Imperator: Rome News

Welcome back to another Dev Diary for Imperator: Rome!

Once again, we’ll be covering some information that those of you using the open beta branch will already have been playing with.


Before we dive in to the mechanics and solutions behind the monarch power rework, I’d like to explain a little bit about the impetus behind the changes, and the varying factors at play.

One of the more controversial aspects of the game at release, was the implementation of Monarch Power. After reading reams of feedback on the subject, and considering the available options, we elected to look at reworking the entire concept of Monarch Power in the Cicero update.

The community issues with the 1.0 monarch power system could broadly be boiled down into two main categories:

• The lack of control over the stats that your monarch or ruler has.
  
• The inconsistency of the varying purposes power was intended to be used for.
  

In essence, we needed a system that acted as an anti-snowballing mechanic, felt like something a player had control over, and which avoided any unnecessary abstraction both conceptually and in terms of practical use.

Enter Political Influence. PI is intended to represent exactly what it describes: the influence that a government or nation has over their own political establishment.

The way in which it is produced is also related directly to the political establishment. Each primary Office holder in your nation will contribute to the PI gain of your nation, based on their loyalty to your cause. The more loyal your cabinet, the less practical power you will have to perform the various actions associated with PI.

Which leads me comfortably to the next topic we covered as part of the power rework, and point two of the community issues surrounding Monarch Power. A huge variety of actions that previously had a token power cost, have been redesigned to use one of our newer, more dynamic resources. Tyranny, Stability, Political Influence, Corruption and even Aggressive Expansion have a more clear-cut purpose; the logical solution was to use these to represent the consequences of your actions, rather than attach an abstract cost:value ratio to things such as Bribery, selection of National Ideas, inviting investment, and more.



Of course, there are still actions that demand the use of more conventional currency. Gold still plays a large part in a functional government of Antiquity, perhaps even more so in the Cicero update. The power cost for inventions, for example, has been replaced with a scaling gold cost, representing the direct cost of investment into research and development:



In addition to reworks to the cost of many actions and abilities, it became quickly apparent that many actions needed no cost at all, and functioned as their own opportunity cost, or had a consequential cost. An example of this would be the Assault ability for armies; the manpower lost during an assault vastly outweighed any token power cost, and as such, has no action cost in Cicero. Citing an example of opportunity cost, Omens will no longer have an up-front price; the opportunity cost comes of being tied to your chosen omen for the entire duration, unable to switch or cancel the ongoing omen.

The one instance that we felt was not covered by any of our new or old systems, was the Military Tradition mechanic. This needed something unique, and as such, we needed a unique method by which to unlock and acquire traditions.

It felt appropriate to treat Traditions as a self-contained system, and the Cicero update will include a Military Experience resource. This will be generated over time at a modest base rate, but is modified by the average combat experience level of your national cohorts.

Military Drill is introduced alongside this, as a way for armies to maintain a certain level of experience during peacetime. The employment of Mercenary forces will detract from a nation’s Military Experience gain, but have been made vastly cheaper to maintain, to compensate for this.



Rulers will not be entirely without merit in the Cicero update, with each of the four statistics granting you bonuses to certain stats, scaled by the value of the stat itself:

• Martial: Manpower Recovery and Land Morale Recovery
  
• Finesse: Commerce Modifier and Build Cost
  
• Charisma: Monthly Tyranny Decay and Claim Fabrication speed
  
• Zeal: Monthly Stability Increase and War Exhaustion Decay
  

A skilled ruler will therefore still be important to a state, and a weak one will be noticeably less potent.

To conclude, we realised early on in the testing cycle for these changes, that it felt more organic, dynamic, and most importantly fun, to utilise resources in this way. That said, if you wish to be the judges of this yourselves, the open beta for the Cicero update is still underway, we invite you to try it out!

/Arheo

Click here to discuss this week's development diary with our team!

Greetings all!

In today’s dev diary, we’ll be covering the details of the reworked population simulation in the Cicero update. As a small note: those opting in to the Cicero open beta will already have experienced many of these changes in action.



Perhaps one of the largest tasks in the Cicero update has been the creation of an organic, living population simulation, which reacts to, and interacts with, the fabric of the game.

Up to and including the Pompey update, the manipulation of pops required direct player involvement, either through manual pop conversion/assimilation, or through the invoking of an appropriate governor policy.

In Cicero, all aspects of the pop simulation will be dynamic, driven by situation, and occur over time in any given territory.

Each poptype will have unique base speeds for assimilation, conversion, promotion and migration, which will be modified by numerous local factors such as local unrest, differing dominant culture or religion, and city/settlement status.



In addition, territories will have a desired ratio for each poptype, and population will promote or demote to attempt to fill this ratio. Promotion and demotion will increase in speed based on the size of the territory they are resident within, rendering it possible for large cities to have functional social mobility.



Migration is a new concept to Imperator, both replacing and augmenting in equal measure the pop movement feature included in the base game.

Every territory will now have a Migration Attraction value, derived primarily from how much free pop capacity is present.

Pops within a territory will consider any territory that is either neighboring, within the same Province, or if coastal, a Port province, as a valid migration target. If the attraction of a potential target is higher than the territory in which they reside, a migration will begin. Only 1 pop can be migrating from a territory at any one time.

Importantly, Slaves will not migrate of their own volition, they must instead by moved manually. For Tribal nations, tribesmen may be moved manually. Both these actions will cost gold, and rather than moving each pop individually, a more accessible menu has been created:



Sieges, low food supply, and outright starvation will cause pops to flee their homes, bringing a new dynamic to warfare and attrition.

Interaction with the City and Settlement feature detailed in last week's dev diary is high; you will be experiencing a much more centralized, city-weighted population distribution as the game progresses, using settlements primarily as resource production sites.

As before, these changes are available in the Cicero open beta branch if you feel like checking them out.

/Arheo

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Click here to discuss this week's development diary with our team!

Greetings all!


Now that the summer hiatus is over, dev diaries for the Cicero update will be getting back into full swing, starting with the explanation of a few features that we've been tinkering with recently.


To start with, we’ll be taking a look at the introduction of the categorization of Territories. Prior to 1.2, all our base level administrative units were known as Cities. As part of the redesign here, our collective noun for these will now be Territories.


A Territory can be assigned any one of the following categories:

• Settlement: Representing a sparsely populated area of land, settlements have penalties to output, migration speed, and poptype ratio. Settlements will only support one building, but will have their own unique set of powerful buildings, so you can specialize them accordingly.
  
  
• City: Cities have a large bonus to population capacity, and will act as focal urban centers for your empire. Cities will be able to support all the buildings you’ve grown accustomed to in the Cicero beta thus far, but will feel a lot more unique as a result of their scarcity. Cities will also have a penalty to trade good production - they will tend to consume, rather than create, resources.
  
  
• Metropolis: A metropolis can be designated when a city reaches a large number of pops, and are considered the peak of a city’s urban evolution. A metropolis will not have access to any unique buildings, but will improve living conditions for certain pop classes.
  

Settlement Buildings

Latifundia: 40% Local Slave Output, 25% Local Population Capacity. Latifundia are limited to territories where Mines are not applicable.
Mine: -5 Local Slaves Per Good, 25% Local Population Capacity. Requires Marble, Stone, Precious Metals, Base Metals or Iron.
Farm: +50% Local Food Modifier, -5 Local Slaves Per Good, -10% Freemen Ratio, 25% Local population Capacity. Requires Vegetables, Grain, Fish or Livestock.
Hill Fort: 20% Local Freemen Happiness, 40% Local Freemen Output, 25% Local Population Capacity.
Provincial Legation: 75% Migration Speed Modifier, 20% Local Pop Assimilation Speed.

As is appropriate for the era, cities will be able to be founded from settlements, allowing you to shape the world to your own desire.

An important part of this rework is the visual appearance of territories on the world map. Whereas previously, each territory showed buildings appropriate to the population of said territory, only Cities and Metropolises will now do so:



To accompany the cities rework, we are introducing a Food mechanic, to simulate the importance of a constant supply in the ancient world.

A modicum of food will be produced by all territories depending on their terrain type. Food itself will be stored on a Province level, and consumed by the pops living within the Province, based on their type.

In the beginning of the game, most Provinces will likely be able to sustain their own population, however, as the population of territories increase and more cities are founded, they will start taxing the food supply of a Province greatly.

This brings me to the more intriguing aspect of the food supply system. Various trade goods such as Grain, Fish, Livestock, and Vegetables, will now provide a flat increase to monthly food. These will be traded in the same way as before, however, the importance of these goods to large cities should not be understated. As a burgeoning urban area such as Latium begins to grow, more and more food will be needed to sustain the population there.



Of course, food is not solely a negative consideration. Province food storage can be enhanced by constructing granaries in constituent Cities or Metropolises. Bonuses to population growth and local defensiveness within the Province will be applied for every 12 months of stored food present in the Province Food Supply. Empires focusing on ‘wide play’ will not find the need to interact with this to a large degree, or at most, to focus on the core Provinces within their realm.

Naturally, food ties in strongly to warfare, with friendly units who would otherwise take attrition instead consuming a relative amount of food within a Province. Additionally, if a Province Capital falls to an enemy, they will be able to use the food supply to prevent attrition for their own troops.

Sieges, blockades, and occupation will reduce the food production of a Territory, which, in the case of Provincial Capitals, will also reduce any imported food, eventually starving a Province of its food supply. If supply reaches 0, a severe penalty will be applied to all cities within the state, rendering them much easier to siege, and increasing the migration speed of pops within the Province.



As a secondary consideration, being over the population capacity in a territory will no longer be quite as severe as it previously was. It will gradually decrease the migration attraction in a territory, and can be considered more of a soft cap than before.

You can view the original thread or discuss the diary on our forum thread here!

See you next week.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another development diary for Imperator.

In the Cicero update, we are changing the instant population manipulation mechanics to become a simulation over time that you can nudge.


Pop Movement/Migration
Slaves from neighboring cities, or cities within the same province, can still be moved manually into a city for a cost, somewhat similar to before. This will also be possible for Tribesmen if you are a migratory tribe.

Each city can also have one pop migrating at a time. If the Migration Attraction in a city is X more than that of another city then migration can happen to it if:

1. The destination city is a neighbor of the origin city.
   
2. The destination city is in the same province as the origin city.
   
3. The origin city and the destination city are both in provinces with ports in the same country.
   

Which pop is picked for migration will be random but a slave will never be picked unless the city is over its population capacity and the slave is not required for a holding. A pop that is currently migrating cannot be picked for Promotion, Assimilation or Conversion. It will also only be picked for starvation if it is the last existing pop in the city.

The speed of Migration can be increased or decreased by modifiers such as a city being looted, or a certain governor policy being used.


Pop Promotion
If the population of a certain pop type is below 33% in a given city then a random pop is picked for promotion. This pop will then over time start promoting to the underrepresented pop type. The speed of promotion will be dependent on modifiers as well as using the Social Mobility governor policy.


Pop Assimilation and Conversion
Similarly to Pop Promotion Assimilation and Conversion will happen to one selected pop at a time. Unlike the other two there will always be one pop chosen as long as there are pops of the non-state Religion or culture. The speed at which conversion takes place is dependent on a number of local and national modifiers however which means that de facto the pop may not be assimilating/converting.


As you can see below, the pop interface is in the process of being completely reworked for Cicero.



As the impact of governor policies now scales with Finesse, you need a really good governor, and perhaps a few special buildings to be able to convert and assimilate cities with another dominant religion and culture.




You can still manually move slaves as you like between cities, for a price in gold, but the UI have been completely changed, so instead of selecting a pop then a target, you instead go to the city you want slaves in, and then select what type of pop you want, and its origin and click for as many as you want in the same UI.



You can discuss the dev diary on our forum here. This will be our last development diary before our July hiatus, but we will be back next month with more!

Imperator: Rome has expanded its grip on the ancient world through a major new update! The “Pompey” update adds important changes to gameplay, adding greater depth and historical fidelity to Imperator.

Imperator: Rome takes you back to the dangerous days a decade after the death of Alexander the Great. The conqueror’s empire is divided while, to the west, Rome and Carthage are poised for a mighty struggle to settle the fate of the Mediterranean.

The “Pompey” update adds greater differentiation between the nations and cultures of the classical world, as well as major changes to the war at sea and kingdom management.

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The features of this update include:

• Dual Rulers: The historic second consuls of Rome and suffetes of Carthage are now represented in these republics, and a monarch’s spouse contributes to the rule of the kingdom.
  
• Heritage: Nations now have traditional profiles that reflect their historic strengths, adding more differentiation between nations.
  
• Naval Combat: More types of ships and new tactical options for combat, similar to those available on land.
  
• Naval Range: Ships can travel a limited distance from a friendly port before suffering attrition. This attrition can be reduced by inventions.
  
• Pirates: Pirates now operate from a pirate haven in a specific province. Clearing out this base will reduce pirate activity for a while. Also, pirates may now be hired as mercenaries.
  
• Release Subjects: Reduce unrest by ceding limited independence to provinces that do not like your rule.
  
• Province Improvements: Cities can build special projects that come with major permanent bonuses, crafting a major metropolis for your realm.
  
• Stability Rework: Stability is now a 100 point scale (base of 50) with corresponding bonuses and penalties along the range.
  
• New Government Interactions: Give a specific family greater power, call a War Council in times of emergency
  
• Navigable Rivers: Fleets can now sail the great rivers of the region (Nile, Tigris and Euphrates) opening up new military strategies.
  
• New Commander Traits: Admirals and generals earn new traits while leading forces.
  
• Move Capital: Relocate your national center of power or provincial capitals.
  
• New Events: New event chains, including flavor events for Rome, Italy and Carthage. New events related to military commanders and slavery.
  

Known Issues

• Mac has a crash that can occur when viewing the Mercenary interface.
  
• Players can't get achievements outside of Steam. Investigation ongoing.
  
• The DLC tab has been removed from the launcher except for the MS Store version.
  

EDIT: PSA

1.1 Pompey will not work with older save games, so there is a 1.0.3 - Old Version rollback branch on Steam and GOG for players who wish to continue their current games.