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

[Life of the Party]

Spoiler

Hello everyone!

Today I am here to talk about Subject States and their loyalty in Imperator:Rome, how they interact with Civil Wars and Rebellions, as well as how supporting Rebels in a foreign country will work.

Civil Wars & Rebellions

(Mauryan Civil War)

As described in earlier Development Diaries, both Civil Wars and Rebellions depend on the loyalty of your provinces and of your characters.

• Civil Wars break out if 33% of the armed forces of your country is in the hands of disloyal Generals OR if 33% of your population resides in disloyal provinces. A Civil War breaks your country in two parts, locked in war until one capitulates.
• Rebellions break out if 20% of your population resides in disloyal foreign culture provinces. A Rebellion will break out rebel countries for the various disloyal foreign peoples in your country, in a Rebellion war where they aim to achieve independence.

(aftermath of a rebellion war in a particularly chaotic situation that I may or may not have helped along to get a good screenshot )

Subject States

Subjects are countries that do not have the ability to perform their own diplomacy. Instead they have entered into an agreement with a more powerful country for protection: their Overlord. What this means will differ depending on the type of subject but there are some rules all subjects obey:

• Other than for Trade a subject can never enter into diplomatic agreements with other countries.
• When a country becomes a subject all their agreements with other countries are broken.
• The overlord and subject will always have military access to each others territory.
• Subjects have military access to the territory of other subjects of the same overlord.
• A subject can always leave a subject relationship by declaring war on their overlord.

In addition most subject types will pay some sort of resource to their overlord, how much and which one will depend on the subject type.

Requirements:

Most subject types have requirements that the overlord and the future subject need to fulfill in order for the relationship to be possible. These requirements are only checked on creation, but when they are no longer true (if a subject of a type that is required to be under a certain size should outgrow that size for instance), the relationship will be harder to maintain. Friction will start to manifest in the form of regular events between the two.

Subject Loyalty:

Each subject has a Loyalty value to its overlord. This value will modify how much payment is actually sent to the overlord and at low loyalty they may also join Rebellions and Civil Wars against the overlord.

Subject loyalty is a value between 0 & 100, where 100 signifies total loyalty.

Below a loyalty of 50 a subject state is considered disloyal:

1. This reduces what it pays to overlord by up to 50% (at 0 loyalty)
2. If a rebellion happens of this culture the subject will join that revolt.
3. If a civil war happens and a state is disloyal it joins the revolting side.

Loyalty is affected by the relation between subject and overlord, by the comparative army size of the overlord and its subjects of the same culture, the comparative population size and by things like laws, and the Overlord’s Aggressive Expansion, Tyranny and Stability.

Integration

In time the overlord may want to directly integrate a subject. This requires relations at over 190 and will after a long period turn the entire subject country into directly owned territory by the overlord. Not all Subject Types can be integrated however. Some, like the tributary, are too loosely aligned with the overlord for such a thing to even be possible.

Supporting Rebels:

This brings us to how you can destabilize a big empire. All Major Powers and above have a diplomatic action called “Support Rebels”. This lets you decrease the happiness of all pops that are not of the targeted country’s culture group by 20. This can potentially result in growing unrest and falling province loyalty in their country.

The country that supports the rebels will be expected to support, the rebels in action as well as words and should a Rebellion war break out they will be called in to defend the Rebels.

The country supporting rebels will, for the duration of their support suffer a -5 Diplomatic Reputation penalty and an Aggressive Expansion increase of 0.02 per month. Since Aggressive Expansion itself decreases foreign pop happiness, and can take some time to burn off, this means that Supporting Rebels is perhaps not a decision to take too lightly.

The targeted country will also have a permanent Casus Belli against the subversive country as long as it continues its support for their rebels.

Subject Types:

With that we will move on to the types of Subjects that exist in the game. Many of them we have mentioned before in the various focus area Development Diaries.

Tributary

Perhaps the most basic subject type in the game is the Tributary. This is a loose relationship where the subject is simply looking for protection in exchange for tribute. Unlike most other subject types the subject can at any time cancel a Tributary relationship, the only risk being that the former overlord will get a Casus Belli for the slight on their honor.

• Payment: 25% of income is paid to overlord monthly.
• Requirements: Any country can be a Tributary.
• Special Rules:
  • Overlord will protect the subject if it is attacked.
  • This relationship does not cost a diplomatic slot.
  • The Subject will not join in the wars of the Overlord.
  • The Subject cannot be integrated diplomatically.
  • The Subject can break the relationship diplomatically.

Feudatory

A Feudatory is a city state that has obligated itself to follow the lead of a larger and more influential country in the same culture group. Historically these are countries that would often have been part of some sort of League with their overlord’s other subjects, in many ways this is a privileged subject type, if one with large obligations.

Feudatories provide manpower to their overlord and are expected to take part in their wars. Historical examples are the Roman Socii, the Punic cities of North Africa under Carthage or the the city leagues in Aegean under the Antigonids in Phrygia.

• Payment: 35% of manpower income is paid to overlord monthly.
• Requirements:
  • Subject must not have more than 10 cities.
  • Overlord must have more than 20 cities.
  • Overlord and subject must be of same culture group.
• Modifiers:
  • Subject gets 5% less citizen happiness and -10% Army Maintenance Cost.
• Special Rules:
  • Overlord will protect the subject if it is attacked.
  • This relationship does not cost a diplomatic slot.
  • The subject will join the wars of the overlord.
  • The subject can be integrated diplomatically.
  • The subject cannot cancel this relationship diplomatically.

Vassal Tribe

A Vassal Tribe is a Tribal Kingdom, Chiefdom or Federation that has a close relationship to a nearby stronger Civilized state. For the Tribal State this means a significantly easier route towards civilizing, as it will increase both the countrywide level of Civilization and the growth of it in all their cities. The Tribal state in turn pays with its manpower to the overlord who will also promise to protect them. Historical subjects of this type would be the Numidian kingdoms to Carthage and various states on the border with Rome.

• Payment: 15% of manpower income is paid to overlord monthly.
• Requirements:
  • The subject must be Tribal.
  • The overlord must not be Tribal
  • The Overlord must have a higher civilization rating in their capital than the Subject does in theirs.
  • Overlord must not have 10 or more tribal vassal subjects already.
• Modifiers:
  • Overlord gets 3% more Tribesman Happiness per Subject of this type.
  • Subject gets 10% higher country civilization cap.
  • Subject gets 1 monthly civilization growth.
• Special Rules:
  • The Overlord will protect the subject if it is attacked.
  • The Subject will not join in the wars of the overlord.
  • The Subject cannot be integrated diplomatically.
  • Does not cost a diplomatic slot.
  • The Subject can cancel this relationship diplomatically.

Client State

Client states are in some ways more tightly integrated with their overlord, but unlike the Feudatories they are not necessarily of the same culture and they don’t enjoy a privileged status in the same way. Client States will in most cases be the result of a war. A client king is separated from a governor mostly by his level of autonomy and having local ties to the ruled country.

• Payment: 25% of monthly income.
• Requirements:
  • Subject must not have 150 cities or above.
  • Must not be tribal.
  • Overlord must not be tribal.
• Modifiers:
  • Subject gets -5% Ruler Popularity Gain.
  • Subject gets +10% global commerce modifier.
• Special Rules:
  • The Overlord will protect the subject if it is attacked.
  • The Subject can only trade with overlord.
  • The Subject will join in the wars of the overlord.
  • The Subject can be integrated diplomatically.
  • The Subject costs a diplomatic slot for overlord.

Satrapy

Satrapies are a special type of subject that is only available if the junior party belongs to the Persian Military Traditions. A Satrap is in some ways similar to a governor but is expected to have greater authority, bigger obligations, and a more imposing realm. As having powerful Satraps is an expectation in the east a few of them will also help with maintaining the Legitimacy for their overlord kingdoms.

Satrapies are notoriously independent minded and troublesome. Events will periodically require interacting with to keep Satraps happy.

• Payment: 50% of monthly income.
• Requirements:
  • The subject must have Persian Military Traditions.
  • The subject must have more than 40 cities.
  • The Overlord must have 150 cities or more.
  • Subject must be a monarchy.
  • Overlord must be a monarchy.
• Modifiers:
  • Overlord will get 2% Monthly Legitimacy per Satrapy.
• Special Rules:
  • Overlord will protect the subject if it is attacked.
  • The Subject will join in the wars of the overlord.
  • The Subject can be integrated diplomatically.
  • The Subject costs a diplomatic slot for overlord.
  • The Subject cannot cancel the relationship diplomatically.

That was all for today. Next week we will be back for a closer look at Tribes and one of our Tribal regions.

 

[Alienman]

Was looking at few videos and reading some comments here and thinking - this might actually be pretty good. Then I saw the religious/cultural conversion mechanic in one of the RepublcOfPlay videos and instantly lost all enthusiasm.



What the hell is that? It looks and works incredible cheap. This has probably already been talked about before in this thread, but was kinda shocked seeing that play out. Talk about gamify/simply something that should have a huge impact in the game, and constantly be something that you have to consider as go on with your conquests. But nope.

 

[fantadomat]

Was looking at few videos and reading some comments here and thinking - this might actually be pretty good. Then I saw the religious/cultural conversion mechanic in one of the RepublcOfPlay videos and instantly lost all enthusiasm.



What the hell is that? It looks and works incredible cheap. This has probably already been talked about before in this thread, but was kinda shocked seeing that play out. Talk about gamify/simply something that should have a huge impact in the game, and constantly be something that you have to consider as go on with your conquests. But nope.

Buahahahaha what a garbage system. Just click twice and people are converted . Paradox are the avatars of lazy,also i noticed that they just copied rome's code and then just begun writing a few new things.

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[fantadomat]

I watch it and it seemed very disappointing,it looks like you could do a speedrun world conquest in it. Also event spam and pointless family micromanagement shit. It will be like stellaris for me,play a single campaign and don't touch it for a decade.

 

[Tigranes]

But I thought that's how you play EU4, as some kind of superblob.

 

[fantadomat]

But I thought that's how you play EU4, as some kind of superblob.

It is,but it takes me 20 hours to run a campaign. Tho this days the new mission system has made the game a lot more fun. I just sit down for a few hours and exhaust the missions and then go for another country. This one looks a lot more boring,becoming a megapower in the first hours just kills the most fun part of EU4,the early game and survival .

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I mean, you play in a way that I simply wouldn't enjoy. That's the thing, Paradox games seem to have a lot of variance in how people play, and it's down to how much of that variance the game can be built to accommodate.

I'm not expecting a lot at all, but I'll be happy if I can larp some Roman political faction's rise and fall and fractious civil wars and all that.

 

[hoothoot]

Is it good?
Be cool if parts of the game mechanics is related to balancing not getting done by barbarians / not getting deposed by the military / not getting poisoned/stabbed. Which seems like how life was for emperors. Maybe thats too much like CK2

 

[Beastro]

Yeah, I mean, you play in a way that I simply wouldn't enjoy. That's the thing, Paradox games seem to have a lot of variance in how people play, and it's down to how much of that variance the game can be built to accommodate.

I'm not expecting a lot at all, but I'll be happy if I can larp some Roman political faction's rise and fall and fractious civil wars and all that.

Fall is the big thing that needs to be designed into Paradox games. I always have to engineer my own by selecting another faction, or LARPing the fragmentation of my empire in CK2 by releasing people leaving me with a rump state.

 

[fantadomat]

Yeah, I mean, you play in a way that I simply wouldn't enjoy. That's the thing, Paradox games seem to have a lot of variance in how people play, and it's down to how much of that variance the game can be built to accommodate.

I'm not expecting a lot at all, but I'll be happy if I can larp some Roman political faction's rise and fall and fractious civil wars and all that.

Fall is the big thing that needs to be designed into Paradox games. I always have to engineer my own by selecting another faction, or LARPing the fragmentation of my empire in CK2 by releasing people leaving me with a rump state.

Yeah,the disaster part is really lacking. Only CK2 could fuck you up in that aspect.

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, I mean, you play in a way that I simply wouldn't enjoy. That's the thing, Paradox games seem to have a lot of variance in how people play, and it's down to how much of that variance the game can be built to accommodate.

I'm not expecting a lot at all, but I'll be happy if I can larp some Roman political faction's rise and fall and fractious civil wars and all that.

Fall is the big thing that needs to be designed into Paradox games. I always have to engineer my own by selecting another faction, or LARPing the fragmentation of my empire in CK2 by releasing people leaving me with a rump state.

My main issue with "fall" in games is that it always feels dissatisfying, either you have a scripted event that feels like something you are expecting and on rails, or it is a system that can be gamed to never be a problem.

 

[fantadomat]

Yeah, I mean, you play in a way that I simply wouldn't enjoy. That's the thing, Paradox games seem to have a lot of variance in how people play, and it's down to how much of that variance the game can be built to accommodate.

I'm not expecting a lot at all, but I'll be happy if I can larp some Roman political faction's rise and fall and fractious civil wars and all that.

Fall is the big thing that needs to be designed into Paradox games. I always have to engineer my own by selecting another faction, or LARPing the fragmentation of my empire in CK2 by releasing people leaving me with a rump state.

My main issue with "fall" in games is that it always feels dissatisfying, either you have a scripted event that feels like something you are expecting and on rails, or it is a system that can be gamed to never be a problem.

Even ones could be good,but i am yet to see one . The only disasters i have seen in EU are the one that i started for the kick of it...and in most times i had to use console to lower the stability.

 

[Agame]

My main issue with "fall" in games is that it always feels dissatisfying, either you have a scripted event that feels like something you are expecting and on rails, or it is a system that can be gamed to never be a problem.

This is my most wanted feature in a Paradox game. 'Internal empire collapse management' - considering how integral this is to actual history (cycles of rise and fall of civilization) its kind of pathetic how ignored it is. Even CK2 that is supposedly built on the concept of creating kingdoms that can fracture and break up, its surprisingly easy with a reasonable amount of game knowledge to maintain an empire. And EU4 is just inexorable blobbing into "to big to fail".

Obviously to make a system that doesnt feel like "punishment" for the player is very difficult, I think I read in a Paradox DD somewhere how they have to rework systems so they always feel 'positive', eg. the player is always gaining something rather than it being taken away. So actually designing a 'Fall' system that the playerbase will not rage and scream about is impossible I think.

Maybe we will see Paradox attempt this with a DLC sometime in the future? 'Collapse of the empire' or something, but even if they do Im 99% sure it will be watered down and easy to avoid.

 

[Zeriel]

I was actually thinking about that but held off from saying it as I felt people here would instantly think, "What? A benefit to dissolution? How stupid!", but there does need to be a way for it to feel rewarding to go through rebellions instead of just reload or game your way to never have them. Something like "now that we have fought through to re-unification we are more prosperous than ever" bonus is the obvious thing, but that feels somehow wrong too. I'm not sure what the answer would be to not make it just feel like another meme bonus of +1% to random stat, but eh.

 

[Agame]

I was actually thinking about that but held off from saying it as I felt people here would instantly think, "What? A benefit to dissolution? How stupid!", but there does need to be a way for it to feel rewarding to go through rebellions instead of just reload or game your way to never have them. Something like "now that we have fought through to re-unification we are more prosperous than ever" bonus is the obvious thing, but that feels somehow wrong too. I'm not sure what the answer would be to not make it just feel like another meme bonus of +1% to random stat, but eh.

I agree, its really hard to do this well, and off the top off my head I cannot think of a game that has done something like this successfully. Imagine trying to make an RPG with an aging system, so as your characters progress they lose stats and get weaker... I can see half the codex losing their mind if they had to deal with that. (And yes I know something like M&M has this, but its pretty 'soft' system and mostly irrelevant.)

There probably does have to be some 'reward' mechanic, but as you say how to make it meaningful and not another 1% bonus BS. Or have people 'farming' rebellions just to get boosts, as for sure some degenerate gamers would. In fact I think you would need to just design a game around this whole concept to do it properly, and I would love to see a game like that! My favourite part of strategy/tactical games is the early game 'survival/drought' time, once I hit mid game cruise control I start to lose interest. Bringing that early game desperation into late game would be fantastic.

 

[Tigranes]

I think it's even better to get out of this idea that players are 'rewarded' by having their kingdom become stronger and more stable (effectively, more boring), and that it is a 'penalty' to lose any territory or have a rebellion. If Paradox can find a way to do that, then we're really in business.

Guiding a kingdom through a historical period should not be conceptualised like an RPG character who goes from level 1 to 100. Surely, under circumstances, releasing a territory and granting it independence should be a highly profitable move that improves other aspects of your kingdom; the trick is how to make players see it as a good decision that constitutes positive progress, instead of "ah fuck i had to lose some land and get behind in my single-minded blobbing journey".

I always thought the one thing EU (and Rome) should really work on is delineating each sovereign's tenure more clearly, and to have a stronger system for internal politics and dissent. So many problems spring from the whole 'you are god and can do anything with your kingdom for 300 years' system. I would much prefer to have the game bookend reigns so that you are encouraged to think, "OK, this is the starting legitimacy & stats & loyalty groups of my shit-ass king, and that's not a bunch of numbers you can use magic points to overcome in 3 years, it's going to shape possibly the entirety of that king's tenure. So given the conditions, what are my goals? How can I leave the kingdom in decent shape?"

It should be a thing where you sometimes think the best you can do after a debilitating war and a shitty young king is to just hold the kingdom together and staunch the bleeding. Instead, even in CK2, having a 3 year old retard on the throne generally doesn't really change how you play the game. Imperator won't make a big difference, but I'm hoping with some larping I can really get something out of the general-bound armies & loyalty systems, like EU:Rome.

 

[Beastro]

Obviously to make a system that doesnt feel like "punishment" for the player is very difficult, I think I read in a Paradox DD somewhere how they have to rework systems so they always feel 'positive', eg. the player is always gaining something rather than it being taken away. So actually designing a 'Fall' system that the playerbase will not rage and scream about is impossible I think.

This is annoying, since the funniest thing regardless of game genre, for me is a losing battle and just seeing how long I can hold on.

To me, playing a game with an empire fighting decline, like the Byzantine Empire, would be neat. Something to help make up for your initial dynasty dying might be to encourage the player to marry their kin into other families making sure your blood diffuses around allowing you the ability to take over and assuming a limited choice of relations at your dyansties end to continue the game.

With that said, I don't like tower defence games as they are artificially building such situations with the driving mechanic being "keep spawning more shit until the player can't take it" rather than increasing the chances for the player to fuck up and have their little domain they've gained collapse due to the fatal mistakes of a few generations or just one, like the Angelids.

 

[Beastro]

Imagine trying to make an RPG with an aging system, so as your characters progress they lose stats and get weaker... I can see half the codex losing their mind if they had to deal with that. (And yes I know something like M&M has this, but its pretty 'soft' system and mostly irrelevant.)

Do that to CK2 in a good enough manner and the game's nickname would go for simply being "Eugenics Simulator" to "Eugenics and Euthanasia Simulator". Players would not only work to breed Kwisatz Haderach but would introduce a Logan's Run society where people would be killed off the moment they passed the peak age of their skills or when a younger heir came of age.

 

[Life of the Party]

Spoiler

Hello and welcome to another Development Diary for Imperator:Rome!

Today we will be looking at Tribes once again, this time tribal migration in particular.

For a repetition on how tribal politics and Centralization works see this previous Development Diary.

One thing that stands out about many of the tribal societies we represent in Imperator is that they would at times migrate quite far away, settle in completely new locations and build themselves a new society elsewhere. In some cases this was a slow process where the influence of one tribal entity spread to nearby areas, but in others it was a more drastic movement of people from one place to another.

One such example is the creation of the Galatian states in Anatolia, new realms founded by Celts from the European mainland in Central Anatolia. Other examples abound in Germania and even the Pontic Steppes.

Migration

In the game all Tribal Chiefdoms will have the ability to migrate, and all Tribal states can become a Tribal Chiefdom if they reach a sufficient degree of decentralization.

Migration can be initiated in any city that has at least 3 pops, for a base cost of 100 Oratory power (reduced by negative Centralization), by clicking on the Migrate button in the city section of the province interface.

Migrating will turn up to 20 of the pops in the city into Light Infantry. This creates an army that can move around like any army, except it does not require military access to cross foreign lands. All types of pops can be used to create a Migration cohort but once settled (see below) always turn into Tribesmen. To migrate is to let go of any old specialized roles they may have had in their original location.

Even if a country loses its last city it still remains playable as long as the Migration units remain, meaning you can quite literally uproot your entire society and resettle somewhere else.

Settling

Any army that has more Migration cohorts than there are pops in its current location can settle in that location. This will turn all Migration units into Tribesmen of your culture and religion and settle them in this city, taking ownership of it, even if it was owned by someone else beforehand. In order to be able to settle the location must also either be uncolonized or under your control in a war.

Using this tribes can quickly establish themselves in a new region, creating a new life far from where they started. Much like colonization settling does not turn locals into your culture or religion, which means this newly created settlement may have to deal with some unhappy pops among its locals.

Pillaging

An army containing Migration units can also use the Pillage unit ability when in foreign owned cities. This will give the city a 5 year penalty to population growth and commerce and will give direct additions of power based on the number of pops living in the city and its current Civilization level.

A city cannot be pillaged again as long as the penalty has worn out.

Germania

(Screenshot showing where the Germanic cultures can be found currently)

And with that we move on to one part of the map where this mechanic is very readily available. In our start of 450 AUC all countries in Northern Germania are Tribal Chiefdoms, and they all start at -50% Centralization or less, meaning that Migration is not just available, it is also quite efficient.

From a historical standpoint Germania in 450 AUC/304 BCE is one of the most poorly documented places we have on the map. While larger cultures and trends have been observed, and while we know a fair bit about what was going on later in time, we cannot know for sure about any details at our start. For this reason this region is among the more speculative included in the game. For that matter deciding what should start settled and owned by a “country” and what should be populated but unclaimed at our start is not easy. We have arrived at what we hope is a balance that will best facilitate a historical feel to the area, one where the abilities you have in the game to migrate and colonize can be of good use, while still allowing the more noteworthy tribal entities that existed to be playable.

Like in tribal regions elsewhere the Germanian tribes will have access to formable countries such as Suebia or Saxonia.

Western Germania:

The part of northern Germania that is closest to Gaul, often called the Jastorf culture area. In 450 AUC this region is inhabited by a wide variety of tribal states, some will later be found in far from these locations while others will remain familiar to this setting. Had the writings of the explorer Pythias of Massilia survived we might have known more but all we can say with certainty is the start of the game this is a dynamic region with a great variety of outcomes.

Starting Countries:

• Frisia: Medium Sized Tribal Chiefdom on the western edge of the Germanic region. Would eventually push south and west, where they came in contact with the Roman Empire.
• Angrivaria: Small Tribal Chiefdom surrounded by stronger neighbors. Would remain active in the area into imperial era.
• Cheruscia: Tribal Chiefdom on the southern edge of this region. Perhaps most known for, along with neighboring tribes, defeating the Roman commander Varus in the Teutoburg forest in 9 AD, shortly after the end of this game. In 304 BCE nothing of that is predetermined however and this is just one of the tribes contesting this region.
• Chaucia: Germanic Tribal Chiefdom in the region between the Ems and Elbe. Like the Cheruscia they are largely known for things that would transpire long after the start of our game.
• Fosia: Smaller and slightly poorer neighbors of Cheruscia.
• Marcommania: Strong Tribal Chiefdom that would in time migrate south to modern Bohemia.
• Langobardia: Tribal chiefdom controlling part of the Elbe. Their later day relatives would migrate far to the south.
• Reudigna: Small tribal chiefdom just south of the Jutland peninsula.
• Anglia: Small Tribal chiefdom south of the Jutland Peninsula. Would many centuries later settle in the British Isles.
• Aviones: Another Jutlandic tribe, in modern North Frisia.
• Eudosia: Tribal chiefdom, probably the sma people that is later simply known as the Jutes.
• Teutonia: Tribal chiefdom in northern Jutland. Came to clash with the Roman Republic, along with Cimbri in the Danubian river area and even as far south as Italy.
• Cimbria: Like the Teutons the Cimbri fought the Romans around 100 BCE, but at our start they are one of the many Jutlandic tribes, far away from Rome and any other mediterranean states.

Baltic Germania:

Moving east along the baltic we reach the eastern end of the Jastorf area as well as a number of other cultures into one of the parts of Germania that is the furthest away from the Mediterranean. Hence little is actually known about local politics. Like the Germanic region to its west this is a region divided under a variety of tribes, some which would carry the embryo to later more famous groups such as the Vandals, Goths or Suebi. This region is remarkable for its high availability of Amber, that would later spread

Starting Countries:

• Varinia: Staunch Germanic tribe in modern Mecklenburg and Pomerania.
• Semnonia: Suebi Tribal Chiefdom in the central Germanic region.
• Rugia: Small tribal chiefdom with supposed roots in northern Scandinavia.
• Lugia: The Lugi are often identified with the later Vandals. In 450 AUC they are a moderately powerful tribal chiefdom in northern Germania.
• Lemovia: Small tribal chiefdom with close ties with Lugia and Rugia.
• Bastarnia: Powerful tribal chiefdom in modern day Poland. Would in time migrate south and come into conflict with the Roman Republic in the Carpathian region.
• Gothonia: Small tribal chiefdom in modern Pomerelia. One of the possible ancestors of the in the future so famous Goths.
• Sciria: Small Tribal Chiefdom by the Vistula river.
• Aestuia: Baltic tribal chiefdom on the eastern side of the Vistula, and the only Baltic culture and religion playable country at the start of the game.

 

[Agame]

This is annoying, since the funniest thing regardless of game genre, for me is a losing battle and just seeing how long I can hold on.

To me, playing a game with an empire fighting decline, like the Byzantine Empire, would be neat. Something to help make up for your initial dynasty dying might be to encourage the player to marry their kin into other families making sure your blood diffuses around allowing you the ability to take over and assuming a limited choice of relations at your dyansties end to continue the game.

With that said, I don't like tower defence games as they are artificially building such situations with the driving mechanic being "keep spawning more shit until the player can't take it" rather than increasing the chances for the player to fuck up and have their little domain they've gained collapse due to the fatal mistakes of a few generations or just one, like the Angelids.

Yes this is why I think its so hard to design a system, that "feels" good and rewarding for the player. Tower defense is a good example as in some ways a large empire should be like this. Collapse should be inevitable, and the gameplay of running an empire should be a complex juggling act where you keep adding more balls, and you have to drop some of them, so it becomes resource management, what do you sacrifice? ALL empires collapse eventually, its impossible to maintain total control beyond the size of a coherent "nation".

I dont really blame Paradox for not trying to implement a "Fall of Empire" mechanic, but its a glaring omission from games based on 'history'. Viccy should have this, as its timeframe is centred on some of the largest empire collapses in history, but from what I can see all it has is ludicrous rebel spawn wack-a-mole which is awful game design. (I hate to say I have not played that much Viccy though I do think its a great game.)

So yea its a tough one, dunno how I would do it but it would take a lot of time and work to come up with a system that is enjoyable and also challenging!

 

[Tigranes]

I agree - and I also imagine that so many players would consider that way too "stressful" and "demoralising", because they want to sit back, relax and win all the time. Paradox gamers should be history nerds who don't mind that at all, but one imagines that a lot of the relatively 'casual' segments of their audience would dissent.

If only they could maintain one spinoff franchise, some kind of hardcore EU, on minimal budget.

Vic2's greatest and fundamental problem is that the game is almost built around a kind of linear progression from feudal shitshow, through state capitalism to boostrap market economies, then to full liberalism (and then communism as a kind of bonus round). It's... not even dialectical!

 

[fantadomat]

I agree - and I also imagine that so many players would consider that way too "stressful" and "demoralising", because they want to sit back, relax and win all the time. Paradox gamers should be history nerds who don't mind that at all, but one imagines that a lot of the relatively 'casual' segments of their audience would dissent.

If only they could maintain one spinoff franchise, some kind of hardcore EU, on minimal budget.

Vic2's greatest and fundamental problem is that the game is almost built around a kind of linear progression from feudal shitshow, through state capitalism to boostrap market economies, then to full liberalism (and then communism as a kind of bonus round). It's... not even dialectical!

Or you could just send a few millions chinese soldiers and conquer the world.

 

[Tigranes]

Boring.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I just watched an hour of gameplay from this. My first reaction was "are they seriously planning to run with this thing?". Second: "Johan has gone senile".