Love in Imperator

[IsaacCAT]

While enjoying Partenope at the theatre, I wonder why there is not a single event that involves love between characters in Imperator.

Was it an oversight? There are many possibilities for stories between princeps and major families. Was it supressed to avoid comparison with CK?

It seems strange to me. I am not asking a love CB like the ancient war for Troy, but some flavour with romance will be very welcome. Or was it saved for a later Love DLC?

 

[DukeLeto42]

The Ars Amatoria DLC?

 

[Jiben]

Cleopatra patch when?

 

[Chaostrian]

A vercingetorix update would be nice some love and differences between the tribes

 

[Snow Crystal]

I can only speak for myself, but it was only Joe and I who were purely Content Designers for most of Imperator's lifetime, so I am half of the duo who worked on the game for most of its development when it comes to content.

Originally it was because I felt it was really hard to work with characters. The character system is, in my opinion, one of the worst flaws of Imperator (we will talk about one of the other flaws a tad later). They felt hard to work with, as they aren't really as built up CK's character system, and I find that they can be really hard to differentiate as a player. It does not help that you don't really play as a character, or as a state, but a weird in-between mix. You also have a bunch of characters, whereas very few of them feel particularly notable or special, particularly if you don't pay special attention to them. I know Peter tried to fix this later down Imperator's lifetime with things like making specific characters pop up more, and the like, but I never felt it worked as more than a light band-aid fix to a glaring problem in the game.

As we started working on patches, and particularly after 1.3, we hit the biggest content problem for Imperator. Mission trees, our biggest mistake through patch development, if you ask me. I know there are mixed opinions on them. They took an incredible amount of time, were too rail-roading in what they did, and in the end I think they only exacerbated some of Imperator's problems, rather than fixing anything. As a developer on the project at the time, it felt like CDs were stretched thin between making missions, adding new features (religion rework in 1.4, republic rework in 1.5, or one of the many plethora of changes in 2.0), and fixing old problems in the game. There wasn't a lot of time to add events in-between all of that, and if I made them I didn't want to have to go through the wonky character system to do it, then I'd rather do something with the country or a state (what would be called province in-game) instead, something I felt were the strong points of Imperator.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Thank you for the insight, very honest.

I am aware that the system is complex and cumbersome sometimes, but they say there is beauty in wrinkles and I love and enjoy your frankstein with all its defects.

 

[WingedLion14]

That explains a lot actually, because as someone with no knowledge of coding/programming in any capacity, but who has studied the ancient world for years, the character system always seemed like something of a missed opportunity; the Hellenistic period and Late Republic were filled with larger-than-life figures who have been semi-mythologized, after all.

 

[Trunting]

Again, snow crystal sightings in the Mediterranean... how odd...

 

[manager2525]

And I thought I was the only one that was doubting that mission trees were the solution to all issues (and cure for all ailments ). Honestly if modifiers, events and game mechanics in different tags make you play in a different way, rather than having some sort of missions railroading you to certain goals, that is the most preferable and dynamic way of playing. Then again I understand that creating all the above in not a simple feat and requires time and resources.
Sorry for getting a bit of topic.

 

[Decius]

@Snow Crystal In hindsight, how would you have preferred to implement characters in I:R?

But it's sad to hear, that characters weren't a thing you as developer enjoyed. I know there are players, who share your opinion, but for me they are very important in I:R. I understand the issues with characters you mentioned, but I like more the approach of Arheo to fix them over time instead of abandoning them. I know it's a lot of work, but more portrait variants (faces, haircuts and clothes) for each culture would have helped to distinguish them more. In my eyes there would have been still a lot of potential for cool character involvement and events.

I understand you totally about missions. I only loved the Diadochi ones, because at that point I:R had fleshed out mechanics you were able to implement in the mission trees and the narrative texts were better and more interesting. The former trees really lacked exciting objectives and to quite some extent narratives. But on the other hand, they are very focused on a few nations and as you said, there wasn't really time left to add more events for all nations or for larger groups of nations.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Mission trees, our biggest mistake through patch development, if you ask me. I know there are mixed opinions on them. They took an incredible amount of time, were too rail-roading in what they did, and in the end I think they only exacerbated some of Imperator's problems, rather than fixing anything.

Dear @Snow Crystal, please answer this important question: were Imperator's dynamic mission trees much more diffcult to code than the static Focus tree in HoI IV?

 

[Yuanshu]

It does not help that you don't really play as a character, or as a state, but a weird in-between mix.

But this is one of the interesting points I see in IR. For example I can't continue campaigns in CK3 because after a few hours I start to find the game boring with that lot of repeated events that I've seen several times and the rest, well CK3 has a horrible war system ( that the territory is free to enemy troops walk ), a silly construction system, and a horrible research system.

But already in IR the factor that I am not a character or a country gives me an impression that I am an Entity ( Maybe a God? ) that I can influence the country's decisions ( Trade Goods, Change Laws, Establish which Populations will be considered citizens, etc ), influences characters ( Arranging marriage, murdering troublesome characters, Conquering territories by corrupting enemy governor... )

If IR didn't have characters it would lose a lot of its shine I really like to see the Historical characters, like the Diadochis, Arsaces appearing when Dahae is formed, when Diadotus emerged in Bactria and becomes King that's for those who are Fans of the Stories of Antiquity and Very Satisfying!

If IR were to take something from CK3 it would be that personality traits have a greater impact on the game ( both in events related between characters and events in the country ) of course the priority would be those characters who occupy important positions, or maybe some character or family on the rise... so that events don't become tiring

Another thing would be a family tree I would really like to trace some characters, see where that lost son of that kingdom that no longer exists, see what marriages between characters I made so that my heir had the bloodlines of different kingdoms, that kind thing I think this would give a deeper connection between player and character

A yes one more thing Give back to Minor Families! I really hate this Family System and these Minor characters that come out of nowhere!

 

[x8ight]

In our MP mod for Imperator we've added a number of character interactions where you can invest in improving a character in your nation. Having played with these changes for a while now, it became pretty apparently how much more engaged I was with the characters that I was able to invest in so as to make my nation better. I might not intimately know these characters, but they definitely stand out as my "good" characters (i.e. the guy with 17 martial whom I invested a lot of gold and PI in), and I'm constantly keeping tabs on them to make sure they are healthy and happy. If there ever comes a day for new updates, letting the player develop their nation's characters along with the nation itself would make a huge difference, in my opinion.

 

[Snow Crystal]

@Snow Crystal In hindsight, how would you have preferred to implement characters in I:R?

Impossible to say, really. I honestly don't know what you'd have to do, to make the character aspect a better experience.

Dear @Snow Crystal, please answer this important question: were Imperator's dynamic mission trees much more diffcult to code than the static Focus tree in HoI IV?

Good question. I have no idea. I've never made a focus tree in my life, nor seen the inner workings of one. But I find it interesting you want to compare something that a Content Designer spends 4-6 months creating (a focus tree), versus something we had a week to create (a mission tree).

 

[Dracupuncture]

we had a week to create (a mission tree).

ouch thats rough, I might be a minority but I have really enjoyed the missions, even if they are railroady they certainly helped give me some direction when learning the game and not knowing what i wanted to do.

either way i stand by imperator being a pretty great game (especially with 2.0) I hope its gets some more love in the future <3

@Snow Crystal what would you love to see in the game (regardless of feasibility)?

 

[Terixis]

I feel like the tags that got full-fledged mission trees in the DLCs benefit greatly from them, so your effort is appreciated. I actually also really like the various greek trees for "generic" tags; being based on your location means I'm getting a different experience playing Massalia vs Byzantion. The only problem with missions is that you can sometimes get stuck on some weird buildings or trade good missions but it's usually not a big deal.

Characters though, they're just kind of there. If the angry red hand icon pops up then give free hands/bribe/make friends until it goes away. And getting 10 zeal on my ruler to implement Divinity Statute is pain since it's basically impossible to influence your ruler's stats outside of the one-time boosts from a few inventions.

 

[Snow Crystal]

@Snow Crystal what would you love to see in the game (regardless of feasibility)?

A disease system, and a proper system for large tribal movements.

 

[Dracupuncture]

A disease system, and a proper system for large tribal movements.

that would be a wicked addition to the game, especially the diseases, sanitation could become a whole thing (and all will bow to rome's sanitary water-ways)

"lined with lead for your peace of mind"

 

[Bovrick]

Impossible to say, really. I honestly don't know what you'd have to do, to make the character aspect a better experience.

I think I recommended it a long time ago - but I think the best route for characters in a game like IR is to take inspiration from FootballManager style games. You get your intake of Characters as your squad, that you're trying to allocate to various positions in order to get performance in other areas of the game. They build their own feelings towards each other, cliques (via Family/Faction), but these are things to consider that you can only nudge. You're wanting to balance factors like employing the best people to each position now, nurturing future talents to take over, balancing the ambitions of Characters who're after more power/wealth than you'd ideally want to be granting them. The general ethos absolutely seemed to follow that principle, but the way things were laid out often made it feel like random chores popping up that didn't matter enough.

FM benefits from a turn-based approach, which keeps a good rhythm; and a nice user-experience in allocating people to positions. Democratic cycles could've brought a similar rhythm, just get the player to select who has each position every x years. No need to enforce pausing at that point or anything, have a screen always available to shuffle who goes where after the next election, including expected next holders of certain offices that are outside of the control of the payer. Have options to queue people into different offices, so you can do the grand succession planning at any time rather than just reacting every time someone in office kicks the bucket.

If it gets too much like micro-management, then aspects like Democracy/Inheritance can select people to positions away from your control, and granting privileges to certain Characters/Positions (eg to Governor selects their own Staff, or a member of the inner court selects Governors etc) can lessen the amount players have to focus there at the cost of efficiency/nepotism building power-blocs.

Fully agree about a different Tribal Movement system, it could've really brought the era alive (and made it viable to extend in time and geography) and differentiated from the other Pdx games.

 

[finmise]

It does not help that you don't really play as a character, or as a state, but a weird in-between mix.

This binary status is amazing. I really enjoy it.