You are in charge of I:R 2. What would you do differently?

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AegonTheUnready

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I:R has improved a lot since release. Still, I think it's fair to say the game has struggled to find acceptance. Why do you think that is, and how would you do it differently?

My 2 pfennigs: I:R borrows elements from 3 popular Paradox games - CK2, EU4 and Victoria. Personally, and this is just my gameplay preferences, I would ditch the POP system. I find it adds complexity and tedious micromanagement without adding "fun". But that is jsut imho.

So, what would you add or subtract in the next version of I:R?
 
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Probably read extensively about the time period and then design mechanics to facilitate an interesting recreation, instead of taking other PDX game features and forcing them into a period that they don't make sense in. For example, "Oh Livy mentions x, how could we implement that in an interesting way?" instead of "Let's just use EU4s fort mechanics because it's our most popular game".

This applies more to the current game post-launch but it's a similar question: I would have focused more on content additions after 1.2 rather then gameplay reworks. You can always come back to fix mediocre mechanics but if the game just feels completely empty I don't have any interest in playing it.
 
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I've tried time after timr to play V2 and tried over and over again to see the appeal of the pops system. Couldn't get into it and have dropped the game.

IR implements a more simple version of the pop system and really it's just not exciting.

This period is about characters, government mechanics, philosophy and war. Roman cursus honorum mechanics, carthaginian merchant empires, diadochi strifes, Greek philosophy, celtic federations and Indian riches. Paradox should have for this title taken on the challenge of making their armies and battles exciting. They already have a winning diplomacy system in their entourage which not many games do and they could have adapted the character system to suit the times. The pops focus is the baggage of this game and are stopping all the resources from being directed into the areas that matter: politics, characters and war.
 
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There's a lot of things I'd like to do, but the most pressing ones that could be rather easily/quickly fixed would be (1) expanding upon the changes coming to the Senate in 1.5, (2) adding several new laws and customs that actually affect how the game is played, (3) make it possible for a nation to export their imported goods for a profit, (4) add a sphere of influence mechanic similar to what we've got in Victoria 2, and (5) add idea groups like what we've got in EU4.

If they were to implement these five fixes tomorrow, I'd definitely come back for at least a playthrough. Unfortunately, this game needs plenty of large reworks to actually make it really enjoyable to sink hours into.
 
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This period is about characters, government mechanics, philosophy and war. Roman cursus honorum mechanics, carthaginian merchant empires, diadochi strifes, Greek philosophy, celtic federations and Indian riches. Paradox should have for this title taken on the challenge of making their armies and battles exciting. They already have a winning diplomacy system in their entourage which not many games do and they could have adapted the character system to suit the times. The pops focus is the baggage of this game and are stopping all the resources from being directed into the areas that matter: politics, characters and war.

Ignoring the populations that lay behind history's empires in favor of "great people" and "great events"? That's a really unhealthy historical narrative.

Moreover, you can't honestly pretend that populations and their management weren't one of the major concerns of Classical realms, or that the logistics and impacts of war weren't intimately tied to populations.
 
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I would make the game :

- character-based in republics - characters would compete for internal power, but could also independantly "declare war" to neighbors in order to gain lands (much like "adventurers" in CK2). lands would be added to the republic and would form the power base of the conqueror in order to get more traction in internal politics. the final goal would be to overthrow the republic and declare oneself as emperor. Empire would be diferent than a monarchy, with statesmen still a menace to the emperor trough plotting or funding armed revolts.

- dynasty-based in monarchies (pretty much like CK2 but with more focus on plotting and struggle for powers which would pretty much be civil wars but with more focused goals like beat the enemy army - and not conquer all land - short but bloody wars). Monarchy stability would come from the ability to get respect, which would be the result of successful warfare AND administrative proficiency at organizing your empire either as a theocracy, or king's law. The goal of a monarchy would be to expand trough conquest or submission (vassal states), but expanding would mean an increased fragility in holding all of it together, regardless of pops being happy.

- tribal based in tribes : here i would aim for tribes to work like an elective monarchy when the ruler is weak, and an hereditary monarchy when the leader is strong. Weakness would be loosing internal strife challenges, or loosing wars. Tribes would also have the ability to raid : pillage enemy lands for money and ressources, without formally declaring war on others (much like how barbarian tribes currently works).

As far as warfare is concerned:

- forts could only be build in mountain passes or on major cities tiles. it couldnt be spammed. in order to give sieges and chokeholds more importance and meaning.
- manpower would be based on pops, and instead of regenerating magically, it would be reduced when armies are levied
- i would flat out introduce a levy system to mimic the fact that armies were not professionnal warriors, but were raised trough the available working manpower
- i would introduce retinues as a mechanic for a standing army
 
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Well, the map is gorgeous. The real issues for me are the character game (like the entire thing, blow it up and start over) and trade (it's binary, you have something or you don't--too reductive and simplistic).
 
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Ignoring the populations that lay behind history's empires in favor of "great people" and "great events"? That's a really unhealthy historical narrative.

Moreover, you can't honestly pretend that populations and their management weren't one of the major concerns of Classical realms, or that the logistics and impacts of war weren't intimately tied to populations.

Take it easy Duke, I'm sure I've a healthy perspective of actual history and I'm not 'pretending' anything. We're discussing fun gameplay here and the pops focus that that this forum seems to be pushing for hasn't helped the game at all
 
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Accepted Religions in your nations pantheon do not convert.
 
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I really find it strange that some people don't like the IR Pops system, as I consider them one of the strongest points of the game

They migrate, affect your economy positively or negatively, cause turmoil in your territory if they are unhappy, affect the amount of resources you produce in that territory and the amount of buildings in your city
If Devs really want to create a "civilization simulator" the pop system is definitely one of the ways and will probably improve in 1.5


Now one of the things I would definitely take out is the Major Family systems

It may have been created to try to make the "Major families" more important and "try" to make the player create a "bond" with the characters.
Most unfortunately he failed miserably! it is not a system at all in the current state
-You are limited in having x major families because you have y territories
-Killed the diversity of ethnicities in multicultural countries
-It is extremely punitive for you to topple a family to put another one in place and there is little benefit in doing so ( the new family that came to power does not seem the least bit grateful for that... )
-The adoption system is flawed, even if you adopt a character he is still a minor character in certain characteristics ( they never marry on their own and you don't have the control to marry them in the end they will become dry trees that never bear fruit and this can be fatal if you are playing monarchy with problems maintaining your family)
Of course, these problems were aggravated by the fact that IR has a serious problem in generating characters in a more organic way (we have wedding mods since 3 / May / 2019 in an attempt to deal with this problem ), but there remains the question why the Devs will not fix the generation of characters before creating something new that aggravates something that already had problems? I will never understand...


New Religion system looked incredible on paper! giving the ability to have a religious syncretism... but in the end it was a big farce in that aspect!
No matter how long your country will convert to your main religion even if you have a pantheon full of gods of other religions and worshiping them :(
So if you are trying to simulate a Syncretic Religion, like the Khurmazta religion ( yes I know that was many years after the game date but let me be happy ok? ) which is a mixture of Zoroastrians, Hinduism and Buddhism with some elements of the local "pagan" religions called "Ritualistc" in IR your experience will not be very good...
I really wanted them to apply some of the ideas discussed in this topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...and-state-religion-switch-conditions.1385201/

Here is an example of a deity that was born from this mixture
Weshparkar God of Wind: and a representation of the ancient Iranian god of wind and air, Vayu ( yes Vayu no and the Vãyu Hindu deity, the lord of the winds most certainly contributed to this mix because they are both linked to the air element... ) but he has the additional attributes of the Hindu god Shiva Maheshvara and some elements of the "Guidance of the Wind" of the "Ritualistic" IR
I could talk about Nanaiya here too but I think it is enough for a curiosity
 
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but there remains the question why the Devs will not fix the generation of characters before creating something new that aggravates something that already had problems? I will never understand...

Beats me but IR will always feel like an unfinished game to me until this is resolved.
 
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How are pops micromanagy? In 1.0 maybe, but now you don't have to do anything, the pops do everything on their own...

If it was up to me I'd add a more complex and realistic economic system that made more sense, was more fun, and allowed for more tall played and intrnal problems and led to diplomatic and war conflicts motivated by economic interests like it happened historically. Like a simplified version of Vicky economy. As of now the economy is non existen and irrelevant. The more pops you have the more money, the more land you have, the more money, which is ridiculously unrelistic and oversimplistic.

I'd also bring a few CK2 elements to monarchies as well, like factions. Also to republics I'd make offices more meaningful, as well as elections systems for those offices. A corsus honorum.

I'd overhaul diplomacy. Its a copy paste of EU4s, and it just doesnt work for the time period. This games needs a kind of influence system which you can use shake things up without having to conquer everyone and everything. you know, deeper and more varied alliances and subject types and interactions, leagues and such. If you see the Diadochi wars, most of the diplomatic actions and subject systems and all that is not possible in Imperator Rome. How Philip of Macedone came to annex Thesalonika? Impossible in the game. So yeah, IR should drop the EU4 copypasted diplomatic system and come up with one of their own like CK2 did. Although it may be a bit late for that, but they CAN still introduce new diplomatic options that are not seen in EU4 or CK2.

Also, I'd have another look to the religious system. It sounded better than it turned out to be. I never interact with it, it barely has any options to interact, and it doesnt have such big influence in the game. In the end youre just better off slowly converting all your pops. Although who knows, now that pop happiness is being kind of overhauled in the next update, religion will be more important. But yeah It would be cool if apart from sincretism, you could give religious rights for when your empire is too big, to certain peoples just like you will be able to grant them cultural rights. And converting pops should be nearly impossible by default
 
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There's a lot flaws with the structure and mechanics etc of the game which people have already brought up on this thread and many times previously, but what really kills the game for me is that is is a chore to play, that directly eats away at immersion and investment in my campaigns.

I don't know what it is, but a planned takedown of a major enemy in EUIV feels so rewarding, in IR - it doesn't.

I know its Imperator ROME - BUT - the main battleground and what should actually be it's central focus THE DIADOCHI and the wars to come that got me so excited for this game, just doesn't work.
 
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In a sense you're right with the pops focus; I'd willingly have more diplo stances (like mentioned above with the spheres of influence) and great character interactions (with possible family trees, plot webs, and elections!) then pop's happiness, little culture aspects etc.
 
A lot of good responses here.

From the variety of answers, though, I think part of the issue is that nobody agrees on what's wrong. Maybe the issue is that I:R tried to be too many things at once?

For "too many things at once" consider thinking : why has this game gone through so many "updates" so many of which could reduce your previous experience of playing the game to "starter level . . again" and yet all we seem to hear about from Paradox is the "next GREAT update"! In it's short history I:R has "updated" almost as much as Microsoft have done with Windows 10 . . indeed, the updates to W10 haven't had the same impact on using that OS as Paradox have altered I:R! If, like me, you started with the launch version then by now you're beginning to wonder if these "wonderful updates" are little more than moving the goal posts?

Indeed, and maybe this answers your appraisal of the responses in the thread, maybe far too many are somewhat shy of actually putting into words what they may actually be convinced of . . .

. . . that Imperator : Rome was far from ready to be used when it was launched . . . yet so many of us put our faith in Paradox based on playing other games of theirs and spent money on I:R.

So . . . Paradox . . . don't release v1.5 until you have finished tinkering with the game. Get it right, finish it and be done with it. After many hundreds of hours playing the game my enthusiasm for it is waning due to all the damn "revolving doors"!!!
 
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I'd remove the buildings. Rework the trade system. But first of all I'd make the game playable fixing the mercenaries, manpower and warfare.
 
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