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

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

 

[Average Manatee]

Lumping in Carthage with some North African berber tribes is a pretty big fucking mistake as far as BELIEVABLE WORLDS is concerned. Same with Scythians and Persians or Etruscans and Romans. It just smacks of lazy design, most likely aimed at MP "balance" from the get-go.

e: Actually it's doubly lazy because they had already hashed out the various cultural and religious differences and possible bonuses for the game with CK2 for the most part.

The point is that this is the kind of thing Paradox can patch in 100 new ideas for in a month, then these idiots will go "OK, game's fixed, everything's great because now Rome gets an addition +10% heavy infantry discipline". Meanwhile actual core, unchangable gameplay issues stick around forever, potentially infecting later games like how mana from EU4 infected Imperator, despite virtually everyone agreeing that its awful.

I don't disagree with the general issue of a lack of favor, but Paradox wants to sell you that. Complaining about flavorless regions is effectively saying "yes, I want to buy the DLC Paradox has planned".

 

[Fedora Master]

all the simplifications, the instant claims, the lack of trade or government gameplay etc - yes, this could be incompetence or prep for future DLC, but this could all also be to support a casual multiplayer experience.

That's what I've been thinking as well. The lack of mechanics and differentiation goes beyond just DLC whoring. Notice how the country selection doesn't even have buttons for religion/culture. Notice how the only real differences between nations come down to size (which is often enough comparative - or BALANCED - within certain regions) and minor unit bonuses. There's barely any historical railroading, no lucky nations mechanic to make sure Rome gets big, no events for the Punic Wars and so forth, only the ones around the diadochi and those are more or less there to make sure people get claims on each other.

 

[Fedora Master]

Lumping in Carthage with some North African berber tribes is a pretty big fucking mistake as far as BELIEVABLE WORLDS is concerned. Same with Scythians and Persians or Etruscans and Romans. It just smacks of lazy design, most likely aimed at MP "balance" from the get-go.

e: Actually it's doubly lazy because they had already hashed out the various cultural and religious differences and possible bonuses for the game with CK2 for the most part.

The point is that this is the kind of thing Paradox can patch in 100 new ideas for in a month, then these idiots will go "OK, game's fixed, everything's great because now Rome gets an addition +10% heavy infantry discipline". Meanwhile actual core, unchangable gameplay issues stick around forever, potentially infecting later games like how mana from EU4 infected Imperator, despite virtually everyone agreeing that its awful.

I don't disagree with the general issue of a lack of favor, but Paradox wants to sell you that. Complaining about flavorless regions is effectively saying "yes, I want to buy the DLC Paradox has planned".

Mana was never going to go away, that much was clear from the start. The fact that the game relies even more on mana than EUIV however...

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

all the simplifications, the instant claims, the lack of trade or government gameplay etc - yes, this could be incompetence or prep for future DLC, but this could all also be to support a casual multiplayer experience.

That's what I've been thinking as well. The lack of mechanics and differentiation goes beyond just DLC whoring. Notice how the country selection doesn't even have buttons for religion/culture. Notice how the only real differences between nations come down to size (which is often enough comparative - or BALANCED - within certain regions) and minor unit bonuses. There's barely any historical railroading, no lucky nations mechanic to make sure Rome gets big, no events for the Punic Wars and so forth, only the ones around the diadochi and those are more or less there to make sure people get claims on each other.

Plus look at the marketing: lots of streams with devs casually playing against each other. And female devs too.

Don't you want a game to play with your friends? Don't you want to play a game that helps you meet girls?

Who cares that it's crap? The masses will eat it up anyway, just like they did with Stellaris.

 

[Agesilaus]

Lumping in Carthage with some North African berber tribes is a pretty big fucking mistake as far as BELIEVABLE WORLDS is concerned. Same with Scythians and Persians or Etruscans and Romans. It just smacks of lazy design, most likely aimed at MP "balance" from the get-go.

e: Actually it's doubly lazy because they had already hashed out the various cultural and religious differences and possible bonuses for the game with CK2 for the most part.

They were absolutely lazy about certain things like this. The example that immediately stood out to me was Sparta. Obviously a lot of players are going to want to play as Sparta, but they failed to present that city in an even remotely faithful manner.

They have turned the government of late 4th century Sparta into an undifferentiated hellenistic monarchy. The national decision they came up with was... wait for it... move the capital to Megalopolis and transform into the Achaean League. I'm going to refrain from commenting how absolutely absurd that is. Also, they split the Peloponnesos into two "province" structures, so now the game tells you that almost all the cities in the region are part of Lakonia.

Whatever, they failed to do a lot of things. I imagine it will be fixed by DLC and patches, it's just a question of how much you're willing to pay. This is the Paradox way, at least they won't abandon it outright like EU Rome.

 

[Jenkem]

Lumping in Carthage with some North African berber tribes is a pretty big fucking mistake as far as BELIEVABLE WORLDS is concerned. Same with Scythians and Persians or Etruscans and Romans. It just smacks of lazy design, most likely aimed at MP "balance" from the get-go.

e: Actually it's doubly lazy because they had already hashed out the various cultural and religious differences and possible bonuses for the game with CK2 for the most part.

I don't really get the "balancing for multiplayer" concept from paradox, is multiplayer even popular in these games? CIV seems to me more popular than Paradox games for multiplayer and somehow each civ has different abilities/unique units/etc. so how do civ nations get away with being unique in a multiplayer setting but PDX feels that differences between nations would be unbalanced? Obviously CIV is a different style of game, but...

 

[Agame]

I don't really get the "balancing for multiplayer" concept from paradox, is multiplayer even popular in these games?

I think its only a small percentage of people, but I could be wrong, kids these days seem to be obsessed with multiplayer/co-op in everything so I guess its part of the "casualizing" process. Also the devs play alot of multiplayer, both EU4 and HOI4 have been ruined by multiplayer focus.

 

[Average Manatee]

Johan has said that all of their games will now be multiplayer focused.

 

[Agame]

Johan has said that all of their games will now be multiplayer focused.

 

[fantadomat]

To help you understand a bit more how the development of a game works

hahahahaha....ahhh no. Judging by the shit he is producing in the last decade i am pretty certain that i have forgot more about game development,than he even will know,and i have never worked anything to do with game dev. What a fucking retard,the fuck couldn't even come up with a single original thing in his entire life.

Lumping in Carthage with some North African berber tribes is a pretty big fucking mistake as far as BELIEVABLE WORLDS is concerned. Same with Scythians and Persians or Etruscans and Romans. It just smacks of lazy design, most likely aimed at MP "balance" from the get-go.

e: Actually it's doubly lazy because they had already hashed out the various cultural and religious differences and possible bonuses for the game with CK2 for the most part.

I don't really get the "balancing for multiplayer" concept from paradox, is multiplayer even popular in these games? CIV seems to me more popular than Paradox games for multiplayer and somehow each civ has different abilities/unique units/etc. so how do civ nations get away with being unique in a multiplayer setting but PDX feels that differences between nations would be unbalanced? Obviously CIV is a different style of game, but...

I don't think it is major thing,most people play a singleplayer. I assume it is because they constantly play the fucking dev clashes and can't really make a game for single anymore.

 

[ZeniBot]

Johan has said that all of their games will now be multiplayer focused.

Live Services incoming yo.

Also if I knew the corruption mechanics were so broken I wouldn't have ever said what I said about game duration then. So clearly all the streamers are playing too passive because they assume Aggressive Expansion and Corruption are bad things but really they are inconsequential. Oof.

 

[Tigranes]

Paradox Premium Subscriptions: pay x/month for access to exciting MP matchmaking platform, kind of like a shitty battle net with some idiotic achievements and badges and avatars tacked on to make retards feel like they get added value! Join now for a 2-year period and get PARTHIAN HORSE ARMOUR DLC for free!

I'm seeing some complaints about attrition, but while the implementation leaves a lot to be desired, I'm actually happy to see it be meaningful for once. The key issue for me is whether civil wars and disloyalty is at least larpable. It's hard to tell which people are just complaining because they want perfectly optimised fully controllable armies to doomstack WC the world, and which people are complaining about hilariously broken mechanics, from just skimming posts.

 

[Sranchammer]

Paradox will never make a proper Victoria 3 - accept it.

 

[ZeniBot]

ITS OK EVERYONE THEY HAVE A ROADMAP! CRISIS AVOIDED.



edit: Johan is a massive prick.

 

[fantadomat]

ITS OK EVERYONE THEY HAVE A ROADMAP! CRISIS AVOIDED.

'Anthem' Delays Its Entire Roadmap, Hasn't Fixed Loot And This All Feels Very, Very Bad

 

[Agame]

edit: Johan is a massive prick.

Yes, fuck this complacent asshole. Would have been nice if just one time no one bought the game on release and a dev team actually had to deal with the responsibility of shipping a minimum viable product, and then feeding us this 'Roadmap/DLC will fix it' bullshit.

The worst thing about this is that I bet there are a ton of people who are angry about I:R but they bought it anyway.

 

[rolandz_Baton_PROD]

ITS OK EVERYONE THEY HAVE A ROADMAP! CRISIS AVOIDED.

'Anthem' Delays Its Entire Roadmap, Hasn't Fixed Loot And This All Feels Very, Very Bad

I have a roadmap leading straight to hell for my homosexuality.

Nice to see AAA devs think alike <3

 

[fantadomat]

edit: Johan is a massive prick.

Yes, fuck this complacent asshole. Would have been nice if just one time no one bought the game on release and a dev team actually had to deal with the responsibility of shipping a minimum viable product, and then feeding us this 'Roadmap/DLC will fix it' bullshit.

The worst thing about this is that I bet there are a ton of people who are angry about I:R but they bought it anyway.

He is literally a faggot.

 

[Tigranes]

edit: Johan is a massive prick.

Yes, fuck this complacent asshole. Would have been nice if just one time no one bought the game on release and a dev team actually had to deal with the responsibility of shipping a minimum viable product, and then feeding us this 'Roadmap/DLC will fix it' bullshit.

The worst thing about this is that I bet there are a ton of people who are angry about I:R but they bought it anyway.

Ultimately, I pulled the plug and said this isn't worth it, I'm never paying attention to anything CA makes ever again. (It took me until Empire to do it, and then Shogun 2 turned out to be OK, but the joke is that there's tons of people out there who still have hope that CA will fix problems they've not fixed since RTW/MTW2 days.)

I still think EU4 and CK2 are great games overall, but after Stellaris, if IR is as bad as it's currently looking, then, well, at some point you have to say fuck off, you guys will never make a BG2/Morrowind ever again.

 

[fantadomat]

but after Stellaris

I am really surprised that people that play this games a lot can't watch a 30 minutes of gameplay and see that the core of the game is weak and it will be trash. Do i have some higher perception about this shit or what??? I don't mean it as bragging or insulting,i am genuinely curious about it.

 

[ZeniBot]

Ultimately, I pulled the plug and said this isn't worth it, I'm never paying attention to anything CA makes ever again. (It took me until Empire to do it, and then Shogun 2 turned out to be OK, but the joke is that there's tons of people out there who still have hope that CA will fix problems they've not fixed since RTW/MTW2 days.)

CA are worse then Paradox by a big mile and that says a lot. Imperator is to Paradox what Rome 2 was to CA. Just as March of the Eagles is to Empire.

 

[Tigranes]

but after Stellaris

I am really surprised that people that play this games a lot can't watch a 30 minutes of gameplay and see that the core of the game is weak and it will be trash. Do i have some higher perception about this shit or what??? I don't mean it as bragging or insulting,i am genuinely curious about it.

Didn't you watch a gazillion streams and twitter posts and stuff and pirate it Day 1 to try it? I super-skimmed the dev diaries, and thought, there's a lot of alarm bells there but oh god Antiquity I want it to be just minimally playable

 

[fantadomat]

but after Stellaris

I am really surprised that people that play this games a lot can't watch a 30 minutes of gameplay and see that the core of the game is weak and it will be trash. Do i have some higher perception about this shit or what??? I don't mean it as bragging or insulting,i am genuinely curious about it.

Didn't you watch a gazillion streams and twitter posts and stuff and pirate it Day 1 to try it? I super-skimmed the dev diaries, and thought, there's a lot of alarm bells there but oh god Antiquity I want it to be just minimally playable

Sure,but i would have never shilled money on this shit,nor the stellaris garbage. I pirated them and played then for few hours,i haven't touched stellaris since release and most likely will not do it ever. Same shit with imperator,maybe in a few years if there is something interesting. I play hoi4 only with mods,the base game is trash at best.

 

[Tigranes]

I meant that if you spend hours digesting all the pre-release info, sure you'll know a lot, but if you just skim some DDs or something, then it's more like "oh man a cool mix of EU/CK/Rome but oh man there's some worrying shit like mana spam"