Why still the calls for IR "updates" or to return to development? Why not continue to play the game?

[Hendreforgan]

My playing style with IR has been to immerse myself in one game and slowly play it through to the end, even if it looked as if the game was far from going my way. I could never get my head around respondents on the forum who stated they finished a game in one night and often were among the loudest to call for continued development. I'm in the very unique group that I paid the FULL PRICE for IR before it's launch but, as we know, that price rapidly dropped and many playing it will have paid peanuts for the game. Yet many were keen to inform us what was wrong and how they were displeased with their much reduced purchase.

Others seem to be very concerned the game will vanish or become unplayable? I suppose, common to how games are now sold, many will be playing on-line say via Steam and not have their own downloaded copy? I use a desktop PC so ALWAYS download games and have the programme stored on a HDD as well as Game Saves, even if I use the on-line save as a back-up.

So I'll still be playing IR in five or more years time . . and no matter what it's faults are I'll still be enjoying the experience. IR creates a world so huge just how long does anyone guess it would take to genuinely play the game for every single chioce of country you're given? Timeless!

It's the same approach as to old computer equipment? All of it one day gets a label saying it's junk but that isn't the case, if it is still working within it's original parameters - most importantly the OS - then it's working . . . it's not the "old computer" that changed, it's that you, the user, want ever more power and speed.

So let's see some threads from those still happily playing the game? I miss signing into this forum to read the great questions and answers that made this such a successful forum. If that input ceases, and indeed it virtually has, then we will stop coming here, won't we?

We make the game what it is, true?

 

[Tebriel]

I didn't get why it was such a big deal either, but we might be in that group who thought it was good enough as-is, apparently not the majority who wanted some kind of changes. People also seemed to expect to play non-Rome and have the game perform just as well, even though Rome is clearly the intended focus. I do like how we'll never need to worry about mods breaking every other month from updates.

The main thing that sucks is that it would've been FAR better to get a mod-support update which un-hardcodes a lot of the stuff that is not moddable now, for example legions. You could probably even "hire" a fan or two to do it for free as a temporary employee... (well maybe they'd need to make some minimum wage so it couldn't be free, another reason those laws are dumb). But like many I've learned to never expect such gestures from large corporations, only small scale indy devs ever listen to stuff like that, so it's hardly unexpected.

Edit: I realize saying "Rome is clearly the intended focus" (for a game literally named "Rome"...) hurts some people's feelings, but it's the truth - enjoy clicking the disagree button anyway though if it makes you feel better.

 

[Herennius]

Well, I don't deny that IR is already a good game and you can have a lot of fun with it. Still it would benefit from more unique content for so far untouched areas and new mechanics, IMO. But even if yoou take the position that nothing new is needed at all - what is with bugs and issue in the content we have...just a few things out of my head:

- splittered levies for tribal nations causing a lot of issues
- a bug that causes pops of integrated culture becoming nobles even if you restrict them to citizens
- issues with character naming (losing 2nd name)
- AI never ransoming out prisoners plus a bug causing foreign prisoners to damage your stability
- unfinished German localization (e.g. some additions like the merc stack limit added with the latest patch having a placeholder string) - and likely thats not only the case of my language
- Mercs affecting powerbase in republics
- Forts not always blocking passage as intended
...

For more stuff, just visit the bug subforum. Sadly most bugs never received a visible reaction from the devs and even of the share acknowledged by officials only a part got solved ever.

 

[Tebriel]

I won't argue or disagree with any of that. Fixes are always valid. I guess I'm jaded from this stuff now.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

Why?

Oh, that's because it is unplayable for me, since I encountered a catastrophic CTD bug that they left in, and since they killed tech support, can't fix. (And yes, I am intending to periodically keep politely needling PDX about it until they either do or one or both of us cease to exist. ) Killing future expansions is one thing, which would have been unfortunate. The worst bug I have personally ever seen in a PDX game (and the worst one I can actively recall in anything I have played in recent memory is very much another.

I have since been rather disinclined to give PDX any more pennies since, and also yes, I did Make An Official Complaint about it, i.e. the cessation of tech support (they sort of shrugged, which I suspected they would; but they also did not, notably, make any attempt to keep me as a customer, let alone a happy one).

Which is sad, because they were about the last company of any size I had any respect for and previously, I had been getting a lot of their releases.

 

[Tebriel]

I don't remember any CTDs in IR and I've used some mods too. If it really is unplayable due to CTDs for you, are you sure a total reinstall doesn't fix it? That sucks.

I'm pretty demoralized with Paradox stuff lately too. I've been around for I don't know how many years and you can see on the left I've certainly done my fair share to support the company. I thought things were supposed to generally get better in the future, not worse.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't remember any CTDs in IR and I've used some mods too. If it really is unplayable due to CTDs for you, are you sure a total reinstall doesn't fix it? That sucks.

I'm pretty demoralized with Paradox stuff lately too. I've been around for I don't know how many years and you can see on the left I've certainly done my fair share to support the company. I thought things were supposed to generally get better in the future, not worse.

Nope, it was definitely a CTD and I can tell you exactly what causes it - if you split a legion (which it allows you to do) when you're only supposed to have one, to, say avoid attrition, when you combine them later on, it somehow creates a half-existing ghost legion, so later on, when it tries to award a decoration to said not-really there legion: instant CTD, every time.

 

[Snowlet]

Nope, it was definitely a CTD and I can tell you exactly what causes it - if you split a legion (which it allows you to do) when you're only supposed to have one, to, say avoid attrition, when you combine them later on, it somehow creates a half-existing ghost legion, so later on, when it tries to award a decoration to said not-really there legion: instant CTD, every time.

I've never had this, I think something's wrong on your end as many mp and sp games have been played, never with this issue.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

I've never had this, I think something's wrong on your end as many mp and sp games have been played, never with this issue.

And yet I had this. On a game with no mods*, fresh install from the "final" version of the game.

*I did have one that changed the colour of Egypt, but I took that off to no effect and I find the idea that changing one unrelated variable could have done anything anyway HIGHLY implausible.

Besides, I know just enough save editing to have been able to make a fairly solid conclusion that yes, that does appear to be what it is. (I mean, you can go and pour over the bug report if you like and you can even check the attached save and/or log.)

So as much as it did not happen to you or other people, it very did definitely happen to me (and to one or two other people who have said they had it when I've mentioned it).

And funnily enough, when PDX said "nope, you're basically fracked mate," I suddenly was no longer feeling willing to either spend hours pratting about trying to save-edit fix it, nor in giving them money for anything else since and instead play games I did not have to, with the my near-complete lack of programming skills, fix the coding for.



To be clear, as a wise scholar once said: "Anyone can make an error, but that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” That a rare bug happened is an error, but not an unexpected (though one THAT serious is quite impressive...) That PDX just shrugged about it, basically? Made that error a mistake as far as I am concerned.



So they will not be getting any more pennies from me until they either a) fix the mistake or b) at least make a token attempt at recompense, which they neither did at the time, nor when I Made An Official Complaint when it became clear that the "hiatus" was in fact, and I'm being EXTREMELY polite here, misleading.

(Given that and as they haven't done the previous, I can conclude they give no craps about my value to them as a customer - but I AM bloody-minded enough FoMO won't make me change my mind later. Hell, I've not even re-installed a PDX game sine my catastrphic HDD failure last Novemeber.)

And so I will continue to make occasional polite, but pointed remarks about it, since I have exhausted every other reasonable available avenue; short of the innane and ludicrous such travelling to PDX HQ in the flesh and Doing A Criminal Offense or magically Becoming An Oligarch and buying out the company personally, there isn't anything else I could do, is there?

 

[Tebriel]

Whatever the reason a CTD is pretty unacceptable. I haven't seen that particular one either but a CTD is a CTD...

 

[Fediuld76]

- Forts not always blocking passage as intended

I agree on everything plus more. I:R needs a bug fixing patch.

As for the forts. Have you used the map overlay related to forts and the area they block? It helps a lot to look at the gaps that are created by provincial borders.
Using it all the time when setting up border forts, especially against Rome and nothing have managed to sneak in. Except if they do naval landing.

 

[IsaacCAT]

- Forts not always blocking passage as intended

I like this, if you are describing the ability for armies to siege a territory close to the fort and then be able to bypass the fort zone of control.

For me it makes it more interesting than being forced to siege the fort to pass. If you want to control the province (and their food with it) you will need to control the forts anyway, but it is not mandatory to pass. In fact, I think I made this suggestion for something that is already in the game.

If you are describing another issue for forts, then forget this post.

 

[Herennius]

My remark about issues with forts was directed at these two:

I:R - Army can freely pass enemy fort instead of being forced into a siege

Description of problem Army can freely pass enemy fort instead of being forced into a siege What game version are you running? 1.5.3 What platform are you playing on? Steam Please select any/all DLC you have enabled. Hellenistic world flavor...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I:R - Fort ZoC not blocking movement

Description of problem Fort ZoC not blocking movement What platform are you playing on? Steam What game version are you running? 1.4.2 Please select any/all DLC you have enabled. Do you have mods enabled? No Please explain...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I have to concede that I was maybe unclear with my wording depending on how you define exactly the concept of a ZoC - the problem in the linked reports with my cases is that you are (or were, in case this should have been stealth-fixed at some point) able to walk over forts sometimes (the OP issue in the 2nd thread is more of a true "adjacency ZoC issue"). Leaving the question aside whether more or less strict fort-ZoC-rules are better or worse - my main point is that it should be clear when their is a ZoC and what it does, if its there. The cases above just feel quite unexplainable to me...that why I consider them as bugs (and they got even confirmed as such)

 

[tomseve]

I didn't get why it was such a big deal either, but we might be in that group who thought it was good enough as-is, apparently not the majority who wanted some kind of changes. People also seemed to expect to play non-Rome and have the game perform just as well, even though Rome is clearly the intended focus.

Funnily enough, I think the exact opposite. When the game launched, I was very excited to play the Seleucid in order to create a Greek kingdom in the middle of Asia. And the fact that i had to handle both internal strife and the expansion towards Macedonia in order to reclaim Alexander's Legacy was the most fun i had in a Paradox game at launch. My second game, trying to create a Bosporan kingdom around the Azov/Black sea and making sure to keep it civilized against the raid of barbarians was great tall fun too.
Even the achievement to unite the British iles in less then X year, was challenging and interesting (but damn, do i hated the flag of Albion).
My last game was with the greek colony in Hispania and conquering converting the whole land : loved it.

What i try to say, is I think that people were disappointed by the game precisely because I guess a lot started by playing Rome which is OP, has almost no challenger, and no provincial unrest due to cultural/religious difference before you have already conquered the whole of Italy and defeated Carthage. Which is a shame because the civil war risk was one of their most successful original creation in this game.

My main criticism of the game, both at launch, and still in its current state is the horrendous “character interaction” of the monarchy. First thing I do anytime I relaunch the game, is to add a decision to change monarchy into a Republic (which I think has a nice system of government, and doesn’t need you to worry about marriage, or health, or any of those things… only loyalty of the characters which is a good thing).

 

[tomseve]

And I must say, if i'm not a big fan of the trading system (mainly the fact that the number of trade routes in a single province change every so often : which is less bad since they removed mana and the cost to re-establish one) : i really like the fact that economy is supported on a large part on slavery, and the need to micro the slaves population in provinces to have +1 good. That, i find quite satisfying.

 

[Napoleon1971]

Nope, it was definitely a CTD and I can tell you exactly what causes it - if you split a legion (which it allows you to do) when you're only supposed to have one, to, say avoid attrition, when you combine them later on, it somehow creates a half-existing ghost legion, so later on, when it tries to award a decoration to said not-really there legion: instant CTD, every time.

Can you not disband the phantom legion?

Admittedly, this sounds like phantom fleets from HOI (yeah, no number after, the first) way back in the day. Of course there it was the AI making empty fleets deep into the game until your PC eventually crashed.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

Can you not disband the phantom legion?

Admittedly, this sounds like phantom fleets from HOI (yeah, no number after, the first) way back in the day. Of course there it was the AI making empty fleets deep into the game until your PC eventually crashed.

I HAD. When the game first threw a wobbly (HOURS back from the CTD), about re-assmbeling them after the split, I disbanded the legion completely and rebuilt it. Hours later, CTD.

Could I spent a few hours picking through the save file to save edit it? Possibly, but by that point, I no longer had any inclination to spend the effort. And I haven't touched a PDX game that I've already bought since (short of the BattleTech, which they only published and had ended support a long time ago), let alone spent any money on them. I may genuinely never fire one up again.

 

[Hendreforgan]

I HAD. When the game first threw a wobbly (HOURS back from the CTD), about re-assmbeling them after the split, I disbanded the legion completely and rebuilt it. Hours later, CTD.

To me this is reminiscent of similar issues I encountered years ago playing "EU : Rome", something of a predecessor to IR. Once, as Carthage, some unknown issue caused one of my main fleets - almost half of my ships and a high score Admiral - to vanish inexplicably to the bottom of the Mediterranean! There they remained, costing me money and reinforcements, but with no inclusion into anything practical until the Admiral died. Then they "popped back up" as a loose collection of ships, most of them on a low reliability score, but at least I could now "pay off" the wrecks and incorporate the others! Never, ever, found out what caused that frustrating glitch!

 

[manager2525]

As for the OP question, for me personally, it has to do with the fact that Imperator is a good game but still at the bring of becoming a great one. I have around 1200 hours on record so it is safe to say that I have enjoyed the game a lot. However I do think that some key issues that could easily be improved (for example diplomatic game) would make the game a lot better. Also there are others that would need a bit more tweaking (like economy and character interaction). It the moment I feel that the game is a bit on the easy side (being actually the only PDX strategy game that I have opted to play on difficulty of more than normal).
Of course if the continuation of development would eventually lead to more content for all regions (fleshing out more and more nations).
So in conclusion I don't think that the game needs more development because it is a bad game but rather because it remains with all that untapped potential. I do still have some very faint slither of hope that one day maybe they will come back to it somehow...

 

[Hendreforgan]

As for the OP question, for me personally, it has to do with the fact that Imperator is a good game but still at the bring of becoming a great one. . . . I do still have some very faint slither of hope that one day maybe they will come back to it somehow...

I feel that as time goes on and Paradox concentrate on fresh games selling well that "I : R" will remain exactly as it is until the present crop of "new games" are also in later stages of development and then a new team will dust of the covers and work to fix known issues and revamp the game . . . but it will be launched as "Imperator : Rome 2".

Why? Games companies make money from selling games not developing them with cheap or even free upgrades. So a "new" I : R will cost us just to open the box and find out if they fixed issues, made the game better, etc.?

So, unlike when I bought I:R at pre-launch prices I for one will wait to see what new owners say before parting with my money . . but until then I'll keep playing the game as it is.