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That's not really true, though. Even in EU3, Catholics had access to the unique Papacy mechanics. Moreover, Sword of Islam came out for CK2 in 2012. You're effectively saying "Imperator: Rome has a feature set equivalent to a 2012 release"; but we're now in 2019 and you're a much bigger developer than you were back then.

EDIT: That said, the fact you are responding to us is really appreciated. A lot of people have taken it much too far with the criticism and when I am making any replies I am trying to be quite careful to make sure it is focused points and not general complaining; I hope that comes across. Thanks for engaging with us.

True.

The original vision for Imperator was that religion should not be as important, so we did not design features for it to make the different religions unique.
 
I think one of the problems is that you can become so unified culturallly and religiously. It should be much harder to do so. I understand it is a goal and all but I think there should be a reason not to do so as well.
 
I have just a question for @Johan . Is there any plans to add visualy diferent armies on map based on their composition in the near future? (like ck2 or eu4)

Like cavalry? or elephants?

I want to, but art is reluctant.
 
Appreciate the hard work Johan. Congrats for the smooth launch.
Imho the biggest issues with the game right now is balance more than lack of content (though more flavor is always good). Many mechanics are there but they do not have the desired effect (or not enough of an effect, pirates and barbarians are not enough of a threat and there are too much information given about "revolts" while not enough about why they fail. Seeing a guy raise an army "out of nowhere", allow you to replace him at the top of his army a year later then do it again a bit later breaks immersion.
For tribes, the army created by the familiies should stay within the family and go to their heir rather than being given back to the player and forcing us to disband them to avoid treasury issues.
The only thing I did find missing was events and mapmodes with a lack of clear economic view (even the "building" option did not allow to see what was already built so will I be building a marketplace where there is already one and what will be its effects to the tax of the province I can't see in that mode).
Finally, pop movement is tedious once your country grows.
Colonization lacks depth as well though it's definitely easier to handle than it was in EU:Rome

Aside of that EU: Rome was one of the games I love and I'm really happy to see Imperator: Rome coming out with such a good base, I'm sure it'll become a really great game through the years but yeah more flavor, better interface and some balance will help it out for sure.
 
Johan (and the dev team!), you deserve a sincere thank you for the wonderful game you've put out and the amazing potential it carries. I've sunk thousands of hours into CK2/EU4/HoI4/Stellaris and I agree that Imperator: Rome is by far the most polished of them, even if it has some imperfections and oversights on release.

Much of the criticism seems to be out of place. The AI definitely feels a lot more 'alive' than in previous games to the point where I actually enjoy playing I:R in singleplayer (I play almost exclusively the multiplayer parts of the games I own, including other PDX titles). There being little difference between neighbouring nations is definitely one aspect I felt could use improvement so I'm glad you're working on that.

Ui improvement also look fantastic and how actively youre handling player feedback makes me incredibly excited for future content.

Keep it up :)
 
And what is the difference you like between lets say Saxony and Aragon in EU4 that you can't find between Tartessos and Suionia in Imperator?

I'll try to give it a shot.

  • Aragon has dozens of special events, including several DHE's like the Iberian Wedding
  • Aragon has a mission tree, and in the base game, it had special Old Missions.
  • Saxony is an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, with all the diplomatic effects it brings. It starts in the middle of the HRE, making expansion a complex affair.
  • Aragon and Saxony have unique national idea sets, different from their neighbours and themselves.
  • Aragon and Saxony both share Papal religious mechanics, yes, but those mechanics are different than any other religion. They also can convert to two other deonominations of christendom, further expanding their options. Saxony frequently goes protestant.
  • Aragon and Saxony have massive economical differences, and as such Aragon can afford better advisors and get a bigger monarch power output, while Saxony has to make do with what they have.
  • Aragon starts with a personal union over far off Naples, forcing the player to take on the ''naval'' game. EU4 always had had 4 ship types, IR has one.
  • Both have unique flags, instead of RNG patterns. I know handcrafted flags for so many tags as in I:R is a tall order, but the system makes tags feel ''samey'' and often during wars i couldnt tell who's who, and i had to install a flag mod.
 
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2. I can manually convert pops to my culture or to my religion. I can also do this via governor policies. I can also manually move pops, however I cannot move them through governor policies. Have you considered adding governor policies for that? Personally I would consider an "urbanization" policy (whereby the governor would slowly move pops to the capital city of a province so that the majority of the province lives in that city) and a "ruralization" policy (whereby the governor would slowly spread pops out across the province to ensure every city is about as populated as every other city). Especially the latter policy is something that I would appreciate given the influx of slaves your capital province can experience.

Interesting. could definitely be done.
 
I've just had an idea: naming the levels might make it feel more flavourful for the people who are complaining about the buildings. So instead of having x granaries, you go storehouse > granary > aqueduct, or whatever.
Obviously feel free to ignore me utterly, just trying to be helpful. Thanks for the great game :)

thats one nice suggestion.
 
And what is the difference you like between lets say Saxony and Aragon in EU4 that you can't find between Tartessos and Suionia in Imperator?

I'm genuinely curious.

I think it is an issue in the world I don't think it is anything against specifically design more with the world that you start with. I'm not going to compare Aragon and Saxony but I'd rather compare say Burgundy and Palatinate. Both are really close together but both have pretty different 'feels to them' from events, formable decisions, enemies around them, alliance potential, mechanics (i.e unions v HRE) and interesting ai decisions that can cause a pretty unique game session.

Issue with the Roman World is that with Rome or Macedon or Phrygia or Seleucids or Egypt you are nearly always going to go the same gameplay path. If the AI do stupid things like Rome goes mental attacks everyone and collapses you're always going to be able to take advantage of this as Rome effectively for the rest of the game has no way out as there's no major powerful allies, to ally with. There's very little in the way of bad diplomatic decisions you can make in IR than say in EU4.
 
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> Barebones Games
> This is the feedback that I just do not understand. I took everything we had in Rome I, and made every mechanic deeper and more complex, while adding lots more new mechanics to make it into a game. This game was developed the same way we did EU4 and HOI2, the previous games I’ve been most satisfied with, where we used all the original gameplay code of the previous game, and just built upon that.
> I’ve not cut away anything when making Imperator to add into future expansions, and every game-mechanic, and lots more, we had planned was in the original 1.0.
> I have said before launch that this is the best game I’ve made, and I stand by it still. 1.0 of Imperator is the best 1.0 we have ever made of a game.
> I understand that there is a part of the community that dislike abstracted currencies like prestige, monarch power, influence or political power, they do make it into games that are possible to balance and
> In 1.1, with us adding stability, war exhaustion, aggressive expansion and tyranny to the price structure, you could make a really good mod, replacing all power costs with impacts on those attributes. Such a mod could also completely make the instant culture conversion of a pop cost tyranny instead, making it something you do not want to do in bulk, or you could make changing an idea cost 5 stability, which is not much in direct cost, but limits you in other ways.
> The base game will continue to use these currencies, as they make for a better game, but I acknowledge that there is a group of people who dislike them, and prefer another experience, so we will improve the game, to be able to support it.
> There has been a lot of feedback of the game about how most countries just feel the same to play, and there are no variations. While most people appreciate that there is enough difference between settled tribes, migratory tribes, monarchies and republics, there is not much difference between the different tribes other than their starting location.
> Another thing is that the game has been tuned so a lot of the mechanics is not required to think about, especially when you are a big power.

These quotes confirm to me how arrogant the management is and how unfit they are to be directing development. They're basically saying we're right you're wrong. If you don't like it too bad. And are in complete denial about the biggest issue Paradox fans have with all their recent games. They need to go. Need new leadership. If the Steam user rating was 5% they would still be in denial about everything. I think they are intentionally misrepresenting the community's clear issues and concerns with Imperator and all the recent Paradox games.

p.s. What's with all the typos?
 
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These quotes confirm to me how arrogant the management is and how unfit they are to be directing development. They're basically saying we're right you're wrong. If you don't like it too bad. And are in complete denial about the biggest issue Paradox fans have with all their recent games. They need to go. Need new leadership. If the Steam user rating was 5% they would still be in denial about everything. I think they are intentionally misrepresenting the community's clear issues and concerns with Imperator and all the recent Paradox games.

p.s. What's with all the typos?
Agreed.
 
p.s. What's with all the typos?
Not everyone is an english native, and not everyone can speak nor write perfect english.
 
I hope you are not implying what it sounds like you are implying. The CK2 team worked hard on their AI, and on their game rules, and said AI has to deal with a great many game systems; as did the HoI4 team in their game rules. Gotta say you have kinda lost me in this comment, and i hope i'm just reading it wrong somehow.

And having rules makes it LOT harder for their AI developers, as they need to consider all rules, and test lots of permutations.

hoi4 rules are easier in that it is basically balance boosts.
 
These quotes confirm to me how arrogant the management is and how unfit they are to be directing development. They're basically saying we're right you're wrong. If you don't like it too bad. And are in complete denial about the biggest issue Paradox fans have with all their recent games. They need to go. Need new leadership. If the Steam user rating was 5% they would still be in denial about everything. I think they are intentionally misrepresenting the community's clear issues and concerns with Imperator and all the recent Paradox games.

p.s. What's with all the typos?

Hey no being mean. I know you are frustrated with some things but they are honestly trying their best. There are just competing ideas in where the game should go.
 
Thank you for the insight Johan!
I myself really, really love imperator! I am having so much fun with this, specially that I'm such an ancient history nerd, and I agree that people look at games that are being updated for years now while this is a great base game actually! Besides CK2 this is now my favourite game and i feel like in years of development it migth become the very best game of yours!

I don't think the AI is bad, it actually often proves to be quite good. And when it comes to the ledger, I personally find it to be more of a cheat. I even wish that it doesn't show you exactly how much army or money a country has when you click on it, but it's just my personal opinion.

The thing i wish for the most is more diversity in religions and technologies. I also wish there are more events that make you feel like your country is actually alive, so to say. But I'm having a lot of fun in this game, and I can't wait for the future updates!
 
I have been enjoying the game very much. My main gripes is that oratory power is used for way too many interactions, thus you can't actually do any of those interactions. Families die off too much, considering they don't get automatically replaced with a new family when they die. I should always have access to enough citizens to fill all government/military positions. Also, when your vassals have a civil war, and they lose, you lose the vassal. But you can't help them.

I do not believe the game is shallow or boring. It really is a good game.
 
Are there any plans for an interface to re-map hotkeys? I'm having trouble using the WASD map movement system after ~2,500 hours of EU4 (these keys have been drilled into my memory as political mapmode, board ships, split stack in half, and detach siege, respectively). And the macro-builder not being assigned to the 'B' key is rather annoying.

sadly not prioritised.

i personally dislike wasd for mapmovement as well.
 
-No naval combat
-Only 4 buildings
-A soundtrack that feels very limited, with a day 1 DLC to get the whole thing (come on, really? My ears are already tired of the same things)
-Using mana to do everything, and instantly, instead of more realistic and in depth modelling of aspects how a state works
-Countries feel the same in regards to tech, ideas, omens etc (you've addressed that which I acknowledge)

When barebones is mentioned these are the main things that come to my mind.

The weird design decisions like 1 warscore battles are also the main things that stick out as problematic to me as well, and the whole characters-not-marrying design decision has been proven to be game breaking (or almost so) for several people including myself. I don't see any reason why these passed the testing stages.

I don't hate the game as it is, I kind of enjoy it actually, and believe it could be better but the thing is, it seems like what CK2 tried to do on release, it did better (character focus) and what EUIV tried to do, it did better (empire building focus.) What we have got is only aspects of both of those systems. What I would like to see is those being fully developed in a way tha\ makes Imperator feel like its own unique game, just like CK2 and EUIV do.

I don't get how your comment got 5 'downvotes'. You've made sensible points in a level-headed and reasonable manner. Hardly the sort of rage-filled screaming which people quite rightly get annoyed by!
 
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Please don't conflate EU4's monarch points/I:R's powers with other types of abstracted currencies and assume that critics hate the concept in general. I think it comes down to intent.

Prestige in CK2 and influence in Stellaris are in those games to fill a gap in the simulation of playing a feudal king or spacefaring empire that hard currency alone can't represent. It enhances the roleplay and immersion.

Monarch points/powers, on the other hand, do the opposite. They seem to exist because EU4 and I:R are multiplayer-focused, board-game-style titles where game balance is critical. The points serve as control rods; in the event of snowballing or exploitation, adjusting the point costs or sources of point generation can usually fix the issue since so many systems are tied together with these currencies. Eventually the points take over the game, and the player stops seeing the game as a world and sees it as a bunch of numbers to optimize; speaking for myself, it all just feels a bit soulless.

A board game approach is perfectly valid and perfectly satisfies many players. However, any community is diverse, and a lot of people enjoy Paradox games for the simulation and sense of re-enacting history. I think this--more than anything--lies at the heart of these complaints.
 
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