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

[Life of the Party]

One of Paradox's worst games has one of my favorite mechanics, and it would make new games so much better.

I am talking about March of the Eagles and the supply and garrison mechanic in that game. I think this mechanic is genius and its a crime that it wasn't included in a similar form in any other Paradox game. I wish it wasn't too late for this type of thing to be Imperator: Rome but I think it would still be perfect for Victoria III when it comes out.

For those who don't know, March of the Eagles is the very unpopular (for mostly good reason) Paradox game about the Napoleonic Wars. I won't be going over the flaws in this post but one mechanic stands out as utterly unique in a Paradox game and I think its genius. This is the approach to supply and, to an extent, garrisoning provinces in the game.

The way the mechanic works is that there is a "chain of supply." In some ways, this is reminiscent of HOI's supply but it is not as complicated. Basically it requires you to have a chain of occupied provinces behind your army to keep them supplied and combat effective. This means that there is an actual incentive to outmaneuver your opponent and try to get a favorable fight. It also means that a smaller army might actually have a chance against a bigger army. Most of combat in games like EU4 or Vicky 2 you just have to have a bigger army and preferably fight in good terrain. It didn't take much thought to get to the right terrain. The supply system means that you might be able to fight into your opponent's country but they might be able to cut you off, thus forcing you to fight an unfavorable fight to get supply back. This encourages a slower, more methodical approach to invasions than just "send your bigger army at their (hopefully) smaller army and then siege their most valuable provinces.

EU4 tried to implement something like this with the forts system but it was complicated with the very gimmicky mechanics of an army being unable to go past enemy forts until captured. The March of the Eagles forts just prevent you from occupying they territory, and thus you could not progress past it without incurring supply problems. This is a much better "soft" approach to forts which feels way more natural.

The other mechanic that plays into this is how forts were garrisoned in March of the Eagles. You cold leave behind a part of your army to garrison provinces, thus making it more difficult for the enemy to circle around and cut your supply. But, of course, this leaves your main army much weaker and more susceptible to enemy attacks.

This was pretty much the only part of March of the Eagles I liked and it wasn't implemented perfectly but I think it could have amazing application in Victoria III or (at this point unlikely) Imperator. It makes it more realistic and makes having a large empire harder to control effectively because you'd have to garrison more troops to defends large swathes of territory or strategically build forts. I hope you guys agree. Let me know what you think.

 

[M. AQVILA]

Dude, I'm Portuguese.

What?
Weren't you Italian?

No. Why did you think I was Italian? If it's because of my name here then I have to say that it is Latin not Italian.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

No I tought you once said you lived in Italy.

 

[M. AQVILA]

Nope. You're probably confusing me with Lyric Suite.

 

[Life of the Party]

Spoiler

Hi!

In today's Developer Diary for Imperator Rome we will be talking about Barbarians, what they represent in the game and how you can interact with them. We will also go over the regions on the far side of the Himalayas, the Tarim Basin and Tibet.

"Barbarians"

Throughout antiquity there are many marginalized peoples living "off the edges" of our map, and in the isolated and hard to tame regions of the world. Bedouins in the deserts of Arabia, Slavs or Sarmatians in eastern Europe, etc. Barbarians represent them and the threat they posed to nearby civilized neighbors. They will continue to pose a threat to pops long after a region has been conquered until they have been civilized through the influence of nearby settlements.

Barbarian Strongholds

Around the map, in impassable, uncolonizable locations, there are local modifiers called Barbarian strongholds. In this location Barbarian power will build up over time until a Horde spawns.

Since Barbarian strongholds are in impassable locations they cannot be directly interacted with, however the governor policy for Civilization Effort in an adjacent province can increase the civilization level in the stronghold's location, and eventually downgrade, and then remove the stronghold.

Barbarian Power

How strong barbarian presence exists in a location. The higher Barbarian power the more likely it is that a horde will spawn there. Higher Barbarian Power also results in bigger Hordes when an army is formed.

Barbarian power is influenced by Barbarian Growth.

Barbarian Growth

This is how quickly Barbarian Power Grows in a location. The primary source of this modifier is from Barbarian Strongholds, in impassable, uninhabitable, land.

Civilization value reduces barbarian growth wherever it is present, therefore barbarian power growth is going to slow down and then regress once an adjacent province has increased its civilization rating enough.

Current barbarian power, Civilization and Barbarian Power growth rate can be seen either in a mapmode for Barbarians or in the locations themselves, in their location interface.

Barbarian Hordes

Once Barbarian power has built up sufficiently a horde will spawn. The size of this army will depend on how high Barbarian power was in the location in which it spawned. All armies that spawn from the same location will be considered part of the same Horde.

The Horde will move into settled territory and begin occupying cities. Every city that falls will have its local Civilization Level reduced by the horde.

If a Horde is defeated by an army the leading general will get money and the units in the Barbarian army will be distributed in the winning country as Slaves.

Barbarian Diplomacy:

A horde that controls at least one city can be negotiated with. This means that you can open diplomacy with it just like you would any other country, though the options you have when interacting with them are slightly different from those with other countries.

• Settle: Offer the Barbarians to settle the land they currently occupy, they will join the city as Tribesmen of the culture and religion of their location they spawned in.
• Create Client: Offer the barbarians to form a new Tributary State with the land they currently hold in the country. The new country will be a tribal chiefdom of the same culture and religion as the location the barbarian horde spawned in.
• Demand Surrender: Demand that the Barbarian Army is dissolved and all land returned. The Barbarian army will provide slaves and money as if it had been defeated in a battle.
• Pay Off: Offer money to have the Barbarian armies leave your lands and seek targets for pillaging elsewhere.

(A Barbarian Tributary has been created)

Tibet:

High above the plains of Northern India and the great Maurya empire lies the Tibetan plateau. Then as well as now large parts of this region, especially the Changthang highland, was largely unsettled. But in the south there were a number of thriving societies, most prominently the dominant Zhangzhung kingdom which would remain the most influential state of Tibet for many centuries yet. Buddhism is still a young religion by the time our game starts and had still not spread to large numbers beyond India. The tibetan state in the game instead practice the Bon religion, which here represents the pre-buddhist Tibetan faith.

Tibet is also another region where I have to add a bit of a disclaimer. While we can be certain that this region was both populated and influential there is not a lot to go on when it comes to the details. Therefore what we have is extrapolated from later information to a large degree.

Starting Countries:

• Zhangzhung: Tribal Regional Power in the western Tibetan Plateau. Controls Mountain passes into India, Kashmir, Pamir and the Tarim Basin. Said to be the birthplace of Tibetan religion.
• Tsang: Tribal state in Central Tibet controlling the central Brahmaputra valley. Also controls a number of mountain passes into India and directly borders the more powerful Zhangszhung kingdom.
• Sumpa: Settled Tribe in western Tibet controlling the westernmost pass into India, in western Kamarupa.
• Yarlung: Small tribal state in the Yarlung valley in western Tibet. Controls one of the mountain passes towards India and thereby directly borders the Maurya Empire, and Kamarupa.

Tarim Basin & Sogdia:

While we quickly touched on Sogdia, and the Ferghana valley in the Diary about Bactria, we now return here to look at the independent factions in this region. The center of Sogdia around Marakanda, later Samarkand, is in the hands of the Bactrian Greek Kingdom there are also independent states here. The Tarim Basin, with the harsh Taklamakan desert at its center, as well as Sogdia to its west would in time become important as an important transition point between China and the West. This region is central to what would become known as the Silk Road. While such trade surely existed to some degree already when our game starts it would not grow to be an important factor until later in time.

Starting Countries:

• Sogdia: Not all parts of Sogdia is controlled by the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. This Autocratic Monarchy represents the local Sogdian and Tocharian people and at start its control does not extend further than the mountains around the Ferghana valley itself.
• Wusun: Tribal state to the North of Sogdia, one of the first regions to be invaded by the Yuezhi when they arrived on the scene.
• Tayuan: Kingdom in the eastern Ferghana valley representing the parts of the valley that are not under Graeco-Bactrian control. Tayuan controls the route between Sogdia, the western parts of Central Asia, and the Tarim basin, a crossroad that would in the future prosper especially as part of the Silk Road.
• Phrynia: Mountain kingdom controlling large parts of the Pamir Mountains, a region so high up that it has been referred to as the ‘Roof of the World’. This is yet another route through which Tibet and the Tarim Basin can be accessed from the Bactrian lowlands.
• Shule: Small trade kingdom in the western part of the Tarim Basin, centered around the city of Kashgar. Like the Tayuan state they occupy a position that would eventually be instrumental in the formation of more frequent trade connections between China and the west.
• Kucha: Kothanese kingdom in the northern part of the Tarim Basin, based around the city of Kucha.
• Pishan: Small tribal state in the Southern Tarim basin. Controls one of the passes into the Zhanzhung kingdom.
• Khotan: Larger kingdom in the Southern Tarim Basin, would in time become famous through its adoption of Buddhism and grow to control a much larger part of this region. By 304 BCE however this kingdom has still not adopted the faith for which it would eventually become known, and it is also not yet the regional power it would become.
• Loulan: Most distant of all the Tarim kingdoms is the small state of Loulan. Most of what is known about this kingdom is from Chinese sources and in time they would also become a Chinese subject state historically.

 

[oscar]

I didn't even really agree with putting Tibet in CK2, let alone here.

 

[Life of the Party]

Spoiler

Hello and welcome to another Development Diary for Imperator Rome!

Today we will be talking about how you can assign your units Objectives that they will perform for you, and how to mod these. We will also give a summary of the starting situation in the Balkans and Dacia.

Unit Objectives

As you may have noticed in our streams automation is now an integral part of playing the game, should you want to. Unit objectives are a way to outsource the management of some armies to the AI, essentially using the same things that the AI itself uses to control its armies and navies. You can at any time select an objective for each army or navy under player control (or several units at once, in which case the objective applies separately to each one currently), which enables AI for said unit, making it automatically take actions almost as if it was controlled by an AI country.

We don’t see this as something you use for your main armies but it can be useful for any secondary armies or forces left behind to control or defend your country. Split/merging/consolidation/abilities are not used by objective units except specifically where it's a necessity.

The design goal with objectives to simplify the codebase on our end, expose unit behavior to modders in a modular fashion, and ultimately to provide the player with a greater amount of variation in NPC behavior.

While you may not want to sign away control of all of your armies to the AI the AI objectives makes it possible for you to let the AI handle some of your armies, while you focus on others.

Available objectives

• Naval Landing: Functionally similar to EU4 auto transport. If there is at least one available navy which has had Naval Landing selected, clicking to an inaccessible city with an army will make this navy pick up that army and ship it to that city.
• Independent Operations: Will turn on the regular army AI for this unit. Making it operate freely, attacking enemy armies, occupying enemy cities, etc.
• Defend Border: Regular AI as above but stays within country's borders, effectively just doing defensive tasks.
• Reconnaissance: Patrols across the country's borders reporting enemy movements.
• Fight Rebels: Army will focus on destroying any armies owned by the Rebel tag (Slave Revolt stacks).
• Keep in Reserve: Avoid contact with enemies while staying within country borders. Mostly because a common experience is MP is forgetting troops you're currently not using and having them destroyed when looking elsewhere.
• Hunt Fleets: Search and destroy enemy fleets.

Special Unit Objectives

There are also many Unit Objectives that you cannot pick but that you may still encounter. Disloyal Generals will make use of a specific unit objective where they essentially do what they themselves want to. Making you unable to order them around or do things like send them to a certain death. Likewise Mercenaries that you do not pay will stop taking your orders and operate on their own.
There is also special logic for Slave Revolts, where rebel stacks will seek out the closest rich city to attempt to loot and set free more of their kin.

Another good thing about the Unit Objective AI system is how moddable it is. @Chaingun who created this system will now talk a bit about that before I then continue to summarize the last part of the map

Modding

Internally, many behaviors such as rebels, disloyal generals and units trying to join up with the target unit of the Recruit to Unit action are also represented as objectives and thus moddable to a degree.

Some objectives started out as hardcoded early in development and still are, but they are still present in the files so they can be tweaked by modders. We may in addition port non-objectives such as piracy, barbarian behavior to the objective system in the future, as well as e.g. subject stances from EU4. In fact, you could probably implement your own variation of subject stances in a mod already.

For those familiar with finite state machines, you may draw upon the comparison of a unit corresponding to a FSM and an objective to a state. Don’t worry if this is unfamiliar, it’s a very simple concept dressed in fancy words. What it means simply is, objectives are mutually exclusive and a unit will have precisely one at a time. Transitions from one objective to another can happen in these ways:

• The player select a new objective from the GUI (requires interface_allow trigger to evaluate to true to be listed).
• The objective is automatically switched to due to having a priority above zero (requires allow trigger to evaluate to true).
• Code is hardcoded to switch to certain objectives (e.g. naval landings).

Since I’ve started to mention various script features, let’s take a look at an example script:

#Disloyal unit objective. Automatically switched to when unit commander goes disloyal.


objective_disloyal = {

priority = 100 #If above 0, check allow and automatically switch to this objective if there are no objectives with higher priority allowed.



allow = {

exists = commander

OR = {

commander = {

loyalty <= 33

}

AND = {

unit_owner = {

treasury < 0

}

commander = { is_mercenary = yes }

}

}

}

interface_allow = {

always = no

}



#Custom evaluation function.

mode = add #none/add/replace



#Custom evaluation function. Unit scope. Use scope:province to access the province being evaluated.

#Negative => better, positive => worse. If total sum exceeds 1 million unit will not go there. Beware fixed point overflow at 2 million...



pure_weight = yes



weight = {

modifier = {

trigger = {

scope:province = {

NOT = { owner = root.unit_owner } #Prefer our homeland (since we want to revolt there).

}

}

add = {

value = 2000

}

}

modifier = {

trigger = {

scope:province = {

AND = {

owner = root.unit_owner

this = root.unit_owner.capital_scope

}

}

}

add = {

value = 1050000

}

}

}

}

interface_allow and allow have already been mentioned. If any objective should be possible, allow should evaluate to true. However, if it needs to be invisible and not selectable by the player, the interface_allow should evaluate to false. An objective with greater than zero priority will also be automatically switched to whenever allow evaluates to true and there is no higher priority objective that takes precedence.

There is one very central concept that hasn’t been explained yet: Weights/scores/values. These basically represent how much a unit wants to go to a certain city, or more accurately given the scale where higher scores are worse, how much it doesn’t want to. For the AI inclined, this is basically a utility function.

So how do you mod the utility function? You can set the mode field to add your own value to the existing function (recommended) or replace for hardcore modding which completely ditches the existing function. Then, you can specify the weight per city with the weight field, where the not so aptly named scope: province represents the city being evaluated (the default scope is the unit).

It should further be mentioned that there’s a lot of hardcoded behavior behind the scenes by default, including hardcoded prioritization outside simple greedy value maximization. Quite often, to get sufficient control, it is necessary to set pure_weight = yes to disable this hardcoded prioritization if it doesn’t fit with whatever behavior you intend to accomplish. Example of this prioritization is whether to decide to siege or initiate battle depending on certain circumstances that are orthogonal to the utility function’s output.

What does the utility function score mean? Currently, anything greater than or equal to one million means the unit will not go to the location. Peaceful movements typically lie in the range of one hundred thousand, whereas sieges are usually about fifty thousand, and battles around twenty thousand.

Be aware that the weight scale might be changed in a future version as the one in use heralds from EU4 and has some issues in relation to fixed point overflow in modding.

You can visualize the weight scale by typing “mapmode ai” into the console and selecting a unit of yours (please make sure you let game tick a day first or it may crash). It will result in a color coded map with a tooltip like this:

While at this, I should explain that the regular utility function’s output aside from some other nonlocal factors will depend on what objective is currently is selected, whether the AI is enabled for the country (ai in console), and what role the army has been assigned by AI. A brief mention on unit roles: Armies are casually assigned as either siege armies or hunter killers where the latter will prioritize killing enemy armies more highly than besieging in the default configuration.

There is another concept you will probably come across while modding unit AI: Threat, which can be checked with the unit_threat trigger. The threat value is an influence map (sorry, another AI term) calculation. Currently it can only be seen in the Release D version in Steam by typing “ai.map threat” in console (will sort this out, we have a problem with engine hiding most debug commands in release). A threat value of 1.0 is an enemy the same size as the unit is fairly close, a value of 10 that enemies nearby are 10 times as strong, etc. A screenshot I had lying around from an old version:

So what objectives does the AI currently use? Only objective_null (the default, represents having no objective at all and means the unit is player controlled or controlled by regular AI) and objective_naval_landing which is used for AI naval transport and player autotransport. Objectives linked to code like naval landing has a lot of hardcoded magic inside it and will probably be quite difficult to modify in a sensible manner other than minor tweaks to the utility function.

Finally, a note on performance: When you script unit AI all bets are off whether you will be able to run it without causing performance degradation of the game. Tweaking the following defines can be useful:

MAX_UNITS_PER_TURN = 200
TACTICAL_DEPTH = 60

Use the "timing show" and "ai.pawns" console commands to find out what is causing slowness and how responsive the unit AI is. The AI has an internal execution time allocation system to process important units more frequently than non-important ones (as by size, vicinity to human players, time since last processing, etc.)

Thank you for listening. This is a merely a part of the AI and I haven’t touched into all details, but hopefully one that you will be able to create great mods despite the opaqueness.

Dacia & The Balkans

Lastly we turn to one of the last regions so far not covered by our Development Diaries. The Balkans!

Much like many of the regions we have covered in these diaries the Balkans and the greater Danubian region in the time of Imperator was primarily dominated by tribal entities. This is a region with strong influences from both the Hellenic world, and subject to a great influx of Celts. More directly this is a region that would come under pressure from the expanding Roman Republic and which was the frequent scene for Macedonian excursions, first under Alexander and the Argeads, but also from the successor kings such as Lysimachos in Thrace. It was also through this region that the Celtic peoples that settled in central Anatolia, the Galatians, came migrating, clashing with both locals and greeks alike.

The native inhabitants of the region, Illyrians in the west and Dacians in the east are divided into many smaller tribal states. As in other regions we have covered, a successful tribe may aspire to form a tribal federation, Dacia or Illyria.

Starting Countries:

• Getia: The game’s largest Tribal state of Getians. Comparatively strong in its region but less densely populated that some of the neighbors to its south.
• Tyrgetia: Small Getian tribe on the river Tyras (right next to a Hellenic City on the estuary state mentioned in an earlier diary).
• Moesia: Settled tribe in Upper Thrace, medium power in the region and a potential danger to the kingdom of Thrace to its south and east. Not much is known about the Moesians before the end of this era when they encounter the Romans.
• Triballia: Settled tribe along the Danube. In frequent conflict with the Getians and the Macedonians, both before and after our era.
• Dardania: One of the stronger kingdoms of this region, Dardania has a history of meddling in the politics of all surrounding, including Macedon, which they have at times been a de facto had quite strong influence over. More recently however it has been a subject under Macedon. With Alexander’s death however Dardania is free and, like Taulantia to its south, quite likely to once again end up at odds with Macedon.

Celto-Pannonians:

By this time a number of Celtic tribes had already settled in the Pannonian basin and along the Danube. Not long from our start date Celtic peoples would also come to invade Macedon and Anatolia, eventually settling down to form a Galatian kingdom (something a Celtic Tribe that conquers land and relocates to Anatolia can also do in the game).
Nonetheless the Celto-Pannonian Tribes are not as numerous as either the Dacians and Getians to the east or the Illyrians to the west:

• Dindaria
• Tilataeia
• Scordiscia
• Cotinia

Illyrians:

The western Balkans and the Dalmatian coast is dominated by a number of Illyrian Tribes. Many of these have regular contact, both trade and diplomacy, with Italic and Greek states but are also home to a number of raiders and pirates which are not as well seen by their neighbors. Should the Illyrian tribes unite and form a greater Illyria they could become a more credible threat to their surroundings.

• Armistia
• Daorsia
• Pieria
• Delmatia
• Libernia
• Ditionia
• Oxuaioia
• Scordiscia
• Breucia
• Deuria
• Ditionia
• Libernia
• Cataria
• Cotinia
• Iapodia
• Istria
• Abria

Dacian Tribes:

Not much is known of the origin of the Dacians, but like the Illyrians in the west this people was likely present here long before the start of our era. Dacian culture is broken up into a number of small tribal states that are all part of a greater Dacian identity. As mentioned they may eventually form a stronger united Dacia that could pose a bigger threat to their neighbors.
As divided as Dacia is however it also harbors a number of commodities such as large amounts of Iron, Precious and Base Metals.

• Potulatensia
• Bastia
• Ratacensia
• Buridavensia
• Caucoensia
• Ansamensia
• Appulia
• Albocensia
• Saldensia

That was all for today! Next week we will be back with a slightly unusual diary. Diving down even deeper into the modding capabilities of Imperator and all the new things that modders will now be able to do to alter the game.

 

[Goliath]

This Youtuber is probably (98% certain) going to be releasing some videos of Imperator: Rome gameplay in like 5 hours or so.



He had a pretty entertaining playthrough of Crusader Kings 2 (I enjoyed it at any rate) where he didn't really know the rules that well and was focused more on roleplaying, which is probably what caught Paradox's attention. He is also a pretty big fan of the Roman/Greek era and games in that period. So given that this game is releasing in a few weeks I am pretty sure it is what he will be showing.

That was a great stream. I totally want this game now. Looks like EU4: Rome + Crusader Kings DLC. Seriously, extremely similar to EU4 it seems, but with dynasty / people management, and a more involved economic system.

ManyATrueNerd is my favorite video game streamer by the way. He is really good at his job if you ask me. I never get bored watching his streams because he is a great entertainer. He is literally the only video game streamer I am subscribed to.

 

[Makabb]

Looks like EU4: Rome + Crusader Kings DLC

Yea, compared to eu4 and ck2 on release which were pretty bare bones, this looks like they took the best ideas from those games and crammed into one.

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Goliath]

Florryworry (the newly crowned Master of Universalis) implied during today's stream that he expects to get Imperator: Rome early too.

That would be fun. Considering how similar this game seems to be to EU4 I wouldn't even be surprised if Florry starts as a small African tribe and does a world conquest.

In case you don't know, Florryworry is a streamer who pretty much plays nothing but EU4 and is insanely good at the game.

 

[Fedora Master]

I admit the game doesn't look bad so far.

 

[M. AQVILA]

There's this one as well.



Historical inaccuracies aside (hopefully mods will fix it), the game looks fun.

 

[AgentFransis]

I dunno, to be honest it just looks like an EU4 reskin with plenty of awesome buttons and +3% bonus to nose picking modifiers. I tried but couldn't generate any hype to play it.

 

[sser]

I dunno, to be honest it just looks like an EU4 reskin with plenty of awesome buttons and +3% bonus to nose picking modifiers. I tried but couldn't generate any hype to play it.

Same.



Same.






saaaaaaa

 

[Makabb]

I dunno, to be honest it just looks like an EU4 reskin with plenty of awesome buttons and +3% bonus to nose picking modifiers. I tried but couldn't generate any hype to play it.

That's Paradox for you, one can argue that all their games ck/hoi/vic are just reskins of europa universalis which was first.

 

[Serus]

I dunno, to be honest it just looks like an EU4 reskin with plenty of awesome buttons and +3% bonus to nose picking modifiers. I tried but couldn't generate any hype to play it.

That's Paradox for you, one can argue that all their games ck/hoi/vic are just reskins of europa universalis which was first.

No, not really. Especially in case of HoI series - they have relatively little in common with other their games. They're first and mostly wargames, with other elements being secondary. They're not really empire (or dynasty) building games but "let's replay WW2 games"- very different focus. However Paradox are unable to create another new game model that would be substantially different from EU(4) anymore.

 

[Goliath]

Paradox is currently hosting a big Youtuber battle:
Imperator: Rome | Dividing the Spoils | Day 1

Today is Day 2, you can watch it live at 19:00 CET.

I am gonna watch ManyATrueNerd's live stream instead of the Paradox stream, though. More fun, and you can't watch any of the Youtuber live streams after the event is over because of Paradox's idiotic embargo policies.

This game seems to be fun in multiplayer. But then, it's really almost exactly like EU4 multiplayer.

 

[AgentFransis]

At least the map looks really nice, I'll give them that. Might be fun to paint once or twice.

 

[Agame]

No, not really. Especially in case of HoI series - they have relatively little in common with other their games. They're first and mostly wargames, with other elements being secondary. They're not really empire (or dynasty) building games but "let's replay WW2 games"- very different focus. However Paradox are unable to create another new game model that would be substantially different from EU(4) anymore.

Seems they have officially entered "maintenance mode", why be innovative and take risks when you have legions of invested fanbois to keep buying DLC year after year. As already said Imperator looks like a lazy hack job mushing togethor some features of previous games onto an EU4 base. Stellaris is a tedious uninspired clone of "insert generic space 4X". I really dont think anyone at Paradox gives two fucks anymore, minimum effort for the dollar bills yo...

I have been hoping they would do a proper Viccy 3, but at this stage expecting anything with the complexity and nuance of 1 or 2 is simply delusional. HOI and CK show they did have the capability to create interesting and unique game mechanics, but Im starting to wonder if CK was a complete fluke, as Paradox themselves seem incapable (or afraid?) of iterating its genuinely game changing concept of RPG/Strat game.

 

[Goliath]

Paradox is currently hosting a big Youtuber battle:
Imperator: Rome | Dividing the Spoils | Day 1

Today is Day 2, you can watch it live at 19:00 CET.

I am gonna watch ManyATrueNerd's live stream instead of the Paradox stream, though. More fun, and you can't watch any of the Youtuber live streams after the event is over because of Paradox's idiotic embargo policies.

This game seems to be fun in multiplayer. But then, it's really almost exactly like EU4 multiplayer.

Day 3 was a hilarious shitshow. It was a three hour event and they spend the first 2 hours just trying to get the game to work!

One out-of-sync issue after the other. Really embarrassing for Paradox.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[fantadomat]

It looks boring and generic,with a lot of meh mechanics.

 

[Goliath]

I don't think the game is broken there. By promoting all pops to citizens you may have a murderously high tech rate.. but also no money or manpower.

I am pretty sure you would lose catastrophically against players using a more balanced play-style due to your lack of troops. It doesn't matter if your troops are 30% stronger because of tech if your are outnumbered 10:1.

 

[Goliath]

Imperator is making me so happy and it has not even been released yet
Im in a really bad spot in life right now, everything is going wrong and im having issues finding things to keep somewhat happy.

But ever since i heard about this game it has been a unending source of joy and the preview streams are great way to hide from my demons for a couple of hours; i preordered the deluxe edition the day the release date was announced, i spent countless hours in thi sub and in the steam forums...

I just wanted to say tank you to everyone involved with the creation of this game and to every single person in this wonderfull (but sometimes to salty) community, i cant wait to get my hands on the game.

It might seem silly to some of y'all, but I:R is helping me in ways i dont even know how to express in english,.

Pd. On that note, i´m sorry about my horrible, horrible english, i´m still trying to learn this god dammed language. :8