Anniversary Maintenance Patch - 2.0.4 (Open Beta)

[Calardaras]

When calculating sumcheck, it will actually consider the localization folder. Just a mod that corrects translation errors will prevent me from getting achievements.

 

[AlexanderBoesen]

I just started modding Imperator some time ago and this updated really really helped me (portrait editor!!!) stay motivated.

Please, if you still are considering fixing stuff could we get updated documentation on console commands? Help-command lists many commands that aren't working. Any documentation on modding and debug tools is very appreciated!

For moddability three things I wish we could have without having any idea how difficult or complex they are:

- ability to mod how the calendar works (different length years/months/days for fantasy worlds, for example)
- ability to mod genders and inheritance to matriarchal, to have gender equality as default and all that
- to be able to actually choose colours for families (I think they have "colour" variable but I haven't got it to work, only way to manipulate colours is to change their order)

 

[Yunoc]

Achievements are already trivial. You can easily edit save files if you know what you're doing, and even if that's not an option, you can spoof the very same request that the game would send to Steam and tell it to unlock the achievement. If you're not savvy enough, there are well-known programs that do that, which I will avoid naming because they might not be entirely compatible with the rules here.

The mechanics that confirm an achievement have been unlocked aren't inherently safe in any way, they're entirely clientside. You can never tell if someone unlocked an achievement in a legit way, or if they cheated it. Yes, you can make a mod for Victoria 3 that unlocks every achievement. The only person you're cheating is yourself. If you don't care about achievements, why bother downloading this mod? If you do care about them, how will feel knowing you didn't earn a single one?

So if someone installs a mod that adds some modifiers to certain nations, making them stronger, weaker, or maybe just different, why should they be barred from seeking the objectives that the game gives you? They might not even be playing otherwise, since the game won't get any new flavor DLC anymore.

Sure, if you want to cheat you can get any Achievement you want, there's no denying that and since there are 0,2 percent of players having earned an impossible Achievement we know there is a very small number of people who do.

But being able to download a mod on the official workshop to gain any Achievement you want with the click of a button is something different and is what actually trivilizes them, not the cheating by using external software or modifying game files yourself.

IMO challenges should have an even playingfield and being able to earn them with whatever modded version of the game available does the opposite.

 

[MathyM]

Sure, if you want to cheat you can get any Achievement you want, there's no denying that and since there are 0,2 percent of players having earned an impossible Achievement we know there is a very small number of people who do.

But being able to download a mod on the official workshop to gain any Achievement you want with the click of a button is something different and is what actually trivilizes them, not the cheating by using external software or modifying game files yourself.

IMO challenges should have an even playingfield and being able to earn them with whatever modded version of the game available does the opposite.

It’s never an even playing field. Some EU4 achievements, for instance, were much easier on older versions of the game than they are now.

Achievements on Steam are not meant to be something you compete against others with. They are challenges and objectives you impose onto yourself. As far as competing with others is concerned, you can already cheat and unlock any achievement yourself. Heck, you can even hex edit the .exe and remove the code that looks for a checksum. It’s a PITA to do every time the game gets updated, but on a game that’s barely receiving updates, it’s something you can do once and forget.

Enabling this by default would just give everyone an even playing field. For as long as Google is a thing, cheaters will always find a way to cheat. Luckily, that’s just 1 out of every 500 players for Imperator. But why should people like you and me care if others cheat on their personal accounts? We still have the very same achievements to unlock, in a way we know is legit.

 

[Matobar]

I also support allowing Achievements to be compatible with Mods so that I can keep using Invictus to play the game while I go achievement hunting. The mod improves the AI and actually makes the game better IMO, why would I want to play Vanilla, an inferior experience, just to get achievements, only to go back to Invictus once I finish? Feels like a waste when I could just do both at the same time IMO.

There are ways to get Steam achievements, even the broken ones, without doing them. If people really are worried about those that want to 100% the game easily with mods, there is an even easier way to do that by just downloading a program which tells Steam the achievement is complete. So keeping mods and achievements separated doesn't really help anything, because all Steam achievements are based on the honor system anyways. This isn't an issue unique to PDX games either, there isn't even anything in the Steam Terms of Service that prohibits spoofing the Achievements.

Finally, I believe mods like Invictus have added their own "Achievements" to the game. Allowing Imperator mods to be compatible with Achievements would, hopefully, mean that they persist in the UI between playthroughs and don't just vanish once you start a new campaign.

 

[Yunoc]

It’s never an even playing field. Some EU4 achievements, for instance, were much easier on older versions of the game than they are now.

Achievements on Steam are not meant to be something you compete against others with. They are challenges and objectives you impose onto yourself. As far as competing with others is concerned, you can already cheat and unlock any achievement yourself. Heck, you can even hex edit the .exe and remove the code that looks for a checksum. It’s a PITA to do every time the game gets updated, but on a game that’s barely receiving updates, it’s something you can do once and forget.

Enabling this by default would just give everyone an even playing field.

You can just roll back to an earlier version if you think an Achievement is easier in the release version, which I think is completly legit since most PDX games can change rather drastically over the course of their patchcycles and they were achieveable in those prior patches.

I have already commented in regards to getting achievements by cheating:

Sure, if you want to cheat you can get any Achievement you want, there's no denying that and since there are 0,2 percent of players having earned an impossible Achievement we know there is a very small number of people who do.

But being able to download a mod on the official workshop to gain any Achievement you want with the click of a button is something different and is what actually trivilizes them, not the cheating by using external software or modifying game files yourself.

What makes you think Steam Achievements can't be competitive? There are millions of users some of them do them for fun or to challenge themselves, others to show of or to be competitive with their friends. You act like you don't care about them and that they are already trivial (which they aren't since there are still a few of them in IE under 1%) but simultaniously really want to get them in your modded games. I don't understand you, on one hand you say the are trivial and they don't matter and on the other hand you really want them in your modded games.

 

[Earendil Ardamire]

Can you please make it so that a mouse is not required to zoom in or out, i hate using one and in imperator i am really unable to play it properly

 

[MathyM]

You can just roll back to an earlier version if you think an Achievement is easier in the release version, which I think is completly legit since most PDX games can change rather drastically over the course of their patchcycles and they were achieveable in those prior patches.

I have already commented in regards to getting achievements by cheating:


What makes you think Steam Achievements can't be competitive? There are millions of users some of them do them for fun or to challenge themselves, others to show of or to be competitive with their friends. You act like you don't care about them and that they are already trivial (which they aren't since there are still a few of them in IE under 1%) but simultaniously really want to get them in your modded games. I don't understand you, on one hand you say the are trivial and they don't matter and on the other hand you really want them in your modded games.

I don’t think they don’t matter! I’ve been saying it since my first message: I love playing for achievements, they give me something to do. But what they don’t matter to is for others: you can’t take someone’s word for granted, and it doesn’t matter if they have the achievement or not, you can never know if they cheated it. They might have downloaded a save file, edited a save file, spoofed a request, or hex-edited an executable. It’s not currently the case that earning an achievement means you actually earned it. So why keep the restriction on mods? It’s not like this will enable cheating, since cheating is already easily available. This will only help prolong the game’s life, and help people who need the game in a certain language (loc files are checksum-altering).

And exploiting a bug present in an early version of the game is just as much cheating as any alternative lol

 

[PDX_Gorion]

I just started modding Imperator some time ago and this updated really really helped me (portrait editor!!!) stay motivated.

Please, if you still are considering fixing stuff could we get updated documentation on console commands? Help-command lists many commands that aren't working. Any documentation on modding and debug tools is very appreciated!

For moddability three things I wish we could have without having any idea how difficult or complex they are:

- ability to mod how the calendar works (different length years/months/days for fantasy worlds, for example)
- ability to mod genders and inheritance to matriarchal, to have gender equality as default and all that
- to be able to actually choose colours for families (I think they have "colour" variable but I haven't got it to work, only way to manipulate colours is to change their order)

How the calendar works is not something that can be modded unfortunately, at least not in the way you want it and at least not without some additional effort.
I am not 100% familiar with genders & inheritance, so I can't promise anything.
The family colours should already be moddable (I made it so when I implemented it fo 1.2) but maybe something broke, can take a look

 

[PDX_Gorion]

Thank you so much for spending the time to work on Imperator. This news has got me wanting to get back into Imperator and start modding again!

If we are on the topic of additional bugs to fix... I can't access my computer right now to get an example, but a bug that really bothered me is that last names for minor characters have been bugged since the family system was revised.

If a minor character has children, for example because they come from an annexed nation, or you married a character to a minor character, the children will have the last name [family does not exist] or something along those lines in square brackets. Additionally, when you adopt a character, if you choose for them to keep their last name, they will keep their last name initially, but when you load a save game, it will change to the family name.

It is by no means a major bug, but always bothered me, and seems like it shouldn't be too hard to fix.

If you make a bug report with a save game showing the issues, and the steps to reproduce, so I can easily reproduce it and fix it, that would allow me to spend some time on that.

 

[PDX_Gorion]

I posted this before the game was abandoned, maybe some of these can be easily fixed. I'm just going to copy most stuff over:

-----

I'd like to see the following partly irritating / annoying / miscellaneous things fixed before the developers head off for the year:

* In the nation -> administration -> provinces window, the very bottom row can not be clicked on properly

* Adjustable edge-scroll /WASD-scroll speed, possibly even separate sliders for each one.

* Hotkey for unselecting an army.
* Hotkey for transferring ownership over a besieged province.

* Currently, if you sort a list a specific way (e.g. descending: potential governors by loyalty, holdings by their total number of pops) and go into that window a second time, the game will remember that you sorted that list a specific way last time, but won't actually sort it that way. To fix this, you need to turn on the sorting again by clicking twice (ascending -> descending).

* I'd love to be able to assign / sell entire provinces to my subjects
* Maybe introduce releasing entire regions once you are a great power?
* Make it so that your subjects can not refuse the sale of a territory for 0 gold
* Perhaps a window where you could see some information about your subject nations would be nice in general

* After successfully attempting espionage, the target's treasury is referred to as "your treasury" and "your income"

* You can not upgrade a settlement into a city while a building is still being constructed there. You can however start the city upgrade and immediately after start constructing a building there

* Please add the unlockable wonder effect into the invention UI so I can actually see what I will be unlocking
* In the wonder construction screen, please at least name in which of the four invention trees I have look for the specific invention I have to unlock

* Newly raised levies automatically choose the most efficient tactic. Or: They remember the tactic they were last disbanded with. Maybe add a button for that in the levies menu to predetermine the tactic?

* Show me my own maximum of cohorts somewhere, as well as that of my subjects.

* New character filters: Married yes/no, party membership

* Let us manage all marriages of our family in a monarchy to avoid losing blood lines.

* Winning a close battle should award more war score than running over multiple 500 troop stacks

* Please add in the climate map mode officially, outside of console commands
* Trade goods map mode: Please make it so that closing the territory window on the bottom left after clicking on a territory to highlight a specific resource won't unselect the trade good you wish to highlight
* Speaking of trade goods, why are there no camels in northern Africa?

* As far as I can tell, Iberian culture is the only one without special military traditions

* Maybe slow down Rome by ~20 years in the beginning somehow? You can't even finish your first Epirus DLC mission before Rome unites Italy from top to bottom. You're essentially locked out of the Sicilian mission tree unless you rush through the first tree.

* Make it so that you can form Egypt even if Macedonian Egypt still holds land in Tibet or the Netherlands.

Most of these are probably outside of the scope for me, but anything that is a bug, if you can make a bug report with a save game, I could look into and fix

 

[Yunoc]

I don’t think they don’t matter! I’ve been saying it since my first message: I love playing for achievements, they give me something to do. But what they don’t matter to is for others: you can’t take someone’s word for granted, and it doesn’t matter if they have the achievement or not, you can never know if they cheated it. They might have downloaded a save file, edited a save file, spoofed a request, or hex-edited an executable. It’s not currently the case that earning an achievement means you actually earned it. So why keep the restriction on mods? It’s not like this will enable cheating, since cheating is already easily available. This will only help prolong the game’s life, and help people who need the game in a certain language (loc files are checksum-altering).

And exploiting a bug present in an early version of the game is just as much cheating as any alternative lol

I already told you that there is a difference when it comes to getting achievements by either using illegal software or editing game files yourself and having mods in the official steam workshop. Yes it doesn't make it possible to cheat since there are already ways to get them that way, but it makes it an easy and legit way of cheating the system and thereby to trivialize them.

 

[Matobar]

I already told you that there is a difference when it comes to getting achievements by either using illegal software or editing game files yourself and having mods in the official steam workshop. Yes it doesn't make it possible to cheat since there are already ways to get them that way, but it makes it an easy and legit way of cheating the system and thereby to trivialize them.

I respectfully disagree with this, for the simple reason that people who want to easily clear the Achievements with Mods can already do so with other methods currently available. Simply put: people who want to cheat on the Achievements already can do so, so making Achievements Mod compatible won't really cause a rise in the dishonesty.

 

[AlexanderBoesen]

How the calendar works is not something that can be modded unfortunately, at least not in the way you want it and at least not without some additional effort.
I am not 100% familiar with genders & inheritance, so I can't promise anything.
The family colours should already be moddable (I made it so when I implemented it fo 1.2) but maybe something broke, can take a look

Thanks for such vigilant replying, I really appreciate it<3

I had a guess that the calendar is pretty much hard-hard-coded.

As far as I understand gender: patriarchy is default unless a country has a special clause in their file OR a player takes the decision to allow societal equality or whatever the name was. In equality women and men are treated pretty much the same but I _think_ inheritance is always patrilineal, which pretty much messes up the possibility of matrilinear inheritance/dynasties. A way to have it either way (patrilinear or matrilinear) would be great. A matriarchy law or setting to reverse gender rules completely for a country (or culture?) would be awesome.

I'm not sure if I just did something wrong with the family colour thing. Can you show an example on what it should look like done properly?


...but tbh, I absolutely get that patching Imperator is not a high priority thing and I hope that you work on stuff that is the most inspiring to you since we are gonna have like infinite requests anyway.

 

[SAS]

The debate about Achievemnts can stop, please stick to Bug reporting.

 

[zorgoball]

Niels has been updated for the next Invictus patch

 

[gh4ever]

View attachment 972770
Niels has been updated for the next Invictus patch

His popularity needs to be much higher!

 

[zorgoball]

His popularity needs to be much higher!

Honestly deserves 99+ for every stat and then some, but if that were the case, the Frisian Empire would spread to the four corners of the earth under his command

 

[htimsnivek]

Can you please make it so that a mouse is not required to zoom in or out, i hate using one and in imperator i am really unable to play it properly

I'd recommend looking into Autohotkey if you hate a mouse. You can use your keyboard to send mouse commands really easily. Lots of online examples.

 

[MuonSuzuki]

bug.