Hey Paradox team,
Thank you for Europa Universasis Rome, one of my favourite games ever.
Some suggestions for future development:
1- An army should have the option to retreat into the wall of one of his cities (Like Vercingetorix did at Alesia) increasing drastically the capacity to defend the army and the city but at the expense of reducing the resistance to long siege because of the added consumption of food and water into the city.
2- An important difference should be made between coastal cities and in land cities. No completed surrounding does exist (for coastal cities) until you have a fleet controlling the sea access. Like it did happen to Athena in the Peloponese war. Until a coastal city will be completely surrounded by an army and a fleet, no food shortage or water shortage have any chance to happen.
3-An army facing a probable defeat against a stronger army should have the option to retreat to a defensive strong point and wait. The attacker then will have to make a decision between attacking the defensive position (and suffer a penalty in the battle) or wait for attrition effects to affect both armies and why not reinforcement. Like in the battle of Gergovie in the Gaul war and many others.
4- A sort of bill board should exist to know what are the realms who have the biggest armies, highest discipline, faster troops, best infrastructure, highest culture, ect. In this time you were making war and building impressive monuments not only for the advantage of them but also to be well known in the word and boost your reputation, what will affect your relationship with the other realms around. Realms will fear to declare war against you if you are well known to have biggest armies, strongest discipline etc. Realms with commanding Religious faction or theocracy will have a much stronger attraction to have a relationship with you if you have the best temples to the same gods as them. Civic faction will have a stronger attraction toward you if you are well know to have the most impressive building and civilisation value. Etc. In general the more impressive you are, the easiest it will become when it is time to deal with realm that share the same ideal as you.
5-When you have the faster ships on the sea and/or the faster troops on land, you should have the option of making fast raids to damage your enemy, relying on speed to retreat to your base instead of fighting the opposing armies and fleets. Harassment should be an option in war to damage your enemy economy and trade and boost his war exhaustion, and eventually force him into a disadvantaging peace. An option you would not really have if, because of your troop type or technology, you do not have the faster troops or ships, in such a case trying to use this harassment tactics would force you into conventional battles with opponent armies since you are not fast enough to retreat to your bases.
6- As king or consul, you should be able to rely on your friends, family member, same faction members, and corrupted peoples (by bridging them) to try to influence some important and tight decision and/or votes at the senate. That way, women characters would have as well a realistic impact on politics. Friends, family, marriages and children would gain more importance in the game. Of course, pushing to hard or too often using that type of influence would have the result of damaging your friendship with other characters, and even lead to divorce between some married characters. (Divorces were quite common in the ancient Rome)
7- In diplomacy with other realms and characters, you should be able to threat them or black mail them to push them to accept some critical decisions or vote as you want, with all the bad effects we can imagine from such tactics. But also, an opponent should be able to say no to your request and to answer with a counter proposal where he or she will try to trade what you want with what he/she wants.
8- In this period of time (Caesar wrote about it in the Gaul war) peace treaties were usually reinforce with the guarantee of several hostages given to the stronger opponent, or with an exchange of hostages. Attila the Hun lived in Rome for years because of that kind of deal. This should be an important element of the game where you will find yourself in a position where you cannot betray a truce because some of the children of your leaders are in the hands of your enemy for several years. But this process can also be positive in long terms, even create a boost in the relationship and can cause some exotic situations interesting to deal with. If the hostages are well treated, after years in a foreign country, the hostages would return in their original country with some possible boost for civilisation value and technology, as they will have learned much living in a valuable country for years. Also they may come back in their initial country having new friends, wife, husband and even children that will at some degree tie the two countries together. A leader may not want to declare a war against the country of his best friend, a friend he gained when he was previously a hostage at the conclusion of a previous war. On the other side badly treating a hostage or not releasing him at the end of a truce would seriously damage your reputation. As well, capturing a city should give you a fairly good chance of capturing the peoples in it.
9- Every character in a country should be manageable (at some degree) to try to boost is potential for future positive career bonus. You should be able to voyage him or her to visits friends and receives peoples at home for fancy diners, all that to try to boost the friendship a character may have with some and try to boost his popularity, two elements that would have a natural tendency to fade out with time if a character remain inactive for years. Various trips into various countries might amplify some skills the character would develop in contact with various civilisations and peoples. As an example, been in contact with a foreign prince at a young age in an official diplomatic trip may turn into a life long friendship that will impact the future of the two countries (especially if the Prince become the King) or will simply fade out if no visit has been made over years to keep alive this opportunity. However such a fancy life should be risky and expensive, only the richest characters should be able to have such voyages and fancy living, and only the provinces that are trading with others in seas generally free of pirates should be able to offer such opportunities at an acceptable level of risk and fair price. Otherwise it should be too expensive and too dangerous. Some characters could also choose to remain at home most of the time, trying to boost some various values in their own province, what might have some positive impact on their personal skills as well. Been an army councillor might boost the army skill as well as the military skills of the character. Working as a merchant would boost trade income… etc. Also a character should suffer a penalty when he is having a job at home and been away from the province most of the time. Also only the characters with a set value of loyalty should be manageable that way and only if you succeed to boost their personal advantages by doing so. Making any decision for a character that result into disadvantages for him would result into a loss a loyalty and eventually loosing the control the player would have on his life. You should feel you only have a limited impact on the life of characters and only if you manage it so well they feel a positive impact on their life, otherwise you should loose control on them. As an example, if a player ruins a character trying to push him desperately into risky and expensive trips to keep an important friendship alive with a leader into a distant province without this character to receive enough advantages from those trips and that friendship, he (the character) might simply turns back against his friend and insult him, ending this precious friendship. So you would only be able to control the characters of your realm as long as they can actually benefit from it, otherwise you will gradually loose their loyalty and will have to threat them or black mail them to make them do what you want. You would fall into tyranny, relying mostly on fear for obedience. But even then you might start to loose your most valuable characters as they will start to emigrate to more enjoyable countries, or selling their skills to the biggest money offer they will receive.
10- We should be able to espionage various characters into various countries, via various situations. Knowing some ashamed passed events on some might be useful to put a threat on them, black mail them to influence them to act against their own interest and conviction or simply having a strong lever to eventually smear their reputation. Espionage should also be a risky business as if you are been caught, it may lead to rivalries between characters and even war between countries. A revengeful prince becoming the King might want to have the head of an old friend who betrayed him by espionage, not receiving it (the head) he may even have a tendency to start a war or drastically reducing the relationship with the country who protect his rival. Caesar received the head of Pompee as a gift from the King of Egypt; been unhappy about the gift he finally received the murderer as a gift as well. At that time, Politics and wars had often a very personal component.
I hope you enjoy some of them.
Thank you for Europa Universasis Rome, one of my favourite games ever.
Some suggestions for future development:
1- An army should have the option to retreat into the wall of one of his cities (Like Vercingetorix did at Alesia) increasing drastically the capacity to defend the army and the city but at the expense of reducing the resistance to long siege because of the added consumption of food and water into the city.
2- An important difference should be made between coastal cities and in land cities. No completed surrounding does exist (for coastal cities) until you have a fleet controlling the sea access. Like it did happen to Athena in the Peloponese war. Until a coastal city will be completely surrounded by an army and a fleet, no food shortage or water shortage have any chance to happen.
3-An army facing a probable defeat against a stronger army should have the option to retreat to a defensive strong point and wait. The attacker then will have to make a decision between attacking the defensive position (and suffer a penalty in the battle) or wait for attrition effects to affect both armies and why not reinforcement. Like in the battle of Gergovie in the Gaul war and many others.
4- A sort of bill board should exist to know what are the realms who have the biggest armies, highest discipline, faster troops, best infrastructure, highest culture, ect. In this time you were making war and building impressive monuments not only for the advantage of them but also to be well known in the word and boost your reputation, what will affect your relationship with the other realms around. Realms will fear to declare war against you if you are well known to have biggest armies, strongest discipline etc. Realms with commanding Religious faction or theocracy will have a much stronger attraction to have a relationship with you if you have the best temples to the same gods as them. Civic faction will have a stronger attraction toward you if you are well know to have the most impressive building and civilisation value. Etc. In general the more impressive you are, the easiest it will become when it is time to deal with realm that share the same ideal as you.
5-When you have the faster ships on the sea and/or the faster troops on land, you should have the option of making fast raids to damage your enemy, relying on speed to retreat to your base instead of fighting the opposing armies and fleets. Harassment should be an option in war to damage your enemy economy and trade and boost his war exhaustion, and eventually force him into a disadvantaging peace. An option you would not really have if, because of your troop type or technology, you do not have the faster troops or ships, in such a case trying to use this harassment tactics would force you into conventional battles with opponent armies since you are not fast enough to retreat to your bases.
6- As king or consul, you should be able to rely on your friends, family member, same faction members, and corrupted peoples (by bridging them) to try to influence some important and tight decision and/or votes at the senate. That way, women characters would have as well a realistic impact on politics. Friends, family, marriages and children would gain more importance in the game. Of course, pushing to hard or too often using that type of influence would have the result of damaging your friendship with other characters, and even lead to divorce between some married characters. (Divorces were quite common in the ancient Rome)
7- In diplomacy with other realms and characters, you should be able to threat them or black mail them to push them to accept some critical decisions or vote as you want, with all the bad effects we can imagine from such tactics. But also, an opponent should be able to say no to your request and to answer with a counter proposal where he or she will try to trade what you want with what he/she wants.
8- In this period of time (Caesar wrote about it in the Gaul war) peace treaties were usually reinforce with the guarantee of several hostages given to the stronger opponent, or with an exchange of hostages. Attila the Hun lived in Rome for years because of that kind of deal. This should be an important element of the game where you will find yourself in a position where you cannot betray a truce because some of the children of your leaders are in the hands of your enemy for several years. But this process can also be positive in long terms, even create a boost in the relationship and can cause some exotic situations interesting to deal with. If the hostages are well treated, after years in a foreign country, the hostages would return in their original country with some possible boost for civilisation value and technology, as they will have learned much living in a valuable country for years. Also they may come back in their initial country having new friends, wife, husband and even children that will at some degree tie the two countries together. A leader may not want to declare a war against the country of his best friend, a friend he gained when he was previously a hostage at the conclusion of a previous war. On the other side badly treating a hostage or not releasing him at the end of a truce would seriously damage your reputation. As well, capturing a city should give you a fairly good chance of capturing the peoples in it.
9- Every character in a country should be manageable (at some degree) to try to boost is potential for future positive career bonus. You should be able to voyage him or her to visits friends and receives peoples at home for fancy diners, all that to try to boost the friendship a character may have with some and try to boost his popularity, two elements that would have a natural tendency to fade out with time if a character remain inactive for years. Various trips into various countries might amplify some skills the character would develop in contact with various civilisations and peoples. As an example, been in contact with a foreign prince at a young age in an official diplomatic trip may turn into a life long friendship that will impact the future of the two countries (especially if the Prince become the King) or will simply fade out if no visit has been made over years to keep alive this opportunity. However such a fancy life should be risky and expensive, only the richest characters should be able to have such voyages and fancy living, and only the provinces that are trading with others in seas generally free of pirates should be able to offer such opportunities at an acceptable level of risk and fair price. Otherwise it should be too expensive and too dangerous. Some characters could also choose to remain at home most of the time, trying to boost some various values in their own province, what might have some positive impact on their personal skills as well. Been an army councillor might boost the army skill as well as the military skills of the character. Working as a merchant would boost trade income… etc. Also a character should suffer a penalty when he is having a job at home and been away from the province most of the time. Also only the characters with a set value of loyalty should be manageable that way and only if you succeed to boost their personal advantages by doing so. Making any decision for a character that result into disadvantages for him would result into a loss a loyalty and eventually loosing the control the player would have on his life. You should feel you only have a limited impact on the life of characters and only if you manage it so well they feel a positive impact on their life, otherwise you should loose control on them. As an example, if a player ruins a character trying to push him desperately into risky and expensive trips to keep an important friendship alive with a leader into a distant province without this character to receive enough advantages from those trips and that friendship, he (the character) might simply turns back against his friend and insult him, ending this precious friendship. So you would only be able to control the characters of your realm as long as they can actually benefit from it, otherwise you will gradually loose their loyalty and will have to threat them or black mail them to make them do what you want. You would fall into tyranny, relying mostly on fear for obedience. But even then you might start to loose your most valuable characters as they will start to emigrate to more enjoyable countries, or selling their skills to the biggest money offer they will receive.
10- We should be able to espionage various characters into various countries, via various situations. Knowing some ashamed passed events on some might be useful to put a threat on them, black mail them to influence them to act against their own interest and conviction or simply having a strong lever to eventually smear their reputation. Espionage should also be a risky business as if you are been caught, it may lead to rivalries between characters and even war between countries. A revengeful prince becoming the King might want to have the head of an old friend who betrayed him by espionage, not receiving it (the head) he may even have a tendency to start a war or drastically reducing the relationship with the country who protect his rival. Caesar received the head of Pompee as a gift from the King of Egypt; been unhappy about the gift he finally received the murderer as a gift as well. At that time, Politics and wars had often a very personal component.
I hope you enjoy some of them.
