Imperator:Rome

[tgb]

aka EU:Rome II, bitches..

Although I don't understand why they didn't use that to take advantage of the brand.

They also announced a new Age of Wonders sent in space by Triumph Studios, but that's scheduled for '19 and I could be dead by then.

[Fitzy]

They also announced the Season Pass for Imperator, $200, but only good for the first 35 DLC.

[jztemple2]

They also announced the Season Pass for Imperator, $200, but only good for the first 35 DLC.

You know, I took that as a serious statement for a moment. Paradox might as well offer it up front.

[Daehawk]

Want Centurion of Rome II plz

[Isgrimnur]

They also announced the Season Pass for Imperator, $200, but only good for the first 35 DLC.

You know, I took that as a serious statement for a moment. Paradox might as well offer it up front.

Every good joke has an element of truth in it.

Europa Universalis IV: Empire Bundle -57% $234.86 $101.11

Crusader Kings II: Collection -60% $316.37 $125.68

[Stuie]

aka EU:Rome II, bitches..

I'm as excited as someone who played EU: Rome can be. Which is to say I'm not. This one will need solid reviews before I get anywhere near it.

They also announced a new Age of Wonders sent in space by Triumph Studios, but that's scheduled for '19 and I could be dead by then.

Triumph on the other hand still gets a free pass from me. The setting seems interesting as well... so I'll be following this.

Also note that EU: Rome II err.. I mean Imperator is slated for '19 as well. I shall remain hopeful for your well-being tgb.

[tgb]

Also note that EU: Rome II err.. I mean Imperator is slated for '19 as well. I shall remain hopeful for your well-being tgb.

Fuck.

[Holman]

I love the idea of a good Rome game from Paradox.

Looking at the screenshots, I wonder what kind of gameplay they intend here. It appears to be a CK2-sized map with EUIV-scale focus (i.e. generally provinces rather than individuals).

[hepcat]

I will buy this as I do most Paradox games. And then I will play it for 12 minutes.

[Holman]

aka EU:Rome II, bitches..

Although I don't understand why they didn't use that to take advantage of the brand.

I'm guessing they've just got too many "EU" named products already. Casual Steam users would assume this is a DLC for EUIV.

[ColdSteel]

I will buy this as I do most Paradox games. And then I will play it for 12 minutes

Yeah.

I love me some games about Rome. I took 3 years of Latin in high school and just loved the history of it. I actually found Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire fascinating even at that age. I played Rome: Total War a ton despite the strategic layer issues. So, I should be all over this (like stink on an ape as TGB would say) but, the fact that it's Paradox is giving me pause.

It seems like they can't get a game out the door anymore without major issues and then it's only in decent shape after 3 or 4 DLC (if then). I know they do (try to) fix issues in free updates but they seem to be losing their way as a company that releases quality products. They release what is essentially an EA product and then scramble to try to fix things from there. Why they don't go with Steam EA releases is puzzling. Maybe because they don't think people would pay $40 for an EA product. but that's what they're doing anyway.

So, I'll take a wait and see approach on this after getting burned by Stellaris. Does anyone know if they're using the same old 32 bit Clausewitz engine again for this one?

[dbemont]

Yup, I really, really want an in-depth game about Roman times that is not focused on tactical combat. But Paradox drives me nuts.

For me, the problem is that they defeat my go-to strategy: try the game fairly early, but wait until it's complete to really immerse myself in the game. But with Paradox, by the time the game is complete, documentation and tutorials are all but useless. And given their system, it has to be that way, because everyone is playing a different combination of updates and DLC.

It probably marks me out as an old, print-based guy, but I want the rules of a game spelled out, in a form where they can be looked up. I am on-board with figuring out effective strategies as I get experience with the game, but I bristle at the idea I am supposed to figure out the essential mechanics of the game. If castles in EU exert a zone of control, I expect to be able to look up their definition of zone of control. Etc.

So one part of me says this game could be awesome. But another part of me says it will never be. It'll release half baked, and by the time it is actually good, it will be accessible only to those who played through all the half-baked versions of the game.

[tgb]

Yup, I really, really want an in-depth game about Roman times that is not focused on tactical combat. But Paradox drives me nuts.

You might want to keep an eye on Aggressors:Ancient Rome.

From my conversations with the guys at Slitherine, it appears the combat will be pretty much hands-off, along the lines of Civ IV, with combined arms, terrain, and morale the deciding factors.

[Holman]

Here's an article collecting what's known about the game. It's more than I thought we had.

[dbemont]

Yup, I really, really want an in-depth game about Roman times that is not focused on tactical combat. But Paradox drives me nuts.

You might want to keep an eye on Aggressors:Ancient Rome.

From my conversations with the guys at Slitherine, it appears the combat will be pretty much hands-off, along the lines of Civ IV, with combined arms, terrain, and morale the deciding factors.

Yeah, that looks very promising.

[Holman]

Imperator: Rome is out today. I pre-ordered it because my oldest kid loves all things Paradox, and I'd be happy to see him get into ancient history.

I've barely fiddled with it, but my first impression is that the engine is somehow smoother and easier to handle than some Paradox titles. For one thing, it is scalable with a slider, so you can increase the size of all text without having to hunt down (and then regularly update) a mod. It's also less cluttered, perhaps because more numbers have been offloaded into mouse-over pop-ups.

But it's a 1.0 version from Paradox, so there are sure to be bugs galore. Many people are posting on Steam that the game doesn't even start for them, but I haven't had this problem.

As always, you might do better by waiting for DLC followed by event-rich historical mods.

[jztemple2]

I got my copy today and it is unplayable because the mousewheel zoom doesn't work and apparently they neglected to include any keyboard workaround. And I've done troubleshooting of all sorts (game restart, computer restart, another mouse, etc) all to no help. The game does recognize the mousewheel because if you hold Shift and wheel the mapview changes. I'm guessing there is some configuration issue within the game, but I can't find any sort of bindings file. I've posted a bug report but for now I'm rather ticked off

[Holman]

I downloaded the whole game at 12:30pm.

Now it's 3:15, and it looks like a small patch just dropped in. Maybe it addresses the mouse wheel?

[jztemple2]

Now it's 3:15, and it looks like a small patch just dropped in. Maybe it addresses the mouse wheel?

Just tried and nope, not fixed. And I'm not the only one, someone else has posted a thumbs down review mentioning this as well.

[Holman]

I've seen it mentioned. For some reason it works fine for me.

[Max Peck]

I fired it up to take a quick look, but I probably won't get into it until I finish up my current WH2 skaven campaign.

[dbemont]

I got almost nothing out of the in-game tutorial. Pretty much in the Steve Martin spirit of the way to be a millionaire is to get a million dollars. For the most part, they just tell you to go do a bunch of things, with minimal guidance.

But this video tutorial series is excellent. Very direct and to the point on a variety of topics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uUs7fa ... T-&index=1
(First in a series of short videos)

[Lorini]

I am madly in love with Many a True Nerd, his videos are the best!!!

[Sepiche]

Despite loving Paradox games, I was a little wary of this after some of the bug reports, and complaints, but enjoying it so far after a few hours. No crashes or bugs as far as I can tell so far.

Tutorial is definitely very bare bones. I prefer tutorials that are a little hands off, but this one took that a little far. I played the tutorial for a little bit, then just started a fresh game.

The game feels a lot more like EU: Rome 2 than I expected. A lot of it's mechanics are in there, but definitely polished and improved.

Playing as Rome I've taken over a few of my neighbors and am on track to start dominating Italy soon. I'm looking forward to seeing how the families in Rome develop as the game goes on. Seems like it's going to be fascinating dealing with the same handful of families as the game goes on and having to groom them to give me good leaders.

I also had to deal with the Senate at one point... I wanted to invade a neighbor, but there wasn't quite enough support from the Senate to declare war. There's a popup that nicely breaks down each factions reasons for supporting or not supporting the legislation, but I couldn't really find a way to try to throw some leverage around and convince some of the factions to support it. I ended up just declaring war and getting a few tyranny points, but doesn't seem to have hurt me too much so far, and the consular elections are coming up soon.

On that note... it's a little sad there is only one consul at a time, but I suppose a 2 consul system might have been difficult to code and balance.

[dbemont]

it's a little sad there is only one consul at a time, but I suppose a 2 consul system might have been difficult to code and balance.

I believe they have already announced that they plan to add that, although probably in a paid DLC.

[jztemple2]

it's a little sad there is only one consul at a time, but I suppose a 2 consul system might have been difficult to code and balance.

I believe they have already announced that they plan to add that, although probably in a paid DLC.

My understanding was that they are actively working on it for a free patch update, but maybe that's old news.

I fixed (sort of) my mousewheel issue. Turns out that it affects both my Logitech wireless mouses, but not an old cheapie Logitech wired mouse. However, I'm still ticked off that there aren't keyboard equivalents and that my bug report was answered by telling me to post something over on tech support, instead of doing it themselves. I think I'll be putting this on the shelf till I get some time to look at their tutorial videos and maybe a patch or two.

[jztemple2]

And speaking of patches, Imperator - Current Roadmap

Hey everyone,

With Imperator: Rome, a project very close to our hearts, now released and finally in the hands of our awesome community (that’s you!), we have been taking the time to look at the feedback you’ve provided. As always, we pride ourselves on the continued support of our games and by no means will Imperator be different.

We are working towards releasing a 1.0.1 patch early next week, which we’re calling ‘Demetrius’. This patch will improve the AI, fix compatibility issues, game crashes, some multiplayer out-of-syncs, and will also contain some performance improvements.

At the same time, we have been looking at all the feedback from play-testing, our Twitch and YouTube communities, and the press for the past month and a half as we prepared for release. Now we are adding all of your feedback from Steam, the forums, and social media to that! With it, we have begun developing a major patch which is aimed for release in June.

This 1.1 patch is nicknamed ‘Pompey’ internally. We will go into more detail with upcoming development diaries before it’s released. Pompey will cover the following topics:

Balancing of Technology Progress, Mercenaries, Shattered Retreat, Truce Breaking, Assassinations, Governors, War Exhaustion, and Legitimacy.
Improving the mechanics for Population Growth, Stability, and Barbarians.
Tweaks to Civil War mechanics, with new power-base mechanics.
Naval rework, with Naval Combat mechanics and multiple ship types, as well as navigable major rivers.
Deeper Holding mechanics for characters, where you can give characters holdings and they can purchase new ones as they grow in wealth.
More character interactions.
New Piracy mechanics.
Redesigning of functionality where instead of spending power for an instant result, you now spend power to nudge it towards that result over time.
Better abilities to play tall, including centralising trade, impacting specific cities, etc.
Tribes being able to decide what units their retinues should have.
Dual Ruler mechanics for Roman Republic, and Consorts for Monarchies.
Government Abilities for all government categories.
‘Quality of Life’ features like viewing all characters in a foreign country, new alerts, road building being a continuous action, and more.
Adding of features from previous PDS games like moving capitals and regnal numbers on monarchs
Much more modding support.


Whilst we have already started towards patch 1.1, we will continue to look at fixing any major issues that come up between now and then as well.

For the list of currently known issues see here.

And, if you want to learn more about the game development of Imperator, I created a thread on the subject, please do check it out! You simply have to click here
.

[jztemple2]

Been a while, but to update those still interested, two updates called Pompey and Cicero have been released, the first back in late June, the newer today. Below are links to the update change logs and videos from Paradox:

Pompey Release Information




Cicero Release Information

[Sepiche]

I've been looking forward to giving this another shot once they got a few rounds of fixes and balances in place. I still think the core game is a solid one, just needed some adjustments.

I'm playing EU4 with a friend at the moment, but I'll likely go back to this once our game winds down.

[jztemple2]

This might help answer a few questions.

[ChuckB]

This might help answer a few questions.

His videos are actually really good and I have to remind myself to look out for them because I find the "cover page" presentation of his videos to be very "click-baity" and therefore often ignore them (Maybe "I'm getting too old for this sh*t")

[dbt1949]

Almost looks like a new game.

[jztemple2]

Another patch, 1.5 Menander update. Patch notes in spoiler tags:

Spoiler:

###################
# Expansion Features
###################

A new set of missions has been added to the Epirus pack.
Pyrrhus now possesses a bloodline trait, for owners of the Epirus pack.
Any added content will be applied retrospectively for those who pre-ordered the game.
The Epirus pack is made available for purchase.
If Epirus dlc is active, Prove Legitimacy may acquire Pyrrhus’ bloodline


###################
# Free Features
###################

Cultural Integration: Added cultural integration feature, allowing you to grant or remove citizenship (or other poptype) rights for individual cultures within your borders.
Cultural Integration: Added Culture UI, giving you an overview of the cultural situation in your nation.
Cultural Integration: Added cultural decisions feature, letting you make important decisions on your treatment of individual cultures.
Cultural Integration: Added historically integrated cultures for Seleukid Empire, Antigonid Kingdom, Egypt, Thrace, Macedon, Bactria, Maurya, Cappadocia, Parthia and Syracuse.
Pops: Nobles poptype added. Nobles generate research and traderoutes, and have a high political weight
Pops: Political weight added. This simulates the influence of pops when generating unrestlow numbers of nobles with a high weight will generate more unrest than large numbers of slaves with a low political weight.
Rebellion Rework: Provinces can now rebel separately when their provincial loyalty reaches 0. Neighboring provinces will join in a rebellion if their loyalty reaches 0 while a revolt is ongoing.
Rebellion Rework: Provinces that rebel will declare their rebellion war using a new offensive wargoal that sets their own capital as the target.
Rebellion Rework: Subjects can now declare an independence war against their overlord without incurring a vast penalty.
Senate rework: characters now exercise their influence by controlling votes.
Senate rework: Nations now have 3 main senate factions, as opposed to 5. 3 unique factions are added for Rome, as well as a set for other republics.
Senate rework: senate approval now applies to most actions you may wish to take. Keeping the senate happy will reward you with more absolute power, but displeasing them will cause your rule to be ineffectual.
Senate Rework: Approval is now a global statistic, not balanced for each individual action.
Senate rework: Faction issues feature added. Fulfilling a faction's agenda will please them, however if they are elected they may attempt to push their agenda without your consent.
Trade rework: Trade goods now have a route-price, depending on the goods type. This is modified by whether a trade route is domestic, import, or export, and will generate commerce income for both parties.
Trade rework: Citizens and Nobles now generate trade routes for the Provinces in which they reside.
Trade rework: Tradegoods have been entirely rebalanced, reducing modifier quantity to a more manageable level, as well as now focusing on poptype modifiers.
Added ‘seek spouse’ character interaction.
Cross store multiplayer enabled for all our currently supported stores (Steam, Gog, Plaza, and MS Store)


###################
# Game Balance
###################
#Characters

Added new faction impact to character interactions
Increased disloyalty modifier of pretenders in Succession Crisis event from -10 to -25 and increased threshold for removing the Popular Successor character modifier from +33 to +40 loyalty
Influence a Character interaction now correctly requires the target to have at least 50 prominence
Plotting Quietly loyalty modifier is now correctly removed if the scheme is aborted
In order to attend a Triumph a commander will leave his army if one is held for them. A Triumph now requires that a character has at least 20 loyalty.
Adoptions are now restricted to primary state culture characters unless the cultural decision "Ease Restrictions on Citizenship" has been enacted.

# Economy

Slaves happiness no longer affects their output.
Slave output reduced marginally to account for the above.
Slave default happiness drastically reduced.
Slave political weight reduced.
Flat commerce income removed from all poptypes

# Governments

Revolts of Maurya, Seleukids and Antigonids will no longer be given generic empire names

# Religion

Added new apotheosis effect for converting pops to Nobles.

#Other

All characters that arrive in your country due to you annexing their homeland will now have a loyalty penalty for 5 years.
Country ranks Regional power, Major Power and Great Power now gives -5%, -10% and -15% War Score Reduction respectively.
Forming Persia is now possible for Anatolian and Caucasian culture countries, but requires that Persian culture is integrated.
Important foreign families that are taken in after annexation will now try to bring female members as well.
Reduced assimilation for all pop types.
Rome now have a unique invention that removes some of the requirements to intervene in wars
The Invention Career Negotiators now Gives War Score Cost Reduction.
The Invention Diplomatic Immunity now gives increased Subject Opinions.
The Invention Humane Conduct now gives War Score Cost reduction.
The Invention Noble Envoys now gives +1 Diplomatic relations.
The Invention Open Negotiations now gives +2 Diplomatic Reputation instead of +1.
The National Idea "Casus Belli" now gives War Score Cost reduction.
Deified rulers giving free investments will now never give more than 1.
Triumphs now give a more substantial loyalty boost, for 20 years, and their price is 30 Political Influence. A character being given a Triumph will gain either Victorious or Conqueror traits if they do not have a Status trait already, which will increase their Senate influence.
Added new culture map mode functionality. Cultures can be selected individually.
Added province selection secondary mode for culture and religion map modes
Stability, Tyranny, and Aggressive Expansion have now all been rebalanced. The primary effect of AE is now on internal stability.


###################
# AI
###################
# Diplomacy

Fixed huge AI budget reservation for opinion_diplomacy and removed it and army and navy_construction maximums from hardcode and put into script.

# Economy

AI now decides where to build forts partially decided on the economic value of its states

# War

AI armies will now prefer to deep strike less.
AI calculation for target number of generals and admirals have been made independent, helping nations with lots of fleets (e.g. Carthage).
AI invasions should be a bit more conservative selecting armies that could walk to goal
AI is a bit better at gathering its armies together into fewer stacks to match leader count.
AI may now decide to use its navies to blockade enemy fleets and ports if it doesn't have anything better to do and thinks it is safe.
AI will now achieve donkey
Fixed AI declaring war with non-adjacent claim somewhere far away when they could get a much closer claim by fabricating.
Fixed big AI countries like Maurya and Seleucids scheduling lots of naval invasions on land.
Made sure big AI countries are more keen to fight each other (WAR_POWER_FACTOR in defines).



###################
# Interface
###################

Added culture UI to track all cultures in a nation
Senate UI updated with new changes
Senate approval now tracked in top bar for republics


###################
# Script
###################
# Events

Added a backup solution if Pyrrhos decided to stay at home in the pre-order event chain.
Added a handful of flavour events for specific deities.
Added minor events on completion of provincial investments

# Setup

Added new barbarians for the two new culture groups that were split from Gallic
Added new Scythian cultures: Sakan, Thyssegetian, Legian, and Agathyrsian.
Added new Odrysian culture for Odrysia as well as parts of Thrace.
Renamed Celto-Pannonian, and split it into Scordiscian and Eraviscian.
Split the Gallic culture group into Gallic, Belgae, and Pannonian.
Split the old Belgae culture into several smaller cultures.
Split up Dacian culture.
Added Atavi culture for the tribal forest peoples in north eastern india.
Added Dardic culture for the north western Aryan areas.
Added a port to Naupaktos in Aetolia
Blemmyan culture is now part of the Meroitic group
Changed culture of Elis to Aetolian
Messenia now starts in the Mantineian defensive league, this should help their survivability against Sparta
Moved Rosmerta holy site from Cunetio in Britain to Scarponna in Gaul
Renamed Nilotic Culture Group to Egyptian. Moved Garamantic culture to the Numidian culture group.
Split Aryan into two culture groups. A new eastern group called Pracyan now represents the north eastern Indian cultures where Magadhi was the dominant court dialect.
Split Egyptian culture into Boharic, Sahidic and Faiyumic.
Changed Phthia Menid's culture to Thessalian
Ambrakia now starts as an OPM tag in Epirus

# Other

Added 4th Diadochi war events for Thrace
Added event to introduce Jewish minority characters in some cases.
Introduced tribal tattoos to some Egyptians out in the desert. They are now considered Tribesmen rather than Citizens.
Added historically integrated cultures for Seleukid Empire, Antigonid Kingdom, Egypt, Thrace, Macedon, Bactria, Maurya, Cappadocia, Parthia and Syracuse.
Added some characters in Dardania and Paeonia
Added tooltips to some 4th diadochi war events for clarity
Diadochi ultimatum events will now only release tributary subjects
Generic conquest missions are now disabled when a country has specific content for that region
If Cappadocia accepts Ariarathes back on the throne this will now make them independent of Phrygia. Phrygia will be able to go to war with Cappadocia to stop this if they are at peace when it happens.
Making Carthage a tributary as Rome will no longer transfer their subjects to Rome
Opened up road building in subject land.
Reduced price of granary and prospecting in generic infrastructure mission
Roman Colonia now take two years to become cities if not already
Seleukids now gain a temporary siege assault modifier for abandoning the Indus
Simplified tooltips of Seleukid-Mauryan starting event
The Armenian events relating to their Cappadocian pretender now has a chance to fire any year rather than always after 3 years.
The Diadochi war between Macedon and Antigonids will now include Antigonid's subjects
The Epigoni event will no longer fire for successor kingdoms who manage to reunify the Argead empire before their second ruler's death
added on_reign_ending onaction
added party: has_agenda = agenda_key trigger
added population_happiness, local_population_happiness
Changed party support entries to be party approval
Changed some script to fix an issue


###################
# Bugfixes
###################

Improved daily and monthly tick performance compared to version 1.4
Fixed AI Setting CallToArms affecting other nations joining you in the war instead of the other way around
Fixed Become Great Warrior 'finished_when' tooltip
Fixed civil war resolution not giving occupied provinces to their occupier
Fixed crash in the mission view related to mouse movement around GUI animations
Fixed culture of Mutasiva Vijaya to be Lankan just like his country and people.
Fixed destroyed subunits not reinforcing combat ( naval battles )
Fixed is_unit_locked trigger
Fixed isolated provinces being calculated properly now. It wasn't working in some edge cases
Fixed isolated provinces being calculated properly now. It wasn't...
Fixed the issue where recruited ex-Mercenary Rulers would not be able to befriend other characters using the 'Make Friend' Character Interaction.
Made Aleuadae, Philaidae, and Aiakidai names consistent with other Greek families names (Aleuadid, Philaid, Aiakid)
Revolts, etc, now copy military traditions alongside with tech
alliance now properly removes guarantees
fixed add_morale effect not working
fixed appearance of 'damage_unit_x_percent' effect
fixed appearance of 'damage_unit_x_percent' effect descriptions
fixed food shortage caused by units to flip-flop every monthly tick
fixed governor troops sacking the wrong city
fixed randomly generated rulers having a duplicate entry in the Our Rulers ledger category
fixed country claims not updating when conquering, releasing nations or selling provinces
mercs now get full food when hired
revolts no longer bring entire governorships
single-province countries now more likely to generate valid civil wars.
stopped rooting out pirates from deleting land mercs
tech progress now overflows instead of being reset to zero
unit action modifiers now factored into maintenance cost. Drill Army is no longer free
Added adulthood checks to the candidates chosen in Rising from Obscurity event, so no more infants rising to glory
Added bypass for Sicilian Champion mission if no Siceliote countries exist in Sicily
Added civil_war check to missions to stop revolt tags from selecting them
Added custom tooltip making Desecrate conditions clear
Added more limits to Hades hunger - the world is safe again
Added ping for Aeolia losing land in 4th Diadochi deal with Thrace
Changed pop setup so no province would start over pop capacity
Changed some misplaced islands off the coast of Italy
Fixed minor_character leaders of civil wars being executed immediately if the war ends quickly
Fixed references to Phrygia left over from 1.4
Fixed the issues with the first Athenian mission occasionally showing "null_family".
Hera will no longer give Citizen Happiness as both passive and active effects.
Removed loser portraits from civil war pings. Losers.
Tweaked Roman Assembly laws to better reflect historic party approval
Fixed clan chiefs spawning into enemy units
Added highlighting to the Magna Graecia development decisions
Ariarathes will now correctly lose the Foreign Citizen modifier on returning to Cappadocia
Child rulers can no longer start schemes through character interactions, no matter how ruthless that 8 year old things he is
Dismissing a Governor who was given free hands will now remove their loyalty benefit from it
Eagle Falls event for Rome disabled for naval battles
Event choosing capital after reunifying the Argead empire will no longer remove state investments
Fixed consort not dying in Eager Consort events. Death comes for us all.
Fixed swapped name and description for Matrist deities Perkunas and Mother Goddess
Roman deity Venus now grants passive modifier to population growth instead of population capacity
Term extension from Appoint Dictator is no longer removed after a year included in the original term
Characters will no longer seek underage patrons
Fix issue where minor characters created from script could end up as major characters by inheriting one of their parents' family
Fixed the issue with the mission task 'Securing the Coast of Africa' not having a proper count of provinces you held, if some of the provinces were held by subjects.
Make hordes have a 50% chance of female leaders when playing with mixed gender rules
Merging regular army units with migrants will no longer yield them migrant access.
You can no longer reassign leaders before the one year minimum by moving around cohorts to another unit.
Tweaks made to character marriage targeting. The first family in a country should no longer be preferred when doing marriage calculations.
Various engine level fixes and improvements

EDIT:

I appear to have missed a couple of things! I'll collate these here for those of you who don't want to trawl through the notes again:

Population capacity has received a total rebalance. It will be significantly harder to sustain high population cities.
Provincial investments have been rebalanced accordingly. Civic investment now grants 2.5% pop capacity, with extra building slots being moved to the religious investment. Oratory investment retains +1 trade route.
Libraries are now a Noble poptype building, granting noble happiness and desired ratio (at a lesser rate than other poptype buildings).
Academies now grant research points and noble ratio.
Marketplaces now grant 2.5% Local Base Trade Routes (from pops).
Road networks now grant 5% local base trade routes modifier instead of commerce income
Ports now grant 10% local base trade routes modifier to their entire Province, instead of +1 flat route
Forts have been made significantly more expensive to build and operate, but will now reduce local unrest in their Province by -0.25 per level.
Naval morale damage has been increased by approximately 25%

I'm wondering if the game is finally ready to play

[dbt1949]

It's half price.
I'll pass.

[jztemple2]

The big 2.0 "Marius" update is out,

patch notes:

Spoiler:

###################
# Free Features
###################
• UI: Entirely redesigned UI with a new visual style
• UI: Added nested tooltip and game-concept support
• Inventions: Technology advances now provide 1 Innovation per level
• Inventions: Spend innovations in new branching trees to specialize your civilization
• Inventions: Numerous augmentations to existing mechanics, government interactions, and unit abilities can be unlocked through the invention tree
• Military: Raise Levies from your integrated pops in times of war
• Military: Form standing Legions, appoint Legates and Tribunes, and track their accomplishments
• Military: New Engineer unit type which aids in river crossings, sieges, and paving roads
• Military: Combat Width is now dynamic and based on terrain
• Military: 9 new unique 3D unit models for Legions
• Military: Military traditions now displayed in tree structure
• Military: Military tradition groups now unlockable based on integrated cultures [If enough integrated pops are present, theoretically any military tradition group can be acquired]
• Military: New Legacy of Alexander wargoal for successor kingdoms, in which the ownership of conquered territory is flipped immediately [as in civil wars]
• Military: Occupying a province’s and forts capital now occupies the entire province, removing need for carpet sieges
• Buildings: Ports can now be built in any coastal territory
• Buildings: Ports now come in tiers, with higher tiers able to build larger ships
• Buildings: Buildings can now be limited to a specific cap
• Buildings: Buildings now contribute to civilization level in territories
• Buildings: Various buildings are now unlocked by invention trees
• Buildings: All buildings rebalanced, including larger effects, rebalanced prices, and AI weighting - see below for detail
• Trade: Individual Provinces can now be set to automatically (but slowly) seek goods to import
• Character Interactions: Added Support Pretender, boosting the powerbase of a chosen pretender in any foreign monarchy [old succession crisis interaction renamed to Intervene in Crisis]
• Character Interactions: Added Espionage, unlocked by invention, allows visibility of foreign manpower and treasury counts [now hidden by default] with events for sabotage and more

###################
# Expansion Features
###################
• Great Wonder designer has been added, enabling customized wonders to be constructed
• New Great Wonder modifier tiers can be unlocked in invention trees
• 18 new Diadochi Mission trees have been added, covering Thrace, the Antigonid Kingdom, Egypt, Macedon, and the Seleukid Empire
• 24 Honors and Dishonors can be earned by Legions distinguishing or disgracing themselves with their actions
• 13 new Deities have been added - hail Sobek
• 29 new Treasures can now be acquired
• League City subject type added, acquired through the invention tree system
• Alexander’s Panoply and Anthologia Philosophike treasure decisions have been added, allowing you to consolidate the effects of multiple smaller treasures
• 3 new music tracks with a focus on war and battle

###################
# Gamebalance
###################

# Economy
• Manpower pools now regenerate faster, but only store 12 years-worth of manpower
• Freemen and tribesmen now provide increased manpower
• Most sources of tax income have been reduced
• Population output in all territories is now reduced by 30%
• Settlements now have 50% reduced ship building speed and a 15% malus to pop output, from 25%
• Tributaries now have their tribute removed from their resources instead of just adding to the overlord
• Build Road cost is reduced by Engineer cohorts
• Food production now possible without surplus
• Added an additional integrated culture for Antigonids, to give them a bit more fighting power
• Governors now receive a standard wage of 0.2% of national income in addition to the provincial wage
• Governor’s standard wages increased by 100% when their levy is raised
• Low Fort Maintenance now reduces fort maintenance by 15% from 25%
#Buildings Rework City Details:
• Granary: 100 gold, +200 Provincial Food Capacity, +2% Civilization Level
• Library: 100 gold, +5% Research Points, +2.5% Conversion Speed, +2% Civilization Level
• Marketplace: 100 gold, +2.5% Base Trade Routes, +2.5% Assimilation Speed, +2% Civilization Level
• Training Camp: 100 gold, +10% Manpower, +2% Civilization Level
• Tax Office: 100 gold, +10% Tax, +2% Civilization Level
• Academy: 150 gold, 3 per city, +4% Noble Happiness, +5% Noble Desired Ratio, +0.01% Monthly Civilization Change, +3% Civilization Level
• Court of Law: 150 gold, 3 per city, +6% Citizen Happiness, +10% Citizen Desired Ratio, +0.01 Territory Provincial Loyalty, +3% Civilization Level
• Forum: 150 gold, 3 per city, +6% Freeman Happiness, +10% Freeman Desired Ratio, +2.5% Monthly Food, +3% Civilization Level
• Mill: 150 gold, 3 per city, +6% Slave Happiness, +6% Slave Output, +10% Slave Desired Ratio, +3% Civilization Level
• Aqueduct: 150 gold, +4 Population Capacity
• Earthworks: 150 gold, 1 per city, +25% Fort Defense, -10% Population Output, +1 Hostile Attrition, -3 Combat Width
• Theater: 300 gold, 1 per city, +10% Integrated Culture Happiness, +2 Pop Assimilation Speed, +0.05 Provincial Loyalty, +5% Civilization Level
• Temple: 300 gold, 1 per city, +10% State Religion Happiness, +2 Pop Conversion Speed, +0.05 Provincial Loyalty, +5% Civilization Level
• Foundry: 300 gold, 1 per city, -4 Slaves for Surplus, +10% Population Output, +50% Starting Experience, +5% Civilization Level
#Buildings Rework Settlement Details:
• Barracks: 200 gold, +20% Manpower, -25% Migration Speed, +8% Freeman Happiness, +15% Freeman Desired Ratio, +5% Civilization Level
• Mine: 200 gold, -5 Slaves for Surplus, -25% Migration Speed, +5% Civilization Level
• Tribal Settlement: 200 gold, +10% Population Capacity Modifier, -2.5% Citizen Desired Ratio, +30% Tribesman Output, +8% Tribesman Happiness
• Slave Estate: 200 gold, -25% Migration Speed, +50% Monthly Food Modifier, +30% Slave Output, +5% Civilization Level
• Farming Settlement: 200 gold, -5 Slave for Surplus, -25% Migration Speed, +50% Monthly Food Modifier, +5% Civilization Level
• Provincial Legation: 200 gold, +75% Migration Speed, +15% Assimilation Speed
#Buildings Rework Shared Details:
• Fortress: 150 gold, -5% Manpower, +1 Fort Level, +5% Fort Defensive, +1% Civilization Level
• Port: 150 gold, +1 Population Capacity, +15% Ship Recruit Speed, +0.1 Migration Attraction, +0.1 Migration Speed

#Population
• Population growth speed and capacity now scale with civilization value, and are increased less by external sources
• Tribesmen now consume less food
• Population migration speed reduced significantly, with the exception of tribesmen
• All settlement buildings now reduce migration speed from their territory by an additional 25% (bringing it to -100%: this will now effectively remove migration unless there are extenuating circumstances such as occupation/famine/unrest)
#Technology
• Civic technology now grants 1% population capacity and 1% global food per level
• Civic technology no longer grants Commerce Income
• Oratory technology now grants 0.5% global civilization value per level, from 2%
• Religious technology now grants 2% Omen power per level, from 2.5%

# Governments
• Monarchies can choose a primary heir from the pretenders with the Anoint button, with positive and negative event consequences possible
• Added rare event for large unstable AI tribes to splinter into subjects and free states
• Added Elective Monarchy government type
• Improved republic agenda selection logic
• Rebalanced ‘Senatorial Chambers’ harsh happiness modifier in tribal reform mission

# Religion
• Added Hellenic deities Dioskourai (Greek) and Castores (Roman)
• Treasures can now be individually removed from non-pantheon Holy Sites as well

# Units
• All cultures or culture groups now have a levy template, indicating which unit types their poptypes will raise. This should result in geographically appropriate levied armies
• Levies are now raised from integrated culture pops in governorships
• If a governorship is incapable of supporting raised levied units; the associated units will begin taking attrition until they are removed
• Levies no longer have a maintenance cost - instead their pops cease producing base resources while raised
• Regular unit (legion) maintenance increased significantly
• Mercenary maintenance cost reduced to 150% of base
• Military experience is acquired when disbanding experienced levies
• Levies may not be disbanded during war
• Powerbase from loyal veterans reduced significantly
• Loyal levied units now grant loyal veterans to their governor when disbanded
• Strategic trade goods have no bearing on levy composition, we now assume that cultures bring their horses/elephants with them.
• Strategic trade goods are now required to be present in a governorship/region in order to recruit units of the linked type in a legion.

# War & Peace
• Woo General interaction now transfers foreign legates
• Triumphs may now only be held for generals who have won sufficiently large battles
• A provincial Fortress limit has been added which will incur costs when exceeded
• All countries with Pirate Heritage now have access to the Slave Raid naval ability
• Forced March unit ability is now unlocked in the Martial invention tree
• Carpet Siege unit mission added, replacing Fight Rebels, useful in civil and Diadochi wars
• Being at Peace once again reduces War Exhaustion (by 0.08pm) to counterbalance new sources of War Exhaustion gain (levies and great conquest wars)

#Characters
• Brave trait no longer reduces loyalty

# Other
• Happiness for Same Culture modifier significantly increased for top rank nations
• Tyranny now reduces character loyalty by 15% less
• Colonization now requires 8 pops in a neighboring territory, from 10
• Reworked all modifier durations to be at least 1 year
• Reworked costs for event options
• Vassal Integration costs (per pop) reduced by approximately 20%
• Global monthly state loyalty malus removed from nation rank
• Non-dominant primary culture territories now have +2 slaves required per trade good produced

###################
# AI
###################

# Diplomacy
• AI now less willing to join defensive leagues far away
• AI now has a default willingness to grant military access [as opposed to the previous default unwillingness]
• AI significantly better at economic diplomacy: integrating subjects, improving opinion through gifts, and insulting potential war opponents

# Economy
• AI now significantly more careful about exceeding budgetary restrictions
• AI better at handling integrated cultures, and removing integrated cultures that are no longer economically sound

# War
• AI nations with republic or monarchy government types will be far less likely to expand into tribal territory without a pre-existing claim. *Note: this behaviour is not an absolute rule*
• Antagonist AI is now appropriately horrifying

# Other
• AI will no longer be blocked in their missions by complex tasks
• AI will now change missions after 60 years following the same one

###################
# Interface
###################

# Mapmodes
• Removed the river Region/Area names to clear up the associated mapmodes

# Tooltips
• Game Concepts and tooltips added to explain major mechanics

# Unit Models
• Each culture group now has a seperate Levy and Legion model

# Other
• Available casus bellis are now displayed in the diplomacy view
• Characters can now be searched by textbox across all countries
• Cohort information breakdown moved to the Ledger
• Sacrifice button localization no longer fails to account for non-pantheonic religions
• Loading quotes revised and expanded with more high-quality doom and sass from the past!

###################
# Usermodding
###################

# Triggers
• Changed 'country_culture' trigger name to 'primary_culture'

# Other
• Added script support for Legions
• Added GetCulture('tag') and GetCultureGroup('tag') loc promotes
• Added GetLegionDistinction('key') loc promote
• country_culture event link now works
• Inventions can now have effects on adoption
• Military traditions can now have effects on adoption
• Sea territories are now assigned to areas
• Impassables now have their own terrain type
• max_amount can now be defined for any building

###################
# Script
###################

# Achievements
• Added 10 new achievements

# Decisions
• Added 9 Anatolian formables: Lycia, Caria, Lydia, Cabalis, Milyas, Pamphylia, Lalasia, Isauria, Pisidia
• Added decision for tribes to gain extra capital civilization for a price
• Tweaked territorial requirements for Reunite Alexander's Empire decision
• Added decisions to install Philokles of Sidon and Eunostos of Soloi for Diadochi

# Events
• Reworked ‘Antigonid Cause Wavers’ events and the splitting of the Antigonid kingdom
• Added regnal name events for Egypt, Seleukids, Pergamon, Bithynia and Mithridatids if ruled by the relevant family - long live Ptolemy XXIIV
• Characters can now die during battles, not just after battles
• Reworked Mithridates event chain, a new kingdom is now created in Paphlagonia and can annex Pontus diplomatically - player can start as either Kios or Pontus
• Added option to boost Antigonos’ health for a price in his opening event
• Clarified happiness impact of family adoption event after annexation
• Pergamon is now playable via an option in the ‘Antigonid Cause Wavers’ event
• ‘Granary Fire’ event now only targets territories with granary buildings, destroying them
• Added outcome of ‘True Weather of the Soul’ where Thrace annexes part of Macedon
• Added Espionage interaction events for stealing technology and sabotaging legions
• Added an event chain for Egypt on the Athenian Tragedies
• Increased cooldown of city sacking events to prevent cash farming
• Added costly Ptolemaic dynasty event to optionally acquire Blood of the Argeads trait
• Researchers with Scholar, Intelligent, Obsessive, and Polymath traits have a chance to generate additional innovations over time. This effect can stack, and will show up when assigning research positions
• ‘Scientific Breakthrough’ now correctly describes tech progress as a percentage

#Missions
• Added bypass events to the generic infrastructure mission tree

# Setup
• Updated map in Greece, Anatolia, and Phoenicia
• Added starting trade routes for Antigonids, Macedon, and Egypt to help with their economy, mostly with their own subjects
• Added new tags in Anatolia, Black Sea, Adriatic, Paeonia, and Balearics
• Split Bithynia and Cappadocia regions with new region of Cappadocia Pontica
• Removed Pontic culture from Anatolian group (merged with Cappadocian) and renamed Greco-Pontic to Pontic
• Added Pisidian, Milyadian, Oroandian, Cabalian, Lalasian, Cennataean, Morimenian, Cataonian cultures to Anatolian group
• Moved Bithynian and added Mariandynian culture to Dacian group
• Added Talaiotic culture to Occidental group
• Added Paeonian culture to Illyrian group
• Added several major rivers
• Added many missing historical characters

# Other
• Boni and Traditionalist parties will no longer disapprove of attacking the same religion or culture, instead balking at truce-breaking
• Updated some laws and tooltips to better accommodate monotheism/Judaism
• Royal Marriage Character Interaction can now be used on children above the age of 12, with the marriage events firing once both parties are 16
• Assassinate character interaction renamed to Assassinate Rival, and can now be used on the target directly, as long as they are a rival of the ruler
• Tutor character interaction can now be used on a child directly, and for any close relative of the ruler or the ruler themselves

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

# Code
• Addressed stability issues on Mac and Linux
• Best possible province capital will now be picked when annexing a province
• Fixed on_becoming_adult on_action not firing
• Threaten War and Demand Military Access actions now work as advertized
• Fixed some missing line-breaks and names in tooltips listing modifiers
• Fixed Dismiss button not working for Researchers
• Fixed stability cost of integrating a culture remaining even if that culture no longer existed
• Fixed changing resolution on Linux making the game unplayable until restarted
• Fixed battles against barbarians not accepting reinforcements
• Fixed Mac crash after a few years of gameplay
• Fixed ‘Occupation’ war exhaustion modifier appearing on declaring war
• Fixed glowing borders sometimes not disappearing

# Script
• Fixed the Optimates party disliking that you gave holdings to family heads
• Fixed the Olympic games events sometimes not firing
• Fixed infants arguing their corner in senatorial war councils and being used as scapegoats in trials
• Fixed limit to number of Bloodline traits inherited by eligible children
• Fixed wrong territory being targeted in the Athenian ‘Hekatomnid Legacy’ mission task
• Fixed wrong claims given on formation of Assyria
• Fixed Naval Parity Roman mission task requiring only 1 more ship than Carthage instead of 20
• Fixed ‘Mutiny!’ event being able to target mercenary generals
• Fixed Rome being able to make Ancona a feudatory despite differing culture groups
• Fixed broken goto button in Unfriendly Neighbors event
• Fixed wrong characters referenced in ‘Wild Oats’ events and ‘Scandalous Dominus’ events
• Fixed ruler appearing on both sides of the 'Unconventional Politics' event
• Fixed a missing portrait in the event 'Bountiful Harvest'
• Fixed rulers receiving loyalty modifiers in some events
• Fixed several cases where settlements were referred to as cities
• Fixed Clan Chiefs complaining in the ‘The Neglected’ event
• Fixed mercenary characters appearing in ‘Veteran’s Due’ and ‘Scholar of the Divine’ events
• Fixed cases where local instead of global happiness modifiers were used
• Fixed cases where the wrong party’s approval would be changed
• Fixed negative tribal subject opinion modifier after reforming to a monarchy/republic
• Fixed many typos and text overflow issues
• Fixed some character loyalty modifiers not being cleared when moving country
• Added some extra checks to reduce the chance of mercenaries being chosen in events where they could be given loyalty (as Mercenaries are always at 100 loyalty)
• Fixed cooldown of the ‘Gratitude’ tributary subject event
• Fixed ‘Word from Syracuse’ Roman mission event not starting a war
• Fixed Epirote Macedon not being eligible for Antipater’s Dream achievement
• Fixed multiple families of almost the same name in Anatolian countries
• Fixed ‘Massaesylian Menace’ mission task for Carthage being impossible if they are already removed from the map
• Fixed Governors and Generals demanding Offices in the ‘Political Ambitions’ event
• Fixed some cases where numbers in tooltips had too many decimal places
• Fixed ‘Suppression of the Massyli’ event firing for Carthage when already at war with Massylia
• Fixed issues with ‘no other diplomatic tasks ongoing’ checks in Epirote mission tasks
• Fixed disloyal subjects joining scripted wars which they otherwise would not
• Fixed inconsistent place names in mission tasks
• Fixed characters taking loyal veterans with them when moving countries
• Fixed Clan Chiefs taking the Demanding an Office scheme
• Fixed ‘Adriatic Opportunities’ Roman mission task making feudatories of another culture group

# Setup
• Fixed missing section of the Euphrates
• Fixed some lakes and shores not being on the painted map
• Fixed bad Latin and Greek in some territory names
• Fixed references to yet unborn Roman emperors in some territory names
• Fixed Antigonos’ half brother’s mother being the wrong character
• Fixed Salluvian culture being called Alluvian
• Removed impassable in Egypt’s Eastern Desert which would not be colored
• Added territory in India to avoid uncolorable impassables
• Fixed Trapezous starting at tech 0 instead of 2

[jztemple2]

And from PCGamesN, Imperator: Rome’s 2.0 update is the closest we’ve come to Victoria 3

Imperator: Rome – Paradox Interactive’s recent attempt to bring its particular brand of map-painting grand strategy to the ancient world – has always been something of a chimera. Cobbled together with ideas and mechanics from the studio’s past titles, it was criticised at launch for failing to bring those separate parts together into a coherent whole.

The past year of patches and updates, however, has seen the historical strategy game pull itself together. Now, it’s biggest overhaul to date is poised to offer Imperator a fresh lease of life. Decisively moving away from many of the elements that made it feel like a toga-clad clone of EUIV, Imperator has instead embraced a more subtle approach towards managing your empire’s population.

The 2.0 ‘Marius’ patch continues this trend, and, in doing so, brings the game closer than ever to its goal of becoming a truly excellent ancients-themed grand strategy game. The update introduces a slew of big changes, the most obvious and immediate of which is the gorgeous new UI rework. New portrait backgrounds, tooltip changes, and a more stylised interface: it’s all very sleek.

While it may take a little bit of time to get fully acquainted with where all the menus are hiding now, this is the best Imperator has ever looked.

[Holman]

I've been poking around with the update and the new DLC, and it looks pretty solid. Of course I haven't played enough to be sure.

Right now the game begins only about 300 BC. The Roman Republic is young, and powerful Successor Kingdoms of Alexander's empire are at odds with each other. But the map spans from Britain to beyond India, so there's a lot of potential. I believe the game ends in 27 BC.

I assume future expansions will add different start dates (acknowledging that even moderately accurate research for a game at this scale is an enormous undertaking) and will eventually extend into the later Roman Empire. I'd love to see it carry forward to the 5th or 6th century AD, or even up to the boundaries of Crusader Kings 3.

[dbt1949]

I picked it up at GOG for $7.99.
Looks quite a bit different than the original. More complicated too.