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Imperator: Rome Dev Diary - 2nd of March

Hello there!

I have the pleasure of bringing you this week’s Dev Diary, and will try to make the most of it. Today we are going to take a look at two other missions sets we are bringing for the upcoming content pack - Sparta and Athens. I want to stress that what you see here is still work in progress, so things might change before they go live.

For our start date, Sparta and Athens’ glory days are long over, with Sparta losing their allies and subjects after the battle at Leuktra in 371BCE, and Athens losing theirs after their loss in the Peloponnesian War (though they had another smaller league later on).

Sparta
We will be starting with Sparta, who have lost their Messenian lands to the freed Helots, and parts of Cynuria to the Argives in the east. Their missions will be focused on taking control of the Peloponnese, building up that land, and potentially taking a stab at Athens, Thebes, and Macedon.

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Sparta’s starting position in the Archimedes Update.

Sparta Mission 1 - Spartan Restoration
The first mission is focused on Laconia itself, the old heartland of Spartan power and influence in the Peloponnese. After the Thebans invaded and shattered the Peloponnesian League, Sparta was left in a weakened position in-between the Arcadians to the north, Messenians to the west, and Argives to the north-east.

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The path on the right-hand side let’s you focus on improving your starting land, whereas the left-hand side is focused on retaking the lands of Messenia. If you are to take the lands of Messenia before you start the mission, the mission will instead focus on developing your western holdings as well. As a stand-alone task, you have the possibility of trying to convince the Skiritai (a small rural tribe at the border between Arcadia and Laconia) to rejoin your side, and permanently improve your Light Infantry troops.

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Another thing of note in this mission is the task to unlock the deity ‘Artemis Orthia’, on the right hand side. She was historically an important deity in Sparta, and her sanctuary was rebuilt in the 3rd century BCE.

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Sparta Mission 2 - Protector of the Peloponnesus
The second mission for Sparta will focus on taking your conquests and efforts beyond Lacedaemonian lands, to the rest of the Peloponnese. You have the Arcadians who have gathered in a defensive league to the north, the ancient rival in Argos, and the Eleans and Achaeans to the far north and north-west.

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As you can see, we have an optional far-left path that focuses on the Eleans, whereas the rest focuses on the rest of the Peloponnese. The missions focuses on taking Arcadian, Argive, and Achaean lands, and gives you optional tasks if you want to improve these lands afterwards. Similarly to the first mission, you will get alternate development focused tasks here, if you already own some of the land when you start the mission.

To show some examples from the optional tasks:

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Sparta Mission 3 - The Second Peloponnesian League
The third mission for Sparta also focuses on the Peloponnese, similar to the second mission, but this time we are prioritizing development and taking control of whatever subjects you may have in the area.

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At first you have a small optional route, where you will be able to liberate parts of Greece still owned by foreign Diadochi. Then later on you have an optional route where you can focus on expanding the largest cities in the Peloponnese.

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The main task will focus on rebuilding the Peloponnesian League, and restoring Sparta to her former glory. At the end of it, you will get some nice permanent bonuses, in addition to a name and flag change.

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New flag for Peloponnesian League. Garnet red intensifies.

Sparta Mission 4 - Ancient Rivals
The final mission for the Spartan will focus on moving beyond the borders of the Peloponnese, to Athens, Thebes/Boeotia, and Macedon.

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The right-hand path focuses on Macedon, the middle on Athens, and the left-hand side on Thebes/Boeotia. Every path focuses on taking the main cities (see Athens, Thebes, Pella/Thessalonike), and then developing and taking advantage of them. At the end of the Athenian path, we have an optional task for introducing a new Athenian deity (and an effect from an Athenian mission task) in Sparta as well.

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Athens
Athens will be focused on breaking free from their Antigonid overlord, developing Attica, and restoring the Delian League once more. At our start date, Demetrius is invading Greece and wrestling control of the city-states from Macedon, and though he was originally accepted by the people of Athens, his treatment of their city quickly soured his relationship with the citizens.

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Athens’ starting position in the Archimedes Update.

Athens Mission 1 - Athens in Chains
The first mission for Athens will be focused on wresting control of the nation from its foreign overlord in Syria, or accepting their domination for some nice bonuses.

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As we can see here, the mission is split into two routes, one loyalist and one independence-seeking path. In the mission you have one great family in the nation that promotes each of the paths, and you will interact fairly heavily with them to finally get to the end of the route. The winning family will eventually banish their rivals, and either lead Athens to freedom, or to oligarchy.

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Athens Mission 2 - Restoring Attica
As one of the richer regions in Greece, Attica was the home of several rich silver mines, as well as a large population and several cities under Athenian influence. The second mission for Athens focuses on expanding upon your local powerbase, before you look outwards at new potential conquests.

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At the top we have tasks focused on the basic infrastructure, like owning all of Attica, building up Athens, and an optional task to expand upon the silver mines. For the second half of the mission, you will have two paths focused on the Mysteries in Eleusis and the Academy of Athens, giving different kinds of bonuses (among them the character bonus you saw earlier in the Sparta mission as well).

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Athens Mission 3 - Democracy in Athens
The third mission for Athens is focused upon the local democracy of Athens itself, an institution famous long after its fall.

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This mission is split into two different options. On the right-hand side you can choose to abandon democracy and become a new tyrant of the republic (a bit like Lachares did in the early 3rd century BCE). Whereas on the left-hand side you can hold on to your ancient ideals and focus your efforts on improving the democratic institutions of the city-state, to get some permanent boni to the republic-related actions in the game.

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Athens Mission 4 - Restoring the Delian League
The fourth mission for Athens focuses on restoring the Delian League to its former glory, taking the place of the current decision that already exists in the game.

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In the mission you have two paths, one focused on the Aegean Islands, and one focused on the more distant city-states that used to be part of the ancient league. For most of the conquest tasks you will have an optional development focused follow-up task (e.g ‘By the Strymon River’ which gives you the task of taking Amphipolis, and then ‘Amphipolian Goods’ which has you expand upon the local mines). These will vary somewhat based on who owns it (you or a subject), and if it is a city or a settlement.

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When you finish the mission, you will get a new name and flag (similar to the end of the third Spartan mission), as you triumphantly restore the Delian League.

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I wanted to stick to the original flag for Athens, and just make it a tad more fancy looking.

Hopefully you found this little glance at the new missions for Athens and Sparta interesting, and we’ll have more to show you next week!
 
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So I see with these new missions comes more complex requirements. For example, I’m looking at The Footsteps of Solon. Will anything be added to the AI to try and get them to finish these missions? For example the AI will bribe characters if their loyalty is <40 from what I’ve seen, but will they bribe people to complete that mission?

I only ask because that mission provides the prelude to the Athenian Republic government type. I assume if these trees trend up then maybe in the future even more tags will be locked behind complicated unlock parameters.

So my question would be if the AI can handle the parameters, or will we never see these missions completed while the AI is stonewalled behind an unlock parameter?
 
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Imperator Rome doesn't have any army template or macrobuilder system, of a diplomacy macrobuilder or more than two wargoals and you're trying to sell me Athenian mission packs. Just copy it from EU4! Copy everything about the diplomacy system from EU4 if you can't think of anything else!
 
I really appreciate what you did with missions after EU4 experience and appreciate the ones you made so far. But differentiating from each other and adding immersion to the countries shouldn't be limited with just missions. In fact, for me at least, i would care more for the things like exclusive government mechanics, laws, pop types etc. Please consider this for the upcoming updates.

Something simple like culture based pop localization would be great. Like helot as slaves for example. Maybe localized building names as well.
 
Question @Snow Crystal : As this is the Magna Grecia pack would Epirus(which had plenty of interactions in Magnia Grecia) have a mission Tree? What about the City states of Magna Grecia such as Lucania, Messapia, Apulia, Brutia, Tarentium? What about the Samnium?
 
I always wanted to play Athens, but its situation discouraged me, now i am really glad i can try it this way :D
Same with Sparta.

I just want to say how much i really love when the mission rewards give you special and permanent bonus, it feels like history matters and have a real impact in culture. Temporary bonus are ok-ish, but if they were replace by permanent the better for my taste.
 
I'm a little surprised that this dev diary is just focusing on mission trees (which any modder can do in their free time) instead of more substantive changes to the game. It feels like there are huge holes in the mechanics, flavor, and immersion of the game generally and that those should be addressed before adding content to (essentially) OPMs in Greece that have little or no affect on the bigger game.

I wonder if there is any sense of urgency on the developer's side here -- I enjoy playing the game but not many other people do.
 
This is disappointing tbch. Was expecting perhaps a revamp on both Sparta and Athens political systems. Is there a unique style for the Athenian republic? How about a Spartan diarchy?

Just a Mission system alone isn’t adequate in my opinion, there is a lot of lost potential again.
 
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The AI aims to expand along the lines of missions. This is also true in 1.3 :)
Yes. And the most usual case is that they don't progress past the first tree. So basically it doesn't differ much from simply following through with the free claims.

I would be deeply convinced if the CPU countries could ever try to finish the first tree, and then choosing to embellish their region by building the corresponding buildings and claiming the rewards.

And... besides... I don't think we need to argue between the choices between Events and Missions. Events should always be superior. Unique Mission Trees are something supplementary to help guide the players, while the main interactions between countries are based on Events. And the current Events really require polishing. For example Epirus has an Event to marry off Pyrrhus' sister to Phrygia. But somehow Phrygia is out of range to Epirus. So what about the marriage? Nothing happens, just that you have lost a character. Missions would not improve these.

My concern over here is to reemphasise that we should be putting more expectations on getting more Events than Missions. Missions are like "side-quests" if you treat development as a game. Events and Mechanics are the main quest lines for you, dear developers.
 
This is disappointing tbch. Was expecting perhaps a revamp on both Sparta and Athens political systems. Is there a unique style for the Athenian republic? How about a Spartan diarchy?

Just a Mission system alone isn’t adequate in my opinion, there is a lot of lost potential again.
Maybe they will elaborate on this next week.
 
I didn't expect to see a focus on those two factions in the Magna Graecia DLC, associated with the Archimedes patch. I thought you would keep them for the Menander patch, together with most of Balkanic Greece aside from maybe Epirus. It's a pleasant surprise, but I still hope to see some love for Taras, Epirus, and maybe even Massilia. And now I have to add Thebes and maybe even Corinth to the list.
I however also have to say I'm a little bit disappointed to see there are no mission for Sparata military and political reformation, and on the opposite Athens is lacking in conquest missions. Sure we have the entire Delian tree, but once the Delian League is reformed there is nothing about facing your rivals for Hellas hegemon.
 
Something that other people have brought up that I might expand upon is trying to add flavor packs before the game has really been defined.
For example, most people understand the need for some kind of political overhaul, at least that’s on the board for “big wish.” Assuming that updates will continue to revamp the game like removing mana and adding food, then what happens when you revamp politics and Athens already got its flavor pack earlier in the release schedule and it’s government “flavor” is just a different set of ideas. Are we to expect you will create a unique government for Athens when a political update comes out?
Say that a political update never comes, this applies for any mechanic that will add complexity to the game, and some of the most interesting countries won’t get unique flavor tied to the mechanic (Because the most interesting countries come first.)
This has already happened. Epirus has a flavor pack, but no missions are included as that was released after. Will missions ever be added to Epirus? Who knows. Will this problem persist in the future? Yeah probably
 
I noticed that while Base Resource is in the game (or at least, I found the icon for it in the files), I don't actually know of anywhere that it applies in the current game. What exactly are its effects?
 
I noticed that while Base Resource is in the game (or at least, I found the icon for it in the files), I don't actually know of anywhere that it applies in the current game. What exactly are its effects?

Well, it increases the base amount of resources from a province. It creates 1 resource as a base amount usually, increased by 1 every X slaves. After this modifier, it creates 3 resources as a base amount, increased by every X slaves.
 
I noticed that while Base Resource is in the game (or at least, I found the icon for it in the files), I don't actually know of anywhere that it applies in the current game. What exactly are its effects?
There is some territories in Syria which produce additional Wood.

Imperator Rome doesn't have any army template or macrobuilder system, of a diplomacy macrobuilder or more than two wargoals and you're trying to sell me Athenian mission packs. Just copy it from EU4! Copy everything about the diplomacy system from EU4 if you can't think of anything else!
It hardly have a diplomacy system to begin with, compare its diplomacy with what is seen in EUIV right now and you can tell its is pretty lackluser. Straight up copy would probably not be a good idea but it is an area that need alot of work.
 
Siciliy was an ill fated Athenian invasion target during the Peloponnesian War so it's rather apt Sparta and Athens are included. Good to see that the Magna Grecia content pack is about a greater Greece rather than just the area of Magna Grecia on the map.
 
Something that other people have brought up that I might expand upon is trying to add flavor packs before the game has really been defined.
For example, most people understand the need for some kind of political overhaul, at least that’s on the board for “big wish.” Assuming that updates will continue to revamp the game like removing mana and adding food, then what happens when you revamp politics and Athens already got its flavor pack earlier in the release schedule and it’s government “flavor” is just a different set of ideas. Are we to expect you will create a unique government for Athens when a political update comes out?
Say that a political update never comes, this applies for any mechanic that will add complexity to the game, and some of the most interesting countries won’t get unique flavor tied to the mechanic (Because the most interesting countries come first.)
This has already happened. Epirus has a flavor pack, but no missions are included as that was released after. Will missions ever be added to Epirus? Who knows. Will this problem persist in the future? Yeah probably
They could give Athens the ability to banish a character by vote,