Suggestions for Imperator II

[IsaacCAT]

Yes, I know that, and already ahead of you - re-read my suggestion, it is saying that there should be a "buff" or exception, perhaps RNG based when not same culture/religion to totally discount the penalties that do occur. Such as the loss of Civilization value -- totally discount it, let the Barbarians simply "integrate" instead of siege the province. So we agree these events are "good for population" but I'm going a step further to say that in certain situations, perhaps some with RNG-factoring, these events should come with ZERO penalties for Tribes. It instead becomes an event where it's sort of like - the Barbarians are deciding to join the Tribe without objection or sieging/harassment.

Decreasing civ level is a bonus for tribes as tribesmen are happier with lower civ level.

I agree with you about the numbers vs quality. Your idea of barbarian migrations ala Yuezi is a very good one. Increasing pops in the northen regions that will force the player to migrate to the south and settle in more habitable lands is a good one.

However, tribes are always penalized by low civ and tech level. Balancing this could be done by introducing equivalent bonus with specific mechanics for tribes. Most idoneously being temporary.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Decreasing civ level is a bonus for tribes as tribesmen are happier with lower civ level.

I agree with you about the numbers vs quality. Your idea of barbarian migrations ala Yuezi is a very good one. Increasing pops in the northen regions that will force the player to migrate to the south and settle in more habitable lands is a good one.

However, tribes are always penalized by low civ and tech level. Balancing this could be done by introducing equivalent bonus with specific mechanics for tribes. Most idoneously being temporary.

I would disagree with the specific point about "Decreasing civ level is a bonus for tribes..." - a "normal game" in I:R currently would have a progression of all Civ to gain more Citizens and Nobles to snowball Tech advancement and move beyond Tribe status into a Monarchy or Republic government pathway. So any "...tribesmen are happier" effort is a NEGATIVE effect on the transition of said tribesmen into Citizens or Nobles (think about that).

Having said that, if you are saying this in the context of - trying to create a better game play-through experience by making it viable to stay a Tribe during the entire play-through, and never "advance" or transition into Republic or Monarchy, then that's a totally different argument but in itself would need an entire Concept/Suggestion in itself here, for a theoretical follow-on game. I wouldn't be against making a Tribe viable to a point, but consider this - if we ever did get the "game we want" - no matter our biases, I think we would all agree that the current I:R game length is too short, not enough years, and instead we should have a EU4 or CK2 game length for a play through - such as 400-500 game years in length, right? And if that is a goal, then playing that entire window as a Tribe only, even if going from current I:R themed Migratory Tribe to Settled Tribe -- even a Settled Tribe would have an extreme challenge to succeed along a 400-500 year timeline if the Tech Advances are paced the same as I:R (you simply can't survive the onslaught of a matured Republic in long term if all other things are equal - especially population, fielded army size, Manpower/reserves, etc.). So I can't see an effective argument to the "lower Civ is good for Tribesmen" - because that's like the "weakest link holding you back" to progress in the game.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I would disagree with the specific point about "Decreasing civ level is a bonus for tribes..." - a "normal game" in I:R currently would have a progression of all Civ to gain more Citizens and Nobles to snowball Tech advancement and move beyond Tribe status into a Monarchy or Republic government pathway. So any "...tribesmen are happier" effort is a NEGATIVE effect on the transition of said tribesmen into Citizens or Nobles (think about that).

Having said that, if you are saying this in the context of - trying to create a better game play-through experience by making it viable to stay a Tribe during the entire play-through, and never "advance" or transition into Republic or Monarchy, then that's a totally different argument but in itself would need an entire Concept/Suggestion in itself here, for a theoretical follow-on game. I wouldn't be against making a Tribe viable to a point, but consider this - if we ever did get the "game we want" - no matter our biases, I think we would all agree that the current I:R game length is too short, not enough years, and instead we should have a EU4 or CK2 game length for a play through - such as 400-500 game years in length, right? And if that is a goal, then playing that entire window as a Tribe only, even if going from current I:R themed Migratory Tribe to Settled Tribe -- even a Settled Tribe would have an extreme challenge to succeed along a 400-500 year timeline if the Tech Advances are paced the same as I:R (you simply can't survive the onslaught of a matured Republic in long term if all other things are equal - especially population, fielded army size, Manpower/reserves, etc.). So I can't see an effective argument to the "lower Civ is good for Tribesmen" - because that's like the "weakest link holding you back" to progress in the game.

I do believe tribes could be made viable and not a copycat or wannabe civilized only.

They need their own mechanics to match the benefits of the ‘civilized’ nations.

Tribes were around for all the I:R period and beyond. In fact, the western roman empire was terminated by them.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[manager2525]

I think that we can borrow some things from actual history in regards to tribes and their ability to survive.
Actual tribes that were far away from major powerful kingdoms and empires did survive but didn't exactly thrive. Having undesirable poor lands, no major cities being able to freely move helped them a lot on keeping their independence. On the other hand all this ensured that they couldn't really produce a thriving civilization. They often needed to centralised and to sedentarize after migrating in order to create a thriving civilization.
I think that for a possible IR game there should be a more expansive tribal gameplay. Tribal land should not be considered normally populated land for non tribal tags but rather colonizable land. Although I understand that this is difficult since the categorization to tribal & civilised makes us loose the all in between states that actual existed (it is difficult to depict them).

 

[ConstantineTheGreat]

Integration and assimilation should be different. Like, it's really weird that an integrated culture can't assimilate as there were a lot of Makedones who were Roman Citizens. Same thing with Socii.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Do not call it integrated, call it made equal or citizens. They will keep their traditions and do not assimilate if they are at the same level as the primary culture.

What I would like to see is ‘integrated’ cultures growing Pops in the provinces they are majoritarian.

Also, fixing the bug that makes citizen and noble status only giving malus in the nobles case. Without a better alternative, cultures status should be: enslaved (slaves and assimilated), tolerated (freemen and assimilated) or citizen (nobles and citizens, no assimilation)

 

[olivenkranz]

...

What I would like to see is ‘integrated’ cultures growing Pops in the provinces they are majoritarian.
...

I believe that a territory always grows the dominant religion and culture. Started growth will get finished.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I believe that a territory always grows the dominant religion and culture. Started growth will get finished.

I have tested in game and you seem to be right. I was confused.

 

[Pugmak]

I really enjoy Imperator and would love to see something along this line, BUT!

I'm not sure I'd want an Imperator 2.

The reason being, Paradox tends to toss out all they learned and implemented in QOL improvements and start over by simply adding new gimmicks to the next version of a game, but without the old QOL improvements. At least, that was my experience in going from HOI2 through to HOI4.

There's also a tendency to do the two steps forward in one version, then in the next, one step back.

So, what I'd rather is that Imperator be fully polished and relaunched. No need to throw baby out with bathwater. Reissue a grown up baby with all the bells and whistles fully developed and completed.

If the decision is to go with an Imperator 2, hopefully, it'll be on a new engine where the player has control over where the popups appear on screen rather than stacking up right dead center of the play field, and we have a lot more control over what and where info is displayed by the UI through mods.

 

[Gurkhal]

I really enjoy Imperator and would love to see something along this line, BUT!

I'm not sure I'd want an Imperator 2.

The reason being, Paradox tends to toss out all they learned and implemented in QOL improvements and start over by simply adding new gimmicks to the next version of a game, but without the old QOL improvements. At least, that was my experience in going from HOI2 through to HOI4.

There's also a tendency to do the two steps forward in one version, then in the next, one step back.

So, what I'd rather is that Imperator be fully polished and relaunched. No need to throw baby out with bathwater. Reissue a grown up baby with all the bells and whistles fully developed and completed.

If the decision is to go with an Imperator 2, hopefully, it'll be on a new engine where the player has control over where the popups appear on screen rather than stacking up right dead center of the play field, and we have a lot more control over what and where info is displayed by the UI through mods.

While I can understand you reasoning, I would argue that Pdx isn't coming back to Imperator 1. So if we want a game with active development in Antiquity then its going to be Imperator 2, under that or some other title.

 

[Qantrix]

Somewhere earlier in the thread I saw some conversations with Johan about Imperator being advertised as a map painter and it being a map painter, but I do think Imperator has potentially some of the most interesting peace-time, civic management and diplomacy dynamics of any Paradox GSGs. But this comes from someone who only played it post-Marius right around the time Imperator got dropped. The game does rather force you to go into a map painting mode, faced with the growth of Rome, but I don't think it inherently needs to be, especially if there are more dynamics for large empires to break up as a player you have bigger incentives to play tall and it's less interesting, necessary or useful to 'out-expand' another Empire by becoming an even larger Empire.

I think for a future Imperator (whether that is Imperator 1 - 2.0 or Imperator 2), one of the most interesting things to look at is decadence (raised by IsaacCAT early in the thread), and I mean decadence in a very broad sense as reduced interest in martial matters, complacency, corruption, extractive institutions and high economic inequality. This would be an automatic dynamic gradually increasing as you expand and are rather prosperous and don't take active (and short-term painful) measures against economic elites to counteract it. Economic elites gradually capture institutions, enforce tax exemptions for themselves and perhaps even start tax farming poorer demographics. They refuse to serve in the military and ensure that their servants also don't have to, depriving the military of recruits. Excessive tax-farming causes smaller landowners without tax exemptions to have to sell their estates, while poorer people are driven into serfdom or slavery for the wealthy - because at least as slaves they don't pay taxes. They have fewer children because they can't sustain them.

Small landowners would have to sell off their estates and poorer people might be driven into serfdom or slavery for wealthy groups, because at least then they wouldn't have to pay taxes. Keeping wealthy elites and large landowners happy and allowing economic inequalities to increase in the short-term is a successful and easy strategy (because it was and easily consolidated power) but in the long-term erodes the ability of an Empire to effectively raise money, troops and defend itself. And once these inequalities and corruption have become entrenched they would be very difficult if not impossible to address without some form of deep crisis. This was at least one dynamic within the fall of Rome, but a dynamic in the fall of many other empires too.

And I would say that would be one of the other interesting topics for a new Imperator to look at. I think the different 'Fall of Rome' mods for CKX and EU4 attest to the popularity of this era among players. It appeals to the common Paradox fanbase fantasy of saving the Roman Empire from the brink of defeat (although in this case it's the Western half). The main problem is that if development is restarted on Imperator or started on Imperator, a key focus should be providing more content (as opposed to a custom wonder designer), more missions and events, as well for smaller nations that got historically gobbled up but would be interesting as an 'underdog' game. And a new start date so chronologically removed means that any content for a 'Fall of Rome' start date might be less content for the first start date, unless you can somehow tie it together into one cohesive whole which might be railroading the game to an unacceptable degree.

What speaks for a 'Fall of Rome' start date from a content perspective is that there is plenty inspiration for interesting content and characters for the start date somewhere between around 399 - 476 both inside the Roman Empire and among the Barbarian leaders. From a storytelling perspective, I also think that it allows for very dynamic games where every game (based on the outcome of individual battles, deaths of key leaders) might have different outcomes, a bit like Kaiserreich or a game of Mikado, with different Barbarian groups creating different kingdoms in the aftermath of the fall of Rome, adding to replayability.

 

[Oktobermensch]

One thing that I found incredibly lackluster in imperator was the character interactions - you weren't playing as one, so what was the benefit of playing hostile against other characters, especially when consular elections could change things and they you are back to pointless political fighting. It felt like a halfway point between CK and EU and not in a good way.
Trade would need rethinking, possibly more along the lines of what Vicky did, since it was of no real import what happened with the stuff you bought, it didn't feel significant enough.
On the whole, for some reason, the whole game felt like a collection of mechanics that... sat alongside each other and did nothing to be of significance.
I believe that the fundamentals would have to be rethought and ideas like mana and pops either remade or scrapped altogether, or save everyone the hassle and just make a good mod for EU4, since that game is already better equipped to simulate what you want.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

I fired up a game of I:R and hit more of a snowballing negative cascade of Stability loss than I'd ever seen in a prior play-through. While somewhat RNG, the fact that this can happen due to game design plus game starting metrics is the problem, and if there is ever a revisit to current I:R game and/or a future follow-on game, we really need to see better combinations of starting conditions mixed with game parameters/rules. Here's my example:
- Start as Settled Tribe, all senior tribe leaders are populated in the game world as nearly the same age range.
- Around 65-80 years old, all of these senior tribal leaders start to die one after the other, while replacing the chief.
- To put in perspective how high the Stability loss was (the most I've ever seen), I was in the 65 Stability range before the first/original Chief died off.
- By the time all the successive die-offs of chief after chief occurred, my stability was reduced to just below 20. I had to elevate Divine Sacrifices x2 to even attempt to keep up. There was one game year in which 3 different chiefs died.
- I was in a major war and had two different chiefs die during the course of the war, from "old age" and not combat (and the war only lasted about 2 years). And with the tribe in the middle of an "existential" war for survival, guess who the tribe made chief? A character with ZERO military skill, no kidding.
- What was even worse, I ended up a few dead chiefs later with yet another Zero Military skill chief for another war. These zero military skill chiefs also had very little statistical prowess elsewhere as well, they were in the bottom 10% statistically of the entire tribe, so how does that individual rate highly to become a chief??
- The first/original chief was the only one at Military skill 8 (or higher) among all who came after during this cascading event once they aged. After about 10 game years, my tribe finally appointed a new chief with Military skill of 9 who was 65 years old (not exactly in his prime), but at least I finally had a decent military skill chief again, after an untold number of duds, retreads, and cast-away chiefs. I see "8" as a threshold number for a skill, because that is usually my "at minimum" for the experts in their field for Government positions, in a typical tribal game.

This may seem a minor issue but it points towards a lack of Quality Control in the design and build, plus it reveals a lack of play-testing of systems (not just the auto-play testing of maps and to see how the map gets painted -- that isn't play testing, it's only End Game results estimating).

I've mentioned a similar point on this previously, but this particular event shows just how extreme the game's starting conditions mixed with game rules/dynamics can really be at odds with reality. Just like we can alter our society to have "mixed gender" - there should be other game set-up selectors for Tribes that allow the player to tailor tribal preferences for "Young and Strong" vs "Old and Wise" type metrics for determining who makes a better chief. That, or have Tribal Laws/policy that can be shifted towards for what the Tribe considers the "best stats/qualities/traits" that rate more highly for candidacy as a chief.

In the real world, it was rarely about who was more popular and connected in Tribes. Sure, Greek Democracy and more modern Western political bureaucracies leaned towards "Who You Know" -- but that's not how it worked in tribes of old. Some actually held death matches to determine a chief (winner takes all). It was all about who the best man was for leading the tribe to survive, leading in war, and often was the strongest/best-leader in his prime, not on his deathbed. Tribes didn't operate as if a teenage clique-based club.

So for any I:R of the future, we really need to see a huge Dichotomy between government types that lean toward bureaucracies, sedentary lifestyles, with city walls protecting the government leaders, in contrast to the tough/war-proven tribal governments that raged on the plains and in the forests of old.

Paradox leaders/designers/Dev's, if you're reading this -- you're portraying way too "soft" of a going model for many of your tribal systems in recent games. You really gotta "toughen up a bit" - at least, toughen up the virtual characters and tribal systems you are portraying.

 

[Synen]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1771915003374747957

Might be worth getting this thread up and running again since it already has many suggestions.

 

[Chaostrian]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1771915003374747957

Might be worth getting this thread up and running again since it already has many suggestions.

A Dev team

we have a great game, a great community, Great Potential for the Game,
Great families (even if that's just a part of the game, I just wanted to use that so I have one more reason to write "great")

So the only thing missing is a Great Dev team ^^