Suggestions for Imperator II

[trewajg]

Having said all of this, I would repeat a prior theme I've put in this and some other threads - this I:R series would do well to transition away from "Rome" centric naming and design, and instead become a broader "Age of Antiquity" game series in which Rome is simply a dominant empire.

I actually completely agree with that, given that playing Rome in Imperator is the least fun of the tags to play while also being the first time experience most people will have when playing the game. Other majors like any of the Diadochi are a lot of fun, and the best ones are the smaller ones, like Massalia, Athens, Sparta. Rome is just unengaging map painting while playing the easiest nation at start. However I think simply dropping the "Rome" and calling it "Imperator" only would suffice.
I would also like for the series in the future to lean more into the "civilisation building" mindset in the sense that you are building and shaping your civilisation troughout the game. Right now in Imperator every action and decision's purpose is to fuel more conquest. Getting more pops and integrating and assimilating cultures for more levies; getting more pop happiness for a more stable state in order to whitstand more AE from expansion... Every decision from laws and research to buildings and pops only serve to blob harder. I think the game could learn a lot from Stellaris and less from EU4.

 

[Johan]

However I think simply dropping the "Rome" and calling it "Imperator" only would suffice.

Ironically that was what I wanted to call the game. Rome was added to help out marketing the game. It was the same with EU: Rome, which I wanted to be called "Rome Victorious!", but we needed to add the EU name to it to make it easier to sell.

 

[darkyodada]

Ironically, Imperator had the biggest "free" post-launch support ever for a Paradox in the hope of getting the playerbase back up.

And is it the players fault that the game was so bad at the start?

Ok paradox trying to improve the game, but:
first, it took two years to have a game that can be taken on the road.
secondly, 2.0 doesn't exist if the players didn't yell when the dlc was announced on the special landmarks.
thirdly, no dlc has brought new possibilities
fourthly, the modding possibilities are close to zero, not to mention the limit of the number of tags which is just a shame for a paradox game.
and lately, it's not because paradox trying to improve their game after a bad start, that they authorize them not to come and talk to us for almost 2 years after telling us that the game was on hiatus for lack of personal. A lie. The COVID has been very useful to a lot of companies to justify everything.

 

[Zylathas]

Ironically that was what I wanted to call the game. Rome was added to help out marketing the game. It was the same with EU: Rome, which I wanted to be called "Rome Victorious!", but we needed to add the EU name to it to make it easier to sell.

Absolutely offtopic, but a compliment for still commenting here as often as you do and giving some great insights to boot. I really miss these kind of dev interactions we used to have on the forums sometimes! (From a long time fan of the paradox series)

 

[manager2525]

Ironically, Imperator had the biggest "free" post-launch support ever for a Paradox in the hope of getting the playerbase back up.

In regards to darkyodada's post I think that the point is that, excluding possible marketing reasons, I cannot see a reason to make a new game set in antiquity in the following 2-3 years (and not to build on Imperator). The game seems in no way dated. The structure and base mechanics are there and have yet to be exploited to their full potential. I understand though that marketing reasons could be enough to pressure into making an Imperator 2.

 

[Gurkhal]

I think that this has been mentioned many times but I wanted to write it down and posted so that there's no risk of it being overlooked or such.

Starting historical flavour

I would say, as many, many have done before, that the starting games needs more historical flavor at start. I realize that you can't hope to fill in 10+ years of patches, upgrades and DLC at launch but I would think that some serious flavor for the tags with the most name recognition and thus most likely to interest players (or what information Paradox Devs can get from data collected on which tags people play the most), like Rome, Sparta, Athens etc. and some general flavor for cultural, geographic or religious groups to ensure that they are not bare bones at start.

 

[Jiben]

If imperator 2 ever comes I don't expect it this decade but if a successor ever comes I'd like manpower to either be removed or revoked, kinda drastic I know.

I'd want soldiers to have some relation to your pops so that if you lose 10k men during a battle that is 10k men that won't return to their previous occupations, at the same time if an army faced heavy losses you'd need to raise new cohorts to reinforce the army (more pops lost) and it would not automatically reinforce itself. This would make it impossible or at least hard to reinforce armies in enemy territory.

Perhaps expand pop types to have a soldier pop/caste for when you start to use standing armies to symbolize soldiers by profession. They would be at 0 naturally, but you'd get them by building buildings and such. Losing a devastating battle where most soldier pops die should be catastrophic.

Idk on exactly how but I'd like pops to replace manpower at least.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

If imperator 2 ever comes I don't expect it this decade but if a successor ever comes I'd like manpower to either be removed or revoked, kinda drastic I know.

I'd want soldiers to have some relation to your pops so that if you lose 10k men during a battle that is 10k men that won't return to their previous occupations, at the same time if an army faced heavy losses you'd need to raise new cohorts to reinforce the army (more pops lost) and it would not automatically reinforce itself. This would make it impossible or at least hard to reinforce armies in enemy territory.

Perhaps expand pop types to have a soldier pop/caste for when you start to use standing armies to symbolize soldiers by profession. They would be at 0 naturally, but you'd get them by building buildings and such. Losing a devastating battle where most soldier pops die should be catastrophic.

Idk on exactly how but I'd like pops to replace manpower at least.

While I don't disagree for a conscripted force, as to your logic that the same/same soldier in the war is also the farmer after the war, the game still needs a metric to draw from to account for how many (or how little) manpower there is to raise up for Levies.
Add in the other fact that a professional army (currently tagged as "Legion" for I:R) would not return to the farm, and in themselves would require some Manpower number metric as the pool to backfill.
If we were to take your approach and see it more realistically implemented in the game, think of it this way (and turn your idea on its head) - in that you could go "negative" in manpower that then dips into national production, nerfing output in all contributing provinces who now have manpower shortages -- not for the army, but simply to farm or craft or mine and such. What we haven't seen from Paradox yet across their games that do use Pops and Manpower (except maybe HOI4 to its credit in this one regard) - is a more macro system that takes all of the above into account, and helps better represent the "cost of war" on a nation, especially its raw-goods economy that conscripted troops are drawn from.

So I agree with the "spirit of" your suggestion but I think there's a much more macro and technical way that the PDX Designer/Dev's could take this on, and I think it could be a win/win for all of us who would like to see more of those details flushed out in a future game -- whether it's an Age of Antiquity game, an I:R 2, or even EU5 (yes @Johan , bring back the Pops in EU series! - but consider this advice also about a better way to show available troops for both Conscripts and the Professional armies, while simultaneously showing economic/goods/trade impacts to a society that pays the cost of pulling their men from those tasks and into an army).

 

[Gurkhal]

Flipping the vassal swarm and turning unintegrated provinces

This is something which I've suggested earlier but I'll bring it here as well. That is a system for flipping hostile vassals during a war and make them come over to your side. Examples of this is so prevalient in the ancient world that I don't think that I'll need to offer examples, but its strange that we can't do the same in the game.

Hence I think that if you manage to capture the capital and perhaps 2/3 av a vassal's regional capitals and fortresses you can make that vassal flipp sides and become your own vassal with a new government in place, and the armed forces presumably teleported to the capital to avoid them auto-dying right away. And personally I could also see this play out with provinces of a tag that has a 3-1 ration of unintegrated culture POPs to integrated culture POPs. These can also be inducted to switch sides during war. The lower the provincial loyalty is, the easier it would be to make them, perhaps, declare independence and join in the war against their former tag.

I think that this would make it more possible, yet again, to take on blobs along with historical flavor and allowing for another strategy in war. Not to mention that it would make it necessary for a blob to actually defend its territory more actively and thus force it to not allow some enemies to run rampagent before turning to deal with them. Being attacked from several directions by several enemies should be a dangerous situation also for a mighty blob.

 

[myrt]

Ironically, Imperator had the biggest "free" post-launch support ever for a Paradox in the hope of getting the playerbase back up.

I think it could have worked if it was more than just one update followed by radio silence, e.g. announcing an expansion as well. It certainly reinvigorated me and my friends' interest, but seeing that "that was it" and tons of issues remained, most lost interest again. Without the Marius update though, I'd never buy the game at all.

 

[Synen]

I think it could have worked if it was more than just one update followed by radio silence, e.g. announcing an expansion as well. It certainly reinvigorated me and my friends' interest, but seeing that "that was it" and tons of issues remained, most lost interest again. Without the Marius update though, I'd never buy the game at all.

I had a similar experience as you. When 2.0 came out everyone that I knew loved and enjoyed playing the game again. Then came the news that the development was being stopped and everyone just lost interest in the game.

I don't know if continued development would have saved the game (I would like to think that it would have since 2.0 had/has a lot of potential and was received positively) but judging from my experience most people for some reason don't want to spend time playing a game whose development has stopped and will simply move on to other games.

 

[ashbery76]

We dont need Imperator II.We need this game with more stuff.

 

[Johan]

I think it could have worked if it was more than just one update followed by radio silence, e.g. announcing an expansion as well. It certainly reinvigorated me and my friends' interest, but seeing that "that was it" and tons of issues remained, most lost interest again. Without the Marius update though, I'd never buy the game at all.

one update? We did 6 major "expansion-sized" updates for Imperator.

The game was released in April 2019, and then we did the following. Of course each update contained far more tweaks and fixes than listed here.

1.1 - June 2019

• Major Naval Additions, with 6 naval units, navigable rivers, lots of new unit abilities for navies.
• Ledger added
• Deeper Holdings mechanics
• Government Actions like War Council etc.
• Province Actions
• Co-Consuls for Rome, and other dual-rulers mechanics.
• We split up omens to that each religion had their own omens.
• Heritages for countries, to make for different starts
• Volcanos & Storms added
• Improving stability, war exhaustion & legitimacy no longer instant, but over-time.
  

1.2 - Septeber 2019

• Major pop-rework. The player no longer manully handles them, but they promote, demote, migrate etc on their own.
• Complete removal of mana
• Military Experience gained from combat and training troops is now used for getting Military Traditions.
• Provinces are no longer all the same, and instead some are cities, which has different types of buildings than rural settlements.
• Food mechanics implemented, where you need rural lands to provide food.
• 16 more buildings added
• All laws changed to fit better for Monarchies, Republics and Tribes
  

1.3 - Septeber 2019

• The Mission system added
• Families reworked, with Great Families mechanics
• Map changes to places like Sicily, Greece etc.
• A mapmode manager similar to EU4
• Subject Interactions like EU4 has.
• New logistics system where armies have to gather and carry food for their campaigns.
• A free DLC "The Punic Wars" with Roman and Carthaginian missions and graphics.

Yeah, I can continue with the next 3 as well, but you get the point..

For more details go https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Patches

 

[juanen]

one update? We did 6 major "expansion-sized" updates for Imperator.

The game was released in April 2019, and then we did the following. Of course each update contained far more tweaks and fixes than listed here.

1.1 - June 2019

• Major Naval Additions, with 6 naval units, navigable rivers, lots of new unit abilities for navies.
• Ledger added
• Deeper Holdings mechanics
• Government Actions like War Council etc.
• Province Actions
• Co-Consuls for Rome, and other dual-rulers mechanics.
• We split up omens to that each religion had their own omens.
• Heritages for countries, to make for different starts
• Volcanos & Storms added
• Improving stability, war exhaustion & legitimacy no longer instant, but over-time.

1.2 - Septeber 2019

• Major pop-rework. The player no longer manully handles them, but they promote, demote, migrate etc on their own.
• Complete removal of mana
• Military Experience gained from combat and training troops is now used for getting Military Traditions.
• Provinces are no longer all the same, and instead some are cities, which has different types of buildings than rural settlements.
• Food mechanics implemented, where you need rural lands to provide food.
• 16 more buildings added
• All laws changed to fit better for Monarchies, Republics and Tribes

1.3 - Septeber 2019

• The Mission system added
• Families reworked, with Great Families mechanics
• Map changes to places like Sicily, Greece etc.
• A mapmode manager similar to EU4
• Subject Interactions like EU4 has.
• New logistics system where armies have to gather and carry food for their campaigns.
• A free DLC "The Punic Wars" with Roman and Carthaginian missions and graphics.

Yeah, I can continue with the next 3 as well, but you get the point..

For more details go https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Patches

I also saw and followed all the big work that imperator team did to try and improve the game.
I think that replies like the one you address show that there was a problem communicating the reworks and upgrades that the team made to the public. It's not the first message we see around from people like this.
We can blame them for this, or we can learn from this for next time it happens.
I hope pdx took notes of this, and specially the team of victoria 3.
Imperator's biggest problem was that most people stopped caring about it.

 

[darkyodada]

one update? We did 6 major "expansion-sized" updates for Imperator.

The game was released in April 2019, and then we did the following. Of course each update contained far more tweaks and fixes than listed here.

1.1 - June 2019

• Major Naval Additions, with 6 naval units, navigable rivers, lots of new unit abilities for navies.
• Ledger added
• Deeper Holdings mechanics
• Government Actions like War Council etc.
• Province Actions
• Co-Consuls for Rome, and other dual-rulers mechanics.
• We split up omens to that each religion had their own omens.
• Heritages for countries, to make for different starts
• Volcanos & Storms added
• Improving stability, war exhaustion & legitimacy no longer instant, but over-time.

1.2 - Septeber 2019

• Major pop-rework. The player no longer manully handles them, but they promote, demote, migrate etc on their own.
• Complete removal of mana
• Military Experience gained from combat and training troops is now used for getting Military Traditions.
• Provinces are no longer all the same, and instead some are cities, which has different types of buildings than rural settlements.
• Food mechanics implemented, where you need rural lands to provide food.
• 16 more buildings added
• All laws changed to fit better for Monarchies, Republics and Tribes

1.3 - Septeber 2019

• The Mission system added
• Families reworked, with Great Families mechanics
• Map changes to places like Sicily, Greece etc.
• A mapmode manager similar to EU4
• Subject Interactions like EU4 has.
• New logistics system where armies have to gather and carry food for their campaigns.
• A free DLC "The Punic Wars" with Roman and Carthaginian missions and graphics.

Yeah, I can continue with the next 3 as well, but you get the point..

For more details go https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Patches

Are we talking about the fact that it should have been for the vast majority in the base games?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Hindsight is such a powerful weapon.

I only ask that I:R 2 involves all the knowhow of PDS doing GSG with a development process that involves players since the beginning with an early access that allows changing basic design points.

Of course you cannot cater to everyone, is I:R 2 be going to be a niche game? Or a popular one? How much players should be allowed to shape the vision of what the game will be? Who will be to blame if the game is not a commercial success after all?

My point is that this experience has value for me and that I will be paying for early access.

Three clients: early access, release and long time clients. Probably there is another four type of client: returning client. You want to keep them all! Go catch! Pokemon!

 

[darkyodada]

Hindsight is such a powerful weapon.

I only ask that I:R 2 involves all the knowhow of PDS doing GSG with a development process that involves players since the beginning with an early access that allows changing basic design points.

Of course you cannot cater to everyone, is I:R 2 be going to be a niche game? Or a popular one? How much players should be allowed to shape the vision of what the game will be? Who will be to blame if the game is not a commercial success after all?

My point is that this experience has value for me and that I will be paying for early access.

Three clients: early access, release and long time clients. Probably there is another four type of client: returning client. You want to keep them all! Go catch! Pokemon!

Not get excited. Imperator 2 is not for tomorrow. If one day it happens it will be like for victoria 3.
The only problem for me is that they will put money in another game when we already have the base with the current game.

But hey, like any business, why take over an existing thing to improve it when you can sell the same thing more expensive and if it doesn't work, make players understand that it's because they didn't buy en masse that the game is over.

 

[Chaostrian]

The only problem for me is that they will put money in another game when we already have the base with the current game

yes, i dont like to see on my steam that i got 2 Imperator:Rome's when the one is at the time a solid game with potential and the second one is starting from zero again maybe not with the problem that the first game got but with different other problems that can even bring the second game to dead...

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

[truncated Johan's response] 1.3 - Septeber 2019

• Families reworked, with Great Families mechanics

@Johan - we need to "get real" about Families in I:R. The Family system was a horrible design from the start, and unsalvageable no matter how you tweaked it later.

It's like a 1980s video game functionality inside this game - unwieldy, near-useless system, but more importantly, it's as if it "Lacks Soul" to get any sense of connection and immersion to "care about" any/all of the characters (family or otherwise) in this game. Just flat-out Bad Design choices that should have resulted in the Game Designer being put in the Paradox "Penalty Box."

I've tried all government types, from Migratory Tribe, to Settled Tribe, to all the Republic variants, to Monarchy variants, to Dictator -- no matter the system, the Family system remains mostly the same, without much use or functionality.

In contrast to Crusader Kings II - this I:R Family system is not even "elementary" -- it's toddler drooling stupid. I'm being frank/honest with you, and someone, anyone with leadership at Paradox should have course corrected the Design of the family system and totally overhauled it.

To put a bullet-point list which may have some use for future reference, especially if Paradox were to decide to "open the hood" and overhaul the current I:R game we have now (not holding my breath) but also just to keep in mind when/if a successor is considered to I:R, here goes.

- Dynasty system for some government types would be preferred, especially Monarchies and Dictatorships (much like the differences in the way CK2 handles a Monarchy vs a Great City/Republic, where Dynasties matter more for Monarchy but can be erased in Republics).
- Marriage system that gives the player more control. In I:R you can have 5+ women of child-bearing age who don't get married - unheard of in this era/age). You can end up with Tribal leaders who never married, and they're 60+ years old in game age.
- Married couples that only have 1-2 children. This game isn't set in 2020s modern day, it's old era. You had as many children as possible to enable future generations to succeed in the face of attrition from disease and wars. All Paradox games have this presentation issue, and it really should be reconsidered to more properly portray the child-bearing rates of the era, which were typically 4-6 children (and national leaders would often have 3-4 wives over time if a wife died bearing a child, is another point, that this system in I:R does not help portray).
- Tutoring only occurs in certain government types, and only if you happen to remember when your child turns of-age to be tutored. It's not "automatic" like it should be, such as what CK2 has with a designated Tutor in the Court that automatically instructs children as they grow up. Automation of tutoring is a good thing, current system and limitations aren't helpful.
- There is zero influence that the national leader can have on the direction of their next generation of leaders, whether they should focus more toward military/war instruction, or toward economic improvements and systems (to include trade).
- The separate Family Lines have no "theme" to them (and I'd argue totally against this "line" approach that is not GUI/User friendly as well), but the point is, Family X vs Family Y shows no clear difference in what their goals are. Is Family X more worried about being militarily superior, or Family Y is more concerned with their status in Economic positions, or Family Z is more concerned with the science and research (or religion/theocratic leadership), on and on. No "soul" in these families, regardless of religion, the substance of "what we believe as a Family" just isn't there. Just a group of icons in a line presentation without effective functionality for interpersonal relationships or development.

This list could be much longer, but I will cut it off here. This single topic - the dynamic of Family lines, potential for dynasties (in certain systems esp Monarchies), the GUI and presentation, the way marriages and child-bearing are more or less restricted from player interaction, and the "raising up future generations" with Tutoring and Mentorship along certain lines/themes, are the hard conversations that need to be had, for this I:R game series, and any Paradox game series that is "grand strategy" and I hope you stay connected here and help improve upon this issue for future PDX games.

 

[Johan]

- Marriage system that gives the player more control. In I:R you can have 5+ women of child-bearing age who don't get married - unheard of in this era/age). You can end up with Tribal leaders who never married, and they're 60+ years old in game age.
- Married couples that only have 1-2 children. This game isn't set in 2020s modern day, it's old era. You had as many children as possible to enable future generations to succeed in the face of attrition from disease and wars. All Paradox games have this presentation issue, and it really should be reconsidered to more properly portray the child-bearing rates of the era, which were typically 4-6 children (and national leaders would often have 3-4 wives over time if a wife died bearing a child, is another point, that this system in I:R does not help portray).

These are limitations we add to our games with characters faily often, because without limitations on children and who can marry, the amount of characters to keep track of grows logaritmically.