Your Imperator priorities 2021 Edition

[Taran14]

1. More challenging empire management.
Currently the game very rapidly reaches a point where you become the dominant regional power and no longer have any serious rivals. At that point the game loses a lot of its tension and appeal since from then on it is just a slow jog to the end. Now this isn't a bad thing. Historically the Roman Republic already reached this point after the Punic Wars, when it got rid of its only serious regional rival. But Roman politics didn't stop being exciting. External threats to the Roman state were rapidly replaced by internal threats from issues such unrest arising from economical inequality and class struggle, disloyal generals, governors and political factions and political rivalries. The game already has mechanics in place to simulate a lot of this, but I feel that they currently lack impact. These are challenges that could (and did) make or break historical empires, but as of now it usually amounts to little more than minor annoyances as you continue to paint the map. Most wars the Romans fought were not fought against "barbarians", but against other Romans. And other empires at the time weren't any better when it comes to civil wars and break-away factions. The primary challenge in the game I feel should not be to just build and expand an empire, but rather to maintain it and keep it from tearing itself apart. This would also help set the game apart from the EU series which generally already focuses a lot on the map-painting and empire-building. It would be good to see IR become more of its own thing.

2. Family trees and province ownership history
Two small but impactful features from CK which I think would fit into IR really well. One of the greatest things about Paradox games is the stories that dynamically emerge during gameplay. These two features contribute a lot to that by allowing you to recall detailed information about past characters, wars and geopolitical changes. They also wouldn't take too much effort to implement since the game already keeps track of this information anyways. We just need an interface to be able to see it.
These features could be added in any update, but could also be added in a DLC that focuses on fleshing out characters, events and generally adding more life and flavor to the game world.

3. Better tribes
Despite some positive changes, tribes currently still feel very much like an afterthought. Basically, we need fun, interesting and viable mechanics for playing as (migratory) tribes. I really hope there will be a DLC that focuses on giving Gaul, Germania, the British Isles and other "tribal areas" a more fleshed-out and interesting experience.

 

[Novelfront]

I think i agree with most people by saying that i want a better diplomacy and a real reason to have Subject. Trade can be fine. But for me the most important things stay that barbarians nations that are 80% of the nations should be really interesting. Add migration because of war or famine, add a system of federation, of nomadic armies, a true creation of kingdom by evolving.

 

[Cadzon]

I think i agree with most people by saying that i want a better diplomacy and a real reason to have Subject. Trade can be fine. But for me the most important things stay that barbarians nations that are 80% of the nations should be really interesting. Add migration because of war or famine, add a system of federation, of nomadic armies, a true creation of kingdom by evolving.

Towards mid/late game, my subjects deletes its armies for some reason, they all have 0 and some boats. Every time. That's so boring....

 

[maxk94]

just some things:
- deeper combat-mechanics, making big battles more impactful but also reliable
- traderoutes on the map, depending on land-routes and naval-routes - so you can block enemies traderoutes by naval blockade and occupy important roads!
- visual: moving tradeships and ox carts on the map like on the Rome 1 Total War-Map...this was soooo lovely and brings live on the map!

 

[Cereal_Comma]

This might be obscure, but I REALLY want pops to convert to an integrated culture of the same type instead of the primary culture of a country.

I.E. playing as the Seleucids, Medians convert to Persians (an integrated culture of the Persian cultural group) and Assyrians convert to Babylonians, instead of the current system (Medians and Assyrians convert to Macedonians).

I wonder if that would be moddable. It's probably silly, but I hate having huge swathes of the East all set as Macedonian instead of the more logical progression of an accepted local culture.

 

[TheMadEmperor]

Regarding the suggestions about trade, it'd be nice to get dirt roads created by merchants when a route is established. Exactly like Civilization VI.
I know it is vague but the best suggestions have already been given.

 

[Samitte]

I wonder if that would be moddable. It's probably silly, but I hate having huge swathes of the East all set as Macedonian instead of the more logical progression of an accepted local culture.

It shouldnt have to be modded, it was a mistake not to add this with the cultural update. Many people expected it from the initial explanations as well, since it makes perfect sense for it to work this way both from a gameplay and a historical perspective.

 

[cristofolmc]

I'd really like indeed a trade system with trade nodes where trade has to pass through, making money on each of this trade posts or nodes, connecting them, with the goal of reaching the further corners of the map. The more of it its sold, the more excess and the more can there be left after each trade in each of this nodes so whatever is left can reach the further corners of the map. And we would be able to see this trade routes on the map, and blockade them, create them, destroy them depending on the circumstances of the world around. Youre not gonna be able to keep a trade going through a region that is constantly ravaged by war. The route will divert through somewhere else who will benefit of it instead. I don't know though how to stablish where the the route goes through and how these nodes or trade hubs are created. They would have to introduce some kind of new concept like trade power, based on development, population, civilization, buildings, access to sea, etc I guess.

 

[Abirami aka Pete]

My priorities are in line with the previous posts, but to spell them out:

1. Economy rework -- I mean in this in a very broad sense: cities (and their buildings), POPs and trade should all be given a much more prominent role and should interact more meaningfully. Cities and POPs should matter in determining what goods are desired, how much trade volume there is and what fraction of this is taxed to generate revenue. Trade itself should be more important in the broader mechanics of the game (among many proposals, check these out: simple tweaks or broader proposals).

2. Characters -- I would love to see this aspect of the game more developed. It would take little to improve things: add actual family trees and a record of characters' job (like a mini bio), more events with closer links to traits, history, wealth, etc. I think characters a great tool to address another issue: they could make the late game more interesting (now it gets rather dull after a certain point).

3. Stats, data and charts -- lots of the appeal of this game comes from simulation, developing a civilization over centuries. It would be so gratifying to see more data about your nation both in breadth (number of cities, research efficiency per city/region, % integrated pop at various geographical levels, etc) and in time (like the charts in age of empires or civilzation). I suggested this in senatus populsque: see here

 

[Abirami aka Pete]

It shouldnt have to be modded, it was a mistake not to add this with the cultural update. Many people expected it from the initial explanations as well, since it makes perfect sense for it to work this way both from a gameplay and a historical perspective.

fully agree. there are many ways to improve on the baseline and all are pretty easy. unintegrated pops should assimilate to the dominant integrated culture in the province
> if there is more than one (say roman 40% and sabellian 30%), then should assimilate to either one with some probability
> if there are several integrated culture groups, pop should assimilate faster/more likely to the integrated culture of their group (i.e. sabellian to roman faster/more likely than sabellian to macedonian)

 

[Jayavarman]

I want to have more fun with the Jews.

 

[Pirarucu]

Things that were said here (and other topics) kind of fit in my opinion, so I will just summarize:
1 - Tribes: I could argue about the mechanics, but more than that I think they desperately need MUCH more flavor;
2 - Characters: I agree that they could be flashed out more, that a lack of cursus honorum in republics is sad and that families need a rework. But I also really liked the idea of a "bio" @melqart_ita said, It would really help for AAR and roleplay in general;
3 - Diplomacy: The vassals thing they were doing was a good first step, but I also would like to see leagues of smaller nations being more significant, including tribes coming together to face a bigger threat. An option to give/exchange hostages could also be good, if It's possible to make it have impact on the characters.

 

[Limbojack]

I have high hopes for both a trade/economy and a political overhaul.

 

[LunarBahamut]

• More fleshed out map of the Indian subcontinent. More territories (currently the entirety of South Asia has about as many territories as Iberia and Gaul together, even though it's multiple times as big) to properly represent the scale of the area. More navigable rivers to make combat more interesting and naval power more valuable; currently India, especially the central part, is boring to wage war in as there are no geographical chokepoints to play around, there are tons of rivers that actually exist that are larger than ones currently navigable in other parts of the map, and this would go such a long way. Further, add some heritages to the historical nations in the south, Pandya and Chola deserve a heritage, come on.

• Please for the love of god make assimilation and conversion dynamic, the culture and religion updates in 1.4 and 1.5 did nothing to address the actual problems with the system. Over time you will still assimilate and convert every culture and religion to your own, and cultures and religion always convert only to the nation owning them. Sure you can grant a few cultures exception from this mechanic, but that really doesn't address the problem. Cultures and religion really weren't something that mattered too much on a country scale before the idea of nations came into existence (that is countries united and defined based on a nationality/ethnicity, this naturally happened basically everywhere in the old world at some point, and is why countries like the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires were so unstable in the modern age, but why every large nation tended to be multiethnic before that). The Romans, Seleucids, Ptolemaic Egypt etc. never bothered to assimilate the culture of the people in their nations to their own/their ruling class, nor did they need to. Yes the peoples under their control took great cultural influence from them, but they never became fully Roman/Greek, meaning the current system has two options for these people and they are both wrong, fully assimilating/converting is nonsense, and so is entirely stopping assimilation, yet these are the only two things that happen to a pops culture. People also took a lot of influence simply from trading with neighbours etc. The current system is just so stupidly limited compared to the actual intricacies of culture and religion and it should literally be changed from the ground up, not with small but ultimately non important changes like patch 1.4 and 1.5.

• Stop investing time in mission trees. This is just from me to the devs. I want to pay for DLC, I don't want to pay for DLC that I am not gonna use. If you want me to pay for a massive culture overhaul like I described above, PLEASE LET ME, I WOULD LOVE IT IF MY MONEY WENT TO THAT, I WOULD GLADLY PAY €30 TO HAVE A PERFECT CULTURE SYSTEM. I will never pay for cosmetics and mission trees because I don't care about them, I want the design team to get to spend their time on actually improving the games systems, but with their current system this can't happen. They will only make flavour content paid, which is what kills games like this. I can't stress this enough, strategy games need to have core mechanics updated long after game release, it's not like an RPG where you can slap more storylines and weapons on top as your DLC. DLC in games like this needs more purpose than that, or people can simply ignore it, even when they would be willing to spend money on actual improvements. Monetizing a strategy game in this manner is not evil, it's necessary to ensure a game can reach its true potential after a few years.

 

[Mod S]

We need a Barbarian update that will make migratory tribes more resilient to conquest from civilized states.

 

[zaboli]

These aren't really priorities, because they are already working on the most important issues and trade overhaul has been requested several times. So here are some other suggestions:

More graphical flavor and variation in portraits would be nice. Like king character wearing a crown, more variation in hairstyles, new portrait packs, etc. Sometimes it can hurt the immersion a little bit if the Babylonian king of kings looks like an Arab. Luckily unit graphics are already been improved.

A little bit more flavor for the Indians, Celts Dacians and Germans. Just make them feel distinct from the Hellenistic and Persianate world.

Less emphasis on mission trees in future content and more on real unique game mechanics.

... And finally extra starting dates. This is something that should only be added if everything else I sufficiently fleshed out and should not be a priority but it would still be really nice to play in a different setting. It would be really cool if we could play in the Civil War era or maybe even the 5th century

Other than that I don't really have any recommendations... It's quite amazing that the devs have improve IR so much and that the future patch has the potential to make it one of the best PDX games available. I really hope that all the overhauls wouldn't create new balance and technical issues though...

 

[Cassilda]

- More dynastic interaction when playing a monarchy and more characterization for parties and families in republics.
- Accepted cultures represented by one noble family for each of said cultures represented, with cultural shifts possible in case one of those ascends to the throne/dictatorship/has a long rule as elected officials.
- More characterization for the Italic civilizations that could challenge and replace Rome in the peninsula.
- I'd really like to see some sort of automation to avoid famine ad starvation in the provinces without having to re-balance the whole thing manually too many times.

 

[klopkr]

Priority 1: Release the latest patch.
Priority 2: Let me play it

 

[Ffc]

1 ) Trade,
2 ) Tribes especially Nomadic tribes, also I would like to see a change on how uncolonized settlement are colonized, right now it's not very fun, spamming gold to move pops of your culture around or just way decades, also right know it's a very ugly bordergore in Germania
3 ) Characters, in particular, how characters interact with each others during civil wars and how they use their gold, right know I feel like some characters have 2500 golds, and they do nothing with that and it's very sad

 

[vanin]

1. Update Tribal government form.
a) Tribes should be able to raise large armies but if defeated in war it will have terrible consequences for their population.
b) Tribes should be less able to outright conquer one another, and instead aim to build a growing federation with themselves at its head as kings.
c) Tribes should be able to migrate away from their enemies during a war that they are losing, or be forced to migrate by a victorious enemy.
d) I would like to see an updated eastern steppe situation. There are very few provinces and the entire region is quite ahistorical. There is nearly no room for the Saka and Kushan migrations that took place in the period.

2. Update Republican government form.
a) As already pointed out here, great families interfere with the basics of how Republics work. I think Great families should be de-emphasized in Republics, as often the most prominent men of the age were Novus Homo.
b) The Senate's approval is currently not based on what the Parties realistically want but based on how much they approve of the Consuls. I think that is fine as a base, but they should lose and gain Approval based on the actions taken.

3. Trade update.
a) Sorely needed. It is very annoying and while modifier-stacking is very satisfying to some it makes less and less sense the more you can stack.
b) I would prefer a more background system with less direct player agency but greater impact based on what the player does without the intense fiddlyness we have right now. The EU4 trade system is not a great fit as it kind of simulates the invisible hand of the free market, but something that similarly works without attracting such a large part of the players' attention would be welcome.