.png){kind=avatar}
Greetings, citizens!
A new week is starting, and we hope it will be full of epic games and ideas from you!
Three new suggestions were made last week on the SPQR, which means they are all placed in this ranking.
In the first position, with 8 votes, is WingedLion14' s thread "Integrate Tribal Vassals more fully into nation" in which he made several suggestions for the tribal vassals being a mechanic used to the maximum.
The following two suggestions were made by IsaacCAT.
With 7 votes, the thread entitled "Total War" proposes the creation of an event between major families of two nations at war to allow the player to gain a special CB, TOTAL WAR.
Finally, with 5 votes, the "Game of POPs" thread examines how to enhance pops' role in the game through several aspects, building on previous suggestions.
That's it for now, citizens!
See you next week.
A new week is starting, and we hope it will be full of epic games and ideas from you!
Three new suggestions were made last week on the SPQR, which means they are all placed in this ranking.
In the first position, with 8 votes, is WingedLion14' s thread "Integrate Tribal Vassals more fully into nation" in which he made several suggestions for the tribal vassals being a mechanic used to the maximum.
The following two suggestions were made by IsaacCAT.
With 7 votes, the thread entitled "Total War" proposes the creation of an event between major families of two nations at war to allow the player to gain a special CB, TOTAL WAR.
Preface: in mid and end game there are some countries that have expanded greatly and have become major or great powers.
Observation: waging war between major or great powers is tedious as you require war score and suffer aggressive expansion to eat through the territories of these nations before you get to their cores.
Suggestion:
When two major or great powers share a border and have had already a war, the game will create an event between major families of both countries to allow the player to gain a special CB, TOTAL WAR.
( beware shameless plagiarism of @Arheo post in italic, differences in bold yellow ) This TOTAL WAR will use a mechanic similar to that of Civil Wars. What this means, in essence, is that occupying a territory belonging to the target war leader during a TOTAL WAR will result in the immediate cession of said territory to the opposing war leader if the majority of the culture in the territory is not integrated by that opposing war leader. Every territory that changes hands this way will add a small amount of war exhaustion to the war leader that gains the territory, resulting in wars in which large amounts of territory can change hands, whilst also reaching an organic ‘end’ point, at which both sides are weary enough to make peace.
Adding the majority of culture being not integrated is a way to allow big nations with TOTAL WAR CB to change vast numbers of non chore territories. Chore territories are territories with a majority of POPs from integrated culture, and they are saved from this mechanic. If you want to strengthen your position and make more difficult for other powers to get your territories, you will have to accept the majority culture in those territories or assimilate a majority of POPs to your culture.
Acknowledgements:
I have got ideas from these threads and posts:
Imperator Dev Diary - Heirs of Alexander
Greetings all, While there is yet more to come regarding Marian military matters, today I’m here to announce that the content pack, ‘Heirs of Alexander’, will be released in conjunction with the Marius update. As befits our 2.0 statement, the...forum.paradoxplaza.com
Many other posts talking about mid end game grinding
Control- An Integrated Mechanic for Distance, War, and Peace
This is a refinement of my post late last week, which proposed a new mechanic inspired by CK3's province control system (also M&T's communication efficiency is very dear to my heart). It is however a new take uniquely suited for Imperator, that...
Illustration:
1st image: ALBION (player), Carthage, Rome, Macedon, Asian Empire, Egypt, Magadha Empire, and other 6 major or great powers at 680 year.
2nd image: Majority cultures map same year
View attachment 655353
View attachment 655364
Finally, with 5 votes, the "Game of POPs" thread examines how to enhance pops' role in the game through several aspects, building on previous suggestions.
IMHO POP’s must play a pivotal role in the game. To enhance their role in the game, they have to interact more with the player. Here are a set of reforms to improve the Game of POPs:
- Social Mobility
- Civilization/Development Level
- Tribesmen Threat
- Do Slaves Dream of Domesticated Sheep
- Cultural Wars
SOCIAL MOBILITY
Preface: in game a POP grows, promotes or demotes following an optimal ratio for every class. The optimal ratio for one class depends on the desired ratios for all other classes that are function of Government (type and laws), territory and infrastructures (settlements, cities, metropolis and their buildings) Imperator Wiki.
Observation: The class optimal ratio does not reflect social mobility as we understand it. My feeling is that the game achieves social reform almost instantaneously, going from a backwater settlement to a metropolis in no time and it is irreversible. Also, the desired and optimal ratio is gamey and not true to a real-life simulation.
Suggestion:
From the initial situation, POPs shall move in the social class due to the following factors:
Government, cities and buildings should not be a direct social mobility factor. They should be an indirect factor on civilization. The desired pop ratio and optimal ratio for every class disappears.
- Civilisation: englobes health, education and housing. It can be changed by Government type, inventions, urban development, Barbarians and war. War decreases the level of civilization in territories that are looted to simulate the destruction of development in the territory.
- Income: It is function of Tax income in the territory and the Commerce Income of the Province.
- Culture: It is directly decided by the player what social class can achieve every culture by integration and culture civic right.
Instead, POPs will grow, demote, or promote looking at these indicators:
Civilization value Income Culture Social Mobility Low Low By Civic Rights Demotion: Nobles->Citizens->Freemen->Tribesmen
Promotion: None
Growth: TribesmenMedium Low By Civic Rights Demotion: Tribesmen -> Slaves
Promotion: Freemen -> Citizens
Growth: SlaveHigh Low By Civic Rights Demotion: Tribesmen -> Slaves
Promotion: Freemen -> Citizens->Nobles
Growth: FreemenLow Medium By Civic Rights Demotion: Nobles->Citizens->Freemen->Tribesmen
Promotion: Slave -> Tribesmen
Growth: TribesmenMedium Medium By Civic Rights Demotion: None
Promotion: Tribesmen -> Freemen -> Citizens
Growth: FreemenHigh Medium By Civic Rights Demotion: None
Promotion: Tribesmen-> Freemen -> Citizens-> Nobles
Growth: CitizensLow High By Civic Rights Demotion: Nobles->Citizens->Freemen->Tribesmen
Promotion: Slaves -> Tribesmen
Growth: TribesmenMedium High By Civic Rights Demotion: None
Promotion: Tribesmen-> Freemen -> Citizens
Slaves -> Freemen -> Citizens
Growth: CitizensHigh High By Civic Rights Demotion: None
Promotion: Tribesmen -> Freemen -> Citizens -> Nobles
Slaves -> Freemen -> Citizens -> Nobles
Growth: Nobles
In this system, POPS move upscale in the social class according to income and civilization value depending on their civic rights (cultural integration).
For example, this system allows for Nobles in Settlements with High level of Civilization and High Income, representing rich landowners moving to their villas.
These rules of social mobility may reduce the number of available slaves. But this is desirable, as slaves' numbers decrease if not acquired by conquest as I described in the thread Slaves Taxation & Scarcity. Economics!. However, for certain traditional slave cultures like Sparta and others, ‘freemen’ can be changed to ‘slaves’ for the preferred growth POP in High/Medium Civ + Medium/Low Income territories.
CIVILIZATION/DEVELOPMENT LEVEL
From the social mobility change we obtain this proposal: the player does not set the desired ratio of POPs anymore but manages the civilization level.
Civilization/development value shall not increase monthly as it is now, because represents the territory development and can only increase by the government type, urbanization investment, cities, metropolis, buildings and infrastructure (roads and ports). It can also be negative for certain type of terrains ( idea from @Jiben )
For example, buildings instead of desired ratio will add civilization value to a city/settlement. A city with many buildings will always have more civilization value than settlements.
A negative development temporary modifier is applied when the territory is looted by war or barbarians, representing the devastation of existing development. Armies will be able to destroy buildings when looting for increased damage to the enemy.
TRIBESMEN THREAT
As it is now, tribesmen only grow in tribal governments and tend to disappear in other types of governments or when cities are founded. With social mobility, tribesmen can persist in low developed territories.
The player will have low developed territories in areas affected by constant war or in areas that the player chooses not to develop. The player may have two reasons for not developing a territory:
On the other hand, the tribesmen will become more abundant on the game with migratory waves. The same barbarians that appear on certain areas of the map, instead of ravaging the land, will increase the population of tribesmen in those areas. This will increase the population of tribesmen, causing migration waves to more developed and richer provinces as described in the thread Migration and Cities. This represents the historical demographic movements of tribesmen to developed nations. When these nations were not able to cope with these migrations, those nations were threatened.
- Lack of resources
- To retain several tribesmen POPs to benefit for unique units type for the levies. For example, horse archers should only be possible if the player has steppes tribesmen POPs.
This barbarian tribesmen influx will give tribes superior numbers as well. Thus, the tribesmen threat will be double for developed nations: a) powerful tribesmen nations and b) unhappy tribesmen migration in border provinces for increased unrest.
DO SLAVES DREAM OF DOMESTICATED SHEEP?
Preface: Slaves are unique labour force in the game, they are the only ones required to produce goods.
Observation: slaves' monopoly in production feels wrong and there are too many slaves. For example, at the start of the game, Rome has 23% of slaves, something that is historically accurate but in a normal game they increase rapidly to become 40-50% of the population. In Maurya slaves are 30% of the population and at least this paper suggests that slaves were not that predominant and slavery was mainly domestic.
Suggestion:
Freeman POPs shall contribute to the production of goods. Not only that, they shall be more efficient than slaves, producing more goods per POP. In addition, freeman should produce more tax income than slaves as it is known that slavery is not economically efficient for the nation.
The trade-offs between freemen and slaves for the player are the following:
There is one caveat for the player that is able to manage food and happiness for freemen and wants to transform all slaves to freemen. Citizens and Nobles require some slaves to be happy. To keep them happy, for every ½ citizen POP and every Noble POP there must be in the same territory a slave POP or their happiness will be halved.
- Freemen eats more food and its happiness (stability, culture, etc..) affects production but you get more tax income and more produced goods than slaves
- Slaves eats less food; they are not affected by happiness but you get less tax income from them and produce less goods
Slavery it is not economically efficient for the nation, but oh man! It does make the patricians happy.
CULTURAL WARS
Preface: rebellion will occur when the loyalty of an unoccupied province reaches 0 (Imperator Wiki)
Observation: forts and provincial armies are more than enough to always keep your provinces loyal, even if POPs are very unhappy due to not being an integrated culture. This feels dull and not historically accurate.
Suggestion:
POPs under 50% cultural happiness shall have a probability to start a rebellion in all the provinces that they are present and independent of their final level of happiness and province loyalty. These POPS will revolt simultaneously levying in arms because they feel culturally excluded like the Italian Social Wars cited by @wthomas. The size of the levy and composition will be calculated as per 2.0 with the POPs from the revolting culture. If the revolting culture is not integrated (most of the cases), the player will be able to tap to the region levy without problems.
When the rebellion sparks, your provincial armies will quell it (hopefully), but you will be reminded that people are very unhappy, not only a low number next to the culture, but real historical consequences for the player (idea from @AggaWackTan). Also, the end game will be less big bloobs and more pops! (independent nations forming after cultural rebellions)
If the player wants to negotiate with the rebels and stop the war before any casualty, it can grant a new country to the culture that will be tributary to the nation. If the player does not want to negotiate and loses, a new independent country will be formed.
Acknowledgements:
I got ideas from the following threads and posts:
What do Pops Represent?: Gameplay Mechanics and Historical Simulation Discussion
I've recently gotten back in to Imperator: Rome after a long time having not played, and I have to say, I am blown away by the vast changes to the game and the progress towards and authentic simulation style game. That being said, there is still...Very Important, I am worried about balancing issues in 2.0, suggestions to balance.
Hello, i love the new levies feature, but i believe it will worsen game balance significantly. Since game release late game in I:R was similar to a ww1 scenario with infinite manpower/gold and 1million+ armies (in my opinion this is caused by...Integrating cultures question and observation
So when thinking about which culture to integrate main things to take into consideration are: 1) Number of pops of that culture 2) Religion and culture group of said culture So it seems that the more alien the culture is to your primary culture...What happened to the Vitruvius patch and the great wonders DLC?
Since we haven't heard anything new, I was wondering if the patch and DLC are delayed. Or will they drop together with Marius?[Discussion] How could this game encourage more realistic borders for both the AI and human players?
Something I would personally like to see more in this game is natural borders. In a lot of imperator games many nations expand in quite impossible directions. Take Rome for example, which I have seen in northern Germania quite often whilst it...
That's it for now, citizens!
See you next week.
- 5
