Paradox Games

Deliberate Values Dissonance I guess xD Pretty much every society took slaves back then, even if they allowed gender equality.

I'm just amused about the selective political correctness. Assassin's Creed Odyssey did something similar: effective gender equality, but slaves exist.

I'm seeing something strange. There are two Phrygia nations now, one yellow and big, and one purple with two smaller territories.

Sometimes parts of a country secede and take the name of whatever province they're based in.

I had two Lucanias next to me.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 26th 2019 at 3:07:47 PM

Well Sparta was sort of like that anyway. Women had a good bit of independent power there, since they were expected to protect the homeland while the men were off at war.

Yes, and then there was the other extreme, Athens, where women were barely better than slaves. I wonder if that nuance is in the game.

I now have a second Frisia as well, and that one definitely did not include the province Frisia. It seems to have formed out of another tribe in the Belgae region that colonized into Utrecht (or what would be Utrecht anyway).

Edit: It's actually weirder than that. The original Frisia is now called "Germania" if I look at the ruler tag, but the map tag still says Frisia.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 26th 2019 at 5:50:13 PM

Whelp, I've played Imperator; Rome for pretty much the entire day, and you have no idea how much I hate to admit this, but it's just not very good.

I played the tutorial, I started a new game as Rome, and less than a hundred years later, there is no arse left to kick bigger than my own. I took over Italy, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia over a period of more of less constant warfare, and I am now the biggest, strongest blob in the neighbourhood. So now what?

Europa Universalis made it a bit of a challenge to grow that strong, carefully managing alliances and relationships. Crusader Kings made managing that huge realm a game in itself, with complete implosion always being a risk. But now I'm looking at my empire, and there's just so little to do with it other than make it a bit bigger. Like, I could cross the sea and smack Macedon around, that would be a good way to spend some manpower, but there's little doubt that I'd win that as well and then I'm right back here again.

Like, was there a difficulty slider I missed? Did I accidentally leave easy mode on? I barely know what half these buttons do and still managed to coast to greatness.

What's even the point of all these families if it is impossible to keep them all happy anyway? There's not enough jobs to go around! And who cares about keeping them happy anyway? Sometimes there's a dude being all upset and raising an army using his own money, but then he ends up doing nothing with it because it is still way smaller than my own. And then he dies of old age, and I just inherited a dozen free cohorts.

There's a lot of interesting stuff to play with, but none of it feels rewarding to actually learn about, since success just seems to come so easy.

Maybe the problem was playing as Rome to begin with. I'll try again tomorrow with a more minor nation. But damn, this is disappointing.

Edited by Kayeka on Apr 26th 2019 at 10:43:20 AM

Yeah, you're playing as the most powerful faction in the world at the time.

Not even close, with Carthage, Maurya and the Diadochi around.

It may not be the most powerful but I'm fairly certain Rome has a really good starting position and has the potential to dominate relatively easily.

It's like playing the Ottomans or France in Eu 4.

I'm not saying their criticism is necessarily wrong just that I think @The Librarian's point is correct.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 26th 2019 at 2:42:55 AM

So, apparently, some basic functions of Paradox games like capital movement didn't make it into I:R because Johan thought they had already implemented it and it just kind of never made it to the to-do list.

And Rome might not be the strongest starting faction, but they are very strong and positioned for rapid and easy expansion.

If you want a rougher time, try some random small tribal country. Manpower is tight, attrition is brutal (I lost nearly all my manpower in a 2 year siege of a single fort in Hibernia because for some godsforsaken reason, they had a level 2 fort, which also required pretty much my whole army to even lay siege to), and light infantry are terrible. And if you try to improve your manpower situation with freemen, it's civil war city because non-tribesmen pops hate your guts. But you need some citizens so you can develop tech and boost your civilization levels.

Wasn't the game supposed to end before Jesus? I'm running a spectator game and it's already 125 AD. No Christianity in sight, too. Europe is divided into huge blobs of land, so I guess we are in endgame blob territory now.

About Christianity not spawning, is it because Rome never came close to that region? Or is it just not in the game?

Also, I am not seeing a lot of migrations happening. I DO see a lot of provinces turning Roman, but not the other way around, it seems.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 26th 2019 at 11:54:26 AM

Rome didn't seem that big to begin with. The Etruscan and Sarmatian Leagues were about equivalent in size. Not to mention Carthage, who I managed to beat off Sicily and Sardinia without ever having to actually fight, thanks to a big f*ck off fleet I built with the stupid amount of money I made by clicking "accept" on each trade deal offered without reading.

Favourable starting position is good at all, but under the circumstances, I expected to have to work for it, either by carefully navigating outside forces or managing the interior. But then I didn't and the reward of a big chunk of map felt very hollow.

Yikes, that's absolutely terrifying.

I'm sure they'll fix a lot of things and add a lot of features later.

Do you guys like the political map? I think it's a bit ugly. And Egypt is the exact same color as terra incofnita from a distance. Names also behave oddly when a country is split up by TI. Of which there is quite a lot.

No doubt, Paradox isn't known for skimping on the changes

Even AI Rome blobs up Italy like crazy. It's not for nothing that they're listed as an easy start.

Though there is a difficulty slider (easy and hard only buff players and the AI, respectively, while very easy/hard increase those buffs and add debuff for the AI and players, respectively).

Basically how I managed to unite Sicily as Syracuse. Carthage was busy in a war in Africa, so I marched into Lilybaion, took it over and peaced out ASAP.

Then I noticed that I forgot two small islands right next to Sicily and went right back in after the truce ran out.

There was one battle during the second war because the Carthaginians managed to land a small army in Sicily while my fleet was transporting my main army to Sardinia - my secondary force mopped them up.

I later applied the same strategy to Rome - wait until they're busy up north, then swoop in, take as much as you can as fast as you can and get out of dodge. It got to the point that Rome started just offering me the territory I wasnted to take a few months into the war because they were so done with this shit.

This was the state of my kingdom when I decided to take a break◊. Might start up some kind of coop campaign with friends later - either Greeks or barbarians; we haven't decided yet.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 26th 2019 at 1:06:30 PM

This is a very classical strategy - Hannibal would be proud.

Is anyone else noticing an unwillingness of tribes to colonize the few provinces around Frisia, basically the north of the Netherlands?

Edited by Redmess on Apr 26th 2019 at 1:21:31 PM

My experience with the Lowlands in any Paradox game is that people really like to set 'em on fire.

I started as Seleucids, realized I'd need some experience with the game before I could really have fun with them, and rolled into Ireland. After the beginning it's easy street up there. You have one neighbor, and if the dice roll right, you can get some allies to curbstomp them. There's only one nation in Ireland, and they're a two province minor right next to the mainland. I took three territories off the enemy, they surrendered to my allies, and after beating down a three K stack of rebel troops with my massive army, I proceeded to depopulate the south of Scotland by migrating my newly assimilated pops into Ireland to colonize the rest. There's only two provinces there, and I only have to colonize five more "cities" to secure the northern one.

Oh, and I did all this while promoting every single tribesman into a non-tribesman and literally the only reason I even had a civil war was because the three cities I took weren't of my culture. I think I'm gonna wait to record this game until Paradox does its usual stint and makes the game tougher. You know it's coming, they did the same thing to CK 2 and EU 4.

ETA: You could see Ireland as the Portugal start from EU 4.

FETA: I was wrong, there's four provinces in Ireland.

Edited by Journeyman on Apr 26th 2019 at 9:58:21 AM

I'm not sure how the difference between colonized and uncolonized works in this game, especially adjacent to tribes. Are we literally displacing hunter gatherers now?

I'm not sure what it is but it's not displacement because the local populations become part of your country.

Well, I've successfully gone from a Settled Tribe to a Monarchy. I've also absorbed my entire province, seriously increased my tech, and started colonizing another province.

Is it odd that they use the Greek name for Britannia instead of the Latin?

Doesn't the Greek name predate the Latin one?