Why developing I:R 2 when you can come back to I:R

[Gurkhal]

While going into the early Middle Ages would be cool I would recommend that it would make more sense to me as an expansion for CK3 rather than a Imperator kind of game.

The reason I think so is that it seems to me that the period is more about individuals rather than polities with strong institutions. The same is true for the tale end of the Late Western Roman Empire with its focus on military strongmen in contrast to a strong central authority.

I just can't see a strong case for the period working better for a game about central governments as opposed to a game about characters and the relation between them.

 

[Tibi088]

I think the hype around release of IR and the massive amount of other, ancient era games are proof that there is absolutely a huge interest and potential playerbase for this era. The problem is not that the game was set in ancient era. I think the bad release killed the game and all the amazing work the developers put in later failed to revive it.

 

[Gurkhal]

I don't know if this is strictly on-topic but it should fit in with other things that's been discussed here. But this is something I've been wanting to post for a while.

In my opinion Paradox could do more with characters in a new game set in the ancient world, or in a return to Imperator, as the ancient world, it seems to me, kind of stands with one foot in a person-focused and one foot in a institutional-focused system. And that could add to the game as to make the characters that we use as a tag mean more and have more options to them.

For while the strength of the Roman hegemony or the resilience of Athenian democracy can't be understood without seeing the institutions, the fall of the Roman republic and the struggle after the death of the Alexander the Great can't be understood without looking at the personalities involved. Both parts are present and influential and both should add something to the game.

Examples for this can easily be taken from, for example, a mod like Europa Barbarorum II.

If you play as, as an example, a Gallic culture tag then perhaps you can decide if you want a child to become a warrior, administrator, merchantile or seek training to become a druid (if you follow the Druidic religion). Which will open up options and so for that character and allow them to become skilled in one thing or another.

Maybe you'll send a young man with a martial career before him to raid hostile neighbors with other hot-headed young warriors, become a mercenary and fight for gold and glory in the armies of the Mediterranean empires for a time or something else entirely.

All of which could have both potential risks and gains but it would certainly allow us to interact more with mentioned characters and fashion them for a role we want them to do. As well as offering great RP oppertunities.

 

[Troyen]

The recent news about PDS interactive renewed focus on GSG and the tweet from Arheo has made me think that they might be considering I:R 2. I'd say, why developing a new game when there is still so much you can do with I:R ? For example, building upon the work by Invictus and improving the vanilla game could be done by a group of engaged devs ( probably modders ?)

One possibility for why they might choose a sequel over continuing development is the developer team is almost certainly going to be different. There are some ex-IR devs at Paradox still, but they've been working on other games for a few years now and may be invested in those projects. There's a real possibility some of them won't want to switch back to an IR-related project, and I have no idea how many of them have left the company.

New people joining the project are more likely to be motivated by making something new rather than fixing up someone else's project, especially one with a tarnished reputation. There are people who enjoy taking on the Herculean tasks of patching old things up, but anecdotally, I'd say maybe one in eight developers are like that, at best. If you have a mostly-new team, they're likely going to want to have their own spin on how the game should play.

To be clear, I'm not saying this will definitely happen or should happen; I'm simply offering a plausible reason why they may choose to make a sequel instead of a 2.1/3.0 if they did decide to revisit the IR IP. There are also reasons why they may not do so (e.g. developing a new game is probably more expensive).

 

[Snow Crystal]

One possibility for why they might choose a sequel over continuing development is the developer team is almost certainly going to be different. There are some ex-IR devs at Paradox still, but they've been working on other games for a few years now and may be invested in those projects. There's a real possibility some of them won't want to switch back to an IR-related project, and I have no idea how many of them have left the company.

At this point, about 50% of the people working on 2.0 at the Stockholm studio have left, and everyone except one person from the Thalassic studio. Those of us who are still here have usually gained relatively high seniority or some kind of lead positions at one of the other games. With the way studios work at Paradox nowadays, it's incredibly unlikely that all the ex-IR devs could up and leave those projects for any reason, particularly for something like Imperator.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Similar to Doodlez with Victoria 3, incorporating moders into PDX could be a way forward for I:R.

They possess the passion and this may open up a school for young devs for PDX.

It is not an easy task finding the right people, commitment may falter and developing a game is not a one person effort, making this endevour complicated. Alas, this company is in the game bussiness, isn’t it? Some sinergies maye be found if funding is available.

 

[Gornova]

My 2 cents: remove imperator name and rome, start as new game.
Focus more on middle east empires and start before Alexander conquest and rise to power.

Less feature / more focus:
- less playable nation with more content at start. no free pick any tribe/nation around
- let players experience full conquest mode with Alexander, his fall and the war after. Let player mess with all of this and find new historical plausible (and not ) path for history
- let players exploit Alexander conquest and fall (from inside and outside of the empire) as Diadochos
- let players be enemy of Alexander and try to stop him and Macedonians
- let players be allied (but not so loyal) as greek polis
- let players be colonizer on the frontier of the colonization (for example Rome? or Syracuse?)

A little bit of character focus (but not as CK series) and more story craziness like HOI.
Reuse existing systems from all the series that proven works ( event from I:R ) and let players min-max combat armies during movements like in EU4, but not on detail like TW series.

I know, strange mix, but sound right to me

 

[darkyodada]

At this point, about 50% of the people working on 2.0 at the Stockholm studio have left, and everyone except one person from the Thalassic studio. Those of us who are still here have usually gained relatively high seniority or some kind of lead positions at one of the other games. With the way studios work at Paradox nowadays, it's incredibly unlikely that all the ex-IR devs could up and leave those projects for any reason, particularly for something like Imperator.

So many people leaving in two years is not a sign of a healthy company that makes its staff want to stay long term.

 

[MarcusGaribaldus]

I hope that maybe more start time should be added. The history is too long for us to play the whole time. Different beginning like Punic Wars, Macedonian Wars, the Big Threes and Roman Empires would be better. By the way, I hope CK would start at 476 because that period is also fantastique, the Chaos~

 

[Tolomeidb2]

Considering I bought Imperator Rome at 20€ on the idea that the game would get fixed overtime, i would look at an Imperator 2 game with a lot, lot of scepticism to be overcome.

Before this game, I believed that PDX sometimes made lacking releases that get better and better over the years for free.

Now I've learned my lesson, and only look if the product as of today is good enough, as PDX has proven that it can abandon a core GSG game if sales do not go as intended.

 

[guiskj]

I'm on the camp that wishes IR had even more of a character focus.

Hear me out:
I love the time period, but from a very layman perspective. I mainly know the broad strokes of Alexander, Rome and Greece. Everything else I ,at best, just recognize names here and there. Even Carthage I know only as it relates to Rome itself.

So for someone like me, the characters help anchor the gameplay and fill in my gaps of knowledge. A great example are the government positions. They all have authentic but meaningless titles to me, so I kept hoping the characters in them would actually act out their jobs, but they never did.

And I think there are A LOT of people like me, that love the time period but don't really understand it enough to draw enjoyment from super authentic stuff and instead get lost in it all.

 

[Tibi088]

Considering I bought Imperator Rome at 20€ on the idea that the game would get fixed overtime, i would look at an Imperator 2 game with a lot, lot of scepticism to be overcome.

Before this game, I believed that PDX sometimes made lacking releases that get better and better over the years for free.

Now I've learned my lesson, and only look if the product as of today is good enough, as PDX has proven that it can abandon a core GSG game if sales do not go as intended.

That was a massive blow to my trust in Paradox as well. Before they have had ocassional bad releases and DLC's but always fixed things. Imperator was pretty barebones at release - but the promise was that the meat would come with the DLC's. And at the time I trusted Paradox enough that I preordered the game. And while I absolutely give credit to Paradox for spending years fixing the game after release and I can also understand the business reasons for abandoning the game at that point - and monetarily it porbably would have made more sense to abandon the game without fixing it. But on the other side the promise of DLC's and lots of content to make the barebones basic game into a great game was broken. I havent pre-ordered any Paradox games since than.

 

[Tolomeidb2]

That was a massive blow to my trust in Paradox as well. Before they have had ocassional bad releases and DLC's but always fixed things. Imperator was pretty barebones at release - but the promise was that the meat would come with the DLC's. And at the time I trusted Paradox enough that I preordered the game. And while I absolutely give credit to Paradox for spending years fixing the game after release and I can also understand the business reasons for abandoning the game at that point - and monetarily it porbably would have made more sense to abandon the game without fixing it. But on the other side the promise of DLC's and lots of content to make the barebones basic game into a great game was broken. I havent pre-ordered any Paradox games since than.

Yes I understand the business reason, you're not gonna pour money into an always losing money game.

But the brand image has been damaged with IR treatment.

 

[Metz]

An Imperator II could borrow its character UI/UX from Crusader Kings and the Economy/Pop system from Victoria 3.

There is also an open niche for something that takes place around the barbarian migrations and the fall of Rome.

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

I dont think we will get a new similar ancient GSG for as long as technology doesnt allow for something so radical and mind-blowing that players will play the game despite its external shortcomings (peoole just dont like this period. While it is fine for a game with in game battles, it just doesnt work for the GSG genre because people only like/can relate to a handful of countries). So it would need something so ground breaking that sets it apart from other PDX games that people will have fun playing it even if they do not relate or feel any connection to the tag they are playing whatsoever.

And thats not going to happen for at least a decade.

Even game with the mechanical depth of EU5, set in ancient times, I think it would still fail.

The alternative is also that they enhance the experience of the 10 countries everyone always plays so much that it makes up for the lack of variaty, but that is just as unlikely to happen since that has not happened in any PDX game where most countries play pretty much the same with the exception of flavour and content touches here and there. Just talking from a pure core mechanics perspective.

I think the best approach is to give it up for now. I am sure that if EU5 is as much of a success as its predecesor, it will eventually have mods for the antiquity that will blow IR out of the water and people who enjoy that period will just play these mods.

 

[The Russian Empire]

I'm on the camp that wishes IR had even more of a character focus.

I completely agree. For an era that had legendary and fascinating figures such as Caesar, Pompey, Cato, Mithridates VI, Antiochus IV, Hannibal, Berenice II, etc., I never really felt like characters were represented as personalities. As another user said, it all feels very impersonal.

 

[Metz]

A CK3 character with Victoria 3 economics and EU4 map painting would be a good hybrid. Timeframe is shorter than CK3 and the Roman republican era was basically a free for all between Patricians trying to one up each other. I would treat Patricians like interest groups in Victoria 3, where each position and achievement increases their clout.

 

[yangzilata]

An Imperator II could borrow its character UI/UX from Crusader Kings and the Economy/Pop system from Victoria 3.

Arheo once said: "The problem with the game is that it's unclear whether it's character-based or population-based."

I even replied to his message saying, "I like this binary system," and ironically, I can't find my reply either.

Your suggestion would create a trio system—something that seems out of scope. In other words, the combination might regrettably be beyond what can realistically be achieved.

I have a relatively good understanding of the core design features and their purposes, but a part of me still believes that including all those population, economics, character, and map elements at once for an antiquity-based game is necessary. However, that level of complexity and high effort makes the game practically unplayable."

Perhaps we could add an AI-powered assistant that acts as a second in command. We could order the main goals and, if needed, interfere with the aforementioned aspects of the game. But even with this setup, the game becomes just more playable on console editions, not overall playable.

For years, a part of me has kept thinking about what could be done for Imperator Rome II, but I still haven’t solved this very puzzlement!

 

[Promethium555]

If paradox makes another gsg set in ancient times, id want them to try a different focus then Rome. Maybe push the start date back a few centuries to cover Ancient Greece at its peak, with Assyria and Carthage starting their conquests, and the Judaic faith in its infancy, possibly covering the Nubian conquest of Egypt as well?

 

[GodBox]

TLDR: Put the game on sale and spend a little money on advertising to see if you can actually sustain a player count of 10k for few months instead of spending all that time and money making a new game. If it doesn't work, you've lost nothing.

Instead of making a new I:R2, I'd love to see Paradox try and relaunch I:R with an ad campaign on Steam. Seems like putting the game on sale and paying to have it on the front page of Steam (maybe along with a small DLC or patch) could go a long way in building a player count.

I bought the game at launch, and it was a half-baked piece of garbage even worse than EU4 was at launch. I recently picked the game back up, and it's lightyears ahead of where it was. I can only imagine where it would be if they had simply stuck with it, like with EU4.

The problem is I had no idea they'd improved it so much. I just happened to see the anniversary beta patch and give it a go.

Instead of investing all that time and $$$ in a new game, why not take the quick option? Spend a little cash now and see if you can get the daily player count to even 10k plus for a month or two with an ad campaign and revive this thing.