Update 1.2 Cicero Beta Patch: Feedback Thread!

[7evenish]

The cost is that you are locked into your choice. I am perfectly happy with that.

I would agree with this, but on that point I think things that increase the omen duration (like inventions) should rather increase omen power. As you are essentially increasing the cost of the omen if the cost of the omen is the amount of time into which it is locked.

 

[Uxigadur]

This is just an idea for technology. Buying tech with gold is ok... kinda... but i think there are better options. IMHO, It should be more similar to the way traditions works. But off course, there are more technologies than traditions, so i think an point system could be used.

Those points would represent the insight capacity of the society, or the actual application of new knowledge in the institutions and daily life.

A country would get points from their researches work, in each of the 4 categories, as the progress for a new technological level is developed.

In the image a) is where you get a new point, and b) the current new level, new technologies to the pool and bonifications. So, technologies would appear in b), but you would buy them with the points you get in a). That way you also get something worthy while leveling up.

The ammount of points you have for each category could be show in c)
As option, some very powerful technologies could cost more points and that cost could be show in d)

Some considerations

-In 0 level you would have some starting points in each category. In that way the experience would be similar to the one we currently have and countries wouldn't be technology naked.

-The system could be used to add more flavor to heritages. For example, sparta could get more points in military tech, athenas in civics, etc. That way your nation identity would have impact not only as a bonus, but in the very path of development you follow.

In anycase, this is a very early unpolished idea. I had some fun thinking about it and wanted to share it with the community.

 

[Lord Lambert]

I would agree with this, but on that point I think things that increase the omen duration (like inventions) should rather increase omen power. As you are essentially increasing the cost of the omen if the cost of the omen is the amount of time into which it is locked.

I'd agree with that too. I think having omen duration still as an invention is an oversight.

 

[EpicProGamer76]

Yeah and now invention spam is 10 times worse bc now it costs gold...great...also Finesse being tied to pop growth is a baaad idea. Tying it to trade would work better. Pop growth is not something that should depend on your ruler. As for being dependent on a good ruler - YES. That is the point, but you'd also get tools to ensure you can modify your ruler to fit better with what you wanted. Give players the option to add/remove traits and points and stuff via events.

Yes spending gold should be necessary but there's the normal buildings for that. The mana or political power is used for the development options now too, except now you have 1 resource for all 4 types of upgrade and it's bland asf. There's no difference between a high martial ruler with millitary connections and a finesse oriented trader ruler now except for a small empire wide bonus number which is boring and bland and has no imagination in it. My entire point is make rulers easier to influence and therefore you can go in a different direction with your empire by teaching the child of your current king to have another stat high or retraining your ruler or having him spend time with someone else and learning.
As for them dying, they really don't you get AMPLE warning of when a ruler dies via the health bar. It's rare to get a higher ticking negative health than 2, which means you get 50 months worth of warning time, that should be more than enough imho.

Yes, that's actually a good idea to further emphasize the importance of good stats on rulers. Maybe if there's a scheme to gain a free one and you get it quicker the better stats the ruler has and it costs some other resource per month while the ruler is trying to get it.

Well the costs are plain bad tho. Like, 20 for adding an idea? 50 to increase stability a bit? Those are huge costs compared to incredibly slow rate and that doesn't simulate the way an empire works at all. Why would the priesthood have to wait with a sacrifice because the traders are improving a province or the king just changed an unrelated law? These things happen simultaniously all the time. Different groups don't have to wait for each other to finish before doing their thing, the military, the priesthood, the traders, the politicians/people can do things at the same time without waiting...

There is a huge difference between making pop growth depend on a ruler and be slightly influenced by a ruler although I suppose you would think that I meant it should be solely tied to the ruler like mana.
Inventions system was always awful its not much better or worse now. Yes, there need to be more tools to modify rulers though this is very important.

It should still require gold to develop places, Its not a matter of buildings are for that whatever that supposed to mean. 2/4 (or 5) of the developments currently cost gold indirectly. It was always bland, rulers can switch frequently and I don't always feel like influencing their outcomes in which case I would not enjoy the game.
Now I actually get to choose between different province improvement instead of just staring at them wishing I had a better ruler and mashing the religious one in the hopes it might actually do something.

More schemes like this and the sponsor games one would be very nice especially. If the sponsor games one attracted pops to the city or something it would make it more useful.

Fair enough, there are imbalances. They are always doing things at the same time you just choose to help support certain groups over others there was no simulation of this before it just all happened because the king had high stats. Not that I would be against adding different factions that might be cool especially if the different stats and traits and other stuff helped you get on with them.

 

[Arrowkill]

Yeah - they do feel more like national traditions. It probably makes more sense to just be able to have three enabled at any one time, and be able to change (say) one every 10 or 20 years, rather than "buying" them with points.

That seems like a pretty reasonable outlook. However, I still think if they went that road they would still need a cost in terms of political influence like they do now. A cooldown between being able to change them would make them less interchangeable so quickly and definitely more like traditions that take time to shift.

 

[Xuanzue]

If the Zoroastrian believers is to be your people, move your capital to where they live, and make them free men and majority. i think this makes sense. it costs 540 influence to move the capital, but it can be done. you cna do it somwhere where there are no/few free pops of otehr religions (due to migration or war?)

It wont be economically efficient unless maybe if you annex something with enough free pops where you can establish your capital instead.

I can't move the capital to where Zoroastrians are majority.

kinda similar to the previous vicious circle.

 

[cristofolmc]

Can we please get a notification pop up when a claim has been fabricated so we dont forget? Thanks

 

[Palando]

Can we please get a notification pop up when a claim has been fabricated so we dont forget? Thanks

I've got the impression that I received such a notification in 1.2.

Another thing I'd like to see would be a warning that the "pig stab" modifier is about to run out. I often forget about that and then I have to start anew in order to stack it to higher values.

 

[Todie]

Can we please get a notification pop up when a claim has been fabricated so we dont forget? Thanks

jstu check your message log and settings. the customizability on notifications is pretty signifcant already, i've also seen popups when my claims finish. not srue aobut others claims though

 

[-Jackson]

I really hope you find a work around for the complete removal of demanding gold in peace treaties because for me it makes zero sense. I understand you've made gold much more valuable with it being needed to purchase inventions etcetera, but removing the ability to demand it after a war is stupid imo.

 

[Appius Kala'ci]

My feedback so far: (also UI related)
+ The variety of building is awesome, I love the focus I can give to each city
+ Migration is very interesting, and makes for very dynamic play. You can immigrate at the borders or kinda centralise inland.
+ This patch increased character interactions, together with importance of loyalty of government officials this made me actually remember portraits of characters. Made it a lot more immersive and funny from time to time.
- Popularity gain and loss due to military battles is a bit exaggerated, I've seen generals often lose more than 100 popularity in 10k vs 10k battles.
- If you have no corruption, it says +0.0% with the modifier for montly political influence. This suggested to me that corruption would increase my influence, but instead it would negatively impact it (which is logical as well). But maybe make it say -0.0% in stead.
- Open the same tab in the government window you had when you closed it. For example if you close this tab while having offices open, then this shows up when you open government up again.
- Make the back arrow go back to previous page. So if you're on a character page and you click back, you would go back to the government offices for example. Right now the back arrow on a character can only go back to a previous character loaded.
- You can use impose corruption sanctions on your ruler. I don't know if this is intended, but the loyalty hit at least does not do anything.
- The Omen duration Tech is useless now I think, as Omens are free.
- When ransacking a city, the wealth goes to the basileus, not the spirit of the nation. I don't know if anyone would want to kill pops for ruler wealth. Though bribes are nice.

 

[Syntax_VI]

The dishonored alliance penalty seems to working in reverse I think?

I'm allied to Egypt as Yamnat, and they declared war on everyone (Selucid Empire, Phyrgia and a huge assortment of greek states) so I decided to not go to war along side them. They still like me, but my modifier towards them has gone negative.

 

[Syntax_VI]

also, I'm not sure if it is a bug but the Monarchy law for the infrastructure program reads that it increases build cost by 20% whilst only offering a paltry 0.02 population gain. Would make sense if it reduced building costs by 20%. I'm not sure if the tooltip is wrong, or if it really is that way.

It was like that since 1.0, but it seems like a useless law if that is the case.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Is it a lot easier or harder to get Civil Wars now?

 

[cristofolmc]

Is it a lot easier or harder to get Civil Wars now?

Just like before. You can go on a whole game without getting one.

 

[Xuanzue]

the tutor heir mechanic is free, but it still needs a warning ingame.

Also maybe a cooldown helps with balances?

In inventions there is gran temples increasing omen duration, but with omens being free, it has not much sense now.

 

[Kaelius]

Defiantly had to come out of lurker mode and praise the team on the direction they are heading on this.

I was a little sad when I played launch and it felt (to me) like an EU4 mod. The abandoning of mana really changes the game to me for the better.

Positives with 1.2

-Having pop assimilation / promotion / conversion out of my hands directly.
I felt less overwhelmed by the sheer amount of cities that my map plaiting perfection OCD was constantly tempted to waste mana on helping conversion along, or fast tracking pops to citizen to speed up my research.

My only real concern on this is that conversion rates will be balanced correctly to account for the lack of the players direct ability to help it along.

- BIG <3 <3 <3 to whoever did the UX on the slave movement interface changes.
it drove me nuts I had to select each city in a province to find where I had some free slaves to push the one resource over the edge to get another surplus. That and having to repeat the process for each individual slave.

- Families having babies without needing micromanagement
I know starting out I was having a lot of frustration with families dying off. My solution was having to remember to pause the game every 10 or so years to make sure that anyone 45+ who wast critical, Got the boot so young blood could have the chance to make the next generation.

-Pop Migration
I know this has some bugs in the current beta, but I'm confident with balancing and bug fixing this feature will be great. Starving because of a giant volcano destroyed your home? Yeah maybe since you have no home now you should pick up and move on.

Negatives with 1.2
I say these with full acknowledgment that this is early testing and I have faith that these issues will be resolved by launch. These are just my minor critique issues.

-Pop Migration
At first I was a little frustrated because when I first broke into gaul I couldn't tell If I should be rushing to assimilate them to fix unhappiness, or to run civilization policy to get the tribesmen promoted before the unhappy tribesmen migrated off outside my borders. Then I just decided, well if they move out of my borders, I'll just have another chance to enslave them when their now home, becomes a part of Rome.

-Lack of clear way to control promotion balance
I've seen Johans post showing the UX change that shows what that cities current ideal pop balance is. I think it should be written on the tool tips for buildings as well. I was spamming academies on the thinking that research points = citizens. When apparently it was libraries i needed.

I really would prefer a way to influence the numbers beyond buildings. Even if it's not at the city level but the provincial level. I guess you could just have trade goods influence the balance as well, Province has earth-wares and papyrus? yeah that is pretty obvious I want you to stack citizens in it.

 

[Reman]

Is it a lot easier or harder to get Civil Wars now?

The threshold for them to trigger is lower and characters are more antsy to become disloyal, so yes, civil wars are much easier to run into if you're not careful. However, they're still a failure-state, so good players will go the entire game without seeing them.

 

[apewrath]

can yall fix ship controls, with all the pirates that randomly run around it would be nice if you could send ships to actively patrol you waters, like how u can in eu4. not to mention the other control options that there might be, the are better then when the game came out for sure but the system that controls ship commands is still broken.

 

[master_kong]

Give players the ability to move around other than slave pops too. With a side effect of unrest in target city to represent a reality that can be seen even today in a city/society. You can also differantiate same culture group people with causing less unrest and maybe same culture not causing any unrest at all. This would add more strategic gameplay possibilities on top of some immersion methinks. @Johan