Imperator: Rome

[Valmy]

So I guess I shouldn't expect Victoria III anytime soon?

[celedhring]

Well, sad to see the Imperator cancelled (although I was kinda expecting it). The game was getting to a pretty good place.

And yeah, Paradox seems to be in a bit of bother nowadays - see Friedrick's recent twitter posts about forum toxicity for example.

Sure but on the other hand they have totally adopted to a model where they keep releasing more and more features in DLCs (since people keep licking that up) without ever catching the game up to them in terms of balance and AI. Stellaris is the worst offender but I think EU4 is similar. After a while people grow tired. That's no excuse for abuse, but is an excuse for frustration.

I don't mind the DLC policy that much. The biggest issue is that at one point they should just stop, declare the game finished, and move on. Their games end up like those TV shows that are very successful, get too many seasons, and jump the shark. I tuned out of EUIV several DLC ago.

Now, I understand that killing a reliable revenue stream ain't easy, particularly in an industry like videogames where each release is a roll of the dice. But the consequence is that the product suffers.

[Syt]

Either declare it finished, or spread out the DLC more. Maybe have one big release per year that's better tested and more polished (that would either not create enough revenue or if they adjust the price for it, reduce adoption rate - people would be more inclined to buy one DLC for 19.99, and two flavor packs for 9.99 in a year rather than pay 29.99 once (even though the total is lower).

[Syt]

A beta patch has been released:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/anniversary-maintenance-patch-2-0-4-open-beta.1579605/

Avē!

First, I'd like to introduce myself, I am not one of the previous Game Directors, Johan or Peter, but I am Niels Uiterwijk, the original tech lead on the project. Today my role at paradox has changed as I am the Technical Director in studio green (studio working Stellaris). But still, from outer space I look back at earth and think of Imperator sometimes and decided to make a small maintenance patch, fixing some of the issues that modders & other people ran into.

Without further ado, the patch notes:

#######################
# Bugfixes
######################

# Notes
- This patch should be save compatible, however not all fixes might be applied to your current save.

# Stability & Performance
- Improved overall memory consumption & performance
- Improved monthly tick performance by performing some more calculations in parallel (state modifiers)
- Portrait editor no longer crashes on open
- Updated SDL to 2.0.20 from 2.0.10

# Game Mechanic Bugs
- Upped the maximum number of tags (countries) from 2048 to 8192
- Fixed levy calculations being inversed
- Fixed a bug where when annexing a country, their abroad prisoners, that were in your prison, would also be counted as an abroad prisoners for you, even though they are local prisoners.
- default pop right is now correctly working & added proper logging of pop rights
- Fixed bug where unused modifiers were still being rewarded for specific missions (local & global cohort recruitment speed)


As you can see, this is a minor patch, and for now it will be released as an open beta on steam & windows only. The plan is to release this on all platforms at some point in the undetermined future. Please leave feedback (or links to bug reports that you want to see fixed) in the comments section, I am quite bad at replying, but I will read them.

Thanks to all the people that helped me with this!


Available now on the steam beta branch: 2.0.4 - open beta

I also have to stress that this is not a revival of Imperator: Rome! Do not expect new content or patches going forward.

[Josquius]

Sad disclaimer at the end. I guess it's up to modders to make a game

[Syt]

Sad disclaimer at the end. I guess it's up to modders to make a game

The Invictus mod seems to be the one carrying the torch, mostly adding flavor/detail to neglected areas.

EDIT: Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532715348

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Havebn been having fun with it the past few weeks. Playing frisia.

[Syt]

Excessively long dev diary for the Invictus mod:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-imperator-invictus.1473328/post-28909451

We have a variety of subjects for you today including but not limited to, in order:
- Patch notes
- Arabian map rework
- Steppe map rework
- Indian area expansion
- New impassables in Iberia, North-Africa and India
- Dumnonian mission tree
- Eburonian mission tree
- Fezzani mission tree rework
- Tasm mission trees (2)
- Germania formable
- Cappadocian mission tree
- Antigonid mission tree expansion
- Pauravan mission tree
- Armenian religious rework
- New Natic religion (in Burma)
- More generic events

Many more details about all the changes at the link, but this is the patch notes:

V1.6 - Pantheion (new save needed)
New/expanded mission trees:
- 2 mission trees for Tasm
- Large tree for Cappadocia with many paths
- Large tree for Paurava
- Large tree for Nabatea
- Regional tree for Odrysia
- Regional tree for Dumnonia
- Regional tree for Iberia (the Caucasian country)
- Regional tree for Eburonia
- Regional piracy tree for Illyrians
- Expanded Antigonid's first mission tree
- Expanded Hellenistic empire mission tree
- Expanded later Macedonian mission trees
- Reworked Fezzani missions
- Reworked Numidian missions
- Minor rework to Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdom missions
- Slightly reworked most of the Germanic mission trees

Map changes:
- Reworked and Expanded Arabia: new South Arabian culture group, interior passage and more
- Reworked and Expanded the Steppes: new cultures, tags and a larger map
- Reworked and Expanded India: 3 new areas, 3 new religions and a new tag setup in Central-India
- Added minority and enslaved pops around the world
- Added many new impassables to Iberia, North-Africa and India
- Added several new navigable rivers
- Added Steppes terrain type (increased movement speed, decreased population capacity)
- Added 150+ deities to every religion around the world
- Added 5 new religions, Illyric, Natic, Agamic, Ajivika and Anahitic
- Hindu has been split up into Agamic and Vedic
- Added new map models to Burma
- Updated regions setup

Added content:
- Added 200~ generic events
- Added 30~ events for specific religions
- Regional rebellions will no longer cost more than 100 warscore to retake, they'll have larger levies and be consolidated into one country
- Tribes will no longer just collapse, instead they'll turn very aggressive for several decades before finally collapsing into Regions instead of Areas
- Reworked all levy templates to make historical sense, account for military traditions and make AI more intelligent in their usage
- Implemented Crownsteler's Coat of Arms
- Added dozens of new event pictures
- Added dozens of new icons
- Added a dozen heritages mainly in Illyria
- Added new gamerules: toggleable Galatian invasion/regional rebellions/Mauryan Collapse and Seasonal food, also option for extremely aggresive meme-ai
- Integrated and adapted More Character Traits mod
- Added Arabia, Odrysian Kingdom and Germania as formables
- Added Gallus decision to Cybelene countries
- Added Persian decision to rebuild Persepolis
- Added cult decision to Illyrians
- Added predefined characters to a number of countries

Changes:
- Improved performance due to new 2.0.4 debugging tools
- Deity GUI now shows deity description when hovering
- Removed custom achievement system since 2.0.4 will allow vanilla achievements
- Aqueducts now additionally give 1 civ cap
- Indian caste laws disabled for AI as they can't handle it
- Nerfed a lot of broken modifiers
- Made Parthia more likely to form
- Dahae is now a tier 2 formable instead of tier 3
- Archers have slightly lower maneouver than cavalry now
- Chariots have higher maneouver than infantry now
- Heavy infantry do less damage to spearmen, but take 5% less damage in general
- Light Infantry have a lesser penalty against Heavy Cavalry and Horse Archers
- Spearmen do slightly more damage against Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Horse Archers and Chariots
- Improved AI's budgeting skills
- Tweaked AI's diplomatic acceptance values
- AI now accounts for the Levy size modifier
- Improved general AI's ability to declare war
- AI won't go bankrupt when they get spawned units
- AI is slightly better at choosing governor policies
- Improved Carthaginian's AI ability to navigate its missions
- Improved Rome's ability to expand into Gaul
- Made Roman/Dictatorial civil war less likely to crash the game
- New traits are now accounted for in AI decision making
- Improved religious holy site triggers in generic missions
- Added centralization to Steppe Horde government type
- Caucasian culture group now has access to Anatolian/Armenian traditions
- Greek traditions now give more Spearmen bonuses instead of boosting Archers
- Iberian traditions now give Light Infantry bonuses instead of boosting Archers
- Iberian traditions now have bigger Heavy Cavalry bonuses
- Celtic traditions now give Spearmen instead of Heavy infantry bonuses
- Nabatea now has access to Arabian traditions
- Nerfed Nubian archer traditions
- Occidental culture group now has custom Graphics group (combining several models)
- Egyptian AI now accounts for new Cyrenaican content if a player is on it
- Updated tooltips and minor effects in Judean tree
- Ashoka dying should now trigger the collapse instantly instead of having to wait for a yearly tick
- Ptolemaic Kingdom now has access to Pharoah trait
- Updated tradegood triggers so valuable goods now won't get replaced, and all food tradegoods now actually are ones that give food
- Updated a number of province names
- Updated console GUI with QOL features
- Updated Government GUI with QOL features
- Updated Portrait Editor with QOL features
- Updated techonology view GUI to show relevant traits
- Updated localization files
- Expanded French, Spanish and German translations

Bugfixes:
- Cleared the error log
- In doing the above, fixed many tiny errors not worth noting
- Fixed naval raiding not being unlocked for various countries
- Fixed broken treasure icons
- Fixed a dozen of broken unit models
- Spreading tradegoods by decision no longer replaces other high-value trade goods
- Switching countries using scripted effect will now account for the Noble levies law
- Fixed custom distinctions being untriggerable
- Fixed several broken Macedonian mission tasks
- Fixed several broken Cyrenaican mission tasks
- Fixed several broken Gymnaesian mission tasks
- Fixed a number of small bugs with Cyrenaican mission trees
- Pu culture group now has access to Indian traditions
- Fixed a broken Berber tradition
- Bactria no longer has access to Scythian traditions
- Slave wonder effect now properly gives 20% slave output
- Pyramids now properly give political influence modifier
- Updated atropatene localization file to be more readable
- Removed duplicate manpower entry in Barracks building
- Fixed broken sogdian emporium modifier
- Consolidated some NOT OR triggers into NOR
- Properly indented a bunch of files

I should really give this another try some time. 

[celedhring]

Yeah same. I tried it shortly after it came out and I filed it in the "come back to it once they have done more work on it" folder.

I have so little time to play nowadays though

[Josquius]

The big problem with the game. Most games in the period really. Is they try to do something like EU but in the ancient world.
To work a Rome game needs to work fundamentally differently. It's not about painting the map your colours. Relations with barbarians should work very differently to normal diplomacy.
I hold out hope for a proper attempt someday