Imperator: Rome - new Paradox title

[Anna_Gein]

It is a bad game. I have only 18 hours in it yet I already feel meh about it.

Most critics are missing the point imo. It is not a matter of game intentionally left with mininal features to introduces DLC. The game is "full". The issue is how it was developed and the design philosophy that lead to this title. In short Imperator : Rome feels horribly similar to Europa Universalis : Rome (released in 2008) and more broadly to pre-CK2 titles from Paradox.

You are constantly dealing with metrics, gameplay limitations, etc. To the point that you hardly feel like leading a kingdom, city-state, tribal confederation. That is the main issue period. Just like CA with Total War, Paradox is also facing the limits of its design philosophy that mostly attempted to create strategic dilemma by limiting the player option. For example as the greatest power of the Hellenic World I was limited to just 5 diplomatic relations. Just 5 ! An other example is the shallow building system. There is only 4 building types : one to improve tax, one to improve manpower, one to raise the population and the fortification. You can spam multiple levels of each building type in a city but there is an overall limitation based on the civic population. This makes the system very limiting. You can not build a massive fort in a region with little population. The granary building trees has no value since you need to already have a big population in order to build it and have other buildings in a city.

I could continue this list but I am sure everybody gets the picture. None of these issue would be solve by a DLC since the problem come from the design philosophy itself. At best DLCs would only get the intention elsewhere as it did in EUIV and CK2 during the last years while the core experience was emptied. Mostly "for balance"

On a small note it is very disappointing to set the as the Fourth Diadochi War is about to start but prevents you from actually conquer your rival Diadochi kingdoms through the aggressive expansion mechanics. As Antigonos, just seizing Mesopotamia and Assyria from Seleucos gives you an insane aggressive expansion which cause repeated uprising in your kingdom for the next 50/100 in game years.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

^I agree with most of your remarks, I would also add that while the game is limiting in some cases, in some others it gives you too great a power; for example, say you're Bactria, you can Hellenize your population culturally and religiously in a matter of a few decades assuming you have skilled governors. And that's wrong on so many levels. Firstly, you're basically forced to Hellenize because of the massive happiness penalty you receive from the local population. Why should a Bactrian or a Syrian hate the Macedonians, or the Greeks? Population mechanics ought to be more complex, people should be happy or angry because of more complex things, and not because they are being ruled by a different ethnicity. That's a mechanic that would make more sense in Victoria, rather than for this timeframe.

Moreover, it misses a great opportunity to portray recruitment mechanics, which was such an interesting and important factor. The Ptolemies and the Seleukids valued their phalanx, which was recruited from soldiers of Greco-Macedonian ancestry. It's important to monitor how many these people are, how they are treated, and whether there's an immigration wave from Macedon in Greece (i.e. mechanics to lure people from that area to emigrate in Syria, for example). Similarly, the Seleukids valued greatly their Median cavalry, and the Greco-Bactrians their local cavalry. There's no mechanic of recruiting good cavalry from specifically the Medes, for example. It's all generic; as long as you have the manpower, you can pretty much recruit anything, anywhere, in whatever quantity you want.

Finally, the game is not polished at all. I was checking the character setup while modding, and there's 200 characters. All the rest are random, generated by the AI. I bet you could come up with 50-60 characters for the Seleukids alone for that era based on information we have. And there's even whole states which have random rulers. To my surprise, I discovered that there were not even models/sprites for armies containing only cavalry or elephants, which can't really be justified on the basis of flavor arriving in DLCs. You got like 6 different units and you cannot make 6 different models? Really?

Anyway, not to be completely negative; the map is amazing and it makes for a great setting for conquest. If they address the problems, add the flavor and correct the mechanics, there's going to be significant potential.

[PikeStance]

Paradox do not make polished basic games and there is little or no reasons for them to do so. They are unabashed about already developing free updates even before the basic game is release. Whether or not players like it or not, when you buy the base game that uses the DLC model, you are essentially unpaid beta tester.

Personally I also had suspicions that the game promised to be a catch all of other games. It is like every movie filled with big star names that fail. There is only so much screen time for each actor. Trying to put different systems together that will work isn't easy. I am anticipating 1 or 2 years of DLCs to actually work out of the issues.

[herne_the _hunter]

I'm getting towards 70 hours played so far and I'm loving it. I can only really report on my experience of the game. Doesn't feel bare bones

Becuase it's a sequel of sorts to EU Rome it's neither CK2 or EU4 but it's still viewed through the prism of those recent made games. EU Rome was from 2008 and not as well played as those titles so it's fairly understandable it's compared to those. Whether it's fair to judge a game that's been out for less than 2 weeks with games that have had several years developement.

Game definately needs balancing. I'm drowning in oratory and religious points quite literaly. I made a concious effort this run to not manually convert and assimilate pops this run through , just using the governor plocies instead. I can understand where the critism of the "mana" mechanic is coming from but like this it's far better.
Good to see what's coming in the new update in June. The release version was locked down in Febuary. So looking forward to the changes to be released in June.

Interestingly enough Darren said in his video he got 300 hours. Which is easy enough to do if you like the time period. I've got 2300 in Rome 2 and I can see no reason why I wouldn't expect to get those sort of hours out of this.

This is the first Paradox game I've had a release and I'm impressed at how good it is. Imperator Rome at release is a far better beast than Rome 2 was at release those years ago it just doesn't compare. Of course some people might not like a wargame like this at heart

[Sarkiss]

agree with Darren on what seems to be his 3 main points: yes, the game does feel a lot like EU: Rome; yes, there is lots of 'sameness' in features and mechanics that doesn't differentiate between cultures (and this is more apparent to TW players who are used to at least some variety in unit rosters, for example); despite the first two points, i too found the game to be enjoyable and addictive. more work on the game by the devs, in terms of both improving and expanding whats there already, would certainly be welcome.

atm my main concern is that there still seems to be a fair amount of stability related issues: i cant proceed with the save of my 'last stand of thebes' playthrough. game simply freezes on 1st of June. also had a crash after about 2.5 hours of play as Bithynia. anyone else experiencing crashes after long sessions? how long does your session normally last? hope these will get sorted in the patches and alongside the upcoming DLCs.

[herne_the _hunter]

@ Sarkiss yes I'm missing Hastatii and not having Triarii just as a millitary tradition. I agree with Manual I Komnenos about area of recruitment. I've been spoilt by Europa Barbarorum, Rome Total Realism and all the other lovely mods. Though these both issues could be solved by modding. Good to see Magnar is alrerady making mods for Imperator. So with TW modders getting involved in modding it I'm sure something good will be produced.

As for crashing. I haven't had any. The only performance issue I have is the game locking up for a couple of seconds when declaring war or having a new leader elected. No crashes though. I'm running patch 1.01 I haven't opted into the 1.02 beta yet.
Typical session is around 3-5 hours+ or till I need to go for a toilet break.

Just a heads up that Imperator Dev Diaries are every monday. Here's the latest one on some of the forth features coming in Pompey 1.1 patch
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/imperator-development-diary-6th-of-may-2019.1174793/

[PikeStance]

Arch Warhammer has been on a tear...



The quotes of PDS makes confirmed what I have been saying about Paradox for some time. The base game is a platform that they plan to build over time. You are honestly better off waiting at least a year after release to buy their games.

[pajomife]

I now have the reason to stop buying those childish historical games made from CA. Hello to proper economy, population, and diplomacy management. And goodbye to "Total Crap War".

At present time rome 2 is much deeper game than that empty shell that is Imperator.

[hellheaven1987]

^I agree with most of your remarks, I would also add that while the game is limiting in some cases, in some others it gives you too great a power; for example, say you're Bactria, you can Hellenize your population culturally and religiously in a matter of a few decades assuming you have skilled governors. And that's wrong on so many levels. Firstly, you're basically forced to Hellenize because of the massive happiness penalty you receive from the local population. Why should a Bactrian or a Syrian hate the Macedonians, or the Greeks? Population mechanics ought to be more complex, people should be happy or angry because of more complex things, and not because they are being ruled by a different ethnicity. That's a mechanic that would make more sense in Victoria, rather than for this timeframe.

Moreover, it misses a great opportunity to portray recruitment mechanics, which was such an interesting and important factor. The Ptolemies and the Seleukids valued their phalanx, which was recruited from soldiers of Greco-Macedonian ancestry. It's important to monitor how many these people are, how they are treated, and whether there's an immigration wave from Macedon in Greece (i.e. mechanics to lure people from that area to emigrate in Syria, for example). Similarly, the Seleukids valued greatly their Median cavalry, and the Greco-Bactrians their local cavalry. There's no mechanic of recruiting good cavalry from specifically the Medes, for example. It's all generic; as long as you have the manpower, you can pretty much recruit anything, anywhere, in whatever quantity you want.

Finally, the game is not polished at all. I was checking the character setup while modding, and there's 200 characters. All the rest are random, generated by the AI. I bet you could come up with 50-60 characters for the Seleukids alone for that era based on information we have. And there's even whole states which have random rulers. To my surprise, I discovered that there were not even models/sprites for armies containing only cavalry or elephants, which can't really be justified on the basis of flavor arriving in DLCs. You got like 6 different units and you cannot make 6 different models? Really?

Anyway, not to be completely negative; the map is amazing and it makes for a great setting for conquest. If they address the problems, add the flavor and correct the mechanics, there's going to be significant potential.

I think you ask too much...

[Candy_Licker]

Arch Warhammer has been on a tear...



The quotes of PDS makes confirmed what I have been saying about Paradox for some time. The base game is a platform that they plan to build over time. You are honestly better off waiting at least a year after release to buy their games.

Stellaris has it's 3 year anniversary this weekend (with deals), and I'm still waiting for a meaningful trade/diplomacy system. One year is being generous.

As for Imperator, I don't think this will ever going to be a good game.

[PikeStance]

Stellaris has it's 3 year anniversary this weekend (with deals), and I'm still waiting for a meaningful trade/diplomacy system. One year is being generous.

As for Imperator, I don't think this will ever going to be a good game.

LOL, I meant it that one should not consider it until one year. HOI4 wasn't worth buying until after Waking the Tiger (2 years).

[Muizer]

In this game, will you get trade offers on turn 1 from obscure tribes beyond the end of the know worlds like in EU: Rome? As Sparta, will I be asked to trade hunting dogs with the Picts or something like that?

[herne_the _hunter]

In this game, will you get trade offers on turn 1 from obscure tribes beyond the end of the know worlds like in EU: Rome? As Sparta, will I be asked to trade hunting dogs with the Picts or something like that?

No they have got to be within your diplomatic range. Of which you can increase with technology.

----

Heads up there's going to be some significant changes in regard to what some people would call "mana" or monarch points in the game. Johan the game director just posted this Sunday evening

"Hi everyone, lets continue talking about currencies and how to balance games, and Imperator in particular.

So the design we’ve been working on right now have been to remove the four types of monarch power from the game, and replace their costs with other impacts, and also introduce a new currency which we call Political Influence.

Political Influence is gained by how loyal your characters in your government is, so that if all 8 are 100% loyal, you gain a maximum amount, and if all are at 0% loyal, you gain nothing. Then of course there are other aspects that impact how much influence you get. If your Co-Ruler is disloyal, or you are in a deficit you will get far less.

This will make it not just an easy choice of who to pick for a government position, by just picking whoever had the highest ability in the relevant field, but you also have to consider how loyal there are, so you can do certain actions.

Now of course, not everything has been changed from using monarch power, but only a few actions will be changed to use political influence, but the rest will be using tyranny, stability, aggressive expansion, gold, manpower or war-exhaustion.

Some examples of price changes includes the following.

• Getting an Invention will cost 4 months of income.
  
• Enacting a Law costs some political influence, but also reduces stability by 25.
  
• Fabricating a Claim costs some upfront Aggressive Expansion
• Endorsing a Party is merely a small hit on stability and tyranny.
  

Military Traditions would work entirely differently, in that you would unlock a new slot every 20 years. We talked about tying it to tech, but that would put us in the same situation as ideas were in EU4, that it would hurt barbarians way too much. The 20 year value may change as we keep testing the game though.

Now while we have talked about some aspects being moved to being a nudge over time like stability and legitimacy, some aspects like promotion, assimilation and conversion of pops will still be instant as of now. It simply is not feasible to rework that and still have a patch out in a reasonable timeframe.

Cheers everyone, and tomorrow I’ll go deep into more flavor and fun in a new development diary.. "

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...esign.1181893/

Follows on from his post from yesterday regarding "Abstract currencies, agent_mechanics, realistic currencies"

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ncies.1181717/

Remains to be seen if this is for the incoming patch 1.1 next month. Personally I think these chanegs are too late for that. I would sooner have stable tested patches rather than something rushed out as soon as.

[Anna_Gein]

I gave a quick look to Paradox road map for Imperator Rome.

In all honesty, I feel like their planned change will only make things worse. I doubt they can replace the mana system of the game with something different in mere weeks given how central mana is in IR. With the examples given by Paradox, it seems like the devs are taking the CA road of making life more difficult for the player and ultimately punish him rather than actually improving the gameplay to make the title more interesting and fun.

I am not optimistic about the game future.

[hellheaven1987]

Populists, populists everywhere!!

[Sir Adrian]

RIP Paradox Interactive. They have finally fully submitted to the greed.

[Jansenfinn]

RIP Paradox Interactive. They have finally fully submitted to the greed.

It does indeed seem like that is the case. Hearts of Iron IV and Stellaris already seemed to go into a more "sell DLC, fix later" kind of approach, but this game is literally made to sell expansions later on.

Knowing me, I will probably buy the game and it's expansions later in a sale, because they do make very good games, but I'm very disappointed nonetheless.

[herne_the _hunter]

The beta of the Pompey 1.1 patch is going to be on us pretty soon. So we can get our grubby mits on it before it is released in full on the 26th of this month

Full patch notes contained within link
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-2019.1191244/

The beta is live as of today.
Just some small changes to the patch log
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SBAVaa4MRE

[herne_the _hunter]

Soon as Pompey had it's official release Pdx released a beta for Ciscero.
Patch notes
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...notes.1197855/

Essentially it's a work in progress with place holder art and text.

For replacing the placeholder art use Icons for 1.2 mod
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1792065595

There's an update for it to be released this week as it doesn't include bug fixes from 1.1 as indeed they will be updating it from here to Spetember.

Alternatively you could use the Ciscero 1.2 fixmod in the meantime
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1784028592

With the new mechanics and the icons mod I can't go back to using Pompey as it's very useable

---
Mean while in other news....

Magnar has released a version of Vae Victis for the Ciscero beta as he already has a version for Pompey.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1793840377

[herne_the _hunter]

1.2 Cicero patch dropped today and it's a beauty. Well I've been playing the beta all summer so I would be biased....

Video breakdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCxb-tIs3BE

Patch notes

###################

# New Features

###################


- You can now disband loyal cohorts, for double the cost, but those loyal cohorts will turn into "veteran cohorts" for that character that impact their powerbase, and will be raised as experienced cohorts if that character revolts.

- Pops now no longer instantly promote or demote to another type, assimilate their culture or convert their religion. All of these changes will now instead happen over time due to a combination of factors that you can speed up through government policies and other actions. An overview for current changes underway in a city can be opened from the city interface.

- Pops now migrate over time to neighboring cities, cities in the same province, or between provinces with a port in your empire. Manual movement of pops is now only possible for Slaves and Tribesmen (if you are a Tribe).

- Monarch power has been removed as a concept. Instead mechanics have been changed to happen over time, use other currencies or opportunity cost. A new currency, Political Influence, is now generated by loyal members of your Government over time. Political Influence will be used to perform actions directly relating to your country's government such as selecting National Ideas or implementing Laws.

- Reworked Experience. Unit Experience no longer decays from losses in combat but instead decays over time. All armies now have access to the Drill ability which will increase their cost and loyalty gain chance while allowing them to build up experience.

- Reworked Military Traditions. Military traditions are now acquired using Military Experience, a countrywide value that measures the degree of Military Experience your country has built up. Military Experience increases from your average cohort experience and War Exhaustion, where reliance on mercenaries reduce the speed it accumulates by.

- Split cities into Cities, Settlements and Metropolises, collectively known as territories. Only Cities and Metropolises are now represented by 3D buildings on the map.

- Settlement is the basic owned territorial unit. A settlement has lower population cap than a city and can only have one building. Settlement buildings are different from those available in cities and focus more on production and output. In a settlement the population will trend towards being slaves or tribesmen (if owned by a tribe).

- A city can be founded in a settlement for a cost of Gold and Political Influence. A city can have multiple buildings and will have a higher population cap than a settlement. In cities more slaves are required to produce surplus goods, and over time pops will be more likely to become Citizens or Freemen.

- A Metropolis can be upgraded from a provincial capital city with high population. City buildings are still available but it will have a higher migration attraction, and more building slots than a city.

- A City or Metropolis can be turned back into a settlement for a cost of Tyranny, this costs less Tyranny for Tribes.

- Added 11 new building types, to create more depth to develop your cities,

- Added 5 new buildings for Settlements.

- Fabricating claims is no longer instant, instead it is done over time.

- A new character interaction to bestow a regional nickname on governors has been added.

- A new character interaction to impose corruption sanctions on a character has been added, reducing their corruption at a cost of loyalty and tyranny.

- Food is now produced in all owned territories, the amount is dependent on the local terrain. Food is consumed by Pops and Military units that would otherwise take attrition. Any surplus food is stored in the Province. A large food store will increase population growth and local defensiveness. A depleted food storage results in starvation and lowered defensiveness.

- Surplus Trade Goods can now also generate food, these can be imported to feed big cities.

- Added a new governor policy: Harsh Treatment, reducing migration attraction and population output, in return for higher provincial loyalty.

- Added a version of the War Council government interaction for Republics.

- Added a Curiate Assembly government interaction for Republics.

- All Republic Laws reworked, with certain categories unlock from tech.

- All Monarchy Laws reworked, with certain categories unlock from tech.

- All Tribal Laws reworked, unlocked by certain Centralization thresholds.


###################

# Gamebalance

###################


# Economy

- Each Holding now gives a boost to commerce income in the city in which they are situated.

- Economic Policy for Wages now only affect those characters that are getting wages.

- Economic Policy for Wages reduced to 0.05 loyalty when increased, down from 0.1.

- Building cost inventions previously targeting specific buildings are converted to -0.05 build_cost, with the exception of Granaries

- All traits yielding build_cost are now -0.05 build_cost from -0.1

- Aqueducts now require civ of 30.

- Mercantile Diplomatic Stance now reduces Trade Route creation cost by 40% instead of 25%.

- Reduced price of province investments.

- Increased effect of Military Province investment.

- Removed the free Capital Trade Route for all countries, instead the mid setting for Trade taxation will now provide 1 extra capital Trade Route.

- Increased effect of Military Province investment.

- Reduced price of province investments.


# Governments

- The higher Government ranks now increases Political Influence gain.

- Ruler Martial now increases Manpower Recovery Speed & Army Morale Recovery.

- Ruler Finesse now increases National Commerce Income & reduce Build Cost.

- Ruler Charisma now increases Tyranny Reduction and Claim Fabrication Speed.

- Ruler Zeal now increases Monthly Stability Growth and War Exhaustion Reduction.

- Disloyal Characters are less likely to be elected in a Republic, as the Senate is less likely to trust them.

- Standardized Construction idea reduced to -0.2 build cost and speed from -0.3

- Consort or Co-Ruler will now use their finesse instead of rulers for governor policies, if higher.

- Populists no longer block PI gain, but instead has a -33% modifier to its gain.

- Finesse impact on governors reduced from 5% to 2.5%.

- All laws affecting pop ratios now only affect Cities and Metropolises

- Last 2 tribal laws in the Centralization path now grant 5 Civilization capacity instead of poptype happiness

- Laws now only reduce stability by 15 when changed.


# Characters

- Popularity from Naval Combat is now 10% of before.

- Tweaked down popularity gain from combat further.

- Families now keep track of how many children they have in total.

- Courtsize limit lowered to 120

- Foreign characters will now have less children.

- Families with less than 4 current children will now be allowed more children.

- Commanders now earn more gold and popularity from taking cities.

- Frequency of disloyalty schemes has been increased

- Magnitude of disloyalty schemes has been increased

- A country will never assume to have less than 5 holdings when calculating powerbase from holdings.

- A disloyal character will no longer get wages from the government.

- Ruler Popularity now impacts clan chief loyalty in tribes.

- The Ruler of a Tribe will no longer make or keep retinues.

- High Wages economic policy now increases loyalty by 0.05 per month (down from 0.1) and the loyalty is only applied to characters gaining a wage.

- Characters with prominence will now lose all prominence on leaving the country, with the exception of olympic competitors.

- Popularity of characters moving country is halved.

- Cautious Personality now gives better morale recovery and reinforcement times on commanded units.


# Units

- Popularity from naval combat is no longer 1% of what it should be.

- Cohorts loyal to a rebel commander, but not in their current army will be disbanded at the start of a civil war, and turned into veteran cohorts for that commander.

- You can now move regular cohorts loyal to a character to another unit. (merge, split, transfer, detach..)

- You can now assign units to the capital region.

- Morale from Military Experience reduced by 10x

- Migrant units no longer have any maintenance costs.

- Price of Chariots reduced from 8 to 6.

- Heavy Cavalry now does more damage to light cavalry and camels.

- Heavy Cavalry price reduced from 15 to 10, but build time has increased from 60 to 120.

- Archers now have +10% versus Heavy Infantry.

- Increased Price of Light Cavalry from 6 to 7.

- Reduced Mercenary Maintenance from +300% to +25%.

- Latin Traditions are now slightly weaker in their Light Infantry Bonuses.

- Boosted some of the Barbarian Traditions for Light Infantry and Chariots.

- Increased Siege impact on experience by x10.

- Horse Archers now take extra Morale Damage.

- Building roads now reduce movement by 75% instead of 90%.

- Mega Polyremes and Octeres no longer take less strength damage.

- Greatly increased experience gain from combat.

- Tweaked naval combat strength damage to be notably more significant.


# War & Peace

- Powerbase for Subject Loyalty is based around loyal cohorts, not total population compared.

- It is no longer possible to demand gold as part of a peace treaty.

- Experience from combat increased by 10X

- Fabricate Claims now costs 20 Political Influence

- A migrant horde without provinces at peace can declare a war even if at low stability.

- Pirate Raids slightly less frequent.

- Increased the war score from battles significantly, as well as the maximum warscore from battles.

- Liberated nations now get a truce from their former occupier.

- Added beneficial loyalty modifier after civil wars end.

- Pillage now grants treasury based on unit eight and location population.


# Technology

- Invention costs are now based on cost of X gold per pop in your country.

- Inventions no longer improve research speed.

- "Prestigious Trade Goods" invention now increases export value instead of lowering Trade Route cost.

- "Regulated Money Lenders" invention now increases import value instead of Global Commerce.

- Material Science Invention now reduces army unit weight.

- Added a number of country specific inventions.

Martial technology now increases maintenance costs by 3% per level, from 2%. Civic tech no longer reduces wage modifier.


# Religions

- Bon Religion bonus reduced to -0.1 build_cost from -0.15

- Canaanite Religion bonus is now reduced Naval Maintenance Cost.

- Zoroastrian Religion bonus is now reduced Army Maintenance Cost.

- Khaldic Religion bonus is now 10% Freeman Output instead of 5%.

- Iberic Religion bonus increased to 10% Global Import value.

- Heptadic Religion is now increased Cohort Starting Experience.

- All Omens that gave population growth now give increased food output.


# Traditions

- Agema Military Tradition now reduces Heavy Cavalry Cost.

- Greek Tradition bonuses to mountains now instead apply to hills.

- Levantine traditions now give 10% Naval morale instead of 5% (so in line with other traditions).

- March of the Eagles (+10% Land Morale) is now a finisher for latin tradition countries.

- North African Traditions now reduce War Elephant Cost.

- Triplex Acies Tactic now available as second tradition for latin countries.


#National Ideas

- State Religion now grants +5 Civilization capacity (from 10).

- Central urban Spaces now give 5% province loyalty instead of 3%.

- City Planning now gives 25% population capacity instead of building slots in cities.

- Discount from standard construction is now 15% (down from 20%).

- Grain Stockpile now increases food output and food capacity instead of population Growth.

- Institutional Proselytism now increases pop conversion speed.

- Siege ability from Siege Training is now 15% (up from 10%).


# Heritages

- Tartessian heritage now increases build cost by 5% instead of 10%.

- Thracian heritage now reduces Civic Provincial Investment cost by 10% instead of 1%.

- Byblos heritage now reduces Pop Assimilation Speed instead of Manpower Recovery Speed.

- Arvernian Heritage now reduces Heavy Infantry Maintenance instead of Slaves needed for Surplus.

- Rural Heritage now decreases cost to found cities instead of the cost to build roads.

- Armenian Heritage now reduces subject opinion instead of siege speed and increases manpower recovery speed instead of Hostile Attrition.

- Seleukos heritage now increases ruler popularity gain by 0.04 instead of 0.02.

- Ptolemaios heritage now decreases population assimilation instead of reducing diplomatic reputation.

- Added Kushite Heritage.

- Added Dahae Heritage.

- Added Helot Heritage.

- Added Kalingan Heritage.

- Added Nabatean Heritage.


# Territories & Provinces

- Governor Policies is now scaled by the finesse of the governor / ruler.

- High Unrest no longer blocks you from building units or build buildings in a province, only disloyal does.

- Migration logic will not move pops to a city where it would make it go over the cap.

- Move Capital no longer costs vast amounts of political influence

- Encourage Trade reduced to 25% base commerce income, but now provides 10% local monthly food modifier.

- Farmland changed to 50% population capacity modifier instead of 20 population capacity


# Mercenaries

- Halved the mercenary debt threshold for recruiting.


# Pops

- You can now enslave population in cities protected by Zone of Control as well, but there is an internal cooldown of about 5 years.

- Non-Tribes will "promote" tribesmen to slaves if they have more than enough freemen.

- Pop Migrations will not swarm the same place, as each incoming pop reduces target migration value internally by -0.5 at evaluation.

- Slaves will no longer be sent to cities that are at their population capacity limit. Instead slaves will be spread out to other nearby cities.

- Slaves now produce more gold.

- Tribes have less happiness penalties with other cultures.

- Slaves will not migrate on their own.

- Slaves will not promote if that would mean you would lose a goods produced, in cities where all holdings are assigned.

- Slaves may promote to tribesmen in tribes.

- Pops of wrong religion are slower to assimilate.

- Pops of wrong culture are slower to convert.

- Different Poptypes now have individual speeds for assimilation, conversion, promotion, demotion, growing and migrating.

- Overpopulation no longer reduces Population Growth, instead it reduces migration attraction and Pop Happiness.

- Starvation now more harmful to Population Growth.

- Climate now has a smaller effect on Population Capacity but also affects Food Output.

- Base conversion and assimilation speed for all pop types reduced.

- Penalty for wrong dominant culture/religion to action speed reduced.

- Pop capacity now scales per missing pop.

- Starvation now affects total population capacity. Overpopulation now reduces population growth by a small amount per overpopulation


# Tradegoods

- Furs export and capital bonus changed to -0.5% experience_decay, from starting experience.

- Marble now increases Civilization Value instead of loyalty, which precious metals already does.

- Removed Growth Category for Trade Good, replaced it with a Food category.

- Surplus of Grain, Fish, Livestock and Vegetables now generates food.

- Salt now increases Population Capacity locally, Surplus of Salt increases Food Storage Capacity.


#Buildings


- Fortresses, works as before but can be built in any type of territory (only 1 level in a settlement).


- Settlement: All Settlement buildings increase population capacity by 25%

- Settlement: Barracks increase desired Freemen ratio to around 75%, as well as freemen happiness and manpower by 20%.

- Settlement: Slave Estate Increases Monthly Food Output by 50%, as well as Slave Output by 40%.

- Settlement: Mines can be built in Settlements that produce Marble, Stone, Precious Metals, Base Metals or Iron and will decrease the needed slaves for producing trade good surplus by 5.

- Settlement: Farming Settlements can be built where Grain, Fish, Vegetables and Livestock exists and increases Food output by 50% and reduces slaves needed for producing trade good surplus by 5.

- Settlement: Tribal Settlement increases Tribesman happiness by 20% and their output by 40%.

- Settlement: Provincial Legation increases Migration Speed by 75% and assimilation speed by 0.2.


- City: Training Camps Increase Local manpower by 10%

- City: Foundry Increases Unit Starting Experience by 5, increases local ship building and recruit speed by 10%

- City: Markets increase Local Commerce by 25%

- City: Tax Offices Increase Local Tax by 10%

- City: Courts of Law Increase Monthly state loyalty by 0.02

- City: Academy increases Research points Generation by 2.5% and Pop Promotion Speed by 0.5.

- City: Granaries increase Maximum Food Storage Capacity by 200.

- City: Libraries increase Citizen Happiness by 3% and Desired Citizen Ratio in the city by 0.06.

- City: Forums increases Freemen Happiness by 3% and Desired Freemen Ratio in the city by 0.06.

- City: Mills increases Slave Happiness by 3% and Slave Output by 3% and Desired Slave Ratio in city by 0.06.

- City: Temples increases Happiness for State Religion Pops by 3% and Conversion Speed by 1.

- City: Theatres increase Happiness for State Culture Pops by 3% and Assimilation Speed by 1.

- City: Aqueducts increases population capacity by 4.


###################

# AI

###################


# Economy

- AI will consider building economic buildings where appropriate based on scripted weights.

- AI will consider changing governor policies periodically based on province needs.


# Diplomacy

- Rewrote defensive league formation logic, they will now primarily grow in response to a common threat.


# Military

- AI will now assault given breaches and sufficient manpower.

- Build ships to navy now will build using naval distance for prioritization.


# Misc

- AI will no longer trade away food if it would cause them to starve.

- AI monarchies will no longer demand that characters support their heir, even when they already did so.

- Ai will prioritise disloyal high powerbase characters more with bribes.


# Antagonist System

- Countries can now be defined as Antagonists, which gives them mechanical benefits against other AI countries, and also higher bonuses at higher game-difficulties.

- Rome, Carthage, Macedon, Thrace, Parnia & Arverni are now Antagonists.

- Remove deprecated "lucky_nation" bonus for Rome, Bactria and Parnia.

- All antagonists use the previous Roman Aggressiveness.


###################

# Interface

###################


# Alerts

- Alertmanager tooltip for disloyal characters now have more information about the powerbase.

- You now get an alert if you have free idea slots.


# Map

- Added a pirate haven indicator to provinces with pirate havens in the barbarian, diplomatic, trade and trade route map modes.

- Made claim stripes yellow in diplomatic mapmode.



# Misc

- Default for trade options is now auto-accept trade, and never give up capital surplus.

- Reworked Buildings Interface.

- View Pops screen now changes to another province when you click on the map.

- View Pops Interface now shows the current pop ratio and desired ratio of pops.

- Trade Interface reworked with more information and a sortable list of trade routes.

- New Technology popups will now list what inventions were unlocked.

- Legitimacy and Centralization is now shown in the top bar for countries that have them.

- You can now detach damaged ships from a fleet with one button press.

- All characters with a power base will now be considered as relevant for the disloyal characters in outliner and alert.

- Added two columns for religious and cultural unity for provinces in the ledger.

- Made the event window slightly less squished.

- Policy Window now fits all policies again without a scrollbar.

- Added sort buttons to the family view.

- The total unit strength is now displayed when you have multiple units selected.

- Improved tooltips for colonising.

- Added outliner category for city building/improvement.

- Clicking the top bar resources will now open the corresponding interface.

- The total unit strength is now displayed when you have multiple units selected.

- Naval mercs are now sorted by naval distance in the Mercenaries Screen.

- Added confirmation window when loading savegame with different version.

- Game now uses steam rich presence to show information to your friends.

- Will now show that a save game is from a different game version.


##############################

# User Modding

##############################


# New Functionality

- Prices can now be scripted to be based on "gold_per_pop".

- Territory types can be fully scripted.


# Effects

- Added 'add_loyal_veterans' effect for character scope.


# Triggers

- Added 'num_loyal_veterans' trigger for character scope.

- Added state_level_loyalty trigger on state scope.

- Added has_low_economic_policy, has_mid_economic_policy & has_high_economic_policy triggers.

- Added 'is_antagonist' trigger for country scope.

- Added state level loyalty trigger.


# Other

- Buildings can now get scripted triggers to limit them from being built

- Buildings can now get scripted triggers to limit them from being shown in the build interface as well.

- Inventions can now get scripted triggers to limit them.

- UI can now use big terrain icons.

- All triggers and effects can be printed to your documents folder using the console command ‘script_docs’ (you will need to be in debug mode to access the console)


###################

# Setup & Script

###################


# Decisions

- Rome now changes to Roman Empire if Imperial government is adopted.

- The "A Mediterrenean Capital" decision now moves your capital for you and gives a better modifier than before to the new capital.


# Events

- Roman flavor events added, pertaining to schisms and significant civil wars.

- Unpopular consuls will now trigger various adverse events on election.

- High power base characters will now be eligible for various event chains reducing their loyalty and affecting internal stability.

- New consorts will no longer rival themselves in Discreditable Dalliance and Indecent Affair chains.

- Fixed military character triggers in military co-consul chain.

- Stopped consorts demanding offices.

- Increased cooldown of Bureaucratic Issues event from 5 years to 25.

- Fixed chance of duplicate characters in Debt Bondage Scandal event.

- Reduced harshness of modifiers in Incendiary Slave event.

- Fixed missing event picture in a trial event.

- Fixed imprisoned characters being scapegoats in trials or appearing in mediation events.

- Fixed A Venomous Tongue firing for already disloyal provinces.

- Fixed names of cities in Diadochi startup events.

- Made Eager Consort and In Good Hands chains mutually exclusive.

- Removed some charisma from the Incendiary Slave.

- Rebalanced the Earthquakes so the killed numbers of pop should be more correct to the amount given in the tooltip, and reduced the cost of paying to take care of the affected provinces.

- Prove Legitimacy interaction now gives bloodlines to character's descendents, if discovered.

- Added event chain to marriage proposals.

- Added several Roman flavor events with a civil-war theme.

- Caught Red Handed correctly reduces loyalty on imprisoned character, preventing exploits.

- Reduced frequency of Caught Red Handed character scheme.

- Peace for the eastern satrapies now also applies a truce with all Seleucid subject states.

- City event that speaks of storm is now connected to having a storm.


# Setup

- Greekified Greek names, family names, nicknames, and regnal names for everyone except Alexander the Great.

- Added Nikaia, Pleistarchos, and Alexarchos Antipatrid (siblings of Kassandros).

- Added Arsinoe, and Eurydike (daughters of Lysimachos).

- Added Blood the Argeads trait to children of Kassandros and Thessalonike (Philippos, Alexandros, Antipatros).

- Fixed family name of Apama Sogdianid (Seleukos' wife).

- Tweaked Numidian Kings event for Carthage.

- Fixed starting Centralization of Massaesylia, Massylia, Musulamia, and Pontus (from 0 to 50)

- Mithridatids are now Median.

- Created more starting trade routes for Carthage, Macedon, Thrace, Athens and Syracuse.

- Kios is now Bithynian country culture.

- Egypt now starts with Levantine Traditions.

- The starting great men of the era now have slightly more exceptional stats.

- Added some more starting characters to the Seleucid Empire.

- There are now more greek settlements in the Seleucid Empire.


# Map

- Added more dynamic city names, removed duplicates, and fixed some anachronistic city names.

- Changed Epirus starting capital to Passaron.

- Changed Euobean starting capital to Karystos.

- Changed Karystos trade good to marble to represent Cipollino/marmor carystium.

- Tweaked starting roads in Jharkhand/east Maurya.


#######################

# Bugfixes

######################


# Stability & Performance

- Fixed a rare crash in longer games.

- Fixed crash when killing ships with boarded cohorts.

- Fixed a rare crash when selecting event options.

- Fixed crash in mercenary view on MacOS.

- Fixed issue where the game looks unresponsive while loading the game.

- Fixed potential crash when doing peace treaties.

- Optimizated map drawing of cities and reduced memory usage.

- Made UI checking for available decisions much faster.

- Multithreaded updating of city graphics (units, wonders etc).

- Save files are much smaller now by default.

- Fixed case where we kept updating map icons zoomed out.

- Reduce daily update for spouse death to improve performance. Only check for spouse death on death of a character.

- Fixed crash when trying to read a savegame in some causes

- Improved fixedpoint64 implementation.

- Implemented parallel writing of savegames.

- Fix for making sure onactions with a single effect still can be called 'delayed'.



# Multiplayer & Out of Syncs

- Fixed rare on-action related OOS.

- Fixed potential characters OOS.

- Fixed rare OOS caused by wonders.

- Fixed rare crash in longer games.

- Fixed rare crash when revolts failed.

- Fixed rare crash when selecting event options.

- Added crossplay functionality for microsoft store.


# Script and Events

- Made Eager Consort and In Good Hands mutually exclusive.

- Consorts will no longer demand offices.

- Characters will now correctly become Foreign Citizens upon moving country.

- Grant stipends no longer charges twice.

- Seize Assets now reduces loyalty of characters, military colonies checks that province has an owner, and governor policy tooltip no longer displays number of tribesmen promoted.


# Game Mechanic Bugs

- A bug where local modifiers sometimes did not count (also known as Marketplaces do nothing) has been fixed.

- Units assigned to a Regional Governor will now use their combat tactics in battle.

- Clan chiefs will no longer start as another position.

- Fixed a few bugs where the game had hardcoded 1000 instead of the Cohort_size define.

- Cost Changes for Declaring Wars now work, aka no-cb-wars-omen etc.

- Can no longer attempt ransom prisoner from char interactions if at war.

- Lack of Governor will no longer upset pops that governor is of a different religion called "".

- Hordes can no longer accumulate negative loot.

- Migrations now use migrating speed and not conversion speed for pops.

- Pops will no longer migrate into Volcanos or Wastelands.

- Mercenaries are no longer caught in an endless loop between two cities after employment.

- Imprisoned disloyal characters can no longer start a civil war.

- Fixed city dominant culture not being recalculated as it should.

- It's no longer possible to abort assaults by retreat.

- Fixed a rare crash when revolts failed.

- Fixed bug where it was possible to disband navies in the lobby.

- Fixed bug where re-colonizing a city would clear any permanent modifiers.

- Fixed right flanking units attack the left most unit instead of right most unit.

- Navy combat now respects flanks and properly uses flanking units

- There are no longer child country rulers at start of the game.

- Declaring war on a country which has allies with whom you are fighting together, won't pull them in that war.

- Fixed bug where shattered retreating unit was stopped from passing through non-friendly territory, causing odd ping-pong behaviour.

- Subjects will now join their overlord in war when using the threaten war action.


# Text & UX

- Peace Treaties tooltips will now say who will get the AE.

- Invalid Characters will be removed from character target selection.

- Heritage in Ledger is now sorted by name, not by internal index.

- Now only shows 2 decimals for Unit Weight in attrition tooltip.

- Fixed the detach siege tooltip when all are loyal.

- Improved tooltip for Garrisons in cityview.

- Build Ships UI no longer resets to army when clicking on another port.

- Fixed bug where building progress was not displayed when building buildings.

- Fixed gov policy tooltips for decentralize and centralize.

- Fixed disloyal characters appearing twice in alert.

- Fixed attrition not being displayed correctly in multi-unit selection view.

- Fixed trade route cost tooltip lacking the cost icon.

- The mercenary view will now update as new mercenaries are created or destroyed while open.

- Fixed case where alliance was preferred over being at war in diplomacy mapmode.

- Fixed ship selection circle sometimes remaining on the map after the ship had been moved to a port.

- Fixed superfluous 'our' in the tooltip for the Subjugative diplomatic stance.

- Fixed trade route cost tooltip lacking the cost icon.

- Replaced the work 'Rank' with rank icon in diplomacy interface nation list.

- The Support Rebels (Apoyar a rebeldes) diplomatic action should now properly show up under the Covert Actions (Acciones encubiertas) category when using Spanish language setting.

- The mercenary view will now update as new mercenaries are created or destroyed while open.

- Tooltip for Abort Rebel Support now properly shows the name of the target country.

- Commerce income tooltip now counts bonuses granted by trade.



# Misc

- DLCs which don't affect the checksum are no longer required to load saves.

- Enabling debug mode will now recalculate the version checksum.

- Fixed bald characters sometimes growing their hair back.

- Fixed global script variables not being updated.

- Fixed ship selection circle sometimes remaining on the map after the ship had been moved to a port.

- Fixed case where AI would sometimes not run logic for certain armies.

- No more overwriting ideas when game is in tutorial mode when you load a save.

- Revanchism is now localized.