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My recollection is that when I:R released the biggest complaint was that it was functionally way too close to EU:R with all of that game's shortcomings. It made it feel like there was no particularly strong creative vision for how the new game should feel, when the development gap between EU:R and I:R and the different title meant that there was room to experiment more and try out new stuff. And like people have repeated multiple times, that release game did function as a base to go into a more unique direction as post-release development progressed. It didn't have to stop there, Paradox. Do the needful.
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Nov 16, 2022 10:55
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Yep agree, basically nobody wanted EU Rome 2, they wanted a PDX game with late antiquity themed mechanics. I mean the game didn’t even have dual consuls at launch, that’s how bad it was at simulating the period.
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Nov 16, 2022 11:00
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Up to release Imperator's dev diaries really showcased how bland it was too. Every screenshot was just examples of percentage modifiers and various numbers. This was clearly felt by PDX too as in the last few weeks up to release Johan stopped writing the diaries and they were much more interesting after that. But yeah as everyone else said, the core issue was that there wasn't really anything interesting going on. All the tribals were playable but might as well not have been in the game as they were just boring. They were clearly meant to have a bigger focus on characters, but it was bland interactions and nothing really made individuals stand out. I think Imperator fell into a lot of the same blandness that Civilization: Beyond Earth did. It felt like they wanted to be Crusader Kings without being Crusader Kings, and EU4 without being EU4. Just a series of borrowed but hollowed out features.
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Nov 16, 2022 11:36
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I:R's biggest sin is just how unbearably ugly its UI is. Absolutely criminal for a game based around an incredibly colourful period.
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Nov 16, 2022 12:06
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Demiurge4 posted:Up to release Imperator's dev diaries really showcased how bland it was too. Every screenshot was just examples of percentage modifiers and various numbers. This was clearly felt by PDX too as in the last few weeks up to release Johan stopped writing the diaries and they were much more interesting after that. It was also Victoria without being Victoria with the pop system, but I think that's one of the core mechanics it actually did really well, even if most of the relevant information was hidden behind provincial submenus. For me at least it properly scratched that itch of feeling like you are building up your country's society and turning sparse provinces into megalopoleis.
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Nov 16, 2022 12:10
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Red Bones posted:I still think it'd be cool to see a Paradox game that goes all into the naval gameplay as a way to differentiate itself. Either some fictional Earthsea-esque setting, or like, Caribbean pirates, or classical maritime South East Asia, something like that. Buy the One Piece license. It'd be the perfect excuse to bring back Jazz Boatman.
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Nov 16, 2022 12:18
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This is gonna sound insane but I actually think I:R's pop mechanics were better than V3's in some ways. Or at least clearer. You could easily see how and why a pop was promoting, migrating, assimilating, and converting. And you could make decisions and clearly see the influence on these four axes in various ways. V3's pop mechanics are more complex, but then also weirdly you engage with them less as a result. You build buildings to try and meet their needs and turn them into pops that support the right IG's so you can liberalise, but that's basically it. I also think I:R had some cool moments of interplay between the character, economic, pop, and warfare systems: troop types raised from a province would depend on the social demographics of the pops (culture and class) generals who were made disloyal because of political machinations would stop taking orders and just do their own thing mercenaries actually had a leader character who, depending on traits, could be bribed to switch sides just lots of cool little things like that
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Nov 16, 2022 13:38
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Imp changed so much between release and EOL that it's kind of hard for me to say what turned people off it because I barely remember that version of the game.fuf posted:I also think I:R had some cool moments of interplay between the character, economic, pop, and warfare systems: The class part got cut prior to the patch dropping, unfortunately, but yeah, modern Imp has developed quite an interesting relationship between the fine structure of a polity and the resources available to it. Not perfect, obviously. Integrating and assimilating cultures is still far too easy. States still find it too easy and too valuable to expand into non-state territory. Nothingtoseehere posted:My opinion is that Imperator isn't balanced enough - there's just not enough viable starts/conflicts on the start date to give variety of outcomes and different campaigns for the player. I'm broadly in agreement with this, or at least that it's far too easy to hit that point of total dominance. I don't think very many polities fall into that "nearly impossible" bucket, though- unless you're immediately adjacent to one of the powers, you're never really more than a generation or two from snowballing. It's especially easy with a tribe, because everybody in those regions is of roughly equal size and so one good war can catapult you to regional hegemon status.
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Nov 16, 2022 15:47
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Rynoto posted:I:R's biggest sin is just how unbearably ugly its UI is. Absolutely criminal for a game based around an incredibly colourful period. 
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Nov 16, 2022 17:00
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The eventual UI rework went with a lot of red and teal. Still predominantly white, though.
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Nov 16, 2022 17:27
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:The eventual UI rework went with a lot of red and teal. That is incredibly bright. Yeesh. What Pastry posted looks good though.
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Nov 16, 2022 17:52
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Quite frankly Imperator's character system was so bizarrely implemented that I would prefer it didnt exist or at least was scaled back to a Total War style family tree. Republics in particular had a hard time making you care about your "character" when they would just get replaced by the next election so you had no incentive to care about their personal wealth or popularity whatsoever.
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Nov 16, 2022 20:38
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I don't know what we're they thinking with that scorned families system. It's designed as a memory test: can you remember which families have enough offices and which don't when you go to job assignment screen?
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Nov 16, 2022 21:12
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Honestly I still feel you playing as a family would have been the best way to approach the game. Not playing specifically the head like in ck2, but just that dynasty in general. You want to acquire holdings and make your family better. You want to manage the other families because they compete. Have some minor chars who win most of the elections and you get them to count as your family via patronage. Focus on that tension between your powerful family and the state.
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Nov 16, 2022 22:24
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If you did that you couldn't play as Rome. I think I:R is better when it leans into its EU elements over its CK elements honestly, remember that another thing that no-one liked was that losing to a revolt was treated as game over.
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Nov 16, 2022 22:29
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YF-23 posted:If you did that you couldn't play as Rome. I think I:R is better when it leans into its EU elements over its CK elements honestly, remember that another thing that no-one liked was that losing to a revolt was treated as game over. It would require major mechanics shakeups, like I would actually want proper yearly consul elections and it's about playing the patronage game that just getting someone from your family elected. And maybe some player only mechanics where if you aren't the leader of a republic, you can still control armies under a general who have patronage of.  It's a looser messier thing, and me wanting to be about the family is trying to find that balance that's not just playing as a state, but not playing as a specific character either.
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Nov 16, 2022 22:41
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YF-23 posted:If you did that you couldn't play as Rome. I think I:R is better when it leans into its EU elements over its CK elements honestly, remember that another thing that no-one liked was that losing to a revolt was treated as game over. playing as rome would be exactly where that system would shine. the empire was basically just the end result of one faction of families gaining a decisive edge over the opposing faction and consolidating power to the point that it was very difficult to challenge, and so much of what roman history is, is poorly modeled by a unitary state but very well modeled by factional conflict within a nominally unitary state
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Nov 16, 2022 23:45
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Jazerus posted:playing as rome would be exactly where that system would shine. the empire was basically just the end result of one faction of families gaining a decisive edge over the opposing faction and consolidating power to the point that it was very difficult to challenge, and so much of what roman history is, is poorly modeled by a unitary state but very well modeled by factional conflict within a nominally unitary state sounds to me like maybe Rome could be modeled by a hybrid of CK3's dynasties system within something like EU4's HRE
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Nov 17, 2022 00:09
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Eimi posted:It would require major mechanics shakeups, like I would actually want proper yearly consul elections and it's about playing the patronage game that just getting someone from your family elected. And maybe some player only mechanics where if you aren't the leader of a republic, you can still control armies under a general who have patronage of. Jazerus posted:playing as rome would be exactly where that system would shine. the empire was basically just the end result of one faction of families gaining a decisive edge over the opposing faction and consolidating power to the point that it was very difficult to challenge, and so much of what roman history is, is poorly modeled by a unitary state but very well modeled by factional conflict within a nominally unitary state It is the sort of thing that I could see working in a more focused game, but not in a paradox "you can play as any country on the map" game, since it would be hard to transfer the mechanics and flavour to other countries. It would be weird and (to me and I assume a lot of other players) off-putting if you couldn't play as Rome "normally".
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Nov 17, 2022 01:44
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The best thing about I:R was choosing who should go to the Olympics.
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Nov 17, 2022 10:49
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Does I:R get discounted frequently? I see it's still €39.99, and for something that I may not like and will never get any updates, that's too much just to try it out. If it's €15 in the christmas sale, I'd likely pick it up to play for a few weeks once in a while
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Nov 17, 2022 13:36
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EricBauman posted:Does I:R get discounted frequently? You can get it for $8.50 right now. https://isthereanydeal.com/game/imperatorrome/info/
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Nov 17, 2022 13:52
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Paradox sure likes these “Surviving” games. This is the first one I think actually looks interesting at least. https://twitter.com/PDXArc/status/1593242837407399939
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Nov 17, 2022 15:08
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I did really like what they settled on for how you raised armies at the end of I:R. I liked going from levies you only had some limited control over the composition of to a mix of levies and professionals who you did have control of composition for to a fully professional army over the course of the game. Always felt weird to me how in EU you start out with standing state run army in in the mid 15th century and then the only changes to it are adding cannons and increasing its size. The Pops were good too, but I'm a sucker for pop systems in general. I do also particularly like how if there's a particularly protracted war, or if a region is repeatedly invaded and changes hands a lot the the region it will get noticeably depopulated as armies loot the cities and carry off the population, its particularly felt a lot better to me than EUIV's devastation number and CK3's control number. The political system and the characters always felt a bit janky to me, like they wanted to have these systems but didn't really know what to do with them. They got 'better' over the course of the game's limited lifespan but they never really got 'good' imo. It was nice to have a face to the rulers but despite all the CK style actions you could do to them the characters never really felt integrated into the rest of the game beyond when generals could get disloyal.
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Nov 17, 2022 15:34
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Archaeology Hat posted:I did really like what they settled on for how you raised armies at the end of I:R. I liked going from levies you only had some limited control over the composition of to a mix of levies and professionals who you did have control of composition for to a fully professional army over the course of the game. Always felt weird to me how in EU you start out with standing state run army in in the mid 15th century and then the only changes to it are adding cannons and increasing its size.
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Nov 17, 2022 16:45
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Anno posted:Paradox sure likes these “Surviving” games.
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Nov 17, 2022 17:18
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Levies/professionals/mercs with some tweaks makes sense for EU and honestly would be better for CK3 than trash + MAA + Dynasty
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Nov 17, 2022 17:51
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e gently caress
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Nov 17, 2022 17:51
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One big advantage of legions was it was the only way to get engineers afaik, so you could have a cool dynamic where you can use your levy for actual battles while the professionals crack cities open and supply some more heavy troops when not sieging. again, for how rough the game was it was in a genuinely good place when the plug got pulled, it sucks. Carthage was like some beta version of Austria from Victoria where youre trying to keep an empire of minorities who hate you under control while keeping up with a rapidly consolidating rival to the north and it was great.
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Nov 17, 2022 17:55
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Paradox the publisher has a studio that produces those games, so, uh, yeah. This isn’t it, though, if you mean Iceflake. Though I think they published Surviving the Aftermath before acquiring Iceflake so maybe they’re looking to do the same thing here.
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Nov 17, 2022 18:04
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CommonShore posted:sounds to me like maybe Rome could be modeled by a hybrid of CK3's dynasties system within something like EU4's HRE Well before you do that I'd point out CK3 also does a terrible job of modelling Rome 
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Nov 17, 2022 19:34
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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OctaviusBeaver posted:You can get it for $8.50 right now. Ah, thanks! And I don't need any of the DLC to see what the game is like in its current 'finished' state, right? Edit: Ah gently caress it, those mission pack DLCs are marked down too, so why not? EricBauman fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Nov 17, 2022 |
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Nov 17, 2022 19:40
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Agean90 posted:One big advantage of legions was it was the only way to get engineers afaik, so you could have a cool dynamic where you can use your levy for actual battles while the professionals crack cities open and supply some more heavy troops when not sieging. This also reminds me that you used legions to make roads which was also a system I really liked playing around with. Imperator had really cool stuff going for it. 
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Nov 17, 2022 23:57
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any Goon-Approved  mods for Imperator?
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Nov 18, 2022 00:43
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Farecoal posted:any Goon-Approved Invictus is good if you're looking for a vanilla+ experience! Otherwise, idk, the LOTR mod unexpectedly rose from the dead a few months ago despite the modding team moving over to work on CK3, so maybe that's worth a shot? There might be other gems hiding on the workshop too, but those are the two mods I've spent the most time messing around with in the past.
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Nov 18, 2022 01:51
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YF-23 posted:This also reminds me that you used legions to make roads which was also a system I really liked playing around with. Imperator had really cool stuff going for it. Building up my little road network was my very favorite part of the game, I so wish they'd included a similar system for railroads in Vic3
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Nov 18, 2022 02:07
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It kinda sounds like I:R is doing a lot of things EU5 should be doing. The trade/production system also seemed interesting, being a little more developed than in EU4 but not to the point of needless tedium - does that bear out in the final product? Nah, the trade system isn't great. Probably my least favourite mechanic left in the game? It's a whole bunch of clicking- like, nightmare levels of clicking if you decide you want to do more that just get your cap bonuses. And the routes keep breaking because of wars and rebellions so you need to keep redoing everything, There's very little actual decision making in it, too- at most you might need to think about what your priorities for those cap bonuses are but that doesn't change much run to run. The click to decision ratio here is off the charts. There are other things I don't like about it, like, external trade is a lot more valuable than external trade? So you want to keep a lot of minors around so you can run trade routes with them, like some sort of weird accounting shell game. And it falls hard into that traditional Paradox problem where a region's economic potential is inappropriately coupled to the number of arbitrary divisions it's been partitioned into. Worst, in my mind, is the fact that all trades are direct from producer to consumer, so production and trade aren't really separable axes of income. If you're rich in land then you're going to be rich in trade, and if you're poor in land you're going to be similarly poor in trade. There's no opportunity for man-in-the-middle profits. I don't even know if that's appropriate to the period or not, I just know it has a flattening effect on the game's economy. Production is... alright? Again, I don't like the way it couples tile density to economic value, but the way the system works drives a lot of moment-to-moment gameplay in a way that's... satisfying to execute on, even if I don't think it amounts to what Radia would call an interesting decision. Lots of "Oh, there's honey here. I want to build a city on that.", or "This province has three grain tiles in it. I should slap farms on them and move a bunch of slaves there." Edgar Allen Ho posted:Levies/professionals/mercs with some tweaks makes sense for EU and honestly would be better for CK3 than trash + MAA + Dynasty It's funny, right? Because CK2 had Imperator's system, more or less. Imperator's is a lot cleaner and it does more interesting things with it, but the skeleton was there. I think what happened with 3 is that, they looked at 2's combat model, went, there is a tonne of complexity here that is a) opaque, b) non-interactive, c) is not doing anything interesting, because everyone has the same levy composition, more or less, and the AI doesn't know what to do with retinues. So they did the textbook game design thing, stripped that out and replaced it with a simple, clean system with all its levers clearly marked. Aaaand it's no more interesting, and less balanced. I have sympathy for the CK3 team, honestly, they did exactly what they were supposed to and no one is happy.
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Nov 18, 2022 02:49
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I feel like the "everybody basically has the same levy composition" issue could have been addressed by varying what unit types you get more dramatically based on terrain, which is something CK3 kind of already supports with it having a lot of terrain-specific building types, where CK2 had identical holdings no matter where they were + one unique cultural building.
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Nov 18, 2022 02:57
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Could have been solved in a lot of different ways! But you need to decide that it’s a problem there is value in solving first.
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Nov 18, 2022 03:13
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I have sympathy for the CK3 team, honestly, they did exactly what they were supposed to and no one is happy. I don’t think they really did? The biggest problem in CK2 was the unevenness of retinues, which they double down behind in CK3, to predictable results.
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Nov 18, 2022 03:30
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