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.

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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.



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.

Ave once more citizens! Tomorrow we will be taking a second look at the 1.1 Pompey Update.

Join us live on Twitch at 14:00 CEST with Rod and Peter, as they play as Sparta and experience the changes the update has to offer! https://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Hello everyone and welcome to another Imperator Development Diary. Today we are in a bit of a “filler” development diary mode, as we have already told you all about the Pompey update, and you can already try it as a beta. Our goal is to have the patch finalised this week though..

So let’s take a look at the most popular nations to play in the last 2 weeks.

Rome 19.85%
Sparta 4.92%
Egypt 4.17%
Macedon 4.16%
Carthage 2.85%
Epirus 2.46%
Seleucids 1.92%
Ulutia 1.60%
Phrygia 1.53%
Judea 1.43%
Athens 1.32%
Byzantion 1.29%
Brigantes 1.23%
Syracuse 1.14%
Knossos 0.94%
Massilia 0.90%
Bosporan 0.87%
Maurya 0.81%
Armenia 0.80%
Caledonia 0.79%

It is clear that Rome is the most popular nation by far, even before adding in the new events and co-consuls for the Pompey Update.

We hope to be back with some more interesting diaries next week.

Ave citizens! The 1.1 Pompey Update is now available as an Open Beta! We’d love to hear your feedback on the update before it goes live on the 26th of June. You can talk about the open beta or view the changes on our forums here.

Due to so many mechanics being reworked, please be aware that previous saves will not be compatible with 1.1

Ave citizens! Tomorrow we will be taking a first look at the 1.1 Pompey Update.

Join us live on Twitch at 14:00 CEST with Blondie and Arheo as they explore the patch together! https://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Hello and welcome to another diary for Imperator: Rome!

Today's diary is entirely devoted for the showing of the patch notes for the coming Pompey patch, which we hope to release as an open beta on Steam and Gog in the not too distant future.

New Features; Dual rulers, Province & City improvements, the Naval rework, the Holdings Rework, the Ledger, Government Interactions and Macrobuilder improvements.

Game Balance; Economy, Government, Characters, Units, War & Peace, Technology, Traditions, Cities & Provinces, Mercenaries, Pops, Tradegoods, Barbarians and more.

AI; Economy, Diplomacy, Military and more.

Interface; Alerts, Map, Macrobuilder and more.

User Modding; New functionality, Effects, Modifiers, Triggers, Scopes & Lists, UX and more.

Setup & Script; Decisions, Events, Setup and Map.

And of course, bug fixes.

The full patch notes were too much for Steam's character limit, so you can read and discuss them here on our forums.

Enjoy!

Hello and welcome to this developer diary for the Pompey patch! Today I will be talking about more changes coming to the naval part of the game (the general rework of naval combat can be found here), as I will cover Storms and Pirates, as well as some more historical and geographic flavor in the form of added events as well as the new on map Volcanoes.




In Imperator: Rome Pirates spawn and block ports indefinitely, this is a nuisance for the strong, and very disruptive to those who are weak with no navy as they block their ability to “break free” from their home ports. Apart from laws blocking the creation of pirates from your own ports entirely, or permanently placing a fleet outside your ports there is little you can do to stop them. Meaning your options are to withstand constant penalties or turn them off completely. Neither is very engaging.

Nonetheless Pirates were a natural part of maritime life in the period the game covers and should be a natural part for the game.

The aim for Pompey patch has therefore been an implementation of pirates that:

1. Offer something, instead of just being harmful.
   
2. Have a clear way for the player to do something about them, instead of spawning surprisingly.
   
3. Is less bothersome on the whole than the constantly maintained blockade just out of the coast of your land.

Contrary to what one might expect Pirates in this era was frequently employed as seaside mercenaries to supplement the regular navy. They were not small individual groups with a ship but would rather often be a group of ships (sometimes a very large group), with a commander and seaside plunder and warfare as their way of life. Usually they would be hired, just like mercenaries, to augment forces in times of war, generally they would have many light ships and the Antigonid (Phrygian) navy at our start the commanders of such forces would even be styled an “Archpirate”. When not hired they would act as brigands and raid around the countryside near and round ports.

In times of peace Pirates were generally not hired as the interest countries had in them was as part of their navies. Their raids during such times would often be seen as quite bothersome by local states who would sometimes embark on entire campaigns with troops as well as ships to pacify them. This was famously the case for Pompey the Great, the namesake of this patch, but there are many other examples such as the recently deceased Eumelos, king of the Bosporan kingdom.




What this means for us is that Pirates will be present around the map at start, much like mercenaries are. They can also be hired, with commander and all by any country within range, to supplement the navy. This may be useful both for when you need to quickly supplement your navy (as ships take some time to build) or if you are playing a country that hasn’t really invested in one yet. Pirates will only ever use Light Ships.

Unlike Mercenaries however the locations where Pirates call home are predetermined. They will exist in Pirate Havens all around the map. These havens provide a small benefit to the owner of the port but they are also the permanent home for a group of Pirates as long as they are not at sea.

If Pirates go unemployed for long enough (this is currently 2 years) they will set out on a raid, leaving their port and turning hostile to other fleets. They will head for a port that is not protected by a fort in another region than their home and raid it, leaving destruction in their path, before returning home and being open to new offers. If a pirate fleet is destroyed it will be recreated at 0 strength in its home port where it will regain strength over time.



Now not everyone likes Pirates. In times of war a unit in a Pirate Haven will be able to cleanse that city of its Haven and remove the Pirates permanently. Every country will also have access to a law to outlaw piracy, which will give them a Casus Belli on all countries that harbor pirates.

Likewise every country will have access to a law to condone Piracy, which will create a new Pirate Haven in one of your ports.



To accommodate these changes the mercenary view has been split into two tabs. One for land units and one for Pirate groups. Pirates, much like mercenaries, can also be hired by clicking on their unit on the map.

The aim of these changes are to make pirates into something you can deal with in more than one way. You can encourage them and strengthen your local economy, and have access to extra ships in times of need, or you can actively go after them and eradicate them from the seas completely.




Apart from pirates another certainty at sea is recurring harsh weather. Storms have ravaged the Mediterrenean, the Baltic, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic longer than anyone has dared to sail them. WIth the Pompey patch recurring storms can strike at sea (exactly during which part of the year varies depending on the sea in question but they are generally more common in the open sea than near land) and will impose a harsh attrition penalty on the affected sea zones for 2 months, before ebbing away. Storms will be clearly visible as animated rain, wind, clouds and lightning will cover the affected areas during this period.




The harsh effects of weather is not really unique to the sea. In the Pompey patch Desert areas will also run a risk of storms, manifesting themselves in great sandstorms visible in the desert cities themselves, potentially turning an already inhospitable route into a much more taxing affair.




In the parts of the map where snowfall exists the winter may now also bring snow storms, sometimes quite great in size, causing attrition to all units in an area. As with the other two storms Winter storms will be shown clearly on the map and will remain in place for 2 months.



Volcanoes hold a very significant place in Roman history, as the eruption of Vesuvius has given us both a detailed snapshot of what a Roman city looked like just 100 years after our game ends, and the name for a Plinian eruption themselves after the man who left a description of it to the world. In the region covered by our game a large number of Volcanoes were active at the time, and many of them remain active to this day. Just outside the era we cover Volcanic eruptions greatly influenced the course of history, with Mount Aetna even stopping a Carthaginian invasion 100 years prior.

In Pompey patch we will build on and expand the existing Volcanic eruption events, which could occur and ravage the area around a volcano until a nearby power spent the resources to put the area back to use, after which it will benefit from the addition of volcanic soils.

We have now added a large number of new volcanoes, all visible on the map, and searchable in the province finder.

When an eruption occurs you will be prompted by an event, and the volcano in question will visible spew forth fire and lava over the land around it. In a normal play-through there will be 1 - 2 eruptions.

(Mid-eruption screenshot of Mount Aetna)




As is often the case in our patches Pompey will come with a number of new events. In this case the focus has been on additional flavor events for Rome, Carthage and the various states if Italy as well as on events focusing on the relationship between the state and Slavery.

Lastly a number of new events have been added to expand on the relationship between the first and second consul (or, in monarchies the ruler and their consort).



That was all for today on changes that are coming to you soon with the Pompey patch.

If you want to discuss this development diary click right here!

Hello and welcome to another Development Diary for Imperator: Rome! Today we will be talking about a number of Quality of Life improvements that are coming with the Pompey Update.




While Roads are a great way to create highways through your country, allowing your armies to quickly move from one end of your empire to another, they can also be cumbersome to construct due to requiring a new order to be given for every new connected city. In Pompey patch you will be able to select a destination for a road and have the army tasked with the job continue until the road is done.




One of the changes coming in the Pompey patch is the ability to grant autonomy to a local dynasty in a conquered land. This allows you to better handle big areas of foreign culture and it was a modus operandi often chosen by the Romans themselves in their wars of expansion.

Any owned Province can be made into a Client State from the country overview screen and the new country will take the state culture and religion from what is dominant in that province.

The new subject will inherit the government, technology and inventions of its old owner and it will be ruled by a native character.




A number of character interactions (such as subverting enemy governors or, supporting pretenders, assassinations) exist that lets you further your designs on foreign countries but it can often be hard to identify a proper foreign target. In Pompey Patch we have added a button in the diplomacy view where the character lists for another country can be accessed, with the same possibilities for sorting and filtering that you would have in your own country.




One of the things that was sorely missed by many when coming to Imperator: Rome from our older released games was the ability to see what effects buildings, pop promotion, and religious conversion of pops would have when using the Macro Builder.

In the Pompey patch when you click on the Macro Builder tabs for Buildings and Pops a sortable list will be shown of all places where you can take the selected action, with information about what benefits this would bring. By hovering the location itself you will see a full tooltip of all affected values.


Full effects of promoting a pop in Myos Hormos to a Freeman.​




Another often requested quality of life feature has been to have a Ledger, with details on the current happenings in the world, easily organized and sortable. In the Pompey update a ledger has been added with the following pages:

• Overview: This is a page that has comparative information for all countries in the entire game. This is the same information that you would normally find in the Diplomacy view for each individual country, but here it is organized for easy comparisons.
  
• Rulers: This is a page with all the currently living rulers in the entire world at any given time.
  
• Provinces: An overview of all provinces currently under your control, with information about pops, trade routes, loyalty, commerce and tax.
  
• Inventions: A list of all inventions purchased up until now, and their effects.
  
• Our Rulers: A list of all characters who have ruled your country from the start of the game up until the present date.

Ledger page for Inventions.​




Apart from adding Alerts on the top of the screen for new features such as being outside of Naval Range we have also added alerts for when you have a decision available and when you have not yet picked National Ideas for all of your possible Idea slots.




The fact that the province interface was covering the center of the screen is something we were never quite happy with. With the addition of new features to the province interface we took the opportunity to address some of these problems.



In Pompey the Province interface is more clearly divided into a city and Province part. With the Province portion of the interface being retractable for when you are only interested in the city itself.

The Province portion of the interface now shows circle diagrams based on the population in the province as a whole as well as the income from tax and commerce for the entire province.



The city list is no longer shown at all times, but can be extended from the side. The reason for this is that we found that while not many used it we still wanted to keep the information for those that did.





One change we have made to office holders in 1.1 Pompey is that the effect of the benefit they provide is now scaled on how loyal they are. This means that we have to show their loyalty in the government view and together with the addition of dual rulers and the government interactions we have had to revamp the government interface. In doing so we have broken it up into 3 tabs:

• Show Government: This screen shows your ruler and co-ruler or Consort. It also contains your clan leaders, heirs and party leaders, depending on government type.
  
• Show Offices: Shows all currently employed officers, what benefit you get from them as well as their loyalty.
  
• Show Laws: Now displays all 8 categories of laws in one window, instead of only 4.

Another very minor but hopefully helpful change in Pompey is that characters shown in the event window will now have their full name displayed, rather than just their family name.

That was all for today’s diary on quality of life changes. I will be back next week with a diary on Pirates, Storms and things that go kaboom.

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Join the discussion with our devs on our forum! Click right here!