Grand Strategy Imperator: Rome - the new grand strategy from Paradox

[janior]

Especially funny is in HoI4 that you have to justify a war goal or develop a national idea that gives you a war goal before you can declare war on a country.

Wanna go past Maginot through Belgium as Germany? LOL can only declare war on Belgium if you have justified it LOL

you have a national focus:"around maginot" which gives you war goal on belgium,luxemburg and the netherlands no need for justification

 

[JarlFrank]

Especially funny is in HoI4 that you have to justify a war goal or develop a national idea that gives you a war goal before you can declare war on a country.

Wanna go past Maginot through Belgium as Germany? LOL can only declare war on Belgium if you have justified it LOL

you have a national focus:"around maginot" which gives you war goal on belgium,luxemburg and the netherlands no need for justification

Yes but you need the national focus for it.

Bolded the part you quoted where I actually say that.

 

[janior]

Especially funny is in HoI4 that you have to justify a war goal or develop a national idea that gives you a war goal before you can declare war on a country.

Wanna go past Maginot through Belgium as Germany? LOL can only declare war on Belgium if you have justified it LOL

you have a national focus:"around maginot" which gives you war goal on belgium,luxemburg and the netherlands no need for justification

Yes but you need the national focus for it.

Bolded the part you quoted where I actually say that.

whoops

 

[Tigranes]

I was going to say: the idea of justifying isn't bad, but in an ideal world and game you would have the option of NOT justifying as an alternative, with all sorts of bad or mediocre consequences for doing so. Then at least it would seem like an actual thing that mattered, instead of just a formality.

I mean, you can, at least in EU4.

There was plenty of war justification to be done in the ancient world by and large. Anyone claiming that before the UN or Westphalia we just attack whoever randomly and give no pretext whatsoever, is barking up some weird tree.

The issue is that from a gameplay perspective it's getting quite boring to rehash the Fabricate Claims option, which was never that great a mechanic in the first place. I'd much rather see an internal justification mechanism where you bring up cause for war in a senate meeting, and your previous relationships with characters, your popularity with the people, as well as fabricated claims from your diplomats/spies, all contribute to persuading your own country to back the cause. (If this were a Republic of Rome only game, you could even have cool stuff where your persuasiveness determines how many troops you are given to back how extensive a war and how much control you get over peace terms.)

 

[vonAchdorf]

Wasn't it like that in the first Rome game? You needed the Senate's ok to wage war (or override it for penalties).

 

[Serus]

Fabricate Claims

LOL, seriously? I just can picture Caesar forging Tarquinius-era documents claiming that Gaul is ancestral Roman possession, in order to present it to the ancient UN and the Pope of Jupiter to get a permission to go and conquer it.

Paradox, always busy trying to make their map-painting more boring.

Ceasar against Gaul, yes it sounds silly. But when expanding into Greek world Rome did indeed "fabricate claims" in some way on occasion and looked for some legal justification. It would make sense if some mechanic in that vein (but possibly a more interesting one than the uninteresting EU4 one) would apply when going against some enemies but against those your nation consider barbaric - it wouldn't be needed.

 

[Life of the Party]

Romans were only defending themselves, just like Alexander did in that letter I posted. All the great conquerors were victims of unjust and unprovoked foreign aggression.

It would be a good idea to base the time it takes to fabricate a claim on threat/badboy/aggressive expansion/whatever it's called. It would encourage blobs to fight each other instead of gobbling up smaller countries.

 

[Life of the Party]

Hello everyone and welcome to another development diary for Imperator! Today we’ll delve into what we call unit-abilities, and also show off some interesting and fun modding mechanics.

What we call unit-abilities in Imperator can be one of three categories, where some of them are hardcoded like moving cohorts between legions or detaching a siege force, while others are fully 100% done through our script.

Reorganisational

• Create New Unit - Allows you to create a new unit and transfer cohorts/ships to it, or back.
• Consolidate - Merges cohorts of the same type, and then disbands empty cohorts.
• Detach Siege - Leaves behind a large enough force to siege or occupy the current city.
• Split Half - Splits the Unit in Half
• Recruit To - Opens up the recruit window, so you can recruit cohorts/ships directly to this unit. They will automatically march and merge to this unit.
• Disband - For when you don’t want that unit anymore.

Please be aware that cohorts that are loyal to its commanders will not be possible to reorganise away from that commander.

Toggles

• Select Objective - Can Select an Objective for this unit, and it will perform it without further input from you. More details in a later development diary.
• Allow Attachment - Allow other nations units to attach to this one.
• Cavalry Skirmish - Trades Defense for Offense on Light Cavalry and Camels.
• Phalanx - Slower movement for armies, while heavy infantry defence is much stronger.
• Padma Vyuha - Slower movement for heavy infantry defence and archer offence
• Unit Reorganisation - Double Maintenance and Slow movement speed, but unit reinforcing and morale recovery is much faster. Without using this, units recover slower than in previous games.
• Force March - Heavier Attrition and No morale recovery while moving much faster.

Some of these are unlocked by different military traditions, and some of them are always available, and some toggles have a small military power cost.

Actions

• Attach/Detach to Unit - Attach/Detach to another unit present in the city.
• Shattered Retreat - Gives the order for the unit to perform a shattered retreat. This is handy if you want to save the remnants of your army trapped deep in enemy territory, or when you are cut off by hostile Forts.
• Construct Border Fort - Creates a colony in an unowned city bordering you, adding 1 freeman pop of your culture and a fort for military power.
• Desecrate Holy Site - Spend religious power in another nations capital to reduce their omen power for a long time.
• Raise Levies - Spend Military Power to get more cohorts to your unit.
• Military Colonies - Spend Military Power to create a freeman pop of your culture/religion in the current city.
• Raid City - Spend Military Power to get gold and manpower from an enemy city.
• Build Road - Spend Military Power to build a road towards the next city the army moves to.

Some of these are unlocked by different military traditions, and some of them are always available.

Modding Support

So, making lots of these scriptable was possible due to the new super-powerful scripting tools of Jomini, which is the game-mechanics layer we have on top of Clausewitz these days.

We have some nice ways to get dynamic values in effects, like this in the raiding mechanics. You can basically access any “trigger” from any scope you can switch to as a value and modify with each other.

Code:
unit_owner = {
add_treasury = {
value = root.unit_location.total_population
multiply = root.unit_location.civilization_value
divide = 100
}
add_manpower = {
value = root.unit_location.total_population
multiply = root.unit_location.civilization_value
divide = 250
}
}

We can also do loops, which is used in the levies.
Code:

while = {
count = {
value = root.unit_owner.max_manpower
multiply = 0.25
round_up = yes
}
add_subunit = light_infantry
}

And for those of you that modded previous games, and know about city, character and country scopes, will be happy to know that Imperator has those and far more, like unit scope, pop scope, party scope, etc..

Next week, we'll be back with a look at the technology system!

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Life of the Party]

Hello everyone and welcome to the twelth development diary for Imperator. This time we look into the technology system of the game.

First of all, there are four different technology field you advance through, where each level gives you a higher bonus in that category. The research of technology is automatic, and depends primarily on your citizens. Inventions and access to certain trade-goods will increase the speed with which you research, while the total amount of pops you have determines the cost.

Each technology-field can have one researcher assigned to it. The finesse of this character impacts the speed with which research is done in that field. This character gets prominence from holding the position, and gets permanent prominence from each month holding the position. Changing researcher increases loyalty in the new researcher, and dramatically drops it in the one being replaced.

Research a level takes about 15 years if you are at 100% efficiency, which can obviously be faster or slower, depending on the setup of your nation.

Each level researched in the four technology fields reduces invention costs by 5%, and they have the following individual bonuses.

• Martial Advances :+10% Naval Morale, 10% Land Morale, -25% Military Tradition Cost
• Civic Advances: +2% Commerce Income
• Oratory Advances: +1% Civilization Level
• Religious Advances: +2% Omen Power

While the advances are tied directly to your nation’s progress, and is a slow progress through the years, there is also inventions around, that you can spend civic power on to get immediately.

There is always seven inventions to pick from, from a total of over 200 different ones. Each of them have a tech-level they are most likely to appear at, so you can’t stack or get all discipline bonuses in the first decades of the game no matter how lucky you get.

Each invention costs you 50 civic power, but for each invention you have taken, the cost goes up by 20%, while as we mentioned earlier technology advances reduce it by 5% each.

Civic Power is primarily used for three things, Setting up Trade Routes, Moving Pops & Buying Inventions, so it’s a hard choice between global weaker bonuses, or stronger local bonuses.

Stay tuned for next week, when we go into politics, and how fun Republics have with their Senate.

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[fantadomat]

We are well aware that this is a EU4 copy/paste. No need to show us every EU mechanic.

 

[Tigranes]

Except war impact on different internal factions is specifically something EU series doesn't have, unless it was added in one of the billion later DLCs?

We know this is a cheap reskin in large parts, but internal approval should be the one thing they're pushing to make the game unique in a fun way. Obviously I expect only a half-arsed job, but this should be a key dev diary either way.

 

[Life of the Party]

Hello everyone and welcome to another development diary for Imperator. Today is the lucky number 13, and we’ll talk about how the politics in Republics work, or more specific the Senate.

The Senate, in a republic, has 100 seats, and each seat belongs to one of of five factions. Every adult character in a republic has a predilection of each faction, and is supportive of one. Each faction also have a leader, generally the most prominent character that supports that faction.

Depending on which faction the ruler of the republic belongs to, the republic gets various bonuses or maluses.

• Civic Faction: +25% Tax Income, 10% Cheaper and Faster buildings.
• Military Faction: +25% Land Morale, +25% Naval Morale
• Mercantile Faction: +25% Commerce Income, +5 Diplomatic Reputation
• Religious Faction: +10% Omen Duration, 33% Cheaper Religious Conversion
• Populist Faction: +10% Power Costs

For Modders: You can freely add or remove factions and make them available to different government types, or have any type of trigger allowing the faction to give unique ones.

As you may notice there, having populists in power is not entirely beneficial.

The amount of seats in the senate change over time, depending on different factors, with the charisma of the faction leader always impacting the attraction of the seats.

If you wish to strengthen a parties position in the senate instantly, you can always spend oratory power to convince 10 seats to join that faction instead. Doing so however, increases your tyranny.

So why must you take into account the composition of the senate. Well.. There are three types of activities where the senate will impact your ability to do exactly what you want at any given time, like a ruler in an absolute monarchy.

The senate can outright block you if the support for the action you desire to do, if less than 40 seats is currently backing that action. And if less than 60 seats back the action, you can force it through, but you will gain some tyranny from it.

There are three different categories of actions which require senate approval.

• All changing of laws require approval by the senate
• A lot of character interactions, like banishing, imprisoning, etc.
• All diplomatic interactions with other nations.

If the senate will approve an action or not depends very much on its composition, and what you want to do. Military Faction is very likely to back new wars, but even some of their seats will be against wars if you have war exhaustion, low at manpower or currently in a war.

When you do an action, a lot of times it has impact on the characters of your nation. Loyalty is lost or gained depending on faction membership, and seats are gained and lost for different factions.

For Modders: All of this can be controlled entirely through powerful scripting language.

Here is an example of the Senate Calculations for 'Declare War'

Code:

Spoiler

####################################
# Declare War
####################################
declare_war = {

approval = {

military_party = {
base = 0
always_modifier = {
add = 0.5
has_civil_war = no
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
add = root.manpower_percentage
max = 0.5
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.3
war = yes
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 20
subtract = root.has_war_exhaustion
divide = 50
max = 0.2
}
}
#######generic
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = military_senate_support_svalue
max = 0.2
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = root.current_ruler.martial
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
OR = {
AND = {
current_ruler = {
num_of_friends >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_friend = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:military_party
}
}
current_ruler = {
is_party_leader_of = root.party:military_party
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
if = {
limit = {
root.current_ruler = {
party = military_party
}
}
add = 0.2
add = {
value = 0
add = root.tyranny
divide = 100
}
max = 0.4
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.15
current_ruler = {
num_of_rivals >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_rival = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:military_party
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.1
government = aristocratic_republic
}
}

civic_party = {
base = 0
always_modifier = {
add = -0.5
has_civil_war = yes
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
NOT = { current_ruler = { has_same_culture_group_as = scope:target.current_ruler } }
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
NOT = { current_ruler = { has_same_culture_as = scope:target.current_ruler } }
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 20
subtract = root.has_war_exhaustion
divide = 100
max = 0.1
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.2
scope:target = {
is_tribal = yes
}
}
#######generic
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = civic_senate_support_svalue
max = 0.2
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = root.current_ruler.finesse
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
OR = {
AND = {
current_ruler = {
num_of_friends >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_friend = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:civic_party
}
}
current_ruler = {
is_party_leader_of = root.party:civic_party
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
if = {
limit = {
root.current_ruler = {
party = civic_party
}
}
add = 0.2
add = {
value = root.tyranny
divide = 100
}
max = 0.4
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.15
current_ruler = {
num_of_rivals >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_rival = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:civic_party
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.1
government = democratic_republic
}
}
religious_party = {
base = 0.1
always_modifier = {
add = -0.5
has_civil_war = yes
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.2
NOT = { current_ruler = { has_same_religion_as = scope:target.current_ruler } }
}
#######generic
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = religious_senate_support_svalue
max = 0.2
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = root.current_ruler.zeal
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
OR = {
AND = {
current_ruler = {
num_of_friends >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_friend = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:religious_party
}
}
current_ruler = {
is_party_leader_of = root.party:religious_party
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
if = {
limit = {
root.current_ruler = {
party = religious_party
}
}
add = 0.2
add = {
value = 0
add = root.tyranny
divide = 100
}
max = 0.4
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.15
current_ruler = {
num_of_rivals >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_rival = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:religious_party
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.1
government = theocratic_republic
}
}
mercantile_party = {
base = 0.5
always_modifier = {
add = -0.5
has_civil_war = yes
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.5
trade_access_with = scope:target
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
if = {
limit = {
root.has_war_exhaustion <= 10
}
value = 10
subtract = root.has_war_exhaustion
divide = 50
max = 0.2
}
else = {
value = 0
subtract = root.has_war_exhaustion
add = 10
divide = 25
max = -0.4
}
}
}
#######generic
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = mercantile_senate_support_svalue
max = 0.2
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = root.current_ruler.charisma
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
OR = {
AND = {
current_ruler = {
num_of_friends >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_friend = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:mercantile_party
}
}
current_ruler = {
is_party_leader_of = root.party:mercantile_party
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
if = {
limit = {
root.current_ruler = {
party = mercantile_party
}
}
add = 0.2
add = {
value = 0
add = root.tyranny
divide = 100
}
max = 0.4
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.15
current_ruler = {
num_of_rivals >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_rival = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:mercantile_party
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.1
government = oligarchic_republic
}
}
populist_party = {
base = 0.1
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
scope:target = {
is_monarchy = yes
}
}
#######generic
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0.01
multiply = populist_senate_support_svalue
max = 0.2
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = 0.15
OR = {
AND = {
current_ruler = {
num_of_friends >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_friend = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:populist_party
}
}
current_ruler = {
is_party_leader_of = root.party:populist_party
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = {
value = 0
if = {
limit = {
root.current_ruler = {
party = populist_party
}
}
add = 0.3
add = {
value = 0
add = root.tyranny
divide = 100
}
max = 0.6
}
}
}
always_modifier = {
add = -0.15
current_ruler = {
num_of_rivals >= 1
}
any_character = {
is_rival = root.current_ruler
is_party_leader_of = root.party:populist_party
}
}
}
}

loyalty = {
military_party = 0.1
populist_party = -0.1
}

support = {
civic_party = -1
military_party = 3
mercantile_party = -1
populist_party = -1
}
}

Stay tuned, next week we’ll talk even more politics with laws and offices.

 

[Life of the Party]

Hi and welcome back to another development diary for Imperator! This time we’ll talk about the offices and laws in the Republic!

If you haven’t read about the Senate already, then read it here! https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...lopment-diary-13-20th-of-august-2018.1115536/

First of all, we have the current ruler, which in Rome is called the Consul. In a decision to make it more into a fun engaging game, where you care about your characters, you only have one consul in rome, and they serve for five years.

The next consul, which is called ‘candidate’ is usually the most popular and prominent character from the most powerful faction in the senate. Friendship and backing of other parties influences this as well.

There are eight offices in the government, and they all serve until you replace them or they die. There are two offices for each attribute, and the skill in their attribute determines how big their impact is on your country. Each of them give the character prominence and some give other benefits to the character.

• Censor - Each Charisma gives +0.2 Senate Influence for the Censor’s party.
• Praetor - Each Charisma gives +1% Commerce Income.
• Tribunus Militum - Each Martial gives +1% Discipline
• Praefectus Militaris - Each Martial gives +1% Tax Income
• Augur - Each Zeal gives +5% Omen Power
• Pontifex - Each Zeal reduces stability cost by 2%.
• Tribunus Plebis - Each Finesse increases freemen happyness by 1%
• Vulnerarius - Each finesse increases health by 0.5.

Appointing someone to an office increases their loyalty, but removing someone deeply hurt their loyalties.

There are eight categories of laws in a republic, and each of them have four different laws, where only one law can be active in each category. Changing a law costs 250 oratory power, and you must also have the backing of the senate for changing that category of laws.

• Anticorruption Laws : Impacts Corruption & Unrest
• Religious Laws: Omen Cost & Power, Influence of Religious Party
• Maritime Laws: Commerce, Wealth, Pirates.
• Integration Laws: Pop Happyness, Influence of Civic and Populist Parties
• Citizen Laws: Pop Promotion Costs.
• Land Reforms: AE Impact, Unrest, Slave Output
• Military Reforms: Different Military Bonuses
• Election Reforms: Corruption, Consul Term Duration

Please be aware that monarchies and tribes have different offices and laws, and if you like to mod you can have your own unique offices and laws for each nation if you so want.

*** Update: Check out Arheos post below for more background ***

Arheo said: ↑

In a game where focus is intended to be equally split between internal and external politics, having a fully in-depth, historically authentic roman senate is way out of scope. Yes, you could manage your 10 Tribunes, 20 Quaestors, and 2 consuls, and it would probably be amazing, as a Roman Senate Simulator.

However, a Roman Senate Simulator is not what Imperator: Rome is. I understand that some of you feel aggrieved, having expected one thing and received another, but a balance has to be struck. As Johan said, it would take a matter of minutes or hours to halfheartedly hack in the coveted 'Second Consul'; but actively providing balance, content, and intrigue to do this justice, not only takes time, but takes away a lot of focus from the other aspects of the game you would be playing. 20 Quaestors would be horrifying to manage.

As you've seen in the previous dev diary, you will need to convince the senate in order to perform certain actions; Rome is not a totalitarian monarchy*, with 1, 2 or 3 consuls.

*Octavius notwithstanding.

Next week we’ll go into military traditions!

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

However, a Roman Senate Simulator is not what Imperator: Rome is.

 

[Life of the Party]

Hi, my name is Lucas and I’m a game designer. I'd like to offer my perspective on the 1 Consul issue.

So the justification for just 1 Consul every 5 years is "to make it more into a fun engaging game, where you care about your characters".

I think that's a totally valid concern.

Let’s say Paradox is right. Maybe they tried 2 consuls, but the game wasn’t fun. Maybe there were too many characters, maybe you didn’t feel attached to them. That's a problem and it needs a solution.

Maybe having 2 consuls simply doesn’t work with the current game mechanics. Then, the problem is either:

• The 2 consuls, or;
• The current game mechanics.

Paradox blamed the 2 consuls. They couldn't or didn't want to change the mechanics.

Their solution was to change History and break immersion. It might seem like a tiny detail to some, but much of the depth of the Roman Republic is lost. The complex political systems that Rome created to avoid sole rule are ignored in Imperator, and we miss out on all those intricacies.

They kept the fun, but was it worth it?

What if there was a way to keep both the fun and historical realism?

There is!

Change the mechanics, not History.

If the mechanics aren’t supporting the workings of the Roman Republic, then there’s something wrong with the mechanics.

There are no rules in game design that say that "2 characters that rule for 1 year = less fun". I bet it was indeed the case for Imperator, but it didn't have to be.

Instead of changing History, they should’ve changed the mechanics. Instead of shoehorning History into the game, the mechanics should've been made to allow for the depth of History in the first place. They had 10 years between EU:Rome and Imperator to figure out a way not to make the same mistake.

Imperator might be a fun game, but what is being sacrificed in the name of fun? Will it be worth it?

I don't think this sacrifice is necessary for a game set in Rome. If they are unwilling to change the mechanics of Imperator, or have time constraints, then sure, it's the right decision. It really is! It's too late for Imperator now. But the game will hurt. Players will miss out on what could have been.

You might say: it's easy to complain. Why don't you try doing it?

I am. I'm making a game called Historia Realis: Roma, which has everything people are seeing that Imperator is missing: a focus on characters, historical intrigue and deep politics. And, of course, 2 consuls.

If you're like me and you want to feel immersed in Rome, not annoyed by inaccuracies, join us at r/historiarealis! I'm doing my best to listen to the community, so let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[vonAchdorf]

I think it's problematic that games mostly depend on autocratic rule (under the guise of player agency) instead of putting in the work, to make "democratic" decision processes fun.

Spoiler

Wasn't it irrelevant most of the time in the first game who exactly was consul? Because you LARP a country, not a faction or family, you really didn't have to care, unless in some rare cases.

 

[JarlFrank]

Even if you LARP a character instead of a country, restrictions like that might be tons of fun. Look at Crusader Kings 2 and playing a republic. Your family isn't ruling? Assassination time! Fun gameplay! Even better than map painting!

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, i expected this but its a good example of how the game will largely be an ancient world eu4 mod where you spend magic power points tp get everything done.

There was a golden opportunity to dissociate the always weird conflation between player and monarch. In eu4 having a retarded leader is of no onsequence except the shit youre doing takes a bit longer. What if, just like you need to get senate approval for actions, consuls are an extension of that? You tried to get pacifists elected but its a strongly expansionist consul pair and they are using their heft to strongly favour militart action, etc.

Anything like that is of course tricky in an eu-style system, but thats the kind of thing they should be tackling if they want this to be another franchise.

 

[Life of the Party]

Just in case someone missed it.

http://historiarealis.com/

HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM IMPERATOR: ROME?

I started Historia Realis a few months before Paradox announced Imperator: Rome. I thought about giving up, but it turned out that my vision for a historical game in Rome was very different from Paradox's and a lot of people had interest in it. Even Johan, the director of Imperator, said that I shouldn't give up on my game. Below you can find a comparison of the main differences between my game and Paradox's.

IMPERATOR

You play as a nation like EU4.

1 Consul in Rome for "gameplay reasons".

Many nations are playable.

Wars, conquest and expansion are the focus.

You interact with the map, trying to paint provinces your color. Characters are mostly passive.

Ahistorical 5 factions: Religious, Military, Mercantile, Civic, Populist.

HISTORIA REALIS

You play as a character and his dynasty like in CK2.

2 Consuls, as it was in Rome.

Only Roman characters are playable, allowing the game to focus on roman systems instead of one-size-fits-all systems.

Politics, internal struggle and power disputes inside Rome are the focus.

You interact with a timeline of events, with all characters trying to get what they want by creating and joining events.

Historical patronage system of political organization: the clientela.

 

[M. AQVILA]

Hi and welcome back to another development diary for Imperator! This time we’ll talk about the offices and laws in the Republic!

If you haven’t read about the Senate already, then read it here! https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...lopment-diary-13-20th-of-august-2018.1115536/

First of all, we have the current ruler, which in Rome is called the Consul. In a decision to make it more into a fun engaging game, where you care about your characters, you only have one consul in rome, and they serve for five years.

The next consul, which is called ‘candidate’ is usually the most popular and prominent character from the most powerful faction in the senate. Friendship and backing of other parties influences this as well.

There are eight offices in the government, and they all serve until you replace them or they die. There are two offices for each attribute, and the skill in their attribute determines how big their impact is on your country. Each of them give the character prominence and some give other benefits to the character.

• Censor - Each Charisma gives +0.2 Senate Influence for the Censor’s party.
• Praetor - Each Charisma gives +1% Commerce Income.
• Tribunus Militum - Each Martial gives +1% Discipline
• Praefectus Militaris - Each Martial gives +1% Tax Income
• Augur - Each Zeal gives +5% Omen Power
• Pontifex - Each Zeal reduces stability cost by 2%.
• Tribunus Plebis - Each Finesse increases freemen happyness by 1%
• Vulnerarius - Each finesse increases health by 0.5.

Appointing someone to an office increases their loyalty, but removing someone deeply hurt their loyalties.

There are eight categories of laws in a republic, and each of them have four different laws, where only one law can be active in each category. Changing a law costs 250 oratory power, and you must also have the backing of the senate for changing that category of laws.

• Anticorruption Laws : Impacts Corruption & Unrest
• Religious Laws: Omen Cost & Power, Influence of Religious Party
• Maritime Laws: Commerce, Wealth, Pirates.
• Integration Laws: Pop Happyness, Influence of Civic and Populist Parties
• Citizen Laws: Pop Promotion Costs.
• Land Reforms: AE Impact, Unrest, Slave Output
• Military Reforms: Different Military Bonuses
• Election Reforms: Corruption, Consul Term Duration

Please be aware that monarchies and tribes have different offices and laws, and if you like to mod you can have your own unique offices and laws for each nation if you so want.

*** Update: Check out Arheos post below for more background ***

Arheo said: ↑

In a game where focus is intended to be equally split between internal and external politics, having a fully in-depth, historically authentic roman senate is way out of scope. Yes, you could manage your 10 Tribunes, 20 Quaestors, and 2 consuls, and it would probably be amazing, as a Roman Senate Simulator.

However, a Roman Senate Simulator is not what Imperator: Rome is. I understand that some of you feel aggrieved, having expected one thing and received another, but a balance has to be struck. As Johan said, it would take a matter of minutes or hours to halfheartedly hack in the coveted 'Second Consul'; but actively providing balance, content, and intrigue to do this justice, not only takes time, but takes away a lot of focus from the other aspects of the game you would be playing. 20 Quaestors would be horrifying to manage.

As you've seen in the previous dev diary, you will need to convince the senate in order to perform certain actions; Rome is not a totalitarian monarchy*, with 1, 2 or 3 consuls.

*Octavius notwithstanding.

Next week we’ll go into military traditions!

Fuck that, I already had low expectations but now I lost all my interest in this game. If I wanted to play an ahistorical game then I would play the Civilization games. Even Rome 2 Total War is better than this shit.

 

[Spectacle]

Don't worry guys, I'm sure they'll bring in the second consul as DLC later.

 

[M. AQVILA]

Don't worry guys, I'm sure they'll bring in the second consul as DLC later.

It's not just the lack of a second consul. It's also the 5 year term, made up shit (edit: the office, not the word) like Vulnerarius and other ahistorical stuff. It seems they're going to take the gamey route with their games, it started with EU4 but it was still bearable, this is not.