Imperiums: Greek Wars

[Asid]

Spotlight - Military reserves
Mon, 1 March 2021


Military planning is limited by economic capacity. Learn how to balance growth alongside your military ambitions.

Maintaining a healthy balance between a functioning state economy and strong standing army is a tricky task. On one hand, you need your soldiers trained and ready to defend your country, as well as being ready for your expansion plans. On the other hand, the maintenance costs of an army are huge and represent a substantial burden on the state coffers.


 
A good solution could be to send your units to the reserves. Let them leave the barracks and go back to their ordinary lives, this will relieve you of the duty to pay and feed them. As farmers, craftsmen or merchants they will be of more value to the state, supporting the economy through their work and trade.

Of course, every coin has two sides and leaving your soldiers inactive for a long period of time will take its toll on their battle readiness. Their armor and weapons will deteriorate and their training will be forgotten. The longer the time they spend on leave, the more their skills and experience deteriorate. Eventually the unit will be entirely disbanded, the armor and weapons sold with the men returning to their lives as ordinary citizens.

To keep the units serviceable, you can recall them from the reserves back to active duty, however they will need some additional training to get back in shape. This training takes place in the military barracks which can be built in cities, it takes several turns to complete.

The main advantage is that you don’t need to pay for the recruitment and training of brand new units, as the retraining of reserves is much cheaper and faster. However, it is important to keep in mind that calling the men back to active duty takes several turns. It is always wise to keep some units on standby in case your country is faced with an unexpected attack. A good commander always thinks two steps ahead!

Pavel, our game designer, considers this to be the most important new mechanic to be added to the game for the upcoming DLC. Let’s go over to him for some backstage insights.


 
The military reserves mechanic will considerably change gameplay as it modifies some of the existing rules:

•   Recruitment of new units will take longer and be more costly. It will naturally reduce the overall number of units on the map, which in turn will make players more attached to their existing units, whilst reducing the micromanagement related to large numbers of units.
•   Unit maintenance costs (i.e. soldiers’ pay) will increase, which again will work towards lowering the number of units on the map. It should also enhance the strategic decision making, with more importance attached to the use and positioning of fewer military units.
•   The Unit Experience range will be extended to include negative numbers. Until now, Experience spanned from 0 – 100 points, where 0 was a default value for newly recruited units. As part of this new feature, the Experience scale will be extended to -100 which means your reserves could have lower Experience and fighting abilities than new units.

It might sound strange at first, but imagine a unit which has just completed military training. Those are fresh soldiers in a good shape, but with zero battle experience. If they are left in the reserves with no training for two years, they would just become lazy and fat . What would their experience be compared to their state before? Negative.

How does it all tie together?

Players can execute two new actions “Return to reserves” and “Recall to active service” for units in cities. “Return to reserves” essentially orders the soldiers to keep all their gear and weapons and to settle down in that particular city. Technically, this increases number of Citizens (and hence increases the economic production) and cuts maintenance costs. The soldiers will stop being a burden to the state and become contributors.

On the other hand, the unit is no longer operational even when the city is attacked. With every turn it is in reserves, its Experience decreases. When it hits a critical level of -100 Experience points, the unit is entirely disbanded, its gear and weapons sold (the player gets back some resources) and the unit is officially removed from the game. The player will however be notified in advance of any scheduled disbanding, so that he can recall the men back to active service if he wants to. This will mean that the unit is reactivated, it can defend the city, but it still takes several turns to make it fully operational again. The negative Experience will slowly increase over time. The retraining process can be accelerated if the city has a “Barracks” improvement.

This feature has several interesting consequences:
1.   Players will need to decide between an active army, available for defense or conquest, or economic growth. Having both will be very difficult and demanding on resources.
2.   Unexpected attacks will be more damaging, because units in reserves will need several turns to be called back to active service. This will force players to maintain good relationships with nearby factions, with whom they want to remain on peaceful terms.
3.   Units in reserves can be considered “national wealth“. They are basically stored resources which can be reused at any time (by selling these units).
4.   Reserves can be also considered a “hidden“ power. It takes some time to fully mobilize them, but it is faster and cheaper than recruiting new units.
5.   Importantly, when these units are returned to active service, they retain all of the improvements that they had at the time they were placed in reserve.

The best part is, that we are not just making an artificial new feature, but we are bringing the gameplay another bit closer to historical reality with the way the Greeks maintained their armies!

So, what do you think? Are you ready for the new challenge?

[Asid]

SPECIAL PROMOTION! Offer ends 28 March

-34%  £24.99  £16.49

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1183470/Imperiums_Greek_Wars/

[Asid]

Faction Highlights – Roman-Punic domain
Thu, 22 April 2021

The beginning of the conflict between the rising Roman Republic and powerful Carthage.

As the release of the Age of Alexander
DLC is getting closer (more below), we would like to tease you a little with a series of "Faction Highlights", short videos for different areas of the map connected historically or geographically, showing overviews of the situation in the period when the game starts. Hopefully they will whet your appetite and encourage you to wishlist it
, so you won't miss out on the release discount:)

Let's start with a part of the world many of you will certainly try in your first run, the Roman-Punic domain




While implementing new features and preparing the map, we realized that the Age of Alexander
is way bigger than game expansions that you might be used to. Usually expansions contain smaller maps alongside minor changes or updates, Age of Alexander
is much more. It is a huge map, practically a whole new campaign, it covers most of the Mediterranean and extends all the way to the Persian Gulf. It also contains several new unit types and most importantly, it has a number of significant new mechanics that will change the way you play the game.

Considering all of this now, we have enough for a new game, rather than an expansion, not something we realized at the beginning. Nevertheless, we have decided to keep things as they were announced, Age of Alexander
will be released as a big DLC for Imperiums: Greek Wars
, it is still a greek war after all.

Work on the DLC has proved to be more time consuming than we estimated. We could make a Spring delivery but it would be rushed and the game would not be perfectly balanced and bug free. For these reasons we have decided to postpone the DLC release to the Summer. This will ensure that the delivered game is of the highest quality. We honestly hope that this will not disappoint you too much. In compensation we will introduce another new feature that will be also added to the vanilla game. More details will be revealed in one of our next articles, so stay tuned:)

Enjoy the Spring, because the Summer may be very busy as you follow in the footsteps of the great Alexander.

Yours,
Kube Games
team.

[Asid]

Spotlight - Economic specialization
Mon, 3 May 2021

Building a good economic infrastructure is vital, ensure that you know your country’s needs when planning improvements.
Civilization brings new ideas, technological progress and cultural development. To make the most of these growth opportunities you need a solid foundation to build upon, the more robust and efficient your economic infrastructure, the more potential for progress.




Most ancient economies produced their own food, timber and ore and as their societies developed and grew, so did their requirements increased. New houses to improve urban infrastructure, a growing population, these and many other demands lead to obvious pressures on resources. The introduction of improvements to all aspects of resource management are key for growth of the state.

One goal of the game is to imitate this evolution of society and state growth, making increasing needs lead to heavier demands on resources. Another is to force the player into making critical strategic decisions about their economic infrastructure to meet these requirements. These decisions will influence the player’s plans and the general situation in their state for many game years.

The extraction of mineral resources and the harvesting of timber are expensive processes, added to this are difficulties in transportation. Moving large quantities of wood or heavy stone slabs over land is difficult and slow, probably the most important improvement that can be made to your economic infrastructure is the building of critical link roads.

Further improvements can be made to your economic infrastructure with the addition of specialized facilities for the processing of resources in cities and blacksmiths, in essence the provision of skilled labor, artisans and special equipment. Take for example Gold, to maximize production the gold mine should be linked by roads to a blacksmith with a Gold Refinery
improvement and also a city with the Goldsmith
improvement.

Priorities, time, costs and locations must be considered strategically with any economic infrastructure improvements. What is your current need - gold, wood? What resource may become a bottleneck down the line - food, stone? If you invest in these improvements can you protect them from your enemies?

While roads can be used for the transportation of any resources, the specialized facilities for processing are unique for each resource, being built and paid for individually. A single city or blacksmith fully enhanced for every resource type is possible, but it would be costly and could constitute a serious single point of failure. Strategically it may be better to distribute your resource production and economic infrastructure throughout your State.

Now, let’s hear from Pavel, our game designer, who will explain the economic enhancements from the designer's point of view.




We sometimes hear from players that there is not enough "building" in the game. Our general approach could be summed up as "idle cities produce maximum resources". It is not only more realistic and historical than never ending construction works, but also more fun. This way you keep tedious micromanagement to a minimum while you enjoy the more "variable" aspects of the game.

But don't get me wrong, I do enjoy building and developing infrastructure but it has to provide a bit of a "challenge" in terms of strategic thinking and planning. There is no fun in just building every possible facility in every city you have. Just a lot of brainless clicking without satisfaction.

So, what enhancements can you expect?

There are altogether four resources produced in mines or quarries. In
Imperiums: Greek Wars, you need to connect each of these mines with roads to a city and blacksmith to maximize the resource production. This basic mechanic stays the same but some enhancements have been added:
•   Cities and blacksmiths get four new improvements. For simplicity let's talk about cities. If you want to increase the production of a nearby mine, for gold you need to build a Goldsmith, for stone a Stonemason, for Coalyard
and for iron a Smelter
•   Production of mines increase when a city and/or blacksmith is nearby but maximum production can only be achieved by building these new improvements.
•   As improvements are added to a city/blacksmith the improvement costs increase, each new improvement is more expensive than the last.
•   The production of a particular mine is tied to a single city. Multiple cities cannot gain from the same improvement (e.g. Goldsmith) for the same mine.

Although this is not a big modification, it has a significant impact on a number of things:
1.   The production increase will be more granular. In
Imperiums: Greek Wars, the production of a mine suddenly doubles when you build a blacksmith nearby, now production will incrementally increase with each new improvement.
2.   The fact that every additional improvement built in a particular city/blacksmith will cost more than the previous one will naturally force players to plan ahead. Where and how they build their economic infrastructure becomes more of a challenge.
3.   Ideally, there should be only one such improvement per city (the cheapest possible option). This fits very nicely with history, whereby different cities specialized in mining and processing the resources in their vicinity. Thus, dependant on resources you may create a stone producing center in one city while another will specialize in gold production.
4.   Blacksmiths on the other hand are placed on the map using different logic. Because they consume resources, the player's goal is to have as few blacksmiths as possible and placing them to cover as many mines as possible makes sense. With the new improvements, the player will have to pay additional costs to maximize production to create a multi resource industrial center. This extra investment in blacksmiths makes them more important strategic assets, losing such a key economic nexus (with all those expensive facilities) will be a major setback.
5.   This mechanic will allow us to create interesting map/scenario setups where even a small country can be economically very strong if its cities and blacksmiths are extended with these improvements from the start. It would give it a great advantage over other countries that will need to build them. A great example of such "playing-tall" is the ancient city of Constantinople.

Apart from mines, there are two other major resources, food and wood. These are enhanced by two new improvements for cities, the Granaryand the Lumber Mill.

The Granarydecreases the amount of food wasted every turn, it stores food when there is excess production and it releases reserves automatically when there is a shortage. It is a sort of "safety pillow" against famine. Lumber Mills increase the amount of wood harvested within a city range.

It might look like we have taken certain steps towards a Civ way of facility building, but that would be the wrong impression. We continue with the approach we have been pushing from the beginning, building should be something you have to think about and plan. You will not just start building these new improvements in every city/blacksmith, instead the approach reinforces the need for strategic thinking, and that is why we all are here, right?

[Asid]

Spotlight - Regional capitals
Thu, July 29, 2021

Fight the corruption of the local elite, create a strong empire by delegating power to regional capitals.

Expansion is not only about extending your borders and ensuring a sufficient military presence in newly conquered regions. Incorporating any new territories into an existing administrative structure is a vital step to help bring potentially rebellious or hostile communities into your empire’s fold.


 
Small states can rule the whole country from the capital because all of the power is concentrated in the hands of the ruling class residing there. The management of a larger empire however, requires a different administrative organization.

Remote areas are prone to corruption by the local elite, who manage their affairs using the motto ‘what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about’. Such behavior not only hurts the state economy but it also feeds rebellious moods and unhappiness, unchecked, these could easily escalate into nationwide revolts.

The only way to ensure that your will is followed and that all orders are carried out properly, is to build regional capitals. Here, appointed governors and civil servants will enforce your imperial orders to the letter and demand obedience. They will greatly reduce corruption as well as increasing resource production.

However, power itself corrupts. The growing significance of regional capital(s) might feed the personal ambitions of the local ruler and his loyalty to your throne may become questionable. Always keep a close eye on your appointed governors, don’t allow minor opponents to grow too strong in your shadow.

As always, let’s have Pavel explain this new feature in depth.


 
The snowball effect has always been a problem in 4X games and in general with all strategy games. This is where one player becomes too powerful to be threatened. It basically removes any challenge from the game as it enters its final phase, whereby it is just "a matter of time" before this player wins. There is no way to solve this entirely, because the whole point of the game is that the stronger player wins. The question is though, can we mitigate this problem for as long as possible, to extend the enjoyable playing time?

Different approaches have been implemented in other strategy games, such as hardcoded resource limits or artificial resources causing decay. Let's look at history to see what were the most common causes of failure of large empires (i.e. no viable competitors remaining):

•   Civil wars or other kinds of internal collapse.
•   Natural disasters (causing changes in societies).
•   Surprise defeat in war (e.g. David and Goliath or Alexander‘s conquest of the Achaemenid Empire).
•   Economic collapse.

Civil wars and revolts are already included in Imperiums, but from a player’s point of view they are not the right tool to effectively slow down the snowball effect. Revolts and revolutions are used in Imperiums to create local problems that make the game more interesting. However no player likes to have his empire collapse and see all of his hard work undone in a couple of turns, with no tools to be able to stop it (no matter how we might justify it). It would probably be the most realistic way to let empires fall, but the game should be fun and satisfying for the player, it should not induce fits of rage

Natural disasters as implemented in the game follow the same principles. They are included to make the game more interesting, but they are not deal breakers, they are balanced and the power balance within the game will remain largely unchanged.

Similarly a surprise defeat in war to a small nation, albeit to a brilliant general with a super powerful army, would not be accepted by players at all. We can already hear the feedback, it would be `ahistorical`, irrational and rejected completely, and would likely induce more negative reviews than we would like. Events like this are rare, to make them the main reason for the fall of empires in the game would be a little illogical.

So, having eliminated these options, we are left with economic collapse as the only remaining candidate we can use to deal with the snowball effect in the later stage of the game. Causes of economic collapse could be corruption, an insufficient workforce or maybe some other reason. In Imperiums we have decided that corruption is best suited to act as a control on the snowball effect, it is predictable, logical and can be well represented to the player.

You probably already know that we have implemented corruption in the vanilla release. So how will things differ in the Age of Alexander DLC?

•   Corruption starts getting more important as the power and size of an empire grows. The bigger the relative power or size of the empire (compared with other players), the greater the corruption.
•   Corruption in a city is a location specific variable. It is based on the distance from the capital and the distances from the nearest regional capitals, the further away they are the greater the corruption.
•   The intensity of local corruption is represented by the amount of harvested or mined resources that are `lost`. In the real world this would be resources that are stolen or misplaced en-route due to bureaucratic inefficiencies, lack of control or bribes.
•   In the game the best way to fight corruption is to build regional capitals.
•   Your capital and regional capitals work in the same way, in that they prevent corruption in their proximity. However regional capitals, favored by the nation can cause local jealousies with other nearby cities, the loyalty of which may decrease. This may lead to lower unit effectiveness and higher odds for revolt, etc.
•   Regional capitals cannot be created close to one another, they have to be a certain distance apart. Costs depend on the history of the city, if a city used to be an enemy‘s capital, the costs are naturally lower. It should be noted that conversion costs increase over time, the longer a city is `just` a regular town, the higher the cost to convert it to a regional capital. The reasoning behind this is to encourage players to create regional capitals in any recently conquered capitals they have taken from their enemies, sooner rather than later.
•   The removal of a regional capital will cause a temporary morale decrease and will lead to higher risk of revolts in such city.
•   The selected government is important. The maximum impact of corruption, the time it takes to reach maximum impact (based on power), the minimum distance required between regional capitals, the severity of the loyalty decrease in cities around regional cities, all of these vary according to the selected government. Smaller countries will be able to operate effectively with more types of selected governments than larger countries or empires.
•   Corruption is implemented logarithmically, meaning that it slowly increases until it reaches its limit (the maximum corruption impact) from which it will not increase further.

There are few changes related to this new feature that you will notice:
1.   Changing capital and regional capitals will be possible in a new window. Detailed information about changes and costs is provided to the player.
2.   Corruption is handled in the game as a regular resource with its own Resource usage map.
3.   Regional capitals are represented on the map by a "capital" banner but with a smaller flag and shield.
4.   A new property of map items (in this case cities) called "default loyalty" has been added to the
Map item detail window and to the Unit menu. This represents the value which loyalty converges to its maximum over time. Until now this value has always been 100% (aka loyalty was slowly increasing until it reached 100%). With this new feature, this value changes according to the distance to the closest (regional) capital.



With all of these changes the game brings more attention to the state organization. No empire can survive without strong economic and political ties to the centre. Give the provinces too much autonomy and they will soon be demanding full independence. Keeping the balance is the key here.

[Asid]

Version 1.1.7. Trading posts
Tue, 3 August 2021

Hello everyone.

We hope that your summer vacation plans worked out well and that you had a great time. We have just finished a new update 1.1.7. with a code name "Trading posts".



In one of the previous faction highlights we informed you about a delay in the release of the Age of Alexander DLC

because of some unforeseen issues and the fact that we really want to deliver a bug-free and well-balanced game. As a compensation for this delay, we decided to add in one additional new feature - the Trading posts.

Originally, we planned to release it with the DLC, but it also works in the vanilla game. Now the feature is finished and as a thank you for your patience and understanding we have decided to give it to you in this release, version 1.1.7. which also brings more interesting new stuff, adjustments and improvements.

Let's start with "Trading posts". Like other game mechanics, this is also inspired by historical reality. Cities along trade routes benefit greatly from this traffic. They get more wealthy as both travelers and traders stop there and they also become natural centers of "immigration" as they offer plenty of new opportunities. How has this been incorporated into the Imperiums core? Well, exactly like this.

Trade routes in Imperiums
already calculate so called "losses". These are basically the fees paid to traders to transfer your goods. Losses are calculated, based on the length of the trade route, the terrain crossed, accessibility and dangers along the route. Originally, they were subtracted from the traded goods. With Trading posts these fees won't be "lost" but will be distributed among any friendly cities along the trade route. Note that traders do not stop in enemy cities, even if the route passes close by, hence these cities are not considered trading posts on the route.

All the cities which serve as trading posts also get a special migration bonus resulting in faster growth based on their birth rate support level. Their growth will be quicker than other similar towns (with the same birth rate) that are not trading posts.

This has some interesting consequences:
•   It may be more worth your while to maintain peace with other factions, as any of your towns that are trading posts on trade routes of other factions passing through your lands will also make a profit.
•   Cities without any significant resources around, but with a good trade route location can generate additional income and grow faster.
•   Fewer trading posts along a trade route means a higher income for each of them. For example, a very long trade route across the sea, with perhaps a single en-route trading post on an island, would end up pocketing all of the fees paid on the trade route.

Information about the trading posts has been added to the Resource usage window, tooltips, as well as a special map highlight (the "Show all active trade routes" setting in the map menu must be ON).

We hope you enjoy this new feature and accept this as an apology for delaying the DLC. We are really doing the best we can.

But back to the new update. What else has been included in the new version apart from the Trading posts feature?

Here is the changelog:

•   Diplomacy improvements - rejections should be explained more clearly.
•   AI improvements in diplomacy (cancelling treaties, declaring war, offering federations and confederations, etc).
•   AI improvements on the tactical level (when AI unit is trapped without supplies).
•   AI improvements of trading offers.
•   The map generator was improved - a new setting defining the minimum distance of cities from the map edges was added.
•   Game balancing - food consumption was increased for bigger cities.
•   Small changes in the Diplomacy window related to trade routes.
•   The Graphic Card currently in use is displayed in the graphics tab in game settings (it was added as a "check" to ensure that the correct GPU was set up for the game).
•   Autosave file names have been shortened.
•   Some Proton improvements.
•   Temp folder is now in subfolder of the game root (preventing some issues with Windows permissions).
•   Issue with missing battle result window and report in special circumstances was fixed.
•   Couple of very rare CTDs fixed.
•   Translations added for German, French, Spanish, Czech, Russian and Japanese.


Enjoy the rest of the summer, we hope to get back to you soon;)

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Spotlight - Emissaries
Mon, 27 September 2021

Rally others behind your cause by praising your friends and disrespecting your enemies.

Diplomacy is not a straightforward, easy to master skill. It has many levels on which you can try to influence world events in your favor. Diplomacy is a quiver full of a variety of arrows; drawing the right one at the right time allows you to build stable relations or force smaller and weaker partners to follow your will regarding third parties.




An Emissary is your extended set of ears and eyes at foreign courts. If you want to keep on top of the constantly changing political situation, you need to know who is allied to whom or who is currently plotting against you or your enemies and friends.

The Emissary can express your highest esteem for one ruler or spread rumors and besmirch another. Every now and then, a few dropped words of praise about his own people can show you in the best light. And sometimes the right word in the right ear can do much more to further your political and military plans than open war or bribes.

However, even the most loyal servant can forget his own place if he is too far from your direct control. If you see his affection for his place of residence is outweighing his loyalty to you, recall him home before he decides to accept a new master!

Now we’ll let Pavel explain the mechanic from the developer’s perspective:


    Emissaries were one of the first mechanics we wanted to implement in the Age of Alexander
    DLC. It offered a smooth and logical way to enhance not only the existing diplomacy system but other features as well. It is an extension standing above the regular diplomacy options available to all factions in the Diplomacy window. It requires a different approach to diplomacy, less straightforward and more “personal”. And as an intentional side effect it makes the Influence resource much more important.

    The whole mechanic was discussed at length. It is quite an important and complex new feature, and half-baked it could create exploits. Basically, there is a new unit type that can help you shape relations of other factions toward each other – the Emissary.

    An Emissary is an “extension” of a Hero. Unlike Heroes they do not arise from battles, but can be appointed using a State Decision when particular conditions are met, such as the number of your cities compared to a number of Emissaries in your service, number of live factions in the game, etc. Every additional Emissary will cost more than the previous one.

    Heroes can freely travel through friendly countries; they are not considered an enemy by other factions as long as the countries are not in open war. They can take up quests (in the vanilla campaign) and visit foreign capital cities, and by doing so they gain experience. Once they reach 100 experience points, they can be promoted to Generals in their capitals.
    So far this is just a description of what Heroes can do in the vanilla mod. Emissaries in addition can be used as diplomats in foreign friendly cities, using three new actions to praise or slander other factions or insinuate their own nation. The effect of such actions is hopefully self-explanatory. When you want to improve relations between two factions, you commend one to another, and the opposite if you want their relations to deteriorate. And of course, you can lobby for yourself.

    It is important to note that these actions improve relationships one way only. It means that when you praise a faction A to faction B, it changes the attitude of B towards A but it has no impact on what A thinks of B. Usually, A is not even aware that any such activity is taking place (but see later on).

    The impact of these actions depends on number of factors:

        Experience of the Emissary (higher experience leads to greater impact).
        Size of the city where the Emissary dwells (the bigger the city, the higher the impact).
        Type of city, i.e. capital, regional capital, or a regular town (regional capitals receive extra impact bonus and capitals even higher).
        Affinity of the Emissary to a particular faction (more below).
        Power of the foreign faction compared to the Emissary's owner.


    All three actions use Influence and a limited amount of Knowledge. This now makes Influence rather an important resource. Even when you are short of these resources, the Emissary could be still quite useful as his simple presence in a foreign city improves the relations between you and this faction (it automatically performs the Insinuate action in small scale, without any costs). On the other hand, every time you use the Emissary it has a minor negative impact on the relations with the faction you’re trying to persuade. Well, who would like to have an active lobbyist at his court, right?

    The factions who are the target of the “slander” and “praise” actions are usually unaware of this. However, no secrets can be held forever and there is a chance, increasing with the positive attitude the persuaded faction feels toward the target faction, that this covert activity is revealed. This impacts the relations between the Emissary’s owner and the target faction either positively (if “praise” action is used) or negatively (for “slander”).

    The Emissary can develop an affinity to other factions. Countries in which he has never spent a day are of no importance to him. However, the longer he lives in one country, the greater his affinity for the place of residence, which can have its benefits but also its pitfalls. If you want to insinuate yourself to a faction to which he feels great affinity or you praise this faction at another court, the impact of these actions will be much higher. On the other hand, the impact of slandering of such a faction would be lower. You should watch the growing affinity of your Emissary with extra care for yet another reason: The more attached he becomes, the more he is repelled by the idea of leaving his place of residence to the point when he’ll refuse to relocate and leaves your service.



We hope that you find the Emissaries to be yet another useful tool for your diplomatic efforts. By influencing relations of other factions towards each other, they can shift the odds of political success in your favor so don’t underestimate their power!

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Version 1.1.8. Preparation for Alexander
Fri, October 1, 2021



Hello everyone.

Summer is unfortunately over but we think we might have something to cheer you up - a new build prefiguring the release of the Age of Alexander DLC, which will be released next Thursday on October 7th.


The game has gone through a thorough testing and we identified number of improvements that will make the game more user-friendly and fun.

Let's check out the changelog together:

    Strategic Overview window
    was improved (both the list and the map view). The tooltip for cities and buildings now contains a list of possible improvements sorted by their importance and usefulness.
    AI was considerably improved, particularly:
        federation and confederation relationships algorithm
        trading offers
        tactical behavior algorithm (moving units to strategic positions, etc),
        diplomacy offers
        algorithm for the best government selection
    When selecting a city improvement, the description now contains information about potential impact on city's loyalty or morale.
    Game manual was added directly to the Game menu. This allows us to link a particular game manual to its mod, so you can now find the Troy manual in the Game menu and the same will apply for Alexander DLC.
    Sages now have names.
    New report added when a bridge is damaged.
    Report informing about absorption of another faction was changed based on the type of absorption (friendly or unfriendly).
    Trade length setting in the Trade Detail window is now being "cached", which means that when you make a new proposal, it sets the trade length automatically to the value from the previous trade deal.
    Increase of units' loyalty happens faster if they are stationed in capital cities.
    Changing government causes a reset of the time when diplomacy offers cannot be made.
    Plagues and earthquakes random events are disabled altogether for first X turns (based on difficulty).
    Devastation effect of plague was decreased.
    V-sync (or so called vertical synchronization) was added to Graphics setting tab.
    Some improvements have been implemented to further extend support of Proton emulator.
    Considerable progress has been made in Italian and Chinese localization. We are getting very close to official support of these languages.
    All the officially supported languages have been altered.
    Couple of newly identified CTDs were fixed.


We hope that even if minor, taken together these improvements will considerably improve player experience. The Alexander DLC is coming soon, but perhaps you can give the vanilla campaign or the randomly generated map another go and get ready for the biggest conquest of antiquity!

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Faction Highlights – Persian Caucasus
Mon, 4 October 2021


Life in the shadow of the snowy peaks of the Caucasus and on the plains around the Caspian Sea.
It might seem that the upcoming DLC is primarily focused on one particular hero and his expanding empire. Yes, I speak of Alexander and the growing Macedon state inherited from his father. Most of you will probably start the game with Alexander, perhaps because of his unbelievable story or simply the aura of his name. However the DLC is more than one dimensional, that's why we called it the Age of Alexander rather than Alexander's conquests.



Many states and small nations stood in Alexander's path during his campaigns in Asia, many more hoped to use his victories to realize their own dreams and ambitions. Although the Persian emperor allowed the more remote areas of his empire relative freedom and autonomy, the imperial crown still cast a long shadow.

The northern reaches of the empire are bound by the Caucasus mountains and the Caspian Sea (back then it was called the Hyrcanian Sea). The eastern shore of this sea is settled by the Dahae tribes, one of the outsiders of the game. Their position is difficult, they lack fertile lands and they share a border with the mighty Persian Empire, this limits their potential to expand and grow. The western shore is occupied by Armenia, a semi-independent kingdom that guards the northern mountain passes against invaders. This land, with its strategic position and fertile valleys is eyed by many with obvious envy.

The mythical kingdom of Colchis lies to the west, on the coast of Pontos Euxinos under the snowy peaks of the Caucasus. A small but reasonably well developed country with many opportunities for further growth.

At first sight playing these factions may seem less appealing, but the truth is, because of their geopolitical situation, they offer quite a different player experience. You will have to try new strategies every time as there is not a single path to victory. Diplomatic missions will be important to maintain the relative peace and safety of your people and careful management of the economy will be required to ensure the continued existence of your kingdom. Above all you will need to employ your tactical genius to keep stronger opponents at bay.

Once again thank you for adding the DLC to your wishlist
, if you haven't done so already, please do. This will keep you informed about the release and it supports the game and our studio.

See you in the Age of Alexander.

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Imperiums: Age of Alexander DLC released
Fri, 8 October 2021



The major expansion pack has been released and brings number of novel concepts and mechanics.

We have some great news for all fans of Aggressors: Ancient Rome
. As Kube Games we’ve released a new title we call Imperiums: Greek Wars
, and now we are adding a major expansion pack, Imperiums: Age of Alexander
, to cover another important era of antiquity.

After the struggles of Phillip II of Macedon to establish a powerful state in Imperiums: Greek Wars
, you can relive the clash of major ancient powers that followed in Age of Alexander
and earn the title “The Great” for yourself.



What can you expect?

    Huge map with several interesting regions of the era (Macedonian-Persian realm, rising Roman Republic, Scythian invasion, etc.)
    18 playable factions
    New mechanics and features that enhance the economic, military, political, and administrative aspects of the game

And much more!

You can now purchase the DLC on its own or in a bundle with other Imperiums
games with a launch discount.

You can also purchase the game on our website; by doing so you will support the dev team directly and at the same time claim a discount!

We would like to thank you for the support and encourage you to leave a review on Steam. Feel free to share your ideas, suggestions, and opinions with us on our Steam forum or Discord. If you like the game, tell your friends. Personal recommendation is worth a hundred reviews!

[Asid]

Age of Alexander Dev Stream
Sun 10 Oct 2021



First Dev stream of Age of Alexander. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev while watching him tackle the AI.


Hello everyone.
We finally managed to take a day off after the release of the DLC and now rested, we can get back to things that have been waiting around on our todo list for quite some time.

Several months ago, Pavel promised to stream the game himself. Yes, it has been a while and yes, we too thought we could get it done sooner Unfortunately, the DLC took up all of our time and we decided to postpone the streaming in favour of the DLC rather than delay its release.



The release went very smoothly (no big issues or technical difficulties have been reported) and it seems like a good time to finally fire up the camera and stream the game for you and with you.

We would like to invite you to join Pavel's stream on Wednesday 13th on our Twitch channel . Pavel will be happy to answer questions during the stream, so this is a good opportunity for anyone who wants to get into the details of the game and get explanations first hand. We want to try something new in this stream so be sure to drop by.

See you there!

Yours,
Kube Games team.

Upcoming Event Starts Wed, 13 October 2021

[Asid]

Age of Alexander Dev Stream II



Second Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.

Hello everyone.
the mission to re-establish Hellas in its seat of power is still waiting to be completed! Pavel is ready to continue so don't let him face the world alone!

In the last stream, we successfully stabilized our economy without ruining our foreign relations. We stay under the Macedonian protective wings, accepting the great Alexander as our master for now. Nevertheless, we might soon see more action and get a piece of the Ilyrrian pie. The barbarians seem to be under a pressure and we are in a position to join the Macedonian campaign and expand our northern border.

The few errors we caught thanks to the stream are fixed so all should be tiptop including the camera this time
Pavel will be happy to answer your questions so join him on Wednesday 20th on our Twitch channel ( ) and learn from the master 🙂
See you there!

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Version 1.2.1. Trading improvements
Tue, 19 October 2021

Hello everyone.

The autumn blues are here, but hopefully you haven't even noticed thanks to the new Age of Alexander DLC
. For us, the working days have become much more relaxed, now that the pressure is off.

The expansion pack is very stable with no game breaking errors. It's the right time to look into our backlog of improvements, some that have been waiting there for a while. This update is a good example of what changes and improvements we have in mind.



List of changes:

    Both lists of resources (offers and demands) are now displayed in the Trade Overview window
    together (the dropdown selector was removed).
    AI - making trade proposals was improved.
    Bug in the Trading window
    fixed (clicking on a resource item was sometimes not opening an amount selector).
    Custom Steam achievements are now also available in the Alexander mod.
    Ironman games are now autosaved every turn (which should entirely prevent any data losses).
    Mouse tooltip for map items was added when the map item is busy (e.g. a city).
    Macedon illustration in the vanilla scenario was corrected to show Phillip instead of Alexander (an issue happening when the vanilla scenario was started in Alexander mod).
    Age of Alexander scenario had a number of tweaks implemented.
    Custom worlds - city foundations are randomly added near starting positions so players can save some resources if such foundations are utilized.
    Bug causing cities to not multiply production of connected mines when an improvement was being built, was fixed.
    Bug causing a Hero (or an Emissary) to disband in foreign territory when a peace agreement was signed, was fixed.
    AI - improved algorithm to set the birth rate support.
    Some additional minor bugs were fixed.
    One rare CTD fixed.
    Updated Russian, German and Chinese translations.


We are always happy to hear your feedback, especially now, when the DLC is out. Please share your thoughts in our Steam forum and if you enjoy the game and particularly the new DLC, please write a review and spread the word. Thank you for your support.

Yours,
Kube Games team.

[Asid]

Age of Alexander Dev Stream III
26 Oct 2021


Third Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.




Hello everyone.
The mission to re-establish Hellas in its seat of power still awaits completion! Pavel is ready to continue, don't let him face the world alone!



In the last stream, we got in troubles when Carthage disembarked at our holdings in southern Italy and we lost one city and a lot of ground. Eventually, we signed peace but it might not last for long. We also got into skirmish with Persia but were able to temporarily fend them off. Our battlefront with Illyrians got into stalemate.
Probably the most successful advance was undertaken on Peloponnese where we moved forward and got a stone throw away from Sparta. Unfortunately, Alexander, as our master, decided to sign peace with them and we had to respect his wish.
Apart from these military conflicts, we were able to increase size of our army and stabilize the economy. As long as our Macedonian masters are able to keep enemies away from their lands, we should be able to slowly yet steadily gain strength.

Pavel will be happy to answer your questions so join him on Wednesday 27th on our Twitch channel and learn from the master 🙂 See you there!

Yours,
Kube Games team.

Upcoming Event Starts Wed, 27 October 2021

[Asid]

Age of Alexander Dev Stream IV
Wed, 3 November 2021




Fourth Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.

Hello everyone.
The mission to re-establish Hellas in its seat of power still awaits completion! Pavel is ready to continue, don't let him face the world alone!



In the last stream, many interesting events happened and we made significant progress in making our beloved Hellas one of the great powers of the ancient world.

We regained the tip of southern Italy which we lost in previous conflict with Carthage. Our master Alexander has gotten into even bigger troubles as Dardanians pushed him back all the way to our border city of Phylos. On top of that, several other cities joined the advancing Thrakians, and although it was only a temporary setback, it clearly demonstrated that Macedonia is weak. We accepted their leadership for long enough but now we decided to break away from the Macedonian union. As a consequence, we could sign peace treaties with most of the factions, excluding Persia.
In the south, great armies are being collected on both sides of the Spartan border. Let's see if we can maintain peace here as Peloponnese might once again become a fighting ground. Samnites were pushed back by the Romans and part of the territories they lost was taken by us.
At the end of the last episode, Alexander proposed us a federation where Hellas would be the master. We humbly accepted and now we are trying to get Macedonia back on its feet again.
Apart from that, our country is further economically developing and we mostly focus on increasing our gold reserves and cultivating the Italian lands.

Pavel will be happy to answer your questions so join him on Wednesday 3rd on our Twitch channel https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://www.twitch.tv/kube_games and learn from the master 🙂
See you there!

Yours,
Kube Games team.