apple eco-system and they should design everything so that I will be happy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how flawed that approach would be. In the case of this particular game, you have people in this thread on both sides of just about every issue, including the dreaded MANA. So no, the customer is not always right and no sane business ever truly acts like they are (although they may put on a show for you). If you want to argue that the majority of people want one thing, then sure, any business should listen to the majority of their customers. I just never mistake 300 people on the forum for the majority of PDS customers. Certainly the majority of the forum is important, but PDS has been burned badly in the past for mistaking a sizeable group on the forums as representing anything larger, most notably Napoleon's Ambition in EU3 where the company spent enormous resources on restoring the option to play historical monarchs and leaders into EU3 only to find out that most people actually didn't want to to do that at all, despite the very vocal and constant forum complaints.
And @Johan, you folks need to be prepared for a shitstorm the likes of which you have never seen whenever EU5 or CKIII comes out. People are going to unfairly compare them to the end states of EU4 and CKII and it is going to be ugly, uglier than this even.
And @Johan, you folks need to be prepared for a shitstorm the likes of which you have never seen whenever EU5 or CKIII comes out. People are going to unfairly compare them to the end states of EU4 and CKII and it is going to be ugly, uglier than this even.
I appreciate that the dev team is being forthcoming and frank. That helps a lot.
And don't get me wrong- fundamentally this is the game I've been waiting 10 years for...but only as a modder. As a modder, I've never been so excited to get at this game because of how much is available to simply script without having to reverse engineer half of it.
One thing I'd like to see you do is to show the incredible access that modders have to tweak every goddamm parameter in the game. While it is true that it is much more difficult to change things like UI placement and asset construction, and you should totally be focusing on that, giving significant commentary on what the variables in the 00_defines file do may help to quell some of the "this game is unfinished" rhetoric. Just a cursory glance at the forums have few mentions of the file, let alone the variables in it.
Even after 3 playthroughs I really didn't understand much of the behind the scenes mechanics (especially the AI) until I started reviewing that file. So much of the core of the game is abstracted and hidden in there. It's hard for people to appreciate the inner workings of a machine without giving them a guided tour.
Some of the loudest dissenting voices in the community are those that don't care to mod a game- they just want to play a crafted experience. I hate to see all this hard work go to waste on poor Steam reviews because they will never see those variables. The 00_defines file is just the tip of the iceberg; it shows all the thought you've put into the game design. Flaunt it a bit.
And don't get me wrong- fundamentally this is the game I've been waiting 10 years for...but only as a modder. As a modder, I've never been so excited to get at this game because of how much is available to simply script without having to reverse engineer half of it.
One thing I'd like to see you do is to show the incredible access that modders have to tweak every goddamm parameter in the game. While it is true that it is much more difficult to change things like UI placement and asset construction, and you should totally be focusing on that, giving significant commentary on what the variables in the 00_defines file do may help to quell some of the "this game is unfinished" rhetoric. Just a cursory glance at the forums have few mentions of the file, let alone the variables in it.
Even after 3 playthroughs I really didn't understand much of the behind the scenes mechanics (especially the AI) until I started reviewing that file. So much of the core of the game is abstracted and hidden in there. It's hard for people to appreciate the inner workings of a machine without giving them a guided tour.
Some of the loudest dissenting voices in the community are those that don't care to mod a game- they just want to play a crafted experience. I hate to see all this hard work go to waste on poor Steam reviews because they will never see those variables. The 00_defines file is just the tip of the iceberg; it shows all the thought you've put into the game design. Flaunt it a bit.
Maybe one of the problems was the supposition that most of the imperator fan base would come from EU Rome. I consider myself a Paradox game fan, but Ive never played EU Rome, Paradox games for me started with EU IV. A lot of Paradox fans exponentially grew since EU IV so I think it is understandable that people compare it that game. And also CK II which ive l
Also never played
I've just had an idea: naming the levels might make it feel more flavourful for the people who are complaining about the buildings. So instead of having x granaries, you go storehouse > granary > aqueduct, or whatever.
Obviously feel free to ignore me utterly, just trying to be helpful. Thanks for the great game
This building system sounds really cool, I made a little table as an example of something that you could implement in a tier-based building system. Obviously there are probably balancing issues etc. It's influenced from the building system in Rome: Total War (1) which I think was one of the best building systems I've seen in any games. Another thing is that each culture should have their own variations of these buildings, giving slightly different bonuses. ie. Forum could be a Bazaar for the Persian culture group, and give different modifiers. Thanks for your attention to the community! Really looking forward to the Pompey patch.
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It is strange that you don't understand that while half of the DD is about how game is barebones.
For example (I know that this will be fixed, but we are talking about the release version):
1) religions work the same way and differ only in name;
2) units are the same across the board (heavy infantry = phalanx, immortals, legions, etc);
3) 7 traditions across a lot of countries;
4) 4 types of buildings (basically a no-brainer and forces you to specialize provinces);
5) a lot of important tools are missing (character search? family tree?);
6) tactics<numbers and basically unimportant (and tedious);
7) no interesting/fun/basic decisions;
8) no mission system (tbh really loved it in EU4);
9) no culture/religion switching (though there is an option through event, which should be elaborated upon);
10) naval is LOL (EU3 level);
11) no child education;
12) the same model for all armies;
I could come up with some other examples, but not sure if I should.
Also, I wanted to say that I really loved the option to just place focus on conversion/assimilation. If you couldn't push-convert/assimilate pops, but buff the effect a bit - it would be better imho. And from this point I want to express another one - there is too much reliance on Monarch Power. All decisions in SP can be made on pause without consequences. Convert 100 pops into your religion in one day? Yeah, I:R is a bit weak in immersion.
The game has potential. Unfortunately, it is hidden behind a ton of small flaws.
With love and respect,
Mortheim
P.S.: I've preordered Deluxe Edition and had to buy the soundtrack separately. Worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.
The problem is much deeper than that. So far these series have been more or less iterative, but since with the current model the games have now become absolutely gargantuan, it kind of raises the question: Should they MAKE a new game, if it's just going to be a new engine but stripped of a billion features? I'm not sure if the comparison would be unfair at all. How many years after launch should people expect to have a game that's on the same level as the one they already have?
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Hey everyone, Paradox Studio's time is over. This is their Peter Molyneux era. It's time to move on - we had fun while it lasted anyway. Let's give the other devs opportunity whom are much younger much passionate less interested in milking us with DLCs. There is no point on discussing the issues because they already had 1.1 since release day, I don't think they will change their direction of the game. what's the point