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[Imperator Rome] Wasn't Built In A Day
Zavian
universal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered User regular
universal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered User regular
Imperator: Rome is a grand strategy title from Paradox Development Studio, the same developers as Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis. "Set in the tumultuous centuries from Alexander’s Successor Empires in the East to the foundation of the Roman Empire, Imperator: Rome invites you to relive the pageantry and challenges of empire building in the classical era. Manage your population, keep an eye out for treachery, and keep faith with your gods."
Having launched in April 2019 to mixed reception, Paradox has been working at fixing and rebalancing the game. There have been three major updates since launch, 'Pompey', 'Cicero', and 'Livy', which revamped the game considerably adding new dynamic missions, character/family revamps, etc., as well as a new Free-LC content pack, 'The Punic Wars'. There is also a 'Hellenic World Flavor Pack' available through the Deluxe Edition.
DLC:Character Management: A living world of characters with varying skills and traits that will change over time. They will lead your nation, govern your provinces and command your armies and fleets.
Diverse Populations: Citizens, freemen, tribesmen and slaves - each population with its own culture and religion. Whether they fill your armies, fill your coffers or fill your colonies, keep an eye on their happiness - your success depends on their satisfaction.
Battle Tactics: Choose your approach before battle to counter the stratagems of your foes.
Military Traditions: Each culture has a unique way of waging war. Romans and Celts have different options available to them. Unlock unique bonuses, abilities and units.
Different Government Types: Manage the senate in a Republic, hold your court together in a monarchy, answer to the clans in a tribal system.
Barbarians and Rebellions: Migrating barbarians may sack or settle your best land, while disloyal governors or generals can turn against you - taking their armies with them!
Trade: Goods provide bonuses to their home province. Will you take advantage of stockpiles for local strength or trade excess goods to spread the wealth around?
Provincial Improvement: Invest in buildings, roads and defenses to make your kingdom stronger and richer.
Hellenic World Flavor Pack - (Included in Deluxe Edition, upgrade for $18)
This pack adds new color to the Wars of the Diadochi, including new units models and game flavor.
4 New Army Models: Unique army designs for Macedonia, Phrygia, the Seleucids and Thrace.
4 New Ship Models: Unique warship designs for Egypt, Macedonia, Phrygia, and the Seleucids, including depictions of the famous Hellenistic superships.
Special On Map Monuments: The Mausoleum of Alexander, The Acropolis of Rhodes, The Acropolis of Pergamon, The Palace at Ay Khanum, The Library of Alexandria, The Argead Palace of Macedonia
Six Hellenistic Flavor Events: About the Legacy of Alexander, the veterans of Alexander's wars, the Spread of Hellenistic Culture, City Athletic Events, and Trade.
Alexander’s Body Event Chain: Try to steal the remains of Alexander the Great and erect a monument to his memory.
New Event Art: Dedicate new art for the included unique events.
New music: Special music composed specifically for the Hellenistic players.
The Punic Wars - FREE
Includes new events and units models to illustrate the greatest wars of the classical age - the superpower showdown between the nascent Roman Republic, and the established Carthaginian Empire.
Roman Mission Pack: 10 unique mission trees for the star of Imperator: Rome to guide your conquest of Italy and neighboring regions.
Carthaginian Mission Pack: 10 unique mission trees for the children of Tyre to help you plan your mercantile and military dominance of Africa, Spain and the rest of the west.
Numidian Unit Model: New army model for the Numidians, North Africans often hired as mercenaries by larger powers.
Carthaginian Ship Model: A unique ship design for Carthaginian navies.
New Music: 3 additional music tracks to soothe your conquering soul.
Magna Graecia - $7.99
Even after the collapse of Alexander’s empire, the Greek city states fought to maintain their independence and control their destiny. Athens and Sparta continued to assert their influence in the Aegean while the great city of Syracuse sought to dominate Sicily. In Magna Graecia, a new content pack for Imperator: Rome, you can relive this time of cities defying empires, as Rome grows, Carthage threatens and the heirs of Alexander gaze hungrily over the horizon.
New Greek Missions: New missions and interactions available for Athens, Sparta, and Syracuse.
New Deities: 12 new Greek deities tied to historical Holy Sites across the Greek world.
Apotheosis: A popular ruler from a prestigious family may choose to proclaim themselves, or a revered ancestor, as a god, and be welcomed into the State Pantheon. Elevate enough rulers and you may institute the Imperial Cult government form.
Sacred Treasures: A set of revered historical and divine relics with a hellenistic theme can be collected and placed in Holy Sites, providing powerful effects. If you sack an enemy’s Holy Sites or capital, there is a chance you might capture these special artifacts.
New Music and other art
Epirus - $3.99
As Rome’s power extended to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, it was forced to do battle with one of the great generals of the classical world. Pyrrhus of Epirus, warlord of western Greece and claimant to the Macedonian throne, would become famous for the high cost of his victories against the Roman legions, but he left behind a legacy of military genius that Hannibal of Carthage considered second to only Alexander.
Unique Army Model for Epirus
Unique Ship Model for Epirus
Special Epirote Monument: the Oracle complex of Dodona
6 Event Chains related to the life of Pyrrhus of Epirus each with new art
3 Additional Epirus Event chains, new to Imperator: Rome
One new music track
Zavian on
+5
Posts
One of the more fun things so far was making a hybernian pritania. Picture of after I got done taking over Ireland which made britain proper easymode to conquest.
How did you manage to take over Ireland like that? I started as Ulutia and it's just been a slog (and very expensive) trying to colonize all of that land.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I don't know if they nerfed it in Livy though.
Map changes to Sicily, Ireland, Scotland, Greece and parts of the Baltic Coast.
Character Experience System, rewarding the cultivation of important characters within your nation.
Mapmode Manager: providing support for additional future mapmodes, and allowing you to customize your mapmode bar.
Inferno Graphics: See the ravages of war like never before, as sacked cities burn and smoke.
Family Rework: A focused, IR-unique take on the importance of characters and great families in the Hellenistic era.
Generated Mission Templates, giving all nations access to objectives relevant to their own situation.
# New Features
###################
- New Mission System. The player can at any time pick one of up to three missions. Each mission is a tree that is composed of a number of tasks. Tasks can be timed or instant, and some branches of the tree can be exclusive to one another.
- Added Dynamic and Procedural Missions for conquest for all countries in the game.
- Added Dynamic Mission for developing a Governorship for all countries in the game.
- Added mission to reform out of tribalism for Tribes.
- Great Families: Each country will now have a limited set of Major families that expect to hold a certain influence in the state. By ensuring their members have the amount of jobs they expect, the families will support your rule, but failing to do so will encourage them to rebel.
- Minor Characters: Characters that are not part of Great Families will appear during the campaign and will wield influence and power, but will not be able to call on their kin to get them jobs and positions.
- A Great Family’s Prestige rating will now determine their share of the national pool of Power Base, meaning Families that have held many important jobs will become more dangerous over time.
- Families can now adopt minor characters, and the player can adopt characters to their ruling families in monarchies. Adoption reduces the prestige of the family that adopts and will present the choice of whether to change the family name of the newly adopted person or not.
- Map Mode Manager: You can now select which map modes will be shown in the bar above the Minimap by dragging and dropping.
- Armies now consume and carry food: All units can now carry food with them on campaign, and will consume that food if they are in a situation where they would normally take attrition, instead of losing men. Armies in friendly territory will stock up on food from the Provincial stores.
- Reworked Reinforcement rules: Armies will now only reinforce if they are not currently taking attrition. Consequently sieges can now be lost by the attacker if they run out of food but armies can also operate far deeper into enemy territory without taking attrition, as long as they bring enough food.
- Added Supply Train unit with greater food carrying capacity for long campaigns and sieges.
- Updated Map in Greece, Anatolia, Hibernia, and the Baltic region. Added new territories, impassables and countries, as well as more navigable rivers.
- Statesmanship now governs how well your characters perform in administrative government jobs. Statesmanship is built up by a character over time and acts as a multiplier on their skill, meaning inexperienced characters will not perform to their full potential.
- Line System: Lines will now mark ongoing migration and trade routes on the map, more clearly illustrating these features when you are looking at their respective interfaces.
- Subject Interactions: Subjects can now be asked to abandon an ungrateful overlord, and can themselves seek out a new overlord if they are displeased with their current one.
- Added Minor Event Category: Minor events will not open automatically on your screen but will instead be placed in queue before they take effect. Minor events will primarily be those that are of low impact and connected with characters.
###################
# DLC - The Punic Wars
###################
- Added 9 unique mission trees for Rome.
- Added 10 unique mission trees for Carthage and other Punic countries.
- Added unique Numidian unit model for North African armies.
- Added unique unit model for Punic Ships.
- Added unique city set for Punic countries.
###################
# Balance
###################
# Economy
- Road building now available from Civic tech 4.
# Governments
- Upped legitimacy boost from Strengthen Legitimacy to 0.05 from 0.02, and increased cost to 10 Political Influence from 5.
# Characters
- Pretenders now receive scaling loyalty penalty based on the power base of their supporters.
# Units
- Tweaked starting army and navy sizes. Starting armies and Navies will now be somewhat lower than they were in previous versions.
- Increased national Maintenance for loyal troops slightly.
- Disbanding units now restores 25% of their manpower.
- Unit build costs increased by 20-30% across the board.
- Horse Archers and Light cavalry now have higher attrition weight.
- Added roughly 25% base unit movement speed to infantry types, cavalry retain speed bonus.
- War Elephants now take 10% more morale damage.
- Added Supply Trains and a Support Units category, which will be deployed last on the battlefield and cannot be part of retinues.
# War & Peace
- The maximum manpower is now 20 years of Manpower gain rather than 25. Overall Manpower will now be lower as a result of this.
- Base Manpower reduced by 50%.
- Enslavement efficiency reduced across the board, by 25-50%.
- Raze and Pillage can now be used regardless of whether you're at war with the province owner. It will add a stacking opinion debuff each time the action is performed. If opinion goes below -180, a war will be declared, treating the pillaging country as attacker.
- Slave revolts will now be rarer in low population territories.
# Diplomacy
- Doubled claim fabrication speed.
- Average truce length decreased by roughly 40%.
- Tyranny now reduces War Score costs in peace treaties.
- Reduced effect on War Score for the Bellicose stance.
- Reduced effect of inventions on War Score cost.
- Reduced effect of Ruler Traits on War Score cost.
- High tributes now only reduces subject opinions by 50.
# Technology
- No Inventions affect Omen Duration.
# Heritages
- Added Heritage for Heraclea Pontica
- Thrace’s Heritage is now -5% War Score cost instead of 10%.
- Seafaring Heritage no longer reduces movement speed on land, instead it reduces manpower.
- Added Corinthian Heritage for Mission created Corinth.
- Added Theocratic Heritage for mission created Religious Enclave.
- Added Epikratea Heritage for Carthaginian mission created country in Sicily.
- Added Heritage for Pontus.
- Added Heritage for Iberia.
# Mercenaries
- Mercenary maintenance increased from 125% of normal unit maintenance to 200%.
- Larger Mercenary armies now get supply trains.
# Trade Goods
- Local Bonus for Leather is now increased Slave Output.
- Local bonus for Base Metals is now Freeman Output.
#Buildings
- Increased Research Points from Academies.
- Foundry no longer impacts unit build speed, but instead increases output of territory by 1%.
- Destroying a building now refunds 25% of its build cost.
###################
# AI
###################
# Economy
- Improved AI budgeting for all resources.
- AI more likely to build farms to counteract being low on Food.
- AI can now try to not keep as many unit leaders around during peace to cut down wage costs.
- Governors should no longer pick a governor policy that would negatively impact food unless there is a lot of stored food in a province.
# Diplomacy
- Made AI a bit more mindful about keeping at least one route open for expansion when allying with neighbors.
- Fixed some logic related to offering alliances and then breaking them due to low opinion.
- Alliances will become harder to attain for each current alliance the proposer possesses.
- AI will now make more informed choices on Diplomatic Stances based on its current Aggressive Expansion.
- AI now considers its income rate and how much money it has saved up beyond "is it currently possible?" before sending gifts .
- AI now knows it can enforce demands having fully captured the war goal (and will do so if the war situation isn't improving).
- AI should no longer build forts over their intended maintenance limit.
- Fixed overzealous optimization causing AI to immediately give up if they could not have their most preferred peace deal, that in turn lead to white peaces where gains could have been made.
# Military
- Tweaked size of AI sea regions to make selection a bit easier.
- AI desired war exhaustion is now less than 5 instead of 0.
- AI will now spread out their forces a bit more while at peace rather than leaving them all packed in one area, enabling quicker responses to internal and external threats.
- Improved AI retinue handling.
- AI will now pick Military Traditions in a way that makes it prioritize filling out a full path a bit more.
- AI countries will be a bit more inclined to pick Military Traditions that fit them culturally (Dahae will go for Horse Archers), or situationally (Ship paths are only interesting if you have ports).
- AI armies will no longer drill when at war or when there are threats nearby
- Pathfinding should now avoid storms n' deserts when possible.
- AI may try to assault if its army is unavoidably attriting away due to lack of food and there is nothing else for it to do, because it’s more useful to the nation dying in a breach than dying of dysentery.
- AI should be a bit better at attacking low morale units defeated in a battle (they were frequently waiting due to having lost some morale of their own).
- AI should be slightly more interested in pursuing the war goal as well as state capitals.
- AI should consider if they really have food prior to besieging non-wargoal forts (imperfect heuristic).
- AI splits up its fleets depending on perceived strength of enemy fleets now, to cover more tasks.
- AI will no longer recruit mercenaries unless they have a path to friendly capital area or otherwise have access (alleviating need for sea transport).
- Fixed an issue that made AI forget their army at sea for thousands of years if the original departure port had become inaccessible.
- It is now possible to restrict the region of operations for an army by clicking on the map when the Select Objective dialog is open.
- Made AI a bit better at not peacing out when it's got more interesting sieges to pursue in war.
- Made AI units less likely to chase much smaller forces than them (define IGNORE_STRENGTH_RATIO).
# Misc
- Will consider building forts on provinces with ports.
- AI absolutely won't pick ship idea without ports now.
- AI now won't disband forts as a revolter against the player (so your forts won't get deleted by troll AI).
- AI units now dynamically increase search range in case they find too few options or fail to reach their current destination pathed to. Should result in less indecisiveness and staying in poor locations.
- Added ai_will_do script weights for inventions, ideas, trade goods, omens. AI modifier weights in ai_plan_goals have a default impact, so it may not be necessary to use these.
- Made AI less likely to build forts neighboring existing ones.
###################
# Interface
###################
# Alerts
- Added alert for when a Mission can be completed.
- Added alert for when an army is taking attrition due to lack of food.
- Scorned Families now list their power base in the alert.
# Map
- Desecrating a holy site now sets the city on fire, you maniacs.
- Cities that are looted will now sometimes visibly burn on the map.
# Misc
- Expanded on the tooltip for Civilization value in provinces.
- Ruler titles are now also displayed at the character lists.
- Clicking on a nation flag in the multiplayer lobby will now pan your camera to that location. You can no longer click through some of the GUI elements in the multiplayer lobby.
###################
# Setup & Script
###################
# Decisions
- Lowered party support requirement to declare dictatorship to 70.
- The Pharos Lighthouse now gives extra Building Slots instead of Trade Routes.
- Added decision to form Hibernia.
- Forming Persia now requires being of a Persian culture.
# Events
- Events relating to fires will now use fires on the map.
- Added event for Heraclea Pontica where they can choose to go Persian or Greek in the early game.
- Existing events updated to account for changes to families and minor characters.
- Added new Events related to Piracy.
- Added Flavor Events relating to the coronation of Antigonus.
- Added new Flavor Events for Armenia.
- Added new Flavor Events for Thrace.
- The Grand Temple Collapses event can now only happen to small countries.
- Added a number of new Flavor Events tied to Roman Missions.
- Added a number of new Flavor Events tied to Carthaginian Missions.
- Added new Flavor Events for Massalia.
- Added new Flavor Events for Caucasian Iberia.
- Added New Flavor Events for Pontus and Paphlagonia.
- Reworked Annexation event to allow taking in fewer people. Anyone accepted will be a Minor Character in their new homeland.
# Setup
- Some countries with recent historical conflicts will now have a negative opinion modifier at start to reflect this.
- Samnium is no longer allied with Lucania at start, instead Lucania is guaranteeing Samnium.
- Corinth now has a special modifier for their famous fortress.
- Reduced the effect of the Rhodian Fortification modifier by half.
- Added a number of new characters to the starting setup.
- Changed the Diadochi starting diplomacy to use alliances, these alliances break when the Epigoni event fires.
- Etruria is now an Oligarchic Republic at start.
- Scripted a number of historical starting families and characters for various countries.
- Added founders and main disciples of main philosophical schools (Peripatetic, Pyrrhonic, Stoic, Epicurean, Platonic, Eretrian, Cyrenaic).
Changed Latin culture group to Italic culture group.
# Map
- Added a number of new territories and countries in the Baltic area.
- Added new countries in Hibernia.
- Added new territories to Caledonia.
- Added new territories to Greece.
- Added new countries and territories in Sicily.
- The Ganges now has additional arms to the Ganges Delta and its tributary, Brahmaputra, is navigable up to Balipura.
- The Rhone/Rhodanus is now navigable up to Arelatis.
- The Garonne/Garumna is now navigable to Praemiacum.
- The Seine/Sequana is now navigable up to Avalocum.
- The Loire/Liger is now navigable up to Turonorum.
- The Elbe/Albis is now navigable to Aregellia.
- The Dniestr/Tyras is now navigable up to Clepidava.
- The Dniepr/Borysthenes is now navigable for the entirety of the portion before it enters impassable land.
# Misc
- Various character interactions updated with prestige effects.
- Added Poseidon Omen for countries with capitals in: Corinth, Chalcis
- Added Herakles Omen for countries with capitals in: Acragas, Kos, Thasos
- Added Hephaeustus Omen for countries with capitals in: Acragas, Athens, Lemnos
- Added Asclepius Omen for countries with capitals in: Acragas, Epidauros
- Added Aphrodite Omen for countries with capitals in: Athens, Aphrodisias, Corinth, Paphos
- Added Eros Omen for countries with capitals in: Thespiai
- Added Hera Omen for countries with capitals in: Argos, Samos, Olympia, Elis, Ionia
- Added Artemis Omen for countries with capitals in: Ephesos, Delos, Ionia, the Nesiotic League
- Added Helios Omen for countries with capitals in: Corinth, Rhodes
- Added Persephone Omen for countries with capitals in: Locri
- Added Dionysus Omen for countries with capitals in: Amphipolis, Orchomenos, Naxos, Thebes, Boeotia, Nesiotic League
- Added Pan Omen for countries with capitals in: Arcadia
- Added the following Omens for Cretan countries: Diktynna, Eleuthya, Velchanos, Rhea, Diktean Zeus, Ariadne, Amaya, Karmanor
- Added the following Omens for Pontus: Herakles, Zeus Stratios, Selene, Cybele, Mithra, Men, Aphrodite, Dionysus.
- Added Colony Subject type, for now only used in Missions.
- Added more special flags for formable countries.
#######################
# Bugfixes
######################
# Stability & Performance
- Added more checking for invalid objects to prevent potential crashes
# Multiplayer & Out of Syncs
- Various fixes to Out of Syncs, especially related to hotjoining.
# Script and Events
- Fixed a number of issues with food events.
- Annexation event should now work properly in multiplayer.
- Made some changes to Slave Raid to clarify when there are no viable ports nearby, and when they have simply been recently raided.
- Fixed problem with event that turns tribal vassals into tributaries when they civilize.
- Stopped characters from being blind and one-eyed simultaneously.
- Fixed wrong province id in Babylon formation decision.
- Slave revolts that end in unowned territory will now still count as ended in the origin country.
- Added `has_siege = no` trigger to `city.20` which gives a free fort level
- Added divorce effects to monarchy affair events
- Added divorce effects to affair event options
- Mercenaries can no longer trigger the Military Restructuring event.
- Fixed Attalid triggers, not taking families with them, and reset_scoring scope.
- Fixed inordinate amounts of food being destroyed in Granary Fire.
- Fixes for city_events.2 scope and food_events context switch errors.
- Made sure Ambrakia becomes provincial as well as country capital when Pyrrhus returns.
- Stopped Friends Across Borders firing between countries fighting a war, because 1914 is some centuries away still.
- Arsaces now creates the Arsacid family when he is spawned.
# Game Mechanic Bugs
- Slaves should no longer be added above the maximum population capacity of a territory.
- Slaves that are taken are now somewhat less likely to end up in the country capital.
- Fixed case where incoming migrating pops had a broken progress bar.
- Fixed right flanking units attacking the left most unit instead of right most unit
- Naval combat now respects flanks and properly uses flanking units
- Local commerce modifiers now apply to monthly earnings.
- Succession laws now apply properly on events.
- River presence in provinces now properly calculated.
- Twins will now inherit relevant bloodline traits.
- Children of successor women will now inherit their families
- Firstborn rulers from bookmarks have their popularity set.
- Split army now doesn't care for unit loyalty, it only tries to create even stacks.
- A city that is created with ongoing constructions that will produce invalid buildings will be interrupted.
- Fixed bug that could in rare cases generate empty retinues.
- Added the effect for reducing city rank to the harshest option of the city fall events.
# Text & UX
- Academies now show final research value improvement.
- Fixed some UI flags not highlighting country.
- Commerce income tooltip now counts bonuses granted by trade.
- Centralization tooltip now shows information about active modifiers and changes.
- Consul now considered employed by character view filters.
- Fixed event option for "Accident in X" being a bit too liberal with its grammatical structure.
- Added gender neutral description for Olympics.
- All duplicate province names fixed.
- Improved presentation of Research Progress tooltip.
- The last event option for "Accident in [city]" event should now follow a more traditional notion of grammar.
# Misc
- AI will now better respect subject's overlord in finding war targets.
- Barbarians now stay for a couple of days after their last conquest.
- Fixed case where you could still declare war on a subject of a country you are fighting a war together with.
- Fixed rare crash when revolts failed.
- Fixed ship selection circle sometimes remaining on the map after the ship had been moved to a port.
- Changed trade goods in Laus and Stylacium to fish to give Calabria some food
- Fixed Lake Copais texture.
- Fixed Salamis port location
- Fixed the strait between Epidauros & Kythera going through the incorrect sea zone, causing faulty naval blockades
- Improved accuracy of Grand Trunk Road route and removed minor connecting routes.
- Empty families now get removed from play.
- add_{attribute} effect now properly adds value to attribute
- Fixed roof and wall flickering bug with tribal forts
- Gave movement arrows an outline to contrast better with terrain.
- Increased Stonehenge size from 1.0 to 1.7
- Made the Baltics more habitable-looking and opened up the forests for potential cities.
- A correct co-ruler will now be assigned.
- Build ships to navy now will build using naval distance for prioritization.
- Added a few Wastelands around the map that didn’t get shaded when surrounded to the list of those that are shaded.
- Added valid animation states for unit ability. If current animation state is listed in available animations, the animation state won't change.
- Will now cancel movement if there is no access in target province anymore.
- Fixed the problem of State Improvements saying they'll take 2 years, and only actually taking 1.
- You can no longer abort assaults by retreating and then aborting the retreat.
- Mercenaries are no longer caught in an endless loop between two cities after employment
a couple known issues that will be patched ASAP:
- application not properly shutting down after exiting to desktop
- Ironman savegames and autosaves could not be rewritten after loading game
- Mouse panning did not work in windowed mode
Disclaimer: I have no idea how it might differ from the Steam release. Additionally, the game files (while functionally identical) will be hidden which typically deters modding, if that matters to you.
Only main downside I think would be that the Digital Deluxe upgrade is really worth it for the Hellenic pack, which focuses on the Diodachi, Alexander's successors, and really makes playing with them more fun IMO. There might also not be crossplay between Steam/Gamepass/GoG. Sometimes DLC doesn't get added to Gamepass, not sure about Punic Wars Free-LC. Besides that and modding I don't think there's any other differences, should be getting the same patches. It's definitely a great game to just try out on Gamepass though!
Pretty much never does DLC get included in Game Pass proper, unless Game Pass picks up some sort of "ultimate edition"--which isn't the case here (it usually only happens with actual ultimate--as in final--editions, i.e. "GOTY editions"). The DLC is, in fact, available for purchase, and will work with the Game Pass game, and is discounted (everything on Game Pass is, though the discounts aren't very much). But it does mean buying the DLC, in any case...add, eventually, when the game is rotated out of Game Pass, you'll need to buy that too.
Food for thought, I suppose. Don't know about the state of Cross Play for this specifically, though there are examples of it happening--for example, Gears 5 has cross play because all multiplayer is handled on Xbox Live. Otherwise, it'd be the same five people playing with each other on Steam while the other +99.9% of the player base was pooled on console and Windows 10. Paradox can be weird about this sort of thing too.
Edit: This game is a lot sexier now. It still needs work but the missions additions, the character changes and the supply change making infantry a tide of death is just fun fun. I was not really a fan of the cav blobbing anyway.
Edit2: If you are going to iron man enable cloudsave on it. There is an ironman bug for local saves that causes them to not save after reload.
Bohemia being the sweet one so far.
I quit that one because I took the wrong second mission wanting to convert directly to a monarchy but not being ready at all with the civ level. Going to do another run this weekend where I grab the dev mission tree first.
Another favorite was Egypt.
Some additional thoughts:
Supply trains are amazing. There is a detach support button on the army. It can get a bit hectic reattaching them to the armies that need the supply but you get used to it. You can detach to speed up your army and bring the supply trains in from the side to sure up a siege or the like.
Merc spam is largely fixed from what I have seen.
Pirates are also less of an issue from what ive seen.
The lower character count has me recognizing people in my country and getting that bigger draw to interact with them.
Overall being someone that has seen what it has progressed from 1.0 to now I am really excited to see continued support for this game. Hopefully they keep along this same path and not try to get too samey with the other major games that some online are so arguing for.
EDIT: Btw, I found a really good strategy on the Paradox forums that a dev confirms isn't an exploit: send a 1k cohort ahead of your main army to find out the battle tactic the enemy general is using, then send your main army in with the best counter:
So I am confused if I just need to wait for the next event to trigger? Or if the normal rules of having whatever percent of disloyal cohorts factors in? Or if I can assassinate them maybe? I have an option to bring them to trial but the chance of success is low...
Should I just start making more armies?
I haven't played as Carthage yet, but usually disloyal characters will spawn with their own armies; you need to either bring their loyalty back up via bribes and/or increasing wages to max which gives monthly boost to loyalty gain. Once their loyalty is over I think 40 you can replace them as generals. You can also reward veterans to lower the army size. Mainly though keep enough gold so you can afford mercenary armies larger than the disloyal armies so if they do revolt you can hire enough troops to beat them, and make sure your other armies have loyal generals or are led by your faction leader
You can also bring them to trial and spend influence and/or gold to boost your chances, but it can be expensive and even then not guaranteed to work
So I guess they were so intimidated by my superior armies that they never actually did anything. As soon as the loyalty malus the event gave them went away they started to go back up in loyalty and then I just bribed them and took their armies once they hit 40%. So I basically got 120k troops for the cost of a 1k in bribes.
patch notes
religion overhaul
omen overhaul
holy sites and treasures
trade overhaul
loyalty overhaul
game is also f2p on steam till the 5th.
This probably means I should at least give this game a go.
I just keep running up against the fact it looks very... Europa Universalis IV-ish. Distant and sterile.
Also, I don't care about Rome. Which I know is kind of irrational because you don't have to play as Rome in this game.
My favorite play through so far has been as Egypt; biased because I love the history, and just took an Egyptology course, and idea of playing as Ptolemy I (who was played by Anthony Hopkins in the Alexander movie!) but also Egypt can flip to the cult of Serapis to integrate the Egyptians with their Macedonian Greek rulers, as well as Egypt being a pretty strong start, even more so if you expand down the Nile to the south for resources. I haven’t tried them with the new religious mechanics, interested to see how it’s changed for Egypt. I hope they add more flavor and lore bits to the game, as that’s what makes say Stellaris and especially CK2 more interesting than EU
It is a blob sim for the most part still. But I enjoy it. When I start an EU4 run I still get the back of my head ugh aspects of the setup and then quit after nearing end game. Not so much in this game because hey its not as dense.
They have changed several aspects that make the game feel more era specific. Like largely static military modified by game based mods and not a tech tree or the like. I havent done much with treasure yet but I imagine many have discipline and other mods on them as well. The mission trees offer the same breadth of power now but also help in terms of infrastructure based gain and the like. The pop system can become monstrous late game but I like it. You can play the wait and watch game if you want but also move them specifically as well to maximize benefits or conversion ratios. The character system continues to improve with the most recent changes. You have to pay attention to loyalty now as people will rebel.
That said there is still some issues with template style gameplay. Heavy calvary is still largely worthless. Going big on a city is still probably the best economic route even with the nerfs (but not nearly as one sided as it was). And portions of the map are still really cookie cutter.
But that is also early Paradox grand strategy normalcy.
Here's the list of changes and updates:
It took me awhile to get ahold of the mechanics but I've played a couple games I'd consider successes. I conquered Rome as Epirus, united greece as the minoans, formed Phoenicia as Byblos and almost got their achievement (my savegame broke with the update), and am currently playing a game as Heraklea Pontica trying to form Persia. I've got all of northern Anatolia and am working on taking the rest of the eastern coast of the Aegean so I can have that border secure. Currently in a war to take Ionia and southwest Anatolia from Thrace and the Selukids respectively. The Selukids are really big (they own not just Syria but over half of the southern coast of Anatolia) but they don't actually have a direct land access to their Aegean possessions thanks to an Antigonid rump state. So I can control the wargoal really easily and just have to defensively push them off my land on the eastern front. I'm using full calvary armies with heavy calvary backed by horse archers.
(The city of Babylon has over 300 pops. That's fine. That's totally normal.)
Finally though Rome's attention turned more towards the east and the let off of pressure allowed me grab central Iberia before the Carthaginians. (They owned all of the south, and all of the western coastal lowlands of Iberia minus Galicia) Carthage kept attacking me and I kept taking little chunks of land off of them. The turning point was when I managed to cut off the straight. (I never bothered even attempting to challenge Carthage on the sea, since Barb countries can't even get heavy ships.) From that point on it was me on the offensive and it only took me a couple more wars to kick them totally out of Iberia. (In one war I took 49 AE!) Then it was just matter of cleaning up the Galicians which only took two wars as they were mostly allied with one another. I might keep playing for a bit more, to take the Baleares and see if I might not grab all of Carthage.
Some view of how many cities I've ended up founding:
Other big issues are a chronic lack of manpower, almost everywhere you're going to expand into being wrong culture and religion, and a usually pretty consistently crappy starting political situation which will have you wracking up tons of early game tyranny if you want to expand at the rate that you pretty much have to. Still, it was fun. A big turning point was when Rome attacked Carthage (I was allied to both at the time.) and I used my navy and my elite light cav "horse marines" to sack every unfortified coastal Roman city multiple times, racking up several thousand gold which I used to hire mercenaries to fight multiple consecutive wars in Gaul. (Again, terrible manpower problems until very recently.) I might see if I can't clean up my borders a bit and form the Phocean League, teaching those upstart latins and Punics a lesson in the process.
https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/624819/009.PNG https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-dd-101-a-most-auspicious-number.1428183/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-dd-102-ui-rework.1432206/
love the updates! I've been playing a ton of CK3 lately so have been neglecting IR; I just updated the OP with the Epirus DLC pack which originally was pre-order content later expanded on with new events (free for pre-order owners) as $3.99 DLC.
That uh soured that game.
As Messapia. (This was a rough, rough start.) I got involved in the Diadochi wars and plundered them to field the huge mercenary armies I would inevitably need to knock back the Romans when they came to "defend" themselves from me.Then when I finally the romans out of southern italy and had just disbanded the mercenaries, Syracuse came knocking. Another rough war. Luckily Carthage starting their normal Sicillian stuff and I was able to kick Syracuse off the boot.
History part 1:
While fortunes on the peninsula seemed to continually arise new threats were approaching. The African power of Carthage had finally consolidated complete control of the island of Sicily, and soon eyed expansion into the profitable cities of Calabria. They even struck a deal with the remaining Latins. From the other direction the Epirots, one time allies with the Messapians against Macedonian, Latin, and Carthaginian influence in the Adriatic, had expanded and consolidated their position to begin having imperialist designs of their own. Conflict with the Carthaginians came to a head first in a series of long bloody wars that eventually saw the Carthaginians lose Sicily, the Latins once and for all conquered, and the Etruscans subjugated after they switched sides in the conflict. During these wars the Messapians heavily expanded their navy, but by the most charitable interpretation they could only be seen as at best achieving a stalemate on the seas with Carthage. On land, however, they dominated the Carthiganians and their allies through heavily armored cavalry. While often outnumbered, their superior quality plus defensive advantages led to disasters for many a Carthaginian army. Because of this Carthage was left bloodied, if hardly crippled.
Perhaps sensing weakness, the Epirots launched an invasion with Antigonid support. This went disastrously for both. The Messapian navy, built to challenge Carthage, was more than a match for Epirus' fleet, and soon they were the ones facing invasion. The Antigonids ended up being able to offer little long term support, as while their army and fleets were away they faced a civil war which eventually saw the dynasty thrown from power. The Messapians took Epirus' Illyrian colonies, and the Aikiads soon lost Epirus itself to the burgeoning peloponnesian power of Messenia. (The Aikiads would continue to survive deed in the Illyrian hinterlands) The Messapians founded a new city in Apollionia, heavily fortified port which came to serve as the western gate to Illyria. With a cosmopolititan culture mixing Epirot, Macedonian, Messapian, Illyrian, and Italic influences, it would prosper as both the first and largest Messapian port outside the Italian peninsula
Oh. Or a civil war and a war with the Seleucids at the same time. Alrighty then.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-rome-developer-diary-16th-of-november-2020.1442647/ (more info on new Legions mechanic)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/imperator-rome-developer-diary-9th-of-november-2020.1441511/ (more info on Marius update warfare changes)